Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay Example for Free

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay The characters of the King and the Duke are most likely the most important after Huck and Jim in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. These two men come into Hucks story in chapter nineteen when he leaves the Grangerfords, a family who is fighting a continuous and everlasting war against their neighbors, the Shepherdsons. Huck sees the King and the Duke being chased by some dogs, and he decides to take them aboard the raft, which Huck and Jim are using to travel down the Mississippi River. Huck eventually realizes that the two men that he helped are con artists. Towards the end of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the two phonies are tarred and feathered by a mob who was finally able to catch them. The punishment of the Duke and the King was suitable because the scams they performed were sickening, and they obviously were not bothered by what they did. Mark Twain shows his disrespect for the two imposters through Hucks first impression of them, and how he reacts to the small scams they carry out. The appearance of the King and the Duke is negative from the moment he sees them. His impression of the King is that He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy blue woolen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses? no, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet bags. (Page 120) This impression The two of them go on to make up stories how one is actually the Duke of Bridgewater and that the other is the rightful King of France. Huck later comments that It didnt take me long to make up my mind that these liars warnt no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. (Page 125) The next day, the Duke and the King go into the town of Pokesville, where they go to a town meeting in the woods. The King tells the people at the meeting that he is an ex-pirate of the Indian Ocean who has found his true path and wants to dedicate his life to converting other pirates to this true path of life. Everyone cries for him, and he ends up collecting $87. 75 for this scam and a jug of whiskey. Another time, the Duke decides to perform a low comedy to the people of Pokesville called the Royal Nonesuch. At the bottom of the handbill, it says that women and children are not admitted, in attempt to get a large group of men to come. The people feel cheated because the Duke and the King only act a small skit and then leave. The following two nights, the show is sold out but on the third night, Huck realizes that the crowd has rotten eggs and cabbages stuffed in their pockets. He tells the Duke and the King, and they are able to escape with a total of 465 dollars. At supper, the king and the duke fairly laughed their bones loose over the way theyd served them people. (Page 152) The scams that the two frauds performed showed how low-down and rotten they actually were. Huck is hurt by the following two greedy cons that the King and the Duke pull off. The first was one where they found out that a man named Peter Wilks had died and they pretended to be his long lost brothers in order to steal the inheritance from the three Wilks daughters. They actually stooped this low just to gain some money. They only thought of themselves without even considering future of the girls who were relying on them to take them back to England and care for them. Obviously, the plan of the King and the Duke was that once they collected enough money, they would just abandon the three, orphan sisters. This was the reason that their plan failed. Once they received six thousand dollars in gold, they wanted to stay longer to make more money. Eventually, the real brothers of Peter Wilks came, and everyone realized that the King and the Duke were just impostors. Mark Twain showed his disgust for these men through Huck when he said, It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race. (Page 162) Another instance in which the Duke and the King displayed their gluttony was when they sold Jim to Mr. Phelps in order to make forty dollars. Even after Huck and Jim had done so much to help the crooks, they stabbed them in the back. Then, Huck found out that they were going to the bar with the money they made from every scam and that they were getting drunk. This crushes Huck especially because he is so emotional and has such strong morals. After all this long journey, and after all wed done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars. (Page 211) The reader really sees for the first time with the Wilks scam and what the Duke and the King did to Jim how dishonest they really are. The ending of the Duke and the King was appropriate because they were such horrible people. All the cons that they pulled off were more than enough for them to deserve a tar and feathering even though Huck did not believe so. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldnt ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. (Page 230) The King and the Duke had outraged every town in which they performed a scam. They had to run from the people and dogs following them before Huck and Jim helped them, after the Royal Nonesuch, they had to flee from the mob, and the mob at the town where they tried to rip off the Wilks, they were almost lynched. If they felt that they were brave enough to try to scam all those towns, they must have known that they would have to face the punishment if they were finally caught. The Duke and the King deserved what they got because they cared for no one but themselves. The tar and feathering that the con artists received was a reasonable punishment because they were so greedy, and in their actions they showed that they had no morals or conscience. What was even worse was that they used the money that they stole poorly. They went and wasted it all every time just to get drunk. They were also the reason for slowing down Huck and Jims adventure down the Mississippi River because they were forced to stay with the King and the Duke. The characters of the King and the Duke were despicable and self-absorbed.

Monday, January 20, 2020

Databases and Y2K :: Computers

Databases and Y2K Introduction: Tremendous problems loom just around the corner for organizations that use two-digit years (i.e. 1-9-97). How tough could it be to change the year from 1999 to 2000? The "Year 2000 Problem" cannot be fixed by simply resetting a computer's internal clock on January 1, 2000. Computers may be smart, but their programmers weren't very farsighted. In the '60s and '70s, many businesses were looking to cut costs and because computer storage space was expensive at the time, programmers decided to cut year dates to two digits (i.e., 1969 became 69). It doesn't sound like a major error, but computers are extremely date-sensitive. Computers routinely add and subtract digits in a date to make a variety of logical calculations, ranging from travel reservations to how much interest one has accrued on a savings account. The problem lies in the fact that many computers designate century data using only two digits, 00, and will read 2000 as 1900. And the bug affects more than just computer systems. Many manufacturers have built products with software instructions embedded onto chips; equipment ranging from fax machines to auto assembly lines could all be affected by the bug. What's the Problem? For many organizations, the Year 2000 Problem has become the most complex project management exercise ever undertaken. The reasons for this are multi-factored. For starters, we are less than 13 months away from Year 2000 yet many organizations are just now paying attention to it.1 There is no way to avoid the fact that our information systems are based on a faulty standard that will cost the worldwide computer community billions of dollars in programming effort. This 'bug' touches on all areas of an organization, and the complexity of analyzing and quantifying the scope of the problem, repairing and replacing infected items, conducting adequate testing activities and finally, implementing multiple interrelated hardware, systems and software can be overwhelming. Compounding the difficulty is the lack of awareness in general regarding the potential risks, and the fact that the project is driven by a series of hard dates. In addition, many organizations have further complicated the process by beginning their e Databases and Y2K How might Y2K affect databases that, in turn, affect our everyday lives? Let's take your bank account. As the 1999 turns over to 2000, your bank's computer may calculate that your account deserves an additional 100 year's interest. Of course, it's also possible you may be penalized for being 100 years overdue on your loan payment! Or suppose you have some data records and want to sort them by

Sunday, January 12, 2020

North Country Auto, Inc Essay

Each of the departments of North Country Auto, Inc. namely, the new cars sales and used cars sales, service, parts, body shop and oil change â€Å"operated as part of one business† before George Liddy bought into the dealership. The Department Managers were paid salaries and a year-end bonus. However, feeling that this system would not motivate employees, he devised a system wherein he could track effectively the departmental performance. For this, he developed a system for so that each department will be treated as decentralized profit centers. This new system requires that cost be broken down per department. Also, the bonuses per each department head will be based on departmental gross profits. So far as the outcome of the new system is concerned, a recent new car purchase sparked friction and disagreements among division heads on the matter of setting of transfer prices and allocation of costs and profits. It was important that as one department aims to maximize profit, it does not negatively affect other departments. Issues that needed to be resolved include setting of transfer prices between departments, formalizing intercompany transactions, the divisional structure (use of profit or cost center), and the proper allocation of company profits among departments. Problem The different departments of North Country Auto, Inc. must choose between three pricing systems: base on market price, full retail better than others, and based on book value. Also, the company must decide whether they should continue treating each department independently in order to gain huge profits considering that the manager’s incentives are determined upon the department’s earnings. Point of View In this case, we take the point of view of George Liddy, owner of North Country Auto, Inc. Analysis In examining the issues faced by the company, the car purchase discussed in the interdepartmental meeting is used as illustration. †¢ Company’s current operation Comparison: -retail full price considered (new car sold for $5200 without any repairs) -book value considered (used car sold for $5200) Revenue Costs Profit new car (full retail price) $14,150 , $11,4 , 20 , $2,7, 30, used car (book value) , 5200, 4800 , 400 †¢ Price-transfer shown by profits guide book value at wholesale and assumed market Price $3,500 , retail price 5200 , trade in allowance 4800 The trade in allowance of $4800 is the value that is essentially believed by the new and used car sales force believes that the car can be sold. Considering the market price of $3500, the calculated profit is $1700. But, it should be recognized that this profit is at the expense of the $1300 profit from the initial transaction. This is due to the difference between the car’s trade value ($4800) and the market price ($3500). With this, the used car manager must receive the credit or consequences for the profit or loss. This is due to the fact that the used car managers are the appropriate ones to receive incentives in selling the used cars. On the other hand, the new car managers are the ones to receive the incentives in increasing the trade-in value of the cars above the market value. This in turn, makes it easier for people to buy new cars. The illustration above brings up the issue of having the used car manager receive incentives because of the car’s value determined by the new car manager Explanation on $59000 loss on wholesaling of used cars The loss may have occurred because new car owners are pushing for trade-in car values above market valuations on their used cars. For example, if new cars are sold for $4800 and used cars for $3500, the used car group would have a difficult time making a profit. This is because they may have sold the car for $5200 (as shown in the example above). Most of the time, it will be hard for the used car department to sell the used cars above its book value of $3500. Thus, the used car division may incur loss since they are using cost for the used cars that is too high. Recommendations Incentives should be based on company profits. A better system should be established such that managers of the two departments are given incentives based not on the gross profits of their respective departments but on the  profits of the company as a whole. This would help ensure that conflicts of the two departments will be lessened and that the two departments will no longer compete but will work together to enrich the value of the firm. In order to be more profitable, the firm could use blue book values for the trade-in value and use that as the cost to the used car division. However, if it is better for the firm to provide added incentive to customers to trade in their cars, the firm could allow for higher trade-in values but responsibility for those added costs should reside in the new sales division. Regarding the issue of costs, whether it should be at wholesale or retail, it should be considered that North Country is a company offering more on services. The cost of service of making the cars sellable differs minimally from the market price. And these service costs should be added to the cost of used cars in wholesale. The profit on repairs must be akin to competitor’s values as well as to the industry. QUESTION and ANSWERS 1. Using the data in the transaction, compute the profitability of this one transaction to the new, used, parts, and service departments. Assume a sales commission of $250 for this trade-in on a selling price of $5000. (note : use the following allocations [new,$385; used,$665; parts,$32; service,$114] for overhead expense while computing the profitability of this one transaction. These overhead allocations are also shown as Note 13 in Exhibit 3.) Using the data in the transaction , compute the profitability of this one transaction to the new, used, parts and service departments. Assume a sales commission of $250 for the trade in on a selling price of $5000 2. How should the transfer – pricing system operate for each department (market price, full retail, full cost, variable cost)? The transfer pricing system should be operated at full retail . But at the same time care should be taken that the retail transfer price of the repairs should not encourage the used car sales manager to avoid the possibility of losses in her department by wholesaling trade in cars that  could be resold at a profit for the dealership. This cud hurt the dealership by making its deals less attractive for new car customers. Hence while maximizing profits in one’s department it should not affect the other departments negatively. 3. If it were found one week later that the trade-in could be wholesaled for only $3000, which manager should take the loss? If the used car is sold at auction for $3,000 after the trade-in value was set at $4,800, the company should note a loss of $1,800. However, if the new car salesman only gives $3,500 of value to the new customer based on the Blue Book value, then the loss reflected on the income statement and balance sheet should only be $500. In the case of the $1800 loss, responsibility should fall on both the new car salesman and the used car salesman. The new car salesman is at fault for giving the customer $4,800 in value when the car was only worth $3,500. The used car salesman is responsible for the additional loss of $500 for being unable to receive market value for the car. If the used car had a trade-in value at Blue Book of $3,500, then the used car salesman alone would be responsible for the loss of $500 in this transaction. 4. North Country incurred a year-to-date loss about $59.000 before allocation of fixed cost on the wholesaling of used cars (see note 2 in Exhibit 3). Wholesaling of used cars is the theoretically supposed to be a break-even operation. Where do you think the problem lies? It is possible that this loss occurred because new car owners were giving customers looking to trade-in existing cars above market valuations on their used cars. If new owners were providing credit for $4,800 for a used car that is worth $3,500, the used car group would have a difficult time making a profit. While there would be times (like the example above) where they could sell the car for $5,200 and still make a profit despite the inflated prices, most of the time they will have difficulty selling the used car above its Blue Book value of $3,500. Therefore, the used car division may be operating at a loss because the cost they are using for the used cars is too high. 5. Should profit centers be evaluated on gross profit or â€Å"full cost: profit? Incentives should be based on company profits. A better system should be established such that managers of the two departments are given incentives based not on the gross profits of their respective departments but on the profits of the company as a whole. This would help ensure that conflicts of the two departments will be lessened and that the two departments will no longer compete but will work together to enrich the value of the firm. 6. What advice do you have for the owners? The owners of the business should make sure the managers of their various groups are properly incented to do what is most profitable for the firm as a whole. Probably, the firm should use blue book values for the trade-in value and use that as the cost to the used car division. However, if it is better for the firm to provide added incentive to customers to trade in their cars, the firm could allow for higher trade-in values but responsibility for those added costs should reside in the new sales division. On the other hand, if a case can be made that the used cars are worth more to this organization than to the market as a whole because they have an ability to consistently sell used cars above blue book value or because the service organization can increase those used cars more than other organizations can at similar cost, the additional costs of allowing trade-ins above Blue Book value might be appropriately split between both the new car and used car divisions.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Labour Unions, Wages and Monetary Integration in Continental Europe Free Essay Example, 1750 words

Ireland and Britain have resorted to the creation of these laws because of the inefficiencies of trade unions to articulate for the rights of employees. Seeing the need to protect employers from their employers, Britain and Ireland introduced these laws, to guide the relationship between the employers and their employees. However, some of these measures have faced resistance from trade unions. For example in Ireland, trade unions are advocating for the enactment of a law that will protect the concept of collective bargaining (HanckeÃŒ  and Studien, 2012). It is important to denote that when a government introduces a minimum wage rate, employers can decide to pay at that rate, even though it is not sufficient. Due to the structure of the market, and the presence of many competitors, employees under this social model do not have better working conditions as those of Continental Europe. There is a high level of inequality between the rich and the poor. This is because of disparity in wages. In order for companies to make a profit, employees are always working for longer working hours, as compared to the countries of Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. We will write a custom essay sample on Labour Unions, Wages and Monetary Integration in Continental Europe or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page