Economic Theory The Great Depression - 1734 Words

When we look back through history we can find many opportunities to learn the lessons of economic theory but The Great Depression is a particularly relevant historical event when discussing economics. It is a defining event in the history of America as politics and economics intertwined, transforming the role of the federal government in the economy. Due to the length, severity and global effects an entire decade is known as the Great Depression. Theories continue to be debated on how or why the Depression took place and the reasons for its eventual end however, what most will agree on is that â€Å"The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world† (History.com Staff, 2009). Declines in consumer demand, financial panics caused economic output to fall in the United States. National output is essential in the field of macroeconomics and America’s decline was felt globally. The economic gold standard was a fundamental component in transmitting America’s downturn across countries (Britannica, 2015). The Great Depression, felt globally, is understood to have started in America during the fall of 1929. In October, the stock market crashed and fear hurled Wall Street into deep distress and millions of investors were ruined. The Great Depression hit an all-time low in 1933. At which point, 13 to 15 million Americans had lost their jobs, those lucky enough to still have a job were left underemployedShow MoreRelatedThe Great Depression Shaped Economic Theory, Social Life, And People s View Of A Market Economy1157 Words   |  5 PagesThe Great Depression shaped economic theory, social life, and people’s view of a market economy in general. The capitalist economic system seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Something drastic needed to be done in order to get society out of the depression. In his famous book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Keyes attempted to show how economics and the market functioned and he proposed different approaches to creating government policy to guide the economy post war. Read MoreKeynesian Theory And Aggregate Demand1499 Words   |  6 PagesKEYNESIAN THEORY AND AGGREGATE DEMAND By Riley Lennon The great depression in the 1930’s devastated the economic market, but also produced two of the greatest economists to ever live, John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich August Hayek. Why did the economist John Maynard Keynes advocate for the government to have an active role with influencing the level of economic activity. This is because Keynes believes that this will stimulate the economic activity and bring the country out of economic droughtRead MoreThe Role of Government in Economy1216 Words   |  5 Pageswidely discussion. This essay discusses the role of government by analyzing both thought of Keynes and Friedman and then prove the effectiveness of Friedman’s theory with historical examples. Firstly, the Great Depression of the 1930s has helped prove the importance of government’s intervention on the economy in the past. The Great Depression started with a decrease in stock prices in America and then quickly spread to most parts of the world (McElvaine, 1993, p 59). There was a tremendous decreaseRead MoreThe Great Depression Affects The Americans1333 Words   |  6 PagesThe Great Depression was one of the biggest events in the 1920s since it had huge effects both socially and economically.  Starting with the stock market crash, millions of investors were bankrupted and thousands of workers were unemployed. Over the next several years, not only did the consumer spending drop, the number of investment lowered as well. Until 1939, when the President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Relief and reform measures which finally help the economy to restart. ThroughRead MoreKeynesian Theory During The Great Depression949 Words   |  4 PagesSince the establish ment of the Keynesian theory during the Great Depression, there was a continuous rivalry between Keynesians and monetarists. The ongoing debate was about which model can most accurately and correctly explain economic instability and which theory provides the best suggestions on how to achieve constant and steady economic growth. There are fundamental differences in these two approaches, for example over the usefulness of government intervention through fiscal policies, monetaryRead MoreThe Great Depression : A Economic Catastrophe Of All Times1489 Words   |  6 PagesThe great depression has been considered the biggest economic catastrophe of all times, it was a crisis that affected every individual in the United States and it extended to other countries in the globe. The unemployment rate grew from 5 million of people to 13 million from 1929 to 1930. Little kids were put into headwork in order to support their families, it was a period of desperation and starvation that left a ma rk in American history. So what open the doors to this economic crisis? We willRead MoreEssay on John Maynard Keynes Versus Friederich A. Hayek603 Words   |  3 PagesTwo major economic thinkers of the of the early twentieth century, John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich A. Hayek, hold very different economic viewpoints. Keynes is among the most famous economic philosophers. Keynes, whos theories gained a reputation during the Great Depression in the 1930s, focused mainly on an economys bust. It is where the economy declines and finally bottoms-out, that Keynesian economics believes the answers lie for its eventual recovery. On the other hand, Hayek believed thatRead MoreThe Cause Of The Baby Boom Era1264 Words   |  6 Pagessuch as the war and all the men coming back to their wives. There are many theories that purport to explain the causes of the baby boom. Among those theories is the belief that the increase in population growth was in direct correlation with the end of the Great Depression and World War II. This theory is explained by considering the decrease in fertility due to the economic hardship during these dreadful events. This theory is supported by the fact that many men were off fighting World War II, makingRead MoreMacroeconomic Theories Of Macroeconomics And Classical Economics999 Words   |  4 PagesMacroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole, rather than individual markets. This includes national, regional, and global economies. With microeconomics, macroeconomics is one of the two most general fields in economics. There are two major macroeconomic theories that economists use to describe the economy. Those theories are Keynesian and Classical. Each th eory has a different approach to the economic study of monetaryRead MoreThe Keynesian Fiscal Policy Solution Aggregate Demand1103 Words   |  5 Pagesa new economic policy which had not yet been seen prior to the great depression. Before the great depression, the widely accepted economic policy which was implemented and practiced around the world was called Natural Economics. Natural Economics was a fiscal policy that embodied the idea that the economy would eventually take care of itself and run freely without the government’s influence. However, the duration of the Great Depression was so substantial that it exposed natural economics to be ineffective

Relationship Between Gsas And School Level Characteristics

1. Identify all of the basic research questions and null hypotheses. A basic research question is: There is a relationship between GSAs and school-level characteristics. The null hypothesis is: There is no relationship between GSAs and school level characteristics. Another basic research question is: There is a relationship between schools in each state with GSAs and state level characteristics. The null hypothesis is: There is no relationship between schools in each state with GSAs and state level characteristics. 2. Identify all of the major dependent and independent variables and the level of measurement for each variable The dependent variable for the first research question is the presence or absence of GSAs (Fetner Kush,†¦show more content†¦The mean number of overall schools with GSAs is 6.6 percent of the schools studied (Fetner Kush, 2008). The range of Schools with Gay-Straight Alliances by Region is 14.5 percent (West) to 2.3% (South) with an overall range difference of 12.2% (Fetner Kush, 2008). The percentage range of schools Gay-Straight Alliances ranges from a high of 11.6% (Urban) to a low of 2.0% (Rural) with an overall range difference of 9.6% (Fetner Kush, 2008). 4. Identify all of the figures and tables (if any) and briefly explain what each convey/report. Table 1: Gay-Straight Alliances by Urban/Rural Setting: The report convoys percentages where GSA are located whether in Rural 2.0%, Town 2.3%, Suburban 12.1% and Urban at 11.6% (Fetner Kush, 2008). Schools in more populated areas are more likely to adapted rural areas (Fetner Kush, 2008). Table 2: Gay-Straight Alliance by Region: The report conveys percentages of regions of South 2.3%, Midwest 3.8%, East 11.4%, and West 14.5% (Fetner Kush, 2008). The report indicates that there are more GSAs in the West, and East to that of South and Midwest (Fetner Kush, 2008). Table 3: Logistic Regression Analysis: The report conveys shows a positive relationship between urban/rural settings, free or reduced lunches and regions of the country with GSAs (Fetner Kush, 2008). Regions from South to West will

Nuclear Winter Model Made by N.Moiseev free essay sample

In a world where thousands of nuclear weapons exist and more countries are trying to acquire them, where suicide terrorist strikes come without warning and thousands die each day from poverty caused by the way the international system operates, we need to know about and understand international relations. This is what makes international relations an interesting and a very important subject to study. The field of international relations is more than a list of facts and theories about international cooperation and conflict; it is a way of understanding world affairs. There are different methods of researching international relations. All of them are unique, because we study the relations between nations. One of the most popular method international relations research is modeling. In my opinion, this method has many advantages which help us to understand and to study international relations. When we make a model, we can predict the future situation in relations between different states, we can try to prevent a war, we can show nations with conflicting interests how to survive in a modern world. N. N. Moiseev is a prominent Russian scientist in the field of environmental protection as well an education. He developed the model of Nuclear Winter, which forced nuclear States to stop nuclear tests and the use of nuclear weapons in order to save the biosphere. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and his aim was to protect future generations from nuclear war, which will lead to the death of all people in the world. Nikita Nikolaevich Moiseev (23 August 1917 – 29 February 2000) Academician Nikita N. Moiseev an outstanding scientist, known for his fundamental work in the field of applied mathematics. His works are devoted to the mechanics and fluid dynamics, numerical methods in optimal control theory, the theory of hierarchical systems, simulation, design automation, interdisciplinary studies of environmental problems. Nikita N. Moiseev was born August 23, 1917 in Moscow in a family of Russian intellectuals. His father Nikolai S. Moiseyev, assistant professor at Moscow University, was arrested and died in Butyrskaya in the early 30s. Mother the adopted daughter of Nikolai Karlovich von Meck (shot in 1929), whose mother has provided for its time financial support to the great Russian composer PI Tchaikovsky. Because of the origin of the path of Moiseev in science was not easy. Although he passed the entrance exams, MSU did not accept him because of noble origin, and data of the repressed father. After passing some exams externally, Moiseyev graduated yet Faculty of Mechanics, Moscow State University in 1941. In the same year he was drafted into the army and sent to study at the Air Force Academy. NE Zhukovsky. At the end of which in 1942 received an engineering degree, Moiseev was sent to the Volkhov front senior technician on aircraft maintenance. In the air units he served until 1948, when he was demobilized with the rank of captain. Since 1948 Nikita Nikolaevich has taught in the Moscow Higher Technical School im. NE Bauman at the Faculty of aircraft armament. Simultaneously, he worked at SRI-2 Ministry of Aviation Industry of the USSR, which solved the problems of calculation of dispersion and processing the results of bench testing rockets. Later, Moiseev worked at the Computing Center of USSR head of the department of computational methods in hydrodynamics and simultaneously taught at the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute. In 1955 he was appointed dean of the Faculty Aeromehanicheskogo MIPT. And after 10 years, organized in MIPT Department of Management and Applied Mathematics, and was its first dean. All this time, Nikita Nikolaevich continues to actively engage in scientific research. Academician Nikita N. Moiseev brought his calculations of nuclear winter. In 1983, the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan published a number of scenarios of a possible nuclear war, caused by a nuclear exchange with a capacity of thousands of megatons. They advanced the hypothesis of nuclear nights, which will inevitably attack after grand fires and wrapping the worlds veil of soot and the nuclear winter, which comes as the planets surface would be inaccessible to sunlight and begin to cool rapidly. The staff of Moiseev in the Computing Center of the USSR possessed a system of models, sufficient for the numerical estimates, and computer system BESM-6. The Americans then were able to analyze the possible dynamics of atmospheric changes only for the first month after a nuclear exchange, and collective EC USSR was able to give the picture a year. Made calculations fully confirmed the validity of the hypothesis C. Sagan. [1] These results have provided such an impression on the politicians that gave impetus to a process of nuclear disarmament. And Nikita Nikolaevich himself in the last years of his life engaged in the development of philosophical and methodological problems in the relationship of nature and society, emphasizing the idea of human responsibility for the fate of the planet. Nuclear winter Nuclear winter is a term that describes the climatic effects of nuclear war. In the 1980s, work conducted jointly by Western and Soviet scientists showed that for a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union the climatic consequences, and indirect effects of the collapse of society, would be so severe that the ensuing nuclear winter would produce famine for billions of people far from the target zones. There are several wrong impressions that people have about nuclear winter. One is that there was a flaw in the theory and that the large climatic effects were disproven. Another is that the problem, even if it existed, has been solved by the end of the nuclear arms race. But these are both wrong. Furthermore, new nuclear states threaten global climate change even with arsenals that are much less than 1% of the current global arsenal. How Does Nuclear Winter Work? A nuclear explosion is like bringing a piece of the Sun to the Earths surface for a fraction of a second. Like a giant match, it causes cities and industrial areas to burn. Megacities have developed in India and Pakistan and other developing countries, providing tremendous amounts of fuel for potential fires. The direct effects of the nuclear weapons, blast, radioactivity, fires, and extensive pollution, would kill millions of people, but only those near the targets. However, the fires would have another effect. The massive amounts of dark smoke from the fires would be lofted into the upper troposphere, 10-15 kilometers (6-9 miles) above the Earths surface, and then absorption of sunlight would further heat the smoke, lifting it into the stratosphere, a layer where the smoke would persist for years, with no rain to wash it out. The climatic effects of smoke from fires started by nuclear war depend on the amount of smoke. Our new calculations show that for 50 nuclear weapons dropped on two countries, on the targets that would produce the maximum amount of smoke, about 5 megatons (Tg) of black smoke would be produced, accounting for the amount emitted from the fires and the amount immediately washed out in rain. As the smoke is lofted into the stratosphere, it would be transported around the world by the prevailing winds. We also did calculations for two scenarios of war between the two superpowers who still maintain large nuclear arsenals, the United States and Russia. In one scenario, 50 Tg of black smoke would be produced and in another, 150 Tg of black smoke would be produced. How many nuclear weapons would be required to produce this much smoke? It depends on the targets, but there are enough weapons in the current arsenals to produce either amount. In fact, there are only so many targets. Once they are all hit by weapons, additional weapons would not produce much more smoke at all. 2] Even after the current nuclear weapons reduction treaty between these superpowers is played out in 2012, with each having about 2,000 weapons, 150 Tg of smoke could still be produced. Analogs Support the Theory Nuclear winter is a theory based on computer model calculations. Normally, scientists test theories by doing experiments, but we never want to do this experiment in the real world. Thus we look for analogs t hat can inform us of parts of the theory. And there are many such analogs that convince us that the theory is correct: Cities burning. Unfortunately, we have several examples of cities burning, firestorms created by the intense release of energy, and smoke being pumped into the upper atmosphere. These include San Francisco as a result of the earthquake in 1906, and cities bombed in World War II, including Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, Darmstadt, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. The seasonal cycle. In the winter, the climate is cooler, because the days are shorter and sunlight is less intense. Again, this helps us quantify the effects of reduction of solar radiation. The diurnal cycle. At night the Sun sets and it gets cold at the surface. If the Sun did not rise tomorrow, we already have an intuitive feel for how much cooling would take place and how fast it would cool. Volcanic eruptions. Explosive volcanic eruptions, such as those of Tambora in 1815, Krakatau in 1883 and Pinatubo in 1991, provide several lessons. The resulting sulfate aerosol cloud in the stratosphere is transported around the world by winds, thus supporting the results from the animations above. The surface temperature plummets after each large eruption, in proportion to the thickness of the stratospheric cloud. In fact 1816, following Tambora, is known as the Year Without a Summer, with global cooling and famine. Following the Pinatubo eruption, global precipitation, river flow, and soil moisture all reduced, since cooling the planet by blocking sunlight has a strong effect on reducing evaporation and weakening the hydrologic cycle. This is also what the nuclear winter simulations show. [3] Forest fires. Smoke from large forest fires sometimes is injected into the lower stratosphere. And the smoke is transported around the world, also producing cooling under the smoke. Dust storms on Mars. Occasionally, dust storms start in one region of Mars, but the dust is heated by the Sun, lofted into the upper atmosphere, and transported around the planet to completely enshroud it in a dust blanket. This process takes a couple weeks, just like our computer simulations for the nuclear winter smoke. Extinction of the dinosaurs. 65,000,000 years ago an asteroid or comet smashed into the Earth in southern Mexico. The resulting dust cloud, mixed with smoke from fires, blocked out the Sun, killing the dinosaurs, and starting the age of mammals. This Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction may have been exacerbated by massive volcanism in India at the same time. This teaches us that large amounts of aerosols in Earths atmosphere have caused massive climate change and extinction of species. The difference with nuclear winter is that the K-T extinction could not have been prevented. Policy Implications The work on nuclear winter in the 1980s, and the realization that both direct and indirect effects of nuclear war would be a global catastrophe, led to the end of arms race and the end of the Cold War. In response to the comment In the 1980s, you warned about the unprecedented dangers of nuclear weapons and took very daring steps to reverse the arms race, in an interview in 2000, Mikhail Gorbachev said Models made by Russian and American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that would be extremely destructive to all life on Earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and morality, to act in that situation. [4] Since the 1980s, the number of nuclear weapons in the world has decreased to 1/3 of the peak number of more than 70,000. The consequences of regional-scale nuclear conflicts are unexpectedly large, with the potential to become global catastrophes. The combination of nuclear proliferation, political instability, and urban demographics may constitute one of the greatest dangers to the stability of society since the dawn of humans. The current and projected American and Russian nuclear arsenals can still produce nuclear winter. [5] Only nuclear disarmament will prevent the possibility of a nuclear environmental catastrophe. Summary All in all, we need to say that the model of Nuclear Winter made by N. N. Moiseev was extremily important for all people in the world. Especially, it was important for politicians who understood that they should stop arms race, otherwise the world can stop exist. According to the latest nuclear winter researches, which were published in 2007 and 2008, we can say several things about this topic. Now we know that even a minor nuclear war (such as between India and Pakistan or in the Middle East), with each country using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs as airbursts on urban areas, could produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history. This is only 0. 3% of the explosive power of the current global arsenal. This same scenario would produce global ozone depletion, because the heating of the stratosphere would enhance the chemical reactions that destroy ozone. A nuclear war between the United States and Russia today could produce nuclear winter, with temperatures plunging below freezing in the summer in major agricultural regions, threatening the fo od supply for most of the planet. The climatic effects of the smoke from burning cities and industrial areas would last for several years, much longer than we previously thought. New climate model simulations, that have the capability of including the entire atmosphere and oceans, show that the smoke would be lofted by solar heating to the upper stratosphere, where it would remain for years. The only way to eliminate the possibility of this climatic catastrophe is to eliminate the nuclear weapons. If they exist, they can be used. The spread of nuclear weapons to new emerging states threatens not only the people of those countries, but the entire planet. Rapid reduction of the American and Russian nuclear arsenals will set an example for the rest of the world that nuclear weapons cannot be used and are not needed. References 1. Aleksandrov, V. V. , and G. L. Stenchikov, 1983: On the modeling of the climatic consequences of the nuclear war, Proc. Applied Math, Computing Centre, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 21 pp. 2. Crutzen, P. J. , and J. W. Birks, 1982: The atmosphere after a nuclear war: Twilight at noon, Ambio, 11, 180 pages. 3. Harwell, M. A. and T. C. Hutchinson, Eds. , 1986: Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War, SCOPE 28. Volume II, Ecological and Agricultural Effects, John Wiley Sons, New York. 4. Mark A. Harwell Nuclear Winter: The Human and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War Springer, 179 pages , November 1984, ISBN 0-387-96093-7 5. Mills, Michael J. , Owen B. Toon, Richard P. Turco, Douglas E. Kinnison, Rolando R. Garcia, 2008, Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict, PNAS, 244 pages, doi:10. 1073/pnas. 0710058105. 6. N. N. Moiseev, Man, nature and the future of civilization: nuclear winter and the problem of a permissible threshold Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, Moscow, 92 pages, January 1986. 7. Robock, Alan, 2008: Time to bury a dangerous legacy: Part II: Climatic catastrophe would follow regional nuclear conflict. YaleGlobal Online. 8. Robock, Alan, Luke Oman, Georgiy L. Stenchikov, Owen B. Toon, Charles Bardeen, and Richard P. Turco, 2007a: Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts. Atm. Chem. Phys. , 7 , 2003-2012. 9. Robock, Alan, Luke Oman, and Georgiy L. Stenchikov, 2007b: Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences. J. Geophys. Res. , 112 , D13107, doi:10. 1029/2006JD008235. 10. Sagan, C. , and R. Turco, 1990: A Path Where No Man Thought Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race, New York, Random House, 499 pp. ISBN: 0394583078. 11. Toon, Owen B. , Richard P. Turco, Alan Robock, Charles Bardeen, Luke Oman, and Georgiy L. Stenchikov, 2007a: Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism. Atm. Chem. Phys. , 7 , 1973-2002. 12. Turco, R. P. , Toon, A. B. , Ackerman, T. P. , Pollack, J. B. , Sagan, C. (TTAPS) (1990) Climate and Smoke: An Appraisal of Nuclear Winter, Science, volume 247, 209 pages, January. 3. Turco, R. P. , O. B. Toon, T. P. Ackerman, J. B. Pollack, and C. Sagan, 1983: Nuclear winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions, Science, 222, 1283-1292. 14. Walt, S. M: (1998), â€Å"International Relations: One World, Many Theories†, Foreign Policy, n. 110, Spring 1998, 70 pages. 15. Mikhail Gorbachev explains what’s rotten in Russia http://www. salon. com/2000/09/07 /gorbachev/ [1] N. N. Moiseev, Man, nature and the future of civilization: nuclear winter and the problem of a permissible threshold Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, Moscow, 56-58 pp. [2] Crutzen, P. J. , and J. W. Birks, 1982: The atmosphere after a nuclear war: Twilight at noon, Ambio, 11, 114-125. [3] Mark A. Harwell Nuclear Winter: The Human and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War Springer, November 1984, pp. 95-97 [4] Mikhail Gorbachev explains what’s rotten in Russia http://www. salon. com/2000/09/07/gorbachev/ [5] Mills, Michael J. , Owen B. Toon, Richard P. Turco, Douglas E. Kinnison, Rolando R. Garcia, 2008, Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict, PNAS, pp. 118-127

Spanish-English Halloween Story Essays - Bruja, Bombones, Halloween

Spanish-English Halloween Story On la vispera de Todos los Santos a young boy went to a casa de los fantasmas. Outside there were esqueletos hanging on the walls. He was wearing a glow in the dark mascara, carrying a calavera in one hand and a saco in the other. His disfraz masked his miedo. He only wished he had carried a linterna with him. His sack was filled with bombones as he entered the house with many fantasmas in it. Out of nowhere a murcielago flew across his face. He dropped his trusty skull and could not find it again. He picked up an escoba to fend off the gato negro by his feet. All he could think about was how much fun it would be at the fiesta he was going to afterwards. Right now he saw a bruja and her caldera and ran away. He could hear the buhos as the house suddenly went silent. Then he saw a tall espantapajaros holding a large, orange calabaza. The luna shone on this very brightly. The door was ahead and he ran to it. He would now walk to the party he was going to go to and then finnally the tre inta y uno, the noche de las brujas would finally be over. Foreign Languages

Biography of Banastre Tarleton, British General

Biography of Banastre Tarleton, British General Banastre Tarleton (August 21, 1754–January 15, 1833) was a British Army officer during the American Revolution who became notorious for his actions in the southern theater of the war. He gained his reputation for brutality following the Battle of Waxhaws, where he reputedly had American prisoners killed. Tarleton later led part of Lieutenant General Lord Charles Cornwallis army and was crushed at the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781. Remaining active until the end of the war, he was captured following the British surrender at Yorktown that October. Fast Facts: Banastre Tarleton Known For: American RevolutionBorn: August 21, 1754 in Liverpool, EnglandParents: John TarletonDied: January 15, 1833 in Leintwardine, EnglandEducation: Middle Temple in London and University College at Oxford UniversityPublished Works:  A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781, in the Southern Provinces of North AmericaSpouse(s): Mary Robinson (not married, long term relationship ca. 1782–1797) Susan Priscilla Bertie (m. December 17, 1798–his death in 1833)Children: Illegitimate daughter with Kolima, (1797–1801) Banina Georgiana Tarleton Early Life Banastre Tarleton was born August 21, 1754, in Liverpool, England, the third child of John Tarleton, a prominent merchant with extensive ties in the American colonies and the slave trade. John Tarleton served as the mayor of Liverpool in 1764 and 1765, and, holding a position of prominence in the city, Tarleton saw that his son received an upper-class education including studying the law at Middle Temple in London and University College at Oxford University. Upon his fathers death in 1773, Banastre Tarleton received 5,000 British pounds but promptly lost most of it gambling at Londons notorious Cocoa Tree club. In 1775, he sought a new life in the military and purchased a commission as a coronet (second lieutenant) in the 1st Kings Dragoon Guards. Taking to military life, Tarleton proved a skilled horseman and displayed strong leadership skills. Early Career In 1775, Tarleton obtained permission to leave the 1st Kings Dragoon Guards and proceeded to North America as a volunteer with Cornwallis. As part of a force arriving from Ireland, he took part in the failed attempt to capture Charleston, South Carolina in June 1776. Following the British defeat at the Battle of Sullivans Island, Tarleton sailed north where the expedition joined General William Howes army on Staten Island. During the New York Campaign that summer and fall he earned a reputation as a daring and effective officer. Serving under Colonel William Harcourt of the 16th Light Dragoons, Tarleton achieved fame on December 13, 1776. While on a scouting mission, Tarletons patrol located and surrounded a house in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, where American Major General Charles Lee was staying. Tarleton was able to compel Lees surrender by threatening to burn the building down. In recognition of his performance around New York, he earned a promotion to major. Charleston Waxhaws After continuing to provide able service, Tarleton was given command of a newly formed  mixed force of cavalry and light infantry known as the British Legion and Tarletons Raiders in 1778. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, his new command was largely comprised of Loyalists and at its largest numbered around 450 men. In 1780, Tarleton and his men sailed south to Charleston, South Carolina, as part of General Sir Henry Clintons army.   Landing, they aided in the siege of the city and patrolled the surrounding area in search of American troops. In the weeks before Charlestons fall on May 12, Tarleton won victories at Moncks Corner (April 14) and Lenuds Ferry (May 6). On May 29, 1780, his men fell upon 350 Virginia Continentals led by Colonel Abraham Buford. In the ensuing Battle of Waxhaws, Tarletons men butchered Bufords command, despite an American attempt to surrender, killing 113 and capturing 203. Of the captured men, 150 were too wounded to move and were left behind. Known as the Waxhaws Massacre to the Americans, it, along with his cruel treatment of the populace, cemented Tarletons image as a heartless commander. Through the remainder of 1780, Tarletons men pillaged the countryside instilling fear and earning him the nicknames Bloody Ban and Butcher. With Clintons departure after the capture of Charleston, the Legion remained in South Carolina as part of Cornwallis army. Serving with this command, Tarleton took part in the victory over Major General Horatio Gates at Camden on August 16. In the weeks that followed, he sought to suppress the guerrilla operations of Brigadier Generals Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter, but with no success. Marion and Sumters careful treatment of civilians earned them their trust and support, while Tarletons behavior alienated all those he encountered. Cowpens Instructed by Cornwallis in January 1781 to destroy an American command led by Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, Tarleton rode west seeking the enemy. Tarleton found Morgan at an area in western South Carolina known as the Cowpens. In the battle that followed on January 17, Morgan conducted a well-orchestrated double envelopment that effectively destroyed Tarletons command and routed him from the field. Fleeing back to Cornwallis, Tarleton fought in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse and later commanded raiding forces in Virginia. During a foray to Charlottesville, he unsuccessfully attempted to capture Thomas Jefferson and several members of the Virginia legislature. Later War Moving east with Cornwallis army in 1781, Tarleton was given command of the forces at Gloucester Point, across the York River from the British position at Yorktown. Following the American victory at Yorktown and Cornwallis capitulation in October 1781, Tarleton surrendered his position. In negotiating the surrender, special arrangements had to be made to protect Tarleton due to his unsavory reputation. After the surrender, the American officers invited all of their British counterparts to dine with them but specifically forbade Tarleton from attending. He later served in Portugal and Ireland. Politics Returning home in 1781, Tarleton entered politics and was defeated in his first election for Parliament. In 1782, after returning to England and supposedly on a bet with her current lover, Tarleton seduced Mary Robinson, ex-mistress of the Prince of Wales and a talented actress and poet: they would have a 15-year relationship, but never married and had no surviving children. In 1790, he won the election and went to London to serve as a member of Parliament for Liverpool. During his 21 years in the House of Commons, Tarleton largely voted with the opposition and was an ardent supporter of the slave trade. This support was largely due to his brothers and other Liverpudlian shippers involvement in the business. Mary Robinson wrote his speeches after he became a member of Parliament. Later Career and Death With Mary Robinsons assistance, in 1787 Tarleton wrote Campaigns of 1780–1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America, an apologia for his failings in the American Revolution, on which he blamed  Cornwallis. Despite Robinsons active role in his life by the late 18th century, Tarletons growing political career forced him to abruptly end his relationship with her. On December 17, 1798, Tarleton married Susan Priscilla Bertie, an illegitimate daughter of Robert Bertie, the 4th Duke of Lancaster. Tarleton had no surviving children in either relationship; although he did have an illegitimate daughter (Banina Georgiana Tarleston, 1797–1801) with a woman known as Kolima. Tarleton was made a general in 1812, and in 1815, he was created a Baronet and received a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1820. Tarleton died in London on January 25, 1833.

Definition and Examples of Confirmation Bias

Definition and Examples of Confirmation Bias In argumentation, confirmation bias is the tendency to accept evidence that confirms our beliefs and to reject evidence that contradicts them. Also known as  confirmatory bias. When conducting research, people can make an effort to overcome confirmation bias by deliberately seeking evidence that contradicts their own viewpoints. The concepts of perceptual defense bias and the backfire effect are related to confirmation bias. The term confirmation bias  was coined by English cognitive psychologist Peter Cathcart Wason (1924-2003) in the context of an experiment he reported on in 1960. Examples and Observations The confirmation bias is a consequence of the way perception works. Beliefs shape expectations, which in turn shape perceptions, which then shape conclusions. Thus we see what we expect to see and conclude what we expect to conclude. As Henry David Thoreau put it, We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. The truism, Ill believe it when I see it might be better stated Ill see it when I believe it.The potent effect of expectations on perception was demonstrated in the following experiment. When subjects were given a drink that they thought contained alcohol, but in fact did not they experienced reduced social anxiety. However, other subjects who were told they were being given nonalcoholic beverages when they were, in fact, alcoholic did not experience reduced anxiety in social situations. (David R. Aronson, Evidence-Based Technical Analysis. Wiley, 2007) The Limits of Reason Women are bad drivers, Saddam plotted 9/11, Obama was not born in America, and Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: to believe any of these requires suspending some of our critical-thinking faculties and succumbing instead to the kind of irrationality that drives the logically minded crazy. It helps, for instance, to use confirmation bias (seeing and recalling only evidence that supports your beliefs, so you can recount examples of women driving 40 mph in the fast lane). It also helps not to test your beliefs against empirical data (where, exactly, are the WMD, after seven years of U.S. forces crawling all over Iraq?); not to subject beliefs to the plausibility test (faking Obama’s birth certificate would require how widespread a conspiracy?); and to be guided by emotion (the loss of thousands of American lives in Iraq feels more justified if we are avenging 9/11). (Sharon Begley, The Limits of Reason. Newsweek, August 16, 2010) Information Overload In principle, the availability of a great deal of information could protect us from the confirmation bias; we could use information sources to find alternative positions and objections raised against our own. If we did that and thought hard about the results, we would expose ourselves to a valuable dialectical process of objections and replies. The problem is, though, there is too much information to pay attention to all of it. We must select, and we have a strong tendency to select according to what we believe and like to believe. But if we attend only to confirming data, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to have well-reasoned, fair, and accurate beliefs. (Trudy Govier, A Practical Study of Argument, 7th ed. Wadsworth, 2010) The  Backfire Effect and Affective Tipping Points The strongest bias in American politics is not a liberal bias or a conservative bias; it is a confirmation bias, or the urge to believe only things that confirm what you already believe to be true. Not only do we tend to seek out and remember information that reaffirms what we already believe, but there is also a backfire effect, which sees people doubling down on their beliefs after being presented with evidence that contradicts them.So, where do we go from here? Theres no simple answer, but the only way people will start rejecting falsehoods being fed to them is by confronting uncomfortable truths.  Fact-checking is like exposure therapy for partisans, and there is some reason to believe in what researchers call an effective tipping point, where motivated reasoners start to accept hard truths after seeing enough claims debunked over and over. (Emma Roller, Your Facts or Mine? The New York Times, October 25, 2016) Perceptual Defense Bias Like other biases, the confirmation bias also has an opposite which traditionally has been termed perceptual defense bias. This process refers to the automatic discounting of disconfirming stimuli that protect the individual against information, ideas or situations that are threatening to an existing perception or attitude. It is a process that encourages the perception of stimuli in terms of the known and familiar. (John Martin and Martin Fellenz, Organizational Behaviour and Management, 4th ed. South Western Educational Publishing, 2010) Confirmation Bias on Facebook [C]onfirmation bias- the psychological tendency for people to embrace new information as affirming their pre-existing beliefs and to ignore evidence that doesn’t- is seeing itself play out in new ways in the social ecosystem of Facebook. Unlike Twitter- or real life- where interaction with those who disagree with you on political matters is an inevitability, Facebook users can block, mute and unfriend any outlet or person that will not further bolster their current worldview.​Even Facebook itself sees the segmentation of users along political lines on its site- and synchronizes it not only with the posts users see but with the advertisements they’re shown. (Scott Bixby, The End of Trump: How Facebook Deepens Millennials, Confirmation Bias. The Guardian [UK], October 1, 2016) Thoreau on Chains of Observations A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically, or intellectually, or morally, as animals conceive their kinds at certain seasons only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. If there is something which does not concern me, which is out of my line, which by experience or by genius my attention is not drawn to, however novel and remarkable it may be, if it is spoken, I hear it not, if it is written, I read it not, or if I read it, it does not detain me. Every man thus tracks himself through life, in all his hearing and reading and observation and traveling. His observations make a chain. The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest which he has observed, he does not observe.(Henry David Thoreau, Journals, January 5, 1860)

(managing human capital) Traditional performance appraisal methods and Essay

(managing human capital) Traditional performance appraisal methods and why it leads dysfunctional behaviour - Essay Example Performance appraisals are undertaken to assess the individual, a team, or an organisational unit's progress as far as its function is concerned. They can be based on personal assessment of the ratee based on a prepared rating scale depending on the systems preferred by the management. In the general context, performance evaluation is a good tool to reward and recognise outstanding performances and correct or counsel employees with poor accomplishments (US Department of the Interior, n. d) Traditional methods of performance appraisal methods may differ in usability between private and public organisations. But they have similarities as far as the rating systems are concerned. Old systems use review processes in which the supervisor writes his ratings and opinions of the performance of a subordinate based on a form. In some organisations, the staff member is asked to fill out a self-review to share with the supervisor. In most cases, the appraisal reflects what the rater can remember and not a comprehensive evaluation. It is based on feelings and can be judgmental in nature (Dulewicz, 1989) Considering that humans have emotions, traditional assessment techniques and even some present methods are mostly ceremonial rather than a thorough assessment of the personnel's o