One example would be our in class assignment on supply and demand where we discussed movie theatre ticket pricing. Attached is a second example of an article and three questions you could answer that would be appropriate. *You can NOT use these articles/topics for your extra credit* The questions are examples of topics you would analyze for this particular article, not general questions you should use for your analysis. 4 April 27, 2008 NEW YORK UP CLOSE Dry Cleaners Feel an Ill Wind From China By JENNIFER BLEYER THE wholesale price of wire hangers would seem an unlikely source of urban dismay. But the other day at Uptown Dry Cleaners in East Harlem, as workers bustled about wrapping suits in plastic and tossing newly arrived garments into bins, the owner, Young Hoon Jung, sat solemnly at the counter, shaking his head as he stared at a sheaf of invoices. At one point, Mr. Jung gestured in disbelief at a piece of paper indicating the prices he pays for steel wire hangers, which he, like virtually every dry cleaner, uses by the thousands. After a federal tariff was imposed last month on wire hangers imported from China, Mr. Jung explained, the wholesale price skyrocketed. As a result, many dry cleaners say, already slim profits have grown even slimmer. “It increased 60 percent from one week to the next,” Mr. Jung said of hanger prices. “We do 4,000 pieces a week, so obviously we need 4,000 hangers. Raise the price a little, O.K., but not 60 percent. It’s a lot of upset.” In just a few weeks, he said, the price of a box of 500 hangers rose to almost $40 from $17.50. “Everyone in the Korean community is talking about it,” continued Mr. Jung, who said that he might have to raise prices soon. “They’re saying: ‘What are we doing this for? The government? The landlords? We can’t do this business anymore.’ ” With Korean immigrants owning an estimated 65 percent of the city’s 1,100 dry cleaners, the issue, the subject of a recent article in Korea Times New York, a Koreanlanguage newspaper, is big news in that community. The new tariff was imposed after a six-month investigation by the United States Department of Commerce, which concluded that Chinese manufacturers were flooding the market with cheap hangers below cost, a practice that is known as Dry Cleaners Feel an Ill Wind From China – New York Times 1 of 2 12/3/13 12:59 PM dumping and is designed to put rivals out of business. The Korean Dry Cleaners Association of New York has urged federal officials to remove the tariff. “The whole economy is not good now,” said Chang-Kyun Im, the group’s chairman. “And now we have this extra expense.” But Nora Nealis, the executive director of the National Cleaners Association, which is based in the garment district, says she doubts that the tariff will be rescinded. She hopes that competition among American firms will eventually cause prices to fall and that consumers will be encouraged to recycle their undamaged hangers. Meanwhile, she is doling out sympathy to suffering dry cleaners. “If you look at the Korean cleaners, they’re by and large mom-and-pops not making an awful lot,” Ms. Nealis said. “A nickel and dime add up real quick.”
