My Future

I have always lived by the quote: “Mistakes are not failures. Quitting is the true failure.” This quote speaks quite simply about not giving up and about realizing one’s dreams to the very end. When a person has a goal, it is important never to lose sight of that goal, even though wrong decisions have been made and even if there are missed opportunities along the way.

A person needs to achieve certain goals in one’s life before you can call them successful. Success is to achieve goals, you have set. I have set certain goals I would like to achieve in my lifetime. Some of these goals are personal while others are professional. My professional goals in life are to find a good job that makes me happy, get a good education, find a job that makes enough money for me to support my family, and help people.

I plan to work in a toys or video games design company after finishing my degree and, hopefully, manage my own business one day. The obstacles that I have gone through have given me the resilience to rise above anything, and not to let failure discourage me from my aspirations. Through my time management skills, I know I will be able to attend classes, activities, and meetings on time. Also, I will make sure that I have something to contribute to the discussions by being prepared and by studying and researching on what is required. With the standard of excellence that our school is renowned for, I hope to be able to make my own contribution, through conscious effort and utmost dedication.

In the future, I envision myself working for a toys design or video games development company to gain worthwhile working experience and to expand my network. Eventually, I hope to be able to manage my own business, providing my clients with top notch toys contrive or video games frames and marketing materials for both small-time and big companies. I believe that the U.O.G will equip me with the needed knowledge, background, and updated set of skills so I can further my dreams and realize my lifelong goals at the right time.

A decade from now, I shall have my own business and work with organizations, charities, and other non-profit projects within my community. I hope to impart to others what I have learned and gained through quality services and business solutions.

source: Internet

Chapter 1: The Powers of Government and Business

The chairman of the board of Globally Diversified enterprises (GDE) has just summoned the board’s secretary (a bright, young MBA fresh from a tour of duty in Singapore with an international management consulting firm). The purpose of the meeting is to review the agenda for the upcoming meeting of the company’s board of directors.
Aside from the usual committee reports - audit, finance, executive compensation, and government - the GDE board meeting will focus on the chairman's quarterly review of operations. A longer-than-usual list of problems has arisen that the chairman wants to discuss with the board.

• The Industrial Machinery Division is behind schedule on its new factory.
• The consumer Products Division has been turned down again by U.S. government regulators on key new products it has developed.
• The government products division is pressing for a larger capital budget.
• The farm equipment division has reported an unexpected decline in sales, resulting from the loss of some overseas markets, especially in Asia.
• The treasurer has deferred the bond issue scheduled for this month in view of the unexplained gyrations in foreign exchange markets.
• The senior vice president for human resources has been spending most of her time in Washingtion, trying to settle a class action suit instituted by the equal employment opportunity commission.
• The vice chairman of the board has been meeting with representatives of the new york state employee's pension fund, a magior holder of the company's stock.
• The executive board of the national association of manufacturers has asked for a go ahead to nominate GDE's CEO as the next chairman of that broadbased business association.

International Comparisons

• History shows us that superior economic performance is not necessarily a question of natural resources, inherited wealth, culture, or geography.

The Policy Tools available to government

• Government payrolls (government as paymaster)
• Government purchases
• Transfer payments
• Government subsidies
• Government loans
• Government credit programs (government as underwriter)
• Government regulation
• Taxation
• Government as business partner
• Monetary policy (government as regulator of the economy)
• Moral suasion (government as leader)

 Let us try to summarize the highlights of the relationship between business and government in a modern society. Government exercises a variety of important powers in dealing with the individual private enterprise, ranging from taxation to regulation. Business, in turn, relies on constitutional protections and its substantial financial resources as well as on public support of its basic role in creating income, employment, and material standards of living. The business-government relationship in a dynamic society is constantly changing. The line between the public and private sectors frequently shifts.

In a global economy, that line is especially difficult to define. As we will see throughout this book, the strategies and issues discussed apply, with perhaps minor variations, to most governments and businesses around the world.

source: Business and Government in the Global marketplace (seventh edition, Murray L. Weidenbaum)

Chapter 2: The Rationale For Regulaiton

A basic way that government exerts its power over business is to issue regulations governing private sector behaviour. The use of regulatory power has grown in the U.S., especially in recent decades. Many rationales have been put forth to justify this type of government intervention in the economy, notably the failure of private markets to work well.
Theories of regulation
Responding to natural monopoly conditions

• The classic case for regulation is natural monopoly.
• Traditional policy toward natural monoploy has been to retain the single large firm in a given sector of the economy, but to use regulation to prevent monopolistic exploitation.
• Unregulated monopolies can cause social losses because they restrict production and raise prices.

Encouraging sensible use of natural resources

• Regualtion or other controls may be appropriate where a common resource must be allocated rationally or where there is no incentive to conserve natural resources.

Requiring producers and consumers to take account of external costs ("Externalities")

• Regulation-or another form of governmental intervention- can be a means to compel individuals or organizations to take account of external costs or spillover effects, the costs they impose on other people.

Proponents of regualtion contend that many of the rules and directives have yielded numerous benefits to the public.

• The regulatory process generates its own set of "externalities." 
• The very substantial costs and other adverse side effects that government regulation gives rise to, society has begun to take a hard look at the full array of government controls over business.
• The expansion of regulation also has required a variety of changes in the way companies manage their operations

There is little justification for either a general attack by business or other groups on all forms of government regulation or for a blanket endorsement of every instance of government intervention in the economy. Proponents of regulation contend that many of the rules and directives have yielded numerous benefits to the public. The NHTSA claims that seat belts, head restrainted, and other mandated safety devices save thousands of lives each year. 

Source: Business and government in the global marketplace (seventh edition, Murrat L. Weidenbaum)

Chapter 3: Government and The Consumer

Competition in the marketplace provides an opportunity to encourage the production of safer products because companies that earn reputations for making unsafe products face retribution from consumers.
Consumer products are subject to regulation by a great variety of government agencies. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has the broadest and most general responsibility.
The CPSC truly has a board mandate:

• To work with consumers and business to foster voluntary standards for product safety.
• To set and enforce mandatory standards.
• To ban unsafe products when a safety standard is not considered to be abequate protection for the public.
• To order firms to give public notice of a subatantial hazard assciated with a product and to repair, replace, or refund the price of a product that presents a substantial hazard.
• To provide information to help consumers select and use products safety.

The Impact on Consumers - Benefits and Costs. Generate substantial costs, which will be brone ulitimately by the consumer in the form of higher prices or reduced variety of products.

• What is an acceptable risk?-Some government regulations aim at eliminating all hazards
• Regulation and Consumers-The regulation of consumer products by the Food and Drug Adiministration (FDA) procides cogent examples of the costs and benefits that flow to the consumer from governmental involvement.
• Product Liability and the Courts-Under the U,S, legal system, the promiart responsibility for product safety is borne by the manufacturers.

 Government regulates a great variety of consumer products and in the process influences business decision making in many ways. At times, some of the agencies regulating consumer products rely on the information approach. On occasion, providing pertinent product information can benefit consumers more quickly than regulation. Potentially, market competition can play a key role in reducing injuries from the products consumers use.

Source:Business and Government in the Global Marketplace (Seventh edition Murrary L. Weidenbaum)

Chapter 4: Protecting the Encironment

Environmental protection programs are a very large area of government regulation and a major reason for growth of public-sector involvement in private decision making. This growth has coincided with substantial improvement in the quality of the environment. The polluter received private benefits (easy disposal of wastes), but social costs ("externalities") in the form of dirtier air and water resulted.

The basic assumption is that people pollute, not because they enjjoy spoiling the environment, but because polluting is cheaper or easier than not polluting. The idea behind pollution fees is not to punish polluters but to get them to change their ways as high-polluting products become more expensive than low-polluting products. The basic idea is that the price of a product should reflect its costs to , or burden on, the environment.
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) gives the EPA substantial power over the chemical industry, including the following:

• Authority to require testing of new and existing chemical compounds.
• Mandates for premanufacturing notices 90 days prior to the production of any new chemial or significant new use of an existing chemical.
• Power to control the manufacturing, processing, distribution, use, and disposal of any chemical substance.
• Required reporting, which covers each chemical produced by every chemical manufacturer.

The Development of Environmental policies. In the United States, the EPA is the main federal organization operating in this area, and it focuses on issuing rules, approving permits, and enforcing its regulations.
The Range of national Environmental Regulation. Activities of the EPA center on setting and enforcing standards relating to environmental concerns. The EPA has several means of enforcement. Upon finding a violation, it may seek voluntary compliance. If that fails, it can order compliance and take violators to court. Four major environmental statutes cover hazardous and toxic substance; they are usually referred to by their acronyms: TSCA, RCRA, FIFRA, and CERCLA or Superfund.
The costs of compliance with environmental laws is quite uneven. A proportionately greater burden is borne by small factories because of the economies of scale incolced in regulatory compliance.

Source:Business and Government in the Global Marketplace (seventh edition Murray L. Weidenbaum)

Chapter 5: Achieving Equal Employment Opportunity

In a great variety of ways, government influences hiring and firing, pay and working conditions, training and retirement plans, relations with unions, and many other human resource practices of the private sector. Government responsibility for eliminating job discrimination in the U.S. rests primarily with two federal agencies: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC) in the Department of Labor.
The statutes governing antidiscrimination guidelines are numerous and complex. Individual or class action suits can be filed against a firm under any one or a combination of the following laws and directives:

• The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
• The Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1870, 1871, 1964, and 1991.
• The Equal Pay Act of 1963...
• The Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
• The Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974.
• The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978.
• The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.

The Agencies and Their Mandates. Title VII of the Civil Right act of 1964 prohibits job discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
The EEOC was established by Title VII to help carry out the 1964 law. The commission conducts its enforcement through the following procedure: People who believe they have been discriminated against file charges. Practitioners of EEOC litigation report that employers usually try to settle these cases out of court.
Guidance From Supreme Court Decisions. First of all, over discrimination is wrong and illegal. second, there is a continuing role for affirmative action because discrimination and its legacy in the workplace have not been fully eliminated
On balance, serious studies of the benefits and costs of equal emplyment opportunity programs and especially of affirmative action programs come down onthe positive side. Critics maintain that such interventions in the marketplace create divisive work-places and often harm the intended beneficiaries, aside from the general objection to government intervention in the private economy.

Source: Business and government in the global marketplace (seventh edition Murray L. Weidenbaum)

Chapter 6: Government and The Workplace

The rising role of government in the workplace is a key example of the public's unwillingness to accept all of the impacts on society that result from the unregulated workings of the free market.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created in 1970 "to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions."

• Encouring employers and employees to reduce hazards in the workplace and to institite health and safety programs.
• Establishing responsibilities and rights for employers and employees (mainly resposibilities for employers and right for employees)
• Authorizing OSHA to set mandatory job safety and health standards.
• Prociding an enforcement program.
• Encouraging the states to take responsibility for administering their own job safety and health programs, which must be at least as effective as the federal program.
• Setting up reporting procedures for job injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

Compliance with OSHA regulations is enforced through inspecions. Target health hazards are associated with the five most hazardous and most commonly use toxic substances: asbestos, carbon monoxide, contton dust, lead, and silica.
Contributory negligence by the employee is not a defense for the employer, nor is the worker cited.
If every firm in the country were to comply fully with OSHA's standards, total injuries would be reduced by only 10 to 20 percent. The smaller firms tend to bear a disproportionately large share of the expenses that arise from employee safety and health regulation.
Researchers who have focsed on workplace safety and health regulation almost uniformly conclude that the fundamental flaw in the OSHA approach is the decision by Congress at the outset ro rely primarily on government-promulgated standards. One study estimated that only about 10 percent of injuries are preventable by enforcement of OSHA standards. The tole for training would seem to merit more attention than it receives under the traditional OSHA approach.
Statistically, the turnover rate among workers is the most important single factor indetermining injury rates.
After the collapse of the number of private pension plans, in 1974 congree passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act 9ERISA). The main purpose of that law is to protect the rights of participants in retirement plans so that workers receive the benefits they have been promised.
The growth iin government regulation of the workplace has resulted in a comparable expansion in the size and role of human resource departments of businesses and other employers.

source:Business and Government in the Global Market Place (seventh Edition Murray L. Weidenbaum)