I am inspired to write the blog about the environmental message that the movie Avatar tries to deliver to audiences after reading the blog: Is the Environmental Message in Avatar Good or Bad? This blog provides me a new perspective of seeing the Movie Avatar and inspires me to build some connections to the real-life situation.

In Avatar, the problem of regulating the private monopolies of the Resources Development Administration(RDA) caused massive issues. It is vital for governments to carefully examine the effects of their resources privatization policy. Two major reasons for this are to prevent people from overly destroying nature for profit and to maintain the balance of nature needs.

In the movie, the RDA believes they control the privatization of the Pandora forest; however, they unwisely have tried to destroy the forest for profit. From the economics point of view, the RDA takes the supply from the indigenous people in order to boost their own quantity of supply. They create the private monopoly to set a higher price for consumers so that they are able to maximize their own profit. However, the external cost would be the destruction of the natural environment which is totally not beneficial for long-term investment. Government’s regulation is required to prevent abuse of monopoly power. 

The ecosystems of Pandora are delicate arrangements where plants and animals all depend on each other for survival. In the real world, the disappearance of any species can also disrupt the balance and negatively impacts other plants and animal by breaking the food chain and altering the habitat. The RDA as a shareholder should not just seek for short-term profit and avoid investing in long-term projects. Unlike Avatar, Canada’s provinces have primary jurisdiction over mining which is a perfect example of government regulation on privatization resources policy. On Canada Justice Laws Website, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act clearly states the importance of maintaining the balance of the environment. It is important for the government to help to maintain the balance of nature by regulatory processes, otherwise, the imbalances will return to people in unexpected ways.  

The RDA eventually suffer the consequences for their wanton destruction of the Pandora environment. People who lived in Pandora fight for their homeland, fight for their culture and fight for nature. It is a really good lesson for RDA who only solve problems with weapons and with no respect or pity to nature.  But in real life situation, everyone will be stuck with the external costs of the over mining and destruction of nature. At that point, everyone will pay for the external cost.

After reading Yiwen Sheng’s blog How to build an effective team, I realized that to create a successful teamwork is not easy. In her blog, she pointed out that both personalities and skills of all team members are essential to determine the success of teamwork. I strongly agree with her. However, I also discovered that the leadership of a team is extremely crucial for developing a successful teamwork.

Speaking of leadership, there are lots of role models in the business world. For example, Google’s people-management system focus on creating a sense of belonging which makes every single employee feel that they are part of the community. Just like Yiweng mentioned in her blog, “Google announced that the secret ingredient for a perfect team is not member’s personalities but “being nice” and “joining in”. A good leader must realize that a team’s strategies for success require the combined talents and efforts. It is wise for the leader to create the sense of belongings so that all members will be more willing to contribute to the teamwork.

Another example of an outstanding leader is Bill Gates. His caring and empathy finally result in his great success of leading such a huge team. He once said to his employees: ” I hope you will reflect on what you’ve done with your talent and energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you work to address the world’s deepest inequities, on how well you treat people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.” Good leaders like Bill Gates understand the importance of empathy. They stay in grounded with all members and try to help each one of them dig out their potential abilities so that members will all have a better contribution to the teamwork.

From looking at two remarkable entrepreneurs, I have a better understanding of the importance of leadership within a business. Leadership is to provide motivation and help for groups of people to work towards the same goal.

The issue of increasing debt levels is of great importance in Canada today. The International Monetary Fund report shows that Canada’s debt has risen to very high levels.
The major reason for Canada’s high debt levels is the decrease of intertest rate. The original purpose of decreasing interest rate is to let people purchase houses with lower interest cost. The lower interest rates can also reduce the pressure on people who have to pay back their mortgage. However, it turns out to be really risky for Canadians to have such high debt levels that even average Canadian household do not have the ability to pay down those debts. The potential threat behind this issue is that it may lead to economic depression. 

Since last year, BC government has brought down the barrier of buying houses which provides consumer confidence to purchase houses at this time period. As a result, household debt shows a significant growth. It is mentioned in Canadian’s household debt burden hits record, “for every dollar of household disposable income there was $1.68 in credit market debt. “ The high debt levels indicate the unsustainable market and the potential threats of the market. The demand will be much more than supply in the future. In order to adjust the market, the interest rate will be increased. At that point, some people who have the mortgage will not be able to pay back, and this will lead to economic depression.

Furthermore, the decrease in supply and increase in demand are two of the major reasons of causing inflation. In my opinion, in order to control inflation and debt levels, the Bank of Canada should lower bond price and slowly increase interest rates. These two methods can help reduce money spending as people will be more cautious. When spending decreases, prices decrease, so inflation will slow down. On the other hand, people are no longer as likely to borrow money from banks because of the high-interest rate. Therefore, the debt levels is going to decrease in the long-term.

References

http://qualicuminstitute.ca/federal-debt/

https://www.romania-insider.com/romanias-public-debt-reaches-new-record-high/

Since last year, whether or not the disadvantage of Canadian Infrastructure Bank overweighs its advantage has become a controversial issue. I personally believe that the benefit of the overall impact of the new Canadian Infrastructure Bank outweighs its drawbacks. First of all, the bank provides a great opportunity for private funds to get involved in public infrastructure. It can help the government to reduce its financial pressure so that government will not undertake all of the responsibility of funding money for public infrastructure. On the other hand, private investors are able to gain profits from investing money in the bank. Both government and private sector are able to gain benefit from the bank.

A similar resource that relates to this topic is Public-Private Partnerships(PPP), which also indicates the benefit of the Canadian Infrastructure Bank. The major idea of PPP is: ”arrangements where the private sector supplies infrastructure assets and services that traditionally have been provided by the government.”

What’s more? As the study refers to, boosting infrastructure productivity can stimulate the economic growth. As a power plant, infrastructure projects can provide plenty of job opportunities. The unemployment rate will decrease. Then workers will purchase more money into the market, creating a health cycle. In order to double the Canadian economy projected growth, implementing the new Canadian Infrastructure Bank is an effective way to encourage the development of infrastructure and promote the economic growth.

Some people argued that to let government participate more in the bank is not necessarily a positive thing. In my opinion, since Canadian economy is a mixed market economy, the government plays an important role to adjust the market and take Canadian economy to a better stage. John Maynard Keynes, a famous British economist, mentioned in his theory, “Economically and socially successful economies have significant contributions from both the government and the private sectors”, which well supports my argument.

References:

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/bill-raises-doubts-about-independence-of-infrastructure-bank/article34694708/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-canada-infrastructure-bank-theft-by-deception

https://pcdnetwork.org/event/training-course-on-public-private-partnership-for-development-6/

Keynesian Economics in a Nutshell

https://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2006/rppia/pdf/hemmin.pdf

https://www.quora.com/How-does-infrastructure-spending-stimulate-economic-growth-and-why-is-China’s-investment-in-infrastructure-projects-considered-ill-considered-or-bad

Nowadays, business ethics becomes a significantly important topic in business study. With the rapid development of modern society, the rate of corporation crime has shown an upward trend. The emphasis on responsibility and obligation that individuals should have is quite essential for promoting high standard business. I believe schools should be in charge of this situation, providing ethics courses and help students to comprehend the value of ethics. According to the news ‘Three simple reasons to teach ethics in business schools: Chris MacDonald’ from Canadian Business, it is mentioned that ethics courses are more likely to help students to realize the danger of rationalization, and make students more comfortable to talk about this topic. In the end, by constantly studying this course, students’ behavior will be ‘engage in solid ethical reasoning in the work place’. This news effectively explained the ethics studying environment has huge contribution to students understanding of ethics. From my own experience, it tells me the same. The school does have huge impact on students’ view of ethics. I still remember last year during my UBC application process, there was a video section, and I was asked to share my worst ethical experience. To tell the truth, I was completely not ready for this question, because I had never had any this type of conversation before. Several months later, in my high school International Business class, I studied a Chapter called Business Ethics. In that class, I had a lot of discussion with my classmates about ethics. The most amazing part of this class is not only what the teacher taught to the class, but also the environment of sharing our values of ethics. From looking at different cases in the world and listening to different experience from others, I was more aware of the important responsibility I should take in many situations. I subsequently built up my own value of ethics, and it finally became part of my life. I really appreciate that UBC provides me the idea of importance of ethics, and thank my high school gives me the opportunity to learn more about it. Schools can be extremely helpful for building up students’ moral obligation by deliver the proper value of ethics.

Resources

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blogs-and-comment/are-ethics-courses-useful-chris-macdonald/

Why Ethics Matter: A Business Without Values Is a Business at Risk

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