buy custom My Life Had Stood - a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson essay

buy custom My Life Had Stood - a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson essay The poem is about a human person who is actively and willingly used as a hunter. The person is like a loaded gun that is condemned to remain inactive until the owner takes possession of it. The gun has in it energy that is capable of stirring echoes in the mountains and energy capable of lighting up valleys. Despite all these, it is deadly and that is why the owner uses it against his foes. The hunter also uses the gun to speak for him. When reading the poem there is a sense of power based on rage. The speaker compares her life to that of unused loaded gun that fulfills its purpose to kill and finds joy in performing the purpose. The conventional understanding of the metaphor of the poem lies in the idea that the Master is God. The speaker is thus picked up by God and becomes his marksman. The speaker after being picked becomes a staunch defender and fulfils its role of being powerful. She acts only at the masters bidding, shares his voice and in someway becomes immortal (Emily and Vendler, 101). Serving God therefore makes the speaker further the power of her existence.Dickinson uses implicit criticism to portray God as a murderous hunter of man. He describes that he uses death to gleefully execute people. She portrays God as aloof, vindictive, insensitive and invasive to man. From the beginning, the poet stood at the corner without purpose. She was then found by a hunter who knew her purpose because he was her Master. The master therefore used her to express this purpose. Like a gun (used symbolically) she is used for shooting the. The female deer (doe) is presumably killed by the hunter during his hunting spree. Picking a feminist point of view, this represents how female writers are forced to suppress or kill part of themselves to write. Te speaker has power, control and a destructive purpose that creates joy and satisfaction in her personality. The speaker says that she (the gun) will live longer than the master i.e. Though I than He may longer live (Emily and Vendler, 101) but it may not be true living because it is stated that she has no power to die. This is so because in the context of life, death defines life. The poet writes, He longer must than I this means that the speaker will last longer than the master and the master in the true meaning o f the world will outlive the speaker. Hunting in the woods helps reestablish a close relationship with nature and establishes a sense of control. This is expressed by the words the woods are sovereign. The speaker prefers to stand guard over the master than share his soft downy pillow. We realize that she refuses the softer life and prefers the homelier alternative (Emily and Vendler, 102). The central dilemma of the poem becomes that of the fusion of force and the agent, violence and the perpetrator and the gun and the owner. This is clearly highlighted in the second stanza where the speaker uses the word we to fuse together their acting as one. The gun symbolizes power, rage and violence. Guns are always dangerous since they have the power to take away life by a single shot. Introducing the reader to the gun enables us to edge and be attentive when reading the rest of the poem. The gun therefore becomes an extended metaphor in the poem since it represents the speakers power to kill. When loaded, it can be used for hunt ing since it is deadly. The poet writes every time I speak for Him . -taking on his voice (Emily and Vendler, 101) to indicate that every time the gun goes off it communicates something for the master. In the fifth stanza, the two are indistinguishable. The usage of the statement Yellow Eye.. refers to the gun explosion picked from the sentence on whom I layan emphatic Thumb. The thumb clearly means that the owner cocking the gun making it ready for action. The last stanza also fuses the entities together by tying their lives and deaths together (Emily and Vendler, 105). The stanza makes this interdependence complicated making it impossible to distinguish one from the other. The speaker has deliberately shed the self protective layer of protective feminine personality as symbolized by the use of doe and deep pillow of masochistic eider duck to uncover the true self within. It depicts a kind of hardness, rage and the desire for revenge and aggression. Like Dickinsons other poems, the theme of death and supremacy is evident here. Death is not powerful in the poem but the ability to die is highlighted as the most powerful act. It clearly shows how intricate life and death are tied such that one cannot exist without death. Thus the explanation that the gun may longer live that the master, means that the gun does not really live at all since it has no power to die (Emily and Vendler, 105). Despite the dangers expressed by the personality and the recognition of the apparent dehumanization personality, the poet takes a great risk of being murderous. She portrays herself as a gun with rage becoming part of her being. Rage defines her inhuman and unwomanly thought making her a master of herself. Finally, the poems depth of thought, ambiguity, style, concise language and simultaneous definitions combine to make the poem a master piece. Buy custom My Life Had Stood - a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson essay

Pricing Kernels Defined in Relation to Asset Pricing

Pricing Kernels Defined in Relation to Asset Pricing The asset pricing kernel,  also known as the stochastic discount factor (SDF), is the random  variable that satisfies the function used in computing the price of an asset. Pricing Kernel and Asset Pricing   The pricing kernel, or stochastic discount factor, is an important concept in mathematical finance and financial economics. The term  kernel  is a common mathematical term used to represent an operator, whereas the term stochastic discount factor  has roots in financial economics and extends the concept of the kernel to include adjustments for risk. The fundamental theorem of asset pricing in finance suggests that the price of any asset is its discounted expected value of future payoff specifically under risk-neutral measure or valuation. Risk-neutral  valuation can only exist  if the market is free of arbitrage opportunities, or opportunities to exploit price differences between two markets and profit from the difference. This relationship between an assets price and its expected payoff is considered the underlying  concept behind all asset pricing. This expected payoff is discounted by a unique factor that depends upon the framework set forth by the market.  In theory, risk-neutral valuation (in which there is an absence of arbitrage opportunities in the market) implies the existence of some positive random variable or the stochastic discount factor. In risk-neutral  measure, this positive stochastic discount factor would theoretically be used to discount the payoff of any asset. Additionally, the existence of such a pricing kernel or stochastic discount factor is equivalent to the law of one price, which presumes that an asset must sell for the same price in all locales or, in other words, an asset will have the same price when exchange rates are taken into consideration. Real-Life Applications Pricing kernels have numerous uses in mathematical finance and economics. For instance, pricing kernels can be used to produce contingent claim prices. If we were to know the current prices of a set of securities in addition to the future payoffs of those securities, then a positive pricing kernel or stochastic discount factor would provide an efficient means of producing  contingent claim prices assuming an arbitrage-free market. This valuation technique is particularly helpful in an incomplete market, or a market in which total supply is not sufficient to meet the demand. Stochastic Discount Factors Apart from asset pricing, another use of the stochastic discount factor is in the evaluation of the performance of hedge funds managers. In this application, however, the stochastic discount factor would not strictly be considered the equivalent to a pricing kernel.

Human Nature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Human Nature - Essay Example Primarily, I believe one of the biggest problems in the determination of any other part of human nature do lie in the fact that we are all born from the influences coming out from the outside. All humans are part of human nature and can be changed as they learn and grow with the world around them. Humans do have ethics of caring, and if human capacity to caring is not practiced an individual loses his or her ability to care. However, I see a similar situation since human ability to caring is not inherent, but rather humans learn how to care. I also find another issue with several past and historic ideas concerning human nature lying within the context of human nature and how philosophers have approached it. While my beliefs may be stuck in God, I cannot support the use of the supernatural being as the main reason behind a universal human nature. This is because there exist several inconsistencies in the beliefs of humans. In conclusion, human nature will continue being a topic of debate for many years as humans try to label and prove using science the existence of human

Toyota Case Study Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Toyota Case Study - Assignment Example This may be seen as one of the key models for Toyota to consider in recognising the need for change, here the case study points to an organisation which is relatively closed, the company losing touch with its customer base and management team focusing upon internal interactions and change initiatives. Adoption of the open systems model for viewing an organisation may allow the company to concentrate to a greater extent upon the needs of its customers, rather than focusing upon internally hard systems issues. 2.0 Recommendations for Change Having analysed the case study and conducted the relevant situational analysis, it would appear that Toyota suffers from a number of major issues. The single two biggest issues which the company may be seen as facing are poor internal communications and a disconnect between the company and its customers in the market. Such issues have lead to poor product quality in recent years and the failure to develop new products which have a clear demand in so me local markets. In considering how Toyota is to overcome these problems, the report recommends a program of radical hard systems restructuring. Here Toyota should consider adopting a regionally based business model and move away from the current centralised model operated from Japan. The benefits of implementing such a change initiative would be that Toyota would be closer to its customers both geographically and from a communications perspective (Griffin and Pustay 2009). This would allow the company to develop products which are suited to localised needs, rather than developing a set of international products which are designed to appeal to a global market. In addition, Toyota would also be able to detect any problems within a local market in a much shorter space of time, than where communications as at present have to filter back to the head office in Japan. As such, the recommendation of this report is that Toyota should set up one head office function in each key national mar ket, each to be run as a separate strategic business unit. In making the changes, the researcher recommends that Lewin’s (1957) three stage model of change should be used. Here the model advocates three stages, namely â€Å"unfreeze† â€Å"move† and â€Å"Freeze.† In short, the unfreeze stage represents a preparatory stage in which members of the organisation are encouraged to both see the need for change and then move towards the planning required at the implementation stage. The move stage represents the actual implementation stage of a change initiative, finally the freeze stage represents a consolidation stage in which managers ensure changes to processes and practises are embedded in the organisation and old ways of working are not slipped back into. While Lewin’s (1957) three stages of change is a widely accepted model, it is not the only model which Toyota may consider. Another similar model is that of Kotter’s (1996) eight stage mode l for creating change which includes: Establishing a sense of urgency Creating a guiding coalition Developing a vision and strategy Communicating the change vision Empowering employees for broad based action Generating short term wins Consolidating gains Anchoring new approaches

Agency Problem Essay Example for Free

Agency Problem Essay Financial Management (Agency problem) Prepared by: Sami Hassan Saeed Singabi August 2008 Introduction Economic science teaches us that due to their subjective needs, individuals have subjective preferences, and hence different interest. Occasionally different subjective interests give rise to conflicts of interest between contracting partners. These conflicts of interest may result in turn, in one or both parties undertaking actions that may be against the interest of the other contracting partner. The primary reason for the divergence of objectives between managers and shareholders has been attributed to separation of ownership (shareholders) and control (management) in corporations. As a consequence, agency problems or principal-agent conflicts exist in the firm. Agency theory deals with such problem. Agency theory is concerned with how these agency problems affect the form of the contract and how they can be minimized, in particular, when contracting parties are variously informed (or uncertain). Agency problem A problem arising from a conflict of interest between principals such as investors and agents acting for them, such as brokers or managers. Agency problem refers to a conflict of interest arising between creditors, shareholders and management because of differing goals. It exists due to problems in corporate governance. A typical problem is that of senior management of a company, who are charged with running the business in the interests of shareholders; choose instead to operate to maximize their own interests. A simple example is the hired anager who fills his pockets at shareholders expenses. For example, an agency problem exists when management and shareholders have conflicting ideas on how the company should be run. Agency problems that arise in a corporation have troubled economists for some time. There are a number of mechanisms that have been used to try and reduce these agency problems. Many of these mechanisms try to link the managers compensation to the performance of the firm. Typical examples include performance shares, restricted stock grants, and executive stock options. This dissertation is an empirical study of whether the use of executive stock options has in fact reduced the agency problems between managers and stockholders. In this dissertation, two different testing methodologies are used to address the agency problem reduction issue. One methodology looks at some significant event such as a merger or divestiture to see if an executives holding of stock options affect what decisions are made. For example, do larger holdings of stock options motivate managers to take on riskier investments? By increasing the risk of the firm, managers can increase the value of the stock options. Another question of interest is whether in taking on risky investments; do executives increase the leverage of the firm? By increasing the leverage of the firm, the executive might increase the risk of the firm and thus the value of the option holdings. An agency relationship An agency relationship arises whenever one or more individuals, called principals, hire one or more other individuals, called agents, to perform some service and then delegate decision-making authority to the agents. The primary agency relationships in business are those :- (1) Between stockholders and managers and 2) Between debt holders and stockholders. These relationships are not necessarily harmonious; indeed, agency theory is concerned with so-called agency conflicts, or conflicts of interest between agents and principals. These relationships are not necessarily harmonious; indeed, agency theory is concerned with so-called agency conflicts, or conflicts of interest between agents and principals. Expansion increase potential agency problems, if you expanded to additional locations you could not physically be at all locations at the same time. Consequently, you would have to delegate decision-making authority to others. Creditors can protect themselves by: (1) Having the loan secured. (2) Placing restrictive covenants in debt agreements. (3) They charge a higher than normal interest rate to compensate for risk. Agency cost A type of internal cost that arises from, or must be paid to a manger acting on behalf of shareholders. Agency cost arises because of core problems such as conflicts of interest between share holders and management. Shareholders wish for management to run the company in away that increases shareholders value, but management may wish to grow the company in away that maximize their personal power and wealth that may not be in the best interest of shareholders. Agency costs are inevitable within an organization whenever shareholders are not completely in charge; the cost can usually be best spent on providing proper material incentives and moral incentives for agents to properly execute their duties, thereby aligning the interests of shareholders (owners) and agents. The principals (the shareholders) have to find ways of ensuring that their agents (the managers) act in their interests. This means incurring costs, ‘agency costs’, to (a) monitor managers’ behavior, and (b) create incentive schemes and control for managers to pursue shareholders’ wealth maximization. Various methods have been used to try to align the actions of senior management with the interests of shareholders, that is, to achieve ‘goal congruence’. Linking rewards to shareholder wealth improvements: Owners can grant directors and other senior managers share options. These ermit the managers to purchase shares at some date in the future at a price, which is fixed in the present. If the share price rises significantly between the dates when the option was granted and the date when the shares can be bought the manager can make a fortune by buying at the pre-arranged price and then selling in the market place. The managers under such a scheme have a clear interest in achieving a rise in share price and thus congruence comes about to some extent. An alternative method is to allot shares to managers if they achieve certain performance targets, for example, growth in earnings per share or return on shares. Sackings: The threat of being sacked with the accompanying humiliation and financial loss may encourage managers not to diverge too far from the shareholders’ wealth path. However this method is seldom used because it is often difficult to implement due to difficulties of making a coordinated shareholder effort. Selling shares threat and the take- over: Most of the large shareholders (especially institutional investors) of quoted companies are not prepared to put large resources into monitoring and controlling all the firms of which they own a part. Quite often their first response, if they observe that management is not acting in what they regard as their best interest, is to sell the share rather than intervene. This will result in a lower share price, making the raising of funds more difficult. If this process continues the firm may become vulnerable to a merger bid by another group of managers, resulting in a loss of top management posts. Fear of being taken over can establish some sort of backstop position to prevent shareholder wealth considerations being totally ignored. Corporate governance regulations: There is a considerable range of legislation and other regulatory pressures (e. g. the Companies Act) designed to encourage directors to act in shareholders’ interests. Within these regulations for example, the board of directors is not to be dominated by a single individual acting as both the chairman and chief executive. Also independently minded non-executive directors should have more power to represent shareholder interests; in particular, they should predominate in decisions connected with directors’ remuneration and auditing of firm’s accounts. Information flow: The accounting profession, the stock exchange, the regulating agencies and the investing public are continuously conducting a battle to encourage or force firms to release more accurate, timely and detailed information concerning their operations. An improved quality of corporate accounts, annual reports and the availability of other forms of information flowing to investors and analysts such as company briefings and press announcements help to monitor firms, and identify any wealth-destroying actions by wayward managers early. Conclusion Diffuse ownership of publicly held companies reduces the owners’ ability to monitor managers because they would have to bear the full monitoring costs while gaining only a small marginal benefit. Managers may therefore act to maximize their wealth through personal use of corporate assets, stock manipulation and sub optimal decisions at the owners expense. Thus agency theory practical mechanism is weak, because it is unable to provide practical conclusions with regard to agency problems. References: 1. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. htm 2. www. referenceforbusiness. com 3. Financial-dictionary. The free dictionary. com

Essay Comparing Solzhenitsyns Gulag and Camus The Stranger (The Outsider) :: comparison compare contrast essays

Camus' Stranger and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag      Ã‚  Ã‚   We must tell them what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here. 1    The dying words of Betsie ten Boom to her sister Corrie in the Ravensbruck concentration camp reveal a strength and victory even in great oppression. Historically, Christianity is full of voices crying victory in the midst of the terror. Elijah and David hiding in caves, the prophets of the Babylonian captivity, St. John's Apocalypse during the Domitian persecutions, the confessions of Foxe's martyrs all testify to God's power and truth even in the most severe circumstances. However, much twentieth-century writing sides with a view of God similar to that of Albert Camus--God either does not exist or is evil. The oppressive evil of our age is often used to prove divine indifference. Nevertheless, literature coming out of severe oppression often says the opposite. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn shares that for many the experience of injustice and oppression makes a person appreciate truth much more. And with truth comes a more orthodox Christian view of life.    Life's Suffering Proves God Does Not Care    Camus wrote, "An injustice remains inextricably bound to all suffering, even the most deserved in the eyes of man."2 Suffering and injustice should demonstrate divine indifference to any "thinking person."    Knowing whether or not man is free involves knowing whether he can have a master ... For in the presence of God there is less a problem of freedom than a problem of evil." You know the alternative: either we are not free and God the all-powerful is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible but God is not all-powerful.3    Seeing the promises of both Christianity and Socialism as offering hollow hopes, Camus opts for the "happy" state of "no hope." At least, then, the problem of suffering and injustice is understood when the thinker partakes of "the wine of the absurd and the bread of indifference."    Meursault's Indifference Camus illustrates this well in The Stranger. Meursault is a prisoner. He killed a man in cold blood.

The Role of International Strategy and Organizational Design

The current trend of world economics business model lays on the world system division of labor between the core, the marginal, and the semi-marginal countries/states. The trading is not â€Å"isolated† or â€Å"internal† but rather it participates externally or in the global market and as such, this type of market is heavily affected by the dictates of the globalization trends. The system of economics and their flow and relations between these countries are â€Å"non-static† and â€Å"non-constant† over long and short periods of time due largely to political, environmental and cultural changes vis à ¡ vis the evolving idea of ‘consumerism’ in the global community. The traditional concept of consumerism and commoditization of goods is largely challenged, hence, the business sectors/producers should construct an effective strategy and an efficient organizational design to cope up with the world economic trend and at the same, fulfill the organization/companies objectives and visionary goals. The success, therefore, of an international company, lies on competitive action central to the combination of an effective strategic and traditional management.   We do not displace the idea of traditional management (e.g. budgeting and marketing) because its’ function is recognized as the core of business planning but rather, we aim to rectify/improve the company’s/organization’s business performance by target shooting the errors and analyzing it within the context of the global market system (or the business environment) and the capabilities (e.g. assets, facilities, resources) of the company system. Critical to strategic management is the anticipation of changes in the economic system, in the demands of the consumers, new business technologies, competition, and (global) economic policy developments. Co-integration of the two—traditional and strategic—would give a sense of direction to the company in the globally competitive market. What would be an apt strategic management in the non-static global economic system? The strategic management for this is a six level schema: (1) analysis of external factors (2) scrutinizing internal factors (3) stratagem (4) execution and (5) performance assessment/evaluation. Arguably, the logic in analyzing the external factors lies in the structural level of social formation, but, we dispense this, in favor of the transnational concept—an approach that capitalizes on the importance of transnational practices in three major sectors, political, economic, cultural with focus on transnational corporation influence and consumerism— that of which had been the latest trend in global capitalism. Also, the importance of technological improvements and their incorporation into the market is intangible in the analysis of external factors. The presence of competitors and economic policies should not be undermined; the parameters set by international laws may be restrictive but nevertheless, they are designed to facilitate a â€Å"fair† trading system; competitors for a particular commodity should also be accounted since globalization is heavily mandated by the transnational corps. It is on the basis of such external factors the company will seek to adjust to and construct the stratagem. The capacity of the organization, its’ parameters, its’ resources, its’ liabilities and its’ needs must be carefully examined. Financial status, the employed technology for the commodity, the operative management and the available facilities must be ‘apt’ and can be competitive with the international companies. Leadership within the system and good working force are important elements. The organization should seek to answer the following in response to its internal structure: is the product globally competitive? After assessing the internal and external factors, devising the stratagem is the next point of economic action. Goal identification and the feasibility of the plan being constructed is high on the agenda. Crucial to this is the statistics of materialization, the impact on the company/organization, and products development over a timeframe. Critical points should be well identified as well as mitigating errors, alternative plans, and analyzing and defining jobs and responsibilities per level of organization. The stratagem developed should have the following characteristics: (1) goal-oriented; (2) creative, by-product of external and internal analysis; and (3) strength-decisive/non-vulnerable in the market; (4) feasible. The execution of strategy requires organizational design, resource allocation, and strong motivation. Organizational design involves efficient distribution of work force, recognizing their potential, and creating effective relations between the working people. Performance assessment is the last step and is achieved by assessing the plan on its’ efficiency on its’ how’s and ends. Flow monitoring of the work and assessing statistical significance of produce as well as company growth are important evaluation points. The importance of such strategy is the actual/real test of the stratagem on the economic market. The strategic management places special attention to the environmental monitoring. Such activity is inherently important during forecasting or anticipation of future economic events and other related global aspects which may otherwise affect the position of organization and its products in the global economic scheme. Present and past trends and their change over time is prevalent in predicting scenarios that may be of value to the company. In strategic planning, ‘predictions’ are important in that the decisions are made to be flexible. In recognizing the role of international strategy and organizational design in the global market, the organization/company takes an initial step in ‘equipping’ itself against the highly volatile network of economic world systems and becomes, at the most, competitive. References Sklair, L. (1999). Competing Conceptions of Globalization. Journal of World-Systems Research, 5, 143-162. Aguilar, F. (1967). Scanning the business environment. NY: Macmillan, Inc.