Analyzing Dante and Machiavelli´s Characteristics of a...

Dante and Machiavelli were both writers who felt that society and leaders were greatly mislead in their approach of operating the state. Yet even they had very contrasting beliefs in their view of what was ideal for a society to function properly. Machiavelli judges religious or political leaders is based there’s ability to maintain order and unity, regardless of whether one or not need these leaders put there morality and ethics aside for this greater benefit of one’s state. This differs greatly from Dante because his evaluation of the leaders of his time is based solely on how true they stay to moral and ethical virtues. He judges the political. Their ideas of human excellence are revealed through these judgments are very different.†¦show more content†¦He raves about the prestige Ferdinand has acquired in Chapter twenty one of the prince, â€Å"Nothing makes a prince so esteemed as when he personally accomplishes things rare and exemplary. In our times we h ave Ferdinand of Aragon, the present king of Spain. He may also be called a new prince, because from being a weak king he has become through the fame and glory he has achieved, the first king among Christians, and if you consider his actions you will find them great and some even extraordinary.†(Quote from the prince page 94) Even though Machiavelli realizes that it is wrong to use religion to attain power he still commends Ferdinand for doing so because appearing to be religious can give one a very noble perception. Machiavelli believes it is more important create a public image of being trustworthy and sincere than trying to live by those principles in reality. This is because in reality it is very difficult to get a head and stand by moral principles at the same time. He states clearly while explaining why he applauds Ferdinand for his actions, â€Å"When it happens that someone does something extraordinary, whether for good or for ill, in civil life, the prince should ch oose a method of rewarding or punishing that will be much talked about. And above all, a prince must strive in his every action to give the impression of himself as a great man and one of exceptional intelligence.†(a quote from Machiavelli the prince page 95) Another example of Machiavelli

When Tolstoy Meets Kant - 571 Words

When Tolstoy Meets Kant Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy radiates throughout Leo Tolstoy’s short story â€Å"The Death of Ivan Ilyich.† The story begins with the death of Ivan Ilyich. Rather than morning his death, Ivan’s friends and family look for ways that they can benefit from his death. The narrative proceeds to portray the life of Ivan Ilyich leading up to his death. From a young age, Ivan displayed rather ordinary characteristics. He followed basic norms in an effort to attain a good job and uphold a family. He cozied himself next to people in high positions of power in order to advance his career. Ivan eventually married, not because he loved his wife, but because that is what other people expected of him. The feeling of indifference between him and his wife was eventually mutual. Later, Ivan is struck by a mortal illness. Ivan becomes swallowed by depression and isolation. He recognizes that the people around him are reaping rather than weeping ov er his death, and that the latter is masked by the former. Eventually, Ivan realizes that his life would have been more fruitful if he had had genuine relationships with other people. The thinking of Ivan Ilyich is polluted by a series of commissions and omissions. To begin with the former, Ivan does not value people for their own sake. Rather, he treats them as a means to serve a particular end. Even though he treats people with respect, the respect exhibited is grounded in social expectations. Ivan lacks a senseShow MoreRelatedEssay on Tolstoys Anna Karenina3020 Words   |  13 Pageschapters, where a watchman is accidentally run over by a train at Moscows Petersburg station, to the final, climactic scenes of arbitrary destruction when Levin searches for Kitty in a forest beset by lightning, characters are brought together and forced into action against their will by coincidence and, sometimes, misfortune. That Anna and Vronsky ever meet and begin the fateful affair that become s the centerpiece of the novel is itself a consequence of a long chain of unrelated events: culminating AnnasRead MoreImpact of Science on Society38427 Words   |  154 PagesUniversities of Bologna and Urbino and directing the English Schools in Bologna and Rome. He made his television debut in 1965 as a reporter for Granada Television’s Rome Bureau. Burke’s impressive following in the British Isles dates back t o 1966, when he joined the BBC’s weekly science show, Tomorrow’s World. As the chief BBC correspondent for all Apollo space flights, Burke won critical acclaim for his interpretation of the US space program to an audience of over 12 million people. During thisRead MoreImpact of Science on Society38421 Words   |  154 PagesUniversities of Bologna and Urbino and directing the English Schools in Bologna and Rome. He made his television debut in 1965 as a reporter for Granada Television’s Rome Bureau. Burke’s impressive following in the British Isles dates back t o 1966, when he joined the BBC’s weekly science show, Tomorrow’s World. As the chief BBC correspondent for all Apollo space flights, Burke won critical acclaim for his interpretation of the US space program to an audience of over 12 million people. During this

Amy’s Ice Cream free essay sample

Amy’s Ice Cream, based in Austin, Texas, is a privately held corporation formed in 1984 with 22 family members and friends as shareholders. To achieve success Amy Miller planned her business carefully, incorporated with her patners, and differentiated her product from competition. In Austin, Miller’s nine ice cream shops sell superpremium flavors worth more than $3. 9 million each year. Everything in the stores is designed to provide a memorable and fun experience. Amy Miller, CEO, wants her customer to enjoy their contact with the people in her shops while stopping in for ice cream and to come away with a good sense of community, warmth and humanity. The video describes how Amy Miller first worked at Steve’s Ice Cream while in college. As Amy Miller prepared to open her first store, she quicky to make decisions that would affect the future of the business. She and a partner from Steve’s first had to decide where to locate. We will write a custom essay sample on Amy’s Ice Cream or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page They decided on Austin because of the young population and the likelihood that this population would support an eclectic ice cream shop. Then, they had to decide how to structure the initial offering. A decision also had to be made regarding how much money was needed to start the business and how they were going to raise these funds. Choosing the corporate form of ownership was advantageous for several reasons. With this form of ownership, liability is limited to the investors’ personal investement. If the business should fail, investors stand to lose only the money they have invested. In addition, corporations have a legal life separate from their founders and owners. Therefore, corporations can, at least theoretically, go on indefinitely. Shares can be sold and passed on from generation to generation. Corporation also have advantages in raising capital. For example, Amy’s Ice Cream should sell more stock to expand the amount of available funds. The funds could be used to buy more equipment or open more stores. Lenders are also more willing to grant loan to corporation because of their legal status and continuity. There are a few disavantages of corporation ownership. Profits are taxed twice. A corporation must pay taxes on its income and investors must pay taxes on their individual shares of the profit. Under this form, companies such as Amy’s Ice Cream pass their net income on to shareholders who bear the responsibility for taxes. Dividents cover investor’s tax liability. Compared to the sole proprietorship, forming a corporation is relativety expensive. Futhermore, corporation can made it unattractive for other to take them over by adopting financial policies such as paying large dividents to stockholders if the company is bought out. Upon such action, the value of the company would be greatly diminished. As Miller and her team have grown the busines, they have developed innovative ways to attract both customers and new employees. Store theme nights, guerrilla marking promotion for charity, and paper bag job application are just a few of the approaches used at Amy’s. Miller’s skill is allowing the creative employees freedom to put to work their ideas to make the company magical. Miller feels that allowing customers to taste the product, getting a feel for the culture of the company, and seeing the people help to bring customers to the ice cream shop. Amy’s Ice Cream invests the advertising budget in doing in charitable events. Miller believes this work better than direct advertising because it presents a symbolic ralationship to the community at large. Applying for a job is an adventure in creativity, and Miller welcomes employees’ suggestion for new flavor and new promotions to keep sales growing. Miller’s goal of helping people create happy ice cream memories is met everyday. Question: 1. How does Amy’s Ice Cream differ from a publicly held in corporation? . What are some of the particular advantages of corporate ownership for firm such as Amy’s Ice Cream? How well do you think Amy’s is working to ensure its continued survival and success? Looking ahead to future growth, what marketing, financial, or other suggestion would you make? 4. What are some the issues that Amy Miller may have to confront because her 22 investors are family memebers and friends? 5. Should Amy’s Ice Cream become a publicly held corporation? Support your chosen position?

Lehman Brothers Subprime Crisis free essay sample

Introduction The global financial crisis that erupted in September 2008 has thrown economies around the world into a recession. The root cause were sown in the credit boom that peaked in mid-2007, followed by the meltdown of sub-prime mortgages and securitized products. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were both taken over by the government and on September 24, 2008, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy after failing to find a buyer. The fall of Lehman Brothers rattled the global market and led to a great drop in the United States (U. S. ) stock market the day after the announcement. The sudden failure of Lehman Brothers is widely viewed as a watershed moment in the global financial crisis of 2007 – 2009. With over $639 billion in assets and $613 billion in liabilities, it is one of the largest bankruptcies in the history of U. S. (Mamudi, 2008). Lehman Brothers was founded in 1850 by three cotton brokers in Montgomery, Alabama. The firm moved to New York City after the Civil War and grew into one of Wall Street’s investment giants. We will write a custom essay sample on Lehman Brothers Subprime Crisis or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Lehman Brothers is a global financial services firm; the fourth largest investment bank in the U. S. Lehman Brothers’ clients is big institutions, not small individuals. It is an innovator in global finance, serving the financial needs of corporations, governments, municipalities, institutional clients and high-net-worth individuals worldwide. Lehman Brothers investment banking operations accounted for just 20 per cent of the company’s 2007 revenue while most of its net revenue comes from fixed income sales and trading; about 40 per cent. Some of the different fixed income investments that Lehman Brothers deals with include derivatives and swaps, mortgage-backed securities and futures (Callan, n. d. ). However, the investment management business still provides the stable earning base because of its fee-based structure. This term paper will further look into the how Lehman Brothers started off as an investment bank began getting entangled to the subprime mortgages and how it led to its bankruptcy. Lessons from the downfall of Lehman Brothers and the causes and consequences of the collapse will be highlighted in this paper. Subprime Mortgage Crisis The subprime mortgage market lends money to people who don’t meet the credit scoring for ordinary mortgages. For example, a FICO score less than 620 will disqualify the applications from loans at the prime rate. Since subprime borrowers mostly have poor credit history or low incomes, there is a greater possibility that the debts won’t be paid. Thus, making subprime mortgages risky for lenders. Therefore, to compensate the added risk, banks and other lenders charge higher interest rates on subprime mortgages. This made subprime lending very lucrative. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have led the mortgage industry in the 1990s promoting home ownership amongst lower income borrowers. The growth of subprime mortgage market can be attributed to a number of factors. The lower interest rates which resulted in home mortgage payments inexpensive led to a large number of demands for houses. Figure 1 show, a prolonged period of low interest rates which led to raise in house prices that was completely abnormal by historical standards. Banks searched for a method to meet the ever-increasing demand for mortgages and hence realized the perceived great profit opportunities in the real estate market. This prompted the innovation and design of new financial instruments and organizations such as securitized mortgage loans – mortgage backed securities (MBS), asset-backed securities (ABS) and collaterized debt obligations (CDOs) (Knutsen, 2011). As real estate prices rose in the early years of this decade and securitization provided more working capital for mortgage, lenders relaxed their underwriting criteria in order to issue more mortgages (Kirk, n. . ). During the refinancing boom from 2001 to 2003, interest rates fell, borrowing demand increased, mortgage lenders expanded their businesses, and new lenders entered the market (Krinsman, 2007). Figure 2 shows the significant increased in subprime lending from 2004 to 2006. With the U. S. housing boom well under way, Lehman Brothers acquired five mortgage lenders; including subprime lender BNC Mortgage. BNC is ranked as one of the nation’s top 100 mortgage lenders and the eighth largest wholesale subprime lender (Mortgage info, 2007). BNC Mortgage, as the subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ecame the biggest underwriter of U. S. bonds backed by mortgages. As securitization of mortgages increased, the investment banks urged the mortgage lending industry to increase their loan volumes. However, on August 22, 2007, Lehman Brothers decided to close down its subprime-lending unit; BNC Mortgage, causing about 1,200 employees to lose their jobs (Onaran, 2007). Figure 2: The downfall of Lehman Brothers Until 2007, Lehman Brothers has generated a significant portion of its revenue through the issuance of mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities. Lehman Brothers had grown increasingly reliant on its fixed income trading and underwriting division which served as the primary engine for its strong growth throughout the first half of the decade as shown in Exhibit 1 (Stowell, 2010). When the collapse of the U. S. subprime mortgage industry started, it result in credit crisis and the mortgage default rates began to rise and the demand for these securities began to disappear. Lehman Brothers was left with billions of dollars of rapidly depreciating securities on its balance sheet, forcing it to take large write downs and write-offs (Callan, n. d). As the credit crisis reupted in August 2007 with the failure of two Bear Stearns hedge funds due to a lack of confidence in its subprime mortgage holdings, Lehman Brothers’ stock fell sharply. As Lehman Brothers is one of the major players in the subprime lending, it faced a huge difficulty when the housing bubble burst. Lehman Brothers underwrote a huge amount of MBSs, accumulating an $85 billion portfolio, four times its shareholders equity (Investopedia, 2011). House prices began to decline while short-term interest rates rose and borrowers found themselves unable to pay higher monthly payments by refinancing began to default. The decline in mortgage payments also reduces the value of mortgage-backed securities which erodes the net worth and financial health of banks. Lehman Brothers suffered huge losses accrued in lower-rated mortgage-backed securities throughout 2008 (Anderson Dash, 2008). Another cause of the downfall could be due to the extremely high level of leverage and short-term debt financing. Lehman Brothers significantly increased its leverage over the same timeframe, going from a debt-to-equity ratio of 23. 7 times in 2003 to 35. times in 2007 as shown in Figure 3 (Stowell, 2010). While commercial banks are regulated and cannot leverage their equity more than 15 to 1, Lehman Brothers had a leverage of more than 30 to 1. So, as the leverage increased, the ongoing erosion of the mortgage-backed security industry began to impact Lehman Brothers greatly. In turn, the instability created by the leverage problem was aggravated by Lehman Brothers’ large use of short-term debt which financed m ore than 50 per cent of the asset shown in Figure 4 (Zingales, 2008). After the beginning of the crisis, Lehman Brothers tried to reduce its leverage and reduce its reliance on short-term debt, but it was a little too late. Lehman Brothers, the 158-year-old investment bank finally announced the largest Chapter 11 filing in U. S. history, listing assets of $639 billion and liabilities of $768 billion in September 2008. However, before the filing of Chapter 11, Lehman Brothers was said to be using an â€Å"accounting gimmick† to make it appear as if it had off-loaded risky assets and reduced its balance sheet during the height of the financial crisis. This gimmick is known as a â€Å"Repo 105†. This allows Lehman Brothers to use the booking of repurchase agreements as sales rather than temporary transactions (Evanson, 2010). Exhibit 1:   Lehman Brothers’ Financial Performance Since 1999 Source: Stowell (2010) Figure 3: Increase in leverage among investment banks Figure 4: Lehman Brothers Liabilities and Shareholders’ Equity Source: Lehman Annual Report Consequences and Lessons Lehman Brothers’ global footprint meant that thousands of financial market participants were directly impacted by its collapse. Numerous aftershocks were felt throughout the world resulting from numerous cross-border and cross-entity interdependencies. Lehman Brothers’ insolvency has resulted in more than 75 separate and distinct bankruptcy proceedings (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2009). Lehman Brothers’ collapse has forced the market to reassess risk. There are many lessons learnt from the collapse of Lehman Brothers is the internal management structure of the company. Advice from Darryl Steinberg, the managing director and senior tax counsel to Lehman Brothers is for in-house tax professionals to be involved with the firm’s business managers from the outset. He said â€Å"Assisting with the firms organisation and structural planning and providing tax-sensitive input in establishing best business practices at the same time as the creation of those business operations is imperative in the highly regulated business world of today† (Snowdon, Steinberg, ; Lippman, 2009). Global rating agencies were widely condemned as being asleep on the job or being compromised by a system where their revenue derived from the very firms they were assessing. Closer supervision was called by the European Commission to ensue the publication of high quality credit ratings in the future (Allen, 2009). Finally, from this event, all banks should learn that nothing can be taken for granted. When there is signal of warning that the company might be in financial danger, the bank must take heed. References Allen, C. (2009). Lesson learned: one year after Lehman. Global Investor, 15 – 19. Anderson, J. ; Dash, E. (2008, August 28). For Lehman, more cuts and anxiety. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www. nytimes. com/2008/08/29/business/29wall. html? em Evanson, D. (2010, April 12). Lessons from the collapse of Lehman Brothers. TheStar Online. Retrieved from http://biz. thestar. com. my/news/story. asp? ile=/2010/4/12/business/6017192;sec=business Investopedia. (2011). Case study: the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Retrieved May 4, 2011, from http://www. investopedia. com/articles/economics/09/lehman-brothers-collapse. asp Kirk, E. (n. d. ). The â€Å"subprime mortgage crisis†: An overview of the crisis and potential exposure. Retrieved May 3, 2011, from www. rli-epg. com/articles/Subprime-Mortgage-Crisis. pdf Knutsen, S. (2011). Why did â€Å"it† happen again? The American subprime crisis compared with the Norwegian banking crisis 1987-92. Past, present and policy: 4th International Conference. Retrieved from www. epr. org/meets/wkcn/1/1730/papers/KnutsenFinal. pdf Krinsman, A. (2007). Subprime mortgage meltdown: How did it happen and how will it end? The Journal of Structured Finance, 13(2), 1 – 9. Mamudi, S. (2008, September 15). Lehman folds with record $613 billion debt. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www. marketwatch. com/story/lehman-folds-with-record-613-billion-debt? siteid=rss Mortgage Info. (2007). BNC Mortgage Inc. Retrieved May 3, 2011, from http://www. mortgage-info. us/lender_bnc_mortgage. htm Onaran, Y. (2007, August 22). Lehman Brothers shuts down subprime unit, fires 1,200. Bloomberg. Retrieved from http://www. bloomberg. com/apps/news? pid=newsarchive;sid=a87FPr78qX9w mp;amp;refer=news Snowdon, C. , Steinberg, D. , ; Lippman, M. (2009). Managing the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. International Tax Review, (49), 3 – 6. Stowell, D. (2010). Investment banking in 2008 (B): A brave new world. An Introduction to Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, and Private Equity, 403 – 417. Zingales, L. (2008). Causes and effects of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Retrieved from http://www. scribd. com/doc/11096014/Causes-and-Effects-of-the-Lehman-Brothers-Bankruptcy