How sucessful has the government and the bank of england been in Essay

How sucessful has the government and the bank of england been in running the british economy over the past 2 years - Essay Example The major Economies of the world are facing a credit crunch and this has also affected the British Economy in more ways than one. Obtaining credit has become one of the most difficult tasks and in addition to this; the cost of mortgages has also adversely affected the major Economies of the world. â€Å"A significant level of short-term debt—unsecured or secured against property, as well as credit cards—is widespread. Over the last ten years the economy under the Labor government has grown in large part because of consumer spending financed by debt. (The Impact, 1 October 2008). According to a report it was found that out of 47.5 million adults in UK, 4.8 million people were found to be spending more than what they earned. It is predicted that in the near future the British Economy is going to be affected by the credit crunch, just like the economy of United States of America. The British economy is facing two major problems as of now namely, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth is really slow and the rising rate of Inflation has taken on a toll on the British Economy. The bank of England is trying everything possible to stimulate the economic growth in the British Economy; the cut in the interest rates proves the same. Currently the British Economy can take a little satisfaction from the fact that the employment rate has risen and there is less unemployment found in Britain than what it used to be earlier. â€Å"â€Å"The employment rate for people of working age was 74.5 per cent for the three months to October 2007, up 0.1 from the previous quarter but unchanged over the year. The number of people in employment for the three months to October 2007 was 29.29 million, up 114,000 over the quarter and up 226,000 over the year. Total hours worked per week were 940.0 million, up 5.1 million over the quarter and up 11.7 million over the year. These figur es for people in employment and hours worked are the highest since comparable records began

There are only two ways in which humankind can produce knowledge Essay

There are only two ways in which humankind can produce knowledge through passive observation or through active experiment. To what extent do you agree with this statement - Essay Example I will take passive observation to mean knowledge acquired through discovery but in which the knower do not influence the phenomenon they are studying. Active experimentation is whereby the knower participates in creating or producing knowledge. The title presupposes that humankind can only discover or create knowledge. I am going to argue that there are different approaches to produce knowledge in addition to passive observation and active experimentation as evidenced by the various areas of knowledge and ways of knowing. In order to understand whether we discover or create knowledge and whether there are other ways of producing knowledge, first we need to understand what knowledge is. Lagemaat (2015, 23) defines knowledge as â€Å"justified true belief† (Lagemaat, 2015, 23). From this definition, arise three concepts that need explaining: truth, belief and justification. Truth is what distinguishes knowledge from belief. People hold many beliefs depending on their cultures some of which are superstitious hence not everything that people believe is knowledge. For example, the Greeks believed in myths such as odyssey to explain extraordinary events such as earthquakes. Such beliefs even if the Greeks considered them true cannot be true and as such are not knowledge. For it to be considered as knowledge what one claims to know must be true otherwise, it may be true or false. Since we cannot be 100 percent sure that what we know is true, a degree of certainty is acceptable hence something is true beyond reasonable doubt (Stuart, 2000). Belief is to believe what you claim to know as true is true (Stuart, 2000). It is having confidence or strong conviction that what you claim to know is true. For example, if you hold the truth that telling lies is wrong, then you should have the conviction to say that you know that it is true. For Lagemaat, belief and knowledge lay in a continuum ranging from the impossible to certainty hence there is