Bank Loans

                  You are a college student and you wanted to buy a car to travel to your college. You don’t have enough money so you decided to take a bank loan.

So how does bank loan actually works?

Basically bank loan is where bank offers you a sum of money , that you agree and guarantee to give back. Once you have a bank loan , you have a set amount of money that you can use within the terms and condition of the loan. You must repay the loan , and the lender always have the right to see that you use your loan money as you described.

Once you have the money . you will be owing the bank a debt. Debt have interest rates. It vary from bank to bank. You need to return back a sum of money as agreed  plus interest  by a certain date stated

.

In simple you get a amount of money from the bank to purchase what you need and return it back later on. Ultimately you had to pay back more than the item price itself.

 Now you can get your car first , and pay later.

Written by Kenneth Khew

Benefits of Air Transport

There’s about 1,568 commercial airlines , 23,884 aircraft in commercial service and 3,846 airports. So why is there so many airlines and airports around the world? For most of us , aeroplane is just a mode of transport to a certain destination point A to B. However if we look at the economic prospect air travel is more than that. Generally air transport drives economic and social progress , it connects people from different countries and cultures. It forges links between 2 different countries and provide us access to global market and generate tourism and trade.

Here are a list of economics benefit that we can get from air transport.

• Air transport industry supports 56.6 million jobs around the world.
  -This indirectly reduces the unemployment rate.
• Air transport provide the only worldwide transportation system which make it essential for global business and tourism.
  - A country can improve living standards and get out of proverty 
• Air transport can carry a large number of freight at a short time.
  - Businesses can be expend to an international level and generate more income

How can Malaysia benefit from Air transport?
Malaysia Goverment had always emphasis on trousim. This is because if there's more tourist come over to Malaysia , we can benefit from foreign exchange earnings and others from taxes. This will indirectly result in infrastructure development such as roads , public transport , electricity and communications . It also help to generate more job.

Written by Kenneth Khew

Fierce Competition of MapleStory

                MapleStory is a free multiplayer online role-playing game that is developed by the South Korea company, Wizet. Wizet generates income by selling cash for the game to players; using cash, character appearances and gameplay enhancements can be purchased from the Cash Shop. There are also merchandizes available for hardcore gamers. Through this, Wizet earned over US$ 300 million and had a total of 39 million users worldwide in 2006.

                  MapleStory is a monopolistic competition as it has small market shares, no collusion and is independent on its own. The game is a differentiated product and has several close substitutes. It has a fairly elastic, downward sloping demand curve. Consumers are fairly responsive or sensitive to price changes. There are no barriers to entry and they are a price maker, a firm that can influence the price of a good or service. In the short-run, there is no doubt that this firm makes supernormal profits with their total revenue higher than total cost and average revenue higher than average cost.

              However, with plenty of updates to upgrade the gameplay with different characters, monsters and easier task to level up, it created mixed reviews. This resulted in a number of consumers quitting the game but there are still beginners that get addicted to this game.

Written by Amy Ong

Volcanic eruption effect the market equilibrium in New Zealand

          Volcanic eruption had erupted in New Zealand on Thursday. According to the volcanologist, the volcanic is expected to be erupting again at any time during the next few weeks. Due to the volcanic eruption, many crops such as fruits, vegetables, and wheat have been destroyed. So, volcanic eruption had affected the market equilibrium in New Zealand.

            Market equilibrium is a state of balance where the quantity supplied equals to quantity demanded. When the demand for food in New Zealand is in shortage, which is a situation that consumer are willing to buy more than the producers are willing to sell, the price of food will increase. Higher demand leads to higher equilibrium price and higher equilibrium quantity. In this case, the demand curve will shift to the right. The graph below shows the demand curve shift to the right.

          When the crops are destroyed by the volcanic eruption, there are not enough of resources to produced food. Therefore, the supply for food will be lower. Lower supply leads to higher price and lower quantity exchanged. And so, the supply curve will shift to the left. The graph below shows the supply curve shift to the left.

                     In conclusion, the volcanic eruption will effect the demand and supply curve for the food so that the price will be equilibrium.

Written by Chai Ching Wan

      

Sternly concern about manpower shortage in Malaysia.

Contractors Association of Malaysia issued a statement Monday, urging the government to be introduced ASEAN, China and India, foreign workers as soon as possible to meet the manpower needs of the construction industry unabated. 

Our Country is facing a serious shortage of manpower, the Government continues to try to relief, the problem is bound to the continued deterioration in turn have a negative impact on the national economy. “The total cost of 70 billion ringgit in 2008, the construction works, construction manpower of 50 million, the gross value of construction work now raised to 90 billion ringgit, a rough estimate, the country must add at least 100,000 construction workers, and to make all projects completed on schedule..” said the formal president of Contractors Association of Malaysia MR WONG.

Usually the twists and turns in construction work, contractors operating improperly or do not know self-love, the second is the fiscal situation occurs at the source, then the human resource issues.

Committed to promoting a number of development projects, the government must plan the manpower for developers and builders, for the rapid and stable development of the construction industry, the Government must live to fill the number of foreign workers. 

The construction industry because of the manpower shortage problem fall into adversity, is a misfortune of the country, however, unrestrained foreign labor, but certainly not the best solution to solve the problem, once the economic downturn, the construction projects put slow, surplus of foreign workers will pose a threat to internal security.

Written by Tan Chin Yang

Automotive Impact To The Economy.

By looking at all the modes of transportation , car have the highest cost per-person kilometre travelled compare to busses or trains. However the demand for automobile is increasing and  inelastic especially on the rich country. This suggest that there’s certain advantage for the consumer such as it is able to do door- to-door  travel which no other mode of transport can do so. Despite the recent increase in fossil fuels the demand and supply of cars in the automotive industry is increasing. So how does car effects the economy?

You certainly doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand whether car harms or help the economy. One of the most visible outcome of cars to the economy is the increasing of employment. This is because the number of man power require is increasing at the car factory and car dealer due to the increasing of demand. For example , new plants owned by a foreign automotive company creating job for the community. Transporting and marketing them out are also a additional employment opportunities created by cars. Indirectly , it reduces the number of unemployment to the country.

Cars helped the economy a lot especially in the middle east. Before the invention of cars petroleum is practically useless. However after the invention of cars the demand of petroleum  is increasing everyday thus it helped the middle east country to stay out of poverty.

Without cars company such as Shell and Petronas would had not exist . The increasing number of car on the road indirectly boost their profit as the demand for petroleum increase. (refer to the statistic below)

Written By Kenneth Khew

How February 14th Affects the Economy

                A day when the air is filled with romance and love: Valentine’s Day, a holiday where you reaffirm your relationship and gift something special. While it is an occasion for lovers to reminisce their past together, it can be also a day to express gratitude towards someone. Thus, Valentine’s Day has a significant impact on area’s economy and the total revenue generated increases yearly.

As we march towards modernity and higher living qualities, the younger generations have more freedom and gained exposures; resulting to start dating from an early age. Steadily, this leads to an increase in demand for gifts due to many lovestruck people. During this season, most firms would practice The Law of Demand, by lowering prices or promotions for their goods to rise up the quantity demanded; there is an inverse relationship between quantity demanded of any good and price charged. 

Although women usually perceive Valentine’s Day more important compared to men, men will spend almost twice as much as women: $168.74 per guy versus $85.76 per gal. This year, an estimation of $17.6 billion alone was added to the economy, thanks to stronger job growth. The higher the income, the higher the consumption even if the price remains constant.

                                                  

Written by Amy Ong

Why Apple is the monopolistically competitive company?

       Nowadays, iPhone 5 and iPad Mini are the nearly popular topics for those who are Apple’s fans and high technology lovers. Why Apple’s company could control the market? Apple’s company could be considered as a large monopolistic competitive firm in the world. Monopolistic competitive firm has large number of sellers. These sellers have small market shares, does not corporate with each other, and independent.

The main characteristic for monopolistically competitive firm is they have product differentiation. Apple’s company differentiated their products by using several aspects. The first aspect is the product attributes. Apple’s has iOS 6 for their operating system which the system can only be used in Apple’s product. Secondly, is the service of Apple company. Apple’s has their own website so that their customer can learn how to use their Apple products and contact for services. Then, is the location of the Apple’s store. Apple’s stores are available in almost all over the world so it is convenience for their customers. Besides that, the brand name and packaging, and the control over price are the aspects to differentiate their products.

Besides that, monopolistically competitive companies such as Apple, Samsung, and Nokia have no barriers to entry into the market. These companies usually need for advertising to ensure that the customers know their differences. Furthermore, the firms are price makers. They usually set their own price because each company produce unique product. As a result, the demand curve will be downwards slopping.

In a short-run profit, the monopolistic competition firm is at profit maximizing level of output which the marginal revenue equals to marginal cost (MR=MC). There are 3 types of profits in short-run. When the total revenue is equal to total cost (TR=TC), the firm is in normal profit which also known as break-even. When the total revenue is larger than the total cost (TR>TC), the firm is having a supernormal profits which also known as abnormal profits. When the total revenue is smaller than total cost (TR<TC), the firm is having a loss so it is subnormal profits. On the other hand, in the long-run profit of the monopolistic competition, the firm only makes normal profits due to the easy entry and exit. 

The following graphs show the short-run profits which include normal profits (Figure 1), supernormal profits (Figure 2), subnormal profits (Figure 3) and long-run profits ( Figure 4).

Figure 1 shows normal profits in the short-run.

Figure 2 shows supernormal profits in the short-run.

Figure 3 shows subnormal profits in the short-run.

Figure 4 shows normal profits in the long-run.

                                                                                                            Written by Chai Ching Wan.