Phenomenon of escalation Essays

Phenomenon of escalation Essays Phenomenon of escalation Essay Phenomenon of escalation Essay The decision by President Johnson to go into war did not solely cause the war. There were certain events that led to this final decision. Even though sending the combat troops could have made the deepest cut, the former administrations before that of President Johnson’s has contributed cracks to the Vietnam-United States relations. Unfortunately, it was President Johnson who created the fatal blow. Logevall (1999) also claims that President Johnson’s decision was an aftermath of the decisions made by the presidents that preceded him. He found himself in a situation where there was no longer turning back. There is a floating promise to save South Vietnam, way from the Kennedy regime. It was a promise that had to be kept. Badly for President Johnson, his decision to send combat troops became the cue. Most important among these events was the repeated declination to undergo negotiations for peace. Vietnam repeatedly insisted on peaceful negotiations. The United States had other things in mind. It did not want to surrender to the Vietnamese. From the time of President Kennedy, the war is impending. It was waiting for a button to be pushed. This is exactly what President Johnson did. (Logevall 1999) It may seem that the Vietnam War was already waiting to happen even way before it actually started. The agitation given to Vietnam was too much for the Northerners to bear. They wanted to put the Southerners in the communist republic. The Southerners did not want this, and so they tried to ask assistance from the United States. That is when the Vietnam War was Americanized. Figuring this, it is not wholly America’s brainchild. Americanizing the Vietnam War is a work of many master minds. Conclusion Three years into the war in 1967, President Johnson was desperate and seeking for a way to end the war albeit in a diplomatic way. Ho Chi Minh wrote to President Johnson and claimed that they do not support the intervention that the United States has brought Vietnam. Instead of nurturing unity, Ho Chi Minh claimed that the United States brought division and aggression. (Homestead, n. d. ) In the process, President Johnson ordered many ceasefires. However, bombings continued at times when the ceasefires themselves ceased. Vietnam requested for bombings to be stopped for it to open itself in negotiations and diplomatic reconciliation, yet American did not bother. The United States continued on with its initiatives. (Homestead, n. d. ) It may seem that President Johnson was himself surprised with the extent of consequence that resulted from his political decisions towards Vietnam. It may be said that President Johnson could have found himself so suddenly in a situation where he can no longer turn back. Yet, it is also important to consider that the Phenomenon of Escalation is a fact that cannot be denied. There were many opportunities of diplomatic arrangements even before President Johnson which were put off and disregarded. As Logevall (1999) puts it, there was a choice. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had the option to go into war or not. However speculative the reason may be in engaging into war, what is now clear is that the war has happened. Thousands of lives, both of the Vietnamese and the Americans, have suffered the consequences of death, trauma, and wounds. This being, it may not be right to put the sole blame on the Vietnam War to President Johnson. However, it will be sufficient to say that President Johnson was able to Americanize the Vietnam War. He was able to inject America, through its diligent and brave troops, in a war between torn Vietnam whose north end wanted to put the south end into communism- something the latter did not want. President Johnson also had many reasons in doing so. It was a personal decision, a decision that is influenced by President Johnson’s thinking that his personal failure is also America’s failure. The people also were not able to reinforce what they want to the president. The war happened before the people were able to enforce peace. Another reason is being put in a no-win situation, with which President Johnson had to choose the longer and harder way out. Lastly, the escalation phenomenon which the Vietnam war went through, finally leading to the Great War in President Johnson’s time, can also be accountable. For all the right and wrong reasons that he and the former presidents could have had, America has absolutely imprinted history in the pages of Vietnam’s history books. References Homestead. n. d. Retrieved October 28, 2007, from homestead. com/mywar/vietnam6. html Logevall, F. 1999. Choosing War: The lost chance for peace and the escalation of war in vietnam. (A review by Kimball, J. ) Retrieved October 28, 2007, from ess. uwe. ac. uk/GENOCIDE/reviewsw32. htm

Introduction to the Concept of Welfare Analysis

Introduction to the Concept of Welfare Analysis When studying markets, economists not only want to understand how prices and quantities are determined, but they also want to be able to calculate how much value markets create for society. Economists call this topic of study welfare analysis, but, despite its name, the subject doesn’t have anything directly to do with transferring money to poor people. How Economic Value Is Created By a Market Economic value created by a market accrues to a number of different parties. It goes to: consumers when they can purchase goods and services for less than they value the use of the itemsproducers when they can sell goods and services for more than each item cost to producethe government when markets provide an opportunity to collect taxes Economic value is also either created or destroyed for society when markets cause spillover effects for parties not directly involved in a market as a producer or a consumer (known as externalities). How Economic Value Is Quantified In order to quantify this economic value, economists simply add up the value created for all of the participants in (or onlookers to) a market. By doing so, economists can calculate the economic impacts of taxes, subsidies, price controls, trade policies, and other forms of regulation (or deregulation). That said, there are a few things that must be kept in mind when looking at this type of analysis. First, because economists simply add up the values, in dollars, created for each market participant, they implicitly assume that a dollar of value for Bill Gates or Warren Buffet is equivalent to a dollar of value for the person who pumps Bill Gates’ gas or serves Warren Buffet his morning coffee. Similarly, welfare analysis often aggregates the value to consumers in a market and the value to producers in a market. By doing this, economists also assume that a dollar of value for the gas station attendant or barista counts the same as a dollar of value for a shareholder of a large corporation. (This isnt as unreasonable as it may initially seem, however, if you consider the possibility that the barista is also a shareholder of the large corporation.) Second, welfare analysis only counts the number of dollars taken in taxes rather than the value of what that tax revenue is ultimately spent on. Ideally, tax revenue would be used for projects that are worth more to society than they cost in taxes, but realistically this is not always the case. Even if it were, it would be very difficult to link up taxes on particular markets with what the tax revenue from that market ends up buying for society. Therefore, economists purposely separate out the analyses of how many tax dollars are generated and how much value spending those tax dollars creates. These two issues are important to keep in mind when looking at economic welfare analysis, but they don’t make the analysis irrelevant. Instead, it’s helpful to understand how much value in the aggregate is created by a market (or created or destroyed by regulation) in order to properly assess the tradeoff between overall value and equity or fairness. Economists often find that efficiency, or maximizing the overall size of the economic pie, is at odds with some notions of equity, or dividing that pie in a manner that is considered fair, so its crucial to be able to quantify at least one side of that tradeoff. In general, textbook economics draws positive conclusions about the overall value created by a market and leaves it to philosophers and policymakers to make normative statements about what is fair. Nonetheless, its important to understand how much the economic pie shrinks when a fair outcome is imposed in order to decide whether the tradeoff is worth it.

International Trade & Institutions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International Trade & Institutions - Essay Example Whether or not free trade is fair is a concept that demands a great deal of attention and concentration, and especially by the people who are directly involved under such aegis. The question that arises here is that whether or not free trade assists in the developing countries or it just brings about success touch points for the world’s biggest superpowers (Johnson, 2009). Free trade theory was devised by several economists for the sake of economic growth. Proponents of free trade regularly cite the theories of eighteenth century Scottish economist Adam Smith and David Ricardo, a nineteenth century British economist. They argued that if government stays out of trade, then wealth created by private businesses and trade will benefit the public at large. The gentlemen also asserted that countries need to specialize in the goods that they can produce most efficiently and cheaply. Also when countries trade their specialties, nearly all the stakeholders receive the benefits undoubte dly (Condon, 2002). Free trade theory claims that economic competition with minimal government intervention will lead to greater efficiency, productivity, and innovation; will reduce costs for consumers; and will free up more capital for further investment. First of all, the role of free trade is removal of trade barriers such as tariffs which should promote economic growth, foster a cooperative spirit among nations, help developing nations into becoming independent economies, and end poverty around the world. Free trade benefits developing countries because it provides economic opportunities, improves working conditions, and advances their technology, becoming more globally conscious. As far as the undertakings of the developing countries are concerned, free trade provides them different opportunities for economic growth. If free trade becomes a universally acceptable economic system, provisionally wealthy countries and developing countries both gain a number of benefits to grow th e worldwide economy. Quite rightly so, trade is the greatest factor that leads to economic growth across all segments within the society that one can speak of. When trade occurs as a result of true demand and supply, the economic growth that occurs also truly reflects the increase in economic welfare. Thus, free trade brings about increased economic growth, which means better and more jobs; advanced standards of living and so on. Free trade is not only beneficial for wealthy countries, but also developing ones. The growth is the solution to world poverty. Additionally, free trade improves working conditions for workers in the developing nations. Free trade can help global workers who are working under torrid conditions. In a hypothetical situation, if a person came up with an explanation that free trade was bad as the workers are laboring under life-threatening conditions to produce the goods that normal people buy, then there could be a number of reasons to suggest in the wake of s uch a discussion. Perhaps the consumer habits need to be changed or something that is totally new and comprehensive in its own right. Even though people realize a large number of workers are laboring under bad conditions, everybody wants to buy cheaper priced goods. I think it is essentially one unchangeable habit on the part of the global consumers. And there are a number of reas

Stakeholder analysis Wal-Mart in Mexico case Essay

Stakeholder analysis Wal-Mart in Mexico case - Essay Example The stakeholders listed in this study may not be a comprehensive list of Wal-Mart stakeholders as those not mentioned are not affected by the case in Mexico. The table below provides the stakeholders affected by the case together with their stakes, attributes, and responsibilities of Wal-Mart towards them with the strategies and actions (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014). It is evident some other stakeholders of Wal-Mart including social activists, local government, businesses operating near Wal-Mart, communities where Wal-Mart stores are located, among others. The reason is that they are not affected by the Mexico case. The reasons for selecting and classification of the different stakeholders in the manner depicted in the table, and Wal-Mart’s specific avenues for dealing with the case are provided in detail in the proceeding sections of the paper. The first consideration entailed the ranking of the stakeholders beginning with those most affected by Mexico case through the consideration of the typology allowing for the determination of the most important stakeholder to be dealt with in the Mexico case. The stakeholder importance order includes the dealing with the definitive stakeholders, followed by the dominant stakeholders, and lastly the dominant stakeholder since three types of stakeholders were identified in the case. The definitive stakeholders consist of employees, shareholders, customers, and the US government owing to the direct impact of the case on these stakeholders and dealing with them first hand would allow for a clear and faster resolution of the case. Wal-Mart employees are involved in the daily running of Wal-Mart operations giving them the power and legitimacy and they hold an interest in the company being their employer and through the employment contract they have a right in the case. The poor conditions of work, poor payments and unpaid overtime, low benefits, not promoting female

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee :: To Kill a Mockingbird Essays

A. Setting:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1. Year: 1940’s   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  2. Location: Maycomb, Alabama   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  3. Period of Time: Three Summer’s B. Point of Veiw:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First Person C. Begining:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Scout, the main character and narrorator of the story, Jem, her brother, and Dill, their neighbor friend that visited every summer, loved to act out stories they knew. They did all kinds of stories like Tarzan and Dracula. Signaling the end of summer and the absence of Dill, the school year began. Scout started school, having a very rough first day. The days flying by, the school year passed quickly for Scout and Jem. Looking forward to seeing Dill again, they found the summer fast aproaching. Begining to play their game as soon as possible, they grew tired of acting out the same old stories, wanting to do something new and exciting. Jem came up with an idea, playing Boo Radley. The story of Boo Radley, the neighborhood weird guy, went as follows: Boo going slightly crazy, stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors. Being a small town, everyone knew the story but no one realy knew or understood what hapened. So they began to act out the story of Boo Radley. Scout played Mrs. Radley, Jem-Boo Radley, and Dill played Mr. Radley. Making their scenes more complex everyday, the three entertained themselves for most of the summer before Atticus caught them, forbidding them to play that game again. D. Two Characters:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Scout, the main character, is a tomboy. Knowing she can do anything her brother, Jem, can do she is confident and able to stand up for herself. She never let anybody push her around, for instance, when Walter Cunninghum, refusing to take the money from Miss Caroline, accidentally got her in trouble she beat him up. The other main character is Jem. Wanting to get Boo Radley to come out, he goes to all kinds of lengths to acheive his goal. Like losing his pants over the fence trying to sneak over to Boo’s house. E. Summarization   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Atticus took on a case for a black man accused of raping a white woman. The case did not go well and Atticus’s family went through some rough times because of the case. Atticus’s sister Alexandria came to stay with them during the case and Scout developed a strong dislike for her. The jury decided the black man was guilty and Jem nad Scout took it hard. Dressed for her part in the school play, Scout and Jam are attacked on their way

Do you think that Mary Tudor deserved her title “Bloody Mary” or was she simply misunderstood?

History has not been kind to Mary Tudor. Compared to what followed, her reign seems like a brief but misguided attempt to hold back England's inevitable transformation to Protestantism. Compared to what came before, her regime looks like the regressive episode of a hysterical woman. Considered on its own terms, however, the regime appears much more complex, leading contributors to this volume of essays to reach far different conclusions about her reign: reestablishing traditional religion in England was an enormous undertaking that required rebuilding the Marian Church from the bottom up.Moreover, given more time it might have succeeded. Finally, as these essays continually remind us, concepts differentiating Catholicism from Protestantism — ideas taken for granted today — were still being sorted out during this period. David Loades's introduction begins the volume by surveying the disturbance in religion during Mary's lifetime. He links the spread of humanism and class ical scholarship to a substantial portion of this disturbance because it created an educated populace capable of raising questions about religious practices for which the traditional Church had no answers.Mary herself received a first-rate humanistic education and contemporaries even considered her well-educated. Loades suggests that, instead of unquestioningly embracing the tenants of the traditional Catholic faith, Mary was a â€Å"conservative humanist with an extremely insular point of view† (18). Nevertheless, her humanistic training did not extend to her devotion to the sacrament of the altar and her uncritical acceptance of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Ultimately, her uncompromising position on the latter would cause the downfall of many.After this introduction, the first section of the volume, entitled â€Å"The Process,† explores obstacles confronting the restoration of Catholicism in England, beginning with David Loades's examination of the degraded st ate of the episcopacy upon Mary's accession, and her administration's attempts to restore it. Next, Claire Cross discusses Marian efforts to enact Catholic reforms in those strongholds of Protestant dissent, the English universities.The queen's decision to restore a community of monks at Westminster is the subject of a study by C.  S. Knighton, who includes a detailed appendix identifying members of this community. In the section's last essay, Ralph Houlbrooke argues that swift acquiescence by one of Norwich's leading evangelical ministers, and the diligence of clergy and Church courts in upholding the Marian restoration, helped Norwich avoid large-scale persecution. Essays in the volume's second section, â€Å"Cardinal Pole,† focus on his role in reestablishing the legitimacy of the restored Church. Thomas F.Mayer begins with an analysis of various court documents, and concludes that even though Paul IV had apparently revoked Pole's legatine office, the matter remained uns ettled, and Pole probably continued to function in that capacity until the end of Mary's reign. In the following chapter, Pole's 1557 St. Andrew's Day sermon provides evidence for Eamon Duffy's defense of the cardinal's record — not only as an outspoken advocate for the importance of preaching, but also as a hard-nosed realist confronting an entire population of apostatized Londoners.In the final essay of this section, John Edwards reveals that, unlike English documents, records from the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions indicate greater Spanish involvement in the restoration of English Catholicism than has been previously recognized. The subject of the final section of this book, â€Å"The Culture,† undertakes issues regarding the Marian Church and its people. Lucy Wooding's essay considers how the multiple layers of symbolism found in the Mass provided a wide focal point for popular piety in the restored Church.In his essay on the theological works of Thomas Watson, Wil liam Wizeman, S. J. , discusses Marian efforts to reeducate worshipers who, after a generation of religious turmoil, were unfamiliar with even the basic tenets of Catholicism. In the following chapter, Gary G. Gibbs reconsiders the eyewitness evidence provided by one Henry Machyn, Merchant Taylor of London, concluding that the Marian regime had indeed connected with enough loyal subjects to provide the queen with an effective base of power

The Story of Jessie Redmon Fauset

Jessie Redmon Fauset was born the seventh child of Annie Seamon Fauset and Redmon Fauset, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal church. Jessie Fauset graduated from the High School for Girls in Philadelphia, the only African American student there. She applied to Bryn Mawr, but that school instead of admitting her helped her to enroll at Cornell University, where she may have been the first black woman student. She graduated from Cornell in 1905, with a Phi Beta Kappa honor. Early Career She taught Latin and French for one year at Douglass High School in Baltimore and then taught, until 1919, in Washington, DC, at what became, after 1916, Dunbar High School. While teaching, she earned her M.A. in French from the University of Pennsylvania.  She also began to contribute writings to Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP. She later received a degree from the Sorbonne. Literary Editor of the Crisis Fauset served as literary editor of the  Crisis from 1919 to 1926. For this job, she moved to New York City. She worked with W.E.B. DuBois, both at the magazine and in his work with the Pan African Movement. She also traveled and lectured extensively, including overseas, during her tenure with the  Crisis.  Her apartment in Harlem, where she lived with her sister, became a gathering place for the circle of intellectuals and artists associated with Crisis. Jessie Fauset wrote many of the articles, stories, and poems in the  Crisis  herself, and also promoted such writers as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer. Her role in discovering, promoting, and giving a platform to African American writers helped to create an authentic black voice in American literature. From 1920 to 1921, Fauset published  The Brownies Book, a periodical for African American children. Her 1925 essay, â€Å"The Gift of Laughter,† is a classic literary piece, analyzing how American drama used black characters in roles as comics. Writing Novels She and other women writers were inspired to publish novels about experiences like their own when a white male novelist, T.S. Stribling, published Birthright in 1922, a fictional account of an educated mixed-race woman. Jessie Faucet published four novels, the most of any writer during the Harlem Renaissance:  There Is Confusion  (1924),  Plum Bun  (1929),  The Chinaberry Tree  (1931), and  Comedy: American Style  (1933).  Each of these focuses on black professionals and their families, facing American racism and living their rather non-stereotypical lives. After theCrisis When she left the  Crisis in 1926, Jessie Fauset attempted to find another position in publishing but found that racial prejudice was too great a barrier. She taught French in New York City, at DeWitt Clinton High School from 1927 to 1944, continuing to write and publish her novels. In 1929, Jessie Fauset married an insurance broker and World War I veteran, Herbert Harris. They lived with Fausets sister in Harlem until 1936 and moved to New Jersey in the 1940s. In 1949, she briefly served as a visiting professor at Hampton Institute and taught for a short time at Tuskegee Institute. After Harris died in 1958, Jessie Fauset moved to her half-brothers home in Philadelphia where she died in 1961. Literary Legacy Jessie Redmon Fausets writings were revived and republished in the 1960s and 1970s, though some preferred writings about African Americans in poverty rather than Fauset’s depictions of an elite.  By the 1980s and 1990s, feminists had refocused attention on Fauset’s writings. A 1945 painting of Jessie Redmon Fauset, painted by Laura Wheeler Waring, hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Background, Family: Mother: Annie Seamon Fauset Father: Redmon Fauset Siblings: six older siblings Education: High School for Girls in PhiladelphiaCornell UniversityUniversity of Pennsylvania (French)Sorbonne in Paris Marriage, Children: Husband: Herbert Harris (married 1929; insurance broker)