The Naval Blockade Of Cuba History Essay

The Naval Blockade Of Cuba History Essay Since the morning of October 16, 1962, it has been clear that Robert F. Kennedys involvement in the Cuban missile crisis was the definitive factor in the prevention of war. In the months precluding October, U.S owned U-2 spy planes discovered that the Soviet Union were building surface-to-air missile launch sites. Suspicion was also raised from reports that there was an increase in the number of Soviet ships arriving in Cuba, which the United States government feared were carrying weapons. President John F. Kennedy and his own Intelligence Department watched on with great alarm, and seemed to tolerate the arms being supplied to Cuba, as long as the Soviets did not begin to place nuclear missiles there. On September 11th, 1962, J. Kennedy warned the U.S.S.R that he would prevent by whatever means might be necessary Cubas becoming of an offensive military base. Robert F. Kennedy became involved when on October 16th, 1962, President John F. Kennedy revealed to him that a U-2 had just fi nished a photographic mission two days earlier, and had produced evidence that Russia was placing missiles and atomic weapons in Cuba, thus confirming the countries first suspicions. For the next thirteen days, the Cuban missile crisis became R. Kennedys life  [2]  , as he joined the Presidents Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or EXCOMM, to discuss a reasonable but efficient strategy. The members of the EXCOMM discussed, with the help of Robert F. Kennedy, 5 possible courses of action  [3]  : Do nothing. Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles. An air attack on the missiles. A full military invasion The naval blockade of Cuba, which was redefined as a more selective quarantine. For each strategy, pros and cons were discussed between the members, and it was mutually agreed upon that a plan that would avoid conflict, while still showing the U.S.A to be strong and serious about the situation, had to be conceived. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Maxwell. D. Taylor, whom was the military adviser for EXCOMM, disagreed and believed that the full-scale attack and invasion was the only probable solution. However, R. Kennedy was extremely sceptical of this, and it was he who helped develop the strategy to blockade Cuba, as it was, in his own mind, the only option that would avoid nuclear war. It was also important for the United States to redefine the blockade as a selective quarantine, as a blockade is a direct act of war. In reference to the other options available, and especially the air strike, R. Kennedy said: Youre going to kill an awful lot of people and we are going to take a lot of heat for it à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ youre going to announce the reason that youre doing it is because theyre sending this kind of missiles, well, I think its almost incumbent upon the Russians then to say, Well, were going to send them in again, and if you do it again à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ were going to do the same thing to Turkey or Iran. He also believed that attacking Cuba by air would gesture the Soviets to presume a clear line to blockade Berlin, which they had done previously in 1948 after the conclusion of World War II. If the U.S. was to lose Berlin, R. Kennedy believed her allies would lose faith. He feared that doubt would be casted on the superpower, and that many would believe the only reason they lost Berlin was because they could not peacefully resolve the Cuban situation  [4]  . On the 24th October, the blockade began, and the first 20 missile-carrying ships that were closest to the 800km blockade zone at the time stopped or turned around, in order to avoid their ships being searched  [5]  . It is clear that without the ideas R. Kennedy put forth, an uncivil military strike would have been initiated, and it is for this reason that he is credited with playing the most pivotal role in precluding nuclear war. With R. Kennedys help and support, the U.S.A. had only successfully stopped one problem of the crisis, for they still had to deal with the missiles already in Cuba. After many negotiations, requests, and exit strategies were discussed between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R, a plan of action became apparent to the Soviets. They would agree to dismantle their Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. never invading Cuba, and the removal of the U.S. owned Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy. R. Kennedy was, at first, against this and was only willing to agree upon the no invasion policy. He believed that this would show a sign of weakness, something that the United States was strongly trying to avoid. However, as no other options became apparent, R. Kennedy suggested their removal after a period of 6 months, as there were already plans to disassemble them. John F. Kennedy suggested his brother be the man to speak with Soviet Ambassador for the United States Anatoly Dobrynin about the crisis, a nd it was his negations with the Ambassador that played the most essential role in the final circumstances of the predicament. R. Kennedys contact with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin was his second biggest contribution to the Cuban missile crisis. Three times R. Kennedy met with Dobrynin, with each meeting being held in secret so that both sides, the U.S and U.S.S.R, could talk freely. Together, they discussed ideas to work out a solution. This allowed R. Kennedy to successfully convey his brothers wishes to Dobrynin, which, as stated before, called for the secret removal of all Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy. R. Kennedy had to make it clear that if the Soviets were to go public with their agreement, the U.S. would strongly deny it. He stated to Dobrynin that the missiles would be removed within a short time after the crisis was over, to avoid suspicion from the U.S. citizens. After each meeting, Dobrynin would cable a report through to the Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev, telling his superior of new developments in the crisis, who evidently valued these reports greatly. R. Kennedy, being an infl uential American official, was capable of accurately informing Dobrynin and the Soviets how urgent the situation was. This direct contact with the Soviets was the key feature in the outcome of the Cuban missile crisis, and portrays how important R. Kennedys role was in the crisis. On October 29th Russian Premier Nikitia Khrushchev wrote a letter to John F. Kennedy stating that: The Soviet government, in addition to previously issued instructions on the cessation of further work at the building sites for the weapons, has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as offensive and their crating and return to the Soviet Union. The quarantine continued to watch over Cuba to ensure that all offensive weapons were shipped out, and on November 20th, 1962 at 6:45pm the blockade was formally ended, although it was not till December 5th and 6th that the final Soviet missiles were shipped off. True to his word and the informal agreement, R. Kennedy made sure that all U.S. missiles were disassembled, and by April 24, 1963 the last of the missiles had been defected and were flown out of Turkey shortly after. These final actions show that the work R. Kennedy contributed to the United States throughout the Cuban missile crisis was extremely fundamental in the avoidance of nuclear war. It can be argued that Robert F. Kennedys role was mediocre and that the successful outcome of the Cuban missile crisis should be more broadly shared. He famously passed a note on to the president, which read: I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor. The argument arises because it is unclear if R. Kennedy was making an ironic comment, ridiculing the members of EXCOMM calling for an air strike, or if he in fact meant it literally. It could have been that in the early stages of the crisis, R. Kennedy was for an invasion of Cuba, and he genuinely felt the same way the Japanese would have. Despite this, further evidence shows that R. Kennedy clearly supported the blockade, and even by simply comparing a U.S. attack on Cuba with the Japaneses bombing of Pearl Harbor, R. Kennedy was able to discredit the pro-invasion members of EXCOMM. It would seem that the evidence taken from the secret meetings and initial strategies of the Cuban missile crisis shows how crucial Robert F. Kennedys role was in precluding nuclear war. The 1930s taught a clear lesson for the world; that aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war. The evidence suggests that the Soviets antagonism would have led to nuclear war, and it is therefore accurate in stating that Robert F. Kennedy played the most pivotal role in averting nuclear war, as he was indeed the key voice against the U.S.S.R during the Cuban missile crisis.

Light and Dark Imagery Depicted in Shakespeares Macbeth Essay

The natural order of the world is disrupted; this is made obvious from the start of the play. Even though they generally speak in riddle, the three witches are significant characters because of their foresight and knowledge of future atmosphere. ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair.’ ~Act 1, Scene 1~ Because this chant is towards the beginning of the play, the audience immediately see the supernatural control over things. Throughout the play of Macbeth the audience is made aware of the differences in dark and light. This could be seen as being metaphorical for many other binary oppositions one of which being good and evil. This example supports the power of the witches, representing evil and the dark. Another scene that shows Macbeth is a play of light and dark is act 1 scene 4 Macbeth whispers to himself. ‘Stars; hide your fires / let not light see my black and deep desires’ ~Act 1, Scene 4~ The dark is seen as a mask that can disguise and hide, this is foreshadowed when King Duncan at the announcement of his successor says; ‘but signs of nobleness, like stars, shall s...

Destination Attributes

Investigating destination attributes, tourist motivation and travel values of the Bengali community in London to Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh 2. Introduction: Today tourism has been considered as a great phenomenon Involving movement of Industry In the world. In tourism Industry, more than 235 million people employment opportunities generating around 9. 2% of global GDP (WTTC, 2010).The tourism Is sharply Increasing In spite of having global economic downturn, even during the first two months of 2010 worldwide the number of International tourist arrivals raised by % (WTO, 2010). The World Tourism 2020 Vlslon forecasted that the world tourist arrivals will reach to 1,561. 1 million In 2020. The fastest growing tourism regions are in the Third World countries and Bangladesh is one of them to be flourished and promoted significantly and effectively (Echtner and Prasad, 2002).Cox's Bazar, a place of tourist's paradise with natural and man-made artistic attractions is ready to welcome the touri sts around the globe. The increasing trend of tourism industry indicates some vital factors to the host community and tourists such as economic evelopment, greater scopes for understanding, making stronger regional bonding, exchange of cultural beliefs and values, refreshment and entertainment, education, spiritual enlightenment, sustainable development and many more. 3.Research aim and objectives: The aim of this research study is to explore three dimensions of tourist behavior regarding destination attributes, motivational factors and travel values of the Bengali community in selecting Cors Bazar as a tourist destination. There are some specific research objectives to carry out the aim which are as follows: i. To study about the tourism resources and attractions currently offered to the tourists, li. To analyze the push and pull factors related with the choice of a tourist destination, ill.To Investigate various travel values regarding destination attributes of the participants In selecting a tourist destination. 4. Statement of the research problem: The tourist market share and revenues are comparatively lower than neighbour countries even though Bangladesh Is endowed with enormous destination attractions due to the lack of promotional activities, the Ignorance about the motivational factors nd the overall apathy about the travel values of all the tourists vlsltlng Cox's Bazar (Patwarl, 1 993; Hossain, 1999; Hossain and Hossain, 2002). . Research questions and hypotheses: On the basis of the research problem, there are few research questions along with relevant hypotheses formulated which are given below: Q-1 : What are features of Cox's Bazar as a tourist destination? H-1: New, innovative and unique features of a destination always attract tourists. Q-1 : Are the destination attractions accessible for the tourists in electronically and physically? H-2: Knowing information prior about a ourist destination.Q-3: Is it offering both push and pull factors to me et the tourist's need, want and demand? H-3: Sometimes, tourists want to get rid of boredom and monotony while others prefer to visit friends, families and relatives. Q-4: How are the travel values Judged towards future tourism development and tourist's satisfaction? H-4: The feedback from the tourists focuses on the pros and cons of a tourist destination as an integral part of future development initiatives. 6.Rationale: There are different Journals and books studied and explored regarding tourism, ourist attraction, promotional tools and destination development especially in terms of different factors associated with destination attractions, tourist/travel motivation and travel values. The brief description of some of those literatures have been mentioned and discussed beforehand in the section of previous research studies. There are only a very few concerned literatures and research studies available about Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh especially in the field of tourist/travel motivati on and travel values.However, Meng et al. (2008) studied the effects of gender differences on the erceptions of destination attributes, tourist motivation and travel values and leading to further research opportunity in another location. In addition, Kim et al. (2002) and Hong et al. (2009) analyzed the relationship between push and pull factors in tourist/ travel motivation and revisiting a destination and indicates for future study opportunity on the interaction of tourist/travel motivation and travel values for tourist market expansion.Furthermore, there is also a further research opportunity to Justify the relationship between push and pull factors of foreign tourists for greater nderstanding about tourist behavior in a broad context studied by Bashar et al. (2008). Thus, this research study can assist to understand the tourist behavior in three main dimensions including destination attributes, tourist/travel motivation and travel values of the Bengali community in London to Cox 's Bazar, Bangladesh which could contribute to the body of knowledge.The above discussion highlights the further research scopes in different aspects of tourism especially to attract more tourists to Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh for which this research study will be carried out to nhance the body of knowledge. In this study, the feedback will be evaluated from the tourists those who visited or visit Cox's Bazar about tourism amenities used in their stay as well as their feelings towards their overall satisfaction level.The promotional tools and feelings about the tourism resources will be assessed to find out more effective promotional methods and ways of further tourism resources development to meet the current and increasing tourism market demand. This is optimistic to achieve the desired objectives through this research study. 7. Literature review: Tourism is the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interaction of tourists, business suppliers, host governments and h ost communities in the process of attracting and hosting these tourists and other visitors (Goeldner et al. 2000). Moreover, the term tourism' means the activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive primary focus on understanding tourist/travel behavior based on destination attributes, factors of tourist/travel motivation and travel values of the Bengali ommunity in London to Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. 7. 1 Previous Research Studies: Tourism is a multifaceted industry and opens doors for both the host and tourist on behalf of a destination country as a medium of exchange.Tourism is an important tool for local economic development as well as infrastructural growth. Promoting the local residents and tourism-related stakeholders are essential to achieve a tourism- led development in a tourist destination area (Matarrita, 2010). Tourism is comprised with various components like accommodation, dining establishment s, recreational roperties, tourism attractions, travel intermediaries, transportation and other supporting sectors in which the people can be involved in different ways.These tourism elements act as destination attributes and have a great influential role in economic development, practicing cultural beliefs and values, environmental protection, preservation of historical sites, natural and artificial tourism attractions after all, to all of the destination attributes (Blake et al. , 2008; Tao et al. , 2009). In promoting destination attributes, the host government along with the involvement of nternational, national, regional and local organizations is required to be well coordinated to the potential tourists (Soshiroda, 2005).In this process, the tourism stakeholders are encouraged to take part in decision-making, sharing benefits, developing opportunities and utilizing the tourism resources for local and tourism industrys interests in a pro-active manner (Tosun, 2005). Education a nd training among local people can represent a good impression as part of destination attributes (Echtner, 1995; Sebele, 2010). Tourism attraction is a function of a site (destination attribute), a marker (an informative lement) and a tourist (Richards, 2002).However, the tourists are positively inclined to discounted facilities, promotional offers and take risk to those destinations but good knowledge can moderate this intention (Wong et al. , 2009). Many researchers have investigated tourist/travel motivation from different views like sociology, psychology and anthropology (Maslow, 1970; Cohen, 1972; Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1977). In this research study, the tourist/travel motivation focuses on the analysis of two different aspects namely push factors and pull factors that have been are ommonly accepted and practiced (Yuan et al. 1990; Uysal et al. , 1993). In these terminologies, push factors describe the internal forces of people for which they are pushed to travel whereas pull fa ctors state the external forces of destination attributes that appeal the potential tourists/travelers to travel there. Push factors include intangible or intrinsic aspirations of the individual tourist/traveler. On the other hand, pull factors consist of those elements which emerge the destination attractiveness as it is perceived by the tourists/travelers.These may contain tangible estination attributes, marketed image of the destination, tourist's perception and benefit expectation (Baloglu et al. , 1996). Push and pull factors in tourist/travel motivation are also influenced in different settings like nationalities, tourist destinations and events to select a destination finally Gang et al. , 2006). These intrinsic and extrinsic factors develop the perceptions of an individual tourist/ actual destination attributes and how the tourist/traveler processes information (Gartner, 1993; Dann, 1996; Baloglu et al. 1997). These motivational factors act ogether in a dynamic and evolving context in destination selection process (Correira, 2000) and the tourist/travel motivation is seen as a multidimensional concept that focuses on tourist decision (McCabe, 2000). Tourism is a paradigm of human beings and human nature and it is always a complex task to find out the reasons, needs and wants of the tourists for travelling to a particular destination (Yoon et al. , 2005).The tourists expect their participation in destination attractions (instrumental performance) and the psychological interpretation of a destination product expressive attributes) to fulfill their requirements and develop travel values (Noe et al. , 2003). In tourism industry, push and pull factors represent demand (tourist/ traveler's desires) and supply (tourist destination attributes). In some cases, higher cost of travel, government regulations, destination image and reputation, international political situations, personal safety issues, fear of terrorism, health epidemics play a vital in selecting a destination (Prideaux, 2005).The preconceived image of a destination (Bosque et al. , 2008), variety seeking tendency, gender ifferences (Meng et al. , 2008), partner's influence, satisfactory level of previous experience, personal feelings and preferences are closely related with the perceptions of destination attributes, tourist/travel motivation and travel values (Hong et al. , 2009). There is a need of well coordination among push and pull factors as like as the tourists/travelers would be benefitted based on their motives from the destination attributes in an effective manner.

How Family with Elders Influence the Asset Allocation of Household - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1708 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2019/02/15 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Family Essay Did you like this example? ABSTRACT This paper tries to redo the model from the Bogan’s paper (Bogan,2014) with a more reasonable dataset. Although the data I used is insufficient large, it is convinced to use since the dataset from Bogan’s paper is nearly the same size. The time, however, is 2007 -2009 versus 2011 – 2015, which make more sense considering the financial crisis in 2008. By comparing the result of two different models, I have similar findings regarding having elder person in the household and also the number of kids on holding safe assets and risky assets. 1. INTRODUCTION As we could expect, there are many things could influence the decision of household about the next generation’s education. Despite the main factor would be the difference of their class, the education level or their parents, or the ethnicity/race, there are still a lot of interest factors which could influence the assets’ allocation of the household, especially the educational savings for the next generations. Although it has been researched by Vicki L. Bogan in â€Å"Household Asset Allocation, Offspring Education, and the Sandwich Generation†, household with elder dependent will tend to reduce the risk assets which indicate the reduction of next generations’ education saving, the data set being used is 2007 – 2009, which may cause some effects due to the financial crisis in 2008. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "How Family with Elders Influence the Asset Allocation of Household" essay for you Create order Intuitively, people would tend to invest more in the safe asset while the expectation of the future is not well. In this case, having elder person in the household will decrease decreases the probability of risky asset holding by 0.129 (over twice as much as the household head having poor health) and decreases college savings account holding by 0.012 (twice as much as the household head having poor health) (Bogan, 2014). The reason I believe the result should not be representative is because the effect of the 2008 financial crisis seems not be considered in the paper. In the contrary, I will try to use the later data set to redo the process. What I expect is during year 2011 – 2015, there will be more representative result to explain what a household with elder person would influence the assets allocation, especially for next generations’ education savings. What I find is quite interesting. The result from those two different databases is very similar which indicates that how people decide the assets allocation of their family is not influence by the financial crisis, or we can say it influenced, but not in a very considerable dimension. From the paper â€Å"The Impact of Skewness and Fat Tails on the Asset Allocation Decision† by James X. Xiong and Thomas M. Idzorek, there should be a different allocation comparing with other time (James and Thomas, 2011), which leads to the idea that why there are two contrary results. The possible reason is the different to define the variables, the different model used and different database. 2. DATA The data I used is the 2016 SCF (Survey of Consumer Finances) which is the most recent survey conducted by the Federal Reserve System. Due to the large amount of questions containing in the survey, the sample size is just 31,240, not many people are willing to answer all the questions. The original data contains more than 5,000 variables, and most of the them is categorized by â€Å"yes† or â€Å"no†). The average age of this sample is 52. Only 40 percent of them are categorized as married right now, others may be divorced, widowed or others. Approximately 69 percent of the them have own at least one home. 93 percent of the household holds safe assets, while 30 percent of the household holds risky assets and nearly 3 percent of the household hold education saving account. In the situation I defined in this paper, dependent elder who does not have savings for the retirement or any emergencies and also over 65 years old is 20 percent of the household. The reason I defined dependent elder in this situation is because that over 65, people are more likely to retire and live without any wages. So, people without having any savings for emergencies and retirement would unlikely to solve the problem by his own, which indicates they need depend on someone whom more likely be their children. The variables I used for the final dataset are â€Å"id†, â€Å"age†, â€Å"kids†, â€Å"cgrad†, â€Å"married†, â€Å"black†, â€Å"hisp†, â€Å"employed†, â€Å"loginc†, â€Å"homeown†, â€Å"elderdum†, â€Å"Eexpcos†, â€Å"healthins†, â€Å"nothealthy†, â€Å"safe†, â€Å"risky† and â€Å"eduplan†. Among those variables, â€Å"cgrad†, â€Å"married†, â€Å"black†, â€Å"hisp†, â€Å"employed†, â€Å"homeown†, â€Å"elderdum†, â€Å"Eexpcos†, â€Å"healthins†, â€Å"nothealthy†, â€Å"safe†, â€Å"risky† and â€Å"eduplan† are dummy variables). â€Å"id† is ascending on the year which is 2011 to 2015 and the household who took the survey. Normally, the last number will represent the people and year according to this manner. â€Å"age† represents the age of household head, and to avoid any problems, like people may cross section to be count as different group, we assume the age is same for the last year. In other words, the age appears in the data represent the age of the head of household in 2015. â€Å"kids† represents to the number of children, including natural children, step children and foster children. To define â€Å"cgrad†, we first collect the information from all heads’ education levels, then categorized those levels as four type. (1: no high school diploma, 2: high school diploma, 3: some college or Assoc degree, 4: Bachelor’s degree or higher). Then we took all 3’s and 4’s as 1 in the â€Å"cgrad†, 0 otherwise. â€Å"married† represents the ma rital status of the head of household and we count the first two types as married. (1. Married; 2. Living with a partner; 3. Separated; 4. Divorced; 5. Widowed; 6. Never married). â€Å"black† and â€Å"hisp† represent black or African-American non-Hispanic and Hispanic or Latino respectively. â€Å"employed† represents those who work for someone else not self-employed, partnership with others, retired, disabled or under 65 and not working. â€Å"loginc† represents the log of the household income in previous calendar year. â€Å"homeown† represents whether the household has the house or mobile home. â€Å"elderdum† represents those who are over 65 years old and don’t have savings for the retirement or any emergencies, such like illness, medical or dental expenses. â€Å"Eexpcos† represents that there is a considerable amount savings for the expect cost of children’s’ future or college education. â€Å"healthins† represents those who have health insurance or have saving for future investment. â€Å"nothealthy† represents those who have poor healthy. â€Å"safe† represent all types of transactions accounts (including checking accounts, saving accounts, money market accounts, prepaid accounts and call accounts.), certificates of deposit, bonds (including tax-exempt bonds, mortgage-backed bonds and US government and government agency bonds and bills.). â€Å"risky† represent mutual funds (including stock mutual funds, tax-free bond mutual funds, government bond mutual funds and other bond mutual funds.) and all kinds of stocks. â€Å"eduplan† represents that household has education saving account or 529 plans. 3. MODEL AND RESULTS The model we use is similar with the one appears in the paper I found, but what I do is not only using probit model, but also using logitistic model. I try to explain the result better by comparing those two models and hopefully to have a different result as I expected. The three independent variables are number of kids, whether or not having a remarkable amount of kids’ education expense as dummy variable and the whether or not having elder person in the household as dummy variable. The three dependent variables are holding safe assets as dummy variable, holding risky assets as dummy variable and having education saving account as dummy variable. The control variables are those been shown be influenced in household investment and college savings behavior : log of household income (Bertaut, 1998), total household size (Keister, 2003), a respondent married dummy variable (DeVaney Chien, 2002), a respondent age variable (Yilmazer, 2008), a respondent college graduate dummy variable (Lee Hanna, 1995; Lefebvre, 2004), a respondent employed dummy variable, a respondent managerial or professional occupation dummy variable (Bogan, 2008), a home owner dummy variable (Babiarz Yilmazer, 2001; Lefebvre, 2004), a poor health dummy variable (Rosen Wu, 2004; DeVaney Chien, 2002), a has health insurance dummy variable (Bogan Fertig, 2013), a year 2009 dummy variable, and race dummy variables (Bogan, 2013). For probit model, the reason I use it is that all dependent variables are binary variables. If we use linear regression model, the result will show the model and data doesn’t fit. If we can transform dependent variables into continuous variables, then we take those transformed variables as probability between 0 and 1 as a cumulative normal distribution ?. Then from Y= ?(X? + ?), we can conclude ?-1(Y) = X? + ? or in this case, ?-1(Yit) = ?0 + ktXikt + ?it. Where i refers to safe assets, risky assets and education saving account, k refers to those three dependent variables, and t refers different time periods, which in this case year. By running probit model in STATA, we find out that in this case, the data fits all three probit models very well (the models are statistically significant because the p-value is less than .000). here is the table that summarize all three tables. As we can see from the summary table of probit model, the number of kids will decrease the probability of holding safe assets, while the number of kids will increase the probability of holding risky assets and education saving accounts. (all of them are significant at 0.01 level). Having a remarkable amount of kids’ education expense in the future will decrease the probability of holding safe assets, while the expect education expense will increase the probability of having educational saving accounts. (expect cost for future education expense to hold safe assets is significant at 0.1 level, while having educational saving accounts is significant at 0.01 level). Having elder person in the household will increase the probability of holding safe assets, while having elder person in household will decrease the probability of holding risky assets and having educational saving accounts. (all of them are significant at 0.01 level). To have a better idea about the result, I then choose to use logistic model to enforce the result I have above. The reason I use logistic model rather than logit model is that logistic model is easier to interpret. Since the dependent variables are binary variable with values 0 and 1, if we let p = E(Y|X) then the logistic model would be log(p/(1-p)) = ?0 + ktXikt, where ?0 is the odds ratio of constant, ktXikt is the summation of the odds ratio times three different independent variables. VARIABLES safe risky eduplan kids -0.172*** 0.157*** 1.079*** (0.0422) (0.0370) (0.130) Eexpcos -0.233*** 0.0399 0.491*** (0.0806) (0.0588) (0.117) elderdum 0.373*** -0.553*** -0.973*** (0.0905) (0.0465) (0.160) Constant -11.21*** -6.590*** -7.244*** (0.429) (0.186) (0.435) Observations 30,983 30,983 30,983 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p