Thomas Jefferson Essays (8234 words) - Thomas Jefferson,

Thomas Jefferson Sadly, modern Americans seem to have done a better job preserving what Thomas Jefferson has left us in bricks and mortar than we have preserving his ideas. Tourists visiting Charlottesville, Virginia, can witness firsthand the ongoing efforts to preserve Jefferson's home at Monticello as well as his splendid little Academical Village, the Lawn, which is still a vital center of student life at the University of Virginia. Further down the road, near Lynchburg, Virginia, preservationists have begun restoring Poplar Forest, Jefferson's retreat home. Scholars have been less successful in keeping alive his philosophy, particularly his ideas about government -- despite the copious record he left in his writings. Ken Burns's recent PBS documentary, Thomas Jefferson, is a case in point. It features a parade of scholars who simultaneously declare their own inability to understand Jefferson, and mislead others with interpretations of his life and thought that are as questionable as they are contradictory. Burns informs the viewer, for example, that Jefferson's life was full of contradictions: the man of the people with the tastes of an aristocrat, the natural rights philosopher who owned slaves, the lifelong champion of small government who more than doubled the size of the United States, and so on. Most of these alleged contradictions really aren't as antithetical as they appear, for they are based on faulty assumptions or misunderstandings of principles. Joseph Ellis, for example, reasserts the bromide -- common among modern liberal academics -- that the ideals of equality and the pursuit of happiness, as expressed in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, are unattainable or contradictory. But there's nothing contradictory about equality of rights and each individual's pursuit of happiness, if the concept of rights is properly understood. Herbert Spencer's law of equal freedom, the radical Whigs' concept of natural liberty, and Jefferson's concept of natural society all accounted for how the two can work together. The fact that many of today's intellectuals simply don't get it reveals much more about them than it does about Jefferson. Misinterpretations of Jefferson's political thinking seem pandemic these days. The 1993 celebrations of the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth, for example, typically championed his reputation as father of American democracy. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, speaking at the University of Virginia, echoed the views of many Jefferson scholars that the permanence of Jefferson resided not in his specific theories or acts of government, but in his democratic faith. While it is certainly true that Jefferson was a leading proponent of representative democracy -- in Democracy in America , Alexis de Tocqueville called Jefferson the most powerful advocate democracy has ever sent forth -- his devotion to democracy was neither absolute nor unqualified. Indeed, Tocqueville thought it significant that Jefferson once warned James Madison that the tyranny of the legislature was the danger most to be feared in American government. To Jefferson, democracy and its associated principles -- majority rule, equal rights, direct representation of the people in government -- were valuable, not as ends in themselves, but as essential means to a greater end, the maximization of individual freedom in civil society. Liberty was Jefferson's highest value; he dedicated his life to what he once called the holy cause of freedom.1 A Radical Whig What repeatedly drew Jefferson away from his tranquil domestic life at Monticello and back into the political fray was precisely that holy cause of freedom, to which he felt duty-bound whenever he saw liberty threatened by a powerful central government -- whether it was the British government under King George III or the United States government under Federalist administrations. His passion for this cause was reflected in the language that he used in his political writings. Jefferson, the zealous defender of religious freedom, tended to use words such as holy, orthodox, or catholic when discussing political, not religious, principles; he reserved words such as heretic or apostate to denounce politicians whom he regarded as the enemies of liberty. He summed up his life's work in a letter written relatively early in his public career, in 1790, soon after his return to the United States following his ambassadorship to France. [T]he ground of liberty is to be gained by inches . . . [W]e must be contented to secure what we

The Role of Lease Financing in Bangladesh Essays

The Role of Lease Financing in Bangladesh Essays The Role of Lease Financing in Bangladesh Essay The Role of Lease Financing in Bangladesh Essay Introduction Lease financing is comparatively a new concept in the financial sector and has got recognition as aninnovative source of finance for accelerating the pace of industrialization as well as economic growth of  Bangladesh. Leasing companies have registered substantial growth in lease financing during the year 1985through 1994. Since 1995 to date, growth in lease market has significantly slowed down because of sluggisheconomic activities, withdrawal of incentives by the government, imposition of cash resource requirementwith Bangladesh Bank as per Finance Act 1998, expansion of number of leasing institutions, lack of  diversification of service and of awareness in business community about leasing etc. Researchers have alsofound that leasing companies need to develop their professionals and should come in the market with newmarketing strategy. Background Bangladesh is a least developed country in the world with per capita GDP Tk. 11. 284 (USD 230). She suffersfrom poverty, imperfection in both, factor and product market, continuous in equilibrium in the economy,defective administrative structure in both financial and non-financial sector, inappropriate tax structure,heavy dependence on assistance from World Bank including other International Lending Agencies andDonor Countries, lack of capital stock, massive unemployment, political turmoil and unhealthy environmentfor investment. With the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in 1971, the thenGovernment nationalized all commercial Banks with the hope of accelerating industrial growth throughfinancial, fiscal and other supports. Since the inception of independent Bangladesh, Commercial Banks,Development Financial Institutions and Investment Corporation of Bangladesh have been the major sourcesof industrial finance in the country. These Banks were predominately serving the public sector by extendingsupport in the form of long term loan, working capital finance, bridge finance etc. and had limited experiencein trade, commerce and industry. Due to dearth of experience in investment decision, project financing,recovery of loan and recycle of loan, both entrepreneurs and Banking Financial Institutions coupled withdifficulties at every stage of development and accomplishment which ultimately led to the emergence of  many sick industries. The Development Financial Institutions (DFI s) that depend largely on external assistance suffer fromfinancial constrains because of ineffective project appraisal. Imprudent investment decisions, poor recoveryand inability to recycle of loan which resulted in withdrawal of fund by international donors. As a result of  poor performance and withdrawal of external support, the liquidity position of DFI s have declined and abilityof sanctioning fresh loan and of refinancing sick industries reduced. Nationalized commercial Banks areusually reluctant to finance capital expenditure due to higher financial risk and poor recovery and designedto promote the nonproductive sectors. Besides, their loan operation was substantially diminished due toadditional cash reserve requirement imposed by Bangladesh Bank in order to curb inflation. Consequently,genuine industrial clients are affected by their limited access to the long-term local currency loan. Thiscontention is evident from the fact that the private sector remains in massive default to the DFI s and NCB s,90% of borrowers to DFI s are in defaulting and recovery rates are as low as 10% of the total recoverableamount. On the other hand, Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), the only stock market of Bangladesh is not wellorganized and therefore failed to mobilize sufficient fund to meet the demand of the capital market of thecountry. During 1972-84, public sector financial institutions were found totally failure in developing industrialsector and promoting first generation of industrial entrepreneurs

Accounting principals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Accounting principals - Essay Example The key is to price it at a level where people can still afford it and will still demand it but where the company will also be able to make a profit and be able to maintain its status as a going concern. There are many ways measure performance but the reason why it is important is that if performance suffers than the whole company suffers. There are man econometric systems of measurement used for this process. Needless to say, it is complex. Clearly taxes play a huge role in every business and it is important to account for them. Transfer pricing is one method of adjusting prices between different parties at arms length. This is an effective method of determining the real price of something with relations to tax. All good accountants will do this. For many years governments have permitted this kind of calculation. Depending on where you sit politically outsourcing is either good or bad. It involves sending certain jobs to other places or countries where they can be done more cheaply. For example, a lot of companies outsource menial work such as call centres to India where wages are lower. This is a good way for companies to save money as they are always sending jobs to places where they can be done more cheaply. However, for workers at home they dont want to see their jobs move. In the end, the customers win as the companys savings are passed on to them. This is important to take into account when reading financial statements. Many workplaces are unionized. Workers sign collective agreements and have many rights. For workers this can be a good thing as their jobs are more easily protected, but for many companies this often involves higher costs as unions demand more wages and benefits. We can see how unions have nearly destroyed the American car industry through the way they drove up costs dramatically over the years. No

Cosmetic surgery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cosmetic surgery - Essay Example In a society that places great value on a person’s appearance, the demand for cosmetic plastic surgery has only seen a steady increase. This is manifested by the growing number of surgical clinics that offer both invasive and non-invasive procedures. Expectedly, the demand is not limited to just a certain group of people. Rather, it encompasses a variety of nationalities from Chinese to Russians and Italians. People have various reasons for getting cosmetic plastic surgery. Where some believe that their new looks would make them more confident and aid them in moving up the corporate ladder, others, like in those in the entertainment industry, undergo cosmetic surgery to keep their jobs. Still others are of the mind that cosmetic surgery is their chance of improving parts of their body they have long been or have become dissatisfied with. Although Western influence plays a role in the quest for a more â€Å"beautiful† face or body, across the different racial groups, majority of men and women are willing to pay for plastic surgery for the same reason – they want to look better than how they look now. In line with this ideal, cosmetic surgeons have noticed that while requests for some procedures remain similar to all ethnic groups, there are particular surgeries more frequently done on specific nationalities. Injections for Botox are the most common non-surgical methods of looking more youthful, especially for Caucasians. Because individuals from this race have thinner skin, they are more prone to developing wrinkles. The toxin helps in decreasing the appearance of frown lines, giving the patient smooth and wrinkle-free skin. Another popular non-invasive treatment is for skin whitening. Majority of people in India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea spend large amounts on whitening products believing that being fair is akin to being

Principles of finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Principles of finance - Essay Example In this case, the debtor is the companies in question. In most cases, this is termed as assets granted, particularly by the creditor to the debtor. The debtor agrees to repay the debt with an interest. Some companies use debt as part of their strategy in corporate finance. Before the debt is issued, both parties have to agree on the standard of deferred payment. In most cases, this repayment is in the mode of currency (Blum 2006). However, this repayment can be in the form of goods and services. Payment can be paid in installments or in the whole amount at the end of a loan agreement. A company offers different kinds of debts to customers to finance its operations. There are secured and unsecured debts, depending on whether the creditors have recourse to the assets of the borrower or not. In addition, there are private or public loans depending on the parties involved. One of the main reason why companies tend not to issue as much debt as possible is the fear of becoming bankrupt. If a company issues more debt than its stipulated capital, then the possibility of bankruptcy is usually high. This is especially in unsecured debts, and the borrower happens to forfeit payment. If this happens with a considerable number of borrowers, then the company can be at an extreme risk (DePamphilis 2011). Therefore, these companies offer debts amounting to the given budget. The financial advisors of the company advise the top managers on the considerable amount of debts to issue that would not alter the normal functioning of the company in any way. Secondly, a company may not be in a position to offer as much debt as possible. This is because the company may be undergoing some harsh economic times. Therefore, the company’s initial capital might be limited to offering a given amount of debt. During this period, some companies may not offer any debt at all. Therefore, the amount of debts a company offers is often guided by the economic situations of the company particular ly the capital in place (Forsythyl 2009). In addition, most of the risks involved may deter a company from issuing as many debts as possible. The companies, with the help of their financial advisers, look into all the risks in all the risks involved before issuing the debts. These risks may be as a result of economic downtowns, variability in the interest rates experienced and changes in the conditions of the market. Some companies tend to take the risks but obviously at a minimum (Prattie 2011). Fewer companies are willing to take many risks, therefore, tending to issue a limited amount of debts as possible. Moreover, some of these companies tend to put in place a lot of terms and conditions required before one gains access to these loans. Therefore, some debtors tend to bark out of the lending process due to all these requirements. Some of the requirement of a company before issuance of debts is collateral mostly in the form of assets. The debtor may not possess the required colla teral and, therefore, may not be legible to qualify for a debt from a certain company in question. In addition, the interest rates required by the company may be too high for the debtor not forgetting the question of having to follow the covenant made in the process. More to this is that this debt has to be repaid. Therefore, the investor or debtor in question has to have a stable cash flow to be in a position to repay in the stipulated time (Black 2010). Therefore, the appetite in making investment decisions is reduced. As a result, fewer debtors would be in a position to take the risk because a few of them have a stable cash flow. They may, therefore, fear the consequences that follow a forfeited debt payment therefore reducing the amount

Culture and Gender Differences in Communication

Culture and Gender Differences in Communication CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION While studying culture and communication, it is found that gender is an important factor that makes a difference in communication. Using evidences and examples from local and international, highlight and explain those differences. In a wider context, the use of signs and symbols has different meaning in verbal and non-verbal communication. Using examples explain and illustrate the most popular signs and symbols used in communication worldwide and discuss the key differences in their meaning. ‘For men and women, communication can be a very long drive, using different roads most probably to get to the same place.’ Having said that, it would be appropriate to first give a definition of the word communication followed by what gender is all about. Therefore, communication is known as a two-way process involving individuals trying to seek mutual understanding. Initially, it does not involve only the process of exchanging informations, ideas and feelings but also helps to develop and share meaning. It generally connects people or places in society. Communication is an essential key function for the management of individual, be it in the society, in an organisation or at home. Intriguingly, nothing can operate effectively if communication does not prevail as it should. As planned, we have to give a definition of the word gender which is an important factor that creates a gap between males and females. Gender refers to the attitudes, feelings and behaviour that a giv en culture associates with one’s biological sex. We also find it important to delineate culture which is the behaviour and belief of people depending on their particular social, ethnic or age group. Men and women are somehow being introduced to their particular gender roles at a very tender age. For example: â€Å"Little girls talk more indirectly; little boys talk directly. Little girls talk more with words; little boys use more actions.† Also, the differences can clearly be seen among teenagers in college and further at the workplace whereby women have the tendency to ask loads of questions before even starting the work as compared to men who are more prone to simply roll up their sleeves and get on with the work and assume that ladies are somehow worthless. As a matter of fact, these differences reflect in the: Style Content Structure Unique combination of influences on cognitive behavior According to researches, it can be said that men and women communicate differently by adopting distinct speech skills in regards to the situation they are facing, the purposes and the roles they play in society or at work. All these are consequently derived from gender differences emerged from both social and professional settings. Furthermore, gender can also be redefined as a paramount factor affecting communication within an organisation. In point of fact, gender differences are in one way or the other revealed during conflict or even serve as a cataclysm for conflicts while communicating. Generally speaking, women are famous to ‘read between the lines’ while men communicate to build up status. It is unfortunate that most of the times, girls use words to express their feelings, associate themselves emotionally or build rapport whereas men often contribute facts and figures as in a report. In regards to contents, men are more interested in talking about sports, money a nd business while ladies are always busy debating about feelings, relationships and people. Structure-wise, men are precise by directly coming to the point. Unlike women who are more detailed, regretful and animated, men are mostly not descriptive. Surprisingly, gender differences being a threat to the society and installing misunderstanding at work can however be beneficial in a certain way to both environments. The importance of communication maybe noticed in everyday life, for instance, a little connection can have a large impact and influence in one’s life. We all share the same ideas that males grow up learning some essential elements considered as being the center of masculinity such as being successful, aggressive, sexual and self-reliant. Certainly most men individually see life as a competition, therefore it can be put forward that the way they communicate becomes more of a brawl where they have to win. On the other side of the coin, females are taught that appearance is important, showing sensitivity and care is a must and they should anywise expect negative treatment from others. It is believed that ‘through communication with others, we come to understand how society defines masculinity and feminity.â⠂¬â„¢ Let us see how we can proceed accordingly. Most women are conditioned by culture to maintain harmonious relationships with others. That condition is revealed in softened demands, constrained statement and generally more tentative or lack confidence speech. Both men and women differ in the way they manage people and give orders. Many well-known studies have featured the fact that women have the tendency to soften their demands and statements, as compared to men who tend to be more direct. Women for example, use tag lines, phrases like ‘don’t you think’ preceding the presentation of an idea, ‘if you don’t mind’ following a demand or ‘this may be a crazy idea, but’ followed by a suggestion, trying to make their opinions and ideas be accepted and understood by others. As it has been mentioned above, in most cases women tend to ask more questions as compared to men. Indeed, asking, questions have different meanings when it comes to gender differences. Men ask questions for only one reason; to gather information. For women, asking questions have purposes to gather information, but as it can be noticed, women inquest when they already know the answer. The reason behind this is that they want to seek interest in what the other person has to say in order to cultivate the relationship. Moreover, be it in Mauritius or elsewhere, we normally observe that men are more likely to lean towards setting and acquiring goals contrary to women who show more passion for acceptance. Most men are known to act independently which means that they hardly seek advice or help from others while women chose to be in mutual understanding rather than showing unnecessary pride in most situations whereby they take decisions based on their colleagues. In most countries, men tend to expose their respect to their peers in the way the latter communicate opposed to women who show empathy through their actions. Also, women are well-known for their effective listening skills as compared to men. In addition to what has been said above, studies have proven that in Japan, men and women are expected to use different words to make reference to same points as compared to most other countries including Mauritius whereby both genders are supposed to use the same words to deliver a piece of information. Amazingly, it has been noticed that in the Chinese culture, the pitch and pronunciation that men and women use can differ. Men can take longer to express themselves as compared to women overall, of course depending on the topic raised. Similarly to the rest of the world, Chinese men converse more about politics and economy rather than family and education which are dedicated mainly for women. Unlike most Mauritian women, Chinese ones barely engaged themselves in conversation involving love and marriage. We also came to the conclusion that Chinese, Japanese and Indian women are not expected or rather allowed to talk about sensitive topic with strangers, contrary to Americans and Europ eans whether male or female who surely can interact with whoever they want. In Japan, men and women have different ways of communicating. Women in Japan speak more politely as compared to men. The Japanese language features elements that make women’s speech sound polite and feminine. In the meanwhile, men’s speech sound less polite and masculine. The language difference between genders reinforces Japanese social norms. Where women are the subordinates of men. In England modern society, it would therefore appear that women are equal with men. However the harsh reality tells us that women are not provided with an equal opportunity even for discussion, due to the fact that the two sexes respectively command different communication styles. In other words, the language women use is different from the one that men use. For further information, we made some researches and decided to interview a few people in the sole aim to gather unbiased data regarding the main differences that exist between the communication that flows between local men and women. Surely, we were delighted to know that most women in Mauritius are not keen to get themselves involved in conversations with strangers. Adversely, the majority of the local men will not hesitate to start conversing with someone they come across. Men hereby find it easier and comfortable to interact with others opposed to women and we strongly believe that this is due to on the way they have been brought up and develop their personality. In point of fact, this can help in building new relationships. More onwards, we also understood that Mauritian men pay more attention to football and other sport games and women mostly to fashion and make up. There is also another interesting point that we would definitely like to add is that amongst the working class people in Mauritius, women have the tendency to communicate more about the price of food and children and men are happier talking about politics or which cars are available in the market. Also, alike to most countries, women in Mauritius are always engaged in trend of GOSSIPING contradictory to men who most of the time try to escape from it. For a fact, it can be observed that while travelling, we can see many key differences in gender communication around the globe. In terms of couples, we can see that Asian people find it normal to communicate at higher pitch as compared to Americans and Europeans who usually opt to talk at a lower pitch. Typically speaking, most local people whether men or women, they both communicate at high pitch depending on the regions from which they belong and circumstances. Assuredly, gender communication difference is a worldwide issue. Communication between men and women differ in many ways, affecting their speech and outcomes. Nonetheless there are many other differences that can be highlighted in the way men and women communicate but we do believe that the above examples would help you have an idea of people interact with each other on a day to day basis. Without a doubt, gender differences help to resolve conflicts and strengthen healthy relationships. Now we shall give you an insight of the gender differences of both local and international people: GENDER DIFFERENCES MEN (LOCAL INTERNATIONAL) WOMEN (LOCAL INTERNATIONAL) Conversation Report talking (12 500 words/day) Rapport talking (25 500 words/day) Problem-Solving Are problem solvers Desire to understand problems Changing Subjects Tend to focus on the details of fact May mix personal and business talk Requests Tend to seek the respect of their peers Care for the approval of peers Equality Relate to others as rivals Relate to others as equals Managing ups downs Freely offer advice and analysis Tend to ask for help, advice and directions Body Language Desires space Desire closeness, togetherness and affinity Feedback Choose or resolve by force, persuasion or majority rule More concerned with feelings It has been discussed before that woman is more expressive than men. Research has shown that women are more focused on social-emotional interactions with others. Men and women tend to cope with stress and difficulties differently. Gray, 1992 stated that men cope with stress by drawing themselves from the conversation while women cope by reaching out and talking about the cause of the stress. Gray coined the phrase, ‘Men go to their caves and women talk.’ This is why; women in average speak about 25,500 words in a day and men in average speak about 12,500 words a day. Thusly it can be added that both gender should keenly comprehend each other in purpose to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts.

Practical Demonkeeping Chapter 19-20

19 JENNY'S HOUSE Jenny parked the Toyota behind Travis's Chevy and killed the lights. â€Å"Well?† Travis said. Jenny said, â€Å"Would you like to come in?† â€Å"Well.† Travis acted as if he had to think about it. â€Å"Yes, I'd love to.† â€Å"Give me a minute to go in and clear a path, okay?† â€Å"No problem, I need to check on something in my car.† â€Å"Thanks.† Jenny smiled with relief. They got out of the car. Jenny went into the house. Travis leaned against the door of the Chevy and waited for her to get inside. Then he threw open the car door and peeked inside. Catch was sitting on the passenger side, his face stuck in a comic book. He looked up at Travis and grinned. â€Å"Oh, you're back.† â€Å"Did you play the radio?† â€Å"No way.† â€Å"Good. It's wired into the battery directly; it'll drain the current.† â€Å"Didn't touch it.† Travis glanced at the suitcase on the backseat. â€Å"Keep an eye on that.† â€Å"You got it.† Travis didn't move. â€Å"Is there something wrong?† â€Å"Well, you're being awfully agreeable.† â€Å"I told you, I'm just glad to see you having a good time.† â€Å"You may have to stay the night in the car. You aren't hungry, are you?† â€Å"Get a grip, Travis. I just ate last night.† Travis nodded. â€Å"I'll check on you later, so stay here.† Travis closed the car door. Catch jumped to his feet and watched over the dashboard while Travis went into the house. Ironically, they were both thinking the same thing: in a little while this will all be over. Catch coughed and a red spiked heel shot out of his mouth and bounced off the windshield, spattering the glass with hellish spit. Robert had parked his truck a block away from his old house and walked up, hoping and dreading that he would catch Jenny with another man. As he approached the house, he saw the old Chevy parked in front of her Toyota. He had run through this scene a hundred times in his mind. Walk out of the dark, catch her with the guy, and shout â€Å"Ah ha!† Then things got sketchy. What was the point? He didn't really want to catch her at anything. He wanted her to come to the door with tears streaming down her cheeks. He wanted her to throw her arms around him and beg him to come home. He wanted to assure her that everything would be fine and forgive her for throwing him out. He had run that scene through his mind a hundred times as well. After they made love for the third time, things got sketchy. The Chevy was not part of his preconceived scenes. It was like a preview, a teaser. It meant that someone was in the house with Jenny. Someone who, unlike Robert, had been invited. New scenes ran through his mind: knocking on the door, having Jenny answer, looking around her shoulder to see another man sitting on the couch, and being sent away. He couldn't stand that. It was too real. Maybe it wasn't a guy at all. Maybe it was one of the women from the coven who had stopped over to comfort Jenny in her time of need. Then the dream came back to him. He was tied to a chair in the desert again, watching Jenny make love with another man. The little monster was shoving saltines in his mouth. Robert realized he had been standing in the middle of the street staring at the house for several minutes, torturing himself. Just be adult about it. Go up and knock on the door. If she is with someone else, just excuse yourself and come back later. He felt an ache rising in his chest at the thought. No, just walk away. Go back to The Breeze's trailer and call her tomorrow. The thought of another night alone with his heartbreak increased the ache in his chest. Robert's indecision had always angered Jenny. Now it was paralyzing him. â€Å"Just pick a direction and go, Robert,† she would say. â€Å"It can't be any worse than sitting here pitying yourself.† But it's the only thing I'm good at, he thought. A truck rounded the corner and started slowly to roll up the street. Robert was galvanized into action. He ran to the Chevy and ducked behind it. I'm hiding in front of my own house. This is silly, he thought. Still, it was as if anyone who passed would know how small and weak he was. He didn't want to be seen. The truck slowed almost to a stop as it passed the house, then the driver gunned the engine and sped off. Robert stayed in a crouch behind the Chevy for several minutes before he moved. He had to know. â€Å"Just pick a direction and go.† He decided to peek in the windows. There were two windows in the living room, about six feet off the ground. Both were old-style, weighted-sash types. Jenny had planted geraniums in the window boxes outside. If the window boxes were strong enough, he could hoist himself up and peek through the gap in the drawn curtains. Spying on your own wife was sleazy. It was dirty. It was perverse. He thought about it for a moment, then made his way across the yard to the windows. Sleazy, dirty, and perverse would be improvements over how he felt now. He grabbed the edge of the window box and tested his weight against it. It held. He pulled himself up, hooked his chin on the window box, and peered through the gap in the curtains. They were on the couch, facing away from him: Jenny and some man. For a moment he thought Jenny was naked, then he saw the thin straps of her black dress. She never wore that dress anymore. It gave out the wrong kind of message, she used to say, meaning it was too sexy. He stared at them in fascination, caught by the reality of his fear like a deer caught in car headlights. The man turned to say something to Jenny, and Robert caught his profile. It was the guy from the nightmare, the guy he had seen in the Slug that afternoon. He couldn't look any longer. He lowered himself to the ground. A knot of sad questions beat at him. Who was this guy? What was so great about this guy? What does he have that I don't? Worst of all, how long has this been going on? Robert stumbled away from the house toward the street. They were sitting in his house, on his couch – the couch he and Jenny had saved up to buy. How could she do that? Didn't everything in the house remind her of their marriage? How could she sit on his couch with some other man? Would they screw in his bed? The ache rose up in his chest at the thought, almost doubling him over. He thought about trashing the guy's car. It was pretty trashed already, though. Flatten the tires? Break the windshield? Piss in the gas tank? No, then he would have to admit to spying. But he had to do something. Maybe he could find something in the car that would tell him who this home wrecker was. He peered through the Chevy's windows. Nothing much to see: a few fast-food wrappers, a comic book on the front seat, and a Haliburton suitcase on the backseat. Robert recognized it immediately. He used to carry his four-by-five camera in the same model suitcase. He had sold the camera and given the suitcase to The Breeze for rent. Was this guy a photographer? One way to find out. He hesitated, his hand on the car door handle. What if the guy came out while Robert was rummaging through the car? What would he do? Fuck it. The guy was rummaging through his life, wasn't he? Robert tried the door. It was unlocked. He threw it open and reached in. 20 EFFROM He was a soldier. Like all soldiers, in his spare moments he was thinking of home and the girl who waited for him there. He sat on a hill looking out over the rolling English countryside. It was dark, but his eyes had adjusted during his long guard duty. He smoked a cigarette and watched the patterns the full moon made on the hills when the low cloud cover parted. He was a boy, just seventeen. He was in love with a brown-haired, blue-eyed girl named Amanda. She had down-soft hair on her thighs that tickled his palms when he pushed her skirt up around her hips. He could see the autumn sun on her thighs, even though he was staring over the spring-green hills of England. The clouds opened and let the moon light up the whole countryside. The girl pulled his pants down around his knees. The trenches were only four days away. He took a deep drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out in the grass. He let the smoke out with a sigh. The girl kissed him hard and wet and pulled him down on her. A shadow appeared on the distant hill, black and sharply defined. He watched the shadow undulate across the hills. It can't be, he thought. They never fly under a full moon. But the cloud cover? He looked in the sky for the airship but could see nothing. It was silent except for the crickets singing sex songs. The countryside was still but for the shadow. He lost the vision of the girl. Everything was the huge, cigar-shaped shadow moving toward him, silent as death. He knew he should run, sound the alarm, warn his friends, but he just sat, watching. The shadow eclipsed the moonlight and he shivered, the airship was directly over him. He could just hear the engines as it passed. Then he was bathed in moonlight, the shadow behind him. He had survived. The airship had held its bellyful of death. Then he heard the explosions begin behind him. He turned and watched the flashes and fires in the distance, listened to the screams, as his friends at the base woke to find themselves on fire. He moaned and curled into a ball, flinching each time a bomb exploded. Then he woke up. There was no justice; Effrom was sure of it. Not an iota, not one scintilla, not a molecule of justice in the world. If there was justice, would he be plagued by nightmares from the war? If there was any justice would he be losing sleep over something that had happened over seventy years ago? No, justice was a myth, and it had died like all myths, strangled by the overwhelming reality of experience. Effrom was too uncomfortable to mourn the passing of justice. The wife had put the flannel sheets on the bed to keep him cozy and warm in her absence. (They still slept together after all those years; it never occurred to them to do any different.) Now the sheets were heavy and cold with sweat. Effrom's pajamas clung to him like a rain-blown shroud. After missing his nap, he had gone to bed early to try to recapture his dreams of spandex-clad young women, but his subconscious had conspired with his stomach to send him a nightmare instead. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he could feel his stomach bubbling away like a cannibal's caldron, trying to digest him from the inside out. To say that Effrom was not a particularly good cook was an understatement akin to saying that genocide is not a particularly effective public relations strategy. He had decided that Tater Tots would provide as good a meal as anything, without challenging his culinary abilities. He read the cooking instructions carefully, then did some simple mathematics to expedite the preparation: twenty minutes at 375 degrees would mean only eleven minutes at 575 degrees. The results of his calculation resembled charcoal briquettes with frozen centers, but because he was in a hurry to get to bed, he drowned the suffering Tots in catsup and ate them anyway. Little did he know that their spirits would return carrying nightmare images of the zeppelin attack. He had never been so frightened, even in the trenches, with bullets flying overhead and mustard gas on the wind. That shadow moving silently across the hills had been the worst. But now, sitting on the edge of the bed, he felt the same paralyzing fear. Though the dream was fading, instead of the relief of finding himself safe, at home, in bed, he felt he had awakened into something worse than the nightmare. Someone was moving in the house. Someone was thrashing around like a two-year-old in a pan-rattling contest. Whoever it was, was coming through the living room. The house had a wooden floor and Effrom knew its every squeak and creak. The creaks were moving up the hall. The intruder opened the bathroom door, two doors from Effrom's bedroom. Effrom remembered the old pistol in his sock drawer. Was there time? Effrom shook off his fear and hobbled to the dresser. His legs were stiff and wobbly and he nearly fell into the front of the dresser. The floor was creaking outside the guest bedroom. He heard the guest room door open. Hurry! He opened the dresser drawer and dug around under his socks until he found the pistol. It was a British revolver he had brought home from the war – a Webley, chambered for.45 automatic cartridges. He broke the pistol open like a shotgun and looked into the cylinders. Empty. Holding the gun open, he dug under his socks for the bullets. Three cartridges were held in a plate of steel shaped like a half-moon so the pistol's six cylinders could be loaded in two quick motions. The British had developed the system so they could use the same rimless cartridges in their revolvers that the Americans used in their Colt automatics. Effrom located one of the half-moon clips and dropped it into the pistol. Then he started searching for the sound. The doorknob of his room started to turn. No time. He flipped the gun upward and it slammed shut, only half loaded. The door slowly started to swing open. Effrom aimed the Webley at the center of the door and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked, the hammer fell on an empty chamber. He pulled the trigger again and the gun fired. Inside the small bedroom the gun's report sounded like the end of the world. A large, ragged hole appeared in the door. From the hall came the high-pitched scream of a woman. Effrom dropped the gun. For a moment he stood there, gunfire and the scream echoing in his head. Then he thought of his wife. â€Å"Oh my God! Amanda!† He ran forward. â€Å"Oh my God, Amanda. Oh my†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He threw the door open, leapt back, and grabbed his chest. The monster was down on its hands and knees. His arms and head filled the doorway. He was laughing. â€Å"Fooled you, fooled you,† the monster chanted. Effrom backed into the bed and fell. His mouth moved like wind-up chatter dentures, but he made no sound. â€Å"Nice shot, old fella',† the monster said. Effrom could see the squashed remains of the.45 bullet just above the monster's upper lip, stuck like an obscene beauty mark. The monster flipped the bullet off with a single claw. The heavy slug thudded on the carpet. Effrom has having trouble breathing. His chest was growing tighter with each breath. He slid off the bed to the floor. â€Å"Don't die, old man. I have questions for you. You can't imagine how pissed I'll be if you die now.† Effrom's mind was a white blur. His chest was on fire. He sensed someone talking to him, but he couldn't understand the words. He tried to speak, but no words would come. Finally he found a breath. â€Å"I'm sorry, Amanda. I'm sorry,† he gasped. The monster crawled into the room and laid a hand on Effrom's chest. Effrom could feel the hand, hard and scaly, through his pajamas. He gave up. â€Å"No!† the monster shouted. â€Å"You will not die!† Effrom was no longer in the room. He was sitting on a hill in England, watching the shadow of death floating toward him across the fields. This time the zeppelin was coming for him, not the base. He sat on the hill and waited to die. I'm sorry, Amanda. â€Å"No, not tonight.† Who said that? He was alone on the hill. Suddenly he became aware of a searing pain in his chest. The shadow of the airship began to fade, then the whole English countryside dissolved. He could hear himself breathing. He was back in the bedroom. A warm glow filled his chest. He looked up and saw the monster looming over him. The pain in his chest subsided. He grabbed one of the monster's claws and tried to pry it from his chest, but it remained fast, not biting into the flesh, just laid upon it. The monster spoke to him: â€Å"You were doing so good with the gun and everything. I was thinking, ‘This old fuck really has some gumption.' Then you go and start drooling and wheezing and ruining a perfectly good first impression. Where's your self-respect?† Effrom felt the warmth on his chest spreading to his limbs. His mind wanted to switch off, dive under the covers of unconsciousness and hide until daylight, but something kept bringing him back. â€Å"Now, that's better, isn't it?† The monster removed his hand and backed to the corner of the bedroom, where he sat cross-legged looking like the Buddha of the lizards. His pointy ears scraped against the ceiling when he turned his head. Effrom looked at the door. The monster was perhaps eight feet away from it. If he could get through it, maybe†¦ How fast could a beast that size move in the confines of the house? â€Å"Your jammies are all wet,† the monster said. â€Å"You should change or you'll catch your death.† Effrom was amazed at the reality shift his mind had made. He was accepting this! A monster was in his house, talking to him, and he was accepting it. No, it couldn't be real. â€Å"You're not real,† he said. â€Å"Neither are you,† the monster retorted. â€Å"Yes I am,† Effrom said, feeling stupid. â€Å"Prove it,† the monster said. Effrom lay on the bed thinking. Much of his fear had been replaced by a macabre sense of wonder. He said: â€Å"I don't have to prove it. I'm right here.† â€Å"Sure,† the monster said, incredulously. Effrom climbed to his feet. Upon rising he realized that the creak in his knees and the stiffness he had carried in his back for forty years were gone. Despite the strangeness of this situation, he felt great. â€Å"What did you do to me?† â€Å"Me? I'm not real. How could I do anything?† Effrom realized he had backed himself into a metaphysical corner, from which the only escape was acceptance. â€Å"All right,† he said, â€Å"you're real. What did you do to me?† â€Å"I kept you from croaking.† Effrom made a connection at last. He had seen a movie about this: aliens who come to Earth with the power to heal. Granted, this wasn't the cute little leather-faced, lightbulb-headed alien from the movie, but it was no monster. It was a perfectly normal person from another planet. â€Å"So,† Effrom said, â€Å"do you want to use the phone or something?† â€Å"Why?† â€Å"To phone home. Don't you want to phone home?† â€Å"Don't play with me, old man. I want to know why Travis was here this afternoon.† â€Å"I don't know anyone named Travis.† â€Å"He was here this afternoon. You spoke with him – I saw it.† â€Å"You mean the insurance man? He wanted to talk to my wife.† The monster moved across the room so quickly that Effrom almost fell back on the bed to avoid him. His hopes of making it through the door dissolved in an instant. The monster loomed over him. Effrom could smell his fetid breath. â€Å"He was here for the magic and I want it now, old man, or I'll hang your entrails from the curtain rods.† â€Å"He wanted to talk to the wife. I don't know nothin' about any magic. Maybe you should have landed in Washington. They run things from there.† The monster picked Effrom up and shook him like a rag doll. â€Å"Where is your wife, old man?† Effrom could almost hear his brain rattling in his head. The monster's hand squeezed the breath out of him. He tried to answer, but all he could produce was a pathetic croak. â€Å"Where?† The monster threw him on the bed. Effrom felt the air burn back into his lungs. â€Å"She's in Monterey, visiting our daughter.† â€Å"When will she be back? Don't lie. I'll know if you are lying.† â€Å"How will you know?† â€Å"Try me. Your guts should go well with this decor.† â€Å"She'll be home in the morning.† â€Å"That's enough,† the monster said. He grabbed Effrom by the shoulder and dragged him through the door. Effrom felt his shoulder pop out of its socket and a grinding pain flashed across his chest and back. His last thought before passing out was, God help me, I've killed the wife.

Political Changes in Europe Since the Fall of the Soviet Union

In April 1986, Mr. Gorbachev began the perestroika, translation â€Å"reconstruction†, which was to end the Cold War that effectively brought down the Iron Curtain. The split between West and East not only partitioned the world into two parts, but also divided the European family for over 40 years. With the fall of the Soviet Union came many changes that affected much if not all of Europe. At the end of the Brejnev era , the socialist bloc was severely outdated and far removed from the contemporary world.The economy was in a shambles, independent civil society was largely in exile, and corruption throughout and within the state via the Communist Party had become legendary. In addition, the USSR had to devote an enormous portion of its budget to the military. On the international level, the USSR had lost many allies, because its social model proved to be decreasingly successful in its deceit, and the ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan (1979 – 1989) did not help in any way .It was therefore necessary to undertake urgent measures, especially in countries where satellite totalitarian regimes were challenged and the USSR no longer had the support of local communist parties. The advent of Gorbachev to power marked the beginning of the reconstruction. His first step on his rise to power was the partial liberation of the press, also known as glasnost. The first free newspapers emerged and some major newspapers such as â€Å"Novii Mir (New World),† Argumenti i Fakti â€Å"(Arguments and Facts) or† Moskovskie Novosti (Moscow News) changed editors. Books banned by the Soviet censorship began to appear in stores.Also, films which had been censored until this time were finally appearing on the screen. The policy change was also considerable. Under Gorbachev, 140 dissidents, victims of Stalinist repression, were honored and rehabilitated. From exile in Gorky, Sakharov, who condemned the war in Afghanistan – was released. Several opposition po litical organizations emerged as a Democratic Union and in 1988 the first anti-communist demonstrations took place. Gorbachev, considering the difficulty and complexity of the political situation at the time, tried at any price to change the political elite in an effort to ensure reconstruction. Policy frameworks† began and brought fresh faces to power. â€Å"Without – parties† (political parties that were not members of the Communist Party) were authorized to occupy important positions in state bodies. In addition, elections were introduced within the party to make elected officials accountable to its voters. Before this time, the party presented a candidate for the post and members could only nod in approval. Despite all this progress, the USSR was unable to overcome the economic and social crisis that hit the country in the early 80s. The Soviet system was not adaptable by itself and reconstruction was doomed from the start.Gorbachev did not have the political capacity to push the desired reforms through. His strategy, in essence, triggered the collapse of the USSR, which was completely unexpected. Perestroika could not change the structure of the Soviet economy, and thus served as an obstacle to reforms. All means of production were under state control. In addition, factories managers and corrupt officials wanted at all costs to keep the economic system that afforded them considerable privilege, especially in a country where the deficit of consumer products was seen in everyday life.The political system, like the economy, rested on a foundation of lies. Political leaders from cities and regions fabricated domestic and foreign policy statistics, using propaganda, including the newspaper â€Å"Pravda† (Truth). This newspaper was later to become a symbol of Soviet exaggeration of the productivity of the communist state. The Soviet secret services were doing everything to prevent people from having information deemed undesirable; any foreign or independent press was prohibited. In launching his reforms, Gorbachev wanted to reform that which what was not reformable.Perestroika and glasnost had made the system fragile, because the lie was no longer there to blind people. Thus, in 1991 a political system that had seemed indestructible – unbeatable, all but disappeared from the world political map. Perestroika was ultimately the determining factor in the fall of the Iron Curtain. The forces it unleashed, such as freedom of speech (glasnost), by Gorbachev inside his country had devoured the communist parties of Eastern Europe. That was also the case with the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent German reunification.The fall of the Berlin Wall was largely provided for by the green light given by Moscow. Without such approval, it would have been very probably a repetition of the â€Å"coup de Prague† of 1968, as the forces of the Warsaw Pact entered the Czechoslovakian capital to put an end to the demo cratic reforms of Dubcek following the Prague Spring. After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, the reunification of Germany was inevitable. The non-intervention of Warsaw Pact forces during the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the outbreak of the revolutions that occurred thereafter.Elsewhere in 1989 in Eastern Europe, democratic movements freed from the tutelage of Moscow out-punched Communism. This is the case in Romania with the fall of Ceausescu, Czechoslovakia and Poland with the resignation of the communist government and the start of negotiations between General Jaruzelski and the representatives of Solidarnosc. The policy of rapprochement between the West promoted by Gorbachev led to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Having neither the financial resources nor the political will to save this military alliance, the Soviets proposed in 1988 to repeal the pact against the dissolution of NATO.In December 1988, Gorbachev and Bush declared at a meeting in Malta that th e Cold War was over. Immediately after the fall of communism in Europe, former satellites of the Soviet Union chose to join the unified European family and NATO. Chronologically, in the first half of 90 years, almost all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have submitted their applications to join the European Union and NATO. For these countries, membership in these structures is first and foremost a political symbol, to guarantee their freedom and sovereignty.European integration also meant the return of these countries into the European mainstream as equal partners and not merely as â€Å"little brothers†, as was the case with the USSR. Long oppressed by a regime imposed from outside, these countries could finally defend their interests in the democratic framework that the European Union offers. Without perestroika, the world today would not be the same. It is mainly through this process that democratization has been set up in the Central and Eastern Europe an d that Europe is no longer divided in two.

How the Role of Women Has Changed Essays

How the Role of Women Has Changed Essays How the Role of Women Has Changed Essay How the Role of Women Has Changed Essay How much has the function of adult females changed in the last 30 old ages? Since the debut of the pill on the NHS and the equal wage act we have seen monolithic alterations in how adult females are viewed in society. In this essay I will be looking at how these have changed societies positions and how they have affected adult females. I want to research this subject as I believe that there has been great leaps forward in how adult females are able to populate and how this is now impacting the remainder of the universe. I will be analyzing some of the recent alterations in constabularies and attitudes that have taken topographic point that have allowed adult females to go more productive members in the professional working environment. Over the last 30 old ages of feminism we have seen adult females agitating off the stereo typical attitude of females being 2nd category citizens. Womans are now able to travel into higher instruction and therefore leting them demoing great finding. will power. staying power and bravery to use and take on the function of many high powered occupations that were one time merely seen as a occupation for males. And now adult females have greater chances than of all time before. But they are demoing a lower sense away good being this seems to come as rather a daze as adult females have managed to emancipate subject self’s from the traditional position. ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. dailymail. co. uk ) Womans have neer had so much equity that they have now and we are now seeing female mineworkers. physicians and tooth doctor which shows that they can acquire on any individual occupation that they want. Womans are still able to hold kids some every bit much two or three and a re still pull offing to maintain up a balance of household and work life. ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. dailymail. co. United Kingdom ) The debut of the pill has had the biggest societal and household impact that has been seen in our clip. When it was foremost introduced the authorities was non happy about supplying it to all adult females as they did non desire to be seen to advance promiscuousness so they chiefly issued it to older adult females who already had kids and did non desire to hold any more. But in a controversial move in 1974 saw household planning clinics give the pill out to individual adult females which made it a batch easer for subject to make up ones mind if they wanted to hold kids. It is now estimated that two million adult females in England and Wales take the pill and 70 % of all adult females have at some phase been prescribed the pill. ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. bbc. co. United Kingdom ) This was radical for adult females at the clip now they have a greater freedom than of all time before. Womans could now make up ones mind when they got pregnant which means they could travel on t o higher instruction and go a calling adult female non merely a female parent and house married woman. The debut of the Equal Pay Act 1970. now the Equity Act 2010. was supposed to shut the spread on the sum that work forces got paid compared to adult females for making the same occupation. But recent statistics show that work forces still earn more in 370 out of 426 occupation categorization than adult females who earn more in merely 53 occupation categorizations. Ruth Sealy. Deputy manager of the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranford University said it’s shocking how can this be when we have equality Torahs? ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. defender. co. United Kingdom ) The authorities has made a determination to alter one of it’s constabularies in the Equality Act that would hold made companies unwrap the per centum of wage differences between work forces and adult females by 2013. Sealy believes that this policy is responsible for the 2 % diminution in the wage spread between work forces and adult females in 2011 and now it is non in topographic point the wage spread may get down to increase once more. ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. defender. co. United Kingdom ) Although this dose sound like the Equality Act is non working as it was intended to there is visible radiation at the terminal of tunnel. Lord Davies independent reappraisal into adult female on boards has given Britain’s 100 biggest companies until 2015 to increase the sum of adult females who sit on boards from 12. 5 % to 25 % . There has already been a pronounced betterment since the study has been published the figures have went up by 2. 5 % to 15 % Lord Davies said this is astonishing progress . ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. telegraph. co. United Kingdom ) Family life has changed over the last 30 old ages we are now seeing more adult females traveling into work which means that there are now two incomes coming into the household place and people are now populating better that they one time did. Womans are now populating like work forces one time did they are traveling out to work run intoing new people and basking a societal life off from the hubby. And it seems that work forces are remaining at place and pass more clip with the kids. ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. defender. co. United Kingdom ) A recent survey carried out by the Equal Opportunities Commission found that 69 % agreed that there life’s are going more similar in rearguards to how much clip they can pass between work and household life. Now adult females are passing more clip at work it means that they have to hotfoot place to see the kids before bed clip or to care for a comparative. Due to this alteration people are going more disquieted about household life how is it traveling to turn out if this sexual reappraisal is traveling to go on we will necessitate to get down looking at the policy that are in topographic point for the aged and disabled so we can give them more of a say on how they want to populate if the handiness of household attention is traveling to cut down. ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www. defender. co. United Kingdom ) Womans have moved dramatically frontward in the last 30 old ages at that place have been so many alterations in the attitudes of society that have enabled adult females to experience more sceptered about the picks that they can do in their ain life. The attitude that people have towards adult females is far from the typical attitude that people had in respects what function adult females should take on as they are no longer expected to be the house married woman or the Dendranthema grandifloruom. Womans are now going professionals and are now sitting on the boards of some of the most powerful companies in the universe. This is all great but how is this impacting the manner in which parents bring up households if work forces and adult females are now populating similar life’s how will be able to convey up our household and give the parental support to the kids if both the parents are out seeking to advance there callings. If this is traveling to go on people will necessitate to get down believing about the hereafter of household life. We will hold to happen a manner in which family’s will be able to work at a normal degree and still be able to back up adult females to transport on and come on even further. Is it traveling to be a instance some fifty old ages down the line that the gender reappraisal has went so far that the functions of work forces and adult females will hold wholly turned around. Our will the gender reappraisal reach a point where both sexes are able to work and supply a healthy household life. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. bbc. co. uk/news/uk-15984258 ( Date accessed 20/03/2012 ) hypertext transfer protocol: //www. dailymail. co. uk/femail/article-1189894/Women-happy-years-ago- . hypertext markup language ( Date accessed 25/03/2012 ) hypertext transfer protocol: //www. dailymail. co. uk/news/article-1189856/M-S-boss-Stuart-Rose-Glass-ceiling-Women-good-workplace. hypertext markup language ( Date accessed 02/04/2012 ) hypertext transfer protocol: //www. defender. co. uk/uk/2011/mar/08/four-decades-on-equal-pay-yet-to-come ( Date accessed 03/04/2012 ) hypertext transfer protocol: //www. defender. co. uk/society/2005/nov/23/equality. socialcare ( Date accessed 04/04/2012 ) hypertext transfer protocol: //www. telegraph. co. uk/finance/jobs/9090327/Lord-Davies-shakes-up-Britains-boardrooms. hypertext markup language ( Date accessed 06/04/2012 ) Richard D. Gross ( 1994 ) . Cardinal Studies in Psychology. 2nd erectile dysfunction. London: Hodder And Stoughton. 100.

Advertising in Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly

Advertising in Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly Monopolistic Competition Advertising is a technique used by firms in monopolistic competition to create product differentiation and gain some control of the market, and as a result, charge a higher price. Excessive advertising will serve to inform consumers about the physical difference in the product and the perceived difference will lead to increased product differentiation.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Advertising in Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More If advertising convinces customers that the product is superior to the competitor’s then the firm would charge a higher price (Arnold 241). Advertising will increase demand and reduce demand elasticity. The current profit maximizing output is given by Q at a price P; therefore, advertising will increase the quantities of the product the consumers are willing to purchase leading to a shift or a move in the demand curve t o a higher level. The new demand curve will correspond to higher levels of quantity demanded and the prices given by Q1 and P1 (Arnold 245). In a monopolistic competition the firm faces a comparatively elastic demand, and this limits the prices that can be charged on the product. In order to reduce demand elasticity, the demand curve will be relatively steeper implying that consumers are likely to change their quantity demanded as a result of a change in price. As illustrated in the diagram the firm can now charge a slightly higher price P1 for the same quantity, this means the firm can collect more revenues for the same quantity Q sold at a profit maximizing level of output (McConnell and Brue 494). However, a firm cannot maximize profit when faced with inelastic demand because the marginal revenue (MR) is negative, implying that the marginal cost (MC) would be negative. Such a situation is not possible, where marginal revenue (MR) and marginal cost (MC) are both negative (Arnold 2 46). Excessive advertising could lead to inelastic demand and the firm will have to increase the price in order to make demand elastic because profit is not maximized when demand is inelastic. (McConnell and Brue 489). Advertising is expensive, and the firm will keep on advertising as long as the revenues generated from advertising are more than the cost of advertising. As a result of advertising, demand may increase and become inelastic, and, on the other hand, the marginal cost (MC) and average cost (AC) are likely to rise at the same time. Advertising in a monopolistic competition is excessive and as long as revenues per product are more in comparison to increase in average cost per product it may not result in loses. Firms in a monopolistic competition market will use advertising to maintain its profits because advertising affect the products of the firm by increasing its demand.Advertising Looking for essay on advertising? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first pa per with 15% OFF Learn More Oligopoly The Oligopolist can increase its market share through advertising, and they compete on the basis of advertising rather than on pricing (McConnell and Brue 492). Excessive advertising by the Oligopolist is used as a barrier against entry of other firms. It is also used to inform consumers of new products in the market. Advertising also leads to increased output pushing down the average total cost (ATC) curve towards the productive efficiency point, where average total cost (ATC) is minimum. Advertising may also lead to manipulation as opposed to informing consumers. In order to understand the interdependence behavior of oligopolistic firms the technique of game theory is used as illustrated in the diagram, it shows that the two firms are better off colluding than competing. At the top left shows that both firm A and B could earn 200 dollars profit each if they choose to advertise. At the right lower quadrant, the two firms can re ceive 250 dollars each if they both choose not to advertise, because there are no costs for advertising (McConnell and Brue 496). At the lower left quadrant firm B decides to advertise while firm A does not advertise and, therefore, firm B will earn 350 dollars profits and firm A earns 100 dollars profits. This is because advertisement attracts customers from firm A to firm B. At the top right quadrant firm B does not advertise while firm A decides to advertise, therefore; firm A receives 350 dollars profits while firm B receives 100 dollars in profits because customers are attracted away from firm B. On the other hand, if the two firms chose to collude to advertise they would each receive 250 dollars profits. In oligopoly, there are few dominant players in the market and each cannot fully influence the market independently unless they collude to influence and affect the price and demand. Advertising in an oligopolistic firm is used to increase both market share and total demand.Adv ertising We will write a custom essay sample on Advertising in Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In an attempt, to gain bigger market share Oligopolist will engage in fierce advertising competition trying to outdo each other. (McConnell and Brue 494). This scenario makes advertising in the oligopolistic markets to be extremely high. It is difficult to tell if advertising leads to in improved consumer benefits and efficiency. However, if advertising results to more sales and increased output, this could lead to efficiency of the firm. It is costly to advertise and may lead to improved efficiency if costs are less than the benefits from sales. Advertising may have no direct relation with the benefits to the consumer, however, if increased sales arising from advertisement leads to reduced prices, then customers will enjoy some benefits (McConnell and Brue 487). Arnold, Roger A. Micro Economics. 10t h ed. Washington, DC: Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. McConnell, Campbell R. and Stanley L. Brue. Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2005. Print.

Academic Environment in the United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Academic Environment in the United States - Essay Example The three groups: the Woodson Foundation, a nonprofit organization; the Washington D.C. public schools system; and the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE), which act as a representative for parents on behalf of the PTA; concurrently enjoin to achieve the ultimate objective of improving academic outcome. The structure of the case study is clear-cut and straight forward. The discourse would initially present a brief summary of the background information crucial for greater understanding of the triumvirate’s thrusts. The roles and each organization were emphasized to give credence in supporting their commitment and interest in achieving a unified goal. In addition, a development team with selected team members or candidates to oversee the progress of achieving the defined goal was presented. The team is composed of representatives from the three associations: two from the Washington D.C. public school system, two from Woodson Foundation, two parents and one social worker to provide balance representation. A summary of problems was eventually determined with effective methods recommended for resolving conflicts that would likely arise.

The Use of Animals in Psychological Research Essay

The Use of Animals in Psychological Research - Essay Example This research has assisted in the understanding of psychopathological conditions which include schizophrenia and depressive disorders as well as the assessment of the untoward effects of medications used in the treatment of psychological conditions. With the progression of the human understanding, ethics have come into existence and the use of animals in research has been questioned from the ethical point of view. To overcome these problems the American Psychological Association has developed ethical guidelines for the use of animals in this type of research. The main points include the respect for the law of the relevant country and area with regards to experimentation as are applied to the experiments conducted on human beings. The animals that are being used in the process should be under the watch of special overseers who possess knowledge with regards to the proper requirements of the animals. TThis personnel should also guide the researchers regarding these requirements so that the animals are properly taken care of during the experiments. The other important guideline presents the fact that the animals should not be harmed and given unnecessary pain. To learn and progress in any scientific field, research and experimentation is an important part of the process. Hence I believe that animal research is fully justified where it serves this purpose. I believe that to understand completely the functioning of the human brain and the psychological working of the human being, research is essential and using of animals for the right purpose is totally justified. If research serves to enhance the quality of life and works towards the formation procedures which can treat psychological conditions, it should be allowed.