The Efficacy of Counseling with Native Americans Essay

The Efficacy of Counseling with Native Americans - Essay Example In this paper, an evaluation of conceivable outcomes that add to certain detectable directing viability esteems among Native Americans is made. The difficulties looked by this ethnic gathering will be utilized to make the connection that guiding procedure tries to build up in the talk. Four inquiries endeavoring to answer issues addressing one of a kind authentic points of view, guiding procedure complexities, social communication issues and otherworldliness are utilized in the structure. The exploration uncovers that it’s important for advisors to consider Native American social history while building up the directing procedure. The examination likewise subtleties various explicit activities that ought to be thought of, including etymological and non-verbal communication components that guide the directing procedure. The advisors should likewise know about their own predispositions according to the customer. At last, it’s showed that the fuse of Native American otherwo rldliness could extraordinarily help the advisor in the directing procedure. The Efficacy of Counseling with Native Americans Introduction The setting of Native Americans is made with a comprehension of the ethnic group’s history and social setting. ... Be that as it may, next to no data is accessible in regards to the Native American enduring because of slave drivers, when contrasted and the popular African slave exchange. The touchy advancements that the political field in the United States presented this gathering to are still new in the recollections of a lion's share of the Americans, which brings frightful responses among them. Instances of dismissal, disregard and segregation from specific segments of their aggressors show up in the more extensive picture of a Native American. For guiding customers with such an authentic foundation, it gets hard to welcome the effect of advising in standing up to such difficulties, except if a striking excursion is taken to find such a past going about as an obstacle to the directing procedure. How do recorded unfairness and present day racial separation issues influence guiding procedures among Native Americans? To reveal more insight into the wild authentic foundation that the Native Americ ans have needed to experience would maybe encourage an understanding that would help specialists to complete an exhaustive directing procedure. As quickly saw above, scars of abuse in the possession of remote hostility by the European-upheld slave exchange would maybe go about as probably the greatest obstacle to fruitful treatment. Because of a rich social legacy and conventional union practices that bound this â€Å"minority† gathering, underlying foundations of harsh past must frequent them in the possession of open abuse and racial segregation. As indicated by Trabich (1997), there must be some type of remainder legacy that has encouraged giving of old injuries to the current Native American people group to endure observer of untold outrages that were submitted against them.

Tenets of Neoclassical Economy

The goal of this scholarly exposition is to examine the primary principles of neoclassical financial radicalism, clarify whether less created nations ought to totally rely upon created nations not and give the reasons. As per Schumpeter (1954), the old style school of financial matters was created in the 1750 and kept going as the standard of monetary idea until the late 1800.Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation book distributed in 1776 can be utilized as the proper start of traditional financial matters however it really developed over some undefined time frame and was affected by Mercantilist conventions, Physiocracy, the edification, old style progressivism and the beginning times of the mechanical unrest. Adam Smith is perceived as the originator of old style financial. John Stuart Mill a British logician 1806-1873 is frequently viewed as the synthesizer of the school.While Adam Smith would be viewed as the originator and pioneer of the school, David Ricardo 1772-1823 ought to be credited with setting up the structure and techniques for school. Neoclassical monetary progressivism depends on standards of to be sans specific rivalry, an automatic market economy, and low or no assessments on pay and property, while imparting to different types of radicalism â€Å"a faith in progress, the fundamental integrity of humankind, and the self-sufficiency of the individual and representing the insurance of political and common liberties.Liberalism has long history established in the hypotheses of liberal political idea. It centers chiefly around the people rights. It appends a ton of significant worth to individual flexibility be it political or efficient. It endeavors to restrain the state’s impact in the monetary and public activity of society. Liberal scholars accept that financial life ought not be meddled by protected and legitimate rights to run all the national or open administrations. Financial life ought to be let thrive all alone without obstruction by the state.Therefore, the foundation or the most significant idea of radicalism are organized commerce and free rivalry (Schumpeter 1954). Neo-classicists see the market for sorting out financial exercises and people and organizations are remunerated for their productivity. The market apparently is at the middle for monetary development and not the state. At the end of the day, Neoclassical look to comprehend monetary improvement as far as the market conduct of individual on-screen characters and in this way can be depicted as basically individualistic (Downs 1957).Economics is a science that reviews human conduct as a connection among closes and rare implies that have choices employments. Neoclassical financial matters seeks after this investigation by methods for flexibly and request models that decide costs dependent on the abstract inclination at deciding costs so as to escape from the purported target esteem hypothesis of traditional financial aspects, as indicated by which t he estimation of products could be built up by reference to some fundamental ware or the work input required to create a good.Neo-classicists trusted that by discarding target esteems, financial aspects could be put on an increasingly logical premise as a basically clear and prescient hypothesis of human conduct (Thirlwall, 2006). Neoclassical financial aspects can be comprehended as far as the two its topic and its technique. The topic of financial aspects manages factors, for example, wages and costs, and totals like gross national item, business levels and expansion rate.The techniques offer an approach to consider enormous number collaborations inside business sectors, despite the fact that on a basic level the scope of social foundations can be stretched out to incorporate legislative issues. The trademark highlight or primary precepts of the neoclassical strategy are instrumental levelheadedness, methodological independence, monetary personal circumstance, harmony investigatio n and the utilization of numerical strategies (Riker, 1982). With instrumental judiciousness involves that specialists are assumed discerning from an expansive perspective that their conduct can clarified in term of their preferences.Preferences are thought to be dictated by the individuals’ wants and convictions and very much arranged as to results. For some reasons, inclinations can stay determined distinctly up to certain theoretical auxiliary highlights, for example, consistency, fulfillment and multifaceted nature. The last necessity frames the premise of relative cost examination concentrated on social impacts of changes in the overall costs of various objects of significant worth. All the more explicitly, reasonable people are expected to react to any expansion in the cost of a decent by devouring less of it.This basic relative value suggestion goes to be shockingly incredible in foreseeing conduct in financial setting and incorporates explicitly the premise of institu tional investigation: Institutions yield diverse social results since they change the motivations that operators face (Buchanan, 1975). On a fundamental level, individuals’ inclination could have any substance at all: operators could be generous or could be driven by bunch interests or a craving to conform to assemble standards. In any case, practically speaking , there is a solid propensity to credit overwhelmingly self intrigued thought processes o people and to depend more on institutional instrument that curve interests to the administration of obligation than on people intrinsic feeling of loyalty. Likewise, the principal question financial experts are probably going to ask of organizations is the thing that monetary motivations they offer ascent to. Similarly, when people operators connect, neo-classicists by and large accept that every specialist augments their own prosperity, considered separated from the prosperity of different specialists with whom the person in que stion interacts.According to Downs (1957) in the resultant interchange among rival interests, neoclassical financial specialists will in general conceptualize stable social results as type of â€Å"equilibria,† in which the quality of the different contenders are in balance. Besides, examination continue by inspecting changes in outer conditions that would adjust the quality of various powers and accordingly initiate all to change their conduct specifically directions.The outside conditions being referred to incorporate approach change by government and changes in more extensive institutional game plans however there is an issue concerning how far government activity ought to be viewed as outer to the social framework. Buchanan (1975) contends that the unmistakable component of the neoclassical way to deal with financial aspects can be conveniently represented regarding traditional financial aspects, specifically to Adams Smith’s representation of the undetectable hand .Smith’s illustration express the possibility that, under specific conditions, the conduct of operators who act to their greatest advantage can likewise at last advance the open intrigue. Smith guaranteed explicitly that the unreservedly working business sector under the arrangement of normal freedom would establish such an undetectable hand process. In spite of the fact that specialists are thought to be neither especially kindhearted nor participate ordinarily, the trade forms that the free market apparently mobilized tremendous advantages from enormous scope human collaboration that are exclusively not attainable.The neoclassical variant of the case is typified in the purported crucial hypotheses of government assistance financial aspects, which affirms that all impeccably serious equilibria are Pareto ideal, and all Pareto-ideal focuses are equilibria of a splendidly serious market under some underlying qualification of merchandise. Pareto ideally is characterized as the circumstance wherein all conceivable commonly advantageous moves have been made. Strangely, the neoclassical variant of this outcome follows David Ricardo’s plan in which gains from trade emerge from misusing regular contrasts among operators as per standard of ompetitive bit of leeway. In Adam Smith’s form on the other hand, the additions from trade emerge not only from characteristic contrast however from gains from specialization (Buchanan 1975). There is nonetheless, an increasingly noteworthy impediment to key hypothesis of government assistance financial matters. The hypotheses are confined in their extension to private products that are excludable. Markets can't ensure the ideal arrangement of open merchandise and aggregate utilization products. Under conceivable conditions, non excludable merchandise, for example, protection or peace and non patentable disclosures may not be given at all.Even tolerating the constrained regulating reach of paretian ideas, in thi s way, markets can't dependably convey a lot of that is required for their effective activity, for example, a safe arrangement of property rights and numerous products that are significant for human thriving, for example, general wellbeing measures or conceivable speculations about the working of the economy (Thirlwall, 2006). Besides, Paretoâ€optimal results are not really just. Pareto-optimality is reliable with subjugation if slaves can't buy their own freedom.It is additionally steady with huge differences in pay levels. In spite of the fact that the key hypothesis of government assistance financial aspects express that any Pareto-ideal result can be acknowledged by a reasonable starting redistribution of merchandise, consummately serious markets remain themselves impartial with respect to distributive issues. As it were, the neoclassical safeguard of flawlessly serious markets can offer just a fractional establishment for an extensive hypothesis of collaboration, in light of the fact that the regulating premise of assessment that the neoclassical methodology offers is too thin.Political scholars, for example, Robert Nozick (1974) and David Gauthier (1986), for instance, have taken this absence of regularizing support as a beginning stage to install markets into more extensive speculations of social and monetary participation that offset effectiveness contemplations with worries for equity. In any case, the neoclassical investigation of business sectors conveys significant standardizing suggestions. To begin with, the investigation shows that the advantages accessible from human participation are considerable.Neoclassical financial aspects delineates social connection as conceivably â€Å"positive aggregate. †

10 Ways to Save Money This Valentines Day

10 Ways to Save Money This Valentine’s Day 10 Ways to Save This Valentine’s Day 10 Ways to Save This Valentine’s DayNeed help figuring out a way to celebrate Valentine’s Day that doesn’t involve cashing in your kid’s college fund or taking out a payday loan? Don’t worry. We got you covered. Here are ten great ways that you and your bae can have a romantic Valentine’s Day on the cheap!1. Give Your Partner a Break From ParentingRaising kids is a pretty exhausting experience. So why not give your spouse the gift of getting away from their parental dutiesâ€"if even just for a few short hours?“For busy parents, romance isn’t always about sex, so skip the negligee and give a gift they can really use,” says Ann Willets from Mommy’s Time Out Wine. As a great gift for moms, she suggests “a coupon for a foot rub or a relaxing day without the kids.”   And for the dads out there, she sat that “it might be a certificate for a day on a fishing boat with friends or taking the kids out so he can watch a game without any interruptions.”Willets also po ints outs that any of these gifts would pair well with a bottle of Mommy’s Time Out Delicious Red or Dad’s Day Off Chianti. We couldn’t agree more!2. Give the Gift of Service!If you’re looking to have a romantic, heartfelt time with a partner, why not spend time giving back to your community together? Accord to dating and relationship expert Hunt Ethridge, “One of the things that keeps relationships strong and fresh is creating new memories.  And when you can do good things as well, it only adds to the strength.”Etheridge suggests that couples “go volunteering together.  Soup kitchens always need help.  Or you can help build a home with Habitat for Humanity if you are good with your hands.”  And it doesn’t have to be through an official not-for-profit organization either.“It can also be something as simple and fun as planting flower seeds all over town,” says Etheridge.  â€œYou can’t help but feel good and enjoy yourself after a productive day of helping othe rs.3. When it Comes to Babysitters, Be Early or Be CreativeIf you’re thinking about getting a babysitter so that you and your spouse can enjoy a romantic night on the town, just remember that everyone else is probably thinking the same thing.“Don’t wait for the last-minute to arrange a sitter if you’re planning a night out,” says Willets.  â€œThey’re in high demand on Valentine’s Day.” Waiting until the last minute could be like trying to catch an Uber during rush hour: you can get one, but you’ll have to pay extra.If youre still having trouble finding a babysitter, then Willets suggests you “set up a  babysitting cooperative  with other parents in your neighborhood. Each couple or parent can volunteer one evening a month to watch the kiddies. This “no cost” option ensures you get at least one night a month to keep the romance alive!Of course, this does mean that someone is going to get stuck watching the kids on Valentine’s Day itself. But that’s easily taken care of. Just make a V-day shift worth two or three additional shifts from other parents in return. That way, whoever chooses Valentine’s Day duty will get extra kid-free time for their troubles.4. Act Like Kids Again“Everyone is into nostalgia these days, imagining a better or simpler time,” says Ethridge. He suggests that you and your partner “embrace the wistfulness by planning a  Saturday  morning cartoon date.”“Grab your favorite sugary cereal (mine used to be Cookie Crisp) and your PJs, and head on over to their house, he says. “Watch old cartoons and kid shows, whether that’s old Bugs Bunny, Smurfs, My Little Pony, Pokemon or Power Rangers.”And the date doesn’t have to be just sugar highs and cartoons, either.  â€œTalk about being a kid,” says Ethridge.  â€œWhat did you want to be when you grew up?    Who was your favorite teacher?  Did you have a schoolyard crush on anyone?    For a few hours, you can escape the everyday rat race and revel in the fun that life brings.”5. Play Spy!  Turn a boring walk into daring daylight espionage!” says Ethridge.  â€œEveryone fantasizes about being a spy.  So go and try it out!”Here’s how it works, according to Ethridge:“Find somebody you don’t know or just pick someone on the street and tail them as close as possible for as long as possible.  Make up stories about who this person is and the things they’ve done in their life.    Don’t let the mark see you or you lose the game!”But that’s not all!  Ethridge adds that “once you’ve been spotted or you lose your quarry, eat at the closest food place.  Whether it’s a convenience store hot-dog or hole-in-the-wall Chinese joint, it’ll make for a memorable meal.”(This might be Ethridge’s most outâ€"there idea, but that’s what also makes it our favorite.)6. Enjoy a Night of Your City’s Freebies“Most cities offer a multitude of free fun that you may not even know about, says Justin Lavelle, Chief Communications O fficer for PeopleLooker.com. “Do a little research and plan to tap into a few of them.”Some of the activities he lists include enjoying “a carefree and inexpensive evening of karaoke, darts, pool, or trivia night at your local pub.” He also suggests “challenging each other at Monopoly at a board game cafe, check out a free improv night of up-and-coming talent, take a free yoga class, go to a local jazz club or find a movie or concert in the park!”These all sound like great Valentine’s Day dates to us!7. Get the Kids InvolvedIf you’re unable to get a babysitter, then you may as well celebrate Valentine’s day in a way that the whole family can enjoy.Willets says, “If you can’t manage a night without the kids, find ways to include them.” They can “help to set a pretty table, make a special treat and create their own cards.”When you’re a parent, it’s important to make time for your spouse, but modeling good behavior for your kids is also critical. “This is a great time to show the kids how to express their love for each member of the family, as well as to set an example of how mom and dad love and appreciate one another,” says Willets.8. Take an Architecture Tour“Those of us that are lucky enough to be in places with old buildings can see the artistry and talent and their attention to detail, Justin Lavelle says.  â€œTake an architectural tour of your town or one nearby. Learn the local history of any of the buildings. See if you can find the coolest one in town, and fantasize about what you would do if you lived there.”Lavelle suggests that you can also try this DIY. “Drop the kids off at grandmas house, grab a Starbucks, bring along your favorite or romantic music, then treat yourselves to a little tour of your city,” he says. “Drive by historical sights, visit your favorite neighborhoods, find homes you both love, and swing by your childhood home or the spot of your first date (if possible).”He also mentions that you could “cap off the night with a trip to the ice cream shop or grab a dessert to share at a favorite restaurant.”9. Relive Your First Date!This is another great idea from Justin Lavelle. “Whether your first date was a long time ago or just a couple of years, try and recreate your first date from the very beginning,” he says.“Did he pick you up? If so, have him pick you up for your date even if its at your shared home,” says Lavelle. “Did you attend a high school basketball game together? See if you can catch one together at the local high school. Theyre either free or only cost a couple of bucks. If your first date was a movie, catch a matinee togetherâ€"theyre cheaper than evening movies.”“Maybe you went roller skating? Thats right, pay for your skate rentals and go have a laugh like you havent had in a while,” he says, adding “just dont break anything!”10. Be a Seat Filler and See Shows for LessHere’s a great idea for escaping the Valentine’s Day rat race altogether. Give your spouse or partner the gift of an On The List (OTL) Seat Filler Membership.Network members can get free tickets to shows and plays across your local area (just make sure to check their website to see what areas they cover). For the cost of your very affordable monthly dues, you get invited to attend shows that still have tickets available.According to Lu Ann Wall from World Wide Seats, a select provider for OTL, “Seat Filler Membership Gifts provide the gift recipient with all-inclusive access to reserve tickets to shows as they pop up.  Members also bring their guest(s), as they can reserve 2-4 comp tickets to each event theyre interested in attending.”“Not only is it fun to see what pops up and be introduced to some new entertainment,” she adds, “but to be able to reserve tickets without paying for them is the icing on the cake!”Instead of only one date on Valentine’s Day, a Seat Filler Membership would be giving your partner the spouse of many dates to come!Visit SeatFillerNetwork.com to learn more.If you have a great date idea of your own, let us know! Hit us up on Twitter at @OppLoans and Facebook with your favorite budget date night activities!Visit OppLoans on YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedINAbout the Contributors:  Hunt Ethridge is an award-winning dating and relationship expert with over a decade of experience helping people become the best, most dateable versions of themselves.  While the focus of his coaching is on making someone empirically more dateable, the lessons learned translate very easily into personal and professional lives. The emphasis is on confidence building, leadership, image style, conversation skills, reconnecting with fun and more. To read his advice articles, go to HuntForAdvice.com.Justin Lavelle is the Chief Communications Officer for PeopleLooker.com. PeopleLooker is a leading source of online background checks and contact information. It helps people discover, understand and us e public data in their everyday lives and can provide peace of mind by offering a fast, easy and affordable way to do background checks. PeopleLooker allows individuals to find more information about people, phone numbers, email addresses and property records.OTL (On the List), now with 21 U.S. locations and London (13 of them managed by WW Seats and the others by Audience Resources), encourages members to unplug and be social again by introducing them to amazing local entertainment. Despite the online membership and reservation system, a few team members (well… actually 4 out of 5) are self-proclaimed “technophobes” but have acquired and mastered new skills, all in the pursuit of offering fun “offline” activities.Ann Willets is the PR representative for Mommy’s Time Out Wine, as well as a mother and grandmother.

The Civil War And Changing Beliefs - 1404 Words

Luis Murillo History 16-01 December 13, 2014 Professor Dawson The Civil War and Changing Beliefs The United States has always had a rocky history and at much more often instances than we would like to admit because of controversial actions of its own citizen’s with regard to the Constitution. The Civil War of 1861 up until 1865 was one of America’s first industrial modern conflict involving very sensitive social issues on slavery that divided the nation and pitted American men against other American men. Prior to the Civil War, many slaves were brought from African territories to work in plantations as a free labor force. As a justification to owning slaves, it was imbedded that slaves where inherently inferior and as in many cases, treated less kindly than an animal would be. Much of these influences where brought from the European counterparts that the Americans had broken apart from, and unlike America, Europe was in a process of changing slaves into a force of wage labor, although they were still treated as subhuman. Since the Southern part of the United States had such a strong dependency on wealth through slave labor, many new equality ideologies and industrialization from the north caused great rifts and tensions between competing and opposite ideologies were one attempted to influence the other. Thus, the Civil War was a conflict of slavery due to a changing market revolution, the manifest destiny, and new found ideologies on concepts about slavery and freedom. TheShow MoreRelatedWomen During The Great Depression1471 Words   |  6 Pagesand shape the America known today. One particular event that has had a great significance was the Second World War. 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Examine some of the key principles of the argument for the...

Examine some of the key principles of the argument for the existence of God based upon religious experiences Religious experiences are experiences we have of the divine or God. These experiences may be Mystical experiences, conversion experiences or revelatory experiences. Paul Tillich states that religious experience is a feeling of ‘ultimate concern’, a feeling that demands a decisive decision from the one receiving it. He describes it as an encounter followed by a special understanding of its religious significance. The argument for religious experiences is based on 3 premises. Premise one states that the experience of X indicates the reality of X. One problem with this premise is that the experience of X does not always indicate†¦show more content†¦The problems with premise three can also be highlighted by looking at the religious experience of Mosses when he saw God in the burning bush. When God came to him, Mosses had just killed a man and run away into the desert. Therefore he could be experiencing extreme guilt which could cause him to have an illusion. Also if he is in the desert then he was most likely dehydrated which again could cause an illusion. Therefore other factors may be used to explain religious experiences. Another example to support premise three, and one that addresses the problem of the subjective nature of religious experiences, is corporate religious experiences. This is when large numbers of people all have the same religious experience at the same time. The fact that they are experienced by many leads to the fact that they can be objectively tested and the accounts validated adding further support for the argument. Those that argue that religious experiences are proof of the existence of God usually argue inductively. 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Tzvetan Todorov exa mines the beliefs and behaviorRead MoreBook Summary: the Bible Among the Myths by John N. Oswalt Essay3529 Words   |  15 PagesNear East and continuity is different from the Bible’s transcendence. The second half of the book, â€Å"The Bible and History,† examines several philosophical thoughts proposed by others that attempt to explain the Bible’s relevance separate from historical validity. Oswalt provides excellent arguments against the new age philosophies. Oswalt provides an articulate argument for the veracity of the Bible’s history and theology by providing several convincing points to affirm the Bibles varicity. â€Æ' Read MoreAgrarian Magic: 20 Theories on the Origin of Religion8239 Words   |  33 Pagestotemism, spirit propitiation, magic theory, cultural memes, agrarian overseer gods, fear and worship of spirits, evolved adaption, or by-product of evolved adaption, and as a control mechanism. There are multiple definitions and criterion of religion, most dealing with the supernatural, the unknown, the ineffable, the numinous, that terrific agency of the gods, or the comfort of ancestors and hero archetypes. Lets examine some of these meta-theories of religion’s origins to see what we can sort outRead MoreSources of Ethics20199 Words   |  81 PagesTABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0- JOHN STEINER AND GEORGE STEINER SIX PRIMARY SOURCES OF ETHICS: 6 1- Religion: 6 2- Genetic Inheritance: 8 3- Philosophical Systems: 8 4- Cultural Experience: 8 5- The Legal System: 9 6- Codes of Conduct: 9 2.0- EXPLANATION OF THE SOURCES OF ETHICS: 10 2.1- RELIGION: 10 Teaching business ethics 12 2.11- Impact Of Religiosity: 13 2.12- Ethics Of Islam: 14 Nature of Islamic Ethics 17 The Human-Environment Relationship: 20 The Sustainable

Can we trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge Free Essays

Mankind shares psychological phenomena known as emotion that is a natural state of mind deriving from a person. 1 By means of this special ability, trusting our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge can be questioned, as it is a circumstance that involves only an individual, there might be an increasing chance of being invalid. This generalization can be countered by the fact there can be influences of emotion in pursuing knowledge in many cases such as in two particular Areas of Knowledge: History and Natural Science. We will write a custom essay sample on Can we trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge? or any similar topic only for you Order Now As such, the knowledge issues rose: To what extent does emotion hinder our acquisition of knowledge? This question examines what role emotion play in the pursuit of knowledge and whether or not emotion is a source of knowledge or otherwise, an obstacle to knowledge. In history, the sense of trusting emotions in the process of knowledge acquisition in History as a discourse is rarely ideal. The explanation for this is that emotions can wrongly paint our perceptions for proofs to prop historical facts and events. When referring to emotions, it is possible to develop a negative attitude from the evidence presented. There can be of a lot of benefits of the study in history discourse. History aids in understanding what is being studied, give insight of who did it and the approximate or the actual period a study or event occurred. Emotions restrain and influence rationality and thereby leading to distorted history and false facts. An example of emotion is probable forces involving the trial David Irving Vs. Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin publishers. David was accused of being a racist and anti-Semitic by claiming that Holocaust never happened. During a trial, he came up with the evidence to prop his claim that Holocaust never happened. In his evidence, he claimed that there was no official plan or policy to put the Jewish race into termination though there was a proof of the Wansee conference where the Nazis met to plan against the Jews. In the trial, the court was also notified that he used to sing a racist song to his daughters2and based on this fact therefore, one can deduct that he had confirmation biasness owing from his emotions (hatred), towards Jewish race. This biasness therefore, masked the facts of the Holocaust causing the defendant to see things from one dimension which impacted on his judgment and reasoning. Irving was even consistence in his bias by claiming that the gas chambers were not met to exterminate humans but was for delousing. This claim was then discredited by doctors and remained as a conflictive issue. From this point therefore, emotions are not trustworthy in the process of acquisition of knowledge in history. Whilst emotions may negatively impact the history leading to distortion, some emotions can have a positive impact on history as a discourse. These emotions of liking and enthusiasm towards an event, thing, place or group may make one develop the sense of searching for more knowledge concerning the subject and therefore this leads to one quest for unearthing the deep hidden facts on the subject and hence producing facts require in History. Example here is: it is the deep sense of belonging and deep feeling of enthusiasm that led to the Egyptians Hussein Bassir, Ahmad Faschri, Sami Gabra, Zakaria Goneim, Labib Habachi among others venture into Egyptology (Study of ancient Egypt). 3 That affection gives these individuals challenges for unearthing more artifacts for ancient history that helps articulate the pieces of Ancient Egypt history and hence an example of positive contribution of emotion to history. 4 In natural science, emotions also may impact the acquisition for knowledge to a great extent. In pharmacology for example, a negative attitude of a researcher in determining the medicinal value, toxicity and the dosage of a certain physiologically active compound (P. A. C. ) from a given herbal might lead to biased research. This has the potential to lead to wrong administrations of bioassays and test of the very same dosage that may lead to negative result even if the P. A. C. is present in large quantities, the result are then pre-set to read negative due to the attitude of the researcher that is likely to affect his dexterity, carefulness and also  perception. This finally leads to a wrong conclusion that in the real sense lacks scientific approval or disapproval as the biasness brought about by emotions led to successive blunders in the following of scientific syntaxes and therefore wrong conclusion and results at the long run. A perfect example to this is a certain Biology class in High Ridge High school where, students were asked to observe different cells in blood samples under a light microscope. The students first perceived that one could not visualize blood cells since it was their first time to do so and more so did it against their wish of using the new microscopes as opposed to the old ones they were obliged to use. Due to the inbuilt feeling that the old microscopes were not as efficient as the new ones therefore, the students smeared their specimen on a slide and then mounted it on a microscope without staining the specimen and hence could not visualize blood cells. In their report to the respective tutor, the students wrote that there was absence of blood cells and the test was negative. The truth of the matter was the negative emotion of being denied the chance to use new microscope outflanked the result orientation in the minds of the students to the extent that they forgot the most crucial step that could lead to success of their scientific activity. Emotions, i. e.  attitude, love, hatred, happiness, moods, affection and all others are not worth trust in the process of knowledge acquisition be it in History as a field of discourse, philosophy, natural sciences and even language since the perception of emotions occurs in brain and the knowledge acquisition still occurs in brain and therefore, negative conception of a certain idea might lead to biasness that might distort the much required fact either in history research or in natural science. Emotions mask one’s rationality to reason as per the expectations and therefore in that sense impair ones judgment. In the two cases that we have examined, Irving failed to acknowledge the eventuality of Genocide in Germany by the Nazi regime and went further to claim that the murderous gas chambers used were for delousing and not killing humans. Secondly, due to the preset emotions of the students, they fail to stain their specimens and this leads them to wrong results and subsequently conclusions owing to their negative attitude towards using old microscopes as opposed to new ones. The error that occurs is not as attribute of the microscopes but students’ ignorance and negative attitude. It is worth a note also that emotions are not always detrimental to acquisition of knowledge but at times beneficial to the process of knowledge acquisition if at all they are positive as per the case of patriotic Egyptians in their career as Egyptologist. How to cite Can we trust our emotions in the pursuit of knowledge?, Papers

The Qualities of Hero free essay sample

Hour The Qualities of Hero What makes Annie Sullivan significant? The traits that she showed in The Miracle Worker by William Gibson made her significant. In this story she showed many characteristics that make her unique in comparison to other teachers. Being half blind herself, she could relate to Helen in some ways. Annie Sullivan exemplified many heroic qualities such as patience, perseverance, and self-determination. First, Annie Sullivan showed patience in many different situations throughout the story. Patience appeared in this play when Annie requested to stay with Helen, alone in the cabin for two weeks. She stated, â€Å"Two weeks, for only one miracle. † (Act II). Helen tested Annie’s patience when choosing not to cooperate with her. They got into many altercations, but still remained patient. Helen benefited the most from Annie’s perseverance. Sullivan’s patience helped her to teach Helen. When Helen tested Annie’s patience, she remained calm and continued to tolerate Helen’s behavior. We will write a custom essay sample on The Qualities of Hero or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This example shows how Annie exemplified patience in â€Å"The Miracle Worker†. Another characteristic that Annie showed in this story included perseverance. Annie persevered during the scene where she tried to teach Helen how to fold the napkin. When she started, Helen did not seem to respond to sign language or folding the napkin. After a few days, she appeared hopeless to her parents. Sullivan still continued to try and teach her through all the obstacles, even when the Kellers wanted her to leave. â€Å"The room’s a wreck, but her napkin is folded. † (Act II). Annie stated this after she successfully taught Helen how to fold a napkin. Even though the Kellers didn’t believe in Annie, and Helen seemed to not respond to her teaching, Annie still continued to try and teach her. Clearly, Annie Sullivan showed perseverance in this story. Lastly, Sullivan showed the quality of self-determination. Annie showed self-sufficiency throughout the whole play. A specific example would be when the Kellers thought that Annie would give up, but she didn’t. â€Å"Here, give up, why I only today saw what has to be done, to begin! † (Act II). Annie said this to the Kellers when they thought that she might have given up. Sullivan was determined to teach Helen sign language. She remained persistent and did not give up. At this point Annie would do whatever she had to do to teach Helen sign language. She wanted to stay alone in the cabin with Helen even though the Kellers opposed. This self-determination helped Helen to learn and to pay more attention to Annie. This is how Annie Sullivan showed self-determination. In conclusion, Annie Sullivan illuminated many qualities that would make one see her as heroic. Three specific examples of these traits are patience, perseverance, and self-determination. Sullivan shows these characteristics throughout the entire play. The world would be a better place if there more people showed the traits that Annie Sullivan did. I agree with Robert Brustein when he states, â€Å"Gibson possesses substantial literary and dramatic gifts and an integrity of the highest order. In addition, he brings to his works authentic compassion, wit, bite and humor, and a lively, literate prose style equaled by few American dramatists. † in the New Republic. When William Gibson wrote this play he used much compassion and drama. Lastly, I am grateful for being able to read this transcendental play.

Rhetorical Analysis (Final Draft) Essays (1377 words) - Rape

Skylar Rose Goodman Professor Vinisky Rhetorical Analysis November 16, 2018 The topic of rape and sexual assault has recently become a more common conversation in recent months as allegations against many powerful people, in both politics and the entertainment industry, come to the public eye. This is a very important conversation that needs to happen, and it is unfortunate that so many people had to be hurt and victimized before the conversation really began. In 2010, sexual assault was not as much of a hot button topic as it is today. A few short years ago, the topic of sexual assault was not brought up in civil conversation; it was a discussion that was avoided entirely. A subtopic of sexual assault is the question of who the blame lies upon for the assault occurring. Rebecca Camber, an English journalist, wrote an article in early 2010 discussing the views of people polled and the opinions of those who work professionally in both law enforcement and victim services. Camber's article is rhetorically effective, even if the reader does not share h er underlying assumptions. The article was written for an English news source, however the findings from the studies mentioned are likely to still apply to an American audience. Camber found that roughly 50% of women believed that the victims of sexual assault played a part in their own attack. Camber used these statistics and other appeals to display that although this opinion may be frequent, it is not a true conclusion of who is at fault when someone has been victimized. The purpose of this article is to show how many people truly believe that victims' are at fault for being attacked and then to discredit these ideas with testimonies from those professionally involved in the discussion of sexual assault. The occasion and inspiration for writing this article is that Britain has the lowest conviction rate in Europe of rape; only one in fourteen rapes reported end in a conviction. Throughout the article, Camber mentions that the experts she quotes are advocates for education in schools about sexual assault and sexual violence. Camber herself supports the idea of sexual violence education in schools. Both the intended audience and actual audience that this article was written for are of English nationality, as The Daily Mail is an English publication. The actual audience is victims of sexual assault, with the intent of showing them that although the public may have an opinion about sexual assault and those victimized by it, those who are educated on the topic have a much different opinion. The professional opinion is that the victims are not to blame, continuing the rhetoric of "never blame the victim". The intended audience is those who blame victims of sexual assault in an attempt to have them question their viewpoints, to shed light on how widespread the idea is and how harmful it can be to victims and the efforts to end sexual violence. The tone of the article is derogatory towards those with the opinion that victims are at fault for being assaulted while also praising victims for surviving and validates them for their struggles. Rebecca Camber is a crime correspondent and an English journalist for many news outlets. (Muck Rack.) Some of the publications Camber has written for include The Daily Mail , MSN UK, New Zealand Herald, The Star (South Africa), Business Report, and Daily Voice . (Id.) The Daily Mail, where this article was originally published, is a British daily middle-market newspaper published in London and has an online source as well, reaching an international audience. (Wikipedia.) Camber herself writes many articles on controversial topics, such as sexual assault, terrorism, and other crime related topics. This gives Camber credibility as she has written of similar topics before, and often writes with another journalist who also specializes on the topic written about. In this article, however, Camber is the sole author. Camber's article is mostly logically oriented in presenting the information. Camber uses many statistics and facts from various sources. The majority of the article is information from these mixed sources displayed in quantitative form, showing mostly percentages of polls and surveys of both males and females. This is significant due

Free Essays on How To Change A Tire

How To Prevent And Change A Flat Tire One of peoples' worst nightmares is having a flat tire and chances are, it will happen to each one of us at some point in our lifetime. If we are lucky, there will be someone around who both knows how to change a tire and is willing to help us. If not, we are faced with finding a phone and summoning the help of a professional, or changing the tire ourselves. In most cases, hiring a professional can prove to be somewhat expensive, so it would be beneficial for each of us to know how to safely and effectively change a tire. Some problems exist simply because people are unaware of the correct tire changing process. They will often find themselves with a spare that has gone flat or is low in air pressure. Or when everything appears to be in order for changing a tire you find that parts of the jack or some tools are missing. Having a flat tire can be a nuisance, however, the following process will help you to prevent a flat and instruct you how to change one if needed. The first thing you should remember is to check the pressure in your spare tire each and every time you check the tires which are on your vehicle. Spare tires can lose pressure just as easy as the tires you are using. As rule of thumb, tires should be checked a minimum of once a month. When you check the pressure be sure to also check for any irregular wear patterns or any other non-conformities. When the pressure is low, add air as soon as possible. A tire gauge is a handy and inexpensive item to carry in your glove box since one is not always available at all air stations. Also check the depth of the tread of the tires. This can be done easily by using an ordinary penny. Simply stick the penny into the grooves of the tires headfirst. If the top of Lincoln’s head is above the tread rubber the tires should be replaces as soon as possible. Next check the tire changing tools in the trunk of your car. Most times these ... Free Essays on How To Change A Tire Free Essays on How To Change A Tire How To Prevent And Change A Flat Tire One of peoples' worst nightmares is having a flat tire and chances are, it will happen to each one of us at some point in our lifetime. If we are lucky, there will be someone around who both knows how to change a tire and is willing to help us. If not, we are faced with finding a phone and summoning the help of a professional, or changing the tire ourselves. In most cases, hiring a professional can prove to be somewhat expensive, so it would be beneficial for each of us to know how to safely and effectively change a tire. Some problems exist simply because people are unaware of the correct tire changing process. They will often find themselves with a spare that has gone flat or is low in air pressure. Or when everything appears to be in order for changing a tire you find that parts of the jack or some tools are missing. Having a flat tire can be a nuisance, however, the following process will help you to prevent a flat and instruct you how to change one if needed. The first thing you should remember is to check the pressure in your spare tire each and every time you check the tires which are on your vehicle. Spare tires can lose pressure just as easy as the tires you are using. As rule of thumb, tires should be checked a minimum of once a month. When you check the pressure be sure to also check for any irregular wear patterns or any other non-conformities. When the pressure is low, add air as soon as possible. A tire gauge is a handy and inexpensive item to carry in your glove box since one is not always available at all air stations. Also check the depth of the tread of the tires. This can be done easily by using an ordinary penny. Simply stick the penny into the grooves of the tires headfirst. If the top of Lincoln’s head is above the tread rubber the tires should be replaces as soon as possible. Next check the tire changing tools in the trunk of your car. Most times these ...

Tate Modern topic proposal 200-300 words Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Tate Modern topic proposal 200-300 words - Essay Example As it goes with the character of a building intended to house Modern Art, Herzog & de Meuron decided in favour of retaining the quintessentially urban and industrial character of the original building. However, they extended full expression to their creative genius by delicately emphasizing it through the usage of renovations like light paintwork, polished concrete, excellent lighting and unpretentious wooden floors. The result was the creation of an architectural ambience that relied for its originality on the pleasing contrast of the industrial boldness of the original building with the tasteful temperament of the new additions. It would not be wrong to say that the approach of Herzog and de Meuron in the case of Tate Modern was primarily conceptual and not design oriented. In that context, Tate Modern suggests an entire new approach towards architecture that is innovative, believing in extending new meanings and forms to the old through the incorporation of novel trends and creati vity and no doubt pragmatically aspiring for cost effectiveness. Preliminary Bibliography Miles, Malcolm & Hall, Tim (eds.) 2003, Urban Futures, Routledge, London.

Asssigment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Asssigment - Essay Example The management regularly deducts the pension contributions from the employee’s salaries. Another pension plan version occurs when the company contributes the entire amount to a lump sum pension fund account. Consequently, the employee can select a plan that generates a higher retirement benefit return. Investing in a riskier pension fund will increase retirement benefit returns. The employee can also choose another plan where the investments are funneled into a safer fund that generates a lesser benefit return (Kieso et al., 2006). Additionally, the employee can choose to receive the retirement amount in one lump amount or the employee can decide to receive the retirement amount in equal monthly installment amounts. The second method allows the retiree to receive the monthly retirement benefits throughout one’s lifetime (Kieso et al, 2006, p. 1244). Funding principles. The fund is also classified as a plan. The fund entity is a separate agency that manages companiesâ₠¬â„¢ pension plans. The fund entity receives the money invested by the company. When the employee retires, the fund company distributes the pension and other retirement benefits. The employer contributes to the pension fund and generates earnings. The employee receives benefits as pension fund recipients. The fund agency accumulates the employers’ contributions as either contributory or noncontributory (Kieso et al., 2006, p. 1244). Defined benefit plan. The defined benefit plan includes the amount of benefits that the employees will receive when they decide or are forced to retire. The state requires that employees are mandatorily required to retire when they reach a certain age. The company allocates a regular amount for the employees’ retirement benefit plan. The benefits are based on the employee’s total pension fund contributions. Likewise, the retirement amounts are based on the salaries of the employees. Employees with higher salaries will receive higher pension retirement benefits when compared to the salaries of the lower ranking line and staff employees (Kieso et al., 2006, p. 1211). Defined contribution plans. Under this plan, the employer contributes a regular amount to the pension trust. A formula is used to decide the monthly contributions. The formula incorporates the number of years of the employee’s work, the company’s business profits, and the salary. The plan indicates the amount that the employers will contribute to the plan. However, the plan does not indicate the amount that the employees will receive as retirement benefits. An example is the 401 (k) plan (Kieso et al., 2006, p. 1244). Pension fund allocation. In terms of the formulation, different companies allocate different pension expense amounts for different pension fund budgets. During 2009, General Motor’s $98,527 pension fund required a $3,405 pension expense. During 2009, the Coca Cola Company’s $3,032 pension fund amounts require d a $218 pension expense budget. During the same accounting period, the Merck company’s $10,835 pension fund needed a $407 pension fund expense (Kieso et al., 2009, p. 1211). Components of pension expense. In terms of formulation, accounting for pension funds entails allocating the cost of the retirement funds to the appropriate accounting period. The service cost forms a part of the pension expense total. The interest on the liability should be added

Strategies for Brand Revival

Strategies for Brand Revival INTRODUCTION The world, it seems, is disappearing beneath a deluge of logos. In the past decade, corporations looking to navigate an ever more competitive marketplace have embraced the gospel of branding with newfound fervour. The brand value of companies like Coca-Cola and IBM is routinely calculated at tens of billions of dollars, and brands have come to be seen as the ultimate long-term asset economic engines capable of withstanding turbulence and generating profits for decades. So companies spend billions on brand campaigns and try to indelibly mark everything in sight, from the ING New York City Marathon to the Diamond Nuts cup holders at SBC Park. Marketers may consider the explosion of new brands to be evidence of brandings importance, but in fact the opposite is true. It would be a waste of money to launch a clever logo into a world of durable brands and loyal customers. But because consumers are more promiscuous and fickle than ever, established brands are vulnerable, and new ones have a real chance of succeeding for at least a little while. The obsession with brands, paradoxically, demonstrates their weakness. Therefore, sometimes in business, a good brand dies. Everyone knows and respects the brand, but theres a gap between peoples knowledge and their desire to actually buy the product. When the company cant close that gap, the brand slowly but surely finds its way to the dustbin of history (Mannie Jackson, 2001). Therefore, the biggest question that a company can face is the decision whether to revive the brand or let it die. And if revive, how? But before we go further on to answer this question, its critical to understand why brands fail or die? Is it lack of consumer interest? Or introduction of new brands? Or is it something as simple as ignorance to the changing market dynamics? Lets look at an article from Business line which gives us a view point on the same: Why must brands die at all? And why do they die?1 The answer is a simple one! Brands never die. There is just no organic death in the life cycle of brands. In fact, there is just no life cycle at all! Lets bury this brand-ism once and for all! Brands are meant to live on forever. Brands dont die. Instead, they are murdered by Brand Managers. The over-zealous and the lazy ones alike! Most of the time done to death by stubborn brand-folks who just dont see the future unraveling! One common thread that is seen in brands that actually die on the cushy laps of their emotional brand owners is their inability to embrace change. The lack of flexibility to adapt and adjust to a changing market scenario that is as unpredictable as ever! Brands traverse the trajectory of slow death as soon as rigidity in their management styles step in. And there are many styles equally guilty of forcing their brands onto the track of death near or distant! Brand Management is as dynamic a subject as any. It i s as dynamic in its changes, as is society itself. Brands need to change and adapt to their customers and consumers. They need to be in sync with the psyche of their target segment. Rigid brand managers are the biggest liability to the brand. The solution: Keep changing them every 18 months for a start! The second brand sin is perpetuated by the jumpy brand manager who wants to prove a point. The guy knows for sure he is a short-tenure resource on the brand. He is young and raring to go. He has read enough of the brands mystique. He now wants to leave his indelible mark on the brand he is slated to handle. The intelligent brand manager of the future is the guy who sits between these two points of action and inaction. He is one who knows his strengths and his gaps alike. He is therefore the sutradhaar who knits the purpose of the brand and its longevity together by bringing to the brand party every resource that he deems necessary. Bring in that sociologist who will give you a quick perspective of how society is morphing, bring in that practicing psychologist who will psycho-analyze your consumer of today and hopefully tomorrow! Bring in the holistic market  researcher who will look beyond the tools that are quantitative, qualitative and eventually a cusp of the two! Bring in the dentist and the tailor if necessary! Brands die due to neglect. Due to a lack of accepting change. Due to stubborn, age-old thoughts, Managing brands is an art, a science and a philosophy as well! Practice each of these with perfection and humility! As we can see the article clearly talks about how brands di e due to peoples choice between in-action and action. But what happens when a company intentionally kills its flagship brand? Lets have a look at an article that talks about how Ford beheaded its once flagship brand The Ford Taurus. There are some important pointers to be learnt from this article. How to Kill your Brand 2 The Ford Taurus was a brand success of the 1990s. Its jellybean shape helped pioneer aerodynamic and dramatic styling when it was introduced in 1985, a time when most Japanese and American vehicles were little more than square boxes with round wheels. It had a powerful but fuel-efficient V6 engine. The moderately priced car made middle-class buyers feel like they were standing out without sticking out. The Taurus revived a Ford that was on the financial ropes. Ford sold 263,000 units the first year. In 1986, Motor Trend magazine named the Taurus Car of the Year. A year later it was Fords best-selling car. By 1992, it had surpassed the Honda Accord as the best-sell ing passenger car in the US. It kept that title for five straight years, outselling both the Accord and the Toyota Camry. Eventually, Ford sold about 7 million Tauruses and 2 million Mercury Sables (essentially the same car). But at the end of 2006, the last Ford Taurus rolled off the line at an assembly plant in an Atlanta suburb. Says Peter DeLorenzo, publisher of auto-extremist.com, an automotive website: Ford is the only auto manufacturer in history to take a number-one-selling car and systematically destroy the franchise through a fatal combination of ineptness, incompetence and flat-out neglect. 8 The death of the Taurus is a contributing reason why Ford reported a $5.8 billion loss last October, the worst in 14 years, announced the closing of 14 plants (including the plant that produced the Taurus), and now wants to borrow $18 billion to help revive the company. How did this king of automotive brands get beheaded? Ford provides a textbook case in how to destroy a brand. Key lessons include: Ignore your target customer segment: The Taurus was most popular among 50+ consumers, the group with the most disposable income. But Ford was entranced by the 18-35 group, and redesigned the car twice to appeal to this segment. The redesigns turned off the Taurus customer base while failing to turn on younger buyers. Listen to the customers who actually buy your product, not the ones you want to buy your product. Stop promotion: Unbelievably, Ford stopped advertising one of its best-selling cars for two years. Thats one reason Taurus sales dropped from a high of 410,000 in 1992 to 145,000 in 2006. Remember that advertising and promotion is not just for new products. It is also for established products. Undercut the value: When sales started declining, Ford took the quick and easy route of expanding sales to rental companies as well as taxi and corporate fleets. It also substantially boosted dealer and other discounts. While these have the temporary effect of juicing sales, they also harm profits for companies and resale value for customers. Never do anything that hurts your brand among existing customers. Focus on new, and not loyal, customers: Remember the Contour, Windstar, Escort, Galaxy and many other Ford brands? Automotive companies are infamous for spending millions to develop and promote brands, then inexplicably orphaning them years later to devote resources to newer models. Abandon a product only when it is truly at the end of its life-cycle, not because something sexier comes out of product development. Cannibalize your product unnecessarily: Fixed costs are high in the automotive industry, which means that profitability depends on volume. Ford cannibalized sales of Taurus by introducing the slightly bigger Five Hundred, and the slightly smaller Fusion. The Fusion, which came out in late 2004, has been a hit, but sales of the Five Hundred have not met expectations. Would Ford have been better off devoting the resources  dedicated to Fusion and Five Hundred to the revitalization of Taurus? Who knows? However, while it is important to be receptive to new segments, gains must be measured against the losses to established products. The articles also states examples of other iconic brands like Wonder Bread and Twinkies that have been immortalized by Andy Warhol. Yet the manufacturer of those brands, the $3.5 billion Interstate Bakeries, filed for bankruptcy last September. Mistakes made by Interstate include focusing on low-profit, mass-produced products like Wonder Bread at a time when customers were turning to tastier alternatives like fresh-baked supermarket offerings. They rested on their Twinkies laurels at a time when mothers everywhere were worried about childhood obesity. There are other brands that are on their road to failure. Two strong candidates are Gap and Time magazine. Quick excerpt on GAP (details in next article) At one time, Gap set the fashion benchmark for both boomers and yuppies. Who hasnt owned a pair of Gap khakis? In UK, Gaps share of the clothing market has dropped by 25% over the past three years. Its recent advertising featuring Audry Hepburn has done little but make worst ad- lists . What happened? Gap committed the ultimate branding sins a lack of focus and knowledge of what its customers valued. Robert Buchanan, a retail analyst at the stockbroker AG Edwards, says: In their heyday, they were really good at taking care of the baby boomer . They stopped targeting them and started aiming for the children of the boomers but not having done much research, they blew it. Then they took a democratic approach and tried to be all things to all men. If theres one thing that doesnt work in retailing, its a lack of focus. The articles opinion on Time Magazine If there is a better example of trying to be all things to all people; its Times recent choice for Person of the Year.- For more than 70 years, Time has selected a person who has had the most impact for good or bad on world events. Agree or disagree, Times choice always made you think. But this year, they put a cheesy reflective Mylar strip on the cover and said, The Person of the Year is You!- If you believe that a brand must drive its stake into the ground and say proudly, this is what we stand for, and these are the customers we want- then Times we-love-everybody- pandering is a reason to cringe. This 10 follows other missteps, like putting radical Ann Coulter, who advocates terrorism against American institutions and believes that all Muslims ought to be forcibly converted to Christianity, on the cover, and recently adding Bill Kristol, who forcefully advocated the invasion of Iraq to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East, as one of its star columnists. (Full disclosure: I used to work for Time-Life.) Talk about alienating middle class customers, the bread-and-butter of a mass-circulation magazine. A lot has been written about how to build a brand. But valuable lessons can also be learned from dead and dying brands. Undoubtedly, the most important lesson is not to let a disconnect grow between you and customer. When was the last time you talked to customers about what they valued, and how well you were doing to deliver that value? Now let us look at an article that goes into the details of the story of the GAP decline: American retailing: Fashion victim 3 Gap, a fashion retai ler that was once one of corporate Americas shining success stories used to get everything right. Its affordable, trendy clothes epitomized casual cool. But not anymore. The companys production cycles are too slow to keep pace with rivals, prices have risen and the brand has lost its shine. In 29 of the past 31 months Gap reported flat or declining same-store sales. Senior executives are quitting in droves. Profit margins, at 6.5%, are about half the industrys average. In December, traditionally the busiest month for shopping, same-store sales were 8% lower than in December 2005. Gap is now said to have hired Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, to evaluate its options. This is not the first crisis at Gap. Analysts think a change at the top is the most likely outcome of the review. Another possibility would be for Gaps ageing founders, who still own 37% of the group, to sell out. Dana Cohen, an analyst at Bank of America, thinks private-equity firms would be the most likely buyers, as few companies in the trade could swallow Gap. Alternatively, one of the groups three major brands could be sold. The trouble is that both Gap and Old Navy would sell at a 11 discount because of their troubles, and the Fishers (the founders) are unlikely to want to divest Banana Republic, their only healthy brand. Brands can also die due to lack of company focus or initiative. As the article states they can die of natural causes it is inevitable due to various actions taken by the company or the people. Autopsy on Olds: Death by neglect, stagnation4 Oldsmobile once was among the strongest car brands, anchored by such vehicles as the Cutlass, infused with the heritage of Rocket engines and benefiting from a competent dealer network. Yet the 107-year-old brand was officially buried this spring. Was the death inevitable? Might better communications around the brand have helped effect a cure? Many myths come into play when once-great brands such as Oldsmobile expire. Among the most durable: Strong brands die of natural causes In fact, brands die of neglect and abuse. It takes effort and many bad decisions to kill a strong brand. Oldsmobile died because General Motors designed vehicles in the 1980s and early 1990s that didnt live up to the brands legacy: They were unattractive, uncomfortable and of low quality, and they handled poorly. At the same time, the dealer network atrophied and consolidated with other brands, losing its focus on Oldsmobile. Customers who were dissatisfied with Olds vehicles, sales and service lost their emotional connection to the brand. By the time GM finally came out with a somewhat decent vehicle for Oldsmobile the Alero in the late 1990s it was too late. Changing consumer tastes kill brands. What really kills a brand is its failure to respond to changing tastes. Let us look at an example of how a brands responded to changing tastes from the same article and today is the symbol of how brands can evolve and become part of peoples lives and personality Harley Davidson and Cadillac (a glimpse): LITERATURE Sometimes in business, a good brand dies Everyone knows and respects the brand, but theres a gap between peoples knowledge and their desire to actually buy the product. When the company cant close that gap, the brand slowly but surely finds its way to the dustbin of history (Mannie Jackson, 2001). The question is: To leave it there or bring it back to life? An even bigger question is, how to re-create the magic? PROBLEM DEFINITION The purpose of this study is to analyze different strategies adopted by target companies during the process of brand revival. The study will involve analyzing case studies of a sample of companies who have been engaged in brand revival. This study will also serve to address strategies that can be adopted by companies who are in the need to revitalize their brands and the reasons for their death. For example companies have used several strategies to successfully revive their brands. These actions are prominent as is evident in the case of Harlem Globetrotters who survived by reinventing their product. (Mannie Jackson, 2001). RESEARCH METHODOLOGY To get a deeper understanding of the chosen topic, various case-studies will be analyzed so as to investigate the various strategies used by firms and use the findings to establish a set of tactics and success factors. These case-studies will primarily be sourced from secondary data like the 4 various books on brands, newspapers, historical data of companies, journals, business magazines, internet etc. JUSTIFICATION FOR RESEARCH PROPOSAL In todays dynamic environment, companies often have to face circumstances where their brands are in danger of falling out of customers buying radars. In todays highly competitive environment, it is not only products that need to be upgraded but brands also need a new lease of life. No longer is it taken for granted that upgraded products will keep a brand running, but brands itself need to be revived to be in tune to customers desires. This research explores the strategies followed for a successful brand revival. SCOPE Since this study deals with an analysis of case-studies, its scope is wide and the analysis paradigm is not limited to one country or industry. This is an empirical study that has a wide scope and applicability across industries and geographies.

The Principle

Legal moralism has been a principle that prohibits people from acting or engaging in things which are detrimental to the society with the use of laws and its enforcements. This includes laws which prohibit certain actions that can lead to several problems that may affect the whole social fabric. Such laws include those that prohibit the use of illegal drugs, prostitution and abortion. This actions or engagement in this type of acts may most likely affect the citizens in a rather negative matter that could destroy not only the participating individual’s life but also the lives of the people around him. In line with this principle is a principle that shall limit a person’s liberty through the use of customary rules prescribed by the society in which the person lives. It differs from the principle of legal moralism in the sense of â€Å"formality†. Restriction of Liberty While legal moralism is concerned about constitutional laws, this principle is more likely inclined to the limiting effect of customary moral rules which are more effective than legal laws. This principle shall from this point onwards be referred to as customary moralism principle. This type of principle acts in the same manner that legal moralism does. However, as stated above, traditional moralism is more effective than legal moralism. Its effectiveness lies on the way that it has been formulated. Compare and Contrast Unlike most legal laws which determines the right and wrong inscribed as laws of the society, customary rules and traditions determines the right and wrong principles which lies in the culture of a society. These rules have been tested through time and generation by the whole society. This is the reason why these laws are easier to understand. People find it efficient since it was directed and made through the use of actual and practical experiences. Unlike legal laws which are mostly hypothetical and less pragmatic. Legal laws are made by an assembly of men that shall represent the whole society in a conference or convention. Customary rules are prescribed mostly by elders, who have more experience than the present generation. Since these rules are based and may differ in experience, they are not implemented in the society in a forceful manner. Instead, society shall pick what rules are still beneficial and applicable in the situation. Thus, customary rules undergo practicality checks, every time the rules are being implemented or are being followed. Society: Laws versus Tradition It evolves with the society. It represents the society. People are more inclined to follow this principle not because of its force but because of customs and traditions. For instance, the introduction and the success of organizations such as the Cosa Nostra which is more popularly known as Mafia, prevails even after there have been several legal precautions and actions taken. The Mafia is an organization which is generally against the fascist regime that dominates the Italian region. Since it is an organization, it has several guiding principles and rules that enable the group to grow and survive. Accordingly, the Mafia acts as a second government in areas such as Sicily. The rules that were constructed or enforced by the Mafia are followed more religiously than the laws enforced by the government. Omerta, a favorite law in Mafia is the law of absolute silence that denotes an individual could not say anything that would expose the Mafia. Even, if it means that they could be incarcerated, tortured or even convicted, it was believed that the Sicilians would not tell a word or would deny anything he knows. Legitimate Traditional   Actions Actions which this principle might consider as legitimate are mainly actions which are traditionally been accepted by the general public that were made legal. In some country, prostitution is legal since it has been traditional. In the Netherlands, the use of â€Å"marijuana† is legalized. There are also some countries that legalize abortion if the fetus is not more than three months. These types of prohibitions by the law rooted from certain traditional beliefs and customs of the people. Traditional moral principles which have legal counterparts could be interfered by the law. However, there are certain traditional beliefs such as burning of animals for sacrifices wherein authority and law has no right to intervene. Commonly, traditional rules which are considered as legitimate are those which promotes the welfare of the society. This are the societal norms which are approved by the government and are thus legalize. Thus, the legitimacy of any traditional action depends on which government or country an action was made. Traditional Moralism versus Harm Principle and Paternalism Traditional also to fraternities are hazing ceremonials and rumbles. If Traditional moralism would be used, this type of action would be normal. However, of course, this would create problems in the legal realm. In such case this kind of actions shall be controlled by the proper authorities such that this would not cause death or other mass violence. This action would either fall in the harm principle or paternalism. It falls in the harm principle since it must be controlled or even not permitted if it induces harm to other people. It falls under paternal principle because there are laws which prohibit fraternity violence in able to protect the members of the fraternity from injuries by refusing to recognize fraternities who are recorded to conduct delinquently. While legal moralism is against actions such as gambling and prostitution, traditional moralism permits them. In this regard, traditional moralism could be seen to fall under the harm principle. Traditional moralism could also fall under paternalism in the sense that it is a guide for action through rules set by the majority of the society in able to control certain actions that would negatively affect the society. Defense of Traditional Moralism I believe that traditional moralism could effectively restrict freedom in able to promote the welfare of a society since it is constructed through convention by the society. It is more likely to be more effective since it commonly involves the norm within the society. Although this might create several factions in the society that might create their own traditions and customs, this kind of interferences might not be able to make it through the main stream culture. Failing to do so, these actions would be considered as deviant by the society in which their actions are not permitted. Traditional Moralism can also be viewed as a principle that acknowledge and encourage liberty, more than restricts it. This is not arguable and may in fact be true, more likely when the legal rules is composed of laws which is not suitable and is not agreeable with the society. Such as laws which are imposed only by the government or by another government in a particular country. This could best be demonstrated on colonized countries or in war-stricken country such as Iraq. The laws that the American government may not be suitable or efficient in the society such as in Iraq; in such case traditional moralism would be more beneficial and applicable than legal moralism. Reference Leighton, P. (2007). Paternalism and Legal Moralism. Retrieved on November 14, 2007. Retrieved from: http://www.paulsjusticepage.com/cjethics/2-limitsoflaw/harmprinciple.htm

Leaders vs Managers Essay

According to many scholars, management is a basically the implementation of already established processes such as planning, staffing, measuring performance and budgeting thereby enabling an organization to do well. On the other hand, leadership is entirely different. It can be described as taking an organization to the future, exploring and successfully exploiting opportunities that come up. Leadership is about having vision, empowerment and most importantly providing useful change in the organization. The main differences between leaders and managers are: the relationship between the followers and managers and leaders, how leaders and managers solve problems, and the difference in emotional intelligence between leaders and managers. Leaders and managers have a difference in emotional intelligence. A leader is an individual who strategizes a visionary and most importantly someone who inspires other people to greatness. In order to achieve this, while leading one must share their vision with the staff or people brought together to solve a problem or create a strategy. Leaders serve as role models, motivate their staff, inspire cooperation and create a community both inside and outside of the organization. They mostly follow their intuition which in most cases benefits the company and in most cases they gain followers who become loyal to them and the organization. This is a direct contradiction to managers who carry out their instructions by the book and follow the organization’s policy to the letter and as a result the staff may or may not be loyal to them. Even when the idea of a divinely appointed leader prevailed, there existed a contrary view that the leader was actually empowered by followers, this theory was analyzed by Thomas Paine â€Å"Titles are but nicknames†¦it is common opinion only that makes them anything or nothing . . . . [A]body of men, holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody† (1944, pp. 59-60, 63). Another major difference between leaders and managers is how their duties and relationship with their followers differ. A leader creates or rather innovates whilst the manager administers , meaning that the leader is the individual who comes up with fresh ideas in order to move the bulk of the organization into a new direction that is more beneficial and profitable. He has to come up with new strategies and tactics by keeping his focus on the  horizon constantly. It is important for him to be updated on the latest trends as well as studies and the skill sets. Contrary to this, a manager simply maintains a system that has already been established and is in use. It is his duty to maintain control and ensure that things run normally and everyone in the staff is pulling their weight and contributing fully and effectively. One of the distinguishing characteristics of a typical manager is how dependent he is on the activities of a variety of other people to perform his job effectively. (Kotter, 1983, p. 360). He is rigid and unable to be creative in carrying out his duties, thereby barring him from being considered a business leader. According to Richard Rosenberg, (1992) one of the most profound examples of the difference between leaders and managers is how computers create significant changes in any organization. He illustrates how information is able to travel from top to bottom effectively without the intervention of managers somewhere in between. This shows how the difference between leaders and managers which is that managers are easily replaceable and in some cases they are not required at all to some extent. Leaders inspire greatness and effectiveness unlike managers who more or less rely on control. In other words, leadership is not what one does but actually how they respond to you. If people do not choose to join your cause then you cannot really be considered as a leader since they have inspired no one. If people do indeed join your cause then it would mean that you have inspired them, thereby creating a bond with them and the company, which is very important particularly if the organization or business is changing rapidly and needs people who believe in it to support its mission. Leaders and managers handle and prepare for problems in a different ways. Managers prepare themselves for turbulent times and during these times the primary task is to make sure that the organization’s capacity to survive and to ensure that the it maintains its structural strength as well as is capacity to survive failure and adapt as quickly as possible in the shortest time period (Peter D., 1980). Business leaders instill a staff loyalty that a manager cannot be able to because of his rigid methods and lack of spontaneity. In the case of managers, their primary job is to control their  staff by aiding them to develop their assets and discover their greatest talents. In order to do this they have to know the people working for them and understand their abilities and interests. G. Lumsden (1982) describes how middle managers model themselves on top managers in a form of hierarchical mimicry: what happens is that the behavior inheritance persists. As it is passed down deeper in the organization, sans power, such behavior begins not to work so well. And at lower levels it gets muddied even further because it’s being used on individuals who don’t understand it, aren’t impressed by it, or are downright opposed to it. (p. 8) A leader focuses on the reasons why to make certain decision whereas a manager considers how and at what times decisions are made. Managers prefer to execute plans accordingly and maintain the status quo without deviating even when failures are experienced. If the company experienced failures, then a leader would learn from it and use it as a clarification point in order to get better and avoid losses in future. Levine and M. Crom (1993) in their book â€Å"The leader in you† highlight an example of leadership changes and state that â€Å"Good human relation skills have the ability to transform people from managing others to leading them. People can learn how to move from directing to guiding, from competing to collaborating and from operating under secrecy to one of sharing all of the information required, from a mode of passivity to a mode of risk taking, from one of regarding people as an expense to one of viewing people as an asset,† (P.15) In conclusion, management and leadership are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They are however different in that leadership entails inspiration as well as steering an organization whereas management is simply overseeing and delegating.

Finance the future of the energy sector - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2790 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Question A A major problem for decision makers in enterprises is the evaluation of potential investment projects that can absorb capital assets. This evaluation, also known as investment appraisal, is really crucial for the future of any firm, since it determines the financial sources of the firmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s budget and ultimately defines the level of the shareholders wealth. In theoretical finance, several methods of investment appraisal are developed in order to help financial managers or accountants to evaluate with increased certainty cash flows, viability and profitability of any investment project. However, many empirical studies have shown that financial decision makers do not always adhere to the investment appraisal methods that theory provides[1]. Business experience has shown that contrary to theory, the appraisal of some investment projects is far more difficult because even the implementation of a specific appraisal method is ambiguous and subject to factors beyond financial theory. This essay will discuss the problems associated with the implementation of different appraisal methods using a case study to illustrate the exact nature of these problems. The potential source of capital that will be used to finance the specific investment project might influence the long-term financial state of the firm, and of course the shareholdersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ wealth. Thus, the financial decision makers, who ultimately aim at the maximisation of the shareholders wealth, face an additional question to investment appraisal. This question will also be examined in this essay. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Finance: the future of the energy sector" essay for you Create order The most fundamental investment evaluation method takes only into account the time period that is necessary for the invested capital to be paid back. This method is known as the payback period method. The primary advantage of this evaluation method is its simplicity, since a basic concern of financial managers is how soon the invested capital will be available for re-investing. Payback method is particularly useful to small firms that are in shortage of available cash, thus they want to track easily the time limits of their capital flows. However, a main drawback of payback is that it may lead to short-eyed decisions, since it ignores returns that might appear right after the end of the payback period. If an investment project yields high returns right after the end of the requested payback period, this method will evidently reject it. Another significant weakness of this method is that it ignores the broadly accepted fact that the value of money today is not the same as the value of money tomorrow. Essentially, between two investment opportunities with the same payback period, the one that yields more returns sooner should be clearly preferred. Thus payback method entirely fails to comprise different patterns of cash flows within the payback period. Another common method of investment appraisal is the accounted rate of return (also called Return On Investment or Return On Capital Employed). This method simply constitutes of a percentile average profitability-on-investment ratio and is popular due to its easy deduction from any given balance sheet. In this technique, as also in payback, no account is taken for the difference in the value of subsequent cashflows. Furthermore, since profitability is not certain at the beginning of the project, the ARR method is likely to be misleading in the process of investment appraisal. A more common use of this method is to measure the overall profitability after an investment project is over or the ability of a financial manager to evaluate and decide on the most profitable and less risky investments. The basic drawback of the two previous investment appraisal methods is that they fail to include the fact that the nominal value of a cashflow today is different from the real value of a cashflow with the same nominal value in the future[2]. Thus, if a technique can discount the future value of a cashflow into todayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s real terms, it could provide a better criterion on which investment project is more profitable. A technique that incorporates this discounting principle is the Net Present Value (NPV) method. In this method, all future cashflows can be interpreted in real present values, and so if inward cashflows are greater than outward cashflows the investment project can be selected. The discounting rate used for the decision is substantially the cost of capital, which of course has to be less than the rate of return. Under this principle, decision makers can chose between alternative and mutually exclusive projects, based on which NPV is highest. The aforementioned rate of return can be used alternatively in another investment appraisal technique, which also incorporates the discounting principle. Instead of discounting future values into present terms, one can compare directly the rate of return with the cost of capital. This technique is known as the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) method. This rate of return is the same one used to calculate NPV in the previous method. In practice, IRR can be difficult to calculate and its usefulness might be unclear to some decision makers. This is due to the fact that if the proposed investment requires more than a one-off outward cashflow, the rate of return might change in the duration of the project. Clearly, in an investment project that requires only one outward cashflow and regular inward cashflows both NPV and IRR methods will produce the same results. However, mutually exclusive investment projects are not easily compared since the discounting principle applies on the whole initial outward cashflow of each investment, allowing for some of the inward cashflows to be re-invested. An example of a real UK investment follows to show illustratively the problems in the selection of an appropriate investment appraisal method. The increased environmental sensitivity that has arisen in the last 25 years due to energy sources depletion issues and atmospheric pollution, provided motivation for research and evolution of renewable energy sources. In the UK, several renewable energy technologies have been put under consideration from the authorities. Renewable energy production technologies are very ambiguous investment proposals for several reasons: firstly, their research and application is still in very primary stages and their implementation requires extremely high costs; secondly, none of these technologies is adequate by itself to provide substantial energy capacity whereas several technologies have to be simultaneously developed (at least some of them) in order to provide a significant substitution to environmentally unfriendly technologies; finally, since none of these have been previously implemented, it is very hard to examine to which extent they will be accepted and whether they will be financially viable or not. Under these particularly unclear assumptions none of the technologies would ever be promoted, at least from a financial managerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s point of view since they all involve a large amount of financial risk. However, renewable energy is the future of the energy sector and several economic motivations have been created from the UK government in order to attract the interest of individual and corporate investors. The Non Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) and the Kyoto Protocol force UK governments to ensure investors for high amounts of risk, so that renewable technology can proceed. In this case, the government pays a risk premium added to the price for each renewable energy unit produced. It is estimated that more than  £1bn capital value will be invested in the UK before 2010. Some of the first UK initiatives for renewable energy were The Wind Fund plc (that secured long-term capacity contracts under NFFO) and Baywind Energy Cooperative that firstly launched wind farms and small hydro plants in Cumbria. Other initiatives come from Fenland Green Power Investments and Eastern Generation. As an attempt to support these investment projects, local authorities have been invited to contribu te to the investment projects by contributing to the equity capital through local community funds. But how the investors will chose which investment opportunity is more profitable? Clearly, in this case the payback and ARR method cannot be of any use since a payback period is not acknowledged (it is uncertain if some technologies will ever be implemented at all) and accounting data are not yet available for most of them. Table 1 Discount rates, risk rating and economic estimates for the implementation of renewable energy production IRRe % Risk rating Estimated Output (MW) Capital Value ( £m) p/kWh Biomass-Biofuel 24.8 0.71 1 4 5.10 Municipal Waste Incineration 14.5 0.63 12 47.3 3.23 Small wind (600kW) 6.2 0.61 0.6 0.42 4.57 Large wind (20MW) 16.7 0.51 20 13 3.53 Small hydro (1MW) 10.5 0.48 0.89 1.3 4.25 Large hydro (5MW) 24.8 0.42 4.35 4.3 4.25 CCGT 14.0 0.46 475 142 2.50 Landfill gas 17.1 0.39 1 0.78 3.01 (source: Ernst Young, ref.K/FR/00090/REP) Obviously, the most appropriate techniques to be used in this case are the ones incorporating Discount Cashflow. The NPV approach, although sound for this kind of question, needs to put down specific values and also define time expectancy. On the other hand the IRR budgeting approach provides rates of return that are easy to interpret and for that reason this approach is generally preferred in industry level investments. Given the rate of return, a financial manager only has to know the interest rate (cost of capital) at which he can borrow in order to know instantly if the investment project is viable. Table 1 gives an idea of the discount rates calculated for each renewable technology. Notably these investment projects are not excluding each other, which means that evaluation with NPV would be very complicated. Hereby, this essay does not assume that IRR method is better or more preferred than the rest of the methods discussed above. On the contrary, this essay disputes that à ¢Ã¢ ‚ ¬Ã…“ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦there may be a place for all the techniques of investment appraisal in the management accountantà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s armoury. However, a thorough understanding of their theoretical nuances is importantà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Question B Once an investment project has been evaluated and approved, financial decision makers should decide how and from where they will acquire the necessary capital to fund the project. Firms can finance their investment projects using several capital sources: quoted shares, quoted long term loans, government subsidiaries (like in the case above for NFFO) or internal finance. All these different sources of capital create different sets of obligations to the firm and also are rated differently in terms of risk. The capital that is drawn from shareholders takes the form of equities. When a firm sells a share, it agrees to pay back the buyer a dividend at the end of each year. Thus the firmsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ obligation to the shareholders lasts to perpetuity. That is the main difference between the equity and the loan. A loan represents an investment of an individual or institution for a contractual fixed period that yields subsequent contractual returns, and also an obligation to the borrower to repay the whole capital and its cost in the contractual time periods. When a firm finances its investments with loans, an outward cashflow is created until the loans are redeemed. Obviously, the investment is supposed to create inward cashflows that can repay the loan (nominal capital plus interest). In case the firm is liquidated, all loans have to be repaid, by law, before any dividends can be paid back to the shareholders. In that sense equity providers face a higher risk than lenders. A firm acquires a long-term loan by issuing bonds, or otherwise notes that certify the nominal value of the bond, its cost to the lender (the coupon rate) and the specific repayment dates. The cost of the debt capital as expressed by the coupon rate is actually the rate of return for the creditors, but in the same time it is the opportunity cost for the firm. However, the important issue for financial managers is to acquire debt, at a specific level of risk, that can be repaid but also that gives the maximum expected rate of return. A firm has the ability to change its financial structure according to the prices of bonds and shares in the market. If bond prices are high, the firm can issue more bonds or if share prices are high the firm can issue more stocks. Of course, the extent of this decision lies entirely to the firmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s predictability of profits. If an investment evaluation was accurate and the firm can guarantee repayments, then it can issue more bonds. If the firmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s inward cashflows are volatile, creditors impose greater interest on loans and thus the firm will issue shares in order to acquire cheaper capital. In other words, debt capital should only be invested in projects that yield the highest possible returns for the same risk levels, especially if financial managers wish to maximise shareholders wealth. Thus, a company that issues more long-term bonds should make sure that the investing of this debt capital should be done in the highest possible rate of return. Otherwise, the shareholders face unnecessary increased debt capital risks and the firm should limit its borrowing to avoid bankruptcy. Since debt capital is less risky to creditors that equity capital to shareholders, the firm should be expecting a higher rate of return from investments financed from equity capital than investments financed from loans. However, this is not always possible because there is a limit to the number of shares that a company can issue. For this reason, firms issue preferred stock or different kinds of bonds in an attempt to acquire capital in the best possible terms but also to reduce the possibility of default. In conclusion, this essay examined the different techniques used in investment appraisal and their potential use from firms to evaluate investment opportunities. The payback method, based on a simple rational, is particularly useful to firms that do not have broad access to finance and need to invest with increased certainty. Otherwise, payback method can be very misleading. The Accounting Rate of Return method can be an easy median to evaluate investment decisions, especially after their fulfilment, but does not take into account the time devaluation property of money. Thus it can be also misleading when ARR is directly compared with the cost of capital. For this important reason, methods that incorporate the discounting principle can be more useful to decision makers. The Net Present Value method accounts for the time value of money and is more appropriate if the cost of capital needs to be re-invested or if the investment decision has to be made from mutually exclusive projects. O n the other hand, the Internal Rate of Return method, similar to the NPV method, provides a direct realistic comparison with the cost of capital and also can be very helpful when the investment decision can be made on two or more simultaneous projects. The usefulness of the four methods is examined on real investment opportunities that arise in the UK within the renewable energy upcoming industry. For the specific high-risk sector, the IRR method might be more appropriate although this result is by no means a generalisation of the usefulness of the different investment appraisal techniques. Furthermore, the discussion extents to the capital sources that firms use to finance their investments. It is argued that a firmà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s decision to increase debt capital in its capital structure should be accompanied by the ability to cover the firmsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ obligations to creditors. If a firm wishes to maximise the shareholders wealth, then the expected rate of return from investments that are financed with debt capital should not exceed the rate of return expected from investments financed with equity capital, otherwise the firm might face liquidation. References Arnold, G., (2002), Corporate Financial Management, (2nd edit.), Pitman Publishing Arnold, G., and Hatzopoulos, P., (2000), The Theory-Practice Gap in Capital Budgeting: evidence from the United Kingdom, Journal of Business Finance Accounting, 27(5) (6) June/July, p.603-624 Bratton, W., (2003), Corporate Finance: cases and material, (5th edit.), West Group publishing Brealey, R., and Myers, S., (1991), Principles of Corporate Finance, (7th edit.), Higher Education Publishers Dugdale, D., (1991), Is there a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“correctà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  method of investment appraisal, Management Accounting (UK), May, p.46-50 Dugdale, D and Jones, C., (1991), Discordant voices: accountantsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ views of investment appraisal, Management Accounting (UK), (November), p.46-50 Lefley, F., (1997), The sometimes overlooked discounted payback method, Management Accounting, vol.75, iss.10, (November), p.36 Lumby, S., and Jones, C., (2003), Corporate Finance: theory and practice, Thomson Publishers NIFES OPET (2000), Local community funds for sustainable energy investment projects: a technical briefing, (retrieved from www.cne-siar.gov.uk on 15/04/2005) Pike, R., (1996), A longitudinal survey on Capital Budgeting, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 23(1), (January), p. 79-91 Sangster, A., (1993), Capital Investment Appraisal Techniques: A survey of current usage, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, vol.20, iss.3, (April), p. 307-333 Watson, D., and Head, A., (2003), Corporate Finance: principles and practice, (3rd edit.), Pitman Publishing 1 Deveraux Deloitte Footnotes [1] This is evident from a number of previous survey studies on what and for what reason firms select their investment appraisal methods. See Arnold Hatzopoulos (2000), Pike (1996) and Sangster (1993) [2] However, a discounted payback method is also available, see Lefley (1997), the analysis of which goes beyond the scope of this essay since this method is not broadly used.