The coalition expects 490,000 public sector jobs to be lost by 2014-15 as a direct result of its drastic spending cuts, Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has accidently disclosed. (link to Guardian) In addition the spending cuts, wage freezes and job losses will have a knock on effect to the rest of …
Readers Question: Where is the US economy headed? Is it inflation or depression? Recently, Goldman Sachs predicted a rough year ahead for the US Dollar. They forecast the dollar may fall against Pound Sterling to $1.85 in 12 months. Against the Euro, they forsee it to fall to $1.55 in a year’s time. Exchange rates …
Readers question: Nor do I understand how they can weaken their currency through government intervention, if they are not intervening. Is it only US that is complaining about the value of the Yuan? The main thing is that Chinese Central Banks, with the support of the Chinese government are purchasing foreign assets, such as US …
For many goods we expect the price to be determined by market forces – by supply and demand. For example, computers, cars, holidays, food e.t.c. However, there is another class of good where society dislikes the idea of prices being set by market forces. The best example is football tickets or Concert tickets. . In …
Readers Question: Is the economic demand for a particular product determined solely by its usefulness? Traditional economic theory suggests we buy goods depending on whether we feel it gives a utility sufficiently high to justify the price. As the price rises, we tend to buy less. Last week, I wrote about my experience of buying …
It’s the time of the year when many students are getting to start economics for the first time. It can be a little confusing with so many new concepts and words. But, if we had just one lesson, what could we teach about economics? Society wishes to optimise the distribution of resources. Economics considers how …
Readers Comment: I worked from 8.30-5.30/6pm 5 days a week this summer for £80 a week in a hairdressers, with a 30 min break whenever I could grab it. this is a fixed amount, even if i worked an hour over because we still had clients. Is this wrong? I roughly calculated it was around …
Readers Questions – why do restaurant charge different prices, for instance high price for water and reasonable price for food? ‘Serve them a drink before they can blink’ – this is what I remember learning when I worked in a Little Chef. We were taught to waste no opportunity to sell extras – drinks, water, …