Financial Service Assignment 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Financial Service Assignment 2 - Essay Example vital contributor towards the steadiness with regard to the financial structure along with being a significant element in the course of operations associated with the existent economy (Department of Mathematics, 2008). The structure of derivatives market in the present times has been learnt to lure increased concentration next to the present environment related to fraud cases, financial crisis along with the collapse of few of the market participants. It was an evident fact that the recent financial catastrophe principally occurred because of the planned credit-linked securities which were not actually derivatives. This made the regulators and the policy developers think regarding intensification of the guidelines for boosting the lucidity and security for both the wide array of financial instruments as well as derivatives (Department of Mathematics, 2008). Derivatives are referred as financial contracts the worth of which is considered as a resultant of certain definite underlying assets. The underlying assets are believed to entail equity indices as well as equities, loans, exchange rates, commercial along with residential mortgages, bonds, interest rates, commodities and natural calamities like the hurricanes and the earthquakes. The derivative contracts appear or are available in numerous forms however, the most widespread forms entail forwards or futures, swaps and options (Acharya & et. al., 2009). A forward contract is referred to a certain contract in which the involved two parties comply to trade the definite â€Å"underlying asset† in the upcoming days at a specific point of time which has been ascertained earlier and at a preset price. Thus, the buyer complies today to purchase a definite form of asset in the upcoming days and the other party i.e. the seller complies to give delivery of that definite asset at the agreed and predetermined time. Futures are regarded as standardised form of forwards that are capable of being dealt in on the exchange

The Castle Doctrine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Castle Doctrine - Essay Example This argument showcases, according to the report, â€Å"a loss of faith in law enforcement†(â€Å"The Castle Doctrine†). With the police being stretched thin due to an increase in crime, people don’t want to have to wait for law enforcement to come and save them especially if they are in a potentially life threatening situation. The New Castle Doctrine takes away the â€Å"vulnerability† that people feel in an increasingly violent world and makes them feel safer(â€Å"The Castle Doctrine†). Having this doctrine to back them up is important in order to prevent someone who was merely defending themselves from going to jail as people have the basic right to protect their own lives, their loved ones, or their property. There are a few different arguments which make up the reasons as to why the New Castle Doctrine is essentially a license to kill. The first reason is that people simply aren’t very well educated on what this particular doctrine covers in terms of the situations when a person can defend themselves with deadly force. Most people simply look at this law and believe that they will be protected no matter what as long as some sort of crime was committed. Ultimately, this leads into the second argument against the New Castle Doctrine as this type of legislation basically turns people into vigilantes who take justice into their own hands regardless of the situation. This is illustrated in the case of the gas station clerk who shot a man after he stole a case of beer(â€Å"The Castle Doctrine†). The New Castle Doctrine allows a person to exact their own vengeance even if the punishment does not fit the crime. Finally, those against the New Castle Doctrine believe that it will r eally hurt the legal and court system within the country as many of these vigilantes are being acquitted of any wrong doings due to their claims that they used deadly force because of the New Castle Doctrine. This might lead to a slew of criminals

Interpretations of Winston Churchill

Interpretations of Winston Churchill Evaluate two or more competing interpretations of Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill has become an icon of modern history, and is probably the most celebrated Prime Minister or the twentieth century. It was not until he was 65, however, that Churchill achieved his popularity and fame, and it was almost wholly the result of the end of the Second World War. Without this, the popular impression of Churchill would fall a long way short of what it is today. Churchill is remembered by most, of course, as a great national hero; a war leader who delivered Great Britain, and the rest of the world, from the threat of Nazi Germany advancing inexorably to extend the Third Reich. There were many other aspects to Churchill’s life, however, of which it was the culmination only, in victory, that secured his historical legacy. As is to be expected with someone as successful and popular as Churchill, the man has attracted a great many academics to research into and report on Churchill’s life (between fifty and one hundred in the estimate of Roy Jenkins[ 1]). These various interpretations are many, and each one must be considered in the context of the time and societal circumstances in which it was written. As with all history, (especially biography,) one must evaluate such works sceptically, trying to discern the biographer’s own views and prejudices, and those of the society which produced the biographer. What each work tells us about Churchill must be cross-referenced with other accounts, and with impartial accounts of events in which Churchill was involved. This essay will focus on four key biographies of Churchill; Addison’s Churchill, the Unexpected Hero, and Jenkins’ recent Churchill primarily, as well as Gilbert’s Churchill, a Life, and Ponting’s Churchill. When one considers the various biographies of Churchill that the post-War years have yielded, it is fair to say that there are discernable patterns. An increasing scepticism in the historiography is an example of such a trend. It seems accurate to describe the later biographies of Churchill as less laudatory and unquestioningly praising towards Churchill than, say, Jenkins’ recent biography. This, in its stated mission, sets out to reconsider the wholly celebratory nature of some earlier biographies. Jenkins introduces his magisterial work with the assertion that Churchill was ‘many faceted, idiosyncratic and unpredictable†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢[2] The work is not, however, hagiographical; indeed from the outset, Jenkins’ esteem and fondness of Churchill (albeit based upon a very brief series of encounters in the early 1940s) is obvious. â€Å"I was aware of witnessing something unique, but also remote and unpredictable.†[3] As a whole work, however, Jenkinsâ€℠¢ is more thorough than anything that has gone before. It is a dense, academic and politically charged work, obviously written by an insider of the political world from its clear understanding and appreciation of the main passion of Churchill’s life; politics. Churchill was, after all, in the House of Commons for over sixty years. The other major work which will be considered is somewhat less academic, and more populist in its structure and style. Addison covers the life of Churchill from his birth through his early years as a journalist and soldier, through his early parliamentary career and later premiership and his last years in less than 250 pages. While this remains a convincing and thorough biography, it is by no means as comprehensive as the project undertaken by Jenkins. What of the content of these two books, however? How do their respective authors present Churchill? It has already been mentioned that Jenkins has sought to adopt a holistic approach which is relatively free of unquestioning praise. Addison’s is, perhaps, more preoccupied with the popular appeal of Churchill, and as such, it is less sceptical of certain aspects of Churchill’s life. This is, however, to be expected, as rather than present a fully comprehensive account of the whole of Churchill’s life, this account s eeks to assess the reasons for the man’s ascendancy to national hero. The tone of the work is established in the Prologue, which states that Churchill ‘won two great victories in the Second World War. The first was a victory over Nazi Germany. The second was a victory over the many sceptics who, for decades, had derided his judgement, denied his claims to greatness, and excluded him from 10 Downing Street on the grounds that he was sure to be a danger to King and Country.†[4] The first appropriate period to consider in Churchill’s life covers the years from his birth in 1874 up until 1901. Both begin with a brief account of the birth of Churchill and of his family history; that he was the grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough and his mother was an American named Clara, the daughter of a New York financier. This was the period that saw Churchill attend Harrow School, an adolescence which, according to Addison, was ‘overshadowed by the physical and mental decline of Lord Randolph [Churchill’s aristocratic Tory minister father].’[5] Gilbert offers an early insight into what he later considers to be one of the principal driving forces of Churchill, when he remarks that to the young Winston, the death of his father provided ‘yet further proof that the Churchills died young.’[6] Throughout Gilbert’s work, this driving force features heavily in causing Churchill to pursue his goals first in the journalistic fi eld, and later in politics. When considering Gilbert’s interpretation of Churchill’s life and achievements, it is also important to consider the esteem with which he held Churchill. It should be remembered that prior to writing his biography of Churchill, Gilberts continued Churchill’s life work (in another field from politics) in completing, in six volumes, an historical work which had been started by Randolph Churchill. This is surely significant, firstly in the level of understanding of Churchill such an undertaking would have afforded Gilbert, but also as a sign of the reverence with which Churchill was held. According to Addison, the ‘official biography’ is ‘sometimes said to perpetuate the Churchill myth and it is true that Randolph Churchill’s volumes were partisan.†[7] It is this very partisanship that one must be aware of and vigilant about in considering biographies generally, and in particular when it comes to one with such an awesome accompanying reputation. Gilbert’s work, although in places stricken with this identified partisanship, on the whole offers a record of the events of Churchill’s life, in which evidence is collected from a huge variety of sources, including Churchill’s own papers, private correspondence held at the Marlborough seat of Blenheim Palace, and other more official evidence such as parliamentary records and reports and Churchill’s own journalistic offerings and speeches. Gilbert’s biographical work is unique in that it generally forms attachments to the evidential, or chronicled record which he helped to produce. Again, and as Addison points out, from a reading of Gilbert’s work in these volumes, it is clear ‘that his admiration for Churchill is profound’.[8] Gilbert’s sympathy with Churchill, and indeed his contempt for those who sought to sully the name and reputation of Churchill, is obvious from various parts of his writings. One such person was Field Marshall Alanbrooke, who was one of Churchill’s most successful, and trusted generals (when he was General Alan Brooke). According to Jenkins, Churchill ‘succeeded in angering Alan Brooke at a staff conference on 9 September [1944].’[9] Later, various diarists, foremost amongst whom was Brooke, began complaining about Churchill’s ‘ramblings’. These were characteristic of his ‘long rather than decisive meetings’ that members of the government and the forces became increasingly frustrated about.[10] Although the relationship had been tense and often problematic between the two, Alanbrooke (as he now was) recorded in his diary that during his farewell in 1945, ‘it was a very sad and very moving little meeting at which I found myself unable to say much for fear of breaking down.’[11] The purpose of this is to show that despite their differences, it seems unlikely that Alanbrooke harboured any ill- feeling towards Churchill that would colour his memoirs. According to Gilbert, however, it was the publication of Alanbrooke’s diaries that did much to harm the image of Churchill. ‘No single book’, Gilbert writes, referring to the diaries as edited by Arthur Bryant, ‘gave a more distorted picture of Churchill’s war leadership, or would provide for many years to come so much material for critical, hostile, and ill-informed portrayals of Churchill in the war years.’[12] This is not to disparage Gilbert’s work with the taint of one-sidedness, however, as the work, vast as it is, is generally free of value judgements or even a coherent doctrine as to the character of Churchill. For this; a more personal and judgemental view of Churchill, one must turn to the works of Jenkins and of Ponting. It is clear from the introduction of Ponting’s unashamedly revisionist work that he seeks to challenge the ‘Churchill myth’, which Gilbert is perhaps more instrumental in moulding, or at least perpetuating. The central thesis in Ponting’s work, as stated in his introduction, is that the Churchill myth was in fact largely the result of Churchill’s own writing; that Churchill managed successfully to shape the way in which he would be seen by the succeeding generation by his own artful and indeed self-promoting work.[13] It is not usually the prerogative of statesmen to shape future generations’ views of themselves; this being left to later historians and scholars. If Ponting’s theory is correct, it would make Churchill one of the few successful statesmen to have achieved this, obviously prior to his death. The two major prong s of Ponting’s attack are firstly that Churchill was not in fact the brilliant wartime leader that popular perception imagines, and secondly that his popularity was not in fact as high as has been assumed. His bases for these revisionist claims are official papers that have been released in recent years. Although revisionist history is always going to offend and upset those of the old school by its very nature of, in Ponting’s case, sheer iconoclasm, but in this case, one cannot avoid the impression that Ponting is not so much blazing a trail to a more truthful and less fanciful perception of Churchill, as he is simply inaccurate. Ponting reconsiders the pre-War years of Churchill’s political career. He claims that Churchill was opposed to democracy and social progress.[14] This is an unlikely character trait of Churchill, for whom one of the principal motivations for one of his most famous pre-War decisions, the 1925 return to the Gold Standard, was the ‘paradox of unemployment amidst dearth †¦ I would rather see Finance less proud and Industry more content.’[15] As well as this, it was Churchill who pioneered the system of national insurance during his time at the Treasury (something which he and Lloyd George had started prior to the First World War) . This was a policy which, although not redistributive as certain forms of taxation might have been, certainly improved the lot of many of the more unfortunate elements in inter-war British society. Ponting goes on to suggest that Churchill harboured racial prejudices.[16] This may well be accurate, but it is presented by Ponting in a misleading way; a way which neglects the wider contemporary social attitudes of the early twentieth century. While it is never forgivable to view any race or creed as in any way inferior, Churchill was not guilty of this in the way that Ponting suggests. It was more an opinion of racial differences and idiosyncrasies than any judgement as to the relative merit of different races. As Addison remarks, such views were characteristic of the time without any attendant racism, amongst the foremost social reformers.[17] Indeed there is supportive argument for Ponting’s assessment to be found in other biographies of Churchill. One such example is John Charmley’s revisionist work which suggests that Churchill’s treatment of the Poles in the last months of the war revealed racial prejudices. He accuses Churchill of both weakness in this respect, and of hypocrisy, for his earlier criticism of Chamberlain’s similar treatment of the Czechs.[18] The most striking evidence that Ponting is erroneous in this assessment of Churchill is to be found in Churchill’s view of the European Jews who were increasingly under threat during his early parliamentary career. Indeed it was Churchill’s perceived sympathy for the Jews in the wake of such atrocities as Kristallnacht in November 1938 that strengthened Churchill’s position as against Neville Chamberlain.[19] Earlier in Churchill’s career, he had fought vehemently to defeat the restrictive Aliens Bill of 1904, which was unfavourable to the Jews. Jenkins suggests, however, that although this was a brave and commendable battle to be undertaken by Churchill, his motivation was less that of a sense of equality and concern for the well-being of the Jewish population, than the political expedient of appeasing a large and powerful political lobby in his constituency. ‘†¦It could be cynically alleged that the vigour with which Churchill opposed (and hel ped to kill) a restrictive Aliens Bill in the session of 1904 was not unconnected with the fact that this was exactly when he alighted on Manchester North-West [where the Jewish lobby was so strong].’[20] While this may well be so, it does not make it the case that Churchill harboured anything other than deep resentment of the Nazi views as to the inferiority of the Jewish race and non-white populations. Ponting’s criticisms of Churchill are obvious, and pervade much of his work. Gilbert, on the other hand, is generally more praising and less critical throughout his work; he is not, after all, seeking to debunk the so-called Churchill myth. Gilbert’s work, however, is not free from criticism. The most striking is, perhaps, his assessment that Churchill had a great and significant character weakness that he allowed to control him at vital stages throughout his career. This weakness was an almost-obsessive desire to be at the centre of affairs, and to be seen to be there in the public perception. He was, then, a courtier of public opinion (which is of course to be expected from a politician) but Gilbert seems to suggest that it led to an inefficient and sometimes disastrous management style that may have been avoided had Churchill been more willing, for example, to delegate.[21] A significant advantage which biographers such as Gilbert and Jenkins have over those such as Ponting is that they actually met, and in the case of Gilbert at least, knew considerably, their subject. Gilbert was in fact something of an insider in the life of Churchill which affords him an insight which Ponting and other later biographers could not emulate. Examples of this intimate contact abound throughout Gilbert’s work, such as the conversations which he had with Churchill’s wife Clementine. One such conversation is occurred when Clementine told Gilbert of how in the immediate aftermath of Churchill’s downfall in 1915, ‘I thought he would die of grief’.[22] Gilbert’s is an insight which comes from first-hand interviews with those who knew and were close with Churchill (although not always on good terms). A further example is the interview which Gilbert conducts with General Sir Edward Spears, who accompanied Churchill on many journeys and w ho recalled on one occasion during the First World War when Churchill was at the Admiralty, how the French commanders had not taken Churchill’s suggestions about the development of the tank seriously, remarking ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to flood Artois and get your fleet here?’[23] It is this first-hand knowledge and experience which puts Gilbert’s work (as well as, to a lesser extent, Jenkins’) above the likes of Ponting’s. Gilbert’s work is not, however, free from potentially controversial statements. Surely fully aware of the impact on the historical debate of such assertions, he states, for example, that on the eve of the Munich agreement, which saw Neville Chamberlain (then Prime Minister and of whom Churchill was a stern critic) announced that he was seeking agreement from the third Reich leadership that no further advances would be made, in the words of Jenkins, ‘the whole House †¦ rose to its feet and sent Chamberlain off in a splurge of goodwill.’[24] Jenkins suggests that it was the ‘almost solitary exception of Harold Nicolson’, the House supported Chamberlain. Gilbert states that neither Churchill, nor his fellow Members Eden or Amery stood to applaud Chamberlain as he set off on his mission.[25] It is, of course no secret that Churchill opposed Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement of Hitler, but small facts like this are potentially controversial w hen one considers the general atmosphere in England on the eve of the War; an attitude that everything possible should be done to avoid another conflict so soon after the devastation and destruction of the Great War. With the notable exception of Ponting’s iconoclastic work, the overwhelming thesis in the various biographies of Churchill is one of praise and respect for Churchill. This is not wholly the product of his achievements at the head of the Government during the War, but also due to his achievements before the Second World War. The formative years in the making of the Churchill myth were undoubtedly the war years, as is evidenced by the fact that their presence in any biography is disproportionately large compared to any other period of his life. The chapter covering the war years in Addison’s book is titled ‘The Making of a Hero’.[26] The overwhelming sense from all of the biographies is that once the authors have been exposed to their subject, the result is an almost awe-like reverence for him. The concluding pages of Jenkins perhaps best summarise this pervasive attitude: ‘I now put Churchill, with all his idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, his occasiona l childishness, but also his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability, right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, to be larger than life, as the greatest human being ever to occupy 10 Downing Street.’[27] BIOGRAPHY Addison, P., Churchill, the Unexpected Hero (Oxford, 2005) Danchev and Todman (Eds), War Diaries, 1939-1945: Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke Gilbert, M., Churchill: a Life (Pimlico, 2000) Jenkins, R., Churchill (MacMillan, 2001) Ponting, C., Winston Churchill (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994) Footnotes [1] Jenkins, R., Churchill (MacMillan, 2001), pxiii [2] Jenkins, p3 [3] Jenkins, pxiii [4] Addison, P., Churchill, the Unexpected Hero (Oxford, 2005), p1 [5] Addison, p13 [6] Gilbert, C., Churchill: a Life (Pimlico, 2000), p49 [7] Addison, p251 [8] Addison, p252 [9] Jenkins, p754 [10] Ibid, p774 [11] Danchev and Todman (Eds), War Diaries, 1939-1945: Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke, p712 [12] Gilbert, p1232 [13] Ponting, C., Winston Churchill (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), pp10-15 [14] Ponting, pp300-325 [15] Quoted in Addison, p114 [16] See, for example, Ponting, p375 [17] Addison, p252 [18] Quoted in Jenkins, p779 [19] See Jenkins, p537 [20] Jenkins, p108 [21] See, for example, Gilbert, p30 [22] Gilbert, vol III, p457 [23] Gilbert, vol III. p625 [24] Jenkins, p525 [25] Gilbert, vol V, pp986-987 [26] Addison, chapter 6 [27] Jenkins, p912

Dr. Seuss Essay -- essays papers

Dr. Seuss Dr. Seuss I took an unconventional approach in the topic I chose for my reading assignment – whereas most groups selected single novels, my partner and I opted to read a collection of short stories by none other than the notorious Dr. Seuss. Were I writing this essay on a â€Å"normal† book, I would be able to pose a question about the book itself and answer it in an ordinary sort of way. However, given the subject matter I have chosen, an essay on an individual book, though possible, would be a very tricky thing to do. It would be wiser, and probably easier, to respond to the man himself. My decision to respond to the man himself makes many more choices – what facet of Dr. Seuss shall I ask myself questions about? I think perhaps I first need to give some brief biographical information on the man to understand the background he’s coming from. In 1904, Theodore Seuss Geisel was born in Massachusetts, USA. I have not been able to find too much document ation about his childhood, but he certainly did not come from a terribly poor or terribly unsuccessful family†¦ in fact, his family had owned a local brewery in their home town of Springfield for several years. Ever since his childhood, Geisel had dabbled in the fields we all know and love him for today†¦ for instance, during bible recitals, he read the verses to a rhythm and often in rhyme. In High School he wrote many short essays and drew cartoons for the school paper, and even then he had adopted a pseudonym for himself – â€Å"Pete the Pessimist†. Upon graduation, Geisel began studying literature at Oxford university, as his original intent was to become an educator†¦ even then, he punctuated his time at Oxford with his job editing and contributing to the â€Å"Jack-O-Lantern†, ... ...-hungry all of his life, perhaps simply in its early stages when he just started off – he was heavily involved in advertising then, and his stories such as â€Å"And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street† were not particularly ethic-conscious. When Seuss died in 1991, however, you get a definite image of a creative, artistic genius of a man†¦ his advertising career had come to a close, his books constantly taught to respect yourself, others and your surroundings, and he exercised his artistic freedom while writing his final two stories, both adult-oriented. Dr. Seuss died an honorable man, and any selling out that he may have been guilty of is definitely, definitely excusable. ''How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?'' -Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) Dr. Seuss Essay -- essays papers Dr. Seuss Dr. Seuss I took an unconventional approach in the topic I chose for my reading assignment – whereas most groups selected single novels, my partner and I opted to read a collection of short stories by none other than the notorious Dr. Seuss. Were I writing this essay on a â€Å"normal† book, I would be able to pose a question about the book itself and answer it in an ordinary sort of way. However, given the subject matter I have chosen, an essay on an individual book, though possible, would be a very tricky thing to do. It would be wiser, and probably easier, to respond to the man himself. My decision to respond to the man himself makes many more choices – what facet of Dr. Seuss shall I ask myself questions about? I think perhaps I first need to give some brief biographical information on the man to understand the background he’s coming from. In 1904, Theodore Seuss Geisel was born in Massachusetts, USA. I have not been able to find too much document ation about his childhood, but he certainly did not come from a terribly poor or terribly unsuccessful family†¦ in fact, his family had owned a local brewery in their home town of Springfield for several years. Ever since his childhood, Geisel had dabbled in the fields we all know and love him for today†¦ for instance, during bible recitals, he read the verses to a rhythm and often in rhyme. In High School he wrote many short essays and drew cartoons for the school paper, and even then he had adopted a pseudonym for himself – â€Å"Pete the Pessimist†. Upon graduation, Geisel began studying literature at Oxford university, as his original intent was to become an educator†¦ even then, he punctuated his time at Oxford with his job editing and contributing to the â€Å"Jack-O-Lantern†, ... ...-hungry all of his life, perhaps simply in its early stages when he just started off – he was heavily involved in advertising then, and his stories such as â€Å"And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street† were not particularly ethic-conscious. When Seuss died in 1991, however, you get a definite image of a creative, artistic genius of a man†¦ his advertising career had come to a close, his books constantly taught to respect yourself, others and your surroundings, and he exercised his artistic freedom while writing his final two stories, both adult-oriented. Dr. Seuss died an honorable man, and any selling out that he may have been guilty of is definitely, definitely excusable. ''How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?'' -Dr. Seuss (1904-1991)

Life of Rabindra Nath Tagore Essay

Tagore’s international travels also sharpened his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that â€Å"Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm †¦ † Tagore noted in his diary: â€Å"I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity. [1] In his last decade, Tagore compiled fifteen volumes of writings, including works of prose-poems such as Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). He also continued his experimentations by developing prose-songs and dance-dramas, including Chitrangada (1936), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938). He also wrote the novels Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore also took an interest in science in his last years, writing Visva-Parichay (a collection of essays) in 1937. He wrote on topics ranging from biology to physics, and astronomy; meanwhile, his poetry — containing extensive naturalism — underscored his respect for scientific laws. He also wove the process of science (including narratives of scientists) into many stories contained in such volumes as Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). [2] [edit]Illness of 1937-1941 Tagore’s last four years (1937–1941) were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for an extended period. This was followed three years later in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. The poetry Tagore wrote in these twilight years are distinctive for their preoccupation with death; these more profound and mystical experimentations allowed Tagore to be branded a â€Å"modern poet†. 3] After extended suffering,[4] Tagore died on August 7, 1941 (22 Shravan 1348) in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he was raised. [5] This date is still mourned in public functions held across the Bangla-speaking world. The last person to see Tagore alive was Amiya Kumar Sen (brother of Sukumar Sen, the first chief election commissioner); Tagore dictated his last poem to Sen, who wrote it down. Sen later donated the resulting draft to a museum in Kolkata.

Economics and Swot Analysis Essay

Before we start with the swot analysis of IBM lets understand what actually the SWOT is . The full form of SWOT is strength ,weakness opportunity and threat . so the basic meaning of swot analysis of any company is to judge this four factors of any company at certain given period of time . On the other hand the full form of PEST is Political, Economic, Social and Technological and the analysis of these four factors of any organization is called pest analysis. SWOT ANALYSIS : Strengths: 1. Founded in 1896 as the Tabulating Machine Company by Herman Hollerith, in Broome County, New York it is very much old and organization of high repute . 2. the leading IT Manufacturer and service provider . the 4th largest technology company and 2nd most valuable global brand . And they are consistently in top 10 for last 20 years . 3. Company is handling 95% of all business in the 1000 most profitable companies in the US. Having his branch in almost 200 places in this world. 4. Its value almost $70 billion. They have over 450,000 employees worldwide. 5. The first company who decide to establish dedicated labs for research on technology innovation . Weakness 1. The company has become too large that the operating cost of the company is very high . 2. The workforce who are working is very much efficient but also very expensive in nature 3. IBM is mainly dependent on corporate clients the nature of them is changing day by day . 4. They have vary much low share in pc market which is a growing segment right now Opportunities 1. Increased globalization is an important opportunity that can be exploited by IBM in order to balance the fluctuations in different economies. 2. IBM’s small-medium business (SMB) has improved over the years but there is definitely a need to increase its market share to have an overall competitive edge. 3. IBM needs to maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace and innovation is key and working with IT-related companies to create new products in the ever changing market; use patents to generate revenue. Threat 1. The fact that they are completely dependent on Microsoft (in their computer services division) could be a huge problem if anything ever happened to them. 2. Hackers and sensitive information can be exposed and exploited by individuals and IBM needs to be innovative with regards to firewalls and protective software. 3. The supply chain has very few suppliers, leaving IBM very little to negotiate with or switch to HP, Sun Microsystems are all competitors and are all threats to IBM’s bottom line. Their competitors are able to create cheaper products and make more a considerable profit. Smaller companies that can move faster and provide less expensive products and services than IBM can become very costly to IBM’s more lucrative bundles focusing more on larger companies with big budgets PEST ANALYSIS Political factors: The heavy taxes in the UK make the IBM server products increase the weakness on the price factor, especially on the premium price IBM products. Economic factors: The healthy economic environment with strong and stable GDP in the all regions provides a good market for the product and service business of IBM. Although the GDP increase rate is not fast, the stability could balance this disadvantage element. The service industry in the world contributed nearly 73.4% to the GDP in 2006. That indicated that the high value added service market in the world is matured, and the customer experience on the service would be higher or more difficult to be satisfied. Socio cultural factors: Population and the internet users, in 2006, the population in just U.K it was nearly 60,609,153, and according to CIA, (2007), more than half of these people (37.6 million in 2005) were internet users. The well known about the internet indicated the opportunities of relevant products and services Technological factors: Internet, A survey from CIA, (2007) shows that there were 6,064,860 Internet hosts in 2006, and more than 400 Internet Service Providers in 2000. In this sophisticated market, the opportunity and competition will exist together.