Ambitions Conflicting with Society

A characters goals and ambitions often come into conflict with those around him/her. In the story Fahrenheit 451, Montags goals definitely come into conflict with those around him. Montag is a fireman (which in the future means a book-burner), who burns books because the government tells the citizens they are not allowed to read books. In the story, many events happen that changed Montags opinion on the book-banning and he had a change of heart. The government did not approve of his views, which caused many terrible problems for Montag. The government wants the firemen to burn all books, and Montag thinks nothing of this until he meets a girl names Clarisse. This girls free-thinking ideas and liberating spirit force Montag to ask himself questions about his own life and ideas, and his own happiness. Montags ideas come into conflict with Clarisse’s ideas, because Montag went by the government’s rules until he heard about Clarisse’s ideas. Montag was so moved by how she would not ask how things were done, but why these things were done. This shows also, that Montags ideas come into conflict with Clarisse’s because Montag had always just believed in doing everything the same every day, and not asking questions, just doing what he was supposed to do like the rest of the society. Montag, while at work with the other firemen proceed to ransack a book-filled home of a woman, who refused to let her books be burned and procceded to light a match when the firemen weren’t looking and light the flammable kerosene the firemen had sprayed in the house, and burns herself alive. Montag does not understand why a woman would die for her books. This is an example of how Montags beliefs come into conflict with someone elses belifs because he does not agree with the decision that the woman has made for herself. Beatty, Montags boss, knows all about Montag and his book obsession. Beatty leads Montag and the crew on an emergency dispatch, and to Montags surprise, they lead him to his own home, ordering Montag to burn the house immediately. This shows that Montags beliefs come into conflict with beattys belifs, and Montag gets in trouble because of this. After the house is burned, Beatty proceeds to smack Montag in the head. This causes Montags earpiece to fall out. Beatty threatens to track down Faber. Montag then turns the flamethrower to Beatty, killing him. Again, Montags belifs get him in trouble with his boss, and this time, with the law. Montag never gets a break in this novel. His beliefs get come into conflict with society, no matter what they are. The government says that books are banned, but Montag finds books very educational, so he chooses to read them anyways. Clarisse, Beatty, and Faber are the main characters who influence Montags choices in this book. If it were not for them, Montag would have just continued on with his life and none of the choices he made would have come into conflict with society in any way.

Amaranth Advisors

Amaranth Advisors LLC was created in 2000 as a multi-strategy hedge fund with approximately $600 million in capital. It sought to employ a diverse group of arbitrage trading strategies particularly featuring convertible bonds, mergers and utilities. In 2002, Amaranth added energy commodity trading to its slate of strategies with JP Morgan Chase clearing Amaranth’s commodity trades. A multi-strategy fund runs several different strategies in-house that contribute to the total performance of the fund. A single-strategy fund concentrates the whole portfolio on one strategy. Amaranth was long natural gas futures. They enjoyed huge profits from natural gas futures and option trades in 2005 and early 2006. Brian Hunter used borrowed money to double-down on his bets. Buying more futures contracts of this same kind supported their price by increasing demand, which then increased the price gains. It seemed that Brian Hunter was acting on his own entity and that there was little to no communication between the star trader and the management team. Even though the firm emphasized that its fund was multi-strategy, most of the recent losses were driven by adverse natural gas trades. Prior to this debacle, most investors who viewed reports from this firm saw no reason to worry about its performance although some privy to their portfolio positions expressed concern. Amaranth’s misfortunes were solely a result of poor risk management. Also, even though the firm lost over $6 billion in a matter of days, the losses had minimal impact in the industry as a whole. The hearings on natural gas speculation by the permanent subcommittee on investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs clearly demonstrate that the Amaranth debacle could have been easily avoided had ICE like NYMEX had the ability to limit Amaranth positions. In 2006, NYMEX examined Amaranth’s positions and calculated that Amaranth held about 51% of the open interest in the September natural gas futures contract which would expire at the end of the month. NYMEX determined that this was too large and on August 8 NYMEX compliance officials notified Amaranth of their concerns. During a follow up notification on August 9 NYMEX further notified Amaranth that they should not reduce September positions simply by shifting those positions to the October contract. Amaranth complied with NYMEX’s directions and subsequently reduced its September and October positions. However, at the same time Amaranth increased its positions in September and October in ICE contracts and as a results increased their overall positions in natural gas. The events that followed in late August and September led to huge losses with Amaranth losing significant value. The losses were created due to overconfidence, lack of transparency, and lack of risk management. Amaranth enjoyed huge profits and thought prices would just keep rising. There was no communication between Hunter and the management team. Also, investors had no knowledge that the majority of the portfolio was invested in natural gas positions. Leverage played a huge role in the losses. A hedge fund will typically borrow money, with certain funds borrowing sums many times greater than the initial investment. If a hedge fund has borrowed $9 for every $1 received from investors, a loss of only 10% of the value of the investments of the hedge fund will wipe out 100% of the value of the investor's stake in the fund, once the creditors have called in their loans. Risk management at Amaranth failed in August and September of 2006, resulting in the massive loss of over $5 billion in about a week. In the commodities markets only 10 percent was required as collateral for margin calls. Amaranth could also borrow at up to eight times assets to achieve massive amounts of leverage. Amaranth’s systems didn’t appear to measure correctly how much risk it faced and what steps would limit losses effectively. The risk models use historic data but the natural gas markets were more volatile in 2006, which made models useless. Amaranth used spread trades in natural gas futures and options markets to hedge their bets and control risk. Still, these spreads can widen and losses can increase. Going forward, appropriate due diligence should be done by the management team to make sure this does not happen again. Amaranth could have also protected with better downside protection such as put options.

Analysis and Evaluation of Tridents Success Essay

Analysis and Evaluation of Tridents Success - Essay Example Their tag line â€Å"completing the package† also tells their aim and main purpose which is to provide marketing to a company in a unique way. Tridents have captured their market in exotic way which has also helped them to expand their value and placement in market. Trident as a company has main focus on the packaging and graphic management of the consumers brand. It has kept their market very focused and simple. In other words it deals and targets all the companies and their products which need packaging. The main reason for their success is also because of the unique nature of their company, and the service which they provide. There are many other companies which might offer such packaging or graphic management but not under one roof with such high standards. Secondly the level of quality they have maintained in their work is the main reason for their success and well-known name in market. So the market of Trident Company is very vast as they target and invites all the compa nies for designing of their graphic management and products for their good packaging. TRIDENTS HISTORY Trident was established in 1993 by Dave Keel and Bob Caroll. They both were working in company Harlans, in directors bored. Harlans is a large successful printing house company in Hull. Harlans was a successful company which was able to offer an extensive scope of printing capacity to its customers. But when its success started to fade due to the down fall of Harlans culture, the two current owners of Trident - Dave and Bob decided to initiate and start their own new business. As they were aware of business before because of the experience and vision in Harlans Company, they kept in mind to avoid and overcome all the issues which they have faced or have seen in Harlans. The foundation of Trident consisted of just 5 staff members in 1993 and their main focus was to offer and manage consistency in design, colors and graphics for all the global brands. The business whose bricks were b uilt on trust in just one room; their staff was able to come and leave whenever they wanted to but the only agenda they had was to complete their given work on the very day. In start they had no structure but just few staff members who worked over this motive that don’t put down any of the colleague or customer; always do something to help them and do something to impress them. And till today this is tridents slogan to swear on. After eleven months of their hard work and consistency, Trident was bought by Sonoco. Sonoco is global packaging organization with over 300 manufacturing locations in almost 30 countries. (Sonoco, 2011) Sonoco provided help to Trident to grow and develop. With increasing employee numbers of company, the structure gradually kept changing. Manager and Supervisor titles were introduced and appointed to each team which managed different customers’ brands. As Trident evolved in both structure and technology; they were able to expand and become a glo bal company. (Trident, 2011) It now employs more than 250 people in their Hull site branch. Now Trident has opened five sites. Their second branch is in UK. And two branches in Asia and one in USA. Their customers’ portfolio incorporates some of the well-known brands like P&G, Body Shop, SC Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser and Phillips, etc. SWOT ANALYSIS All the factors in business which influence the actions and operation of the company and which are not under the control of the company are known as

National Geographic guide to the national parks of the United States Essay - 4

National Geographic guide to the national parks of the United States - Essay Example The source further provides insights on the activities and sites that one needs to photograph. Additionally, the site provides guidelines on how one needs to conduct research on travel photography. The guardian’s travel section is a credible source for travel topography essay. This is because the site is a research site bearing reference lists that appear comprehensive in their coverage on matters of travel topography. The author also presented relevant context and background information. In addition, the site has a research methodology that is presented to the reader in a right manner. Consequently, the information presented in the source is applicable and valid today. The source specifies some of the tips that one need to consider during travel photography. One needs to understand the traditions and customs of a given place. Subsequently, the source outlines the ways of discovering the life rhythm of life in a given place and figure out what exactly to shoot. Digital is lowe r in resolution than film because its images have high signal-to-noise while film images have higher spatial resolution because of the fine-grained film. In addition, long digital exposures add random white dots to photos resulting to a noisier image than film. As a result, a development of large prints for photos, with a lot of texture that needs preservation, such as landscapes, is favored by prints from film cameras. Film blends light and colors better than digital cameras. The camera’s sensors are made up of millions of tiny pixels that combines to give an image while film isn’t split up in such a linear way (â€Å"National Geographic guide to the national parks of the United States†, 64) High-end film cameras are currently less expensive and will not become obsolete in a few years’ time. Their maintenance cost is also low as film cameras require little power to operate, so battery life is longer than in digital camera. Although the cost of film devel opment might be

Leisure Sleuth Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Leisure Sleuth Paper - Essay Example to believe that perhaps this person got involved in a more serious relationship in which she didn’t have the time or interest in writing things down. There are some pizza take-out menus for a local hangout lying around. There are several books on the shelf, many philosophical or fictional in nature—Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, The Iceman Cometh (a play), and various works by Latina women. The environment is somewhat chaotic and this person looks like she is a bit messy, but perhaps that is because so much of her time is taken up by a busy schedule. Based on the clues described above, there are several conclusions that can be drawn about the person who lives there. This is the person’s room. It is obvious that she has several interests, some of which obviously must have been left on the side since the tennis racket looks like it has dust on its cover. Other priorities seem to have taken over her life. The art in the closet suggests that this person is a daydreamer who wants to achieve many things in life but perhaps is not as organized as she would like. In addition,†¨it seems that her itinerant disorganization may be holding her back from having the most efficient life that she could live. She loves beauty, beautiful things, and values looking good—as there is evidence that all kinds of clothes, makeup, and jewelry are lying around the room. Perhaps she fears being alone or ugly or homeless. Obviously she is a hard worker because she doesn’t have a lot of time to spend on house chores. The space says that this person’s personality is very vibrant and alive. This person engages in passive leisure, and could greatly improve her lifestyle if she sat down and thought about what her goals were in life, and then avidly targeted those. This person obviously needs to have better time management, but other than that, it seems like she leads a very ideal life. She doesn’t seem to have a want for anything, and has

Bilston case study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Bilston case study - Essay Example . In addition, the company must characterized some of the costs as fixed costs. The fixed cost are electricity, general and administrative, rent, depreciation expense, interest expense, and other factory costs. The company must some fo the costs as fixed costs. The variable cost are labor cost, raw materials, and repairs (Abele 2008). II. The standard contribution marging includes the variable costs and the fixed costs elements. Table 1 shows that the contribution margin for the wood screws is .0117. This is arrived at by deducting the variable costs from the revenues. The variable costs are the labour cost, raw materials costs, and the repairs costs. Table 2 shows that the contribution margin for Self Taffers is 0.0251. This is arrived at by deducting the variable costs from the revenues. The variable costs are the labour cost, raw materials costs, and the repairs costs. Table 3 shows that the contribution margin for the wood screws is .0118. This is arrived at by deducting the vari able costs from the revenues. The variable costs are the labour cost, raw materials costs, and the repairs costs. Display of the company’s Profit and loss account for 2009 in contribution format. Table 4 shows that company’s profits and loss account for 2009 for its wood screws products. The company generated profit of 295 for the said year. Table 5 shows the revenues of its self taffers products for the year 2009. Table 6 shows the company’s Nuts and Bolts division’s profits and loss account for 2009 for its wood screws products. The company generated a loss of (219) for the said year. Table 6 shows the revenues of its self taffers products for the year 2009. The above discussions show that the company did not fare well in the two remaining product lines. On the other hand, the company did well in one of the three products scrutinized (Besley, 2008). III. Discussion of the company’s proposal to drop one of its failing products. Starting in January 2010 (based on 2009 figures). The company should not drop the nuts and bolts in January 2010 if the basis for the dropping is the 2009 annual income statement result. Continuing with production of the nuts and bolts generates a lesser loss of only 219.00 However, dropping the nuts and bolts section of the company’s production department would force the company to continue paying the fixed expenses. The fixed expenses are higher than the net loss of only 219.00 (Dubrin, 2008). IV. Discussion on whether the company should reduce prices of the wood screws to ?2.25 in the second half of 2010. The company should drop the price from to the lower 2.25. The lower price will generate a higher volume of revenues from 750 units to the higher 1,000 units. In addition the results of operations at 2.25 is higher than the results of operations for the prior higher selling price of 2.45 (Khan, 2006). V. The company’s total company profit forecast for second half 2010 assuming the pri ce of woodscrews is dropped to ?2.25, again taking account of the variances. Table 7 shows that company’s woodscrews products will be sold at a lower selling price of ?2.25. The table 7 financial statement shows that reducing the price from 2.45 to 2.25 is a good management decision. The reduction in the selling prices generates an in crease in the revenues by 250,000 units. The results of operations for the 2.25 price is better than the result sof operations pegged at 2.45 price (Moyer, 2009). IV. Long term prospects for Bilston.The fixed

Project Management of The Scottich Parliment Essay

Project Management of The Scottich Parliment - Essay Example The project manager is the person who looks after the project from its inception till the end, which is the successful execution and commissioning of the project. Both project managing and project life are used to finish the work efficiently, but the difference is that project managing is to manage work through proper planning, controlling, coordinating, monitoring, and closing. Project lifecycle is to complete the project according to the requirement of the organization’s project schedule, drawings and plans. Projects need to be completed on time and on budgeted costs and estimates; otherwise cost overruns and delays may cause a breach in the relations between the parties, for which even legal measures may become necessary to solve the issues. Prince2 is a management technique that can add more value to the management system. It is a technique that can be used for all the projects and this technique can lead to the completion of a project within the stipulated time and quality. It is the most modern management concept to complete a project. This system includes careful analysis of the problem and preparation of a plan according to the project, using proper management methodology. The project involves all aspects of management from planning to coordination to effective communication. The system of Prince2 of management helps in completion of projects faster with proper methodology. The Prince 2 method of management can be used in the daily completion of projects and can be used in our daily life. Specific project reviews can be created using the system of Prince2 method of management for more evaluation of the project. Prince2 system of management helps the organization in achieving its goals faster and more effectively. In simple words, PRINCE means Project IN Controlled Environment. PRINCE 2 is one of the process based methods to complete the project in the stipulated time.

TMOQ Mid Term Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

TMOQ Mid Term - Essay Example The Americans were too busy focusing on American-Diem relationship but failed to read the ground level situation, which was so much about political and social unrest. The military in association with the Diem regime miscalculated proceedings and was caught totally unawares with the preparedness of the Guerillas. The war ended in total distress not only for the Vietnamese but also for the young Americans posted along the border line for several of the inexplicable moves by the government. The lesson is that a dynasty must move out, once the motto or the goal is substantially achieved; elongated presence could end up being detrimental, however big a power you are. The rage of being suppressed kept growing under Diem’s regime and the US government was also in the favor of the rulers; it supported South Vietnam in order to prevail its fall to communism. Diem and the Nhus were Catholic, where as most Vietnamese were Buddhists. Despite the Government’s resistance and opposition, more and more Vietnamese got attracted to Buddhism, leaving a sore point between the government and general public. All this happened, even though there was complete abandon on emergence of an opposition party by the government. Buddhists wanted to fly their flag on 2,587th birthday of Buddha but the Diem government not just prohibited it but also took an offensive action against the Buddhist demonstrators. The movement witnessed killing of nine demonstrators but the government never showed any indemnity or took up the responsibility despite the U. S. Ambassador William Trueheart request. Even though the government banned demonstrations; this made sure that the Buddhists crisis began to become revolutionary. The elusive question since the occurrence of the mass movement in Vietnam remains unanswered as there have been several versions from various critiques about the right and the wrong. In my opinion, the government could be said to acting unjustifiably at

Strategic Cultural Interventions at Wal-Mart Research Paper

Strategic Cultural Interventions at Wal-Mart - Research Paper Example It is against this backdrop that Louis (1980) is quoted by the Air University (2003) as explaining that organizational culture is â€Å"a set of understandings or meanings shared by a group of people that are largely tacit among members and are clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group which are also passed on to new members†. The discussions above point to the fact that the organizational culture of an organization cannot be over emphasized, overlooked or underestimated in any way. As much as possible, all corporations and organizations must make it a prime priority of achieving a socially and commercially welcoming organizational culture. Because of this, this essay has been set out to critically look into the organizational culture of Wal-Mart Company, looking at the company’s present organizational culture and evaluating how the present culture has impacted on the successes of the company and if any, suggest the way forward for the company in terms of its organizational culture. Current Organizational Culture Giving a clear cut definition or description of the organizational culture of Wal-Mart may be very difficult. This is because the public and especially the media tend to portray the company and many different ways. These ambiguities not withstanding, careful review of literature and scrutiny of media reports point to some common characteristics that run through the company and can therefore be generalized to be the company’s organizational culture. In the first place, Wal-Mart has and believes in the culture of respect. The company portrays a high sense and level of respect for all its stakeholders including customers, suppliers and associates. The company also practices an open door system of governance whereby there is an open communication channel for all stakeholders; especially customers and suppliers to get their ideas through. There also is what the company refers to as the Sundown rules. With this culture, th e company answers to requests even after the company’s usual closing hours. This is done in a bid to foster the culture of respect for meeting the customer at the point of his or her needs. Finally, there is an assumed and supposed servant leadership culture at Wal-Mart whereby it is said that Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart said that â€Å""It's more important than ever that we develop leaders who are servants, who listen to their partners – their associates – in a way that creates wonderful morale to help the whole team accomplish an overall goal,†Ã¢â‚¬  (Wal-Mart, 2011). Assessment of the current organizational culture of Wal-Mart using Deep Assumption Model Having discussed the organizational culture of Wal-Mart above, this section of the write-up shall be used to give deep assumptions interpretations to assess the current organizational culture of the company. Cummings and Worley (2009) explain that deep assumptions are very important because they r epresent the deepest levels of an organization’s culture that is generally unexamined. These assumptions shall be considered because as Cummings and Worley (2009) put it, they are â€Å"tacit and shared assumptions that guide member behavior and that often have a powerful impact on organization effectiveness.† Among some unexamined assumptions behind the culture of Wal-Ma