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As the supply of diamonds keeps becoming scarcer, the demand for diamonds is increasing greatly. Global factors affecting the large demand for diamonds are increase in consumer wealth, better marketing tactics, western influence, and future value/prices. In India specifically where the population growth rate reached over 25 % - which has also led to the rise of a middle class - diamonds are now being seen as a "status symbol", or as a way to show off, the demand for diamonds is increasing quickly. China has as well due to strategically improved marketing tactics and western influences increased its use of diamond wedding rings up to 40 % of all women. As diamond prices are higher than a few years ago, diamonds can be seen as worthy to invest in because of their increasing value and finite supply. 

The world demand for diamond keeps increasing signaling that diamonds are becoming scarcer and scarcer. Producers will therefore increase the prices of diamonds as it is a limited source, producers will also however try to find more diamonds so that the resource isn't as limited. Depending on the consumer's income, demand for diamonds will decrease with higher prices. Consumers will also switch to an alternative market - an increase in demand for other stones, gems - as their behavior will change. Consumers will also ration diamonds and if purchasing it, purchase it in lower amounts.

A new study by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has found that chocolate is rising in demand in countries with new markets, such as China. However, due to global warming and a temperature rise of 2.3 degrees, the crops where cocoa is grown will halve by 2050. This will cause the entire demand curve for chocolate to shift to the right in the next 40 years. So far, an exact number for the price increase is unknown.  Price increases have occured in some places, such as West Africa, where the prices have gone up by 10 per cent.  Since cocoa needs a specific environment to grow (cool and moist), farmers can either decide whether to move their crops into the shade, which will have high costs, or to switch from growing cocoa  to another crop that CAN grow in the arid climate.  Some cocoa suppliers think that firms should focus on the quality and not the quantity of chocolate produced. This could have benefits, like better prices for farmers and less child labour. Not only is the chocolate market being affected by global warming, but also the French wine and Italian pasta market.  Non-price determinants such as the prices of related goods and expectations of future chocolate costs also play a large role in the chocolate market. If the demand for chocolate goes up in the next decades, the prices will also rise. Due to a change in prices more people will turn to chocolate-related goods like candy and pastries. Also, since a large price increase is expected to come, people will most likely buy as much chocolate as possible while it is still cheap. 

It can be deduced for this article that the scarcity for chocolate is increasing, just as the demand is. Due to shifts to the right in the demand curve, the price of chocolate has increased. Therefore, the demand curve will shift to the right and move up along the scarcity curve. Therefore, consumers will make sure to ration chocolate, as it has now become more expensive and less affordable. Other markets, like the candy market for example, that act as a substitute for chocolate will experience an increase in demand. On the other hand, markets like the chocolate chip cookie market, will experience a decrease in the supply curve, as chocolate is no longer as available as before. From the chocolate producers' perspective, they will increase the production of chocolate, as the prices are higher now and they can make more of a profit. Therefore, they will increase the allocation of resources towards the production of chocolate (like machinery, land for plantations, etc).

The article discusses the idea that in the coming 20-40 years the demand for orange juice will almost double, and that the orange market, as well as the orange juice market must be prepared to supply enough products in order to satisfy the demand for orange juice. Although the citrus nurseries in Florida as well as South America are producing massive amounts of oranges in order to supply enough to orange juice firms, it is currently not enough to satisfy the growing population. It is estimated that global population will increase by 2 billion in the next 40 years, meaning the demand for orange juice will increase substantially. As a result of this huge increase in demand, which the American and South American markets alone cannot satisfy, various other markets worldwide, such as the Asian market, are hoping to move into the orange juice industry, in order to seize the opportunity and make more money by providing the product.

In the case of the orange juice, the equilibirum price and quantity will both be increasing, as there has been a sudden shift in demand due to demographics and a projected increase in global population. As a result, producers will see this increase in demand as an incentive to produce not only more orange juice, but also grow more oranges. Consumers on the other hand, will either look for substitute goods or ration the product as there has also been an increase in price, indicating the scarcity of the product. This shift will have a large impact on other markets as well. As the price for orange juice and oranges is increasing, consumers may look to consume apple juice or other fruit juices instead.

In 2009 the federal government in the USA decided to raise the cigarette tax from 69 cents to 1.01 dollars which applies to all tobacco products. The tax increase was originally issued to fund a child insurance program but the law was vetoed by president Bush although the tax increase on tobacco products remained. Previous tax increases in the cigarette tax reduced consumption by 4%, however these were lower increases and it is predicted by the Office of Smoking and Health Center that 1 million of the 45 million smokers will quit.

This article relates to the idea of demand because in the article it talks about the growing quantity demanded in the Coffee market. Since the Coffee market is expending so rapidly the price of the coffee is expected to increase rapidly. The larger the cofee market becomes the more the demand curve will shift, eventually the quantity demanded will decrease because the price does not seen worth it anymore for customers

Because the demand on coffee is increasing there is a threat that the product will have an increase of price soon because it will become very scarce. since the demand on the product is so high that the consumers have indicated that they want the coffee. Producers have an incentive to produce more coffee. If the producers are not able to keep the high amount of supply up than prices will rise and the supply line will shift to the left indicating that the price will increase and the scarcity has increased as well. Other markets may suffer as well from the increased of scarcity because the demand on complimentary goods will increase as well if the demand on coffee stays high.

This article is acquainting us with China's plan to increase its supply of meat. Today, consumers in China are eating ten percent more meat than they did five years ago, so demand is increasing. However, the supply is lagging behind. Thus, Chinese officials have decided to buy millions of U.S. livestock and import it into China. This is a good example of how government intervention affects supply. By importing the U.S. livestock the cost of producing meat in China will be much less, whereas the quality will be much higher. However, critics from the U.S. are skeptic of this ordeal, as the cost of meat production is rising in the U.S. So the livestock exports to China would be increasing supply in China but they might decrease supply in the U.S. and lead to a future loss of a key U.S. export. 

Evidently, the reason for China's attempt to increase its supply of meat, is that there is an increase in the demand of meat. This means that meat has become scarcer. From a consumer perspective, the incentive now is to ration the amount of meat that is being consumed. Another consumer incentive might be to switch the consumption of meat with the consumption of a substitute good such as fish. From a producer perspective, an incentive is to produce more because the price is higher now. Therefore a producer is able to make a greater profit from the production of meat. There will also be a greater allocation of resources into the production of meat, as it is a more lucrative business.

G-7 call on oil-producing countries to increase their oil output in order to prevent high oil prices. The G-7 countries are prepared to call upon the International Energy Agency in order "to take appropriate action to ensure that the  market is fully and timely supplied." The IEA's countries supplied 60 million barrels of crude after the Libyan output was disrupted after the armed uprising. Oil prices have advanced 24 percent since reaching a 2012 low in June as stockpiles fell. U.S. authorities haven't contacted the IEA on the use of emergency oil supplies.  The U.S. has 727 million barrels of petroleum in reserve. Rising consumer prices have dented consumer confidence in gasoline, threatening to curb spending that accounts for 70 percent of the world's largest economy. The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has increased by 23.5 cents this month. 

In this article it talks about the issues of supply of gold. Over time a lot of mines have been emptied and now there is a problem that the product will become scarce and gold prices will increase drastically. since there is not very much gold circling around different mines, there is less to be found. The problem is also that the economy is increasing, new mines are made and people have to be trained in mining and some specialized gold makers moved to these new gold mining cities. The average of needed gold in the world is estimated to increase 6% by 2016 which is a lot. A lot of the pure gold has been mined and the not so pure gold is not as profitable. 

This articles talks about the decrease in demand in the coffee production. A decrease in the price of a cup of Joe, shipping coffee took a hard hit with prices to move a crate of coffee has increased to 6.8% more. The global economy has dropped due to the worsening debt crisis in Europe, where thirteen countries are slowly collapsing. European countries are unable to afford coffee, which is why British drinkers had to cut back in the coffee consumption by 6.7% in 2011, while the demand fell in 2.6% in Spain and 1.6% in Italy. Brazilian coffee production have expanded field for production and increased the use of fertilizers in response to last year's high prices. The Brazilian farmers are holding off from selling the product due to that they are waiting for the prices to recover so that sell larger quantity of coffee.

The demand of coffee is decreasing due to that the import prices have increase to 6.8%. The coffee market has decreased because the prices of the good have increased. The overall demand for coffee has decreased because producers now face higher cost of production. Since the expense of coffee has increase consumer incentives decrease. Since the demand of coffee has decreased other markets like tea, energy drinks have increased because demand for substitute goods increased. Producers want to minimize production cost while maximizing profit.

Throughout the first six months of the year Lego posted an increase in profit of 36%, revenue increase of 24%, however the demands for the Lego products along with all of the toy market has started to fall. This has been the most negative toy market in the U.S. for now. The reason for why the toy market has started to record such negative results are various factors. Amongst those factors were the approaching presidential elections meaning that taxes will go up for all the people making them want to save up more. Moreover the rising debt and the huge economic uncertainty going throughout the country has also started to deeply affect the toy market, making people have to spend less which ultimately leads the consumer to buy or spend less money on their products leading to worse economic results and making the toy market decrease.

Verizon is expecting a surge in demand for smartphones like the iPhone in 2011, however how many Apple devices will sell is unknown because of uncertain quantity of supplies. The lack of supplies has really come to their attention in the last quarter of 2010 were they had a 2.6% decline in revenue. Even Apple claimed that they would've sold way more iPhones in the same period, had they had more supplies to meet the demand. The reason that Verizon predicted that this great surge in demand for the iPhone will come and are trying to gain more resources, is because only 26% of their customers own a smartphone, and they predict that 50% will be on a smartphone by the end of 2011. Verizon wants to be prepared for the launch of the iPhone. CFO Fran Shammo, stated that if Verizon is able to sell 11 million iPhones, that their revenue in 2011 could increase from  4% to 8%, and earnings from 5% to 8%, and these figures could double in 2012.

After having witnessed a loss in profits due being unable to meet the demands of consumers, Verizon is allocating more resources to the production of iPhones. On a PPC graph the demand line would increase showing that Verizon will have an increase in both the quantity of the supply and the increase in the price of iPhones. This is a signal of less scarcity in the market, and the incentives of both the consumer and the producer. Because of this increase in the supply of the iPhone, competition to Apple will have a decrease in potential consumers. A producer's incentives have become to produce more at a higher price. Since Verizon doesn't want to make the same mistake twice, they will allocate more resources to the production of iPhones so that they can maximize profits.

In this article the company Norsk Hydro decided to change the raw material they produce for German rolling mills to 'increase in-house primary metal sourcing, replacing less cost-efficient remelting of cold metal as a source for its Neuss-Grevenbroich rolling mills.' This is supposed to optimize to the current issue in the market. The Neuss mill will increase production of aluminium to 150,000 tonnes per year unlike the last few year in which it only produced 50,000 tonnes. The factories have a maximum production limit of 230,000 tonnes. Although the tonnes created per year are now increased, it is still not exploiting the maximum point. This point may not be profitable due to limited demand in the market. Maybe the supply and new improvements including framework, CO2 compensation and more efficient smelters will increase the demand.

Although this article shifts supply to the right as there are technological advancements such as better smelters, there is also a movement along the supply curve as the company is getting closer to exploiting their maximum production point. In this case they state that supply is higher than demand. At the moment they have a surplus so the producer must decrease the price so that the quantity demanded will increase. The product, because of the surplus, is less valuable and as there is more quantity it is not as scarce as before. Related markets can buy the aluminum at lower price, increasing their benefit. The producer of aluminum must reduce resources allocated into production to return to the equilibrium point.

The article Chicago's cigarette tax could approach New York's (by Megan Hickey) focused on the possibility of Chicago increasing taxes on cigarettes. There are several underlying reasons for the proposal; one being a $298 million budget shortage, the other to increase awareness of smoking for health purposes. Chicago already has the second highest tax on cigarettes in the US, the average cost for a pack being $10.25, after New York at $12.50. The total combined tax amount is $5.67 which is made up of a federal tax of $1.01, Cook County tax of $2, Illinois tax of $1.98 and a government tax of $0.68. The possibility of increasing this tax would lead to less consumption of the product, less revenue for tobacco companies and more deadweight loss for consumers and producers. However the Chicagoan government believes that the health benefits gained from less tobacco consumption are far greater than that of cost. To continue this tax hike (continued increase in the tax of cigarettes) would continue the trend of declining tobacco consumption and could decrease the youth in smoking by 7.2%. Not only would the state receive health benefits but the government would be able to increase their revenue through this tax hike.

Samsung underestimate demand for Galaxy SIII, losing a possible 2 million sales in a single month. A manufacturing glitch resulted in the slowing of production. Demand has increased substantially in the last two years, especially in the Asian market. Samsung used to only hold 10% of the market share, but they have now overtaken Apple completely. Samsung's success could be down to the price of their phones (substitution good), or the altering tastes of customers.

The demand curve for Samsung's Galaxy SIII would shift to the right, resulting in greater scarcity, and a required increase in supply. This did not occur in this situation. Customers were forced to ration their consumption, as some versions of the phone went out of stock completely. Price of the product would increase in most scenarios to further incentivise an increase in production, and a rationing of the good. If Samsung had kept up with their demand, they may have won some market share over other companies, but their quarterly incomes were predicted as far lower than what could have been achieved with adequate supply.

The article talks about future trends in demand and consumption of food in the future. The graphs portrayed in the article, show the estimated increase in food demanded over the next 10-15 years. This has to do with the fact that the population is continuing to grow significantly in the near future. The problem with this is that while more food is needed, many countries have little room for improvements. This will make them rely heavily on imports in the future as they are not able to feed their growing population. The biggest problem is that if the food production is not increased significantly over the next years, there might be a global shortage of food. 

The example of food is very relevant when talking about this topic. As the worlds population, the food becomes more scarce, the demand rises. This causees the price of food to increase. Usually, this would cause many people to allocate their resources towards the food production. Currently however, despite rising prices of food, it is still more profitable to produce something else. This causes the food production to be lacking of food, which causes the price to rise even more.

The United States has had its worst draught in half a century, the Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack predicts that the corn yield is the lowest since 1995 and that prices of corn and soyabeans will rise in price by 20-25 percent unless there will be more rain. The Agricultural Department estimates that the general food prices with rise between 3 and 4 percent. In the Midwest the average production was reduced by 60 percent according to the Johnson County Farm Bureau.

In this case the supply on the curve would decrease and therefore the prices would increase and scarcity would also increase. Consumers would ration their consumption of food because it has increased in price. The article particularly states that the price of corn and soyabeans will increase significantly, therefore consumers might buy less goods from the corn and soyabean market and might consume in meat products because of the rise in food prices. The producer would eventually start supplying more when the draught is over for next years harvest, so there would be a shift in resource allocation through an increase investment in agriculture in the years after the draught due to the rise in price.

In my article, the Swiss government has decided to increase the tax on cigarette packs by 20 centimes ($0.20). The government has also given manufacturers 3 months to 'adjust' their prices, which also implies that firms are being given time to increase their production (positive relationship between supply and prices). In this case, consumers will not be effected by a price change, as cigarettes are an addictive good. Cigarettes also have a very inelastic demand curve. 

The demand for iPhones is greatly increasing in China. In Apple's fiscal year of 2011, they were able to sell 72 million iPhones, a number that soon might almost be sold in China alone. Currently, 10 million iPhones are sold in China, but this is because China's lead mobile carrier; China Mobile, has a network that is not compatible with the iPhone 4s. However, this year China Mobile is flipping to their knew network; the 4G which is compatible with the iPhone 5. This will open up a new market for Apple, as now, millions Chinese will be able to effectively use the iPhone 5 with China Mobile's network. Therefore, the demand for the iPhones will greatly increase due to the 'new' market.

Apple sold 72 million iPhones in 2011 to more than 100 countries. It is said that Apple will sell 57 million more iPhones per year in China since the demand is increasing. There are currently 650 million people who are branched to China Mobile which does not carry the iPhone network which includes 100 million who have found ways to use the iPhone through the network. Next year, China Mobile will change to the 4G network which will allow those additional 500 million people to get the iPhone.

The summer movie season reached a low with fewest movie tickets sold since 1997. Despite major hit movies such as "The Avengers" and "The Dark Knight Rises", the coming summer is supposed to fare even worse. By the end of Labor Day weekend, an estimated 529 million movie tickets will have been sold in the United States, almost 100 million fewer tickets than a decade ago, when 629 were sold. Partially due to increasing movie ticket price, movie ticket revenues dropped by 4.5%. Despite the increase in price affects the attendance to movies, analysts suggest that increasing the prices is the solution for struggling movie businesses. The movie business must be on the right track again, already having higher revenues and attendance than by this time last year.

The consumer preferences have changed with the slight rise in prices, causing a decrease in demand. The decrease in demand demonstrates that the consumers are losing incentive to buy as many movie tickets and causes a shift of the equilibrium price. As a result, consumers have incentive to ration their spending on cinema tickets. The producers begin to produce less at higher prices and create a rise in allocation of resources to movie-making to increase demand for movie tickets.

After the United States supported Israel in the "Yom Kippur" war, the Arab members of OPEC (Organization of Petrol Exporting Countries) announced an oil embargo with the US, where they would charge 70% more. In 1973, at the time of this restriction of oil, the OPEC was globally known as a large oil producer. This caused a shortage of oil, thus shifting the "supply curve" to the left, while the demand curve stayed constant. With this low supply, and constant demand, oil became a scarce good. In order to reach market clearance, or equilibrium, prices increased drastically. From $3 per barrel in 1971, to almost $40 per barrel in 1980. The shift in oil supply resulted in an increase in transportation costs. In order to compensate for the high oil prices, the Government of the United States increased domestic prices, thus increasing inflation. This inflation eventually led to relatively lower oil prices.