Thursday, December 26, 2019

Canada s Energy Policy Should Be Beneficial - 1173 Words

Canada is one of the biggest energy producers in the world. Currently Canada is ranked fifth in regards to the production of energy. Canada s energy policy should revolve around the natural resources and their optimum use to create cheap and clean energy, which should be environmentally friendly. Our policy should be beneficial for all the Canadians living in different parts of the country and that the policy should not discriminate among the provinces. Canada is also the biggest consumer of the energy in the world, as it consumes most of energy per capita because of the extreme weather conditions that it faces. We need to keep ourselves warm through the winter and have to transport goods and people from one place to another. Canada s†¦show more content†¦Canada s unique geographical location and its harsh weather conditions, requires extra use of energy to keep the houses warm.[Moreover we have to transport goods, to far of places including territories, therefore as a resul t we use extensive amount of fuel for the transportation purposes] (Energy, Statistic Canada). [Per capita consumption of electric power in Canada was 16,473.16 kWh in 2011. In 2010 Canada’s average energy consumption was, 41% from petroleum, 31% from natural gas and 1% consumption from coal] (Energy, Statistic Canada). We produce about 65 million metric tons of coal each year but, consume 50 percent of it and the remaining is exported to many countries of Asia, including Japan and South Korea (ILC 2007, CGW4UA, U2, L10, P 24). As per Statistic Canada our total consumption of energy was divided as: 34% of the energy was consumed by transportation. Residential and Agricultural sector consumed 20%. Manufacturing 19%, whereas mining, oil and gas extractions consumed 10% of the energy. Moreover 74% of the total energy consumed was in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta and Quebec. Canada produces 3 million barrels of oil, and consumes 2.2 million of it (Energy, Statistic Canada). T he rest is exported to the United States for sale. Furthermore Canada has cross border trade of electricity with the US and it exports 30 billion kWh of electricity (ILC 2007, CGW4UA, U2, L10, P 25).

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Why Do You Want For A Diamond Darling And What Past...

Why do you want to be a Diamond Darling and what past experiences qualify you to become a member of this organization? As a transfer student to Texas AM, I knew I wanted to get involved and join an organization to enhance to experience of my time in college. I looked into many different groups and stumbled upon Diamond Darlings by complete accident. After seeing what they do for both the baseball team and growing as friends, I knew it was somewhere I wanted to be. I grew up in a small town that was very baseball oriented. Everyone in Farmington lived and breathed baseball, as did my family. I played softball for 5 years and both of my brothers dedicated their time to the sport. The best way to show how dedicated the town was, my youngest brother Coby was actually playing on three different teams when we was nine years old. Besides a town that loves to play the sport, Farmington is the host to a fairly well known high school baseball tournament, The Connie Mack Work Series. A tradition that comes with this tournament is being a host family to the hundreds of players that come to play in this tournament. For the past 8 years, my family has been a part of this tradition, hosting boys from all over the United States. Besides giving these boys a home for a week and being their personal cheerleaders, you have a unique opportunity to help in the tournament. In the past years, I have worked the parade, sold programs and worked practices for our team. This experience aloneShow MoreRelatedCrossing the Chasm76808 Words   |  308 Pages CROSSING THE CHASM. Copyright  © 1991 by Geoffrey A. Moore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means,Read MoreEssay on Fall of Asclepius95354 Words   |  382 Pagesproblem about fleeing from infested areas. Everywhere was infested. There was no where anyone could go without encountering the walking plague. You know that phrase War is Hell? Well... its dead wrong. War at least has some organization to it. What was faced in the last days... by last days I mean the last days of civilization not life; itself. What was faced was hell. Everyone went ape shit insane. Everyone was killing and raping each other into oblivion, because we were under attack by creaturesRead MoreAutobilography of Zlatan Ibrahimovic116934 Words   |  468 PagesZLATAN By Zlatan Ibrahimovic as told to David Lagercrantz --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This book is dedicated to my family and friends, to those who have stood by my side, on good days and bad. I also want to dedicate it to all the kids out there, those who feel different and don t fit in. Those who are seen for the wrong reasons. It s OK to be different. Continue being yourself. It worked out for me. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read MoreW1 Active Adj14109 Words   |  57 Pagesof the Longman Corpus Network shows that these 3000 most frequent words in spoken and written English account for 86% of the language. This means that by knowing this list of words, a learner of English is in a position to understand 86% or more of what he or she reads. Of course, â€Å"knowing† a word involves more than simply being able to recognise it and know a main meaning of it. Many of the most frequent words have a range of different meanings, a variety of different grammatical patterns, and numerous

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Case Study of Dick Smith Holdings Samples †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Case Study of Dick Smith Holdings. Answer: Introduction DS Holdings is a public company based in Australia; the company is holding company of Dick Smith Group that has 11 subsidiaries (Dick Smith- Annual Report, 2014). The business organization operates in consumer electronic retail stores and also online consumer electronics retails throughout Australia and New Zealand. The business organization has a reach up to 390 locations with a huge workforce (Chung, 2016). The company was owned by Woolworths from 1982 and later was acquired by Anchorage. The famous brand name Dick Smith was liquidized in the year 2016 causing a massive loss to its investors and shareholders. However the company marked profit in the year 2014-15 and has also provided huge amount of dividend to its investors. The plan for expansion however caused hurdle and the company went on making losses (Chung, 2016). The report tries to analyze the organization on a broader view. The company was later purchased by Kogan.com and it is also speculated that to get listed in Austra lian Stock Exchange the company has hyped the amount. The report aims to provide a broader and wide view in relation to the company and factors that has played an important role in its success. The various problems such as the ethical problem faced by the business organization are also discussed in the report. Brief Review of Dick Smith In the year 1968, Dick Smith established a company which came to be known as Dick Smith Company in Sydney, Australia. With a small initial capital, it started its business focusing on installing car radios. The company gradually expanded its business by entering into different products and established approximately 20 stores throughout Australia. The major shares of Dick Smith were sold to Woolworths during 1980. The remaining shareholding was also owned by Woolworths. After getting major shares of the company Woolworths decided to restructure the brand Dick Smith, but later it closed some 100 stores of the brand in Australia (Dick Smith- Annual Report, 2014). This action of Woolworths also brought another surprise for Dick Smith. Woolworths sold Dick Smith to Anchorage Capital Partner for $115 million (Anchorage Capital Partners, 2017). In November 2012, the company appointed Nick Abboud as its chief executive. After the appointment, Dick Smith got listed in the Australian Stock exc hange in the year 2012, which increased its net worth. nobody have ever realized that a company who went on setting profits mark could collapse suddenly, however this happened, the company went into losses and collapsed in the year 2016. The major reason behind its situation was the disputed administration. The board of directors of the company and the investors didnt reach at a point of agreement so they chose different personalities each representing their groups. The board of directors of the company appoints McGrath Nicol, while the investors appointed Ferrier Hodgson as receiver. Today the brand Dick Smith is owned by Kogan.com, which sold its product online. Kogan.com acquired the company in 2016 (West, 2016). Assessing the Valuation of Dick Smith The brand Dick Smith was acquired by Woolworths in the year 2016, it was being purchased by Anchorage Capital Partners at an initial capital of $20 million. In the year 2013, the shares of Dick Smith were floated in the Australian Stock Exchange. The Annual reports of the company disclosed that in the previous one year the EBITDA of the brand Dick Smith got increased which not a good sign for a healthy company. It has been assessed that the rise in EBITDA was due to carelessness and irregularities in the management of inventory (Dick Smith- Annual Report, 2014). The annual reports didnt show the value for the assets which have been write off. However the depreciation in the inventory was declared which was $58 million (Chung, 2016). Noncurrent provisions were written off with $58 million and all the required was done carefully and judged as fair. In a short duration of 7 months the poor management of the inventory lead to the further decline of the same, the inventory got declined by $171 million in the year 2013. In the year 2014, the total depreciation was only $10 million because plants, equipments and other assets were written down in the year 2013. In addition to this, it has also been observed that loans and other borrowings of the Dick Smith got increased in the year 2015, which was not reported in the balance sheet of the year 2014. The loans got increased by $70.5 million. This was quite unusual as the scrutiny of the reports of the year 2015 showed everything normal and fair. At the same time, when the case of the company was assessed quite closely, it was noticed that the debt ratio of the company was 67% which didnt indicate a sound business practice (Walker, 2016). The percentage of debt ratio i.e. 67% was quite high and termed risky for business operations. In the year 2015, Dick Smith was not able to arrange its short term debts because of the poor working capital. Apart from this, the inventory turnover ratio was also examined which didnt showed any significance increase in its profits from the year 2014. The whole business operations and other functions of the company was mismanaged, the staff of the company was also not working efficiently due to no long leaves were given to the employee in the year 2015, this has laid a great impact on the efficiency and productivity of the employees (White, 2016). The top level management of the company has also announced the breakdown in the prices of the products of the company. Apart from this they also announced that the company has failed in its operations in the year 2015. All these announcements lead to sudden decline in the prices of the shares of the company in the Australian Stock Exchange. Thus whole of these processes has severely impacted the productivity and efficiency of the company . When it comes to initial public offerings, DSE source has been added in the balance sheets of the company so that manipulation can be done. Apart from this, the profits and losses of the company were also not assessed properly. This shows that the people with higher ranks in the top management didnt paid attention to increase the performance of the company in the market. Its been reported that the accounts andfinances of the company was not audited from 2010-2014 that created an atmosphere of mistrust in the investors and auditors (Ong and Janda, 2016). They developed a kind of suspicion regarding the authenticity of the accounts. All these activities confronts that the company Dick Smith was not operating properly, it was not following the accounting standards and has not recorded its financial statements from 2010-2014. Anchorage Capital Partners and its Ethical Dilemma The company Anchorage Capital Partners is situated in Australia and is a private equity firm, it majorly focuses on turnovers and revenue generation (Anchorage Capital Partner, 2016). It has take over Dick Smith in the year 2012 from Woolworths and paid $115 million in total. Dick Smith got listed in Australian Stock Exchange in the year 2012. However the company lost the trust of investors and various stakeholders because it has presented documents and accounts which were completely mismatched. One of them was the poor management of the inventory, due to which the EBITDA was the company raised. In addition to this the debt of the company was also increased and in lack of the short term debt, the top level management of the company declared that the company is operating in losses. The company also failed to record their financial statements from the last 4 years which developed mistrust among its stakeholders. Anchorage capital partner is a profit making company, which increases the profit of shareholders irrespective of their investment (Anchorage Capital Partner, 2016). The company is working not only for those which are listed in the stick exchange but also for the medium and small sized companies. It uses equity shares as a means of operation. In addition to this, it has been seen that such firms severely deducts the assets to show an increment in the profit margin of the company. The top management was quite satisfied with the performance of the Dick Smith and they were hoping for more investment in the company in future. The financial statements presented by the company were not valid as several figures mentioned in the books were not clear and their proper source was also missing. In addition to this, the unaudited accounts of the company was also recovered which shows that the company has not audited its accounts from 2010-2014 (Wright, 2016). All these activities show that serious carelessness an irresponsible behavior of the management leads to the decline of the Dick Smith. The financial statements showed by the company were a mere attempt to influence its shareholders and investors. Deloitte has played a significant role in the liquidation process of the Dick Smith. The company claimed that the financial statements were prepared with utmost care and is also in compliance with the accounting standards. However it was observed that the future prospects of the company was not listed and previous operations were also not present. Deloitte was working on the project as accounts auditor, after three days of proper observation it ceased the accounts of Dick Smith. Deloitte observed that the top level management who have opted a clear irresponsible behavior towards its shareholders and investors. The company has not made any effort in increasing the sources of finances, apart from this they has also not showed their sources in the financial statements (Boyd, 2016). They were trying to maintain the fake performance of the company in the market so that in order to impress its stakeholders and investors. Deloitte observed that the senior executives of the company has not l aid down their future courses of action and the ways through which they can improve the goodwill and share prices of the company. Deloitte ceased the subsidiaries of Dick Smith after properly analyzing the financial statements of the company. In addition to this National Australian Bank and HSBC Bank of Australia with major shareholders AMP was also ceased. Thus it is evident that the suspicion of the shareholders and investors won against the fake reports and financial statements of the company (The Dick Smith Group, 2016). Conclusion The report provides a wide spectrum in the case of Dick Smith, it is observed from the report that mismanagement on every level was responsible for the liquidation of the Dick Smith. Poor management and some false representation of financial accounts have laid to the decline of the company in the year 2015. The company is presently operating under Kagon.com in which it is selling its products online (Dick Smith- Annual Report, 2014). The sudden increase in the share prices of the company leads to suspicion in the investors of the company. The sudden increase of share prices from $115 million to $520 million in Australian Stock Exchange in a year attracted the attention of the stakeholders. The major cause behind the loss of the company was the poor management of the inventory and writing of assets from huge amount (The Dick Smith Group, 2016). In addition to this, the company has also not audited its accounts for four years. The financial statements and accounts books showed no prope r sources of finance. In this case, Deloitte played a quite significant role in assessing the operations and functions of the company. In addition to this it also concluded that a company named Anchorage capital partner was also present which deals in increasing the profits of the company by severely reducing its assets. This is done so that shareholders can be impressed and they invest in the company. This is done by the company to attract more finances. As per the annual financial reports the top level management was also involved in the misrepresentation of accounts. Thus it can be concluded that various factors such as poor management of inventory and misleading facts were the major causes behind the liquidation of the Dick Smith. References Anchorage Capital Partner. 2016. Senate economics references committee inquiry in relation to the causes and consequences of the collapse of listed retailers in Australia [Online] Available at: https://www.google.de/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=5cad=rjauact=8ved=0ahUKEwjP6NLAuPrVAhVNL1AKHeOlC1oQFghCMAQurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aph.gov.au%2FDocumentStore.ashx%3Fid%3Dfd49fc87-6bc3-460c-81fc-293c5a92edc5%26subId%3D410892usg=AFQjCNFNELD2mWphtkCrcXWvqTsSSTUMgg Anchorage Capital Partners. 2017. [Online] Available at: https://www.anchoragecapital.com.au/news/ Boyd, T. 2016. Dick Smith collapses a case study in electronics retailing. [Online] Available at: https://www.afr.com/brand/chanticleer/dick-smith-collapse-a-case-study-in-electronics-retailing-20160713-gq54s0# Chung, J. 2016. Dick Smith blasts private equity firm behind retailers stock market float. [Online] Available at: https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/dick-smith-blasts-private-equity-firm-behind-retailers-stock-market-float/news-story/41a067495cc4bef5c8109bce7a97ae50 Dick Smith- Annual Report. 2014. [Online] Available at: https://corpdocs.msci.com/Annual/ar_2014_317027.pdf Ong, T and Janda, M. 2016. Dick Smith enters receivership due to bad sales, banking woes. [Online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-voluntary-administration/7067798 The Dick Smith Group. 2016. [Online] Available at: https://www.mcgrathnicol.com/app/uploads/DS-Australia-Report-to-Creditors-13-July-2016-updated-15-July-2016.pdf Walker, A. 2016. [Online] Available at: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/07/dick-smith-finally-goes-into-liquidation/ White, A. 2016. [Online] Available at: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/dick-smith-goes-into-liquidation-insolvency-under-probe/news-story/609593cad7d6d52c522de95cb8616e8a Wright, H. 2016. [Online] Available at: https://channellife.com.au/story/dick-smith-creditors-vote-liquidation-failed-company/

Monday, December 2, 2019

Marlow Essays - Joseph Conrad, Charles Marlow, Heart Of Darkness

Marlow Marlow's Catharsis in Heart of Darkness Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, relies on the historical period of imperialism to illuminate its protagonist, Charlie Marlow, and his struggle with two opposite value systems. Marlow undergoes a catharsis during his trip to the Congo and learns of the effects of imperialism. I will analyze Marlow's change, which is caused by his exposure to the imperialistic nature of the historical period in which he lived. Marlow goes to the Congo River to report on Mr. Kurtz, a valuable officer, to their employer. When he sets sail, he does not know what to expect. When his journey is complete, his experiences have changed him forever. Heart of Darkness is a story of one man's journey through the African Congo and the enlightenment of his soul. Marlow begins his voyage as an ordinary English sailor who is traveling to the African Congo to work. He is an Englishmen through and through. He has never been exposed to any culture similar to the one he will enc ounter in Africa, and he has no idea about the drastically different culture that exists there. Throughout the book, Conrad, via Marlow's observations, reveals to the reader the naive mentality of Europeans. Marlow also shares this naivet? in the beginning of his voyage. However, after his first few moments in the Congo, he realizes the ignorance he and all his comrades possess. We first recognize the general naivet? of the Europeans when Marlow's aunt sees him for the last time before he embarks on his journey. She assumes that the voyage is a mission of weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways [. . .] (line 16). In reality, however, the Europeans are there in the name of imperialism and their sole objective is to earn a substantial profit by collecting all the ivory in Africa. The reader can also see the Europeans obliviousness of reality when Marlow is recounting his adventure aboard the Nellie. He addresses his comrades: When you have to attend to things of that so rt, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality--the reality I tell you---fades. The inner truth is hidden luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same; I felt often its mysterious stillness watching over me at my monkey tricks, just as it watches you fellows performing on your respective tight ropes for---what is it? half a crown a tumble . . . . (36) While he is in the Congo, although he has to concentrate on the petty everyday things like overseeing the repair of his boat, he is still aware of what is going on around him and of the horrible reality he is in. On the other hand, his friends on the boat simply do not recognize this reality. It is their ignorance and innocence which provokes them to tell Marlow to try to be civil (36). Not only are they oblivious to the reality that Marlow sees, but their naivet? is so great that they can not even comprehend such a thing (Johnson 356). Quite surprisingly, this mentality does not pertain exclusively to the Englishmen in Europe. At one point during Marlow's voyage down the Congo, he wakes to find his boat in an enormous patch of fog. At that very instant, a very loud cry is let out (41). After Marlow looks around and makes sure everything is all right, he observes the contrasts of the whites and the blacks expressions: It was very curious to see the contrast of expression of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row. The others had an alert, naturally interested expression; but their faces were essentially quiet[. . .]. (41-42) One can see the simple-mindedness of the Europeans, even though they were exposed to reality. An innocent mentality is engraved in their minds so deeply that even the environment of the Congo can not sway their belief that people simply do not do the