The Slaughter House Five Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers

The Slaughter House Five Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers The Slaughter House Five THE NOVEL - THE PLOT - Billy Pilgrim, like Kurt Vonnegut, was an American soldier in Europe in the last year of World War II. If you come to know a combat veteran well- a veteran of that war, of the Korean War, or of the war in Vietnam- you will almost always find that his war experience was the single most important event in his life. The sights and scars of war remain with the soldier for the rest of his days, and his memories of death and killing help to shape whatever future career he may make. The same is true for Billy Pilgrim. What he saw and did during his six months on the battlefield and as a prisoner of war have dominated his life. Slaughterhouse-Five shows how Billy comes to terms with the feelings of horror, guilt, and despair that are the result of his war experiences. Billy does this by putting the events of his life in perspective. He reorganizes his life so that all of it occurs within the context of his days in Europe during the war. Thus the novel relates Billy's prewar and postwar history (including his death in 1976, which was many years in the future when Vonnegut was writing this book), but the real story of the novel is the story of Billy's wartime days. All the other events in Billy's life are merely incidental to his time as a soldier and a prisoner of war. You see them as events that come to his mind as he lives, or relives, the last months of the war in Europe. Billy reorganizes his life by using the device of time-travel. Unlike everyone else, Billy Pilgrim doesn't live his life one day after another. He has become unstuck in time, and he jumps around among the periods of his life like a flea from dog to dog. When you meet him in Chapter 2, it is December 1944 and Billy and three other American soldiers are lost in a forest far behind enemy lines. Billy closes his eyes for a moment, drifts back to a day in his past with his father at the YMCA, then suddenly opens his eyes in the future: it's 1965 and he is visiting his mother in a nursing home. He blinks, the time changes to 1958, then 1961, and then he finds himself back in the forest in December 1944. Billy doesn't have much time to wonder about what has just happened. He's captured almost immediately by German soldiers and put onto a train bound for eastern Germany. Aboard the train Billy has a great adventure in the future: on his daughter's wedding night in 1967, he is kidnapped by a flying saucer from the imaginary planet Tralfamadore. The aliens take Billy to their home planet and put him in a zoo. Then, as always seems to happen, Billy wakes up back in the war. The train arrives at a prison camp, and there a group of British officers throw a banquet for the American POWs. Before long he is traveling in time again, to a mental hospital in 1948, where he's visited by his fiance, Valencia Merble. As soon as he recovers from his nervous breakdown, Billy will be set up in business as an optometrist by Valencia's father. Billy is introduced to science fiction by his hospital roommate, Eliot Rosewater, whose favorite author is Kilgore Trout. Trout's writing is terrible, but Billy comes to admire his ideas. Billy travels in time again to Tralfamadore, where he is the most popular exhibit in the zoo. His keepers love talking to Billy because his ideas are so strange to them. He thinks, for example, that wars could be prevented if people could see into the future as he can. Next Billy wakes up on the first night of his honeymoon. After making love, Valencia wants to talk about the war. Before Billy can say much about it, he's back there himself. The American POWs are being moved to Dresden, which as an open city (of no military value) has come through the war unscathed, while almost every other German city has been heavily bombed. Billy knows that Dresden will soon be totally destroyed, even though there's nothing worth bombing there- no troops, no weapons factories, nothing but people and beautiful buildings. The Americans are housed in building number five of the Dresden slaughterhouse. Billy continues his time-travels. He survives a plane crash in 1968. A few years before that, he meets Kilgore Trout. And on Tralfamadore he tells his zoo-mate, Montana Wildhack, about the

Knowledge Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Knowledge Management - Essay Example Furthermore, forces inside the industry, which include buyers, suppliers, new entrants, substitutes, and most importantly, rivalry in the industry. Therefore, the report presents knowledge management as solution to most of these problems and a tool to strengthen company’s situation. Discussion Definitions of Knowledge Management Without any doubts, for the past few decades the world has been changing at exponential rates. The ability of human mind of discover the secrets of nature, explore the seas, capture the air, fly into the sky and others have allowed us to live in a world which is a better and comfortable place. However, on the other hand, these technological advancements have really increased the amount of information and knowledge that was available before. In fact, never in the history before, we felt the need to manage the knowledge that we possess. Furthermore, the future that awaits for us where our success would be a direct result of our ability to effectively use , manage, and develop our knowledge. Technological capital and human intellectual capital may not get a place on the balance sheets of the organization but they will be getting much attention in the corporate goals, mission statements, and organizational cultures of the many companies. People understand that the only thing, which has the ability to limit them, is their ability to leverage and use the human mind (Stankosky, pp. 234-235). Despite the fact that there has a lot of research in this field and lots of ink is being devoted to the subject, yet authors and experts have not been able to reach a consensus or one unified definition for this topic. According to Robert S. Seiner, Knowledge Management can be defined as a concept in which an enterprise gathers organizes, shares, and analyzes the knowledge of individuals and groups across the organization in ways that directly affect performance (Frappaolo, pp. 26-28). According to Meredith Levinson, ‘Knowledge Management is th e process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge based assets. According to Robert Villegas, Knowledge Management is simply the transfer of knowledge from one person to another, the result of which enables the recipient to benefit from the collected wisdom of the more experienced members of an organization or group’ (Becerra-Fernandez & Sabherwal, pp. 341-348). In other words, Knowledge Management is actually a cyclical system or a multiplier effect, which helps an organization in efficient achievement of its objectives and the same happens because the organization’s habits, planning and its execution is deeply rooted in the tacit and explicit learning of the organization (Stankosky, pp. 234-235). Why implement Knowledge Management? Following are some of the direct and clear benefits that Bobco will benefit from by the implementation of knowledge management in the organisation. First, the company would be in a great position to decrease the operational costs. Quite understandably, the market place of today has turned into a ruthless, aggressive, bloody, and destructive place where survival of the fittest is the order of the day. Even Bobco is operating in a market where the pressures for decreasing costs are increasing everyday. Despite the fact that sales have increased yet the profit margins have been shrinking due to increased pressures to outclass competitors. Attaining

PathGoal Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

PathGoal Theory - Essay Example The articles are different in the way that Chester A. Schriesheim and Linda L. Neider provide more research and literature review on the theory while Jim Bolt discusses the modern leader and importance of changing the dimension of a modern manager's role in the company. Schriesheim and Neider begin their article by mentioning the developers' definition of a leader and the functions that are supposed to be held by a modern manager of an organization. They stress that, the function of a leader is to increase "personal pay-offs to subordinates for work-goal attainment and make the path to these pay-offs easier to travel by clarifying it, reducing road blocks and pitfalls, and increasing the opportunities for personal satisfaction en route" (House, 1971, p. 324). Effective leaders assist employees in their career path that is aimed at individual fulfillment of employees and organizational benefit. Most of the investigations of House's path-goal theory have concentrated on exploring relationships between leadership behaviors (e.g., consideration and initiating structure) and outcome measures (e.g., satisfaction) while studying the impact of different moderator variables (such as task structure). House (1971), for example, found preliminary support for t he contention that situational variables may moderate the relationship of perceived initiating structure as well as consideration and such effectiveness measures as subordinate job satisfaction. The authors of the article cite Bass (1990) noting that the leader "needs to complement only what is missing in a situation to enhance the subordinate's motivation, satisfaction, and performance" (p. 627). Mentioning about over 100 studies published on the theory of path-goal leadership, Schriesheim and Neider continue the article by outlining the findings of few studies. The results of a meta-analysis of over 40 studies, Resulted in a support for the basic propositions of the theory, particularly with respect to the role of initiating structure, moderated by taskcharacteristics, on employee satisfaction. The results with respect to performance as an outcome variable and with respect to leader consideration behaviors appear to be far less consistent, and this may account for the removal of subordinate performance from the most recent statement of the theory. Another study provided by Szilagyi and Sims (1974) found that "while task characteristics moderated the relationship between initiating structure and employee satisfaction, the same was not true with respect to the relationship between initiating structure and performance". Further, Schriesheim and Schriesheim (1980) found that perceived consideration appears to be strongly related to employee satisfaction levels regardless of situational characteristics. Specifically, supportive leadership explained 63% of the variance in supervisory satisfaction scores, even after instrumental leader behaviors were paialled out. This finding is also consistent with the meta-analyses conducted by Fisher and Edwards (1988) and Wofford and Liska (1993), both finding support for a positive relationship between leader consideration and subordinate job satisfaction. Both of these meta-analyses also, however, provided only mixed results regarding the theory's proposed moderator relationships. In contrast to Schriesheim and Neider, Bolt does not refer to any studies in his article but

The Open Source Database Of Mysql Information Technology Essay

The Open Source Database Of Mysql Information Technology Essay A database is a systematic collection of data. A database management system is needed to store, access, delete, or otherwise organize data in a database. MySQL is an open source database management system.. You can freely download, modify, and use open source software without having to pay any fees/royalty to the original author. In this chapter, you will learn about MySQL and its advantages over other relational database management systems (RDMS). In addition, you will learn about the advantages of MySQL as an open source database and of using PHP with MySQL. What is MySQL? Consider a library, which lends books to its members. Traditionally, the details of books, members, and lending are maintained manually using ledgers. as the number of books increases, managing and searching for books, members and lending details becomes difficult. To maintain and retrieve information fast, this information can be stored in an electronic database and a DBMS can be used to manage these electronic databases. A DBMS manages the database. A database is used to store the data in a structured format. A DBMS is responsible for managing the operations such as adding, accessing, and processing data. A DBMS plays a central role in computing; as a standalone utility or as a part of applications. MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS), which manages a relational database. A relational database stores information in several tables instead of storing it as a large table. This structure imparts flexibility to the database. MySQL uses the standardized Structured Query Language (SQL) to manage the database. MySQL is a popular Open Source database. It is developed and distributed by MySQL AB, a company founded by the MySQL developers. In 2008, Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL AB. In 2010, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems and so MySQL is now owned by Oracle Corp. Main Features in MySQL MySQL was designed to achieve goals such as speed, robustness, and ease of use. The features of MySQL are as follows: Technical Features: Written in C and C++ Tested with different compilers Cross-platform compatibility, that is, works on multiple operating systems Supports multiple storage engines; both transactional and non-transactional APIs for accessing MySQL databases available in many languages, including C, C++, Eiffel, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl Uses kernel threads to achieve complete multi-threading Can use multiple CPUs where available, boosting performance Dynamic memory cache and use of threads to allocate memory Uses a single-sweep multi-join method to allow fast resolution of joins Server can be used as a separate application or as an embedded library Column Types: Supports multiple column or data types including Numeric, Date and Time, and String Provides for mapping data types from other databases to MySQL data types Supports fixed- and variable-length strings Commands and Functions: Supports the use of all MySQL operators and functions in the SELECT statement and the WHERE clause Supports the use of tables from different databases in one statement Supports table and column aliases Displays information about databases, tables, and indexes using the SHOW command Displays query resolution information using the EXPLAIN command Provides full support for SQL GROUP BY and ORDER BY clauses and group functions as well as left and right outer joins Supports the use of function names as table or column name Security: Support for in-built data encryption and decryption Privileges can be assigned to users Password encryption Scalability and Limits: Handles large databases sizes Allows up to 64 indexes per table Allows up to 16 keys per table Connectivity: On any platform, clients may connect to the MySQL server using TCP/IP sockets On Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista, clients may connect to the MySQL server using named pipes or shared-memory connections On UNIX systems, clients may connect using UNIX domain socket files Localization: Displays error message in 20 languages including Czech, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, and Russians Supports Unicode and various character sets Allows data to be stored, sorted and compared using the chosen character set Clients and tools: Provides built in support to check, optimize, and repair tables Provides mysql tool to execute individual SQL commands or SQL commands stored in a file Provides mysqlaccess tool to check host, user, and database privileges Provides mysqladmin tool to manage the database server Provides mysqldump tool to backup the contents of one ore more MySQL databases to a file Provides mysqlhotcopy tool to backup a single database or table on to the same computer Provides mysqlimport tool to import data into MySQL table from a file Provides mysqlshow tool to display information about the databases, tables, and columns Provides mysqld_safe tool that enables safe start up of the MySQL server Advantages of using MySQL over the other RDBMS There are many commercial DBMSessuch as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase available in the market. These DBMSes are robust and reliable, and support most of the features a user wants. It is impossible for these databases to compete MySQL on price, as MySQL is available for free downloads. In addition, for commercial DBMSes, the initial setup is more expensive, resource intensive, and time consuming. Another factor that adds to the cost is the training required on commercial databases. For MySQL, there are many free training courses available on the Internet. Also, you can download MySQL for free and learn to use it. As the source is available, you can customize MySQL as required. The vast support networks available (as blogs, forums, and lists) enables you to access information and support easily as opposed to the paid support structures of commercial DBMSes. Typically, open source software tends to be updated more frequently than commercial software because many users contribute to its development. As a result, new features are available more often than for commercial databases. MySQL has different versions available that work on the various versions of Linux, UNIX, Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems. MySQL also offers various in-built and third-party GUI tools for faster and easier design, implementation, and administration. Following are the advantages that MySQL offers over other RDMS: Reliable: Different users have found MySQL even under very heavy loads and large database sizes. Ease of Use: MySQL has a modular and flexible architecture that makes it easy to manage and customize. Cross Platform Support: MySQL is available on more than twenty different operating systems including Linux, UNIX, and Microsoft Windows. Contrasting MySQL as an open source database with other RDBMS There are many open source and commercial databases available. Some of the popular open source databases include mSQL, PostgreSQL, and InstantDB. Similarly, Oracle, MS SQL Server, and Sybase are some popular commercial databases. The early editions of MySQL did not support all the SQL features. For example, transaction support and stored procedures were not available in the older versions of MySQL. The latest versions of MySQL, however, provide full SQL and transaction support. The commercial databases support almost all the features as MySQL, but the performance of MySQL is better. One drawback in MySQL is that it does not support advanced SQL3 features such as object oriented data types. PostgresSQL supports advanced SQL3 features and is a better choice as an open source DBMS with SQL3 features. However, PostgresSQL has a major disadvantage in its hidden limit of 8k of data per row. PostgreSQL is more powerful but MySQL is faster. MySQL does not need a vacuum procedure as PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL withstands higher loads. The latest versions of PostgreSQL and MySQL support features as sub-selects, stored procedures, triggers, unions, and views. However, older versions of MySQL did not support all these features. In addition, because these features are new to MySQL, there are some performance issues. However, MySQL provides with more user-friendly command interface so it is it popular among web developers. The databases such as mSQL cannot compete with MySQL on many fronts. For example, MySQL has a richer feature set of SQL than mSQL. MySQL also supports more data types and functions as compared to mSQL. InstantDB competes well with MySQL when we consider the different features. The only feature of MySQL that InstantDB is unable to compete is performance. MySQL is faster as compared to InstantDB. Advantages of PHP in MySQL environment PHP is a simple tool designed for web development. It is easy to learn and allows a developer to implement various web-programming tasks, including database-related routines. It offers good flexibility and performance. PHP is a scripting language that is executed at run-time. It enables a user to interact with databases. PHP and MySQL are used together to store data on the Web. PHP is compatible with MySQL, which is one of the most popular database engines. MySQL is free and provides with high performance. Using databases allows a store of information that is accessed by users. In addition to this, a user is able to store his information in the database. Following diagram will help us to understand the interaction between the client-server-database. Figure 1.1 Interaction between Client, Server, and the Database In the above figure, a server is connected to several clients and a database connected with the server. These components have two-way interactions between them. When a client requests for a HTML file, the browser sends a request to the server. The server will find the requested file and sends the HTML file to the browser. The working of the system above is simple. However, such a system has limitations. If several users require the same file then the file is sent to all the clients who requested it as a static page and HMTL is not able to interact with the server. The main advantage of using PHP is that a Web page is able to access a database. Alternatively a client will request for a PHP file. The PHP preprocessor will then convert the file to HTML, which is sent to the user. Examples where databases are used on a website are listed below: Sites that work on database: We are quite familiar with the online reservation system in which the user is able to book a seat using the Internet. The backend database of this system gets updated depending on the action of the user. Different parts of the database can be accessed by changing the URL, which is the uniform resource locator. Message Boards: Several message boards on the Internet are run using MySQL and PHP. Such systems are more efficient than those using other utilities. Other systems create a page for each message and provide various options. While updating such system would need to change all the pages. A system using MySQL and PHP would just require changing one page. Updating Websites: Consider that a large website is to be updated. A user is able to modify the whole website using few PHP scripts. The information related to these pages is stored in MySQl database. The PHP scripts would access a MySQL database to access the information about the pages. For updating the website, the user would need to just change one page. Banner Rotation: We have several banners on a site. A PHP script is called for each banner. A database of banners is opened and a random banner is displayed. In order to insert, modify or delete a banner we just have to change the database. The PHP script would pick the correct banners for the pages on the site. To run a PHP script a user will need the following: Web server PHP needs to be installed MySQL needs to be installed PHP is compatible with almost all the operating systems. PHP and MySQL both are open source. It is convenient to obtain these for free downloads from the Internet. This feature makes it cost effective as compared with others. If we compare PHP and MySQL against ASP, the code for searching a database in ASP has a line at the top which states the number of matches. In order to get this number one needs to cycle through the records once to count them, as the RecordCount property keeps returning -1. The equivalent MySQL function mysql_num_rows worked first time as advertised, shortening the code, and the time taken to run the server-side page. MySQL provides with command-line function, which allows access to the database so that user is able to view the query results which the PHP page acquires. PHP scripts can also be used to control all the database administrative options but it is better to install a PHPMyAdmin on the server. PHPMyAdmin is an administrative interface for MySQL databases. It consists of set of free scripts to provide administrative interface. Licensing issues related to open source softwares There are many types of software licenses available. An open-source software license permits users to read, access, change, and reuse the source code of a software product. Open-source software does not necessarily mean free software. Open source commonly refers to software that is made available to everyone at no cost under a license agreement having a few restrictions. The distribution of open-source software must fulfill with the following criteria: Free Distribution The license allows you to sell the software or distribute it for free as a part of your software distribution. You are not required to pay any fee or rayalty against such a distribution. Source Code The source code of the product is made available along the product. If the source code is not distributed with the software, then it must be made available free or at a reasonable cost. In addition, the source code must be in a form that a user is able to modify it. Derived Works The license must allow modifications to the software. Also after the modification, it must allow the redistribution under the same terms as the license of the original software. No Discrimination against Persons or Groups The license must be applied same for everybody No Discrimination against Fields of Endeavor It means that the license should not restrict the software in a specific field of endeavor. Distribution of License The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties. License must not be Specific to a product -The rights attached to the program must not depend on the programs being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the programs license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution. License must not contaminate Other Software The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software Integrity of the Authors Source Code The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of patch files with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. Open Source Software Benefits The open source software are freely available on the Internet for free downloads. Open-source software has become popular due to several reasons. Following are the benefits of Open-Source Software: Access to Source Code- Enables user to understand the software at a deep level. It also enables to debug the software. Large Community- Creates an opportunity for widespread and rapid teamwork on development projects. Low Cost- Available for free downloads from on the Internet. Broad Rights- Enables to grant licenses to use, modify and redistribute the open source software, which is a major advantage. The commercial software products are distributed only in binary form and may not be modified. Licensing of MySQL MySQL software is released under the General Public License (GPL). It may often be used for free, but users may require buying commercial licenses from MySQL AB for certain purpose. Licensing options are as follows: Commercial License- Suppose an organization wants software to be accessed by the customers or the members in the organization. In this case the commercial license is needed. This is useful when an organization wants the source code to be secret. Such organizations do not want to act in accordance with the General Public License. The commercial license is an agreement with MySQL AB for organizations that do not want to release their application source code. Commercial licensed users get a commercially supported product from with assurances from MySQL. Commercially licensed users are also free from the requirement of making their own application open source. Open Source License- Enables users to offer the features added to everyone. Anyone is able to use, modify or distribute the software. The open license is free of cost. The condition is that the user must make the complete source code available. Summary MySQL is the most popular Open Source SQL database. It is developed and distributed by MySQL AB, which is a company, founded by the MySQL developers. The MySQL is a database management system which manages the database. A database is used to store the data in a structured format. A database management system is responsible to manage the operations such as adding, accessing, and processing data. MySQL is a relational database management system, which stores information in several files instead of storing it as a large table. This structure imparts flexibility to the database. MySQL is Open Source software that enables any one to use and modify the source code. We have many commercial databases available in the market such as Oracle, Microsoft, and Sybase. These commercial databases support most of the features a user wants. These databases fail to compete with MySQL for read-heavy-database applications. A user is able to modify the source code due to which new features become easily available as compared to the traditional databases. An open-source database is cheap. It is free if you choose the open source license. MySQL works on different operating systems such as Linux, UNIX, and Windows. PHP is a scripting language. It enables a user to interact with the databases. PHP and MySQL are used together to store data on the Web. In order to run a PHP we need a Web sever. Also PHP and MySQL need to be installed. An open-source software license permits users to read, access, change, and reuse the source code of a software product. Check Your Progress The mysqlshow tool that displays information about the__________. MySQL server and the information about the databases and tables on the server MySQL client and the information about the databases and tables of the client All the databases of the client and the server _____________is an administrative interface for MySQL databases. mysqladmin PHPMyAdmin admin MySQL software is released under the_________. Commercial source License Open source License General Public License MySQL allows up to _______ indexes per table. 16 32 8 ______________ tool manages users of MySQL. mysqladmin mysqlaccess mysql mysqlshow This page has been intentionally left blank

Employer Rights Essay -- Business

Employers should have the right to look through personal information they find as public domain, and they can legally use it. An employer has the right to investigate your financial history, why not a public page of your private life. Social media is a gateway between privacy and a public bulletin board. If the personal posts are not monitored, and privacy settings are not set to friends only or private, then the information is fair game. It is always the responsibility of the people to monitor what information they disclose and how. When people are too reliant on the government to protect their privacy, they become reckless and disclose information that the government cannot protect. An employer receives a resume, which is a vague description of the potential employee. With this information it is very difficult to weed through all the candidates. Most employers are searching for an upbeat and experienced work force. Having a resume with a limited understanding of past experience and no personality is a difficult to sift through. Some resumes are bad and some are worse, â€Å"Most employers don't have the time or patience to sift through the irrelevant details.† Mary Lorenz, CNN.com. When people limit the information they provide, they are often just ignored, but when a candidate selection is limited, the employer will seek additional information to gain an upper hand during the interview. Potential employers could access information about a person through a preliminary check. This information is not confidential and is usually available upon request. Potential employers can access Bankruptcy filings, worker compensation claims, social security number, education records, military service records, work history and driving records. â€Å"... ...e candidate before proceeding. Looking through public posts on social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter is legal; however giving false information to obtain more private information is illegal because the information was never intended to be provided to the employer. Employees do use some information for biased decisions, but mostly they seek to uphold the company image to promote business. Keeping a constant check on employees ensures the productivity of the work force, as well as insight of how to keep up morale. Works Cited http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Sacked-prison-warden-close-criminals/story-12070001-detail/story.html http://articles.cnn.com/2007-08-29/living/cb.resume.irks_1_job-seekers-false-information-irrelevant-details?_s=PM:LIVING http://www.examiner.com/career-advice-in-chicago/what-can-be-gathered-during-a-background-check

American economy of the 20th century

The growth of industry in the last half of the 19th century laid the foundation for American economy of the 20th century [1]. The expansion was driven by large-scale industrial development and railroads that led to an urbanized industry primarily in the Northeast, and promoted population increase through immigration at a rate of 300,000 persons per year. The second half of the 19th century brought an explosion of new discoveries and inventions that amounted to a â€Å"second industrial revolution.† Examples included: petroleum discoveries, typewrites, refrigerated railway cars, telephone, phonograph, car, electric and the airplane. These inventions enabled the rise of the business tycoon who amassed a vast financial empire, and had tremendous influence on the further development of the U. S. economy. The great tycoons were fierce competitors, singleminded in their pursuit of financial success and power. Among the giants were Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Ro ckefeller and Henry Ford.Some of these men were honest, according to business standards of their day; others used force, bribery and guile to achieve their wealth and power. Their example and the fact that most Americans — living in a society with a more fluid class structure — embraced the idea of moneymaking with enthusiasm created the impetus for the American economic engine at the beginning of the 20th century. The era of progressivism is characterized by the reluctance of the US government to get too involved in the private sector.This freed everyone to do whatever they could to get ahead, and ultimately proved the downfall of many small and large business men by the time of the Great Depression (1929-1940). The tremendous growth of the economy was unsustainable, and the lack of regulations meant that the inevitable slow down affected different economic sectors disproportionately and severely. The 1929 stock market crash had brought on the most serious economic di slocation in the nation's history.The New Deal enacted by Roosevelt's attempt to alleviate the emergency and prevent it in the future by extending federal authority in all fields, notably banking, agriculture, social security and public welfare. It gave immediate attention to labor problems, creating minimum standards for wages, hours, relief and security — and served as a catalyst for the expansion of labor unions in such industries as steel, automobiles and rubber. During this period organized labor unions were developed as a grass roots response to business past excesses.The US economy probably would have returned to its original condition with relatively low government interference in the direction it evolved (though with the newly instituted checks and balances put in place by the New Deal) eventually but the outbreak of WWII in which the US played a major role economically and technologically in contrast to WWI. The U. S. government was compelled to intervene in the eco nomy as it never had before. The War Production Board was created to coordinate the nation's productive capabilities so that military priorities would be met.Converted consumer-products plants filled many military orders. Automakers built tanks and aircraft, for example, making the United States the â€Å"arsenal of democracy. † In an effort to limit inflation due to rising national income and scarce consumer products, the newly created Office of Price Administration controlled rents on some dwellings, rationed consumer items ranging from sugar to gasoline, and otherwise tried to restrain price increases. This intervention had several effects.First it redirected business resources to the military effort, and away from consumer goods. During the Depression, most people were too poor to buy anything, but as the economy sped up in the war effort, it began to put wealth in the pockets of ordinary citizens, who did not have anything to spend it on. Psychologically this created a p ent up demand for everything such that when the war was over and business could return to purely consumer interests there was a huge pent up demand for everything.This pent-up demand was enough to fuel the economy for almost 15 years, and led to the Baby Boom and expansion of suburbs and the middle class. The automobile industry successfully converted from making tanks and bombers, and new industries such as aviation and electronics grew by leaps and bounds. A housing boom, stimulated in part by easily affordable mortgages for returning servicemen, added to the expansion. So did the rise in defense spending, which occurred later with the escalation of the Cold War. Business entered a period marked by consolidation.Firms merged to create huge, diversified â€Å"conglomerates†: for example, International Telephone and Telegraph Co. bought Sheraton Hotels, Continental Baking, Hartford Fire Insurance, Avis Rent-a-Car and other companies. However the seed of imbalance were being s ewn. More people wanted to work at white collar jobs hat paid well, and did not require physical labor, and with the expanding manufacturing it was possible. Farmers on the other hand over produced as a result of technology improvements which led to a decrease in prices and loss in profitability.Finally demographic shifts to the Sun Belt states, began to bleed the talent hungry North of trained employees. These changes began a slow but serious sift in the location and focus of business operations. Businesses began to shift their operations to follow the people, and change the job descriptions by shifting undesirable manual labor jobs to minorities and eventually out of the country. The 1960’s and 1970’s began a period of social malaise as people began to feel the stress of economic changes without really understanding why and how extensive they became.Before all people had to worry about was their own performance, and perhaps their small community, now everyone was aff ected by national shifts that were not obvious as they evolved. In some respect the public’s response was similar to that during the great Depression that led to demand of greater government regulation and labor unions, except that global issues such as the environment, poverty, foreign competition, and energy became the focus.To try to refocus the economy, Kennedy promoted the space program which among other things was to help turn the US economy toward technology rather than manufacturing, but a series of events allowed this to dissipate after several years: Kennedy’s assassination, racial riots, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the 193 Arab Oil embargo. Thus the space program was unable to refocus the economy, and instead spiraling inflation, increased federal budget deficits, intensified foreign competition, high unemployment and stagnant demand arose.This situation was used politically to shift American political support from Democratic to Republican, since throug h the widespread availability of TV, radio, and new magazines it was possible to convince the public that regulation of business led to stagnation of business, and only through its freedom, it could re-drive the economy, much like it did at the turn of the century. In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration pushed through a series of tax cuts, at the same time that it proposed huge slashes in social programs, and reduction or elimination of government regulations affecting the consumer, the workplace and the environment.Tight control of the Federal Reserve help keep inflation low during these changes, and was used to keep social upheavals by the mainstream populace at bay. Those who lost out in the first wave of economic changes in the 1960’s because they could not adapt, were also affected by the â€Å"fixes† of the 19t0’s and 1980’s. Meanwhile the US government had to support agriculture which had totally collapsed, leading to the establishment of th e budget deficit.Another stock market crash in 1987, suggested more corrections on business activities was in order, and the subsequent collapses of the savings and loan industry in the 1990’s, underscored the lessons learned during the Great Depression, namely that unregulated business activities promote the economy initially, but do not prevent imbalances from developing that eventually threaten the overall positive growth, even though by contrast, other sectors of the economy, such as computers, aerospace and export industries generally showed signs of continuing growth.The US economy of the late 1990’s and beginning of the 21st century is heavily affected by the global economy. The global economic interdependence of the United States and other nations has grown geometrically since the Second World War, and is evidenced in resource utilization, production decisions, raw materials trade and consumer demand. A sign of increased interdependence is the growth of foreign investment. Through foreign investment, the U.S. industry has helped develop major industries in other countries, attempted to increase demand by serving foreign markets from local plants, and to shift undesired or difficult to fill manufacturing jobs to places where it is cheaper and the workforce is available. About one-third of foreign investment in the United States is also in manufacturing. Meantime, those lost jobs are replaced by new ones in industries with more potential.In the late 20th century, those jobs were increasingly in such high-technology industries as computers and biotechnology, and in fast-expanding service industries such as health care and computer software. As a result of this interdependence the US economy is entering another period of economic growth, as well as uncertainty. Since the growth of foreign investment in both directions has developed faster than regulations, there is inevitably going to be problems with economic imbalances, except this time on a global scale. Issues of national security overlap with economic issues traceable to a general global imbalance in wealth.In an attempt to fix these imbalance the US entered into several â€Å"free trade† agreements, aimed a making economic growth equal on both sides. In some cases these agreement have sped up the inevitable job and industry restructuring that was occurring throughout the end of the 20th century. The hope is that in the long run economies of equal partners will work much better than between unequal partners. From Revolution to Reconstruction, Dr. George M. Welling, Department of Alfa-Informatica of the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), 2005.

Role of Marriage in Society - 2476 Words

Role of Marriage in Society 1 Introduction: This paper will examine society’s view on marriage. This issue is worthy of investigation because everyone has different perspectives and opinions on marriage. They should be informed about both sides of opinions. Everyone should be respected no matter who they are or who they love. If a man loves a man then people should celebrate it rather than destroy it. The goal of this paper will be to share both views of marriage and will include the history of marriage and same-sex marriage. It will cover the tribulations both the gay and straight community has gone through. I am talking about the role of marriage in society, but I’m not talking about whether marriage is a good or bad thing.†¦show more content†¦of Illinois Law Review 1997) finds that children raised in homosexual households are significantly more likely to be gay themselves. [Eliot Jones. Adoption of Children by Same-Sex Couples] Having same-sex parents will fail to show their children t he influence of either the same sex or opposite sex. For example, if a boy had been brought up by a lesbian couple, he would lack the male influence in his life. Besides that, putting a young child in the household of same-sex couples will expose them to the homophobic language and hate that society carries. This could lead to unsafe situations and damage to the child’s wellbeing. Such as, if a little boy has gay parents and gets to middle school, he could be made fun of or be called harsh words. The public is concerned about the effect on the children in the middle of this fight for gay rights. Society is also worried about on its effect on religion. According to Christian belief, in the beginning, God made Adam a man and then made Eve a woman. He gave Adam a woman, not man so that the human race would multiply. For thousands of years homosexuality has been in a sin in many religions. Marriage has always been a sacred agreement between a man and a woman. The definition was w ritten in the Roberts 4 Bible and sanctified by God. [Father Dick. Saint Francis of Assisi Priest] Because it is wasShow MoreRelatedShould Same Sex Marriage Be Made Legal? Australia?1035 Words   |  5 PagesShould same-sex marriage be made legal in Australia? Should same-sex marriage be made legal in Australia? This is something you and I have heard in recent years come up time and again in the media and private conversations. But why is this an issue? We need to understand why this is even an issue. Let’s talk about what is a marriage. Society’s perspective of marriage is that it is a permanent, social, legal contract between two people who have mutual rights between the two people that are agreedRead MoreThe Confusion Of Today s Culture1246 Words   |  5 Pagesin today’s culture about â€Å"roles† in marriage compels us to understand what unique responsibilities various cultures assign to a wife. 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