Theoretical Positions of Jung, Adler, and Freud Essay Example for Free

Theoretical Positions of Jung, Adler, and Freud Essay Recently, there has been a debate on the subject of a statutory minimum wage. Different parties have different point of views about it. The unionists believe setting a higher amount can help to reduce the continuously increased wealth gap in Hong Kong, but the businessmen worry that it will increase the operating costs of their businesses. I will discuss the pros and cons of a statutory minimum wage in the following paragraphs. For the advantages, firstly, a minimum wage can force employers to offer reasonable salaries to their employees and give them guidelines on how rational salaries should be set. This can help to protect employees from being exploited. Secondly, the problem of income inequality can be addressed by increasing low-income groups’ salaries so that it can help to promote social justice and greatly improve social harmony and stability. Moreover, the policy can encourage the unemployed citizens to rejoin the work force and thus reduce the burden on the government. Although there are many advantages of setting a minimum wage, there are some drawbacks too. The unemployment rate may rise after implementing the minimum wage law. Due to the increase of operating costs or production costs, some employers may lay off their staff. And it may discourage employees to improve their working attitude and skills as their wages are protected under the statutory minimum wage system, working incentive may thus become low. When we talk about the level of a statutory minimum wage, we have a lot to concerned about, for example, the economic situation, GDP etc. I think the living standard is very high in Hong Kong at present, so the level of a statutory minimum wage should be high enough to meet a family’s daily expenses. At the same time, we should also consider the financial burden on the employers. If not, laying off staff or even closing down the businesses may be the result. The government, therefore, should consider all these issues, think twice and make a wise decision. From http://www. tkp. edu. hk/newsletter/archives/2610 News Point Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung ( ) explained how the members of the Provisional Minimum Wage Commission ( ) came to be agreed on the initial statutory minimum wage rate. According to him, they considered four main criteria: 1. it should not be too low; 2. it would not cause low-paid jobs to disappear in large numbers; 3. it would not inhibit economic development; 4. it would not significantly damage Hong Kongs competitive advantages. To protect labour rights, Hong Kong may need not only minimum wage legislation but also standard working hours legislation ( ). The Legislative Council has adopted a motion to call for the enactment of such a law. To encourage underprivileged citizens and low-income employees living in remote districts to find work or stay in employment, the government launched in 2007 a pilot transport support scheme (). Under the scheme, eligible citizens have been provided with time-limited transport allowances. The Labour Department ( ) is responsible for protecting other labour rights enshrined in various pieces of labour legislation (such as the Employment Ordinance ( )). Minimum wage a issue for people to decide: Hong Kong chief Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Chief Executive Donald Tsang on Friday continued to defend his decision not to legislate on the controversial minimum- wage issue in his latest Policy Address. Speaking on RTHK Friday, two days after presenting his Policy Address, Tsang said he did not want to see the issue dealt with in court as some legislators have said they would press ahead with plans to seek a judicial review after the government decided not to legislate for a minimum wage at the moment. It is a matter for the people to decide, not the courts, Tsang told a call-in radio show Friday morning. I think we should try to solve this matter amicably, in the community. Fundamentally it is not even the legislature and the government. It is a matter for the people, he added, in response to what he called a very strong union and labor voice on minimum wage. In Hong Kong, the arguments on minimum wage between the labor and the employers have lasted for many years but without consensus. The labor has always pressed ahead to legislate on minimum wage among the security and cleaners sectors in particular as soon as possible. But employers said in order to compete in a globalized economy, it is a remaining advantage for Hong Kong not to force employers to accept the deal via legislation. If this matter were pushed through the Legislative Council at the moment, Tsang said, it would be a very, very bloody fight there would be serious arguments over this, the community would be torn apart. In his policy address, Tsang proposed to launch a Wage Protection Movement for workers in the security and cleaning sectors. He promised to legislate on the minimum-wages issues two years later if the movement fails and employers are not paying market rates. ‘Hong Kong lawmakers debate minimum wage CNN 14 Jul 10 Hong Kong lawmakers resumed debate Wednesday on a bill that may result in the regions first statutory minimum wage. The Minimum Wage Bill is a controversial piece of legislation that lawmakers hope will protect the most vulnerable workers in Hong Kong, one of the few places in the world without any sort of minimum wage law. The debate is set to take two to three days. A recent government survey showed that around half a million workers in Hong Kong earn less than $4 an hour. These include low-skilled workers from the catering, retail, and cleaning industries. According to Man Hon Poon, a policy researcher at the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Union, the lack of legal protection for workers has led to serious exploitation. Workers in restaurants have to work for 12 hours or even 14 hours a day to earn a living, he said. They cannot even go to the cinema. Legislator Tommy Cheung, however, claims that the government should not interfere with the free market economy, which he says has served Hong Kong well in the past. A minimum wage could deter investors and lead to increased unemployment, said Cheung, who represents the catering industry. There is one fear within the industry, that they would have to close down, he said. When you see a closure, everyone loses out. The government first proposed the current bill in 2008 following a failed attempt at a voluntary minimum wage. Labor unions, however, have been lobbying for a minimum wage since 1998, following the Asian financial crisis. The rate of the minimum wage has also been under great debate. Trade unions have been demanding a minimum wage of $4 while employer groups have been asking for $3 per hour. If the bill passes this week, the rate of the minimum wage will be set by the Minimum Wage Commission, a consortium of trade union members, employers and scholars, in the coming months. Once the chief executive approves the rate, employers will have six months to implement the law. The Hong Kong government estimates that the earliest the minimum wage law may take effect is May 2011. http://edition. cnn. com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/07/14/china. hong. kong. minimum. wage/index. html? hpt=T2fbid=cFYYtTV0ap3 The Minimum Wage: An Unfair Advantage for Employers October 1989 †¢ Volume: 39 †¢ Issue: 10 †¢ Print This Post †¢ 1 comment Professor Boudreaux teaches economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Suppose you want to help the sellers of a specific product. One thing you might want to do is try to ensure that a buyers’ market for that good or service isn’t created. A buyers’ market is an economic situation that favors buyers over sellers. For example, everyone hopes that the real-estate market in his hometown will be a sellers’ market when the time comes to sell his house. No one wants to have to sell a house when real estate is in a buyers’ market. Nevertheless, people who advocate mini- mum-wage legislation to improve the lot of unskilled workers in effect support government creation of a buyers’ market as a way to help sellers of unskilled labor. Freely Moving Prices: The Great Equalizer Economics and common sense teach us that, other things being equal, as the price of a product rises, more units will be offered for sale but fewer units will be demanded by consumers. If a price is too low, there will be an excess demand for the good or service in question, and buyers will compete for the limited quantities available by offering higher prices to sellers. If a price is too high, there will be an excess supply, and sellers (who cannot sell all that they wish at the high price) will compete for customers by offering lower prices. So long as there are no government-imposed restrictions on prices, prices will tend to adjust in each market so that the quantities demanded will be equal to the quantities supplied. It is important to realize that prices change only when there are bargaining inequalities between buyers and sellers. Prices rise only when the amount demanded by buyers is greater than the amount supplied by sellers; prices fall only when the amount demanded by buyers is less than the amount supplied by sellers. Put another way, prices rise only when there is a sellers’ market, and prices fall only when there is a buyers’ market. The rise or fall of prices, however, eliminates the inequality of supply and demand and, thus, eliminates the conditions that people describe as sellers’ markets and buyers’ markets. Freedom of price adjustments ensures equality of bargaining power among buyers and sellers. Freely moving prices are the great equalizer. Employers compete for human labor services, like most things of value in a society based on private property in a market in which sellers and buyers engage in voluntary exchanges. Wage rates (in combination with other forms of compensation) are determined in the labor market. If this market isn’t hampered by government, wages will constantly adjust so employers and employees enjoy equal bargaining power. Of course, unskilled workers aren’t as productive as workers with greater skills, and so wage rates for skilled labor tend to be higher than wages for unskilled labor. It is a myth, however, that highly skilled workers enjoy greater bargaining power with employers than do workers with fewer skills. If wage rates are free to adjust to their market-clearing levels, unskilled workers will enjoy as much bargaining power as the most highly skilled workers, because freely moving wage rates adjust so that the amount of each type of labor demanded will tend to equal the amount supplied. Employers can have no bar gaining advantage over even the most unskilled workers if wage rates are free to move to the levels at which the amount of labor services demanded is equal to the amount supplied by workers. Freely moving wage rates are the great equalizer of bargaining positions among employers and employees. The Minimum Wage: The Great Unequalizer Minimum-wage legislation prohibits wages from falling low enough to equate the number of people seeking jobs with the number of jobs being offered. As a result, the supply of unskilled labor permanently exceeds the demand for’ unskilled labor at the government-mandated minimum wage. Minimum-wage legislation thus creates a buyers’ market for unskilled labor. And as in all buyers’ markets, buyers (employers) have an unequal bargaining advantage over sellers (unskilled workers). Consider, for example, a grocer. Suppose he decides that a clean parking lot will attract more customers, and that this will increase his sales by $10 per day. Of course, the grocer will pay no more than $10 a day to have his parking lot cleaned. He then investigates how best to get this done. Suppose there are two options available to him. One way is to hire a fairly skilled worker who can clean the parking lot in one hour, while the second way is to hire two unskilled workers who, working together, will get the job done in the same time. Other things being equal, the grocer will make his decision based upon the relative cost of skilled versus unskilled labor. Let’s assume the skilled worker will charge $6 an hour, while each of the unskilled workers will charge $2. 50 an hour. In a free labor market, the grocer will hire the two unskilled workers be-cause, in total, it costs him $5 per hour for the unskilled workers whereas it would cost $6 for the one skilled worker. But what will the grocer do if a minimum wage of $4 per hour is imposed? To hire the two unskilled workers will now cost him a total of $8 an hour. The skilled worker now becomes the better bargain at $6 an hour. Minimum-wage legislation strips unskilled workers of their one bargaining chip: the willingness to work at a lower wage than that charged by workers with more skills. The result is unemployment of the unskilled workers. Consider another effect of the minimum wage. Because there are more people who want jobs at the minimum wage rate than there are jobs to go around, employers have little incentive to treat unskilled workers with respect. If an employer mistreats an unskilled worker, the employer need not be concerned if the worker quits. After all, there are plenty of unemployed unskilled workers who can be hired to fill positions vacated by workers who quit. In addition, the permanent buyers’ market created by the minimum wage encourages employers to discriminate in their hiring and firing decisions on the basis of sex, race, religion, and so on. Suppose an employer has two minimum-wage jobs available, but there are ten unskilled workers who apply for the jobs. Bemuse the workers are prohibited from competing with each other on the basis of wage rates, other factors must determine which of the workers will be hired. If the employer dislikes blacks, and if there are at least two non-black workers who have applied for employment, no black workers will be hired. With a surplus of unskilled workers, there is no economic incentive to stop this bigoted employer from indulging his prejudices. Conclusion Minimum-wage legislation creates an excess supply of unskilled labor and gives the buyers of unskilled labor an unfair bargaining advantage over the sellers of unskilled labor. It is a fantasy to believe that the welfare of unskilled workers can be improved by such legislation. Unskilled workers shouldn’t be restricted to a permanent buyers’ market. Hong Kong Sets Minimum Wage At HK$28 Per Hour The citys new minimum wage finally has been released. The HK$28/hour base is roughly the cost of two cartons of milk, a fast food meal or four premium beers. Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said the new wage, set to come into effect May 1 if it passes the legislature, represented an average wage increase of 16. 9 percent affecting some 314,600 employees. The cost will be roughly HK$3. 3 billion. Tabled for discussion at the Legislative Council Wednesday, the new wage was a milestone in the protection of the rights of low-income workers and a hard-won achievement given the controversy amid the citys laissez faire system, Chief Executive Donald Tsang said. To offset the impact on the labor market, the Labor Department will improve employment services for the young, middle-aged and those with disabilities, he added. By the Minimum Wage Commissions estimates, the new minimum wage amounts to 48 percent of Hong Kongs median hourly wage during the second quarter of 2009. More than half (61. 4 percent) of the more than 314,000 workers expected to benefit from the new minimum wage are women. A quarter of those who will benefit are over the age of 65 and 18 percent work in a part-time capacity, Cheung said. On a sector basis, 35. 5 percent of workers are from security and cleaning companies while 19 percent work in restaurants and 16 percent in retail. Cheung said the impact on employment will be relatively mild, especially when viewed against the improving economic and labor market conditions. Shying away from commenting on concerns that employers would start cutting back on employee benefits to offset increases in costs due to the new wage, Cheung urged employers to communicate closely with their employees, particularly to have frank discussions [and to] work together. Unionist lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan said he was disappointed with the rate saying it will be based on figures two years old before its implementation, adding HK$28 an hour was not enough to provide for a family. He favored the HK$33 an hour rate supported by employee groups. Commission chairwoman Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah said the commission does not think a HK$33 hourly rate was sustainable. She noted, half the burden would eat into company profits while the number of companies falling into the red would go up by 60 percent. She added those companies employed 120,000 workers. Catering lawmaker Tommy Cheung Yu-yan said the new wage would be difficult for smaller operators to bear, calling for government relief such as the waiver of licenses fees for one year and subsidies (RTTNews) Hong Kong will implement its first minimum wage rate, set at HK$28 per hour, from next year, the Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said Wednesday. The initial statutory minimum wage rate at 3. 61 per hour in U.S dollar terms will come into force on May 1, 2011. The rate was higher than that demanded by business, and less than the HK$33 favored by trade unions. Cheung said that the statutory minimum wage, which is totally new to Hong Kong, is intended to protect grassroots workers and ensure that the pay that they get is commensurate with the hours worked. Regarding the wage rate, Chief Executive Donald Tsang said that it has been a subject of controversy and it is also a milestone in our protection of the rights of low-income workers. The minimum wage ordinance notice 2010 will be published in the Gazette on November 12 and tabled at the Legislative Council on November 17. About 314,600 or 11. 3% of Hong Kongs employees will be effected by the change, with 61. 4% being women staff, 25. 3% employees aged 55 and above, and 18. 8% part-time workers, the governments information service department said. In July, Hong Kongs Legislative Council passed the Minimum Wage Bill without stipulating the actual wage and thereafter formed a committee to set the minimum rate.

Continuity and Change in Chinese Nationalist Ideology World War I to Present Essay Example for Free

Continuity and Change in Chinese Nationalist Ideology World War I to Present Essay Since the beginning of the First World War to the present, nationalist ideology within China has caused change and continuity in several aspects of this nation’s society. One major change in China from the First World War to the present is its foreign relations with other countries due to factors such as communism and neocolonialism. Although China has changed in this way, it has remained one united nation despite foreign invasion and other internal/external conflicts. In the early 1900s, China was a state of continual civic and revolutionary unrest. As support for revolutionary efforts began to spread, China shifted from a monarchy to a republic. However, this rule didn’t last long as warlords within the nation began establishing themselves as regional or provincial rulers. This helped lead to the deterioration of Chinese society. Another factor leading away from a centralized state was fragmented relations with foreign powers. Since the 1900s, a network of foreign control over the Chinese economy had been established by the unequal treaties, which effectively prevented economic development within China. These treaties and other concessions permitted foreigners to intervene in Chinese society and not control the state, but impair its sovereignty. After the First World War, nationalism began to develop rapidly in China. China eagerly looked to the U. S. government to support the elimination of the treaty systems and the full restoration of Chinese sovereignty. However, when the U. S. approved increasing Japanese interference in China, this sparked the May Fourth Movement. Chinese people protested Japanese interference and began to re-establish national unity. As China began shifting from a divided sphere of influence to a dominant world power, it also became more influenced by communism. During the Second World War, the majority of concern to combat communism was in the Soviet Union. While this was taking place we, the U. S. , neglected to aid the efforts of Jiang Jieshi, who sought to unify the nation of China and bring the conflicts of nationalism and communism to an end. In his place, Jiang Jieshi leaves behind a void of power. Communist leader, Mao Zedong stepped up to fill this void. He like many other rulers in China used the Mandate of Heaven to justify his rise to power and take control of China. In 1949, Mao started the Red Revolution, a revolutionary effort to spread communism in China. Communism soon overpowered the nationalist party as the main ruling party. Mao also aimed to make China a self-reliant, isolated nation. However in doing so, China could not economically support itself or its communist views. In the 1970s the People’s Republic of China began large, radical economic reforms forcing the country to become one of the most capitalistic nations in the world. China quickly added itself to the global economy by opening its borders to the trade of various nations. China soon became the economic power that it is today and despite all the turmoil that has occurred from the First World War to the present, China has remained one united nation. From the past to the present, the ideology behind Chinese nationalism has been in a constant state of change. The shift in government and foreign relations throughout the world has been a major source of China’s nationalism. Although these foreign relations are constantly changing, China has remained a unified nation.

Supervision And Training Skills In The Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay

Supervision And Training Skills In The Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay As per the case study the courthouse hotel is a privately owned establishment which is considered as the major hotel in the city. As it is a three star hotel it needs to control its cost so that the hotel runs on profit margin and not on the loss side. Keeping these things into mind the hotel keeps its cost low as compared to others hotels operated in the city. Only few managers and staff members of the hotel use to work once a week in comparison to a month. As the management wants to restaff its organization they need to keep in mind certain factors as the the person should be having good communication skills, should give good level of service to the guest, well gained with good qualifications. In this case study the hotel is moving from three star to four star hotel so he needs to follow the managerial functions which will lead a organizations to high limits. SUMMARY: Staffing is a term that refers to the management of employee schedules. For many retail businesses, staffing is monitored hourly because the cost of employee pay checks is a significant cost driver for the organization. (MANAGING HOTELS EFFECTIVELY, EDDYSTONE C.NEBEL,3 EDITION,PAGE NO.159) Staffing also says that the persons should be recruited in such a manner that the organisation should get ample level of service that a hotel wants from them in order to run on profit margins. No. of staff in the hotel is one of the main key point so that in order to run a company or organisation there is ample staff to run so that it should provide good level of service. Staffing is one of the most vital functions in the function of management. As staffing is all about recruiting the people whenever a new hotel opens. It also acts as ongoing functions because of high rate of employee rate and management turnover. As this turnover rate the hotel needs to restaff its hotel with proper selection of employees keeping in mind that they are well trained enough to run the hotel and leads the hotel towards profits. Properly designing jobs staffed by employees well suited to their work is an important first step in providing superior guest service.(MULLENS 1985) (MANAGING HOTELS EFFECTIVELY,EDDYSTONE C.NEBEL,3 EDITION,PAGE NO.159). As the courthouse is changing his level of service and recruiting more peoples he needs to keep in mind some of the key points which need to run the hotel and to maintain the profit margin. The following key points or staffing issue are as follows: Training and development:- Training is designed to improve the knowledge or skills of the hotels staff . It is obvious to train the staff in order to do the required job or say task.(Hotel operations management,david k.Hayes,jack d.ninemeir, edition 2,115,116). As the hotel is recruiting new staff for the upcoming four star hotel he need to keep several things in mind that the employee should be enough skillfull so that he can run the organisation in profit margin and his recruitment is also depends on the qualification he holds. Training also plays a vital role in the development of the employee as the hotel is allocated to Germans there is a need of training to be developed in them that how to welcome them and the way of communication. It is important to develop the training program both for the benefit of the staff and the organisation.(supervisory management, Robert w.eckles,Ronald l.carmicael, Bernard r. sarchet IInd edition,338). In order to maintain the standard and level of service the hotel needs to give the same level of service to the German peoples and this is possible by training the staff more efficiently and making them enough skilful so that they can caters the needs of them. Directing: The second key point which a hotel needs to keep in mind is the directing as it is a managerial function which initiates action. Its primarily means issuing instruction, assignment ,and directives (orders). Directing also includes building an effective work force encouraging each employee to work willingly and enthusiastically towards the accomplishment of the desired objectives. (Supervision: concept and practices of management,theo haimann, Raymond l. Hilgert,edition 4th ,305). As the hotel is changing from three star to four star hotel so it needs to follow some strategies which can take them to high sky so that it can make profit out of it. Directing in this case study plays an important role as the hotel is changing his level of service as the German is allocated to the courthouse hotel. The hotel has to direct the staff in order to meet the challenge they are about to accept. Giving right direction to the employees can result into profit for the organisation. Directing employees according to the needs of the Germans can result into good customer satisfaction. Directing can also be defined as the art of encourage for the staff to work more effectively and efficiently. In order to do any task we need to have some direction or say planning so that we should know that the work we are doing is going on the right direction or not. Directing to the staff boosts themselves to earn more confidence in what they are doing and the result they want to cater to them is also on the right direction. .(supervision: concept and practices of management,theo haimann, Raymond l. Hilgert,edition 4th ,305). Time management and activity planning: In order to complete the task we need to keep in mind the time factor which plays an important role in doing the activity or a task. In order maintain time management we need to do a certain planning by which the task can be completed. working smart is more important then working hard. To be effective or in order to maintain the time management and activity planning u need to keep some factors in mind:- Devising action plans. Delegating the actions needed to achieve the objectives. Providing support and help whenever needed. (Hospitality retail management, Conrad lashley, ed 2000, 209). As in the case study the hotel is moving from 3 stars to 4 stars and in the coming months the hotel is setting up a plan for opening the banquet halls and room service. In order to run smooth organisation we need to manage the time factor which is very important. Doing the work in the specified period of time is what success all about is in hotels. In order to run a smooth organisation we need to manage all the activity in time. As the banquet is opening so the staff should be more specific about the time management and in that time they need to plan a activity which should be completed in the required time. (Hospitality retail management, Conrad lashley, ed 2000, 209). 2(A) Existing staff may react to the following changes in the following ways: Overtime : As the staff requires ample amount of training in there development so they need to cope up with the skills which can run the smooth organisation. As in the case study first there was only few staff working and that only one weekend in a month. So the new staff might have problem as they have to give extra hours to there work. The problem can be the work pressure on them as they were if working for 10 hrs but now they are working for 20 hrs. (managing change, carnall,1991,92 ) Work load or stress on employees: Changes creates anxiety, uncertainty and stress, even for those managing change. Even peoples are fully committed to change may experience stress .( managing change, carnall,1991,92). As per the case study first the worker were doing their job as per the requirements but now as the new facilities are introduced in the hotel they need to give more attention to their work and this might can take them to stress and overtime in their duty rota. Mutual understanding between the employees: If there will be no understanding between the employees there can be a situation of disputes regarding the wages as the people of the hotel which are new are not familiarise. Planning, organising and staffing can be used as preparatory or preliminary managerial function. The problem of directing can also come into this as everyone has its own way of doing the work. As earlier there was no one to tell them what the best way of doing work is. But now they are pointing out different queries that this is not the way to do the work. (Supervision: concepts and practices of management,4th edition,305) As if there will be no planning no organising and no proper staffing then will be no proper directing towards the work. Even more without these management problems the organisation cannot run properly and proper planning=proper organising=proper staffing= proper directing staff. Every one has its own way of working and if someone impose some thing on them then there is a problem which arises in the organisation and to them also. Steps could a supervisor take to minimize the impact of these reactions are: A supervisor can change the individuals who work in the organisation. In order to follow the managerial functions the supervisor need to follow them on the workers as if the supervisor is planning a strategy then the staff should implement it as a supervisor will not tell something else which will lead a organisation towards the negative level..(managing change 2nd edition, Christopher mabey, bill mayon-white, 165 ) working smart is more important then working hard.(hospitality retail management,2000,Conrad lashley,209). This is what a supervisor wants to tell his employees that dont be in any hesitations jus ask the problem which you want to. Dont jus do the work but should know that what work are doing. Planning for each organisation and time management allow to run the organisation more efficiently and more effectively.(hospitality retail management,2000, Conrad lashley,210). The supervisor maintains the time in which the certain task have to be fulfilled and for doing so the supervisor do a meeting in which he get assured by all the worker to finish there task according to the time give by him. Conclusion After the discussion on the staffing issue and to the proposed changes the conclusion comes that the in order to run a smooth organisation we need to follow the important or say relevant steps for the profit margin. Staffing a right employee and motivating him towards his work is more important if a organisation want to be success in future. As courthouse is moving from three star to for star he need to develop certain strategies and need to be implemented. After developing these implement on them the hotel will be running in profits in the coming future and there will be good level of service which will cater to the guests. The more skillfull the staff will be the more quick service he will be catering to the guest.

Greenwashing in Media Essay -- Ethical Issues, Misleading Customers

Research ProjectGreenwashing in Media In this day and age companies have mastered the technique of misleading customers by fabricating false claims about a green product or service that they swear to provide. This insincere display of information is called ‘Greenwashing’, a spin-off of ‘Whitewashing’. Greenwashing could be said to be a global phenomenon and it’s commonly seen in advertisements, on products packing, websites, emails, speeches, and videos (just to name a few). Greenwashing is a thought out process, a planned and typically well designed campaign. There is a wide range of reasons why companies are eager to partake in greenwashing; divert attention for regulatory change, to persuade critics or consumers, expand the company's market, and to make the company seem appealing. The goal of this paper is to provide three examples of ‘greenwashing’ and to relate these examples to Downing et al. concepts. To help further explain these misleading claims, a well recognized company by the media is called Terrachoice. â€Å"The Terrachoice Environment Marketing Consulting practice converts knowledge of markets, science and marketing into winning, client-centered solutions to help sustainability leaders deliver results† (â€Å"The "six sins," 2007). Terrachoice has conducted a study of the â€Å"Environmental Claims in North American Consumer Markets† and found shocking results that made them want to give warning to potential consumers about the ‘six sins of greenwashing. The Terrachoice Company was designed to improve the communication between the purchasers and consumers, helping to enhance, strengthen, and prove market relationship. Companies that carry out greenwashing commonly use the words, ‘green’, ‘energy efficient’, and ‘clean’ to expo... ...efit† (p. xx). More and more individuals will run into greenwashing ads from the news to even advertising; however it’s important to recognize the exaggeration, persuasiveness and omission of information in these ads. It’s evident that any form of media is filled with manipulation; pulling the perception, actions, fears, desires, and values out of the consumer. In our text Downing et al. begins saying, â€Å"empiricist communications research†¦are concerned more with questions, problems, and perspectives than with the mere recitation of detailed facts. Indeed, critical scholars would argue that facts by themselves are impossible to interpret if they are not placed into some model or theory about how the media and society work† (xxviii). I think this sums up why we all should be critical in a positive manner, and should use the theories that help us analyze media material.

A Critical Interpretation of Hans Kung?s Historical Analysis of the Dev

A Critical Interpretation of Hans Kung’s Historical Analysis of the Development of the Hierarchical Church   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The beginnings of the Christian church are shrouded in mystery. With the lack of evidence about that time in history, it is hard to draw conclusions of any type. However, the historical analyst, Hans Kung, has written a book to shed some light on the subject. In this book, Kung discusses his opinion on the development of the early church, and its hierarchical structure. In the following paper, I will address two of the chapters of Kung’s book, â€Å"The Beginnings of the Early Church† and â€Å"The Early Catholic Church†. The points that I will focus on are: The makeup and persecution of the early church community and why it was that way, and how, according to Kung, the founders of Catholicism went against how Jesus wanted the church to be governed by establishing a hierarchy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Christian church, according to Kung, began at Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit came to the apostles and told them to go out and preach the teachings of Jesus it meant that the apostles could claim an identity separate from Judaism. The majority of the first Christians were Jews from Jerusalem that believed that Jesus was the Messiah promised to the Jews in the Hebrew Testament and they believed in the resurrection. â€Å"The earliest Christian community did not want in any way to part company with the Jewish community or nation, but to remain integrated into Judaism.†(P. 13). The differences in the beliefs of the Jews and the Jewish-Christians naturally created a separation in the two groups. When the Christian disciples started going out and preaching their faith to people, the Roman Empire saw them as a threat to their power and decided that Christianity would have to be stopped. Because Christianity and Judaism were one, the two most effective ways to persecute the Christians was to execute their leaders, and to destroy the Jewish places of worship. After the Romans burned the Temple of Jerusalem for the second time, a council of Pharisees decided that the Christians were to be excommunicated from the Jewish temple.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  If not for the early connection to the Jewish faith, the Christian religion would never have established as a major religion. The idea of having one God, called monotheism, was too radi... ... what they thought, there would be no extravagance in the lives of the church officials. Likewise, if the church truly believed in what Jesus taught, they would not be shunning the participation of women in the church; rather, they would be embracing all the people that truly wished to participate in the vocation of a priest or any position in the church for that matter.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In conclusion, the early Christian church had its problems in who was accepted into the new faith and why they were persecuted for it. This was because, during the height of the Roman Empire, any group of people that could be dangerous to Roman ideology would not be tolerated, and the Romans would attempt to put a stop to it. These persecutions of the Christians, however, strengthened, not weakened the Christian church to a point that there would be no way to disperse the community of believers. The main reason that the church stayed together like it did was because of the early establishment of a hierarchy, which, while Kung speculates, would not be the way that Jesus would have wanted the church to be governed, worked in establishing the Christian community into a world religion.

The Sun Also Rises Essay -- essays research papers

The Sun Also Rises   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes is a lost man who wastes his life on drinking. Towards the beginning of the book Robert Cohn asks Jake, â€Å"Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize that you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?† Jake weakly answers, â€Å"Yes, every once in a while.† The book focuses on the dissolution of the post-war generation and how they cannot find their place in life. Jake is an example of a person who had the freedom to choose his place but chose poorly. This point of Jake’s life is centered on readjusting himself to normal life after World War I. Jake is lost and doesn’t know what to do. He has a few friends w...

Microsoft Windows operating system

Known by its codename â€Å"Longhorn†, Windows Vista finished development on November 8, 2006. However, development completion was not automatically followed by public release. Instead, the following three months saw the operating system released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. Only at the end of January the following year was Windows Vista finally released worldwide for the use of the general public. This latest release of a Microsoft Windows operating system version took the longest time to happen among all previous releases. It took Microsoft more than five years to finish Windows Vista after it had previously introduced Windows XP. While these two circumstances of Vista’s release led most critics to question Microsoft’s capability of coming up with better versions of its Windows operating system series, a better understanding of the nature of digital products and the intrinsic complexities that need to be considered in the development of such technology would reveal that all the delays were necessary steps that Microsoft had t take to ensure the Windows Vista’s successful public launch. The Complexity of Digital Products Unlike physical products like cars or cans of beans, manufacturing digital products naturally takes a longer time to get finalized. Firstly, developmental factors to consider are exponentially more dynamic. A software manufacturing company has to consider the amount of material being released by the day over the internet regarding the performance of their old products as well as improvements made on the products of their competition. With the emergence of other operating systems like UNIX, Linux, and Macintosh’s Mac OS X Tiger which are increasingly becoming more popular among consumers, it becomes even more important for Windows developers to spend as long a time as it takes to gather as much enough data on what new features would be most innovative and least redundant so as to obtain a better market share. Secondly, unlike in the case of car manufacturing wherein new models that look different but run on the same engines can command significant buyer preferences, a new version of a software that only â€Å"looks† different but is otherwise the same as its predecessor would be severely rejected by consumers. There has to be a significant difference between the features of previous software and that of its successor in order for the new product to be at least marketable. After the release of Windows XP, Vista’s predecessor, little room for improvement was left to Windows where appearances were concerned. Therefore, Microsoft had to make drastic changes to XP’s successor if it hoped to be able to convince the public that Vista was worth buying. As a result, Windows Vista was released containing hundreds of new and reworked features. It contains a new concept of graphical user interface dubbed Windows Aero that is unlike any other that currently exists in the market. Its improved multimedia creation tools include a DVD maker that was completely redesigned from the preceding generally unpopular Windows Movie Maker. The Windows Explorer's task panel was removed in favor for a â€Å"Favorite links† panel that was determined to be a potentially more useful feature. Even the address bar was replaced with a new breadcrumb navigation system that makes it much easier to jump from one previously viewed page to another (Windows Vista). All these changes are extremely unlike those seem in the transitions from Windows 95 to Windows XP, and they would not have been possible had Microsoft not taken their time. Security ; Stability: O.S. Essentials In the advent of the world’s growing dependence on ecommerce, it becomes a prime imperative to secure one’s computer from hostile access. Much like how physical security providers test new systems, so do operating system manufacturers test theirs in order to ensure that as much freedom from possible corruption or intrusion is provided. Consumers will not trust a new O.S. product if there is any significant reason to worry that using it would put the sensitive financial and personal information they store in their computers at risk. This is why manufacturers typically undergo several stages of testing that was seen in the case of Windows Vista. This process generally consists of three stages: 1.) internal, 2.) operational, and 3.) external (Grover 78). Internal testing usually takes the longest to complete. It is also where the manufacturers locate most of the possible sources of instability such as program bugs, and script errors. However, testing an operating system’s security capabilities cannot be extensively done during the internal testing stage. This is because the manufacturers need to expose the software to the actual hostile environment of the World Wide Web. Thus, the operational stage sees manufacturers periodically releasing the operating system to semi-controlled entities such as distributors or selected test groups in order to try how the system would fare at the hands of relatively typical users when facing the different viruses, worms, and hacking programs at large in the internet. It is also in the operation stage where manufacturers release the operating system to software and hardware manufacturers in order to gauge the new system’s compatibility with new devices and programs that would also be released in the market. Finally, even after the release of the operating system, the external testing stage is where manufacturers set up means to gather as much feedback from consumers as possible in order to fix any problems that the first two stages might have overlooked. The chances of problems occurring at the third stage of testing should be highly unlikely but the stage is nonetheless implemented as a failsafe mechanism. Microsoft had followed all the necessary stages in new product development where operating systems are concerned. This explains also explains that long time it took for Vista to come out as well as the necessity of the delay of its release to the public. Work Cited: Grover, John J. Product Development: A Managerial Perspective. Simmons ; Sons: New York, 2004 Windows Vista. 2007. Microsoft Website. July 20, 2007 ;http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/default.mspx;