Confusianism Essays - Confucianism, Chinese Philosophy,

Confusianism A philosopher named Confucius founded Confucianism in China 2,500 years ago. Confucianism is a system of ethical behavior and social responsibility that became the great traditions of the East.1 It played an important role in the evolution in Chinese culture over the centuries. It has influenced near-by countries and had made a mark in the history of religion. There are today over six million people who call themselves Confucianists. Most Confucianists live in East Asia where Confucianism is thought to be born. For over two thousand years, Confucianism has been the dominant philosophical system of Chinese government, which has still a great hold on their people. Because Chinese culture has spread to the counties of Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, the values of Confucianism can be found there too. Confucius Confucius was born in 551 BC in the village of Zou in the country of Lu. During that time, the Zhou dynasty was in decline-this was controlled by King Zhou. As a child, Confucius would have make-believe rituals; as a young adult he quickly earned a reputation for politeness, fairness and had a love for learning. He traveled often and studied at the imperial capital, Zhou, where legend has it he spoke with Lao Zi, the leader of Daoism. When Confucius returned to Lu, he became a renowned teacher. At the age of 35, Confucius followed Duke Zhao into war. Duke Zhao was later captured and Confucius again followed. Zhao often went to Confucius for advice, but was later advised not to by one of his advisors. Eventually Zhao stopped going to him for advice and Confucius returned to Lu. When he returned, he saw that conditions have been unchanged so he retired from public life to concentrate on teaching and studying. At the age of 50, he was asked to lead a defense against a rebellion, but he declined. Although he did not lead in war, he later became City Magistrate. Throughout his governmental career, he was promoted several times. Later he became Grand Secretary of Justice and, at age 56, he became Chief Minister of Lu. Because of Confucius increasing power, many nearby countries became worried that Lu would over power them. They sent messengers with gifts and dancers to distract the Duke during a sacrifice holiday and the Duke later abounded his duties. When Confucius received word of this, he resigned and left the country. Confucius spent the next five years of his life wandering China with his disciples until he was able to send messenger to the sympathetic king of a nearby country, who sent his own band of soldiers to rescue them 2. At the age of 67, Confucius returned to Lu where he spent the rest of his years teaching until he died at 72. Teachings The teaching of Confucius still has a great effect on the culture of China today. His followers wrote down all of his teachings after his death and have been translated into many different languages so that the entire world may benefit from them. Below are some examples from the Analects, Book 4. ? Roger T. Ames: The Master said, The authoritative person (ren) alone has the wherewithal to properly discriminate the good person from the bad. ? E. Bruce Books: The Master said, It is only the rvn who can like others; who can hate others. Page 2 ? Lionel Giles: Only he who has the sprit of goodness within him is able either to love or to hate. ? David Hilton: The master said: Only the Human can love people, and only they can despise people. ? Chichung Huang: The master said: Only a humane man is capable of loving man and capable of loathing men. ? James Legge: The Master said: It is only the virtuous man, who can love, or who can hate, others. ? Simon Leys: The Master said: Only a good man can love people and can hate people. ? Lin Yutang: Confucius said, Only a true man knows how to love people and to hate people. ? A. Charles Muller: Confucius said; Only the jen person is able to really like others or to really dislike them. ? Ezra Pound (1): He said: Only the complete man can love others, or hate them. ? Xin Guanjie:

Waiting lists in the NHS clearly demonstrate that it is inefficient Essay Example

Waiting lists in the NHS clearly demonstrate that it is inefficient Essay Example Waiting lists in the NHS clearly demonstrate that it is inefficient Essay Waiting lists in the NHS clearly demonstrate that it is inefficient Essay and less health care will be demanded, OQ2. If this is the case across the market, the consequence of public health care is that there will be a smaller aggregate expenditure on health care as compared to a private health care system. In addition to these problems, there will also be an increase in demand. In the NHS there are no user charges, as explained earlier. The consumer of public health care will therefore consume up until the point where the marginal utility of health care is zero. This will result in the optimum resource demand being OQ3. This restriction in supply and expansion of demand leads Buchanan to suggest that waiting lists are endemic to the (NHS) system. Since most potential patients cannot afford private health provision, they have a simple decision, be treated (and wait) or not be treated. Therefore, assuming that society is rational, the prospective patient will wait until he tops the list to get treated. This implies that the Pareto efficient outcome in a single market does not exist here and that waiting lists do suggest that the NHS is inefficient. The marginal patient is not the patient that equates his marginal cost of waiting with the marginal benefit of treatment, but the patient that perceives any benefit whatsoever from the treatment that he will receive at the future date. This suggests that as long as the demand curve is unchanged, the potential consumer surplus from inpatient treatment is not dissipated by the wait for treatment.2 Another reason why long waiting lists are inefficient is that as the waiting time increases, resources are allocated away from treatment towards administrative costs. This implies that as waiting times increase the service displays decreasing returns to scale rendering the quality of service smaller. Ideally, the hospital should aim to allocate its budget to the point at which it is indifferent between further3 increasing admissions and marginal wait reduction. A significant reason why this problem persists is that often, hospital managers cite increasing waiting lists when negotiating the hospitals budget with the government. In such situations in the past, the government has displayed a positive willingness to pay in reaction to increasing waiting lists, and as a result hospitals havent given a great enough weight to reducing lists, but rather to increasing admissions. It might however be unfair to judge the NHSs level of efficiency on its waiting list levels. Firstly, it might be the case that where there are areas that show a high proportion of people that are privately insured, lobbying for shorter waiting lists would decrease and this could lead to a positive correlation between private insurance and waiting lists. But why might this be? One of the greatest problems with the NHS is that of Supplier Induced Demand (SID). In terms of health care this refers to the extent to which a doctor provides or recommends the provision of medical services that differs from what the patient would have chosen if they had the same information and knowledge available as the doctor. Would a patient, for example, have given up an afternoon in the workplace if they had known on referral that the specific treatment for a complicated disease was a plaster to the toe? This idea falls in line with the fact that many remuneration systems are designed so that the doctor receives a greater income when they give a greater amount of services to each patient. This is borne out by a study by Krasnik et al (1990) who found that after GPs in Copenhagen had their remuneration methods changed to a fee-for-service basis, their activity increased until they attained their target incomes at which stage activity fell, suggesting SID. Might it be the case that waiting lists merely reflect the greed of GPs and the perverse incentives offered to hospital managers, rather than the actual inefficiency of the NHS? For certain waiting patients, it is evident that inpatient treatment is needed now, or not at all. A wait of any duration will be of no help at all. In the current NHS, priority is given to these patients. In the UK, waiting lists tend to build up for delay able cases5 In respect of this, waiting lists may simply represent a stock of work for doctors, ensuring that their scarce and skilled resources are utilised in the correct instances. It is also argued by Cullis and Jones that a waiting list allows for a balance of cases of differing nature and complexity, facilitating the teaching function of many hospitals. Taking these two points into account it may be argued that waiting lists optimally use the scarce resources presented to them, implying that waiting lists might actually facilitate efficiency. There is no doubt that increasing waiting lists are more than likely to indicate a poor performance in terms of economic efficiency. Between 1997 and 2002, expenditure on public health grew in total by over 50%. At the same time, waiting lists only fell by 15%, suggesting that there is a large misallocation of resources throughout the NHS and an undesirable level of efficiency. That is if we are looking to waiting lists as the key indicator of NHS performance. The weighting given to this area of NHS performance seems unfair and misinformed. It is my opinion that a reasonable waiting list actually gives rise to an efficient allocation of resources in a system that cannot naturally do so through the price mechanism. Undoubtedly lists can become unhelpfully large. In these cases I would argue that reforms such as buyer contracts could be easily be implemented that would prevent lists from becoming too large through the perverse incentives provided by the government to use waiting lists as a bargaining tool.

Finance 426 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Finance 426 - Assignment Example However, the value of the dollar in the future could increase if expanded MCI output substitutes for telecom imports. 3. Korean Airline buys five Boeing 747s. As part of the deal, Boeing arranges a loan to KAL for the purchase amount from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The loan is to be paid back over the next seven years with a two-year grace period. 4. In accordance with the following circumstances, say whether the value of the dollar will appreciate, depreciate or remain the same relative to the Yen by explaining each answer. Suppose the exchange rates are free to vary and that other factors are held constant. Answer: considering the above scenario the rate of wages is comparatively high in U.S from Japan whereas the level of productivity is also low compared with Japan which makes it less attractive for investment purposes. It is considered that a country with a weak economy will have a low value currency so dollar will