“The Great Gatsby” chapter 8 Essay

In the beginning of the chapter, we are made aware of Nick’s discomfort and anxious attitude regarding Gatsby and what is to become of him, suggesting that he should get away for a week, but naturally, Gatsby refuses. He then goes onto describe the way that he and Daisy had first met and their relationship that had ensued, before Gatsby proposes he and Nick use the swimming pool for the first and last time that summer; Nick has work to attend, and so declines his offer to leave, but not before paying him the only compliment he gave to him. Towards the middle of the chapter, we are given an insight into George’s life just after Myrtle’s death, who realised he had nobody to go to and was desperate to know who had done such a thing to his wife, eventually coming to the conclusion that it must have been Jay Gatsby. We then meet the climax at the end of the chapter as Wilson not only murders Gatsby, while he waited for Daisy’s phone call, but also himself. Fitz gerald writes the chapter, as in the entire novel, through the persona of Nick, in a first-hand narrative. This aids in the telling of the entire story, in this chapter in particular, because Nick’s true devotion and loyalty to Gatsby as a friend, is evident in the respectful way and non-descript depiction of Gatsby’s death- â€Å"The chauffeur†¦ heard the shots†. In comparison to the description of Myrtle’s gruesome death in the previous chapter; â€Å"her left breast was swinging loose like a flap†; it can be argued that Nick’s self- conscious narrative may actually be quite biased, choosing to withhold information from the reader and, contradicting the way he claimed not to be judgemental in chapter 1, by deciding which characters deserve to be respected and free to die with their dignity intact, despite each of their individual mistakes. Despite Fitzgerald writing the chapter with aspects of tragedy, I do not believe the form of the chapter can be described as being so, but rather, as being tragic. For example, Gatsby’s hamartia is recognised completely in this chapter as his love and adoration of Daisy that hadn’t been returned, the way he takes the blame for Myrtle’s death without any sort of known gratitude, and his relentless trust and faith in her and the fact that he believes she is the key to his happiness and success in his life, eventually lead to his untimely demise while he still held onto the hope that she would return his feelings for her. This helps to tell the story because it is representative of society at the time, allowing  Fitzgerald to portray it as having provided a barrier between classes which could never be crossed, as Gatsby had attempted and was expecting of Daisy. An additional feature that makes the chapter tragic would be the catharsis experienced by the reader through Nick’s realisation of Gatsby’s mistakes; this is because the reader desperately hopes that Gatsby himself will somehow come to the same conclusions that seem so obvious to everybody else- â€Å"They’re a rotten crowd†¦ You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together† Throughout the chapter, Fitzgerald constantly makes connections between weather and the emotions within the novel, giving the impression that the setting of will somehow foreshadow and represent the outcomes later in the chapter. An example of this would be, â€Å"the night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavour in the air†. This use of pathetic fallacy could be used to foreshadow the â€Å"sharp† pain that Gatsby, will later feel as he is shot; James Gatz represented by the â€Å"weather† in general as he had typically been a driving force in the events throughout the novel, having lots of influence over mood and behaviour. Autumn has many connotations, some of which could be the falling of leaves, which symbolises the decay of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship, which has not yet become totally obvious to Gatsby at this point in the chapter. Meanwhile Gatsby stops his gardener from emptying the pool that he hadn’t yet used, In the same way that he is attached to the hope of making Daisy love him the way she used to, he insists on swimming in the pool as though it were still the summer that had just passed, seemingly overnight in contrast to the hottest day of the year in the last chapter, showing his incapability of forgetting the past, constantly trying to hold onto the memori es they shared and to relive their time together. Regardless of the fact that Gatsby’s past had been shared with us in chapter 6, in a relative time scale to the novel, Fitzgerald writes from Nick’s perspective, telling the reader that it is at this point in Gatsby’s life, that he had actually shared it with Nick. Nick describes the reasoning for this as being because â€Å"’Jay Gatsby’ had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice†. Irony is used in this to tell the story as, throughout the novel, Gatsby had been an enigma to all and now, suddenly he is seen as transparent and easy to see through. Also, the use of the word â€Å"glass† gives the impression that, as glass, though it may seem strong on the outside, is weak and easily shattered, the pieces of which can  never be put back together perfectly, Gatsby is finally portrayed as a human with real emotion, showing that he is easily broken, foreshadowing his murder at the end of the chapter. The author uses Doctor T.J Eckleburg’s eyes to represent the increasing meaninglessness of religion over time, particularly in the 1930s as, in the materialistic world between West Egg and East Egg nobody had turned to religion but instead, thrive off of materialism and wealth, and so Eckleburg portrays the eyes of God and his omniscient nature- â€Å"God sees everything†- which been left and forgotten by the wealthy, and fallen victim to the valley of ashes, yet still embodies a moral standard of which all are expected to follow, no matter their stature within society. As a result of this, the story is able to advance through the chapter as Wilson believes that by seeing the crime committed, God demands revenge and so, he leaves in search for the owner of the car who killed his wife.

Swot Apple Case Study

While competitors do everything they can to keep costs down, Apple does what It can to make Its products deferent. In 2007, for the third year In a row, Apple was named as The Most Innovative Company by Businesslike. ; Strong leader. CEO Steve Jobs is â€Å"a legend for his design sense†. He is essential to the promotional aspect and public relations of Apple, especially when it comes to the pod. He is the â€Å"public face and champion of the brand†. He is also an expert when it comes to talking with the press, maintaining relationships with magazine editors, and creating new relationships.Jobs has the ability to think of Ideas that he is extremely passionate and energetic about and is always ready to share that idea to gain exposure. * Customer relationships (responsiveness to customer feedback). This ties into Steve Jobs' strong leadership as he takes action in response to customer feedback to show that the brand is listening and concerned. * Brand Exposure. Part of Apple's marketing strategy is Its retail stores. Apple has opened more than 200 retail stores located worldwide.Apple's retail stores contributed an estimated $200 million, 15 to 16% of Its profits during the past two years. The reasoning behind the stores is the belief that the more people can touch an Apple product and see also offer free group workshops, personal training, and personal assistance for Apple customers. * Strategic partnerships with well-known brands: Apple has created marketing agreements with Volkswagen of America, Burton Snowboards, Nikkei and Struck. This ties into consumer confidence as well as exposure through marketing partner advertisements. * Product design and features.Products that show superior qualities, that are easy to use and that have a high quality format, but mainly that show a clear product differentiation. * Strong financial performance: throng sales and potential growth, strong cash flows, an increasing net income, decreasing debt and controlle d inventory. Weaknesses * Profit per song is low: Even though tunes is simply used as a means to boost the sales of pods, phones and Apple TV's, Apple makes only approximately 10 cents per * Unpopular Apple TV features: users are not able to download a movie from song. Tunes directly to their TV; they have download it to their PC first. Apple TV requires a HDTV, but the movies that can be downloaded are of such low resolution that the picture looks fuzzy and old-fashioned, and lastly, it has no DVD drive. Hard time finalizing contracts with move studios because of pricing disputes. * Struggle with maintaining good supplier relationships. Many companies have expressed frustration working with Apple because Steve Jobs is very clear on his vision for his products and can tend to be controlling. Incompatible software in computer and digital music format. * 1% of the global cell phone business. Opportunities * Brand exposure through retail stores. * International growth and expansion. Ap ple is pursuing opportunities to sell the phone globally. It already has partnership agreements with cell phone carriers in France, Germany, and Great Britain. It has also entered the Middle East and Africa regions, ranking fifth next to Monika, Research In Motion, ETC, and Motorola.Apple is also trying to penetrate the Japanese market since it is one of the world's largest and most demanding mobile phone markets with almost 100 million mobile phone users. * Expansion in product line. Apple is trying to expand its product line to include media and software in addition to hardware. * Expansion in customer base. Apple is also trying to reach many different consumers rather than its traditional of tech- savvy consumers. Improvements in compatibility. * Improvements in strategic partnerships.Apple needs to search for more strategic partnerships and better its relationships with its suppliers so effective agreements can be reached. * Growth in new user segments Threats * Competitors' thr eats. Realizations sought a price war with Apple by dropping the price to $0. 49 per song and $4. 99 per album compared to Apple's price of $0. 99 and $9. 99 respectively. Realizations also launched technology called Harmony, which allows Realizations users to translate songs purchased from Relapse music to be played on Microsoft formats.Wall-Mart launched its own online music store and is currently the number one music retailer in the nation, followed by * Technology and entertainment industries are constantly and rapidly tunes. Changing so Apple has to find a way to keep its reputation related to innovative design. * Threat of start-up companies and competitors. The risk of new entrants is high in the player and music service businesses as well as in the mobile phone market, particularly from large, established consumer electronics companies, such as Cassia, Sony and Toshiba (for players) or from on-line companies like Yahoo andMicrosoft or retailers like Virgin Music (for downloa ds). Given the attractiveness of these markets, new competitors are likely to enter because of low barriers to entry. The notable acceptance and profit made by RIM's Blackberry demonstrate the potential of new entrants to increase rivalry. Due to the success of the phone and the Blackberry, other producers will undoubtedly attempt to imitate their appealing features and functional applications in order to create customer value and compete effectively with their own smart phones.In addition, Apple's exclusive use of Cingular/AT;T does not prevent the phone service provider from entering potentially harmful agreements with the company's competitors, such as its threatening relationship with rival Palm. * Apple's dominance and relative power in the music industry (as well as Jobs' reputation for control) may build resistance among film producers who are accustomed to maintaining their own levels of control over content. * Price sensitivity.The company's entrance into the mobile communi cations industry with the introduction of its phone has placed Apple in another highly competitive industry, where several large, well-funded, and experienced competitors operate. Price sensitivity on the part of consumers is very strong, and rivalry is especially fierce in this market. * A close look at Apple's competition reveals that the company is confronted by aggressive opposition in all areas of its business.The markets for consumer electronics, personal computers, related software and peripheral products, digital music devices and related services, and mobile communication devices are intensely competitive. They are characterized by rapid technological advancements, which have substantially increased the abilities and use of PC's, digital electronics, and mobile communication devices. As a result, a variety of new products with competitive price, feature, and performance characteristics are being introduced into the marketplace. Price competition in Apple's main product mark ets has been particularly fervent. Continuous downward pressure on Apple's margins as it is common for competitors selling personal computers based on other operating systems to aggressively cut prices and accept lower product margins to gain or maintain market share. * Other than price, key competitive factors in the computing market include product treasures, relative price/performance, product quality and reliability, design innovation, availability of software and peripherals, marketing and distribution capability, service and support, and corporate reputation.As the industry and its customers become more reliant on Internet connectivity, alternative (even substitute) devices are becoming increasingly smaller, simpler, and less expensive than traditional PC's. These devices compete for market share with Apple's desktop and content providers to offer integrated solutions that produce more value or exclude Apple from access to content.

Wal-Mart’s Unfair Labor Practices in “Down and Out in Discount America

In â€Å"Down and Out in Discount America,† writer Liza Featherstone (2004) exposes the dirty tactics and unfair business practices that fuel Wal-Mart’s success as a giant retail company, and suggests effective strategies to defeat corporate crime. According to Featherstone, Wal-Mart is one company that literally profits and grows from the presence and worsening of poverty situations, as shown by the results of a study conducted by economist Andrew Franklin which revealed that â€Å"Wal-Mart operated primarily in poor and working-class communities.†Most of the retail company’s customers are â€Å"overwhelmingly female, and struggling to make ends meet. † Featherstone argues that Wal-Mart ensures that its market in the low income segment continually expands by â€Å"creating more bad jobs worldwide. † She also points out that Wal-Mart routinely employs illegal and unethical business practices to maintain its competitive edge over other compani es, including violating wage and labor laws that deprive workers of their living wage and health benefits.More importantly, this set-up â€Å"contribute to an economy in which, increasingly, workers can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart. † The biggest brunt falls on Wal-Mart’s overwhelmingly female workers. As a result, the company has been the subject of â€Å"the largest civil rights class-action suit in history† which â€Å"charges the company with systematically discriminating against women in pay and promotions.† The company has also been cleverly using public funds to subsidize its low wages by encouraging its workers to apply for welfare assistance. Despite the company’s glaring offenses, however, poor women continue to patronize Wal-Mart because it is all they can afford. Featherstone therefore contends that the success of a concerted action against the giant company lies in the ability of stakeholders such as labor unions to go beyond the co nsumer mentality, constructed by big business, in creating avenues of resistance.The author notes that â€Å"to effectively battle corporate criminals like Wal-Mart, the public must be engaged as citizens, not merely as shoppers,† in order to form a movement with enough social and political power to challenge Wal-Mart and to advance the interest of the poor and the working class. Arguably, Featherstone’s article is one of the most convincing and informative pieces there is that provides a balanced and level-headed discussion of an issue that is as inflammatory as â€Å"the â€Å"Wal-Martization† of American jobs.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Down and Out in Discount America† is clearly intended for a wide spectrum of audience. Featherstone assumes that her readers know Wal-mart but they do not know about its unfair practices and illegal activities. Through the clever use of rhetoric and data, the author delivers an essay that is both incisive and engaging. Featherstone u ses both academic data and well-placed personal narratives of the workers of Wal-Mart to build her case.In the process, she does not need to explicitly state that Wal-mart profits from injustice and deepening income divide, this is already substantiated by the real-life cases and hard statistics that speak about the way the company â€Å"profits not only on women's drudgery but also on their joy, creativity and genuine care for the customer† and conditions its consumers to be heavily dependent on the â€Å"relief† brought by Wal-Mart discounted prices. It is interesting to note that Featherstone incorporates contrary ideas into her piece—such as the welcoming attitude towards Wal-Mart held by poor women—to illuminate and strengthen her stance.Thus, Featherstone avoids taking the â€Å"boycott† stance that would have been too simplistic an answer to as big a problem as Wal-Mart. â€Å"Down and Out in Discount America† also does not have the d epressing tone that most articles dealing with serious social issues are often infected with; this is not to say that the article does not evoke an emotional response from the reader but that it presents an image of women workers, who, despite their desperation and sad circumstance, manage to lend their anecdotes to show the multi-dimensionality of the Wal-Mart experience. One therefore finds it hard not to take Featherstone’s side against Wal-mart.The writer undoubtedly presents a well-informed case that explores the Wal-Mart’s labor issues in both a personal and social angle, and attempts to convince the audience on the logic and soundness of why the poor should stop shopping at Wal-Mart (which Featherstone has already conceded is an exercise in futility) but on why there should be more stringent policies to safeguard the poor from unfair labor practices and why there should be adequate legal measures to punish corporate criminal activities that prey upon the despera tion of the poor and the working class.Featherstone is also right in pointing out the need for a political and social movement that would leverage the interest of the poor and the working class above corporate interests. This movement must be a powerful enough presence to generate political pressure on the government and on big businesses to fulfill their social obligations.Clearly, â€Å"Down and Out in Discount America† is a searing portrayal of what happens when citizens literally put their souls out for a â€Å"bargain† with big businesses, which has transformed them into mere consumers whose participation in political and social decision-making is limited to individualistic shopping and purchase decisions. Fortunately, writers like Featherstone are there to remind consumers that they are, first and foremost, citizens and workers with stakes not only in payday discount sales but in the future and direction of labor and living conditions in the community and the cou ntry.

The Effect Pollution Has On the Planet Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The Effect Pollution Has On the Planet - Essay Example In addition, many of these waters ultimately find their way to ocean waters which has cause large areas of the seas to be barren of life. Air pollution causes respiratory problems and, more importantly, is causing the Earth’s climate to change, the consequences of which are far-ranging and potentially catastrophic. Lawmakers have focused their efforts to address the pollution of America’s waterways by passing legislation intended to reduce the amount of contaminants discharged from factories but the American fresh water systems remain polluted. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, roughly 40 percent of the country’s lakes, rivers and streams still are unsafe for fishing or swimming because they are overburdened with silt and chemicals from thousands of small sources, a circumstance known as â€Å"non-point† pollution. This phrase refers to polluting the waterways other than by dumping chemicals directly into the water such as improperly discarded motor oil, pesticides, lawn chemicals, fertilizers or animal waste from commercial farms. Fertilizers and pesticides from agricultural sources, point of contact, cause more of the pollutants affecting the fragile water systems than commercial pollutants. These systems run across the â€Å"Breadbasket† areas of A merica then are deposited in ocean waters of the East Coast and oxygen-depleted Gulf of Mexico. Large areas of these seas have been designated as ‘dead zones.’ Vast areas of East Coast waters and the Gulf of Mexico can no longer support life such as crabs and shrimp. These dead zones are constantly expanding. â€Å"The dead zone fluctuates in size each year, extending a record 8,500 square miles during the summer of 2002 and stretching over 7,700 square miles during the summer of 2010.† (â€Å"Facts,† 2010) Ammonia, a lethal gaseous form of nitrogen released during waste removal, can travel hundreds of miles through the air before falling back to Earth either on the ground or in the water, where it produces algal blooms which kills fish. â€Å"Fertilizers and animal waste from factory livestock farms have helped trigger an unprecedented number of algal blooms, destructive growth spurts that clog waterways and suffocate fish.† (Warrick, 2001). Most i nfamous were outbreaks of deadly algae, including Pfiesteria piscicida, an organism blamed for the deaths of a billion fish along the coast of North Carolina. The quantity of fresh water for drinking continues to be significantly reduced because of chemical pollutants. This regretful circumstance is especially difficult for drought-stricken areas. This critical situation is reversible but must involve educating small and large-scale farmers to more environment friendly means of growing crops and requiring its implementation. A water restoration program initiated by the federal Clean Water Act of 1972 determines the maximum quantity of a pollutant that a body of water can have and still meet federal quality standards by using a calculation named The Total Maximum Daily Load. This is the primary legal remedy for government intervention concerning non-point water pollution. Federal regulations require state administrative bodies to take into consideration all sources of pollution acros s the watershed (drainage basin) of a river. â€Å"Watershed is the term used to describe the geographic area of land that drains water to a shared destination† (â€Å"Report,† 2011). Water, in the form of melting snow or rain, drains toward the lowest point in a

Personal Professional Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Personal Professional Development - Essay Example Correspondingly, my linguistic skills have enhanced my abilities to handle the linguistic labours. With enhanced experiences and skills, I am able to handle difficult issues that are likely to arise during my course of operation. My previous experiences gained from different courses in my career and educational life has enhanced my qualities to learn from operations and work with team. Psychometric test enhances the ability to measures my skills and even provides me with a guided framework to identify my major weaknesses. The scores attained from the psychometric tests have assisted in identifying my skill sets and develop the same. Furthermore, the psychometric tests that I have undergone have enhanced my skills to work out my weaknesses and develop my ability to meet with the changing needs of the present professional environment (Jenkins, 2001). The psychometric analysis of the tests I have undergone reflects that I have a high score on the index. This even reflects that I have a greater accuracy towards understanding a problem. The verbal score I have achieved is 97 percentile, which depicts that I have a good communication skill. In addition, the verbal score signifies that I have the ability to communicate effectively as compared to others. With the overall assessments of the different tests, I have identified to possess satisfactory level of innovativeness. I can think critically and develop my abilities to meet with a given problem in an efficient manner. I can even effectively develop an accurate understanding of the different problems by justifying the factors related to the problems witnessed. Furthermore, with an increased ability to efficiently handle and develop well-presented communication ability, I am able to develop a better interpersonal relationship and even prevent situations of conflicts. The added advantage that I have obtained from the test is my literacy rate that is even likely to enhance my ability to cater

Discussion Board paragraph Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Discussion Board paragraph - Essay Example In criminological language, victimless crime is now expressed as Public order crime. Newman (2005) states that â€Å"The U.S. Government uses victimless crimes to control and manipulate its citizens. Prosecuting victimless crimes is driving our country into debt, destroying the Bill of Rights, destroying families and leaving more of our population in prison than any other country. Often the hysteria of victimless crimes traps innocent people and destroys their lives. Victimless crimes also erode respect for the law.†    There are convinced crimes, which may be measured as victimless crimes, which moreover are forbidden, or not. Certainly, almost everything can be forbidden (for instance not wearing a veil as a lady). This is merely a small list of genuine or historical illegal actions in western society that can be measured as victimless crimes. The laws beside victimless crimes are not straight intimidation to seclusion themselves. In criminalizing definite performance, society makes a verdict that there can be no personal importance in those actions. However victimless crime laws do bully the privacy of guiltless because of the scrutinizing and analysis they need for enforcement. No one of the contestant in a victimless crime will account it to authorities. To implement this kind of offense law, authorized authorities must employ in widespread observance, wiretapping, and close watch of suspected criminals and the community. Certain laws are: William Acton in his book â€Å"Prostitution† (1968) blames women for Prostitution when he says, â€Å""Every unchaste woman is not a prostitute. By unchastity a woman becomes liable to lose character, position, and the means of living; and when these are lost is too often reduced to prostitution for support, which, therefore, may be described as the trade adopted by all women who have abandoned an

Disney World Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Disney World - Assignment Example Disney World Walt Elias Disney, who is the founder of Walt Disney Company, had a vision of creating the best innovating and globally recognized company in the field of entertainment (DIS, 2012). This is carried forward in the present situation as well. The company has diversified the business into five main segments i.e. Media networks. Studio Entertainment, Consumer Products, Interactive Media and Parks and Resorts (Disney, 2012). The foremost reason that Walt Disney Company enjoys the reputation of providing exceptional experience of magic to all its guests in all areas of operations i.e. theme parks, resorts, restaurants, retail stores etc. is the vision and mission of the company. According to Lang (2012), the vision and mission of the company can be best described as â€Å"The Company has mission of becoming the top-ranked producer and provider of information and entertainment across the globe. We strive to create differentiation by making a portfolio of brands that have the relevant content, consumer products and services that our customers are looking for and appreciate. The main aim of the company is to constantly develop innovative, profitable and creative sources of entertainment and similar products internationally†. Among the most successful creations by Walt Disney Company is Walt Disney World. The theme park was founded on October 01, 1971 in Florida and it was originally called Disney World.

Breast Cancer Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Breast Cancer - Research Paper Example The death due to breast cancer is a nightmare for all the women. However, National Cancer Institute has given some hope to the people by providing with the information that the survival rate of the breast cancer patients have increased from 48 percent to 52 percent in a span of 19 years (Mankiller, p.68). A number of women in US who are breast cancer survivors and won the battle against this life-ending disease are now leading a reasonably normal life. New York Magazine illustrated a story of a breast cancer survivor in 1992. Joyce Wadler who is a resident of New York stated in the magazine, â€Å"I have a scar on my left breast, four inches long that runs from right side of my breast to just above the nipple. The true story is, that a surgeon made the cut, following the line I had drawn for him the night before. He asked where I wanted the scar, the surgeon took it out using a local, and when he was done, I asked to see it. A robin’s egg size with the grey brain like matter that gives it its name: medullary cancer. It rested in the middle of a large ball of pink and white breast tissues, sliced down the centre like a hard-boiled egg, an onion like layering of whitish grey tissues about it, and I looked at it hard, trying to figure it out. We did know it was cancer until twenty minutes later, when they had almost finished stitching me up and the pathology report came back, and then I was especially glad I had looked. Mano a mano, eyeball to eyeball. This is a modern story. Me and my cancer. I won† (Wadler, p.36). The risk of getting breast cancer augments with age until the menopause, after which the risk decreases drastically. The probability of having breast cancer is higher than of lungs cancer in young age. Most of the women become a victim of this disease at an age of 25-30 and they are the largest group of female cancer survivors. The breast cancer survivors face number of physical and emotional consequences after the treatment and need a sp ecial health care. Women who are breast cancer survivors, often lack confidence due to the physical changes they suffer after treatment and they hesitate to date someone. A forty-five year old divorced woman who is a breast cancer survivor said, â€Å"I do not feel as beautiful. It is as if I am not as confident as I was before I had my breasts removed. I am not as confident getting to know someone new in that way, not at all† (Abel & Subramanian, p.95, 2008). This behavior of the breast cancer patients is due to the mistreatment they get from other people. They lose social life, their friends leave them, and they feel lonely. However, a positive attitude is all what a cancer survivor needs in order to enjoy his or her life. Sarah a resident of New York is a proud survivor of breast cancer too. She was 27 years old when doctors told her about her breast cancer. She says, â€Å"Since I have had breast cancer, it is clear that I have changed. For starters, I value my body more now. I treat it more carefully and do not take it fore granted. I also think that I look better than before and like the way I look. Over the years, I have developed a dress style that covers up my bad parts and play up my good parts† (Kahane, p.22). Works Cited Abel, Emily K. & Subramanian,

Pepsi Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Pepsi - Case Study Example The company has heavily relied on the use of social media in order to promote its products. The case even outlines how Pepsi plans to distribute the grants and how grant proposals can be submitted. There are various commonalities that can be identified by reviewing the slogans that Pepsi has used to advertise itself. One of the most common themes in these slogans was the youth of the society. In various slogans Pepsi has associated itself with people from the younger generation for example the slogan of 1961 states that those individuals who think that they are young should consume Pepsi. In order to target the youth and to develop its image as a product that has been developed for the youth the slogans mostly focus on the elements of adventure and youthfulness. Another theme that the company has used to advertise its cola is the theme of social ability. It has tried to again and again create the idea that people who aim to socialize more or are individuals who find it easy to socialize should drink Pepsi Cola. Pepsi has quite effectively used different elements of the marketing mix and has left no stone unturned to reach their consumers. They have used the element of advertising by aggressively using social media and they have even advertised on more than 30 cable television channels as well as sponsored reality shows. They have used the element of public relations in which they are trying to develop healthy relationships by positioning themselves as a socially responsible company (Du, 2000, p.3). For the purpose of public relation they have used the refresheverything.com website that allows webpage visitors to select different social causes that need donations and funding. Furthermore, they have use public celebrities such as Mark Sanchez to act as spokespersons of their new grant campaign. Overall the company has quite effectively used various marketing mix elements and created a well-designed

Sociological imagination Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Sociological imagination - Essay Example This paper shall discuss the basis of the secondary schools and how these shape up the beliefs and ideologies of the students in a number of different ways. It will take a look at how the sociological imagination within their ranks develops and what more could be done to bring sanity within the related ranks in the future. Social Identity Defined Social identity is defined as a method within the domains of social psychology where individuals are earmarked to differentiate between a number of levels or in terms of their identity types. The social identity philosophy is made use of by people from different disciplines where economics and political science stand out within the related realms. The inter-group relations are discussed at length within the social identity domains and this is the reason why it has been largely highlighted in the studies that deal with identity building across a number of platforms. Role of Secondary Schools in Shaping up Social Identity How the secondary sch ools shape up the social identity domains of the students is something that needs to be understood. This is the age when the students exploit their strengths and want to know more and more about the worldly affairs than was ever the case in the past. This is the time when they will get to know about things that they have never discussed in the earlier stages of their lives. It is true to state that the social identities start getting advanced with each passing day and the significance for this is provided through the acts and behaviors of the students themselves. They believe that they should get to know more about the world around them, and thus discern the real basis of humanity by all means of imagination. Their sociological perspectives start getting developed, where they explore how things work and shape up in different situations, and how these embody the basis of success for their own selves in the long run. In short, there is a great amount of breakdown of thoughts and perce ptions that were there within their minds in the past. What they see now is filled with experiments that they have had at this stage. They will get to find out about things up close and personal, and thus experience the same through their hands. They will see the reality basis of things and thus change their perspectives. Relationship of Social Identities with Educational Under-attainment Since the secondary schools make the students realize where they are going to be as regards to their future domains, it is only natural to think of the students in the same light. This is because the social identity issues deem a great deal of significance for the students when it comes to gaining an understanding of the educational quarters. These educational regimes receive a kick since under-attainment can easily be witnessed by the people who matter the most within the affairs of these secondary schools – the top management which is concerned with the propagation of education. The social identities with educational under-attainment come about as a reality because the students start believing in the fact that there could be much more than education at this age. They delve into other zones of life and decipher the meaning of such acts in a wholly different way. There is a good amount of confusion happening within their fore and this is the reason why the

Team Creation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Team Creation - Essay Example The selection of the project team members will be done on the basis of this vital information. Next, a pool of candidates should be prepared from whom the project team members are to be selected. The selection process must consist of personal interview, group discussion, and if necessary, written or objective type assessment based on the project requirements. The project team should have some specialist members, supporting staff, and multi tasking experts. (Chapman and Ward, 2003) Team Building Strategies Effective team building can be critically helpful so that the project team leader may not have to face the problem of incompetence that may lead to total deadlock and unrecoverable down time. According to Chapman and Ward (2003), a project has a project life cycle, which is divided into the stages of conceptualization, planning, execution, and administration. During team building, it should properly be defined that what the team members are expected to do through each stage of the p roject life cycle. In the team, decisions must be based on consensus, team values must be specified, goals must be shared, and evaluation must constantly be done right from the time of team building to ensure better coherence and productivity. The team size should neither be too large or too small. (McGregor et al, 1966) Potential Areas of Conflict The cultural issues can particularly be important while managing a culturally diverse project team. Technical issues can create problems when the project team is diverse in the sense that specialists from different fields of profession and academia are taking part. Besides cultural and technical conflicts, conflict of opinion too can lead to serious problems. Racial barriers, personal ego, and lack of respect for each other are common in a diverse project team. The situation may become more complicated in the case expectations are unreasonably high and goals are not properly set. Techniques of Reducing the Probability of Dysfunctional Con flicts Some ethical values like respect for each other, dedicated participation, and mutual trust must be ushered in the project team (McGregor et al, 1966). Project life cycle provides the project team members with a framework that can be helpful in dividing responsibilities, setting priorities, etc. The way of doing things in the course of the project should be sequenced according to the project life cycle in order to avoid risk of confusion and dysfunction (Chapman and Ward, 2003). The basic questions like â€Å"what is management?† and â€Å"what is business?† must be answered in relation to the project with support from practical case studies. Tools and techniques like inventory control and networks of critical path can help in better decision making to avoid dysfunction and hence dysfunctional conflicts (Payne at al, 2004). Conflict Resolution Techniques Conflict resolution techniques should be available right from the beginning of the project work. Consensus bas ed decision making, proper goal setting, goal sharing, and integration of team values are the basic conflict resolution techniques. Mutualism, dedication, and respect add more emotional intelligences to the project team and hence conflict resolution techniques can effectively be based on the ethical grounds (McGregor et al,

Interpret Marketing Trends and Developments Essay Example for Free

Interpret Marketing Trends and Developments Essay The aim of this report is to determine if potential alternative hub airports to service the growing of Australasian and Pacific markets by researching and identifying considerable inroads into this large market for expanding and growing opportunities for Virgin Australia’s potential abilities Methods Used A questionnaire (Appendix 1) was distributed to students attending Metropolitan South Institute of Tafe (MSIT) as well other data conducted to research preliminary and secondary data from the Tourism Australia market profile. As well as conducting Risk Analysis from other countries in the Pacific and Australasian countries, which includes airlines and traveller statistics and performances. When undertaking the questionnaires, the data was distributed and collated by answering question on what students preferred as their haul destinations. As a result the analysis was conducted that most of the students preferred Fiji in category 1 while category 2 the students preferred Malaysia that has the highest percentage of students followed by Vietnam and Philippines as their hub destination. Students preferred its natural beauties of its countries rather that its infrastructure, and rich heritage. As well as its scenic views and luckily 23 students have travelled internationally while 4 students said they never travelled at all. From the students conducted in this questionnaire students were around 21 to 30 years old more than the rest of the respondents in this demographic. Sources Other than the questionnaire, this report did not use any other sources but analysing a risk matrix of countries whether the profile status was able to be a hub destination or not. Scope This report looks at the opinions of students attending MSIT Mt Gravatt, and investigations of countries in the Pacific and Australasian regions for strategies to conduct major airlines services. Background From this report it will be investigated by the following elements of regional analysis in Australasia and the Pacific. It will also look at the trends from the landscape of aviation analysis and the main key airlines that each countries support on using as its carrier. Demographics will also be analysed by the market performance of the country in each category and its destination ports and statistics. Establishing a performance on its international routes will be the key priority in building successful and stronger platforms for the future.

Export Oriented Industrialization In Developing Countries

Export Oriented Industrialization In Developing Countries One of the key indicators, of economic development of a country, is its level of industrialization. That is, as many empirical investigations proved the main reason for increased divergence in living standards between the advanced countries and the developing countries is their level of industrialization. This being the fact, it is only after decolonization and end of world War II that, developing countries consciously adopted industrialization strategies for economic development purposes and as a solution, from their vulnerable dependence on export of few primary products and import of high valued manufactured goods (Brisbane, 1980). The low terms of trade in international market for primary goods from former colonies and the determination to get out of severe poverty and register sustained growth, were the main reasons for the diversification of the narrow structure of the colonial economy. Industrialization is beneficial for developing countries for many reasons including the following (i) it reduces their vulnerable dependence; (ii) it speeds up their economic growth process; (iii) it modernize the economy through spill over or externalities effects associated with industrialization, from advanced countries; (iv) create more employment for the vast population in rural agricultural sector and accelerate income growth which is used as a means to re-distribute income to the impoverished masses; and (v) generate more foreign currency through export which reduces balance of payment problems (Brisbane, 1980). As Brisbane explained, to industrialize, developing countries adopted import substitution strategies from about 1945 to the 1970s. Import substitution strategy is designed to produce few luxury consumer goods for domestic consumption behind a very high tariff wall. However, most countries which followed the import substitution strategy failed, to meet the goal of industrialization, while spectacular growth and development was reported from developing countries that pursued an export oriented strategy, in the 1970s. Defined simply, export-oriented Industrialization (EOI) often termed as export led industrialization (ELI) is a policy designed for the purpose of speeding up the industrialization process of a country through exporting goods for which the nation has a comparative advantage. This policy requires countries to open up their domestic market to foreign competition in return to getting access to international market. In order to promote EOI and ultimately economic development, complementary policies in relation to tariffs, trade, exchange rate, and others need to be adopted and employed. This paper will critically examine how export oriented industrialization is essential for economic growth in developing countries, if it can be backed up by appropriate policies on trade, industrial policy and exchange rate policy, geared for that purpose. The paper also argues that export oriented industrialization has its own drawbacks. Thus, the essay is structured as follows: In section 2, It the paper analyses the significance of policies on the functioning of EOI, particularly: trade policy, industrial policy and exchange rate policy that developing countries need to adopt and identifies areas where government intervention is needed to bring economic development. It then explains the drawbacks of export oriented industrialization, on export dependence countries, in Section 3. Then section 4, empirically examines how EOI contributes to economic development and the conclusions are presented in section 5. 2. Significance of Policies on EOI The role of complementary policies for effectiveness of export oriented industrialization is undeniable. This paper focuses mainly on how trade, industrial and exchange rate policies can support EOI policy. 2.1 Trade policy: Appropriate trade policy is one of the key tools used for effective of export oriented industrialization and for economic development, in general. That is, the better trade policy a country has, the better chance it has for industrial diversification, creating value added products and getting more income from export. Theoretical context: Even if, there has been little consensus on the relationship between trade and short- to medium -term economic growth-and even less on its role in long term economic development. The principle of comparative advantage, which prescribe countries to specialize as to their factor endowment, first described by David Ricardo, forms the theoretical basis for traditional trade theory and provides the rationale for free trade. The principle states that even if a country produced all goods more cheaply than other countries, it would benefit by specializing in the export of its relatively cheapest good (or the good in which it has a comparative advantage)(Murray Gibbs 2007, p. 10). And some classical economists believed that the principal base for this principle is the difference in factor endowments among countries determine the relative cost of production. However, this traditional theory from classical economists has been challenged as it doesnt explain well the actual trade patterns and as the theory has unrealistic assumptions, like perfect competition, full employment etc (Murray Gibbs 2007). In addition to the unrealistic assumptions, in real situations the theory favors advanced countries, and developing countries hardly benefit anything from it. The controversial Singer Prebisch thesis, also explained this situation by stating that it is the center that gets all the benefits of international trade while the periphery gets nothing, which opposes to the Ricardian Theory of Comparative Advantage. He argued: given the differences in the existing economic, productive and labor market structures between the periphery and the center (in the application of technology in traded goods and in the market structures; oligopoly vs. competitive) less-developed countries cannot benefit from international market, if they adopt comparative advan tage doctrine (Todaro and Smith 2009).This is because developing countries usually produce and export primary products which have lower terms of trade. And the scope for diversification is too narrow, and these conditions put developing countries to have vulnerable dependence on international market. Thus, unlike the classical economists static comparative advantage doctrine, dynamic comparative advantage is a better option for developing countries. This is because as more innovation, technology, capital, and other requirements for industrializations are met and as industrialization happens in developing countries, it will be easier to diversify their economic structure, as manufactured goods have better terms of trade than primary products. Skarstein (2007) in his paper Free Trade: A Dead End for Underdeveloped Economies,criticized the comparative advantage doctrine. He argued, what matters most in international trade is the absolute advantage that countries get out of it than a comparative advantage. And empirical evidences show that the doctrines of comparative advantage and free trade benefit the advanced countries only. This is mainly because the doctrines are likely to exclude international learning among countries. Particularly, the WTO agreement, Trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS), which is a big challenge developing countries to acquire technology, skill and international learning from the rest of the world. He also argued, for a trade policy to function effectively, developing countries have to make sure that, this policy is well integrated with their industrial policy. And in addition to these, developing countries have to get support from advanced countries, through reduced import tariffs for goods from developing countries and by giving developing countries a chance to protect their industries and to get easy access to international market. He also stressed that, developing countries have to ensure that food security is maintained in their countries, as it keeps them safe from their foreign account, balance of payment problems as well. Thus, governments of developing countries have to protect agricultural production for consumption. Therefore, while designing policies, developing countries have to consider the dynamic comparative advantage or absolute advantage options. In addition to this, they also have to consider how their economic integration to the world economy should be in support of EOI. 2.2 Industrial policy: A proper industrial policy is also another important tool for effective export oriented industrialization, as a countrys industrialization depends on how individual domestic firms are protected. This is because, it is individual firms that innovate and harness technological change and compete in the world market (Suranovic, 2002). The basic policy component of industrial policy for developing countries is Infant industry protection. It is a necessary condition, because newly emerging firms in developing countries need some policy to help them grow strong and to safeguard them from intrusion of foreign firms in their market, that have a negative effect on their growth. Infant industries in developing countries can mainly be protected through import tariff mechanism, which reduce imports from the rest of the world and raises demand and production of domestic product. This protection enables the domestic firms to cover their higher production costs and to remain in business. Depending on the nature of the firm, infant industry protection strategy will help the domestic firms to produce efficiently and to be competent in international markets. However, in order to use the infant industry protection policy as a tool for export oriented industrialization, government of developing countries need to have reliable information about what industry to protect, how large the production tariffs need to be and over what period the tariffs will be reduced and eliminated. Because import tariffs have to be gradually reduced and eliminated, to increase efficiency of domestic firms. A complementary policy component to infant industry protection in export oriented industrialization is export promotion. This component stimulates export and allows the infant industry to have access to international market, while Infant industry protection policy allows the new domestic firm to grow strong. For industrial policy to be effective it has to be complemented by competition policy, as some regulations are required for the competition among domestic firms and simultaneously, as there is a need for policy to protect the domestic firms from intrusion of foreign firms in their market. A coherent execution of industrial policy requires a coordinated approach to trade policies. This is because trade policies are designed usually in accordance with a countrys trade negotiations, which include: policies related to investment, tariff, Intellectual property, and others. The effectiveness of tariffs as a tool for industrialization is also linked to the monetary policy framework within which it operates. When the capital account is liberalized control over exchange rates may be lost and the appreciation of exchange rates can obviously undermine export competitiveness and the impact of tariff protection (Murray Gibbs 2007, p. 19). 2.3. Exchange rate policy: The role of exchange rate policy in the success of export oriented industrialization strategy is undeniable. Exchange rate is a policy on the level of exchange rate of a countrys currency. The main challenge in formulating the exchange rate policy is in keeping balance between maintaining exchange rate stability and maintaining export price competitiveness, which requires devaluation. Devaluation increases the value of imports, while it gives options for exporters to choose either to reduce the prices of their products or to keep them as they are, to increase their profit margin. Thus, devaluation, at a cost of higher inflation, enables domestic industries to be competent internationally, by keeping the volume of import down and by raising the volume of export (domestic output) higher. The role of government in controlling inflation, to stabilize the economy is very essential, here. Thus, this phenomenon in addition to supporting the export oriented industrialization process it helps countries to improve their current account balance in Balance of payment problem (Jacob, Atta ; Keith R., Jefferis ; Ita, Mannathoko and Pelani, Siwawa-Ndai 2000) 3. Drawbacks of Export dependence A country is dependent on export, if export constitutes the largest portion of its gross domestic products. However, even if EOI strategy contributes for economic development, the extent to which this strategy is applied has to be considered for various reasons. To mention some of them, as dependency theorists argue: first, export dependent developing countries cause chaos on the long-term economic planning capacity of a nation-state (Barratt-Brown Prebisch) as these countries have little or no control over the market, to allow sustained economic growth through stable revenue. Second, Income from export is not a reliable source for economic development for developing countries. As many of the export oriented industrializations in these countries are owned by multinational corporations, and large portion of revenue from such sources are not repatriated, to be used for re-investment (Jaffee, 1985). 4. Empirical evidence: Skarstein, 2007 paper Free Trade: A Dead End for Underdeveloped Economies, showed the empirical evidences on EOIs contribution for miraculous economic development of the Asian tigers and the now developed countries. It mainly showed the relationship between economic development and effective implementation of infant industries protection policy and export promotion policy. In support of this, it is argued, that many people have argued that Infant industry protection was precisely the industrial development strategy that was pursued by countries like the US and Germany during their rapid industrial development before the turn of the 20th century. Both the US and Germany had high tariffs during their industrial revolution periods. These tariffs helped protect fledgling industries from competition with more efficient firms in Britain and may have been the necessary requirement to stimulate economic growth (Suranovic 2002) Bairoch also analyzed data and concluded that the different the effect of free trade on developed and developing countries is. In all the cases he analyzed, free trade has a positive effect on developed countries while it lets the least developed countries to suffer. He mentioned that United Kingdom registered its fastest growth during the period (1860 1880). In those cases he analyzed, how effective import tariffs for developing countries were in their economic development (Bairoch, 1972, p. 211). In his paper, Skarstein, illustrated, with detailed data how the East Asian tigers used industrialization policy for their economic development. That is: first by implementing a policy of protected import substitution and then, as their industries grow competent, by shifting their industrialization strategy to export oriented industrialization, with a slow reduction of import barriers for industrial good. And, at the same time, how implementing high import protection for their agriculture helped them to maintain food security and helped their success in industrialization The miraculous performance of the East and South East Asian countries during 1970s to 1990s cannot be analyzed without considering the connection between the export -oriented policies and economic growth. In the Newly Industrialized Economies from East and South East Asia, the general macroeconomic policies as well as selective export promotion policies facilitated the high export and economic growth. Following their path China and India also changed their policy stance in favor of export oriented policies and moved on the high growth trajectories. 5. Conclusions: In sum industrialization is a key process for developing countries for economic development. However, as many economists agree, the process of economic development is very complex, as it depends on large number of variables such as political system, socio economic structure, capital accumulation (both physical and human), trade, price fluctuations, and income distribution, and even more on geographical characteristics. As such, while export oriented industrialization contributes to economic growth, it is not necessarily indispensable to the growth and development of developing countries. As explained in this essay, EOI can be one of the key strategies to register economic growth. And in order for it to function effectively it has to be supported by appropriate components of the policy like: infant industry protection strategy, competition policy, export promotion strategy and others. More specifically, it requires well functioning and well integrated macroeconomic policies like: trade policy, industrial policy, exchange rate policy, investment policy, tariff policy and others. Government intervention also plays a key role in making the export oriented industrialization effective for economic development. Examined empirical evidences also reveal that Export-oriented Industrialization was particularly the characteristic of the economic development of the Asian Tigers: Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore in the post World War II period . In addition to Asian Tigers, evidences also tell how EOI strategy contributed for the economic development of US, Germany and others, who are now in developed world category. However, though the role of export oriented industrialization in economic development is undeniable, countries have to also carefully consider its share in the gross domestic product, as larger export dependence has a negative effect on economic growth.

Analysing Corruption and Organised Crime in Russia

Analysing Corruption and Organised Crime in Russia Corruption as will be examined, was nothing new in the post-Soviet economy for its perceived rise and that of organised crime had their origins in the Soviet era. In the Soviet Union private enterprise on an individual or business basis had officially not been allowed from when the New Economic Policy was abandoned in the 1920s and with the forced collectivization of agriculture during the 1930s. Under the Stalinist State the economy was planned and commanded by the Communist Party via the Soviet Union’s state structure. In theory the Soviet State controlled every aspect of the Soviet economy. It set prices; it controlled industrial outputs, banking services and foreign exchange rates. However, in practice there was a flourishing black market in luxury goods and foreign exchange rates before the political and economic reforms started by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s. His twin policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, political openness and economic restructuring were intended to prolong the Soviet Union. Instead the Soviet Union would collapse leaving its successor states working towards democracy and capitalism whilst facing up to the problem of increasing corruption and organised crime. The level of corruption if not organised crime during the Soviet era might not be too easy to establish exactly. The Soviet authorities after all kept the true state of the economy hidden from the West even if its citizens experienced hardships and shortages. The leading members of the politburo had been the only ones with a realistic view of the economy. The liberalisation of the economy in all parts of the former Soviet Union since 1991 have generally led to an increase of corruption and organised crime. Clampdowns on organised crime and corruption have often been half hearted when they have been carried out both during and after the Soviet era. Explanations for this rise in corruption and organised crime will now be described and examined. Some of these causes pre-date the collapse of the Soviet Union whilst others emerged later. Black markets existed prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union often bringing consumers goods that were unavailable in the state-run shops, goods that were sometimes exchanged instead of sold to avoid breaking the law. Hand in hand with the black markets went corruption and bribery. Black marketers frequently resorted to bribing communist party officials, the police and the KGB or they in turn extorted money off the black marketers. The KGB sometimes recruited some of the black marketers to inform on their rivals and their customers. The more the Soviet economy faltered the faster the black-market grew, providing people with goods not available in the shops. Those marketers that did not bribe officials often found their homes or businesses raided or got put in jail, those that paid up could go about their business undisturbed. The Soviet leadership started to have concerns about economic stagnation, organised crime and to a lesser extent corruption in the early 1980s but none of the m seemed to understand the extent of the economic malaise. The long years of stagnation continued until despite the rapid deaths of three general secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) between 1982-1985. Leonid Brezhnev during his time in charge had done nothing to halt economic decline and in fact worsened it by accelerating the arms race with the United States and invading Afghanistan. It has been estimated that as much as 50% of the Soviet Union’s annual budges was spent on defence or related products and projects. However, that was money that the Soviet Union no longer had to spare. His immediate successor Yuri Andropov started a campaign against bribery and corruption that petered out with his death in 1984. When Gorbachev replaced Konstantin Chernenko a year later he pledged to reform the Soviet Union. Instead his policies would promote its collapse and lead to increased corruption and organised crime in the sixteen successor states. The problem with Stalinist economic planning was that it â€Å"created and perpetuated a shortage economy motivated only by harsh orders from the centre.† It kept most of the people equally poor except for those that found ways around the system. By the 1980s the idea of abandoning the communist command economy in favour of capitalism and liberal democracy gained ground not only in the Soviet Union but also in Central and Eastern Europe. For the reformers could look at the neo-liberal experience of the Thatcher and Reagan administrations, perhaps the devastating social and economic effects in parts of Latin America would have been more relevant. There was of course the example of the New Economic Policy that had allowed the Soviet economy to recover from the ravages of civil war, an attractive example to communists that wanted to reform the system but also for the non-communists that wished to replace it. There was one group of pro-capitalist economists that hoped to bring in a market system to Russia, they were the ‘young reformers’. Yeger Gaider whose family was amongst the elites of the Soviet nomenklatura ironically enough headed the young reformers. They were just looking for somebody to carry out their plan s and not power for themselves and would eventually team up with Boris Yeltsin a highly effective (when healthy) populist politician with only a limited understanding of economics. Alongside Yeltsin, they had the dream of dismantling communism. However, the way in which communism was dismantled across the former Soviet Union would contribute greatly to the rise of organised crime alongside the already high levels of corruption. In the first years of Gorbachev’s rule his government attempted to preserve the Soviet political system whilst reforming its economic system, little realising that these reforms would fail and thus contribute to the rise of corruption and organised crime as well as the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He wanted to make the system worktop its full capacity without moving to a capitalist economy or inducing economic suffering. The government attempted to increase productivity by reducing alcohol consumption and the sickness that was often connected to it, but he did not run an anti corruption campaign immediately. Gorbachev would have banned vodka but feared the ban would be circumvented by organised crime gangs, plus the tax revenues that kept the Soviet government solvent. One man who had started Ananta-corruption campaign was Boris Yeltsin who was the Moscow party boss until his sudden dismissal by Gorbachev during November 1987.Gorbachev believed he had removed his great est rival but had in fact made a very basic political blunder, as Yeltsin was no longer controllable and determined to avenge his fall from power. By 1989 it became clear that the Soviet economic system was unsustainable or beyond reforming and Gorbachev introduced some capitalist measures. Those measures included allowing small private businesses to operate from August 1990 and a series of de-regulations and privatisations between October 1990 and July 1991. Economic reforms brought increased opportunities to organised criminals and budding capitalist entrepreneurs, a distinction in the former Soviet Union that is not always clear. The sudden creations of small businesses increased chances for investments and money laundering or even to takeover privatised companies. Decades of communist economic and political rule left a legacy that was difficult to shake off immediately in the post-Soviet era. Yeltsin and his contemporaries found it difficult to see the world from outside of a communist perspective. The communist legacy of patronage, privileges, corruption and perks would contribute to the rise of corruption and organised cr ime in the post-Soviet era. As the system started to collapse across the Soviet Union law and order began to decline with it thus allowing increased opportunities for organised crime and corruption as well as increased nationalist and ethnic tensions.   The political disintegration of the Soviet Union went hand in hand with its economic disintegration and declining levels of law and order in all the successor republics. The end of the Soviet Union was hastened by the failure of the communist coup in August 1991. The Baltic States had already broke away from the Soviet Union and was already on their way to capitalist economies. Russian president Boris Yeltsin seeming to stand for the twin transition from communist state to liberal democracy and planned socialist economy to neo-liberal capitalism although this is not exactly what happened. Contrary to Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin had believed that the breakup of the Soviet Union could be a positive rather than a disastrous event although many of his Russian compatriots might not have agreed with him. For the other former republics, it was a case of independence at last. Perhaps those that took advantage of the break up through organised crime or corruption would have agreed with h im. The Yeltsin government at first enthusiastically backed rapid and radical reforms, radical economics carried out by a group of advisors dubbed the ‘the young reformers’. Russia and the other former republics of the Soviet Union had very primitive banking and financial systems that presented apparently ideal opportunities for Russian and foreign investors. Those acting as go-betweens in business deals could make small fortunes by doing so. The transition to capitalism offered the prospect of making millions, it also led to the increase in organised crime and corruption as gangsters threatened investors, businesses and often fought each other. The Russian and other governments seemed incapable of monitoring, containing or preventing that rise. The Yeltsin government was hampered in its efforts to control and administer the regions let alone fight the rise in crime because the remaining regional governors were by and large communist nomenklatura and apparatchiks and unwilling to do as Moscow commanded. These bureaucrats forged links with industrialists in their region providing basis for ongoing and future corruption. The bitter power struggles between President and Parliament during the 1992-1993 period distracted them from trying to solve the country’s problems and allowed the regions greater autonomy and the increasing number of organised crime gangs free rein across much of Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union. They also spent much time and effort trying to persuade the public the other side was more corrupt and had greater links to organised crime than they did. One deputy governor indicated the scale of corruption in the remoter parts of Siberia that to start â€Å"accompany you probably have to brib e forty bureaucrats.† Organised crime gangs used the decline in government control to organise protection rackets to fleece investors and small businesses. There was an alarming increase in violent crimes and murders as gangs competed for control of their victims and clients or punished those that would not pay for their dubious protection. The number of killings related to gang warfare escalated dramatically. Moscow and the newly renamed St Petersburg have been the centres of most of that gang warfare. Corruption was not merely confined to the Mafia gangs it also extended to the police, the armed forces and civil servants. In Russia traffic police were involved in robbing motorists also teaming up with local gangs to force motorists to hand over their cars, or to pay them fines for non-existent offences or face their cars being confiscated. Corruption and the buying and selling of anything and everything was so widespread that young female university students would aim to become hard currency call girls or the mistresses of oligarchs or wealthy businessmen, whilst jobless youths would advertise their services for contract killings. One ruthless organised crime gang even went as far as murdering car owners and disposing of their bodies to steal their cars. Organised crime and the number of crime gangs increased dramatically as the political elites spent more time arguing amongst each other rather than fighting crime and corruption. Nobody in the public or the media believed that Boris Yeltsin would succeed in rooting out organised crime and corruption, after all every single Soviet leader had promised to do the same since 1917. After all his only previous crack down on corruption and organised crime in Moscow had been stopped it its tracks by Gorbachev when he was sacked as the Moscow party boss. The official crime figures for 1992 give a strong indication of the deteriorating law and order situation. The number of murders had increased by 40%whilst there was an even larger increase in robbery up by 60%. The overall number of registered crimes, bearing in mind that many crimes remained unreported went up to 2.76 million. In fact, the contending elites accused each other of corruption to score points off each other whilst the public were not interested in their squabbles and the 3,000or so crime gangs carried on regardless. Of the newly private run business in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States those3,000 gangs were able to pocket perhaps as much as 40 % of the turnovers early as 1993. Corruption was never too far from the surface in the former Soviet Union. It should have not been a surprise therefore that corruption and organised crime would rise in the post-Soviet as they already headstrong foundations and connections to outside crime gangs. During the Soviet era if an individual knew or bribed the right officials they could get the best luxury items, property deals or their children into the finest schools or universities. So, nobody could doubt that there would be greater levels of corruption when the restraints of the Soviet system were removed. In fact, corruption dated back into the Imperial Russian past, were the civil service had been unsalaried but able to accept gifts or payments in kind. The CPSU may have claimed to be responsible for the leading role in society and the economy, some of its members took a leading role in the black market or for a small bribe get people things that would not normally be available. In Belarus the movement towards independence was given a new impetus byte desire to be rid of greedy and corrupt communist party leaders. The unravelling of the Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe gave an opportunity for the more entrepreneurial members of the withdrawing Soviet army to make their fortunes. The pickings could be rich for the Soviet army had large areas of land and housing to sell. When Gorbachev made a deal with the West German government to sell Soviet military bases in the former East Germany back to them most of the best pickings had already gone. The Soviet defence minister Dmitrii Yazov happily joined in the schemes that led to the disappearance of the Soviet army assets without a trace. Yazov may have enjoyed making money for himself but he was wholeheartedly against political and economic reform. He would be one of the main leaders of the August 1991 coup. After all, under the Soviet system the higher an individual’s position within the party, the KGB o r the armed forces they could expect greater share of the perks and the spoils. Just how much money the corrupt communist party members made may not beknown exactly, much of the evidence was destroyed just before the final failed coup of August 1991. Those party members that did not get into trouble following the coup could find themselves in a good position to make money in the brave new post -Soviet world. That was because they already knew how to operate in corrupt systems and some already had links with organised crime. For many of the small traders that operated largely illegally during the Soviet era the only real difference between the past and the post-Soviet present was whom they paid for the privilege of staying in business. Now they had to pay organised crime gangs to stay in business and to stay alive rather than bribe communist party officials or members of the KGB, or if they were unlucky they would have to pay them all. Corruption and organised crime increased in the post-Soviet era, but it had great potential during the Soviet era and the right c onditions would fuel a massive expansion. For much of the former Soviet Union these conditions were present in the early 1990s. Petty crime was rumoured to be rife amongst civil servants and state employees, for instance in 1993 the Russian Interior Ministry recorded 13,000 such crimes, that was thought to be the tip of the iceberg. It was estimated that virtually all shops paid protection and perhaps four fifths of businesses and financial institutes did the same. The organised crime gangs had a virtual free reign on their prospective victims, as the number of untainted police was inadequate even if they could find any brave or foolish enough to testify. The more successful entrepreneurs could hire bodyguards but that was not an option for the smaller traders who had to pay up or face the consequences. In Russia neither the transition to democracy and the switch to capitalist economy has developed as the Russians and those in the rest of the world that were interested hoped or expected. These transitions unintentionally led to increased corruption and organised crime. Through a combination of the collapse of the archaic economic system, assets stripping by the Russians that brought utilities at cheap prices, government failings and last but no means least corruption. Russia was in a worse economic position than the Soviet Union had been, as were most of the former Soviet republics. Inward foreign investment during the 1990s did not make up for the vast sums that left Russia of between $100 billion and $150 billion made by the oligarchs that asset stripped Russia’s industries and infra-structure and does not include any of the profits made the organised crime gangs. Foreign investors, the more sensible ones at least were put off the possibility of investing in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union by the high risk of their investment been ruined by having to pay bribes to officials and protection to crime gangs. It seems that the only people prospering in post-Soviet Russia are those that became nouveau riche by their investments or those that made their money less honestly through extortion or corruption. Poverty and unemployment that did not officially exist during the Soviet era increased alarmingly during the 1990s. Even if the poverty line is measured below a monthly income of less than $30 a month up to 40 million Russians appear to live in poverty. That is alarming for a country that has the largest part of the Soviet Union that had been a military superpower until1991. Economically Russia’s decline was remarkable for its severity, producing less than Belgium and barely a quarter more than Poland. In the immediate post-Soviet period the situation was more chaotic because all the former republics were still maintaining the old Soviet currency and printing money as if it was going out of fashion, adding to the inflationary consequences of ending price controls. The chaotic situation increased the ease in which organised crime gangs could operate in the former Soviet Union. Whilst the resulting hyperinflation (added to by the removal of price controls) meant that many more ordinary people had to find alternative methods of supplementing their incomes. Russia was not the slowest country to reform its economy or political institutions Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Belarus according to European Bank of Reconstruction and Development were amongst the least reformed and most poverty struck. In contrast the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia progressed well enough to be admitted in the European Union by 2004. The adoption of free market capitalism brought an end to queuing in empty shops and replaced it with full shops where most people could not afford to buy anything. Hence people were searching for legal or illegal means of boosting their incomes and thus more likely to become involved in corruption and bribery. Uneconomic factories were shut making millions unemployed. Under the Soviet system people had less money but there was better state provisions and prices were fixed so inflation was virtually non-existent. The Soviet system had given privileges to countless petty state workers and junior party members. They were known as apparatchiks, whilst high ranking officials and senior party members with better perks were known as nomenklatura. With the end of the Soviet system some of these apparatchiks and nomenklatura exchanged their privileges for money, those still in state employment that had remained honest now exchanged favours for bribes. Corruption increased during the post-Sovi et era simply out of economic necessity right across all the former Soviet Union as ordinary citizens and government officials found that they did not enough to live on. Throughout the former Soviet Union, the pace of economic liberalisation varied. By the middle of 1994 the Baltic States and Russia in terms of the total percentage of gross domestic product generated by the private sector of the economy were well ahead of the Asian republics, Belarus and Moldova. In Estonia and Latvia, it was 55%, in Russia and Lithuania50 % with Belarus, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan lagged far behind on only 15%. In post-Soviet Russia nomenklatura were better placed than most to survive the harsher economic climate particularly those that lived in regions such as Siberia found it harder to survive especially when state subsidies ended leaving food and fuel far more expensive than in the major cities. The collapse of communism cut off many of the remote industrial and mining areas from the central government leading to social and economic decay. Such neglect has allowed for the growth of organised crime and corruption as desperate people turn to drugs and alcohol. Drug and alcohol abuse leads to health problems or addiction. To counter some of th e incursions into those remote areas by crime gangs the Putin government once more restricted travel in to those areas. A factor that contributed to the rise of organised crime in the post-Soviet was the wide availability of weapons for organised crime gangs and individual gangsters or thugs to use. Weapons were often obtained from members of the armed forces. Military and naval personnel were increasingly eager to sell weapons to supplement their wages, assuming they had been paid on time. The Russian commanders are said to have done worse during the first Chechen war of 1994 -1996. They sold Grozny back to the rebels in August 1996 leading to the deaths of defenceless conscripts. Corruption within the Russian military seems to be endemic, which given its role in maintaining central government authority and internal security in some of the remoter regions of the Russian Federation certainly permitted and even encouraged organised crime to rise, for instance in Chechnya. During the second Chechen war that began in 1999 the local police observed the illicit trade between Russian soldiers and local blac k marketers. These soldiers would exchange boxes of ammunition for locally distilled vodka or locally grown cannabis with the tacit approval of their superior officers. Indeed, officers often accompanied their men when these exchanges took place. The black marketers then sell the ammunition to the Chechen fighters. Local police could intervene and arrest everybody, but they have either been told not to or bribed motto. The army was supposed to keep all the roads into Chechnya secure to prevent the rebels escaping or gaining supplies and money. However, the reporter Anna Politkovskaya was told â€Å"one person on foot must pay100 roubles; a light vehicle costs about 500-600 roubles†. Politkovskaya did not readily accept those claims until she successfully bribed the soldiers to get past the checkpoint. The greed and corruption of the army must have been counterproductive. They sold ammunition that was used by the Chechens and they allowed access to restricted areas to anybody who could have smuggled weapons in and people out. The corruption of the Russian armed forces in the area in and around Chechnya lowered the security and containment of Chechen fighters and contributed to the apparent ease in which rebels were able to take hostages in the Moscow theatre during October 2002. More horrifically the siege of a Beslan high school in September 2004 showed that the Russian military were incompetent as well as riddled with corruption. Gangsters did not always buy weapons; they could often steal weapons from poorly guarded or neglected military bases. Due to the Soviet Union having national service most of the organised crime gang members could already use weapons. Troops leaving the army could also consider employment as either bodyguard for the newly rich and the justifiably concerned business owners or joining the organised crime gangs themselves as thugs and assassins. Violent crime is probably not as prevalent as people in the West might believe, however crime gangs would have no qualms about settling accounts with intimidation, assault and murder. Some murders have shown that the crime gangs and contract killers are able to gain hold of sophisticated weapons such as rocket launchers to kill bodyguards as well as their bosses in St Petersburg. Gangs must be well connected as well as rich to acquire such weapons. The dramatic rise in the murder rate witnessed not only the deaths of politicians (three members of the Duma were shot dead in cold blood) but also businessmen and journalists. Business executives and more lowly bank employees could be and were at risk of being killed due tithe rise in corruption and organised crime. Not many gang members were afraid of being caught and convicted, for they were confident that even if the police did catch them that either the police or the courts could be persuaded to let them get away with it. In the period between 1992and 1995, the number of killed bank workers ranging from clerks to senior executives was 46. The most publicized killing was that of Pivanilide who the president of Rosbiznesbank had been. Kivelidi was poisoned in August 1995 for not complying with the demands of organised criminals. There are still a high number of deaths because of fighting between rival gangs still demonstrating that there are enough guns and money up for grabs to m ake the high risks of being killed seem worthwhile. Over 2,000 gang members are gunned down every year in gang wars in the Moscow region alone. Until the Putin presidency the situation in St Petersburg had been worse although Putin seems to want to clean up his home city. The difficulty and the danger of uncovering the true level of crimes being committed aided the rise in organised crime and corruption. With so many bureaucrats, police and politicians involved or thought to be involved in corruption much of the uncovering of crimes and evidence of corruption came from the press and journalists or even rarely independently minded politicians. For journalists it was dangerous to uncover and attempt to publish evidence and articles concerning organised crime gangs and the high levels of corruption. Considering the increasing control of the media by the state or by oligarchs whose own positions could be undermined by revelations of corruption or organised crime it has not always been easy for reporters to go public with evidence they have gathered. To illustrate the dangerous position journalists found themselves in, 36 were killed between January 1994and May 1995 throughout the former Soviet Union whilst doing their jobs and reporting on not only corrup tion and organised crime but also the conflict in Chechnya. The uncovering of evidence of the corruption and fraud within the Soviet army during its time in East Germany and before its departure appeared to be a major scope for the Murkowski Komsomolsk and its investigative journalist Dmitrii Kholod. For Kholod it proved one-story too far as a bomb blew up him and his office during October1994. Even television reporters and journalists were not immune from danger. Following his research into the corrupt or dishonest selling of television advertising Vladimir Listed was gunned down in March 1995before he could broadcast all his findings. At other times politicians, bureaucrats and business executives would inform or leak information about their rivals real or presumed links with organised crime and corruption for their own gain rather than in the public interest or to fight corruption itself. Whilst these bouts of accusations and counter accusations occupied the politicians and press attentions they occasionally removed the expendable politici ans and bureaucrats whilst leaving the level of overall corruption untouched. As noted below the Books affair would be used to force the resignations of some of the young reformers in 1999. Accusations of corruption would also be leaked to the press after an individual had lost the approval of either President Yeltsin or President Putin. The prime example of this were the accusations levelled against Boris Berezovskyafter he fell out with Putin, or more aptly when Putin regarded him as no longer useful to the Kremlin. Berezovsky is claimed to have stolen millions from his companies and state-run companies such as Aeroflot. All these events were from the early 1990s, so the Russian government had plenty of time to prove them or clear him. Berezovsky who went to exile in London has retaliated by campaigning against the Putin government’s increasing control of power. In Russia it appears that those involved in corruption or organised crime are relatively immune from arrest if they do not upset the Kremlin, or their punishment becomes politically expedient for the government. President Putin is arguably â€Å"searching for levers that will work †¦ to have in place a national authority that functions as normal governments do†. Corruption was a fact of life in the Soviet era and now seems even more endemic in the post-Soviet period; ordinary Soviet citizens were cynical about the financial honesty of their political masters and the higher-ranking communist party officials, a cynicism that continues with post-Soviet politicians and officials. Evidence of corruption and bribery would often be collected by the KGB and used if the individuals concerned fall out of favour senior party members, its successor still collects such information only now some its officers are more likely to sell sensitive information to the highest bidders. President Yeltsinonly renamed the KGB the FSB instead of abolishing it. He also retained control of the KGB records and evidence of the corruption they contained Timely uncovering of bribe taking and corruption have often been used to discredit rivals and justify the dismissal of ministers and officials. Therefore, presumably there is usually enough evidence to act against many of t hose involved in corruption or organised crime but not always the political will or judicial authority to do so. Many Russians believe that most if not all government ministers and officials are corrupt and susceptible to bribes. Officials are willing to risk public safety and even national security as well as their reputations for the sake of bribes. Allegations and counter allegations of corruption were used in the 1990s during the power struggle between President Yeltsin and hard-liners such as Rosko and Khasbulatov. Corruption both in the Soviet era and afterwards existed and increased because the majority of those accepting bribes or using their position for gain position or cash believed that they would not get caught. Even if they did get caught the rate of convictions were not that high. Soviet era clampdowns on corruption under Andropov and Gorbachev only caught small fry and the same could apply during the post-Soviet era. The only notable high ranking communist to be convicted for corruption was Yuri Churbanov in 1988. Churbanov’s father in law was the late Leonid Brezhnev, the one-time Soviet leader and General Secretar Analysing Corruption and Organised Crime in Russia Analysing Corruption and Organised Crime in Russia Corruption as will be examined, was nothing new in the post-Soviet economy for its perceived rise and that of organised crime had their origins in the Soviet era. In the Soviet Union private enterprise on an individual or business basis had officially not been allowed from when the New Economic Policy was abandoned in the 1920s and with the forced collectivization of agriculture during the 1930s. Under the Stalinist State the economy was planned and commanded by the Communist Party via the Soviet Union’s state structure. In theory the Soviet State controlled every aspect of the Soviet economy. It set prices; it controlled industrial outputs, banking services and foreign exchange rates. However, in practice there was a flourishing black market in luxury goods and foreign exchange rates before the political and economic reforms started by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s. His twin policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, political openness and economic restructuring were intended to prolong the Soviet Union. Instead the Soviet Union would collapse leaving its successor states working towards democracy and capitalism whilst facing up to the problem of increasing corruption and organised crime. The level of corruption if not organised crime during the Soviet era might not be too easy to establish exactly. The Soviet authorities after all kept the true state of the economy hidden from the West even if its citizens experienced hardships and shortages. The leading members of the politburo had been the only ones with a realistic view of the economy. The liberalisation of the economy in all parts of the former Soviet Union since 1991 have generally led to an increase of corruption and organised crime. Clampdowns on organised crime and corruption have often been half hearted when they have been carried out both during and after the Soviet era. Explanations for this rise in corruption and organised crime will now be described and examined. Some of these causes pre-date the collapse of the Soviet Union whilst others emerged later. Black markets existed prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union often bringing consumers goods that were unavailable in the state-run shops, goods that were sometimes exchanged instead of sold to avoid breaking the law. Hand in hand with the black markets went corruption and bribery. Black marketers frequently resorted to bribing communist party officials, the police and the KGB or they in turn extorted money off the black marketers. The KGB sometimes recruited some of the black marketers to inform on their rivals and their customers. The more the Soviet economy faltered the faster the black-market grew, providing people with goods not available in the shops. Those marketers that did not bribe officials often found their homes or businesses raided or got put in jail, those that paid up could go about their business undisturbed. The Soviet leadership started to have concerns about economic stagnation, organised crime and to a lesser extent corruption in the early 1980s but none of the m seemed to understand the extent of the economic malaise. The long years of stagnation continued until despite the rapid deaths of three general secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) between 1982-1985. Leonid Brezhnev during his time in charge had done nothing to halt economic decline and in fact worsened it by accelerating the arms race with the United States and invading Afghanistan. It has been estimated that as much as 50% of the Soviet Union’s annual budges was spent on defence or related products and projects. However, that was money that the Soviet Union no longer had to spare. His immediate successor Yuri Andropov started a campaign against bribery and corruption that petered out with his death in 1984. When Gorbachev replaced Konstantin Chernenko a year later he pledged to reform the Soviet Union. Instead his policies would promote its collapse and lead to increased corruption and organised crime in the sixteen successor states. The problem with Stalinist economic planning was that it â€Å"created and perpetuated a shortage economy motivated only by harsh orders from the centre.† It kept most of the people equally poor except for those that found ways around the system. By the 1980s the idea of abandoning the communist command economy in favour of capitalism and liberal democracy gained ground not only in the Soviet Union but also in Central and Eastern Europe. For the reformers could look at the neo-liberal experience of the Thatcher and Reagan administrations, perhaps the devastating social and economic effects in parts of Latin America would have been more relevant. There was of course the example of the New Economic Policy that had allowed the Soviet economy to recover from the ravages of civil war, an attractive example to communists that wanted to reform the system but also for the non-communists that wished to replace it. There was one group of pro-capitalist economists that hoped to bring in a market system to Russia, they were the ‘young reformers’. Yeger Gaider whose family was amongst the elites of the Soviet nomenklatura ironically enough headed the young reformers. They were just looking for somebody to carry out their plan s and not power for themselves and would eventually team up with Boris Yeltsin a highly effective (when healthy) populist politician with only a limited understanding of economics. Alongside Yeltsin, they had the dream of dismantling communism. However, the way in which communism was dismantled across the former Soviet Union would contribute greatly to the rise of organised crime alongside the already high levels of corruption. In the first years of Gorbachev’s rule his government attempted to preserve the Soviet political system whilst reforming its economic system, little realising that these reforms would fail and thus contribute to the rise of corruption and organised crime as well as the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He wanted to make the system worktop its full capacity without moving to a capitalist economy or inducing economic suffering. The government attempted to increase productivity by reducing alcohol consumption and the sickness that was often connected to it, but he did not run an anti corruption campaign immediately. Gorbachev would have banned vodka but feared the ban would be circumvented by organised crime gangs, plus the tax revenues that kept the Soviet government solvent. One man who had started Ananta-corruption campaign was Boris Yeltsin who was the Moscow party boss until his sudden dismissal by Gorbachev during November 1987.Gorbachev believed he had removed his great est rival but had in fact made a very basic political blunder, as Yeltsin was no longer controllable and determined to avenge his fall from power. By 1989 it became clear that the Soviet economic system was unsustainable or beyond reforming and Gorbachev introduced some capitalist measures. Those measures included allowing small private businesses to operate from August 1990 and a series of de-regulations and privatisations between October 1990 and July 1991. Economic reforms brought increased opportunities to organised criminals and budding capitalist entrepreneurs, a distinction in the former Soviet Union that is not always clear. The sudden creations of small businesses increased chances for investments and money laundering or even to takeover privatised companies. Decades of communist economic and political rule left a legacy that was difficult to shake off immediately in the post-Soviet era. Yeltsin and his contemporaries found it difficult to see the world from outside of a communist perspective. The communist legacy of patronage, privileges, corruption and perks would contribute to the rise of corruption and organised cr ime in the post-Soviet era. As the system started to collapse across the Soviet Union law and order began to decline with it thus allowing increased opportunities for organised crime and corruption as well as increased nationalist and ethnic tensions.   The political disintegration of the Soviet Union went hand in hand with its economic disintegration and declining levels of law and order in all the successor republics. The end of the Soviet Union was hastened by the failure of the communist coup in August 1991. The Baltic States had already broke away from the Soviet Union and was already on their way to capitalist economies. Russian president Boris Yeltsin seeming to stand for the twin transition from communist state to liberal democracy and planned socialist economy to neo-liberal capitalism although this is not exactly what happened. Contrary to Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin had believed that the breakup of the Soviet Union could be a positive rather than a disastrous event although many of his Russian compatriots might not have agreed with him. For the other former republics, it was a case of independence at last. Perhaps those that took advantage of the break up through organised crime or corruption would have agreed with h im. The Yeltsin government at first enthusiastically backed rapid and radical reforms, radical economics carried out by a group of advisors dubbed the ‘the young reformers’. Russia and the other former republics of the Soviet Union had very primitive banking and financial systems that presented apparently ideal opportunities for Russian and foreign investors. Those acting as go-betweens in business deals could make small fortunes by doing so. The transition to capitalism offered the prospect of making millions, it also led to the increase in organised crime and corruption as gangsters threatened investors, businesses and often fought each other. The Russian and other governments seemed incapable of monitoring, containing or preventing that rise. The Yeltsin government was hampered in its efforts to control and administer the regions let alone fight the rise in crime because the remaining regional governors were by and large communist nomenklatura and apparatchiks and unwilling to do as Moscow commanded. These bureaucrats forged links with industrialists in their region providing basis for ongoing and future corruption. The bitter power struggles between President and Parliament during the 1992-1993 period distracted them from trying to solve the country’s problems and allowed the regions greater autonomy and the increasing number of organised crime gangs free rein across much of Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union. They also spent much time and effort trying to persuade the public the other side was more corrupt and had greater links to organised crime than they did. One deputy governor indicated the scale of corruption in the remoter parts of Siberia that to start â€Å"accompany you probably have to brib e forty bureaucrats.† Organised crime gangs used the decline in government control to organise protection rackets to fleece investors and small businesses. There was an alarming increase in violent crimes and murders as gangs competed for control of their victims and clients or punished those that would not pay for their dubious protection. The number of killings related to gang warfare escalated dramatically. Moscow and the newly renamed St Petersburg have been the centres of most of that gang warfare. Corruption was not merely confined to the Mafia gangs it also extended to the police, the armed forces and civil servants. In Russia traffic police were involved in robbing motorists also teaming up with local gangs to force motorists to hand over their cars, or to pay them fines for non-existent offences or face their cars being confiscated. Corruption and the buying and selling of anything and everything was so widespread that young female university students would aim to become hard currency call girls or the mistresses of oligarchs or wealthy businessmen, whilst jobless youths would advertise their services for contract killings. One ruthless organised crime gang even went as far as murdering car owners and disposing of their bodies to steal their cars. Organised crime and the number of crime gangs increased dramatically as the political elites spent more time arguing amongst each other rather than fighting crime and corruption. Nobody in the public or the media believed that Boris Yeltsin would succeed in rooting out organised crime and corruption, after all every single Soviet leader had promised to do the same since 1917. After all his only previous crack down on corruption and organised crime in Moscow had been stopped it its tracks by Gorbachev when he was sacked as the Moscow party boss. The official crime figures for 1992 give a strong indication of the deteriorating law and order situation. The number of murders had increased by 40%whilst there was an even larger increase in robbery up by 60%. The overall number of registered crimes, bearing in mind that many crimes remained unreported went up to 2.76 million. In fact, the contending elites accused each other of corruption to score points off each other whilst the public were not interested in their squabbles and the 3,000or so crime gangs carried on regardless. Of the newly private run business in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States those3,000 gangs were able to pocket perhaps as much as 40 % of the turnovers early as 1993. Corruption was never too far from the surface in the former Soviet Union. It should have not been a surprise therefore that corruption and organised crime would rise in the post-Soviet as they already headstrong foundations and connections to outside crime gangs. During the Soviet era if an individual knew or bribed the right officials they could get the best luxury items, property deals or their children into the finest schools or universities. So, nobody could doubt that there would be greater levels of corruption when the restraints of the Soviet system were removed. In fact, corruption dated back into the Imperial Russian past, were the civil service had been unsalaried but able to accept gifts or payments in kind. The CPSU may have claimed to be responsible for the leading role in society and the economy, some of its members took a leading role in the black market or for a small bribe get people things that would not normally be available. In Belarus the movement towards independence was given a new impetus byte desire to be rid of greedy and corrupt communist party leaders. The unravelling of the Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe gave an opportunity for the more entrepreneurial members of the withdrawing Soviet army to make their fortunes. The pickings could be rich for the Soviet army had large areas of land and housing to sell. When Gorbachev made a deal with the West German government to sell Soviet military bases in the former East Germany back to them most of the best pickings had already gone. The Soviet defence minister Dmitrii Yazov happily joined in the schemes that led to the disappearance of the Soviet army assets without a trace. Yazov may have enjoyed making money for himself but he was wholeheartedly against political and economic reform. He would be one of the main leaders of the August 1991 coup. After all, under the Soviet system the higher an individual’s position within the party, the KGB o r the armed forces they could expect greater share of the perks and the spoils. Just how much money the corrupt communist party members made may not beknown exactly, much of the evidence was destroyed just before the final failed coup of August 1991. Those party members that did not get into trouble following the coup could find themselves in a good position to make money in the brave new post -Soviet world. That was because they already knew how to operate in corrupt systems and some already had links with organised crime. For many of the small traders that operated largely illegally during the Soviet era the only real difference between the past and the post-Soviet present was whom they paid for the privilege of staying in business. Now they had to pay organised crime gangs to stay in business and to stay alive rather than bribe communist party officials or members of the KGB, or if they were unlucky they would have to pay them all. Corruption and organised crime increased in the post-Soviet era, but it had great potential during the Soviet era and the right c onditions would fuel a massive expansion. For much of the former Soviet Union these conditions were present in the early 1990s. Petty crime was rumoured to be rife amongst civil servants and state employees, for instance in 1993 the Russian Interior Ministry recorded 13,000 such crimes, that was thought to be the tip of the iceberg. It was estimated that virtually all shops paid protection and perhaps four fifths of businesses and financial institutes did the same. The organised crime gangs had a virtual free reign on their prospective victims, as the number of untainted police was inadequate even if they could find any brave or foolish enough to testify. The more successful entrepreneurs could hire bodyguards but that was not an option for the smaller traders who had to pay up or face the consequences. In Russia neither the transition to democracy and the switch to capitalist economy has developed as the Russians and those in the rest of the world that were interested hoped or expected. These transitions unintentionally led to increased corruption and organised crime. Through a combination of the collapse of the archaic economic system, assets stripping by the Russians that brought utilities at cheap prices, government failings and last but no means least corruption. Russia was in a worse economic position than the Soviet Union had been, as were most of the former Soviet republics. Inward foreign investment during the 1990s did not make up for the vast sums that left Russia of between $100 billion and $150 billion made by the oligarchs that asset stripped Russia’s industries and infra-structure and does not include any of the profits made the organised crime gangs. Foreign investors, the more sensible ones at least were put off the possibility of investing in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union by the high risk of their investment been ruined by having to pay bribes to officials and protection to crime gangs. It seems that the only people prospering in post-Soviet Russia are those that became nouveau riche by their investments or those that made their money less honestly through extortion or corruption. Poverty and unemployment that did not officially exist during the Soviet era increased alarmingly during the 1990s. Even if the poverty line is measured below a monthly income of less than $30 a month up to 40 million Russians appear to live in poverty. That is alarming for a country that has the largest part of the Soviet Union that had been a military superpower until1991. Economically Russia’s decline was remarkable for its severity, producing less than Belgium and barely a quarter more than Poland. In the immediate post-Soviet period the situation was more chaotic because all the former republics were still maintaining the old Soviet currency and printing money as if it was going out of fashion, adding to the inflationary consequences of ending price controls. The chaotic situation increased the ease in which organised crime gangs could operate in the former Soviet Union. Whilst the resulting hyperinflation (added to by the removal of price controls) meant that many more ordinary people had to find alternative methods of supplementing their incomes. Russia was not the slowest country to reform its economy or political institutions Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Belarus according to European Bank of Reconstruction and Development were amongst the least reformed and most poverty struck. In contrast the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia progressed well enough to be admitted in the European Union by 2004. The adoption of free market capitalism brought an end to queuing in empty shops and replaced it with full shops where most people could not afford to buy anything. Hence people were searching for legal or illegal means of boosting their incomes and thus more likely to become involved in corruption and bribery. Uneconomic factories were shut making millions unemployed. Under the Soviet system people had less money but there was better state provisions and prices were fixed so inflation was virtually non-existent. The Soviet system had given privileges to countless petty state workers and junior party members. They were known as apparatchiks, whilst high ranking officials and senior party members with better perks were known as nomenklatura. With the end of the Soviet system some of these apparatchiks and nomenklatura exchanged their privileges for money, those still in state employment that had remained honest now exchanged favours for bribes. Corruption increased during the post-Sovi et era simply out of economic necessity right across all the former Soviet Union as ordinary citizens and government officials found that they did not enough to live on. Throughout the former Soviet Union, the pace of economic liberalisation varied. By the middle of 1994 the Baltic States and Russia in terms of the total percentage of gross domestic product generated by the private sector of the economy were well ahead of the Asian republics, Belarus and Moldova. In Estonia and Latvia, it was 55%, in Russia and Lithuania50 % with Belarus, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan lagged far behind on only 15%. In post-Soviet Russia nomenklatura were better placed than most to survive the harsher economic climate particularly those that lived in regions such as Siberia found it harder to survive especially when state subsidies ended leaving food and fuel far more expensive than in the major cities. The collapse of communism cut off many of the remote industrial and mining areas from the central government leading to social and economic decay. Such neglect has allowed for the growth of organised crime and corruption as desperate people turn to drugs and alcohol. Drug and alcohol abuse leads to health problems or addiction. To counter some of th e incursions into those remote areas by crime gangs the Putin government once more restricted travel in to those areas. A factor that contributed to the rise of organised crime in the post-Soviet was the wide availability of weapons for organised crime gangs and individual gangsters or thugs to use. Weapons were often obtained from members of the armed forces. Military and naval personnel were increasingly eager to sell weapons to supplement their wages, assuming they had been paid on time. The Russian commanders are said to have done worse during the first Chechen war of 1994 -1996. They sold Grozny back to the rebels in August 1996 leading to the deaths of defenceless conscripts. Corruption within the Russian military seems to be endemic, which given its role in maintaining central government authority and internal security in some of the remoter regions of the Russian Federation certainly permitted and even encouraged organised crime to rise, for instance in Chechnya. During the second Chechen war that began in 1999 the local police observed the illicit trade between Russian soldiers and local blac k marketers. These soldiers would exchange boxes of ammunition for locally distilled vodka or locally grown cannabis with the tacit approval of their superior officers. Indeed, officers often accompanied their men when these exchanges took place. The black marketers then sell the ammunition to the Chechen fighters. Local police could intervene and arrest everybody, but they have either been told not to or bribed motto. The army was supposed to keep all the roads into Chechnya secure to prevent the rebels escaping or gaining supplies and money. However, the reporter Anna Politkovskaya was told â€Å"one person on foot must pay100 roubles; a light vehicle costs about 500-600 roubles†. Politkovskaya did not readily accept those claims until she successfully bribed the soldiers to get past the checkpoint. The greed and corruption of the army must have been counterproductive. They sold ammunition that was used by the Chechens and they allowed access to restricted areas to anybody who could have smuggled weapons in and people out. The corruption of the Russian armed forces in the area in and around Chechnya lowered the security and containment of Chechen fighters and contributed to the apparent ease in which rebels were able to take hostages in the Moscow theatre during October 2002. More horrifically the siege of a Beslan high school in September 2004 showed that the Russian military were incompetent as well as riddled with corruption. Gangsters did not always buy weapons; they could often steal weapons from poorly guarded or neglected military bases. Due to the Soviet Union having national service most of the organised crime gang members could already use weapons. Troops leaving the army could also consider employment as either bodyguard for the newly rich and the justifiably concerned business owners or joining the organised crime gangs themselves as thugs and assassins. Violent crime is probably not as prevalent as people in the West might believe, however crime gangs would have no qualms about settling accounts with intimidation, assault and murder. Some murders have shown that the crime gangs and contract killers are able to gain hold of sophisticated weapons such as rocket launchers to kill bodyguards as well as their bosses in St Petersburg. Gangs must be well connected as well as rich to acquire such weapons. The dramatic rise in the murder rate witnessed not only the deaths of politicians (three members of the Duma were shot dead in cold blood) but also businessmen and journalists. Business executives and more lowly bank employees could be and were at risk of being killed due tithe rise in corruption and organised crime. Not many gang members were afraid of being caught and convicted, for they were confident that even if the police did catch them that either the police or the courts could be persuaded to let them get away with it. In the period between 1992and 1995, the number of killed bank workers ranging from clerks to senior executives was 46. The most publicized killing was that of Pivanilide who the president of Rosbiznesbank had been. Kivelidi was poisoned in August 1995 for not complying with the demands of organised criminals. There are still a high number of deaths because of fighting between rival gangs still demonstrating that there are enough guns and money up for grabs to m ake the high risks of being killed seem worthwhile. Over 2,000 gang members are gunned down every year in gang wars in the Moscow region alone. Until the Putin presidency the situation in St Petersburg had been worse although Putin seems to want to clean up his home city. The difficulty and the danger of uncovering the true level of crimes being committed aided the rise in organised crime and corruption. With so many bureaucrats, police and politicians involved or thought to be involved in corruption much of the uncovering of crimes and evidence of corruption came from the press and journalists or even rarely independently minded politicians. For journalists it was dangerous to uncover and attempt to publish evidence and articles concerning organised crime gangs and the high levels of corruption. Considering the increasing control of the media by the state or by oligarchs whose own positions could be undermined by revelations of corruption or organised crime it has not always been easy for reporters to go public with evidence they have gathered. To illustrate the dangerous position journalists found themselves in, 36 were killed between January 1994and May 1995 throughout the former Soviet Union whilst doing their jobs and reporting on not only corrup tion and organised crime but also the conflict in Chechnya. The uncovering of evidence of the corruption and fraud within the Soviet army during its time in East Germany and before its departure appeared to be a major scope for the Murkowski Komsomolsk and its investigative journalist Dmitrii Kholod. For Kholod it proved one-story too far as a bomb blew up him and his office during October1994. Even television reporters and journalists were not immune from danger. Following his research into the corrupt or dishonest selling of television advertising Vladimir Listed was gunned down in March 1995before he could broadcast all his findings. At other times politicians, bureaucrats and business executives would inform or leak information about their rivals real or presumed links with organised crime and corruption for their own gain rather than in the public interest or to fight corruption itself. Whilst these bouts of accusations and counter accusations occupied the politicians and press attentions they occasionally removed the expendable politici ans and bureaucrats whilst leaving the level of overall corruption untouched. As noted below the Books affair would be used to force the resignations of some of the young reformers in 1999. Accusations of corruption would also be leaked to the press after an individual had lost the approval of either President Yeltsin or President Putin. The prime example of this were the accusations levelled against Boris Berezovskyafter he fell out with Putin, or more aptly when Putin regarded him as no longer useful to the Kremlin. Berezovsky is claimed to have stolen millions from his companies and state-run companies such as Aeroflot. All these events were from the early 1990s, so the Russian government had plenty of time to prove them or clear him. Berezovsky who went to exile in London has retaliated by campaigning against the Putin government’s increasing control of power. In Russia it appears that those involved in corruption or organised crime are relatively immune from arrest if they do not upset the Kremlin, or their punishment becomes politically expedient for the government. President Putin is arguably â€Å"searching for levers that will work †¦ to have in place a national authority that functions as normal governments do†. Corruption was a fact of life in the Soviet era and now seems even more endemic in the post-Soviet period; ordinary Soviet citizens were cynical about the financial honesty of their political masters and the higher-ranking communist party officials, a cynicism that continues with post-Soviet politicians and officials. Evidence of corruption and bribery would often be collected by the KGB and used if the individuals concerned fall out of favour senior party members, its successor still collects such information only now some its officers are more likely to sell sensitive information to the highest bidders. President Yeltsinonly renamed the KGB the FSB instead of abolishing it. He also retained control of the KGB records and evidence of the corruption they contained Timely uncovering of bribe taking and corruption have often been used to discredit rivals and justify the dismissal of ministers and officials. Therefore, presumably there is usually enough evidence to act against many of t hose involved in corruption or organised crime but not always the political will or judicial authority to do so. Many Russians believe that most if not all government ministers and officials are corrupt and susceptible to bribes. Officials are willing to risk public safety and even national security as well as their reputations for the sake of bribes. Allegations and counter allegations of corruption were used in the 1990s during the power struggle between President Yeltsin and hard-liners such as Rosko and Khasbulatov. Corruption both in the Soviet era and afterwards existed and increased because the majority of those accepting bribes or using their position for gain position or cash believed that they would not get caught. Even if they did get caught the rate of convictions were not that high. Soviet era clampdowns on corruption under Andropov and Gorbachev only caught small fry and the same could apply during the post-Soviet era. The only notable high ranking communist to be convicted for corruption was Yuri Churbanov in 1988. Churbanov’s father in law was the late Leonid Brezhnev, the one-time Soviet leader and General Secretar