Chapter Six Media Article: B.C. Out Performs Disposable Income

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=e818e927-5900-4c3c-8c33-7e2c296fe972&k=20144

Summary:

British Columbia people are enjoying their biggest gains in disposable income in almost two decades, the Business Council of B.C. reported today. Consumers spent heartily on new furnishings and appliances and purchased new cars in record numbers. Personal consumption, which accounts for nearly 65 per cent of the provincial economy, climbed by an impressive 5.3 per cent last year, according to the business council's latest economic snapshot. In turn, the provincial economy expanded by 3.6 per cent after inflation, extending the strongest expansion in at least three decades. Although that's just shy of 3.7 per cent growth in 2005, B.C. ranked second only to Alberta in boosting real gross domestic product last year and easily beat the national growth rate - 2.7 per cent - for the fifth straight year. For individuals, that means higher incomes. On a per-person basis, personal disposable incomes surged 6.2 per cent in 2006. This follows back-to-back increases of roughly 4.0 per cent in 2004 and 2005. As a result, per capita after-tax income in B.C. is now 15 per cent higher than three years ago. Even after inflation, British Columbia people are enjoying the largest real increases in disposable income - 4.8 per cent last year and 10 per cent over the past three years - in almost two decades. Strong job and income growth is expected to support household consumption, while healthy business investment, an array of large infrastructure projects, and preparations for the 2010 Olympics will boost construction activity. But even with slightly slower growth, B.C. is set to continue outperforming the Canadian average by a substantial margin.


Related To The Chapter:
Disposable income is the income that remains in the household after taxation. It is the most important determinant of the level of household spending. There is clearly a positive relationship between disposable income and consumption. As disposable income increases, consumption will increase as well. This will increase job opportunity for people who are unemployed. As job opportunity increases, more people are employed so more people will have disposable income to spend. This causes a increase in Gross Nationals Product too. As a result, all these factors keeps the economy going on.

Personal Reflection:
An economy with very small amount of people spending is not good for the economy. If people don't have disposable income to spend, less people would spend their money on luxury items, so spending decreases. If that happens, it is really hard to keep the economy going. In order for people to have disposable income to spend, the following would help. If people are unemployed, more job opportunities must available for the unemployed. Also getting a promotion would increase your disposable income since your salary is raised after promotion. More spending would bring good results to the economy.

Chapter Five Media Article SA's Employment Rate Improves

link: http://www.southafrica.info/doing_business/businesstoday/businessnews/732588.htm

Summary:

The South African unemployment rate had declined to 25.5 percent in September 2006, down from 26.7 percent in September 2005. The results of the labour force survey done in September last year shows us that 4 391 000 people were unemployed, compared to 4 487 000 people who were unemployed in September 2005. The country's absorption rate, the percentage of the population of working age who were employed, are steady at 42.7 percent with the number of people employed at 12 800 000 and the labour force participation rate at 57.3 percent. The trade industry including wholesale and retail has made the single largest contribution to total employment with 3 055 000 people employed or 23.9 percent. Community and Social Service made the second largest contribution with 18.1 percent and manufacturing the third largest with 13.6 percent. The downwards trend of employment in the agriculture sector was reversed with the industry contributing 163 000 new jobs to the market. Stats SA said subsistence farming has become an increasingly important source of employment in South Africa. One in every three of the 500 additional jobs was in agriculture, Stats SA said. Elementary work dominated employment opportunities with one in every five employed people doing such jobs. However, the three highest occupation levels were managers, professionals and technicians, together accounting for 21.1 percent of the total employment. In September 2006, formal sector employment excluding agriculture accounted for 65.8 percent of total employment. Non-economically active people amounted to 12 815 000 of whom 9598 were not available to work and 3 217 000 were discouraged about not finding work or people who did not take active steps to seek employment.

Related to chapter:

In Chapter Five, Economic Indicators, talks mostly about unemployment rate. Unemployment rate is the percentage of the labour force that is not employed yet is seeking for a job. It is a really good indicator for measuring economic activity. Unemployment rate varies by age, sex and province. An economy having a high unemployment rate tells us that our economy might be in danger if the employment rate keeps rising. In order to prevent from that happening, solutions are illustrated below in the article. Unemployment rate could be calculated by taking the number of unemployed people over the labour force.

Personal Reflection:

An economy with a high rate of unemployment could lower its unemployment rate by doing the following. You could employ a lot of people in a certain industry that requires a huge amount of workers. You could provide more jobs opportunities for people who are unemployed. Having a low unemployment rate doesn’t mean it is positive effect to the economy. For example, unemployment rate may lead to a positive and a negative effect to stock markets. First, lower unemployment rate signals a strong economy, higher potential profits and that's good for the stock market. Second, lower unemployment may increase expected inflation and lead to higher interest rates that are bad for the stock market. Third, lower unemployment rate may lead to higher wage inflation that is bearish for the stock market.

Chapter Four Media Article:

Name Of Article: Lane County Commissioners enact income tax

Address: http://www.kmtr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d9ba114e-c333-4b05-a51b-9677e222fe05&rss=191

Summary:

Commissioners say the income tax is necessary to maintain the County’s current public safety service levels in the trail of the expiration of the federal payments to counties program or Secure Rural Schools. In a 3 to 2 vote, the result turned out to impose the tax on personal, non-resident and business income beginning July 1, 2007, raising $32.5 million. They all together approved a motion directing county staff to prepare a proposed charter amendment that would cap the income tax and dedicate revenues to public safety. The charter amendment would likely be referred to voters in the November election. The income tax regualtion is dedicated to maintaining public safety services including adult and youth corrections, crime prevention, detention, supervision, patrol, mental health and crime victim services, and alcohol and drug treatment. The income tax will be reduced if the federal Secure Rural Schools funding is replaced by June 1. After June 1, if Congress provides funding, the Board would hold a hearing and decide how much to reduce the tax rate. The regulation also offer 60 percent of property tax revenues for public safety purposes as part of the effort to stabilize the public safety system with two funding sources. In addition, the Board dedicated 2.2 percent of Lane County’s current property tax revenue, or about $650,000, be devoted for extension services and 0.7 percent, or $205,000, dedicated to stabilize funding for veterans services.

Relate to Chapter:

As we are taught in chapter four, everyone has to pay income tax but it depends on how much they need to pay. If some of the people has high income, they would need to pay more than the people who have less income. For people who earn less than ten thousand, they pay far less than the people who earn more. The income tax, taken from the government, are used for the different categories that they would spend it on. For example, they would spend it on maintaining public safety services including adult and youth corrections, crime prevention, detention, supervision, patrol, mental health and crime victim services, and alcohol and drug treatment. They spend most of the income tax that they collect from the citizen to try to improve different goods and services provided to us. The disadvantage of increasing the income tax rate is that the people who have low income wouldn't be able to afford to pay the income tax. It's impossible for the people who only earn less than 10,000 dollars a month to pay the income tax. For the people who earn a high amount, it wouldn't be a problem for them to pay it but some would not agree to increase the income tax.

Personal Reflection:

I think the government should not raise the income tax. Its impossible for the poor to afford paying the income tax. Even if they would reduce the income tax rate after the federal Secure Rural Schools funding is replaced, its not known when this will happen or not. If it doesn't the poor people would have to continue to pay high income tax rate. If this continues, the poor people would not be able to afford it. They should set a date on when they will reduce the income tax rate. Also they could get fundings from the Congress to support what the government is improving services on different areas. These two ways can help the government not to raise the income tax rate.

Chapter Three Media Article MySpace Is a Natural Monopoly

URL address: http: www.linuxinsider.com/story/must-read/55185.html

Summary:

This article talks about Myspace. Our economic teacher teaches us that the markets for goods or services are natural monopoly. Myspace is an example of it. Social networking, after all, is simply a peer-to-peer communication network. Users put information about themselves onto a Web page and then link it to pages made by acquaintances.The resulting online network duplicates offline social connections and facilitates communication between the parties. The end-result is simply a hyper-efficient enhancement to traditional word-of-mouth exchanges.Instead of getting together with friends and asking, "Has anybody heard how so-and-so is doing?" social networkers can simply trace the online connections until they find the person in question and learn the latest. Myspace has the largest social network and its value grows as the number of users increases. It also grows as the amount of information it holds increases. Social networks, unlike instant messaging, require a higher level of "investment" from users. They must not only create a list of "friends" but also spend time and energy providing information about themselves. Alternating between multiple social networking sites entails a greater cost than switching between instant messaging programs.

Relationship to chapter:

Natural monopoly is mentioned in this article. Myspace is a natural monopoly. If it was owned by more than one market than there would be a lot of competition between each markets. There would be a lot of people registering for accounts. This would lead to the network to be stuffed with people. Myspace is very famous among people. People might tell other people about Myspace so more people would register for it. Natural monopoly can be applied to natural monopoly. A lot of people around the world uses Myspace to blog about what they want to share to friends and others.

Personal Reflections:

In my own opinion, Myspace is a natural monopoly because there is only one company that owns myspace. If there were a lot of companies that own Myspace, there would be a lot of competition between the companies. The companies would have a lot of money made because of many people registering to Myspace. Myspace is really popular among people so there would be a lot of people registering for one.

Chapter One Media Article

3mn Face Drinking Water Scarcity In Southern, Eastern China

November 9th, 2006

After the big drought in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Southern and Eastern China will be facing their biggest problem, scarcity of water. Nearly three million people in Southern and Eastern China are facing clean water shortage after the drought; it caused forty-four reservoirs to dry up. More than 2.4 million people are suffering clean water scarcity since late October. The average rainfall in Guangxi has added up to 29 millimeters, 65 percent less than last year. The regional meteorological department said that eight cities and counties in Guangxi had no rainfall last month and the capital Nanning had been experiencing a serious drought for straight thirty-seven days. High temperatures have worsened the situation in the region. Water storage in the reservoirs had dropped from eight billion cubic meters to 4.7 billion after the drought. Forty-six reservoirs in Nanning have gone dry. A separate report from east China's Anhui said that 53,000 people in the province are also facing abnormal drought over the last two months. 60% of the rainfall’s average dropped in the last two months, affecting clean water supplies in three counties of Anqing city and almost 11,61,370 acres of farmland across the province. The city of Anqing hardly had any rainfall since September. That resulted in large number of ponds drying up and rivers running dry. The local government is using tractors and fire engines to bring water into affected areas

Related To The Chapter:

In this chapter, we have learned about scarcity. The more goods that are needed is scarce, more people would be in difficult situations. In my article, China is facing a really big problem. They are running out of water. A lot of people haven't consume any water after the drought. The water supply dropped twice as much as original. This clearly explains that water is scarce in the eastern and Southern part right now. They have only limited amount of water left. Water is essential in life, for the people to live, they must consume water. So if this situation is not solved, then people in China would be in trouble.

Personal Reflection:

I think if people where to only to have a limited supply of water, there would be a big problem for them. If the water are used up what would they do? Without water for a long period of time, people would eventually die. I think the solution they thought of to solve this problem is effective only a certain number of times. I would suggest that they should fill back up the reservoirs by using dirty water and filter all the dirty stuff and make it into drinking water so the people in China will have water to use.

Chapter Two Media Article

Demand For Scrap Steel Is Outpacing Supply

November 9th,2006

The high demand for scrap steel in developing countries, along with demand in China and India that is outpacing domestically generated scrap, will cause significant growth in the scrap metal market, according to the World Scrap Congress 2006 and research by Industrial Info Resources. This rush in demand is fueling the search for alternative sources of supply and the development of new technologies to abuse unproductive scrap. Estimates show that even if all technologically recoverable scrap were to be recuperated, the domestic feedstock available in tons would still be too low to meet material demands. At a meeting of the Ferrous Round Table of Bureau of International Recycling at the end of October, John Neu of Sims Hugo Neu, Richmond, California, noted that there was concern for the future of hard scrap when, two years ago, China was investing heavily in gigantic blast furnace-based steel production. But with substantial new electric furnace capacity being added or proposed in Turkey and a number of other countries, it is proved that scrap is not gone out of the market. He expects that scrap prices will probably increase in December and certainly in January when consumers fill for the winter ahead. In Europe, crude steel production has increased 4 percent to 100.7 million tons in the first half of 2006, while scrap consumption is estimated to have risen 5 percent over the same period to 53 million tons and could reach 106 million tons for 2006, reported Anton van Genutchen of TSR GmbH & Company, Bottrop, Germany. Ferrous scrap exports from the EU-25 region soared 124.1 percent in the first half of 2006. But when compared to the same period in 2005, EU shipments to India slumped 78 percent to 288,000 tons.

Relation To The Chapter:
In this article, scrapped steal is being demanded by many countries. The supply of scrapped steel is increasing because of the demanding from different countries are increasing. The rapid increasing of supply of scrapeed steel causing the pace of it to be overwhelm. The more people demand for a product, the more they will supply for it. As they supply more for it both the supply and demand curve will go up. As the supply curve goes down the demand curve will go down too.


Personal Reflection:
I think that the pace of supplying the scrapped steel is going too fast. If suddenly, people stop demanding for scrapped steel and they have a lot of supply of scrapped steel left they loose a large amount of money for producing and supplying the scrapped steel. In the end, they would just have to dump out all the supplying of scrapped steel. I suggest that they should produce a little more of the amount than all the people that demand for so there are only still left overs and could be sold to other people. That way they could save more money and less products being stored. Don't you all think this is a more convienent way to solve the problem?