Friday, May 15, 2015

Chapter 4: Economics and Politics

International Business

Article Link: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/01/business-cycles

Article Title: Running Out Of Time

This article discusses the history of America’s struggle in terms of their economy and their current situations. A current situation involves the Federal governments projecting an unemployment rate between 6-6.6% in 2015. During 2011-2012, the level of job growth was slim and the economy will only regain its pre-recession level of employment. “A new recession may become a risk at a time when the economy has yet to work off the unemployment problem from the last downturn, and in a world in which the Fed is unwilling to respond an aggressively as the case demands because of its concerns regarding the risks of unconventional policy.” This quotation from the article states that a new recession may occur because of the issues the government decides not to fix. The economy has went through a similar downturn and because of this, the government is still unable to fix their new problem, being unemployment.

Primarily, the four stages of the business cycle include: Contraction/recession, Trough, Expansion, and Peak. Each stage is different, at some point a business will definitely be at one of these stages. Generally, contraction or also called recession is when the economy starts to slow down. Trough is when the economy is at the bottom of the business cycle. However, expansion is more of the "recovery" stage or in other words, the economy starts to grow again. And lastly, peak is usually the top of the cycle also when the economy is in the state of "irrational exuberance" claimed by Amadeo in the given article. According to Amadeo, "irrational exuberance is when the investors are so confident that the price of an asset will increase they lose sight of its underlying value." On another note, the NBER which stands for The National Bureau of Economic Research evaluates economic indicators which helps one envision future trends, the determine the phases of the business cycle. Therefore, this article conveys many reasons and information about the business cycle on what to expect, as well as the causes, and so on. 

 

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