Rising Cost of Education

There was a time when a person from a low income family could believe he or she could attain the American dream without going to college. My eldest brother began working at Chevy in 1969; he was 16 years old, and he retired from Chevy in 2005. When he retired he owned three homes, three cars (one was a race car he built) a Harley Davis Motor cycle, a huge mobile home and he boasted more than $100,00. 00 in the bank. He continued to live in Detroit until he died in 2011. The only problem my brother had was that he could barely read or write. Thirty years ago, a young person could work at a McDonalds, over the period of two years they would become a Team Lead, and a year or two later they could be a Shift Manager. In a period of seven to ten years from the time this kid started, they could manage their own store. I did this and it only took me three years. I left food service because one day I wanted to Mickaole Walden, Ph. D. or M. D. I was going to be an engineer, but being assaulted and left with a brain injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ended my military carrer; it took me twenty years to accept that I no longer had an IQ of 137. It was made clear to me very early I had to go to college. I first was told by my father that since he taught at N. I. T, The National Institute of Technology in Dallas, Texas that we would not have to pay for my college degree. Later, when I got a poor grade in Math Theorem, I decided to go into the Military to get funding for school. I have known many people who went into the military as a catalyst for education and funding for college. Today, having a way to finance ones education is as essential as higher education itself. The inequality in education is evident. At the time Sociology in Modules was written only 11 percent of kids from low income families received a degree, this is compared with Children from families in the top five percent Income level which were at 53 percent. After children from poor families enter college weather they graduate or not, they are usually left with the burden of financial aid debt, (Schaefer 2011). Having a way to pay for higher education was not an issue that concerned me or my Pops with him being an Educator, and after I completed military service and having access to the GI Bill. It was not until my daughter graduated high school that financial aid became an issue. I am currently paying off a loan for my daughter after she dropped out of Clark. She is now attending Georgia Perimeter College. I have nearly cleared one of my bank accounts to keep her in school until we can take out a loan or get a grant. Today, helping my young adult daughter attain grants and loans is painfully important. My daughter could not care less because her fiance is financially secure and I am funding her education. She doesn’t understand the importance of having her own source of income even if she does not need it right now. Earlier this year she and I were looking through a travel guide, she wanted us to take a one week vacation in Jamaica, (she works less than full time as a waitress). She truly suffers from false consciousness. Education is more than â€Å"The knowledge or skill obtained† (American Heritage dictionary 2001). Education is an opportunity for vertical mobility. Education is a chance for greater socioeconomic status. In order to gain knowledge, skill and a level of greater earning potential, you have to be able to pay for higher Education.

Discuss how ICT has changed modern society Essay

Our modern day world becomes more and more modern every day, with new technologies and advances coming up. ICT impacts all parts of our lives, and has had a massive impact to society, the environment and its future. Information and Communication technology opened up a whole new industry in the work sector, and that is clearly one of its many advantages. The ICT industry in Australia alone employs over 541,000 professionals. Meaning over half a million people with actual degrees in ICT related subjects. At least 500,000-1,000,000 are expected as amateurs who have worked in the industry before. Our reliance on computers and technology is the reason that this number continues to increase. Although employment rates in ICT have stabilised from the roaring it had over the past decade, it is still employing thousands of people annually. Increased employments rates in this sector allows a fast form of global communication and trade. ICT also left a mark on the way in which society communicates. E-mails, instant messaging, video conferences are all new ways in which people communicate effectively every day. These in turn, impact the economy. People have a much better standard of living as they don’t have to pay for phone bills, plane tickets, or spend money on gas to visit their friends. Instead, this can all be done within a few seconds with a computer costing less than a single plane ticket. Many schools worldwide use the internet for interactive trips for their students. With the economy suffering in the USA, may schools have adopted using video websites such as YouTube to keep the students interested with the issues of the world. It is only human to get a rush as soon as you sit down in front of a computer, same for kids. Students studying Applied ICT at AS and A2 level are learning topics that were taught at degree levels only a decade ago. So ICT skills needed for the workforce are actually taught earlier on in life now. That’s how vitally important they are. Nothing can be ‘complete’ without mentioning global warming. ICT has reduced CO2 emissions from paper refineries worldwide, which in turn reduces the amount of global warming. Also, if you were to write on paper, you would need plenty of light and paper to do so, instead, ICT gives you the light of the screen, and pixel paper. This can also lead to a decrease in global warming statistics that have been rising ever since it was proven. No matter how flat you make a pancake, it will still have two sides. So does the argument about the impact of ICT. Every upside comes with an equal downside, for example, even though ICT courses are offered to much younger ages now, that still doesn’t disregard the fact that specialist equipment and rooms are needed for these courses. Specialists for troubleshooting must be on call, and security can be one of the major issues, as people know they’re constantly being watched, and this may effect their strive to learn. For example if someone knows they’re being watched, they wont be so eager to learn anymore. Security issues and the feeling of always being watched and monitored can consequentially cause panic attacks, and increase stress. Stress is the number one leading factor for heart attacks worldwide. ICT is a package that comes with health risks. Some include; extremely low frequency radiation ( caused by the lack of sun and being exposed to electricity for too long), Eyestrain (caused by poor lighting and a flickering screen, causes headaches, weak vision and pain), and Repetitive Strain Injury ( caused by repetition of the same movement , causes aching in arms and shoulders, loss of strength). The wrong posture while using the computer is a theory for the increase in rates of Scoliosis. As jobs are being created by ICT, jobs are also lost as many office clerks and people are being replaced by machinery. Delicate and secure information can be easily duplicated without a trace. This raises the whole security of ICT issue IT crime, hacking, fraud, and tacking were one of the most important issues of our time at the stat of the millennium. In 2004, the  leading cause of credit card fraud was from the internet, and unsecure websites that sold merchandise such as books, electronics, and even furniture.

Football in Islam Essay

Introduction Football is considered to be the best popular sport in the world and became widespread after the Second World War. This game has gained importance these days all over the world and has come to be a significant phenomenon throughout the world. We see people becoming preoccupied with football matches more than being concerned with the fate of the Muslims throughout the world especially Muslims country in the war such Palestine and Syria. This preoccupation with football has also become the concern of newspapers and magazines, and football matches are aired regularly on TV screens. Whatever news or stories relating to football clubs and players is publicised and all of this attracts people to sport and to players. Furthermore, the people’s emptiness and forgetfulness cause them to forget the main purpose of their creation and the real goal (of their lives) that they have to realise. This doesn`t mean football only shows negative impact at all, but we as a Muslims must beware and not make football as only purpose of life. We should make football as a sport that makes us healthy and strong so that we can be a good Muslim and preparation for jihad. Show support and message to world on Palestine after scoring goal. Brief history of Football and its different types. Football is a game played between two teams which each have eleven players. They use a pumped up ball on a rectangular shaped playing field which has a goal at each end for each team. Each team tries to get the ball pass the goal-keeper of the opposing team in order to gain a point (goal) and in order to gain superiority over the rival by achieving more goals. There are many stories of how and where football originated. Some of these are as follows: a. A football game existed in China as early as 206 B. C. (before century) By 500 C. E(common era), round balls stuffed with hair were being used. b. A game called â€Å"harpaston† was played in ancient Greece where a ball was propelled by any means across the opponents’ goal line, by the 2nd century B. C. it had migrated to Rome. Romans may have taken the game throughout Europe and England. c. There was a football game in 7th century Japan. d. Mob games played in medieval Europe where an inflated animal bladder was kicked, punched or carried. However, the first clear signs that this game was being played was in England immediately after the sudden death of a goal-keeper on 23 February 1585 In the year 1863 the British Football Association (FA) was founded and it was the English who developed it and then it transferred from continent to continent throughout that century. It remained like this for around seventy years until 1930 and the English would always be victorious over smaller inexperienced teams. After this period the Latin America football teams emerged and surpassed the teams in Britain and elsewhere. Today there are over 209 states that are members of FIFA and in most European cities weekly betting over football results take place, such as with the betting agency Toto. FIFA was established in Paris on the 21st May 1904 and under its jurisdiction formed the World Cup Championships in Monte Video, Uruguay. There are also other championships such as the European Championships, which is similar to the World Cup Championships, and was established in 1958 . Both the World Cup and European competitions are played every four years. In addition to the well known variety of football, the harms of which we are about to make clear, there are other regional forms of similar games wherein inflated balls are used and are also known as â€Å"football†. Such games are played in the United States of America, Canada, Australia and Ireland, and they are 1. American football A very violent game indeed, it emerged in Harvard in 1872 and it was derived from the tradition of Rugby and named â€Å"football† whilst what is well known as football around the world is named â€Å"soccer† in America. Each team consists of eleven players and they all use helmets on top of their heads and wear special protective clothing. 2. Australian football This game was founded in 1868 , the pitches that are used are of an oval shape whilst the ball resembles that of a Rugby ball. Each team consists of eighteen players and substitutes and fifteen who play on the actual pitch. Every player has an opponent and as for the other three they act as moving elements. When the ball passes the centre of the goal between an outer and inner post then the team scores a point. If an attacking team is able to put the ball through the two in near posts (of a set of four posts) then they score six points. 3. Canadian football Generally it resembles American football and has the same terminologies along with it yet with some differing rules. Each team consists of 12 players instead of eleven1. Why football become epidemic? As we know, football game has been epidemics in people all over the world including Muslims not only for men but also women. It had been so due to several factors. Firstly, the individual Muslim, living in a non-Muslim country, constantly faces a dilemma with regard to the environment in which he lives. In a country like South Africa where the Muslim community is a minority, it is not surprising that alien ideologies are unfortunately allowed to erode the Islamic code of life. The individual Muslim needs to be firm and strong in belief in order to avoid the various sources of temptation within this un-Islamic environment. Unfortunately, erroneous dictates of foreign cultures have become norms within the Muslim community. For example, perceptions that this world is an end in itself and as such life should be enjoyed by engaging in such activities which provide for maximum satisfaction of the desires. Worldly pleasures have gained priority over the more important abode of the Hereafter (Akhirah). In the sporting context, Muslims have also started believing that peace of mind can only be achieved through football. The Western media is flooded and obsessed with football. Almost every newspaper and many magazines make some sort of reference to football. Television is swamped with football. This widespread coverage of football has revolutionized Muslim homes. The ease of access to football due to television is a major reason why football has reached alarming proportions within Muslim society. Secondly, Muslim parents, teachers and even some Ulama openly encourage sport, without setting any limitations. The interests in football shown by Muslim adults together with a culture of hero worshipping of sportsmen have made children falsely believe that football is totally acceptable under all conditions. The common Muslim is seldom discouraged to become a football fanatic. Thirdly, football has become a norm within Muslim society. The Muslim who shows little interest in football becomes marginalised in public discussions. Muslims believe that football is an acceptable means of public interaction2. Benefits of Football. The benefits and advantages of football in today’s times have been classified in terms of physical, social, economic factors. a. Physical Benefits 1. Health and fitness Playing football is one of the important factors which contribute to good health. Many studies have been carried out in order to determine the effect of football on health. Generally, it has been shown that football, through physical exercise, can improve posture, promote physical fitness and good health. Modern medicine has also shown that playing footballs can prevent certain diseases such as obesity, heart disease and osteoporosis. From an Islamic perspective, physical fitness and physical strength are qualities which need to be developed, as can be seen from the following explanation by Moulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (Rahmatullah alaih):†Hadhrat Abu Hurairah (Radiallahu anhu) narrates that Rasulullah (Sallallahualaihi wasallam) said: â€Å"A strong Believer is better than a weak Believer. † â€Å"This Hadith speaks of physical strength as is clear from the explanation of the hadith by the authorities of Deen. Physical power and strength are abilities which Allah Ta’ala loves in his servants. Physical strength has to be developed by Believers. Since this is desirable, it follows that it is a duty upon one to preserve one’s health and develop one’s strength while at the same time it will be un-Islamic to resort to such practices which are harmful and injurious to one’s health. Excessive eating, excessive sleeping and excessive indulgence in sexual relations are destructive to one’s health. In the same way, excessive reduction in food and sleep produces physical weakness. ‘3 2. Preparation for Jihad The maintenance of good health, the development of power and bodily strength are important in preparing for Jihad. Even some Muslim scholars had a opinion that one may participate in modern footballs if certain conditions are met and the aim is to build the physical and mental strengthens in preparation for Jihad. 3. Relaxation of the body and mind Most of the Ulama agree that relaxing the mind and body is sanctioned in Islam. This relaxation is beneficial for the individual, in that the object of life which is to worship Allah can be performed more earnestly and with greater devotion. b. Social Benefits 1. Development of Social Skills Football is often accredited with developing social skills in the individual. These include such skills as courtesy, fair play, and teamwork. While this assertion may be true, it has to be pointed out that football is not the only means of acquiring such skills. Following the lifestyle of our Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wasallam) and living an Islamic life from an early age, can inculcate in a Muslim all the social skills that are required. c. Economic Benefits 1. Employment Football has become a major industry due to the level of interest shown by the public. Hence, there are a significant number of people in the world today, who rely totally on football to make a living. Avenues for earning wealth from purely football sources include the sale of tickets, marketing and sale of footballs equipment and clothing, operation of footballs facilities, researching into sport science, and publishing of specialized footballs magazines and journals. Some may say that the income generated from these avenues is not Halal according to the Shariah because this involves sanctioning of the many harms of football. However, it may be argued that a Muslim who sells a bow and arrow, for example, with the intention that the Muslim community may use it to train for Jihad is surely not transgressing any of the laws of Shariah. Harms of football. 1. Exposure of the aurah (parts of the body which has to be necessarily covered). In football there is a considerable amount of exposing the ‘awrah. If it involves exposing the thighs and the people look at them and people are looking at each others thighs, then this is not permissible as the thighs are from the ‘awrah and covering the ‘awrah is obligatory except from the wives and concubines, in accordance with the statement of the prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wassallam):â€Å"Guard your ‘awrah, except from your wife or what your rights hands possess. †The proofs that the thigh is from the ‘awrah are many, from them: what has been verified from imams Maalik, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, Turmithee, Ibn Hibbaan and al-Haakim from Jarhad al-Aslamee(radi Allaahu ‘anhu) that the Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wassallam) passed by him and his thigh was exposed. The prophet (sallallaahualayhi wassallam) said: â€Å"Cover your thigh as it is from the ‘awrah. †4 What has also been verified by Aboo Daawood and others from ‘Alee (radi Allaahu ‘anhu) , the Messenger of Allah said: â€Å"Do not expose your thigh and do not look at the thigh of the living of the dead. †5. If this is known, then looking at other peoples ‘awrah is impermissible yet this is what takes place in football matches today. There is not a match where the thighs are not exposed and the ‘awrah of people are not discussed, this is the case even with female sports! Female can only playing football provided that all the spectator including coach and football stuff are woman. Futhermore, beautiful women appear on the TV screens as advertisements in order to cover the costs of broadcasters or other companies. 2. Foul play. Modern soccer has developed into a war between players. Often, during the course of play, one player purposefully injures another by kicking, tripping and even punching. To prevent a player from a scoring a goal, a defender will use illegal tactics to stop him. This may cause severe physical injury. Can these kinds of barbaric deeds be called sport? 3. Spectator Problems Crowd trouble has become synonymous with football. Within the last 30 years, there have been many cases of crowd violence where scores of spectators have been killed or injured. Soccer hooliganism has become prevalent due to uncivilised behaviour which is closely related to alcohol, music and fanatics. The impulse which stimulates action from a crowd frequently turns a peaceful crowd into a maddened mob where violence, hatred and revenge may prevail. The following examples clearly illustrate the extent of violence and crowd problems associated with football: a. 1964 – More than 300 people were killed and more than 500 were injured in a riot in Lima, Peru after a goal was disallowed in a match between Peru and Argentina. b. 1984 – During the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus, 39 people were killed and more than 400 were injured due to crowd violence. This was due to rioting Liverpool fans who were drunk and armed with sticks, iron bars and bottles4. c. 1989 – 94 people were killed and about 150 seriously injured during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. This occurred as thousands of people, some of whom were drunk, began rushing and pushing into the stadium. As a result of the overcrowding, thousands of supporters were crushed into the perimeter fencing, which had been put there to prevent hooligans from invading the pitch5. Apart from these cases, there have been numerous cases of spectators invading the pitch, attacking players and stewards, looting and generally uncivilised behaviour. 4. Football fanatics. Football had becomes a means to divide the ummah and create enemity and hatred between individuals in it, wherein vile partisanship to different sports teams is common. Thus this person encourages and supports one team and that person encourages and supports another, to the extent that the people of one family split up amongst themselves. This one follows a team and that one follows another team and the matter does not stop at mere support for teams, rather the followers of a winning team begin to make sarcastic comments about the losing team and at the end of it is argumentation and scuffling amongst supporters, which leads to people becoming wounded and fighting resulting in people dying, the victims of  football! The organisers of the world cup final between Brazil and Uruguay on July 16 1950 at the Maracanaa stadium in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, were ompelled to make a hole thirteen meters wide and a meter and a half deep to protect the players from the crowds and vice versa8. 5. Zionist conspiration. Football competitions have become destructive elements that are used by the enemies of Islam, as what they encourage attaches honour to the ummah. As now the ummah, in the name of different sports including football, wastes considerable money and time. Instead of the ummah being occupied with beneficial actions and beneficial manufactures, the ummah has become within the rank of developed countries, from the backward nations and countries. Furthermore, the ummah needs to become occupied with the thought of struggling against its enemies, this issue of which is of great importance. Another thing that emphasises this is what is found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion9 under protocol thirteen: â€Å"In order to keep the masses in misguidance, not knowing what is going on behind or in front of them, we will increase in averting their minds by way of a variety of amusements, humorous games and different types of sports, along with vain talk to nourish their tastes and desires. Furthermore, we hope to increase in the building of fine palaces and beautified structures. We will also produce publications that call to art competitions and sport. † By observing what the magazines and newspapers spread we find amazing figures regarding the fees spent on transferring players from team to team. 36 These figures even reach their tens of thousands not to mention the amount of money spent on coaches, managers, football pitches and broadcasting, and likewise all of the money that the spectators pay. For example, billionaire from Arabic country buy big club such as Manchester City and used the money for player transaction and advertising the club whilst some Islamic country starve and suffer from war. Conclusion It is not said that football is totally unbeneficial at all. Nowaday, Muslim professional football player are increasing especially in Europe region and become key player of a big club. In any condition, they should place their religion as a priority. Sevilla’s player, Freddie Kanoute has showed a very good example of Muslim footballer and role model to other professional player. He fast and play even during ramadhan and donate large portion of his salary for the Muslim charity in his country, Mali10. We also as a Muslim can get involved in football either participating or just watching provided that we had settled and not neglected other important needs as a Muslim such as salah, respecting our parents and have a good relationship with others. One must weigh between benefits and harm before take any action. Muslim football celebration after scoring a goal. Female Muslims also can play football with hijab. References. 1. Reilly, Thomas; Gilbourne, D.†Science and football: a review of applied research in the football code† published in 2003. Journal of Sports Science 21: 693–705. 2. Mufti Ahmed E. Bemat. , Islam and Games,Tadkeshwar, Surat, Gujrat, India, translated into English from Gujrati by Prof Murtaz Husain F. Quraishi, Navsari, Gujrat, India,(1989). 3. (Hadhrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi (Rahmatullah alaih), Hayatul Muslimeen, Prepared by Mujlisul Ulama of South Africa, Port Elizabeth, p. 109 ) . 4. Authenticated by al-Bukhaaree in his saheeh (vol.1, 478) ;Ahmad in al-Musnad (volume. 3,478) ; Aboo Daawood in as-sunan,hadeeth no 4014 ; Tirmidhee in al-Jaami’, hadeeth no. 2798; al-Haakim in al-Mustadrak (vol. 4, 180);Ibn Hibbaan in as-Saheeh, hadeeth no. 1710 – al-Ihsaan. 5. Authenticated by Aboo Daawood in as-Sunan, hadeeth no. 3 l40 and no. 4015; Ahmad in al-Musnad (vol. 1, 146). The hadeeth is saheeh. 6. Nawrat, C. , Hutchings, S. , The Sunday Times Illustrated History of Football, Hamlyn, London, (1994), pp. 125-269 7. Barrett, Norman. , The Daily Telegraph Football Chronicle, Stanley Paul and Company Limited, London, (1994), pp. 226, 232 8. Nawrat, C. , Hutchings, S. , The Sunday Times Illustrated History of Football, Hamlyn, London, (1994), p. 151 9. Daniel Pipes ; Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From (The Free Press – Simon & Schuster)(2007) p. 86–87 10. Kanoute balance between football and faith during Ramadhan. www. kickitout. org/952. php (accessed 26 March 2013).

Assignment4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Assignment4 - Essay Example In the tradition and culture of any society, the husband is expected to work outside the home for income and the wife is expected to be at home for children care and household maintenance. Womens family work includes responsibility for household tasks socially, legally, and in practice but in today’s world, women with children are increasingly getting employed outside the home which is resulting in increased conflicts between the families. While talking about importance of maintaining balance between family life and work life by the modern families, let us discuss those challenges and conflicts that arise due to paid work and unpaid household work. For that we will discuss challenges related to both; men and women. Men face a lot of challenges while trying to effectively balance the family and work. One of the major challenges regarding the issue is neglecting behavior towards children due to work load which may result in conflicts between the children and their father. As we know that men are traditionally expected to work outside the home to earn for the family, it affects their family life. If a man pays more attention towards his work than his family, children get affected because they do not get required love and attention from their father. As a result, the children feel ignored and the level of affection between the children and their father would go significantly down. Same happens with the person’s spouse who also gets affected if the person becomes unable to properly balance work schedule. A job that requires excessive travel and long working hours brings a negative impact on the family of a man. But if a man starts ignoring his professional duties in order to pay more attenti on towards his family, it brings a negative impact on his professional life. Just like men, working women also face a lot of problems in order to maintain a balance between family life and work life because the role of the women has expanded due to

Political Activism Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Political Activism - Assignment Example This will see the current policy of the Canada revenue agency (CRA) that relate to political activities conduct by registered charities remaining unchanged. The changes arising from the Budget 2012 should not be left to deter the registered charities from engaging in political activities. Charities should get involved or continue to participate in the political activities so long as they pursue the rules applicable. The charities should as well document all their political activities involvement. There have been allegations against environmental charities in their use of donations that are claimed to be received from foreign sources. A group of politicians specifically, has raised questions concerning the foreign funding appropriateness on environmental charities in Canada, whether the funds in question were useful in lobbying the government. For instance, of significance is the initiated Senate inquiry by Senator Nicole Eaton on February 2012, based upon the claims by the Senator th at such funding were influencing policy discussions improperly in the country. This was presumed with regards to government projects like the Northern Gateway pipeline. There was no credibility in such accusations in that, the charitable sector has quite a number of segments in Canada, and each year these segments receive a large scale funding from foreign sources. Such includes hospitals, universities and religious organizations, and the federal government has not made any allegations that the funding could be used in support of a political activity. Noting the strategy of counter terrorism by the federal government released on February 2012 is so crucial since it equated white supremacy environmentalism and terrorist activities in the city of Oklahoma in 1995 (Carter & Claridge, 54). As a result of this strategy and other kinds of attacks on environmental charities, the charities have created a force to enable them engage in political activities (Carter & Man, 47). However, the ab ility of charities to get involved in political activities has not been impacted by Budget2012, through the implementation of its legislation. Engaging in alternative community services could be more effective in addressing this issue. For instance, all registered charities are needed by law to have charitable purposes that are beneficial to a community such as poverty relief, promotion of advanced education and religion, and promoting of health care for the communities. The policy statement of the CRA on political activities, CPS-022, the activities by registered charities can be categorized into three as political activity, charitable activity or prohibited activity. An activity considered charitable is normally permitted without any limit. For example, communicating with public through a charity on the issue that relates to the purposes of the charity can be, under certain circumstances, be a charitable activity. However, the sort of communication has to satisfy the following req uirements: 1. Relate to and subordinate to the charitable purposes of the charity. 2. Reasoned well. 3. Does not contain inaccurate, false, or misleading information. Involving in charitable activities in a political platform

Benefits and shortcomings of getting this additional degree Speech or Presentation

Benefits and shortcomings of getting this additional degree - Speech or Presentation Example Tuition for one semester costs $685 (15 or more credit hours), or he can pay $55 per credit hour if he takes less than 15 credit hours. It will also cost him $5 per credit hour for Student Fees and there is a technology fee of $16 per semester. Jose will need to take 14 more 3 credit courses to complete a degree in electronic commerce. He figures that he will need to attend school for 3 more consecutive semesters (1 full year plus 5 months) to complete the electronic commerce degree. Textbooks will cost him $95 per class. a. Jose is planning on taking five courses during his first two semesters in the electronic commerce program, and four courses during the third semester. How much will it cost to get this second degree? b. Jose needs to determine how much money he will need to borrow if he works 15 hours a week at a local video store making $9.50 per hour (take-home = assume 4 weeks per month). He will be able to rent a room from a friend for $200 per month, who is also willing to share groceries and phone costs. Williams share of the food and phone expenses will be $130 per month. He estimates other expenses such as car insurance and clothes to come to about $300 per month. How much will he need to borrow to complete the second degree in 1 year and 5 months? 4. What do you think? Using the evidence from above, explain in a well-structured essay the benefits and shortcomings of getting this additional degree. Research the trends, salaries, and job availability of entry-level graphic design jobs in the electronic commerce industry. Be sure to consider both short-term and long-term

Differences between Plastic Surgery & Cosmetic Surgery Essay

Differences between Plastic Surgery & Cosmetic Surgery - Essay Example As the study stresses that perhaps one that is predominantly practiced all over the world is cosmetic surgery; this type of plastic surgery mainly aims to alter the physical appearance of a person. Many people have always been concerned with their looks and appearance more than their internal qualities and this is motivation enough for them to desire enhancement of their looks. This is what has led to the pervasiveness of the plastic surgery trend worldwide thus instigating serious concerns over the justification of plastic surgery; in other words, is it or is it not right to carry out plastic surgery? This question has been debatable in the world probably more than anything else concerning moral issues has, and many people have had their own varied contributions to this debate. Thus, he does agree with the school of thought that supports plastic surgery, at least to make something wrong go right for once; there are exceedingly many reasons why people carry out plastic surgery and I believe they are all justifiable. This paper aims to disambiguate the social dilemma that is plastic surgery, and it will attempt to justify the reasons why plastic surgery is carried out, and gunner support for this controversial trend. From this discussion it is clear that to begin with, even though the name plastic surgery suggests a close tie with synthetic material, plastic surgery has nothing to do with ‘plastic looks’ as is often concluded by moralists. In fact, the name originates from a Greek word ‘plastikos’, which means ‘to form’ or ‘to mold’. In this regard, plastic surgery remains a crucial type of surgery that serves many justifiable reasons, both medical and aesthetical. Doctors perform reconstructive procedures to reinstate distortions both on the face and on the body of patients that might have been because of either natural or physical causes. For instance, natural deformities are manifest on individuals from birth, and they include physical distortions of organs as in cleft lips and palates while other deformities might arise from physical injuries such as burns, animal bites  and  accidents. Some diseases such as cancer might also necessitate plastic surgery in the end after the loss of the affected body organ; this is especially common with breast cancer where most patients opt to undergo reconstructive surgeries to rebuild the lost breasts. On the other hand, cosmetic surgery  is concerned with the enhancement of physical appearances. Due to its cosmetic purposes, this type of plastic surgery is often also referred to as aesthetic surgery; however, cosmetic procedures do not necessarily call for surgery in the medical fashion. Quite notably, most cosmetic surgeries involve enlargement and reduction of body organs such as breasts; the reshaping of body organs such as the nose; or removing of fatty tissues from body parts that are overly bulky with fats. In view of these two broad reasons for plastic surgery presented above, it is vital to regard plastic surgery in a different light, and move away from the negative traditional perceptions that society has held against plastic surgery.

The True Relation of Job Satisfaction and Job Performance Essay

The True Relation of Job Satisfaction and Job Performance - Essay Example The common sense view that a happy worker is a productive worker is taken to be true, but several studies by Iaffaldano and Munchinsky point out that there is no strong relationship between the two (as cited in Selladurai 1991). According to Fisher (2003), no matter how pervasive is this belief in people, it is largely incorrect. But if there is any relationship whatsoever between job satisfaction and job performance, it remains to be the "Holy Grail" of researchers in Organizational Behavior. Instead of a simple relationship, Selladurai inferred that the relationship of the two is complex. We cannot simply say that there is a direct or inverse relationship between the two (Selladurai 1991). Therefore, the solution to the problem of improving job performance is not really that straightforward. In reality, job performance drives job satisfaction. An employee will feel good if he or she has performed well, not the other way around. This is the consequence of a study testing three variables: job effort, job performance, and job satisfaction. Christen, Iyler, and Soberman predict that, generally speaking, while employee effort will have a positive relationship with job performance, it will have a negative relationship with job satisfaction. Taken together, Christen, Iyler, and Soberman's results highlight the need to consider effort, compensation, and job characteristics to better understand the connections between job performance, job satisfaction, and firm performance. Moreover, their study serves to challenge the view that job performance and job satisfaction are directly related in that increasing one will improve the other. At best, they are only weakly connected. The study also suggests that if firms want to motivate and keep their best employees, taking steps to improve their job performance might help improve their job satisfaction (as cited by McFarlin 2006). On the other hand, there exist a research finding as to why there appears to be a lack of relation between job satisfaction and job performance. People think that a productive, "happy" worker has job satisfaction. This is not necessarily correct. Wright and Cropanzano (1997) opine that instead of using job satisfaction as a variable (which is a measure of attitude) that has a direct relationship with job performance; researchers should use psychological well-being or the extent that "one feels good." Well-being is a measure of affect. Accordingly, consider two workers who are dissatisfied with their work. Eventually, one performed better than the other. What's the cause One felt that he will be promoted, while the other felt that nothing will change. A similar view is expressed by Providence College researcher Michelle Jones. After reviewing the literature on the Happy Worker/Productive Worker Hypothesis, she concluded that life satisfaction must be added to the equation and this is a better indicator of job performance (Jones 2006). Her life satisfaction variable corresponds to the well-being variable of Wright & Cropanzano. From the findings of several researchers, we find that the factors affecting job performance or the factors that job performance affects include those outside the work place. An employer may help improve an employee's well-being in the work place, but it cannot do so in other contexts. Therefore, an employer no matter how unkind has no

Prepare an 11 page on criminal justice management and administration Research Paper

Prepare an 11 page on criminal justice management and administration - Research Paper Example The creation of organized policing marks the initiation of the development of administration of policing. The current policing system, which is paid by the government and is there to safe guard the interest of civilians, took place during 1829. During 1829, after a very lengthy and poignant debate, Metropolitan police act became a part of parcel of the English legal system. Before 1829, the activities conducted today by police and law enforcement agencies were conducted by ordinary civilians, volunteers, employees of justice system in America and England. When the law enforcement system was in the hand of these individuals, it provided very satisfactory results until the industrial revolution, during the revolution the crime rate of America and England escalated at a very fast pace. Under the Metropolitan police act, Sir Robert Peel gained the authority to assemble a force of policemen for the metropolitan region of London; Sir Robert Peel took this opportunity and instantly hired 10 00 individuals as cops. Sir Peel along with two police commissioners recognized as Robert Mayne and Charles Rowan experienced the same issues and challenges in managing and organizing the police station and its members as faced by commissioners and managers of police station in current settings. These issues mainly concerned communication and managing a huge police force, these issues included: how to manage and coordinate the activities of a very huge police force, how to ensure that all directions and protocols are being followed and how to inform a huge number of police men about their duties and roles. The solution to some of these challenges is available in the Peelian Reforms, according to these reforms; police system should be managed and directed as the military system, police should be provided proper training and police members should be retained, individuals interested in operating as policemen should be hired on probationary basis and those who

Lab - Risk Essay Example for Free

Lab Risk Essay Name and Number: CIS 333 LAB#6 Instructor Name: Professor West Lab Due Date: 19 May 2013 1. What is the difference between a risk analysis (RA) and a business impact analysis (BIA)? Risk analysis is often identifying the potential threats and the associated vulnerabilities to the organizations . Risk analysis doesn’t view the organization from the mission critical Business Process point of view. More over BIA perceives the organization from the impact that is going to occur for an organization if the critical business processes are interrupted or tampered What is the difference between a Disaster Recovery Plan and a Business Continuity Plan? Disaster recovery is the older of the 2 functions. DR planning is an essential part of business planning that – too often – gets neglected. Part of this has to do with the fact that making a Disaster Recovery plan requires a lot of time and attention from busy managers and executives from every functional department within the company. Business continuity is a newer term which was first popularized as a response to the Y2K bug. In order to stop your company from bleeding money in these situations, you need a plan that will allow the organization to continue generating revenue and providing services – although possibly with lower quality – on a temporary basis until the company has regained its bearings. 3. Typically, a business continuity plan is also a compilation or collection of other plans. What other plans might a BCP and all supporting documents include? Technical backup Plan: How can you recover smoothly from technical glitches. Communications Plan: What communication will facilitate this recovery. Why is it important to have detailed backup and recovery steps within your disaster recovery plan (DRP)? 5. What is the purpose of a risk analysis? What is the purpose of a business impact analysis? Why are these an important first step in defining a BCP and DRP? The purpose of a Business Impact and Risk Assessment is to determine the approximate business value of IT assets, to assess the impact the loss of those assets would have on business units, and to assign recovery priorities to the assets. 6. How does risk analysis (RA) relate to a business impact analysis for an organization? The purpose of a Business Impact and Risk Assessment is to determine the approximate business value of IT assets, to assess the impact the loss of those assets would have on business units, and to assign recovery priorities to the assets. 7. Given the list of identified mission critical business functions and processed, what kind of company would you say this organization is, and what do you think are its most important business processes and functions? It Company; Risk Analysis Disaster Recovery Plan to get the business up and running on the web 8. Given the prioritization list provided for the organizations identified business functions and processes, write an assessment of how this prioritization will impact the need for IT systems, applications, and data access? Recovery strategies should be developed for Information technology (IT) systems, applications and data. This includes networks, servers, desktops, laptops, wireless devices, data and connectivity. Priorities for IT recovery should be consistent with the priorities for recovery of business functions and processes that were developed during the business impact analysis. IT resources required to support time-sensitive business functions and processes should also be identified. The recovery time for an IT resource should match the recovery time objective for the business function or process that depends on the IT resource. Information technology systems require hardware, software, data and connectivity. Without one component of the â€Å"system,† the system may not run. Therefore, recovery strategies should be developed to anticipate the loss of one or more of the following system components: * Computer room environment (secure computer room with climate control, conditioned and backup power supply, etc.) * Hardware (networks, servers, desktop and laptop computers, wireless devices and peripherals) * Connectivity to a service provider (fiber, cable, wireless, etc. ) * Software applications (electronic data interchange, electronic mail, enterprise resource management, office productivity, etc. ) * Data and restoration Some business applications cannot tolerate any downtime. They utilize dual data centers capable of handling all data processing needs, which run in parallel with data mirrored or synchronized between the two centers. This is a very expensive solution that only larger companies can afford. However, there are other solutions available for small to medium sized businesses with critical business applications and data to protect. 9. For the top identified business functions and processes, what recovery time objective (RTO) would you recommend for this organization and why? The RTO must match or be shorter than the MTD 10. Why is payroll for employees and Human Resources listed as a co-number 1 business priority? It is listed as a number one because it is highly what runs the office and something very important for these to parts to be correct.

History About Wifi Technology Information Technology Essay

History About Wifi Technology Information Technology Essay ABSTRACT In many of the industrial sectors, the wireless networking technologies are gaining rapid approval because of its cost effectiveness, improved reliability and flexibility. The increase in the wireless networks is one of the technological advances that are having a major impact on the way we do business [10]. This paper refers how Wi-Fi technology is organized and some of its applications and advantages over customary means. It also explores how Wi-Fi technologies communicate in the spread spectrum and also its configurations. The Wi-Fi refers to the 802.11b wireless Ethernet standard that was designed to support the wireless LANs. The essential enabling technology is the Wi-Fi technology and it is the only practicable infrastructure for the home which allows the user to extend their networks for home entertainment. The most popular user access technology is the Wi-Fi (WLAN/IEEE 802.11) because of its high bandwidth and low cost. Keywords: Wireless Fidelity, Wi-Fi, WLAN, wireless technologies, IEEE 802.11a/b/g, spread spectrum, configurations. Introduction In the recent years only, the wireless technology has grown rapidly which allows the users more reliable, effective and can access the internet without using the wire. Wireless networks are more effectively used in many applications such as home entertainment, offices, radio, military areas and public places. The term wireless does not mean the disturbance or group of switches. Wireless means the communication without the use of wires other than the antenna, the Ethernet, and the ground taking the place of wires [2]. For several industrial operations, wireless technology affords cost-effective and effective connectivity solutions. Using the wireless technology there are many benefits such as remote facilities, processes and field operation which results in improving productivity, downtime, faster and more accurate data collection. The term Wi-Fi technology is also referred as Wireless Fidelity. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) is the association liable for setting the standards on how the technology and products works, operate and communicate [3]. The 802.11 technology standards, better known as Wi-Fi technology and it is being set up into the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) equipment and Local Area Network (LAN) access points to quickly connect computer to LANs and as well as internet service providers. The 802.11 standards are growing to supply a higher data rates and better quality of service. Wireless LANs operates on two frequencies such as radio wave and infrared. In the past decades, the wireless access point has come into the market with infrared but in todays world the radio frequencies are used most popularly. The advantage of the radio wave frequency is more penetrate through the walls, floors and doors but whereas the infrared device is on line of sight. Wi-Fi netwo rk connect computer to each other to the internet and to the wired network. 1.2 History of WLAN A WLAN is a local area network without wires and whereas a wired network in which the clients send/receive the data through the cables. The wireless network uses a radio wave frequency. As part of the large family of the spread spectrum systems, the Wi-Fi technology uses single carrier direct-sequence spread spectrum radio technology and multi-carrier OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) radio technology. In 1985, the unlicensed spread spectrum was first approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [5]. In all major countries, these FCC regulations were later copied with enabling some changes in the use of this technology and these regulations were then enabled the growth of Wi-Fi technology according to requirements such as offices, online games and so on. In 1991, the Wi-Fi technology was invented by NCR corporation/ATT (later Lucent and Agere systems) in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. Initially for the cashier systems, the first wireless product were brought on the market which is marked as WaveLAN with speeds of 1Mbits/s to 2Mbits/s. Vic Hayes, who was the first discoverer of the Wi-Fi and later has been named as Father of Wi-Fi, was involved in designing standards such as 802.11a/b/g. Wireless LANs communicate via the 2.4 GHz or 5GHz band with the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio bands where cordless phones, instant monitor and other personal device can also operate. According to Mr. Phil Belanger of the Wi-Fi Alliance contradict the most popular conclusion that Wi-Fi stands for Wireless Fidelity [5]. 1.3 Benefits of WLAN A new way to communicate with the user is through the WLANs while accommodating the way business is done. The following are the benefits achieved through WLANs: Mobility within building. Flexibility Lower cabling costs To set up temporary spaces, it is easier Productivity gains Reduced errors Improved efficiency Improved performance, efficiency and security for enterprise partners and guests Easier to collaborate Easier adds, moves and changes and lower support and maintenance costs More efficient use of office space. Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) Technology The IEEE 802.11 standard was projected for the WLANs. To handle the networking the short way for Wi-Fi is the wireless. Wi-Fi is easy to access and it is very simple to connect to computer anywhere in the office or homes without the use of wires. Using the radio signals the computer connects to the network. In 1997, the first standard (802.11) was released and works in the frequency band at 5GHz with the data rate of 54Mbits/s and uses the OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) modulation [4]. The Carrier Sense Multiple Access/ Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) is the media access method. The term 802.11.x terms is used to donate the set of amendments to the standard. Within the scope of one building and one room, we can connect to the wireless to the restricted signal range (indoor range is approximately about 1m). skhema Figure 1: Internet connection with wire and without wire (Wi-Fi) At present, the best values of the bit rate have a networks designed accordance with the 802.11n standard that has the typical raw data rate of 540Mbits/s [3]. Wi-Fi network operates in the unlicensed with the 2.4 and 5GHz radio bands, with 11Mbps (802.11b) or 54Mbps (802.11a) data rate or some of the products have dual bands. Wi-Fi network uses radio technologies to transmit and receive the data at high speed. IEEE 802.11 is available in three modes- 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g. IEEE 802.11a/b/g actually describes three different wireless Ethernet standards which are currently implemented in industrial applications as well as commercial applications. These three alternatives are based around the same physical layer of the OSI model and it also defines the bands on what the wireless network is used and also defines the modulation technique. IEEE 802.11 standards include Wi-Fi, W-LAN and Wireless Ethernet. IEEE 802.11a: This standard operation is used in OFDM which operates at a frequency of 5GHz band and thereby allowing the raw transmission data rate up to 54Mbps. It is introduced in 2001. For this band, some of the countries have other uses such as military and air traffic control, so therefore this band is not globally accepted and to be used in the ISM applications. But in some cases, this band can be used inside the building with limited power. In the U.S, the band 5GHz is treated as other 900MHz and 2.4GHz ISM bands. One advantage of the IEEE 802.11a is that it operates with same data rate (54Mbps) as IEEE 802.11g but it escapes sometimes due to crowded with the 2.4GHz channels. Less interference in the 5GHz band appears means the potential for more reliable transmission. The theoretical speed of this standard is 54Mbps but the raw transmission rate of this standard is in between 15-20 Mbps. The range of this standard is 50-75 feet. This is not compatible with 802.11b and it is more expensive . IEEE 802.11b: This standard was implemented in 1999, uses 2.4GHz band with the DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) modulation. The maximum transmission rate of this standard is 11Mbps within 30m range. It is most popular and least expensive. But the actual speed of this standard is 4-6 Mbps. The range of the wireless is 100-150 feet. The subsection of this standard is called Wi-Fi. IEEE 802.11 g: The OFDM technology of 802.11a is adopted in this standard and which is globally accepted with 2.4GHz band. Using the OFDM technique these data rates increased to 54Mbps over the air. It is important that 802.11g is compatible backwards with 802.11b. But this standard is more expensive so prefer to go for the least expensive and better performance which is 802.11b. Components of Wi-Fi: In order to access the Wi-Fi, we require some of the components such as adapters, access point, Wi-Fi antenna, Wi-Fi Bridge, PCI cards that accept wireless PC cards and external USB wireless NICs. The following are the component figures: accecpoint.jpg Figure 2: Access Point Figure 3: Adapters wifi antena.jpg wifi bridge.jpg Figure 4: Wi-Fi Antenna Figure 5: Wi-Fi Bridge Figure 6: PCI cards that accepts wireless PC card Figure 7: External USB wireless NICs How Wi-Fi network works? Wi-Fi network uses the radio waves to communicate each other among devices. The basic concept of the Wi-Fi network is same as the walkie talkies. An access point to the internet connection can be installed through the Wi-Fi hotspot. This access point acts as base station. With this access point, an antenna is physically connected to conventional wired Ethernet network and serves as a bridge to the wireless network. A device encounters the hotspot when the Wi-Fi is enabled and the device can connect to that network wirelessly. Between the client systems, the Wi-Fi can also support communication and allowing the devices to communicate with one another during the peer-to-peer method. A Wi-Fi 802.11b typically can transmit the maximum data rate up to 11Mbps with an approximation range of 150 feet. Beyond that distance, the signal fallback very slow up to 5.5 Mbps, 2Mbps and 1Mbps and this slower speed can move the signals as far as 1500 feet. The actual performance of the network depends upon the signal pattern and the number of obstacles in the area. To indicate the wireless within the area, an access point itself announces through broadcasting, a Service Set Identifier (SSID) approximately 10 times per second. The SSID indicates the name of the network. PCs that are within the range and has equipped with wireless network interface card can receive the SSID, associate with WLAN and request an IP address that will allow them to connect to the local network, surf the internet and view network folders [4]. Wi-Fi Network Topologies Access Point (AP) in the Wi-Fi may vary greatly depending upon their cost but in some of the cases these AP gives selection for roaming where the wireless clients can switch from one AP to another. There are three kinds of network topologies. AP (Access Point)-based topology (Infrastructure Mode) Peer-to-Peer topology (Ad-hoc Mode) Point-to-multipoint bridge topology. AP-Based Topology: Access Point (AP) is the wireless component through which the client can communicate. Access point is the device that contains standard IEEE 802.11 conformant MAC and PHY interface to the wireless medium and provides access to the distribution system for associated stations. Through an AP, BSA-RF (Basic Service access is the area of the radio frequency (RF)) coverage is provided. ESA (Extended Service Access) consists of two or more BSA. In order to allow the roaming, ESA cell consists of 10-15% overlap. The following figure shows the AP-based topology [9]. Figure 8: AP-Based topology Peer-to-Peer Topology: In this topology, the access point is not required. Within the cell, the client devices can communicate directly with one another. This topology is useful in setting up the wireless network very quickly and easily. The following figure shows the peer to peer method. Figure 9: peer-to peer method Point-to-multipoint bridge topology: This type of topology is used in buildings from one to another building apart within the miles. This is required to connect a LAN in one building to a LANs in another building. A clear line of sight is achieved among buildings under these conditions. Based on the type of antenna and wireless bridge used the line-of-sight range varies and as well as in environmental conditions. The following figure shows the point to multipoint bridge topology Figure 10: point-to-multipoint bridge topology Access Point and Wireless Card are the two ways that can use for the networking. Ad-hoc: In this method, the entire wireless cards are used from peer-to-peer network and there is no access point (AP). Infrastructure: All wireless cards connect to the central access point that provides them connectivity with each other as well as wired network [1]. Wi-Fi Configurations A Wi-Fi network is very simple and can be easily set up to the homes and offices that allow the network to share the files, printer and so on. Figure 11: Wireless network set up The public Wi-Fi hot spots are rapidly becoming common in airports, business, hotels, libraries and so on. Wi-Fi Security Security is one of the first disquiet of people deploying a wireless LAN, the 802.11 has addressed the issue through providing what is called WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). The main concerns of the users are that an intruder would not be able to access the network resources through similar wireless LAN equipment and be able to capture the wireless LAN traffic (eavesdropping). There are two primary components which are required for Wi-Fi network security to be broken down. Authentication Privacy There are two types of authentication is required: first is user authentication and second is server authentication. Authentication means keeping the unauthorized users off from the network. In user authentication server, the username and password is required. This authentication has a risk as well as a solution in sending the data. The risk one is the data is send before the secure channel is established and level to passive eavesdropping by attackers. The solution for this is, before sending the username and password, encrypted channel is established. Secondly in server authentication, the digital certificate is used and within the client software the validation of the digital certificate occurs automatically. Wireless Protected Access (WPA) is a standard based specification, interoperable security enhancement that strongly increase the level of data protection and for existing access control and future wireless LAN systems. Wi-Fi Applications Wi-Fi technology is simple and easy to access the network without the wire. At present, the Wi-Fi is most popular technology that has been used in the market. There are several applications through the Wi-Fi technology. It is used at homes, office, small businesses, large corporations and campuses, health care, wireless ISP (WISP) and travellers. Advantages and Disadvantages of Wi-Fi Advantages of Wi-Fi: It allows the LANs to be set up without cabling and also it reduces the costs and expansion of the network. Wi-Fi network support roaming such that a laptop can move from one access point to another. Wi-Fi is global set of standards. Mobility Ease of installation Reliability and Flexibility Security Use unlicensed part of radio spectrum Disadvantages of Wi-Fi: It can access to limited range. Higher power consumption The most common wireless encryption standard, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) has been broken even if the correct configuration is set up. Interference Typically, Wi-Fi Access Point is set to default to an open (encryption-free) mode. Conclusion: In the past few years, the Wi-Fi technology is growing very rapidly in the rural development areas. In the rural areas, the technology has been helped the consumers in receiving the high speed internet service. All through urban environment the Wi-Fi hot spots are becoming more popular. When the Wi-Fi technology has brought up to the rural and urban areas the broadband internet access price has been drive down. According to the various industrial applications, the network connectivity for the industrial wireless solution provides that is cost effective and efficient. To ensure the reliability of wireless connectivity and safety of industrial operations, a hazardous area classification is necessary that provides the redundant links radio. Currently, there are several standard-based wireless technologies that are used for the industrial applications for the field sensors networking such as ISA100, WHART and ZigBee. Wi-Fi technology is simple and easy to deploy to the network. The IEEE 802.11 is the standard used for the Wi-Fi hot spots. With appropriate security features, industrial hardware and industrial interface products, Wi-Fi technology has a certain association of commercial technology, based on the 802.11 technology and is becoming a solution for many industrial communications and networking.

Middle East Recovery Strategies after the Financial Crisis

Middle East Recovery Strategies after the Financial Crisis The global business crisis 2007 that started in USA has spread its impacts over the world and no countries economy is spared from its impact. We are aiming to test the willingness of five countries as a case study (Kingdom of Bahrain, Kingdom Saudi Arabia, State of Kuwait, Islamic Republic of Iran, and Republic Turkey) top overcomes the impact of this crisis. We an extensive research study about the economy status before, during and through the process of the recovery from the impacts of the crisis, and conducted two types of questionnaires to gather more information. As a result of our analysis, we found whose countries are actually willing enough to overcome the crisis and who arent. The countries we listed as unwilling to overcome the crisis should apply new strategies if they want to recover it. 1. Introduction Everyone nowadays, no matter what are their background, position or level of education have heard about the global business crisis (in which it includes financial and economic crisis), and felt its impacts in different aspects and on different levels.   It became the talk of the day.   The financial and economic crisis that was initiated in the USAs financial market in 2007 has casted its dark shadows all over the world through the international trade channels. This is because the national systems of almost all countries in the world are interlinked to the USAs market. What made this crisis to become a global phenomenon that is, rapidly and continuously spread from the USA to hit the economy of most countries is the direct link between many currencies to the US dollar. As the US dollar collapsed and hit the rock bottom, it ruthlessly dragged them down along with it.   By observing the US economy, we can see that there are many reasons that are the causes of this crisis. Most of them are related to their strategy; the mistakes in the monetary policy that came from the lack of the global balances and failure of financial regulations (subprime mortgages crisis, where banks encouraged irrational public support for housing investment giving estate loans without pledge).When loaners couldnt fulfill installments due to high interest rates, bankers took over those real estates and attempted to sell them. As this occurred a lot, supply exceeded demand causing huge decreases of prices of estates where the lack of liquidity creating financial crisis led to economic crisis. The global crisis has different levels of effects due to several aspects such as social, educational, financial, economical, political, health and so on. Some of these effects included low economic growth, high unemployment, disrupted international monetary systems, inflation, migration as governments tried to export unemployment elsewhere, etc.   Financial analysts suggested many solutions to o vercome this problem, such as: applying real democracy or thorough reform to existing democratic system,   democratize public service and local government, restructure of finance, extend the scope of financial market, create retail financial instruments to provide greater security to customers, re-specialize economies, reduce global imbalances, reduce income concentration, global governance reform and reeducate economists. A global downturn needs a global response. However, what actually is happening is that suggested and applied individual solutions came from decision makers of the developed countries which are focusing only on their own economics, leaving behind developing countries as victims to this crisis. It is easier for the developed countries to stand back on their feet due to the availability of liquidity, whereas, this is not the case with the developing countries. Our paper focuses on the willingness of five selected countries: Kingdom Of Bahrain, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, State of Kuwait, Republic Islamic of Iran, and Republic of Turkey to overcome this crisis. Well discuss the real steps taken by the governments and decision makers in these countries to conclude how effective these steps are. As a result, we will determine whether each of the selected countries have the ability and willingness to overcome this crisis. The aim of this paper is to point out to decision makers whether the mea surements applied in these five countries will help them to recover from this crisis or not and whether the decision makers adapt the right strategies or have to reconsider appropriate solutions. 2. Literature Overview Starting with a general overview of the Middle East impact, we see that the global financial and economic crisis has different levels of negative effects over some specific regions; the Arab region probably is one of the most badly exposed to its negative impacts. Even among this region itself, this can be divided into several groups according to their economic and financial situations. We can say that there is the oil producing countries group; its the group that has the highest GDP and the lowest unemployment rate, in which Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia belong to. Such countries got strongly hit by the crisis since they rely on the overseas investments, especially with the US and Europe (Drine, 2009).   The fall was severe for such countries since OPECs price of oil dropped down from $130 per barrel to $40 per barrel (Rivlin, 2009). This is one of the factors that had led to huge damages that we are going to discuss through this chapter; discussing the impact and reaction of t he Global Crisis 2008 over Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia from the GCC. In addition to that, we are going to discuss the impacts and reactions of Turkey and Iran, in which Iran belong to the Middle East countries, but Turkey doesnt, but geographically, its located so close to it. For each country, we cover the situation before, as the occurrence of the crisis and then their attempts to overcome it according to points of view of different economists. Beginning with our own, the Kingdom Of Bahrain, we see that in the past 30 years, it has built its reputation as a financial services region hub (Ford, 2009). It proved to be more liable to the global banking finance in the region, about  ¼ of its GDP comes from the financial sector. 124 banks are established in Bahrain; 24 retail banks, 64 wholesale banks and 26 Islamic banks predominately investment banks. The blooming of Islamic banking is due to CBBs Central Bank of Bahrain which it placed much time and effort to attract new banks and firms, especially the Islamic banks (Matthew, 2009). Like most countries of the world, if not all, situations differed after it got struck by the crisis. As in October 9th 2008, the Prime Minister of Bahrain assured his highness King Hamad Bin Essa Al-Khalifa that the economy of Bahrain was safe because of the sound and clean financial and economic policies adopted by the government of Bahrain (IANS, 2008). However, this is not really the case as it showed later; some problems began to emerge as the result of getting hit by the crisis. Back in October 2008, about $2 billion loss was announced by GIB and ABC banks combined losses from investment that hit the subprime, which meant that Bahrain is one of the most exposed to the subprime assets (Matthew, 2009). In addition to that, Bahrains stock exchange closed down 2.70%, even though it is the least affected percentage among the key Gulf bourses. Some of Bahrains leading banks ( such as Investcorp that is listed by both London and Bahrain- got badly hit, it suffered a net loss of %511 million for 6 months at the end of Dec 2008). Lack of confidence was another problem; Rasheed Al-Maaraj (the governor of CBB Central bank of Bahrain-) stated that a lot of Banks have reported their results and we are confident about the quality of the banks, we do not see any problems yet on their loan profiles. Things have changed dramatically and one of the biggest changes, not only in Bah rain, but in the GCC and across global lack of confidence. Also, Bahrain got hit by the credit crisis not just in the banking sector, huge projects were delayed, such as Al Dur Power and Water project which was by GIS and KFH due to lack of finance, resulting in $2 billion losses (Ford, 2009).   As a natural response of any healthy business environment, the right thing to do is to find resolve those problems and overcome such obstacles. The government of Bahrain and CBB has introduced many measurements to minimize the downturn impact of the crisis. CBB has established a reform plan; it acted like a regulator to make series changes, and it seek to promote the country as an investment destination. Islamic Banking sector is a proposed key solution; this was highlighted by the Banker Magazine survey, which found that Bahrain has the biggest Islamic institutions in the world after the investment Dar of Kuwait (Ithmaar Bank, Arcapita Bank, Gulf Finance House and Islamic Company of the G ulf). (Ford, 2009).   In order to solve the lack of Confidence issue, the CBB aimed to offset the impact of capital outflows on liquidity by setting a scheme to allow banks to exchange their currency from US$ to Bahraini Dinars. However, this is not fully resolved since the Bahraini Dinar is linked to the US$. Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al-Khalifa (CEO of the Economic Developed funds) stated that The Major real estate development in Bahrain has been largely backed by Islamic banks and have not suffered from the most part of the credit crunch. In order to improve the credit flows, the banking sector was reformed and redesigned. CBB got involved with many investments and the creation of Islamic banks has increased their economical strength and power regarding their sustainability in long terms. (Matthew, 2009). So far, economists seem to be satisfied by the current economic situation in Bahrain. Moving to the west; to Bahrains good neighbor, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia. In general, the Arab countries have 20% of the whole worlds gas and oil, however, they are accounted for less than 5% of the worlds total exports of fuel (Rivlin, 2009).   The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the key oil producing Arab countries; it got blessed by and the economy bloomed after the discovery and production of oil, in which it started to have many huge investment and cash rich companies. As the crisis occurred and hit KSA in its way along with everyone else, the world witnessed a significant dropdown of oil prices, KSA had reduced their productions which led to affecting its oil revenue. This could mean the end of the current surpluses during the recent years. It also affected doing businesses with foreign companies that started to cost more and are no longer easily available as they used to be before the crisis. This had slowed down Saudi Arabias economic growth; caused delaying projects, and r esulted in the lack of confidence. In addition to that, long term policy issues in banking sector appeared; interbank rates had moved up sharply. Also, the stock markets have lost their attraction. Their %GDP had dropped from 28.4 in 2006 down to 24.9 in 2007. Their governments budget went under pressure, and noticeable inflation has appeared (Bourland, 2008). Apparently Saudi Arabias economy is relatively in a good shape, even after it got hit by the crisis and could easily adapt to the situation since they know what they should do, and   what are they going to apply. Mohammed Al-Jasser SAMAs governor- stated that: Our stimulus is mostly for oil production capacity enhancement and also large development projects were implementing. When the projects are finished, then we will reassess the need for additional spending. (Kuwait Times, 2009). SAMA- Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency- had lowered the repo rate and injected liquidity into the banks. One of the Saudi Arabias economical goals is based on completely shifting its focus of economic policy from controlling inflation to restoring confidence in the financial sector. Many companies in KSA are cash rich; thanks to their huge stock of assets, the government of KSA has an advantage over most countries in alleviating the impacts of extreme financial pressures caused by the crisis. The non-oil sector still has a chance for momentum growing, and thus, many projects can be carried out in spite of the existence of some obstacles. That caused, mainly, the limitation of access to higher costs that somewhat slows down the growth of private sectors than it was expected to be (Bourland, 2008). Also, KSA smartly had invested in large numbers in some upstream hydrocarbon projects to get more value from their oil. However, rather than completely relying their energy demands over oil and gas, they had investments in alternative energies so they can export more fuel (Rivlin, 2009).   Thus, based on that, we may assume that KS As economy is in pretty good shape. Going up to the north, there resides the State of Kuwait that once announced a five years $130 billion in an ambitious plan to grow its banking sector to be one of the financial centers in the GCC region before the business tragedy. However, lack of lucidity due to the global crisis, dramatic decrease of oil prices and having a rather poor business environment keeps Kuwait behind its rivals (which Bahrain is one of them). The banking sector in Kuwait has grown largely over the recent years, in which it increased from 2.3% of their nominal GDP in the late 80s to 11.8% GDP in 2007 (which is small compared to Bahrain). Kuwait relied on the high prices of Oil before the crisis occurred to rebus the private and public sector growth (BMI, 2008). The situation started to get bad once the crisis occurred. In 2008, as the global crisis occurred, Kuwaits banking sector fell down to 8.2%. The economy of Kuwait suffered and became under pressure, and the crisis raised interbank interest rates, w here the Central Bank of Kuwait considered this as a liquidity injection into a system. There have also been real estate curbs. (BMI, 2008). Kuwaits Gulf Bank suffered a total loss of $1.54 Billion during the same year. This forced the governments in the gulf to pump money into banks to salvage them (Drine, 2009). In addition to that, inflation reached 11% on June 2008, which was probably the result of the drop down of oil and commodity prices (EIU, 2008). Unlike the GCC currencies, the Kuwaiti Dinar is not paged to the US Dollar; therefore, due to its quasi-independence monetary policy, it shouldnt be dragged down by the US dollar. Sadly however, this flexibility only exists in theory.   Inflammation remained the same in Kuwait as the rest of the GCC. On Sept 23rd 2008, CBK Central Bank of Kuwait- stated to the press that theyll undertake the appropriate measures without hesitation. Itll provide necessary liquidity to any local banking institution. However, it didnt boost it muc h since there was low confidence in economy. It has also raised reserved requirements. The new suggested rule of limiting monthly loan installments from the previous 50% of borrowers salaries to 40% has controlled inflation. Kuwaiti Authorities tried to deal with inflation by active attempts to cut down the loan growth of late. It also has tried to urge lenders to restrict credit growth. (BMI, 2008). Also, the government institutions such as KIA -Kuwait Investment Agency- and the KPC -Kuwait Petroleum Corporation- in addition to the public Authority for Social security deposited their funds in some local commercial banks rather than holding them at the CBK. (EIU, 2008).   Yet, Is Kuwait going to be successful in overcoming the impact of the crisis? By November 2008, NBK National Bank of Kuwait announced a stunning 10.5% raise in 9 months profit, while the KFH (Kuwait Finance House) which is an Islamic Bank   has a 25% increase in profits for the same period of time (EIU, 2008) . Although Kuwait seems to have an opportunity in the banking sector and general business environment in the GCC, its three rivals are still ahead of it. It still has to make changes. However, Manaf Al-Hajeri General Manager of Kuwaits Financial Center Markaz- has a different point of view. He sees that within the next 10 years, the Middle East will still be highly attractive to banking investments, direct investments and asset management, thanks to its high sovereign reserves, favorable demographics and high house formations (MARKAZ, 2009). With such a contradiction in different point of views, the best way to get the accurate answer, to whether Kuwait is going to be successful in overcoming the impact of the global crisis is through an intensive field study. Our next stop resides to the east, The Islamic Republic Iran. Iran is economically isolated from the rest of the world, and thus, many people thought that Iran was secured from the global economic and financial crisis. But thats clearly not the case. The most critical issues that influenced Irans economy is that it heavily depended on the Oil revenues. As the oil prices searched the peak, Irans government was supposed to save a part of its income. However, it spent it all on subsidized lending, massive bank credits, imprudent social spending and substation imports. This phenomenon is known as the Dutch Disease. When the oil prices dropped badly due to the global crisis, Iran suddenly found itself facing a financial crunch. Also, the government of Iran controls more than 80% of its economy due to political reasons after the election of Ahmady Nijad which weakens its economy. In addition to that, the pressures of USAs government and its banks over Irans and the U.N. Security Council sa nctions made the situation even worse. In a healthy economy, the central bank should be independent from the government. However, this is not the current case in Iran, where Nijads government continues its interference in central bank affairs. (Amir, 2008).   As the crisis occurred, Irans economy had already suffered from many problems before the global crisis which made it more vulnerable to impacts of the crisis. Irans banks faced the same problems as its US rivals; they were severely hit by the crisis due to the non-repayment of house loans and that was caused by the decrease of the house prices which turned into the creation of the economic crisis. One of the signs of the impact in Iran is the 60% decrease in applying for constructing license and the complete stagnation in house trading. Abdoh Tabraizi, in a professional conference in Tehran University The Influence of Global Financial Crisis on Iran Economy stated that: the problem of the global economy accrued in Iran was du e to the decrease in house pricing. So, the people who bought the houses will not make their repayments and this happened because of the increase in food and petroleum prices (BBC, 2009). Due to the high dependency of Irans economy on oil revenue, it faced lack of liquidity as the oil prices dropped down, and its currency (the Toman) is facing a devaluation against the other currencies (Amir, 2008). The Republic of Iran denied the Global Crisis impacts over its economy and ignored all the economists warnings regarding its situation. It has no attempts in finding solutions to its current financial and economical situation (Amir, 2009). Leaving west to Europe, to the Republic of Turkey, where it actually faced an interesting event before the global crisis. In the years between 1990 and 2002, Turkey had experienced some very series crisiss that it had to confirm the Global crisis in 2007 through the stability of macroeconomic policies, structural reforms, social security reforms and employment packages that strengthen the financial sector giving it nowadays a strong economic structure compared to the past that could easily resist the impacts of the current global crisis. It had taken its lessons from the past and enabled them to be prepared for the global crisis. Therefore, since the first moment for the global crisis 2008 begins, it didnt touch Turkey very seriously. Turkeys banks didnt fail; all of the banks in Turkey could sustain themselves without any external support (Erdogan, 2009). As it got hit by the crisis from the day of 10 July 2007, in which it is the exact moment of the beginning of the crisis had affe cted Turkey seriously and until now it is still affecting it. Turkish currency showed the most resistance to the falling values comparing to the other currencies. It decreased only by 28% compared to the other currencies (e.g. 31%   Mexican Peso    Russian Ruble, 45% South Korean Won, 34% South African Rand, 40% UK à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¤ ). (Erdogan, 2009). In other words, as Ayse Yuksel stated in an interview, Turkey is in a rather great shape compared to the USA, Europe and England itself, also had way less damage in funds and mortgages compared to the USA (Sakar, 2009).   As for the banking sector, instead of becoming a problem like other countries, it became a security value due to its previous experience (Erdogan, 2009).   Turkey had taken many steps to overcome the global crisis; mainly to prevent the liquidity problem. For example, the Turkish Central bank had taken decisions in order to support the markets and the internal demand through the implementation of the monetary p olicy; they took measurements to re-function the credit change in the economy. In addition to implementing temporarily tax reductions in certain sectors such as housing, automotive, electronics, etc, Turkey was able to successfully protect its employees. (Erdogan, 2009). Turkey had announced that there were no problems existed and no actions are warranted; and if were needed, it can inject liquidity into the market and attract the funds held by its citizens overseas account back to Turkey, that is, providing forging currency liquidity (Hurriyet Daily News, 2009). 3. Methodology The purpose of our paper is to determine the willingness and ability of decision makers in our selected five developing Middle Eastern countries to overcome the ongoing economic crisis. According to the nature of our research, we will follow two approaches for collecting the information needed for this research paper. We are going to distribute two types of questionnaires, one for decision makers (type 1) and the other for the public (type 2). Our target population will be selected from Bahrain and we will use quota sampling method of size 170 (70 for type 1 and 100 for type 2). The period for the distribution of the questionnaire will start from the month of November to December 2009. Also we will do an interview with a Bahraini decision maker. Secondly, We will gather information by conducting extensive studying of existing papers, journals and articles regarding our topic; analyzing and comparing all together to reach proper conclusions based on facts and numbers In Type 1 questionnaire, we will include questions in which we can extract from how the decision makers feel about the crisis and what are they going to do to overcome the crisis. And as for Type 2, we will include questions in which we can extract from how the public feel about the crisis and how they are affected by it; how they are going to measure the steps followed by the decision makers in their countries to overcome the crisis. In the two types, we will use quantitative and qualitative questions (from both types distributed) to get needed information to meet our goal. After distributing the questionnaire and analyzing the results using MS-Excel in addition to SPSS software, we will measure how the decision makers reacted towards the global economic crisis are. We have also collected further information by conducting an interview with one of the decision makers in Bahrain who works for a financial sector. 4. Challenges The most significant event in this decade is the Global Economic and Financial Crisis 2008, where no country was spared from its brutal hits and negative effects. After this crisis, economists categorized the countries into two main divisions: the rich countries that have the power to withstand the crisis due to having a huge amount of assets that plays the key role in the process of recovering the impacts of the crisis, whereas the other countries which are not rich, thereby considered poor or average countries are the main victims of the crisis in two aspects; firstly they dont have enough assets for their economy to get back to track. Secondly, the solution strategies taken by rich countries to overcome the crisis do not put them in consideration, keeping them the weakest link (Wade,2009), (Meyn et al, 2009).  Ã‚   This catastrophe, adaption to it and the attempts to recover from it, illustrated to the world the true essence of the health of each countrys economy. In addition to that, it showed how clever and serious the decision makers and governments are in dealing with it. On the other hand, it also points to intentions of decision makers.   We focused on the willingness of five selected Middle Eastern countries (The Kingdom Of Bahrain, Kingdom Saudi Arabia, State Of Kuwait, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Turkey) how decision makers of these countries and governments are willing to recover from the impact of this economical crisis. What procedures have they taken and how successful will they are. Our selection is based on the different nature and situations of the economy of each of the selected countries, and their different political strategies and views. We spotlighted on the Kingdom of Bahrain in our paper by gathering data from the public and decision makes in Bahrain and conducting an interview with a chosen decision maker in order to obtain most accurate result as possible. In addition to analyzing and comparing the published articles an d journals .On the other hand when we consider other countries, we limit our data resources to the existing articles, papers and journals from different  Ã‚  Ã‚   sources to discover the most accurate data that we will build our result on. Thats due to time and geographical constraints.   As a result of this paper, we will categorize the selected countries into those who are willing to recover from the crisis and those who are not. Our main audience is the decision makers, who can take benefits of this paper in evaluating their decisions, adapt it, and change it to make better solutions. Also the public can use the result of this paper to know the correct economic situation of their country, and how their governments are honest in announcing the economic state and whether they are serious to recover from this crisis, as a result they may press on their government to make major steps toward making better solutions. Unfortunately, we have a very limited time to complete the paper while such a research requires much longer time for more accurate data collection. We are enforced to submit the paper by the end of December 2009. Also, we cant reach decision makers because they are hard to find in such a short notice. In addition to that, we are limited to do our questionnaire in Bahrain only due to the geographical limitation. We will try to expand the scope of the questionnaire to include the concerned countries using emails, internet and online technology. 5. Proposed Solution According to the nature of our paper, and the geographical and time constraints, in order to achieve our goal, we will apply two approaches for gathering and analyzing information. The first one will apply to all our selected countries in which it highly depends on comparing and analyzing each countries economists and decision makers statements to sold facts and numbers, including (GDP growth, Oil GDP growth, PCI inflation) which considered to be the most significant signs of the country economical situation,  Ã‚   from neutral international organizations -including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -. As for the second approach that involves Bahrain only in which we contacted two types of questionnaires and an interview with a decision maker as an add up to the previous approach.   In order to identify whether the financial and economical situation in a country is recovering from the crisis, there are indicators (are known as Economy Indicators) that show whether its improvi ng, stable or turning down. Thus, our questionnaire and interview must be based on it. There are many indicators, but we will consider only on the important ones that are applicable to the business and economy to the countries that we elected. Some of the major indicators (Barnes, 2007, Investopedia ULC) include the following: Consumer Confidence Index (CCI): it shows how healthy the financial situation and determines the expenditures of economy by illustrating the spending power and confidences of consumers. Consumer Credit Report: it indicates the future spending over personal levels and it shows the changing amounts of outstanding loans on individuals. This includes (total debts, current annual rate of growth or decline, and total percentage of credit card delinquencies). It is considered as a major factor that helps to make more than the half of the total GDP. Consumer Price Index (CPI): is seen as a guide for inflation. It focuses on products that consumers buy and use on daily basis. CPI reflects the prices of goods in the markets, and its an important indicator in terms of moving the market and setting the monetary policy. Durable Goods: this involves high priced goods that last for three years, such as machinery, technology manufacturing, cars and other vehicles which indicates general economic expansions.   Employee Cost Index (ECI): it indicates the percentage of changes in employees salaries, bounces, and benefits in terms of wages per hours. It calculates the total cost of employees for a business. Employment Situation:   this indicates employment and unemployment rate. Its useful to understand the state of labor force.   This indicator could move the market dramatically. Gross Domestic Product (GDP): its an aggregate measure of the total economic production for a country. It is one of the most important indicators that illustrates the health of economy and, depending on it, prices of good and services are set in a certain country. It involve s personal consumption, investments, government expenditures, and the exports in a particular country. Existing Home Sales and Housing Starts: are two indicators that come in conjunctions, and this, illustrates the housing market in general. Those are long term indictors that show how many houses are sold. It deals with construction level, which means it shows also supply needed for it, and it shows the demand of consumers and comes in pretty handy in real estate markets. Money Supply: it is the amount of money floating around the economy and it is available for spending. It is controlled by the Central Bank of the country. Money Supply is based on how liquid the money is, which can directly affect economic growth and inflation. Mutual Funds Flows: this is an important concept in which to understand stocks and bond marketing. Non-Manufacturing activities: they involve service industries, such as telecommunications, in which they provide insight into the business area that may not be covered by other indicators. Product Price Index (PPI): its an index to the prices measured by the wholesalers, producers, and retailers that are considered the most powerful contributors to the consumer markets. The index comes in three levels: PPI Commodity Index that involves certain commodities such as crude oil; PPI stage of processing (SOP) Index where products are in an intermediate stage; and PPI Industry Index that involves the final stage and finished manufacturing of the products. And finally, theres the Trade Balance Report: it indicates the health of the economy of a country and its relationships with the rest of the world (Barnes, 2007). Our goal is to get a clear full view of the economy in a country. So, we designed two types of questionnaires, one for aimed for decision makers (type 1) and the other is aimed for the public (type 2), in which both questionnaires are based on economic indicators that we mentioned earlier. For both questionnaires, the methodology is CATI -Computer Aided Telephone Interview-, online form, paper forms, the framework timing is 2 21 December 2009, regarding samples, our goal is at least 69 for each type, our sampling method is quota, and our geographical coverage: Kingdom of Bahrain. In Type 1 questionnaire, we Middle East Recovery Strategies after the Financial Crisis Middle East Recovery Strategies after the Financial Crisis The global business crisis 2007 that started in USA has spread its impacts over the world and no countries economy is spared from its impact. We are aiming to test the willingness of five countries as a case study (Kingdom of Bahrain, Kingdom Saudi Arabia, State of Kuwait, Islamic Republic of Iran, and Republic Turkey) top overcomes the impact of this crisis. We an extensive research study about the economy status before, during and through the process of the recovery from the impacts of the crisis, and conducted two types of questionnaires to gather more information. As a result of our analysis, we found whose countries are actually willing enough to overcome the crisis and who arent. The countries we listed as unwilling to overcome the crisis should apply new strategies if they want to recover it. 1. Introduction Everyone nowadays, no matter what are their background, position or level of education have heard about the global business crisis (in which it includes financial and economic crisis), and felt its impacts in different aspects and on different levels.   It became the talk of the day.   The financial and economic crisis that was initiated in the USAs financial market in 2007 has casted its dark shadows all over the world through the international trade channels. This is because the national systems of almost all countries in the world are interlinked to the USAs market. What made this crisis to become a global phenomenon that is, rapidly and continuously spread from the USA to hit the economy of most countries is the direct link between many currencies to the US dollar. As the US dollar collapsed and hit the rock bottom, it ruthlessly dragged them down along with it.   By observing the US economy, we can see that there are many reasons that are the causes of this crisis. Most of them are related to their strategy; the mistakes in the monetary policy that came from the lack of the global balances and failure of financial regulations (subprime mortgages crisis, where banks encouraged irrational public support for housing investment giving estate loans without pledge).When loaners couldnt fulfill installments due to high interest rates, bankers took over those real estates and attempted to sell them. As this occurred a lot, supply exceeded demand causing huge decreases of prices of estates where the lack of liquidity creating financial crisis led to economic crisis. The global crisis has different levels of effects due to several aspects such as social, educational, financial, economical, political, health and so on. Some of these effects included low economic growth, high unemployment, disrupted international monetary systems, inflation, migration as governments tried to export unemployment elsewhere, etc.   Financial analysts suggested many solutions to o vercome this problem, such as: applying real democracy or thorough reform to existing democratic system,   democratize public service and local government, restructure of finance, extend the scope of financial market, create retail financial instruments to provide greater security to customers, re-specialize economies, reduce global imbalances, reduce income concentration, global governance reform and reeducate economists. A global downturn needs a global response. However, what actually is happening is that suggested and applied individual solutions came from decision makers of the developed countries which are focusing only on their own economics, leaving behind developing countries as victims to this crisis. It is easier for the developed countries to stand back on their feet due to the availability of liquidity, whereas, this is not the case with the developing countries. Our paper focuses on the willingness of five selected countries: Kingdom Of Bahrain, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, State of Kuwait, Republic Islamic of Iran, and Republic of Turkey to overcome this crisis. Well discuss the real steps taken by the governments and decision makers in these countries to conclude how effective these steps are. As a result, we will determine whether each of the selected countries have the ability and willingness to overcome this crisis. The aim of this paper is to point out to decision makers whether the mea surements applied in these five countries will help them to recover from this crisis or not and whether the decision makers adapt the right strategies or have to reconsider appropriate solutions. 2. Literature Overview Starting with a general overview of the Middle East impact, we see that the global financial and economic crisis has different levels of negative effects over some specific regions; the Arab region probably is one of the most badly exposed to its negative impacts. Even among this region itself, this can be divided into several groups according to their economic and financial situations. We can say that there is the oil producing countries group; its the group that has the highest GDP and the lowest unemployment rate, in which Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia belong to. Such countries got strongly hit by the crisis since they rely on the overseas investments, especially with the US and Europe (Drine, 2009).   The fall was severe for such countries since OPECs price of oil dropped down from $130 per barrel to $40 per barrel (Rivlin, 2009). This is one of the factors that had led to huge damages that we are going to discuss through this chapter; discussing the impact and reaction of t he Global Crisis 2008 over Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia from the GCC. In addition to that, we are going to discuss the impacts and reactions of Turkey and Iran, in which Iran belong to the Middle East countries, but Turkey doesnt, but geographically, its located so close to it. For each country, we cover the situation before, as the occurrence of the crisis and then their attempts to overcome it according to points of view of different economists. Beginning with our own, the Kingdom Of Bahrain, we see that in the past 30 years, it has built its reputation as a financial services region hub (Ford, 2009). It proved to be more liable to the global banking finance in the region, about  ¼ of its GDP comes from the financial sector. 124 banks are established in Bahrain; 24 retail banks, 64 wholesale banks and 26 Islamic banks predominately investment banks. The blooming of Islamic banking is due to CBBs Central Bank of Bahrain which it placed much time and effort to attract new banks and firms, especially the Islamic banks (Matthew, 2009). Like most countries of the world, if not all, situations differed after it got struck by the crisis. As in October 9th 2008, the Prime Minister of Bahrain assured his highness King Hamad Bin Essa Al-Khalifa that the economy of Bahrain was safe because of the sound and clean financial and economic policies adopted by the government of Bahrain (IANS, 2008). However, this is not really the case as it showed later; some problems began to emerge as the result of getting hit by the crisis. Back in October 2008, about $2 billion loss was announced by GIB and ABC banks combined losses from investment that hit the subprime, which meant that Bahrain is one of the most exposed to the subprime assets (Matthew, 2009). In addition to that, Bahrains stock exchange closed down 2.70%, even though it is the least affected percentage among the key Gulf bourses. Some of Bahrains leading banks ( such as Investcorp that is listed by both London and Bahrain- got badly hit, it suffered a net loss of %511 million for 6 months at the end of Dec 2008). Lack of confidence was another problem; Rasheed Al-Maaraj (the governor of CBB Central bank of Bahrain-) stated that a lot of Banks have reported their results and we are confident about the quality of the banks, we do not see any problems yet on their loan profiles. Things have changed dramatically and one of the biggest changes, not only in Bah rain, but in the GCC and across global lack of confidence. Also, Bahrain got hit by the credit crisis not just in the banking sector, huge projects were delayed, such as Al Dur Power and Water project which was by GIS and KFH due to lack of finance, resulting in $2 billion losses (Ford, 2009).   As a natural response of any healthy business environment, the right thing to do is to find resolve those problems and overcome such obstacles. The government of Bahrain and CBB has introduced many measurements to minimize the downturn impact of the crisis. CBB has established a reform plan; it acted like a regulator to make series changes, and it seek to promote the country as an investment destination. Islamic Banking sector is a proposed key solution; this was highlighted by the Banker Magazine survey, which found that Bahrain has the biggest Islamic institutions in the world after the investment Dar of Kuwait (Ithmaar Bank, Arcapita Bank, Gulf Finance House and Islamic Company of the G ulf). (Ford, 2009).   In order to solve the lack of Confidence issue, the CBB aimed to offset the impact of capital outflows on liquidity by setting a scheme to allow banks to exchange their currency from US$ to Bahraini Dinars. However, this is not fully resolved since the Bahraini Dinar is linked to the US$. Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al-Khalifa (CEO of the Economic Developed funds) stated that The Major real estate development in Bahrain has been largely backed by Islamic banks and have not suffered from the most part of the credit crunch. In order to improve the credit flows, the banking sector was reformed and redesigned. CBB got involved with many investments and the creation of Islamic banks has increased their economical strength and power regarding their sustainability in long terms. (Matthew, 2009). So far, economists seem to be satisfied by the current economic situation in Bahrain. Moving to the west; to Bahrains good neighbor, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia. In general, the Arab countries have 20% of the whole worlds gas and oil, however, they are accounted for less than 5% of the worlds total exports of fuel (Rivlin, 2009).   The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the key oil producing Arab countries; it got blessed by and the economy bloomed after the discovery and production of oil, in which it started to have many huge investment and cash rich companies. As the crisis occurred and hit KSA in its way along with everyone else, the world witnessed a significant dropdown of oil prices, KSA had reduced their productions which led to affecting its oil revenue. This could mean the end of the current surpluses during the recent years. It also affected doing businesses with foreign companies that started to cost more and are no longer easily available as they used to be before the crisis. This had slowed down Saudi Arabias economic growth; caused delaying projects, and r esulted in the lack of confidence. In addition to that, long term policy issues in banking sector appeared; interbank rates had moved up sharply. Also, the stock markets have lost their attraction. Their %GDP had dropped from 28.4 in 2006 down to 24.9 in 2007. Their governments budget went under pressure, and noticeable inflation has appeared (Bourland, 2008). Apparently Saudi Arabias economy is relatively in a good shape, even after it got hit by the crisis and could easily adapt to the situation since they know what they should do, and   what are they going to apply. Mohammed Al-Jasser SAMAs governor- stated that: Our stimulus is mostly for oil production capacity enhancement and also large development projects were implementing. When the projects are finished, then we will reassess the need for additional spending. (Kuwait Times, 2009). SAMA- Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency- had lowered the repo rate and injected liquidity into the banks. One of the Saudi Arabias economical goals is based on completely shifting its focus of economic policy from controlling inflation to restoring confidence in the financial sector. Many companies in KSA are cash rich; thanks to their huge stock of assets, the government of KSA has an advantage over most countries in alleviating the impacts of extreme financial pressures caused by the crisis. The non-oil sector still has a chance for momentum growing, and thus, many projects can be carried out in spite of the existence of some obstacles. That caused, mainly, the limitation of access to higher costs that somewhat slows down the growth of private sectors than it was expected to be (Bourland, 2008). Also, KSA smartly had invested in large numbers in some upstream hydrocarbon projects to get more value from their oil. However, rather than completely relying their energy demands over oil and gas, they had investments in alternative energies so they can export more fuel (Rivlin, 2009).   Thus, based on that, we may assume that KS As economy is in pretty good shape. Going up to the north, there resides the State of Kuwait that once announced a five years $130 billion in an ambitious plan to grow its banking sector to be one of the financial centers in the GCC region before the business tragedy. However, lack of lucidity due to the global crisis, dramatic decrease of oil prices and having a rather poor business environment keeps Kuwait behind its rivals (which Bahrain is one of them). The banking sector in Kuwait has grown largely over the recent years, in which it increased from 2.3% of their nominal GDP in the late 80s to 11.8% GDP in 2007 (which is small compared to Bahrain). Kuwait relied on the high prices of Oil before the crisis occurred to rebus the private and public sector growth (BMI, 2008). The situation started to get bad once the crisis occurred. In 2008, as the global crisis occurred, Kuwaits banking sector fell down to 8.2%. The economy of Kuwait suffered and became under pressure, and the crisis raised interbank interest rates, w here the Central Bank of Kuwait considered this as a liquidity injection into a system. There have also been real estate curbs. (BMI, 2008). Kuwaits Gulf Bank suffered a total loss of $1.54 Billion during the same year. This forced the governments in the gulf to pump money into banks to salvage them (Drine, 2009). In addition to that, inflation reached 11% on June 2008, which was probably the result of the drop down of oil and commodity prices (EIU, 2008). Unlike the GCC currencies, the Kuwaiti Dinar is not paged to the US Dollar; therefore, due to its quasi-independence monetary policy, it shouldnt be dragged down by the US dollar. Sadly however, this flexibility only exists in theory.   Inflammation remained the same in Kuwait as the rest of the GCC. On Sept 23rd 2008, CBK Central Bank of Kuwait- stated to the press that theyll undertake the appropriate measures without hesitation. Itll provide necessary liquidity to any local banking institution. However, it didnt boost it muc h since there was low confidence in economy. It has also raised reserved requirements. The new suggested rule of limiting monthly loan installments from the previous 50% of borrowers salaries to 40% has controlled inflation. Kuwaiti Authorities tried to deal with inflation by active attempts to cut down the loan growth of late. It also has tried to urge lenders to restrict credit growth. (BMI, 2008). Also, the government institutions such as KIA -Kuwait Investment Agency- and the KPC -Kuwait Petroleum Corporation- in addition to the public Authority for Social security deposited their funds in some local commercial banks rather than holding them at the CBK. (EIU, 2008).   Yet, Is Kuwait going to be successful in overcoming the impact of the crisis? By November 2008, NBK National Bank of Kuwait announced a stunning 10.5% raise in 9 months profit, while the KFH (Kuwait Finance House) which is an Islamic Bank   has a 25% increase in profits for the same period of time (EIU, 2008) . Although Kuwait seems to have an opportunity in the banking sector and general business environment in the GCC, its three rivals are still ahead of it. It still has to make changes. However, Manaf Al-Hajeri General Manager of Kuwaits Financial Center Markaz- has a different point of view. He sees that within the next 10 years, the Middle East will still be highly attractive to banking investments, direct investments and asset management, thanks to its high sovereign reserves, favorable demographics and high house formations (MARKAZ, 2009). With such a contradiction in different point of views, the best way to get the accurate answer, to whether Kuwait is going to be successful in overcoming the impact of the global crisis is through an intensive field study. Our next stop resides to the east, The Islamic Republic Iran. Iran is economically isolated from the rest of the world, and thus, many people thought that Iran was secured from the global economic and financial crisis. But thats clearly not the case. The most critical issues that influenced Irans economy is that it heavily depended on the Oil revenues. As the oil prices searched the peak, Irans government was supposed to save a part of its income. However, it spent it all on subsidized lending, massive bank credits, imprudent social spending and substation imports. This phenomenon is known as the Dutch Disease. When the oil prices dropped badly due to the global crisis, Iran suddenly found itself facing a financial crunch. Also, the government of Iran controls more than 80% of its economy due to political reasons after the election of Ahmady Nijad which weakens its economy. In addition to that, the pressures of USAs government and its banks over Irans and the U.N. Security Council sa nctions made the situation even worse. In a healthy economy, the central bank should be independent from the government. However, this is not the current case in Iran, where Nijads government continues its interference in central bank affairs. (Amir, 2008).   As the crisis occurred, Irans economy had already suffered from many problems before the global crisis which made it more vulnerable to impacts of the crisis. Irans banks faced the same problems as its US rivals; they were severely hit by the crisis due to the non-repayment of house loans and that was caused by the decrease of the house prices which turned into the creation of the economic crisis. One of the signs of the impact in Iran is the 60% decrease in applying for constructing license and the complete stagnation in house trading. Abdoh Tabraizi, in a professional conference in Tehran University The Influence of Global Financial Crisis on Iran Economy stated that: the problem of the global economy accrued in Iran was du e to the decrease in house pricing. So, the people who bought the houses will not make their repayments and this happened because of the increase in food and petroleum prices (BBC, 2009). Due to the high dependency of Irans economy on oil revenue, it faced lack of liquidity as the oil prices dropped down, and its currency (the Toman) is facing a devaluation against the other currencies (Amir, 2008). The Republic of Iran denied the Global Crisis impacts over its economy and ignored all the economists warnings regarding its situation. It has no attempts in finding solutions to its current financial and economical situation (Amir, 2009). Leaving west to Europe, to the Republic of Turkey, where it actually faced an interesting event before the global crisis. In the years between 1990 and 2002, Turkey had experienced some very series crisiss that it had to confirm the Global crisis in 2007 through the stability of macroeconomic policies, structural reforms, social security reforms and employment packages that strengthen the financial sector giving it nowadays a strong economic structure compared to the past that could easily resist the impacts of the current global crisis. It had taken its lessons from the past and enabled them to be prepared for the global crisis. Therefore, since the first moment for the global crisis 2008 begins, it didnt touch Turkey very seriously. Turkeys banks didnt fail; all of the banks in Turkey could sustain themselves without any external support (Erdogan, 2009). As it got hit by the crisis from the day of 10 July 2007, in which it is the exact moment of the beginning of the crisis had affe cted Turkey seriously and until now it is still affecting it. Turkish currency showed the most resistance to the falling values comparing to the other currencies. It decreased only by 28% compared to the other currencies (e.g. 31%   Mexican Peso    Russian Ruble, 45% South Korean Won, 34% South African Rand, 40% UK à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¤ ). (Erdogan, 2009). In other words, as Ayse Yuksel stated in an interview, Turkey is in a rather great shape compared to the USA, Europe and England itself, also had way less damage in funds and mortgages compared to the USA (Sakar, 2009).   As for the banking sector, instead of becoming a problem like other countries, it became a security value due to its previous experience (Erdogan, 2009).   Turkey had taken many steps to overcome the global crisis; mainly to prevent the liquidity problem. For example, the Turkish Central bank had taken decisions in order to support the markets and the internal demand through the implementation of the monetary p olicy; they took measurements to re-function the credit change in the economy. In addition to implementing temporarily tax reductions in certain sectors such as housing, automotive, electronics, etc, Turkey was able to successfully protect its employees. (Erdogan, 2009). Turkey had announced that there were no problems existed and no actions are warranted; and if were needed, it can inject liquidity into the market and attract the funds held by its citizens overseas account back to Turkey, that is, providing forging currency liquidity (Hurriyet Daily News, 2009). 3. Methodology The purpose of our paper is to determine the willingness and ability of decision makers in our selected five developing Middle Eastern countries to overcome the ongoing economic crisis. According to the nature of our research, we will follow two approaches for collecting the information needed for this research paper. We are going to distribute two types of questionnaires, one for decision makers (type 1) and the other for the public (type 2). Our target population will be selected from Bahrain and we will use quota sampling method of size 170 (70 for type 1 and 100 for type 2). The period for the distribution of the questionnaire will start from the month of November to December 2009. Also we will do an interview with a Bahraini decision maker. Secondly, We will gather information by conducting extensive studying of existing papers, journals and articles regarding our topic; analyzing and comparing all together to reach proper conclusions based on facts and numbers In Type 1 questionnaire, we will include questions in which we can extract from how the decision makers feel about the crisis and what are they going to do to overcome the crisis. And as for Type 2, we will include questions in which we can extract from how the public feel about the crisis and how they are affected by it; how they are going to measure the steps followed by the decision makers in their countries to overcome the crisis. In the two types, we will use quantitative and qualitative questions (from both types distributed) to get needed information to meet our goal. After distributing the questionnaire and analyzing the results using MS-Excel in addition to SPSS software, we will measure how the decision makers reacted towards the global economic crisis are. We have also collected further information by conducting an interview with one of the decision makers in Bahrain who works for a financial sector. 4. Challenges The most significant event in this decade is the Global Economic and Financial Crisis 2008, where no country was spared from its brutal hits and negative effects. After this crisis, economists categorized the countries into two main divisions: the rich countries that have the power to withstand the crisis due to having a huge amount of assets that plays the key role in the process of recovering the impacts of the crisis, whereas the other countries which are not rich, thereby considered poor or average countries are the main victims of the crisis in two aspects; firstly they dont have enough assets for their economy to get back to track. Secondly, the solution strategies taken by rich countries to overcome the crisis do not put them in consideration, keeping them the weakest link (Wade,2009), (Meyn et al, 2009).  Ã‚   This catastrophe, adaption to it and the attempts to recover from it, illustrated to the world the true essence of the health of each countrys economy. In addition to that, it showed how clever and serious the decision makers and governments are in dealing with it. On the other hand, it also points to intentions of decision makers.   We focused on the willingness of five selected Middle Eastern countries (The Kingdom Of Bahrain, Kingdom Saudi Arabia, State Of Kuwait, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Turkey) how decision makers of these countries and governments are willing to recover from the impact of this economical crisis. What procedures have they taken and how successful will they are. Our selection is based on the different nature and situations of the economy of each of the selected countries, and their different political strategies and views. We spotlighted on the Kingdom of Bahrain in our paper by gathering data from the public and decision makes in Bahrain and conducting an interview with a chosen decision maker in order to obtain most accurate result as possible. In addition to analyzing and comparing the published articles an d journals .On the other hand when we consider other countries, we limit our data resources to the existing articles, papers and journals from different  Ã‚  Ã‚   sources to discover the most accurate data that we will build our result on. Thats due to time and geographical constraints.   As a result of this paper, we will categorize the selected countries into those who are willing to recover from the crisis and those who are not. Our main audience is the decision makers, who can take benefits of this paper in evaluating their decisions, adapt it, and change it to make better solutions. Also the public can use the result of this paper to know the correct economic situation of their country, and how their governments are honest in announcing the economic state and whether they are serious to recover from this crisis, as a result they may press on their government to make major steps toward making better solutions. Unfortunately, we have a very limited time to complete the paper while such a research requires much longer time for more accurate data collection. We are enforced to submit the paper by the end of December 2009. Also, we cant reach decision makers because they are hard to find in such a short notice. In addition to that, we are limited to do our questionnaire in Bahrain only due to the geographical limitation. We will try to expand the scope of the questionnaire to include the concerned countries using emails, internet and online technology. 5. Proposed Solution According to the nature of our paper, and the geographical and time constraints, in order to achieve our goal, we will apply two approaches for gathering and analyzing information. The first one will apply to all our selected countries in which it highly depends on comparing and analyzing each countries economists and decision makers statements to sold facts and numbers, including (GDP growth, Oil GDP growth, PCI inflation) which considered to be the most significant signs of the country economical situation,  Ã‚   from neutral international organizations -including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -. As for the second approach that involves Bahrain only in which we contacted two types of questionnaires and an interview with a decision maker as an add up to the previous approach.   In order to identify whether the financial and economical situation in a country is recovering from the crisis, there are indicators (are known as Economy Indicators) that show whether its improvi ng, stable or turning down. Thus, our questionnaire and interview must be based on it. There are many indicators, but we will consider only on the important ones that are applicable to the business and economy to the countries that we elected. Some of the major indicators (Barnes, 2007, Investopedia ULC) include the following: Consumer Confidence Index (CCI): it shows how healthy the financial situation and determines the expenditures of economy by illustrating the spending power and confidences of consumers. Consumer Credit Report: it indicates the future spending over personal levels and it shows the changing amounts of outstanding loans on individuals. This includes (total debts, current annual rate of growth or decline, and total percentage of credit card delinquencies). It is considered as a major factor that helps to make more than the half of the total GDP. Consumer Price Index (CPI): is seen as a guide for inflation. It focuses on products that consumers buy and use on daily basis. CPI reflects the prices of goods in the markets, and its an important indicator in terms of moving the market and setting the monetary policy. Durable Goods: this involves high priced goods that last for three years, such as machinery, technology manufacturing, cars and other vehicles which indicates general economic expansions.   Employee Cost Index (ECI): it indicates the percentage of changes in employees salaries, bounces, and benefits in terms of wages per hours. It calculates the total cost of employees for a business. Employment Situation:   this indicates employment and unemployment rate. Its useful to understand the state of labor force.   This indicator could move the market dramatically. Gross Domestic Product (GDP): its an aggregate measure of the total economic production for a country. It is one of the most important indicators that illustrates the health of economy and, depending on it, prices of good and services are set in a certain country. It involve s personal consumption, investments, government expenditures, and the exports in a particular country. Existing Home Sales and Housing Starts: are two indicators that come in conjunctions, and this, illustrates the housing market in general. Those are long term indictors that show how many houses are sold. It deals with construction level, which means it shows also supply needed for it, and it shows the demand of consumers and comes in pretty handy in real estate markets. Money Supply: it is the amount of money floating around the economy and it is available for spending. It is controlled by the Central Bank of the country. Money Supply is based on how liquid the money is, which can directly affect economic growth and inflation. Mutual Funds Flows: this is an important concept in which to understand stocks and bond marketing. Non-Manufacturing activities: they involve service industries, such as telecommunications, in which they provide insight into the business area that may not be covered by other indicators. Product Price Index (PPI): its an index to the prices measured by the wholesalers, producers, and retailers that are considered the most powerful contributors to the consumer markets. The index comes in three levels: PPI Commodity Index that involves certain commodities such as crude oil; PPI stage of processing (SOP) Index where products are in an intermediate stage; and PPI Industry Index that involves the final stage and finished manufacturing of the products. And finally, theres the Trade Balance Report: it indicates the health of the economy of a country and its relationships with the rest of the world (Barnes, 2007). Our goal is to get a clear full view of the economy in a country. So, we designed two types of questionnaires, one for aimed for decision makers (type 1) and the other is aimed for the public (type 2), in which both questionnaires are based on economic indicators that we mentioned earlier. For both questionnaires, the methodology is CATI -Computer Aided Telephone Interview-, online form, paper forms, the framework timing is 2 21 December 2009, regarding samples, our goal is at least 69 for each type, our sampling method is quota, and our geographical coverage: Kingdom of Bahrain. In Type 1 questionnaire, we