Critical Reflection: Essay Writing (Final Final after editing)

Essay writing has never been an easy task for me. In the past, I had a phobia of writing essays, due to the mediocre results that I always received. Disappointed, I started questioning myself about the reasons, because even though my ideas and content were competent, my grades did not meet my expectations.

When the course began I was determined to find out what was really wrong with my essays. With the invaluable advice of my helpful instructor, I have learned about the appropriate grammar for essay writing, the usage of words, and how certain words might be inappropriate for academic purposes. In order to enhance our learning experiences and our interpersonal learning skills, he also introduced interactive teaching methods such as blogging. After going though the various lessons , I have realized that the organization structures of my essays were not always very well defined in the past. Thus, the conveying of my message to the reader was hindered. Through this course, I have learned to organize my essays so that my thoughts will flow coherently.

In the future, I will spend five minutes on essay planning before embarking on the essay.  In order to prevent myself from using inappropriate words, I will ask my friends to proofread my essay to make sure that the errors are minimized, and most importantly, ensure that the content is understandable. Additionally, to improve my language structure, I will read academic works and newspapers regularly.

Through numerous assignments , I have realized the two most important things that I have to improve on: organization and grammar. Although this course is too short for improvements to be seen in terms of essay writing, I believe that with the language tools that I have acquired, I will be able to improve my essay writing skills, which will benefit me greatly in my future course of work.

Critical Reflection: Essay Writing (Draft 1)

Essay writing had always been a difficult task throughout my life. In the past, I have a phobia in writing essays as the result I got from writing essays are bad. I was disappointed with myself so I started questioning myself why, as I do have great ideas and content in writing the essays.

When I first started this course I was determined to find out what is really wrong with my essays. During this course with my helpful instructor I had learned correct grammar for essay writing, the usage of words, and how certain words might be rude to the reader. He has introduced interactive ways like blogging to enhance our learning experiences and our interpersonal learning skill. Throughout this course, I find that the organization structure of my essay is always not very well defined in the past. Therefore the message in my past essays could not be conveyed to my reader. In this course, I have learned to organize my essay so that my thoughts will flow coherently in my essay.

Through the practices that I had in this course, I began to realize what is the most important thing I need to improve on which is organization structure and

Grammar. This course is too short for I to have great improvements in terms of essay writing, but I believe with the language tools I have achieved from this course I will be able to improve my essay writing in the future. One habit, which I cultivated from this course, is before the start of any essay I will spend 5 minutes planning the structure of it.

Globalization Essay, Problems and Solutions (Final Final Final)

Globalization is one of the most important driving forces of today’s economic growth. The world has been integrated closer as interactivity increases between borders. Compared to the past, traveling across the globe is an effortless affair. With the aid of Information Communication Technology, people can even communicate without having to travel. Economic activities like business meetings, the trading of goods and financial securities, such as, stocks and bonds have been enhanced with the Internet. However, globalization has negatively affected the world too. The integration of countries has caused systemic risk, defined as the adverse effect of an interconnected market, which can lead to the breakdown of the world’s financial system (Bernanke, 2009). This can be seen during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis. Even though globalization has undoubtedly improved inter-countries’ trading and financial relationships, countries have ironically become more vulnerable to negative impacts of the economic system due to the close ties they share. Singapore shows how good governance and economic fundamentals can mitigate systemic risk, through two main solutions "Better institution and government policies", and "Good economic fundamentals".

Good governance will be able to protect the economy from unnecessary risks by implementing good policies. Goldin (2012) states that regulatory institutions need to improve themselves with the ever-changing dynamics of globalization to maximize gain and minimize losses. Governments need to ensure that citizens are well protected, as they are the main victims during a crisis. For instance, increasing immigration due to the forces of globalization has caused Singapore's housing prices to rise drastically. Investors have taken advantage of this situation and raised the housing prices to gain profit. This results in a huge housing bubble in the market and a crisis may occur if the bubble were to burst. In fact, this happened in America during the global financial crisis of 2008. Hence, to stop the growing housing prices, the Singapore government implemented cooling measures policies to ease the situation. Additionally, a competent government should have good foresight to safeguard its country from crisis. Therefore collaborating and sharing perspectives of good institution and governance between government bodies, which allow the levels of governance to be comparable, are essential to reduce negative shocks from happening around the world. In order to minimize systemic risks, individual government needs to do its part in ensuring that the risk of negative impacts in its economy is at its minimum, to prevent other countries from being affected.

The inevitability of systemic risk makes good economic fundamentals important to countries as they can use them to take advantage of crisis situations. During the global financial crisis 2008, Singapore was the first country in ASEAN to be affected due to systemic risk. With good economic fundamentals, however, Singapore managed to recover quickly with a growth of 14.5% in 2010 (CIA World Fact book, 2011).  It also seized the opportunity during the economic downturn to retrain its workers and restructure new industries during this period, taking advantage of the low production cost (Thangavelu, 2009). One example is during the period of financial crisis, the Singapore government introduced the workfare training support scheme to retrain its workers. While fighting against systemic risk is definitely not an easy task, countries could work together in sharing information on how fundamentals like taxation, exports and imports structures and employments structure of the economy should be built. Therefore, summits like the East Asia summit in 2013 are very important. One good example is during the recent summit, APEC leaders agreed to increase the economic opportunities for women through skills building. It is important for individual countries to increase their transparency in terms of their economic health in order for other countries to learn from them. The sharing of information is important for countries to build strong fundamentals for the economy to take advantage of crisis situations so that economies do not need to face extended period of recessions.

In conclusion, systemic risk is unavoidable as globalization occurs and countries integrate. Good government policies could help prevent citizens from suffering in a crisis, and building up good fundamentals of the economy could potentially save it from being affected for prolonged periods of time. Individual governments should weigh the positive and negative effects of globalization and decide if certain restrictions like trade tariffs against the forces of globalization should be set up.

References:

Boles, C. (2009, November 18). Bernanke offers broad definition of systemic risk-real time economics-wsj. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/11/18/bernanke-offers-broad-definition-of-systemic-risk/

Goldin, I. (2012, April 10). Governing globalization: jobs, equity and the management of systemic risks. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/jobspact/resources/WCMS_177476/lang--en/index.htm 

Johnston, B. (2013, January). Identifying and mitigating systemic risks : A framework for macro-prudential supervision. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/FINANCIALSECTOR/Resources/Session3RBarryJohnston.pdf 

Siong, O. (2013, September 16). Property cooling measures necessary to avoid major price correction: Mnd. Retrieved from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/property-cooling-measures/815458.html 

Thangavelu, S. (2009, January 5). Riding the global economic crisis in singapore. Retrieved from http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2009/01/05/riding-the-global-economic-crisis-in-singapore/

Globaledge: Singapore economy. (2011, December). Retrieved from http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/singapore/economy

Ian goldin: Navigating our global future. (2009, October). Ted Talks. [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ian_goldin_navigating_our_global_future.html

The world factbook: Singapore economy. (2013, August 22). Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sn.html 

Ministry of Manpower, (2013). Workfare income supplement. Retrieved from website: http://www.mom.gov.sg/EMPLOYMENT-PRACTICES/EMPLOYMENT-RIGHTS-

Globalization Essay, Problems and Solutions (Final)

Globalization is one of the most important driving forces of today’s economic growth. The world has been integrated closer as interactivity increases between borders. Compared to the past, traveling across the globe is an effortless affair today. With the aid of Information Communication Technology, people can even communicate across the globe without having to travel. Economic activities like business meetings, trading of goods and trading of financial instruments have been enhanced with the Internet. However, globalization has negatively affected the world too. The integration of countries has caused systemic risk, defined as “The adverse effect of an interconnected market, which can lead to the breakdown of the world wider financial system” (Bernanke, 2009), to increase greatly. This can be seen from 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Even though globalization has undoubtedly improved inter-countries’ trading relationships and financial relationships, countries have ironically become more vulnerable to negative impacts of the economic system due to the close ties they share.

In this essay, Singapore will be used as an example to show how good governance and economic fundamentals can mitigate systemic risk, through two main solutions "Better institution and government policies", and "Good economic fundamentals".

A good government with a good institution will be able to protect the economy from unnecessary risks by implementing good policies. Goldin (2012) states that regulatory institutions need to shape themselves up to keep in pace with the dynamics of globalization to maximize gain and minimize losses. Governments need to ensure the people of the economy are well protected, as they are the main victims during the crisis. For instance, increasing immigration due to the forces of globalization has caused Singapore's housing prices to rise drastically. Investors may take advantage of this situation and push up the housing prices to gain profit. This may in turn result in a huge housing bubble in the market, causing a crisis to occur if the bubble bursts. In fact, this happened in America during the Global Financial Crisis 2008. Hence, to prevent housing prices from rising, the Singapore government implemented cooling measures to prevent price hikes. A competent government should possess good foresight to safeguard its country from crisis. Countries will benefit from globalization and systemic risk will be minimized if their levels of governance are comparable. Collaborating and sharing perspectives of good institution and governance between government bodies is essential to reduce negative shocks from happening around the world. In order to minimize systemic risks, governments need to do their part in ensuring the risk of negative impacts in its economy is at its minimum, just like what Singapore did, to prevent others from being affected.

The inevitability of systemic risk makes good economic fundamentals important to countries so that they can fight against it. During the Global Financial Crisis 2008, Singapore was the first country in ASEAN to be affected due to systemic risk. With good economic fundamentals, however, Singapore managed to recover quickly with a growth of 14.5% in year 2010 (CIA World Fact book, 2011).  Singapore also seized the opportunity during the economic downturn to retrain its workers and restructure new industries during this period, taking advantage of the low cost (Thangavelu, 2009). While fighting against systemic risk is definitely not an easy task, countries could work together in sharing information on how fundamentals of the economy should be built. Therefore, summits like the East Asia Summit 2013 are very important. It is also important for individual countries to be transparent in terms of their economic health in order for other countries to learn from it. Sharing of information is important for countries to build strong fundamentals for the economy to fight against systemic risk so that economies do not need to face extended negative impacts.

In conclusion, systemic risk is unavoidable as globalization occurs and countries integrate. Good government policies could help the people in the economy, and building up good fundamentals of the economy could potentially save the economy from being affected for prolonged periods of time. This leads individual governments to weigh the positive and negative effects of globalization and ponder if certain barriers against globalization should be set up.

(692 words)

References:

Boles, C. (2009, November 18). Bernanke offers broad definition of systemic risk-real time economics-wsj. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/11/18/bernanke-offers-broad-definition-of-systemic-risk/ 

Goldin, I. (2012, April 10). Governing globalization: jobs, equity and the management of systemic risks. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/jobspact/resources/WCMS_177476/lang--en/index.htm 

Johnston, B. (2013, January). Identifying and mitigating systemic risks : A framework for macro-prudential supervision. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org

/FINANCIALSECTOR/Resources/Session3RBarryJohnston.pdf 

Siong, O. (2013, September 16). Property cooling measures necessary to avoid major price correction: Mnd. Retrieved from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/property-cooling-measures/815458.html 

Thangavelu, S. (2009, January 5). Riding the global economic crisis in singapore. Retrieved from http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2009/01/05/riding-the-global-economic-crisis-in-singapore/ 

Globaledge: Singapore economy. (2011, December). Retrieved from http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/singapore/economy

Ian goldin: Navigating our global future. (2009, October). Ted Talks. [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ian_goldin_navigating_our_global_future.html

The world factbook: Singapore economy. (2013, August 22). Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sn.html

Week 6 Assignment Reading Response: Assessing Globalization Benefits and Drawbacks of Trade and Integration (Final)

In Kohut and Wike’s Paper "Assessing Globalization, Benefits and Drawbacks of Trade and Integration", the authors recognize both the economic benefits of globalization as well as other negative drawbacks such as income disparity in countries, environmental degradation, and loss of tradition.

The paper states that "Europeans also expressed high levels of concern for the environment, particularly in Spain (70 percent) and France (68 percent)" showing the negative impacts of globalization caused on the environment. In contrary, globalization does not only pose negative threats to the environment. In fact, globalization brings about better economies around the world. With better economies, countries have more income to engage in research and development activities to create better technologies for the environment. Some good examples of these technologies include air filters and catalytic converters in cars which are environmentally friendly. These technologies could also be spread to the rest of the world through the forces of globalization. Professor Kahn from the University of California, Los Angeles, states that, as America’s economy progressed, smog levels in California decreased over time due to better equipment used in industries.

Hence, globalization may not be a devil to the environment after all. As it takes place, economies improve and people think of better ways to improve the environment. This can be seen from the decrease in pollution levels in California.

(221words) 

Week 5 Summary Assignment: Assesing Globalization Benefits and Drawbacks of Trade and Integration (Final Final)

 Globalization is a phenomenon which has impacted the lives of people around the world. Most countries embrace the idea of globalization as it brings about economic growth, improving the living standards of people. Although globalization has enhanced trade, the free market system undertaken by many countries, as well as the influx of multinational companies into developing countries such as Nigeria, the support for globalization has weakened in western countries like the US and Italy. People are worried about the negative effects of globalization, which include environmental pollution, loss of traditions and widening income gaps in countries like Indonesia. Environmental problems like global warming is a major concern in countries and people surveyed are willing to trade a cleaner environment for economic growth. The influx of immigrants has caused the loss of traditions in many countries; 44 out of 47 countries believe that immigrants bring negative impacts to their countries. One good example is Italy, with 64 percent of the people rating immigration a big problem for their country. Hence, one way of measuring the effects of globalization is to consider the positive and negative impacts in different countries.

(188 words)

Scary Oil Summary Practice

Summary:

Oil prices and the global economy are always correlated with a two way relationship. Rising oil prices had been a major concern in the global economy. The rising war tensions between Iran and Israel had sent fear into the global economy. US will be aiding Israel militarily against Iran. All these episodes had sent fear into the global economy increasing oil prices. With these fear adding on to the past episodes of geopolitical shock in Middle East, and global financial crisis, it will send oil prices increasing which may trigger a round of global recession.