Fed And Monetary Policy Essays - Monetary Policy,

Fed And Monetary Policy Justin McVay Period 4 Macroeconomics Term Paper FEDERAL RESERVE AND MONETARY POLICY Monetary policy affects the economic and financial decisions of virtually all of us from workers to borrowers to investors (Rukeyser 105). Louis Rukeyser wrote, If we want monetary policy to play its proper role in a true national economic reconstruction, the authentic task is to get the Fed to stop bouncing like a Chinese Ping-Pong ball, switching every few months between the inflationary effect of pumping far too much money into the economy and cramping, recessionary effect of supplying far to little (Rukeyser 104). And, because the US is the largest economy in the world, its monetary policy also has significant economic and financial effects on other countries. The object of monetary policy is to influence the performance of the economy, as reflected in such factors as inflation, economic output, and employment. It does so by affecting demand. Most people are familiar with the fiscal policy tools that affect demand, such as taxes and government spending. Less familiar is monetary policy; it is conducted by the Federal Reserve System, the nation's central bank, and it influences demand mainly by raising and lowering short-term interest rates. The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is the nation's central bank. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1913 and consists of the seven members of the Board of Governors in Washington, DC and twelve Federal Reserve District Banks. Congress structured the Fed to be independent within the government. What that means is although the Fed I accountable to Congress, it is insulated from day-to-day political pressures. This reflects the conviction held both the US and in many other countries that the people who control the country's money supply should be independent of the people who frame the government's spending decisions. Most studies of central bank independence rank the Fed among the most independent in the world (World 68). Each reserve bank President is appointed to a five-year term by that bank's Board of Directors, subject to final approval by the Board of Governors. This procedure adds to independence, because the directors of each reserve bank, who are not political appointees, provide a regional cross-section of interests, including depository institutions, nonfinancial businesses, labor, and the public. The Fed is structured to be self-sufficient in the sense that it meets its operation expenses primarily from the interest earnings on its portfolio of securities. Therefore, it is independent of Congressional decisions about funding. Even though the Fed is independent of Congressional funding and administrative control, it is ultimately accountable to Congress and comes under government audit and review. The Chairman, other governors, and Reserve Bank Presidents report regularly to the Congress on monetary policy, and a variety of other issues, and meet with senior Administration officials to discuss the Federal Reserve's and the federal government's economic programs (World 67). Within the Fed, the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, has the primary responsibility for conducting monetary policy. The FOMC meets in Washington eight times a year and has twelve members: the seven members of the Board of Governors, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and four of the other Reserve Bank Presidents, who serve in rotation. The remaining Reserve Bank Presidents contribute to the committee's discussions and deliberations. In addition, the directors of each Reserve Bank contribute to monetary policy by making recommendations about the appropriate discount rate, which are subject to final approval by the Governors. The goals of US Monetary Policy according to the Federal Reserve Act states that they are to promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. The goals of monetary policy are inconsistent. The belief that a 4% unemployment rate and stable prices are inconsistent is shaped by the widely accepted natural rate hypothesis. It argues that monetary policy has no effect on the economy's long-run equilibrium unemployment rate, which is often called the natural rate of unemployment. The reason is that, in the long run, unemployment depends on so-called real factors such as technology and people's preferences for saving, risk, and work effort; these factors are beyond the reach of monetary policy. Most current estimates place the natural rate of unemployment in the range 5.75%

Teaching the receptive skills Essays

Teaching the receptive skills Essays Teaching the receptive skills Paper Teaching the receptive skills Paper This study aims to present some useful techniques to teachers who are aiming to improve the students receptive skills (reading, listening). Researchers and teachers of second languages realized that most of their students were able to ask questions from foreigners but were not able to understand what they had answered. It is one of the various good reasons for teaching reading/listening. Students may actually need to read/listen for their work or study, or they want to read/listen for pleasure. In each case, the process needs to be as easy as possible for them. Exercises focusing on the receptive skills allow the study and practice of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and punctuation, and the reading/listening can provoke conversation and discussion. At first, the teachers main task is to get familiar with the different types of reading and listening activities. In case of reading there are: skimming, scanning, receptive/intensive reading and extensive reading. In the followings I would like to present them separately. Skimming means when students are examining a text rapidly with occasional periods of close inspection, i. e. , quickly running their eyes over the text to get the general idea. In the case of scanning students are locating a specific symbol or group of symbols (e. g. : a date or a name of a person or place). So, students are quickly searching for some particular pieces of information. Receptive/intensive reading means a careful reading aimed to discover exactly what the author seeks to convey; often reading for information; readers need to understand linguistic and semantic detail and pay attention to the text. At last, we speak about extensive reading when readers read for pleasure; readers need to understand all details of the text; speed and skill in getting the general idea are most important (Knutson 1998). According to Harmer (1991; p. 217-228) there are 5 types of listening:   Listening to extract specific information: students listen for specific information at word level (e. g. : filling in charts)   Listening for communicative tasks: asks students to listen in order to perform some kind of communicative tasks which is as much like real life as possible, and which involves students working together to solve a problem (Harmer 1991; p. 219)   Listening for general understanding: students listen to conversations in order to get a general idea of what the main points are Listening for detail: students listen for groups of and phrases at sentence level When the teacher is aware of the different kinds of reading and listening activities, he/she has to select the authentic materials. He/she has to take into consideration some very important aspects. Namely, the topic of the text should be interesting to the students and relevant to their age. The teachers also have to know the students background knowledge, including their experience with the topic, their level of English and the new vocabulary that should be presented. The teacher also has to examine the text, I mean whether it is organized in a clear way or not. He/she has to know the length and the quality of the text. As Brewster (1991; p. 6) points out, Their attention span is limited. Therefore, tasks should be short, varied, motivating and interesting and should offer concrete perceptual support. When all the above mentioned aspects are clear for the teacher, he/she can start the lesson, which is concentrating on the receptive skills. According to the book, Kri ti ti l a Videi ig teachers should spend some time with presenting the topic. That can be done by making the students start to talk about the topic or tell their opinion separately and loudly to the class. The teachers can also ask questions related to the topic in order to encourage a whole class talking (Holli et al. 1996). If you are having a reading/listening lesson, you should work on four different stages, namely: Before reading/listening, during reading/listening, after reading/listening, feedback and guidance. The first one is the stage before learners actually read to listen to the text. The function of this stage is to prepare learners to engage in the text, try to do this as effectively as possible, because it is very important to motivate the students for reading/listening the text. At this stage before reading and listening they will have already formed an idea about the content and type of the text. It is also the time when new vocabulary should be presented and the worksheets should be given out to the students. The teacher has to tell them clearly what there task is. While the students are listening or reading the teacher should circulate among them in order to see how well they are moving on and help them if it is necessary. Then, when the text had been listened or read the teacher should check whether they were able to complete the exercise or not. If it was not enough to listen to or read the text once, he/she lets them do it again. Sometimes I ask them not to write anything on their handouts at the first listening/reading, just pay attention to the text carefully. On the feedback stage the teacher together with the students corrects the handouts. True or false statements are popular ways of checking comprehension, and I think that students also like doing these activities. Every course book includes such activities. My favourite reading exercise is mosaic reading, all the students like it, too. I found this exercise in the book, Mi g 135 i tlet. In this activity students are given different paragraphs of a story. I often give out tales that are cut into pieces (e. g. : Snow White). Students read their extract and choose the main happening of it. While they are reading I am walking in the class and help them if there is an unknown word or phrase. They write a statement, and two questions related to their extract. For instance: We are in a little house where everything is so tiny. Why? Who are living here? When the students are ready they ask their questions and the others are checking their extracts to find the answer. If somebody fins it he/she will tell the class. With the help of these questions and answers the students will be able to build up and take into a chronological order the whole story (Gedeon et al. 2002). The students favourite listening exercise is of course when we listen to pop songs. I try to make this more enjoyable by asking them at the end of a lesson to write down their favourite song on a sheet. Then, I collect them and choose one of them. On the next lesson we will listen to that song. I give out the lyric of the song with some missing words; while they are listening they have to complete the gaps. When we have the complete lyric, they translate it to get the general idea of the song. I use the Internet to find the lyrics of the songs. This study aimed to find ways with which the receptive skills of the students can be improved. The most important a teacher should do is to make the students realize what a wonderful thing it is when we are able to understand a foreign language and read a newspaper that is not written in our native language. References 1. Knutson, Elizabeth M. (1998) Reading with a Purpose: Communicative Reading Tasks for the Foreign Language Classroom ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Washington DC. uncc. edu/~medomoto/4200/readings/reading_with_purpose. html Retrieved from the World Wide Web: 01-04-2003 2. Harmer J. (1991) The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman Group UK Limited 3. Brewster J. 1991 Listening and the Young Learner in Teaching English to Children Ed. Brumfit, Moon and Tongue Collins ELT 4. Holli D. Kontri ni H. E. Ti mi r i. (1996) A Kri ti ti l a Videi ig Tanki nyvkiadi , Budapest 5. Gedeon i. Lengyel Zs. Ri dai P. (2002) Mi g 135 i tlet Helikon Kiadi Kft. , Budapest 1 Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our  University Degree Teaching  section.