Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Residential Housing Essay Example for Free

Residential Housing Essay KB Home, one of the major housing companies in the market made a statement telling the public that they do not see housing sector to stabilize by this year. Number of housing companies has been acquiring great losses by the end of 2005 as disposable income of consumers’ declines as the consequence of lowering down of per capita income in the economy. According to the President and Chief Executive Officer of KB Home, Jeffrey Mezger, they have suffered to a staggering loss of nearly $10 per share during the first quarter of 2007 (Steverman 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Deutsche Bank’s economists, Peter Hopper, said that the housing correction works sluggishly just like a ‘slow-motion train wreck’ which made worse the housing sector of the economy. Moreover, the said loss of KB Home worse than what they have expected. Analysts expects around $7 loss per share which is very far from the $10 per share loss accounted last quarter. Therefore, with the further worsening of the stock prices in the stock market, this only means that there will be no improvement in the coming first quarter of 2008.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   To make the situation worse, there has been a rumor in the market regarding the bankruptcy of Countrywide which supplies loans and mortgages worth 2 million and 9 million respectively. Countrywide suffered from 25 percent losses as of January 8 of this year. Meaning, there would be a shortage on the supply of loan and mortgages in the financial market just in case Countrywide is really approaching to bankruptcy. Moreover, the shortage of supply of loans and mortgages in the economy will only worsen the purchasing power of the consumers, giving way for a further deterioration of demand to housing industry.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One possible reason behind the turmoil in the housing industry would be the oversupply of homes in the market creating a pressure for its prices to decline. By the time price level of housing units starts to decline, profitability of housing companies begins to deteriorate giving way for experiencing a low return on investment in the next quarter. Driven by speculation, investors will start to pull out their stocks in the housing sector causing stock prices to turn down. In this regard, the connection between the oversupply of housing unit in the market with the deterioration of stock prices is already established. Moreover, it is not only the oversupply of housing units in the market that caused the instability of the housing sector. The growing competition also adds up to the growth of the problem. At the end of the day, market analysts still believes that housing sector will not recover this year based from the current degree of losses that housing companies and financial institutions had experienced on the last quarter of 2007. Analysis   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is true that the turmoil in the housing sector started during the last quarter of 2005 when consumers have high disposable income. During then, consumers spent more in the housing market attracting the housing companies to produce more house units next quarter. By the start of the first quarter of 2006, per capita income of consumers starts to decline giving them a limited disposable income for housing sector. At this point, the housing industry experienced oversupply of housing units since companies did not anticipate the deterioration of consumer’s disposable income. The said oversupply caused the price level of the housing companies to decline causing the return on investment to depreciate which later on forced stock holder to withdraw their stocks in the market. The increasing competition in the housing sector also add up to the lowering down of housing unit prices since companies in this industry starts to compete each other through price competition. Meaning, housing companies tries to lower down the prices of their home units in order to attract more customers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The negative effects of eh oversupply of housing units will not be that severe if there is only adequate number of financial institutions that will provide loans and mortgages to uplift the purchasing power of the consumers, therefore, improving the demand on the housing industry. But the problem now would be, even financial lenders is also having a hard time providing loans and mortgages due to the low income level of consumers in the market which imposes the threat of bankruptcy   to the financial lenders.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It would be best if the government would start making action by offering low interest rate on credit. The federal bank must structuralize a special credit scheme for housing sector customers, e.g. low interest rate on borrowing or longer payment period, in order to solve the problem of over supply on the said industry.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another way by which the government could solve this instability of housing sector would be to provide financial aids to Countrywide which, as what have already pointed out during the first part of the paper, plays a major role in uplifting the purchasing power of consumers though provision of loans and mortgages that can be used in purchasing housing units. The said government aid may be in the form of monetary of fiscal Moreover, the government could also increase the wage rate of the workers in the economy in order to improve the current level of disposable incomes of consumers in the market. By the time the disposable income of consumers increase, they will now have enough money to purchase housing units which will solve the problem regarding the oversupply of home units. Works Cited Steverman, Ben â€Å"Housing: A Fresh Jolt of Bad News.† 8 January 2008. Business Week. 11 February 2008 http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jan2008/pi2008018_503594.htm?chan=search.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Write about the ways in which Charles Dickens presented the female :: Free Essay Writer

Write about the ways in which Charles Dickens presented the female characters in Great Expectations Charles Dickens was born on the 7th February 1812. He is known as one of the greatest writer of his time, creating classics that are still appreciated to this day. Surprisingly he had very little education and taught himself. At a young age Dickens was interested in becoming a reporter and writing and as well as writing fiction, he edited a weekly journal for twenty years. Dickens died on 9th June 1870, at the age of 58. The novel Great Expectations was first published in 1861. The novel was first published in a weekly magazine in several different parts and when finally finished it was published as a book. As it was serialised there were many cliff hangers leaving the reader wanting to read on. It is about Pip who is orphaned at birth, he lives with his strict sister and her husband, a blacksmith. His fate takes a new course when he is summoned to meet Miss Havisham, a rich lady driven to the edge of sanity after being jilted at the altar. Pip slowly becomes infatuated with Miss Havisham's adopted daughter Estella and his hopes of winning her are boosted when he learns that someone has left him a generous amount of money. The story takes some great twists; the three main female characters are Mrs Joe Gargery, Miss Havisham, and Estella, all which are portrayed differently in the novel. The Victorian period was extremely different; the hierarchical system was much more important, and at the time the novel was written there were many controversial political issues. At the time the novel was published rarely did women have an education or work. Charles Dickens depicted men and women as existing within different social spaces. With the exception of Estella, who travels from Satis House to London, all of Dickens's female characters are contained within the home. Women were stereotyped as housewives, and did not have much control over their own lives as women were seen to be owned by their husbands. In Great Expectations we can see how the women who fit Dickens' ideas were rewarded with happy lives, usually in the form of marriage, like Biddy. On the other hand, the women who did not conform to these ideas were punished in one way or another. Even though not all of Dickens' attitudes reflected what was typical of the period, many did. Great Expectations is a reflection of those attitudes that were most likely encouraged by the women in his life. The female characters physical appearance plays a big part, as it

Monday, January 13, 2020

Organizational Controls Essay

The case describes one of the most common problems that arise in cross-cultural business expansions without accounting for cultural and social differences across borders. Lincoln is a well established company with a great concurrent control system which enables it to move swiftly through processes and end up with phenomenal figures of efficiency and productivity. The control system at Lincoln is concurrent, although it can be argued that the system has certain similarities with the feed-forward control system. However, one thing is certain: the system is quick and flexible to change quickly which does not consist of the slowness of the feedback system. In particular such a system along with the different types of reward schemes makes Lincoln highly successful in the United States. It would be really difficult to find an organization comparable to Lincoln in terms of the amounts and kinds of rewards given to its employees. The different employee rewarding schemes are all tools and techniques which Lincoln has adapted to over the years because of the realization of the fact that employees in the US are highly motivated through pay-based rewards. (Susan Meredith, 2004) Essentially speaking it is this single factor which has contributed largely to the success of Lincoln in the US and the different kinds of pay-based rewards only seek to satisfy all kinds of people with different ideas and expectations for pay-based rewards. It should be understood by the management of Lincoln when they are transporting the US approach to other cultures that the cultures of different nations maybe and probably are entirely different from the American culture. It is not necessary that the same kinds of objects and pay-based rewards may drive them and motivate them towards high productivity. There are a lot of other intrinsic rewards available at the disposal of managers to use to meet the demands of the workforce. The same types of rewards may not work on different cultures due to the social and political circumstances of those nations. Employees may have different needs, which if met by the management, will motivate them to work harder and achieve levels of high productivity and efficiency. (Daft, 2001) The problem made by the management at Lincoln was to generalize that fact that pay-based and other monetary rewards will definitely motivate employees to achieve high productivity and efficiency. Instead, the operations failed due to the different cultures having different motivational factors, which obviously were not identified by the Lincoln management. The suggestion here to be followed by the management is to identify through research and internal mingling the factors that affect motivation and job satisfaction amongst the different cultures in which they have expanded their operations to and address specifically those issues to reap the same results as in the US. (Robbins, 2004) Employees would maintain their relationship and confidence in Lincoln only if the organization upholds it’s the expectations the employees and their unions hold from them. If Lincoln is unable to pay its US workers the bonus they deserve, Lincoln will be in deep trouble. The overall situation would go from bad to worse. It should be understood that the US employees had no share or tear in Lincoln’s expansions and that the losses arising as a result of the bad policies implemented in the new acquisitions was not transferable onto the US employees. Thus, Lincoln should not dishearten the US employees or risk the deterioration of employee satisfaction, morale and motivation which will affect Lincoln negatively in a significant manner. (Robbins, 2004) Therefore, I believe that Lincoln should borrow money to pay its US workers the bonus they actually deserve to take no risks in losing potential employees to its competitors or risk the loss of employee boost and motivation due to a break in expected promises.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

The Corporate Social Responsibilities Of A Sustainable...

During the 1970s, the Business world became aware of damages engendered by the human activity, in particular environmental damages. For this reason appeared the notion of  « sustainable development  » in the Brundland report (1987). This notion can be defined as the mean to assure the development of the current generation without compromising the development of future generations. The Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) are in a sense the contribution of companies to respect the stakes of the sustainable development. According to Carroll (1983), â€Å"corporate social responsibility involves the conduct of a business so that it is economically profitable, law abiding, ethical and socially supportive†. The Corporate Social Responsibilities of companies is a sort of self-regulation based on social, environmental and economic concerns. This match the â€Å"triple bottom line† theory: â€Å"People, Planet, Profit†. Over the years, Corporate Social Responsibil ity expanded and became very important in the Business organisation and a large number of companies take part in CSR initiatives. In 2004, approximately 90% of the 500 best performing companies according to Fortune magazine had invested in CSR efforts. However, we might wonder what are the pros and the cons of Corporate Social Responsibility for employees, management, organisation, society and environment? On one hand, I will deal with the dangers of Corporate Social Responsibility and on the other hand I will dealShow MoreRelatedCorporate Social Responsibility And Sustainable Development Model For Corporates2862 Words   |  12 Pages National Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility in Vels University on 12th, 13th Feb 2015 Author/Research scholar: M.Manikandan(UP13G9560003),Co-Author: A.Vanmathi (UP13G9560004). Page 1 Corporate Social Responsibilities and Sustainable development Model for Corporates Author/Research scholar: M. Manikandan(UP13G9560003), maximamani@aim.com,Vels University-Chennai. Co-Author/Research scholar: A.Vanmathi (UP13G9560004),vanmathianbananthan@yahoo.com,Vels University, Chennai. Guide :DrRead MoreLogistics Industry and Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting A closer look at involvement of UPS, FedEx and DHL on Sustainable Development issues2979 Words   |  12 PagesThe logistics industry has received globally, a lot of publicity regarding the industrys attitudes on, and actions in, corporate responsibility issues. The different stakeholder groups are interested in the logistics industrys ways of action concerning these issues. The logistics industry has had to react to these new kinds of demands and questions from the stakeholders. 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