Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Business Leadership in Enron free essay sample

During the expansion plan, the debt acquired by Enron had increased substantially. The reason for this was that by issuing additional debt it would increase the company’s leverage and harm its credit rating. The alternative solution was to seek cash from external investors willing to invest in specific entities. When these entity was created, it could then borrow the capital separately from the sponsor company whilst maintaining Enron’s debt ratio and avoiding it being recorded in the balance sheet. 2. 3The Special Purpose Entities (SPEs)In order to cope with its growing volume of business, Enron needed a mechanism that could borrow an ever increasing amount of money but yet maintained an acceptable debt/equity ratio. Enron succeeded in hiding its debt by resorting to off-balance sheet financing. (Journal of Management Research, 2003a. ). Enron saw a creative use of special-purpose entities (SPEs) similar as that to the â€Å"GasBank†. Enron exploited this immature accounting area which used the SPE as on off-balance sheet item, to keep liabilities and assets of the entities separated from Enron’s statements. We will write a custom essay sample on Business Leadership in Enron or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The SPEs became a convenient vehicle to unload losing trading contracts and to borrow money from outside for Enron. According to (GAO,2002) â€Å" A business may utilize a SPE for accounting purpose, but these transactions must still be subjected to certain regulations†. (Journal of Management Research, 2003b. ) This was initially a temporary solution for temporary cash flow problems. Enron later used SPE partnership under 3% rule to hide had bets it had made on speculative assets of the partnerships in return for IOU’s backed by Enron stock as collateral (more than $1billion by 2002). In November 1997, Calpers wanted to cash out of JEDI and in order to keep JEDI afloat, Enron needed a new 3% partner. It then created another partnership Chewco to buy out Calper’s stake in JEDI for $383million. (Deakin Konzelmann, 2004) Enron plans to give back short term loan to Chewco to permit tit to to buy out Calper’s stake.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Object and Opt-out on Moral or Religious Grounds

Object and Opt-out on Moral or Religious Grounds Hashtag: #HDPyasambildirgesi (HDP Declaration of Life) Object and Opt-out on Moral or Religious Grounds Non-recognition of the right to conscientious objection is an enduring and highly controversial issue in Turkey and recently, HDP (Haklarm Demokratik Partisi), the country’s leading opposition party promised to legalize it if their candidates win the June 2015 parliamentary election. Conscientious objection or CO according to UN Commission on Human Rights is the right of every individual to object on grounds of conscience but a number of states such as Turkey are unwilling to recognize it as an important human right. Conscience or our sense of right or wrong is in effect the core features of a person’s moral and spiritual identity. Normally, people refused participation or involvement in something because it is against their moral and religious principles.  For example, some people refused to participate in war because of their deeply embedded moral, ethical, or religious belief that killing another human being is wrong. Note that personal code, political, sociological, philosophical, psychological, and other pragmatic reasons are not accepted the basis for a conscientious objection. Students at public or government-subsidized private schools are free to attend religion classes but they can also choose not to and exercise their right to conscientious objection on moral or religious grounds. The right to object is also applicable to a vast range of issues such as oath taking, compulsory patriotic exercises, school curricula, and others that may be easily granted due schools’ obligation to satisfy its neutrality obligation. For instance, a student’s objecting on a culturally impartial and race discriminating curriculum may be allowed to opt-out or exempt him from course requirements. However, similar to conscientious objection to military service, ritual practice, living arrangement, and others, the objection made on moral or religious grounds should pass the test of sincerity. Want to know more? Go here: Womens Right to Education Relieving Students School-Related Stress   Developing Students Creativity and Self-Expression Smoking in Public Places Should Be Banned The Misdemeanors of Well-Educated People in Public Office Testing the Sincerity of the Conscience Most educational institutions have formal policies permitting students at all levels to exercise their right to conscientious objection. In medical schools, for instance, students are allowed to use alternatives if testing of certain laboratory animals such as mice, dog, cats, rabbits, and others violates their conscience. In the United States, the right to conscientious objection to dissection in educational projects is guaranteed by law and school policies authorizing teachers to cooperate and develop an acceptable alternative with their students. The right to conscientious objection is potentially vulnerable to abuse such as avoiding the arduous training and danger associated with military service. It is, therefore, necessary to ascertain whether the objection is actually based on conscience rather than personal code or philosophy in life. A student exercising the right to conscientious objection and opting-out of a religious education class must clearly demonstrate that attending such class violates his or her conscience. For instance, the right may be granted if the student is a member of another religious group or verifiable evidence of a religious conviction that receiving religious teaching other than their own preacher or priest is a sin. Similarly, a student’s conscientious objection on racially discriminating and culturally impartial curriculum must be accompanied by strong conviction or proof of sincere and meaningful and enduring belief that is contradictory to that of the curriculum.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The Catholic church did not help the Jewish people during the Essay

The Catholic church did not help the Jewish people during the Holocaust - Essay Example It has been estimated that during the Holocaust approximately nine million Jews occupied Europe but almost two thirds lost their lives through Holocaust. Pope Pius XII was the catholic Pope during the time of the Holocaust1. Various controversies surrounded the position of the Pope in advocating against the Holocaust. The Pope took a more neutral position; he only made statements that condemned the injustices done against humanity, without coming boldly to condemn the Nazis for the massacre. The Pope failed in his authority and demonstrated that the Catholic Church had no firm position on the Holocaust. The Catholic Church’s main representative to the modern age is the Pope, During the Holocaust; Pope Pius XII was besieged to help the Jews to no avail. The Jews were constantly killed throughout every collaborating country in Europe. The Pope has continued to hold a supreme authority and was seen to influence political situations. Around 1941, the Cardinal of Vienna, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer took time to speak with the Pope on the issue of Jews that were deported from Spain to Germany where they were killed. In addition, there was pressure from a delegation from the United States to have the Pope condemn the killings2. However, the Pope took a very undefined position and was not bold and vocal in condemning the attacks. The argument by the Pope was that condemnation of the atrocities would have negative implications on the catholic faithfuls in Germany. This reason made the Pope to take a more neutral position. When a Ukrainian citizen, Andrej Septyckyj wrote to the Pope poi nting out to the ruthless nature of the German government, surprisingly the Pope replied with a verse from the Bible asking Andrej to bear adversity with patience3. There were opportunities for the voice of the church leaders to be heard but the neutrality aspect made the Pope and his cardinals to remain mum. Around 1940,