...economic, social, and gender. Inequality is an issue, but there need to be poor for there to be rich. The problem is the gap between the rich and the poor. The distribution of wealth is too uneven. The main purpose of this essay is to address the question that many people are asking themselves: is inequality a consequence of too much or too little government intervention. The government intervenes in the economy in four ways. First, it produces public goods and services, such as education, infrastructure, national defense, and health care....
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...Kevin December 11, 2007 Field Guide to the U.S. economy Chapter one from Field Guide to the U.S. Economy analyzes the distribution of wealth between the family and the structures of corporate power. The idea that the wealthy, usually become wealthier is stressed in this chapter. Most of the United States income is distributed to the wealthy; “The richest ten percent of all households own eighty percent of the financial wealth in America (1)”. Average families have most of their wealth invested in their homes. As for the wealthiest, most of their wealth is invested in the form of business equity, real estate, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and trusts. This chapter also stresses that wealth does not only create a higher standard of living, but that wealth influences political outcomes. The economic power of the United States is held in large corporations with single corporate owners. Chapter two expands on the information given in chapter one and expands on welfare and education. The main point of the chapter is poverty hurts kids. I will be expanding on the ideas in the two chapters to show that the gap between the wealthy and poverty is extreme and how it effects households, welfare, and education. Section 1.1 concentrates on who owns how much in America, showing the difference between the worker and owner income. “The rich are different from you and me (3)” said F Scott Fitzgerald. The richest ten percent of U.S households own eighty percent of the countries financial...
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...economy against market failure * Distribute and redistribute the income among individuals to reduce social wealth inequality The priority of those functions varies from country to country and changes in different phases of social and economic development. For most developing countries, the widening gap between the rich and the poor is not only a major economic issue arousing public concern but also a major social issue. The developed west, yet is in need of effective taxation system to tackle with problems such as everlasting heavy deficit and dim market outlook. Table 1 World Gini Indexes for Major Global Economies in 1990, 2000 and 2010 Year | U.S. | Canada | U.K. | Switzerland | Germany | France | Russia | China | Brazil | India | Japan | 1990 | 42.8 | 35.2 | 36.5 | 34.1 | 34.2 | 29.2 | 25.9 | 32.7 | 60.4 | 31.2 | 26.4 | 2000 | 44.2 | 33.3 | 37.5 | 33.4 | 30.3 | 31.1 | 42 | 40.7 | 58.5 | 32 | 27.6 | 2010 | 47 | 33.6 | 35.9 | 32.4 | 30.5 | 33.2 | 35.9 | 48.1 | 49.5 | 35.6 | 32.1 | Among the taxes of all kinds, personal income tax is one of the most effective monetized tools targeting at individual residents and corresponding income source. Hereby, this essay illustrates the challenges in designing an effective income tax system on a basis of social fairness to achieve purposes of distributing and redistributing wealth, promoting social security, and reducing income disparity. Discussion Concerning the Major Taxation System Elements 1. The system selection...
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...Date: October 25th, 2014 Memo to: Toyota Motor Corporation Subject: Executive Strategy & Assessment Executive Summary: Situation Since created Toyota Motor Corporation has focused on innovation and efficiency within its production or manufacturing facilities, and has built its success around this core competency. Recently however many of their competitors have adopted similar practices and have been able to narrow this gap significantly. For this reason these competitors are posing much more of a threat and Toyota may need to change or adjust its current strategy to deal with this problem. These competitors are also investing heavily in the emerging markets Toyota is currently trying to capitalize on. Recommendations After assessing the current strategy at Toyota there are a few recommendations I would make to help them succeed going forward. For one they may want to consider focusing less on labour productivity, as this no longer provides them with as much of a competitive advantage. They may also want to consider investing more in the emerging markets like China and Europe, as well as areas in Africa. They are currently a leader in environmentally friendly technology in the industry, and they should put more emphasis on this because it is becoming more and more important. This is also a great way to separate themselves from competitors. Key Evidence Some of the key evidence to support this involves productivity measures and various manufacturing...
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...Social Inequality essay plans for Part b) 30 mark question Evaluate the usefulness of sociological explanations of ethnic inequalities.(30) Evaluate the view that society is institutionally racist (30) Adapt according to question given Introduction Ethnic inequalities are still significant in the UK – give a few examples. Suggest some explanations e.g Racism, Institutional racism, social class of ethnic minorities (Marxism), welfare dependency (New Right). This essay will identify and assess these explanations. AO1 Define types of Racism e.g Barker and new racism, institutional racism – McPhearson report on murder of stephen lawrence – racism in met police. Jenkins suggests recruitment to jobs is more word of mouth and disadvantages ethnic minorities. Modood 1994 28% of african caribbean people surveyed said they felt they had been refused a job on grounds of race. AO2 There are many government acts such as Race relations acts which should prevent discrimination AO2 However because racism is implicit (hidden) now it can be difficult to prove in court. AO1 Marxists such as Westergaard and Resler argue that race is a distraction from the real issue which is social class. It is capitalism which disadvantages certain groups and ethnic minorities are more likely to be in lower classes. AO2 However this ignores the existence of racism in society e.g in education where black boys have the highest exclusion rates in school. AO1 Another marxist explanation by Castles...
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...In his essay, “The New American Divide,” Charles Murray provides a more in depth look into the large gap that separates the classes in America, both financially and culturally, and how it has evolved over time. From the beginning, he emphasizes the dissolution of a “common civic culture” as previously widespread values such as marriage and a hard work ethic become less commonly held among the greater American populace. Even though the gap in wealth has always existed in America, in earlier eras there still existed a sense of cultural equality among the classes, or at least among the non-Latino white population. He states that Americans pride themselves in the idea of a cultural equality between all citizens; however, Murray feels that this cultural equality is decreasingly true since the 1960s as citizens of contrasting classes have evolved differently over the decades from 1960 to 2010. Murray defines this common civic culture as “a culture encompassing shared experiences of daily life and shared assumptions about central American values involving marriage, honesty, hard work, and religiosity” that most Americans, if not all, of all social classes share (Murray 348). Murray states that over the past fifty years, this civic culture has progressively fallen apart and a new upper class as well as a new lower class has emerged. This new upper class has advanced educations, shared opinions, and specified preferences that set them apart from mainstream America, as compared...
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...‘Conservatism merely reflects the interests of the privileged and prosperous.’ Discuss (45) This statement is asking whether all forms of conservatism’s values and actions in the past are because they wish to reflect the interests of those in society who are better off, sacrificing the interests of the less well off in doing so. The current debate is very unclear as opinion on this does, and always has varied greatly. Generally, left-wing labour supporters believe this statement is true whereas the rest of society do not agree. Conservatives have strenuously denied this claim over the years. This essay will argue that Conservatism does in fact merely reflect the interests of the privileged and prosperous, despite this claim being strongly denied by current and past conservatives. On one hand, Conservatism does not merely reflect the interests of the privileged and prosperous, as they believe that tradition and authority benefits everyone, as it provides security and stability in society. Authority, which is the right to exercise power over others, is seen by conservatives as a guarantee of social order because it provides security and stability. People know ‘where they stand’ and what their roles are in society. There are those that are ‘leaders’ and those that are ‘followers’. This is reflected in Edmund Burke’s belief in a ‘natural aristocracy’, which is the belief in an aristocracy, which arises out of work and competition rather than birth, education, or special privilege...
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...1.0 Introduction Unemployment is defined as a situation where an individual of working age is not able to get a job but would like to be in full time employment. Unemployment statistics measure the situation and the level of joblessness within an economy. The unemployment rate is the key measure, which is the number of unemployed workers divided by the total individuals in the labor force. There are five types of unemployment which are Frictional Unemployment, Structural Unemployment, Cyclical Unemployment, Technological Unemployment and Seasonal Unemployment. Frictional unemployment is when an individual moving from one job to another; the unemployment temporarily experienced when looking for one’s new job. A structural unemployment is caused by the location of the job, the individual’s skill or the geographical reason. While a cyclical unemployment is caused by a business cycle recession, when there is lack of aggregate demand for labor. The replacement of workers to machineries or advanced technologies is called technological unemployment. Last but not least, the seasonal unemployment occurs when a particular job is not in demand at certain seasons. Unemployment is a crucial issue for every country in the world, especially those developing countries with a remarkable population. High unemployment rate indicates that labor resources are not being used efficiently. Fortunately, the unemployment rate in Malaysia (3.2%) is not as high as in United State, which is...
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...females. This is commonly referred to as gender inequality. According to Dorius and Firebaugh (2010), gender inequality is where one gender possesses an excessively large proportion of valued items, such as political influence, wages or good health. Although every region of the world has developed policies and laws to tackle gender inequality, Asia-Pacific has countries with varying social and economic circumstances. This essay will examine gender inequality in two Asia-Pacific states, namely China and Singapore. The essay will consider employment and family-based gender inequality in each nation and assess the similarities and differences between them. Gender inequality has major impacts on nations, in particular on the Asia-Pacific zone. Francisco (2007) delineates various forms of inequality, namely mortality, natality, basic facility, special opportunity, professional, ownership and household forms of inequality. In this field, Jutting, Morrison, Dayton- Johnson and Drechsler (2008) argue that gender equality is vital to promote economic growth, wealth creation and poverty reduction. As an illustration, the Asia-Pacific region foregoes approximately 2-4 percent of GDP per year due to low female workforce participation rates (UNDP 2014a). Similarly, Plagnol and Scott (2009) cite a leading study that shows women are subject to a “pay penalty”. This is evidenced by females being paid between 15 and 50 percent less for the same job (Burnett 2010). This underlines...
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...members in society. Depending on the desire of such society an economic society can promote individual freedom, individual accumulation of wealth or promote fairness through distributive justice. The aim of this essay is to find a model that not only creates financial freedom for the entire New Zealand population, but also promote fairness and equality through a social justice system. The New Zealand economic system is predominately a free market system. Free market systems inherently promote competition and drives efficiency. Free market systems work very well under a microeconomic model with small businesses owned by one or view individuals that drive efficiency with a high level of competition (Layton, 2009). Unfortunately it does not always promote fairness especially when companies become larger and the competition is reduced to only a few in the market (competing against each other). New Zealand markets are mainly driven by producing commodity-base products which are in high demand in the rest of the world (Treasury, 2010). This in turn creates a demand for labour, with workers offering their time and energy paid in wages. This wage system makes the worker dependent on his employer, to build his or her own wealth. This creates a shift in a society where the individual loses the financial freedom insofar as his only way of creating wealth is through his wage. In such a labour driven economy the worker may be paid well, but in the end he simply becomes a wage slave (Jimenez...
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...Argumentative Essay Poverty is one of the most significant and serious issues in the world. Today, millions of people are dealing with the cruel life conditions and trying to reach proper health care, nutrition, and shelter to survive. While the awareness of poverty is increasing, the majority of societies still display less attention to the causes and outcomes of poverty. It has been argued that people are poor because of their own personal shortcomings. However, rather than blaming the poor people, we should focus on the real causes of poverty, such as, effects of the economic system, economic disadvantages caused by geographical factors, and the limitations of possible solutions. It has been claimed that because of cultural, religious, physical, or intellectual deficiencies, people are poor. In other words, many people believe that poverty is the fault of those poor people. However, the tendency of “blaming the victim” is actually the main cause of poverty (Boleria and Wotherspoon, 2000). Capitalism dominates almost all of the countries and creates enormous inequalities between social classes. Since capitalism is a profit-based system, wages of working class are restrained to maintain surplus value and reinforce the segmentation between well paid jobs and marginalized jobs. Poverty is one of the reflections of this profit-based system and it is particularly derived from the high unemployment rates, the huge gap between rich and poor, and unequal distribution of wealth. The owners...
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...Analysis of current training programs of practicing MSEs owners with the aim of enhancing their entrepreneurship aspects. A case study of Roysambu. N. JORAM NGA’NG’A A research proposal submitted to the School of Human resource and development in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Masters of Science in Entrepreneurship of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. March, 2011 Declaration This research proposal is my original work and has not been presented for a degree in other University. Signature……………… Date……………….. N. Joram Nga’ng’a HD313-0402/2009 This research proposal has been submitted for examination with my approval as the university supervisor. Signature……………… Date……………….. Bwisa H.M.. Phd Acknowledgement I owe my family a debt of gratitude for where I am education-wise especially my mum. Am also very thankful to my supervisor for the guiding me through this tough moment. Any other person who has made an impact on my life: my friends, relatives and lecturers should also receives my thanks. TABLE OF CONTENT Declaration ii Acknowledgement iii Definition of terms. vi Abbreviations vi Abstract vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.0. Background 1 1.2. Problem statement 3 1.3. Objectives 4 1.4. Research questions 4 1.5. Significance of the study 5 1.6. Justification of the study. 5 1.7. Assumption of the study. 6 1.8. Limitations and delimitations: 6 Limitations...
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...ABSTRACT This paper is intended to provide critical responses to the weaknesses of globalization and corruption in the world that we are currently living based on the mixed economic worldview which is my personal economic worldview which threatens to undermine the stability of economic and political development on both a national and global scale, and which requires both immediate and wide-ranging policy interventions. The recent concern with corruption is attributable, not to any substantive increase in corrupt practices, but rather, to the re-framing of corruption in light of broader shifts and transformations within the global economy. The historical context of globalization covers centuries. This paper reviews the types, forms as well as the consequences of corruption. The paper also reviews the issues associated with globalization and the effect it has on the lives of various individuals. It questions the view that, under certain conditions, corruption may enhance efficiency and argues that though corruption may benefit powerful individuals it will indubitably lead to greater inefficiency and a waste of resources at a macro-economic level. Table of Contents ABSTRACT i INTRODUCTION iii BACKGROUND iv Forms of Corruption vi 1.1 Bribery vi 1.2 Theft and fraud vi 1.3 Embezzlement vi 1.4 Nepotism vi 1.5 Conflict of Interest vi 1.6 Favouritism vii Types of Corruption vii 2.1. Grand corruption vii 2.2 Political corruption vii 2.3 Corporate corruption...
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...Comment on the relative performance of the UK, France, Germany and the USA since 1997. Over the last 10 years the economic performance of the European countries and the US has varied a lot, due to the external shocks (terrorist attacks) and economic policies. While France and Germany do not have control over their monetary policy, the UK and the US do. Therefore the rest of this essay will analyse the difference in the economic performance of those countries over the last 10 year and provide some explanations for the difference that occurred. Graph 1. Relative GDP Performance Source: Euro State, 2007 From Graph 1, it can be seen that the UK has the most stable growth over the last 10 years, while Germany had the highest variation in its GDP performance. All of the countries saw a sharp decline in their GDP growth after the 9th September 2001, with the USA worst affected. However, such a sharp decline has also allowed the US to reshape its GDP the most by 2004. In comparison, Germany’s sharp decline in 2001 has led to a further GDP decline in 2002 and in 2003 the country saw negative economic growth. Over the last 10 years the US saw the highest overall growth in its GDP (28.9%), closely followed by the UK (28.5%) and France (22.8%). Germany struggled with only a 15.5% increase. Graph 2. Relative GDP performance of Germany and France against EU15 Source: Euro State, 2007 Graph 2 shows the performance of France and Germany relative...
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...gradually increased its presence in our daily lives. In this essay, I will point out who are the ones benefited and the ones injured from it by breaking down the question in four broad aspects: economic, political, socio-cultural and environmental. Seemingly, I will analyse the causals for this particular outcomes and distributions that indicate that globalization is creating further divergence in our world increasingly fragmented and unequal. The globalization winners – predominantly developed countries, the top 1% wealthiest demographic segments, transnational companies (TNC’s), supranational organizations amongst others – deeply embedded in the neoliberal belief that markets are the answer to global growth through trade, fostered by incentives such as low tariffs and interest rates and minimal government intervention find themselves unattached to the markedly less benefited, the losers– developing countries, especially their poorest demographic segments, the low-skilled low-wage percentage of workforce, the unemployed, the minorities, women amongst others – who in turn find themselves trapped in this zero-sum cycle where one either leads globalization or follows it – at risk of falling behind – but not either. Globalization, as most concepts in IPE and other social sciences, is a highly contested concept and encompasses a wide range of topics such as money, ideas, cultures, etc. However for the purposes of this essay we will refer to the degree of countries’ interconnectedness;...
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