Poverty in canadian society Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Poverty in canadian society - Term Paper Example There is another traditional poverty measure criteria based on basic needs poverty measure, recommended by Fraser Institute. As per this measure poverty has reduced greatly in the past 60 years, as reported 4.9% in 2004 (Wikipedia para 2). Indicators of poverty have changed with the changing times. In comparison to middle class Europeans, the â€Å"poor† America possess larger homes; more than 70% have a car; about 20% have more than one transport medium; about 60% poor have two or more television sets. The traditional definition of poor denoting those who have deficiency of food, shelter, and clothing holds minimum authenticity, therefore, requires redefining (Bauman 6). Before considering poverty in relative terms we need to find the parameters to compare, what are the standards, global or the highest known standards in Canada and Europe, as examples from third world could be the worst on absolute poverty (Segal 7). Milton Freedman, one the great post-war Nobel Prize winning conservative economists put the case this way: â€Å"The programme should be designed to help people as people not as members of particular occupational groups or age groups or wage-rate groups or labour organizations or industries† (Segal 18). ... Canada could not meet the poverty targets set by the United Nations in 1996, the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty, as reported by the National Council of Welfare. Since1990s such figures have been presented that indicate a rise in the number of poor people in Canada. Even at the height of economic boom, rate of downfall in poverty was slow. There is no unanimous opinion on it, as all depends on how we define and measure poverty. Some indicators to the rise in poverty include peoples’ increasing dependence on food banks and emergency shelters. Between 1989 and 2000 the use of food banks had increased by 96%. At a boom period of 1997-2000, the food bank use increased by 9.4%. Housing has become a big issue for poor people. Canadian youth are the leading community in the matter of homelessness but when it comes to measuring poverty, computations on poverty lines are not unanimous (deGroot-Maggetti 1-3). So far as poverty lines are concerned, in Canada there is no dearth of poverty measures. The federal government has a number of poverty indicating measures. Besides, the social councils, organizations, and independent researchers have evolved their own measures. Yet provincial social help rates offer another set of poverty lines. Absolute measures stress on basic human needs while relative measures point towards the insufficiency of standards socially accepted above poverty line (deGroot-Maggetti 3). Due to different measuring standards of poverty, the term has become somewhat ambiguous. A further research into the causes of poverty in Canada can help in making the meaning clear. Many factors are responsible for poverty although there is difference in a â€Å"factor† and a â€Å"cause†. A â€Å"cause† adds to the emerging of an issue such as poverty

The Global Financial Crisis has as its basis a failure of regulation Coursework

The Global Financial Crisis has as its basis a failure of regulation. A Critical Discussion - Coursework Example The Global financial Crisis first began in USA’s sub-prime mortgage market and this gradually resulted in a global economic recession of a huge magnitude. In this mortgage market, the financial institutions issued sub-prime mortgage loans to householders. In most cases, these borrowers had unstable incomes and failed to fulfill the basic criteria of credit worthiness. The borrowers mostly kept their respective properties as mortgage and the loans were issued to them against the value of this collateral security. During that time, there was an upswing in the property market and the financial institutions could easily realize the value of this collateral asset by a forced sale. Therefore, the lenders considered the property market a safe place and did not hesitate to issue loans against the property assets kept as collateral security. A regime of low interest rate was prevalent at that time and the mortgage loans were issued at this floating interest rate. As a result, the borrowers had to repay a small amount of the loan every month. However, the U.S Federal Reserve Bank increased the lending rate of interest in the country. During 2004-2006, the lending interest rate in USA’s housing market recorded a sharp rise. Following this, the borrowing householders had to repay a higher installment of the loan to the financial institutions each month.... They tried to improve their financial situation in this way.2 In the property market, the supply of property exceeded the demand by a large amount, resulting in a huge decrease in the prices of the properties. Now, there were institutions in Europe, Asia and even Africa who had invested in the U.S market. The property assets which were given as collateral security in exchange of the loans issued in the USA were held by these institutional investors across the world. This was made possible by a complicated method of securitization resting on strategies of globalization. Thus, the repayments of the loans made by monthly installments by the borrowers were actually delivered to these institutional investors around the globe. Once the borrowers started defaulting, the monthly repayment of the loans stopped reaching the institutional investors. This resulted in huge losses for the institutions. Banks in the U.S.A and Europe defaulted; various stock indexes declined considerably, the market value of equities and commodities plummeted and there were la rge scale job losses resulting in unemployment in the economy. This financial crisis continued to spread to several countries of the world.3 4 The global financial crisis of 2008 had four features that were common with the other crises of the world: the increase in the assets prices that did not prove to be sustainable, upsurges in credit that resulted in increasing of debt burdens, the accumulation of marginal loans and the build up of systemic risk and the failure of regulation to control the crisis. It was seen that in the crisis, the regulatory regime had proved to be insufficient. In the developed countries, finance companies,