We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
The direct and spontaneous human communication evoked by important political and social events brings to life situations which are fruitful ground for artists’ activity. It is typical for every human being to seek a reason for and a way of communication and to feel the need for expressing one’s own position. These circumstances are often a most provoking factor for folklore creativity as a reaction to the actual, striking, dramatic events to happen. Such forms of folklore focused on situations and events have been intensively created after November 10th, 1989, which was a year of crucial political changes in Bulgaria. However, it is not a unique phenomenon. Retrospectively, the same kind of folklore had been already created in other historical moments of the kind in our country.
More...
The author analyses a rather unstudied phenomenon – the rumours, specifically, the political rumours. An attempt is made at their description, as well as at the explanation of their functional mechanisms. Special attention is paid to the rumours propagated by the mass media and, especially, to their parodies in the press, the radio, and television. There are also some brief descriptions of other forms similar to the above mentioned, such as parodies of folklore and non-folklore texts, proverbs, sayings, inscriptions and so on, as well as of some hybrid forms that have recently appeared in Bulgaria.
More...
The article regards one of the most widespread kinds of jokes – the ones about presidents. The author aims to find out the general and deep premise from which further on the political jokes can be studied in their historical, cultural, regional etc. variability. Thereby, the presidents’ jokes are not treated as making fun with the social and political ruling top and the possible interpretations in this respect. The stress is put on the very appearance of the ruling top in the jokes. We could speak about a cultural universal which still exists a specific mode at present. The jokes represent the basic relation between the individuals and the top of the social system. This relation is of existential significance both for the individual and for the system. In this case the narration is an act of self-identification in its global meaning – as a proof for existence, for appearance, for affiliation to the human kind. Such conclusions affirm both the functions and the content of the presidents’ jokes.
More...
After WWII totalitarianism domineered in industrially less developed countries and that determined some special characteristics of the interrelationship between the social system and the cultural process. The transposition of social strata after the war brought power to people who were closely related to the traditional rural culture, and that gave access for some archaic cultural patterns to the structure of political power. Thus, the following phenomenon appeared which was typologically similar to African tribalism – implantation of kinship structures into the upper stages of power, i.e. important positions were taken by the members of well-known clans (in Bulgaria, Romania, North Korea, partly in the ex-USSR and others). In a much broader social aspect another form of hypertrophy of kinship relationships and traditional cooperation was in expansion – the so called “connections”. The constant lack of goods and services, as well as the faults of the centrally planned economy, decreased the importance of money as a means of economic exchange. “Connections”, however, partly took over the functions of money and acted as tools for economic and social exchange: for instance, finding “connections” for a child to be enrolled in a kindergarten could be changed for “connections” for receiving a driving-licence. Some innate traits of totalitarianism enabled it not only to develop and deform archaic cultural patterns, but to reproduce of them as well. This is mostly valid for the binary logic – thinking through a system of binary oppositions is characteristic not only for archaic cultures, but also for totalitarian regimes. Consequently, that resulted in the ultimate polarization of the Bulgarian society that was to be observed after the democratic changes took place there.
More...
The paper examines the historical aspects of forming private equity funds. Firstly, it underlines the role three merger waves the United States experienced in the 20th century played in the formation of conglomerates. The development of multi-industry corporations marked the emergence of private eqity firms. However the performance of conglometartes is often improperly compared with the activity of currently operating private equity funds. This article clearly points out the differences between these two types of entities. Secondly, the paper presents the organization of the private equity market and the stages in the deal-making process. The broad description of enbtities and relationships involved in the process is supported bt the model of capital flow in the industry. Finally, Polish private equity market is scrutinized. This analysis indicates, that characteristically, all private investments in Poland are financed with foreign capital.
More...
The strong form of the efficient market hypotesis (EMH) asserts that all available public and private information is fully reflected in a security's market price. Therefore, in the long term no individual can achive better that avarage stock returns (on a risk-adjusted basis) thanks to monopolistic access to information. One possible test of the strong form is to check if insiders earn above avarage profits from their transactions on a stock exchange. This paper examines insider profits on a random sample of insider transactions on Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) between March 2009 and February 2010. Insider profits were compared with the appropriate WSE index return. Nonparametric methods were used because stock return distributions usually do not follow normal distribution (due to leptokurtosis and skewness). The results show that insiders are able to outperform the market. This is especially true in the sort-term horizon (one month after transacion). Thus, the results do not support the strong form of EMH.
More...
In a general equilibrium model with fully rational agents and built - in micro - level uncertainty we show that debt - financed government spending on consumption can be welfare improving at all horizons despite the fact that it inhibits the process of physical capital formation. In addition we show that the impact of a direct demand stimulus is likely to be more pronounced than the impact of a tax cut on economic activity. Finally, we argue that monetary policy is less efective during recessions than expansions. Our findings are consistent with Keynes's view that recessions should be fought with fiscal policy rather than monetary policy, and provide rationale for thr concept of liquidity gap.
More...
Stari zavjet s uvodima i bilješkama Ekumenskog prijevoda Biblije, Kršćanska sadašnjost, Zagreb, 2011., 2112 str. Novi zavjet s uvodima i bilješkama Ekumenskog prijevoda Biblije, Kršćanska sadašnjost, Zagreb, 1992., 792 str. J. R. PORTER, Izgubljena Biblija: otkriveni zaboravljeni spisi, Kršćanska sadašnjost, Zagreb, 2011., 256 str. Mario CRVENKA, Prirodne znanosti i religija. Pokušaj sažetog pregleda, Kršćanska sadašnjost, Zagreb, 2010., 265 str. Darko TOMAŠEVIĆ, Sveta Zemlja. Povijesno-duhovni vodič, Glas Koncila, Zagreb - KBF, Sarajevo, 2010., 391 str. Stjepan KUŠAR, Vihor i oganj duha. Iskustvo Duha Svetoga u Crkvi i pojedincu. Zagreb, Teovizija, 22009., 89 str. Mato ZOVKIĆ, Iskustvo ekumenskih i religijskih susreta, Kršćanska sadašnjost, Zagreb, 2010., 270. str. Alfred SCHNEIDER, Na putovima Duha Svetoga, FTI, Zagreb, 2008., 191 str.
More...
The mission of the Church in the world necessarily includes the question of temporal goods and economics. Apart from individual cases of selling one’s own property and donating to the needy, the Church as an institution has claimed the right to own property in order to pursue her objectives, primarily for worship, support for the clergy, works of the apostolate, and charitable works. In the modern era, with the development of industrial society, the Church has also developed systematic teaching on economics. While the Church’s economic teaching is rarely controversial – either because it is consistent or because it isn’t well known – the Church’s ownership and management of temporal goods is often subject to criticism and controversy. For this reason, the question of proper action in the economic sphere often arises. The challenge is even greater in poorer societies where the needy look to the Church for assistance. Presenting the teaching of the Church, this article seeks to achieve two goals: first, to raise awareness of the Church’s positive view of economic activity as a response to God’s call, and secondly, to differentiate specific roles in the economic sphere where the Church’s position and conduct is in question. In the context of the first goal, the concept of solidarity investment and the principle of not-for-profit are presented. With respect to the second goal, the author presents specific actions of the Church, including the role of lay people and the role of Church charitable work.
More...