We did a power writing session earlier this week, and in it, you were asked to write about five things you were certain of, and write down three things you were confused about concerning our unit on industry and unions in the late 19th Century. Now, I'm asking you to think once again about the stuff you're still unsure of even after taking the test on Friday.
After linking corruption in the business world today to the abuse of power back then, and contrasting moral businessmen like J.P. Morgan with modern ones like the Enron head honchos, after comparing Carnegie Steel and Standard Oil with Clear Channel's vertical and horizontal integation, what nagging question still remains? Is there something that you're not quite still clear about?
There were some great questions on the power writing. For example:
1. How could Enron look profitable for so long yet practically collapse almost over night?
2. Why do people get so greedy that they'll risk everything?
3. How is Clear Channel a monopoly if they only own 10% of the market?
4. Apple appears to be nice and friendly in their ads, but that article, at least the author, seems to really hate Apple. Why?
Your job, in Blog #2, is to pick your toughest question that still nags you and try to answer it in no less than 150 words. Due Monday, Sept. 22, 2008.
48 comments:
My question that I still don’t fully understand is why did Enron want to hide their losses from the public? I understand that they wanted to make it look like Enron was still making money, but why does it matter what other people think of them. If they were not making money then there were not making money they could always improve and get better. So I am just asking why does it matter what the people think about you if you know that you’re still a good business. But I would understand that people would start to ditch your business since they would realize that your stocks are going down. So they would want to try to keep it as a secret as much as they could so people would continue to think that there stocks are very good still. After thinking about the question a little bit more I think I have realized why they would want to keep their losses from the public privately.
How could Enron look so successful for so long and have no one recognize that they were spending more then they made?
Enron was a middle man for trading energy and was making huge profits in the 90’s. It was the seventh largest company in the United States and then it seemed like they suddenly went bankrupt. One of the reasons I think Enron went broke is because they over paid their workers. “Company executives worked long hours, but some blew as much as 50,000 a month in expenses. (Enron Disappearing act, by Peter Vilbig).” Even though the employees worked long hours being able to spend that much in such a short period of time is not good. Enron also made terrible investments in companies and things because they were trying to hide their decline in profit. At the time it seemed a good idea to make a million dollars by making a deal with a company, but it just came back to haunt them when they went bankrupt. Enron also tried to cover up its low profits from the public eye by hiring Arthur Anderson to do its accounting. Enron paid Arthur millions of dollars to cheat their accounting books. The public did not recognize that Enron was going broke because they worked hard to make it look like everything was fine.
Tessa Dickson, Hour2
What is Wall Street?
Wall Street is a street that runs through Manhattan. It’s also the historic site of many financial institutions. There are still many offices on Wall Street today. It’s also a great tourist site. Many people visit New York and like to walk down Wall Street. There are two explanations for the name “Wall Street.” Some people believe that the street represents a wall built in the 1600s to protect themselves from invasions. Other people think has something to do with the Walloons. Walloons are people from Belgium who helped construct New Amsterdam, better known as New York City today. “Wall Street” sometimes describes Manhattan’s financial institutions in general. Wall Street also is composed of many well-known buildings, such as museums, houses, and financial offices. “Wall Street” is sometimes used to describe many trading companies and commerce. Wall Street runs the American market. Wall Street is also a nightmare to the 17th and 18th century Europeans.
Why do So many people think that clear channel is a monopoly?
A lot of people think that Clear channel is a monopoly because they own 10% of the nations radio stations. 10% of the stations are about 1500 radio channels. Other than them owning all of the stations they also buy out concert halls so they can promote bands, and other types of shows. They do more advertising that any other company. For example they buy digital billboards, wallscapes, and advertise on top of the taxis in New York and other large cities. When they buy these they have other companies pay them to use them, the FBI is using their digital billboards to advertise “Americas Most Wanted”. They also sell stuff that does not have to do with radio or advertising. They also sell HD radio, HD radio is just much clearer than other radio stations and there are no blackout spots. People think that Clear Channel is a monopoly because the own and buy so much stuff but at the same time they sell and rent their property.
What I’m still not clear about is how people could have such a horrible conscious about things; why wouldn’t they speak up when they first found out about the money being stolen? Was it because, they were in on the scam? Or because they just simply did not care? I’m pretty sure it was because they ether A) were the ones who were part of the scheme itself, or B) they were paid to keep quiet about the whole situation. So the ones who knew what was going on and did not speak up, are just as guilty as the ones who actually stole the money, I’m also unclear about how no one found out sooner? Are there not people who keep up on that kind of information, of what money is going in and what money is going out? Where the ones who knew about it held just as accountable for the crime?
Alexandra Sewell second hour
One thing that I still do not understand is how Enron was able to steal so much from the company and the stocks. How could know one else besides Arthur Anderson know about this? There must have been someone else who was keeping tabs on such a big and powerful company. I would think that it would be more closely monitored because it was such a highly invested in company. To try to answer this question I would say that because the Arthur Anderson firm was getting paid to keep quiet about the Enron money scandal they did everything they could to try to cover up this mess. They probably tried to make sure that the public never found out about this, and they probably tried to make sure they were the only ones monitoring what Enron was doing with their money. They would want to keep this a secret because the longer they did the more money they would make from Enron.
One thing that still puzzles me is why J.P Morgan was known to be so powerful and not have as much money as everyone presumed. Why was he so built up and have so much influence in many things that involves money? Was he wealthy at one point but gave most of it away to help the country? I think that in the beginning Morgan has a lot of money from the businesses he had, but then when presidents asked for his help and support he gave a lot of it away to save our countries economy. While he was extremely wealthy I think he got on a lot of important boards and created a power that no man should have. If he was a bad guy, he could of hurt America’s economy badly. I’m also curious how he got onto the boars such as the insurance and railroads companies. He might of paid them to let him on or maybe he really did have true greatness and right morals to be able to have as much power and responsibility as he truly earned.
The question that has been nagging at me for a long time now is, “How could Enron look profitable for so long yet practically collapse almost over night?” I think there are many reasons for why Enron would want to do this, many being illegal, and some being greedy. One reason they did this is so that their customers wouldn’t feel worried about their stocks with Enron, because if they saw Enron was going down, they would try to sell those stocks. Another explanation for why this would happen is because they are money-hungry, so they hire people to change the numbers on their reports. For example, instead of saying that they lost 150 million, it would give them a profit of 150 million. This would give their customers and investors false security in the company. The reason for the sudden and abrupt collapse of Enron is because I think that one of the workers got a hold of the real sheets, and spilled to beans to the media.
The thing that I still don’t understand is why the CEOs of companies like Enron would want to rip off their company and steal money. As it is, these CEOs already make millions without breaking the law. So why do they need even more? Why do they have to steal from their own company? I think that these people do this because they have a lot of power and would not be suspected of a crime like this. They think that it would just be easier to rip off their companies under the radar and make extra money. With the extra money they could do things like build their own golf course or buy expensive artwork. What astounds me is how selfish and greedy these people are. There are people today who don’t make one hundredth of what they make, but they just want more and more. I think that CEOs spending and accounting has to be taken a lot more seriously for the economy to be stable and fair.
The one thing that I find Puzzling is that the U.S said, that J.P Morgan was a rich snob. He did not even have that much money that people thought he had, but you might say he did not share his finances. J.P Morgan did not need to share he finances that is personal information. He was a sharing man he gave his money to the united states government, let us think this if he did not help the U.S government were would our economy be at know. Even worse gas prices at around 5 dollars, more small business close, the car industry in the closing more plants and car dealerships. I am glad he helped our government it did need help in the 1900’s and right know. I wish some of the millionaires would help the government out, I know we have a lot of them. J.P Morgan was a good man and he gave some of his money to charity when he died.
The thing that still bothers me and I don’t really understand is why are so many big companies under investigation for accounting irregularities. AOL, Time, Warner and Kmart are all examples. It is reported that there is 20 large companies that are under investigation. These are all very big companies and millions of people buy from these companies every day. If you’re the CEO of a big company like these shouldn’t you be able to do your accounting right. But many CEO’s are covering up loses and using insider information to sell stock and save money. It would seem like a company of this magnitude would have a CEO that they can trust and not cheat the system. And another thing that bothers me is since the CEO’s are messing up the accounting thousands of workers are losing their jobs all because one person is cheating. Also many of the leaders of companies are stealing money to buy stuff for them. Like this one person bought a 6,000 dollar shower curtain. I think CEO’s should be smarter than this and companies should be smarter to have a better CEO.
After everything that we have learned about in the past couple weeks, I am still stumped why people believe that clear channel is such a monopoly. 10% of thousands of radio stations doesn’t seem like such a big amount, but to certain people believe it does. Most companies that are monopolies seem to have a much bigger percent in owning many other businesses, so why do people compare clear channel to these big monopolies. The only answer I could think of is because of the way they use both vertical and horizontal integration. This causes them to not only own 10% of thousands of radio companies all over, but to also own many concert hall, theaters, and stages all over to promote their business. People could think of this as an unfair business, and automatically call it a monopoly for owning a large percent of places to make their stations big. Other companies could get angered about this, which causes many people to believe that the clear channel is a monopoly.
By:Jamie Ray 2nd hour
One thing that still confuses me is why people had to go back to work and they lost a lot of things when the stock market went down. All people of all ages (elderly or not) who had retired had to now go back to work. I understand that people lost school and work stocks, but once retired I don’t understand why they wouldn’t get money back from the government. People whom already did there years of work shouldn’t have had to go back to work just because they lost their stocks. 9which wasn’t their fault). Although they couldn’t help it people still went back to work because they lost retirement stocks. Once I reread this article I somewhat understand why they had to work. There retirement stocks were lost and so therefore they weren’t legalized to be retired. So it really was a tragic time for these people because they basically lost most and some lost all of their money and they all had to work more and more to rebuild there stocks and money.
Timothy Moore 3rd Hour
Blog #2
I choose question number four:
In the article the author talks about how apple and taking over everything. With Apple havinf highquality designs and amazing hard ware and soft ware in general they have things going good for them. Right now they have good stocks and amazing products in their product line so things can't be going better for apple. Some of their best products being their itouch, iphone, imac desktops, and thier imac labtops. They have such a spand over all that they make it hits the smaller company's like t-mobel, sprint and alltel significantly. Apple uses the verticle method and continues to expend. The author that worte the article has many reasons to hate apple and all that they do. He could hate them for making better products that he bought himself, he could hate them for them knocking down company's that he might thought were profitable, or even just that Bill Gates got rich because of Apple. Apple i think made the phone, music and computer industries better and worse. In conclusion the author probaly thinks Apple made the phone, music and computer industries just worse vene though everthing they make becomes very popular. I
KYLE GRAY 4th hour
Blog #2
The Question I will try to answer is the question about the One Bad Apple article.
Apple appears to be nice and friendly in their ads, but that article, at least the author, seems to really hate Apple. Why?
This question can have 2 answers.
1. This Author seemed to be very Biased. He Smashes apple and their tactics. Even the cartoon on the article makes Steve Jobs look like a bad guy. Maybe he works for Microsoft or had an unpleasant experience with apple or their products. But maybe apple really is a mean company
2. Apple does use cut- throat business tactics, such as; The near monopoly on ipods and iphones and the Made-For -Ipod products, like headphones, docks and speakers. Even though their ads are cool, and seem nice, it doesn’t make them a “nice company”. Just because someone seems nice, they still could be a jerk.
I hope this answers the question about the One Bad Apple article.
I picked question number 2. Why do people get so greedy that they'll risk everything? I think this question is stating the fact that any peoples business get so big, and they get so caught up in it that they'll just do the dumbest things to try and get bigger, sometimes risking alot of things. I think some people do it because they'll might have gotten lucky in the past, that they have nothing to loose. Sort of like gambling. Enron got so big in their businesses, that they just started doing illegal things to get bigger. The things they did to risk everything was probably scary to them, so they had a back up with the energy places they started making. They made energy facilities that would fix peoples energy when needed. Sometimes I think people get so caught up, they just keep on doing whatever they can just to do better, look bigger, and make more money. That what the quote "Why do people get so greedy that they'll risk everything?" means to me.
The question that still puzzles me is Apple appears to be nice and friendly in their ads, but that article, at least the author, seems to really hate Apple. Why? I think that Apple looks like a company that would seem to be nice to work with because they make revolutionary products that make a ton of profit. I believe that in order for the author of the article to hate Apple to such a degree, they must have done some pretty corrupt things. After reading the Apple article it is now clear that Apple is hated so much because they give little or no profit to the smaller companies that make accessories. Apple charges them so much to use the Apple name I would be pretty angry too. Turns out, Apple can drop applications made for the iTouch or iPhone without giving consent to the application’s creator. It seems they do whatever it takes in order to maintain a steady profit, and don’t believe in “nice business”.
My question on the Power write was I don’t know who is stealing the money from their own company, is it the employees or the CEO’s? Well I asked this question in class and Mr. Wickersham answered it. He said that not only are both the employees and CEO’s stealing the money from their own company, but some of the top executives too are stealing money. This frightened me knowing that almost everyone was illegally stealing money from the very company they work for. It also brought up another question, Is this happening in other companies? Well seeing that this happened to Enron it very well could have happened or is even happening now a day. I think people steal from the company because they use it for their retirement funds and college tuition expenses. This who is stealing the money from their companies and I think it should be stopped now.
Rob McGowan 2nd hr
Blog #2
The question that I still have involves Apple and how they have achieved their high-ranking status through horizontal integration. How can Apple wipe out the competition so easily without any other company stepping up to create a better product? Why is apple the successful company and not some other one? I understand that Apple has some really innovative and creative ideas for their products, but what makes their iPods and their other technology so much more appealing to the public than other Mp3 players? I think the reason is that before the iPod, the Mp3 players were basic. They didn’t have many features. The iPod was the first music player to have a ton of features along with many gigabytes of memory to store them on. When people realized the potential of the iPod, they became hooked to it. Since the original iPod was released, more than 10 other versions of different kinds of iPods, making them the most popular Mp3 players on the planet.
Alex Chmara
One question I still didn’t know was how do the men who work in these big companies steal the money for personal items and other luxuries without anyone seeing or noticing? I think that there could be many ways to do this. I think that the powerful people in the companies probably had passwords and other ways to get into the accounts of money in the company. They could probably lie and say they lost that money when their product didn’t sell as much, and no one looked into it enough to notice. Or, there was a person who noticed, but didn’t want to make anything of it and get the police involved because they were working for that company too, and if the public found out about someone stealing money from said company, then the consumers probably wouldn’t trust that company as much, and the sales would go down. I think there should be more precautions with companies and more investigations when money goes missing.
One thing question that I am still confused about is how could Enron look so profitable for so long, yet collapse basically over night? One second Enron is doing fine, and then the next second, they lose an astronomical amount of money in such a short period of time? Why did Arthur Anderson hide Enron's total collapse in the stock market? This confuses me because why would such a large company take such a big risk of making thousands jobless; and better yet, people's retirement funds went to hell. I do not know how Enron got away with committing such a large crime, or scandal, or whatever you would like to call it. Arthur Anderson. They were such a large business, with such a large thing to hide. Arthur Anderson knew what Enron was doing and they did nothing about it. They kept their mouths shut and waited until the news about the Enron crime went public, and then of all things, they shredded all evidence of their files and documents. –Nate Zakaria, 3rd Hour
I am still confused on how somebody could get so greedy that they are willing to risk everything. I don't understand how you can have the heart to let people stay poor and not help them survive. Something that disturbed me was when someone said everyone is going to die at some point so why should we help them stay alive. They think that it is just making their life worse. The reason, I think, that they are greedy is because they wouldn't want something like that to happen to them. They try to get the poor people out of their life and take everybody’s money so they don't have to suffer or go through anything bad. They try to make the best out of their lives. They do that by buying things that cost a fortune and that they don’t even need. I think that is pointless because they are killing people. I would never be able to do anything like that, which is why I was confused about it.
The one thing I still don't understand is why the CEO's and presidents of a lot of companies used a lot of the companies’ money to buy personal things that were not necessary. Another thing is that if the CEO's and presidents of those companies had not spent a lot of the money than the company might have lasted longer and not have gone bankrupt at the time that it did. I'm not really sure how to answer this question but I think the CEO's and presidents of the companies might have spent a lot of the companies’ money because they knew the company might have been going bankrupt, but even though the CEO's and presidents might have known this, they still might have had a chance to save the company. The CEO's and presidents also look would also look weird because they were spending thousands of dollars that belonged to the company and not them.
-Thomas Gorman, 2nd hour
One puzzling question that hasn't been answered for me throughout our studies has been that I dont understand how big companies have such big promblems with thier accounting and money. It's like they have so, so, much money and power that they in the end run themselves ito the ground. I just ask myself how companies as big as enron, standing at #7 biggest in the world at the time, can lose its trillions of dollars and be forgotten like that due to few people in their organization top dogs. That is my question and hopefully it can be answered.
I do not have really any questions left about this theme. I think we discussed it very well in class. My questions on how “faking the account books” or “cooking the books” is being answered during class.
Another question I had, was who does actually know about the financial things in a company? But again, I learned from the power writing that only the top guys and women knows about it and then are trying to hide it. I understand how this part of business works now, but I don’t understand how people actually can do that. They know exactly what’s going on in the company and they just want to make more money and don’t care about the other employers. They are sooner or later losing their jobs and the whole company is going down. If the top men and women know about such a situation why do they wait so long to tell the public or get help?
Enron looked very profitable for many years, while they were actually losing millions if not billions of dollars. They were a power distributing company, and so if they did make profit it was a very large amount, however if they lost it was the same thing except not in Enron’s favor. Enron did not cover their lies by themselves. The company that was managing Enron’s profits was Arthur Anderson, and they covered up all the lies about the company’s profit status. The CEOs of the company however did pull out, by selling their stocks for millions, and this makes it illegal because it is insider’s information. The media however simply left the CEOs behind, and went after a celerity (Martha Stewart). Martha did something far less costly than the CEOs of Enron, she only gained $200,000 for keeping her mouth shut. After they sent her to jail, they went after the CEOs of the company and put them in jail even though they did something much worse than Martha did.
My question is why would capitalism be more effective to “lift the poor out of poverty” more than communism, when in communism, every body is equal?
I later learned that in communism, the working class who work hard to earn their profits are taxed at a very high rate, which is redistributed to those in lower wage or non earning classes. Therefore, the citizens will get upset because the majority of the money they made for themselves is being taken away and given to those who didn’t work hard to earn it. This gives no incentive to grow and prosper their businesses because they’re going to be taxed enormously. The end result is that new jobs won’t be created, and economic growth stops. The only real way to make good money is to get involved in the underground black market or get involved in the government. In capitalist countries, the governments motivate the citizens to work or create businesses through low tax rates allowing the companies to expand and create good paying jobs (wanting to profit, unlike in communistic countries). I mean, wouldn’t you be upset if all the money you earn from working hard, is taken away so others who don’t have health care and get all of the same benefits as you? Capitalism allows the spreading of businesses, instead of a “take from the rich give to the poor” kind of system. In the end, more obtain health care and other necessities fairly by working hard.
Clear channel is a monopoly even though they only own 10%. This is because one, they are only allowed to own 10%, and two, they use both vertical and horizontal integration. They use vertical because they own every aspect of their company, music. They own companies that have concert halls, make posters, and since they are the radio, they can commercialize. Horizontal comes in because they started out as one little radio station, but as time went on and they got money they bought other radio stations and expanded and expanded until you see the monopoly you may be listening to on the radio.
One thing that still nags me is why people would risk everything for money. The phrase money doesn’t buy happiness is pretty well known, so why don’t people take it into consideration? If someone started making a ton of money, and everything around them started going bankrupt, how would that make them happy? If they knew that they were causing the place that they work at to go out of business, why would they keep spending their money like that? I understand that people can get money crazy and loose track of things, but I don’t understand how someone couldn’t feel guilty for stealing money from their company. Even if the people from the companies felt bad, I don’t understand why they kept doing it. To answer my question, I guess all it takes is one phrase; People don’t always do the right thing. Most people make mistakes, and I can only hope that these business men learned from it.
1. How could Enron look profitable for so long yet practically collapse almost over night?
Enron looked so profitable for so long but practically collapsed almost over night because, Enron covered up its losses for so long. But after a while they collapsed. They could cover it up for so long because they hired Arther Anderson an accounting firm working for Enron which was paid to be quiet about shady dealings with in the company.Enron also set up partnerships where it could hide its loss by generating imaginary revenues.And the Bush administration didn't release records of the meetings. but later people found out the Enron had been just hiding their losses.
by:jayla Anderson.. 4th hour
The only thing that is still fuzzy in my head is why it's a bad thing that Apple is becoming such a large company. I understand bad for competitors and it is understandable because of the prices of their products, but if you are a fan of Apple then isn't their up-bringing a good thing? I suppose the bad thing about Apple is that soon it will take over the entire entertainment industry because they already own over half of it. It is crushing it's competitors with all of it's new products, but if we are so against Apple branching out then the other companies (ex: Microsoft) should try to compete with them. They should come out with newer and better technology to keep up with Apple.
Why wasn’t anything done about the slaving working conditions in the sweatshops?
I think that many people and all of the workers complained. Since they were considered the minority, no one listened to them. If you worked in sweatshops, you were poor. The rich had big houses and wealthy paying jobs. The poor had no other choice but to work in the sweatshops if they wanted to survive. They worked all day wit no breaks for the bathroom. The only day off that got off was Christmas. This is unfair because I am pretty sure the rich got any days off that they wanted. The people that worked in sweatshops were considered filth and no one wanted to listen to them. If they tried to complain to someone, they were probably fired or layed off. This could have also feared some workers to speak. They couldn’t afford to lose their jobs.
Enron was such a profitably company that many people just assumed that it was goin gin the right direction and was still profitablte, what they didn't knw was all the scandal that was going on behind company walls. They collapsed overnight because people were making fake records of there bannk accounts, so when you looked at them you would think that they are making more money, but in reality, they are loosing everything they had. People were stealing millions of dollars from Enron for there own pleasure. It was probably a shock for everyone becasue no one saw this coming.
How couldn’t the government have any sort of clue that there was corruption in Enron?
I think the government knew there was a little bit of corrupt business going on in Enron, but they didn’t want to do an investigation because congress officials were benefiting off of Enron. Also, I think that Enron might have bribed some government officials to hide what was going on behind their curtain. I don’t think it’s that congress didn’t know, I think it’s that congress wasn’t willing to risk losing benefits from Enron by bringing them down.
I also don’t understand how supposedly the most advanced and most intelligent government in the world couldn’t tell that Enron was lying about their financing. If the government is as smart as it poses to be, they could have seen this coming. I think that the government could as well be involved in Enron’s scandals and corruption. The U.S. government is as advanced as they say they are, but too much of government business is hidden from citizens.
Enron was at the peak of their power now bringing in 100 billion year with trading contracts around the world for oil, gas, electricity, and other commodities. Enron also donated huge sums of money to politicians of both parties and then they won changes in government regulations that favored Enron. But Enron became greedy and all the executives wanted big bonuses and the only way you could get a big bonus is if your companies stocks were up which at this time they were not so they made a fake chart that showed their stocks were up. Now they hid all of their debts, losses, and bad business deals. And because they hid all of that their profits looked far bigger then they really were. Enron’s executives cashed in 1.1 billion in Enron stock from 1999-2001befour their stock began to crash. Because they did all of that over 4000 workers lower in the company lost their jobs. Many of the companies 27,000 workers that had Enron stock for their retirement was now gone. Then according to the article hundreds of thousands of other people that owned Enron stock in public retirement had lost at least 1.5 billion.
alex C
How could Enron look profitable for so long yet practically collapse almost over night? I still don’t understand is how could know one have known what was really going on? Why would they hide it from the public? I know that they was hiding it threw the computers. They weren’t scared that anyone would find out? How long did they really think this would last in till they got exposed for the wrong doing they were doing. The owner didn’t know or have some kind of idea of what the people he or she hired were doing to there company? If I was stealing money from a major company I would keep going back and getting more and more money. The people they had cover up there wrong doings weren’t scared? There wasn’t any other way they could find out that they were in debt other than the books? They made the public think that they were doing well and clearly they weren’t.
Allysa Hayes 3rd hour
The question I still don’t get is that how Enron went broke like overnight? I mean they were making lots of money and were the middle man in power. They also were the seventh largest company in the United States. They were so successful but lost everything. I think one of the main reasons was they were spending more than what they were making. Another reason might be that they hired Author Anderson to cheat their accounting books and paid him millions of dollars to keep it quiet form the public. Also some of the executives were blowing $50,000 dollars and still no one caught it. And they were investing in bad companies to try to hide the bad profit. They were also paying the works to much. They also paid some of the higher people in power to keep them from spilling that they were shredding documents. So that is why I think one of the biggest companies went bankrupt overnight.
One question that I still have is what capitalism is. I have a slight understanding about what it is but from what I know I don’t understand why we would use it. It benefits the poor and takes away from the rich. In capitalism, the rich can make a lot of money but the government can take it away and give it to the poor who isn’t making much money to help them in life. This doesn’t make sense, people who are smart enough to get out and make a good life for them self should be rewarded with their money, not punished by taking it away. I understand that the poor needs something to help them so they don’t die, but I don’t believe that it should be tax dollars paying for it. I understand that the reasons that the person is poor could be because they grew up in an area that didn’t educate that person well but in my opinion there is always something you can do to help your self out better. If you try hard enough in life you can accomplish anything, or at least enough to keep your self going. But getting tax dollars isn’t it.
Why did Enron want to hide their losses from the public?
It’s easy to say that the people working at Enron were “bad” and shouldn’t have lied about their losses and decreasing stocks. Obviously people are only going to focus on what they did wrong instead of how much they felt they had to keep their reputation and continue to be extremely successful. I’m not saying what they did as a company wasn’t wrong, I just think that even though they did work for Enron, made a lot of money, and were respected businessmen, like all other people they made some bad decisions and caused their own downfall and ultimately their bankruptcy in 2001. Maybe they wanted to hide their losses because they just wanted to know how far they could take the company before it was completely over. It could be that the people working for Enron just didn’t want to hear any negative comments about their company, because when everyone else looking at your work has only good things to say, it makes you want to keep them thinking positive things, even though they weren’t doing as good as it looked.
Claire M.
4. Apple appears to be nice and friendly in their ads, but that article, at least the author, seems to really hate Apple. Why?
Apple appears to be nice and friendly because in their ads they are trying to sale Apple items to their buyers and people will not by something that doesn't seem enjoyable. So you have to make the people want to by the things. Thats what they do and everything. But the author of that article seems to hate Apple so much because he knows the real deal about Apple and these other people don't really know that much about Apple. Only the fact that everyone wants to have Apple because it's suppose to be a good company and have good connections. But they don't know that every time someone wants to put the ipod logo on their product Apple makes 75% the profit. The author doesn't aprove of what they do.
2. Why do people get so greedy that they'll risk everything?
Why do people get so greedy that they’ll risk everything? This is a very confusing question, even more confusing to relate to. When you get everything you want you get so much more uncontrollable with your actions. So I think that businesses get and have so much that they lose the whole picture that if they cheat here and there they won’t get caught. Businesses don’t really count on the possibility that they might lose everything, this in my eyes is because the think the percentage is so small Why not risk it? Why not get more out of something and take the short cut? It should just be because its wrong and unjust but do you really think about that if you know by taking a shortcut you could be number one? I think they forget. End. .—Sharaya Solomon
Why is America in so much Debt.
Why cant they just print out money?
Stop spending it on wars.
I know that if they make more money then people would not have to work.
For the avaagre woking American Maoney is a pricallage..Something to look foward in having...
But for the GOVERNMENT they can just have it and keep spending it.
Apple computers look nice friendly andd provide a great product. Ipods,and Macs look like good accesories to buy but, evey good company has a bad side. Apple is one of the biggest suppliers of mp3s and computers. With these things sellin so good there kinda makin other companies seem unefficent. The products Apple makes are alot more high tech then most other items and these people are only buying these products witch are putting other companies out of bussiness. In a way Apple is turning into a company thats just take over companies with there products being so high tech. Also kids today are very obsessed with ipods and Macs so there targeted consumers are buying the products like crazy and at high prices. The author thinks that this company is so bad is because it is slowly becoming a monopoly and they act like they dont know it. Apple says that they just use make there products so wat if there better than others. The thing is if they are betta than others then they can slowly put other companies with less high tech products out if bussiness.
The question that has been bugging me this whole section is a question of Moral. Why don’t the businessmen of today have the same integrity that J.P. Morgan had?
One thing that I never understood was why the working people of today have almost no values. What kind of a person does it take to steal thousands and thousands of dollars from honest working people who have to keep their families afloat? It seems like all the bosses should take a lesson from Morgan.
I think that money has changed form something that everyone could earn, into something that only the spoiled and rich people get. Some one would have to be incredibly greedy to let someone get away with major theft. How much money did it take to convince the CEO of Enron, not to spill the beans?
I guess because our society’s values have been warped and abandoned, people just don’t care what happens. I moved here when I was 7, and never in my life have I been somewhere as patriotic as the united sates. Every morning kids recited the national anthem, while in France no one even knows the words. And it’s just out of disrespect for the workers, it’s a disrespect for the country, it’s economy, and how that has an affect on the world.
Faith P
4th hour
The question I am choosing to answer is why did the author of that article, and the many people who agree with it, hate apple so much although they seem so nice in their ads and have such great products? One answer to this is that they do make it impossible for any other mp3 businesses to even hope to be successful. Apple has made it to the top of the industry and does not intend to make any room for competitors. Another reason could be the common fear of conformity. This has been an age old fear that will probably always exist among the worlds population of billions of unique people. People feel that if everyone owns the same brand of music devices then soon that will make it so everyone listens to the same music, wears the same clothes, and thinks exactly the same as the people surrounding them.
I chose to answer this question: “Apple appears to be nice and friendly in their ads, but that article, at least the author, seems to really hate Apple. Why?”
The author of the article seems to really hate Apple because they seem nice in the outside but they really aren't. The author is trying to show that apple doesn’t even give other companies a chance to compete in the market. Whenever a new mp3 comes out the apple iPod crushes it! The author also compares Apple to Microsoft a few years back when they had the market. He says that when Microsoft ruled the market they crushed every one of their competitors, exactly like Apple does now. The author is annoyed that Apple seems nice in their commercials, when inside the company itself they don’t give others a chance. That is why i think the Author of the article: : one bad Apple” hates Apple.
kyle Dewald
1. how could Enron look profitable for so long yet practically collapse almost over night?
Enron look so profitable for so long because they would hid there losings with postive gains and would hid the loses somewhere else so no one could ever find it. when Enron got caught there banking acenty sheddered the papers and said they had nothing to do with it. Bush had no comment on the Enron scandle. Enron gave him alot of money to help him with his election for president. many people were very upset with this because the loses the enron expeince would cost the goverment money. which will raise the taxes.
2. Why do people get so greedy that they’ll risk everything?
I think that they will risk everything because they think that they will be able to get it back and when they get it back they will have twice more than they use to have. For example if they were playing the lottery and it was the mega million and they bought 20 one dollar tickets just so they could have a better chance of winning. Which I think is a whole lot safer than the stock market. That is where people start to lose the most money. People that are just starting the stock market and not really know what they are doing so they put all of their savings or they get a loan that they know that they cannot pay back and put it all in the market think that the stock will go up and they will get tons and tons of money, but knowing that the stock market going up and down a whole lot , People do this because they get all of their hopes up in that one chance to win. SO they put it all to chance.
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