RIGHT VERSUS WRONG

Sometimes we do something wrong intentionally or not intentionally. Which one is better or in more accurate description which one is the lesser evil? I am thinking about what I did something wrong during my last 20 years and how many of them were intentionally. One, two, three… I cannot count it because they are too many to count. We can ask who is responsible for those attitudes such as me, my parents, my teachers or the environment where we lived. We can ask another question about the reasons of those attitudes like structure of society, people’s lifestyle, economic structure of the country where we lived. The number of questions can be increased.

When we decide on something in our daily life, we always listen to our inner voice to be guided for right choice. The determinants of our inner voice might be religion, social norms or our education. So as we see there is no exact definition what is wrong or what is right. However, we have some fundamental basic criteria for something right or wrong. Killing someone is both unethical attitude and it is also crime. Likewise, stealing someone’s property is both unethical attitude and it is also crime for heavy sentence in almost every country. On the other hand, violation of intellectual property rights was accepted as a crime but this issue is still on the agenda of countries whether they apply the law or rules strictly or not. Violation of intellectual property rights is also questioned by people in ethical aspects. I think we are all agreed that it is unethical but sometimes we have strong reasons for doing that such as the tax rates of government on those products or profit margins of all intermediaries.

I many times downloaded songs, movies or some software programs from internet without paying any fee and I am still doing that even if I know it is illegal and also unethical but whenever I live such a situation I ask myself why I make that kind of behavior. Let assume that I download songs of a popular music group from internet. If the price of that CD was 5 dollars, would I buy it legally? Yes I bought it from where it is sold but the price of that CD is not 5 dollars. People need to be socialized, people need to read, people need to enjoy and many more. For all these aims, people should go to Red Sox or/and Patriots matches, people should go cinema and theatre and people should buy books, newspapers. When all these necessities are brought together, it makes much money. Can everybody afford it? I think many people answer saying “no”.

A few years ago, one of my friends told me that some publishers printed both original copy of books and also offsets of them. The most important motivation element for them is making more profit. More profit for business, more affordable life for people, more effort and labor force for owner of the product and less tax for government. As a human being, put yourself into the most appropriate place among these actors.

I downloaded songs from internet, I am still downloading them and I will download them if all variables are as long as same.

Source:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.iyibilgi.com/images/haber/16941.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.iyibilgi.com/haber.php%3Fhaber_id%3D72000&usg=__Azc_mzkKORB-dD6SfvC__AqW9zs=&h=155&w=222&sz=12&hl=tr&start=17&um=1&tbnid=iS_VM2yVCHQ5_M:&tbnh=75&tbnw=107&prev=/images%3Fq%3Detik%26hl%3Dtr%26rlz%3D1C1CHMB_trTR324TR324%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

LAST WEEK AGENDA

Some major topics last week in business world was relating to financial regulation reform, unemployment problem in Nebraska, organ-transplant economics, executive compensation. I will not go through all these topics but two of them are interesting to be talked on. Firstly, financial regulation reform which concerns many people from every segments of American society will be discussed. Secondly, another important issue-organ transplant economics- will be handled.

New financial reform will re-regulate many rules to bring more secure future for people. This reform will include especially consumer credit, mortgage, and other consumer financial products which protect consumer from unrestrained market.

Before last global financial crisis, Turkey lived similar financial crisis in 2001 due to same structural reasons. Banks were managed in deregulated way and there were no serious control over financial institutions. Since their reserve requirement ratios were low, banks had created more money than it should be. After destruction of trust environment in country, most of foreign investors moved to other profitable countries with their money. Central Bank could not control the foreign currency reserves and primarily dollar and euro currencies appreciated. Most trustable and also profitable banks went into bankruptcy. After that financial earthquake, government decided to change some laws and rules to re-regulate the financial environment in country. We met with the some new independent financial institutions which have been monitoring and controlling the market. Lots of people who had wanted more interest and benefits lost their money in 2001 crisis. Everybody learned something from that crisis and up to last year we lived only economical fluctuations due to external factors like rising up oil prices or decreasing demand in international markets.

No matter how many times we live economic crisis, each of them has drastic effects especially on low-income people. After each crisis, governments increase taxes (especially indirect taxes) as first a measure, then tight fiscal policy is applied to control budget and to recover the crisis. In any case, low-income people cannot avoid these measurements.

As far as I can follow to scope of it, new reform brings more control power to authority. Also it brings more protection to individuals as a priority which can be thought as a good approach to issue.

Another important topic of last week was organ transplant and organ donation. Based on a last year’s survey in USA regarding people’s approach to organ donation, three quarters of them were willing to organ donation but the numbers of donation show different result to us. Based on another survey, donation numbers change country to country according to reasons such as religion, ethics, fear, etc.

Depending on age, medical condition and conditions at the time of death, some organs such as heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas, small intestine, eyes can be donated[1]. In 2006, first time number of organ donors passed 8000 in the United States. Last decade, organ donation trend has been upward and new regulations in some states encourage organ donation like in Illinois. Before receiving driving license, people have to answer whether they want to donate their organ or not in Illinois.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.html

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/1277/onakli001jz4.png&imgrefurl=http://www.dergi.biz/yazi/Organ-Bagisi/&usg=__75kHTnX7X6kHn3E2xh5J458_xps=&h=151&w=250&sz=58&hl=tr&start=9&um=1&tbnid=FMUbV63q6URKPM:&tbnh=67&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dorgan%2Bba%25C4%259F%25C4%25B1%25C5%259F%25C4%25B1%26hl%3Dtr%26rlz%3D1C1CHMB_trTR324TR324%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

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[1] http://www.buzzle.com/articles/organ-donation-facts-and-statistics.html

FROM BROADER PERSPECTIVE

Last week we read interesting news in the newspapers which we are unfamiliar to see in the United States. Many people working in Hyatt Hotels Corp. had been fired and Governor of Massachusetts stated if the company didn’t rehire those people he would direct Massachusetts employees to boycott them.

Both fired employees and executives of Hyatt Hotels are giving statements regarding reasons of that firing. It might not be right to say something about this problem without knowing the essence of issue but we can say something about the social state and the balance between being social state and having capitalist system.

If we look at economic history briefly, as you know very famous economical idea was said by Adam Smith, the father of classical economy, in 18^th century. “laissez faire” and “invisible hand” are the keystones of his idea. It means all economical factors be at optimum level for every actor in economical system without government intervention. It sounds impossible to survive this kind of system and during the history people have witnessed to economic crises due to lack of strong regulations.

In economic fluctuation periods most of the economic actors and especially private companies are affected from unstable financial atmosphere. They have to take measures like reducing investment, labor force and costs to protect themselves from uncertain economic environment. However, some private companies which are not as much affected as the others are abuse their rights. In general meaning, I have not seen a boss or executive of a big company selling their luxury car or yacht. On the other hand whenever you ask them how their economic situation is, they always come to point of economic bankruptcy. They think firstly to reduce the cost of labor force instead of doing alternatives. We as an individual cannot blame those people for their attitude but government has to do something for the people suffering from economical crises most. Governments have to have such a role to support lowest wages people in society.

If we specifically come to politics of Hyatt Hotels Chain, the temporary solutions proposed by the general manager of that company are not seemed credible. Moreover, if the fired people did not say lie, the dismissal policy of Company was impolite. Any competent authority in that company may have decided to talk to issue with people whom are thought to be fired. Hyatt Hotels Chain may think economic crises as an opportunity to reduce the cost of working people by cutting wages.

Regarding call for boycott, it might be thought that Governor of Massachusetts is doing political maneuvering for next election. This is another matter of this undesirable event. We don’t know his intention in this event but reacting to any unfair attitude should be supported. Governor should find a conciliatory solution for fired housekeepers and Hyatt Hotels Corp.

Adam Smith’s theory is valid under applicable excellent market regulations. Without regulations and control mechanism only the jungle rules are valid…

Source:

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/09/24/governor_threatens_a_hyatt_boycott/?page=full

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cache.consumerist.com/assets/images/31/2009/09/thumb160x_091709-002-hyatt-boston.jpg&imgrefurl=http://consumerist.com/tag/hyatt/&usg=__vcKsd9AQbITBk3-USO7sfEpVd2E=&h=158&w=158&sz=15&hl=tr&start=5&um=1&tbnid=f5iWG1Ah1U1t7M:&tbnh=97&tbnw=97&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhousekeepers%2B%2522hyatt%2Bhotels%2522%26hl%3Dtr%26rlz%3D1C1CHMB_trTR324TR324%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1

VOLTRAN VOLTRAN VOLTRAN

In 1980’s there was an animated cartoon which was called “Voltran” or “Defenders of Universe”. I don’t know how many of you familiar with it and I am not sure whether this animated cartoon showed in other countries or not but it was my one of the favorite television programs for children. The main characters of series were 5 mechanical robot lions and 5 hero warrior controlling these robot lions. Each lion had a separate ability. In case of emergency, they can either fight separately or form Voltran to protect universe from enemies. Everybody remembers stories of Voltran if you watch them.

Those days I was around 7 years old and every week I was eagerly waiting for that series to see new story of Voltran and the pilots of 5 lions. One week I was wanting to be pilot of black lion which forms head of Voltran and another week I was wanting to be pilot of red lion which forms right arm of Voltran. It was our hero of our childhood time. It was so popular that you could see it on chewing gum, chocolate, toys even our shirts.

One day I saw an advertisement of a company which sold chewing gum including picture cards of Voltran. They said that if we could bring together all these serial picture cards and send those to company until due date, the company would send us a big spectacular model of Voltran. There were 200 picture cards that I had to bring together but I was patient enough to achieve this. I started to either buy those chewing gums or exchange picture cards with my friends. Because sometimes I had more than one same card and so did my friends therefore exchanging picture cards saved time. It took my weeks to bring them together. I almost found all picture cards only except one. I tried to do my best to find that card but I couldn’t. I bought many chewing gums with all my pocket money and I asked all my friends if they had one that I missed but I couldn’t find it. Due date was approaching and I was so upset. I had to do something to get that big model toy. I decided to write a letter to company and I would put that letter next to picture cards in envelope. I wrote to company that I had seen their advertisement and like many other children I had started to collect those picture cards to get their model Voltran but I had been not able to find one picture card. I stated that the company became so popular that every child knew its name after that campaign and I asked company if they could send me the model Voltran even if I had sent series of picture cards with one missed.

I did not know what the company would do regarding my request. 2 months later I received a package from that company. Can you guess what it was in the package? ….. There were 2 boxes of chewing gum including picture cards of Voltran instead of model Voltran. I thought that the company deceived us and in fact the missed card had not been in the series. I was disappointed again at first but later on I consoled myself due to 2 boxes of chewing gum with picture cards of Voltran.

Source:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/8003/voltran5yu.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.frmtr.com/nostalji/1830966-voltran.html&usg=__63aTVdg8Af6VGwaY-jrOVemPkDg=&h=567&w=457&sz=146&hl=tr&start=1&um=1&tbnid=bZrT_VfxdU6d2M:&tbnh=134&tbnw=108&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvoltran%26hl%3Dtr%26rlz%3D1C1CHMB_trTR324TR324%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

ECONOMIC REPORT OF LAST WEEK

If you have a chance to visit Jeff SOMMER’s blog or New York Times’ web page, you can be familiar to last developments in economical and business arena. Jeff SOMMER interviewed some people who are in business issues about global economic situation, possible developments of Saturn, expansion of Amazon and rising share holder dissent.

Relating to global economic recession, different opinions are stated. According to some thoughts, on the technical point of view it is not a recession but it is look like a recession and when it is compared to last winter, economic indicators relating to production or industrial output is better. The arguments for economic recovery were also discussed in that interview. There are some strong arguments which give clues about the economic recovery like housing industry, budget balance and rehiring of people. Also based on the Barkley’s opinion, it is expected to 5 % GDP growth for the next year first quarter.

Regarding to global recession, one important matter is people’s fear of deflation. People are worrying about it but for the actors in economy, deflation is short-run phenomena. Conversely, for the long-run inflation is the real phenomena. Another important matter according to economic experts is the value of gold. Gold is stored by people as investment tool but as what happened to oil in last summer, the value of gold will fluctuate. Last summer barrels of oil increased to $ 145 and then it landed down softly up to $ 33. Therefore it can be thought that the value of gold for the moment might be overvalued. Also the depreciation or appreciation of currencies among themselves might be problem. Especially depreciation of yuan against euro and pound will affect the international trade and foreign trade deficit.

Lastly regarding to global economic crisis, on the first anniversary of collapse of “Lehman Brothers” President OBAMA warned economic actors on the weakness and fragility of financial system. He especially asked Wall Street executives to accept the strict rules voluntarily.

This year G-20 Summit will be held in Pittsburg on September 24-25. Strengthening transparency and accountability; promoting integrity in financial markets; reinforcing international cooperation; and reforming the international financial institutions are the some major topics which will be assessed during summit[1]. Another possible topic for USA and Chine to be discussed is international trade conflict. After 35 % tariffs was imposed to Chinese tyres by USA, Chine immediately started to investigation of damping on American chicken and car parts. Formidable negotiations are waiting for these countries.

One of the major development in business arena last week was the announcement made by GM regarding to Saturn cars. GM stated that if Saturn car was not sold, the production of this car would be stopped in 2011. Roger PENSKE, chairman of Penske Automotiv Group. seems to be volunteer to acquire brand name of Saturn. In 1980’s he succeed to make profit for GM. He can motivate people and increase their productivity. Probably, he will use the same car retailer network. Authorities think that Mr. Penske will success in this project.

The last development for the last week is expansion of Amazon. It started to sell books online 14 years ago, it still sells books online but now it sells variety products online. Last year it grew approximately 35 % and competing with Amazon for the small business companies is becoming more difficult each year. It has some serious advantages like storing capacity of products, selling some products to some states without tax, and using its scale in negotiation with suppliers. For the moment, stopping to Amazon’s growth seems not possible.

See you next time…

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=business&st=cse

https://www.pittsburghg20.org/Calendar.aspx

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/3161995578_b27ec4971f.jpg

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[1] http://www.pittsburghsummit.gov/about/index.htm

WHILE HEADING TO CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT

The world has been faced with some major global problems especially for 30 years. Global warming or in other words climate change is one of the biggest threats for humanity. After 1990, climate change became more important and countries gave more importance to this issue. One of the most important reasons for climate change is releasing of greenhouse gases.

Countries to reduce greenhouse gas emission, gathered in Kyoto which is a city in Japan. Kyoto Protocol is a legal annex of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which binds countries legally with respect to releasing of greenhouse gases into atmosphere.

Although countries came to agreement in that summit on this issue in 1997, the Protocol could enter into force in February 2005 due to existence of precondition which states that at least 55 countries which are responsible for the 55% of greenhouse gases emission have to sign it.

USA is the country which releases greenhouse gases into atmosphere most; this country with Australia has not signed this protocol yet. However, USA invests almost 5 billion dollars per year on research and development to prevent the greenhouse gases effects. The Protocol will be valid until 2012 and countries under United Nations have already begun to think about this problem. There will be international meeting concerning climate change in December.

Nowadays actors in this issue in United States state their opinions. On one side some of them think that completing a new treaty in 3 months looks not possible and there should be “B Plan” for the summit which will be held in Copenhagen in December and on the other hand some officials in the senate declared that this summit might be the last chance to progress seriously in fighting to climate change.

Another important matter in fighting to climate change is the financing of developing countries by developed ones based on the new treaty. This dispute has been discussed since Kyoto Protocol and it seems to be continued during summit.

As some officials said, this process may take more than 3 months but at least some rules might be set up for the future progress. Negotiations should be held in common framework based on mutual understanding. Since this ongoing problem concerns every living on the earth, countries will have to handle climate change seriously. None of the countries will avoid sharing responsibility in fighting against climate change. Results of this changing will affect all of us and the more greenhouse gases releasing the more our earth is in danger. Therefore, the US senate and all actors in this process should be ready for this summit by preparing proposes in 3 months time even if health care reform occupies them.

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/09/17/17climatewire-obama-administration-pushes-climate-talks-in-22433.html

http://unfccc.int/

http://www.climate-changer.com/2007/06/

FOLK DANCE IN TURKEY

Whenever someone visits to Turkey as a tourist or traveler, he/she most probably sees people dancing either on the street in good weather or in suitable close areas. Those people dance at weddings, engagement ceremonies, when sending a young man to perform his military service, after going to or after come back from the high plateaus. Each dance figure has its own story. Folk Dances are come from the daily life of people, natural events or matters of that society. These dances reflect the characteristics of those regions. Folk dances describe life, feeling or event in way of figures. These figures describe relationship between man and nature or they reflect a fight of two men for a beautiful lady, and sometimes they reflect the hunt of an eagle.

Folk dances’ figures and characteristics are changed according to region. In Black Sea region which is close to Caucasian, dances are performed accompanied by upbeat music. Most of the figures describe preparation for war, organization of army, fighting against enemy and celebration of victory. In Southeastern Anatolia region, those figures reflect agricultural life of people, harvest crop or they reflect the henna night of a bride. In Southern Anatolia, these folk dance figures express the daily life task of women such as baking, milking, making buttermilk or spinning yarn. In Aegean region, folk dance figures are performed generally accompanied by the slow music. The folk dance figures in Northwestern Anatolia called Thrace which is part of Balcanian, shows more bouncy and quickstep characteristics.

Each region has its own popular folk dance figure which is known all over the country. These figures are called differently depending on where they are performed and the cultural structure of that region. For example; “Bar” in Eastern Anatolia, “Halay” in both Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, “Hora” in Thrace, “Horon” in Black Sea region and “Zeybek” in Aegean region are the best known types of folk dance.

Folk dances reflected the real life and events in history but natural environment of them were changed in time. Nowadays they are perceived as part of art and folk dances are performed in contests and festivals.

Source:

http://www.turkishculture.org

http://www.tufak.org.tr/tufakharita.jpg

Obama’s Speech On Healthcare Reform…

First of all, Obama is seen a good speaker. Before his speech, I thought that the applause loudly again and again can be seen only some countries. When I watched his speech, I saw the same loudly applause in USA. He said that he is not the first president to deal with this issue but he hopes to be the last president who solves the problem.

Obama’s speech based on 3 goals. One of them is more secure and stable insurance for people, the second one is insurance for people who don’t have it and the last one is reducing costs for people, small businesses and the government. He emphasized on the current health care problem which can not be sustained anymore. In fact, this situation is not only the health care problem but also the deficit or finance problem of government.

In his speech he insisted on some points like this plan will not change what people currently have. In other words, people who have insurance which is supported by their employer or government will not need to change their current situations. Another important thing is the insurance companies will not decrease the coverage of health servise when people get sick with out extra charge. This reform plan is also important for people who currently don’t have insurance. New reform plan offer these people affordable choices with the help of insurance exchange market. In this kind of market, insurance companies will compete eachother to give beter service with lower price.

Obama, in his speech, clarified somepoints which were raised by people who opposed to this reform. One of the opposition asserted is the dominance of government in health sector. He gave many examples on the private insurance companies’ role in the sector. He emphasized that the government will not take over the system but if insurance companies can not provide any affordable choises to people who don’t have insurance, the government will take role to provide these people a healthcare.

Relating to his speech, some questions can be asked. One of them is why government does not fund operation for abortion. The another one is how much money the new system will need and who pays that amount of money. The burden for government is really serious and someone or somegroups will have to pay this burden.

In briefly, it can be said that the time will show us whether this reform will work out or not…

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/OBAMASPEECH0909.html

www.cnn.com