The Case of the Drinking Age Essay - 544 Words

The Case of the Drinking Age Do you think young ones should drink alcohol? Mostly the percentage the people drinking in America. Can we stop young people from drinking? Yes, because it’s illegal for young age to drink. This topic isn’t everyone agreed of. The enactment of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 prompted states to raise their legal age. Purchase or public possession of alcohol to 21 or risk losing millions in federal highway funds (GPO Access). We should stay the high age to drink because it lower MLDA 21 not responsible on medical, reduce the number of underage, and lower the program age of 21 to 18 cause irresponsibility to let in great more crimes. Most people agree lowing the MLDA 21 would be medically†¦show more content†¦This informations tell In 2002 meta-study of the legal drinking age and social problem, 72% of study founded no evidence in drinking age 18 get killed or suicide. This fact says that there is no evidence in drinkin g alcohol in age 18 (Wagenaar). However they were wrong because Lower MLDA 21 to 18 will irresponsibility allow a greater sergeant of population to drink alcohol into crimes. In this information say that neighbors with higher densities of bars, nightclubs, and other alcohol that sell location suffer more refrigerant assent and other violence crimes. This fact was from cities, county, and States selling alcohol all over the world making crimes such wars, fights, and murder victim who gotten refuse of alcohol (O’Donnell). In conclusion, in telling that buying alcohol is dangerous, stay out of the problem and get in the solution against alcohol. In Conclude, the reason why stay the age high because lower MLDA 21 isn’t medical responsible, reduce numbers of underage, and lower 21 to 18 will cause irresponsible sergeant to population of crimes. It’s important for everyone prevent any cost of drinking alcohol or their risk decision, and for students to make their lives better than alcohol itself. In Conclusion, if you accept this idea it can make America a better place, student would graduate easier, and people make less accident around the country. People will thank us for make it safe for people and other reasons. The World will know that theShow MoreRelatedThe Case Of Legal Drinking Age1276 Words   |  6 Pageswas invited to the professor’s house along with another former student to eat dinner with him and his wife. While we were eating the meal, the professor gave me and the other student a glass of wine to go with dinner. Even though I was of legal drinking age and was no longer a student of the prof essor’s, it felt strange to have a professor provide me alcohol. Also, I felt uncomfortable being in the professor’s home since it was the first time I had socialized with a professor outside of a schoolRead MoreArgument Essay Changing Drinking Age to 18816 Words   |  4 Pagesthey buy or consume alcohol? The alcoholic drinking age should be lowered to age eighteen because at that age you are responsible, mature, and it will help send the right message. Society states that eighteen year olds can not handle alcohol because they make a lot of mistakes so therefore they are â€Å"irisponsible â€Å". If you start to drink at age eighteen or twenty one your tolerance is still going to be the same. So in that case it does not matter what age you start to drink because you do not knowRead More Lowering the Drinking Age Appears to be Best Solution Essay1627 Words   |  7 PagesLowering the Drinking Age Appears to be Best Solution Despite offering many solutions to the ongoing problem of underage drinking, there seems to be no chance for a law to pass that will lower the drinking age. Pete Coors of Coors Brewing Co. ran for senator in the Colorado election and campaigned that he was not pushing to lower the drinking age, however many of his quotes are not consistent with this point of view. No matter what the ultimate decision is for the drinking age, fake IDs and parentsRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Not Reflect Today s Societal Values And That The Legislations Liquor Act 20071285 Words   |  6 Pagesthe laws related to the legal drinking age does not reflect today’s societal values and that the legislations ‘Liquor Act 2007 No 90 (NSW) Part 7 Division 1 Sections 117 116’ should be reformed to raise the drinking age in Australia from 18 years of age to 21. Through surveying different age groups and socio-economic backgrounds of society, information has been gathered to demonstr ate that the current laws do not reflect society’s opinion on the legal drinking age in Australia. Research suggestsRead MoreLowering the Legal Drinking Age to 18 Essay748 Words   |  3 PagesLowering the Legal Drinking Age to 18 Sarah, an eighteen-year-old college freshman, walks into a convenience store and moves timidly to the back, hoping that no one she knows will see her. Opening the refrigerator door, she pulls out a chilled case of Coors Light. Sarah nervously approaches the cashier, with her fake ID ready to be shown, and places the case of beer on the counter. Upon first sight, the cashier assumes that Sarah is not of legal age to buy beer, because she is petite and looksRead MoreLowering the Drinking Age from 21 Would be Irresponsible Essay577 Words   |  3 PagesLowering the drinking age from 21 would be irresponsible. People argue that lowering the drinking age is not smart because most youths still have not yet reached a mature age to handle alcohol. Teens that include themselves in an unsafe environment are likely to endure in self-harm and encounter in binge drinking. The Alcohol Policy Information System says, â€Å"Annually, about 5,000 youth under the age of 21 die in incidents due to underage drinking† (â€Å"Drinking†). I believe the drinking age should notRead MoreShould The Drinking Age Be Lowered?853 Words   |  4 Pagesactivities around their friends to feel like they are a part of the team. Many people often wonder if the court of law stepped in and changed the age of drinking would this help the case of underage drinking. This proposed law would lower the drinking age to make the teenagers less rebellious and allow them to feel more like adults. If the drinking age were to be lowered then teenagers would feel as if they didn’t have to drink every day because they wouldn’t have to wonder when this opportunityRead MoreEssay about The Benefits of Lowering the Drinking Age to 18726 Words   |  3 Pagesalcohol (The National Institutes of Health) (NIH). At the age of 18 usually separate teenagers from adults. But one cannot just legally buy a drink in America until the age of 21. In the time being, many states are now sendin g teenagers into the adult criminal justice system, even for crimes that were nonviolent. The social order age-specific methods often simmer down to limiting the freedom of the early and increasing their sentences. The drinking age has long been a tug-of-war. Is a 19-year-old developedRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age For The United States Government Essay1196 Words   |  5 PagesStates government. However, one specific topic that needs to be addressed is the legal drinking age. As of now, the legal drinking age in America is 21. To some residents, this law is considerably reasonable. To others, having the drinking age of 21 seems unnecessary for multiple reasons. Most people would agree that having the current drinking age allows for more responsible teens and young adults. Yet in most cases, this is extremely false. Although those younger than 21 are not legally allowed toRead MoreThe Minimum Legal Drinking Age1594 Words   |  7 PagesThe Drinking Age is Safer than You Thought As Americans, we are always wondering what we can do to save lives. We suspect cancer, disease, suicide, violence, and distracted driving as taking the lives of our fellow Americans. What you may not know, is that we are already saving lives, and we have been since 1984 because of one simple law. The Uniform Drinking Age Act of 1984 moved the minimum legal drinking age from 18 to 21. Lowering the drinking age is a step backward for our safety and our

Societal Dispossession Of Humanity By Aldous Huxley

Bailee Whitley Ms. Schoch AP Lang./ 5th Period 12 August 2016 Societal Dispossession of Humanity Everyone wants everyone to be happy. It is the general mindset philosophy of society today to wish no ill-will or troubles toward anyone, including themselves. Many dream of a world in which everyone gets along, where there are no wars or famine or sorrow. What happens if those dreams become a reality, though? What does a world in which there is no ill-will or conflict look like? Thankfully, Aldous Huxley has crafted a world in which all of these dreams are a reality. Not so thankfully, this sought-after world is not as wondrous and illustrious as it may seem. A world in which citizens are given drugs handily and sexual encounters are arranged in earshot of any who so desires to is a world without substance and deeper meaning. The truth of the matter is that when people depend on drugs to keep them happy, as well as enough attractions and bountiful food to keep everyone entertained and sated, humans as a species lose what makes them so special: growth and development in the face of conflict. Without hunger, suffering, and hate or emotion in general, then we lose meaning not only as a people but as a species. In a time of abundance and excessive consumerism, deep and philosophical thinking begin to be considered unnecessary; faith and religion therefore become irrelevant. While initially appearing as a utopia of sorts, a society in which excessive consumerism over

Operation management tma worksheet Free Essays

Second, Hazelwood has made investments in plant; they build a manufacture in London with 1 million productions of sandwiches per week but when they invest more by building Manton Wood they produce more by 3 million sandwiches. Also with new powerful machines, they could reduce the human resources costs because fewer tasks need to be done . Also the stock levels will be reduced so that this will be successful for the company. We will write a custom essay sample on Operation management tma worksheet or any similar topic only for you Order Now Third reasons lead Hazelwood Sandwiches to make investments in the product that customers are looking for quality, different types of Sandwich to compare it when they are abroad, So Hazelwood try to provide a high quality, healthy and delicious sandwiches in order to meet the customer demand. In addition providing different types of sandwiches to satisfy all types of tastes and modify old items or create new ones. Over all, there are many other reasons that lead Hazelwood to made capital investment . ln fact they are trying to gain competitive advantage to maximize the wealth of owners. They use different techniques to evaluate the investment opportunities, and then choose the best project. Moreover, Hazelwood maintain a brand name because of its sandwiches, Actually every company should investment in people, product and plant. Question 2 Hazelwood’s investment decision techniques Investment decisions are important for the growth of the business because an investment includes financial resources for purchasing assets such building or equipment’s which will bring economic benefit for the company. Those decisions are difficult and expensive to refuse once it has been ventured. Actually Hazelwood’s uses various capital investment appraisal techniques to measure which project is more profitable. First method is Payback period which is the length of time that the investment takes to pay back the net cash inflows form the project. Projects will be selected according to the period the business sets and the shorter ones are preferred. The advantages of this method that it’s easy and quick to calculate or understood by users, avoiding risks and its good for the startup business to calculate the time needed to prepay the original investment. The disadvantages are that it onsiders about the time not the value of money, the relevant information such as the cash flows beyond the payback period are ignored and it doesn’t consider maximizing the wealth of owners because it looks for the short project periods while longer beneficial project might be ignored. The second is Net Present Value includes all the money of an investment; It calculates the benefits from the investment against all the costs of this investment with allowance for the timing of them. The rule is to choose the project with the higher value and the positive ones not the negative ones. For its advantages, it considers about the objects of the business, maximizing the profits, it takes all the relevant cash flows in account and the timing of cash flow. For the disadvantages, there are some risks for example a machine doesn’t works, or that interests may lost in investment, also the problems of inflation which consider the loss in the purchasing power of money. The third is the Accounting Rate of Return which calculates the average operating profits over the average investment to earn those profits in the form of percentage. It’s about achieving the target with higher ARR projects. The advantages that it represents a percentage and it consider the performance before it has performed. The disadvantages about using the accounting profits to measure the performance over the life of product, also different sizes of investments competing and using of average investment cause problems. Over all, those are the three investment decision techniques that Hazelwood uses in evaluation the investment opportunities. Each method ranks projects according to some compared features. With those techniques the most profitable project will be chosen. Question 3 Invest in people Investing in workforces is the lifeblood for any business, actually it’s important to make investments in human resources because they are the main role of the business and attects it pertormance. Also well trained and experienced employees give advantage for the company because they are the workforce that a control the process in which the business operates. So the company should ensure that their employees are well trained, motivated and loyalty to their Jobs. Additionally maintain the satisfaction of the employee will raise the employee performance and focus to achieve the business objectives. Also this will improves their skills in doing the tasks. On one hand, Hazelwood provides flexible working environment: include the induction program which introduced the new employee to the organization and to its role, also programs that make the new employees feel they are a part of the team. Second, Family-friendly HR practices to understand the employee’s circumstances such as the working hours for the mothers to look for their families and offers a paid time off for pregnant women’s. Third, providing training and development opportunities which will enhance the commitment and improve the skills in doing the asks as fast as possible, also opportunities to take National Vocational Qualifications relevant to the food industry. Hazelwood try to provide facilities in the Job environment by providing gyms, hair dressers, shops, restaurants and cleaning services. In addition, the employee’s expectations about the nature of work should be met. On the other hand, Hazelwood plain and monitor the performance of its employees to give them reward packages for their high performance. With those methods Hazelwood achieved to be the employee’s brand that it’s the choice of the employees because they know how to take care of their employees offer them good ay packages. As a result, Hazelwood decreases the labour turnover and reduces the levels of absenteeism also the costs of recruitment. Beside of Hazelwood there are other companies that invest in people in such as the National Bank of Kuwait; they believe that investing in people will benefit them in future. Actually 1800 Kuwaitis has been trained in 2012 and it will always provide training and developments opportunities to encourage their employees. Also ZAIN Company provides programs of training such as ongoing coaching, sending employees outside to complete their high education and induction. Last but not least T;D Team provides training and developments for the employees in order to improved their skills, performance and knowledge. Question 4 Workforce greatest assets For all businesses workforces are the role assets; In fact they are the people who achieve the company objectives. They should be looking after them starting from the managers, suppliers, employers, employee and all of them. Actually investing in people adds value to the organization especially for innovation companies such as Google because they rely on the experience of their human resources rather than nything else. The importance of workforces has different points of view. First the HRM function perspective which considers about managing people and carrying out their activities. It’s responsible for ensuring that the people are in their right places with right skills by recruiting, selecting, developing and monitoring. HR believes that people performance affects the business performance so they provide training and development opportunities to maximize their performance. Also monitor the performance to ensure that they are on the right track and provides them with feedback. Moreover they provide reward systems to encourage them to achieve their targets and make sure that they are satisfied, motivated, appreciated and loyal to their Jobs. Moreover, this will build the organization’s reputation as a social, ethical and responsible organization in order to gain a competitive advantage. Second the accounting function which considers about the financial accepts of the business. To achieve the HR function activities, the business should be able to afford the costs associated with those activities. Here the workforces are important because they guarantee bringing money to the business. But before going a step the business should think of the investment returns and risks. As if sending an employee to take English courses, how much of benefits this will bring in the future benefits. Moreover developing the skills of employees will raise the production levels as they have experience, finish the tasks on time and do it perfectly . So they will be able to develop or create new products or advanced technology. Also maintaining a positive reputation that will help them to raise money in the market and the financial advisors will advise the investors to invest in the business. Additionally, the company will gain a brand name which will decrease the costs of recruitment and advertising. How to cite Operation management tma worksheet, Papers

Business Finance And Quantitative Methods Of Dick Smith Holdings

Question: Discuss about the Business Finance And Quantitative Methods Of Dick Smith Holdings Limited. Answer: Introduction This particular essay attempts to heighten a brief summary of the ownership history of Dick Smith Holdings Limited. It also incorporates the critical evaluation of the valuation of the company when it was acquired by Anchorage Capital Partners and its Initial Public Offer (IPO) amount. The essay also attempts to assess the ethical dilemmas that face Anchorage Capital Partners regarding the floating of the company and the senior executives and directors of Dick Smith Holdings Limited in respect to its financial reports made in the 2014/2015 accounts and reports. Dick Smith Holdings Limited was an Australian wide-chain of retail stores domiciled in Sydney, Australia and was founded by Dick Smith in 1968 (Dick Smith Holdings Limited annual reports, 2015). The company basically sold consumer electronics goods, electronic project kits and hobbyist electronic components for its customers in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. The company expanded effectively into New Zeala nd and unsuccessful in some other nations globally (Anderson, Sweeney, Williams, Camm, and Cochran, 2012). Dick Smith Holdings Limited expanded to be a leading business in Australia that ensured that almost every electronic enthusiastic in the country has one of its catalogs and thus enhanced profits. In the FY2012, Dick Smith Holdings Limited was formerly acquired by Anchorage Capital Partners at an opening cash payment of AU$20 Million and the total ultimate cost of some AU$115 Million. Brief summary of the ownership history of the Dick Smith Holdings Limited Dick Smith Holdings Limited was initiated in 1968 by Dick Smith. The company started as small rented buildings in a car park in the Sydney area of Neutral Bay with the total capital of just AU$610 and focused mostly on servicing and installing car radios (Puncheva, and Michelotti, 2014). Due to the company rapid increase and success in the business sector, the company moved to a bigger premises so as to enhance its business operations in the country. The company profited mostly from CB Radio business, and by the end of ten years, it had branches in all the mainland regions in the country. Dick Smith Holdings Limited was owned by Dick Smith and his wife until they basically sold the majority of shares to Woolworth Limited in 1982 (Clements, 2015). The company expanded its diverse range of products especially in between 1970 and 1980 and basically stocked products such as TV receiving stations and Heathkit electronic kits because of the waning interest rates. The business had expanded to about 20 stores and the initiator together with his wife sold 60% of the business shares to Woolworth Limited and the remaining 40% ownership was completed in 1982. Dick Smith Holdings Limited continued to increase to its setup of small main street stores in the regional and suburbs towns across Australia. The company later established Dick Smith Electronic Powerhouse which was a superstore across the east coast of Australia that carried an extensive range of products in the audiovisual, computing and armature radio areas to enhance its productions. In the FY2008, following Woolworth Limited review of its consumer electronics division, Dick Smith Electronic Powerhouse revamped its flagship store as a notion to Dick Smith Technology branding (Lau, 2016). In 2009, Woolworth Company Limited confirmed the end of the Dick Smith Electronic Powerhouse as progressively phased out over the subsequent three years as part of its division. Dick Smith Electronic Powerhouse ended its operation s in 2016 with several years of Anchorage Capital Partners acquisition. Critical evaluation of the valuation of the company when it was acquired by Anchorage Capital Partners and its Initial Public Offer (IPO) Dick Smith Holdings Limited had been owned by Woolworth Limited since the early 1980s, until early in 2012 when Woolworth Limited announced that the business was underperforming and non-core and instigated a sale process (Schauten, Dijk, and Waal, 2016). After a period of distinctiveness, in November 2012 Anchorage Capital Partner acquired the company for AU$20 Million. Anchorage Capital Partners announced in FY2012 that it had entered into an agreement with Woolworth Company Limited to acquire 100% of Dick Smith Electronics with the entire transaction anticipated to be completed in November 2012. Dick Smith Electronics was an iconic Australian consumer electronics company that became part of Woolworth Company Limited in 1980 (Essayyad, 2012). The deal had been conventionally structured so that Dick Smith Holdings Limited will emerge from the sale supported by a strong statement of financial position with considerable asset backing and no core liabilities. As part of the acquisition, Anchorage Capital Partners would also support the operations by offering additional guarantees and cash investment. As at FY2012, Dick Smith Holdings Limited reported sales worth AU$1.6 Billion. Anchorage Capital Partners paid as much as AU$115 Million for Dick Smith Holdings Limited because it was agreed that an approximately AU$20 Million would be paid up front. As at FY2012, Dick Smith Holdings Limited was basically valued at AU$420 Million (Dias, and Saizarbitoria, 2016). The company was heavily criticized because it was cheaply sold because the company could not make sufficient profits needed by the company. Woolworth Company Limited having struggled to find a fit for the electronics retailer from its acquisition in 1980, the company was keen to offloading the non-core business division for approximately AU$115 Million. Since Anchorage Capital Partners is a privately owned institution, the price details of the newly acquired asset, the company shares are not routinely made pub lic. When Dick Smith Holdings Limited was basically acquired by Anchorage Capital Partners, the company had less value and was basically valued at AU$20, and its Initial Public Offer (IPO) was at AU$2.20 per share. Following the company acquisition, Anchorage Capital Partners restructured its business, and the retailer was mainly listed on the shares market for AU$2.20 for each share raising about AU$345 Million which was more than five times its initial purchase price (Brigham, and Houston, 2012). Anchorage Capital Partners is alleged to have marked down a substantial value of Dick Smith inventories to sell it at a discount so as to report an attractive incomes data. These particular adjustments did not touch the new Dick Smith Company loss and profit reports, and at the lash of the pen, the company had made or avoided about AU$120 Million in future pre-tax profit. The company financial statements as at 2012 indicated that Dick Smith Holdings Limited had stock that cost AU$371 Mill ion but had been written-down to AU$312 Million (Essayyad, 2014). Consecutively, as at June 2013, the company inventory had decreased to AU$171 Million which basically pointed out an apparent sale of the enterprise. In this case, the reduction in the company inventory produced a massive AU$140 Million profits to the company operating cash flows as a result of selling most of the inventory, but there was no restocking. Due to this particular markdown of most of Dick Smith Holdings Limited inventory and other non-current assets, the company valuation had been decreased tremendously that enabled Anchorage Capital Partners to acquire the new corporation quickly (Oakshott, 2012). An assessment of the ethical dilemmas that faces Anchorage Capital Partners in respect of the floating of the business Floating of the business shares in the market is usually the duty of management. Floating of shares often enables the company to raise more capital to fund its diverse activities such as expansion. The management of Anchorage Capital Partners basically faces diverse ethical dilemmas when floating of shares because of the negative critics that they face as a result of Dick Smith Holdings Limited acquisition in 2012. The company management is criticized of decreasing the company value so as to enrich themselves which is considered to be unethical among the company operations (Iyakaremye, 2015). Anchorage Capital Partners are faced with the aspect of trust and confidence from shareholders in respect to floating of its shares because they feel less secured from diverse operations of the company. The company management floated the electronics chains that bear the name of Dick Smith which was considered to lack decency and morality and that the managers were faced with a lawsuit with the a im to refund for the clients that were left holding worthless gift cards. Dick Smith Holdings Limited was initially sold off to Anchorage Capital Partners for about AU$115 Million, and the privately owned firm basically floated the business just after fifteen months later for more than five times its initial costs. This aspect was considered to be unethical because the amount paid for the company was too low. There can be absolutely no doubt that the Anchorage Capital Partners Limited managers knew that the things were not doing the right thing to its customers. Investors lost their life savings invested in the company while the company directors walked away with several million (Gendron, and Smith, 2015). The Anchorage Capital Partners misled the directors of Dick Smith Holdings Limited that led to their acquisition at a little value whereas the company management made diverse profits that floated an enormous amount of shares that was considered to be five times the initial value o f Dick Smith Holdings Limited. An assessment of the ethical dilemmas that faces the senior executives and directors of Dick Smith Holdings Limited with respect to its financial reports made in the 2014/2015 accounts and reports According to the financial reports and accounts for FY2014/15, the management board of Dick Smith Holdings Limited duped the firm shareholder and investors using the name of Dick Smith to hide their dishonesty (Wood, 2011). They fooled the company investors and shareholders that the company was making profits and that the company financial students and reports demonstrated a clear picture of the company financial position and in actual aspects, the company financial statements were deceiving. This action was basically unethical and unprofessional because they also fooled financial professionals and banks to push for the company sale (Essayyad, 2012). Another ethical problem that faces the directors and executive management is that according to the FY2014/15 accounts and reports, there was no indication that Dick Smith Holdings Limited will exit the business. According to the reports, the managers rewarded themselves with huge bonuses and salaries that resulted to the company liquatio n. The company went into receivership five months after the release of the financial statements of 2014/2015 which indicated that the company would continue its operations for a foreseeable future but in real aspect, the company had diverse problems. Due to huge salaries by the directors that resulted in little profits, the company shares were suspended from trading via the ASX. Senior executives and directors of Dick Smith Holdings Limited were blamed for low sales that led to low profits and hence the closure of the business. Anchorage Capital Partners had altered the true and fair value and projections of the company when it registered the company of the Australia Stock Exchange in the FY2013 (Kenney, Cava, and Rodgers, 2016). Basically, it a company cannot be valued at AU$90 Million in FY2012 by Woolworth Limited, AU$500 Million in 2013 and then the company goes into receivership two years later. In this case, the company management deceived the company shareholders and investor s. The senior executives and directors of Dick Smith Holdings Limited knew of inventory problems that led to most of the company stocks written off. The management team basically deceived the shareholders, and they were treated poorly, and they had a right to correct information to make informed decisions on the Australian share market. The senior executives and directors of Dick Smith Holdings Limited did not offer viable information to its investors and shareholders that led to the company closure (Essayyad, 2008). This is because it is believed that the managers had concrete knowledge of what was happening with the company and failed to advise on the shareholders on the possible approaches to save the company from downfall. Conclusion Proper and ethical management of diverse companies globally is usually the core aspect that enhances the company operations. A company that has better management team usually generate sufficient profits for its investors and shareholders because they ensure that there is continuous production. Dick Smith Holdings Limited sold consumer electronics goods, electronic project kits and hobbyist electronic components for its customers in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. The company was officially closed in 2016 because the company management did not disclose all the problems that hindered the operations of the enterprise. The company management fooled the company investors and shareholders that the company was making profits and that the corporation financial students and reports demonstrated a clear picture of the company financial position and in real aspects, the company financial statements were deceiving. Bibliography Anderson, D.R., Sweeney, D.J., Williams, T.A., Camm, J.D. and Cochran, J.J., 2012.Quantitative methods for business. Cengage Learning. Brigham, E.F. and Houston, J.F., 2012.Fundamentals of financial management. Cengage Learning. Clements, J., 2015. Stamp duty consequences of infrastructure and development agreements.Taxation in Australia,49(11), p.688. Dias, A.A.D.S.P. and Saizarbitoria, I.H., 2016. ISO 9001 Performance: A Holistic and Mixed-Method Analysis.Revista de Management Comparat International,17(2), p.136. Dick Smith Holdings Limited annual reports, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20150818/pdf/430kvhrl8cpg0l.pdf Essayyad, M., 2012. The Case of Anchorage.International Banking and Financial Centers, p.11. Ezidinma, V., 2014.Why corporations fail: An exploration theory on the recurring themes in corporate failure(Doctoral dissertation, Dublin Business School). Essayyad, M., 2012. 2. The Feasibility of Establishing.International Banking and Financial Centers, p.11. Essayyad, M., 2008. The Feasibility of Establishing an International Financial Centre: The Case of Anchorage.International Banking and Financial Centers, p.11. Iyakaremye, A., 2015. Analysis Of Financial Performance And Financial Risk In Agricultural Companies Listed On The Nairobi Security Exchange. Gendron, Y. and Smith-Lacroix, J.H., 2015. The global financial crisis: Essay on the possibility of substantive change in the discipline of finance.Critical Perspectives on Accounting,30, pp.83-101. Kenney, R., La Cava, G. and Rodgers, D., 2016.Why Do Companies Fail?(No. rdp2016-09). Reserve Bank of Australia. Lau, A., 2016. ASA stands up for shareholders.Equity,30(4), p.10. Oakshott, L., 2012.Essential quantitative methods: For business, management and finance. Palgrave Macmillan. Puncheva-Michelotti, P. and Michelotti, M., 2014. The new face of corporate patriotism: does being local matter to stakeholders?.Journal of Business Strategy,35(4), pp.3-10. Schauten, M.B., Van Dijk, D. and van der Waal, J.P., 2013. Corporate governance and the value of excess cash holdings of large European firms.European Financial Management,19(5), pp.991-1016. Wood, D., 2011. MA transactions: What are the issues; what are the opportunities?.Tax Specialist,14(5), p.238.

Reading a Work in its Materialist Essays - Afro-Caribbean History

Reading a Work in its Materialist Reading a Work in its Materiality: C. L. R. James' Toussaint L'Ouverture / The Black Jacobins This seminar paperas part of a broader project of theorizing the materiality of language, literature, reading,...is a consideration of a particular literary work in its materiality. Specifically, the paper reads C. L. R. James' play The Black Jacobins, an earlier version of which was staged in 1938 as an intervention in the debates around the Ethiopian crisis. That first version of the play, under the title Toussaint L'Ouverture, was performed in London in 1938 with Paul Robeson in the title role. The revised and re-titled version is included in The C. L. R. James Reader, published in 1992. I am interested in explaining the play's materiality. I believe that this is neither merely a matter of the experiential impact of that particular run of performances by a Black actor legendary for his stage presence and powerful voice, nor a matter of the use of the various theatrical devices to achieve particular effects. These matters will be discussed, but as I regard materiality to be a matte r of the material relations, this paper's reading of the play will emphasize the social relations of labor, both those depicted in the play and those which conditioned its very production as a cultural work. My two-fold aim in this paper, then, in reading the play in its context, is to critically discuss what it means to read a work (that is, a text, a play, a performance, a discursive intervention, a cultural production,...) and its context materially, and thus to begin to develop an effective theory of materiality and reading. The paper begins with a definition of the context of the play, taking into account that to define "context" is already to read. This is true of all reading, of course, but as I try to show, such context-reading is necessary for developing a coherent and reliable understanding both of the text which is read and of the context in which reading has emerged as a social possibility. The question of the emergence of the historical context of reading (that is, of education, literacy, printing,...) is important to consider in postcolonial studies, as it has always been a field for reading and theorizing the relationships among various forms of discourse. For example, the difference(s) between orality and literacy, or speech and writing, are familiar and important points of discussion and debate in postcolonial studies specifically and in cultural and literary studies generally. After providing historical context and reading the play in some of its detail, I will address these points of discu ssion as a means for clarifying further what reading materially means and why it is important. Anna Grimshaw, editor of The C. L. R. James Reader, a project on which she consulted with James, writes that Toussaint L'Ouverture was staged at London's Westminster Theatre as "an intervention in the debates surrounding the Ethiopian crisis" (5). What was the nature of this crisis? The crisis had to do with the Italian annexation of Ethiopia (or Abyssinia) in 1936. W. E. B. DuBois characterizes the relevant events in his historical work The World and Africa: When the British seized Egypt [in 1874] to secure the Suez Canal they occupied the Sudan [...]; they had designs on Ethiopia, but hesitated to follow up their victory over the Emperor Theodore. When the Sudan revolted, the British egged on Italy to annex the highlands of Ethiopia. Italy tried this but was soundly beaten by Menelek at Adowa on March 2, 1906 [...]. The allies promised Italy to give her Ethiopia after the First World War, but failed to do so. Italy, affronted, attacked Ethiopia in 1935. The League of Nations failed to restrain her and Britain and France refused Ethiopia arms. Italy annexed Ethiopia, with Churchill's approval. The Emperor, Haile Selassie, took refuge in England. (268-269) The crisis, which like all crises is a manifestation of contradiction, is succinctly expressed by DuBois in these last two sentences, which portray England as both the supporter of the Italian annexation of Ethiopia and the refuge of its emperor-in-exile. How can one country, England, or indeed the League of Nations to which all nations involved

Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Example

Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Example Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Geography A2 Exam Question Essay Discuss the impacts of storm events in the British Isles and evaluate the responses to them (40 marks) - - - The British Isles has a cool temperate western maritime climate including four seasons and various weather conditions. Storms come and go some so weak they are unnoticed and some bring in heavy winds and torrential rain and thunder. Depressions are areas of low atmospheric pressure which produce cloudy, rainy and windy weather.These low-pressure systems often begin in the Atlantic, moving eastwards towards the UK. They are responsible for the UKs changeable weather. A storm event we will look at in the British Isles happened in 1987. The storm struck the South West amp; South East of England which devastated buildings and left 12 people dead. This global location is prone to depressions. The storm was initially directed towards northern France and Europe but veered up to the U. K. The sea water from the surrounding ocean flooded people’s homes causing people to flee their homes and evacuate.This cost England thousands of pounds including insurance claims. The surrounding tide from the sea was said to have raised by around 2 to 3 meters. : Approximately 40 mm of rain and hail fell in the course of a few hours. The main cause of deaths was mainly from flooding and high wind speeds – up to 108mph. Anything loose was flying around including roof tiles and debris. - - The main primary impacts were homes damaged by strong winds and flooding of properties.The National Grid sustained heavy damage during the event, as crashing cables began to short circuit and overheat the main system. Many windows of houses were also broken. Slates from roofs of buildings came crashing down which resulted in everyone trapped indoors. Another primary impact was the damage and uprooting of thousands of trees, An estimated 15 million trees were lost. The sewers and sewage systems were flooded, creating dark colored flood waters. This also lead to water contamination and diseases being spread more easily. - We can see how great the impact of the 1987 storm was by comparing it to Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23rd, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane over the warm Gulf water, but weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 mph on the morning of Monday, August 29th in Louisiana.The hurricane covered over 500km area and went approximately 160 miles inland. As a result of hurricane Katrina, damage to the U. S was approximately $80 billion nearly triple the damage brought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. However, in New Orleans 2,000 people died as opposed to 12 in Britain. The structure of the buildings in the area was good with well built concrete housing, this resulted in fewer deaths. The number of deaths could have been far higher as the depression was not as strong as the USA hurricane. The impacts in the USA was far greater than that of the UK.At least 1,800 people died in the hurricane with consequential floods. The hurricane had an 8. 5m high storm surge which resulted in large amounts of widespread flooding across hundreds of miles. This caused surface waves to be amplified and increased the height further. Almost every death was a result from the flooding with a few from collapsed buildings. - - Looking at the responses to the storms of the British Isles, we can see that no evacuation took place.This may be because Britain was not expecting a huge storm such as this. The British Isles did not have a hurricane warning system which on the other hand New Orleans did have such a system in place. The 1987 storm in the U. K was a very rare event and no one was prepared for it. A storm of this strength and power only comes every 200 years. The British Isles had a very poor response with little emergency services and help. Britain is used to constant cyclonic weather for the majority of the time and do not expect extreme weather conditions such as that of the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico.New Orleans had sufficient measures in place such as emergency shelters and services. - - How good the response is can be linked to how severe the impacts of the storm were. In the Great Storm of 1987 the response was very fast. The emergency services cleared the area as fast as they could clearing roads and highways. Many people volunteered themselves to clean up rubbish and objects off streets. High community spirit meant that the streets and litter was back to normal in no time.The response was fairly good by the British Isles but if it actually was a hurricane then the UK would have been more severely damaged. The response by the USA was planned evacuating the area before hand as they could see it coming, preparing food and medical supplies. However, it is the response after the hurricane that was extremely impressive. FEMA spent lots of money on rebuilding areas and providing tents, shelter, food amp; medicine to the homeless, preventing diseases. - - - - - - - - These responses greatly outweigh the British capability of responses, but although the British response to storms may not be as high severe as responses such as America, British storms are not as bad one like Hurricane Katrina. - In conclusion British responses are good enough for the size of storms the British Isles receives. The storm gave a valuable picture of what could possibly happen in the future. However, they do not indicate the likelihood of such future events. In order to fully assess the windstorm risk in the U. K, it is necessary to look not just at the footprints and associated losses of historical events, but als o at the losses generated by an exhaustive set of events that assign probabilities of occurrence to different windstorm depressions.

Revisions Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Revisions - Thesis Example arch has studied if existing immigration and border control systems are enough to prevent illegal immigration, as well as existence of psychological and logical aspects related to the illegal immigrants and immigration to use them as a tool to infiltrate terrorists to the USA Since the discovery of the continent, everyone other than Native Americans, who are living in the US, are descendant from immigrants and slaves. By the late seventeenth century, nonnative individuals formed seventy-five percent of the American population (History of Immigration Law in the USA). At first, the U.S. government promoted wide-open immigration in the pursuit of settling as much territory as possible. However, after the Civil War different states began to adopt their own immigration statues. In 1875, US Supreme court brought the immigration laws under federal jurisdiction. In 1891, US Congress established Immigration Service (History of Immigration Law in the USA) and started implementing immigration laws. Early immigration laws were designed to control US population structure. For example, 1790 Naturalization Act limited European and Caucasian descendent immigration, 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act made immigration from China illegal. Likewise, ethnicity, the government was al so worried about moral composition of the US population. Congress, between 1872-1890 passed laws constraining the immigration of several groups that included prostitutes, criminals, mentally ill, and financially unstable individuals. In the late 19th century, the government became concerned about native laborers. In 1885 and 1887, Congress passed first laws restricting immigration based on economic reasons. Congress during 1900 to 1921 instituted a â€Å"quota system† guaranteeing permission to a set number of individuals from each ethnic group. In 1924, Congress established the first branch of border control to monitor immigration from Canada and Mexico (History of Immigration Law in the USA). In

Les Croix de Bois Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Les Croix de Bois - Research Paper Example Also, portrayed is the courage shown by soldiers in the face of insurmountable odds. Such unwavering commitment is a necessary pre-requisite for success in war. Once commitment wavers, the war is half lost. Even the most accommodating movie can not capture all the realities of the battlefield. Our feature film is; thus, constrained by several factors among them time (Bernard). The film is one hundred and ten minutes long. Among the realities that did not make the cut is the role of women in war. However, they shall at least get a mention in this paper. The paper shall be brought to a close by studying how the inclusion or seclusion of some aspects relating to the war tie up with traditional French customs (Dorgeles 76). Among the most glaring omissions in Croix de Bois is the role of women. This is even starker considering that the status of the modern day French woman is highly elevated relative to that of the male. However, things have not always been the same. At the beginning of the 18th Century, there was the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment. One of its famous authors was the French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau. According to this leading scholar, women had a leading role in family affairs compared to their male counterparts. They had to breastfeed and educate their children. This was hardly a progressive attitude towards gender relations. As a consequence, even in the film Croix De Bois, women are virtually anonymous. The understanding then was that their place was the home and, therefore, they had no business in the battlefield (Rousseau). However, not even in French history has it always been the case that the place of the women is only in the home. A remarkable exception for instance is Joan of Arc. She inherited a lost battle from Charles VII and miraculously managed to do what her predecessor had failed. She drove away the English and secured an important victory at Patoy, in 1429. It might still be argued that Joan of Arc did this with the help of supernatural powers. Conversely, the fact that this supernatural being chose a female figure to accomplish such a huge fete is in itself a confirmation that women can handle the rigours of battlement (Strachan 246). The movie Croix De Bois censures women as far as their role in the battlefield is concerned. All the cast in the movie are male, for example. They include Fouillard, Gilbert Demachy, Sulphart, Caporal Breval, Vieuble, Brouke, and several others. We witness the fact that women can engage as well as men in combat. As a result, the assumption that their place is only the home is not accurate. Another role that has been performed well by women during war is that of nursing wounded soldiers (Strachan). The case of Florence Nightingale is now legend. She ably provided her services to the soldiers wounded in the Crimean war. This challenges the French notion that women were not up to the task of war. Very important in Croix De Bois is the socio-cultural impact of the war. W ar although it happens many miles away can still affect society. Several problems accompany war. One of them is that the young men (Gilbert Demachy in the movie), and increasingly women, who engage in war usually have families to provide for at home. If they die at war, as is the case in the film, their families are left unattended. There shall be increase in cases of single parent families or even orphans. This directly impacts on society. Crime might

Dykeman Article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Dykeman Article - Essay Example Bureau of the Census, 1996 (Dykeman, 2003, p. 41). No doubt, theses parental divorces can adversely affect the future life of such children; these can negatively affect the psychological health of children and their performance at school. Children are also very much affected by the manner of interaction between their parents both before and after the divorce; children fail to meet academic and social expectations at school and are moved by feelings of anxiety, depression, aggression, lack of emotional well-being and self-esteem (Dykeman, 2003, p. 42). This highlights the role of school counselors and pinpoints the need of introducing primary, secondary and tertiary interventions among these children. The purpose of Dykeman’s study was to observe the effects of pre-referral tertiary-intervention program on such children who were referred for special education assessment due to behavioral difficulties that stemmed from their parents’ separation or divorce. 21 students (even though only 15 of them completed the treatment and follow up) were thus selected and the community agency counselors administered a conflict-resolution model of family-systems intervention on both the children and their respective custodial parents. The treatment focused mainly on the â€Å"cognitions and behaviors operant within the family environment that both preceded and followed classroom misbehavior and the strategies used by the custodial parent to discipline and socialize the child† (Dykeman, 2003, p. 43). The participant children were enrolled either in their seventh or eighth grade and the 15 custodial parents were middle aged, with 13 mothers and 2 fathers. The progress made by t he children were measured using the Conflict Tactics Scale in terms of their reasoning, verbal aggression, and violence. It is worthwhile to attempt a critique of the statistical analysis presented throughout the article. As already mentioned

Effect of Wishing Good Luck on Performance

Effect of Wishing Good Luck on Performance Running head: WHY DOES WISH WORK Does the wish work because of a specific superstitious belief or because the wish is a positive sentiment? Suellen, Hei Lon Kong Abstract The present research examined whether the wish worked because of a specific superstitious belief or because the wish was a positive sentiment. Individuals (N=241) were being put into three different conditions: Good luck with prize draw, Good luck with task and No wish after being informed that they would be entered into a lucky draw. It was hypothesized that wishing participants â€Å"good luck† with the word puzzle will give better performance at the puzzle than nothing. We predicted that their belief in luck (specific superstitious belief) for the prize draw should not affect word puzzle performance. However, if the phrase â€Å"good luck† generates a better mood, a higher level of self-esteem or other factor in the individual, it should be effective. The results indicated that there was no significant difference in the word puzzle score between the three conditions. This research showed that wish did not affect the participants’ performance in the word puzzle test. Introduction Walking under ladders, opening umbrellas indoors and breaking mirrors are all actions that are believed to bring unfortunate; it seems people are just as superstitious when it comes to bringing about good luck too. People also create their own superstitions and rituals in the belief it will change their fortunes. Nearly 6 millions of people in UK admit to being superstitious. Why do people believe in things that cannot be explained and what leads to superstitious behavior? Most conceivable reason is that it is individuals fear of the unknown that drives them to believe in superstitions. External locus of control from own cultural beliefs is another potential explanation to superstitious behaviors. Media also plays an important role in reinforcing superstitious beliefs such as horror movies, it is a powerful source that makes superstition exist in the world, e.g. ghost, supernatural experiences. Superstitious is often defined as excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural. It can also be defined as, irrational beliefs, especially with regard to the unknown according to the Collins English Dictionary. Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, Richard Wiseman, once said People can create luck and good fortune by changing their outlook on life, focusing on grabbing opportunities and creating positive expectations. He also believe that some people actually want to be unlucky because it helps them to avoid taking responsibility for their own failings, actions that turn out to be harmful, immoral, or stupid. Superstitious behaviour can also be caused by intuitive thinking that is gained through past experiences. In support to this, researchers had carried out research on pigeons, superstitious actions that are by chance co-occur with the expected outcome, and subjects continue to appear to do so through conditioning process. This shows that stimulus has reinforcing value and can set up superstitious behaviour. (Skinner, 1948) There are negative and positive consequences in superstition. In the traditionally unlucky ghost month (July) in Taiwan, the evidence points to reduced fatalities by drowning. (Yang et. al 2008) It seems that being superstitious can sometimes be a positive thing as some superstitious beliefs prevents fatal accidents like the research I mentioned above (Yang et al 2008). Kevin Abbott, a biologist at Carleton University in Ottawa said, â€Å"From an evolutionary perspective, superstitions seem maladaptive, It plays an important role in human evolution which affects human behaviour. On the other hand, superstitious has its own negative consequences too. In situations over which people have no control (lotteries), superstitious behaviours are a waste of time. However, when some level of control does exist —such as car accidents — the consequences may be more negative than this. There is some evidence for increased car accident rates on Friday 13th relative to other Fridays, though it is argumentative. (Scanlon et al., 1993; N ¨ayh ¨a, 2002; Radun Summala, 2004) It is believed that it is the distraction caused by anxiety as the presumed mechanism. The goal of this research is to test whether wishing participants â€Å"good luck† with the word puzzle will give better performance at the puzzle than nothing. The method of research for this study will be a distribution of a word puzzle generated by the experimenter to the Warwick Undergraduates and their families and friends. The question is whether wishing them â€Å"good luck† with the prize draw will affect their puzzle performance. Gender and age data will also be collected. Looking at the data examined and studied so far are the following proposed predictions: If there is a specific superstitious belief in invoked, it should not be effective: Their belief in luck for the prize draw should not affect puzzle performance. If, however, the phrase â€Å"good luck† affects a more general mood, self-esteem or other factor in the individual, it should be effective. Method Participants For this research, 241 participants took part which included Psychology Undergraduates from University of Warwick and their families and friends( Undergraduates from other departments in Warwick) from 17 through 45 (M= 19.49, SD= 3.15). The participants consisted of 110 females and 131 males. They were not volunteers or getting paid. The department of Psychology in Warwick decided there would be a  £50 Amazon Voucher lucky draw for all participants after they had completed the word puzzle (only for Warwick students outside of Psychology). Designs The independent variable in this research was the condition participants were put in Good luck with prize draw, Good luck with task and No wish. The dependant variable was the number of words they got from the word puzzle. It was an independent Measures ANOVA (Between Subjects ANOVA) with three groups and one condition. Materials An informed consent sheet with Word Puzzle which consisted letters such as: U E P C I I L O S U R T attached at the back. Procedure The study began by gaining the participants consent which they signed and put down their email address and personal information such as age, sex on the consent form. Participants were informed that once they had completed the experiment, they would be entered into a random prize draw with other participants for a  £50 Amazon voucher. As the offer only opened to Warwick student outside of Psychology, the department would use their contact address to check that whether they were eligible and to contact them if they won. In this experiment, participants were allocated to three different conditions: 1: Good luck with prize draw, 2: Good luck with task and 3: No wish. In the first condition, experimenter would wish them good luck on the prize draw before they began to complete task. In the second condition, experiment would wish them good luck on the task and in the third condition, the experimenter would say nothing and let them begin. They were required to complete the word puzzle, to create as many English words as they could from the set of letters: U E P C I I L O S U R T. They were only allowed to use a letter twice if it appeared twice in the list that was in the case: I; they were asked to complete the task within two minutes. Following completion of the task, experimenter would note condition (e.g. 1, 2, 3). The experiment were completely anonymous, instead of names, we used numbers to identify the participants. All data would remain strictly confidential. Participants were then debriefed at the end and were told that they had the right to withdraw any consent given, and to require that their own data such as the score they got from the task, their email, be destroyed. Results The mean and standard deviation of the scores for condition â€Å"Good luck with prize draw† was (M=14.1, SD=7.6), Condition â€Å"Good luck with task† was (M=15.2, SD=8.1) and Condition â€Å"No wish† was (M=14, SD=6.5). There was no significant difference between the three wish groups as determined by one-way ANOVA in the ability of getting higher score in the word puzzle. (F (2,238) =0.682, p > .05). A Tukey post-hoc test revealed that the score gained from the participants have no significant difference in the condition â€Å"Good luck with prize draw (14.1  ± 7.6, p = 0.616) and the condition â€Å"No wish† (14.0  ± 6.5, p = 0.536) course compared to the condition â€Å"Good luck with task† (15.2  ± 8.1). There was no statistically significant differences between the condition â€Å"Good luck with prize draw† and the condition â€Å"No wish† (p = .990). Discussion Our hypothesis was that wishing participants â€Å"good luck† with the word puzzle will give better performance at the puzzle than nothing. The data obtained did not support our hypothesis as there was no significant difference in the score from the three conditions. In this study, we used the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine whether there are any significant differences between the means of three independent variables (the three conditions). Although the one-way ANOVA could not tell us which specific groups were significantly different from each other, it tells us that at least two groups were different. Age differences was an issue in this research, the fact that the participants’ age ranged 17-45. As we grow older, we would know more words than we did when we were younger. Age of the respondents seemed to better explain some ethical differences among respondents in some situations. This is in line with earlier research that found that people tend to be more ethical as they grow older (Weber and Green, 1991;Terpstra et al., 1993). It is not appropriate to use participants that have a large range in age. Our findings can be generalised to the whole populations as there is no significant difference in the score in the three conditions. In this research, we would say that the wish does not affect the puzzle performance because of a superstitious belief as proved by the results. In the future research on this topic, researchers should use participants that have similar age to make it an ethical test and that wish does not work of a specific superstitious belief or because the wish is a positive sentiment. References BBC. (2010). Superstitions: Friday 13th unlucky for you? . Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/britain/superstitions.shtml. Last accessed 9th Feb 2014. Berrill,A. (2012). Isnt it all pants? One in six superstitious Brits refuse to walk under ladders, while over 800,000 admit to having lucky underwear. Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2230328/Britons-superstitions-Walking-ladders-breaking-mirrors-opening-umbrellas-indoors.html. Last accessed 9th Feb 2014. Landrum, R. Eric. (2008). Undergraduate writing in psychology : learning to tell the scientific story. Washington, D.C. : American Psychological Association. p.57-p160. Mills, C. (2011). Superstitions Have Evolutionary Basis. Available: http://www.livescience.com/14504-superstitions-evolutionary-basis-lucky-charms.html. Last accessed 10th Feb 2014. Sidani,Y., Zbib,I., Rawwas,M.,Moussawer, T. (2009). Gender, age, and ethical sensitivity. Gender, age, and ethical sensitivity: the case of Lebanese workers. 24 (1), 211-227 Tavris, C., Aronson, E. (2008). Mistakes were made (but not by me) : why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful act. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt. p1-57.

Mary, Where are U :: essays research papers

The debate over whether or not the United States government should grant tuition vouchers to the parents of children who attend private schools has gone on for many years, and has included many powerful arguments on both sides of the issue. Those who support the private school vouchers believe that they are beneficial to everyone because they promote productivity in both public and private schools alike, and they also give low-income families the chance to give their children a quality private school education. Those in opposition to the vouchers say that they will drain money out of the public schools, and that they only truly help a small population, mainly the wealthy and advantaged. Opposers also believe that the vouchers interfere with the Separation of Church and State, since many private schools have a religious affiliation. This issue has truly been a controversial one, with many people fighting arduously. After reading through the various arguments for each side, one can not help but come to their own conclusion about private school vouchers. There have been many school voucher programs proposed in the past, but they all seem to share one common theme. This similarity between them is that they all promote giving households that send their children to private schools a tax dollar-funded voucher that would cover all or most of the cost of the school's tuition. Many of the proposals also include the right for parents to chose which private school their child will attend. The vouchers allows students to use the money that would be subsidized for them in a public school to go toward a private school education. This system redirects the flow of educational funding, bringing it to the individual family instead of the school district. The idea of school vouchers first became popular after Milton Friedman, an economist, released two publications, in 1956 and in 1962, that supported the voucher plan. In his 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom, when Friedman discusses education, he turns to public education criticizes it for being "unresponsive" because it has been free from competition (Lieberman, 120). Vouchers would provide this much needed competition, since public schools would now have to contend with the private schools that were receiving the same payments they were. Friedman believes that, "most dissatisfied parents have only two options. They can enroll their children in private schools, in which case they have to bear the costs in addition to paying taxes to support public schools. Or they can resort to political action, an option Friedman regards as ineffective." (ibid.) After Friedman publicly showed his support for school vouchers, a debate began

Crusades and Pope Urban Essay

The Christian Crusades occurred around the 11th and the 12th century are very many and complex. The Christian Crusades has built a tense relationship between the Christians and Islamic. This essay will explain the causes and effects of the Medieval Crusades. The importance of the holy lands as stated in the Islamic bible, Koran, and the Christian bible is the most significant cause of the Christian Crusades. Religious rivalry between the 2 religions was caused by the fact that both of these religions believed in 2 different gods. The Islam’s thought that there god was the true god whilst the Christians believed that there god was the one and true god. The fact that the Islam’s believed there god was the one and true, brought anger to the Pilgrims who were on a quest to take back the Holy lands which were Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem, which were controlled currently by the Muslims since 638AD. But as more and more pilgrims came to visit the Holy lands, Seljuk Turks, Saracens, took over the lands and denied more Pilgrimages to the Holy Lands. This brought great anger to Pope Urban II. Pope Urban II was responsible for the very first Christian Crusade. He started this by giving an extremely influential speech to all Christians in Europe and Medieval time saying that the Saracens were turning Christian Churches into Mosques which were Muslim churches. Pope Urban II then told all Christian men and European Christian Princes to go on a crusade to take back the Holy lands. The Pope also stated to these Christian men that by fighting in this holy war they would reach heaven. So the Christian Crusaders set their target on regaining one of the Holy lands which was Jerusalem. The result of the first crusade was not too good for the Muslims as 70,000 Muslims had died trying to flee from the city or fight to protect their city. A reason that explains the cause of the Christian Crusades, are the Christian men, the Knight class and Princes. Prior explains how Pope Urban II speech influences the Christian men, Knight classes and Princes of Europe to go on a crusade against their rivalry religion and to gain back the Holy Lands. Pope Urban II says to all these men that go on to their crusade, that if they do not fight back against the Saracens, god will not clear there sin. This was another reason for the Christian Crusade. Pope Urban II â€Å"blackmailing† these men to go to the Holy lands was a reason for why the Christian Crusades began in the first place. The Knight class were all men that wanted to fight. Since the age of seven, pagers, who were the first stage into becoming a knight, were taught special skills to fight. Every Crusader that was going on to gain back the lands had a sign on their tunics when they went to fight. This sign resembled St Johns Cross. The medieval Crusades have brought a strong intensity in these to religions that are still quite tense nowadays. Pope Urban II speech had urged men to go on this holy crusade and both the Koran and bible having two of the same holy places caused tension between these two religions. This essay has given the causes and effects of the holy crusades.

Safety Devices in Car essays

Safety Devices in Car essays During a traffic crash, at the moment of impact, people in the car are still traveling at the car's original speed. Just after the car rapidly comes to a stop, the people not wearing seat belts slam into the steering wheel, windshield, or other parts of the car's interior, or are ejected from the car. Seat belts are very effective in reducing deaths and injuries caused in this second collision. The techniques of that is the seat belts use pre-crash tensioners. Within milliseconds, seat belt pre-tensioners tighten safety belts and help prevent belted occupants from sliding and bouncing around during a crash. The seat belts allow passenger to decelerate with the car during the collision instead head on collision with windshield or steering wheel. The seat belts also have a property to bend when crashing. So it increases time in impulse therefore decreases force impact on human. Inertia safety belt reels occurs approximately 6 milliseconds after full frontal impact. Approximately 4 milliseconds later before the head and chest begin to move forward, the air bag sensors trigger the front air bags and the small pyrotechnic charges in the pre-tensioners, which minimize any slack in the safety belt and negate the effects of bulky or layered clothing. The front air bags take approximately 35 milliseconds to fully inflate, which is completed just before the occupant meets the bag, approximately 50 milliseconds after impact. Between 45 and 70 milliseconds after impact, ensuring that the cross belt pressure against the occupants chest remains fairly constant. By avoiding peak loads, the potential for chest injury in very severe impacts is reduced. The function of inertia reel safety belts in effective, it can fasten you to the seat when crashing. The seat belt allows you to travel at the same speed with the car instead of throwing you out toward steering wheels, it can also trigger airbag to inflate. Inflating in a fraction of a seco...

Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Example

Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Example Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Hunting and Gathering vs Sedentary Living Essay Gathering and Hunting Vs. Sedentary Living There are many events in the past that changed the course of history. The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution marked the transition between gathering and hunting to sedentary lifestyles. There were benefits to this change that have lasted until societies today. As well as benefits, there were also costs that effected people’s lives. The role of men and women shifted and things were slowly started changing to a world that is much like society today. Moving from gathering and hunting to sedentary living had its advantages. One of the advantages was the increase in their writing system. Writing was needed to keep track of the new flow of records coming in. As civilizations began to grow and thrive more people needed to be accounted for and these records needed to be recorded. It got to the point where the prehistoric pictures and murals weren’t enough. The civilians used symbols to account for the needs of the town. The creation of writing is beneficial also because it makes it possible for societies today to be aware and knowledgeable of the way that life was before them. It was also possible for laws to be set for the town’s people to see, and abide by them. One example of this is Hammurabi’s Code. Hammurabi’s Code was posted in the town and people were able to access it. The code set up rules for an ordered society. An ordered society was beneficial because since people were now becoming settled, there were new interactions that were unusual people didn’t know how to act around these situations. â€Å"Law codes give us an idea of a people’s sense of justice and notions of code† (Reilly 58). It also shows us how past societies, especially early civilizations lived their daily lives and kept order. There were other benefits of transitioning to a sedentary lifestyle such as the creation of centralized governments. Creating these governments along with the codes enforced order in the society and ensured the safety of the citizens. Another benefit was the creation of irrigation systems and farming. Farming is an imperative need to societies. People get their produce from farming. The creation of the irrigation system helped transfer the water from the surrounding rivers to the town so that they can farm crops. Also, the creation of stone tools helped make it easier to tend these crops. These tools also helped weave clothing and other needs for the new civilizations. The development of farming also was useful for domestication. By the villagers having an ordered way of growing and collecting food, the animals got drawn to the crops so they are easier to capture and tame. Farming also led to people settling down. People no longer had to go elsewhere to look for crops and herbds because they grew them in the community. Along with benefits, there were costs to moving to a sedentary lifestyle. For example, it changed people’s lifestyles. As gatherers, people were able to move freely and do as they please. There was nobody to tell them what to do such as leaders and tyrants. Once civilizations started to form everything had to be in order so there were changes. People were being told what to do and they suddenly didn’t have the opportunity to be nomads. This made it hard to adjust to third new society. As shown in the movie N! ai, the Story of a ! Kung Woman, this led to sickness in the village. People were dying left and right. Settling down also led to the introduction of slavery. People were set into social classes and people of the lower class were forced to do the labor that the upper-class didn’t want to do. Slavery was not here when there were Hunter- Gatherers because one more hand meant one more mouth to feed. They did things for themselves. There were also issues of social class. Citizens were classified by their occupation and what they could bring to the community. The commoners or lower class people with the less respected jobs ere always treated differently no matter what it was. With this shift in society also came the change of the status of men and women. Before settlement women held power and respect. People respected them because they were responsible for the farming which was the main way of acquiring food aside from hunting. Men and females were fairly equal in part. After settlement, the role of a female slowly began to digress and men became more powerful. In Mesopotamia as early as 2300 BCE inscriptions for ‘slave girl’ appear earlier than those translating as ‘slave male† (Reilly 31). There was also a high demand for female slaves as opposed to male slaves. In Marjorie Shostak’s Nisa: The Life and Words of a ! Kung Woman, she revealed how women weren’t able to speak their mind above a man. Men had final sa y in decisions and women were just there to back it up. Also young females were forced into marriage by their parents, but as mentioned before, the male parental figure would make the final decisions. In conclusion, the shift from a nomadic lifestyle to settled lifestyles has shown great change in the way that things were ran. The primary and secondary accounts listed in this essay helped readers see the emphasis that this change has on society today. There were sacrifices that people had to make in order to accommodate these changes. Even though one of these sacrifices had to be things such as equality of the sexes, this change still has marked something greater; a gateway for the development of future societies.

Entrepreneurial characteristics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Entrepreneurial characteristics - Essay Example Entrepreneurial characteristics By exploring the characteristics and skills of entrepreneurs, I have a better understanding of what characteristics an entrepreneur should possess. He does not have to be a risk taker but must have confidence in himself and have good leadership qualities. To do this, he/she needs to have a vision, marketing skills, good communication skills, financial skills, good time management skills, administrative skills and also leadership skills. The type of entrepreneur depends on the kind of characteristics, behavior or attributes that he/she possesses. These attributes play a great role in determining the kind of skills possessed by the entrepreneur. For example, a person who is self-confident, persuasive, a good listener, inspirational has the marketing skills required to sell the business and its products. There are various theories that try to explain the personality of individuals or entrepreneurs such as the leadership theories, self-efficiency theory, effectuation theory, behavioral and communication theories among others. The paper will discuss these theories in trying to explain the entrepreneurial characteristics and also the extent to which these characteristics are found within the range of skills that they should possess. The sel f-efficacy theory advanced by Albert Bandura is based on the belief in oneself. Robbins and Judge (2010) interpret self-efficacy as the belief that one has the capability to organize and execute courses of action that are required to achieve specified goals. Individuals have different perceptions of themselves; some high expectations of achieving a certain objective while others do not believe in themselves hence they fear to initiate anything rest they fail. Self-efficacy thus determines how the entrepreneur pursues goals, tasks and challenges (62). A successful entrepreneur should have self-confidence so as to be able to set and achieve goals and also to get other people to believe in what he/she is doing. The self-efficacy theory is also based on experience. Most people observe entrepreneurs starting up businesses and either succeeding or failing. Depending on what one observes, his perception may change. For example, if one has experience of observing someone start up a business and fail, he may fear engaging in such a venture. People with high self-efficacy have the drive and motivation to attain certain goals and continue even if the business is not prospering since they believe they can make it. On the other hand, those with low efficacy do not have the motivation to start a business but Robbins and Judge (2010) argue that this is needed to allow an entrepreneur to learn more about the business before venturing into it. The effectuation theory advanced by Saras Sarasvanthy is based on the belief that there exists a market which an entrepreneur should discover. The entrepreneur in this case has the knowledge, skills, and the resources needed to start a business but the question is, is he/she ready to take risks? An entrepreneur should therefore be able to take risks since he is venturing into a business with an unpredictable future. Instead of calculating the returns from the business undertaking, the individual can venture in any business and shape its destiny (Sarasvanthy, 2008). Contrary to self-efficacy theory, one is not influenced by observing others but takes own initiative into the unknown. The entrepreneur in this case possesses such characteristics as risk taker, creative, good in grasping opportunities, decisive, likes learning by doing, and is a team builder since his work involves building

Sentencing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Sentencing - Essay Example They lower down the judge shopping culture, by getting rid of illogical and disparate sentencing practices. The sentence for a crime should be in the hands of legislature so that they may determine the crime through sentencing guidelines making the common people more confident that the falcons (many of whom are involved in the illegal business of narcotics) will meet the harsher punishment as they deserve. The uncertain condition that the judges may narrate severe sentence or be lenient becomes out of question by the establishment of sentencing guidelines. At the same time, this approach has some shortcomings. The sentencing guidelines lead to the loss of good judgment to formulate a criminal sentence that is suitable to the individual because the guidelines inflict mathematical formulae that do not match with the human ideas. The judges instead of working mathematically go through the circumstances of the case and the individuals and then decide according to the human conditions. So , I think the judges should have more control over the sentences. The guidelines reflect political concerns while the judges are away from this.

Emergency Mnagement 670 Week 4 Conf Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Emergency Mnagement 670 Week 4 Conf - Assignment Example ency action plan includes conducting a workplace evaluation which defines how rescuers will react to different types of crisis situations, considering specific worksite plans, operational features and emergency systems (Department of Homeland Security, 2010). Based on this context, various elements of emergency planning can be identified which are described as follows: Policy: An effective emergency management plan includes effective evacuation policies in the time of crisis situations. The policy must therefore address all possible emergency situations, magnitudes of emergencies, mandatory activities, written procedures to deal with the situations and resources available (Canton, 2006). Alertness: Alertness is the second vital element of effective emergency management planning. Alertness denotes the rapidity of changes in behavior to restrict the influence of disaster situations and is considered as a constant cycle of planning, supervising, categorizing, training, assessing and monitoring activities to certify effective direction and improvement of capabilities which further helps to inhibit the consequences of any kind of emergency situation (Department of Homeland Security, 2008). Reaction: Reaction is the other vital element of effective emergency planning. Reaction comprises deployment of essential emergency facilities and initial responders in the disaster zone. It also acts as the basis of emergency planning which empowers effective management of rescue and searching activities (McCreight, 2011). Recovery: Recovery is the other element of effective emergency planning. The objective of recovery in effective emergency planning is to restore the disaster affected zones to facilitate the prosperity of the community. Recovery activities are related with the emergency plans which need to be prepared after recognizing instantaneous necessities which are identified after the crisis. Recovery functions are basically related with activities which include

Assessing Importance of School Factors Such as Racism Essay Example for Free

Assessing Importance of School Factors Such as Racism Essay A variety of material disadvantages that may confront ethnic minorities coming from working class backgrounds are they do not achieve the same level of education. The main achievers are Indian, Chinese and African students, but the lowest achievers are Turkish, Bangladeshi And Afro Caribbean students. The white working class students are the lowest achieving, which is peculiar because most sociologists are white who stereotype and label other students from different backgrounds. The main cause of underachievement in schools are cultural and language factors which sociologists clarify and focus on and are thought to be main cause of everything. Previously the spotlight has been put on what happens in school and racism in common As shown by Cecile Wright, which explains that, Asian students can also be the victims of teachers Cecile found out that regardless of the schools evident promise to equal opportunities, teachers still hold ethnocentric views they believe that British culture and English are greater. This prepared teachers to assume that they would have a poor pronunciation of English and left them out of class debates or used basic, childlike speech when speaking to them. Asian pupils also felt cut off when teachers spoken dissatisfaction of their behaviour or misread their names. Teachers saw them not as a risk but as a difficulty they could take no notice of. This resulted in that Asian pupils in particular the girls were hard-pressed to the limits and disallowed from play a part fully. Close at hand is proof of teacher racial discrimination and harmful labelling. Nevertheless study shows that pupils can take action in variety of ways. They may take action by becoming unsettling or withdrawn but pupils may decline to agree to the label and even choose to prove it incorrect by putting in hard work. Off-putting labels do not repeatedly twist into self-fulfilling prophecy Working class white pupils attain below standards and have lesser desires. There isn’t much parental support at home, which means there is low achievement and goals. Reports show that teachers have to deal with low level of behaviour and discipline in white working class schools. Nevertheless they had fewer kids on benefit programs teachers blame this on inadequate parental support at home and negative attitude that white working class parents have towards their children and their education. The life in the street for white working class can be tough for pupils which means they get used to getting intimidating and intimidate other which they pick up and use in school to cause disruptions and make it hard for other students to succeed at school. Underachievement of student of different is blamed on cultural deprivation. Few sociologists say that Afro-Caribbean families lack a close relationship to their family and therefore are extremely violent towards everything they do. Arguments explain that families aren’t very supportive towards their children and they don’t offer enough cultural capital for their children. Stereotypical views suggest those students are not deprived because of their class or because of their backgrounds. Factors like social class are important to certain ethnic minorities like Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and a considerable amount of Afro-Caribbean students, which are all working class backgrounds in which material deprivation play a main role because to find out why they achieve below the national standards. Sociologists say schools and curriculums made just for one specific group of ethnic minority gives priority to one particular ethnic minority while disregarding other ethnic groups. Some schools have curriculums, which are ethnocentric because they only give priority to English languages. The British curriculum has been described as exclusively British. In history Britain is thought to bring civilisation to ancient people are colonised. Black people as inferior weakens black children’s self esteem and Leads to them to underachieving and failing. It isn’t for sure what effects the ethnocentric study shows that black don’t really suffer from low self esteem. Wright’s study found some ethnic minority groups received poorer interaction from staff. Teachers perceptions were seem as stereotypical although Asian students were seen as good and black students were seen disruptive and disobedient. Study show that schools in cities which contain ethnic minority students were not benefitting in terms of O Levels entries because of being in low set and having to achieve high grade in order to get good results and become successful. Overall taking into consideration we can not split or label ethnicity from social classes and gender since this is really difficult matter as some of the main achieving students are from ethnic minorities so for that reason there isn’t a connection here so we can’t make statements or come to conclusions as to what the association among ethnic groups and schools actually are. Pupils can refuse to accept negative classing and teacher expectations. Sociologists can’t come to a conclusion to explain what occurs between teacher and students or what takes place in different ethnic groups related to education. Students live up to roles they are given but can try to resist the labels and getting put behind by carrying out what is thought of them to do or do what they want to do and achieve good education and become successful.

The Development of Behavioral Psychology Essay -- science, J.R. Angell

The human mind and the way humans behave have been primary topics of study amongst historians for many years. Studies have been conducted in different professional areas to gain knowledge and understanding of humans, in an attempt to control behavior. The study of human behavior is known as behavioral psychology or behaviorism. The goal of early behaviorists and functionalists was to bring about a more reliable psychology. The behaviorists believed they would achieve this goal by excluding introspection and focus on the study of behaviorism. This evolution was achieved with help from the zeitgeist, behaviorist, and organizational psychology. This paper will discuss J.R. Angell and his prediction of the shift in psychology from introspection to behaviorism, the persons and idea’s helped to carry out the shift, how the zeitgeist supported the shift, and how the development of industrial psychology played its part in the shift. On what did Angell base his opinion? J. R. Angell was a psychologist and educator, who studied under John Dewey and William James. Angell worked as a psychology instructor at the University of Minnesota. It was at this university that Angell formed a psychology department in 1905 (Schultz and Schultz, 2012, p.294). Schultz and Schultz (2008) wrote: J.R. Angell at the University of Chicago, perhaps the most progressive of the functional psychologists, predicted that American psychology was ready for greater objectivity. In 1910, he commented that it seemed possible that the term consciousness would disappear from psychology, much as the term soul had disappeared. (p. 293) Behaviorism, which contended to end structuralism without compromise, was underway when Angell made his 2008 statement. J.R. Angell is su... ...or individuals. Conclusion Psychology has grown from the founding of behaviorism. Many individuals and ideas played a big part in setting the atmosphere for behaviorism to be widely accepted. Zeitgeist of that time period had also contributed to the acceptance of behaviorism. Therefore, when Watson came on the scene, it was not difficult for his ideas to be accepted. Even organizational psychology had its role by showing one can apply techniques in every aspect to bring change. Works Cited Buckley, K. W. (1989). Mechanical Man: John Broadus Watson and the Beginnings of Behaviorism. New York: The Guilford press Goss, A. E. (1961). Early behaviorism and verbal mediating responses. American psychologist, 16(6), 285-298. Schultz, D.P. & Schultz, S. E. (2012). A history of modern psychology, (10th Ed.) Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

The Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Essays -- Dai Sijie

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a marvelous novel, written by Dai Sijie, which himself was re-educated between 1971 and 1974 during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Seamstress three separate accounts are given of an incident in which Luo and the Little Seamstress make love in an isolated mountain pool. Two of these perspectives are given by the participants while the third is provided by the old miller who observes their love making from a distance. Of all the accounts, I found the count of this incident of Little Seamstress most appealing as she is able to present at an imaginative description of this setting and allow the readers to understand her thoughts and feelings. In contrast the account of the Old Miller is more detached and is more focused about the physical beauty of the Little Seamstress, while Luo’s story to me is more focused on his own concerns and is desire to escape the remote mountain village which he ha s been sent. The Old Miller’s perspective conveys the sense that he is both transfixed by what he sees, but he feel shamed for being unable to take his eyes off the lovers. Their acrobatic movements in the water make him feel his age in the fact that he realizes he can never again enjoy such pleasures. What he focuses on is their nudity and their coupling. This is captured in the image of â€Å"their bodies entwined, whirling round and round in the water.† Feeling â€Å"rooted to the spot† he notices â€Å"the limpid water glittering in the sun exaggerated and distorted their obscene movements.† The miller’s account makes the reader feel like a voyeur and imagine the old man with his face â€Å"reddened.† He is overcome by the beauty of the Little Seamstress â€Å"her naked belly and un... ...h an injury on the Little Seamstress’s finger. A turning point comes up when they get back to the village and finds out that his mother’s been rushed to the hospital, which than he has to visit her for a month. Out of the three stories told by Luo, the Old Miller and the Chinese Seamstress, I find the Little Chinese Seamstress’s story more appealing than others. From my view, it shows a variety of meanings because overall, the Little Seamstress was not educated, but from this story I could tell that she gained knowledge and was able to use what she was capable of doing and you would not expect to gain feedback from a woman who just had relationship with a man. Luo’s story is also very appealing but it shows only concerns for himself and is own feelings. Whereas the Chinese Seamstress was more appealing and showed improvement of her ability to think independently.

Economic Justification for High Salaries in Sport

Justification of the huge salaries paid to some top athletes; an economic perspective. Over the last century there has been much research into the area of Labour Economics, and hence the determinants of supply, demand and wages for labour. In this essay, I will be looking at the unique example of the Sports Labour Market with specific focus on the European Football Market, and use various economic models to justify the huge salaries currently offered to top athletes within this field.The wages of professional footballers have risen dramatically since the Bosman ruling in December 1995, in which EU football players were given the right to a  free transfer  at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they were transferring from a club within one EU Association to a club within another EU Association (European Commission, 2012).This has been supported by various studies, including (Simmons, 1997), who argued that the move towards a free agency had the consequent impact of increasing players’ salaries, as the forgone transfer fees translate into increased salaries, since the bargaining power is transferred to the player. This was reinforced by (Downward, 2000) who found that post-Bosman, the wages within the United Kingdom’s Premier League rose considerably.However, these findings conflict with other studies conducted, including (Szymanski, 1999), who argued that the new ruling only lead to increased wages for superstar players who have the greatest bargaining power, and that it did not affect the wages for the average player. During this essay I will first discuss the basic economic principles relating to the labour market, and subsequently introduce various models developed with specific focus on the sports labour market. Demand for labour is â€Å"derived demand† because it is dependent on the demand for the final product that the labour produces (R.Sandy, 2004). The conventional model used to analyse wage determinants states that the demand for labour is dependent on the Marginal Revenue Product of Labour (MRP) which is â€Å"the change in revenue that results from the addition of one extra unit (employee) when all other factors are kept equal† (Investopedia, 2012). In the field of sport, the industry is in a real sense selling its athletes, hence the demand for labour is dependent on the athletes â€Å"product† which could be viewed as his or her contribution towards the teams win column. The value of a win to the ports franchise is dependent on how the fans respond when the team wins more games. This value could be realised through the many revenue streams that sports franchises currently operate, perhaps most notably in the form of increased ticket sales, increased spending on merchandise and prize money. The â€Å"Standard Model† or â€Å"Perfect Competition Model† for wage determinants assumes that the sports franchise will operate at the profit maximising level of outpu t, i. e. when the last unit of labour that is added adds as much to the firms revenues as to its costs > MRPL = MCL as shown in Figure 1.Figure 1– PC Model Revenue and cost Marginal Wage Cost ARP MRP Employment of labour However, there are many limitations to this model, as the labour market for competitive athletes is far more complex. One basic argument against this model is that if in a perfectly competitive industry; firms earn abnormal profits, it assumes that more firms will enter the market and diminish these returns. Nonetheless, there are huge barriers to entry in the professional sports industry, and freedom of entry and exit does not exist.If we look at the Premier League for example, each club typically has a local monopoly, and due to the nature of the market, one firm may bid up the price of labour as it hires more units, hence in the sense it could be viewed as a monopsonistic market (R. Sandy, 2004). Furthermore, there is uncertainty over quality, as sports te ams have uncertainty over both the new players they hire and even experienced players and in the PC model the quality of labour is assumed to be known to the firm. Also due to long-term contracts it is impossible to predict how their skills will deteriorate or improve ver that period and if any injuries will occur. Furthermore, Players have to learn the weaknesses and strengths of their team-mates and to coordinate their strategies. A group of players who have been together for years will be much more effective than a group of equally talented individuals who have just been assembled into a team (R. Sandy, 2004). When establishing a suitable model to justify the enormous wages paid to some top athletes, we should first consider some basic economic principles. By definition, Star players are scarce hence the supply of these star players is highly inelastic.This in itself would inflate the wage of these players, as the supply of top talent is very limited. To add a unit of player qual ity the team has to pay a higher price than it paid for its last unit of quality (Robinsion, 2012). However, it has been suggested that the labour supply curve has become more elastic since the globalisation of the sports labour market. Sherwin Rosen’s seminal 1981 paper on the economics of superstars asked the question why â€Å"relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage. Rosen suggests that in superstar markets, â€Å"small differences in talent at the top of the distribution will translate into large differences in revenue† (Rosen, 1981). This suggests that the MRP of labour in sports, accelerates at an almost exponential rate as talent or quality increases, and profit-maximisers will operate where MRPL = MCL, hence leading to high salaries. Rosen simple insight was that â€Å"†¦ sellers of higher talent charge only slightly higher prices than those of lower talent, but sell much larg er quantities; their greater earnings come overwhelmingly from selling larger quantities than from charging higher prices†.This was tested empirically on the Italian League by Simmons & Lucifora in 2003 and the findings were consistent with Rosen’s hypothesis, and found that relatively small number of performers dominate their industry and earn a disproportionate share of revenue (Simmons C. L. , 2003). Furthermore, in a study conducted by (Depken, 2000), it was found that performance may be affected by the dispersion of pay within teams. Hefound, empirically, that less salary disparity resulted in greater team cohesiveness and more efficient team production.Another justification given for these huge salaries has been deemed the â€Å"Demonstration Effect†. This is a positiveexternality in the sense that a team which hires a superstar may raise the revenues of other teams in the league. This was found by Hausman and Leonard (1997) who established that the presenc e of a superstar such as Michael Jordan can have a substantial effect on the number of viewers watching NBA basketball games and increase other teams’ revenue as well as his own (Leonard, 1997). Perhaps one of the most important factors relating to salaries is the underlying motive of owners.There have been various views on whether owners actually employ a utility maximisation or profit maximisation strategy, and in the European Football industry, it could be argued that both forms exist. Gerald Scully investigated the theoretical relationship between a club’s winning percentage, ticket prices, attendance and profits. He stated that the marginal cost of acquiring player talent (T) is given by MC(T). Also, the demand for wins depends on thesize of the franchise market and the elasticity of fans demand for wins.In this model the term we represents a profit-maximising winning percentage where MC(T) = MR(T), the marginal revenue derived from a particular level of talent, w ith Te being the profit-maximising level of talent required to produce this outcome. This can be shown in Figure 2 Figure 2 – Scully’s Model Price / Cost Te MC(T) P C D(T) MR(T) Win percentage W2 We W1 However, playing success has a random component due to injuries, mistakes by the referee, or a mismatch between managerial skills and players.Thus, there is a range of win percentages associated with Te talent such as w1 – w2. In turn this range gives rise to variation in attendance between A1 and A2 in Figure 3. To show the relationship between profit and win percentage Scully uses Figure 4. He shows a horizontal line ? = 0 which describes the club’s break-even point. He also makes the assumption that costs other than talent are fixed. Since Scully assumes that revenue is proportional to the team’s winning percentage, as indicated by ? T) in Figure 3, but that costs are fixed for the season, teams will make positive profits for winning percentages a bove or close to the profit maximising level, we, as shown by ? 0 Attendance Profit Figure 3Figure 4 ?(T) = TR ? TC A ?3 A3 ?2 A2 ?0 ?1 A1 Win percentage 0 w3 w2 w1 Win Percentage 0 w3 w2 w1 On the other hand, there are some criticisms to this model. Firstly, considering European Football, clubs also compete in European competitions, therefore giving incentive to have T >Te. In addition, Scully’s model focuses on the proportion of games won.Fans may be more interested in their team contending for a championship. These are not the same; hence in an evenly balanced league a team with nearly 50% wins could be in contention while in a highly unbalanced league a team with 60% wins could be out of contention. The utility maximisation model was introduced by Peter Sloane in 1971, and he viewed that in the case of football this model was intuitively the most appealing in since we may regard football as a consumption activity (Sloane, 1971).In Sloane’s model the utility U of an owner is a function, u, of; playing success; defined as the percentage of wins, (w); average attendance which adds to the spectacle and atmosphere (a); the competitive balance of the league defined as the standard deviation of league-wide winning percentages (x); having attractive opponents increases the interest in games; and after tax profits minus the threshold level of profit required to stay in business (x); profits add to the stability of the club and help to attract star players.Thus Utility Maximisation is the function denoted by U = u (w, a, x, ? ), subject to ? r 0 + taxes; where ? r equals actual profits and ? 0 equals minimum profits. Both ? r and ? 0 may in fact be negative, in which case the taxes due would be zero. This is possible where the club has access to external sources of finance (f). In this model, the owner might weight each component of the function differently; hence if the owner puts a high weight on w then they will be prepared to trade off some rofit ( or make losses) in order to secure additional playing success. Sloane’s model is perhaps even more relevant today, as there has been a recent trend for billionaires to acquire football clubs and spend unprecedented amounts on talent, purely to maximise the amount of wins. Implications of this model could also be used to describe the financial instability of some clubs, and the unbalanced performance of many European Leagues. Figure 5 – Sloane ModelReturns and cost of winning L’’ D TC C TRL L’ S’’ B TRS S’ A 0 W’L W’s WL Ws Win Percentage This result is illustrated in Figure 5, which compares a big city club, L, with a small city club, S, competing in a two-team league. As with the Scully model, it is assumed that costs of producing wins rises linearly and are identical for both clubs. Returns to winning rise initially at an increasing rate, but then at a decreasing rate as interest wanes if a team wins too often.T he total returns to winning schedule for a large city team TRL lies above that for a small city team TRS as the larger population catchment area in the former case means that the large city team will attract more spectators for any given winning percentage. The financial instability arises from the zero sum nature of the wins within the league. If the large city team wins more often, denoted by L’, this means that the small city team will win less often, denoted by S’. Thus the success of one club will drive the other into the area of loss making (anywhere below TC).Due to the different regulations and restrictions, there is no one-size fits all model, but in the case of European Football, the most influential factor relating to players wages is the motives of the owner. Many high profile clubs in recent times have been criticised for spending endless sums of money to bring in the talent to enable them to win. Perhaps most notably, in the case of Chelsea, Roman Abromav ich total spending has surpassed â‚ ¬1bn [ (Jackson, 2012) ], and Chelsea has consistently reported losses with Abramovich’s sole mission of wanting to win the European Champions League.When looking at Sloane’s model, it could be viewed that in the case of utility maximisation, that Abramovich puts heavy weighting on the winning aspect of the function, with little or no emphasis on profits, and perhaps in this rare example, it could be viewed that he has no have a maximum loss. To overcome this growing trend, UEFA have implemented new rules regarding Financial Fair Play which includes an obligation for clubs, over a period of time, to balance their books or break even.Under the concept, clubs cannot repeatedly spend more than their generated revenues, and clubs will be obliged to meet all their transfer and employee payment commitments at all times† [ (UEFA, 2012) ]. This would be a new factor that needs to be introduced into economic models. Furthermore, it c ould be viewed that the traditional business model of Football clubs is changing, as in the case of David Beckham, the increased merchandise sales realised by Real Madrid and LA Galaxy has meant that they have been able to justify his huge salaries ased on the marginal revenue product that he generates. Some superstars can have huge impacts on franchises total revenue, as described in the superstar effect, and clubs are forced to pay all players huge salaries to prevent underperformance due to pay disparity. Bibliography Ross Jackson. (2012, 02 01). Goal. com. Retrieved from http://www. goal. com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2012/02/01/2879167/roman-abramovichs-chelsea-spending-surpasses-1-billion Depken, C. (2000). Wage disparity and team productivity: evidence from major. Economics Letters 67 . Downward, P. . (2000). The Economics of Professional Team Sports. London: Routledge. European Commission. (2012, 12 02). White Paper on Sport. Retrieved from The Organisation of Sport: ht tp://ec. europa. eu/sport/white-paper/swd-the-organisation-of-sport_en. htm#4_2 Investopedia. (2012, 12 02). Marginal Revenue Product. Retrieved from http://www. investopedia. com/terms/m/marginal-revenue-product-mrp. asp#axzz2Duw8EOwf Leonard, J. H. (1997). Superstars in the NBA. Journal of Labour Economics . R. Sandy, P. S. (2004). The Economics of Sport; An International Perspective.New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Robinsion, T. (2012). The Labour Market for Players Lecture. Manchester. Rosen, S. (1981). The Economics of Superstars. The American Economic Review . Simmons. (1997). Implications of the Bosman Ruling. Economic Affairs , 13-18. Simmons, C. L. (2003). Superstar Effects in Sport : Evidence From Italian Soccer. Journal of Sports Economics . Sloane, P. J. (1971). The Economics of Professional Football: The Football Club As A Utility Maximiser. Scottish Journal of Political Economy . Szymanski, K. &. (1999). Winners and Losers. London: Penguin. Economic Justification for High Salaries in Sport Justification of the huge salaries paid to some top athletes; an economic perspective. Over the last century there has been much research into the area of Labour Economics, and hence the determinants of supply, demand and wages for labour. In this essay, I will be looking at the unique example of the Sports Labour Market with specific focus on the European Football Market, and use various economic models to justify the huge salaries currently offered to top athletes within this field.The wages of professional footballers have risen dramatically since the Bosman ruling in December 1995, in which EU football players were given the right to a  free transfer  at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they were transferring from a club within one EU Association to a club within another EU Association (European Commission, 2012).This has been supported by various studies, including (Simmons, 1997), who argued that the move towards a free agency had the consequent impact of increasing players’ salaries, as the forgone transfer fees translate into increased salaries, since the bargaining power is transferred to the player. This was reinforced by (Downward, 2000) who found that post-Bosman, the wages within the United Kingdom’s Premier League rose considerably.However, these findings conflict with other studies conducted, including (Szymanski, 1999), who argued that the new ruling only lead to increased wages for superstar players who have the greatest bargaining power, and that it did not affect the wages for the average player. During this essay I will first discuss the basic economic principles relating to the labour market, and subsequently introduce various models developed with specific focus on the sports labour market. Demand for labour is â€Å"derived demand† because it is dependent on the demand for the final product that the labour produces (R.Sandy, 2004). The conventional model used to analyse wage determinants states that the demand for labour is dependent on the Marginal Revenue Product of Labour (MRP) which is â€Å"the change in revenue that results from the addition of one extra unit (employee) when all other factors are kept equal† (Investopedia, 2012). In the field of sport, the industry is in a real sense selling its athletes, hence the demand for labour is dependent on the athletes â€Å"product† which could be viewed as his or her contribution towards the teams win column. The value of a win to the ports franchise is dependent on how the fans respond when the team wins more games. This value could be realised through the many revenue streams that sports franchises currently operate, perhaps most notably in the form of increased ticket sales, increased spending on merchandise and prize money. The â€Å"Standard Model† or â€Å"Perfect Competition Model† for wage determinants assumes that the sports franchise will operate at the profit maximising level of outpu t, i. e. when the last unit of labour that is added adds as much to the firms revenues as to its costs > MRPL = MCL as shown in Figure 1.Figure 1– PC Model Revenue and cost Marginal Wage Cost ARP MRP Employment of labour However, there are many limitations to this model, as the labour market for competitive athletes is far more complex. One basic argument against this model is that if in a perfectly competitive industry; firms earn abnormal profits, it assumes that more firms will enter the market and diminish these returns. Nonetheless, there are huge barriers to entry in the professional sports industry, and freedom of entry and exit does not exist.If we look at the Premier League for example, each club typically has a local monopoly, and due to the nature of the market, one firm may bid up the price of labour as it hires more units, hence in the sense it could be viewed as a monopsonistic market (R. Sandy, 2004). Furthermore, there is uncertainty over quality, as sports te ams have uncertainty over both the new players they hire and even experienced players and in the PC model the quality of labour is assumed to be known to the firm. Also due to long-term contracts it is impossible to predict how their skills will deteriorate or improve ver that period and if any injuries will occur. Furthermore, Players have to learn the weaknesses and strengths of their team-mates and to coordinate their strategies. A group of players who have been together for years will be much more effective than a group of equally talented individuals who have just been assembled into a team (R. Sandy, 2004). When establishing a suitable model to justify the enormous wages paid to some top athletes, we should first consider some basic economic principles. By definition, Star players are scarce hence the supply of these star players is highly inelastic.This in itself would inflate the wage of these players, as the supply of top talent is very limited. To add a unit of player qual ity the team has to pay a higher price than it paid for its last unit of quality (Robinsion, 2012). However, it has been suggested that the labour supply curve has become more elastic since the globalisation of the sports labour market. Sherwin Rosen’s seminal 1981 paper on the economics of superstars asked the question why â€Å"relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage. Rosen suggests that in superstar markets, â€Å"small differences in talent at the top of the distribution will translate into large differences in revenue† (Rosen, 1981). This suggests that the MRP of labour in sports, accelerates at an almost exponential rate as talent or quality increases, and profit-maximisers will operate where MRPL = MCL, hence leading to high salaries. Rosen simple insight was that â€Å"†¦ sellers of higher talent charge only slightly higher prices than those of lower talent, but sell much larg er quantities; their greater earnings come overwhelmingly from selling larger quantities than from charging higher prices†.This was tested empirically on the Italian League by Simmons & Lucifora in 2003 and the findings were consistent with Rosen’s hypothesis, and found that relatively small number of performers dominate their industry and earn a disproportionate share of revenue (Simmons C. L. , 2003). Furthermore, in a study conducted by (Depken, 2000), it was found that performance may be affected by the dispersion of pay within teams. Hefound, empirically, that less salary disparity resulted in greater team cohesiveness and more efficient team production.Another justification given for these huge salaries has been deemed the â€Å"Demonstration Effect†. This is a positiveexternality in the sense that a team which hires a superstar may raise the revenues of other teams in the league. This was found by Hausman and Leonard (1997) who established that the presenc e of a superstar such as Michael Jordan can have a substantial effect on the number of viewers watching NBA basketball games and increase other teams’ revenue as well as his own (Leonard, 1997). Perhaps one of the most important factors relating to salaries is the underlying motive of owners.There have been various views on whether owners actually employ a utility maximisation or profit maximisation strategy, and in the European Football industry, it could be argued that both forms exist. Gerald Scully investigated the theoretical relationship between a club’s winning percentage, ticket prices, attendance and profits. He stated that the marginal cost of acquiring player talent (T) is given by MC(T). Also, the demand for wins depends on thesize of the franchise market and the elasticity of fans demand for wins.In this model the term we represents a profit-maximising winning percentage where MC(T) = MR(T), the marginal revenue derived from a particular level of talent, w ith Te being the profit-maximising level of talent required to produce this outcome. This can be shown in Figure 2 Figure 2 – Scully’s Model Price / Cost Te MC(T) P C D(T) MR(T) Win percentage W2 We W1 However, playing success has a random component due to injuries, mistakes by the referee, or a mismatch between managerial skills and players.Thus, there is a range of win percentages associated with Te talent such as w1 – w2. In turn this range gives rise to variation in attendance between A1 and A2 in Figure 3. To show the relationship between profit and win percentage Scully uses Figure 4. He shows a horizontal line ? = 0 which describes the club’s break-even point. He also makes the assumption that costs other than talent are fixed. Since Scully assumes that revenue is proportional to the team’s winning percentage, as indicated by ? T) in Figure 3, but that costs are fixed for the season, teams will make positive profits for winning percentages a bove or close to the profit maximising level, we, as shown by ? 0 Attendance Profit Figure 3Figure 4 ?(T) = TR ? TC A ?3 A3 ?2 A2 ?0 ?1 A1 Win percentage 0 w3 w2 w1 Win Percentage 0 w3 w2 w1 On the other hand, there are some criticisms to this model. Firstly, considering European Football, clubs also compete in European competitions, therefore giving incentive to have T >Te. In addition, Scully’s model focuses on the proportion of games won.Fans may be more interested in their team contending for a championship. These are not the same; hence in an evenly balanced league a team with nearly 50% wins could be in contention while in a highly unbalanced league a team with 60% wins could be out of contention. The utility maximisation model was introduced by Peter Sloane in 1971, and he viewed that in the case of football this model was intuitively the most appealing in since we may regard football as a consumption activity (Sloane, 1971).In Sloane’s model the utility U of an owner is a function, u, of; playing success; defined as the percentage of wins, (w); average attendance which adds to the spectacle and atmosphere (a); the competitive balance of the league defined as the standard deviation of league-wide winning percentages (x); having attractive opponents increases the interest in games; and after tax profits minus the threshold level of profit required to stay in business (x); profits add to the stability of the club and help to attract star players.Thus Utility Maximisation is the function denoted by U = u (w, a, x, ? ), subject to ? r 0 + taxes; where ? r equals actual profits and ? 0 equals minimum profits. Both ? r and ? 0 may in fact be negative, in which case the taxes due would be zero. This is possible where the club has access to external sources of finance (f). In this model, the owner might weight each component of the function differently; hence if the owner puts a high weight on w then they will be prepared to trade off some rofit ( or make losses) in order to secure additional playing success. Sloane’s model is perhaps even more relevant today, as there has been a recent trend for billionaires to acquire football clubs and spend unprecedented amounts on talent, purely to maximise the amount of wins. Implications of this model could also be used to describe the financial instability of some clubs, and the unbalanced performance of many European Leagues. Figure 5 – Sloane ModelReturns and cost of winning L’’ D TC C TRL L’ S’’ B TRS S’ A 0 W’L W’s WL Ws Win Percentage This result is illustrated in Figure 5, which compares a big city club, L, with a small city club, S, competing in a two-team league. As with the Scully model, it is assumed that costs of producing wins rises linearly and are identical for both clubs. Returns to winning rise initially at an increasing rate, but then at a decreasing rate as interest wanes if a team wins too often.T he total returns to winning schedule for a large city team TRL lies above that for a small city team TRS as the larger population catchment area in the former case means that the large city team will attract more spectators for any given winning percentage. The financial instability arises from the zero sum nature of the wins within the league. If the large city team wins more often, denoted by L’, this means that the small city team will win less often, denoted by S’. Thus the success of one club will drive the other into the area of loss making (anywhere below TC).Due to the different regulations and restrictions, there is no one-size fits all model, but in the case of European Football, the most influential factor relating to players wages is the motives of the owner. Many high profile clubs in recent times have been criticised for spending endless sums of money to bring in the talent to enable them to win. Perhaps most notably, in the case of Chelsea, Roman Abromav ich total spending has surpassed â‚ ¬1bn [ (Jackson, 2012) ], and Chelsea has consistently reported losses with Abramovich’s sole mission of wanting to win the European Champions League.When looking at Sloane’s model, it could be viewed that in the case of utility maximisation, that Abramovich puts heavy weighting on the winning aspect of the function, with little or no emphasis on profits, and perhaps in this rare example, it could be viewed that he has no have a maximum loss. To overcome this growing trend, UEFA have implemented new rules regarding Financial Fair Play which includes an obligation for clubs, over a period of time, to balance their books or break even.Under the concept, clubs cannot repeatedly spend more than their generated revenues, and clubs will be obliged to meet all their transfer and employee payment commitments at all times† [ (UEFA, 2012) ]. This would be a new factor that needs to be introduced into economic models. Furthermore, it c ould be viewed that the traditional business model of Football clubs is changing, as in the case of David Beckham, the increased merchandise sales realised by Real Madrid and LA Galaxy has meant that they have been able to justify his huge salaries ased on the marginal revenue product that he generates. Some superstars can have huge impacts on franchises total revenue, as described in the superstar effect, and clubs are forced to pay all players huge salaries to prevent underperformance due to pay disparity. Bibliography Ross Jackson. (2012, 02 01). Goal. com. Retrieved from http://www. goal. com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2012/02/01/2879167/roman-abramovichs-chelsea-spending-surpasses-1-billion Depken, C. (2000). Wage disparity and team productivity: evidence from major. Economics Letters 67 . Downward, P. . (2000). The Economics of Professional Team Sports. London: Routledge. European Commission. (2012, 12 02). White Paper on Sport. Retrieved from The Organisation of Sport: ht tp://ec. europa. eu/sport/white-paper/swd-the-organisation-of-sport_en. htm#4_2 Investopedia. (2012, 12 02). Marginal Revenue Product. Retrieved from http://www. investopedia. com/terms/m/marginal-revenue-product-mrp. asp#axzz2Duw8EOwf Leonard, J. H. (1997). Superstars in the NBA. 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