Readers Question: To what extent can the subprime crisis affect the global financial market? The subprime crisis refers to the rising number of defaults on US subprime mortgages. Basically, US mortgage companies sold a lot of inappropriate mortgages to people on low income and poor credit histories. Rising interest rates, and falling house prices are …
But, do they deserve it? Last year, Shell made profits of $27.6bn (£14bn). This equates to profits of about £1.5 million per hour – which by any stretch of the imagination is not a bad hourly earning. The profits have been criticised by trades unions, environmentalists and motoring organisations. Motoring organisations claim that petrol is …
Readers Question: Why the fire service is a public domain and how is the fire service a merit good I think you mean why is the Fire Service a public good? A public good has 2 aspects. Non rivalry – Once consumed doesn’t reduce the amount available to others Non excludability – Once it is …
Already since the start of the year the FTSE-100 has fallen 7%. Yesterday, the stock market fell 3% of 190 points on fears related to the growing credit crunch. In particular, American bank Citibank wrote off $18billion from its mortgage defaults. It hopes this will draw a line under the losses in the derivatives market. …
Readers Question from:Trevor Downer. Glasgow. From what little I know the theory of Economics appears to have very little scientific basis. Two “experts” will give two different answers, add a third “expert” and yet another answer is provided. Can someone explain to me why there is no easy answer to the problem of the Northern …
Q. Use economics and political theory to explain why the fire and rescue service should be provided by the state. I don’t want the answer….I just don’t understand what this means. This revolves around a fundamental debate in economics – How much should the government intervene in the economy? Ideally, goods and services would be …
Sticky inflation is an undesirable economic situation where there is a combination of stubbornly high inflation, (and often stagnant growth). Sticky inflation is often associated with cost-push factors, i.e. factors which cause a rise in the inflation rate but also lead to lower spending and economic growth. Sticky inflation is also sometimes known as Stagflation …
Readers Question: What will happen if OPEC continued to increase oil prices? Firstly, the rise in the price of oil is not just due to the activities of OPEC. It is partly due to the rising demand from countries such as China. If OPEC continue to contribute to higher oil prices in 2008 it would …