With economics 25 points

1. what is the difference between progressive and regressive methods of taxation? explain.

2. identify actions a government can take to protect its domestic industries. describe the effects that these actions have on domestic consumers.

3. describe the difference between public goods and private goods. explain why government action is necessary to ensure the provision of public goods.

4. what does the government do to protect competition in a free-market system? explain why the government needs to take these actions.

5. how can censorship negatively affect economic activity?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 answered and explained.

Explanation:

1. A progressive tax is a kind of tax whose rate increases as the payer's income increases while for regressive tax, the tax rate rate increases as the payer's income decreases.

For example if an employee earns $1000 and taxed 10%, he pays $100 as tax.

For a progressive tax, if his salary increases to 1200, his tax will also increase to say 12%, the employee now pays $144. Hence, the higher the salary, the greater the amount employees pays as tax

For a regressive tax, if his salary increases to 1200, his tax will automatically decrease to say 9%, the employee now pays $108. Hence, the higher the salary, the lesser the amount employees pays as tax.

2. Actions the government can take to protect domestic industries include

- increase of import taxes; since imported goods now becomes higher, domestic products will be the first choice. Local goods are mostly cheaper for domestic consumers to purchase.

- closing its borders to discourage importation; more of the local producers will have to locally manufacture the imported goods and provide easier access of products to the domestic consumer

- granting tax waivers and financial supports for local industry development. Many domestic industries will be encouraged to build on local production. Domestic consumers will pay less since taxes are added to the cost of goods

- Provision of supporting infrastructures such as good roads, good transportation network, feasible loan facilities. Many domestic producers who may have been demotivated by the bottlenecks can now engage in profitable services, which helps competition and ultimately dropping the price of local goods for domestic consumers.

3. Public goods are goods produced by the government towards alleviating challenges of the citizens or offered as a free gift of nature for the welfare of the people without any cost. Private products are goods produced by private companies to earn a profit.

The major difference between public and private goods is profitability; public goods are solely for welfare with no attempt at making profit while private goods are manufactured for profit.

The reason why it is necessary for the government to ensure the provision of public goods include the size of investment needed for some public goods such as  national defense, district water plant, flood control systems, traffic control systems, electrical generation and supply grid systems, street lighting etc. Private investors may not see it as commercially feasible yet its absence will affect the ease of livelihood of the citizens, hence government may be the only ones equipped with the capital to execute such projects.

4. The government can protect competition in a free-market system by applying equal taxes and regulations to all companies, irrespective of size. They can also protect the competition by offering financial supports and guidance to SMEs such as the provision of expansion and development loans for SMEs through micro-finance banks since the bigger banks may be indisposed to giving loans to SMEs while at same time giving such loans to bigger competitors.

The reason why the government needs to take these action is because the bigger firms are more competitive and may consider running the SMEs out of business through cartels tending towards monopolies. With the bigger firms in control, all other market forces become dependent on them and prices may be on the increase, which consumers - the citizens will have to pay for.

5. Censorship will negatively impair innovation; inventions in those censored areas may be drastically reduced. This then creates a form of monopoly at inordinate price offerings. In the end, other products that could have created source of tax, income for the sellers, utility for the consumers, job for the employees are not achieved; all economical factors for growth.

Censorship also reduces access to a product which may be widely demanded as a source of raw material, therefore creating artificial scarcity as the source supplies less than the demanded quantity thereby increasing the production cost. This ultimately increases the cost of goods, which if unsustainable can collapse organizations and negative impact the economy in general.