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China has accused Italy, Greece and the EU for supposedly illegally subsidizing domestic solar manufactururs (suspected that due to a decline in Italian imports of Chinese Solar panels.)  The US international Trade Commision then made a locked tariff of 24-36% on imported solar panels from China.  A year ago the Coalition of american Solar Manufacturers filed antidumping cases against China, saying they were flooding the US market with inexpensive and heavily subsidized solar panels that the US couldnt compete with.  The US fears that China is dumping because it means their domestic producers are not able to compete in the market for solar panels. Therefore this high tariff of 24-36% has been imposed to promote consumption of domestic solar panels. 

It's a rare sight, seeing US banks taking precautions instead of relying on the federal government for a bail out. This though is the precise case at the moment. Seeing as it still isn't clear whether or not Greece is staying in the Eurozone, US banks such as Meryll Lynch and JPMorgan are taking necessary precautions to insure that should Greece retreat from the Eurozone, the banks wouldn't be hit as hard. In a recent survery, sent out by a private advisory firm, 80 percent of the answers predicted that Greeve is going to leave the Eurozone, and a fifth of the given 80% believe that more countries may follow Greece's potential lead. 

The article discusses that the US may face a fiscal cliff in order to reduce the large deficit that has accumulated in the past. A fiscal policy stands for a series of major tax increases and government spending cuts if Congress does not act. The article discusses that through lower government spending and higher taxes it is expected that $600 billion can be extracted from the economy to decrease the debt. However economists think that every dollar of deficit reduction will subtract the same or a greater amount from economic growth. In theoretical terms this would make sense. If government spending decrease this reduces aggregate demand in the economy and by that will cause a decrease in real GDP. Households will cut back on purchases and especially households that are dependent on government support through unemployment benefits will suffer from the policy. Although this will decrease the deficit of the US it may be that it distracts the fragile recovering economy. 

India's inflation rate rose to 7.55% in August, rise that was much faster than expected by analysts. The primary reason behind this is a rise in India's food prices. In order to decrease inflation and lower prices, the Reserve Bank of India tried to raise interest rates. This should cause a decrease in consumption and demand. Thus in the long-run, disinflation will occur as firms will be forced to lower prices in order to maintain a profit. However, altering interest rates has been tricky for central policy-makers as India imports a large quantity of their food from the US, who ultimately have control the prices.  The US will probably add to India's inflation as they are "likely to push up global commodity prices".  Even through raising interest rates, which can be damaging as they hurt businesses and consumer confidence, India still has little control over global prices. As a result, India's inflation will raise even. 

This article discusses the severe rising level of unemployment in Greece. Unemployment rates rose to approximately 24.4% this summer and 55% of young people aged 14 to 24 are unemployed. The reasons behind this high unemployment are that a high percentage of the Greek workforce is employed by the government (about 25%) and these employees receive large unreported subsidies and bonuses. Also, Greece suffers from a large amount of tax evasion, causing it to struggle to pay the high number of government workers. Consequently, Greece had to cut 100,000 government jobs, causing unemployment to rise. Unemployment was high in the first place because of the deep recession which started in 2007. The high unemployment in Greece has further knock on effects on its economy, particularly if the majority of those unemployed are of the younger generation. A young workforce with no jobs means that once the older generation retires, the younger generation will want to take over their jobs but they will not have the experience to do so. Also, they will lose incentive to work hard as they are used to not having jobs. 

1/4th of the labor force in Greece was being employed by the Greek government. However the government borrowed a lot of money and that means that the government workforce will end up decreasing dramatically sooner or later, and that happened.  Their economy has shrunk around 20% since 2008. The article also told us that 'Moody's Analytics predicts that the Greek economy won't start growin gagain until 2015, at the earliest". That is bad for Greece because it will take very long and be very hard for it to become a stable and strong economy again. 

The global rise in food prices, caused by a drought in the US, has increased Brazil's inflation, along with the government trying to put a stop to the currency gains. Due to bad weather conditions, the tomato industry has been affected, and has lead to an increase in the price of tomatoes. With global prices on the rise, there is less want to import goods, but with inflation in Brazil, high food prices all around is hurting its economy. Currency gains are also having a negative affect which is hurting industrial competitiveness. Consumers are finding it difficult to cope with rising food prices and in the short run will mean that a lot of their earnings are being spent on necessities and not spending on luxuries. Low unemployment is pushing up wages, and with interest rates being cut, people will most likely try and save their money.

This article discusses the need for the U.K. government to "show some political backbone" by becoming more enterprise friendly in order to stimulate the badly required growth of their economy. U.K. business leaders have become increasingly concerned as the CBI has predicted that the U.K. economy will shrink by 0.3% this year. This fall in GDP is a sign that the country is entering a double-dip recession. The reason behind this is declining exports, the on-going euro crisis, a stagnant economy since the coalition, reduced borrowing on credit cards, an increase in unemployment and a lack of household spending. A reduced borrowing on credit cards and lack of household spending directly affects GDP as GDP can be calculated using the expenditure method, where household consumption is one of the factors taken into consideration. If consumption falls, so does GDP. In order to prevent the GDP from falling further and to promote economic growth, schemes such as tax breaks for small firms taking on extra workers ,schemes that boost the mortgage and household market and schemes that support household expenditure have been implemented. This could lead to a rise in employment as well as expenditures, causing GDP to grow. 

According to this article, Germany's unemployment had increased for a fifth month in august. The unemployment rate is currently at 6.8%. This increase in unemployment was a consequence of the European debt crisis, which had severely decreased demand for exports, causing companies to hold back on investments.  These two factors have therefore decreased both aggregate demand (net exports decrease) and aggregate supply (decrease in investments). Therefore fewer jobs are required as less output is being demanded. This is shown by the numerous job cuts which have occurred throughout Germany. "Siemens AG (SIE) said on Aug. 27 it will cut 500 jobs at its German factories making industrial gear boxes and clutches by 2016, citing slack demand".   However, the article states that the unemployment rate is still the lowest it has been for the past two decades, and meanwhile wages are rising. This increase in wages is boosting consumer spending, therefore causing an increase in aggregate demand, which should eventually allow for aggregate supply to increase, and therefore increasing the need for workers.  Moreover, although unemployment has risen in Germany, it still does not yet compare to the 8.2% unemployment of the US, the 10.8% in Italy, and the euro-area average of 11.2%. 

As can be seen, there has been a drop in unemployment in the UK, falling to 2.58 million people and is shown visually on the graph. There has been a drastic change in the unemployment of 16 to 24 year olds, which will have positive outcomes in the long-run. With less young people being unemployed, they are gaining on vital years of learning that they would have previously missed out on if they had not been employed. In order to gain experience and be better workers in the future, they would need to be employed as soon as possible, and with this happening it will affect the workforce later on as they have developed useful skills to benefit their work.  Once older workers have retired, there will now be people to fill the roles of these workers. With the Olympic Games providing the boost to the economy that is greatly needed, employment is starting to rise again; however, there is the worry that this will only have an impact in the short-run, with there being temporary jobs for the unemployed that will soon no longer be needed. If this happens there could be a rise followed by a sudden drop in employment, so there is a question of whether it will benefit the unemployed at all.

The author is defending the single number UE rate as a measure of an economy's well being. His core point, some countries don't encourage working to the same degree as the US. In other words, some countries policies instead encourage people to stay home (and care chldren, for example). Thus, the labor force participation rate for such a country (Germany, in this case) is lower. So, in this sense, to know if the economy is doing well, the UE, as measured against the labor force, is a better single measure.

This article talks about the rise in the unemployment rate in France. Unemployment occurs when someone of working age who is willing and able to work and is looking for work is unable to find a job. The unemployment rate is that percentage of the total labor force in a country that is in this situation. This article states that unemployment in France has reached a 13-year high at 10.2%. There have been 3 consecutive quarters of zero growth. Youth unemployment has also risen with the unemployment rate amongst 15 to 24 year-olds now 22.7%. One of the possible solutions for the situation is to wait until the market fixes itself. Pressure on prices of factors of production is decreased due to the smaller number of workers present. Eventually, firms should start buying more factors of production, increasing the country's Real GDP. Since output will then have been increased, more workers will be needed and employment should rise. However, several large French companies have recently announced plans to lay off more workers. This shows that the natural process of getting output back to where it was before the recession is not occurring. France's government has therefore offered a solution: launching a scheme to create 150,000 state-subsidized jobs for young people.