My Experience At The Museum Service Of Fifty Visitors

During the course of her fieldwork she studied the discourse (what people say), the practice (what people do) and the experience. For doing her study discourse she conducted a visitor survey for the museum service of fifty visitors. In her questionnaire she asked about visitors’ demographics, the experiences of museums’ visiting in general, as well as elicited visitors’ attitudes. She further combined her data with already existing secondary data, such as visitor statistics and comment forms that helped to compare her future data of prevalent attitudes and establish the main informants for future interviews. From these initial surveys she distinguished various demographics of Croydon inhabitants, such as class, gender, ethnicity, life-style choices and sexuality that she made sure to include in her research. Following established goal Anat Hecht gained access to eighteen visitor households, six households from three main demographic localities of Croydon. Anat He cht also established lasting relationships with fifteen staff informants, with librarians, security staff, cleaners, as well as museums’ front and back gallery professionals. These two different groups of informants and the comparison of what they say and do helped the researcher to understand and deepen her studied subject. Anat Hecht confessed her difficulties in establishing rapport with her respondents. The reason for it was that the first contact was made in the museum setting that is why her informantsShow MoreRelatedCan Having your First Job as a Teenager Really Change your Life? 904 Words   |  4 PagesLiberty. As a member of my high school girls’ varsity basketball team, this quote truly inspired me because I wanted to become just like her; playing college basketball after high school, volunteering my time working with kids and being inducted into the Hall of Fame. I had the opportunity to work with her at the Generation Fitness Center in the Newark Museu m. Without having my first job at the Newark Museum, I would have never met Sue Wicks nor had one the best moments of my life. The best memoriesRead MoreIELTS6206 Words   |  25 Pagesactivity that is easy for most people is swimming. This hobby requires very little equipment, it is simple to learn, and it is inexpensive. I remember learning to swim at my local swimming pool when I was a child, and it never felt like a demanding or challenging experience. Another hobby that I find easy and fun is photography. In my opinion, anyone can take interesting pictures without knowing too much about the technicalities of operating a camera. Despite being straightforward, taking photos is aRead MoreBmw Case Study12111 Words   |  49 Pagesvisual image of BMW assisting in the global success and variation of the car manufacturer. Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my tutor Heather Coleman for taking this Dissertation step by step with me and answering any question I have thrown her way. A special mention must go to my partner Michael Tymms, for accompanying me on my research trip to Munich and my Mother Tracy Bagg, for many days of proof reading. Table of Contents. Title Page†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...i Abstract†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Read MoreArt as an Embodied Imagination22095 Words   |  89 PagesAesthetic Experience Author(s): Annamma  Joy and John  F.  Sherry, Jr. Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 30, No. 2 (September 2003), pp. 259-282 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/376802 . Accessed: 22/10/2012 06:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service thatRead MoreArt as an Embodied Imagination22095 Words   |  89 PagesAesthetic Experience Author(s): Annamma  Joy and John  F.  Sherry, Jr. Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 30, No. 2 (September 2003), pp. 259-282 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/376802 . Accessed: 22/10/2012 06:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helpsRead MoreEssay about Civil Engineers: The True Designers1871 Words   |  8 Pagesagricultural engineering. Another engineering profession that has recently risen to prominence is civil engineering. Unlike most career fields, engineers create physical products and offer concrete services. Without infrastructure, nations would economically fall apart and transportation related services would be impacted negatively. Individuals in the civil engineering field supervise the construction of a societys foundation and in most cases, introduce new inventions, innovations and methods. CivilRead MoreA Brief Biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Essay2075 Words   |  9 Pageshistorically, and socially to promote her and her husbands legacy for decades to come. Her ability and drive to always be one step ahead of the game was what led her to such recognition, and remains to be her legacy up to this day. Even from her experiences as a child, Onassis showed a zeal for learning and a vivacious attitude that foreshadowed her success as a grown woman. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton New York. Her father, John Bouvier, was a New York stockbrokerRead MorePropaganda by Edward L Bernays34079 Words   |  137 PagesPROPAGANDISTS .... 9 19 32 47 62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS BUSINESS AND THE PUBLIC .... PROPAGANDA AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP 92 WOMENS ACTIVITIES AND PROPAGANDA . . . 115 121 135 141 150 PROPAGANDA FOR EDUCATION PROPAGANDA IN SOCIAL SERVICE . ART AND SCIENCE ..................................................... THE MECHANICS OF PROPAGANDA . . CHAPTER I ORGANIZING CHAOS THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an importantRead MoreHaribo Cupcake Mix Marketing Plan6775 Words   |  28 PagesVI. Marketing programs VII. Resources Budget VIII. Implementation controls I. Executive summary of our product launch Haribo brand: Haribo is the leader on the French confectionary market. It exports to more than one hundred and fifty five countries over the world. More than 300 different HARIBO candies are sold around the world. Its portfolio includes brands such as Strawbs, Goldbears, Happy Cola. However, there is a lot of competition on this market with brands like Carambar,Read MoreHaribo Cupcake Mix Marketing Plan6790 Words   |  28 Pagesstrategies VI. Marketing programs VII. Resources Budget VIII. Implementation controls I. Executive summary of our product launch Haribo brand: Haribo is the leader on the French confectionary market. It exports to more than one hundred and fifty five countries over the world. More than 300 different HARIBO candies are sold around the world. Its portfolio includes brands such as Strawbs, Goldbears, Happy Cola. However, there is a lot of competition on this market with brands like Carambar,

`` Mesopotamia `` By Pirieenzo And Narrated By Simon Chilvens

A video on YouTube called â€Å"Mesopotamia† by Pirieenzo and narrated by Simon Chilvens tells the story of the Sumerians, the oldest known civilization. It is said that for nearly five thousand years, in the Iraqi desert, the Sumerians invented writing and the wheel. They divided time into minutes and seconds and built gigantic cities. The Sumerians loved culture and the arts. It is stated that their caravans crossed the desert opening up the first trade groups. The Sumerians’ stories inspired our founding myths and their memories lives on the Old Testament writing the history of the mankind. However, this brilliant civilization died leaving its very existence as a mystery. Today, fascinated stories about this civilization have been found. Genesis 2:10-15 mentioned the Tigris river that goes toward the east of Assyria and the Euphrates river. Between these two rivers is located Mesopotamia, also known as the country between two rivers. The question that many people wonder is Why this civilization developed in this part of the world? Director of Studies of the Practical School of Higher Studies, Paris, Jean-Claude Margueron, states that â€Å"We think that it began with the Greek civilization that influenced the development of classical civilizations.† Mesopotamians used the water from the Tigris and Euphrates river to irrigate their geographical area. Having agriculture, they lack of wood, stone, and metal resources. Baghdad, the capital of Iraqi, is the heritage of the Sumerian

Why Are Apple Products so Popular Free Essays

ESL0420Advanced Writing Analysis Paper Le Han leh@mtu. edu Mar 5th, 2013 Why are Apple Products so Popular? In today’s world, Apple’s products are highly sought after because they are very popular for everyone. According to Yarow,editor of The Business Insider,said that the newest iPhone sold 5 million over the opening weekend (Yarow, 2012). We will write a custom essay sample on Why Are Apple Products so Popular? or any similar topic only for you Order Now However, it is difficult to find the reason why Apple’s products are so superior compared with other electronic products in the market. Since Apple’s products come out in our life, it has facilitated our life and brought us huge benefits. For instance, people do not need to bring their heavy laptops to go to work every day, because they already have the portable tablet PC – iPad. The ascent of Apple’s products are presented in front of everyone, it is due to Apple’s product having a creative design, unique innovation and the reasonable price. To begin with, if people want to know why Apple’s products are so popular in the recent years, one of the answers is the design of the product is very important. By comparison with other electronic products, the apple’s product is always the most aesthetic appearance of electronic products on the market. For example, the newest MacBook Air design reached unbelievably thin and light, but it still retains the Apple computer powerful, durable, capable and enjoyable to use features. On the contrary, the traditional design laptop focus on the hardware upgrade rather than the appearance of product, so the monotonous design of the traditional electronic product makes the consumer feel visual fatigue and not portable. When MacBook Air appeared on the scene, people felt that Apple’s products are so distinctive and unique; because never has a computer company can make their laptop’s thickness less than an inch thin, and has simple designs at the same time. This led Apple’s products directly to be bestselling on the whole electronic market. The same was true of the latest iMac, its desktop display has slim design which greatly save the area of the computer desk. For example, Pete Pachal is technology journalist who has been covering consumer technology in print and online more than ten years. He said that the newest iPhone and iPad paired with brilliant 4-inch and 9. 7-inch retina display which configuration can make the person see more detail. Even with the naked eye, the user can clearly see the type is sharper and photos are showy. Consequently the new Apple’s product makes its competitors look bad, and there is no company that has a product on the market now can compare with it (Pachal, 2012). Beside this, innovation is one of the main reasons for Apple’s products success. Before Apple unleashed the iPhone, there are many experts who worked in the technology industry knew that the touch screen would be the trend of future development. An editor named Charles Babcock from at InformationWeek thinks while the touch technology was not invented by Apple Company, Apple Company carried forward this technology and it eventually prospered. According to Babcock (2013), there are just a few people who believed that companies can launch this product which meet demands of customers in 2007. But Apple Company has done it proved is does not work like that. The release of the iPhone has proved it. Moreover, Apple Company is also introducing this technology to iPad. Nowadays, if there is any mobile phone without touch screen, it is out of date. The consumer just wants a mobile phone which has touch screen function. It is because Apple’s products are the first to provide a suitable touch screen that it will naturally gain traction with consumers. In addition, another reason for Apple’s products are popular on the market is that Apple Company makes the reasonable price. The reasonable price can make average consumers and corporate customers willing to buy it, because people consider the reasonable price to be more attractive than other products on the market. A Taiwan daily newspaper named DigiTimes, which news mainly includes semiconductor, electronics, computer and communication industries believed iPad pricing will disturb the PC market price. DigiTimes (2010) demonstrates that the first generation of iPad price was $499, at that time some tablet PC manufacturers predicted iPad’s price is about $1000 and these tablet PC manufacturers originally planned their tablet prices 20%-30% lower than the iPad. The present the iPad price is only $499, which compels the tablet PC manufacturer to re-evaluate the price strategy. If tablet PC manufacturers want their product appealing to consumers, they could only adjust the price lower than the iPad. But the final result shows that it is failed, and now iPad is the fourth generation, but it still people’s first hoice for PC tablets. If the iPhone and iPad’s price were more expensive, maybe they would not be so popular; I believe Apple Company is also aware of this In short, my conclusion is that the cause of Apple’s products being popular depends on its creative design, unique innovation and the reasonable price. If there were no Apple’s products, I be lieved the development of electronic products would slow down at least ten years. Because the market has Apple’s products, our life is more convenient than before. The emergence of Apple’s products makes electronic product market have more competition. No matter what, the direct beneficiaries of the price war is the consumer. The constantly price war will make commodity prices approached the cost. Consumers can buy more high-quality products at lower price. In order to attract more potential customers, companies will enhance their brand reputation, service quality and technology to meet the consumers’ requirements. Meanwhile, it can promote the whole industry to improve and progress. So as I say, this may be the reason why apple products are so popular in the world. References Babcock, C. (2012). Apple beats competition with design – and design patents. InformationWeek. Retrieved from http://www. informationweek. com/hardware/handheld/apple-beats- competition-with-design-and/240006830? pgno=1%E3%80%81 DigiTimes. (2010). Apple’s iPad pricing causes disarray for PC tablet manufacturers. Retrieved from http://www. digitimes. com/news/a20100129PD217. html Pachal, P. (2012). Nine stunning examples of the new iPad’s retina display. Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable. com/2012/03/16/retina-display- examples/ Yarow, J. (2012). Iphone5 opening weekend sales come in worse than expected. BUSINESS INSIDER. Retrieved from http://www. businessinsider. com/ Iphone-5-sales-opening-weekend-2012-9 How to cite Why Are Apple Products so Popular?, Papers

Things Change free essay sample

â€Å"Jacob Michael Craig Debruno! †, My sister screamed as she was sprayed with water from the hose attachment of the sink which I had rigged just minutes before. â€Å" What do you want now? † I replied innocently, doing my best to hold back laughter. Make no mistake the trickery was in no way a one way affair. It seemed to be a daily occurrence in our house growing up, as my sisters and I argued about almost everything. We fought over the remote, who could have â€Å"shotgun†(the front seat), and even who got to eat first; I soon made that a non issue. Our relationship would change immensely in the future. Through middle school I dealt with walking down the hallway in the highschool and having all my oldest sisters friends say, â€Å" O look its Susan’s little brother .† My other sister Melanie even told some of her friends that my name was Alberto and that I only spoke Spanish. We will write a custom essay sample on Things Change or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page â€Å"O hey it’s Alberto!† one of my sisters friends would exclaim in the hallway. O but it only got better when they had friends come over. I would get the works from my sister and her friends playing spoons at the kitchen table, â€Å"Alberto will you make me a taco?† one of them would say. As we got older and I got into highschool things began to change. My oldest sister Susan had graduated, moved out, and went off to college to study Business. Having my sister move away immediately affected me. Besides the fact that I had to ride the bus I found despite all the arguing my sister and I did that I truly missed her when she left. I finally realized what that relationship really meant to me. I played football so I got to know a lot of the upperclassmen very quickly during two a days and the rest of the season. I received tons of comments from my friends and especially the upperclassmen on how good looking my sisters were which was a monstrous annoyance. Now im a senior in highschool and everything has changed. Now I tower over all of my sisters and I no longer get treated like Alberto or Susan’s little brother. Susan has finished grad school at Notre Dame and Megan is currently in school as well. We have become closer and although we still argue at times, they never leave my house without a hug. I am truly thankful for my three sisters. As we have grown and developed to whom we are today, our relationship has concurrently grown into what it is today. We have always been a family, and we will always be friends.

A birthday to Remember Professor Ramos Blog

A birthday to Remember Majority of adults believe that being a kid is being that little girl or boy that has no say of his or her own, but depends solely on adults. We believe that anything can be forced on them, and all they need do is to accept without any objection. That is the story of Rachel in â€Å"Eleven† written by Sandra Cisneros,who on her eleventh birthday still did not feel like it. She talked about how it feels to be a certain age, but you still act and feel like the ages before that. The behaviors and emotions still reflect the child in you. She said â€Å"the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one† (Cisneros 6). This quote explains how she feels as an eleven year old, but still have the characteristics and emotions of a Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, and One year old. She gave an illustration of how on her eleventh birthday, she was not given a choice to express herself but was forced to agree with her teacher on the issue of a red sweater that wasn’t hers but belong to someone else. She wished she was One hundred and two years old, only then would she have been able to stand for herself and Mrs. Price would have listened to her and she would not have put the ugly red sweater on her table. At the age of hundred and two, Rachel would have known what and how to tell her teacher she was not the owner of the red sweater, instead of struggling within herself to reject the sweater. She knew she was been treated unfairly by her teacher just because she’s eleven and she is meant to respect and obey her teacher without any given opportunity to express herself but to do according to her teacher’s command. When Mrs. Price asked â€Å"Whose is this?† holding up the ugly red sweater, everyone said not mine and the teacher believed them, not until Sylvia Saldivar stood up and said â€Å"I think it belong to Rachel†. For her teacher to believe her classmate over her is a form of intimidation to her and she wished she was an age much older than eleven with the confidence of an adult and she would be able to stand up for herself. From the story, the teacher believed every other person when they said the sweater wasn’t theirs. She also believed Sylvia, who hates Rachel and was looking for ways to hurt her, said to their teacher that the ugly sweater was Rachel’s. Mrs. Price refused to believe Rachel, but believed Sylvia. This made Rachel sad and felt the teacher doesn’t like her, that’s why she never believed her when she said the sweater wasn’t hers. Also, she knew Sylvia hates her that was why she told a lie against her to hurt her on her Eleventh birthday. She said and I quote â€Å"maybe because I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t like me.†After this experience, Rachel felt that the teacher favors her other classmates over her and this really made her sad felt intimidated. Favoritism is generally the case in many school classrooms, according to an article written by a researcher on Favoritism in the classroom, he said â€Å"Teachers are said to favor certain students over others at school and especially in their classes.† (Aydogan 2008). Sadly, when one child is being favored over the other in a class by their teacher, it makes the less favored child become self-withdrawn and lack interest throughout the school semester. The classroom is a place where children go to acquire knowledge and respect for others. The teacher is meant to treat all her students equally and fairly. The ethical principle of teaching profession includes â€Å"professionalism, responsible service, fairness, equality, respect for human freedom, compassion honesty, continuous development, integrity, trust, maintaining a healthy and safe environment.† (Aydogan 2008). As a teacher, you give your students equal right to express themselves in class. That was not the case for Mrs. Price who never gave Rachel the right to accept or reject the ugly red sweater. Everyone expect to be treated right on their birthdays. They want to be happy and share this happiness with their loved ones. Rachel was looking forward to going home after school because she knew her mum was baking a cake and when her papa gets home they will all sing â€Å"happy birthday song† for her. Unfortunately, her happiness was short lived when Sylvia Saldivar decided to accuse her wrongly and made her teacher Mrs. Price put the ugly sweater on her desk. She tried to be eleven and act like a big girl, but the three year old in her was struggling to come out through her eyes. Mrs. Price was quick to believe Sylvia over Rachel. This could be because Sylvia is the outspoken one and Rachel is the timid one. Most teachers will have different emotions towards outspoken and timid children in their classroom. After all the deed had been done, and the ugly sweater has been placed on her desk. Rachel tried so hard to hide the three year old in her that wants to come out through her eyes but instead, kept the face and posture of an eleven year old that she is. Just when she thought all was over, Mrs. Price came and insist that she put on the ugly red sweater that smells of cottage cheese. That was the moment she lost all control and all the years inside her pushed through her eyes and she cried bitterly. The teacher here failed in her ability to manage her classroom and manage the situation of the ugly sweater thereby making a child feel terrible on her birthday. Not only did she force Rachel to wear an ugly, smelly sweater that was not hers, she also failed to apologize to Rachel when the real owner of the sweater Phyllis Lopez came up and claimed the sweater. Rachel said,†Mrs. Price pretends like everything’s okay.†(Cisneros 9). Adult sometimes take advantage of vulnerable children just because they think they can, and there’s nothing the child can do about it. They fail to realize that treating a child badly could destroy the child’s self esteem. Unfortunately, a birthday that could have been a happy one for Rachel turned out to be one she does not want to ever remember because of a misconception that happened in her classroom. Aydogan, Ä °smail. â€Å"Favoritism in the Classroom: A Study on Turkish Schools.†Journal of Instructional Psychology, vol. 35, no. 2, June 2008, pp. 159–168.EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=truedb=a9hAN=33405329site=ehost-live. Cisneros, Sandra. â€Å"Eleven† Women Hollering Creek and other stories. Vintage Contemporaries, New York 1992. Pp 6-9. Picture Credit: https://poshmark.com/listing/5205a679e1267a23300225a8

Evaluate the Impact of China’s Accession to the WTO on the world economy The WritePass Journal

Evaluate the Impact of China’s Accession to the WTO on the world economy Introduction Evaluate the Impact of China’s Accession to the WTO on the world economy IntroductionBackground Why did China join the WTO? China’s initiatives prior and since joining the WTO commitments it has given to the WTOAffect of China’s membership on the WTO as an institutionAffect of WTO Membership on China’s Internal Reform ProgrammeAffect on Exports and ImportsGlobal ImpactAsia The EU and the United States Impact on the BRICSAffect on Comparative Advantage Impact of China’s Foreign Currency ReservesImpact of China’s Exchange RateCommentary on Recent DevelopmentsConcluding RemarksBibliographyRelated Introduction Background In 1978, when a series of reforms aimed at economic development and opening to world trade were made, China used these to become one of the largest economies in the world by the time of their accession to the WTO in 2001. Just prior to these major reforms, China was the world’s thirty-second ranked exporter country. By 1989 it was the world’s thirteenth largest trading nation.[1] During this time China had joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Prior to this, in the period 1949-1978, China was fully committed to Communist economic policies and pursued a Socialist heavy industry development strategy. Consumption was not at an optimal level, much of the economy was under state control and spare resources were used for the building of new factories.   There were numerous trade barriers, with tariffs on most goods, tight import controls and import quotas. China therefore had a very closed economy, until the Chinese leadership decided to take a more pragmatic approach by introducing elements of capitalism to promote economic growth. The 1978 reforms led to an enormous increase in China’s total value of trade, with average annual percentage growth rates in the mid-teens, leading to huge inflows of foreign direct and portfolio investment. The significant export-led strategy was a key factor in the impressive rates of growth and lifted millions of people above the poverty line. The nature of China’s trade preferences also changed dramatically, with a (fast-track) industrialisation not too dissimilar to the one seen by the developed world in the 18th and 19th Century. In 1978 over half of China’s exports were primary commodities- a figure that later fell to 5 per cent. Exports of manufactured goods, just 46 per cent of the total in 1978, more than doubled to 95 per cent, with over 30 per cent of that being new and high-tech products.[2] Why did China join the WTO? China formally became a member of the WTO on December 11, 2001. Its accession is particularly note-worthy because although China was a part of the General Agreement on Tariffs (GATT) its readmission to the multi-lateral trading system took 15 years from its submission in 1986 to its accession in 2001. Of course, this had much to do with the legacy of the Communist revolution in China in 1949. A significant motive for China joining the WTO was the negative effects were it not to join. Whilst the economy may have benefited from protection in the short run, it would have been a hindrance in the long run because of the trade and structural advantages that the economy would be closed off from. Also, with the UK and the United States having such a powerful influence in the WTO and other world organisations, China could see itself suffering sanctions because of political issues (eg human rights) if they refused to join. Furthermore, if China excluded itself from world trade and stayed in its Communist ‘bubble’ it would not be possible for it to influence a world centred mainly on Capitalism. So, in order to have a major influence in policy-making, China needed to join the key organisations. This would help protect its interests and prevent economic policies being forced upon it without it having any input, such as agricultural trade issues. Thirdly, prominent Chinese leaders believed that without an external disciplinary organisation, the economic progress that China had seen for the past few decades may start to plateau because of vested interests and corruption. The WTO would provide pressure to implement new reforms and maintain economic advancement. Then, if the economy subsequently deteriorated, the Chinese government would be able to blame outside influences, such as the WTO. The WTO would also lead to significant economic benefits, specifically through world trade. WTO entry would allow China to gain greater market access for its exports to Europe, Japan and the United States, especially in the clothing and textile industries. Also, as the economy was experiencing a slowdown in the late 1990s, joining the WTO would provide a positive injection, with some economists forecasting additional growth of 2% pa, creating 10 to 15 million jobs. During the period prior to WTO membership, foreign direct investment (FDI) decreased year-on-year, which helps explain China’s eagerness to join the WTO. There was a need for new investment from Europe and the US that China could direct into improving its service sector to supplement manufacturing exports into Asian markets. Finally, China may also have had an ulterior motive in joining the WTO in order to strengthen its economic and political ties with Taiwan. WTO membership for both countries would increase trade and could have potentially initiated new talks about political integration. In any event, if relations between the two countries deteriorated, the WTO could act as a mediator. China’s initiatives prior and since joining the WTO commitments it has given to the WTO Once China opened its economy to world trade in 1979, it has centrally managed its trade policies, starting with complex import and export controls and trade barriers in the 1980s, and subsequently relaxing these with significant tariff reductions on the majority of goods to facilitate joining the WTO. This, along with domestic price liberalisation, ensured that domestic prices of most traded good were consistent with world prices by the mid-1990s. Provided China implements its WTO commitments in accordance with the agreed timetable, China will become ever more integrated into the world economy and the resultant growth in global trade will benefit other WTO countries as well. The above table of average tariff rates since 1997 demonstrates how China has opened up to trade from worldwide markets. In all sectors, apart from a couple of agricultural-based ones feed grains and plant fibres average tariff rates have fallen, with the greatest rates of decline occurring since Chinas WTO accession in 2001. For example, the sugar tariff fell by just 2%, to 40%, until 2001, but has subsequently halved from 40% to 20% in 2007-2010. Beverages and tobacco have also seen a huge reduction in their protection, which can only be positive for net exporting developing economies worldwide. China’s willingness to lower its trade barriers and open its markets will result in higher inward direct investment capital flows. The extent of China’s protectionism mostly extends to tariffs now. This is because as part of preparing for WTO accession, its leaders agreed to eradicate the use of import quotas, licences, designated trading practices and other non-tariff barriers. Unlike the continual tariff reductions on traded goods over a number of years, China’s service sector, which has previously experienced virtually no foreign competition, will see a large increase in transparency with the rest of the world. Liberalisation of licensing in these sectors will, in the long run, ensure full access to foreign businesses, such as in the telecommunications industry which is currently run by state-owned enterprises. Other than market-access commitments, the WTO conditions for accession included the national treatment and non discrimination principles, which are included in the Trade-Related Investment Measures and (TRIMs) and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). While most trade commitments mainly affect foreign trade, compliance with these commitments are more likely to impact on the domestic market with greater foreign investment through the removal of inter-border barriers and a more stable business environment, including clearly defined intellectual property rights. China’s implementation of its WTO commitments has caused very little contention within the WTO since its accession. The Transitional Review Mechanism (TRM) was set up to review China’s compliance with its commitments. Although issues have been raised by China’s trading partners in certain areas, no official complaint has been made against China and any problems that have arisen have been the result of teething problems rather than outright non-compliance. Affect of China’s membership on the WTO as an institution When China joined the WTO, it was assumed that it would not be content with being a normal member because of its growing size and that China would act accordingly by taking an aggressive stance in policy-making. Furthermore, at the time of accession, the Doha Round of trade negotiations were about to take place and China was expected to have a substantial influence on the outcome of these talks. In reality, although China and other developing countries have had issues with developed nations, the failure of the Doha Round can be attributed to a number of issues, most notably contention between the US and the EU over the use of export subsidies in agriculture. In general terms, most trading partners within the WTO have looked favourably on the impact of China, with one Japanese spokesman saying that China’s accession to the WTO was the most important trade event of the century.[4] Despite this, Japan, along with the EU and the US, had concerns over trade regimes in the automotive industry and the lack of transparency of rules and regulations in the Chinese domestic market. However, after five years of membership, most WTO members seemed to accept that China was still committed to implementing its WTO commitments and that China was no more a ‘special’ member than anyone else. This was shown by the Trade Policy Review (TPR) in April 2006, where China was recognised as a member that had benefited greatly from the accession and was fully committed to the stalling Doha Round Trade Negotiations. A major trading power such as China, with a huge export capacity and domestic market is bound to find some frictions within the WTO. When disputes have arisen, China has made a substantial effort to resolve them before a formal complaint has needed to be made. Also, China has not instigated many disputes against other members, which can only help to build positive relationships within the WTO. Where China has acted disappointingly is in the Doha Round, where it was anticipated that it would have taken a more significant role but, instead, it initially left Brazil and India to take a leading role in representing developing countries. Finally, in July 2008, during the WTO mini-ministerial in Geneva, China stood up and joined a core group of 6 countries that was attempting to remove restrictions on trade in agriculture and industrial goods. Its first success, together with India, was to retain an important â€Å"special safeguard mechanism† that protects both countries from agricultural imports and resisted efforts for them to lower their cotton tariffs on imports from the US. China has therefore finally come to the table to play a major role in the Doha Round, but its approach has been more defensive, particularly for service industries, rather than pragmatic.[5] In view of its dominant position in world trade, it is important that China now steps up and joins with the other two large developing economies, Brazil and India, and the US and EU, to make key decisions regarding market access rights and to tighten the rules of the WTO. Affect of WTO Membership on China’s Internal Reform Programme Chinas mixed record in the WTO should be seen, above all, in the context of market reforms at home post-WTO accession. The overriding advantage of WTO accession to China is that it has sustained the earlier sweeping unilateral reforms, made Chinas trade-and-investment regulations more transparent and predictable, and given China a long-term stake in multilateral rules[6]. But with its home in Geneva, the WTO cannot direct the reforms in Beijing. In recent years, the national reform engine has decreased and industrial-policy interventions have increased because of this. At the same time, China has increasingly used Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) to its advantage, especially with other countries in East Asia. Affect on Exports and Imports Global Impact There has been a remarkable shift in China’s share of global trade since WTO accession. On imports, the US still has the highest share, but this is declining and stood at 14.2% in 2007. Conversely, China’s share rose from 3.6% in 2000 to 6.7% in 2007, and they are projected to take second place from Germany. This trend is expected to continue while China continues to globalize, as more than half of imports to China are raw materials used to produce goods for domestic consumption and exports. On exports, the situation is even more dramatic, as China moved into top position by the end of 2009 (see following chart[7]) having lagged considerably behind the major developed nations in 2001. The chart below illustrates how far China’s contribution to world trade has advanced compared with other â€Å"second division† countries from 1985 to 2009, measured by each country’s share of total global imports and exports.[8] Asia China’s accession to the WTO will have a considerable affect on the economies of Asia and will present both challenges and opportunities for them. Over the coming years, China will continue to improve its business environment and lower tariffs, which will lead to increased access to China’s domestic markets, both for foreign trade and direct investment. This should lower transaction and input costs, while the increase in exports from China should lower the price of imports for the rest of Asia, particularly its trading partners. The table above shows the restrictive effect that China’s tariff policy had on its global imports following the opening of trade in 1979 until its WTO accession in 2001 and then the subsequent increases in the immediate period thereafter. Post-2001, Asian countries had the largest share of their exports going to China and the highest growth rate of exports to China since 1980. This is especially true of South Korea, whose exports to China grew from 0% in 1990 to 16.2% in 2003. Going forward, China’s reduction in protection measures will lower its input costs and result in lower export prices that will increase its competitiveness as an efficient supplier of goods. The benefits of this for Asian countries will be increased output and welfare because they can source cheaper Chinese imports and use them for intermediate inputs in their own secondary and tertiary industries. There have, however, been some negative effects on the trade position of countries in South Asia associated with China’s accession to the WTO. This is because developing countries such as Thailand are in direct competition with China for exports of certain goods, especially the clothing and textile industry. China’s higher comparative advantage in these labour intensive industries (due to lower wages and other input costs) will mean that products from other Asian countries will become less attractive to developed nations such as the EU and the United States.   Therefore, whilst China can expect to see its export growth continue, other developing countries in Asia and elsewhere are likely to see a reduction in their exports as a result of China’s improved competitiveness. The EU and the United States The main effects that China’s accession will have on the EU and the United States are in their agricultural export industries. At the time of accession, the US had a 27% market share, while the EU only accounted for 4% of China’s agri-food imports. However this is a massively growing industry for the EU and this figure has been rising ever since as a result of the sharp tariff reductions, making EU food more competitive. Another reason for China’s growth in demand for imports is that, as a result of sustained economic growth, the Chinese public have more disposable income to spend on exotic foreign foods. It is the growing Chinese domestic market that provides ample opportunity for the US to increase its exports however. Many of these goods may be made in China, because distance and lead times mean companies cannot serve every customer in China from a US base but these product and service sales require design or service support, or component supply, from US facil ities, which will strengthen US companies core operations and employment. However, China will generally choose to source imports on the basis of price. This means that the US and the EU need to keep their respective exports cheap in order to stay competitive otherwise they won’t see the benefits of China’s accession. The US also has the problem of high transportation costs. Because of the need to keep prices as low as possible, the strength of the dollar, the Euro and the Pound will also become increasingly important to stay competitive. This is because of foreign competitors such as Canada, Australia and the rest of Asia, as well as competition amongst themselves. The opportunity for the EU and the United States to benefit from rising trade with China and the subsequent fall in trade barriers meant that both were very receptive to China’s membership of the WTO. China’s motivation to join the WTO also meant that the EU and the United States, as powerful members, could ensure that the terms for China’s accession were made favourable to their imports and exports. This was shown by the EU-China Trade Agreement in 2000 and the US-China Trade Agreement in 1999. Is the emergence of China onto the global stage a threat to the US economy’s dominance? Yes, but only far into the future. The US economy is over twice the size of Chinas and, on a per capita basis, nearly twelve times bigger. From mid-2007, the European Commission has adopted a more confrontational tone in EU-China trade discussions. A major source of tension is the EU’s widening trade deficit with China, which Commissioner Mandelson referred to as a â€Å"policy time bomb†. It rose from roughly EUR 50 billion in 2001 to around EUR 170 billion in 2006, a more than threefold increase. [10] Thus, the gap between the EU and US’s trade deficits with China (USD 256 billion in 2007) is narrowing. However, there is an important difference between the US and EU current-account deficits: the EU’sdeficit is not a concern in terms of GDP (around 0.5 per cent of EU-27 GDP), whereas the US deficit is much higher at 5-6 per cent of GDP. However, the focus on the EU-China trade deficit is perhaps overstated, as Germany’s trade surplus, for example, is higher than China’s. Furthermore, while the EU-China trade deficit has been increasing, the EU’s trade deficit with the rest of the world has decreased– from EUR 93 billion in 2000 to EUR 66 billion in 2006.[11] Many imports into the EU now come via China, rather than directly from their home countries. This is particularly the case for nine large trading partners with the EU: the USA, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand[12]. Since 1999, Europe has increased its imports from China, but taken relatively less from the USA and the rest of Asia. So, the major difference between today and the 1990s is that the EU global trade deficit is concentrated mostly on China rather than being spread over the whole of Asia. The EU-China trade deficit is a manifestation of the development of trade flows and production locations, with China becoming a base where primary inputs from other countries are manufactured and re-exported. That includes the intra-firm tr ade and global supply chains of EU-based companies. China has gained a comparative advantage in low-tech, labour-intensive industries such as clothing and toys. But its final-assembly exports of products made during the assembly of primary inputs have been growing even faster (Athukorala and Hill, 2008). Conventional trade theory suggests the EU-China trade deficit is essentially nothing to worry about. China is simply utilising its comparative advantage in unskilled, labour-intensive manufacturing. Impact on the BRICS China’s progress within the global economy can be measured in comparison with the other countries in the BRICS. Although China ranked only 83rd in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index for 2007, this represented a significant improvement over the previous few years and clearly ahead of Russia, India, Brazil and Indonesia. For â€Å"trading across borders† it is way ahead of South Africa, Russia and India[13]. China also occupies 48th position in the World Economic Forum’s new Enabling Trade Index (which uses commercial infrastructure, market access and the business environment to measure a country’s encouragement of trade), higher than South Africa (59th), India (71st), Brazil (80th) and Russia (103rd). China increased its position in the world rankings for trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) very quickly, moving above Japan, to become the world’s third largest trading nation, with 7% of world trade by 2006 (7.7% of goods trade and 3.5% of services trade). China’s trade-to-GDP ratio had reached 70%, considerably above Brazil and India, and for such a populous country to have this kind of ratio is extremely rare. China has a 2.4% share of global inward FDI, which is again higher than the other BRIICS and has been the second largest recipient of FDI in the world since 2000, with China’s outward FDI also growing at an increasing rate.[14] Thus, China has moved ahead of most developing countries and the other BRICs in generating economic growth, and perhaps more importantly, large amounts of employment, poverty reduction and improvements in human welfare, especially in urban areas. High investment and saving rates have been the cause of this, but trade and FDI have also been very important during the expansion of labour-intensive manufactured exports. Having said that, China still has high regulatory barriers that waste resources, restrict internal trade and generally stifle domestic sources of growth. The onus is now on China to reduce these barriers in order to maintain their high economic performance levels. Affect on Comparative Advantage China, like other South Asian countries, gained a comparative advantage in many consumption goods by having an abundant supply of labour which drove down wage prices. This led developed countries to become concerned with their own comparative advantages disappearing when exporting, as Paul Samuelson wrote: Growth in the rest of the world can hurt you if it takes place in sectors that compete with your exports[15]. So, to protect against this, the United States in particular has imposed import quotas in order to limit the amount of Chinese imports coming into the US. However, there seems to be substantial evidence to the contrary for the past 25 years, with advanced countries slightly increasing their annual % change in terms of trade and developing countries’ falling. The diagram above shows the effect of what would happen if China flooded the international markets with goods that they have a comparative advantage in. The world supply curve would shift outwards from S to S’ giving a higher quantity (Q’) and a lower price (P’). This would have a positive effect on the countries importing these types of goods but would negatively affect the comparative advantage of export-competing countries in Asia. The assumption that China would shift huge amounts of resources into this export industry as a result of trade liberalisation would depend on how long the gestation period of investment lasts. As is usually the case, product development, retraining and improved market position take time, so in the short run the other developing countries should not be markedly adversely affected. Furthermore, it is generally assumed in the literature that the clothing and textile sectors produce homogeneous products that give China an immediate advantage in world trade. This is not strictly the case because there can be variants in different types of clothing for both men and women. This would suggest that countries could specialise in one type, which would mean that China does not need to have the same effect on other countries that it might if all the products were homogeneous. Impact of China’s Foreign Currency Reserves The differences in growth and consumption between the countries that borrowed and consumed too much during the years before the latest financial crisis (the US, UK and most countries in southern and central Europe) and those that generated excess savings and output (including China, Germany, Japan and the oil exporters) have created global imbalances and present major challenges. China powered its economy by increasing exports to US consumers, whilst manipulating the global currency markets to limit market forces that would normally have restricted its export growth. The Chinese government forced companies to sell their dollar and euro export earnings into Yuan at artificially low exchange rates. So, the central bank accumulated a large part of the country’s export earnings rather than allowing them to be recycled and spent on foreign consumer goods and investments. China’s foreign reserves have grown from $500 billion in 2000 to more than $4 trillion now. This money has been used to buy US treasuries, issued to fund US budget deficits which financed further consumption on Chinese exports. There were hopes that a by-product of the 2007-9 financial crisis would be a gradual reduction in these global imbalances. The credit crunch should clearly lead to lower consumption in the high-debt economies but for the global imbalances to be re-balance din a lasting way, it will be necessary for producing countries to make equal changes to their output. To date, the evidence is that consumption has weakened but the export dependent economies, especially Germany and China, are not taking action to lower their trade surpluses through lower exports or to significantly increase their own consumption leading to higher import levels. Chinese officials are talking of the need to rebalance the economy in favour of domestic growth, particularly of household consumption, but all that appears to mean currently is that China will not seek to increase its trade surplus any further from the level of $300-$400 billion in 2008-9, compared with only $70 billion 4 years earlier. Other countries appear to have accepted that China’s policy of maximising exports and accumulating foreign reserves is a fact of life. The IMF is forecasting that China’s trade surplus will narrow only marginally from 10% of GDP to 9.4% in 2014. Given that the Chinese economy is almost certain to grow during this period; this implies that the trade surplus will continue to expand. If the indebted countries do decide to curb consumption and reduce their national debt levels, the trade surpluses will have to shrink. The immediate post-crisis consensus was that the US would return to its role as the world’s largest consumer and borrower, but politically the US government and public are likely to prevent this. Instead, government policies and business strategies are likely to be redirected towards promoting export-led growth. A good example is GE, which became the world’s largest non-bank financial institution, but is now reinventing itself as a global produce r of high-value investment goods. The result should be that growth in the US and UK will be stronger than expected and they will start to capture market share from export-dependent economies, assisted by a depreciating currencies. However, tensions will then emerge as China and Germany will do their utmost to maintain their trade surpluses which will then put pressure on other trading nations, especially developing countries that naturally compete with China and the weaker members of the Eurozone, to protect their export share. So, either way, the world economy faces problems due to China’s success in growing its share of global trade, which accelerated following China’s WTO membership. If the imbalances widen, concerns will intensify about the international debt of debtor nations and trade protectionist measures that would weaken global trade growth will become increasingly likely. Or, in the more realistic scenario of lower deficits in these countries, China will be forced to accept lower trade surpluses or take market share from smaller economies. In the absence of action by China, the major deficit countries will have to seriously consider deliberate currency depreciation or tariff protection to reduce their trade deficit. Protectionist measures by the US could result in a ruinous international trade war or even in threats by the Chinese government to sell some of its massive holdings of US treasury bonds, which would risk destabilising financial market. To avoid this, there would need to be a coordinated approach by many governments to change macroeconomic policies. It wouldn’t be necessary that all trade deficits are eliminated but western governments would need to accept that market forces by themselves are insufficient and that trade and currency management policies are acceptable tools to redress the situation. China, Japan and the other planned economies, for their part, would have to accept a bigger role for market forces in economic management. This has started changing already – the broader G20 group of nations has emerged as a more credible forum for international negotiations than the G7 group of industrialised countries, and the IMF is looking into how inconsistencies in national economic policies and trade objectives should be tackled. Impact of China’s Exchange Rate Unlike most large manufacturing-based economies, China, instead of making use of a floating exchange rate system, has historically either pegged its currency, the Yuan, to the US dollar or at least managed it to generally mirror movements in the US dollar. This had led to accusations that the Yuan is consistently undervalued on the world market, as the normal market reaction to China’s enormous trade balance would be for its currency to appreciate. The undervalued Yuan has had a significant positive effect on China’s manufacturing exports because foreign companies have been able to obtain products which benefit not only from lower labour costs but also the undervalued currency; both of which create more employment opportunities. This has allowed China to build up a trade surplus and a substantial amount of international reserves. Having been through the 1997 Asian Crisis, China like other Asian economies welcomes the security of a trade surplus rather than a trade deficit. Also, the exchange rate encourages large foreign direct investment inflows into the Chinese economy, which further stimulates economic growth. The implications this has for the WTO is that while Chinese exports become cheaper, this may result in anti-dumping claims from other countries. In addition, as imports into China become more expensive, this could act as a form of import control, limiting imports; which would somewhat offset the effects of China’s tariff commitments to the WTO. This is an accusation that has been levelled at China by the US and EU in the past few years. The presence of this â€Å"import control† would curtail the effectiveness of the EU and US expanding export trade policy that I mentioned earlier, that should be the natural consequence of China’s WTO accession. On the other hand, there are some positives for the rest of the world as a result of a lower value of the Yuan, especially cheap manufactured goods to the US and EU. This is because, if the Yuan rose in value, more money as a proportion of income would have to be spent on manufactured goods, leaving less available for other goods and services. The most likely effect is that the US and EU economies would contract by more than the rise in their manufacturing output due to improved comparative advantage. So the overall welfare, at least in the manufacturing sector, is likely to be higher with a managed lower valued Yuan than a higher valued floating Yuan. Commentary on Recent Developments In December 2010, the WTO ruled that the 35% duties imposed by the US on Chinese tyre imports in 2009 were justified. This is a rare example of a formal WTO ruling involving China. It was evident at the third annual BRICS leaders meeting held in China in April 2011 that it is fast becoming a China-denominated forum, with the potential for China to drive its global agenda outside of interference from the US. China is the BRICS natural leader, as each country has c12% of its trade with China but only c3% with the other BRICS members.[16] China championed the inclusion of South Africa as the newest member, even though it lags other emerging economies, as a representative of the African continent, with which China now has a large and rapidly expanding interest. Although China experienced a surprise trade deficit of US$1bn in the first quarter of 2011, it recovered with a strong monthly surplus of US$111.4bn in April, with Chinese exports increasing by 35% compared with April 2010 and imports up 12%.[17] This demonstrates that China is still benefiting from a weak exchange rate and could tolerate a stronger currency, and international pressure to allow this is sure to intensify. Chinese officials have regularly stated a greater willingness for this to happen, which will help tackle rising inflation levels. Concluding Remarks The accession to the WTO of a country such as China, which is set to become the world’s largest economy, can only be seen as a positive move for global trade developments in the long run. The main distracting issues, such as trade deflection with other, smaller developing countries, should decline over time. This is because China seems to be making a conscious effort to conform to the rules and institutions of the WTO, which is in the interests of both itself and all the other members within the WTO. Also, the current global imbalances, thought by many alarmist economists to be a threat to global financial stability, are not actually a major cause of the current financial crisis and could correct themselves as a result of inter-temporal preferences. Therefore, provided China continues to make concessions on its import barriers and restrictions on access to its internal market, the positive effects should be far reaching, especially within the EU and the United States. Bibliography Books Growth and Development, Eighth Edition, Palgrave Macmillan A.P. Thirlwall International Economics, 8th Edition, Pearson International Krugman and Obstfield Capitalism 4.0 The Birth of a New Economy, Bloomsbury 2010 Anatole Kaletsky. Journals China’s Role in the World Trade Organisation and the Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations Andrew L. Stoler, former Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (1999-2002) Foreign Trade and Economic Reform in China, 1978-1990, Cambridge University Press Nichols R. Lardy Elements of a sustainable trade strategy for China, Long Q Mark Halle Impact of China’s WTO Accession on East Asia Elena Ianchovichina1 and Terrie Walmsley IMF Working Paper, China: International Trade and WTO Accession March 2004 Thomas Rumbaugh and Nicolas Blancher China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) September 2010. Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally China and the Doha Development Agenda: Working paper prepared for the 2009 WTO Forum, Geneva September 2009 Chin Leng Lim. Financial Times: Various reports and articles [1] Nichols R. Lardy, Foreign Trade and Economic Reform in China, 1978-1990, Cambridge University Press [2] Mark Halle, Elements of a sustainable trade strategy for China, Long Q [3] Impact of China’s WTO Accession on East Asia, Elena Ianchovichina1 and Terrie Walmsley, April 2003 [4] Andrew L. Stoler, China’s Role in the World Trade Organisation and the Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, pg. 4 [5] Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally, China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, pg.10 [6] Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally, China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, pg.10 [7] â€Å"Chinas export prospects: Fear of the dragon†. The Economist 7th January, 2010 [8] Starmass International (Chinese market research company) starmass.com/china_review/global_economy/major_countries_imports.htm [9] IMF Working Paper, China: International Trade and WTO Accession pg16, T Rumbaugh and N Blancher March 2004 [10] Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally, China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, pg.20 [11] Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally, China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, pg.21 [12] Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally, China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, pg.21 [13] Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally, China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, pg.3 [14] Fredrik Erixon, Patrick Messerlin and Razeen Sally, China’s Trade Policy Post-WTO Accession: Focus on China-EU Relations, pg.3 [15] Krugman and Obstfield, International Economics,8th Edition, pg. 98 [16] Jamil Anderlini, Financial Times 14 April, 2011 [17] Jamil Anderlini, Financial Times 10 May, 2011

Healthy Fast Food Chain Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 12000 words - 1

Healthy Fast Food Chain - Dissertation Example The answer to this question lies in the correct identification of the consumer behaviors along with their existing and future preferences along with the changing trends in the market. The consumer behavior is the concept refers to dealing with the demand for the consumption of any product or services. In other words, the consumer behavior is the patterns that individuals follow while making purchase decisions. The study of behaviors is also referred to as the social science, which plays one of the most important but complicated roles in designing the business strategy or developing a brand. The reason is that the behaviors of individuals are seasonal. Moreover, the behaviors can change at any point in time depending on the circumstances. This implies that for a successful business start-up and identification of most suitable business strategy, reading the minds of the target market or expected consumers is important. The phenomenon of dealing with the complications of consumer behavi or is important in almost all kinds of business. The importance is even higher in case of the food business. The research work is based on the identification of brand development strategy of a healthy fast food chain. The key determining elements which are studied in this research work for the establishment of the fast food brand are the marketing trends and the consumer behavior. â€Å"To identify the most successful branding strategy that can help the new entrants in the fast food business to establish healthy fast food chain. Moreover, the research work also served the purpose of guiding the entrepreneurs regarding how to identify the marketing and consumer behaviors along with the strategies of dealing with these complications â€Å"

The First World War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The First World War - Essay Example Though historians find it very difficult to pinpoint one particular event or one particular day when the war trigger was put on. But the events of June 28, 1914 are still remembered as a turning point (Turner, 1970). It is on this day that, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife were assassinated (it was their wedding anniversary) in Sarajevo, Bosnia by a Serbian nationalist student. This province had been under Austro-Hungarian Empire since 1908. After this assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, followed by the Russian Mobilization the next day. Increasing emphasis on militarism led to the development of new weapons. Simultaneously the emergence of trench warfare made the Great War the bloodiest conflict the world had known (The Birmingham Post, 2004) The rise of German power after 1870 and its Imperialistic designs: Germany used to be a loose confederation of independent states till 1870. On January 18, 1871, these states united under a Prussian king who had the title â€Å"Kaiser, of the German Empire†. Bismarck was the first Chancellor or Prime Minister of the unified Germany. This resulted in gradual expansion of Germany and alternation of distribution of power within Europe and a new world order (Henig, 2002). This period referred to as the German Second Reich gave rise to some imperialist designs of Germans. When Austria-Hungary decided to go after Serbia, Germans gave them a silent nod with an assurance of backing it with its firepower if the need arises. There were elements within German establishment who were planning for a showdown with Russia, another big power within the region at that time. But Otto von Bismarck, the

Anything related to today's economy Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Anything related to today's economy - Term Paper Example Policies are aimed at ensuring sustainable and profitable exploitation of both natural and human resources to boost the growth of the country's economy. United States have capitalized on its strong scientific research and technological base to attract investments both locally and internationally. Moreover, it enjoys immigration of expatriates because of the opportunities and environment that necessitates growth. The unemployment rate is currently at 7.6% because of the current economic growth in the last three months. Saving and investment are considerably lower than the GDP and thus it is below the expected levels in comparison to other industrialized states. Inflation rate has risen by 1.5%, thus making the cost of living for American citizens a bit expensive (Bureau of Labor Statistics Para 4). Discussion Enterprenuers in different economic systems integrate the available resources, technology and labor to produce and distribute goods and services from the producer to the end user . Organization of different economic elements is reflected in the country's policies and culture. The American economy is a â€Å"mixed economy† because the government together with the private sector are instrumental in making economic related decisions. Although the government allows free enterprenuership, it has a primary responsibility of administering justice, infrastructure, defense and education to its citizens. It also controls natural monopolies and the price system. Moreover, the government supports the poor through providing medical care and economic support. It also helps people who suffer losses through natural disasters through giving low interest loans (Bureau of International Information Program para 4). United States economy is built on a wide range of natural resources namely minerals, moderate climate, arable lands, and extensive coastlines. The coastlines were instrumental in initiating the economic growth attained over the last 50 years as well as uniting the individual states into one economic unit. Labor mobility and emphasis on adoption of technology are the ingredients of America’s fast economic growth. According to Bureau of International Information Programs (para 5), In the America’s economy, human capital is considered important for the success of technologically advanced modern industries. To uphold the standards, the government and entrepreneurs emphasize on the importance of training and education to ensure that workers attain the knowledge and skills required in the new business environment. The business entities have adopted a modern managerial strategy to enhance efficient coordination of different operational elements. For instance, high technology industries employ expatriates and develop a culture of teamwork to attain objectives as well as maintain a competitive edge in the global market. Entrepreneurs in the united states use corporations to accumulate funds required to open up new businesses and lau nch new ones. The government has developed rules to ensure that the business environment is safe and there is efficient flow of information so that investors can be in a position to make informed decisions. Although there has been a significant growth in employment rate, statistics show that the civilian employment rate is still lower than expected. For

Adam Smiths Theory of Self-Interest

Adam Smiths Theory of Self-Interest Adam Smith is a fascinated moral philosopher and an expert of economic. He left two famous books. I can still get much enlightenment when I read his words in this modern society. His mainly research are on morality and economy. This essay will focus on how self-interest motivates individuals in these two aspects and what role does self-interest plays in the developing society. Having found this complex question, we should have a general understanding of what is self-interest? Many people may confound self-interest and selfish. Adam Smith thought people will do whatever good to themselves when they burned and selfish is a human’s natural action. (Smith Moral ex.) But actually those two words have huge differences. Selfish describe a kind of person who just care about himself of herself. They ignore others feeling or benefit as long as they can get something good from what they did. This is really a negative influence which we should abandon it. ‘Self-interest or self-love is derived from the selfish passions, but self-love is not identified with selfishness, because self-love, like other interests, can be virtuous (the virtue of prudence) or evil (greed or avarice).’ (Werhane, PH 1989, p. 671) Self-interest looks like selfish on the surface but indeed it can make an interaction between people. ‘To the selfish and original passions of human nature, the loss or gain of a very small interest of our own appears to be of vastly more importance, excites a much more passionate joy or sorrow, a much greater desire or aversion, than the greatest concern of another with whom we have no particular connection.’ (Smith Moral ex. 8). Everyone who chase them own profits and don’t do harm to others’ benefits in the meantime is called self-interest. Thus help other is helping themselves in fact and the more you get better the more you are willing to help others, which is a kind of huge power to make our society improve, so our society will become much more harmonious and plentiful eventually. That why Adam Smith said: ‘His interests, as long as they are surveyed from this standpoint, can never be put into balance with our own; can never restrain us from doing whatever may tend to promote our own self-interest.’ (Smith Moral ex. 8) On the other hand, although Adam Smith believes self-interest may make people seems selfish, but it will bring sympathy to them as well. Smith said: ‘The man of the most perfect virtue, the man whom we naturally love and admire the most, is he who joins, to the perfect command of his own original and selfish6 feelings, a real appreciation of the original and sympathetic feelings of others.’ (Smith Moral ex. 7) It is a natural when people burn, which let people take others feeling and their happiness or sadness into them own business, even though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. (Smith Moral ex. 1) Smith thinks sympathy is kinds of sense which will make their emotion fluctuate with others feeling which can resolve the conflict between individual interests and social interests. ‘The man who feels the most or the joys and sorrows of others, is best fitted for acquiring the most complete control of his own joys and sorrows.’ (Smith Mo ral ex. 5) Furthermore sympathy not only means share feelings but understands and contain as well. We can acquire the same feeling when we in the similar circumstance that others had thus we will have a deeply communication with them. They will see the phase called help other is helping me. ‘Smith argues, sympathy, coupled with reason, imagination, and our natural desire for â€Å"what ought to be approved of† provide the conditions that enable us disinterestedly or impartially to examine and to approve or disapprove a motive, character, or action.’ (Werhane, PH 1989, p. 677). So what prompted the ordinary people on many occasions to sacrifice their interests for others bigger benefits? It is not a noble and grant human natural, it is a strong motivation; a self-satisfied; a self-interest! (Smith Moral ex. 11) Smith thought everybody burn with self-interests they only want to do the things good to themselves, which is the prime motive for human’s active. People help others want to achieve their own goal indeed so they will become better when they help others. ‘He will be more likely to get their help if he can interest their self-love in favoring him, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do what he requires of them.’ (Smith Wealth ex. 3) In this case the more individuals chase their benefits the more they motivate the whole society’s progress and the society include all walks of life will achieve a universal prosperity finally. Just as Smith argue that: ‘He is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an outcome which was not part of his intention.’ (Smith Wealth ex. 6) Each individual is thought to be able to perceive his or her own best interests; they act so as to gain pleasure or happiness in whatever way they choose.’ (Heywood, A 2003, p48)This is something that can be a win-win. ‘By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectively than when he really tries to promote it.’ (Smith Wealth ex. 6) So self-interest is a kind of catalytic of improving society to a great extent in this case. ‘In principle, individuals always seek their own economic advantage; and, in principle, they act strictly rationally to achieve this goal.’ (Skirbekk, G Gilje, N 2001, p 250) Smith call this the law of natural which is free competition actually, this invisible hand is a kind of power which make the market fairer. It is important to make a division of labor in the market; I think the competition is the direct reason which causes this phenomenon. ‘It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain tendency in human nature which has in view no such ultimate outcome; [this is] the tendency to deal, barter, and exchange one thing for another.’ (Smith Wealth ex. 1) Smith thought it is the division of labor that increases the productivity. Everyone can just accomplish his part of job; he can focus on his own business. There is an idiom called practice makes perfect, so the efficiency of the whole market must be improved. It is a kind of exchange, just as Smith said: ‘give me that which I want, and you shall have what you want. That is the meaning of every such offer†¦. we expect our dinner, but from their concern for their own interest.’ (Inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations extracts 6). People always have much more inter est in their own business than the society profits. ‘It was the conduct of individual human beings that led us into this mess, and it is the behavior of individuals as well as the structuring of systems that has to change.’(Garton Ash 2014) So as we can find from here it is self-interest that motivate people to work; to do those economic activities. Moreover, what is the simplest method to reach this boundary? Smith thought is the freedom and non-interventionism. It doesn’t mean no-government, their function is limited to the administration of justice, and they are night watchman. ‘He attacked economic protectionism: the government should meddle as little as possible in trade and industry.’ (Skirbekk, G Gilje, N 2001, p 249) So Smith strongly recommended creating a free-market. ‘In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate.’ (Friedman 2014, pp. 122-126). He opposed the state intervention in the economy, because he thought the market will automatically adjust. This is what he called ‘the invisible hand’, it will help people maximum their own profits and the society will make progress with individuals in the meantime. So it can make a combine b etween self-interest and public-interest. When the businessmen work hard to do their own business this ‘invisible hand’ will let them to choose the best-fit for the society. This is also help other is help ourselves. ‘Altruism is relegated to no more than delayed self-interest, so, for example, the more we create a good reputation, the more we can exploit it for economic advantage.’ (Hutton Schneider 2014, pp. 13-17.) So as the analyses I have presented above, we can clearly find that self-interest is the necessary and sufficient condition of our society’s thriving and prosperous. The better market can’t leave self-interest, which means they can’t exist without each other. Smith described that the conflict between self-interest and public-interest can be solved by combining them. They made each other! Thus if everyone can motivated by their self-interest, they will try them best to acquire the profits, which can motivate our society’s economy and make the market much more efficient and fairer ultimately.

Marvells to His Coy Mistress: The Essence Of Time :: essays research papers

Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress": The Essence of Time The male species has a very creative mind. The creative mind becomes particularly active when the case involves the female species. In Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," the author shows how his creative mind is put to use. Marvell, uses time in an attempt to manipulate his coy mistress. Time is depicted in three different manners. First, Marvell uses "ideal time." In ideal time, he tells how many years he would spend loving her if they were given the opportunity. He explains to his mistress that if time allowed, he would spend hundreds of years just to admire her physical being. Next, he implicates "real time," to persuade her to become accessible to him. In real time, Marvell gives examples of her aging and how she will go to the grave with her pride if she doesn't give in. Finally, the use of "optimum time" plays on her emotions of how sweet the opportunity to make love to her would be. Marvell tells his mistress that the act would be almost animalistic and intense. Throughout the poem, he uses the phases of time in an attempt to frighten her into having sex with him. All three stanza's in the poem represent a different time frame. The first gives his mistress a feeling of unconditional love. He leads her to believe he would give all he has to her as long as time will permit. During the second stanza, Marvell plays on her fear of getting old. He warns her that her beauty isn't everlasting and that she will end up unhappy alone if she doesn't give in. Marvell's use of optimum time, the best time, show's his emotions. He appears to become aggravated. This seems to be his ace in the hole. In my opinion, he uses what he believes to be the dearest thing to her,

Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits

Habit as defined in Webster’s as a: a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance b : an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, 2011). Behavior is the manner of conducting oneself or anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation. In everyday life habits are formed and intertwined with ones behavior. People are often associated with the way they behave based on the environment they come from and the habits they develop from that environment. Behavioral Theorists believe learning experiences as the development of our personality. During these developmental years the environment has the greatest influence on the personality. This influence is reinforced by positive or negative rewards. Classic conditioning explains many behavioral reaction patterns. When a person receives positive reinforcement of a behavior (reward), they develop this behavior as part of their own. A person will continue to perform a certain action because of the reward at the end of the action. An Actor receives a Grammy for outstanding performance. That actor will try to perform this action again in the next movie they are in. On the other hand, negative reinforcement (punishment) will elicit a response to not perform that behavior again. (Friedman & Schustack, 2009). If you put your finger in an electric socket the electric shock will influence you not to perform this habit again. John B. Watson was instrumental in the development of the behavioral learning approach. Watson believed in the experimental method and if psychology were to be a science, then only the observable behavior was a reasonable matter of science (Friedman & Schustack, 2009). He looked at obvious behaviors that could be learned and controlled by the therapist. During his experiments Watson used animals and not human subjects. He believed he could get the same results from animals that others did using humans. Traditional behaviorism identifies two basic types of conditioning. Classic conditioning is defined by the repeated exposure of an unconditioned stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response and a neutral stimulus. The developed neutral stimulus can develop the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. B. F. Skinner developed the more radical approach of Operant conditioning. Operant conditioning results when a behavior is followed by reinforcement or punishment (Burger, 2010). Social cognitive personality development has some similarity as behaviorism. Behavioral and Social learning theories consists of four characteristic: Behaviorism, Basic Principles of Conditioning, Social Learning theory, and Social-Cognitive Theory. Behavioral is regarded as â€Å"attitude change, language acquisition, psychotherapy, student-teacher interaction, problem solving, gender roles, and job satisfaction. † Social learning is regarded as â€Å"thoughts, morals, expectancies, and individual insights† (Burger, 2010). Social-Cognitive theory as described by Albert Bandura engages in thinking and symbolic learning from observation. Behaviorism holds that people are conditioned, or trained, to respond in certain ways by rewards and punishments. Bandura suggested that there must be a way that people can learn simply by watching others, thereby removing the need to learn everything by monotonous trial-and-error (Krapp, 2005). People learn by observing others, with the environment, behavior, and cognition all as the chief factors in influencing development. These three factors are not stagnant or self-sufficient; rather, they are all shared. According to social learning theory, modeling influences learning primarily through its informative functions. As the observers in our environment we retain a portion of the modeled behavior, which then serves as a blueprint for the behavior. This type of learning incorporates four components: attention, retention, motor, and motivational processes that help to understand why individuals imitate socially desirable behavior (Krapp, 2005). Habits are developed from childhood into adulthood. Good and bad habits are formed during this time based on behavior and social influences. In today’s society our bad habits are more noticeable than our good ones. We are always trying to correct someone from doing something we would not do or say, yet we do not understand why they behave the way they do. Some families develop household habits that last a lifetime and can be passed from child to child. These childhood habits are hard to break and require years of reconditioning. Some become part of your way of life. In my family one of the many habits I developed or inherited, was to eat eggs with jelly all over them. Yes that is right!! You mix the jelly in with the eggs and that is how they are eaten. My father ate his eggs that way, his father ate eggs the same way and so did my Great Grandfather. I have yet to break this habit. My father reinforced this habit by providing praise and allowing me to try different jellies on my eggs. The more he paid attention to this behavior the more I performed the act. He had no idea he was conditioning me to perform a certain action based on his praise/reward. Until I studied behaviorism I had no idea this was a form of conditioning. This was not something he taught me, this was a behavior I observed as part of my family environment. Once I tried the eggs with jelly, I like the taste and this became part of my habits when eating scrambled eggs. For my children I allow them to have free will and eat what they like and how they like it. My six year old likes ketchup on her broccoli. This is not learned from observation, this is just her. of his is a good example of behavior of the family that influenced one of my habits. While serving in the Military, I developed a social habit that is wide spread in the Army. Using acronyms is a large part of the military language. We use this as part of our social communication. If you do not know or understand the terminology you are not â€Å"Hooah† enough. Some may say that situation is FUBAR (Fouled up Beyond All Recognition). I contribute my behavior more to the social cognitive theories of observation. My behavior has been shaped from observing others around me and taking bits and pieces from each of them and incorporating those behaviors into my personality. To this day I am an observer of others behavior. Good or bad, I have the free will to make a determination on what parts I will use to become part of my personality. This is why I disagree with the behaviorism theorist. I have not received reward or punishment for my behavior. Good, bad, or indifferent, my personality has not been affected by treating me like a lab rat and performing behavior changing experiments on me. I believe some personalities do need operant conditioning, mine is just not one of them. For those personalities developed from socially unacceptable environments, some form of conditioning is necessary to develop a socially acceptable behavior. The first course of action is to take them out of the environment and allow them to see a more positive behavior. The saying goes you can take the child out f the country, but you cannot take the country out of the child (country can be substituted with any negative environment). I have worked hard to eat eggs the way it is socially accepted. In public I will eat the way it is expected for you to eat, but this differs from environment to environment. In Germany, boiled eggs are egg more served than scrambled. Thereby I adjust to the environment I am exposed to. At home I can eat the way I want to and enjoy my eggs and jelly. Some habits you just do not want to change. I enjoy the taste of a finely cooked, scrambled egg and grape jelly.

What Could Be Worse than Death Genocide

What Could Be Worse than Death Genocide Introduction Genocide refers to the destruction of a religious, ethnic or any other human group in part or in its entirety (Andreopoulos 35). The term was coined in 1944 and used to refer to an extremely destructive act of violence that led to massive deaths and destructions (Stanton 6). The Rwandan genocide is one of the most awful tragedies and crimes against humanity that have ever happened.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on What Could Be Worse than Death? Genocide specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This paper seeks to find a way to make it easier for people in certain countries to speak out against genocide and ask for help. This help can give some relief or bring some peace to the lives of people who have experienced the horrors of genocide. In addition, it will provide more information on genocide and explain why people have not learnt from its past occurrences and why it continues to happen in places, such as Darf ur in Sudan. Genocide is worse than death because of its horrific consequences, such as destruction of human life and the emotional and psychological trauma experienced by victims. Discussion Genocide involves the mass murder of people based on factors, such as ethnicity, religion or political affiliation. It is deliberate, well-planned and perpetuated by individuals who are motivated by prejudices, revenge, racism, injustice and intolerance (Andreopoulos 38). For genocide to take place, certain conditions must be present. First, there must be a culture of non-concern for human life in the society. Secondly, there must be a group that considers others as unworthy, less human and inferior. Thirdly, the dominant group must be composed of criminals and should have support from powerful organizations or individuals (Andreopoulos 38). The Rwandan genocide that took place in 1994 was a horrific experience for the country. The genocide was characterized by the use of brutal weapons, mercil ess killing and great suffering (Stanton 6). Machetes and clubs were the weapons of choice used by men who were specially trained to massacre people. The genocide involved illegal squads that received help from the military (Stanton 6). Whenever the squads experienced resistance or opposition, the military backed them up. In most genocide cases, the killings were directed towards certain groups of people that had rebellious political views.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Killings were mostly perpetrated by governments that exterminated certain groups that they considered a threat to the government. Killings were spearheaded by the military, using government resources and support. The people were killed in cold blood because they were unable to protect themselves or stop the killings. In Rwanda, local authorities gathered people in places where the illegal squads slaug htered them. People were murdered regardless of their sex or age. Women, children and babies were mercilessly massacred in hospitals, schools and churches. During the Rwanda genocide, more than 60,000 people were killed during the first weekend (Stanton 8). Unlike the killing of the Jews and the Armenians, the Rwanda genocide was not kept in a secret. Journalists reported the happenings as they had witnessed them. In the villages, corpses were covered with banana leaves to avoid international scrutiny (Stanton 9). The killers were incited through radio stations to carry on with the killings and urged to hide the corpses. They burnt children in schools, mothers and babies in hospitals, and adults in churches (Stanton 11). Survivors of genocide are seeking for refuge in refugee camps, the places that have pathetic and highly degrading living conditions. They cannot meet the basic human needs, such as food, clothing and shelter provisions. Little water is available to the great number of people housed there, and amenities, such as toilets, are scarce. In most camps, diseases are easily spread because of congestion. Children die every day because there is little food available, and their parents have no means to fend for them. Health care services are scarce, and many people die helplessly, while waiting for help. Some nations have not learnt any lessons from the past cases of genocide. Today, genocide exists because of greed for power and wealth by governments (Peaces of the World n.pag.). In Darfur region of Sudan, genocide is claiming thousands of innocent lives every day. Over 400,000 lives have been lost, and the situation is getting worse day after day.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on What Could Be Worse than Death? Genocide specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The Sudanese government is responsible for these cases, as they hired a rebel group known as Janjaweed to perpetuate the killings (Peace s of the World n.pag.). The international community has done little to stop the killings, and this has aggravated the situation. The world needs to unite and do all that is necessary to stop these killings. Conclusion Genocide refers to the inhuman destruction of a part of or the entire religious or ethnic group. The worst consequence of genocide is the emotional and psychological trauma that survivors and victims have to deal with during their whole life. Genocide killings are still perpetuated by governments in certain countries. In Darfur region of Sudan, genocide claimed thousands of innocent lives every day. Women and children were killed and raped under the watch of the government. Genocide is worse than death because of its horrible and humiliating means as well as horrific consequences, such as destruction of human life and the emotional and psychological trauma experienced by its victims. Andreopoulos, George. Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions. Philadelphia: U niversity of Pennsylvania, 1997. Print. Peaces of the World. The After-Effects of Genocide on a Country and its People. n.d. Web. Stanton, Gregory. Rwandan Genocide: Why Early Warning Failed. Journal of African  Conflicts and Peace Studies, 1.1 (2009): 6-25. Print.

Essay on Family and Money

Essay on Family and Money Essay on Family and Money In today's society, when a person speaks of being wealthy, they are usually referring to someone having a rather large amount of money. When you Google search "wealthiest men in the world", people such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are the top hits. But whatever happened to wealth being more than just money, but more along the lines of a loving family and caring friends? A person's wealth is not defined by the amount of money they have saved up in the bank, or how fat their wallet is. Being wealthy is when a person is blessed to have a family that loves and cares about them, with an abundance of friends who feel the same way. Wealth and happiness sort of go arm-in-arm if you think about it. People believe that if you are wealthy, you are happy, which is true depending on if your view on wealth is having a good family. If you really sat down and thought about it, the majority of people's main goal in life is to accumulate as much money as they can in their relatively short existence to be able to provide for their families and to be happy. Money is the key to everything such as, that new, fancy, do-it-all car they "have to have", the newest, fastest phone, it all costs money, yet what personal value does it have? They are just objects of which you waste countless hours of your life occupying yourself with. Heck, some see money as a way to get them a wife, which, sadly, is true these days, as young women go around looking for rich old men to marry, they're only reason being that they will receive the old man's fortune once he passes. People seem to think that the more money they have, the more fun they'll have in life, and the more of a chance they have of being remembered. However, who will possess and pass down all those memories of you and your life to future generations? Family or money? Last time I checked, money could not speak. So what will be more useful as you near the end of your life, money or a compassionate family? When the game of life begins the final home stretch, memory begins to fade, aches and pains are newly discovered every morning as it takes multiple frustrating attempts to climb out of bed, and everything just seems to be going wrong, the support and compassion of your wealth of family and friends is the only antidote. I read a book, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, in which the main character, Amir, is born into a rich family. His father is a highly respected man in the Afghan society and money flows into their household. With this abundance of money, Amir has the ability to buy pretty much anything his little heart desires, yet he is still incredibly unhappy. His mother died when he was born, for the most part his father views him as a disappointment, and the rest of his family does not appreciate him. The only time he is truly happy is when he becomes truly wealthy, when he and his father move to America. Upon arriving in the United States, Amir and his father were completely broke. As Amir was more of a grow n up now, his father began to respect him and treat him as an equal. He began to show compassion toward Amir and their relationship grew. They immediately began to work in order to support themselves as best they could in their economic situation. They lived in a bus that they also drove around during the day to flea markets to buy items they could then go sell. At one particular flea market Amir meets a woman whom he ends up marrying. When Amir marries this particular woman, he has almost no money, but his wife