In the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, investors and the electorate alike are seeking clarity on a wide range of macro policy issues that will impact the economy and markets in the years ahead. The primary goal of this book is to provide an objective source for investors to learn about economic policy issues that surfaced. Topics include long-term growth, the federal budget deficit, healthcare reform, tax reform, regulatory policies affecting the financial system and environment, the nexus of monetary, exchange rate and trade policies, and globalization. The book explains how these issues have evolved, considers arguments from both sides of the political divide, and draws upon evidence from studies by experts in the respective areas. A related goal is to assess the likely impact of economic policies on financial markets. While the presidential election was close, the markets? response was decisive: U.S. and global equity markets went on a tear as consumer and business confidence soared. This surprised many investors who believed a Trump victory would be bad for financial markets. It also caused many to question whether expectations embedded in markets were too optimistic. Sargen's assessment is presented in the opening and concluding chapters.
How should investors manage portfolios during crises? This question has surfaced since the 2008 global financial crisis, which is the latest of a series of shocks that began in the early 1970s. While crisis situations offer opportunities to outperform markets or to be engulfed by them, little has been written to guide investors when markets are not functioning normally. This book, which is written from a practitioner's perspective, fills the void by providing the reader with a toolkit and guiding principles to manage money when markets are in turmoil. It features ten case studies beginning with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system through the current situation in which investors are assessing whether China could become the next bubble. Each chapter discusses how the respective crisis or bubble unfolded at the time, the way policymakers and markets responded, and the optimal strategy for positioning portfolios. The goal is to share these experiences and the lessons from them, so investors will be better prepared for future shocks. The opening chapter explores whether there are common patterns in movements of interest rates and exchange rates that investors can exploit. A conceptual framework is presented that helps explain why this is the case for traditional currency crises, but less so for asset bubbles. The concluding chapter ties the episodes together and considers how the nature of financial crises has evolved since the collapse of Bretton Woods. We cite factors that make it difficult for policymakers and investors to detect problems in advance of an asset bubble. The good news is investors get a second chance to outperform when markets are over-sold; however, they need to formulate a strategy to limit the damage during the sell-off phase and to capitalize on the eventual recovery.
Tax-based federal student aid--the Hope Tax Credit, Lifetime Learning Tax Credit and Tuition Deduction--marks a new paradigm for federal aid by offering tax incentives for postsecondary enrollment aimed at the middle-class. In this dissertation, I examine how the programs impact postsecondary enrollment, how colleges and universities respond to the programs, and I explore how taxpayers who are limited to one program select among the three options. In the first Chapter, I exploit policy-induced variation in tax-based aid eligibility to estimate its casual effect on college enrollment. I find that tax-based aid increases full-time enrollment in the first two years of college for 18-19 year-olds by 2.2 percentage points (6.7 percent). Yet, the enrollment increase comes at a steep price. Between 7 and 13 inframarginal youths are subsidized for each marginal youth that is induced to enroll in college. In the second chapter, I explore how colleges and universities respond to tax- based federal student aid. I demonstrate the importance of benefit incidence analysis by showing that the intended cost reductions of tax-based federal student aid are substantially offset by institutional price increases. Contrary to the goal of policymakers, I find that tax-based aid crowds out institutional aid dollar-for-dollar. Unfortunately, it is not clear how institutions utilize these captured resources, so that the ultimate incidence of the programs is uncertain. In the third chapter, I show that roughly one in five taxpayers who are eligible for more than one tax-based federal student aid program, and who are limited to one program per student per year, select a program that offers a smaller reduction in combined federal and state tax liability. I offer three explanations for this pattern of tax-based aid selection, including salience in program value, tax evasion and inertia in program selection. Collectively, the results from these chapters suggest that the benefits of tax- based federal student aid have come at a heavy price. The modest postsecondary enrollment increase for middle-income youths is achieved via a substantial transfer to colleges and universities, while complexity in program rules introduces substantial frictions for taxpayers
This paper questions the use of the crucified Jesus as the identifying symbol of the believer. It argues that the upholding of the "glorious" scars of Jesus is inherently anti-Semitic & exclusionary. The paper also notes that wars have been fought under the symbol of the cross, while the blood of martyrs has long been viewed as somehow spiritual. Both the Nationalists & Unionists of Ireland have taken unto themselves the identity of the victim, with each side embracing Christian symbolism, proof in point that victimization has somehow gained empowering qualities in modern society. 20 References. K. A. Larsen
Beginning with Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Passionate Amateurs tells a new story about modern theater: the story of a romantic attachment to theater's potential to produce surprising experiences of human community. Ridout argues that theater in modern capitalism can help us think afresh about notions of work, time, and freedom. Passionate Amateurs tells a new story about modern theater: the story of a romantic attachment to theater's potential to produce surprising experiences of human community. It begins with one of the first great plays of modern European theater—Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Moscow—and then crosses the 20th and 21st centuries to look at how its story plays out in Weimar Republic Berlin, in the Paris of the 1960s, and in a spectrum of contemporary performance in Europe and the United States. This is a work of historical materialist theater scholarship, which combines a materialism grounded in a socialist tradition of cultural studies with some of the insights developed in recent years by theorists of affect, and addresses some fundamental questions about the social function and political potential of theater within modern capitalism. Passionate Amateurs argues that theater in modern capitalism can help us think afresh about notions of work, time, and freedom. Its title concept is a theoretical and historical figure, someone whose work in theater is undertaken within capitalism, but motivated by a love that desires something different. In addition to its theoretical originality, it offers a significant new reading of a major Chekhov play, the most sustained scholarly engagement to date with Benjamin's "Program for a Proletarian Children's Theatre," the first major consideration of Godard's La chinoise as a "theatrical" work, and the first chapter-length discussion of the work of The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, an American company rapidly gaining a profile in the European theater scene. Passionate Amateurs contributes to the development of theater and performance studies in a way that moves beyond debates over the differences between theater and performance in order to tell a powerful, historically grounded story about what theater and performance are for in the modern world. "Reading a suggestively diverse set of modern performances, and setting those performances within a clear and well-defined theoretical/critical project, Ridout attempts to use the 'passionate amateur'—at once the spectator, the scholar, and to some extent the characters in the plays—as a critical category disrupting the otherwise fully commodified communication of leisure products . . . Passionate Amateurs is wholly original, intellectually and critically stimulating, and certain to develop not only discussion but also to lead to a series of important questions in contemporary theatre and performance studies scholarship." —W. B. Worthen, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia University Nicholas Ridout is Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies, Department of Drama, Queen Mary, University of London. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.--Provided by publisher. ; Includes bibliographical references and index. ; Beginning with Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Passionate Amateurs tells a new story about modern theater: the story of a romantic attachment to theater's potential to produce surprising experiences of human community. Ridout argues that theater in modern capitalism can help us think afresh about notions of work, time, and freedom. Passionate Amateurs tells a new story about modern theater: the story of a romantic attachment to theater's potential to produce surprising experiences of human community. It begins with one of the first great plays of modern European theater—Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Moscow—and then crosses the 20th and 21st centuries to look at how its story plays out in Weimar Republic Berlin, in the Paris of the 1960s, and in a spectrum of contemporary performance in Europe and the United States. This is a work of historical materialist theater scholarship, which combines a materialism grounded in a socialist tradition of cultural studies with some of the insights developed in recent years by theorists of affect, and addresses some fundamental questions about the social function and political potential of theater within modern capitalism. Passionate Amateurs argues that theater in modern capitalism can help us think afresh about notions of work, time, and freedom. Its title concept is a theoretical and historical figure, someone whose work in theater is undertaken within capitalism, but motivated by a love that desires something different. In addition to its theoretical originality, it offers a significant new reading of a major Chekhov play, the most sustained scholarly engagement to date with Benjamin's "Program for a Proletarian Children's Theatre," the first major consideration of Godard's La chinoise as a "theatrical" work, and the first chapter-length discussion of the work of The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, an American company rapidly gaining a profile in the European theater scene. Passionate Amateurs contributes to the development of theater and performance studies in a way that moves beyond debates over the differences between theater and performance in order to tell a powerful, historically grounded story about what theater and performance are for in the modern world. "Reading a suggestively diverse set of modern performances, and setting those performances within a clear and well-defined theoretical/critical project, Ridout attempts to use the 'passionate amateur'—at once the spectator, the scholar, and to some extent the characters in the plays—as a critical category disrupting the otherwise fully commodified communication of leisure products . . . Passionate Amateurs is wholly original, intellectually and critically stimulating, and certain to develop not only discussion but also to lead to a series of important questions in contemporary theatre and performance studies scholarship." —W. B. Worthen, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia University Nicholas Ridout is Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies, Department of Drama, Queen Mary, University of London. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.--Provided by publisher. ; Mode of access: Internet. ; Description based on print version record.
Oman and the Al Bu Said -- Oman, Zanzibar and empire -- Oman in the age of British ascendancy and the Arab Nahda -- The sultanate as nation, 1932-1959 -- Dhofar -- Oil, government and security, 1955-1980 -- Shura, diplomacy and economic liberalisation, 1980-2000 -- Oman in the twenty-first century
The proliferation of underutilized, derelict, and contaminated properties following a nationwide decline of industrial production has created a unique policy problem. Powerful liability schemes under Superfund made property owners, developers, and lenders hesitant to engage in transactions involving real estate that is contaminated or perceived as contaminated. Adoption of Federal and state policy to address these "Brownfields" in the 1990s and 2000s has attempted to promote redevelopment by limiting liability of involved parties and providing grant funding. This research hypothesizes that "environmental justice communities" have significantly lower likelihood of receiving benefit-maximizing redevelopment projects under both Federal and state-level voluntary cleanup programs. A multinomial logistic regression model considering past use of the site, socioeconomic status of the surrounding census tract and its composite urban sprawl score, and Republican control of the district containing the brownfield were used to assess the probability of a hierarchy of redevelopment outcomes.
