Month: October 2010

After our last COM 101 class, I was tempted to do more research about the risks for financial investments. One of the biggest reasons behind our 2008 recession is caused by the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers. During the month of May, shareholders were constantly selling their shares. As more and more people sold their shares, the Lehman Brother’s share value went up and down drastically. By the end of that week, Lehman Brothers were losing 8 million dollars a minute.

The big question is what were the significant effects to the rest of the world? Lehman Brother was one of America’s oldest and largest banks. Its bankruptcy not only caused negative effects to the banking industry but also caused a big unemployment.  Thousands of people lost their job and it also helped push the United Kingdom into recession.

This is an example of the risks behind share-holders. The share-holder only gains money if the stock is raising its value, but there is a maximum point in which it can go up. Sadly the value of the stock went down and thousands of thousands of people suffered over the world.

words: 190

sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPOtQkSiCk8

Treanor, Jill. “Banking crisis: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy protection.”guardian. N.p., 18/sep/2008. Web. 3 Oct 2010. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/15/lehmanbrothers.creditcrunch>.

Joshi , Mohit . “Lehman Brothers’ collapse to be subject of BBC film.” top news. N.p., 19/aug/2009. Web. 3 Oct 2010. <http://www.topnews.in/lehman-brothers-collapse-be-subject-bbc-film-2203702>.

In our last COM 101 class we had a Finance guest speaker, Murray Carlson, to give us a brief understanding of finance. We discussed why Wal-Mart was planning to bid the South African retailer Massmart with such a big risk. We found out that in the long-run Wal-Mart will gain substantial profit from the company if everything goes well. One of their primary purposes of the investment was to transfer their wealth in time.

The two graphs below shows two different types of investments

The column on the left shows how employee will get a stable and safe earning but it will always be constant and there will be no way of buying a big house and a luxurious car.

The column on the left shows how in the long-run the entrepreneur will have the chance of being extremely rich but with a very high risk of losing.

Finally we had two volunteers in class to demonstrate how one could lose everything or gain twice as much by one chance as an entrepreneur. The employee volunteer had many chances to earn more but ended up only gaining very little.

word count : 185

sources:

https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

As technology is in its booming age, consumers around the globe are constantly exposed to new gadgets.  The Apple Ipad has finally bet its new rival, the Blackberry Playbook. With only half the weight of an ipad, the Blackberry Playbook contains many exclusive features.

For example, the Blackberry Playbook has its advanced security feature with which gives consumers better security. This ultra slim tablet is compatible with Adobe flash which allows consumers to entertain themselves with online videos.

The Playbook’s biggest feature is probably its ability to allow Blackberry owners to connect with their phone and to have access to the phone’s content. This will allow one to “play [and] manipulate” the phone’s information with a bigger virtual image.[1]

Despite all its benefit to consumers, is this really an ethical way to make money? Will this gadget race result in a lack of valuable resources that will be harmful for our next generation?  Nevertheless, we have to admit that both the Ipad and the Playbook are both very attracting business tools that will benefit us at least in the short term.

---

---

[1]“BlackBerry unveil the PlayBook to rival iPad.” N.p., 28/09/2010. Web. 30 Sep 2010. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbSpBHwVNH8>.

Sources:

Ganapati, Priva. “RIM Unveils Tethered Tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook.” RIM Unveils Tethered Tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook. N.p., 27/09/2010. Web. 30 Sep 2010. <http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/09/blackberry-playbook-tablet/>.

Heimbuch, Jaymi. “Treehugger.” Green Features We Love in Apple’s New iPad. N.p., 27/01/2010. Web. 30 Sep 2010. <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/green-features-we-love-in-apples-new-ipad.php>.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbSpBHwVNH8



From our class discussion, we brought up the topic on whether Lieber Light Company should decrease its product price by 15% to attract more customers. Firstly, by lowering the price of the product, Lieber Light must be losing a substantial amount of profit. Attracting customers and selling more products will serve no good to the company if it means losing profit. Secondly, if Lieber light decides to stick with the original price, it might risk the chance of losing its current long-term customers. Thirdly, Lieber Light used fixed cost to calculate their overheads instead of using contribution margin which caused misleading figures.

Vancouver Light’s created such an enormous impact to Lieber light by simply finding ways to cut down its cost, thus lowering its break-even points. Hence, it was able to sell products at a relatively lower price to move its demand up. Not only is the Canadian company attracting its local consumers but also ones in America. Different SWOT analysis should be consulted and analyzed for Lieber Light to stay alive with its competitor.

words: 175

Sources:

“roof101.” Skylight Manufacturers. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sep 2010. <http://www.roof101.com/skylights/skylight-manufacturers.php>.

https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct