Wednesday 30 September 2009

Production of Petroleum - Norway

  • Mood: Oil production is decreases, gas production increases
  • Consequences: Oil and gas activities affect the environment
- Use of fossil fuels leads to local, regional and global pollution problems.

  • Driving forces: energy puts a lot of pressure on the environment

  • Effects: Major emissions to the air and sea

  • Measures: National regulation and international cooperation


Source: Oljedirektoratet of Norway, Olje- og energidepartementet 2009
www.miljostatus.no

Tuesday 29 September 2009

Chapter one:

The Reasons for individuals, organisations and societies having to make choices

Economics problems is how to allocate scarce resources among alternative uses.

Take a choice about what you are going to spend money on.

For ex: Decisions firms have to take about what they should produce and how they could do this in the most efficient way, in contrast to their budget.


Different factors of production, which is the resource inputs that are available in an economy for the production of goods and services, as economic resources: land, labour, factor, entrepreneurship.

  • Land: Natural resources available, from the earth, and fossil fuels, like oil and cool.

  • Labour: Human resources available in any economy. Quantity and quality are key considerations.

  • Capital: Physical resource covering anything that can be regarded as a man-made aid of production. A combination by land and labour to produce things and services, everything you can built.

  • Entrepreneurship: the willingness of an entrepreneur to take risks and organise production. Entrepreneurs(individuals who have an idea, developing by setting up a new business and encourage it to grow), starting up entreprices(a business, the process by which new businesses are formed)


Specialisation used to address the problem of scarcity is done by individuals workers, regions, firms, or economies. They are only concentrated on doing especially tasks, producing some goods or services.
Exchange(:the process by which goods and services are traded) of goods or services, where you give something and get something of an equivalent value back, like in the olden days...


Market in allocating scarce resources = a market with insufficient resources to meet all want..


Opportunity cost, the cost of the next best alternative, which is forgone when a choice is made.

Ex: Dragon's Den is a television program, where The Dragons (investors) chose if they want to invest in the idea the participants are coming up with. If they investing in it, they lose the opportunity to invest in something else, and if their not investing the participants will maybe get another investor and might succeed on the market. Then the first investor who said no to invest, lost that opportunity to earn money and be fame.


Production possibility curves: this shows the maximum quantities of different combinations of output(=the finished products resulting for the transformation process) of two products, given current resources and the state of tecnology.


Ex:

Opportunity cost:

Take a look at the diagram in the picture above. If you choose to work more with maths, than economics, you use more time on maths, and less on economics → better grades in maths than economics. Visa Versa.

Sunday 27 September 2009

Transport...


Cargo companies often uses ships to transport their goods to foreign countries across the globe, but what is the cheapest and most efficient way to transport their merchandise. Let's talk about the benefits and the costs of using the largest ships for transport.


Benefits:

The pollution per unit carried will decrease, since the larger ships are able to transport a larger quantity of cargo per transport. Consumer prices will be decreased; transport costs will be lowered by the usage of larger ships. Recording to the case study a larger ship is only in the need of 13 crewmembers per ship, therefore labour costs will be decrease, also fuel costs will be decreased due to the low number of ships needed.

Costs:

Huge transport ships cost allot to make, this isn’t really a big issue since the price of building allot of small ships will most certainly match the price of the larger ships. The big issue on the other hand is if the cargo companies want to save money on the large ships they need to fill the full capacity of the ships must be filled by every transport.

Saturday 26 September 2009

Revive the export economy


Paul Krugman: Nobel Prize-winning economist: speaks about economical changes in Brittans manufactoring processes.

Krugman says “Gordon Brown was selling the economic successes of Britain in the past 15 years on false pretences,”

He's saying that Britain needs to go back to manufactured goods.

Then he offers some ideas of how this could happen, and suggests the British government follows in the footsteps of Silicon Valley.

Krugman then talks about new innovation hotspots(with new idea, which can give the owner(the company) much money) and the importants that the government must catch them early and correctly incubate them so they don't fizzle.

Where Im coming from..

The difference from the Norwegian to the UK school system is huge. Being here in the UK for a month, I all ready think that everything is better here, (maybe because I'm starving for education(?)) with great teachers and school system.

Norwegians are confident that you have to fend yourselves, as an individual. You have to prove that you are growing up now, when you are a teenager and can, by yourselves, work with the school without the help and almost no ones to following you up. The school are expecting results from you, and feel they can relax because they already have done their exams. So now it's your turn, and you are alone.

The main problem, I believe, is among the teachers in the Norwegian school. Which has led to a fatigue syndrome, which has affected most of the people who have anything to do with the school.
The problem comes from lack of funding and focus, which threatens the quality.
Today we are on the lower part of the list of the knowledge level in school, in the Europe.

The reason we have so many strange things in the profession is probably because the last 20 years have been easy to get into the training program.

A bi-factor, although I think these has a lot to say, is that the focus of further education is small, just a little talk about college and future, do not make the motivation for students.

Coming from secondary school, students usually falls one grade down in all subjects. Ending up dropping up in dropping out of high school.

I do not know the English school system very well yet, but I have been here for a month or so, now, and I feel that there is a lot better, than the Norwegian system.

The level of teaching staff is significantly higher, than in my country. All the teachers in my school, here in UK are good, I think. They seems like people who are very happy in their jobs, because they want to teach the students to give them the knowledge to our life.
Here in england, I think that being a teacher is a more respectable, better paid and most important of all, have more knowledge and better education.

The follow-up from school, makes you feel like someone are there for you, in addition to family, who want to help you as a student and a person.

They do this by making a tight, personal relationships to their students, with small classes and teachers who take the job more seriously, working in their spare time ass well (meaning that we can contact them and always get help).
Teachers expect you to work more here in the UK than in Norway, but in return they are there for you, like always. Motivation is a key word here. Students who work more get more challenging, which makes smart students do not feel useless and bored in lessons, in different to the Norwegian school.
Subjects realized and practices, so they do not seem unreal and useless for us.
The future is not too far away, and we begin to plan now, in Unlike in Norway, with UCAS. This is the hour in which we get an introduction to the universities, subjects, etc.

We are still children and need someone to follow-up, because we, at least I know that I don't know yet, not already know what to do in our lives, and what to focus on.

Throughout my life have I been told that education is important, and always thought that I should walk in parents' footsteps.
I started in secondary school and became more and more tired of school and homework, teachers and further education.
I just wanted to travel around the world and working as a bartender, and create art on the side.

I used to think that starting up your own business/company is almost impossible, especially for girls, (do not know why, but just have that feeling) and I have never wanted to work under someone. So, I felt that I didn't want any further education. This is probably from to little knowledge.

I have never done so much at the school before, and homework has been like hell to me.

Now, here at school, my teachers, has gotten me to focus again. Unlike in the Norwegian school where teachers just gave up, if you didn't show that much interest.

Therefore, I am incredibly glad that I have come here, to the EF, Oxford. I have received education and training on a whole new ground. Although it's hard to do homework, since I'm not used to it, I just feel like a bad result of the Norwegian education system. I like now for the first time in many years to sit in in the lessons.
In recent years I have had next to none motivation for university, but now I'm starting to get an idea of maybe doing it.(There is light!) This is because of teachers, whom are incredibly clever, enthusiastic and with the desire each day.

Friday 25 September 2009

Womens...

Different cultures have a split views on how to treat women...(International Academy-> people from all over the world...)
For example:
Zimbabwe: Women have no right for inheritance.
Saudi-Arabia: Womens are not aloud to go outdoor, without being fully covered and accompanied by a male relative.
Nigeria: Women are stoned to death for adultery.
Pakistan: Women are killed when their behavior can draw the family's honor in doubt.

In Norway, my home contry, around 1000 woman who live at a secret address for fear of being seriously injured or killed by male family members. About 100 of them live in so-called code 6, which mean that their identity is completely deleted from all records.

«As a woman I can lead the worlds biggest organization for human rights, but I do not have inheritance after my father in Bangladesh.» And with these words, Amnesty International general secretary, in London in 2002, reflecting the opportunities and constraints for womens in the 21. century.
«Human are born free, and with the same dignity and rights.» says UN's declaration.
However you'll never find a country in the whole world, where theres no violation on the rights for humans, because of their gender.

The relationship between gender, discrimination and violations of social, cultural, economic, political and civil rights is unambiguous, overwhelming and universal.
For example, womans are working consistently more than the men are. Therefor womens servant less than men, because their work is undervalued.

In 2003, in Norway, where the equality struggle reached a very long, men earn 70% more than women, a clear indication that it's still a long way to go, to get the equal pay to be reality.
In the politician and economic power forums, woman are underrepresented.

A study from the World Bank tells us that constitutes violence against womens, between 15 to 44 year. Womens, not me ofcours because(say something), lives in a global health threat on par with HIV infection and cancer.

Wednesday 23 September 2009

End Britan's Oil Addiction

Shai Agassi: Alternative energy pioneer.

The Israeli former software entrepreneur, Shai Agassi, left his job in German software giant SAP in 2007. Oil dependency is the root cause of conflicts in the Middle East.. «If you can run one country without oil, you can run the whole world without oil.. If you can do it with car technologies, it could happen in15 years»
Therefore he started up Better Place. And with more than £120 million in venture capital, he wants to applies the business model of phones, in to cars, where the costumer buy or leases an electric vehicle, firm a partner car company, and then they can pay per-mile, for battery usage.

Gordon Brown said that electric cars has not matched by a commitment to the infrastructure...
«Take the Millennium Dome, Imagine somebody said to you: 'We're going to spend £800 millions on the off-chance that we'll get the entire country going without oil – oh, and £650 millions will go into increase green jobs tomorrow morning. Would you say it's worth a try?»

Shai Agassi only say this is talk about white elephants, but I do believe in this.
We have about half the oil again, and we continue in this pace it will soon be finished, so we have to find a new possible type of doing things.
The second is that this will be very good for stopping global warming.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

Fanny's Guide to Writing a Good Blog

Presentation

Make sure the presentation of the blog is attractive. This is to encourage people to read it – and, more importantly – to comment.

Presentation can be improved by the overall impact of the design. This requires careful choice of colours, plus the use of blog lists, link lists and labels.

Example – 1


Colour co-ordination poor. No archive. No labels. Post consists entirely of a photo.

Example – 2



Clear and easy to read. Good use of space.

The post itself should also be attractive to the eye. This can be achieved through the careful use of colour, videos, cartoons, photographs etc. Nothing is more boring than just a load of text!

Example:



Some attempt can be made to personalise the blog.


And another…




The post itself should be spell-checked and grammar-checked.

Sentences such as:

Dummy copies of a thinner Observer, has been mad, and all the «extra» stuff, like music, sport etc. are at risk.”

are just careless. Mad?

One of the purposes of blog-writing is to improve your English. Thus posts should always also be checked with Peter. This type of post:

“In relation to how its like to have an internet site, where you even could make some money on having. It will be more more revenue/profit and less expenditure,

On the other hand, removing this employment, which would be a shame especially in this period we are now with financial crisis, where we need to build the world again and go all the work.

Should, later, be corrected.

It is not enough to copy and paste. The purpose is to interact with what you read and make the resulting post your own words, your own comments. Equally we are to learn from other posts, so technical terms should be explained.

Example:

“Football

The financial crisis has also(of cours) had influenced the football market and the clubs... The banks won't give overdraft to the footballclubs and the sponsors are going out, the tickets have been fallin with 5% in 60% of the UK footballclubs. Therefore all the income resourses have been reduced, and the market is unstable.“

This is full of spelling mistakes!

Here is how it could have been expended:

Football

The financial crisis has also(of cours) had influenced the football market and the clubs...

Explain how?

What is the financial crisis?

The banks won't give overdraft to the footballclubs and the sponsors are going out, the tickets have been fallin with 5% in 60% of the UK footballclubs.

So, giving examples, what have football clubs done?


Therefore all the income resourses have been reduced, and the market is unstable.

What is a market? What are the risks of the market being unstable?

Other links can be added:





And mind maps summarising key areas of Economics can be displayed:



Ideally, a podcast will be made:


And videos etc.

Thus the blog, if treated sensibly, will be a tool for learning.

The other questions is ‘What should I write about?’

Obviously this blog is for your Economics and/or Business Studies. But you could write about other subjects you study.

You could also write about your life, personal things, football, music – anything. The important thing is at the very minimum to do your homework and write about Economics/Business Studies. Also you MUST have labels so everything is neatly categorised.

Also you must comment on other blogs – this helps you develop evaluation skills.

You can always get ideas from other blogs, click here

Maybe make money from your blog:




Also through Blogger Buzz and Blogs of Note learn about different designs etc.






Lots of love <3

Sunday 20 September 2009

Guardian axes 100 more editorial staff

Guardian axes 100 more editorial staff

Guardian Media Group (GMG=a company of the United Kingdom owning various mass media operations) have decided to shut down The Observer(a news paper) so they are now cutting down sharply on their staff, and still looking for more ways to cut down the costs.

Redundancy Scheme, have done that 82 poster has gone from the commercial side of the business.

Dummy copies of a thinner Observer, has been mad, and all the «extra» stuff, like music, sport etc. are at risk.

Guardian New & Media (GNM=is the core division of GMG) had £36.8m operating loss last year. Although, Carolyn McCall, the group chief executive says that: “GNM is looking to the future and making sure it’s in good shape.”

The debt-laden Independent is seeking another extension of its standstill deal with bondholders, which expires on Friday. If the deal fails, the group may have an emergency rights issue.

A deal with the bondholders, which expires on Friday, is still standing, which means that if they don't get they as to do anything, as they probably wouldn't the deal fails, and the group may have an emergency right issue.

Japan upbeat on economic recovery

The Bank of Japan(BOJ) assessment of the economy of Japan, is that they need some emergency support measures."What we do with these special measures should be decided in line with the degree of improvements in corporate finance and market conditions," said Mr Yamaguchi.
BOJ has given money to the economy to help stimulate demand. They said that doing this for to long could hinder an «autonomous recovery» (=an economy we are even able to manage and recover from) but, now this Thursday, the bank said that there are signs of improvement in the economy, entering a positive cycle, as the governor of the BOJ said. Which implies that the banks don't have to pump cash into the economy, by buying up company debt f ex.
Thursday set BOJ rate of 0.1%. A stronger yen (currency) to support the Japanese economy in the long term, although we know that this makes exports more expensive.
The yen is up 6.7% against the dollar since June, but earlier this week, said Japan's incoming finance minister, that he opposed intervention in the foreign exchange market.
Mr Yamaguchi says that we have to decide these special measure whit the degree of improvement
in corprate finance and market conditions, and now we have to keep our eyes open, so we know what we are doing, so the financial crisis will continye for some time.
The worlds second largest economy, are on their way up again, after a hard summer. The export are running faster, rised with 2,9%
The Bank of Japan has, as I said, choosen to keep the rents on 0,5% to hold the yen down. I think that is because they want to stimule the consumption and investment.
Althought the value in Japan rised to the highest level in relation to the dollar in 18 months on Monday. So we dont know what they really are doing down in there...

Thursday 17 September 2009

Reinvent business with digital economics

Chris Anderson, Pop Artist

“Chris Anderson is a big idea-man”

Mr. Anderson wrote The Long Tail, a book about the economic miracle of Amazon.com, where he is telling about the internet's infinite shelf space, where companies could make more money selling a product online.

The point of this is that if every store do this, they will save a lot of money. The cost of owning a store, with all the cost adds that belong to this, employees, cleaning etc., is big. In relation to how its like to have an internet site, where you even could make some money on having. It will be more more revenue/profit and less expenditure,

On the other hand, removing this employment, which would be a shame especially in this period we are now with financial crisis, where we need to build the world again and go all the work.

The people have spoken..

(The Norwegian people dared not seem like they wantet to take a chance on something new.. smart?)

Monday, September 14 election was held, in my country, Norway, where Arbeiderpartiet (the most popular over the last 20 years) with 35.4%, emerged victorious. With a red-green party(?). After the financial crisis, I think the people of my contry has choosen AP because of a certain security... (Almost 1 million persons who are working for the public, perhaps in fear of losing the comunity benefits, voted for AP. )

AP has now gone along with some other parties, again, to a large red-green majority. These are parties that's not particularly popular for the moment. Especially SosialistiskVensterparti(sosialistic) is much annoyed by the AP have chosen to go along with, (they did not get many votes).

- We have received the voters' trust to run the country for four more years, and with a red-green majority we will renew and strengthen the policy we have taken.("do something at all..?" many people are wondering..) We will administer the trust the voters have shown us with respect. Said the Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg

Saying that, Everyone is in, where the main issues in the election battle is:
- Strengthen the care sector
- Work for all.
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Norway

The financial crisis has shown us that work to the people is important. So then Arbeiderpartiet(= the parti of workers) got a step forward even with the name, and as they have been sitting there trought the crisis, and it havn't mhad that much affect for my contry. That is because we, in Norway, have a system with a lot of certain security, and all the money we got from taxes and from the oil. I think that is great.
The financial minister of norway, said:
- In unemployment the Government proposes to increase the use of oil revenues by an additional 9.5 billion.- Overall, we reach nearly 130 billion from oil revenues to secure people's jobs. We strengthen local government finances, we increase the number of students and puts in more labor.

The government's package of measures includes targeted tax cuts for businesses. It introduced a temporary access for companies to reverse losses against earlier profits. This estimated total of strengthening the companies at least 7 billion in 2009 and 2010, of which 3 ¼ billion in 2009.

- This is an accurate measure to help those companies that are struggling most to get over the slope, "says the finance minister Halvorsen. In addition, strengthened the "tax discovery-" law with 180 million.
Great emphasis , from the minister..

For me, these would have no defferent, no matter who had bee sitting there with the power.. However I do care a little bittle..

And we are all waiting in a extrem pain, for the government budget, which is coming october, the 13.....
So on....

Football

The financial crisis has also(of cours) had influenced the football market and the clubs... The banks won't give overdraft to the footballclubs and the sponsors are going out, the tickets have been fallin with 5% in 60% of the UK footballclubs. Therefore all the income resourses have been reduced, and the market is unstable.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

Reduce the national debt

Naill Ferguson(Historian and author):

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that the UK national deficit will increase, and in 2010 rice up to 14 %, (highest in the western world).
Mr. Ferguson argues this with that the interest rates on government bonds to rise, that will make a inflation. The people who have pensions and saving will lose a lot here.

The author says that he does not believe that Growen Brown will survive the next election, and are saying that «the new government will have to show how it proposes to stabilise British public finances before we face a major crisis of confidence in our institutions and our currency.»

I agree with Mr. Ferguson that the government has made many mistakes before the crise. The british economy,
is sustainable by consumer spending, driven by record levels of personal debt that is secured, (most of it) against house prices that the Bank of England calls well above equilibrium in the market. However, the financial minister of the UK, Brown, gave no answer, and said only that there was no solution to this.
On the other hand, no government has made it perfectly and it is not easy to sit in government in such a period, because they do not know how to handle all the problems that comes up, and the time is running so fast.

Monday 14 September 2009

to cool for school?

Searching for successful entrepeneurs, I came upon this webpage, about successful entepreneurs who didnt need colledge. Another prove for that you don't need full educating to be successful in your life.

Sunday 13 September 2009

Part two..?

I forgot the part about supply side... Keep on waiting waiting...

Knowledge of elasticity for a business..

Is useful.
In economics, elasticity shows to witch the costumers change their demand in a kind of response to the price of the product.

We calculate elasticity as: % change in quantity / %change in price

Important with knowledge because a company needs to know what to do, to get the best, possible income. The companies have to assess changes in consumers demand, as a result of a change of the price. So when the value is bigger than one, it shows that the demand after the good, is affected by the prices. A value that's less than one shows that the demands not sensitive for the price(often inelasticity goods)

The marked for elasticity goods: Good's we have a lot of, with a big marked, ex: food, closes.

Companies have to put down the price, and maybe get under the competition to sell, because the price often decides witch company that sells the most.
Inelasticity: Oil, gas etc. Goods, where the demands are stable, (Things that people need, no matter what.)

Knowledge about the market is really important especially when a business put their product out to the marked.

So then, I also wanted to give you an example for a technique.
To sell a product:
After thorough research the company put the product out, to the market, with a cheap price (the
costumers are now getting to know the new product) then they will set the price up once, then raise the price again, often as far as they can, until the demand will be slightly smaller, (people will not pay as much for the product) and then put it down again. After doing this, the company also have seeing what the customer is willing to pay for the product.

Saturday 12 September 2009

Dragons' Den

a) No, I wouln't but the product because I don't need it. And I think its like something you dont need that much, so you would pay extra for it.

b) Its a new thing on the marced (i think?) so maybe. People allways think that the new stuff is good, and usefull

Bank holds rates at record low

MPC held the rates on 0,5% (record low) to increase income, and £175 billions for investment.
Mervin Kings proposal for £75 billion for fiscal stimulus, was outvoted by the MPC. So people are starting to get a little restless and irritable, and waiting for the MPC to do something, even the marked, on every plan, is going well.

Link to the article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bank-holds-rates-at-record-low-1784780.html



Friday 11 September 2009

Hasty action on public spending would jeopardise economic recovery

The reporter is critisising the government for hasty action on public spendings, on witch would jeopardise the economic ewcovery after the finansial crises. The reporter also points out reasent government dishonesty of which has weakend the labour's economic reputation. Furthermore he points out other governmental flaws during the financial crisis.

Wednesday 9 September 2009