Financial Crisis

To: Congress man C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER III

Re: The Economic crisis.

Sir, the problem that we face in the country is as a result of regimes giving leeway to financial institution to play around with public money. Democrats and Republicans from the time of President Ronald Regan to the current President Obama all are culpable. Ronald Regan deregulated the Banks and congress helped to tweak. Laws and rules that made systemic abuses and the meltdown not only possible but, looking back, inevitable. Throughout the system, from the lending institutions to federal regulators to congressional overseers, those charged with protecting consumers averted their eyes. As Banks and Insurance companies create malicious products that defraud the public of their hard earned money the CEO of these companies take with them huge lump sums of money as bonus for a good job done if defrauding the public.

I am personally enraged by the act of these architects of skims, people taking other people money and not one of them has been brought to justice.  It is not fair that now I have to a high credit score for me to be able to get any kind of credit. The American dream is on the verge of collapse, a decade ago any child in the US could say that they want to be something when they grow up, however now that seems to be a dream that is far out of reach for many aspiring Americans. This country is built on the foundation of rule of law, but with the impunity that the executives of the big companies enjoy I am left to wonder where the country is headed to.

As the Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus says “microfinance lending to the poor can return the economy to health” I strongly believe that this is the way that the future needs to head. Many small business across the US had to shut their doors indefinitely millions of people lost a source of income, the social security is at a risk of bankruptcy at the current rate that were are in. The government needs to offer small loans to small business that are going to help create employment putting people back to work and jumpstarting the economy. The economy has built up too many imbalances consumer debt, overextended construction, impaired capital of banks. The Federal government needs to provide short-term loans and taking other measures to sustain the commercial paper market, interbank lending and the smooth functioning of money market funds

Joseph Wangombe

English 102

3/8/2011

Troublemakers.

Frame.

The frame of the essay is the time period that pit bulls attack’s a young kid which is in February and the time that the Ontario legislature banned the ownership of pit bulls. The writer goes to give different generalizations that occurred in different times, however all the other examples revolve around this issue.

The main idea in this essay is Generalization of issues that is common among people without looking at the real facts.

5 issues 

 

In July of last year, following the transit bombing in London, the New York City police Department announced that it would send officers into the subways to conduct random searches of passengers’ bags. On the face of it, doing random searches in the hunt for terrorists- as opposed to being guided by generalizations.

One of the puzzling things about New York City is that, after the enormous and well publicized reductions in crime in the mid-nineteen-nineties, the crime rate  has continued to fall. In the past two years, for instance murder in New York has declined by almost ten per cent, rape by twelve percent and burglary by more than eighteen per cent. Just in the last year, auto theft went down 11.8 percent.

As a columnist in New York wrote at the time, “Not just ‘most’ but nearly every Jihadi who attack a western European or American target is a young Arab or Pakistani man. In other words, you can predict with a fair degree of certainity what an Al Qaeda terrorist looks like. Just as we have always known what Mafiosi look like- even as we understand that that only an infinitesimal fraction of Italian- American are members of the mob.”

Why, for instance, is it a useful rule of thumb that Kenyans are good distance runners? It’s not just that it’s statistically supportable today. It’s that it has been true for almost half a century, and that in Kenya the tradition of distance running is sufficiently rooted that something cataclysmic would have to happen to dislodge it.

“I’ve seen virtually every breed involved in fatalities, including Pomeranians and everything else, except a beagle or a basset hound,” Randal lockwood, a senior vice-president of the A.S.P.C.A and one of the country’s leading dog bite experts, told me.  “And there’s always one or two deaths attributable to malamutes or huskies, although you never hear people clamoring for a ban on those breeds.

"Susie Bayer" and "Jesus" Essay

Joseph Wangombe

Engl 102

2/17/2011

1.      Compare the structure of "Susie Bayer" and "Jesus"

“Susie Bayer” and “Jesus” essay are both chronological essay,  in the sense that both follow an event from one stage the other. The use of English language in Jesus essay is simplified by the missionaries as much as possible. This is to make the kids be able to understand the message of the missionaries. The beginning paragraphs of the two essays differ a lot. In Jesus essay the writer begins the essay in the form of an anecdote. The case is different in Susie essay, the essay kind of tells you early enough what the essay will be taking about. That is in the very first sentence.  “If you've ever left a bag of clothes outside the Salvation Army or given to a local church drive, chances are that you've dressed an African.”

2.      Give 3 examples of facts obtained in research by the author.

a.       Americans buy clothes in disposable quantities-- $165 billion worth last year. This is found in the fourth paragraph.

b.      Edelman estimates that more than a third of the donations that Call Again receives ends up in Trans-Americas' recycling factory. Goodwill Industries, which handles more than a billion pounds a year in North America, puts its figure at 50 percent. Some sources estimate that of the 2.5 billion pounds of clothes that Americans donate each year, as much as 80 percent gets trucked off to places like Trans-Americas.

c.       The owners of Trans-Americas, Edward and Eric Stubin, father and son, are more open than most in the industry, though they wouldn't share their annual sales figures with me. In 2001, used clothing was one of America's major exports to Africa, with $61.7 million in sales. Latin America and Asia have formidable trade barriers. Some African countries -- Nigeria, Eritrea, South Africa -- ban used clothing in order to protect their own domestic textile industries, which creates a thriving and quite open black market. For years, Africa has been Trans-Americas' leading overseas market for used clothing, absorbing two-thirds of its exports.

3.      Give 3 examples of places where the information came from an interview, and state what you think the question was.

a.       One day a few years ago, relief came to them in the form of a young man named Eric Stubin, who runs Trans-Americas Trading Company, a textile recycling factory in Brooklyn. He said that he was willing to send a truck every Tuesday to haul away what the women didn't want and that he would pay them three cents a pound for it. ''You never heard two people happier to hear from someone in your life,'' Edelman says. Now every month 1,200 or 1,300 pounds of rejected donations are trucked to Brooklyn, and every three months Call Again gets a check for $100 or so, money that goes to charity.

The question could have been “How did you come to learn of Trans-American Trading Company?”

b.      ''We get the good, the bad and the ugly,'' Eric Stubin tells me as we tour the factory. ''Ripped sweaters, the occasional sweater with something disgusting on it, the pair of underwear you don't want to talk about. We're getting what the thrifts can't sell.'' There are more than 300 export categories at the factory, but the four essential classifications are ''Premium,'' ''Africa A,'' ''Africa B'' and ''Wiper Rag.'' ''Premium'' goes to Asia and Latin America. ''Africa A'' -- a garment that has lost its brightness -- goes to the better-off African countries like Kenya. ''Africa B'' -- a stain or small hole -- goes to the continent's disaster areas, its Congos and Angolas. By the time a shirt reaches Kisangani or Huambo, it has been discarded by its owner, rejected at the thrift shop and graded two steps down by the recycler.

The question could have been “ Are all the clothes that you get bad?”

c.       But there are many Africas, and used clothing carries a different meaning in each of them. Christianity tenderized most of the continent for the foreign knife, but the societies of Muslim West Africa and Somalia are bits of gristle that have proved more resistant to Western clothes. In warlord-ridden, destitute Somalia, used clothing is called, rather contemptuously, huudhaydh -- as in, ''Who died?'' A woman in Kenya who once sold used dresses told me that not long ago Kenyans assumed the clothing was removed from dead people and washed it carefully to avoid skin diseases. In Togo, it is called ''dead white man's clothing.'' In Sierra Leone, it's called ''junks'' and highly prized. In Rwanda, used clothing is known by the word for ''choose,'' and in Uganda, it used to be called ''Rwanda,'' which is where it came from illegally until Uganda opened its doors to what is now called mivumba.

The question could have been “Which part of Africa are the clothes going?”

My Name

Joseph Wangombe

Eng 102          

2/8/11

Kizzier. C

My Name

            My name Joseph Wangombe is part Hebrew and the other half of the name is African. My mum gave me the name since she was a religious woman and was fascinated by the character Joseph in the Bible. Once I asked her the meaning of my name, she gave me a vague meaning of my names. I decided to venture out seeking the deeper meaning of it.

            Joseph originates from the Bible, name given to the eleventh son of Jacob also know as Israel, Jacob loved his son more than he loved the other 10 sons, for he was born of his second wife Rachel. Jacob had worked in the fields for 14 years to be able to pay her dowry. Israel had Joseph in his old age. Israel would make him a garment that was long and full such that was worn by the noble during biblical times. The meaning of his name was one that would bring increase. He lived up to the name, where he went there was abundance; sold by his brother to the Egyptians he soared as a slave in foreign land. Becoming the ruler of Egypt. Even though the name is ubiquitous it is one of a kind, trying to live up to the name is a challenge.

            My Last name is Wangombe, my father’s name that I have to bare, I love the fact that it is unique, Ever since I came to America I have not heard of anyone with that name. I asked my father the meaning of the name, and to my surprise he was vastly knowledgeable about the name. Wangombe means one that has a lot of cattle in Swahili, which happens to be my first language.  My father told me that before the British came people were given one name, and you would earn a first name by your trade. My great grandfather was a colonial chief in the early 1920’s. With that title came a lot of pride as one had all the privileges in the whole community, he would settle dispute of borders among the people. Family related issues among many other duties. He had more than 1500 cattle that grazed in the land that happened to be communal. In the declaration of independence in the early sixties the British left the responsibility of dividing the land to the colonial chiefs. The chiefs to this day are blamed for the way they allocated the land, it was distributed according to the needs and size of the family but the chiefs went with the biggest and most fertile lands. With that My great grandfather earned his name Wangombe.

Even though I live in the 21’s century world, people not knowing the full meaning of their names, I now know my task is big since I am named after people who had lived a lifetime to earn their names.