Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Why Weimar Germany Adopted a Policy of Fulfillment in...

Why Weimar Germany Adopted a Policy of Fulfillment in Foreign Affairs At first, successive German governments wanted * To remedy the dangerous diplomatic isolation that resulted from defeat, and * To restore the degree of national independence of Germany lost to the allies This was done using a simple tactic called sullen obstruction in which: * The war guilt clause in the treaty was never really enforced effectively * The disbanding of paramilitary organizations was slow and unreliable * The clauses relating to disarmament were implemented only under constant allied supervision These policies, however, didn’t really work for a long†¦show more content†¦The Weimar Republic still had its weaknesses, in spite of the successful policies mentioned above. à ¼ The govt. had no proper control of education à ¼ The republic had not developed a system

Monday, December 16, 2019

Feasibility Study on Investment in Brazilian Paper and Pulp Industry Free Essays

IMG-6 Global Business Environment Feasibility study for investment in the Brazilian Paper and Pulp Industry Report By: Ashish Jindal (063011) Avneesh Luthra (063012) Aayush Singhal (063013) Deepak Arora (063014) Feasibility study for investment in the Paper and Pulp industry in Brazil An overview of Brazil Brazil is the largest country in South America. It is the world’s fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population, with over 192 million people. It is the only Portugese-speaking country in South America. We will write a custom essay sample on Feasibility Study on Investment in Brazilian Paper and Pulp Industry or any similar topic only for you Order Now Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America. It is the world’s sixth largest economy at market exchange rates and seventh largest in terms of purchasing power parity, as per the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Brazil has a mixed economy with abundant natural resources. The Brazilian economy has been predicted to become one of the five largest in the world in the decades to come. It has large and developed agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors, as well as a large labour pool. Brazil’s current GDP is estimated to be $2. 294 trillion and Per Capita GDP $11,769 The Paper and Pulp Industry in Brazil Brazil is the largest producer of paper and pulp in South America. On the world stage, it is the 4th largest producer of pulp with a production of 13,315,000 tonnes and 9th largest producer of paper with 9,428,000 tonnes (2009). Brazil’s Pulp Paper Production Source: Bracelpa Brazil is predominantly a tropical country. As a result, the soil and climate in most regions of Brazil are favourable to forest growth. The main geographical areas in the paper and pulp industry are the states of Sao Paulo, Parana and Santa Catarina. Furthermore, eucalyptus trees in Brazil have short growing cycles (approximately 7 years), compared to 10-12 years in Chile and 25 years in the United States. Thus, production of wood in Brazil requires less time and a smaller growing area when compared to Europe and North America, resulting in higher yields. Industry Overview- 222 companies spread in 539 municipalities, located in 18 states. – 2. 2 million hectares of planted area for industrial use. – 2. 9 million hectares of preserved forests- Total certified forest area: 2. 0 million hectares- Exports 2010: US$ 6. billion- Trade Balance 2010: US$ 4. 9 billion- Taxes: R$ 2. 2 billion- Investments: US$ 12 billion in the last 10 years- Jobs: 115 thousand direct jobs (industry 68 thousand, forests 47 thousand) and 575 thousand indirect jobs. | Source: Bracelpa, March 2011 Macro Environmental Analysis Political Legal environment The Foreign Direct Investment regime in Brazil has been fairly liberal and foreign capital i s viewed with sympathy by the large majority of political currents and parties, who see it as a source of employment and modernization of the economy. The 1990s saw a host of path-breaking liberalisation reforms in the Brazilian economy. Certain investment policies were formulated in the 90s to attract more FDI in to the country. The Central Bank of Brazil simplified the registration procedure for FDI inflows. This led to a decline in the administrative costs associated with the entry of FDI inflows into Brazil. A series of constitutional amendments were enacted within 1995 and 1996, which helped remove constitutional distinction among national companies and foreign companies. In 2002 Investe Brazil was set up to promote investments in Brazil. Despite a formally well functioning business environment, corruption and bribery are still serious obstacles to doing business in Brazil, especially in business dealings with the government. Multiple corruption scandals have emerged over the years, involving politicians and bureaucrats taking kickbacks from companies in exchange for awarding public contracts. The levels of bureaucracy and lack of transparency in rules make Brazil a difficult country to do business in. Economic Environment The paper and pulp industry is one of the mainstays of the Brazilian economy. The Brazilian paper and pulp sector is comprised of nearly 200 companies. Most companies in this sector are privately owned. Foreign-owned companies account for about 6% of the output. Therefore, there is great scope for foreign investors to enter into Pulp Paper Industry in Brazil. Latin American Pulp and Paper Producers Composition in 2010 In recent years, there has been a marked increase in paper consumption in Brazil, which is an important indicator of the economic development of a country. Between 1997 and 2008, the average annual rate of paper consumption increased by approximately 3% per year, reaching 9 million tons in 2008, according to estimated figures from Bracelpa. Improvements in the purchasing power of Brazil’s citizens have led to growth in the newsprint market (up to 18% in 2009). In the same year, 21% of paper and board and 33% of pulp production was exported. Brazil’s paper industry has potential for growth in both the domestic and export markets. Domestic consumption has huge growth potential, because per capita consumption in Brazil is still low when compared with other developed nations. Consumption of paper and board in Brazil is close to 44 kg per capita. Furthermore, differences are enormous between the north and south-east parts of the country. In Western Europe, consumption of paper and board is 173 kg and in North-America 333 kg per capita. Social Environment Brazil has skilled labour in abundance. Minimum wages in Brazil are way lower in comparison to other nations. Brazilian legislation is, however, relatively inflexible and outdated in relation to labour costs, making things complicated. A continued shift towards a wealthier population has been apparent in Brazil since 2004. There has been significant growth in the populations’ real disposable income. Strong consumption (Household consumption above 60%, Government consumption close to 20%) has been supporting Brazil’s growth profile over the past two decades. Formal job creation increased from 1. 2 million jobs in 2009 to 2 million jobs in 2010. The cost of living in Brazil is approximately 30% lower than in the UK and Europe, and for those with a foreign income there is a guarantee of value for money. Technological ; Natural Factors Brazil’s high technology and natural advantages in forestry make it one of the world’s lowest-cost producers of pulp, and in the last 20 years Brazil has become an important pulp exporter. Brazilian exports of high quality papers to Europe are growing in volume, and expected to increase in the near future. This growing market is truly attractive and one can grab the share in this market by setting up a new industrial venture in Brazil. However, this industry sector is very competitive for reasons like state-of-the-art mills, sound management and well-established plantation forestry technologies. Furthermore, availability of raw material is not a problem in Brazil as there is huge availability of good quality raw materials required for extracting and manufacturing pulp and paper. By analyzing the rotation and yield comparison of different pulp species in different countries, it is found that Brazil has the best rotation (years) and yield (m3/ha/year). This shorter maturing period also enables Brazilian producers to expedite the process of genetically improving the Eucalyptus species utilized Species| Country| Rotation (years)| Yield (m3/ha/year)| Eucalyptus| Brazil| 7| 44| Eucalyptus| South Africa| 8-10| 20| Eucalyptus| Chile| 10-12| 25| Pinus spp| Brazil| 15| 38| Pinus spp| Chile| 25| 22| Pinus spp| New Zealand| 25| 22| An association named ABTCP – Brazilian Paper and Pulp Technical Association – is currently one of the most important associations worldwide in its segment. It was established with the purpose of technically qualifying the paper manufacturers in Brazil, in order to raise basis for a sustainable industry. In addition, technological development in the paper ; pulp industry has been supported by the research efforts of major producers and by financing from BNDES, the Brazilian Development Bank. Opportunities The paper and pulp sector in Brazil is fast becoming the third largest in the world. The financial crisis of 2009 affected the Brazilian pulp and paper industry greatly. Brazil ultimately postponed its investment programmes. However, with the economy showing signs of recovery and emerging market’s increase in demand, those programmes have resumed Over the next seven years, an estimated US$20 billion is going to be invested in the nation’s forest base and in the construction of new mills. 10 new plants are due to be built in Brazil by 2020. At this moment pulp production is at 13. million annual tonnes, by the end of 2017 this is expected to reach 20 million annual tonnes. Also, during the same period, planted forest areas are predicted to grow by 25% and paper production will rise from 9. 3 million tonnes to 12. 5 million tonnes. This has all come about through the new global scenario in the pulp and paper sector. While the international financial crisis r educed global consumption, prices and raw material demand in traditional markets it also opened up opportunities to expand sales in growing markets, in particular China and India. Challenges The pulpwood market in Brazil has gone through major transformations. From a point where it had the lowest conifer fibre costs in the world, it now is close to the global average. Any rise in fibre costs is a concern for forestry companies as the key factor determining a company’s global cost competitive position remains its raw material base. Brazil also faces a strong challenge as businesses in Brazil have to deal with a number of problems, which includes bulky tax regulations, inefficient government bureaucracy, and corruption. Brazil has become less competitive in the last few years as a reason of this. Conclusion The Brazilian paper and pulp industry offers enormous potential to potential investors. The industry, with its advantage in terms of rotation, is expected to grow substantially in the coming few years with various investment programmes being in the phase of implementation. There is the challenge of a complex bureaucratic environment but the long term benefits outweigh the costs. FDI is thus recommended. Bibliography http://pulp-paperworld. om/ex1/item/768-abtcp. html http://www. forestry-invest. com/2010/brazil-becomes-world%E2%80%99s-3rd-largest-pulp-and-paper-producer/513 http://www. bracelpa. org. br/bra2/sites/default/files/estatisticas/booklet_eng. p df http://www. roundtownnews. com/rtn-features/rtn-money/item/36741-ten-reasons-to-invest-in-brazil. html ftp://ftp. fao. org/docrep/fao/009/j9425e/j9425e04. pdf http://riotimesonline. com/brazil-news/rio-business/brazil-among-most-expensive-for -business/# http://www. pulpandpapercanada. com/news/the-case-for-brazil/1000225895/ How to cite Feasibility Study on Investment in Brazilian Paper and Pulp Industry, Essay examples

Sunday, December 8, 2019

The Social Evils Series free essay sample

The social evils series Social evils and social good Viewpoint Informing debate September 2008 The JRFs recent public consultation revealed a strong sense of unease about some of the changes shaping British society. This Viewpoint continues the discussion about modern social evils on the theme of a decline in values. Anthony Grayling argues that it is the responsibility of each of us to confront such difficulties by getting them in proportion; working out if they really are problems; and deciding what we can do about them, individually and collectively. Key points Every generation thinks that the past was a better place and that its own time is one of crisis. Yet contemporary Western liberal democratic societies offer greatly better lives for the majority than fifty or a hundred years ago. Lament over the demise of traditional forms of community overlooks the new forms of community, especially among the young, made possible by the Internet. Now there is a wider range of shared experience and knowledge in the nation as a whole. Personal autonomy and responsibility, self-determination and independence are far more likely to promote than to degrade concern for others. The illusion of a breakdown in civil intercourse, for which individualism is blamed, is far more the result of a contrast between the worlds we occupy as children and adults. Most consumption is a means to the enjoyment that possession offers, and the process itself is therefore often pleasurable. Our own time is greatly more moral, equitable, Just and caring than the Victorian There can be and are good and happy families with only one parent in them, and achieving this is the desideratum that society should work towards without preconceptions about traditional models and numbers. Ђ We must find ways of iving young people responsibility, recognition, status, self-respect, and a chance to acquire and internalise selfdiscipline for self-discipline is a liberating power and transforms life for the better. To decriminalise drugs and their use, and to place them into the same framework as alcohol, would reduce the allure of drugs, free police time, and wipe out the criminal drug indu stry at a stroke. Author By AC Grayling, Professor of Philosophy, Birkbeck, University of London That inequalities persist is a cost of the other benefits that accrue from the arrangements of contemporary Western liberal democracies. As long as continual fforts at rebalancing are maintained, it is a cost worth paying. Crime and violence are endemic in human societies but people (aided by the media) tend to over-inflate its seriousness. www. Jrf. org. uk Introduction The results of the consultation on social evils should not come as a surprise, because they confirm what is generally understood to be public perception of contemporary social problems and ills a public perception well-represented in the media debate, and reciprocally fostered and reinforced by the more conservative sections of that media. The JRF asked those it consulted to focus on what they perceived as he social evils of our time, and a familiar litany resulted; one need is to place it in context and ask whether, in absolute rather than Just relative terms, the social evils identified are all that they seem. For a student of ethics and history, the consultations results confirm the observation that every generation thinks that the past was a better place and that its own time is one of crisis. Yet by almost any standard one cares to mention, contemporary Western liberal democratic societies offer greatly better lives for the great majority of people than was the case fifty or a streets swarmed with child prostitutes and where it was oo dangerous to walk at night, where abject poverty and suffering were a norm and social divisions crushed opportunity and self-respect for many life was much less pleasant, safe, civilised and well-provided than it is now, for all but the relatively few. I would not myself wish to be a woman in any other period of history, or any other part of todays world, than in todays Western democracies. This fact alone concerning as it does half of humanity should be evidence that the great majority of us in todays United Kingdom arguably live in some of the best times and places in history, from he point of view of individual human experience and opportunity. Most of those who expressed pessimistic views in the consultation would, if asked to occupy an analogous situation in a past period of history, and were wellinformed about what that would actually mean, would almost certainly not wish to go back in time. Indeed, one wonders whether, if their knowledge of such comparisons were greater, their view of present circumstances would have been so unreflectively bleak. 2 All the above does not mean there are no problems in contemporary society far from it but it does mean that they need to be put into perspective. This is all the more important because those who voice concerns about problems in society tend to be of a conservative inclination in matters of morality and mores, and it is the more emphatic, concerned or even anxious among them who are likely to volunteer opinions, for example on a website consultation. The risk, therefore, is that the social debate is likely to have a bias towards the opinions of those who feel exercised by their perceptions of what is wrong in society, and it is a matter of the first importance that such perceptions should be put into context and examined. If public policy is determined by the ttitudes of the more conservative and fretful members of society, who see bogeys under the bed when none such are there, the resulting distortions will be harmful. Arguably, this is indeed the case in our society, and it needs redress. One thing the JRF consultation evils are expressed by a self-selected concerned minority, inflated by the media offering sensation in order to increase sales or viewers, and acted upon by governments wishing to placate manufactured public opinion. The skewed results, not infrequently, make matters worse rather than better. In what follows, therefore, I question some of the ttitudes and views expressed in the consultation. I do this by taking each of the salient points registered in the report on the consultation, and commenting on it. The four main social evils The four main evils identified by the consultation were: decline of community; individualism; consumerism and greed; and a decline of values. I challenge each as follows. A decline of community It is true that communities of a more traditional kind, such as existed in villages or working-class suburbs two generations ago, are much less common because of increased mobility and population diversity. That is the eutral fact, which some see as regrettable and others as a marker of social, economic and demographic change, bringing considerable advantages with it. Many of the functions traditionally performed by neighbourliness, such as help in times of trouble, mutual support, sharing of information, and the like, have been taken over by public institutions such as schools, the health service, the media, the police, and other civil society organisations. All of these arose because traditional community life was insufficiently regular, reliable, organised and resourced to be a sure basis of support. That society has shouldered these responsibilities in place of the uncertain abilities and inclinations of ones local neighbours is assuredly a gain. Lament over the demise of traditional forms of community overlook the new forms of community, especially among the young, made possible by the internet. The internet gives wider reach, even international reach, to acquaintanceship and friendship; they are a massive extension of pen-friendship, with great opportunities for sharing experience and learning about others, which can only be a good thing. True, the internet allows for various kinds of abuses too, but that Moreover, it protects wholly against certain sorts of abuses which were once too common, and too hidden, in traditional communities. Whereas community tended once to be highly local and therefore exclusive of other communities (even the village down the road), public media have created a far wider range of shared experience and knowledge in the nation as a whole. Community has become a larger concept as a result, and with the institutionalisation of community activity through pooled resources (such as the health service) a much better framework for individual life is assured. Individualism It is true that individualism can lead to selfishness and insularity, but both these characteristics were present in the past even under the negative aspects of a too-intrusive, too-controlling, too-present community the narrow-minded, lace-curtain-twitching village community of continual observation and nosiness, which could be a blight on lives. Greater scope for individual expression and exploration of life possibilities is a positive thing; autonomy in the moral and social spheres is as much an opportunity as a demand for responsible self-determination and self-reliance. The scope afforded by individualism is not inconsistent with ommunity and cooperation, which becomes voluntary and selective rather than being imposed, as is so often the case in social settings where individual liberty is limited or even discouraged.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Jennifer Walshe free essay sample

A Background Jennifer Walsh, a Dublin born girl in 1974, has made quite the name for herself as an artist. She dabbles in many many types of art form. She is a singer, a composer, a vocalist, an experimenter and much more. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geodes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Kevin Violas in Dublin and graduated from Northwestern University, Chicago, with a doctoral degree in composition in June 2002. Her chief teachers at Northwestern were Mammon Holman and Michael Poplar.Jennifer has won many prizes Including, the Characterless Mackerels, Praetors Music Prize and a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York. She has also completed many residencies in places such as: In Context 3, Foundation, DAD Berliner K;nongovernmental. Snifters work has been performed and broadcast all over the world by ensembles such as Alter Ego, ensemble rcreche, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestra Significant del Theatre La Fence, Schoolmistresses Kaleidoscope, Ensemble Resonant, Apartment House, ensemble Nitgrades, Nine Vocalists Stuttgart. We will write a custom essay sample on Jennifer Walshe or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page