Financial Crisis Article Critique (Article Critique Sample)

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Economics
Summary
According to the article, financial crisis was caused by the activities in the United States where financial institutions engaged in very risky lending because of their objective of generating easy profits. The collapse of the mortgage businesses and the failure to regulate the activities of the financial institution were the major causes of the financial crisis that affected the Caribbean countries. According to the essay, lack of proper flow of information facilitated the crisis. This means that there was some information that the stakeholders in the financial industry knew but their customers did not know and this facilitated the collapse.
According to the essay, Caribbean depends heavily on the tourism sector and its major customers are from US and UK. Since the financial crisis first hit the people in US, it was obvious that they would reduce their travel to Caribbean islands and this would affect the economy of the region.
Accoridng to the essay, the economy was adversely affected because it is not diversified and depends heavily on tourism sector. This is why when the financial crisis started, the region was highly affected because many people lost their jobs and the general economic growth reduced in terms of Gross domestic product.
Accoridng to the essay, tourists are major sources of revenues in terms of transport revenues, foods, drinks, accommodation and fuel. The reduction in revenues from these sectors means that many people had to go home and the government would eventually generate fewer revenues from the economy.
Generally, the essay argues that the high dependence on tourism sector by the Caribbean countries contributed majorly to the negative effects of the financial crisis in the region. This tells that these economies have a reason to diversify their economies to ensure that they do not suffer in the future when such incidences occur.
Constructive response
It is important to state that the paper is good, written with simple language for easy understanding. The paper is well organized such that one is guided from one subtopic to the other. It is detailed for one to understand the major issues that are related to the topic. The paper has addressed the major question well and one can state confidently that the author has achieved in developing a good essay. However, there are some areas that may require developments to ensure that the paper is better.
First, the paper needs a good introduction such that one can understand the objectives of the essay without reading the whole of the essay or the topic of the essay. A person reading the essay may not easily realize what the essay wishes to accomplish and this makes the essay weak. People should be attracted to read the essay by a good introduction that states clearly that the paper intends to evaluate how the financial crisis affected the Caribbean countries.
An individual with the basic knowledge of finance will easily understand the whole essay. However, there are some issues that have to be clearly explained to people without such basic knowledge in finance. First, it is important to realize that the collapse of the real estate industry was a major cause of the financial crisis and it involved financial institutions that were lending money to people who did not have the ability to repay the loans. Many of these people constructed houses but were able to repay the loan and the banks were also unable to repay the loans that they had borrowed. They were also not able to give the depositors the money they had saved with their institutions. This meant that the citizens who had saved their money in the financial institutions lost as well as the banks, plus the investors of the financial institution. This created panic in the US economy and to the rest of the world.
The paper has failed to explain an important point that would make the essay stronger. It would be crucial that the essay highlights that many people in US lost their jobs as well as their invested funds. This meant that they lost the ability to engage in leisure activities such as tourism activities and this is why the Caribbean countries received fewer tourists. Additionally, the rest of the citizens were cautious with their funds now that they had witnessed big losses in their economy.
Another important point is that international trade which made people travel to the Caribbean countries also gave the traders a chance to engage in tourism activities while still in business. The fact that fewer people visited the region to engage in business meant that fewer of these people engaged in tourism activities.
The paper also lacks a conclusion that would make it even better coupled with recommendations on how the issue should be handled in future. A conclusion can make the paper more useful to people who have no time to read the whole of the essay. Having recommendations on what the Caribbean countries should do to avoid economic suffering in case future financial crisis occur could make the essay more useful to policy makers in the region. Regardless of the weaknesses, the paper remains good and interesting to readers.
John C. "Medical Tourism in the Caribbean Islands: A Cure fo r Economies in Crisis?" Island Studies Journal 8.1 (2013): 115-130. EBSCO.Web. 12 Mar. 2015. .
The article "Medical tourism in Caribbean islands: a cure for economies in crisis" addresses the effects of financial crisis to the economy of the countries in Caribbean islands as well as what these economies are currently doing to ensure that the future of the economy is not dictated by economic situations in the rest of the world.
According to the article, Caribbean islands were highly affected by the financial crisis because they highly depended on tourism heavily considering that they had not diversified their economies (John 115). According to the author, the effects of the financial crisis were that many people lost their jobs.
Accoridng to the article, the country has been affected negatively in terms of economic growth because the financial crisis led to a situation where the foreign income reduced significantly hence the gross domestic product of the countries. Additionally, foreign countries have initiated more regulations in the financial sector that affects the economy of the countries. The policies were devised as a way of avoiding a future financial crisis. This has necessitated the need to develop strategies that will ensure that the economy is sustainable in the future.
The paper acknowledge that the tourism sector is crucial for the economy and now that it is becoming vibrant, the resources should be invested in other sectors just to ensure that the economies will not suffer when future political or financial crisis occur. Investing in other sectors will create more jobs to the residents as well as ensure that stimulate growth.
One of the areas that the paper evaluates is the investment into medical tourism which will enable the countries generate more foreign cash flows as well as create more jobs to the people. This is an important area of investment because even in the presence of financial crisis, people are likely to seek medical care from the Caribbean countries.
The article will be useful in the essay because it tells how the Caribbean countries are coping with the effects of financial crisis and the plans it has for the future economy. This is considering that the countries are heavily dependent on tourism sector that depends on financial position of the world. The article will explain how the countries have learned lessons from the financial crisis that hit their economies in 2008. The observations are that the countries are now taking the right directions towards ensuring that sustainability is achieved taking into consideration that they have to still depend on tourism but have a diversified economy.
The article is okay for use because it is very recent and present important ideas applicable in the region under study. The paper is also well cited meaning that it is reliable and not based on personal views of the authors. The paper uses simple language and is detailed making it very useful in research studies. It will be used to find the effects of the financial crisis as well as the actions that the affected countries have taken to prevent such devastating effects on their economies.
Second source
Laframboise, Nicole. (2014). Revisiting tourism flows to the Caribbean: What is driving arrivals? Retrieved from International Monetary Fund website: /external/pubs/ft/wp/2014/wp14229.pdf
The IMF working paper gives a clear history of the tourism sector in the Caribbean countries from the year 2000. It evaluates what happened from the time the global financial crisis affected the world and what is happening as per now. The paper is hence very crucial for the research process.
According to the article, the economy of the Caribbean countries was doing well in the year 2000 and this continued to be the case up to the year 2007. When the financial crisis affected the world, several factors affected the tourism sector in the Caribbean countries. According to the article, the external tourism was the one that was adversely affected because the local people continued to engage in tourism activities regardless of th...