Invisibility And Blindness African American Novels English Literature Essay

Invisibility And Blindness African American Novels English Literature Essay Blindness and Invisibility are major topic in African American novels published in the 20th century, but often not a physical but rather psychological blindness is meant by this. It is about what the inner eye sees through the physical ones. Blindness in African American novels is often perceived to be ignorance towards black people, but we will find cases where it is the other way round. Ignorance refers to the fact that people refuse to recognize people and to notice their individuality. The two novels to be analyzed are Native Son by Richard Wright and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. In both novels, we find physical as well as psychological blindness. By having a look at these aspects, the thesis that sight and blindness are central topics in the novels can be proven. The paper will analyze both forms of blindness in the novels. In doing so, also physical blindness and eye metaphors will be analyzed. Add Brother Jack The reader encounters Brother Jacks blindness quite late in the novel. On page 381, he Because of the fact that he has only one blind eye, he managed to stay independent. He does not need to rely completely on other peoples eyes as he has one that works. To begin with, one should first have a look at the physical blindness in the two novels. The blind character in Wights work is Mrs. Dalton and in Invisible Man it is Reverend A. Barbee. Both characters can be considered to have a symbolic meaning in the novels. They represent the real blindness and contrast it with people who are able to see with their eyes but obtain psychological blindness. Rev. Barbee is a completely blind person and he tries to hide this by wearing dark glasses during his service. In case somebody did not know he was unable to see, it would be hard to notice it. The Invisible Man and the other people sitting in the audience only notice it because he fell down and lost his glasses (Ellison 113). As a blind person, he has to rely completely on what other people tell him about the world. Because of the fact that he is so dependent on other people, he trusts or rather has to trust other people more. This trust makes him vulnerable. For examples, he believes Bledsoe t o be honest when he tells Barbee that he is going to preach to black college students only. This brings the Reverend in an embarrassing situation, as he talks about the black identity, the integration of the black people and calls the audience daughters and granddaughters, sons and grandsons, of slaves (101). It seems as if Bledsoe only uses Barbee to impress guests and not because Bledsoe likes Barbee and the way he preaches. Due to his inability to see the reality, he flees into his ideal world of religion and feels comfortable under the protection of God. Now the physical blindness of Mrs. Dalton will be analyzed. She is the only character who really is blind and therefore represents the real blindness in the book. As she is not able to see, she depends on other people telling her how the world and its people look like. The fact that she relies on other people telling her how to perceive her surroundings leads to the fact that she gets influenced by them and their prejudices. For example, she is not capable to see that Biggers skin color is different and this is the reason why she should not treat him differently. Nevertheless, she does so because the people in her environment constantly tell her that he is a black, poor guy who needs their support and needs a job to improve his conditions in life. One could argue that she is not only physically, but also psychologically blinded by prejudices because he environment makes her to act like this. In contrast to her husband, she will never be able to see again and to get rid of prejudices. She will always have to rely on other peoples opinions and on their eyes. In case her husband never opens his eyes and starts to see Bigger (and everyone who is like him) as an individual, Mrs. Dalton will always stay in his situation. The next section of the paper is concerned with psychological blindness. In the first part of it, eye metaphors found in Ellisons novel will be analyzed to prove that there are a lot of allusions made to the human eye. The second part of it deals with blindness and invisibility in Native Son. In the following three metaphors that are concerned with the eye are presented. Ellison used these metaphors as a tool to remind the reader that the bock is about sight and blindness. We find a lot of these reminders throughout the whole novel. The first one that can be found in the novel is in the scene of the battle royal. The black men that fight against each other have to wear blindfolds, which make them unable to see their surroundings. The boys fighting in the ring are not only physically blind, but also emotionally. They do not feel how the white people sitting in the outside of the ring are amused by them and how their reactions are. They do not see that they are only used to entertain t hem and that there will be no gold or other rewards waiting for them after the battle. They are blinded what the white people told them and they are also so blinded that they do not wonder about the gold bars being under electric power. In contrast to the black people fighting in the ring, the whites watching them also seem to be blinded, as they are not able to recognize the humanity and individuality of the fighters. Even though the audience and the fighters have very different roles in this scene, there seems to be a similarity between the two groups. They are both blind. Although there is the ring between them, there is blindness on both sides of the ring. The next metaphor I want to refer to can be found in the hospital scene, in which the Invisible Man wakes up after an accident in the paint factory. When he first opens his eyes, he feels very dizzy and describes his first sights as follows: sitting in a cold, white rigid chair and a man was looking at [him] out of a bright th ird eye that glowed from the centre of his forehead (188 Penguin). The narrator is too confused and too dizzy to notice that the third eye he is talking about is a simple stethoscope. After the man has gone out of the room, the narrator still seems to feel the presence of the third eye: the bright eye still burning into [his] (189 Penguin). This symbolizes the importance of the third eye to the Invisible Man because he takes its presence and its impact on him very serious. Nonetheless, the narrator does not know what to do with this experience and does not know what to think of it. He seems very confused. It seems as if the narrator feels to be observed by the third eye. During the scene in which he gets the electric shocks, we can notice a lot of other words that refer to the topic of sight or eyes. On page 190 (penguin), he sees a circle of light and a woman with gold nose glasses. In addition to this, he sees someone that looks at the Invisible Man with eyes behind the thick glas ses blinking as though noticing [him] for the first time (190 penguin). All this refers to the narrators feeling of being watched steadily. The third and last metaphor to be mentioned here is that of the dark sunglasses. When the narrator disguises with some new clothes to flee from Ras the Exhorter, he buys dark sunglasses to hide himself. They are so dark that he cannot see properly. Thus, the sunglasses do not only make him invisible, but also change his own view of the world, as he sees it as this: the streets swarmed in a green vagueness (388 Penguin) and faces were a mysterious blur (389 Penguin). The new sunglasses have two functions in his life: In the first place, they provide him protection, as nobody can recognize him (one woman even thinks he is Rinehart). In the second place, they provide him with blindness, which prevents him from seeing the real world. Another aspect that points to the importance of blindness in Invisible Man is the fact that some names of the characters make allusions to blindness. The reader is consciously or unconsciously aware of them, but it is clear that it contributes to the overall shape of the book. One of these characters is Reverend Homer A. Barbee. His name alludes to blindness, as Homer, a Greek poet, was blind as well. It is believed that the name Homer came from the Greek ho mÄâ€Å" horÃ…Â n, which means the person who does not see. His surname Barbee can be linked to the famous Barbie doll, which was launched on the market a couple of years before the novel was published. The doll represented an ideal world in which little girls flee, similar to Barbees ideal world of religion. Another aspect that might be comparable is the fact that the Barbie doll spread as successful through the world as once Christianity did. In the next chapter I would like to focus on the psychological blindness in Wrights Native Son. Biggers own blindness and the blindness of the people in his environment should be analyzed. Psychological blindness arises a lot of problems in the characters lives. Having a look at Biggers blindness, there are several hints in the novel which propose that is unable to see clearly and thus suffers from a lack of reality. In the very beginning of the novel, the author makes an illusion to physical blindness because Bigger is rubbing his eyes (Wright 7). In a this state, when you have just woken up and cannot see clearly, a person is almost blind and also thinking is not that easy. No matter what Bigger does in the next moment after waking up, this action will be very unconscious or even intuitively, because he cannot see properly nor is he able to think about his behavior. He can only act like an animal and is blind to his environment. A similar scene is that in which Bigger threatens his friend Gus, holding a knife in his hand. Wright describes his eyes as bloodshot (40), which leads to the fact that his sight cannot be clear. A lot of other scenes can be found, in which Biggers sight seems to be disturbed. When he find himself in Marys bedroom, he feels blinded by the hazy blue light (85) and his eyes are out of focus and thus unable to perceive reality in any clear way. In the moment when Mrs. Dalton enters the room, Bigger only perceives her as a white blur (84). Also, Wright mentions that reality of it all slipped from him (222). His loss of reality and his inability to see and think properly could be an explanation for the murders of Mary and Bessie. Bigger could have been to recognize that Mrs. Dalton is already unable to see him and just be silent until she leaves the room. Instead, Bigger killed Mary. He could have easily escaped from the situation. Also, he did not understand in advance that the murder of Bessie can make his whole situation even worse than improving it. His inability to see can be made responsible for the fact that he could not think clearly and was blinded by his surroundings. He is too blind to realize what he is actually doing and what these actions mean. The reader has to understand that in the case of Bigger, real blindness and the psychological one are more connected that expected. Biggers physical blindness leads to his psychological one. Now we are going to have a look at the people in Biggers surrounding, which all refuse to see him as an individual. Mary is the first character to be analyzed in this section. She grew up in rich family, where she never had problems and always got what she wants. She does not know anything about the world outside of her ideal world. This is the reason why she is blind towards everything outside her little world and this makes it impossible for her to understand Bigger. Her unawareness of the world is also displayed in the scene where she wants to see a real place (69), where only Black people are. She always says that she is interested to see how they (the African Americans) live, but in fact she is unable to understand anything because she is so much blinded by her family. Bessie, Biggers girlfriend, brings herself into a blind position as she flees reality by drinking a lot of alcohol. By doing this, she cannot judge anymore what is right and wrong and she also not capable anymore to understand Bigger and to notice his individuality. This is the reason why he feels misunderstood. She also does not recognize that Bigger does not really love her but only uses her for his own pleasure. Biggers mother does not use alcohol, but religion and prayers to flee reality. If there is a problem, she simply praises the Lord. She is unwilling to accept that her innocent son is a murder and only prays to God, thinking that this is the only way somebody could help her son. Thus, she is not only blinded by her religion, but also by the love a mother has for her child. Even after Bigger admitted his crime she does not want to believe it. Jan and Boris May are blinded by their communist views and their goal to convince black people of its benefits. They see in Bigger only a poor boy that never really had a chance in life. In their feelings towards Bigger, there is also a lot of sympathy involved. The same could be said for the Daltons, who feels a lot of sympathy for Bigger and try to give him a chance to improve his life. For the media Bigger represents a monster. They are blinded and driven by their prejudice that black men like to rape white girls and accuse him of this crime, even though there is no real evidence for it. In sum, I can say that not only Mrs. Dalton, but a lot of other characters of Wrights Native Son were blind. They just see the stereotype of a poor American boy and not the personality that hides behind the surface. He turns into somebody that does not exist for his surroundings and thus he is invisible. One could say that the blindness that other characters have towards him leads to the fact that he is invisible. This thesis can also be applied to Ellisons Invisible Man. Although the title already suggests that the main character is invisible, it can also be deduced from its content. The Invisible Man is invisible because the people surrounding him treat him like he was not there; as if he did not exist at all. They do not care about his feelings and do not notice his individuality. For example, the Brotherhood only tries to use him for their own purposes, ignoring his own interests. In conclusion, it can be said that the human ability to see or not to see is a major topic in the two novels, as there can be found a lot of metaphors and allusions towards the characters eyes. One could even say that blindness guides the reader like a red line through the novels. The allusions made by the authors constantly remind the reader of the importance of seeing. The reader has to keep in mind that blindness can be understood in different ways. The most obvious meaning is physical blindness, which is represented by Mrs. Dalton in Native Son, and Rev. Barbee in Invisible Man. Their blindness can be transferred to other character in the novel and make them blind, too. For example, Mrs. Dalton is unable to see Bigger, not only literally, but also metaphorically, as she cannot see his individuality and his character. She is blinded by prejudices. This makes Bigger invisible for her and for many other people who are influenced by these prejudices. The psychological meaning of blin dness can be split up into an internal and external blindness. This means that a character can be blind himself (e.g. as Bigger who loses his sense of reality or Mrs. Dalton, who is really blind) or s/he can become blind or invisible for other people.

Lehman Brothers Essay

In year 2008, financial crisis had led to the collapse of many banks in United States. Lehman Brothers was one of the banks that had filed its bankruptcy on 15 September 2008. It was the biggest bankruptcy in the history and it still is for now. Being the fourth largest investment bank in United States that had been established for 158 years, its failure had brought a big impact to the world financial markets. The failure of this large investment bank had triggered people around the world. After the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008, there are a number of analysts and researchers that had tried to figure out the root of such event, the causes of the collapse, the effects of the failure and some lessons that could be learned from the failure of Lehman Brothers. All these papers and analysis have their own point of view. Therefore, there are a few objectives that I would like to focus on. In this paper, we will first focus on â€Å"What caused its failure?† Everything that happened will have its own reasons and causes. Next we are going to focus on â€Å"what is the effect of its failure?† Another objective that we are focusing on is the lessons that we gained from this failure. It is very important to study the story of Lehman Brothers who was a legend because it was established in 1850 until 2008 and they had survived through the world financial crisis. 1.0 History of Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers was first founded by a new German immigrant Henry Lehman in Montgomery, Alabama in year 1844. He started up a shop named ‘H. Lehman’, which sells groceries and dry goods to some local cotton farmers. In 1847, his brother Emanuel Lehman arrived, and they change the name again to ‘H. Lehman and Bro’. In 1850, their youngest brother Mayer Lehman arrived in Montgomery and once again they changed its name and ‘Lehman Brothers’ founded by then. During that time, cotton was one of the important crops thus they have a high market value. The three Lehman brothers started to accept raw cotton from their customers as a source of payment for merchandise. Within a few years, the trading of cotton had become their most important part of their operation. In 1855, Henry Lehman passed away at the age of 33 from yellow fever. After Henry’s death, Mayer and Emanuel continued their business on commodities trading. They have their own policy, only their family members-sons, brothers, and cousins-that were permitted to be their partners. This policy carries on until 1920s. Their business grow and they formed a partnership with a cotton merchant John Wesley Durr to build their own storage warehouse. They used this warehouse to store their mass amount of cotton to enable them to support larger sales and trades. Their business continued to expand and they set up an office in New York in year 1858. However, Lehman Brothers faced hardship during the period of Civil War but they managed to rebuild their business after the war, and focusing their operations based in the New York office. Lehman Brothers expand to include sales and trading of other goods. Besides forming the New York Cotton Exchange, they were involved in establishing the Coffee Exchange and Petroleum Exchange. In 1867, Lehman Brothers became the agent of the Alabama government in selling the state’s bonds. In 1906, under the leadership of Philip Lehman, son of Emanuel, he partnered with Goldman Sachs, together they brought the General Cigar Co. to market followed by Sears, Roebuck and Company. There were around one hundred new issues that were underwritten by Lehman Brothers in conjunction with Goldman. Philip Lehman retired in 1925, and the company was taken over by his son, Robert Lehman. Under Robert’s leading, the company survived through the Great Depression, and they carry on their operation focusing on venture capital. In 1930s, they underwrote the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the first television manufacturer, DuMont. They also helped to finance companies like Halliburton and Kerr-McKee. In 1969, Robert Lehman passed away and he was the last member of Lehman family to lead the company. Robert’s death had led to problems that brought hard times to the firm. In 1973, an important person, Pete Peterson was brought in to save the firm from its difficulties. He as the Chairman and CEO had led the firm from operating losses to record profits in five consecutive years. Lehman Brothers merged with Kuhn, Loeb Inc., and formed the country’s fourth largest investment bank preceded by Salomon Brothers, Goldman and First Boston. In 1984, American Express acquired Lehman Brothers to merge with retail brokerage Shearson to form Shearson Lehman Brothers. However, a few years later in 1993, the firm spun off and became known solely as Lehman Brothers. In 2001, the World Trade Center offices were destroyed by terrorist attack therefore their headquarters was moved to Manhattan in 2002. The firm continue to shine until 2008, it had recorded a high profit in 2007 but in less than a year’s time they was entangled in the subprime mortgage lending crisis. On September 15 2008, they filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court. 2.0 Causes of its Failure The collapse of Lehman Brothers was a huge impact because everyone was thinking that it is impossible for such a large bank to collapse. Lehman Brothers had just reported a large profit in 2007, in less than a year time they filed for their bankruptcy. After the failure of Lehman Brothers, there were many people discussing about the causes that led to the failure of this large investment bank. Although they managed to pass through the past economic downturn with their business strategies but they could not survive the collapse of the housing market of United States of America. Until today, the causes of its failure were still being discussed among people around the world. Some would say that the poor management of the firm itself was the key to the collapse of the bank. The top management of Lehman Brothers failed to detect the problem that might occur with their balance sheet and their Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Richard J. Fuld had miscalculated the severity of the market upheaval. Lehman began to emerge into home mortgages in 2005 without bothering the early warning that the housing market in United States is being overheated and it will burst anytime. In 2007, two hedge funds sponsored by Bear Sterns collapsed and the market’s attention had focused on the value of subprime mortgages. The firm has confidence with itself because they consider itself as an expert in the financing real estate. Lehman Brothers did not manage to detect the alarm yet because their balance sheet was heavily weighted in commercial real estate which had nothing to do with the residential housing sector. Although the lower management might have detected the danger earlier but the news could not reach until the top management. The firm failed to realize that it was actually a ticking time bomb that might explode anytime. It is a norm that the top management was the last one to know whenever there is a danger because the employees would try to cover up. That is why the top management could not react to save the firm at an earlier stage. Some would argue that the CEO, Fuld was to blame because of his overconfidence and failure to recognize that Lehman faced a crucial crisis. Besides, Lehman paid an extremely high salaries and bonuses for their employees which total up more than half of the company earned in pre-tax profit. In addition, the accounting system of Lehman itself was a big flop. They used â€Å"Repo 105 transactions† that was described by their own accounting personnel as an â€Å"accounting gimmick†. First of all, some would question what does â€Å"repo† means. â€Å"Repo† means repurchase agreements, transaction which banks use it to borrow cash for short term. It involves raising cash by lending out high-quality assets for a short period of time. The banks will agree to repurchase their collateral in a few days or weeks. This way of recording their accounts created a false portrayal of their true financial status. Even the external auditor, Ernst & Young did not take further action to investigate the â€Å"repo†. According to Stern Stewart (2002), he said that accounting is no longer counting what counts and those in charge have not been wise enough or strong enough to resist their ploys to make the auditors’ definition of earning into a reliable measure of value. Accounting fraud and accounting manipulation are the major reasons to companies’ failure and financial crises. They intend to keep this matter and hide it from the shareholders and the public. In this case, the external auditors did not do what they a re supposed to do. They failed to give any warning to the shareholders about the non-disclosure of their financial statements. According to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, â€Å"an external auditor has a responsibility to plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether caused by error or fraud† Lehman Brothers’ reckless way of lending made the firm into more liabilities. The subprime mortgages were to meet the needs of Americans who could not be qualified for long-term mortgages. Subprime mortgages were targeted on credit unworthy person but also had low interest rates on long term basis. Therefore, subprime mortgages were loans that are high in risk but low in return compared to the property to be purchased. Meanwhile, Lehman also encourages the â€Å"ninja (no income, no job, and no assets) or better known as liar loans†. These loans were banned in United Kingdom because â⠂¬Å"ninja loans† are loans offered to public without any form of collateral. Anyone could loan from the bank even he is without a job, without stable income and without any assets in hand. These loans are another key for the failure of Lehman. Such loans are the breeding ground of unethical behaviour in the financial market. These loans encourage the moral hazard to happen because the borrowers had nothing to lose as they have no assets to be held as collateral. Following the incident of the failure of Lehman, there are people questioning the decision of the Fed for not bailing out Lehman. Federal Reserve does not bail out Lehman because Lehman could not prove that they have the ability to repay the loan from Fed. There is a theory in the economics called the â€Å"Big Bank Theory† which means that governments will not allow a large bank like Lehman to collapse because it will bring a huge impact to the economic. This theory does works when American International Group (AIG) and Bear Sterns were being helped by Fed to prevent it from falling. Everyone thought the same fate will happen to Lehman as well because of the theory â€Å"too big to fail†. However, Lehman Brothers could not escape from the bankruptcy fate. Fed had conducted assessments and it showed that the failure of Lehman would not bring such a big impact to the whole world compared to AIG or Bear Sterns. Federal Reserve chose to bailout Bear Sterns but not Lehman Brothers because when the Fed bailed out Bear Stern in March 2008, it claimed that the bailout was an â€Å"extraordinary event†, thus it is impossible for Fed to save another troubled financial firm because it is not possible for â€Å"extraordinary events† to occur that often. Competitions are very common in each and every sector including banking and finance sector. Banks will compete among themselves on both assets and liabilities. According to Bolt and Tieman (2004), to survive the competition for loans and remain profitable, banks undertake measures that will drive the loan volumes and enhance profitability but ultimately compromise their asset quality and increase the probability of collapsing. Bank therefore started to increase the risk in their portfolio by lowering the criteria or terms and condition for a loan. Wilmarth (2009) agreed that competition impacts negatively on lending standards, based on events leading to the global financial crisis in 2007. Banks compete blindly with each other neglecting the possible danger that might arise and harmful towards the banks. They keep on offering subprime mortgages with low payments in order to attract more customers. When the housing prices collapsed in 2007, the borrowers could not refinance their mortgages and defaults happen eventually lead to the subprime financial crisis. 3.0 Effects of Its Failure In March 2010, it emerged that the bankruptcy was not just the largest ever to be experienced in the American financial system, but it was also one of the largest accounting scandals ever (Connerty, 2010). The failure of Lehman Brothers is similar to that Enron experienced earlier in 2001. Such failure and the present case of Lehman show how an investment bank had successfully fool all the investors and financial analysts. The investors of Lehman Brothers were badly affected because they could not escape from the financial crisis impact. In many countries, the investors were badly affected because most of them are holding the bonds issued by Lehman before it collapses. In Hong Kong, there are 43,000 individuals who had bought the so-called mini bonds up to a total of $ 1.8 billion. Pension funds, such as the New York State Teachers’ retirement plan had also incurred losses due to the collapse of Lehman (Bryan-Low, 2009, cited in Swedberg, 2010). Once Lehman declared its bankruptcy on September 2008, investors lose their money and some investors are even senior citizens. Although some investors do suffer a huge loss, but most of the world’s leading investment banks made big profits again in 2009. Investment banks have always been a very volatile business and it will still continue on to have its ups and downs. The failure of investment banks does not affect the long run of the business because it is a very profitable business. The consequences of the collapse of Lehman are not that long because some banks started to record profit within a year. However, United States of America’s economy was seriously affected and the US government needs to prop up the markets in order to avoid any further catastrophe and to avoid the history of the Great Depression 1930s to happen once again. 4.0 Lessons Learned after the Collapse Caplan et al., (2010) mention that in 2006, Lehman made a deliberate decision in pursuing a higher-growth business strategy. To achieve their goal they switched from a low-risk brokerage model to capital-intensive banking model that required them to buy assets and store them as opposed to acquiring assets to primarily moving them to a third party. This strategy at the time also brought a higher risk because most of the assets were long term and they were highly illiquid. As the subprime crisis happened, Lehman had to act quickly to liquidate its illiquid assets in housing mortgages. The crisis caused the assets to be bought at lower price due to the negative perception in the public. Lehman should have forgone its high-growth strategy because its cost had outweighed the benefits. Holding on with the strategy kept dragging Lehman into deeper danger because they should have sacrifice part of the profits to protect themselves from massive loss. Besides that, the top managers should have eliminated dubious accounting practices by holding to a high ethical standard. Lehman used Repo 105 was only one of the way of many wrongful action used by Lehman to show that their financial statements are still stable and at a healthy state. Lehman practiced the Repo 105 in an unethical way in order to acquire new loans by displaying a healthier situation compared to the actual situation. A standard accounting system open the way for unethical managers to take advantage of it. They practice the standard according to their own unethical behaviour in order to achieve or to display a healthy situation to the public. Therefore, the accounting standards must be modified to avoid any of the unethical behaviour that could affect the benefits of the public. The financial statements must meet the necessary accounting standard and the external auditors should point out the mismatch of the balance sheet and investigate for any problem occurred. In this way, it is easier to trace the problem earlier and the management could not have the chance to hide the true condition of their firm. Caplan et al., (2010) suggest that substance must be taken into consideration over form, in which the fairness and the health of the organization must be judged based on the substance of the statements and not simply the ratios inferred from them. Basically, expanding safety nets involves providing all-embracing guarantees to both creditors and depositors of both commercial and investment banks (Rochet, 2010). Expanding the safety nets is to maintain funding especially during the economic downturn times and to rebuild the investor confidence after such a major economic crisis. The strategy to stabilize the economic is very important and it needs to be carrying on a long term basis in order to prevent future failures. All these strategies should be carried out by investment banks themselves as they were one of the factors that caused the Lehman Brothers to collapse. In addition, we should have come out with strategies that were directed at dealing with the problem assets and implement the strategies in advance before the financial system failure occurs. It is better to prepare earlier rather than waiting for the failure to occur by its own. These strategies are basically of two types; they can either be in terms of government guarantees on specific high value loans but still keeping the loans on the failing firm’s balance sheet or acquisition of some or all structures securities and loan assortments (Stephanou, 2009). Although dealing with those problematic assets does not really reduce the firm’s vulnerability to such exposures but at least these strategies could tackle the liquidity problems and improve their creditworthiness. Government plays an important role to motivate the private investors to acquire the problematic assets or government can co-finance the acquisition of these assets. There is need for the industry regulators to enforce more stringent measures to ensure that investment banks do not bite more than they can chew. The regulators should have regular monitoring done on all the investment banks to ensure that they are on the right path and did not take up too much risky investment. From the collapse of Lehman Brothers, we could see that most of the investment banks faced financial crisis with insufficient capital bases and inadequate liquidities. The regulatory measure must be able to ensure that banks have the ability and quantity capital bases that could buffer the financial institutions from massive losses and to be strong enough to withstand any failures in the future. Banks need to have a good number of liquid assets all the time so that the assets could easily be transformed into cash to face any panics. To conclude, it is very important to enforce standards on the capital, leverage and liquidity of every investment banks to prevent financial cris is in the future. 5.0 Conclusions The recent competition in the banking industry has led to most of this banks engaging in risky exposures (Raghavan, 2003). This is very clear in the collapse of Lehman Brothers. We should learn up from the mistakes and ensure that we do not repeat it in the future. In the collapse of Lehman we could see that corporate governance plays an important role in every firm. The management must be clear with the firm’s condition and to make the right decision for the firm and to be alert towards any kind of possible danger. The Board and regulator could have intervened if Lehman practiced sound corporate practices and had not withheld information regarding the risk levels of the firm. Besides, the external auditors are also a part in this failure because they failed to detect the malpractices in their financial statements. According to Greenfield (2010), the main indicators of fraud could be detected in the financial statement apparently; the external auditors could not discover this activity. Looking forward, there is no crystal ball. However what is known is that the international financial system is a complex web of dealings, relationships and dependencies. It must however be noted that the demise of Lehman had not impacted on the US economy alone but the world as a whole. Lastly, never assumes too big to fail. Even the most sophisticated financial tools, cannot predict or time the market properly. No one and nothing guarantees you that having past successes, you can be granted the same in the future.

Gattaca Film Essay

Gattaca 2. 10 Gattaca by Andrew Niccol Robbie Bentley In the film Gattaca by Andrew Niccol, an important scene that conveys meaning in the film is the night club/alley scene. It shows us Vincent’s feelings towards Irene and how desperate he is to not getting caught. I chose this scene to write about because it uses multiple aspects of film to convey meaning in the text. The aspects I’ve chosen to analyse are Mise En-Scene, Camera, Sound and Editing. In the night club/alley scene, an important aspect used to get across meaning is music and sound effects.When Jerome and Irene are sitting in the night club there is relaxed, low-tempo music playing which gets progressively louder whilst they dance, until it builds up to the kiss which is interrupted by the detective. This is a good use of music as it fits the elegancy of the scene. Nice easy going, almost dreamlike as it builds up, drawing in the audience audience into the moment. The music cuts out, snapping everything bac k to reality as the detective walks in. Another important example of sound is when Jerome and Irene are escaping through the alley.The use of both music and amplified sound in this part of the scene helps build tension. When they start running, a sort of low aching strings music comes in which sounds almost tortured and off-note. This gradually gets louder the longer they run to help the audience understand the tension in this part. Also their footsteps are amplified to emphasise the desperateness in their escape. After Irene slips and they hide in the alley, the music cuts out and Anton yells â€Å"Vincent! † The cut out of music shows the seriousness of this part due to the very sudden cuts of music.Another important aspect of film in the alley scene is camera work. An example of this is when Jerome and Irene are escaping through the alley. When they start running, the camera starts tracking their feet. This is to show the audience directly they’re running away. The camera slowly pans up to an almost point of view shot, trailing behind them. This is a good film technique because it makes the audience feel as if they’re being chased by the camera, which in this shot symbolises not only the detectives but Jerome’s fear of being caught.It then moves into a shot from the front of them, still running they pass the camera into another follow shot. I think this is a good shot because them passing the camera shows the speed at which they are going. A third effective film aspect use in the night club/alley scene is editing. In the night club scene, the length of each shot is very stretched out. This a good use of editing because the slow transitions of shots and the relaxed music makes the scene seem very relaxed.It also lets the audience stop and take in the environment of the night club. This contrasts well when the scene changes in the alley. In the alley everything picks up pace, with the shots transitioning much faster as Vincent knoc ks out the bodyguard and they escape. This sudden speed up from the previous scene draws the audience into the moment as the tension lifts dramatically. After Irene trips over and they go to hide in the alley, the shots start to drag out again. This helps show that they’re safe.A serene sort of music comes in which supports the slow transitions, taking the feel of the scene back to that slow sort of romantic feeling. A useful film technique used in conjunction with sound, editing and camera work is mise en-scene. The set in the night club is made to look very elegant, with chandeliers hanging from the high-arched beautifully decorated ceiling. The lighting fits into the look as well with a dim low yellow light. The night clubs seat really compliments Irene’s dress.This is done on purpose to show the audience Vincent’s feelings that he has towards Irene and to highlight her significance to him in the film. The contrast moving from the elegant night club to the da rk, gloomy alley is quite a significant one. This transition helps change the mood of the audience from being happy/lovey dovey to a more serious, tense mood. The use of the alley being lit by the green light from the cop car is a good example of effective lighting because as Irene and Vincent are running it looks like a fog light almost, chasing for them.The walls of the alley almost look wet, this gives it a gloomy, cave like look. I think this is used to symbolise Vincent running into a big dark cave in which he can’t turn back in. The night club/alley scene is an important scene in Gattaca because it shows the audience how Vincent feels towards Irene but also how desperate he is to not get caught. I think Andrew Niccols purpose of this scene is to show the passion between Vincent and Irene to the audience by using several film techniques used to pull the two parts of the scene together and convey meaning.

international marketing case 2-7 McDonalds obesity Essay

International marketing Case 2-7 Q1) How should McDonalds respond when ads promoting healthy lifestyles featuring Ronald McDonald are equated with Joe camel and cigarette ads? Should McDonalds eliminate Ronald McDonald in its ads? A1) in my opinion, changing the character Ronald or eliminating it is not the answer, the answer is for McDonalds to emphasis that cigarettes are always harmful, in contrast McDs menu has a variety of healthy options, so the comparison is wrong because it is of totally different types. Mac can/should target its Ronald to do more advertisements for healthy food and nutrition, they can also label their food with the amount of fat, cholesterol, sugar, and other nutritional values; another suggestion is†¦show more content†¦The obesity rate cannot rapidly fall, it will take some time because parents’ lifestyle should modify as well as children’s’ eating style should also change. Less traditional food and having less physical work in developed countries, especially in Scandinavian countries where there is less working hours. The children’s’ obesity becomes a very big problem worldwide. Q4) the broad issue facing McDonalds in the UK is the current attitude towars rising obesity. The company seems to have tried many different approaches to deal with the problem, but the problem persists. List all the problems facings McDonalds critique its various approaches to solving the problem. A4) Problems: Some say that the fast food portion sizes are partly to blame. Some people say advertising is to blame, especially ads aimed at children Solution: ad campaigns aimed at kids featuring Ronald McDonald and animated vegetable and fruit animations. McDonalds corp. later issued a statement claiming that many nutritionists believe they their meals can fit into a balanced diet. Using positive lifestyle messages in ads. McDonalds changed menu with items such as porridge, smoothies and chicken wraps is on reason for the growing business Q5) Develop a long term plan and a short term plan for McDonalds. 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