The Nature of Ambition Essay -- essays research papers

Throughout history, ambition has been a driving force both for individuals and society. Ambition is an eager and sometimes an exorbitant desire for elevation, honor, power, supremacy or simply the achievement of something. The origin of this word comes from the word â€Å"ambicioun† and explains the yearning for money and wealth or power in general. Ambition is basically an instinct. No matter what background or age you are, you are surely ambitious in any way. This eagerness is not only a driving force for both individuals and society but could also end in a fiasco. We set our goals and try to achieve them being ambitious. Sometimes trying to reach our goals is a risky undertaking but only through this we find our talents and get more mature. To me ambition is really important when it comes to my family and my friends. I usually don’t want to reach a goal or try to achieve something for myself but rather to make others happy. I am not a very ambitious person when concerning homework, exams or school in general and I certainly know that this is not a very good attitude but it is simply a result of my laziness. To me it is extremely important to make others happy, to see them smile and be proud of me. Sometimes certain things like my family or my best friend let me go far beyond my own limits and after I have achieved something, which I thought I could never get to, I feel awesome. But after this wears off I feel empty because the ambition drove me to the height of my abilities and right after I reached the top I simply lose the feeling and feel ordinary. Don’t you ever ask yourself why people who are really successful are as successful as they are? I do. And a little while ago, after my geography teacher gave us a list of t... ...ional characters are driven by ambition. People like Nelson Mandela and Sojourner Truth are perfect examples for ambition as a driving influence to do good, whereas Macbeth and Dr. Faustus are role models who strive for the wrong goals. Sojourner Truth for instance was a wonderful person with a courageous mind and strong ambition. She had a major impact on the US today concerning color barriers and challenged justice wherever she thought it should be challenged. During my exchange to the US I learned a lot about this woman and was really amazed by what she achieved. To me she is the real example for a strong-minded person who was able to change everything around her without changing herself for others. I think everybody should be ambitious. Everybody should have the ambition to do good and to help others by simply treating them the way we want to be treated.

Henrik Isbens A Dolls House :: A Dolls House Essays

Main Theme I decided to write about one of the themes of A Doll's House's. I thought the main theme was a classic case of women’s suffrage. How Nora parted from society. Breaking away from the social standards of their time and acting the way they want is showed by several of the characters. No one character demonstrates this better than Nora. The time period in which the play takes place, women were not to be asserting themselves. Women were supposed to support their husbands, take care of their children, and made sure everything was perfect around the house. Work, politics, and decisions were left to the men. Nora's first break from society was when she decided to borrow money to pay for her husbands treatment. By doing this, she not only broke the law but she stepped away from the role women play in her society. She was suppose to be helpless and completely dependent upon Torvald. Nora's second break from society was shown by her decision to leave Torvald and her children. She was suppose to be under her husband. This is shown in the way Torvald spoke down to her. He would say things like, "worries that you couldn't possibly help me with," and, "Nora, Nora, just like a woman." She is almost considered to be property of his. By walking out on her family, she takes a position equal to her husband and brakes the rules of society. Nora also brakes society's expectations of staying in a marriage since divorce was unheard of during that era. Her decision was a separation from all expectations put on a woman and a wife by society. Nora knew the consequences her decisions. They were very deliberate and thought out. She knew what society expected of her and continued to do what she felt is right. I think Ibsen was sympathetic to Nora. Her examples of defying the stereo type of women were used Ibsen to show faults of society. In the first example, Ibsen shows that even though Nora did the right thing, it was deemed wrong and not allowed by society because she was a woman. Ibsen is critical of society's expectations of a marriage. He does this by showing how Nora is forced to be a wife, than be herself and this eventually deteriorates the marriage. Throughout the play Nora is looked down upon and treated as a possession by her husband.

Andrew Carnegie

A man who had a goal and stopped at nothing to achieve It. Some call him a robber baron and others, a captain of industry. At thirteen years of age Carnegie had moved to America from Scotland. This move was exactly what was needed for Andrew Carnegie to begin building his empire and In doing so, contributing to society along the way. I respect Carnegie a great deal for his success and by no means, contribute his success to anything other than his determination, want and persistence.I feel Carnegie contributed a great deal to society. He has paved many ways and helped society evolve greatly. Many portray him as this monster who cared not for anyone except his money and success however, that is not the case. In my eyes, someone who comes from such a background as Carnegie had, should be proud of his accomplishments. Unfortunately, envy and jealousy are a part of human nature. We always want what we can't have yet, we can have most of the things we want but, to do so usually means we ha ve to work harder, think outside the box and take risks.We have to have he want. Carnegie did. I am baffled that more people cannot see the good that Carnegie has done. Most of the people in Carnage's time had jobs due to him. Now, they may not have been paid in fortunes but, if I remember correctly, Carnegie was not paid that way either in his early life. He started out in poverty and rose to the top. He worked in cotton mills with his father from dawn to dusk, making $1. 20 as a bobbin boy. Carnegie had a dream, and it was a big one. His intelligence and desire to learn are what helped make his empire. Carnegie was an Industrialist.He believed that the rich and wealthy had a duty to use their riches In ways that promoted the advancement of society. This Idea is what he referred to as the Gospel of Wealth. He wanted to give back and help those who wanted to help themselves. Carnegie believed that the lifestyles of wealthy and how they live actually benefits society. I also believe the same. It provides a vision for the poor to want to strive to. This vision is what separates the ones who wanted to better themselves from the ones who don't want to put in the work. Throughout his wealthy life, he gave so much to society.The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise?free libraries, parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste; and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; In this manner returning their surplus wealth to the massif their fellows In the forms best calculated to do them lasting good. † (Finer 30) There Is no disputing the fact that employees of his were not treated In the best says.He ran his factories In such a way that he was hated for It. Carnegie wanted his factories to run at the maximum. He was a brute of a boss but, so are many still stressful and harsh work environments. In fact, I would bet my life that there is abuse in the workplace still today. The differences are few between today and Carnage's time. He went about a lot of things in a very different way than most. In doing so, even with the harsh and abusive work environment, he still thought of the benefit of the people. The belief that it was his obligation to give back as much as he could.He always looked at the big picture of things. There were two sides of Carnegie. On the one, he was a very intense, brutal boss. He wanted the maximum output of most things. He was willing to do what needed to be done to succeed. He was a genuine businessman. On the other, he was a very intelligent, giving, and very caring man. He believed that anyone could make themselves a better person and by doing so would be contributing to society. Carnegie wanted a society where everyone strives for greatness, where all men could better themselves. He wanted to he lp this happen in NY way he was able to.He believed that contributions to helping those who wanted to improve was one of the greatest contributions of all. He wanted to see society succeed. He helped bring America to it's highly powerful level that it is at. â€Å"There were the famous libraries-three thousand of them costing nearly sixty million dollars; there were the Carnegie institutes in Pittsburgh and Washington, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Hogue Peace Palace, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the precedent-making Carnegie Corporation of New York, with its original enormous endowment of $125,000,000. † Ornithologist. Mom) We all need and enjoy the resources of public libraries and a vast majority have been provided by Andrew Carnegie. Although he left a bitter taste for most when it came to his workers, his many other contributions and commitments should out way the distaste. Carnegie lived up to his beliefs at their fullest in his end of days. He l eft almost all of his fortune to philanthropies. Carnegie shows us that even the best of men with the greatest of ideals can fall victim to the temptations of wealth. However, his victory in he end, of not forgetting his beliefs , also shows us how theses failures can be turned into successes.In the elite group of the â€Å"one percent,† Carnegie was very much different from the majority. He felt compelled to do good with his success and fortune. He felt that benefiting society by any means was in fact, the greatest victory of all. I feel that this statement from Andrew Carnegie is one of great value and is an appropriate conclusion to my essay. Meet the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away â€Å"unwept, unhorsed, and unsung,† no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him.

Stock Track Report

I. Portfolio Objective: A. Allocation For our portfolio mix, we invested roughly 81% on stocks, 15% on Bonds and 4% on Cash. Our target for the portfolio allocation is that we invested 90% on stocks and 10% on Cash for short term investments. Our goal was investing 80% of our cash for stock market because we know that will get higher return form stock market instead of bonds which is safer to own but bring lower return, and we are young, so we love to take more risk. We also wanted to keep 20% of our money in cash which available for short-term investment.According to the requirements, we ended up spent around 60% on domestic market stock, 10% on international stock market, 10% for short-term stock, 15% on bonds and the rest is in cash which can also bring us interest. As we said above, we are risk takers, so we would have spent all of money for our stock market. Therefore, for this project we think that we followed both active and passive strategy, but we really understand the purpo se of this project which help us to begin investing in stock and bond market and its system. II. Performance Evaluation:Let begin our Stock-Trak performance which the regression result: Stock-Trak ReportBy Khang Nguyen and Tseveendorj Jigmedsanjaa10-08-2012| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The 13% of the R-square is explained by the The alpha has a negative return and the p-value is greater than 1, so it means it is insignificant. In other words, I have an abnormal return. On the other hand, the beta=1. 58 which was positive and the p-value was less than 1. My annualized geometric return on the portfolio was negative along with the S&P500 returns.Therefore, it is unreasonable to explain the Sharpe and Treynor Ratio. In order to explicate these ratios, your annualized geometric return has to be positive along with the market index. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | As we seen in the table, the R-square is only . 13 which means that only 13% of Y is explained by X which is not good.The standard deviation of the portfolio is higher than the market index, which means that the portfolio was risky comparing to the market index. The alpha has a negative return and the p-value is greater than 1, so it means it is insignificant. In other words, I have an abnormal return. On the other hand, the beta=1. 58 which was positive and the p-value was less than 1. My annualized geometric return on the portfolio was negative along with the S&P500 returns. Therefore, it is unreasonable to explain the Sharpe and Treynor Ratio.In order to explicate these ratios, your annualized geometric return has to be positive along with the market index. III. Discussion On September 13, 2012, the Fed has announced the launch of Quantitative Easing 3. It is a monetary pol icy used by central banks to simulate the economy. Therefore, the Fed is buying $40 billion worth mortgage-backed securities every month until at least mid-2015. The reason is simply because lower interest rates help stimulate the economy and make loans to buy securities on margin cheaper. In other words, the purpose of quantitative easing 3 is to create more jobs.Moreover, we as investors experience that it has an immediate effects on the stock market. Investors in search of yield will have more reason to buy equities and to lend money to companies. Therefore, during September stock market indexes such as Dow Jones Industrial and S&P500 reacted positively by giving a rise in the index. However, my portfolio reaction at that time was not similar to these indexes because during September I have not made a substantial amount of trades except buying corporate bonds and short selling on stocks.As a reason for that, my portfolio returns were poorly comparing to the stock market indexes. On the other hand, I was mainly investing on Apple stocks (AAPL) throughout this 7 week period and after the announcement of the new i-phone 5 on September 12, 2012 along with the quantitative easing 3 announcement, apple was outer performing the stock market indexes. At that time, I had number of Apple shares and the price was increasing due to the positive announcements. Moreover, Apple stock hit all time high which was $702. 10 per share during September.Nonetheless, after few weeks later, I have sold all my Apple stocks because there were some minor defects on the i-phone 5 and the announcement of the new mini i-pad did not show any positive effect on the share price of Apple. I was very up to date on the Apple news because, I have invested substantial amount of money on Apple stock. Furthermore, based on the negative news after i-phone 5, I have sold all of my Apple securities because I predicted the Apple stock is going to go down after these rough news’s. Hence, it wor ked as I have planned and the current Apple stock is roughly $580 which went down by $120 from the all-time high price.Furthermore, as you can see it from the graph of the portfolio, I have a boost in my return on October 22, 2012 and major drop in my return on October 26, 2012. It is because I bought Apple call option and during that time the price was rising, so I had positive returns. The reason why it dropped significantly is because I did not sell my call options before the expiration date. IV. Commentary As a beginner investor, trading on stock market was pretty intimidating and daunting task. It was important for me to learn in a safe, insightful way to avoid unnecessary losses.By far, Stock-Trak was investing internet site that has various types of features and tools. Stock-Trak trading is conducted in much the same way as you would trade through your own brokerage account with a broker that supports trading on the Internet. With the Stock-Trak Portfolio Trading Simulation y ou gain valuable experience trading securities at actual market prices. During the seven week trading period, I have learned that there are various types of investments choices including options, money market mutual funds, commodities, bonds and so forth.Moreover, diversifying portfolio is very crucial to success on trading. It is a way of protecting your assets by reducing or eliminating risk in your portfolio. Constantly evaluating your stocks to assess their risk is important to your overall success. In additional, this graph will show the relationship of our return with the market return: V. Appendices A. End of Day Portfolio values B. Requirement return: Requirement| Position Type| Security Info*| Transaction Dates**| 1| Corporate Bond| Long| UNITED AIRLINES INC – B-UAL-12. 000-01120213| 9/27/2012-10/26/2012| 2| Common Stock | Short| FACEBOOK INC. FB| 9/14/2012-10/11/2012 | 3| Treasury Bond| Long| T-BOND 10. 625% – B-T-10. 625-15082015| 9/28/2012-10/26/2012| 4| Mo ney Market Fund| Long| iShares Dow Jones U. S. Total Market Index FundIVY| 10/5/2012-10/26/2012| 5| Domestic Index Mutual Fund| Long| JPMORGAN VALUE ADV (A) JVAAX| 10/5/2012-10/26/2012| 6| ETF| Long| | | 7| Call Option | Long| Apple Inc. AAPLAAPL1226J635| 10/19/2012-10/26/2012| 8| Put Option | Long| | | 9| Index Futures| Short| S&P500 12/12SP/Z2| 10/25/2012-10/26/2012| 10| Commodity Futures| Long| USDIDX DEC 12 DX/72| 10/25/2012-10/26/2012|

Company in Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5250 words

Company in Crisis - Essay Example Research questions: taking failure as a phenomenon in everyday life that ought to be crossed either by winning or not we are left with the questions about the ways to win the debacle. In a business firm that faces distress, the big boss must get himself equipped with the capabilities to retrieve answers to questions on the cause and depth of the crisis and then questions regarding the salvation process are to be evolved. The purpose of the research that I conduct is to elucidate answers for these questions about the cause and depth of the distress simultaneously finding the way in which organisation culture has to be reformed or remodelled to get the favourable results in the turnaround process. Changing the organisation culture or cultural renewal is the vital part of the turnaround process, since culture is the base of the entire realm of a business. The methodology of turnaround comprises mainly of grass root changes. Turnaround decisions are hard to conceive, although everybody i n a crisis torn company is eagerly waiting for a fresh mechanism to thrive. I have collected feedback data from many companies worldwide that underwent crisis management and companies that foresaw the crisis and adopted prudent approaches to circumvent the crisis. The research papers and journals on the subject of crisis management were of highly helpful in my research. Throughout the search I found that a strategic change was a must in the turnaround endeavour. A company shows symptoms of distress in six ways. They are: 1. Dividend reduction 2. Plant closing. 3. Losses. 4. Lay offs. 5. CEO resignations. 6. Plummeting stock prices. Operating losses of a company results in the reduction of its capital leading the firm towards bankruptcy. In Kenya, companies such as Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered and National Oil Corp are laying off their staff. Many a companies are left with options to take turnaround steps in the following ways only. 1. Disposing of real property. 2. Merging with other firms. 3. Reducing capital spending on R & D. 4. Issuing new shares. 5. Negotiating with creditors. 6. Liquidation. 7. Lay offs. Of these a successful negotiation with the creditors to extend the duration of debt servicing, interest and paying period fetches a good result of saving the company from liquidation. (Jonah Aiyabei, 2000). 1.1 CAUSE OF THE CRISIS Corporate misconduct is the root cause of crisis to creep in a company. The direction of movement of corporate behaviour is normally from top to the bottom. Integrity must permeate a company from the level of chief executive who are supposed to blend ethical values to their traits of integrity. The survey results of the Investor Responsibility Research Center, Washington D.C., survey of board practices and pay, 2004 delineates that an internal campaign organised by the CEOs emphasises the company was taking the reforms seriously and provide an opportunity for discussion among the employees. Responses received from many of the respondents revealed an inability and impossibility to legislate morality and ethics and at the same time greed was felt at the core of many of the past problems. A grade point average (GPA) of 2.6 in the field of accounting management encompassed the view of the respondents that CEOs should meet with department heads and create a direct

Bike Transportation Proposals at Universities Term Paper

Bike Transportation Proposals at Universities - Term Paper Example Such bike sharing services allows students or staff to share a bicycle with a given number of individuals. This has helped save of cost of purchasing more bicycles to cater for the high number of users. Bicycle sharing programs have become more successful than in the past with the introduction of modern tracking systems. This helps to keep track on the location of bicycles being used and also to curb theft. Through bike rental services, students and university staff are required to pay a given considerable fee for the use of a bicycle within the university premises. Such rental services ensure the bicycles are well maintained by users unlike in the bike sharing process. Another finding is that the use of bike transport has been made operational through several university administrations making available to students certain incentives. This are made available within the school to promote use of bicycles. Such incentives include: a free parking lot with enough space to cater for the la rge number of bike users within the institution; security for the students and staff’s bicycles within the institutions premises. This is evident with the report on Stanford University which has 12,000 bicycle rack spaces. However such a beneficial mode of transport has its own rules and regulations. The university administrations have come up with sets of rules and regulations to ensure the safe use of bicycles within the institutions. Some of these rules and regulations include: mandatory use of safety helmets and safety pads while cycling; obedience to traffic officers who monitor bike usage; one is not permitted to cycle too fast while in the institution; failure to obey the set rules one is liable to punishment through the payment of fines in regards to the broken rule. Such rules have enabled the institutions to curb any accidents within their premises. A given number of universities such as Stanford University have introduced innovative bicycle services such as bicycle lockers for safekeeping, they also offer online bike registration for students and staff, they offer bicycle routes and maps to guide cyclists around the institutions, and also professional bicycle use training. According to graphical data it is evident that there has been an increase in the adoption of bicycle transportation in universities over the past few years. This is seen through the average increase rate in percentage of bicycle users in several states in America by 2.25 percent. Areas such as San Francisco have noted a population of over 13000 users while Portland has the highest number with a population of over 17000. In the data it is conclusive that universities in areas experiencing favorable climatic conditions, such as San Francisco’s sunny and windy climate, are more probable to have a higher number of bicycle users. Also it is noted that these universities have a higher number of male bicycle users than that of females as it is stated in a report that Americ a generally has 24 percent of the total cyclist population being women while 76 percent are men. However this has been met by an increase in innovations to increase use of bicycles by women such as the introduction of carriers. These enable the bicycles to act as taxis if one does not wish to cycle. It also noted that bicycle usage has a positive effect on the physical and psychological well being on students and university staff. This is supported by an analysis showing that an individual is set to