Group items tagged

I think we will see the change of the market of smartphone through the windows phone is about to start to pre-order. Windows phone is one of the biggest competitors of Iphone over the world. In this case, the supply of the smartphone increases. And I believe the demand or price of iphone is going to chance because of it, after people consider about the oppotunity cost of either buying iphone or windows phone.

Yes I do agree with you that the "windows fones" are going to create a huge competition with the apple iphone and i think this is a positive aspect to the phone market because now the iphone will probably not dominate the phone market anymore and it's price will drop, making it more availible to people. Also this is a positive aspect that there is competition because it will lower the prices of telephones in generally making it more availible to everyone. Adding to the competotion aspect, it will force the to companys to finance their reserch even more, to try and beat their opposition, which will improve the technology of telephones of our day!

The article shows that the selling for iphone 5 have been incredible. It's because the demand for the new iphone is extremely high so that it took only an hour for Apple's site to change its shipping estimates for the product to two weeks. And it's now the most expensive smartphone over the world due to the high demand of iphone. And i think it's also because of the supply of the phone is limited, which is much less than the demand. Further more, in the demand supply graph, the increase in demand causes the demand graph shifts to right, which shows us how the price goes up and the company are going to have more income. I think that's how the news relates to the topic for this week.

This article talks about an increase in the excise duty on soft drinks which are already subject to a 23pc VAT rate. With this measure the government is trying to reduce the obesity and to increase the revenues of the government. I think that this is a good idea because the problem of obesity is very concerning. Also the costs of treating the obesity are very high (in Spain the government is paying 37 million each for treating the obesity) Many doctors says that the obesity is the epidemic of the XXI century. The fat tax has been introduced in some countries in Europe. The problem is that these taxes are very unpopular because the food is a necessity product. The biggest impact of a tax increase would be felt by the young and lower income groups who are the biggest consumers of soft drinks.

Medical devices encompass an extremely wide range of products, such as surgical gloves, dental instruments, wheelchairs, coronary stents, artificial knees and hips, defibrillators, cardiac pacemakers, irradiation equipment, and advanced imaging technology. The U.S. medical device industry has estimated total sales of $106 billion to $116 billion a year. A few large firms account for the lion's share of this revenue. For example, Johnson and Johnson's worldwide sales of medical devices and diagnostics totaled $26 billion in 2011; the firm had total sales (on both medical devices and other products) of $65 billion, on which it earned profits of nearly $10 billion. Medtronic had $16 billion in sales and profits of $3 billion in its 2011 fiscal year. One trade group has estimated that the ten largest medical device makers will account for 86 percent of the sales of covered medical devices and hence pay 86 percent of the receipts from the excise tax.

This article talks about the importance of caring about the environment because this year there have been alarming weather activities possibly caused by climate change: Droughts, floods, the record melting of Arctic ice and the recent Superstorm Sandy. We can´t affirm that this happened because there is a change in the climate but we have to admit that this is one of the possibilities. If we don´t do nothing the situation will be getting worst. The water level is increasing more than we have predicted and many specialists admit that San Francisco and other cities near the coast might be under water in 20 years. Retrospect, we have neglected the full costs and hidden environmental price tags of economic progress. Only if we are aware of the externalities of our actions can we then build a more organic living environment and actively cut down emissions.

Officials want price controls put on the transportation of cement In Israel. Various government ministries are fighting over who should have the decision to impose price controls in the first place. The treasury thinks it should share responsibility over determining these factors with Transportation Ministry. However Transportation Ministry believes it should not. This argument comes after a government meeting, where they were tasked in finding ways to "up" the cement competition.

The ocean is one example of a common access ground. It's not exactly owned by anyone. The ocean is being explored more and more everyday. One way is through fisheries. The rapid increase in demand for fishes has led to the sudden decline of the fish populations. Take Bluefin tuna as an example. The increase in demand for tuna sushi has led to a huge depletion worldwide for the past 15 years. This has also led to an increase in price as the populations are becoming more rare. A Bluefin tuna once sold for more than £1m at a Tokyo auction. It is said that most of the tuna caught are shipped to Japan for consumption. Since the ocean has international access, coming up with regulations need to be communicated among many countries. 48 member nations of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic came out and voted to maintain strict catch quotas. This relates to the tragedy of the common. Anyone can access the ocean and catch as much fishes as they like. They only take into account the money they can gain from catching more tunas. This shows a lack of consideration of the generation where some are only concerned about themselves. Without strict regulations, the population of tunas may become extinct in the near future.

It is a very interesting article because many people doesn´t know about the problem with the fish population. We are depleting all the oceans and we don´t think about the consequence of our acts. The problem is that we are really selfish because no one care about the future generation. We will leave them a completely depleted world (this idea is very present in the film Avatar) However it is very difficult to control the people from capturing too many or too small fishes or other animals. It is a tragedy of commons because it is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.

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.

It is an article about supply side policies in Africa specially investing in human capital in order to increase the potential output of the African countries. We know that education creates positive externalities and the benefits of education and training are not just felt by those who receive education, it will help the economy as a whole because it will increase the potential output of the economy. Greater regional integration and investment in social entrepreneurship and industry are also necessary for inclusive growth. Competition hast the effect of encouraging greater efficiency. Therefore, any policies that increase competition will increase efficiency and improve the productive potential of an economy. After reading this article I research a bit about the economic growth in Africa and I found this: Six of the world's ten fastest growing economies of the past decade are in sub-Saharan Africa. A clutch of countries have enjoyed growth in income per person of more than 5% a year since 2007.

This article talks about the tragedy of commons. The governments are ignoring that instead of reducing the costs and the money used in the public sector they could try to cause an economic growth. This would be better for everybody because the economic growth reduces the deficits better than spending cuts. If we are doing spending cuts in the future we will have to spend a lot of money to fix the common resources and facilities used by all, including our air, water, and public infrastructure. If the problem amount then we will have more difficulties to solve them in the future, we can't leave them for the future generations because we have created those problems and we must solve them.

It is an article about the important of fiscal policies in the emergent economies, where the fiscal policies remain very conservative. The fiscal policy would be very helpful to continue the economic growth and create jobs. The fiscal policy is a very good method to encourage greater consumption or investments, and as when know, when there is an increase in investments or consumption there will be an increase in the aggregate demand. Axa Framlington fund manager Julian use as example the Mexico's economy that is demonstrating a strong economic growth because they use efficiently the fiscal policy.

I choose this article because it's surprising that the countries in Africa are experimenting a big economic growth. The article reports that Economic growth in East Africa, including Kenya, is expected to remain among the fastest in Africa this year aided by natural resource discoveries, improved agricultural performance, and economic diversification, a new report showed. The main reason for this economic growth are the natural resources, we have to remember that in Africa there are huge quantities on natural resources. In Africa the main problem is the inequality because the power and the resources are in the hand of few. There are international companies that controls the big parts of the resources. Another issue to take into consideration is that I some Africans countries the government aren't working properly because they use the money to buy weapons or they use the money for they own benefit.

I found a similar article that talked about Africa's situation at the moment, many countries in Africa are having a rapid economic growth, people are becoming wealthier and even a middle class is emerging. Africa in general has got plenty of resources to ensure an econoic growth for many years. However, as you say, inequality is the biggest problem as a minor group within the country owns everything, there is still cheap labour and many people starving to death. I totally agree with you, the governments in Africa don't function properly as they dont allocate the money for people's benefit and they keep it for themselves in order to have more power and become wealthier.

I found a similar article today in a Spanish newspaper and I decided to blog it in bookmark because it is about economics and politics. So I looked for the same article in English and here it is. It is very interesting because it is short, concrete and very actual. It is about Mariano Rajoy, talking about the recession. He thinks that is very important to be united, coordinated and that Countries that can afford stimulus policies should implement them, while other nations should focus on reducing their budget deficits. Also he said that is very important that the Latin countries must avoid protectionist policies. I wonder how the conference in Santiago will end because they will determine the future economic policies.

I like this article because it is very short and it is related to the topic of this week. It is about the GNI in Korea. The GNI is the growth of the national income, consists of: the personal consumption expenditure, the gross private investment, the government consumption expenditures, the net income from assets abroad (net income receipts), and the gross exports of goods and services, after deducting two components: the gross imports of goods and services, and the indirect business taxes. The GNI is similar to the gross national product (GNP), except that in measuring the GNP one does not deduct the indirect business taxes. The GNI of Korea has experimented a very high grow this year, it is almost the double of the GNI from the year 2002. The nominal GNI from the last year was $118.7 billion, this information is based on the assumption that the country's nominal GDP expanded by 3.2 percent.

This article talk about the price of a gallon of 95 octane will increase 22 cents to $4.54. The price of 91 octane will increase 20 cents to $4.16. Diesel prices will go up 15 cents to $4.08. I´ve found this article and I think that is related to our actual topic aggregate supply because an increase in the price of the natural gas will have an impact on all industries, as oil is widely used in a lot of production processes. This will lead to a shift of the aggregate supply curve because the factors of production will be more expensive and at higher level price the producer will reduce the total amount of goods and services

Because of the world's population is keep increasing, and absolutely everyone needs food. That means we have increased on demand, but we might don't have enough food. That led to increasing the price of food, and the result might increases the price of everything because when the price of food increased, everyone who bought foods would want to increase their own product.

As all of us know, our world's population is increasing at a rapid rate. They predict that in 2025, there will be 1 more billion people on earth than their are today. So on average, they are predicting that there will be an increase in population of about 80 million people a year. Our resources that we have right now are already scarce, so it will only get tougher. Reporters say the 3 nations that will be most in need of more water will be China, India, and USA due to population growth, increasing irrigation and economic growth. Reporters also say that the amount of extra water needed is equivalent to 20 Nile Rivers. Failure to find the needed extra water could result in great conflicts over water. Also, with climate change (global warming) this will decrease the amount of available freshwater. Furthermore, the water needs to be sanitized to avoid diseases and sickness being spread. The report said that this could cost up to an extra 11 billion dollars a year. I chose this article because it is clearly related to scarcity and is growing concern in our world that needs to be looked at. 2025 is not very far away, and we need to come up with ideas for producing extra, clean water.

It is an article about fish trade between South Korea and Japan. The korean government want to ban the import of fish from Japan because they are afraid of the radioactive water leaks from the Fukushima reactor. This ban on the the fish import from Japan will have an important effect on consumers from Korea because Korean consumers will have a smaller choice of fish to buy and the prices from the local producers may be higher. It will also have effect on the Japanese market because the demand for fishes will decrease and Japanese producers will be probably forced to reduce the production.

It is an article related to the balance of payments topic. This article reports the situation of the US current account. The US current account is facing a deficit because they country is importing more than they export. The US needs many imported products and commodities to meet the consumers demand. This demand for products and commodities from foreign countries (especially oil) has been rising for the last 20 years and so has the US current account deficit.

It is an article about the government of China that has decided to impose a 6.5% tariff on materials from most U.S. polysilicon suppliers. A tariff is a tax that is charged on imported goods. The Chinese government decide to impose this tariff in order to prevent dumping from USA. Dumping is the selling by a country of large quantities of a commodity, at a price lower than its production cost, in another country. However it is difficult to deduce if this tariff is imposed to prevent dumpling or if it is a revenge for the tariff that the USA government imposed Chinese-made solar cells one year ago. I think that the Chinese government should talk first with the USA government because protectionism is a very dangerous weapon because it often invite to retaliatory actions. This may reduce the benefits that can be gained from international trade by all consumers and producers in all countries.