Whether a Cut in Corp Tax Rate be Beneficial Essays -- Corporate Taxes

Whether a Cut in Corp Tax Rate be Beneficial Doesn’t everyone want to keep what he/she has earned? It has always been somewhat tradition for Americans to work hard for their money, only to see some of it squandered away come tax time. Wouldn’t a tax cut, for some, be like a divine, heavenly grace? As the year 2001 unfolds and George W. Bush begins his presidency, income tax rates have, in fact, become a concern. President Bush is pushing for an income tax bill that will reduce the tax brackets from 15%, 28%, 31%, 36%, and 39.6% to a new bracket in 2006 of 10%, 15%, 25%, and 33%. A cut in individual income taxes would benefit most Americans and is well deserved. However, there is no plan to cut the corporate tax rates yet. A hypothetical decline to the corporate tax rates could spawn a number of possibilities for firms and/or even influence the market. However, will a decline in the corporate tax rate positively influence market volume and different firms’ financial activities (i.e. investing, repurchasing , options)? A question of this nature can be answered through analysis of the benefits or detriments obtained by two companies due to the reduction. There is a basic relationship between the market volume and corporate tax rates. A decrease in the corporate rates would allow companies to pay less on their earnings, leaving them with more Net Income (NI). With this increase in net income, a company can afford to invest in other areas or it allows them to repurchase their stock. By repurchasing stock, the market volume drops by the amount of stock that has been bought back. In addition, buying back shares can affect the overall outcome of the market that day depending on the company engaging in the repurchase. A company with a large stake in the market who buys back a considerable amount of stock will cause a greater fluctuation in the volume. In buying shares, the overall value of the market will rise due to the price increases that occur. If the opposite occurs, the tax rate is increased; some firms may have different decisions to make. Because an increase in the tax rate affects a company’s net income in a negative manne r, funds for operations and other activities will become diminished. With the net income being less significant, a firm may need to participate in a form of either debt or equity financing to obtain funds needed to operate. Upon re... ...is beneficial depends on the company in which the tax cut will be implemented on. For Ford Motor Company, a tax cut might work to their favor. By decreasing the rate, Ford’s return on equity will increase. However, Merck & Co. may hope for a veto of that tax cut. With a cut they would be increasing their cost of debt, in which they have excess financing ($161 billion). They would also lose out on their tax shield from the interest on their debt. Overall, the economy, the market, and the individual sectors seem to be doing well. To tamper with things now would almost certainly throw a wrench into what the Fed has already done to try and stimulate the economy. To follow in the old proverb, â€Å"If it isn’t broke then don’t try to fix it.† Benefits and detriments are, in this scenario, purely reliant on the company and its type of business. Bibliography: Kim, Yun-Hee. â€Å"IntelliCorp Raises $5M In Equity Financing.† Wall Street Journal Interactive.(March 12, 2001). Lazo, Shirley A. â€Å"Bush’s Tax Plan: Dividend Booster.† Wall Street Journal Interactive.(March 12, 2001). Needles, Anderson, and Caldwell. Principles of Accounting. Princeton, NJ: Houghton Mifflin, 1996 (p.1162).

Intelligence, “Nature Versus Nurture” Essay

Intelligence is the ability to learn facts and skills and apply them; it can also be referred to as knowledge. When we look at knowledge we typically look at it from the aspect of nature and nurture, nature being what we come into this world with and nurture is what we acquire after we have entered this world. But the question I am focused on is where do we get our intelligence, are we born with it or are we somewhat gaining it after birth, is a new born child capable of knowing what is happening around him and grow up knowing how to act as an adult from birth or do he have to acquire the ability for adult performance?. So the experiment I am referring to was taught by one Dr. Richard Gerring, where taking a new born child and imagine what it would be like to come into a situation as such a child. One such example of testing intelligence starts with perceptions. It was thought for a long time that children was color blind, because we could not just ask a neonate â€Å"do you see colors?†, so the first experiment to detect whether a child perceive color would be from one researcher by the name of Burstein. Burstein took a set of 3 month old kids and give them solid colored toys and soon the kids got tired of looking at the toys over and over again; now the simple fact about colors is the wave length that they give off, colors such as green or orange gives off a bright wave length that is attractive, but a color like grey and white has dull wave lengths. Or also if you keep looking at the same color whether bright green or red you would soon get tired of the color because your brain has already adapted to it and you become bored. So to test this theory I did my own experiment. Scientific Question: Can children perceive colors and understand change although they are small and have not yet fully acquired learn intelligence of difference? Hypothesis: Children do perceive colors, they also have an intelligence of change in the factors around them just as older children and adults do even though they are of young age. My objective: To see whether children do perceive and understand colors although they may not know the colors by names, do they have the ability to detect the change from such a young age. Type of design of Qualitative Investigation: Investigation-action So with this experiment I am taking Three (5) children ages 3 months to 2 years old and place all of them in the same room for 5 days for 3 hours with the same set of toys: 2 red truck and 4 yellow cars. Based on investigation 5 days/3 hours results, an action would be taken to confirm findings. Methology The study type that we will carry out is descriptive. Universe: A preschool at the Community center, Vanard, Castries. Manipulate: 5 children ages 3 months to 2 years old. Operational variables: Sex and ages of the children, place and time Independent Variables: Colors of toys Techniques used to obtain the data of this study: * Direct Observation There needs to be constant observation of the children while playing with the toys and note the level of interest that is given to each toy over the period of 5 days for 3 hours, and then analyze data at the end of each day whether the interest dwindles or not. Make a note of just how much had the attention dwindled. Analysis of Data: Day 1: All 5 kids are happy with the new toys for the 3 hours Day 2: All kids are happy and move around contentedly with the toys Day 3: The Kids are demonstrating a lack of interest in the toys now and have come to interchange a lot between the 6 pieces. Day 4: The children are no long grabbing for the toys but are beginning to get very frets and occasionally when I give them a toy they may calm a bit but then continue to fret. Obvious signs that they no longer are interested in the toys. Day 5: Today is they last day and I have noticed for the past 2 hours nobody took the toys, at the 3rd hour they were all crying. Gathered Results: At the end of day five, I had a set of crying kids on my hands who were obviously unhappy and who were definitely were no longer interested in the given toys. So can I determine that the Children are just bored by the toys in themselves or the colors? So now what I would do is my action to the investigation to confirm the results from the 5 days. I took the same set of toys, 2 red truck and 4 yellow cars and I repainted them (please note that paint used was indeed child friendly and not harmful in toxins). The toys were repainted and reintroduced again the next day for the same 3 hours. Final Results: Amazing! The Kids grabbed at those toys as if they were new and were all laughs with the very same toys that yesterday received no attention. This proves simply that young children although they are not yet well cognitively develop do see colors. The fact that they saw the same color toys for 5 days for 3 hours and got bored on day 5 but had renewed interest in the same give toy on the 6 day when reintroduced in different colors told me they got a new stimulus to the change. That is a pretty interesting knowledge to confirm. For these children to know the difference in vision and its change and take interest in the toys do tells me they brought some intelligence into this into the world. So here we can see that we are born with the concept of knowing differences, which is great for gaining ability throughout life. Dr. Richard Gerring was saying that another way to tell children have intelligence is by using checkers on a board. You can use a young child under 5 years old and you spread the checker pieces between you and the child evenly, and ask the child who has more checkers, the child would say that you have more if you do or they do they would say. The point to this is that children understand the concept of   â€Å"more or less† although they do not know how to count. If you use two glasses of water then they can say which glass has more water and which do not. The fact that they understand quantity although they cannot express it shows intelligence that can be developed. So as the child gets older you start counting fingers and toes and soon the child can tell you that you have maybe ‘6’ more than they do or ‘6’ less. The fact that they grow to understand numbering tells us that they acquire knowledge and increase their intelligence from the mere concept of visual â€Å"more or less† that they originally had. So when we think of  intelligence and we think of knowledge in the sense of nature vs nurture, we can safely say that some intelligence we are born with and are integrated in our genes and there are some intelligence that are acquired and expanded upon but learning and concurring. Does this mean that our behavior can be manipulated from an early age through education? This question is answered by a simple experiment. The experiment can be done by looking at how kids acquire action to word, if you try to speak to a child age 3 years as you would an adult the child would be confused. So you have to simplify your speech to that child to get him/her to do what you need him/her to do. Like when you are getting a child to eat food, you would put the child in the high chair and by actions show the child you are opening in your mouth while saying â€Å"aaaahh†, your mouth opening and the word â€Å"aaaah† suggest that every time you do the action and bring the spoon up with food you want the child to open their mouth and eat. So you link action and words which manipulates the child actions and often you hear people saying the words like â€Å"yum yum† with a smiling expression while the child’s eating to get them to understand that what they are eating is good. Therefore we get actions to words and perception of the food. So when it comes to knowledge our environmental factors can con-coursing an influence us, bringing us into making decisions and having preferences to things that we were not born with. Reference Life of the Mind: Introduction to Psychology, Richard Gerring.

City of God vs. The Protestant Reformations Essay

Introduction: The belief that God is present to the human mind and soul, and can be found is part of the Christian tradition. Many Christian philosophers seem to regard this as the concern only of specially devout persons and of no interest for philosophical purposes. The evidence for it, they think, it too slender to be taken seriously by academic philosophers without particular interest in religion, who tend to regard anything in the nature of religious experience as suspect. So, philosophical discussions about religion are usually concerned with rational arguments for and against theism, usually of a technical kind. In this article, I want to discuss the Augustine world with the reformist will as proposed by Martin Luther. One of the great cornerstones in the history of Christian thought, The City of God is vital to an understanding of modern Western society and how it came into being. Begun in A.D. 413 by Saint Augustine, the great theologian who was bishop of Hippo, the book’s initial purpose was to refute the charge that Christianity was to blame for the fall of Rome (which had occurred just three years earlier). Augustine’s City of God, a monumental work of religious lore, philosophy, and history, was written as a kind of literary tombstone for Roman culture. After the downfall of Rome, Augustine wrote this book to portray the corruption of Romans’ pursuit of earthly pleasures: â€Å"grasping for praise, open-handed with their money; honest in the pursuit of wealth, they wanted to hoard glory.† Augustine contrasts his condemnation of Rome with an exaltation of Christian culture. The glory that Rome failed to attain will only be realized by citizens of the City of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem foreseen in Revelation. On the other hand Hans J. Hillerbrand in his book â€Å"The Protestant Reformation† says â€Å"When the reformers who had first ventured a new interpretation of the gospel had passed from the scene, the question which had haunted the Reformation from its very inception–where is truth?–was still contested by the proponents of the old and the new faith. But one fact was beyond dispute: Western Christendom was tragically divided†¦into no less than five religious factions†¦.Though these divisions were the result of intense religious conviction, they could not help but lessen the intensity of religious belief in Europe. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was the last period in the history of Western civilization when men were preoccupied with religion, argued it, fought and even died for it. Its consequences are still with us†. Argument: The two cities in city of God and the two wills in Lutheranism No book except the Bible itself had a greater influence on the Middle Ages than the â€Å"City of God†. Since medieval Europe has been the cradle of today’s Western civilization, this work by consequence is vital for an understanding of our world and how it came into being. St. Augustine is often regarded as the most influential Christian thinker after St. Paul, and this book highlights upon a vast synthesis of religious and secular knowledge. It began as a reply to the charge that Christian otherworldliness was causing the decline of the Roman Empire. Augustine produced a wealth of evidence to prove that paganism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Then he proceeded to his larger theme, a cosmic interpretation of history in terms of the struggle between good and evil: the City of God in conflict with the Earthly City or the City of the Devil. This, the first serious attempt at a philosophy of history, was to have incalculable influence in forming the Western mind on the relations of church and state, and on the Christian’s place in the temporal order. It is more than a question of setting down on paper a series of abstract principles and then applying them in practice. Christianity is more than a moral code, more than a philosophy, more than a system of rites. Although it is sufficient, in the abstract, to divide the Catholic religion into three aspects and call them creed, code and cult, yet in practice, the integral Christian life is something far more than all this. It is more than a belief; it is a life. That is to say, it is a belief that is lived and experienced and expressed in action. The action in which it is expressed, experienced and lived is called a mystery. This mystery is the sacred drama which keeps ever present in history the Sacrifice that was once consummated by Christ on Calvary. In plain words–if you can accept them as plain–Christianity is the life and death and resurrection of Christ going on day after day in the souls of individual men and in the heart of society. It is this Christ-life, this incorporation into the Body of Christ, this union with His death and resurrection as a matter of conscious experience, that St. Augustine wrote of in his Confessions. But Augustine not only experienced the reality of Christ living in his own soul. He was just as keenly aware of the presence and action, the Birth, Sacrifice, Death and Resurrection of the Mystical Christ in the midst of human society. And this experience, this vision, if you would call it that, qualified him to write a book that was to be, in fact, the autobiography of the Catholic Church. That is what The City of God is. Just as truly as the Confessions are the autobiography of St. Augustine, The City of God is the autobiography of the Church written by the most Catholic of her great saints. Evidently, the treatment of the theme is so leisurely and so meandering and so diffuse that The City of God, more than any other book, requires an introduction. The best we can do here is to offer a few practical suggestions as to how to tackle it. The first of these suggestions is this: since, after all, The City of God reflects much of St. Augustine’s own personality and is colored by it, the reader who has never met Augustine before ought to go first of all to the Confessions. Once he gets to know the saint, he will be better able to understand Augustine’s view of society. Then, no one who is not a specialist, with a good background of history or of theology or of philosophy, ought not to attempt to read the City, for the first time, beginning at page one. The living heart of the City is found in Book Nineteen, and this is the section that will make the most immediate appeal to us today because it is concerned with the theology of peace. However, Book Nineteen cannot be understood all by itself. The best source for solutions to the most pressing problems it will raise is Book Fourteen, where the origin of the two Cities is sketched, in an essay on original sin. On the other hand the protestant reformation deals with the religious movement which made its appearance in western Europe in the sixteenth century, and which, while ostensibly aiming at an internal renewal of the church, really led to a great revolt against it, and an abandonment of the principal Christian beliefs. The causes of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century must be sought as far back as the fourteenth. The doctrine of the church, it is true, had remained pure; saintly lives were yet frequent in all parts of Europe, and the numerous beneficent medieval institutions of the church continued their course uninterruptedly. Whatever unhappy conditions existed were largely due to civil and profane influences or to the exercise of authority by ecclesiastics in civil spheres; they did not obtain everywhere with equal intensity, nor did they always occur simultaneous in the same country. Ecclesiastical and religious life exhibited in many places vigor and variety; works of education and charity abounded; religious art in all its forms had a living force; domestic missionaries were many and influential; pious and edifying literature was common and appreciated. Gradually, however, and largely owing to the variously hostile spirit of the civil powers, fostered and heightened by several elements of the new order, there grew up in many parts of Europe political and social conditions which hampered the free reformatory activities of the church, and favored the bold and unscrupulous, who seized a unique opportunity to let loose all the forces of heresy and schism so long held in check by the harmonious action of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. Luther’s theology is his understanding of God that can be summarized as Gottes Gottheit, which means â€Å"God is God.† In the deepest sense, Luther believes that God is above all and in all. God, through his creative power, reveals that he is free and immutable. He alone can bring life into existence. He alone sustains life. He alone freely wills. Moreover, what God wills can not be impeded or resisted by a mere creature. God is all-powerful and therefore, God’s will is alone immutable. Any person, therefore, that appeals to the freedom of human will attempts to usurp for themselves an attribute that belongs only to God. The free and immutable will of God is, in Luther’s writings, fundamental to a right and proper faith. Without it, God is not God and Scripture would, therefore, have to be annulled. In BOW, Luther constantly emphasizes these two characteristics of the will of God and points out their significance for the Faith. In addition, Luther argues that God has two wills as pertains His nature: (1) the revealed will of His word and, (2) the hidden or inscrutable will. These characteristics of God’s will provide the basis for understanding and interpreting Luther’s conviction that the human will is enslaved. For Luther, the free will of God is not simply God’s limitless and unobstructed ability to choose between any set of variables in any set of circumstances. Rather, it is God’s unique ability to transcend all these variables and circumstances to perform, or not perform, any action that He desires. God’s will is not contingent upon the will of any other being. In ceaseless activity, God creates the possibilities. As such, the free will of God is most plainly revealed to humanity through His creative acts. God freely chooses to create our present reality and likewise, He freely sustains this reality. In fact, reality does not exist except by the will of God. To this all-encompassing extent then, Luther asserts that God is all in all. Nothing is that God does not declare to be. And, it is this creative power that manifests God’s freedom, His free will. In recognizing Luther’s pronounced emphasis on God’s sovereignty, Paul Althaus declares: â€Å"God is the first or principal cause, all others are only secondary or instrumental causes. They are only the tools which he uses in the service of his own autonomous, free, and exclusive working; they are only the masks under which he hides his activity†. The second characteristic of God’s   will that is crucial to Luther’s understanding of the bondage of the human will, is its immutability. That is, God’s will can not be changed, altered or impeded. The immutability of God’s will is the logical conclusion to the freedom of God’s will. God’s sovereignty and almighty power demands that whatever God wills happens by necessity. Nothing occurs contingently. God’s will does not act independently of reality, as the human will does, but rather, God’s will creates reality. In Luther’s theology, the will of God is not contingent and so likewise, the foreknowledge of God is also not contingent. For whatever God wills, he foreknows and so, whatever He foreknows must, by necessity, happen. For if it did not happen, then God would be fallible and His will contingent which Luther declares â€Å"is not to be found in God!†   It is the immutable will of God, acting freely, that provides the Christian with â€Å"the assurance of things hoped for† (Heb 11:1), namely that the promises of God will be fulfilled. As Luther suggests, â€Å"the Christian’s chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His will cannot be resisted, altered or impeded. â€Å"Indeed, for Luther, the conviction that God’s will is free and immutable must be central to the Faith. Yet, Luther’s theology presents a problem: if God wills everything and everything He wills comes to pass then one must conclude that God wills the salvation of few and the damnation of many (cf. Mt 22:14). Luther answered this dilemma by teaching that God has two wills, the revealed and the hidden. As Luther declares in BOW, God’s decree to damn â€Å"the undeserving . . . [who are] compelled by natural necessity to sin and perish† does indeed seem horrible. Moreover, all rational and philosophical knowledge of God can not avoid the terrible reality of this conclusion, for as Luther concedes, the â€Å"injustice of God . . . is traduced as such by arguments which no reason or light of nature can resist†. Luther understands this horrible decree in light of God’s justice in two ways. For Luther, the answer to these questions is twofold: (1) we must simply believe that God’s justice is righteous because in Christ God has proven His love and compassion and, (2) we should not probe into the hidden or inscrutable will of God wherein God operates paradoxically, i.e. righteousness made evident through unrighteousness. Luther’s twofold answer to the questions of damnation reveals a high view of God’s sovereignty and majesty. Moreover, the answer is in accordance with Luther’s view that God’s will is uniquely free and immutable. The answer also demands that the Christian simply trust in God. The Christian must believe all that is revealed in Scripture, not merely those things that are pleasant to the senses, and as such, we are compelled to accept the fact that God actively chooses to reject certain people. Nevertheless, if God has said in His Word that He is loving and gracious, and He has revealed himself to be such through His forbearance with the Israelites and the glorious plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, but what right can we judge the manner in which God oversees and sustains the world? For Luther, this is precisely the point at which the Christian must heed the words of God, spoken through the prophet Isaiah: â€Å"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts† (Isa 55:8-9). Luther would likewise appeal to God’s answer to Job in Job 38-41 and the words of Paul in Romans 9:20 as yet other examples of the futility of comprehending the incomprehensible and inscrutable will of God. Luther, therefore, answers the critics of predestination and defends God’s decree to affect unbelief in people by appealing to this inscrutable wisdom and will of God, a will that cannot be understood by any attempt of human reason. Because God is God, He has the right to condemn man for sins that God works in Him.10 And so, it is by faith that the Christian simply trusts that God is righteous, loving and gracious in so working. Luther consoles the Christian by exhorting them to look only to the revealed will of God that promises salvation to all who receive Christ. Thus, He does not will the death of a sinner-that is, in His Word; but He wills it by His inscrutable will. At present, however, we must keep in view His Word and leave alone His inscrutable will; for it is by His Word, and not by His inscrutable will, that we must be guided. Yet, for Luther, knowing that God does possess a hidden and inscrutable will of God provides valuable insights for the Christian. The inscrutable will of God tempers the revealed will of God. The doctrine of the free, immutable and inscrutable will of God, therefore, contributes three important foundations to the Christian Faith: (1) God is sovereign, all-powerful and therefore, even evil is under the sway of His goodness and as such, the Christian can be certain that the promises of God will be realized, (2) humanity is not free to earn or demand anything of God and so, God’s gift of salvation can truly be called free and gracious and, (3) the Christian, in response to these truths, is properly humbled and learns, in reverent adoration, to fear God, who acts freely and immutability for His glory. In consequence of his view of God’s will, Luther’s view of the human will is necessarily placed in total subjection to the Divine. It is in this respect that Luther stands in contrast to Erasmus. Luther’s discussion of this topic is theocentric, beginning with a discussion of God and His attributes whereas Erasmus belies an anthropocentric view, beginning with human experience. For Luther, that God’s will is immutable logically demands that man’s will is mutable. For if God’s will is not contingent but immutable and free, no other will can be also be immutable and free otherwise these wills could impede one another and consequently, these wills would no longer be immutable and free but rather, they would be subject to one another. As such, Luther rightly proclaims the inconsistency of the term free will. In Luther’s writings, there are three primary considerations to consider in evaluating the characteristics of the human will: (1) the human will is mutable, (2) as a consequence of the Fall, the human will is enslaved to sin and, (3) the human will requires the grace of God, offered through the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ Jesus, to affect any positive change in a person’s life. Luther’s position on the Divine and human wills was not a small matter to him. In Table-Talk, Luther once stated in regards to his position that â€Å"I know it to be the truth, though all the world should be against it; yea, the decree of Divine Majesty must stand fast against the gates of hell.† The belief that humanity is enslaved to sin and that it is only by sovereign election that God saves a person formed the basis for Luther’s conviction of justification by grace through faith. Grace is one the most important principles of biblical interpretation to Luther and no where is divine grace more evident than in the doctrine of election. And, it is this sola gratia principle of Luther’s faith that preserves the eternal significance of Christ’s death and resurrection. It is by his sacrifice, not by our own works, that God graciously extends salvation to the elect. As Luther often remarked, to assert the freedom of the will is to deny the necessity of Christ’s atoning work. Conclusion Augustine produced a wealth of evidence to prove that paganism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction. By means of his contrast of the earthly and heavenly cities–the one pagan, self-centered, and contemptuous of God and the other devout, God-centered, and in search of grace–Augustine explored and interpreted human history in relation to eternity. Saint Augustine examines the failure of Roman religion and the flaws in human civilization, thus creating the first Christian philosophy of history. Against the ‘city’, i.e., society, of many gods, there is but one alternate society, this Augustine calls The City of God, adopting the expression found in several of King David’s psalms. Not only is the society of many gods the society of polytheists, it is also the â€Å"city† of pantheists, atheistic materialists and philosophical Cynics. In the case of the Cynics and atheists, these false gods are the myriad gods of self, indeed, at least as many gods (selves) as there are believers in them. Thus there are two â€Å"cities†, two loves, two ways to understand the big questions of existence, two destinations. Says Augustine:   Ã¢â‚¬Å"The one City began with the love of God; the other had its beginnings in the love of self.† XIV:13. â€Å"The city of man seeks the praise of men, whereas the height of glory for the other is to hear God in the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own boasting; the other says to God: ‘Thou art my glory, thou liftest up my head.’ (Psalm 3.4) In the city of the world both the rulers themselves and the people they dominate are dominated by the lust for domination; whereas in the City of God all citizens serve one another in charity. . .† References 1. http://www.newadvent.org The Catholic encyclopedia The Journal Of Religion, J. Jeffery Tyler, volume 85, Part 1(2005), pages 317 – 319 Althaus, Paul. The Theology of Martin Luther. Translation of 2nd edition by Robert C. Schultz. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1966 –. Luther’s Works, Volume 31: Career of the Reformer I. ed. Philip S. Watson. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1957.

The non-fictional music review

The non-fictional music review is aimed at audiences of all ages, mostly to the public who are contemplating buying or listening to the album. Although the foundation of this review is referential, it grows into more of an expressive and opinionated description of the tracks. There is an informal, planned and context bound structure, which will possess semi-permanence, as although it will be saved on the Internet, it does not contain enough importance to be around permanently. The introducing paragraph with a simile attached to a metaphor to portray the band's history – â€Å"chucked back and forth between critics like a piece of bait between angry dogs†. This gives a sense of the band having a rollercoaster-ride time in the media and instantly gives interest as to why this band has had so much attention. The adjacency pair of a rhetorical question â€Å"and what do they have to say†¦?† and an answer â€Å"This album† is resembling the reader's questioning thoughts to the previous statement and turns the subject from the band's past to the present. A description of adjectives and noun phrases follows – â€Å"filled with argumentative lyrics and catchy tunes to fight back to the critics† The next paragraph is informational with numerical adjectives â€Å"20th July 2008†, â€Å"300,000†, â€Å"2.5 million† and â€Å"number 8† to give a factual background for the curious readers. Quoting a member of the band and the producer also interests fans – â€Å"Tom Fletcher revealed†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , â€Å"Producer Jason Perry describes† I included an intensifier – which I continuously used to keep interest and keep an elevated description – to give the image of exaggerated annoyance all over Britain and raise the importance of the band: â€Å"†¦beat them in the battle of the charts caused uproar†. I used repetition on the word â€Å"smile† in â€Å"†¦anyone tapping the steering wheel on a gloomy Monday morning to work with a smile on their face† and â€Å"the ironically named â€Å"Smile†, reminding everyone to â€Å"Just remember to smile, smile, smile,†Ã¢â‚¬  to represent the sunny attitude. In the former quote, I created a common exemplar situation to give a personal twist to the factual content. In the conclusion I quickly described their past work with an over-use of adjectives and proper nouns. I started the last paragraph with a concluding recommendation summary with a similar question-answer format to the beginning of the review (â€Å"have to say†¦? This album.† ) – â€Å"Contemplating†¦ worth your hard-earned cash, the answer is yes†. The finale statement is then an imperative order, â€Å"buy this album†.

The effect of a new drug on blood pressure. Testing Research Paper

The effect of a new drug on blood pressure. Testing - Research Paper Example Another reason for using the t-test is because a t-test is normally used when the standard deviation of the population is unknown. In this case we do not know our population. The t-test is also used when the purpose of the study is determining whether there is statistically significant difference between two independent sample groups. In this case the drug and the blood pressure are two independent variables. The z-test is not applicable in this case because it is normally used when the null and alternative hypothesis are stated (Tanner, 2016). In our case the two are not stated. The ANOVA on the other hand is normally used when carrying out a test using three or more variables (Tanner, 2016). In our case, we only have two variables. What would your choice of test depend on? For the test you select, explain your design and your comparison groups. Choosing the type of test to use in a particular study depends on: the type of the variables used either continuous or categorical, the number of variables to use in the particular study either one variables, two variables or three or more variables, the normality, how the variables are normally distributed and the nature of the variables, are they dependent or independent variables. The design in this case will be the number of patients to use in the study. Small number of patients will result in an inaccurate result and using a large number of patients will be risky to their health and lead to waste of resources. One should therefore use not so small neither not so large number of patients.

Answer the questions in Bold Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Answer the questions in Bold - Essay Example Resultantly, employees cannot be guaranteed a basic level of coverage from their employer. Three government programs are in place to assist high-risk members of the population with access to health care (Home, 2013). Medicare is a federal program for people over 65 (sometimes younger with approved disabilities) and provides short-term care insurance. However, most drugs and long-term service costs are not affected by this system. Medicaid, which is both federally and state funded, supports the portion of the population with the lowest amount of resources. This program tends to apply to a wider range of services than Medicare, though regulations vary from state to state. SCHIP is another large plan, and provides insurance for children of families with low income, but not low enough to qualify for Medicaid. Some smaller state-specific programs also extend coverage to specific subpopulations. Despite the presence of the above mentioned programs, a large portion of the US population remains without coverage (Americas Health Insurance Plans, 2013). Those who make too much for Medicaid, and are too young for Medicare, may find themselves exposed to the immense burden of health care costs. Drug expenses are especially cumbersome, as many employer programs (and otherwise) tend to focus on the delivery of hospital services. The restricted availability of insurance results in a great imbalance in health care utilization between various segments of the population (Young & DeVoe, 2012). The most services are accessible to (and are accessed by) the wealthiest members of society, due to the increased likelihood of quality employer coverage, as well as the ability to purchase insurance at a premium (an unreachable luxury for much of the middle class). The oldest and poorest people in the US have some coverage due to government programs, but cannot always take advantage of these opportunities due to other barriers to access, like

Discuss the phenomenon of failed and failing states in the 21st Essay

Discuss the phenomenon of failed and failing states in the 21st century, and explore how their citizens and the rest of the worl - Essay Example Almost 100 people were killed in Libya following protests, including one incident where police simply fired into a crowd and 18 people were killed instantly. In addition, numerous countries—including, but not limited to Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, and Thailand, have been making the news headlines lately—for their people having protested governments that are in dire straits and are in danger of failing or are already failed. A discussion of the failed and failing states of Somalia, Chad, and Afghanistan will be held, including in this discourse an evaluation, for each nation: the phenomena of the failed and failing state; how the citizens should react; and how the rest of the world should react to the challenges failing states pose. II. Somalia A. The Phenomena Nonprofit research & educational organization , Fund For Peace publishe[s] [the] Failed State Index every year. â€Å"Somalia [is] featured in [the] most unstable country... It tops [the] failed state list for third co nsecutive time. Somalia's pirates have become problem for all countries while civil war has displaced thousands of people† (â€Å"Top Ten Failed States,† 2010, pgh. 5). Many people remember years ago when Somalia came into the spotlight due to the famine there, and food was airlifted to the Somalia from the United States. Now Somalia is facing scrutiny again, mainly this time due to the pirate problem on the high seas as well as people having been left homeless after the civil war that happened there. B. How Citizens Should React Somali citizens should probably react by using grassroots organizing strategies in order to better their communities. They should also form societal organizations that encourage the fomentation of education. If there were a more educated populace, it might be true that a lot of the problems associated with living in abject poverty could be eliminated, except for perhaps other than poverty itself. In bleak cases, Somalians should take refugee st atus and emigrate to another country where there are less problems with social unrest. C. How the Rest of the World Should React People should give support to the Somalians. They should stand with them in their quest for justice. People should support their attempt to become a country that can compete in the African and international economies. Right now they are languishing in squalor and ignorance. The UN should take some sort of action in order to ensure that Somalia does not stay on the list of failed states, because if it does, this could affect the country’s ability to be recognized as a competent nation. III. Chad A. The Phenomena Chad is a failed state that also has multiple problems. Regarding Chad, Fund for Peace also reported that â€Å"†¦[the] Republic of Chad is [a] landlocked African country. Chad has been facing humanitarian crisis. Refugees from Sudan, [the] Central African Republic, and [its] own internally displaced people make half a million. [The] Un ited Nation is highly concerned about the matter† (â€Å"Top Ten Failed States,† 2010, pgh. 6). Being just south of Libya, the same kind of thing that happened in the â€Å"Days of Rage† in Libya could also just as easily happen in Chad if there is an uprising. B. How Citizens Should React It makes more sense that citizens should try to do grassroots organizing while, at the same time laying low—out of sight of people like the military, who are likely to open fire on protesters, like what happened in Libya. It