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Hello students, this is the first video I'm projecting. In this first video I'm addressing

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the production factors. I'm addressing the information you have on page 86, 87 and 88

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of your book. But before I address production factors, it's important you remember what

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we've seen in class, which is the basic components of economic activities. If you remember, there

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three basic components of any economic activity, which are production,

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distribution, and consumption. I'm addressing production. We are not dealing

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with distribution, which remember is the transfer from producers, the transfer of

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goods or commodities from producers to consumers, and we are not dealing with

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consumption, which is the use of those goods. We are dealing with

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production and it's important you first of all remember there are three main

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production factors there are three main factors needed to produce to make any

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good any product any commodity which are natural resources capital and technology

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and finally labor you know we usually consider technology as part of capital

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and I'll explain why. But before that, let's get started by natural resources.

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The first production factor, the first factor we need to produce any good or

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product is natural resources. Natural resources are basically raw materials,

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are the materials, the elements provided by nature that have an economic use. And

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And there are two types of natural resources, which are renewable and non-renewable. The renewable natural resources are those natural resources or raw materials that can be renewed over a short period of time.

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Think, for example, about water. And non-renewable are those natural resources or raw materials that cannot be renewed over a short period of time. Think about oil, petroleum, for example.

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It's important I mention some of the main problems raised by resources within the context of our world, within the context of our economy.

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Those problems are overuse and some international conflicts related to the control of natural resources.

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Regarding the overuse of some natural resources, this is a very important problem today

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because if consumed at a higher rate than the renewable some resources can be

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exhausted that's the case for instance of oil of petroleum that's also the

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problem of coal coal carbon there are also problems which have to do with

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international conflicts because the desire to control limited natural

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resources oil for for example leads to worse and international conflicts today

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the second production factor we need to mention is capital and we are as I've

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told you we have included technology within the context of capital the first

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idea you must remember is that capital is the combination of non-natural

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resources needed to production in other words capital is what businesses and economic agents

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invest in order to produce any good any commodity product and so on um we usually say there are

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three types of capital physical capital this could be physical capital the factories and the machinery

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used to produce here you can see an image second type of capital is financial capital here the

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financial capital is the money economic agents companies businesses usually borrow from from

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banks and they used to invest to buy machines to buy factories and to hire labor and labor

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could be the third type of capital labor could be human capital by labor I mean I

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simply mean the workers hired to work in a company in a factory and of course we

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must include here as I've said technology and technology is the

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combination of knowledge methods and procedures used in the production

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factors. Somehow technology is part of the factories and machinery. Finally, and

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this is very important, the last production factor is labor. I could say

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actually is the most important production factor. Labor is the physical

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or also intellectual effort made by people in order to produce material

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goods and services by labor I mean workers and when we deal with workers

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labor there is a series of points we must take into account first point has

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to do with the employment situation of labor of workers and we distinguish

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between active population or labor force on the one hand and inactive population

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on the other hand active population is made up of the company of the sorry

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combination of people who are in paid work in other words this is the employed

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population but labor force or active population also includes unemployed

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people okay people who are not employed but are looking for a job inactive

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population includes those people who are not working and they are not available

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to work. Think about pensioners or students. The second important point about labor is labor market.

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In our world, in our economy, there is a labor market. There is a market in which the supply

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for work, which is to say the workers look for work, and the demand for work, the companies

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need for work converge okay if you have any doubts about it we will work on it

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in class and finally I must mention another point related to labor which is

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labor problems the problems related to workers the main problems related to

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labor today in the context of our economy in the context of our world are

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are those related to unemployment, job insecurity,

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youth unemployment, which is especially important

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in such countries as Spain,

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gender discrimination and child labor.

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Child labor is especially a problem

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in underdeveloped and developing countries.

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I will end here, we will continue in class.