...THE CAUSES OF AMERICAN BUSINESS CYCLES: AN ESSAY IN ECONOMIC HISTORIOGRAPHY Peter Temin* This paper surveys American business cycles over the past century. Its task is to identify the causes of these cycles; other papers in this collection address the nature of policy responses to these causes. This paper can be seen as a test to discriminate between two views of the American economy. The first is expressed in a characteristically vivid statement by Dornbusch, who proclaimed recently: “None of the U.S. expansions of the past 40 years died in bed of old age; every one was murdered by the Federal Reserve” (Dornbusch 1997). This stark view can be contrasted with its opposite in the recent literature: “[N]one of the popular candidates for observable shocks robustly accounts for the bulk of business-cycle fluctuations in output” (Cochrane 1994, p. 358). I expand the time period to consider the past century, but it is easy to distinguish the past 40 years, that is, the period since World War II. A survey of business cycle causes over an entire century runs into several problems, of which three seem noteworthy. First, it is not at all clear what “cause” means in this context. Second, the Great Depression was such a large cycle that it cannot be seen as just another data point. Third, the survey relies on the existing literature on business cycles, which is why I have entitled it an essay in economic historiography. The paper proceeds by discussing each of these problems in turn, then...
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...Bruce Dawe has effectively used language to help retell some aspects of human experience. This is especially evident in his two poems ‘Weapons Training’ and ‘Life cycle’ . Dawe has used language in many interesting ways to capture human experience and has successfully drawn the attention of the reader through this use of vivid imagery and realistic tone. He has used a variety of language techniques to help bring his poetry to life and as a result, has helped the reader feel involved in what is happening. This causes the reader to sympathise with the human experiences that Dawe is describing. The language techniques in Dawes poetry are very imaginative and creative . The purpose of ‘weapons training ’ is to show the dehumanisation of the training for war in the 1970s on the other hand in the poem ‘Life Cycle’ the purpose is to portray that VFL is more than sport, it is a religion to the persona. The tone of ‘Weapons Training’ is very aggressive and abusive whereas ‘Life Cycle’ is very proud of being a fan and follower of VFL and his team. In ‘Weapons Training’ Bruce Dawe has used language to capture human experience through the use of the rhetorical question used in line 4, ‘are you queer?’. The use of this rhetorical question sets the tone of this human experience/ poem, the tone of brutalisation, of turning a man into a machine, a machine with no feelings or emotions. Questioning a mans sexuality is a great insult to a man, as it portrays to the man that they are...
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...THE TOURISM LIFE CYCLE: AN OVERVIEW OF THE CRETAN CASE Dr Konstantinos Andriotis 1 Hellenic Open University, Greece. Abstract: The increasing demand of international tourists for holidays has resulted in a rapidly increase of the number of tourist destinations. To explain destinations development the life cycle approach has been widely adopted. According to Butler (1980) destinations pass through a predictable sequence of six stages. These stages are: exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation and decline or rejuvenation. In each life cycle stage there are changes in the morphology, the types of tourists visitation, and residents’ attitudes towards tourism. th Through the presentation of historical data from the start of the 20 century up to now it is the aim of this paper to document these changes by providing evidence from the island of Crete. Five stages of tourism evolution are evident, namely: the era of ‘wealthy’ explorers, the era of cruisers, the Second World War and the Civil War, the reconstruction of the tourism industry, and the era of mass organised tourism. The findings confirm that today the island is on the maturity stage, tourism has resulted on substantial changes on the island’s coastal resorts and various attempts are required by the private and the public sectors to avoid decline. Keywords: Tourism, Tourism Destinations, Life Cycle INTRODUCTION Various studies (e.g. Gilbert, 1939; Defert, 1954; Stansfield, 1978; Young, 1983) have...
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...In Ray Bradbury’s 1953 anti-utopian novel “Fahrenheit 451,” all works of literature are burned and all critical thinking is halted in order to not offend anyone. The Firemen in this society ironically but ablaze any houses suspected of hoarding books and the government expels those who attempt to think freely. Guy Montag is the main character who begins to question his job as a fireman and becomes curious about books. The inspiration for the censorship in this novel came from the effects of McCarthyism and the Cold War during Ray Bradbury’s time. Thousands of Americans were being falsely accused of treason against the U.S. or for being communists due to the escalated tensions caused by the Cold War. For Mr. Bradbury, this time represented one...
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...The internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II is a dark and often overlooked stain on America’s history. In 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed by Roosevelt ordering the internment of all citizens of Japanese ancestry. For a war being fought against an anti-Semitic Germany, it seems ironic now that America would intern its citizens based on race too similarly to the way Germany interned its citizens based on religion. It can be difficult to understand how a nation based the principles of freedom and liberty could intern any population of people, but by taking a look at other unethical situations in United States’ history and world history, an explanation can begin to be found in the ideas of authorization, routinization,...
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...New Testament is the normative text for all Christians, it’s the principal and foundational source of teaching for all Christians in which peace is mentioned over ninety times. Christians are taught to reject violence, the strongest statements against engaging violence come from the preaching of Jesus himself. In Matthew 6:39 it states ‘turn the other cheek’, this statement has a strong impact on all Christians and teaches them not to retaliate or return violence with violence. One major principal teaching supporting this notion is the ‘just war theory’. The Just war theory sought to establish guidelines under which it was morally acceptable to engage in warfare. It maintains that nations are morally justified in fighting war providing that the circumstances of the conflict meet the seven principles that suggest the requirements to be involved in war. In April 1963, Pope John XXIII wrote the encyclical Pacem in Terris due to the cold war which is addressed to not only Christians but ‘all men of good will’. It recognized peace as a necessity and a goal that exceeded all national and denominational boundaries and attracted all on the level of shared humanity. The document established 4 major guidelines for following the pathway of peace; the importance of the inviolability of a person’s rights; the universal nature of...
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...Le visage de la guerre, or The Face of War was made by Salvador Dalí in 1940, during the short time he lived in California. This painting was inspired by Dalí’s view on war. Dalí, like many other Spaniards at the time, experienced and was disgusted with war. This surrealist painting was inspired by Dalí’s feelings during the Second Spanish Civil War which ended in 1939, in addition to other works such as Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), which was made in 1936. It functioned as a grim reminder to what war really brings to humanity. Le visage de la guerra was made with oil on canvas a year after the Second Spanish Civil War ended, which was 1940. It is currently held in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam,...
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...people speaking about the “War on Drugs” The director Eugene Jarecki states what his stance is directly by saying, “I wanted to follow the failure of the drug war and the harm it does” What does he mean by this? Well, in this movie he shows what prevention there is for drugs, how drug use has started, and whether or not the prevention is just or not. In the beginning of the documentary he throws out a figure that makes you wonder, it is that one trillion dollars has been spent on drug prevention and there has been virtually no change in the amount of drug use. This makes you wonder, what is really going on? The film recognizes abuse as a matter of public health, and investigates the tragic errors and shortcomings that have resulted from framing it as an issue for law enforcement. It also shows how political and financial corruption has influenced and become the backbone for the war on drugs, although there are many failures. The drug war in America has been the reason for the largest percentage of people in jail. In this documentary it is shown that what should be done to stop the use of drugs or find out why people are on them, you have to start at the root. The war on drugs makes it so that most members of the urban black community, who might have turned to drugs either as personal escape or as the only means of making money in a community that is run down of business, never get a chance to get ahead. Instead, they fall into a cycle. Drugs, prison, parole. There...
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...that occurred towards the beginning of the current Jupiter-Uranus Cycle is Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States. This was a major shock for most of America because for months on end we were fed statistics that showed that Hillary had a clear chance at winning the election. Up until the day of the election, various newspapers were saying that this election would be won by Hillary. By that night, most of us were completely shocked when the results were revealed. Donald Trump had won. A man who most of us thought was not going to win the election at all due to statistics and the loud cry from a majority of society that Hillary Clinton was set to be president. This huge turn of events happened within the first month of the Jupiter-Uranus Cycle. It was mentioned before that this cycle usually brings about “radical change” and “rebellion against constraints and the status quo.” The “radical change” can be seen as the election at first being a clear win for Hillary to unexpectedly becoming a major win for Trump. Trump winning the election brung about a lot of rebellion from people of different cultures, religions, races, and even countries. Mass amounts of protests began around the world against Trump and his Presidency. There has never been a presidential election quite as controversial as this one. This is a first to many people and is definitely a major historical event. The Jupiter-Uranus Cycle is a very likely cause in the major shift the election took and the...
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...place where we can learn about them and the problem. When we learn about the other person and their view of the problem it almost forces us to build a relationship. When our relationships are on the line we are willing to find more constructive ways so solve problems or to “think outside the box.” Way of Being Diagram Our way of being is below the surface and influences our behavior. Whether our heart is at peace or at war will change our view and our behavior in the same circumstances. There are two ways that we can see a person as an object or as a person. We have complete control over this; it is a choice that we make. We cannot change the choice that others make however our choices will influence what they see. We find ourselves at a critical crossroads, do we choose to be right or do we choose to be at peace? Choice Diagram The author believes that we naturally see others as people not objects however because we have a choice sometimes we choose not to honor our natural sense. When we choose to betray our sense we end up with a heart at war and we start to see people as objects. When we see people as objects we give them reason to see us as objects, which...
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...America and World War I Jeff Clark HIS/125 5/12/13 Michele Riley When war erupted in 1914, the United States attempted to remain neutral and was a proponent for the rights of neutral states. Isolationist foreign policy was encouraged by Congress's apprehensions about giving other countries a political door into US policies and the cultural melting pot of the United States' population. In spite of these factors, the United States did enter World War I, as a result of several events. In an attempt by both the allied and the central powers to involve the Americans, the US was heavily saturated with propaganda. Much of the material had a Pro-British slant which was aided by the connection to Britain as a "cultural brother" and the United States' concern with affairs in Western Europe. While propaganda sympathetic to Germany did also exist, it did not carry much weight with the American public. Germany was seen by most Americans as a dangerous monarchy with autocratic militarist thinking, including a hidden agenda to undermine democracy and US power. There were allegations of industrial sabotage, poisoning water supplies, kidnapping individuals, and engaging in espionage within American labor unions by Germans to keep the United States busy on the home front. These rumors, along with extensive submarine warfare, added to the distrust of the Germans. The US fought many battles but the second battle of Marne seems to have been the one that led to the demise of Germany...
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...Geopolitical Weekly, George Friedman discussed the geopolitical cycles that change with each generation. Frequently, especially in recent years, those geopolitical cycles have intersected with changes in the way the tactic of terrorism is employed and in the actors employing it. The Arab terrorism that began in the 1960s resulted from the Cold War and the Soviet decision to fund, train and otherwise encourage groups in the Middle East. The Soviet Union and its Middle Eastern proxies also sponsored Marxist terrorist groups in Europe and Latin America. They even backed the Japanese Red Army terrorist group. Places like South Yemen and Libya became havens where Marxist militants of many different nationalities gathered to learn terrorist tradecraft, often instructed by personnel from the Soviet KGB or the East German Stasi and from other militants. The Cold War also spawned al Qaeda and the broader global jihadist movement as militants flocking to fight the Soviet troops who had invaded Afghanistan were trained in camps in northern Pakistan by instructors from the CIA's Office of Technical Services and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. Emboldened by the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and claiming credit for the subsequent Soviet collapse, these militants decided to expand their efforts to other parts of the world. The connection between state-sponsored terrorism and the Cold War ran so deep that when the Cold War ended with the Soviet Union's collapse, many declared...
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...within that economy. There are certain characteristics that are associated with the rate of the GDP. When the economy is going good, unemployment is usually low and wages normally increase. The stock market is usually effected with a big change, up or down, in GDP. Negative GDP growth plays a role in determining a recession, a period when real GDP falls for six months. “Real GDP does not always grow smoothly—sometimes it collapses suddenly, and the result is an economic downturn.” (O’Sullivan, 2014, p. 302). Sometimes this economic downturn can lead to a depression, a severe recession. Moderate contraction and expansion cycles are part of the normal economic system. Throughout history there have been many fluctuations in the GDP of the United States caused for various reasons such as drastic changes in the stock market, oil prices, world events, and wars. Some fluctuations have had more wide-spread, lasting effects than others. The Great Depression was the time from 1929 to 1933 when the real GDP took a nosedive, creating the “most severe disruptions to ordinary economic life in the United States during the twentieth century.” (O’Sullivan, 2014, p. 303). The effects of the Great Depression were felt throughout the world. In 1933, the United States GDP was sitting at -45.32%. The country was still with the grip of the Depression. Many things contributed to that dark time in our history...
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...Although factors such as ideology differences and traditional power rivalry played a part in the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-53, superpower misjudgments account largely to this as well. As Source 7 suggests, mistrust between the US and the Soviet created a vicious cycle which could not be broken after 1945. It states that the US "misread" the Soviet security policy in eastern Europe and saw it as "Soviet expansionism". This, in turn, led the Soviets to misjudge the US policies as "aggressive capitalist expansionism". During the years after WW2, Stalin enforced policies to ensure national security, by establishing a 'buffer' zone. As the USSR had already been invaded twice before through these countries, it can be said that Stalin was only trying to ensure national security. However, US misread the situation as Soviet "expansionism", which in turn led the Soviets to misjudge the US policies as "dollar imperialism", showing that these misjudgments were creating a vicious cycle which could not be broken. Source 8 also supports this view as it suggests that the road to Cold War was "strewn with miscalculations". However, in face value, Source 8 blames the Soviet Union for being responsible. It states that Stalin "overreacted" to any threat in Germany and Eastern Europe and goes on to add that he "triggered" the Berlin Blockade Crisis as well. The Source only describes Stalin's reactions to the situation, thus failing blaming the USSR and failing to bring the...
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...Jorge Romero British Literature Kinzer September 20 2014 Beowulf Beowulf is the heroic tale of a warrior that goes through the infamous hero cycle throughout his journey. Beowulf fought many monsters to defend his kingdom, contributing to the great tale of the mighty Beowulf. The mighty warrior evolved the moment he stepped into Herot. Beowulf is considered a heavily influenced Anglo-Saxon piece of literature, as well as the main character undergoes the hero cycle. Beowulf has many different Pagan and Christian beliefs that are present throughout the story. Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon piece of literature in form of poetry considered an epic. For a story to be classified as Anglo-Saxon, a story must follow certain criteria. It must have began as an oral story passed down from generation to generation. To be considered an Anglo-Saxon poem, a story must have a hard beat, heavy alliteration, and next to no rhyming. Beowulf demonstrates all this characteristics fit to be Anglo-Saxon, it also includes multiple caesuras through the story. “Knowing a man had come--and then nothing But war could have followed. It’s breath came first.”, 667-668 and, “Bent back as Beowulf leaned up on one...
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