Solution to Spain’s Unemployment

As seen in an article on MarketWatch.com, Spain has seen a big rise in unemployment. This has a lot to do with the global recession and is not helping Spain at all. Unemployment could greatly postpone Spain’s recovery from the recession and could do some serious economic damage.

A solution for Spain is to raise aggregate demand. Aggregate demand is the total demand for final goods and services in the economy. As you can see in the graphs below, courtesy of tutor2u.net, if the government can somehow raise the aggregate demand, then we will see a consequent raise in aggregate supply. This means a greater need for output and companies will undoubtedly need more workers. That is why you can also see in the graph that demand for labour will increase.

Growin’ in the USA

The US’s GDP growth rate has been very low since the recession. An article posted on MarketWatch.com stated that the GPD growth rate “has failed to surge into to 7% to 10% range as typically happens after a deep recession.” GDP, a summation of consumption, investment, government spending, and exports minus imports, has seen recent growth due to a rise in the consumption aspect of GDP. Economists have seen a 3.2% increase and hope to see even bigger growth in the near future.

Presentation On The BIG THREE!!!

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World’s Greatest Economy?

After presenting our own ideas on the world’s greatest economy, as well as listening through other people’s presentations, it became very clear that Switzerland was number one. It soared through many economic indicators as number one and proved itself a stable and strong economic country.

mexico

Real GDP for the last decade

1. When looking at Mexico’s Real GDP for the last decade, they lacked the drops that other countries have as a result of the recession. I thought it might have something to do with the drop Mexico had in 1994. In 1994, Mexico had the Mexican Peso Crisis in which there was a sudden devaluation of the peso. This economic crisis may have somehow strengthened their economy in the long run to withstand the recession.

Real GDP per Capita for the last decade

2. Here also, in Mexico’s GDP per Capita, there has been no significant drops. It did begin to plateau in 2001, but they recovered from that in 2004.

3. As seen in the GDP growth rate of Mexico, in the last 16 years, they have had 3 significant drops. The biggest drop they have had on the entire graph happened around 1994 to 1995, again as a result of the big peso deflation crisis. Afterwards, their GD increased by quite a bit and after some fluctuation, in 2000, it had another big drop. The rate almost went negative and Mexico made a slow recovery from the drop. The rate has remained below 5%, since the drop, and the rate has been sinking ever since its recovery.

Reflection on Data Response, Diagrams, and Definitions

My econ paper was fairly disapointing. I was fairly disoriented that day and so when I started answering the questions, I did so with very little thought. I didn’t plan out any of my writing so half way through, I already knew my answers were very disorganized and insufficient.

I need to make sure to, in the future, organize my thoughts after reading the article and make sure my answers are organized.

Japanese Economy

Why Japan’s Economy if falling:

1. At one point, Japanese economy was blooming because of the “export-led” growth Japan was making. However, with lack of growth in productivity as well as domestic demand, Japan’s economy slowly died.

2. Japan is in debt! “The central and and local government debt” is around 180 percent of the GDP. The bad news: Japan isn’t stopping and is continuing to borrow money.

3. One third of the populace are now old people. With so much elderly people, the government loses on tax revenues and has to provide for more “health care costs”.

4. Many see Japanese women making a difference. If more women begin working, then the economy will grow. However there are some cultural barriers that need to be broken down before this can be achieved.

5. MORE RISK TAKING needs to happen in large industries. There needs to be innovation. If Japanese companies can once again come up with products for the world, then its export can boom again.

Our First Seminar

As our first seminar came to a close, I couldn’t help but feel like the whole thing had been for nothing. That after a 60 minute period of talking, the question “Is capitalism so deeply flawed that all attempts to ensure the public good is doomed to failure” wasn’t sincerely answered.

This is not to say that we did not have a smooth flowing seminar interspersed with valid ideas, but rather that quite a few people got too caught up with the data and quoting that they forgot to put their own two cents in.

I feel like overall everyone learned a lot. I myself have never dug so deeply into an article about economics. I had usually simply given up after a couple of minutes but this activity really forced me to suck out every last penny out of the articles.

I hope that we can do another seminar sometime in the future where people will feel more encouraged to voice their own opinions and be willing to take risks and be a little original.

Lamp Posts Save The Day!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/8512297.stm

In an article on BBC news, I read that Gloucestershire was going to be investing more than £80 million to provide brighter street lights. This was done in an attempt to eliminate night time crimes.

This is actually subsidizing for the positive externality the lamp posts have. The externality can be seen in MPB and MSB. The marginal social benefit of street lamps is much higher than the marginal private benefit since it accounts for the extra benefits society gains from: a safer environment. So we see the Gloucestershire community here making up for the failing market and paying the optimum price.

Yakiniku: 100th piece still good?

On a late Saturday evening, 5 of my friends and I went to a Yakiniku restaurant. Being the growing boys that we are, we all ordered all you can eat meat. However, this would prove to be deadly.

In the first hour, we plowed through plate after plate and had consumed a very big amount of meat. Miraculously, we were still hungry so right before the last order, we asked for a final round of meat. We ordered multiple plates thinking we could easily finish the food.

However, by the time the meat came out, our brains had gotten the signal that we were full. Panic struck in as we looked at the plates of meat in front of us. We began to cook the meat and one by one, reluctantly eating each piece. After what had seemed like an eternity, we were down to our final pieces. We had done it, but we were on the verge of spewing our insides. As we uncomfortably swallowed our final pieces of meat we realized we had experienced diminishing marginal utility. We had gone from enjoying every single piece of meat, to feeling nauseous and barely being able to think of even eating the meat.

You see, as delightful as Yakiniku can get, when you push yourself to consume more than your body wants, your body stops wanting it. You begin to hate it and this is diminishing marginal utility. Just like with all products a producer sells or provides, too much consumed by one consumer, and they are bound to experience diminishing marginal utility.

A picture from the evening

Diminishing marginal utility is the only reason why stores allow their costumers to eat all they want, because while the consumers think they are getting a great deal, the producers know that they will only be able to eat so much before their bodies starts to reject the food. Its just natural for our body, even with non-food products, to get bored with something after playing too long with it.