End Blog

1) I think one of the most important things I learned in this class was about arbitrage and the law of one price. I really felt that these topics helped to explain to me how prices can be determined on a global scale.

2) What I really want to learn after having taken this class is about the culture of another country. We have talked a lot about different cultures and culture shock, but it is something I really want to see for myself and to be able to learn something entirely new to me.

3) I think the most challenging thing for me next year will not be studying abroad. This class makes me really want to go abroad, and the fact that I will not be will turn out to be frustrating. Overall, it will be hard to see many of my peers be able to go abroad and experience things while I remain here at K.

News Story #3

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001297797

1. This article states how in this of last month of April, tourism of Japan reached a record 1.2 million which was 33% greater than the previous year. Tourists from Asian countries such as China grew immensely such as 90%. On the other hand, one of Japan's biggest income of tourists South Korea, fell by a slight 5%.

2. This article gives a good idea of how tourism is currently doing in Japan. The article mentions how the weakening of the yen is helping to promote tourism, as foreign currencies are able to come in and have more purchasing power therefore making traveling less expensive. This then helps to keep more people coming in from nearby countries.

3. By increasing tourism, Japan is able to increase it's exports. This is a great way to try and boost its economy after the recession and increase GDP. This article is a great way to see one of the ways that Japan is interacting in the global market to try and increase its economy.

Kyoto, Japan

1. Kyoto, Japan has a population of over 1.5 million, making it quite a large city. It is currently the 8th largest city in Japan, meaning that there are cities such as Tokyo and Osaka that are larger. There are however many cities smaller than Kyoto such as Nagasaki and Sakai.

2. Because of its large size, Kyoto is able to offer many things that other cities cannot. One of these things is a large university. Kyoto University is deemed the second university in Japan behind the University of Tokyo and is 25th in the world. There is also things such as large businesses such as the Nintendo headquarters that is located in the city. Some things that are unavailable in the city however, are farmlands due to its extreme urbanization, as well as a large port because the city is not located on the sea.

Kyoto

Junkyard Planet

A) The reason behind the majority of US scrap being shipped to China and not India is due to shipping costs. China exports hundreds of billions of dollars to the US and because of this the shipping companies make it cheap to ship things back from the US to China so that their time isn't wasted. In contrast, India hardly exports anything to the US in comparison. This means that although India has the cheaper worker force, the shipping costs are too high and therefore companies would rather ship to China.

B) "Even if you guys could agree on a price, I tell him, the cost of shipping would kill the deal. He nods silently, but i can see on his stony, disappointed face that he has witnessed what I know well: the bounty of an American scrapyard.
This passage really envisions an issue with globalization, the fact that some areas of the world profit immensely while others gain almost nothing. Because of the global market, producers will make their goods where it is cheapest and sell it to where it sells the most, but this at times can leave out certain areas of the world, killing their chances at doing business.

C) Modern transportation can relate to themes raised by Jared Diamond in that it somewhat due to chance and luck that has put certain countries where they are today, but now that they are there they have no one to displace them. This can be seen in China where they happened to receive a lot of business with the US in terms of exports, and now that this has occurred the business for importing scrap has opened up. This then leads to a loop of positive feedback that propels the loop further in that both countries will continue to do as they do. This relates equally to how countries have ended up where they were in history based on who they happened upon and what technology they happened to have at the time.

Blog Assignmet" The Box

A) "Decades later, when enormous trailer trucks rule the highways and trains hauling nothing but stacks of boxes rumble through the night, it is hard to fathom just how much the container has changed the world. In 1956, China was not the world's workshop."

This passage clearly defines just how much of an influence on the world the shipping container had. Today, China has the second largest GDP in the world and is hugely involved in the exportation of goods to other countries. The fact that it was not always this huge and involved in global economics is a little unfathomable. This passage for me really accentuates how important this box was in revolutionizing the global market and the effect it had on different countries.

B) The author describes the development of the shipping container as almost a catalyst to the huge boom in globalization. By using this shipping container, costs for shipping went from being upwards of 10% or more of the cost of a good, to being nearly zero. This allowed companies to ship and market their goods in new markets that were previously unavailable to them. By doing this countries could trade with one another without bounds, creating a much more important global economy.

C) The main benefactors of this revolution were large companies that could utilize the shipping. By doing this they were able to even further their markets and bring in more revenue. On the other hand, smaller companies that didn't have the resources to be able to ship that many goods could not utilize the new resource, and therefore would fall behind. In short, there was a movement of small local companies to large corporations. 

News Story #2

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/05/06/business/abe-says-oecd-should-promote-fair-international-trade-rules/#.U2m3CvldV9k

1. This article highlights the state of Japan after the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and  Development (OECD) met recently. The OECD reduced its project outcome of increase in Japan's GDP from 1.5 percent to 1.2 percent for this year. It also highlights the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, and how he plans to deal with the deflation and other economic problems the country is dealing with. He states how he is trying to advocate for more free trade in the global economy, as well as increasing Japan's consumption tax in order to pay for rising Social Security costs of the country.

2. This article really highlights Japan's GDP and how it is being affected by the global economy. The country is trying to advocate for free trade, which will theoretically make it easier to export goods to other countries and therefore boost its GDP. The heightened tax will also in theory boost government spending, which may or may not increase GDP depending on how much it affects consumer spending. 

3. Japan's current economic state is due in part to past years of a deflating currency and lack of economic growth. If Prime Minister Abe's reforms work then the country will hopefully be able to recover from the global recession and continue to be the economic powerhouse it has become.

Part Five: Transportation

1. Water Transportation

Closest Major Port: The closest major port to Japan is the port of Busan located in South Korea. The city is home to about 3.6 million people which lends itself to why the port is so large. The port can harbor ships over 500 feet and length, and has much of the modern technology that a large port should have such as lifts and cranes.

Ports in Country: There are approximately 940 domestic and 130 international ports in Japan. Some of the largest of these consist of the port of Tokyo, the port of Osaka, and the port at Yokohama.

2. Land Transportation

Railroad (freight): There is approximately 27,000km of railroad in Japan that are used by over 100 different companies. The Japanese Railroad Freight company along with over a dozen major companies provide railway services. 

Railroad (passenger): Six companies comprise the Japanese Railways Group that provides public transit in the country. There is an estimation that over 22 billion passengers being carried by the Japanese transit system, making it one of the most used in the world. The Japanese public train system consists of conventional lines as well as high-speed bullet trains that can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour.

Highway and road network: There is about 7,000km of expressway on the main islands of Japan. Most important signs along these are in both English and Japanese, with speed limits usually being around 80 to 100 km per hour. The expressways are often subject to tolls of which can get as expensive as about 30 dollars.

3.Air transportation

International Airports: Japan is home to five different international airports, which are n the cities of Osaka, Tokyo, Aichi, Chiba, and Hyogo.

Other Airports: Japan has 98 airports in total. Many of these are important in transportation between the many islands that make up Japan. There is also about 30 airports exclusively used for military use.