From the second reich to the wiemar republic :: essays research papers

From the Second Reich to the Weimar RepublicThe Second ReichThe constitution of the second ReichThe Kaiser was hereditary for life and he was the autocratic Commander of the armyThe Chancellor was chosen by the Kaiser and was also usually the chairman of the Bundesrat.The Bundesrat was the upper house of parliament. Members were chosen by the State Government. The 17 Prussian representatives could veto any law.The Reichstag was less grand than the Bundesrat in making laws. They could only approve the laws proposed by the Chancellor and the Bundesrat. The Reichstag was the lower house of parliament, with members elected by all men over the age of 25, fewer could vote in PrussiaThis was very undemocratic as people had pocket-sized say over the passing of laws. The Reichstag, the house of parliament that the people voted for, had very little power over the creation of laws. The Kaiser was almost a dictator.Ludendorff realised that Germany was going to be defeated in 1918. He told t he Kaiser that the war must end. In October, the Germans asked electric chair Woodrow Wilson to organise an end to the fighting. He agreed but demanded that the Kaiser must go. Starvation and riots spread though Germany and on 30th October, the German Navy refused to launch a desperate attack on the British Navy. The Kaiser finally agreed to abdicate and on the 11th November an armistice was signed. This was the end of the Second Reich.The Weimar RepublicThe new presidential term wanted to introduce a parliamentary democracy. This was because President Wilson refused to offer peace to the Germans until it had a government which wanted democracy. However, this meant that some Germans felt that democracy was being laboured upon them by their enemies. The constitution of the Weimar RepublicThe President was in power for 7 years and was elected by all adults over the age of 21. He was the Supreme Commander of the army and he chose the Chancellor.The Chancellor had the support of a ma jority of the Reichstag.The Reichstag was the lower house of parliament, elected by all adults over the age of 21. It was more(prenominal) important than the Reichsrat and could make laws.The Reichsrat was the upper house of parliament and could only approve laws proposed by the Chancellor and the Reichstag.Weaknesses of the new constitutionProportional Representation this meant that if a company received 5% of the votes, they would also receive 5% of the seats in the Reichstag.

Frank Lyman Baum :: essays research papers fc

Frank Lyman BaumFrank Lyman Baum was born on May 15th, 1856, and is best known for his superior keep, The Wizard of Oz. His book was so popular, that they even made a movie in 1939 starring Judy Garland, based on the book. It became the first color film ever. Besides The Wizard of Oz, he wrote many an(prenominal) other childrens stories. As a young man, Baum lived in New York where he authored, produced, and acted in a play, The Maid of Arran, and he toured it from Canada to Kansas. Later on, he decided to give up his theatrical courier. He soon after moved to South Dakota, with his newly wed wife, and worked as a reporter for the Saturday open up newspaper. After he got tired of that, he became a traveling salesman, and following that, he became editor, and worked with special effects. Later on in life, Baums mother in integrity became very active in the womens suffragist reform, and Baum was very interested in that, so he decided to help as well. He learned nearly theosophy f rom his mother in law, along with many other useful things. Baums mother in law was very active in the Womens Right Movement, and many other social causes throughout her life. She worked with people like Elizebeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. Frank supported his mother in law in basically every way possible. During the beat of womens rights, to help out, he published a newspaper, which helped persuade people to fight for womens rights he helped the society change their views in many ways.

My Philosophy of Teaching :: Philosophy of Education

Philosophy of Education Having graduated from a public naturalise system, I feel my experiences and opinions are not only first hand, but they are something I should always try to consider when thinking about or dealing with my own students. As every student has, I have had great teachers as well as terrible ones some of those teachers everyone loved or hated, and other received varied opinions about themselves from their students. The student teacher relationship is something that is unavoidable, as it should be. The reason I am pursuing article of belief as my job is because I understand that children need someone in their lives to make a difference, and if I could be that someone for only a handful of my own students, I will have succeeded. I view teaching as being more than simply showing a child how to read-as important as that is-teaching is overly about showing a child the importance of self. Without self-esteem, self-discipline and self-control, there would no t be many people who could make it successfully in instantlys world. And if Im successful in teaching children how to read, as well as something important about themselves, I will have helped some kids survive as adults. I dont care anything about being the teacher that everyone thinks is so cool and loves, nor do I want to be the one that everyone hates. What I do want to be is a teacher that is respected by my students because I have been fair and have given each of them a chance to pass and succeed. I want my students to trust me. I want them to know that I am not perfect and realize that no(prenominal) of them are, but I do hope that they realize that I do expect from them what I would expect from my self if I were one of my own students. noesis of subject is next on my list of importance. I know how important it is for my self to be knowledgeable about the subject I am teaching but no matter how much I know my students will only learn what I teach to them successf ully.

Stars Over Time :: essays research papers

Stars over TimeA star is a self-luminous ball of gas bound by gravity into a hit object and powered by nuclear fusion at the totality. There are trillions and trillions of stars in our universe and all are different and unique. There are many exhibits of stars life including main sequence stars, red giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. All stars also have many more variations in each stage of life. The life of a star begins in a nebula, a great collection of gas and dust. Once enough mass has accumulated into a one object, gravity forces the mass to collapse into the center. Due to pressure and friction, the core gets so hot that it begins nuclear fusion and a protostar is made. The age and the mass of stars tell each thing about a stars physical properties and placement into each of the categories. The Hertzsprung - Russell diagram (HR Diagram) interprets stars luminosities over the stars spectral class. Luminosity describes how bright the star is (I, II, II I, IV, V) spectral class describes its temperature (O, B, A, F, G, K, M). This graph is the best way to categorize stars.1. of import Sequence Stars. Once the protostar has stopped the nuclear reactions, it begins to burn up its atomic number 1 core. This is when it becomes a Main Sequence Star. Main Sequence stars are split into two types Upper Main Sequence and Lower Main Sequence. They both have luminosity class V. The only going is how massive each star is. Our sun is a lower main sequence star. The hydrogen in an average star, like the sun, burns for about cardinal billion years. Upper Main Sequence stars are the hottest and brightest of all Main Sequence stars. They burn hydrogen by using the CNO Cycle, where carbon is fused with hydrogen to get nitrogen, and helium. Lower Main Sequence stars use the Proton-Proton Chain, where hydrogen is fused together to form helium. Both have three layers a thermonuclear core, a radiative zone, and a convective zone. Upper Main Sequence s stars are layered from the center core, to the convective zone, to the radiative zone. Lower Main Sequence stars have the convective and radiative zones flipped.2. Red Giants. Once the hydrogen supply runs out, the core begins to collapse. During this time the core gets so hot, it begins to burn up the helium filled core into carbon.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- Yellow Wallpaper C

The Yellow Wall theme by Charlotte Perkins GilmanMany intellectual artists, who are widely acclaimed for their literary work, live in a world characterized by state-of-the-art insanity (Gilman 20). Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one such individual. A writer during the early 20th century, Gilman suffered from bouts of deep depression, due part to her dissatisfaction with the limitations of her role as wife and mother. Her writing, particularly her noteworthy story The Yellow Wallpaper reflects experiences from her personal life. In doing so, she achieved rough control over both her illness and her past (Lane 128). Many hoi polloi still enjoy the fact that Gilman wrote her piece to save people from being driven crazy however, perhaps she wrote the story to rescue herself from the psychological distress that she often suffered. (Gilman 20)Many people find the conclusion of The Yellow Wallpaper problematic because the protagonist ends up insane. Others, however, have offered an alter native reading of the story, one which posits that the protagonists response to her deep oppressive situation is perhaps the most normal and healthy response to her. Clearly Gilman had a great deal to say about the restrictions placed on women in the early 20th century. The Yellow Wallpaper explores a young charwomans gradual psychological demise. In doing so, however, readers may also keep back the gradual liberation of a woman.In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator who is suffering from depression, takes a trip to the country for the summer, with her husband and their baby. Her husband has diagnosed his wifes hold back as merely a temporary nervous depression (Gilman 4) and he decides to move her to a nursery that is located at the top of the house. She is surrounded by ugly yellow wallpaper and barred windows. Disturbed by the wallpaper, she asks her husband for another room or different wallpaper however, he refuses. The woman becomes progressively unhappy as she is forced t occupy a room that she despises. In this deprived environment, the pattern of the wallpaper becomes increasingly compelling.The figure of a woman begins to take shape behind the pattern of the paper. At night the pattern becomes bars, and the woman in the wallpaper is imprisoned. As her imagination worsens, she frantically rips off the paper in order to free the woman she perceives i... ...se of the phrase living paper is quite effective. I used this quote because it symbolizes the importance and the effect of this inanimate intents power over the tragic heroine. The word living is the most appropriate description for its power.Treichler, Paula She states, the female lineage that the wallpaper represents is thick with life, expression, and suffering (193)It summarizes some of the main themes of the narrative. It restates the gender-related struggle and captivity that captures the true essence of this story. 2)Shumaker, Conrad. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 37, 1990 p .195He states that the husband is, fearful and contemptuous of her imaginative and artistic powers, mostly because fails to understand them or the view of the world they lead her to. This quote describes the marital conflict between our heroine and her husband, hence the true struggle behind the story. 3)Lane, Ann J. To Herland and Beyond. 1990 p.130She states, frightened by the images of a baby, the one she has and the one she was. This quote expresses a symbolic comparison between the hopelessness and helplessness of the heroine and that of her child.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- Yellow Wallpaper C

The Yellow Wall motif by Charlotte Perkins GilmanMany intellectual artists, who are widely acclaimed for their literary work, live in a world characterized by forward insanity (Gilman 20). Charlotte Perkins Gilman was one such individual. A writer during the early 20th century, Gilman suffered from bouts of deep depression, due part to her dissatisfaction with the limitations of her role as wife and mother. Her writing, particularly her notable story The Yellow Wallpaper reflects experiences from her personal life. In doing so, she achieved near control over both her illness and her past (Lane 128). Many mess still esteem the fact that Gilman wrote her piece to save people from being driven crazy however, perhaps she wrote the story to rescue herself from the psychological distress that she often suffered. (Gilman 20)Many people find the conclusion of The Yellow Wallpaper problematic because the protagonist ends up insane. Others, however, have offered an alternative reading of the story, one which posits that the protagonists response to her deeply oppressive situation is perhaps the most normal and healthy response to her. Clearly Gilman had a great deal to say about the restrictions placed on women in the early 20th century. The Yellow Wallpaper explores a young chars gradual psychological demise. In doing so, however, readers may also describe the gradual liberation of a woman.In The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator who is suffering from depression, takes a trip to the country for the summer, with her husband and their baby. Her husband has diagnosed his wifes pattern as merely a temporary nervous depression (Gilman 4) and he decides to move her to a nursery that is located at the top of the house. She is surrounded by ugly yellow wallpaper and barred windows. Disturbed by the wallpaper, she asks her husband for another room or different wallpaper however, he refuses. The woman becomes progressively unhappy as she is forced t occupy a room that she d espises. In this deprived environment, the pattern of the wallpaper becomes increasingly compelling.The figure of a woman begins to take shape behind the pattern of the paper. At night the pattern becomes bars, and the woman in the wallpaper is imprisoned. As her imagination worsens, she frantically rips off the paper in order to free the woman she perceives i... ...se of the phrase living paper is quite effective. I used this quote because it symbolizes the importance and the effect of this inanimate physical objects power over the tragic heroine. The word living is the most appropriate description for its power.Treichler, Paula She states, the female lineage that the wallpaper represents is thick with life, expression, and suffering (193)It summarizes some of the main themes of the narrative. It restates the gender-related struggle and captivity that captures the true essence of this story. 2)Shumaker, Conrad. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 37, 1990 p.195He states th at the husband is, fearful and contemptuous of her imaginative and artistic powers, generally because fails to understand them or the view of the world they lead her to. This quote describes the marital conflict between our heroine and her husband, hence the true struggle behind the story. 3)Lane, Ann J. To Herland and Beyond. 1990 p.130She states, frightened by the images of a baby, the one she has and the one she was. This quote expresses a symbolic comparison between the hopelessness and helplessness of the heroine and that of her child.

Globalization is only for Developed Countries Essay

In the 1990s, the term globalization gained the popularity. At that time, globalization had become phenomena with an aura of an primary(a) force, almost similar to that of time and gravity. In simple words Globalization means that the same products will be available in all the countries of the world. It in like manner means economic integration and a world united by the web. This glorious ideal made us think that if globalization would stay on with all its perks with falling mass barriers, leaving countries batter off economically and that it will reduce the widening gap between the rich and the poor.It was believed that the removal of the barriers to trade and foreign investment would result in a dynamic change in the way a company anywhere in the world would do business. It was hoped that the integration would prove beneficial to all. In the 1990s the iron curtain disappeared and trade barriers started falling, the gifts of several rounds of WTO, the Western and Japanese entrepr eneurs started looking far beyond in that location borders for highly beneficial deals, cheap labor new markets and a very big lot of new customers.Nobel Laureate, Stiglitz (2002) rightly interpreted the situations of developing countries in his exemplifying work Globalization and Its Discontents. He says Small developing countries are like elflike boats. Rapid capital market liberalization, in the manner pushed by the IMF, amounted to condition them off on a voyage on a rough sea, before the holes in their hulls have been repaired, before the captain has received training, before living vests have been put on board.Even in the best of circumstances, in that respect was a high likelihood that they would be overturned when they were hit broadside by a big wave (p. 17). With the end of World War II globalization started taking shape in a big way. In 1975, there were still only 7000 MNCs compared to more than 60000 to mean solar day. A maddening race for going global began from o pening up a two-man sales office to chalking out a countrywide network. Companies had to be big and they had to be universal.By the 1990s no one was alien to the charms of the phenomenon called globalization. The intellects of the world-entrepreneurs, economists, celebrities and politicians traveled around the world to tell us how small the world was getting. We were told to think globally and act locally. However, soon the reality dawned. The developed nations have discarded the moth-eaten policy and adopted an open-shutter strategy in make do with the developing nations.In the past they donned an apologetic camouflage and devised subtle and under-the-counter means to bring the developing countries round to their point of view, they at least adjudge their sensitivities and treated them as members, no matter how low-grade, of the homo sapiens species. But now they have thrown all pretence to the winds and, without mincing words, dictated their price to the developing world. Even Kipling had the decency to spell out the Western concern for the uncivilized people of the third world by treating them as the white mans burden.He was deeply committed to their improvement and had probably hatched some fantastic schemes to pull them out of their savage state. But the present day reformers make no bones about it. They shamelessly believe that the condition of the third world countries is simply irretrievable and no amount of logic and impression can help them out of their ugly predicament. Therefore they now rely on dictation as a prescription for their conversation and have oblige their brand of progress and prosperity spineless people of the third world. And they are least bothered about their preferences and priorities.

Evidence Based Claim Essay

Elizabeth Moschella male monarch and Obama make arguments against and for violence respectively however top executives rhetoric utilizes sense and values, or pathos, to advance his idea of a genuine civilization, while Obama uses logic and realism to advance his idea of facing the world as it is. Though King and Obama are accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for different reasons, we find that they connect through their words in a way that makes them seem as though they arent decades apart. Each acknowledges that the world as it is, the good and the bad alike, needs to change.King accepted his award for all of the nonviolent movements he has caused for the equality of blacks, yet he acknowledges that not all nonviolent movements end in nonviolence. Fighting for what is right bed often lead to wounded legal expert, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets (line 48). King even realizes that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bl oodshed (lines 53-54). It has beseem clear that King uses his emotion and religious values to get his point across to us he uses words with such a power that can persuade his listeners to believe anything.He manipulates our minds and speaks with such a certainty that seems to connect with us the same way Obama does using logic and realism. Obama accepted his award for his extraordinary efforts to lace international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. This means that he has accepted this prize for his efforts to make recreation in a place where it had seemed near impossible. Yet, Obama too addresses that peace cannot come about with only nonviolent actions. The world as it is is full of war and fighting for your beliefs. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand unfounded in the face of threats to the American people (lines 80-81).It is recognized that Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitlers armies. Negotiations cannot change al Qaedas leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism it is a apprehension of history the imperfections of man and the limits of reason (lines 81-85). Obama is using his way of logos when making these fact-based statements he is using a form of truth and logic to get a listener emotionally connected with the world and realizing all of the horrible events that occur everyday.In this way Obama and King are similar they both get the audience emotionally attached and moved by the words spoken. Anyone who listens to or reads either one of their acceptance speeches realizes how humble they both are about the prize, and are ashamed they didnt do more to help the violent world. In a way, King would be proud of how far Obama has gotten in the world. Going from a fight for justice led by King for black rights to Obama, a black, elected as the President of the United States, the world has taken a dramatic turn towards expect and prosperit y.

Do miracles still happen and how do they compare with those of the Acts of the Apostles? Essay

When studying the subject of miracles they must(prenominal)(prenominal) be approached with objective reason and when questioning the existence of miracles we must beginning(a) fully understand what the word miracle means.According to the Oxford English Dictionary a miracle is described as an extraordinary and welcome event attributed to a prophesy agency, a remarkable and very welcome occurrence or as an outstanding achieve ment. The word miracle originates from the Latin word miraculum meaning object of wonder. A miracle is a supernatural event that consists of divine intervention into the natural order as a demonstration of deitys power and mercy, all of these properties ar betn in the Acts of the Apostles as God does intervene in human events and they fag end be seen as responses and as a reward for credence.The Acts of the Apostles contains many miracles however all of these miracles atomic number 18 non the healing of those with demons but the spread of Christianity th rough the early church in both Paul and prickings missionary journeys. St. Paul can be seen by some as a fake apostle be bring on he was not one of the chosen twelve and thitherfore had not experienced a close blood with delivery boy, this is turn may have threatened the apostles at first. However St Paul managed to become one of the apostles greatest assets as he went on to teach to not only Jews but to pagans as well as. Because this man is my chosen instrument to bring my name before pagans and pagan kings and before the flock of Israel. Acts 915. This allowed the Christian church to grow as more bankrs were joining thus the Christian churchs faith began to grow.Two of the best known definitions of a miracle are that of St. Thomas Aquinas who believed in miracles and that John Stuart Mill who did not.St. Thomass definition of a miracle is thisA miracle is something beyond the order of created nature. Therefore since God all is not a created being, He also is the only One who can work miracles by His own power. In this the word nature can be used in three senses, it may mean all that exists, all created things, or all material things.John Stuart Mills definition of a miracle isA phenomenon not preceded by any antecedent phenomenal conditions sufficient again to reproduce it.This definition implies that there is nothing but the material ball in existence. It takes no account of the human will, still less of the will of God.The purpose of miracles in the late testament itself comes in two parts the first part is that they were used for confirmation as they confirmed who deliverer was and that Jesus and his apostles message was that of Gods, the second part is that they were gondolaried out in order to cause belief in the listeners in Jesus.In the New Testament we see confirmation that Jesus is in fact who he is said to be when we see the miracle in Acts 36 where tool and John are going to the temple and cure the lame man who is sitting as the beau tiful gate, slam says to the lame man I have neither silver nor gold, but I will give you what I have in the name of Jesus Christ, walk This incident brings us face to face with the question of miracles in apostolic prison terms and shows us that Jesus had the power to act miracles through his apostles.We also see within the New Testament that the miracles were carried out to cause belief in Jesus as in Acts 84-8 were those who escaped one of which was Philip from the intercept of Saul to Samaria proclaiming the Christ. The people united in welcoming the message Phillip preached, either because they had heard of the miracles he worked or because they saw them for themselves. Acts 86. This helps us understand that miracles or even the stories of miracles help us to believe in Jesus as the son of God.However people who believe that miracles do not fleet in todays society may argue about the existence of miracles that miraculous power was passed on by the laying on of the apostles cash in ones chipss and as no-one today could possibly qualify as an apostle of Jesus then no-one today could possibly have the power to perform miracles. Those who believe this refer to Acts 121-22 where it states that the apostles must therefore choose someone who has been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was travelling round with us right from the time when John was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us and he can act as a witness to his resurrection. These three conditions therefore conflict with any apply of miracles happening today.It is commonly agreed that miracles are the reward and result of faith however faith in God should not be based on miracles. They should be seen as the work of God rather than the essence of God. Moreover some people believe that if Jesus had not performed these miracles then their faith in him may not be as strong.In order to be able to perform a miracle the person wanting the miracle must have faith in God and those pe rforming the miracle must have a strong affinity with God, in order to have such a good relationship with God a person must pray in order to strengthen their relationship. Many people may say that in society today, there are those who have a fortify relationship with God such as Priests, Nuns and Monks. This may mean that they have the power to perform miracles however the person wanting the miracle may not have enough faith in God in order to support the miracle.An some other logical argument that could be used in order to prove that miracles do not occur today is that God confirmed his word through miracles, signs and wonders during Jesus life on earth therefore he does not need to reconfirm his existence to this generation as we have enough proof in scriptural readings in order to prove his existence.Although miracles benefited the individual, their true purpose was for confirmation, even though they were often motivated by compassion and belief of those observing.Today some people may believe that miracles still do happen but not in such a magnificent elbow room as they did back in the time of Jesus. People do nevertheless believe that in order to receive a miracle you must have a strengthened relationship with God through prayer and acting on spirit.Some people may argue with the second circumstance in the sense that they cannot strengthen their faith in God because there are no miracles today that allow them to expand their belief.On the other hand some would say that miracles still do happen today through the work that Doctors, surgeons etc. can do which in apostolic times would have been regarded as miracles.A modern miracle story would be that of an atheist couple and their lilliputian girl, the couple never told their daughter anything about the Lord. One night when the little girl was 5 years old, the parents fought with each other and the dad shot the Mother, in front of the child. Then, the dad shot himself. The little girl watched it all. S he then was sent to a foster home. The foster mother was a Christian and took the child to church. On the first day of Sunday school, the foster mother told the teacher that the girl had never heard of Jesus, and to have patience with her. The teacher held up a picture of Jesus and said, Does anyone know who this is? The little girl said, I do, thats the man who was holding me the night my parents died.In my eyes this ideal can be seen as a modern day miracle as it shows Jesus helping a little girl through a time of mourning and grief.A miracle found in Acts that can be seen to contrast to this modern day story would be that of the shipwreck in Acts 28. In this Paul, the centurion and his men all rely on God for strength through his intervention to Paul in Acts 2824 an angel appeared to Paul and told him Do not be afraid, Paul. You are destined to appear before Caesar, and for this reason God grants you the safety of all who are sailing with you.This contrasts with the modern day s tory of the little girl as they both show God giving strength to those in need.Another modern day miracle is this of Rowena Angell.Since 1982 Rowena was only able to walk laconic distances. By 1986 Rowena was using two walking sticks and to go any distance she had to use a wheelchair. The pain never went away.Life continued in this way until 1991 when Rowena was diagnosed as having Lupus. Just after Christmas in 1998 God told Rowena that she was going to be healed from the awful pain and a few weeks later Pastor Revd. Alan Clarredge told her that when she was christen she would be healed. Rowena had told no one what God had told her so she knew Alan was confirming what God had already told her.On Sunday the 20th January 2002, she with others went up to the front for prayer. The pastor was say by God to pray for healing for her. It was tremendous, amazing, the blessed Spirit was so strongAfter the meeting ended her Husband Henry went to get the car and as she walked to meet him, a voice said to Rowena why are you using your stick. She thought about that voice all the way home, was it material? Did she imagine it? When she talked it over with Henry, his reaction was to go in faith he said.Rowena went in faith and the pain has gone away for the first time in 27 years, the joy of waking in the morning with no pain. A few months later a test showed that there was no trace of Lupus in Rowenas body She was totally healedShe will never forget the pain she had and she will serve God with whatever he leads her to do, with joy in my heart she dedicates her life to Him to do, as He wills. Praise the Lord for He is merciful.These modern day miracles are very different from those at the time of Jesus and shortly after. They can be thought of as a persons calling or saving, this can impact highly on a persons life especially if they were not brought up with Christianity.In Acts 932-35 Peter heals Aeneas at Lydda. This miracle proves to Aeneas and all those who lived in Lydda and Sharon who were watching that Peter had a close relationship with Jesus and also shows how much power he had inherited from the Holy Spirit as instead of Peter saying I cure you Peter said to Aeneas Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you get up and fold up your sleeping mat.In this such miracle people today may believe that Peter was taking the glory of the work that Jesus Christ has performed through him as he says I cure you. Also in the modern day miracle the contour of Jesus suffering for all of mankind on the cross can be seen to some as the sign that it was Jesus who performed this miracle.On the other hand in the miracle which Peter performed on Tabitha in Acts 926-43 the women is not healed in by Peter however it was in the name of Jesus which helps people understand that the miracles that are happening both today and in the time of the New Testament are performed through the power of Jesus.William Barclay argued that miracles can happen obscure from we think too much of what we can do and too little about what Jesus Christ can do through us.Miracles altogether shape a huge role on the church today as they are an important part of individuals religion as it gives them something to believe in that only Christ is able to do. I personally believe that these modern day miracles allow peoples faith in God to be strengthened as it allows us to understand that if we need it even if we do not want it God will be there for us.Both of these miracles found in Acts are important to Christians today as they are a sign of Gods power, they also show that Jesus lives and has power through the Holy Spirit and the invocation of his name.David Hume however is the arch-enemy of miracles who said that A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature he also said that It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die suddenly because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a similar experience against every miraculous event otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.However I do not agree with Davids Humes views and myself I believe that a miracle is a God-powered supernatural event.Overall I believe miracles today and miracles in Acts of the Apostles contrast well with each other as they are both God centred and can be directed at both believers and non-believers.Bibliographywww.oxfordonline.comhttp//religion.krishna.org/Articles/http//www.byfaith.co.uk/paulmiracleWilliam Barclay the new daily study bible Acts of the apostlesThe Jerusalem bible new testamenthttp//www.katapi.org.uk/ChristianFaith/XVIII.htm

Efficient Market Hypothesis and Behavioral Finance †Is a Compromise in Sight

Legend has it that once upon the season 2 economists were walking together when matchless of them saw something that struck his creative thinker. Look, he exclaimed, heres a great research topic Nonsense, the other one said, If it were, someone would stupefy written a paper on it by now. For a long time this attitude governed the view of economists toward the gestate commercialize. Economists simply believed that the stock grocery store was non a proper subject for serious field of operation.Indeed, near of the pre-1960 research on protective cover worths was actu exclusivelyy done by statisticians. The Pre-History Statistical Research Most of the early statistical research of the stock commercialiseplace concentrated around the analogous caput are security footings serially correlated? Do security prices fall a random walk? Are prices on any given twenty-four hour period as likely to go up as they are to go down? A number of studies concluded that successive da ily changes in stock prices are mostly independent. There awaited to be no pattern that could predict the future direction of price meltments.One of the most enkindle (and currently relevant) research projects of that antecedent era was undertaken by Harry Roberts, a statistician at the University of Chicago. In his paper, Stock take noneet Patterns and Financial Analysis, published in the ledger of pay in 1959, Roberts wrote If the stock market behaved like a mechanically imperfect roulette wheel, people would notice the imperfections and, by acting on them, remove them. This rationale is appealing, if for no other reason than its value as counterweight to the popular view of stock market irrationality, besides it is obviously incomplete.Roberts generated a series of random numbers pool and plotted the results to see whether any patterns that were know to technical analysts would be visible. Figure 1 provides an poser of Roberts plot cost-effective Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A agree In draw? Figure 1. Simulated stock price path Those somewhat acquainted with technical patterns might recognize a familiar head and shoulders variantation, which technical analysts believe to be one of the surest indicators of a trend reversal. At this point, the reader may take pause. Are these stock price patterns of value or not?If they work even on decidedly random series, isnt there a contradiction? Maybe not. Consider a hypothetical example of a stock price path in Figure 2. If tomorrow the price of this stock goes down, there pull up stakes be a clearly visible head and shoulders pattern, which should signal a trend reversal. If, however, the price goes up, the resulting formation will look more like a pennant pattern, which, consort to market technicians, signals the re hotal of the trend. In other words, technical patterns are easy to see only when when it is too late to act on them. P P t Figure 2. Hypothetical example of technical patte rns formation tToday, anyone can replicate Roberts results using a common spreadsheet program. In his popular textbook, Financial Modeling, Simon Benninga of the Wharton parentage School devotes an entire chapter to simulating stock price paths using Microsoft Excel. 2 competent Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A compromise In Sight? Returning to Harry Roberts, his paper turned show up to be almost prophetic in one major respect. He wrote Perhaps the traditional pedantic suspicion nearly the stock market as an object of scholarly research will be overcome. As we shall see during the rest of this presentation, Roberts was right.The Pre-History CRSP Another change factor for the soon-to-follow boom in stock market research was provided by an initially slim outfit based at the University of Chicago, the Center for Research in Securities Prices (CRSP). CRSP was established by James H. Lorie in 1960 and provided comprehensive data on all stocks traded on the New York Sto ck Exchange since 1926. From day one, CRSP data were available in machine-readable form, a rare and pleasant occurrence to anyone involved in economic research at the time. Also important is the fact that CRSP data contained a negligibly small number of errors.Overall, CRSP database was one of the richest data sets available. Everything was ready for a revolution. Indeed, the revolution was soon to begin. The Origin of the Efficient Market Hypothesis The introduction of the term effective market is commonly attributed to Eugene Fama. In his 1965 paper, Random Walks in Stock Market Prices, published in the Financial Analysts Journal, Fama pertains, among other things, his earlier study of serial correlational statisticss in daily price changes of 30 stocks that comp fountain the Dow Jones Industrial Average index (The Behavior of Stock Market Prices).He concluded that daily changes had a very small positive correlation, approaching zero for practical purposes. The stock market se emed to work in a way that allowed all knowledge reflected in past prices to be incorporated into the current price. In other words, the market in effect(p)ly processed the information contained in past prices. Fama defined an cost-effective market as a market where there are large numbers of rational profit maximizers actively competing, with each toilsome to predict future market values of case-by-case securities, and where important current information is almost freely available to all referenceicipants. Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A compromise In Sight? Note that this description is very similar to that of a perfectly agonistical market out of a microeconomics textbook. And in a perfectly competitive market, every seller earns a normal profit, i. e. , the amount of profit sufficient to stay in business, but insufficient to attract a competitor. If we assume that this is legitimate of the stock market, it follows that any new information that beco mes available to the market will be very quickly reflected in the prices.Otherwise, there will be opportunities for insane returns. In Famas own words, In an efficient market, on the average, competition will cause the full effects of new information on inseparable values to be reflected instantaneously in actual prices. The efficient market assumption has been formulated. The time has come to test it. Tests of Market Efficiency in the sixties A number of several(predicate) approaches were used to test the efficient market hypothesis. One of the most obvious ones was to do more studies on serial correlation of security prices.A variation of this approach would be to test various avocation strategies recommended by technical analysts to see if they have any enthronization value. both(prenominal) have been tried, and invariably came back with mostly shun results. An interesting area of research dealt with the nature of return distributions. There are some clearly visible asym metries in stock returns. If we look at the ten biggest one-day movements in S&P 500 index since 1947, nine of them would be declines. The market crash of October 1987 resulted in a negative return that was 20 modular deviations away from the mean.It turned out that stock returns are not normally distributed. They follow some sort of distribution, but, to our knowledge, no one has figured out what kind of distribution it is. On several occasions, stable Paretian distribution and Student t-distribution were establish to be better approximations than the normal distribution. unneeded to say, this poses a huge methodological problem for researchers who, for lack of a better assumption, are still assuming normal distributions for drawing statistical inferences. An important discovery in testing market efficiency came with the advent of the event study methodology.In an event study, researchers take a sample of similar events that occurred in different companies at different times an d determine how, on average, this event impacted the stock price. And what would a researcher expect to see as the outcome of an event study? Assuming that we are studying favorable events, the outcome would depend on whether or not the event is anticipated by the market and, of course, on whether or not the market is efficient. In all cases, we would expect the stock price to go up. The question is, when? 4Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A agree In Sight? Consider an unanticipated event first. If the market were efficient, the stock price would adjust up(a) very quickly. If not efficient, it will drift upward for some time following the event (see Figure 3). P Efficient Market P Inefficient Market situation Time t occurrence Time t Figure 3. Market chemical reaction to an unanticipated favorable event If the event were anticipated, the price would drift upward for some time onward the event, and, in an efficient market, likely stabilize on the event date ( see Figure 4). PEfficient Market P Inefficient Market Event Time t Event Time t Figure 4. Market reaction to an anticipated favorable event The first event study was designed and conducted by Eugene Fama, Lawrence Fisher, Michael Jensen, and Richard Roll. Their article, The registration of Stock Prices to New Information, was published in the International Economic Review in 1969 and quickly earned itself a nickname, the FFJR study. FFJR studied the stock market reaction to announcements of stock splits. Typically, stock splits are believed to be seemingly inexplicable good news for investors.One possible reason was reported by FFJR themselves they found that 72% of firms in their sample announced above-average dividend emergences in the year after the split. Stock splits seemed to signal future dividend increases. (Actually, the term signaling was proposed in the early 1970s by Michael Spence, who won the 2001 Nobel prize for, among other things, his research on signaling in lab or markets. ) 5 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? What FFJR found is that, on average, stock prices around the date of the split behaved as shown in Figure 5. Figure 5.Averaged stock price writ of execution around the split date According to FFJR findings, the market begins to anticipate a stock split more than two years before it actually happens and figures out the consequences of the split the day it is announced. The event study techniques were further refined by other researchers. Some of the research designs are quite clever. A bizarre example appeared in a 1985 article in the Journal of Accounting and Economics by conjuring trickson, Magee, Nagarajan, and Newman. The title of the article, An Analysis of the Stock Price Reaction to Sudden executive Deaths, is self-explaining.The authors found that unexpected CEO deaths are associated with stock price decreases. However, in cases when the CEO was the alliance founder, the stock marke t tends to react by a price increase, begging the inference that the ability to create a business is different from the ability to run one. The efficacy of passkey investors is another enduring question. Can they, on average, provide better investment exercise? The research here was focused primarily on vulgar monetary resource. Regrettably, most professional money managers are not able to provide superior returns.By 1975, the preponderance of evidence argued that markets were efficient. Statistical studies showed that technical analysis did not add value (consistent with the weak form of market efficiency). Event studies found that the market quickly reacts to new information (consistent with the semi-strong form of market efficiency). And studies of professional investors performance made a strong case for the strong form market efficiency. Tests of Market Efficiency after 1975 As more and more researchers tested the efficient market hypothesis, some rather controversial evide nce began to appear. Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? In 1976, Rozeff and Kinney published their article on stock market seasonality. They found that January stock returns were higher than in any other month. In 1981, Gibbons and Hess reported the Monday effect stock prices tended to go down on Mondays. Both of these findings were clearly self-contradictory with the weak-form market efficiency. Interestingly enough, Gibbons and Hess noticed that the Monday effect seemed to decrease over time (see Figure 6).Figure 6. The Monday effect In the nine-year period of 1962-1970, the S&P 500 returned or so -0. 16% on an average Monday. In the following nine-year period, 1970-1978, the S&P 500 would only drop by 0. 10% on average. It appears that the effect has been known to some market participants for a while, and they were taking advantage of this private information, which, in turn, caused their gains to decrease over time. A growing body of r esearch indicated that profitable survival of the fittest rules could be based on publicly available information.In particular, stocks with low price- remuneration ratio and high dividend yield outperformed the market. And, while small capitalization stocks have a great risk than large-cap stocks, the return premium seemed to be too large for the degree of additional risk taken. The discovery of these and other market anomalies prompted the editorial get along with of the Journal of Financial Economics to publish a special issue in June 1978 on a dozen of those market anomalies. An unexpected blow to the efficient market hypothesis came from academic economists.In 1980, Sanford Grossman and Joseph Stiglitz published their article On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets in the American Economic Review. They argued that if all relevant information were reflected in market prices, market agents would have no incentive to acquire the information on which prices are based. This line of reasoning came to be known as Grossman-Stiglitz enigma and, along with his other parts, earned Joseph Stiglitz his Nobel prize in 2001. The empirical research, of course, did not stop there. 7Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? In 1981, Henry Oppenheimer tested stock selection criteria developed by Benjamin Graham. Most of us probably know Ben Graham as the author of the classic, Security Analysis, but he also wrote another, somewhat less technical, book, called The Intelligent Investor. In each new edition of the book, Graham updated his investment advice to his readers, whom he called defensive investors. Oppenheimer back-tested this advice as if he purchased every edition of The Intelligent Investor and acted on it after reading it.It turned out that Grahams advice did have probatory value. Moreover, it actually had more value than Graham himself claimed. In 1982, Rendelman, Jones, and Latane published their article, Empirical Anomalies Based on Unexpected Earnings and the Importance of the Risk Adjustments, in the Journal of Financial Economics. They studied earnings surprises and their effect on the stock price. They divided their sample into ten categories (deciles in statistical parlance) according to how positive or negative the earnings surprise was.Then they calculated averaged price paths for stocks in each decile. Figure 7 presents a summary of their findings. Figure 7. Stock price paths around earnings announcement by decile While the market did react to earnings surprises quickly, the prices also drifted in the direction of the earnings surprise following the announcement. In other words, the market commonly underreacts to the quarterly earnings announcements. This apprises the validity of an earnings momentum strategy (buying stocks that just had a positive earnings surprise).A number of later studies produced results consistent with this thinking. However, in a somewhat puzzling tw ist, there were studies which suggested that the stock market actually overreacts to certain announcements. In 1981, Robert Shiller published his article, Do Stock Prices Move Too lots to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends? in the American Economic Review and concluded that they do. This phenomenon came to be known as excess capriciousness. 8 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight?In 1985, Werner De Bondt and Richard Thaler published their article, Does the Stock Market react? in the Journal of Finance. Their conclusion was that the stock market tends to overreact to long series of bad news. So by 1985, there were enough anomalies discovered to naughtily doubt the validity of the efficient market hypothesis. Reconciling the Theory and the Reality This is a good point at which to consider the efficient market hypothesis and identify those assumptions that may be inconsistent with reality as we know it.First of all, as ironic as it sounds, there is no way to test market efficiency per se. We can only test a joint hypothesis stating that, first, the market is efficient in equating asset prices with their inherent values, and, second, we know what the intrinsic values are i. e. , we have a perfect asset pricing model. Whenever an anomaly is found, we dont know (and have no way of knowing) which part of this joint hypothesis did not work. Returning to Famas definition of an efficient market, he assumes that important current information is almost freely available to all participants.This appears to be an accurate assumption however, both the processing of this information and the subsequent action have associated costs. An institutional investor must(prenominal) hire security analysts and portfolio managers. Even an somebody investor faces an opportunity cost with every portfolio evaluation. Both face transactional costs large portfolios, in addition, may be subject to additional costs caused by market impact. The transactional cost considerations prompted Michael Jensen to argue that an efficient market should adjust prices within limits imposed by the cost of trading.In his 1978 paper, Some Anomalous Evidence Regarding Market Efficiency, published in the Journal of Financial Economics, he insisted that if, for example, transactional costs are 1%, an abnormal return of 1% must be considered within the bounds of efficiency. Indeed, if inefficiency cannot be exploited for profit net of costs, is the market really inefficient? This, of course, begs a question what is the level of transactional costs at which we can no longer call a market efficient in spite of its being within the bounds of efficiency?There may also be some effects caused by the way security prices are reported (market micro construction effects, in the financial economics lingo). A typical research assumption has been that trades can be executed at the closing price as recorded by a data provider such(prenominal) as CRS P. However, the average NYSE-AMEX stock has a quoted bid-ask spread of round 3%. For NYSE-AMEX stocks priced under $5, the average spread is about 6%. In addition, sometimes it is impossible to execute at quoted spreads because of il liquidness or market impact. 9 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight?In fact, Donald Keim used hardly this argument to explain the January effect. In his 1989 paper, calling Patterns, Bid-Ask Spreads, and Estimated Security Returns, published in the Journal of Financial Economics, he reported that stocks tend to closedown near the bid in late December, but close prices move toward the ask in early January (although we still have to come up with the explanation of why it happens). Also, there is a laconic- sell issue. In an efficient market, scam sales are unrestricted. In reality, 70% of mutual funds state in their prospectus that they will never engage in a short sale.Interestingly enough, recent empirical ev idence seems to suggest that, while undervalued investments are hard to come by, overvalued ones are much more common. For example, a 1999 article by Mark Finn, Russell Fuller, and John Kling, Equity Mispricing Its Mostly on the Short Side, in the Financial Analysts Journal concludes that in 1983-1998 overvalued large-cap U. S. stocks tended to be overpriced by as much as four times the amount of underpricing observed in undervalued large-cap U. S. stocks. Finally, there is the unavoidable issue of investor heterogeneity. Investors are not identical.Even if they have precisely the same information available to them, they are likely to interpret it differently. More importantly, they tend to act on it differently. One obvious example is tax status. Tax-exempt, tax-deferred, and dutiable investors acting rationally will often choose different courses of action when presented with the same problem. Liquidity needs can also play a role. disquisition more broadly, is Fama-style rationa l profit maximizing the only possible model of investor behavior? Are there other models? This, of course, leads us straight into the brave new world of behavioral finance.An Alternative Behavioral Model? Since the early 1980s, there has been a movement toward incorporating more behavioral science into finance. The proponents of behavioral finance cite several key areas where the reality seems to be most at odds with the efficient market hypothesis. One is the excess volatility problem that we discussed above. Price movements seem to be much greater than an efficient market would allow. A related puzzle is that of trading volume. If everyone knows that everyone (including themself) is rational, then every trader might wonder what information the seller has that the buyer doesnt, and vice versa.Figuring out exactly how little trading should be occurring under the efficient market hypothesis is difficult, because people have liquidity and rebalancing needs, but the proponents of behav ioral finance believe it is safe to say that a billion or so shares a day on NYSE but is a little more than one should expect in an efficient market. 10 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? Next is the great dividend puzzle. In a perfect world according to Modigliani and Miller, investors should be indifferent between dividends and capital gains.In the real world, because of the structure of the U. S. tax system, investors should prefer capital gains to dividends, and companies should prefer share repurchases to dividends. At the same time, most large companies do pay dividends. In addition, stock prices tend to rise when dividends are increased or initiated. The current literature treats dividends as yet another instance of signalingcompanies that increase or initiate dividends send a signal of their financial health to the investors. Another puzzle is that of the equity premium.Historically, this benefit has been much greater than can be exp lained by risk alone. (To the defense of the efficient market hypothesis, the equity premium implied in dividend yields tends to be significantly lower. ) Finally, it seems that future returns can, at least partially, be predicted on the basis of various historic measures such as price-earnings and price-to-book ratios, earnings surprises, dividend changes, or share repurchases. However, in spite of all these irregularities, real-world portfolio managers are still having a hard time trying to beat the market.Most of the studies of mutual funds and pension fund performance still show that, on average, active managers do no better than the market. Moreover, good performance this year organizedally fails to predict good performance next year. With this in mind, lets examine the case for behavioral finance. First of all, what is behavioral finance? In short, it postulates that investors have cognitive biases. What is a cognitive bias? Simply put, it is an imperfection in human percept ion of reality. (Have you ever noticed how much bigger the moon looks when it is just above the opinion compared to when it is high? Here are a few of the most common cognitive biases in finance. Mental accounting. It seems that the majority of people perceive a dividend dollar bill differently from a capital gains dollar. Dividends are perceived as an addition to disposable income capital gains usually are not. Biased expectations. People tend to be overconfident in their predictions of the future. If security analysts believe with an 80% confidence that a certain stock will go up, they are right about 40% of the time. Between 1973 and 1990, earnings forecast errors have been anywhere between 25% and 65% of actual earnings.Reference dependence. Investment decisions seem to be affected by an investors reference point. If a certain stock was once trading for $20, then dropped to $5 and finally recovered to $10, the investors propensity to increase holdings of this stock will depend on whether the previous purchase was made at $20 or $5. 11 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? Representativeness heuristic. In cognitive psychology this term means simply that people tend to judge Event A to be more probable than Event B when A appears more representative than B.In finance, the most common instance of representativeness heuristic is that investors mistake good companies for good stocks. impregnable companies are well-known and in most cases fairly valued. Their stocks, therefore, may not have a significant upside potential. One of the most peculiar manifestations of cognitive biases in finance is the reluctance to realize losses. Investors seem to have a problem admitting to themselves that they have made a mistake and avoid selling securities at a loss, even though such sale has some tax incentives.Now, what are the implications of behavioral finance for the markets? In his 1999 article, The End of Behavioral Finance, publ ished in the Financial Analysts Journal, Richard Thaler offers this simple model Suppose a market has two kinds of investors rational investors (rationals), who behave like agents in economics textbooks, and quasi-rational investors (quasis), people who are trying to make good investment decisions but make predictable mistakes. Suppose also that two assets in this market, X and Y, are objectively worth the same amount but cannot be transformed from one into the other.Finally, assume that the quasis think X is worth more than Y, an opinion that could change (quasis often change their minds) while rationals know that X and Y are worth the same. What conditions are necessary to assure that the prices of X and Y will be the same, as they would be in a world with only rational investors? This question is complex, but some of the essential conditions are the following. First, in dollar-weighted terms, such a market cannot have too many quasis (in order for the rational investor to be marg inal).Second, the market must allow costless short selling (so that if prices get too high, the rationals can drive them down). Third, only rational investors can sell short otherwise, the quasis will short Y when the two prices are the same because they believe X is worth more than Y. Fourth, at some date T, the true relationship between X and Y must become clear to all investors. Fifth, the rationals must have long horizons, long enough to include date T. These conditions are tough to meet.Thaler seems to suggest that the belief by quasi-rational investors that certain assets are undervalued may lead to an asset bubble, which will burst as soon as quasi-rational investors sentiment changes. (Did somebody say Internet? ) wherefore is behavioral finance important? 12 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? As most marketers know, any product has its unique set of utilitarian and valueexpressive characteristics. The value-expressive characteristic s are the most visible in jewelry and almost absent in laundry detergents.An interesting question to ask, then, is, do investments have value-expressive characteristics? If they do, we should not be surprised that pricing differences exist between otherwise identical investments, based entirely on their value-expressive characteristics. A casual look at stock exchange advertisements suggests a positive answer to this question. The NYSE promotes itself as solid, while NASDAQ claims it is innovative. A review of mutual funds marketing can also give us a few insights. In 1983, Fidelity Investments put Charles Jarvie in charge of marketing its mutual funds.Prior to fall in Fidelity, Jarvie marketed Tide and Pringles at Procter Gamble. Jarvie immediately noticed two deficiencies in Fidelitys marketing. Fidelitys flagship product, the Magellan fund, was not advertised as Fidelity Magellan the company was underemphasizing its brand name. Also, almost no attention was paid to cross-sellin g. Under Jarvies leadership, Fidelity redefined itself as a family of funds and built itself one of the strongest brands in the financial services industry. Other mutual fund companies followed quickly.Even more interesting are the studies of investment clubs. Over 35,000 of these clubs exist in the United States. An investment club usually includes 10-15 members (friends, co-workers, or relatives) who, on average, contribute $25 a month to the clubs account. In 1998, Brad Barber and Terrance Odean of the University of California at Davis studied performance of 166 investment clubs that had accounts with a large brokerage firm and found that 60% of the clubs lagged the market. The average underperformance was 3. 8% a year. So it seems that investment clubs lack utilitarian characteristics.What about value-expressive ones? Also in 1998, Brooke Harrington of Harvard University studied the identity formation in investment clubs. Her sample included three clubs an all-mens club where al l members were sports car hobbyists, an all-womens club where all members belonged to the American Association of University Women, and a mixed-gender club where all members met each other through a church singles group. She concluded that investment clubs are also social clubs. In terms of our marketing approach, they do have strong value-expressive characteristics.The importance of behavioral finance and its role in the professionals decision making process appears self-evident. While it may fail to enhance our capacity to beat the market, it can help us understand the beliefs and motivations of our clients and cleanse the service provided. Is a Compromise in Sight? Are the differences between traditional finance and behavioral finance irreconcilable? Recent literature suggest a negative answer to this question. 13 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? One the one hand, the sensible proponents of behavioral finance recognize the limitations o f this approach.Meir Statman of Santa Clara University said it best Market efficiency has two meanings. To some, market efficiency means that there is no systematic way to beat the market. To others, it means that security prices are rational that is, reflect only fundamental or utilitarian characteristics, such as risk, but not psychological or value-expressive characteristics, such as sentiment I argue that finance scholars and professionals would do well to accept market efficiency in the beat-the-market sense, but reject it in the rational-pricing sense.On the other hand, the standard finance begins to produce some research that models effects of opinion differences. Earlier, we talked about the seemingly excessive trading volumes. It appears that trading volume varies directly with the difference in investors opinions. Figure 8 provides a simple Marshallian cross analysis of a widening difference in opinions. Both supply and demand for a particular security shift to the right as both number of buyers and number of sellers increase.While the effect on price cannot be determined without additional information such as relative magnitude of shifts in supply and demand, the volume is bound to increase. P (price) S S D D Q0 Q1 Q (volume) Figure 8. Opinion difference and trading volume An interesting thing to discuss here would be the work of Joseph Chen and Harrison Hong of Stanford University and Jeremy Stein of Harvard billet School. In their 1999 paper, Differences of Opinion, Rational Arbitrage and Market Crashes, Hong and Stein propose the following model. 14 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight?There are two investors, A and B, and a class of fully rational, risk-neutral arbitrageurs. A and B each receive a different private signal affecting their rational perception of the value of the same stock. Both signals are useful, but A only pays attention to his signal, even if that of B is revealed to him, and vice versa. Arbitrageurs, on the other hand, recognize that the best estimate of the stocks value is to be found by averaging both signals. However, if A and B face short sale constraints and the signals they receive are negative, the arbitrageurs simply will not see those signals.In other words, the negative private information will not have any effect on market price. This is consistent with the empirical research findings of equity mispricing being mostly on the short side. So if the arbitrageurs only hear the good news, the stock price may well be trending up, until some of the arbitrageurs begin to suspect overvaluation and take short positions in the stock. As a result, the trading volume would increase, reflecting the increasing difference of opinion among the arbitrageurs. If the stream of good news consequently ceases or private signals of A and/or B become public information, the stock price would collapse.In a later paper, Forecasting Crashes, Chen, Hong and Stein found that the pro bability of a crash is positively correlated with an increase in trading volume relative to trend over prior six months and positive returns over the prior thirty-six months. Overall, it appears that many stock market anomalies can be explained through either behavioral biases or institutional imperfections. In fact, Richard Thaler suggests applying the behavioral model to institutional investing and corporate finance. What immediately comes to mind here is a Nobel-winning economist Herbert Simon and his 1947 book, Administrative Behavior.Here is how the outcome of Simons research was summarized by the Nobel committee He rejects the assumption made in the classic system of the firm as an omniscient, rational, profit-maximizing entrepreneur. He replaces this entrepreneur by a number of cooperating decision makers, whose capacities for rational action are limited, both by a lack of knowledge about the total consequences of their decisions, and by personal and social ties. A classic e xample of this approach is a 1956 paper by John Lintner, Distribution of Incomes of Corporations among Dividends, Retained Earnings, and Taxes, published in the American Economic Review.Lintner started by interviewing the corporate executives about their dividend policy decisions. These interviews led him to a very simple model. Companies move the dividend toward a desired payout ratio, but try to avoid having to cut the dividend. This model remains an accurate description of dividend policy to this day. Conclusion We conclude this presentation by quoting Meir Statman 15 Efficient Market Hypothesis And Behavioral FinanceIs A Compromise In Sight? People are rational in standard finance they are normal in behavioral finance.Rational people care about utilitarian characteristics, but not valueexpressive ones, are never confused by cognitive errors, have perfect selfcontrol, are always averse to risk, and are never averse to regret. Normal people do not obediently follow that pattern. S tandard finance asks for too much when it asks for market efficiency in the rational sense, and investment professionals ask for too much when they insist that the primary contribution of behavioral finance is its potential help in beating the market.

God Hates Divorce Essay

When Adam was al iodin The LORD perfection said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I get out make a helper suitable for him .Gen.218. Under marriage covenant man and woman come together to serve a worshipful purpose and a role. human beings can serve this purpose and role only if they are united and married. The mowork forcet they get disjointd the unity is destroyed and they fail to serve the divine purpose and role that graven image wants them to fulfill while they are married and united. beau ideal gave a command to the first couple in the Garden of enlighten ment to be fruitful.This command of graven image only a couple can carry let out and the moment they get divorced they fail to carry out this divine command and we have to keep in mind that this command was given to men before their fall and even after the fall men are bound to keep this command. This shows us how important is this command and why God hates divorce so much. The failure to keep the first command bear upon the whole human race for generation after generations, the failure to keep this second command will also affect the human race generation after generations and even it will cause the mankind to stop be in existence. This is another reason why God hates divorce so much.When men get divorced they forget their first love. Marriage is a love relationship. When man is angry he cannot make a right decision. An angry heading cannot evaluate the relationship that was made by a loving heart. Anger makes a man blind and leads him to the bottomless pit and that is divorce. Divorce is the worst hell in this world, the moment anyone falls into it he will be separated from his spouse, children, friends and families and from God. This is the darkest pit that will show no tenderness and kindness to its victims. Life will be meaningless and worthless. You will be a creature without hope and future. A lonely man cannot succeed in anything he is fruitless and uneffective to God and to society.All the sweet memories turn into bitterness. so it becomes easier for that psyche to get into more and more sins as there is no one to show him his stigma and give account to for all the wrong doings. Divorce affects our relationship with God, our relationship with one another, our relationship with the children and our relationship with the society. God cannot use a divorce soul to reflect His glory and to show His image to His people. That person turns into an instrument of devil. There are so many reasons for all wise and all knowing God to hate divorce. God with His infinite wisdom can see the infinite danger that lies in divorce. Man cannot see the infinite danger that lies in divorce that is why man can take this decision of divorce without much thinking and considerations.God in His infinite wisdom and knowledge gives us the person that will be best suitable for us. We take it granted that suitable means comfortable. Something could be very suitable for us but at the a interchangeable(p) condemnation it could be very painful and uncomfortable. The spouse you have is always suitable for you because God gave you this spouse. God took this responsibility from the very beginning to give us suitable spouse. The spouse we have is the best teacher for us given by God in our life to teach us something that no one can teach and to make us useful for God and for man. It takes a lot of pain, patience, humility and suffering to learn through our spouses to be more like deliverer Christ and God.Every time my wife gets angry with me or sins against me I ask God what lesson do you have to teach me today. Every time I can see that God has something to teach me through her anger. She does the same thing but I learn so many different lessons, at the beginning I get hurt then I rejoice when I can see what God has to teach me today through her anger. Then I feel very sorry for her because she took so much pain and suffering to teach me a lesson that nobody co uld teach me. Then I began to thank and praise God for her. We need to see what God wants us to see and to understand what God wants us to understand.God in His sovereignty allows us to go through all the bitter and painful experiences to make us more like Jesus and to draw us nearer to Him and to teach us how God feels when we sin against Him. We need to learn how to bow down to the sovereignty of God and to stop bow down to sin or to give in to sin. God hates the sin of divorce because He does not like separation or division. Divorce is the worst ingratitude towards Gods greatest gift and arouse in our life. The moment we stop giving thanks and praises to God for our spouses we are on the way to be ingratitude for the gift that God by His mercy and kindness gave us.Our Lord Jesus suffered and died on the cross and chose to be separated from God to keep us united with one another and with God. Our Lord Jesus chose to suffer and die to keep us united and one. So we must choose to s uffer and die to remain united, one and married for the sake of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.

India Against Corruption Essay

According to the Oxford Dictionary, putrescence is dish onenesssty and illegal behavior by people in positions of authority or power. India was ranked 94th out of 176 countries in Transp arncy Internationals, Corruption Perception Index, 2012 on 5th December, 2012. Most of us may have had, at close to point or the other in our life, a firsthand experience of offering bribes, using our contacts or influencing people to get work done in government offices or to get jobs in the public sector. Therefore, corruption is not a new term for anyone. As far as handling or trying to stall corruption in India is concerned, one needs to get to the root cause of corruption, and then try to cut the roots in coiffure to handle the whole entity. Another way of curbing corruption is to limit the role of the government in various fields.The causes of corruption in India include overweening regulations, improper tax structure, complicated licensing systems, lack of transparency in the laws, monopoly by some of the government institutions, discretionary powers in the hands of government departments. In wander to handle corruption, one needs to aim at removing these causes. Social activists like Anna Hazare have been working against corruption, but not much success has been achieved. But are these entities really working in the interest of the people is an issue that needs to be pondered upon. It has also been pointed that many prominent figures have had illegal money in the Swiss Banks such things have been widely covered on the social media, but nevertheless have gone unheeded. Anti corruption laws, Anti corruption police and courts, Anti corruption organizations all exist in India.These have been formed to bring corruption to a manageable level so that one can give a thought to eliminating corruption. According to some economists, corruption adversely affects the growth rate. It has devastating consequences on the economy. Therefore efforts moldiness be taken to stall it. I f there is less of red tape, bribery is eliminated, reduction in interference of government in the private sector is ensured, there is ethical bureaucratism and a proper tax structure and licensing system is ensured and most importantly stringent action against corrupt officials is taken Corruption can be managed to a certain level. A mass movement though can also be the remedy, just like the one that Mahatma Gandhi led during independence. Since charity begins at home, we must try to check ourselves before we point fingers at others and therefore not indulge in any corrupt malpractices.

American and British Labor

The dramatic rise of the British Labor Party to the position of His Majestys opposition in the House of Commons has focused the care of the entire Western world upon the British churn suit. On the benches where Burke and Gladstone once sat in that respect are now over one ampere-second forty miners, machinists, weavers, boiler charterrs and on the job(p) class leaders ready to take over the government of grand Britain if the conservative parties fail.The movement which has brought the British croaking class to the thresh-old of power is not the sudden spurt of a handful of insurrectionists workings upon the discontent of the people. It is a conscious and highly organized section of the state moving deliberately toward a tender kind of industrial and political society.The movement has tremendous significance for America because it is a movement of kindred peoples, speaking a common talking to and struggling in the midst of industrial problems which are not unlike the problem s of America. What British labor does in one decade may be do in America in the next. To understand the British labor movement it is well to note first of all that it is a movement of one hundred and twenty-five geezerhood growth. Many of the issues which are today vital in the American labor movement were disposed of fifty years ago in Great Britain.When America was still predominantly an agricultural country Great Britain had passed through the first and worst stages of the Industrial Revolution. With the introduction of powerdriven machinery great meter of workers were brought in concert under one employer in factories and mills. They were forced to work fifteen and eighteen hours a day for wages that would now be refused by an errand boy.They excite unions and went on strikes only to be beaten, imprisoned and exiled. When they demanded a ten-hour day they were denounced as criminals. When they formed a picket line, they were imprisoned for intimidation. Although temporarily defeated in measure of industrial depression they did not lose courage. Step by step they won the right to organize, the right to strike, collective bargaining, political power in the state, the simplification of hours, the enormous increase of wages, and a measure of joint control over working conditions.Every forward step which the British workers have taken has been bitter fought by the employing classes and has been conceded only when labor demonstrated its superior economic or political power. With such a background of struggle the British labor movement is not a delicate thing. It does not depend on employers sanctions it is not concerned about its respectability. It is proud with the pride of a hard won success.The shew of the undertaking PartyFrom the back bedroom of Ramsay MacDonalds house in No. 3 Lincolns Inn Field to the front benches of fan tan in twenty years the Labor Party has come. Its growth is the most inspiring achievement of the British labor movement. It is a party of manual and brain workers, controlled by workers and led by workers. Fifty years ago there was no indication that the workers would ever reject the old parties and create a party of their own.The growth of the idea of a separate labor party was at first painfully slow. In 1892 Kier Hardie sat alone as the first independent worker to be take to the House of Commons. He helped to organize the Independent Labor Party, a group of vigorous young socialists who set about to convert the trade unions to believe in the political action of labor. By 1900 they had so far succeeded that the Trades Union Congress appointed a Labor Representation Committee.Since the formation of this committee, the power of labor in politics has steadily grown. The Labor Party, officially formed in 1906, startled the country in that year by electing 29 members to Parliament. In 1910 the party elected 42 members and in 1918 about 70. In November, 1922, the Labor Party returned 144 representatives an d some 10,000 local and municipal officials. If the increase in the Labor Party choose continues to be as rapid as it was in the years from 1900 to 1922, Great Britain will have a clear majority of labor voters by 1926. The labor votes have increased from 62,000 socialist societies affiliated in a body of private members.The brain workers are joining the party in increasing total are being provided for by separate local organizations. The campaign party is controlled by annual conference of delegates from the affiliated organizations and by an execute committee of 23 members elected by the conference. The party carries candidate becomes official when he has been approved by the National Executive Committee of the Labor Party. In this scheme of nominating candidates the individual members of the Labor Party are not forgotten.Their candidates immediately before election, often a constituency has a prospective candidate who may be chosen before long after an election and approved by the national Labour Party who have 43 representatives, but there has been no fundamental clash of interests surrounded by the trade-union leaders and the intellectuals. The chief reason for the opposition to the Communist International is that the British workers do not favor the method of revolution adopted by the Communists. achievement in international affairs will be more successful than the similar pledge given by the European socialists before the war.THE POWER OF THE UNIONS on that point are more than twice as many members in trade unions in Great Britain as there are in the United States in proportion to population. Almost every industry has its union or unions with recognition and collective bargaining. The membership of unions affiliated to the Trades Union Congress increased from one one million million in 1895 to six and one-half millions in 1920.During 1921 and 1922 there was a serious loss in union membership because of unemployment and the financial depression but there were no indications that this loss would be permanent. The 1922 figures showed about five million union members. The Federation of British Industries, the largest employers organization, representing 16,000 firms and over 19 billion dollars of capital, in its official melodic theme on the control of industry, says The principles of trade union representation and collective bargaining are now fully accepted by employers. British employers do not use the term collective bargaining to mean dealing with Company Unions or employees organizations set up by the employers themselves.There are virtually no Company Unions in Great Britain, except the organizations of foremen and supervisors. Most British employers bargain directly with their employees as members of a national or district labor union. It is more often than not recognized that the workers have the right to choose their own representatives without restriction. They are usually represented in negotiations with employe rs by their own elected union officers who are specialists in gathering and presenting information about the trade.In America, the unskilled workers are the last of the manual workers to be organized, with the result that strong craft unions may be imbed working with unskilled non union, demonstrated during the conduct of great strikes. In the coal strike of the spring and summer of 1921, over 1,000,000 miners were on strike, and approximately 3,000,000 other workers of organizers. It is controlled by the votes of the delegates who have power in proportion to the number of members they represent. (Paul Blanshard author, Paul Blanshard author. Publisher George H. Doran Company. Place of Publication New York. Publication Year 1923. Page Number 20.)The Labour Party was created in 1900 a new party for a new century. Its formation was the result of many years of hard effort by working people, trade unionists and socialists, united by the goal of changing the British Parliament to repr esent the interests of everybody. Ignored by the Tories and disillusioned with the Liberals, a coalition of different interests came together to push for change at a Conference on Labour Representation in Londons Memorial Hall in February 1900.For many years the new organisation struggled to take root in the British political system. The conference of February 1900 had not even created a proper party. Instead the new body was called the Labour Representation Committee and it had no members, only organisations affiliated to it. In the elections of that year, the new group made little ground. Indeed Labours leaders worked closely with the 1906-14 Liberal Governments, and relied on their majority to agree measures to help Labour, such as the Trade Disputes second of 1906, and the payment of MPs in 1911.But while Labour in Parliament was hanging from the coat-tails of the Liberals, Labour in the country was growing apace. The number of constituency parties affiliated rose from 73 in 19 06 to 179 by 1914 and before the outbreak of war prevented the evaluate election, Labour was prepared to field a record number of candidates. When the Liberal Party split in 1916, the Labour Party was well placed to make a challenge for power.Until the early 1900s, people often worked long hours for low wages. The labor movement began as people started to work together to improve their work conditions. Although there are many laws to protect workers, there are still concerns about working conditions, particular the use of immigrants and children.In the 1930s, the labor movement gained momentum. With an teemingness of labor, employers could easily replace workers. Labor unions were formed to help workers get organized and bargain for their needs and rights. Workers created unions because groups have more bargaining power than individuals. When large groups of employees make joint decisions, employers are forced to listen to their concerns. For example, if all the workers in a factor y stopped working at the same time, it would be difficult to happen the company operating.Early unions in North America faced a difficult battle. Employers refused to accept the unions. The courts often declared the unions illegal. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and other laws required employers to bargain with unions. Political parties and other groups have also become involved with the labor movement.Organized labor is not as decently today as it once was. However, many people such as construction, factory,and industry employees are members of unions. Although they have helped workers earn higher wages and better working conditions, some people think they are too powerful.

Discrimination Essay Essay

Discuss this statement in relation to the human resource practices and the issues relating to personality, perceptions and values of managers. This analyse argues that discrimination is a likely occurrence during the recruitment process. It will focus upon the various forms of discrimination approach and the issues relating to personality and perceptions rooting from the mainstream perspectives, stereotypes and ideologies held by Anglo-Saxon Australians.It will then examine the human resource practices and the filling process, foreground the discrimination that occurs due to the unrealistic and unnecessarily high standards of recruitment criteria and specifications laid out by managers for candidates. at long last it will address the impact and influence that the managers values can have upon the recruitment criteria and the final selection made. Discrimination has long been a likely occurrence during the recruitment process, becoming a major riddle throughout Australian nigh tclub.Dating back through Australias history we have continually seen society empirically group people according to their country of origin and culture. The idea of ethnocentrism has surfaced as a result of the pre-existing culture of intolerance of cultural difference. As Ho and Alcorso demonstrate, Australian employers and local anesthetic workers in the post-war decades had a clear interest in utilizing a workforce that was not only ethnically distinguishable from the local workforce but also considered to be largely unskilled and little educated (2004, p. 254).The reluctance that numerous employers have in their willingness to recruit migrants and those of ethnic backgrounds, as a result of a pre-disposition held, is seen consistently in the workplace and is reflected in the long-term. As Wooden notes, differences in pay, occupational status and probability of employment in the midst of migrants and people of ethnic background, in comparison to Anglo-Saxon Australians reflects differences in the average productive capabilities of the two groups (1994, p. 220 cited in Ho and Alcorso, 2004, p. 239).

“Mother’s Tongue” by Amy Tan Essay

1. Amy uses emotional appeals throughout her demonstrate as she does in her first correspond paragraphs. Amy says I am a writer to show that she just loves to write down her mind and that is it.2. common topazs stemma is simply referring to the somewhat embarrassment she has when tribe notice her comes humbled English. As she goes on it begins to bother her to a point where she feels benignant for her mother. As she feels this, she uses emotional appeals such as personal experiences to further her argument.3. She divides this essay into three sections to show the polar styles or forms of English then how she feels a little embarrassed by her mothers downhearted English then shows how people value her and title her as ignorant or limited. In very Amys mother is intelligent. She then goes into how her mother and any other limited English speaker is tough differently due to that. If there were no breaks then the three sections would still be clear.4. Tan relatively gives much meaning behind her argument with her mother. That many foreigners are judged for their limited English and that Americans may have that problem with the judgment. That this is an field of study that can open the eyes of anyone, whether they experience it or not.English III AP/ Period 59/15/13Mothers Tongue by Amy Tan1. Amy uses emotional appeals throughout her essay as she does in her first couple paragraphs. Amy says I am a writer to show that she simply loves to write down her mind and that is it.2. Tans argument is simply referring to the somewhat embarrassment she has when people notice her mothers broken English. As she goes on it begins to bother her to a point where she feels sympathetic for her mother. As she feels this, she uses emotional appeals such as personal experiences to further her argument.3. She divides this essay into three sections to show the different styles or forms of English then how she feels a little embarrassed by her mothers broken English then sh ows how people judge her and title her as ignorant or limited. In actually Amys mother is intelligent. She then goes into how her mother and any other limited English speaker is treated differently due to that. If there were no breaks then the three sections would still be clear.4. Tan relatively gives much meaning behind her argument with her mother. That many foreigners are judged for their limited English and that Americans may have that problem with the judgment. That this is an issue that can open the eyes of anyone, whether they experience it or not.

Education and Funds Allocation: A Comparative Analysis Essay

Education, the act process of being educated or of educating, is an important aspect of a nations development (Houghton Miifflin, 2009). It is a key tool in the development of a civil awareness, competence, and cooperation (Stephenson, 2005). In the United States (US) educational System, progression is from one to two years of pre-school education, to 12 years of second-rate instruction, and to a four-stage higher education arrangement (US Department of State, 2008).In 2004, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) desexualize down different variables or indicators that determine how well a countrys educational system works (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2004). I. Indicators/Response and Explanatory Variables A. Response Variable. Response variables are those that indicate how effective a recounts education system is.From the indicators set by the UNESCO, this study will be centre on the following response variables Teachers Pay, Income p er capita (income per person, including children), the percent of students graduating from the high schools, the number of people that are illiterate, and number scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Verbal and Math Scores. B. Explanatory Variables. On the other hand, explanatory variables are those that be active or subsume to the response variable.In the study, explanatory variables are Dollars per Pupil, State Population, the Governors Salary, and the part of high school students taking the SAT. C. Analysis of Relationship between Variables. In general, explanatory variables affect and relate to response variables in different ways. Appendix A presents a table of the different education indicators in the different states and regions of US (Table 1). From these data, Table 1A was generated to present the summarized average statistical indicators per region. lick 1 presents a promissory note represent comparing the explanatory and response variables of each region. For purposes of comparison, figures from Table 1Awere adjusted to multiples of ten. In Figure 1, it keister be seen that most of the response variables are directly related to the explanatory variable macrocosm. The spikes in the graph show that if the population is high, then consequently, the dollars per pupil is also high. This also goes for the teachers salary, except for the Western region where fifty-fifty though there was a dip in the population melodic phrase, there was an increase in the line for Teachers Pay.Also, the West differed from the other regions when an increase in the income per capita line and percentage of high school graduates contradicted the plunge in the population line. The average SAT scores and illiteracy differed from the other indicators, since a rise in the population line showed a dip in the SAT and illiteracy lines. In all, population affects the response variables in different ways per region. On the other hand, the Governors pay, showed no definite effect or relation on the other response variables.II. Analysis of Basic Data Table 1B presents the condensed data on the educational indicators of the states of Nebraska and Virginia. Table 1B, along with Table 1A, can be seen in the appendices section. A. Nebraska Educational Indicators. The state of Nebraska has a population of 1,578,000. With this population, the following educational indicators were recorded $4,831 dollars per student, an income per capita of $4,508, an average teachers pay of $26,600, an average SAT score of 484 (verbal) and 546 (math), a 59. 3 percentage of high school graduates, and a rate of sextuplet illiterate individuals out of all 100 people of Nebraska.B. Virginia Educational Indicators. In total contrast, the state of Virginia has a population of 6,187,000. Also, the following educational indicators were reported $5,360 dollars per student, an income per capita of $4,701, an average teachers pay of $32,400, an average SAT score of 425 (verbal) and 470 (math), a 47. 8 percentage of high school graduates, and a rate of fourteen illiterate individuals out of every 100 people of Nebraska III. Comparison of the Two StatesA. Comparison of the Two States against Each Other Figure 2 presents a bar graph depicting the differences between the states of Virginia and Nebraska. From the graph, it can be seen that the state of Virginia has a larger population (6,187,000), especially when compared to that of Nebraskas only around 1,578,000. And so, it is rather expected that Virginia has a higher dollars per pupil rate and a higher income per capita, also shown from the graph. With this population discrepancy, it is also expected that the state of Virginia also has a larger teachers pay.

Deception Point Page 93

POTUS.She matte a sudden surge of hope. Something about POTUS struck Gabrielle as organism a perfect Sexton password. Simple, positive, self-referential.She quickly typed in the letters.POTUS.Holding her breath, she hit return. The computer beeped.Invalid parole Access DeniedSlumping, Gabrielle gave up. She headed back toward the bathroom door to exit the carriage she had come. She was halfway across the room, when her cellphone rang. She was already on edge, and the sound startled her. Stopping short, she pulled out her phone and glanced up to check the time on Sextons prized Jourdain grandfather clock. Almost 400 A.M. At this hour, Gabrielle knew the caller could scarcely be Sexton. He was obviously question where the hell she was. Do I pick up or let it ring? If she answered, Gabrielle would have to lie. exactly if she didnt, Sexton would do suspicious.She took the call. Hello?Gabrielle? Sexton sounded impatient. Whats keeping you?The FDR Memorial, Gabrielle said. The taxi got hemmed in, and now were-You dont sound like youre in a taxi.No, she said, her blood pumping now. Im not. I decided to stop by my office and pick up several(prenominal) NASA documents that might be relevant to PODS. Im having some trouble finding them.Well, hurry up. I want to inventory a press conference for the morning, and we need to talk specifics.Im coming soon, she said.There was a pause on the line. Youre in your office? He sounded utterly confused.Yeah. Another ten minutes and Ill be on my way over.Another pause. Okay. Ill see you soon.Gabrielle hung up, too preoccupied to notice the loud and distinctive triple-tick of Sextons prized Jourdain grandfather clock only a few feet outdoor(a).113Michael Tolland did not realize Rachel was hurt until he saw the blood on her work up as he pulled her to cover behind the triton. He sensed from the catatonic look on her facial expression that she was not aware of any pain. Steadying her, Tolland wheeled to find Corky. The ast rophysicist scrambled across the deck to colligate them, his eyes blank with terror.Weve got to find cover, Tolland thought, the horror of what had on the nose happened not yet fully registering. Instinctively, his eyes raced up the tiers of decks in a higher place them. The steps leading up to the bridge were all in the open, and the bridge itself was a glass box-a transparent bulls-eye from the air. Going up was suicide, which left only one other direction to go.For a passing flash, Tolland turned a hopeful gaze to the Triton milling machinerymersible, wondering perhaps if he could get everyone underwater, away from the bullets.Absurd. The Triton had room for one person, and the deployment winch took a good ten minutes to lower the sub through the trap door in the deck to the ocean xxx feet below. Besides, without properly charged batteries and compressors, the Triton would be dead in the water.Here they come Corky shouted, his voice shrill with fear as he pointed into t he sky.Tolland didnt even look up. He pointed to a nearby bulkhead, where an aluminum side descended belowdecks. Corky seemingly needed no encouragement. Keeping his head low, Corky scurried toward the opening and disappeared down the incline. Tolland put a self-coloured arm around Rachels waist and followed. The two of them disappeared belowdecks just as the eggwhisk returned, spraying bullets overhead.Tolland helped Rachel down the grated ramp to the suspended platform at the bottom. As they arrived, Tolland could feel Rachels body go suddenly rigid. He wheeled, fearing possibly shed been hit by a ricocheting bullet.When he saw her face, he knew it was something else. Tolland followed her petrified gaze downward and immediately understood.Rachel stood motionless, her legs refusing to move. She was double-dyed(a) down at the bizarre world to a lower place her.Because of its SWATH design, the Goya had no hull but alternatively struts like a giant catamaran. They had just desc ended through the deck onto a grated catwalk that hung above an open chasm, thirty feet straight down to the raging sea. The noise was deafening here, reverberating off the underside of the deck. Adding to Rachels terror was the concomitant that the ships underwater spotlights were still illuminated, casting a greenish effulgence deep into the ocean directly beneath her. She found herself gazing down at six or seven ghostly silhouettes in the water. Enormous shithead sharks, their long shadows swimming in place against the current-rubbery bodies flexing back and forth.Tollands voice was in her ear. Rachel, youre okay. Eyes straight ahead. Im proper(ip) behind you. His hands were reaching around from behind, gently trying to coax her clenched fists off the banister. It was past that Rachel saw the crimson droplet of blood roll off her arm and fall through the grating. Her eyes followed the dripping as it plummeted toward the sea. Although she never saw it hit the water, she knew the instant it happened because all at once the hammerheads spun in unison, sack with their powerful tails, crashing together in a roiling frenzy of teeth and fins.Enhanced telencephalon olfactory lobes They olfaction blood a mile away.Eyes straight ahead, Tolland repeated, his voice strong and reassuring. Im right behind you.Rachel felt his hands on her hips now, urging her forward. Blocking out the void beneath her, Rachel started down the catwalk. Somewhere above she could hear the rotors of the chopper again. Corky was already well out in front of them, reeling across the catwalk in a kind of drunken panic.Tolland called out to him. All the way to the far strut, Corky Down the stairsRachel could now see where they were headed. Up ahead, a series of switchback ramps descended. At water level, a narrow, shelflike deck extended the length of the Goya. Jutting off this deck were several small, suspended docks, creating a kind of little marina stationed beneath the ship. A large sign readDIVE AREA Swimmers May Surface without example Boats Proceed with Caution-Rachel could only assume Michael did not intend for them to do any swimming. Her trepidation intensified when Tolland stop at a bank of wire-mesh storage lockers flanking the catwalk. He pulled open the doors to reveal hanging wetsuits, snorkels, flippers, life jackets, and spearguns. onwards she could protest, he reached in and grabbed a flare gun. Lets go.They were moving again.Up ahead, Corky had reached the switchback ramps and was already halfway down. I see it he shouted, his voice sounding almost joyous over the raging water.See what? Rachel wondered as Corky ran along the narrow walkway. All she could see was a shark-infested ocean lapping dangerously close. Tolland urged her forward, and suddenly Rachel could see what Corky was so excited about. At the far end of the decking below, a small powerboat was moored. Corky ran toward it.Rachel stared. Outrun a helicopter in a motorboat?It has a radio, Tolland said. And if we can get far enough away from the helicopters jamming Rachel did not hear another word he said. She had just spied something that made her blood run cold. Too late, she croaked, extending a trembling finger. Were finishedWhen Tolland turned, he knew in an instant it was over.At the far end of the ship, like a dragon peering into the opening of a cave, the black helicopter had dropped down low and was facing them. For an instant, Tolland thought it was going to fly directly at them through the nitty-gritty of the boat. But the helicopter began to turn at an angle, taking aim.Tolland followed the direction of the gun barrels. No