Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Investing in a president(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2021) AlSaad, Faisal Khalid; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joseph AtwoodThis paper examined the 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on the stock market. Presidential elections pose a political uncertainty that can be hedged using the stock market. The paper constructs three portfolios using three different weighting methods: equally weighted, market capital, and individuals' donations. This study uses Fama and French 5-Factor model to estimate the annual return for Obama's and Romney's portfolios. The results show that Obama's portfolio generates an annual expected return of 11.8%, 35.6%, and 39.5% for equally weighted, market capital and donation, respectively. The results also show that Romney's portfolio generates annual expected returns of 5%, 26.2%, and - 0.8% for equally weighted, market capital, and donation, respectively. Investors can adjust their investment portfolio position by observing the candidates' probability of winning the election. This paper establishes a stock market pattern before presidential elections that investors can capitalize on to ensure against the effects of political uncertainty upon the value of their investment portfolio.Item From the sixth floor to the Copper Dome : 'the Company's' political influence in Montana, 1920-1959(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2003) Snow, Bradley Dean; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary MurphyThis thesis deals with the Anaconda Company (ACM) and its relationship to the -political culture of the state of Montana. The thesis aims to test the validity of longstanding beliefs of “Company hegemony” over the state’s politics while also gauging the relative level of interest and participation in state politics by the industrial giant. In addition, the thesis probes the methods employed by the company in its efforts to influence Montana politics. It encompasses the 1920-1959 era, but focuses in depth on the progressive governorship of Joseph M. Dixon (1921-25), the challenge it represented to preferred Anaconda Company policies, and its response to that challenge. Dixon’s reelection campaign of 1924 provides a focal point for the study of the Anaconda Company’s electoral tactics and techniques. Among other resources, the author made use of old Montana newspapers, ACM records, the collected papers of Joseph M. Dixon, and a wide variety of secondary sources, in the course of compiling data for this thesis. The thesis finds that the Anaconda Co., along with its longtime partner the Montana Power Company, did in fact care deeply about the outcomes of Montana political contests. It played an extremely important role in affecting the state’s politics during the period under study. The Anaconda Co. generally advocated against “liberal” measures (e.g., increasing benefits for the state’s workers’ compensation plan), that would tend to increase its operating costs. It also worked to defeat “liberal politicians” who inclined to support such measures. The ACM compiled a daunting record of political success in the state; rarely was it defeated outright in a political battle during the period under study. Although unchallenged as the leading actor on the state’s political stage for much of this period, the Anaconda Co. falls short of being a true “political hegemon” or “industrial dictator” for the state of Montana. It had to rely upon too many uneasy political alliances and was seriously challenged by its political adversaries too regularly for such legendary titles to ring true.Item The romantic use of flamingos in a Spanish political allegorical film(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2012) Alonso Mira, Miguel; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ronald Tobias.Not many filmmakers have explored using animals to portray, for example, a political conflict allegorically. George Franju and Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente resorted to animals in their films to criticize the political environment of their time, the Nazi administration of Paris for the former, and the Franco dictatorship for the later. They showed morbid and gruesome scenes of animals being slaughtered to illustrate symbolically the violent atmosphere that impregnated the life of the French and the Spanish citizens in those difficult years. Inspired by their work, I have produced 'Salma: A Wingless Nomad', a film that presents the political conflict of Western Sahara through the fictional story of a young Sahrawi refugee whose only way of connecting with reality and the memories of her childhood is through the images of flamingos. For her, flamingos incarnate the freedom her people lost when, consecutively, Spain and Morocco invaded them. They also represent the nomadic tradition of her ancestors, a way of life that she romanticizes as the true identity of the Sahrawis. In this essay, I compare my film with the work of Franju and Rodríguez de la Fuente, providing an analysis on how I built the allegory around the natural history of flamingos. I conclude by saying that even though Franju's and Rodríguez de la Fuente's morbid use of 'mise en scene' was effective to depict the violence of the Nazi and the Falangist regimes, my film took a different approach; one that would romantically reveal the reason why the Sahrawis suffered, which wasn't violence or death, but the lack of freedom.