Techniques To Optimize Communication Skills Assignment

Techniques To Optimize Communication Skills - Assignment Example When I have to communicate with my team members, I would endeavor to keep the following techniques in mind to ensure optimized communications.Interaction Model: With a linear mode of communication, one finds it easy to make the listener understand his or her points. In all my transactions, I have seen that instead of going through a medium, one on one interaction with the listener has worked best for me. It helps develop fruitful communication and establish understanding and grow relationships in better ways. Even when interacting with the team I prefer to use interactive model through which multiple listeners can react to what I am saying one by one. This mode according to me has the least barriers to communication. I always ensure that the medium of the message is as direct as is possible to avoid misunderstandings. Transaction Model: This is more effective in group and multi-listener scenarios, wherein the speaker has all the attention of the audience and keeps it that way through the use of intelligent phrases and quips that indulge the audience and make them agree or disagree with the point being asked much like a dance between partners (Baack, 2012). However, I prefer to use this in group communication scenarios rather than one to one conversations since it starts to sound animated when too much of transaction is encouraged in one to one conversations.In both of the above techniques, barriers are extremely reduced which is the main reason why I prefer to use it.

Reaction to Everyday Use Essay Example for Free

Reaction to Everyday Use Essay Everyday Use is a short story written by Alice Walker about a family of three, Mama, the narrator, Maggie her youngest daughter, and Dee, her eldest daughter. Both daughters are completely different, Maggie is a simpler person and Dee is high maintenance. Dee has always the home she was brought up in and everything to do with her childhood. She always wanted more and Mama gave her the best she could. One day, years after Dee has gone off to college, she returns to visit Mama and Maggie’s new home (the other had been burnt down when Dee was still living with them), and she brings along a man, possibly her husband. When Dee returns she has changed her name and has come hoping to retrieve certain family heirlooms. Walker uses different literary tools to tell this story in a way that makes the audience think about what she is trying to tell the audience. Strategy The main literary strategy Walker uses in the writing of Everyday Use are irony and symbolism. Mama and Maggie value the quilts discussed in the story, not as folk art, instead for what they are intended to be used for, a source of warmth. Mama would rather give Maggie the quilts and let her put these quilts to use even though they may end up ruined because she knows that she is the one that will appreciate and love the quilts the most. Dee wants to in a sense save the quilts from the harm that she is sure that her sister, whom she seems to think is intelligently inferior will ruin but she does not understand the true value and worth of these quilts. Dee’s sudden interest in her heritage and want to embrace different objects from her family’s past is obviously seen by her mother as empty. In Mama’s eyes the best way to keep the quilts and the love and care that comes with them in the family is to hand them over to Maggie, even if it means them possibly being damaged or worse yet, destroyed. This is the irony in the story. Many would think that preserving the quilts is the only respectful way of keeping the spirit of their family alive, but instead Mama sees deeper than that, she sees in actuality the best way to keep the spirit of their family alive is to put them to use so that more memories can be connected to them. Using them in daily life is a way to keep the family history and spirit alive, and to even add onto it. Theme The consistent theme of Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use† is appreciating the past, and one’s family. This theme was one that I found I could identify with greatly along with certain aspects of the story. The author skillfully tells us the story of two sisters, Dee, and Maggie, to prove her point. Dee comes home with a new contemporary identity tied to her African heritage, which she believes white men and women have tried to take away from her. She now embraces this African heritage and sees it as an important part of her. She scornfully asks Mama (the narrator) to not address her by the name her mother gave her, Dee, but to instead call her Wangero, assumed to be a name from her African herritage: What happened to Dee? I wanted to know. Shes dead, Wangero (Dee) said. I couldnt bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me. Wangero (Dee) assumes and argues with her mother that she has been named \ after a white man or woman. Mama attempts to convince her that her name was not given to her by a white man or woman but that she was named after her grandmother. Dee resists what her mother has told her and insists that if she were to follow the line that it would go back to a white man or woman. Maggie, is unashamed of her past, she actually embraces it. She has always loved the quilts that her mother and aunt made from clothing that her grandmother had pieced. This section of the story is the prime difference between the sisters is revealed: Dee would like to use the quilts as pieces of artwork for her own home because it is something that would be stylish and argues with her mother that Maggie would be backward enough to put them to everyday use. Dee says this as if it were a bad thing to use the quilts as they were intended to be used but Mama believes that the everyday use, is the best way to value the past, to keep the spirit of the family going and not putting the items up for display as if they were in a museum or separating oneself from his or her family. This is something that I can identify with. When I was younger my great-grandmother had always crocheted afghans for each of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. My cousins had when we were little looked down at these beautiful afghans and wanted instead store bought blankets. I treasured the afghan that my great grandmother had made me and used it often. When we were older, and she had passed away, my one cousin was going through a phase similar to Dee’s, she was suddenly very interested in our family history, and she now wanted the last afghan that my great grandmother made. She ended up being the one to receive the afghan because I did not feel like fighting over it. I did not want to receive it with a fight because I knew that it would tarnish the meaning for me but I always found it interesting how she changed her mind once became, for lack of a better word, â€Å"cool† to embrace family history and to like handmade items. Active and Responsive Reading While reading Everyday Use one inference that I made was that the story was set in the early 1970s. I made this inference from the way Mamma, the narrator, described Dee in the present day. I thought that the dress, accessories, and hair style Dee was described to have seemed to match up to fashion from the early 1970s. Dee is a vain, hypocritical, and condescending individual, this was my impression from my first reading of the story and after reading it twice more, I found that my impression of Dee did not change from my first reading. Mamma did the best she could for Dee as she grew up. Dee always despised the house they lived in and never saw the house that was built after the fire until she visited. Mamma and their church raised money so that Dee could get a higher education and go off to college. Dee uses her education as a way to look down on her mother and sister. She does not understand why they will not better themselves as she has. In this visit she begins asking her mother for things that she had never wanted before and looked down at. She now wants these items not as reminders of her family but more as pieces of art. Two of these items were quilts made by Grandma Dee. In the past when offered these, she had told her mother that the quilts were â€Å"too old-fashioned, out of style†. Now she thinks that they would make beautiful pieces Alice Walker writes this story I think for every family and every person in a family. In a world where people are consumed with art, fashion, and style, I think she is reminding us that there is more to some items than art, fashion, and style. Many times we think the only way to appreciate something is to frame it or put it up for display and not put it to everyday use in fear of ruining it but Walker uses this story to show us that there is more to appreciating something than just displaying it. Sometimes to best appreciate a piece of ones heritage through an heirloom you should use it for its intended purpose. In conclusion Walker teaches us a lesson about family and keeping the spirit and story of our family alive by not merely displaying our heirlooms but putting them to use. She uses irony to help tell her story and support her theme. Walker chooses a story that people can relate to and learn from.

The Recession: Causes and Effects

The Recession: Causes and Effects Executive Summary Introduction There was a recession in United States in the late 2008 which carried away in the 2009 as well making an impact on the entire world. The inflation rate soared high with all the things expensive around the corner. A persons earning power and purchasing power, everything reduced and in fact in some countries it ended. People started saving and cost cutting on almost all the objects and almost in all the aspects of life. The demand for the goods reduced and thus the supply which impacted on many jobs around the world. People were fired from the job without any prior notice. A majority of the population went unemployed. Every consumer started saving in the maximum way they can. There was a situation of panic in almost all the houses in different parts of the world. The stock market got crashed and so as the banks. Banks lost their clients, people started living and enjoying inside their house. Corporate reduced their expenses in the form of salaries and job cuts. People travelling in bus iness class started travelling in economy. It was a major blow for the world all over. Money lost its value. Developed nations were the worst affected. No investors were ready to invest further money. But there was also few countries like china and India where this panicked situation did not occur. Although, it did reduced their balance of payment and trade but it did not made much impact on the people living in these countries. They were much relaxed in comparison with different parts of the world. India has developed its own domestic market which never tried to made an impact of the recession. Exports were reduced and so does imports, There were jobs cuts for the BPOs but there were many alternatives to the people for the jobs. US economy did made around 60 percent of the impact on India but the impact were actually not seen anywhere in India. India has developed its domestic market quite strongly. It has all the local tradesman and local customers. Although there were price rises in some of the few products but they were never taken seriously by the Indian people because the country is used to high and low prices because of the changing government on random basis. The living standard of people in India were still increasing at the time of the recession when the rest of the world were affected by the high rising costs of everything and were into the â€Å"Saving Mode†. In another words there was an economic downfall in India and could not be called as â€Å"Recession†. Recession: The standard text book definition of a recession is: â€Å"Negative Economic Growth for two consecutive quarters†. This means there must be a fall in real output for a period of 6 months. However, not all of them as analyst/economists are happy with this definition. The reason being this are: Rise in Population: If the population increase is by a single percent in a year. The Real GDP growth of a half percent will mean the decline in the GDP per Capita. Therefore, a country like USA, where the population is increasing day by day, it is really important to have a check on it. Inaccurate Statistics: Generally Gross Domestic Product statistics are not accurate and they need to be amended. So, In consequence of that, if there is a growth of 0.4%,that actually means the growth is declining by 0.3%. Sometimes, the economist rounds up the figure and use it in the practical calculations. Growth under incline Rate. If dimension is growing by an average of 3 percent every year, this means there is an economic growth of 0.9 percent every year, which means there is an increase in spare capacity and hence, it is likely to raise the percentage level of unemployment. Hence, Few economists suggests, there is a recession if there is a rise in spare capacity. But, its a confusing statement as it means growth in the economy of about a percent means a phase of the recession. Also, according to some economist, it refer to a beginning phase of the recession and deep decline in growth rate are the special features of the recession. Level of Unemployment. The most important discussion and the area of concern at the time of recession is the rise in the percentage level of unemployment. If there is a sharp increase in peoples losing jobs and getting unemployed, this shows an economy is in recession. It might be quite controversial to say about this situation that it is not in recession if the unemployment level has risen up by half a million in spite of the countrys positive growth. A point of consideration here is about the level of unemployment rise which is caused by the supply side and not the demand side factors. Result of Survey: Give a thorough research on the topic with the worlds economists and it will be quite interesting to find their subjective response. According to few economists, a figure less than fifty percent decline to accept the economic recession in USA and vice versa. NBER Definition of Recession- NBER announces the occurrence of the recession in USA. The definition by NBER is: A significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. NBER further tells us that: â€Å"There is no fixed rule about what weights are assigned to the various indicators, or about what other measures contribute information to the process.† This statement is quite clear about the recession but it is not certain about the time period or its occurrence time and what exactly can cause the recession. Recession My personal View According to my personal view, recession occurs when there is a decline in real GDP. If there is a small growth of say,0.4 percent we can expect a recession or at least we can say that the economy is well behind the trend growth. However, we should always consider the point that a recession does require a decline in Gross Domestic Product for at least one quarter. Also, in brief, we can say, recession is a steep decline in Real GDP per Capita. Depression is defined as: ‘Depression is when a person looses his job and he do not have any money flowing into his account to support his family. Drastic decline in the real GDP causes a situation of depression. It is when the productivity of the output falls for more than eighteen months or by more than, four percent. There was a steep decline in the great depression of 1929-33 of almost eighteen percent. so there is a difference between A recession and A depression. And the idea behind this ,is, the scenario between recession and depression is known as Economic Downturn. Therefore, an economic downturn is the balanced structure of recession and depression. Indicators of Recession The economist involved in the financial and advisory fields generally mention the stock market situations as an indicator of recession. According to them, In Western Europe and North America, the prediction of the recession can be made by sudden and sharp decline in the average performance of the share market. These performances can be checked by DowJones or Standards Poors 500 index. However, this definition seems to be quite insufficient. By looking into the history of the stock market, about their high and low stock indicators, gearing up with the past seventy years of the analysis report nothing has been found that could be relevant with the definition or is even closer to the definition of the recession. Moreover, if we analyse the current recession or the recessions of the past two decades, it does demonstrate a downfall of the stock market. But if we analyse it carefully we will find all the stock market crashed after the recession came in. Therefore, we cant take it as the indicator of recession rather than it just tell us one factor responsible and effected at the time of recession. To measure the inbound recession, the best measurable indicator is an inverted yield curve. Inverted yield curve shows the point on which the investments in long term fall (specifically, those holding a period like as term deposit) under the yields on the deposit of short term. This shows the utmost importance of the identification of the market itself. The yields and pricing on investments generally relates to the demand and supply models. If the value of the money is going to decrease in the future, it is going to be a problem for the borrowers and lenders as well. No one will borrow the money on high rates and the lenders will have the affect of it. No person will ever borrow money when the value of the money will depreciate. Therefore, when we calculate and formulate the risk, it makes sure that the market observes a decline in the upcoming value of money, which includes the rate of the price and rate of the yield. Market yield is determine by the expectations of the investors, risk prising and knowledge about risk and if in long term the yield gets shortened, the economy is going to be in the same level. Therefore, the further market expectations can be predicted on the basis of the yield curve. According to the experimental data, this works in the reality as well and not only theoretically. Although, the yield curve is not so perfect but the little knowledge and understanding of it by the borrowers, investors, and individuals give them enough understanding to handle the market in a better position than anyone else. They are likely to make few rational decisions on based of these calculations. On the basis of the calculations figured out of the above yield, five out of the six inverted yield curves in the past thirty years have predicted a weak economic environment, which is said to be an informal decision about the recession. Quite interesting to see this theory of risk pricing is in correlat ion with the quality of the recession predicted. At the time of recession, say, at the present scenario, most of the investors are not ready to take risk and trying to withdraw the money from the invested market. There is no investment at the moment where the investors can expect a good return and so they are trying to sell off their /shares and have control on their money. Due to the risk involve at the moment for loss off all the money invested, they are particularly thinking to invest in the best safest place which they can think off so that the money can be in circulation. These safe investments are called as â€Å"quality investments†. At the end, NGOs along with the conference board has published an index of leading economic pointers which can be used in the prediction of the economic activities and the business cycles. This index has the listing of ten itemised observance and many more subjective metrics in consumers behaviour with the calculations of the hours per week they work. This index made an experiment of the recession which tried to figure out the recessions of the past fifty years and was successful enough to predict around two hundred percent of the times of the economic withdrawals which had actually been in the past. This helps them in getting a solid base knowledge of the occurrence of the recession and their indicators. This knowledge can help investors in knowing the correct time of investing money and coming out of it and they can predict accurately about the business cycles, recessions occurrence time and other effective economic metrics can help them to move out or stay decisions to rent profit s from the investments which they make to generate their revenue and income with a strong level of prediction of the uncertain cause of the economic recession. However, most of the experts say, that the current knowledge of this is not going to give any outcome in the near future as the situations differ from time to time and it will be of no use by predicting from the historical datas. This might be wrong and investment decision can still be risky in the future, if by using the same method of historical dates. Causes of Recession- Fall in the aggregate demand also commonly known as AD is one of the important cause of the recession. Following are the causes of decline in AD in United States in the recent time: Credit Crunch: there has been lots of difficulty of borrowing the money in the US because of the high mortgage defaults. Many banks and financial institutions lost their money and after that they were quite reluctant in lending money. This made borrowing a very expensive method which leads to the less investment by the consumer. Investments were quite low which made the shortage of the money in the market. Defaults in Mortgage: companies introduced introductory offers for the people taking mortgage instantly and when this introductory offer ended, the interest rates increased which made it quite expensive. Peoples disposable income got reduced and which lead to default in the payment of mortgage rates by the people. Rising Costs: There has been an increase in the oil prices, energy rates and food prices which increased the production cost in almost all the things which lead the Aggregate Supply (AS) curve to shift from right to left. Lower income consumer cant afford the costly and expensive times due to which the demand got reduced and became a cause for the recession. Decline in the House Prices: Loosing the value of assets is quite trouble giving situation to the households. This situation reduces consumers wealth and it prevents equity withdrawal through remote gagging. With decline in house prices consumers tend to spend less because of the depreciating value of their money and assets. Bankruptcy: The financial institutions and banks like Bear Sterns and Northern Rock going bankrupt made people fear of spending the money. They were now, more into savings and prefer staying at home rather than moving out. According to Keynesian theory-â€Å" Fall in AD will result in Fall in Real GDP.† Real GDP effects depends upon the slope of the Aggregate Supply curve. Lets assume, the economy being very close to the highest level, then the lower Aggregate Demand curve would shift a bit and cause a very small fall in Real GDP. Decline in any of the constituent can cause economic crisis. Example, Say-MPC= x, cost of borrowing=y If â€Å"X† increases the interest rate by 4%, â€Å"Y† would also increase which in turn will make saving quite attractive. Therefore, the consumers will save more and spend less. Spending will be only done on the basic requirements which will benefit them in lots of savings. On the other hand, if the government increases the tax rate and lower its spending, Aggregate Demand would fall as well. Lets see the above figure. If we assume, there is a decline in Aggregate Demand then the multiplier effect may magnify the initial downward movement in the point â€Å"A†. Lets take an example of the factory where the production of the factory reduces, then definitely, the company would try to cut its cost and would reduce the labour from its factory because that will save them extra money. Now, as these workers are jobless, they are going to spend very less which will cause a secondary decline in Aggregate Demand, which will make the fall in Real GDP to a great extent. A positive rate of economic growth can be determined by consumer satisfaction level and the business growth level. If everything goes positive and there is a satisfied market then there wont be any reduction in the demand even if the interest rates are hiked by the banks and the government. Moreover, if people are unsecured about their job and finances, they will start saving and spend the minimum they can, Which will cause the Aggregate Demand to decline or may be move at very slower rate. Hence, the consumers predictions and expectations of the future should be safe and secure which might be very helpful in the circulation of money and the well balanced demand and supply curve. Example: Lets assume a country, say -United Kingdom. The most important feature of the country is based on International trade. Therefore, if there is a recession in other parts of the world the country will get affected as demand for their products will decline, and the export margin for the country will also decline due to the very less demand from the international boundaries. And this cycle will repeat in the UKs economy as well, where peoples demand will also reduce leading to the economy into the crisis. According to the classical economists beliefs, If there is any decline in Real GDP, they wont be permanent and will come to the finishing point when the labour markets get set themselves to the new price margin. They also argue on the point, If there is a decline, no matter big or small, in the Aggregate Demand, there will be fall in Real GDP. Hence, with a small shift in the price margin, wages will fall and finally SRAS will have a positive shift towards the right and gradually it will benefit in the economy returning to the original level at YF and the recession will come to an end. But, speaking harshly on these above valuations about the great depression of 1930, Keynes said, the long period of negative growth points about the markets show that they cant get clear automatically. He argued on the following reasons: Whenever there is a situation of recession, people have the tendency to save more rather than spend. They try to do savings as much as they can as they are really unsecure about the upcoming days, this is known as â€Å"Paradox of Thrift†. The factories or the business segments cut the wages and salaries to reflect downward movement in the prices but originally the workers are really harsh on it because a reduction in the salary/wages does not give them enough purchasing power and saving power. Now, if the salaries are deducted of the employees/workers, they would have less purchasing power, therefore, the demand will fall which will make the total impact on the AD curve, which will continue to decline at a rapid pace. Keynesian policies: An inspirational success Keynes introduced the power of elimination of the fear of people of depression with the practical examples. Before the Second World War, there were 8 U.S. recessions which got transformed into the situation of depression (1807, 1837, 1873, 1882, 1893, 1920, 1933, and 1937). Since the Second World War, there were 9 recessions (1945-46, 1949, 1954, 1956, 1960-61, 1970, 1973-75, 1980-83, and 1990-92) out of which not a single recession transformed into the situation of depression.This is a wonderful gift to the world by Keynes. Supply and demand factor When there is an excess of supply and demand in the market, a recession can take place within an international boundary which can later spread to the entire world. When the industries hire more and more labour and start the production at maximum level with the perception of the high demand in the market, they get a set back if the taste of the consumers has changed. When this situation arises supply in excess can cause the company loss and can be forced to reduce the prices. The companies then try to regain the loss by cutting employment and getting rid of the produced items. So in this case the excess supply factor would reduce and can be very slow. Along with this there is another situation which does occurs frequently from the side of the consumers. When the consumers demand is more than the supply side, the industries take benefit of it by increasing the prices of the products and by reducing the production of its products. And at this time, the products prices will be higher than it used to be because of the scarcity of the products in the market. Now, the consumers think, that the prices can exceed further, therefore, they buy the products in lots of quantity to satisfy their needs and excess demand. These poor industrial balances start giving a hint of industrial recession which spreads in the market affecting everyone. The supplier as well as consumers gets affected by this. Inflation A smaller amount of increase in the price value can click the beginning of the recession in the world market. The price value of all the domestic products like sugar, oil, wheat, rice, fruits, vegetables increases and become very costly which are not easily affordable. Not only the domestic products prices, but the price of oil also increases with rapid speed. At the moment, if we check the oil prices in the world, they have increased to huge height. The United States makes an impact on the entire world and the economists have warned them to stay in a planned economy to escape the recession or else they along with themselves will carry the entire world into the recessions. This warning should be the wake up alarm for all the countries including the USA. Crash in the Stock Market The crash in the stock market leading to fall of all the share prices is also one of the main reasons for the recession. The United States attacked Iraq which caused a major countrys revenue and put the entire country in the pressure of monetary problems also led the country lead into recession. According to the local people and share brokers, this war made an impact on the share market of USA which led to the decline in the prices value of the shares. The anti protection team were made against terrorism causing again the huge revenue for the country which resulted in the sharp decline in the share prices. Due to terrorism not only USA but the entire worlds share market is going down which is an issue of major concern. Selling of the Stocks By the alarming situation of the war, inflation, deflation, hyper inflation, catastrophe people start trading their shares on the large basis. The large investors sell out their shares at very cheap rates and get their money back due to the fear of loosing them. This also marks the factor of the inflation. In the year 2008, there was maximum trade of shares and the value of all the shares were at the bottom level. Saving factor of House Holds Most of the consumers are saving the money which is not allowing the money to rotate in the current market. The money is kept safely under their respective homes. Middle class families are quite resisting in going out and spending rather than keeping their pockets in tacked for the future. Majority of the money is owned by rich class people and even they are not exposing their money. This means, the moneys rotational nature is stopped and hence, the situation of recession is getting worse day by day. High consumption One of the major causes of the recession is over consumption. Peoples attitude of taking the life into a luxurious manner makes them overspend in the form of getting more and more luxury items. They want to build their standard of living and want to show off in the society. Everyone tries to compete with each other in terms of fashion and high status. Along with this the purchases of the luxurious health beauty costumes also make them spend on these products and the reason behind this is just â€Å"Show Off† in the society. Going to the expensive restaurants and having the most expensive food with lesser and higher quality also marks their standards. This excessive consumption of money has leaded the world fall into recession and poverty. United States invested billions of dollars into its war with Iraq which made economists alarmed them to be cautious about their future planning and also the consumption of the money in a more better and organised manner. Contamination in the Asian market The terrorism threats in Asia are causing the United States under an absolute pressure of recession. USA is taking major steps to avoid the terrorist attacks and threats in Asia and implementing its policies towards it to control the situation otherwise which can make a huge negative impact on the world. The major economic activity in the continent has been on the diminishing line on the graph which can cause the world a very huge burden of the recession which may be later converted into the situation of depression. Dirty environment, poverty, deflation, flood, hyperinflation, stock market downfall are some of the factors which are the areas of concerned in the continent. All these has made the United States quite interested in the enquiries towards the factors of recession and trying to take control of the difficult situation which may be very harmful to he world. The money supplys expansion is the work of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He is the one who can influence the economy without much notice. He can take immediate decisions on the raise or drop of the interest rates which can be even by fifteen percent. He makes the economy run by developing the movement of unemployment or the balance of the demand and supply. There have been many chairmen who were quite successful in managing the floatation of the interest rates but some were not successful as well. It has been agreed by all the economist, the person who can control the money supply should be enough influential and enough intelligent to handle it. On contrary, President of the United States has influence only on the long term on the economy. The decision taken by him at the time of his rule, they are implemented on a long term which may come into action even after his term gets over. Borrowing and spending decisions also take considerable time to pass through all the stages of confirmation and then getting it implemented in the economy. Therefore, the president is not at all responsible for the recessions as many people point the situation towards them. Its the chairman of the Federal Reserve who is responsible for the economic imbalances in the country. Many economists have agreed on this and has announced as injustice done to the presidents. There have been examples in the US economy where actions have been taken against the then presidents at the time of recession, which actually is not correct at all. Carter was punished for that high unemployment and inflation in the country and so as George Bush. However, if it was the president who was controlling the money supply they will be considered into the merit list. Impact of Recession The peoples purchasing power reduced as the companies reduced their labour and the workers still with them got cuts in their salary. Therefore, when the demand was low, production was low. All the prices of the small to big things became costly and people started saving rather than spending. Frequent flight travellers used trains as an alternative and similarly, in all the things in the market, consumers started opting for the cheaper substitutes which made a heavy impact on the business industry. The stock prices crashed down and people lost their life time savings in the stock market. Banks announced their loss or some banks did announce their bankruptcy as well. Historical review of recessions Recessions in the world Due to the unavailability of the proper acceptance of the definition of a global recession, IMF considers global recessions when the global growth is less than 3%. According to the estimates of IMF, global recession does occur in a cyclical phase of 8 and 10 years. As per them, the past three global recessions of the past 20 years, the global output per capita growth was in negative or less than zero. The economists with IMF states the global growth rate of 3 % or less would slowdown the overall growth of the countries. The recessions of 1990-1993,1998, 2001-2002, and 2008-2009 had a massive decline of the growth rate below zero. USA has faced many expansions and contractions since 1854 which has an average of seventeen months of contraction and thirty eight months of expansion. Meanwhile, since USA entered in 1980s they have faced only 8 periods of negative or zero growth in the economy over a fiscal quarter or more, and four periods considered recessions: January-July 1980 and July 1981-November 1982: 2 years total July 1990-March 1991: 8 months March 2001-November 2001: 8 months December 2007-current: 15 months as of March 2009 From 1991 to 2000, the U.S. experienced 37 quarters of economic expansion, the longest period of expansion on record. NBER in USA announces the arrival of the recessions in its economy and have succeeded in conforming correctly the economy in recession over a decline period of two quarters. But, there is a point of consideration of the recession of 2001 which involved the preceding of two quarters of alternative decline and weak growth in spite of the decline of the two consecutive quarters. Stock market and recessions Anticipations have been made by the economists about the recessions of the decline in the stock markets. However, the stock market crashes after the recession is in. In the recent period of time, there have been many sounds of crash from all over the worlds stock markets. According to Siegel, in the Long run, since 1948 there have been 10 recessions which were preceded by a fall in the stock market with an average time period of around six months, however, there have been some stock markets in the Dow Jones which crashed below ten percent but still they did not come into recessions. The impact of recessions can be also seen on real estate market which however last much longer than the recessions and take a good number of quarters to gain the momentum again. Its almost next to impossible to predict the business cycle. And Therefore, Siegel on this argues strongly and say its almost impossible to make timings investment decisions on based of these economic cycles. In fact, NBER also takes quite a bit of time to determine about the negative growth in all the sectors brining down the economy to a halt. Whenever, there is a decline in the economy, the consumers tend to adopt the stuffs of daily requirement from the market in whole sale and keep them in their stocks. Tobacco, contraceptives and medicines industry grow even at the time of negative economic and tends to hold a better position than any other industry. The stock market gets better day by day as the economy progress at a span of time. Once the economy is at worst i.e. after the lowest decline, market tends to grow and the stocks moves really fast building its strong position once again. There have been issues and objection over the health care companies progress. This is so because, they are in a better position than any other industry at the time of recession and after the market recovers; it is quite interesting to watch their stocks progress. Some companies diversify their risks and invest into the international projects which may provide them safety and a better industry position however, the countries which are very closely trading with USA also gets affected by the US recession. There has been a trend set of the recession by their historical figures and therefore, the investors begin discounting a recovery when the recession has crossed its halfway. The average length of a recession in US has been taken as thirteen months; nevertheless there are many recessions which have been shorter in period than thirteen months. Therefore, the present recession discounting period had already been started in the November 2009 and the market is growing with a good speed and trying to gain the momentum once again and is expected to be in a good position by the Middle of 2010. PoliTICS RECESSION The administration gets the blame or the credit for the economy of its country. The political controllers has to make sure the countrys economy is running into a good position, which has actually made disagreements about the arrival of the recession. Whenever, there is a downturn in an economy in can be considered a posi

Thatcher and Blair :: essays research papers

Introduction With the campaign ‘New Labour Because Britain Deserves Better’, it appeared that the new look of the Labour Party was so promising that most Britons have poured their votes for the Labour Party, and Tony Blair and his family moved to stay at the 10th Downing Street. It is said that the New Labour won the election, because they have tried to understand what British people wanted. Like it or not, the New Labour has simply followed Margaret Thatcher’s achievements. Moreover, Tony Blair and his aides have consistently used Thatcherite rhetoric to strengthen his ‘New’ credentials such as the use of ‘No turning back’ and ‘No, no, no.’ (The Guardian, April 20, 1999) Thus, based on the assumption that the Left Wing has adopted the Right Wing policies, this report attempts to find differences and similarities of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher’s and Mr. Tony Blair’s domestic and foreign affairs policies as well as the impacts on Britain. Background The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. Its constitution is partly unwritten and flexible. Also, politics in Britain is a two-party politics, and the system of British government is built around the existence of competing political parties, having distinctive policies and views, particularly The Conservative Party and the Labour Party, which are the dominant parties nowadays. To understand the management policies, it is worth looking into the political philosophy of both rival parties. The Conservative Party The Conservative Party or formally National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations is a right-of-centre political party. It is the heir and continuation of the old Tory Party, members of which began forming Conservation Association after Britain’s first Reform Act of 1832, extended electoral rights to the middle class. Formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1834, the first Conservative government announced the reform of abuse; the importance of law and order and of the police; orderly system of taxation, and the importance of both landed interests and of trade and industry. Among former Conservative Prime Ministers, there are two well-known persons, who shall be mentioned here. Firstly, during World War II, The Conservative Party dominated national office and Winston Churchill (later became Sir Winston) led Britain to victory in 1945. Secondly, Margaret Thatcher (b. 13 Oct 1925) and later being made as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven was the first European and British Prime Minister (1979-1990). Not only did she win three consecutive terms in the 20th century, but she also was Britain’s

Bad Boys by Arnette Ferguson

Paige Kahalnik Sociology Bad Boys paper In the book, Bad Boys, Ann Arnett Ferguson goes on a three-year journey through Rosa Parks Elementary School to observe and research why it is that mostly black males are ending up in jail and are unsalvageable from such a young age. She interviews and observes daily interactions with the eleven and twelve year old students that have been labeled â€Å"at risk† by their teachers and peers. She wants to research how it is being in school when all of the educators have already labeled them as â€Å"unsalvagable, at risk, and bound for jail†.These kids pretty much act in the way that their teachers treat them. They get into trouble every single day and most of the times these boys provoke it because that’s how they think there supposed to act because they think they are already going no where in life. At such a young age, these boys, just because they are black, shouldn’t be criminalized and put in a different category than other boys. These children faced many challenges that effected how they learned in school, the way teachers and peers treated them, and how they are labeled as bad boys.Ann Arnett Ferguson said, â€Å"in the course of my study it became clear that school labeling practices and the exercise of rules operated as part of a hidden curriculum to marginalize and isolate black male youth in disciplinary spaces and brand them as criminally inclined†(page 2). This means that the educators didn’t really realize they were doing this and labeling these boys but it was more like a tradition and they saw nothing wrong with it. This is purely based on race and obviously some people are still in the mindset that black people are inferior to white people.Bad boys show black males from a very young age being adultified and become very masculine making them becomes part of the criminal system early on. Adultification is a filter of overlapping representations of three socially inven ted categories of â€Å"difference†; age, gender and race. This is justified by saying that humans are different from animals, children different from adults, girls different from males, and blacks different from whites. African American boys are doubly displaced among society.Ann Arnett Ferguson says, â€Å"they are not seen as childlike but adultified; as black males they are denied the masculine dispensation constituting white males as being â€Å"naturally naughty† and are discerned as willfully bad†(page 80). These African American boys are thought of being two things, either a criminal or an endangered species. They are not allowed to be naughty by nature according to society, but rather there naughtiness is a sign of vicious, inherent, insubordinate behavior.African americans are seen as endangered victims, which makes them criminals. Ferguson states, â€Å"It is their own maladaptive and inappropriate behavior that causes African americans to self-destr uct†(page 82). There are two versions of childhood that are contradictory to each other. A real child would be seen as a â€Å"little plants† ready to grow up accordingly which is what white men were like to educators. On the other hand the African American boys were seen as children who are powerful, self centered, and have an agenda of their own.These black boys are seen as adults from such a young age, they don’t have time to be young and grow up because others make it seem like they are already fully grown. This drives them in the path to do bad things and make bad decisions. In the beginning of the book, the vice principal of Rosa Parks Elementary school said that most of the children in the school would be headed for jail and that there was a jail cell with some of their names waiting on it. At first, Ferguson rejected this point of view and said that that was not going to be true.After further research and observation, Ferguson definitely looked at the sit uation differently. She said, â€Å"While I rejected the labeling practices of the school vice principal , in my opening chapter, I also reluctantly admitted that by the end of school year, I too had come to suspect that a prison cell might have a place in the future of many Rosa Parks students† (page 230). These boys have adopted the way that people treat them and it has such a negative effect on them that they are probably heading to jail.They are all being punished so much and isolated from the classroom that they aren’t learning anything throughout the days. They don’t have many social interactions and don’t have full access to resources that are needed. Educators might not see it, but they are a big reason that these children and being put behind bars and not meeting expectations that white boys meet. They are treated differently than white boys from such a young age, so they just start to â€Å"act black† like how everyone else thinks they sh ould. They know they are getting treated differently, so they just keep it that way.Most of the people that end up in jail are usually African American boys. If these â€Å"bad boys† weren’t treated like they are some kind of poison, maybe they wouldn’t be behind bars as life goes on for them. African American boys have to seem masculine every single day from such a young age because they were labeled as adults so early on. These boys thrive on their masculinity because this means that they have power and value. Their life doesn’t have meaning if they aren’t throwing masculine performances to the best level. This is why so many African Americans get in trouble.They want to prove their masculinity through violence. When young African American boys are in school they fight to show others who they are. Most of these boys identify themselves in groups like gangs because it is a sense of home for them. They are all being treated differently than others and they come together based on the fact of their race and how others see them. There is never any white boys in these gangs they are all black. Gangs are a sign of family and equality when they’re with there â€Å"homies†. They do violent acts in gangs to show their masculinity to others and have others fear them.The public and the media see them as â€Å"ghetto† black boys who aren’t educated and are violent. Since so many people portray them as this, they tend to do these things. They know how people see them and so they act on it how they think they should be acting in correlation to what the media and public see them as. In the classroom the African American boys will talk out of turn, say mean comments to others, and not answer any questions that the teacher asks. They see this as a masculine performance. It is fundamental for these boys to engage with power while in the classroom or they don’t feel like themselves.They are always seen as inf erior to the white boys and girls in class, so they decide to stay that way and not play around with the hidden curriculum. Bad Boys shows that there is still race issues that are going on today. Whether the educators realize that they single out the black boys more than anyone or not, there hidden curriculum is very apparent in this book. Fergusons portrayal of what happens to black boys is very real and happens to tons of them. It is true that mostly African Americans end up in jail and that they are treated like adults from such an early age that they already feel grown up by the time they are eleven or twelve.These boys are supposed to â€Å"act black†, so they do. These boys are supposed to act masculine, so they fight. These boys do everything that the public and media say they should and they don’t know any other way of how to act. This has been going on for so long, that there is no turning back for these boys. This book will show people what is really going on and I think many educators, peers, parents, etc. will see this and really try to change the way they say and do things to African Americans. Maybe this book will turn some people around and these boys will be treated equally.

Linguistics and Language Teaching.

Grammatical mistakes made by non- native English language speakers. Introduction Language  may refer either to the specifically  human  capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of  communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in any of its senses is called  linguistics. Linguistic theory has traditionally considered native speakers as the only reliable source of linguistic data (Chomsky 1965). It is therefore not surprising to ? nd only a limited number of works focusing on non-native speakers prior to the 1990s.The ? rst attempt to put‘(non)nativism’ onto the centre stage of linguistic inquiry by challenging current undisputed assumptions on the  matter was Paikeday’s (1985) The native speaker is dead  , in which it is argued that the native speaker ‘exists only as a ? gment of linguist’s imagination’ (Paikeday 1985: 12). Paikeday suggested using the term ‘pro? cient user’ of a language to refer to all speakers who can successfully use it. A few years later, Rampton (1990) similarly proposed the term ‘expert speaker’ to include all successful users of a language.Davies (1991, 2003) further delved into ‘native speaker’ identity, and thus formulated the key question of whether a second language (L2) learner can become a native speaker of the target language. His conclusion was that L2 learners can become native speaker of the target language and master the intuition, grammar, spontaneity, creativity, pragmatic control, and interpreting quality of ‘born’ native speakers. Generally, English educated Malaysians of all ethnic and family language background speak and move alike.However, with the implementation of the national language policy of Bahasa Malaysia  as the national language of Malaysia and as the language of instruction, (except in the cases of Chinese or Tamil medium pr imary schools), the status of English Language in Malaysia is different from the earlier years. The English language covered a continuum from first language through second language to a foreign language. Bahasa Malaysia  is replacing English in most of its previous functions, but English may be expected to remain as a continuum from second language to foreign language according to the background and occupation of the speaker.In Malaysia, presently the use of English is less common than in Singapore and is likely to decrease steadily with the implementation of the national language policy. However, English still remains as a language of considerable importance and is still being used in various spheres of everyday activity. The role of English has changed from its earlier status as the precise language of the colonial era and the decades after the Second World War to a second language.At the moment, it is still considered as an international code to be used for diplomatic and comme rcial negotiations and as a language necessary in many fields of tertiary study and research. Not surprisingly, the non-native English language speakers among Malaysians make grammatical mistakes from time to time. These usually happened among Malaysian adult students and even among some Malaysian English teachers. 1. The transcript of a recorded conversation. The following excerpt is a recorded conversation among teachers and will be analysed of the mistakes made by some teachers during discussion.Our discussion was on the quality and effectiveness of a programme called ‘Program Penutur Jati’ or English Language Teacher Development Project (ELTP). Briefly, the aim of the project is to enhance the lower primary ESL teachers’ ability to plan and deliver quality English lessons based on the new National English Language Curriculum in 600 schools across East Malaysia. The teachers involved in discussion come from various races, ethnic groups, ages and teaching exper iences. Kamel : That is my opinion. I don’t know yours. Ok. Chairperson : I agree †¦. augh Kamel : But , as I said just now. I don’t like that the fixture.. ok. For example aaaa as my mentor come to our school .. every Monday ok.. my class start at nine o’clock†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 7. 30.. that mean one and half hour include the preparation for my lesson, so I don’t think that I have an ample time for me to prepare the things†¦ ok . Moreover, the one hour and one and half hour is the .. for all to prepare.. the whole week not only , the one day. So I don’t think that will be effective. Chairperson: Emmmm Kamel : So Chairperson : Did you tell him about it?Kamel: Aaaaaa†¦ So far not yet. Chairperson : Do you have the chance to talk about it. Kamel : Because, I don’t have any.. I don’t have the opportunity to.. Chairperson : Then, you should tell him. Kamel ; I was thinking. Why don’t the mentors like them to be .. have q ualification in teaching, so that they can come to the trainee teachers training college rather than†¦ Chairperson : For your information, ahh Chairperson : Overall, it seems to be working with you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Naga : The ideas (cough)†¦ is good and different†¦ he is friendly. Chairperson : So.. ahh.If supposing .. You have a mentor to this.. who doesn’t speak.. doesn’t speak like Morrocan. Alright Naemah : Yehhh Chairperson: Right.. Alright, if.. Chairperson: Who? Chairperson : Madam Soya? She is from where? Others : Bulgaria.. (together) Chairperson : Bulgaria? Does she have the accent? Chairperson: What do you think? Do you think†¦ | 2. Common grammatical mistakes and errors by non-native English speakers. The types of errors can be categorised into two: descriptive and surface structures. Descriptive errors include noun phrase, verb phrase and complex sentence.While surface structure errors include omission, addition, misinformati on, misordering and blends. After analysing the recorded conversation, there are few mistakes or errors made by Mr. Kamel during the said discussion. a. The use of unmarked forms instead of marked forms is far more frequent, as can be seen in the examples as follows. * I don’t know yours. * I don’t know about you. * .. as I said just now. * .. as I have said just now. One possible cause of these errors is merely interlingual errors which is the result of mother tongue influences ‘Saya tak tahu awak punya’ and ‘†¦ seperti yang saya kata tadi. respectively. In his article, ‘A Role for the Mother Tongue’ in ‘Language Transfer in Language Learning’, Professor Corder (1981) reinvestigated the phenomenon and questions the term ‘transfer’. He suggests that mother tongue influence as a neutral and broader term to refer to what has most commonly been called transfer. Corder says that since most studies of error were made on the basis of the performance of learners in formal situations where it appears that errors related to mother tongue are more frequent, it was natural that an explanation of the phenomenon was of considerable concern to the applied linguistic.It was out of this concern that the whole industry of contrastive studies arose. He also claims that as far as the acquisition of syntactic knowledge is concerned, no process appropriately called interference takes place, if by that we mean that the mother tongue actually inhibits, prevents, or makes more difficult the acquisition of some feature of the target language. The term ‘interference’ is now most often used to mean what is no more than the presence in the learner‘s performance in the target language of mother-tongue-like features which are incorrect according to the rules of the target language. b.Obviously. Mr. Kamel has the problem in pronouncing certain words especially in the pronunciation of the initial sound of common words like the, there, then and that. It is also the middle consonant sound in feather and the final sound of bathe. These sounds are formed with the tongue tip behind the upper front teeth. The initial sound of that and the final sound of both are both voiceless dental. This problem arises because Mr Kamel’s tongue is not merely touches the teeth. Thus, his pronunciation of these particular words are incorrect. Besides, difficulty in phonology can caused by mother tongue interference.Eltrug (1984) affirmed that mother tongue interference can contribute to a large number of pronunciation errors made by students. An English sound does exist in the native language, but not as separate phonemes. This simply means the first language speakers do not perceive it as a distinct sound that makes difference to meaning. For example The sound /? / does exist in Malay, but whether the vowel is long or short does not make any difference in meaning. For instance, the English phonemes/? / and /i:/ differ very much in meaning as in the words ‘leave’ and ‘live’, ‘sheep’ and ‘ship’.The great amount of vocabulary of English really makes the second language learner suffer in reading. There is a lot of words unknown and the most confusing point is even the second language learner know the meaning but they can’t really understand the meaning of the whole sentence. It is because an English word gives different impressions in different situations. This makes things so confusing about the meaning of the word. Grammatical interference is defined as the first language influencing the second in terms of word order, use of pronouns and determinants, tense and mood.Interference at a lexical level provides for the borrowing of words from one language and converting them to sound more natural in another and orthographic interference includes the spelling of one language altering another. In Malay grammar, it doe s not require one to have any form of determiner in front of instruments like computer, piano, internet. English grammar, however, requires the instruments mentioned above (computer, piano, internet) to be preceded by determiners and if neither a possessive determiner nor a demonstrative determiner is used, the use of either a definite article or an indefinite article is necessary.Thus, the ungrammatical sentences in could be the result of interference of the cultural transfer from Malay language structure on English. Erroneous form| Correct form| She plays piano while I sing. Malay: Dia bermain piano sementara saya menyanyi. | She plays the piano while I sing | She stay at home. Malay : Dia tinggal di rumah | She stays at home. | Table 1 : Examples of interference from the learners’ first language. c.Subjects also exhibited errors in subject-verb agreement as is shown in the examples as follows: * Every Monday, my class start at nine o’clock†¦. * Every Monday, my class starts at nine o’clock†¦. The omission of â€Å"-s† can be attributed to the fact that Bahasa Malaysia does not require verbs to agree with subjects. However, the ending free form is generalised for all persons to make the learning task easier and this is a common intralingual made by people with diverse native languages like Mr Kamel. 3. Causes and sources of errors and mistakes Interlingual errors  are the result of mother tongue influences.Learners transfer/borrow some forms but not others due to two factors such as proto-typicality and language distance (Kellerman, 1979). Malay learners of English commonly make errors in negative sentences. For example: Adryna no coming today. [Adryna tak datang hari ini. ] Such errors are common in pre-verbal negation using  no, the same negative construction as in their L1. In order to determine whether transfer is the cause for the occurrence of errors, James (1998), demonstrates that learners with a particular L 1 make an error that those with a different L1 do not.He provides a useful summary of these strategies which includes the following; a. False analogy b. Misanalysis c. Incomplete rule application exploiting redundancy d. Overlooking co-occurrence restrictions e. System-simplification It is not clear which strategy is responsible for a particular error. Errors can also be viewed as ‘natural’ or as ‘induced’. For example: a. He  played  football yesterday. b. He  goed  home at six. c. He  drinked  milk. d. He  eated  dinner. e. He  sleeped  at eight. ConclusionTo conclude, learners’ errors are a part of the learners’ language learning process. Hence, teachers should not penalise students for the errors they made. Instead, teachers should note those errors and devise ways to assist learners to overcome their problems in language learning. It is difficult to decide whether grammatically or acceptability should serve as the crit erion for error analysis. If grammatically is chosen, an error can be defined as ‘breach of the rule of the code’ (Corder, 1967).Defining errors in terms of grammatically also necessitates giving consideration to the distinction between overt and covert error: In the field of methodology, there are two schools of thought with regard to learners’ error. Firstly, the school which maintains that if we were to achieve a perfect teaching method, the errors would have never be committed and therefore the occurrence of errors is merely a sign of inadequacy in our teaching techniques. The philosophy of the second school is that we live in an imperfect world and consequently errors will always occur in spite of our very best teaching and learning ethods. One effect has been perhaps to shift the emphasis away from a preoccupation with teaching towards a study of learning. The differences between the two are clearly defined: that the learning of the mother tongue is natural , whereas, we all know that there is no such inevitability about the learning of a second language; that the learning of the mother tongue is part of the whole maturational process of the child, whilst learning a second language normally begins only after the maturational process is complete.A child’s incorrect utterances can be interpreted as being evidence that he is in the process of acquiring language and the errors provide these evidences. Brown and Frazer (1964), point out that the best evidence a child possesses construction rules is the occurrence of systematic errors, since when the child speaks correctly, it is quite possible that he is only repeating something that he has heard. In the case of the second language learner, it is known that we do know some knowledge of what the input has been which we call as the syllabus.The simple fact of presenting a certain linguistic form to a learner in the classroom does not necessarily qualify it for the status of input, for the reason that input ‘is what goes in’, not ‘what is available’ for going in, and we may reasonably suppose that it is the learner who controls this input. This may well be determined by the characteristics of his language acquisition mechanism and not by those of the syllabus. References Mariam Mohd Nor, Abdul Halim Ibrahim, Shubbiah, R (2008). OUM-Linguistics and Language Teaching. Seri Kembangan, Selangor.Open University Malaysia. Corder, S. P. (1967). The significance of learners’ errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics,  5, 161-70. Corder, S. P. (1981). Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ames, C. (1998). Errors in language learning and use: Exploring error analysis. London: Longman. Kellerman, E. (1979). Transfer and non-transfer: Where are we now? Studies in Second Language Acquisition,  2: 37-57. Eltrug, N. S. (1984). Analysis of the Arab Learners' Errors in Pronunciation of English Utterances i n Isolation and Context.Ph. D Dissertation. The University of Kansas. Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of  the theory of  syntax  . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Paikeday, T. (1985). The native speaker is dead! Toronto: Paikeday Publishing. Rampton, M. B. H. (1990). Displacing the ‘native speaker’: Expertise, af? liation, and inheritance. ELT  Ã‚  Journal   44. 2, 97–101. Davies, A. (1991). The  native speaker in  applied linguistics  . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Davies, A. (2003). The native speaker of World Englishes. Journal of Pan-Paci? c Association of Applied  Linguistics   6. 1, 43–60