China’s state-owned offshore oil and gas company, Cnooc., has bought a one-third interest in 600,000 acres that Chesapeake Energy leases in a South Texas oil and gas field this Sunday. The deal is the second in two days for Cnooc. It announced on Saturday that it had bought 2.6 million tons of liquefied natural gas from the French utility GDF Suez. The big news reminds me the concept of Investment that we have learnt in Class 7. An investment is about assigning some of current wealth to the counterparty in the investment contract and in return, receiving future payments. The China’s oil company primarily aims to transfer wealth across time and to receive uncertainly great return in the future. Since Chesapeake Energy Corporation (Chesapeake) is a large producer of natural gas in the United States, with a production of 400,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day at the project’s peak, China recognizes the potential of the company to generate a great return/profit for it. However, China also bears ricks as the expected return is unknown and volatile, depending on the demand for oil and natural gas in the global market. On the other hand, in my opinion, China will not only receive payment form investment in oil field, but also gain advanced technologies of oil extraction from foreign companies, which is of inestimable worth. 

Further readings:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/business/11oil.html?ref=global

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/chesapeake_energy_corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org

Kids on Wheels is a transportation company exclusively created to transport children to and from various activities. It is founded by Doris Tommie in the Gainesville area. Here is the company’s website: http://www.kidsonwheels.net/.

The competition engendered by the Threat of Substitutes comes from products outside the industry. For Kids on Wheels, the other competitive transportation services available in the Gainesville area are: city cab, public busses and school buses. Kids on Wheels is different from those as it caters exclusively to children. With today’s busy lifestyle, parents are often faced with scheduling conflicts and transportation dilemmas for their children. It makes the child transportation service highly demanded. Therefore, Kids on Wheels has little rivalry as it focuses on children, and few firms will compete with it for the same costumers. Also, buyer power is quite weak for the company as Kids on Wheels is the only child transportation company in the region, while there are a growing number of busy parents looking for such special services for their children. However, suppliers are powerful, since Kids on Wheels highly depends on vans companies and gasoline companies for the raw materials. Any decrease or increase in price of either vans or gasoline will affect the company’s cost of production, as well as its total revenues.

In class 8, we have talked about MIS and social media. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. Thus, social media is an important part of business, as it facilitates business people to manage their company in foreign countries, as well as strengthen their band image globally through advertisement campaign on Facebook or Twitter, for example. However, my concern is that social media also helps those extremist organizations to set up their globalized network. As transnational criminal groups often take advantage of the telecommunication created by globalisation to contact one another, share their power, train their members and plan a violent action. Intensive social media is one of the key factors in shaping terrorist organization today. It may cause a sense of insecurity for a nation. Without it, terrorism as it exists today would not be possible.

I saw an abortion advertisement on Youtube 2 months ago. It is aired by Marie Stopes International, which is a none-profit abortion advice organization in the UK. The advert is a 30-second film, which says that ‘If you are late for your period, you could be pregnant, if you are pregnant and not sure what to do; Marie Stopes International can help you.’

Although the aim of this advertisement is to provide women with sexual health information and advice, I think the ad is unethical. It is offensive and will mislead viewers about the reality of abortion. It is not appropriate as it sends people a message that an abortion is an ‘easy’ way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. I think an ad should educate people to prevent accidently creating a new life in the first place before deal with the consequences of that.

Below is the link to the advertisement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqo5yBCrj2M

Blood diamond trading is less a problem now than it was decades ago. Most jewellery companies today are running ethical fine jewellery businesses. Ethical jewellers source their materials (diamond stones/ metals) ethically, e.g. they will check if the stones have been involved in African conflicts before. Stones and all other materials are sourced from fair trading. With a large stock of jewellery, companies will only use gold produced without mercury or cyanide and fully traceable diamonds as their raw materials. Exploitation of labour does not exist anymore. Employees have more welfare and respect from their employers. Moreover, the production process of jewellery is becoming more environmental friendly; as for example, Beaucoco recycles plastic and use it in its jewellery.

The article can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread/features/silverlining/

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