American Economy after September 11th :: September 11 Terrorism Essays

American Economy after September 11th "Every president is dealt a hand of cards," said John Shoven, a Stanford University economist and senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. "Bush inherited a pretty tough hand." When President Bush took the office in the year 2000, things were moving smoothly on the surface. Undercover there was havoc. Tragedy of September 11th shook the world but it shook the US most. Technically speaking, one would say ofcourse it rocked the US, after all it did happen in US. But if truth be told things went downhill instantly. US economy was affected the most. With the twin towers erased from the surface of the country and economic records in the form of ashes- only the wisest of the wise could have pulled the country back from meeting its fate. But with the blessings of the current president, the country met its downfall soon. Facts and figures are clearly given in David Lazarus’s report which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle last year on the 11th of August. He very plainly states that â€Å"When Bush came to power; the U.S. economy was at the tail end of a dot-com-fueled bubble that couldn't have been sustained under any circumstances. A recession, most economists believe, was all but inevitable.† Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington states â€Å"The president's key economic error was to attempt to stimulate the economy by skewing the benefits of three tax cuts toward wealthy Americans.† According to Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, nearly forty percent of the benefits from Bush's tax cuts will go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, those earning on average $1 million a year. By contrast, only about seventeen percent of the benefits will go to the sixty percent of the population earning $45,000 or less. "The tax cuts made no sense as a stimulus measure," said Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. "If you want to stimulate the economy, you have to give money to people who don't already have it." Bernstein said a crucial problem for many Americans today is that wages are significantly lagging behind inflation. With prices up 3%, the middle class’s income has become far worse than how it was four years back. People are now clearly stating that things have become very tough financially. He has made it note worthy that it would take extraordinary growth -- about 400,000 new jobs a month (august 2004 and November 2004) -- for Bush to avoid the dubious distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to see a net decline in jobs during a term of office.

Roberto Clemente Speech

â€Å"He gave the term â€Å"complete† a new meaning. He made the word â€Å"superstar† seem inadequate. He had about him the touch of royalty. † This was a quote stated by former commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bowie Kuhn while speaking during Roberto Clemente’s eulogy. When baseball season came around in seventh grade, my coach of the Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School team, Fabrizo Morejon, explained that he wore the number 21 in honor of his childhood hero Roberto Clemente. He seemed such an advocate of this man that it gave me a strong motive to research and to find out who this man really was.When I began to read all about him, I found that his career was not just filled with spectacular baseball achievements, but even more so was all about humanitarianism, and about Clemente’s drive to help others and be a source of pride for his native country. This is something that you don’t see to often today. In a day where baseball player s today make tens of million dollars annually and are virtually superstars wherever they go many players cannot be bothered with the well being of others. This instantly became a favorite hero of mine.This speech will take you through the early life and beginning struggles of his career, through his success in the major leagues, ending with his tragic death and legacy left on the world. So lets go way back, back to the 1930’s in Puerto Rico where Roberto was born. I. Early life, Getting drafted, Struggles in the majors A. From the beginning always close to his family 1. Formally Roberto Walker Clemente was born on August 18th, 1934 CLICK in a small town located in Carolina in the north east portion of Puerto Rico 2.Roberto was the youngest of seven children born to Luisa Walker and Melchor Clemente 3. His family was very poor growing up so Roberto happily spent his childhood working part time jobs pitching into the family well being B. Growing up 1. Roberto was a natural athl ete from the time he emerged on the scene in his high school years a. Was a four sport varsity athlete playing football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball and track and field in the spring b. Because Roberto was so good at track and field they let him just ome to the matches because practices interfered with his baseball schedule, which always came first 2. Coming directly from Roberto’s journal from high school â€Å"I loved the game (baseball that being) so much that even though our playing field was muddy and we had many trees on it, I used to play many hours every day†, this showed how much Roberto truly loved playing the game C. It wasn’t long before Roberto’s exceptional and â€Å"superstarish† play wasn’t noticed 1. In 1954 Roberto was signed by the Pittsburg Pirates for 4,000 dollars 2.Moving to America was a major culture shock and change for Roberto a. Racial tensions existed between he and his teammates as well as between he and the local media and this really frustrated Roberto and made it tough to concentrate on baseball b. Clemente responded to the racism he faced by declaring this postgame response â€Å"I don’t believe in color†¦I always respect everyone and thanks to God, my mother and my father taught me never to hate, never to dislike someone because of their color†, this really shows his true care and respect for the nature of people in general c.Teammate Joe Black was the most import to his assimilation into American society, being the only other player to speak Spanish D. His career had a really rough beginning 1. His first season was cut short because he got into a drunk driving accident hurting his back, hitting a measly . 225 even when healthy 2. After the shaky start to his career Roberto decided to go through marine camp and become a reserve in order to get into a stronger better condition as a player Going into the marines and committing himself to basebal l once again took his career for a turn for the better II. SuccessesA. Roberto Clemente made a strong comeback after his abysmal start to his career in his first season 1. CLICK By the start of his second season, Roberto was hitting leadoff for the Pirates playing the entire season, hitting . 314, a very respectable average 2. Helped the Pirates win a world series vs. the New York Yankees (I know it hurts to say) 3. He went to his first all star game that same season B. During the middle of his career, Roberto got married 1. On November 14th, 1964 Roberto Clemente got married to Vera Zabala back in his hometown of Carolina, of course in Puerto Rico 2.He had three children with Vera Zabala named Roberto Jr. , Luis Roberto, and Enrique Roberto C. From the time that Roberto turned his around his career he was a very consistent and productive player 1. After 1961, which was his breakout season talked about earlier, Clemente went on to win a Gold Glove and was an all star team starter, e very season for the next decade, VERY CONSISTANT 2. In 1966 he won the most prestigious award in the MLB, which is the Most Valuable Player award 3.Ended his career with exactly 3000 career hits, being only the tenth player ever to do that at the time a. Many of you know this man CLICK who just got 3000 hits CLICK and was king of New York for a few days b. However, Clemente got to this feat playing in fewer games than Derek Jeter However, sometimes in life it seems that bad things just happen to the good people III. Death and Legacy A. Roberto’s life came to a tragic end, in a truly charitable way, just the way that I’m sure he would have wanted it to happen 1.When the city of Managua in Nicaragua was hit with a massive earthquake, Roberto, not even a native of that country was the first to step up and help 2. Because there were numerous rumors that the relief effort materials were being diverted by government officials, Roberto wanted to fly there himself and make sur e they got the materials themselves 3. New years eve, 1972, Roberto got in a plane in attempt to personally deliver the relief materials himself, CLICK however the plane crashed just after take off killing Roberto and everyone else on boardB. Today Roberto is still remembered in many different ways 1. In Pittsburgh, the major bridge leading near the stadium is named after him CLICK, along with the right field wall in the new stadium is 21 feet high CLICK and nobody is allowed to wear the number 21 in a pirates uniform in honor of Clemente 2. The MLB made an award in his name, which is an annual award given to the player who â€Å"best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team† CLICKSo even though Roberto has been gone for over 35 years the Major Leagues remember him every year for his qualities not just on the field but off as well, not something that can be said by to many players I hope that t hrough this presentation, going from the beginnings of Roberto’s life through the ups and the downs of his career and finally ending with his heroic death and legacy, everyone got a real feel for who this man really is. I did not want to stand up here and you guys think that I was just talking about some baseball player who had really good stats and hit a lot of homeruns.Because that’s not the case with this man, at all. The life of Roberto Clemente is one consisting of outrageous baseball statistics CLICK, a profound love of the game, and a desire to help others. With all of his charity work and accomplishments Roberto Clemente’s legend lives on and he continues to inspire not only Latinos, but people all over the world. To leave you all with one quote from Roberto that truly just exemplified his personality, â€Å"Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth. CLICK

Construction, Uses, and Examples of Time Series Graphs

One feature of data that you may want to consider is that of time. A graph that recognizes this ordering and displays the change of the values of a variable as time progresses is called a time series graph. Suppose that you want to study the climate of a region for an entire month. Every day at noon you note the temperature and write this down in a log. A variety of statistical studies could be done with this data. You could find the mean or the median temperature for the month. You could construct a histogram displaying the number of days that temperatures reach a certain range of values. But all of these methods ignore a portion of the data that you have collected.   Since each date is paired with the temperature reading for the day, you don‘t have to think of the data as being random. You can instead use the times given to impose a chronological order on the data. Constructing a Time Series Graph To construct a time series graph, you must look at both pieces of the  paired data set. Start with a standard Cartesian coordinate system. The horizontal axis is used to plot the date or time increments, and the vertical axis is used to plot the values variable that you are measuring. By doing this each point on the graph corresponds to a date and a measured quantity. The points on the graph are typically connected by straight lines in the order in which they occur. Uses of a Time Series Graph Time series graphs are important tools in various applications of statistics. When recording values of the same variable over an extended period of time, sometimes it is difficult to discern any trend or pattern. However, once the same data points are displayed graphically, some features jump out. Time series graphs make trends easy to spot. These trends are important as they can be used to project into the future. In addition to trends, the weather, business models and even insect populations exhibit cyclical patterns. The variable being studied does not exhibit a continual increase or decrease but instead goes up and down depending upon the time of year. This cycle of increase and decrease may go on indefinitely. These cyclical patterns are also easy to see with a time series graph. An Example of a Time Series Graph You can use the data set in the table below to construct a time series graph. The data is from the U.S. Census Bureau and reports the U.S. resident population from 1900 to 2000. The horizontal axis measures time in years and the vertical axis represents the number of people in the U.S. The graph shows us a steady increase in population that is roughly a straight line. Then the slope of the line becomes steeper during the Baby Boom. U.S. Population Data 1900-2000 Year Population 1900 76094000 1901 77584000 1902 79163000 1903 80632000 1904 82166000 1905 83822000 1906 85450000 1907 87008000 1908 88710000 1909 90490000 1910 92407000 1911 93863000 1912 95335000 1913 97225000 1914 99111000 1915 100546000 1916 101961000 1917 103268000 1918 103208000 1919 104514000 1920 106461000 1921 108538000 1922 110049000 1923 111947000 1924 114109000 1925 115829000 1926 117397000 1927 119035000 1928 120509000 1929 121767000 1930 123077000 1931 12404000 1932 12484000 1933 125579000 1934 126374000 1935 12725000 1936 128053000 1937 128825000 1938 129825000 1939 13088000 1940 131954000 1941 133121000 1942 13392000 1943 134245000 1944 132885000 1945 132481000 1946 140054000 1947 143446000 1948 146093000 1949 148665000 1950 151868000 1951 153982000 1952 156393000 1953 158956000 1954 161884000 1955 165069000 1956 168088000 1957 171187000 1958 174149000 1959 177135000 1960 179979000 1961 182992000 1962 185771000 1963 188483000 1964 191141000 1965 193526000 1966 195576000 1967 197457000 1968 199399000 1969 201385000 1970 203984000 1971 206827000 1972 209284000 1973 211357000 1974 213342000 1975 215465000 1976 217563000 1977 21976000 1978 222095000 1979 224567000 1980 227225000 1981 229466000 1982 231664000 1983 233792000 1984 235825000 1985 237924000 1986 240133000 1987 242289000 1988 244499000 1989 246819000 1990 249623000 1991 252981000 1992 256514000 1993 259919000 1994 263126000 1995 266278000 1996 269394000 1997 272647000 1998 275854000 1999 279040000 2000 282224000