Tony Liu's Blog

“A Stanford M.B.A. named Roy Raymond … comes up with an idea for a high-end place … and calls it Victoria’s Secret. After five years he sells the company to Leslie Wexner and The Limited …Happy ending, right? Except two years later, the company’s worth $500 million and Roy Raymond jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge.” – The Social Network

Just a few classes ago, the guest speakers talked about how “perseverance” is essential in the field of Entrepreneurship.  After watching The Social Network, a movie on the creation of Facebook, I have realized that there much more to entrepreneurship than what is on the surface. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was different from the average entrepreneur. He was able to maintain interest in his company and control at the same time. People say that when a entrepreneur has accepted a venture capital, the founder has already sold his or her company. Zuckerberg was different, he signed agreements with multiple options, so he remain to be the one in charge. It is too common for entrepreneurs to make the wrong decision in the heat of the moment, which results in the lost of control and profitability of his or her company. The lesson behind “The Social Network” is not whether an entrepreneur sell his company too soon or too late, but that companies should be sold when the founder can no longer take them forward.

Honda has always been one of the most prominent corporation in the automobile industry. It’s flagship sedan, the Honda Accord, has achieved a respectable succes in Norther america and was the best-selling Japanese car for fifteen consecutive years. The eighth generation Honda Accord went on sale in the mid 2008 and has became an instant-hit. The Accord coupe was sold for around $18000 and was considered to be one of the cheapest sport coupe on the market. Honda is now ready to launch the new 2011 Honda Accord model onto the market globally. This would be the ninth generation Accord. The new facelift and the speculations are much more appealing than the eighth generation. Equppied with a 2.4 liter, 177 horsepower four cylinder that is capable to deliever 161 lb feet of torque, the new Honda Accord will definitely be a comfort car. For the past 40 years, Honda has been launching a new generation for the Accord model every 5 years and it is definitely odd for Honda to release the ninth generation only 4 years after introducing the eighth generation. Would this be a short term tatic to gain market share over it’s competitors such as Toyota? Nobody knows at the moment, but we will find out soon enough next year when the new 2011 Accord is being released in North America.

Although the private sector is growing, the growth is not fast enough to generate enough jobs. It is estimated that there will be an increase of 75000 jobs in September but it is only half of the required amount to keep the jobless rate from rising. Dutta, the economist of Bank of America said, “this is like a slow bleed for the labor market.” Although many say that the recession ended in the summer of 2009, the economy has yet to generate enough jobs for the jobless. However, because the interest rate is still low, many companies and organizations are able to purchase goods to build up cash reserves. As a result, they now have more budget for hiring. There are optimism in the air, as many companies are either recovering or growing at a rapid rate. Even now the U.S. government tries hard to reduce the rate of unemployment but to maintain the rate of jobless seems difficult enough.

The House of Representatives voted 348 to 79 in favour of the bill which puts pressure on China to increase the value of the Chinese Yuan.  Robert Scott, the senior international economist at the Economic Policy Institute said, “the bill is a warning shot to the Chinese. If China does not respond to the bill, a 25% across-the-board tariff will be enforced. It is estimated that trade deficit with China is going to displace over  half a million U.S jobs in 2010. At the same time, the increasing U.S. exports to china to China will support around 200,000 more jobs.  Due to the low currency of the Chinese Yuan, goods and services  in America cannot be compared with Chinese made goods and services at the same level in terms of cost. How would China respond to the legislation to pressure China to increase the value of its currency? After all the existing tension between the U.S and China, it is likely that this incident would further promote conflict between the two nation.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/currency-bill-approved-in-house-2010-09-29

A decent survey has indicated more than 7.3 million senior citizens in America have been taken advantage of financially in terms of unnesscary investments and absurd high fees for financial services. The most common scams that specificly target senior citizens have to deal with medicare, bereavement, professional advices and investment opportunities. “Having a serious conversation with your elderly parents about how they are managing their money is not easy, but it is extremely important in order to help protect them from unscrupulous crooks,” said Dana Badgerow, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota.

An obvious question arises from this case: Is it ethical for business to specificly target seniors as their consumers? Yes, I would think that it would be fair for certain organizations to target elderly parents as their primary consumers. However, I believe that there should always be a set of morals behind every business organzation and it could only seem fair for the consumer when the business explains exactly what the consumer is paying for before the pruchase. It is safe to consume that the economy today is still in a stage of recovery and those seniors who do not posess the neccessary knowledge are often targetted by deceitful organzations.

http://www.grandrapidsmn.com/special_sections/article_ce62577a-c0e2-11df-96d9-001cc4c03286.html

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