Black Nationalism Essay Example for Free

Black Nationalism Essay Black Nationalism is defined by Karenga, as the political belief and practice of African Americans as a distinct people with a distinct historical personality who politically should develop structures to define, defend, and develop the interests of Blacks as a people. Black Nationalism can be traced back to the 18th century, back to William Edward Burghardt DuBois, the most prominent black intellectual of all time. Black Nationalism is the response of African Americans to the continual racism and oppression they experience. It came about because of two reasons; the racism that they faced daily, and being exploited economically by white supremacy. Black Nationalism seeks a solution to the problems that African Americans face on a daily basis After the Civil War, the situation of the black people was not good; it was a semi-free, semi-slave situation. An example of this is tenancy, where the Blacks have control of the work process and work schedule but ultimately had to give up the fruits of their hard work because they were not the landowners. This kept the Blacks under White dominance, and living in poverty. Another factor in the economical status of the Black people was the introduction of mass production, new methods and machinery. This caused the loss of many of the jobs being held by the Black men, Negroes are now restricted more and more to common labor and domestic service of the lowest paid and worst kind. The already bad situation became worse when the Depression arrived. Although everyone was affected by the Depression, the Black people were hit the hardest, as DuBois states in the case of the Negro worker, everything has been worse? the loss has been greater and more permanent. ( DuBois, 564) In addition, Black people have always experienced racism. DuBois communicates this problem in the essay A Negro Nation within the Nation, Negro children are systematically denied education;? Once or twice a month Negroes convicted of no crime are openly and publicly lynched, and even burned?. When a man with every qualification is refused a position simply because his great-grandfather was black there is not a ripple of comment or protest( DuBois, 563) To survive these conditions, and defend themselves against racism, exploitation and oppression, Black people formed social relationships within their community, which centered mainly around the church. They fought back with Black unity, the belief that Blacks should come together to fight against their exploitation, oppression, and discrimination. DuBoiss nationalism circulates around three main ideas: First, the belief that all people of African descent shared common goals, and that they should work together in their struggle for equality. Second, he emphasized a cultural nationalism; being the editor of the crisis magazine he encouraged the development of black literature and art, publishing the work of many of the most talented black writers and poets, encouraging his readers to see the beauty in black. Finally, he believed that Blacks should develop a separate group economy of producers and consumers, and cooperate as a weapon for fighting economic discrimination and black poverty. DuBois created Talented Tenth, the idea of using the intellectual elite to fight against racism. He believed the only way to fight racism and oppression was to attack the economic power of the white people. The thinking colored people of the United States, he wrote, must stop being stampeded by the word segregation. . . . There should never be an opposition to segregation pure and simple unless that segregation does involve discrimination. (DuBois, 557. ) He believed that some forms of segregation were beneficial to the Black people. This statement from DuBois spurred a lot of controversy and resulted in his resignation form the NAACP, which was primarily made of integrationist, those who refused to see themselves as people of African descent and opposed any form of institutional segregation based on race. Nationalists, on the other hand such a DuBois, saw themselves as descendents of Africa, they emphasized that Black people should create their own economical, cultural and educational institutions. The Conclusion: Black Nationalism was created as a result of the struggles of the Black people in America, it was necessary for their cultural and economical survival. Some may say that being a nationalist is being a racist; this is true in some cases. Black Nationalism is similar to Kurdish Nationalism, or Armenian Nationalism, the nationalism of oppressed people, struggling for freedom and equality. On the other hand White Nationalism can be compared with Arab or Turkish Nationalism, which includes racism, race superiority, and oppression of minorities and different ethnic groups. I believe that Black Nationalism is pragmatic, Black people are now proud of their heritage and ancestors, aware of their rich cultural history, and not the image of a lower class, dark-skinned savage inferior to the white supremacy painted by White America. Works Citied DuBois, W. E. B. A Negro Nation within The Nation. W. E. B. DuBois A Reader. Ed. David Levering Lewis. New York, Ny: Henry Holt and Company 1995. 563-570. DuBois, W. E. B. Segregation. W. E. B. DuBois A Reader. Ed. David Levering Lewis. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company 1995. 557-558.

Sanitation and Housing Conditions Alexandria, Virginia Essay -- Urban

Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is recognized as one of the best places to live and do business on the east coast. The city’s urban planning showcases the city’s vibrant, diverse, historic, and unique neighborhoods. Urban planning began there in the 19th Century. Urban populations rose drastically, and a host of problems came with it: unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and corruption of government. Economic depressions promoted a climate of social unrest, violence, labor strikes, and disease (Rose, 1997). In the beginning of the 19th century, development of American cities often took a compact, mixed-use form, reminiscent of that found in places like old town Alexandria. By the early 20th century, the focus was on the geography of water supplies, sewage disposal, and urban transportation (Virginia Places, 2010). This paper will discuss the city’s historical and current sanitation program and housing accommodations for sewage disposal. Before the 19th Century, sewage disposal was virtually unknown until the first American cities were built around the 1700’s. Human waste was originally disposed of in the woods, but some wealthy Virginians built large houses and used chamber pots to "do their business" indoors, and the contents would be thrown into the back yard. Later, as towns developed, waste was tossed into the streets to decompose or be washed away in the rainstorms (Virginia Places, 2010). Privies or outhouses were also built in back yards and were commonly used to dispose of waste. Toilets, also known as â€Å"water closets,† were put into homes in the mid 19th Century in the United States. The water closet had indoor plumbing where piping was run through the roof, and a gravity ... ...thier ecology – making the city easier to sustain into the coming years. Works Cited Frederick Law Olmsted (2009). FrederickLawOlmsted.com . Retrieved December 28, 2010, from http://www.fredericklawolmsted.com/Lifeframe.htm History (2010). Alexandria Sanitation Authority (ASA). Retrieved December 28, 2010, from http://www.alexsan.com/ Levy, J.M. (2011). Contemporary Urban Planning (9th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ Rose, J. K. (1997, November 8). The city beautiful movement. University of Virginia. Retrieved December 28, 2010, from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/citybeautiful/city.html Sewage treatment in Virginia (2010). Virginia Places. Retrieved December 28, 2010, from http://www.virginiaplaces.org/waste/sewer.html Urban planning (2010). World Lingo Translation. Retrieved December 28, 2010, from http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Urban_planning

New Century Financial Corporation Essay

Summary: the mortgage mess happened in 2008 when there was a decreased homing price. However, their mortgage payment by homeowners were soon greater than the price of house. As a result, they forced the repurchase policy of many mortgage agreements, and let the subprime lenders to take over their houses. Subprime lender like New Century became the bankrupt because of the high lost associate with the mortgage cancelation. To maintain earning, the management modify the estimate of its reserve. However, KPGM, the auditor of the New Century is question of their work. KPMG lost its independence due to its afraid of lost business. 1.The advantages include better understanding of the industry, lower cost because of the reduced amount of work on evaluate the industry, gain great profit when the industry is going up, and early recognition of the industry trend because of the shared information from different companies. The disadvantages include risk of loss profit when the industry go down, create a mind set of doing audit that can be bias, 2.They need to ensure the information gathered by the prior team is properly communicated and understand by the take over team. As a result, it results in the saving of the time and effort of the take over team to spend. It also gave the new team a different point of view as well as better understanding of the company. on the other hand, they also need to ensure the work quality of the taker over team will not be reduced. 3.Significant deficiency: A significant deficiency is â€Å"a control deficiency, or combination of control deficiencies, that adversely affects the entity’s ability to initiate, authorize, record, process, or report financial data reliably in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles such that there is more than a remote likelihood that a misstatement of the entity’s financial statements that is more than inconsequential will not be prevented or detected.† Material weakness: A material weakness is â€Å"a significant deficiency, or combination of significant deficiencies, that results in more than a remote likelihood that a material misstatement of the financial statements will not be prevented or detected.† SAS 112 requires the auditor to communicate control deficiencies that are significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in internal control. Significant deficiencies or material weaknesses must be communicated in writing to management and those in charge of governance–for example, to the audit committee of the board–no later than 60 days following the report release date. Unqualified Opinion can be issued when internal control over financial reporting is effective: no material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting exist as of the fiscal year-end assessment date. 4.The procedures to audit important â€Å"accounting estimates† include :considering the relevance, reliability, and sufficiency of the data and factors used by management, evaluating the reasonableness and consistency of the assumptions, and re-performing the calculations made by management. 5.The GAAS require an auditor to exercise due professional care, to adequately plan its audit, to sufficiently understand a business’s internal structure, and to obtain sufficient evidence to reach reasonable conclusions. KPMG allegedly failed to adhere to the GAAS by having an inexperienced audit team,; failed to challenge New Century management for unreasonable estimates; failed to test the repurchase reserve despite evidence of internal control weaknesses and apparently inaccurate estimates of outstanding repurchase requests; and failed to raise deficiencies and inaccuracies in New Century’s accounting practices or internal controls. 6. Although the investors are complaining that they should be liable for the lost because they did not actively participate in the mortgage market. It is true that they did nothing wrong, but they need to identify this risk when they invest. Investor does not have enough information about the market trend that should be provided. As a result, they invest the money base on the outdated information. There is no way for them to identify the threat of their investment. 7.1) auditor need to maintain independence from their work, lose of independence can lead to a bias conclusion, which cannot be trusted upon. KPMG’s afraid to lost New Century as a client lead them to issue a report in favor of the management. 2) do not employ inexperience auditor, especially when the company is in its hard time. Inexperience auditor will cause mistake of their work. Company in hard time have a incentive to make fraudulent statement, and inexperience auditor are not able to detect them. 3) be aware when the company going down. The management may try to management the earning in order to meet estimates.

Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1424 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? (b) Explain whether Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust berhad should involve hedging or not hedging. Why or why not? Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust (Sunway REIT) berhad should involve hedging because it exposes to the foreign currency exposure and exchange rate fluctuations. Since successful hedging gives the trader protection against commodity price changes, inflation, currency exchange rate changes, interest rate changes and so on and so forth, Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust should involve in hedging to reduce these types of risks. Indeed, Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust does involve hedging to reduce exchange rate risk by having a three-year fixed rate US dollar 100 million term loan which has been fully hedged via a cross currency swap (Sunway REIT annual report, 2013). Besides, Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust has also used cash flow hedges to mitigate the risk of variability of future cash flows attributable to foreign currency and inter est rate fluctuations over the hedging period on the foreign currency borrowings (Sunway REIT annual report, 2013). Besides reducing the exchange rate risk, hedging can be used for enhancing a companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s value. In the overall managerial strategy, reducing corporate risk is an essential component. Several market imperfections make risk management an essential goal for companies. These market imperfections lead to the reduction of the value of companies by making volatility an expensive proposition. The imperfections, in turn, contribute to other market deficiencies such as expensive financial distress costs (Myers, 1977 and Smith Stulz, 1985); external financing (Froot, Scharfstein Stein, 1993); agency costs; and costs pertaining to managerial risk aversion. These imperfections have a negative effect on a companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s value. By helping reduce costs resulting from such imperfections, hedging enhances a companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s value (Ghosh, 2013). In addition, hedging helps to reduce distress costs. The ability to raise capital is extremely important in the event of a perceived or real distress faced by a company. Every business faces the possibility of distress under adverse circumstances (Damodaran, 2008). Even perceived circumstances of distress can be costly for companies à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" often in the range of 20% to 40% of the companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s value (Shapiro Titman, 1985). In the extreme event, distress can lead to bankruptcy. Hence, it is prudent for companies to protect themselves from the risk of distress events by hedging against them. Damodaran (2008) estimates that the payoff from lower distress costs can show up in the companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s value in one of the two ways. In a conventional discounted cash flow valuation, the effect is likely to manifest itself as a lower cost of capital which is through a lower cost of debt and a higher value. In the adjusted present value approach, the expected bankruptcy costs will be reduced as a result of hedging. To the extent that the increase in value from reducing distress costs exceeds the cost of hedging, the value of the company will increase. When likely distress costs are large, benefits from hedging by the means of savings on distress costs are likely to be significant. Kale and Noe (1990) have noted that hedging can increase the value of companies which are highly levered. Finally, by reducing the cost of financial distress, hedging can also enhance credit quality and reduce the cost of debt financing (Chidambaran, Fernando Spindt, 2001). Moreover, hedging ensures continuity of cash flows. Price volatility has a negative impact on the revenue streams and can disrupt cash flows. Hedging prevents the companies from price volatility and ensures uninterrupted and stable revenue streams. Companies, through hedging, can choose what proportion of production to hedge and how far into the future the hedged position is to be estab lished and maintained which can bring about certainty in their production process, and ensure continuity of cash flows. This is especially true for small companies with high costs, which are probably unwilling to accept the reduced risk for additional, risk-mitigated profits. Thus, the certainty in production planning at guaranteed minimum prices by using commodity futures to hedge, protect both a companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s future and that of its employees (Ghosh, 2013). Furthermore, hedging can be used to lower tax liabilities. A more visible strategic reason for hedging is the immediate impact it can have on tax liabilities of companies. Under a progressive taxation regime, losses of companies can be carried over for a finite number of years only. Over a medium to long run, therefore, volatile earnings induce higher taxation than stable earnings. Stulz (1996) empirically proved this argument to hold good in any regime marked by convexity of the tax code, for example, increasing marginal tax rates, limits on the use of tax-loss carry forward and minimum tax rates. A second tax saving from hedging arises from the increasing debt capacity of companies, which in turn increases the interest tax deductions. Graham Rogers (2002) have performed empirical testing for 442 companies and found that the statistical benefit from increased debt capacity was 1.1% of the value of these companies. They also found that companies hedge to reduce the expected cost of financial distress. Thus, higher tax benefit is a tangible outcome from hedging, which, however, should not overshadow the clear benefits of risk management bestowed by this practice (Ghosh, 2013). On top of that, hedging serves as a strategic resource. One of the biggest strategic use of hedging as a corporate practice is, probably, the force multiplier it acts as in the resource pool of companies. By locking in prices of inputs and outputs, hedging releases valuable resources which can be better deployed fo r the companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s growth. Similarly, the ability of the company to stabilize its costs and hence control its pricing policy is itself a valuable resource of the company. Following the theory of Resource Based View (RBV) of the company (Rumelt, 1984 and Hamel Prahlad, 1994), this control over price stabilization is an inimitable resource. It has the potential to be a source of differentiation to the company, bestowing competitive advantage over its competitors. In this way, companies can turn price volatility in raw materials and finished products into a key differentiator, giving them more opportunity to reduce costs, achieve higher average profitability and expand market share. Last but not least, hedging can also be served a tool for corporate governance. An important strategic function fulfilled through hedging lies in its role in corporate governance of companies. In a typical example of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"agency riskà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢, it is possible to argue tha t managers of companies act in their self-interest, rather than in the interests of shareholders. While investors want the management to take risks in the interest of the company and the financial results of a company provide signals to boards and investors concerning the skills of its management, it is rather difficult for shareholders and the Board to differentiate between risk-taking behaviour of managers that is desirable from the risk-taking activity that leads to volatility in earnings, caused by management incompetence. This difficulty in identifying the value-creating from value-destroying risks in companies often leads to Boards seeking management action to eschew all types of risks. Often, managerial incentive structure including performance measure is linked to the extent of risk mitigated by managers. Besides, there may not be adequate human resources in the company to identify, manage and remove the undesirable risks from those that are desirable. As a result of these t wo factors, managers may reject investments that add value to the company in the long run, simply because the company-specific risk exposure, encompassing both the undesirable and desirable risks, seems to build up. Hedging allows a way out of this dichotomy. By driving a wedge between risks that are external to the company from those that are internal and then establishing a well thought- out Risk Management Policy that seeks to transfer avoidable risks out of the company in a transparent manner, hedging can delineate between the two types of risks. By transferring the external and avoidable risks through a large external market such as the commodity derivatives market, hedging also enables investors to segregate between legitimate and reckless risk-taking management behavior. Thus, hedging can promote sound corporate governance practices by providing a solution to investors to assess managerial performance (Ghosh, 2013). In conclusion, hedging helps in reducing exchange rate ri sk, enhancing a companyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s value, reducing distress costs, enhancing credit quality, reducing cost of debt financing, ensuring continuity of cash flows, lowering tax liabilities and serving as a strategic resource as well as a tool for corporate governance. Since hedging brings so many benefits and advantages to the company, Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) berhad should involve hedging as a strategy in order to sustain profitability, competitiveness and growth in the industry. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust" essay for you Create order