Thursday, 22 November 2012

Money



               

In the old generations, most of the people buying goods or services by using barter system. They exchange their goods with each other to get what they want. This system bring a lot inconvenient to us such as , wasting our time , we have to think who to exchange with , and how many we got to exchange with. For an example, when a fisher wants to buy a chicken, he will exchange 5 fishes that he has with the farmer that wants to buy fishes. But if the farmer did not want to buy fish on that time, the fisher will get rejected and have to find another farmer or just exchange other goods with his fishes. After this system, people start to create money by using different types of materials, such as circular stones, elephant-tail bristles, gold coins, and also fur. Anything that can be accepted as medium of exchange will be serving as money. 

                For the early generations before us, they started to create money by using paper with a unit showing on it. Money is a medium of exchange that is usable for buying and selling goods and services. Money makes our life more convenient so that we no need to suffer the complications of barter system. For an example, the firm sells us goods by a price label, we just have to consider we want to buy or not and we will pay or just leave the shop.

                Meanwhile, money is also a unit of account. In Malaysia we use Ringgit Malaysia as the monetary units. When the money has it's own unit so that customer can buy the product with a worth price. For an example, money with a unit is easy for the customer to compare the price of the same product in different shops so that the customer can buy the product with the minimum cost or not buying it. The unit of money can also help us clearly define the debt obligations, determine the taxes owned, and calculate the nation’s GDP.

                Lastly, money is also a store of value that people can use to transfer the purchasing power from the present to the future. Most of the people won’t use their money in once. They will mostly save some for the next time transaction. At this moment, most of them will store their money in the safer place they think. Some will store in the back to get interest or some will buy houses for investment or to get rent. Then, holding your wealth is the relatively risk free way to store the money for later use when inflation happen.  

Monopoly



Electricity plays a very important role in our life which means we will often use electricity. If there is no electricity, it will make a lot of electrical appliances are cannot be used such as refrigerator, light bulb, air conditioning and other.

On the other hand, electricity has related to economic and that is monopoly. What is monopoly? A monopoly is a market structure of which a single firm producing a particular good and service. Good produced is not homogeneous but unique in nature. In other words, there is one producer that produces a product for which there are no close substitutes such as TNB, KTM, ASTRO and so on. Moreover, no other firms are allowed to enter the market due to barriers of entry.

In our country, TNB (National Electricity Board) is the sole of company to provide electricity for us so the cost of TNB in the long-run. Besides, the profits of TNB won’t be decrease because everybody needs electricity for their homes or industries. Nowadays, the electricity charges is rise and it influence people have to spend more cost to pay electricity charges. Thus, the profits of TNB will increase. TNB become a monopoly by virtue of a government directive. It is a consequence of imposition of regulation by government that makes entry of new firms unattractive or almost impossible. 



Online Shopping


Online shopping.

                For the new generations teenagers, because of the technology developed they can start to buy shirts, shoes and even books through the internet. Buying things from internet not only will increase the profit of the shop, the profit of post office and government taxes will also increase. There are a lot of different websites to shop online. There is mostly sell Korean brand or some special accessories so that can attract the customers to buy more and get the discount to pay less.

                Furthermore, buying goods online will improve the economy of our own country and also other country. It has to depend buy from which website. This will be better if we can buy stuff from our own country because it brings a lot of convenient and we can pay less for the cost of postage. The most important is we can improve the economy of our own country. So if we buy more from the other country, we have to depend on the currency of the country and the cost of postage will be higher. For an example, if a customer buy shirt from a US website, this will help to improve their economy.

                Moreover, the more the customers buy from online shop, the lesser profit the shops in Malaysia earn. Buying stuff from online shop is convenient because u can stay at home and choose the product you want. This is also a way to low down the rate of air pollution because we no need to drive out to buy. But this will affect the shop that has own business in Malaysia. Less customer to buy their product, most of the small business will face some big problem such as no enough profit to pay for the rent, the government tax and also the bills. At last, the business will closed or some even got into bankruptcy.

                Besides that, online shopping will cause the demand for product produce by Malaysia decrease. Most of the customer choose import product so it will increase the quantity demanded for import product. By looking at the market , when the quantity demanded for the Malaysia product decrease , the quantity supply for Malaysia product remain , this will affect the market and cause shortage for Malaysia product. When this happened, the taxes for the import product must be increase, so this can causes less people buying import product and choose the Malaysia product. Then the demand for Malaysia will increase and the market will be equal and stable.

                Last but not least, online shopping has brought a lot convenient to our life but it also brings some disadvantages to us. We should choose to buy Malaysia product because we are Malaysia, but as a customer we have our rights to choose where we want to buy too. 

The concept of Demand and Supply



 






As we all know, there are a lot of branded clothes selling in the market which are very well known and also attract a lot of customer. For instance, branded clothes boutiques such as Zara, Topshop, Forever 21, Mango, and H&M are all women’s shopping heaven. However, if we have to make a choice between two boutiques, we of course will choose the brand seeing the prices. For example, Forever 21 and Mango are always the best buy for women. But, if there is a change in price between one of the boutiques, customers’ decision might be changing. Therefore, quantity demanded will also change. Let’s say if the price of Mango has increase, customers sure will consider more about purchasing and might switch to other option which is Forever 21. So, the quantity demanded for Forever 21 will increase. 



Furthermore, the change in price and the change in quantity demanded equal to the movement along the demand curve. There will be an upward movement along the demand curve of Forever 21. For the supply curve, its movement s along will also be upward and shift of the supply curve to the right as well. This is because when the price of Mango increases, customers will surely decrease. Meanwhile, customers of Forever 21 will increase.

Instead of changing in price, there are also other factors such as level of income, tastes and preferences, prices of related goods and services and expectations which are indicated to the change in demand. Moreover, actors like prices of other goods, prices of factors of production, state of technology and other influencing factor will indicates the change in supply.

Price Ceiling

Nowadays gasoline price getting higher and higher, many people drive to work, school and other usage. Unfortunately the income of consumers does not increase, it has become a burden to them. So people decided change to use public transport because they can afford the cost of using public transport than driving own car. The economics of the country will be affect by this issue because people lack of income so they have no the ability to purchase. Thus, the economics does not growth instead fall frequently. In this situation price ceiling occurs. Price ceiling is a regulation that makes it illegal to charge a price higher than a specified level. Government puts a legal limit on the higher price of a product. This implementation of price ceiling helps to protect those individuals who lack of ability to purchase the things at a higher price.
Price ceiling must set below the equilibrium price, otherwise price ceiling set above the equilibrium has no effect. Set the price ceiling below the equilibrium, it has powerful effect. When price ceiling is set, shortage occurs. At equilibrium price show the demand has being excess and there is also less supply. It means there is more quantity demanded than quantity supplied. This inefficiency is equal to the deadweight welfare loss. Although it is deadweight welfare loss but it helps a lot of poor individual to purchase what they needed.


Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Does Tourism Affect Economic Growth?



      
        Today, the tourism industry represents one of the most dynamic economic sectors and a determinant of growth in the world economy. Malaysia was one of the world's top 10 tourist destinations last year and it is the only South-East Asian country to make the list in the United Nations World Trade Organisation Tourism Highlights 2012.       

        Our country enjoys a relatively standard of living and an atmosphere of social harmony in a society. Results confirm the importance of tourist arrival on the economic growth by the long term trend of output. The tourism sector and general travel not only represent to the country GDP, but exports of tourism services are also account about exports of goods and services.
       
       
         A positive effects tourism can increases and determines the employment and business opportunities for local people or society. Therefore, many tourist come visit to Malaysia is a source increasing the income of country. The growing flows of tourism, in fact can determine both considerable positive and negative consequences on local economic growth. It helps to diversify the economy, since represents a good alternative to more traditional sectors in developing economic , such as agriculture and manufacturing .
     
        

         Tourism also contributes to government revenues through taxes on incomes from tourism business and taxes on goods and services that provided to tourists, such as room taxes, departure taxes, value added taxes and other. If economic growth increase in the society , currency and living standard in our country also will rise. This is because our salary or income will become higher when economic change goods.       

          

          In conclusion, the relationship between tourism and economic growth is closely related. Tourism sector can represent a determinant factor for growth, mainly in developing countries which recently have faced an increase number of incoming tourism flows. . Since the increasing tourism flows can have determined both positive economic consequences and negative economic consequences to receiving areas, this sector has aimed to contribute our economic growth.

Making a choice


            Everyone has to make decisions. Human always want unlimited choices and things, but sometimes we just have to make a decision because the resources are not limited. Of course, as we have learned that we as consumers being rational will seek to maximize our satisfaction of the goods and services yet firms will seek to maximize their profits. This is refers to Scarcity.
            For instance, I was planning to go Super Junior’s concert last week. Everything went well until I get to know that there was an important English test in school which the date was exactly the same with Super Junior’s concert. Well, which one did I choose? It’s such a hard decision for me to make since Super Junior is my favourite Korean band. I would want to go to their concert desperately but then school test is also important. It concerned about my future as well. At last, school test was the last decision. This is because if I didn’t attempt for the test, I would fail the subject and I have to re-sit. So, school test is the opportunity cost. Opportunity cost means the best alternative forgone after making a choice. It is also describing the relationship of scarcity and choice. However, I had to give up Super Junior’s concert attempt the important English test to get a good result.
            In life, we really have to make decision on everything. Wise decisions lead to good ending. Even though sometimes we are forced to give up our favourite thing, we tend to receive something more precious and priceless.


CONCERT???


OR

IMPORTANT ENGLISH TEST???