Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act Research Paper

Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act - Research Paper Example In addition, the team conducted a research of former attempts that have been made in addressing the issue in question (Payne, 2015). The subsequent part of the essay covers the stakeholder analysis where issues related to them have been discussed. The section also provides the stakeholders who are adversely affected by the problem associated with the Act. The stakeholders have different objectives that are with policies that are implemented by the relevant institutions. Conversely, the section discusses how stakeholders are affected by the implementation of the Act. The next section provides alternative solutions that can be used to resolve the issue related to the Indiana Religious Act. In addition, an evaluation of the possible outcomes of the alternatives has been provided. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the alternatives given to mitigating the problem that arise from the application of the policy in the business environment. Lastly, the last section provides the anticipated future trend of the problem (Robertson and Pà ©rez-Peà ±a, 2015). The Act was introduced in Indiana after it was enacted by the Governor of the State. One of the problems that have been widely associated with the Act is that it discriminates certain groups of people in the society. Critics argue that the move to introduce the policy was intended to exclude particular groups such as the gay community in the business sector. In the year 1993, President Bill Clinton signed a law allowing states to have their religious laws. The senators who participated passing the law voted overwhelming in support of the law. However, it was established the Indiana State operated in contrast to the legislation of the federal government. The decision to allow states to come up with their religion created a loophole in the legal system where the state of Indiana legalized gay marriage. The decision to allow gay marriage in State came with negative implications especially to

Financial accounting and Managerial use Essay Example for Free

Financial accounting and Managerial use Essay Background LJB Company , a small business local distributor who understands to go public in the future, the company should be in accordance with the law and may need to take more stringent internal control principles. At the request of the president, an independent internal evaluation of internal controls was conducted to evaluate the direction of strength and weakness. Objective The objectives of this report should evaluate the existing controls and make recommendations that will ensure the companies assets and help get the most accurate financial information. Based on a system of internal checks and balances will be just in my recommendations to the president of the company, since most of the internal control systems provide for independent internal control; This principle involves the review of data prepared by employees. To get the maximum benefit from an independent internal control : Control values and Integrity from the top make it clear that it is unethical activities will not be accepted, and set the tone for the companys culture . There are several principles of management : 1. Establishment of responsibility: management is most effective when a single source may be responsible for the problem, including the authorization and approval of transactions. Weakness: LJB has only one accountant who serves as treasurer and controller , which can optimize the processes , but it creates an inherent risk . Cashier handled informally . Accountant is so busy that the company handles the checkout bit differently . All employees have access to the petty cash drawer and just put a note asking if they use any of the cash. Recommendation: * Align the specific obligations of employees to limit access to authorized employees so that the buyer is not the same person who authorizes the payment without the approval of the head at least . Otherwise , a person may make payments that are made to yourself. * Use unique passwords per employee to protect the purchasing system to provide adequate documents and records management. * Assign petty cash custodian. 2 . Segregation of duties : After one employee should , without duplication of effort , provide a sound basis for evaluating the work of another employee. 2 * Strength: Accountant receives the checks and completes the monthly bank reconciliation. This force , as the bank and the company maintain independent records , which may not always agree on what may be a simple mistake of either party. To maintain maximum benefits , a worker who has no other duties associated with cash should prepare a reconciliation. * Weakness: The same accountant all purchases of supplies and pays for these purchases per hour is a dual role . Petty cash handled all . * Recommendation: 1. Divide the purchase task to avoid the temptation of possible abuse. Keeper of the petty cash fund makes payments , but the reviews accountant to recharge . 2 . Require the authorization of the buyer and payment of employees on vacation at different times of the year. 3 . Documentation and procedures to provide evidence that the transactions and events occurred * Strength: Accountant recently started using pre- numbered invoices. * Weaknesses: Unclear procedures for shipping requirements , invoices and time signatures in developing accounting documents . All employees are required only to leave a note in the box , not supply a receipt. * Recommendation: * Delivery document indicates well have been shipped, invoice sales means that the client has been announced. Use remittance advice (mail receipts ) , cash register tapes, and deposit slips . * Require signature to identify the person responsible for the activity . * If possible , the user pre- numbered documents . It also helps to ensure that the transaction is no recorded several times or not at all . * Require time when documents should be sent in accounting for timely accounting. * Require receipts for most, if not all operations on a small number of dollars. Note: accountant wants to buy an indelible ink machine to print their checks. I would recommend the purchase of this equipment , depending on the cost-benefit analysis . Keep blank checks in safes with limited access will  be my first suggestion to cut spending immediately , with no additional costs. | 4 . Physical control can be mechanical and electronic asset protection . * Strength: Before leaving for the weekend accountant , accountant will move checks in a safe in his office . * Weakness: For salaries , checks selected accountant and left in his office for pick-up . Cashier box is not locked. * Recommendation: * Closed storage inventory and records management and control at all times, and not just for the weekend . * Alarm to prevent tampering if appropriate cost benefit * Closed petty cash . 5 . Independent internal verification includes an overview and comparison of the data to reconcile * Strength: Does not work . * Weaknesses: Unclear procedures requirements signatures , such as small cash transactions. Accountant is so busy that the company handles the checkout bit differently . All employees have access to the petty cash drawer and just put a note asking if they use any of the cash. * Recommendation: 1. Require an accountant to examine receipts and documents to verify costs to replenish funds. 2 . Surprise internal audits 6. Office of Human Resources * Strength: Employees seem to stay with the company for a long time and seems to be loyal . * Weakness: The President is still quite embarrassed because he was forced to fire one of their employees for viewing pornography on a company computer. He later learned that this man was a convicted felon who served time for molesting children. The Company had a hard time getting the employee to admit that this is it, because the company does not assign individual passwords. The President expressed his disappointment because he and an accountant and an interview and approve all new employees. * Recommendation: 1. Perform back ground checks and verify education credentials 2 . Check references , but never used the figures provided a reference sheet 3 . Employees bonds that deal cash 4 . Assign unique passwords for employees Conclusion: There are limitations of internal control , but they must provide reasonable assurance that assets are protected and accounting are accurate. Currently, as a small company LJB can not have a very complicated system of internal control , but must recognize the reality of the law for trading companies with the public are held at a higher level of compliance . LJB Company does some things right , but there are several areas for improvement . Literature : http://map.ais.ucla.edu/go/1002631 Paul D. Kimmel , Jerry J. Weygandt, Donald Kieso 2010 Business Economics http://www.macomb.edu/About+Macomb/College+Policies/Policies/Guidelines+for+Purchasing+Activities.htm https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance//fin106c07.pdf http://www.brockport.edu/intcontrol/questions.html

Market and company overview of pret a manger

Market and company overview of pret a manger Prà ªt a Manger established in 1986 by two college friends Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe (who also is the founder of Itsu sushi bar/restaurant). It is a UK based sandwich retailer, which now is an international business (Prà ªt). They named the company Prà ªt a Manger, which in French means ready to eat (see Appendix 1.0) Rix (2004) states, a product is a set of tangible attributes in an identifiable form and he adds, each product is identified by a commonly understood descriptive (p. 199). Prà ªt produces sandwiches, filled baguettes, soup, salad and coffee. It also prepares desserts, muffins (the American variety), cakes, and croissants. Some locations also serve sushi and noodles. Prà ªt has a range of vegetarian options including roasted vegetable sandwiches and hummus wraps. In marketing though, customers seek to purchase its quality and benefits (Rix, 2004). Prà ªt essentially provides fresh fast food made with natural ingredients. They are passionate about freshness all food is made fresh in the shop on the day of purchase. Sandwiches are packaged in paperboard rather than sealed plastic, to emphasise that they are fresh and cannot be kept overnight. Some packaging contains recipes for some of their products; these are for people who want to make sandwiches like Prà ªts for themselves. Mor eover, Prà ªt also provides a delivery service for orders over  £30 minimum. Service can be identified as activities that meet customers needs or wants solely on intangible benefits (Rix, 2004). Their services are excellent; the staff are friendly, always greet with civility, approachable and enthusiastic, which makes their customers feel welcome (ref). Rix (2004) states Marketers are increasingly being faced with a choice between profitably satisfying the wants of their customers and complying with the wishes of various other groups in the community (p. 5). Prà ªt is aimed at the middle to upper class including white-collar workers and businessmen and women who use it regularly to have a coffee before work, especially the City type customers (ref). Therefore, Prà ªt stores are normally found near the train or tube stations, affluent places such as Canary Wharf, and cities such as Central London. These are places where will be more consumers that they are targeting at. Prets competitors include Starbucks, Costa, Nero and Eat. Relatively speaking, Starbucks is the biggest competitor since it is the largest coffeehouse business in the world. Companies that anticipate changes in consumer behaviour and respond with new gods and services are likely to achieve long-term health and profitability. But companies that change consumer behaviour have the opportunity to make major breakthroughs in new markets and industries (Hoffman et al. 2005) Already there are about 240 Prà ªt shops, which are mainly based in the UK. Statistically, their yearly turnover is approximately  £270 million a year (see Appendix 1.1) Task 1 P 1.1 Situation Analysis A thorough analysis of the situation in which the firm finds itself serves as the basis for identifying opportunities to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs (City of London Academy, Edition 1). Need to be changed One of procedures of the marketing planning is the marketing audit, which plays a huge part that constantly is being conducted throughout the whole process. It is to study internal factors, while also anticipates stakeholders and external factors. The Chartered Institute of Marketing says: Carrying out the marketing audit provides the opportunity to review and appraise your whole marketing activity, enabling you to assess past and present performance as well as to provide the basis for evaluating possible future courses of action. (year) Marketing audit breaks down into two categories: The microenvironment is the forces close to the company that affect its ability to serve its customers (Kotler et al. 1998, pp. 885-886). This is focusing on the internal business experiences, where an organization has a complete control, giving this opportunity to improve the business. The macro-environment is the larger societal forces that affect the whole microenvironment (Kotler et al. 1998, pp. 885-886). This is the external factors, where a business barely or has absolute no control on, that changes may adversely affect the organisation. (ref) SWOT analysis is a method, which came from the research conducted at Stanford Research Institute. It draws all the evidence from several analytical techniques used, provides basic useful information of developing the business, marketing objectives or aims and new products into the market. Prà ªt undertakes a SWOT analysis, which its abbreviation is Strengths, the strong features and positions of the company, Weaknesses, where the company needs to improve in order to maintain the best image of the business as possible internal issues, Opportunities, where the company can grab chances to better themselves and to expand their reputation, and Threats, where the company relish challenges that may affect the business external issues (Rix, 2004). Example of SWOT analysis is shown below: Table 1: (1.1 Explanation of SWOT analysis) Strengths Non-stop producing new products. Often do offers. Prices are cheap and affordable. Always create new advertisements. Services are fast and easy. Weaknesses Products are not healthy. Advertise unhealthy products i.e. burgers Contributes to obesity. Loaded with sugar. Opportunities Exploitation of interest in healthier eating. Sponsoring could help the business their sales. Home deliveries service Threats International exchange rate Increasing labours wages Competitors pricing Competitors invent similar products, might be better. Source: The researcher PEST is an analysis of external factors, generally considered to be outside the control of a business. The PEST analysis is to identify both presents and futures opportunities and threats. PEST stands for Political; Economic; Social and Technology (ref). Clear explanation of each of these are shown in the following: Table 2: (1.1 Explanation of PEST) Political These are factors that are controlled by the government policies. Economic These factors are related to political and are concerned about interest rates, exchange rate, economic growth and income levels. Social Concerning the factors of age, size of families, healthy lifestyle and religions. Technology Factors concern such as computers, machineries, motor vehicles etc. Source: The researcher P 1.2 A mission or vision statement is a statement that provides a signpost of where your business aims to be in the future (Chartered Institute of Marketing, ). Choose better one A mission statement has to be concise and explicitly explain that provides a clear view of Prà ªts intention to customers and stakeholders, what is their business and who their customers are. It also provides motivation within the organization, helps them to focus on accomplishing their objectives (ref). This helps marketer to make informed decisions of suitable strategies and programs. Here are the two mission statements of Prà ªt: Turnover currently  £270 million: to increase 9% within 2 years time. To expand wider and open new stores this year: 3 new stores to be opened in Birmingham, (BBC News, 2010). According to media sources, Prà ªts turnover is constantly increased in the recent years. Although economic crisis has just ended, nonetheless the business somehow managed to make profits. This shows that the businesss financial situation is stable and secure. Table 3: (1.2 Marketing Mix for Prà ªt a Manager) Product Hoi sin Duck Wrap is a Cantonese style of wrap Prà ªt does. Inside the wrap has shredded roast duck, hoisin sauce, red onions, cucumber, leaf spinach and a touch of mayo in a tortilla wrap. The wrap contains nuts, sesame free, dairy free, GM free and high protein, which keeps customers full longer. Every single Pret store has its own kitchen, they make the product every single purchase day, to make sure it is fresh and healthy. Those left unsold at the end of the day, they will not be re-sold, but will be collected by the charities, and then given to those are homeless. Price This product quite pricey due to the qualities it contains, which cost  £2.95 each. This can be cost plus pricing, average cost of the product and service plus a profit margin; it has a high mark-up. Place The channels of distribution of this product will be service providers to consumers, as well as direct marketing through the website so the consumers can shop at home, but minimum of  £30. This product sells in a clean and pleasant environment, affluent places like the city, where the market targets will perform the desire behaviour. Usually during lunchtime, when this product can be purchased the most. Promotion Prà ªt promotes the product through word of mouth by informal communication about the product by ordinary individuals, satisfied customers or people specifically engaged to create word of mouth momentum. Sales staff often plays an important role in word of mouth. This promotion also includes leaflets, shop windows, and its own website, targeting at older group, middle and upper class groups. Source: wesite SWOT analysis is used to get something in the right position in the market and help in companys strategic planning. It must be done before Prà ªts product (Hoi Sin Duck Wrap) is launched and at regular intervals after that, also needs to spend resources to maximize profit and minimise potential threat (ref). The following table shows the SWOT analysis of Prà ªt that may influence their sales of the new product. Table 4: (1.2 SWOT Analysis for Prà ªt a Manager) Strengths Prà ªt is well known for handmade sandwiches, which are made with natural ingredients, and immaculate service, which the quality of products and customers are the companys priorities. The business also does delivery service that other sandwich bars do not provide, as well as online order. Thus, these advantages may aid to gain repeat sales of Hoi Sin Duck Wrap. Weaknesses Prà ªt is considerably to be one of the most expensive sandwich bars in the world. This also means that the business only has certain target audience and stores can be found in affluent areas only. Prà ªt stores are generally small that unable to provide sufficient seats for customers to eat in. Thus, the sales of Hoi Sin Duck Wrap will not be expectedly high. Opportunities Prà ªt does not franchise. The business could take this opportunity to franchise out; not only Prà ªt can gain popularity, the business can also earn some fees from franchising! Prà ªt does not involve a lot of advertisements. Advertising plays a major part in every organization Prà ªt should seriously think about advertisements on television and newspapers etc. Thus, Hoi Sin Duck Wrap is highly unreachable. Threats The risk of competitors entering the market. Competitors such as Starbucks often distribute discount vouchers. Customers are aware of the price and generally; they tend to go for cheaper options. Thus, Hoi Sin Duck Wraps product life cycle is predictably short. Source: website Prà ªt must consider on the external environment influences, which may have impact on its product. It is a strategic planning technique that provides a useful framework for analysing the environmental pressure on Prà ªt and its product (ref). Table 5: (1.2 PEST for Prà ªt a Manager) Political Economic Social Technology Source: The researcher Task 2 P 2.1 Marketing Barriers Barriers are vague obstacles that tend to thwart a marketing plan and unable to pass messages to external stakeholders. A marketer needs to understand and identify each of the barriers that they are confronting, in order to avoid scuppering the plan. Marketers generally realise these barriers when they manage to envisage a business is not growing or a prolonged unstable position (ref). These barriers can be both internal and external, and all must take into account: Not knowing your product Lack of knowledge in a businesss product and what services the business can provide to their customers can be an immense barrier to the business success. There will be no guarantee, security, customer loyalty, and number of complaints will increase, the business is ineffectual and needs improvement immediately. Whilst the business competitors understand their products, this can adversely affect the business turnover and repeat sales will not occur. Not knowing your competition If a researcher does not know where a business stands and positions of the business competitors, it is highly unlikely that the business can topple its competitors. Competitors study and observe their own competitors. This will give competitors the ideas how to better their performance. Gradually, competitors successfully satisfy customers and therefore eventually, the business will be ceased. Not understanding the market A product is ready to enter the market. However, if a researcher does not know what a business segmentations are can cause problems to the sales campaign. If the researcher does not know where these segments are, which segment should be regarded and disregarded, the marketing plan will not be effective. It is also concerned with costs. For example, the researcher does not study the environment for the business products, high premises cost, electricity and gas, the business will have no the potential to reach the top. Capital requirements The amount of financial resources that every new business enters a market is immense. Businesses such as manufacturing industries and building constructions are required extortionate machineries in order to run its business. Investments can also occur to existing businesses. For instance, investing in new product: finance availability for research and development, production, marketing etc. The investment risk is great, therefore creates barrier. However, there is a prospect of overthrowing the business competitors. Government policy This is concerned with macro-environment. Government policies sometimes are forced to halt competition. For example, laws and regulations such as product testing regulations, global warming and limits on access to raw materials can inhibit the growth of competitions due to licensing requirements. P 2.2 Solutions for marketing barriers Knowing your product It is vital to understand wholly and study what products and services that Prà ªt are providing, how they are functioned and any most recent information that a marketer should know. This will guide the marketer to the right direction and helps to plan a marketing strategy. Having knowledge of the companys products can laden relationships with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. For instance, customers expectations will be made, therefore sales enhance. Suppliers will be delighted to supply, as Prà ªt seems stable and able to meet payments on time. Knowing your competition It is important to know and learn about competitors. Competitors can be one of keys to a Prà ªts achievement, as researchers can study and observe the business competitors to acknowledge its weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This consists of competitive pricing, niche market availability, promotion, advertisements and other relevant useful information that can be learned. Understanding your market Researchers must know what are the target groups and who prà ªt is selling its products to. To conduct a market research can help researchers to understand the specific target audience and customers expectations in terms of price and quality. Methods of market research can be primary and/or secondary, quantitative and/or qualitative. Internet is a very effective tool that can help Prà ªt to overcome its barriers. Information and data that are needed can mostly be found online. Also, if researchers are struggling, good guidelines can also be found on the Internet. Until researchers are fulfilled with the results, decisions are then made and subsequently, implement a marketing plan. Task 3 P 3.1 In competitive world, companies need to produce new products to satisfy customer needs. A company cannot expect to continue growth or to maximise profit by relying exclusively on its existing products. The company must retain to control its market by continuous product innovation that involves complete new product development, product improvement, which is to discover different ways in improving existing products effectively, and imitative products, which means a copied product that is already exist in the market by other companies. It is essential to know how to manage a new product, which goes through its life cycle (Kotler et al., year) Every product has its life cycle, showing how long a product will last for. Product life cycle is the phases a product goes through from its introduction to its final decline (ref). The product life cycle has five main phases: Table 6: (3.1 Product Life Cycle) Induction This is the starting point, where a product has just begun its sales life. There is usually no profit making due to higher cost of marketing and development. Growth This is the period when a products sales has just set to rise, and the cost begins to fall due to economies of scale the more consumers purchase the product, the quicker the product will run out, therefore the more quantities of the product will be supplied by the suppliers. Maturity A sale is expanding at a slower rate and profits are soaring. More and more consumers purchase the product. The pricing may be lower due to greater competition. Saturation A market is begun to fall due to many other similar products, better products, out of date etc. The product will not be produced as much as it used to. Decline The ending of a product where the sales cannot survive again, therefore the price will be reduced more. The product then is withdrawn. Source: author , date Hoi Sin Duck Wrap is a product, which has been developed and marketed to Prets customers, and is currently market leader. Still as the researcher knowledge, there is no market follower for this product. Kotler et al. (year) believe a product tends to develop, improve and modify through research, as well as to identify, create and deliver the new product that has not emerged in the market yet. Every business must have its segmentation and targeting, its own branding and knowing relationship marketing in order to innovate flawlessly and increase demand. Segmentation technique is separated a market into groups, where there will be different segments requires and different market approaches. It is concerned on understanding customers lifestyles, preferences and aspirations. This can help businesses to find out what consumers are expected and their needs in order to develop products and increase overall demand. ACORN and MOSIAC help to identify groups consumers who are willing to purchase, therefore there will be a market for each product. Table 7: (3.1 Segmentation) ACORN A Classification Of Residential Neighborhoods, is a tool used to identify and understand the population and the demand for products and services. Businesses use this information to identify consumers needs and try to target at more consumers. Also identifying consumers age, income, employment, and type of holidays they go for etc. CACI Information Services develops classification of residential areas, market analysis and provides information. MOSIAC This is another classification to identify household types by combination of credit history, share ownership, postcode data etc. This can help businesses what type of characteristics they are aiming at. Source: author, date Segmentation technique also includes geographic, demographic, and psychographic. This can be developed so that it can create an effective marketing plan. Geographic This is a method to identify customer behavior information, such as consumer density, past purchasing behaviors etc, which may differ from other countries. Demographic This uses population factors based on variables such as age, gender family size, income, occupation, education, religion, race and nationality (ACORN). Psychographic A breakdown of consumers according to different characteristics, including the attitudes expectations and activities of consumers, their interests and lifestyles. Source: author, date Task 4 P 4.1 Marketing ethical is related to or concerning morals, justice or duty, based on ideas of right and wrong. Rules or laws that have already been set, everyday we make any decision may consider on those principles (Baker, 2006). There two main approaches in ethical identified by Rix (2004) are rules approach and outcomes approach. Rules approach is otherwise known as deontological. It is when rules must be strictly adhered, despite of the outcome. Rix (2004) states trust is one of the main keys of ethical rules in marketing. For instance, a products appearance is deceptive that lures a customer into purchasing the product, although it does not physically harm the customer is still ethically wrong. Likewise a company intends to maximise profit by conducting unethical approaches, such as making redundancies without a reason, the action is regard as unethical (Rix, 2004). Outcomes approach is otherwise known as teleological. It is occurred when an outcome is seemingly good and bad, dependi ng on the outcome prospective. For instance, Tesco brings a product into the market, but other groceries have had the product in the market already. Tesco set an unreasonable price for the product that is much lower than other competitors, which competitors accuse Tesco of unethical pricing. A contrary point of view from Tesco, that the outcome is beneficial to its stakeholders. If this action stays on, it may produce a greater amount of good than damaging others (Rix, 2004). P 4.2 Marketing mix is a tool that a company has the complete control. There are 4 main elements (4ps) in marketing mix, which are product, price, place and promotion. The fifth P, which is people, sometimes is added to demonstrate the relationship with customers. 2 further Ps are usually added within service industry, which are process and physical evidence (Lancaster and Reynolds, 1999). Conclusion

Essay --

Frank Carellini Professor Joseph J. Ellis Honors 290C Death Of A Financier: From Establishing America’s Credit To Financing The Revolution To Debtor’s Prison Amer ·i ·can noun É™-ˈmer-É™-kÉ™n, -ˈmÉ™r-, -ˈme-rÉ™- : A person born, raised, or living in the U.S. An American is defined as a person born, raised or living in the U.S. There are sacred grounds from which American roots clearly stem. There are words that instantaneously come to our minds when our American pride is questioned or insulted. Financial stability is not one of them. Passionate, idiosyncratic, united, diplomatic, relentless: these are the synonyms of American and our associated founding. But not â€Å"Financially Stable.† Actually most â€Å"Americans† are disgusted by one or more facets of the American financial system, bellowing at its corrupt, dishonest methods and lack of sympathy for our people. We are often quick to dismiss money and business as unethical creatures. It is easy to praise controversial soldiers and philosophical demigods and wooden teeth and cherry trees, when relishing in America’s emotional and inspiring foundation. Despite its stagnant reputation as a crippling agent, â€Å"Finance† and the almighty dollar (or should I say the almighty â€Å"Morris note†) once held a genuine place in the fight for American independence and maturity as a newly-birthed nation. Money was once a note of trust, a building block for international commerce and relationships. As America was born, commerce did not only translate into profits, but it was the beginning of an international web that would be the site of synthesis for social, political and economic paradigms. In the wake of America’s foundation, Robert Morris personalized currency. Coupling transactions with handshakes and... ...f financially networking. The simple misappropriation of funds tore his life apart. Money is a perception game. With money one can easily be characterized by arrogance and selfishness; without it, desperation and despair. America is a place of commerce and we need to be. There has been an everlasting parting from the original isolationist policies, instituted by Washington. I have reason to believe his close friend Robert Morris, is the reason for our global success. The first official act of Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, was to recommend that the domestic and foreign debt be paid, dollar for dollar. When the paper containing this recommendation was read before Congress, it thought that the new Secretary of the Treasury had gone mad. How was a nation of less than 4,000,000 of people to voluntarily assume a debt of $75,000,000! In The Financier, I Trust.

The Highlights of My Teaching Pedagogy Essay -- Teaching Philosophy Ed

The Highlights of My Teaching Pedagogy Through my own experiences, and as enforced by others' opinions in the profession, I have found that teaching is one of the most rewarding careers. Not only are you placed in the position of instructing and guiding children and young adults through the life long learning process, but you are able to give back to the schools and communities which have supported your early education and experiences that opened you up to a bright future. In becoming an educator, I hope to someday share the knowledge and lend the helping, supportive hand that I was once given, allowing students to formulate their own perspectives of the multicultural society and world around them. Teaching is a career I have been interested in pursuing throughout high school, and as my experiences and study in the field expands, I feel that my desire to teach will grow stronger and develop more soundly. As a teacher, I have numerous personal goals. Mainly, my goal is to provide students with the opportunity and encouragement to succeed in life and to develop as free-thinking individuals in society. I consider myself a progressive and an essentialist, according to theory. I feel that students need to be given multiple opportunities to explore many different life skills that sometimes are overlooked in the education system. Testing, rote memorization, and lecture, in my opinion, do not promote students' own inquiry and does not give students opportunities to tap into their own source of knowledge that they each bring with them to the classroom. As a teacher, I hope to leave my students able to set and accomplish goals through the use of these life skills. Some teachers I have had while in hi... ...hods of fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice exams. In my classroom, grades won't carry as much weight as the actual learning the students undertake. I could go on at length, discussing all aspects of my praxis as an educator, however, that would lead to a paper of excruciating length. These aspects of my teaching pedagogy that are delivered in this praxis statement are those that I feel strongest about upholding. It is important for educators to value their students and the perspectives and cultures they bring to the classroom. Student-centered education is what I find to be the key to great teaching, and overall, is the greatest way to allow students to value and grow through their own self-exploratory and self-directed education. Valuing and appreciating each of your students is what makes teaching such an enlightening, uplifting profession.

Willa Cathers Death Comes for the Archbishop :: Willa Cather Death Comes for the Archbishop

Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop In a 1927 letter, Willa Cather wrote that her book, Death Comes for the Archbishop, that "many of the reviews of this book begin with the statement: 'This book is hard to classify.' Then why bother? Many more assert vehemently that it is not a novel. Myself, I prefer to call it a narrative." (On Writing 12). The questions pertaining to whether or not it is a novel or why does Cather herself call it a "narrative" can be strange ones. First, breaking down the question of if it was or wasn't a novel. According to Webster's New World College Dictionary, a novel means "a relatively long fictional prose narrative with a more or less complex plot or pattern of events, about actions, feelings, motives, etc. of a group of characters." This definition of a novel pertains in every way to DCA, which leads the reader to question why would Cather say that it isn't a novel? Was she being sarcastic when she wrote this? In my opinion, the definition alone classifies DCA as a novel from the aspect that 1) it is a "relatively long fictional prose," 2) it has a complex plot and pattern of events about a group of characters. However, if one was to look at Cather's view from another angle, one could see that DCA is not a novel through a variety of ways. One of these reasons is that DCA is broken down into ten "books" (including the prologue) ranging from 15-38 pages. When it is set up like this, the reader may interpret them to be read into a common day serial and take each "book" as a different story, even though Cather incorporates most of her characters throughout the book. Another question that the reader must ask herself about DCA is why is it a narrative? For one, the reader is able to act as the narrator by putting herself in the story. Cather is brilliant at using explicit details and descriptions that make the reader feel as though she is getting a first-hand look at what is going on.

Steve Jobs : Book Review

STEVE JOBS BY WALTER ISAACSON Dear all dignitaries and peers present here, Welcome to this hall, where we are all presented with the rarest opportunity on hearing about various respected and popular members of this world. On given an opportunity, I wondered what should be the theme of my speech. Should I go for the Nobel laureates or the most popular figurines or people who changed this world? Nobel laureates are historic, and popular people as noted are already quite popular. So, let’s hear about a person who changed the way we look at technology now. The way he drove a multibillion dollar company, the way he became a symbol of youth GOD!Yes, I’m here to talk about the authorised biography, the i-bio of the master, STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. ‘Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography' was one of the most eagerly awaited books of the year 2011. The book is a journey into the life of a legend who revolutionized the way people saw technology. Walter Issacson brings to life, the innovator, the dreamer and the devil within Steve Jobs. An absolutely must read! In my mind the sole purpose of reading non-fiction is to learn, and if you learn something, by definition you will be changed. So, what did I learn from this book? 1.I have a better understanding of Apple products and understand why they enjoy premium pricing. 2. Jobs ability to focus on only 2-3 things at once with absolute intensity. I, like many, have too many interests and hobbies and could benefit from a tighter focus on just a few. 3. Jobs was able to get the most from his employees, but sometimes with tactics that I wouldn’t be comfortable using, including intimidation and tearing down of others. 4. His goal was to surround himself with  Grade A minds. Surrounding yourself with the best is not a bad motto. 5. Life is short-treat time with your family as if you are aware of your short time on earth.So, How does the author portray the genius Was he unbiased? Well, to the authorà ¢â‚¬â„¢s credit, Walter Issacson  is a biographer and a writer. He is also the director of Aspen Institute and has been the Managing Editor of TIME. Issacson has previously written the biographies of Henry Kissinger and Albert Einstein. As a  biographer of Albert Einstein  and Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Isaacson knows how to explicate and celebrate genius: revered, long-dead genius. But he wrote â€Å"Steve Jobs† as its subject was mortally ill, and that is a more painful and delicate challenge. He had access to members of the Jobs family at a difficult time.Mr. Isaacson treats â€Å"Steve Jobs† as the biography of record, which means that it is a strange book to read so soon after its subject’s death. Some of it is an essential Silicon Valley chronicle, compiling stories well known to tech aficionados but interesting to a broad audience. Some of it is already quaint. Mr. Jobs’s first job was at Atari, and it involved the game Pong. (â€Å"If youâ€⠄¢re under 30, ask your parents,† Mr. Isaacson writes. ) Some, like an account of the release of the  iPad  2, is so recent that it is hard to appreciate yet, even if Mr. Isaacson says the device comes to life â€Å"like the face of a tickled baby.    And some is definitely intended for future generations. â€Å"Indeed,† Mr. Isaacson writes, â€Å"its success came not just from the beauty of the hardware but from the applications, known as apps, that allowed you to indulge in all sorts of delightful activities. † One that he mentions, which will be as quaint as Pong some day, features the use of a slingshot to launch angry birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses. So â€Å"Steve Jobs,† an account of its subject’s 56 years (he died on Oct. 5), must reach across time in more ways than one. And it does, in a well-ordered, if not streamlined, fashion.It begins with a portrait of the young Mr. Jobs, rebellious toward the parents who raised him a nd scornful of the ones who gave him up for adoption. (â€Å"They were my sperm and egg bank,† he says. ) Although Mr. Isaacson is not analytical about his subject’s volatile personality (the word â€Å"obnoxious† figures in the book frequently), he raises the question of whether feelings of abandonment in childhood made him fanatically controlling and manipulative as an adult. Fortunately, that glib question stays unanswered. As far as the making of the book, that in itself is a wondrous story.During the summer of 2009, Walter Isaacson got a phone call from Steve Jobs. It so turned out that Jobs wanted Isaacson to write a biography of him. After  Steve Jobs  anointed  Walter Isaacson  as his authorized biographer in 2009, he took Mr. Isaacson to see the Mountain View, California, house in which he had lived as a boy. He pointed out its â€Å"clean design† and â€Å"awesome little features. † He praised the developer, Joseph Eichler, who bu ilt more than 11,000 homes in California subdivisions, for making an affordable product on a mass-market scale. And he showed Mr.Isaacson the stockade fence built 50 years earlier by his father, Paul Jobs. â€Å"He loved doing things right,† Mr. Jobs said. â€Å"He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see. † Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Mr. Isaacson a chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Mr. Isaacson’s â€Å"Steve Jobs† does its solid best to hit that target.Mr. Jobs promised not to look over Mr. Isaacson’s shoulder, and not to meddle with anything but the book’s cover. (Boy, does it look great. ) Steve Jobs asked for no right to read it before it was published and had no control over what was being written before it was published. He also encouraged people to speak honestly. In the book Jobs sometimes speaks brutally and candidly about the people he worked along with and also his competitors. And he expressed approval that the book would not be entirely flattering. But his legacy was at stake. And there were awkward questions to be asked.At the end of the volume, Mr. Jobs answers the question â€Å"What drove me? † by discussing himself in the past tense. His friends, colleagues and foes offer an unparalleled view of the perfectionism, passion, artistry, obsessions, compulsions and devilry that shaped his approach to the innovative products and business that resulted. Within hours of Steve Jobs's death in October, impromptu shrines began to appear outside Apple Stores – flowers, half-eaten apples and iPhones and iPads with images of flickering candles. The man whose company had always attracted a cult following was fast becoming a saint.But, no more than a day later, the backlash began. Jobs was not a saint or even a genius, just, in the words of AN Wilson, ‘a clever backroom boy who got lucky'. What Walter Isaacson's masterful biography reveals is that both the true believers and the cynics got Jobs wrong. In a warts-and-all portrait that continually had this reader recoiling in disgust at the petulant pioneer's behaviour, he shows that Apple's co-founder was very far from being a saint. As a teenager, he browbeats his kindly parents into sending him to a college they cannot afford – then drops out after a year. After teaming up with the rilliant but naive engineer Steve Wozniak he cheats him out of his share of a bonus they get for designing a game. ‘Ethics matter to me,' the always tolerant Wozniak tells the author, ‘but, you know, people are different. ‘ And as a tyrannical leader, he is either screaming at Apple staff about their appalling inadequacies or stealing their ideas and taking the credit for them before an adoring public. Throughout, we see the cranky food habits, the misguided belief that a fruit diet means you only need to shower once a week and an almost wilful disregard for the feelings of others, including those of his family.But, hey, Henry Ford was not the world's nicest man and Thomas Edison was apparently a ruthless egomaniac. Those who aspire to change the world are almost always difficult people, and Isaacson, while obeying the instructions of Jobs's wife not to whitewash his life, presents a compelling case for his genius. Yes, he was a magpie, snatching the idea for the graphical user interface from Xerox Parc, the iPod concept from other MP3 players, the iPad from Microsoft's tablet computer. But, as he said: ‘Picasso had a saying – â€Å"good artists copy, great artists steal† – and we've always been shameless about stealing great ideas. It was what he did with those ideas that proved his genius f or spotting where technology might head next and shaping it to his will. The perfectionism meant driving his executives to distraction with constant demands for tiny adjustments – a different font, a paler shade of green – before anything could be shipped. Jobs was not a quarter the engineer that Wozniak was or as gifted artistically as Jony Ive, the designer whose close but somewhat tortured relationship with his boss is an interesting subplot in the latter half of the book.But his creative imagination changed a series of industries – computers, mobile phones, music and, with Pixar, the movie business. His greatest creation, though, was Apple itself, a company that always wanted to be about more than technology. ‘It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough,' he said at the unveiling of the iPad 2. ‘We believe that it's technology married with the humanities that makes our hearts sing. ‘ Cynics would say that it has been not the hu manities or the arts but a ruthless attention to marketing and margins that has enabled Apple to put more than $70bn in the bank.But the Jobs strategy of management remained pretty constant throughout his career, and it was always centred on product not profit. At its core was complete control over hardware and software and of every stage of the product's life cycle, from conception through to the retailer. We see that strategy triumph as early Apple products define home computing, then fail as Microsoft's rival philosophy of licensing its software prevails. Then in 1996, with Apple on the ropes, its co-founder returns.This amazing book takes you on a rollercoaster ride into the ferociously intense personality of a passionate and creative entrepreneur whose powerful drive and vision revolutionized six industries: music, personal computers, phones, animated movies, digital publishing and tablet computing. Steve Jobs also re-imagined and tried to revamp retail stores, but it did not t urn out to be as revolutionary. Instead, he paved the way for an entirely new market for app based digital content. This is a book that's mainly about innovation.Steve Jobs stands tall as the sole icon of imagination, sustained innovation and inventiveness. His vision was very clear; if you want to create value in the industry, connect technology with creativity. A company called Apple was built on this vision, which changed the entire face of technology with its imagination blended with remarkable feats of engineering. Often driven by his demons, Jobs could make those around him lurch in despair and fury. His products and personality were interrelated and his life was cautionary and instructive at the same time.Apple's rise to that position has been characterised by a management style that is now right out of fashion – the egomaniac CEO, the obsessive secrecy, the total disregard for market research, the suspicion of collaborative ventures. Walter Isaacson has written an ent hralling history of the birth of our modern digital world and the company that may have done more than any other to shape it. And, in his obnoxious, smelly, ranting, impatient, intuitive, creative and inspirational Steve Jobs, he has presented us with the greatest business genius of the past 30 years. Mr.Jobs, who founded  Apple  with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie truth seeker and tech-savvy hothead. â€Å"His Zen awareness was not accompanied by an excess of calm, peace of mind or interpersonal mellowness,† Mr. Isaacson says. â€Å"He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed,† he also writes. But Mr. Jobs valued simplicity, utility and beauty in ways that would shape his creative imagination. And the book maintains that those goals would not have been achievable in the great parade of Apple creations without that mean streak.Mr. Isaacson takes his reade rs back to the time when laptops, desktops and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities. His book ticks off how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted first occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. â€Å"Steve Jobs† means to be the authoritative book about those achievements, and it also follows Mr. Jobs into the wilderness (and to NeXT and Pixar) after his first stint at Apple, which ended in 1985. With an avid interest in corporate intrigue, it skewers Mr. Jobs’s rivals, like John Sculley, who was recruited in 1983 to be Apple’s chief executive and fell for Mr.Jobs’s deceptive show of friendship. â€Å"They professed their fondness so effusively and often that they sounded like high school sweethearts at a Hallmark card display,† Mr. Isaacson writes. Of course the book also tracks Mr. Jobs’s long and combative rivalry with Bill Gates. The section devoted to Mr. Jobs’s illness, which suggests that his canc er might have been more treatable  had he not resisted early surgery,  describes the relative tenderness of their last meeting. â€Å"Steve Jobs† greatly admires its subject. But its most adulatory passages are not about people. Offering a combination of tech criticism and promotional hype, Mr.Isaacson describes the arrival of each new product right down to Mr. Jobs’s theatrical introductions and the advertising campaigns. But if the individual bits of hoopla seem excessive, their cumulative effect is staggering. Here is an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves. Mr. Jobs’s virtual reinvention of the music business with iTunes and the  iPod, for instance, is made to seem all the more miraculous (â€Å"He’s got a turn-key solution,† the music executive Jimmy Iovine said. ) Mr. Isaacson’s long view basically puts Mr.Jobs up there with Franklin and Einstein, even if a tiny MP3 player is not quite the theory of relativity. The book emphasizes how deceptively effortless Mr. Jobs’s ideas now seem because of their extreme intuitiveness and foresight. When Mr. Jobs, who personally persuaded musician after musician to accept the iTunes model, approached Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Marsalis was rightly more impressed with Mr. Jobs than with the device he was being shown. Mr. Jobs’s love of music plays a big role in â€Å"Steve Jobs,† like his extreme obsession with Bob Dylan. (Like Mr. Dylan, he had a romance with Joan Baez.Her version of Mr. Dylan’s â€Å"Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word† was on Mr. Jobs’s own iPod. ) So does his extraordinary way of perceiving ordinary things, like well-made knives and kitchen appliances. That he admired the Cuisinart food processor he saw at Macy’s may sound trivial, but his subsequent idea that a molded plastic covering might work well on a computer does not. Years from now , the research trip to a jelly bean factory to study potential colors for the  iMac  case will not seem as silly as it might now. Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and Mr.Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career. â€Å"Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,† Business Week wrote in a 2001 headline. â€Å"The iPod will likely become a niche product,† a Harvard Business School professor said. â€Å"High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product,† Mr. Sculley said in 1987. Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time. â€Å"Steve Jobs† makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over. Perhaps the funniest passage in Walter Isaacson's monumental book about  Steve Jobs  comes three quarters of the way through.It is 2009 and Jobs is recovering from a liver transplant and pneumonia. At one point the pulmonologist tries to put a mask over his face when he is deeply s edated. Jobs rips it off and mumbles that he hates the design and refuses to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he orders them to bring five different options for the mask so that he can pick a design he likes. Even in the depths of his hallucinations, Jobs was a control-freak and a rude sod to boot. Imagine what he was like in the pink of health. As it happens, you don't need to: every discoverable fact about how Jobs, ahem, coaxed excellence from his co-workers is here.As Isaacson makes clear, Jobs wasn't a visionary or even a particularly talented electronic engineer. But he was a businessman of astonishing flair and focus, a marketing genius, and – when he was getting it right, which wasn't always – had an intuitive sense of what the customer would want before the customer had any idea. He was obsessed with the products, rather than with the money: happily, as he discovered, if you get the products right, the money will come. Isaacson's book is studded with mome nts that make you go â€Å"wow†. There's the  Apple  flotation, which made the 25-year-old Jobs $256m in the days when that was a lot of money.There's his turnaround of the company after he returned as CEO in 1997: in the previous fiscal year the company lost $1. 04bn, but he returned it to profit in his first quarter. There's the  launch of the iTunes store: expected to sell a million songs in six months, it sold a million songs in six days. When  Jobs died, iShrines popped up all over the place, personal tributes filled Facebook and his quotable wisdom – management-consultant banalities, for the most part – was passed from inbox to inbox. Thisbiography  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ commissioned by Jobs and informed by hours and hours of interviews with him – is designed to serve the cult.That's by no means to say that it's a snow-job: Isaacson is all over Jobs's personal shortcomings and occasional business bungles, and Jobs sought no copy approval (though, typic ally, he got worked up over the cover design). But its sheer bulk bespeaks a sort of reverence, and it's clear from the way it's put together that there's not much Jobs did that Isaacson doesn't regard as vital to the historical record. We get a whole chapter on one cheesy ad (â€Å"Think Different†). We get half a page on how Jobs went about choosing a washing machine – itself lifted from an interview Jobs, bizarrely, gave on the subject to  Wired.Want to know the patent number for the box an iPod Nano comes in? It's right there on page 347. Similarly, the empty vocabulary of corporate PR sometimes seeps into Isaacson's prose, as exemplified by the recurrence of the word â€Å"passion†. There's a lot of passion in this book. Steve's â€Å"passion for perfection†, â€Å"passion for industrial design†, â€Å"passion for awesome products† and so on. If I'd been reading this on an  iPad, the temptation to search-and-replace â€Å"passionâ €  to â€Å"turnip† or â€Å"erection† would have been overwhelming.Isaacson writes dutiful, lumbering American news-mag journalese and suffers – as did Jobs himself – from a lack of sense of proportion. Chapter headings evoke Icarus and Prometheus. The one on the Apple II is subtitled â€Å"Dawn of a New Age†, the one on Jobs's return to Apple is called â€Å"The Second Coming†, and when writing about the origins of Apple's graphical user interface (Jobs pinched the idea from Xerox), Isaacson writes with splendid bathos: â€Å"There falls a [sic] shadow, as TS Eliot noted, between the conception and the creation. † But get past all that pomp and there's much to enjoy.Did you know that the Apple Macintosh was nearly called the Apple Bicycle? Or that so obsessed was Jobs with designing swanky-looking factories (white walls, brightly coloured machines) that he kept breaking the machines by painting them – for example bright bl ue? As well as being a sort-of-genius, Jobs was a truly weird man. As a young man, he was once put on the night-shift so co-workers wouldn't have to endure his BO. Jobs was convinced his vegan diet meant he didn't need to wear deodorant or shower more than once a week. His on-off veganism was allied to cranky theories about health.When he rebuked the chairman of Lotus Software for spreading butter on his toast â€Å"Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol? â€Å", the man responded: â€Å"I'll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality. † That personality. An ex-girlfriend – and one, it should be said, who was very fond of him – told Isaacson that she thought Jobs suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. Jobs's personal life is sketchily covered, but what details there are don't charm.When he got an on/off girlfriend pregnant in his early 20s, he cut her off and aggres sively denied paternity – though he later, uncharacteristically, admitted regretting his behaviour and sought to build a relationship with his daughter. Jobs himself was adopted, and seems to have had what Americans call â€Å"issues around abandonment†. He cheated his friends out of money. He cut old colleagues out of stock options. He fired people with peremptoriness. He bullied waiters, insulted business contacts and humiliated interviewees for jobs.He lied his pants off whenever it suited him – â€Å"reality distortion field† is Isaacson's preferred phrase. Like many bullies, he was also a cry-baby. Whenever he was thwarted – not being made â€Å"Man of the Year† by Time magazine when he was 27, for instance – he burst into tears. Nowadays we are taught that being nice is the way to get on. Steve Jobs is  a  fine counter-example. In 2008, when  Fortune magazine  was on the point of running a damaging article about him, Job s summoned their managing editor to Cupertino to demand he spike the piece: â€Å"He leaned into Serwer's face and asked, ‘So, you've uncovered the fact that I'm bad.Why is that news? ‘† Well.. that’s the story. Sorry if I had given out a few spoilers on the book.. but they were essential to bring out the nature of an awesome personality! The book is well written and an easy read. To tell the story of Jobs’ complete life, the cast of characters is large. Mr Isaacson identifies the importance of those he included and what influence they had on Jobs. So, in a nut shell, this book, to use a few words from Job’s dictionary, is a ‘Must read! ’