...problems on Wall Street versus the problems on Main Street. As we're finding out from the postings, we all hail from different areas in the United States and internationally. Do you think we're all experiencing the same economic challenges or do you think different local economies are experiencing different challenges? Provide some examples to support your answer. In my opinion I think we’re all experiencing the same economic challenges to include different local economies. From a military point of view we too are experience an economic challenge. With the drawdown of forces in Iraq and eventually Afghanistan (to be determined) the military will have to cut down the forces to help reduce Defense spending. And if anyone can remember the Desert Storm/Shield conflict the military was nearly cut in half after it. As for the rest of America it seems as though the days of spending unreservedly are over with. With the recession affecting everyone people are now out of jobs and small businesses are out of work and trying desperately to keep themselves a float. This can especially be seen in the housing market where you have big name cities at an all time high foreclosure rate. In the end I believed the economy became what it is today due to our frugal lifestyle. I admit I was the same way but in the end it caught us all by surprise and now we have to figure out how to fix it and hopefully regain some or all the jobs lost by everyone...
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...An economy (Greek οίκος – "household" and νέμoμαι – "manage") is an area of the production, distribution or trade, and consumption of goods and services by different agents in a given geographical location. The economic agents can be individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments. Transactions occur when two parties agree to the value or price of the transacted good or service, commonly expressed in a certain currency. Economic activity is spurred by production which uses natural resources, labor, and capital. It has changed over time due to technology (automation, accelerator of process, reduction of cost functions), innovation (new products, services, processes, new markets, expands markets, diversification of markets, niche markets, increases revenue functions) such as that which produces intellectual property and changes in industrial relations (child labor being replaced with universal access to education). A given economy is the result of a set of processes that involves its culture, values, education, technological evolution, history, social organization, political structure and legal systems, as well as its geography, natural resource endowment, and ecology, as main factors. These factors give context, content, and set the conditions and parameters in which an economy functions. A market-based economy is where goods and services are produced and exchanged according to demand and supply between participants (economic agents) by barter or a medium of exchange...
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...Kenya has a very diverse economy but it has been traditionally based on agriculture. Over the years the economy of this country has changed with new ideas being out into action, new and profitable companies from abroad investing in Kenya, and new companies joining the stock exchange. The economy is divided up into three sectors that include the primary sector, secondary sector, and tertiary sector. All of these specific sectors have significant value on the economy with each sector bringing in profits. Although during the past decades the growth of industry and tourism has decreased agriculture's dominance, but farming activity still accounts for the major part of the country's economy. The country is still able to export tea, coffee, flowers and vegetables. Both, tea and coffee exports have brought a large share of foreign exchange earnings. The economy used to rely on tourists, attracted by Kenya’s abundant wildlife and beaches. The companies in the country are privately owned and also publicly owned. The private sector does a lot to make the economy grow and also improve them. While public companies also add value to the economy. But government owned companies do not play a huge role in supporting the economy as corruption is a rising problem in the country. To remove this, the government is planning to privatize most government owned companies, to increase efficiency. The tourism sector in the country is doing well as Kenya is a tourist destination. Many tourists come...
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...Strategies for Reviving the Japanese Economy Introduction 1. Assessment of the Current Economy The Japanese economy has begun to show some signs of change as the effects of recent large-scale economic packages have gradually helped to stop the severe economic downturn. But despite this progress, private demand as a whole remains stagnant. Therefore, the economic prospects for self-supported recovery are still uncertain once the economic effects of the last packages have phased out. The fundamental problems pertinent to the weak economy are twofold. First, the true adjustment of the burst of the bubble economy is still insufficient. Second, against the background of the sharp decline in the number of births and the rapid aging of the population, the pace of which has not been experienced in other industrialized nations, the "Japanese system"--the engine of the country's astonishing high growth in the postwar era--has turned problematic with regard to economic growth. First, fears about employment prospects, future pension plans, and the sharp rise in government deficits are obviously restraining an economic turnaround. These fears are attributable to eroding sustainability in the Japanese-style wage and employment systems and the generous social security system. To cope with the situation, provisions of renewed safety nets are urgently needed. Furthermore, the rising fiscal deficits are restraining economic upturn by making people serious about future tax hikes...
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...co1 Introduction: The Sixteen-Page Economic History of the World He may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind. —Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 175 (November 19, 1751) The basic outline of world economic history is surprisingly simple. Indeed it can be summarized in one diagram: figure 1.1. Before 1800 income per person—the food, clothing, heat, light, and housing available per head—varied across societies and epochs. But there was no upward trend. A simple but powerful mechanism explained in this book, the Malthusian Trap, ensured that short term gains in income through technological advances were inevitably lost through population growth. Thus the average person in the world of 1800 was no better off than the average person of 100,000 BC. Indeed in 1800 the bulk of the world population was poorer than their remote ancestors. The lucky denizens of wealthy societies such as eighteenth-century England or the Netherlands managed a material lifestyle equivalent to that of the Stone Age. But the vast swath of humanity in East and South Asia, particularly in China and Japan, eked out a living under conditions probably significantly poorer than those of cavemen. The quality of life also failed to improve on any other observable dimension. Life expectancy was no higher in 1800 than for hunter-gatherers:...
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...Economics Discussion how a Epidemic can affect a country's economy The countries involved in an epidemic will immediately suffer in a population crisis where the average age of mortality decreases. More children will be born dead or carrying the TB at a very early stage. Countries that were mentioned in the context are most of them developing countries for instance India, Indonesia and South Africa. Poor average education and high unemployment are huge percent numbers in these countries and a epidemic could cause even more problems with the labor in a country if adults are dying. Result of these problems will eventually lead to a non-consumed agricultural resources since the eventual transmission of knowledge will fail in shortage of both labor and competent people. A starvation will break out due the shortage of food. The development of social and economical aspects will also decrease or stop completely. Progresses involving better healthcare and greater survival number of babies will suffer also suffer from epidemics. Possibilities of helping people will also become completely removed because of the shortage of competent staff and economical issues. The level of education will also decrease due the financial problems, schools will shut down and bad teacher salaries will not attract as many students becoming teachers because of the tough education. Regular working man and women will also have to quite their jobs to take care of their sick/infected relatives...
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...one of trying to find crops that could be exported: an aim that was first realized in the late nineteenth century with the planting of coffee in the highlands. In more recent history, the economy grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s as Nicaragua converted its best lands into fields of cotton and cane, or pastures for beef cattle. As the fastest growing Central American economy at this time, by the turn of the 1970s it was also the region’s most prosperous economy. But the political and social context was one of great inequality between the landowners and those running the import-export houses that supported the agricultural export industry on the one hand, and the majority of the population who subsisted on small-holdings or were plain landless, in both cases often dependent on the seasonal earnings from working on the export crops harvests. The excesses of the dictatorial Somoza regime eventually provoked rebellion and in 1979 a radical alternative took power, the Sandinistas. Although committed to equality and redistribution, the attempt to control the key points in the economy and to intervene strongly in markets led to perverse incentives and resource miss-allocation: as US opposition escalated to the point of funding the Contra, and government spending on defense rose in response, the economy all but collapsed in chaos and hyperinflation. After 10 years of outrageous struggle, peace was signed from both antagonist political factions and a new coalition...
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...approach. There is clear evidence of British economic decline from 1951-1990, but to claim that it was utter decline is really a pessimistic front. Reasons to disagree: - Period from 1951 to 1973 saw an “age of affluence”, with a genuine post-war boom; Britain’s economy grew around 40% during 1951 to 1964 - Living standards rose steadily until 1973, with low unemployment rates; with a wider sense that Britain was becoming more prosperous and equal. Harold Macmillan captured this in 1957, when he declared that “Britain had never had it so good”; it also highlighted increased consumerism due to greater accessibility to consumer goods throughout the era - Arguments of “relative decline” are unfair and misleading; nations such as Japan and Germany were utterly destroyed after WW2, so it only makes sense for their nations to advance rapidly as they could start from scratch - Arguments of a lack of policy and initiative are misleading. Macmillan tried to gain some coherence by setting up the national economic development council (NEDC). Wilson also set up the department for economic affairs (DEA) that launched an ambitious national economic plan. Heath also was a strong technocrat and had clear policies of an economy based on the “social market”, claims that he was a “proto-Thatcherite” are simply wrong - Thatcher, for all her...
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...Richard Cantillon’s Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général Translated by Chantal Saucier Edited by Mark Thornton 4 An Essay on Economic Theory © 2010 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Ludwig von Mises Institute 518 West Magnolia Avenue Auburn, Alabama 36832 mises.org ISBN: 978-1-61016-001-8 Foreword Robert F. Hébert Following a century of neglect, William Stanley Jevons, in the first blush of discovery, proclaimed Cantillon’s Essai, “the cradle of political economy.” Subsequent growth and development of economic thought has not really alerted us to the subtleties of this succinct appraisal. A cradle holds new life; and there can be little doubt that the Essai added new life to the organizing principles of economics. But “political economy” does not accurately describe the subject Cantillon addressed. Indeed, he scrupulously avoided political issues in order to concentrate on the mechanics of eighteenth-century economic life. When confronted by “extraneous” factors, such as politics, Cantillon insisted that such considerations be put aside, “so as not to complicate our subject,” he said, thus invoking a kind of ceteris paribus assumption before it became fashionable in economics to do so. This is merely one way in which Cantillon was ahead of his time. He preceded Adam Smith by a generation. Both writers made important foundational...
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...The economy of Ukraine and Ukraine in the global economy Petrusha Helena Ukraine’s economy has a great potential to perform successful in the world. It can be characterized by such strong sides: - well educated labour force, - large domestic market, - well developed industrial base, - access to a variety of resources, including some of Europe’s best best agriculture land, significant coal and some oil and gas reserves, - strategic location connecting Europe, Russia and Asian markets. Nevertheless, Ukraine ended up among the least successful transition economies. The reasons for such a poor performance are different, but we should emphasize on the weaknesses deriving from overcentralised command economy during the Soviet period. I’d like to draw your attention to the Ukraine economy past in order to understand its current situation. Large and often inefficient state-owned factories, enterprises and collective farms wasted resources and emphasized quantity over quality. Prices were fixed and consumer goods were often in short supply. Excessive spending on the military hurt the civilian economy. For the last decades Ukraine is moving to market economy, where the forces of supply and demand and private ownership guide the allocation of resources. The transition to market economy is politically and socially difficult because of experience of rising inflation, unemployment and economic uncertainty before the long term benefits of market economy. The next point of this...
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...ECONOMICS OF SCALE Name Institution Economics of scale Introduction Economies of scale is the cost advantages by enterprises due to size, input, or scale of operation with cost per unit decreasing with increasing scale as fixed costs are spread out more to units of output (Thatcher, 2009). The reason why some regions are more developed than other regions economically is because they produce their goods more efficiently and hence bringing more profit than competitor's regions. Since economies of scale lay it main focus on having an efficient production this shapes the economic development of regions. This paper is about economies of scale it describes how economies of scale shape the economic development of regions through description of different types of economies of scale and examples of countries and regions around the global (Stamp, 2009). Structure Definition Economies of scale is the cost advantages by enterprises due to size, input, or scale of operation, with cost per unit decreasing with increasing scale as fixed costs are spread out more to units of output. Economies of scale are known to improve with growing firms, therefore; it can be said that the economies of scale are directly proportional to the size of the firm (Stamp, 2009). From a simple firm which produces exercise books, the firm uses £200 to produce 10 exercise books meaning the average cost is £20 if the firm produces 40 exercise books the average cost is £12.The difference here is brought by...
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...GLOBAL ECONOMY FEATURES OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Nature of the global economy and globalisation The global economy/world economy consists of all the countries of the world that contribute to gross world product through the production of goods and services. It is often discussed in relation to the increased integration of economies. Gross world product (GWP)/world GDP is the sum of the total output of goods and services by all economies over a given period of time. It is measured at purchasing power parities (PPP) which adjust exchange rates to equalise the price of identical goods and services across economies. Globalisation is the increasing integration of countries and their economies, resulting in the increased impact of international influences on all aspects of life and economic activity. The economic indicators of globalisation include: * international trade flows * international investment and transfers of technology * international finance * international labour markets Trade: * Greater growth but with greater volatility than GWP * Growth of world trade has been around twice growth of real GWP since the 1970s, but contractions in the growth of world trade have also been more severe (World Economic Outlook, IMF, 2009) * Greater growth in developing and emerging economies * Exports from developing and emerging economies grew 9.8% from 2002 to 2008 cf. 5.2% growth in developed economies ...
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...Transition Economies Problems: 1) All transition economies experience falling output i.e. shrinking economies. 2) Corruption increases as government and institutions collapse creating a judicial vacuum. 3) Lack of legal institutions causes problems in settling and collection of taxes thus not allowing creation of companies to replace government run enterprises. 4) Lack of financial institutions (banks) and capital markets often means that good businesses collapse due to lack of loan able funds and start up companies could not get initial loans. 5) This problem was exaggerated by people simply being unaccustomed to a market economy with ensuing competition. 6) High inflation rates resulting from prices being set free which helped cause falling exchange rates. The net effect was redistribution of incomes at best – and at worst obliteration of years of savings. Those with fixed incomes suffered, e.g. pensioners. 7) Party officials enriched themselves with cowboy capitalism. This led to unequal distribution of income n the economy. 8) Increasing inflation led to fall in exchange rates. These two combined made the currency worthless creating a decline in trade. 9) Barter economies started which was a wasteful and time consuming method when applied to a larger portion of the economy. 10) Illegal gains, high inflation and increasing worthless currencies led to capital fights i.e. money was sent to other countries. This also led to economies lacking...
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...The US Economy Clark University The US Economy Like any economy, the United States experiences growth, contraction, and periods of increased volatility throughout any given time period. This analysis seeks to provide a concise report of the current state of the US economy based on the latest data metrics provided in the reports published by the Wall Street Journal. The following information delves into the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the economy’s growth and employment, consumer activity, inflation, housing construction and sales, and international trade. The first metric to be examined is more than likely the one that the average citizen thinks of when thinking about the current state of the economy: Unemployment. It affects virtually every metric from the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The long term figures by the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted in Appendix A display that the unemployment rate has been on the decline for a significant period of time, and furthermore, is expected to close the 2015 year at a rate of 5%, with the potential to plummet further to 4.6%. The decline appears significant, especially considering the Labor Force experienced growth. Secondly, the GDP should be taken into consideration, as it’s one of the most useful statistics when looking at the health of an economy. The GDP for October is 18 trillion dollars, down from 18.01 trillion in September. As explained in the textbook...
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...There are two main theories that dominate our world economy- capitalism and socialism. Reviewing the approaches these theories take to operating shows stark contrasts. While each system is founded on their own belief structure, they do borrow ideas from each other. Each party has been critical of the other for taking advantage of their own people. Taken in simple terms there are three main ideas that are the foundation of each system- ownership, pricing, and profitability. In a capitalist economy businesses are owned by individual people, while in a socialist economy businesses are owned by the public, read government. Socialist economies determine the prices of goods and services through a central committee and capitalists believe that supply and demand should drive the market. Some might describe a primary difference of these systems as capitalism is a “for profit” venture while socialism is a “not for profit” concept. Both economic theories have received criticism from their detractors. Capitalism is criticized for creating income inequalities that keep the poor, poor. In this system, the wealthiest individuals dominate the means of production and benefit exclusively from the profits of those ventures. Socialism limits people’s freedoms to choose where they live, work and even the way they are educated. With a system that is based on limited choices, and profitability seen as criminal, critics believe that socialists will find it difficult to keep up with the competition...
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