Suchergebnisse

The 2007+ financial crisis, which also had an impact on real economy, paradoxically resulted in an increase of states' activity in economy and in the growth of expectations of citizens towards states. The crisis makes them see the state as the only institution able to guarantee financial and social safety as well as orderly development of global economy in future. The article tries to answer the following question: is the state able to secure that feeling of safety and society's ability to develop, and will the incoming crises influence the modification of horizontal and vertical extent of functions of the modern state? The question whether modern states modernize or not, disregarding economic, social, cultural and military crises, is also a subject of preliminary analysis. The 2007+ economic crisis caused an increase in state activities in fields both related to economic problems and providing social and financial safety for citizens. The modernization of state institutions (the state considered as ontological being, i.e. is not identified with any present day state) is not related to crises. The internal institutions of state, as parliaments and executive are also modernized to a certain extent. The analyses of Scandinavian, US and Canadian parliaments included in the article prove that the parliaments use the legislative possibilities and increase the scope of control activities performed during crisis. Occasionally this leads to constitution infringement (US Congress). On other occasions special parliamentary commissions and direct democracy institutions are used (Iceland). During a crisis a phenomenon of "financial world imperialism" emerges. It is something more than financialization of real economy (industrial, services and agriculture). It is a trend leading to the subordination of all the other spheres of activity of states and societies, including politics, law and culture. It is observed in contemporary highly developed societies as well as in some countries of "peripheral capitalism". This trend is visible when democracy is used, including parliamentary procedures and decision-making processes in executive, to advance special interests of the financial world, its continuity and its profits.

Public debt and the increasing indebtedness of states is not a new phenomenon even in the context of bankruptcy of state. In the past we have already experienced internal and external state insolvency. What causes today's increase in preoccupation with external bankruptcy, except for global dimension of debt, is a change in its structure. An increasing number of states uses foreign debt to finance budget and trade imbalances. This tendency is observed among developing as well as developed states, including Economic and Monetary Union member states. The increase in external debt is in large part caused by privet debt which in certain circumstances is transferred to state. The level of total external debt of many Euro Zone member states in relation to GDP is much higher than the level of public debt. These are the reasons that justify the fear for the future of Euro Zone after bankruptcy of some of the member states. What increases the level of fear is the fact that the actions undertaken by European Union and EMU do not cause expected results and therefore cannot be judged positively. Paradoxically, some of them have only political and PR dimensions. Politicians may brag about their resolve to defend the once adopted solutions and markets may remain in their illusion that the present situation is only temporary. How long will it last? Last actions seem to be just a game designed to gain some more time to prepare different solutions such as fundamental and subjective restructuring of Euro Zone and – who knows? – maybe even of the European integration as such. The words of European Central Bank president Mario Draghi (August 2, 2012) stressing the fact that there's no turning back from the Euro and that he is going to defend the common currency need to be understood in that context. The belief in the solidarity of states and optimistic outlook for the future should not result in such dramatic and desperate words.

The text is about the issue theme of socio-economic activity of women in the text analyzes the issue theme of socio-economic activity of women in the Polish magazine "Twój Styl". The analysis leads to the conclusion that the image of modern woman is a bit fuzzy. Typical woman is torn between the private and public sphere and forced (through social practices and effective gender stereotypes) into an attempt at the collision-free fulfillment of the social roles. The prevailing stereotype that woman are limited to the private sphere is the one of the causes of female disadvantage on the labor market. At the same time that stereotype creates an impression that woman in the public sphere is a rarity and if she's ever managed to enter it, it was only possible thanks to the support of her male partner or by limiting her personal life.

Lifestyle, environment, genetics and usage of health care are the classical health determinants. Each of these factors influences personal health to certain degree. Lifestyle has the biggest impact (50–52%), followed by environment (18–20%), genes (15–20%) and finally usage of health care (10–15%). Acknowledgement of negative health behaviours as key reason for diseases of modern civilization formed the basis for many preventive actions. Implementation of preventive health programs is aimed at shaping healthy lifestyle and healthy behaviours in society. The objective of this article is to present links between social marketing and possibilities to influence healthy behaviours of kids and youth. Necessity for holistic approach to health and examples of healthy behaviours of kids and young people in Poland are discussed.

Forecasting of the manufactured appliances' reliability is a difficult and still considered issue. The article presents results of the household appliances' reliability research with the application of a modified Weibull distribution. In the first part there are shown theoretical assumptions of the research together with choice grounds of the applied model. Estimates of parameters of the model were based on a data set, which contained censored observations. This information is derived from actual observations of warranty services of a selected production company. The second part of the paper contains the results of estimates obtained using maximum likelihood methods. It also contains comments on the usefulness of the results. The study allowed to compare changes in the reliability of the selected appliances in recent years, as well as to relate them to the quality requirements — both customer and manufacturer.

The presence of same-sex couples is one of the visible manifestations of modern behavior changes in society. In a growing number of countries, these compounds are able to register as civil partnerships or marriage. The article aims to present the most important accuracy related to the incidence of registered same-sex couples in Europe and their characterization.