Austerity Measures of European Governments Essay - 1

Austerity Measures of European Governments - Essay Example As a result, it caused several problems which it was intended to resolve. With political motivations, governments of the Euro zone have developed austerity measures to demonstrate their discipline to their creditors and credit rating agencies. The governments essentially targeted government spending to reduce their budget deficits because they were directly affected by the sovereign debt crisis which made their budget deficits relative to GDP to soar significantly (Traynor and Katie Allen 2010). Therefore, the austerity measures were focused on the government, although it had significant effects on all sectors of the economy in the affected countries. Increase of taxes as part of the austerity measures is also intended for the citizens, businesses and companies of those countries. In this case, the people and businesses in the country were made to pay for the government deficit. This increased the problems of the Euro zone rather than reducing or solving them. In 2010-2011 when the a usterity measures were used, all European countries except Germany experienced an increased in public debt to GDP ratio. For instance, the public debt of Greece increased from 143% in 2010 to 165% in 2011 (Eurostat 2013). This indicates that as the budget deficits declined, the GDP growth was not sufficient to support the rising ratio of debt-to- GDP. The reason why austerity measures failed in the Euro zone is because the problems of sovereign debt crisis after the 2008 financial crisis were not caused by policy choices. Following the 2008 crisis, private sector retrenchment occurred and capital account surpluses increased. However, the austerity measures did not target these sectors. Instead, it aimed at the government; hence becoming counterproductive (Blyth 2013).

Impact of Advertising Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Impact of Advertising - Essay Example Materialistic appeal in advertising perpetuates desire to buy and consume and that is how an economy of any nation gets the necessary boost. When economy moves forward, numerous employment opportunities are created for everyone. More opportunities mean more income and that in turn, lifts living standard of society at large. After all, this has been the objective of humans since time immemorial. While materialism leads to more demand, advertising helps people in this endeavor to find newer things and consume. On consumers part, there is the continuous search to find improved products and services as made available by producers and suppliers. In this way, the interaction between consumers and marketers is a permanent affair and advertising is a strong tool to fulfilling consumers’ aspirations. Advertising has played a key role in globalization and globalization has helped conserve precious resources to produce quality goods and make them available across the globe at the lowest possible costs. Examples are Toyota, Hyundai, Honda and Mitsubishi cars they are considered not only most fuel efficient but also compact and cozy by consumers. Toyotas previous ad ‘Moving Forward’ has now changed to ‘Lets Go Places’ intimate with more exciting products. The tagline is ‘inspirational, inclusive and very versatile’ (AdvertisingAge, 2012). The past tagline between 1975 and 1979, ‘You asked for it. You got it’ made people run after Toyota cars and they became best sellers in the short period. It can be easily realized that these ads make a tremendous impact on people and prompt them to go for the best. Advertising has a tremendous capacity to change the society. While wealth creation is a necessity for the well-being of people in the society, letting people know about new creations is equally important. And it happens through advertising because it helps companies spread messages to a large section of society, whether through print or electronic media, almost instantaneously.