The Roaring Twenties and The Savings and Loan Crisis :: American History Economics

The Roaring Twenties and The Savings and Loan Crisis The movie It's A Wonderful Life starts off in the town of Bedford Falls in the time period just prior to the Great Depression. (I will discuss the Great Depression in more detail in a later essay). It is a prosperous time-the "Roaring Twenties." Many people have invested money in the stock market and are earning quite a bit of money, there are many parties had by all with music, food and drinks, and good company and fun. There are also an abundance of inventions (such as the radio) being introduced into the economy. Furthermore, more people are able to afford such luxuries as telephones, electricity, transportation, etc†¦ During this time, in general, a lot of exchange seems to be occurring, as well as overall rapid technological change. This time period is also associated with the rise to dominance of the capitalist system, as more and more people were changing from being self-employed farmers to becoming employees who were paid a wage for their labor time. Another characteristic associated with the 1920s is the growth and expansion of the financial sector. This of course makes sense and seems justified and logical as, in order for the business sector to expand, access to capital (monetary resources) is necessary so that machinery can be bought and labor be "purchased" and employed. The financial sector (banks) took the household savings which were deposited and then loaned them out to big businesses. The big businesses were then able to continue expanding and improving and hiring people, and thus this helped to perpetuate the prosperous economic environment of the 1920s. The Buildings and Loan, as shown in the movie, (the same as what we refer to as the Savings and Loan Industry) was instituted so that individuals (not corporations) might borrow money to build homes. Therefore, where individuals were previously unable to borrow funds, they now could through this institution. This also seemed to help spur along the prosperous envi ronment of the 1920s-at least for a while. In 1929 when the financial markets collapsed, corporations could no longer afford to purchase new machinery or pay for more workers. Workers could not afford to purchase things because they were not making enough money from their wages. This decrease in demand further caused the companies to stop producing goods and to lay off more workers.

Gave willingly to the company Essay

In my own personal experience I found that in Ikea there were many divorcees and single people. There were also an unusually high number of couples that had met through Ikea and then worked together in the same building. Some of the divorcees openly blamed their relationship break-up on the fact that they work for Ikea; their partners simply did not understand the commitment, in terms of time, that they gave willingly to the company. My own relationship with my partner started to suffer quite soon after the initial 3-month period, I had bonded with my new colleagues and I was enthusiastic and committed to this new way of working my attitude to work and my commitment had changed in favour of Ikea (Festinger, 1957). As a manager it was encouraged that examples should be set by giving that little bit extra to help co-workers across the store, so for example; if the tills were busy at the end of the evening it was an unspoken rule that all managers should stay until closing time to help clear the backlog of customers, this sometimes meant leaving the store an hour and a half after the official end of the day. I found it difficult to go against the norm as everyone else appeared to take it for granted, I wanted to leave at my normal time of 6.00pm but found it impossible to do so when my colleagues were staying behind and helping out. Solomon Asch describes this type of behaviour as yielding (Gross, 1996: Ch 20) conforming to group pressure. Festinger talks about the five conditions for increased fervour in a belief following the disconfirmation of a belief, this is comparable to an example when a close friend of mine at Ikea (store manager) had been working hard and consequently there had been some irrevocable conflict within his marriage about the job and the expectations of Ikea. After his initial split with his wife he dealt with her condemnation of Ikea by â€Å"spreading the word of Ikea† with increased enthusiasm and renewed passion, he saw the Ikea family as his support network and this reliance on the company and Ikea â€Å"family members† simply reinforced the belief in his decision (Festinger, 1959) of ending his marriage. On a similar personal level my job and my alliance to it became an increasing problem at home. My behaviour changed at home, I made excuses about going into work early and staying late. In the initial few months I found myself defending Ikea as I felt so close to my new colleagues and didn’t want to let them down, however as time went on I realised that I missed the quality time with my partner and I saw that my priorities had become affected by my commitment to work. At work I saw friends splitting up with their partners because of similar reasons and then justifying their action by criticising their relationship. This type of validation for their behaviour resembles what Festinger wrote about in â€Å"When Prophecy Fails†. Where dissonance is rationalised through the support of your fellow believers (in this case fellow co-workers). After 12 months I sustained an injury that lead to a back operation and this period away from work (3 months) gave me time to reflect on my time there and started to see how I had been influenced by the Ikea way and how I had conformed to this way incredibly fast. Conformity involves a change of behaviour or opinion in order to fit in with a group. According to Crutchfield â€Å"Conformity is a yielding to group pressure when there is no direct request to comply with the group. † (Gross, 1996: 479). However according to Zimbardo & Leippe † Conformity is a change in belief or behaviour in response to real or imagined group pressure where there is no direct request to comply with the group norm. † (Gross, 1996:479). Majority influence is when a larger group influences a smaller group or individual. Although Asch was generally concerned with how one can resist majority influence and pressure, his experiments are generally deemed to exhibit the power of majority influence. Similar to the influence of the majority found in Ikea. Needless to say upon my return I decided to leave Ikea and 3 months later I moved to another job with a different company. In the first few weeks I felt a great sense of great loss almost a grief my regrets were therefore twofold, I felt a regret of leaving the fold of Ikea and also a regret that conflicted with this and that was of not realising sooner my behavioural and attitude changes that had affected my personal life. In summing up this paper we have looked at Ikea and how its culture was aligned to sociological groups. We have covered the way of working within this organisation and how this relates to conformity and group influence again drawing parallels to similar sociological findings. It has been interesting journey to relate this instance where my own personal experience has been influenced by the belonging of a group, especially a group with such strong cultural roots as Ikea. The analogies found in this paper make it more understandable as to how social influences can have such wide-ranging affects on individuals. And how many situations (from the impact of TV on the masses through to major historical events such as the rise of Nazism) can arise. It certainly makes the self and our interaction with others food for thought. References (Festinger, 1957) Gross, 1996: 448 â€Å"cognitive dissonance theory†. Gross, R. (1999). The Science of Mind and Behavior. (3rd Ed). Hodder & Stoughton. Press) (Festinger, 1959)

Internship at James A Lovell Federal Health Care Center

Internship at James A Lovell Federal Health Care Center The goal of the internship was to complete a 150 hours and provide a weekly summary of activities. In order to get the internship I had to do a phone screening with Mary Doe. She is the administrative assistant to Commander John Doe. Who is the Assistant Associate Director of Facility Support and also the internship supervisor for the SIU Health Care Management students at FHCC. I meet with CDR John Doe for a brief interview. We went over my goals and what I hope to gain by interning at FHCC. I felt interning at FHCC would be a natural transition because CDR Wallis has a background in Healthcare Administration. Operations Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (FHCC) is a five year demonstration project between the Veterans Affair and Department of Defense. Prior to October 1, 2010 the facility before the add-ons was just known as the North Chicago VA. The vision of FHCC is being the future of federal healthcare. The FHCC consists of 88 hospital beds, 124 nursing home care beds, 125 Domiciliary beds, 18 Mental Health Psychosocial Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program beds for requiring residential treatment for substance abuse, homelessness, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosocial rehabilitation and 4 observation beds, a fully integrated west campus dental clinic for active duty and veterans patients. In addition to the 124 beds in the Community Living Center, FHCC is also has two