Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Creation and transfer of coins is based on an open source cryptographic protocol and is not managed by any central authority. The coin was inspired by, and in technical details is nearly identical to, Bitcoin (BTC). Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world. Litecoin is an open source, global payment network that is fully decentralized without any central authorities. Mathematics secures the network and empowers individuals to control their own finances. Litecoin features faster transaction confirmation times and improved storage efficiency than the leading math-based currency. With substantial industry support, trade volume and liquidity, Litecoin is a proven medium of commerce complementary to Bitcoin.
Get original essayLitecoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on October 7, 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee. The Litecoin network went live on October 13, 2011. It was a fork of the Bitcoin Core client, differing primarily by having a decreased block generation time (2.5 minutes), increased maximum number of coins, different hashing algorithm (scrypt, instead of SHA-256), and a slightly modified GUI. During the month of November 2013, the aggregate value of Litecoin experienced massive growth which included a 100% leap within 24 hours. Litecoin reached a $1 billion market capitalization in November 2013. By late November 2017, its market capitalization was US$4,600,081,733 ($85.18 per coin). By mid-December 2017, the coin's marketcap had reached US$20,000,000,000 and each litecoin was valued at approximately US$371.00.
In May 2017, Litecoin became the first of the top 5 (by market cap) cryptocurrencies to adopt Segregated Witness. Later in May of the same year, the first Lightning Network transaction was completed through Litecoin, transferring 0.00000001 LTC from Zürich to San Francisco in under one second.
Litecoin is different in some ways from Bitcoin. The Litecoin Network aims to process a block every 2.5 minutes, rather than Bitcoin's 10 minutes. The developers claim that this allows Litecoin to have faster transaction confirmation. Litecoin uses scrypt in its proof-of-work algorithm, a sequential memory-hard function requiring asymptotically more memory than an algorithm which is not memory-hard.
Due to Litecoin's use of the scrypt algorithm, FPGA and ASIC devices made for mining Litecoin are more complicated to create and more expensive to produce than they are for Bitcoin, which uses SHA-256 The exponential rise in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies attracted a number of new traders who embarked on a buying spree - mainly purchasing cryptocurrencies using credit cards. Following the huge decline in 2018, the top 5 credit card companies have either banned or have announced a ban on cryptocurrency purchases using credit cards. As a result, late entrants to the rally, who had purchased cryptocurrency using borrowed money and are nursing losses of more than 50 percent will now be forced to square up their positions.
This is likely to result in another round of panic selling, which will shake out the weak hands. These lower levels will attract a new set of investors who believe in the technology and have been waiting to invest at the right opportunity. Let us identify these lower levels that can attract buyers.
On February 02, Bitcoin saw some buying at the $8,000 levels. However, the pullback failed to reach our target objective of $10,700 for the short-term traders. We anticipated a pullback to the 20-day EMA, but in a selling frenzy, the pullbacks only lasted around 1-3 days. After a day of recovery, the cryptocurrency has turned down once again. Today, the price has broken below the low formed on February 2. If the bears succeed in sustaining below the $8,000 levels, the BTC/USD pair is likely to slide down to $6,239, which is the pattern target from the break of the descending triangle.
Below this, the fall can extend to the $5,450 levels, which will effectively retrace 100 percent of the latest leg of the rally. We believe that the panic selling to the above-mentioned levels offers a good buying opportunity to the long-term investors. However, investors should scale into the positions instead of buying all at once. We recommend buying about 30 to 40 percent of the desired allocation in the range of $5,500 to $5,800.
In our previous analysis, we expected some resistance at the $1,025 levels. On February 3, Ethereum turned down from a high of $999. We had also suggested long positions on a decline to the $770 to $820 levels with a stop loss of $700. We still believe that the $770 to $785 range is a strong support zone for the ETH/USD pair, however, if this support zone breaks, a slide to $640 is likely. The 78.6 percent retracement of the latest leg of the rally is at $611.34 levels. Hence, we foresee strong buying in the zone of $611.34 to $640. However, the 20-day EMA and the 50-day EMA are likely to complete a bearish crossover, which is a negative development. Therefore we do not recommend any fresh trades.
BCH/USD We expected Bitcoin Cash to pull back to the downtrend line, but it turned down from $1,316.07 levels. Today, it has broken below the $1,000 support. Now, it is likely to fall to the next critical support of $854.3135. We do not find any signs of a bottom on the BCH/USD pair barring the fact that the RSI is close to entering into the oversold territory. Despite this, we want to see some buying emerge before making any trade on it.
XRP/USD Ripple is also retesting the lows formed on February 2. Compared to other cryptocurrencies, it has still not fallen below the February 2 low of $0.63252. This points to likely exhaustion of selling in the XRP/USD pair. Also, the $0.61 is the final support. After this time, we may see a further fall to $0.24 levels. It will become positive in the short-term after it breaks out of the downtrend line. Until then, all pullbacks are likely to be sold by the bears.
XLM/USD Stellar could not build on the sharp pullback of February 2. It has again broken below the support of $0.41 and is likely to retest the critical support of $0.296. If this support breaks, the XLM/USD pair is likely to fall to the support line of the descending channel, which should offer strong support. If this level also breaks, a fall to $0.1 might take place. We recommend waiting for the trend to change from down to up before initiating any fresh positions.
LTC/USD The pullback in Litecoin was stronger than the other cryptocurrencies because it reached close to the 20-day EMA. This shows interest in buying at the lower levels. If the bulls accumulate the price close to levels between $107 and $120 levels, it will point to a possible bottom. We might be interested in getting the LTC/USD pair if it breaks out of the $175 levels. On the other hand, if the bears succeed in breaking below the lows of February 2, a fall to the final support of $84.708 is likely. Due to this uncertainty, we do not recommend any long positions on Litecoin at the moment.
XEM/USD NEM is retesting the lows formed on February 2. If the bulls manage to hold the lows, a move towards the downtrend line might take place. If the lows breakdown, we are most likely to see a fall to the next support level of $0.31672. The XEM/USD pair will become positive in the short-term once it sustains above the downtrend line.
NEO/USD Until today, NEO had been a relative outperformer as it was still trading above the 50-day SMA. Today, it has broken below the 50-day SMA, the critical support of $93.53 and the low formed February 2. t still holds minor support at $86.143, below which it can fall to $64.83 levels. If this level also fails to hold, the NEO/USD pair can fall to $27.13, which is the target objective on the breakdown from the symmetrical triangle pattern. Considering this recent weakness, we recommend holding any trades until further notice.
The news is that a company called LitePay is about to launch the first ever point of sale technology that will allow retailers to accept Litecoin from customers. The technology allows for real-time exchange of Litecoin to fiat (local fiat, that is) meaning the retailer isn’t having to take on any fluctuation risk and it’s supported by a fee payment of 1% (which compares to the 3% or more that’s associated with current POS methods – MasterCard, Visa, etc. It’s worth noting here that the report hit press through the Express website, so initial claims of a near-term launch (especially given that the outlet based its report on ‘insider information’) were dubious. Shortly after the reports hitting press, however, Litecoin founder Charlie Lee Tweeted the article, suggesting that there’s some credence to the near term launch expectations. He also followed up the Tweet with another detailing the near-term launch of UnoCoin (and Litecoin’s listing as one of a handful of coins that will be available through the exchange) and a report outlining the launch of Litepal, which again looks to be a full suite Litecoin payments processing company. To put all this another way, it’s about to get a whole lot easier for people to use Litecoin to buy things in the real world and for brick and mortar retailers to accept cryptocurrency for goods and services.
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Get custom essayIf this had hit press a couple of months ago, we’d be seeing a spike in the price of LTC in anticipation of the realization of improved access translating to an increased demand for the asset. Instead, however, you only have to look at the chart above to see what’s actually happened – LTC is down another 16% versus fiat and is even a few points lower against BTC over the last twenty-four hours. The thing to recognize here is this: these developments cannot stay unnoticed forever. Once the current sentiment cloud lifts and markets start to act rationally (in the sense of responding to developments as opposed to selling off on assets regardless of what’s going on under the hood), the LTC space is going to cash in on the stack of news and developments that’s waiting under the radar right now.
In 1979, Britain went through a political change as Margret Thatcher became prime minister. Thatcher inherited the post when the United Kingdom’s economy was in a state of serious recession, and capitalism needed reinvigorating to combat this she introduced series of social, cultural political and economic reforms and a new capitalist ideology which was a complete turnaround of the post war welfare policies which were characterised by three foundational principles: self-interest, markets and Laisezz Faire. Marketisation was the capitalist ideology introduced and this extended Britain’s capitalism into its neo-liberalism phase.
Get original essayNeoliberalism has fundamental concepts to its expansion that embody this process:
This process of marketisation led to several substantial changes in the United Kingdom, especially to the former state commodities such as the Railway, Education, the Steel industry and the Coal industry. The private sector drove up the prices of the Railway exponentially, to the extent that many British people cannot afford to use the Railway system anymore. After the Coal miners’ strike in 1984, many reluctantly drifted back to work, defeated and their political power was never recovered, and the unions were then powerless to prevent the steady stream of mine closures. The privatisation was suggested to be the final nail in the coffin for the British coal industries, without government support the private sector struggled to compete against foreign competition. In turn, this led too many areas particularly in Wales and Northern England suffering with a lack of job opportunities.
Unfortunately, like the coal industry, the steel industry had been on the decline prior to Thatcher becoming prime minister. This was because of a variety of factors such as a global recession and some controversial political decisions which heavily impacted the steel industry. Thatcher introducing the principle of marketisation leading to the privatisation of many state commodities like the steel industry meant that the steel industry suffered a substantial decline between 1979 and 1981, and the employment almost halved from 156,600 to 88.200. Unfortunately, due numerous different socio-political factors the steel industry continued the downhill trend since the privatisation and the introduction of British steel in 1988. In 1999, British steel merged with the Dutch company Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus Group. After a continued decline in the workforce and closures of steel mills like in Ebbw Vale in 2002, the British steel industry was argued to be in a state of decrepitude before the Indian company Tata Steel bought Corus in 2007. In 2016, Tata announced that they wanted to sell its loss-making UK steel business putting 15,000 jobs at risk in sites throughout Britain.
Before the 1980s the education system in England was designed in a very simple way, it consisted of state comprehensive schools and private schools. Now what we have is intense competition and choice, a fragmented system, a highly differentiated system relying on competition. The different school types are independent schools, academy schools, city technology colleges (CTCs), voluntary aided schools, foundation schools, voluntary controlled schools, and community schools. Each school type is characterised by a unique set of features regarding their autonomy and governance.
The introduction of academies was aimed to help poorer inner-city areas, and this was outlined in Tony Blair’s speech “Education, education, education”. Initially, it was called the City Academies Programme, it was introduced by New Labour as a flagship initiative in 2000. The key ideology was to make a positive difference to disadvantaged areas by allowing the private sector to sponsor state secondary schools which were underperforming. The notion was to introduce a business style ethos of the school which are funded by taxpayers’ money. This meant that the school would be taken away from the governance of the Local Education Authority and the sponsor would be given the freedom to run the school. This freedom was significant because it allows schools to be exempt from national regulation, the National Curriculum, and the legislation and pay conditions for the staff.
Since the implementation of the academy ideology, its been very high on the British government’s agenda, and the programme broadened exponentially with the introduction of the Academies bill. This would allow any school primary or secondary who are underperforming to become an academy. There has been increased pressure from government representatives and Michael Gove over since the introduction of the bill for all schools to become academies. Currently, there are 8,973 academies in England, with 33% being primary schools and 68% being secondary schools.
Marketisation was the capitalist ideology named after Margret Thatcher - one of the prime minister of Britain. Marketisation is the insertion of the principle of market into every aspect of life, this had affects into provisions that were considered to be entitlements provided by the state including the National Rail service, education and the steel and the ship building industry. The general idea was that the private sector would be able to make sufficient improvements to run with autonomy, at lower costs and to be more efficient. This led to whole series of political, social, cultural and economic reforms which were characterised by Individualisation and individualism that took over any idea of solidarity and cooperation.
Popularly called Mavrodi Mundial Moneybox, MMM was founded in 1989 by three Russians: Sergei Mavrodi, his brother, Vyacheslav Mavrodi, and Olga Melnikova. The company reportedly started out as a network of computer importing cooperatives. (Womack, 1994) However, it crumbled in January 1992 after a tax evasion charge levied against it by the tax police. Sergei Mavrodi found a way out by launching the MMM Ponzi scheme in February 1994 which promised a monthly return of up to 250 % and annual return of up to 3000 %. Not finding anything else to use against the company the government discovered a huge tax evasion against MMM and capitalized on that. By December 1997, MMM was bankrupt leading Mavrodi to go into hiding until 2003 when he was arrested and sentenced to a four and a half years prison terms. In January 2011. Mavrodi launched another pyramid scheme called MMM-2011 which later found root other countries like China, India, the Philippines, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria to name but a few.
Get original essayThe principle of operation of MMM is based on a pyramid model as well as a social financial cooperative where members give and receive financial help. New entrants are required to contribute a certain amount of money (minimum of $10) into the system. This is called giving help. This money is paid to other existing members. After 30days the contributed money grows accruing an interest of 30% which the person can cash out by requesting help. This time the system will match other members who want to give help with him and he will be paid the amount corresponding to 130%of what he initially invested. So, it is like moving money round the system since every member is expected to give help at least once a month. Everybody gets to have a share of the cake from the 30% interest after 30 days. Additionally, members who bring in new members into the system are rewarded with a referral bonus which is equivalent to 10% of what the new member first contributes for the first generation. Guiders are able to earn up to the third generation- 5% for the second generation and 2.5% for the third generation in the pyramid.
The system was bound to fail because of its unsustainability. Money was merely pushed around between members monthly. And since the organization was not actually investing the money, all the interest and rewards given to members were derived from the contribution of newer members. An inevitable point will always be reached where there is saturation within the system. That is the rate of people coming into the system declines causing the money that comes in to reduce exponentially compared with the money that is required by existing members. In other words, at the point when help given is less than the help requested the system fails. The water in the bucket model can give us a better understanding of how this works.
Let’s imagine a bucket that is filled by a hose connected to a tap. At the same time, water leaves the bucket from three holes in the body. There are three scenarios to the water problem.
Scenario 3 perfectly describes what happened with MMM. At the point the money coming into system from fresh recruits was less than what was required to pay existing members the system crashed. It crashed in several countries where it was established. For example, in Nigeria when the system reached the point of saturation, accounts of members were frozen in December 2016 causing members to lose lots of money.
“??? was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s”, says Bigg, 2102. She continues, “By different estimates from 5 to 10 million people lost their savings. According to contemporary Western press reports, “most investors were aware of the fraudulent nature of the scheme, but still hoped to profit from it by withdrawing money before it collapsed”. The character of the founder of MMM was questionable, he was found guilty of tax evasion, convicted of fraud, and given a sentence of four-and-a-half years. He co-founded the old MMM which was a Ponzi scheme. It came as no surprise when the MMM-global crashed because it was never a real investment. According to Kudaonline, MMM does not have a central account. There is also no central administration which translates to mean that there is no accountability in the system and no one can be called to account or held responsible if something went amiss.
The million-dollar question now is: with the gripping effect of MMM on people what did the government do to protect its people and forestall the damages MMM could cause?
The government of the countries where MMM existed reacted to save its citizens from the scheme which they thought to be fraudulent. Some were more stringent than others with respect to policies that affected the scheme. For example, in China the government placed a ban on MMM considering it to be an outright illegal venture. The government of Nigeria on the other hand was not as dramatic in its reaction, though they too had a dim view about the scheme. Through the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN they discouraged people from engaging in the scheme referring to it as fraudulent. CBN unsuccessfully tried to freeze bank accounts that were used for MMM transactions and the parliament even talked about arresting MMM officials.
The MMM community hit back at the government almost immediately. The founder, Sergei Mavrodi sent an open letter to Nigeria’s government in support of the scheme and stated with impunity that the scheme is helping the people where the government is not. Members of the MMM community too lashed out on the government. They considered the warning sounded to be ill-motivated, laced with selfish interest. They believed that CBN wanted to have all the money in its accounts so they can continue to enrich the country’s elite class. They questioned the ability of any commercial bank to give up to 10% interest on money saved, but here was MMM giving out 30%. For them it was a short path to financial freedom and nothing the government would do would prevent that.
In 1997, two software engineers, Reed Hastings and Marc Rudolph, founded Netflix after Hastings was charged a $40 late fee for ‘Apollo 13’ at Blockbuster. Originally Netflix was in the DVD delivery business. Customers would pay to have any one of more than 90,000 DVDs delivered straight to their house. Two years later in 1999 Netflix adopted a monthly subscription structure allowing customers to have unlimited movies delivered to their homes for $19.95.
Get original essayIn 2002 Netflix went public and their IPO doubled their revenue according to Hastings in his annual report. 2007 saw rapid changes in technology and Netflix decided to move into online streaming. Customers were charged a monthly rate for subscriptions that covered unlimited movies and TV shows. Customers could view their movies on numerous devices - Smart Phone, Tablet, Laptop or Smart TV. Throughout these constant changes, Netflix’s subscribers and annual income continually climbed. Reed Hastings, Netflix Co-founder and CEO stated in his annual report “2009 was an amazing year for Netflix” (Hastings, 2009). This was due to Netflix making it possible to online stream through Xbox and Play Station. This new addition added 2.8 million new subscribers in 2009 increasing revenue 22% to $1.7 billion.
Netflix increased its market share with its’ first international move into Canada in 2010. In 2012 Netflix took advantage of its connections in the film industry and started creating its own Tv Series and Movies like ‘House of Cards’ and ‘Narcos’.
As Netflix’s product style changed so did their Supply and Demand. To understand how these two major factors changed you must understand the previously stated history. Demand in economics is referred to as the quantity that is desired by the consumers. Supply is the quantity the overall market can offer to those consumers. These two basic concepts are the back bone to economics and a growing company will do what is necessary to increase Supply and Demand as efficiently as possible. That is exactly what Netflix did.
In the beginning Netflix had a limited supply of 90,000 DVDs, if the DVD you wanted was already taken, you had to wait until it was available again. Since Netflix started online streaming, the supply is relatively unlimited. If you subscribe to Netflix, you have thousands of shows to choose from, and so does everyone else. As many people could be watching the same show at once and it would not run out. Netflix’s demand can also be represented by subscribers. No matter who demands an account, it is still available for you to have one.
Since Netflix’s subscribers can represent their Supply and Demand, the graph above shows an increase in Netflix’s number of subscribers in the past 6 years. The number of subscribers is constantly rising as Netflix moves into other markets.
Netflix’s largest competitor would be Blockbuster at the time. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster employed 84,300 people worldwide with 9,094 stores in total compared to Netflix’s 55 distribution centers across America. Although Netflix could ensure delivery of a customer’s choice of any one of more than 90,000 DVDs within a day, its supply of DVDs was limited. The cost to replace broken or scratched DVDs was a main cost for Netflix. To address the growing costs of expanding to compete with Blockbuster, Netflix began to offer a subscription service. Their most popular plan was $19.95 for unlimited movies to be shipped to your house.
While Blockbuster had the costs of stores and employees to consider in its pricing, Netflix did not. Because of this market advantage, Netflix could provide quality DVDs at a much lower costs. This plan increased revenue for Netflix drastically as well as their demand. Below is a chart of Netflix’s DVD delivery pricing scale.
Plan DVD Price Blu-ray Price Total discs per month Number of discs out at once
Starter $5 $6 2 One
Standard $8 $10 Unlimited One
Premier $12 $15 Unlimited Two
In 2007 Netflix moved into online streaming which changed everything. Customers with Wi-Fi enabled tablets, smartphones or laptops could watch Netflix anywhere at any time. Since Netflix offered their own movies and TV shows, you didn’t have to wait for re-runs, you could watch any show they had as many times as you wanted. Supply was no longer a factor for Netflix. Demand exploded! For a monthly payment of $7.99 which was cheaper then cable you could watch any show instantly. Everybody was leaving cable TV to move to Netflix.
Basic (streaming) $8 1 SD
Standard (streaming) $11 2 HD
Premium (streaming) $14 4 HD + Ultra HD
The chart above is Netflix’s current online streaming pricing system per month. It has slowly changed over the years as sales increased also to cover production costs of the Netflix Originals.
Early on Netflix was doing everything it could to just break even. In 2002, when Netflix first went public Reed Hasting states in his first annual report to investors “we doubled our revenue to $152.8 million, from $75.9 million in 2001. We ended the year with approximately 857,000 total subscribers” (Hastings, 2002). This was a major improvement but not enough. 2003 was Netflix’s first year of profitability. Hastings in his annual report records the numbers that made it possible, “The Company recorded revenues of $272.2 million, up 78 percent compared with $152.8 million for 2002” (Hastings, 2003). This was possible due to subscribers being “nearly 1.5 million members, up 74 percent over 2002” (Hastings, 2003). That was in the beginning, before Netflix did online streaming. Four years later in 2007, Netflix’s first year of online streaming, the company “added 1.2 million new subscribers ending the year with 7.5 million” (Hastings, 2007) and “Revenue grew 21% to 1.2 billion” (Hastings, 2007). Netflix has since then made an app, moved in to the international market, updated and changed their website constantly and started producing films. Through all this Netflix has had constant increasing revenue through the years due to rising numbers of subscribers. Fast forward to 2017, Netflix’s latest annual report states “Netflix, Inc.- is the world’s leading internet television network with over 117 million streaming memberships in over 190 countries enjoying more than 140 million hours of TV shows and movies per day, including original series, documentaries and feature films” (Netflix, 2017).
Elasticity is defined as the measurement of how responsive demand is to a change in price, the more elastic a good the more responsive it is to a change in price, the less elastic or inelastic a good is means it is unresponsive to a price change. The main types of elasticity are perfectly elastic, elastic, unit elastic, inelastic and perfectly inelastic. Netflix’s Streaming services are considered inelastic. Netflix has a loyal “cult” following in a since but originally that wasn’t the case. It has become a normal good, many people are moving away from cable solely to get Netflix. It has changed how people watch movies and TV. You can watch a whole series in order and not have to wait for re-runs.
In May of 2014 you can see where Netflix increased its price $1 from $7.99 to $8.99. This price increase caused Netflix to go from 1.3 million that quarter to 1 million. That is a loss of 300,000 subscribers for a $1 increase. To calculate the percent change in demand the equation would be (1.3 Mil- 300,000/ 1.3 MilX100) which equals a 23% decrease. Then you would take the percent change in price from $7.99 to $8.99 which would be an increase of 12.5%. Finally, the percent change in quantity demanded/ the percent change in price, 23%/12.5% which would out to equal 1.84. Since the elasticity is greater than one, Netflix’s Elasticity of Demand it is considered relatively elastic. This means that Netflix should not increase prices too much since it could really affect their sales. $1 cost Netflix 300,000 subscribers imagine if it were $5.
The initial cost of production for Netflix was a lot more expensive then it is today. With 55 distribution centers for their DVDs and around 25,000 employees Netflix spent a lot of money getting their product out, not mentioning the cost of the 90,000 DVDs and all the packaging. A year after going public in 2002, Netflix, “achieved profitability for the first time in 2003” (Hastings 2003).
When Netflix got into streaming it cost them a lot for the initial algorithm, but they didn’t have to keep making DVD’s, as many subscribers could watch the same thing as much as they wanted before online streaming if Netflix was out of copies of the movie you wanted it was too bad, and you would hopefully be the first one to get the next available copy.
Although the cost of production sky rocketed when Netflix decided to make their own series. After taking a huge risk of $100 million to make two 13-episode seasons of House of Cards, Netflix was weary. Although it payed off when the first season was nominated for 8 Emmy’s and the second season was nominated for 13. Those nominations justified everything they had done over the past few years with the creation of the show. Netflix went on to produce many more originals such as Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, Stranger Things and Narcos to name a few. Now all of Netflix’s most popular shows are their original series so they keep on making them which costs a lot but also pays off since so many
In the beginning when Netflix first started, Blockbuster was their main competitor. Other than getting DVD’s from Walmart, if you wanted a larger selection it was Blockbuster and Netflix. Although, Netflix had a few key advantages. First off Netflix could guarantee your movies within a day, their prices were cheaper per DVD especially when they adopted the monthly rate, and this could all be done from the comfort of your home. Then in 2002 a new company joined in, Redbox. Redbox had a unique design of DVD “Kiosks” that could be put in shopping centers, convenient stores, malls etc. Redbox had the cheapest prices and most of the newest releases but not quite the selection that Netflix did.
Amazon Prime video started online streaming in late 2006 and Netflix quickly followed in early 2007. A few months after Netflix got into streaming Hulu joined the competition that was pretty much a bidding war. This was the newest form of entertainment. No Ads, Quick access, you could pause and resume whenever, and it was all way cheaper than cable. People stopped going to DVD stores, which ultimately resulted in Blockbusters demise in 2010. Redbox isn’t a real threat to Amazon, Netflix or Hulu but it has stayed consistent with its sales since it has the newer movies when they get released. A few smaller streaming services have come a long such as HBO Go, STARZ and very recently YouTubes Red TV, none of which are true threats to the major three.
As of 2017 it is clear who in the top three firms dominates the market. As previously stated in the Sales section, Netflix’s annual report states, it is “the world’s leading internet television network with over 117 million streaming memberships in over 190 countries” (Netflix, 2017). According to a recent study done by Leichtman Research Group, “54% of U.S. adults said they have Netflix in their household” (Spangler, 2017). This statistically states that over half of the U.S. adult population has Netflix.
There are multiple types of market structures that exist; Monopolies, Oligopolies, Perfect Competition and Monopolistic competition, each with key, distinctive characteristics. It can be argued that Netflix is in a Monopolistically competitive market considering they control over 50% of the market and twice have changed how we watch TV and Movies. Although there are very few producers in the market there still are other major producers that all influence the market. Also, there are very high barriers to entry and exit which is another reason this points to an Oligopoly. Meriam Webster defines an Oligopoly as “a market situation in which each of a few producers affects but does not control the market” (Meriam, n.d.). This definition very accurately describe this market that Netflix has found themselves in, considering they have a little bit of control over the market, but not enough due to the competition they face.
1n 1997, Netflix started out as a good that was sometimes more convenient than going to your local DVD store, more of a luxury item. It was a slow start for Netflix in the beginning, taking 6 years just to gain a profit. Then when Netflix moved into the online streaming business in 2007, everything changed, it became where Netflix was now a normal good. Many people stopped using cable and turned to Netflix, in a process they refer to as “Cord-Cutting”. Netflix stock, subscribers, income and demand have all constantly been rising. There have been a few dips when Netflix raised their prices proving they have a relatively Elastic good, although revenue increased, just at a decreasing rate. Netflix has tapped into the international market starting with Canada and is constantly finding new countries to move to. All of this said, it is not surprising that Netflix dominated the online streaming market by controlling over 50% of it alone.
With all that was previously stated I would say that Netflix has a grip on what they are doing, although I would recommend that they constantly widen that gap in the market share by adding shows the rest cannot. If all three had the same show, a consumer could go to all three and get the same good, so if Netflix was the only one with a certain show the consumer would have to go to them. Netflix already does this with their “Netflix Originals” and I would say keep investing in the shows, because it is giving them a solid advantage over the market. Another recommendation would be for Netflix to keep moving into different countries and expanding the audience they have in the 190 countries Netflix is already in.
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Get custom essayWhether it be DVD delivery or Online Streaming, Netflix has dominated with their business plan. Netflix was not the first one to the Online Streaming game and that did not stop them from being 50% of the market. Netflix has proven that a strong business plan and product adaptation will put you above the rest.
Since the beginning of Teddy Roosevelt’s administration, he needed to imperialize the United States. He accepted that building a waterway in Latin America would be a decent method to imperialize. It would associate the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and would be a lot snappier and more productive than circumventing the base tip of South America in the Tierra del Fuego. Roosevelt was resolved to manufacture this trench and would continue pushing for it until he got his direction. He confronted numerous obstructions, however his assurance empowered him to beat them. With much help, he would assemble one of the most significant waterways in the western half of the globe. Building a waterway to interface the oceans together wasn’t initially Roosevelt’s thought. The thought had been around since Spanish pioneer times, however the United States checked out the subject too as they extended westbound. In 1846 a bargain was marked giving the United States travel rights over the Isthmus of Panama, as long as they ensured lack of bias in Panama and Columbia. In 1848, Great England and the United States had incredible enthusiasm for building the Nicaragua Canal, a course other than over the Isthmus of Panama.
Get original essayThe Clayton-Buwler Treaty of 1850, in which Great Britain and the US guaranteed that any channel in Central America would be politically nonpartisan, finished the competition between the two nations. Credit of the thought for building a waterway can be given to Cornelius Vanderbilt. H acknowledged he could make a serious benefit from the channel. The United States discovered it basic that they had command over a waterway in Latin America, however didn’t realize whether to manufacture one in Nicaragua or Panama. Afterward, in 1878, a French organization under Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was a yearning man who fabricated the Suez Canal, was allowed the rights to manufacture an ocean level trench in Panama. De Lesseps thought constructing the Panama Canal would be as simple as the Suez Canal, yet he would before long discover this was not the situation. They began working in 1881, however confronted numerous issues, for example, ailment, development issues, and poor financing and before long failed. In 1901 the rights were then moved to another French organization, under pioneers William Nelson Cornwell and Phillipe Bunau-Varilla. Cornwell and Bunau-Varilla were resolved to manufacture a waterway, and endeavored to convince the United States into helping them to construct a trench in Panama rather than Nicaragua. Simultaneously, the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was marked between Incredible Britain and the United States, giving the United States the privilege to fabricate an isthmian waterway. The U.S. proposed to Congress to assemble a trench in Nicaragua, however then a blast of Volcano Martinique that executed about 40,000 individuals made the Americans lose enthusiasm for Nicaragua, and gain enthusiasm for Panama. To pick up the rights to building a trench in Panama however, the United States needed to procure rights from Colombia, however Colombia offered an over the top value that Americans weren’t ready to pay.
With assistance from the United States, in 1903 Bunau-Varilla rebelled against Colombia, which was the start of the Panamanian Revolution. The United States sent a warship, the USS Nashville, to Panama which made issue for Colombia and counteracted them from delighting the flare-up. Panama later picked up its autonomy and allowed rights to the U.S. to manufacture the Panama Canal. After many bombed French endeavors, Roosevelt realized that building the Panama Canal would not be simple. He realized that before building the trench, a few issues must be dealt with. The first thing Americans needed to stress over was the mosquitoes conveying infections, for example, intestinal sickness and yellow fever. William Gorgas was placed responsible for redressing sanitation issues, for example, this. In request to hold mosquitoes down, it would take bunches of cash. It cost around ten dollars for each mosquito executed. Antibodies were conveyed, yet were done so unjustifiably. Americans got immunizations to start with, blacks straightaway, and Caribbean individuals last. Gorgas and others additionally manufactured waterways to deplete swamps furthermore, trench, annihilated the reproducing grounds of the bugs, and set up mosquito nets. Numerous individuals passed on from nibbles. The following issue was preparing for the trench. Laborers needed to clear the thick what’s more, thick wilderness that is standing out. They cleared the voluminous trees with blades and machines. Notwithstanding the wilderness, the Continental Divide, or an immense piece of strong shake, was in the way. Clearing this would require considerably more strenuous exertion than clearing the wilderness. It would take a ton of labor, and more individuals were required.
The United States looked to the American individuals to assist, however Americans would not like to help take a shot at the trench because of Panamas horribly hot atmosphere. In this way, Aribbean individuals were enlisted to work. They had the option to get out the Mainland Divide through Cuelbra and Gaillard Cuts, which included exploding the stone with in excess of 61 million pounds of explosive. This crushed the stone, yet numerous other obstructions in the way as well. The main issue with the explosive was that the tropical warmth would cause the explosive to detonate eccentrically, causing numerous passings. In 1906, Roosevelt made a trip to Panama to regulate the work being finished. Subsequent to watching the working conditions, he gave the laborers decorations. At long last, in the wake of maddening difficult work and huge amounts of hours, the development of the Panama Canal could start. Development was lead by boss designer John Stevens. He realized that a few hindrances should have been defeat so as to effectively fabricate the trench.
Most importantly, the tide level at the Atlantic side was just about 19 nineteen feet lower than the Pacific, in this manner it would be very risky to explore. Specialists presumed that the best way to securely get ships from one level to the next was through a arrangement of locks. On the off chance that a ship needed to go up to a more significant level, the locks would be topped off with water to arrive at the more significant level, while if a ship needed to go down to a lower level, the locks would be depleted. Inside the trench, there was an aggregate of six sets of locks, each 1,000 feet in length, 110 feet wide, and 41 feet down. They required 4.4 million cubic yards of cement to fabricate. A case of a lot of locks would be the Gatun Locks. At the point when a ship originating from the Atlantic side arrives at the Gatun Locks, it must experience three bolts that raise the ship 85 feet into Gatun Lake. At that point the ship must proceed with 40 miles to the Pedro Miguel Locks, which will bring down the ship 52 feet into the Pacific Sea. The following issue that was to some degree out of the United States control, was that the trench was in peril of Nazi bombs. On the off chance that a section was besieged or harmed, the entire waterway would be demolished.
Another hindrance that the constructers confronted was the significant flooding from all the precipitation Panama got. There was in any event 100 crawls of precipitation for every year. This made the Chagres River flood a part, and it was expected that it could flood the Panama Canal. To take care of this issue, it was chosen that the remainders of the earth that had been cleared from the impacting of the Continental Divide could be utilized to construct a dam to stop the flooding. They at that point fabricated a man-made lake called Gatun Lake, and this additionally empowered them to utilize the water going through the dam as pressure driven capacity to control the locks. In the wake of conquering these hindrances, the laborers at last completed the Panama Channel on August 15, 1914. Generally, the structure of the waterway cost $336,350,000. Around 262 million yards of earth were exhumed. Each door of the channel is 65 feet wide, seven feet thick and range from 47 to 82 feet in tallness. The tallest set gauges an incredible 745 tons and the water entry interfacing the two seas requires 52 million gallons of water. It requires around eight hours to travel through, yet chops down movement time by around 9,000 miles. In general, the structure of the Panama Canal was actually what Theodore Roosevelt had sought after. It had achieved all that he needed, for example, connecting the two significant seas together with the US fundamentally having the authority over the channel. It strengthened the Roosevelt End product, in which the United States takes more control in Latin America.
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Get custom essayIn any case, the greater part of all, the channel helped make the United States a greater amount of an imperialistic country, which was Roosevelt’s objective all along. In 1977, the United States marked a settlement with Panama expressing that the U.S. would end its control starting in the year 2000, and Panama would continue the activity and guard of the Panama Canal. In this way, directly, the Panama Canal is unbiased, however is still significant due to the U.S. Despite everything we have a state on what happens to and goes on around the waterway, and if something were to happen to stop the progression of the boats through the trench, the United States would be permitted to step in and deal with the issue. In the course of the most recent ten years, about $100 million have been spent on fixing and broadening the channel. Through all the reasoning, arranging, hard work, and drudging put into the Panama Canal, the waterway turned out to be ostensibly the most significant trench ever and one of the most prominent building accomplishments ever.
Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis recently posted a video on his Facebook page where he is “calling out” the Black Lives Matter movement for making black people feel victimized while, “every day we have black-on-black crime killing each other.” But Ray Lewis does not understand that this “black-on-black killing each other” is simply a variation on a common theme that had been percolating up though society since society began, and is not unique to BLM or any of the other groups that has faced similar occurrences.
Get original essayThis paper will be broken down into five parts. Part I, I will discuss the main situation where overrepresentation occurs –Colonialism—where I will discuss how this common them works in regards to Aboriginal peoples in Australia and New Zealand and then I will discuss Native American and Alaskan Native crime rates. Part II, I will discuss a case of European Vigilantism that has been ongoing for over thirty years. Part III, I will discuss overrepresentation in the Black American Community, as well as the theories of possible causes. Part IV will be a discussion of Max Webers’s state monopoly on violence theory and finally I will conclude with a common-sense reductionist solution,
Colonialism is a practice of domination; it involves the subjugation of one people to another. It is often difficult to distinguish colonialism from imperialism, but for the purposes of this paper, I will use the definition of Formal Colonialism—which is the classic physical expansion by one state and encroachment of that state onto another territory. The reasons for colonialism are economic and political, with the goals being attainment of wealth, territory and dominion. Therefore, marginalization is a direct result of colonialism. Before colonization began, Indigenous Peoples in the countries of the world had their own social structures.
The societies were self-governing; they had structures that ensured the transmission of knowledge and culture, and had effective economic systems. Indigenous Peoples were seen as an exploitable group, or disposable resource, to be used as laborers to extract highly desired, extremely profitable resources—land.
The most significant colonial processes when discussing over-representation of Indigenous Peoples in the criminal justice system are: depopulation ; legal control; the use of ideology through religion; education and media; urbanization; and paternalism. The Indigenous Peoples of Australia, Canada, and America were all subjected to invasion by "settlers" from European countries during the colonial period from roughly 1492 to today. The processes employed were strikingly similar in each country and produced remarkably similar results-the socioeconomic and political marginalization of the original Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) make up 26 percent of Australia’s prisoner population yet only constitute 2.5 percent of the Australian population. Aborigines are vastly overrepresented in both homicide victimization and offending—13 percent of the victims and 11 percent of offenders Yet, it would be a mistake to simply delve straight into a discussion of the differing aspects of Australian Aborigines and crime without a crucial understanding of, as aborigine Paul Cole would describe it--Australia’s 200-year history of Aboriginal oppression by Europeans. In short, Aborigine imprisonment cannot be understood without the wider power relations that have shaped the nature of the colonial response to indigenous communities, both historically and as a matter of modern reality in Australia.
Aboriginal peoples have been on the Australian continent for least 50,000 years , and they have one of the world’s oldest cultures. Although there is much debate on the number of Aboriginal Australians before Europeans arrived, estimates of their population in 1788 range between 300,000 to over one million--totaling more than 500 separate Aborigine nations. These Aborigine nations had only minimal contact with Europeans, mainly with Dutch explorers on the coasts and with Lieutenant James Cook who claimed the east coast for England in 1770.
Upon his return to England, Cook’s reports inspired the establishment of a penal colony in this newly “claimed” land. Britain launched the “First Fleet” of ships to establish a colony of young convicts in “some distant part of the globe,” eventually settling at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788. This new settlement was designed to ease overcrowding in British prisons, enlarge the Empire, declare Britain’s claim to the territory against other colonial powers, and establish a British base in the global South. What the new settlement was designed for and what the new white settlement actually did are two very different things.
The effect these new colonist had on the original inhabitants of Australia cannot be overstated. The Aborigine population was decimated by European diseases, deliberate poisonings, violent conflict with colonist, settler acquisition of Aboriginal lands, and death from sexual abuse. The years between 1788 and 1928 defines the longest and still largely unrecognized war in Australian history, a war that lasted for 130 years and resulted in Aboriginal depopulation of well over 90%. Journalist and philanthropist, Edward Wilson, described the colonization of Australia as such:
In less than twenty years we have nearly swept them off the face of the earth. We have shot them down like dogs. In the guise of friendship we have issued corrosive sublimate in their damper and consigned whole tribes to the agonies of an excruciating death. We have made them drunkards, and infected them with diseases which have rotted the bones of their adults, and made such few children as are born amongst them a sorrow and a torture from the very instant of their birth. We have made them outcasts on their own land, and are rapidly consigning them to entire annihilation.
But the colonization of Australia did not simply happen when the First Fleet landed in Australia at the end of the 1700s; it was only the beginning.
Australian colonization has developed and progressed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the fact that Australia was a settled colony had two direct legal consequences for the Aborigines. First, Aborigines were legally deprived of any rights in relation to the land. Second, they were theoretically equal before the law to white settlers. The first occassion to test this later theory was R. v. Murrell, where an Aboriginal Black named Jack Congo Murrell, was indicted for the willful murder of another Aboriginal Black named Jabbingee. The defendant’s lawyer made the argument that British law was not binding on the men:
The reason why subjects of Great Britain are bound by the laws of their own country is that they are protected by them; the natives are not protected by these laws; they are not admitted as witnesses in courts of justice, they cannot claim any civil rights, they cannot obtain recovery of, or compensation for, those lands which have been tom from them, and which they have probably held for centuries. They are not therefore bound by laws which afford them no protection.
The court ultimately rejected the defendant’s argument because offenses committed against another in the colony were liable as a protection of his civil rights. Yet, on other occasions, the court was inconsistent with the principle that Aborigines were equal before the law. In an Aborigine murder trial of another Aborigine, the Chief Justice of the South Australian Supreme Court ruled that there had been no crime, on the grounds that, claiming no protection of the law, the Aborigines owed it no allegiance. However, since 1860, it has been generally accepted that the courts must treat Aborigines equally with other citizens.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) was a Royal Commission appointed by the Australian Government in October 1987 to study and report upon the underlying social, cultural and legal issues behind the deaths in custody of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, in light of the ninety-nine Aborigine deaths “in custody” since 1980. The investigation was extremely thorough, but did not find that the deaths were the product of deliberate violence or brutality by police or prison officers. Still, the question of racism was fundamental to the Royal Commission.
The Royal Commission found that racism was “institutionalised and systemic, and resides not just in individuals or in individual institutions, but in the relationship between the various institutions,” and that the police play a definitive role in reproducing this subordination. According to one of the commissioners of the report, Elliot Johnson, non-Aboriginal persons have great difficulty understanding institutionalized racism. The older method of protection and assimilation was obvious, however, institutionalized racism in the modern period, is subtler and not always easily identifiable. Elliot Johnson defines institutionalized racism in the following way: An institution, having significant dealings with Aboriginal people, which has rules, practices, habits which systematically discriminate against or in some way disadvantage Aboriginal people, is clearly engaging in institutional discrimination or racism.
The Royal Commission acknowledged the importance of history, and the complexity of the interaction between Aborigines and the criminal justice system. One of the central findings of the Commission was that a multitude of factors, both historical and contemporary, interact to cause Aboriginal people to be seriously over-represented in custody and tragically to die there. Much of the Aborigines current circumstances, and the patterns of interactions between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal society, are a direct consequence of their experience of colonialism and, indeed, of the recent past.
The Royal Commission ended its report by saying that the Aboriginal population was grossly over-represented in custody; “too many Aboriginal people are in custody too often.” It gave 339 recommendations that can be separated into three groups; 126 dealing with the underlying issues, 107 dealing with deaths in custody, and 106 dealing with over-representation in the Criminal Justice system.
The Royal Commission offered two suggestions on how to alleviate the over-representation problem. The first approach was to reform the criminal justice system; the second was to address the problem of the more fundamental factors that bring Aboriginal people into contact with the criminal justice system—the underlying issues relating to over-representation.
The Australian Commonwealth and the Aboriginal community responded in very differently to the Royal Commission’s Report. The Commonwealth responded very positively—quickly accepting the Commission findings and agreeing to support almost all of the recommendations. The Commonwealth also accompanied the recommendations with additional funding—in the form of $400 over five years, allocated to programs for drug and alcohol abuse, support for Aboriginal legal-services, land acquisition and development, business development, and employment programs.
But the Aboriginal community saw the Commonwealth’s response to the recommendation as a mere terse response, a simple brushing away of the problems, rather than truly addressing them. The Aborigines were also dissatisfied with the specific findings of the Commission concerning the Aborigine deaths and the Commonwealth’s response; they believed the Royal Commissions findings failed to bring them justice. The Commission failed, many Aborigines believed, because it did not find many of the individual police or prison officers responsible for directly causing the deaths investigated; and the officers who were found responsible were not properly prosecuted. Many were left with a feeling that the Royal Commission simply ‘white-washed’ the wrongdoings and was a gross waste of resources.
Today, notwithstanding, the Australian Commonwealth’s assertions of authority and sovereignty, the criminal justice system if seen by many Aborigines as the justice system strictly of the colonial society. The police forces are comprised of predominantly white males and not reflective of a multicultural Australia. Some outsiders view it as being used to control and mold a colonized people.
The relationship between police and Aborigines is highly variable, depending on place, time, recent events and the particular police officers involved. Generally, however, it could be described as a relationship that is fragile, tense and volatile. Many members of Aborigine communities continue to be distrustful and suspicious of police, and may often carry an expectation that police will treat them unjustly and violently.
The relationship between Aborigines and police is lacking in trust to such an extent that even small misunderstandings may result in a crisis of confidence and trust in the police. But this lack of trust is not unwarranted--After a bloody colonial struggle characterized by dispossession and genocide, Aborigines find themselves stripped of land, livelihood, culture, dignity, and status, only getting drunk, swearing, and vagrancy and petty theft and joyriding remain to fill the void. The high levels of aborigine imprisonment have long been a concern in Australia. Indeed, indigenous persons in Australia have been described as one of the most imprisoned groups in the world.
Almost a quarter of Canada’s homicide victims in 2014 were aboriginal, even though the country’s indigenous people account for just five percent of the population. Canada has just over 1.4 million First Nations, Inuit and Metis people and they make up twenty-three percent of Canada’s 516 homicide victims. Data show that Aboriginal people are overrepresented as both offenders and victims of crime. Aborigines were accused of homicide at a rate ten times higher than that of non-Aboriginal people.
Perhaps most importantly, most incidents of violent victimization never came to the attention of the police in 2014, although most incidents of non-violent victimization did not come to the attention of the police either. In recent years, criminologists in Canada and have carried out a great deal of research on the problem of overrepresentation of aboriginal people in the criminal justice system.
Canada is at a crossroads in its political history and in the history of its treatment of aboriginal people. Canada’s aborigines have a level of victimization that has been described as “unacceptable by any standard.” This unacceptable level of victimization has spurred a vast amount of research attempting to find explanations for the high rate of Aboriginal criminality and Aboriginal victimization.
A consensus seems to be coalescing around versions of a cross-cultural or trauma theory of victimization that is rooted in the overall effects of colonization and racism. Smandych, Lincoln, and Wilson provide a study that summarizes the various theories for explaining Aboriginal criminal behavior. They look to both Canada and Australia to examine various explanations of Aboriginal over-representation such as racial bias, visibility, cultural factors, legal factors, extralegal factors, over-policing, and other explanations.
Their goal, although doubtful as to the policy effect they may have, is to identify a “cross-cultural” theory of Aboriginal crime that would be broad enough to explain all aspects of Aboriginal criminal behavior. Although there is no clear-cut answer to this riddle, the research of Chartrand and McKay shows that factors such as alcohol abuse and poverty are increasingly being recognized as the symptoms of a broader explanation based on the impact of colonization.
Native American nations have a unique legal and political relationship with the United States. The United States recognizes the tribes' rights to self-governance and supports their tribal sovereignty. Native Americans face social problems that create a destructive environment that directly affects them. The lack of educational opportunities, high unemployment, permanent residency issues, homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, and geographic isolation are realities that contribute to the proliferation of social problems experienced by Native Americans. Nationally, twenty-seven percent of Native American families live below the poverty level compared to 11.6 percent among white families.
Federally recognized tribes in the United States are considered domestic dependents and have the inherent authority to govern themselves within the borders of the country. Tribal members have United States citizenship rights but also maintain their own tribal governments, communities, and cultures. Some tribal nations rely on state and federal governments for law enforcement, but many tribes have their own government and justice systems.
Indian reservations across the United States have grappled for years with chronic rates of crime higher than most of the nation’s most violent cities. America’s 310 Indian reservations have violent crime rates that are more than two and a half times higher than the national average. Native Americans, unlike other races were more likely to report that the offender was from a different race, and Strangers accounted for seventeen percent of Native American murders.
Native Americans face social problems that create a destructive environment that directly affects them. The lack of educational opportunities, high unemployment, permanent residency issues, homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, and geographic isolation are realities that contribute to the proliferation of social problems experienced by Native Americans. Nationally, twenty-seven percent of Native American families live below the poverty level compared to 11.6 percent among white families.
American scholars recognize that marginalization is related to criminal issues and that colonialism is still having an impact on criminal justice in Native communities. Even so, there is miscommunication made between marginalization and colonialism by state decisionmakers—Federal prosecutors—and Indian tribes. In 2011 federal prosecutors declined to file charges in 52 percent of cases involving the most serious crimes committed on Indian reservations.
In Alaska in particular, has one of the highest violent crime rates in the United States, at 603.2 violent crimes per 100,000 compared to the national average of 386.9. This may be partly due to the fact that there are at least seventy-five Native American Alaskan villages that have no law enforcement. With no police and few courts of their own, most Alaska Native villages are forced to rely on Alaska State Troopers. But there is only about one trooper per every million acres, so getting to rural communities can often take days. Law Enforcement blame the delayed response time on the Alaskan Weather; Alaskan Natives see a more sinister motive—a low priority placed on the protection of local tribes.
Disproportionate incarceration is not a problem of a single ethnic group or one of a set of historical circumstances. It is a global problem that is fundamentally connected to social group identity. The prejudices, inequalities, and disparate impact policy problems are not uniquely the features and issues of any particular groups but are common to heterogeneous developed countries in which some groups are substantially less successful economically and socially than the majority population.
The Northern Ireland conflict, more familiarly called "The Troubles,” is one of the longest and most entangled confrontations in recent history. For nearly four decades now it has embittered relations between and within the communities living there and spoiled relations between the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain, while also causing severe strains within the latter. For three decades it escalated, underscored by periodic bloody clashes followed by milder periods of tension, during which violence of all types—robberies, kidnappings, serious injuries and deaths—were all too common.
"The Troubles" was the most recent installment of violence over three decades between nationalists (mainly self-identified as Irish and/or Roman Catholic) and unionists (mainly self-identified as British and/or Protestant) in Ireland. The conflict was the result of discrimination against the nationalist/Catholic minority by the unionist/Protestant majority and the question of Northern Ireland's status within the United Kingdom. The violence was characterized by the armed campaigns of Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups and British state security forces. According to David McKittrick’s, Lost Lives, 3,720 people were killed as a result of the “Troubles,” from 1966–2006.
Theory to help explain Northern Ireland’s Thirty Year conflict with Great Britain. Consociational Theory is said to be one of the most influential theories in comparative political sciences; its main contention is that in divided societies, with historically antagonistic ethnically, religiously or linguistically divided peoples, are “effectively, prudently, and sometimes optimally,” managed according to consociational principles. The consociational principle is an argument that consociational democracies respect four organizational principles.
Irrespective of why “The Troubles” began, it has had a lasting effect on Northern Ireland people, even being compared to that of the Blitz on the people of London. Due to the stress resulting from bomb attacks, street disturbances, security checkpoints, and the constant military presence, the people of Northern Ireland have the pessimistic view that vigilantism and paramilitary attacks have become the norm and are set to continue.
But Knox and Moghan posit that these pessimistic views are not laws of nature and do not have to continue. While it is necessary to continue focusing on the multi-faceted causes of violence and concentrating on policing and the criminal justice system, it is not sufficient to address community crime. The communities feel alienated and excluded from mainstream society, whether that is the result of economic disparities, bitter conflicts, and/or political opposition, until their confidence can be secured and the communities feel empowered again, the vigilantism and paramilitaries will continue to exercise its own form of justice and exert control.
This section quite possibly could have been placed under the heading of Colonization. The circumstances and the realties African Slaves faced once in America are similar to that of the indigenous peoples around the world, but placing it under that heading would not have done justice this section deserves. Thus, Blacks in America are entitled to its own section.
Although they are wrath with strong moral biases, one way or another, the ante-bellum pro-slavery--antislavery debates are a good place to begin a discussion about the overrepresentation of Blacks in the American Criminal Justice System. The pro-slavery camp put forward may arguments: the salve trade was necessary to the success and wealth of Britain ; if Britain did not engage in the trade then others would ; taking Africans from their homeland actually benefited them ; the enslaved people were unfit for other work ; the enslaved people were not ill-treated unless rebellious. Conditions on the slave ships were acceptable ; and slavery was accepted in the Bible.
The antislavery society countered the pro-slavery by providing evidence to disprove the arguments: There were alternatives to the trade ; if something is wrong, it is wrong whether others do it or not ; the slavery that existed in Africa was very different from the Transatlantic Slave Trade ; the African people were in no way inferior and should be treated as equals ; the trade was damaging to Africa ; the Africans suffered greatly from being removed from their homeland ; it was morally wrong and, as a Christian country, Britain should not be involved. The Pro-slavery camp won the battle and America embarked on the worse two hundred fifty years in its history, ninety years of racist Jim Crow laws, and sixty years of separate but equal.
American history is rittled with a countless number of local, state and federal policies that set up racial barriers negatively affecting black people today. Consider the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). On its face, the legislation Franklin D. Roosevelt signed to create the FHA, in 1934, was designed to help encourage home ownership among all Americans, as he sought to lift the nation from the depths of the Great Depression. For white families, the law accomplished this goal. Their home ownership rates rose significantly, meaning that many of them built wealth and a future for their children.
At the same time, the FHA used federal rules to push people of color further behind. The federal government instituted the insidious policy we now know as redlining, which prohibited banks from providing FHA backed loans in “black neighborhoods.” Federal housing authorities used a manual that literally drew red lines around Black communities on neighborhood maps, showing banks where they could not lend. Eventually, these policies solidified the structure of racial segregation in America and denied Black families the chance to build wealth for themselves and opportunity for their kids at a time when white families were climbing the economic ladder.
Black Families fell even further behind a decade later when the G.I. Bill provided generous benefits that enabled veterans to pay for college and purchase homes with low-cost mortgages. While white veterans used the G.I. Bill to great advantage, discriminatory practices systematized through government structures often prevented Black people whose valor helped defeat fascism overseas were being denied the American Dream by racist processes and practices at home.
Housing, transportation and development policies also separated Blacks from higher-paying jobs. Businesses were increasingly migrating from cities where most Blacks lived to suburban areas that were hard to reach because of a lack of public transportation.
Recently, many researchers and advocates have highlighted the lack of adequate funding for schools with large populations of Black children and the disproportionate placement of teachers with inadequate training and experience in their classrooms. Many Black children, with aspirations to become the first in their families to complete college, are forced to rely on the under-resourced community college system or take on tremendous debt to achieve this dream.
Decade after decade, children of color have confronted more barriers to opportunity: overly harsh school disciplinary policies that often trap them in juvenile justice systems, racial profiling by police and disproportionate arrests of people of color , more severe sentencing for the same offenses and the greater likelihood that young people of color will be tried as adults and incarcerated in adult prisons than whites for the same conduct.
Eric H Monkkoneen shows how a nation state works when it has a violent, diverse society, in Murder in New York City. A State does this, according to Monkkoneen, by successfully doing something that Max Weber laid out in his Politics as Vocation—the state successfully establishes a state monopoly on violence, in which the citizens willing give up there power for personal vengeance to the State.
The State can only enforce this monopoly on violence if its citizens go though a process that Nobert Elias writes about in The Civilizing Process. Citizens pacify their personal behavior that was a pre-condition for the complex modern state. This slow spread of impulse control, according to Elias, was so mutually beneficial to all that it has become a significant social value. Now you have the nice suburbs where Mom and Dad respect and obey the police and crime is low, but you also have the inner city where a lot of young black men who have lived the over-policed, underserved inner-city experience their entire life and now have not given up their personal vengeance to the state. The author honestly cannot think of reason why more people have not taken the power of personal vengeance away from the State. It may be all they have to feel like a human being.
The reason for overrepresentation in the criminal justice system for certain groups in society is not because they are simply more inclined to break the law because they are lazy, evil, or immoral. Society has given us the answer. All we need to do is listen. Monkkoneen does not want policy makers, scientist, or professionals to be too reductionist, because the answer is, according to Monkkoneen, not that clear cut. But if you sit back, wait, run too many meta-analysis or cross-culture surveys you risk never finding the solution to help solve communities around the world’s criminal overrepresentation issues.
To recap, Australian Aborigines, Canadian Aborigenes, Native Americans, Alaskan Natives, Black Americans, and the North Irish, the world is full of examples. Monkkoneen has already solved the world’s biggest puzzle. The key is in the door; all he needs to do is turn it and the door will open. This paper is not proclaiming to be the panacea for overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. All it is attempted to do is let people see what they have already seen. I believe the problem is a fear of being seen as a Racist! I have written previously about how the worse thing you can say to a white person is call them Racist. Let me quote Colin Knox and Rachel Monaghan:
Communities… feel alienated and excluded from mainstream society, whether that is as a result of economic disparities and/or political opposition. That alienation is a legacy of bitter conflicts in [the situation that parties are in]. Until their confidence can be secured and these communities feel
In 1900 school counseling increases its prospects. The history of school counseling has existed for hundreds of years. In 1907 Jesse B Davis is the first person who implemented a schematized guidance program in public schools.
Get original essayAccording to the West Virginia Department of education, counseling was created in response to the industrial revolution when regular teachers were played a dual role and they got extra pay for their hard work in counseling the students to achieve their abilities and skills.
The father of guidance, Frank persons, founded Boston’s Vocational Bureau, which is a prominent step in the institutionalization of vocational guidance. Frank worked with young people who have faced problems in the path of making their career decisions. He mentioned three factors
First counseling association was started in 1913, the National vocational guidance association. The main aim of this association is to publish counseling literature and making professionals unite. The Smith Hughes act provided funds for public schools to support vocational education. At the time of World War-I, the US army used many psychological instruments to check soldiers and it became the most popular movement called Psychometrics.
Between 1920-1930 the school counseling and guidance developed gradually because of the rise of education progress in schools. In mid-1920’s the first certification of counselors took place in New York and Boston. In 1937 National association for college admission counseling was founded. This association mainly highlighted personal, social and moral development. Many schools against this movement as anti-educational. This works with the economic hardship of the great depression then it led to incline in school counseling and guidance. The universities in Minnesota did modifications on parson’s theories in 1930 by E.G Williamson and developed a modified first theory of counseling. Used this theory to work with students and unemployed, used to evaluate the influencing skills of the counselors. 1932 Edmund Brewer publishes education as a guide was published by Edmund Brewer which said that every teacher is a counselor and guidance be incorporated into school curriculum.
US government used counselors in World War II. US government needed counselors and psychologists to help in the selection of specialists for the military and employers in the industry. American personnel and guidance association was founded in 1952. This organization brings all groups together in guidance and counseling.
In 1960 school counseling started to turn to be potential of the individual affected by social experimentation and it gave challenges to institutions. so many new subjects were introduced such as decision-making and problem-solving methods, drug abuse education, career exploration and information related to self-development.
The great federal funding in the united states for counselor education program was also started in 1960. School counseling gradually started to convert from career development to deal with student personal and social issues. Middle of 1917’s psychologists had become more obstructive and it caused American personnel and guidance association to move towards state licensure for counselors. Virginia became the first state to pass a licensure law in 1976 the enormous growth of counseling outside of educational institutions began in the 1970’s. Narm Gushers’ began to work to shift from school counseling is alone professionals to a more systemic goal of having a comprehensive developmental program for all students k-12.
In between 1980 and 1990 the school counseling didn’t make much impact on the educational community. In response, consulted widely with school counselors at the elementary, middle, and high school levels and created the ASCA national standards for school counseling and they proposed three care rules. They are academic, career, personal/social.
In 2003 the national center for transforming school counseling (NTSC) at the education trust was founded. Its main concentration on 1) changing the practices of k-12 school counselors to learn prevention and intervention skills. 2) changing how school counseling was thought at the graduate level
Sometimes vocational teachers played the role of a counselor no more opportunities for a counselor for some time. Serve as suitable substitutes. School counselors have encouraged a variety of psychological aspects and behaviors of their students. Counselors have also participated in many activities, personal growth individuals, and social growth, student planning, career, character building, study skills, social skills, crisis intervention, prevention programs for implementations. when we compare between 1990’s to Present multiculturalism and diversity between key issued in counseling played a prominent role. As part of their school counseling program counselors must be comfortable with leadership and advocacy when needed to qualify for a school counselor a master’s degree is the minimum requirement.
Throughout the world’s history, one can easily find times when Blacks were exploited and taken advantage of, no matter the setting or time period. Whether it was through the Atlantic Slave Trade, convict leasing after slavery, the execution of the Black Panther Party, or even more current, acts of police brutality. There’s one specific period that doesn’t get much recognition, which I’d like to focus on. The Witchcraft Trials of the early 1600’s in modern-day Cartagena, Colombia and the ways that Afro-Latinos and slaves were accused of witchcraft, assisted a much higher and horrific agenda.
Get original essayTo begin my analyzations, I chose a document titled “Accusations of the Prosecutor of the Holy Office: July 11, 1624” which was produced on July 11, 1624. The document contains accusations of a prosecutor from a court hearing as well as the responses to the accusations. The person being prosecuted by the Holy Inquisition of Cartagena is Paula de Eguiluz who was a Black Woman enslaved in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, where she was accused of witchcraft. One seeking this document can locate it in Afro-Latino Voices, a book compiled together with documents containing unheard or untold stories of Afro-Latinos and their perspectives on living in Latin America as Blacks. During this time, in the 1620’s, many Black women, free and enslaved, were accused of witchcraft and “evil magic.” However, many did not consider origins from Africa and how traditions may have passed on, which they might perceive as witchcraftery.
The source is a formal document containing the twelve accusations made by witnesses resulting in her being charge her with performing witchcraft. She was taken to “the secret jails” to await her sentencing. Afro-Latino Voices states that she was a woman who received more freedom than other slaves where she was dressed well and frequently visited her friends who allegedly taught her spells to seduce and entice potential lovers. Slavery was controversial at this time and was very prevalent, where Blacks were perceived as anything but human, in this case a witch.
Before focusing on Eguiluz and her case, it is important to understand what colonial Latin America looked like during the early 1600’s. According to the website of the Embassy of Colombia in Washington D.C., during this time, Spaniards began settling, establishing a vast amount of towns and Christianity as the primary religion. Linda A. Newson states in her book, From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century, that, with being Spanish America’s largest slave port, an estimation of about 10,000 - 20,000 slaves resided in Cartagena (Newson, 139). Other forms of trade was also prominent, with odd trades like turtles and manatees, then more everyday things like plantains and chickens (170). Newson points out that lots of time and funds went into protecting this lucrative port from English, French and Dutch pirates. Because of these often occurring raids, there was a huge military presence in Cartagena.
Howard Kramer offers much insight on Cartagena and their connections with religion on his website, The Complete Pilgrim, where he lists and documents his travels to different countries with lots of historical, religious sites. While Kramer neglects the significance of Cartagena to the era of slavery, he does mention Fort San Felipe De Barajas and Fort San Sebastián De Pastelillo, large colonial fortresses created “to protest the vast wealth being plundered from the inner Incan lands of Peru and Ecuador.” He notes that Cartagena’s “fortifications are among the greatest architectural legacies left behind by the Spanish Empire in South America.”
There is a limited amount of information on Paula de Eguiluz, but a website titled Biografias offers what seems to be a biased, but decent amount of information on Eguiluz. The website stated that she was the leader of the largest group of wizardry in Cartagena de Indias at the time and that “she was accused by the Inquisition to perform spells, unearthing dead of the cemetery and the bodies of the dead with other witches have eaten.”
Atlas Obscura is a collaborative website that focuses on pinpointing obscure and interesting places throughout the globe. While being a resource for travelers, it is alluring to glimpse into a traveler’s eyes to see their view on the Palace of Inquisition. Notably, the website does mention the history of Palacio de la Inquisición where over 800 trials occurred and “not a single person was ever found innocent.” What is also interesting is that there was “ a notice on the wall of the museum lists the questions the accused faced, amongst them, “What evils have you caused and to whom?”; “What words do you pronounce when you fly?”; and “Why does the devil cause you blows at night?” Usually, anything to do with the history of slaves is brushed past or thrown under the rug, so it is interesting to see a traveler’s website acknowledge it.
According to an excerpt from Secret History of the Witches by Max Dashu, featured on the Suppressed Histories websites it is stated that “the Inquisition used charges of sorcery and devil-worship to imprison Afro-Caribbeans, among them enslaved Blacks from the mines of Saragossa in Antioquía, Colombia. Even before the first auto da fe at Cartagena, a black named Juan Lorenzo was tried as a "sorcerer "; he put an end to his torture by hanging himself in his cell, or so it was claimed.” ‘Auto da fe’ can be defined as the burning of a heretic by the Spanish Inquisition. It is crucial to acknowledge that this was a way of persecuting Afro-Latinos and Africans, to place the act of witchcraft, which revolts against the established religion of Christianity.
The dehumanization of this group of people was done through these accusations as well as whole executions. Many were sentenced to being burned at the stake. Dashu states that Paula de Eguiluz was able to avoid this horrific form of punishment by her “great [skills] in medicine and healing.” She instead received 200 lashes. Others were not so fortunate, where “In 1632, more women were tortured, and twenty-one of them were flogged and exhibited to the public in a 1634 auto-da-fé.” Dashu speaks of a woman named Ana de Avila was able to avoid her whipping, but she was tortured to an extreme and fined. Another woman who was named Ana Beltran was tortured as well, but instead to death where a sentence of absolution for her was still read at the public ceremony for her original punishment. Much brutality was faced by these people accused of this evil magic and one can see how severe the brutality got.
Sara Vicuna Guengerich, who contributes to Afro-Latino Voices with her piece “The Witchcraft Trials of Paula de Eguiluz, a Black Woman, in Cartagena de Indias, 1620-1636” goes into detail about how Eguiluz’ case was handled by officials. Guengerich explains that “Eleven witnesses had accused Paula of numerous offenses, among them causing the death of an infant by sucking her navel, transforming herself into a goat, appearing and vanishing in different places without leaving a trace, and selling love spells” (175). It is obvious that if someone were to accuse one of the “crimes” just stated, many would believe that they were being ridiculous. However, the early 1600’s was a time where crime and imagination were easily met at the middle. Making these types of accusations probably allowed one to acquire certain statuses of being an everyday, devoted Christian.
There was so much despise and hate directed towards those who were Black and Black slaves that something as irrational as witchcraft was one of the only ways to stop the freeing of slaves. This is comparable to the crossover from slavery to privatization of prisons, accessible through school-to-prison pipelines, extreme sentences for people of color and much more. This has become a cycle, a repeating piece of history, to where people of color, especially blacks are wrongfully utilized to advance the majority but then hated for being succumbing to this madness. The question here shouldn’t be “when will it end?” but rather “how will it end?”
In African Soccerscapes, Peter Alegi gives a summary of the history of soccer in Africa over the last 150 years. Soccer has played a very important role in the development of many African countries. Soccer helped introduce imperialism, and, yet, it was used as a way to reject the European control. Through the introduction of soccer, Alegi shows how the Africans fought for independence, control of soccer, and he shows how capitalism effected the African game. Though many great things came from soccer, Alegi shows some of the negative things that were caused from the game.
Get original essayIn the start of the book, Alegi shows how soccer was introduced into the continent of Africa. Through port cities, railroads, and missionary schools, soccer was able to spread like wild fire through the continent. In port cities, European sailors often played soccer while they were not working. These sports were introduced due to European imperial expansion. They saw soccer as a way to civilize the African peoples. They wanted to teach Africans the virtues Christianity, capitalism, and Western civilization. This became known as the “white man’s burden.” Sports had already been a part of African culture. They had dances and wrestling that were used for many different purposes. However, the European countries saw these as uncivilized acts. These sports became the “soil in which the seeds of sport would be later planted.” Soccer began to spread. Fans often enjoyed going and watching the games that were being played. Railways also played a role in the spread of soccer. These railways were built for the military and for the movement of goods. When a town was built on the railway, often soccer would be introduced. Within a few years, everyone would play soccer within that area. It was often introduced by the military as a form of discipline. Finally, the start of missionary schools spread the game of soccer. Sport was used as moral training. “Muscular Christianity” wanted to make disciplined, healthy, and moral citizens. The whole goal of these schools was to make good citizens that were Christian. Soccer was used to help do this. It was used to help the boys control their tempers and play with honor and fairness. However, the game quickly took off. Many Africans began to play, and new, “African” soccer began. Soccer became a new identity in many neighborhoods. New teams started in local neighborhoods. By the 1930s, club football began, and many great players were recruited to the teams. Many mine companies and government agencies began to hire the best soccer players. They were offered a job just so they would play soccer for that company. The implementation of soccer actually did more than help civilize the Africans. It back-fired on the Europeans. Africans were able to use soccer as a way to resist the control of the colonizers and social inequalities. For example, when one team was forced to change its name due to it being associated to a local resistance, the team just switched the letters around to form a new word. Soccer also became more African. A new form of play began. Africans “Africanized” the game. Magic was used. Witchdoctors and healers were hired to place spells on the teams and opposition. African fans also started rituals in the games. Drums and dances became part of the ceremony. It also became like traditional African rituals. Africans also began to make the game their own. They made new African styles of play, including fancy dribbling and moves. It is evident that soccer was brought to Africa due to Imperialism. However, thanks to this new sport, Africans were able to use it as a way to protest their colonizers. They were also able to make soccer their own sport. It became “Africanized.”
Africans were also able to use soccer as a way to fight for their independence. Nnamdi Azikiwe was a Nigerian, educated man. Zik saw soccer as an opportunity to help gain independence. Zik took Lagos ZAC football club through Nigeria during the war years. ZAC football club would play against the local clubs. After the game was over, Zik would deliver a speech. He claimed that he was raising money for the war. However, he really showed that the British were hypocrites. He showed that they were fighting a war for countries to gain independent, yet they still had control over the colonies. He was able to use soccer as a way to show that Africans deserved their independence and that Britain was wrong for keeping control of the colonies. Like Zik, the FLN used football as a way to fight for independence. They said that they wanted to deny France key players, heighten international awareness of Algerian fight for independence, and that the support of Algerians was key. They FLN made the Algerian national team. This team went to many countries to play soccer. In this time, the FLN hoped that people would see the fight for independence as well as hurt France by denying them key players. By singing a team song, having a national flag, and having jerseys with their logo, people saw a free Algeria. Finally, blacks in South Africa fought for South Africa’s white soccer teams to be expelled from FIFA. They found it unfair that the racists laws could keep them from playing on the white teams. They fought until the board of FIFA expelled the South African teams from participation. Once independence was finally gained, soccer was used as a way to bring nations together. With the addition of new stadiums and teams, countries hoped to bring their nations together. When they were together in a stadium, they were the same. There was no race or ethnicity. They were all just their country and teams’ fans.
Beginning in the 1930s, many players began to leave their local teams and go to Europe to play soccer. Many had success, while other were unable to ever make it big. In this time, it was very good for individual players. Many were able to make large sums of money. However, it hurt the players that were not as good as well as their countries. Small club teams in Europe used Africans as cheap means to make money. They would often buy them for a cheap amount of money and sell them for huge profits. The migration of players also hurt the local African teams. Many players would stay in Europe. They would not return to their country, even during the world cup. This made the local soccer in Africa very weak. Instead of the good players staying and playing for their country, they moved and played for British countries. Like migration, capitalism has played a role in African soccer. With sponsor ship and individual investment, players and clubs were able to make much more money. Ticket prices also went up, meaning that players were able to make money. With the introduction to TV coverage, fans were able to watch the games at home. Instead of spending money to go to local games, fans will go to bars to watch European soccer. This, in turn, hurts the local teams. They local teams stay weak, while the European teams get much more money and coverage. Capitalism also helped by introducing academies. At these academies, young boys are trained up in soccer. However, many of the boys never make it. Only a handful can make it to play in leagues. There are also lots of fake academies. Many critics argue that students should focus on school or jobs instead of football. Since only a few make it, soccer should not be the focus.
It is clear that soccer was brought to Africa as a way to make Africans civilized. Through this game, Africans were able to protest European control and make soccer their own game.
Through capitalism in soccer, the game has changed for good and bad. Many players are offered expensive deals and elites are able to profit off of the clubs. However, with the new academies affect the kids in many ways. These academies make it hard for the kids who do not make it in soccer to succeed. Alegi closes the book with the example of the 2010 world cup. Though it is a great sign that Africa has made it, since it is the first world cup in Africa, it also brings some negative feelings to many. South Africa has spent millions of dollars on renovations for stadiums and building of new stadiums. Though it looks good and makes Africa look much more modern and caught up, many argue that it is wasting money. This money could and should be used on things such as education and health care. Though soccer has helped shape Africa into what it is now, both negatively and positively, Alegi closes the book by saying that the 2010 World Cup shows that Africa will continue to shape the World’s game for many years.