The Soliloquies of Shakespeares Hamlet - To be or not to be Soliloquy :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Hamlet --   â€Å"To be or not to be† Soliloquy      Ã‚   When the Bard of Avon created Hamlet, he simultaneously created the famous soliloquy ever uttered by English-speaking men. Thus it is that literary critics rank Hamlet’s fourth soliloquy as the most notable ever penned. Let’s examine in this essay how such a high ranking is deserved, and what the soliloquy means.    In his essay â€Å"An Explication of the Player’s Speech,† Harry Levin refers to the fourth soliloquy as the most famous of them all:    Dwelling on gross details and imperfections of the flesh (â€Å"Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight†), Hamlet will admonish his mother that sense-perception is dulled by sensual indulgence. Here insensibility is communicated by a rhetorical assault upon the senses: primarily â€Å"the very faculties of eyes and ears,† but incidentally touch and even taste. Leaving the senseless Priam to the insensate Pyrrhus, after another hiatus of half a line (37), the speech addresses violent objurgations to the bitch-goddess Fortune, about whom Hamlet   has lately cracked ribald jokes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; whose buffets and rewards he prizes Horatio for suffering with equanimity; against whom he will, in the most famous of all soliloquies [my italics], be tempted to take arms. (36)    Marchette Chute in â€Å"The Story Told in Hamlet† describes just how close the hero is to suicide while reciting his most famous soliloquy:      Hamlet enters, desperate enough by this time to be thinking of suicide. It seems to him that it would be such a sure way of escape from torment, just to cease existing, and he gives the famous speech on suicide that has never been worn thin by repetition. â€Å"To be, or not to be . . .† It would be easy to stop living.    To die, to sleep; No more. And by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to . . .    But Hamlet has never succeeded in deceiving himself, and he cannot do so now. . . . [He] will not . . . be able to kill himself. He has thought too much about it to be able to take any action. (39)    Considering the context of this most notable soliloquy, the speech appears to be a reaction from the determination which ended the â€Å"rogue and peasant slave† soliloquy. In fact, in the Quarto of 1603 the â€Å"To be† speech comes BEFORE the players’ scene and the nunnery scene – and is thus more logically positioned to show its emotional connection to the previous soliloquy (Nevo 46).

An Examination of Bias in Focus on the Family’s Website Essay

Part of the problem with criticizing religion is the fact that any attempt to criticize yields a label of bigotry. In other words, if you question or criticize a religious movement the response is that the person putting forth the criticism is an anti-Semite or anti-Christian. While in many cases, this is true, but in other cases, that is simply not the case. But, because of the emotional attachment to religious beliefs – particularly the beliefs of individuals who hold strong fundamentalist beliefs – any attempt to question is met with anger. This is even when the issue being questioned is something that is pure opinion open to debate and not a fact that is set in stone. Dr. James Dobson, the head of the Evangelical group Focus on the Family, is hardly an unintelligent man. He is a published author and charismatic leader of a large denomination of conservative Christian groups. While there will be those who are dismissive of Christian conservative merely because they are, well, Christian conservatives, is childish. Criticism about political or sociological issues derived from bias and opinion, however, is fair game for debate. One such issue of contention on the website involves the assertion that homosexuality can be â€Å"cured. † To this regard, the website states: Homosexuality is more likely to be related to one or more of the following: (1) confusion of role models seen in parents, including, but not limited to, a dominant mother and a weak or absent father; (2) serious family dysfunction that wounds and damages the child; (3) early sexual abuse; (4) the influence of an older homosexual during a critical period of adolescence; (5) conscious choice and cultivation; and/or (6) homosexual experimentation, such as mutual masturbatory activity, by boys in early adolescence. How do these and other forces interplay in individual circumstances? I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. An Examination of Bias in Focus on the Family’s Website Page 2 On the other hand, I am certain that homosexuality does not result from irresistible genetic influences, as some would have us believe. (Dobson) To say these statements are biased and agenda driven would be an understatement. While Dobson is entitled to his opinions, the operative word here is opinion. The statements made in that excerpt are presented as fact when, in reality, there is no empirical proof that they are factual. Instead, the statements are presented to provide circular logic credibility to a socio-political agenda. Now, it is well within Dobson’s right to present his side of the issue. However, it is not a balanced examination of the issue and it contradicts a wealth of psychiatric and sociological study on the issue. Because of this, there is a great deal of intellectual dishonesty in these statements of homosexuality. A more proper examination would present Dobson’s opinion while acknowledging there are other opinions on the matter from professional fields, include a quote from a peer reviewed journal on the subject and then provide a link to a website that provides an alternate point of view. This does not mean that Dobson should abandon his beliefs nor should Focus on the Family retract their statements, but the organization would be far better served presenting an unbiased look at the subject and avoid presenting opinion as fact. Bibliography Focus on the Family. (2007) http://listen. family. org/daily/A000000198. cfm Dobson, James. (2006) â€Å"Do You Believe Homosexuality is Inherited. † Retrieved 4 February 2007. http://family. custhelp. com/ cgi-bin/family. cfg/php/enduser/std_alp. php? p_sid=6n4Jcohi

Mission Of Microfinance Institutions Versus Microfinance Goes Public Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 12 Words: 3662 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? The difference between many of commercial banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs) is the commitment to a double-bottom line, financial and social, of the latter. The microfinance itself is considered as a poverty alleviation tool and as the sector with potential to become self-sustainable. There have been a number of debates about the future of the microfinance industry. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Mission Of Microfinance Institutions Versus Microfinance Goes Public Finance Essay" essay for you Create order Since 1990s, some debates regarding the possibility of achieving the social mission of the MFIs, mission to serve the poor and thus to alleviate the poverty, emerged as many microfinance institutions have been moving towards commercialization. Others argue that for-profit oriented microfinance institutions may move to targeting customers who are better off than their initial target. This phenomenon is known as mission drift. Recently, with the increased interest of microfinance sector from international investors, commercial, private and socially responsible, and up-scaling of the MFIs, there have been a number of discussions about the mission drift and concern that the microfinance is losing its social mission, commitment to poverty alleviation. Despite this interest, only few studies have been conducted to examine this issue. This paper will attempt to discuss whether or not MFIs moving up-market face difficulties in reaching their double bottom line. The first part of the paper will provide an overview of the literature on the topic of mission drift and try to answer the questions whether the mission drift is a relevant concern for the MFIs. The second part will discuss on whether MFIs that go public drift mission, to which extent growth and development of the industry really help poor people and what could be done in order to control and protect social bottom line. The last part will conclude. Mission Drift as a relevant concern for the commercialized and transformed MFIs In the existing literature there is definitely more than one definition of mission drift, but all of them stating generally about the same issues: mission drift is the notion when MFIs drift away from their original mission, to serve poor clients and alleviate poverty, to more profit generating vision by serving wealthier clients or by charging high interest rates for their clients. Most of the recent papers agree on the definition of mission drift given by Cull et al. (2007) ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦microbanks moved away from servicing their poorer clients in pursuit of commercial viability. Some researchers indicate mission drift with commercialization and transformation (Christen, 2001). It is thought that the commercialization approach may lead to more profit oriented motives and will decrease social impact, which in turn may follow by targeting less risky clients, thus drifting its focus away from the poor population. According to Dichter and Harper (2007), the microfinance institutions are losing their sight of mission to serve the poor while growing and getting mature. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, claims that ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦less poor clients crowd out poorer clients in any credit scheme (Christen and Drake, 2002, p. 10). Meanwhile, as the mission of MFIs is to provide microfinance services to the poor, the assumptions could be made that, is to lend relatively small amount of money to very poor clients. At the same time, concern of the financial viability of the MFIs should not be underestimated. The issue of mission drift has been discussed since 1992, when microfinance institution in Bolivia PRODEM was commercialized and transformed into the bank, BancoSol (Rhyne, 1998). Recent news, such as the initial public offering (IPO) of Banco Compartamos in Mexico in 2007, that led to total proceed of this sale to almost USD 450 million profit, have added new value to the debate (Rosenberg, 2007; Hudon, 2009). Thus, there are some critics about microfinance, saying that MFIs are becoming more profit oriented at the expense of greater outreach to the poor people. The point is that higher profits lead to lower outreach. Woller, Dunford, and Woodworth (1999) and Woller (2002) state that mission drift actually happens when a MFI step back from their initial poor customer segment. However, some researchers conjecture that MFIs that became commercialized are better able to serve the poorest customers due to spillover effect, as their profit motives lead them to be more efficient and increase their willingness to extend loan services to the new markets (urban and rural) (Rhyne, 1998; Christen and Drake, 2002). The underlying message is that when someone seeks the explanations for mission drift, the profit of the MFI is not the only key element that should be considered, but the MFIs costs should also be focused upon. Some country studies give evidence that there is a trade-off between social and financial bottom line, serving the poorest and being financially viable, since transaction costs for smaller loans are higher than transaction costs for larger loans (Paxton, Graham, and Thraen, 2000). However, Christen (2001) in his study about commercialized and transformed MFIs in Latin America made a conclusion that mission drift has not occurred. Despite the ongoing debates and interest on mission drift, only few studies have been conducted to investigate the issue. There is a lack of cross-country studies with a large number of MFIs involved in order to receive extensive results and findings. C. Bruck writes in the New Yorker article about these debates: Since relatively few rigorous studies on the impact of microfinance have been completed, ideology tends to dominate (Bruck, 2006). Important empirical evidence on scaling up was made by Hishigsuren (2007) in India. The study concludes that when measured by depth and scale of outreach to poor clients, MFI shows no evidence of mission drift. At the same time it shows that up-scaling MFI is able to achieve greater cost efficiency. Another finding of this study (Hishigsuren, 2007) indicates that mission drift is not a result of well-planned decisions by the board of directors or management. The analysis of 39 transformed MFI by Fernando (2004) concludes that these MFIs did not lose sight of the mission but on contrary even improved their financial performance. The cross-country study by Cull et al. (2007) uses a sample of 124 MFIs in 49 countries addressing the issue of mission drift. They found that even the MFIs might follow vigorous financial goals, they still can be dedicated to their social mission. The paper of Mersland and Strom (2009) investigates mission drift while taking into account average loan size, le nding methodology, gender and market served by the MFI. So far it is the largest cross-country study on mission drift. Mersland and Strom found ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦no evidence of mission drift in the industry as a whole (Mersland and Strom, 2009, p. 29). However, this study on the observation of 379 MFIs reveals that the mission drift may occur if a MFI is cost inefficient and seeks higher financial returns, so MFIs attention should be made on reducing its costs first. Almost all studies on mission drift, including the ones mentioned above, used average loan size as a proxy for the empirical analysis to measure to degree of outreach of the MFI, assuming that the increase of the size of the average loan means serving better off client thus leads to mission drift of the MFI (Bhatt and Tang, 2001; Cull et al., 2007; Schreiner, 2002). However, this MFIs focus on wealthier clients, that cost less, might be driven by profit-motivated donors. Therefore, drifting away from the mission is the way MFI sees to attract more financial sources (Gosh and Van Tassel, 2008). Gosh and Van Tassel (2008) tried to investigate mission drift issue using poverty gap ratio approach and came to the conclusion that providing larger loans lowers the actual poverty reduction per dollar spent on one side, but the MFI is not necessarily forsaking its social mission on the other side. Thereby, the concern about financial sustainability of the MFIS has led to commercialization, transformation and scaling-up, which in turn suspected of being in the way of reaching further outreach and cause on mission drift. The process of commercialization and scaling-up, which most of the most involve interfere with large donors, may indeed tend to an increase in the average loan size and the tendency to lend to better off clients, wealthier people. However, Armendriz de Aghion and Szafarz (2009) argue that mission drift is not only driven by transaction cost minimization: Instead, poverty-oriented microfinance institutions could potentially deviate from their mission by extending larger loans neither because of progressive lending nor because of cross-subsidization, but because of the interplay between their own mission, the cost differentials between poor and unbanked wealthier clients, and region-specific characteristics pertaining to the heterogeneity of their clientele (Armen driz de Aghion and Szafarz, 2009). Additionally, such factors as strategy and portfolio maturity (Christen, 2000) may indeed increase the amount of the loan size without MFIs necessarily drifting from their poverty alleviation mission. According to the literature review and empirical analysis mentioned above, one can come to the conclusion that mission drift is indeed a relevant concern for some MFIs, but not necessarily for all. Though this statement may sound unconvincing, it is in fact essential to understand that institutional factors may also affect how well a MFI is able to reach both social and financial goals. Lending methodology, individual lending or group lending, cost structure and operating and country environment, market where a MFI is operation, urban or rural, are among these factors. Therefore, a wider perspective into the development of the microfinance sector is needed in order to deviate from mission drift. Going Public versus Mission Drift. Microfinance Best Practices? Recently microfinance institutions have begun to attract private investments and gone public (capital market). Is the microfinance sector losing vision of its mission to help poor and alleviate poverty? To which extent growth and development of the industry really help poor people? The initial public offering (IPO) of the Banco Compartamos in 2007, the largest MFI in Mexico, awoke tremendously number of debates. Especially MFI has been criticized for charging very high interest rates to its clients (sometimes even 100% for some products). At what level are interest rates excessive, even for a MFI?   This is the question at the heart of the Compartamos debate. Surprisingly, but most of the literature publications on mission drift do not take into consideration interest rate issue. Cull et al. (2008), Gonzalez and Rosenberg (2006) argue that NGOs charge higher interest rates than commercial (regulated) MFIs, explaining it that NGOs have higher costs while serving poorer clients than commercial MFIs. But maybe the situation is like this just because these types of microfinance institutions are funded by profit-oriented donors? No doubts that interest rate should be considered as a part of comprehensive view of mission drift (Ashta and Hudon, 2009). However, we should not to forget that interest rate charged for clients might be relatively high due to country environment and monopoly power. This is what is happening in Mexico, where interest rates are higher than in other countries, but Compartamos co-founder and executive vice-president, Carlos Danel, says that this is because the loans are typically much smaller, than elsewhere: We could push people to borrow bigger loans, but we dont believe in doing that [ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦] In the four years since weve gone public [2007] our rates have gone down 10%, and we offer by far the lowest rates in the Mexican market. Taking the company public raises the bar in terms of performance, transparency and accountability. (Evans, 2010) Nevertheless, it should be noticed that even through the IPO of Compartamos generated almost USD 450 million gains, there was no additional money raised to finance portfolio growth. Two third of this money, around USD 300 million, went to the three NGOs and development agencies, and one third (around USD 150 million) went to private individuals (Ashta, 2009). Although there has already been other IPOs in microfinance industry before (Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) proceed IPO in 2003 and was listed on the Jakarta, Singapore and other stock exchanges; Equity Bank Kenya in 2006, on the Nairobi Stock Exchange and Network Microfinance Bank in Pakistan, a much smaller organization), nowhere had been generated so high profits, therefore there was no much discussion about it. Where this can lead microfinance industry? Largest MFI in India, SKS Microfinance, recently has announced it plans to go public and sell shares on the India stock exchange in IPO. This will be the first microfinance IPO in India and beyond any doubt this is the hot topic these days to discuss. SKS Microfinance is planning to raise more than USD 250 million through the sale of equity shares (the Economic Times, 2010). A number of other MFIs, including Spandana, Share Microfin, Bandhan, BASIX and Equitas, may also have plans to go public based on the success of SKSs IPO (Deepika Thapliyal, 2010). This news has caused debates on whether a public company can prevent financial objectives from  displacing the social goals, to put it simple, whether MFI will drift their mission towards more profit orientation. Mohammad Yunus argued on this topic in an interview with Microfinance Focus (2010): This is coming from the banking side, from the profit maximizing side and I am opposed to that. If they do it, I cannot stop them but I would encourage genuine Microcredit programs.ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦The concern is that when you put an IPO, you are promising your investors that there is a lot of money to be made and this is a wrong message. Poor people should not be shown as an opportunity to make money out of. If you have a new kind of IPO where you can say that you can help people get out of poverty, it is a social business and if you invest here you never get any return from this then it is good. It is clear that it is important to focus on what is really at risk here, not only in India, but around the world, as movement of microfinance going public may continue and after the IPO of SKS. Can microfinance and the capital markets together be focused on poverty alleviation? Can IPO help MFI to serve larger number of people at the lowest sustainable prices and in the quickest possible time? Coming back to Mohammad Yunus statement mentioned above, some can challenge his argument. Microfinance institutions from its very name shows that MFI is actually a financial intermediator that deals all the time with risks and returns, trying to attract funds in order to finance portfolio growth, and with products and services that are similar to the ones offered by the formal financial sector. Therefore similarly the capital funding sources may be obtained from donors, investment companies and funds, including commercial loans, customer deposits, and financial markets. All these options have their opportunities, limitations and risks. For instance, there is always a risk that investors will be more profit-oriented than involved in achieving social objectives by the MFI. Therefore, MFI will tend to obtain higher profits, thus charging higher interest rates for its clients or drifting to better off clients to mitigate its risk of non repayment, mission drift can occur. As it was shown in the first part of this paper, this is not the case for all MFIs. Some practitioners support the idea of an IPO and claim some advantages of the IPO, which can be seen as the following (blogs on www.microfinancefocus.com, www.microfinanceinsights.com, www.devex.com, www.linkedin.com): The raise of the additional capital (not the case of Compartamos IPO). Funding obtained thought is nothing else than just another financial instrument. Reliable long-term source of funding and expanding the loan portfolio, as opposed to commercial bank borrowings and clients deposits that must be reimbursed at maturity. Additionally there is always a risk of unexpected termination of clients deposits, thus leading to a risk of liquidity when tending to finance portfolio only by inner sources (savings). Sometimes, for instance in times of financial crisis even the commercial bank borrowings may be canceled before their maturity, that again trigger the same problems as with savings. Usually the cost of funds obtained through the IPO is lower than the cost of commercial banking sources. Therefore the assumption could be made that interest rates for the loan to microentrepreneurs can be lower. From the financial point of view, the funds raised through the IPO actually is an equity injection for which a MFI is not obliged by the regulations of Central Banks to set the liquidity reserve requirements as it is required for instance for customers deposits, thereby increasing the interest rates charged. Where there are pros, there are always cons, thus criticism against each of the statement above exists on the same blogs, for instance Milford Bateman on his interview to Microfinance Insights (April 2010) says: New regulations and prohibitions on what managers can do with their MFI may well become a reality in the near future, MFIs that have gone through the IPO procedure quickly lose all remaining links with, and concern for, the local community. They become hard-headed, profit-driven businesses providing a product to anyone willing to pay for it: no more, no less. But an IPO does not necessarily mean that poor people are ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦shown as an opportunity to make money out ofÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦. The MFIs profit obtained through the IPO may be distributed as dividends to the respective shareholders or to retain these gains in order to reinvest them in the further development of its activities, serving more poor people and thus increase the outreach and contribute to the process of poverty alleviation. At the same time, other practitioners say that just the fact that microfinance is going towards an IPO is an example in itself of serious mission drift (Bateman, 2010). It is a technique most often deployed under cover of providing more microfinance, but the most important motivation in practice, is actually for an MFIs managers/owners to privately benefit. The gains to the poor are simply not there. (Bateman, 2010). Nevertheless, at this point it is quite early to make any conclusion, as only few MFIs have gone public. Microfinance still remains to be considered as being a social business, even with loads of criticism about IPO, especially the IPO of Compartamos. Thus it is essential to protect social line of the microfinance industry and try to avoid mission drift, trade-off between financial objectives and social objectives at the expense of the poor. In order to obtain successfully both these objectives, a professional board of directors, senior executive management and operational staff with the sound of social mission is needed, who will perform management decision not only driven by profit. Sound social corporate governance is designed to demonstrate the institutional social and development goals (Todd, 2008; Ashta, 2009). Social corporate governance that is properly designed, alleviate the strain between financial and social objectives and may provide a solution to mission drift in the MFI (Todd, 2008). In addition, reliable internal control system, comprehensive financial and risk managemen t systems, including asset and liability management for liquidity, interest rate and foreign currency risks, social performance management are essentially should be taken into account, as being a core of the institution. To make regularly social performance assessment of the MFI, for instance using CERISE tools, might help to be on the sight of the current situation of the institution and therefore to mitigate the risk of mission drift. Conclusion It is obvious that mission drift issue of microfinance has manifold sources and the exclusion of one relatively minor source is not an adequate prescription for mitigating this issue. Commercialization of the MFIs is only one among several ways to mission drift, and not the most threatening. Some studies showed that even the MFIs might follow vigorous financial goals, they still can be dedicated to their social mission. The mission drift may occur if a MFI is cost inefficient and seeks higher financial returns, so rather than concentrating on the issue of commercialization of the MFIs, attention should be made on reducing the costs per client. Mission drift is indeed a relevant concern for some MFIs, but not necessarily for all. Though this statement may sound unconvincing, it is in fact essential to understand that institutional factors may also affect how well a MFI is able to reach both social and financial goals. Absolutely controversial debates occur around the IPO of the MFIs and mission drift related to this issue. Someone claims that just the fact that microfinance is going public is a serious mission drift itself. Others seek positive trends of the IPO on social mission, stating that it is the source of long-term funding and thus might help to achieve greater outreach through expanding the loan portfolio and therefore can be devoted to social mission of the MFI. Nevertheless, it is quite early to make any conclusions as only few MFIs went public. Although mission drift is a very long-debating issue, this paper did not discuss in detail about the normal strategy that should be used by MFIs in order to seek consistency with the social mission for which they have been established by its donors. There is no saying which the right focus is and which one is not. This can be a future discussion. There is certainly room and demand for different institutions in the microfinance sector: those focusing on the poorest and perhaps therefore more depending on donations; as well as those moving up-market and serving a better-off clients with the support of commercial funds and investors. The fact that the latter ones are able to serve large numbers of people should not be avoided. One more issue is needed to be emphasized social corporate governance and management of the MFI. Social corporate governance that is properly designed, alleviate the strain between financial and social objectives and may provide a solution to mission drift in the MFI. Through a sound and comprehensive social corporate governance policy, the respective investors and donors will also have the responsibility in relation to social mission and ethical questions, for instance the interest rates charged for the MFIs clients, in order to get the assurance that a MFI is not drifting from its social mission.

Weather Games and Interactive Weather Simulations

Finding Meaning and Purpose in Mitch Albom’s, The Five...

â€Å"The Five People You Meet In Heaven† written by Mitch Albom tells about a man named Eddie and his experiences in life and in heaven. During his journey in heaven he meet five people. He learns how he has impacted the five lives while on earth. Eddie finds that his life did have true meaning and purpose. Prior to meeting the five people that he meets in heaven, he feels as if his life is worthless and has no meaning. Physically he is not in good shape, â€Å"His left knee, wounded in the war, was ruined by arthritis. He used a cane to get around†(2, paragraph 1). He feels stuck at a place with a job that he absolutely hates, â€Å"He cursed his father for dying and for trapping him in the very life he’d been trying to escape: a life that, as†¦show more content†¦Eddie sees the friend run off and his father chasing after him ready to kill. His father catches up to his friend with raging anger but His friend is drowning. Eddie’s father saves his friend but dies shortly afterward. â€Å"His body been weakened, the ocean had left him vulnerable, pneumonia took hold of him, and in time, he died†(138, paragraph 4). A side of Eddie’s father that Eddie has never seen is suddenly revealed. Eddie uses this unknown side of his father to help amend al l of his hateful feelings towards him. It takes Eddie his whole life and time in heaven to begin to find the meaning and purpose of his life. The last one of the five people Eddie meets in heaven is a little girl named Tala. She is a little girl that Eddie burned alive in a fire. This is not an intentional death. He sets the fire to burn the place he had been held captive, it’s also the a fellow soldier had died in while at war in the Philippines. As this fire was started he thinks he sees a shadow and trys to get it out of the burning barn. His captain and fellow soldiers shoot him in the leg and pull him away thinking he is hallucinating and going to kill himself for something he â€Å"thinks† he sees. Even in heaven, Tala’s skin still appears burned very badly. Eddie is very distraught about her death. â€Å"FORGIVE ME, OH, GOD†¦What have I done†¦WHAT

Summary of website About The Company Free Essays

Netscape Communications Corporation is a â€Å"leading provider of open software for linking people and information over private TCP/IP-based enterprise networks (â€Å"intranets†) and the Internet.† They develop market and support a wide area of enterprise client and server software, tools for development and commercial applications which creates a single communication platform shared for other network applications. All its software is on industrial standard protocols; therefore it can be deployed on any operating system, hardware platform and databases. We will write a custom essay sample on Summary of website About The Company or any similar topic only for you Order Now It can also be connected with various other client/server applications. The software can be used across different geographic locations, third party partners and customers. The product can be used by individuals or by organizations for any internet related transactions such as buying and selling of information, software, merchandise or publications. The company also offers services for the user and the network. These features include graphics and e-mail. The Company also offers software products and tools for intranet users. Their marketing strategy incorporates multiple channel distribution, direct sales, internet, telesales, resellers, value-added resellers and retailers. Some of the companies with which Netscape does business are ATT, Apple, British Telecom, Compaq,   Deutsche   Telekom,   Digital,   France   Telecom,   Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Informix, Novell, Olivetti,   Siemens, Silicon  Ã‚   Graphics, Sybase and Sun. Netscape was incorporated in April 1994 in Delaware. The homepage is available at http://home.netscape.com. The Executive office is situates at 501 East Middlefield Road, Mountain View, California 94043. Stocks are traded on NASDAQ under the symbol â€Å"NSCP†. The U.S. offering was a total of 4,250,000 shares. The International offering was 750,000 shares, carrying the total to 5,000,000 shares. This includes 2,000,000 shares sold by The Company and 3,000,000 shares which were sold by Selling Stockholders. 86,535,395 shares were outstanding from the Common Stock after offering. The summary of the supplemental and consolidated financial information is as follows. In the months of March 1995, June 1995, September 1995, December 1995, March 1996, June 1996 and September 1996. The total revenue was $100,016 the highest in September 1996 and the lowest in $5,814 in March 1995. The gross profit was $85,322 the highest in September 1996 and the lowest in $5,814 in March 1995. The merger related charges were lowest in $2,033 in December 1995 and highest $6,100 in June 1996. Total operating expenses was highest $76,362 in September 1996 and lowest in $10,412 in March 1995. The Net income (loss) per share was 0 in September 1995. How to cite Summary of website About The Company, Papers

Audit and Non Audit Services

Question: Describe about audit and non audit services? Answer: Introduction Non-Audit Services (NAS) provided by an auditor has remained a long standing debate. The services other than audit that is provided by an audit firm to their audit client have always been a hotly debated auditor independence issue. It has been reported that providing NAS results in creating an economic bond between the audit firm and their audit client which can lead to impairment of the auditors independence, thus, leading to poor audit quality. Various research reports had in the past shown that NAS does not leads to lower audit quality and found no evidence that providing NAS by the audit firm to their audit client can result in lower financial reporting quality. But recent study and research reports have shown that NAS does results in lowering the audit quality by impairing the independence of the auditor. Auditor independence can suffer due to the fact that potential NAS revenue can lead to leniency by the auditor in conducting the audit, thus, impairing the independence of the auditor (Houghton et al., 2010). The topic has been in debate for many decades with arguments been made from allowing the auditor to provide NAS to calling for a ban on NAS provided by the auditor to their clients. With the businesses growing the demand for NAS has been growing substantially with many audit firms providing more NAS than Audit Services, thus, complete ban or removal of the NAS would have a very negative impact on the pricing and cost structures of both NAS and Audit Services for both Audit Firm and its Audit Client. As it is a very sensitive and hotly debated issue at a same time, many institutes around the world who govern the provisions of audit and issue audit frameworks and standards in their respective countries have issued various guidelines on this issue. But still many problems are cropping up as these guidelines dont seem enough (Abou-Seada, and Hussey, 1996). Audit Independence Independence means that the judgement of a person is not subordinate to wishes of another person. It requires that he should not act under the influence of some other person or body and his opinion is not biased. Thus, he can work in a completely unbiased manner. Thus, it is required for the auditor to be independent in his opinions and judgements so that the quality of financial reporting is high so as to bring out a true and fair view of the financial statements reported as on a particular date. If auditor maintains a high degree of independence, credibility of financial statements is enhanced (Keane, 2014). Independent audit report will be accepted and respected by all stakeholders of the business. Thus, independence of the auditor is the key to achieving satisfactory financial reporting. Advantages of independent audit for various stakeholders are as follows: For management They can control and judge reasons of losses and ensure the general reliability of accounting systems. For employee it discourages them from committing frauds as it acts as a moral check on them. They can also judge the reasonableness of payments w.r.t salary, bonus etc. For lenders Bankers can rely on the audited financial statements while assessing the creditworthiness of loan applicants. For computing taxes Audited financial statements help in determining income tax. Also helpful to compute excise duty, sales tax etc. For owners They get a real picture of profit and losses earned. The share in profits and share valuations can also be known. For investors The prospective investors use these statements to assess the dividend, growth possibilities to make decisions whether they should invest or not. For insurer In the case of losses or damages to property, it helps the insurer to settle the claims. For arbitration In the case of disputes, these audited financial statements help in settling claims (Hae-Young, 2014). Prohibited Relations Audit regulatory bodies around the world have prohibited certain relations between the audit firms and the companies in which audit is conducted by them. These include the following relationships: Employment Relations - Companies cannot hire their auditors as employees when they are working as their Even when these auditors resign and discontinue as their auditor, the companies cannot legally hire them as employees until a certain cooling off period ceases. The same requirement is in place even for the employees of the auditor of the company, the person cannot be employed in the company until the cooling off period ceases. Contingent Fees Auditors cannot be hired on a commission basis or a system where the auditors remuneration would be on a basis of contingent fees. Business Relations Auditors cannot have a business relation with the company, its employees, its officers, significant shareholders or the directors. The relation cannot be direct or even indirect. Thus, the audit committee must check and identify such prohibited relationships. Certain Financial Relations There are certain types of financial relationships that are prohibited between the audit firm and the client company. These types of relations are debtor and creditor, broker and dealer, banking, lender, etc. These relations specify the importance of the auditor to be independent, thus, specifying the importance of the independence of the auditor (Krauy, 2003). Non-Audit Services Growth in businesses and emergence of larger professional firms has led to growing demands for specialist and technical advice by these business houses to achieve their business objectives and to achieve an advantage over the rivals in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Much of this advice is sought from these audit firms because auditors can better understand the dynamic business environment from an external perspective and individual views often shed light on important areas of the conduct of business which an insider sometimes cannot observe. These services provided by the auditor to his audit client are called Non-Audit Services (Doyle, 2012). The auditor provides NAS to its clients falls into three main categories: Services that an Auditor can provide efficiently because of his existing knowledge in that field as these are based on information that is a by-product of the audit Examples are Tax Compliance Services, Reports in acquisitions and mergers, Due Diligence reports, etc. Services that are required by legislation. Example are Regulatory Reports, report on expenditure for grant application purposes, etc. Services which can be provided by many types of professional firms and its incidental that the audit firm has been chosen. Examples are Tax Advisory services, Consultancy services like Human Resource Consultancy, Portfolio Management Consultancy, etc. These services result in the audit firm providing specialist services along with conducting the audit of the client's business. It can happen that the revenue derived by the firm from NAS is more than the revenue derived by conducting an audit. Thus, sometimes auditors independence can be impaired and the auditor may become lenient due to the fact that future NAS work will be given to the audit firm. The expectation of future NAS revenue which might be more than the audit fee itself leads to poor quality of audit and financial reporting quality is damaged. The audit firm and the client can develop an economic bond when a lot of NAS revenue is derived from the client in proportion to the audit revenue. Research has found evidence that high level of NAS revenue resulted in the low quality of the audit. Over the last few years, the proportion of NAS fees paid by the business houses against the Audit fees has been steadily rising which has resulted in turning the audit firms into multidi sciplinary professional services firm. Thus, NAS has resulted in concerns over the auditors independence (Chai, and Jubb, 2000). Whenever a company fails question marks are raised about the quality of audit conducted of its financial statements reported, the auditors independence is also put into question. The Enron scandal showcased how the auditor must be independent enough. Enrons auditor had received total audit fees amounting to 25 million dollars while the fees for NAS provided were 27 million dollars. The audit firm should maintain a level till which it can accept NAS and stricter guidelines over these NAS revenues must be implemented. The NAS revenue has boomed which has resulted in an increased ties between the auditor and the client. The audit firms should, therefore, be more cautious in conducting an audit. Some NAS which involves expressing an opinion like Internal Audit, maintaining the books of accounts should be avoided as it may involve direct conflict interest leadi ng to impairing the independence of auditor (Malek, and Saidin, 2013). Relations between NAS Revenue and Total Earnings There were almost no studies related to NAS Fees and Earnings of the firm to depict any relation between qualities of an audit conducted by the firms to the NAS performed for the business houses. But recently studies have been conducted to show the NAS impacts upon the attributes of total earnings. NAS fees disclosures by the firms have resulted in studies that link NAS fee to client importance. Client Importance is measured as the fees received from a client divided by the total revenue of the firm and the ratio of clients NAS fees to the total revenue of the firm. These findings have shown that when huge revenue is received from NAS then the audit firm may become a little impaired towards the audit client. The proportion of the NAS fees paid by companies in U.K. was more than the Audit fees than the USA based companies (Antle, et al., 2014). The ethical code specifies that a firm should not accept an audit appointment from a client company which provides an unduly large proportion of NAS fees. It has also been advised that a firm should not conduct an audit if a single company provides audit fees that are unduly large in the proportion of the firms gross revenue so that ethical practices are maintained. Shareholders of the company should also be able to assess the ratio of NAS provided by the companys auditor to the audit work conducted by the firm. The net impact resulted from an increase of the NAS fees is that auditor may neglect his duties towards performing the audit and becomes more inclined to perform NAS (Son and Chen, 2005). Joint Provision of Audit Fees and Pricing of Non-Audit Services It has been often noticed that the companies generally engage their auditors to perform related services in finance, tax compliance, advisory and other services even though many other professional firms do exist to provide these services. The reason for the same is that both the auditor and the client company are interested in providing for services related to audit due to economies of scope (Adelopo, 2012). Economies of scope are referred to the cost savings achieved when the same firm or person provides more than one services. The cost of these joint services is lesser when compared with the total cost of audit and NAS from different firms. Joint provision reduces the cost of both ensuring contractual performance and cost of locating a quality consultant. Many companies, thus, nowadays increasingly engage a multi-disciplinary firm to conduct its audit and perform other services as well. The increased competition between audit firms has also led to firms charging their clients lesse r if its services are taken on the basis of bundles and both audit as well as NAS is conducted by the audit firm (Abou-Seada, and Hussey, 1996). But when audit firms conduct both the audit work and NAS then the effort towards the audit may reduce and the firm may become lenient in conducting the audit of the client. The expectation of future NAS work also makes the auditor impaired resulting in poor quality of the audit. Joint Service Provision and Audit Opinion The studies have been conducted to judge whether the audit conducted, audit opinion made by the audit firm and NAS provided by the audit firm are interrelated. Though the studies have not found any significant data to show that level of NAS performed and the audit opinion made by the auditor are interrelated but the auditors can give an incorrect opinion when the expectation of future NAS work received and future NAS fees received is also taken into consideration. The expectation of future NAS work might impair an auditor and an Unqualified Opinion may be granted by the auditor even though the company deserved a Qualified Opinion. Thus, auditors might grant the best opinion to the clients from whom the NAS fees is high and from whom future NAS engagement is also expected resulting in a disparity and poor quality reporting of financial statements. When the fees received by the firm for conducting an audit is lesser in proportion to fees received from the same client for conducting rel ated works and providing NAS then also the auditor may make an opinion better than the opinion deserved by the client (Arrunada, 1999). The auditor should, thus, not accept NAS work from a client if the NAS work increases than audit work to be conducted or he/she should not accept the audit work from the client which provides a substantially large amount of fees for the NAS performed. Conclusion It has proved to be very difficult to provide for evidence related to the impairment of audit when Non-Audit Services are also provided to the client company by the audit firm. This is because of the fact that this evidence is deeply embedded in the organisation and the system as a whole is such that both the audit firm and client company are too happy to complain about it. Even if the auditor becomes lenient in conducting the audit, the client company wont complain as it gains by cost saving and the auditor wont complain because it can gain a considerable amount of revenue from the same company. The system also helps in developing a very trusted relation between the auditor and the company officials, thus, both dont complain about this system. It has been seen that there is an increase in a NAS work performed when a considerable time has elapsed between the engagement of the audit firm and the client company. Thus, it is advisable to make laws strict enough that control the conduct of an audit and the NAS performed for the same client by the auditor. The audit governing bodies around the world are trying to make sure that no impairment occurs due to NAS work assigned to the audit firm. Thus, the institutes should either put a complete ban on these NAS or should make guidelines bring down the NAS to be performed below a certain level. To control the audit failures some hard step should be taken by the governing bodies so that the proper audit is conducted according to all guidelines issued by these governing bodies and the correct opinion is made by the audit firms on which all stakeholders can be proud off (Steinhoff, 2002). Thus, even the expectation of future Non-Audit services to be performed for the company cannot cause the quality of audit to be conducted to be poor. Auditors have a lot of responsibility when conducting an audit, preparing reports and making an opinion which should be respected by them as on the basis of their audited statements many impo rtant financial decisions are made. References Abou-Seada, M. and Hussey, R. (1996). The use of evidence in establishing audit opinion. Bristol: Bristol Business School, the University of the West of England. Adelopo, I. (2012). Auditor independence. Burlington, VT: Gower Pub. Antle, R., Gordon, E., Narayanamoorthy, G. and Zhou, L. (2014). 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