It’s common knowledge that the United States is using economic sanctions as means of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However this article describes how the US is hurting innocent civilians more than the regime. As food prices grow out of control, riots were prompted and instability spreads throughout the country.

I believe that sanctions does more harm than good, as these sanctions may only fuel anti-American sentiments, backfiring its original purpose. Furthermore, many hopes and dreams were crushed due to the sanctions, such as the supermarket clerk Akbar Mohebi, who had to cancel his son’s studying abroad due to the sanctions. I also agree with the article that it is quite unfair to the nation’s 75 million people that they have to carry the burden of the regime’s decision to develop nuclear weapons. 

In response to Tanner Kirkpatrick’s post about Nestle’s  exploitation of children as plantation workers, I have found an interesting article  debating the effectiveness of the Fair Trade Certification, aimed at helping disadvantaged farmers .

The article describes both sides of the debate, some stating that the Fair Trade Certification gave rise to productive inefficiency, as it establishes price floors for the crops grown by the disadvantaged farmers, against the forces of the free market. Others say that that it helps remedy the prevalent problem of child exploitation in  farming industry. It’s also important to note that Fair Trade only helps farmers in developing countries, as they are more in desperate need of income than their developed world counterparts, even though they may share the same problem.

In all, I believe that Fair Trade Certification goods are a step in the right direction, especially their decision to work with big companies like Starbucks, making the movement more mainstream. The opponent’s argument of productive inefficiency can easily be countered. For example, according to the article, under the minimum-price guarantee system, Indian rice farmers became more secure financially and invested their profits in a new tractor and land leveler, becoming 30% more efficient.

Hong Kong has the most expensive property prices in the world

As developers in Hong Kong compete with Mainland Chinese developers for resources such as labourers and materials, construction costs increase 10% annually, with the current price HK$3,000 ($387) to HK$4,000 per square foot. This will already make the world’s most expensive city to buy homes even more costly, surpassing its last peak during the 1997 property crash.

This means good news for land developers and bad news for everyone else, as property becomes a mere commodity to be traded and speculated instead of being occupied by families. This can easily create social problems such as homelessness and urban sprawl, as well as a prospect of another property price crash like the one in 1997, as well as Japan’s infamous property bubble in the 90s, which can shatter the economy and lead to a financial crisis. The government should curb this by limiting the number of land developments per year, restrict the access of credit, as well as putting price ceiling on the prices of property.

A kindergarden teacher who usually makes an lowly $30,000 yearly salary made an astonishing $1 million dollars this year. How? You may ask. It turns out the 43-year old named Deana Jump made her money selling her own lesson plans online, through a new site named TeachersPayTeachers.com, which launched in 2006.  The site was launched as a response to a lack of quality lesson plans for instructor, who were usually given outdated textbooks and thus have to make their own lesson plans. The site gave teachers a monetary incentive to share their plans, especially during this kind of economy, where a teacher’s salary often could not make ends meet.   Deana Jump’s kindergarden classroom

Jump is the biggest seller for the site, not only due to the quality of her materials but also due to her aggressive marketing through her blog http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.ca/, which has more than 17,000 followers who all get notified whenever Jump releases a new product. This gave Jump a very loyal customer base and contributed to her sales. In all, entrepreneurship and out-of-the-box thinking led to her success.