View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. An earthquake in Taiwan today . As My friend Michael Papadopoudolos said a while back, the computer memory industry suffered a violent shortage due to the fact that the Taiwanese closed all factories in order to recalibrate the precision machinery that made the chips. Although a substantial number of factories...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. I do not know Mr. Azarides, professor of economics at Washington university. I am sure he is a good economist, but he should not talk about things he has very little knowledge such as the Cypriot economy. In the article in politis the professor says that the crisis is a joke – Cyprus will be awash with...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. I know it sounds like hindsight, but I was sure the strike would fail. The reasons can be explained through A-level economics. Petrol stations are facing monopsonistic competition: they are many of them, selling nearly identical products but having some sort of monopoly over a small geographical region. In...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. I am a big fan of “Super Sport Fm”. I like their programmes, especially when you can call and have debates with other fans. That’s why i was upset on the 24th of September 2009. At around 10:30 Mr Kostakis Kostantinou, of the show “Kostakis kai paseis Kuprou”, became very upset from a text message...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. Eurocypria is a charter airline that is owned by the republic of Cyprus. It had never made money, and it was a great way for the government “friends” in highly paid places. The EU put a stop of that and gave us 10 years to sort it out. The government placed a new executive and set it to work to...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. Does the Bank of Cyprus have the answer for the UK’s final salary pensions crisis?More companies are closing final salary pensions to both new and existing members as the costs of running them soars. But some employers, such as Bank of Cyprus UK, are looking at innovative new ways to replace these pensions...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Instructions: Copy this. Look at the list and put a “yes” after those you have read. An exclamation mark means i loved it. I would also love to add few, but no list will ever be conclusive. 1...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. A principled Europe would not leave Greece to bleedUnless it is one rule for the big and powerful and another for the small, the EU must stand behind Athens’ new leadership Joseph Stiglitz Greece has been condemned by European officialdom for its huge deficits. “No government or state can expect...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. The interwar growth performance of Malta and Cyprus adds substance to the economists that seem to think of small economic units as disadvantageous. Kuznets argued that small states could weather turbulent economic periods by either relying on their proportionally large resource endowments or by ensuring continued...

View the Original article written by Alexander Apostolides at Economics in Cyprus and Malta. Yesterday i saw four accidents in Nicosia. Three of them had the markings of a “i was not looking because i was on the mobile phone”. We have all seen those drivers who have their one hand on the phone while speeding in very narrow streets. Heck if we are honest we have all done it, at least once....