‘Brigitte Bardot, myth and clichés in Malaga’
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23
Exhibition recalls a visit to Malaga Province by Brigitte Bardot
Wednesday, February 17
Do Lincoln, Washington deserve statues? Chicago flags 41 controversial monuments for scrutiny
CHICAGO – City leaders on Wednesday flagged 41 controversial monuments, plaques and artworks for public discussion, months after the mayor formed a committee to review the city's collection in the wake of a series of protests related to monuments last summer.
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Monday, February 1
Deployment of COVID-19 vaccines
As of 30 January 2021, 94.91 million COVID‑19 vaccine doses had been administered worldwide based on official reports from national health agencies. During a pandemic on the rapid timeline and scale of COVID‑19 infections during 2020,
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History of COVID-19 vaccine development
After a coronavirus was isolated in December 2019, its genetic sequence was published on 11 January 2020, triggering an urgent international response to prepare for an outbreak and hasten development of a preventive COVID-19 vaccine.
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Wednesday, June 6
Great Sex Epics of the 40s
The Outlaw - 1943
(2) Jennifer Jones' sex-pot role as hot-blooded, lustful, half-breed peasant girl Pearl Chavez in Selznick's lurid epic Western Duel in the Sun (1946), re-named "Lust in the Dust," who prefers the over-sexed attentions and rape from wild-living Lewt McCanles (Gregory Peck) rather than from his tamer brother Jesse (Joseph Cotten). The film's climax included an orgasmic shoot-out between Lewt and Pearl who passionately embrace and die in each other's arms.
Duel in the Sun - 1946
(3) Surprisingly, sharp protest arose over director Otto Preminger's sumptuous Technicolor epic Forever Amber (1947), a 17th century costume romance adapted from Kathleen Winsor's banned book, featuring the gorgeous Linda Darnell (in her first lead role) as beautiful blonde village maid Amber St. Clare. She chamber-hops her way to status and wealth to become the royal mistress of King Charles II (George Sanders) of England. Protest forced its bowdlerization, a tacked-on prologue, and the taming of many of its potentially-erotic scenes by the addition of morally compensating values.
Cass Timberlane - 1947In spite of the code, other memorable portrayals of wicked women included Lana Turner as a loose young, working-class beauty in Cass Timberlane (1947), with a twenty-year age gap and major socio-economic differences from staid, lonely judge husband Spencer Tracy; she finds herself attracted to a handsome colleague after marriage. Or Peggy Cummins' self-confessed 'no-good,' gun-toting, sharpshooting lover in Gun Crazy (1950) who substitutes robberies for sexual foreplay. The lurid, melodramatic costume drama The Wicked Lady (1945) was the first British film to be modified by the Hays Office, especially because of vixenish Margaret Lockwood's dipping neckline with revealed cleavage of her ample bust.
The longest on-screen kiss in film history (in a commercial feature film) got away with a 3 minute and 5 second smooch between Regis Toomey and Jane Wyman in the service comedy You're In The Army Now (1941). Preston Sturges' irreverent, frantic and reckless The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) made fun of a drunken blonde victory girl (Betty Hutton) with loose morals who became pregnant after a wild party with WWII servicemen without really knowing who the father was.
Erotic Film Noirs:
The Postman Always Rings Twice - 1946Film noir thrillers of the 40s have always been famous for sexy, seductive femme fatales who enticed their men, such as Jane Greer's deceptive siren stepping out of the bright sunshine into a Mexican cafe to entice Robert Mitchum in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947), and Lana Turner's sultry young cafe wife - wearing sizzling white-hot outfits - in Tay Garnett's adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) (remade by director Bob Rafelson with a lusty kitchen table sex scene between Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange in 1981). However, Turner's complicity in adultery and murder of her husband with drifter John Garfield was slightly modified in the film's adaptation to satisfy complaints from its critics.
Sexy Films of the 50s:
A Streetcar Named Desire - 1951Increasingly, films contained blatant sexual elements into the 50s, due in part to the influx of more contemporary, adult-oriented foreign films, and competition from television. After conflict with the Legion of Decency, the smoldering adult themes of the collaborative work of Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) forced a redefinition of censorship guidelines, although the film was stripped of objectionable segments, including clear references to homosexuality, Blanche's (Vivien Leigh) nymphomania and attraction to young boys, and Stanley's (Marlon Brando) rape of Blanche. The film's censored minutes would be restored over 40 years later in 1993.
Baby Doll - 1956Another erotically-charged Williams/Kazan work translated to the screen was Baby Doll (1956), advertised with a photograph of the teenaged title character in a crib sucking her thumb (the film's opening scene). The defiant film was viciously condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency for, among other things, a notorious, highly-sexual seduction scene on a swing, of a 19 year old white-trash, young 'baby doll' nymphet (Carroll Baker) by vengeful Sicilian Eli Wallach, their game of hide-and-seek in the upstairs (and attic), and later their kissing scene under a turned-off bare bulb in an adjoining room while Baby Doll's sexually-frustrated husband Archie (Karl Malden) was speaking on the phone nearby.
The homosexuality of Paul Newman's sexually-disoriented character in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) with best friend Skipper was potently counterpoised with the smoldering, heterosexual portrayal of Maggie the 'Cat' by Elizabeth Taylor. Although Gore Vidal's original screenplay alluded to homosexuality, cannibalism, pedophilia, and incest, all of these sordid elements were toned down in Joseph L. Mankiewicz' version of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), but the film still retained the ripe sensuality of Elizabeth Taylor as the pretty Catherine who lured Italian beach boys closer for the benefit of her homosexual cousin.
From Here to Eternity - 1953James Jones's shocking adapted novel From Here to Eternity (1953) included an adulterous sexual affair, and a Honolulu social club (brothel). The characters in the mostly-male film included a club 'hostess' (Donna Reed) and an Army Captain's wife (Deborah Kerr) having an illicit relationship with an Army Sergeant (Burt Lancaster) - with their infamous scene of Kerr and Lancaster embracing and kissing on an Oahu beach with the foamy surf flowing over them, and Kerr professing: "I never knew it could be like this." Lana Turner was able to dress scantily as Samarra, the exotic, pagan high priestess of Ancient Damascus in MGM's opulent Biblical epic The Prodigal (1955).
Even Vincente Minnelli's and MGM's technicolor musical The Band Wagon (1953) featured an erotic, 12-minute ballet parody of film noir and Mickey Spillane characters, titled Girl Hunt Ballet, with Fred Astaire as hard-boiled private eye Rod Riley and leggy Cyd Charisse as "Beautiful Diamond" - a sultry gangster's moll. Astaire's pseudo-tough voice-over described the suggestively-red-dressed beauty in dual roles as an innocent blonde and a brunette vamp: "I could smell trouble a mile off...She came at me in sections. More curves than a scenic railway...She was bad. She was dangerous. I wouldn't trust her any farther than I could throw her. But, she was my kind of woman."
Sexual Innuendo in Hitchcock's 50s Films:
Hitchcock sublimated the inherent sexual tension and eroticism within his 50s films, and interwove psychological obsession and passion into their scripts, for example:
the eroticized, voyeuristic role of James Stewart's 'phallic' telephoto camera in Rear Window (1954) in contrast to his avoidance of marriage, passivity and sexual frustration toward girlfriend Grace Kelly
To Catch a Thief - 1955the provocatively-teasing question, "Do you want a leg or a breast?" during a picnic; the many lingering shots of the diamond necklace next to Grace Kelly's cleavage, and the seductive, passionate kissing sequence followed by fireworks exploding (symbolically orgasmic), in To Catch a Thief (1955)
the 'attraction-repulsion' syndrome of a man for an idealized woman, obsessive love (with a dose of necrophilia), and the manipulative, compulsive desire to 'remake' a woman into one's ideal found its clearest expression in Vertigo (1958)
the sexual innuendo of Eva Marie Saint's line to Cary Grant: "You're a big boy now," and the blatantly phallic closing shot in North by Northwest (1959) of the train carrying the newlywed couple gliding into a tunnel
Stretching the Code's Limitations:
The Moon Is Blue - 1953The first studio-produced film from Hollywood that was released without an approved code seal from the Production Code Administration - deliberately as a test case - was Otto Preminger's daring comedy The Moon is Blue (1953), a sex farce that was rated condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency for vulgarity, in part because of its offensive use of prohibited words such as "virgin," "seduce," "pregnant," and "mistress" in the dialogue. It was also criticized for its "unacceptably light attitude toward seduction, illicit sex, chastity, and virginity." The young and curious heroine Patty O'Neill (Maggie McNamara) asked Donald Gresham (William Holden): "Don't you think it's better for a girl to be preoccupied with sex than occupied?" It proved to be a major hit film (grossing $6 million) despite its lack of a seal of approval.
[A famous TV episode of M*A*S*H titled "The Moon is Not Blue" (aired in December, 1982) featured Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and B.J. Hunnicut (Wayne Rogers) conniving to get a copy of the film to view - and lift morale, hearing that it included racy content. Ultimately, they were extremely disappointed at the film's actual tame content (Mulcahy: "Well, they did use the word 'virgin'." Hawkeye: "That's because everyone was!").]
Next, Preminger also challenged restrictions in the code with his ground-breaking film The Man With the Golden Arm (1955), a vivid depiction of drug abuse and promiscuity starring Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak. Regarded as the first major Hollywood film about drug addition, it was also released without a Production Code seal. Alexander Mackendrick's engrossing Sweet Smell of Success (1957) provided an expose of a NY gossip columnist (Burt Lancaster) with an semi-incestuous attachment to his 19 year old sister (Susan Harrison).
Director Vincente Minnelli and MGM's Tea and Sympathy (1956) brought Robert Anderson's Broadway play to the screen with a watered-down, almost sexless, yet still bold story - reflective of its repressive era in the mid-50s. It told about sexually-confused, effeminate ('homosexual', "strange" and 'sister-boy'), misunderstood, and suicidal prep-school student Tom Robinson Lee (25 year-old John Kerr) with a demanding father who wanted to be a folk-singer rather than to pursue a more 'manly' profession. He eventually resorted to an affair with the seductive headmaster's wife Laura Reynolds (Deborah Kerr) to be 'cured' of his sensitive nature: ("Years from now when you talk about this - and you will - be kind"). Due to film censorship, an epilogue was tacked on to imply that homosexuality was not endorsed. Likewise, Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955) portrayed troubled juvenile Plato (Sal Mineo) as homosexual by his adoration of Jim Stark (James Dean) and his red jacket, and his idolization of a picture of movie-star Alan Ladd in his school locker. By film's end, due to homophobic attitudes, the 'gay' character (the real 'rebel' of the picture) was killed.
Examples of European Films Testing Limits:
And God Created Woman - 1957Explicit foreign imports, such as Roger Vadim's flirtatious, sex-oriented And God Created Woman (1956, Fr.), was set in sun-drenched Saint Tropez. It was the star-making hit for French/international "sex kitten" Brigitte Bardot (Vadim's wife at the time), but it caused waves of protest for being indecent.
Two other foreign film imports also created a stir in the 50s and pushed back the walls of censorship:
(1) D.H. Lawrence's 1928 film-adapted, banned novel was portrayed in director Marc Allegret's French film Lady Chatterley's Lover (1955) - it supposedly encouraged sexual immorality by the adulterous actions of the title character - young noblewoman Connie Chatterley (Danielle Darrieux).
(2) Louis Malle's over-rated tale of French adultery The Lovers (1958, Fr.) (aka Les Amants) was notorious for its extended 20-minute, semi-nude, intense love-making scene in various locales (in a rowboat, in a bed, and in a bathtub); it starred Jeanne Moreau as a bored, 30 year-old, unhappily married and repressed housewife experiencing a mid-life crisis after sex with young archaeologist student Bernard (Jean-Marc Bory). A Cleveland Heights, Ohio theatre manager was convicted (later overturned by the Supreme Court) for screening this 'obscene' erotic film - delaying the film's US release. Chief Justice Potter Stewart delivered his famous dictim about pornography in the case: "I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that" (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964).
In addition, UA's Cry Tough (1959) was released in two versions -- the European version retained the nudity of Linda Cristal in a love scene with John Saxon (as a Puerto Rican ex-con) - the film was even banned in Finland.
Sex Icon Marilyn Monroe - and Jayne Mansfield:
Marilyn MonroeSomething's Got to Give - 1962American sex symbol Marilyn Monroe had already appeared nude with her body arched in a famous calendar pose by 1951, and in numerous films in sensual roles, such as The Girl in The Seven Year Itch (1955) - with her infamous pose atop a subway grating with the wind blowing her white dress northward. At the close of the decade, director Wilder's excruciatingly-funny Some Like It Hot (1959) included cross-dressed Tony Curtis (and impersonator playboy) and Jack Lemmon, and Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane - a dizzy blonde in various stages of undress. Most remarkable was her sheer, see-through sparkling dress worn while singing I Wanna Be Loved By You. Monroe's unfinished film for Fox, director George Cukor's Something's Got To Give (1962) - a remake of the Cary Grant film My Favorite Wife (1940) that co-starred Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, would have set a milestone in film. It included a nighttime skinny-dipping scene in a backyard pool - it would have been the first nude scene in an American film by a major star.
Promises! Promises! (1963)That honor would go to buxom, platinum blonde sex goddess/siren Jayne Mansfield in the unrated sex farce Promises! Promises! (1963), in which she appeared nude - she sang "I'm In Love" in a foamy, bubbly bathtub, and then toweled off and writhed around on a bed; the original version was banned in many cities and substituted with an edited version. The provocative film was heavily publicized in Playboy's June 1963 issue, with pictures to prove it.
More Barriers Fall in the Late 50s and 60s:
The 60s were landmark years in the deterioration and liberalization of the Production Code's impositions. Just before the decade dawned, Island in the Sun (1957) chipped away at the Code's restrictions on miscegenation and inter-racial romance. There was a kiss in the inter-racial romance between local West Indian dime store clerk Margot Seaton (Dorothy Dandridge) and the governor's white aide Denis Archer (John Justin) but in another parallel romance, however, there was only the holding of hands (reflecting a double standard regarding the black male) between Joan Fontaine as socialite Mavis Norman and Harry Belafonte as politically-ambitious black union official David Boyeur. Also at the cusp of the new decade, A Summer Place (1959) showed the young lover duo of Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue inheriting illicit sex tendencies of their adulterous parents. Otto Preminger's courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder (1959) daringly included specific details of a rape in the deliberations, with the shocking-at-the-time, frank words "panties," "sperm," "rape," "contraceptive," and "penetration."
In writer/director/actor and producer Jules Dassin's adult-oriented Never on Sunday (1960), a puritanical, timid, vacationing American scholar attempted to reform and 'save' an earthy Greek prostitute named Ilya (Melina Mercouri), who took off one day every week from her profession. A year earlier, Simone Signoret won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a mistress obsessed by working-class clerk Laurence Harvey in Room at the Top (1959). Elizabeth Taylor won the first of her two Best Actress Academy Awards for her performance as "the slut of all time" - a promiscuous, loose-living prostitute named Gloria Wandrous in Butterfield 8 (1960). Billy Wilder's Best Picture-winning romantic comedy The Apartment (1960) was a treatment of the subject of a lowly clerk's professional advancement through extra-marital, adulterous affairs conducted by his philandering, married executive superiors in his conveniently-located apartment.
Lolita - 1962Stanley Kubrick's loincloth Roman empire epic Spartacus (1960) was heavily censored when first released, due in part to its seductive bath scene between Roman general-statesman Crassus (Laurence Olivier) and Greek slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis), with loaded questions about food/sex preferences: "Do you eat oysters?...Do you eat snails?...Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?...My taste includes both snails and oysters." Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961) explored the disastrous, traumatizing results of the repression of teenage lusting between Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty - and featured a passionate French kiss. And Kubrick's sixth film Lolita (1962), an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's 1953 novel, portrayed the passion of a middle-aged professor (James Mason) for a precocious and seductive nymphet girl (Sue Lyon) with less overt smut than the naughty publicity suggested about its pedophilia.
In Hud (1963), Paul Newman played the title character as a woman-chasing young man who would often pose the same question to women: "The only question I ever ask any woman is, 'What time is your husband coming home?'" The bawdy Best Picture winning British film Tom Jones (1963) told a rollicking tale of a bed-hopping playboy (Albert Finney) with its famed extended foreplay food-eating scene. Billy Wilder's lesser film Kiss Me, Stupid! (1964), now rated PG-13, received a condemned rating from the Production Code for its smutty tale of an opportunist songwriter (Ray Walston) who hired a prostitute (Kim Novak) to impersonate his wife. It was the first condemned rating for an American film since Kazan's Baby Doll (1956).
In Goldfinger (1964), the third James Bond 007 film, Sean Connery delivered one of many double entendres with a phone call excuse that he couldn't be interrupted while lying in bed next to villain Goldfinger's escort Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton): "I'm sorry, I can't, something big's come up." Of more concern was her ultimate fate -- her naked corpse (painted gold) was discovered on a hotel bed. The film also featured Honor Blackman as sexily-named Bond Girl "Pussy Galore."
The Pawnbroker - 1965Black actress Thelma Oliver (as a black prostitute) revealed her breasts in Sidney Lumet's serious film The Pawnbroker (1965) in a scene of desperation. It was the first exposure in a non-exploitation film in modern times, and thereby broke a specific clause in the Hays Code. This controversial mainstream film was passed uncut by the Production Code Administration (although it was condemned by the Legion of Decency) because of the nudity's context in the film - a serious work about Holocaust-surviving Jewish pawnbroker/husband Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) haunted by his Nazi prison camp experiences. It was the first US film to show a woman nude from the waist up that was granted a Production Code seal - ultimately breaking the back of the Production Code's restrictions. In the dated British film Darling (1965), Julie Christie portrayed a cool, emancipated beauty who at one point walks naked through an Italian palace.
Blowup - 1966Another landmark was reached with a significant amount of nudity in Michelangelo Antonioni's stylish murder/thriller Blow-Up (1966, UK/It.), in which mod London photographer David Hemmings seductively pointed his camera at model Verushka, bargained with topless Vanessa Redgrave for a roll of film, and playfully wrestled and romped with two teenage wanna-be models - all scenes that the censors fought over. This was the first instance of clear glimpses or revealing flashes of female pubic hair for American audiences.
The blasphemous profanity (such as "goddamn," "for Christ's sake," "screw," "bastard," "Hump the Hostess," and "son of a bitch") in Mike Nichols' debut film adaptation of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) with its brutal sexual tensions between the four characters (and the sado-masochistic, loving-hating, vulgarities-spewing couple of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) in an all-night drinking fest became a direct challenge to the anti-profanity clauses of the Hays Code. The MPAA ratings board gave the film a seal of approval after Warner Bros. appealed and made a few cuts of the most extreme profanity (such as "Screw you"). It was the first film to be released with a "Suggested for Mature Audiences" warning.
In 1967, a number of mainstream films helped spur the development of a ratings system, with their excessive amounts of explicit profanity. Two films claimed to be the first film to use the four-letter F word: director Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967) and Michael Winner's I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname (1967, UK) when singer Marianne Faithfull said 'f--k' on-screen. The latter also included a scene that implied oral sex, as did Charlie Bubbles (1967).
The Graduate - 1967Mike Nichols' next film The Graduate (1967), featured a young Dustin Hoffman's illicit and sexy seduction by an older predatory Mrs. Robinson and a simultaneous love affair with her daughter (Katharine Ross) - combining adultery, nudity, and anti-establishment subject matter. Humorously, the young 'graduate' innocently confessed to his girlfriend's mother: "I think you're the most attractive of all my parents' friends." At around the same time, the imported British film Alfie (1966) with Michael Caine (in his first starring role) as a playboyish womanizer also caused a stir regarding its abortion scene. John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) starred Marlon Brando as an impotent (and latent homosexual) Army officer married to Elizabeth Taylor.
Barbarella (1968, Fr/It), a sci-fi fantasy (comic-book) sex-capades comedy from Roger Vadim (featuring his new wife Jane Fonda), was edited to receive a PG rating. It opened with an infamous credits sequence that teasingly stripped 41st century French comic-strip heroine Barbarella (Jane Fonda) of her space-suit outfit in zero gravity. In another scene, the title character made love with the aid of an Orgasmatron - and was sentenced to death by orgasm (delivered by the lethal 'Excessive Machine'). Durand Durand (Milo O'Shea) unsuccessfully attempted to kill Barbarella with pleasure by orgasmically "playing" her with a euphemistic pipe organ ("Sonata for Execution of Various Young Women") - with his aghast reaction to her defeating the machine ("What kind of girl are you?! Have you no shame?!").
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Cabinet of Pakistan
A council of Ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, the Cabinet is the senior echelon of the Ministry; the terms Cabinet and Ministry are sometimes used interchangeably, a subtle inaccuracy which can spark confusion. Although the membership of the Ministry and the Cabinet are often coterminal, currently there are five members of the Ministry that are not members of the Cabinet. Technically, the Cabinet is the executive committee of the Pakistan government
Ambassadors at Large
The Prime Minister of Pakistan has also appointed the following Ambassador's at Large, which is a top diplomatic assignment and often status of Federal Minister:
Khalil Ahmed - Ambassador at Large and Special Envoy to China
Nasir Khan - Ambassador at Large
Javed Malik - Ambassador at Large
History of current cabinet
Fall 2008 cabinet changes
On November 3, 2008 a reshuffle of the cabinet took place, in which several new portfolios were created. The announcement was made by the Cabinet Division on the same day. After the inductions, there were 37 federal ministers, 3 Ambassadors at Large, and 18 ministers of state. Amongst the federal ministers there are 29 from the PPP, two from the ANP, two from FATA, and one each from JUI-F, PML-F, BNP-A, and one independent candidate. For ministers of state, 14 belong to the PPP, two to the ANP, one each to PML-F and FATA. Additionally, there are at least three advisers working under the Prime Minister who also lead their respective ministries; Rehman Malik leads the interior ministry, Shaukat Tareen the finance ministry and Dr Asim Hussain the petroleum and natural resources ministry. However, at least 7 ministerial heads are not filled and are reserved for future coalition partners.
Spring 2009 cabinet additions
On January 26, 2009, four new federal ministers took charge. These included two from MQM, and two from JUI-F. It was the first time that MQM became part of the coalition government in the center, whereas before it was part of Sindh government only. For the MQM minister, Labour, Manpower, and Overseas Pakistanis ministry was bifurcated into Labour and Manpower, and Overseas Pakistanis ministries, with the MQM minister taking charge of the latter. As a result, the total tally for federal ministers rose to 41, with 18 ministers of state. Amongst the federal ministers there are 29 from the PPP; three from JUI-F; two each from ANP, MQM, and FATA; one each from PML-F and BNP-A; and one independent candidate. The tally for ministers of state and advisors to the PM stayed the same, hence raising the grand total to 62.
In February 2009, Khawaja Mohammad Khan Hoti quit as narcotics minister over differences with ANP leadership.
In March 2009, Rehman Malik was given the ministry as he stood eligible after being elected senator in the National Assembly of Pakistan. Additionally, Syed Masood Kausar was installed as Law and Justice adviser after Farooq Naek became the chairman of the senate. Also Raza Rabbani and Sherry Rehman quit the cabinet, with Qamar Zaman Kaira replacing the latter.
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Constitution of Cabinet in violation of Constitution
On August 30, 2009 it was revealed that the number of Senators in the Pakistani Cabinet was in excess of the maximum number which the country's Constitution allows. The Constitution states clearly that not more than one-fourth of the total federal ministers can be taken from the Senate. 39 of the Cabinet's 59 members are federal ministers, and 10 of the 39 are members of the Senate.
2010 tax scandal
A disclosure published by Geo TV in September 2010 revealed that 24 government ministers did not pay income tax at all. Four ministers paid below Rs 10,000, 15 ministers had paid between Rs 10,000 and Rs 100,000. Only two ministers out of 61 had paid more than one million rupees. The article highlighted Prime Minister Gillani who had not paid any taxes for the three consecutive years for which figures had been made available to the journalist. The results were based on 2008 figures obtained from the Election Commission of Pakistan.
2011 resignation
On 9 February 2011, Pakistan's ministers on Wednesday submitted their resignations to the prime minister, who intends to appoint a smaller cabinet in order to reduce government spending at a time of economic crisis.
Cabinet members
Incumbent Party Office
Federal Ministers
Yousaf Raza Gillani PPP Prime Minister
Arbab Alamgir Khan PPP Communication
Ahmad Mukhtar PPP Defence
Babar Awan PPP Law
Firdous Ashiq Awan PPP Information
Abdul Hafeez Shaikh PPP Finance
Ghulam Ahmad Bilour ANP Railways
Khurshid Shah PPP Religious Affairs
Ameen Faheem PPP Commerce & Trade
Makhdoom Shahabud Din PPP Textile
Manzoor Wattoo PPP Kashmir Affairs
Rehman Malik PPP Interior
Mir Changez Jamali ANP Science & Technology
Raza Rabbani PPP Inter-Provincial Co-Ordination
Samina Khalid Ghurki PPP Environment
Shahbaz Bhatti PPP Minority Affairs
Ministers of State
Chaudhry Imtiaz Safdar Waraich PPP Communications
Arbab Mohammad Zahir Khan ANP Defence
Sardar Salim Haider Khan PPP Defence Production
Ghulam Farid Kathia PPP Education
Hina Rabbani Khar PPP Foreign Affairs
Rafique Ahmed Jamali PPP Food and Agriculture
Nawabzada Malik Amad Khan PPP Foreign Affairs
Mohammad Afzal Sandhu PPP Health
Mohammad Tariq Anis PPP Housing and Works
Ayatollah Durrani PPP Industries and Production
Syed Samsam Ali Shah Bokhari PPP Information and Broadcasting
Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi PPP Interior
Abdul Raziq FATA Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas
Masood Abbas ANP Local Government and Rural Development
Mahreen Anwar Raja PPP Parliamentary Affairs
Nabil Gabol PPP Ports and Shipping
Mohammad Jadam Mangrio PML-F Railways
Shagufta Jumani PPP Religious Affairs
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(source:wikipedia)
Tuesday, March 1
Supply and demand
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The four basic laws of supply and demand are:
If demand increases and supply remains unchanged, then it leads to higher equilibrium price and quantity.
If demand decreases and supply remains unchanged, then it leads to lower equilibrium price and quantity.
If supply increases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to lower equilibrium price and higher quantity.
If supply decreases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to higher price and lower quantity.
The graphical representation of supply and demand
The supply-demand model is a partial equilibrium model representing the determination of the price of a particular good and the quantity of that good which is traded. Although it is normal to regard the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied as functions of the price of the good, the standard graphical representation, usually attributed to Alfred Marshall, has price on the vertical axis and quantity on the horizontal axis, the opposite of the standard convention for the representation of a mathematical function.
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Determinants of supply and demand other than the price of the good in question, such as consumers' income, input prices and so on, are not explicitly represented in the supply-demand diagram. Changes in the values of these variables are represented by shifts in the supply and demand curves. By contrast, responses to changes in the price of the good are represented as movements along unchanged supply and demand curves.
Supply schedule
The supply schedule, depicted graphically as the supply curve, represents the amount of some good that producers are willing and able to sell at various prices, assuming ceteris paribus, that is, assuming all determinants of supply other than the price of the good in question, such as technology and the prices of factors of production, remain the same.
Under the assumption of perfect competition, supply is determined by marginal cost. Firms will produce additional output as long as the cost of producing an extra unit of output is less than the price they will receive.
By its very nature, conceptualizing a supply curve requires that the firm be a perfect competitor—that is, that the firm has no influence over the market price. This is because each point on the supply curve is the answer to the question "If this firm is faced with this potential price, how much output will it be able to and willing to sell?" If a firm has market power, so its decision of how much output to provide to the market influences the market price, then the firm is not "faced with" any price, and the question is meaningless.
Economists distinguish between the supply curve of an individual firm and the market supply curve. The market supply curve is obtained by summing the quantities supplied by all suppliers at each potential price. Thus in the graph of the supply curve, individual firms' supply curves are added horizontally to obtain the market supply curve.
Economists also distinguish the short-run market supply curve from the long-run market supply curve. In this context, two things are assumed constant by definition of the short run: the availability of one or more fixed inputs (typically physical capital), and the number of firms in the industry. In the long run, firms have a chance to adjust their holdings of physical capital, enabling them to better adjust their quantity supplied at any given price. Furthermore, in the long run potential competitors can enter or exit the industry in response to market conditions. For both of these reasons, long-run market supply curves are flatter than their short-run counterparts.
The determinants of supply follow:
Production costs
The technology used in production
The price of related goods
Firm's expectations about future prices
Number of suppliers
Demand schedule
The demand schedule, depicted graphically as the demand curve, represents the amount of some good that buyers are willing and able to purchase at various prices, assuming all determinants of demand other than the price of the good in question, such as income, tastes and preferences, the price of substitute goods, and the price of complementary goods, remain the same. Following the law of demand, the demand curve is almost always represented as downward-sloping, meaning that as price decreases, consumers will buy more of the good.
Just as the supply curves reflect marginal cost curves, demand curves are determined by marginal utility curves. Consumers will be willing to buy a given quantity of a good, at a given price, if the marginal utility of additional consumption is equal to the opportunity cost determined by the price, that is, the marginal utility of alternative consumption choices. The demand schedule is defined as the willingness and ability of a consumer to purchase a given product in a given frame of time.
As described above, the demand curve is generally downward-sloping. There may be rare examples of goods that have upward-sloping demand curves. Two different hypothetical types of goods with upward-sloping demand curves are Giffen goods (an inferior but staple good) and Veblen goods (goods made more fashionable by a higher price).
By its very nature, conceptualizing a demand curve requires that the purchaser be a perfect competitor—that is, that the purchaser has no influence over the market price. This is because each point on the demand curve is the answer to the question "If this buyer is faced with this potential price, how much of the product will it purchase?" If a buyer has market power, so its decision of how much to buy influences the market price, then the buyer is not "faced with" any price, and the question is meaningless.
As with supply curves, economists distinguish between the demand curve of an individual and the market demand curve. The market demand curve is obtained by summing the quantities demanded by all consumers at each potential price. Thus in the graph of the demand curve, individuals' demand curves are added horizontally to obtain the market demand curve.
The determinants of demand follow:
1. Income
2. Tastes and preferences
3. Prices of related goods and services
4. Buyer's expectations about future prices
5. Number of Buyers
Microeconomics
Equilibrium
Equilibrium is defined to the price-quantity pair where the quantity demanded is equal to the quantity supplied, represented by the intersection of the demand and supply curves.
Market Equilibrium:
A situation in a market when the price is such that the quantity that consumers wish to demand is correctly balanced by the quantity that firms wish to supply.
Comparative static analysis:
Examines the likely effect on the equilibrium of a change in the external conditions affecting the market.
Changes in market equilibrium
Practical uses of supply and demand analysis often center on the different variables that change equilibrium price and quantity, represented as shifts in the respective curves. Comparative statics of such a shift traces the effects from the initial equilibrium to the new equilibrium.
Demand curve shifts
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An outward (rightward) shift in demand increases both equilibrium price and quantity |
When consumers increase the quantity demanded at a given price, it is referred to as an increase in demand. Increased demand can be represented on the graph as the curve being shifted to the right. At each price point, a greater quantity is demanded, as from the initial curve D1 to the new curve D2. In the diagram, this raises the equilibrium price from P1 to the higher P2. This raises the equilibrium quantity from Q1 to the higher Q2. A movement along the curve is described as a "change in the quantity demanded" to distinguish it from a "change in demand," that is, a shift of the curve. In the example above, there has been an increase in demand which has caused an increase in (equilibrium) quantity. The increase in demand could also come from changing tastes and fashions, incomes, price changes in complementary and substitute goods, market expectations, and number of buyers. This would cause the entire demand curve to shift changing the equilibrium price and quantity. Note in the diagram that the shift of the demand curve, by causing a new equilibrium price to emerge, resulted in movement along the supply curve from the point (Q1, P1) to the point Q2, P2).
If the demand decreases, then the opposite happens: a shift of the curve to the left. If the demand starts at D2, and decreases to D1, the equilibrium price will decrease, and the equilibrium quantity will also decrease. The quantity supplied at each price is the same as before the demand shift, reflecting the fact that the supply curve has not shifted; but the equilibrium quantity and price are different as a result of the change (shift) in demand.
The movement of the demand curve in response to a change in a non-price determinant of demand is caused by a change in the x-intercept, the constant term of the demand equation.
Supply curve shifts
Main article: Supply (economics)
When the suppliers' unit input costs change, or when technological progress occurs, the supply curve shifts. For example, assume that someone invents a better way of growing wheat so that the cost of growing a given quantity of wheat decreases. Otherwise stated, producers will be willing to supply more wheat at every price and this shifts the supply curve S1 outward, to S2—an increase in supply. This increase in supply causes the equilibrium price to decrease from P1 to P2. The equilibrium quantity increases from Q1 to Q2 as consumers move along the demand curve to the new lower price. As a result of a supply curve shift, the price and the quantity move in opposite directions.
If the quantity supplied decreases, the opposite happens. If the supply curve starts at S2, and shifts leftward to S1, the equilibrium price will increase and the equilibrium quantity will decrease as consumers move along the demand curve to the new higher price and associated lower quantity demanded. The quantity demanded at each price is the same as before the supply shift, reflecting the fact that the demand curve has not shifted. But due to the change (shift) in supply, the equilibrium quantity and price have changed.
The movement of the supply curve in response to a change in a non-price determinant of supply is caused by a change in the y-intercept, the constant term of the supply equation. The supply curve shifts up and down the y axis as non-price determinants of demand change.
Elasticity
Elasticity (economics)
Elasticity is a central concept in the theory of supply and demand. In this context, elasticity refers to how strongly the quantities supplied and demanded respond to various factors, including price and other determinants. One way to define elasticity is the percentage change in one variable (the quantity supplied or demanded) divided by the percentage change in the causative variable. For discrete changes this is known as arc elasticity, which calculates the elasticity over a range of values. In contrast, point elasticity uses differential calculus to determine the elasticity at a specific point. Elasticity is a measure of relative changes.
Often, it is useful to know how strongly the quantity demanded or supplied will change when the price changes. This is known as the price elasticity of demand or the price elasticity of supply, respectively. If a monopolist decides to increase the price of its product, how will this affect the amount of their good that customers purchase? This knowledge helps the firm determine whether the increased unit price will offset the decrease in sales volume. Likewise, if a government imposes a tax on a good, thereby increasing the effective price, knowledge of the price elasticity will help us to predict the size of the resulting effect on the quantity demanded.
Elasticity is calculated as the percentage change in quantity divided by the associated percentage change in price. For example, if the price moves from $1.00 to $1.05, and as a result the quantity supplied goes from 100 pens to 102 pens, the quantity of pens increased by 2%, and the price increased by 5%, so the price elasticity of supply is 2%/5% or 0.4.
Since the changes are in percentages, changing the unit of measurement or the currency will not affect the elasticity. If the quantity demanded or supplied changes by a greater percentage than the price did, then demand or supply is said to be elastic. If the quantity changes by a lesser percentage than the price did, demand or supply is said to be inelastic. If supply is perfectly inelastic;that is, has zero elasticity, then there is a vertical supply curve.
Short-run supply curves are not as elastic as long-run supply curves, because in the long run firms can respond to market conditions by varying their holdings of physical capital, and because in the long run new firms can enter or old firms can exit the market.
Elasticity in relation to variables other than price can also be considered. One of the most common to consider is income. How strongly would the demand for a good change if income increased or decreased? The relative percentage change is known as the income elasticity of demand.
Another elasticity sometimes considered is the cross elasticity of demand, which measures the responsiveness of the quantity demanded of a good to a change in the price of another good. This is often considered when looking at the relative changes in demand when studying complements and substitute goods. Complements are goods that are typically utilized together, where if one is consumed, usually the other is also. Substitute goods are those where one can be substituted for the other, and if the price of one good rises, one may purchase less of it and instead purchase its substitute.
Cross elasticity of demand is measured as the percentage change in demand for the first good divided by the causative percentage change in the price of the other good. For an example with a complement good, if, in response to a 10% increase in the price of fuel, the quantity of new cars demanded decreased by 20%, the cross elasticity of demand would be -2.0.
In a frictionless economy, the price and quantity in any market would be able to move to a new equilibrium position instantly, without spending any time away from equilibrium. Any change in market conditions would cause a jump from one equilibrium position to another at once. In real economic systems, markets don't always behave in this way, and markets take some time before they reach a new equilibrium position. This is due to asymmetric, or at least imperfect, information, where no one economic agent could ever be expected to know every relevant condition in every market. Ultimately both producers and consumers must rely on trial and error as well as prediction and calculation to find the true equilibrium of a market.
Vertical supply curve (perfectly inelastic supply)
When demand D1 is in effect, the price will be P1. When D2 is occurring, the price will be P2. The equilibrium quantity is always Q, and any shifts in demand will only affect price.
If the quantity supplied is fixed in the very short run no matter what the price, the supply curve is a vertical line, and supply is called perfectly inelastic.
Other markets
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When demand D1 is in effect, the price will beP1. When D2 is occurring, the price will be P2. The equilibrium quantity is always Q, and any shifts in demand will only affect price. |
The model is commonly applied to wages, in the market for labor. The typical roles of supplier and demander are reversed. The suppliers are individuals, who try to sell their labor for the highest price. The demanders of labor are businesses, which try to buy the type of labor they need at the lowest price. The equilibrium price for a certain type of labor is the wage rate.
A number of economists (for example Pierangelo Garegnani, Robert L. Vienneau, and Arrigo Opocher & Ian Steedman), building on the work of Piero Sraffa, argue that that this model of the labor market, even given all its assumptions, is logically incoherent. Michael Anyadike-Danes and Wyne Godley argue, based on simulation results, that little of the empirical work done with the textbook model constitutes a potentially falsifying test, and, consequently, empirical evidence hardly exists for that model. Graham White argues, partially on the basis of Sraffianism, that the policy of increased labor market flexibility, including the reduction of minimum wages, does not have an "intellectually coherent" argument in economic theory.
This criticism of the application of the model of supply and demand generalizes, particularly to all markets for factors of production. It also has implications for monetary theory not drawn out here.
In both classical and Keynesian economics, the money market is analyzed as a supply-and-demand system with interest rates being the price. The money supply may be a vertical supply curve, if the central bank of a country chooses to use monetary policy to fix its value regardless of the interest rate; in this case the money supply is totally inelastic. On the other hand, the money supply curve is a horizontal line if the central bank is targeting a fixed interest rate and ignoring the value of the money supply; in this case the money supply curve is perfectly elastic. The demand for money intersects with the money supply to determine the interest rate.
Empirical estimation
Demand and supply relations in a market can be statistically estimated from price, quantity, and other data with sufficient information in the model. This can be done with simultaneous-equation methods of estimation in econometrics. Such methods allow solving for the model-relevant "structural coefficients," the estimated algebraic counterparts of the theory. The Parameter identification problem is a common issue in "structural estimation." Typically, data on exogenous variables (that is, variables other than price and quantity, both of which are endogenous variables) are needed to perform such an estimation. An alternative to "structural estimation" is reduced-form estimation, which regresses each of the endogenous variables on the respective exogenous variables.
Macroeconomic uses of demand and supply
Demand and supply have also been generalized to explain macroeconomic variables in a market economy, including the quantity of total output and the general price level. The Aggregate Demand-Aggregate Supply model may be the most direct application of supply and demand to macroeconomics, but other macroeconomic models also use supply and demand. Compared to microeconomic uses of demand and supply, different (and more controversial) theoretical considerations apply to such macroeconomic counterparts as aggregate demand and aggregate supply. Demand and supply are also used in macroeconomic theory to relate money supply and money demand to interest rates, and to relate labor supply and labor demand to wage rates.
History
The power of supply and demand was understood to some extent by several early Muslim economists, such as Ibn Taymiyyam.
"If desire for goods increases while its availability decreases, its price rises. On the other hand, if availability of the good increases and the desire for it decreases, the price comes down."
John Locke's 1691 work Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money. includes an early and clear description of supply and demand and their relationship. In this description demand is rent: “The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers” and “that which regulates the price of goods is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent.”
The phrase "supply and demand" was first used by James Denham-Steuart in his Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy, published in 1767. Adam Smith used the phrase in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, and David Ricardo titled one chapter of his 1817 work Principles of Political Economy and Taxation "On the Influence of Demand and Supply on Price".
In The Wealth of Nations, Smith generally assumed that the supply price was fixed but that its "merit" (value) would decrease as its "scarcity" increased, in effect what was later called the law of demand. Ricardo, in Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, more rigorously laid down the idea of the assumptions that were used to build his ideas of supply and demand. Antoine Augustin Cournot first developed a mathematical model of supply and demand in his 1838 Researches into the Mathematical Principles of Wealth, including diagrams.
During the late 19th century the marginalist school of thought emerged. This field mainly was started by Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, and Léon Walras. The key idea was that the price was set by the most expensive price, that is, the price at the margin. This was a substantial change from Adam Smith's thoughts on determining the supply price.
In his 1870 essay "On the Graphical Representation of Supply and Demand", Fleeming Jenkin in the course of "introduc ing the diagrammatic method into the English economic literature" published the first drawing of supply and demand curves therein, including comparative statics from a shift of supply or demand and application to the labor market. The model was further developed and popularized by Alfred Marshall in the 1890 textbook Principles of Economics.
Criticism
At least two assumptions are necessary for the validity of the standard model: first, that supply and demand are independent; and second, that supply is "constrained by a fixed resource"; If these conditions do not hold, then the Marshallian model cannot be sustained. Sraffa's critique focused on the inconsistency (except in implausible circumstances) of partial equilibrium analysis and the rationale for the upward-slope of the supply curve in a market for a produced consumption good. The notability of Sraffa's critique is also demonstrated by Paul A. Samuelson's comments and engagements with it over many years, for example:
"What a cleaned-up version of Sraffa (1926) establishes is how nearly empty are all of Marshall's partial equilibrium boxes. To a logical purist of Wittgenstein and Sraffa class, the Marshallian partial equilibrium box of constant cost is even more empty than the box of increasing cost.".
Aggregate excess demand in a market is the difference between the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied as a function of price. In the model with an upward-sloping supply curve and downward-sloping demand curve, the aggregate excess demand function only intersects the axis at one point, namely, at the point where the supply and demand curves intersect. The Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu theorem shows that the standard model cannot be rigorously derived in general from general equilibrium theory.
The model of prices being determined by supply and demand assumes perfect competition. But:
"economists have no adequate model of how individuals and firms adjust prices in a competitive model. If all participants are price-takers by definition, then the actor who adjusts prices to eliminate excess demand is not specified".
Goodwin, Nelson, Ackerman, and Weissskopf write: "If we mistakenly confuse precision with accuracy, then we might be misled into thinking that an explanation expressed in precise mathematical or graphical terms is somehow more rigorous or useful than one that takes into account particulars of history, institutions or business strategy. This is not the case. Therefore, it is important not to put too much confidence in the apparent precision of supply and demand graphs. Supply and demand analysis is a useful precisely formulated conceptual tool that clever people have devised to help us gain an abstract understanding of a complex world. It does not - nor should it be expected to - give us in addition an accurate and complete description of any particular real world market."
Economies of scale: Mass production
The intent of mass production is to produce in extremely large quantities at the lowest possible cost so as to drive down price and create demand. There is also a learning curve with the production of most new products that exhibits a similar phenomenon of lowering costs, which in turn drives demand.
In the case of mass production, both the assumptions of supply and demand being independent and constraints on supply are not applicable. The price response to the change in supply curve is valid, but the price response to the change in demand curve is not. The lowered price in response to increased demand is because the incremental cost of production is less than the average cost, assuming that there is excess capacity, which is the condition of most manufactured goods today. In typical business cycles, prices do increase as maximum capacity is approached; however, this usually results in an expansion of capacity using more efficient processes, leading to even lower prices in the next cycle.
(source:wikipedia)
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