What Caused the Current Economic Crisis Term Paper

What Caused the Current Economic Crisis - Term Paper Example This meant the very foundations on which our principles and understanding of the whole economic system was based on were shaken and jolted to an extent that people lost confidence in its integrity. It raised questions that directly pointed fingers on the functioning of the global financial markets. The whole crisis began when the US investors lost confidence in the value of sub-prime mortgages resulting in an adverse liquidity crisis. In fear of the effects of the looming liquidity crisis, the US Federal Bank injected huge sums of capital, liquid money, into financial markets in an attempt to prevent several hundred thousand businesses and individuals from declaring bankruptcy. By the end of September of the following year, the economic crisis had worsened as its negative effects started to crash stock markets on all the continents. This made investment highly volatile and investors lost millions of dollars overnight as this continued to spread further. A pinnacle was reached where c onsumer confidence was at its lowest in fear of the inevitable outcomes. Analyses reveal that at a more fundamental level the economic crisis could be attributed to the diligence of massive global imbalances. These imbalances were the outcomes of long periods of excessively loose monetary policy in the major advance economies during the early part of this decade. A major factor in this was the significant increase in the budget deficit of the United States, while at the same time the accumulation of huge amounts of surpluses in Asia, particularly in China and the oil exporting countries of Middle East. The current account balance of US in 2008 as a percent of its GDP was -4.7%, and for China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and UAE was 10%, 28.9%, 6.1% and 15.8% respectively. This showed that even after billions of revenue for the Western Giant United States, the global net flow of money was directed towards the Eastern part. This imbalance was ever growing as the Economic power was slowly and gradually shifting from the West to the East. Experts stated that these imbalances were seen as the consequence of the relative inflexibility of the currency regimes in China and other such countries. According to Portes (2009), prevailing global macroeconomic imbalances were the major underlying cause of the crisis. The gap between the saving-investment function was extensive and this gap was only widening with time since developing countries started relying more heavily on developed economies to provide for their development expenditures. The immediate impacts of these huge cross-border financial flows were seen on the financial intermediation process. (Mohan, 2009) As stated earlier the monetary policy of US was also a contributing factor to the financial crisis of 2008. To understand this we have to visualize the dot com bubble burst in the early 2000’s. This resulted in a reduction of the interest rates and consistent ease in the monetary policy of US and other advanced economies. These rates maintained as low as 1 per cent in US during the period 2003-2004. This gave ample opportunity for new businesses to thrive in the country and huge investments were made during the first half of the decade. Figure 1 clearly demonstrates that during 2008 the effective federal fund rate in the US was around 1 per cent margin. This relatively loose monetary policy meant that transactions were being done on a credit basis more than ever in the history of the country. The effects of this were visible in the credit crunch of 2007 that eventually combined with other factors to bring about the economic crisis. The growing demand from the US consumers and its increasing reliance on cheap consumer goods being imported from Asian countries, mainly China,

Aquarius Case Analysis Essay Example for Free

Aquarius Case Analysis Essay 1) Analyze Aquarius in terms of the five contextual variables: * Goals: Aquarius has realized a huge problem in regards to the rapid turnover of their major accounts. An agency reorganization would be a realistic goal in changing their competitive techniques. This reorganization might be able to set them apart from the other agencies by reducing their response time and increasing the communication between the different departments to boost efficiency. * Culture: In my opinion I believe that Aquarius has a very low and undefined organizational culture. It seems like the employees are all looking out for themselves and trying to get ahead of everyone else. These values although unwritten provide the glue to having everyone on the same page and are absolutely essential in providing clients with top of the line work. * Size: Since Aquarius is a mid-sized firm with various specialists on the professional staff of the operations and marketing divisions I would say they have anywhere from 1000-1500 employees. With this many employees it is critical to have effective communication between the different departments. This would in turn increase flexibility in this unpredictable environment. * Environment: Changes in the environment is the main reason why the agency is considering the need for reorganization. It is typical for advertising agencies to gain/lose clients quickly, this is why is it so essential to have everyone in the organization effectively communicating with each other in order to satisfy their clients and reduce turnover. * Technology: Aquarius has a number of different specialists on their team that work together in assisting their clients, but there is always room for improvement in regards to better communication. It would seem to me that Aquarius would have a number of different programs and internet sites to assist them achieving their services. 2) A new organizational structure that takes into consideration the contextual variables in the case and the information flows is the divisional structure. This structure is suited to fast change in an unstable environment and provides high product or service visibility. A major problem that occurs in Aquarius is that each client account is coordinated by an account executive who acts as a liaison between the client and various specialists. Unfortunately this isn’t followed because sometimes the account executives don’t even know what is going on until a week later. The divisional structure leads to customer satisfaction because product responsibility and contact points are clear. This in turn involves high coordination across functions which will make everyone check with the executive first to get approval before contacting the client. Coordination across functions will allow their services to adapt to the requirements of the individual clients and perform beyond their expectations. This structure would allow Aquarius to achieve their goals while increasing their organizational culture as a whole and being able to adapt more quickly to this unstable environment. 3) Would a matrix structure be feasible for Aquarius? I my opinion I believe that a balanced matrix structure would be hard to implement and maintain. This is due to the fact that account executives as one side of the authority structure would often dominate over the specialists. In order for the account executive to do their job correctly they need everyone on their side and in coordination to run important information by them first. Perhaps a better alternative would be a product matrix where the executives have primary authority and the specialists assign technical personal to the projects and provide advisory expertise as needed. With dual authority I feel that it would be frustrating and confusing for everyone, there needs to be a clear contact points. There would always be a need for frequent meetings to resolve any conflicts between the different authorities, it would simply just require to great of an effort to maintain the power balance.

The Stone Angel Essay -- English Literature Essays

The Stone Angel Self-Inflicted Isolation and Loneliness â€Å"I never realized until this moment how cut off I am.† (Laurence, 1988, 294) In the novel The Stone Angel, author Margaret Laurence portrays a lonely old woman by the name of Hagar. Over the course of the novel, Hagar reflects back on the memories that have created the story of her life. Hagar is a deeply lonely woman, and much of that loneliness is self-inflicted. This mental isolation is caused by her stubbornness, her pride, and the blindness that she has towards any opinion other than her own. Hagar Currie-Shipley is a very stubborn woman at the age of ninety. She is very set in her ways, and does not appreciate being told what to do. The reader is introduced to this stubbornness when Hagar is brought to Silverthreads nursing home to view the location. Upon this discovery, Hagar attempts to run away, only to find herself lost in a forest. However, this stubbornness is not a new characteristic of Hagar’s, for she has been this way since early childhood. I wouldn’t let him see me cry, I was so enraged. He used a foot ruler, and when I jerked my smarting palms back, he made me hold them out again. He looked at my dry eyes in fury, as though he’d failed unless he drew water from them. He struck and struck, and then all at once he threw the ruler down and put his arms around me†¦ â€Å"You take after me,† he said, as though that made everything clear. â€Å"You’ve got backbone, I’ll give you that.† (Laurence, 1988, 9-10) This passage shows Hagar’s ability to hide her true emotions, which is a tool that she uses a lot later on in life. She later talks of making love to her husband, Bram, stating that even when she did enjoy it, â€Å"He never knew. I never let him know. I never spoke aloud, and I made certain the trembling was all inner.† (Laurence, 1988, 81) Also, early on in life, when her brother Dan was dying of pneumonia, she could not bring herself to perform his final wish. He cried for his dead mother, and Matt had asked Hagar to wear an old shawl, to act as their mother, and hold Dan, but Hagar could not bear the thought of portraying someone as weak as her mother. Her heart seems to be made of stone, much like the stone angel that her father had imported from Italy for her mother’s grave. Hagar kept all of her emotions bottled up inside. After Bram died, she did not allow herself to cry. It w... ...d to send Arlene to Toronto. When John tells Hagar about the move Hagar pretends to know nothing about it. John informs her that she â€Å" ‘always bet on the wrong horse,’ John said gently. ‘Marv was your boy, but you never saw that, did you?’† (Laurence, 1988, 237) it really opens Hagar’s eyes. She realizes that she has been wrong in her favoritism, although she will not admit it until later on after John is dead. When she is lying in her hospital bed many years later, she lets this realization be known, telling Marvin â€Å" ‘You’ve not been cranky, Marvin. You’ve been good to me, always. A better son than John.’† (Laurence, 1988, 305) Sometimes these realizations come too late. The self-inflicted isolation that Hagar feels is a result of her stubbornness, pride, and blindness towards other views. Her past has shaped her to become the bitter, stolid, rigid old woman that she is in the novel, also greatly contributing to her mental isolation. This isolation is a result of the personal decisions and actions that she has made throughout the course of the novel. â€Å"Every last one of them has gone and left me. I never left them. It was the other way around, I swear it.† (Laurence, 1988, 164) The Stone Angel Essay -- English Literature Essays The Stone Angel Self-Inflicted Isolation and Loneliness â€Å"I never realized until this moment how cut off I am.† (Laurence, 1988, 294) In the novel The Stone Angel, author Margaret Laurence portrays a lonely old woman by the name of Hagar. Over the course of the novel, Hagar reflects back on the memories that have created the story of her life. Hagar is a deeply lonely woman, and much of that loneliness is self-inflicted. This mental isolation is caused by her stubbornness, her pride, and the blindness that she has towards any opinion other than her own. Hagar Currie-Shipley is a very stubborn woman at the age of ninety. She is very set in her ways, and does not appreciate being told what to do. The reader is introduced to this stubbornness when Hagar is brought to Silverthreads nursing home to view the location. Upon this discovery, Hagar attempts to run away, only to find herself lost in a forest. However, this stubbornness is not a new characteristic of Hagar’s, for she has been this way since early childhood. I wouldn’t let him see me cry, I was so enraged. He used a foot ruler, and when I jerked my smarting palms back, he made me hold them out again. He looked at my dry eyes in fury, as though he’d failed unless he drew water from them. He struck and struck, and then all at once he threw the ruler down and put his arms around me†¦ â€Å"You take after me,† he said, as though that made everything clear. â€Å"You’ve got backbone, I’ll give you that.† (Laurence, 1988, 9-10) This passage shows Hagar’s ability to hide her true emotions, which is a tool that she uses a lot later on in life. She later talks of making love to her husband, Bram, stating that even when she did enjoy it, â€Å"He never knew. I never let him know. I never spoke aloud, and I made certain the trembling was all inner.† (Laurence, 1988, 81) Also, early on in life, when her brother Dan was dying of pneumonia, she could not bring herself to perform his final wish. He cried for his dead mother, and Matt had asked Hagar to wear an old shawl, to act as their mother, and hold Dan, but Hagar could not bear the thought of portraying someone as weak as her mother. Her heart seems to be made of stone, much like the stone angel that her father had imported from Italy for her mother’s grave. Hagar kept all of her emotions bottled up inside. After Bram died, she did not allow herself to cry. It w... ...d to send Arlene to Toronto. When John tells Hagar about the move Hagar pretends to know nothing about it. John informs her that she â€Å" ‘always bet on the wrong horse,’ John said gently. ‘Marv was your boy, but you never saw that, did you?’† (Laurence, 1988, 237) it really opens Hagar’s eyes. She realizes that she has been wrong in her favoritism, although she will not admit it until later on after John is dead. When she is lying in her hospital bed many years later, she lets this realization be known, telling Marvin â€Å" ‘You’ve not been cranky, Marvin. You’ve been good to me, always. A better son than John.’† (Laurence, 1988, 305) Sometimes these realizations come too late. The self-inflicted isolation that Hagar feels is a result of her stubbornness, pride, and blindness towards other views. Her past has shaped her to become the bitter, stolid, rigid old woman that she is in the novel, also greatly contributing to her mental isolation. This isolation is a result of the personal decisions and actions that she has made throughout the course of the novel. â€Å"Every last one of them has gone and left me. I never left them. It was the other way around, I swear it.† (Laurence, 1988, 164)

Outcome Unit

A task like this would usually take me 10 minutes in the morning to do a cash count up and an hour in the afternoon in which I set myself from pm until pm to get this completed on Monday- Thursday.On a Friday however I set myself 2 hours (pm -? pm) as I have to go back over the week, input all outgoings on to the petty cash spreadsheet, calculate how much of our float we have spent and how much needs to be requested, make sure all figures equalize, photocopy everything so that the originals go to our head office and the photocopies stay in the centre for our records, package and get ready to send second class recorded to Head-Office that afternoon. See evidence ‘Ross Handwriting – Witness Testimony. 3. – It is ally important that I priorities my time throughout my working day to ensure that I get as much done as possible and use my time effectively. At the beginning of each day I like to make myself a ‘to do list' on Outlook. I do this so that know exactly w hat need to get done and I can also set myself targets on time slots to get the task done in so that all my time is used efficiently. If I was to be given another task throughout my working day would add this to my to-do list amending it depending whether the task is high-priority or not.This is extremely helpful and helps me keep on top of all of my tasks as can rack how much of the task I have completed and what is still yet to complete. When click in to the task I have set myself specific tasks which help me to break down my job even more: like to keep both an electronic check list as well as a hard copy to make sure keep on top of my tasks. The hard copy is useful for me as I can physically see what needs to be done however the electronic copy notifies me on my desktop in case am involved in other tasks to keep me from losing track of time.See evidence To do list – Outcome 3. 2 Evidence' & ‘Ross Handwriting Witness Testimony'. 3. – am able to confirm effectiv e working methods with my colleagues and managers. For example, when planning my diary and allowing myself time to complete my apprenticeship/NV work I was concerned that wasn't allowing myself enough time to complete my work in the time that my assessor had asked and expected. I expressed my concerns to my line manager and together we confirmed a more effective way Of working in order to complete my NV coursework.See evidence ‘Unit 201 Outcome 3 – 3. 3 Email Evidence'. 3. 4 – I am able to indemnify when I have made a mistake or there has been a problem with my own work. As well as this, can also report these concerns to others and go to them for support when needed. An example of this would be when dealing with petty Cash; there was a time when calculating and finalizing petty cash, the balance in bank and tin and total weekly outgoings didn't add up to equal our weekly float.This meant that we were ‘missing' money is somewhere or something that we have pa id out during the week was not accounted for. Expressed my concern to my line manager and together we found the ‘missing' deficit of money. See evidence ‘Unit 201 Outcome 3 – 3. 4 Email Evidence Reporting Problems occurring in own Work'. 3. 5 – It is important to keep other people informed of your progress. For example, recently I was given the opportunity to oversee the creation and contact a printing company for our Kennedy Scott 25th Anniversary company invitations.The task was given to me by my Business Manager and it was important that I kept her informed of the progress of the creation, quotations and completion dates from the printing company as we was both working to a deadline. See evidence '25th Anniversary Invites Evidence'. 3. 6 -? I am able to complete tasks to agreed deadlines and re-negotiate timescales and plans in good time. As explained in 3. 5, when carrying out the task of having the KS Anniversary invites created, printed and sent out m anaged to keep to the time scales given and complete all tasks to my deadlines.However, when creating the design for the invitations, needed extra time to do so and also different resources (Photos). Because of this, after discussing with my business manager, we negotiated timescales and plans in which she let me go home an hour early to work on the invites at home on my laptop which had Photos. See evidence ‘Employers Fair Mudstone 24th September 2014 Re-Negotiate Timescales Evidence'. 3. 7 – I am able to take responsibility for my own work and accept responsibility for any mistakes that I make.By writing myself an Individual Learning Plan this shows that I am able to take responsibility for my own work. In my II-P have set myself short, mid and long term SMART targets to complete over the course of my apprenticeship. My short term target has now been completed as this was to sit online tests for my technical certificates; originally I wanted to achieve this by mid-Aug ust 2014 however I only completed 3 of my Technical Certificates by this time after failing one.

Poverty in the United States Essay

In the United States, poverty is mainly classified into two categories, absolute poverty and relative poverty. It is measured in terms of poverty threshold which comprehend poverty as a lack of those goods and services that most of conventional people in the society take them for granted. Absolute poverty is defined as the lack of least amount of food and shelter indispensable for maintaining life. On the other hand, relative poverty exemplifies how income relates to the median income and not necessarily that a person is lacking anything. The results from the statistics indicate that approximately 20 percent of the American population lives in poverty. One main cause of poverty in America is existence of culture of poverty which passes from generation to another generation (Mink, O’Connor, 2004). Based on the conception that anything is possible in America, the poor are thus said to be the source of their poverty. They always prefer to live life for the moment and show less interest about the future. As a result, poverty continues to increase as the underprivileged people feel lesser, unreceptive, desperate and incapable. Fluctuations of economic performance in U. S have necessitated the high rate of poverty. For instance, during recessions, the rate of unemployment increases, working hours are abridged and family incomes stagnates thus leading to poverty. Various aspects of educational system can play a major role in curbing this problem. For instance, teachers need to be tuned in to the culture of poverty and be sensitive to the enormous assortment of needs that children of poverty bring to the classroom (Mink, O’Connor, 2004). Educational systems operate in various rules and norms that will allow harmonious relationship between the cultural values of the affected children and values of prosperity and wealth emphasized in schools. References Mink, G. & O’Connor, A. (2004). Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy, Volume 1. London: Routledge

Hamlet1 essays

Hamlet1 essays Hamlet one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, where the young prince of Denmark must uncover the truth about his fathers death. Hamlet a play that tells the story of a young prince who's father recently died. Hamlets uncle Claudius marries his mother the queen and takes the throne. As the play is told Hamlet finds out his father was murdered by the recently crowned king. The theme that remains constant throughout the play is appearance versus reality. Things within the play appear to be true and honest but in reality are infested with evil. Many of the characters within the play hide behind a mask of falseness. Four of the main characters that hid behind this mask are Polonius, Rosencrantz (Guildenstern), the king Cluadius. From behind this mask they give the impression of a person who is sincere and genuine, in reality they are plagued with lies and evil. There appearance will make it very difficult for Hamlet to uncover the truth, the characters hide behind. Polonius the kings royal assistant has a preoccupation with appearance. He always wants to keep up the appearance of loving and caring person. Polonius appears like a man who loves and cares about his son, Laertes. Polonius speaks to his son with advice that sounds sincere but in reality it is rehearsed, hollow and without feeling. Polonius gives his advice only to appear to be the loving caring father. The reality is he only speaks to appear sincere as a politician, to look good rather then actually be good: And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell; my blessing season this in thee! Act 1 Polonius gives his son Laertes his blessing to go away, he sends a spy to follow him and keep an eye on him. This shows his lack of trust for anyone, he gives the appearance of a confident father who trusts his son to go off on his own...

Print Directly to Printer With JavaScript

Print Directly to Printer With JavaScript One query that turns up a lot in the various Javascript forums asks how to send the page directly to the printer without first displaying the print dialog box. Rather than just telling you that it cant be done perhaps an explanation of why such an option is not possible would be more useful. Which print dialog box displays when someone presses the print button in their browser or the Javascript window.print() method runs depends on the operating system and what printers are installed on the computer. As most people run Windows on their computer, lets first describe how the printing setup works on that operating system. The *nix and Mac operating systems differ slightly in the details but overall are set up similar. Print Dialog There are two parts to the print dialog box on Windows. The first of these is part of the Windows API (Application Programming Interface). The API is a set of common code pieces that are held in the various DLL (Dynamic Link Library) files that are part of the Windows operating system. Any Windows program can (and should) call the API to perform common functions such as displaying the Print Dialog box so that it will work the same way in all programs and not have different options in different places the way the print option did back in DOS program days. The Print Dialog API also provides a common interface allowing all programs access to the same set of printer drivers rather than printer manufacturers having to create driver software for their printer for each individual program that wanted to use it. The printer drivers are the other half of the print dialog. There are several different languages that different printers understand that they use to control how the page prints (eg. PCL5 and Postscript). The printer driver instructs the Print API as to how to translate the standard internal print format that the operating system understands into the custom markup language that the specific printer understands. It also adjusts the options that the Print dialog displays to reflect the options offered by the specific printer. Operating the Printer An individual computer may have no printers installed, it may have one local printer, it may have access to several printers over a network, it may even be set up to print to PDF or preformatted print file. Where more than one printer is defined one of them is designated the default printer which means that it is the one that displays its details in the print dialog when it first appears. The operating system keeps track of the default printer and identifies that printer to the various programs on the computer. This allows the programs to pass an extra parameter to the print API telling it to print directly to the default printer without displaying the print dialog first. Many programs have two different print options - a menu entry that displays the print dialog and a toolbar fast print button that sends directly to the default printer. When you have a web page on the internet that your visitors are going to print, you have next to no information about what printer(s) they have available. Most printers around the world are configured to print out on A4 paper but you cant guarantee that the printer is set up to that default. One North American country uses a non-standard paper size that is shorter and wider than A4. Most printers are set up to print out in portrait mode (where the narrower direction is the width but some may be set to the landscape  where the longer dimension is the width. Of  course, each and every printer also has different default margins at the top, bottom, and sides of the page even before the owners go in and change all of the settings to get the printer the way that they want. Given all of these  factors, you have no way to tell whether the default printer with its default configuration will print out your web page on A3 with negligible margins or on A5 with huge margins (leaving little more than a postage stamp sized area in the middle of the page). You can probably assume that most will have a print area on the page of approximately 16cm x 25cm (plus or minus 80%). Printing Needs Since printers vary so much between your potential visitors (did someone mention laser printers, inkjet printers,  color  or black and white only, photo quality, draft mode, and lots more) you have no way to tell what they will need to do to print out your page in a reasonable format. perhaps they have a separate printer or a second driver for the same printer providing totally different settings specifically for web pages. Next, comes the matter of what they may want to print. Do they want the whole page or have they selected just a part of the page that they want to  print?  If your site uses frames do they want to print all of the frames the way they appear on the page, do they want to print each frame separately, or do they just want to print a specific frame? The need to answer all of these questions makes it just about essential that the print dialog  appears  whenever they want to print something so that they can make sure that the settings are all correct before they hit the print button. Most browsers also provide the ability to add a fast print button to one of the browser toolbars to allow the page to be printed to the default printer using default browser settings as to what is to be printed and how. Javascript Browsers do not make this multitude of browser and printer settings available to Javascript. Javascript is primarily concerned with modifying the current  web page  and so web browsers provide minimal information about the browser itself and next to no information about the operating system available to  Javascript  because Javascript doesnt need to know those things to perform  those  things that Javascript is intended to do. Basic security says that if something like Javascript doesnt need to know about the operating system and browser configuration in order to manipulate the web page then it should not be provided with that information. It is not like Javascript ought to be able to change the printer settings to appropriate values for printing the current page because that is not what Javascript is for - that is the job of the print dialog. Browsers  therefore  only make available to Javascript those things that Javascript needs to know such as the size of the screen, the  available space in the browser window  to display the page, and similar things which help Javascript work out how the page is laid out. The current web page is  Javascripts  one and only concern. Intranets Intranets are of course an entirely different matter. With an  intranet,  you know that everyone  accessing the page  is using a specific browser (usually a recent version of Internet Explorer) and has a specific screen resolution and access to specific printers. This means that it makes sense on an intranet to be able to print directly to the printer without displaying the print dialog because the person writing the web page knows which printer it will be printed on. The Internet Explorer substitute for Javascript (called JScript) therefore has slightly more information about the browser and operating system that Javascript itself does. The individual computers on the network running the intranet may be able to be configured to allow the JScript  window.print()  command write directly to the printer without displaying the print dialog. This configuration would need to be set up individually on each client computer and is well beyond the scope of an article on Javascript. When it comes to web pages on the internet there is absolutely no way that you can set up a  Javascript command  to send directly to the default printer. If your visitors wish to do that they will have to set up their own fast print button on their browser toolbar.