Urban Politics Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Urban Politics - Research Paper Example Poverty in the United States is seen to vary to a great degree depending on a number of factors; some of these factors include an individual’s education level, age, family living arrangements, area of residence and labor force attachment. Poverty is noted to generally be more highly concentrated in some areas as compared to others. This aspect is clearly demonstrated by the fact that poverty levels are found to be considerably higher in the center of cities as compared to a city’s suburban areas. In addition to this, poverty rates are also found to be about three times as high in the poorest states as compared to the least poor states. Of note is that it is normal for some neighborhoods to be characterized as having a higher concentration of poverty as compared to others. According to Gabe (2015), the incidence of poverty in central city areas is generally found to be considerably higher at 19.1% than that in suburban areas 11.1% within metropolitan areas. As at 2013, nonmetropolitan areas were recorded as having poverty rates averaging about 16.1%. A typical pattern in poverty rates in metropolitan areas is for the poverty rates to generally be highest in the center city areas. These high rates of poverty then proceed to gradually drop off as one moves towards the suburban areas before experiencing a subsequent increase with increasing distance from the core of the metropolitan area. Ever since President Lyndon Johnson first moved to declare a War on Poverty in the United States and the subsequent passage of the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, the optimism that first surrounded these measures is noted to have rapidly faded over the years. Both the Federal and the State governments have over the years designed and implemented a number of policies designed to help to reducing poverty rates but these have been met with moderate success. The rather unwelcome corollary that has resulted from rural-urban

Fair Values in Accounting for Financial Instruments Essay - 2

Fair Values in Accounting for Financial Instruments - Essay Example Along with the depth development of financial instruments and fair value accounting practices by national standard setting bodies in many countries, fair value measurements have helped to create a more accurate representation of fact. Because of this, the FASB, IASB and other agencies continue to improve the recognition and measurement standards of financial instruments. For instance, in 1990, Richard C Breeden, the chairman of the SEC pointed out that historical cost for financial reporting does not help to prevent and/or defuse financial risk. As such, fair value accounting should be taken as the measurement of financial instruments (SEC, 1990). Although many people support the implementation of fair value, the debate about this has not stopped and has become fierce; especially after a financial crisis. As means of providing an example, FASB No. 157 provides a definition of â€Å"fair value as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date.†(Deans, 2007) There also have another defines set out by IASB including IAS 32 (presentation of Financial Instrument) and IAS 39 (recognition and measurement) which Fair value is defined as â€Å"the amount for which an asset could be exchanged, or a liability settled, between knowledgeable, willing parties in an arm’s length transaction. (IASB) IAS 39 defines fair value slightly differently from SFAS 157† (Laux & Leuz, 2009). Firstly, the information provided by the fair value accounting method can be considered as more relevant. Generally speaking, such information should satisfy the requirements of relevance and reliability at the same time. Brath explains the quality characteristic of accounting information. In this way, he proposes that it includes reliability, relevance, predictive, timely, neutrality, comparability, etc. (Ball, 2006). Historical costs