Historical Background Of The United States

Today America is one of the wealthiest, strongest, and hardworking countries in the world. It has population of over three hundred million and growth rate of 0.97% annually. America as a nation is known to have done many great contributions to the world such as: the idea of presidency, inventing telephone, discovering electricity, inventing planes, the first nation to put a man on moon, and many more. America has grown and multiplied over time and it is still increasing. Even though today America stands out apart from other countries, it was built from nothing but scrap.

The often told story of America’s founding begins the Founding fathers waged a revolution and created a unique place called the United States of America. This story may include the early Jamestown colony and puritan colonists, and at times deal with the depollution and dispossession of the America’s native inhabitants. However frequently the complex nature of America’s prerevolutionary era is left out. Daniel Richter offers a refreshing non-teleological revision by showing that the United States has a much deeper history. Richter presents America as a nation with multiple pasts that stretch back as far as the middle ages. These pasts, he argues, continue to be felt in the present. Richter’s history utilizes a vast array of primary sources and his cultural history spans more than seven centuries. Richter works to recover the histories of an intermingling sort of individuals from North America, Europe, and Africa. The struggle for control of land and resources of these individuals took place in a global context. This multilayer struggle gradually gave rise to a distinctive American culture. Richter argues that by dissecting and understanding this culture on its own—and not as a build-up to an inevitable revolution—reveals the origins of American history.

The United States is one of the strongest nations in the world. We, as a nation, have learned a lot from other nations. For example, in the 1760’s we learned a lot of what not to do from Britain. America came to be because of citizens, who were known as patriots, that were unhappy with the British government. America gained their independence because of unfair laws passed by the British, such as, the Intolerable Acts, Stamp Act, Townshend Act; and violent acts such as the Boston Massacre.

In 1973 the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was established to set the financial accounting standards in the United States of America for nongovernmental entities. These standards are collectively called U.S. Generally accepted Accounting Principles, or U.S. GAAP. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants acknowledge the authority of these standards (FASB, n.d). A “proven, independent due process” is used to collect the viewpoints of the financial statements prepares and users for the constant improvement of these standards. An Accounting Status Update(ASU) is not an authoritative source however documents the amendments to communicate the changes in the FASB Codification for a user to understand the reason and future of those changes (FASB, n.d).

The legislative history of ERISA can in some ways be traced back to the Revenue Acts of 1921 and 1926, which set tax rules regarding the deductibility of pension contributions and the growth of pension fund's portfolios and thus encouraged pension planning while also establishing some degree of regulation by the IRS (USDOL, 2012). The Revenue Act of 1942 increased regulation and placed stricter requirements on pension plans in order for them to receive these tax benefits, and the Welfare and Pension Plans Disclosure Act of 1959, amended in 1962 brought pensions under he purview of the

"The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have a right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have been willfully violated by one portion of them in a provision essential to the domestic security and happiness of the remainder. In that event the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union. . . .

As you may know there are two types of pension plans that are most commonly used: a defined contribution plan and a defined benefit plan. “A defined contribution plan sets forth a certain amount that the employer is to contribute to the plan each period (Schroeder, Clark, & Cathey, "Pensions and Other Postretirement Benefits," 2011). “A defined benefit plan specifies the amount of pension benefits to be paid out to plan recipients in the future. Companies that use this plan must make sufficient contributions to the funding agency in order to meet benefit requirements

A) Defined benefit plans are attractive to employees because they protect them from interest rates pr changes in asset values. They also make sure that retirement income will have a similarity to income they earned while still working. Defined benefit plans also do a better job of protecting against inflation and provide other retirement related benefits. These plans can also present risks for sponsoring employers. These risks with the defined benefit plan our greater than the risks with the defined contribution plans. What are these risks? Also contributions made by employers might be actually smaller then they are to defined benefit plans.

In the United States, November is a month leading up to a feast where we all give thanks to the people we love and care for; as well as giving thanks to the people who helped the first settlers survive during the harsh winter in a new world-- the Native Americans. While citizens of this country feast on Thanksgiving Day, they may not take into consideration the systematic murders of America’s native peoples in order to get to where we are today. This is because the history of how the United States became a sovereign nation has been twisted into a biased account, which is taught in the American school system. This problem has lead to a society with racism deeply ingrained in our culture, and ignorance about the actual events which took place in efforts to demolish the Native American culture and their history. It is time to end this mentality in our school system, and to end the racism that has been in our society through decades and decades of misinformation found in our textbooks and public institutions. If this nation is ever to heal from the millions of lives taken in order for us to live on this land, we must implement plans for our school system to better include what exactly happened to our native peoples, rather than twist truths and distort the reality of America’s history to cover-up the white man’s crimes and guilt.

The employers offering pension plans were to disclosure the plans as well as the general features that were contained in the document in addition to the current year and pension expense incurred. This would equal the postretirement health care and life insurance benefits. As such, the components of the pension expense, net funding status, pension asset and obligation accounts, and pension expense components needed disclosure. Since then the net pension liability or asset have to be booked while the changes in pensions liabilities and assets not included into the income being added into other comprehensive income. According to the SFAS No.87 Employers ' Accounting for Pensions, disclosure of the pension

The Codification’s goal is to clarify the company of thousands of U.S. authoritative accounting announcements published by diverse standard-setters. Therefore, to accomplish this objective, the FASB sponsored a project to incorporate and typically adapt all related accounting publication announced by the standard-setters of the U.S. in conjunction with those of the FASB, the Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Accordingly, the $39.3 million actuarial gain which resulted from the restructuring is included in Accrued Pension Costs in the accompanying Balance Sheet and is being amortized to income over a ten-year period commencing in 1984. The effect of the changes in the investment return assumption rates for all U.S. plans, together with the 1984 restructuring of the U.S. Salaried Employees' Plan, was to reduce pension expense by approximately $4.0 million in 1984 and $2.0 million in 1983, and the actuarial present value of accumulated plan benefits by approximately $60.0 million in 1984. Pension expense in 1983 was also reduced $2.1 million from the lower level of active employees. Other actuarial gains, including higher than anticipated investment results, more than offset the additional pension costs resulting from plan changes and interest charges on balance sheet accruals in 1984 and 1983.

American society is known for having the highest standard of living across the globe; this is solely due to the consumerist culture that is brought forth by capitalism. Americans in the U.S. take pride in these standards and in the freedoms that this democratic nation has established. The 20th century will always be remembered in American history as a century of radical changes on the social and political fronts of the nation. Literature, too, evolved quickly from specific, compartmentalized fields which fit into categories, to works which had no set definition—nobody knew what to do with them. These changes also took place in poetry; artistic expression began to change across the arts and so did the mediums. Poets across the nation

Employers assume responsibility for providing retirement funds in a defined benefits plan. In the plan, a specified amount is set aside for future payments to employees, for life, during retirement. The amount is determine in advance is based on factors such as age, salary, and length of employment. In 2009, the maximum amount to be allotted under the plan was $195,000.

There are different impacts that the IFRS will have on the pension reports of these two companies. This is irrespective of the differences that are imminent in the pension plans of the two companies. There is acceptance of voluntary contributions and a new method of governing such finances. With these contributions, there is slashing of the whole amount of funds that is necessary for the pension plan. Therefore, the mandatory contributions for the plans will be low. This is especially for a company like Coca Cola where both employers and employees do the contributions (Bradford 2011). Therefore, the company will have the ability to control the planning of the budget beforehand. In addition, the contributions to the pension plans have taxes deducted. However, this is only done up to a certain predetermined level. All this will have a positive reflection in the balance sheets of the companies. In this case, the most favored company when it comes to the taxes is PepsiCo.