Ji-Woon Kims A Bittersweet Life Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Ji-Woon Kims A Bittersweet Life - Movie Review Example The second type of narration could come under a nonlinear form of narrative, as the story is revealed in a disjointed and non-chronological order. Even when the film takes a chronological or linear narrative structure, certain events could go to and fro. So, films could maximally include different narrative structures or could take a narrative structure, which could balance different aspects of the plot or the character. This balancing act or tightrope walking form of narrative structure is adopted by many filmmakers. In the case of the Korean film, A Bittersweet Life, written and directed by Ji-Woon Kim, the narrative structure takes an intense and at the same time stylish tightrope walk between violence and philosophy of life, or if said in another way between recklessness and reflection. Visually also, it mixes well-choreographed action scenes with more transcendental based settings, wide-angle shots, character’s outlook, body language, etc. As a function of a film’s narration, characters around Sun-woo appear increasingly bizarre and unpredictable all the time, but his character was one of calmness, with violence exhibited at appropriate situations. Sun-woo, who is a manager of hotel La Dolce Vita, is a no ordinary manger, there is a ‘volcano’ behind that calm facade. Young and handsome, a tightly controlled gang enforcer in a narrow black suit who is decisive and efficient, he is also the trusted right-hand man of his underworld boss (Mr.Kang). He served Mr.Kang like a faithful dog for 7 years committing extreme violence for him, but at the same, he leads a lonely existence with his unflinching loyalty In line with the narrative structure of philosophy mixed with violence, the film starts with a Buddhist parable, â€Å"Master, are the branches moving or is it the wind?†

External World Skepticism Essay Example for Free

External World Skepticism Essay ‘’Locke and Descartes have very different ideas about how to defeat external world skepticism.’’ Whose views are more valid about the realiability of sense perception for understanding the external world? The knowledge, the idea of the existence of external world and the way it is perceived by human being has been controvesy issue for centruies. Descartes and Locke also two very important name who proposed some viewpoint, even it can be said some theories, on the issue. The existence of external world and external bodies are true without us? Or do they exist as long as we perceive them? The idea of existence of external bodies, the knowledge of them can be attained through the way they reach us in any form. The most common and the easiest, as it will be discussed later as the only, way is the senses through them we perceive the material objects and arrive at the information they exist or not. Every existential material being has some spesific physical qualities that appeal to our senses, and through this way we experience them. It is an obvious fact that something that does not exist can do nothing to us or can show no quality to be noticed by us. Famous philospher Descartes also, basically based on this perspective, put forward that what we are perceiving through our senses are the external bodies that caused the ideas in us. As the ideas of external bodies caused in us by their perception through our senses, they exists outside independent of us. This means that whether or not we perceive any material being, it keeps to process of existence. Only, the idea of it, in us, begins with our noticing, perceiving and putting in a place in our mind. To be more clear, the part of it, its existence to us is this: our getting the idea of it. And getting an idea of an objects is provided through experiencing it by our senses independent of our will and desire. When we notice an object it has been realized that it reached us with one or more physical qualifications of it; thus we perceived it through our sense organs and have an idea about its existence. So, tt the very moment we perceive an object, its existence accepted by us in my opi nion. However, Descartes claims that sensory ideas must be produced by some substances other than us as we have a passive faculty of sensory perception and only active faculties can use them. It is worth to noting that it is totally wrong as it is possible our having an idea that produced without us. The ideas are produced, no matter what they are about, in our mind. And, ideas of external things comes into being in our minds just because we can notice them in a way. After their idea, their knowledge is reached with the way their qualities are perceived by senses. On the other hand, Locke makes his theory depend on a more assured ground. The Knowledge of the Existence of any other thing we can have only by Sensations. The only way to know any external thing is to experience it through our sensory organs. Because their realization in our minds or their existence in us is created by the testimony of our sensory organs. It can be said that our understanding of the external things pass through our reliability on our sensations. However, it also is worth to note that whenever we perceive something through our sensory organs, a certain quality of them affects us in a specific way. After their perception realizes in our mind, we makes reasons about them and understand that there are material objects that exists outside, independently. So mean, there are external material things that exists without and independent of us. Furthermore, the knowledge of them can be gained only through sensations and perceptions. First of all, when we face with an object, we perceive it through our sense organs. This perception is moved on to our brain, and with its interpretation of the object, an idea of it takes place in us. For instance, my perception of a book, my knowing of a book is provided me with the certain qualities of it. Its shape and color could be an example for this. It has a shape and a color and i can see it with my eyes, so the idea of the book reach me through the testimony of my eyes. In this example the color and the shape of the book helps me to define it in my mind with some specific qualities. Again, let’s consider a flower which has a good odor and pink color. Using our sensory organs we can ascribe the flower color and odor qualities. In a more detailed way, thanks to its odor i know that there is a thing independent of me which has a color and an odor. It already has been there with its color and odor but we were not aware of it before perceive it. Otherwise, because our sensory organs do not have the capability of producing some senses without getting any stimulus from outside, it would be a fallacy to believe that we create the ideas of external objects in our own mind without their existence, even though in some situations stimulus may leads us to have wrong ideas about the reality. Additionally, it is also another possible situation that we may have the idea of an object, without getting any cause from it at the very that moment depending on past experiences. As an illustration, let’s consider a nomad traveler who passing through a desert. The weather is so hot, everywhere is yellow and the tiredness of walking very long time increases the desire to have some water but he does not have. In this while, within this deprivation he sees a puddle. But as far as he gets close to it, the puddle becomes distant, and the nomad realizes that it is not a real, existed puddle but just a mirage. His eyes tricke him and he sees an object which, in fact, does not exist there at that moment. With the effect of other stimulants like hot weather, yellow color etc. the thirst increases to the extend that it gives rise him to see an unexisted thing as it exists there. The idea of a puddle comes into being in the mind of the nomad at the result of the causes come from the ou tside existed things, but it drags him to be under the illusion of an unexisted thing at that moment. To be more clear, it is not the situation that the nomad sees a never existed thing as existed at that moment; on the contrary, he sees an image of an existed thing which existed in fact on this world, but unexisted there and for that moment. The appearance of a puddle is a consequence of the perception of hot and the vast desert. Perceptions of their being truly creates a false idea of another object. So to speak, her brain plays a game with the nomad and brins up the idea of a previously perceived object. The nomad has the notion of puddle. He has the idea about how a puddle looks like. And at that moment with the wrong association of ideas, he had wrong idea about the puddle’s to be there at that moment. Nonetheless, it does not change the reality that there is a puddle thing outside him and the perception of it realized before, the idea of it comes into being in the mind of the nomad, thus he can recall it among from all the ideas he has thanks to previous perceptions. The perception of the puddle came to existence in a moment his previous life. Consequently, our sensory organs may lead us to have wrong perception in a moment of our life, but it cannot be deniable that this wrong perception also comes from a true perception of the object in another moment, so it exists for another moment even though it does not exist for that moment. Locke has a claim related to this: ‘’ As when our Senses employ’d about any Object, we do know that it does exist; so by our Memory we may be assured, that therefore Things, that affected our senses, have existed. And thus we have knowledge of the past Existence of several things, whereof our senses informed us, our memories still retain the ideas; and of this we are past all doubt, so long as we remember well.’’ We believe the existence of some objects as we have past experiences with them, even though at the moment we think about them we do not have any physical relation with them. Moreover, as another point of view, if it would be thought for things that cann ot be sensed by our sensory organs but material, it can easily be said that it is impossible that there such a being exists, as the material objects are the ones that have some physical qualities that affect us through sensory organs of us. When it comes to abstract things or their ideas in us, the situation is totally different and we cannot be so sure about their existence and we cannot have a definite, true knowledge of them. They are not physical obejcets nor are qualified with the features that can be comprehended through perception. As i agree with him to some extent but do not completely, Locke thinks that the idea of spirits does not make us know that any such thing do exist without us, but Eternal God. And according to him we must believe existence of some spiritual things, even though we cannot perceive and discover them in any way, as God created them and we informed about them with revelation or for other reasons. The spirits or abstracts that we have idea about them are known by us, as some of us experienced them. We are tend to believe in what majority believes. Although we do not perceive them with our own senses, we may be persuaded to have the idea of their existence. It also is related to our beliefs. If God informs us that they exist even though we do not experience them, we may believe as we faithfully trust and obey Him. However, It is not certain that some spirits are around exists. They may be there for the ones who believe in them, and not for the others who do not believe. These kind of knowledge depends on belief and it would not be logical to say something certain about them. Descartes on the other hand, links the knowledge of non-material things to God. According to him, if God had not give us a way to recognize such ‘higher forms’, we has been strongly inclined to believe that bodies produce them. And so if the ideas were transmitted from a source other than corporeal things, God would be a deceiver; and he is not; so bodies exists. This claim again would be true if one believe in God without any doubt, but s/he may not. So it shoul have more logical explanation that do have a common validity for everyone. As i mentioned above, since the ideas of abstracts cannot be thought independent of belief, their existence might be related to the believing them directly. As an example, think about Deism; those who believe in it consider God as the only holly one. They believe in God, but they rejects the religions, reveletion and all the other things which are mentioned in religions as things created by God. So in short, the existence of things other than the material things cannot be known clearly and certainly as they might be accepted by the ones who believe and might not be accepted by the others who rejects. Last but not least, it can be said that having knowledge about any issue begins with knowing and knowing with understanding. To understand something, it is a must that its being left an impact on us in such a way that we perceive it through sensations. Addition to this, it is a fact that an impact comes with a feature that belongs to an object and helps us to perceive the object, thus we comprehend its existence and have the knowledge of it. [ 1 ]. Descartes, Meditations 6 , p 43 in textbook. [ 2 ]. Descartes, Meditations 6 , p 45 in the textbook [ 3 ]. Knowledge of the Existence of other Things p. 630 (in textbook) [ 4 ]. Knowledge of the Existence of other Things (p 636, p 134 in textbook) [ 5 ]. Knowledge of the Existence of other Things (p 637, p 134 in textbook) [ 6 ]. Descartes, Meditations 6, p 45 in textbook.

The Merchant Of Venice As A Romantic Comedy - Critical Analysis :: Free Merchant of Venice Essays

We can trace the origin of Comedy to Dionysis- the Greek God of Wine who was hilarious, satirical and irreverent in spirit. Ben Jonson in ‘Volpone’ (1605) that is considered to be the greatest comedy in English epitomized the classical spirit of comedy. Shakespeare was aware of the classical tradition by the chose to follow the Roman tradition of Petrarch and Boccacio. Shakespeare’s early comedies were classical in spirit but the later ones were more emotional, fanciful and humorous. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ falls between there two categories. It leads the list of mature comedies; has more Romantic characteristics than classical. It is also one of the earliest productions of the middle period. In this play Shakespeare seems to have obtained the highest use of his powers as a playwright, his faculties as a poet and philosopher seem to be approaching their grand maturity without losing the ardor and hopefulness of youth. There is loftiness of thought and expression. Romance was an old tradition and Romantic ideas were common during Shakespeare’s time. Romantic Comedy in the 16th C was meant for the Aristocracy and the comic relief in the plays was meant for the groundlings. There were many differences between the Romantic Comedies and classical comedies. In the classical tradition, the characters were presented with ruthless force and the plays were realistic, spiritual and critical. But in Romantic comedies that Shakespeare wrote there was plenty of with but there was also an appeal to the emotions rather than the intellect and they were also less critical in purpose. Like Meredith said, they are â€Å"thunders of laughter clearing the air and heart.† It is a comedy of emotions, which wins the audience’s sympathy with the woes and exhalations of the characters. The various characteristics of Romantic comedies are present in ‘The Merchant of Venice’. The leading themes of most of these plays were Love and Friendship. These comedies were an exposition of Love and its manifold modifications. And on one level ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is also a play about friendship and love. In the first scene itself Antonio displays the nature of love and friendship that he feels for Bassanio, â€Å"My purse, my person, my extremest means Lie all unlocked to your occasions.† The love of friendship seems to dictate most of Antonio’s actions. He signs the Flesh Bond and it can be seen as the ultimate gesture that he can make for the sake of friendship.

Elementary, Middle and Highschool Boy-Girl Relationship Essay

Is it too soon to talk about boy/girl relationships in elementary school? Of course it is, you say! Well, you may not want to hear about it, or you may choose denial over reality, but the fact remains that children are playing out the cultural role that they are being taught as early as 2nd grade. Therefore, the relationship between boys and girls at every school (Christian and non- Christian) is a topic that needs to be discussed from a Biblical standpoint. Recently I have observed an increase in the level of interaction between some of the boys and girls at the elementary school level with the boyfriend/girlfriend relationship in mind. There have been some phone calls made and notes passed, and yet nothing really serious has happened. Even so, the fallout from this kind of interest and behavior has been clearly seen, as some of the kids are rejecting others, breaking off friendships, and making â€Å"who likes whom† a focus of attention. The pattern becomes more sophisticated as it continues in the middle school years and is in full bloom by the time the children hit high school. I would like to attempt to persuade you that the elementary level of â€Å"who likes whom,† and the middle school level of â€Å"who is going out with whom,† are not simply innocent and cute stages of life through which everyone must go. As informed Christians professing to glorify the Lord in all things, we need to see if any of this behavior brings glory to God and evaluate the effects of it on our kids. A brief look at the teen dating model and its consequences will show that it is the world’s model, not Christ’s, that we are so accustomed to. Dating is more for a boy and a girl than just spending time together. It’s a lifestyle that involves attitudes and values. It’s a heart thing! Matthew 22:37 says, â€Å"And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and wit h all your soul, and with all your mind.’† The first love for our kids is to be Jesus. Our Creator’s plan for our lives is really what we should be directing our kids to focus on; the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever! Romantic male-female relationships are designed by God to be special and singular. The world’s model of dating is one in which you try out many opportunities until you find the one that makes you happy. This type of dating results in a pattern of many broken hearts and bad memories – some of which are detrimental to the intimacy intended for marriage later in life. Interestingly, even the non Christian world is beginning to realize that frequent dating is not healthy. The following are excerpts from an article in the September 8, 2005 Wall Street Journal1 that cites two studies not written from a Christian worldview but nonetheless conclude: * Teens who date a lot don’t have a higher likelihood of developing healthy adult relationships. Instead, their romances in their 20s are likely to be more troubled. * Teens who dated only one or a few people, and formed relationships of more than a few weeks, emerged in their 20s with closer and more-trusting romantic ties than those who had more numerous and fleeting dates. * Unmarried teen girls who settled down with just one partner at 16 or 17- and were still unmarried at 21- are more likely to be eventually married by ages 22-25. Many, including Christians and non Christians, think that dating is just part of the teenage experience. However, putting adolescent boys and girls together leads not only to the emotional experiences that often tear at our children’s hearts but also to sexual experimentation. Think back to your teen years: were you told by a boyfriend or girlfriend in your teen years that he/she loved you? Did he/she eventually marry you? Where did that relationship lead? God wants us to act and think differently. These are matters of the heart. Philippians 1:9-10 says, â€Å"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.† The goal for most kids in boy/girl relationships is that they are primarily interested in what they are going to get out of the relationship. Sometimes popularity, comfort or pleasure is what a teen gains emotionally or physically. That’s not the kind of love that God would have us live out. That’s choosing what feels good for self rather than what is good for others and pleases God. Parents must be honest and Biblically discerning about the real motivation that lies behind the thoughts and actions of our children. Do love and sincerity motivate the boys in these relationships? Matthew 22:39 says, â€Å"And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.† There is a great book on the subject entitled I Kissed Dating Goodbye, written by Joshua Harris. I have little space here, so I will make a few points and urge you to buy the book. The book is about waiting and preparation, and it debunks and rejects the typical idea of dating and applies a Biblical grid to it. You don’t have to agree with all of his points, but it would behoove you to take a good look at them. Josh Harris says, â€Å"Let’s not do what feels good, but instead do what is good.† He encourages us to look at all of the damage caused by typical worldly dating in the lives of teens and to replace that energy and time with a time of focused preparation for all of life, including preparing for the special relationship of marriage. The book challenges our teens to realize they have no business taking another person’s heart if they are not ready to make a lifelong commitment to that person. He says that if you really love someone, you’ll be interested in that special person’s long-term needs rather than your short-term desires. He exhorts the teen to look at the big picture: serving others and glorifying God. That way, the person is positioned to receive God’s best for them. God has something better for a teen than futile worldly dating! I have two lists for you from the Josh Harris book that are without the further explanation that is needed, but due to lack of space, you’ll just have to get the book to learn more. The seven habits of highly defective dating are: 1. Dating leads to intimacy, but not necessarily commitment. 2. Dating tends to skip the â€Å"friendship stage† of the relationship. 3. Dating often mistakes a physical relationship for love. 4. Dating often isolates a couple from other vital relationships. 5. Dating, in many cases, distracts young adults from their primary responsibility of preparing for the future. 6. Dating can cause discontentment with God’s gift of singleness. 7. Dating creates an artificial environment for evaluating another person’s character. If you are like me, you read those and said amen, I’ve done that before and amen, I see that over and over again. Now here is the refreshing Christian view – five important new attitudes: 1. Every relationship is an opportunity to model Christ’s love. 2. My unmarried years are a gift from God. 3. Intimacy is the reward of commitment; I don’t need to pursue a romantic relationship before I am ready for marriage. 4. I cannot â€Å"own† someone outside of marriage. 5. I will avoid situations that could compromise the purity of my body or mind. Some of you won’t agree. Some of you agree but are saying, â€Å"My child would never go for this.† You are absolutely right. If they have been trained by the world to think like a worldling, they will not want to kiss dating goodbye. But, you are the parent, so†¦.. be the parent! I can’t tell you how often parents tell me what their child will or will not do, so that’s what they (the parents) do. We parents have to take a stand for the Lord and teach the tough things that need to be taught! God will honor that. Some of you are happy that you don’t have teens yet, so you think you don’t have to be concerned. Wrong!!!!!! The reason that we are struggling with our teens and worl dly dating and relationship views isbecause of what they have been taught since Kindergarten. How foolish is it of us parents to allow our child to be taught worldly thinking about male/female relationships and then go to God when our child is 16 years old to beg that He will help our child behave like a Christian when he/she is alone! God will not be mocked! Boys must be taught that they are not to get physical with the girls and that, instead, girls are to be honored and respected. Little things such as holding open a door or helping carry something for a girl are proper and good. The children need to be taught that having an opposite sex relationship is something that is for later in life as you get ready for marriage – something that is also extraordinarily special to people and to God. Boys and girls calling each other on the phone (especially in elementary school) is inappropriate in most cases. We need to teach that people are not possessions that you can trade. Instead, we need to teach them to show real love to one another by helping one another to succeed where they are in life (a student) and to honor God. What are our kids being taught through what they see and hear daily? What are they watching on TV? How about the movies? You and I both know that women are often portrayed as sex objects and trophies. What about at home? Dads, do you treat your wife as the queen of the household? Do your kids see you treating her with great care and affection? Do you realize that everything they see is teaching them how to treat their wives one day? Every year of our lives we are learning and recording permanent records in our minds. I played the worldly relationship and dating game when I was young and things may seem to have worked out OK. My wife and I have been married for 27 years and have a great marriage – but there is more to the story than what you see. Frankly, I am ashamed of many things that I have recorded in my memory regarding male/female relationships from many years ago before I was married. I have prayed that God would remove some of those memories, and He has been gracious, but some remain. In God’s purposes, He often allows us to experience and remember things so we can learn from them and pass the lessons on to others. If you went through the same pattern of worldly dating when you were young, you don’t have to pass it on. You can start afresh with your children. By God’s grace, you have the power to go against the tide of our culture and raise up children who are truly happy and bring glory to God. We have great promises from God that He will be faithful if we will trust and obey Him. I hope that this article has given you some food for thought. Better yet, I hope that you have been convinced that boy/girl relationships in the third, fourth, or fifth grade are yet another battleground for the spiritual struggle for our kids’ hearts. In life, the devil is not kept out of your child’s life by locking a door. We must get after him with all we’ve got and then root out the unbiblical thinking in our kids. 1Shellenbarger, Sue (2005) The Case for Going Steady: Studies Say Teen Dating Habits Affect Marriage Skills. Wall Street Journal, 9/8/2005.

“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop Essay

In her poem, â€Å"One Art,† Elizabeth Bishop constructs a poem that reveals a struggle with mastering the issue of loss. Through the use of a villanelle, Bishop utilizes the significance of structure and word choice to further the meaning of her work. Bishop crescendos each stanza to create a firm foundation for the dramatic conclusion, and incorporates expressive words throughout the poem to illuminate the last stanza’s attitude shift from that of carelessness to seriousness. The villanelle form is a type of love poem and Elizabeth Bishop’s use of this is appropriate for her poem about lost love. The first five tercets (three lined stanzas) begin by speaking of small objects (keys) then grow to large items (continents). The final stanza is a quatrain (four lined stanza) that contains the occasion and attitude shift of the poem. The poem’s first line â€Å"the art of losing isn’t hard to master† resurfaces throughout the text to reiterate the speaker’s opinion on the mastery of loss. And the repetition of the third line’s final word â€Å"disaster† is a key to the meaning of the poem. Bishop’s word choice furthers the significance of loss and love throughout the poem. Since the first and third lines repeat within the text the middle lines of each stanza remain different from each other. The endings of each middle line have the same rhyme pattern and collectively they spell out an ultimate loss-† intent†/ â€Å"spent†/ â€Å"meant†/ and â€Å"went.† The speaker, in the beginning, is impersonal and does not mention any valuable item which was lost. In the second stanza the speaker explains how to master the art of loss, and urges the readers to practice, making it a habit: â€Å"Lose something every day (line 4).† The â€Å"lost door keys, the hour badly spent (line 5)† become materialistic entities and lost time. The third stanza contains a dynamic list of uncontrollable loss. By choosing the phrase â€Å"losing farther, losing faster (line 7),† Bishop illustrates movement in time, ultimately symbolizing loss. The simple shift from the third stanza to the fourth allow for a more personal touch to the poem with the addition of the word â€Å"I.† Bishop chooses the â€Å"mother’s watch† to symbolize time and the link between generations. The lost watch makes tangible the feeling of inevitable loss. The speaker also sequences her losses- â€Å"my last†/ â€Å"next-to-last.† Stanza  five is the final tercet that includes materialistic items lost by the speaker. The loss of spacious and lavishing objects such as â€Å"cities†/ â€Å"realms,† â€Å"rivers,† and â€Å"continents† can not compare to the feelings the speaker acquires from the loss of love in stanza six. The final stanza, the quatrain, contains an attitude shift from that of invincibility to somberness. By implementing â€Å"you,† Bishop transformed the poem into a personal piece by breaking away from the pattern of inanimate objects and incorporating an actual being. Although the tone is of a more personal nature the details are still muffled. The parenthesis around â€Å"(the joking voice, a gesture/ I love)† creates a caesura for the reader, allowing a pause before confronting the uncertainty of the last lines. The first line refrain varies its form in line eighteen with the addition of the word â€Å"too† which seems to second-guess the original assertion that loss â€Å"isn’t hard to master.† And in the closing line the repetition of â€Å"likes† postpones the final word that the speaker is so hesitant to admit-â€Å"disaster.† The parenthetical statement â€Å"(Write it)† is a self-prompt that conveys the energy needed to actually allow the word â€Å"disaster† to be recognized. By putting it in writing the speaker is accepting the fact that they have not yet mastered the art of loss. Bishop’s use of the villanelle form and strong word choice collectively work together to illustrate the speaker’s private sorrows over a lost love without including a self-pitied tone. The poem reveals a struggle for mastery that will never be attained. One does attempt to master loss but the recognition of powerlessness may be a more efficient method to tame loss.

Top 10 Tips on Making a Great Career Choice

Top 10 Tips on Making a Great Career Choice Top 10 Tips on Making a Great Career Choice Excellent career decision involves three factors sense of purpose, financial concern and satisfaction from what youre doing. Your career path should both take care about your personal and financial concerns and satisfy your hearts yearnings. To make the right career choice among the countless career opportunities, follow this list of tried tips: Research online: Use the power of the Internet to discover career opportunities that you have never heard of. See what different career paths can offer you and understand what they want you to offer them. Combine requirements and passions: Nothing can be better than work that meets both your passions and personal needs. Confucius said that if you choose the job you love, you wont have to work a day in your life. Undertake aptitude test: It can assist you to determine what things you are better at, which will eventually lead you to make a better career decision. You can either take this test online or at colleges. See the yellow pages: Thats a fun method. You should take yellow pages and just flip pages to do some random selection of the company. Who knows, maybe its the way the universe wants you to find a job. Differentiate job and career: Job has a more narrow meaning. It can be a step towards your career or a simple instrument to pay for life. Career is your long-term professional plan and except for making money, it should bring a sense of fulfillment and pleasure from your accomplishments. Be open to new opportunities: You can have a plan for yourself, but it should always have some space for surprise that our world can prepare for you. Dont limit yourself to a narrow list of job ideas and be opened for new opportunities. Prioritize: Choosing job should definitely include prioritizing. Make up a list of things which matter the most in terms of your career and rate them. Identify the points which are the most valuable and important for you. Is it money, or maybe ability to travel, or perhaps you love communicating with different people? Once you have the list it will be much easier to select preferable occupation. Make a decision: Its not your parents or friends who should decide on your career path, but it is you. This is your life and this important decision is yours to take. When youre passionate about what youre doing, success is bound to come. Consider financial part: Money is also important, so when you find a career path that youre passionate about, make sure that it will be financially beneficial. Scan the market: When making a decision about your career it is also important to analyze market conditions. If you follow the market trends you will find many attractive opportunities.

Free Essays on Romeo And Juliet Fate Vs. Free Will

when the full impact of what he has just done and the consequences of his actions hit him. His secret marriage to Juliet of the Capulet family, his own families’ sworn enemy, had earlier prevented him from accepting the challenge of a fight made by Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. Romeo’s friend Mercutio cannot stand by and watch Tybalt degrade Romeo, and so he takes up the sword, but is fatally wounded. When Romeo sees Mercutio dead he then fights Tybalt, he ends up killing him. It is when Tybalt falls dead that Romeo realizes what he has done. He also knows he will now be executed by the prince, who had said that there would be no more fights between the Capulets and Montagues. Romeo, for example, page 755, he says, â€Å"Some consequence yet hanging in the stars†¦by some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage over my course Direct my sail.† He’s basically saying to his friends that he had a dream which leads him to believe th at he will die young because of something in the stars, something that will happen. He ends with â€Å"†¦he that hath steerage over my course†¦Ã¢â‚¬  which implies that he does not have control. Free will is the â€Å"philosophical doctrine† that our choices are, ultimately, "up to us". Consequently, an un-free action must be somehow "up to" something else. The phrase "up to us" is vague, and, just like free will itself, admits of a variety of interpretations. Because of this vagueness, the usefulness of the concept of free will is questioned by some. We can ask several logically independent questions about free will. There are also many instances of free will being executed. When Balthasar tells Romeo that he saw Juliet being placed in the Capulet’s monument he screams out ï ¿ ½... Free Essays on Romeo And Juliet Fate Vs. Free Will Free Essays on Romeo And Juliet Fate Vs. Free Will A large part of the beliefs for both Romeo and Juliet involve fate. They believed in the stars, and that their actions weren’t always their own. For example, â€Å"I am fortunes fool ( 794)†. Romeo cries out these words when the full impact of what he has just done and the consequences of his actions hit him. His secret marriage to Juliet of the Capulet family, his own families’ sworn enemy, had earlier prevented him from accepting the challenge of a fight made by Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. Romeo’s friend Mercutio cannot stand by and watch Tybalt degrade Romeo, and so he takes up the sword, but is fatally wounded. When Romeo sees Mercutio dead he then fights Tybalt, he ends up killing him. It is when Tybalt falls dead that Romeo realizes what he has done. He also knows he will now be executed by the prince, who had said that there would be no more fights between the Capulets and Montagues. Romeo, for example, page 755, he says, â€Å"Some consequence yet hanging in the stars†¦by some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage over my course Direct my sail.† He’s basically saying to his friends that he had a dream which leads him to believe that he will die young because of something in the stars, something that will happen. He ends with â€Å"†¦he that hath steerage over my course†¦Ã¢â‚¬  which implies that he does not have control. Free will is the â€Å"philosophical doctrine† that our choices are, ultimately, "up to us". Consequently, an un-free action must be somehow "up to" something else. The phrase "up to us" is vague, and, just like free will itself, admits of a variety of interpretations. Because of this vagueness, the usefulness of the concept of free will is questioned by some. We can ask several logically independent questions about free will. There are also many instances of free will being executed. When Balthasar tells Romeo that he saw Juliet being placed in the Capulet’s monument he screams out ï ¿ ½...

Strong Verbs List Your Detailed Guide to Strong Verbs [Video + Download]

Strong Verbs List Your Detailed Guide to Strong Verbs [Video + Download] Strong Verbs List: Your Detailed Guide to Strong Verbs [Video + Download] Strong verbs are essential for great writing. Not only do you need to know HOW to use powerful verbs, but having a strong verbs list at your disposal is invaluable. Well cover both for you.I used to think writinga book was easy. And in all honesty, writing has never been the most difficult thing in the world for me but when it comes to writing stories and crafting my writing in a way that compels others and pulls them in deeply, it’s been an uphill battle before I discovered using strong verbs along with interesting and cool words to use, that is.Heres what well cover about strong verbs :What is a strong verb?FREE downloadable 200+ strong verbs listStrong verbs versus weak verbsWeak verbs to replace in writingWhat are to be verbsTo be verbs listHow to use strong verbs the right wayWhy you should use strong verbsStrong action verbs for better writingInever struggled with putting my thoughts on paper or even coming up with the ideas.Nope.My biggest hurdle was bringing the emoti on I was trying to convey to life.And as I delved deeper into the literary world, I quickly realized that using strong verbs is a must if you want to create something that leaves a lasting impact. What is a strong verb?Thanks to every English class growing up, you know a verb is a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence. But what’s the deal with strong verbs? It’s not like they can hit the gym and bulk up, right?A strong verb is a better and more descriptive version of a basic verb that creates a stronger visual and can help create a mood (or vibe) for the scene.Weak VerbStrong Verb VariationsRunBolt, sprint, jogWalkSlink, trot, mopeMakeCreate, forge, foster, brewSaySpeak, voice, purr, mutterSo although you can use the basic verb and still tell the same story, you will create a deeper impact within the reader if you use a strong verb in its place.Strong verbs only help your writingI’ll be real with you here. Using strong verbs will definitely make your writing more intriguing and will increase the chances of someone buying (and loving!) your book.BUT, they won’t help you know how to publish a book that sells.And what’s the point of having incredible writing if you can’t publish it in a way that allows for the world to see it?Well, that’s where we come in. No matter how great your book is, you still need to know how to put it all together, market it, and then self-publish in a way that generates sales.Join Chandler Bolt at his FREE Webinar Training as he reveals the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row and how he used them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years!Spots are limited!Click Here to Save Your SpotStrong verbs VS weak verbsWhat’s the real difference here? How can you tell the difference between a strong verb and a weak one?Since you can’t exactly ask words to flex, you need another system to determine if your verbs are weak or not.Here’s how we define strong verbs vs weak verbs:Weak verbs are the â€Å"basic† forms of a specific action, like â€Å"walked† or â€Å"ran.†Strong verbs are a specified form of a broader action, like â€Å"stomped† or â€Å"bolted.†So the main thing you need to remember when it comes to strong verbs vs weak verbs is how specific it is.HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING: Use strong verbs instead! Weak verbs are the basic forms of a specific action, like walked or ran. Strong verbs are a specified form of a braoder action, like stomped or bolted.Click To TweetWeak Verbs to Replace in WritingThe weakest verbs you can replace in your writing are to be verbs. These pull your writing quality down and peg you as an amateur.Other weak verbs include basic forms of any verb, like run, walk, say, sit.Now, keep in mind that weak verbs are absolutely okay to use on occasion. The issues arise when youre using these verbs over and over again when there are better, stronger verbs you can use to make your writing more powerful.Sometimes the best verb to use in a situation is the weak verb. Just keep a look out for how often youre using that b asic form so you can beef up your writing by replacing them in other places.What are to be verbs how to replace them in your writing?To be verbs are any verbs used to describe a state of being, including these terms: is, am, are, was were, be, being, been.In order to make your writer stronger, its important when to use them and when theyre making your writing clunky and weak.Here are a few examples of how to replace to be verbs with something stronger:"To Be" Verbs SentenceReplacing "To Be" VerbsReplacing Weak Verb with Strong VerbShe was walking through the corridor.She walked through the corridor.She slinked through the corridor.Conrad is afraid of the dark.Conrad fears the dark.Conrad cowers from the darkness.I was being chased by someone I didn't know.I was chased by someone I didn't know.Someone I didn't know chased after me.I was wanting to visit this forest for as long as I can remember.I wanted to visit this forest for as long as I can remember.I longed to visit this forest for as long as I can remember.To Be Verbs ListOne of the best ways you can strengthen your writing is to use strong to be verbs. These will instantly make your writing more compelling and less amateurish.These are state-of-being verbs like to be verbs to look out for in your writing:AmAreBeBeenBeingCanCouldDidDoDoesHadHasHaveIsMayMightMustShallShouldWasWereWillWouldHow to use strong verbs in writingLittering your writing with strong verbs wont necessarily make it any better. In fact, if you overdo it, those verbs will have the opposite effect.Instead of making your writing stronger, it can bring it down to an amateur level.That being said, I created the video below in order to help you understand how to use strong verbs in your writing the right way. Why use strong verbs for writingBecause your writing will be better overall. One of the best ways you can immediately make our writing stronger is by going through and crossing out each weak verb and replacing it with a better one.Here ’s how your writing will improve when you choose to use strong verbs.#1 Stronger visualsOne of the most important parts of any book is that your readers can get a precise visual. If they’re going through the chapters not fully picturing what’s happening, they won’t be fully invested.And readers who aren’t invested don’t become fans. And they don’t leave reviews. And they don’t buy any other books you publish.Strong verbs take a basic sentence and form a very specific image in the reader’s mind. Doing this throughout the entirety of your book will leave your readers feeling as if they just stepped out of an entirely different world.And that’s exactly what you want.Take these strong verb descriptions for example:She walked into the room, her cape trailing after her.She charged into the room, her cape billowing after her.She strutted into the room, her cape flowing after her.Each of these sentences is extremely simi lar in what they tell you; a girl with a cape entered a room.But changing the verbs from â€Å"walked† to â€Å"charged† to â€Å"strutted† alters the way in which she entered.It tells you the how.And knowing how an action takes place sets up far more than just the image for the reader. It tells them the mood the character’s in, increases suspense in some cases, and even creates anticipation for what’s to follow.#2 More impactful emotionsThe goal of your book (and any book, really) is to make your reader feel something. You want to stir emotions in them.That’s why they read books. That, and they want to be transported to a different world, which strong verbs are also used for.But one of the main reasons to use strong verbs in writing is to create a more emotional impact.When you want to create a strong reaction in your reader, no matter what type of reaction that is, you need to use strong verbs.Here’s an example of creating more anx iety or anticipation in your readers:My heart was beating so fast I could hear it.My heart crashed against my ribs, echoing in my head.Which sentence gives you a clearer picture of the anxiety that must be felt?The second, right.Because replacing â€Å"was beating fast† with â€Å"crashed against my ribs,† shows you just how hard my heartfelt. And thats the difference between a weak verb and a strong one.Strong verbs in writing are the KEY to showing and not telling in order to hook readers.Click To Tweet#3 Helps you show, not tellBy now you know just how important showing versus telling is in writing. And one powerful way to show more and tell less is to use strong verbs.It forces you to think more about the visual you’re trying to show the reader instead of just telling them what happened.Because showing creates a stronger emotional connection between the reader and your book, replacing weak verbs with more powerful ones will hook your readers.For those of yo u who struggle with showing and not telling, focusing on using better verbs will help tremendously.#4 They reduce weak adverbsWhen you’re writing, you may have a tendency to write sentences like, â€Å"I gripped the steering wheel firmly.† While this doesn’t look like a terrible sentence, it also doesn’t convey a very strong visual.Whenever you have an adverb, you should replace it with a stronger verb. That’s all an adverb is. It gives your weak verb a boost but it doesn’t actually make your sentence any stronger.Instead, replace â€Å"gripped firmly† with a powerful verb like â€Å"clenched† or â€Å"squeezed.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"I clenched the steering wheel† is a much stronger sentence that gives a clearer visual.Go through your writing and pick out some adverbs to replace. Your writing will be better because of it.#5 They make for more concise writingHave you ever picked up a book that looked decent enoughand even had an awesome title only to start reading and be turned off by how wordy and jumbled it is?Strong verbs prevent this.When you replace weak verbs and adverbs with a single stronger verb, you get rid of the excess writing that can make reading harder.It also saves you a ton of time cutting words during the editing phase.Because you’re using one word to create a strong visual, you won’t have to write more trying to describe how it looks to you. That strong verb does the job for you.This also allows for easier, more fluid writing and reading.Strong action verbs for better writingI won’t lie. One of the most frustrating things to read is a book that lacks strong verbs in scenes that are meant to be full of action.You’ll find this most often in fiction, but nonfiction books can be just as (if not more!) guilty of this. When you have a story that should leave the reader’s heart pounding but it doesn’t even raise their eyebrows, you have to do some diggi ng to improve.Heres a list of strong action verbs to improve your writing:What to do NextIt’s not enough to just know what strong verbs are and how to use them. You actually have to put these tips to use in your own book and implement what you’ve learned.Here’s what you can do right now to improve your writing and your book!#1 Attend your FREE trainingAll of this advice is relatively useless without a plan for finishing, marketing, and self-publishing your book.

Enterpreneurship...read the requirement i send you carefully Essay

Enterpreneurship...read the requirement i send you carefully - Essay Example They can be differentiated from other group of professionals in terms of certain special characteristics including their leadership styles, self confidence levels, unique thinking process, devotion to a particular goal and flexibility. Apart from these skills, innovation is one of the vital characteristics, which must be possessed by each and every entrepreneur in the 21st century context to establish and manage a business to flourish. According to Peter F. Drucker, innovation is the change which drives the entrepreneur towards a better performance (Selman, n.d). The best example of the innovation strategy adopted by entrepreneurs is the invention of an unconventional online retail store, Amazon.com, by Jeff Bezos in 1995. Jeff Bezos is one of the successful entrepreneurs in the world who had pioneered the trend of online stores, initially by selling books and other products. His early interests in computers and the study of computer science and electrical engineering further led him to the setting up of the biggest online store. Amazon began its journey by selling only books in the US market and other regions of North America. Just after two months of its set up, the company started marketing its products in the other regions of the world following its rapidly growing customer demand and changing trends. Jeff Bezos also started diversifying its products from books to other items such as the CDs, electronic items, clothing and many other household products following which, Amazon today is renowned as a market leader (Gitman & McDaniel, 2008). Evidently, these activities, ranging from expansion of the business and diversification of its product line can be examined as the integral part of innovation demonstrating the innovative skills of the employees. Thus, taking the example of Jeff Bezos, this research will intend to elaborate on the significance of innovation to ensure entrepreneurial success in the 21st century context. Literature Review Innovation is one o f the vital characteristics of an entrepreneur, which makes him different from others. According to Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009), innovation is the process of transforming the ideas into a newer and useful product or service, as laid down by the Department of Trade and Industry. As argued in Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009), the Department of Trade and Industry defines innovation as the ability to make successful and positive utilization of newer ideas to satisfy the gap persisting in the current market. Conceptually, innovation is commonly classified into four types, including hypothetical innovation, production innovation, position innovation and process innovation. The theoretical perspective to the concept reveals that innovative skills of the entrepreneur have become quite imperative over the past decade. Again, as Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009) note, in the year 1961, a study was conducted by Burns and Stalker to analyze the organizational innovation. With reference to this study, i t can be argued that the importance of organizational innovation is immense in determining the efficiency of a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial skills to define organizational innovation also tend to design the firm’s potentiality and adaptation to a chaotic environment. However, a critical perspective to this context reveals that many of the organizations have confusions between the concepts of

Discuss whether or not plea bargaining should be abolished Essay

Discuss whether or not plea bargaining should be abolished - Essay Example However, this fact can not be ignored that plea bargaining is an essential component of the justice system because it allows the trial convictions, to be more thoroughly considered when the judges are not under the pressure of too many cases. Plea bargaining reduces the number of cases that would otherwise go for trial conviction to less than half, thus improving the efficiency of the trial conviction cases. Without the facility of plea bargaining, the whole justice system is likely to collapse under the immense and unbearable work load. If the option of plea bargaining is eliminated, this would overcrowd the courts and the attention will have to be focused also on futile and pointless cases along with potentially strong and complicated cases that genuinely require trial convictions. Every day, thousands of cases of petty crimes are taken to the court, and if each and every case was given the highest consideration, the idea of a functional justice system would become unapproachable. Therefore, it is important to have a system in place that would cater for crimes of petty nature, and plea bargaining sufficiently serves this purpose. Plea bargaining allow the defendants to enter into reasonable agreements in a very short period in comparison to the lengthy trials that are conventionally conducted in cases of severe crime cases.

The Cater Administration and the Evolution of American Nuclear Essay

The Cater Administration and the Evolution of American Nuclear Non-profileration Policy - Essay Example t nuclear power cannot be used in our time, but these people overlook the fact that some marginalized countries already have nuclear technologies, and their nuclear potential is constantly increasing. Furthermore, it is considered that such countries as Iran and Northern Korea are developing their own nuclear programs. The aim of the Carter administration’s non-proliferation measures was to decrease the whole amount of nuclear weapons in the world and to control possible proliferation. Michael J. Martinez in his article The Carter Administration and the Evolution of American Nonproliferation Policy, 1977-1981 has analyzed the main features of Carter’s non-proliferation policy. This paper will briefly explain America’s nuclear non-proliferation policy from 1945-1977; it will also discuss the Carter’s ability to influence the policy process, as well as positive and negative results of Carter’s non-proliferation policy. 2. â€Å"Non-proliferation policy† refers to foreign policy measures directed at reducing world nuclear weapons through international treaties between states possessing nuclear technology or trying to have it. American nuclear non-proliferation policy from 1945 until 1977 has greatly changed. These changes were dictated by unstable foreign policy situations which were evident in the constant tension between the United States with its European allies and the Soviet Union. After World War II, former Anti-Hitler Coalition allies frequently disagreed and constantly confronted each other, which resulted in the Cold War. After World War II and in the beginning of the Cold War, U.S. efforts were directed toward stopping proliferation and halting the development of nuclear programs of the Soviet Union and its Socialist allies. American nuclear policy also was concentrated on assisting U.S. allies to develop defensive nuclear capabilities in Western Europe. Nuclear bomb testing by Fra nce changed the U.S. strategy pursued strict non-proliferation

Terrorist Finance Tracking Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Terrorist Finance Tracking Program - Essay Example According to  Terrorist Finance Tracking Program: Fact Sheet  (2006),   The United States â€Å"Treasury department is uniquely positioned to track terrorist money flows and assist in the broader US Government effects to uncover terrorist cells and map terrorist networks here at home and around the world† (PP. 4). In order to ensure the success of this program utilizes SWIFT. According to  Legal Authorities Underlying the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program  (n.d. ). â€Å"SWIFT-a Belgium-based company with U.S. offices that operates a worldwide messaging system used to transmit bank transaction information- seeking information on suspected international terrorists† (PP. 6).The United States government uses subpoenas in order to view this information. Based upon the terms of the subpoenas the United States government is allowed to view this information only in regards to suspected terrorist investigations. The information obtained by SWIFT is legally obtained in accordance with The International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act was established in 1977. The President only during a time of national emergency may put forth this act in order to investigate financial transfers by means of banks and other relevant financial transactions in reg ards to a foreign individual suspected of being associated or being a terrorist. In regards to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks former United States president George W. Bush issued executive order 13224 declaring an international emergency as future terrorist attacks were suspected. Subpoenas issued are in compliance with the United States Constitution’s fourth amendment as investigations of potential terrorists and relevant documents to terrorism are obtainable through subpoenas issued by Congress. In addition neither The Foreign Intelligence

The Cell Cycle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 20

The Cell Cycle - Essay Example Meiosis is a form of cell division that results in the formation of haploid gametes. In meiosis I, the homologous chromosomes are separated. The first phase is prophase I where the chromosome condenses and pairs to recombine. The second is metaphase I that involves attachment of chromosomes to the spindle fibers and aligns with the call center. At anaphase I, the chromosomes migrate to opposite poles while spindle fibers shorten. The last phase is telophase I where there is the formation of the nuclear membrane.However, meiosis II involves separation of the chromosomes to form two chromatids. The phases in meiosis II include prophase II, where there is dissolving of the nuclear membrane, condensing of chromosomes and the formation of spindle fibers. In Metaphase II, chromosomes align at the center of attachment of spindle fibers. Anaphase II follows; chromatids migrate to opposite poles while spindle fibers shorten. The last phase is telophase II where there is the formation of the n uclear membrane. Finally, the cytokinesis occurs resulting in the formation of four haploid cells.In prophase I, anaphase I and anaphase II there is crossing over that lead to the formation of four unique chromatids hence increasing genetic variation. Crossing over is vital in the evolution since it brings emergence of species that are more adapted and resistant in the environment. The two-fold cost of sexual reproduction refers to where members must produce both male and female sexes during reproduction.

Terrorist Finance Tracking Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Terrorist Finance Tracking Program - Essay Example According to  Terrorist Finance Tracking Program: Fact Sheet  (2006),   The United States â€Å"Treasury department is uniquely positioned to track terrorist money flows and assist in the broader US Government effects to uncover terrorist cells and map terrorist networks here at home and around the world† (PP. 4). In order to ensure the success of this program utilizes SWIFT. According to  Legal Authorities Underlying the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program  (n.d. ). â€Å"SWIFT-a Belgium-based company with U.S. offices that operates a worldwide messaging system used to transmit bank transaction information- seeking information on suspected international terrorists† (PP. 6).The United States government uses subpoenas in order to view this information. Based upon the terms of the subpoenas the United States government is allowed to view this information only in regards to suspected terrorist investigations. The information obtained by SWIFT is legally obtained in accordance with The International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act was established in 1977. The President only during a time of national emergency may put forth this act in order to investigate financial transfers by means of banks and other relevant financial transactions in reg ards to a foreign individual suspected of being associated or being a terrorist. In regards to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks former United States president George W. Bush issued executive order 13224 declaring an international emergency as future terrorist attacks were suspected. Subpoenas issued are in compliance with the United States Constitution’s fourth amendment as investigations of potential terrorists and relevant documents to terrorism are obtainable through subpoenas issued by Congress. In addition neither The Foreign Intelligence

Financial analysis case report Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Financial analysis report - Case Study Example Table 1 Dupont Dupont Result 2011 2010 2009 Lowe 0.11 0.09 0.12 Home Depot 0.18 0.14 0.13 John Guerard (37) emphasized the Dupont formula is a useful tool for making financial decisions. making. Based on the Dupont data above, it is highly recommended that the company should increase the number of stores selling the company’s products and services. The company should focus on selling more quality products and offering more quality services to the clients. The company should also engage in research and development to discover new products. The company should also improve the quality of the company’s current home improvement products and services. The company should sell the products at affordable prices. The company should advertise the many benefits of buying the company’s products and services. The company’s advertisement expense should represent 10 percent of the company’s total expenses shown in the balance sheet. The company must target a ten pe rcent increase in its current month’s sales. An Based on the financial statements of Lowe Company and Home Depot Company, the Dupont results strong state that the Lowe’s company the companies’ discrete operational and marketing activities significantly influence the overall return on assets for both companies. The Dupont financial statement calculation indicates that Lowe’s generated a 0.12 Dupont during 2009. ... n is .11 Based on the Home Depot calculation, the Dupont results strong state that the company the companies’ discrete operational and marketing activities significantly influence the overall return on assets for both companies. The Dupont financial statement calculation indicates that Home Depot’s generated a .13 Dupont during 2009. The 2010 Dupont computation shows the company generated an increase in the Dupont results. The 2010 Dupont financial statement calculation is .14. The 2011 Dupont computation shows the company generated an increase in the Dupont results. The 2011 Dupont financial statement calculation is .18 Change over time analysis of what's going on using additional financial and performance data. Home Depot’s setting up more stores compared to Lowe’s is the main reason for Home Depot’s taking the lone spot as the world’s no. 1 home improvement retail store. Setting more branches precipitates to more revenues. Table 2 Net Prof it Margin 2011 2010 2009 Lowe 0.04 0.04 0.05 Home Depot 0.05 0.04 0.03 Based on the financial statements of Lowe Company and Home Depot Company, the Net profit margin results strong state that the company the companies’ discrete operational and marketing activities significantly influence the corresponding net profit margin for both companies. The net profit margin indicates that Lowe’s generated a 0.05 result. The 2010 net profit margin computation shows the company generated a decrease in the net profit margin result. The 2010 net profit margin is .04. The 2011 net profit margin computation shows the company generated an increase in the net profit margin results. The 2011 Dupont financial statement calculation is .04 The Net profit margin results strong state that the company the companies’ discrete operational

Virtue and Epic Essay Example for Free

Virtue and Epic Essay Beowulf, the Anglo Saxon tale of a hero’s great courage, is an example of the epic form of literature. An epic is a long narrative poem that celebrates a hero’s deeds. Beowulf takes place on the European mainland, among two tribes which were the Danes and the Geats. The Geat warrior, Beowulf, crosses the sea to help the Danes and fights monsters, he later returns to Sweden to succeed his uncle Higlac as king of the Geats. Another reason Beowulf is an epic is because the story has a vast setting and includes a long, dangerous journey. Beowulf not only fights in land but he also fought dangerous sea creatures underwater. Throughout this epic, Beowulf makes a journey to find Grendel’s mother, he ends up fighting big, strong monsters underwater. Not only did he have to breathe underwater but he also had to fight. This journey was very dangerous because he had no help; he had to fight the sea creatures by himself. Beowulf should be considered an epic because it is a hero who performs supernatural feats and is in a high position in his society. There is a hero who performs supernatural feats, Beowulf breathes underwater for hours and hours, he has great strength. Beowulf has courage and bravery. He fights monsters twice his size and he ends up victorious. The hero is of noble birth or high position in his society. Beowulf’s uncle is Higlac and he is king of the Geats, therefore Beowulf is honored and respected by people in Herot. Beowulf was the strongest man in Herot that is another reason why he had a high position in his society. Beowulf also qualifies an epic because the hero’s character traits reflect important ideals of his society. An ideal of Anglo Saxon culture on the 900’s was spreading the word about the idea of adopting Christianity. This ideal was important during that time period because religion was barely spreading and they wanted Christianity to be a main aspect of life. Throughout Beowulf it makes the comparison between good and evil. Beowulf represents this ideal by him being ‘protected’ by God and his faith in God for everything. Also, throughout this epic there is an invisible battle between the good and the bad, the good being Beowulf and the bad being Grendel. Finally Beowulf is an epic because its plot involves timeless values. In present days there are still invisible battles between good and evil. We might not have sea creature or ferocious giants but we also have monsters. Some monsters in our world could be terrorists. Terrorism is something we consider a monster. Overall, in our world we consider everything that is evil a monster. In films, there is always a good side or bad side. Beowulf was a very good example of this because it involved timeless values. Beowulf, the tale of this extremely brave hero, full of courage is a great example of the epic form of literature. Beowulf fights giant monsters, breathes underwater, is undefeatable, and has God in his side. It is a great epic that has unbelievable adventures. It shows a lot of cultural values. Throughout all of its characteristics, Beowulf is defiantly an example of the epic form of literature.

The impact of Social Media on Romantic Relations

The impact of Social Media on Romantic Relations For all of the positive facets of the increased social connection that Facebook enables, including the help it may provide at the academic level, maintenance of relationships, there may also be some costs for those individuals who are in romantic relationships. My data show a significant association between romantic jealousy and jealousy-related feelings experienced on Facebook. Long time back, flirty gestures of interest remained entirely within an individuals own control, and partners involved in romantic relationships were most often not opened to the daily scrutiny of their exchanges with members of their social circle. With the development of social network sites like Facebook, a fundamental shift has been created in this practice because Facebook has made the lives of people open for all to see. My first hypothesis is that jealousy is differentially experienced by gender. The results I obtained from my study supported this hypothesis. Most of the girls who participated in the study scored higher on both Multidimensional Jealousy Scale and Facebook Jealousy Scale than male participants. Since the Multidimensional Jealousy Scale assessed the participants on three levels of jealousy namely cognitive, emotional and behavioral, I have also analyzed their scores separately on these three levels. Only when these three levels of jealousy is analyzed separately that we can see the difference on how boys and girls experience jealousy. When romantic jealousy was globally analyzed, I found that out of 69 girls, 55 reported that they experience a high level of jealousy, the result of the remaining 14 girls showed that they have a normal level of romantic jealousy whereas for the male participants, out of 50 boys only 13 boys reported that they experience a high level of romantic jealousy . I then divided the romantic jealousy into its three respective components. What I found was that only 5 out of 50 boys scored more than 3 on the cognitive level of romantic jealousy whereas 23 out of 69 girls scored higher than 3 on this level. A score greater than 3 on the Multidimensional jealousy scale means that the participant experiences a high level of jealousy. Someone who experience cognitive jealousy has repeated thoughts of anxiousness, doubts and suspicions about his or her partners potential infidelity and external relationships. It involves someone who is obsessed by mistaken beliefs, worries and suspicions about rivals to a valued romantic relationship. Cognitive jealousy implies the construction of elaborate cognitive scenarios that result in biases toward perceiving relational threats and misunderstanding of the partner’s behavior. My results suggest that women tend to feel cognitive jealousy more than men do. From my point of view, this may be explained using the evolutionary theory of jealousy, which is further detailed by modern sociobiologists. The theorists explained that woman is more jealous of man developing another committed relationship because she is afraid that he will spend his time, energy, protection, and resources in that person, and she will be left with less resources and safety if she has to share the male’s resources with another woman and her children. That is why she always has repeated thoughts of anxiousness doubts and suspicions, because she is afraid of losing the person who is providing for her and who protects her. However, both girls and boys scored high on emotional jealousy. Approximately 45 out of 50 boys scored greater than 3 on the Multidimensional Jealousy Scale and as per the scoring rule if participants scored higher than 3 means that they experience somewhat a problematic level of emotional jealousy. Similarly, the majority of the girls who participated in my study scored very high on emotional jealousy. This can be explained through the attachment style that romantic partners display. Levy, a psychologist at Penn State, studied attachment in relationships and spoke of two types of attachment in relationships namely dismissive and secure. A person with dismissive attachment does not see the value in relationships and Levy described them as hyper-independent. In other words, most of us value our independence, but we also value our relationships. However, those who display dismissive type of attachments value only their independence, to the exclusion of relationships. On the other side, Levy said that those with secure attachments see the value in relationships and are comfortable with the interdependency that comes with them. He added that those with a secure attachment style might be more likely to be bothered by emotional infidelity, while those with dismissive styles would see sexual infidelity as more of problem (Kenneth N. Levy and Kristen M. Kelly, 2010). Based on this attachment theory I would argue that most of my participants, be it boys or girls, displayed a secure attachment style with their respective partners, and they scored high on emotional jealousy because they valued their relationships and they are highly committed to each other. As for the behavioral component of jealousy, girls tend to experience it more than boys do. The goal of someone who expresses behavioral jealousy is to ensure that intimacy does not take place between ones partner and a third party. Examples of behavioral jealousy include being inquisitive, checking up on one’s partner, searching his or her belongings, mobile phones, making uncomplimentary statements about the rival, or trying to come in between the partner and rival when they are engaged in conversation. According to me, those who are in a committed relationship would display behavioral jealousy than those who are in an open relationship. The reason behind why they engaged in such behaviors may be explained again through the evolutionary theory of jealousy. The feeling of insecurity that women have makes them act in these way that is being always inquisitive, checking up on their partner and searching their belongings. They want to make sure that their partners are not being involved with a third party, which would eventually represent a threat to their relationships and their security. Consistent with hypothesis, those who experience romantic jealousy effectively experience Facebook jealousy. The data suggest that both male and female that participated in my study scored high on the Facebook Jealousy Scale. Not only they scored high but also the number of boys that reported to feel romantic jealousy increased when they were assessed on the Facebook level of jealousy. Approximately 32 out of 50 boys said that they experience Facebook related jealousy and about 62 out of 69 girls reported to have undergone that feeling (The increase in jealousy feeling is shown when Figure 4 and Figure 8 is compared). Here, it can be said that Facebook reinforced the level of jealousy in both male and female. There was a fairly strong significant association between romantic jealousy and Facebook jealousy ( r = 0.727, p My results suggest that Facebook may expose a person to potentially jealousy-provoking information about his or her partner, which creates a feedback loop whereby heightened jealousy leads to increased surveillance of a partner’s Facebook page. Persistent surveillance results in further exposure to jealousy-provoking information. The correlation between Facebook jealousy and if participants monitor their partners activities on Facebook is very high (r = 0.805, p Finally, I did a regression analysis to obtain the percentages of how much Facebook jealousy is predicted by romantic jealousy. The result I obtained are as follows, 42.8% Facebook jealousy is predicted by romantic jealousy for male and 46% Facebook jealousy is predicted for female by romantic jealousy. Since romantic jealousy is divided into three components, I also performed regressions for the three levels to know which components of romantic jealousy predict more Facebook jealousy. 18.6% Facebook jealousy is caused by cognitive level of jealousy in male, which is not very high, and 32.4% is caused for female by the same variable. 22.7% emotional jealousy predicts Facebook jealousy for male and 35.8% emotional jealousy causes the feeling of jealousy on Facebook in female. As for the behavioral component of romantic jealousy, 33.2% is accounted for Facebook jealousy in boys and only 16.9% is explained for Facebook jealousy in girls. In all, it is suggested that the behavioral compo nent in romantic jealousy is a better predictor of Facebook jealousy for boys and emotional component is a better predictor of Facebook related jealousy for female. This finding shows that when it comes to jealousy men and women are not always on the same page. Many studies in the past have shown that men are more likely to see red over a partners sexual infidelity (for example study done by Donald Symons in 1979), while women are more upset by emotional cheating. Evolutionary psychologists theorize that the difference is rooted in the sexes’ historical roles. Men want to guarantee that their partners are carrying their children, while women need to feel secure that they and their children would be cared for by a committed partner. Emotional jealousy refers to how someone feels when his or her partner is flirting with someone else, kissing or hugging someone of the opposite sex or how that person feels when he or she learns that somebody else is dating his or her partner. That is why women usually feel anxious and insecure because if their partner becomes interested in someone else, they will have to share their partners resources with th at other person. Limitations However, future research must directly examine the effects of various triggers on the experience of jealousy for example genetics. In addition, it would be interesting to learn whether these same relationships hold true in samples of adults since my sample age range is between 18 to 26 years only. Unlike most young individuals’ relationships, adult relationships are more likely to have developed before Facebook became popular, and one could argue that partners in that age group may be less well equipped to deal with the challenges that Facebook poses to relationships. In addition, my sample size is n= 119, which is very small to be able to generalize my findings in the Mauritian context. Conclusion This study provides evidence of a relationship between Facebook use and the experience of jealousy in that context, more precisely it looked at the association between romantic jealousy experienced by individuals who are in a romantic relationship and Facebook related jealousy based on gender and if Facebook use reinforce level of jealousy. A review of the literature reveals that the social network site, Facebook, is a direct cause of jealousy and negatively impacts romantic relationships (Muise et al 2009). It is responsible in stirring suspicion between romantic partners. However, there is a need for more research which control for other correlates and determinants of jealousy to be done in the future.

Regal Imagery in Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converg

Regal Imagery in Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O’Connor uses images of regality as represented by hats, colors, and ironic regal references in the short story â€Å"Everything That Rises Must Converge† to symbolize Julian’s mother, and her societal views. She, like the hat, is not as upper class as she would have herself or others believe. In addition, her racist beliefs are challenged when a black woman enters the bus with the very same hat, forcing her to realize that the regal attitude she holds will never be validated, and she will no longer be able to pretend that she is superior to anyone. The hat, which â€Å"looked like a cushion with the stuffing out,† resembles â€Å"the dumpy figure† of the mother. In addition, the hat is referred to as â€Å"preposterous,† and â€Å"ridiculous,† all the ways her son considers her to be. The hat is gaudy and not worth the money she paid for it, but she is certain of its taste just as she is certain how good it looks on her (because the sales lady had told her so), and how superior she is to those at the Y. The sales lady had said that ‘â€Å"with that hat, you won’t meet yourself coming or going,† which means that she will not be alike anyone else. Of course, this is not the case, and the black Negress would ultimately be the last person Julian’s mother would wish to meet. The colors in the hat are extremely significant. Its purple velvet flap creates the image of royalty, and the rest of it, green, represents money. This is the only time that green is mentioned in the story, for money is not something that they have, which even the mother cannot dispute. In addition to the hat, the sky of their once â€Å"fashionable† neighborhood is the color of â€Å"a dying violet,† and the house... ... apparently does not realize this: ‘â€Å"Most of them in it are not our kind of people,† she said, â€Å"but I can be gracious to anybody. I know who I am.†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Ironically, she is completely unsure of whom she is, and this is why it is so hard for her to come to terms with any of the reality around her. The importance of the hat becomes most overt when the Negress enters the bus wearing one exactly identical. ‘â€Å"That was your black double,†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ says her son. She had, until this point, thought herself greater than most she encountered, whether black or white, and for a working- class black woman to have the same taste as her, in addition to the means by which to attain it, her fragile view of life has been forever shattered. The fact that this â€Å"black queen† ends up more powerful than the â€Å"white queen† underscores the irony inherent in the main characters delusions of grandeur. Regal Imagery in Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converg Regal Imagery in Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O’Connor uses images of regality as represented by hats, colors, and ironic regal references in the short story â€Å"Everything That Rises Must Converge† to symbolize Julian’s mother, and her societal views. She, like the hat, is not as upper class as she would have herself or others believe. In addition, her racist beliefs are challenged when a black woman enters the bus with the very same hat, forcing her to realize that the regal attitude she holds will never be validated, and she will no longer be able to pretend that she is superior to anyone. The hat, which â€Å"looked like a cushion with the stuffing out,† resembles â€Å"the dumpy figure† of the mother. In addition, the hat is referred to as â€Å"preposterous,† and â€Å"ridiculous,† all the ways her son considers her to be. The hat is gaudy and not worth the money she paid for it, but she is certain of its taste just as she is certain how good it looks on her (because the sales lady had told her so), and how superior she is to those at the Y. The sales lady had said that ‘â€Å"with that hat, you won’t meet yourself coming or going,† which means that she will not be alike anyone else. Of course, this is not the case, and the black Negress would ultimately be the last person Julian’s mother would wish to meet. The colors in the hat are extremely significant. Its purple velvet flap creates the image of royalty, and the rest of it, green, represents money. This is the only time that green is mentioned in the story, for money is not something that they have, which even the mother cannot dispute. In addition to the hat, the sky of their once â€Å"fashionable† neighborhood is the color of â€Å"a dying violet,† and the house... ... apparently does not realize this: ‘â€Å"Most of them in it are not our kind of people,† she said, â€Å"but I can be gracious to anybody. I know who I am.†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Ironically, she is completely unsure of whom she is, and this is why it is so hard for her to come to terms with any of the reality around her. The importance of the hat becomes most overt when the Negress enters the bus wearing one exactly identical. ‘â€Å"That was your black double,†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ says her son. She had, until this point, thought herself greater than most she encountered, whether black or white, and for a working- class black woman to have the same taste as her, in addition to the means by which to attain it, her fragile view of life has been forever shattered. The fact that this â€Å"black queen† ends up more powerful than the â€Å"white queen† underscores the irony inherent in the main characters delusions of grandeur.

Research In Motion Essay

Research In Motion (RIM) is most famously knows for its smart phone device Blackberry. Blackberry, when first introduced in 1999, took the corporate market by storm because of its capability of storing and managing e-mails along with other professional tools. Later the introduction of Black Berry Messenger (BBM) was another successful addition and made it famous among the non-corporate user class all around the globe. From its inception to the introduction of Blackberry and until today, RIM has had various challenges in terms of safeguarding its intellectual property and took some steps to counteract those problems which I will be discussing in this paper. 1.What were some of the challenges that RIM faced to protect its intellectual property, and how did RIM handle those challenges? The first challenge for RIM was in 2001 when it claimed that its competitor Glenayre Electronics infringed on its patent and charged dilution, unfair competition, and false advertising (1). As a result RIM sued them over using its patented mailbox integration technique that was exclusive to its Blackberry smartphone device which was later settled in their favor (2). Another lawsuit filed by RIM was against Good Technology in 2002. RIM alleged that Good was infringing on four of its patents. The first is â€Å"for a method and apparatus to remotely control gateway functions in a wireless data communications network.† The second â€Å"relates to a method and system for loading an application program on a device.† The third â€Å"relates to a method and system for transmitting data files between computers in a wireless data communications environment.† And the fourth â€Å"relates to a mobile device that is optimized for use with thumbs† (3). Finally in 2004 Good Technology signed a settlement with RIM under which it will give RIM a lump-sum payment during its current quarter and ongoing quarterly royalties. Further financial details of the agreement were not disclosed (4). Later in 2006, RIM was sued by mobile e-mail provider Visto Corporation that RIM violated four of its patents. The patents in question relate to the accessing and synchronizing of information over a network and are fundamental to the BlackBerry service (5). After a long battle of three years, in 2009 RIM agreed to pay $267.5 million to settle this dispute adding to a costly series of intellectual-property purchases (6). The company spent more than $1 billion in the past two years on intangible assets, such as patents. It booked part of the cost of the Visto settlement, which gave them a lifetime license to some Visto patents and legal possession of others, as an acquisition of intangible assets (6). Another big event was the RIM-Motorolla lawsuits in 2008 when Motorolla filed a lawsuit against RIM for using its patented technology but in reply RIM sued back Motorolla. RIM filed the lawsuit for â€Å"demanding exorbitant royalties† on patents that were essential to RIM’s business. Besides being accused of â€Å"anti-competitive conduct,† Motorola was also accused of violating nine different patents and for breaking a 2003 agreement by refusing to agree to new terms beyond January 2008. Adding injury to lawsuit, RIM also claimed that Motorola’s licensing fees were due to â€Å"declining fortunes of its handset business† (7). This long battle came to an end when both companies settled out of court. Under the Agreement, Motorola and RIM will benefit from a long-term, intellectual property cross-licensing arrangement involving the parties receiving cross-licenses of various patent rights, including patent rights relating to certain industry standards and certain technologies, such as 2G, 3G, 4G, 802.11 and wireless email. In addition, the parties will transfer certain patents to each other (8). 2.What were some of the industry factors that influenced RIM? Industry factors that influenced RIM are Competition, Scale and Future (9). Patents, copyrights and trademarks help a firm safeguard its intellectual assets giving it an edge in the market and enabling to stay competitive in the market. From the lawsuits discussed above, we can see that just in 10 years on inception, RIM had over seven patent related issues for its technology. In technological field, a patent enables a firm to bank on its technology by not allowing other firms to use and produce it. So it enables the firm with the patent to have exclusive right to that technology and have a competitive advantage. When a firm’s technology is successful, patent enables that firm to exploit from it and hence expand their firms scale by securing a larger consumer base leading to a better bright future for the firm. 3.Apply as many TCOs as you can to the RIM. There are quite a few TCOs that can be applied to RIM. Competence Enhancing and Component Innovation applies very well to RIM. Looking at the introduction of Blackberry in 1999, after 14 years we still find them have a strong demand among the smartphone consumer base. So RIM has constantly been improving its blackberry phones keeping them up to date by providing new features that keep the consumer base attracted. Similarly if we look at introduction of features like e-mail service and BBM for blackberry, they are following the component innovation ideology discussed in the course. On the other hand, RIM also follows the concept Network Externalities. BBM can be a good example to support this. Anyone with a blackberry anywhere in the world can send a free message to the other blackberry user using the blackberry network. BBM is actually one of the features’ that has protected Blackberry against I-phone. Tying to BBM, RIM also follows the policy of Trade Secret because no one other than the corporation itself has access to the BBM data. RIM has gone to an extent that recently in India, even the government was not allowed to access the BBM data and after a 19 month service ban the government, RIM finally allowed them to have access but through a different server (10).

Economics Assignment

ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT For a market of your choice, keep track of the spot or share price fluctuations during a period of at least two years. Prepare a report of approximately 3000 words, for each market, discussing in detail the multiple forces (interesting developments) responsible for the trends. Tuesday 24 May 2011 Table of Contents Executive Summary Executive Summary In analysing the consumer market, we have chosen the share prices of two JSE listed companies, namely SABMiller and Rainbow Chicken which belong to the beverages and food producer’s sub-sectors respectively. Our two-year analysis is for the period March 2009 to May 2011. We will explore how Rainbow Chicken fared relative to its nearest competitor – Astral Foods. SABMiller allowed us to expand our thinking and methodology as the company also has a dual-listing on the London Stock Exchange. Its three closest competitors Heineken, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Carlsberg Breweries have foreign listings. It stands to reason, therefore, that we begin our assignment with an overview of the global context in which both companies operated in the period under review. The aftermath of the recession and changes in global economic indicators like the ZAR:USD exchange rate and the price of Brent crude oil will be examined. What we found particularly interesting was the resilience of both company’s share prices in the challenging global economic climate. We mention the factors that insulated each share from the global downturn. We then turn our attention to South Africa’s economic environment and examine the extent to which the foregoing global factors impacted on South Africa’s macroeconomic policy landscape. The two variables that we pay particular attention to are the local repo and CPI rates. We address the extent to which changes to these local variables impacted on the share prices of SABMiller and Rainbow Chicken. As mentioned in the first paragraph, our analyses consider the industries in which both companies operate by comparing their share prices with those of their nearest competitors. Our company analyses focus on internal considerations and the strategic objectives detailed in SABMiller’s and Rainbow’s annual reports for the 2009 and 2010 financial year ends. In our analyses of each company’s share price, we remain mindful of the fact that, although not directly responsible for the share’s daily performance, the objectives and calibre of management nevertheless impact on the share price. We conclude each analysis with a justifiable prediction of the expected trajectory of each company’s share price. The concentric eclipses in the diagram below depict the logical progression of our assignment’s structure, beginning with the outer-most eclipse. The diagram also shows the inter-relatedness of each eclipse relative to the other and how it is impossible to isolate the effects of one from the other. This reinforces the aphorism that: â€Å"in Economics everything is related to everything else; and usually in more ways than one. † The Global Environment [pic] Source: www. eia. doe. gov The price of Brent crude oil has been steady at an average level of $70 to $80 a barrel until November 2010. Since December 2010, the oil price has been rising, reaching a peak of $120 / barrel in April 2011. This has been partly due to uprisings in the Arab world, which holds the majority of global oil reserves. The oil price affects domestic inflation as fuel and energy are a major component of South Africa’s CPI basket. The price of petrol, which is based on oil prices, also raises logistical costs. SABMiller and Rainbow paid more to transport their products in the December 2010 to May 2011 period as a result of the spike in oil prices. It stands to reason that these higher transportation costs would be passed on to consumers as higher product prices by both companies. pic] Source: www. xe. com The graph above shows that the Rand has been strengthening relative to the US Dollar from 1USD:10ZAR to 1USD:6,3ZAR between March 2009 and May 2011. The strong rand has had a favourable impact on our terms of trade as can be seen from the self-explanatory graph below which depicts the Balance of Payments. The company analyses below reveal that SABMiller exports and imports a number of its brands across the world. Rainbow Chicken imports the soy component of its chicken feed wholly from Argentina. The rand’s strength impacts on both companies’ performances (and hence) their share prices favourably. [pic] [pic] Source: www. resbank. co. za The South African Environment Domestic interest rates [pic] Source: www. resbank. co. za The graph above shows that the Reserve Bank’s stance to monetary policy has been expansionary. This is shown by the gradual decline in the repo rate from 9,5% in March 2009 to its current level of 5,5% in May 2011. The Reserve Bank’s mandate is to keep the inflation rate within its target band of 3% to 6% and it uses the repo rate as the instrument with which to impact inflation. The Reserve Bank’s lowering of the repo rate is due to the CPI breaching its upper target limit of 6%. This is shown in the graph below. There is a positive relationship between the repo rate and CPI. It stands to reason, therefore, that the gradual lowering of the repo rate would be accompanied by a decline in the CPI rate. This is indeed the case. However, because of lags, the effect of a fall in the repo rate on the inflation rate is not reflected immediately and the CPI remains significantly above the upper limit. A fall in the repo rate eases pressure on consumers by raising their disposal incomes since they, theoretically, spend less on their credit commitments. All things being equal, this would raise the sales volumes of SABMiller’s and Rainbow’s products. Domestic Inflation [pic] Source: www. statssa. gov. za The graph above depicts the trend in inflation. It is clear that although the inflation rate has been on a downward trajectory (following the lowering of the repo rate) it was in breach of the upper limit of 6% from March 2009 to Oct 2009. It was within the target band in November 2009 but breached the upper limit again between December 2009 and February 2010. The latter breach is attributable to the market’s inflation expectations because of the steep increase in electricity tariffs during this period (www. eskom. co. za). As mentioned previously, the biggest components of South Africa’s CPI basket are food and fuel and the graphs below will be used to explain the impact of inflation on SABMiller’s and Rainbow’s performance specifically. CPI indicator relevant to SAB Miller pic] Source: www. statssa. gov. za This graph shows that inflation for alcoholic beverages has not only been consistently higher than the upper limit of the inflation target band, it has also been significantly higher than the country’s inflation rate. This is due to the fact that a major component of the price of alcohol is a â€Å"sin tax†, which is imposed by the finance ministry, because of the relative ly inelastic nature of the price elasticity of demand for alcohol as well as irresponsible and excessive consumption patterns. For some consumers, even a sharp increase in the price of alcoholic beverages does not result in a fall in the quantity demanded. There would, in all likelihood, be a shift away from the consumption of relatively more expensive alcoholic beverages towards relatively cheaper alcohol – not a complete cessation in the consumption of alcohol. This is one of the reasons that SABMiller’s share price has shown steady gains relative to the market. CPI indicator relevant to Rainbow Chicken [pic] Source: www. statssa. gov. za Consumer food price inflation decelerated sharply from December 2010. It is also interesting to note, that between January 2009 and January 2010, the prices of wheat fell by 24,58%, maize by 22,57% and sunflower seeds by 18,49% (www. finweek. co. za) Decreases in the prices of these staple foods has a positive impact on the poor as they spend 33,4% of their incomes on food; versus the rich who spend a mere 2,6% of their incomes on food. Poor people consume relatively more chicken than red meat because the latter is relatively more expensive. Chicken is the cheapest form of protein in South Africa and demand for it is high (www. astralfoods. com). Furthermore, the above staple foods are used as chicken feed which is a significant input cost for Rainbow Chicken, therefore the company has had cost savings because of bumper crops and the consequent price decreases in these commodities. The table on the following page clearly accounts for the nearly vertical decline in the graph above which shows food price inflation. [pic] Source: www. resbank. co. za GDP – South Africa [pic] [pic] Source: www. statssa. gov. za The graphs above show that South Africa was in a recession in 2009, as defined, because of the two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Our recovery from the global recession was due to the fact that we had a low exposure to the sub-prime market crisis that was responsible for the global meltdown. Our banking and macroeconomic policies remain robust. The growth in the economy from the third quarter of 2009 is also due to infrastructural investments that were made for the 2010 Soccer World Cup as well as South Africa’s contributions to the BRIC emerging markets bloc – especially our trade with China. It is expected that our formal inclusion to the BRICS nations since April 2011 will maintain the upward trend in GDP (www. lobalsherpa. org). Positive GDP growth has a positive impact on the performance of SABMiller’s and Rainbow’s shares. In a boom everyone does well. SABMiller, in particular, has a presence in all five BRICS nations and is poised for growth as emerging market economies have overtaken developed economies in their contributions to global GDP. We now examine SABMiller’s s hare price in more detail and then turn our attention to Rainbow Chicken in light of the foregoing discussions on the global and local environments. Analysis of SABMiller pic] SABMiller is a global operation covering 75 countries on six continents and employing over 70 000 people. Its portfolio of businesses is divided into six regions and is well balanced between developed and emerging markets. Between them, the businesses produce over 200 different brands and sell 213 million hectoliters of lager a year. Since listing on the London Stock Exchange 10 years ago the company has grown substantially and has a market capitalisation of ZAR 419,837,700,000 on the JSE and GBP 36,099,310,000 on the LSE. The company’s markets range from developed economies such as the USA to the fast growing BRICS economies (SABMiller Annual Report, 2009). SABMiller is also the number one bottler of soft drinks for The Coca Cola Company. The breweries market can be seen as oligopolistic in nature since SABMiller and its three main competitors (Heineken, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Carlsberg) are the dominant players in the market and have significant market share amongst them. The oligopolistic market structure has a positive impact on the company’s operations and share price performance. In North America, SABMiller (through its strategic partners) is the second-largest brewer in the United States and owns nearly 30% of the US beer market. In Latin America, it is the number one brewer by market share. In the majority of the ten European countries in which it operates, the company is the number one or number two brewer by market share. The same holds for Africa and Asia. In the 2009 annual report Mayer Kahn, the Chairman of the Board, stated that the global brewing industry was expected to continue to consolidate and that participation in industry consolidation provides opportunities to enter growth markets and to create value from scale benefits. The graph below shows SABMiller’s share price relative to its three main competitors. It is clear that all four companies’ trajectories have moved in tandem but Carlsberg’s share price has significantly taken the lead with SABMiller in second place. At the turn of the century, the top 10 brewers accounted for just over one-third of global beer sales volumes. The past decade has seen a rapid consolidation, resulting in the top four brewers – Anheuser-Busch InBev, SABMiller, Heineken and Carlsberg – accounting for almost 50% of beer sales volumes and up to 75% of the global profit pool. (SABMiller Annual Report, 2010) [pic] Source: www. heineken. com Mr Kahn attributes the company’s good results (in both 2009 and 2010) to the operational strengths of the businesses and the power of their leading local brands. He concedes that even though SABMiller was not immune to the global crisis, beer is a fairly resilient product which placed the company in a better position than many to weather the storm. He goes on to say: â€Å"Thanks, partly, to our long experience of emerging markets, we are used to operating under difficult conditions. If we look back ten years to our London stock market listing, it is worth remembering that the Asian currency crisis at that time had shaken investor confidence in emerging markets and that the outlook was far from encouraging. Nevertheless, we prospered and grew and achieved the international expansion that our listing was intended to facilitate. Ten years on, our geographic spread is proving to be an advantage in that different countries are affected by the crisis at different rates and to differing degrees. So while demand in Europe has dropped sharply, countries in emerging markets such as Africa and Asia have fared relatively well despite falling back from the high – one might say unsustainable – rates of growth of recent years. † SABMiller Annual Report, 2009 In short, SABMiller’s diverse spread of businesses, strong market positions, and a portfolio of leading brands mitigated against the risks and negative consequences of the global downturn and contributed to the steady upward momentum in the share price. In response to the mismatch between the supply of, and demand for, certain brewing and packaging raw materials in Africa, the company is increasingly using locally grown crops such as sorghum and cassava to produce affordable brands. This is done to minimise supply shortages and the price volatility of key raw material inputs. Continued robust pricing and productivity enhancements offset increased commodity costs (SABMiller Annual Report, 2010). It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the combination of the above factors resulted in a steady upward trend in the company’s share prices on both the London and Johannesburg bourses in the period under review as seen in the graphs below. [pic][pic] Source: www. sabmiller. com In 2010, Mr Kahn had similar good news for investors, citing the same reasons as for 2009. However he mentions the company’s management team as being a key contributor to the positive results: This year, in addition, we have benefited from management’s ability to reduce costs and selectively increase prices in order to maximise revenues†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Source: SABMiller Annual Report, 2010 In the third paragraph of our Executive Summary, we mentioned that the management of any company is not responsible for the share price. However, in fulfilling its primary objective of maximising shareholder value, the credibility of and strategies employed by management invariably have an impact on the share price. It would appear that the management and directorship of SABMiller are market-friendly. The members of the executive team are representative of each of the continents in which the company operates; with Mr Cyril Ramaphosa and Dr Dambisa Moyo as the notable representatives for Africa. Other market-friendly strategies include the December 2009 announcement that 8. 45% of the shares in SABMiller’s South African subsidiary, The South African Breweries Ltd (SAB), would be placed under Black ownership as part of its commitment to Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa. This transaction created 40,000 new shareholders among SAB employees and qualifying retailers. The deal also created a charitable foundation that holds 18% of the shares that were issued under the transaction. The dividend income will be used for the benefit of the wider South African community (SABMiller Annual Report, 2010). The company also capitalised on the strength of emerging markets (particularly in China and Africa) by channeling its growth strategies to these markets. â€Å"Globally, the beer market grew by 1. 5% in 2010, led by a continuing strong performance in Asia, Africa and Latin America. China grew by 6. 5%, Africa by 3. 1% and Latin America by almost 3%. Western Europe continued the trend of declining beer volumes, driven by a shift in consumption to other beverages and the decline of on-premise consumption. † Source: SABMiller Annual Report, 2010 In the 2010 financial year the company acquired four new breweries in China, invested in new breweries in Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola and Southern Sudan and carried out expansions and upgrades in Uganda and Zambia. The trends in the graphs depicting SABMiller’s share price on both the London and Johannesburg Securities’ Exchanges (given above) require no further explanation. With good management being both a contributory factor to and a consequence of the share’s strong performance, it is reasonable to conclude that the positive momentum will continue. [pic] Analysis of Rainbow Chicken [pic] Rainbow Chicken Limited is the largest processor and marketer of chicken in South Africa. It is a fully integrated broiler producer that breeds and rears its own livestock which it feeds from its own feed mills. Rainbow processes, distributes and markets fresh, frozen, value-added and further-processed chicken. The company has a market capitalisation of ZAR 6 124 893 000 009 was a very challenging year for the South African poultry industry, both locally and globally. The local chicken industry was negatively impacted by the fall in demand due to the recession. An oversupply by local producers and increased imports due to the strong rand also added to the industry’s woes. These difficult market conditions were a further test of Rainbow’s differen tiated brand strategy, which through its foodservice and consumer brands, seeks more consistent, profitable and sustainable business (Rainbow Chicken Annual Report, 2009). Despite these challenges, Rainbow managed to deliver an acceptable overall performance. Positive performance, like a rally in the share price, is a function of several variables and while we can make inferences about the correlation between the two, we make no such inferences about their causality. Like SABMiller, Rainbow’s Black Economic Empowerment transaction (which was concluded in July 2008) was market-friendly and boosted the company’s share price. Rainbow provided vendor financing for a 15% equity stake that was issued to a consortium that was constituted by its employees, Imbewu Consortium, Ikamva Labantu, and Mrs M Nhlanhla, a non-executive director. The BBBEE transaction resulted in the share price rallying from R12. 0 to R16. 80 in the latter period of the second quarter of the 2009 financial year as shown in the graph on the following page. 2010 was an equally challenging year for Rainbow but its effects were mitigated by South Africa’s steady recovery from the recession, a lower interest rate and inflationary environment. Maize prices d eclined since their peak in July 2008. The global financial crisis caused a dramatic decrease in the demand for maize, improving the previously dangerously low US and global maize stock situations to such an extent that international prices fell sharply from their record levels. Rainbow Chicken, Annual Report, 2010). The fall in maize prices, which is a major component in chicken feed, resulted in a reduction in the company’s input costs which boosted the bottom line. Local producers added significant production capacity for wheat, grain and soy over the past five years. Rainbow imports the soya component of its chicken feed from Argentina and it has a significant FOREX exposure. The strong rand, however, in the period under review, has been in the company’s favour. The company’s 2010 annual report reflected acceptable profit margins. In both 2009 and during 2010, the company’s share price maintained its upward momentum as reflected in the graph below. [pic] |Key Features – Rainbow Chicken Share Price | |Year |Low |High | |2009 |11500 |16800 | |2010 |15900 |16900 | The graph and table above confirm the findings in the preceding paragraphs. Although the difference between the year’s highest share prices is negligible, South Africa’s economic recovery may be gleaned from the fact that the lowest share price for 2010 was 4400c above the 2009 low. Consumer’s disposable incomes were higher in 2010 because of falling interest and inflation rates. Falling input costs and increased consumer demand increased the appetite for the company’s shares as investors’ expectations of earning better returns were supported. Other events that led to sharp movements in the company’s share price include the market’s speculative expectations immediately prior to the announcement of the group’s 2009 results. After the results were announced, the share price dropped to R13. 90 because of the 39. 6% decline in headline earnings. The reason for this decline in earnings can be attributed to the company’s policy of buying feed products forward. The share price stabilised for the remainder of 2010 due to an increase in the multitude of families that joined the ranks of South Africa’s middle class. As the middle class grows in size, so the taste of chicken diversifies allowing entrepreneurs to come up with new ways of marketing chicken to end consumers. We now turn our attention to Rainbow’s competitor, Astral Foods, to get a better idea of the South African poultry industry before making conclusions about how justifiable a continued rally in Rainbow’s share price is. Astral Foods is Rainbow Chicken’s nearest competitor. The company holds investments in subsidiary and joint venture companies. Its primary activities are animal feed pre-mixes, the manufacturing of animal feeds, broiler genetics, the production and sale of day-old broiler chicks and hatching eggs, integrated breeder and broiler production operations, abattoirs and the sale and distribution of various key poultry brands. Its current market capitalisation is R5,5 bn (www. moneyweb. co. za) Despite a 5% drop in sales volumes, revenue for Astral Foods’ poultry division increased by 13% for the 2009 financial year. (Astral Foods Annual Report, 2009). The market was neutral about the appointment of Chris Schutte as the Chief Executive Officer, effective 1 May 2009. The share price was also not responsive to the appointment of Daan Ferreira as the Financial Director. This may be because it was not perceived to be mindful of BBBEE. The improvement in Astral Foods’ revenue for the 2010 period was largely attributable to a sustained growth in volume. The volume growth was on the back of improved production results supported by better poultry health status. Depressed consumer spending, together with higher levels of imports and high local stock levels, contributed to vigorous promotional activity with prices at levels below historical levels. Reduced feeding costs during the period countered the effects of lower poultry selling prices. A lengthy period of industrial action at Earlybird Standerton negatively impacted the company’s share performance. (Astral Foods Annual Report 2010) |[pic] | |The graph above shows the steadily upward trend in Astral Foods share price. Not surprisingly, it follows a similar pattern to Rainbow | |Chicken’s share price – with pronounced sell-offs in the first and second quarters of 2009 and improvements thereafter. This pattern | |provides comfort because of the consistency of both company’s responsiveness to events in the poultry industry. It would be concerning if | |the companies had different trajectories. The consensus amongst analysts is that the South African poultry industry is poised for | |significant growth given that the price of chicken has risen by 30 per cent year-on-year while the cost of feed has come down. We | |anticipate that Rainbow’s share price will maintain its upward trend. | | | BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Astral Foods Limited Annual Report, 2009. www. astralfoods. com 2. EIA Independent Statistics and Analysis, US Energy Information Administration, www. eia. doe. gov 3. www. eskom. co. za 4. www. finweek. co. za/Economy/Food-inflation-still-a-concern-20100301 5. www. globalsherpa. org/china-africa-brics 6. www. heineken. com 7. www. moneyweb. o. za 8. Rainbow Chicken Limited Annual Report, 2009 and 2010, www. rainbowchicken. co. za 9. Reserve Bank Quarterly Bulletin March 2011,www. resbank. co. za 10. SABMiller PLC Annual Report, 2009, www. sabmiller. com 11. SABMiller PLC Annual Report, 2010, www. sabmiller. com 12. Statistics South Africa, Statistical release P0141, www. statssa. gov. za 13. www. xe. com [pic] ———————– Economics Assignment 2011 GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT LOCAL ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY / COMPETITORS COMPANY SHARE PRICE