Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Big Heads and Short Tempers Edgar Allan Poe in Context...

Edgar Allan Poe was the epitome of a tormented genius. He possessed uncontrollable and self-inflicted internal problems. In addition, Poe was plagued by external difficulties—some preventable, some not. Most doctors today would pronounce Poe to be bipolar, chronically depressed, and perhaps even OCD. Most people today, and any day, would declare Poe to be self-obsessed and arrogant, or—at the least—snobbish. His personal life would also be considered less than ideal, though how much he was personally responsible for is still unknown (Hutchisson 19). Art, however, often springs from controversy and instability. In fact, Jacqueline Langwith, editor of Perspective on Disease Disorders: Mood Disorders, notes that â€Å"creativity appears to be†¦show more content†¦However, the most revealing aspect of Poes psychology comes not from the themes, but from the function words. Function words include pronouns, articles, and conjunctions. Professor Pennebaker of Texas University at Austin found that â€Å"Depressed people use the word â€Å"I† much more often than emotionally stable people† (Pennebaker). Interestingly, many of Poes best known works were written in first-person, including â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado.† First-person pronouns permeate every paragraph. Every sentence, emotion, and perspective come from the view of the narrator. Fortunato is often referred to as â€Å"my friend† rather than by his name. After Fortunato is confined in the catacombs and begins to shout at Montressor, Poe writes â€Å"I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I re-echoed—I aided—I surpassed them in volume and strength. I did this, and the clamorer grew still.† In less than three lines, Poe uses the word â€Å"I† six times. Instead of simply saying â€Å"I re-echoed, aided, and surpassed them in volume,† he begins every action with the focus on nothing besides himself. However, Poes use frequent use of first-person helps make his stories unique. Poes depression influenced his tone in writing â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado.† Poes prideful nature also played intoâ€Å"The Cask of Amontillado.† Interestingly, his pride played itself out in both helpful and hurtful ways. On the one hand, â€Å"Poe was nothing if not

Monday, December 16, 2019

All about Interest Groups, Political Parties, and Nominations and Campaigns Free Essays

The American system of election is very expensive, time consuming and tedious to the aspiring presidential candidates. The length of the process determines the prosperity of a candidate from any political party. Although this time range favors some candidates its complexity and cost disqualifies other candidates. We will write a custom essay sample on All about Interest Groups, Political Parties, and Nominations and Campaigns or any similar topic only for you Order Now Since not all top party leaders are interested in the presidency, the aspiring candidates have to meticulously orchestrate their announcement of candidature to capture the public while at the same time win the approval and loyalty of their leaders. This occurs during the caucuses and primaries in which starts the road to the White House as argued by (Lader, 2006). This system has flaws for states like Iowa that still relies on caucuses. The suitable candidate can easily be locked out of the race early if they lack popularity with the party heads. The numerous questions and hole punching that is involved in these levels can easily elevate or disqualify a candidate depending on their eloquence, smartness or simply their political correctness at that particular time. The highly televised primaries on the other hand have rather seen luminaries in larger states like New York and California succeed. Celebrity entertainers have recently been used to rally support for candidates during such primaries. Such trends show modern day success stories for democracy. The future of election currently relies on modern day technology and chat rooms that are famous especially with the youthful population. Showbiz and technology such as Facebook and Twitter are the next level of campaign strategies since they have the most audience of the voting population. Campaign themes also have credited to the success or failure of modern day candidates. 2. Political Parties. The growth of democracy in the U.S is credited to the evolution of political parties and their strong affiliations to the public. The political parties have fashioned themselves around the figure of the president for administrative and political influences. Although this is fashioned to enable uniqueness of voice and solidarity in opinions, it has alienated the public from decision making compared to their British counterparts. This brings about personal political ambitions to the parties, where presidents only push their aspirations while sidelining the shared collective responsibility for the entire nation and the political parties. The problem is that the public has no say in decision making since the president does not have to consult the Congress in decision making. The failed link between the people and their presidents thus causes dissatisfaction and polarization. 3. The Interest Groups. In light of the common good of the American society, the power of the interest groups can only be sustained to its least degree possible. If not, their extremism of expression tends to only favor the thought of certain groups and alienate other groups. These groups are small; the allegiance to any of these groups automatically paralyses the success of a presidential candidate. These interest groups have drawn allies in the mainstream political parties thus dividing the country in lines of opinion and policies. The strong constitutional structure silenced these groups yet the concept of pluralism enhances cooperation while reducing polarization of the country. This maintains freedom, versatility and balance of political power. 4. Conclusion. The systems of election and campaign in the primaries and the caucuses are truly beneficial to ensure transparency. Unfortunately, the tedious nature of this journey can be reviewed by the use of technology and inclusion of pluralism that favors the power balance. The American population should therefore be encouraged to embrace chat room groups and pluralism to motivate the growth of their democracy. Reference Lader, C. (2006). How to prepare for the AP U.S. Government Politics Barron’s How to prepare for the AP US Government and Politics Advanced   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Placement Examination. Barron’s AP Unites States Government Politics (4th   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ed). New York: Barron’s Educational Series. How to cite All about Interest Groups, Political Parties, and Nominations and Campaigns, Papers

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Financial Crisis Assets Drops Rapidly

Question: Describe about theFinancial Crisis and Assets Drops Rapidly. Answer: Introduction Financial crisis refers to a situation whereby the value of assets drops rapidly. Usually this situation is associated with panic which at times may result into large number of investors rushing to bank to sell off their assets or even withdrawing money from their savings account with fear that the value of their assets may drop rapidly. Financial crisis can be caused by assets being overvalued and can usually be exacerbated by the behavior of investors. Global financial crisis is traced back to the middle of 2007 and 2008 whereby the world stock fell rapidly leading to collapse of large financial institutions globally. Government of different countries had to come up with rescue strategies to bail their financial plans. This essay provides an overview of Global financial crisis with an aim of digging deeply on some of the examples of financial crisis, their possible causes, the possibility of the crisis re occurring and the general reforms that have been developed to curb such crisi s. Examples of financial crisis Financial crisis is a major economic catastrophe that is experienced in most parts of the world. There are series of financial crises that have been experienced since the famous global financial crises. Sub-prime mortgage is a good example of financial crisis that greatly affected the global financial market worldwide. In 1866, there was an international financial panic that accompanied the failure of Gurney in London, England. This crisis resulted to a lot of panic within the global market. In 1825, there was a pervasive recession in the British whereby nearly all banks including the Bank of England almost collapsed (Corsetti, Pesenti, Roubini, (1999). The panic of 1847, started as a result of the collapse of British financial market. This subsequently led to the collapse of railway industry boom. In 1763 there was serious financial crisis which started in Amsterdam (Lemmon, Larry Lins (2003). This crisis begun by the collapse of Leendert Pieter de Neufville. It spread rapidly to Germany and later entered the major cities of Scandinavia. Financial crisis remain one of the major catastrophic economic threat. Back in 2009, the famous European debt crisis, which was famously known as Eurozone crisis saw many several Eurozone members unable to refinance their government without assistance of third parties (Taylor (2009). This crisis was caused by a combination of complex factors that included globalization of finance. There were easy finance conditions between the periods of 2002 to 2008 leading to this catastrophic financial crisis. In 2008, the Great Recession was a financial crisis in Russian markets that was compounded by political fear after the war that occurred with Georgia. The plummeting price of crude oil was a clear indication of this financial crisis. As a result financial crisis is major global catastrophe that has hit several countries in the world. The diagram below shows graphical representation of the financial crisis that occurred in U.S.A between 2008 and 2009. Possible causes of financial crisis Excess leverage: excess leverage is one of the major causes of financial crisis globally. Usually there exists very little transparency in accounting for leverages. In fact at times, leverages go beyond balance sheet that subsequently results to financial crisis. This situation is usually beyond the skill of most legislators to handle. Taxes and subsidies: Tax policies usually play a vital part on the flow of capital and the current tax code need a complete overhaul. Lack of Financial Transaction Tax encourage short term speculation and discourage the long term speculation, this results to financial crisis. Failure to eliminate the subsidy on debt based encourages more debt when we have much debt already. Governance: a poorly governed democratic government results to mismanagement of funds. Here if exchanges are not properly managed by government, then the implication of poor governance would greatly result to financial crisis. If exchanges are governed as commons then there could be no way that civil society would condone the raised frequency which in most cases usually benefit the a few at the expense of low system resiliency. Fraud: committing fraud is a major factor that has resulted to financial crisis. Some financial institutions have been prosecuted for their role in financial crisis. For example the Great Recession in Russia was of as a result of firms selling toxic mortgage-backed securities to institutional investors. Conflict of interest: usually there exist conflicts of interest in a banking institution between which interests to serve first at the expense of another. Toleration of such blatant conflict would significantly result into financial crisis. Banks that serves self-interest at the expense of society interest is a clear indication of gradual emergence of financial crisis. Such situation would serve as self-serving and patently false assumption that is usually taken but in the long run would result into a serious financial crisis. Liquidity: just like leverage, liquidity is very difficult to match. There is no reason for a bank to speculate building implicit backing of taxpayers. The liquidity ratio set by Basel 111 is an important battle to watch. At times it becomes very difficult to understand the true liquidity position of certain banking document. The difficulty in understanding true liquidity may result into critical financial crisis. Therefore it is important for a banking institution to strive and understand the liquidity of a given banking document. These are the major root causes of financial crisis in most parts of the world. There are however reforms and strategies that have been set aside to handle such risks. Can Global Financial Crisis occur again? With various measures taken after the occurrence of global financial crisis, the question that still hit the mind of many financial institutions is that can the crisis re occur. After looking at the causes of financial crisis and the reforms that have then been developed to curb such crisis, I have tried to imagine of such crisis occurring again. (Mitton, 2002)My argument is entirely based on the causes and the major reforms that have been developed to deal with such crisis. I have also tried to look at the aforementioned reforms to check if really they work as expected. Global financial crisis was not caused by a single factor but was caused by a combination of several factors ranging from political to economic factors. This is a clear indication that Global financial crisis would still re occur if such factors are not properly taken care of. Based on the reforms developed, we cannot assume that the reforms work perfectly. It is estimated that the crisis can reoccur but not like the 2008 financial crisis. This is because the reforms that were undertaken will mitigate the crisis. There are steady progresses after the famous 2008 crisis and in most parts of the world we have experienced a steady progress. This is a clear indication that the crisis may reoccur but not like the aforementioned 2008 crisis. (Mitton, 2002) A research conducted by Geithner shows that the government and the central government will be forced to act again in order to take the risks that the market will not be able to take. Stock market valuation appear high a condition that mi ght lead to another financial crisis if not taken care of. Scale and impact of financial crisis The effects of financial crisis were widespread. It affected the investment in developing countries both directly and indirectly. Financial crisis also affected the banking sector in a number of ways leading to even collapse of some banking institutions. In this essay, I try to look at some of the impact of financial crisis both within my country and globally. In financial institution, the crisis led to panic as investors rushed to banking institutions to liquidate their assets in highly leveraged banking institutions. There was estimation by the International Monetary Fund that a lot of assets were lost. In developing countries, the financial crisis led to economic deterioration as there was insufficient funds to drive the projects that had been earlier initiated. (Reinhart Rogoff, 2008) These countries that were hit hardest by the financial crisis unemployment arose due to the financial crisis. In fact in developing countries unemployed people were hit majorly as they were observe d straining to acquire their unemployment insurance fund. In developed countries there was reduction in export earnings. Even though this was not a major impact on the economy of developed counties, it had a serious knock on their economy. Financial flow also reduced as a result of the crisis. The financial flow from the rest of the world greatly reduced during this period. It negatively affected the economy of the developed countries as there was global panic on the gradual financial flow. The following is a diagrammatic representation of some of the impacts of financial crisis in the federal balance sheet. Proposed reforms to curb financial crisis Regulatory responses have been set to address the effects of financial crisis. Several reforms have been developed to ensure that a repeat of the famous financial crisis be avoided at all cost. Regulations against as lending practices, tax policies and licensing have been developed. Timothy Geithner blamed the governments for insufficient power to control the wreck less credit practices that lead to financial crisis. He further blamed bankers and financial sectors for failing to have memory to see what would happen if a large amount of money was build outside the safeguard of what economy would require. Financial firms were regulated from neither too big nor too interconnected to fail. . (Reinhart Rogoff, 2008) When a firm becomes too big or too interconnected than we opt then legal authority need to be put aside to deal with this involvement. This strategy was missing during the aforementioned crisis but today has been implemented. The regulatory change that targets a particular asset such as hedge funds should be properly investigated. Transparency is needed such markets and all financial transactions need to pass through organized exchanges. They should also be a subject to strict reporting requirement to regulators. In America, the U.S president Barrack Oba ma and his advisors introduced some regulatory reforms in 2009 to curb financial crisis. These proposal were aimed at protecting consumer, bank financial cushions and the expanded the regulation of shadow banking system. Bills have been developed to regulate the lending practices that initially were not regulated. Government agency authority was passed to regulate government insurance and to refinance loans which was estimated at around 500,000 borrowers. . (Reinhart Rogoff, 2008) Short selling restriction was also developed in the U.S. This included a ban on the temporary short selling of financial stocks. This reform aimed at reducing rapid price prior to its bankruptcy. There was a reform to close down all troubled financial institutions such as the hedge funds. Leverages that a financial institution could assume were restricted to help in regulating short term borrowing. These proposed reforms have led to a greater reduction of funds mismanagement and with time it is estimated that financial crisis will be entirely avoided. Conclusion Financial crisis still remain one of the major catastrophe in the economy of today. Undoubtedly it remains a setback to our economy of today and even tomorrow. Luckily this is a setback that can be overcome. There are many reasons why we should remain optimistic that financial crisis is a setback that we can overcome. Having leant hard lesions during this tough financial period, our economy has remained resilient as a result of good growth and better policies that have been adopted. There are large markets that continue to grow and will be able to assist the economy of developing countries. In the near future, the huge fiscal and monetary expansion programs, the developing may soon pluck the fruits of their renewed vigor to curb the global financial crisis that greatly affected their economies. References Corsetti, G., Pesenti, P., Roubini, N. (1999). What caused the Asian currency and financial crisis?. Japan and the world economy, 11(3), 305-373. Lemmon, M. L., Lins, K. V. (2003). Ownership structure, corporate governance, and firm value: Evidence from the East Asian financial crisis. The journal of finance, 58(4), 1445-1468. Mitton, T. (2002). A cross-firm analysis of the impact of corporate governance on the East Asian financial crisis. Journal of financial economics, 64(2), 215-241. Reinhart, C. M., Rogoff, K. S. (2008). Is the 2007 US sub-prime financial crisis so different? An international historical comparison (No. w13761). National Bureau of Economic Research. Taylor, J. B. (2009). The financial crisis and the policy responses: An empirical analysis of what went wrong (No. w14631). National Bureau of Economic Research.