Moral Struggle in Great Expectations

Moral Struggles of Great Expectations Pip is the main character of the novel desires to fulfil his expectations and the world he lives in does not gladly provide an easy way to his dream. Joe is his brother-in-law and his angry sister’s husband who treats Pip much better than her, just because he happens to have a bog heart. In the beginning of the novel, prior to Pip being exposed to the world he feels that he can satisfy his expectations, Joe and Pip are equals – the humbleness and loyalty that Joe displays are often similar to that of a child. Joe is comfortable with who he is and while he desires to learn from Pip once he becomes educated, he does not seek to be anything other than what he is. This, ideally, would have been a priceless lesson for Pip to learn, as it would have spared Pip from losing himself in a complex and corrupt world. Sadly, yet pivotally to the intrigue of the plot, it is only once Pip realises the error in his ways that he can see the true gentleman in Joe. Interestingly, it is something he identifies early on when he comments that â€Å"[I] was looking up to Joe in my heart† (49). This is not simply an affection of love, yet one of admiration and respect. It is once Joe repays Pip’s debts, and leaves to save Pip the ‘embarrassment’ of associating with him, that Pip realises the quality of Joe’s character. Joe embodies the true gentleman; while not of class, his character is class, and he continually displays qualities of loyalty and fidelity that Pip believes can be embodied by outward displays of wealth and education. Pip learns from Joe – albeit in hindsight and through his own personal crises – that wealth and class are not fundamental to being a gentleman. Mr Jaggers, the attorney of Pip’s mysterious benefactor and a ruthless and respected man in society, represents what Pip could become in the society he loses himself in. His standing as a gentleman is not based in the quality of his character (as he is a portrayed as a defence lawyer, interacting with dubious suspects on a daily basis with a fierce and powerful manner) but in the fearful respect he commands in society. So complex is Mr Jagger’s character that he is able to command respect from Pip, despite that he â€Å"hardly knew what to make of Mr Jagger’s manner. Wemmick suggests that Mr Jaggers would â€Å"take it as a compliment† to know that Pip felt that way. (196) It is clear, however, that Pip admires Mr Jaggers, as is evident in Chapter 20 of the novel. Pip is privy to Mr Jaggers' mannerisms when dealing with clients. Pip, despite being introduced to Mr Jaggers’ character in this manner, is clearly infatuated with his power and status an d accepts him as a gentleman. Ironically, Mr Jaggers’ was not born into wealth either, but rather worked his way up to his position of power. Pip ignores this fact, and it is only after he learns the truth about his journey to becoming a gentleman that he realises that Mr Jaggers does not represent a true gentleman either. He is yet another representation of how wealth and power are in fact far removed from being a gentleman. The irony is that Mr Jaggers’ true character is never hidden from Pip, and thus so great are his expectations, that he is blinded to the blatant truth about a true gentleman’s role in society. The character Abel Magwitch (initially referred to as the convict, and only revealed as Pip’s benefactor as the climax of the novel) is not only the catalyst to a growth into manhood and morality for Pip, but the character from whom Pip learns the most from during their interaction. As the convict, Magwitch is nothing but a source of latent fear for Pip. The intrigue surrounding the identity of the benefactor and the assumptions the reader makes compliments the idea that he is a source of fear, and nothing else. At the climax of the novel, when it is revealed to Pip that it is Abel Magwitch, a convict and fugitive, who has bestowed his new riches on the boy who tried to help him years previously, Pip’s expectations and belief in the gentleman he thinks he is, is shattered. As Pip believes his benefactor was Miss Havisham, and that she has been grooming him for Estella, and to become a true gentleman, he never questions the validity of his essence as a gentleman. Upon learning that the source of his education and wealth – and ultimately his status as a gentleman – is in fact a convict, his identity is crushed. It is to his horror that the source of his status as a gentleman is the absolute antithesis of a gentleman in his eyes. Pip thus has to come to terms with the idea that it is not the outward appearance of a man that determines his character. This is also echoed in Chapter 5 of the novel, when Magwitch/the convict confesses to stealing food from Mrs Joe to save Pip from being implicated. Pip has to accept that the class he was trying to distance himself from embodies something to aspire to. Towards the end of the novel, Pip displays his growth as he reflects that in Magwitch he â€Å"only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately gratefully and generously towards me with great constancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe. (440) Thus Pip identifies himself as less of a gentleman than that of Joe and Magwitch, illustrating that he has come full circle, to acknowledging his faults in his perception of his status as a gentleman due to his wealth and education. Herbert represents who Pip could become. Despite his lack of wealth initially, he is every inch a gentleman and upon receiving money at the request of Pip, he starts his own law firm and builds a successful career for himself, thus fulfilling the desires that Pip believed he strove for. Pip chooses to misuse the wealth that is bestowed upon him, and it is after Pip learns the valuable lessons from Joe, Jaggers and Magwitch, that he realises that Herbert is the gentleman he aspires to become. While the irony of the source of Herbert’s wealth being indirectly from Pip is not unclear and certainly not unimportant, is it Pip’s realisation that it is not the source of wealth and status that makes one a gentleman, but the manner in which one’s character is displayed in the consequences of one’s actions. Pip learns to assume responsibility from his destiny from the success of Herbert. It is evident that valuable lessons about the character displayed in actions are prevalent in Great Expectations. Joe, Jaggers, Magwitch and Herbert (albeit not as forcefully) offer insight into the quality of one’s character as an internal embodiment of class. Jaggers fails to impress, whereas Magwitch and Joe display varying yet quintessential attributes of gentlemen. Herbert is the opposite pole to Jaggers, representing what Pip can become by embodying gentlemanly characteristics, rather than trying to live like one. Pip learns various aspects of the same intrinsic lesson from all these characters: that is it not the quality of the life of the man, but the quality of the man, that speaks of his character. Pip loses this sense during the course of the novel, and it is the interaction with these characters that gradually return him to a path of fulfilling his greatest expectations and dreams.

The Difference Between Working in Air Asia and Malaysian

The difference between working for Air Asia and Malaysian Airlines ( MAS ) Are you looking for a job in airline company, but do not know which one to choose? Your query will surely be answered as we move along in this composition. Working in the airline industry is a truly wonderful choice as it’s exciting, fun-filled yet lucrative. In fact, they are merely two prestigious airlines in Malaysia, namely Air Asia and Malaysian Airlines ( MAS ). So which one will be a better choice to work for? To be a better choice, it must excel in several aspects, which are salary and benefits, potential for personal development as well as administrative system. Firstly, salary and benefits, which usually are the main attractions in job searching. Air Asia offers their employees relatively high wage, which is approximately 20% higher than their main contender – MAS. Moreover, benefits provided by Air Asia are too good to be true! Benefits include a 5-day work week, life insurance, annual free flight, employee discounts, compassionate leave, etc. On the other hand, MAS offers a lower salary as compared with Air Asia. Furthermore, employees of MAS do not enjoy attractive benefits like what Air Asia has to offer. Evidently, Air Asia has won this aspect hands down. Secondly, personal development is a key element in our lives, that is to say, life can be rather stagnant and meaningless without personal development. Air Asia caters to their employees need in this aspect by creating an environment that is conducive to personal development and having a series of stratagems that could out-think its opponents. One of the stratagems is that any employee, regardless of background, can request to have a â€Å"job-switch† and promotion at any time. With that in mind, you can start working as a ground crew and years later you become a captain! Whereas Air Asia’s arch-rival, MAS, is unconcerned about the employee’s personal development as a key element of life, thus initiatives have yet to be implemented. Air Asia wins another point by executing such scrupulous plan. Lastly, the administrative system implemented in the airline is also crucial to provide a better working experience. The CEO of Air Asia, Tony Fernandes believes that open communication with all the employees lead the airline to success. He has implemented open-door policy since the establishment, thus being accessible by anyone working in the airline. This policy has helped reduce bureaucracy and hierarchy, and the employees appreciate it a lot as it gives them the right to speak up and give new ideas. Whereas MAS, which has a bureaucratic administration, is less favorable to its employees. Under this circumstance, to lodge a complaint or make a request, employees need to go through endless red tape. This results in less productivity in the airline and a dull working experience for the employees. Again, the open-door policy by Air Asia creates a better working atmosphere for the employees, and hence stands the airline in good stead. In a nutshell, Air Asia has outshone its adversary – MAS in several ways, namely, offering better salary and benefits, creating higher potential for personal development as well as having more preferable administrative system. As shown above, Air Asia is a better airline to work for.

Peer Pressure Essay

Introduction Peer pressure is a social influence exerted on an individual by others in order to get that person to act or believe in a similar way. It is used by a social group, often with the implication that â€Å"everybody’s doing it. † This influence can be negative or positive, with a successful result being a change in a person’s behavior. Nearly all children experience some form of peer pressure, whether at school, at church or at home among siblings. As a kind of social pressure, it dominates preteen life. Many teens become absorbed into different cliques and groups, spending less time with their families. Much of the personality of a teen can be shaped by a peer group. Negative peer pressure can be a dangerous tool against children, especially younger or insecure children. They may be persuaded to take actions they might otherwise not have considered, such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or taking drugs. Peer pressure is a problem for adults, who may be coerced, for example, into buying a house or car they can’t afford in an effort to â€Å"keep up with the Joneses. † Peer pressure is not always negative, however. A student whose friends excel in academics may be compelled to study hard and get good grades. Influence can also be exerted to get a friend off drugs or to help an adult take up a good habit or drop a bad one. Study groups, class projects and athletic groups are examples of positive peer groups. Why I chose the topic – I decided to chose this topic because in the Indian Education System children experience a sudden thrust of freedom and responsibility to shape their future at the same time. In such cases, they can either be well-guided or mis-guided. Peer pressure may also lead to stress and anxiety. Teens have a multitude of issues that can cause them anxiety. The two major settings for this peer pressure teen stress are in their home lives and in the college setting. The stressors are many and diverse. Their feelings can be affected by some of the issues listed below: * The feelings that others and also inside themselves tell them they should do and how they should perform. * Peer pressure teen stress is also caused by the way they feel they are viewed by adults in the college setting. * The peer pressure teen stress to perform in the grades and work they do. * Problems with socializing with other teens. Problems at home with family members. * Having a low self worth. * Always having verbal conflicts with their friends and family. * Low income living conditions for the family. * Peer pressure teen stress is sometimes caused by a major event causing grief or trauma within the family. This could be death, an illness, or parents splitting up. * A split in the relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend. * The neighborhood in which they live is not a good place. * Having to move to a new home is yet a cause of the peer pressure teen stress. Having to adapt to a new school/college environment. Objectives of the project: The main objective of the project is to discuss the issue of peer pressure under â€Å"no pressure†. The students must be made to understand how they can grasp the good and leave the bad. The project tries to distinguish between Good Peer Pressure and Bad Peer Pressure. It analyses various aspects that cause such a pressure and gives a solution to the same. The project also gives a remedy for overcoming bad peer pressure. The project also makes suggestions as to how can peer-pressure-struck children can be helped. The project also tries to examine the reasons that make children give-in to peer pressure. Here are some other reasons why people give in to peer pressure, that are less known but equally as responsible. †¢ The lack of self-confidence to go one’s own way. It is easier to follow the footsteps of another than to make your own. There is also a certain level of safety that comes with following another. Taking the road less traveled by making your own choices takes self-confidence and self-assurance. †¢ The desire to avoid embarrassment. Many people fear embarrassment more than death. Knowing this, it is easy to see how important effective communication can be in responding to peer pressure. For example, if a bunch of peers surround a teenager and asked him if he wants to smoke a cigarette like the rest of them have, and all the teenager can think of is, â€Å"but†¦ my mom said I should just say no. † then he is in trouble. It is best to prepare yourself and your children with witty, yet clear and firm responses to known peer pressures. For example, in the above situation the teenager could say, â€Å"Hmmm, spend my life wasting money, offending people, having bad breath, and killing myself†¦. o thanks. †Ã‚   A good response cannot only save one from embarrassment, but give others the confidence to not give in to the peer pressure as well. Those who lead are often well respected by those who follow. †¢ The lack of using one’s own mind. Again it is reacting, rather than responding that causes one to get in trouble. Think about th e consequences of your actions, both present and future. Don’t give in and sacrifice your long-term goals for short-term gratification. †¢ The lack of unbiased information. When someone feels pressure from peers, they are often presented with biased information. Again it is preparation that can help one to avoid peer pressure by knowing all the facts. Anticipate peer pressure in life and get the facts from a reliable source. Educate yourself and your children – don’t count on the school system to do it. Some of the more common peer pressures experienced in youth that can be prepared for today are smoking, alcohol, drugs, sex, cutting class and committing crimes. The biggest peer pressure in adulthood is being expected to behave, act, and perform like your peers rather than becoming the person you are capable of becoming. Know the reasons for and against these pressures. Resources referred: ? Bullying Prevention Program http://www. clemson. edu/olweus/ ? Take Action Against Bullying www. bullybeware. org ? Steps to Respect: A Bully Prevention Program www. cfchildren. org/str. html ? Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Intervention for Bullying and Victimization (1996) By Richard J. Hazler ? How to Say No and Keep your Friends: Peer Pressure Reversal for ? Teens and Pre-Teens (1997). By Sharon Scott ? CAFS Teacher Talk Volume 1(3) 1996 http://education. indiana. du/cas/tt/v3i3/peerpress. html Preventing Classroom Bullying: What Teachers Can Do (2003). By Jim Wright http://jimwrightsonline. com/pdfdocs/bully/bullyBooklet. pdf ? Resource for parents: http://sitemaker. umich. edu/356. darnell/advice_for_parents Conclusions: Growing up, everyone will experience some form of peer pressure. Peer pressure is the control and influence people of our age may have on us. Peer pressure can occur in many kinds of relat ionships. The way we respond to peer pressure can have a great impact on the decisions we make and, in turn, our total health. There are many different types of peer pressure. There is positive, negative, and manipulation. Positive peer pressure is not limited to following or setting good examples of what to do. It can also provide examples of what not to do. A teen whose friends do not use alcohol or other drugs may be positively influenced to follow their example. Being a good role model is also a great way to demonstrate positive peer pressure. Influencing peers to take part in a positive act or worthwhile cause is a healthful way of influencing others. It can be contagious. We are primarily social beings with a strong need to belong. Throughout our life, we search for the balance between independence and connectedness. How much of ourselves do we give up/compromise in order to belong? The teenage years (and pre-teen) are a time of shifting focus of belonging from family to peers as while also developing a personal identity. Because kids don’t yet have the maturity to grasp or to understand the potential consequences of being influenced by their friends, it is difficult for them to see the pitfalls of poor relationships and negative peer pressure. This project is designed to walk us through the inquiry and clarification of the need to feel connected and belong, as well as to be true to one’s self while assessing the harmful affects of peer pressure. In addition to the inquiry looking at the costs/benefits belonging, it will identify strategies to deal with negative peer pressure and ways to turn it around, creating positive peer pressure, building leadership and personal power.

Ethical implications of Sixth Sense Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Ethical implications of Sixth Sense - Assignment Example As an inventor, Mistry did well. However, the invention might put the security and privacy of people at risk. This brings us, then, to the third dimension and third and fourth steps, which consider and link the principles to the associated applicable values (Backus and Ferraris 226). One ethical philosophy to be considered is the utilitarianism theory. Will the gadget bring happiness to the majority? The answer is most probably "no," because not everyone can afford such gadgets. Another ethical philosophy to be considered is the natural law. Will the SixthSense cause individual to respect others, or will the gadget cause an individual to do what is not naturally good and then suffer with his or her conscience? Owning such a powerful device can easily lure individuals to do things that could hurt another individual’s privacy and security. Finally, as according to the fourth dimension of the Potter Box, loyalties should be considered. Should one choose to be loyal to the majorit y? Is the public (majority) deserving of loyalty? The answer to both questions is â€Å"yes.† While it is true that progress should be supported, this progress should be for the betterment, and not the detriment, of the whole

State Taxation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

State Taxation - Essay Example Over this, many counties and municipalities levy their own taxes and that has been found to be as high as 9.9%. Maryland has different slabs of personal Income Tax rates. For top of the bracket income (over $500,000) applicable tax rate is 5.5%. For the income below $150,000 per year, income tax rate is 5.0% and for the income in between $150,000 and $500,000 the income tax rate is 5.25%. State does not charge property tax but counties of Maryland do charge property tax and the rate varies between 1.357$ and $ 5.67 per $100 of assessment. Most of the counties charge close to $2.1 per $100 property valuation (Maryland Taxes, 2012). Pennsylvania levies a 6% state sales tax on goods and services providing exemption to the prescription drugs, clothing, residential heating fuels, textbooks and food items. Local counties such as Philadelphia and Allegheny charge additional 1% of the tax making it total 7%. The state of Pennsylvania does not charge taxes on personal property or real estate; however, local municipalities do charge those taxes only on real estate, land or building. The tax is not charged on other kinds of properties such as cars or inventories (Powell, Albrecht). A minimum sales tax charged in Florida is 6 percent. Besides, state permits each county to charge its own local tax that is applicable over and above state sales tax. Counties in Florida have been found to charge taxes between 6 and 7.5 percents. Florida is costliest among all states on the property tax; however, homestead exemptions up to $50,000 can be availed by Florida residents. Homestead exemptions are available to homeowners who stay in the home as primary residence. Florida does not impose gift tax, inheritance tax or intangible personal property tax on the residents. It is worth noting that while buying home in South Florida, closing cost is also a kind of expense that needs to be considered.

Nude Study of Thomas E. Mckeller by John Singer Sargent Essay

Nude Study of Thomas E. Mckeller by John Singer Sargent - Essay Example From that time, he grew up to be an accomplished in music, art, and literature. By seventeen, he was well accustomed to expansive masters of painting. He dealt majorly on portrait paintings, but he was also skilled in painting landscape and the use of watercolor (Joselit 65). He also went to study in Germany and Italy and later in Paris under Auguste Emile. Sargent also studied with Emile, whose influence changed his artistic life from 1874 to 1878. In 1879, his effort in painting the portrait of his teacher, Emile was met with approval by the public, and this gave him the future direction. He created more than two thousand watercolors, nine hundred oil paintings and countless charcoal drawings and sketches. In 1877, Sargent had a successful exhibition at the Paris salon. His travels to Holland and Spain to study fans Hals and Velazquez, visits to North Africa and Brittany inspired him in paintings. After the controversy of â€Å"Madame X,† painting Sargent moved to London whe re he had several commissions. In 1880, he tried to make up a client site in London and so experimented with landscaping and impressionism (Joselit 77). He incorporated the styles and elements of Monet and Manet in his work. By eighteen nineties, Sargent was the preferred portraitist of representation elites. As he entered sixties, he moved to landscaping turning away from trendy portraiture. Sargent never married and died in 1925. Exhibitions in recognition of his life were mounted the same year in London, Boston, and New York. The painting Thomas E. McKeller was an African American young muscular man when the image was done. He was a bellhop and Sargent considered his facial and muscular physique unique to pose for an oil painting. The acceptance of McKellar led to production of Thomas E. McKellar Nude Study. The painting exhibits Thomas kneeling on a cushion with his arms behind the body. The posture shows well-elaborated torso accompanied with a good amount of prominence and ten sion. Thomas head in the portrait has been tilted to the side and upward gazing maybe to the heavens. The success of Sargent portrait painting of the McKellar nude study depended on skilled use of visual elements and the mastery of them. In analyzing this portrait, he emphasized the physical element from the view of the portrait size and shape. The original size of the portrait is 125.73 x 84.45 cm (49 1/2 x 33 one/4 inch.) On the canvas. Considering the shape of the portrait, he painted it on distinct rectangular frame. He designed the portrait with an impressionable view of a three dimensional shape. Sargent was able to make this portrait descriptive object in that it physical characteristics are highly explicit with good visual capability. The physical depth of the â€Å"Nude study of McKellar† explores the hidden aesthetic means and value. He portrays the object clearly and openly where the physical analyses do not compromise the audience views and thoughts. The use of li nes as a main mean of painting style is well elaborated in this portrait. He makes good use of capricious lines on Thomas portrait hence his emotional intimacy can be deciphered in this work. The outer vertical lines of the frame give the portrait some calmness, nobleness, and sense of eternality. The horizontal use of line in the cushion part gives the painting indispensable visual element of calm and peace. There is also cross lines and irregular lines behind the body

Public document analysis Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Public document analysis - Article Example The police department introduced different departments within its system to improve their security services. Each department plays different roles with the mission and objective of reducing crime. The public interest in seeking for a safe environment for their lives and property spirals the police department to be efficient and interactive. Under the department of Management Information Systems Bureau, the integration of information systems and technology with the responsibilities accorded to the police is focused. †¢ What primary purpose(s) can you identify for this document? The main purpose of the document is to develop confidence in the locals about the services provided by the police department. The introduction of the Management Information Systems Bureau aims at improving the existing policing activities to reduce the rate of crimes in Virgin Islands. Another purpose that the document service s is motivation of the police officers. Training conducted on the new services i ntroduced by the system will ensure provision of quality services to the citizens. The responsibilities of the Commander in charge of communication describe the avenues enforced for the success of the system. Finally, the document warns people involved in crimes that they have minimal chances for escape after breaking the law. The skills used to monitor, analyze and investigate crimes achieved the goal mentioned. †¢ What audience(s) is this document intended for? How can you tell? The target audiences in the document are; the locals in Virgin Island, the police officers, Commander of Communications and the criminals. From the document, the police department is in charge of curbing crimes committed in the area. The mission of the Management Information Systems Bureau is to offer help to the police officers during their investigation operations. Though they have been offering these services, there could have been challenges that they faced. The challenges could probably lead to r ampant crimes and violence. As a result, the citizens could have felt neglected and or undermined. According to the objectives outlined, the police officers targeted will be the implementers of the improved security system. Training on the new technological advances implemented by the department empowers the police officers. The second audience is the locals in Virgin Island States. With the improved system in tackling crimes and violence, they will automatically enjoy a secure environment. The secure environment instills confidence of the community in the police department. As a result, they will assist in playing key roles in reducing crime rates. The responsibilities of the Communications Commander ensure the successful implementation of the system. Finally, criminals are targeted to beware of their movements. The improved investigative and recording system, methods of analysis of crimes, accidents and traffic narrow their crooked lifestyles. †¢ What does the organization or arrangement of the document reveal about its meaning? First, the document starts with a mission statement of the organization, followed by its objectives. From the objectives is the documentation of the communications bureau and finally the responsibilities of the Communications Commander. From this arrangement, the document reveals the possible ways that the organization shall follow so that it can achieve its objectives. From the initial stage, attention of the audience captured facilitates their

Morality of a Foreign Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Morality of a Foreign Policy - Essay Example securing the good of the community and not benefitting the individual member of the society. Morality is derived from a Latin word "mores", that means custom, habit or a way of life. For an act to be moral, there are three fundamental characteristics - foremost, universal allegiance, secondly, impartiality in all the acts and lastly, the act in itself should be self-enforcing. The implication of these elements is that moral values bind everyone to these norms, and irrespective of any one, it is applied to all perspectives and interests. Lastly, it should be through voluntary actions of the persons and not forced upon by any other. Ethics is doing what is right and refrain from doing what is wrong. And the good is determined by the norms that are applicable to that particular situation. The political issues involve complex public affairs, and competing moral values and dilemmas and not simple moral verdicts. Ethical reasoning and judgments in foreign policy making involves use of relevant morals and illuminations in managing foreign relations with other states. The issues such as fairness of the international economic order, justice of the global institutions, and international regimes etc. should be guided by rules, and institutions in light of moral norms (Amstutz, 2005). The politics among nations is governed by political Realism, the phenomenon that says that the society is governed by objective laws have its roots from the human nature. Since the political systems comprises of people, therefore, the societal laws of human beings are to always prevail in these systems. Any statesman should apply rational alternatives in meeting problems under all circumstances. Morality has multiple facets to a foreign policy. Foremost, morality helps in defining goals and purposes of states and other players. No specific policy directives are given, but direction and general vision to highlight the nation's vital interests is given by the moral rules governing the foreign policy. It establishes the limits for any policy measure to be taken and acted upon. Moreover, any policy is also judged on the basis of these pre specified norms for judging the acts of the nations. A moral foreign policy should address three instruments - the conscience of decision makers, the influence of domestic opinion, and the influence of international reputation. The domestic opinion is formed by the freedom of expression of the people - as judged by the media, interest groups, and nongovernmental and professional associations; whereas, global opinion influences the international reputation of the country by labeling it as a reliable and moral actor or not. Kantian Ethics is the deontological approach talks about seeking happiness and that everyone will try to achieve pleasure and gratification to lead to the happiness, but, achieving happiness does not always fall in the purview of our powers, and it is a matter of luck. Thus, under this philosophy, evaluation of international politics actions taken might deem to be right or wrong, and not depending on the consequences. Thus, rationality is based on how a certain action is performed and not what does it result. Therefore, under this theory acts of terrorism can be favored by saying that these are the law enforcement acts, irrespective of the

Personal Statement for applying postgraduate Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

For applying postgraduate - Personal Statement Example My passion with numbers will be utilised fully when I am able to attain a better qualification with an advanced institution that places the needs of the students at the forefront as I seek to raise my viability in the job market. I am proud of my achievements so far and I continue to advance my skills at all levels to ensure that I attain my goals soonest possible. I also have a chance to expand on my skills by gaining entrance into a prestigious university like university of Birmingham. The important goal is to create a platform that will enable me as a student to maintain excellent standards and performance throughout and be a good addition to my company. I have a guarantee that University of Birmingham will be the place that I will engage accordingly in all matters concerning investment and finance, which will help me further my goals and attain my prerequisite goals. I seek to join the university so that I can also put the skills I have in place. I come with a wealth of knowledge from my internship at CNAO’s Guangzhou Resident Office during the summer break of 2013. During this period, I was able to learn more about the important audit principals, guidelines and policies that manage and formulate laws and regulations regarding auditing, the economy, and finance. I learned how to collate, analyse and check spreadsheet data, examine company accounts and financial control systems as well as gauge levels of financial risks amongst organisation. These are important aspects that investors need to understand and take into consideration before they make any investment in a company. I can prepare reports, financial statements and commentaries as well as liaise with the managerial staff when called upon to do so. During my time at CNAO, I learned valuable interpersonal skills important for the workplace, something that has been helpful to me in oth er interactions. During the

Pain Management Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Pain Management - Term Paper Example It is not acceptable for patients to be left to experience pain without proper management from medical staff in a health facility (Hall-Lord & Larsson, 2006). It is also unacceptable for nurses to lack knowledge and skills to help patients manage their painful situations. It is a professional duty for nurses to be accountable to patients with regard to pain management. There have been calls in the nursing field to include pain management as a compulsory component of pre-nursing training programs so as to ensure all nurses are fully equipped with necessary skills that will enable them to manage their patient’s painful situations. This, if implemented will result in patients receiving high standards of pain assessment and management. It will also help reduce instances of unnecessary suffering from patients. Pain assessment is the first step in pain management and treatment. The main objectives of a successful pain assessment process should be aimed at reducing the pain that the patient is experiencing, increasing the patient’s comfort, improving the patient’s physical, physiological and psychological function as well as ensuring the patient is satisfied with the pain management process. It is not easy to measure and assess pain. Nurses have to be aware of various factors that can influence how the patient feels and how he or she expresses pain. Pain assessment and measurement involves a lot of issues that have to be approached with a lot of attention. Pain assessment involves the following steps.... There have been calls in the nursing field to include pain management as a compulsory component of pre-nursing training programs so as to ensure all nurses are fully equipped with necessary skills that will enable them manage their patient’s painful situations. This, if implemented will result in patients receiving high standards of pain assessment and management. It will also help reduce instances of unnecessary suffering from patients (Hall-Lord & Larsson, 2006) Pain assessment is the first step in pain management and treatment. The main objectives of a successful pain assessment process should be aimed at reducing the pain that the patient is experiencing, increasing the patient’s comfort, improving the patient’s physical, physiological and psychological function as well as ensuring the patient is satisfied with the pain management process. It is not easy to measure and asses pain (Hall-Lord & Larsson, 2006). Nurses have to be aware of various factors that can influence how the patient feels and how he or she expresses pain. Pain assessment and measurement involves a lot of issues that have to be approached with a lot of attention. Pain assessment involves the following steps; Overall appraisal of all the factors that could influence the patient’s expression of pain Comprehensively describing pain and the effect it has on body functions of the patients Determining the barriers that may affect the nurse’s ability to asses and manage the patient’s pain, such factors include; The nurse’s lack of adequate knowledge, skills and attitudes that are needed in order to effectively manage pain Poor documentation of the patient’s pain, its assessment, management as well as pain re-evaluation The age of the patient,

ASA Bangladesh Essay Example for Free

ASA Bangladesh Essay ASA stands for Association for Social Advancement, which is a non-governmental organization aiming at helping poor people to get out of poverty. Bangladesh earned its independence in 1971, but because of the war, the whole country needed to be reconstructed. The unstable and bureaucratic political system slowed down the speed of economic development. In the meantime, some small non-governmental organizations stepped into Bangladesh to help the local people restore their life in different respects. The official ASA website shows that the organization was founded in 1978 with its goal of empowering the poor. In the beginning phase, ASA started some programs such as â€Å"training program, communication support service program and legal aid and awareness build-up program†. The results of the programs, however, were below expectations. There were several limitations in developing ASA. For example, the employers had difficulty to get paid; the design of the programs was not consistent with the local situation; the natural disaster happened at that time. All these factors forced the managers to formulate a practical solution. ASA began to favor women as clients and addressed social concerns, such as education, sanitation and health. Since 1992, ASA has launched special programs in savings, credit and security fund areas (emergency loans or insurance), which are still the main financial businesses at ASA. Main Services of ASA The annual report of the year 2011 states that the main services of ASA include loans, savings, insurance, a Technical Assistance (TA) program and ASA’s sister concern Hope for the Poorest (HP). The new program introduced is the Primary Education Strengthening Program. The following product descriptions are based on the ASA official website. 1. Loans ASA provides two kinds of loans—primary loans and special loans. Primary loans aim at providing financial support for poor people, who can get a maximum first loan from $105 to $265 based on their specific situations. Special loans are designed for enterprises or entrepreneurs with the initial maximum amount from $662 to $6500. Both kinds of loans carry a maximum of 27% interest and weekly or monthly payment. For primary loans, the payback period is normally up to one year (4, 6 or 12 months); for special loans, the duration is from 1 to 2.5 years (12, 18, 24 or 30 months). 2. Savings With respect to a savings account, people have three choices: mandatory savings, voluntary savings and long-term savings. Mandatory savings are especially for clients who have loans at ASA with a deposit rate of at least BDT 10. As an additional choice, the mandatory savings’ clients are able to choose voluntary savings with any deposit rate greater than BDT 10. Both savings accounts earn interest monthly with 6% annual rate of return. The savers are allowed to withdraw the money anytime but they have to keep the balances no lower than 5% of the loan amount. Long-term savings are suitable for everybody. The savers do not need to have loans or any other relationship with ASA. The deposit rate for this account can be Tk. 50 to Tk. 500 per month (specifically Tk. 50, Tk. 100, Tk. 200, Tk. 300, Tk. 400 or Tk. 500). For a 5-year account, the interest rate is 9% annually; for a 10-year account, the interest rate is 12% annually. If clients need to withdraw prior to maturity, they will receive the money at a lower rate of return. 3. Insurance The insurance products include loan insurance and life insurance. All loan borrowers are mandatorily enrolled in these two insurance programs. The premium of loan insurance is â€Å"BDT 5 for a loanee or BDT 10 for a loanee and his/her spouse per thousand loan disbursement†. Clients have to pay the premium before disbursement. The life insurance program requires BDT 10 as premium for eight years. The premium is included in the loan installment. 4. ASA University Bangladesh The university provides higher education with an affordable tuition payment. Meanwhile, the managerial level of the university tries their best to offer advanced facilities and experienced faculties for the students. They combine theoretical and practical learning and the university deserves credit for the high employment rate. 5. WASH program and TA program WASH stands for water, sanitation and hygiene. This program aims at improving the condition of sanitation in very poor places. TA, technical assistance, sends staff to different countries and areas to help people who are in difficult financial situations to improve ASA’s reputation. Avoiding Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard Researchers argue that ASA does not have a series of complicated criteria for getting loans. The borrowers should have income lower than $50 a month and must attend one group meeting a week for 4 weeks plus saving Tk. 10 per week. After that, they are able to get a loan (Ahmmed, n.d.). The same idea is also presented in the work of Sheikh and Amin (2011), which indicates that ASA follows a very similar model to Grameen Bank’s. They send supervisors to inspect borrowers’ businesses and hold mandatory weekly meetings for borrowers to share experience and to take suggestions from others. ASA also collects repayments in that meeting and keeps track of the group performances (p.356) From the product perspective, ASA secures their loans to some extent. All borrowers have to be in the savings program and leave at least 5% of the loan amount in the account. The loan insurance enhances this security as well. All these methods keep the institution from getting a high default rate. In fact, it turns out that borrowers are willing to pay back the loans on time. Special Points about ASA In the microfinance world in Bangladesh, ASA is famous for its innovative ideas, namely high efficiency and low costs. At ASA, staff use a different accounting method which is easy to master, so they do not need to have an accountant in the office. Secondly, every branch has freedom of preparing its own target and is allowed to deposit or withdraw money whenever it needs to. Thirdly, the set-up engenders less hierarchy. The regional managers are also the supervisors; credit officers have the authority to grant loans. As compared to Grameen Bank, ASA minimizes its staff numbers and cuts layers as much as it can. Lastly, ASA does not have any training program, neither training center nor trainers. â€Å"Work routines are standardized and simplified so that new recruits need only a few days of supervised work experience in a branch before being sending off to another one to start work†.1 Challenges ASA Faces: 1. Interest Rate of Return Microfinance differs from common banking. MFIs should be allowed to charge a higher interest rate to at least cover the costs of processing the loans. However, in Asia, the biggest potential market, governments control the interest rates in some extent. This regulation interfere the development of Microfinance. 2ASA, as a main MFI in India, has the same difficulty in its business as well. 2. The Weakness of the Insurance Bangladesh is an undeveloped country with many problems that are hard to solve, such as a high unemployment rate, lack of health insurance, gender discrimination and liabilities to floods. Though ASA forces all members to get enrolled in the insurance program, it does not guarantee to collect the premium from every member on time. Nearly all members have the difficulty of balancing their payments and normal life expenses. 3. Entering into the Poorest Areas Sarder and Nabi (n.d.), who work at headquarter of Bangladesh Bank, claimed that â€Å"MFIs/NGOs could not become able effectively to reach among the people of economically backward regions of the country. As a result, MFIs showed poor performance to reduce poverty in economically poor areas.† Because of the special features of MFI, it is not realistic to develop its business in the very poor place without any government assistance. Keeping the balance is already a challenge for ASA; if there is no financial support from local governments, ASA, and other MFIs, cannot enter into these places without budget concerns. Different features of Grameen Bank, BRAC and ASA First, though all three institutions require borrowers to have a certain amount of landholding, the specific criteria are different. By Grameen Bank, the member needs to have at least half an acre landholding; the other two institution have a looser clause of landholding, which is maximum half an acre. In order to insure the borrower’s repayment ability, BRAC and ASA lend money only to people whose families have at least one family member earning wages. Second, from the perspective of group size, Grameen Bank has the smallest one, which includes only 5 members. ASA’s group is 4 times larger than Grameen Bank’s. And BRAC has the largest group members—30 to 40 people per group. Third, each of these institutions asks the members to save weekly. Grameen Bank and ASA both require 10 Taka a week, while BRAC requires for 20 Taka per week. Fourth, Grameen Bank and BRAC have the same credit delivery mechanism, which is 50 weeks for one loan cycle with 20% interest rate and maximum loan size of Tk. 10,000. ASA, however, has a shorter loan cycle which is 46 weeks with 15% interest rate and the maximum loan size of Tk. 5000 to TK. 7000. Implications: The successful experience of ASA shows that microfinance needs both variety product designs and effective guarantee methods for repayments. ASA provides different loans or saving programs for different borrowers, which helps the institution to reach as many potential clients as it can. Meanwhile, the insurance policies prevent a certain default rate. This design brings out the best in each other.

Media and Objectivity Essay Example for Free

Media and Objectivity Essay Human rights activists should always be conscious that the media cannot afford to always be objective for fear of losing audience loyalty. Sensationalisation is a sure tool that the media uses as it seeks to make stories, news, features, and other production appear more appealing to audiences (Sloan Mackay, 2007). Media-produced information should thus always be subjected to careful scrutiny to establish its authenticity. Media people also have personal feelings that arouse various emotions in them with regard to various news stories and other productions. Further, unscrupulous media practitioners may allow the greed for personal gain to cloud their objectivity, thus accepting financial rewards in return for distorting information to make its appeal to audiences. It is thus very likely that many media personalities are overcome by subjectivity as they execute their duties. In turn, media information is subject to subjectivity, thus customizing objectivity. It is thus possible that, with regard to the media, objectivity is usually greatly compromised, thus rendering media information unreliable or completely erroneous. Human rights activists should thus employ caution when handling and acting upon media derived information in order to avoid being ensnared into the subjectivity that usually characterizes media-derived information. Reference Sloan, W. D. ; Mackay, J. B. (2007). Media bias: Finding it, fixing it. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland.

International Policies on Disability Comparison

International Policies on Disability Comparison Aging and Disability Task 4 Comparing international developments to New Zealand’s policies and practices, in relation to disability and aging. 4.1 International policies on disability from New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom New Zealand According to the New Zealand Disability Strategy it is a long term plan to change the way New Zealand society works with people with disabilities. The strategy was developed through consultations with people with disabilities to gain insight in what they need and from people who have been working closely in the disability sector because they provide real and valuable insights in what needs to be addressed in order for New Zealand to become a society where disabled people are included in every aspect of community life. According to the strategy New Zealand can be said as in inclusive society for disabled people when disabled persons can say that they live in† â€Å"A society that highly values our lives and continually enhances our full participation.† This are the Objectives: To encourage and educate for a society that is non-disabling To ensure that rights of disable people are upheld To provide disabled people the best education possible To provide employment and economic development opportunities for disabled people To promote leadership by disabled people To foster an aware and responsive public service for disabled people To create a long term support system centred on the individual and not on the disability To support quality living in the community for disabled people To support lifestyle choices, recreation and culture for the disabled individual To collect and use any relevant information about disabled people and issues relating to disability To promote and enhance participation of disabled Maori To promote and enhance participation of disabled Pacific people To enable disabled children and youth to lead active lives To promote participation of women who are disabled in order to improve quality of life To value families, whanau and people providing ongoing support to disabled individuals Canada In comparison to New Zealand where there is Disability Strategy, Canada does not have a specific disability policy for disabled people. Canada sees disability as a complex and multi-dimensional condition wherein the combination of all the effects of disability in a person’s life is addressed in different legislations in Canada. This includes: Canadian Human Rights Legislation, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Universal Health Care System which all have different policies regarding people with disabilities. Under these agencies, there are ten areas of policy classification in relation to people with disabilities. These ten areas are: General disability Transportation Employment Housing Education Participation Income replacement Recreation and leisure Taxation Health This ten areas explores the important aspects of the lives of people living with disabilities which follows a needs-based approach. It examines the fundamental needs of the persons with disabilities which is also something similar to the Disability Strategy of New Zealand. It aims to explore the personal fulfilment of people living with disabilities through learning, working and participating in their own community. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom they follow an internationally recognized benchmark set by the United Nations Convention for persons with disabilities in all areas of their life. Unlike New Zealand and Canada which has ten goals or benchmarks, the United Kingdom has only 5 benchmarks which are: the right not to be discriminated against the right to employment the right to health the right to equal justice the right to participate in culture In July 2009 the government of the United Kingdom ratified the Convention set by the United Nations, this meant that they agreed to be bound by the terms of the Convention and to follow and implement its benchmarks. International policies on aging from New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom New Zealand Heath of Older People Strategy New Zealand’s Health of Older People Strategy aims for older people to be able to participate in their fullest ability in decisions about their health and wellbeing. This also includes the health and wellbeing of their carers or families and their life in the community. Support through coordinated and responsive health and disability support programmes are provided for them. The Health of Older People Strategy has eight objectives which are: New Zealand’s Health of Older People Strategy outlines policies, strategies, guidelines and how funding will be provided in the care of older people. The strategy has eight core objectives: Older people and their family/whanau are able to make well-informed choices on their options for a healthy living, healthcare and their support needs. Quality health and disability support programmes will be integrated around the needs of older people and they will be helped by policy and service planning. 3. The funding and service delivery will provide promotion of prompt access to a quality integrated and disability support services for older people, their family or their carers. 4. The health and well-being of older people will be promoted through programmes and health initiatives. Older people will have access to primary and community based health services that will promote and improve their health and functioning. Access to health services in a timely mainly to improve and maintain the health of the older people. Integration of general hospital services with any community based care and support. Older people that has high and complex health and disability needs shall be given access to flexible, prompt and well-coordinated services and living options that will take into consideration the needs of their family and carers. Positive Aging Strategy Ministry of Health Another policy on Aging that New Zealand have is the Positive Aging Strategy by the Ministry of Social Development. It has a vision wherein New Zealand is a society where people can age in a positive manner, where the elderly are placed in high esteem and value and where they are recognised a core and important part of the family and the community. It continues to state that positive ageing is a reflection of the attitudes and experiences of the elderly about their own selves and how the younger generation of people view ageing and that includes how they view their own ageing as well. The New Zealand Positive Ageing Strategy helps promote and reduce barriers experienced by older people. They also improve services that older people can access. They have Ten Goals which are: Income provide adequate income for older people Health fair, prompt and accessible health services for older people Housing provide an affordable and proper options for housing to older people Transport provide transport services that older people can afford and have adequate access to Ageing in the community older people can be safe and secure as they age within the community Cultural diversity older people are given choices that are appropriate for cultural diversity in the community Rural services when accessing services in the rural communities, it will ensure older people are not disadvantaged Positive attitudes to ensure and propagate awareness so people of all ages have a positive attitude towards ageing and older people. Employment opportunities it aims to eliminate ageism and promote work opportunities that have flexible work hours for older people. Personal growth and opportunities to increase opportunities for personal growth for the older people The positive ageing strategy of New Zealand takes in to account the health, financial security, independence, personal safety, self-fulfilment and the living environment of the elderly in New Zealand. Canadian Policies on Ageing Like New Zealand, Canada has a long history of policies and programmes that is aimed at serving the elderly in Canada. The responsibility for policies and programmes in addressing the needs of the elderly is a shared responsibility between the federal and provincial/territorial levels of the government in Canada. The majority of the income security programmes are provided the federal government. The National Framework on Ageing Canada’s National Framework on Ageing has a vision which is the promotion of the wellbeing and contributions of all the elderly Canadians in all areas of their lives, the promotion of the wellbeing of seniors, recognising their valuable and important contributions to society and the reflection of the goal of eliminating ageism in the culture in all sectors of Canada. Canada’s National Framework on Ageing has 5 Principles which are: Dignity Independence Participation Fairness Security United Kingdom policies on Ageing National Health Service In the present the aging population in the United Kingdom much like the aging population in New Zealand and Canada, is steadily increasing and therefore it goes to say that health or care needs has been rising and that older people have now become the biggest users of health services. This aging trend now holds new responsibilities for the NHS and social care services in helping the elderly stay in a state of health, be active and as independent as possible for as long as possible. The United Kingdom’s healthcare system is much New Zealand’s. Under the NHS are districts and there are district health authorities that are the ones providing funding for health care for the elderly in their respective districts. Referrals for specialists for elderly patients are made by General Practitioners, so patients under the NHS can’t directly access these specialists. Emphasis has been placed on primary care regarding policies of ageing in the United Kingdom. But unlike New Zealand and Canada which has a national plan for service planning for the ageing population, the United Kingdom has no such national planning service but instead the Department of Health sets out the priorities on a yearly basis. 4.2 International service delivery policies on disability (ACTS) from New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom New Zealand Disability Support Services In New Zealand the Disability Support Services is responsible in the planning and funding of disability support services, the administration of the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003. They also provide advice on policies to the Minister of Health. The services that are being funded by the DDS are accessed through a (NASC) Needs Assessment Coordination service. NASCs are contracted to the DDS, they are organizations that work with people with disabilities and help identify what they need and to outline what types of disability support services are available to them. They are also responsible for allocating Ministry funded support services and they also assist the disabled people with accessing other support services that they may need. The main focus of the Ministry of Health’s Disability Support Services is based on the New Zealand Disability Strategy: Making a World of Difference – Whakanui Oranga. According to this document its aim is ensuring that disabled people are able to live in a society that puts a high value on their lives, works in improving their participation in their own communities and ensures that their needs are considered before making any decisions that will affect them will be made. Canada At present there are no Disabilities Act in effect in Canada, though according to my research political parties often promise such would be legislated but have still not been acted upon. Though they have no such disabilities act Canada has an alliance called the Canadian Disability Policy Alliance which is a national collaboration of disability researchers, organizations within the community, provincial as well as federal policy-makers which is aimed at creating and mobilizing knowledge to improve the disability policies in Canada and to promote equality and create opportunities for disabled people in Canada. They are being funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for a period of 5 years. In five years, they will need to address four policy areas: Employment Education Citizenship Health Services United Kingdom In the United Kingdom unlike New Zealand, they follow the United Nations Convention. Since they have ratified this the Convention now expects the United Kingdom government to involve people with disabilities in the development of any and all policies that will have an effect on them. The Equality Act of 2010 was enacted on 1 October 2010, this aims in protecting the people with disabilities and prevent any form of discrimination against them. The Act provides people with disabilities legal rights in the areas of: From 1 October 2010, the Equality Act 2010 aims to protect disabled people and prevent disability discrimination. It provides legal rights for disabled people in the areas of: education employment access to goods and services functions of public services buying and renting property In the United Kingdom the Equality Act also covers and provides the rights of people to not be discriminated directly or harassed just because they have an association with a person with disability. This applies to a carer or a parent of a disabled person. Adding to this, people must not be directly discriminated against or harassed just because people have the misconception that they are disabled. Also protected by this Act are people who were disabled in the past. But in New Zealand the policies regarding disabled peoples protection are specifically for disabled people alone against discrimination and there is a separate policy for non-disabled people against discrimination. International service delivery policies on aging from New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom New Zealand In New Zealand, Service Delivery Policies includes care services on a long term basis in both the residential and in the home setting. Service Delivery Policies include long term care services in both residential and home settings. It aims to provide a high quality, affordable, sustainable and timely access to services that are being funded through their own respective District Health Boards. Under the Social Development sector, a retirement income such as Superannuation is provided to New Zealanders over 65 years of age. There is also a veteran’s pension available for people who have served in the military. Other range of services available to older people includes financial assistance like Gold Card, Accommodation Supplement, and reduced cost in fees for their doctors, and a form of medication subsidies. Canada In Canada they have a national health care insurance program called â€Å"Medicare†. This program is under the Health Care Act, which is a publicly funded system in Canada with an interlocking set of 10 provincial and territorial plans. This act provides the older people access to hospital and physician services all the time. There are also other services the older Canadians can access which are: Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Old Age Security (OAS), pension for over 65 Guaranteed Income Supplement Spouse’s Allowance (1975) One other contribution of the Canadian federal government is the funds allocated to the provincial health and social programmes through agencies such as Canada Health and Social Transfers. They also provide major allocations in funding for health care, health promotion, disease prevention and medical research. The National Council on Aging (NACA) since the 1980s has long been assisting and providing advice to the Minister of Health on issues relating to the ageing of the Canadian population and the quality in the life of the older Canadians. Through its institution, the government of Canada has recognized that it needs to meet the concerns of its elderly population that they needed to be informed especially by the elderly about what their needs and concerns are and how to improve their conditions. United Kingdom National Service Framework In the United Kingdom there is a National Service Framework designed as a 10 year programme that contains eight standards that relates to services designed for older people. It covers a wide range of services of care that older people need. The frameworks standards represents essential principles which guarantee that care is based on the clinical need and not the age of the individual. It guarantees that services being provided treat the elderly as individuals, promoting their quality of life, their independence, their dignity and the elderly’s right to make their own choices and decisions especially regarding their own care. As early as January 1909, the United Kingdom (including Ireland) has a basic state pension known as the â€Å"Old Age Pension†. They also have travel concessions, allowances for winter fuel and housing assistance programs. 4.3 REFERENCES Ministry of Social Development. (2007). Older People. Retrieved from  http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/corporate/statement-of-intent/2007/older-people.html Ministry of Social Development. (2001). Positive Ageing Goals and Key Actions. Retrieved from http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/planning-strategy/positive-ageing/goals-and-actions.html Ministry of Health. (2002). Health of Older People Strategy. Retrieved from  http://www.health.govt.nz/publication/health-older-people-strategy New Plymouth District Council. (2010). Positive Ageing Strategy. Retrieved from  http://www.newplymouthnz.com/CouncilDocuments/PlansAndStrategies/PositiveAgeingStrategy.htm#nz Employment and Social Development Canada. (2013). Addressing the challenges and opportunities of ageing in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.esdc.gc.ca/eng/seniors/reports/aging.shtml Canadians with Disabilities Alliance. (2010). A Canadians with Disabilities Act?. Retrieved from http://www.disabilitypolicyalliance.ca/federal_policy_team/federal_canadianswithdisabilitiesact/canadians-with-disabilities-act.html JAQUELINE VILLAFLORES

Prejudice Essay -- Prejudging essays research papers

Missing Formatting In today’s world, there are many social issues, like poverty, vandalism and unemployment. However, prejudice has become the most dramatic one. Prejudging people for their appearance is a common practice that humans perform. People are not only ridiculed for their color, but also by their religion, sex or age. Therefore, I consider that racism, ageism and sexism are the three major problems in our society and we need to cease them immediately. Much of our world’s history were based upon racism. In the 1600’s, white men used Africans as slaves and treated them as they were not human. "Colored" people were not even allowed to use the same drinking fountains as white people. Fortunately, in the last three decades, race prejudice has taken a positive turn. Many rights progra...

Hobbes, Conatus and the Prisoners Dilemma :: Philosophy Essays

Hobbes, Conatus and the Prisoner's Dilemma ABSTRACT: I want to show the importance of the notion of conatus (endeavor) for Hobbes' political philosophy. According to Hobbes, all motion of bodies consists of elementary motions he called 'endeavors.' They are motions 'made in less space and time than can be given,' and they obey the law of persistence or inertia. A body strives to preserve its state and resist the causal power of other bodies. I call this the conatus-principle. Hobbes' argument for social contract and sovereign is based essentially on this model. He proves that the natural conatus makes people (i) strive to preserve their lives and therefore to get out of the destructive state of nature; (ii) commit to mutual contracts; (iii) keep the contracts unless some external cause otherwise determines; and (iv) establish a permanent sovereign power that Hobbes calls 'an artificial eternity of life.' All this is determined by the fundamental laws of nature, essentially, by the conatus-principle. I also show that the Priso ner's Dilemma interpretation of the Hobbesian state of nature does not represent all of the essential features of Hobbes' argument. I. Conatus and Motion Philosophers in the 17th century made hard efforts to explain the beginning and continuation of the motion of bodies. The notion of conatus ('striving' or 'endeavoring') was commonly used in the explanations. It refers to the power with which the motion of a body begins and is kept on. What is this power? Descartes explained it to be an active power or tendency of bodies to move, expressing the power of God. He distinguished between motion and the tendency to move, but Hobbes was anxious to argue that conatus actually is motion. In The Elements of Law he says it to be the "internal beginning of animal motion" (EL I.7.2), and in his later writings the notion of 'endeavor' refers to the beginning or first part of any kind of motion. Because motion is for Hobbes "a continual relinquishing of one place, and acquiring of another" (De Corp II.8.10), the beginning of a motion of a body must be an infinitely small change in the place of the body. Accordingly, Hobbes defines endeavor "to be motion made in less space and time than can be given; ... that is, motion made through the length of a point, and in an instant or point of time" (De Corp III.15.2). For Hobbes, the conatus is not an inherent power of a body but is determined by the motions of other bodies.

Essay --

It quotes,that: â€Å"Advertisers have enourmous financial stake in a narrow ideal of femininity that they promote,especially in beauty product ads (Kilbourne 1989.)â€Å" (Provocateur,1999,page 54) The beauty of women also is defined. â€Å"The image of the ideal beautiful woman (see figure 3.22a-f) may perhaps be captured with the concept of the perfect provocateur (an ideal image that arouses a feeling or reaction).The exemplary female prototype in advertising, regardless of product or service, displays youth (no lines or wrinkles), good looks, sexual seductiveness (Baudrillard 1990), and perfection (no scars, blemishes, or even pores) (Kilbourne 1990). The perfect provocateur is not human; rather, she is a form or hollow shell representing a female figure. Accepted attractiveness is her only attribute. She is slender, typically tall and long-legged. Women are constantly held to this unrealistic standards of beauty. if they fail to attain it, they are led to feel guilty and ashamed. Cultural ideology tells women that they will not be desirable to,or loved by, men unless they are physically perf...

Literary Elements

Short stories came into the literature world as brief, single sitting stories, yet containing an exclusively developed subject. A short story is packed with descriptive details that form together to grab the reader’s attention in a short amount of time. The authors indulge in rich  details to create the narrative into a jaw dropping meaning story from the beginning to the ending. The author begins with constructing  the story with the building blocks of literary devices. Short story authors apply the literary techniques of symbolism, irony and theme to create a meaningful connection with the reader.Authors exploit symbolism into the works of literature to create strong connections between ideas, actions or persons that intertwine to represent a greater similarity throughout the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s terrorizing narrative, â€Å"The Pit and the Pendulum† included numerous kinds of symbolism yet the one that stood out by far was regarding the fear of the unk nown world of darkness. The man has been â€Å"†¦left to perish of starvation in [the] world of darkness†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Poe 8) symbolizes the thought of darkness being the terror of the man when death is seeking him in the prison. (I)ts outward or upward whirls† (14) of the bladed pendulum symbolized a clock’s pendulum represents time, meaning was death getting closer as it swayed back and forth. In â€Å"The Monkey’s Paw†, W. W. Jacobs goes in depth of bringing in symbolism through actions that one as a human can make because they want certain possessions that maybe they don’t necessarily need. The holy man that had placed the mortifying spell on the devious monkey paw that gave three wishes â€Å"†¦wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Jacobs 34) but it didn’t give out those wishes without getting something in return.When the father had wished two hundred pounds, they were warned that they would hav e to â€Å"†¦in consideration for your son’s services they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation. † (39) Now in Poe’s short story, â€Å"The Masque of the Red Death† symbolism is used all throughout to illustrate the meaning of the story. â€Å"Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (374) the seven apartments symbolize what the human undergoes through in life and in life, there will not be a lamp that leads you throughout life.The ebony clock’s sound was â€Å"†¦of so peculiar a note and emphasis†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (374) symbolizes the importance of living life to the fullest, because time is always ticking by, that death will be approaching at all times. Symbolism has a significant impact into making short stories connote to the readers to grasp the meaning behind the words. Authors then use through character or plot development, an intention of conveying actions or thoughts that  are not w hat they seem to actually be. Josephina Niggli’s story, â€Å"The Street of the Canon† brings out irony from different angles beginning with the mysterious man.While the suspicious man danced with the girl, she had said â€Å"†¦ I think you are a dangerous man. † (Niggli 275) giving the reader the thought that this man must be a disguised as someone that he portrays to be in her town because he knows he wouldn’t be welcomed. When Tio Daniel realizesâ€Å"(t)his is no cheese from Linares,† (279) it generates the idea that someone had trespassed into their land and give them clues that it was someone from the land of Hidalgo to show hope that one day, their quarrel will end in peace.While in â€Å"The Masque of the Red Death†, Poe applies a slightly different touch of irony into the story but it still has a vast meaning that ties it in together. â€Å"With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion,† (373) Princ e Prospero was hoping that with locking the abbey, he and the others would prevent the deadly plague to cause death upon their lives. Prince Prospero became â€Å"†¦maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (379) made him aware that he could not run away from death, running away would only trigger death to seek him sooner.Whereas in story, â€Å"The Bet† irony is exposed between the lawyer and the banker towards the end of the story. As the fifteen years began closing in, â€Å"†¦it is all over with me: I shall be utterly ruined,† (Chekhov 100) the banker realized he was doomed because he hadn’t been expecting the lawyer to survive imprisoned for the fifteen years which caused his pride to increase and his fortune to decrease. Lastly, irony is seen upon when in the letter that the lawyer wrote to the banker stating, â€Å"†¦I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world.It is all worthless†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (10 2), the reader can see that the fifteen years of being imprison had evolved being in prison which led him to open his eyes to see what actually matters in life. Irony is the digging deeper of the obvious in a short story that perhaps changes the whole meaning of the story. Finally, theme is the repeated idea that the author weaves into the story which represents the purpose of the narrative. Anton Chekhov’s main theme in â€Å"The Bet† that is emphasized is that life is more precious than money. To live anyhow is better than not at all,† (97)  the lawyer states from the opening believes that life is too valuable for one to give up the opportunity to live. He would rather live in prison the rest of his life then to be sentenced with the death penalty. Thus, short stories have been given the honor of entering the world due to their presence and the talented authors that have done a remarkable job of using literary elements. They have gone farther than just puttin g words on a paper; they have turned a gist into a tour de force with symbolism, irony and theme.

Efficient Market Hypothesis and Behavioral Finance †Is a Compromise in Sight

Legend has it that once upon the time two economists were walking together when one of them saw something that struck his mind. â€Å"Look,† he exclaimed, â€Å"here’s a great research topic! † â€Å"Nonsense,† the other one said, â€Å"If it were, someone would have written a paper on it by now. † For a long time this attitude governed the view of economists toward the stock market. Economists simply believed that the stock market was not a proper subject for serious study.Indeed, most of the pre-1960 research on security prices was actually done by statisticians. The Pre-History: Statistical Research Most of the early statistical research of the stock market concentrated around the same question: are security prices serially correlated? Do security prices follow a random walk? Are prices on any given day as likely to go up as they are to go down? A number of studies concluded that successive daily changes in stock prices are mostly independent. Th ere seemed to be no pattern that could predict the future direction of price movements.One of the most interesting (and currently relevant) research projects of that earlier era was undertaken by Harry Roberts, a statistician at the University of Chicago. In his paper, â€Å"Stock Market ‘Patterns’ and Financial Analysis,† published in the Journal of Finance in 1959, Roberts wrote: If the stock market behaved like a mechanically imperfect roulette wheel, people would notice the imperfections and, by acting on them, remove them. This rationale is appealing, if for no other reason than its value as counterweight to the popular view of stock market â€Å"irrationality,† but it is obviously incomplete.Roberts generated a series of random numbers and plotted the results to see whether any patterns that were known to technical analysts would be visible. Figure 1 provides an example of Roberts’ plot: Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Financeâ€⠀Is A Compromise In Sight? Figure 1. Simulated stock price path Those somewhat acquainted with technical patterns might recognize a familiar head and shoulders formation, which technical analysts believe to be one of the surest indicators of a trend reversal. At this point, the reader may take pause. Are these stock price patterns of value or not?If they work even on decidedly random series, isn’t there a contradiction? Maybe not. Consider a hypothetical example of a stock price path in Figure 2. If tomorrow the price of this stock goes down, there will be a clearly visible head and shoulders pattern, which should signal a trend reversal. If, however, the price goes up, the resulting formation will look more like a pennant pattern, which, according to market technicians, signals the renewal of the trend. In other words, technical patterns are easy to see only when it is too late to act on them. P P t Figure 2. Hypothetical example of technical patterns formation tToday, anyo ne can replicate Roberts’ results using a common spreadsheet program. In his popular textbook, Financial Modeling, Simon Benninga of the Wharton Business School devotes an entire chapter to simulating stock price paths using Microsoft Excel. 2 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? Returning to Harry Roberts, his paper turned out to be almost prophetic in one major respect. He wrote: Perhaps the traditional academic suspicion about the stock market as an object of scholarly research will be overcome. As we shall see during the rest of this presentation, Roberts was right.The Pre-History: CRSP Another enabling factor for the soon-to-follow boom in stock market research was provided by an initially small outfit based at the University of Chicago, the Center for Research in Securities Prices (CRSP). CRSP was established by James H. Lorie in 1960 and provided comprehensive data on all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1926. From day one, CRSP data were available in machine-readable form, a rare and pleasant occurrence to anyone involved in economic research at the time. Also important is the fact that CRSP data contained a negligibly small number of errors.Overall, CRSP database was one of the richest data sets available. Everything was ready for a revolution. Indeed, the revolution was soon to begin. The Origin of the Efficient Market Hypothesis The introduction of the term â€Å"efficient market† is usually attributed to Eugene Fama. In his 1965 paper, â€Å"Random Walks in Stock Market Prices,† published in the Financial Analysts Journal, Fama cites, among other things, his earlier study of serial correlations in daily price changes of 30 stocks that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average index (â€Å"The Behavior of Stock Market Prices†).He concluded that daily changes had a very small positive correlation, approaching zero for practical purposes. The stock market seem ed to work in a way that allowed all information reflected in past prices to be incorporated into the current price. In other words, the market efficiently processed the information contained in past prices. Fama defined an efficient market as: a market where there are large numbers of rational profit maximizers actively competing, with each trying to predict future market values of individual securities, and where important current information is almost freely available to all participants. Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? Note that this description is very similar to that of a perfectly competitive market out of a microeconomics textbook. And in a perfectly competitive market, every seller earns a normal profit, i. e. , the amount of profit sufficient to stay in business, but insufficient to attract a competitor. If we assume that this is true of the stock market, it follows that any new information that becomes available to the m arket will be very quickly reflected in the prices.Otherwise, there will be opportunities for abnormal returns. In Fama’s own words, In an efficient market, on the average, competition will cause the full effects of new information on intrinsic values to be reflected â€Å"instantaneously† in actual prices. The efficient market hypothesis has been formulated. The time has come to test it. Tests of Market Efficiency in the 1960s A number of different approaches were used to test the efficient market hypothesis. One of the most obvious ones was to do more studies on serial correlation of security prices.A variation of this approach would be to test various trading strategies recommended by technical analysts to see if they have any investment value. Both have been tried, and invariably came back with mostly negative results. An interesting area of research dealt with the nature of return distributions. There are some clearly visible asymmetries in stock returns. If we lo ok at the ten biggest one-day movements in S&P 500 index since 1947, nine of them would be declines. The market crash of October 1987 resulted in a negative return that was 20 standard deviations away from the mean.It turned out that stock returns are not normally distributed. They follow some sort of distribution, but, to our knowledge, no one has figured out what kind of distribution it is. On several occasions, stable Paretian distribution and Student t-distribution were found to be better approximations than the normal distribution. Needless to say, this poses a huge methodological problem for researchers who, for lack of a better assumption, are still assuming normal distributions for drawing statistical inferences. An important breakthrough in testing market efficiency came with the advent of the â€Å"event study† methodology.In an event study, researchers take a sample of similar events that occurred in different companies at different times and determine how, on aver age, this event impacted the stock price. And what would a researcher expect to see as the outcome of an event study? Assuming that we are studying favorable events, the outcome would depend on whether or not the event is anticipated by the market and, of course, on whether or not the market is efficient. In all cases, we would expect the stock price to go up. The question is, when? 4Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? Consider an unanticipated event first. If the market were efficient, the stock price would adjust upward very quickly. If not efficient, it will drift upward for some time following the event (see Figure 3). P Efficient Market P Inefficient Market Event Time t Event Time t Figure 3. Market reaction to an unanticipated favorable event If the event were anticipated, the price would drift upward for some time before the event, and, in an efficient market, likely stabilize on the event date (see Figure 4). PEfficient Market P Inefficient Market Event Time t Event Time t Figure 4. Market reaction to an anticipated favorable event The first event study was designed and conducted by Eugene Fama, Lawrence Fisher, Michael Jensen, and Richard Roll. Their article, â€Å"The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information,† was published in the International Economic Review in 1969 and quickly earned itself a nickname, â€Å"the FFJR study. † FFJR studied the stock market reaction to announcements of stock splits. Typically, stock splits are believed to be seemingly inexplicable good news for investors.One possible reason was reported by FFJR themselves: they found that 72% of firms in their sample announced above-average dividend increases in the year after the split. Stock splits seemed to â€Å"signal† future dividend increases. (Actually, the term â€Å"signaling† was proposed in the early 1970s by Michael Spence, who won the 2001 Nobel prize for, among other things, his research on signaling in labor markets. ) 5 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? What FFJR found is that, on average, stock prices around the date of the split behaved as shown in Figure 5. Figure 5.Averaged stock price performance around the split date According to FFJR findings, the market begins to anticipate a stock split more than two years before it actually happens and figures out the consequences of the split the day it is announced. The event study techniques were further refined by other researchers. Some of the research designs are quite clever. A bizarre example appeared in a 1985 article in the Journal of Accounting and Economics by Johnson, Magee, Nagarajan, and Newman. The title of the article, â€Å"An Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction to Sudden Executive Deaths,† is self-explaining.The authors found that unexpected CEO deaths are associated with stock price decreases. However, in cases when the CEO was the company foun der, the stock market tends to react by a price increase, begging the inference that the ability to create a business is different from the ability to run one. The efficacy of professional investors is another enduring question. Can they, on average, provide better investment performance? The research here was focused primarily on mutual funds. Regrettably, most professional money managers are not able to provide superior returns.By 1975, the preponderance of evidence argued that markets were efficient. Statistical studies showed that technical analysis did not add value (consistent with the weak form of market efficiency). Event studies found that the market quickly reacts to new information (consistent with the semi-strong form of market efficiency). And studies of professional investors’ performance made a strong case for the strong form market efficiency. Tests of Market Efficiency after 1975 As more and more researchers tested the efficient market hypothesis, some rather controversial evidence began to appear. Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? In 1976, Rozeff and Kinney published their article on stock market seasonality. They found that January stock returns were higher than in any other month. In 1981, Gibbons and Hess reported â€Å"the Monday effect† – stock prices tended to go down on Mondays. Both of these findings were clearly inconsistent with the weak-form market efficiency. Interestingly enough, Gibbons and Hess noticed that the Monday effect seemed to decrease over time (see Figure 6).Figure 6. The Monday effect In the nine-year period of 1962-1970, the S&P 500 returned about -0. 16% on an average Monday. In the following nine-year period, 1970-1978, the S&P 500 would only drop by 0. 10% on average. It appears that the effect has been known to some market participants for a while, and they were taking advantage of this private information, which, in turn, caused their gains to decrease over time. A growing body of research indicated that profitable selection rules could be based on publicly available information.In particular, stocks with low price-earnings ratio and high dividend yield outperformed the market. And, while small capitalization stocks have a greater risk than large-cap stocks, the return premium seemed to be too large for the degree of additional risk taken. The discovery of these and other â€Å"market anomalies† prompted the editorial board of the Journal of Financial Economics to publish a special issue in June 1978 on a dozen of those market anomalies. An unexpected blow to the efficient market hypothesis came from academic economists.In 1980, Sanford Grossman and Joseph Stiglitz published their article â€Å"On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets† in the American Economic Review. They argued that if all relevant information were reflected in market prices, market agents would have no incentive to acq uire the information on which prices are based. This line of reasoning came to be known as Grossman-Stiglitz paradox and, along with his other contributions, earned Joseph Stiglitz his Nobel prize in 2001. The empirical research, of course, did not stop there. 7Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? In 1981, Henry Oppenheimer tested stock selection criteria developed by Benjamin Graham. Most of us probably know Ben Graham as the author of the classic, Security Analysis, but he also wrote another, somewhat less technical, book, called The Intelligent Investor. In each new edition of the book, Graham updated his investment advice to his readers, whom he called â€Å"defensive investors†. Oppenheimer back-tested this advice as if he purchased every edition of The Intelligent Investor and acted on it after reading it.It turned out that Graham’s advice did have significant value. Moreover, it actually had more value than Graham h imself claimed. In 1982, Rendelman, Jones, and Latane published their article, â€Å"Empirical Anomalies Based on Unexpected Earnings and the Importance of the Risk Adjustments,† in the Journal of Financial Economics. They studied earnings surprises and their effect on the stock price. They divided their sample into ten categories (deciles in statistical parlance) according to how positive or negative the earnings surprise was.Then they calculated averaged price paths for stocks in each decile. Figure 7 presents a summary of their findings. Figure 7. Stock price paths around earnings announcement by decile While the market did react to earnings surprises quickly, the prices also drifted in the direction of the earnings surprise following the announcement. In other words, the market commonly underreacts to the quarterly earnings announcements. This suggests the validity of an â€Å"earnings momentum† strategy (buying stocks that just had a positive earnings surprise).A number of later studies produced results consistent with this thinking. However, in a somewhat puzzling twist, there were studies which suggested that the stock market actually overreacts to certain announcements. In 1981, Robert Shiller published his article, â€Å"Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends? † in the American Economic Review and concluded that they do. This phenomenon came to be known as â€Å"excess volatility†. 8 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight?In 1985, Werner De Bondt and Richard Thaler published their article, â€Å"Does the Stock Market Overreact? † in the Journal of Finance. Their conclusion was that the stock market tends to overreact to long series of bad news. So by 1985, there were enough anomalies discovered to seriously doubt the validity of the efficient market hypothesis. Reconciling the Theory and the Reality This is a good point at which to consider the efficient market hypothesis and identify those assumptions that may be inconsistent with reality as we know it.First of all, as ironic as it sounds, there is no way to test market efficiency per se. We can only test a joint hypothesis stating that, first, the market is efficient in equating asset prices with their intrinsic values, and, second, we know what the intrinsic values are; i. e. , we have a perfect asset pricing model. Whenever an anomaly is found, we don’t know (and have no way of knowing) which part of this joint hypothesis did not work. Returning to Fama’s definition of an efficient market, he assumes that important current information is almost freely available to all participants.This appears to be an accurate assumption; however, both the processing of this information and the subsequent action have associated costs. An institutional investor must hire security analysts and portfolio managers. Even an individual investor faces an opportunit y cost with every portfolio evaluation. Both face transactional costs; large portfolios, in addition, may be subject to additional costs caused by market impact. The transactional cost considerations prompted Michael Jensen to argue that an efficient market should adjust prices within limits imposed by the cost of trading.In his 1978 paper, â€Å"Some Anomalous Evidence Regarding Market Efficiency,† published in the Journal of Financial Economics, he insisted that if, for example, transactional costs are 1%, an abnormal return of 1% must be considered within the bounds of efficiency. Indeed, if inefficiency cannot be exploited for profit net of costs, is the market really inefficient? This, of course, begs a question: what is the level of transactional costs at which we can no longer call a market efficient in spite of its being within the bounds of efficiency?There may also be some effects caused by the way security prices are reported (market microstructure effects, in the financial economics lingo). A typical research assumption has been that trades can be executed at the closing price as recorded by a data provider such as CRSP. However, the average NYSE-AMEX stock has a quoted bid-ask spread of about 3%. For NYSE-AMEX stocks priced under $5, the average spread is about 6%. In addition, sometimes it is impossible to execute at quoted spreads because of illiquidity or market impact. 9 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight?In fact, Donald Keim used precisely this argument to explain â€Å"the January effect. † In his 1989 paper, â€Å"Trading Patterns, Bid-Ask Spreads, and Estimated Security Returns,† published in the Journal of Financial Economics, he reported that stocks tend to close near the bid in late December, but close prices move toward the ask in early January (although we still have to come up with the explanation of why it happens). Also, there is a short-selling issue. In an effic ient market, short sales are unrestricted. In reality, 70% of mutual funds state in their prospectus that they will never engage in a short sale.Interestingly enough, recent empirical evidence seems to suggest that, while undervalued investments are hard to come by, overvalued ones are much more common. For example, a 1999 article by Mark Finn, Russell Fuller, and John Kling, â€Å"Equity Mispricing: It’s Mostly on the Short Side,† in the Financial Analysts Journal concludes that in 1983-1998 overvalued large-cap U. S. stocks tended to be overpriced by as much as four times the amount of underpricing observed in undervalued large-cap U. S. stocks. Finally, there is the unavoidable issue of investor heterogeneity. Investors are not identical.Even if they have precisely the same information available to them, they are likely to interpret it differently. More importantly, they tend to act on it differently. One obvious example is tax status. Tax-exempt, tax-deferred, and taxable investors acting rationally will often choose different courses of action when presented with the same problem. Liquidity needs can also play a role. Speaking more broadly, is Fama-style rational profit maximizing the only possible model of investor behavior? Are there other models? This, of course, leads us straight into the brave new world of behavioral finance.An Alternative Behavioral Model? Since the early 1980s, there has been a movement toward incorporating more behavioral science into finance. The proponents of behavioral finance cite several key areas where the reality seems to be most at odds with the efficient market hypothesis. One is the excess volatility problem that we discussed above. Price movements seem to be much greater than an efficient market would allow. A related puzzle is that of trading volume. If everyone knows that everyone (including themself) is rational, then every trader might wonder what information the seller has that the buyer doesn’ t, and vice versa.Figuring out exactly how little trading should be occurring under the efficient market hypothesis is difficult, because people have liquidity and rebalancing needs, but the proponents of behavioral finance believe it is safe to say that a billion or so shares a day on NYSE alone is a little more than one should expect in an efficient market. 10 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? Next is the great dividend puzzle. In a perfect world according to Modigliani and Miller, investors should be indifferent between dividends and capital gains.In the real world, because of the structure of the U. S. tax system, investors should prefer capital gains to dividends, and companies should prefer share repurchases to dividends. At the same time, most large companies do pay dividends. In addition, stock prices tend to rise when dividends are increased or initiated. The current literature treats dividends as yet another instance of sig naling—companies that increase or initiate dividends send a signal of their financial health to the investors. Another puzzle is that of the equity premium.Historically, this benefit has been much greater than can be explained by risk alone. (To the defense of the efficient market hypothesis, the equity premium implied in dividend yields tends to be significantly lower. ) Finally, it seems that future returns can, at least partially, be predicted on the basis of various historic measures such as price-earnings and price-to-book ratios, earnings surprises, dividend changes, or share repurchases. However, in spite of all these irregularities, real-world portfolio managers are still having a hard time trying to beat the market.Most of the studies of mutual funds and pension fund performance still show that, on average, active managers do no better than the market. Moreover, good performance this year consistently fails to predict good performance next year. With this in mind, le t's examine the case for behavioral finance. First of all, what is behavioral finance? In short, it postulates that investors have cognitive biases. What is a cognitive bias? Simply put, it is an imperfection in human perception of reality. (Have you ever noticed how much bigger the moon looks when it is just above the horizon compared to when it is high? Here are a few of the most common cognitive biases in finance. Mental accounting. It seems that the majority of people perceive a dividend dollar differently from a capital gains dollar. Dividends are perceived as an addition to disposable income; capital gains usually are not. Biased expectations. People tend to be overconfident in their predictions of the future. If security analysts believe with an 80% confidence that a certain stock will go up, they are right about 40% of the time. Between 1973 and 1990, earnings forecast errors have been anywhere between 25% and 65% of actual earnings.Reference dependence. Investment decisions seem to be affected by an investor’s reference point. If a certain stock was once trading for $20, then dropped to $5 and finally recovered to $10, the investor’s propensity to increase holdings of this stock will depend on whether the previous purchase was made at $20 or $5. 11 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? Representativeness heuristic. In cognitive psychology this term means simply that people tend to judge â€Å"Event A† to be more probable than â€Å"Event B† when A appears more representative than B.In finance, the most common instance of representativeness heuristic is that investors mistake good companies for good stocks. Good companies are well-known and in most cases fairly valued. Their stocks, therefore, may not have a significant upside potential. One of the most peculiar manifestations of cognitive biases in finance is the reluctance to realize losses. Investors seem to have a problem adm itting to themselves that they have made a mistake and avoid selling securities at a loss, even though such sale has some tax incentives.Now, what are the implications of behavioral finance for the markets? In his 1999 article, â€Å"The End of Behavioral Finance,† published in the Financial Analysts Journal, Richard Thaler offers this simple model: Suppose a market has two kinds of investors: rational investors (rationals), who behave like agents in economics textbooks, and quasi-rational investors (quasi’s), people who are trying to make good investment decisions but make predictable mistakes. Suppose also that two assets in this market, X and Y, are objectively worth the same amount but cannot be transformed from one into the other.Finally, assume that the quasi’s think X is worth more than Y, an opinion that could change (quasi’s often change their minds) while rationals know that X and Y are worth the same. What conditions are necessary to assure tha t the prices of X and Y will be the same, as they would be in a world with only rational investors? This question is complex, but some of the essential conditions are the following. First, in dollar-weighted terms, such a market cannot have too many quasi’s (in order for the rational investor to be marginal).Second, the market must allow costless short selling (so that if prices get too high, the rationals can drive them down). Third, only rational investors can sell short; otherwise, the quasi’s will short Y when the two prices are the same because they believe X is worth more than Y. Fourth, at some date T, the true relationship between X and Y must become clear to all investors. Fifth, the rationals must have long horizons, long enough to include date T. These conditions are tough to meet.Thaler seems to suggest that the belief by quasi-rational investors that certain assets are undervalued may lead to an asset bubble, which will burst as soon as quasi-rational inve stors sentiment changes. (Did somebody say Internet? ) Why is behavioral finance important? 12 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? As most marketers know, any product has its unique set of utilitarian and valueexpressive characteristics. The value-expressive characteristics are the most visible in jewelry and almost absent in laundry detergents.An interesting question to ask, then, is, do investments have value-expressive characteristics? If they do, we should not be surprised that pricing differences exist between otherwise identical investments, based entirely on their value-expressive characteristics. A casual look at stock exchange advertisements suggests a positive answer to this question. The NYSE promotes itself as solid, while NASDAQ claims it is innovative. A review of mutual funds marketing can also give us a few insights. In 1983, Fidelity Investments put Charles Jarvie in charge of marketing its mutual funds.Prior to joinin g Fidelity, Jarvie marketed Tide and Pringles at Procter ; Gamble. Jarvie immediately noticed two deficiencies in Fidelity’s marketing. Fidelity’s flagship product, the Magellan fund, was not advertised as Fidelity Magellan; the company was underemphasizing its brand name. Also, almost no attention was paid to cross-selling. Under Jarvie’s leadership, Fidelity redefined itself as a â€Å"family of funds† and built itself one of the strongest brands in the financial services industry. Other mutual fund companies followed quickly.Even more interesting are the studies of investment clubs. Over 35,000 of these clubs exist in the United States. An investment club usually includes 10-15 members (friends, co-workers, or relatives) who, on average, contribute $25 a month to the club’s account. In 1998, Brad Barber and Terrance Odean of the University of California at Davis studied performance of 166 investment clubs that had accounts with a large brokerage firm and found that 60% of the clubs lagged the market. The average underperformance was 3. 8% a year. So it seems that investment clubs lack utilitarian characteristics.What about value-expressive ones? Also in 1998, Brooke Harrington of Harvard University studied the identity formation in investment clubs. Her sample included three clubs: an all-men’s club where all members were sports car hobbyists, an all-women’s club where all members belonged to the American Association of University Women, and a mixed-gender club where all members met each other through a church singles group. She concluded that investment clubs are also social clubs. In terms of our marketing approach, they do have strong value-expressive characteristics.The importance of behavioral finance and its role in the professional’s decision making process appears self-evident. While it may fail to enhance our capacity to beat the market, it can help us understand the beliefs and motivations of our clients and improve the service provided. Is a Compromise in Sight? Are the differences between traditional finance and behavioral finance irreconcilable? Recent literature suggest a negative answer to this question. 13 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? One the one hand, the sensible proponents of behavioral finance recognize the limitations of this approach.Meir Statman of Santa Clara University said it best: Market efficiency has two meanings. To some, market efficiency means that there is no systematic way to beat the market. To others, it means that security prices are rational – that is, reflect only â€Å"fundamental† or â€Å"utilitarian† characteristics, such as risk, but not â€Å"psychological† or â€Å"value-expressive† characteristics, such as sentiment†¦ I argue that finance scholars and professionals would do well to accept market efficiency in the beat-the-market sense, but reject it in the rational-pricing sense.On the other hand, the standard finance begins to produce some research that models effects of opinion differences. Earlier, we talked about the seemingly excessive trading volumes. It appears that trading volume varies directly with the difference in investors’ opinions. Figure 8 provides a simple Marshallian cross analysis of a widening difference in opinions. Both supply and demand for a particular security shift to the right as both number of buyers and number of sellers increase.While the effect on price cannot be determined without additional information such as relative magnitude of shifts in supply and demand, the volume is bound to increase. P (price) S S’ D D’ Q0 Q1 Q (volume) Figure 8. Opinion difference and trading volume An interesting thing to discuss here would be the work of Joseph Chen and Harrison Hong of Stanford University and Jeremy Stein of Harvard Business School. In their 1999 paper, â€Å"Differen ces of Opinion, Rational Arbitrage and Market Crashes,† Hong and Stein propose the following model. 14 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight?There are two investors, A and B, and a class of fully rational, risk-neutral arbitrageurs. A and B each receive a different private signal affecting their rational perception of the value of the same stock. Both signals are useful, but A only pays attention to his signal, even if that of B is revealed to him, and vice versa. Arbitrageurs, on the other hand, recognize that the best estimate of the stock’s value is to be found by averaging both signals. However, if A and B face short sale constraints and the signals they receive are negative, the arbitrageurs simply will not see those signals.In other words, the negative private information will not have any effect on market price. This is consistent with the empirical research findings of equity mispricing being mostly on the short side. So if the arbitrageurs only hear the good news, the stock price may well be trending up, until some of the arbitrageurs begin to suspect overvaluation and take short positions in the stock. As a result, the trading volume would increase, reflecting the increasing difference of opinion among the arbitrageurs. If the stream of good news consequently ceases or private signals of A and/or B become public information, the stock price would collapse.In a later paper, â€Å"Forecasting Crashes,† Chen, Hong and Stein found that the probability of a crash is positively correlated with an increase in trading volume relative to trend over prior six months and positive returns over the prior thirty-six months. Overall, it appears that many stock market anomalies can be explained through either behavioral biases or institutional imperfections. In fact, Richard Thaler suggests applying the behavioral model to institutional investing and corporate finance. What immediately comes to mind he re is a Nobel-winning economist Herbert Simon and his 1947 book, Administrative Behavior.Here is how the outcome of Simon’s research was summarized by the Nobel committee: He rejects the assumption made in the classic theory of the firm as an omniscient, rational, profit-maximizing entrepreneur. He replaces this entrepreneur by a number of cooperating decision makers, whose capacities for rational action are limited, both by a lack of knowledge about the total consequences of their decisions, and by personal and social ties. A classic example of this approach is a 1956 paper by John Lintner, â€Å"Distribution of Incomes of Corporations among Dividends, Retained Earnings, and Taxes,† published in the American Economic Review.Lintner started by interviewing the corporate executives about their dividend policy decisions. These interviews led him to a very simple model. Companies move the dividend toward a desired payout ratio, but try to avoid having to cut the dividend. This model remains an accurate description of dividend policy to this day. Conclusion We conclude this presentation by quoting Meir Statman: 15 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral Finance—Is A Compromise In Sight? People are â€Å"rational† in standard finance; they are â€Å"normal† in behavioral finance.Rational people care about utilitarian characteristics, but not valueexpressive ones, are never confused by cognitive errors, have perfect selfcontrol, are always averse to risk, and are never averse to regret. Normal people do not obediently follow that pattern. Standard finance asks for too much when it asks for market efficiency in the rational sense, and investment professionals ask for too much when they insist that the primary contribution of behavioral finance is its potential help in beating the market.