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Andrzej Z

Poland cuts interest rates as growth, inflation slow - 0 views

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    It is a nice article about the central bank in my country Poland. The central bank in poland uses changes in interest rates to keep the inflation rate within the targeted range of 2.5% plus or minus 1%. This week the central bank has reduced the key rate by 25 basis points to 3 percent. As we know, a decrease in inflation will lead to the increase in consumption and investment. The consumption is the total spending of consumers in domestic products. With lower interest rates, consumers will borrow more money from the bank and they will spend more, so the AD curve will shift to the right. Investment is defined as the addition of capital stock to the economy. Lower interest rates will encourage the producers to spend more on investment. Another thing to take into consideration is that the decrease in inflation will make the exports from Poland more competitive in foreign countries where the inflation rate is much higher. Targeting inflation, whether explicitly or implicitly, is said to be beneficial as it results in a reduction in inflationary expectations. If the workers do not expect higher inflation then they will not make demands for increases in wages any higher than the expected rate of inflation and this will keep the costs of labour from rising excessively. Poland has enjoyed uninterrupted annual growth for the past two decades, and for a while after the financial crisis of 2008/9 the economy continued to defy the global downturn. However last year gross domestic product growth slowed to about two percent, less than half the pace in 2011, as infrastructure spending tailed off and the gloom from the euro zone started to filter through to previously bullish Polish consumers.
Matthew R

Pound Euro Exchange Rate Rallies to One Month High - 2 views

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    The British Pound and European Euro Exchange Rate has rallied to a one month high. The Euro to Pound exchange rate has dropped 0.7 percent on the day to 84.03 pence against its lowest since early October. The Euro has also lost ground to the American Dollar, which has done well recently. The Pound has also rallied to a 5 year high versus a much weaker South African Rand.
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    I found this article interesting as it shows two sides of the same coin. On the one side the pound where its estimated that the british economy has passed the recession and that the pound is going to rise in value, as it has rallied to a 1month high. On the other it states how the euro is still struggling against the dollar and the rand and that the central bank of eurpope is going to decrease the interest rates in order to spur the growth of the economy.
Tisha D

European Central Bank Cuts Interest Rates - 0 views

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    This article is about the European Central Bank finally deciding to cut interest rates, to provide as much liquidity of stocks as possible. They also plan on enabling smaller companies to get credit which was relatively difficult before. The bank believes that smaller companies are very important in Europe and they should have the opportunity to get credit as well. Annual inflation plunged to 1.2% in April, pressuring the ECB to cut rates and induce inflation. However economists believe that this decision will not have much of an effect. The sudden slump in price pressure also is making the ECB look into other policy changes to counter any further slide in inflation.
Jina K

Central Bank of Russia is to further cut interest rates - 0 views

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    Central Bank of Russia will continue to cut interest rates to 8% at which central bank lends to commercial banks. This target is to be completed in early May. This action is done in the hope to boost Russia's economy after a slow down. In addition, inflation rates are beginning to decline. Lower interest rates will lower costs of saving and thus encourage people to invest or get a loan to consume goods such as houses. This will move aggregate demand outwards and as well ad economy's potential output. This, in turn, will encourage economic growth. As such, this method can be classified as a part of an expansionary monetary policy or reflationary policy.
Andrzej Z

India's consumption story is slowing - 2 views

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    It's a nice article about the consumption in India. The consumption do durable and non-durable goods in India is decreasing at the same time as the inflation is increasing. The value of money is not the same as it was before, so the consumer can't buy the same quantity of products and this reduce the output of the consumers. The interest rates are relatively high so the households prefer to save money at a higher interest rate than loan money from the bank. The decrease of the consumption is real problem for the industrial production, according to the author I think that lower interest rates and reform measures may be able to revive the consumption. Also in my opinion the government should think about new monetary policies to reduce the inflation because the inflation at 10.8% is a serious problem.
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    This article talks about how Indias consumption is straining. Since the inflation is so high at a level of 10.8% the money has begun to lose its value and therefore the consumption of durable and non-durable goods has decreased as we can see in the article by 8.2% and 1.4%. Causingg the production to decrease by 0.6% further more making the economy suffer more. Although in the article it states that low interest rates and reform measure might be able to increase the consumption of the economy and therefore decrease the already hight inflation rate.
Mariya L

Indonesia c.bank seen raising rates to defend wilting rupiah - 0 views

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    The author of the article talks about Indonesia. It focuses on the attempts of central bank of Indonesia to defend the rupiah, "which has slid some 12 percent so far this year amid a global emerging markets rout." The currency has fallen to its weakest levels since April 2009, as worries about the country's current account deficit and high inflation rate have sparked a sell-off of Indonesian assets. Sudden declines in rupiah and local stocks over the last week, necessitated central bank to take part. Emergency fiscal and monetary policies that were announced last week, had done little to improve the current situation. Therefore, currently to protect its currency, Indonesian central bank attempts to raise the rates.
Matthew R

Canadian Dollar to Pound Sterling (CAD/GBP) Exchange Rate Little Changed, CAD/USD Fluct... - 0 views

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    In this Article, Canada (the country that I am from) has its currency exchange rate compared to other nations and other currencies. The Canadian dollar to British Sterling did not change much recently as it remained at .6037 to the British Sterling. This means that 1 Canadian dollar would get you 60 pence. Also, the CAD - USD exchange rate continues to fluctuate. Right now the CAD is at .96 cents USD.
Mariya L

Australia adds 71,500 jobs, the biggest jump since 2000 - 0 views

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    In this article author describes the main news - new additional jobs and overall improving economic state of Australia: "Full-time employment jumped by 17,800 and part-time employment was up by 53,700." The total workforce has been increased, altogether, it served as a sign of the improvement in economic conditions of the country. To keep the growth at the same level, the monetary policy has been eased up. Previous rate cuts are beginning to have a positive effect on the economy. The housing market shows some improvement. But the strength of Australian dollar is the main source of concerns: "The Australian dollar jumped by more than half a cent to $1.036, as traders became less hopeful that another interest rate cut was on the way."
Mariya L

Emerging markets' growth slowing, HSBC PMI report says - 2 views

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    In this article the author talks about the slow down in the economic growth of 16 leading emerging markets. Earlier compare to the Eurozone countries, UK and the US, the economic growth of those 16 countries was far higher. After this short period of stagnation, the world economists ask whether the growth, which depends a lot on exports, will increase or not. It weather will "wobble along, buffeted by worries in the developed world"; or temporary stop and then "bring back the days of the strong growth". Right now, the world economy is in the state of the recovery, in the past it went through the recession that started in 2008 and the trough. The fall in indicators mostly stopped, and the economic health very slowly continues to recover from the past.
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    "The index covers 16 leading emerging markets, including India, Brazil and China, which all saw their rate of growth fall. Rates of economic growth in these countries have been far higher than in developed nations, often coming in at about 10% a year." I think that the author is trying to say that Brazil in China have the highest rates of economic growth and not UK and the US. The exports in these two countries are very important; China is the country which more products export in the world. Their economic growth is slowing because of the recession in the other counties where the consumption has decrease and the people try to save money so the imports of products from China is not so high as it would be in a period of economic growth in all the world. I think that only in few countries the economy started to recover from the recession, in most of the economies are in stagnation. This suggest us the probably the worst part of the recession is behind us and the economies will start to recover, however these fluctuations in economic activity do not follow a mechanical or predictable periodic pattern so we can´t be sure when the recovery will start.
Andrzej Z

Claims for unemployment benefits hit 5-year low - 0 views

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    I find this article very interesting because it is really related to our actual theme and it is about a recent topic. It talks about the decrease in the unemployment benefits and the decrease in the unemployment rate is USA. The unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 7.7%, however, is not so low because probably in the USA there is a big hidden unemployment (people who are working in an industry that doesn't utilize their skill set properly or those who have given up on looking for another job are not counted in the official figures and are thus considered a part of hidden unemployment). The good aspect is that the government is reducing the spending's on the unemployment benefits. The unemployment have very big costs, cost for the unemployed people (they receive less employment and some of them suffer mental problems like depression), the society (poverty, homelessness, higher rates of crime and vandalism, increased gang activities, however not all of them are created by the unemployment) and the whole economy (It´s not operating at full capacity).
Jina K

Real wages fall as inflation heads for 3pc - 0 views

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    UK expects an increase in the Consumer Price Index to 3pc by June 2013 and to remain above 2pc until early 2016. In comparison, wages are only expected to rise at an average of 1.5pc. This will put more pressure on household as they have already seen a higher cost of living, which has risen four times more than wages. The recent increase is a result from petrol prices and energy bills. The bank's aim has been at 2pc, but the Chancellor may change the mandate. Another interesting point is the Chancellor may change the target inflation measures to CPIH- includes housing costs- and RPIJ, which is an alternative way of calculating retail prices. This article obviously relates to inflation rate. We can see the use of CPI as a measure for inflation rate. We can see that inflation rate does affect people with high cost of living and also people which has fixed income. Here, although many people does not have fixed income, they are still affected by the inflation due to the slower increase in the wages. We can also see that in order to reduce inflation, it does not only involve the government, but also the banks of those countries.
Yingnan W

Unemployment rate falls to lowest level since 2008 - 0 views

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    "The U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in February, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. " and the unemployment rate is down to its lowest level since December 2008 by this february, even though there are still a lot of problems, like people who got cut off on their jobs are still a lot, but in general, the employment rate got higher, we can tell from the graph this article gave to us.
Kyuhwan L

Canada's economy lost 21,900 jobs last month - 4 views

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    Canada's economy seems to have taken a hit as housing, jobs and exports fell. First there was a 21,900 jobs loss in January plus a 58,000 decrease in Canadians looking for work. In addition, exports fell 2.1%, exports to the US alone dropped, 4 points and imports fell as well. Furthermore a 19% reduction in the housing industry topped Canada's misfortune these past 2 months. Many Canadians are questioning the actions of the conservative government as economic growth is slowing to a crawl.
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    I think that you have chosen a very nice and interesting article because it's related to our actual topics. Is a good example about the importance of the exchange rates in the exports. If a country's exchange rate becomes stronger, then this makes the country's exports relatively more expensive to foreigners. According to the law of demand, this will cause the quantity of exports to fall. Another think to highlight is the increase of the unemployment rate, this will probably decrease the consumption because However, if people expect economic conditions to worsen then they are likely to reduce their consumption today in order to save for the future. In brief i think that it's a great article to talk about the aggregated demand, macroeconomic and the monetary policies.
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    I find this article particularly interesting because i never knew that Canada was suffering so much from the recession. Since it states in the article that 21,900 jobs were lost means that the household cinsumption must be very low a resulting in a low agregate demand, and since the agregate demand is low firms gain less proffit and therefore have to cut costs which in this case would be workers.
Caitlyn S

U.S. adds 157,000 jobs, unemployment rises - 0 views

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    The latest employment figures show hiring has been stronger in both 2012 and 2011 than initially believed, based on tax returns, not initially available to the government. Yet the pace of job growth decreased in January as the number of jobs added to the economy last month fell short of the 170,000 allowing the unemployment rate to increase from 7.9% to 7.8%. The pace of hiring in January suggests that businesses still remain somewhat cautious about taking on new employees.At the current pace of job growth, it is that that it will take several years to drive down unemployment back to pre-recession levels of below 5%. Also, the rise in the unemployment means the Federal Reserve is unlikely to stop its massive bond-buying program anytime soon. The bank has said it will keep interest rates at an ultra-low level until the jobless rate falls to 6.5%. However, hiring trends were somewhat better in 2012 and 2011 than the government's prior analysis indicated. The economy added 335,000 more jobs in 2012 than initially reported, with The largest amount of extra jobs showing up in the last three months of the year.
Jina K

Singapore's labour productivity drops 2.6 per cent in 2012 - 0 views

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    Singapore's labour productivity- defined as average output per period of time- fell by 2.6 percent in 2012. This includes the manufacture sector, construction sector, and service sector. Only the information and communicators sector show a positive increase. Labour productivity has been decreasing continuously. In the fourth quater of last year, labour productivity fell by 2.5 percent, which is the fifth consecutive quater showing a decline. The numbers attribute to the slower economic growth in the past two years. The government has been trying to increase productivity in certain sectors that see the most potential increase. Not only that, nominal wages- wages not yet adjusted for inflation- shows a 2.3 percent increase. Unemployment rate is 2%. The article can be related to aggregate supply. If labour productivity sees a decrease, it is likely that aggregate supply falls as well since labour is one of the factor of production. If the country sees a fall in its output then this suggests a decrease in the growth of the economy or may even reflect in the country's GDP value. Not only that, an increase in wages will also increase firms' cost of production, and therefore contribute to a fall in aggregate supply. However, on a good note, its unemployment rate is at 2%, which is considered as quite a good rate. This may suggest a quite full working capacity of the economy.
Jina K

High crime rate hampering Caribbean economic development - UN Read more: http://www.ca... - 0 views

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    High crime rate has hindered Caribbean economic development, report the United Nations Development Program. 8.5 percent of human population resides in Latin America and the Caribbean, but 27 percent of crimes occur in that region. Corruption in the policies is one of the difficulties in trying to combat crime. Although insecurity and violence are not directly a part of the high development index, these situations may effect health indicators and may reflect the standard of living of the people in the countries. High rates of crime may reflect poor standard of living, such as people not having enough to feed themselves. This could be reflected in low human development index of Caribbean countries. Insecurity and violence certain affect the well-being of the people, both mentally and physically.
Jean Eric

Tuna: The Hidden Cost of the World's Priciest Fish - 0 views

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    The tuna stocks around the world are being fish out an alarming rate, to fast for the tuna to reproduce and keep there numbers constant. This constant battle between the supply of the fish and the demand for them in Japan (75% of the tuna market) is devastating the tuna populations. The U.E. and other organzations have been trying to put quatos on the catcing of tuna but are being ignored by the fisheries and the tuna stocks are being continually fished. In a matter of years there will be no tuna to fish. As you can see this a problem of supply(where there aren't enought tuna) and demand(which is greater than the supply).
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    This article describes how the tuna stocks, around the world, are being fished out at an alarming rate. Too fast for them to recover naturally. Demand for tuna far exceeds the supply (what the sea can produce) without disturbing the natural order. So the WWF & ISSF have tried putting quotas but no one is obiding and the overall catch of tuna each year is increasing...
Nikhil M

Turkey misses economic growth goal for the first time - 0 views

Turkey for the first time after a number of years have missed their economic growth goal, although the governer is undertaking different policies to result in a higher economic growth rate, it is l...

turkey economic growth

started by Nikhil M on 21 Sep 12 no follow-up yet
Andrzej Z

Spain digs deeper into recession, not out - 0 views

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    It is an article about the recession and unemployment in Spain. The unemployment is a very serious problem in Spain because the rate of unemployment is about 25% or more so is a lot. This article report that the Spanish situation is stabilizing but we can´t assume that is the end of the recession and the start of the new business cycle. The business cycle is the periodic fluctuations in economic activity measured by changes in real GDP. Output cannot continue to fall for ever as there will always be some people with jobs to maintain a given level of consumption, foreigners will demand exports, governments will continue to spend by running budget deficits, and people will be able to use savings to finance their consumption. Additionally, the low demand for money for investment will result in lower interest rates. Thus, aggregate demand will pick up, the economy will enter the recovery phase, and the cycle will repeat itself. So after the recession the national economy of Spain will suffer an economic growth, the amount of the goods and services produced by an economy over time will increase.
Caitlyn S

China's economic growth slows to 7.6% - 0 views

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    China's growth has slowed to its lowest rate since the financial crisis in 2009 with second-quarter growth of 7.6% - down from 8.1%. The Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, warned last week that the economy "still faces relatively huge downward pressure". Consumer inflation had been lower than expected and import growth, in addition to producer price deflation, has also worried investors. The government has already cut interest rates twice in a month and lowered the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves three times since November. Several economists continue to remain optimistic and suspect China's economy will progress in the third-quarter.
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