For a number of reasons, economists believe that the natural rate of unemployment in the U.S. economy declined from the 1980s to the 1990s and early 2000s. Provide at least two different reasons for this phenomenon and discuss each.

What are the main reasons for the rapid expansion of the Asian middle class?

Why did Asia attract large capital inflows during the early-mid 1990s? Explain the impact on asset markets.

Reading JAMAICA KINCAID (b. 1949)

"Girl"

Raised in poverty by her homemaker mother and car- penter stepfather on the small Caribbean island of Antigua, Elaine Potter Richardson was sent to the United States to earn her own living at age seven- teen, much like the protagonists of her first novels, Annie John (1983) and Lucy (1990). Working as an au

pair and receptionist, she earned her high-school equivalency degree and studied pho- tography at the New School for Social Research in New York and, briefly, Franconia College in New Hampshire. Returning to New York, she took the name of a character in a George Bernard Shaw play, at least in part out of resentment toward her mother, with whom she had once been very close. After a short stint as a freelance journalist, Kincaid worked as a regular contributor to the New Yorker from 1976 until 1995, in 1979 marry- ing its editor’s son, composer Allen Shawn, with whom she would eventually move to Bennington, Vermont and raise two children. “Girl,” her first published story, appeared in the New Yorker in 1978 and was later republished in her first collection, At the Bottom of the River (1983). Subsequent novels include The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), paradoxically the least autobiographical of her books; Mr. Potter (2002), a fictionalized account of her efforts to understand the biological father she never knew; and See Now Then (2013). Kincaid’s equally impressive nonfiction includes My Brother (1997), a mem- oir inspired by her youngest brother’s death from AIDS, and A Small Place (1988), an essay exploring the profound economic and psychological impact of Antigua’s depen- dence on tourism. Divorced in 2002, Kincaid is currently Professor of African and Afri- can American Studies in Residence at Harvard.

2. May he rest in peace (Latin).

Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn’t have gum on it, because that way it won’t hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna1 in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slot (replace o with u) you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give direc- tions; don’t eat fruits on the street—flies will follow you; but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a buttonhole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slot (replace o with u) I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra—far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize imme- diately the slot (replace o with u) I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don’t squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers—you might catch something; don’t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona;2 this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?

Help with these questions:

1. Describe the focus or focalization in "Girl." Do we see what one person sees, or observe one person in particular? Describe the voice of the narrator in "Girl." Who is the "you"? How do the focus and voice contribute to the reader's response to the story?

2. Look closely at the indications of time in the story. What actions take place at certain times? Does any event or action happen only once? Is there a plot in "Girl"? If so, how would you summarize it?

3. The instructions in "Girl" have different qualities, as if they come from different people or have different purposes. Why are two phrases in italics? Can you pick out the phrases that are more positive from the girl's point of view? Are there some that seem humorous or ironic?

4. What genre is “Girl”?  Is it a short story, essay, or something else?  Classify the text and justify your answer.  Use third person to answer all four questions and quote and/or paraphrase as necessary.  

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was an explosion in the issuance of bonds backed by mortgages, also known as mortgage-backed securities (MBSs). The underlying cause of the financial crisis was a combination of debt and mortgage-backed assets.

True or False

Credit Default Swaps are a kind of insurance on bonds.

True or False

In 1999 the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act (1933) was partially repealed, allowing banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to enter each other’s markets and to merge, resulting in the formation of banks that were “too big to fail” .

True or False

By 2007 the steep decline in the value of MBSs had caused major losses at many banks.

True or False

By the summer of 2008 Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), the federally chartered corporations that dominated the secondary mortgage market (the market for buying and selling mortgage loans) were in serious trouble.

True or False

In one town, 55% of adults have health insurance. What is the probability that 4 adults selected at random from the town have health insurance? Round to the nearest thousandth if necessary.

(Class Activity)

(Don't swim in the black sea)

Mansoor is the manager of the Black Sea Manufacturing Company ("BSMC") in Mangalia, Romania. Mangalia is a small town on the coast of the Black Sea. BSMC employs 1000 people, which is about Yz of the population of the small town of Mangalia, Romania. · Mansoor bas a good relationship with his boss, Ali, who lives and works for BSMC's headquarters in Dubai.

BSMC water emissions (waste coming out of the factory into the Black Sea) at Mansoor's factory were consistently over the acceptable pollution guidelines set by the town of Mangalia. Several months ago, Mansoor got a call from his boss Ali, who told him that the town had started fining BSMC a large sum of money every month due to the water pollution being too high.

Mansoor admitted that the water pollution was a continual problem, but because headquarters would not invest in new technology to clean the waste before it is dumped into the Black Sea, he didn't know how to solve the pollution problem. Ali told Mansoor that the only way the company could afford the new technology was to fire 250 of the workers at Mansoor's factory. Ali pointed out to Mansoor that other factories in Mangalia were in worse shape than BSMC and somehow, they were meeting the town's pollution standards. Ali said that the company could not afford to be fined every month for these violations. Mansoor assured Ali that he would look into the matter.

Mansoor immediately called the other manufacturing factories in Mangalia. He learned they were scheduling their heavy emissions work (work that produced a lot of pollution) at night so that during the day when the town took did their water pollution test readings, their factory pollution levels were within standards.

Six months went by, BSMC was paying large fines every month, and Mansoor still had not found a good solution. Finally, Mansoor spoke with the Bulgaria government and was told that Bulgaria does not have as strict of water pollution laws as Romania. The Bulgarian representative invited Mansoor to relocate the Black Sea factory to Kavarna, Bulgaria, which is only 45 kilometers south of the current location of the factory, and also on the Black Sea. The current employees could drive back and forth across the border to the new factory every day. However, the Bulgarian government requires that at least 50% of the workers in Black Sea's factory be Bulgarian citizens.

Ali told Mansoor he had only one week to decide what to do or he would lose his job.

Question: Identify two ethical choices Mansoor must make and suggest minimum of two solutions to the ethical problem. (Please think outside the box.)

Problem Set 1: The paired-samples t test Research Scenario: Children who experience chronic pain as a result of medical procedures are the focus of a psychiatrist’s study. Specifically, the psychiatrist wants to measure whether a new program helps decrease feelings of chronic pain in the short-term. She measures children’s self-reports of pain levels before treatment on a standardized scale with a range of 0-10, with 10 being the most severe. She then administers the new program, and measures children’s pain levels after treatment. The data are contained in the table below. Does the new treatment decrease self-reported levels of chronic pain? Using this table, enter the data into a new SPSS data file and run a paired-samples t test to test the claim that the new program decreases self-reported levels of chronic pain. Follow the directions below the table to complete the homework.

Write an APA-style Results section based on your analysis. Include your boxplot as an APA-style figure as demonstrated in the APA writing presentation.

Problem Set 2: The paired-samples t test

Research Scenario: A social worker in a rural school district is interested in how a new program is affecting the number of days that high school students are truant from school (i.e. absent without permission from parents, doctor, etc.). She takes a sample of 15 students from school records and notes the number of days truant in the year before the program and the year after the program. The data are listed in the table below.

Using this table, enter the data into a new SPSS data file and run a paired-samples t test to test the claim that there is a difference in the number of truant days before and after the program was implemented. Follow the directions below the table to complete the homework.

Write an APA-style Results section based on your analysis. Include your boxplot as an APA-style figure as demonstrated in the APA writing presentation.

PLEASE SHOW IN EXCEL

You purchase a $325,000 town home and you pay 25 percent down. You obtain a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with an annual interest rate of 5.75 percent and monthly payments. After five years you refinance the mortgage for 25 years at a 5.1 percent annual interest rate. After you refinance, what is the new monthly payment (to the nearest dollar)?