Public transport Essay Example for Free

Public transport Essay Public transport can be described as a shared service of passenger transportation readily available for public use. Modes of public transport in many modern cities include trains and trams, buses, trolley buses, ferries and rapid transit. Public transport is necessary to economic and social development, with easy movement of people, goods and services. Increased number of motor vehicles in the modern cities carries both economic and social costs evidenced by increased air pollution. Air of poor quality can serious affect the health of the public and can result to premature deaths. Public transport is said to be the key of reducing air pollution in the urban cities in the following ways: reduced emission of carbon monoxide, reduced emission of nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide emission, reduced emission of the volatile organic compounds and minimized fossil fuel consumption. Studies have shown that private vehicles, which are mainly petrol-powered, emit carbon monoxide, lead, benzene and lead which are detrimental to the air in our cities (European Environment Agency 2010). Still, due to the large number of this private vehicles, they are bound to emit this pollutants in high amounts compared to public transport. It is clear that, in order to reduce the air pollution and especially the concentration of carbon monoxide in our cities, there is need for people to rely much on public transport rather than the private vehicles. Nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide emitted on the environment. Study conducted by the American enterprise institute and Brookings institution in 2002 showed out that the quantity of nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide emitted by the private vehicles was about double the amount emitted by the public transport for every mile traveled by a passenger (European Environment Agency 2010). Use of public transport can reduce carbon footprint of an individual. Another study in the year 2005 showed that the use of public means rather than the private means could have reduced the carbon dioxide emission in the United States by 3. 9 million of metric tones. So it is much possible that, reducing air pollution in our cities can be achieved by depending more on the public transport. On other organic volatile compounds, the same study showed that the private vehicles could emit 92 percent more organic volatile compounds than the public vehicles as compared to mile traveled by each passenger. Efforts of reducing air pollution in our cities should focus on how to minimize usage of private vehicles in transport and also encourage use of the public means in transport. The same studies by the same two institutes showed out that in United States, public transport only used half of the fuel which was required to fuel the private vehicles. The more fossil fuel is used, the more emission of pollutant air is likely to emit in the environment, so in order to reduce the air pollution in our cities, there is need to encourage use of public transport. Public transport is very vital in our cities especially in achieving the global war on reducing air pollution which can result to global warming. Efforts need to be put in place to ensure that people use much the public means in most of their traveling because it will reduce air pollution in our cities as well as reducing the urban congestion of vehicles and also reduce the overdependence of energy imports. Bibliography European Environment Agency, 2010, Sources of Air pollution, Viewed July 27, 2010 http://www. eea. europa. eu/publications/2599XXX/page010. html

thelma and louise Essay -- essays research papers

The movie Thelma and Louise attempts to make a difference in the way that people think. It sets out to challenge a number of conventional attitudes toward women. Although it achieves some success in this area for women, it does not do a great deal to rebuff society’s stereotypical images of men. For the most part, men are portrayed in a negative light and in this paper, I will explore where these negative images appear within the movie. Thelma's husband, Darryl is portrayed as a dirt-bag. He is intolerant, selfish, egotistic and domineering. In the beginning of the movie Thelma is shown leaving a meal in the microwave for her husband as she sets off with her friend Louise for a weekend holiday. This is the first of numerous occasions in which the movie seizes the opportunity to perpetuate negative images of men. This first image reinforces the view that men are incompetent at looking after themselves and if left alone, they would be unable to feed themselves. Darryl’s negative image continues throughout the movie, he never realizes that his treatment of his wife contributes to her unhappiness and her subsequent rejection of him even though Thelma has talked to him about this. Darryl is shown as a distant and unfeeling creature that would rather watch his football game and laze around drinking beer than know the whereabouts of his mysteriously missing wife. He is the embodiment of the lazy, beer-guzzling slob of a husband of editorials and comic strips. Another example of his...

Tax Evasion & the Black Economy

TAX EVASION It is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability and includes in particular dishonest tax reporting, such as declaring less income, profits or gains than actually earned or overstating deductions.Tax evasion is an activity commonly associated with the informal economy and one measure of the extent of tax evasion is the amount of unreported income, namely the difference between the amount of income that should legally be reported to the tax authorities and the actual amount reported, which is also sometimes referred to as the tax gap. Tax avoidance, on the other hand, is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law.Both tax evasion and avoidan ce can be viewed as forms of tax noncompliance, as they describe a range of activities that are unfavorable to a state's tax system, though such characterization of tax avoidance is suspect, given that avoidance operates lawfully, within self-creating systems Smuggling Smuggling is importation or exportation of foreign products by unauthorized means. Smuggling is resorted to for total evasion of customs duties, as well as for the importation of contraband items.A smuggler does not have to pay any customs duty since the products are not routed through an authorized customs port, and therefore are not subjected to declaration and payment of duties and taxes. Ten countries with the largest absolute levels of tax evasion per year. It is estimated that global tax evasion amounts to 5 percent of the global economy. During the latter half of the twentieth century, value added tax (VAT) has emerged as a modern form of consumption tax through the world, with the notable exception of the Unit ed States.Producers who collect VAT from the consumers may evade tax by under-reporting the amount of sales. The US has no broad-based consumption tax at the federal level, and no state currently collects VAT; the overwhelming majority of states instead collect sales taxes. Canada uses both a VAT at the federal level (the Goods and Services Tax) and sales taxes at the provincial level; some provinces have a single tax combining both forms. In addition, most jurisdictions which levy a VAT or sales tax also legally require their residents to report and pay the tax on items purchased in another jurisdiction.This means that those consumers who purchase something in a lower-taxed or untaxed jurisdiction with the intention of avoiding VAT or sales tax in their home jurisdiction are in fact breaking the law in most cases. Such evasion is, especially, prevalent in federal states like the Nigeria, US and Canada where sub-national jurisdictions have the constitutional power to charge varying rates of VAT or sales tax. In Nigeria for example, some local states enforce VAT on each goods sold by trader. The price must be clearly stated and the VAT distinct from the price of the good purchased.Any act by the trader contrary to this (like including VAT in the price of the goods) is punishable as attempting to syphoning the VAT. Borders between tax districts in the same nation usually lack the resources to enforce tax collection on goods carried in private vehicles from one district to another, so states only pursue sales and use tax collection on high-value items such as cars. Government response The level of evasion depends on a number of factors, one of them being fiscal equation.People's tendency to evade income tax declines when the return for due payment of taxes is not obvious. Evasion also depends on the efficiency of the tax administration. Corruption by the tax officials often render control of evasion difficult. Tax administrations resort to various means for plugg ing in scope of evasion and increasing the level of enforcement. Corruption by tax officials Corrupt tax officials cooperate with the tax payers who intend to evade taxes. When they detect an instance of evasion, they refrain from reporting in return for illegal gratification or bribe.Corruption by tax officials is a serious problem for the tax administration in a huge number of underdeveloped and southern European countries. Level of evasion and punishment Tax evasion is a crime in almost all developed countries and subjects the guilty party to fines and/or imprisonment. In Switzerland, many acts that would amount to criminal tax evasion in other countries are treated as civil matters. Dishonestly misreporting income in a tax return is not necessarily considered a crime. Such matters are handled in the Swiss tax courts, not the criminal courts. In Switzerland, however, some tax misconduct is criminal, for example, deliberate falsification of records. Moreover, civil tax transgressi ons may give rise to penalties. It is often considered that extent of evasion depends on the severity of punishment for evasion. Normally, the higher the evaded amount, the higher the degree of punishment. BLACK ECONOMY / BLACK MARKET Is the economy in which illegal goods are traded. Due to the nature of the goods traded, the economy itself is forced to operate outside the formal economy, supported by the established state power.Typically the totality of such activity is referred to with the definite article as a complement to the official economies, by market for such goods and services, e. g. â€Å"the black market in bush meat†. The black market is distinct from the grey market, in which commodities are distributed through channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer, and the white market, the legal market for goods and services. Worldwide, the underground economy is estimated to have provided 1. 8 billion jobs. Back groundThe literature on the black market has avoided a common usage and has instead offered a plethora of appellations including: subterranean; hidden; grey; shadow; informal; clandestine; illegal; unobserved; unreported; unrecorded; second; parallel and black. This profusion of vague labels attests to the confusion of a literature attempting to explore a largely uncharted area of economic activity. There is no single black economy; there are many. These black economies are omnipresent, existing in market oriented as well as in centrally planned nations, be they developed or developing.Those engaged in underground activities circumvent, escape or are excluded from the institutional system of rules, rights, regulations and enforcement penalties that govern formal agents engaged in production and exchange. Different types of underground activities are distinguished according to the particular institutional rules that they violate. Five specific underground economies can be identified: 1. Illegal Economy 2. Unreported Economy 3. Unrecorded Economy 4. Informal Economy 5. Criminal Acts 1. ILLEGAL ECONOMYThe â€Å"illegal economy† consists of the income produced by those economic activities pursued in violation of legal statutes defining the scope of legitimate forms of commerce. Illegal economy participants engage in the production and distribution of prohibited goods and services, such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and prostitution. 2. UNREPORTED ECONOMY The â€Å"unreported economy† consists of those economic activities that circumvent or evade the institutionally established fiscal rules as codified in the tax code.A summary measure of the unreported economy is the amount of income that should be reported to the tax authority but is not so reported. A complementary measure of the unreported economy is the â€Å"tax gap†, namely the difference between the amount of tax revenues due the fiscal authority and the amount of tax revenue a ctually collected. 3. UNRECORDED ECONOMY The â€Å"unrecorded economy† consists of those economic activities that circumvent the institutional rules that define the reporting requirements of government statistical agencies.A summary measure of the unrecorded economy is the amount of unrecorded income, namely the amount of income that should (under existing rules and conventions) be recorded in national accounting systems (e. g. National Income and Product Accounts) but is not. Unrecorded income is a particular problem in transition countries that switched from a socialist accounting system to UN standard national accounting. New methods have been proposed for estimating the size of the unrecorded (non-observed) economy. But there is still little consensus concerning the size of the unreported economies of transition countries. 4.INFORMAL ECONOMY The â€Å"informal economy† comprises those economic activities that circumvent the costs and are excluded from the benefits and rights incorporated in the laws and administrative rules covering property relationships, commercial licensing, labor contracts, torts, financial credit and social security systems. A summary measure of the informal economy is the income generated by economic agents that operate informally. The informal sector is defined as the part of an economy that is not taxed, monitored by any form of government, or included in any gross national product (GNP), unlike the formal economy.In developed countries the informal sector is characterized by unreported employment. This is hidden from the state for tax, social security or labor law purposes but is legal in all other aspects. On the other hand, the term black market can be used in reference to a specific part of the economy in which contraband is traded. Pricing Goods acquired illegally take one of two price levels: They may be cheaper than legal market prices. The supplier does not have to pay for production costs or taxes. This is us ually the case in the black economy.Criminals steal goods and sell them below the legal market price, but there is no receipt, guarantee, and so forth. They may be more expensive than legal market prices. The product is difficult to acquire or produce, dangerous to handle or not easily available legally, if at all. If goods are illegal, such as some drugs, their prices can be vastly inflated over the costs of production. Black market can form part of border trade near the borders of neighboring jurisdictions with little or no border control if there are substantially different tax rates, or where goods are legal on one side of the border but not on the other.Products that are commonly smuggled like this include alcohol and tobacco. However, not all border trade is illegal. Prostitution Prostitution is illegal or highly regulated in most countries across the world. These places form a classic study of the black economy, because of consistent high demand from customers, relatively hig h pay, but labor intensive and low skilled work, which attracts a continual supply of workers. While prostitution exists in every country, studies show that it tends to flourish more in poorer countries, and in areas with large numbers of unattached men, such as around military bases.Prostitutes in the black market generally operate with some degree of secrecy, sometimes negotiating prices and activities through codewords and subtle gestures. In countries such as the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal but regulated, illegal prostitutes exist whose services are offered cheaper without regard for the legal requirements or procedures— health checks, standards of accommodation, and so on. In other countries such as Nicaragua where legal prostitution is regulated, hotels may require both parties to identify themselves, to prevent the rise of child prostitution. WeaponsFire Arms trafficking The legislatures of many countries forbid or restrict the personal ownership of weapon s. These restrictions can range from small knives to firearms, either altogether or by classification (e. g. caliber, automation, etc. ), and explosives. The black market supplies the demands for weaponry that cannot be obtained legally, or may only be obtained legally after obtaining permits and paying fees. This may be by smuggling the arms from countries where they were bought legally or stolen, or by stealing from arms manufacturers within the country itself, using insiders.In cases where the underground economy is unable to smuggle firearms, they can also satisfy requests by gunsmithing their own firearms. Those who may buy this way include criminals to use for illegal activities, gun collectors, and otherwise law abiding citizens interested in protecting their dwellings, families or businesses. Illegally logged timber Illegally logged timber is a huge problem. According to interpol, the illegal logging industry is worth almost as much as drug production industry, in some count ries. Animals and animal productsIvory trade / Wildlife trade In many developing countries, living animals are captured in the wild and sold as pets. Wild animals are also hunted and killed for their meat, hide, organs, †¦ Organs and other animal parts are sold for use in traditional medicine. Alcohol / Tobacco It has been reported that smuggling one truckload of cigarettes from a low-tax US state to a high-tax state can lead to a profit of up to $2 million. The low-tax states are generally the major tobacco producers, and have come under enormous criticism for their reluctance to increase taxes.Biological Organs Trade Organ trade is the trade involving inner organs (heart, liver, kidneys, etc. ) of a human for transplantation. There is a worldwide shortage of organs available for transplantation, yet trade in human organs is illegal in all countries except Iran. The problem of organ trafficking is widespread, although data on the exact scale of the organ market is difficult to obtain. Whether or not to legalize the organ trade, and the appropriate way to combat illegal trafficking, is a subject of much debate. Software piracyStreet vendors in countries where there is scant enforcement of copyright law, particularly in Asia and Latin America, often sell deeply discounted copies of films, music CDs, and computer software such as video games, sometimes even before the official release of the title. A determined counterfeiter with a few hundred dollars can make copies that are digitally identical to an original and suffer no loss in quality; innovations in consumer DVD and CD writers and the widespread availability of cracks on the Internet for most forms of copy protection technology make this cheap and easy to do.

Analysis of The Fall of the House of Usher - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 1044 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2019/07/03 Category Literature Essay Type Analytical essay Level High school Tags: The Fall of The House of Usher Essay Did you like this example? In the short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, written by the poet Edgar Allen Poe during the romantic period, it sheds light into a time where there was much darkness, mental illness, and an overall negative phycological outlook and misunderstanding to certain societal and personal identifications. Poe is a known poet of revealing the inner evils and the dark and gloomy settings within his writings. He is a known writer of the personal fears and fictional mysteries that displayed a semi-accurate truth that was historically known as the gothic writing style during the romantic period. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Analysis of The Fall of the House of Usher" essay for you Create order This gothic style of writing that Poe is known for is precisely presented in, The Fall of the House of Usher, within Poes extensive use of a darkened setting, the use of underlying physical and mental illnesses, surreal imagery, and symbolism that both represented the gothic writing style and the historical context of the mid-nineteenth century. The short story written by Edgar Allen Poe begins with a descriptive yet negative setting that promotes the gothic literature style presented by the author. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. (Poe 629) This descriptive beginning to the story portrays to the reader the gothic style of writing that Poe is known for. When looking at what makes literature apart of the gothic style we can review the comments made by Andrew Smith when he describes the characteristics of gothic literature for the romantic period when stating that gothic styles contain representations of ruins [or] castles and that it contains, forms of monstrosity, and images of insanity, transgression, and the supernatural. When looking at the short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, and what Smith identified as elements of a gothic writing, the readers can identify the correlation to the gothic literature based on the imagery used to describe the setting. The audience can use the imagery and diction used by Poe to solidify this statement with the use of words such as, Decaying, excessive antiquity, and even the description of the grey walls that darken the setting furthermore and help present the themes of gothic li terature. Using what Smith presented as characteristics of gothic literature the audience can create a connection of the gothic literature genre to the short story written by Poe, but we can also use contextual evidence in the story to get an idea of the theme and period and how it was presented in, The Fall of the House of Usher. A major theme of the short story is incest. Incest is subtlety presented to the reader at first when the author mentions in the short story, Her decease, he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers (Poe 633). This is important to the theme and the period because it sheds light upon the reason of the mental illnesses faced by the Ushers. As Poe presented a like comparison between both remaining members of the Usher family when he describes their features, figures, and even the air around them all seemingly alike, even Identical (Poe 633). With this description of the Ushers Poe is giving even more insight on the ancestral lineage of incest and its importance to the overall plot. When understanding the importance of the relation of incest to the plot the understanding of the side effects of incest is a required knowledge. Written in a scientific meta-analysis study there is a statement about incest and how it relates to the Ushers when stated, Biological incest offenders exhibited more psychopathology (e.g., mental health difficulties) (Toates). This is a key factor in the plot and identifications of the Ushers mental illnesses and fears. This reported research of biological incest (which is what is believed to be a part of the Ushers lineage) ties together the themes of the story and gives certain understanding to why the Ushers actions, appearances, and phycological states are presented the way they are in Poes, The Fall of the House of Usher. When looking at symbolism in the short story the audience can identify certain aspects that reference the gothic literature this specific story is a part of, but also the time period in which this work is written in. Symbolism is immediately found in the title of the piece, The Fall of the House of Usher. This in simple terms represents the crumbling of the House at the end of the story, but in a symbolic aspect it could mean the discontinued lineage of the Usher family with the death of Madeline and Roderick Usher. Diving deeper into the ancestral tree, this also means the discontinuation of the incest that was a part of the Usher family; the incest that caused their mental and phycological illnesses. The Ushers house complete demolition also means that the darkness and evils that surrounded the actions practiced by the Usher lineage are no longer. Poe, represented many different symbolic elements within his short story that presented the audience with insight into the gothic litera ture style and the romantic period. Poes, The Fall of the House of Usher, gives the audience insight into the romantic time period and gothic literature style presented by the writer by using the symbolic elements, the descriptive diction with darkened settings, as well as the use of imagery and other analytical elements to portray his darkened story. It also gives us insight into the importance of the author and his effect on modern day gothic literature and society. As Lasley Dameron commented in his online article, Edgar Allen Poe is the souths most renowned literary artist of the 19th century, and recognizing his connection to the gothic elements and his artistic talent to articulately display the plot and theme of a short story while keeping the audience hypnotized within his writing and is one of the most influential gothic writers during the nineteenth century.