Politics Around The Globe

*continued from previous post

The three other types of power aside from incentive power and coercive power are legitimate power, referent power and expert power.

Legitimate power is the power held by a police officer or a referee. This is a kind of power that is given to some individual by an established authority to impose principles and standards of behavior.

Referent power is the power given to individual as a merit of attitude or accomplishment. This is similar to being a hero or a celebrity. This is incentive power as one rewards himself.

Expert power is the power one can get from experience. For example, when you have health problems, an advice from a medical doctor is more reliable than an advice from a college Linguist professor.

• US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton – was the former First Lady of the United States of America from year 1993 to 2001. She was born October 16, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois.
• John R. Edwards – a former U.S. Senator and was a candidate for President in 2004 but lost in the primaries. He was born June 10, 1953 in Seneca, South Carolina.
• Maurice R. “Mike” Gravel – a former U.S. Senator and the Founder and President of Democacy Foundation and National Initiative for Democracy non-profit groups. Born May 13, 1930 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• US Senator Barack H. Obama, Jr. – U.S. Senator from year 2005 up to present. He was a Keynote Speaker in the Democratic Nationa Convention in 2004. Born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The health industry is to get a much needed reform program, should lawmakers finish initial deliberations on the provisions of such an action by the current administration. The US’s health care system is badly in need of reform due mainly to the fact that costs have risen that most hospitals cannot afford to keep prices down leaving more and more Americans without proper health care coverage they so need. Millions are without proper health insurance and with many people losing jobs, out the window goes their work sponsored health care benefits, one of the main attractions to working in many companies according to most employees. The government has already released trillions of dollars to help boost the government and prop up the many ailing industries that have been hit hard by the recession. From GM, the many banks that were hit hard by the housing market crash and many more, all of them getting taxpayer dollars. News of some of those taxpayer dollars ending in the wrong hands is unnerving, making th ejob all the more difficult for President Obama who has been trying his best to get a reform program to overhaul the economy for the future of all Americans.

Many countries all over the globe have been hit hard by the collapse of the US’s financial market and none has been hit harder than the developing countries in Asia that have long been dependent on the US for business and other financial backing. From manufacturing plants, assembly and other business tasks, most are silenced indefinitely as their parent companies in the US trims down operating costs, resulting in lost jobs and lost income for local governments. Manufacturing companies that used to boom, serving the needs of the US economy are also hit hard, areas such as industrial manufacturing and ship building have projects put on hold as their financing run’s dry awaiting more cash or more investors to pour in cash and other resources that would allow them to continue. The recession has taken victims, jobs and lost earnings that should have sent children to school for a better future. This is the cycle of the global economy that works like a wheelm sometimes up and sometimes down.

Most of the African continent is still locked in battle, from civil conflict to tribal wars, they rage just out of the headlines due to more pressing news that matters to most people. From the reliance of the many consumer electronics makers on precious minerals and metals that are abundant in that corner of the world, to the many conflict diamonds that are finding their way into jewelry stores all over the globe fueling wars and sending money for arms and other weapons killing millions, untold and silenced forever. Has the world forgotten of the problems the African People are facing, maybe not, but they surely have taken a back-seat as the world turns attention to their own problems. Millions of people on the continent still die from disease and famine and with Mr. Mandela out of the UN, focus may be shifting from the African continent hopefully not for too long a time.

They threatened to fire nuclear missiles but opted to launch mid-range weapons instead, the war of words continues and the security of the region is at stake. Kim is ill and is reportedly suffering from cancer, with him appointing a little known youngest son raising speculation of the strong man’s health. Maybe they were scolded by the Chinese who, like the West does not like the idea of plying around with nuclear weapons as their threats stated. Or they may simply have had a change of heart that their already closed society, cut off from the rest of the world for many years can grow more isolated should they choose to do so. The security risks involved with such a launch is great, with South Korea, Japan and the US having major battle groups in terms of ships in and around the areas of interest. Embargos have been in place since they last tested nuclear weapons and they are still standing to date, with more coming but the West stands by it’s calls for an end to their reign of fear, using their arsenal to state their status.

Much is the fury of American citizens when they find out that companies who have benefited from the many bailout funds have continued to issue bonuses to their top management and staff in spite of their company’s dire needs. Fury is well founded for many of these firms have just brushed off collapse if it were not for the bailout funds the Obama government had released. There have been calls for investigations and hints to these people to return these funds for the taxpayer will not stand for such reckless behavior. President Obama has raised alarm over news that even the law or the bailout measures had work-around’s built into them that allowed such acts to go on right under their noses.
The president has been hard at work to try and fix the economy as it is and with little to go on. He has to convince congress and the senate to pass bills to release funds from the federal reserve to fuel the economy as it tries to recover. Estimates to the amount of budgetary deficits they will incur for the year, a couple of trillion dollars at least and that’s not the end of the story for the recession is far from over.

Change is the key word President Elect Obama capitalized on and Change won him the presidency at the most powerful nation on earth. The American public has been longing for this due to the many worsening problems the country was facing. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global economic slowdown, the sub-prime lending market collapse and a country on the verge of recession. Many experts and analysts say the country has been in recession since December 2007 but the government tried and twisted all facts to deny that. After subsequent problems with the financial system, the credit sector and more, they simply had no chance but to officially declare the inevitable, “We are in an economic Recession”. Jobs were lost at the rate of thousands a day and it is expected to get worse as the year turns over.
President Obama has a lot against him entering a problematic financial system and with the whole world in a state of economic turmoil, he has a lot to work for. Change is inevitable, whether he makes a difference or not is for the American public to decide in the years to come in what would come down in history as his presidency.

Image source: www.vietnamgateway.org

The present Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has made some huge political blunders both internally and internationally such as bringing Thailand close to combating with Cambodia over the border line close to the Preah Vihear temple which was established in 1962 by the World Court. The Thai People always felt embittered about this and PM Samak had “solved” the problem in a one day meeting with the Cambodian leader about six months ago. There has been a military assemble up on the border near this temple in the last few months…
So … between the conviction and some actions and decisions that are not particularly cared for by the general population many Thai People are not pleased with the current Prime Minister. The opposition party is staging protests and has been for the past 3 or more months. Peaceful protesting is a healthy appearance of democracy, when the government allows people to express themselves in the open.

Politics have always been about power: the one who owns the power is the one who rules. Anyone who’s in political position is always powerful. More often than not, they can do as much as they want. That is why you can notice that politicians have great circle of alliance. Also, people, usually those who are rich and famous, develop allegiance to politicians. As an American labor union leader Samuel Gompers said,

Reward your friends and punish your enemies.

Social psychologists identified five types of power. The two was given out in the quote above: incentive power and coercive power. Incentive power is the power to give rewards; coercive power is the power to give out punishments. And from this two types of power, there grow out three other types.