Chapter 6

http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=52465&src=site-marq

In this article, “Nintendo Wii outsells Xbox 360 and PS3” by Antone Gonsalves talks about how the new console by Nintendo, Wii, seems to be selling a lot better than the other two consoles by Microsoft and Sony. Xbox 360 launched into market a year earlier than the Wii and PS3, which gave them an advantage of getting better sales, because more games will be released as well as more time for improvements for that console. Xbox 360 had sold a total of 5.4 million consoles since released a year earlier than the other two consoles. Nintendo had sold around 2.5 million Wii in the past 5 months, and Sony had only sold 1.3 million. Although Xbox 360 and PS3 seems to have more games and “better” games released, the Wii is the only console that is out of stock every where in North America.

This article relates to Chapter 6 because the aggregate demand for video game is increasing. If you do a survey to calculate the percentage of people having a video console at home, you’ll most likely get a result of a percentage around 90%. The income of the individual is also a problem when it comes to buying a video game console. The Wii is half the price of PS3 and Xbox 360, and the Wii has a motion censor remote control, which brought video gaming to a whole new level. Unlike the PS3 and Xbox 360 which focuses mostly on selling the console to hardcore gamers, the Wii wants everyone to be able to play. Grandparents, parents, teens, kids, etc. There is no doubt that the Wii will win against the other two consoles.

I personally want a Wii my self, maybe because I want to try out the new motion censor controller, and it seems like a good console for non-hardcore gamers.

Chapter 5

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=a11fb2bc-da7c-4944-9c65-45e3211801df&k=28093


There were 55 thousand new jobs created in Canada in March, but the unemployment rate didn’t change. Although the unemployment rate remained unchanged, the employment rate continues to grow slowly since September last year. The employment rate hit it’s highest in the last 31 years at 63.5 per cent. There were around 150 thousand employment grew in the first quarter of this year, highest first-quarter grew since 2002. 59 percent of the employment rate that grew in March are caused by women that are 25 years and older, 39 thousand jobs were taken by women. In the past 12 months, twice as much women are finding new jobs than men. Canada’s labour force participation jumped 0.6 percent to 67.7 percent this year.

“A quick look at March unemployment (previous month in brackets):
Unemployment rate: 6.1 per cent (6.1)
Number unemployed: 1,094,400 (1,084,000)
Number working: 16,798,400 (16,743,500)
Youth (15-24 years) unemployment: 11.0 per cent (11.0)
Men (25 plus) unemployment: 5.3 per cent (5.3)” Taken from article.

I think this article is related to chapter 5 is because it talks about employment rate. Since this article was written in March, there could be more people working later on in summer and winter than now. For example, Seasonal unemployment could be a cause for low employment at this time a year. Life guards works during the beginning of spring and summer, as Skateboard and skiing instructors work during winter. Those could be the reason for different employment rate through out the year, but will probably have the same employment rate yearly if u averages it out.

Chapter 4

Article - http://www.news.gc.ca/cfmx/view/en/index.jsp?articleid=278319

On February 22, 2007, the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty announced that the $26 billion tax relief package included in Budget 2006 is now a law. This will create benefits for Canadians through out the country. The final budget bill received Royal Assent, and it’s called Bill C-28. Flaherty believe that the New Government have put a great effort in reducing tax rates in Canada, but he still thinks that the tax rate is too high. Therefore he planes to develop Budget 2007 that will lower the tax rate even more. His goal is to make Canada a global leader by achieving a competitive tax advantage in this area. In Budget 2006, the personal income tax rates have been lower 0.5%, the new Canada Employment Credit introduced, and a lot more.

In chapter 4, we learned about taxes in Canada, and what they tax us on depending on the kind of government. In this article, it talked about a reduction of tax in Canada and what will benefit from it. Even though this seems like something good to our country, there may also be negative effects from reducing the tax rate. Especially when Canada is in Debt right now and it’s in need of paying it off. By reducing the tax rate on citizens, it will take longer to pay off the debt, and interest will increase also. This may cost a boost in tax rate later on in the future, when Canada’s debt rise more and more. The reduction is something I must disagree with, but since I don’t have a job yet, I don’t know how it feels to get 1/4 of your pay cheque taken away.

Chapter 3

Article - http://canadaonline.about.com/od/federalparties/a/elihealthcare.htm

When it’s time for election, everyone that is able to vote will wonder which party will benefit the most for them selves. This article talks about how the different federal government parties in Canada stand for health care. The four parties are Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, and the NDP. Liberal, one of the parties that’s more left wing, are promising a Canada health care guarantee. This Canada health care guarantee includes lots of beneficial stuff to patients. For example, the Liberals will put in $300 million to increase capacity in teaching hospital just to reduce wait time for patients. They will also put in $75 million for helping patients in traveling cost incase the patient has to travel to another province for better treatment. The Liberals promises to invest $100 million in the next 5 years to bring more family doctors, and $300 million to help fight cancer. Unlike Liberals, the Conservative party doesn’t focus much on the health care system in Canada, but there are few things they wish to do that can help the health care system. For Example, they wish to establish a Patient Wait Times Guarantee so patients can get acceptable wait times or be treated faster then before. They also plan to introduce a National Disability Act that will give better access to medical care, medical equipment, education, employment, housing and transportation for people with disabilities. NDP party wants to stop any act on privatization of health care in Canada, and is thinking of proposing a Protection of Public Health Care Act. NDP would focus more on drugs for health care; they would phase out the evergreening of patent drugs to make cheaper generic drugs for the market. They will also support investment in care for seniors in Canada, by expanding to a total of 40000 new units by 2009. Like the Conservative party, the NDP would also introduce the Disability Act as soon as possible. Bloc Quebecois doesn’t focus much on the health care system, all they wish to do is to make province caring for their own province and federal government would invest more to Quebec.

Chapter 3 talks about the role of government in the market economy. This article relates to chapter 3 because it talks about how the different governments in Canada wish to contribute to its Health Care system and it also stats what they would do to help out the health care system if they were elected. Since the government contributes a lot to health care, there is a positive third part effect to this. There are less people being sick in the country because citizens would not spread as much disease as before. I think that the Health care system is better when it is public, because this way more people can be saved, since everyone pays for health care through taxes which can help families with low income for expensive surgery.

Chapter 2

Article - http://www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car.htm

This article is base on the hybrid cars everyone is talking about these days. As we all know, a gas-power car (normal car) uses gas to run the car. Since the gas prices are increasing very fast, and the pollution gas cars are giving to the environment. Inventors invented the hybrid car. This kind of car uses a bit of gas, but gets most of its power from batteries. Everyone now might think, “What happens if the battery dies in the middle of driving, and get stuck in traffic?” Even for a hybrid car, it must meet a certain minimum requirements. It must at least be able to drive 300miles (482 km) between refueling the car. Also, it must be able to refuel quickly and easily, and keep up with traffics on the road. A hybrid car is made up of many different parts. It has a gasoline engine like any other cars you know, but the unique part of it in the hybrid is that the engine is smaller and uses advanced technologies to reduce emissions and increase efficiency. Another part of the hybrid car is the fuel tank, the energy storage device for the gasoline engine. Electric motor is a part of a hybrid that you won’t see on other cars often, it acts like a motor and a generator on a hybrid. A generator is another part of the hybrid; it acts similar to an electric motor, but its use to only produce electrical power. One of the best parts of a hybrid car is the batteries. Batteries are energy storage device for the electric motor and energy can be put into the batteries or withdraw from the batteries by the electric motor. Last but not least, transmissions like any other car on the road.

In chapter 2 we have learned about the elasticity and inelasticity of products. For a product to be inelasticity, it must be necessity, doesn’t have good substitutes for the product, and it’s inexpensive, and vice versa for elasticity. This article talks about the new invented hybrid cars that saves gas, and do less pollution. It shows us clearly that gasoline cars are now elastic, and the new cheap hybrid car is the new substitute for an expensive gasoline car. This also shows us that time can make a product elastic. The invention of this new hybrid car might decrease the demand for a gasoline car, because of the oil price increasing rapidly and the pollution it’s giving off to the environment. In my opinion, I don’t think I would buy a hybrid car, because I still don’t trust that the battery, because i think it might die out on you out of the blue.

Chapter 1

Article - http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=3513088

This article basically talks about how scarce wheat have become around the world. This growing scarcity of wheat is causing lots of problems around the world. This reduction in producing wheat, in Australia, Ukraine and Unite States, the price will increase around 50 percent this year, causing a skyrocketing in price. Price in Chicago might jump 47 percent to $7.50 a bushel. If the scarcity of wheat continues to grow, the price might reach it’s highest in the next six months, which would threatening to spur inflation in China and India. Lots of companies are also affected because of this growing scarcity of wheat. For example, produces from Kellogg, the largest US cereal producer, and Kraft foods, the world’s second largest food maker would be affected. Also, consumers that buy products from this producer may stop buying it from them. This would cost the business to lose profits. Even though the price might seem high right now, the price might go even higher in the near future, because of global shortages. The price of agriculture has out performed the prices of energy and metals since September, and this is expected to go on till 2007. If the price continues to increase, people would end up buying less clothing or other stuff you need for food, creating hardship for some countries and people. World inventories of wheat would fall around 43 percent by June to 119.3 million tons, which is the lowest since 1982.

Scarcity is one the things we talked about in chapter 1, we mentioned how scarcity of the product will affect the price of that product. In this article, it talks about the scarcity of wheat around the world right now, and how countries and companies around the world are being affected because of this. This reduction of wheat is a great benefit for farmers, because of the price increase of wheat in these past few years. Although this scarcity might not seem so bad, what if farmers don’t produce enough wheat to make products for people around the world? Since products made from wheat are the cheapest thing you can get, most of the countries around the world rely on wheat. For example, poor families in Africa have bread for their breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If the price continues to skyrocket like this, poor people around the world may not even have any food left to fulfill their basic needs. If you put the negative stuff of how wheat is becoming scarcer than before. I would pretty much want to become a farmer and make tons of money.