Saturday 13 December 2008

Today i just listened to 1 podcast in Radio Economic. It was a really long podcast with 40mins talk
I kept reading the economic OCR book to make me dont forget and practising english as well. I ll do the Chrismars revision from tomorow after I print it out
Hehe i found that i m really interesting in history, i read a lot of article about my city in the past - Saigon, but now it changed its name into Ho Chi Minh City. I didnt know how beautiful was it...
Ah i found a picture of my school might be taken 50 years ago too, just little bit different compare to now...hehe



I ll go to sleep now, but before it.. hehe .... here is a really famous and lovely song of Vietnamese people ^^

Friday 12 December 2008

30D left...

I got a bad sick again today, so terrible .... I just listen to 2 podcasts and i just understand may be 30 > 40 % of each. Its really really hard to understand for me. Mr Chris, is it hard because it s talking about business and i dont study it, is it better to listen to radio of BBC ?
Ah.. I read 2 article in free english course as well. ... Im so tired now, i ll go to sleep, gud night every one

Wednesday 10 December 2008

33 days left ...

I just recovered from illness ... I was really sick because of cat's fur and the weather ....., Time past so fast, hopfully that its not so late for me to start today.
Today i finished 2 mock exams of math, now i wont scare about logarithm anymore hehe. And i has done 1 mock exam as well. Mr Chris can you give me a site to download the mock exam and mark scheme ?
I learnt by heart all of the definitions of Unit 1.
This week is a terrible week to me, I lost lots of files and i dont know where is it now, I ll come to lex'house tomorow to borrow him all of his file to copy ...

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Before math test ... hehe



Work of monitor peter hehehe ....


So logical ....


more ...


Good idea >>


and ...


When u get stock ...

Article : Business reaction

The article : Taxes of envy don't add up: Darling's squeezing of the rich will drag us back to the 1970s

From the Article : ECONOMY: The growth that simply vanished - and now Labour will drive national debt to more than £1trillion

Re-budget report


George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has accused the Government of "the greatest failure in public policy for a generation" in its management of the economy.

Monday 17 November 2008

Anthony Grayling in Bombing Civilians in Wartime


Anthony Grayling argues that bombing civilians in Dresden and other German cities in the Second World War was morally wrong.....

Why is in history, the bombing of allies on German cities such as Dressen, that killed thousands of innocents has been largely forgotten. Or how many students nowadays know that the total people who killed by the bombing in Tokyo is higher than the morality from Nagasaki and Hiroshima?. These immoral bombing is hidden behind the reason that the bombing on civilians was an important part to contributeto the victory. Or at least, the explanation is that no war doesn’t have the sacrifices.

He contributed to his argument by showing evidence that how shameful are RAF and USAAF chose population areas to bomb instead of military facilities and building such as rail ways or camps. He also gave the idea that bombing in civilians areas is not efficient. He mentioned that the total products of the Germans were still increasing even though the amount of bombs drop on their cities raised by years. Bombing not only was a part of strategy of making the Germans became weaker , but also for the reason that the Germans had to be punished by their culture and their aggression.

Especially, he compared the bombing of USAF on Japan with the terrorism event 11th of September. His opinion is that, the terrorist attacked in 11th September is the same aimed with massacre civilians in World War II bombing by terrorising the rest of the survival population. He didn’t refuse that the bombing in WWII was an attack in a declare war, but anyways, both of them don’t alternate in complexion of moral.

Friday 14 November 2008

About the article...


Long term cures must wait...
In the situation that all the economy in the world is in a serious sick condition, I agree with this statement for the UK economy. When there is a stock to solve a problem, people start to impute the blame to other people, in this case are Mr King, Mr Brown, Alistair Darling...Policies of the government cannot be useful due to the lacking in unifying policies between countries. Looking back to the past, when the Great Recession occur in 1929 in New York, each countries they had their own solution for dealing with this problem. And finally, all of them were falling down together. This is the lesson for this recession nowadays.


Each single action of UK likes keep cutting tax and interest rates seems to be not efficient. By cutting tax and interest rate, it may stimulate the consumer to borrow money to invest, boost the whole economy. But we have to know the situation of the economy now; investing in everything is riskier than keep money in a safe bank, even though the low interest rates. The price of house market is falling down, otherwise price of material for producing is rising, and spending money on investing may be not a good idea. The problem now is to break down the grid-lock situation between banks of countries, which made the economies become stock. All of us now are hoping for a negotiation which will provide corporately efficient solutions of countries together.

Friday 7 November 2008

Sunday 2 November 2008

Thursday 30 October 2008

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Economic Cycle


Unemployment

Economies and Disecnomies of Scale


In January 2006, the market for postal services was opened up to competition thus ending the monopoly of the Royal Mail in the delivery of letters to households and businesses. Attention is now focusing on some of the likely rivals to the Royal Mail in the newly competitive market. One such business is TNT logistics. TNT Express Services was established in the UK in 1978, the company has developed its dominant position in the time-sensitive express delivery market through organic growth and, with an annual turnover in excess of £750 million. TNT employs 10,600 people in the UK & Ireland and operates more than 3,500 vehicles from over 70 locations. TNT Express Services delivers hundreds of thousands of consignments every week - in excess of 50 million items per year.
(Source: TNT investor relations web site)
This is a simple example of the economy of scale. Why the economy of Scale is important to the TNT company ? In the competition of delivering services, the most important point to be successful is fast, and cheap. By increasing amount of employees, vehicles in a large area, TNT they can improve their speed and amount of delivering, make them become more competitive. They might to exploit the technical and marketing economy of scale, to increase their competitive

Thursday 23 October 2008

Market Failure and Government Failure

320.b
321.a
322.b
323.a
324.c
325.d
326.c
327.a
328.d
329.c
330.b
331.a

Flow of Income and Spending


Questions :

1- A fall in business confidence among UK manufacturing firms. A fall in expectation of investors will make them tend to withdrawl capitals >> It's the leakage in the circular flow and also contract the the ouput of country.
2- The pound rises by over 5% against the US dollar in the global currency markets. The rise in exchange rates will increase the price of exports >> It's the injaction into the flow and extent the national income.
3- The government announces an above-inflation pay rise for nurses in the NHS. In this situation, this is the spending of government to encourage people to take off welfare, and to take a job instead. It's the injection to the flow of income and also extent the National Income
4- Nissan decides to reduce investment spending at their main Sunderland plant and shift some car production to the Czech Republic. The withdrawl of Investment is the leakage in the circular of Income and Spending >> A Contraction of National Income
5-The government announces a fall in the rate of taxation applied to the interest paid on savings in bank accounts. This announcement will decrease the money from saving of consumer in order to spending or invest. It's the injection into the flow and the extent in National Income.
6- The UK reduces the size of an import tariff imposed on imports of Chinese clothing and footwear. A decrease in tax for import will make the price of import cheaper, and the consunption of import will increase. It's the injection to the flow of income and spending to China whereas the leakage to the flow in UK.
7-The annual rate of economic growth in the United States increases following a fall in US interest rates. It is the injection from government to boost into the flow of Income and Psending >> The extention in US National Income
8- The government decides to increase the UK road-building programme by £600m . The increase in government expenditure is one factor that inject into the flow >> causes an extention in National Income
9 -The Bank of England‘s Monetary Policy Committee decides to cut interest rates from 5% to 4% . With the reduction in IR, consumer tend to save less and spend more >> an injection into the flow of Income and spending, and also the extent in National Income

Consumer Surplus




Wednesday 22 October 2008

Buffer Stock


Minimum Prices


Aggregate Demand


Small questions about AD :
State whether each factor is likely to increase or decreases the level of aggregate demand for the UK economy (other factors remaining the same).

1 - The government decrease the rate of income tax from 22% to 20% . The lower income tax will boost the power of buying of consumers, so it will increase the most important component of AD - consumption >> It will increase the level of AD
2 - There is a 20% fall in average UK house prices over a two year period. The reduction of house prices will cause the fall in Consumer wealth, reduce the power of buying >> It will decrease the level of AD
3 - There is a consumption boom in the countries of the Euro Zone. The increase of demand in exports will inflow the demand into circular flow of income and spending >> Increase the level of AD
4 - The exchange rate between sterling and the Euro appreciates by 15% (i.e. goes up in value) over the course of a year . The lower level of exchange rate will make the price of export cheaper >> Reduce the AD
5 - A new survey finds that business confidence has hit a 5-year low. The lower of expectation of the producer will narrow the amount of small firms, reduce level of capital investment>> Lower level of AD
6 - The government announces a £400m plan to build a series of wind farms across the UK . The more increase in Capital Investment, the more increase level in AD
7 - Consumers decide to increase their savings ratio . Reduction in consumption will decrease the level of AD
8 - Bank of England signals rise in interest rates of ½% . The rise in IR will decrease the borrowers to invest >> decrease in Capital Investment >> Decrease in AD level
9 - The government increases government spending by £1 billion but raises the amount it takes in income tax by £1 billion . It's uncertain to consider the change in AD.
10 - Chancellor announces tax exemption scheme on new investments for small to medium sized businesses. The encourage of the government to boost the investments will increase the level of AD.

Monday 20 October 2008

Sunday 19 October 2008

Smoking ...



Smoking ….
Even though the government tried many ways to restrict the increasing in the amount of smokers, they are still increasing. Over 80,000 people die from smoking-related disease in England every year. Treating smokers costs the NHS in England £2.7bn a year, compared with £1.7bn a decade ago, a report claims. After many policies like increasing tax, Tobacco’s package must has “Smoking Kills”, and not allow to sell tobacco to person who under 18, the government still seems to do more. They are considering to ban smoking in the Public Places. This solution cause arguments between economists. It's may be really benefit to the social. A lot of people who doesn’t smoke died because some diseases related to smoking. Furthermore, this will bring a lot of profit to pub, bar, places having smoking area. Because that people they can’t smoke in the street or park, they will tend to go to pub, bar to smoke and drink there. In other aspects, some economists critic this solution. They agree that will decrease amount of money that NHS must spend, but it will cause the lack of freedom. More than 20 millions adults in UK smoke, and they must stop their habit everyday for the social benefit. One more reason, restaurant, pub, night club … they must narrow the size of space to build the smoking area for consumers, that will cause a reduction of profit of them.
Turning to the article about the 50 pounds penalty for the bus driver, it will reduce the market failure. In the small view, the bus driver, he spent more than 50 pounds for a pack of cigarette, while an statistic shows that the social cost for a pack of cigarette is approximately 2 pounds. The social benefit is more than the private benefit – external benefit, and it will reduce the market failure. But if we put this in the larger view, this penalty, not only affect on the bus driver, it also affect on other smokers – especially bus driver smokers. Other people will see that the law of the government is strict, more people may be more respecting the law. Less people under 18 smokes, more people will smoke at the right place for smoking , more students of EF will not smoke at table tennis …. All of this will contribute to the reduce of social cost, and also lower the market failure ..


Obesity ......






-Obesity is being a big problem that the UK council must deal with. Obesity could cost NHS in England £6.3bn by 2015 if no effective action is taken says the Department of Health. Not only in the health care case, but also in others social services. Due to the increasing of obesity people, there will be a lot of changes in public services. The furniture for pupils will become larger for bigger pupils. Or Ambulance equipments might be changed to suitable with fat victims. According to Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, "Without action this could rise to nine in 10 adults and two-thirds of children by 2050 in UK”. It seems to be the market failure if we put it in economic considering. Obesity has the negative externality. The consumers who buy fatty, high quantity sugar food, they just pay for the cost of the food they bought. In this case, the social cost is more than the private cost. They didn’t pay for the cost that the council pay for the re-equipped in furniture at schools.




Tuesday 14 October 2008

For Lehman Brothers


The Lehman Brothers investment bank declared itself bankrupt more than 1 month, but this will exist for a long time as a lesson for future generations. Let’s go through this problem.Lehman Brothers is ranked 2nd biggest bank in the USA. With a history of more than 150 years, and employment of more than 9000 people, this bank was never expected to collapse. But what made this bank die? It can be explained by 3 reasons
-First of all, the risk decisions.
I talked about one kind of the credit crunch in my last entry – the sub-prime. Because of the high profit of lending money with high rates to people to buy houses, Lehman Brothers spent billions of dollars in this market. And finally, after the recession of US economy, this bank lost an enormous amount of money .In fact, Lehman’s managers predicted the terrible affect of the recession on mortgages, so that they tried to reduce a large amount of money from this investment. But it was too late for them.One more point that we should know about this bank is that the president of Lehman Brothers is Dick Fuld, who has been with the company for more than 40 years, and holding the highest position of this bank for 14 years. He is very careful. But why did he decide to take risks and ultimately cause the end of the company. It can be explained by the fast growth of the world’s economy. Because of this, Lehman had to extend their range, so that they needed lots of capital. And the high rates from lending money to people to buy mortgage was the solution.
-Secondly, the lack of flexibility in Negotiation...
In fact in the recession of the US economy, it is not only Lehman Brothers that fell into this storm, but also has many famous names : UBS, Citi, Merrill Lynch, Bear Steans, Morgan Stanley, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. All of them had lost an incredible amount of money, which totaled hundreds of billions of dollars. But why did just Lehman collapse? Lehman had at least one opportunity to save themselves. They could have been captured by the Korean Developing Bank or Barclays to help themselves, but they couldn’t do that because of the disagreement in price.
-Finally, due to ‘luck’
We can see that after Lehman died, the government spent 85 billion dollars to save AIG, but why they didn’t do that with Lehman? Lehman was dying at the same time with some big names: Merrill Lynch, Wamu and AIG. So if the government spends money to save all of them, they will encourage the continuing of risk investment – sub prime. Furthermore, the United State is in the process of choosing a new president, and if Bush is using money taken from the tax payers to rescue all of these banks, it will not be good for John McCain, so one of them must suffer, and the government chooses the ones to stay and the ones to go.

Credit crunch


Credit crunch …
We spent all of the previous week talking about the credit crunch, and we heard an interesting presentation from Dima about this problem. Let's summarize it: What is it mean, how does it occur and what is the final effect of it on the economy? Let’s have a look.
Credit crunch, what does it mean??In simple terms, it is the extension of the recession of the economy. Credit crunch is the situation where the rates for borrowing are raised, making it more difficult, maybe impossible for people, or companies to borrow money. There can be three reasons to explain this:
- The fear of the lender in a time when there are too many bankruptcies
- The increase in the rates of the State Bank
- The sub-prime
What does sub prime mean? Sub-prime is the money borrowed to buy houses (mortgages) from people who can’t pay back the money. The borrowers may be poor or unemployed people. Most of the sub-prime is borrowed by immigrants, but otherwise, the rates of borrowing are very high, and it can make a big profit for banks if they are lucky. Even though banks know that it is a risk to lend money, they still do it.
And finally, when the recession occurs, the price of houses falls dramatically and for people borrowing money, it is nearly impossible to give the money back to the bank… It caused an enormous loss for the bank. This situation caused the collapse of one of the biggest banks, the 158 year old bank in Wall Street – The Lehman Brother, in September 2008. Overall, a credit crunch can do a lot of damage to the economy by reducing the economic growth through decreased capital liquidity and the reduced ability to borrow. Or it will make the recovery of an economy slower.

Sunday 12 October 2008

The determinant of Demand In Market

I’m having the presentation in this week. This is what I will talk about in the presentation. Hope everybody read it and prepare question 2 me …..
The determinant of Demand In Market

First of all, we must avoid the confusing between two definition : Demand and Quantity Demand is DIFFERENT
Quantity demanded
is amount of good or service that buyers desire to purchase at a particular price during some period. Quantity demanded changes according to the price. Quantity demanded is basically a point on the demand curve, while demand is the actual curve
Change in Demand: when the demand curve shifts left or right due to a change in one or more of the determinants of demand. A change in demand means that for the same price, customers are now willing to buy more of a certain product.

Change in demand may be caused by these following determinants of demand (TOIESS):
-Taste ( or the consumer preferences) . For example, in a same store, there are two kinds of juice, orange juice and apple juice. If the consumers tend to prefer orange juice more than apple juice, it will cause the shift in the demand curve : shift to the right in orange juice demand curve and to the left of apple juice
-Other Related goods. We all know about the complement and substitute in cross elasticity . ( negative value for complement and positive value for substitute goods).
1- Substitute : the increase in price of a product will increase the demand of the other product. Ex : the increase in price of play station 3 will make the demand of xbox360 shift to the right.
2-Complement : the increase in price of a product will decrease demand of the other.
Ex : the increase in price of oil will cause the reduce in quantity demand of cars using oil as fuel.
-Expectations:
The expectation of higher price in the future will make the consumer buy more right now. And vise versa, if the expectation of lower price in the future will cause the reduce in demand. Investors predicting a higher price of a product in future, so they will tend to buy it and sell it to gain profit.
-Income :
The change in income will cause the change in demand because the power of buying of the consumer is higher. It will have two situation
The demand curve will shift to the right with normal good : (which have positive YED value) . If you have higher wages, you may be change a new car, or change the newest cell phone
The demand curve will shift to the left with inferior good : (which have negative YED value). If you earn more, you will not buy second hand goods, or don’t want to buy cheap food.
-Size of Market
More potential consumers make a greater potential demand for certain products.
The demand for machinery to construct building increase in Iraq, Afghanistan because
-Special Circumstances
Natural disasters or any unexpected situations that might affect demand
Ex: During summer, a chill comes along for a week, disrupting the sale of ice creams
Ex: News report toxic material found in corn canes, as a result, consumers stop buying corn canes

Wednesday 8 October 2008

Elasticity Mindmap


(Did i have mistakes ? I wondered that is there elastic and inelastic in inferior goods )

Monday 6 October 2008

WHy is there a light in refrigerator but not in the freezer ?

-Why does it have a light in the fridge ? Because that in the night, if you want to take some thing from the fridge, you wont need to turn on the light of the kitchen - it may be disturb people in house, or may be it will be harder to find the button of the light than the fridge . But I think that hardly to find someone get up in the middle of the night to get ice cream or cold-food . But in fact, nowaday, producers is tend to satisfy every kind of customer, so it will not be amazed if you have a freezer with a light ...

-It is some information that i got :

1. Because the temperature in a freezer is much lower than of a refrigerator, a much more expensive shatterproof bulb would have to be used. In fact, if you put a common household bulb in the fridge, it will be fine. But put it in the freezer, and it should crack after a few hours (or days, depending on the temperature you freezer operates at).
2. Because there is less demand for illuminated freezers and yet midnight snacking almost exclusively demands a refrigerator lamp, lamps are often only fitted on the higher end models.
3. Standing freezers often use closed-off pull out drawers. In order to effectively illuminate the entire fridge, a lamp would be required behind each shelf. Each of these would need to be shatterproof. (www.fluther.com)

P.S : i'm wondering that which question i will do tomorow ... I'm so full of everybody idea .... Gud night ... +.+

Thursday 2 October 2008

Why are whales, not chickens, in danger of extinction. ?


(It looks like a whale, doesn't it ?)

First of all, it's obvious that the supply of chicken is much more higher than the supply of whales. They are feeding chicken to take meat but no one feeding the whales in order to take meat from them. Further more, a whale took much more time to have a next generation, but a chicken just take a week..... Let's trying to explain like an economist ( ... ) . The supply of whales is inelastic. May be some one takes money to create a big pool to have some whales for taking meat. It will make the price of whale higher because of the increase in productivity cost, but it just increase a little amount of whales in the market. So anyways, the amount of whales also less than chickens very much. And the whales, not chicken, in danger of extinction

Why are colour prints so much more expensive than black and white ?


I think the different in ink's price make the unequal in pr inting. And the higher price of producing colour inks make it more expensive. In arting, you are easy to have black or white colour. But if you want to have other colour, you must mix it together. For example, if you want to make green, you will have to mis yellow and blue, or to make purpil, you will mix blue and red. One more reason that i think it makes the price of ink colour more expensive is that, the supply of ink colour is much more less than black and white. In a paper, more than 80 percent is for black and white, and the rest of it is other colours. So you can finished a bottle of black ink in a week, but you might not finish bottles of different colour in a month (except you use other colour to text, not black) :)

Why do theatres discount prices on square tickets just before a performance whereas airlines and rail companies raise prices for last minute customers


Get the last tickets for a film at the cinema is quite different from getting a ticket for a flight at last minutes. Who is buying tickets at last minutes for a film ?. Some of them are people who dont have the plan to see that film, so that if the price of the tickets reduce, the demand for the tickets will increase, and the theatre will get more profit. Or customers who buy those tickets may be lated, and they dont want to miss any scenes of the film, so they may tend to wait for another times to watch this film. This is many substitues for this situation (restaurent, or cofee).

But the customers who buy last tickets for a flight is different. People usually buy tickets before a week at least, so that people who want to buy tickets last minute before the flight is very need it. Some bussiness man can buy it with any price for being on time at a conference. It makes the price of flight tickets become inelastic. So of course, the flight company will increase the price of tickets to earn more profit in this situation.

Friday 26 September 2008

How can justify a right salary cap ??


In professional sport, the effective of clubs depend on the salary cap of them. If your salary cap is high, so that you will have more money to buy good players, and with high salary, players of your club will be sastified, they will play better. But do not many clubs have a lucky like Chelsea football club, the club has a boss - Roman Abramovich - who doesn't care about the salary cap. Most of manager must think how to use the salary cap effectively. One of the popular way for solve this problem is signing bonuses.

"A signing bonus incentive to join that company or sign-on bonus is a sum of money paid to a new employee by a company as an . Signing bonuses are almost exclusively only given to full-time salaried employees of a company, as opposed to a temp-hire or intern. These are often given as a way of making a compensation package more attractive to the employee e.g. if the annual salary is lower than he or she desires. It also lowers the risk to the company as it is a one-time payment: if the employee does not meet expectations, the company has not committed to a high salary. Signing bonuses are often used in professional sports, and to recruit graduate into their first jobs" . For example about the signing bonus, you are a football player, and have a 50 million pounds contract for 5 years. Let's say that the boss will give you 10 million pounds for signing bonus, which is all paid out in the first year but gets factored into the cap ( 10 million/ 5 years = 2 million per year). If we suppose that our player's contract is structured so that he has a base salary of $2-million the first year, with higher base salaries in the final two years of the contract, the 7 million (salary and signing bonus) paid out in the first year appears as 4 million to the cap.

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Entry for wednesday :">


Is it efficient to share a bill with your friend ? Well, i think that is rally good, at some aspects. It is good at finance for you. You are having dinner with your friend, and each people may be have same choice of food. If you and your friend order a big meal for 2 or more people, it will be cheaper, and will be have more food while using a same amount of money. More food but cheaper ... :"> .
Well, but it's sometimes hard to share bill with your friends. When you are the person that invited them to go to the restaurant, it would place you into a stranged situation, i think. Because that in western countries, pay by your self what you ate is normal, it's cultural (Is it right ? ). But in other country (Viet Nam), it will be a silence when you and your friend recieve the bill. If you say that you will pay all of this, it's okay. But if you dont say anything, you may have a small argument about who have eaten more food .... :). But anyway, in any countries, share bill is a really good way, efficient way when you go to the restaurant with friends.

Tuesday 23 September 2008

Viet Nam has been ranked 1st in top ten new attractive market by UK


At the newest meeting London for 2 days, from 23st to 24th September 2008, the UKTI ( .... i don't know ...) has published ten new attractive market. According to this, Viet Nam is ranked 1st in 10 country will have the fastest economic growth in the future. In UKTI report, ten countries in this ranking is : Viet Nam, Mexico, UAE, Ukraine, Indonesia, Singapore, Poland, South Africa, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. According to Lord Digby Jones - Prime Minister of Economic of UK, Viet Nam has been ranked 1 because of the amount of labour available for work, and because of the cheap cost of manufacturing a product. And with the population of 80 million people, Viet Nam becomes a big, potential market of the investors. Futhermore, the economic of Viet Nam has been approciated because of the progresson in policies of the Government.

Tuesday 23st 2008


- Why does Kamikaze pilots wear helmlet ??

-------------------------------------------------

First time look at this question, may be you will think that is funny. Kamikaze pilots - who want to die - wear helmlet to protect them. But the helmlet doesn't have just one purpose - to protect their head. In the helmlet, it includes microphone, air glasses, oxygen pipe to make the pilot not be unconscious, help them attack the target successfully. The purpose of the kamikaze attack is not killing themself, it is killing enemy, so it is obvilious that kamikaze pilots wear helmlet