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Hong Kong government has decided to impose 15% excise tax on property in Hong Kong that is bought by foreigners. This is a difficult measure for many foreigners wishing to purchase houses in Hong Kong. Some foreigners that has been around for several years are also not feeling as happy as before. Some clients are also thinking about leaving. The government primary reason is to protect its economy from inflating property resulting from foreign investments, low interest rates, and limited supply of housing in the market. Clearly, this situation is related to the topic of excise tax, or specifically, ad valorem tax- fixed percentage is charged on a particular good. This has led to an increase in price, which leads to a fall in demand from foreign investors that wish to invest in Hong Kong properties. This shows that properties are in fact elastic products, but government is able to impose tax since it does not affect the producers dramatically and it does not affect the majority of the consumers. Only foreign investors are affected. Realtor can still generate sales from local investors.

House prices in the UK have fallen for the third month in a row. Although the government has supported in mortgage borrowing, but the consumer's uncertainty surrounding the economy and their ability to afford the houses still causes the decrease in price in the market. The increase in demand is believed to be driven by seasonal factors compounded by the Olympics. It is believed that the house prices will continue to decrease slowly over the remainder of the year. There is also the first decline in supply in September after seven months of growth. I think this article fits perfectly under the topic of demand. The basic law states that as price falls, the quantity demanded of the product will usually increase. However, this does not fall under the basic law behind the demand curve, but it indicates that price of houses have fallen as a result of an increase in demand. The Europe's economy isn't doing very well at the moment and it causes more hesitant in how they consumers choose to spend their money. Price may be low, but they may choose to spend their money elsewhere. This does, however, support the supply law. As price falls, the quantity supplied is dropped. Suppliers wouldn't want to produce or supply to any products that isn't very well demanded.

In this period of economic uncertainty around the globe, Britain is proposing a tax similar to other parts of the world, where taxes on the rich are placed. As the article has mentioned, this tax sounds great on paper, but history has proven that the plan needs some amendments. Taxing the rich sounds like a suitable idea for many, but troubles start to arise when the "non wealthy 'rich' people" are affected as well. Due to the rising house prices, even little house would be "considered mansions and whacked with heavy tax increases." Houses that cost 1 million pounds are considered mansions, but it is not uncommon due to the anomalies of the British house taxing system. As a result, a low, yet fair taxing system must be put to place to satisfy both sides of the party.

"One thing that Hardin overlooked is that the political process often replicates the same economic dynamic that encourages the tragedy of the commons" I found this quote in this article, i think it's true! The government should make the serious law to limit people how much they can use and if this way doesn't work they should try another way, not just keep doing it without anything getting better. However we all should help this out together by start from ourself, i mean we should think about others that they want to use it too, not just think about our benefit. If we keep doing this we might get rid of 'Tragedy of the Commons'

United States proposed a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with a goal of reaching a deal by year-end. The U.S. aims to discuss the trade deal with other nations during the World Trade Organization meeting. The TPP talks aim to establish a free-trade bloc that covers 800 million people, a third of world trade and accounting for 40 percent of the global economy. The goal is to promote remove trade protectionisms and also set standard for workers' rights, environmental protection and intellectual property rights. This article can be related to our topic this week as it involves trade protectionism. This TTP deal argues against protectionism measures as they believe the removal of protectionism will promote growth. For instance, Obama believes that more export will provide more U.S. jobs. On the other hand, opponents against the deal state that the deal will only provide multinational corporations powers against national policies in the name of free trade.