The Lives and Contests of the Gladiators :: Papers

The Lives and Contests of the Gladiators One form of entertainment in the Roman world was gladiatorial contests. In these, the Roman citizens would go to watch gladiators fight, often to the death. Today, these contests seem brutal and cruel, but at the time it was very popular and widely accepted. The Roman people would quite happily judge over whether a man would live or die. Why were the contests so entertaining that they would cost a man his life over it. There were different types of gladiators and different types of contests to keep the citizens interested. The gladiators were traditionally slaves or convicts and therefore very low in the social hierarchy. We also know that they were low down in the hierarchy because they were sold and given between masters, for example one advertisement said: "Twenty pairs of gladiators, given by Lucretius Satrius Valens, priest of Nero, and ten pairs of gladiators will fight". However, despite this apparent lack of social standing, gladiators could become very popular and famous and could eventually be freed. Gladiator is taken from the term "gladius", which means sword. They were originally used during funeral services for dead heroes. Fights between them would be held during the funeral to celebrate the hero. This tradition was taken from the Etruscans. Although today we would see such a custom as cruel, it was in fact made less so than it originally was. Festus wrote - "it was the custom to sacrifice prisoners on the tombs of valorous warriors; when the cruelty of this custom became evident, it was decided to make gladiators fight before the tomb. It seems strange to modern people that somebody would want to have people die at their funeral, but then it was seen as "appeasing the spirit" of the dead man, by honouring them with as big a thing as the life of a man. The Romans would not have seen the loss of a gladiator as too much anyway, as the slaves or convicts that became gladiators were generally considered unimportant anyway.

Australian initial public offers

Australia has been characterized by a varying trend in its initial public offerings between the years 2003-2007.  Ã‚   There has been continued initial under-pricing in the daily capital market and high under performance of the initial public offers.Broadly, Australian IPO’s have greatly been influenced by the government activities with its intention to promote public policy. Through out the time, the government has been in strict control of the IPO’s in an attempt streamline the economic activities.Australia has gone under rapid changes in the IPO’s of companies which were initially owned by the state. Over the years since 2003 the government has restructured the IPO’s to focus a more economic growth. In nearly all the cases, firms owned by the government have been inefficient in comparison with those of the private sector.(Prasad, Vozikis) Since 2003, Australia has been faced with the problem of under pricing, which has been using the two-tiered pricin g system allowing, retail investor to only pay a set fixed price as they leave investors from other institutions to form the price through bidding. This is an attempt to allow small sized investors with varied investment inefficiencies to have a chance of a probable investment in the capital. Over the years, since 2003, small retail investors are let to have their IPO order first before the bigger institutional investors.For both of the public and state companies, IPO’s have generally being under priced. There two basic reasons behind this, majority been market asymmetry and any possible government regulation to attain political interests.The variability of the under pricing is highly determined by the size of the issue, in which case high issues may imply lower under pricing statements due possible lower rates of subscription.   (Suchard, Woo, 2003) However, to the government, under pricing of IPO’s is a strategy geared toward immediate increase in the value to the gains from offer.   The IPO’s under pricing are structured towards achieving various economic policies.For every IPO, the domestic investors are mostly favored than private investors. This is an attribute that the government uses to minimize the cash outflow by the foreign investors. This is through the recognition attached to the capital outflows from economies. Through under pricing, investors are normally able to buy many shares which in turn give relatively high returns after the offer high returns.Market asymmetry is the major reason behind under pricing of IPO’s, where investors with large investment schemes are more informed about the market information to the new market share issue than small marginalized investors.To cater for this, the government regulation is to ensure that these marginalized investors are given the first favor.   In the purchase of the shares, huge investor would really buy them in bulk form at their under price situation.To the small i nvestors, they will always benefit from receiving the new shares at a desirable chance. (O’Flynn, 2004)   Other investment entities like bankers may be in fear of possible litigation that may be accompanied by significant decline of the government to developed credibility in polices concerning market orientations.   Therefore, under pricing is a silent attempt by the government to control the prevailing status of the economy through adjustments in the capital markets.From the manner in which the IPO’s are released, they actually help to safeguard the weak and less developed investor from the activity of big investors who are well informed about the market system.Basically, timing of IPO’s Australia is normally scheduled when the government wants to release some of its ownership it has in its public owned companies.   Its basic intention is to create income to finance different government structures.   Either, IPO’s by the privately owned companies is done when the companies want to acquire income from the public for further expansion of its activities.   For both cases, initial public offers have showed almost the same characteristic in their under pricing characteristics. (Gharghori, Chen, Robert, 2006)In its use of two-tiered pricing system, the government helps to keep the low informed investors from any exploitation from the big markets.The subject of finance has struck the activities of many scholar who have been extensively been under the study of the influence of corporate finance and any market blocks that affect sourcing of this finance by different sized incomes in the investment concept by firms. It has been seen that, this concept is determined by the liquidity value of these forms in Australia.Such liquidity is basically determined by different firm’s context that pertains their cash flows.   Investment depends on this ratio, where firms subject to a high liquidity a faced with higher investment than those with low liquidities whose investment is relatively low. (Prasad, Vozikis, Ariff, 2006)However, under pricing in Australia has been a vote to the subject of asymmetry and possible imperfections that exists in the market system. On understanding the rigidities that exists in the market system, the Australian government has undertaken to ensure under pricing to safe guard the interest of the low investor in the understanding of the market structures that work in favor of the big investors. (O’Flynn, 2005)Therefore, for the Australian government, it’s rational to undertake such activity since it basically leads capital development for the low income investors.ReferenceSuchard, J& Woo, L (2003) Are Hot Markets Driven by Hot Resource Shares or    Hot Commodities? Australian Journal of Management, Vol. 28Prasad, D, Vozikis, G & Ariff, M (2006) Government Public Policy, Regulatory Intervention and Their Impact on IPO Under pricing. Journal of small Business Management , Vol. 44O’Flynn, J (2004) Australian Capital Territory: January to June 2004. The Australian   Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 50

Why Presidents Use So Many Pens to Sign Bills Into Law

Presidents often use several pens to sign a bill into law, a tradition dates back nearly a century  and continues to this day. President Donald Trump, for example, used several bill-signing pens on his first day in office when he put his signature on his first executive order,  instructing federal agencies to uphold the Affordable Care Act while also  working to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens on American citizens and companies. Trump used so many pens and handed them out as souvenirs on Jan. 20, 2017, the day he was sworn into office, that he joked to staff: â€Å"I think we’re going to need some more pens, by the way ... The government is getting stingy, right?† Oddly enough, before Trump,  President Barack Obama  used nearly two dozen pens to sign that same legislation into law in  2010. Thats a lot of pens. Unlike his predecessor, Trump uses gold-plated pens from  A.T. Cross Co.  based in Rhode Island. The companys suggested retail price for the pens is $115 apiece. The practice of using several pens isnt universal, however. Obamas predecessor, President George W. Bush, never used more than one pen to sign a bill into law. Tradition   The first president to use more than one pen to sign a bill into law was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who served in the White House from March 1933 until April 1945. According to Bradley H. Pattersons To Serve the President: Continuity and Innovation in the White House Staff, the president used several pens to sign bills of high public interest during signing ceremonies in the Oval Office. Most presidents now use multiple pens to sign those bills into law. So what did the president do with all those pens? He gave them away, most of the time. Presidents gave the pens as commemorative souvenirs to members of Congress or other dignitaries who had been active in getting the legislation passed.  Each pen was presented in a special box bearing the presidential seal and the name of the president who did the signing,  Patterson writes. Valuable Souvenirs Jim Kratsas of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum told National Public Radio in 2010 that presidents have been using multiple pens so they can distribute them to lawmakers and others who were instrumental in shepherding the legislation through Congress at least since President Harry Truman was in office. As Time magazine put it: The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history. The pens used by presidents to sign important pieces of legislation are considered valuable and have shown up for sale in some cases. One pen showed up for sale on the Internet for $500. Examples Most modern presidents use more than one pen to sign landmark legislation into law.   President Bill Clinton used four pens to sign the  Line-Item Veto. He gave the pens to former Presidents  Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, according to an account of the signing by Time magazine.Obama used 22 pens to sign health care reform legislation into law in March of 2010. He used a different pen for each letter or half letter of his name. This is gonna take a little while, Obama said.According to the Christian Science Monitor, it took Obama 1 minute and 35 seconds to sign the bill using those 22 pens.​President Lyndon Johnson used 72 pens when he signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.