Introduction to Communication Skills Essay Example for Free

Introduction to Communication Skills Essay Doing this involves effort from both the sender of the message and the receiver. And its a process that can be fraught with error, with messages often misinterpreted by the recipient. When this isnt detected, it can cause tremendous confusion, wasted effort and missed opportunity. In fact, communication is only successful when both the sender and the receiver understand the same information as a result of the communication. By successfully getting your message across, you convey your thoughts and ideas effectively. When not successful, the thoughts and ideas that you convey do not necessarily reflect your own, causing a communications breakdown and creating roadblocks that stand in the way of your goals – both personally and professionally. In a recent survey of recruiters from companies with more than 50,000 employees, communication skills were cited as the single more important decisive factor in choosing managers. The survey, conducted by the University of Pittsburghs Katz Business School, points out that communication skills, including written and oral presentations, as well as an ability to work with others, are the main factor contributing to job success. In spite of the increasing importance placed on communication skills, many individuals continue to struggle with this, unable to communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively – whether in verbal or written format. This inability makes it nearly impossible for them to compete effectively in the workplace, and stands in the way of career progression. Getting your message across is paramount to progressing. To do this, you must understand what your message is, what audience you are sending it to, and how it will be perceived. You must also weigh-in the circumstances surrounding your communications, such as situational and cultural context.

Theoretical Analysis of the Banking Crisis

Theoretical Analysis of the Banking Crisis Crisis in the banking sector The current crisis and the Great Depression Theories and the crises: Several theories exist connected to the financial crises that have happened since the banking system was established. Some of them tried to explain the reasons and the origin of them however none of these theories could provide an acceptable solution how to prevent the crisis. To determine the continuity in the timeline and the spread of the crisis it was not enough to create just an economic comparison. The analysts set some mathematical and other type of model to investigate the behavior of the market. The two mostly accepted models of banking panics are the Diamond and Dybvig model and the Calomiris and Kahn model. These models were set in the 1990s as the reflection of the systematic banking crisis since 1970.Both of the two theories were accepted the fact that the banks liabilities are more liquid than its assets. In the Diamond and Dybvig model they set a hypothetical world without the banking system. The banks make contract to transform its illiquid assets.( Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review Vol. 24, No. 1, winter 2000, pp. 14-23, Dybvig: Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity).The problems with the contract is that it doesnt include any risk-sharing option. The deposit insurance is the only way to reduce the risk because its decrease the ability of the bank to transform its assets. The asymmetric information affects the liquidity demand. The final conclusion of this model is that the bank run is triggered only because patient agents believe.†This result is a self-fulfilling prophecy (panic): Because patient agents expect other patient agents to withdraw their funds early, they do the same. As a consequence too many funds are actually withdrawn, which otherwise would have not been the case. (Banking and Finance /Banking Crises.ppt/2008.12.03)† The Calomiris and Kahn model basis is the Diamond and Dybvig model, but it is more complex (Charles W. Calomiris, Charles M. Kahn, â€Å"The Role of Demandable Debt in Structuring Optimal Banking Arrangements† in American Economic Review, Vol. 81, 1991). They introduced one other potential option that the banks follow a risky behavior and put their investors money into risky projects. Because the asymmetric information the investors dont know about this step. Then, two possible things can happen; the project turns out well or not. If the project turns out negatively the bank starts to invest again. In the model the depositors can purchase information, but if is shows a negative indicator they withdraw their money. If there are a huge number of the depositors who want to withdraw the bank has serious liquidity problems and the bank panic starts. The only possible solution, according to this model, is to increase monitoring in the banking sector and strengthen the regulation to avoid moral hazard. I. The Great Depression 1. The beginning of the Great Depression (1928-30) The history of the Great Depression is important to analyze the main aspect of the crisis. From May of 1928 the stock market rise continuously and the average stock price increased because the FED raised its discount rate, and saw the stock market was booming and the stock price doubled, as excessive speculation. They tried to resolve this by increased monetary policy to raise interest rate and a new deflationary policy was introduced. As a consequence, a huge financial bubble evolved. In October 22, 1929 New York Times published an article; â€Å"Fisher Says Prices of Stocks Are Low†. (The 1929 Stock Market: Irving Fisher Was Right, Ellen R. Mc Grattan p.1) Then, two days later the stock market went crashing and the stock prices had fallen by 30 %: According to Irving Fisher the problem was that the people have been speculating on the small margins. It was not that the stock market was too high, but the people so enthusiastic to making money that they properly expected to mak e. It created debts because the people bought stocks on borrowed money. The politicians issued optimistic predictions to prevent the selling panic in the U.S. market (The causes of the 1929 stock market crash, Harold Bierman).The secretary of the Treasury, Andrew W. Melon stated: â€Å"There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue†. The stock market did come back in the middle of 1930, more than half of the stock that has been decline as been reversed. People thought it was over recession turned into something different. The agriculture sector stocks continued to decline. This regressive tendency was intensive not only because the Great Depression. Massive overproduction started in the European agricultural production sector after the World War I to recover the lack of the agricultural goods. To increase the legislative protection of the domestic farmers the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930 raised U.S. import tariffs (U.S Department of State, http://future.state.gov/). The Smoot-Hawley Tariff declined the international trust and cooperation and caused some problems in international trade. As a result of market crush bank collapsed from October 1930 until March 1933 by this time over a third of Americans bank was out of business. It continued to decline by mid 1932, the stock had declined to 10% their value in the peak 1929 and the increase in this in uncertainty from unsettled business conditions created by economic contraction made adverse selection and moral hazard problem worse in credit market. (The great crash, 1929, John Kenneth Galbraith) There was reduction in the number of intermediation due to loss of one-third of banks. This only increases adverse selection and moral hazard problem. Funds to firm with productive investment opportunities were greatly decreased due to this problem. In some sectors like manufacturing sector the production fell dramatically which was the basis of the Firms wage rates cuts. The level of price fell by 25% in the period of 1930-1933. Debt deflation was triggered in which net worth fell C:Documents and SettingsJudyAsztalunemploymen t.gifbecause of the increase burden of indebtedness borne on the firm. One sector problems affected the others. Millions of people lost their jobs. In the period of 1900-1947 two types of unemployment were made. These researches were developed the data set for the civilian labor force and for the Non-farm employees. (Historical unemployment in relation to today, A. Andrews)The employment rate declined by approximately 20% and the economic contraction and unemployment rose to 25 percent because of the decline in net worth. The result was more increase in adverse selection and moral hazard in the credit market. This was the worst ever experienced in the United States of America. 2. The FED This system was introduced to the public as economic stabilizer in 1913 to prevent further economic crisis although Federal Reserve System was totally passive during the Great Depression. In general, the Federal Reserve controls the interest rates and the money supply (inflation).The FED is controlled by its Board members and the majority of the twelve member Constitute the Federal Open Market Committee with five Reserve Bank The Fed not only supply the money to economy, it loans the money to them at interest. Besides, it regulates the value of the currency being issued. It should have acted as the last resort to lend as that its role. For the period of 1921-1929 the FED increased the money supply by 62% .The main reasons they did nothing was they never anticipated the negative of bank failure could have on money supply and economic activity. They thought a bank failure is as a consequence of poor bank management or bad banking practice. Small banks failures were the first to be affe cted in the bank panics in the early stages. And since the big city bank was the most influential they saw the failure of the small banks as complacency. Some suggested that political role might have played an important role in the passivity of the Federal Reserve System at that period. The New York Federal Reserve System was the most dominant force in the 1928, and it supported the Fed in open market purchase to lend money to the banks during the bank panics. This was opposed by other powerful member in the Federal Reserve System and the New York position was out voted. There were multiple causes and many theories about the origin of the Great Depression. According the monetarist theory the Crisis is the consequence of the lack of the FEDs policy making. The level of government influence on a bank varies from one country to another let say for example, in China the government regulation is very high probably the highest in the world and in United Kingdom the government regulation i s very low .It can be said that in the United Kingdom it high if we compare with the United State. So depending of which countries are comparing to another, government influence is usually different. 3. The economic decline (1930-32) Thanks to the Tariff Act the world market suffered a huge damage but, the act was not enough to recover the U.S. economy. People starting lose their jobs, homes and their confidence to the system and they take out their money from the banks and in the end they couldnt repay their loans. The continuous decline shows the effect in political elections in November 1930 when the representatives of the Republican Party lost their places in the Senate and their number and voting power reduced dramatically. In 1931 some new predictions appeared in the news which says that the depression would be over in the end of that year. During this year the deepening economic depression hit Europe and credit structures collapsed there. The media blamed United States for create this depression by cutting back on imports. Various conspiracy theories were voiced about the Soviet Union and some Biblical prophecy appeared too. In1932 a new presidential campaign started where Hoover and Roosevelt describe two different political aspects about the Depression. Hoovers economic aspect based on voluntarism and individualism, but the natural economic forces and the voluntary action by business groups couldnt work in the last 3 years. So his voters lost the trust in Hoover and he was easily beaten in the election (Burner David, Herbert Hoover: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1979). 4. The New Deal Roosevelt the new president was introduced a new program called the New Deal that contained social and economic reforms in 1933. He settled up new governmental agencies with the Glass-Steagall Act. â€Å"It gave tighter regulation of national banks to the Federal Reserve System; prohibited bank sales of securities; and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insures bank deposits with a pool of money appropriated from banks. (New York Times, http://topics.nytimes.com /topics/reference/ timestopics/subjects/g/glass_steagall_act_1933/index.html )â€Å" The senate tried to restore the peoples trust in the U.S financial system with the Glass-Steagell Act .It made a clear separation between the investment and the commercial banks .To handle the banks poor asset management Franklin Roosevelt declared a â€Å"bank holiday â€Å"as a result of bank panic in March 1933.The† bank holiday† regulated that the banks had to be until the governmental inspecto r investigation. The inspector after a monitoring process judged about the banks reopening. Another program was started namely in that time: the Agricultural Adjustment Act which helped to increase the income of the farmers. The overproduction created corps surplus and the government pay the farms, in the frame of this program, to leave the fields fallow and not to raise pigs and lambs. (Ronald Edsforth: The New Deal: Americas Response to the Great Depression, 2000) The Act aimed to raise the value of the corps, but few months later, natural disasters destroyed almost all the corps and the machinery. To help the farmers and teach them how to measure and reduce erosion the government established the Soil Conservation Service. This program stopped in 1936 when a new agricultural act had been accepted. The new regulation provides a possibility to the farmers to get federal subsidies. Besides of this, NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act) had been accepted by the government to generate more jobs, strengthen the right of collective bargaining. The unemployment increased since the Great Depression had started. Based on this reason, they provided jobs in government projects such as work camps. Approximately two million people participated in this program until 1934. The unskilled workers got hard work like digging and railway repairs but they earned only a little money. National Labor Relations Act introduced new fair labor practices in 1935.The New Deal program had helped the US economy but didnt bring the end of the Great Depression. The roots of the economic problem came from the financial insecurity and the distribution of money, because the people on relief lived from one day to another (Bernardit Bellushit, The Failure of the NRA (1975)). The investors were afraid of buying sto cks and lose their money. The companies couldnt sell their new products because the people spent their money to food. The inventories were full and nobody wanted to produce more and that stopped the cycle of the economy. 5. The Second New Deal President Roosevelt decided to set a group of new economic and social measures and provided some legislative initiatives. The public and political forces lead the president to make some radical steps. . In 1936 Roosevelt won the election but the Americans wanted the government to take greater responsibility for the welfare of the nation. The Second New Deal as legislative program established some government controlled agencies and projects. He allocated billions of dollars to start and give a financial budget for the Work Progress Administration (WPA).Roosevelt nominated the social worker Harry Hopkins to be the head of the WPA. In its early years it focused on the construction programs such as build schools and government buildings. Attempt to the population of the United States it found that the one of every six people was unemployed and most of them was unskilled (http://www.u-shistory .com /pages /h1599.html). Unskilled laborers the forgotten man of past generation works at decen t wages. The nation was building and repairing schools, public buildings, community centers and airports to meet the changing needs of the modern world. In one project twelve hundred men were employed to improve bowling field and construct building hangers and administration buildings. In addition to the hundreds of the unskilled laborers, many skilled workers were employed in this improvement project. Hundreds of homes have been treated from bondage of property. In New York City WPA housing demolisher project was started which improved the families living conditions. In many other cities of the country old firetraps are being demolished to make way to modern buildings. Swimming pools and parks were constructed to make more public value to the community and remove the children from the streets. In many parts of the country nursery schools were established to where almost 10 thousand children got hot meals, supervised train activities. In these projects employment has been provided 6 00 hundred teachers nurses dieticians and cooks. More than 300 thousand adults learned to read and write first time in their life and started to learn foreign languages from native teachers. In cooperation with the national youth administration 26500 young man and women were employed as instructors laboratory assistants and clerical helpers.( Historical unemployment in relation to today, A. Andrews) Clerical white -collar workers find employment at filling and checking important land records. As part of the program of rehabilitation of the conservation of human resources a number of household training school were established by WPA. In these school girls from relief families are prepared for domestic works. Health education is an important part of the WPA program in a number health centers in large cities teaches the proper care of the children and adults. In some cities sawing rooms were established to support the poor families with clothes. Another type of permanent construction was the community stadium as a representative a large group of project provides the public gatherings all over America. Hundreds of new bridges were constructed thousands of old bridges have been repaired and made safe. In Many cities the construction was undertaken with the cooperation of the public health agencies. The rapid growth of air traffic gives the opportunity to built modern airports and gives a job to thousand s to improve and repair the existing facilities. The increased air transportation also made necessary the development of hundreds of emergency landing fields. In cooperation with the local police departments in several cities automobile inspection stations were established to reduce the unsafe vehicles on the roads. Women who had the principle to support their families are paid for the work. And the product they made was distributed free to the families on relief (John Salmond, The New Deal: The National Level (1975). pp. 188-89). Many other type of employment was provided for women and other part-time jobs were provided in kitchen and in libraries and schools. As a result of some projects thousand of books and maps were translated. This program also contained training for adults t o learn tailoring. The financial support of the administration was enough to invest into more projects like Federal Writers Projects , Federal Theater Project, Federal Art Project, National youth Administration ,to generate more jobs for white-collar workers.â€Å"Because Harry Hopkins believed that the work provided by the WPA should match the skills of the unemployed, artists were employed to paint murals in public buildings, sculptors created park and battlefield monuments, and actors and musicians were paid to perform. These white-collar programs did not escape criticism and the term â€Å"boondoggling† was added to the English language to describe government projects of dubious merit.( Jim Crouch, The Works Progress Administration Eh. Encyclopedia(2004)). The WAP was a long program and finally was abandoned in 1943.Social security act created a new health insurance system based on employer and employee contributions, supported by taxes 6. The SWOT Analysis of the WPA SWOT Strengths: Weaknesses: Education to unskilled workers Started project didnt wanted Various types of jobs WPA as Financial â€Å"black hole† Provide part-time jobs Political influences Jobs for Artist and Black people and Women No ability to control the workers productivity Improve the health care system Opportunities : Threats: Starting more useful projects Instable economical environment Decreasing political aspects of the projects Living expenses increases, because import stop Strengthen the economy throughout projects Potential health problems, disease could stop projects Developing international export-import partnerships Other political parties critics-political intervention Support the banking act, provide more financial security The SWOT analysis is for compute the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a sector or a company (Mehta, S. (2000) Marketing Strategy). It is used for strategic planning to create a way to the desired goal or objective. In this case it was decided to apply this technique to set a real picture about the Second New Deal through WPA. The main aim of the current analysis is not generate alternative strategies, but to summarize the situation of WPA and the critiques in 1930s.Starting with the strength of the WPA it can be seen that the group of different types of jobs were provided to a high-scale target area. People could achieve different skills by the WPAs trainings and educations, and they got motivation to learn and use their knowledge in long-term. There were several weaknesses of the program from the beginning. As a governmental project the WPA needed a huge financial background to work and in some cases they only waste the money. The critiques described that some part of the program was only started to get more votes. The real leaders of the WPA had no ability to control the workers productivity and their effectiveness. To mention some real threats the instable economic environment remained the same. The diseases could spread faster among the workers and it may stop many constructing projects and it may indicate more financial problems in the health care system. One of the most important opportunities was to prevent more political fight and decrease the obvious political aspects of the projects. It would have been useful if they could solve the import problems. The following table above contains the main strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 6.1. The external factor analysis EFAS (External Factor Analysis Summary) External Factors: Weight Ratings Weighted Score Opportunities: O1 Starting more projects 0,1 3 0,3 O2 Decreasing political aspects of the projects 0,2 4 0,8 O3 Strengthen the economy through projects 0,05 3 0,15 O4 Developing international export-import partnerships 0,1 2 0,2 O5 Support the banking act, provide more financial security 0,05 3 0,15 Threats: T1 Instable economical environment 0,2 4 0,8 T2 Living expenses increases, because import stop 0,1 3 0,3 T3 Potential health problems, disease could stop projects 0,05 2 0,1 T4 Other political parties critics-political intervention 0,15 3 0,45 Total Scores: 1 1,0-5,0 3,25 The SWOT table can be used to introduce three other type of analysis the EFAS, the IFAS and the SFAS. The External factor analysis and the internal factor analysis are calculated in a same way. The external factors (opportunities, threats) are used to show the economic background of the company or the sector. The elements of the SWOT table are the main factors of these tables. Every row contains weights and the rates and the multiplied result; the weighted score. The sum of every weight has to equal by 1, and the factors ratings should be between 1 and 5.The total score will be the sum of the weighted scores and it shows a real picture about the companys position. The company is in danger if the result is less 3,5 than. 6.2 The internal factor analysis IFAS(Internal Factor Analysis Summary ) Internal Factors: Weight Ratings Weighted Score Strenghts: Education to unskilled workers 0,15 3 0,45 Various types of jobs 0,15 4 0,6 Provide part-time jobs 0,1 3 0,3 Jobs for Artist and Black people and Women 0,2 2 0,4 Improve the health care system 0,1 3 0,3 Weaknesses: Started project didnt wanted 0,05 3 0,15 WPA as Financial â€Å"black hole† 0,05 2 0,1 Political influences 0,1 4 0,4 No ability to control the workers productivity 0,1 3 0,3 Total Scores: 1 1,0-5,0 3 If the result is more than 3,5, the company is in safe. The internal factors (Strengths, Weaknesses) are closely related to the object of the analysis. The internal strengths and weaknesses summarize the main topics the company has to deal with. The total score is 3 and this means that the company is not in safe and for a long -term basis the management has to handle the weaknesses to strengthen the company position in the market. SFAS(Strategic Factor Analysis Summary ) Factors: Weight Ratings Weighted Score Duration (in terms) S Strenghts: Short Medium Long S1 Education to unskilled workers 0,2 3 0,6 X S4 Jobs for Artist and Black people and Women 0,2 4 0,8 X W Weaknesses: W3 Political influences 0,15 4 0,6 X W4 No ability to control the workers productivity 0,1 2 0,2 X O Opportunities: O1 Starting more projects 0,05 5 0,25 X O2 Decreasing political aspects of the projects 0,05 1 0,05 X T Threats: T1 Instable economical environment 0,2 4 0,8 X T4 Other political parties critics-political intervention 0,05 3 0,15 X Total Scores: 1 1,0-5,0 3,45 6.3. The Strategic Factor Analysis Summary The Strategic Factor Analysis Summary (Business Policy and Strategy lecture SFAS power point presentation 2008.12.03) has an additional column, the duration that is separated into three different parts; long-term, medium-term, and short-term .The most important factors are listed here with weights and ratings to represent the main internal and external aspects of the WPA and to make a summary about the problems and possibilities. As a conclusion, based on the analysis listed below, the SFAS ‘s weighted score is 3,45.It means that the WPA could work in a long-term if the leadership could handle the problems. The WPA project stopped in 1944; therefore the main reasons did not connected to the internal factors, but only the externals. Some critiques had right the all the projects of WPA had only a political step to achieve more cotes in the elections. 7. The worlds reaction to the Great Depression (Theories) The world reacted in a several way to the Great depression and created a lot of theories how to solve the situation. The most famous reaction was the communism, fascism and the Keynesian theory. The fascism took place in Germany, Italy and it represented a highly centralized economy. The public construction programs provided jobs for unskilled labourers to built roads, work camps and military facilities. It increased the demography of the population, but the system was highly dictatorial. According to the statistics the unemployment rate decreased dramatically from 6 million to 0.2 million people.The Communism, as a highly bureaucratic and centralized system, was one of response to the Great Depression. It focused to fully employ the people in a strictly regulated obligatory way. The Keynesian theory: It states that the fully employment is needed, but only the intervention of the government can create this possibility. It can be long -term purpose of the existence of the government. The Keynesian theory changed the way of the thinking about the unemployment. The idea of the welfare state was another solution of the crisis. The education, the minimal guarantee of a job to every citizen is the basis of a welfare system. It guarantees the minimum wages and the minimum social and healthcare system. II. The Current Financial Crisis 1. The beginning of the Current Crisis The current financial crisis started in 2007, but it was not until the last quarter of 2008 .Firstly, this part of the thesis going to show how it all started, the causes and those who were affected by the crisis and how they are trying to deal with the crisis. Most of the people are pointing directly to real estate as the major cause of the current financial crisis even financial institutions that not directly involve with real estate are affected. It can be seen how the subprime mortgages and unscrupulous lenders has caused the unsustainable real estate bubble which began to collapse in 2006.There was increase in homeownership in the United State to about 5 million in little more than six years thanks to the increase in subprime lending. Within these six years constructions of new house sing units grew more but this housing bubble could not grow forever. In this period the price of house went so high and rent price went so low. When the price of housing began to decrease in the lat e 2006 to early 2007, many subprime borrowers had very hard time to make their payment. The housing bubble or the excesses of the subprime mortgage market became even more evident when subprime mortgage lender filed for bankruptcy. All the sectors like households, businesses (including financial institutions), and government are the main participants in the financial market and hit by the crisis. The secondly related financial groups are the surplus units provide funds and while the other group that enter the financial market to obtain fund are the deficit units. If market securities yield low returns why invest in it? Three factors can be seen to why it important to make investment in market securities these are, as we have said before the advantage to convert to cash rapidly so it can be substitute as cash. The second reason is that when a firm has excess cash let say for a month it can invest the excess cash in form of securities as not to hold too much cash in hand. The third reason is that when a firm know it going to pay a loan soon it gathers the money monthly to pay and this money could be invest in market securities before the loan is to be paid. As it have seen when the financial crisis started the public could see that the financial system is in a deep trouble some even call it recession because the stock market came crashing and lost almost 42% of it original price. Before the peak of the financial crisis the total world stock market worth $62.5 trillion and now it $36.6 trillion so it lost $25.9 trillion. Let compare the stock market of leading countries of one day and another day and see how it doing. STOCK MARKETS May 5 prev %chg SP 500 903.8 907.24 -0.38 Nasdaq Comp 1754.12 1763.56 -0.54 Dow Jones Ind 8410.65 8426.74 -0.19 FTSEurofirst 300 846.81 842.7 +0.49 DJ Euro Stoxx 50 2407.55 2419.53 -0.50 FTSE 100 4336.94 4243.22 +2.21 FTSE All-Share UK 2226.6 2174.64 +2.39 CAC 40 3225.0 3237.97 -0.40 Xetra Dax 4853.03 4902.45 -1.01 Nikkei (c) 8977.37 Hang Seng 16430.08 16381.05 +0.30 FTSE All World $ 153.46 153.19 +0.18 ( source New York Times May 5 2008) There was turmoil in the all over the international financial system due to the losses in the subprime mortgage in the mid-2007.This was wide spread global crisis even thus firm not associated with the mortgage firm. This made the financial institutions very nervous and the stock market got very weak. Between July 2007 and March 2008, there was a significantly drop in the price of shares in the large, small and investment bank. A Theoretical Analysis of the Banking Crisis Theoretical Analysis of the Banking Crisis Crisis in the banking sector The current crisis and the Great Depression Theories and the crises: Several theories exist connected to the financial crises that have happened since the banking system was established. Some of them tried to explain the reasons and the origin of them however none of these theories could provide an acceptable solution how to prevent the crisis. To determine the continuity in the timeline and the spread of the crisis it was not enough to create just an economic comparison. The analysts set some mathematical and other type of model to investigate the behavior of the market. The two mostly accepted models of banking panics are the Diamond and Dybvig model and the Calomiris and Kahn model. These models were set in the 1990s as the reflection of the systematic banking crisis since 1970.Both of the two theories were accepted the fact that the banks liabilities are more liquid than its assets. In the Diamond and Dybvig model they set a hypothetical world without the banking system. The banks make contract to transform its illiquid assets.( Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review Vol. 24, No. 1, winter 2000, pp. 14-23, Dybvig: Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity).The problems with the contract is that it doesnt include any risk-sharing option. The deposit insurance is the only way to reduce the risk because its decrease the ability of the bank to transform its assets. The asymmetric information affects the liquidity demand. The final conclusion of this model is that the bank run is triggered only because patient agents believe.†This result is a self-fulfilling prophecy (panic): Because patient agents expect other patient agents to withdraw their funds early, they do the same. As a consequence too many funds are actually withdrawn, which otherwise would have not been the case. (Banking and Finance /Banking Crises.ppt/2008.12.03)† The Calomiris and Kahn model basis is the Diamond and Dybvig model, but it is more complex (Charles W. Calomiris, Charles M. Kahn, â€Å"The Role of Demandable Debt in Structuring Optimal Banking Arrangements† in American Economic Review, Vol. 81, 1991). They introduced one other potential option that the banks follow a risky behavior and put their investors money into risky projects. Because the asymmetric information the investors dont know about this step. Then, two possible things can happen; the project turns out well or not. If the project turns out negatively the bank starts to invest again. In the model the depositors can purchase information, but if is shows a negative indicator they withdraw their money. If there are a huge number of the depositors who want to withdraw the bank has serious liquidity problems and the bank panic starts. The only possible solution, according to this model, is to increase monitoring in the banking sector and strengthen the regulation to avoid moral hazard. I. The Great Depression 1. The beginning of the Great Depression (1928-30) The history of the Great Depression is important to analyze the main aspect of the crisis. From May of 1928 the stock market rise continuously and the average stock price increased because the FED raised its discount rate, and saw the stock market was booming and the stock price doubled, as excessive speculation. They tried to resolve this by increased monetary policy to raise interest rate and a new deflationary policy was introduced. As a consequence, a huge financial bubble evolved. In October 22, 1929 New York Times published an article; â€Å"Fisher Says Prices of Stocks Are Low†. (The 1929 Stock Market: Irving Fisher Was Right, Ellen R. Mc Grattan p.1) Then, two days later the stock market went crashing and the stock prices had fallen by 30 %: According to Irving Fisher the problem was that the people have been speculating on the small margins. It was not that the stock market was too high, but the people so enthusiastic to making money that they properly expected to mak e. It created debts because the people bought stocks on borrowed money. The politicians issued optimistic predictions to prevent the selling panic in the U.S. market (The causes of the 1929 stock market crash, Harold Bierman).The secretary of the Treasury, Andrew W. Melon stated: â€Å"There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue†. The stock market did come back in the middle of 1930, more than half of the stock that has been decline as been reversed. People thought it was over recession turned into something different. The agriculture sector stocks continued to decline. This regressive tendency was intensive not only because the Great Depression. Massive overproduction started in the European agricultural production sector after the World War I to recover the lack of the agricultural goods. To increase the legislative protection of the domestic farmers the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930 raised U.S. import tariffs (U.S Department of State, http://future.state.gov/). The Smoot-Hawley Tariff declined the international trust and cooperation and caused some problems in international trade. As a result of market crush bank collapsed from October 1930 until March 1933 by this time over a third of Americans bank was out of business. It continued to decline by mid 1932, the stock had declined to 10% their value in the peak 1929 and the increase in this in uncertainty from unsettled business conditions created by economic contraction made adverse selection and moral hazard problem worse in credit market. (The great crash, 1929, John Kenneth Galbraith) There was reduction in the number of intermediation due to loss of one-third of banks. This only increases adverse selection and moral hazard problem. Funds to firm with productive investment opportunities were greatly decreased due to this problem. In some sectors like manufacturing sector the production fell dramatically which was the basis of the Firms wage rates cuts. The level of price fell by 25% in the period of 1930-1933. Debt deflation was triggered in which net worth fell C:Documents and SettingsJudyAsztalunemploymen t.gifbecause of the increase burden of indebtedness borne on the firm. One sector problems affected the others. Millions of people lost their jobs. In the period of 1900-1947 two types of unemployment were made. These researches were developed the data set for the civilian labor force and for the Non-farm employees. (Historical unemployment in relation to today, A. Andrews)The employment rate declined by approximately 20% and the economic contraction and unemployment rose to 25 percent because of the decline in net worth. The result was more increase in adverse selection and moral hazard in the credit market. This was the worst ever experienced in the United States of America. 2. The FED This system was introduced to the public as economic stabilizer in 1913 to prevent further economic crisis although Federal Reserve System was totally passive during the Great Depression. In general, the Federal Reserve controls the interest rates and the money supply (inflation).The FED is controlled by its Board members and the majority of the twelve member Constitute the Federal Open Market Committee with five Reserve Bank The Fed not only supply the money to economy, it loans the money to them at interest. Besides, it regulates the value of the currency being issued. It should have acted as the last resort to lend as that its role. For the period of 1921-1929 the FED increased the money supply by 62% .The main reasons they did nothing was they never anticipated the negative of bank failure could have on money supply and economic activity. They thought a bank failure is as a consequence of poor bank management or bad banking practice. Small banks failures were the first to be affe cted in the bank panics in the early stages. And since the big city bank was the most influential they saw the failure of the small banks as complacency. Some suggested that political role might have played an important role in the passivity of the Federal Reserve System at that period. The New York Federal Reserve System was the most dominant force in the 1928, and it supported the Fed in open market purchase to lend money to the banks during the bank panics. This was opposed by other powerful member in the Federal Reserve System and the New York position was out voted. There were multiple causes and many theories about the origin of the Great Depression. According the monetarist theory the Crisis is the consequence of the lack of the FEDs policy making. The level of government influence on a bank varies from one country to another let say for example, in China the government regulation is very high probably the highest in the world and in United Kingdom the government regulation i s very low .It can be said that in the United Kingdom it high if we compare with the United State. So depending of which countries are comparing to another, government influence is usually different. 3. The economic decline (1930-32) Thanks to the Tariff Act the world market suffered a huge damage but, the act was not enough to recover the U.S. economy. People starting lose their jobs, homes and their confidence to the system and they take out their money from the banks and in the end they couldnt repay their loans. The continuous decline shows the effect in political elections in November 1930 when the representatives of the Republican Party lost their places in the Senate and their number and voting power reduced dramatically. In 1931 some new predictions appeared in the news which says that the depression would be over in the end of that year. During this year the deepening economic depression hit Europe and credit structures collapsed there. The media blamed United States for create this depression by cutting back on imports. Various conspiracy theories were voiced about the Soviet Union and some Biblical prophecy appeared too. In1932 a new presidential campaign started where Hoover and Roosevelt describe two different political aspects about the Depression. Hoovers economic aspect based on voluntarism and individualism, but the natural economic forces and the voluntary action by business groups couldnt work in the last 3 years. So his voters lost the trust in Hoover and he was easily beaten in the election (Burner David, Herbert Hoover: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1979). 4. The New Deal Roosevelt the new president was introduced a new program called the New Deal that contained social and economic reforms in 1933. He settled up new governmental agencies with the Glass-Steagall Act. â€Å"It gave tighter regulation of national banks to the Federal Reserve System; prohibited bank sales of securities; and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insures bank deposits with a pool of money appropriated from banks. (New York Times, http://topics.nytimes.com /topics/reference/ timestopics/subjects/g/glass_steagall_act_1933/index.html )â€Å" The senate tried to restore the peoples trust in the U.S financial system with the Glass-Steagell Act .It made a clear separation between the investment and the commercial banks .To handle the banks poor asset management Franklin Roosevelt declared a â€Å"bank holiday â€Å"as a result of bank panic in March 1933.The† bank holiday† regulated that the banks had to be until the governmental inspecto r investigation. The inspector after a monitoring process judged about the banks reopening. Another program was started namely in that time: the Agricultural Adjustment Act which helped to increase the income of the farmers. The overproduction created corps surplus and the government pay the farms, in the frame of this program, to leave the fields fallow and not to raise pigs and lambs. (Ronald Edsforth: The New Deal: Americas Response to the Great Depression, 2000) The Act aimed to raise the value of the corps, but few months later, natural disasters destroyed almost all the corps and the machinery. To help the farmers and teach them how to measure and reduce erosion the government established the Soil Conservation Service. This program stopped in 1936 when a new agricultural act had been accepted. The new regulation provides a possibility to the farmers to get federal subsidies. Besides of this, NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act) had been accepted by the government to generate more jobs, strengthen the right of collective bargaining. The unemployment increased since the Great Depression had started. Based on this reason, they provided jobs in government projects such as work camps. Approximately two million people participated in this program until 1934. The unskilled workers got hard work like digging and railway repairs but they earned only a little money. National Labor Relations Act introduced new fair labor practices in 1935.The New Deal program had helped the US economy but didnt bring the end of the Great Depression. The roots of the economic problem came from the financial insecurity and the distribution of money, because the people on relief lived from one day to another (Bernardit Bellushit, The Failure of the NRA (1975)). The investors were afraid of buying sto cks and lose their money. The companies couldnt sell their new products because the people spent their money to food. The inventories were full and nobody wanted to produce more and that stopped the cycle of the economy. 5. The Second New Deal President Roosevelt decided to set a group of new economic and social measures and provided some legislative initiatives. The public and political forces lead the president to make some radical steps. . In 1936 Roosevelt won the election but the Americans wanted the government to take greater responsibility for the welfare of the nation. The Second New Deal as legislative program established some government controlled agencies and projects. He allocated billions of dollars to start and give a financial budget for the Work Progress Administration (WPA).Roosevelt nominated the social worker Harry Hopkins to be the head of the WPA. In its early years it focused on the construction programs such as build schools and government buildings. Attempt to the population of the United States it found that the one of every six people was unemployed and most of them was unskilled (http://www.u-shistory .com /pages /h1599.html). Unskilled laborers the forgotten man of past generation works at decen t wages. The nation was building and repairing schools, public buildings, community centers and airports to meet the changing needs of the modern world. In one project twelve hundred men were employed to improve bowling field and construct building hangers and administration buildings. In addition to the hundreds of the unskilled laborers, many skilled workers were employed in this improvement project. Hundreds of homes have been treated from bondage of property. In New York City WPA housing demolisher project was started which improved the families living conditions. In many other cities of the country old firetraps are being demolished to make way to modern buildings. Swimming pools and parks were constructed to make more public value to the community and remove the children from the streets. In many parts of the country nursery schools were established to where almost 10 thousand children got hot meals, supervised train activities. In these projects employment has been provided 6 00 hundred teachers nurses dieticians and cooks. More than 300 thousand adults learned to read and write first time in their life and started to learn foreign languages from native teachers. In cooperation with the national youth administration 26500 young man and women were employed as instructors laboratory assistants and clerical helpers.( Historical unemployment in relation to today, A. Andrews) Clerical white -collar workers find employment at filling and checking important land records. As part of the program of rehabilitation of the conservation of human resources a number of household training school were established by WPA. In these school girls from relief families are prepared for domestic works. Health education is an important part of the WPA program in a number health centers in large cities teaches the proper care of the children and adults. In some cities sawing rooms were established to support the poor families with clothes. Another type of permanent construction was the community stadium as a representative a large group of project provides the public gatherings all over America. Hundreds of new bridges were constructed thousands of old bridges have been repaired and made safe. In Many cities the construction was undertaken with the cooperation of the public health agencies. The rapid growth of air traffic gives the opportunity to built modern airports and gives a job to thousand s to improve and repair the existing facilities. The increased air transportation also made necessary the development of hundreds of emergency landing fields. In cooperation with the local police departments in several cities automobile inspection stations were established to reduce the unsafe vehicles on the roads. Women who had the principle to support their families are paid for the work. And the product they made was distributed free to the families on relief (John Salmond, The New Deal: The National Level (1975). pp. 188-89). Many other type of employment was provided for women and other part-time jobs were provided in kitchen and in libraries and schools. As a result of some projects thousand of books and maps were translated. This program also contained training for adults t o learn tailoring. The financial support of the administration was enough to invest into more projects like Federal Writers Projects , Federal Theater Project, Federal Art Project, National youth Administration ,to generate more jobs for white-collar workers.â€Å"Because Harry Hopkins believed that the work provided by the WPA should match the skills of the unemployed, artists were employed to paint murals in public buildings, sculptors created park and battlefield monuments, and actors and musicians were paid to perform. These white-collar programs did not escape criticism and the term â€Å"boondoggling† was added to the English language to describe government projects of dubious merit.( Jim Crouch, The Works Progress Administration Eh. Encyclopedia(2004)). The WAP was a long program and finally was abandoned in 1943.Social security act created a new health insurance system based on employer and employee contributions, supported by taxes 6. The SWOT Analysis of the WPA SWOT Strengths: Weaknesses: Education to unskilled workers Started project didnt wanted Various types of jobs WPA as Financial â€Å"black hole† Provide part-time jobs Political influences Jobs for Artist and Black people and Women No ability to control the workers productivity Improve the health care system Opportunities : Threats: Starting more useful projects Instable economical environment Decreasing political aspects of the projects Living expenses increases, because import stop Strengthen the economy throughout projects Potential health problems, disease could stop projects Developing international export-import partnerships Other political parties critics-political intervention Support the banking act, provide more financial security The SWOT analysis is for compute the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a sector or a company (Mehta, S. (2000) Marketing Strategy). It is used for strategic planning to create a way to the desired goal or objective. In this case it was decided to apply this technique to set a real picture about the Second New Deal through WPA. The main aim of the current analysis is not generate alternative strategies, but to summarize the situation of WPA and the critiques in 1930s.Starting with the strength of the WPA it can be seen that the group of different types of jobs were provided to a high-scale target area. People could achieve different skills by the WPAs trainings and educations, and they got motivation to learn and use their knowledge in long-term. There were several weaknesses of the program from the beginning. As a governmental project the WPA needed a huge financial background to work and in some cases they only waste the money. The critiques described that some part of the program was only started to get more votes. The real leaders of the WPA had no ability to control the workers productivity and their effectiveness. To mention some real threats the instable economic environment remained the same. The diseases could spread faster among the workers and it may stop many constructing projects and it may indicate more financial problems in the health care system. One of the most important opportunities was to prevent more political fight and decrease the obvious political aspects of the projects. It would have been useful if they could solve the import problems. The following table above contains the main strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 6.1. The external factor analysis EFAS (External Factor Analysis Summary) External Factors: Weight Ratings Weighted Score Opportunities: O1 Starting more projects 0,1 3 0,3 O2 Decreasing political aspects of the projects 0,2 4 0,8 O3 Strengthen the economy through projects 0,05 3 0,15 O4 Developing international export-import partnerships 0,1 2 0,2 O5 Support the banking act, provide more financial security 0,05 3 0,15 Threats: T1 Instable economical environment 0,2 4 0,8 T2 Living expenses increases, because import stop 0,1 3 0,3 T3 Potential health problems, disease could stop projects 0,05 2 0,1 T4 Other political parties critics-political intervention 0,15 3 0,45 Total Scores: 1 1,0-5,0 3,25 The SWOT table can be used to introduce three other type of analysis the EFAS, the IFAS and the SFAS. The External factor analysis and the internal factor analysis are calculated in a same way. The external factors (opportunities, threats) are used to show the economic background of the company or the sector. The elements of the SWOT table are the main factors of these tables. Every row contains weights and the rates and the multiplied result; the weighted score. The sum of every weight has to equal by 1, and the factors ratings should be between 1 and 5.The total score will be the sum of the weighted scores and it shows a real picture about the companys position. The company is in danger if the result is less 3,5 than. 6.2 The internal factor analysis IFAS(Internal Factor Analysis Summary ) Internal Factors: Weight Ratings Weighted Score Strenghts: Education to unskilled workers 0,15 3 0,45 Various types of jobs 0,15 4 0,6 Provide part-time jobs 0,1 3 0,3 Jobs for Artist and Black people and Women 0,2 2 0,4 Improve the health care system 0,1 3 0,3 Weaknesses: Started project didnt wanted 0,05 3 0,15 WPA as Financial â€Å"black hole† 0,05 2 0,1 Political influences 0,1 4 0,4 No ability to control the workers productivity 0,1 3 0,3 Total Scores: 1 1,0-5,0 3 If the result is more than 3,5, the company is in safe. The internal factors (Strengths, Weaknesses) are closely related to the object of the analysis. The internal strengths and weaknesses summarize the main topics the company has to deal with. The total score is 3 and this means that the company is not in safe and for a long -term basis the management has to handle the weaknesses to strengthen the company position in the market. SFAS(Strategic Factor Analysis Summary ) Factors: Weight Ratings Weighted Score Duration (in terms) S Strenghts: Short Medium Long S1 Education to unskilled workers 0,2 3 0,6 X S4 Jobs for Artist and Black people and Women 0,2 4 0,8 X W Weaknesses: W3 Political influences 0,15 4 0,6 X W4 No ability to control the workers productivity 0,1 2 0,2 X O Opportunities: O1 Starting more projects 0,05 5 0,25 X O2 Decreasing political aspects of the projects 0,05 1 0,05 X T Threats: T1 Instable economical environment 0,2 4 0,8 X T4 Other political parties critics-political intervention 0,05 3 0,15 X Total Scores: 1 1,0-5,0 3,45 6.3. The Strategic Factor Analysis Summary The Strategic Factor Analysis Summary (Business Policy and Strategy lecture SFAS power point presentation 2008.12.03) has an additional column, the duration that is separated into three different parts; long-term, medium-term, and short-term .The most important factors are listed here with weights and ratings to represent the main internal and external aspects of the WPA and to make a summary about the problems and possibilities. As a conclusion, based on the analysis listed below, the SFAS ‘s weighted score is 3,45.It means that the WPA could work in a long-term if the leadership could handle the problems. The WPA project stopped in 1944; therefore the main reasons did not connected to the internal factors, but only the externals. Some critiques had right the all the projects of WPA had only a political step to achieve more cotes in the elections. 7. The worlds reaction to the Great Depression (Theories) The world reacted in a several way to the Great depression and created a lot of theories how to solve the situation. The most famous reaction was the communism, fascism and the Keynesian theory. The fascism took place in Germany, Italy and it represented a highly centralized economy. The public construction programs provided jobs for unskilled labourers to built roads, work camps and military facilities. It increased the demography of the population, but the system was highly dictatorial. According to the statistics the unemployment rate decreased dramatically from 6 million to 0.2 million people.The Communism, as a highly bureaucratic and centralized system, was one of response to the Great Depression. It focused to fully employ the people in a strictly regulated obligatory way. The Keynesian theory: It states that the fully employment is needed, but only the intervention of the government can create this possibility. It can be long -term purpose of the existence of the government. The Keynesian theory changed the way of the thinking about the unemployment. The idea of the welfare state was another solution of the crisis. The education, the minimal guarantee of a job to every citizen is the basis of a welfare system. It guarantees the minimum wages and the minimum social and healthcare system. II. The Current Financial Crisis 1. The beginning of the Current Crisis The current financial crisis started in 2007, but it was not until the last quarter of 2008 .Firstly, this part of the thesis going to show how it all started, the causes and those who were affected by the crisis and how they are trying to deal with the crisis. Most of the people are pointing directly to real estate as the major cause of the current financial crisis even financial institutions that not directly involve with real estate are affected. It can be seen how the subprime mortgages and unscrupulous lenders has caused the unsustainable real estate bubble which began to collapse in 2006.There was increase in homeownership in the United State to about 5 million in little more than six years thanks to the increase in subprime lending. Within these six years constructions of new house sing units grew more but this housing bubble could not grow forever. In this period the price of house went so high and rent price went so low. When the price of housing began to decrease in the lat e 2006 to early 2007, many subprime borrowers had very hard time to make their payment. The housing bubble or the excesses of the subprime mortgage market became even more evident when subprime mortgage lender filed for bankruptcy. All the sectors like households, businesses (including financial institutions), and government are the main participants in the financial market and hit by the crisis. The secondly related financial groups are the surplus units provide funds and while the other group that enter the financial market to obtain fund are the deficit units. If market securities yield low returns why invest in it? Three factors can be seen to why it important to make investment in market securities these are, as we have said before the advantage to convert to cash rapidly so it can be substitute as cash. The second reason is that when a firm has excess cash let say for a month it can invest the excess cash in form of securities as not to hold too much cash in hand. The third reason is that when a firm know it going to pay a loan soon it gathers the money monthly to pay and this money could be invest in market securities before the loan is to be paid. As it have seen when the financial crisis started the public could see that the financial system is in a deep trouble some even call it recession because the stock market came crashing and lost almost 42% of it original price. Before the peak of the financial crisis the total world stock market worth $62.5 trillion and now it $36.6 trillion so it lost $25.9 trillion. Let compare the stock market of leading countries of one day and another day and see how it doing. STOCK MARKETS May 5 prev %chg SP 500 903.8 907.24 -0.38 Nasdaq Comp 1754.12 1763.56 -0.54 Dow Jones Ind 8410.65 8426.74 -0.19 FTSEurofirst 300 846.81 842.7 +0.49 DJ Euro Stoxx 50 2407.55 2419.53 -0.50 FTSE 100 4336.94 4243.22 +2.21 FTSE All-Share UK 2226.6 2174.64 +2.39 CAC 40 3225.0 3237.97 -0.40 Xetra Dax 4853.03 4902.45 -1.01 Nikkei (c) 8977.37 Hang Seng 16430.08 16381.05 +0.30 FTSE All World $ 153.46 153.19 +0.18 ( source New York Times May 5 2008) There was turmoil in the all over the international financial system due to the losses in the subprime mortgage in the mid-2007.This was wide spread global crisis even thus firm not associated with the mortgage firm. This made the financial institutions very nervous and the stock market got very weak. Between July 2007 and March 2008, there was a significantly drop in the price of shares in the large, small and investment bank. A

Switched LANs And Network Design Engineering Essay

Switched LANs And Network Design Engineering Essay The Local Area Networks (LANs) can serve only a small geographic area and there is a limitation for the total number of hosts that can be attached to a single network. In order to communicate between the hosts network devices like hubs and switches are used. Thus a set of LANs that are interconnected by switches will form switched LANs and this lab is all about the performance evaluation of the switched LANs. OBJECTIVE: The main goal of this lab assignment is to compare and study the performance of switched local area networks (LANs) that are implemented through the hubs and switches. The performance study of various parameters like throughput, number of collisions, and delay of the network is done through the simulations obtained from the project implementations and the questions are answered from the simulations. IMPLEMENTATION PROCEDURE: The implementation of the switched LANs is done through OPNET IT Guru software. The software provided step by step procedures. In the first step, the network is created with the hub configuration having nodes from node_0 through node_15 and the hub is named as HUB_1. The Ethernet connection 10BaseT, operates at 10Mbps and is used to link between the 16 hosts present in the network. The network nodes are then individually configured for the traffic generation parameters and packet generation parameters attributes. As the hub configuration would send the packets received at its input to all the output lines irrespective of the destination the hub configuration network design is as shown below. The second configuration uses both the hub and the switch. Here a switch is used between the two hubs named HUB_1 and HUB_2. Each hub is connected to 8 nodes and the connection is established through the Ethernet 10BaseT link. The main difference between the hub and the switch is that the switch uses a store and forward mechanism. Thus it will forward the packets received at its input port to the required destinations and sometimes buffers due to the network traffic. The network configuration for such a combination of hub and switch is detailed in the below simulation design. The above two network configurations are analyzed for the attributes packet generation and traffic generation parameters. Both of them are similar and the packet generation occurred for every 100 seconds. The simulation of the configured network is run for every 2 minutes and the details are captured for further evaluation. OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS ANALYSIS: The simulation results for the configured networks are clearly depicted by the graphs. Fig 3 details the traffic sent over the hub and the hub-switch combination. From the graph we can identify the amount of traffic sent across both the configurations remained the same. Fig 4 shows the packets that are received at the destination for both the configurations. From the graph we can state that the hub-switch configuration is more efficient over the hub alone configuration. The analysis of the time delay in Fig 5 gives a clear idea about the efficiency of hub-switch configuration. The hub-switch configuration had a delay of 0.020 seconds constantly for a particular load and there is no such criterion for the hub only configuration. The collision count in Fig 6 depicts that the collision count for the hub alone is nearly 2300 for a constant amount of time and the case with the hub and switch combination is far less which counts to nearly 900. Thus we can say from the graphs that the efficiency of hub and switch network configuration is more when compared to the hub alone network configuration. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Question 1: Explain why adding a switch makes the network perform better in terms of throughput and delay. Answer: From the simulation results it is evident that a switch performs well by dividing the network into smaller collision domains. Thus the throughput could be increased and also the switch provides the network bandwidth of 10 Mbps completely on each of the nodes and hence the delay of the network is reduced effectively. Question 2: We analyzed the collision counts of the hubs. Can you analyze the collision count of the â€Å"Switch†? Explain your answer. Answer: Yes. The collision count of a switch can be analyzed with the behavior of the switch. The switch uses a store and forward mechanism. Thus it also has the capability of buffering the packets in times of network traffic. These major features of the switch would enable the switch to have no collision. Thus switches are more preferred. Question 3: Create two new scenarios. The first one is the same as the OnlyHub scenario but replace the hub with a switch. The second new scenarios is the same as the HubAndSwitch scenario but replace both hubs with two switches, remove the old switch, and connect the two switches you just added together with a 10BaseT link. Compare the performance of the four scenarios in terms of delay, throughput, and collision count. Analyze the results. Note: To replace a hub with a switch, right-click on the hub and assign ethernet16_switch to its model attribute. Answer: The results obtained from the simulation graphs would show the throughput and time delay in the different configurations. From Fig 7, it is seen that hub and switch configuration has the increase in throughput and the hub only configuration has the least throughput among the four. The time delay between the four configurations is analyzed from the Fig 8. Here the two switches configuration has a least time delay because the usage of switches would optimize the delay in time. This is clear from the simulation graph as the time delay is around about 0.002 seconds. The analysis of collision count is already discussed in question 2. When two switches are used by the property of the switches the collision count would be zero. Thus switches are the best configuration devices as compared to hubs. CONCLUSION: Thus, the Switched LANs lab assignment gave a very clear vision for the choice of network configuration in a preferred location by learning the hub and switch basics. The simulation results were evident to confirm the better efficiency of a switch than a hub. Hence, the optimization of network by a switch instead of a hub will produce cost efficiency. LABORATORY 4: NETWORK DESIGN OVERWIEW: In this lab we developed a companys network having 4 departments. Since it was a small network, we used LAN model. We used OPNET Guru to simulate the network design. Once the design was done we assessed the outcome and tried to excel the network by changing some of the hardware, such as using separate servers for database, files and web vs. using one for all three of them. We also compared the same network using low vs. high density cables. Thus, this lab is about the optimization of network. OBJECTIVE: The main goal of this lab was to show the learning of the fundamentals of network design. In order to doing this we took into account the users, services, and locations of the hosts. IMPLEMENTATION PROCEDURE: To implement this network, we used OPNET Guru as it is one of the greatest tools in Networking. It allows one to simulate the network with any combinations of devices and protocols we have available today. First, we created an empty project and added objects: Application Configuration, Profile Configuration, and a subnet as node_0, node_1 and subnet_0 respectively. Then, we configure services for applications, namely: engineers, researchers, salespeople, and multimedia users. Later, we configure the subnet. Then, we create a 10-workstation star topology LAN. We do this for each of the four departments stated above. Now, we configure all the departments. Now, we configure all three servers based on different services needed for each followed by connecting each department to the subnet. Finally, we setup the network to test for statistics about the global page and run the simulation to assess the results. Later, we keep the same setup as in Figure 1 above and change the background utilization to be 99 percent to create the Busy Network. And run the simulation again. Finally, we duplicate the Busy Network and replace the low density cables with high density to observe differences. Now you are you are ready to observe the results and analyze the network. OBSERVATION AND RESULTS ANLAYSIS: In figure 4.3 bellow, we observed that the response time of the busy network was much higher than the simple network. Also, the system stabilizes very quick compared to the busy network. From figure 3, high density cables were very helpful in optimizing the results. With high density cables we get busy network producing a response time as if it were a simple network and it stabilizes really fast too. It was apparent that File server stabilizes a lot faster than both the Database Server and the Web Server. Second, Database Server fluctuate the least. It became apparent that one server replacing the three server has the most load, so it CPU Utilization is the most and it somewhat higher than the Web Server alone. QUESTION AND ANSWERS: Question 1: Analyze the result we obtained regarding the HTTP page response time. Collect four other statistics, of your choice, and rerun the simulation of the Simple and the busy network scenarios. Get the graphs that compare the collected statistics. Comment on these results. Answer: From the HTTP response time for the simple and busy networks, the simple network is represented in blue and the busy network is represented in the color red. The comparison of the two time delay would result in a conclusion that the delay is much less in the simple network as compared to the busy network. We have considered four other scenarios for comparison and they are depicted in the graph as below: The first plot shows the Ethernet delay time and from the figure we could notice clearly that the delay in the busy network is higher as compared to the simple network. The next plot shows the time delay comparisons of the TCP delay. We could understand that the TCP delay for the busy network is fluctuating initially ata higher rate and then it subsides almost even but still at at a higher pace. On the other hand the simple network has a ver low flutuating initial time delay and then it has stabilized after a period of time. The graph below represents the response time for the DB entry and the comparison between the simple and busy network shows a great deal of difference. The busy network is a bit fluctuating at the initial stage and then it commences to a stable state. But still the delay is high over here. The simple network is having a quite stable time responde from the beginning. This could be observed from the graph below. The response time for the DB Query is as shown below. In this scenario also the simple network has a quite stable time delay and very small when compared to the initial fluctuating time delay of the busy network. Question 2: In the Busy Network scenario, study the utilization% of the CPUs in the servers (Right-click on each server and select Choose Individual Statistics ? CPU ? Utilization). Answer: The CPU utilization during the Busy Network Scenario for the webserver, database server, and file server are as below: From the graphs above, it is obvious that File server stabilizes a lot faster than both the Database Server and the Web Server. Second, Database Server fluctuate the least if you look at the magnitude on the y-axis. Question 3: Create a new scenario as a duplicate of the Busy Network scenario. Name the new scenario Q3_OneServer. Replace the three servers with only one server that supports all required services. Study the utilization% of that server’s CPU. Compare this utilization with the three CPU utilizations you obtained in the previous question. Answer: It is apparent from the graph above that the one server replacing the three servers has the maximum load, so its CPU Utilization is the most and it somewhat higher than the Web Server in the previous scenario. This is because the web server was using the most CPU time in the previous busy scenario. Question 4: Create a new scenario as a duplicate of the Busy Network scenario. Name the new scenario Q4_FasterNetwork. In the Q4_FasterNetwork scenario, replace all 100BaseT links in the network with 10Gbps Ethernet links and replace all 10BaseT links with 100BaseT links. Study how increasing the bandwidth of the links affects the performance of the network in the new scenario (e.g., compare the HTTP page response time in the new scenario with that of the Busy Network). Answer: After making all the changes to the links, we have the following results: From the results above, it is obvious that network response time is much faster and that it stabilizes really fast too. In other words, the Q4_FastNetwork is compatible to Simple Network instead of Busy Network only because we used high density cables. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, we learned the basics of designing a network, taking into consideration the users, services, and locations of the hosts. We learned this by using OPNET tool which is great for simulating network systems. We also, learned that using high density cables will optimize the network greatly and can even convert the response time of a network to be so fast as if it were a simple network and it stabilizes the network very fast too. We also noticed that using separate servers for different activities, such as, Database, files and web gives better performance of CPU utilization. Thus, one should consider using high density cables and separate servers for Databases, files and Web to avoid overloading just one server.

Teaching Philosophy :: Education Teachers Classroom Essays

Teaching Philosophy What is my philosophy concerning education? For as long as there has been â€Å"learning†, this question has been debated. As with any â€Å"opinion question† this question brings forth very strong discussion. Everyone has his or her own thoughts regarding this. Parents, administrators, professors, teachers (those retired and those yet to be.) all have varying views on what education should be. In all the points I wish to make, the two which seem of utmost importance are to be flexible enough with your position that new thoughts and ideas are at least considered and to keep the welfare of the children first and foremost in all beliefs. I think being a teacher is the most important job in the world. If it wasn’t for teachers everything in the world would be different. When looking back on my 13 years of school, I recall few teacher who made a huge impact on my life. All of the teachers that I remember the most have something in common, which is they all taught extremely well academically, but their job didn’t stop there. They were mentors, helpers, listeners, and role models. I think it is important as a teacher to remember some students may not struggle academically, but their problems might be at home. It is necessary as a teacher to not only teach the core subjects, such as reading, math, and English, but also incorporate important concepts such as self-esteem, decision-making, character building, as well as other skills needed for life. A good teacher must keep in mind that anything said or done, even if it is little, can make or break a child. A teacher can also make a positive las ting impression on a child. This is the kind of teacher I want to be! As a teacher most of your time and the students’ time of learning takes place in the classroom. That is why it is important that the room is comfortable and pleasing to the students. In my classroom I want color and fun mixed in with learning. It is important to create an atmosphere that is comfortable, but not over stimulating to distract the students. It is a good idea to display the students’ work.

Death Of A Salesman :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Death is such a contradicting situation. It is always a sad event, but in some perspectives it may or may not be a joyous event. Not to say that death should be celebrated, just to point out that life may have been a more dramatic experience.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For my first novel in G.T. I read Death of a Salesman, a play written by Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller was born in 1915, in New York City. His parents were well To do until the depression. He attended college where he won three drama prizes. Death of a Salesman was his their Broadway play.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The play Death of A Salesman was an extremely confusing play, it was a dialogue between a family of people. There were numerous flashbacks used to illustrate things that happened in the past. The overall purposeof the flashbacks was to describe the situation that Willy Loman, the main character, was dillusional. I feel that in this the characters of this book are well described. The author describes Willy was an average man with a somewhat normal life. His wife Linda is loving and like any woman she sticks by her man. Happy and Biff are Willy and Linda’s sons. The play takes place when Biff and Happy come to visit their parentsfor a couple of days.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The play is reality that most books and movies do not display. It shows an average american family struggling to get by. In the play it is apparent that the characters have strong dreams and aspirations. It is also obvious that they have not yet succeeded in accomplishing them. Quite a few events happen that prove, no matter how hard someone tries, in society things change and it is hard to reach full potential.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The authors of the play puts more reality into the central theme of the play. People get old and begin to do odd things such as talk to people that are not there or people that only exists in their minds. Throughout the play Willy would have conversations with people that he believed were there, but they really were not. Willy strived to be the best and if he was not successful, then things were not good enough. He was ashamed that his money supply was not sufficentenough to support his family. The theme changed throughout the course of the book. I believe the point that he was trying to emphasize was to never give up and all the barriers in the way will be broken.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This play has taught me the lesson that life is how one individual person decides to

Sun & it’s Microsystems

With an employee workforce of four, Sun Microsystems was incorporated in 1982 by Andreas Bechtolsheim, Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy. Originally began for Stanford University Network, Sun Microsystems has been a global leader in innovating products, services and support solutions for constructing and maintaining network computer systems. The first system built by Sun, the Sun-1 was introduced in late 1982 and was a high performance, UNIX based computer constructed of inexpensive materials. Within a year of incorporation Sun was operating in Europe, and soon spread throughout the world. From Sun†s birth, there was always a corporate emphasis on the power of the internet and networking. A belief that the internet was the future was inherent in the corporate culture and was built into the company framework through the mission statement: â€Å"We enable customers to create breakaway business strategies by using our network computing products, solutions and services. In an age where information is power. Sun provides the technology, innovation and partnerships that enable individuals or entire organizations to access information . . . from anywhere . . . to anything . . . on any device . . . allowing users to better differentiate and more effectively create breakaway business products and services.† This strong belief is reiterated in Sun†s vision statement: â€Å"Sun is network computing. Everything we bring to the market is predicated upon the existence of the network, where Java is on every client and every server. Sun†s vision is for a networked computing future driven by the needs and choices of the customer. It is a vision in which every man, woman, and child has access to collective planetary wisdom that resides on the network.† These strong networking and internet beliefs made Sun the prime company when, in 1994, there was a huge surge in internet usage. At that time, roughly 30% of servers were made by Sun.    Sun is a leading supplier of enterprise network computing products, and has a full range of services and support. The company†s products are used for commercial and technical applications worldwide. As a global competitor, Sun is subject to exchange rate risks. There are a few markets Sun should be especially cautious of, including: Japanese Yen, British Pound, French Franc, and German Marc. Sun holds a large position in these potentially volatile markets. Despite its current recovery, Sun should be wary of the Japanese Market. Any major shift in this market could negatively impact its revenues. Another consideration it the value of the dollar. As the dollar strengthens in the US, the dollar value of non-US dollar based sales abroad decreases. In order to hedge these risks, Sun routinely uses options & futures contracts in foreign countries.    Currently, revenues outside the United States are increasing. This is primarily due to the continued market acceptance of Sun†s network computing and product services. Approximately one half of the increases in revenue are due the continued strong demand for enterprise and work group servers, as well as increased revenues for their storage products division. Recently, the company has made an overall shift to premium service and support contracts in the service division. This change is advantageous due to the large installed base of high-end server products, and is primarily responsible for the increased unit sales in the service division. Sun has also experienced increased revenue from their professional and educational products. The company continuously evaluates the competitiveness of its products and service offerings. These evaluations could result in re-pricing actions adversely affecting revenues in the short term. This is due to the company†s belief that to keep the competitive edge in the market place, a company must continually improve existing products as well as introduce new ones. The company will achieve this even if it means the cannibalization of existing products. Financial Statements and Ratio Analysis After reviewing the company†s annual reports and other historical figures, we can evaluate the current stock pricing trends and financial well being of the company. Based from this information, the company†s net revenues have continuously increased over the last five years reaching 11.726 billion in fiscal year June 30, 1999. A common-size income statement analysis of the company shows us that Sun†s cost of sales as a percentage of net revenues has decreased in 1999. In the technology sector, prices for products can often fall faster than manufacturing costs to produce them. Tight control over costs of sales is a positive sign for a company in this industry. This shows us that Sun is maintaining their competitive position in this area. The expenditures on research and development have increased slightly in 1999. This can be attributed to the continuous development necessary to stay competitive in this industry. Tech companies tend to grow much faster than companies in other industries. Because of this, R&D expenditures are especially important in the long term health of technology companies. Sun appears to be adequately using funds in this area. The selling, general, and administrative expenses have increased in dollar value but remain constant as a percentage of revenue. Some reasons for the increases in SG&A are attributed to its continuous improvement of internal business processes, increased marketing costs, and increased head count needed to meet rising demand. However, it is imperative that the investments in SG&A should not rise as a percent of revenue for the company to remain competitive. The purchased in-process R&D line on the income statement reflects the amount of write-offs associated from newly acquired companies. The information provided from the annual report for year ending 1999 however, is somewhat misleading. Two months after the annual report was filed with the SEC, Sun acquired Star Division Corp. on August 5, 1999. All the capital stock of Star Division shareholders was converted to the right to receive cash. The total purchase price of the company was approximately 60 million. No extraordinary expenses or the associated changes will show until the new annual report is filed for fiscal year 2000. Because of this, any assumptions made based on the 1999 figures will be distorted until the final effects of the merger can be evaluated. It is Suns belief that the Star division will increase revenues with the introduction of new software later this year. Star†s current direction in software development is consistent with Suns software architecture including the use of portal technologies. These technologies will allow users to access office applications via a single server using the Internet from many different devices including cell phones & personal data assistants. Sun believes they can harness synergies from this merger to amplify stockholders returns. The future success of this operation may greatly impact the companies competitive position. On a cautious note however, the company should be careful to not neglect the continuous development needed of existing products to remain competitive. Both the company†s quick ratio of 1.94 and current ratio of 2.44 far surpass its industry (Diversified Computer Systems) average of 1.33 & 1.71 respectively. This shows us that Sun maintains an advantage over its competitors by having substantially more assets compared to liabilities. The 1999 annual report also boasts of having almost no debt compared to equity. However, we know that with the merger of Star Division, Sun has picked up some long term debt raising its debt to equity ratio to .36 from 0. Even with the added debt, Sun is still beating the industry average of .44. This shows much internal strength for the company, but raises some concerns that debt leverage may not be currently utilized to its full potential. The companies ROA and ROI ratios are continuously beating the industry. These values indicate signs of good management from within the firm. The firm received large returns on investment for fiscal year ending 1999. This however, may not be representative of future performance as it is not income generated by the firms primary operations. As such investors and management alike should be cautious. The company†s ROE is slightly trailing the industry. This is probably due to the lack of debt leverage currently being utilized. The company†s asset and inventory turnover ratios are lower than its industry. This can at least be partially explained by the company†s dependence on its suppliers. Sun frequently enters into large contracts that are non-cancelable to retain its suppliers. This results in stockpiling and more importantly wasted or obsolete inventory. The technology sector is continuously changing & any inventory not immediately sold runs the increased risk of becoming obsolete in the future. This is an area where Sun could use some refinement. One possibility would be the use of JIT manufacturing or a more vertical integration with its suppliers. The company†s gross margin of 51.96% represents increased demand of higher-end market servers. The operating margin is also solid at 13.86% compared to 10.23% for its industry. This can be attributed to the tight controls on costs of sales as compared to the increasing revenues. Sun†s net profit margin is 9.75%. Although seemingly small compared to the S&P 500, this margin significantly beats the industry average of 7.23%. The low profit margins throughout this industry characterize this highly price competitive market as it converts product to revenue. Sun†s stock is rated by Wall Street Analysts as a strong buy. It has been forecasted to perform better than average on 2000 & 2001. The companies EPS forecast for fiscal year 2000 is $0.90 and judging from its first two quarters, it appears to be right on track. Although Wall Street has high confidence in Sun, the next earnings release will be April 13, 2000 and any significant variation from expected earnings could have very adverse affects on the price of stock. The P/E ratio skyrocketed from just 53.8 in June of 1999 to its current price of 122.16 as of March 15. This indicates that investors are willing to pay a significant premium for Sun†s earnings (about $122 for every dollar of earnings). Both the Sales and EPS growth rates also indicate investors are paying large premiums for growth relative to Sun†s peers. These premiums may indicate an inflated stock price. One of the best ways to value a company can be to forecast future cash flows & then discount them back to today†s net present value. Using this technique, we projected earnings 10 years into the future using the net income from the 1999 annual report and a growth rate of 20%. The 20% rate is consistent with the company†s historical growth rate. Next we discounted those future cash flows at a rate of 15% to compensate for changing markets and the cost of capital. By doing this we were able to arrive at a NPV from those cash flows. Finally by subtracting long term debt and dividing by the number of current shares outstanding we were able to arrive at the companies intrinsic value of about $35.00. By comparing this value to the current stock price of $89.81, we can see that Sun appears to be overvalued by investors at this time. This is probably due to the investor excitement from the increased revenues and its strong ROA and ROI. Sun†s management will need to be very cautious of any unexpected changes in earnings. These changes could trigger an adverse affect on the current stock price and curb investor excitement in the company. This could have a negative consequence on the company†s future operations. Management must always look at how the firm is valued from outside sources if it is to continue the goal of maximizing shareholder value. Hewlett Packard (HP) is a leader in the computer industry. They got their start out of a garage in 1938. Considered to be innovators their business has grown over the years. The main focus of Hewlett Packard is to be a global provider of computing and imaging solutions for business and home. This takes into account the rapidly growing internet with an emphasis on e-business. While HP†s performance is strong they are not as volatile as Sun because they own a big chunk of the printer market. They are competing with Sun in the huge server market. Hewlett Packard realizes the expansion of the internet and they will be a competitor for a long time in the future. Next we have Big Blue International Business Machine (IBM) and they have been a global force for many years. Their main focus is to provide customers with solutions through the use of advanced information technology. These solutions include technologies, systems, products, services, software and financing. IBM is a stable company that is trying to maximize shareholder wealth and at the same time recognizes the key to the future. They will be a big competitor of Sun†s due to the growing demand for internet solutions. IBM has formed alliances with Cisco, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, and Palm to start e-service. This is to combat the wireless revolution. IBM in 1998 started to create an infrastructure to take advantage of the fast growing internet. The mission for them is access anytime anywhere. The key to IBM getting more involved is because Experts say that in the near future there will 1 billion wireless subscribers. Everything digital is due to double in the coming years. IBM as well as Sun does not want to be left in the dust. Our third major competitor is Compaq Computer. They were incorporated in 1983. They currently sit as the #2 computer company in the world. They began their onslaught on e-business back in 1988. They use a company called Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). This gave them a direct portal to get information to their customers faster over communications lines. They also use a Just in Time process to cut costs, reduce cycle times. Overall this improves their cycle times. Their main focus is to design, develop, manufacture and market hardware, software, and services to individuals. Don†t let Compaq†s numbers fool you. Compaq has had their problems in the past of growing too fast, and are rebuilding for e-commerce. They are poised and confident that they will lead consumers to a paperless environment. Silicon Graphics is a leader in digital media solutions. They accomplish this through large servers. Their key to success is to engage in production of a broad range of visual computing systems. These systems deliver advanced 3D graphics and computing capabilities. They have a definite power in providing audio and video over the internet. Huge servers store the enormous amounts of data needed to accomplish these types of applications. Clearly they are in a growing mode. There systems have been recognized just recently at the Academy Awards for the Phantom Menace, Stuart Little, and The Matrix. To this point Silicon Graphics is in the red but with the growth available to them, they could steal market share. Sun really has to watch out for this mover and shaker.

Dear Diary

A few days ago, I ran into these strange-looking witches that had brought forth a prophecy that I hadn't believed. The prophecy stated that I shall replace Duncan, my King, from his title. This news was indeed compelling but Just the thought of ever replacing the King was something I could never do. I had to share this news with someone, so I went to the one person I trust more than anyone in this world, my wife. She was delighted to hear that I could be named King, but seemed devastated that I was hesitant on taking a type of action that could gain me the throne.I had been persuaded by my wife into assassinating the king and taking his crown. Ever since then my life has changed enormously. These past few days have been like a nightmare for me, a nightmare that I have to live in until my last breath. In order to remain king and keep the title in my family, I must take action towards the people who have the ability to that away from me. Therefore, my best friend, Banquet, and his sons must be eliminated because the prophecy from the witches had stated that his sons will be the true heir of the throne rather than my sons when they are born, which I can't let, happen.I can't kill again; the circumstances this time around are different than before. I am the king now, and after everything I had gone through Just to get this title I can't Jeopardize that. Due to the choices I had made, I need to be the most patient and kind king the world has ever seen, I need to remain calm at all times, and under no circumstance may I ever tell a soul of the actions I had taken to be where I am today. This Is what my future lays for me. This Is what my life shall look like from here on.