In recent months, the island of Cyprus has seen a renaissance. Tourism is booming, and in the TRNC the North Cyprus Property Boom has been marked as the peak of prosperity for the partitioned island;it has been named as one of the world’s chief property hot spots.
Politically, too, Cyprus has seen a new level of stability; after 34 years of division and political tension, Turkish Cypriot president Mehmet Ali Talat and Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias have now set up weekly meetings with the aim of solid reunification plans being realised by the end of the year. In fact commentators are marking out the two leaders as the first pairing in Cyprus to believe genuinely and actually in reunification of the island.
Certainly, the island can flourish. Its landscape is beautiful and fertile, and it has a rich cultural heritage; it lays in the Mediterranean and was part of the ancient Kingdom of Phoenicia, so that it springs from the same roots as the great cultural nations of Greece – and as a result of the Roman appropriation of ancient Greek thinking – modern Italy.
Indeed its importance to ancient Greece is paramount; the island of Cyprus is in Greek myth the home of the love goddess Aphrodite, and it is said that it was on the banks of the island that she first emerged from the Mediterranean, merging the beauty of the land with the beauty of the sea, in the literal meaning of her name – ‘foam born’ – and her choice of Cyprus as home.
It has been her seat ever since, and the myth, even though it is a myth, shows just how beautiful the Phoenician Greeks though the island; Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty and lust, so pleasing that it was said that a man would only need look at her to fall irrevocably in love with her, became synonymous with the island, even to the extent that she was sometimes known as Kypris, after the island. Indeed she was referred by Homer, the great composer of the first great works of western literature, the Iliad and the Odyssey, as ‘the Cypriote’.
Not for the first time, the metaphorical and the fantastical reflect the actual, and over its many years as the mythical home of the goddess, it has been seen as one of the most beautiful and striking landscapes in Europe.
Indeed it was that beauty which brought investors back to the island in recent years, and it was that beauty which formed the basis for the North Cyprus Property Boom. Cyprus is certainly not barren, and it never has been; what held people off was the political situation. With that easing, and with reunification looking almost certain, that will change.
With the island reunited, political tension will no longer steer people away from the beauty of the island, and it can dominate, as it once did, so that the true face of the island can flourish. Then Aphrodite can return home, and take up her throne on the fertile island.
Tags: Aphrodite Goddess Of Love, North Cyprus Property, Property Boom, Property Hot Spots, Turkish Cypriot
The newest fad seems to be the purchase of an older home also known as a character home or heritage home. The integrity of these homes have come under fire. And when it comes to health issues these older homes are a hotbed for problems. Many of the building codes have changed over the years for the safety and health of the people living in them. These homes are almost a specialized market in the housing industry. These homes can start from relatively cheap to outrageously expensive. And the renovation possibilities with these homes are never ending. You need to do your research into these homes before you purchase them because they can get expensive to bring up to code and their may be city restrictions on keeping these homes in an original looking status.
Before you sign on the dotted line for one of these homes you should have it thoroughly inspected. You need to be sure the flooring is solid so you don’t fall through when you walk in the door. This inspection should definitely include the foundation of the home. Make sure that the inspector looks for any signs of deterioration and/or water damage.
Now we all have heard of lead poisoning. These old homes are usually plastered with lead paint. They also utilized lead pipes for the plumbing of these older homes. Lead can be extremely dangerous to a person or animal especially if it is in your central environment. Another huge health issue in these older homes is the prospect of asbestos being used. Asbestos was used for ceiling tiles as well as insulation. Asbestos removal should take precedence in the removal process above all else. Keep in mind though that it will take a specialized contractor to remove the asbestos from your home. In the end if you keep an eye on things and are cautious you should have yourself a very strong investment.
Tags: Fad, Flooring, Health Issue, Heritage, Housing Industry
Outsourcing of jobs to offshore companies has been a hot-button issue since the 1960s when the United States began losing automotive manufacturing jobs to Japan. In recent years, the outsourcing of technical jobs has revived the debate which became one of the top issues in the 2004 presidential campaign. However, actual facts and statistics about the effect of outsourcing on the American economy are hard to come by. Rhetoric, not facts, dominate the discussion of whether outsourcing has an effect on the economy.
There is a serious dichotomy between the beliefs of average Americans and those of economists and other experts. For example, a Zogby International Poll showed that 71% of Americans believe that outsourcing hurts the economy but when the Wall Street Journal asked the same question of economists, only 15% felt that outsourcing had a negative effect.
Opinions on outsourcing tend to be divided by economic status rather than political persuasion. For example, some Republicans in the House and Senate believe that outsourcing has a terrible effect on the economy and that legislation should be enacted to stop it. However, conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Republicans with ties to big business believe that the threat of outsourcing has been over exaggerated.
Liberals are also divided about outsourcing. The Democratic party has traditionally been the party of labor in the United States but it was a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who shepherded the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress, a treaty which most experts agree facilitated the current outsourcing trend.
For every argument for outsourcing, there is another argument against it. For example, the Heritage Foundation argues that despite outsourcing more Americans are employed than ever before and that jobs continue to be created to compensate for those lost overseas. Anti-outsourcing advocates point out that gross wages are dropping because the jobs that are being created are low-level service sector jobs, not high-tech jobs to replace the ones that are being lost.
The Heritage Foundation, citing the Organization for International Investment also argues that for every job outsourced, another is “insourced” to the United States from another country, often at a higher rate of pay than the job lost. Anti-outsourcing advocates say that those numbers can’t be accurately verified.
What is clear is that until the federal government conducts accurate research into the effects of outsourcing on the United States economy, there will be no definitive answer one way or the other.
Tags: Democratic President, Dichotomy, Manufacturing Jobs, Offshore Companies, Outsourcing Trend