Solar power Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Solar power - Research Paper Example The report also focuses on one more crucial aspect of solar power, i.e. the solar panels. It describes the three basic types of solar panels and specifies the details of the types of solar panels. It also focuses on the longevity and productivity of solar panels as well as analyzes on the cost benefit analysis of the solar panels in the short as well as the long run. Another key component of power and energy generation is charge controllers. The essay also elaborates the types of charge controllers for commercial as well as individual use. The essay also highlights the importance of AC generators as an alternate for power back up and analyzes their importance to individual as well as commercial users. It is evident from the analysis that solar energy has certainly become one of the most important and crucial sources of energy generation in the modern era. When compared with the other modes of power generation, it can be stated that solar energy system is definitely very low. Not only energy generated through solar power is highly cost-efficient and cost effective but it can certainly reap long term benefits for its users. Solar power is one of the most important and reliable sources of energy generation. Solar power is the process of capturing energy from radiant light and heat from the sun which is than harnessed using a variety of range of ever-evolving technologies which include solar heating, thermal electricity and also artificial photosynthesis.The process of power generation through solar technologies can be termed as active or passive solar and it all depends on the way the energy is captured, converted and finally distributed. Solar power is a significant and inexpensive source of electric power, in comparison with the grid power, because, the grid power is, not really convenient to use and also extremely costly to connect. Due to the

The First Opium War 1 question Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The First Opium War 1 question - Coursework Example This paper explores the first opium war and the role of the Western powers in spreading and controlling the use of opium in China and other regions in the period. â€Å"During the nineteenth century Great Britain led the Western powers in ‘opening’ China to trade and Christian proselytizing† (Tyner, 2006, p. 25). The trade inequity between the two nations favored China. Britain bought enormous quantities of tea from China, but offered less woolens to the Chinese. This led the Chinese to require transactions to be settled in silver bullion. In a bid to overturn the trade imbalance, Britain started importing opium into China. By 1817, Britain was trading opium for tea in order to offset their trade deficit with China. The Qing government initially permitted the importation of opium by Britain because it encouraged more export of tea from China to England, while creating an indirect tax for the Chinese citizens. Opium was grown in Indian cotton growing regions under the control of British East India Company (Bengal), which traded opium for tea, in China (Ramirez-Faria, 2007). Britain began trading in opium in 1781 with their opium trade growing immensely between 1821 and 1837. The British facilitated the influx of opium in China and other regions by importing large quantities of the commodity to China. In 1834, Free Trade revolutionists ended the monopoly of the British East India Company, which shifted trade into the hands of private merchants and entrepreneurs (Perdue, 2010). Americans brought in Turkish opium, which was of poor quality but cheaper. As such, there was price war leading to low price, but higher sales of opium. Consequently, the Chinese officials stepped in to intercept the transportation of the commodity into China (Tyner, 2006). In order to stop opium from flooding China, a Chinese officer, Lin Zexu, appointed in

Evolution Of The Principle Of Comparative Advantage Economics Essay

Evolution Of The Principle Of Comparative Advantage Economics Essay From the early 19th century, new outlooks on trade theory have influenced how countries have engaged in production. One of the most significant developments in this area was that of comparative advantage. Comparative advantage refers to the ability of a country to produce one good at a lower opportunity cost than another. Comparative Advantage argues that all countries will gain from trade, even those that are relatively inefficient in the production of goods. All countries will gain, even those with an absolute disadvantage in the production of all goods, as opposed to with Absolute Advantage, which refers to the ability of a country to produce one good at a lower opportunity cost than another. In this essay, I intend to discuss how the theory of comparative advantage has come into being, from its inception in the early 1800s, through the neo classical period and into the modern era. This discussion will look at the variations on the theory proposed by some of the leading economists in the field of international trade, and how they viewed and expanded upon the original law of comparative advantage. In looking at how the law has developed over the past two centuries, my aim is to show the principles uses in describing how international trade is conducted to this day. In the latter sections of the essay, I will refer to empirical evidence that tests if comparative advantage predicts accurately patterns of international trade. Comparative Advantage Adam Smith illustrated an early understanding of the benefits that could be gained by focusing on the production of goods that the population was most efficient at producing: If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage (Smith,1776,295). This idea demonstrated Smiths understanding of the concept of absolute advantage, whereby gain is realised in exchange between two men who are superior in the production of one good. The principle of comparative advantage was first presented in the work of Robert Torrens in his 1815 Essay on the External Corn Trade, where Torrens discussed Absolute Advantage in substantial detail and explained how it was beneficial for a country to engage in trade for a commodity even if the host country could produce the same good at a lower actual cost than the country it was trading with. However, it is David Ricardo who is widely credited with the first complete formulation of the theory of comparative advantage in 1817. Ricardo recognised that absolute advantage was only a limited version of a more general theory. His early understanding of the theory of comparative advantage is displayed in the quote: Two men can both make shoes and hats, and one is superior to the other in both employments; but in making hats he can only exceed his competitor by one-fifth or 20 per cent; and in making shoes he can excel him by one-third or 33 per cent: will it not be in the interest of both that the superior man should employ himself exclusively in making shoes, and the inferior man in making hats? (Ricardo,1817, p136). The assumptions in his reasoning can be seen in Kemp Okawas review of the formulation of comparative advantage, where they set out a model in which both countries are initially autarkical, then subsequently open up to a free trade environment, that all countries have at their disposal the potential to produce all possible commodities, and that in a state each country involved is able to consume all of these commodities. (2006,468). John Aldrich was recorded as saying, Torrens, Ricardo and Mill all made contributions to the discovery of comparative advantage, not by a major multiple discovery but through a sequence of insights and arguments (Aldrich, 2004, 379). James Mill studied and subsequently ratified Ricardos view on the existence and viability of comparative advantage in 1821 when he said When two men have more than they need, it will be a great accommodation to both if they can perform an exchange of a part of the food of the one for a part of the cloth of the other, and so in other cases (1821,63). In his treatment of the principle, he provided one of the clearest explanations and examinations of the workings of comparative advantage, rectifying much of the ambiguity of Ricardos exposition. His work enhanced the status of the principle of comparative advantage in economic circles by illustrating its viability through the use of numerous numerical examples. John Stuart Mill, son of James Mill, studied and subsequently made refinements to the theorem introduced by his father. Through his work, comparative advantage gained more universal acceptance as an explanation of the benefits of trade in the mid 19th century. He was responsible for the rational reconstruction of Ricardo in which the labour cost coefficients were interpreted as the amounts used in each unit of a good produced rather than Ricardos labour cost of producing the amounts contained in a typical trading bundle'(Ruffin,2002,727-748). Some of Mills most prominent work in the field of comparative advantage can be seen in his 1844 Theory of international values which aided the economic community to come to a fuller understanding and appreciation of the centrality of comparative cost in trade theory (Gomes,2003). In 1930, Gottfried Haberler of the neo-classical school of economics provided a modern interpretation of the theory of comparative advantage which generalised and separated it from David Ricardos labour theory of value, helping to form the foundations of modern trade theory. Haberler believed that it was possible to reformulate the theory in such a way that its analytical value and all conclusions drawn from it are preserved, rendering it at the same time entirely independent of the labor theory of value (Bernhofen,2005,998). His work indicated that comparative advantage is about resource allocation, and adapted it into a more general principle that accommodated non-linear production frontiers. Kemp and Okawa state that Haberler indicated that the relative opportunity costs of producing determines both the direction of free international trade and the manner in which gains from this trade are shared by trading partners (2006,1). The next significant progression in the development of the theory was through the work of two Swedish economists Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin. Their theory examined the reasons behind the differences in comparative costs. The Heckscher-Ohlin model introduced new ideas which differed from the classical approach. Factors of production are taken into account for the first time, of which the two primary ones were labour and land (Eicher, Mutti Turnovsky,2009,68). The theory explains how countries of similar technological levels can trade, how trade affects the distribution of wealth in the economy and how growth in an economy affects trade. Their model was based on two assumptions. Firstly; that countries would no longer differ in terms of technology, but rather by their endowment of factors of production. This meant that countries would be concerned with relative differences in labour and capital abundances compared to their trading partner. The second assumption was that goods differ by the factors of production they require. They explained that the more abundant a factor of production was, the greater the likelihood that it would be cheaper to produce their specialised goods and hence, the opportunity cost of producing goods which were reliant on this factor would be lower in other words, that the source of comparative advantage resided in the factor endowments of a country (Viner,1937). This implies that countries would have a comparative advantage in producing goods that their abundant factor of production. For example, countries with an abundant supply of labour would reap the greatest benefits by focusing their specialism on labour intensive products. The benefits of the H-O theory compared to the theory of comparative advantage were that: it offered; a better means of explaining observed trade patterns, the ability to develop implications about how trade affects wages and returns on capital, it shows the economic growth on trade and it offers a more thorough explanation of political groups on trade. A further development of H-O theory was the Stolper-Samuelson theorem which shows that the owners of scarce/abundant factors are disadvantaged/benefited when an economy opens up for trade and specializes in the production of the good that is intensive in its use of the abundant factor a discovery that was beneficial in the understanding of the politics behind free trade and protectionism. The theory states that during increase in the price of an abundant factor and the fall in the price of the scarce factor, and that the owners of the abundant factor will find their incomes rise the owners of the scarce resource will see their real incomes fall. Rogoff states that their paper was the first to demonstrate the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem in a two good, two country, two factor (labour and capital) model. The H-O theorem shows that with identical technologies at home and abroad, the country with the larger endowment of labour relative to capital should export the labour intensive good. This advancement of the theory aided the thinking about trade between countries with widely different capital-labour ratios. (Rogoff,2005,8). Chipman and Inoue state that for their theory, the following assumptions are made: 1. All trade takes place in a free trade environment, with no transport costs attached. 2. The factors of production, labour and capital, are freely mobile between industries within countries, while at the same time being immobile between countries. 3. The production functions neoclassical and constant over time. 4. The endowment of labour in each country is constant over the two periods (2001,2). Contemporary research by economists such as Helpman Krugman (1985) adapts traditional comparative advantage theory by relaxing some of the assumptions that underlie the contemporary specification of the principle, such as economy of scales and product differentiation. Nowadays, the comparative advantage theory can be further developed by including new aspects, such as specialization, technological differences and aspects of game theory (Tian, 2008). Comparative advantage may appear to be somewhat paradoxical, in the sense that it states that, under a certain set of conditions, a country should produce and export a good that its workforce is not particularly skilled at producing when compared directly to the workforce of another country. However, it holds true when it is explained that when two countries who each hold a comparative advantage in a particular good engage in trade with one another, trade between these nations raises both of their real incomes, on the condition that there is a relative gap between the costs of the same types of products in production by the countries engaging in trade. Ricardos model shows that, if a country wants to maximise gain, it must strive to fully employ all of its resources. It should then allocate its resources to each these resources to its comparative advantage industries, and subsequently, it should aim to operate in a free trade environment, which will benefit all trading partners invol ved. It can be seen how comparative advantage is still a useful and important concept in explaining international trade. Jones and Neary conferred their opinion on the ongoing validity of the theory: While the principle of comparative advantage may thus be defended as a basic explanation of trade patterns, it is not a primitive explanation, since it assumes rather than explains inter-country differences in autarkic relative prices (Reinert, Rajan Glass,2009,199). Revealed comparative advantage is an index devised by Bella Balassa used to calculate the relative advantage or disadvantage a country may have in a specific class or category of goods or services. This advantage can be assessed through analysing trade flows. The index attempts to uncover a revealed comparative advantage by assessing the countrys specialism in exports in relation to others. It is a highly useful means of assessing how useful Comparative advantage is in explaining contemporary trade patterns. A large number of empirical tests of comparative advantage have been undertaken to test the theory of comparative advantage. MacDougall tested the hypothesis that the export ratios of two countries to a third market were a function of labour productivity ratios of the two countries in question. The results were supportive of the Ricardian model, and his work demonstrated that trade between the United States and the United Kingdom in 1937 followed Ricardos prediction. CONCLUSION Throughout this essay, it can be seen how the ideas forged in the original theory of comparative advantage have eminently formed a large part of the basis for understanding how international trade is conducted today. Since its advent, attaining a comparative advantage has been heavily reliant on recognising and exploiting the natural resources and competencies that are present within a country. Even to this day, countries specialise their economies depending on the factors of production that enable them to produce most efficiently, all the while recognising that holding a comparative advantage is a cornerstone of effective trade practices. In the modern era and most likely in the coming years, comparative advantage is likely to continue to become an increasingly more man made factor, with the utilisation of new technologies resulting in the likelihood of significantly increasing production efficiency, and thus affecting the areas on which a country holds an absolute and comparative advantage. Although the original theory of comparative advantage may not subscribe to the current economic environment, it is still a relevant means of determining the most beneficial trading strategy for a countrys economy. Adaptations to the theory since its inception have facilitated the continued utilisation of the idea in the current climate. According to Gale, the changes that have taken place over time are a product of globalisation, for example, new trade barriers and changes in agricultural policy have caused a decrease in some countries manufacturing prowess and has resulted in a subsequent reduction in its comparative advantage (2002,27). The current trend of globalization means that the assumptions associated with comparative advantage are becoming increasingly more difficult to apply.  Ã‚  Despite this, it is still a relevant means of describing international trade patterns today and the ways in which a country can best exploit its natural endowment of resources. To reinforce this point, Paul Samuelson has stated that comparative advantage is the only law of economics which can stand comparison with the laws generated by hard sciences. Modern conditions may cloud our law but, suitably qualified, it still holds (Gray,2000,316). Through my research into the growth of comparative advantage from its inception, I believe that the concept still aptly demonstrates the fundamental importance of the effects, determinants and nature of international trade. Bibliography Aldrich J, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Volume 26, Number 3, September 2004 (pg 396) (26, 3, 379-399) Bernhofen, Daniel M. (2005), Gottfried Haberlers 1930 Reformulation of Comparative Advantage in Retrospect,   Review of International Economics; Nov2005, Vol. 13 Issue 5, p997-1000, 4p Calhoun, Craig and Gerteis, Joseph (2007) Classical Sociological Theory, Blackwell Publishing Chipman, John S and Inoue, Tadashi (2001), Intertemporal Comparative Advantage, I *(pg. 2) http://www.econ.umn.edu/~jchipman/econ8402f05/INTERTMP.PDF Eicher, Theo S., Mutti John H. and Turnovsky Michelle H (2009), International Economics, Routledge; 1 edition, (pg. 68) Faulkner, David and Segal-Horn, Susan (2004), The economics of international comparative advantage in the modern world, European Business Journal; 2004 1st Quarter, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p20-31, 12p. Gale, Fred (2002) Chinas Food and Agriculture: Issues for the 21st Century / AIB-775, Economic Research Service/USDA (pg27) Gomes, Leonard (2003), The economics and ideology of free trade: a historical review, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Gray, H (2000) A Review of Maneschi, Andrea, Comparative Advantage in International Trade: A Historical Perspective, International Trade Journal; Fall2000, Vol. 14 Issue 3, p315-320, 6p Kemp, Murray C., and Okawa Masayuki (2006), The Torrens-Ricardo principal of Comparative Advantage: An Extension Review of International Economics, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 466-477, August 2006 Maneschi, Andrea (1998) Comparative advantage in international trade: a historical perspective (pg52) Mill, James (1821), Elements of Political Economy, London: Henry G. Bohn   chapter III, pg63 Reinert, Kenneth A., Rajan, Ramkishen S. and Glass, Amy Jocelyn (2009), The Princeton encyclopedia of the world economy, Vol 2, Princeton University Press Rogoff, Kenneth (2005), Paul Samuelsons Contributions to International Economics Harvard University, pg 8 http://www.economics.harvard.edu/files/faculty/51_Samuelson.pdf Ruffin, Roy J. (2002) History of Political Economy; Winter2002, Vol. 34 Issue 4, p727-748, 22p Smith Adam (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Hackett Publishing Company Inc. Book IV, Chapter III (IV.3.33) The evolution of the comparative advantage argument for free trade. http://www.econ.ku.dk/kgp/doc/Lectfrms/evolution%20of%20comparative%20advantage.pdf Tian, Yiqian (2008), A New Idea about Ricardos Comparative Advantage Theory on Condition of Multi-Commodity and Multi-Country International Journal of Business and Management Vol.3, No. 12, December 2008 Viner, Jacob (1937), Studies in the Theory of International Trade, New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, Chapter VIII Introduction In the course of this essay, I intend to outline the development of the principle of the quantity theory of money, from its initial inception in the 16th century right up to the current outlook on the theory in the 21st century. Subsequently I hope to outline the theorys importance as a catalyst for the development of monetarism in the 20th century, and outline how monetarism has progressed since that point in time. The quantity theory of money provides a means of answering the question what gives money value? We know that intrinsically, a bank note is a valueless piece of paper and ink, and that its perceived value stems from the quantity of it in supply. Due to the value of money being variable, a change in money demand or supply will yield a change in the value of money and in the price level. The more money that is in circulation means that each individual bill becomes worth less. This will result in it taking more bills to purchase goods and services, and as a result, price level will increase accordingly. The quantity theory of money states that the value of money is based on the amount of money in the economy that the nominal money supply is a function of the equivalent changes in price levels as it relates to the demand for money necessary to meet the needs of current transactions. For example, in Ireland, according to the theory, when the central bank increases the money supply, the value of money falls and the price level increases. Main body The theory states that a one-time change in the stock of money has no lasting effect on real variables but will lead to a proportionate change in the money price of good. In other words, it declares that moneys value or purchasing power varies inversely with its quantity. To this day, there exists prevalent academic discussion as to who developed the theory. The first possible statement of the quantity theory of money originated in the work of Nicholaus Copernicus In 1526, when Copernicus wrote a study on the value of money, Monetae cudendae ratio, in which he noted the increase in prices following the import of gold and silver from the new world. He expressed the findings of his studies into the value of money, and in this work, he formulated a version of the quantity theory of money. Copernicus observed that the value of money would fall if it was issued to excessive quantities, to the point where it was almost valueless. Volckart notes that Money can lose its value through excessive abundance, if so much silver is coined as to heighten peoples demand for silver bullion. For in this way, the coinages estimation vanishes when it cannot buy as much silver as the money itself contains. The solution is to mint no more coinage until it recovers its par value (1997,433). Jean Bodin took a different stance in the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1568, he drew attention to the influx of gold and silver into Spain, and consequently the rest of Europe, from the Americas. He argued that the price level had risen along with the stock of bullion available for monetary purposes and was able to draw a conclusion about the link between these events. John Locke accepted this idea and stated the Quantity Theory of Money as a general rule, that if the supply of money increased, the prices of all goods will rise. If money supply fell and the prices of goods fell, than the prices of foreign goods would rise relative to domestic goods both of which will keep us poor (Locke, 1692). The first concise statement about the existence of a quantity theory was that made by David Hume in 1752. His theory stated that the general level of prices depended upon the quantity of money currently in circulation. Where coin is in greater plenty; as a greater quantity of it is required to represent the same quantity of goods; it can have no effect, either good or bad that great plenty of money is rather disadvantageous, by raising the price of every kind of labour. (Hume, 1752, Pg 15) He also outlined the relationship between supply of money and prices All augmentation (of gold and silver) has no other effect than to heighten the price of labour and commodities; and even this variation is little more than that of a name (Hume, 1752, 296-7). Alfred Marshalls version of the quantity theory was an attempt to give microeconomic underpinnings to the macroeconomic theory that prices and the quantity of money varied directly. He did this by elaborating a theory of household and firm behaviour and integrating it with the macroeconomic question with the macroeconomic question of the general level of prices to explain the demand for money. Marshall reasoned that households and firms would desire to hold in cash balances a fraction of their money income In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, two versions of the theory competed. One advanced by the American economist Irving Fisher, treated the theory as a complete and self-contained explanation of price level. The other, propounded by the Swedish economist Knut Wicksell, saw it as part of a broader model in which the difference between market and natural rates of interest jointly determine bank money and price level changes. Fisher, in particular spent considerable effort in discussing the temporary effects during the period of transition separately from the permanent or ultimate effects (which) follow after a new equilibrium is established if, indeed, such a condition as equilibrium may be said ever to be established (Fisher,1911,p55-6). In this statement, he finds that the quantity theory will not hold true strictly during transition periods. His work was a forerunner in what would later become known as monetarism. He attempted to take the classical schools equation of exchange and convert it into a general theory of price and price level. The contrasts between the two approaches were striking. Fishers version was consistently quantity theoretic throughout and focused on the classical propositions of neutrality, money-to-price causality, and independence of money supply and demand. By contrast, Wicksells version contained certain elements seemingly at odds with the theory. These elements included a real shock explanation of monetary and price movements, the absence of currency in the hypothetical extreme case of a pure credit economy, and the identity between deposit supply and demand at all price levels in that same pure credit case rendering prices indeterminate. Wicksell tried to develop a theory of money that explained fluctuations in income as well as fluctuations in price levels. He argued that the quantity theory of money failed to explain why the monetary demand for goods exceeds or falls short of the supply of goods in given conditions. The quantify theory fell into disrepute in the 1930s, in part because it seemed at the time that the theory could not explain the Great Depression, and partly because of the publication in 1936 of Keyness theory. Although some economists continued to advocate the quantity theory, many economists became Keynesians and simply viewed the quantity theory as a historical curiosity. Only in the mid and late 1950s did the quantity theory once again emerge as a plausible rival to the Keynesian theory. There were several reasons for the revival. Contrary to the prediction of many Keynesians, upon the conclusion of World War II, the American economy did not revert to the depressed conditions of the 1930s, but instead underwent inflation. Secondly, one of the benefits of the Keynesian revolution had been its demonstration that by manipulating expenditures and taxes, governments can keep the economy close to full employment. In fact, it emerged that there were serious political as well as economic difficulties in actually changing government expenditures and tax rates in this ways, and that Keynesian theory in this area was less useful than it had been thought originally. However the resurgence of the quantity theory should not be attributed merely to impersonal historical events. It is also due to the fact that several influential economists advocated this theory. Don Patinkin of Hebrew University restated the quantity theory in a rigorous way that avoids many of the crudities that infested earlier expositions. Milton Friedman, of the University of Chicago was influential in providing a framework that allowed one to test empirically the proposition that changes in the quantity of money dominate changes in income. Moreover Friedman and Anna Schwartz of the National Bureau of Economic Research argued in a lengthy study that the experience of the Great Depression should be interpreted as confirming the prediction of the quantity theory rather than that of Keynesian theory. Subsequently they showed that in both the United States and Britain, longer run movements in nominal income were highly correlated with movements in the money stock. Despite the resurgence of the Quantity Theory in the 1970s and early 1980s it is still far from universally accepted by economists. Controversies about the theorys validity and applicability still exist, featuring similar questions and themes regarding the Quantity Theory of Money that have arisen since the 18th century. These include the definition of money, the relationship between correlation and causation, and the transmission mechanism. Controversy has continued because of the technical difficulty of sorting out the direction of causation running between money and prices, and because ideological concerns about the viability of market mechanisms are at stake. The first instance of Monetarism stems from the ideas of Irving Fisher. The ideas that produced the quantity theory of money go back to the time of David Hume, and arguably earlier. However, the equation of exchange and the transformation of the quantity theory of money into a tool for making quantitative analyses and predictions of the price level, inflation, and interest rates were due to the contributions of Irving Fisher. The theory provides a theoretical basis for monetarism, and there is empirical evidence to show that the quantity theory does operate. For example, as the Spanish brough gold back from the new world, the money supply increased in their native Spain. In line with the theory, prices rose because there was no corresponding increased in the transactions demand for money which is a function of an increase in output. This initial formulation of monetarism fell short on the question of understanding business cycle fluctuations in employment and output. Due to a flaws and a lack of sophistication of this first form of monetarism, some economists became disillusioned with monetarist analysis. One of these economists, John Maynard Keynes, stated that the quantity-theoretic analysis was of little use expanded on these initial contributions. Many economists agreed with Keyness evaluation of monetarism, most notably Milton Friedman. According to Friedman, there was a belief in the value provided by the quantity theory of money, the quantity theory of money provides the best way of understanding monetary behaviour (1971, 2-3), and that substantial changes in prices and nominal income are almost invariably the result of changes in the nominal supply of money (Friedman, 1968, 434). Following this, came the emergence of the Old Chicago Monetarism of Viner, Simons and Knight. This form of Monetarism emphasised the variability of velocity and its potential correlation with the rate of inflation. In economic policy they blamed monetary forces that caused deflation as the source of depression. According to Viner, in order to remedy economic depression, use of large scale stimulative monetary expansion, large government deficits or policies which encouraged deflation, should be balanced. The exponents of Old Chicago Monetarism did not believe that the velocity of money, in other words the rate at which money is exchanged from one transaction to another, was stable. They also did not believe that control of the money supply was straightforward or that the velocity of money was stable, because inflation lowered and deflation raised the opportunity cost of holding real balances. Classic monetarism emerged from Old Chicago Monetarism. It was described by Friedman in 1953, as well as in the works of Brunner (1968) and Brunner and Meltzer (1972). Classic Monetarism contained elements of institutional reform, analytical thinking and views on the political economy. J. Bradford De Long discusses how classic monetarism contained empirical demonstrations which showed that money demand functions could retain stability under the most extreme hyperinflationary conditions. It contained studies which analysed the limits imposed on stabilization policy by lags of policy instruments and also the belief that the natural rate of unemployment is close to the average rate of unemployment. (2000, 83-94). Political Monetarism argued not that velocity could be made stable if monetary shocks were avoided, but that velocity was in fact already stable. As a result, money stock emerged as a sufficient statistic for forecasting nominal demand. Political Monetarism argued that the central bank controlled shifts in the money supply. As a result, the view was taken that everything that went wrong in the macroeconomy was a direct result of the central bank failing to make the money supply grow at the appropriate rate. Political Monetarism concluded that any policy that does not affect the qu

Ernest Hemingway Essay -- essays research papers fc

Ernest Hemingway   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ernest Hemingway was a great American author. He was a giant of modern literature. Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899. He was the first son of Clarence and Grace Hall Hemingway and the second of their six children. Hemingway’s gather was a doctor and his mother was a music teacher. Hemingway’s parents owned a cabin in northern Michigan where he spent most of his summers hunting and fishing, being separated from the rest of middle-class society. Hemiongway’s mother was a strict person and tried to impose a moral order her children. This caused hostility between mother and son. A major dispute arose between the two when Hemingway returned home from the war and went to the family cabin to get through the physical and psychologically rough experience he had. His mother complained about his slow pace re-adjustment to normal, civilian life. Ultimately, Hemingway left his secluded cabin and went to Paris in the 1920s.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hemingway’s father was having a rough time during this portion of Hemingway’s life. His father was suffereing from diabetes. He also had some financial misfortune and chronic depression. This all ended in 1928 when a self-inflicted pistol shot ended his life. This is when Hemingway was just starting to see the material rewards of his developing literary career. Hemingway did not have a very good childhood. Although his youth was bad, and unhappy, Hemingway viewed it as an essential artistic and personal resource for the development of an individual ‘heroic code.’   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  About the time that Hemingway graduated from high school, the Untied States was entering World War I. He tried to enlist in the army, but was not accepted due to a vision problem. When he heard that the Red Cross was taking volunteers to be ambulance drivers in the war, he took the opportunity and made it to the war. Hemingway was assigned to the front lines in Italy. After he had only been at the front for a few days, and a few days before his nineteenth birthday, Hemingway was wounded. A mortar fire at Fossalta di Pivi sent shrapenel into his legs. While Hemingway was injured, he met a nurse and fell in love with her. He proposed marriage, but like Granny Weatherall, he was jilted and his nurse married and Italian officer. Hemingway... ...sh them as â€Å"the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing.† This writing ethic was used by Hemingway and reinforced to him through lessons he learned from the works and advice of T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound. Hemingway had a very modernist approach to writing. Part of this was he left out all extraneous verbiage and authorial intrusion. Instead he presented sharply focused images that stood out on their own. Hemingway also developed a writing discipline. He would write one thousand words a day and refine the copy back to around three hundred words. He did not want to bore the reader with a bunch of nonsense and rambling on.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ernest Hemingway was a great American author. His stories were written about and through personal experiences. His stories directly reflected on his personal experiences and indirectly reflected on his unhappy childhood and his misfortune with the ladies. He had his own style and own ways of keeping that style up. He was a great man. Works Cited All Hemingway. http://www.allhemingway.com/criticism/essays.php?essay+Hemingway’s=style Hemingway, Ernest.â€Å"The Big Two Hearted River.† 1953

Internet Streaming: Replacing Cable and Dish

Joseph Thomas UNV-104 March 27, 2012 Kyle Smock Internet streaming: Replacing cable and dish People are mistaken who believe internet video streaming is a fringe market. Watching television programming through subscription services like cable and dish is becoming increasingly expensive while online video streaming is free or becoming cheaper with more content being added daily. Streaming is â€Å"the process of providing a steady flow of audio or video data so that an Internet user is able to access it as it is transmitted. (Daintith, 2004) In time internet video streaming will replace cable, dish, and over the air broadcasts as the main source of televised programming. It is easy to see that internet streaming is the wave of the future. With more and more people getting online with broadband connections to homes and mobile devices, there is an increasing realization that many are paying too much for cable and dish services when the same programming can be accessed for free or more inexpensively. Snider, 2011) They are also realizing that with video streaming there is no restriction on the time and place they can view the desired programming as long as it is after the original broadcast or in the case of cinematic films, after they are released from theatrical venues; in other words, video on demand. The convenience of â€Å"on demand† programming will allow a busy population to be more productive in other areas of their life when they do not have to schedule a time to watch their favorite shows. Although many shows, particularly live sports are currently being offered free to internet viewers in real time (e. . , ESPN3, NBC Sports, and CBS March Madness on Demand), this just adds to the attraction of video streaming. Clearly then, the entertainment industry is looking closely at the potential of video streaming both as another revenue source and a threat to traditional ad revenues. Hulu Tv is the internet’s leader in providing free premium conte nt to its viewers. â€Å"In addition to original backers NBC Universal and Fox, Hulu works with 150 content providers, including all of the major TV production companies with the exception of CBS, which is aggressively developing TV. com. (O’Leary, 2009) Rating services such as Nielson and comScore are at times at odds with the viewing numbers they are reporting which means gauging the actual numbers of viewers needs revising. Nevertheless, the growth of online viewing is attracting competition for Hulu, and Netflix the leading subscription service providing both films and TV shows. Cable giant Comcast for instance, has launched â€Å"Xfinity Streampix, which will give Comcast video subscribers a selection of older movies and prior-season TV shows that they can watch on TVs and Internet-connected devices. (Schechner, 2012) Admittedly, there are system requirements that need to be met in order to view streaming content on a computer, mobile device, or television set. (Some g ame consoles, such as Xbox360 and Playstation 3, and some Blu-Ray players can also be used. ) And providers may require certain software to be installed. It can be as little as ensuring the latest Adobe Flash Player and a video out jack are available on the receiving device, to proprietary software; e. g. , Netflix to regulate account access or to view content on Veetle. om- a free public streaming website. Peer to peer streaming and live event streaming are also becoming increasing popular. Individuals, small businesses, and large corporations are taking advantage of direct streaming. There are numerous free streaming sites and companies like Primcast that offer a wide variety of sales and technological services. Consequently, more and more consumers are â€Å"cutting the cord† to cable and dish. It only makes sense as budgets remain tight for many families and enterprises, and streaming quality and content continues to improve.A high definition premium cable package can rea ch more than $150 per month in contrast to Netflix’s current price of $7. 99 per month. Add the available free programming on Hulu and other sources and the savvy consumer who chooses to cut the cord could save over $1000 a year. That is a powerful inducement for many who are willing and able to embrace this burgeoning technology. References Daintith, J. (2004). â€Å"streaming. † A Dictionary of Computing. Retrieved from Encyclopedia. com: http://www. encyclopedia. com/doc/1O11-streaming. html O’Leary, N. 2009, May 25). Searching for Life on Hulu. Brandweek. 50 (21) Retrieved from http://www. marketingymedios. com/aw/content_display/special-reports/other-reports/e3i15f4e2b3b4a487b3cbb6ddcfb338c9e7 Schechner, S. (2012, February 22). Comcast Takes Aim at Netflix. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online. wsj. com/article/SB10001424052970204909104577237321153043092. html Snider, M. (2011, September 12). More Consumers Spurn Cable TV bills. USA Today R etrieved from http://www. usatoday. com/MONEY/usaedition/2011-09-12-Cutcord-0830_CV_U. htm

Autonomy in Death Essay

Physician-assisted suicide is a controversial topic with only a few states having legalized it; however, many groups are advocating for its approval. Physician-assisted suicide has ethical limitations that only allow a doctor to prescribe, not administer, a lethal dose of medication for a patient who has been deemed terminally ill with less than six months to live by two physicians. The prescription allows the patient to choose both the timing and setting of death and the physician’s only role is provision of medication. This gifts patients with autonomy in their death and relieves the doctor of any moral burden in participation with death keeping this action an ethical practice. Oregon was the first of few states to have legalized physician-assisted suicide but I would like to argue its potential advantages to the entire United States. Ball (2010) said, â€Å"In Oregon — the one state in the U.S. where assisted suicide is legal – doctors are allowed to help onl y state residents who are expected to die within six months† (p.1). Giving terminally ill patients the power to choose a peaceful death demonstrates empathy toward the ill patients and their families. Terminally ill patients without this empowerment face the difficult choice of using limited resources to end their lives if not given the legal freedom to choose how and when they die. The Code of Ethics for Nurses provision 1.4 is the right to self-determination and it states that Respect for human dignity requires the recognition of specific patient rights, particularly, the right to self-determination. Self-determination, also known as autonomy, is the philosophical basis for informed consent in health care. Patients have the moral and legal right to determine what will be done with their own person; to be given accurate, complete, and understandable information in a manner that facilitates an informed judgment; to be assisted with weighing the benefits, burdens, and available options in their treatment; to accept, refuse, or terminate treatment without deceit, undue influence, duress, coercion, or penalty; and to be given necessary support throughout the decision-making and treat ment process. Such support would include the opportunity to make decisions with family and significant others and the provision of advice and support from knowledgeable nurses and other health professionals. Patient should be involved in planning their own health care to the extent they are able to choose to participate (American nurses association, 2001, p.148). Giving this added right to chose physician assisted suicide allows patients the autonomy described in the Nursing Code of Ethics. The purpose of this paper is to argue that physician-assisted suicide is ethical and beneficial because it allows for patient autonomy. â€Å"I would argue that by denying terminally ill people recourse to death with dignity via physician prescribed medication, they are inflicting their own brand of coercion and abuse. The concept of a â€Å"merciful death† needs to be part of this discussion. It is a sad commentary that our society responds to our pets’ terminal suffering more humanely than to our fellow human beings’ end-of-life struggles†(â€Å"Death is best approached†, 2012, p. 1). Many feel that denying patients the right to choose is not advocating for their b est interest and is a form of abuse. We wouldn’t leave our ill family pet alive to suffer so why wouldn’t we consider letting our loved ones put themselves out of their misery in a peaceful way? The entire point is to give the public a choice. It would still be up to each individual to decide whether or not to exercise that right if their physician deemed their situation appropriate. The Code of Ethics for Nurses says that â€Å"Respect for human dignity requires the recognition of specific patient rights, particularly, the right of self-determination† (American nurses association, 2001, p.148). This statement implies that the patient should have the right to make end of life decisions on their own. When terminal patients are in pain and suffering, they may not have the strength or will to fight any longer. It is cruel to prolong a patient’s pain and suffering and deny their autonomy to make the decision of having a peaceful death. Also, it can be argued that when patients have their mind set on ending their lives, they tend to follow through on their own even if their physician cannot assist them. This may lead to a more traumatic death and a scene that can be quite traumatizing for the family member or friend who finds their loved one’s remains. The alternative is a prescribed medicine that the patient may take home, choosing the preferred place to die, to allow the patient to die peacefully without sustaining disfiguring injuries thus allowing them a more dignified burial if the family chooses to view the body one last time. However, in most of the United States, physician-assisted suicide is still illegal so very few Americans are afforded the right to choose to end their life when they are terminally ill. Because physician assisted suicide was brought to the public’s attention as an option by the unconventional tactics of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the idea of legalizing this was tainted from the beginning, making many states hesitant to allow assisted suicide. Miller (2011) notes that â€Å"Jack Kevorkian rose to national prominence as â€Å"Dr. Death,† a physician who insisted that sometimes a doctor’s first duty to his patient was to help him die. The retired pathologist, who became an assisted suicide advocate claiming to have had a hand in 130 deaths in the 1990s, helped spark a national debate over euthanasia† (p. A5). Jack Kevorkian’s tactics were questionable because he publicized the deaths of elderly, disabled, and terminally-ill patients using inhaled carbon dioxi de or using his self-made suicide machine. Although the patients had asked for Dr. Kevorkian’s assistance to end their suffering by assisting in their suicide, he received a lot of negative attention because he publicized his assistance in this process by encouraging CBS to broadcast a video of himself injecting a cocktail of lethal drugs into a patient suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease (Miller, 2011). After much backlash from the public over the fact that he actually injected patients with lethal drugs, he developed a suicide machine which allowed the patient to press a button that caused the machine to administer a mixture of sodium pentothal and potassium chloride which was first used on Janet Adkins, a 54 year old sufferer of Alzheimer’s disease (Miller, 2011). â€Å"The last thing Janet Adkins said was, ‘You just make my case known,'† Dr. Kevorkian told the Associated Press† (Miller, 2011, p. A5). Although his tactics were extreme and caused a lot of public controversy, his patie nts wanted to end their suffering and his actions caused others to advocate for ethical standards to be put into place for legal physician assisted suicide while at the same time completely turning others away from the concept of legalizing euthanasia. Dr. Goodwin, a general practitioner, said he began advocating for the right to help terminally ill people die after listening to his patients (Miller, 2012). â€Å"They want autonomy at this time, to be allowed to die at home with the comfort and support of their families,† Dr. Goodwin said in a 2001 interview (Miller, 2012, p. 1). Because of the extreme tactics used by Jack Kevorkian, who initiated the debate on legalizing euthanasia, many people view those who advocate for the client’s right of physician assisted suicide as cruel or lacking in empathy for patient and families. However, â€Å"Peter Goodwin, a family physician who wrote and campaigned for Oregon’s right-to-die law in the 1990s, died after taking a cocktail of lethal drugs prescribed by his doctor, as allowed under the legislation he championed. Dr. Goodwin, 83 years old, had been diagnosed with a degenerative brain disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease and had been given less than six m onths to live.†(Miller, 2012, p. 1). Dr. Goodwin believed in a patient’s autonomy in death so much that he chose to exercise his own rights in the same fashion in order to end his own suffering. In an interview with the Oregonian, the local newspaper in Oregon, Dr. Goodwin said that his health was deteriorating and he would soon end his life. â€Å"His family gathered to bid him farewell. ‘The situation needs thought, it doesn’t need hope,’ he said. ‘Hope is too ephemeral at that time’†(Miller, 2012, p. 1). This clearly articulates the feelings of a terminally ill man towards the importance of autonomy in concern of his own death. â€Å"End-of-life decisions are not arbitrary or impulsive. Why shouldn’t a person choose to end his or her life with dignity if it is obvious that all options for leading any kind of meaningful life are non-existent? I would think any modicum of compassion would respect such a momentous, personal decision. Suffering, physical and mental, and the anguish it causes should produce empathy for the patient’s wishes and desires, even if they run counter to our own sense of rectitude. It is not about us. It’s about the patient’s right of autonomy. We need to understand that it is ultimately his or her decision to make, not ours†(Death is best approached, 2012, p. 1). In this statement, an unknown author expressed the utmost sympathy for those suffering from terminal illness. Physician assisted suicide is ethical as it demonstrates compassion and empathy towards someone else’s pain, suffering, and rights. There is nothing cruel about autonomy over the decision to die. These kinds of laws need to be considered using a deep emotional understanding of the terminally ill’s feelings and problems. Other countries have legalized euthanasia and have less restrictive laws which allow them to provide services for foreigners. Because of this, if all United States citizens aren’t granted the autonomy they desire in their own country they will still be able to get the results they so desperately want but the outcome may be more painful to family members whose loved ones would end up dying in other countries and in less desirable conditions. Mr. Minelli, who is head of Dignitas, a Swiss company that provides euthanasia services only to foreigners, said that â€Å"a memory of his seriously ill grandmother’s pleading in vain with her doctor to help her die left him with a particular interest in Switzerland’s growing right-to-die movement, and he joined one of the main groups. In 1998, he quit to found Dignitas†(Ball, 2010, p. 2). In 2008, his neighbors’ complaints forced Dignitas out of his rented apartment that he had been using to conduct the assisted suicides and Zurich city officials refused permission for a new venue. In response to this Mr. Minelli organized suicides in cars, a hotel room, industrial sites, and his own home which drew the attention of local officials. â€Å"Someone who is used to a five-star hotel can’t come to Dignitas and expect the same,† says Mr. Minelli†(Ball, 2010, p. 2). Is it really beneficial to force terminally ill patients into a foreign country to a harsh environment to grant them the freedom to end their own lives? If terminally ill patients really want a physician assisted suicide, they will find another setting in which they can achieve one but allowing patients to have one in their own country optimizes the setting and allows for more family support near the time of death. It also saves the family the trouble of getting the body of a loved one from a foreign country after the time of death and allows the family to begin funeral arrangements sooner so that they can go through the stages of grieving that they need to in order to move forward with their own lives. This act of ending the life sooner also spares the family the pain of watching their loved one suffer longer than they want to. Another benefit to approving physician assisted suicide is that just know that the option is available can be therapeutic for terminal patients. â€Å"Mr. Minelli argues that making assisted suicide available removes a taboo around suicide, helping people who want to kill themselves open a dialogue and seek help. About 70% of people who get the green light from Dignitas for an assisted suicide never contact the group again, proving the palliative effect of knowing help is available, he says†(Ball, 2010, p. 2). This clearly proves that just knowing that euthanasia is an option is enough to help patients carry on with terminal illness. Even if a patient chooses never to exercise the right to a physician assisted suicide, the knowledge that they have an option for a way out of their suffering is comforting in itself. Craig Ewert was a retired university professor who suffered from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He decided to end his life because he wanted to make this decision before he lost the ability to decide his own fate, overcoming the resistance of his doctors (Ball, 2010). â€Å"When you’re completely paralyzed and can’t talk, how do you let someone know you are suffering?† he told a television interviewer before his death in September 2006. â€Å"This could be a complete and utter hell† (Ball, 2010, p. 3). Mr and Mrs. Ewerts were from the U.K. but they traveled to Switzerland and chose Mr. Minelli’s group, Dignitas, because it accepts foreigners. Mrs. Ewert said that had she not been able to travel to get her husband the assisted suicide services that he desired she may have been forced to help her husband die and she worried that she wouldn’t have known exactly what to do (Ball, 2010). She defended Mr. Minelli saying â€Å"Sure, there have to be some protections for people, but I think we’re going way beyond what there needs to be, I admire Minelli for being willing to take the heat† (Ball, 2010, p. 3). Because Craig Ewert was allowed to make his own decision to die, his wife was spared the pressure that he may have put on her to help him end his life. Furthermore, had he been denied the right to make his own decision and his wife Mary had been coerced to help him commit suicide, there would have been extreme emotional and possibly even legal consequences to her action despite the fact that it was her husband’s wish. This is a situation that may Americans are also threatened with because physician assisted suicide is illegal in most of the country. All United States citizens should be afforded the right to choose a physician assisted suicide if they have been deemed terminally ill because this freedom shows compassion and empathy towards the patient’s suffering. If patients aren’t allowed to legally choose death here, they may travel to another country to receive services or chose to carry out suicide on their own. If patients chose to take matters into their own hands this would be harder on the patient as the death would probably not be as peaceful as the lethal injection that the physician would prescribe and if would also be harder on the patient’s loved ones. If patients decide to go to another country to achieve the death they desire they would lose the privilege of dying in their own comfort zone and the distance would make the death harder on the family to make funeral arrangements and move on with their own lives. The Code of Ethics for Nurses stated that â€Å"Respect not just for the specific decision but also for the patient’s method of decision-making is consistent with the principle of autonomy† (American nurses association, 2001, p.149). Regardless of whether or not we understand an individuals motivation for seeking a physician assisted suicide, nurses should support the autonomy that patients needs to make this choice on their own. Giving terminally ill patients autonomy in their death, by making physician assisted legal for every United States citizen, is only giving patients additional rights that they may or may not chose to exercise and is the most compassionate way to show empathy for those who are dying.