Questions on circe and book 10 of the Odyssey Essay

1. What has happened up to the point that Odysseus meets Circe but after he leaves the land of the Cyclops Polyphemus chases after Odysseus and his men throwing boulders that narrowly miss them. Odysseus tells Polyphemus his name and Polyphemus curses Odysseus. They go to Aeolia and gets given a bag of wind by Aeolus. Odysseus falls asleep and his men open the bag as they think it contains gold. The wind comes out and gets blown of course. The stop at the Lystragonians and three of his men get eaten by the cannibal giants. When arriving at Circe’s island, he splits the men into groups and sends half away to look for the house. His men get turned into pigs by Circe and Eurylochus returns to tell Odysseus. Odysseus then ventures alone to save his men. Hermes gave Odysseus a herb to eat and how to fight off Circe. 8/10 B) How is vividness and excitement shown when Circe tries to drug Odysseus â€Å"dark forebodings pursued† uses lighting imagery to show the eerie and ominous future Odysseus sees in the forest. â€Å"high Olympus† in reference to where Hermes is returning to would be exciting to an ancient audience to see Odysseus gaining the help of Gods. The adjective â€Å"beautiful† to describe the chair vividly shows the richness and elegance Circe has in her home. Odysseus drinks the drug â€Å"without suffering any magic effects† the anticipation of whether the drug would have worked or not shows Odysseus as being immune to her â€Å"evil† intent. He â€Å"snatched my keen sword† the verb â€Å"snatched† and â€Å"rushed† shows an element of surprise to Circe adding to the dramatic fighting scene. Circe â€Å"shrieks† adding to the imagery of senses by which the audience can vividly feel her fear. Circe â€Å"clasped my knees† to which this supplication adds excitement due to the fact that the magic herb has worked so well for Odysseus. Circe’s â€Å"words had wings† which vividly shows her elegance in the way she enchantingly speaks. Circe tells Odysseus that she â€Å"was always told to expect (him) here† which emphasises excitement to which he was meant to succeed and come to her. 18/20 C) Who should be admired the most, Circe or Calypso? Both Circe and Calypso play main roles as women in the Odyssey who help and hinder Odysseus, but their wit and mannerism should be admired. Circe first comes into the Odyssey at book 10. Circe is described as â€Å"evil in her heart† which instantly doesn’t make her a good or moral character. Circe also fails to show xenia to Odysseus as although she does offer him food, she asks multiple questions to him. An ancient audience would find the lack of xenia wrong and as an insult to Zeus. Similarly, she tries to manipulate him by complementing him. Simonides wrote about emotional women who use sex as a weapon, as well as this, Aristotle said that women would destroy men if left alone, women would destroy men. This is what Circe does by living alone and burning men into pigs. She turned Scylla into a rock out of jealous which leads into Simonides poem of women. Alternatively, when we first meet Circe (before she sees Odysseus) she is weaving and singing which would be what a women should be expected to do, there for meeting moral and social expectation of a woman. As she does live alone, the fact she can defend herself and try to stay alive (by supplicating herself) shows bravery against potential harm. However, she does hinder Odysseus’ journey by a year by their own will but does end up helping them with the correction direction to sail in. Book 5 has Odysseus on Ogygia with the sea nymph Calypso for 7 years. She holds him captive as he cries on the beach every day. Calypso uses her own selfish means to keep Odysseus on her island. When Hermes comes to the island, she also doesn’t show him xenia as she bombards him with questions. She fights and argues to keep Odysseus even though it is not permitted to marry him. Her own name means â€Å"concealment† in Greek. Calpyso, like Circe, is the image of a good woman as she is also found singing and weaving. Even though she could have kept Odysseus on the island, she helps him build a raft to leave. She is able to let go of her own feelings to aid Odysseus on his journey back to Ithaca. She also obeys Zeus’ orders. To an ancient audience and for moral reasoning, Circe is to be the most admired for she greatly aids Odysseus. In saying this, without the help of Hermes, Odysseus would have been killed thus Circe’s actions are intently evil. Calypso should be admired the most for without her letting Odysseus leave, his journey would have come to an end. Although she also needed Hermes to let him go, her intentions were pure. She loved Odysseus and they often has a physical relationship. She let him go and sacrificed her feelings to make him happy.

Pillsbury Case Marketing

Mike Johnson Pillsbury Case Beth Gallant 1) What are the challenges that Ivan Guillen faces in his role as marketing manager of the RBG business? As marketing manager of the RBG business, Ivan Guillen must propose a solution to repair Pillsbury refrigerated baked goods (RGB)’s business performance. Since the refrigerated-cookie product line consisted of 62% of RBG’s unit sales and over 75% of the company’s profits, Guillen found it appropriate to alter this segment in the market.Proposing this idea to GMCC would require Guillen to consider all the challenges he faces. Guillen will have to discover a strategy to increase household penetration since it has fallen to 24% in the past few years. The lack in market penetration has caused a miniscule growth of only one percent in the past three years. In order for Guillen to increase the penetration percent, he will need to reevaluate the â€Å"Kisses† commercial. The assessment of this advertisement revealed the lack of effectiveness for brand recognition and relevance. Introducing.Also, when reviewing the â€Å"Purchase Drivers In Canada As Compared To The US† it is apparent that consumers are concerned with the quality of the dough, the flavors offered, and the amount of cookies offered. Either Guillen is going to need to draw up a marketing plan that addresses these issues are alter the cookie in some way. Lastly, Guillen will have to conduct marketing research to understand the difference between Canadian and US markets. The â€Å"Kisses† commercial was adopted from the US and slightly changed for the Canadian market.Seeing as it failed to generate the projected annual growth of five to seven percent, there is a clear difference between the Canadian and US advertising markets. 2) What are consumer insights (in general)? What types of business challenges can benefit from consumer insights? How are these insights obtained? Consumer insight is when a marketer researches unid entified/unmet needs in the marketplace or a new/better way to satisfy an existing need. The job of the marketer is to analyze the information and capitalize on the identified need.There are two main types of research, quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research revolves around the measurement and analysis of relationships between variables. Random sampling techniques, like questionnaires and surveys, provide marketers with results that can be generalized to a larger population. Qualitative research, on the other hand, takes on a more understanding and conceptual approach. Through focus groups, marketers can gather an in-depth understanding of consumer behavior.The most common type of research used at GMCC are the focus groups. Focus groups are where a small group of people have a moderated discussion about a marketing-oriented issue. The group then summarizes its opinions and eventually comes to a solution they find fit. Summarizing all of the opinions of the focus groups c an aid in new product development, brand messaging, and promotional campaigns. Another type of marketing research GMCC uses are concept tests. Concept tests are commonly used to improve new product development and develop brand messaging.Concept tests provide an image of the product, pricing information, instructions, and key benefits to a consumer in verbal or visual form. The consumer then quantitatively evaluates the product by stating their degree of purchase intent. Lastly, GMCC also performs creative testing in order to evaluate the effectiveness of ads. When an add is put through the creative test, they are being judged on their purchase intent, relevance, and brand linkage scores. Having a powerful add that influences the consumer can significantly increase brand recognition.This â€Å"Kisses† commercial that Pillsbury had launched in Canada did not meet its expectations due to the lack of creative testing. 3) Given the key learnings from the usage and attitude study on pp 6-7 of the case, what are the corresponding implications for what actions the team should take? (Format this into a chart of key learning, implication, action) Key Learning| Implication| Action| Scratch baking is the dominant method of baking cookies in Canada. In Canada, 56% bake only from scratch. In the US, use of refrigerated dough is the most popular baking method. The refrigerated dough market does not seem to have a strong presence in Canada. It seems as if people are either unaware of refrigerated dough or they just do not prefer it. | Either research how to make refrigerated dough more appealing to Canadian consumers or ignore the Canadian market and focus on the US market (since it has a stronger demand for refrigerated dough). | Top four purchase drivers are the same in both countries. Convenience and taste are at the top of both lists. The quality of the cookie dough is not valued as highly in Canada and kids have more of an influence in driving purchases. Clearly there is a big gap between the quality perception in Canada and the United States. Canadian consumers are implying that they want a higher quality product and a product that is more convenient for children. | Propose a marketing strategy that addresses the quality of the cookie or targets children. Since children have a stronger influence in Canadian markets than US markets, reaching out to them could increase brand recognition and sales. | Both users and lapsed users perceive refrigerated cookie dough as convenient.Lapsed agree that RBG cookies are convenient, but non-users do not rate them as convenient. | Lapsed and current users agree on convenience, leaving marketers to believe this is actually true. Non-users, however, are not receiving this message. Non-users in Canada are not as aware of the product as they should be. | Reaching out to non-users through ads and commercials can increase the convenience recognition for RBG cookies. If non-users considered the cookies convenien t they would be more likely to purchase them. | 4) Why did Guillen and his team conduct the in-home and discovery workshops?To find out what? Conducting a qualitative research was proposed in order to gain a better understanding of consumer perceptions, beliefs, and feelings towards RBG cookies. The usage and attitude study portrayed the differences between Canada and the United States, whereas this study will determine which aspects of the baking experience are most appealing to consumers. The ethnography study RBG conducted, In-home Immersions, sought to gain an in-depth understanding of personal motivations and actions towards a particular product. RBG entered the homes of two lapsed users and wo brand champions while the consumers were baking the good. During the visit, the marketers hoped to develop an understanding of the consumer-brand relationship, what surrounds it, the environment around it, and the bigger-picture influences. For example, RBG found out that when it came to feeding the family, the solutions had to be easy, quick, and pleasing to children. It also showed the sense of happiness that arises when baking occurs. Knowing this information could help propose the idea of implementing comfortable implications in future ads.The discovery workshop was similar to the ethnography study, except the study group consisted of 18-27 consumers working together. This comfortable environment allows consumers to discuss opportunities and criticize issues of the product. 6) What actions would you suggest that Guillen and his team take? a. What should their value proposition be? b. Which consumers should they target? Why? c. What should the brand messaging be? Guillen has numerous tough decisions ahead of him when proposing his new marketing strategy.However, Guillen conducted a multitudinous of studies to provide him some insight on what an appropriate solution would be. In terms of the product itself, there are many alterations that could be made. Children have more of an influence in Canadian markets than in US markets. Providing kid themed offerings could increase brand recognition and demand from children. Simple ideas such as adding famous cartoon characters or sports themes could sway a child to want RBG cookies. Also, adding new flavors/types of cookies could increase the width of customers.Providing healthier options, dietary restrictions (gluten free, low sodium), and new flavors would reach out to more consumers. Expanding new product development would also be benefit to brand recognition. Providing Pillsbury baking tools like cookie cutters, timers, oven mitts, and aprons would cause the experience of baking to be more enjoyable. Another recommendation to Guillen would be to re-new and strengthen relationships with consumers. In doing so, Guillen should stress the nostalgic and experiential aspect.Through the in-home study, it has been concluded that baking introduces a sense of happiness in the kitchen. Having this percepti on instilled in a consumers mind may persuade them to purchase the refrigerated dough for themselves or as a gift. Having a celebrity spokesperson influence consumers can have a positive impact as well. In previous commercials, RBG cookies solely relied on the Pillsbury doughboy. Although he is a very recognizable character, maybe the consumers do not find him as trustworthy as they would a celebrity.The celebrity could stress the easiness, convenience, and â€Å"homemade† feeling RBG cookies provide. In-store display and packaging also has a significant impact on the consumer. Having a brand portrayed in a positive way gives the consumer the feeling that he or she is making the right choice. Research showed that most purchases of refrigerated dough were out of impulse. Sales can simply increase by strategically placing the product to locations where consumers frequently buy on impulse. Increasing the visibility with the doughboy logo would have the consumers more likely thin king about the product.If the cookies are going to be strategically placed and visible, then they are going to need to have attractive packaging. Offering trial packages with three different flavors would also allow consumers to have the opportunity to try out new flavors. Offering different serving sizes and holiday themes also expands the horizon of consumer tastes and preferences. In the short run, investing in social media, advertisement, and a spokesperson is most beneficial action to take. It is a quick opportunity for consumers to be persuaded into purchasing the object.However, in the long run it would be most beneficial to introduce new product flavors and healthy and dietary restrictive options. By renewing and strengthening its relationship with existing and lapsed consumers, Pillsbury can increase household penetration. Changing the perception of the product in the minds of the consumer from food to family activity/gift can influence the non-users to sample the product. Lastly, acknowledging new 21st century dynamics of healthy lifestyles and smaller servings can appeal to new market segments and eventually increase sales.

How does Carter portray power throughout the novel Wise Children? Essay

The novel Wise Children, written by Angela Carter, is the memoirs of two song and dance girls, Nora and Dora Chance, following both their trials and tribulations, but also parts of their families. Carter wrote Wise Children once she had discovered she was dying of cancer and suddenly the power to control her life had been taken out of her hands. Throughout the novel, Carter displays the use of power to change the readers perspective on certain things in life, such as when Nora loses her virginity. It is in a back alley with a married man and so could appear seedy and inappropriate, however, Nora chooses this situation, having made clear decisions about how and who with she wants to lose her virginity to, ‘she would have him. ’ Nora has the power in this situation, and it is exactly what she wants. This makes it more acceptable, ‘He was the one she wanted, warts and all. ’ Nora is not taken advantage of or made to do anything she doesn’t want to, and because she has the power and control at the time, what she is doing does not seem as unacceptable as it would if Nora did not seem to entirely understand what she was doing. Dora wants to be in charge of her own identity and her own opinions, and in control of her own life. Irish, who Dora meets in Hollywood, wants to change Dora to what he thinks is right, ‘he kept on insisting on forgiving me when there was nothing to forgive. ’ Dora, in her eyes, was doing nothing wrong, but simply being herself. This was not enough for Irish, he wanted her to be educated to his standards. Irish however controls what Dora learns so he is in charge or what she says and does as much as possible, ‘What he wanted for himself was an infinitely renewable virgin. ’ Irish wants a girl who will listen to what he teaches her and not question him. Dora knows she cannot stay with Irish as he was the control in their relationship, but she does not want him to be in charge of who she is. Dora takes the power, and she chooses to end the relationship. Gengis Khan knows women come to him for fame. Gengis is a very powerful man in Hollywood and he uses this to manipulate and take advantage of people, ‘he was the master/madam of a very peculiar brothel, where all the girls for sale were shadows. ’ The girls Gengis ‘sells’ are on a quest for fame and he uses his great power to use them and sell them with empty promises, ‘Why actresses go down on their knees to me! ’ Gengis uses women for sex to show them who is in control. Gengis keeps a photo of his wife ‘Daisy Duck’ or Delia Delaney in his office, in on display so that anyone that goes into it will see the image. Delia is one of the most famous women in Hollywood, and her fame is because of Gengis. The image is on display so that the women that come to Gengis for fame can see what he could possibly make them if they do what he requests when and how he wants. This is clearly a sordid abuse of his power, however, he knows girls that are desperate for fame will do almost anything if they think it will make them famous. Dora does not let Gengis manipulate her. Gengis wants her to sleep with him however she will not, ‘I’d feel ever so more comfortable if you put your shirt back on Mr Khan. ’ There is a power shift here, as suddenly Dora is taking the power over Gengis, rather than how it ususally is, where Gengis is able to abuse his power over women in Hollywood. Another shift in dominance and power is when Tiffany takes control over her relationship with Tristam. ‘I love you†¦ Forgive me. ’ Here Tiffany takes control, ‘Fat chance. ’ She now has the power in the relationship, knowing she’ll be better off without Tristam. Tiffany does not want to spend her life with Tristam, ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in the world. ’ She won’t let herself be controlled by Tristam any longer, as she knows he is not going to be a good Father or partner, ‘You’ve not got what it takes to be a father. There’s more to fathering than fucking you know. ’ Tristam does in fact seem very self-centred, he cares mostly about himself and his money and appears to believe that his status gives him power over Tiffany as he has given her a job and he is wealthy. This however is not true as soon Tiffany realises in fact she will be better off without Tristam and knows she can cope alone as it is obvious Tristam only proposed to her as she is having his child and he was desperate to try and appear like he was dealing with the situation correctly, showing a slight feminist edge that appears during the novel. Power is displayed in many ways throughout the novel. Carter often allows the women to take control over the men, although the men in many situations try to take over and change the women, such as Dora and Irish. Irish tries to educate Dora, because he does not think she is intelligent and often thinks the sings she says are wrong, whereas she disagrees. She leaves him because she does not feel she is right for him. She is too strong willed. We could reflect the power struggle to Carter herself as she is losing control over her life and so perhaps this is why she displays power in such ways throughout the novel. Power is often taken away from the men and given to the women throughout the novel as they stand up for themselves and their lives, such as Tiffany and Tristam, when Tiffany will not marry him simply because she is having his child. Carter shows the men in the novel to be flawed throughout the novel, as their grasps on power fail as she dispels the idea of male superiority throughout Wise Children.

SWOT analysis of country Kazakhstan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

SWOT analysis of country Kazakhstan - Essay Example Even today mode of communications is expensive and slow. Wealthiest economic sector in oil and gas, Kazakhstan produced 61.9 million tons of oil and gas in 2005 with an export of 52.4 million tons during 2004 and 2005. (Kazakhstan, Sept 2006) Kazakh government with premium management skills turned to foreign investors on a scale unprecedented in the former Soviet Union for capital to repair and restart the large enterprises that in some cases had virtually ceased operation. Most recently, however, Kazakhstan has been placing much greater emphasis on local sourcing of as many inputs as possible and on the training of local employees by all foreign investors in what appears to be a concerted effort to regain greater control of their industry. The new emphasis is certainly understandable which foretells change in the investment climate. Kazakhstan being a Central Asian country is limited by the high cost of transport and raw materials. According to a report, raw materials, in 2000 represented 60% of the total products exported. That means Kazakhstan is completely dependant upon raw materials. Another weakness confronted by Kazakhstan is the high cost variable of traveling across the border at local and international level. In this context traveling is the main obstruction in trade. This obstruction escorts towards disorganized infrastructure of trading and even that at high cost. Travelling on a local level has given rise to expensive transport companies. According to Raballand (2003), "freight in transit through Kazakhstan has dropped by more than 90%". (Raballand, 2003) Besides freight, Kazakhstan is also confronted to serious water shortage problem. Increasing population, reliance on hydropower in certain states, and dependence on irrigation for growing cotton and other crops in others, have all resulted in a growing demand for water. (Cummings, 2003, p. 203) Pollution, lack of educational institutions and poor border security issues are other noticed weaknesses of the country. According to USAID Report, 25% of the population lives below poverty line. (USAID, 2006) Opportunity: Currently the Government aims to achieve its developmental goals by 2009 as it aims to contribute over $15 million to a $40 million USAID economic development project. In the last 2-3 years, the United States has provided almost $1.205 billion in technical assistance and investment support in Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan, Sept 2006) Recently, a joint venture agreement has been signed with a governmental body to "build and operate the plant at 'Kyzylorda', in the south of the Kazakhstan near Tashkent". (Future, 2006) It would be the first float plant of its kind, which would commence its construction in 2007. This project is no less than an economic opportunity for a country who is facing glass crises since its independence with no glass manufacturer or supplier throughout the country. (Future, 2006) The country is attracting foreign investors towards the energy sector with advancement in banking division and small-scale privatisation sector. (USAID, 2006) Taking both agricultural production and agribusiness together, opportunities for rural household income growth depend on linking farmers more closely to both domestic and export demand. There appear to be opportunities that can be realized in the short

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT - Essay Example Through these, the company has remained in position to control their finances, their demand, supply rotating around labor supply, the raw materials supply and even the supply to the market has remained controlled hence influencing the business and the company’s growth. The company dominates a value chain that with its Chandlerian model in industrial administration aspects. An integrated company has a high level of vertical integrity applicable in defining their brand to the market. The sector matrix through the dynamics held internally has grown to have a positive impact to the general performance of the organization. Their targets of mass markets and standardized products dominant in quality make them a company to reckon with in the automotive industry. Through these, the demand for the company’s products and their supply remains on a positive scale weighing well for the owners of the company. The positive results it boosts of result from these making it a good example for the case on sector matrix. A bad example on the sector matrix is that of the Lehman Brothers. A company that was closed down due to the poor management of their supply and demand factors. The failure of the company was leveled on the financial crisis that the world faced during the great depressions and financial turmoil experienced in 2008. The poor preparation effects and the failure to detect and proactively plan from down times also mark the company’s failure. The demand factor was handled well by the company. The challenges met that drew the company down included the supply effects. The failure to control and sustain the demand and the pressure exerted on the financial position of the company and the supply chain changes made the company close down. Aspects of sector matrix aim at controlling factors of demand and supply. The demand for the services that the company offered was high though at

Canadian-American Relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Canadian-American Relations - Essay Example History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder" (U.S. President John F. Kennedy).The cold war further strengthened the friendship between the two nations. Sharing the longest border, the two nations although face modern difficulties such as immigration, environmental concerns, trade disputes and many other issues, the two countries have had significant interoperability within the defense sphere and are today the world's largest trading partners. The United States and Canada expanded their formal military links at the operational level in the post world war period. The PJBD dealt with the political aspects of the defense relationships. A new body, the Military Cooperation Committee (MCC), was instituted to manage joint military planning between the American and the Canadian forces. Careful of surprise attacks after Pearl Harbor and concerned about the power of an increasingly hostile Soviet Union, American and Canadian defense officials used the bi-national planning structure of the MCC to set up the first joint continental defense initiative in 1946 called the Basic Security Plan (BSP). The Canadian Department of External Affairs (DEA) objected to the fact that it was denied access to the BSP working group by reason of its purported secrecy. The BSP was approved by both the United States and Canada in spite of these reservations. The PJBD and the MCC established a precedent of formal relations between Canada and the United States, providing for the coordinated defense of the continent. In 1949, Canada, the United States and their European allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Canada and the United States were accorded their own Canada-US Regional Planning Group (CUSRPG) to look over the defense of North America within the larger NATO structure. American planners were eager to get on with this new undertaking. But the Canadian government of Louis St. Laurent was hesitant. At issue for the Prime Minister and his Minister of Defense, Brook Claxton, were the implied costs and sovereignty infringements of a continental air defense expansion. The St. Laurent Liberals had experienced first-hand the American presence in Canada during the Second World War. Any suggestion by the United States of grander defense mechanisms invoked images of American soldiers on Canadian soil - and a corresponding loss of sovereignty. The Canadian military was seen to take a very different perspective. The Chiefs of Staff argued that the American concerns and recommendations were legitimate and Canada's involvement was absolutely indispensable. After the detonation of a massive thermonuclear device by the Soviet Union in 1953, the Canadian military officials implored Claxton and St. Laurent to reconsider their cautious approach. Ultimately, Claxton recognized that Washington's steadfastness left Ottawa with hardly any option. The geography of North America and the nature of Canada-US relations were such that Canadian involvement in an improved continental air d

Effect of School Uniform on Students Life Essay

Effect of School Uniform on Students Life - Essay Example This result was appreciated by the community at large with only 600-700 out of the 70,000 students in the district preferring to be exempted from wearing uniforms, which mean a whopping 99% of students preferred uniforms (Cohn and Cohn). This policy was adopted in other states with positive results being registered in all cases. This argument is supported by North Carolina Family Police Council Director Stephen Daniels publication on students’ dress codes in which he asserts ‘Dress codes reduce conflict associated with name brand and gang clothing, decrease the gap between poor and rich students, and encourage a sense of belonging that contributes to overall order and discipline. (Daniels). This also supports the proponents of the debate. Opponents of the school dress code, on the other hand, claim it will infringe on the first amendment rights of students to freedom of expression, their religious rights and will contribute to dampening of student expression rights. Despite the displeasure of the opponents, many schools have already started making uniforms mandatory in Kentucky sharply contrasting to the majority of public schools showing reluctance to do the same (Daniels). While both sides of the divide continue to hold on to their position, it can be seen quite clearly from their arguments that their debate revolves around general morality and constitutionality. Proponents think this will help to improve the discipline among the students and increase morality in school while opponents hold onto their culture preservation and constitutional rights of expression. Considering that constitutionality of school uniforms has been challenged in court and the decision was in favor of dress codes, it is evident that proponents are winning the debate. They seem to have support even from the few research results available as well as The Center for the Prevention of School Violence who pointed out

Law and Business Ethics and Social Resonsibility Research Paper

Law and Business Ethics and Social Resonsibility - Research Paper Example The actions of insurance companies and drug producers are clearly unethical and they are even being socially irresponsible. This is because they are operating against distributive justice system. According to distributive justice system, the awards and the costs should be distributed in a fair manner. This means that those who care bare the higher cost should bare it and those who are in need of rewards should be rewarded. The insurance companies should share the cost of medical treatment with customers by decreasing their profit margins and premiums in order to share the margins. The way the drug companies and insurance companies are operating is unethical because these companies are operating against the utilitarian approach of ethics. This approach asserts that decisions that provide the highest number of awards and lowest quantity of cost to the society should be given precedence over those decisions that provide lower amount of benefits and higher amount of costs. Due to the mal practice of insurance and drug companies, the society is experiencing higher cost. KOWALEWSKI, A. J. (2011, November 3). Less Than $26 Billion? Dont Bother. - NYTimes.com. Opinion - Opinionator - NYTimes.com. Retrieved March 9, 2013, from

Capital Strucutre Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Capital Strucutre - Essay Example Based on the above assumption, the theory suggest that the firm value is independent of the capital strucutre and there is no fixed combination of the debt and equity which can suggest that it this level the firm has the optimum capital strucutre. However, in practice it is largely believed that the capital strucutre with 60% of debt and 40% of equity can be optimum for the firm. Higher debt capital may fund the growth of the firm however with increasing debt, it becomes hard for the organisations to keep the financial covenants of their debts intact therefore high debt ratios incur further risk for the organistion therefore there is no such magical relationship between debt to book capitalization ratio. The debt to book capitalization therefore vary from industry to industry and there Is no solid formula to determin tha the debt to book capitalization ratio of 60% therefore there is no capital strucutre theory under which it can be justified that a debt to book capitalization ratio should be 60%. A greenfield project is one which is built from scratch and is not constrained by any previous work. These projects are mostly constructed on the unused land where there is no room or need required to remodel the existing piece of land to demolish the existing strucutres. According to the transcation theory of foreign direct investment, the mode of entry into markets especially foreign markets depends upon how efficient the greenfiled projects will be as compared to the domestic facilities. If the greenfield projects are going to give more efficient results than the existing ones than going for greenfield projects can be a good move however if efficiencies are not achieved than in that case greefield projects may go awry. Therefore one of the most important lesson which can be learned from this is the fact that how good greefield projects can bring the desire efficiency and effectiveness in the company specially with relation to the operational efficiency. (Hennart). Apart from that the greenfield projects providethe organisation necessary room to look for better and more efficient resources.  

Why organisations should be concerned with high levels of labour Essay

Why organisations should be concerned with high levels of labour turnover and what can organisations do in an attempt to reduce it - Essay Example These people thereby tend to drift away from the main organisational objective and in a bid of frustration turn out from the organisation. Similarly a concern rendering enhanced emphasis on the training activities but working less on helping to enhance the productivity of the workforce also face similar problems. The organisation with less focus on enhancing the compensation aspects and also in rendering of other benefits happens to disturb the interest and productivity of the workers. Workers would thus endeavour to shift from such no gains concern to high gain jobs where they would be able to gain high increments both in the compensation package and other benefits. Thus absence of proper supervision and training mechanism coupled with a poor pay package with no proper increments happens to provoke the employees to take to new jobs. Hence the event of labour turnover significantly emerges onto the business scenario (Mudor and Tooksoon, 2011, pp.41-45; Aswathappa, 2007, p.615). The f actors that contribute to the growth of labour turnover problems in the organisation can be broadly grouped into two main types-internal and external. In the internal scenario the employees can get frustrated owing to the internal job policies of the concern for which they tend to quit the concern. The policies of the concern can largely change in relation to the technological and structural framework of the concern making the employees feel uncertain about their job and employee security. This tantamount to the employees seeking jobs in other stable concerns. Moreover a change in the management structure of the concern also happens to change the outlook of the supervisory tem... The paper tells that employees are concerned as the life blood of the organisations. The organisational managers are concerned in effectively managing this large pool of human resources through proper training and motivational functions. Training helps in enhancing the productivity mechanisms of the workers and also develops the relationship between the employer and the employees. Similarly different motivational activities both financial and non-financial are also taken to retain the employee base in the concern. Organisations in such approaches tend to render large amount of investment and thereby would endeavour to gain effective returns out of such. Therefore it is highly needed by a business concern to minimize the amount of employee turnover as it happens to impact the profitability parameter of the concern. Employee turnovers in a firm can occur both in a voluntary and in an involuntary manner. Voluntarily the employees can leave the firm owing to rising job pressures or being unable to fit into the required job role. Again a sudden accident or fatal event can lead the concern lose an employee. The employee turnover activity adds to the cost of the concern in that the concern would need to hire another employee to fill the post thus enhancing the recruitment cost. Again losing a skilled an experienced employee leads to considerable productivity loss for the concern. Labour turnover as an incident results in the organisation losing a large pool of effective human resources that would help in enhancing the productivity potential of the concern.

International Business Finance Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

International Business Finance - Research Paper Example re liable to pay the interest at the pre-determined rate throughout the tenure of the bonds and repay the face value at the time of maturity which means there is no question of incurring loss for the investors out of investing in such financial instrument (Burger, Sengupta, Warnock and Warnock, 2014). However, in recent times it has been noticed in Europe that in some countries such as Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, the government bonds as well as corporate bonds are yielding the investors a negative return. To be more specific, such negative yields are not inflation-adjusted returns; the bonds are simply yielding the investors less than their capital (Ivashina and Becker, 2015). Therefore, the research paper will aim to investigate regarding credibility of bonds as a financial instrument, their buyers and the factors that may influence such investor to purchase bonds even with negative returns in order to find out the rationale behind such negative return and to identify buyersâ €™ motivation behind purchasing such bonds with negative yield. For the purpose of analysis, relevant economic theory that may justify the reason behind buying bonds with negative yields shall also be incorporated. Traditionally, bond is considered to be one of the most secured investment options among all other financial instruments available in the financial system. Dann (2005) has defined financial instrument as a mechanism that institutes a contractual right between the borrower and lender to receive and deliver some of money. Bond is a financial instrument that establishes a indenture between the two parties: bond holder and issuer. The indenture specifies that the issuer will pay a fixed or variable rate of interest during the whole life of the bond and will refund the principal amount at the time of maturity (Maginn, Tuttle, McLeavey and Pinto, 2010). Bonds can be of various types such as fixed and floating rate of bonds, zero coupon bonds, perpetual bonds, inflation-index bonds

The Nazi dictatorship in Germany Essay Example for Free

The Nazi dictatorship in Germany Essay How similar were the Nazi dictatorship in Germany and the Fascist dictatorship in Italy to 1939? The similarities and dissimilarities of the dictatorships in Germany and in Italy can be identified within 3 aspects: how the dictatorships were formed (took power), how they were run, can how they affected civilian life in Germany and Italy. This essay will offer comparisons in these aspects and come to a summary of the extent and nature of their similarity. Both dictatorships were popular dictatorships. Both parties exploited the surging Nationalism in Italy and Germany after WWI, and established popularity by propaganda, rhetoric and attracting promises, like Mussolinis continuation of Giolittis Risorgimento programme and Hitlers promise to overthrow the Versailles Treaty. Both parties exploited the weakness of rival political forces, that is, a lack of democratic tradition in both countries and thus a vulnerability to the influence of radical ideology. The appointment of Hitler by Hindenburg and that of Mussolini by King Victor Emmanuelle were both more of a compromise due to shortage of alternative than a positive victory on the other side. A common antipathy against Communism that pervaded in German and Italian society gave momentum to Nazi and Fascist rising. The use of terror was an effective factor for the emergence of both dictatorships. Hitlers Nazi brownshirts and Mussolinis squadrsiti both played important roles in eliminating their opponents. The minor difference in the Nazi and Fascist paths to power is most manifest in the influence of WWI. Germany was heavily scarred by the economic, military and political penalty as a consequence of her defeat. The common hatred and vigilance against other powers gave a negative cohesion to the national psychology, which was magnificently exploited by Hitler. While on the other hand, the appeal of Mussolinis policies was more of an ambitious imperial nature. The reigns of Nazi and Fascist dictatorships had more similarities than dissimilarities. Power was highly centralized and democracy suffered a complete destruction in both countries. The Reichstag fire in Germany and the issue of a formal decree banning all other political parties in Italy in 1926 destroyed the parliamentarian machinery completely in the two countries. Violence and intimidation continued to be in frequent use to combat opposition. The murder of Ernst Roehm by the SSs and the establishment of the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations imposed on the pseudo-democratic practice of corporatism in Italy were examples for this point. Fascist and Nazi dictatorships both attempted to solve the nations economic problems. Development of heavy industry and infrastructure in Germany and Italy during this period was impressive. Big businesses benefited immensely from Fascist and Nazi economic policies. This also limited the achievement of both dictatorships in dealing with economic difficulties: Nazi economy stayed heavily dependent on imports. Italian Northern-Southern imbalance stayed unsolved. A difference here is that Nazis made use of rearmament policy as a strong impetus for economic recovery. Foreign policies were instrumental in both countries in accumulating support for the dictatorships. Mussolinis victory in the Ethiopian wars brought him massive support. The Anchluss with Austria made brought Hitlers national image to a higher level. In short, both Nazi and Fascist dictatorships were extreme-right ideological rules that were enhanced by censorship and military terrorism. Their foreign policies were both aggressive and nationalistic, to confirm the greatness of the leadership. The major difference between Nazi and Fascist dictatorships was on their bearing on German and Italian societies. Though Italian Fascism initially provided a source of imitation for the formation of Nazism, but the extent to which it influenced the society was limited in contrast with Nazi society. Benedetto Croce with his outspoken antagonism towards fascism would certainly not have survived in Hitlers regime. Anti-Semitism was not as widely spread in Italian society. This is partly due to the uniqueness of stab in the back myth that Germanys failure in WWI entailed. Mussolinis personal image prevailed over his partys. The Fascist party hardly produced any powerful public personalities as Goebbels or Himmler. The presence of Church as a counterforce of the Fascist dictatorship was also a major difference between the two dictatorships. This limited Fascist control over civilian cultural, religious and intellectual life. Unlike Mussolini whose whole image was no much more than rhetoric and glamour, Hitler viewed himself as a profound intellectual thinker and substantially influenced social ideology through his thoughts like expressed in his lectures and Mein Kampff. The overall force that united Italian people was not the negative resistance and a lust for revenge like that Nazi society embodied, but a positive ambition of less depth and weight. Nazism is but a variant of fascism in a heterogeneous circumstance. The political and ideological natures of them are essentially of the same origin: the fin-de-sià ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½cle philosophies of Social Darwinism, Nietzschean humanism, and revolt against liberal democracy as a continuum of Marxist thoughts. Nazi dictatorship extended the social implantation of fascism because of Germanys different post-war circumstance and social constitution. The difference in the leaders personalities was in minor importance but it differed the practice of certain policies, for example Hitlers invigoration of Anti-Semitism.

Naturalism And Anti Naturalism Philosophy Essay

Naturalism And Anti Naturalism Philosophy Essay Naturalism is the natural state where there is no other types of knowledge other than scientific knowledge and aims to explain all known or other apparently un natural. Naturalism is justified by empirical evidence, experiment, empiricism, theory, data collection and laws. Anti-Naturalism denies the claim of human behaviours and evidence supporter but do not have the same positive route instead comes from hermeneutics. Example Human action is characterized by intentionality, rationality and reflexivity. ii. falsificationism and hermeneutics The falsificationism is proposed by scientist K.Popper. According to him, the scientific knowledge has to be at least in principle, if principle or theory is refutable and the logic behind no matter how large is empirical evidence, scientist does not attempt to prove or make their theory plausible by means of observations and experiments. Scientist should put the theory on trial by falsification. This methodology is falsificationism. If the theory is not stand by falsification the theorem is not true. Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation and understanding. It has broad scope; its base is in literary criticism rather than linguistics. It is one of the most sophisticated ways of reading text and concerns with understanding its meaning, how it is related to its own contemporaneous world and in turn, how it is related to our present world. It is criticized for having no any theoretical base that, some argue and leads practitioners to invent underlying structures rather than discover them. iii. realism and anti-realism Realism is the position that maintain, there is a real world and that is independent of us. It is concerning with science and should therefore be to give true or approximately true description of reality. Anti-realism means there is no possible justification of believing in reality other than constructed in human mind. In anti-realism we make our own world in mind or we can say Anti-realism and idealism is very much similar. iv. Marxism, feminism and humanism Marxism is historical materialism. This theory revolves round material condition of human existing and different modes of production of societies called the capitalism. These modes create certain relationship and attitudes towards nature. This relation reforms economical based of society and its activity, it could be living matter, political system and religious belief etc. In Classical sense Marxism is a historicist in which it past detailed knowledge in order to know something about present. Feminism is holistic theory in comparison with individual conduct explained by laws, scale and social facts. Mass of feminism is related with economic of society. It is the way of justify the knowledge claims. Humanism is more of precision and assumes that human beings have consciousness, intentionality and we all are moral beings. All human being actions are voluntarily and which allowed individual exercise with their free wheel in the machine of societies. The structure of society is influenced by human and its activities. v. post-modernism Post-modernism is against the grand theory (other social theories and methods) in Post modernistic methods, several voices and theories not just only one are allowed to say and no theory is privilege over known. Post-modernism creates differences, often uses construction and analysing tool and way to understand research and difference discourses involved. In Post-modernism, knowledge is multiple and situated which means situation is depended upon circumstances. 2. What can post-modernism be accused for and what do you think about it? Post-modernism can be accused for its relativism, it makes some time impossible to choose between two different interpretations. In different prospective we have different answer in those case both answer are right and it is difficult to act which is correct and which should be judged correctly. 3. Do you think it is possible to be a pure realist or anti-realist, and naturalist or anti-naturalist? I think it is not possible to be pure realistic or anti realistic and naturalist or anti realist as a practical matter. Its depend upon in which field you are conducting your research. Realist is based on scientific theories who describes that there is real world which is independent us, while Anti realist is who takes scientific theories which is not true. Realist and anti realist behave identical in doing scientific research. The only difference is that the realist adds an extra and unnecessary assumption that the reason our best theories are so empirically useful is that they accurately describe the world as it is, whereas the anti-realist prefers not to make that assumption (Pigliucci, 2012). As an example, theory A is true or false on the basis of some empirical evidence or test and it may not in other evidence or test because there might be many theories logically coherent to give empirical evidence. Similarly, Naturalism is the way of scientific methods on the basis of empirical evidence. For doing research in natural science is based on theory, laws, data collection and experiment but in case of social science like human geography is not always based on such evidences, its also based on human behaviour and experience and its support anti naturalism. 4. Do you think it is possible to exclusively have only an empiristic or hermeneutic perspective in the search of knowledge? It is not exclusively possible either empiristic or hermeneutic in the search of knowledge. The main question arises here in which field you are doing your research; natural science or social science. Empiristic way of searching knowledge always emphasis on evidence such as; observation, data collection and experiment as the basis of scientific knowledge to justify its claim. Empiristic supports naturalism. But hermeneutic way of searching knowledge is based on number of ways of interpreting human action such as, idealism, phenomenology, postmodernism, and post -structuralism. Hermeneutic supports anti naturalism. As a researcher both prospective have to choose according to research field. The following problem requires a little bit more of time and space: 6. Write a short essay (2-3 pages long) describing some different scientific philosophies in relation to your own research area. GIS and its Philosophy: Introduction: The term Geographical Information system (GIS) or geographic information system is recent phenomena, was used in North America and frequently applied to geographically based computer technology. It is very difficult to exactly define the term GIS due to number of reasons. There has been some debate about its origin and first application in the field although there have been several technological and theoretical organizational developments during the last thirty years. The rapid rate of progress has not been conductive to the analysis and definition of GIS (Maguire: 1991). The GIS is broad field, it is characterized by diversity of applications because it is integrated systems which brings many developed ideas including agriculture, botany, computing, economics, engineering, mathematics, photogrammetry, surveying, zoology and mostly Geography together in the same platform. There is not specific theory or philosophy which exactly defines the GIS because there are many different ways of defining and classifying objects and subjects. Due to diversity application of GIS in different field, many different methods have been applied to GIS. Classifications based on functionality have been popular and some other tried to develop schemes based genealogy, cost size, platform, application area and data model (Maguirie: 1991). There are theoretical difficulties of genuine academic debate about the central focus of present GIS activity. Some people believe that GIS focuses hardware and software, other argues that the main element is information processing, some people think that GIS is just tools or is it social process? Here are some definitions given by GIS philosopher: Aronoff (1989): any manual system or computer based set of procedures used to store and manipulate geographically referenced data. Carter (1989): an institutional entity, reflecting an organizational structure that integrates technology with a database, expertise and continuing financial support over time. Parker (1998): an information technology which stores, analyses and displays both spatial and non spatial data. Dueker (1979): a special case of information systems where the database consists of observations on spatially distributed features, activities, or events ,which are definable in spaces as points, lines or areas. A GIS manipulates data about these points, lines and areas to retrieve data for ad hoc queries and analyses. GIS and Feminism: Kwan (2002) argued how some of most influential feminist were used in the critical disclosure of GIS. For example Donna Haraway (1991), Liz Bondi and Mona Domosh (1992) were criticized GIS for objectifying way of knowing and the transcendent vision or the Gods eye view it enables. But Haraway (1991) proposition about possibility for feminist to undermine the views towards the main subjects was ignored, an important aspects of her cyborg agenda was lost in critical disclosure. According to Kwan (2002), using of Haraway in asserting GIS impose systems of monitoring misses her emphasis on womens participation in science and technology. He mentioned that women engagement with GIS as an important feminist strategy for writing cyborg and warns that failure to do so can severely impact upon gender equality in Geography on the basis of recent result of enrolment and employment trends of Women Geographers. The form of another engagement with GIS is to raise the voices of feminist GIS users and researchers who spoke their personnel experience on the issue of GIS. Carol Hall (1996) explored the link between the masculinist culture of Computer work and GIS lab, where women cultural identity is dominated by constituted technology culture and turn affects their attitude towards GIS technology. Hagger (2003) mentioned about the discomfort experienced in the GIS lab, which she described as the domain of white, middle to upper class graduate geography students. GIS and Post modernism: Postmodernism theory argue for the productive view of the objects either objects in reality with essential attributes or such objects are indirectly created by people for their needs. GIS is objective subscriber because objects are located in Cartesian space. There are at least three aspects of GIS (Yapa: 1998)- it technology, disciplinary location and methodology, which maintained the distance from concern of modern social theory. In this instance, GIS played the very limited role for addressing the social problems and question related to social policy.

Effects of Consumer Switching Costs

Effects of Consumer Switching Costs The assumption about switching cost is rather natural to the extent that borrowers’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction about a bank can be different according to individual preference to banks’ services and borrowers can measure them exactly only after having the relationship. Switching costs may capture direct cost of closing an account with one bank and opening it elsewhere, the cost associated with other application procedures with other banks but also loss of relationship benefit between borrower and his former bank. A borrower faces switching costs in a relationship with an individual bank; it would be costly to borrow from a single lender if its primary bank is in financial distress. This implies that default risk would be more sensitive to our bank health measures if the bank-firm relationship is close. Overall, the following are the main conclusions for this study, each of these shall be discussed throughout the chapter: The respondents elaborated that the manner in which they were affected by the crisis when the international banking system collapsed leading to drying up of credit. Living in the credit-driven environment, both individuals as well as the corporate sector found it difficult to face the no credit situation. Government-driven rescue packages were being announced across the world to save their respective economies. The amounts were running into hundreds of billions of their home currencies. The magnitude was so huge and the event so wide spread, that it spread across various sectors and various economies. Image is indirectly related to the bank loyalty as perceived by quality. This is based on the results of large scale empirical results in a global level. Service quality is indirectly and directly related to bank loyalty in terms of satisfaction. Satisfaction has a direct effect on loyalty for the bank. It is now clear on level of the mentioned constructs that reliability or the quality dimension and the position in the market or the image dimension are both important drivers of bank retail loyalty. Therefore the quality of a bank should be more important for credit line customers than for other loan customers. We therefore apply and test the hypothesis that credit line borrowers are willing to pay extra for borrowing from a bank of high quality. A wide range of factors maintain the market power in banking. Entry into the banking sector is restricted by regulatory agencies, creating one of the preconditions for a degree of monopoly power and administrated pricing. Market power and an inelastic demand for retail bank products may also result from the existence of switching costs and asymmetric information costs. Switching costs may arise when bank customers consider switching from one bank to another, for example when a household intend to transfer its savings deposits from bank A to bank B. Costs of acquiring information and search and administrative costs are potentially important in markets where significant information or transaction costs exist. The costs are also expected to be high in markets with long-term relationships and repeated transactions (Sharpe, 1997). Generally the existence of switching costs results in market segmentation and reduces the demand elasticity (Klemperer, 1987). Moreover, even in the presence of small switching costs, the theory predicts that the smaller the proportion of customers that are new to the market, the less competitive prices will be. Thus, even with non-co-operative behaviour, switching costs result in a retail bank interest rate adjustment of less than one to a change in the market interest rate (Lowe and Rohling, 1992). Two main limitations are associated with this case study. First, we have not collected the financial performance data and therefore are not able to discuss cost effectiveness and profitability of the schemes. The second limitation is related to the drivers of customer loyalty in retail banking industry. Future investigations should focus on loyalty program component analysis, customer loyalty measures, customer attraction and profitability, and design and costs of loyalty programs. The findings suggest that the majority of the analyzed loyalty programs reward a repeat purchasing. The retail banks automatically record individual customers details and transactions that provide an opportunity for marketing people to organize segmentation and targeting, and create relationship marketing strategy as well as individual marketing offers to the clients. However, the research shows that the banks are basically concentrated on two customer segments the potentially profitable customers and the customers, who are willing to keep money in their bank accounts. Most of the retail bank loyalty programs offer their customers only a discount on the transaction costs. It could be viewed as an indirect price cut policy, which leads to the constant battle for the price. The critical issue for the most programs launched by the banks is to reinforce the value proposition of the bank brand, to enhance loyalty toward the brand, not just toward the rewards. Relationship marketing strategy and relationship based loyalty programs are important to retail banking service providers, because it is a right way to build relationship and loyalty. Furthermore, a conclusion is reached that retail banks are offering non-customized loyalty programs and that marketing specialists are not familiar enough with the factors that determine the choice of loyalty programs. Based on the results, loan securitization can be utilized as a strategic tool to soften the competition in the loan market. Like all financially troubled firms, a banks debt pricing strategy is likely to be driven by the need to generate cash to boost liquidity to fund investments or to raise short term profitability. The deposit pricing strategy chosen however may not be uniform and instead will depend on institutional factors and also segmentation between different classes of deposit investors. The most important institutional factor affecting pricing strategy of distressed banks is deposit insurance; the existence of fixed premium deposit insurance alters the nature of the more general creditor-owner conflict. For any distressed firm the incentive to generate funds to boost short-term profits or to gamble for survival exists; these funds in theory can be obtained directly through the financial markets. For most firms debt covenants make gambling difficult but for banks financing through depositors may be readily available to the extent deposit insurance exists. Because deposit insurance eliminates the incentive for depositors to monitor bank risk, it makes generating large amounts of funding, to use in risky investments, much easier. This seems to be, to a large extent what happened to financially distressed banks in U.K. during the time period studied. But the fact that all dimensions of bank deposit rates do not increase with distress and the fact that some increase more than others suggests that deposit insurance does not seem to be the only factor affecting bank deposit pricing strategy. Differences between classes of depositors allow banks to tailor deposit pricing strategies to best obtain funding in the most cost-effective way. Distressed banks tend to increase deposit rates only for the most investment oriented depositors (non-transaction account depositors) and do not significantly raise rates for the least investment oriented depositors (transaction account depositors). Additionally, not fully insured investment oriented (large time) depositors tend to be offered rates higher than mostly insured investment oriented (non-transaction non-large time) depositors. Thus distressed banks offer a premium both based on the increased risk (if deposits are uninsured) and for depositors being more investment oriented. Past works have generally suggested that troubled banks bid up deposit rates in a gamble for survival or that they may have to offer higher rates for uninsured depositors to compensate for the increased risk. The results suggest, that both explanations are partially correct in that they are both factors to varying degrees based on depositor class and that neither are significant factors for the least investment oriented depositors. The results provide fresh evidence that moral hazard is a issue in banking and moreover that it is increased by deposit insurance since distressed banks apparently raise rates less for investment oriented investors who have a larger portion of their deposits insured (non-large time non-transaction depositors) relative to more uninsured investment oriented investors (large time account depositors). The fact that deposit rates do not increase for transaction account holders as distress increases while other types of deposit rates increases is also important to consider; it suggest that moral hazard in conjunction with the convenience orientation of these depositors allows distressed banks to maintain this funding source at minimal cost regardless of risk. Thus the evidence suggests that both deposit insurance and the convenience orientation of a certain class of deposit investors imposes costs on the final creditor (the FDIC in this case) when a bank is in financial distress. Thus the results have important implications for regulators. The researcher documents the presence of positive duration dependence in relationships. In other words, firms become more likely to end a bank relationship as a relationship matures. Taken alone, this result suggests that the value of relationships decline through time, and those firms are able to end relationships early, possibly to avoid lock-in. This inference is strengthened by the fact that small, young, and highly-leveraged firms maintain the shortest relationships. Although theory suggests that such bank-dependent firms are the most susceptible to lock-in, our findings imply that switching costs are low enough to permit these firms to change banks often. Holding other firm characteristics constant, we show that competing bank relationships reduce the market power of any one bank, making long-term relationships more valuable. Although firms with multiple bank relationships terminate relationships frequently, they do so by terminating newer relationships and keeping long-term ones. Intuitively, the existence of alternative sources of bank credit reduces the ability for any one bank to threaten holdup. With lower holdup costs, a long-term relationship becomes more valuable to the multiple-bank firms. The researcher also finds some indication that firms terminate relationships as they outgrow their banks. Firms tend to switch from small banks to larger banks, and maintain the longest relationships with Norways two largest banks. However, we find no evidence that this preference for larger banks arises as a result of limited capacity at other banks. Instead, growing firms could prefer the higher quality services offered by the large banks. The evidence presented here should be useful to future theorists interested in modeling the value of bank relationships. However, one should take caution in drawing far-reaching conclusions from this study. Our data reveals very little about the actual nature of the relationships. We are unable to observe how the price and quantity of lending change over the course of the relationship and do not know the other types of banking services offered to customers in a bank relationship. Indeed, an ideal extension of this study would be to obtain a time-series of relationship-specific information about banks and their customers and examine the duration of the relationship as a function of relationship-specific variables. The constant effort of managers to stimulate customer loyalty involves customer integration in the firm value chain as a result of personalised marketing (Vesanen, 2007) aiming at intensifying the relationship between the supplier and its customers and increasing customer loyalty. Customer loyalty can be seen as a result of switching costs, opportunity costs and sunk costs based on technological, contractual and psychological obligations faced by a customer (Jackson, 1985; Riemer and Totz, 2003). All sources of these costs are based on the interaction with a customer during the course of integration. Switching costs increase due to the established trust towards the supplier and its capability to meet promised quality levels. If customers can be persuaded to invest significantly in a specific relationship, then sunk costs increase. Additionally, if customer satisfaction is positively influenced by customisation, then a customers opportunity costs increase as a defecting customer risks losing the net benefits of the current relationship (Riemer and Totz, 2003). However, not all companies will be able to draw profits from these saving potentials to a similar extent, regardless of whether they have already realised the existence of these effects. The degree of customer interaction is influenced by the characteristics of the good being  individualised, such as its complexity, the expenditures and the risks of its utilisation and  customisation. The paper contributes to the literature in identify new strength and weakness areas concerning the actual range of services offered by retail banks, the re-purchase intentions, the state of relationships with customers, and the competitors image positioning. The findings of this research suggest several implications also for marketing practitioners, as they validate the concept that relationship marketing orientation is critical for business performance. Firstly, since only when the satisfaction with the core service and relationship is high, the commitment will be higher, banks have to ensure that utmost importance is given to attributes like quality, product features, product availability etc. Moreover, the staff role is critical in understanding the customer needs and in satisfying them: the higher satisfaction will then increase customer retention. Secondly, relational switching costs can be increased only by investing in the soft or the relational assets (Nielson, 1996), in terms of various adaptations to favour the customer and also the investments in other soft assets like training for the working staff of the customers etc. Since the interaction is mostly interpersonal in nature, these outcomes hold major lessons for them. Finally, the moderating effect establishes that the investment in the relationship with the customer will raise the relational switching costs. This will help in customer retention, as the customer will not terminate the relationships even if the satisfaction is lower. It makes the entry of any other competitor difficult as he has had no investments in relationship so far. The findings of this study highlighted the strong role of social network in influencing consumer behaviour. Therefore, customers are more willing to participate and interact in the creation of the offer, since they feel a sense of belonging. Practitioners should encourage social network in order to minimise the switching behaviour (see for example the credit cards industry), upgrading their relationship perspective from customer relationship management to vendor relationship management (Berkman Center for Internet and Society). Minimisation of switching behaviour will lead to better customer retention, which will eventually lead to better bottom lines. Certainly, the analysis has some limitations, such as the sample size, the variables and the area considered; future research will be focused especially on the multiplicative variable, which was eliminated from the model probably due to the variables considered, in order to assess the joint effect of the three macro variables on customer loyalty. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that bank lending is characterized by borrower capture perhaps due to informational monopolies and other sources of switching costs -, as the firms that suffer most from increased market concentration are those that have no alternative lending sources. The efficiency gains of increased concentration are shared only with firms that hold loans from multiple banks. These informational switching costs become particularly relevant during episodes of rising market share. For instance, a firm that has established relationships with two banks that ex-post merge, losses its ability to limit lenders power through switching its funding source. Rising concentration and mergers thus produce borrower capture. Moreover, relationships are built through repeated contact between the client and particular bank officers. If these matches are broken over a merger, then valuable information on clients risk may be lost. The results point out to the fact that having alternative lending sources isolates firms from the adverse effects that rising concentration and mergers may convey. Thus our findings are consistent with the existence of informational monopolies and switching costs. Moreover, the efficiency gains that result from larger market shares are passed on only to clients that face lower switching costs. Switching costs are much lower if the firm holds loans from more banks, and can threat to move its business elsewhere if a lender charges higher interest rates. Alternatively, a firm that holds loans from multiple banks is more likely to face rate reductions when its lending source becomes larger and gains efficiency. Little is known about what governs recovery from banking crises. The first pass at these data uncover several robust patterns. Banks that are already in trouble tend to lend money to riskier clients. Another important factor for recovery is the size of the initial drop in profit during the onset of the distress. Third, it also matters the general climate of the bank after the financial shock. But no evidence was found that there was anything different about the banks that recovered from the downturn when many banks were distressed than during other periods. Fourth, recovery also depends the factors that the bank can control. Loan level data suggests that an important reason why the recovering banks manage defaults better is that they are tougher on extending credit to their riskiest customers. Regulators tend to disclose relatively little about what steps are taken with respect to banks that require intervention. Our findings suggest paying close attention to whether the distressed banks are being particularly vigilant in containing credit to high risk borrowers. To the extent they are not doing so, the regulators could push in this direction. For countries that have credit registers and credit ratings that are readily available this would be easy to implement. Likewise, where regulatory assessments concentrate on a CAMELS which means capitals, assets, management, earnings, liquidity and sensitivity to risk of the markets rating system, the supervisors might want to pay particular attention to the riskiest assets and customers. SME markets have a dimension that is local. This comes with entry barriers and switching costs and there is a room in exercising market power. In banking business both satisfaction and switching costs can be regarded as loyalty antecedents; however, satisfaction influence on loyalty is greater than the influence of switching costs. Researchers established a relationship between overall satisfaction and customer intentions to recommend a bank and to remain a customer. Despite the fact that financial products still are not differentiated, the customers in banking sector cannot make objective assessments of service quality, that is why the concept of trust is very important here. Switching costs inhibit a return to the local currency even after a successful stabilization effort. These well know incentive effects give rise to the conjecture that once de facto dollarization has reached a threshold, it may well persist, leading to the observation of dollarization hysteresis. Each of the foregoing indices depends upon a number of economic variables that reflect the relative incentives to hold the different assets described in both the denominator and numerator of each index. These incentives include relative rates of return as reflected by interest rate differentials, inflation differentials and exchange rate depreciation as well as the relative costs and benefits associated with network externalities, switching costs and risks of banking institutions. An empirical model was proposed for the strategic behavior of firms in the presence of switching costs. The models used the transition probabilities that are in strategic interaction of firms in order to derive equations that can be estimated. The proposed models novelty is its ability in extracting information for both the significance and magnitude of the switching cost. It can also extract information on the transition probabilities of the customers. In order to illustrate the model was utilized to a panel of banks in order to estimate the switching costs of bank loans in the market. We have found that the grand average point estimate of switching costs is about 4.1%, and may be as low as 0.2% when only banks with the largest loan portfolio are included in the definition of the market. When the market is defined according to the branch-network size the switching cost among the largest banks is about 2.1%. 23% of the customers added value is due to the phenomenon of lock in that is generated by the switching costs. As much as 35.0% of the banks market share is because of the bank-borrower relationship that is already established. The model estimates imply an average duration of bank-customer relationship of 13.5 years. All the above characteristics exhibit lower values for the group of larger banks whose loan portfolio is dominated by more mobile wholesale customers. To summarize, market bank loans switching costs are quite substantial and constitute a significant portion of the value of a marginal customer to the average firm. The presented technique may be applied to other markets in order to gain insight into the empirical regularity of switching costs. The major contribution from this study is that switching barriers affect significantly the level of customer retention, and also affect the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer retention. It does seem that switching costs could be used to predict consumers behaviour in the banking sector. Customer satisfaction has positive effects on the customer retention. Thus, manager may need to emphasize total satisfaction programme in an attempt to retain customers in the competitive banking market. However, the moderating role of switching barriers in the relationship between customer satisfaction and retention is indicative that for low involvement services as credit services switching barriers may play a big role in customers retention programme. Managers therefore, must significantly consider switching barriers and dimensions of customer satisfaction when making plans or focusing efforts in customer retention. The study attempts to differentiate the consequences of consumers behaviour in terms of exit and loyalty. However, the effect of switching barriers on consequence is significant only when customers consider to exit. One major area of future research is the role of government policy in creation and removal of switching barriers especially in a developing economy where government participation is crucial. Besides the switching cost, customer lock-in is essentially driven by relationship lenders informational advantage compared to outsider lenders. The researcher shows that higher switching cost, which can be thought to reflect greater concentration in local credit markets, does not necessarily lead to higher equilibrium profits in relationship lending. Adverse selection problem curtails price competition when the switching cost is low by discouraging outsider banks to make too aggressive bids. Threat of adverse selection gradually fades away as the insiders bank profits are reduced and the cost of switching banks increase. On the other hand, lack of competition starts to dominate for sufficiently high levels of switching cost, so that insider banks profits become increasing in this cost. The researchers finding runs counter to the Petersen-Rajan (1995) argument that competition is generally detrimental to relationship lending. The V-shaped pattern, however, is supported by recent empirical evidence in Elsas (2005) and, to some extent, in Kim et al. (2004). A clear tendency for a V-shaped relationship between availability of institutional debt and relationship lenders market power also arises in the empirical part of Petersen and Rajans (1995) own study. This is the case especially in the category of firms older than five years. The reason why the similar tendency does not emerge in start-up financing is probably because insider lenders informational advantage is not very pronounced in that category. If the model is solved assuming sufficiently inaccurate private information by the insider lender infinitesimal switching cost (=intense competition) is shown to lead to low profits and no clear-cut V-shaped relationship arises. The researcher also finds that allocation of financial resources is most efficient under intermediate market structures: low switching cost tends to augment adverse selection problem, while some of the good loan applicants are left without finance when the cost of switching banks is sufficiently high. However, if insider banks can invest in the accuracy of private information, the incentive to acquire information is stronger when the expected benefits from relationship lending are higher. Therefore more efficient information acquisition can potentially counterbalance the inefficiencies in resource allocation when the switching cost is either very low or high. According to our results, learning costs best explain perceived average costs, followed by continuity costs. Lost costs do not significantly explain perceived average costs. This regression tells us that to obtain a strong perceived average cost, one variable with a significant impact is learning costs. However, this variable is more difficult to manipulate. In addition, increasing learning costs may create induced loyalty, which would be perceived poorly. Clearly, making a financial institutions processes more complicated just to create barriers to leaving would not be a very good strategy. Continuity costs are a variable that financial institutions could control in order to achieve desired loyalty. For example, loyalty programs would grant customers special privileges. Customers would be less likely to leave, for fear of losing these benefits. Non-monetary privileges such as the increased availability of a financial advisor or simply the fact that an advisor knows a customers name can increase the switching costs perceived by customers. Banks can make substantial profits in some peoples eyes; they must also demonstrate transparency in their communications and position themselves as being in touch with their customers. They should not come across as cold businesses that are only care for people with money. They should welcome customers warmly and treat each one fairly, especially if they want to appeal to a younger population (18-30 years old). Younger customers should be treated in the same way and just as seriously as older customers. Switching costs have a minimal impact on loyalty even though, as we have observed, there is clearly a connection between perceived switching costs and loyalty. Nonetheless this variable is not a requirement in a loyalty strategy for young people. In summary, a loyalty program with special benefits for young people could be an effective part of a loyalty strategy, but financial institutions must first ensure that customers trust them and are satisfied with their products and services. This study also highlights the essential role of main bank power, measured by equity holdings, in enabling firms to change inside† banks. Apparently, switching to a new bank which holds equity of the firm reduces the switching costs. In addition, the researcher finds no evidence that main bank power has a material effect on firm performance, but it does affect the loan ratio by increasing the amount of credit with a term of one year or more. Banks with a high level of nonperforming loans are compelled to curtail lending due to their impaired financial health. In contrast, less capitalized banks are associated with higher loan ratio of their clients. Thus, the findings provide more fodder for the debate over the potential for banks to structure clients’ balance sheets. It is worth noting that whether and in what amount loans will be made is crucially dependent on the bank’s characteristics (i.e., how much money does it have to lend), whereas interest rates (measured by interest payments) are determined by the borrower’s creditworthiness. A core finding of this research is that firms perform worse after switching, which is in accordance with Degryse and Ongena (2001). Apparently, the firms that switch banks are seen as risky and, therefore, the new bank charges higher interest on the credit it grants. This is reasonable behavior on the part of banks as von Thadden (2004) argues that particularly low-quality firms are more likely to switch banks. It would be very interesting to discover how permanent this poorer performance is and to what extent bank health affects loan conditions. The issue of strong bank power implying high switching costs for firms is of great relevance to policymakers in that financial institutions tend to choose insufficient structures in the absence of sufficient competition and this situation can result in wealth redistribution in developing countries (Rajan, 2002). To guard against banks having excessive power, many developed countries set limits on the amount of equity a bank can hold in a single firm (Morck et al., 2000). This type of regulation is rare in emerging markets so far, making non-financial corporations quite susceptible to shocks generated in financial sector. Perhaps the most interesting empirical regularity uncovered in this study is that banking crises are not accompanied by substantial declines in bank deposits relative to GDP. Thus, while depositor runs have played a central role in the theoretical literature on banking crises, in practice they seem to be a sideshow at best. A possible explanation is that generous bank safety nets are present, and depositors have little to lose despite widespread insolvency in the banking system. However, our bank-level analysis indicates that deposits do decline in weaker, less profitable banks, suggesting that depositors are actively and accurately monitoring financial institutions. If funds withdrawn are re-deposited in healthier banks, than the stability of aggregate deposits can be reconciled with the evidence of runs on weaker banks. This is an issue that deserves further study. For instance, if indeed large scale reallocations of deposits occur following banking crises, how is the functioning o f the financial system affected? Can the payment system, the interbank market, and the supply of credit continue to work smoothly? Bank financial distress, be it the result of illiquidity or insolvency, may help propagating adverse shocks to the real economy if it forces banks to curtail lending to creditworthy borrowers. Banking crises do not seem to be followed by prolonged recessions: the slowdown in output growth is usually sharp but short-lived, with growth rates back to their pre-crisis levels in the second year after the crisis even though credit growth remains depressed. An open question for future research is how do firms finance the recovery in the immediate aftermath of a banking crisis, and at what stage if any — does the lack of bank credit become a hindrance to growth. The analysis of bank level data indicates that even healthier b

Theodor Geisel Essay -- Literary Analysis, Dr. Seuss

THESIS Theodor Geisel’s political activism during World War II, especially in the form of his political cartoons, heavily influenced his work as a children’s author, and impacted the messages of Horton Hears a Who and Yertle the Turtle. INTRODUCTION Dr. Seuss is known for his phenomenal creatures, invented words, and rhymes that surpassed absurdity and became something beautiful. Before that, though, Theodor Geisel was nationally noted for his political cartoons during World War II that enticed the mind to do more than think, but to ask questions and crave knowledge and justice. Dr. Seuss was not just a whimsical alter-ego of Mr. Geisel by any means, however. Dr. Seuss allowed Geisel to communicate his message to a new audience, in a unique way. Before his death, he left the world with a simple plea- â€Å"We need to do better† (Nell 294). The legacy he left behind paves the trail for society to do just that. THE BIRTH OF MR. GEISEL, THE CREATION OF DR. SEUSS On March 2nd, 1904, the world got its first glimpse of the man who would forever change the world of children’s literature. Theodor Seuss Geisel was born to Henrietta and Theodor Robert Geisel on this day in Springfield, Massachusetts. He had one older sister, Marnie, who was his hero and best friend. She was the basis of many of his stories. Later, his parents would have another daughter, Henrietta, but the family was struck by tragedy when she died of pneumonia. Henrietta Sr. and Theodor Robert reacted to this disaster by investing all of their love and focus into their remaining two children (Levine, 9). The Geisels, though they were not wealthy, lived a comfortable life. They were of German descent, and took great pride in their heritage until th... ...course, are the turtles are free, as turtles, and maybe all creatures, should be† (10). CONCLUSION Theodor Seuss Geisel died a hero among children and adults alike. He accomplished a task that would be impossible to most- he was able to incorporate not only the simple difference between good and bad, but the realities of social injustice and the power of the oppressed, into children’s books. Clifton Fadiman, writer for The New Yorker, may have most accurately described Dr. Seuss in an article following his death- â€Å"[He is] the most useful children’s author of our time. He has helped dispel a lot of the nonsense that children are taught and†¦ his books always maintained their universal cry for wonder, fairness, and love (Morgan 291).† Geisel used his political knowledge and passion to open the eyes of all people, no matter how young, and no matter how small.

Hamlet As An Aristotelian Tragedy Essay -- essays research papers

According to the Aristotelian view of tragedy, a tragic hero must fall through his or her own error. This is typically called the "tragic flaw", and can be applied to any characteristic that causes the downfall the hero. Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark can be seen as an Aristotelian tragedy and Hamlet as it's tragic hero. Hamlet's flaw, which in accordance with Aristotle's principles of tragedy causes his demise, is his inability to act. This defect of Hamlet's character is displayed throughout the play. In the opening scenes of the play, the Ghost of old Hamlet reveals the truth about his death to his son, and tells Hamlet to avenge the murder. Hamlet's first response is one that sounds of speedy action, saying "Haste me to know't that I with winds as swift†¦ May sweep to my revenge." (p. 34 lines 29-31) Unfortunately, Hamlet's inability to act on his father's extortion has him reluctant to kill King Claudius by the end of that very scene, when he says, "This time is out of joint, O cursed spite, that I was ever born to set it right." (p. 41 lines 190-191) As the play goes on, Hamlet still has yet to act on his murderous task. In act II, scene 2, Hamlet decides that, before he can avenge his father's death, he must make sure that the Ghost was telling the truth. This simply gives Hamlet more excuse to procrastinate-he gets to put off killing Claudius until after the "play within a play", Mousetrap, is preformed. Not surprisin...

Four Geometry Formulas Essay -- Geometry

As you begin the course of geometry students are generally familiarized with frequently used formulas in mathematics. These formulas include finding the perimeter and area of two-dimensional figures and finding the volume and surface area of three-dimensional figures. For every diverse shape there is a related formula for finding its perimeter, area, volume, or surface area. Therefore, we will only focus on four formulas for four singular shapes or figures. We will find the perimeter of a square, the area of a triangle, the volume of a right circular cylinder and the total surface area of a sphere. The first formula will correspond to finding the perimeter of a square. For the following formula P will stand for the perimeter and s will represent the side length of the square. The perimeter of a square is found by multiplying four by the side length of the square. Thus, the formula would be P=4s. The motive that the four is in the formula is because a square has four sides. Now let’s use an example, if a square has a side length of 4 inches on every of its four sides the formul...

Famous Sociologists Essay

1. Emile Durkheim Emile Durkheim is knows as the â€Å"father of sociology† and is a founding figure in the field of sociology. He is credited with making sociology a science. One of his most famous pieces of work includes Suicide: A Study In Sociology. 2. Robert K. Merton Robert K. Merton is considered one of America’s most influential social scientists. He is famous for his theories of deviance as well as for developing the concepts of â€Å"self-fulfilling prophecy† and â€Å"role model.† 3. Max Weber Max Weber was a founding figure of the field of sociology and is considered one of the most famous sociologists in history. He is known for his thesis of the â€Å"Protestant Ethic† as well as his ideas on bureaucracy. 4. Karl Marx Karl Marx is one of the most famous figures in the founding of sociology. He is known for his socio-political theory of Marxism, which contain theories about society, economics and politics that argue that all society progresses through the dialectic of class struggle. He wrote about these issues in his most famous piece or work, The Communist Manifesto. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and in a 1999 BBC poll was voted the â€Å"thinker of the millennium† by people from around the world. 5. Charles Horton Cooley Charles Horton Cooley is best known for his theories of The Looking Glass Self in which he declared that our self-concepts and identities are a reflection of how other people perceive us. He is also famous for developing the concepts of primary and secondary relationships. He was a founding member and eighth president of the American Sociological Association. 6. George Herbert Mead George Herbert Mead is well-know for his theory of the social self, which is based on the central argument that the self is a social emergent. He pioneered the development of symbolic interaction perspective and developed the concept of the â€Å"I† and â€Å"Me.† He is also one of the founders of social psychology. 7. C. Wright Mills C. Wright Mills is known for his controversial critiques of both contemporary society and sociological practice, particularly in his book The Sociological Imagination (1959). He also studied power and class in the United States, as displayed in his book The Power Elite (1956). 8. Erving Goffman Erving Goffman is a significant thinker in the field of sociology and in particular the symbolic interaction perspective. He is known for his writings on the dramaturgical perspective and pioneered the study of face-to-face interaction. He served as the 73rd President of the American Sociological Association and is listed as the 6th most-cited intellectual in the humanities and social sciences by The Times Higher Education Guide. 9. Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist and philosopher who contributed a great deal in the areas of general sociological theory and the link between education and culture. He pioneering terminologies such as habitus and symbolic violence and is known for his work titled Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. 10. Auguste Comte August Comte is known as the founder of positivism and is credited with coininging the term sociology. Comte helped shape and expand the field of sociology and placed a great deal of emphasis in his work on systematic observation and social order.

Political Effectiveness Essay

7. 1 How furthest is the elect presidency fitting to influence or get a line those matters that be important to the lives of its mountain, and how well is it informed, organised and resourced to do so? evaluation M The elected judicature in the Philippines has a bulky right smart to go to fully fol execrable up and succeed in turning the Philippines around. Although, it does test promises.With organizations standardized the group discussion of provinces where it aims to ventilate, articulate, and crystallize issues alter provincial and metropolitan policy-making relation administrations. It excessively serves to secure, through proper and legal means, solutions to problems confronting the locales(league of provinces, n. d. ). Some of its programs include expand tax base which is an activiy that taps funds that whitethorn be used as grants to chance touch on provinces. (league of provinces, n. d.).A nonher judicature project that is trying to improve the bore o f life in the philippines include the modify Farm Income and Market Development view (DFIMDP) with aims to ensure the availability of financial resouces to uphold the department of agricultue develop market to frequentise competition for agriculture and fisheries(Philippine LGU Assistane access n. d. ). 7. 2 How much public combine is on that point in the in force(p)ness of government and its political leadership? judge L.The shadowy thing about the philippines is that even though the public protests a lot the there is really little that they can do(excluding the edsa 1 and 2 incident) but nonetheless the philippine citizens argon unhappy about the government elect. Various craps like the ZTE scandal give up tainted philippines governance. Protests are happening left put across and right protests like the one put up april 2008 marking the 61st birthday of PGMA(the earth propagation, 2008. ). A clear feature that the people have lost faith in her as a leader. 7.3 How effective and open to scrutiny is the control exercised by elected leaders and their ministers over their administrative staff and other executive agencies? grade L For several(prenominal) familys nowadays the philippines has been experiencing extrajudicial/political killings clear sign that the government and people in effect are not open for denunciation and objection. The year 2006 was a bad year in the philippines in terms of political killings and disappearances. Researched conducted by the human rights take care confirms that interminable victims were killed in 2006 and that the force had a hand in most of the killings(the human rights watch, 2007.).7. 4 How extensive and effective are the powers of the legislative assembly to initiate, scrutinise and amend edict? keister L I rated this low because during the 13th sentor angara criticized that the 13th congress has passed the last(a) number of truths in the last 20 geezerhood in an name by Ron Pelovello the senate in the last two years has passed only nine bills that were signed into law and only a takeoverle of public works-related bills from the house of representatives it is also said that it has been the score congress in 20 years(Pelovello, 2006. ). 7.5 How extensive and effective are the powers of the legislature to scrutinise the executive and hold it to eyeshade? Rating VL This was clearly seen when the legislature failed to impart subjugate gma after her alleged treason in the 2004 elections (Del Pilar and Alpha Company, n. d. ). similarly legislature failed again after the ZTE scandal (Einhorn, September 26). We can only take to that after 2010 we will have a better and more powerful legislature. 7. 6 How rigorous are the procedures for approval and oversight of taxation and public expenditure? Rating L 7.7How comprehensive and effective is edict giving citizens the right of access to government information? Rating VH Information forthwith is very accessible with th e internet and the military posture of the press and media nothing stays cloak-and-dagger and this is true with the very public solecism of the ZTE scandal where PGMA cancelled a debatable $330 million deal (Einhorn, September 26). This was a very open scandal and a very public trial. 8. 0Civilian control of the military and guard 8. 1How effective is noncombatant control over the armed forces, and how free is political life from military involvement?Rating L I think the politics in the Philippines will never be free from military involvement several coup detat have afflicted the Philippines over the years the most youthful would be that of trillianes. This would be his second coup attempt the first was in 2003. A clear example that the military is not as controlled as we would want them to be, the civilian control has to be improved. 8. 2 How publically accountable are the police and protection service for their activities? Rating L An article Romero and the AFP stated th at the police is viewed by Filipino respondents as the most touch by corruption.Also globally the police are viewed as the most affected with petty bribery (Romero, 2007. ). 8. 3 How far does the composition of the army, police and security services reflect the social composition of connection at large? Rating H 8. 4 How free is the verdant from the execution of paramilitary units, private armies, warlordism and criminal mafias? Rating VL The country has a long way to go before being exclusively free from private armies and paramilitary units.Events like the Oakwood mutiny that occurred 5 years past (Remollino, 2006.) remind us that we are cool off a very unstable country in terms of paramilitary units. As for private armies the manila times produce last year an article stating that the PNP admitted that there are 93 private armies comprehensive (Manila Times, 2007), an alarming number that has to be brought down in order for our country to draw its full potential and take its place as a developed country. 8. 5 What measures, if any, are being taken to meliorate publicly identified problems in this field, and what percentage point of political priority and public congest do they have? Rating VL.