Who Counts as 'Rich'?

Who counts as rich? We can see plenty of times about distribution of income in the United States, and how many rich people don’t realize they are rich, at least relative to the rest of the country. However now Americans had curious about who counts rich. Gallup has surveyed Americans to ask what they believe the cutoff for being “rich” should be. The response was that a person would need to make at least $150000 to be considered rich. However the typical American believes anyone in about the top tenth of the income distribution counts as “rich.” On the other hand, president Obama and others have set the cutoff around $250000 when discussing raising taxes on the rich. From response to Gallup’s survey on threshold for being rich varied tremendously by demographics and geography; men cited a higher bar than women did; $150000 VERSUS 410000 respectively. Also children under 18 said they would require $200000 before considering themselves rich, whereas the childless were satisfied with a $100000 benchmark. For clearly, people who live in urban areas such as New York City, where the cost of living is higher or in suburbs had higher standards for being rich than did Americans who live in towns or rural settings.

Oil's up, Gas is down

Nowadays, in U.S. oil prices over the past few weeks have received a pleasant surprise at the pump. However while oil prices have increased, retail gasoline is moving in the opposite direction. The moves may seem counter-intuitive, since crude oil is used to produce gas. But while the two are closely related, there are a number of factors that can push their prices apart in the short term. Retail gasoline is more expensive than crude oil, because of taxes, distribution and the refining process. Oil and gas have always moved together with gas prices following on oil moves. They do face different supply and demand forces, but sometimes pulled in opposite directions. Gasoline is not the only product for which crude oil is used. Just 42% of gasoline among every barrel of crude oil produced used for crude oil in U.S. The rest was divided among other products including diesel, jet fuel and consumer goods for tires and link. Demand for these products also goes some way to shaping oil prices. Diesel, in demand as a generator of electricity in the developing world, has become more expensive in recent months.

College graduation rates: Income really matters

It's getting more difficult for low-income students to climb the economic ladder as the college graduation gap between the rich and poor grows. While more students from all backgrounds are finishing college, the difference in graduation rates between the top and bottom income groups has widened by nearly 50% over two decades. Also nowadays, education is the most important thing of upward mobility, which means that it’s even more harder for low-income(poor)people to prosper. As follow the some survey, it is recorded that only 9 percent low-income people get college diplomas. From this survey, wealthy made great gains in graduation rates. Why children from low-income backgrounds don't make it through college? One reason from researchers that poor people usually go to lower tier school. Another reason is that their parents don't have the financial means to aid their children. People said that this is a kind of important problem,  because poor people usually does not persist to graduation and this is hard for them to find future. In addition, this would cause to them to discourage and drop out. Today, A lot of better paying jobs require more education and skills that employees can only get in college. This can be problem for policy makers, because they should make programs to promote and protect for poor people to attend and complete college. This includes expanding tuition assistance for poorer children to give them a better shot at future financial security.

United States of Hunger

According to recent study United States spending on food stamps had skyrocketed since the recession began. For last year, more than one in families received food stamps, with some states .having significantly higher participation rates. Oregon is the highest rate in the nation that 17.8 percent of families received food stamps, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Tennessee and Michigan follow Oregon as the next highest rates. Is there any relationship between food stamps rate and unemployment rate? In California, their food stamp take-up rate, for example, to be much higher, since its unemployment rate is 11.9 percent, the state is broke, and so many cities there suffered from housing busts. The graph that showing the relationship between median household income and food stamp take-up rates, and the relationship is relatively weak. In addition, the relationship between unemployment rates and food stamp take-up rates is represented as even weaker. There are a lot of variables not at all reflected by unemployment and median income figures, such as inequality and state safety net programs.

Elasticity - Should We Raise the Price?

Elasticity is a measure of responsiveness. The price elasticity of demand measures the rate of response of quantity demanded due to a price change.

-Example of price elasticity of demand

A toy factory lowers the price of robot toys from $10 to $9 and finds that weekly quantity demanded of the robot toys goes up from 50 per week to 67.

1. Calculate the percentage changes in price and quantity demanded.

     - Percentage changes in price

       : 1/10 x 100 = 10%

     - Percentage changes in quantity demanded

       : 17/50 x 100 = 34%

2. Calculate the price elasticity of demand for the robot toys.
    - 34%/10% = 3.4   (elastic)

3. Calculate the change in total revenue that the robot toys will  experience following the fall in price.
    -Original total revenue: 10*50 = 500
    -Change total revenue: 9*67= 603
    - Increase 103 total revenue





4.Draw a “revenue box” diagram to illustrate the effect on quantity demanded and total revenue following the price change for the robot toys.
 - Left picture






5. Was a factory sensible to lower the price of the robot toys? Explain your answer.
- Yes, because the toy factory can increase more total revenue in lower price than higher price.

Supply and Demand in the Stock Market

A stock is partial ownership of a business or company. As always, there is a risk in trading stocks and shares. People have to consider many factors when they purchase a stock, especially the financial structure of companies. So people would buy a stock that bring a lot of profits and this factor makes a stock more valuable and also makes people inspire to buy. The prices of stocks are determined by supply and demand in the stock market.

A stock has a limited quantity same as other market products. It means that they have a number that the amount of what they bring out and also has a number that distribute in the market. If the supply of a stock increased, the value of the stock falls down so the price goes down. However if the supply drops, the price goes up. For demand, if the stock becomes more popular and everyone wants to buy it, the price increased. If demand goes down, the price falls.

Stocks set for modest losses

Stocks of U.S were falling down, as worries about the stability of Greece and Italy continued to hang over global markets. Some of stocks had dropped continually. Investors remain wary about the European debt crisis, after the Group of 20 summits in Cannes, France last week failed to produce any tangible new solutions. Some of trader said that all is still not well in Europe and it is not going to be better for a while. In addition, they reported that there's a lot more work to be done, so this could drag on a lot further. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou secured a deal to approve a bailout package during last week's meeting of global leaders, but talks yielded limited details. And while Greece has been the center of focus, investors are now turning their attention to the domino effect Greece's problems are likely to have on Italy. Greece is shifting slightly to the backburner and the focus is on Italy, with 10-year yields on Italian bonds rising to new highs. The dollar rose against the euro, but fell versus the British pound and the Japanese yen. People would invest fewer stocks than before European debt crisis. Nowadays, perhaps, demand curve shifts to left (decreasing) and also I think price can be decreasing.

iPhone 4S sold out in Singapore

Apple released its new phone called iPhone 4S in 22 countries. In Singapore, it's already "unavailable" and there would seem the perfect place for an Apple Store. The former British colony of 5 million people on the tip of the Malay Peninsula is the world's fifth busiest shipping port, the fourth largest financial center, the second biggest casino gambling market and first in the percentage of millionaire households. In addition, it can't get enough of those iPhones. The newest model went on sale, but these were the most quickly sold out in the world. Iphone 4S is released at cheaper price than before even though functions are almost same. Thereby, People would buy more than before from cheaper price (Demand increase).

Are Employers Requiring People to Work Longer Hours?

Working hours of employees are falling down according to some surveys. One of the survey asserted that employees have to work more in order to keep what was produced by the formerly larger work force. The surveys for monthly household do not suggest that such a pattern is widespread, because they measure that average weekly hours worked per employed person have fallen to 37.8 in 2009 from 39.0 in 2007. Another survey also measures hours worked, with a similar result. So it seems that the number of people employed and the hours they work have fallen, creating a huge drop in the economy’s total work hours. However, sometimes working hours can be misleading, because reporters use round number even though actual numbers are not round number.  

In this chart, the blue line is based on the household survey and is an index of the average number of hours worked by adults. We can see that only two percent increase from 2003 to 2006, but suddenly this fall down. The red line is also an index of hours worked per person, but based on the time diary methodology. This actually shows there was a mild recession in 2004, because hours worked per person were lower that year than in the surrounding years. Also unlike the household survey, this suggests that work hours in 2007 were abnormally high by comparison with all previous years. Both of lines confirm that hours worked dropped after 2007 and although a few employers may require their workers to work longer hours, the typical pattern since 2007 is fewer hours per employee, and fewer employees. As this article relates to what I've study until now, I can realize that supply curve will shift to left if employers hire fewer employee and they work fewer hours. 

You are in a company and imagine of these conditions. Recruiting process is fundamentally flawed, operations are a mess, make engineers pretty much do everything which leaves almost no time for coding, don't (care) about charity or helping the needy or community contributions or anything like it,  facilities are dirt-smeared cube farms without a dime spent on decor or common meeting areas, pay and benefits suck, don't have any perks or extras, code base is a disaster, with no engineering standards whatsoever except what individual teams choose to put in place, CEO is an infamous micro-manager and doesn't care, even a tiny bit, about the well-being of the teams, nor about what technologies they use, nor in fact any detail whatsoever about how they go about their business unless they happen to be screwing up. Imagine of these conditions, and you are working in this company. However, now get out of the imagination, and be informed about the information. These descriptions was a letter about the company Amazon. But it is strange that a company with these weird conditions produces a lot of money. And that is the exact point. There are no exact answers for business. There is an answer, which is a fearlessly discovering and acting with  honesty.  Now use this term in economy, In economy we were learning about the supplies and demand in the world. The increase of the price the increase of the demand, and the increase of the price the increase of the supply. This is also used in the Amazon world. However, it is a kind of shifting curve of the demand and supply. If the price of the products increase the supply curve will shift to the right. It is society and how the world money cycles.

Are the rich finding the true meaning of Christmas?

Even the wealthiest Americans plan on putting fewer gifts under the tree this holiday season but it's not because they can't afford it. These people seem to be discovering the true meaning of holidays; the holidays are about family and friends, and less about a pair of new cashmere socks. Many affluent consumers are buying fewer gifts this holiday season, because they realized that they don’t need as much stuff and don’t have to spend money to feel happy. In addition, they said that they are going to buy things that symbol the quality of relationship. 84% of affluent Americans said that they want this to be a great holiday season for their family. Eighty-one percent said that the best part of the holidays is spending time with the people they care about, versus only 15% who said it was giving gifts. Just 3% said the best part of the holiday was receiving gifts. As I read this article, I find great enlightenment that is true meaning of holidays. In retrospect, I think that I also expected to receive gifts in last Christmas. I realize once more that holidays are good chance to be close to our family and that is the purpose of holidays. Also this can relate to the law of demand, because as people don’t want to buy many gifts and just buy fewer, demand would be decreasing.

 

What Would It Take to Save Europe?

The article starts by highlighting how pleased officials in Washington were about the mess in the Euro zone and speculations of how much profit can be made only interest of IMF loan of between 1.5 trillion to 4 trillion Euros. When you consider that Germany GDP is about 2.5 trillion Euros then this is a lot of money. Johnson suggests that a huge package of financial support is not the answer to Europe’s financial woes, especially if you imagine Italy maybe given access to this ‘fund’. Johnson then goes on to explain the 1994-95 Mexican crisis and model of support used there, and highlights the reason this would be ineffective within the euro zone because Portugal, Greece and perhaps Italy, badly need a reduction in their real costs of production. If their currencies were independent, this could be achieved by a depreciation of their market value. But this is not an option within the euro zone, and it is within the zone that they need to become more competitive. The most interesting thing, Johnson suggests that Europe needs a new fiscal governance mechanism. Why would Germany — or anyone else — trust Italy under Silvio Berlusconi with a big loan or unlimited access to credit at the European Central Bank? He summarizes by saying that countries cannot pay their debt should not be part of the euro zone as they are breaking rules and the longer this is allowed to continue the more serious situation becomes. He asks if political leaders believe if the debt burdened countries can be trusted to repay their debt. If the answer is yes, full support as needed — from within the euro zone. If not, then find another way forward, but in decision is not helping. This topic relates facts that we've studied in economy class is the countries demand or supply that can change from national debts.

Assignment

The law of Supply is the tendency of suppliers to offer more of a good at a higher price. Sellers supply more goods at a higher price than they are willing at a lower price. 

There are lots of examples of law of supply. Basically, an example of economic activity.  Cost of scarce supply goods increase in relation to the shortages. For example, when Iphone first came out there were lineups of people wanting to get the product. So a large amount were being produced and the prices were able to be maintained very high because they were being bought out so quickly. On the other hand, as the demand on hype over the Iphone decreased and more people purchased one, a less amount need to be produced. This is the law of Demand. It is a law that states that consumers buy more of a good when its price decreases and a less when its price increases (Also known as Ceteris Paribus). 

While researching, Veblen goods are a positional good. Meaning, the product is worth the price. For example, luxury cars that are sold at high prices is mentioned as the desirable due to their price. 

Another is the Giffen goods. It is one which people contractually consume more of as the price rises. Perfumes can be an example of a Giffen Good.

The demand for oil can be influence on price, supply and economy conditions. These are all related to one another and most of all, the price is important things that make a great change in the market among them. However the traditional laws are not concerned with oil prices. Nowadays, oil prices go up, regardless of other facts. Most economies are dependent on oil exports, but the OPEC members and other investors don’t want to supply more for consumers, but just reserve it, because they have made huge investments and want to get more benefits than what they have done. So they are watching for an opportunity to sell at greatly inflated prices even in recession. Due to the price have a lot of change and a chance of increasing prices oil producers just waiting for the best time to sell and it is very hard to predict what’s going on and the future.      


 

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. 

Economic development is a broad term that generally refers to the sustained, concerted effort of policymakers and community to promote the standard of living and economic health in a specific area. Such effort can involve multiple areas including development of human capital, critical infrastructure, regional competitiveness, environmental sustainability, social inclusion, health, safety, literacy, and other initiatives. Economic development differs from economic growth. Whereas economic development is a policy intervention endeavor with aims of economic and social well-being of people, economic growth is a phenomenon of market productivity and rise in GDP. Consequently, as economist Amartya Sen points out: “economic growth is one aspect of the process of economic development.”  Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.


i'm very interested in that subject. That's why i am studying economy.