PEST Figure 1: PEST Analysis of Global Trends – 2009 - 2013 Political * Government licenses/ regulations * Political relationship for government contracts | Economic * Higher Commodity imports-steel * Slow economic growth | Social * Brand Awareness * Marketing and Advertising * Social Media- Facebook, Twitter, etc. | Technological * Digital climate control air conditioner * Less electricity dependent-more efficient product | In Figure 1 shows the PEST analysis of over-all industry to helps us to better understand what the current global trends are. Government licenses and regulations are a conflict of the political trends due to unionized work force, higher labor dues, and generous benefits. The company plant’s high cost position was inhered to the political relationship within the country government contracts. Higher commodity imports such as steel affected the economic trend and reduce profitability due to slower economic growth and post financial crisis collapse in 2008.
Satoria Mckenzy Principals of Economics (Ref # 380267) Spring 2013 The Full Economic Impact of an Increase in the Minimum Wage Where minimum began - The history of minimum wage, what is minimum wage, the laws of minimum wage. The minimum wage has a strong social appeal, rooted in concern about the ability of markets to provide income equity for the least able members of the work force. For some people, the obvious solution to this concern is to redefine the wage structure politically to achieve a socially preferable distribution of income. Thus, minimum wage laws have usually been judged against the criterion of reducing poverty. Statutory minimum wages were also proposed as a way to control the proliferation of manufacturing industries.
| Occupy Wall Street Movement | | | | | Discuss the moral and economic implications involved in the movement. The Occupy Wall Street’s movement stands in the moral grounds of: “It’s wrong to wreck the world. It’s wrong to wreck the health and hopes of others. An economic system that forces most of the people to bear the impacts of the recklessness of a few powerful profiteers, to assume the burdens of others’ privilege, and to pay the real costs of destructive industries in the currency of their health and the hopes of their children. They believe that the system disrupts a great planetary cycle that support lives on earth,” (Moore, 2011).
Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft are both excellent examples of antitrust supporters. A monopoly is defined as “exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices”. A prime example of a monopoly was the United States Steel Corporation, formed by industry giants J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and William Edenborn among smaller companies. The United States government generally opposes trusts and monopolies, because of the danger they present to the economy. This danger is present because when a monopoly effects an industry, it is very easy for the holders of the monopolistic trust to manipulate the prices of their products, putting a stressful load on consumers and the economy.
Those who consider it to be a negative term, mainly the average consumer, would define price gouging as taking advantage of or exploiting in times of need by charging unfair and unreasonable prices beyond normal. On the other hand, a business owner or an entrepreneur would define it as turning a profit on goods which have suddenly become much more expensive to obtain or produce because of increased demand possibly due to an emergency or sudden event. However, some free market economists reject the term altogether and suggest that “higher prices can be viewed as a valid system for rapidly distributing scarce resources to those who need the highly desirable resources and sets off an economic chain reaction that ultimately remedies the shortages” (Price gouging, 09). Over thirty of the states in America have anti-gouging laws but the definition of price gouging vary from “excessive and unjustified” price increases or “unconscionable pricing”, to percentages amounts of previous prices, to “unjust or unreasonable profits in the sale of necessities” (Antitrust - Fuel and Energy Committee, 06). So price gauging may not be easily defined but it does mean something to those it affects.
Wheelan continues to say although it seems inhumane to have employees in sweatshops working for meager wages, it gives people jobs who otherwise may have no job at all. Also, lower prices are the equivalent of higher incomes. Wheelan also mentions that world trade opens the doors of domestic business to other countries which increases investment and business. Trade is one beautiful process. In conclusion, Wheelan strongly asserts the point that the economy is always changing, and factors like GDP and inflation will never stay the same.
Another reason that the slave trade grew was because of the greed of the merchants, this was because of the fact that one journey of the triangular trade could set them up for life. A single merchant could make an equivalent profit of twenty million pounds in todays money, which is a very large sum of money which took only nine months to earn considering that nowadays the average salary is just twenty thousand pounds a year. This caused the slave trade to grow because of the increased amount of merchants who wanted to make the voyage of the triangular trade. So overall I think that the slave trade grew because of the increased demand for sugar in Britain and also Europe which meant that more slaves were needed to work on the sugar plantations. Also I think that the slave trade grew because of the fact that more and more merchants wanted to make the voyage of the triangular trade to set them up with more than enough money to live
The argument or what Hobson called “the economic taproot of imperialism” was excessive capital in search of investment, and that this excessive capital came from over saving made possible by the unequal distribution of wealth. (The New Imperialism/The Latin Library, Thompson) The remedy, he maintained, was internal social reform and a more equal distribution of wealth. (New Imperialism Lecture Notes, J. Hollis & Western Heritage, pg 828). Meanwhile, Lenin and other Marxists believed imperialism resulted in the demise of capitalism. As wealth concentrates in fewer hands, the ability for investment at home is reduced resulting in foreign investments and exploit weaker nations.
The fact that Wal-Mart is a company not even a country; and is China’s eighth largest trading partner; just makes us realize how much economic growth depends on businesses to produce more goods and services faster and more efficiently. According to many economists, continuous economic growth leads to greater prosperity for everyone, but because so many countries are trying to achieve the same exact thing, competition is harsh. These are some positive and negative perspectives that are caused by international trade. As you can see, the relationship between the three sources is that they are all based on trade. All around the world, different countries import and export goods to each other so they can benefit themselves with economic growth.
The concept of Capitalism plays the role of the driving force in raising the standard of living of people in developing countries. Political Economist Rostow argues that undeveloped countries growth has been hindered by their structure and way of life and in order to stop this they need to shift out of agriculture, transform small businesses into large enterprises and adopt the nuclear family pattern. The theory also depicts that western countries are well-developed and their ways of development can be perceived as the most successful, which are the features that Rostow states that ‘backward’ countries need to obtain, and underdeveloped countries have no alternative but to go through these stages to achieve the status of developed countries. The fundamental issue articulated by this theory is that the skills, knowledge and experience of developed countries should be borrowed and employed by developing countries of the Third World in order to achieve a developed status of developed countries and that the hindered development of the undeveloped countries is due to internal circumstances. The dependency theory was developed in response to the modernisation theory as a way to