Saturday, January 25, 2020

The Principles Of Lying

The Principles Of Lying Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, said that lying was always morally wrong. To tell a lie contradicts the part of oneself that gives them moral worth. To receive a lie takes away a persons free choice to decide other than what they would have had they known the truth. The two reasons lying is morally wrong, according to Kant, is lying contradicts the part of me that gives me moral worth and lying robs others of their freedom to choose rationally. Virtue ethicists believe that lying is wrong. Virtues are desirable qualities of a person that makes them act in certain ways. Virtue ethics focus on what a person should be. Lying is wrong because it opposes honesty. If a lie is told in the pursuit of another virtue is it right or wrong? As long as the lie is a step toward being the best person we can be it is acceptable. If it is a step away it is morally wrong. Utilitarian ethics is the balancing of the benefits and harms of lying. The belief is it is morally acceptable to lie if the consequences maximize benefits and minimize harm. In fact it would be immoral not to lie if lying is necessary to maximize the benefits or minimize the harm. The reasoning is logical but the application is flawed. To estimate the consequences of the lie a person must be able to evaluate the degree of the benefit as it is viewed within the standard of the person or group of people being lied to. The same is also true in evaluating the harm of a lie. By the liar standards, the harm may be small such as telling someone they had a fifty percent chance of recovery when in fact they were dying in less than six months. The thought being to let the person enjoy life and not worry of their impending doom. The result being a will wasnt made, people were not given time to say their goodbyes, and life was not enjoyed because they thought there would be more time to do it. Surveys could be taken on how people in general would respond to a certain lie, but unless it resulted in 100% certainty you would not know which way the recipient of the lie would fall. There are three classifications of lies: beneficial lies, spiteful lies, and neutral lies. A beneficial lie can be told to be kind in the attempt to avoid hurting someones feelings. How do I look? Ive seen you look better. Is that what youre really going to wear? You look terrible. The truth can hurt. The little white lie, You look great. Does it matter to you, the liar, no you are on your way. The person being lied to is happy. So no harm, or is there. Every lie there is harm whether intentional or not. If you in fact knew the person being lied to looked bad and still let him/her go out and they were ridiculed for their appearance it will come back to you that you lied. Will your judgment be used again? Children are lied to about death. Your cat ran away. Grandpa went to heaven to be with God. Someday the truth will have to be told but by that time they will already know that you lie. Spiteful lies mean that you gain something while hurting someone else. A spiteful lie can be a rumor started to hurt someone, usually a rival in politics or a rival for the affections of someone you love. An example of a spiteful lie is, I saw your husband having lunch with his old girlfriend. The gain in this is the joy in causing the pain. The neutral lie is the most common lie of all. It is a lie that neither avoids causing hurt nor causes hurt. If youre not good Santa will put coal in your stocking. Put your tooth under your pill and the tooth fairy will leave you money. Similarly, people use a neutral lie to avoid a question, or lead away from private information. Most parents use this type of lie in particular to try and stray children away from investigating the truth. Mom, where do babies come from? Well, a baby comes from the stork, and drops them off at the house. Magicians and illusionist fall into this category. An avoidance of truth is also a form of lying. When a person says they never lie what they are really saying is that they do not actively engage in spiteful lies. When someone doesnt know the answer and says what they think. This falls under this classification of lying. You dont mean to lie, because you dont gain or you dont hurt anyone. It is still considered lying because you arent telling the trut h, but are unaware of it. People for years have been putting falsifications on their rà ©sumà ©s to make it look appealing, and to create a sense that they are perfect for the job. Ethically it is fine to do so as long as you keep it to only one or two lies on it and you keep to a low level. By low level meaning you cant falsify years at college or years in a job you have never obtained. In one example of a woman, Janet Cooke, lied to get onto the Washington Post team. She did plenty of lying to get to the Washington Post, falsifying where she graduated college, the degree she got, the languages she could speak, and writing awards she received. Not long after her hiring into the Washington Post she quickly was looking for an 8-year-old heroin addict. When she came up dry and couldnt locate the young man. It dawned on me that I could simply make it all up. I just sat down and wrote it. (Kidwell, 178) After being found out she was a fraud, she quickly resigned from her dream job at the Washington Post. Lying is it good or bad? It all depends on the person being lied to. Telling a little white lie to a child is seen as good to maintain their innocence. You could just tell a menacing and just plain evil lie to get back at someone or to make someone feel bad. Lying, ethically, is actually accepted in most places, but it can also be frowned upon strongly. It all depends on who it is being lied to and to what extent you are lying to.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Ethical behavior is legally governed rather volunteered by organizations

Corporate Organizations, in today’s cut- throat competition and globalized economy are forced to focus to improve their bottom line. Corporate governance or ethical practices are limited to a level which is mandatory as per laws. Genuine commitment to ethics is like a needle in haystack. There are various elements to ethical behavior expected from the organizations Accounting transparency: Enron and Worldcom are glaring examples where ethics were compromised to maintain profitable image of the organization.Accounting firm Arthur Anderson’s creative accounting and ulterior motives of management crippled investor’s confidence to the nadir, resulting in bankruptcy/ closure of all three organizations. Leading by example: As per data, US CEOs were paid 42 times the average worker's pay in 1980, to 85 in 1990, and then skyrocketed to 531 times by 2000. Leadership teams of organizations are paid everything to show healthy growth in turnover and profits, for shareholder to be exited at stock markets.No CEO is paid to exemplify ethical leadership at Wall Street. Child labor: Many corporate, primarily in apparel segment, overlook the extreme levels of child exploitation in third world countries. In absence of strict law or policy, child labor is another big area which is not effectively monitored and contained. Summary: Though state (U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission) try to put accounting and auditing system, Corporate Ethics remain an Oxymoron.Ethics, like democracy, is a lot easier in theory than in practice. It would be imperative on regulatory bodies and responsible corporations to take lead in showing value in becoming ethical organization. Moreover, shareholders also should reward organization which exhibit transparency and good quality corporate governance. References: Munzig P G, â€Å"Enron and Economics of Corporate Governance† Stanford University, (June 2003), (http://www-econ. stanford.edu/academics/honors_theses/theses_200 3/Munzig. pdf) Holmstrom, Bengt and Steven N. Kaplan, â€Å"The State of US Corporate Governance: What’s right and What’s wrong? † National Bureau of Economic Research: Working paper 9613, (2003) Jense, Michael and Kevin Murphy, 1990, â€Å"Performance Pay and Top Management Incentives†, Journal of Political Economy, (1990) September/October 1996 edition of At Work [email  protected] com, byBerrett-Koehler Publishers. Jon Entine is a writer and Emmy

Thursday, January 9, 2020

DBQ Womens Rights, The Market Revolution, and The Great...

Between 1815 and 1860, mass revolutions in industry and religion spread throughout America, changing it politically, economically, and socially. These revolutions affected all of the country in various aspects, especially in opening new opportunities for women at this time. The Market Revolution and Second Great Awakening affected the evolution of womens role in the family, workplace, and society by expanding their roles and introducing them to reform and the strength of womanhood. During this time of the Market Revolution and the Second Great Awakening, women began appearing as an important m ­Ã‚ ­ember of family life. Women became the leading family member because of her significance in keeping the family together and raising†¦show more content†¦These women worked on the Southern plantations all day without relief. They not only worked in the fields, but also in the house with their masters. Though people thought slavery was a sin, as Mrs. A did, women could not challen ge slavery politically because there was a great lack of decorum in women getting involved with politics, thus African American women continued to work for free (Doc. C). Even though this was a setback, women in the workforce pushed forward and strived to become equal. As women continued to chase their equality in the workforce, they petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to try and equal themselves with men (Doc. I). Although women started off slow, working for low wages, they continued to challenge for their equality in the workforce. The Second Great Awakening and the Antebellum Market helped women to become the leaders of their family, movements in social reform, and their independence from industrial workplaces. This helped America have an important role in the future American society, and the global economy and eventually politics. Although women were still a minority in the 19th century, the Second Great Awakening and Market Revolution transformed the roles of the family, workplace, and society and made great stepping stones to women’s equalShow MoreRelatedAp Exam Essays1660 Words   |  7 Pagescauses and consequences of TWO of the following population movements in the United States during the period 1945–1985. †¢ Suburbanization †¢ The growth of the Sun Belt †¢ Immigration to the United States 2009 [pic]AP Exam Essays 1. DBQ: From 1775 to 1830, many African Americans gained fredom from slavery, yet during the same period the institution of slavery expanded. Explain why BOTH of these changes took place. Analyze the ways that BOTH free African Americans and enslaved AfricanRead MoreBoyer Dbq Teacher Guide10764 Words   |  44 PagesUsing the DBQ Practice Questions from The Enduring Vision, Sixth Edition A Teachers’ Guide Ray Soderholm Minnetonka High School Minnetonka, Minnesota Using the DBQ Practice Questions from The Enduring Vision, 6th Edition A Teachers’ Guide This guide is intended to suggest some possible ways that students may organize essays related to the document-based questions in the Advanced Placement version of The Enduring Vision, 6th Edition, and to provide teachers with some information on each included

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Hedge Funds.Characteristics Example For Free - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2138 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? Institutional investment is defined as financially advanced investment forms that endow in substantial volumes. These are in the form of portfolios normally including large numbers of investments. Because of such advanced characteristics, the institutional investments are frequently done, involving private security placements; so as to escape from the securities regulations. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Hedge Funds.Characteristics Example For Free" essay for you Create order Hedge fund is one sort of institutional investment This fund was introduced by Jones in 1949. He set up hedges through investment in securities chosen from the set of undervalued ones and funding such long term positions a part through short positions in some overvalued securities, Thus through these hedges, a market neutral position is created. Also, these funds were designed in such a way that incentive fee compensation was paid as a percentage of the profits attained from the clients assets. Besides, he invested his own capital in that fund to ensure an investment partnership. There is no specific definition about hedge funds but according to some authors, defines hedge fund as an appropriately assertively managed portfolio of investments using advanced strategies for investment including leveraged, long, short position and derivative trade in domestic as well as international markets to generate higher returns. explains that hedge funds are set up or established in the form of private investment partnerships which are available for a restricted set of investors requiring quite large initial investment. Hedge funds investments are illiquid in nature (mostly) because the money invested by any investor is not assured to be there for a long term i.e. at least for one year. Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds in majority of states are unregulated, since they cater or involve sophisticated investors. Hedge funds can be regarded as mutual funds designed for the super rich individuals. Such hedge funds are similar to mutual funds in the sense that in both funds, investments are to be pooled and further professionally managed. Still, significant difference is there in terms of flexibility of investment strategies. Hedge funds hold their origin in a popular risk management term i.e. hedging. Hedging is actually the practice of risk reduction, but on contrary, the aim behind most of the hedge funds is maximize the return on investment. Nowadays, dozens of differ ent investment strategies are used by hedge funds, thus they are just not meant for hedging risk, but with a speculative investment attitude of hedge fund managers, such funds involves more risk than the overall market. CHARACTERISTICS OF HEDGE FUNDS A variety of financial instruments are utilized in Hedge funds to condense the risk, improve returns and minimize the degree of correlation of the fund with the equity and bond markets. Majority of the hedge funds are flexible as far as the investment options are considered. These can employ leverage, short selling, derivatives like puts or calls, futures, etc. In terms of investment returns, instability and risk, Hedge funds are enormous. Most of the hedge fund strategies are aligned towards the goal of hedging against downturns in the markets being traded, but not all of them. Non market correlated returns can be generated through some of the hedge fund strategies In majority of the hedge funds, objective is to maintain the consistency of returns and preservation of capital rather than maximization of returns magnitude which is the best way to attract sufficiently large capital inflows along with retention of investors. Hedge funds are managed with the help of some experienced as well as disciplined and diligent investment professionals. Main investor group for hedge funds is the Pension funds, endowment funds, some private banks, insurance companies and HNIs (high net worth individuals). Aim of this investor group is to minimize the overall portfolio volatility and add to returns Managers for Hedge funds are usually specialized in particular sectors and trade only within the area of expertise. Managers remuneration in hedge funds is heavily weighted with the performance incentives to attract the best talent in this business, but this can also result in undue risks. Hedge funds largely involve the funds of the managers also, giving it a look of investment partnership form and assuring the investors for personal interest of the managers RETAIL INVESTORS According to retail investors means individuals, involved in buying and selling securities for themselves on their own account via traditional as well as online brokerage organization. Individual investors have reasons to make investment. This investment can be short or long-term goals such as providing for their ward good education, saving to acquire land, houses or setting up their own establishment in the near future. Retail investors invest a portion of their pay check in the workforce, in order to shoot the accumulated funds to provide a retirement earnings or to give part of their assets to their wards. individuals are investing for growth and to make sure all their investment are not in vain therefore they intend to invest in companies that makes a lot of profits and to bring good returns. ADVANTAGES OF INVESTING IN HEDGE FUNDS Through traditional asset allocation, use of equities, bonds, real estate and private equity investment can be optimized in a portfolio which result in return maximization and portfolio risk minimization. The same objective is pursued by hedge funds, as a result of which hedge funds have become a natural candidate for investment consideration. Hedge funds are commonly believed to have superior returns then retail or other investment alternatives. A professional management of fund minimize the risk associated with non research based investment decisions Returns of the Hedge funds have a very low correlation with the returns of the traditional asset classes such as debt, bond, equity etc. This lower correlation gives an advantage of the diversifying effect on a portfolio. Thus, asset classes with diverse correlations are not going to react in the similar way to the market conditions. As majority of the well-managed hedge funds do not act in alignment with the market movements, thu s they have an inbuilt ability to stabilize the portfolio returns during market uncertainty Hedge funds have a relatively low volatility. Institutional investments, by allocating more to alternative investments have reduced the overall portfolio volatility. Volatility is a measure of fluctuation. By less volatility, one can refer to more stability or minimized extremes associated with the portfolio. Hedge funds have the potential to realize sufficient returns for aggressive investors. One of the strongest reasons behind hedge fund investment is the nature it has to offer steadying hand over time for well-diversified portfolios In addition to the traditional hedge funds, many relatively new specialized hedge funds are popular. These are referred as hedge fund-like mutual funds. Such funds are basically mutual funds, which are engaged in hedging techniques up to some extent. Such funds offer certain advantages over the traditional ones including greater liquidity, lower fees, lo wer leverage and better transparency. Also, fund of funds are popular among the retail investors. Fund of funds is a hedge fund which invests in other hedge funds. DISADVANTAGES OF INVESTING IN HEDGE FUNDS Primarily, Hedge funds are speculative investment vehicles that employ a strategy of aggressive investment to magnify the returns. Such funds usually comprises of high end clients. This is because of the strict criteria posed on investors to fulfil, so as to partake in hedge funds. These funds are not regulated ones which is a serious limitation in account of the retail investor. This lessens the security factors of the funds. Main disadvantages are discussed in the below section Higher minimum investment amount requirement is a main disadvantage associated with hedge fund investments. Retail investors cannot invest in hedge funds due to this reason. But, this limitation has been resolved up to some extent by introduction of fund of funds. Also the Hedge funds involve great risk to generate higher returns. Hedge funds are comparatively less liquid. Investors are not able to buy or sell them whenever they wish. Also many a times, Hedge funds are mispriced. Because of this misp ricing risk, retail investors find it a less attractive investment alternative. As management fees are performance based, so there is a chance that managers could start taking much higher risk. This may be unfair for the retail investors. Hedge funds involve speculation based investments and rumor based investments. Besides all these, many complex management biases are involved in hedge fund investments RETURN AND RISK OF HEDGE FUNDS Hedge funds have become popular asset class among the HNI investors, since the early 1990s. The amount invested globally has rose from around $50 billion in 1990 to around $1 trillion by the end of 2004. As substantial leverage is used in these funds, a far more important role is played in the global securities markets by hedge funds. Hedge funds are bundled with some management biases. Correcting for such biases, hedge funds have lower returns than the supposed level. Furthermore, the funds have lower correlations with the market equity indices and thus are excellent diversifiers. Such funds are very risky. The cross sectional volatility and individual hedge fund returns, both are greater comparatively to the traditional asset classes. Considering the Hedge funds to be similar in risk terms to the other types of investments is a mistake. Risk in other asset classes is measured by quantitative metrics, but in case of hedge funds, risk is measured in qualitative terms making it u nique to evaluate and analyze. The most common measure of risk used for both hedge and mutual fund analysis is the standard deviation. Here, it is the level of instability in returns. Standard deviation gives a good indication of the variability of annual returns and makes it easy to compare to other funds when combined with annual return data. For instance, to compare 2 funds with similar annualized returns, fund with relatively lower standard deviation should be more attractive Particularly for hedge funds, StDev is not considered sufficient to capture total risk depiction of returns as for majority of the hedge funds, returns are not normally distributed. But, the standard deviation assumes a normal bell-shaped distribution where similar probability is assigned to different return prospects above and below the mean. Hedge funds involve several interesting characteristics which influence the performance. These include strong managerial incentives, sophisticated investors, fl exible investment strategies, substantial managerial investment and limited government oversight. Researchers have observed that hedge funds have consistently outperformed. Hedge funds are more volatile and their returns have been widely discussed in the literature. According to researchers Brooks and Kat, the published hedge fund indices are normally distributed exhibiting relatively low skewness. Return is measured and evaluated with the use of descriptive statistics mean and median. The risk is measured by the second and fourth moment. From investor perspective, this combined characteristic is important having derived with sufficiently weak assumptions with respect to investors utility functions that investors prefer first and third moments i.e. mean and skewness higher and second and fourth moments i.e. standard deviation and kurtosis lower. Higher value of skewness implies asymmetrical distribution of returns with the mean return sufficiently higher than median. Also, for hedge fund survival probability, profit analysis is designed. Here, a funds probability of survival is measured. A funds time to survival or more specifically the duration of a fund is examined in this method. Duration of a hedge fund is the time until a fund gets failure CONCLUSION In terms of investment returns, instability and risk, Hedge funds are enormous. Most of the hedge fund strategies are aligned towards the goal of hedging against downturns in the markets being traded, but not all of them. Hedge funds are managed with the help of some experienced as well as disciplined and diligent investment professionals. Main investor group for hedge funds is the Pension funds, endowment funds, some private banks, insurance companies and HNIs (high net worth individuals) and families. Aim of this investor group is to minimize the overall portfolio volatility and add to returns. Hedge funds largely involve the funds of the managers also giving it a look of investment partnership form and assuring the investors for personal interest of the managers. The primary aim of most hedge funds is to reduce volatility and risk while attempting to preserve capital and deliver positive (absolute) returns under all market conditions. Although the returns from hedge funds are significantly high, still these are not able to attract the retail investors. Retail investors profiles are not matched with the investment motives behind the hedge funds. Hedge funds can be regarded as mutual funds designed for the super rich individuals. Such funds are similar to mutual funds in the sense that in both funds, investments are to be pooled and further professionally managed. Still significant difference is there in terms of flexibility of investment strategies. For retail investors, who are interested in realizing the higher returns from hedge funds as well as invest in lower proportion have the option of fund of funds.