News Summary: Australian's Cost of Living Rising

 1.) The main issue covered in these three articles was that the cost of living in Australia is higher now than it has ever been and it's the main cause of anxiety in all of the Australian states, especially in Queensland. In the first article, The National Australia Bank quarterly Consumer Anxiety Index reported that more than 40% of the 1000 Australian's surveyed rated their concern for the cost of living at 9 or more out of 10, with 10 being extremely concerned. The second article summarizes that some costs of living have decreased during the month of March such as fruits, vegetables, household appliances, and audio, visual, and computing equipment. However, these certain price decreases have been somewhat counteracted by the increase in prices of alcohol, clothing, tobacco, and footwear. The last article explains that demand for the once popular meat pie from the corner store has fallen and consumers are more inclined to purchase chocolates and lollies instead. This may seem silly, but it emphasizes that the cost of living and food has increased significantly since 2005 and Australian's are more determined to increase their savings by cutting back on spending. Thus, the downfall of the common corner stores.

2.) The economic concepts we've covered in class, so far, have really only been the effects of supply and demand on markets. These articles directly related to the concepts of supply and demand because Australian's cost of living is high which makes consumers want to cut back on spending and save more. A market's success is dependent on a consumer's willingness to buy and the producers willingness to sell. So, if consumers are less willing to buy goods, then producers are not able to sell as much and lose money and the market overall suffers.

3.) This situation seems to be very similar to many economies around the world directly cause by the worldwide economic recession. What we've read so far in McMillan's Reinventing the Bazaar, explains the complexity of markets and that in order to succeed markets need information to flow smoothly, the protection of property rights, people that can be trusted to live up to their promises,  side effects on third parties decreased, and the support of competition. I'm certainly no economic expert, but maybe some sort of government policy or intervention would help improve the economic situation. I honestly feel like if there was a policy or policies that would help solve the economic issues faced Australia and by many countries someone would have tried to enforce these policies already. I think the difficulty behind these economic issues is that there isn't a simple answer, there isn't just one answer to the problem, and because markets are so intricate one policy might help in some areas of issue, but would do nothing to help another area of economic struggle. I am extremely interested to learn about other people's opinions on this question in regards to Australia and other economies around the world because it is certainly an area of difficulty for me, as a Biology major, and I struggled with how to answer this question.








http://www.news.com.au/money/cost-of-living
http://www.news.com.au/money/cost-of-living/food-prices-fall-alcohol-and-fuel-rise/story-fnagkbpv-1226608313539
http://www.news.com.au/money/cost-of-living/aussies-giving-up-meat-pies-sausage-rolls-but-cant-resist-the-chocolate/story-fnagkbpv-1226611157704