Applied Macroeconomics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Applied Macroeconomics - Essay Example iii. The decline in the personal savings rate of Americans will result in the shift of the IS Curve to the right. iv. A drop in business confidence following the collapse of the stock market will shift the IS Curve to the left. 4. A change in which of the following would cause the LM curve to shift To rotate, To both shift and rotate Which of these do not affect the slope or position of the LM curve i. nominal money supply (Ms) affects the position of the LM curve. The increase in the nominal money supply would cause the LM curve to move to the right. ii. the responsiveness of the demand for money to the interest rate influences the slope of the LM curve. The more responsive the demand fore money with regard to the interest rates level is, the less steep the slope of the LM curve will be. iii. the responsiveness of the demand for money to income also influences the slope of the curve. The more responsive the demand fore money to the income level is, the steeper the LM curve will be. iv. business and consumer confidence level changes have influence on the slope of the LM curve and, therefore, would cause the LM curve to rotate. v. interest rate (r) does not affect the position or slope of the LM curve. The change in interest results in change in quantity of real balances demanded and results in movement along the LM curve. vi. price level (P) influences real money demand and, as a result shift the LM curve. If the price level increases, the real demand for money decreases and the LM curve shifts to the left. 5. Explain the concept of "crowding-out". Under what circumstances could government spending be "crowded-out" Do you think this is likely to be the case "Crowding-out" takes place when expansionary fiscal policy leads to the...Increase in government spending, income tax cut or an investment subsidy will raise the interest rate if the quantity of money is unchanged. The IS Curve has negative slope because a higher level of the interest rate (vertical axis) reduces investment spending, thereby reducing aggregate demand and thus the equilibrium level of income (horizontal axis). The steepness of the curve's negative slope depends on how sensitive investment spending is to changes in the interest rate and also on the multiplier. The movement along the IS Curve occurs with the changes in the level of the interest rate and corresponding change in the level of income. If interest rate increases, the equilibrium level of income decreases, and vice versa. ii. the responsiveness of the demand for money to the interest rate influences the slope of the LM curve. The more responsive the demand fore money with regard to the interest rates level is, the less steep the slope of the LM curve will be. "Crowding-out" takes place when expansionary fiscal policy leads to the increase in the interest rates level and, thus, reduces private spending, in particular investment. This way increase in government spending "crowds-out" investment spending. Full "crowding-out" can occur under the condition of a vertical LM schedule when the fisc

Christianity vs. Mythology Essay Example for Free

Christianity vs. Mythology Essay For many centuries, ancient Greek mythology has played an instrumental role in the development and foundation of all societies. The ancient myths formed through Greek Mythology has given meaning to the world people saw around them and helped answer perplexing questions such as, Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?. In fact, Greek mythology has provided meaning to people and the world around them in the same way Christianity and Judaism does. Greek mythology can relate to Christianity and Judaism such that they all were based off oral tradition, they have helped mankind develop a community that shares a common world view through moral way of life, and they all respond to our quest for wonder, the mystical and the unknown. Nonetheless, it is necessary to try and understand that both Ancient Greeks and Ancient Christians may have held similar beliefs about the world they were living in. In ancient Mythology, although there were no written texts that presented the several myths and stories such as the Christian Bible or the Hebrew Torah, the earliest Greek myths were part of an oral tradition. Ancient Greek myths, in their unknown beginnings, are believed to have been formed and passed on by oral tradition, meaning the myths originated from story-telling. The spread of Greek myths can relate to the early spread of Christianity and Judaism in the respect that the stories in the Bible and the Torah were stories about the sayings and acts of Jesus as told by story tellers long before they were ever recorded into a written text. Greek mythology, Christianity and Judaism are also similar such that they all teach a moral way of life and help mankind share a common world view. Almost all ancient Greek myths were constructed to teach some sort of lesson or moral, for example, in the story of Arachne. In the story, Arachne expressed extreme pride in her weaving skills; in Ancient Greece, having too much pride was considered a very unfavorable quality to acquire. Arachne believed her weaving abilities were far more superior than that of Athenas, the goddess of weaving, so she challenged her to a weaving contest. In the end, Arachnes skills did not even compare to Athenas and Athena turned her into a spider. The story teaches that excessive pride and having a big ego is not considered acceptable if one wants to like a purely moral life. Like Greek mythology, Judaism and Christianity also strive to teach mankind how to live a fulfilling, moral life through the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments in Judaism and Christianity are a set of laws that God gave to the people of Israel that represent the main moral code of behavior every person should try to follow in order to live a spiritually pure and moral life. Finally, Greek mythology, Christianity and Judaism are similar because they all attempt to answer our perplexing questions and wonders about the world we live in. For instance, one similarity lies with the stories of creation; The story of Pandoras Box in Greek mythology and the Book of Genesis in Judaism and Christianity. In the story of Pandoras Box, Pandora was the first woman created and she was given a box by the Gods that she was told to never open. In the end, her curiosity overcame her, she opened the box and out came all the evils of the world. The story in the Book of Genesis is very similar- God created Adam and Eve and commanded them not to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. Eventually, a serpent appeared to Eve and convinced her to eat the forbidden fruit. She persuaded her partner, Adam, to eat the fruit also and as a result, sin engulfed the world. The ancient Greeks and early Christians tried to find an explanation for the evil in the world, and both blame a woman for mankind’s downfall.

Illusion Verses Reality in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Essay

Illusion Verses Reality in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Death of A Salesman," by Arthur Miller, is a play that tells the story of a traveling salesman, Willy Loman, who encounters frustration and failure as he reflects on and experiences his own life. Willy's quest for the American Dream leads to his failure because throughout his life, he pursues the illusion of the American Dream and not the reality of it. His mindset on perfection, his obsession with success, and his constant reminiscence of the past and foretelling of the future, all contribute to his defeat in the end. The reality of the American Dream is that people are capable of succeeding. Success, though, requires one to work hard and be dedicated to both his/her professional life and family life. Yet, the illusion of the Dream is that attaining material prosperity defines success. Failing to acknowledge the importance of hard work in achieving the American Dream is another aspect of the illusion. By ignoring the present, Willy fails to deal with reality. He has a tendency of living in the past and thinking of the future. He always thinks that if he had done something differently then this could have happened, or things will get better as time passes. His habit of distorting the past, never allows Willy to realize what is going on right then and there in the present. At one time, when Willy goes off down memory lane, he "says" to Biff and Happy, "America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys?the finest people?there?ll be open sesame for all of us, ?cause one thing boys: I have friends. I can park my car in any street?and the cops protect it like their own" (31). Willy makes this distortion of the pa... ...ind. Willy Loman portrays a "common man", who lives a life that is purely an illusion. Although Willy has good intentions, his tragic flaw is that he focuses only on the appearance of the American Dream and never on the reality, the work ethic, or how to achieve it. Willy brings about his own downfall, his defeat, because he tries to pursue this "superficial" idea. Miller includes this theme of the American Dream in his social criticism in an attempt to portray the deviation in the values of society. For instance, materialism and technological advances, causes the American Dream to change as times changes. The salesman is a position that has declining importance at the time. He shows that an individual?s values are based on what society has established. Yet, as society changes, the values one has may not, causing conflict between the society and the individual.

Uses and abuse of drugs

â€Å"Last year alone, 37,000 people died from drug related overdoses.† Many people do not understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. Substance abuse is a growing problem that not only affects the person who is abusing alcohol or drugs but also affects the lives of those who are close to the abuser. Substance abuse is the abuse of any substance.A drug is a substance that modifies one or more of the body’s functions when it is consumed. It is often mistakenly assumed that drug abusers lack moral principles or willpower and that they could stop using drugs simply by choosing to change their behavior. In reality, drug addiction is a disease and quitting takes a lot more than just changing your behavior. Drug Abuse is generally defined as the use of a drug with such frequency that the user has a physical or mental harm or it impairs social abilities. The substances that are discussed in this report are called psychoactive drugs; those drugs that influence or alter the workings of the mind, affect moods, emotions, feelings, and thinking processes.Substances drugs affect the brain, heart, liver, lungs and also the people around you. When drugs get into the bloodstream they are carried to all parts of the body and some reach the brain. In fact, drugs change the brain in ways that foster compulsive drug abuse, quitting is more difficult than it appears. The quicker the drug reaches the brain, the more intense the effects. The quickest way to get a drug into the brain, and also the most dangerous way of using any drug is to injecting into the vein. Injecting into the vein is almost as quick as smoking a drug, followed by sniffing or snorting and then by mouth. Eating or drinking a drug is the slowest route, because the drug has to pass through the stomach first.Drugs are generally categorized into two groups, stimulants and depressants. Stimulants are drugs that speed up signals through the nervous system. They produce alertness, arousal and excitability. They also inhibit fatigue and sleep. Everything from over-the-counter pain medication, prescriptions drugs such as, Oxycontin, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and even coffee can abused in one way or another. The two main substances being abused in our nation are nicotine and alcohol.How does nicotine addiction work? Basically, when you smoke your first cigarettes, when you aren’t addicted yet, you get a head-rush which is caused by the nicotine. In your brain there are nicotine receptors which aren’t used to the nicotine in a cigarette. Over time, the nicotine  receptors get used to the amount of nicotine so they can cope with the nicotine. So when this nicotine stops being given to the receptors (when you give up smoking) they panic and cause you to feel unhappy and angry. When you smoke, the nicotine receptors send out messages to other parts of the brain which release a drug called dopamine which makes you feel happy, satisfied, relaxed.When you try t o quit, or when you ‘fancy a cigarette’ your dopamine levels are going down and you start to feel unhappy, aggressive, unsatisfied. Most smokers don’t know that they are addicted to nicotine until they try to stop smoking completely they just think that they like smoking. The answer to your question is that you will have a moderate nicotine addiction, and quitting won’t be that hard. The signs of a severe nicotine addiction are needing to smoke a cigarette every 2 hours, having one as soon as you wake in the morning (or in even more extreme cases, waking up to smoke in the middle of the night).Nicotine increases the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain, activating the pleasure pathways in the same way other addictive drugs do. After the effects (calmness, sense of well-being) disappear, the smoker craves more. Why is alcohol addictive? Basically because alcohol, like nicotine and heroin and other substances stimulates the reward response in your brain. You have a drink, the brain rewards itself with a surge of chemicals and hormones that it really likes, and therefore the more you stimulate it, the more it wants.Some people are more susceptible than others in that their reward responses are stronger which is why some people will get addicted to things more easily than other people will. If you add to that a troubled background of some sort, then when the brain offers its reward response though making that person feels calmer and happier or more in control, they are more likely than someone who is pretty happy.Alcohol is made of ethanol, it is a depressant, your body becomes addictive to the depressant effects and you eventually need it to stop the shakes (delirium tremors) and the withdrawals of the depressant effects on the brain and body. For example, caffeine is a stimulant, and people become addicted to that and when having caffeine withdrawals one has headaches and other neurological effects. However, alcohol is a lot more dangerous because if you are a hardcore not only can you die from drinking, if you stop cold turkey you can have convulsions and die from withdrawals. The â€Å"addictive substance† is  ethanol.When you are pregnant, it is important that you watch what you put into your body. Consumption of illegal drugs is not safe for the unborn baby or for the mother. Studies have shown that consumption of illegal drugs during pregnancy can result in miscarriage, low birth weight, premature labor, placental abruption, fetal death, and even maternal death. If its suspected that woman whose pregnant is using drugs they will test the baby to see if its born addicted, yes it is possible to see if the baby is addicted even before he/she is born.

R.K Narayan Biography Essay

R. K. Narayan (born 1906) is one of the best-known of the Indo-English writers. He created the imaginary town of Malgudi, where realistic characters in a typically Indian setting lived amid unpredictable events. Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanswami, who preferred the shortened name R.K. Narayan, was born in Madras, India, on Oct. 10, 1906. His father, an educator, travelled frequently, and his mother was frail, so Narayan was raised in Madras by his grandmother and an uncle. His grandmother inspired in young Narayan a passion for language and for people. He attended the Christian Mission School, where, he said, he learned to love the Hindu gods simply because the Christian chaplain ridiculed them. Narayan graduated from Maharaja’s College in Mysore in 1930. In 1934 he was married, but his wife, Rajam, died of typhoid in 1939. He had one daughter, Hema. He never remarried. Narayan wrote his first novel, Swami and Friends, in 1935, after short, uninspiring stints as a teacher, an editorial assistant, and a newspaperman. In it, he invented the small south Indian city of Malgudi, a literary microcosm that critics later compared to William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. More than a dozen novels and many short stories that followed were set in Malgudi. Narayan’s second novel, Bachelor of Arts (1939), marked the beginning of his reputation in England, where the novelist Graham Greene was largely responsible for getting it published. Greene has called Narayan â€Å"the novelist I most admire in the English language.† His fourth novel, The English Teacher, published in 1945, was partly autobiographical, concerning a teacher’s struggle to cope with the death of his wife. In 1953, Michigan State University published it under the title Grateful to Life and Death, along with his novel The Financial Expert; they were Narayan’s first books published in the United States. Subsequent publications of his novels, especially Mr. Sampath, Waiting for the Mahatma, The Guide, The Man-eater of Malgudi, and The Vendor of Sweets, established Narayan’s reputation in the West. Many critics consider The Guide (1958) to be Narayan’s masterpiece. Told in a complex series of flashbacks, it concerns a tourist guide who seduces the wife of a client, prospers, and ends up in jail. The novel won India’s highest literary honor, and it was adapted for the off-Broadway stage in 1968. At least two of Narayan’s novels, Mr. Sampath (1949) and The Guide (1958), were adapted for the  movies. Narayan usually wrote for an hour or two a day, composing fast, often writing as many as 2,000 words and seldom correcting or rewriting. Narayan’s stories begin with realistic settings and everyday happenings in the lives of a cross-section of Indian society, with characters of all classes. Reviewing Narayan’s 1976 novel The Painter of Signs, Anthony Thwaite of the New York Times said Narayan created â€Å"a world as richly human and volatile as that of Dickens.† His next novel, A Tiger for Malgudi (1983), is narrated by a tiger whose holy master is trying to lead him to enlightenment. It and his fourteenth novelTalkative Man (1987) received mixed reviews. In his 80s, Narayan continued to have books published. He returned to his original inspiration, his grandmother, with the 1994 book Grandmother’s Tale and Other Stories, which Publishers Weekly called â€Å"an exemplary collection from one of India’s most distinguished men of letters.† Donna Seaman of Booklist hailed the collection of short stories that spanned over 50 years of Narayan’s writing as â€Å"an excellent sampling of his short fiction, generally considered his best work† from â€Å"one of the world’s finest storytellers.† Narayan once noted: â€Å"Novels may bore me, but never people.† R.K. Narayan was born in Madras, South India, in 1906, and educated there and at Maharaja’s College in Mysore. His first novel, Swami and Friends and its successor, The Bachelor of Arts, are both set in the enchanting fictional territory of Malgudi and are only two out of the twelve novels he based there. In 1958 Narayan’s work The Guide won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, his country’s highest literary honor. In addition to his novels, Narayan has authored five collections of short stories, including A Horse and Two Goats, Malguidi Days, and Under the Banyan Tree, two travel books, two volumes of essays, a volume of memoirs, and the re-told legends Gods, Demons and Others, The Ramayana, and the Mahabharata. In 1980 he was awarded the A.C. Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature and in 1982 he was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Narayan died in 2001. Works of R.K.Narayan (a) Novels: 1.Swami and Friends (1935) 2. Bachelor of Art (1973) 3. The Dark Room (1938) 4. The English Teacher (1945) 5. The Guide (1958) 6. The Painter of Signs (1976) (b) Story Collections : 1. Malgudi Days 2. Dodu and Other Stories 3. Cyclone and Other Stories 4. Gods, Demons and Others (1964) (c) Autobiography : 1. My Days (1974) 2. My Dateless Diary (1960) (d) Other Works : 1. Ramayana. It is an English version of the Tamil epic by Kamban

Antibiotics essays

Antibiotics essays The last time you took your five-year-old to the family physician with a serious case of strep throat were they hesitant to prescribe him an antibiotic? Its scary to think that as more and more bacteria develop immunity antibiotics are losing their potency. Bacterial resistance is a real problem in human health, but the question is, how much impact does animal drug use have on the problem? You may think this is only an issue for humans, but this immunity to antibiotics is also causing a serious situation in the livestock industry, and their issues could quite possibly affect you too. Its scary to think that doctors are facing problems like hospital pneumonia that will not respond to any of their antibiotics, or resistant strains of sexually transmitted diseases. For cattle producers its as equally frightening to be facing strains of food-borne pathogens that resist treatment. How does bacteria become immune to antibiotics? The reality is that this is not just some theory doctors are testing. Its the same syndrome that is affecting pesticides. When a farmer has his crops sprayed the treatment might kill a billion bugs, but the one or two it misses will flourish. If thats because of genetic resistance to the treatment youve got a problem you can no longer treat with that compound. You now have to change compounds. It works the same way with the antibiotic scare; only you are now dealing with bacteria that might infect both livestock and humans. Last spring the General Accounting Office (GAO) produced a study on the question. It talked about some theoretical problems and in the end recommended more study. It also noted that several other countries were imposing more strict regulations on antibiotic use in food animals, and warned that the U.S. could face trade restrictions in the future. The Animal Health Institute (AHI) is the trade group representing the animal healt...

Index of Qualitative Variation (IQV)

Index of Qualitative Variation (IQV) The index of qualitative variation (IQV) is a measure of variability for nominal variables, such as race, ethnicity, or gender. These kinds of variables divide people by categories that cannot be ranked, unlike a variable measure of income or education, which can be measured from high to low. The IQV is based on the ratio of the total number of differences in the distribution to the maximum number of possible differences in the same distribution. Overview Let’s say, for instance, that we are interested in looking at the racial diversity of a city over time in order to see if its population has gotten more or less racially diverse, or if it has stayed the same. The index of qualitative variation is a good tool for measuring this. The index of qualitative variation can vary from 0.00 to 1.00. When all of the cases of the distribution are in one category, there is no diversity or variation, and the IQV is 0.00. For instance, if we have a distribution that consists entirely of Hispanic people, there is no diversity among the variable of race, and our IQV would be 0.00. In contrast, when the cases in a distribution are distributed evenly across the categories, there is maximum variation or diversity, and the IQV is 1.00. For example, if we have a distribution of 100 people and 25 are Hispanic, 25 are white, 25 are Black, and 25 are Asian, our distribution is perfectly diverse and our IQV is 1.00. So, if we are looking at the changing racial diversity of a city over time, we can examine the IQV year-over-year to see how diversity has evolved. Doing this will allow us to see when diversity was at its highest and at its lowest. The IQV can also be expressed as a percentage rather than a proportion. To find the percentage, simply multiply the IQV by 100. If the IQV is expressed as a percentage, it would reflect the percentage of differences relative to the maximum possible differences in each distribution. For example, if we were looking at the racial/ethnic distribution in Arizona and had an IQV of 0.85, we would multiply it by 100 to get 85 percent. This means that the number of racial/ethnic differences is 85 percent of the maximum possible differences. How To Calculate The IQV The formula for the index of qualitative variation is: IQV K(1002 – ÃŽ £Pct2) / 1002(K – 1) Where K  is the number of categories in the distribution and ÃŽ £Pct2 is the sum of all squared percentages in the distribution. There are four steps, then, to calculating the IQV: Construct a percentage distribution.Square the percentages for each category.Sum the squared percentages.Calculate the IQV using the formula above. Updated  by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.