Business Cycles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business Cycles - Essay Example Most observers find that the length of a business cycle from peak to peak, or from bottom to bottom vary, so that cycles are not systematic in their regularity. In fact, economic history shows that no two cycles are alike. Some economists dispute the existence of real "cycles" and use the term "fluctuations" instead. Others see enough similarities between shifts in economy and claim that studying business cycles in detail is a powerful tool which can serve us to determine the current state of the economy. The key question concerning business cycles is whether or not similar mechanisms that generate recessions and booms in capitalist economies exist. Periods of stagnation are a great burden for society. Being painful for large majorities of workers who lose their jobs, they produce pressure on policy makers to try to smooth out the oscillations. A very important goal of Western civilization since the Great Depression has been to limit the dips. However, government intervention in the economy can be a risky business. For example, some of Herbert Hoover's reforms (including tax increases) are widely believed to have deepened the depression. Managing economic policy in order to reduce the negative side effects of business cycle bottoms is not an easy job in a society with a complex economy, even when the theory of Keynes is applied. According to some nineteenth-century advocates of communism, this is an insurmountable difficulty. For instance, Karl Marx claimed that the business cycle crises of the capitalistic economy were inevitable results of its operations. From this point of view, all that governments can do is to delay the inevitable economic crises and to hope that they will not appear during their stay in power. Even then, crisis could emerge in a different form, for example as severe, unexpected inflation or an increasing government deficit. Worse, by delaying a crisis, western governments are seen as making it more painful for their successors and more dramatic for the whole society. In addition to the wide-spread left-wing criticism, Neoclassical economists question the ability of Keynesian policies to manage an economy. Challenging the Phillips Curve Nobel Laureates such as Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps argue that inflationary expectations negate the Phillips Curve in the long run. Their theory was supported by the stagflation of the 70's. Friedman claimed that all the Fed can do is to avoid large mistakes. He believes that the rapid contracting of the money supply in the face of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was such a big mistake. It turned what would have been a recession into a great depression (Rothbard, 1975). That is why, good forecasts of the cyclical movements of the economy and especially of the turning points of a business cycle are critical to improve policy decisions. The means of monetary and fiscal policy can also help to smooth the cycle out. The Austrian School of economics does not accept the suggestion that business cycles are inherent features of an unregulated economy and seeks for their origins in governmental intervention in the money supply. Austrian School economists underline the role of interest rates as the price of investment capital, which stays in the base

Marketing of General Electrics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Marketing of General Electrics - Essay Example The focus in this paper is on marketing as a wider sphere that encompasses all of the most crucial aspects like increasing the visibility of the products and therefore increasing the sales to a great extent. There is no hard and fast rule available when it comes to marketing and one needs to be aware that a thorough watch of the market and the events surrounding that is what is needed in order to gain maximum benefit out of it. In the business arena, a good marketing is definitely a must and without marketing even the finest of products and services will not be able to get the results and attention on the whole. A competitive advantage is something every business will look forward to and it is through marketing can a business attain the essential reach. Decisions making is an important aspect of marketing and is a determining factor of a business to a great extent. It is a process through which the consumer opts to go for a particular product or services which they have got used to w ith time. The concept of decision making is very crucial and is a winning point for any product in the competitive world. If a deeper look into decision making is taken it is a kind of psychological feeling or attachment that one gets towards a particular products or brand overall. It is a common thing in the marketing sphere for people to get attached to particular brands or products rather than other factors. If they are convinced of the fact that a particular brand will always provide quality product or service then consumers will go for it irrespective of all other available options. Brand perception is an aspect that rules the world of marketing (McLucas, A 2003). In this paper, let us see the strategies followed in decision making by reputed brands on their products. General Electrics is one of the most famous companies of all time that is famous all over the world. It is a corporate giant that has established it to be the best brand and it has capitalized well on the brand as pect. It is a company that is operating all over the world and has got a huge resource base as well. The company is known for its best services and initiatives which are set to turn around the entire line of sales in its favor. A more comprehensive study regarding the company, its initiatives and services that keeps things working the right way is discussed in the paper (Salaman, G 2001). If we take GE into consideration, it can be understood that the company gives more importance to that of human resources aspect. For the purpose of a stable business, it is important to have some good and reliable resource base with them. A good HR program is the backbone of the proper channel and organize of work, thus it is the absolute necessity to show importance in this are. GE seems to have understood about this fact and is known to provide with all the effort it can in order to keep the human resource aspect intact. There is several HR initiative programs carried out by the company in order to make it beneficial for the company as well as the employee. There are several ways through which the company aims at streamlining and molding its resource in order to get the best out of it on the whole (Gelder, S 2005). The best strategy that is used by GE is that it trains as well as cares on its HR sphere. It becomes very much important for one to keep the internal space in a steady way to get a positive wave from outside and GE exactly does that. The idea is to drive its brand as a group to get better result for the brand. GE aligns human resource with that of administrative function as it has its business spread across all over the world. The decision making prowess of the company is well known in the business field and it has always manage to take ultimate control of its resources. The human resource aspect is integrated into the management system of the company. The company’s top management makes it a yearly affair to formulate a set of HR rules for the year along w ith that of the goals and objectives. It shows a great deal of interest in decision making

Project Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 6

Project Management - Essay Example Restaurants solve this problem and provide consumers with cooked food items. The time required to obtain cooked food does decrease but the decrease depends on the type of restaurant. Fast food restaurants have cooked food that is ready to serve with minimal need for service making them the fastest food providers. In essence, fast food restaurants have greater chances of being a business success than other larger and more exquisite restaurants for two reasons. The first advantage is that the consumer base for fast food restaurants is large and the second advantage is that the initial investment is small. In addition, fast food restaurants are more environmentally friendly since the processed food requires far less raw materials than exquisite dining options. On another note, the waste produced from fast food joints is also lower since lower amounts of food items are processed and so lower amounts of waste is produced. The other major benefactors from a fast food restaurant would be th e consumers being served and the investors backing the project. The consumers would be provided with fresh varieties of fast food in order to provide a diverse eating experience. Alternatively, the appeal of new varieties of fast food are expected to bring in attractive returns for the people investing in the proposed project. Project Risks The proposed project stands to get affected from a number of internal and external risks. For one thing, a fast food restaurant is a business that faces stiff competition at start since there are a lot of different fast food restaurants already present in the market. The presence of well established competitors means that the new business will have to create a loyal customer base and then expand it while old and new competitors exist in the market. Moreover, customers in the fast food category have already developed tastes for fast foods being offered at various kinds of fast food restaurants. This is comparable to the beverage industry, where fo r example, a Pepsi customer will not ask for Coca Cola and vice versa. There is a risk that when the new fast food restaurant opens, it may take a lot of time to develop consumer’s taste in new varieties of fast food. In the short run, this could mean a prolonged principal amount recovery period but in the long run this strategy would result in a loyal customer base. Another thing that must be kept in mind is the fragile state of the overall economy. When the economy is performing well, it could be expected that new business survival would be easy since people would be spending with an open hand. In more restrictive fiscal situations, such as the current state of the economy, consumers have smaller disposable incomes and they are less willing to take risks with their money. A consumer would prefer to take fast food from a restaurant whose taste they are already familiar with rather than trying out a new fast food restaurant. The opening up of a new business also poses some mo re familiar risks such as finding the right kind of labor and ensuring retention of good workers. For a fast food restaurant, highly capable chefs would be required to churn out recipes that can be produced in no time and that would cater to the tastes of the target market. In addition, fast food requires that the business have a committed supplier base who can deliver products at the most optimal prices. Larger fast food chains such as McDonalds and KFC have the distinct advantage of ordering in bulk and having many

Virtual and Social Media of Wikis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Virtual and Social Media of Wikis - Essay Example Wikis are hosted by a third party, and is largely popular for people who like to browse, input comments on certain topics and share information through simple means. The creation of wikis mainly caters to an audience who want to have a chance to interact with particular web contents. People practice virtual and social media communication by accessing wikis. Wikis are made to help people come to know about things he has the least knowledge about. It also empowers viewers to remove from the site they are viewing topics which they consider off. People interact with each other by sharing information, comments, and suggestions through this software. People then get the chance to add on to their knowledge, but also develop their interactive skills when accessing Wikis. On a personal level, wikis enhance communication and interaction among web fanatics. On a business level, wikis enable companies to develop networks which consequently simplify work and increase productivity. Businesses gain inputs from viewers while getting important messages across the targeted group, giving them a chance to successfully market their products, services or even ideas. Bigger companies use Wikis to collaborate with clients and manage production on major projects. Wikis, as in any other technology, has its strengths and downsides. One of its strengths lies in the fact that it serves its purpose very well, it is very engaging and it never fails to trigger participation from the target audience. Information written on the web may be altered or modified by anyone. It is useful as well as easy to use; it is not structured or prohibiting. It enhances interaction and gives the audience the enjoyment of participating in information sharing. Wikis are also very flexible. It bends according to the needs of the user.

MBA Business and Economic Evironment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

MBA Business and Economic Evironment - Essay Example As the interest rates change, so do the spending and saving patterns of the people. When interest rates increase the cost of borrowing money increases and hence people borrow lesser where as when there is a decrease in interest rates people are more inclined to borrowing money because the cost of borrowing is lower. This affects the aggregate demand and aggregate supply of a country because money is the basis of all transactions that take place in an economy and if the cost of borrowing money decreases the money demand in the economy would tend to increase and people will be more inclined to spend that money and hence the aggregate demand would increase and this would lead to more people being employed if the economy is not already operating at optimum level of productivity. On the other if interest rates tend to increase then the cost of borrowing increases and people are not willing to borrow, hence the aggregate demand for the economy would decrease and the would have adverse effe cts on the labor as well. An increase in the interest rates in Australia would definitely have the same effects as well and a decrease in aggregate demand is expected. Industrial point of View: If the interest rates are increasing the cost of borrowing for industries would go sky high because industrialists require huge sums of loans because of the industry and the operations that they need to carry out. A very important decision for the firms is based on the interest rates and their trends, the question is: to expand or not to expand The answer lies with the interest rates, if they are very high then the company might postpone their expansionary plans but if they are lower and within a safe limit then the company can go and expand. This applies to whole industries, if industries expand there would be much more labor required and there would be an increase in employment leading to an increase in aggregate demand. Hence if any government is looking to give a boost to its industrial set up it should take special care when dealing with interest rates because it might charter the course of a whole industry and any industry is important to the economy because it has a lot of oth er units such as labor and exports dependent upon such industries, though some governments have come up with industrial interest rates but still they serve the same function. Exchange Rates: The exchange rates of a country play an integral part in determining where the country is heading in the near future and also has far reaching consequences in policy making. Interest rates play a very important role in determining what a country's exchange rates would be, in fact they are also a tool to tamper with the exchange rates. If the interest rates are increasing in an economy, ceteris paribus, then there would be an inflow of foreign currency into that country because people would want to save their money in that country's banks because that would give them a higher return on their investments, when this takes place the demand for a country's currency on the foreign exchange market increases. On the other hand if the interest rat

Create a dialogue between two people. Describe and critique two Essay

Create a dialogue between two people. Describe and critique two perspectives on morality - Essay Example I believe in utilitarian ethics and I would like to discuss it with you and maybe learn about your moral basis.† Steve was delighted by the topic and replied, â€Å"I have also noted our differences and attributed it to diversity. Discussing our moral values would be important to our interpersonal relationship and will improve our perspective on our environments. I believe in deontology ethics. Could you please tell me about your ethical perspective?† David: â€Å"Utilitarian ethical perspective is based on the concept maximum good to a majority of members of the society (Brooks and Dunn 183). It informs judgment on a act, whether of commission or of omission, based on effects on members of the society and therefore means that morality of an act is determined after members of the society have interacted with the act and its effects, both positive and negative have been observed. The act is then said to be unethical if realized bad effects on members of the society are m ore significant than benefits from the act. It is however considered moral if greater benefits can be derived from it and this identifies two perspectives to determining ethics in an act, the extent of effects on people and the number of people that the act affect. Utilitarianism also relates to decisions whose implementation has effects on people. Rule utilitarianism explains this by offering rules that can lead to maximum good in a society. A decision to restrict a person’s right to smoke in a public place is for example moral under utilitarian ethics because while it may infringe the smoker’s need and may be cause distress, it will be beneficial to many other people I the immediate environment through ensuring clean air and protecting the people’s lives (Kanniyakonil 65- 66).† David: â€Å"I should have been keen to note that your judgments are based on consequentialism. My ethical perspective, deontology, is however a rule based perspective to moral j udgment. The perspective associates morality with duty that is expected of people in a society and is based on social rules. It is different from your ethical perspective because it disregards consequences of an act or a decision. An act that is consistent with established rules is for example considered ethical despite its negative consequence to members of the society and an act that contradicts existing rules and obligations is considered immoral irrespective of the net benefit that in which it results. considering your example of smoking in a public place and suppose that a the society allows people to smoke in public places, then the act of smoking is considered moral regardless of the air pollution and its associated effects on people’s health (Basford and Slevin 214, Showler 21)† David: â€Å"Reliance on rules for judging decisions and actions has the benefits in fair judgment and this is contrary to the scope of your utilitarian approach that also appear to be subjective. One of my concerns with utilitarian approach to ethics is the lack of a suitable measure for benefits and harm of an act. There is no standard measure and this compromises reliability and fairness because some people may be more sensitive than others are while some may exaggerate consequences. It is also difficult to identify population segments that have been affected by an act or a decis

Legal risk manager Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Legal risk manager - Assignment Example Failure to manage any foreseeable legal risk has the potential to affect all sectors of an organization, and this becomes the concern of every shareholder, employee, and business stakeholders in the business. It is plausible that legal risk management is crucial to any organization since it can effectively remove any uncertainties in relation to business operation of the organization, thus avoiding legal liability later in the future. An effective legal risk management initiative should ensure that the company can avoid any costs that may arise due to any form of legal negligence during its operations. The law that governs obligations in corporate information security in the United States has expanded very rapidly. The latest legal requirement, introduced mainly by laws that were introduced over the last few years, is an obligation to disclose any form of security breaches that involve sensitive personal information to the individuals who are likely to be adversely affected by such kind of breaches. The emergence of these rules that impose a duty to make disclosures for such security breaches has been necessitated by a series of security breaches that started way back in 2005. Following the enactment of these statutes, more than 300 hundred companies, federal agencies, and educational institutions have made disclosures of breaches of sensitive personal information security (Stevens, 2012). These breaches have affected a cumulative total of more one hundred and fifty million individual records. The core response to these breaches has been a regulatory and legislative fury, at both federal and state level. As such, the Congress, as well as many other states, has introduced laws that require organizations to notify individuals affected security breaches that involve their sensitive personal information. Indeed, the federal banking regulatory agencies have issued their final inter-agency guidance for banking