Effect of Unethical Behavior Article Analysis Essay Example for Free

Effect of Unethical Behavior Article Analysis Essay The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in congress in 2002 is designed to protect investors from the potential of fraudulent corporate accounting activities. This act strictly mandates reform, aimed directly to prevent fraud and improve corporate financial disclosures (INVESTOPEDIA, 2012). As a result of several confidence shaking investor accounting scandals that occurred during the late 90s which involved high profile corporations such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, a much required overhaul regarding financial statements and regulatory standards laid the foundation for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This act is making the accounting world more accessible to others for auditors to come in and help in checking the books. It will hold the executives and directors accountable for the internal controls of the company especially with the threat of imprisonment if the internal controls are not maintained. The act ensures that a â€Å"checks and balance† internal auditing of the accounting cycle for the company and investors to keep their assets in check. The role of internal audits is to ensure that Institute of Internal Auditor’s Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing Standard 300 Scope of Work be followed. The scope of the internal audit should encompass the examination and evaluation of the adequacy and effectiveness of the organizations system of internal control and the quality of performance in carrying out assigned responsibilities (M. Wood Company, 2012). The internal audit standards are to review the dependability and integrity of financial and operating information and the resource being used to identify measure and classify those reports. The standard requires the system be reviewed to ensure compliance with those policies, plans, procedure, laws and regulations which may have a huge impact on operations and reporting. The standard is used to review the methods in place to safeguarding assets and verify that the assets protected exist. The final purpose of the standard is to appraise the economy and the efficiency with the means that are employed by a corporation. It is important to note that policies and rules are also enforced to uphold the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Sections 302, 401, 404 and 805 in particular address key requirements as it pertains to effecting financial statements. Section 302 requires senior managers to certify the accuracy of the reports along with establishing internal controls are set in place for the purpose of increasing report accuracy, ensuring honesty and ultimately providing financial protection for the investors. Section 401 ensures that statements may not contain fraudulent information. Section 404 provides for the necessary rules for annual reporting as well as addresses management auditing structures. Lastly, section 805 provides the guidelines for federal sentencing relating to criminal fraud and obstruction of justice. (Hazels, Nov/Dec) A very important question that should be asked is how well main stream America understands the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and how it has effected them? Another pressing area to uncover is how it has affected the US economy over the past ten years? Lastly, it would be interesting to understand how US companies interface globally with countries not held to the same standards. References Hazels, B. (Nov/Dec 2010). Eight Years After The Fact Is SOX Working? A Look At The Brooke Corporation. Journal of Business Case Studies, 6(6.6), 19-29. Invesotopedia. (2012). Sarbanes-Oxley Act Of 2002 SOX. Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sarbanesoxleyact.asp#axzz2BCoqABsQ M. Wood Company. (2012, November 1). The role of Internal Audit in Complying with Sarbanes- Oxley. Retrieved from http://www.mwoodco.com/value/Internal_Audit_7-03.pdf

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal Essay Example for Free

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal Essay Franklin Delano Roosevelt is indisputably the greatest President of the United States of America in the 20th century. Ascending to the highest office despite his crippling poliomyelitis condition, he epitomized transformation never before seen in American soil (Cashman 1989). Identifying himself with the multitudes forgotten at the base of the base of the economic pyramid, he inspired and led the New Deal; a complex and comprehensive legislation program designed to raise all Americans from the Great Depression and serve as a remedy to the inequalities inherent in the American social structure. Under the same deal, the United States military and domestic strategies were directed to the World War II, the victories thereof brought the United States to the pinnacle of global economic and unchallenged military superiority. The United States, his country over which he presided, in unmatched adoration elected him four times: a feat unmatched in the history of the American presidency. For the twelve years in White House, he was the personification of the response of all Americans to the Great Depression. As the World War II drew on he never failed the American populace. For the twelve years, unparalleled crisis tormented the United States and not a single citizen was spared. Never, in the history of the Presidency had a president identified with each and every citizen, bearing even greater responsibility as he pushed his metal capacities to the limit to save Americans from the bites of the Great Depression. Sitting on a wheel chair in the Oval office he witnessed and participated in greater changes not only in his country but the world over. His administration remains a major watershed in the history of the United States. In 1933 when he took the oath of office, America was no more than a land of small town values with small government and completely isolated from global affairs. This was the America he was handed at the inauguration; an America still presided over by the Protestant and the Anglo-Saxon elites, an America of economic laissez-faire, of Prohibition, and a country of the Model T Ford (Heale 1999). Twelve years later, a different America had emerged. An America characterized by pervasive government bureaucracy, metropolitan values, assertive ethnic minorities, a nuclear power and an America whose political power was centred in Washington. More than any other president before him he directed the fundamental transformation of America’s political society. His influence was so powerful that subsequent occupants of the White House had to operate in his shadow. When FDR assumed office, the economic situation was so devastating that the country was almost on its knees. The gross national product plummeted from $103.1 billion to $ 58 billion (in current dollars) between 1929 and 1932. In the same period the level of industrial production had almost halved. The unemployment rate was at 25%, thousands of farmers and businesses went bankrupt, and millions and millions of investors lost life savings. The New Deal brought into life by FDR could not have been more welcome. The Deal broke novel federal regulatory ground. For the fast time in the political and economic history of the United States, the federal government assumed the responsibility of stimulating investments. The federal government strove to correct the abuses in the national economic machinery. By amassing far more reaching goals, the government became responsible for the relief of distress among workers, homeowners, businesses, farmers, consumers and investors (Steiner 2005). Urgent action had to be taken. The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 marked the terminus of the roaring twenties corporate regime paving the way for the New Deal regime, a regime that would reshape the balance of power in Washington and the way of life of American for almost half of the 20th century. The hope that he brought to the nation was so palpable. With the New Deal FDR â€Å"made his greatest single contribution to the politics of the 1930s: the instillation of hope and courage in the people† (Derber 2004, 60). Just a day after the inauguration, the president summoned an extraordinary session of Congress and with the first sitting fresh energies was directed towards the challenge of the time: the Great Depression. The term â€Å"Hundred Days† became descriptive of the special sessions of the 73rd Congress that launched the New Deal to fight the Great Depression. Between March 9 1933 and June 16, 1933, more major legislations were passed by Congress than at any other time in the history of the United States. The major legislations passed during these one hundred days include; the Emergency Banking Act, the Civilian Conservation Act, the Economy Act, the Reforestation Relief Act, the Economy Act, the Federal Emergency Relief Act, the Securities Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Home Owners’ Refinancing Act, the National Employment System Act, the Banking Act, the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act, the Farm Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act. The one hundred days as the most dramatic duration in the United States’ public policy history (Olson 2001). In the early months of 1933, the Great Depression continued biting along its relentless path. Unemployment mounted, industrial production foundered, mortgage foreclosures became commonplace and the banking sector failed and not even the state authorities could afford to meet their relief obligations (Cashman 1989). Coupled to this inaction, the country had to wait for four months before any positive executive action could come into play. From the presidential date of November 8 to the inauguration date on March 4, this quadrennial problem in American politics persisted and its ramifications with regard to the Great Depression were not friendly either. To remedy the situation, the Twentieth Amendment did away with the Congress meeting on January 3 and brought forward the presidential inauguration to January 20 from March 4. However, the ratification of this Amendment did not take place until February 1933. To try and heal the stultifying loss of confidence occasioned by the four months of unnecessary wait, Herbert Hoover attempted a smooth transition by pursuing dialogue with FDR, trying to extract assurances that FDR would comply with his positions on taxes and tariffs, the budget and the currency even if such a move was only focussed on maintaining public confidence but FDR would not promise commitment (Cashman 1989). In February 1933, a series of bank failures led to the complete collapse Herbert Hoover’s intended dialogue. Historically, the weakness of the American banking system had led to so many bank failures, but in 1932-1933, the condition was reminiscent of an acute crisis. In October 1932, the crisis deepened further. In anticipation of the collapse of a crucial banking chain in Nevada, the governor ordered a bank holiday. On the midnight of February 14 1932, William A. Comstock, the Governor of Michigan issued a proclamation leading to the closure of five hundred and fifty banks for eight days. The Michigan bank holiday precipitated the panic that spread to other states and subsequent declarations of bank holidays (Cashman 1989). As banks closed for holidays, the gold reserves flowed from the Federal Reserve System and the New Yolk banks to keep banks across the country afloat and to satisfy the demands of the panic stricken foreign investors. In slightly more than two months, Americas gold reserves had fallen from more that $ 1.3 billion to just $ 400 million. By 1933, 18,569 banks had a total deposit of about $ 6 billion in cash against the demand of $ 41 billion by depositors. Two days before the inauguration of FDR, $ 500 was withdrawn from banks across the country making the situation worse (Cashman 1989). It is therefore no surprising that all Americans were united in the demand of a decisive executive action even if such an imperative could only be met by a modified dictatorship.

Evaluating Agency Theorys Strengths and Weaknesses

Evaluating Agency Theorys Strengths and Weaknesses Agency theory refers to contract whereby principal engage with agent to perform some act on their behalf. The act involved giving power to agent for some decision making. Everyone work on the feet of benefit that can be gained for oneself. Thats why it is strongly agreeable that agent, as a utility maximizer will not act at the best interest of principal. Therefore, agents may cheat if they were not monitored by principal and principal, on the other hand, must bear agency cost to avoid suffering loss. These agency costs includes monitoring costs of agent, bonding costs whereby agent will try to show that they are not self-serving, and residual losses that are too costly to monitor. In general, agency cost is one of a type of internal cost incurred from, or must be paid to, an agent acting on behalf of a principal. Agency costs mainly originated from the separation of control, divergence of ownership and control and the different objectives (rather than shareholder maximization) of the managers. For example, difference of interest between shareholders and management. Shareholders hope that management could operate the company in a manner that increases shareholder value. But management may wish to run the company in ways that can maximize their personal authority  and well-being  that may not be in favor of the shareholders. From the paper, Jensen and Mecklings (1976), they used zero agency-cost firms whereby the manager is the firm sole shareholder as a reference point of comparison for all other cases of ownership and management structures. At one utmost of ownership and management structures are firms whose managers possess 100 percent of the firm. These firms, by their definition, have no agency costs. At the other utmost are firms whose managers are employees with no equity in the firm. In between are firms where the managers possess some, but not all, of their firms equity. They stated that agency costs are higher among firms that are not 100 percent owned by their managers and these costs increase as the equity share of the owner-manager declines. In other words, agency costs increases with a reduction in managerial ownership. In situation (where the managers own some, but not all, of their firms equity) whereby monitoring cost were included by equity holder to alter the opportunity the owner-manager has for possessing non-monetary benefits can decrease the owner-managers consumption of perquisites. Examples of monitoring cost include auditing and budget restrictions. However, owner-managers will still willingly enter into the contract as it will increase the firms value. The particular increase in the value of the firm that accrues will be reflected in the owners wealth, but his welfare will be increased by less than this because he forgoes some non-monetary benefits he previously enjoyed. In situation (where the managers own some, but not all, of their firms equity) whereby owner-manager expands resources to guarantee to equity holder that he would limit his activities, bonding cost incurred. Examples of bonding cost include contractual limitation on managers decision making power and auditing of financial account by public accountant. If the bonding costs were all under owner-managers control, he will gain the benefit as such of monitoring costs gives. In a nutshell, the manager finds it in his interest to incur these costs as long as the net increments in his wealth which they generate (by reducing the agency costs and therefore increasing the value of the firm) are more valuable than the perquisites given up. Although by incurring the monitoring and bonding cost increases the efficiency of firm, it does not maximize the firms value. This is because, the cost of separation of ownership and control occurred as a result of differences between efficient solution of zero monitoring and bonding cost and value of firm when there is positive monitoring cost. And Jensen and Mecklings (1976) showed that agency cost will be positive as long as monitoring costs are positive. Size and existence of agency cost depends greatly on the nature of monitoring costs, the needs of managers for non-monetary benefits and supply of potential managers who are able to finance the firm with personal wealth. Agency cost of debt indicates that there will be a rise in cost of debt when there is difference in the point of views of bondholders and management. There are a few fractions of agency costs of debts. The first one is the incentive effects related with debts. An owner-manager will intend to involve in investments with high risk and high profits with the financial structure of debt-typed claims because the loss will bear by debt-holder. For example where there are two investment options, A and B. The option B will help owner-manager to gain more equity, while the option A will give back more profit to bondholder. The choice of investment will only been done after the bonds are sold. Bondholders buy bonds from the company and suppose the company to invest in option A. However, due to the incentive effect, the manager did not invest as they expected but invest in option B which will help them gain more in equity. This will cause welfare loss to the bondholders. However, this decision c ould be realized by bondholders. If the bondholders knew the choice of the manager, they will only willing to buy the bonds at a lower price. Due to this action, the overall firm value may decrease. This reduction of firm value will be the residual loss which is also known as agency cost. This amount of agency cost is liable to owner-manager. Monitoring and bonding costs are another fraction of agency costs. In order to preserve the benefits of their own, bondholder will restrict the managements decisions. They will set contracts in details to monitor the owner-managers behavior. The contracts may influence the capacity of the management to make the best decision and decrease the profit of the firm. The decrease of the profit, the cost of enforcing the contracts and all the other costs related with the contracts are the monitoring costs. As the monitoring costs are borne by owner-manager, he will hope to minimize the monitoring cost, and therefore he will incur bonding costs. The bonding costs are incurred to give assurance to the bondholder that he will not turn aside from his promised behavior. He will only voluntarily bond himself in contract when such deed benefits him. Bankruptcy and reorganization costs are also one of the components of the agency costs of debts. Bankruptcy occurs when the firm unable to pay debt obligation. The cost of bankruptcy is always the interest of the potential buyers of fixed claims. This is because this cost will decrease their payoffs if the bankruptcy happens. If the probability of the bankruptcy cost is high, the willingness of the price buyer to pay for fixed claims will be low. The value lost because of the cost of bankruptcy will be the agency costs. The probability of bankruptcy will negatively affect the operating costs and the incomes of the firm. A firm may need to pay higher salaries in order to keep engaged the employees in the firm when the probability of the firm gone high. Besides, the firms that provide after sales services will also face decrease of sales volume. There are some factors that encourage the firms to use corporate debts although the factors discussed above will discourage them. Tax subsidy on interest payments is one of the factors. There are some theories verified that the use of risky debt will increase the value of the firm because of the tax subsidy on the interest payments. The firm will enjoy the benefits if in the end the benefit of tax subsidy covered the agency costs that incurred from debt. Furthermore, the firm will also be motivated to use corporate debt when there is a profitable investment while the firm has insufficient fund to invest. The firm will incur them provided that the profits generated from investment are greater than the marginal agency costs of debts. There is some critical variables to be concerned besides the amount of debt and equity for a given size firm, such as inside equity (Si) held by the manager, ouside equity (So) and debt (B) held by anyone ouside of the firm. Therefore, the term of ownership structure is applied rather than capital structure. Besides that, we have to identify that the cost to be inccured is related to the use of debt or outside equity in a firm. A firm which is facing capital limitation can finance the full capital value of its present and future projects if there are other individuals in the economy who have large enough amount of personal capital to finance the firm. Besides that, a firm can prevent property lossess related to the agency costs due to the sale of debt or outside equity. If not, the firm needs to acquire the excess capital in the debt market with the absence of such individuals. As a result, the owner-manager is the individual who bears the agency costs since the project is unprofitable enough to cover existing costs included agency costs. So, it is important for owner-manager who bears these costs to reduce the agency costs in order to increase his property. If the capital markets, such as the value of assets where the debt and outside equity is eficient enough to indicate the agency costs estimation with unbiased, these agency costs will bear by the selling owner-manager. So, the task of owner-manager who will take the risk to bear the cost of agency is to determine the perfect ratio of ouside equity to debt, So/B. Therefore, from the owner-managers point of view, the optimal ratio of outside funds to be acquire from equity to debt for a given level of internal equity is that E which results in minimum total agency costs, E*= So* /(B â‚ ¬Ã‚ «Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  So ) The total market value of the equity is S = Si+So, The total market value of the firm is V = S+B. 0 E*= (So/ B + So) At(E= ASo(E) + AB(E) AB(E) ASo(E) At(E*) Figure 1 We assume that the size of the firm is remain constant and the actual value of the firm V, will rely on the agency costs incurred. Figure 1 indicate the agency costs is divided into two separate components, ASo(E) represents the total agency costs of outside equity holders by the owner-manager and AB(E) represents the total agency costs of debt incurred in the ownership structure. A Ã‚ ´(E) = ASo(E) + AB(E) is the total agency cost. The optimal proportion of outside financing shown as E* where total agency costs is minimum, AT(E*). When E ºÃ¢â€š ¬Ã‚  So/(B+So) is zero, there is no outside equity, the managers intention to use the outside equity is zero. As E increases, his incentives to exploit the outside equity is increase and hence the agency costs ASo(E) increase. When the outside equity So = E = 0, there are a maximum of outside funds are acquire from debt. As the amount of debt decreases to zero, these costs, AB(E) decrease because his intention to rearrange wealth from the bondholders to himself falls. It is because the total amount of debt reduce, and therefore it is more easier to rearrange any amount given to the debtholders. Besides that, his reallocation shares which is accomplished is falling since So is rising and therefore inside equity, Si/(So+Si), his share of the total equity is falling. At(E* Ko) E*(Ko) At(E* K1) E*(K1) AB(E K0) ASo(E K0) AB(E K1) AS0(E K1) K1) High outside financing Low outside financing Figure 2. Agency cost functions and optimal ouside equity as a fraction of total outside financing, E*(K), for two different levels of outside financing. In order to identify the consequences of rising the amount of outside financing, and therefore decrease the amount of equity held by the manager,Si, the value of the firm, V* remain constant. The net consequence of the greater used of outside financing given the cost functions in figure 2 is to increase the total agency costs from A Ã‚ ´(E*;Ko) to A Ã‚ ´(E*;K1), and to increase the optimal portion of outside funds acquired from the sale of outside equity. Therefore, the larger the firm may incurred higher total agency costs due to the monitoring function is internally more difficult and expensive in a larger organization. At(K V*1) At(k V*o) At(E K V*) Total agency costs 0 Fraction of firm financed by outside claims KFig. 3. Total agency costs as a function of the fraction of the firm financed by outside claims for two firm sizes, V*1>V*o. Of course, there are certain risks when the owner-manager demanded for outside financing. If the owner-manager is alway relies on outside funding, he will have his entire treasure invested in the firm. Therefore, he would not optional to outside funding until he had invested 100 percent of his personal wealth in the firm. Since, the manager who invests all of his wealth in a firm, he will bear a welfare loss. However, he can prevent the agency costs when he increasing relies on outside funding by taking certain actions. If the returns from assets are not totally correlated with the project, an individual can decrease the riskiness of the returns on his part by dividing his treasure into different assets by diversifying. Of course, he will be contributed to become a minority stockholder in order to avoid this risk by suffer a wealth loss as he reduces his proportion ownership because prospective shareholders and bondholders will take into account the agency costs. The analysis of this paper is only related with a single investment-financing decision and has excluded the issues of incentives which influencing future financing-investment decisions. However, some changes have been made to conclude that the costs and benefits will be changed by the expectation of future sales of outside equity and debt which may benefit to the manager himself. If he brings out a high probability of chance for dealing business, he probably can gain a big amount of future capital from outside sources and it will help to increase the business benefit and reduce the size of the agency costs. But, finite life of individual cannot eliminate the agency cost because it needs to consider more on his successors who think of own benefit and interest. Normally, they assumed that all outside equity are no right to vote. The manager will suffer the decreasing of his partial ownership in the long-run welfare and limit his action to control over the corporation and even fire the manager if they have right to vote. Besides, if the costs of decreasing the dispersion of ownership are lesser than the benefits to be acquired from decreasing the agency costs, it will pay some individual to purchase the shares in the market to decrease the dispersion of ownership. Moreover, they proposed an alternative way for the owner-manager who carried both equity and debt outstanding to get rid of the agency costs of debt. It will be no incentive if he is bound contractually to have a portion of the total debt equal to his partial ownership of the total equity. If the manager is getting balance between the debt and equity holders, the net effect will be zero. But, the limitation is they have not conduct to the large corporation and just perform in the small company which cause them couldnt have a clear picture on formal contract of reducing agency cost. Theory of Monitoring is a major part of the analysis which they expected monitoring activities help to develop particular characteristics to those institutions and individuals will be given a lot of advantages through these activities. The analysis demonstrates that the degree of security analysis activities will lower the agency costs related with the division of ownership and control, and they are socially productive absolutely. Furthermore, they supported that there are a lot of advantages of the security analysis activity to be played in the bigger capital value of the ownership claims to firms which is not in the day to day portfolio returns if this analysis is correct. If the firm can make the private returns to analysis same with the private costs of such activity, the security analysis will be balanced. However, the analysis will not reveal the social product of this activity which will include high level output and capital value of ownership claims. Therefore, the argument s uggests that, it will be overwhelming when the shareholders pay straightforwardly to have the perfect monitoring conducted if there is imperfect of security analysis being conducted. The problems discovered in the study included Pareto inefficient which is the obtainable set of financial claims on outcomes in a market fails to extent the fundamental step. An inadequacy conclusion is generally come out without clear attention to the costs of discovering latest claims or costs of maintaining the expanded set of markets which refer to the welfare improvement. But, the problem is the difficulty of formulation a positive analysis of the maximum level of individual behaviors in the economy that may influence them to generate and sell contingent claims. So, self-interested maximizing behavior of individuals becomes the first step in the way of implementing a study of the supply of markets issue. They suppose that planning the question of the perfect markets in terms of the combine both the demand and supply conditions will be very productive instead of implicitly assuming that latest claims from independent human effort.

XML Application for Business Processes :: essays research papers

XML | Applications for Business Process Analysis & Design Introduced in 1996, Extensible Markup Language (XML) was initially intended to function in the place of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) as the standard format used to define online document structure (Obasanjo, 2003). These intentions are proving inevitable as business organizations begin to realize the real potential found in the family of XML technologies. Potential in terms of improvement in information management practices measured by a company’s reduction in time and overhead. One such organization that has actually realized these benefits in several facets of their operations is Freightliner, a division of Daimler Chrysler who designs, manufactures, and sells specialized commercial vehicles and will be detailed later (Kotok, 2003). XML has proven to be more than simply an advanced version of HTML. It is helping to create a common language for intra and inter-organizational business processes (Obasanjo, 2003). Several aspects unique to XML set it apart from its parent Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and sibling HTML. These are the same aspects spurring a community of software developers, enterprise leaders, and standards commissions to focus on this budding technology as the lingua franca of document exchange (Geyer, 2003). The meta-language not only defines webpage format but also is actually able to provide descriptions of tabular, structured, and semi-structured data. Network protocols, relational databases, program configuration files, web pages, technical drawings and business documents are all examples of these common data forms found in everyday business operations (Obasanjo, 2003). Like HTML, XML incorporates tags that bracket words and attributes. XML, however, uses these tags to define the data leaving the task of interpretation up to the application employing the data. This undefined vocabulary feature allows extensibility in that industry specific terminology is no longer a programming hurdle as in the past (Bos, 1999). XML applications can easily be tailored to plug in and bridge the communication between once stand-alone software. Resource intensive new software investments can be avoided by making use of existing databases and familiar programs. XML can be used with a large assortment of other languages and is not specific to any one operating system or vendor. It is text based and Unicode compliant and can be translated into the many commonly used written languages (Walsh, 2003). This allows for more businesses that run a variety of platforms and operate internationally to take advantage of this technology. Along with XML comes a family of helpful resources designed to automate frequently used tasks and offers services to make writing the language efficient and user friendly.

The Great Gatsby: Gatsbys Illusion Of Himself Essay -- essays research

The Great Gatsby: Gatsby's Illusion of Himself F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is considered a novel that embodies America in the 1920s. In it, the narrator, Nick Carroway, helps his neighbor Jay Gatsby reunite with Daisy Buchanan, with whom he has been in love with since 5 years before, during World War I. The affair between the two fails, however, and ends in Gatsby being shot and killed. The reason that this was inevitable is that Gatsby created a fantasy so thoroughly that he became part of it, and he fell with it when reality came crashing down. The basis of all of this is Gatsby's obsession with Daisy and with meeting her. He did not want to deal with the reality that confronted him upon returning from the war. Fortunately, he had "an extraordinary gift, a romantic readiness," and he found in Daisy someone to focus this on. She is perfection to him, something for which he can strive, so he puts all of his energy into finding her again. He uses his inherited money to travel around the country, searching; when he runs out, he goes into the drug business, then oil, then liquor. He clips out articles about Daisy from every newspaper he can find; he buys a huge, romantic house that he hopes will merit her approval. The parties that he throws every night in hopes that she will come become almost famous for their extravagance and the variety of people that come. A resu...

Biofuel and Aquaculture Essay -- Biodiesel, Natural Resources, Environ

Biofuel and aquaculture are two of many industries that extract resources from ecological systems. For either corn-based biodiesel or finfish farming, the production process acquires feedstock from energy-fixing ecological systems such as farm fields and oceans. In cases such as intensified salmon farming, large amount of supplement is applied including fish meal and fish oil obtained from other ecological systems such as wild ocean (Naylor et al, 2000). For residue-derived biofuel and shellfish agriculture, energy input from external ecosystems, although relatively small, is still necessary to meet the energy needs. These intricately linked ties of interaction determine that impacts of resource utilization shall diffuse to related systems at different scales. Some people trumpet the expansion of either industry. They claim that both industries are socially benign in such way that biofuel lessens dependence on fossil fuels and aquaculture contributes to alleviate world hunger problem. On environmental grounds, residue-based biofuel can allegedly reduce carbon emission and shellfish can improve water quality by removing nitrogen that is more than needed. However, notwithstanding those seemingly strong arguments on larger scale, it is also to be noted that local communities are paying high prices for the development of either industry when additional energy materials are included. Problems such as reduced land productivity and eutrophication are becoming more evident. Biofuel-initiated land conversion from natural forest to monoculture of corn entails huge ecological impacts and introduced exotic species in aquaculture threatens the genetic integrity of native wild species (GESAMP, 2008). When people are trying to resolve thes... ... is by no means stable. Once broader economic situation suffers turmoil as it happened around 2008 and the demand for biofuel plunges, benefit can hardly be kept uncompromised. On the other hand, research up to date still cannot address the ecological interactions specifically on every local scale (McKindsey, 2006). In bivalve aquaculture, the ability of shellfish to filter out particles and purify water is subject to phytoplankton population growth and seasonal variation (Dumbauld, 2009), obscuring the evaluation accuracy of this ecological benefit or cost. These realities add to the uncertainties in assessment and form risks in making decisions about particular resource extraction activities. To minimize those uncertainties, more researches are needed as to establish the solid scientific grounds upon which to conduct case-by-case local benefit and cost analysis.

Greektown Ethnography

I took a trip to Greek town Casino in Detroit Michigan with my father, this trip was something of an unexpected trip but I figured it was a great place to observe the behaviors of many different cultures as Greek town casino is the home of a multicultural society. I wanted to observe the behaviors of those between African American’s and Caucasian persons. I wanted to see if one race over the other tended to gamble more or if one culture got more aggressive as the night went on. While we know that casinos in Michigan restrict the age limit of gamblers did age affect those that gambled or was it just those of a certain race. The crowed is about sixty percent African American, Thirty Percent Caucasian and the other ten percent is in the category of what is called the â€Å"other’s† category. The age groups range from the young newbie’s that just turned twenty-one to late eighties. The bells and whistles are going off on nearby machines; the crowds grow increasingly big at different tables as the more a person wins. Yet those who come for just something to do keep sat at their machines playing their slots. Looking around the people didn’t seem any different the African American’s seemed to stay localized to the slots area whereas the Caucasian’s seemed to play at the tables more. I found a patron playing a penny slot named Gladys who gave me the rundown of the people and their actions. According to Gladys the Caucasian people tend to play on tables more and consume more alcoholic beverages as where the African Americans tend to gamble more at the slots and tend to smoke more than those of the Caucasian culture. I continued to observe the patrons to see if what Gladys was saying was true. Great majorities of the Caucasian’s were in fact at tables and about sixty percent of them had a drink at hand. While majority of the African American’s were at a slot machine or an electronic table with no human interaction. I wondered if there was something to the no human interaction did African American’s think it was bad luck. Did they think it would make them gamble more? The move I observed the cultures at the casino the quicker I noticed that African American’s gambled more on the slots then the Caucasian’s at the tables. As the day went on I continued to talk to the staff and patrons regarding he behavior of everyone around. A few waitresses claimed African American men; young or old were rude when it came to providing service. They were more touchy feely and made sexual comments, not to mention they left a lousy or no tip at all. Whereas Caucasian’s regardless of age, or gender provided better tips, manners and compliments said Allison the head supervisor of the wait staff. The pit managers claimed that Caucasian’s placed higher bets if there were a female table dealer where as African American’s placed higher bets if it was a male dealer. He went on to tell me that most Caucasian’s started their gambling in the casino with twenty-five dollars and that African American placed bets of one hundred dollars to start their gambling fiasco. While it seemed obvious that regardless of shape, size or color everyone at the casino claimed not to care whether the won or lost. But as long as they had fun that was all that mattered to them. In conclusion the African American’s tended to gamble more than Caucasian. But the Caucasian’s tended to get rougher as they drank and lost more.  It was right then and there that I realized that the casino wasn’t really about money but about freedom. People of all different cultures were coming to Greektown casino in the hopes that they would possibly win, someone would listen to their story, and most of all that they would have fun and escape their everyday life. Regardless if a person had a drink or cigarette in hand, they were there laughing and spending whatever money they came with. It didn’t matter who it was, African American, Caucasian or a member of the other category each and every one of them had a smile on their face and were laughing they were just there to have fun.