Are private beliefs the legitimate concern of employers? Essay

Employers should be concerned with most of what there employee believes in, however private beliefs may be taking this too far. An employer should be watchful of their employees, to make sure that they don’t get in to trouble, and are not suffering from stress. It is in the employer’s best interests that this is done so that the employee is the most productive that he or she can be. However in a world where peoples privacy is becoming less and less, is it right for an employer to be concerned with the private beliefs of their employee? I think that it is, because the welfare of the employer and all of the workers could in the most extreme case be in jeopardy. We have controversy concerning employee privacy. Today workers’ every keystroke leaves a trail of information that employers generally have the legal right to examine and use as the basis for disciplinary action against employees. Employees have been fired because of the content of e-mails or for surfing to internet sites deemed inappropriate by the employer. Employees have been forced to supply urine samples for drug testing, given personality tests in job interviews, and secretly videotaped–even in company restrooms. Yet very few laws protect employee privacy; the political power of business has been able to fend off most attempts to limit employer discretion. A few notable exceptions exist– for example, federal law prohibits employers from administering lie-detector tests in job interviews. If an employer is trying to hire a fundamentalist, or a freedom fighter for example, then I think that it is in the employers benefit that they know this information. It is in the interests of the company’s security that this information should be known to them. The worlds growing diversity; cultural, racial, ethnic and religious, poses significant challenges and opportunities for the corporate workplace. The transformation from a relatively homogenous society to the present â€Å"multicultural† situation calls for special efforts to foster a work environment free from intimidation, harassment and discrimination, and which promotes productivity and a strong bottomline. Unfortunately, the very programs designed to reduce problems are actually creating new ones. The issue of â€Å"sexual orientation† within diversity training courses is particularly problematic, and the topic of heated discussions. While there is a genuine need to address the issues raised by employees who identify as gay or lesbian, many current attempts to do so end up discriminating against other employees. Given the strong feelings and sensitivities that surround the subject of private beliefs and feelings, poses a difficult challenge to employers. If business survival depends upon contented and loyal employees who sense that their beliefs and values are respected, then focus upon sexual orientation as a diversity category is clearly counter-productive. For a great many Americans, the â€Å"celebration of diversity† is a thinly disguised attempt to legitimize a behavior that they believe to be immoral and, what is more, to persuade them to change their beliefs. Prudence in the workplace can resolve potential religious discrimination problems before they become legal suits. If an employer is truly seeking to affirm the diversity of the workforce, for both moral and practical reasons, avoidance of all forms of coercive â€Å"sensitivity training†, of whatever kind, should be the norm. Apart from the promotion of specific social agendas, there is no need to require employees to endure lectures, presentations, role playing or simulations that are an affront to deeply held moral and religious beliefs. Civility programs recognize and acknowledge the real differences that exist between people, differences of experience and belief. Yet, in spite of these differences, it is possible to work with others different from oneself in positive and productive ways, even when strongly held beliefs differ and clash. It is possible to be civil toward those with whom we disagree, and to build a significant degree of unity and community in the workplace. For companies who seek to be globally competitive, this is a necessity.

Analysis Act 1 Othello

Name: Adeisha Pierre Class: U6:3 Subject: Literature OTHELLO ACT 1 Lighting is important as it extends Shakespeare’s thematic concerns with the lightness and darkness of character and skin. Play begins in darkness. Entirety of Act one is in darkness. Critic: Norman Sanders: â€Å"The darkness helps to reveal Iago’s character because it is set in the night and it highlights the dark and devilish nature of his character. † The darkness feeds Iago’s malicious nature. Textual evidence: Iago: â€Å"Hell and night/ Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light. We see Iago’s obsession with evil. The darkness that Act one is enshrined in gives Iago the power he needs to plot against and deceive each character he communicates with. For instance he appears to be loyal to Othello whilst simultaneously uttering, â€Å"I hate the Moor. † Iago is Caucasian and is therefore referred to as having â€Å"white† skin. This purity and ligh t that the colour white is associated with however, does not extend to his character as Iago is too consumed by dark thoughts.Contrastingly, Othello who is an African Moor and therefore dark in complexion does not let his outward appearance interfere with his inner greatness. This is evident when the Duke says to Brabianto in Scene 3: â€Å"Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. † Shakespeare is extending the idea that man should not be judged by his race or outward appearance but rather by his merit. Language: Imagery used to unveil Iago’s mysterious character. (The image of Janus, Roman God with two faces. Iago swears by this God which is appropriate as Janus two faced-nesses or doubled personality facilitates Iago’s duplicative nature. Iago’s words turn into action. He acts one way with Othello and another way behind Othello’s back. This is why even though he is deceitful and malicious the characters on stage refer to him as â€Å"honest Iago. † His two faced-nesses therefore give him the power he needs to plot and manipulate. Textual reference: Othello says, â€Å"Honest Iago, / My Desdemona must I leave to thee: / I prithee, let thy wife attend on her: / And bring them after in the best advantage. At the end of the scene, when Iago is hatching his plan against Othello, he comments that â€Å"The Moor is of a free and open nature, / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, / And will as tenderly be led by the nose / As asses are† Iago knows that Othello considers him honest, and he is planning on using that in his dishonest plans. Iago’s ability to wheel power spirals a series of events which is detrimental to most Characters. Shakespeare is letting the audience know to be careful of who they trust. Shakespeare challenges the racial stereotype and the norms of the Elizabethan era when he makes Othello the governor of Cyprus.Significant as it show the audience that despite societies norms people can still excel. Reinforces the idea of judging a man based on merit rather than race. War as a symbol of Othello’s struggle to find a balance between his Muslim/African background and his new status in Venice: The tension between Venice and Turkish fleet is a representation of Othello’s internal conflict. Turks are Muslim and so is Othello. He is therefore fighting a war against himself. It represents the conflict between â€Å"valiant†, â€Å"fair† Othello and the barbarity which takes place within him.

Swot Matrix for Starbucks

SWOT matrixkey success factors for star bucksStarbucks has a strong brand name and its known international. Starbucks was the first coffee shop whereby high quality coffee and products at accessible locationsand affordable prices, provided a community to share in the coffee drinking experience| Strengths: * Brand recognition * High quality coffee * Business ethics * Location they are located everywhere| Weakness * Competition a lot of coffee shops are offer coffee at a lower price. * Overexposure star bucks Is obsolete according to some consumers. Too many products * Not enough marketing | Opportunity * Business leaders * New strategy * Expand franchise| Threat * Recession * Mc-cafe offers lattes and cafes at very cheap price with the same quality. * PLC is at declining stage. | 2. Generic strategy pursued at starbucks: Differentiation strategy Differentiation strategy star bucks offers high quality coffee that you cant find at other coffee shops. Starbucks spends minimal cost on mar keting although they have great market share due to the product differentiation star bucks has a unique line coffee shops so advertising is through a method called word of mouth.Their core competencies can be defined as high quality coffee and products at accessible locations and affordable prices, provided a community to share in the coffee drinking experience, and variety of choices. They also value ethics and good business practices. Starbucks provide a high quality coffee and unique experience in the convenience of a large volume of locations, which separates them from their competition ,the new instant coffee line is straddling differentiation and low cost- leadership.While it will be a low cost and convenient alternative to Starbucks regular coffee, it is still unique from other products in the market. The in-store gifts and brewing utensils are in the focused differentiation category as they cater to the coffee lover, and are unique items found only in the Starbucksstores. 3. strategic direction pursued by star bucks? Starbucks new strategy is to refocus on some of the areas that decrease risk and up front investment. Franchising, expanding products and selling at convenient stores not just coffee shops.This includes expanding foreign stores, with aid of partnerships that share risk and costs, selling whether its instant coffee and other products in retail and convenience stores, and reinvigorating the Seattle’s Best Brand coffee. 4. I would pursue cost differentiation since star bucks is already I would add a few new bistro’s or pastries or offer special deals that wouldn’t harm my profit margin but gain more market share. Starbucks doesn’t focus on marketing since the brand is already famous so by offering new flavors of coffee, pastries and beverages would attract attention. Swot Matrix for Starbucks SWOT matrixkey success factors for star bucksStarbucks has a strong brand name and its known international. Starbucks was the first coffee shop whereby high quality coffee and products at accessible locationsand affordable prices, provided a community to share in the coffee drinking experience| Strengths: * Brand recognition * High quality coffee * Business ethics * Location they are located everywhere| Weakness * Competition a lot of coffee shops are offer coffee at a lower price. * Overexposure star bucks Is obsolete according to some consumers. Too many products * Not enough marketing | Opportunity * Business leaders * New strategy * Expand franchise| Threat * Recession * Mc-cafe offers lattes and cafes at very cheap price with the same quality. * PLC is at declining stage. | 2. Generic strategy pursued at starbucks: Differentiation strategy Differentiation strategy star bucks offers high quality coffee that you cant find at other coffee shops. Starbucks spends minimal cost on mar keting although they have great market share due to the product differentiation star bucks has a unique line coffee shops so advertising is through a method called word of mouth.Their core competencies can be defined as high quality coffee and products at accessible locations and affordable prices, provided a community to share in the coffee drinking experience, and variety of choices. They also value ethics and good business practices. Starbucks provide a high quality coffee and unique experience in the convenience of a large volume of locations, which separates them from their competition ,the new instant coffee line is straddling differentiation and low cost- leadership.While it will be a low cost and convenient alternative to Starbucks regular coffee, it is still unique from other products in the market. The in-store gifts and brewing utensils are in the focused differentiation category as they cater to the coffee lover, and are unique items found only in the Starbucksstores. 3. strategic direction pursued by star bucks? Starbucks new strategy is to refocus on some of the areas that decrease risk and up front investment. Franchising, expanding products and selling at convenient stores not just coffee shops.This includes expanding foreign stores, with aid of partnerships that share risk and costs, selling whether its instant coffee and other products in retail and convenience stores, and reinvigorating the Seattle’s Best Brand coffee. 4. I would pursue cost differentiation since star bucks is already I would add a few new bistro’s or pastries or offer special deals that wouldn’t harm my profit margin but gain more market share. Starbucks doesn’t focus on marketing since the brand is already famous so by offering new flavors of coffee, pastries and beverages would attract attention.

Hw2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Hw2 - Assignment Example Since the machine is like a limited resource that eventually, brings about interdepartmental and interpersonal conflicts. When this occurs, there is decreased productivity coupled with dwindling of people’s morale. Handling and resolving a situation at work is quite a task an employee faces. Mainly most of them feel dissatisfied because there is no resolution achieved. What made the situation hard to handle is due to the financial constrains within the organization, hence limiting the resource despite the big workload around. Since this has become a major problem in the company though a lasting solution was on discussion and agreed by every employee. Every employee gave his/her opinion on the matter because the problem affected everybody within the company. It came to conclusion that for every profit generated, half of it was to go in buying of office equipment until when there were enough equipment for employees. If I had, the chance to make the decision in rectifying this predicament the initial step would be employing a short-term decision to restrain the situation first. In the case of the two employees, they undergo training on how to mediate the dispute by themselves and each has different timing to use a particular machine. For long term goal, to solve the situation permanently is by ensuring enough resources that can serve every

Important Characteristics of the Clinical Instructors in Radiology Research Paper

Important Characteristics of the Clinical Instructors in Radiology - Research Paper Example There have been numerous studies, carried out to examine the characteristics of clinical instructors in nursing and related health programs. These studies have much information that relates to radiography. The article is about behavioral characteristics that clinical instructors should adopt in radiography and which characteristics they should designate. The journal targets clinical instructors to enable them to improve their behavioral characteristics for better clinical experiences. The journal mostly focuses on the behavioral characteristics of clinical instructors, there are numerous challenges encountered in the clinical education. One of the problems is that each student may not be able to spend enough time with the clinical supervisor. This may originate from various causes one of them being that there may not be enough patients for students to gain experience. The importance of identifying these problems is in order not to be restricted into thinking that the clinical instruc tor solely bears the responsibility of student learning experience. The challenges, however, are minor with the clinical instructor playing the leading role in students learning experience. According to Jennett, clinical instructors have a significant effect on the success or failure of a student in the clinic. The instructors supervise, advice, coach and facilitate students in solving problems, decision-making, and critical thinking. They also have the responsibility of providing a learning environment conducive to their students.

Definition of a Hero Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Definition of a Hero - Assignment Example It also happens in television dramas and series where a character may be a hero. However, he could be a hero for either good or evil deeds. Such kind of a person is mostly known as anti-heroes. In most cases, anti-heroic always uses all their means in order to achieve their target even if it means hurting or compromising with an interest of other parties. This is according to Garrett views. Simon sees Matthew Weigner as a baby boomer for a number of reasons. Firstly, his creativity on the role of each character is unique. The setup involves the liberal-minded and the conservatives in the town. When the liberal-minded citizens speak their minds, they call them bloomers because they criticize all that is wrong for a common citizen. Both groups address madmen as people who work against racism and sexism. Don Dropper is the man in the grey suit. He represents the conservative’ who want business to be done like in the old days. With these, he means in the early 1950’s. This is an excellent series that brings out the real message and theme. The book tries to bring out the world of homosexuals in the country. One of the characters in the book is innocent, but he is blindly attracted into it by his friend. Hence the title, ‘seduction of the innocent’. This is a harmful vice that affects our society today. However, it is legalized in some states, giving these people all the freedom they need. Medhurst demonstrates that Batman has a gay character in a number of ways. His dressing code says it all in the first place. He argues that this helps them to identify their fellows in a crowd. Further, they have secret signals and language which they typically use to communicate with each other. According to him, Batman exhibits all these features. However, this is just an illusion from Medhurst of what gay people go through in this world. Â  

Casestudy of banks R us Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Casestudy of banks R us - Case Study Example Strategic performance directly influences strategic goals; hence, it is even more critical to an organization’s success. On the other hand, operational performance management is defined as the alignment of all business units / functions of an organization to accomplish core business aims of an organization. Organizational performance is measured against standard rates of effectiveness, productivity, efficiency, regulatory compliance and other such indicators. Banks R Us had primarily focused on deposits, withdrawals, and loan facilities by creating brand loyalty. It thrived by providing a low fee as well as a highly personalized realm of banking services. Nonetheless, the low profit margins prevented large-scale growth for the bank. However, with escalated financial competition and emergence of Internet banking, the strategic performance of Banks R Us deteriorated. This is evidenced by a downfall in market share and operating profits. Thus, new strategic goals and plans are be ing established in order to enhance strategic performance once again. The new strategic goals are two-fold: to widen the current customer base by provision of a variety of financial products and to reduce transaction costs for all customer segments. Strategic goals can be accomplished through successful strategic performance. The success of strategic performance lies entirely upon improvement in operational performance. ... As more and more customers are provided customized services, the inflow of cash to the bank is expected to increase. In addition, the introduction of Internet banking as currently servicing 80% customers is unprofitable; hence, strategic performance is poor and needs improvement in this area too. Moreover, strategic performance needs to be focused on changing the previous image of Banks R Us as a transactions processor of cheques and deposits to a novel image of an excellent financial advisor. The basic contention is to make the bank as attractive as possible to existing customers as well as potential customers. The bank lacks ‘good advertising, good location, and word of mouth’ as quoted by general manager of operations, Pamela Andrews. Therefore, strategic performance should take the marketing aspect of banking into account. Banks R Us needs to transform the perspective of customers of not being a ‘logical source for products like managed funds, superannuation fu nds, insurance and financial advice’. Operational performance should involve advertising through various channels, employment of financial product specialists and provision of advisory services to build customer confidence and alter the previously held image. Industry data has revealed the existence of two market segments. The first are interested in the lowest priced personalized services of standard financial products such as savings, loans and withdrawals. Market statistics suggest that Banks R Us’ strategic performance is appreciable in this segment; however, slowly they need to encourage these customers towards Internet banking for reaping even greater profits. The other market segment comprises of customers interested in purchasing all kinds of

Transfer personal statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Transfer personal statement - Essay Example I started reading his business managerial books and articles when I was in grade school. That is when I had the first encounter with global business icons such as Warren Buffet and Richard Branson. This made me develop profound interest in business management and administration. I started seeing everything in a business dimension. For instance, I could try to figure out how I would manage our school football team so that it could bring profit to the school. Though such thoughts seem so imprudent at present, they certainly set the passion and desire to be a global business icon. Being the first born, my parents have a lot of hope in me. They have supported me all through especially in academics. My father has supported and mentored me in all ways and has always hoped that I join USC. At times, he lets me accompany him to the workplace where we would discuss some of the managerial and administrative tasks that he does. I have profound interest in business administration and this is my primary reason for choosing Business administration (Entrepreneurship) as my first major. Additionally, I have business administration skills and background knowledge from personal research and interest. However, I would also do well in International relation (global business) since it also deals with business administration albeit in a global perspective.  Throughout my academics, I always try to balance all the subjects since they are equally important for my career choice. However, the time has come for specialization. Successful students are characterized by diligence and focus. Through personal development and mentorship, I have learned to be persistent and thorough in what I do. I plan to focus on learning and put all my efforts and energy towards achieving academic goals. Having been brought up in a disciplined family set up, I have learned to be disciplined and respectful. I will therefore

The Whiteness Questions Reading + Questions Coursework

The Whiteness Questions Reading + Questions - Coursework Example According to the arguments presented in the article, it seems that many whites do not fully understand the meaning of whiteness in the American context. Even with this as the case, racism, gender discrimination, and imperialism still persists. Interestingly, the whites exhibit an identity that they cannot adequately explain. However, the race, gender, and the white-self factors hold the answer to the contemporary whiteness question. White people have defined themselves based on their white race and gender, but they have overlooked self-actualization relative to this race. The author argues that a good percentage of the white population is still struggling to understand the meaning of whiteness from a political and historical point of view. Amid this, whiteness continues to sink in the hearts of the whites, thus enabling them to understand the dynamics of whiteness and what comprises racism out of the whiteness question. It emerges from the reading that there are white people who have never considered the white to be a race. From this perspective, it can only be argued that a race comprises of people of color; obviously this not true. This indirect notion was to some extent uncomfortable at a personal level. It never occurred to me before that the whites do not fully understand their whiteness. On the other hand, the fact that there are white people who are always joining the civil rights pursuit in favor of people of color resonated with me. The whiteness question is undoubtedly important to address. The issues raised by this question affect whites and people of color in one way or another. However, there is an ultimate personal question and point of confusion when it comes to asserting who is really white and what exactly it takes to be white. What I do not understand is the ‘pure’ aspect of whiteness. Personally, I have interacted with both whites and people of color from the North and South sides of the United States. From my experience, the

Abnormality - deviating from what is normal Essay Example for Free

Abnormality deviating from what is normal Essay The meaning of abnormality is deviating from what is normal, this sounds simple enough, but what do we classify as being normal. Statistical infrequency is one approach of trying to define normal and abnormality by using statics to identify certain behaviors within a population and does this correctly, but it does not however identify which behaviors within a population need treatment (undesirable). For example trait anxiety, someone with high trait anxiety would be advise to have some sort of treatment, however someone with low trait anxiety is hardly clinical abnormality and could be desirable. So there would be seen to be a glitch in this definition of abnormality, as it does not define how behaviors maybe seen as desirable or undesirable. Furthermore against this definition of abnormality is that the statics only relate to one source of population and does not apply to any other age groups or cultures. Two more attempts of defining abnormality are the Failure to Function Adequately theory and also the Deviation From Social Norms. Failure to Function Adequately basically means unable to perform a normal state of every day living, and it is the social groups them selves that contribute to determine what is a normal state of living, and if an individual is unable to function adequately, that would suggest that they have a abnormal behavior. Rosenhan Seligman (1989) suggested seven concepts of abnormal behavior, that by then selves would not suggest someone is abnormally but if one or two of the behaviors did occur then the individual would be seen as being abnormal. The seven concepts of behavior that Rosenhan Seligman came up with was: Suffering-This is a key feature to abnormality but yet almost all normal individuals endure suffering, for example losing a loved one. Maladativeness- This behavior prevents the individual of making major life goals, for example creating a good relationship with another or unable to work efficiently. Vividness and unconventionality of behavior- This behavior is aimed at when an individual behaves differently in situations to those surrounding them. Unpredictability and loss of control- Abnormal individuals behavior is often uncontrollable. Observer discomfort-This is even the observer fells uncomfortable with another individuals behavior. This concept of behavior may differ between other cultures. Violation of moral and ideal standards-this behavior concerns the established moral standards within a population, but the majority of people may fail to maintain those standards.

History Of Baseball In Various Countries Sport Essay

History Of Baseball In Various Countries Sport Essay A Brief History of Baseball and the Dominican Republic Long before David Ortiz and Pedro Martinez were shattering batting and pitching records, or baseball greats like the Alou brothers and Manny Mota were becoming iconic baseball figures, the Dominican Republic was already introducing a distinctive brand of baseball to the world. The Dominican Republic has a long baseball history, which has only become richer in recent years. For over 100 years, baseball has been at the center of cultural life in the Dominican Republic. Though the origins of baseball in the Dominican arent exactly known, historians suggest that baseball first came to the island around the 1880s. Though it is a historical misconception that American Marines brought the game to the island during the 1916 invasion, the United States did play an integral, though indirect, role in bringing baseball here. The United States brought the game of baseball to Cuba in the mid-1860s. It is said that it was Cuban immigrants, fleeing their countrys ten-year war, who spread the game throughout the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic. The first baseball teams on the island were formed either in the year 1894 or 1895. Eventually four teams were formed, becoming the oldest, and founding organizations of baseball in the country. Los Tigres del Licey (The Tigers) was founded in Santo Domingo (in order to compete with Club Ozama y Club Nuevo) in 1907. Over the next 15 years Licey became so dominant that an agreement was made among the three other competing teams (Los Muchachos, San Carlos, and Delco Light) to form a new team, comprised of their best players, in order to beat Licey. That team was Los Leones del Escogido. Las Estrellas Orientales (Eastern Stars) was founded in San Pedro in the year 1911. And later, as mentioned, in 1921, Los Leones del Escogido (Lions of the Chosen One) was founded in Santo Domingo. Sandino, who would become one of the more dominant teams in the league, was founded in 1921, (Sandino was later renamed Las Aguilas Cibaenas, (The Eagles, in 1936). After its introduction in the late 1880s the sports popularity quickly spread, and by the 1920s and 30s teams from the Dominican Republic were playing other Caribbean nations, as well as teams from North America. As with everything on the island, Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who became president of the Republic in 1930, through military action, ultimately controlled all of Dominican baseball. Trujillo oversaw the modernization of the Dominican Republic, and undertook the modernization of baseball as one of these tasks. He built the first major baseball stadium, and provided an avenue for the sport to become the countrys national pastime. With the help of the dictator, and his support of the game, this era became crucial in providing the economic and political foundation for the sport. The inception of the official baseball league, and the eventual completion of â€Å"El Estadio Trujillo† (later renamed Estadio Quisqueya), were landmark events, as they cemented the place of baseball in the Dominican cultural lexicon. During the first phase in the evolution of the countrys baseball history, games were played only during the day. The games second stage began when Estadio Quisqueya w as built in 1955. The stadium was a brilliantly designed and well-built stadium for its time. With the stadium came lights, and what is considered Dominican baseballs Golden Era. To a further extent, players from the United States, especially the Negro Leagues, ventured down to the Caribbean, especially to the Dominican Republic, to play against some of the Caribbeans finest, adding to the level of competition already present. One of the most famous players to participate in the Dominican baseball circuit was Negro League great Satchel Paige. In 1937 Paige was approached by Dr. Jose Enrique Aybar, Dean of the University of Santo Domingo, deputy of the Dominican Republics national congress, and director of Los Dragones. (Los Dragones were the two rival teams from Santo Domingo, Licey and Escogido, who were merged to play in that years 1937 Dominican Baseball league). Los Dragones were a baseball team operated by Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, and Aybar hired Paige to recruit talented Negro League players to play for Trujillo. With $30,000 in hand, the Negro League legend convinced eight other Negro League players to join him for the eight-week long season, including future Negro League legends Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Leroy Matlock, Sam Bankhead, Harry Williams and Herman Andrews. Paige had a solid season, recording a league best 8-10 record, and Los Dragones finished the season in first place, with an overa ll record of 18-13. After Los Dragones beat San Pedro de Macoris in the championship game, (coming from a 3 games to 0 deficit), all the players, except for Paige returned to the United States, though Paige would eventually return to the States. Having little baseball options after being banned from the Negro National League, the returning players formed Trujillos All-Stars, and barnstormed around the Midwest, playing in exhibition and All-Star games. Eventually Paige would continue to barnstorm around the United States, though he would never return to the island. The 1940s and 50s continued to bring acclaim to the nation, and its baseball league. The biggest baseball moment for the Dominicans, up until that point, came in 1956. This historic event paved the way for the future migration of Dominican talent to the United States. This year saw the debut of infielder Ozzie Virgil with the New York Giants. Virgil, who played nine seasons in the Major Leagues, brought Dominican baseball into the international spotlight. He was the first Dominican baseball player to play in the Majors, and it was the eventual success of Virgil, and fellow countrymen Juan Marichal, the Alou brothers, Manny Mota and others, that consolidated the Dominican Republic as a baseball powerhouse in the hemisphere. With the prospect of a solid talent base so relatively close, teams from the Major Leagues quickly began to send money, players, and scouts to capitalize on the growing demand. This was another great boost for the Dominican baseball league and the countrys aspiring players, as they got to sharpen their skills with some of the worlds best talent. Players like Delmar Crandall, Grady Little, Bob Gibson, Willie Mays, Tommy Lasorda, Mike Piazza, Alex Rodriguez, and many others have taken advantage of the level of competition available here, and helped make the league even stronger. Since the 1960s and 70s baseball schools have set up shop in the Dominican Republic, and these days every team in Major League Baseball has a school or an active representation here. There are currently six teams in the Dominican league. Those previously mentioned, with the addition of Los Toros and Los Azucareros. The teams begin play in October, and the season runs through February, with each team playing 60 games, and the two finalists playing for the championship title. Both finalists also go on to represent the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Baseball Series against Mexico, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Of the six teams in the league there have been two great rivalries that have emerged, though this has been to the detriment of the leagues popularity in recent years. In the earlier days of baseball on the island Los Tigres and Los Leones battled continuously for the top, but in more recent years it has been Los Tigres battling with Las Aguilas. Los Tigres have won 19 Dominican titles and 9 Caribbean World Series, while Las Aguilas have won 19 championships. To date, 420 players from the Dominican Republic have played in the Majors (1956-2005), and according to Major League Baseball there are 119 players representing Latin America, which is 24% of major leaguers. Of these 119 players, 90 players come from the Dominican Republic. There are more Dominicans playing in the Majors than from any other country in Latin America, and the Dominican Republic has more players in the Majors than all other countries in Latin America combined. Dominicans have even made strides in other aspects of the game. In 2003 Tony Pena, formerly of the Kansas City Royals, coached against Felipe Alou, of the San Francisco Giants, making it the first time that two Dominicans coached against each other in the Majors. And in 2004 Omar Minaya became the first Dominican General Manager, working the front office for the New York Mets. Though the strength of Dominican baseball is now found in each of the Major Leagues 30 teams, baseball still remains an important part of this countrys history, and an important cultural outlet on the island. Each time the topic of baseball comes up, the names of the legends of yesteryear who helped immortalize the game are remembered and discussed as if those players were still playing today. It is an improbable suggestion that each player, or baseball event will always be remembered, but it is possible to say that this countrys baseball past will always provide the foundation for its rich baseball future. http://dr1.com/articles/baseball.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/bpv/index.php?title=History_of_baseball_in_the_Dominican_Republicprintable=yes Puerto Rico The official story of baseball indicates that this game was invented by Abner Doubleday and introduce it in Copperstown, New York, where now is site of the baseball hall of fame, in 1839. The rules of this game was published by Alexander Cartwright in 1845. Mr. Cartwright also organized an amateur team called New York Knickerbockers that lost to to the New York Nine 23-1 in four innings in the first game that scores were taken and celebrated June 19, 1846. And this sport became known as the national pastime and was spreaded all around the world. This sport was brought to Puerto Rico by the sons and nephews of a Spanish official that had been transferred from Cuba. Here in Puerto Rico the sport was played before the Hispanic-American war. And the first official game played in the island was between Almendares y Boriquen.But the game really developed after the war, in that moment everything was in calm and people in mass started to play it. It used to be played only Sundays and on holi days. This spreaded around the island and almost all the towns had a baseball team.This sport became to be taught in school. People would write songs for their team.One of the most important team was Escuela Superior de Ponce. To play baseball from one town to another they would go in train and lot of fan would go with their team. One of the most important player was Amos Iglesia born in Brooklyn in that time. In the time of the real boom of the sport in the island the most important teams were All American, Cuban Stars, Royals Giants and Lincoln Giants. The first puertorican that receive a test for a team in major league was William Guzman but his parents would not let him go so he could finish being a lawyer. Jose Pepe Santana was one of the most important puertorican to play in black league in the United States due to his power hitting. Hiram Gabriel Bithorn was the first puertorican to play in the major league. His debut was April 15, 1942 with the Chicago Cubs. In 1943 he won 18 games and a era of 2.60. After that year he went to the war and when he came back the speed that took him to the major league was gone. In total, his career in major league in 4 season he had pitched in 105 games won 34 games and lost 31 with an era of 3.16. After Bithorm the next puertorican was Luis Rodriguez Olmo who played with the Brooklyn Dodgers when he started playing in June 22, 1945. He was the first to play in a World Series.His numbers after 6 years in the major league was .281 batting average with 29 homeruns and 458 hits in 462 games. After these two the following were Luis Canena Marquez, Carlos Bernier, Jose Pantalones Santiago, Jose Enrique Montalvo, Ruben Gomez. After those a great number of puertoricans started to play in the major league. In most recent history some of the puertoricans has been worthy to be considered i n a small group of great players in the history of the game. The most important player to come out of Puerto Rico was Roberto Clemente Walker from Carolina. He started playing in April 17, 1955 with the Pittsburgh Pirates but was first signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was selected in 1973, in a special voting due to his death in December 31 of 1972 why delivering help to the victim of an earthquake in Nicaragua, to become the first Latin player to be in the baseball hall of fame. What he did for the game is without end. Some of his awards were National League MVP in 1966, 1971 World Series MVP, won 4 N.L. batting titles, 12 time all-star, won 12 Gold Gloves, lead League in outfield assists 5 times, had a hit in every game of the 1960 1971 World Series, hit 3,000 hit on September 30, 1972, all-time pirate leader in games, at bats, hits, singles, and total bases, second baseball player to appear on a U.S. Postage Stamp (Jackie Robinson was the first). His total for 18 years in majo r league is 2433 games, 3000 hits, 240 homeruns, .317 batting average. Another of great player to come from Puerto Rico is Orlando Peruchin Cepeda. He enter the major league in April 15, 1958 with San Francisco Giants. A lifetime .297 hitter with 379 home runs and 1,364 RBIs during his 17-year playing career with the Giants, Cardinals, Braves, As, Red Sox and Royals, Cepeda hit the first Major League home run ever on the West Coast when he clubbed a homer against the Dodgers in his very first Major League game April 15, 1958. He went on to win 1958 Rookie of the Year honors, the 1966 Comeback Player of the Year award, the 1967 NL Most Valuable Player trophy and 1973 Designated Hitter of the Year laurels. He appeared in three World Series, was an 11-time All-Star and hit over .300 nine times in his career. If we continue to talk about puertorican that had played in the major league we will not finish due that there has been hundreds of players. Some of themare the followings. In 1984 another puertorican was the top story for the major league and that was Willie Hernandez for the Detroit Tigers. In that season he had was the American League MVP and also the Cy Young winner. Another puertorican that been in front line has been Benito Santiago that in 1987 made a record of 34 consecutive games batting a least a hit for a rookie and that same year won the rookie of the year award. Now has a handful of golden glove awards. Some of the records that current players have will be told in their respective page. As you can see we have come a great way to the status we have earned as some of the top players of today baseball. Some of them you hear day to day as the following: Ivan Pudge Rodriguez, Bernie Williams, Carlos Delgado, Edgar Martinez, Roberto and Santos Alomar, Juan Igor Gonzalez, Wilfr edo Cordero, Jaime Navarro, Carlos Baerga, Bobby Bonilla, Javier Lopez, Roberto Hernandez and others. Cuba History of Baseball in Cuba Baseball came to Cuba in the 1860s. Brought by Cubans who studied in the United States and American sailors in Cuban ports. It quickly spread through the island and took heart with the Cuban people who were fighting for their independence from Spain. We will follow Cuban Baseball from its social club beginnings and through its Golden age. Follow the rise of the Amateur Leagues and the resurgence of the Professional Leagues in the 1940s. The influence of American organized ball in the 50s and the end of professionalism in 1961. Also a look at how Baseball survives in Cuba today, with hope of a return to its splendid glory in the future. A Tribute to Cuban Baseball A great number of Cubans played on baseball Teams in the Professional, Semi-pro, Amateur and Sugar Mill Leagues in Cuba. Cubans have played abroad in just about all the baseball playing nations. In the United States, Cubans played proudly and with distinction in the Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, and Negro Leagues. Ballplayers like Esteban Bellà ¡n, Josà © Mà ©ndez, Martà ­n Dihigo, Adolfo Luque, Miguel Gonzà ¡lez, Minnie Mià ±oso, Camilo Pascual, Tony Pà ©rez, and Jose Contreras have had stellar careers in baseball. Several Cubans are listed among the greatest players in baseball History . Also, many of the greatest American ballplayers have played in Cuba. Americans like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Josh Gibson, and Satchel Paige have graced the ballfields of the island nation. Many have appeared on Cuban Baseball Card sets and Collectibles. This Web Site is dedicated to all the ballplayers of Cuban Heritage, either born in Cuba or children of Cubans, and all ballplayers from other na tions who have played in Cuba. http://www.cubanball.com/ A great number of Cubans have played in the major leagues. The first was Esteban Bellan , who played in the 1870s. Then in 1911 the Cincinnati Reds brought in Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans, who were followed by a steady stream of players from the Island. Adolfo Luque became the first Latin star when he led all pitchers with an outstanding 27-8 record and a 1.93 ERA in 1923. In the 1950s Minnie Mià ±oso and other black Cubans helped integrate the Major Leagues. The 60s and 70s brought many players who left the now Communist country like Camilo Pascual, Luis Tiant, Tony Perezand Tony Oliva. More recently Jose Contreras and Rafael Palmeiro have reached stardom. Lately defections from Cuba by their star ballplayers has highlighted the Cuban baseball news. Cuban greats like Livan and Orlando Hernandez have risked their lives to play the highest level of baseball, which is found here in the United States. Cubans and the Negro Leagues A great number of Cubans played in the Negro Leagues. Men like Jose Mendez, Cristobal Torriente, Martin Dihigo and Minnie Mià ±oso played with distinction in Negro League squads. Cubans played in the Negro League World Series. Cubans also played in the East West All-Star games and are listed on All Time Negro League All-Star lists. Several Cuban teams were also part of the established Negro Leagues or barnstormed as independants. Teams like the Cuban Stars and New York Cubans were made up of mostly Cuban ballplayers. Many of the greatest American Negro League ballplayers played in Cuba. Pop Lloyd, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Buck Oneil have graced the ballfields of Cuba. They made the rosters of some of best teams in Cuban baseball history. Many of the only examples of contemporary Baseball Cards of Negro League players are found in Cuban Baseball Card sets. Mexico Mexicos baseball roots are believed to be traced back to approximately 1847. American soldiers in the Mexican War introduced Mexicans to the game of baseball in various regions. The laying of track for the railroad, specifically the Monterrey-Tampico railway, played a large part in the spreading of baseball throughout the country, specifically northern Mexico. Colonel Joseph Robertson, who was from Tennessee and once served under General Robert E. Lee, introduced the game in Nuevo Leon when he granted his railroad workers a holiday on the fourth of July in 1889. Robertson and his workers celebrated by playing baseball. The first organized Mexican League was formed in 1925 by Jorge Pasquel. Pasquel had major league ambitions and stocked his teams with Negro League stars. Furthermore he raided MLB players following World War II when there became a player surplus and accompanying pay cuts. Most of these defector players (23) joined the Quebec Provincial League soon after and Pasquel had to fold the league due to financial ruin in 1953. In 1955 the league resurfaced as a Class-AA minor league, then reorganized yet again in 1967 as a Class-AAA league and continues to this day as a summer league. (Mexicos other baseball league is the â€Å"Liga Mexicana del Paci ­fico† or Mexican Pacific League. It is a â€Å"high level† winter league where the winner of the league moves on to represent Mexico in the Caribbean League World Series. The winter league has a total of eight clubs that play a 68 game regular season schedule starting the second week of October and ending in December.) The Mexican League is composed of 16 teams, divided equally among 2 divisions: the North Zone and the South Zone. The Mexican League is facing tough times as the popularity of baseball is waning in the country. Unlike other Caribbean countries such as the Dominican, Cuba, Venezuela et. al., it seems Mexicans have found a cure for the Beisbol fever that they once had and its name is Futbol. Attendance at professional baseball games has been flat, with about 2.3 million tickets sold each year between 1998 and 2003, the latest year of data, according to Mexicos National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information Processing. Meanwhile, soccer ticket sales rose 27 percent in the same period, to more than 4.9 million annually. As Mexicans become more affluent, theyre spending more on soccer than ever before. Mexico City, a metropolis of 18 million people, has four pro soccer teams but only one baseball team, the Diablos Rojos (Red Devils). It plays in the Foro Sol, a stadium wedged into a corner of the Hermanos Rodriguez race car track. A second team, the Tigers, moved to Puebla soon after the Social Security Stadium closed in 2001. Mexicos second-biggest city, Guadalajara, doesnt have a baseball team, but sports three top division soccer teams. Mexican soccer jerseys can be bought on any street corner, but baseball paraphernalia is practically nonexistent. Much like Canada, Mexicos media mostly ignore baseball. When the Pittsburgh Steelers a popular team among Mexicans won the Super Bowl it dominated front pages across the country. The other big game on that Sunday, the Mazatlan Bucks 4-3 loss to a Venezuelan team at the Caribbean World Series, was relegated to the last pages of sports sections. (Sounds like what happens when a curling tournament is on or the Maple Leafs open training camp doesnt matter if the Jays are winning the World Series in Toronto) While the Mexican Soccer Federation has cultivated its sport nationwide, baseball remains a regional game. Twenty-seven percent of the Mexican Baseball Leagues 445 players come from one state, Sinaloa, with another 20 percent coming from neighbouringSonora. Another problem is that Mexicans never get to see homegrown MLB stars play except on TV. Hopefully Mexicos moderate success in the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic will do wonders for the sports popularity, but one can only hope http://mopupduty.com/index.php/mexican-baseball/ The Liga Mexicana de Bà ©isbol was founded in 1925 with six teams playing all their games in Mexico City. In the 1930s and 1940s, African-Americans from the United States—who were still barred from Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947played alongside Mexicans and Cubans in the Mexican League. This arrangement benefited the African-American players through higher salaries and better conditions than in the Negro Leagues in the United States, and helped the Mexican League gain status and revenue from increasing the caliber of their ballplayers. In 1937, legendary Negro Leagues stars Satchel Paige and James â€Å"Cool Papa Bell† left the Pittsburgh Crawfords to play in Latin America. After playing a year in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic, Paige and Bell joined the Mexican League. In 1940, Bell won the Triple Crown, hitting .437, with 12 home runs, and 79 RBIs. The next year, fellow Negro Leaguer Josh Gibson hit .374, and set Mexica n League records with 33 home runs and 124 RBIs in only 103 games. His home run mark almost tripled the existing Mexican record and stood until 1960 when the Mexican League had a longer season. In the 1940s, multi-millionaire Jorge Pasquel attempted to turn the Mexican League into a first-rate rival to the Major Leagues in the United States. In 1946, Pasquel traveled north of the border to pursue the top players in the Negro and Major Leagues. Although he was reportedly turned down by Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, Pasquel signed up close to twenty white major leaguers, including such well known names as Mickey Owen and Sal Maglie, and a number of Negro League players. Ultimately, Pasquels dream faded, as financial realities led to decreased salaries and his high-priced foreign stars returned home. Currently, 16 teams divided into North and South Divisions play in the Liga Mexicana in a summer season, which ends in a 7-game championship series between the winners of the two divisions. Since 1967, the league has been sanctioned as an â€Å"AAA† minor league. In the winter, eight teams play in the Liga Mexicana de Pacifico, whose winner advances to the Caribbean Series against other Latin American winners. In 1957, baseball in Mexico got a big boost when a little league team in Mexico won the Little League World Series in Williamsport. 12-year old Angel Macias won the championship for the Mexicans by throwing a perfect game against a team from La Mesa, California. The El Sà ¡lon de la Fama, the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame, has enshrined 167 into its Hall of Immortals, consisting of 138 Mexicans, 16 Cubans, 12 from the United States, and one Puerto Rican. Distinguished players include Major League Baseball stars Roy Campanella and Monte Irvin, who played in the Mexican League in the 1940s. Nicknamed â€Å"El Bambino Mexicano,† or the Mexican Babe Ruth, Hector Espino was inducted in the Mexican Hall of Fame in 1988, after playing with San Luis Potosi, Monterrey, and Tampico from 1962 to 1984. His 453 home runs remained the record until Nelson Barrera surpassed him in 2001. Espino still holds the all-time records in many offensive categories. In international competition, the Mexican national team failed to advance beyond the second round of the World Baseball Classic in 2006. But its second-round 2-1 victory over the United States before a heavy pro-USA crowd of 38,284 in Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, proved to be a big highlight to Mexicans as the win prevented its bigger rival from moving on to the semi-finals. Mexican teams have won the Caribbean Series against other Latin countries six times, most recently in 2005 when Venados de Mazatlà ¡n won in its home town. Venezuela: Origins There is not an exact and recognized version about how and when the game of Baseball was introduced to Venezuelans. What is accepted by most historians is that some Venezuelan students in American universities, began to practice the new sport when they went back home after finishing their studies and started to teach the game to their friends among the social high-class clubs in Caracas, around the early years of the 1890 decade. By May 1895, Amenodoro Franklin and his brothers Emilio, Gustavo, and Augusto established the first organized Baseball Club, â€Å"Caracas BBC†. They had been gathering people for the last 3 months to practice the game every Sunday. The youngsters were concerned in those days in spreading the fever of the new game in the city, they practiced in an open land in front of the train station in Quebrada Honda, further, the field was named Caracas Baseball Club Exercise Field. Caracas BBC organized the first official game in Venezuela as a big event to gain publicity. On May 22, 1895, they sent an open invitation and placed an ad in El Tiempo, a local newspaper. The game was so new and unrecognized that the reporter invited the people thru the ad to a new kind of Chess game, the Base Bale. The next day at 3:30 p.m., jumped out on the field the two teams of Caracas BBC, The Red and The Blue, the latter, managed by Amenodoro Franklin, won with a score of 28 to 19. Some of the players were the Franklin brothers, Emilio, Gustavo and Augusto, Adolfo Inchausti, Alfredo Mosquera, the Todd Brothers, Jaime and Roberto and Mariano Becerra. All of them, former students in the United States, are considered the pioneers of the game in Venezuela. Among the other players involved were the Gonzalez Brothers, Manuel and Joaquin and Emilio Gramer, they were Cubans living in Caracas. El Tiempo did not know much about baseball after the first game; even many people believed that they were going to watch a chess game, because of the reporters mistake. A note appeared on the paper the next day describing more the environment than the game itself: it looked like a carnival Sunday, without disguises or flowers or candies or reddish things. The delight of the people was so high that it was not even one complain about the poverty on the Republic was heard during the afternoon. And as in other times, people had fun, at least the part of the population who has more elements to do it.† Venezuela, filled with internal revolutions all over the country, was leaded by rural or military leaders, who tried to take control of the government. By 1895, General Joaquin Crespo was the president and the country was impoverished after many years of civil war. El Pregonero, another newspaper also covered the game, and in their note about it, they mocked El Tiempos Chess Ad: You see! El Tiempo? the match was a Ball Game, not Bale. El Tiempo is always wrong. They also published: â€Å"But this game of Base Ball provides health and strength to the body and happiness to the spirit. Three months later, on August 15, El Cojo Ilustrado a kind of magazine, published the first pictures of Base Ball in the country sent by Mariano Becerra. Days later, everybody was talking around the city about the new sport, and Alfredo Mosqueras father, the owner of Caracas Beer Co., built the first official stadium in the country with stands and official measures according to the American rules. It was the Stand del Este, near the Petare train station, a Caracas suburb. http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall02/Landino/thepast.html The history of Baseball in Panama: In Panama, baseballs heritage dates back to the late 19th Century with the arrival of North Americans working to construct the Panama Canal. This is the time when baseball became a popular sport in Panama. The growth of baseball in Panama brought about the development of Panamanian players in Major League Baseball. The most famous player being Rod Carew, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. http://www.ebeisbol.com/category/panama/

Van Den Haag Regarding Capital Punishment Philosophy Essay

Van Den Haag Regarding Capital Punishment Philosophy Essay In this paper, I will examine the debate over legalizing the death penalty, specifically by referring to the writings of Turrow in To Kill Or Not To Kill and Van den Haag in On Deterrence and the Death Penalty. I will argue that in responding to Van den Haags positions for the death penalty, Turrow would more strongly object to the argument that rests on its justice on opposed to its value as deterrent. I will then consider the merit of the arguments on both sides with regards to justice, eventually concluding that Turrows points are most convincing. Although Turrow makes space in his article to refute arguments based on both deterrence and justice, his argument against deterrence is much shorter and open to criticism. It boils down to the fact that he has not encountered sufficient evidence that the presence of the death penalty results in lower instances of crime. Van den Haag gives several arguments as to why this fails to make a convincing argument against the practice. The ones that are given the most time are the theoretical reasoning that a higher penalty for an action increases deterrence and why the lack of evidence for deterrence should not cause us to assume it does not exist. Since Turrow does not concern himself with the theoretical grounds for deterrence, this argument is unlikely to convince him. If the facts do not back up this theorizing then there is little reason to base policy on it. Luckily, Van den Haag also responds to concerns about the lack of evidence showing that the presence of the death penalty has any deterrent effect on crime. While he admits that no evidence can be found that the death penalty reduces crime, we should not conclude that this effect is not present. Because there are so many factors that influence things like homicide rates, it is impossible to derive a causal relationship or lack thereof between magnitude of punishment and frequency of offense. As Van den Haag puts it, it is wrong to believe, lack of evidence for deterrence is evidence for the lack of deterrence, (Van den Haag, 145). This is accompanied by the claim on Van den Haags part that often criminals are not even aware of laws in their state regarding capital punishment, so its presence would not factor into their cost-benefit analysis. Now, an immediate question raised by this is: How can the death penalty deter criminals if they arent aware of its existence? Even though only part of Van den Haags appeal to deterrence seems to carry any weight to Turrow, the inability to draw any solid conclusion from statistical analysis should be enough to give Turrow pause, if not necessarily convince him. I will now argue that while Turrow may still disagree with the deterrence argument, he will object more strongly to the appeal to justice that Van den Haag gives. This is not to say that Turrow rejects the idea that justice should be an end we seek in punishing criminals. In his article, he makes several statements that would be nonsensical if this were not the case. Firstly he says, Ive always thought death-penalty proponents have a point when they say that it denigrates the profound indignity of murder to punish it in the same fashion as other crimes. (Turrow, 4) Turrow is not appealing to deterrence or potential for rehabilitation here in his argument for the death penalty. His objection is based on the fact that some crimes are so heinous that we must respond in kind for the sake of the moral order. It seems to me that restoring the moral order, is as good a definition of justice as any other. Now that I have concluded that both Van den Haag and Turrow see justice as a legitimate ground on which to base arguments for and against capital punishment, I must show that appealing to justice leads the two authors to different conclusions. Van den Haags appeal to justice is a very much utilitarian argument that is dependent upon his argument from deterrence. He argues that whatever way that we were to define injustice, the correct action should be that which results in the least injustice. This leads him to conclude that if we are concerned with innocent people being mistakenly given the death penalty, we must consider the number of innocents killed this way and compare it to the number of deaths that could have been prevented by deterrence and see if we have a net gain in innocents saved. He then goes on to argue that capital punishment deters enough would-be killers to make its legality just. Turrow would object more strongly to claims of justice than to deterrence because, as Van den Haag states, the validity of his justice argument is dependent on the validity of his deterrence argument. I have already mentioned that Turrow is skeptical of claims of deterrence. I turns out that even if he were to reverse his stance on deterrence, he would also disagree with Van den Haags reasoning for why this would make a system with capital punishment a just one. The main flaw that Turrow finds with capital punishment is its inability to be properly implemented within our justice system. He relates stories of his firsthand experience with cases in which men are given, or very nearly given, the death sentence for crimes they did not commit. This deeply troubles him, and he is not so willing to accept this tragedy as Van den Haag is by simply requiring that more innocent lives are saved by the act than are wrongfully executed. He simply states that, Now and then, we will execute someone who is innocentà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Turrow, 7) He makes no reference to the number of people saved by this practice, because that number is not significant. Turrow seems to believe that wrongfully executing someone is far worse than the crime of murder enacted by an individual. This may be that the first is a sort of betrayal of the justice system, whereas the latter is simply a failure of it. Therefore, because Turrow would disagree with both the main argument (jus tice) and that which it relies upon (deterrence), his objection to justice would be the stronger of the two. I will now evaluate both arguments from each of these in regards to the justice of having a death penalty. Here I will assume that the argument for deterrence is valid and some innocent lives are spared since Van den Haags argument for justice is contingent upon this fact. As I have described it, the crux of this debate hinges on whether or not it is acceptable to allow some innocents to be executed in order to save more from would-be murderers who do not commit crimes out of fear of the death penalty. Van den Haag is satisfied as long as the number of innocents killed is less than without the death penalty whereas Turrow is against any system in which the innocent may be wrongfully given a death sentence. Something potentially overlooked by Van den Haag is that there may be more consequences to capital punishment being accepted than the accidental killing of innocents. The very idea that ones government may wrongfully convict you for a crime you did not commit could fray the trust that should theoretically exist between a citizen and the government designed to protect him or her. While this argument could certainly be made for any sort of crime, both authors make the distinction in the death penaltys irrevocability. If one has faith that the system may eventually discover its error (by no means certain), then a jail term can be ended and the victim compensated but this is not possible with death. This fear on the part of the citizen could lead to a lack of cooperation or assistance with the police in a case for fear that they will become a suspect. However, the argument that we should not inflict the death penalty because we may sentence the wrong person to death deserves a bit more analysis. The common point made by both authors is that it may be better to give a life-in-prison sentence because then any mistakes in conviction may be found and reversed. However, if this does not actually happen then this weakness of capital punishment does not actually exist. It would be worthwhile to examine statistics of how many prisoners serving life sentences are found to be innocent and released. This would give us insight as to how many innocent lives would be lost were capital punishment allowed, and be a mark in favor of prohibiting it. In other words, if life-in-prison sentences are never overturned then prisoners given them in lieu of the death penalty have no chance of being released so the increased chance of righting the wrong does not actually exist. Granted, this theoretical wrongfully accused person does gain life-in-prison as opposed to execution, but this seems like small consolation to a man who committed no crime. This is a measurable quantity, one that I suspect will come down in favor of prohibition. Of course, as with any objection to a utilitarian viewpoint, as the numbers become more and more extreme our convictions seem less concrete. Would we allow the wrongful execution of one man in order to deter the murders of one million? Because this case is quite unlikely, it does not bear much weight in my considerations. In this paper I have outlined reasons for which Turrow would object most strongly to Van den Haags defense of capital punishment on the grounds of justice, namely that wrongfully executing someone is far worse than failing to deter a murderer from doing the same. I have then considered the justice-based arguments of both authors and decided that, despite potential lives saved and pending statistical reinforcement, the societal consequences of capital punishment outweigh its benefits.

Urban Land Use Models :: Papers

Urban Land Use Models Often in geography models are used to try to explain something that we can see in the physical environment. During the 20th century a number of models were developed to try to explain how urban areas grew. Although models show a very general idea of the shape of the city, all of the ones described here have aspects that can be seen in most cities in the developed and developing world. The Burgess Model In 1925, E.W. Burgess presented an urban land use model, which divided cities in a set of concentric circles expanding from the downtown to the suburbs. This representation was built from Burgess's observations of a number of American cities, notably Chicago. According to this model, a large city is divided in concentric zones with a tendency of each inner zone to expand in the other zone. Urban growth is thus a process of expansion and recon version of land uses. For instance on this figure zone II (Factory zone) is expanding towards zone IV (Working class zone), creating a transition zone with recon version of land use. Although the Burgess model is simple and elegant, it has drawn numerous criticisms: * The model is too simple and limited in historical and cultural applications up to the 1950s. It is a product of its time. * The model was developed when American cities were growing very fast in demographic terms and when individual transportation was still uncommon. Expansion thus involved recon version of land uses. This concept cannot be applied in a contemporary (second half to the 20th century) context where highways have enabled urban development to escape the recon version process and settle in the suburbs. * The model was developed for American cities and has limited applicability elsewhere. It has been demonstrated that

Relationship Building as Means for Prevention of Behavior Problems in S

Many children come to school with behavior problems that impede their learning and disrupt the the learning of other children. As early as preschool as many as twenty-five percent of children demonstrate problematic behaviors which place them at risk for future negative school experiences (Conroy, M., Sutherland, K., Haydon, T., Stormont, M., & Harmon, J, 2009). These children exhibit aggression, defiance, bullying of others, poor work habits, and acting out in class. Overtime these behaviors become chronic for some students and cyclical patterns of poor behavior, reactionary discipline, failed relationships with staff and peers, low self-esteem, and poor academic performance plague these children. Many teachers feel frustrated as they spend the majority of their classroom management time on the same few children each day. This ongoing anger and frustration further isolates these students from their teachers. Attempts to teach expectations and proper school behaviors fail. These stud ent frequently become problem students each year. Over the course of several years these students begin to see themselves as failures and actively begin self-sabotaging behaviors leading to a permanent loss of academic achievement of a lifetime of low self-esteem. Many children with severe behavior problems have significant emotional trauma, serious emotional losses, and deficits in social skills. These problems never offically diagnosed or professionally treated despite their effects on the children. Children with chronically challenging behavior frequently come with a history of abuse or neglect. They often come from homes with significant instability or a chaotic environment. Often their parents have histories of drug abuse or mental illness. Acco... ...ocial Interactions in Head Start Classrooms and Early Reading, Mathematics, and Approaches to Learning. School Psychology Review, 40(1), 39-56. Conroy, M., Sutherland, K., Haydon, T., Stormont, M., & Harmon, J. (2009). Preventing and Ameliorating Young Children's Chronic Problem Behaviors: An Ecological Classroom-Based Approach. Psychology In The Schools, 46(1), 3-17. Gest, S. D., & Gest, J. M. (2005). Reading Tutoring for Students at Academic and Behavioral Risk: Effects on Time-On-Task in the Classroom. Education & Treatment Of Children (ETC), 28(1), 25-47. Matheson, A., & Shriver, M. D. (2005). Training Teachers to Give Effective Commands: Effects on Student Compliance and Academic Behaviors. School Psychology Review, 34(2), 202-219. Sitler, H. (2009). Teaching with Awareness: The Hidden Effects of Trauma on Learning. Clearing House, 82(3), 119-123.

Character Study Of William Shakespeares Hamlet English Literature Essay

When talking to Polonius ( Excerpt 1 ) , Ophelia about becomes dense. Although she expresses herself, she does so in an highly laden manner. When asked about Hamlets stamps, Ophelia responds by stating that she doesnt know what to believe. This is an unfastened invitation to Polonius to determine her sentiments in any manner possible. Proof of this is in Polonius response: Marry, I ‘ll learn you: believe yourself a babe By stating this, Polonius wants to pull strings Ophelia. A babe is frequently portrayed as guiltless, un-knowing, fleeceable, and easy influenced. Babies besides absorb about anything they are shown or told, and reiterate these things about precisely the manner they were presented. This is precisely how Ophelia is ; she is dumbed down in her relationship with her male parent. She becomes a topic of his, a figure to make his command. This is non the merely relationship where Ophelia is pushed around. Ophelias relationship with Claudius is even worse than her relationship with Polonius. Although Polonius uses Ophelia for aid in his Acts of the Apostless of espionage, Claudius uses Ophelia in even more evil commands, such as messing with Hamlets bosom. In Excerpt 2, Ophelia is in the state of affairs where she must deny Hamlet to see his response. This thought was largely formulated by the King to happen the beginning of Hamlets evident insanity. The male monarch, in an attempt to convey more stableness to his life, wants Hamlet to go stable as good. Because of this, he is willing to give the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia to heighten his ain state of affairs. Claudius asks Ophelia to return Hamlets letters. Ophelia has no pick by to follow and as a consequence destroys her relationship with Hamlet. The Queens relationship with Ophelia is similar to the Kings relationship with Ophelia. The Queen is in a really commanding relationship ( as seen in Excerpt 2 ) ( Madam I wish it may ) with Ophelia. But, it is for a different ground. The King controls Ophelia as a device to break his ain state of affairs. The Queen utilizations Ophelia to bring out the jobs with Hamlet ( out of echt attention for Hamlet ) . But, the Queen is highly nescient and fails to recognize that her actions are really aching Hamlet more. The most interesting and most cryptic relationship is the connexion between Hamlet and Ophelia. Near the beginning of the drama, Ophelia references to Polonius an act of Hamlets that can be interpreted as confidant ( Just predating Excerpt 1 ) . Hamlet seemingly writes infinite letters to Ophelia during this clip, and it isnt until Ophelia ( non by pick ) returns Hamlets letters that their relationship alterations. Ophelia goes from being in love with Hamlet to feel foring him ( O, what a baronial head is here o'erthrown! ( III.i, 163 ) ) . On the other side, Hamlet is amused by the full experience. He to the full realizes what is traveling on with Ophelia, Claudius, and Polonius and he finds it entertaining. From that point on in the book, Hamlet uses Ophelia as some kind of amusement. BUT, deep down, it is evident that Hamlet is still really much in love with Ophelia. Ophelia has different types of relationships with different characters. The King uses Ophelia for his ain personal addition. Polonius uses Ophelia for aid in his Acts of the Apostless of espionage. The Queen utilizations Ophelia to happen out more about Hamlets issues. And Hamlet uses Ophelia for amusement. But, throughout the book Hamlet remains in love with Ophelia. All of these utilizations for Ophelia make her the biggest tool of Denmark. The motive of moving: Ophelias function Throughout the drama, Ophelia is forced into state of affairss of moving to carry through the command of others. The most prevailing of these state of affairss is where she must return Hamlets letters, a statement that she doesnt want/love him. This function of moving is meant to carry through Claudius, Polonius and the Queens purposes, which fit two other motives in the drama: misrepresentation and espionage. Ophelias moving was merely a portion of the larger programs of misrepresentation and espionage. Although Ophelia had literally no influence in the planning of the misrepresentation and espionage, she helped to transport it out, and is hence merely every bit guilty as the other plotters. Flowers: Ophelias Connection to Flowers OPHELIA There ‘s rosemary, that ‘s for recollection ; pray, love, retrieve: and there is Viola tricolor hortensiss. that ‘s for ideas. Laertess A papers in lunacy, ideas and recollection fitted. OPHELIA There ‘s fennel for you, and aquilegias: there ‘s herb of grace for you ; and here ‘s some for me: we may name it herb-grace O ‘ Lord's daies: O you must have on your herb of grace with a difference. There ‘s a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my male parent died: they say he made a good terminal, — ( Sings ) For bonnie sweet Robin is all my joy. ( IV.v, 199-210 ) Ophelia chooses her flowers carefully. In making so she represents each of the characters in their ain manner, uncovering even more who they truly are. Rosemary/Pansies – Laertes: Remembrance of Polonius, maintain the memory of their male parent alive. Fennel Claudius: Obsequiousness of Ophelia, reflects their relationship. Columbine Claudius: Infidelity, non faithful in love for household and others. Rue Queen/Herself: Grief, mourning Daisy Queen: Dishonesty, fraudulence ( Queens headlong matrimony ) Violets Hamlet: Fidelity and truthfulness, Hamlet through his ain prevarications has helped destruct their relationship. This leads me to believe that possibly Ophelia isnt truly insane, possibly shes merely improbably angry and is blinded by her choler. She must hold put an atrocious sum of idea into these flowers, more than any insane individual can take the clip to make. I believe that she merely reached a breakage point ; she no longer wants to be used. The Tool of Denmark has broken. Note: Flower Meanings from hypertext transfer protocol: //aboutflowers.com/flower-a-plant-information-and-photos/meanings-of-flowers.html and hypertext transfer protocol: //www.800florals.com/care/meaning.asp

Gay marriages should be made legal

Homosexuality has always been an easily misunderstood aspect of human's sexual life. People have diverse opinions but also very complex feelings over homosexuality. From the ancient years homosexuals were called â€Å"human garbage† and thought to be unclean by society. They were always isolated and rejected because of their sexual preferences, which were something different and unusual in comparison with the standards of society. However the way each of us deal with the fact of homosexuality depends on our own background, confusion, and personal experience with this issue. In the last years it has appeared the phenomenon of gay marriages, which actually worries society and raises many speculations about its probable legalization. Gay marriages happen more frequently in the recent years and they provoke disagreements and disputes among people. The moral issue that arises is whether gay marriages should be made legal or not. The majority of people are against legalization of this kind of marriages because they consider it as something abnormal and as a terrible sin against society, which unavoidably leads to disaster. According to the common belief gay marriages never existed in the past so there is no reason to change the already existing and well built foundations of this society. Whatever differs from the widely accepted establishment, is isolated and thrust aside. Consequently gay are not allowed to have a family and live their life as they dreamed it of. Furthermore, homosexuals are despised and rejected from the Christians and the religion in general. They are thought to be the â€Å"black ships† which do not deserve to be loved by God or by anyone else. According to our religion the two sexes have to married each other and anything else beside that is considered as blaspheme. They don't follow the â€Å"rules† of society and religion and they have to be punished. Consequently society, decides for the structure of the most appropriate kind of family and it actually excludes the minority of homosexuals by depriving them the right of getting married, creating a family and even have or adopt children. Additionally they are not suitable to bring up a child with the normal way because inevitably one of the two sexes is absent. According to Freud the lack of one of the two sexes in a marriage ends up to be disastrous for the personality of the child. This comes as a natural consequence because the child has only one sex model to imitate and learn from. Things become even more complicated when the child is of the opposite sex from the parents. On the other hand, according to homosexuals and their supporters same sex marriages should be legalized, because all people despite their sexual preferences must be able to get married with the person they love. Homosexuality is not something repulsive but just something different that heterosexuals are not used to. Gay support the opinion that sexual orientation is something, which seems to be â€Å"‘given† and it can't change. Homosexuals can't deny the truth about themselves and they get in a process of discovering and accepting themselves as they are. We must do the same thing and avoid criticizing them for their choices. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with morality. Homosexuals as well as heterosexuals can be involved in sexual sin, including promiscuity, infidelity and abuse. They are just like the rest of us, they have the same rights and they deserve the same opportunities in life. Consequently, they should be allowed to get married and create a family. They can be as good parents as the ordinary parents. They can offer love, tenderness and they can contribute to the formation of their children's personality. In conclusion homosexuality has many supporters but also many enemies. The problem that arises is whether it should be legalized or not. As we know from history all kind of discriminations led humanity straight to disaster in the past years. So as we accept every person with its benefits but also its disadvantages, we should also accept the homosexuals. Even if people cannot easily accept something new and different that inclines from what is considered as normal we must try to accept it and give homosexuals the chance to fulfil their dreams and live their lives without any unfair discriminations through legalization of gay marriages.

Role of Computer in Daily Life

Financial Crises and Bank Liquidity Creation Allen N. Berger †  and Christa H. S. Bouwman †¡ October 2008 Financial crises and bank liquidity creation are often connected. We examine this connection from two perspectives. First, we examine the aggregate liquidity creation of banks before, during, and after five major financial crises in the U. S. from 1984:Q1 to 2008:Q1. We uncover numerous interesting patterns, such as a significant build-up or drop-off of â€Å"abnormal† liquidity creation before each crisis, where â€Å"abnormal† is defined relative to a time trend and seasonal factors.Banking and market-related crises differ in that banking crises were preceded by abnormal positive liquidity creation, while market-related crises were generally preceded by abnormal negative liquidity creation. Bank liquidity creation has both decreased and increased during crises, likely both exacerbating and ameliorating the effects of crises. Off-balance sheet guarantees such as loan commitments moved more than on-balance sheet assets such as mortgages and business lending during banking crises.Second, we examine the effect of pre-crisis bank capital ratios on the competitive positions and profitability of individual banks during and after each crisis. The evidence suggests that high capital served large banks well around banking crises – they improved their liquidity creation market share and profitability during these crises and were able to hold on to their improved performance afterwards. In addition, high-capital listed banks enjoyed significantly higher abnormal stock returns than low-capital listed banks during banking crises.These benefits did not hold or held to a lesser degree around marketrelated crises and in normal times. In contrast, high capital ratios appear to have helped small banks improve their liquidity creation market share during banking crises, market-related crises, and normal times alike, and the gains in market shar e were sustained afterwards. Their profitability improved during two crises and subsequent to virtually every crisis. Similar results were observed during normal times for small banks. †  University of South Carolina, Wharton Financial Institutions Center, and CentER – Tilburg University.Contact details: Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 1705 College Street, Columbia, SC 29208. Tel: 803-576-8440. Fax: 803-777-6876. E-mail: [email  protected] sc. edu. †¡ Case Western Reserve University, and Wharton Financial Institutions Center. Contact details: Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, 362 PBL, Cleveland, OH 44106. Tel. : 216-368-3688. Fax: 216-368-6249. E-mail: christa. [email  protected] edu. Keywords: Financial Crises, Liquidity Creation, and Banking. JEL Classification: G28, and G21.The authors thank Asani Sarkar, Bob DeYoung, Peter Ritchken, Greg Udell, and participants at presentations at the Summer Research Conference 2008 in Finance at the ISB in Hyderabad, the International Monetary Fund, the University of Kansas’ Southwind Finance Conference, and Erasmus University for useful comments. Financial Crises and Bank Liquidity Creation 1. Introduction Over the past quarter century, the U. S. has experienced a number of financial crises. At the heart of these crises are often issues surrounding liquidity provision by the banking sector and financial markets (e. . , Acharya, Shin, and Yorulmazer 2007). For example, in the current subprime lending crisis, liquidity seems to have dried up as banks seem less willing to lend to individuals, firms, other banks, and capital market participants, and loan securitization appears to be significantly depressed. This behavior of banks is summarized by the Economist: â€Å"Although bankers are always stingier in a downturn, [†¦] lots of banks said they had also cut back lending because of a slide in their current or expe cted capital and liquidity. 1 The practical importance of liquidity during crises is buttressed by financial intermediation theory, which indicates that the creation of liquidity is an important reason why banks exist. 2 Early contributions argue that banks create liquidity by financing relatively illiquid assets such as business loans with relatively liquid liabilities such as transactions deposits (e. g. , Bryant 1980, Diamond and Dybvig 1983). More recent contributions suggest that banks also create liquidity off the balance sheet through loan commitments and similar claims to liquid funds (e. g. Holmstrom and Tirole 1998, Kashyap, Rajan, and Stein 2002). 3 The creation of liquidity makes banks fragile and susceptible to runs (e. g. , Diamond and Dybvig 1983, Chari and Jagannathan 1988), and such runs can lead to crises via contagion effects. Bank liquidity creation can also have real effects, in particular if a financial crisis ruptures the creation of liquidity (e. g. , Dellâ⠂¬â„¢Ariccia, Detragiache, and Rajan 2008). 4 Exploring the relationship between financial crises and bank liquidity creation can thus yield potentially interesting economic insights and may have important policy implications.The goals of this paper are twofold. The first is to examine the aggregate liquidity creation of 1 â€Å"The credit crisis: Financial engine failure† – The Economist, February 7, 2008. According to the theory, another central role of banks in the economy is to transform credit risk (e. g. , Diamond 1984, Ramakrishnan and Thakor 1984, Boyd and Prescott 1986). Recently, Coval and Thakor (2005) theorize that banks may also arise in response to the behavior of irrational agents in financial markets. 3James (1981) and Boot, Thakor, and Udell (1991) endogenize the loan commitment contract due to informational frictions. The loan commitment contract is subsequently used in Holmstrom and Tirole (1998) and Kashyap, Rajan, and Stein (2002) to show how banks can provide liquidity to borrowers. 4 Acharya and Pedersen (2005) show that liquidity risk also affects the expected returns on stocks. 2 1 banks around five financial crises in the U. S. over the past quarter century. 5 The crises include two banking crises (the credit crunch of the early 1990s and the subprime lending crisis of 2007 – ? and three crises that can be viewed as primarily market-related (the 1987 stock market crash, the Russian debt crisis plus the Long-Term Capital Management meltdown in 1998, and the bursting of the dot. com bubble plus the September 11 terrorist attack of the early 2000s). This examination is intended to shed light on whether there are any connections between financial crises and aggregate liquidity creation, and whether these vary based on the nature of the crisis (i. e. , banking versus market-related crisis). A good nderstanding of the behavior of bank liquidity creation around financial crises is also important to shed light on whether banks create â€Å"too little† or â€Å"too much† liquidity, and whether bank behavior exacerbates or ameliorates the effects of crises. We document the empirical regularities related to these issues, so as to raise additional interesting questions for further empirical and theoretical examinations. The second goal is to study the effect of pre-crisis equity capital ratios on the competitive positions and profitability of individual banks around each crisis.Since bank capital affects liquidity creation (e. g. , Diamond and Rajan 2000, 2001, Berger and Bouwman forthcoming), it is likely that banks with different capital ratios behave differently during crises in terms of their liquidity creation responses. Specifically, we ask: are high-capital banks able to gain market share in terms of liquidity creation at the expense of low-capital banks during a crisis, and does such enhanced market share translate into higher profitability? If so, are the high-capital banks able t o sustain their improved competitive positions after the financial crisis is over?The recent acquisitions of Countrywide, Bear Stearns, and Washington Mutual provide interesting case studies in this regard. All three firms ran low on capital and had to be bailed out by banks with stronger capital positions. Bank of America (Countrywide’s acquirer) and J. P. Morgan Chase (acquirer of Bear-Stearns and Washington Mutual’s banking operations) had capital ratios high enough to enable them to buy their rivals at a small fraction of what they were worth a year before, thereby gaining a potential competitive advantage. 6 The recent experience of IndyMac Bank provides 5Studies on the behavior of banks around financial crises have typically focused on commercial and real estate lending (e. g. , Berger and Udell 1994, Hancock, Laing, and Wilcox 1995, Dell’Ariccia, Igan, and Laeven 2008). We focus on the more comprehensive notion of bank liquidity creation. 6 On Sunday, Mar ch 16, 2008, J. P. Morgan Chase agreed to pay $2 a share to buy all of Bear Stearns, less than onetenth of the firm’s share price on Friday and a small fraction of the $170 share price a year before. On March 24, 2008, it increased its bid to $10, and completed the transaction on May 30, 2008.On January 11, Bank of America announced it would pay $4 billion for Countrywide, after Countrywide’s market capitalization had plummeted 85% during the preceding 12 months. The transaction was completed on July 1, 2008. After a $16. 4 billion ten-day bank 2 another interesting example. The FDIC seized IndyMac Bank after it suffered substantive losses and depositors had started to run on the bank. The FDIC intends to sell the bank, preferably as a single entity but if that does not work, the bank will be sold off in pieces.Given the way the regulatory approval process for bank acquisitions works, it is likely that the acquirer(s) will have a strong capital base. 7 A financial cris is is a natural event to examine how capital affects the competitive positions of banks. During â€Å"normal† times, capital has many effects on the bank, some of which counteract each other, making it difficult to learn much. For example, capital helps the bank cope more effectively with risk,8 but it also reduces the value of the deposit insurance put option (Merton 1977). During a crisis, risks become elevated and the risk-absorption capacity of capital becomes paramount.Banks with high capital, which are better buffered against the shocks of the crisis, may thus gain a potential advantage. To examine the behavior of bank liquidity creation around financial crises, we calculate the amount of liquidity created by the banking sector using Berger and Bouwman’s (forthcoming) preferred liquidity creation measure. This measure takes into account the fact that banks create liquidity both on and off the balance sheet and is constructed using a three-step procedure. In the f irst step, all bank assets, liabilities, equity, and off-balance sheet activities are classified as liquid, semi-liquid, or illiquid.This is done based on the ease, cost, and time for customers to obtain liquid funds from the bank, and the ease, cost, and time for banks to dispose of their obligations in order to meet these liquidity demands. This classification process uses information on both product category and maturity for all activities other than loans; due to data limitations, loans are classified based solely on category (â€Å"cat†). Thus, residential mortgages are classified as more liquid than business loans regardless of maturity because it is generally easier to securitize and sell such mortgages than business loans.In the second step, weights are assigned to these activities. The weights are consistent with the theory in that maximum liquidity is created when illiquid assets (e. g. , business loans) are transformed into liquid liabilities (e. g. , transactions deposits) and maximum liquidity is destroyed when liquid assets (e. g. , treasuries) are transformed into illiquid liabilities â€Å"walk†, Washington Mutual was placed into the receivership of the FDIC on September 25, 2008. J. P. Morgan Chase purchased the banking business for $1. 9 billion and re-opened the bank the next day.On September 26, 2008, the holding company and its remaining subsidiary filed for bankruptcy. Washington Mutual, the sixth-largest bank in the U. S. before its collapse, is the largest bank failure in the U. S. financial history. 7 After peaking at $50. 11 on May 8, 2006, IndyMac’s shares lost 87% of their value in 2007 and another 95% in 2008. Its share price closed at $0. 28 on July 11, 2008, the day before it was seized by the FDIC. 8 There are numerous papers that argue that capital enhances the risk-absorption capacity of banks (e. g. , Bhattacharya and Thakor 1993, Repullo 2004, Von Thadden 2004). (e. g. , subordinated debt) or equity. In the third step, a â€Å"cat fat† liquidity creation measure is constructed, where â€Å"fat† refers to the inclusion of off-balance sheet activities. Although Berger and Bouwman construct four different liquidity creation measures, they indicate that â€Å"cat fat† is the preferred measure. They argue that to assess the amount of liquidity creation, the ability to securitize or sell a particular loan category is more important than the maturity of those loans, and the inclusion of off-balance sheet activities is critical. We apply the â€Å"cat fat† liquidity creation measure to quarterly data on virtually all U. S. commercial and credit card banks from 1984:Q1 to 2008:Q1. Our measurement of aggregate liquidity creation by banks allows us to examine the behavior of liquidity created prior to, during, and after each crisis. The popular press has provided anecdotal accounts of liquidity drying up during some financial crises as well as excessive liquidity p rovision at other times that led to credit expansion bubbles (e. g. , the subprime lending crisis).We attempt to give empirical content to these notions of â€Å"too little† and â€Å"too much† liquidity created by banks. Liquidity creation has quadrupled in real terms over the sample period and appears to have seasonal components (as documented below). Since no theories exist that explain the intertemporal behavior of liquidity creation, we take an essentially empirical approach to the problem and focus on how far liquidity creation lies above or below a time trend and seasonal factors. 10 That is, we focus on â€Å"abnormal† liquidity creation.The use of this measure rests on the supposition that some â€Å"normal† amount of liquidity creation exists, acknowledging that at any point in time, liquidity creation may be â€Å"too much† or â€Å"too little† in dollar terms. Our main results regarding the behavior of liquidity creation around f inancial crises are as follows. First, prior to financial crises, there seems to have been a significant build-up or drop-off of â€Å"abnormal† liquidity creation. Second, banking and market-related crises differ in two respects.The banking crises (the credit crunch of 1990-1992 and the current subprime lending crisis) were preceded by abnormal positive liquidity creation by banks, whereas the market-related crises were generally preceded by abnormal negative liquidity creation. In addition, the banking crises themselves seemed to change the trajectory of aggregate liquidity creation, while the market-related crises did not appear to do so. Third, 9 Their alternative measures include â€Å"cat nonfat,† â€Å"mat fat,† and â€Å"mat nonfat. † The â€Å"nonfat† measures exclude offbalance sheet activities, and the â€Å"mat† measures classify loans by maturity rather than by product category. 0 As alternative approaches, we use the dollar amo unt of liquidity creation per capita and liquidity creation divided by GDP and obtain similar results (see Section 4. 2). 4 liquidity creation has both decreased during crises (e. g. , the 1990-1992 credit crunch) and increased during crises (e. g. , the 1998 Russian debt crisis / LTCM bailout). Thus, liquidity creation likely both exacerbated and ameliorated the effects of crises. Fourth, off-balance sheet illiquid guarantees (primarily loan commitments) moved more than semi-liquid assets (primarily mortgages) and illiquid assets (primarily business loans) during banking crises.Fifth, the current subprime lending crisis was preceded by an unusually high positive abnormal amount of aggregate liquidity creation, possibly caused by lax lending standards that led banks to extend increasing amounts of credit and off-balance sheet guarantees. This suggests a possible dark side of bank liquidity creation. While financial fragility may be needed to induce banks to create liquidity (e. g. , Diamond and Rajan 2000, 2001), our analysis raises the intriguing possibility that the causality may also be reversed in the sense that too much liquidity creation may lead to financial fragility.We then turn to the second goal of the paper – examining whether banks’ pre-crisis capital ratios affect their competitive positions and profitability around financial crises. To examine the effect on a bank’s competitive position, we regress the change in its market share of liquidity creation – measured as the average market share of aggregate liquidity creation during the crisis (or over the eight quarters after the crisis) minus the average market share over the eight quarters before the crisis, expressed as a proportion of the bank’s average pre-crisis market share – on its average pre-crisis capital ratio and a set of control variables. 1 Since the analyses in the first half of the paper reveal a great deal of heterogeneity in crises, we run these regressions on a per-crisis basis, rather than pooling the data across crises. The control variables include bank size, bank risk, bank holding company membership, local market competition,12 and proxies for the economic circumstances in the local markets in which the bank operates. Moreover, we examine large and small banks as two separate groups since the results in Berger and Bouwman (forthcoming) indicate that the effect of capital on liquidity creation differs across large and small banks. 13 11Defining market share this way is a departure from previous research (e. g. , Laeven and Levine 2007), in which market share relates to the bank’s weighted-average local market share of total deposits. 12 While our focus is on the change in banks’ competitive positions measured in terms of their aggregate liquidity creation market shares, we control for â€Å"local market competition† measured as the bank-level Herfindahl index based on local market deposit mar ket shares. 13 Berger and Bouwman use three size categories: large, medium, and small banks. We combine the large and medium bank categories into one â€Å"large bank† category. 5One potential concern is that differences in bank capital ratios may simply reflect differences in bank risk. Banks that hold higher capital ratios because their investment portfolios are riskier may not improve their competitive positions around financial crises. Our empirical design takes this into account. The inclusion of bank risk as a control variable is critical and ensures that the measured effect of capital on a bank’s market share is net of the effect of risk. We find evidence that high-capital large banks improved their market share of liquidity creation during the two banking crises, but not during the market-related crises.After the credit crunch of the early 1990s, high-capital large banks held on to their improved competitive positions. Since the current subprime lending crisis was not over at the end of the sample period, we cannot yet tell whether highcapital large banks will also hold on to their improved competitive positions after this crisis. In contrast to the large banks, high-capital small banks seemed to enhance their competitive positions during all crises and held on to their improved competitive positions after the crises as well.Next, we focus on the effect of pre-crisis bank capital on the profitability of the bank around each crisis. We run regressions that are similar to the ones described above with the change in return on equity (ROE) as the dependent variable. We find that high-capital large banks improved their ROE in those cases in which they enhanced their liquidity creation market share – the two banking crises – and were able to hold on to their improved profitability after the credit crunch. profitability after the market-related crises. They also increased theirIn contrast, for high-capital small banks, profitabilit y improved during two crises, and subsequent to virtually every crisis. As an additional analysis, we examine whether the improved competitive positions and profitability of high-capital banks translated into better stock return performance. To perform this analysis, we focus on listed banks and bank holding companies (BHCs). If multiple banks are part of the same listed BHC, their financial statements are added together to create pro-forma financial statements of the BHC.The results confirm the earlier change in performance findings of large banks: listed banks with high capital ratios enjoyed significantly larger abnormal returns than banks with low capital ratios during banking crises, but not during market-related crises. Our results are based on a five-factor asset pricing model that includes the three Fama-French (1993) factors, momentum, and a proxy for the slope of the yield curve. 6 We also check whether high capital provided similar advantages outside crisis periods, i. e. , during â€Å"normal† times.We find that large banks with high capital ratios did not enjoy either market share or profitability gains over the other large banks, whereas for small banks, results are similar to the smallbank findings discussed above. Moreover, outside banking crises, high capital was not associated with high stock returns. Combined, the results suggest that high capital ratios serve large banks well, particularly around banking crises. In contrast, high capital ratios appear to help small banks around banking crises, marketrelated crises, and normal times alike. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.Section 2 discusses the related literature. Section 3 explains the liquidity creation measures and our sample based on data of U. S. banks from 1984:Q1 to 2008:Q1. Section 4 describes the behavior of aggregate bank liquidity creation around five financial crises and draws some general conclusions. Section 5 discusses the tests of the effects of pre crisis capital ratios on banks’ competitive positions and profitability around financial crises and â€Å"normal† times. This section also examines the stock returns of high- and low-capital listed banking organizations during each crisis and during normal† times. Section 6 concludes. 2. Related literature This paper is related to two literatures. The first is the literature on financial crises. 14 One strand in this literature has focused on financial crises and fragility. Some papers have analyzed contagion. Contributions in this area suggest that a small liquidity shock in one area may have a contagious effect throughout the economy (e. g. , Allen and Gale 1998, 2000). Other papers have focused on the determinants of financial crises and the policy implications (e. g. Bordo, Eichengreen, Klingebiel, and Martinez-Peria 2001, Demirguc-Kunt, Detragiache, and Gupta 2006, Lorenzoni 2008, Claessens, Klingebiel, and Laeven forthcoming). A second strand examines the e ffect of financial crises on the real sector (e. g. , Friedman and Schwarz 1963, Bernanke 1983, Bernanke and Gertler 1989, Dell’Ariccia, Detragiache, and Rajan 2008, Shin forthcoming). These papers find that financial crises increase the cost of financing and reduce credit, which adversely affects corporate investment and may lead to reduced 14Allen and Gale (2007) provide a detailed overview of the causes and consequences of financial crises. 7 growth and recessions. That is, financial crises have independent real effects (see Dell’Ariccia, Detragiache, and Rajan 2008). In contrast to these papers, we examine how the amount of liquidity created by the banking sector behaved around financial crises in the U. S. , and explore systematic patterns in the data. The second literature to which this paper is related focuses on the strategic use of leverage in product-market competition for non-financial firms (e. g. , Brander and Lewis 1986, Campello 2006, Lyandres 2006).This literature suggests that financial leverage can affect competitive dynamics. While this literature has not focused on banks, we analyze the effects of crises on the competitive positioning and profitability of banks based on their pre-crisis capital ratios. Our hypothesis is that in the case of banks, the competitive implications of capital are likely to be most pronounced during a crisis when a bank’s capitalization has a major influence on its ability to survive the crisis, particularly in light of regulatory discretion in closing banks or otherwise resolving problem institutions.Liquidity creation may be a channel through which this competitive advantage is gained or lost. 15 3. Description of the liquidity creation measure and sample We calculate the dollar amount of liquidity created by the banking sector using Berger and Bouwman’s (forthcoming) preferred â€Å"cat fat† liquidity creation measure. In this section, we explain briefly what this acronym stand s for and how we construct this measure. 16 We then describe our sample. All financial values are expressed in real 2007:Q4 dollars using the implicit GDP price deflator. 3. 1. Liquidity creation measureTo construct a measure of liquidity creation, we follow Berger and Bouwman’s three-step procedure (see Table 1). Below, we briefly discuss these three steps. In Step 1, we classify all bank activities (assets, liabilities, equity, and off-balance sheet activities) as liquid, semi-liquid, or illiquid. For assets, we do this based on the ease, cost, and time for banks to dispose of their obligations in order to meet these liquidity demands. For liabilities and equity, we do this 15 Allen and Gale (2004) analyze how competition affects financial stability. We reverse the causality and examine the effect of financial crises on competition. 6 For a more detailed discussion, see Berger and Bouwman (forthcoming). 8 based on the ease, cost, and time for customers to obtain liquid fund s from the bank. We follow a similar approach for off-balance sheet activities, classifying them based on functionally similar on-balance sheet activities. For all activities other than loans, this classification process uses information on both product category and maturity. Due to data restrictions, we classify loans entirely by category (â€Å"cat†). 17 In Step 2, we assign weights to all the bank activities classified in Step 1.The weights are consistent with liquidity creation theory, which argues that banks create liquidity on the balance sheet when they transform illiquid assets into liquid liabilities. We therefore apply positive weights to illiquid assets and liquid liabilities. Following similar logic, we apply negative weights to liquid assets and illiquid liabilities and equity, since banks destroy liquidity when they use illiquid liabilities to finance liquid assets. We use weights of ? and -? , because only half of the total amount of liquidity created is attrib utable to the source or use of funds alone.For example, when $1 of liquid liabilities is used to finance $1 in illiquid assets, liquidity creation equals ? * $1 + ? * $1 = $1. In this case, maximum liquidity is created. However, when $1 of liquid liabilities is used to finance $1 in liquid assets, liquidity creation equals ? * $1 + -? * $1 = $0. In this case, no liquidity is created as the bank holds items of approximately the same liquidity as those it gives to the nonbank public. Maximum liquidity is destroyed when $1 of illiquid liabilities or equity is used to finance $1 of liquid assets. In this case, liquidity creation equals -? $1 + -? * $1 = -$1. An intermediate weight of 0 is applied to semi-liquid assets and liabilities. Weights for off-balance sheet activities are assigned using the same principles. In Step 3, we combine the activities as classified in Step 1 and as weighted in Step 2 to construct Berger and Bouwman’s preferred â€Å"cat fat† liquidity creat ion measure. This measure classifies loans by category (â€Å"cat†), while all activities other than loans are classified using information on product category and maturity, and includes off-balance sheet activities (â€Å"fat†).Berger and Bouwman construct four liquidity creation measures by alternatively classifying loans by category or maturity, and by alternatively including or excluding off-balance sheet activities. However, they argue that â€Å"cat fat† is the preferred measure since for liquidity creation, banks’ ability to securitize or sell loans is more important than loan maturity, and banks do create liquidity both on the balance sheet and off the balance sheet. 17 Alternatively, we could classify loans by maturity (â€Å"mat†).However, Berger and Bouwman argue that it is preferable to classify them by category since for loans, the ability to securitize or sell is more important than their maturity. 9 To obtain the dollar amount of liq uidity creation at a particular bank, we multiply the weights of ? , -? , or 0, respectively, times the dollar amounts of the corresponding bank activities and add the weighted dollar amounts. 3. 2. Sample description We include virtually all commercial and credit card banks in the U. S. in our study. 18 For each bank, we obtain quarterly Call Report data from 1984:Q1 to 2008:Q1.We keep a bank if it: 1) has commercial real estate or commercial and industrial loans outstanding; 2) has deposits; 3) has an equity capital ratio of at least 1%; 4) has gross total assets or GTA (total assets plus allowance for loan and lease losses and the allocated transfer risk reserve) exceeding $25 million. We end up with data on 18,134 distinct banks, yielding 907,159 bank-quarter observations over our sample period. For each bank, we calculate the dollar amount of liquidity creation using the process described in Section 3. 1.The amount of liquidity creation and all other financial values are put in to real 2007:Q4 dollars using the implicit GDP price deflator. When we explore aggregate bank liquidity creation around financial crises, we focus on the real dollar amount of liquidity creation by the banking sector. To obtain this, we aggregate the liquidity created by all banks in each quarter and end up with a sample that contains 97 inflation-adjusted, quarterly liquidity creation amounts. In contrast, when we examine how capital affects the competitive positions of banks, we focus on the amount of liquidity created by individual banks around each crisis.Given documented differences between large and small banks in terms of portfolio composition (e. g. , Kashyap, Rajan, and Stein 2002, Berger, Miller, Petersen, Rajan, and Stein 2005) and the effect of capital on liquidity creation (Berger and Bouwman forthcoming), we split the sample into large banks (between 330 and 477 observations, depending on the crisis) and small banks (between 5556 and 6343 observations, depending on the crisis), and run all change in market share and profitability regressions separately for these two sets of banks.Large banks have gross total assets (GTA) exceeding $1 billion at the end of the quarter before a crisis 18 Berger and Bouwman (forthcoming) include only commercial banks. We also include credit card banks to avoid an artificial $0. 19 trillion drop in bank liquidity creation in the fourth quarter of 2006 when Citibank N. A. moved its credit-card lines to Citibank South Dakota N. A. , a credit card bank. 10 and small banks have GTA up to $1 billion at the end of that quarter. 19,20 4.The behavior of aggregate bank liquidity creation around financial crises This section focuses on the first goal of the paper – examining the aggregate liquidity creation of banks across five financial crises in the U. S. over the past quarter century. The crises include the 1987 stock market crash, the credit crunch of the early 1990s, the Russian debt crisis plus Long-Term Capital M anagement (LTCM) bailout of 1998, the bursting of the dot. com bubble and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of the early 2000s, and the current subprime lending crisis. We first provide summary statistics and explain our empirical approach.We then discuss alternative measures of abnormal liquidity creation. Next, we describe the behavior of bank liquidity creation before, during, and after each crisis. Finally, we draw some general conclusions from these results. 4. 1. Summary statistics and empirical approach Figure 1 Panel A shows the dollar amount of liquidity created by the banking sector, calculated using the â€Å"cat fat† liquidity creation measure over our sample period. As shown, liquidity creation has increased substantially over time: it has more than quadrupled from $1. 369 trillion in 1984:Q1 to $5. 06 trillion in 2008:Q1 (in real 2007:Q4 dollars). We want to examine whether liquidity creation by the banking sector is â€Å"high,† â€Å"low,† or at a à ¢â‚¬Å"normal† level around financial crises. Since no theories exist that explain the intertemporal behavior of liquidity creation or generate numerical estimates of â€Å"normal† liquidity creation, we need a reasonable empirical approach. At first blush, it may seem that we could simply calculate the average amount of bank liquidity creation over the entire sample period and view amounts above this sample average as â€Å"high† and amounts below the average as â€Å"low. However, Figure 1 Panel A clearly shows that this approach would cause us to classify the entire second half of the sample period (1996:Q1 – 2008:Q1) as â€Å"high† and the entire first half of the sample period (1984:Q1 – 1995:Q4) as â€Å"low. † We therefore do not 19 As noted before, we combine Berger and Bouwman’s large and medium bank categories into one â€Å"large bank† category. Recall that all financial values are expressed in real 2007:Q4 dol lars. 20 GTA equals total assets plus the allowance for loan and lease losses and the allocated transfer risk reserve.Total assets on Call Reports deduct these two reserves, which are held to cover potential credit losses. We add these reserves back to measure the full value of the loans financed and the liquidity created by the bank on the asset side. 11 use this approach. The approach we take is aimed at calculating the â€Å"abnormal† amount of liquidity created by the banking sector based on a time trend. It focuses on whether liquidity creation lies above or below this time trend, and also deseasonalizes the data to ensure that we do not base our conclusions on mere seasonal effects.We detrend and deseasonalize the data by regressing the dollar amount of liquidity creation on a time index and three quarterly dummies. The residuals from this regression measure the â€Å"abnormal† dollar amount of liquidity creation in a particular quarter. That is, they measure how far (deseasonalized) liquidity creation lies above or below the trend line. If abnormal liquidity creation is greater than (smaller than) $0, the dollar amount of liquidity created by the banking sector lies above (below) the time trend.If abnormal liquidity creation is high (low) relative to the time trend and seasonal factors, we will interpret this as liquidity creation being â€Å"too high† (â€Å"too low†). Figure 1 Panel B shows abnormal liquidity creation over time. The amount of liquidity created by the banking sector was high (yet declining) in the mid-1980s, low in the mid-1990s, and high (and mostly rising) in the most recent years. 4. 2. Alternative measures of abnormal liquidity creation We considered several alternative approaches to measuring abnormal liquidity creation. One possibility is to scale the dollar amount of liquidity creation by total population.The idea behind this approach is that a â€Å"normal† amount of liquidity creation may exi st in per capita terms. The average amount of liquidity creation per capita over our sample period could potentially serve as the â€Å"normal† amount and deviations from this average would be viewed as abnormal. To calculate per capita liquidity creation we obtain annual U. S. population estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau. Figure 2 Panel A shows per capita liquidity creation over time. The picture reveals that per capita liquidity creation more than tripled from $5. 8K in 1984:Q1 to $18. 8K in 2008:Q1.Interestingly, the picture looks very similar to the one shown in Panel A, perhaps because the annual U. S. population growth rate is low. For reasons similar to those in our earlier analysis, we calculate abnormal per capita liquidity creation by detrending and deseasonalizing the data like we did in the previous section. Figure 2 Panel B shows abnormal per capita liquidity creation over time. 12 Another possibility is to scale the dollar amount of liquidity creation by GD P. Since liquidity creation by banks may causally affect GDP, this approach seems less appropriate.Nonetheless, we show the results for completeness. Figure 2 Panel C shows the dollar amount of liquidity creation divided by GDP. The picture reveals that bank liquidity creation has increased from 19. 9% of GDP in 1984:Q1 to 40. 4% of GDP in 2008:Q1. While liquidity creation more than quadrupled over the sample period, GDP doubled. Importantly, the picture looks similar to the one shown in Panel A. Again, for reasons similar to those in our earlier analysis, we detrend and deseasonalize the data to obtain abnormal liquidity creation divided by GDP.Figure 2 Panel D shows abnormal liquidity creation divided by GDP over time. Since these alternative approaches yield results that are similar to those shown in Section 4. 1, we focus our discussions on the abnormal amount of liquidity creation (rather than the abnormal amount of per capita liquidity creation or the abnormal amount of liquid ity creation divided by GDP) around financial crises. 4. 3. Abnormal bank liquidity creation before, during, and after five financial crises We now examine how abnormal bank liquidity creation behaved efore, during, and after five financial crises. In all cases, the pre-crisis and post-crisis periods are defined to be eight quarters long. 21 The one exception is that we do not examine abnormal bank liquidity creation after the current subprime lending crisis, since this crisis was still ongoing at the end of the sample period. Figure 3 Panels A – E show the graphs of the abnormal amount of liquidity creation for the five crises. This subsection is a fact-finding effort and largely descriptive. In Section 4. , we will combine the evidence gathered here and interpret it to draw some general conclusions. Financial crisis #1: Stock market crash (1987:Q4) On Monday, October 19, 1987, the stock market crashed, with the S&P500 index falling about 20%. During the years before the cra sh, the level of the stock market had increased dramatically, causing some 21 As a result of our choice of two-year pre-crisis and post-crisis periods, the post-Russian debt crisis period overlaps with the bursting of the dot. com bubble, and the pre-dot. com bubble period overlaps with the Russian debt crisis.For these two crises, we redo our analyses using six-quarter pre-crisis and post-crisis periods and obtain results that are qualitatively similar to the ones documented here. 13 concern that the market had become overvalued. 22 A few days before the crash, two events occurred that may have helped precipitate the crash: 1) legislation was enacted to eliminate certain tax benefits associated with financing mergers; and 2) information was released that the trade deficit was above expectations. Both events seemed to have added to the selling pressure and a record trading volume on Oct. 9, in part caused by program trading, overwhelmed many systems. Figure 3 Panel A shows abnormal bank liquidity creation before, during, and after the stock market crash. Although this financial crisis seems to have originated in the stock market rather than the banking system, it is clear from the graph that abnormal liquidity creation by banks was high ($0. 5 trillion above the time trend) two years before the crisis. It had already dropped substantially before the crisis and continued to drop until well after the crisis, but was still above the time trend even a year after the crisis.Financial crisis #2: Credit crunch (1990:Q1 – 1992:Q4) During the first three years of the 1990s, bank commercial and industrial lending declined in real terms, particularly for small banks and for small loans (see Berger, Kashyap, and Scalise 1995, Table 8, for details). The ascribed causes of the credit crunch include a fall in bank capital from the loan loss experiences of the late 1980s (e. g. , Peek and Rosengren 1995), the increases in bank leverage requirements and implementation o f Basel I risk-based capital standards during this time period (e. g. Berger and Udell 1994, Hancock, Laing, and Wilcox 1995, Thakor 1996), an increase in supervisory toughness evidenced in worse examination ratings for a given bank condition (e. g. , Berger, Kyle, and Scalise 2001), and reduced loan demand because of macroeconomic and regional recessions (e. g. , Bernanke and Lown 1991). To some extent, the research supports virtually all of these hypotheses. Figure 3 Panel B shows how abnormal liquidity creation behaved before, during, and after the credit crunch. The graph shows that liquidity creation was above the time trend before the crisis, but declining.After a temporary increase, it dropped markedly during the crisis by roughly $0. 6 trillion, and the decline even extended a bit beyond the crunch period. After having reached a noticeably low level in the post-crunch period, liquidity creation slowly started to bottom out. This evidence suggests that the 22 E. g. , â€Å"R aging bull, stock market’s surge is puzzling investors: When will it end? † on page 1 of the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 19, 1987. 14 banking sector created (slightly) positive abnormal liquidity before the crisis, but created significantly negative abnormal liquidity during and fter the crisis, representing behavior by banks that may have further fueled the crisis. Financial crisis #3: Russian debt crisis / LTCM bailout (1998:Q3 – 1998:Q4) Since its inception in March 1994, hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (â€Å"LTCM†) followed an arbitrage strategy that was avowedly â€Å"market neutral,† designed to make money regardless of whether prices were rising or falling. When Russia defaulted on its sovereign debt on August 17, 1998, investors fled from other government paper to the safe haven of U. S. treasuries.This flight to liquidity caused an unexpected widening of spreads on supposedly low-risk portfolios. By the end of August 1998, LTCMâ€⠄¢s capital had dropped to $2. 3 billion, less than 50% of its December 1997 value, with assets standing at $126 billion. In the first three weeks of September, LTCM’s capital dropped further to $600 million without shrinking the portfolio. Banks began to doubt its ability to meet margin calls. To prevent a potential systemic meltdown triggered by the collapse of the world’s largest hedge fund, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York organized a $3. billion bail-out by LTCM’s major creditors on September 23, 1998. In 1998:Q4, many large banks had to take substantial write-offs as a result of losses on their investments. Figure 3 Panel C shows abnormal liquidity creation around the Russian debt crisis and LTCM bailout. The pattern shown in the graph is very different from the ones we have seen so far. Liquidity creation was abnormally negative before the crisis, but increasing. Liquidity creation increased further during the crisis, countercyclical behavior by banks that may have alleviated the crisis, and continued to grow after the crisis.This suggests that liquidity creation may have been too low entering the crisis and returned to normal levels a few quarters after the end of the crisis. Financial crisis #4: Bursting of the dot. com bubble and Sept. 11 terrorist attack (2000:Q2 – 2002:Q3) The dot. com bubble was a speculative stock price bubble that was built up during the mid to late 1990s. During this period, many internet-based companies, commonly referred to as â€Å"dot. coms,† were founded. Rapidly increasing stock prices and widely available venture capital created an environment in which 15 any of these companies seemed to focus largely on increasing market share. At the height of the boom, it seemed possible for dot. com’s to go public and raise substantial amounts of money even if they had never earned any profits, and in some cases had not even earned any revenues. On March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq composite ind ex peaked at more than double its value just a year before. After the bursting of the bubble, many dot. com’s ran out of capital and were acquired or filed for bankruptcy (examples of the latter include WorldCom and Pets. com). The U. S. economy started to slow down and business nvestments began falling. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks may have exacerbated the stock market downturn by adversely affecting investor sentiment. By 2002:Q3, the Nasdaq index had fallen by 78%, wiping out $5 trillion in market value of mostly technology firms. Figure 3 Panel D shows how abnormal liquidity creation behaved before, during, and after the bursting of the dot. com bubble and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The graph shows that before the crisis period, liquidity creation moved from displaying a negative abnormal value to displaying a positive abnormal value at the time the bubble burst.During the crisis, liquidity creation declined somewhat and hovered around the time trend by t he time the crisis was over. After the crisis, liquidity creation slowly started to pick up again. Financial crisis #5: Subprime lending crisis (2007:Q3 – ? ) The subprime lending crisis has been characterized by turmoil in financial markets as banks have experienced difficulty in selling loans in the syndicated loan market and in securitizing loans. Banks also seem to be reluctant to provide credit: they appear to have cut back their lending to firms and individuals, and have also been reticent to lend to each other.Risk premia have increased as evidenced by a higher premium over treasuries for mortgages and other bank products. Some banks have experienced massive losses in capital. For example, Citicorp had to raise about $40 billion in equity to cover subprime lending and other losses. Massive losses at Countrywide resulted in a takeover by Bank of America. Bear Stearns suffered a fatal loss in confidence and was sold at a fire-sale price to J. P. Morgan Chase with the Fed eral Reserve guaranteeing $29 billion in potential losses. Washington Mutual, the sixth-largest bank, became the biggest bank failure in the U.S. financial history. J. P. Morgan Chase purchased the banking business while the rest of the organization filed for bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve intervened in some 16 unprecedented ways in the market, extending its safety-net privileges to investment banks. In addition to lowering the discount rate sharply, it also began holding mortgage-backed securities and lending directly to investment banks. Subsequently, IndyMac Bank was seized by the FDIC after it suffered substantive losses and depositors had started to run on the bank. This failure is expected to cost the FDIC $4 billion – $8 billion.The FDIC intends to sell the bank. Congress also recently passed legislation to provide Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with unlimited credit lines and possible equity injections to prop up these troubled organizations, which are considered too big to fail. Figure 3 Panel E shows abnormal liquidity creation before and during the first part of the subprime lending crisis. The graph suggests that liquidity creation displayed a high positive abnormal value that was increasing before the crisis hit, with abnormal liquidity creation around $0. 0 trillion entering the crisis, decreasing substantially after the crisis hit. A striking fact about this crisis compared to the other crises is the relatively high build-up of positive abnormal liquidity creation prior to the crisis. 4. 4. Behavior of some liquidity creation components around the two banking crises It is of particular interest to examine the behavior of some selected components of liquidity creation around the banking crises. As discussed above (Section 4. 3), numerous papers have focused on the credit crunch, examining lending behavior.These studies generally find that mortgage and business lending started to decline significantly during the crisis. Here we contrast the cr edit crunch experience with the current subprime lending crisis, and expand the components of liquidity creation that are examined. Rather than focusing on mortgages and business loans, we examine the two liquidity creation components that include these items – semi-liquid assets (primarily mortgages) and illiquid assets (primarily business loans). In addition, we analyze two other components of liquidity creation.We examine the behavior of liquid assets to address whether a decrease (increase) in semi-liquid assets and / or illiquid assets tended to be accompanied by an increase (decrease) in liquid assets. We also analyze the behavior of illiquid off-balance sheet guarantees (primarily loan commitments) to address whether illiquid assets and illiquid off-balance sheet guarantees move in tandem around banking crises and whether changes in one are more pronounced than the other. Figure 4 Panels A and B show the abnormal amount of four liquidity creation components around 17 h e credit crunch and the subprime lending crisis, respectively. For ease of comparison, the components are not weighted by weights of +? (illiquid assets and illiquid off-balance sheet guarantees), 0 (semiliquid assets), and –? (liquid assets). The abnormal amounts are obtained by detrending and deseasonalizing each liquidity creation component. Figure 4 Panel A shows that abnormal semi-liquid assets decreased slightly during the credit crunch, while abnormal illiquid assets and especially abnormal illiquid guarantees dropped significantly and turned negative.This picture suggests that these components fell increasingly below the trendline. The dramatic drop in abnormal illiquid assets and abnormal illiquid off-balance sheet guarantees (which carry positive weights) helps explain the significant decrease in abnormal liquidity creation during the credit crunch shown in Figure 3 Panel B. Figure 4 Panel B shows that these four components of abnormal liquidity creation were above the trendline before and during the subprime lending crisis.Illiquid assets and especially off-balance sheet guarantees move further and further above the trendline before the crisis, which helps explain the dramatic buildup in abnormal liquidity creation before the subprime lending crisis shown in Figure 3 Panel E. All four components of abnormal liquidity creation continued to increase at the beginning of the crisis. After the first quarter of the crisis, illiquid off-balance sheet guarantees showed a significant decrease, which helps explain the decrease in abnormal liquidity creation in Figure 3 Panel E.On the balance sheet, during the final quarter of the sample period (the third quarter of the crisis), abnormal semi-liquid and illiquid assets declined, while abnormal liquid assets increased. 4. 5. General conclusions from the results What do we learn from the various graphs in the previous analyses that indicate intertemporal patterns of liquidity creation and selected liquidi ty creation components around five financial crises? First, across all the financial crises, there seems to have been a significant build-up or drop-off of abnormal liquidity creation before the crisis.This is consistent with the notion that crises may be preceded by either â€Å"too much† or â€Å"too little† liquidity creation, although at this stage we offer this as tentative food for thought rather than as a conclusion. Second, there seem to be two main differences between banking crises and market-related crises. 18 The banking crises, namely the credit crunch and the subprime lending crisis, were both preceded by positive abnormal liquidity creation by banks, while two out of the three market-related crises were preceded by negative abnormal liquidity creation.In addition, during the two banking crises, the crises themselves seem to have exerted a noticeable influence on the pattern of aggregate liquidity creation by banks. Just prior to the credit crunch, abnorm al liquidity creation was positive and had started to trend upward, but reversed course and plunged quite substantially to become negative during and after the crisis. Just prior to the subprime lending crisis, aggregate liquidity creation was again abnormally positive and trending up, but began to decline during the crisis, although it remains abnormally high by historical standards.The other crises, which are less directly related to banks, did not seem to exhibit such noticeable impact. Third, liquidity creation has both decreased during crises (e. g. , the 1990-1992 credit crunch) and increased during crises (e. g. , the 1998 Russian debt crisis / LTCM bailout). Thus, liquidity creation likely both exacerbated and ameliorated the effects of crises. Fourth, off-balance sheet illiquid guarantees (primarily loan commitments) moved more than semi-liquid assets (primarily mortgages) and illiquid assets (primarily business loans) during banking crises.Fifth, while liquidity creation i s generally thought of as a financial intermediation service with positive economic value at the level of the individual bank and individual borrower (see Diamond and Rajan 2000, 2001), our analysis hints at the existence of a â€Å"dark side† to liquidity creation. Specifically, it may be more than coincidence that the subprime lending crisis was preceded by a very high level of positive abnormal aggregate liquidity creation by banks relative to historical levels.The notion that this may have contributed to the subprime lending crisis is consistent with the findings that banks adopted lax credit standards (see Dell’Ariccia, Igan, and Laeven 2008, Keys, Mukherjee, Seru, and Vig 2008), which in turn could have led to an increase in credit availability and off-balance sheet guarantees. Thus, while Diamond and Rajan (2000, 2001) argue that financial fragility is needed to create liquidity, our analysis offers the intriguing possibility that the causality may be reversed a s well: too much liquidity creation may lead to financial fragility. 9 5. The effect of capital on banks’ competitive positions and profitability around financial crises This section focuses on the second goal of the paper – examining how bank capital affects banks’ competitive positions and profitability around financial crises. We first explain our methodology and provide summary statistics. We then present and discuss the empirical results. In an additional check, we examine whether the stock return performance of high- and low-capital listed banks is consistent with the competitive position and profitability results for large banks.In another check, we generate some â€Å"fake† crises to analyze whether our findings hold during â€Å"normal† times as well. 5. 1. Empirical approach To examine whether banks with high capital ratios improve their competitive positions and profitability during financial crises, and if so, whether they are able to h old on to this improved performance after these crises, we focus on the behavior of individual banks rather than that of the banking sector as a whole.Because our analysis of aggregate liquidity creation by banks shows substantial differences across crises, we do not pool the data from all the crises but instead analyze each crisis separately. Our findings below that the coefficients of interest differ substantially across crises tend to justify this separate treatment of the different crises. We use the following regression specification for each of the five crises: ? PERFi,j = ? + ? 1 * EQRATi,j + B * Zi,j (1) where ?PERFi,j is the change in bank i’s performance around crisis j, EQRATi,j is the bank’s average capital ratio before the crisis, and Zi,j includes a set of control variables averaged over the pre-crisis period. All of these variables are discussed in Section 5. 2. Since we use a cross-sectional regression model, bank and year fixed effects are not included . In all regressions, t-statistics are based on robust standard errors. Given documented differences between large and small banks in terms of portfolio composition (e. g. Kashyap, Rajan, and Stein 2002, Berger, Miller, Petersen, Rajan, and Stein 2005) and the effect of capital on liquidity creation (Berger and Bouwman forthcoming), we split the sample into large and small banks, and run all regressions separately for these two sets of banks. Large banks have gross total assets (GTA) exceeding $1 billion at the end of the quarter preceding the crisis and small banks have GTA up to 20 $1 billion at the end of that quarter. 5. 2. Variable descriptions and summary statistics We use two measures of a bank’s performance: competitive position and profitability.The bank’s competitive position is measured as the bank’s market share of overall liquidity creation, i. e. , the dollar amount of liquidity created by the bank divided by the dollar amount of liquidity created by the industry. Our focus on the share of liquidity creation is a departure from the traditional focus on a bank’s market share of deposits. Liquidity creation is a more comprehensive measure of banking activities since it does not just consider one funding item but instead is based on all the bank’s on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet activities.To establish whether banks improve their competitive positions during the crisis, we define the change in liquidity creation market share, ? LCSHARE, as the bank’s average market share during the crisis minus its average market share over the eight quarters before the crisis, normalized by its average pre-crisis market share. To examine whether these banks hold on to their improved performance after the crisis, we also measure each bank’s average market share over the eight quarters after the crisis minus its average market share over the eight quarters before the crisis, again normalized by its average marke t share before the crisis.The second performance measure is the bank’s profitability, measured as the return on equity (ROE), i. e. , net income divided by stockholders equity. 23 To examine whether a bank improves its profitability during a crisis, we focus on the change in profitability, ? ROE, measured as the bank’s average ROE during the crisis minus the bank’s average ROE over the eight quarters before the crisis. 24 To analyze whether the bank is able to hold on to improved profitability, we focus on the bank’s average ROE over the eight quarters after the crisis minus its average ROE over the eight quarters before the crisis.To mitigate the influence of outliers, ? LCSHARE and ? ROE are winsorized at the 3% level. Furthermore, to ensure that average values are calculated based on a sufficient number of quarters, we 23 We use ROE, the bank’s net income divided by equity, rather than return on assets (ROA), net income divided by assets, since banks may have substantial off-balance sheet portfolios. Banks must allocate capital against every offbalance sheet activity they engage in. Hence, net income and equity both reflect the bank’s on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet activities.In contrast, ROA divides net income earned based on on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet activities merely by the size of the on-balance sheet activities. 24 We do not divide by the bank’s ROE before the crisis since ROE itself is already a scaled variable. 21 require that at least half of a bank’s pre-crisis / crisis / post-crisis observations are available for both performance measures around a crisis. Since the subprime lending crisis was still ongoing at the end of the sample period, we require that at least half of a bank’s pre-subprime crisis observations and all three quarters of its subprime crisis observations are available.The key exogenous variable is EQRAT, the bank’s capital ratio averaged over the eight quarters before the crisis. EQRAT is the ratio of equity capital to gross total assets, GTA. 25 The control variables include: bank size, bank risk, bank holding company membership, local market competition, and proxies for the economic environment. Bank size is controlled for by including lnGTA, the log of GTA, in all regressions. In addition, we run regressions separately for large and small banks. We include the z-score to control for bank risk. 26 The z-score indicates the bank’s distance from default (e. g. Boyd, Graham, and Hewitt 1993), with higher values indicating that a bank is less likely to default. It is measured as a bank’s return on assets plus the equity capital/GTA ratio divided by the standard deviation of the return on assets over the eight quarters before the crisis. To control for bank holding company status, we include D-BHC, a dummy variable that equals 1 if the bank was part of a bank holding company. Bank holding company membership m ay affect a bank’s competitive position because the holding company is required to act as a source of strength to all the banks it owns, and may also inject equity voluntarily when needed.In addition, other banks in the holding company provide cross-guarantees. Furthermore, Houston, James, and Marcus (1997) find that bank loan growth depends on BHC membership. We control for local market competition by including HERF, the bank-level HerfindahlHirschman index of deposit concentration for the markets in which the bank is p