Whatever Happened at Barings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Whatever Happened at Barings - Essay Example 3. The systemic damage of the international banking system was not that big to be regarded as significant because Barings was not a big banking organization and its failure could not substantially affect the international banking (Hughes and MacDonald). 4. â€Å"Big Bang† is a terminology used for the changes in relation to financial regulations, which took place in the late 80s. These changes were primarily related to the operations of the financial institutions and activities of the City of London, deemed as the hub of UK’s financial activities. The crucial deregulatory steps taken for the LSE (London Stock Exchange) initiated some changes. Barings, upon the occurrence of Big Bang, unlike its competitor organizations, did not make efforts to develop a well integrated investment bank (Hughes and MacDonald). 5. The major problems faced by financial services organizations were fixed commissions, lack of a competitive environment and access to other markets for taking part and operating in other parts of the world. In lieu of these problems, Big Bang was introduced, which liberalized the stock markets, particularly the London Stock Exchange (Hughes and MacDonald). 6. After this whole story was unwrapped, it became clear that the management lacked the required monitoring strictness in relation to securities; and at times management was seen as confused. These factors contributed in the demise of the firm (Hughes and MacDonald). 7. There are various strategies used by speculators to trade future contracts and amongst the strategies adopted the most common include â€Å"going long†, â€Å"going short† and â€Å"spreads†. â€Å"Going long† refers to the strategy according to which an investor makes an agreement for buying and delivery at a particular price at the moment when a future price rise is expected. On the other hand, the â€Å"going short† strategy refers to such an agreement by the investor under which he agrees to sell at an early date in order

Health Care Debate Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Health Care Debate - Essay Example Part I â€Å"In Health Care Debate, Fear Trumps Logic† aired on NPR on August 28, 2009, is an apt example of the usage of scare tactics by the anti-reform camp to scuttle the health care reform initiatives and to make the general public, and especially the senior citizens, more apprehensive and weary of the proposed reforms. The anti-reform vested interests are actually manipulating the deep seated fears of the target audience to turn them against the health care reforms. The scare tactics relies for its success on the fact that fear is the most common and universally shared human emotion. Humans tend to learn from their past experiences and mostly store the information in their mind as to which things are to be feared and avoided (Goleman, 1996). So associating a proposed change with something that is already feared by the target audience is bound to generate feelings of fear and hence revulsion. Thus, linking the health reforms with communists, involuntary euthanasia, lack o f access to healthcare and other such things is an exercise in scare tactics. May sound enervating, but scare tactics do enjoy a fare degree of success rate. A large share of this success could be attributed to the biochemistry of human brain (Goleman, 1996). People are automatically programmed to a ‘fight or flight’ response to the things they fear (Goleman, 1996). It is seldom that people stop to recheck the facts pertaining to a situation that triggers fear, because this strictly goes against their instinct for self preservation (Goleman, 1996). Besides, the essential human gregariousness motivates people to spread the fear psychosis, so as to protect as many fellow humans as possible (NPR, 2009, a). Thus it is the human physiology that assures a partial if not complete success of a scare tactics. Such scare tactics do have the potential to drag the relevant public and political issues like health reforms into the realm of the impossible, and hence prevent formalizat ion of the intended reforms or changes into statutory provisions or laws. The usage of such influence tactics does have the potential to distort the very nature of a political process or debate and to discourage the social and political leaders supportive of a change. Owing to the very nature of democracy, political leaders are required to be sensitive to the majority opinion. The coercion of majority opinion through the subtle approaches like scare tactics may willingly or unwillingly force the courageous few to tow the popular line, when the facts point to the contrary. Part II In that context, â€Å"Senior Groups Reject Health Care ‘Scare Tactics’†, aired two days later on NPR that is on August 30, 2009, is a predictable outcome of the scare tactics used by the anti-reform camp, especially in a modern context when the authentic information and data are readily accessible. As previously told, humans are programmed to a ‘fight or flight’ response to the things that portend to be dangerous (Goleman, 1996). However, the thing to be noted is that ‘fight’ is as much a possible response to a scare tactics as a ‘flight’. Moreover, the interest groups and individuals that have much at stake, are posed to offer a tough fight to dispel the danger posed to their long term well being, by the intended outcome of a