...Ronald Reagan’s influence in the collapse of the Soviet Union I. Economic Policy Economic Recovery Plan After the U.S celebrated the victory and end of WWII, two of the world’s greatest superpowers would compete to be the biggest and the greatest of all time. It would prove to be the greatest struggle of political, social, economic, and ideological polices and plans, between the U.S and the USSR, the world had ever seen. This would soon be known as the inevitable Cold War. Amongst the major struggles of the war, one man would prove to have a great influence in collapsing the Soviet empire, Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan directly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union through his economic, political, and military polices. (Dobson, 2005, p. 4). During Reagan’s administration, the Soviet Union was facing serious economic growth and policy issues. One of the more major issues the Soviets had was in economic manufacturing. The Soviet Union dictated how many factories people could own, as well as...
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...King Professor William Badley Eng 1020-058 1 May 2013 The US Economic Crisis In the course of my research I have found that there are vastly different views of the crisis, its causes, and the solutions. The starting point of the financial crisis began when brokers from the firm J.P. Morgan met at the Boca Raton Resort in Florida to discuss ways that they could increase their capital and reduce risks. In so doing enabling them to avoid the federal laws that limited the amount of money they could invest by forcing them to keeping millions of dollars of funds in reserve in case the debts turned bad. They came up with the idea of inventing a device to protect these loans and free up capital. They conceived a kind of insurance where a third party would assume the risk of the debts going sour in exchange for a monthly premium, thereby separating the risks from the loans, and leaving them free to invest larger amounts of capital, and so credit default swops were born. The first negative was that these were agreements between two private entities that were not regulated by the federal government, and soon no entity that was guaranteeing these debts realized how big the market had grown, who was guaranteeing these debts, and how much these debts were worth. These debts created huge profits for investors and investment companies causing a worldwide economic boom. The original idea created by JP Morgan mutated so many times, allowing every other investment...
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...To what extent was the fall of the Berlin Wall a result rather than a cause of the end of the Cold war? The dismantling of the Berlin Wall in Nov 1989 was one of the most symbolic acts of the Cold War. It was a symbol of the changes that had swept through Europe in 1989 and of the end of the divisions that had marked the essential character of the CW: the ideological split between capitalism and communism. In 1989, the DDR was 4o years old and the East German leadership was prepared to celerbraite its anniversary. At what should have been an event to consolidate the country, the tide was turning against the regime. Gorbachevs reforms had important consequences for the existence of E germany as a separate country. The DDR was a product of Cold War tensions, which had prevented the unification of Germany after WW2. Without these tensions there seemed little reason for Germany to remain divided. Honecker recognized that the DDR could still have a reason to exist if it remained socialist and therefore different from W Germany. Honecker was not in favour of any reform, but the E german population could not be isolated from events in the rest of euope. Large numbers of East Germans had fled from the counrty via Hungary during the summer of 1989, but even more serious for the government were those who were staying put. Gorbys reforms of communism in the Usr had encouraged many E Germanys to push for change. Political groups were formed with huge crowds of demonstrators shouting...
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...The inevitable result of the clash between the energised and dynamic West and the stagnant and obscurantist Muslim world was the collapse of the latter. Even a cursory glance leads one to the conclusion that the Muslim world starting from Morocco to Indonesia and from Africa to Central Asia is in turmoil. Most, if not all, of the Muslim countries are going through a phase of internal convulsion and uncertainty marked by political instability, economic under-development and deprivation, scientific and technological backwardness, and cultural dislocation. The situation for the Muslim world is further aggravated because of the multifarious challenges confronting it on the external front. The need of the hour is for the Muslim intelligentsia and leaders to realise the gravity of the situation and present to their compatriots well-considered views on overcoming the political, economic, social and cultural hindrances blocking the way to progress, prosperity and internal stability. The present condition of the Muslim world needs to be analysed in correct historical perspective. The Muslim civilisation, which had been in the vanguard of human intellectual and economic progress for several centuries after its birth, started showing signs of slackening around the seventeenth century A. D. Muslim scholars lost the appetite for intellectual enquiry. Instead of opening new horizons for intellectual growth, they simply became the followers of dogmas inherited from the past. ...
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...methods, all short of a direct, all-out attack on each other's homelands. The methods they used included the creation of rival alliances, the extension of military and economic aid to client states and would-be client states, a massive and expensive arms race, propaganda campaigns, espionage, guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency warfare, and political assassinations. The Cold War was one of the longest conflicts in human history, over seventy years in duration, with periodic lulls in the level of hostility. It was also the widest in scope of all the world's wars; it was fought on every continent on the globe and, considering the space race, over every conti- nent as well. The Cold War was also one of the costliest of the world's conflicts, not only in numbers of lives lost but also in resources expended. In the end, the Soviet Union collapsed, and communism, at least in the form that existed in the Soviet Union, expired. But, as Mikhail Gorbachev pointed out, both sides lost much in the Cold War. The United States lost many lives and consumed huge financial resources as well, and the demo- cratic principles on which it was founded were endangered. For decades, historians have argued about the origins of the Cold War. Who, or what, was primarily responsible? Was it inevitable? One school of thought, the orthodox interpretation, places the major blame for the Cold War on the Soviet Union. Its proponents argue that the United States had no...
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...In the National Security Council's "Cold War Objectives" (NSC-68) document a description of the fundamental design of the Kremlin portrays a grim image of inevitable confrontation with the Soviet Union. In the context of describing the Kremlin’s design, the document positions the US as a perceived obstacle and adversary of the Kremlin and assumes that the Kremlin view includes an imperative to destroy or subvert the US by any means necessary. While the document called for a massive peace time mobilization and increase in spending to contain the military threat in the Soviet Union, decades later, the fall of the Soviet Union can be seen as either the ultimate success of the policies it advocated or rather the repudiation of its gross exaggerations of Soviet power. Contrary to assumptions in NSC-68, the economic power of the Soviet Union would turn out to be on path of decline rather than improvement and it would eventually lead to the unraveling of the Soviet Union. With indicatives lead by Soviet leaders Boris Yeltsin and Gorbachev, the Soviet Union aligns itself towards marketization in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. With the economy in limbo, a re-alignment of Soviet foreign policies ensues virtually ending the cold war. Gorbachev pursues what is seen as concessionary foreign policy based on the idea that the world is all interdependent and that global relationship would prevail over East-West divide, effectively an annulment of the idea of the Cold War. In the 1950’s...
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...Channel Encarnacion HIST 102 10/27/14 Civil War Debate Was the Civil War Inevitable? Was the Civil War Avoidable? In The Irrepressible Conflict by Kenneth M. Stampp he does not argue that the Civil War was inevitable. He does observe, however, that it is hard to see how the country could have avoided some sort of showdown on slavery. Conflict was “irrepressible” in the sense that “the issues dividing the North and South were genuine and substantial and that conflict between them was a natural and logical result.” The civil war was inevitable given the circumstances under which it came. The three main causes: infringement on civil liberties, violation on states' rights, and the collapse of the two-party system made the conflict between North and South almost impossible to resolve. The war was going to happen one way or another. The south originally disagreed with Lincoln’s laws. The North and the South had very diverse views over slavery. The country couldn’t have been integrated if they didn’t come to a compromise. With the north wanting a strong federal government and the south with the contrary wants, the country couldn’t have agreed to go one way or the other. The war had to happen in order for a winner to take control and make the executive decisions. The country would have been splitting with every new state union, leaving the country with a very dissimilar outcome than what is today. The explosion of the American Civil War was caused by a vast number of conflicting...
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...Liberalisation Privatisation Globalisation The organisation of capitalist society is based on economics and naturally precipitates a class structure. The classes achieve their distinction solely on the premise of having or not having economic power. The economic structure of the society in turn depends on what the society produces, for whose consumption, and how it is exchanged. Any change in the modes of production and exchange are reflected directly or indirectly on the social fabric. Both these operations are controlled by the classes that are economically privileged and the interests of the other classes are almost always jeopardised. This logic is true not only in the internal relations of a society but also between societies. Since these relations are determined by an imbalance of power, they exist in a retarded and volatile condition that seeks discharge. Conflict and protest are therefore inevitable in such a structure. It is in these protests from the dispossessed classes that one finds the genesis of all major revolutions and rearrangements of social order. With the advent of capitalism, the lower classes that toiled at the farms or at the furnaces, became 'labour'- not bound to their trades by tradition or command of the feudal lord but they became free contracting agents who could sell their capacity to labour, in the market. This shift did not of course imply any elevation in their conditions. They remained indispensable cogs in the social machinery- only the machinery...
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.... The Great Depression was a period of unprecedented decline in economic activity. It is generally agreed to have occurred between 1929 and 1939. Although parts of the economy had begun to recover by 1936, high unemployment persisted until the Second World War. Background To Great Depression: * The 1920s witnessed an economic boom in the US (typified by Ford Motor cars, which made a car within the grasp of ordinary workers for the first time). Industrial output expanded very rapidly. * Sales were often promoted through buying on credit. However, by early 1929, the steam had gone out of the economy and output was beginning to fall. * The stock market had boomed to record levels. Price to earning ratios were above historical averages. * The US Agricultural sector had been in recession for many more years * The UK economy had been experiencing deflation and high unemployment for much of the 1920s. This was mainly due to the cost of the first world war and attempting to rejoin the Gold standard at a pre world war 1 rate. This meant Sterling was overvalued causing lower exports and slower growth. The US tried to help the UK stay in the gold standard. That meant inflating the US economy, which contributed to the credit boom of the 1920s. Causes of Great Depression Stock Market Crash of October 1929 During September and October a few firms posted disappointing results causing share prices to fall. On October 28th (Black Monday), the decline in prices turned...
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...Australia seems to be stuck between its economic interests, which lie with China and Asia, and traditional ties with the America. General Peter Leahy warns of US-China collision FORMER Australian army chief Peter Leahy has urged Australia to tread warily in expanding its military ties with the US to ensure they do not "lead to increased tension and even conflict" with China. [pic] the Australian, 12 April, 2012 Warning against becoming "caught" between the US as its security guarantor and China as its economic underwriter, Professor Leahy has welcomed Australia's decision to play host to US marines, but noted that "too much of a good thing" could put unnecessary pressure on China. His comments, in an opinion piece in today's edition of The Australian, came as the China Daily state-owned newspaper hit out at Australia's expanding links with the US, warning they could spark a collapse of trust and endanger Sino-Australian economic ties. In a strongly worded editorial, the newspaper yesterday also warned that the Gillard government's decision last month to ban Chinese communications giant Huawei from bidding for work in the $36 billion National Broadband Network had created the perception in Beijing that Australia wanted to obstruct Chinese companies. But, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted her nation wanted close and peaceful relations with Beijing, Julia Gillard rejected the Chinese newspaper's suggestion that Australian foreign policy was...
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...The Panic of 1812 was an economic disaster that occurred when small banks printed too much money causing inflation. Andrew Jackson was the president at the time and had been ruling with more power than any president before him, earning him the nickname “King Andrew.” King Andrew, once elected president, began to push many Americans against the 2nd National Bank. Instead, he wanted them to be deposited into state banks. Secretary of the Treasure Duane refused this, but was simply removed by Jackson and replaced with Roger B. Taney. Eventually, “twenty-three state banks-dubbed ‘pet banks’ by anti-Jacksonians-had been selected as depositories.” The idea was strongly opposed in all of the congress. So much so, that a new political party, called the Whig party. “This name played off the idea that Jackson was acting as if he were ‘King Andrew’ because it was the Whig party in Britain that espoused the limiting of royal power.” The Senate eventually gained control once again and stopped the election of Taney into the secretary of Treasury. Unfortunately, Jackson had already destroyed the American banking system making it unpredictable...
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...Volcanic eruptions are one of Earth's most dramatic and violent forces of change. Not only can powerful explosive eruptions drastically alter land and water for tens of kilometres around a volcano, but tiny liquid droplets of sulphuric acid erupted into the stratosphere can change the planet's climate temporarily. Eruptions often force people living near volcanoes to abandon their land and homes. Those living farther away are likely to avoid complete destruction, but their cities and towns, crops, industrial plants, transportation systems, and electrical grids can still be damaged by tephra, ash, lahars, and flooding. Studies of the geologic history of a volcano are generally necessary to make an assessment of the types of hazards posed by the volcano and the frequency at which these types of hazards have occurred in the past. The best way to determine the future behaviour of a volcano is by studying its past behaviour as revealed in the deposits produced by previous eruptions. This is very helpful when trying to predict an eruption for dormant volcanoes as they are most complex volcanoes to foresee an eruption for. Once this information has been collected, geologists can then make forecasts concerning what areas surrounding a volcano would be subject to the various kinds of activity should a future eruption occur. This information is then used, with knowledge about the present aspects of the volcano, to make volcanic hazards maps which can aid other scientists, government,...
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...international relations and encompasses the political, social, and economic aspects of the causes of war.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]<!–[endif]–> Marxist theory applied in conjunction with the ‘three levels’ of analysis, which are, the individual, the state, and the international system, is relevant and significant to the study of international relations. In particular, Marxism as an analytical tool has been able to evolve within and adapt to the altering environment of international relations, especially with concerns to global conflict. An examination of Marxism, from its rudimentary forms and its progression into its modern day applications proves that Marxism offers an extremely viable basis for analysing the causes of war. Marxism accepts that capitalism, hence, the capitalist mode of production gives birth to two classes in society, the owning bourgeoisie and the working proletariat, which are inherently antagonistic towards each other’s existence and prone to class conflict. Also, the capitalist states represents the interests of the bourgeoisie, and as the ruling class, the bourgeoisie controls the means of production, which is basically the states material power and economic foundations. Marxists embrace the materialist conception of history, which puts forth the idea that historically crisis and change between classes are inevitable; capitalism is just a means to society’s economic development and socialism as opposed to capitalism is the ultimate...
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...The statement ‘everything depends on the psychology of investors’ is useful in explaining the AFC. It started with Thailand, where the overvalued baht was pegged to the US dollar. An appreciation of the USD put strain on the Thai government’s position to maintain the peg, and coupled with Thailand’s current account deficit, investors and currency speculators suspected an imminent devaluation. The loss of investor confidence and speculation led them to dispose of their baht for the USD, and the baht further depressed in value. By this time, the Thai government was no longer able to maintain the overvalued baht, and international capital flew out of the country, compounding the decline of stock and property market indices. The government was forced to release the peg, which triggered off the AFC. The loss of investor confidence was like a contagion that spread over the region- many investors did not just invest in one country, but in multiple countries in SEA, and the situation in Thailand had them pulling out of investments in the other countries as well when they re-assessed the risk factors in Thailand’s neighbouring countries and saw similar symptoms afflicting them. Indonesia was the next to be hit by speculative runs after Thailand. Thailand suffered from a -54.6% rate of change in the value of its baht against the USD, but Indonesia suffered the wildest fluctuation in the value of the rupiah, with a -83.6% rate of change. This contagious loss of confidence and panic effect...
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...which their livelihood depend on unpredictable event a long way away. Its now seems likely that, while deeply traumatic for many individual and some countries. Notably asia and the former soviet union, this latest crisis will prove to have been no more than 1 of the growing pains of an increasly interdependent global economic system. there have been panic and warning of imminient collapse before . in early 1970s with demise of the bretton woods fixed exchange rate regime. in late 1970s after the OPEC oil shock and with worries about the world running out of raw material . in the early 1980s with the latins America debt crisis and fear for the solvency of major western bank , and in 1987 with an equity market collapse in the USA . Its still possible – though unlikely – that bad luck incompetence could turn recent sign of systemic weaknesses into a collapse of the kind experience in the wake of the 1929 crash . but , even if it does not there is a proper questioning of globalization and the system of governance .on which economic integration is based , this volume seeks to address some of this issues ; what does globalization issues mean ? it is inevitable ? and if not , is it desirable. How does the system . The present network of the state of globalization. Globalization what does it means ? In the vast , multidisciplinary literature that has multiplied rapidly during the 1990s . globalization has become portmanteau term –of description approval or abuse...
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