Levinson, M. (2009). The economic collapse. Dissent (00123846), 56(1), 61-66. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=36407227&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site
The author of this article is Mark Levinson. In this article, he explained many causes which contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 to 2009. Moreover, he also illustrated specifically the reasons leading to the causes of this crisis. For instance, the defects in U.S. banking laws leaded to many problems among a lot of banks. Banks did not help mortgage brokers and companies but they handle most money which set for assisting subprime mortgage guidelines from the federal government. Since one of the goals of my research is to find out the main cause of this financial crisis, this article does provide much useful information for me to analyze and comprehend my paper.
“Respect the people who say dirty words.” This quote is my friend gave me as an advice many years ago. I know this does not make any sense for a lot of people but I think this advice dose make sense, at least in Taiwan. I take this advice into my heart for the story that my friend told me many years ago, and this story was revealing the harsh social impacts on many Taiwanese forty years ago.
Before 1960s, Taiwan was a developing country, and most Taiwanese at that time were farmers or unskilled workers. They received low incomes and had to sustain their families. Moreover, they faced random problems all the time. For example, workers might be laid off without being given any notification because in 1960s, related laws had many defects, so they could not protect workers’ rights. What could they do? They could not do anything but said dirty words to express their sorrows. This culture reflects Taiwanese past, and those people pasted this seemingly bad culture to their children and grandchildren. Thus, I think that this is a rude but memorable behavior reflecting the struggles of Taiwanese.
In Taiwan, most people would think the people who say dirty words are low class and uneducated. Actually, before my friend told me this story, I also looked down on those people. However, I have a different attitude toward them now, and this enables me to make more good friends. For instance, when I was in army, I knew many good friends who liked to say dirty words, and they were all generous and kind people. Although they might not receive good education, their personalities were as good as those who were well educated, sometime even better. Therefore, if I kept my original attitude, I would lose chances to know these great people. Consequently, the advice does work.
My major is business administration, so I am interested in business matters. In recent years, the financial crisis which was started from early 2008 and has been existed now is the topic that I want to research. On Friday, I thought about several questions about this global financial crisis, such as what were the causes of this crisis? In fact, I know this financial crisis is more complicated than I think, and probably I may not find all the causes and answers. Nonetheless, as a business major student, I think this crisis would be an interesting and academic topic to research.
Actually, I had some background knowledge about this serious financial crisis. Therefore, this research would not be too difficult to me. Besides, after I read the information about this crisis on the Wikipedia, I had the more comprehensive concept about this biggest financial crisis since 1930s’. Thus, in addition to the main causes of this crisis, I also want to find out the reactions that U.S. government takes, the effects on several Asian countries, especially my home country, Taiwan, and the situations that U.S. citizens face.
So far, I think this global financial crisis was directly resulted from subprime mortgage. However, there are several potential problems had been existed many years ago, such as Americans loaned a lot of money from banks and could not pay off. Consequently, banks suffered from substantial bad debt, and this made the U.S. financial structure vulnerable. As a result, people could not pay their debt, banks ran out of their cash, and the U.S. economy collapsed. Moreover, many abroad important companies invested millions of money in U.S. markets and several countries bought U.S. treasury binds, such as Mainland China and Japan, were deeply affected by the slump of U.S. economy. These companies and countries were also playing key roles in global economy, so the downfall of them affected more countries and companies. In the end, the chain reactions crushed global economy.
I hope that I can learn more in the area that the ways which companies and governments handle this crisis because their reactions may give the concepts that I can apply to real business world in the future. Furthermore, by doing such research, I might predict how long the global economy would get better. It is important to me because I can arrange my life plan, whether I should study for a doctor degree after I finish my MBA degree in the future. Therefore, I really want to learn more in this field for my short tern and long tern goal.
I think most American food is a combination of other ethnic food. For example, I often see people eating chips. Many people think that chips are American food, but they are originated in France. Moreover, fast food is regarded as a symbol of American food. However, a lot of American fast food is also originated from other cultures. Hamburgers, for instance, come from German but they become a representative food of America. Of course, tastes may be very different from the original ones, but they are really from German.
Most American food was not born in U.S.A, but this fact makes sense because most American ancestors were from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Even though American food is not really “American” food, it still represents itself as a symbol of America. For example, when it comes to what the most famous American food is, most people may answer: “Hamburgers.” In other words, Americans enhance the image that Hamburgers are American food in everybody’s heart.
In my heart, hamburgers are traditional American food though they are not. In addition, I do love hamburgers. Actually, I love most American food. For me, American food is very tasty though it is relatively oily. Nevertheless, this defect does not diminish my love for American food. Even though I am a Taiwanese, I rather eat a double cheese burger than a bowl of Chinese fried rice. In fact, unlike other Asian students, it is totally okay for me that every meal without rice or noodles. Thus, as long as people ask me that whether I miss Taiwanese food? My answer is always “eh, just a little bit.” On the other hand, I know many of my friends who cannot live without eating their traditional food. Fortunately, I am not suffered from this kind of pain because I love American food.
Many people may criticize that American food does not contain elegance and lacks of culture values. However, I hold a different opinion that American food is as good as other ethnic food, even better. Personally, I think that some dishes which are needed complicated cooking skills are worse than a burger with only meat and ketchup. It can be given a example that one time our family went to a Chinese restaurant to eat lunch, and one dish was steamed fat pork cooked with many kinds of sauces. The taste of this dish was very strange because it combined sweet, salty, and sour flavors in the same time. Besides, fat pork made this dish oily. In fact, the taste was so disharmony that I rather bitted the cheapest burger. Therefore, I think taste is the most important thing of food instead of cooking process or culture. After all, I just want to eat something good to eat, and a lot of American food does satisfy me.
