Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 7

Finance - Essay Example The global nature of business operations has given rise to foreign currency denominated transactions. This means that the companies have a significant amount of foreign currency receivables and payables in their financial statements. Therefore any adverse movement in the exchange rate can have a serious impact on the profitability position of the company. For this reason the companies hedge their position using financial derivative products like foreign currency options, forward contract, currency swaps, currency futures etc. The modernization of financial markets and the consequent development of advanced hedging techniques mean that the companies no more rely only on the traditional hedging methods rather now they employ various financial instruments to protect the value of their receivables. Many studies have been conducted about the foreign currency hedging practices of the companies. Academic literature relating to hedging has developed various theories that explain the incentives derived by an individual from hedging. Hedging protects the position of the hedger. Keynes states explicitly that the process of hedging eliminates risk (Ullrich, 2009, pp.107). In fact the financial derivatives can also be used for making speculative gains. This can be done by the companies who maintain a specialized risk management department as these professionals can take a position based on market anticipations. Various studies have been done to find as to why the firms hedge their overseas exposures. Some of these studies have focused on the usage of hedging tools like foreign currency derivatives and foreign currency debt (Judge, 2003). The strategy is chosen on the basis of the term of the exposure. For short-term exposures one expects that the firms will rely on derivatives. The long term exposure can be hedged using methods like issuance of debt and geographical asset diversification. A

Types of Phobias Essay Example for Free

Types of Phobias Essay Our psychics still stands very far away from the complete understanding of the processes that take place inside our mind. One of the striking evidences for this statement is the widest variety of fears that quite often enthrall people, and what is more, there are no easy ways to find any reasonable explanation to expand their origin. However, this problem is widely discussed in psychology and there is a special term to denote strong fear, aversion or terror, phobia. Anyone can be affected by phobia – even celebrities such as Nicole Kidman who is afraid of butterflies, Johnny Depp who is terrified of clowns, and Christina Ricci who is scared of sharks in the swimming pool. In this essay we shall describe a number of different instances of phobia and illustrate that generally they can be divided into to types, namely those which fall under rational explanation and respectively those which are based on deep psychological roots and defy any rational interpretation or explanation. Exactly the complexity and even sometimes impossibility to explain certain phobias, together with the need to apply an individual approach to examine each such case allows us to assert that our psyche and mental activity still is full of uncountable mysteries. Hundred thousands or even millions of people all over the world suffer from acrophobia or in other words the fear of heights. Basing on evidences and psychological studies this is likely to be the most spread form of phobias. Many of us have met people who feel petrified staying on an absolutely safe balcony of the skyscraper. So these are the apparent victims of acrophobia. There is little or no distinction between this kind of phobia and bathophobia, fear of depths; both involve fear of falling. The both forms of phobia have a simple rational explanation. Height and depth contain certain potential danger for a person. What helps realize this danger is person’s instinct for self-preservation, which compels a person to leave potentially dangerous place. However, in some cases the instinct for self-preservation transforms into exceptionally acute form, known to us as phobia. Another instance of phobia is arachnophobia or fear of spiders. Unlike the phobias discussed above this kind of fear is not related to the possible danger for life and cannot be explained by any reasonable means. To understand this phobia nature let us illustrate the particular case described in the newspaper Daily Record. Carol-Ann Swanson has been scared of spiders since she was a girl. At the age of 29 she admitted her tendency to scream and run away from anything that looked remotely like a spider and understood it was not quiet a normal thing for a psychiatry worker, so she decided to find the reasons for her fears. The psychoanalysis brought her back to her childhood when Ann’s older brother used to get her to close her eyes put a spider in her outstretched hand. Later that fear became a firm phobia in primary school. The teacher found out she was scared so she put a poster of a huge spider on the wall and asked her to touch it. The whole class discussed her fear, so it made her feel really embarrassed. Even the pom-pom spiders that hung from the classroom ceiling were terrifying. Thus we can see that in this given example through thorough psychological analysis one can derive the origin and explanation of the phobia. Nevertheless, there is a huge number of phobias which cannot be so easily interpreted of studied. For instance, if a lot people do not often feel very happy when seeing a spider then arachnophobia does not seem too abnormal phenomenon. However, such phobias like ailurophobia (fear of cats), koniophobia (fear of dust), anthophobia (fear of flowers), aurophobia (fear of gold) are considerably more complicated for interpretation. The problem of phobia origin still contains a lot of undiscovered facets. Among them the specialists (Kleinknecht R.) underline the following: Why some people at certain circumstances suffer from phobia and others do not? Why a person cannot overcome his or her phobia by the understanding that this fear is groundless? Are there any universal methods applicable to all people suffering from phobia? While there are no direct answers to these questions there is a strong need to apply individual approach to study each particular instance of phobia. The difficulty and sometimes even the helplessness in dealing with phobia gives the grounds for claim that our mind and mental processes occurring there still present a lot of riddles to be solved. References: Kleinknecht, Ronald A. Mastering Anxiety: The Nature and Treatment of Anxious Conditions. New York: Insight Books, 1991. Does This Tarantula Scare You? Amazing irrational fears that plague so many terrified victims; The like Carol-Ann You Are One of 50,000 Scots with a Phobia. Lifestyle Coach Alastair Campbell Helps Her Face Her Demons. Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland) 2 Mar. 2005. Biography.ms. Retrieved on 22 Jan. 2006 from http://www.biography.ms/List_of_phobias.html

Advantages and Disadvantages of Family Types

Advantages and Disadvantages of Family Types Individual Family culture VS Traditional Family Culture.   Advantages Of The Nuclear Family While discussing about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear family, the first and foremost point pops up in the mind of a person is privacy of life.   Privacy:  The couple can get their privacy in their own house in nuclear families whereas you cannot get your privacy in a joint family. People can live their own way and can do whatever they want to. There are no such boundaries set by the elders to follow.   Financial stability:  When we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the nuclear family, then financial stability is one of the strongest points in the nuclear family. One can be financially strong because of limited expenses. There is less number of people in the nuclear family and hence less expenses. You cannot have a strong financial stability if you are the only person who is earning in a joint family.   Freedom:  The elders restricts youngsters not to do certain tasks because they think this is not good for them. But today’s generation is very smart. They know what is good and bad for them and have enough analytical power so they don’t like to restrict themselves. Instead, they want their freedom so that they can do and achieve whatever they want in their life.   Ease in moving:  When you have a nuclear family, you face fewer problems while shifting from a house. You can manage your things according to you without disturbing the lives of other people. This is one of the major advantages of the nuclear family.   Avoidance of stress and discomfort:  Some people are emotional. They can’t tolerate any kind of fun that is on them and in the joint family, one need to have much high patience. But, nuclear families has the advantage that if you live in the company of those with whom you are very comfortable then there is no need to take any stress and your discomfort also get vanished in a moment.   Disadvantages Of The Nuclear Family While thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of the nuclear family, a person should also think that it is not always good to live in a nuclear family. At certain points, you realize the value of joint family. Here are those points which will teach you the importance of joint family and disadvantages of nuclear families.   No care:  If the parents are working and children suffered from any small or big disease, then one needs to deal with it alone as they don’t have elders and other family members to take care of. This is the major disadvantage of the nuclear family. One is alone and feels even sicker when he sees no one around. Problems to children:  If your child is small and needs special care, then at that point, you will definitely find the nuclear family not good enough. You will always think that if you were in a joint family then this condition would never arise as you have other family members who can take care of the child and in the mean time, you can do your work. Security and safety:  Security is one another disadvantage in the nuclear family. People feel insecure in the nuclear family. There are so many cases of robbery and murders and many of them are from nuclear family itself, as it is easier to grab someone who lives alone in a house or with less number of people. No support:  When we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear family, support is the thing one will always miss. If there is an argument between the couple then there is no one to support any one of them. They have to deal with their problem alone without any support. Sometimes due to open nature and ego, the fight results in divorce or separation because there was no one to make them understand the basics of a relationship. Extra Expenses: When you live in a community or in a joint family, then you have the liability to keep other happy and familiar to you. In order to do this, you need to do some extra expenses. Suppose, you bring some gift for your child then it is also important to bring some gift for other children in the family. TRADITION FAMILY CULTURE:- In an extended  family, parents and their childrens families may often live under a single roof. This type of  joint family  often includes multiple generations in the  family. From culture to culture, the variance of the term may have different meanings. Advantages of Joint Families Cradle of social virtues: Joint family is like a nursery to teach social virtues. It helps to develop social virtues like co-operation, sympathy, sacrifice, affection, spirit of selfless service, obedience and broadminded. Insurance against olds: Joint Family Acts as insurance for the members of the family at the time of crisis. It provides social security to its members especially to the old, the infirm, the unemployed persons, the orphans, the widowed daughters and sisters as well as the physical and mentally handicapped among them. For all such persons the joint family acts as an insurance company. Division of labour: In a joint family each member is given work according to his or her capacity. The men, women and children all have to work. For example, in a peasant joint family all the members work actively according to their ability. The old persons and children of the family watch the crops in the field. During the harvest season, the women in some families help in harvesting. This there is no need of procuring labour from outside the family. Socialism in Wealth: According to Sir Henry Maine joint family is like a co-operative society with the father as the trustee. Every member in the joint family works conforming to the well established socialist formula; each works according to his or her ability and gets according to his or her needs. Avoids fragmentation of land: Joint family avoids the evils or fragmentation of land by holding the property in common. Joint family is almost like a joint-stock company. An agency of social control: Another advantage of joint family is that it acts as an agency of social control. In joint family there is a close supervision over the anti-social and unsocial activities of the young member. Opportunity for leisure: Joint family affords ample leisure to its members. Both the male and female members divide the household works and finish it in a short time spending the rest of the day in leisure. They never feel over burdened. Money saving device: Joint family is advantageous from the economic viewpoint. This system helps in securing economy in expenditure. Since things are consumed in a large quantity they can be obtained at cheap rate. A large family can be maintained within a small means if it lives jointly. Disadvantages of Joint Family Home for Idler: Joint family rests on collective responsibility. This sometimes accounts for laziness among some members. No doubt the active members do hard work. But when they get equal share in the food cooked at the common hearth, some members may become lazy and may not feel the necessity of doing any productive work. They spend their time in eating, sleeping and begetting children. Hindrance in the development of personality: Joint family hinders the development of personality. Under the joint family system the head of the family or Karta is all in all. He is the sole authority to take any decision in family affairs. Other members, especially the   juniors do not get a chance to think independently to take any independent decision. Thus development of personality is arrested. Favours uncontrolled reproduction: Joint family is said to be associated with higher birth rate. Member does not feel the need of birth control because the children rest on the family as a whole. Hot bed of quarrel: Joint family is the hotbed of quarrels and bickering. Quarrels are common among the female members of the family. Quarrels between the wives of brother, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is very common. Source of litigation: Sometimes joint-family system encourages, litigation. At the time of the partition of movable or immovable property in the family dispute assumes serious proportion and most of the time these are not settled without the interference of the court of law. Loss of privacy: Over crowdedness in joint family kills one’s privacy. The newly married man and his wife hardly get the time to meet and talk rarely in joint family. Low position of women: Under the joint family system the woman is relegated to low status. Her condition in the family is worse. Particularly the condition of a daughter-in-law is very miserable. She is often ill-treated by her mother-in-law. Her life is no way better than that of a slave. In many cases, the ill treatment by the elderly women becomes so unbearable that they seek a permanent relief in committing suicide.

History of Accounting Essay -- Accounting Employment Bookkeeping Essay

History of Accounting The history of accounting I feel is important in the learning, understanding, and developing of my foundation for my accounting career. In this report you will learn about the development of accounting. You will learn about the people who influenced accounting the most throughout the years. You will learn how accounting came about and how it was used in the ancient times. You will learn about the invention of the double-entry bookkeeping processes. You will learn how things were done before the birth of the double-entry bookkeeping process. You will learn about Luca Pacioli and the Summa. You will also learn about modern accounting and ACAUS. In attempting to explain why double entry bookkeeping developed in fourteenth century Italy instead of ancient Greece or Rome, accounting scholar A.C. Littleton describes seven "key ingredients" which led to its creation. Those key ingredients consisting of private property, capital, commerce, credit, writing, money and arithmetic. Most of these did not exist in ancient times. This alone would not lead someone to create a complete and involved accounting system. Writing, for example, is as old as civilization itself, but arithmetic - the systematic manipulation of number symbols - was really not a tool possessed by the ancients. Fairly, the persistent use of roman numerals for financial transactions long after the introduction of Arabic numeration appears to have delayed the earlier creation of double-entry systems. However, the problems encountered by the ancients with record keeping, control and verification of financial transactions was not entirely different than our own to day. Governments had strong incentives to keep careful records of receipts and disbursements -for the most part as concerns taxes. In any society where individuals accumulated wealth, there was a desire by the rich to perform audits on the honesty and skill of slaves and employees entrusted with asset management. But the lack of the above-listed antecedent to double entry bookkeeping made the job of an ancient accountant extraordinarily difficult. In societies where nearly all were illiterate, writing materials costly, numeration difficult and money systems inconsistent, a transaction had to be extremely important to justify keeping an accounting record. Accounting in ancient Mesopotamia, Circa 350... ...also shifted the focus to revenues and expenses . At the turn of the century, there were at least four types of funds statements in use - those that summarized changes in cash, in current assets, in working capital and overall financial activities. Accountant H.A. Finney led the movement for use of a funds statement, which focused on liquidity by tracking the sources of changes in working capital. He used a worksheet approach to highlight meaningful balance sheet changes by aggregating most of the fluctuations, which affect working capital and offered a standardized method for calculating them. In the 1940s, the accounting profession increasingly used the funds statement to measure the actual flow of monies, rather than simply the sum of working capital changes between balance sheet dates. The funds statement increasingly became a staple for the financial statement, and in 1971 the AICPA began requiring its inclusion in stockholders' annual reports. So in conclusion I hope by reading this you know have a better understanding accounting. Also I want you to have and understanding of how it was originated and the major contributors of the systems we use today in accounting.

Down these mean streets by Thomas Piri Essay

Years after its original publication, Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets remains as powerful, immediate, and shocking as it was when it first stunned readers. In this classic confessional autobiography, firmly in the tradition of Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Piri Thomas describes the experience of growing up in the barrio of Spanish Harlem, a labyrinth of lawlessness, drugs, gangs, and crime. The teenaged Piri seeks a place for himself in barrio society by becoming a gang leader, and as he grows up his life spirals into a self-destructive cycle of drug addiction and violence, the same cycle that he sees all around him and hardly knows how to break. Piri is also troubled by a very personal problem: much darker than his brothers and sisters, he decides that he, unlike his siblings, is black, and that he must come to terms with life as a black American. Eventually arrested for shooting two men in an armed robbery, Piri spends six years in Sing and Comstock prisons. With insight and poetry he describes his time in prison, the dreams and emotions that prompted him finally to start life again as a writer, street poet, and performer, and how he became an activist with a passionate commitment to reaching and helping today’s youth. One of the most striking features of Down These Mean Streets is its language. â€Å"It is a linguistic event,† said The New York Times Book Review. â€Å"Gutter language, Spanish imagery and personal poetics†¦mingle into a kind of individual statement that has very much its own sound. † Piri Thomas’s brilliant way with words, his ability to make language come alive on the page, should prove attractive to young people and inspire them to look at writing and literature in fresh new ways. Thirty years ago Piri Thomas made literary history with this lacerating, lyrical memoir of his coming of age on the streets of Spanish Harlem. Here was the testament of a born outsider: a Puerto Rican in English-speaking America; a dark-skinned morenito in a family that refused to acknowledge its African blood. Here was an unsparing document of Thomas’s plunge into the deadly consolations of drugs, street fighting, and armed robbery–a descent that ended when the twenty-two-year-old Piri was sent to prison for shooting a cop. As he recounts the journey that took him from adolescence in El Barrio to a lock-up in Sing to the freedom that comes of self-acceptance, faith, and inner confidence, Piri Thomas gives us a book that is as exultant as it is harrowing and whose every page bears the irrepressible rhythm of its author’s voice. Thirty years after its first appearance, this classic of manhood, marginalisation, survival, and transcendence is available in an anniversary edition with a new Introduction by the author. The questions, assignments, and discussion topics that follow are designed to guide your students as they approach the many issues raised in Down These Mean Streets. The questions of race and culture, of drugs, and of crime and punishment are all treated in the book, and should provide jumping-off points for many fruitful discussions. Another important element of the book is its vivid description of the youth culture of the barrio. Ask your students not only to pay special attention to that culture, but also to compare it with their own, and to look for similarities even when similarities might not be immediately evident. Piri Thomas gained the distance and objectivity to observe his world without prejudice or self-deception; your students should try to do the same. Finally, the students should be encouraged to look at the book not only as a cultural document, but also as a work of literature. Ask them to examine the language Thomas uses, his choice of words, the â€Å"flow† of the story. How does he create his informal tone, his sense of immediacy? This work might help change your students’ ideas about the â€Å"right† way to write, and inspire them to try to find their own individual voices. To what extent is Harlem’s communal code of pride, masculinity, and â€Å"rep† re-created in prison life? How does life inside prison resemble life outside? â€Å"The reasoning that my punishment was deserved was absent. As prison blocks off your body, so it suffocates your mind.† [pp. 255–56] Does this indicate to you an essential fault in the prison system? Do you think that the advice Piri gives Tico about how to deal with Rube is good? Is prison a purely negative experience for Piri, or are there good things about it? Which of the people he meets while in prison enrich and improve his life? Does Piri decide not to join the rioters, or is the decision essentially made for him by the hacks? Why does Chaplin/Muhammed believe that Christianity is the white man’s religion, Islam the black man’s? Do outside or societal factors play a role in Chaplin/ Muhammad’s choice of religions? As he leaves prison, Piri says, â€Å"I am not ever going to be the same. I’m changed all right. † [p. 306] In what ways has Piri changed, and what has changed him? Which of his ideas have been altered by his time in prison? Piri presents himself as a product of his race, culture, and community, but many of his traits are purely his own. How would you describe Piri’s personality? Poppa: What kind of a person is Poppa? What makes him proud, what makes him ashamed? Is he a good or bad father, a good or bad husband? Do you find him sympathetic? Trina: Piri sees Trina as nearly perfect. How would you describe her? Do you think that she behaves passively toward Piri, or does she demonstrate spirit of her own? What do you think of her response to Dulcien’s baby? Brew: How would you describe Brew’s character? What has given him his outlook on life, and how does it differ from Alayce’s? How does he perceive Piri? Why does he agree to go south with Piri? Chaplin/Muhammed: What has made Muhammed hate Christianity? What does Islam mean to him? Piri Thomas uses a number of pungent expressions, both in Spanish and English. How does the language he uses express his character and his world? Write a two-page essay describing one day in your life. Use your own style of talking, and try to be as colloquial as possible. What might your essay tell the reader about you, your friends, and your world? The youth culture in Spanish Harlem to which Piri and his friends belong has certain firm, if unwritten, rules. Would you say the same is true of your own school or neighborhood? What are the rules that govern the behavior of young people you know? What do you feel you have to do to be â€Å"cool,† to be accepted, to belong? Write a short essay describing the social rules your own friend’s follow. Piri is describing a specific period in time: the 1940s. Do you find that the life a family like the Thomas’s lived has changed much since that time? Make a list of the things that have changed for teenagers like Piri, and of the things that have stayed the same. Reference †¢ Down these mean streets by Thomas Piri

Inequality & It’s Characteristics

The perspective I have chosen is the social-conflict theory. The social-conflict paradigm is a framework for building theory that envisions society as an arena of inequality generating conflict and social change. This type of analysis focuses on the inequalities within our society and the conflict that they cause between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. The first characteristic is inequality. This refers to the unequal distribution of money, gender, class, and age. People who embrace the social-conflict perspective believe that gender, race, and class should not lead to favored treatment. An example of this would be single mothers who are living below the poverty line. This group of people is likely to remain at least as large as it is now at the present time and/or become larger in the coming decade. Many of these women do not have marketable job skills and few means to attain them due to their lack of finances. The second characteristic is social class conflict. Social class is often defined as the amount of education, income, and status people have. As we know, attaining education is one of the most effective avenues for ensuring employment and an increase in income, which adds up to higher status or social class. Single mothers most often do not have the income in order to pursue higher education. This renders them the title or designation of being one of the lower class groups in our society. If this remains to be status quo, then there is little hope for these single mothers living below the poverty line. The third characteristic is social change. The inequalities and conflict of social class is leading towards a social change. The federal and provincial governments have implemented different types of financial assistance for single mothers living below the poverty line. The government has made it easier for these women to apply for student loans so that they may pursue higher education and job skills. As well, grants have been made available to assist with the financial burden. The government has provided tax relief for lower income families and subsidized day care. In response to the outcries of single mothers and other advocates, the federal government now has a Women's Equality Minister. Canada also has a group called the â€Å"Women's Economic Network† that helps and supports single mothers in getting out of poverty. Analyzing this issue with the social-conflict paradigm has helped myself in understanding that there are inequalities in all aspects of society. When some inequalities are exposed and absolved, there are other ones following close behind. As society evolves, more inequalities are found and dealt with. This type of analysis has also helped me to see that there are resolutions to this problem of poverty with single mothers. It is a grim reality in Canada, but analyzing it from the social-conflict perspective shows that there ways in which we can rectify the problems surrounding this issue.