Plymouth Plantation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Plymouth Plantation - Essay Example The book describes the first Thanksgiving and about the brave pilgrims who were in search of religious liberty. The description of Mayflower is a new kind of telling a story that goes up through King Philip's War in 1675-76. The bloody war was fought between the English and the Native Americans that resulted in the death of hundreds of English and thousands of Native Americans. The Native Americans were the Indians and most of them were killed and the remaining were starved to death or deported or sold as slaves. After the war independence of native New England was broken. The next 250 years was repetition of the history between the English (white Americans too) and the Native Americans. The Indians weren't in a mood to accept the new visitors or the white Americans. As the number of white settlements increased the insecurity among the Indians also increased. Each day passing the whites were moving closer to the natives and were more powerful than the Indians. The whites were growing in number and stature. Since the two sides need different things and respect different values, grievances build up. They weren't in a mood to understand each other and stopped trying to understand each other's values, the result was bloodshed and finally the Indians lose. The Indians were illiterates and didn't make any effort to write their side of story and their own history. The Thanksgiving Day was declared a national holiday by the then president Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln describes the Pilgrims as national heroes who remind the Americans of their roots. Squanto was the Pilgrim's trusty English speaking interpreter; to take Massasoit's place he made every effort to turn the English against him. The result was a bloody preemptive attack on a Massachusetts band that was led by Miles Standish and was sanctioned by William Bradford. The raiders came back with the head of a warrior as a trophy to commemorate their victory and hanged it over the fort. This resulted in a shocking wave of fear amongst the natives that made them to flee their fields and villages. When the Rev John Robinson, Pilgrim's spiritual leader came to about the raid he condemned this kind of shocking and terrorized act and denounced it in a letter to William Bradford. The naives of different tribal groups and always had complexities amongst them. They were the Pokanokets, the Nausets of Cape Cod, the Rhode Island Narragansetts, the Massachusetts near Boston and several others. These tribal groups were collectively called as Wamponoags. The English and the Wamponoags were complicated in terms of psychologically and morally and were always under various pressures. The Pilgrim village museum in Plymouth contains description and artifacts of both cultures and represents as bicultural institution. It not only represents or tells the stories of European immigration but also the encounter between them that happened centuries ago. Mostly the Whites described the Mayflower by their writings and scriptures though both cultures were involved in the arrival of the Mayflower. Since the natives were not literate as the Whites they fell behind and little was known from them. Both the cultures have equal importance and played significant role in the evolving American history. They made us to realize the importance of both the cultures and to respect them. The Indians passed

How did the recent financial crisis affect Financial Markets and Essay - 1

How did the recent financial crisis affect Financial Markets and institutions - Essay Example Causes of recent crisis The most immediate cause of the credit crisis was the bursting of the US housing bubble (Almendarez , â€Å"The Financial Crisis and a Fragile Global Economy†). There was a sharp rise in the value of the real estates in several countries which included the advanced economies of the world. Various countries including the largest world economy were running high and growing â€Å"current account deficits† (Obstfeld & Rogoff, â€Å"Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis: Products of Common Causes†). Buoyed by the booming housing market there was an excessive rise in the leverage level especially in the consumer market of Britain and US and various global financial entities. Some noted economists like Greenspan argue that global imbalances led to the financial fiasco. Again there are others like Taylor who discards this view. The progressive deregulation of the financial markets coupled with an ineffective supervisory oversight is also said to be one of the reasons that aggravated the crisis. There are contradictions regarding the link between the global financial turmoil and global imbalances. ... balances with easily available foreign money facilitated deferral of crucial policy decisions (Obstfeld & Rogoff, â€Å"Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis: Products of Common Causes†). To make gains from the boom in the housing markets the lenders extended adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) to borrowers with a wrong credit history. All this was well as long as the Fed kept the interest rates low but with the hike in the rate of interest the borrowers were unable to meet their rising instalments resulting in delinquencies and loan foreclosures. The value of the mortgage backed securities fell sharply due to the sudden delinquencies. The investment in these securities were not limited to advanced economies rather to make gains from the housing boom the investors across the globe rushed to invest in these mortgage backed instruments. Therefore a fall in the value of these instruments sent ripples across the worldwide financial markets plummeting the global stock indices. Imp act of crisis on money and capital markets The issue of asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) peaked in July 2007 with a sharp drop in the subsequent months. The financial institutions like IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG were not able to roll over their ABCP investments. There was a sharp rise in the spread between the â€Å"ABCP rate and overnight interest swap rate† which is actually a measure of the liquidity and default risk of ABCP. The impact of the crisis was first seen in the global capital markets. In June & July 2007 there was a downgrade of the mortgage backed securities from AAA to A+. This downgrade was significantly large as the ratings downgrade normally happens in single notches. OECD labelled these ratings downgrade to be unexpected and this exposed the credit rating agencies to