The Economic Environment of Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The Economic Environment of Business - Essay Example Other market drivers for these milk products are the increased variety of products including flavoured milk, and also the increased advertising efforts by companies. Suppliers and processors of milk products have adopted measures that aid them to act on interest of consumers. However the market for milk products faced difficulties in the year 2001 to 2002 due to very low farm gate prices and the foot and mouth diseases that affected UK herds, UK milk quotas and the low farm gates has led to the prices being lower than the cost of production placing the farmers under great pressure and also extend on their limits. 2 Some of the major companies in the UK involved in the production of milk and milk products include; Robert Wiseman Dairies, Unilever Best foods UK Ltd, The Yeo Valley Organic Company Ltd, The Kerry gold Company, Kraft Foods UK Ltd, New Zealand Milk Product Ltd, Dairy Crest Group and the Muller Dairy company. 3 Milk and milk products producing firms assume an oligopoly market structure where there are restrictions or barriers to entry, these barriers to entry are associated with health issues and also the prevention of unhealthy competition, market prices are causing these firms to shut down and also the farmers are under pressure in the production of milk to these prices. Market structure that exists: The market structure that exists in this industry is an oligopoly structure, an oligopoly market structure the market is usually dominated by a few firms, this type of market structure falls between a perfect competition and a pure monopoly. This type of market there are times when there is high competition while at other times the firms in an oligopoly may collude by fixing prices and dominate the market.4 The firms in an oligopoly market are faced with a kinked demand curve and this is for the simple reason that if a firm raises the price of the product it is not followed by others. On the other hand if it reduces its prices he is followed by the others, this is the reason why the demand curve at high prices of the product is quite elastic and at lower prices the demand curve is quite inelastic. 5 This is diagrammatically illustrated below: Determination of price and quantity The average revenue curve represent the demand curve which in this case is kinked, if a firm in this industry raises its price it is not followed by others, if it reduces its price it will be followed by others, therefore the price and quantity in this industry is determined by the price of others, one firm will not raise its prices without considering the decisions to be made by other firms.6 However sometimes the firms may collude and dominate the market, therefore the price in this kind of market is determined by market forces and in this case they become price takers and sometimes the price is determined by the firms and this case they become the price makers. Barriers to entry Barriers of entry into the milk producing industry is necessary in that it helps in the prevention of

Native American, Cochise Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Native American, Cochise - Essay Example However, this traditional system of governance was gradually disrupted by the whites. In their quest to overturn the traditional, the white settlers faced some form of fierce resistance from the Native Americans under the leadership of their chiefs and these conflicts resulted in bloodshed in different situations. One of the chiefs remembered for his sworn hatred and resistance to American dominance is Cochise. The history of Cochise is a must read since it enlightens the readers about the events that took place in the 17th century before the birth of ‘democracy’ in America which characterises the present day government in this country. Cochise was an Apache Indian Chief and his territory covered parts of Arizona and New Mexico (HistoryNet, 2013. There are various key events that defined Cochise such as his involvement in different battles against the white settlers. When the white settlers invaded America, they were resisted by the natives which culminated in different battles. Cochise played a significant role in waging some of these battles in defence for their peace. The critical event in the history of Cochise happened in 1872 when a high powered delegation was dispatched to negotiate with him in order to stop Apache war in the Southern Arizona. According to Sweeney (n.d), the top officials sent from Washington had realised that Cochise was the key person to approach in order to obtain lasting peace with the Chiricahua apaches. Thus, it can be seen that this person was critical in as far as the attainment of peace was concerned. Born around 1810, Cochise grew up in the native America but somehow during his mid thirties, things began to change as they started experiencing some conflicts with the Mexicans as well as the white settlers. Having assumed chieftainship around this age, Cochise had no problem settling with these new comers. However, the turning point was in 1860 when cattle belonging to whites were raided and a child was kidnapped. Co chise was suspect in this incident and was summoned together with his family to try to address this issue. This led to the arrest of his family but he managed to escape and from then started to wage war with the whites in revenge for killing members of his family. After the incident, various battles ensued between Cochise’s people and the Americans and Mexicans and these resulted in loss of life. Cochise declared hatred against the white Americans for killing his people and he dedicated himself to fight until the bitter end in defence of his homeland and people. Originally, the Indians lived in the mountainous mountains in the Southwest and they managed to defend their homeland territory under the chieftainship of their great king until a peace treaty was signed in 1872. Up until today, Cochise is one of the few people recognised in the American history for waging a bitter war against the whites in defence of their territorial integrity and sovereignty. He is one of the nativ es to cause sleepless nights to the Americans since they could not easily subdue this great fighter who had a combative battalion. Up until the end, Cochise came to be admired by the Americans for his outstanding guerrilla warfare skills that resulted in the death of many Americans. Though he also lost a great number of his own people through these conflicts, Cochise was not defeated in his cause for defending the territorial integrity of his homeland. He is remembers as one native fighter who defeated the