Marxist Archaeology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Marxist Archaeology - Essay Example In other words, Archaeology should have Marxism embedded in it. According to them, pre-Marxian anthropology is absolute zero. So it is necessary that Marxism be incorporated in the science, according to the author. Marxist archaeologists and anthropologists declare that Marx was highly intellectual. His theories were wonderful. No doubt, there are loopholes in them as well. Some of his theories were unclear and obsolete. Even then, Human sciences and Social sciences have to adopt contributions of Marxism. Otherwise they cannot exist. At the same time Marx also must modify his principles based on modern social sciences. Some feel that Marxism and anthropology/archaeology cannot go together. Social Sciences consist of Functionalism, Structuralism and Phenomenology. The outward appearance does not make a man. It may not be real. Nobody should be carried away by surface form. Marx agrees with this when he says that "All sciences would be superfluous if outward appearance and essence of things directly coincided." Structural Marxism had a unifying perspective in 1976. Even western archaeologists were impressed by Marxian principles, which in fact are the pillars of methodological development.

Concentration of enzymes Essay Example for Free

Concentration of enzymes Essay CONCLUSION: Based on the results obtained from the experiment it can be concluded that the concentration of enzymes influences the rate of a chemical reaction. If enzyme concentration is decreased then the reaction rate will also decrease. If there is sufficient enzyme to bind with substrate then the reaction will proceed fast and if there are insufficient enzymes present then the reaction will slow down DISCUSSION: It was predicted that with the increase of concentration of amylase solution, the time took to break down starch would decrease . This was proved correct , if basing on just these trials . The graph shows how with every single increase of the concentration , the amount of drops until the mixture fails to give a blue-black colour with iodine solution disappear decreased. This continually happened , without any outliers. The trend-line of the graph shows the predicted linear line in the relationship between concentration of amylase solution and the amount of drops until the mixture fails to give a blue-black colour with iodine solution. The amount of drops until the mixture fails to give a blue-black colour with iodine solution with a amylase concentration of 0.1% was found to be 12 drops, which was plotted on the graph. It can be presumed that a higher concentration of amylase is better because it does not take much time to break down the polysaccharide chains and a higher concentration helps to speed up this process. The amylase concentration of 0.1% took only 12 drops until the mixture fails to give a blue-black colour, while the amylase concentration of 0.05% took 21 drops , the amylase concentration of 0.025% took 24 drops and the amylase concentration of 0.01% took 28 drops. Because the purpose of an enzyme is to speed up a reaction, it is logical that amylase would have a higher concentration so it can take less time for it to do its purpose. At higher amylase concentration the time taken until the mixture fails to give a blue-black colour with iodine solution. Despite this, there are sources of error that need to be acknowledge. The trial proved difficult for some, sometimes yielding no results. Another source may be the mixing of the concentration.

The process in Financial intermediation in the banking sector

The process in Financial intermediation in the banking sector The financial intermediation is defined as the process which had been carried out by the financial intermediaries as the middleman between the borrower (spender) and lender (saver) to smooth the flow of fund. The financial intermediation called as the process of using the indirect finance in the financial system, which the primary route to transfer funds from lender to borrower. Those savers who have the surplus money will deposits their fund in the financial institution, which will lends those funds to borrowers such as business firms, households, government or foreigners who shortage of fund. Financial intermediary are those financial institution such as commercial bank, finance company, merchant bank, Islamic bank and Brokerage Company. The financial intermediary help to transfer the funds between the lender and borrower in the ways of borrow money from the lender-saver and then using this money to make loan to borrower-spender. For example, the financial institution acquires fund s through public by issuing liabilities such as time deposits and saving accounts. After that, the bank might use that fund to acquire an asset by making loan to the people needed fund for investment or buying that company bond in the financial market. As a result, with the help of financial intermediary, the money successfully transfers from public to the borrower. Financial intermediaries play an important role in the financial system because they help to facilitate the risk transfer and in dealing with the increasingly complex of financial instruments and markets. The financial intermediarys role is to transform the assets which are less desirable by a large portion of public in to assets that are more preferable by the public. This transforming have serve four economic function which are providing maturity intermediation, reduction of risk by diversification, reducing the contracting and information processing costs and to provide a efficient payment mechanism. Besides, many subsequent authors also have stressed about the role of transaction cost in the financial intermediaries. Due to the financial intermediaries are very specializing in information processing, they have create the well-functioning financial institutions that has greatly reduced the transaction and information for customer. They can achieve the economy of balance through sp ecialization; this is because they are handling very large number of transaction so they are able to minimize the fixed costs by ward off the same production of information faced by borrower and lender. In addition, Petersen and Rajan (1994) stated that financial intermediaries develop specialist or expert people in evaluating prospective borrowers and investments projects. Other than that, they can also exploit customer information and reuse that information over time and again. As a result, there are more funds are made available for investments. For example, the fixed cost of assets evaluation mean that the financial intermediaries have an advantage over an individual because they allow the costs to be shared. Faulkender and Petersen (2003) mentioned that the information acquisition cost maybe still can lower down by establish a long-run relationship between the borrower and financial intermediaries. Furthermore, financial intermediation has gain confidence and trust from the pub lic by protect their assets with providing efficient service to help them manage their assets. This is because the financial intermediaries help them channel funds more efficiently to productive investments through funding pooling, better identification and monitoring of profitable investments and risk diversification. Diversification allows allocating assets and bearing risks more efficiently. Those investments are protected against from unconscientiously borrowers by the institutions qualified loan officers and well-trained investment analysts seek good investment opportunities and screen prospective securities so as to obtain the best yield available for the risk level that suits the investors preferences. Thus, the financial intermediaries are vital part for our economic system and in order to maintain the flow of money in the economy. Diamond and Dybvig (1983) show that how the financial intermediaries can improve the risk sharing and thus improve the economy welfare. The financial intermediarys help to diversify the risk of the lenders (savers) by help them to investigate their savings across different sector of business. They have the ability to get the important information that concern about the borrowers financial position compare to those in direct finance route which lender directly lends their money to borrowers in financial market without any information about the borrowers. Financial intermediaries can have the borrowers such important information is because they already have a history of exercising discretion with this type of information, and help to reduce unreliable information concerning the borrowers. This will help to solve the problems create by asymmetric information which are adverse selection and moral hazards. Financial intermediaries help them to screen risk, monitor risk and evaluate risk. It is more efficient for financial institution to screen the investment opportunity and risk on behalf of individuals compare to an individual to screen its. Since the institution has all the important information available about the lenders and borrowers, it helps to reduce the information costs for analyzing their data and save their time. Thus, individual can enjoy other services provided by the financial institution which can enable them to deposit and withdrawal funds without negotiation whereas the borrowers can avoid having a deal with individual investors. It concludes that it helps those individual not only save their time and money, and also offer low risk investment opportunity to them. If there is no the financial intermediaries, the lenders-savers and borrowers-spenders have to pay higher transaction and information costs and the facing the problem create by the asymmetric information such as adverse selection problem and moral hazards problems. Hirshleifer and Riley (1 979) said that adverse selection problems arise before the transaction occurs. Usually those people who agreeable to pay higher interest rate will be worse risk and thus the lenders are more likely had make a loan to high risk borrowers This problem only occurs on the borrowers but not the lenders. However, the moral hazard problem occurs after the transaction which it arise just as the borrowers involve in the chance of their loan will being repaid back to the lenders. It also will happen when the borrowers is taking too much risk as the costs incur more than the benefit that gains by borrowers. Therefore, it will discourage the individual savers from lending money to those borrowers who have such investment opportunity and affected the whole economic development in the country. Amina (2009) show that financial intermediaries also provide maturity flexibility service to individuals by creating financial claims with wide range of maturities so as to balance the maturity of different instruments so as to reduce the gap between assets and liabilities. As if there are no financial intermediaries, individual savers have to purchase the securities of borrowers it will lead them to have many uncertain risks such as the conflicting of the maturity needs of lender and borrower. For example, most lenders would like to lend money at short maturity, however normally the borrower will attempt to borrow for a longer maturity. It would make difficult for the borrower to match their larger loan amount with the small amounts of individual savings which are desired by the lenders then it will make the borrowing more difficult. In addition, financial intermediaries perform an important function as maturity intermediation to make sure investment from lenders and money borrowing for borrowers flawless. In the existence of financial intermediary, individuals income tax differentials are mitigated which it help to transfer tax deductions from low to high income tax payers and to provide tax free services in place of taxable interest. For example, the income invested in and earned by pension funds is not taxed until retirement when the rates are generally lower than before the retirement. Beside, commercial bank also rewards depositors with free service, which are non taxable, rather than pay interest, which is taxable. The depositors will receive nontaxable benefits such as checking accounts, travelers checks and low rate loan in return for the use of the money. In conclusion, the existence of financial intermediary played a very important role in the economic development of the country. In this modern world, it would not have been so efficient, aggressive and progressive without the financial intermediation. Financial intermediaries provide a convenient and safe place where lenders can safely invest excess money and borrowers can easily borrow fund with the low cost and low risk. Question 2: Compare money and capital markets and identify the major issuers of securities in the different markets and the difference among the various types of securities within and between each of the markets. Within your discussion of the money markets include a consideration of the role of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) and the banking system as they interact through required reserve maintenance and monetary policy actions by the Fed. Consider in your analysis the types and significance of the links between the money and capital markets via the term structure of interest rates, issuers of debt and equity, or the characteristics of these securities. There were two group of markets can be found in financial market. They were the capital market and the money market. Although they both come from financial market but they consist of differences. In capital market, we will found the stocks and bond market but in general it is the market for securities where long term funds can be raised by companies or government. To raise the funds, a person needs to purchase a price-set bond in order to borrow their money to the government or business for period of time and this will gain higher return as promised. The government or company paid the lenders through interest that accrues from the borrowings. Another way for the government or company to raise the fund is through the stock market. By using this method, they will sell shares of their stock which is the ownership of the company to the public or companies. Dividends will be paid to the shareholders as agreed by the company as the return on their investment. There were two markets in the capital market: Primary market and secondary market. New issues are distributed to the investor in the primary market and the secondary market is the place where trade securities. In money market, it is about the global financial market. The money market is the place where borrowing and lending in a short-term period. Short-term liquid funding also will be provided to the global financial system. The period of the borrowing of money by the company in a money market has an average of thirteen months. There are few common types of things that being used in the money market such as bankers acceptance, certificates of deposits, commercial paper and repurchase agreements. Normally the money market consists of banks borrowing and lending but money market also will involve by financial companies. A large amounts of asset where issued by the finance companies to fund themselves which is secured by the promise of eligible assets into an asset backed commercial paper conduit. The difference between the two markets is that capital market is for long term investment. They were selling stocks and bonds to borrow money from investors to operate their company. In money markets, it is the short term borrowing or lending market. The banks borrow and lend between themselves and it is usually paid back within thirteen months. The differences can be seen through the ways the two markets used for borrowing or lending transaction. In capital market, primary and secondary markets are interrelated. Securities emerge in primary market while other dealings take place in secondary market. However, there was no sub-division in money market. In efficient money market, secondary market does take place too. In capital market, the financial instrument that being used are debentures, shares, public sector bonds and units of mutual funds. On the other hand, money market uses different financial instruments such as Treasury bill, call money, commercial papers, and certificate of deposits. There were several characteristic of the securities in the money market. They are rapid maturity, safety, liquidity funds of securities of the money market. Short-term capital requirements of the business and government can be solve by issuing money market securities. The maturity of the securities is between three months and matured within one year. Federal funds and repurchase agreements are the money market instruments that examine the maturity of the securities. The credit ratings that surpass the other investment grade debt instruments make money market securities the safest investments available. (Jim Orrill, 2010) The SEC helps ensure this safety by mandating that at least 95% of a money market funds securities must be ones that have earned the highest rating of at least two of the five major credit rating institutions. Federal Reserve System is often referred as Fed is the central bank of the United States. In Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia or BNM is our central bank. Although central bank may differ in terms of structure and modus but they have common responsibility which is to maintain the monetary and financial stability. Sometimes, they are responsible for developing the financial infrastructure and participating in the overall development of nation. Bank Negara Malaysia is responsible to maintain the monetary stability. Preserved the value of the ringgit is the best way to ensure the price stability. This can maintain the inflation of the country low and stable. By maintaining the inflation at low and stable condition will not diminished the purchasing power of ringgit. When the inflation rate is high, people will tend to consider about their purchasing power. When this happened, demand for real assets like properties and houses will be higher because they were thought to be more inflation-proof. Interest of people will be less on investment in the productive capacity of the economy. The interest of holding saving in the financial system will be lesser as they expect that their savings value will be diminished. Fixed income earners will feel their ability to purchase goods and services become less. Bank Negara Malaysia influences the level of interest rates to conduct its monetary policy. Interest rates are the rate that the borrowers of the loan have to pay and the depositors earn on their deposits. To encourage people to save more, interest rate will be given at a high rate. When the economic is weak, funds will be injected into the banking system to reduce the interest rates. Economic activity will be stimulated by the increasing consumption and investment. (Elgilani Eltahir Elshareif, 2010) Short term and long term interest rates of fixed securities is important for the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Usually the short-term rates will be influence by central bank, while the basis of investors expectations of future real interest rates and inflation affect long-term rates. The future real interest rates will affect the domestic investment and production. The real sector of the economy will affect by the term structure transmits monetary policy. In the open economy system, the structure will affect international capital flows and hence exchange rate. Required reserve is referring to the amount that the banking institution place with the BNM in compliance with the Statutory Reserve Requirement. Cash in vault of the banking institution and the demand deposits with BNM are considered as excess reserves. Demand and time deposits placed by the financial corporations are deposits of the private sector. Money market securities are extremely liquid can be converted into cash quickly. As the principles of these debts are repaid very rapidly thus the liquidity of the investment was gained. These securities give the optimum way to the public to invest in the money market securities by trading in large denominations. The money market securities are a wholesale market of short term debt instruments. Question 3: Are the following statements consistent or inconsistent? Explain your answer and discuss how equilibrium is achieved between the futures and cash markets. Answer: Yes, the statement equilibrium is achieved between the futures and cash markets is consistent. An equilibrium relationship can be exists between cash and futures markets. In order to explain how equilibrium is achieved between the futures and cash markets, we first need to take a look on the meaning of future and cash markets and understand how they functions in the commodity market, then we proceed with the basic relationship that arises between both markets. Lastly, we will explain how arbitrage and the law of supply and demand lead the future price to the equilibrium level. The futures market is a place where participants can trade for future contract. A future contract is a contract that involves two parties to buy or sell a specified asset on a specified future date at a price agreed today. While the cash market is a market in which the buyer makes an immediate payment for physical commodities that equal to the current market price, which also called the spot price. The purchaser of a future contract which represent as a long position holder undertakes to receive the delivery of the commodity on future and want to pay it for a low price as possible, while the seller of a futures contract which represent as a short position holder promises to deliver the commodity on future and want to receive a high payment as possible. Long Position Short Position Hedger Secure a current price to protect against future rising Secure a current price to protect against future declining price Speculator Secure a current price in anticipation of rising prices Secure a current price in anticipation of declining prices As above mentioned, the traders in the future market basically classified into two categories: hedgers and speculators. Hedgers can be farmers, dealer, foresters and oil drillers. They have the preexistence risk that connected with a commodity and they enter the market to reduce that risk. Thus, intended to protect against the price risks, they on purpose trade in the futures market to secure the future price of a commodity and sell it later in the cash market. Unlike hedger, speculators aim to profit from the vary price change that hedgers are protecting themselves against. They do not intend to minimize the risk but rather to get benefits from the intrinsically risky nature of the commodity market. For example, we assume a farmer bears the risk at the planting time associated with the uncertain harvest price his wheat will worth on the later 6 months. To avoid this risk he may enter the future market and sell a future contract. For instance, if the current market price for wheat is $10 per ton and he expected to produce 1000 tons of wheat in the next six months, he could lock the price at $10 per ton and selling a 1000 tons wheat future contract. In this manner, the farmer intends to establish a price today that will be harvested in the futures. At the end of the 6 months, the price of wheat in the cash market is actually $9 per ton, so the farmer benefit from the future contact and escapes the lower price. However, if the prices of wheat in cash market were $11 per ton, then the speculator would benefit from the future contact instead of the farmer. Since the future prices are fluctuate based on unpredictable circumstance, the gap between future price and spot price might be huge, hence, people calling the basis as referring to the difference between the cash price and future price of a contract. When a future contract near to its maturity date, the future price and spot price will move close to each other and finally become the same at expiration. Which means the basis must be zero at the maturity of the future contract. From Fig 4.3, we can see that as the delivery month of a future contract is neared, the futures price centralize to the spot price of the asset, and at the delivery period, future price equals to the spot price. So, as time passes, the basis narrows approach maturity of the contract. This behavior of the basis over time is known as convergence, this can be easily explained by arbitrage and the law of supply and demand. For example, suppose that future price is much higher than the spot price as time goes near to the contracts month of delivery. In this condition, traders will catch the arbitrage opportunity of shorting futures contracts, buying more underlying asset and then making delivery. Due to this, the future price will tend to fall, and suppose that future price is much lower than the spot price. Again, there will be arbitrage opportunity, traders are more willing to acquire short contract and cause more long future contract in the market. Thus, the futures price will tend to arise. In this manner, whether the future price is lower or higher to the spot price, at the expiration, both will be equal. In terms of supply and demand, the effect of arbitrage attracts traders to shorting futures contract and creates an increase the supply of contracts to market so makes the future price fall. Inversely, buying the underlying asset causes the demand of assets increase; as a result the future spot price will increase as well. In conclusion, we know that no matter how the future price is difference to the cash price, at the maturity, the basic must be zero, which means that the future price and cash price are equal. Therefore, we can say equilibrium is achieved between the futures and cash markets. Question 5: If banking were to be based on interest-free transactions, how would it work in practice? Do we really need Islamic banks? Is Islamic banking viable? How does Islamic banking fare and conventional banking differ? How many Islamic banks are working at present and where? The Interest-free transactions of Banks Practice Islamic banks are the financial institutions that operate base on Shariah principles. Islamic scholars commend trade-oriented banking in place of traditional interest-bearing credit oriented banking. The major vehicle of interest-free banking is a two-tier mudarabah, which is a business contract negotiated on the basis of profit-sharing ratios between two profits-seeking parties, A and B. Parties A provide funds to party B, party B independently manages the business according to the agreed terms. From the banking point of view, it is an advance agreement on a ratio in which realized business profits are to be shared. The basis of two-tier mudarabah is one mudarabah between the surplus economic units (depositors) and financial institution in order to replace interest-bearing contracts between savers and banks; and another mudarabah between the financial institutions and the deficit economic units in order to replace interest-bearing contracts between banks and ultimate users of funds. So, banks can negotiate deposits and advances on the basis of profit-sharing ratios. In effect, interest-bearing loans are replaced by profit-seeking investments and qard hasanah (loans on zero interest). Interest-free financial institution can efficiently perform all types of intermediation after eliminating interest from the system and the replacement of interest rates by profit-sharing ratios has profound macroeconomic consequences for unemployment, inflation, stability, growth, and income distribution. The Needs of Islamic Banks With Conventional Bank Many Islamic banks use the facilities of conventional banks for treasury management, foreign exchange, portfolio services and investment banking. Major multinational conventional banks have the critical mass to provide specialist service while Islamic banks are usually too small in size to take on such services themselves. Outsourcing makes sense for organizations when the benefits of internalization are outweighed by the administrative costs of trying to extend their functions into new areas where demand is limited. As most Islamic banks are located in the Muslim world, where most of the demand is for core banking services rather than for highly specialized finance, it is a potential management distraction to widen the facilities on offer excessively. This could actually result in deterioration in the quality of the basic level of deposit and funding services. Islamic Bank is Viable Islamic banking and finance are emerging as viable alternatives to conventional interest-based banking and financing. The long run goal of BNM is to construct an Islamic banking system operates same as the conventional banking system. However, an Islamic banking system requires three important elements to qualify as a viable system, such as a large number of players, various types of instruments and money market in Islamic world. In addition, the socio-economic values in Islam must be reflected in an Islamic banking system. BNM spreads the virtues of Islamic banking to distribute Islamic banking on countrywide with a lot of players and able to reach all Malaysians by achieving the above objective. Islamic financial products and services are being in their existing infrastructure and branches. It was seen as the most successful way to increase the number of financial institutions offering Islamic banking services efficiently. On 4 March 1993, BNM introduced an idea is known as Interest-free Banking Scheme (Skim Perbankan Tanpa Faedah). There are many Islamic banking services that provided by the banks using a range of Islamic concepts such as Mudarabah, Musyarakah, Murabahah, Ijarah and others. Mudarabah (Profit-sharing) A capital provider and another party to allow the entrepreneur to carry out business projects based on a profit sharing ratio under an agreement. However, the capital provider of the funds needs to bear all losses. Musyarakah (Joint Venture) The sharing of profits will be distributed base on predetermined ratio for a partnership or joint venture of a particular business. Both parties will bear the losses base on equity participation. Murabahah (Cost Plus) Sales agreement is applicable on the condition that the sale of goods at a price, other costs and the profit margin are agreed to by both parties. Ijarah (Leasing) A lesser (owner) leases property to a lessee at an agreed rental against a fixed charge. Islamic Banking versus Conventional Banking The difference between Islamic Banking and Conventional Banking which is conventional banking eliminates the risk while Islamic banks take the risk when involve in any transaction. In addition, conventional banks do not bear the liability only get the benefit from customers when involve in transaction with customers in form of interest. On the other hand, Islamic banks bear all the liability in transaction with consumer because in getting out any benefit without taking its liability is illegal in Islamic principles. In retail deposit services include the provision of current accounts and low-risk investment accounts base on mudarabah with clients sharing in any bank profits. Conventional banks provide similar deposit services at retail level and allow overdrafts on current accounts, which often incur both fixed-rate charges and interest. Islamic banks cannot offer overdraft facilities on current accounts. However, depositors who get temporary financial difficulties due to events beyond their control such as illness may receive interest-free loans. Conventional banks offer savings rather than investment accounts, the major attraction of such accounts being the interest paid to depositors. This often increases as the minimum notice period for withdrawals lengthens, with accounts which for example require three months notice for withdrawals paying more interest than those requiring one months notice. Some Islamic banks apply similar stepped returns with their investment accounts, with a higher prop ortionate profit share as the period of notice for withdrawals increases. Moreover, conventional bank concern on money as a medium of exchange, valuable and interest on capital is charging on time value basis. Islamic banks focus on the real asset but money is just a medium of exchange goods services for earning profit. In conventional banks, Government gets the loans easily from BNM through Money Market without any capital development expenses. In Islamic banks, Government cannot obtain loans without capital development expenditure. Lastly, debts financing in conventional banks has the benefit of leverage for a project because interest expense is deductible expense form taxable profits. This leads to maximize the tax burden over salaried persons. So, the saving and disposable income is affected badly and decrease in the real GDP. In Islamic banks, Mudarabah and Musharakah provide extra tax to Federal Government and minimize the tax burden over salaried persons. Hence, the savings and disposable income is rise and increase in the real GDP. List of Other Financial Institutions Offer Islamic Financial Products and Services According to the General Council for Islamic Banks and Financial Institutions, there are currently 275 institutions worldwide that follow Islamic banking and financing principles, collectively managing in excess of $200 billion. These institutions are spread throughout 53 countries, including Europe and the United States. Twenty institutions now offer a variety of Islamic financial services in the United States. The Islamic banks are not the only banking institutions drawn in Islamic banking but Islamic banking services were introduced by other financial institutions via the Islamic Banking Scheme. In Malaysia, there are separate Islamic legislation and banking regulations in financial systems. The Islamic Banking Act (IBA) was established to provide BNM with the authorizations of supervising and regulating the Islamic banks. On 1 July 1983, Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB) was the first Islamic bank established and was operated base on Shariah principles. After few years, BIMB expanded rapidly and was being listed on the Main Board of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE). After that, BNM allowed the existing financial institutions to offer Islamic banking services through Skim Perbankan Tanpa Faedah. The Islamic Interbank Money Market (IIMM) was established to link the financial institutions and their instruments. The National Shariah Advisory Council on Islamic Banking and Takaful (NSAC) was established as the highest Shariah authority on takaful in Malaysia. On 1 October 1999, Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad (BMMB) was established. The establishment of BMMB was the result of the joining between Bank Bumiputra Malaysia Berhad (BBMB) and Bank of Commerce Berhad (BOCB). Islamic Banks 1. Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad (BIMB) 2. Bank Muamalat Malaysia Berhad (BMMB) Commercial Banks 1. Alliance Bank Berhad 8. Malayan Banking Berhad 2. AFFIN Bank Berhad 9. AmBank Berhad 3. OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Berhad 10. Public Bank Berhad 4. Citibank Berhad 11. RHB Bank Berhad 5. EON Bank B

Blood Brothers :: Drama

Blood Brothers 1. On stage left were the posh houses where Edward lived, on stage right were the council houses that Mickey and his family lived in. Upstage centre was a brick wall with a painted goalpost, lots of graffiti. The piece of graffiti that stood out the most was the word ‘Everton’. Upstage right was a large alleyway. On both stage left and stage right in between the houses were smaller alleyways. 2. Mickey- Young Linda-Teen  · Large sleeveless V-neck Pullover  · Short Black skirt  · Very dirty white plimsolls  · High heeled black stilettos  · Large dirty shorts- falling down.  · Blond hair- worn in a high ponytail.  · Black socks  · White shirt, couple of buttons undone revealing stomach and cleavage (just).  · Grubby white shirt (short sleeved under green pullover)  · Dirty knees, face, hands and arms.  · Shirt tied at bottom  · Dark, messy hair. 3. The childhood scenes were made realistic by the costumes the children wore. For example Linda wore a girly dress and wore her hair in pigtails. The voices also made these scenes realistic because the males made their voices higher. The scenes were made humorous by the games they played and how excitable they were. 4. One of the actor’s performances I enjoyed was that of Sammy because he was a troublemaker. His performance was made effective by the sneaky attitude he had and the tough loud voice he used, this created the impression he had a lot of power over people and was in charge, but was never going to be punished for his actions. He only looked out for himself and seemed not to care for anybody else even his brother. Another actor I enjoyed watching was Mickey because he started off being a strong, fun, helpful character and ended up being a vulnerable, self-hating character. This made me feel sorry for him. Mickey ended up getting his brother and himself killed. He gave the impression of needing stability in his life. 5. I think the narrator’s role was many different things. He was the storyteller; he was also the characters’ conscience for good and evil. He looked over the characters. The narrator was also a forewarning to us of what is to happen. 6. I think the playwright managed the pathos, through the action and final song ‘ Tell me its not true’ this causes the audience to feel

Divorce & marriage Essay

People from broken families are less likely to have successful marriages. This is because of the psychological implications such families bring into their life. According to available psychological evidence, divorce is a major cause of emotional stress and depression (Clarke-Stewart, & Brentano, 2006). Depression as a psychological impairment has been evidently found to factor much in compromising the social life of the victim. Such individuals are marked with lack of hope for the future, a factor that only serves to negate their chances of engaging in successful marriage. Another commonly cited potential implication of divorce on children is that it can cause negative perception of a particular gender by the child. According to available statistical evidence, it is clear that due to the social and economic hardships experienced by children after the divorce of their parents, most tend to develop hatred against one gender of the community (Clarke-Stewart, & Brentano, 2006). With such a mental setting, an individual finds it a major challenge to accept and appreciate that gender into a binding relationship. This has the direct implication that they are less likely to engage in successful marriages. Still, the sustainable building of character traits in a child is mainly by copying the character traits of the surrounding members of the community (Clarke-Stewart, & Brentano, 2006). This means that their parents are the most influence society members in modeling the character of the child. However, prior to divorce or family breakdown, families are found to have constant conflicts and/or communication failure. Such imply that the character of violence is instilled in the mind of the child. Also, broken families fail to provide the efficient parental love required for modeling reliable social behavior of the child due to the lack of one parent character in the family. All these only negate the children understanding and appreciation of the underlying meaning of marriage. References Clarke-Stewart, A. , & Brentano, C. (2006). Divorce: Causes and Consequences. New Haven: Yale University Press.

The Humane Treatment of Animals vs. Factory Farms Research Paper Example

The Humane Treatment of Animals vs. Factory Farms Research Paper Example The Humane Treatment of Animals vs. Factory Farms Paper The Humane Treatment of Animals vs. Factory Farms Paper Deanda Jones The Humane Treatment of Animals vs. Factory Farms The first questions we have to ask ourselves; do animals have rights, do they have feelings, do they feel pain, do they need as we do? To find the answer, one needs merely to think back on empirical data if one has ever owned or been around an animal, a dog or a cat, or horses or farm animals. Take for instance a mother cat. When a mother has kittens, she looks for a sheltered, warm, safe place to do so. When they are borne, she cleans her kitten instinctively until the sac it is born in is eaten and the kitten mews loudly, letting the world know she is alive and hungry. If the mother feels her babies are threatened, she will move them to a safer place, averting danger. If anything threatens her kittens, she will fight to the death to protect them. If any animal is in pain, it yelps (a dog), or mews (a cat), or moo’s (a cow). When a cow is separated from her calf, she bellows, likewise, the calf balls for its mother. When any animal is cold, it will look for shelter, in the bushes or leaves or a barn. If a puppy mill gets shut down because of its appalling conditions, such as the birthing dogs living in their own feces, and very little space to live in with no shelter, the community is outraged (some are not, I suppose) and the dogs are taken away to better homes. Animals do feel pain; they instinctively care about the members of their herd or litter. They hear and see, they suffer and feel. They form bonds to man, that if broken, they too suffer feeling of loss or abandonment. Most community’s or state’s have laws in place on the ethical treatment of animals. As long as they are used as pets or bred for pets. On the other hand, the treatment of animals raised for meat production is largely unregulated (Herzog and Golden, 2009) ie. factory farms. Factory farms; poultry-turkeys, chickens eggs, beef, pigs and dairy- their goal is to raise as much livestock in as little space as possible for as little time as possible, for as little money as possible so the bottom line is bigger. Because they are in such a small space, chickens get their beaks clipped so they don’t kill each other. When they go to slaughter, the room is darkened so they are calm ( youtube. com/watch? v=u-uYSafpKmk). Use of antibiotics is a ecessity with factory farms, to stave off disease of so many animals living so closely together. And the list of horrors grows longer. Watch a clip from this film and if you can, check it out from your local video source and watch the whole film: youtube. com/watch? v=yh8c9OUti4c In factory farms, animals are products or commodities, not animals, not pets; they have no rights. After watching some of these films, you get the sense that the world has gone askew some how. That something has gone terribly wrong. You get the feeling that animals are raised in some sort of concentration camps, tortured for life, and then killed. Is an animal raised in such a way, healthy to consume? Large corporations that run factory farms can run so cheaply that they have driven the small farmers out of business (Andre’ 2009), which is a sad derivative of factory farming. Their excuse is â€Å"Who else is going to feed the world† ( tyson. com/Consumer/CoreValues. aspx)? A hundred years ago, when people had family farms, everyone grew and raised the food they would consume. They raised their own cattle, sheep, chickens, and pigs and grew a garden. If they wanted something they weren’t raising, they often traded a neighbor for it. County fairs were a place to show off your ingenuity in farming and husbandry skills. Enter the Industrial Age and WWII. Factory’s to get food to the soldiers sprung up everywhere. Convenience food was born and embraced by the ‘modern’ woman. People moved into the city and had to buy food for the first time. People forgot about farming because they didn’t need to. There are some farmers who have stuck it out and still run their farms with humane treatment in mind. The philosophy is that happy and content animals make great food. So do we really need to eat animals anyway? With such global access to so many different kinds of food, there is absolutely no reason for westernized country’s to have to eat animals. The new food pyramid called MyPyramid (MyPyramid. org) displays 6 colored bands that represent the different food groups. The protein band, which is purple, lists not only meat and fish, but also beans, peas, nuts, seeds and eggs as protein sources. There are many meat analogues made from soybeans or wheat, which are very popular and are found in the frozen breakfast isle at your local grocers. Utilitarian’s would say, â€Å"No, there’s enough food, you on’t need to treat animals the way we’re doing for food or experiments, but it needs to be implemented in small baby steps so as not to hurt the welfare of man also (Francione, 1997). But if there are starving people in the world and they painlessly kill and eat an animal is morally permissible to do so. Tom Regan, and animal rights proponent argues that â€Å" what is important for moral consideration are not the differences between humans and non-humans but the similarities†-the ability to experience life and to care about oneself regardless of what anyone else thinks, this in and of itself deserve moral consideration (http://plato. tanford. edu/entries/moral-animal/). Animals, Regan says, have value. Consider factory farming, the most common method used to convert animal bodies into relatively inexpensive food in industrialized societies today. An estimated 8 billion animals in the United States are born, confined, biologically manipulated, transported and ultimately slaughtered each year so that humans can consume them. The conditions in which these animals are raised and the method of slaughter causes vast amounts of suffering. Given that animals suffer under such conditions and assuming that suffering is not in their interests, then the practice of factory farming would only be morally justifiable if its abolition were to cause greater suffering or a greater amount of interest frustration. Certainly humans who take pleasure in eating animals will find it harder to satisfy these interests in the absence of factory farms; it may cost more and require more effort to obtain animal products. The factory farmers, and the industries that support factory farming, will also have certain interests frustrated if factory farming were to be abolished. How much interest frustration and interest satisfaction would be associated with the end to factory farming is largely an empirical question. But utilitarians are not making unreasonable predictions when they argue that on balance the suffering and interest frustration that animals experience in modern day meat production is greater than the suffering that humans would endure if they had to alter their current practice. http://plato. stanford. edu/entries/moral-animal/ Bentham would say, because he likes quality, and if he likes meat, that it will be alright to humanely raise animals for food. He would have his servants out in the fresh hay-filled barn massaging his beef with beer like the Kobe steaks are. His barn would be cooled in summer, heated in winter to make all of his animals happy, therefore, good to eat. Because of the 7 circumstances from Bentham, he would not at all approve of factory farming, because it doesn’t start well and doesn’t end well for any of the animals involved. see Bibl. below) Deanda Jones Bibliography Western Carolina University, Journal of Social Issues, Harold A. Herzog and Lauren L. Golden Vol. 65, No. 3, 2009, pp. 485- 498, Andre Peter, Alternatives Journal Feb2009, Vol. 35 Issue 1, p14-17, 4p youtube. com/watch? v=u-uYSafpKmk youtube. com/watch? v=yh8c9OUti4c mypyramid. org tyson. com/Consumer/CoreValues. aspx) Animal Rights Theory and Utilitarianism: Relative Normative Guidance, Gary L. Francione, 3 Animal L. 75 (1997) Publish Date: 1997 Place of Publication: Lewis amp; Clark Law School