The End of an Era @ the Mary Livermore Library

Lillian D. Brewington, Special Collections Librarian extraordinaire, moved into a new phase of her life. After more than 36 years of employment at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Lillian retired July 31, 2009

Checks: the end of an era

Payment systems

America's Financial Crisis: The End of an Era

This paper reviews research on the origins of the financial crisis of 2008–2009, highlights the key events that triggered a financial panic in September 2008, and summarizes the extraordinary policy actions the United States (US) has taken to ameliorate the crisis. We discuss the proximate causes of the crisis, including the characteristics and growth of the subprime mortgage market, and the distorted incentives and flawed regulatory structure surrounding the secondary market for mortgage-backed securities. We also assess the role of more fundamental macroeconomic determinants of the bubble in US asset prices, most notably low global interest rates attributed to either loose monetary policy or excess global saving. We find that while low global interest rates may have contributed to the boom in housing markets and speculative excesses, the poorly understood innovations and microeconomic distortions of the financial system played a more fundamental role. Finally, the otherwise extraordinary policy response of the US government has been limited by the lack of an effective restructuring of the financial system, and a recovery marked by higher private saving, weak domestic investment, and a large public deficit appears to be unsustainable. Ultimately, the US economy will need to shift about 3% of GDP from domestic consumption to the export sector. This will pose some serious challenges to countries that have come to rely on exports to the US market.global financial crisis; financial panic; american policy actions

The end of an era

No Abstract.South African Psychiatry Review Vol. 10 (2) 2007: pp.53-5

The End of an Era

Les images nostalgiques et les souvenirs de Damas évoqués dans des représentations récentes sont pour la plupart établis à partir d’une vision de l’état de la ville remontant à fin de la période ottomane. Ainsi, vue de la perspective de la fin du xxe siècle et du début du xxie siècle, la fin de la période ottomane peut nous sembler avoir été « traditionnelle », alors que les damascènes ont éprouvé des changements importants et dramatiques, préludes à une nouvelle ère débutée dans les années 1830. Au cours de cette décennie, les différents contextes, dans lesquels les damascènes vivaient depuis un siècle, commencèrent rapidement à s’altérer. Fondé principalement sur les registres des tribunaux šarʿī, cet article examine les modèles de la vie économique et sociale de la ville de Damas tels qu’ils apparaissent à la fin des années 1820 avant l’invasion égyptienne et les réformes des Tanzimat ottomans qui suivirent.Nostalgic images and memories of Old Damascus invoked in recent representations are mostly dated from the later Ottoman period. From the perspective of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the later Ottoman period may appear to have been “traditional”. In fact, Damascenes had been experiencing significant and dramatic changes that heralded a new era beginning in the 1830s. During that decade century old living conditions of Damascenes altered rapidly. This article is mainly based on sharia court records. It article examines patterns of Damascene economic and social life as they appeared in the late 1820s, before Egyptian invasion, and the subsequent Ottoman Tanzimat reforms.إن صور الحنين لدمشق وذكرياتها التي ذكرت في التماثيل الحديثة قد تمّ إعدادها في معظمها انطلاقاً من رؤية لحال المدينة تعود إلى نهاية العصر العثماني. وهكذا، إذا نظرنا من خلال منظور نهاية القرن العشرين وبداية القرن الحادي والعشرين، فمن الممكن أن تبدو لنا نهاية العصر العثماني «تقليدية»، بينما أحسّ الدمشقيون بتغيّرات هامة ومؤثرة كانت مدخلاً لحقبة جديدة بدأت في ثلاثينيات القرن التاسع عشر. خلال هذا العقد من الزمن، بدأ سياق الوقائع الذي كان يعيشه الدمشقيون منذ قرن من الزمن، يتغير بسرعة نحو الأسوأ. اعتماداً بشكل أساسي على سجلات المحاكم الشرعية تدرس هذه المقالة بإمعان نماذج الحياة الاقتصادية والاجتماعية لمدينة دمشق كما تبدو في نهاية عشرينيات القرن التاسع عشر، قبل الغزو المصري وإصلاحات التنظيمات العثمانية التي تلته