Thematic Analysis Of Ray Bradbury s Fahrenheit 451

Thematic Analysis of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 depicts a dystopian society where books are burned to protect the people from a perceived threat of knowledge and the resulting problems an informed and thinking society would bring upon itself. Ignorance is bliss. The theme, fear of knowledge, can be seen throughout this book in the ways the characters Faber, Beatty, and Clarisse speak about, react to, and think about books. The character, Beatty, has the most to say about books, being a fire chief and a â€Å"custodian of peace of mind.† He says books are dangerous because they make people sad and uneasy, and that the only prevention of such feelings is entertainment and mindless distraction. â€Å"Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pushing switches, fitting nuts and bolts?† Beatty warns Montag of the one true villain to watch out for: the well-read man. â€Å"Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? M e? I won’t stomach them for a minute.† He states, â€Å"We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought.† By this he means that knowledge found in books will make people unhappy, confused and scared. They will ask questions that have no easy answers. An unthinking, blissful society is easy to control, and Beatty wants everyone to know that he takes his job as a protector of society very seriously. â€Å"The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we’re the Happiness Boys, the

Walgreens Analysis Free Essays

Walgreens Strategy Analysis Retailing: MKTG 3740 B April 7, 2013 I. History and Mission Statement Walgreens has grown from a small, neighborhood-oriented drug store to a trusted, national pharmacy. Founded in 1901 by Charles R. We will write a custom essay sample on Walgreens Analysis or any similar topic only for you Order Now Walgreen, the company bloomed from a commitment made to perseverance. Walgreen came from Dixon, Illinois at the age of sixteen, working an unpleasant job at a drug store after he lost a portion of a finger that left him incapable of continuing a career in athletics. He left with an ambition of entrepreneurship as the flourishing city of Chicago welcomed him with the booming pharmacy business. Devoted to his goal, Walgreen worked his way through gaining experience and financial stability within the growing industry. His work experience through jobs with different pharmacies allowed Walgreen to analyze the strengths and weaknesses in their business operations. Focusing on the gaps in service and the needs by customers that were not being met, Walgreen had an opportunity to capitalize on the industry’s shortcomings by opening his own pharmacy. After earning enough money to put a down payment on a loan for the store that he was working in at the time from Isaac Blood, Walgreen finally owned a store in a great location just south side of Chicago in a prosperous area. He renovated the space, employed a colleague, broadened the selection of products offered, and priced at a fair rate to improve efficiency. One of the differentiating strategies that Walgreen implemented was through utilizing his development of the â€Å"two-minute† drill. This service allowed a local customer to call Walgreen’s store, request an item, and have it delivered by one of Walgreen’s handymen within two minutes of the customer calling. The good reputation of his service spread quickly among the community. The next chapter in Walgreens store innovation and competitive edge was his idea to sell hot food items during the winter, cooked by his wife, Myrtle Walgreen. The trend of that time for many businesses was to have a soda fountain that served cold drinks and milkshakes, which Walgreen also served during the hot summer months. His approach to customer service carried through to winter months with the hot food serving, while his competitors failed to keep up with what would eventually become an essential part of drug store business. Walgreen’s store was growing at a strong pace. By 1929, he had 525 operating stores, 633 in 1975, and hit one thousand open stores in 1984. Today, Walgreens opens around 425 new stores, on average, each year. Through the company’s mission statement, Walgreens strives to be the most trusted and innovative pharmacy with health and wellness solutions and serve consumers across the U. S. Walgreen set out to help people get well and stay well. With constant innovations in technology and customer satisfaction, the company is expected to continue to soar. II. Key events that shaped the company Over the past century, there have been economic conditions, changes in demographics, technological advancements, and competitive pressures that Walgreens has had to face and overcome. The first major event that shaped the company was the featuring of the soda fountain in the store in 1909, which lead to the introduction of the malted milkshake that became an American icon. Although a minor triumph at the time, the milkshake attributed to the growth of the company overall. The next event to affect the company hit hard. The Great Depression was a difficult time for most businesses and many were dying out and closing. Walgreens, though vulnerable itself, was able to push through this time by implementing the value of marketing. Through smart advertising and innovations in customer service, Walgreens not only survived the depression but also was able to help by employing workers and added to its testament of always being able to adapt to the changing times. After the death of Charles Walgreen in 1939, his son took over the president position in the company. Fast-forwarding to the next significant even in 1950, when Walgreens opened its first small, self-service store. This event is representative of the innovation and move toward the future that Walgreens will continue to see. A jump to 1975 is a marker of importance as the company reached $1 billion in net sales. In 1999, Walgreens. com opened, offering a convenient shopping experience for its customers online. Today, them most influential growth strategy Walgreens has implemented is the partnership with Alliance Boots to form the world’s first pharmacy-led enterprise. The two brands coming together will position Walgreens for growth in the long-term by transforming Walgreens drug stores into a community, daily living destination while expanding across new avenues of markets and reinventing cost structures. III. Key Financial Data The financial highlights from the income statement of Walgreens Co. n 2012 include a net sales figure of $71,633 million; a decrease of 0. 8% from the previous year. Net sales combined with a cost of sales of $51,291 million lead to a gross profit of $20,342 million; again, down from the previous year by 0. 7%. A net earnings comparison shows a 21. 6 % decrease from $2,714 million in 2011 to $2,127 in 2012. Some in-store sales figures help explain some declines with a prescription sales decrease of 3. 1% and front-end sales increase of 3. 6%. These key financial figures represent a trend in diminishing profits for Walgreens in prescription drugs for the past fiscal year, but a growth in front-end sales, which is an indicator of pharmacy-related issues. IV. The drug store industry analysis As an industry that has been around since the late 19th century, the drug store is comprised of staples and pharmaceuticals retailing. History of the industry recalls the first drug store being opened in 1823 and strictly worked with pharmaceuticals under the first registered pharmacist. As the tores became more popular and customers’ needs grew for different products, the industry transitioned into including staple items. Today, the average retail products include (but not limited to): prescriptions, food, cosmetics, toiletries, and tobacco products, but dominate in the pharmaceutical department that holds the highest profit. Chain drug stores currently possess the greatest market share in the industry when compared to independen t stores and the majority are incorporated at 76% of all drug store firms. Among the top three company chains are CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid. This segment within the industry is highly competitive with demand growing. V. The future of drug stores With demographics changing, especially within the U. S. , the future of drug stores is expected to transform their product offerings. A shift to concentration on prescription drugs sales, as the general public grows older, will be responsible for a decline in products that are no longer demanded as staple items (ex. beauty aids and fragrances). A growing trend seen in the current market is self-diagnosis and self-treatment along with the addition of generic drug sales. Customers are being offered a generic drug alternative for a lower price and are becoming more inclined to self-treating without the help of a pharmacist. Another movement towards the future includes implementing advancements in technology. Many stores currently use self-serve checkouts and photo printing booths. Advancements in electronic prescription filling and ordering refills online are playing a big role in development. Therefore, a broader depth of target market research and differentiation in product offering based on research results may be beneficial to the survival and growth of the drug store industry. VI. SWOT analysis of Walgreens Strengths and weaknesses Walgreens, as mentioned before, is one of the leading examples of success within the drug store industry. A continuous need for improvement and adaptation to the changing market keeps Walgreens alert and attentive, in step with customer wants, which serves as one of its major strengths. The past 3 decades for Walgreens have been those of growth and exceeding competitive sales. The use of technology incorporated in Walgreens store operations allows the company to receive and analyze real-time sales data and customer interaction. Systems such as the POS (Point of Sale) and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) generate up-to-date information on impact of certain store displays on sales and record marketing data needed to maximize profits. In order to serve customers more effectively, Walgreens offers convenient services online, such as photo printing and prescription call-ins. The implementation of technology as a tool for tracking data and servicing is another strength of the company. Walgreens offers a loyalty program to its customers to further improve on customer satisfaction. The reward program, called Balance Rewards, is a point-based system that gives discounts and coupons to customers whenever they use the loyalty card and earn points. Many ways to earn points include filling prescriptions, purchasing certain items in-store and online, using the mobile app to purchase items, and a Steps with Balance Rewards that tracks when the customer is living a healthy lifestyle. The customer can redeem his or her rewards for more coupons and discounts on future purchases. While the success of Walgreens is prevalent, weaknesses within the company prevent Walgreens from reaching perfection. A major weakness and concern for the company is opening too many stores. This may seem strange, considering the growth in demand for more stores is perceived as a positive characteristic, but cannibalizing their own market at the growing pace could lead to a mass reduction in sales and revenue by stealing customers from their current top selling stores. As Walgreens is always adapting to its market and looking for new opportunities, an important factor to look into would be limiting how many new stores they are opening and evaluating their product portfolio. Threats and opportunities Threats are inherent in any business. Competition would not be possible without external threats. The biggest threat to Walgreens is the rise in grocery store and supermarket discounters. Before, drug stores competed against other drug stores and pharmacies in a highly competitive market. Now, stores like Target and Kroger are offering prescription drug services and are able to do so at a discounted rate. Since these stores carry a much larger assortment of products and more SKUs than a typical drug store, they operate at lower costs and charge a cheaper price. The current economic state poses a threat to businesses everywhere. Within the drug industry, the cut from Medicaid in 2007, by $3. 6 billion, impacted many pharmacies and affected the sales of generic drugs in the U. S. Today, uncertainty around the long-term viability of the Affordable Care Act is threatening the insurance industry, or at least the affordability of coverage. Currently, about half of the states in the U. S. are refusing to participate in the new insurance exchange program, which is driving insurance rates up drastically. Moving away from the challenges of business, opportunities also present themselves within the industry. One opportunity that Walgreens may be looking into is how to market more towards the generation it has been growing with: the baby boomers. This market is the general population that is now getting older and has the most experience with Walgreens. As this generation ages, their needs change and require different products. More prescriptions for aging health issues need to be filled and less beauty supplies are being purchased, for example. The opportunity to transition and focus on this particular market could benefit Walgreens’s sales. Further prospects for Walgreens includes going global. International business opportunities offer drug stores an entire new market, which if executed correctly, can be a major growth possibility. It’s easy to oversaturate a market when operated domestically, as is the case is for Walgreens in the U. S. , so expanding past our borders to different nations may be a prospective move for the company. If there was only one opportunity Walgreens should take on, it would be most important to increase the sales of non-prescription items. Although marketing towards the older generation and profiting from more prescription fills is demanded, incorporating the sales of items that people will buy, as a related product to their main purchases, will boost profit. VII. Competitor’s strengths and weaknesses Walgreens’s biggest competitor is CVS (Convenience, Value, and Service). CVS Caremark is the largest, most profitable drug store/ retailer in the U. S. Strengths CVS Caremark operates under three different retailing segments: the CVS pharmacy, Caremark pharmacy services, and its MinuteClinic. Under these three segments, CVS is able to offer its customers lower prices, loyalty programs, cover over two thousand healthcare plans, and operate a walk-in clinic service. Through their services, CVS is able to hold the strongest market share at almost 20% of the prescription drug market. It also has one of the largest loyalty programs for customers; more than 500 million customers who use the loyalty card through the Extra Care program. CVS has made substantial investments in technology and incorporating it into their programs. The company’s strengths have lead them to push a revenue of over $100 billion and net income of $4 billion. Weaknesses The only complaints to come from a customer’s point of view at CVS is that the store consistency varies occasionally, meaning one CVS store may be too different in product offering than another CVS store, which confuses some customers. The employee turnover rate is also higher than ideal for a large company operating many stores, meaning focus should include keeping employees happy with more benefits. VIII. Key competition comparison Similarities Both Walgreens and CVS have loyalty programs that they use to reward customers and offer valuable customer data. Using a customer rewards program to offer coupons and discounts builds loyalty to that company’s brand and image. This incentive strategy has worked well for both companies. However, they differ in the way each one works. At CVS, when a customer purchases multiple items in one transaction, the reward points/ coupons are split amongst the items within the one transaction. The customer receives more incentive with each purchase whereas at Walgreens, the reward is based on the number of transactions only. A customer can purchase the same number of items in each store, but receive more reward points/ coupons at CVS. Differences When compared to CVS, Walgreens carries more of a â€Å"mom and pop† store reputation, which benefits their image. The company’s stores are all linked, making it easier for customers to get prescriptions filled at any Walgreen store, which is an advantage over CVS. Walgreens also offers prescription labels and in-store advertising in other languages and is open 24 hours in many locations across the U. S. , another incentive that CVS does not offer. These distinctive traits represent Walgreens’s commitment to pleasing its customer and fulfilling needs. CVS is differentiated from Walgreens through store layout and product offering. CVS stores are known to be larger and customer more customer-friendly in space and appearance than Walgreens. CVS has also brought in more net revenue, over $100 billion as compared to Walgreens at $75 billion, leading by about $25 billion. As mentioned earlier, Walgreens has seen a diminishing performance, financially, while CVS is rising. IX. Recommendations The first recommendation for Walgreens to move towards better sales and profits in the future would be to capitalize on the baby boomer generation. As explained before, this would require readjusting the marketing platform to appeal to more prescription sales and aging health products. This strategy has potential for short-term and long-term growth. The second recommendation would be to become aware of cannibalizing its own market. This strategy would lessen the investments in real estate space being made currently. Instead of opening more and more new stores each year, the company should focus on evaluating and expanding the current services in each existing store. Innovations in store layouts and product differentiation in the existing stores may help individual store sales and not oversaturate the market with too much of the same thing. The final recommendation for Walgreens is to enhance its customer service through the convenience factor. Developing more online services will help also help the aging generation as it becomes more difficult for them to get in a car and drive to a brick-and-mortar store. This kind of innovation is what customers like to see in businesses and the company will be benefiting from the multichannel strategy. X. References CVS Caremark |. (n. d. ). CVS Caremark |. Retrieved April 7, 2013, from http://info. cvscaremark. com/ Page Through Our Past: Page 4 | Our History | Walgreens. (n. d. ). Welcome to Walgreens – Your Home for Prescriptions, Photos and Health Information. Retrieved April 7, 2013, from http://www. walgreens. com/marketing/about/history/hist4. jsp How to cite Walgreens Analysis, Papers

Burger King Warrior Princess free essay sample

Prompt: Describe a significant interest or experience that has special meaning for you. As a face in a crowd or a name on a page, I am no one special. To the naked eye, I am average. I was born to a mother and father, I eat food often, and I wear sock on my feet just like most everyone else. But deep within me, from the caverns of my past, I do have a secret: I am a warrior princess straight from the tunnels of Burger King. As a youngster, I thrived on my imagination. Some days I was Marry Poppins singing in the rain while other days I was a Power Ranger staring face to face with the forces of evil. But of all the characters I morphed into, I most genuinely become a warrior princess. You see, every few weeks, my mother drove me to Burger King where my fellow princesses were waiting for me. Together, we crossed the bouncy bridge to enter the dark tunnels into the adventures that lied within. We crawled on our hands and feet through the static charged tubes and hurried to collect the magic keys to save the distressed princess. When the blue ball (holding Princess Kayla c aptive) was in sight, we scurried to unlock the invisible door- mission accomplished. Princesses Carrie, Megan, and I rejoiced in our success. Though I am far from my times of crawling through the dangers of Burger King, I will forever be a warrior princess. My adventures have been altered since then, however, and now 2 consist of more mature quests. Just the other day, as a coach, I led a group of four year olds across treacherous gymnastics mats to the safety of the nearest trampoline. Though this may have caused worry lines, it instilled in me an appreciation and responsibility of an adult that I would never understand otherwise. Away from the work environment, my adventures can present themselves in my schoolwork. I constantly have to navigate through the rough waters of anatomy, pre-calculus, and government. This task, however, is one that I will never take for granted because of the knowledge I know I will obtain by the end of my journey. Along with my academic adventures, I a lso learn about language and cross culture ministry as a warrior princes. I strive to honor my King by carrying out His will by serving the less fortunate in Appalachia, Romania, Mexico, and New Orleans. God has always been faithful, but I have been closest with Him on mission trips such as these. I will always remember the gypsy children in Romania and the slightly wet kisses they left on my cheek, for they are forever left there. Yes, the kiss washed off, but the memory of the childrens unconditional love for me will never fade. These countries may be nothing more than colors on a map to some, but to me, they are tokens of heaven that I will forever carry in my pocket. As a warrior princess, I cherish every experience that presents itself to me and I am genuinely ecstatic to face the new ones that will inevitably come in the years ahead. I do face my own real-life Burger King adventures every day. To some, these experiences may seem trivial, but they have embellished my average li fe into an epic escapade. Each tiny experience in my life is pieced together to create the exact warrior princess that I can proudly say I am today.

Things Fall Apart African Imperialism an Example by

Things Fall Apart: African Imperialism Imperialism is one of the most significant events that changed the dynamics of world civilizations. Imperialism provided the foundation for todays global society and made the world a much smaller place. Although imperialism is significant because it sparked modernity, imperialism has had many negative effects on societies. Imperialism was a tool that was used to oppress indigenous societies, so that imperialistic nations could gain access to their resources. One area that has been greatly impacted and is still recovering from imperialistic activities is Africa. Africa with all its great wealth and resources has been the center of imperialistic activities; providing slaves, gold, oil, diamonds, land and many other valuable resources for imperialistic nations. One story that captures the essence of the effects of imperialism is the novel Things Fall Apart. The novel Things Fall Apart illustrates the effects that imperialism posed on both Africans and Europeans, who struggled to adapt t o the changes in African society to ensure that their own traditions and customs were the norm throughout Africa. Need essay sample on "Things Fall Apart: African Imperialism" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed I'm not in the mood to write my paper online. I don't have the time Specialists propose: Get Your Essay Before The Deadline Paper Writing Service Cheap Writing Service Reviews Best Assignment Service Custom Writing Service Every imperialistic nation had its own imperialist motives and the novel Things Fall Apart depicted a few reasons why Europeans sought to colonize Africa. One of the major reasons why Europeans sought to colonize Africa was for its wealth. The novel was able to convey this motive with its description of the way the colonists immediately utilized Umuofia societys natural resources. Umuofia society was a village that was the main focus of the story and the novel showed that shortly after their arrival the colonists established trading posts to generate money. The colonists built a trading store and for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price and much money flowed into Umuofia, (Achebe, 1994, p. 178) before the colonists arrival palm oil and kernel were not used to generate money. Europeans also wanted to colonize Africa because they wanted to extend their power and authority beyond their borders. This concept was illustrated in the book when colonists who came i n the form of Christian missionaries began setting up their own churches and systems of government. In which, apart from the church, the white men had also brought a government. They had also [sic] built a court where the District Commissioner judged cases in ignorance (Achebe, 1994, p. 174). The colonists basically used religion as a tool to infiltrate and uproot traditional African values and customs in order to fulfill imperialistic goals that consequently impacted Africans. European colonization of Africa had many impacts on Africans. One of the biggest impacts of colonization was the changing of traditional African customs. The novel illustrated how the colonists effectively used religion as a way of uprooting African society. The colonists preached to Umuofia society that their traditions and customs were wrong and challenged Umuofias religious practices. The colonists also lured Umuofia societys outcasts to Christianity, who subsequently became the first converts of Christianity, which sparked change throughout Umuofia society. Another effect of imperialism on Africans was their forced participation in colonial governments. Africans were forced to obey foreign rules and regulations, instead of traditional African rules and laws. Africans also felt the impact of imperialism when, colonists set up courts and prisons to punish Africans, taking away the power of village elders who had traditionally governed punishment. Colonial rule had essentially taken away the right for Africans societies to govern themselves, forcing them to live by foreign rules and customs. One lasting effect of colonial rule was that it broke down religious foundations, which was hard for many Africans to accept because they knew the society their ancestors built was altered forever. Although colonists were colonizing Africa for the benefit of their motherlands colonization also had an impact on colonists. Establishing a colony is no easy feat and the colonists knew it was not going to be easy to establish churches, governments, and trading posts, so they tried to do their best to win local people over to their cause. Ironically, one of the greatest effects that colonization had on Europeans was actually a positive effect in the eyes of Europeans. Europeans believed that they were doing a great service for Africans. Europeans believed that it was their obligation to control Africas resources, land, governments, and religion. This obligation was discussed in the novel, when the District Commissioner who arrested several elders of Umuofia society stated to them that, we brought a peaceful administration to you and your people so that you may be happy (Achebe, 1994, p. 174). Europeans truly believed they were improving the lives of African societies, and could not g rasp the concept that their activities were actually destroying long established societies and religions. The effects of Imperialism can still be seen throughout African today. In the wake of imperialism many African societies are currently in conflict and change. Imperialism has impacted the not only African societies negatively, but it has also impacted the world negatively and most people have come to realization that imperialism is an oppressive tool. Although the story of the Umuofia society is fiction, one can assume that if it were a real society, Umuofia society would have survived imperialism and would now be an independent society once again. Reference Chinua, C. (1994). Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books.

Compare Nationalism in China and Japan

Compare Nationalism in China and Japan The period between 1750 and 1914 was pivotal in world history, and particularly in East Asia. China had long been the only superpower in the region, secure in the knowledge that it was the Middle Kingdom around which the rest of the world pivoted. Japan, cushioned by stormy seas, held itself apart from its Asian neighbors much of the time  and had developed a unique and inward-looking culture. Beginning in the 18th century, however, both Qing China and Tokugawa Japan faced a new threat: imperial expansion by the European powers and later the United States. Both countries responded with growing nationalism, but their versions of nationalism had different focuses and outcomes. Japans nationalism was aggressive and expansionist, allowing Japan itself to become one of the imperial powers in an astonishingly short amount of time. Chinas nationalism, in contrast, was reactive and disorganized, leaving the country in chaos and at the mercy of foreign powers until 1949. Chinese Nationalism In the 1700s, foreign traders from Portugal, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and other countries sought to trade with China, which was the source of fabulous luxury products like silk, porcelain, and tea. China allowed them only in the port of Canton  and severely restricted their movements there. The foreign powers wanted access to Chinas other ports and to its interior. The First and Second Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1856-60) between China and Britain ended in humiliating defeat for China, which had to agree to give foreign traders, diplomats, soldiers, and missionaries access rights. As a result, China fell under economic imperialism, with different western powers carving out spheres of influence in Chinese territory along the coast. It was a shocking reversal for the Middle Kingdom. The people of China blamed their rulers, the Qing emperors, for this humiliation, and called for the expulsion of all foreigners - including the Qing, who were not Chinese but ethnic Manchus from Manchuria. This groundswell of nationalist and anti-foreigner feeling led to the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64). The charismatic leader of the Taiping Rebellion, Hong Xiuquan, called for the ouster of the Qing Dynasty, which had proved itself incapable of defending China and getting rid of the opium trade. Although the Taiping Rebellion did not succeed, it did severely weaken the Qing government. The nationalist feeling continued to grow in China after the Taiping Rebellion was put down. Foreign Christian missionaries fanned out in the countryside, converting some Chinese to Catholicism or Protestantism, and threatening traditional Buddhist and Confucian beliefs. The Qing government raised taxes on ordinary people to fund half-hearted military modernization, and pay war indemnities to the western powers after the Opium Wars. In 1894-95, the people of China suffered another shocking blow to their sense of national pride. Japan, which had at times been a tributary state of Chinas in the past, defeated the Middle Kingdom in the First Sino-Japanese War  and took control of Korea. Now China was being humiliated not only by the Europeans and Americans  but also by one of their nearest neighbors, traditionally a subordinate power. Japan also imposed war indemnities  and occupied the Qing emperors homeland of Manchuria. As a result, the people of China rose up in anti-foreigner fury once more in 1899-1900. The Boxer Rebellion began as equally anti-European and anti-Qing, but soon the people and the Chinese government joined forces to oppose the imperial powers. An eight-nation coalition of the British, French, Germans, Austrians, Russians, Americans, Italians, and Japanese defeated both the Boxer Rebels and the Qing Army, driving Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu out of Beijing. Although they clung to power for another decade, this was really the end of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty fell in 1911, the Last Emperor Puyi abdicated the throne, and a Nationalist government under Sun Yat-sen took over. However, that government did not last long, and China slipped into a decades-long civil war between the nationalists and the communists that only ended in 1949 when Mao Zedong and the Communist Party prevailed. Japanese Nationalism For 250 years, Japan existed in quiet and peace under the Tokugawa Shoguns (1603-1853). The famed samurai warriors were reduced to working as bureaucrats and writing wistful poetry  because there were no wars to fight. The only foreigners allowed in Japan were a handful of Chinese and Dutch traders, who were confined to an island in Nagasaki Bay. In 1853, however, this peace was shattered when a squadron of American steam-powered warships under Commodore Matthew Perry showed up in Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay) and demanded the right to refuel in Japan. Just like China, Japan had to allow foreigners in, sign unequal treaties with them, and allow them extraterritorial rights on Japanese soil. Also like China, this development sparked anti-foreign and nationalist feelings in the Japanese people and caused the government to fall. However, unlike China, the leaders of Japan took this opportunity to thoroughly reform their country. They quickly turned it from an imperial victim to an aggressive imperial power in its own right. With Chinas recent Opium War humiliation as a warning, the Japanese started with a complete overhaul of their government and social system. Paradoxically, this modernization drive centered around the Meiji Emperor, from an imperial family that had ruled the country for 2,500 years. For centuries, however, the emperors had been figureheads, while the shoguns wielded actual power. In 1868, the Tokugawa Shogunate was abolished and the emperor took the reins of government in the Meiji Restoration. Japans new constitution also did away with the feudal social classes, made all of the samurai and daimyo into commoners, established a modern conscript military, required basic elementary education for all boys and girls, and encouraged the development of heavy industry. The new government convinced the people of Japan to accept these sudden and radical changes by appealing to their sense of nationalism; Japan refused to bow to the Europeans, they would prove that Japan was a great, modern power, and Japan would rise to be the Big Brother of all of the colonized and down-trodden peoples of Asia. In the space of a single generation, Japan became a major industrial power with a well-disciplined modern army and navy. This new Japan shocked the world in 1895 when it defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War. That was nothing, however, compared to the complete panic that erupted in Europe when Japan beat Russia (a European power!) in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Naturally, these amazing David-and-Goliath victories fueled further nationalism, leading some of the people of Japan to believe that they were inherently superior to other nations. While nationalism helped to fuel Japans incredibly quick development into a major industrialized nation and an imperial power  and helped it fend off the western powers, it certainly had a dark side as well. For some Japanese intellectuals and military leaders, nationalism developed into fascism, similar to what was happening in the newly-unified European powers of Germany and Italy. This hateful and genocidal ultra-nationalism led Japan down the road to military overreach, war crimes, and eventual defeat in World War II.

Spanish Verbs Comprender vs. Entender

Spanish Verbs Comprender vs. Entender Both comprender and entender are usually translated as to understand, and in many cases - in fact, most of the time - you can use them interchangeably. However, there are some subtle differences in how they may come across. Differences Between Entender and Comprender The main difference between the two verbs when they mean to understand can be seen in the saying Te entiendo, pero no te comprendo, which obviously makes little sense if you try translating it as I understand you, but I dont understand you. Perhaps a better way of understanding this sentence would be something like I understand the words youre saying but I dont understand what you mean. Comprender, then, can suggest a deeper type of understanding. If you speak with an accent and want to know if youre getting your words across, for example, you might ask:  ¿Me entiendes? But if what youre looking for is whether the listener understands the implications of what youre saying, the question  ¿Me comprendes? may be more appropriate. In real life, though, these differences may not be all that distinct, and you may hear one verb used when the above guidelines suggest using the other. For example, I know exactly what you mean could be translated as either Te comprendo perfectamente or Te entiendo perfectamente (the latter appears to be more common) and the same goes for Nadie me comprende and Nadie me entiende for Nobody understands me. In other words, as a Spanish student you neednt worry too much about which verb to use in most contexts. As you hear and use the two verbs, youll pick up on whatever subtle differences exist between them in your locality. Note that comprender can also have the meanings to cover, to enclose or to include (and thus have a meaning related to the English word comprehensive rather than to comprehend, both of which come from the same Latin source). Example: El territorio de la provincia comprende tres regiones bien diferenciadas. (The provincial territory includes three distinctive regions.)  Entiende cannot be substituted in this sentence. Sample Sentences Using Entender and Comprender Here are examples of these two verbs in use: Si yo quiero comprender a alguien, no puedo condenarlo; debo observarlo, estudiarlo. (If I want to understand someone, I cant judge him; I need to observe him, study him.)Todavà ­a no puedo entender de lo que se me acusa. (I still cant understand what Im being accused of.)Mis padres comprendà ­an que esta era mi personalidad y no trataron de cambiar mi modo de ser. (My parents understood that that was my personality and didnt try to change how I was.)Si hubiera entendido el frà ­o que iba a sentir, no me hubiera depilado. (If I had understood how cold it would feel, I wouldnt have shaved.)Comprendemos perfectamente las dificultades y errores que se cometen en una lucha tan larga. (We understand perfectly the difficulties and mistakes that are made in such a grand struggle.)La pelà ­cula la entendà ­ a medias; hay ciertas cosas que se escapaban a mi comprensià ³n. (I didnt completely understand the movie; there are certain things that eluded my understanding.)Solo los sabios lo comprendern. (Only the wise will understand it.) Creo que son pocas las personas que lo entienden como realmente es. (I believe that few are the people who understand it as it really is.) Using Entender With Prefixes Entender, although not comprender, can be combined with prefixes to form several other verbs, although none are in widespread use. Malentender can be used for to misunderstand, although both entender mal and misinterpretar are more common. Malentendà ­ algo y me ayudaste a entenderlo. (I misunderstood something and you helped me to understand it.)Es una broma que muchos malentendieron. (It is a joke that many misunderstood.) Desentenderse can be used to refer to the avoiding of understanding, intentionally or otherwise. Poco a poco me desentendà ­ de las partituras y empecà © a improvisar. (Little by little I ignored the sheet music and began to improvise.)Nuestros là ­deres se desentienden del nuevo escndalo econà ³mico. (Our leaders are looking the other way from the new economic scandal.) Sobrentender (sometimes spelled sobreentender) refers to complete understanding. Sobrentiendo que no soy adicto y que no he substituido una droga por otra. (I know full well I am not an addict and that I havent substituted one drug for another.)Espero que sobrentiendas el costo de tus acciones. (I hope you completely understand the cost of your actions.)

Myths and Theories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Myths and Theories - Essay Example This myth also tries to discourage being lazy. Structural myths were patterned after human mind and the nature of human being. They show both sides of the human mind; the bad side and the good side. Structural myths also depict the divided self and the duality of human being nature. Psychological myths are based on human emotions that come from human unconscious mind. Cultures in the world had similar questions, fears, and wishes that were unexplainable to them. Ritual theories are based on the idea that all myths are ritual. Any myth derives from a ritual, or is at least closely associated with a ritual. From my analysis, Rational Myth theory is most helpful in understanding the meaning and function of myths in different religions. This is because different religions have different believes and in this theory we can see the god and goddesses are the main forces. From the given two case studies of the myths, the Enuma Elish and the Moses story from the Bible, the rational myth theory could be applied on the issue of creation and birth of Moses respectively. It appears that man created myths with reasons. Some of such reasons include explaining the natural events and forces, explaining the unknown, to show the duality and pureness of human mind and human nature, and help societies in maintain order and remain stable. But there must be more reasons of exactly why myths should have

Vocal nodules Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Vocal nodules - Essay Example However in order to fully appreciate the mechanism involved in this process an understanding of speech mechanism with respect to the role of vocal fold nodules is required. This is discussed below; The larynx or the voice box has a twin infolding of mucous membranes (vocal folds) stretched across the larynx. During speech or phonation, the air flow (originating from the lungs) is modulated by these membrane vibrations. Increased air flow/air pressure in the lungs causes the folds to open and once the pressure recedes after the air flows out the fold close again. These folds vibrate when closed due to internal air pressure. (Cumming 2005) In effect, the loudness of speech or what is best termed as the pitch of the voice is determined by resonance frequency of the vocal folds and is measured in hertz. Fundamental frequency of vocal fold vibration correlates with changes in vocal fold tension and subglottal pressure and hence vocal fold mass, stiffness, and viscosityis the main predictor of the pitch of the voice (Hirano 1987). Vibrations of the vocal folds that are too forceful or prolonged result in vascular congestion. If persistent they will eventually result in hyalinization of superficial lamina propria and eventually this is likely to lead to the formation of nodules.

Issues Concerning African Americans and Puerto Ricans Essay Example for Free

Issues Concerning African Americans and Puerto Ricans Essay There are four major ethnic, cultural and racial groups present in the United States today. These groups which compose the nation’s population are the African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic and Native Americans or the Non-Hispanic Whites. From the dawn of time, issues of racial profiling have haunted the American Society, although United States of America is said to be the birthplace of patriotism unity and believed to be a nation that will adhere to intense dedication to freedom, justice and equality (Feagin, 1978). The vast diversity of the American population which characterizes the nation’s inhabitants has often resulted to disorder and chaos, as discrimination exists across the nation. Although the government has taken some actions and laws have been made and are implemented, they are not enough to counteract the racism problem at hand which is deeply rooted in the American tradition, as a longer time may deemed necessary before the public become accustomed to a racial free society. If the authorities are keen on abolishing and eliminate racial discrimination, it then important that they see to it that the public would have a better understanding and background of the different ethnic and minority groups. Awareness to their values, customs and traditions are small little steps that may eventually lead to these groups coexistence. For this reason, the paper discusses two of the major groups that play important roles in shaping the United States social structure, the African Americans and the Puerto Ricans. The emergence of Africans Americans or the black Americans population, which are United States residents but with blood lineage from the black racial group of Africa, in the United States can be traced back way before 1800’s as majority of black Americans have their descendants in the United States. While White Americans came to the United States voluntarily, their Black counterparts were not given a choice as majority of the black population came in America as slaves (Feagin, 1978). It is noting to know that among the different ethnics group that come and settled in the United States, African Americans are the only group which have come not in accordance with their own free will. They were used as servants in large agricultural fields. It was believed that the first African American that had entered the borders of the United States settled in Jamestown. Their slavery and the hard labors they performed served as their free passage to the United States as they are compared to English poor people. However during the great American Civil War, by virtue of the proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans became free. But then the post war era, the restoration period, calls for the segregation of blacks from the whites and deteriorates what was supposed to be period of new beginning for the blacks.. In order to free themselves of troubles and violence brought by discrimination, most Black Americans followed the law which dictates racial segregation. However, as violence related to racial discrimination became widespread, calls for abolishing the racial profiling laws also intensify as growing African American heritage and intellect became more evident. The era of civil rights movement which aimed to promote camaraderie and embed equality by eliminating racial discrimination help largely to the Black Americans cause of seeking dignity for their culture and race. Thus, when the Black Power Propaganda was formed a more complex ideology was born as African American seeks for moral dignity, fairness, justice and freedom from white oppression. Today, free from slavery and contributing vastly to economics and politics and enjoying a legal status, Black Americans have enjoyed a great deal of success as they experienced and enjoyed greater rights, far from what were their ancestors have before. However, complete satisfaction and recognition of their rights will have to wait for another few years as white people and custom is still the dominant culture in the United States. The radical change, however, which started from the nineteenth century are strong indications and evidence of the emerging power the African Americans are obtaining. African Americans now have greater access top higher educations and growth in employment as blue and white collar workers are also evident. Disparity between the poverty of black and people have also reduced and many black Americans now have there owned home. However, the sad part is although continuous improvements are achieved each day, black Americans are still at disadvantage with the white people. It can be observed in issues regarding health insurances and benefits and institutional racism, which is very much present especially in middle school’s class. In fact, a report in Rutherford country showed that massive complaints of racial discriminations are filed as parents are alarmed with the growing numbers of black students that are suspended. Compare to their white counterparts, black students continue to be suspended at much higher rates, raising the question of racial discrimination in imposing discipline among the students. In 2006 for instance, 14. 4 % of black students were suspended in the district, which causes a handful of students to lag behind their studies (Scott, 2007). On the other hand rate of suspension for white students stand at 6. 6% (Scott, 2007). Figures and numbers indicate that the rates at which black students are suspended are more than double of the rate at which whites are. This then has poses an alarmed to the black population as their children are put into a disadvantage situation. Just like the African Americans, Puerto Ricans suffer a great deal of oppression and poverty as they occupy the bottom most part of the United States’ social hierarchy for years (Feagin, 1978). They are considered as one of the world’s poorest groups, however, Puerto Rico posses a great link to the Caribbean world and the developing counties across the globe, which the United States social failed to utilize for their own advantage as it failed to realize its importance to the nation. The emergence of the Puerto Rican Ethnic group dates back to the time when the island which was then named as Borinquen, was a colony under the rule of Spain. For 400 years, Spain uses it as a strategic base. The island was a home for different tribes of Taino, however as the Spanish settle with in the island, population of the Indian tribes gradually diminished as generations passed by. Disappearance was due to the fact that Spain used them for forced labor in mines -which causes natives to acquire disease, massive exterminations and racial intermingling and merging. During that time, where in slavery was widespread, large number of African Americans was brought to Puerto to replace the natives as workers. Thus, the present genetic component of a modern Puerto Rican is a mix of Spanish, native Indians and African American. In 1898, as Spain succumb to American power during the Spanish-American War it surrendered Puerto Rico to the United States. Americans deemed Puerto Ricans as ignorant and as result, self governing was denied to them and Puerto Rico become entirely dependent to the US government. Puerto Ricans were left confused politically and culturally as they desperately ask matters about the issue of their citizenship. US Congress however, denied them of acquiring US citizenship relating that Puerto Ricans and Americans should not be treated as equal and they are inferior compare to them. But a year before the US plunged into the World War I, it granted Puerto Ricans US citizenship. With the booming population and stagnant economics, Puerto Rico became one of the poorest countries around the globe in the 1940’s. In an effort to escape the harsh reality of life in the island, many of the population migrated to the United States, bringing with them the hope and the promise of an American Dream. However, the situation would not be different, as immigrants would fail to land jobs and are exploited. Furthermore, housings were prioritized for Native Americans. Language handicapped was also a barrier, which leads to them being discriminated. Puerto Ricans are also identified with Catholicism and Christianity which is teaching based from Spanish colonial times, and since the structure of the American church is Protestant, conflicts often arise. Businessmen of Puerto Rico descends, would often complain of the difficulty in getting loans. With automation starting to engulf the business and industrial sections, Puerto Ricans further sink to the bottom of the social pyramid as they become more isolated, like the black people. There were no opportunities that were presented for them as they lack the skills to land jobs. But then came the era of being unrest, the emergence of Civil Rights Movement and Anti-Poverty Groups in the 1960’s helped Puerto Ricans stimulate and assimilate into the American society, culture and politics (Nash, 2000). The movement and program covers every Puerto Rican and led to astounding solutions to the problems that result from ethnics and cultural differences and inconsistencies which are related to the failure to be in accordance with the dominant American Culture. The emergence of theses groups had opened the eyes of the Puerto Rican public to seek for fair and just treatment and uphold their dignity. Although they have been successful in appealing for changes, after decades of struggling for political representation, culture and customs respect and their placed into the American Society, Puerto Ricans are today just slowly beginning to achieve and realize the progress and results. Whether it is questions about citizenship status, welfare and housing programs, bilingual and multi-cultural education or electoral power, Puerto Ricans had stood the test of time and has proven it is capable of complex assimilation to the dominant American society. However for Puerto Ricans and other ethnic minorities and racial group in America, being subordinate to the dominant American culture is a continued struggle as still they are treated unjustly. References Feagin. J. (1978) Racial and Ethnic Relations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall. p. 212, p. 298 Scott, B. (2007). Daily Race Colors Suspensions. News Journal Murfreesboro. Nash, K. (2000). Contemporary Political Sociology: Globalization, Politics, and Power. Blackwell Publishers.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) :: Globalization World Trade

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Before I took this class I would have never fathomed the fact that an organization such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) existed. I’m interested in the fact that the whole world takes part in the WTO’S dealing with rules of trade between all of the different nations. The World Trade Organization is located in Geneva Switzerland with about 147 countries in association with the organization. It was established on January 1st 1995 in an effort to forum for trade negotiations, handle international trade disputes, and monitor national trade policies and administering WTO trade agreements. I feel that this organization is very necessary because the world definitely needs the kind of formal order that the WTO gives regarding trade issues.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The IMF stands for the International Monetary Fund which is in charge of overseeing global monetary cooperation, securing financial stability, and promoting high employment and economic growth. This organization is associated with over 184 different countries in operating surveillance, and both financial and technical assistance. This organization strives to prevent any type of crisis in the system by encouraging countries to adopt effective economic policies. The World Bank Group on the other hand supports the efforts of developing country governments to build schools and health centers, provide water and electricity, fight various diseases and protect the environment. The World Bank is currently involved 1,800 projects around the world to try to improve every lacking quality of a country. Even though the World Bank claims the name that it does, it actually is not a bank at all but does lend money to nations with the intent of completing various projects. The IMF can be held responsible for this as well but the World Bank Group is probably more involved in giving the necessary funds to countries.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The WTO and the IMF play a big economic role because they continue to strive to improve the present global economic situation. I also like how they will not give a country the necessary funds if they are under communist rule because then the country’s leader could be doing God knows what with that money that’s really supposed to be used for the country’s well being.

Pricing Strategies Essay

Definition Pricing is a powerful element of a small business’s marketing strategy. The pricing structure of your products and services, and how it relates to your competitors’ pricing strategies and the expectations of consumers, play an important role in creating an image for your company and establishing a specific customer base. An analysis of pricing strategy reveals that companies have a range of options in their pricing toolkit they can use to augment their marketing initiatives. Pricing strategy refers to method companies use to price their products or services. Almost all companies, large or small, base the price of their products and services on production, labor and advertising expenses and then add on a certain percentage so they can make a profit. There are several different pricing strategies, such as penetration pricing, price skimming, discount pricing, product life cycle pricing and even competitive pricing. Different Types of Pricing Strategies Penetration Pricing A small company that uses penetration pricing typically sets a low price for its product or service in hopes of building market share, which is the percentage of sales a company has in the market versus total sales. The primary objective of penetration pricing is to garner lots of customers with low prices and then use various marketing strategies to retain them. For example, a small Internet software distributor may set a low price for its products and subsequently email customers with additional software product offers every month. A small company will work hard to serve these customers to build brand loyalty among them. Price Skimming Another type of pricing strategy is price skimming, in which a company sets its prices high to quickly recover expenditures for product production and advertising. The key objective of a price skimming strategy is to achieve a profit quickly. Companies often use price skimming when they lack financial resources to produce products in volume, according to the article â€Å"Pricing Strategy† at NetMBA.com. Instead, the company will use the quick spurts of cash to finance additional product production and advertising. Product Life Cycle Pricing All products have a life span, called product life cycle. A product gradually progresses through different stages in the cycle: introduction, growth, maturity and decline stages. During the growth stage, when sales are booming, a small company usually will keep prices higher. For example, if the company’s product is unique or of higher quality than competitive products, customers will likely pay the higher price. A company that prices its products high in the growth stage also may have a new technology that is in high demand. Competitive-Based Pricing There are times when a small company may have to lower its price to meet the prices of competitors. A competitive-based pricing strategy may be employed when there is little difference between products in an industry. For example, when people purchase paper plates or foam cups or a picnic, they often shop for the lowest price when there is minimal product differentiation. Consequently, a small paper company may need to price its products lower or lose potential sales. Temporary Discount Pricing Small companies also may use temporary discounts to increase sales. Temporary discount pricing strategies include coupons, cents-off sales, seasonal price reductions and even volume purchases. For example, a small clothing manufacturer may offer seasonal price reductions after the holidays to reduce product inventory. A volume discount may include a buy-two-get-one-free promotion. Cost-Plus pricing Cost-plus pricing is the simplest pricing method. The firm calculates the cost of producing the product and adds on a percentage (profit) to that price to give the selling price. This method although simple has two flaws; it takes no account of demand and there is no way of determining if potential customers will purchase the product at the calculated price. This appears in two forms, full cost pricing which takes into consideration both variable and fixed costs and adds a percentage as markup. The other is direct cost pricing which is variable costs plus a percentage as markup. The latter is only used in periods of high competition as this method usually leads to a loss in the long run. Limit pricing A limit price is the price set by a monopolist to discourage economic entry into a market, and is illegal in many countries. The limit price is the price that the entrant would face upon entering as long as the incumbent firm did not decrease output. The limit price is often lower than the average cost of production or just low enough to make entering not profitable. The quantity produced by the incumbent firm to act as a deterrent to entry is usually larger than would be optimal for a monopolist, but might still produce higher economic profits than would be earned under perfect competition. The problem with limit pricing as a strategy is that once the entrant has entered the market, the quantity used as a threat to deter entry is no longer the incumbent firm’s best response. This means that for limit pricing to be an effective deterrent to entry, the threat must in some way be made credible. A way to achieve this is for the incumbent firm to constrain itself to produce a certain quantity whether entry occurs or not. An example of this would be if the firm signed a union contract to employ a certain (high) level of labor for a long period of time. In this strategy price of the product becomes the limit according to budget. Loss leader A loss leader or leader is a product sold at a low price (i.e. at cost or below cost) to stimulate other profitable sales. This would help the companies to expand its market share as a whole. Market-oriented pricing Setting a price based upon analysis and research compiled from the target market. This means that marketers will set prices depending on the results from the research. For instance if the competitors are pricing their products at a lower price, then it’s up to them to either price their goods at an above price or below, depending on what the company wants to achieve. Price discrimination Price discrimination is the practice of setting a different price for the same product in different segments to the market. For example, this can be for different classes, such as ages, or for different opening times. Premium pricing Premium pricing is the practice of keeping the price of a product or service artificially high in order to encourage favorable perceptions among buyers, based solely on the price. The practice is intended to exploit the (not necessarily justifiable) tendency for buyers to assume that expensive items enjoy an exceptional reputation, are more reliable or desirable, or represent exceptional quality and distinction. Predatory pricing Predatory pricing, also known as aggressive pricing (also known as â€Å"undercutting†), intended to drive out competitors from a market. It is illegal in some countries. Contribution margin-based pricing Contribution margin-based pricing maximizes the profit derived from an individual product, based on the difference between the product’s price and variable costs (the product’s contribution margin per unit), and on one’s assumptions regarding the relationship between the product’s price and the number of units that can be sold at that price. The product’s contribution to total firm profit (i.e. to operating income) is maximized when a price is chosen that maximizes the following: (contribution margin per unit) X (number of units sold). Psychological pricing Pricing designed to have a positive psychological impact. For example, selling a product at $3.95 or $3.99, rather than $4.00. There are certain price points where people are willing to buy a product. If the price of a product is $100 and the company prices it as $99, then it is called psychological pricing. In most of the consumers mind $99 is psychologically ‘less’ than $100. A minor distinction in pricing can make a big difference is sales. The company that succeeds in finding psychological price points can improve sales and maximize revenue Dynamic pricing A flexible pricing mechanism made possible by advances in information technology, and employed mostly by Internet based companies. By responding to market fluctuations or large amounts of data gathered from customers – ranging from where they live to what they buy to how much they have spent on past purchases – dynamic pricing allows online companies to adjust the prices of identical goods to correspond to a customer’s willingness to pay. The airline industry is often cited as a dynamic pricing success story. In fact, it employs the technique so artfully that most of the passengers on any given airplane have paid different ticket prices for the same flight. Price leadership An observation made of oligopolistic business behavior in which one company, usually the dominant competitor among several, leads the way in determining prices, the others soon following. The context is a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers. Target pricing Pricing method whereby the selling price of a product is calculated to produce a particular rate of return on investment for a specific volume of production. The target pricing method is used most often by public utilities, like electric and gas companies, and companies whose capital investment is high, like automobile manufacturers. Target pricing is not useful for companies whose capital investment is low because, according to this formula, the selling price will be understated. Also the target pricing method is not keyed to the demand for the product, and if the entire volume is not sold, a company might sustain an overall budgetary loss on the product. Absorption pricing Method of pricing in which all costs are recovered. The price of the product includes the variable cost of each item plus a proportionate amount of the fixed costs and is a form of cost-plus pricing High-low pricing Method of pricing for an organization where the goods or services offered by the organization are regularly priced higher than competitors, but through promotions, advertisements, and or coupons, lower prices are offered on key items. The lower promotional prices are designed to bring customers to the organization where the customer is offered the promotional product as well as the regular higher priced products. Premium decoy pricing Method of pricing where an organization artificially sets one product price high, in order to boost sales of a lower priced product. Marginal-cost pricing In business, the practice of setting the price of a product to equal the extra cost of producing an extra unit of output. By this policy, a producer charges, for each product unit sold, only the addition to total cost resulting from materials and direct labor. Businesses often set prices close to marginal cost during periods of poor sales. If, for example, an item has a marginal cost of $1.00 and a normal selling price is $2.00, the firm selling the item might wish to lower the price to $1.10 if demand has waned. The business would choose this approach because the incremental profit of 10 cents from the transaction is better than no sale at all. Value-based pricing Pricing a product based on the value the product has for the customer and not on its costs of production or any other factor. This pricing strategy is frequently used where the value to the customer is many times the cost of producing the item or service. For instance, the cost of producing a software CD is about the same independent of the software on it, but the prices vary with the perceived value the customers are expected to have. The perceived value will depend on the alternatives open to the customer. In business these alternatives are using competitors software, using a manual work around, or not doing an activity. In order to employ value-based pricing you have to know your customer’s business, his business costs, and his perceived alternatives. Pay what you want Pay what you want is a pricing system where buyers pay any desired amount for a given commodity, sometimes including zero. In some cases, a minimum (floor) price may be set, and/or a suggested price may be indicated as guidance for the buyer. The buyer can also select an amount higher than the standard price for the commodity. Giving buyers the freedom to pay what they want may seem to not make much sense for a seller, but in some situations it can be very successful. While most uses of pay what you want have been at the margins of the economy, or for special promotions, there are emerging efforts to expand its utility to broader and more regular use. Freemium Freemium is a business model that works by offering a product or service free of charge (typically digital offerings such as software, content, games, web services or other) while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services. The word â€Å"freemium† is a portmanteau combining the two aspects of the business model: â€Å"free† and â€Å"premium†. It has become a highly popular model, with notable success. Odd pricing In this type of pricing, the seller tends to fix a price whose last digits are odd numbers. This is done so as to give the buyers/consumers no gap for bargaining as the prices seem to be less and yet in an actual sense are too high, and takes advantage of human psychology. A good example of this can be noticed in most supermarkets where instead of pricing at $10, it would be written as $9.99. This pricing policy is common in economies using the free market policy. Decoy pricing Method of pricing where the seller offers at least three products, and where two of them have a similar or equal price. The two products with the similar prices should be the most expensive ones, and one of the two should be less attractive then the other. This strategy will make people compare the options with similar prices, and as a result sales of the most attractive choice will increase. Conclusion Pricing strategies for products or services encompass three main ways to improve profits. These are that the business owner can cut costs or sell more, or find more profit with a better pricing strategy. When costs are already at their lowest and sales are hard to find, adopting a better pricing strategy is a key option to stay viable. Merely raising prices is not always the answer, especially in a poor economy. Many businesses have been lost because they priced themselves out of the marketplace. On the other hand, many business and sales staff leave â€Å"money on the table†. One strategy does not fit all, so adopting a pricing strategy is a learning curve when studying the needs and behaviors of customers and clients. Bibliography 1. The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide to Growing More Profitably by Thomas Nagle 2. Power Pricing: How Managing Price Transforms the Bottom Line by Robert J. Dolan 3. http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/pricing-strategies-research/ 4. http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/salesmarketing/a/pricingstrategy_2.htm

Close Reading Essay

Because if what people mean is: Can the love of lauguage be taught? Can a grft for storytelling be taught? thenthe enswer is no. Which may be why the’question is so often asked in a skeptical leng imFlying that, unlike the multiplication tables or the principles of auto mechanics, creativity can’t be tansmitted from teacher to student Lnagine Milton enrolling in a graduate program for help virh Paradire Lost,orKa{ka enduring d1s semirlsl in which his classmates irrforn. him thaq franklp they just don’t believe the part about the guywaking up one morning to find he’s a giant bug. VLrat confuses me is not the sensibleness of the question but tJre fact that, when addressed to me, it’s being asked of a writer who has taught writing, on and off, for almost twenty -What years. would it say about mq my students, and the hours’wete spent in the classroom if I said drat any attempt to teach the writing of fiction is a complete waste of timl? I should probably just go ahead and admit that lve been com mi tting criminal fraud. to f-l an creative *iting be taught? t ] rt† † r. â€Å"roo.6l† qu†Jtiorr, but no matter how -/ often I’ve been asked it, I never krrow guite what That’s the experience I describe, the answer I give to people who ask about teaching creative writing: A workshop can be usefirl. A good teacher can show you how to edit your work. The right dass can encourage you and form the basis of a community that will help and sustain you. But that dass, as helpful as it was, is not where I learned to write. *itirg ike most-maybe all-vriters, I learned to write by and, by example, from reading books. Instead I answer by recalling my owu most valuable experienee not as a teacher, but as a student in one of the few fietion workshops I have ever taken. This was in the 1970s, during ny brief careLr as a graduate student in medieval English literature, when I was allowed the indulgence of taling one fiction dass. Its generous teacher showed me, ,mong other things, how to line-edit my work For any writer, the abiJity to look at a sentetce and see what’s superfluous, what cen be altered revised, erpanded and, especially, cut, is bssential. It’s satisfring to see that sentence shrinl, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form: clear, e conomical sharp. Meanwhile, my classmates were providing me with my first real audience. In that prehistory before mass photocopying enabled students to distribute manuscripts in advance, Irre read our work aloud. That year I was b†g*ning what would become my first novel Arld what made an important d. ifference to me was the attention I felt in the room as the others listened. I was very dncouraged by their eagerness to hear’more 8  Long before 6e idea of a writer’s conference was a glimmer in anyone’s eye writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot consuuction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; tl:ey honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson- And who could have asked for better teachexs: generous, uncriticel blessed with wisdom and genius, as endlessh forgiving as only the dead can be? Though writers have leamed from the masters. in a formal.  methodical way-Harrv Crews has described aking apart’a Graham Greene novel to see how many chapters it contained, how much time it covered how Greene handled pacin& tone, and point ofvieiv-the truth iS that this sort of education more often involves a kind of osmosis. A-fter I’ve written an essay in which lve quoted at length from great writers, so that fve had to copy out long passages of their work, I’ve noticed that my own work becomes, however briefly, just a little more fluenl In the ongoing process of becoming a writer, I read and reread the authors I most loved. I read for pleasure, firsg but also more aualytically, conscious of stylef of dicrion, of how sentences were formed and information was being conveyed, how the writer was structuring a plot, creating characters, employing detail and dialogue. And as’I wrotq I discovered that writing like reading, was done one word at a time, one punctuation mark at a ti-e. It reguired what a friend calls lputting every word on u-ial for its Lfe†, changing an adjective, cutting a phrase, removing a sqttrlna and putting the comma back in. I read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision the writer had made. Arrd though I can’t recall every source of inspiration and instruction, I can remember the novels and stories that seemed to me revelations: wells of beauty and pleasure that were also textbooks? courses of private lessons in th†e term paper on the theme of blindness il Oedipus Rex and Kinglear. Newere supposed to go through the rwo tragedies and cirde every reference to eyes, light, darkness, and visiort then draw some conclusion on which we would assigned  a art of fiction. When I was a high school junio4 -our English teacher base our final essay. The exercise seemed to us dul! mechanical. We felt we were way beyond it AII of us knew that blindness played a starring role in both dramas StiL we liked our E. nglish teacher, and we wanted to please him. And searciing for everyrelevantword turned out to have ari enjoyable seasure-hunt aspect, a Were’s Waldo detective thrill. Once we started looking for eyes, we found them everywhere, glinting at us, winking from every page. Long before the idea of a writer’s conference was a glimmer in anyonds eye, writers leamed by reading their predecessors. Th*y studied meter with OYi{ plot construction with Homer, -omedy with Aristophanes. T’ong before the blinding of Oedipus or Gloucester, the language of vision and its opposite was prepariag us, consciously or uncousciously, for those violent mutilations. It asked us to consider what it meant to b6 dear-sighted or obtuse, short-sighted or prescieng to heed the signs and wamings, to see or deny what was right in front of one’s eyes. Teiresias, Oedipus, Goneril, Kent-all of them could be defined by the sincerity or falseness with which they mused or ranted on the subject of literal or metaphorical blindness. tacing those patterns and making those connections was fun. Like cracking a code that the playwright had em. bedded in the text, a riddle that existed just for me to decipher. I felt as if I were engaged in some intimate communication with dre writer, as if the ghosts of Sophodes and Shakespeare had been waiting patiendy all those centuries for a bookjsh  .attention to whatever each word or phrase is tr4nsmitti’. Word by word is how we learn to hear and then read† which seems only fitting, because that is how the books we are reading were written in the 6rst place. The more we read, the fasterwe can perform that magic trick of seeing how the letters have been combined into words that have meaning. The more we read, the more we comprehen{ the more likely we are to discover new ways to read, each one tailored to the reason why we are reading a particular book. At 6rsq the  thrill of our own brand-new expertise is all we ask or expect from Dick and Jane. But soon we begin to ask what else those marks on the page can give us. We begin to want information, entertainmeng invention, even truth and beauty. W’e concentrate; we skim, we skip words, put down the book and daydream, start over, and reread. We firrish a book and return to it years later to see what we might have Tissed, or the ways io which time and age have affected our understanding. As a child, I was drawn to the works of the great escapist chjldren’s writers. Especially if I could rerurn to my own bed in time to turn offtl:e lights,I Iiked trading my famiJiar sixteen-year-old to come along and fiad them. I believed that I was learning to read in a whole new way. But this was only pardy uue. Because in fact I was merely relearning to read in an old way that I had leamed; but forgotten. e all begin as close readers. Even before we learn to read, the process ofbeing read aloud to, and of listenirig, is one in which we are taking in one word after another, one phrase at a trme, in which we are payrng  world for the London of the four children whose nanny parachuted into their lives on her umbrella and who turned t}re mo$t routine shopping uip into a magical outing. I would have gladly followed the white rabbit down into the rabbit hole and had tea with the Mad Hatter. I loved novels in which children stepped through portals-a garden, a wardrobe-into an alternate uoiverse. Children love the imagination, with its kaleidoscopic possibilities and its protest against the way that children are always being told exacdy what’s true and false, what’s real and what’s illusion. Perhaps my taste in reading had something to do with the limitations I was discovering, day by day: the brick walls of time and space, science and probabfity, to say nothing of whatever messages I was picking. up from the culture. I liked novels with plucky heroines like Pippi Longstocking, the astringent Jane Eyre, and the daughters in Little Wonzw grls whose resourcefulness and intelligence donot automatically exclude them from the pleasures of male attention. Each word of these novels was a yellow brick ia the road to Oz. Some chapters I read and leread so as to repeat the dependable, out-of-body sensation of being someulzere ebe. I read addictively, constantly. On one-family vacation my father pleaded with me to close my book long enough to look at the Grand Canyon. I borrowed stacks of books from the public libraxy: novels, biographies, history anything that looked even remotely engaging. Along with pre-adolescence came a more pressing desire for escape. I read more widely, more indiscriminately, and mostly with an interest in how far a book could take me from my life and how long it could keep me there. Gone With rlze LVind Pearl Buck. Edna Ferber. f’at James Michener best-sellers with a dash of history sprinkled in to cool down the steamy love scenes between the Hawaiian girls and the missionaries, the geishas and the GIs. I also FtcTtoN rssuE 2006 lO THE ATLANTIC MoNTHLY appreciated these books for the often misieading nuggets of information they provided about sex in that innocent era, the 1950s. I turned the pages of these Page-turners as fast as I could. Reading was like eating alone, with that same element of bingeing. I was fortunate to have good teachers, and friend. s who  were also readers. The books I read bdcame more chal’ lenging, betterwritten, more substantial. Sieinbe& Camus. Hemingway, Fiugerald, TWain, Salingea Arrne Frank. Litde beatniks, my friends and I were passionate fans of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We read . Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, and the proto-hippie classics of Herman Hesse, Carlos Castenada-Mary Poppiru for people who thought they’d outgrown the flying nanny. I-must have been vaguely aware of the power of language, but only dimly, and only as it applied to whatever effect the book was having on me.

British Mercantilism essays

British Mercantilism essays Whether British mercantilism had any effect on the occurrence of the American Revolution is a many years disputed question of historians. There are many questions that need to be asked before you can decide this ultimate question. Ex: Did the Navigation Acts hold back the growing American economy or did they help boost the American economy with a sure market for all Americas products? Or, were the Navigation Acts unfair quests asked of Britain? Many historians have answered these questions, during different time periods, and all with new outlooks and reasons for their opinion. First of all, mercantilism was to unify and increase the power of Britain by a strict governmental regulation of the entire national economy through policies designed to secure an accumulation of money, a favorable balance of trade, the development of agriculture and manufactures, and the establishment of foreign trading monopolies. George Bancroft wrote in the 1830s that the Navigation Acts were so oppressive as to constitute a primary cause of the American Revolution. Charles M. Andrews, a member of the imperial school of historians, wrote in the 1930s that the Navigation Acts did not represent a policy of economic oppression but rather a sincere attempt by Britain to organize the administration of the empire. Yet another historian, Lawrence A. Harper, who wrote in 1939, took the view of the burdens outweighing the benefits received from the Navigation Acts. I agree with George Bancroft and Lawrence A Harper, I believe the Navigation Acts did more harm than good for the Americ an colonies. George Bancroft, writing from the ant-British point of view, said Colonial trade was confined so strictly by regulations that Americans were allowed to sell to foreign nations only those goods in which England had no interest. This example of economic expulsion, he said, ruined the relationship between Britain and the colonies and helped to bring ...

After anne frank Essay Example For Students

After anne frank Essay After anne frank Essays diary, It continues onward to grim results. During their hiding in the secret annexe, a Dutch informer hinted to the Gestapo (German Police) that the frank family was in hiding. On August 4, 1944, the Frank family was discovered and sent Gestapo Headquarters in Amsterdam. The Franks, Van Daans and Mr. Dussel were sent to Westorbork in Holland. On September 3, the Allies captured Brussels and the Franks Along with the Van Daans were the last ones to be sent on a freight train with seventy-five people per car. Each car was sealed tight with only one window. For three days and nights the train ventured across Germany to reach its final destination, Auschwitz in Poland. There the Franks and the Van Daans were then sent to concentration camps. There the conditions were horrible. Healthier prisoners shaved their heads and worked twelve hours a day digging sod controlled by the merciless Kapos, Criminals who served the SS as labor overseers. In October 1944, Anne, Margot and Mrs. Van Daan were among a group were sent to Belsen in Germany. Mrs. Frank died in the infirmary back at Auschwitz. Otto Frank survived to be liberated by the Russians. Margot died February or March of 1945. Anne died soon after. This tells you the reason why the Franks went into hiding that long while and why hiding from everybody, your friends, your family was the sacrifice you had to take to stay out of these death camps. .

The obstacles to work at home and telecommuting programs Essay

The obstacles to work at home and telecommuting programs - Essay Example Most employees would of course want to hire people they see in person to make sure they are capable for the job and that, they are trustworthy. Trust is an issue in telecommuting programs. In relation to the aforementioned problem, employers are also concerned about collaboration among employees. Since they are not able to see the employees, employers are worried that in times of troubles, as it is a natural thing that arise in companies, the employees could collaborate against the company. This is a difficult situation for telecommuting in contrast to the traditional work programs wherein employers can easily settle issues that arise and control further damage to the company because they can easily determine the cause of the problems and the solutions to them. Whereas, in telecommuting, the resolution can prove to be difficult because the employees who caused troubles are difficult to determine and deal with. Despite these obstacles, the modern world demands more telecommuters so that most employers can do nothing but take the risks and find out more remedies to at least limit the negative consequences of