Fast Food Nation Essay Example for Free

Fast Food Nation Essay The main characters in the novel Fast Food Nation are Richard and Maurice â€Å"Mac† McDonald, Ray Kroc, Walt Disney, Carl N. Karcher, and Dave Thomas. The McDonald’s brothers are from New Hampshire. They opened up the first McDonald’s restaurant in 1937 in southern California. They revolutionized the fast food industry in 1948 by ridding their business of carhops, and using disposable plates and cups to serve finger food. Ray Kroc was a high school drop-out from Illinois. He sold milkshake makers until he met the McDonald brothers in 1954. He sold milkshake makers to them, and bought the right to franchise their company. He is known as a pioneer in the fast-food industry for creating characters that rivaled others such as Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney became Ray Kroc’s biggest rival after refusing to put a McDonald’s in Disneyland, which was model marketing to children. Carl is also one of the American fast-food industry’s pioneers. At twenty-years-old, Carl moved to Anaheim, California where he began his first hotdog stand. Carl eventually turned his hotdog stands into drive-in restaurants. After observing the first McDonald’s restaurants success, Carl started expanding and developed the Carl’s Jr’s restaurants. In 1997, the corporation expanded dramatically with the new possession of the Hardees Restaurant chain. In 2004, CKE Restaurants, Inc. had revenues in excess of 1. 4 billion dollars. Dave Thomas dropped out of school at fifteen-years-old. After working as a bus boy and a cook, he eventually founded Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers restaurant in Columbus, Ohio in 1969. Today, there are thousands of Wendy’s restaurants and they remain popular throughout the world. Dave is probably best known as the guy on the Wendys TV commercials. From 1989 to 2002, Dave appeared in over 800 commercials for the restaurant chain. He died after a long battle with liver cancer in 2002. The setting of this novel is in any fast-food restaurant on an international level. The theme of this novel is that we as Americans can no longer ignore the many health hazards of a fast-food diet. Years of consuming fast food has resulted in diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and obesity. There are several conflicts in this novel. One type is man vs. man. An example of this is when former employees return to the restaurants and kill innocent people. Another example of man vs. man is when companies pay doctors and nurses to minimize reportable injuries. This is not fair towards the injured employee. Plot: * This book opens with discussing Carl Karcher and Ray Kroc’s roles as fast-food pioneers. * Next we examine Kroc’s complicated relationship with Walt Disney, and each man’s rise to fame. * Then, we go to Colorado Springs, CO to observe and investigate the working conditions of a typical fast-food employee. * After that, we discuss the chemical components that make up fast-food. * We then observe the lives of ranchers and meat packing industries that supply for fast-food chains. * The book ends by discussing how America has matured as a cultural export. There has been a mass spread of American goods and services, especially fast-food. As a result, the rest of the world is catching up to America’s rising obesity rates.

Declining Air Quality :: Environment Environmental

Declining Air Quality Section A The declining air quality can be held responsible for many things such as city smog and the greenhouse effect. Such problems are very definite in America since they are one of the top air–pollutant–creating countries in the world. The original list of air pollutants created by US industries was made up of arsenic, asbestos, benzene, beryllium, coke oven emissions, mercury, radionuclides (radioactive isotopes), and vinyl chloride. In the 1990’s this list was expanded to include 189 substances, and by the end of the 1990’s regulations were put in place for the â€Å"major sources†, which require the emission of no more than ten tons of any of these substances and no more than twenty five tons of any combination of them per year. Air pollution that worsens the global air quality is mostly generated by the wealthier, more populated nations. America has a population of 275,372,000, making it one of the most populated countries; it is also the most powerful nation in the world. As a result almost every household in the United States own a car or two. Cars are major contributors to the ozone hole and when almost every household in one of the most populated countries in the world own one, the level of air pollution emitted would be paramount. As a result, many of the major cites in the US such as New York, Miami and Los Angeles have very bad smog that reduce visibility and increase health risks. In Los Angeles, for example, the smog causes eye and chest irritations for residents and exacerbates asthma. Attempts have been made to clear the smog, but no reasonable success has been achieved. There have been measures taken to stop the problem from getting noticeably worse, but it is not a long term option. The smog in LA is caused fundamentally by the Californian sun. The heat of the sun creates a layer of warm air that acts as a seal, trapping the cold air in the basin of the Los Angeles harbour. This effect traps all of the industrial pollution and the car exhaust above the city. The millions that live there are all exposed daily to harmful levels of carbon monoxide. It is not yet known what the long term effects of this will be. Due to this hazard to human health the Los Angeles authorities have been urged to cut down on pollution, which means burning fossil fuels more completely and restricting the industries, all at the cost of millions of dollars.

Analysis of Wal-Mart Managerial Accounting Process Essay

Company Description For the final project of managing finance Wal-Mart Stores Inc is chosen as the discussion target. Being one of the grocery retail shop leaders in the world, Wal-Mart (WM) operates business with 10,000 retail units in 27 countries with about USD444 million of sales in 2012 (Wal-Mart homepage 2012). Driven by the corporate strategies, WM growth rapidly around the world. To support the growth, managerial effectiveness in the operations is very important. Since budget is the first step which put manager’s plan into operation, let’s take a close look at WM’s budgeting process. Budgeting Process Budget reflects a company’s plan, both long and short term, to accomplish business objectives. The focus of the WM’s budgeting system is on providing  better quality and services to the customers. WM follows needed considerations in its budgeting process and procedures. They implements flexible budget in its business that identifies overhead cost drivers and allocates capital to those over head costs properly. Through this way, WM is able to make a budget for different levels of activity. WM set goals and objectives and define their mission and vision clearly in their budgeting process. They plan for the stock requirement in order to achieve the forecasted level of sales. Budgeting process is also helpful to measure the performance of different departments in WM. It enables them to manage costs of different levels of action by weighing the actual costs against the budgeted cost (Plunkett, Attner & Allen, 2011, p. 558-560). WM takes corrective action to control those costs in order to make this closer the flexible budget prepared in advance. WM communicate goals and targets of each employee through budget and continuous report back to the corporate on operation, investment and financial activities based on budget information. Its budgeting procedures help WM to be competitive in cost and to economically use the resources that made better revenue for the company. In contrast to this, in this procedure, prediction is difficult for the manager because they believe on a range of estimates of what to expect financially. In addition, this process also depends on various variables that affects to each other. It is very complicated to prepare and difficult to understand for other employees of the company (Axson, 2010, p. 132-140). Management Accounting System Management accounting system (MAS) in WM play a crucial role to improve their business activities effectiveness. Management accounting information are collected, stored and prepared through use of well designed accounting information system. It simplifies getting information to people outside of the organization when necessary. Through use of MAS, WM determines its initial purchase price of raw material including subsequent operating and maintenance costs. MAS help to evaluate the pricing structure’s effectiveness by showing cost, sales and revenue data. It gives idea to the company to decide the price of the product to be competitive in the market. WM disseminates this information to its various parties through conducting  formal and informal meetings, conferencing, global network and employees’ survey techniques (Needles, Powers & Crosson, 2010, p. 720-722). Moreover, WM mainly uses its accounting reports based on principles of GAAP to make inform its stakeholders about its financial position. WM uses the strategic management accounting system which helps to enhance the effectiveness of decision making within the company. WM use MAS for everything from entering in new market to vendors/products selection and even new pricing process, promotion strategies and to distribution (Needles, Powers & Crosson, 2007). The accounting information from MAS of WM helps in planning, controlling and other managerial activities. Their system also able to come up all kind of alternatives with integrated accounting information which assist management to find out the best strategy for organizational effectiveness improvement (Wal-Mart homepage 2012). WM disseminate managerial accounting information through budgets for all departments which help all departments to facilitate proper integration in all kind of activities within the company. WM currently uses Vision Suite accounting software that includes different aspects of finance like AR/AP, general ledger, check writing and external accounting integration. This software is faster and relatively cheaper and generates accounting documents automatically. Through this, many types of useful reports can be generated for management to make decisions. On the other side, it can be susceptible for computer viruses and hackers. In absence of proper control and security, it can create problems for the confidentiality of the company (Gilbertson & Lehman, 2008, p. 6, 437 ). Costing System In term of costing process, WM is focus on inventory control since that is the most important part of their business to determine its profitability. To determine the cost of inventory, WM uses several costing method. In order to reduce inventory cost as well as determining accurate cost of products, WM uses both LIFO and FIFO. By using the retail method of accounting, inventories are at low cost or at least at market rate. This will help to increase the effectiveness of operation since WM is retail  business and this will facilitates competitive advantage over competitors. According to WM’s 2012 annual report, they use LIFO to determine weighting average cost for products in US and for inventories for international operations are using the FIFO method (Wal-Mart annual report 2012, page 31). These differences way of costing will enhance effectiveness of the company in managing cost. WM accomplish their strategy, â€Å"everyday low cost approach† (EDLC) through these co sting method (Wal-Mart annual report 2012, page 18). So as to allocate cost to different products, WM uses the activity based costing (ABC) system. ABC system enables the WM to better understand the cost structure and cost drivers. On the basis of this, WM takes effective decisions regarding price structure. The ABC approach can exhibit the actual work done relating with production more accurately in order to be useful in management accounting. The ABC system is used by management to collect a full cost view. VM can reduce the overhead cost by minimizing the number of cost drivers (Leitner, 2007, p. 5). In contrast to this, there is possibility that as per this method, costs can be more than profits. Apart from this, it also requires data input from multiple departments that can create greater risk of failure of data inputs. The cost of managing the system is also high due to having more cost pool volume. For instance, Wal-Mart is a large organization, as cost accounting information is difficult to separate, due to the presence of multiple product lines and numerous machine setups in complex production environments (Drury, 2006, p. 350-362). Capital Decision Making Process Evaluation of investment appraisal techniques is useful in capital decision making process by bringing together financial and strategic aspects of the project. The capital investment decisions of WM are mainly driven by its financial priorities such as growth, leverage and returns on investment. The major concern of WM is international expansion and its profitability (Wal-Mart annual report 2012, page 28). WM select and manage projects through the below steps: 1. Project information collection – collect information such as past performance, costs, benefits and associated risks. 2. Evaluating the project – Use cost benefit analysis, net present value, IRR etc to evaluate the project. WM uses discounted cash flow (DCF) investment appraisal technique in capital decision making process. They only invest its capital in projects that meet stringent payback periods and yield at least a required rate of return in a DCF analysis (Brigham & Daves, 2012, p. 544-549). 3. Selecting project – WM uses NPV and IRR method to evaluate projects’ alternative. For selecting projects, they will based on different criteria of the projects, but also taking into account the incremental revenue, time, company reputation etc.. The above help WM to ensure optimal utilization of their capital resources. For example, WM’s new solar project in California, they focused on DCF method to decide that it should invest its capital in this project or not. After implementing this technique, WM determined the average payback period for its energy saving projects that was 6.3 months. It also provided an annual return on investment of 190 percent on these projects that was profitable for the company. Therefore, WM wants to consider these discount flow values for its new solar project in order to make profits as future prospective (Ailworth, 2012). Capital Structure In term of capital acquisition decision, the main criteria are the long term sustainability and stability in performance. The cash flow is the main source of capital that ensures the long term success. WM considers market position, market trend, credit policy, financial status and stakeholders’ interests before deciding the best sources of acquiring financial capital. Sometimes, it also considers the financing cost to arrange the capital for running its operations. Credit rating of the company influences the WM’s decision on capital structure because its good rating helps it to take the credit from the financial institutions (Kronwald, 2010, p. 5-16). Instead of issuing common equity, WM is relying more on funds borrowing from market. Additionally, capital structure of WM is risky as their financing  rely heavily on debt or loans that may impact earnings. WM has been operating at 1.71 debt equity ratio (Yahoo Finance, 2012). Funding decisions of WM is associated with capital rising through debt more because of taking benefits of tax deduction and lower financing cost. â€Å"It has some implications such as funds generation; positive impact on financial result or company performance and meeting needs on operation and investment† (Seidman, 2004, p. 77-80). This is important to maintain low capital cost while achieving the company goals in the capital structure of the company (Wal-Mart Annual report 2012 page 28). Conclusion In order for the company to make effective managerial decision, various kinds of processes and approaches in budgeting and costing are necessary. WM implemented a well quality budgeting process which improves their effectiveness in accomplishing their objectives. Their budgeting process helps to motivate and improve effectiveness of employees and also help to create long term objective for the organization. They use MAS to do have the most cost effective vendors and products selection and also to manage all the accounting information to improve the effectiveness of the managerial decision. In order to reduce the total cost of products and maintain competitive position in the market, WM selected the appropriated costing process and procedure. Given their effective method of capital resources and effective capital structure for obtaining capital which helps WM to be efficiency in a lot of capital decision making as well as objectives accomplishment. In summary, the overall managerial a ccounting practices with WM is quite effective. Information Sources and Methodology Most of the information of this discussion was collecting from the annual report of WM for 2012. In addition, finance text books, journals and web sites are being used as well. For the annual report, 3 years has been reviewed in order to have a more clear picture of their growth as well as if there were any managerial practices or process been changed. A lot of information about WM’s financial and managerial accounting systems such as budgeting/costing process, capital structure etc are available in those resources. Observation methodology is used to analyze information. References Ailworth, E. (2012). â€Å"Walmart to install solar panels on 27 stores in Mass.† Retrieved from: http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/05/14/walmart-install-solar-panels-stores-mass/kxHjt9sQrPxSvN5sPWTjsN/story.html Accessed on : Oct 25, 2012 Brigham & Daves, P. R. (2012). â€Å"Intermediate Financial Management†. USA: Cengage Learning. Drury, C. (2006). â€Å"Cost and Management Accounting: An Introduction†. USA: Cengage Learning EMEA. Gilbertson, C. B. & Lehman, M. W. (2008). â€Å"Fundamentals of Accounting: Course 1†. USA: Cengage Learning. Kronwald, C. (2010). â€Å"Credit Rating and the Impact on Capital Structure†. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Leitner, A. (2007). â€Å"Activity Based Costing†. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Needles, B. E., Powers, M. & Crosson, S. V. (2010). â€Å"Financial and Managerial Accounting†. USA: Cengage Learning. Plunkett, W. R., Attner, R. F. & Allen, G. S. (2011). â€Å"Management†. USA: Cengage Learning. Axson, D. J. (2010). â€Å"Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management: Radically Rethinking Management for a Volatile World†. USA: John Wiley & Sons. Seidman, K. F. (2004). â€Å"Economic Development Finance†. UK: SAGE. Yahoo Finance (2012). Retrieved from: http://in.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=WMT Accessed on : Oct 25, 2012 Walmart Homepage 2012. Retrieved from: http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-stores Accessed on : Oct 25, 2012 Walmart Annual report 2010 to 2012. Retrieved from: http://stock.walmart.com/annual-reports Accessed on : Oct 25, 2012

Marie Antoinette was a victim of French society Free Essay Example, 1000 words

Marie Antoinette as a Victim of the French Society Introduction Marie Antoinette was portrayed in numerous literary and factual accounts as a model of ‘immoral femininity’. Feminist scholars have argued that Marie Antoinette’s public defamation in existing narratives, political vulgarity, and in her trial for sedition were an integral piece of a bigger scheme by the extremists in the National Assembly—the Jacobins—to eliminate and dehumanize femininity in the French society (Craciun 2003). This merciless demonization and removal of women from the public arena was rhetorically explained by Lynn Hunt: â€Å"[i]n the eyes of the Jacobin leadership, women were threatening to take Marianne [a feminine symbol of liberty in the European tradition] as a metaphor for their own active participation; in this situation, no female figure, however fierce and radical, could possibly appeal to them† (Craciun 2003, 76). This essay analyzes the claim that Mari e Antoinette was a victim of the French society. Female Victimization in Revolutionary France How British women view Marie Antoinette exposes the fact that they know it was the gender of the Queen that was besieged, and that, as contemporary scholars confirm, her prosecution for treason â€Å"was staged virtually as a morality play on the evil impact of women on the body politic† (Craciun 2003, 77). We will write a custom essay sample on Marie Antoinette was a victim of French society or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now The portrayal of Marie Antoinette as a victim has an impact akin to her image as sexual behemoth in the obscene propaganda. As argued by Hunt, Marie Antoinette threatens the male-dominated public domain because she is â€Å"the emblem (and sacrificial victim) of the feared disintegration of gender boundaries that accompanied the Revolution† (Goodman 2003, 131). This peril to gender differentiation reached the outer boundaries of France and outside political scholarship. The Queen was the most prominent and remarkable enchantress at the time, likened at the initial phase of her prosecution to several legendary femmes fatales (Craciun 2003, 78): †¦ like Messaline, Brunchant, Fredigonde, and Medicis, who were formerly qualified with the titles of the Queen of France, whose names have ever been odious, and will never be effaced from the pages of history—Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis Capet, has, since here abode in France, been the scourge and the blood sucker of the French†¦ having squandered the finances of France†¦ in a dreadful manner, to satisfy inordinate pleasures, and to pay the agents of her criminal intrigues. The above statement was supported by Pierre Saint-Amand, who stated that â€Å"the execution of Marie Antoinette was by no means an affair of state† (Kilgore-Mueller 2008, 74).