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In literature, themes are oftentimes intertwined
Question 3
In literature, themes are oftentimes intertwined, with one complementing the other or brining out more of it. The most important characteristics of a theme can be brought out or expounded by the presence of another, either dominating or more subtle subtheme. Death plays such a vital role. Mortality, dying, and death give meaning to a character’s life, augment other themes, and provide fictional encounters to generate emotions, plot twists, mysteries, and suspense. Death is among the most central themes that ultimately give way to other dominant observations ranging from grief, to celebration of life, justice, and rites of passage. Authors in literature use death as a dominating factor and theme to elicit emotional responses in the audience. In The Stranger, the role of death is basically to augment the major themes that include French colonialism, alienation, and absurdity. Set in Algiers in the 1940s, The Stranger features the life of a young man, Meursault, living an empty and dull life. It is obvious that Meursault takes little to no pleasure in living.
In The Stranger, the entire setting is based on a foundation of death, starting with the death of the protagonist’s mother. Through the death of Meursault’s mother, the book sets a somewhat somber and dark mood and casts a gloomy spell on the audience. The visualization of Meursault from the narration and his character traits emerge as those of a very gloomy and dark young man. Through the death of the mother, the expectation is that Meursault would show emotions and perhaps expose his character to the reader. However, he grows more reserved, quite, prefers solitude, and does not display much passion for life. It is noted that Meursault, immediately after his mother’s burial, goes swimming in a public beach. He comes out as very lazy, not a serious thinker, and one who generally has a very neutral lifestyle in regard to qualities of life. He is very indifferent when it comes to matters of human importance. His social life, economic, and cultural livelihoods seem to mean nothing to him. For example, he agrees to almost anything he is told by those known to him. Starting from his mother’s death, it is clear that he had no relationship with his mother. He agrees for a non-family member to attend her burial, later agrees to testify in court on behalf of another person, and casually agrees to marry Marie despite being unaware of whether or not he loves her.
Through the events of the book, Meursault’s character becomes more complex. He is very hard to understand. The theme of death is ever looming, even as he shoots and kills a person for no apparent reason. He is not remorseful and seems to take on the same emotional deficiency that was witnessed through the death and burial of his mother. He did not show any signs of grief. Death, to Meursault, seems like a welcome idea. He is named “monsieur Antichrist” due to his refusal to accept the existence of God. He seems to adapt well to prison life, the isolation from the rest of the world is a relief for him. He sleeps very well and has adjusted accordingly to life without other elements present in normal life. The concept of death and murder continue to linger even though Meursault seems oblivious to the fact that he shot and killed another person.
It is important to note that death is an important element in understanding who Meursault is in terms of his character and what he holds dear. He did not grief after the death of his mother. Also, he was not remorseful after he shot and killed a person who had not wronged him. He fits the profile of an emotionally absent person. Death is used in The Stranger to bring out the character of Meursault as a monster. It is also a great way to reveal societal expectations on grief and its position on conflict. Therefore, death expounds on and reinforces other themes in the book, including societal positions on various matters, relationships, and human interactions. The absurdity of Meursault’s life and his life choices are also further developed by the presence of death. As a result, Meursault is found guilty of a gruesome murder, lack of remorse, and is termed a general threat to society. He is sentenced to death, a sentence performed through beheading, chosen to make a point regarding the position of the society.
In summary, death highlights Meursault’s detached, plain, subtly ironic, and sober tone. Through death, his point of view and that of society seem to be in conflict. He is adamant that the world should only be seen in the physical full of events that define an action and a response. This explains why he does not see a big deal in death or even taking another life. The society sees the world differently. It sees life beyond the physical to include the mental, emotional, and spiritual. It has rational explanations and expectations on life. Overall, death is used to better define the themes and motifs including human life and its meaninglessness, irrationality of positions held in life, importance of living in the moment, and relationships and conflicting points of view. Without death, all of the major themes mentioned herein would not be as apparent as they come out. Death helps in augmenting them and reinforcing the use of said themes to influence the position of the reader.
Reference
Camus, A., & McCarthy, P. (2004). The stranger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
A 12-15-page academic research paper
Business Plan Assignment
Due:Thursday, 6/18, by 11:59 PM CT
Worth:300 points (30% of your final grade)
Deliverable:A 12-15-page academic research paper
For this assignment, you will need to create a business plan for a hypothetical product of your choosing. The product you imagine should be similar to an existing product (or several) with one or more variations which make it unique. This/these variations(s) should likely be in the product’s capabilities/features, but you can attempt to make a case that your approach is fundamentally different from competitors due to pricing, staffing, organization, etc. as long as you make a strong case that is supported by credible and verifiable information.
You will follow the “Key Parts of the Business Plan” template laid out in the appendix to our text book exactly, including all sections and subsections as laid out below. There is also an example Business Plan on the hypothetical “Fraudian Slip” directly after the “Key Parts of the Business Plan” section which will be extremely helpful to you as you work through your plan.
While the product you imagine and a few aspects of the business plan are hypothetical, the vast majority of your business plan should be firmly bolstered by scholarly sources. If you make an assertion, it needs to be supported by the academic literature. For example, if you choose to make your store hours from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, you need to provide the justification for this decision by means of a scholarly/credible source. This is an academic research paper and it will require a great deal of researching, reading, thinking, and synthesizing of information. Of the sources you draw upon, at least five need to be peer-reviewed articles. If you are unfamiliar with how to conduct academic research, how to write an academic research paper, or what a peer-reviewed article is, please email Professor Starr immediately.
I am happy to review and comment on rough drafts as long as they are received no later than Thursday, 6/11.
This is a college-level, term-length, academic research paper so expectations are high. There should be few, if any, common writing errors (spelling, word usage, grammar, etc.) and you should adhere to the APA style/writing guide throughout. You should begin work on your Business Plan as soon as possible so that you can email me as you develop questions.
Your Business Plan should contain all the following sections (taken verbatim from the appendix in our course text):
Executive Summary
Brief Description of the Company
Mission Statement/Value Proposition
The Product and/or Services Being Offered
Competitive Advantages
Brief Financial Forecast
Management Team
Current Advisors
Financing Requirements and Return Expected
You can conceive of this particularly critical section of the plan as the “hook” that encourages the reader to examine the entire plan. The executive summary is very useful in ensuring that you, the entrepreneur, remain focused in your analysis. If you cannot briefly explain your complete business concept in one to two pages, then you have not thoughtfully and thoroughly analyzed the potential business. You should be clear about how you will provide value to the customers, what the value proposition is for the business, what your competitive advantage is, and how your background has prepared you for this business.
History and Position of the Business to Date
The Company’s Mission
Company History from Business Conception to This Point
Management Team and Key Personnel
Business Structure
This is the section of a business plan, which many entrepreneurs choose not to include. If you have created other businesses and your new business is somehow dependent on those businesses for success, then such information is important. However, for most entrepreneurial businesses, the issues highlighted here simply provide context to potential investors, clients, and/or suppliers.
Market Research
Target Markets
Geographic Area Within Which the Business Will Operate
Competitive Environment and Opportunity Space
Competitor Analysis
Position of the Firm
Market Description
The Desired Customer
Market Growth Opportunities
Market research codifies and describes the specific market space that you hope your new business will occupy. The preparation of this section helps assure that there is a group of customers available for your business and that the business will be in a position to acquire these customers.
Business Strategy
Mission of the Small Business
Strategy
Value Proposition
Evaluation of Competitive Advantage
Length of Time Before Imitation
Comparison to Substitutes
You need to specify how the firm will compete in its targeted market. The firm’s strategy details not only how you expect it to compete, but it also begins the process of exploring the expected outcomes of that strategy and the potential dangers to the firm from its competitors. The issue of imitation is a continuing one for all organizations as they try to achieve and maintain what is unorthodox about their businesses.
Financial Analysis
Cash Flow Projections and Analysis
Ratio Analysis
Break-Even Analysis
Expected Gross and Operating Margins
Financial analysis is a major concern for all new businesses. This section in your plan will focus on a discussion of the various financial concerns related to the start-up and running of your business. Tables with your actual data should appear as support for this discussion at the end of your plan. A key part of financial analysis is the funds use. The topics covered here include:
Funds Required and Timing
Use of Funds
Funding Sources
Valuation
Distribution of Control
Ultimately you will need money from others and/or will need to be clear about how you will spend the money if you are self-funding the business. Therefore, your business plan needs to specify those numbers. The greater the detail provided, the more help the plan will provide you in establishing benchmarks that can be evaluated to judge your new firm’s progress.
Operations
Location
Accounting Systems
Quality Control
Build Out
Hours of Operation
Processes
Equipment
Staffing Schedule
Critical Path Analysis to Start the Business
Operations include the details about how you will operate your business, and these details will differ widely depending on the type of business you are launching. If it is a manufacturing business, then the operations section will be central to your plan. For example, your equipment may be part of the competitive advantage of your manufacturing firm and as such you will want to spend considerable time on that aspect of the business. On the other hand, if your new business is a restaurant then the equipment is typically generic and not a major factor in the firm’s success, so your business plan will minimize its discussion. The location of your restaurant would be an important element of its success, however, so you should elaborate on that aspect of your business.
A particularly important part of the business plan is the marketing. Sometimes it will be a separate section. It addresses issues that include:
Target Customer
Sales Forecast
Pricing
Methods of Promotion
Promotion Scheduling and Placement
The marketing plan specifies how your firm will reach the target customer. Particularly critical here is the specification of the customers and the details of how you actually will price and promote the product to those customers. One of the most difficult areas for any new business is how to actually reach the customers in a way that they will want to buy your product or service. Getting customers to change to your firm from another is very hard to accomplish.
Risk Analysis
Discussion of Systems Risks and Controls
Discussion of Business Risks and Controls
There are risks in every business. You do not need to spend extensive effort detailing the risks, although you want to acknowledge them. For example, we mentioned that young people starting a business may not have extensive prior experience in business. In this section you may wish to acknowledge those risks and illustrate what actions you are taking to ensure the success of the business. For example, if you have obtained a board of advisors consisting of successful business people who will work with you to reduce your risk, then this is an important point to illustrate.
Financial Management course work
-918210-529590
Financial Management
Course work
Capital structure decisions
By Elina PanfilovaSpring semester 2014
It is significantly important for the company to identify the right proportion for capital structure to make the company strong at the market and healthy. In this case, the key role takes capital structure decisions. It should be pointed out right as the beginning that the definition of capital structure is “a mix of a company’s long-term debt, specific short-term debt, common equity and preferred equity. The capital structure is how a firm finances its overall operations and growth by using different sources of funds.” [ REF _Ref382161388 r h * MERGEFORMAT 1]
Selecting financing schemes is inextricably linked with taking into account peculiarities of using both own and borrowed capital. Enterprise that uses only equity has the highest financial stability, but it limits the pace of its development. This is due to the fact that the company cannot ensure the formation of the necessary additional amount of assets during periods of favorable market conditions. The result is that it does not implement financial growth opportunities of return on invested capital, which enables the use of borrowed capital.
A significant proportion of loans in the company’s capital structure caused by the effect of financial leverage. Its effect reflected in the fact that the company, which uses borrowed funds efficiently, has a higher return on equity. In this regard, in modern conditions managing of capital structure should be an important part of the financial policies of each company. Efficient capital structure allows to achieve the desired profitability and liquidity of the enterprise, while providing an acceptable level of financial risk.
Analysis of scientific approaches to optimize the capital structure shows that at the basis the theoretical concepts of capital structure formation are contradictory approaches: the mutual independence of the capital structure and the market value of the enterprise to the direct interference. In the first case, I mean the Modigliani-Miller Theorem, which tells that “under a certain market price process (the classical random walk), in the absence of taxes, bankruptcy costs, agency costs, and asymmetric information, and in an efficient market, the value of a firm is unaffected by how that firm is financed.”[ REF _Ref382161444 r h 2] “The basic M&M proposition is based on the following key assumptions:
No taxes
No transaction costs
No bankruptcy costsEquivalence in borrowing costs for both companies and investors
Symmetry of market information, meaning companies and investors have the same information
No effect of debt on a company’s earnings before interest and taxes” [ REF _Ref382161457 r h 3]
In the second case, I mean the Trade-Off theory of capital structure “tells us that we have to include debt in our capital structure only that limit or degree where we are capable to pay the cost of debt and also cost of bankruptcy cost of debt andnon bankruptcy cost of debt.” (Picture 1)[ REF _Ref382161469 r h 4]
-38104509771Picture 1. The Trade-Off theory of capital structure (http://www.svtuition.org/2010/05/trade-off-theory-of-capital-structure.html) [ REF _Ref382161469 r h 4]
0Picture 1. The Trade-Off theory of capital structure (http://www.svtuition.org/2010/05/trade-off-theory-of-capital-structure.html) [ REF _Ref382161469 r h 4]
Despite the fact that the existing theories of capital structure are internally consistent and logical within the limitations imposed on them , in practice it turns out that in all markets firms manage their capital structures , taking into account not only quantitative parameters proposed under each of scientific approaches , but taking into account a number of key quality factors influencing the formation of funding sources ( sales growth , stability, dynamics of turnover , profitability and dynamics , the existing structure and liquidity of assets , strategic orientation of the enterprise , taxation, capital market conditions ) .
Therefore optimization process involves setting the target capital structure, under which should be understood the ratio of debt and equity sources of venture capital, which gives full ensure the growth of the return on equity at an acceptable risk.
At the same time the formation of target capital structure should be aimed at the solution of such problems as:
the formation of a sufficient amount of capital that provides the necessary economic development of the enterprise;
providing the conditions to achieve maximum return on capital at an acceptable level of financial risk;
ensuring continued financial equilibrium of the enterprise in during its development;
producing an adequate level of financial control over the company by its owners;
to provide sufficient financial flexibility of the enterprise;
an optimization of capital turnover;
ensuring the timely meet the demand for investment resources.
The starting point for optimizing the capital structure of a particular company is to determine the total demand for capital to finance the necessary enterprise assets forming schemes of financing of current and non-current assets, the development of measures to attract various forms of capital envisaged sources. That is really the process of calculating the required amount of funds that can be used effectively at this stage of the life cycle of the enterprise. At this stage of the study cannot be realized without the opportunities most efficient use of capital in selected activities of the enterprise and business operations; formation proportions upcoming use of capital, ensuring the achievement of the most effective conditions for its functioning and growth of the market value of the enterprise.
The next step is to determine the amount of equity and debt that are available to the enterprise to finance its activities.
One of the first steps at this stage is to obtain and research the information about the most likely sources of funding as well as drawing up a list of possible ways to raise capital that the company can use as a source of funds for investment projects.
Each method of providing financial activities has limitations in its application that make exclude from inaccessible or not suitable for a variety of conditions and funding schemes that need to be considered when developing an optimal capital structure.
Further, by comparing the positive and negative characteristics of each of the potential sources as well as comparing the desired and available volume of funding sources, formed composition and capital structure.The next step should be an assessment of compliance with the formed capital structure of the basic criteria that allow to make a conclusion about its rationality. Such criteria should be considered as maximizing the market value of the enterprise, ensuring its financial sustainability, compliance with the capital structure of the enterprise’s assets structure, minimizing the weighted average cost of capital and an acceptable level of profitability. With these criteria in mind it is necessary to define the target capital structure of the enterprise, ensuring maximum growth of enterprise value at acceptable risk. The decision to use these or other criteria should be taken within the selected financial policy of the company, based on its solved problems, management structure, the nature of long-term and operational planning and other factors.
Thereafter, the financial manager must make an assessment of compliance with formed structures of the company’s capital to the structure of its assets and the effect of the ratio of debt to equity on the financial condition of the enterprise through a system of financial indicators characterizing the liquidity, financial stability of the company, as well as the probability of bankruptcy. The purpose of this analysis is to determine the impact of formed capital structure on key financial ratios to assess the financial risk associated with the company, and the nature and quality of the assets financed by debt and equity sources. Financial manager can compare the calculated level of each ratio with its predicted value, taking into account the regulatory and industry average performance levels.
At the next justification stage of financial decisions it should be calculated the weighted average cost of capital to determine the required minimum return on invested capital in the company’s activity, to characterize the minimal level of net return on invested capital, which should have the company so as not to reduce the welfare of the owners and its market value without incurring loss and not go bankrupt.
Further, on the basis of this analysis, financial analysts have to make a final conclusion about the acceptability of risk and return that are associated with the proposed capital structure.
In case the all analyzed criteria, including the level of profitability and financial risk, and comply with strategy of the company and satisfy the owners of the company and Finance Directorate, this capital structure can be called optimal for these specific conditions. But if, at this stage, the financial risk is recognized as unacceptably high, or, conversely, an acceptable level of risk means too high costs for capital raising, compared with the level of income generated by the enterprise, financial managers should review the capital structure to find a compromise between risk and return.
Sources:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalstructure.asphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theoremhttp://www.investopedia.com/walkthrough/corporate-finance/5/capital-structure/modigliani-miller.aspxhttp://www.svtuition.org/2010/05/trade-off-theory-of-capital-structure.htmlArticle “How to Make a Capital Structure Project” (steps) http://smallbusiness.chron.com/make-capital-structure-project-35732.htmlArticle “The Optimal Use Of Financial Leverage In A Corporate Capital Structure” http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/111813/optimal-use-financial-leverage-corporate-capital-structure.asp
Article “Making Capital Structure Support Strategy” http://www.cfo.com/printable/article.cfm/5622276/c_2984411