Professional Gamer How to Make a Living from Your Hobby

Professional Gamer How to Make a Living from Your Hobby The idea of making money by just playing games may seem crazy to many but the truth is it’s possible and gaming greats like Jonathan ‘Fatal1ty’ and ‘Lee Flash Young’ are proof of that fact. In addition to money, recognized pro-gamers may qualify for the US P-1 visa so that they can earn a salary and stay in the U.S. while playing there.However at the same time, you must realize that professional gaming is serious business and requires determination, skill, teamwork and lots and lots of practice for success.So, it would be wise if you engaged in gaming along with your full-time job. Only quit the latter if you are very sure of earning a steady and good pay from the former. © Shutterstock.com | Syda ProductionsIn this article, you’ll learn 1) how to establish yourself as a professional gamer â€" some tips and ideas, 2) ways to make money from gaming, 3) games you can consider to make money, and 4) prioritize and be realistic.HOW TO ESTABLISH YOURSELF AS A PROFESSIONAL GAMER â€" SOME TIPS AND IDEASSelect your gameObviously, the first step to becoming a pro-gamer is to select your game, learn it and practice it. If, for example, you want to play Warcraft 3, it is not enough to play the game for just one or two hours every day and expect to become an expert at it. You have to aim at learning all that there is to learn about the game. This includes typical strategies and their counters. You’ll also have to watch replays of the games of leading players and memorize unit stats. From the videos of leading players, you’ll get some idea of what it is that makes them such great players.Familiarize yourself with the jargonMultiplayer games are associated wi th plenty of jargon, and the game jargon depends on the particular game you’re playing. In Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games such as DOTA2, Heroes of Newerth or League of Legends, there are terms such as stun, disable, neutrals/jungle, hex/voodoo, ancients or lane. First person shooter (FPS) players provide unique names to areas or spots on the map. This is so that teammates can know where the enemy players are.Do lots of practice starting with Bots or AIBefore you play out in the open, it makes sense to be aware of both the game’s and your strengths and weaknesses. Counter Strike is one of the many games that would allow you to play against bots. So, you can bring together a team of your bots, and fight against the enemy to understand the intricacies of the game. You can make use of bots to appraise your performance as well as to adopt your manner of gaming to what seems most comfortable.Study the professionalsBy studying the professionals, you can know how they tack le the various games, how their strategies and complex teamwork ensure them of success. You can also watch their split decision making, ploys, tricks and other lessons, the knowledge of which would be useful for your game play. By way of live streaming (through sites such as Twitch.tv), you can watch some pro-gamers play live.Fine-tune aspects that can give you an edgeAll rounder players typically don’t deliver a great performance in competitive gaming. Ideally, each of the team’s players should have a specialized skill. It is also easier to specialize in one kind of character, class, weaponry, and so on. Be the best at whatever aspect of the game you seem to have a knack for, including game play on the field, whether it’s jumping full-throttle into the heat of the action, running around the map, supporting the team or sitting still to farm gold. If you’re good at sniping, work to be the best sniper ever, even if you’re not all that good at assaulting.   Also, look for sam e-spirited players to be a part of your team and strengthen it.Make sure you have quality gaming gearThough a lot of people may say that gaming gear is not worth wasting money for because it makes the player dependent on it, that argument may hold true only for casual gaming. With respect to professional gaming, the gear is intended for accuracy, responsiveness, and durability. While the response time of a normal desktop mouse is 8-16 milliseconds, the response time of a gaming mouse could be just one millisecond. Hardware helps considerably in reducing errors in the middle of the battle. Those into hard-core gaming would stand to gain from investing in products from well-known names such as Razer, Logitech, and SteelSeries.Be part of a communityBuild a network or be part of a community of pro gamers. Join forums and engage in conversations. You can discuss strategies and gain from outside input. You can also share tips and advice among yourselves. In addition, you can promote yours elf through Twitter conversations or your very own profile website, among other avenues.Look for tricks, tips, and guidesWatching the pros play may help you to some extent but unfortunately it won’t help you know the thoughts going through their head as they play. If you want to comprehend the mechanics of the game, you’ve got to study or read about the game in detail. You can get lots of information about any game from the internet. This information includes knowledge on the characters, their armory, skills, the playing field and their moves with weapons. Knowledge of each character’s capabilities will help you be more prepared and avoid being caught unawares too easily. YouTube is a great resource for guides and tutorials. If you find yourself stuck at a particular level, you can check out walkthroughs of single player games, on the channel.Get a teamYou can go solo if you like, but a team can help to compensate for your shortcomings and enable you to contribute differently. For example, in Team Fortress 2 tournaments, it is essential to have a food medic. Maybe casual observers won’t be able to comprehend fully what your role in the team is but at least, you can be comforted by the fact that you are an indispensable part of the team.When selecting members for your team, think along lines such as skill levels similar to yours, dedication, responsibility (such as coming for practice on time), and a little variety in specialities (no point in having so many people who are experts in the same aspects of the game). If you’re in the mood for fanciness, you can try Motorola’s Six Sigma  strategy for team building.Thanks to the internet, your team members don’t necessarily have to be from the same locality, area or even country. You can even make a team comprising players from different parts of the world as long as they are willing and prepared to game at the same time, and to cooperate if a need should ever arise to travel to tournaments.WAYS TO MAK E MONEY FROM GAMINGRegister with a professional gaming organization and compete at tournamentsWith respect to professional gaming organizations such as the National Electronic Sports League and Major League Gaming, gamers must sign up online, register, complete a profile and let the organizations know which online game accounts they use. Once you are enrolled in the organization, you will have to select some events (such as cups, leagues, and ladders) to compete in. You can either enter a team or build your team. Teams would register for tournaments and leagues that offer prize money. Key gaming leagues include the North American Star League, IGN Pro League, Global StarCraft 2 League and the Electronic Sports League. To be closer to being asked to be a member of the gaming team you must possess an impressive ranking as an individual player. To improve your ranking, try challenging other individual players.Gaming tournaments are a great way to earn money. Prize amounts for winning te ams can be in the ranges of hundred thousand or millions. It would be a good idea to get yourself a corporate sponsor. You can, in fact, gather a considerable amount of your annual income from corporate events. When an individual player or team has a sponsor, the player or team may be able to dedicate more time to practice. Major sponsors such as Red Bull and Dr. Pepper sponsor events at the tournament level so that members of the audience can see their advertisements.StreamingThough you can earn an income from streaming games, it is a difficult avenue for newbies to attempt. The reason is that there is so much of the competition, and you require a big number of viewers.   Getting a considerable number of viewers is no ABC unless you already have some level of popularity in the eSports scene or gaming industry or have a knack at directing views to your stream. You also have to be entertaining considering that streaming is a very time-consuming process (more than YouTube videos), and people usually watch streams for long durations. To soar above the competition, you have to show yourself to be insanely good at the game, be amazingly funny or entertaining in some other way or otherwise be some celebrity. Twitch.tv is a very popular channel for streaming games.CoachingOnce you become a pro player, you can provide tutorship or coach for other prospective professional gamers.Posting on YouTubeYou can record videos of yourself playing games, provide a running commentary for the whole videos, post them on YouTube and enable monetization so that you earn money when people watch your videos. Note that videos without commentaries may be rejected for monetization, so it is best to include commentaries. Also note that according to YouTube, the step-by-step commentary should be strictly connected to the live action and provide educational or instructional value. Game testingGame testing, also known by the term “play testing,” involves testing games in their development stages to find out whether there are any glitches or problems and to report them. It is the major video game companies that typically hire video game testers. Unfortunately, the pay is not good, job security is bad and you may be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. In addition to this bad enough situation, it is not necessary that a game tester would be given only the games he likes to test. You may even end up testing games you detest a lot. As a game tester, you’ll have to engage in repetitive and tedious tasks and maybe even work overtime for long periods. So, think twice before venturing into this domain. Share what you know with othersIf you excel at a particular game whether StarCraft or Call of Duty or some other game, in addition to coaching, you can share your knowledge with others by way of eBooks or manuals. Sites such as Killer Guides would allow you to develop an eBook through which you can convert your knowledge into money. If you’re okay about a possibly smaller market, you can also think of selling your eBooks through other sites, such as your website or even Amazon.Write about gamesThe internet abounds in websites carrying advertisements. Websites such as these require news, reviews and all other material which people would be interested in reading with respect to video games. If you’re an all right writer with a good knowledge base, you can try your hand at contributing written matter for one of these sites. Alternately, you can attempt your blog and incorporate advertisements in it.GAMES YOU CAN CONSIDER TO MAKE MONEYLeague of LegendsFree to play, the very popular League of Legends has brought a huge e-sports scene into existence. Competitions are carried out by way of the game’s creator â€" Riot James in addition to World Cyber Games and Major League Gaming, among others.Starcraft 2: Heart of the SwarmStarCraft is a major name, a big daddy when it comes to professional gaming across the globe (particularly in South Korea). Almost every gaming league has events revolving around StarCraft2. In terms of winnings, the game’s top players have got themselves thousands in winnings, and if salaries are also included, it comes to more than $1 million dollars.Dota 2This game is also free-to-play and similar in play to League of Legends. Developed by the very same studio responsible for the well-known Half-Life Series, the game is known for a crazy degree of depth and enormous cash prizes.Warcraft 3: The Frozen ThroneWarcraft 3 continues to go strong even though it has been on the market for over a decade. If you wish to pursue the game, you can participate in professional competitions still hosted by World Cyber Games.Call of Duty: Black Ops 2Call of Duty suits both beginners and elite players well because it is easy for the former to get into the game, and the latter would find the game considerably technical. Major League Gaming runs the biggest tournaments.PRIORITIZE AND BE REALISTICAs already discussed a bove, there are several options you can choose from (such as game testing and YouTube posting) through which you can earn money from gaming. You have to decide which of those (or any other options you know of) are best suited for you and how you can convert them to worthwhile sources of income. Once you have a picture of where your strengths lie, develop a plan. Ensure that the plan is practical and measurable and then work towards converting those goals to reality. If at any point, you feel you are falling way behind, re-evaluate and modify the plan accordingly.Making a career for yourself and a steady income in professional gaming may not be easy but as mentioned at outset, it is definitely possible. Even if you have no other option but to game in combination with your full-time job, you can still rest content from the fact that you are living out your passion.

Implicit and Explicit Constructor Chaining

Constructor chaining in Java is simply the act of one constructor calling another constructor via inheritance. This happens implicitly when a subclass is constructed: its first task is to call its parents constructor method. But programmers can also call another constructor explicitly using the keywords  this() or  super(). The this() keyword calls another overloaded constructor  in the same class; the super() keyword calls a non-default constructor in a superclass. Implicit Constructor Chaining Constructor chaining occurs through the use of inheritance. A subclass constructor methods first task is to call its superclass constructor method. This ensures that the creation of the subclass object starts with the initialization of the classes above it in the inheritance chain. There could be any number of classes in an inheritance chain. Every constructor method calls up the chain until the class at the top has been reached and initialized. Then each subsequent class below is initialized as the chain winds back down to the original subclass. This process is called constructor chaining. Note that: This implicit call to the superclass is the same as if the subclass had included the super() keyword, i.e. super() is implicit here.If a no-args constructor is not included in the class, Java creates one behind the scenes and invokes it. This means that if your only constructor takes an argument, you must explicitly use a this() or super() keyword to invoke it (see below). Consider this superclass Animal extended by Mammal: class Animal {// constructorAnimal(){   System.out.println(Were in class Animals constructor.);}} class Mammal extends Animal {//constructorMammal(){   System.out.println(Were in class Mammal s constructor.);}} Now, lets instantiate the class Mammal: public class ChainingConstructors {   /*** param args*/public static void main(String[] args) {Mammal m new Mammal();}} When the above program runs, Java implicitly triggers a call to the superclass Animal constructor, then to the class constructor. The output, therefore, will be: Were in class Animals constructorWere in class Mammals constructor Explicit Constructor Chaining using this() or super() Explicit use of the this() or super() keywords allows you to call a non-default constructor. To call a non-args default constructor or an overloaded constructor from within the same class, use the  this()  keyword.  To call a non-default superclass constructor from a subclass, use the super() keyword. For instance, if the superclass has multiple constructors, a subclass may always want to call a specific constructor, rather than the default. Note that the call to another constructor must be the first statement in the constructor or Java will throw a compilation error. Consider the code below in which a new subclass, Carnivore, inherits from Mammal class which inherits from the Animal class, and each class now has a constructor that takes an argument. Heres the superclass Animal:   public class Animalprivate String name;public Animal(String name)  // constructor with an argument{this.name name;System.out.println(Im executed first.);}}Note that the constructor now takes a name of type String as a parameter and that the body of the class calls this() on the constructor. Without the explicit use of this.name, Java would create a default, no-args constructor and invoke that, instead. Heres the subclass Mammal: public class Mammal extends Animal {public Mammal(String name){super(name);System.out.println(Im executed second);}} Its constructor also takes an argument, and it uses super(name) to invoke a specific constructor in its superclass. Heres another subclass Carnivore. This inherits from Mammal:   public class Carnivore extends Mammal{public Carnivore(String name){super(name);System.out.println(Im executed last);}} When run, these three code blocks would print: Im executed first.Im executed second.Im executed last. To recap: When an instance of the Carnivore class is created, the first action of its constructor method is to call the Mammal constructor method. Likewise, the first action of the Mammal constructor method is to call the Animal constructor method. A chain of constructor method calls ensure that the instance of the Carnivore object has properly initialized all the classes in its inheritance chain.

Library Learning Activities BIO 107 (ANATOMY PHYSIOLOGY) Article

Essays on Simulating the Decentralized Processes of the Human Immune System in a Virtual Anatomy Model by Sarpe and Jacob Article The paper "Simulating the Decentralized Processes of the Human Immune System in a Virtual Anatomy Model by Sarpe and Jacob" is a great example of a biology article. Problem statement: the article discusses simulations that take place in the decentralization of processes of the human immune system as to be in a virtual anatomy model.   Processes in the human biological system can be explained using models of large systems. The research focuses on the physical perspectives of the immune processes of human beings. The complexity of the immune system has always been a challenge to explain without referring to the spatial distribution of organs that relate to it. The research has incorporated different prototypes into one simulation of immune processes (Sarpe Jacob, 2013). It has presented methodologies and modeling to depict a simulation system that is agent-based. The agents in the model include viruses, cytokines, and immune cells. In this case, the system interacts with its components in two different ways which include inside a lymph node and within the tissue.The variables in the research are factors that make up the immune system. There is a clear description of how agents of the system interact. The research finds that agent-based simulations relate to the current simulations on human body immunity. The resear ch has proved that the model can be used to demonstrate how connected simulations occur (Sarpe Jacob, 2013). The situation can be prevented through the use of a network of computers. The research will have a positive impact on my profession. The model can be used as a tuning technique on the study of the immune system to help in understanding the processes. It would help in advancing the understanding of the immune system of the human body.

Analysis and Critique on French Education System Free Essays

In my opinion, the French education system is faulty and undeserving. Meisler portrays for us in animated detail, the torture that French pupils go through in their schooldays. It is also relatively easy for me to understand this scenario because in my country, India, the scene is strikingly similar. We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis and Critique on French Education System or any similar topic only for you Order Now It is also the reason that I am here right now–in the United States getting the benefits of the best undergraduate system in the world–to take home with me the accrual of a â€Å"liberal† education. I find the lack of French students in an American institution surprising. Surely French parents will think and re-think before making a choice between their child†s future and the haughtiness of their country†s culture. Do they really want risk their children to go through a system where the chance of getting the baccalaureate degree is only one in three? What is the point of â€Å"attempting† to get an education? The country†s literacy rate reads ninety-nine percent yet Meisler indicates that two-thirds of France is without a reputed degree. These statistics are unheard of in the rest of the world. Students who do manage to get this degree get celebrity treatment and many go on to become Nobel laureates. Nevertheless, what of those who not make it? They live an obscure life, affected by their failure until their dying day. This also happens to be the reason for France†s contemptuous behavior towards tourists. One often comes across a French waiter or low-level bureaucrat or store clerk behaving defensively as they had done with their teachers, desperately trying to evade disapproval. Fear being their motivation rather than the pursuit of success. French education seemingly preaches that France is the world and that there is nothing beyond. Meisler has pointed out a symbolic example when he says that, in English, people usually try to judge the level of comprehension of the person with whom they are conversing. They then try to adapt to the same wavelength so that the conversation carries on with least difficulty. However, to the French, this is an alien concept. If you cannot speak the perfect grammar that they as children have been taught in medieval fashion, you become an outcast. I think the French have to modify their philosophy and look beyond defining â€Å"education† as â€Å"academics†. There is much more to a complete education than precision of mind, command of language and a huge store of memory. They have to realize that Nobel laureates do not mean much until they are representatives of their entire country. Although France may have had several more Nobel laureates than the United States, it has achieved this at a price. The price of disregarding their â€Å"lesser† citizens. The United States on the other hand has gone the Darwinian way–the process of natural selection–and has let the people discover themselves and bring the best out in them. They have not had them molded to become superior beings–which in my vocabulary reads as â€Å"robots†Ã¢â‚¬â€œwhich in turn is defined in the Webster dictionary as â€Å"an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically. † The French education system is in desperate need of a complete overhaul. Otherwise, their nation is going to lose all of the little importance that they have in the world today because of their immodesty and arrogance. France is and will be nothing more than an angry yapping poodle in the midst of uninterested, lazing bulldogs. How to cite Analysis and Critique on French Education System, Papers

Reparations Comparison Essays - Slavery, Racism, Business, Abuse

Reparations Comparison REPARATIONS COMPARISON Ever since the beginning of time groups of people have been used or persecuted by other groups who believed to be superior. The three groups being discussed in this paper are the Japanese-Americans, who were sent to internment camps during World War II, the European Jews, who were victims of acts of genocide at the hands of the Nazi government in Germany, and the Africans, now African-Americans, who were forced to board ships to America for the purpose of slavery. The Japanese-Americans, during WW II, were taken from their homes and forced to give up any job or business they maintained. This was supposedly a deterrent against the Japanese-Americans being potential security threats during the war. After WW II they were given $25 and a train ticket to wherever their home was before they were relocated. Most of them went back to find that their job was no longer open. They were forced to live a life of poverty. In 1988, an act was passed which granted Japanese-Americans who had been directly affected by this act $20,000 a piece. The Jews in Germany were treated in worse manner than the aforementioned group. Even though death did occur at the internment camps in The United States, it was mostly due to unsanitary conditions. In Germany the government was purposely killing the Jewish people with various tactics such as gas chambers and firing squads. Some Jews were able to leave the country before the brunt of the violence against them started. Though lucky enough to leave with their lives, they were not so fortunate when it came to their personal belongings, including money. The German government, after the Nazi regime, felt obliged to pay those people who were affected for lost property and wages as reparations. Starting in the 1600's, Europeans began capturing Africans to bring them over to the United States to work the fields in the southern states. These men, women, and children were taken from their native environments, in which they may have held positions of authority, and made the property of other people whose only differences were skin color and culture. Even worst was the fact that some tribal leaders were selling their own members to the Europeans. African-Americans, though legal slavery has been abolished for over 100 years, still have not completely achieved the respect and status of the dominant group in the United States. Unlike the two previous groups discussed, the Jews and the Japanese-Americans, supposed plans of reparations like the Homestead and Land Grant Acts failed because of a lack of concern by the government combined with a lack of resistance by the Black community. I agree that all of these occurrences are definite atrocities. The difference, I see between the first two and the last group is that these were orders given by the government in power rather than ?free enterprise? by certain individuals. It is terrible that African-Americans had to endure such harsh treatment, but how can any criteria be established by which to grant reparations. Had the government made it a rule that all Black people were to be enslaved rather than simply allowing it, the situation would be somewhat different. I say somewhat because I have not yet heard anyone distinctly give a way that slavery has affected them financially. Plus, how do the people whose ancestors did not come to this country until after slavery get taken out of the equation? I guess I have always taken the stance that, though Black Americans have not completely achieved equality, there are far too many opportunities available for people to be complaining about what opportunities they don't have. T hough it's sad, it's true because I have family members and associates that do it. I personally have never been to Africa, but I guess because of my comfort in the environment I was raised in, I'd rather be right here in America. But one last point I'd like to make is that those Black people who have been able to achieve certain successes need to help those people who haven't so that we can better compete with the majority in this country someday.

The History and Invention of Peanut Butter

The History and Invention of Peanut Butter It’s one of the country’s favorite things to spread over bread. We dip celery sticks in it. It’s often baked into cookies and countless deserts. I’m talking about peanut butter and as a whole Americans consume tons of the pulverized pea about a billion pounds worth each year. That’s roughly $800 spent annually and  a booming increase from the roughly two million  pounds produced at the turn of the 20th century. Peanuts were first cultivated as food in South America and natives in the region began turning them into grounded up paste roughly 3,000 years ago. The kind of peanut butter that the Incas and Aztecs made was of course much different from the manufactured stuff sold in grocery stores today. The more modern story of peanut butter actually began towards the end of the 19th century, not too long after farmers began mass commercializing the crop that was suddenly in demand after the civil war. A Nutty Controversy So who invented peanut butter? Its hard to say. In fact, there appears to be some disagreement among food historians over who deserves the honor. One historian, Eleanor Rosakranse, says a woman from New York named Rose Davis started making peanut butter as early as the 1840’s after her son reported seeing women in Cuba grinding peanuts into a pulp and smearing it onto bread.      Ã‚   Then there are some who think the credit should go to Marcellus Gilmore Edson, a Canadian chemist who in 1884 filed and was granted the first patent in the United States for what he called â€Å"peanut-candy.† Conceived as a kind of flavoring paste, the process described running roasted peanuts through a heated mill to produce a fluid or semi-fluid byproduct that cools into a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment. However, there wasn’t any indication that Edson made or sold peanut butter as a commercial product. A case can also be made for a St. Louis businessman named George A. Bayle, who began packaging and selling peanut butter through his food manufacturing company. It’s believed that the idea was born out of a collaboration with a doctor who had been seeking a way for his patients who were unable to chew meat to ingest protein. Bayle also ran advertisements in the early 1920’s proclaiming his company to be the â€Å"Original Manufacturers of Peanut Butter.† Cans of Bayle’s Peanut Butter came with labels touting this claim as well. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg It isn’t difficult to find those who dispute this claim as many have argued that the honor should go to none other than the influential Seventh-day Adventist Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Indeed, the National Peanut Board states that Kellogg received a patent in 1896 for a technique he developed for making peanut butter. There’s also an 1897 advertisement for Kellogg’s Sanitas company Nut Butters that pre-dates all other competitors. More importantly, though, Kellogg was a tireless promoter of peanut butter. He travelled extensively throughout the country giving lectures on its benefits of to health. Kellogg even served peanut butter to his patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health resort with treatment programs supported by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The one big knock on Kellogg’s claim as the father of modern day peanut butter is that his disastrous decision to switch from roasted nuts to steamed nuts resulted in a product that barely resembled the ubiquitous jarred goodness found on store shelves today. Kellogg also  in an indirect way played a part in the production of peanut butter reaching a mass scale. John Lambert, an employee of Kellogg’s who was involved in the nut butter business, eventually left in 1896 and founded a company to develop and manufacture industrial strength peanut-grinding machines. He would soon have competition as another machine manufacturer, Ambrose Straub, was granted a patent for one of the earliest peanut butter machines in 1903. The machines made the process easier as making peanut butter had been quite tedious. Peanuts were first grounded using a mortar and pestle before being put through a meat grinder. Even then, it was hard to achieve the desired consistency.    Peanut Butter Goes Global In 1904, peanut butter was introduced to the wider public at the World’s Fair in St. Louis. According to the book â€Å"Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food,† a concessionaire named C.H. Sumner was the only vendor to sell peanut butter. Using one of Ambrose Straub’s peanut butter machines, Sumner sold $705.11 worth of peanut butter. That same year, the Beech-Nut Packing Company became the first nationwide brand to market peanut butter and continued to distribute the product until 1956. Other notable early brands to follow suit were the Heinz company, which entered the market in 1909 and the Krema Nut Company, an Ohio-based operation that survives to this day as the world’s oldest peanut butter company. Soon more and more companies would start selling peanut butter as a disastrous mass invasion of boll weevils ravaged the south, destroying much of cotton crop yields that had long been a staple of the region’s farmers. Thus the food industry’s growing interest in peanut was fueled in part by many farmers turning to peanuts as a replacement. Even as demand for peanut butter grew, it was primarily being sold as a regional product. In fact, Krema founder Benton Black once proudly boasted â€Å"I refuse to sell outside Ohio.† While it may sound today like a bad way of doing business, it made sense at the time as grounded peanut butter was unstable and best distributed locally. The problem was that, as the oil separated from the peanut butter solids, it would rise to the top and quickly spoil with exposure to light and oxygen.                All that changed in the 1920’s when a businessman named Joseph Rosefield patented a process called â€Å"Peanut butter and process of manufacturing the same,† which describes how hydrogenation of peanut oil can be used to keep the peanut butter from coming apart. Rosefield began licensing the patent to food  companies  before he decided to go off on his own and launch his own brand. Rosefields Skippy peanut butter, along with Peter Pan and Jif, would go on to become the most successful and recognizable names in the business.

The Trade Deficit and Exchange Rates

The Trade Deficit and Exchange Rates Since the U.S. Dollar is weak, shouldnt that imply we export more than we import (i.e., foreigners get a good exchange rate making US goods relatively cheap)? So why does the U.S. have an enormous trade deficit? Trade Balance, Surplus, and Deficit Parkin and Bades Economics Second Edition defines trade balance as: The value of all the goods and services we sell to other countries (exports) minus the value of all the goods and services we buy from foreigners (imports) is called our trade balance If the value of the trade balance is positive, we have a trade surplus and we export more than we import (in dollar terms). A trade deficit is just the opposite; it occurs when the trade balance is negative and the value of what we import is more than the value of what we export. The United States has had a trade deficit for over the last ten years, though the size of the deficit has varied during that period. We know from A Beginners Guide to Exchange Rates and the Foreign Exchange Market that changes in exchange rates can greatly impact various parts of the economy. This was later confirmed in A Beginners Guide to Purchasing Power Parity Theory where we saw that a fall in the exchange rates will cause foreigners to buy more of our goods and us to buy less foreign goods. So theory tells us that when the value of the U.S. Dollar falls relative to other currencies, the U.S. should enjoy a trade surplus, or at least a smaller trade deficit. If we look at the U.S. Balance of trade data, this doesnt seem to be happening. The U.S. Census Bureau keeps extensive data on U.S. trade. The trade deficit does not appear to be getting smaller, as shown by their data. Here is the size of the trade deficit for the twelve months from November 2002 to October 2003. Nov. 2002 (38,629)Dec. 2002 (42,332)Jan. 2003 (40,035)Feb. 2003 (38,617)Mar. 2003 (42,979)Apr. 2003 (41,998)May. 2003 (41,800)Jun. 2003 (40,386)Jul. 2003 (40,467)Aug. 2003 (39,605)Sep. 2003 (41,341)Oct. 2003 (41,773) Is there any way we can reconcile the fact that the trade deficit is not decreasing with the fact that the U.S. Dollar has been greatly devalued? A good first step would be to identify who the U.S. is trading with. U.S. Census Bureau data gives the following trade figures (imports exports) for the year 2002: Canada ($371 B)Mexico ($232 B)Japan ($173 B)China ($147 B)Germany ($89 B)U.K. ($74 B)South Korea ($58 B)Taiwan ($36 B)France ($34 B)Malaysia ($26 B) The United States has a few key trading partners such as Canada, Mexico, and Japan. If we look at the exchange rates between the United States and these countries, perhaps we will have a better idea of why the United States continues to have a large trade deficit despite a rapidly declining dollar. We examine American trade with four major trading partners and see if those trading relationships can explain the trade deficit: