The Need for Privatization Essay Example for Free

The Need for Privatization Essay Every paycheck 7.65 percent is taken out for a retirement program, after the employer kicks in, a total of 12.4 percent of what you earn goes to the government to fund your retirement. The government system offers minuscule returns by anyones measure and the system is expected to go bankrupt as soon as 2014. If a private company had these problems, no one would invest. But, this is a mandatory program, Americans have to stay in this system and are forced to invest in its fated future. Social Security is one of the biggest disasters of American history. In a country that was founded on the principles of Capitalism and free markets, this socialist program limits peoples pursuit of happiness. Percent Who Believe Social Security Will Not Be There When They Retire All under 6560% Generation X70% Baby Boomers69% Social Security is an un-funded pay-as-you-go system. The idea is fundamentally flawed and follows the design of the famous illegal pyramid schemes. Many people claim that the constitution provides a social safety net, because the preamble of the constitution states that the government should promote the general welfare of the people. The constitution then goes on to list the enumerated powers of the state. Nowhere in the list does it say that the government should provide a retirement of healthcare for the people. If the founding fathers wanted these programs, they would have provided a way to pay for them. The rate of savings in the United States is 26 percent of Gross National Product; the country of Chile saves 30 percent of their GNP. With these two countries saving close to the same amount for their future, you would expect both to have similar results for retirees. The United States Government run pay-as-you-go system provides meager results as compared to even the least progressive private investment. The  Country of Chile used to have the same system the US currently uses, but decided to let people invest their own money how they choose in the open market. Chileans pensions are 70 to 100 percent higher than under the old government system since the switch to a private solution. The Chile system says that a person must contribute at least ten percent of their wages to the retirement program. Many workers contribute more than the ten percent that is required. In a private retirement system, people are free to choose what is best for them. Josà © Pià ±era, who is Chiles minister of labor, says: A worker can contribute more than 10 percent if he wants a higher pension or if he wants to retire early. Individuals have different preferences: some want to work until they are 85; others want to go fishing at 55, or 50, or 45, if they can. The uniform pay-as-you-go social security system does not recognize differences in individual preferences. In my country, those differences had led to pressure on the congress to legislate different retirement ages for different groups. As a result, we had a discriminatory retirement-age system. Blue-collar workers could retire at 65; white-collar workers could retire more or less at 55; bank employees could retire after 25 years of work; and the most powerful group of all, those who make the laws, the congressmen, were able to retire after 15 years of work. Opinion of Social Security Reforms The privatized Chilean system is obviously working better than the current US system. Many critics claim that the switch to a private system would be difficult to do. Chile, Mexico, Britain, and Australia have all successfully made the switch to a non-government system. All four of these countries are now striving under their new private retirement systems. The main problem cited in privatizing social security is how to pay the people that have paid into the program their whole life. There is an easy solution to this. The American Government has many programs that it does not have to provide under the Constitution. The government could easily abolish unnecessary arms such as the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Education. The government  also has excess assets that could be sold to support the people who have been forced to be dependent on Social Security. Social Securitys website lists the number of agency field offices at 1,300; thats a lot of office space, and a lot of bureaucrats that wouldnt need to be paid. If countries like Mexico and Chile can change over to privatized retirement systems, the United States will have no problem replicating their success. Josà © Pià ±era, Chiles minister of labor, described how the transition to a private system was made: The real transition cost of the system is the money the government ceases to obtain from the workers who moved to the new system, because the government is committed to pay the pensions of the people already retired and of those who will retire in the future. That transition cost can be calculated. In Chile it was around 3 percent of gross national product. How we financed it is another story. It will be done differently in each country. Suffice it to say that even though governments have enormous pension liabilities, they also have enormous assets. In Chile we had state-owned enterprises. In America I understand that the federal government owns a third of the land. I dont know why the government owns land, and I dont know the value. Nor am I saying that you should sell the land tomorrow. What I am saying is that when you consider privatizing Social Security, you must look at assets as well as liabilities. I am sure that the U.S. government has gigantic assets. Are they more or less than the liabilities of the Social Security system? I dont know, but the Cato project on privatizing Social Security will study that. In Chile we calculated the real balance sheet and, knowing there were enough assets, financed the transition without raising tax rates, generating inflation, or pressuring interest rates upward. In the last several years we have had a fiscal surplus of 1 to 2 percent of GNP. Opinion of Privatization Plan Strongly Favor38% Somewhat in Favor31% Lean in Favor4% No Opinion12% Lean Opposed2% Somewhat Opposed6% Strongly Opposed6% DK2% The future for Social Security looks grim, but there is some hope for privatization. The Republicans currently want private Social Security, and George Bush said Dont treat Social Security like its a federal program. In February of 1997 the Oregon state senate passed a resolution requesting that the state be allowed to opt out of the Federal Social Security program to start their own private retirement system. As people begin to see that the national program is going bankrupt, there will be great political pressure on congressmen to enact a new program. Medicare/Medicaid is another Federal program that is in great need of reform. Medical costs account for fourteen percent of our Gross Domestic Product. The current system decreases competition and skyrockets prices for medical care. The heavily regulated heath care business is restricted in not only getting cutting edge treatments to patients, but also in how they see patients. The American Medical Association limits the number of medical students accepted to Universities and decrease competition. There is never an ad in the help wanted section of the newspaper looking for doctors. When was the last time you heard of a doctor collecting unemployment? Government regulations also limit what non-doctors can do. Its easy to see that its doesnt take a PHD to do an annual checkup or to fix a broken bone. Regulations hurt Americans and drive up healthcare. With Medicare, there is a price put on procedures. An experienced doctor gets just as much as the recent med school graduate for doing open-heart surgery. The experienced  doctor is unable to make his own prices. These practices discourage competition and are bad for America. Canada and Britain both have socialized health care systems. The programs cost more than the semi-capitalist American system, but polls seem to show that citizens in those countries enjoy them. The care in these countries is mediocre and there is not much cutting edge medicine being done because there is no incentive to. There is also no incentive for doctors to perform to the best of their ability. Canadian patients cross the boarder to seek care at the Cleveland Clinic and when Margaret Thatcher needed surgery, she crossed the Atlantic to get help. The wait for cancer radiation in Canada is three to six months, twelve to twenty two months for a new plastic hip. Federally run programs will never be as cost effective or efficient as those run in the private sector. Time will tell as to whether Social Security and Medicare will fall out of Federal hands, but common knowledge of Economics shows that more competition breeds more innovative and less expensive solutions.

Women, Law, and Equality Essay -- Womens Rights, gender inequality

In the past 3 decades, women made great advancements in the workforce. First, they have become an integral part of the labour market; they have access to higher education and consequently to traditionally male dominated professions such as medicine, law and business. While statistics show that women are equal to men in terms of their numbers in the law profession, it is not clear however, whether they have achieved equality in all other areas of their employment. In this paper, I will examine women’s experiences in the law profession; whether women are earning equal salary compared to the male lawyers, do they still face barriers that are gender related and whether they have broken the glass ceiling in a profession that is supposed to be an example for practising equality and justice. The experience of women lawyers. Despite improvements to women’s role in the labour market, women are still facing obstacles that are gender related. Women continue to bear the main responsibility for domestic duties and child care and further more, policies have not enabled women to fully succeed. While women were able to gain access to this highly male dominated profession, and in some cases they outnumber their male counterparts, researchers agree that women are still facing discriminatory barriers. While discrimination is more subtle nowadays compared to the blatant and stupid style of the recent past (Adcock, 2006) women are still experiencing discrimination which is preventing them from receiving equal pay, thus hindering their progress and altering their career paths. They still face an array of barriers to achieving equality in their careers, including the allocation of work, opportunities for advancement, income differentials... ... of the choices that women are making or the constraints that they have to live with. I argue that women do not have the freedom to pursue their careers in the same way men do, they have the juggling act that they need to perform by satisfying their social stereotyping roles of care givers and nurturers. While equal pay is not an issue on the outset in federally regulated sector due to the Pay Equity legislated, however it would be interesting to see how many women are reaching high ranked positions in proportion to the overall demographics. According to a report y the Treasury board secretariat on diversity in the public service â€Å": Women†¦ have faced negative attitudes and stereotyping and have consistently undervalued† which confirms while women are supposed to be renumerated equally to men, they have yet to improve their representation in the leadership ranks.

Explore the Stages of Producing a Good Essay Essay

In this essay I will be discussing the different stages involved in producing a good college essay from start to finish. I will describe exactly what an essay is, how to break down and understand an essay title, how to prepare to write an essay, the key stages in essay development and the role of self reflection on the development of your essay writing skills. An essay is a major part of formal education and is used to access a student’s performance and show that they have researched and understood a particular subject or issue. It is a piece of writing with a particular structure and layout. â€Å"A short piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one done by students as part of the work for a course† (Cambridge Dictionary, 2009). â€Å"Usually it is written in a formal, academic style: the language is different from the way you speak†¦.it is not conversational† (Cottrell 2008:175). An essay title is given and this is used as a ‘question’ which must be ultimately answered throughout the essay. You are expected to stick to exactly what the essay title is asking for. Before starting an essay you need to make sure that you understand what it is asking you to do. â€Å"Every question has key words, and identifying them will help you decide what the assignment is about and what you have to doâ €  (The Open University 2007). Once you have a clear idea of what the essay title is asking for you can then look more closely at the resources available to you, such as books, articles, class notes, the internet, television and newspapers. You need to weigh up the relevance of the information you find and be selective. You need to ask yourself ‘Do I need the information?’ and ‘How will I use this information?’ (Cottrell 2008:176). It is important to record which recourses you found your information in to avoid plagiarism. All recourses used in the essay needs to be listed in a reference list at the end of the essay and allows the reader to refer back to these sources for themselves. Next you need to organise and plan your essay. â€Å"The Structure and organisation of your work is just as important as the content. What matters is not just what you know but the way that you organise it† (Cottrell 2008:182). The hard part is getting the information and ideas that you have gathered i nto a well organised and coherent state and then start the actual writing. Arrange the information that you have already sourced into topics, a spider diagram can be handy for this. Make a plan for the main parts of your essay, and note down the key ideas and information for each part. An action plan is good way of preparing your ideas and will help you map out your essay. A good essay flows logically from one point to another, preparing an action plan can aid this. It gives you the chance to plan out what you may put in your introduction and conclusion, what your main points will be and what you will focus on in each paragraph in the main body of your essay. An action plan can help you to develop your argument but also keeps you on track. â€Å"If you simply start writing, with your pile of notes at your side, and you haven’t given any thought to the organisation of the ideas and information, then you are very likely to end up with an essay that rambles and has no clear sense of direction† (Edinburgh Napier University, 2009). A first draft is a chance to quickly jot down your ideas using your plan. This is not a final version of your essay. â€Å"Don’t expect to write perfect text at the first go, you will need to spend time going back over and rewriting or reorganising your paragraphs† (The Open University 2007). Don’t worry about spelling or punctuation at this stage; this is just a chance to get your ideas down on paper. Sometimes after writing your first draft your ideas may have developed from those which you put in your initial action plan. This means that you would have to revise your action plan â€Å"If necessary, rework your outline plan as you proceed. You may rework your plan several times as your thinking becomes more sophisticated. This is part of the process of understanding a subject† (Cottrell 2008:186). At this point you should have a good picture of what you want in your final essay. You should check that the information you have is grouped and in a good logical order, then begin to write your final draft. You need to make sure that your final draft makes sense, reading it aloud can help with this. Ensure that you have used enough evidence and examples to back up your argument and make certain that your references are written correctly and that the source of your information is made clear. Check for punctuation, spelling and grammar mistakes, getting this right can help improve your marks. Finally check that it is neat and well presented. It is important as a student to be able to reflect on how you learn best; this can help you improve your essay writing skills. Cottrell believes that you should make constructive use of the feedback that you receive from your tutors but it is also of great benefit to be able to work out for yourself what is it you do well and what you need to improve. This is also called self-reflection. Your performance as a student is likely to improve if you set time aside to reflect on how you learn. In conclusion, to produce a good college essay you must always keep focused on what the essay title is asking for, present your ideas and information in a well structured, coherent way, ensuring that it flows logically from the introduction to the conclusion. Support your ideas or arguments with good relevant evidence and make sure that this is properly referenced. Lastly always present your essays appropriately in good written English.

Government Intervention For R D And Entrepreneurship

Government Intervention To Promote RD And Innovation In Small Medium Businesses Summary – SBIR Policy The societies in the world are facing severe social and economic challenges. The 2008-09 downturn in the economy has led to lessened potential growth output, rise in unemployment and soaring public debt. To recover from this, it was necessary that the nations come up with sustainable growth sources. The search for new sources comes to an end when the countries have adopted a productivity growth infused with innovation. Innovation is the introduction of a significantly and newly improved product, method or process. It holds the access to boost productivity. All change contains a degree of novelty. (Glaister, 1996) The Oslo Manual gives account for three types of innovation. An innovation can be novel to the firm, novel to the market or novel to the world itself. The first type includes the circulation of the present innovation in the business. It is when the innovation has already for use in other companies. The change becomes new to the market when the firm is the first to introdu ce it to the market. An enormous range of factors like economy, government service, education or health, therefore, affects innovation. It can occur in any sector of the economy. (www.aaas.org) The current framework applies to change in business and sometimes in the public sector. The paper discusses innovation in the public sector in small-scale industries. The macroeconomic policies affect theShow MoreRelatedInternational Trade : The United States1461 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction In the recent years, business become more larger due to the advancement of technology, a renewed enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and a global sentiment that favors international trade to connect people, business and market. 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