Censoring Pleas for Help Essay Example for Free

Censoring Pleas for Help Essay In Dwight Lee’s essay, â€Å"Censoring Pleas for Help,† the Georgia-based economics professor notes the strange contradiction between popular opposition to censorship and widespread support of price controls. Lee’s primary contention with this political dissonance is that it is not only ethically inconsistent, but reflects an oversight of how markets help communicate economic needs, particularly with regards to the sudden needs which emerge in the wake of natural disasters. Much of the support for price controls stems from fear of â€Å"price gouging,† which is essentially occurs when suppliers attempt to take advantage of sudden demand by raising prices to maximize profit during the period of demand. Lee notes that in his home state, there exists a price gouging law which is designed to prevent such a situation from happening by forbidding suppliers from charging more for their goods than they did the day before a disaster strikes. Lee notes that: â€Å"[†¦] building contractors and construction supplies from several states had poured into Atlanta immediately after it suffered massive tornado damage. Can anyone seriously believe that this help would have poured in from far away if the â€Å"price gouging† law had been perfectly enforced, or that the help was not reduced by the enforcement that had occurred?† (Lee 1999) The crux of Lee’s argument is that price controls are essentially a form of economic censorship which restricts the ability of prices to communicate market demands. To that end, he argues that prices are better understood as the most efficient means by which markets, such as disaster victims, communicate their need for help in the form of resources and supplies. This is not to devalue the contributions and assistance that some have provided for free, but the economic distinction made above between humanitarian aid and supply-demand response is not a trivial one. While those who provide supplies for free are to be commended, it is important to recognize the potential mistake in relying on altruism and humanitarian sensitivity as the primary forces driving resource redistribution. Such a view presumes that humanitarian aid is an objective force that responds to the needs of disaster victims efficiently. In effect, Lee’s argument is that while high prices should not be raised to wildly disproportionate levels,   allowing them to fluctuate free of price controls ensures that they can communicate needs more efficiently, for â€Å"high prices [†¦] insure that pleas for help will be met with a quick and effective response.† Complementary to his point, Lee observes that price controls censor this economic communication and effectively disrupt the ability of customers to express their needs. He notes that in Charleston, price controls prevented a local hardware store from legally being able to sell generators at a higher price nor could the locals communicate their demand to outside suppliers of generators. The result was that one hardware store owner sold one of only two generators in his possession to a friend, at the expense of groceries with a greater demand in the form of thousands of dollars worth of food that needed refrigeration. Simply put, humanitarian aid relies on the initiative of those with the resources and the sense of philanthropy to contribute to disaster relief, which is all well and good, but does not compare to the efficacy of free moving prices in expressing the demands that emerge in the wake of a natural disaster. As far as economics are concerned, price controls merely censor the ability of these sudden emergent markets to communicate those demands. Works Cited Lee, Dwight R. â€Å"Censoring Pleas for Help.† The Freeman, January 1999. Retrieved online on February 25, 2009 from: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/censoring-pleas-for-help/

National Origin Discrimination Essay -- essays research papers

Statute and Case Law Relationship Paper Florida and Federal Discrimination laws were put in place to prevent discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, physical disability, and age by employers. Discrimination includes bias in hiring, promotion, termination, job assignment, compensation, and various types of harassment in the state of Florida. It is unlawful for supervisors or managers in the workplace to make employment related decisions based on stereotypical assumptions about individuals of a particular national origin, race and/or color or for any employee to engage in bias motivated conduct that creates a hostile work environment for anyone. All this can be found in Chapter 760 of the Florida Statue and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The United States of America is known for being a nation of immigrants, but history shows that at one point our Nation officially practiced national origin discrimination in the form of legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1881, and immigration quotas enacted in the 1920's where employers adopted policies discouraging applicants based on their country of origin. One of the justifications for these legislations was that some cultures were not capable to adapt into a predominately white, northern European society. At times when jobs were scarce, national origin discrimination was based on the protection of jobs for native born Americans. After much search I was able to locate a discrimination employment suit based on national origin and race filled by the EEOC's suit, Case # 8:02-CV-1769-T-30 MAP, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, alleging that a naturalized American citizen of Palestinian descent was singled out and discharged within days of the 9/11 attacks for no other reason than his national origin. The suit was against Chromalloy Castings Tampa Corporation, a manufacturer of precision investment castings for the aerospace industry. The EEOC's Miami District Office was heavily involve in this case and stated that â€Å"For any employee to lose a job on the sole basis of his or her national origin in unacceptable† and this suit is one of the first filed by the agency nationwide after 9/11 alleging that an employee was unlawfully discriminated against as a direct result of the September 11th attacks on the United States. The EEOC reports that since 9/... ...yer reacts and investigates initial complains. The EEOC has reported an increase in such cases post 9/11 but they have made a firm commitment to figth companies whose actions are not within status and laws placed to protect possible discrimination cases. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex and national origin. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 amended several sections of Title VII. Section 703 (a)(1) of Title VII provides that it shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer : "to fail to hire or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to ... terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, religion, color, national origin or sex ." Civil Rights Act of 1964 References: http://www.eeoc.gov/press/9-30-02-e.html http://www.flmd.uscourts.gov/ http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=1950 http://www.law.stetson.edu/courses/empdis/partIII.htm http://www.sgglaw.com/employmentdiscrimination.html http://fchr.state.fl.us/complaint.htm http://www.mobar.org/journal/2004/julaug/cavanaugh.htm

Cost of the Good Life Essay

Overall wellbeing, an extravagant lifestyle, and wealth all come to mind when I ponder the good life but what does the good life actually cost? At first glance, this seems like a loaded question that requires multiple dissertations in order to answer. I even contemplated whether or not the good life had a cost at all. Breaking the good life into separate topics relieves much of the stress when it comes to giving an answer. In terms of consumerism, the good life is damaging to the environment, places too much emphasis on money, and it dwindles the importance of non-market values. According to Annie Leonard’s â€Å"The Story of Stuff†, our current materials economy is a commodity chain in which goods go from extraction, to production, to distribution, to consumption, and finally to disposal. The system sounds stable but it is actually in crisis. Anyone with a simple understanding of mathematics can tell you that you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet in the real world. In order for us, the consumers, to get all of our fancy products and up-to-date technologies, a process that we turn a blind eye to takes place. At the source of the process, there is natural resource exploitation. â€Å"We chop down the trees, blow up mountains to get the metals inside, use up all the water, and wipe out all the animals.† As consumers, we are running out of resources because we have too much stuff! In the past three decades alone, one third of the planet’s natural resource space has been consumed. We are undermining the planets very ability for people to live here. In the United States, less than four percent of our original forests are left and forty percent of the waterways have become unsanitary. When the resources start to deplete, we do the same thing to third world or lesser developed nations. The erosion of the local environments of these nations and economies ensures a constant flow of natives that rely on the little money they can earn while working in factories. We have become a nation of consumers largely due to planned and perceived obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is the art of designing products that don’t last a long time but last long enough for someone to buy the product again. Perceived obsolescence is changing the design of things to follow trends and keep up with the times. The number one example that people can relate to is the iPhone. If you don’t have the newest and  greatest iPhone, you are a social outcast. While this might be a tad over exaggerated, it’s not too far from the truth. In all actuality, polls show that our national happiness is declining even though we have more stuff than ever before. This is because we have less time for the things that truly make us happy like friends, family, and leisure time. At the cost of our planet and environment, are we really even living the good life? Fritjof Capra of â€Å"Qualitative Growth† said that â€Å"human needs are finite, but human greed is not. The major problems of our time cannot be understood in isolation; they are all interconnected and interdependent.† In our current economy, we have put currency on a pedestal that is far too high for us to reach anymore. Most of the goods that are produced and sold are often unneeded and therefore are essentially waste. Even still, demographic pressure and poverty form a vicious circle that lead to fewer jobs and wider poverty gaps. These are the costs of the good life. Our current global economy is a system striving for unlimited quantitative growth and is manifestly unsustainable as previously stated. Looking again from an ecological standpoint, the bad growth resulting from this system leads to externalizing social and environmental costs, is based on fossil fuels, involves toxic substances, depletes our natural resources, and degrades the Earth’s ecosystems. Harvard professor Michael Sandel adds what I believe to be the most interesting cost of the good life when it comes to affluenza. He argues that over the last three decades, we have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society. Although these two seem to be synonymous, they are actually quite different. A market economy is a valuable and effective tool for organizing productive activity while a market society is a place where almost everything is up for sale. By doing this, we have created a way of life in which market values â€Å"seep into almost every sphere of life and sometimes crowd out or corrode important, non-market values.† One of the examples that professor Sandel uses is congressional hearings in Washington D.C.. Lobbyists want to attend these hearings and because the seats are limited, line-standing companies have arisen. Line-standing companies hire homeless people and pay them an hourly rate in order to wait in line just  before the hearing. According to the professor, this is wrong for two reasons. â€Å"In a democratic society, everyone should have equal access to representative government. The other reason it’s wrong is that it demeans representative government.† When it comes to the point where almost everything in our public life is sold off to the highest bidder, something is lost. Money matters more and more in our society. And against the background of rising inequality, money takes a toll on the commonality of our civic life. In other words, we lose a part of ourselves. Do we go so far that we are cheapening important social goods and civic goods that are worth caring about? Society will eventually become a place of narcissistic opportunism where people will be buying their way into and out of positive and negative situations. What is the good life worth? I’ve been struggling with this question a great deal lately. You may or may not be familiar with the term first world problems. They are frustrations and complaints that are only experienced by privileged individuals, typically used as a comedic device to make light of trivial inconveniences. Not having the latest gadget and the newest clothes from a particular store are just a few examples. When I bought something, I failed to realize what I was actually paying. I now know that these consumer goods cost natural resources, valuable money, and so much more. The simplest way I can put it is that the cost of the good life: priceless.

Genetic Engineering Is The Deliberate Modification Of A...

â€Å"Stop running around the house Bradley!† The mother rubbed her aching temples and sat down on the couch. Bradley jumped over her legs, but not anticipating the landing fell face flat on the floor. As soon as the pain registered in his brain, he began to cry. The mother attempted to soothe baby, Bradley, but nothing was working. The mother sagged on the couch and accepted her ultimate defeat. As if magic the T.V. blared louder as if announcing its’ presence. â€Å"Are you tired of your child’s terrible behavior? Do you wish to design the perfect child? If you answered yes to those questions, then you are in luck come down to the clinic and design your baby. The mother’s eyes widen in anticipation and called up her husband to tell him she wants to design her next child. Yeah she did say design her baby. It’s funny how in the not so distant future this will be a very common statement. â€Å"The process is called Genetic engineering is the deliberate modification of an organism through the alteration of its genetic code. By removing sections of an organism’s DNA and replacing them with new segments, geneticists can artificially select for certain traits (Simmons).† As technology gets more and more advanced and as scientist becomes more acquainted with the human genome more phenomenons like these begin to happen. Unfortunately, there is always a negative side parents find it unethical to have people pick and choose what they want their babies to look like and be almost likeShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesOrganizational Behavior This page intentionally left blank Organizational Behavior EDITION 15 Stephen P. Robbins —San Diego State University Timothy A. 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