“We were cocked & loaded to retaliate”

Author(s):  
Mohammad Makki ◽  
Andrew S. Ross

Abstract The diplomatic relationship between the USA and Iran has long been fraught and is characterised by various conflicts and the implementation of economic sanctions. It can be argued that the relationship became even more hostile after Donald Trump was elected president of the US. Trump’s sentiments towards Iran were made public through his behavior on Twitter, both before and after he took over the Presidency. These sentiments have been a mix of negative and sometimes positive views and opinions. This study uses a corpus of Trump’s tweets that explicitly mention ‘Iran’ as the basis of a linguistic analysis and applies to it the analytical framework of appraisal from Systemic Functional Linguistics. More specifically, this study focuses on how he established an Us vs. Them dichotomy. While the analysis shows that Iran has been generally portrayed negatively by Trump, there were several tweets where the Iranian government was appraised positively, too. More interestingly, in those tweets, he seemed to target Obama and democrats and represent them negatively while Iran was assessed in positive terms.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Reza Abbaszadeh

The US election is an influential event, not just in the USA itself but in the world. The present study aims to analyze Joe Biden’s inauguration speech after winning the presidential election in January 2021 and becoming the 46th president of the United States. Moreover, this paper attempts to investigate the USA’s possible policies toward their own nation and, of course, the other countries. This analysis goes through predicting probable upcoming policies of Biden’s administration comparing to the previous president of the USA, Donald Trump, who breached several international agreements. To this end, Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1978; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) has been employed in Biden’s first speech after winning the election and beginning of the democratic administration to observe his political intentions by means of a critical approach and using appraisal resources of Martin and White (2007) to clarify the attitude, graduation, and engagement of his speech. Overall, designating the number of vocabularies related to any of the mentioned appraisal resources, it is concluded that Biden’s tendency, based on his inauguration speech and the lexical and grammatical (‘lexicogrammar) choices, is to compensate Trump’s actions, such as breaching 2015 JCPOA agreement and breaking 2015 Paris Climate Accord, and make peace with whom Trump had fueled conflicts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Sandeep Thakur

The main aim of this paper is to determine whether the volatility in the stocks can be created by events like the US Election and whether it leads to Fat Tail in the stocks. Fat Tail analysis is a key factor in determining volatility and has been used in the economy as well as in many other fields like climate and health. Log return has been used to determine the Fat Tail. To make the work more reliable, two Presidential election periods, that of Barack Obama and Donald Trump is selected and is compared for volatility and Fat Tail. For this study, stocks from the S&P 100 are selected and observed. The results show that the US economy is not at all driven by who comes in power and when but rather by the present economic condition. Stocks showing heavy tails during the Obama presidency are primarily because the economy was under Sub Prime Crisis too.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianshu Gu ◽  
Lishi Wang ◽  
Ning Xie ◽  
Xia Meng ◽  
Zhijun Li ◽  
...  

The complexity of COVID-19 and variations in control measures and containment efforts in different countries have caused difficulties in the prediction and modeling of the COVID-19 pandemic. We attempted to predict the scale of the latter half of the pandemic based on real data using the ratio between the early and latter halves from countries where the pandemic is largely over. We collected daily pandemic data from China, South Korea, and Switzerland and subtracted the ratio of pandemic days before and after the disease apex day of COVID-19. We obtained the ratio of pandemic data and created multiple regression models for the relationship between before and after the apex day. We then tested our models using data from the first wave of the disease from 14 countries in Europe and the US. We then tested the models using data from these countries from the entire pandemic up to March 30, 2021. Results indicate that the actual number of cases from these countries during the first wave mostly fall in the predicted ranges of liniar regression, excepting Spain and Russia. Similarly, the actual deaths in these countries mostly fall into the range of predicted data. Using the accumulated data up to the day of apex and total accumulated data up to March 30, 2021, the data of case numbers in these countries are falling into the range of predicted data, except for data from Brazil. The actual number of deaths in all the countries are at or below the predicted data. In conclusion, a linear regression model built with real data from countries or regions from early pandemics can predict pandemic scales of the countries where the pandemics occur late. Such a prediction with a high degree of accuracy provides valuable information for governments and the public.


Author(s):  
J. C. Sharman

This chapter begins by tracing the origins of the anti-kleptocracy cause in the United States, starting with the harsh Cold War environment and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977. It explores the status quo ante of dictators being able to launder their funds in the US financial system with impunity immediately before and after the turn of the century. At this time, there was no law prohibiting American banks and other institutions receiving the proceeds of foreign corruption. The USA Patriot Act closed this legal loophole, yet practice lagged, and laws at first failed to have much of an impact. More recent cases indicate at least partial effectiveness, however, with instances of successful prevention and some looted wealth confiscated and returned.


Risks ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jatin Malhotra ◽  
Angelo Corelli

The paper analyzes the relationship between the credit default swaps (CDS) spreads for 5-year CDS in Europe and US, and fundamental macroeconomic variables such as regional stock indices, oil prices, gold prices, and interest rates. The dataset includes consideration of multiple industry sectors in both economies, and it is split in two sections, before and after the global financial crisis. The analysis is carried out using multivariate regression of each index vs. the macroeconomic variables, and a Granger causality test. Both approaches are performed on the change of value of the variables involved. Results show that equity markets lead in price discovery, bidirectional causality between interest rate, and CDS spreads for most sectors involved. There is also bidirectional causality between stock and oil returns to CDS spreads.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Glover-Kudon ◽  
Doris G Gammon ◽  
Todd Rogers ◽  
Ellen M Coats ◽  
Brett Loomis ◽  
...  

IntroductionOn 1 January 2016, Hawaii raised the minimum legal age for tobacco access from 18 to 21 years (‘Tobacco 21 (T21)’) statewide, with no special population exemptions. We assessed the impact of Hawaii’s T21 policy on sales of cigarettes and large cigars/cigarillos in civilian food stores, including menthol/flavoured product sales share.MethodsCigarette and large cigar/cigarillo sales and menthol/flavoured sales share were assessed in Hawaii, California (implemented T21 in June 2016 with a military exemption), and the US mainland using the only Nielsen data consistently available for each geographical area. Approximate monthly sales data from large-scale food stores with sales greater than US$2 million/year covered June 2012 to February 2017. Segmented regression analyses estimated changes in sales from prepolicy to postpolicy implementation periods.ResultsFollowing T21 in Hawaii, average monthly cigarette unit sales dropped significantly (−4.4%, p<0.01) coupled with a significant decrease in menthol market share (−0.8, p<0.01). This combination of effects was not observed in comparison areas. Unit sales of large cigars/cigarillos decreased significantly in each region following T21 implementation. T21 policies in Hawaii and California showed no association with flavoured/menthol cigar sales share, but there was a significant increase in flavoured/menthol cigar sales share in the USA (7.1%, p<0.01) relative to Hawaii’s implementation date, suggesting T21 may have attenuated an otherwise upward trend.ConclusionsAs part of a comprehensive approach to prevent or delay tobacco use initiation, T21 laws may help to reduce sales of cigarette and large cigar products most preferred by US youth and young adults.


2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN S. SHORT

Individuals and families may encounter difficulty making ends meet on many dimensions and there are a large number of measures designed to identify this group. In general, there is agreement that all of the approaches capture different pieces of the puzzle, while no single indicator can yield a complete picture. In an attempt to understand this multidimensional aspect of poverty, several measures are examined in this article: the official US poverty measure, a relative poverty measure, an experimental measure following recommendations of the US National Academy of Sciences, an index of material hardship, a measure of household debt, and responses to a question about inability to meet expenses. This study uses the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The SIPP is a longitudinal survey that allows us to examine all of these various indicators for the same people over the period from 1996 to 1998. The study uses regression analysis to assess the relationship between and among the various indicators of economic hardship.


Author(s):  
Ростиславовна Наталья ◽  
Rostislavovna Natal'ya

The article describes metaphorical models which represent the concept of immigration in the discourse of ex US president Barack Obama and today’s American president Donald Trump. The conducted comparative analyses of remarks by two presidents in address to the nation on immigration distinguished certain metaphorical models which actualize different priority tendencies of immigrational politics of the presidents, and which serve for forming needed images and defining people’s way of thinking and behavior. The analysis showed how linguacultural images of American world view have changed during the last three years. The paper points out dominant metaphorical models characterizing immigration from different points of view. For Barack Obama immigration is a source of entrepreneurial and economic potential. Donald Trump’s metaphors present immigrants as aliens threatening the safety of the nation.


2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiana Gregoriou

The Dexter TV show, much like the literary series it is closely adapted from, features detective hero Dexter Morgan who, though a blood-spatter analyst and killer hunter, is also a serial killer himself. Unlike other killers featured in fiction though, his murderous actions are specifically code-driven; he only pursues dangerous criminals who escape the law. It is because the show encourages readers to empathise with this somewhat unusual detective that the show attracted not only academic attention from television analysts, philosophers, psychologists, linguists and cultural studies specialists, but significant opposition from such groups as the US Parents Television Council as well. Regardless of whose ideologies it is that the show implies exactly, this article turns to direct viewer-derived data instead, in the form of selected internet forum messages over the first 5 episodes of the fifth series of the show (screened in the USA in the autumn of 2010). The critical linguistic analysis of this data uncovers the ways in which real viewers actually respond to serial killer-related ideologies with respect, for instance, to attitudes toward extreme crime and victim typology in US society. Through a discussion of specific message board strings from Showtime’s online Dexter forum, the article not only accounts for evidence with respect to the show’s implied ideologies, but more particularly investigates viewer reactions to them also.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 78-108
Author(s):  
M. M. Panyuzheva

The article discusses the security relations among the United States, the EU and Russia in the context of Donald Trump's populism, the change of Western political elites and the erosion of arms treaty regimes. The purpose of the article is to analyze the current state and identify the probable scenarios of relations in the triangle of the USA – the EU – Russia. The article explores the features of the Euro-Atlantic security system from 1990’s till the mid-2000’s; the concept of Euro-Atlantic security in 2008-2009; the US, the EU and Russia relations under Barak Obama and Donald Trump. As a result of a comprehensive analysis, the author comes to the following conclusions: 1) the concept of Euro-Atlantic security is still relevant. Since the NATO based security arrangements are not stabile, security interaction among the USA, the EU and Russia is growing in importance. 2) European leaders seem to be moving towards building a new security architecture and a more balanced dialogue with Russia. The EU remains the main economic partner of the Russian Federation. 3) Trump's “transactional” approach has prompted Europeans to strengthen its defense identity and seek a compromise with Russia. 4) In a multipolar world, the Euro-Atlantic regional security is no longer closed to transatlantic ties. It is important to rethink the concept towards cooperation with non-regional countries. 5) The complex game of engagement and deterrence is likely to continue in relations between Russia and the West. The more uncertain the transatlantic relations become, the more the EU and the US need Russia.The author declares absence of conflict of interests.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document