Are We Already in A Recession?

http://business.time.com/2012/10/01/are-we-already-in-a-recession/

Paul Krugman, an economist, argued in 2007 that “the official definition of recession as become delinked from people’s actual experience. Right now we are in an economy with deteriorating employment and incomes, collapsing home proce, and business retrenchment. Is it also an economy in recession? Who cares?”. This is true. For most people, the growth of economy probably doesn’t mean that much for them; It is our daily life that actually matters for us. However, consumer’s behavior is related to the economy in many ways. If the consumer demand in the market decrease, the economy will be affect because the cycle between households manufacturers are closely related.  However, many people does not realize our economy situation because their daily life is not affected; but once the recession become worse, it will be even harder for people to maintain their daily life. So are we already in recession?

QE3 is here

http://www.stockhouse.com/columnists/2012/oct/1/qe3-is-here,-where-next-for-gold-#05ZqsdlLTxVJcvFT.99

QE3 stands from the third round of Quantitative Easing from the US federal Reserve. Under the programme the Federal will purchase $40 billion of mortgage dept every month. QE is designed to increase bank reserves and the demand loans; as the name implies, QE 3 is not the first iteration of quantitative easing by the Fed. Even though QE is designed to increase the demand for loans and reduces their yield and help reduce interest rates across the board, there are still downsides to QU programs. According to Elementary economics, an increase in money supply leads to inflation. The inflation is an indicator for our economy; if the QE3 should be  efficiently help the economy by reducing the inflation rate but focus on creating money out of thin air.

Sponging boomers

http://www.economist.com/node/21563725

After the end of the second world war, births surged across the world. Many countries including Britain, Germany and Japan all enjoyed a baby boom. According to the article, individuals born after the war was accounted for 41 % of the total population by the year of 1964. This is a generation large enough to exert its own political and economic gravity. People from this period lived a charmed life, their income earned at every age was way beyond the previous generation. However, the baby boom is starting to cause economic problems now. For example, the policies those boomer set might not be adaptable in today’s economy; also, a study by the International Monetary Fund in 2011 shows that a huge bill is left from the boomers. Those aged 65 in 2010 receive $333 billion more in benefits than they pay in taxes. If those problems can’t be fixed quickly and efficiently, it will have a huge impact on the economy.

Samsung-Apple Fight Moves to Marketing

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/business/media/samsung-apple-fight-moves-to-the-marketing-arena.html

After Samsung lost the most recent round in the United States in its legal fight with Apple over cell phone technology, Samsung starts taking direct aim at Apple in a round of ads. The tone of the Samsung ads is decidedly sarcastic for a technology company emerging from a $1 billion defeat in the latest patent battle between the tow companies. The marketing strategy Samsung adapt is direct and sharp, for example, in Samsung’s new ad, it claims that “it doesn’t take a genius”. By throwing stones at the leader, Samsung successfully attracted attention by using this classic challenger strategy. Samsung and Apple’s success shows the importance of marketing. Samsung’s ad might seem insulting for some iPhone owners or fanboys, but after all the marketing strategy worked incredibly well; instead of targeting iPhone users, they choose to target people without Smartphone. Because Samsung targeted the right marketing group, they are able to expand their market and increase their sales continuously every year.