The Coca-Cola Company Financial Results Analysis Assignment

The Coca-Cola Company Financial Results Analysis - Assignment Example In this project second quarter’s financial results of 2011 have been analyzed. The analysis includes the overall growth of the group, growth in individual markets along with its long term goals and objective. A special analysis has been done on the growth and performance of North American market. Apart from various analyses a comparison has been done between the earning per share of the second quarter with the historic performance. A study has been made on the impact of emerging markets on the long term growth of the company. This project also includes a study on the profitability drivers of the company and their impact on the company’s objective. Accounting Policies The Coca Cola Company follows the US GAAP model for preparing its financial statements. With the information required by GAAP the company also records the non GAAP information which is used to measure the performance of the company more accurately (Coca-Cola Company, 2011, p.12). North American Market The C oca-Cola Company has a strong market in the North American region. In the second quarter of 2011 the company’s overall volume increased by 6%. The growth in volume in north America was 4% while the operating income increased by 46% which was highest compared to the percentage increase in other markets. The percentage increase in net operating revenue in North American market was also the highest compared to the increase in other geographical markets where the company operates. The organic volume that is the volume achieved from the company’s core operations was more or less same in the second quarter. In North American market the company acquired the bottler CCE which had a positive effect on the company. In North American market the company’s carbonated soft drinks’ volume grew by 6%. The company spent a lot of money in North American market for promoting carbonated soft drinks as result the its organic volume declined. In North American markets the comp any performed well in terms of volume. The Gold Peak tea itself grew by 38% where as the volume of Powerade and Smart water also grew. Hence in North America the company performed better in the quarter (The Coca-Cola Company, 2011, p.6). Profitability Drivers The Coca Cola Company achieved a higher profit than expected in the 2nd quarter of 2011. There are many reasons behind the increase in profits. The main drivers of profitability of Coca- Cola Company for the quarterly profits are overall growth in volume, price mix and different structural change. During the 2nd quarter of 2011 the company achieved growth in volume world wide. In every market whether it is European market or North American or Latin America or Pacific or Asian the volume grew in every market. Increase in sales volume automatically increases the sales revenue and hence their profits get increased. Some structural changes like the sale of Norway and Sweden bottlers help to reduce the expenses of the company. In No rth American market the company was able to increase its retail price by 3% to 4% in the 2nd quarter which in turn helped the company to reduce the high commodity costs. The increase in volume will definitely help the company to achieve its long terms goal. The structural changes were made to place the company in a better position in long run which will complement the company in its long term goals (The Coca-Cola Company, 2011, p.8). Comparison of EPS with Historic Results and Long Term Growth With increase in the volume and profits the earning per share of Coca-Cola

Do police reduce crime(Know how to use stata) Research Paper

Do police reduce crime(Know how to use stata) - Research Paper Example After a terrorist attack that took place in July 1994, Argentina, the main Jewish center in Buenos Aires, it led to all Jewish institutions receiving police protection. Hence, this hideous event initiated a police force geographical allocation that can be presumed exogenous in a crime regression. Using data on the car thefts after and before the attack, the study found out a significant effect of police on crime. The impact was observed to be local, with no impact outside the small area where the police were deployed. Introduction In the study a different approach has been presented to estimate the police on crime causal effect. Terrorists exploded a bomb on July 18, 1994 that brought down the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (A.M.I.A.), which is the key Jewish center in Argentina. This saw 85 persons dyeing and at least 300 were injured in the attack. The federal government had to assign police one week later in order to protect every Muslim and Jewish building in the country. These were done because the institutions’ geographical distribution was presumed to be ‘exogenous in a crime regression,’ this hideous event is composed of a natural experiment where the simultaneous determination of police presence and crime might be broken. The motor vehicle thefts number per block information was collected in 3 neighborhoods in Buenos Aires after and before the terrorist attack. The information includes a period of 9 month starting April 1 to December 31, 1994. Information on each Jewish institution location in these neighborhoods was also collected. There was then an estimation of the police presence effect on car theft. The estimates indicated that blocks which received police protection had substantially fewer car thefts as compared to the rest of the neighborhoods. There was no evidence that the presence of police in a certain block reduced car theft one or two blocks that was away from the buildings which were protected. There has been a major interest to identify the mechanisms where presence of police reduces crime. Is it that the presence of police results to criminal activity to be less attractive or is it that police men arrested criminals and few of them were left around to com- on car thefts? The total number of car thefts per block was used as the dependent Variable; this gave a panel with nine observations for every given block. This data on blocks without and with protected institutions enabled us to define a control and treatment group. Month fixed effects were included that controlled any aggregate shocks in the crime evolution. The main procedure utilized in this study was regression analysis. It was utilized to explain the total variation of the dependent variable, Car theft. The dependent variable was accompanied by 9 variables, which were tested against the dependent variable to determine how much of the total variation is explained. The analyses also discussed the comparison of the different regress ion models, and determine which model is the most effective. In regards to the regression analysis results, it is clearly evident that model 2 is the strongest. The independent variables including street, dummy Jews institution one block away, block distance to closest institution and dummy gas station were omitted and not included in the second model because there P value was greater than 0.05 implying the data collected was either not valid or there was no enough evidence to make

Report on setting up a mcdonalds franchise in UK

Report on setting up a mcdonalds franchise in UK McDonalds has been proved as successful business through the globe for quite some time now. This report aims at exploring the business potential in setting up a McDonald franchise by researching into its franchise structure. It gives information about the terms and conditions for becoming the McDonalds franchise along with the brief history of its business. It focuses on the strength and weakness of the business and discusses the macro environmental factors that may affect the franchise business. I had further focused on any problem that may arise during the functioning of the franchise and performed a VRIO analysis to check the sustainability of the business. The report end with a brief conclusion about the entire report suggestion whether it is beneficial to go ahead with the project. Introduction The fast food business is fast growing business in the UK and when talking about fast food most often the first name comes to the mind is the McDonalds. It has been a very successful business in its category for a long time now. This report discusses about setting up a franchise of McDonalds in UK and the pro and cons of owning a McDonald franchise. McDonalds has been making profits and is growing even in the current economic downturn. The figure below shows the growth of McDonald over the last year. Figure: McDonalds Historical stock chart (advfn.com, 2010) The above figure shows clear growth of the company selected to invest in getting franchise for. The growth also triggered an interest in researching for getting an franchise for McDonald and get good returns on the investment. This section is divided in to two where the first give a brief account of McDonalds business history while the later discusses the terms and condition for setting up a franchise. The data collection is majorly done from the McDonalds cooperate and associate websites. The later sections discuss the SWOT analysis and the VRIO and finally the report concludes with conclusion and recommendations. McDonalds brief history McDonalds was started by the Dick and Mac McDonald in 1940 in San Bernandino in California. It was a typical drive-in featuring a large menu and car hop services. It started as a barbeque restaurant but in 1948 the actual McDonalds was launched when McDonald brothers shut their restaurant for alterations. The menu was reduced to nine items and staple of the menu was the 15 cent hamburger. Within a year the potato chips were replaced by the world famous French fries. Through its history McDonalds kept on evolving and capturing the expectations of its customers. In 1954 a multi-mixer salesman Ray Kroc met Mc brother to sell his mixers but was fascinated by the operations. The following year in 1955 he opened the first franchise of McDonalds in Des Plaines, Illinois and by 1965 there were over 700 McDonalds restaurant through out United States. In 1958 McDonalds sold its 100 millionth hamburger and by 1959 the 100th McDonald restaurant was opened. In 1965 McDonald celebrated its 10th an niversary with its first public stock offering at $22.5 per share. 1966 saw the first TV commercial of McDonald featuring Ronald McDonald who became an instant hit. In 1967 first McDonald restaurant opened in Canada and Puerto Rico and at present it is having its presence in 118 countries. Over time McDonald kept launching products that gain individual brand images like the Big Mac, quarter pounder and happy meal. The first McDonalds restaurant in Britain opened in Woolwich, south-east London, in 1974 (mcspotlight.org, 2010). In 1978 5000th restaurant was opened in Japan and two years later it celebrated its 25th anniversary. In 1996 McDonald went online as its internet site macdonald.com was launched. McDonald has been evolving rapid in terms of product, technology and organisational strength over the years. McDonald Franchise operation The fast food industry has grown many folds in recent years with many new international and local chains competing with each other. Operating a fast food restaurant has many factors to be considered right from its competitors to the demographics and socio- cultural factors concerning its customers. In case of McDonalds the big brand name and massive advertising may help running the franchise but the most important is obtaining a franchise license. McDonalds people are very concerned about their customers and therefore very careful about whom they choose to serve their customers. The financial terms and conditions involving a McDonald franchise are as follows; The typical cost for owning a McDonalds restaurant ranges from  £125,000 to  £325,000. The investor are required to provide at least 25% of the value as unencumbered funds, the remaining 75% can be funded through a bank loan with favourable funding terms (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). Theres also a one-off franchise fee of  £30,000 and a training deposit of  £5,000 which is refunded when you complete your training (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). There are also ongoing fees. These include: Monthly rent on the premises, based on sales and profitability (usually ranging from 10% to 15%) Service Fee for use of the McDonalds system 5% of sales Contribution to the national marketing spend, currently 4.5% (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). And the returns? Cashflow (before debt repayment) typically ranges from  £95,000 to  £200,000 per year for each restaurant but this isnt guaranteed: it could be more, it could be less (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). Apart from the above terms and conditions the common questions arise about the benefit the investors get. The investors get equipment and license to operate from a location for a fix term and investors buy the profitability of the business. The McDonalds management expect its franchise owners to actively participate in the daily business of the restaurant and the franchise owners are not allowed to sell their ownership to other person without the managements permission. SWOT Analysis of McDonalds McDonalds has been a successfully evolving business since 1955 and almost half of the top corporate staff employees started as a restaurant level employee. Fortune Magazine 2005 listed McDonalds as the Best Place to Work for Minorities.(McDonalds fact sheet, 2007) The franchise owners and their staff are also required to undergo training in McDonalds. Moreover it invests around a billion USD in training its staff every year. Strengths McDonalds was ranked number one in Fortune Magazines 2008 list of most admired food service companies. One of the worlds most recognizable logos (the Golden Arches) and spokes character (Ronald McDonald the clown). Attractive McDonalds packaging are so popular among the children that according to the Packard Childrens Hospitals Centre research concluded that children age 3 to 5 prefer food given in McDonald packaging over the food without packaging. McDonalds bears a high corporate social responsibility value. They own Ronald McDonald House facilities providing very low cost room and board, food and sibling support for families with children needing extensive hospital care.They also sponsor Olympic athletes and local teams. It is global company that operates more than 23,500 restaurants in 118 countries. Their diversified presence gives them the ability to withstand economic fluctuations which are localized by country. They are very good in adapting to local cultural appeal and requirements. For example, they dont sell beef products in India and facilitate separate entranceto male and females in Middle East, as well serving Halal meat in Muslim dominated regions in UK as well. They are globally present in all major airports, and cities, along the highways, tourist locations, theme parks and inside shopping mall. Locations are selected with careful consideration and selecting the busiest locations possible. They have an efficient, assembly line style of food preparation. In addition they have a systemization and duplication of all their food prep processes in every restaurant (marketingteacher.com, 2010). McDonalds ensures strict compliance with the food quality used in its restaurants and invest producing fresh farm products. The external products used by McDonalds like cheese, yogurt, mayo etc are from top brands who ensure strict quality measures like Kraft Cheese, Nestle Chocolate, Dasani Water, Newmans Own Salad Dressings, Heinz Ketchup, Minute Maid Juice. McDonalds pioneered the provision of printed nutrition fact of its products on its packages. McDonalds offers salads, fruit, roasted chicken, bottled water and other low fat and calorie conscious alternatives. McDonalds has grown into a very big and trustworthy brand worldwide and especially in UK and US so opening a franchise in UK comes with the added advantage of the brand name which help getting the customers easily. McDonalds invests a large amount in advertising in print and motion media thus making life easier for its franchise. Weaknesses McDonalds venture into pizza making failed badly affecting their ability to compete with fast food pizza chains. They have yet to capitalize on the trend towards organic foods. McDonalds have problems with fluctuations in operating and net profits which ultimately impact investor relations. From the perspective of franchisee the problem they have to face is that they cannot use their owned property to run a franchise if it nota site of interest to McDonalds. In that case they have to bear an additional sum for renting place offered by McDonalds. Opportunities The current UK generation is more attracted towards healty or low calorie food thus McDonalds has a very good chance introduce healthy or low calorie hamburgers. Provide optional allergen free food items, such as gluten free and peanut free. It has a great scope in introduce hot beverages along with healthy breakfast option helping it compete with coffee shops and other fast food restaurants. Threats Their marketing to children often attracts criticism from parent advocate groups questioning their ethics. In Britain, McDonalds has infamously registered itself in to the record books for fighting the longest-ever libel suit in the country (mcspotlight.org, 2010). High food safety standards need to be maintained even a small contamination issue can land them in trouble. The other threats are from major international fast food restaurant chains like KFC, Burger King and Subway etc. Apart from the big names it faces potential threat from the local fried chicken chains. In order to decide on investing in the franchise a VRIO analysis of McDonald is done in the next section to test the sustainability of the venture. VRIO Analysis for McDonald franchise in UK VRIO stands for Value, rarity, Imitability and organisational support where Value is the firm ability to neutralise external threats using resources and capabilities. Rarity is control if resources in the hands of few while imitability is the difficulty to imitate in any way. Value: Mc Donald hold a high value in accordance to its brand image and exploitation of the available resources which had helped it evolved successfully for more than five decades. Rarity: The utility of the resource may be franchise oriented and spread through its breadth but the main control still remains in the hands of the top 50 management authorities. The franchisee has to follow the company rules strict to run a franchise of McDonalds. Imitability: McDonald may not be difficult to imitate in aspect of the product but its functionality is very difficult to achieve. Organisation support: McDonalds is always ready to exploit new resource and evolve and the organisation structure is well organised and provides a good support to its franchise operations. Value Rarity Imitability Organization Competitive implications Network infrastructure Yes Yes No Yes Temporary competitive advantage Diversified revenue base Yes Yes No Yes Temporary competitive advantage Leading market position Yes Yes Yes Yes Sustained competitive advantage The VRIO framework of McDonalds Looking at the above VRIO frame it can be said that McDonald has a sustainable competitive advantage and thus it seem to be vice decision to invest in the project. Conclusion The report deals with the franchise operation of McDonald and UK was selected as the location for the franchise. UK was selected on basis of the brand image and success of the franchise network of McDonalds. It has a very good customer base in UK which are very loyal as well. McDonald has good organisational support to its franchise in terms of training and publicity. It also operates a centralized recruitment drive which helps the franchise to get desired employees without having a headache to hunt for them. The SWOT analysis reveals a large number of strengths as well good opportunities to work on thus large scope to increase profitability. The VRIO analysis also indicates a competitive sustainability thus it is recommended to invest in the project.

What is Clinical Depression? Essay -- depressed mood, diminished press

What is depression? Depression is an illness that can take over a person’s life---it can take their happiness and their will to live. This illness can effect adults, teenagers, and even kids. â€Å"Depression is an equal opportunity disorder---- it can affect anyone of any group, any background, any race, any gender, and any age. It is the great leveler of all groups and can take the greatest and the smallest of us all and reduce us to the pain and nothingness that is depression (Nydegger 1)†. Depression is an emotion most people may feel they have experienced, but little do they know it’s just the basic emotions we feel. It is important to identify the symptoms of depression, the types of depression, who can get them and how they manifest, in other to be able to treatment them. The experience of depression has a profound effect on the lives and health of millions of people around the world. We all experience mood swing, and most of us think that we have experienced true depression and think they understand clinical depression and even know what it feels like; to be honest those emotions we feel are not half as much as what a depressed person goes through. Depression is more than experiencing a difficult day or event or being in a bad mood. Sometimes, people seek help even though they are not clinically depressed because they think they need the help they get from a psychologist. When speaking to a depressed individual, it is very important to know the occasion that lead to their emotional trauma. Depressed mood is not the same as a depressed disorder. According to Nydegger, â€Å"Depressed mood is a negative affective or emotional quality such as feeling sad, miserable, gloominess for a period of time. Depressive disorder refers t... ...oxepine) †¢ Surmontil (trimipramine) †¢ Toframil (imipramine) †¢ Vivactil (protriptyline) Depression is a serious and common problem that affects people of all social class and racial group throughout the world. They are good and affordable treatment for depression. Most people who have depression do not receive adequate treatment. We must do more and do better to take care of ourselves. It is not easy for any of us to tackle a problem of this magnitude, but by being responsible and taking care of our own health and mental well-being needs, we can also reach out to help others who are dealing with depression or other mental issues by sharing with them information’s and pointing them in the right direction to find the help they need. Work Cited Rudy V. Nydegger Understanding and Treating Depression: Ways to Find Hope and Help. Praeger, August 30, 2008

Technology, Human Beings and the Fate of the Earth: a Social Critique of Modern Life

It’s both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their familiar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons’ lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an unknown situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings – as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potentially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, we’ve learned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans – we no longer live in the actual wo rld, but in our own self-created worlds, via the latest form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to operate in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone – which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center – has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both personal and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in our world?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological distractions and modes of external stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The underlying message of our media is commercial; in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the latest collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberation, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with one’s own true needs or sensibilities. However, it is the advertisers’ job to convince us otherwise.So far they are doing a pretty good job! The natural world, the earth itself; the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect – lest we forget – and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands of men.It’s sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno-vision of the ideal man-made life. It’s also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because we’d prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because we’ve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our expanded world of f ellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and community – which is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, caring and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli – radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc – that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re-focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequen t degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or awareness on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic; as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality – wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc – we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, raiding and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong – at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imperialistic drives – to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, â€Å"W hat right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the sake of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly affecting the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to search through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this topic (i. e. â€Å"An Inconvenient Truth†, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I learned tha t Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which emit high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing â€Å"third world† countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going â€Å"out of doors,† or allowing their children to play outside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the eroding of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and it’s become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for a ny length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, healthy to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection to the earth dissipates.We become less the â€Å"caretakers of the earth,† or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaust inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature – those of us who are aware of it – with the heralding of a new age of technological transce ndence. In comparison with all our own amazing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and above the earth – as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could begin to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive – or thrive – in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of being†¦ This sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line with our reigning eligion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a context of the goal of life, it’s no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions. It seems only the portended threat of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently.For if we are only to inhabit this earth for such a brief span of time – until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension – then what’s the big deal if we just abuse Her until we’re gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesn’t matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls â€Å"that can be saved,† and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal death into an immortal and eternal after-life.Since, in the Christian view, nothing else up on this planet has a soul, or is capable of redemption, we justify our own paramount importance, and it becomes completely plausible to view all things as merely our own resources. In this way, we lose a perspective of value and veneration for the natural world around us while worshipping our own agendas. It becomes evident that many areas of our lives – our economy, our technology and industry, our religion, and our general philosophy of living – depict our own implicit superiority complex over the natural world of creation.And yet, by and by, we get glimpses of the truth that it is impossible for humanity to become superior to nature, because we are really an intrinsic part of the earth which we seek to dominate and control. In actuality, the world of nature is indeed superior to humankind, as we are merely one aspect of its grand panorama. However, we continue to ignore our interconnectedness with nature, our true identity as an outgrowth or expression of nature, an d behave as if we have the right and ability to continue dominating the earth without eventually destroying ourselves.But â€Å"what goes around comes around,† and sooner or later you get what you give, or to put it in technological terms: you â€Å"input† what you â€Å"output. † Why have we continued on in this, less than intelligent, manner? You could say that we modern-day humans are simply dumb and indifferent, which is partially true from a holistic perspective. But beneath that we are really out of control, so fascinated by our own invented civilization that we fail to recognize the greater organic and historical context in which we live.Over the past 500 years or so, the peoples of Europe have invaded, conquered, colonized and converted virtually every other continent, people and culture upon the planet – we’re currently working steadfast on the Middle East – with our imperialistic inquisitions, our Christianity and our capitalism. I n the words of Martin Prechtel, author of Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar, and an initiate of the Mayan shamanic mysteries: Over the last two or three centuries, a heartless culture-crushing mentality has incremented its progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge.Like a big mechanized slug, it has left behind a flat, homogenized steak of civilization wherever it passed. Every human on this earth – African, Asian, European, Islanders, or from the Americas – has ancestors who at some point in their history had their stories, rituals, ingenuity, language and lifeways taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted or destroyed by this force. Our modern technological way of life is a vast and dramatic change from the vastly more earth-friendly modes of human existence that preceded this rapid â€Å"global development† for thousands of years.It is a sad and unpopular fact that, as Western civilization has progressed, cou ntless other civilizations have regressed, have indeed been ravaged and undone by the coercion of our own ideas and powers upon them. To this day, we either disregard their suffering and continue on our own path to global domination, or we view them through the eyes of sympathetic charity, regarding ourselves, our own culture, as the superior and dominant people who will now help, aide and assist these less fortunate people – whom we devastated in the first place – to acquire the modes of our own elevated survival and sustenance.The deceptive hypocrisy of our impact upon, and subsequent response to, â€Å"third world† countries is confounded by our own apparent lack of responsibility for our actions, both past and present, that debilitate these people. For instance, in the countries of Central & South America, our oil production facilities lead to massive destruction of both the land and the lives of the indigenous peoples. In the mid 1990? s, author Joe Kane do cumented the horrific impacts of corporate oil companies upon native cultures and the pristine Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador in his superbly written book, Savages.In the book, Kane describes the struggle of one of the last remaining indigenous tribes – the Huaorani – who consider themselves to have not been conquered by modern Western culture, against the impending invasion of corporate oil. Referencing his colleague Judith Kimerling from her book Amazon Crude, Kane states: â€Å"In 1967 Texaco discovered commercial oil in the Oriente [the Ecuadorian rainforest]. In 1972 it completed a 312-mile pipeline from the Oriente to Ecuador’s Pacific coast. From its inception until just 1989, â€Å"the Texaco pipeline had ruptured at least twenty seven times, spilling 16. 8 million gallons of raw crude †¦ most of it into the Oriente’s delicate web of rivers, creeks and lagoons. † As a witness himself to a colossal oil spill into the native Ecuadorian rainforest, Kane writes, â€Å"While I was in Tonampare a valve in an oil well near the Napo broke, or was left open, and for two days and a night raw crude streamed into the river – at least 21,000 gallons and perhaps as many as 80,000, creating a slick that stretched from bank to bank for forty miles. Due to this oil spill, a state of emergency was declared downstream in both Peru and Brazil, although, according to Kane, the oil company responsible for the spill disregarded the incident and did nothing to improve the situation. While in Ecuador, Kane visited various Huaorani communities and received further firsthand reports of extensive and extreme contamination, via oil spills, of their water supplies resulting in unruly health epidemics, severe illnesses and deaths.However, the problems of oil drilling extend beyond the awful impacts upon Huaorani and Indian health in general, as the settlements made by the oil companies result in drastic disruption, deviation and dese cration of traditional Indian culture. It is a complicated process, because the imperialistic thrust of big oil coincides with all sorts of modern Western byproducts including colonization, conversion to Christianity, and ‘re-education’ of native Indians – in which â€Å"no element of Huaorani culture was allowed to enter the curriculum. This enforced process of acculturation to Western ways results in the obliteration of the value, the history, and the very existence of traditional culture for all Indians affected. During the months that Kane spent roaming through Ecuador, mainly with the Huaorani tribe, he experienced the traditional self-sufficient way of life that the Huaorani – as well as many other indigenous South American tribes – have lived for millennia. After visiting colonized areas as well, he reports that Indians who have succumbed to a conversion to Western ways appear much worse off than those who have held to their traditional ways .Of these colonized Huaorani, Kane writes â€Å"the people were dependent on goods brought in from outside, and many of them had become wage slaves to a culture they could never hope to be truly a part of – to a culture that, in fact, considered them little more than animals. † The convergence of the diverse aspects of capitalism, colonization and conversion to Western ways and Christianity upon the various Indian tribes who are impacted all amount to ethnocide.The fact that such corruption – initiated by Western imperialistic drives based on capitalistic gains – is still going on, only reveals that we have not progressed very far, at least globally speaking, in our path to becoming a more humane society. But the typical modern world citizen doesn’t care about any of this and has very little knowledge of the historical European conquests that have transformed spiritually and functionally intact cultures into materially indigent, chaotic and violent third world countries. Most of us are more or less plodding along our own enlightened paths of self-serving materialism.When we do give any consideration to cultures of a lesser material status, we judge and compare their â€Å"shabby† way of life to ours, in which running water, electricity, cars, central heating, air conditioning and 24 hour grocery stores are essential. We devalue their modes of living through our own ignorance and ingrained sense of superiority, as we seek to save them, not by helping them to regain their own valued way of life, but by converting them to ours – which only reinforces our own paradigm of economic, technological and religious superiority. We frequently fail to realize that not every human being on this planet wants r needs to be hooked into the wave of technological progress with which we are so completely mesmerized. Not only does our enchantment with technology threaten our humanity, our society, and our planet, it also – th rough our continued pressures upon non-Western, non-technologically-based cultures to convert to the ways of the modern Western world – threatens to destroy the few remaining earth-based, indigenous peoples on this planet who would rather not be bothered by us or our materialistic ways. Do we really need to continue to conquer the earth with our capitalism until there is a 7-11 and McDonalds in every corner of the world?Until there are freeways chomping through every area of pristine land? Until all the forests have been chopped down and transformed into urban and industrial sprawl? Can’t we contain ourselves with a little respect for the rest of the world? There are still people on this planet who enjoy living in the organic environment of nature, where electricity, motor vehicles, cells phones and I-pods aren’t a necessary aspect of life. They are able to survive, and thrive, quite well without all the modern accoutrements of modern life that we so desire, and many of them would like to remain as they are.And yet our attitude reveals an inner conviction that we have discovered â€Å"the way of the future† and must deliver this message in force to the rest of the world. Rather than continuing on our present course of a global takeover, we need to ask ourselves what we can learn from non-Westernized cultures that still live in ancient and earth-honoring ways, cultures that we tend to brutalize and greedily destroy. We need to learn to interact with these other cultures respectfully and humanely, allowing them their own way of life and sustenance upon this planet without interfering and coercing our interests and values upon them.Not everyone needs to drive a car on a freeway, to work in an office and live in a house in the city – if the 7,000,000,000 human beings now alive on the planet lived like this, our environmental devastation would likely expand exponentially. To expect a global conversion of all peoples in all places into an assimilation of our unique modern, technological way of life is stupid, insane and supremely unreasonable. However, like a big, proud, arrogant peacock strutting itself all over the planet, the United States continues making moves to engulf the globe with the gluttony of our own capitalistic enterprises, all the while disregarding nd disrupting the dignity of other countries, cultures and peoples. Reflecting upon the impact of our very recent civilization upon other, much older, traditional and earth-based civilizations, as well as the planet itself, we should notice and consider the damages we have done, the violences we have perpetrated, and the miseries we have created †¦ We need to move beyond the Christian fantasy that we are a completely good and benign presence on the planet, that we are somehow â€Å"God’s chosen people† with a free pass to do whatever we want regardless of the consequences.We should think about how we can be less ego-centric, and seek to balance our technological advances with tending to the well-being of the earth, other cultures and one another. We should consider how to create more harmony in the world, and a little less profit. Indeed, many individuals and organizations are becoming increasingly devoted to a greater consciousness of how to live in ways that are â€Å"earth friendly. The overall pro-environmental movements are coming to be known as â€Å"green† movements, and they provide good and necessary developments toward a future in which humans could be of greater benefit than detriment to the planet. However, very much work and change remains to be done in this area. One problem inherent with these movements is that when we think about â€Å"saving the planet,† or â€Å"saving the polar bears,† we are still thinking abstractly. In truth, the planet was doing just fine before the advent of modern industry and technological society. Save the planet! † really means â€Å" Stop the humans from destroying the planet! † because we are only saving the planet from ourselves. Living our urban, fast-paced and machine-based lives, very few of us have time, energy or ability to keep gardens, raise livestock, hunt for our sustenance or otherwise live in any kind of experiential symbiosis with the planet. We live in suburban and citified concrete jungles where the animals have become cars, and the trees and forests are now banks, department stores and high rise apartment complexes.Because we have created our own processed environment of roads, cars, industry, buildings, malls, homes: an endless â€Å"urban sprawl† that houses an endless supply of manmade things; because we live in a world designed by capitalism, a world of incessant advertising, sales and the desperate, frantic pursuit of material things – of production and products – a world molded and defined by television, radio and the chronic bombardment of salesmen; we rarely, i f ever, experience an intimate connection with the natural world, with â€Å"the planet† we are hoping to save.Sure we can learn all about the planet, discovering the marvels of the earth in science magazines or through viewing compelling video footage of nature, we can learn all about the planet in schools, in laboratories or other second hand means, but until we have a sustained, direct encounter with the earth and nature itself, how can we truly know it, and what will it ever really mean to us? And how few of us will ever accomplish this?Indeed, as it now stands our â€Å"civilization† is composed of a people, and a culture, that have moved out of nature into man-created worlds based upon the destruction of nature †¦ and they call this evolution. Ultimately, it’s up to us to change the story, to write a new script, to realize who we are, what we have become, and to simply wake up to the realization of how we want our lives, and the life of our entire pla net, to unfold †¦ So think about it, and let your thoughts permeate all that you do, for the existence of yourself and every other being around you may depend upon it.It’s both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their familiar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons’ lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an unknown situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings – as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potentially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, we’ve learned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans – we no longer live in the actual world, but in our own self-created worlds, via the latest form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to operate in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone – which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center – has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both personal and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in o ur world?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological distractions and modes of external stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The underlying message of our media is commercial; in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the latest collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberation, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with one’s own true needs or s ensibilities.However, it is the advertisers’ job to convince us otherwise. So far they are doing a pretty good job! The natural world, the earth itself; the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect – lest we forget – and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands f men. It’s sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno-vision of the ideal man-made life. It’s also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because we’d prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because we’ve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our expanded world of fellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and community – which is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, caring and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli – radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc – that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re -focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequent degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or awareness on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic; as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality – wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc – we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, raiding and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong – at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imper ialistic drives – to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, â€Å"What right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the sake of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly affecting the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to search through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this topic (i. e. â€Å"A n Inconvenient Truth†, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I learned that Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which emit high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing â€Å"third world† countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going â€Å"out of doors,† or allowing their children to play outside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the eroding of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and it’s become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for any length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, healthy to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection to the earth dissipates.We become less the â€Å"caretakers of the earth,† or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaus t inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature – those of us who are aware of it – with the heralding of a new age of technological transcendence. In comparison with all our own amazing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and above the earth – as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could begin to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive – or thrive – in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of being†¦This sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line wit h our reigning religion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a context of the goal of life, it’s no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions.It seems only the portended threat of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently. For if we are only to inhabit this earth for such a brief span of time – until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension – then what’s the big deal if we just abuse Her until we’re gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesn’t matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls â€Å"that can be saved,† and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal death into an immortal and eternal fter-life. Since, in the Christian view, nothing else upon this planet has a soul, or is capable of redemption, we justify our own paramount importance, and it becomes completely plausible to view all things as merely our own resources. In this way, we lose a perspective of value and veneration for the natural world around us while worshipping our own agendas. It becomes evident that many areas of our lives – our economy, our technology and industry, our religion, and our general philosophy of living – depict our own implicit superiority complex over the natural world of creation.And yet, by and by, we get glimpses of the truth that it is impossible for humanity to become superior to nature, because we are really an intrinsic part of the earth which we seek to dominate and control. In actuality, the world of nature is indeed superior to humankind, as we are merely one aspect of its grand panorama. However, we continue to ignore our interconnectedness with nature, our true identity as an outgrowth or expression of nature, and behave as if we have the right and ability to continue dominating the earth without eventually destroying ourselves.But â€Å"what goes around comes around,† and sooner or later you get what you give, or to put it in technological terms: you â€Å"input† what you â€Å"output. † Why have we continued on in this, less than intelligent, manner? You could say that we modern-day humans are simply dumb and indifferent, which is partially true from a holistic perspective. But beneath that we are really out of control, so fascinated by our own invented civilization that we fail to recognize the greater organic and historical context in which we live.Over the past 500 years or so, the peoples of Europe have invaded, conquered, colonized and converted virtually every other continent, people and cult ure upon the planet – we’re currently working steadfast on the Middle East – with our imperialistic inquisitions, our Christianity and our capitalism. In the words of Martin Prechtel, author of Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar, and an initiate of the Mayan shamanic mysteries: Over the last two or three centuries, a heartless culture-crushing mentality has incremented its progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge.Like a big mechanized slug, it has left behind a flat, homogenized steak of civilization wherever it passed. Every human on this earth – African, Asian, European, Islanders, or from the Americas – has ancestors who at some point in their history had their stories, rituals, ingenuity, language and lifeways taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted or destroyed by this force. Our modern technological way of life is a vast and dramatic change from the vastly more earth-friendly modes of huma n existence that preceded this rapid â€Å"global development† for thousands of years.It is a sad and unpopular fact that, as Western civilization has progressed, countless other civilizations have regressed, have indeed been ravaged and undone by the coercion of our own ideas and powers upon them. To this day, we either disregard their suffering and continue on our own path to global domination, or we view them through the eyes of sympathetic charity, regarding ourselves, our own culture, as the superior and dominant people who will now help, aide and assist these less fortunate people – whom we devastated in the first place – to acquire the modes of our own elevated survival and sustenance.The deceptive hypocrisy of our impact upon, and subsequent response to, â€Å"third world† countries is confounded by our own apparent lack of responsibility for our actions, both past and present, that debilitate these people. For instance, in the countries of Centra l & South America, our oil production facilities lead to massive destruction of both the land and the lives of the indigenous peoples. In the mid 1990? s, author Joe Kane documented the horrific impacts of corporate oil companies upon native cultures and the pristine Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador in his superbly written book, Savages.In the book, Kane describes the struggle of one of the last remaining indigenous tribes – the Huaorani – who consider themselves to have not been conquered by modern Western culture, against the impending invasion of corporate oil. Referencing his colleague Judith Kimerling from her book Amazon Crude, Kane states: â€Å"In 1967 Texaco discovered commercial oil in the Oriente [the Ecuadorian rainforest]. In 1972 it completed a 312-mile pipeline from the Oriente to Ecuador’s Pacific coast. From its inception until just 1989, â€Å"the Texaco pipeline had ruptured at least twenty seven times, spilling 16. 8 million gallons of raw c rude †¦ most of it into the Oriente’s delicate web of rivers, creeks and lagoons. † As a witness himself to a colossal oil spill into the native Ecuadorian rainforest, Kane writes, â€Å"While I was in Tonampare a valve in an oil well near the Napo broke, or was left open, and for two days and a night raw crude streamed into the river – at least 21,000 gallons and perhaps as many as 80,000, creating a slick that stretched from bank to bank for forty miles. Due to this oil spill, a state of emergency was declared downstream in both Peru and Brazil, although, according to Kane, the oil company responsible for the spill disregarded the incident and did nothing to improve the situation. While in Ecuador, Kane visited various Huaorani communities and received further firsthand reports of extensive and extreme contamination, via oil spills, of their water supplies resulting in unruly health epidemics, severe illnesses and deaths.However, the problems of oil drill ing extend beyond the awful impacts upon Huaorani and Indian health in general, as the settlements made by the oil companies result in drastic disruption, deviation and desecration of traditional Indian culture. It is a complicated process, because the imperialistic thrust of big oil coincides with all sorts of modern Western byproducts including colonization, conversion to Christianity, and ‘re-education’ of native Indians – in which â€Å"no element of Huaorani culture was allowed to enter the curriculum. This enforced process of acculturation to Western ways results in the obliteration of the value, the history, and the very existence of traditional culture for all Indians affected. During the months that Kane spent roaming through Ecuador, mainly with the Huaorani tribe, he experienced the traditional self-sufficient way of life that the Huaorani – as well as many other indigenous South American tribes – have lived for millennia. After visiting colonized areas as well, he reports that Indians who have succumbed to a conversion to Western ways appear much worse off than those who have held to their traditional ways.Of these colonized Huaorani, Kane writes â€Å"the people were dependent on goods brought in from outside, and many of them had become wage slaves to a culture they could never hope to be truly a part of – to a culture that, in fact, considered them little more than animals. † The convergence of the diverse aspects of capitalism, colonization and conversion to Western ways and Christianity upon the various Indian tribes who are impacted all amount to ethnocide.The fact that such corruption – initiated by Western imperialistic drives based on capitalistic gains – is still going on, only reveals that we have not progressed very far, at least globally speaking, in our path to becoming a more humane society. But the typical modern world citizen doesn’t care about any of this and ha s very little knowledge of the historical European conquests that have transformed spiritually and functionally intact cultures into materially indigent, chaotic and violent third world countries. Most of us are more or less plodding along our own enlightened paths of self-serving materialism.When we do give any consideration to cultures of a lesser material status, we judge and compare their â€Å"shabby† way of life to ours, in which running water, electricity, cars, central heating, air conditioning and 24 hour grocery stores are essential. We devalue their modes of living through our own ignorance and ingrained sense of superiority, as we seek to save them, not by helping them to regain their own valued way of life, but by converting them to ours – which only reinforces our own paradigm of economic, technological and religious superiority.We frequently fail to realize that not every human being on this planet wants or needs to be hooked into the wave of technologic al progress with which we are so completely mesmerized. Not only does our enchantment with technology threaten our humanity, our society, and our planet, it also – through our continued pressures upon non-Western, non-technologically-based cultures to convert to the ways of the modern Western world – threatens to destroy the few remaining earth-based, indigenous peoples on this planet who would rather not be bothered by us or our materialistic ways.Do we really need to continue to conquer the earth with our capitalism until there is a 7-11 and McDonalds in every corner of the world? Until there are freeways chomping through every area of pristine land? Until all the forests have been chopped down and transformed into urban and industrial sprawl? Can’t we contain ourselves with a little respect for the rest of the world? There are still people on this planet who enjoy living in the organic environment of nature, where electricity, motor vehicles, cells phones and I-pods aren’t a necessary aspect of life.They are able to survive, and thrive, quite well without all the modern accoutrements of modern life that we so desire, and many of them would like to remain as they are. And yet our attitude reveals an inner conviction that we have discovered â€Å"the way of the future† and must deliver this message in force to the rest of the world. Rather than continuing on our present course of a global takeover, we need to ask ourselves what we can learn from non-Westernized cultures that still live in ancient and earth-honoring ways, cultures that we tend to brutalize and greedily destroy.We need to learn to interact with these other cultures respectfully and humanely, allowing them their own way of life and sustenance upon this planet without interfering and coercing our interests and values upon them. Not everyone needs to drive a car on a freeway, to work in an office and live in a house in the city – if the 7,000,000,000 human beings now alive on the planet lived like this, our environmental devastation would likely expand exponentially.To expect a global conversion of all peoples in all places into an assimilation of our unique modern, technological way of life is stupid, insane and supremely unreasonable. However, like a big, proud, arrogant peacock strutting itself all over the planet, the United States continues making moves to engulf the globe with the gluttony of our own capitalistic enterprises, all the while disregarding and disrupting the dignity of other countries, cultures and peoples.Reflecting upon the impact of our very recent civilization upon other, much older, traditional and earth-based civilizations, as well as the planet itself, we should notice and consider the damages we have done, the violences we have perpetrated, and the miseries we have created †¦ We need to move beyond the Christian fantasy that we are a completely good and benign presence on the planet, that we are someho w â€Å"God’s chosen people† with a free pass to do whatever we want regardless of the consequences.We should think about how we can be less ego-centric, and seek to balance our technological advances with tending to the well-being of the earth, other cultures and one another. We should consider how to create more harmony in the world, and a little less profit. Indeed, many individuals and organizations are becoming increasingly devoted to a greater consciousness of how to live in ways that are â€Å"earth friendly. The overall pro-environmental movements are coming to be known as â€Å"green† movements, and they provide good and necessary developments toward a future in which humans could be of greater benefit than detriment to the planet. However, very much work and change remains to be done in this area. One problem inherent with these movements is that when we think about â€Å"saving the planet,† or â€Å"saving the polar bears,† we are still thinking abstractly. In truth, the planet was doing just fine before the advent of modern industry and technological society. Save the planet! † really means â€Å"Stop the humans from destroying the planet! † because we are only saving the planet from ourselves. Living our urban, fast-paced and machine-based lives, very few of us have time, energy or ability to keep gardens, raise livestock, hunt for our sustenance or otherwise live in any kind of experiential symbiosis with the planet. We live in suburban and citified concrete jungles where the animals have become cars, and the trees and forests are now banks, department stores and high rise apartment complexes.Because we have created our own processed environment of roads, cars, industry, buildings, malls, homes: an endless â€Å"urban sprawl† that houses an endless supply of manmade things; because we live in a world designed by capitalism, a world of incessant advertising, sales and the desperate, frantic p ursuit of material things – of production and products – a world molded and defined by television, radio and the chronic bombardment of salesmen; we rarely, if ever, experience an intimate connection with the natural world, with â€Å"the planet† we are hoping to save.Sure we can learn all about the planet, discovering the marvels of the earth in science magazines or through viewing compelling video footage of nature, we can learn all about the planet in schools, in laboratories or other second hand means, but until we have a sustained, direct encounter with the earth and nature itself, how can we truly know it, and what will it ever really mean to us? And how few of us will ever accomplish this?Indeed, as it now stands our â€Å"civilization† is composed of a people, and a culture, that have moved out of nature into man-created worlds based upon the destruction of nature †¦ and they call this evolution. Ultimately, it’s up to us to change the story, to write a new script, to realize who we are, what we have become, and to simply wake up to the realization of how we want our lives, and the life of our entire planet, to unfold †¦ So think about it, and let your thoughts permeate all that you do, for the existence of yourself and every other being around you may depend upon it.It’s both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their familiar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons’ lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an unknown situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings – as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potentially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, we’ve learned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans – we no longer live in the actual world, but in our own self-created worlds, via the latest form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to operate in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone – which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center – has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both persona l and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in our world?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological distractions and modes of external stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The underlying message of our media is commercial; in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the latest collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberat ion, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with one’s own true needs or sensibilities. However, it is the advertisers’ job to convince us otherwise.So far they are doing a pretty good job! The natural world, the earth itself; the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect – lest we forget – and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands of men.It’s sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno -vision of the ideal man-made life. It’s also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because we’d prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because we’ve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our expanded world of fellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and community – which is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, caring and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli – radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc – that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re-focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequent degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or awareness on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic; as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality – wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc – we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, raiding and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong – at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imperialistic drives – to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, â€Å"What right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the sake of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly affecting the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to search through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this topic (i. e. â€Å"An Inconvenient Truth†, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I learned that Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which emit high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing â€Å"third world† countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going â€Å"out of doors,† or allowing their children to play ou tside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the eroding of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and it’s become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for any length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, healthy to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection t o the earth dissipates.We become less the â€Å"caretakers of the earth,† or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaust inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature – those of us who are aware of it – with the heralding of a new age of technological transcendence. In comparison with all our own amazing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and above the earth – as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could begin to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive – or th rive – in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of being†¦This sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line with our reigning religion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a context of the goal of life, it’s no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions.It seems only the portended threat of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently. For if we are only to inhabit this earth for such a brief span of time – until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension – then what’s the big deal if we just abuse Her until we’re gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesn’t matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls â€Å"that can be saved,† and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal d

Managers confuse BSC means with the ends Essay

Intel can maximize the success of the balanced scorecard implement by designing and implementing if properly. Cooperation of all managers is crucial to the success of balance scorecard. Leadership within the organization should realize that balanced scorecard is not a project measure rather that it is a program of change. The leaders and managers will be expended to mobilize the people within the organization while launching the balance scorecard. Resistance is inevitable and the managers of Intel should ensure that the managers see the benefits they could reap out of the management system. For instance, managers in charge of more than one program/project will benefit from clarity when gauging performance. This is because he will be able to marry the desired outcomes with the organization strategies as a performance measure as opposed to the conventional on time and on budget measure previously used. The balance scorecard will help managers to defend their project performance based on facts rather than on speculation. More to that, organization strategy will be every persons job specifications thus more direction to employees effort will be raised. In the end, Intel will maximize its performance outcome significantly one thing to note is that the balance scorecard will be unique to the needs of Intel, meaning, the metrics used to measure the performance of Intel will also be decided by management. Recommendations The balanced scorecard implementation at Intel should occur first on a simulation or experimentation basis before been replicated to the whole organization. This is because the process itself requires adequate funding and the results of the implementation process may vary and sometimes fail to make valuable impact. Think of it as a piloting program. The situation is similar in other changes or projects undertaken within an organization, piloting is crucial companies, which have implemented balance scorecards voice certain challenges that Intel should be aware of for instance. Managers confuse BSC means with the ends. Other words, they confuse the investment of customers’ employees or suppliers with the goal while this is just a mean to improving performance of the organization. In instances where the concept of balance sco0recard has been misunderstood, it has been used to justify poor performance in financial terms. In other cases, managers confuse an excellent design scorecard and clear metrics with the absolute winning strategy. Often this has taken precedence over other equally important activities. Therefore, Intel should be to weary of repeating mistakes done by other companies and carefully deliberate and rethink the strategy of implementing the balance scorecard. The balanced scorecard is a suitable system that will benefit Intel greatly. A proper implementation plan should be developed alongside the designing of the balance scorecard. Additionally, support from staff and top level managers needs to be sought in order for the implementation process to be successful. REFERENCES Oorschot, A. H (2002). Developing a balanced Scorecard with System Dynamics. Available At:Http://Www. Minase. Nl/Pdf/balancced Pdf.. accessed on September 26, 2007. Bain & Company. (2002). Vencedoras Confirmadas. Hsm Management, Sao Paulo, Ano 6, N. 31, P. 138-142, MarcoAbril. Balance scorecard institute. What is a balanced scorecard? Available at www. balancedscorecard. org accessed on September 26, 2007. Dickinson, J. R. (2003) â€Å"The Feasibility Of The balanced Scorecard For Business Games. † Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning. Baltimore, Vol. 30, 2003, 90-98. Espstein, M. J & Wisner, P. S. (2001) â€Å"Increasing Corporate Accountability: The External Disclosure Of Balanced Scorecard Measures. † Balanced Scorecard Report. Harvard Business School Press, Vol. 3, 4, 10-3. Kaplan, R. S. & Norton, D. P. (2000) â€Å"Having Trouble With Your Strategy? Then Map It. † Harvard Business Review. Boston, Vol. 78, 5, Sept-Oct 2000b, 76-167. Kaplan, R.S. & Norton, D. P. (1993) Putting the Balanced Scorecard to Work. Harvard Business Review. Boston, Vol. 71, 5, 134-147 Kaplan, R. S. ; Norton, D. P. (1996) Using The Balanced Scorecard As A Strategic Management System. Harvard Business Review. Boston, Vol. 74, 1, 75-851996. Norton, D. P. (2001) Building Strategy Maps: Testing the Hypothesis. Balanced Scorecard Report. Harvard BusinessSchool Press, Vol. 3, 1, 1-4. Pray, T. F et al. (2003). Using the Balanced Scorecard To Improve Strategic Planning And Effective Decision Making Within Simulations. Developments In Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Baltimore, 30. Sauaia, A. (2001) â€Å"Evaluation Of Performance In Business Games: Financial and Non Financial Approaches. † Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, San Diego, vol. 27, 210-4. Kallas, D. & Sauaia, A. (2003) â€Å"Cooperate For Profits Or Compete For Market? Study of Oligopolistic Pricing with a Business Game. † Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Baltimore, V. 30, P. 232-242. Stewart, S. (2000) â€Å"ABC, The Balanced Scorecard And EVA. Distinguishing The Means From The End. † Evaluation, London, V. 1, 2. Young, S. D. & O’Byrne, S. F. (2001) EVA and Value-Based Management: A Practical Guide To Implementation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. 248. Hoque, Z. & James, W. (2000). Linking Balanced Scorecard Measures to Size and Market Factors: Impact on Organizational Performance. Journal of Management Accounting Research, 12, p. 1-17. Lipe, M. G. & Salterio, S. (2000). The Balanced Scorecard: Judgmental Effects of Common and Unique Performance Measures. The Accounting Review, 75, 3, p.283-298. Dilla, W. & Steinbart, P. (2005). Relative Weighting of Common and Unique Balanced Scorecard Measures by Knowledge Decision Makers. Behavioral Research in Accounting, 17, p. 43-53. Warner, M. (2001). Comparative management: critical perspectives on business management. London, Routledge publishers. Sunden, J. & Stralton (2006) Introduction To Mangment Accounting. London, Prentice hall. Kirkegaad, H. (1997). Improving Accounting Reliability: Solvency, Insolvbency And Future Cash Flows. Westport, ct. quorum books publishers.

death peanalty essays

death peanalty essays Capital punishment is defined as the legal infliction of the death penalty and has been part of the criminal justice system since the earliest of times. Over the years, there have been many standards for the execution of the death penalty. In modern law the death penalty is corporal punishment in its most sever form. Today, the common arguments for the death penalty are that, it is a deterrent. It goes along with the bible. It satisfies the publics need for retribution. Popular author John Grisham even states that the death penalty can relieve the anguish of the family. However, because it does not do these things, the death penalty is racist, barbaric, and in violation with the United States constitution, as cruel and unusual punishment. Although laws governing the death penalty have undergone many changes since the biblical times, the punishment stands, and controversy has never been greater. The first main thing that I am going to argue is that the death penalty serves as a deterrent. This is perhaps, for advocates of the death penalty, their favorite argument. Just the thought that you could receive the death penalty is supposed to be enough to stop someone from murdering another individual. In a report for congress, Suzanne Cacanaugh said that many people have attempted to prove this theory, but there is no evidence to show that capital punishment deters crimes any more than long prison terms do. In another argument advocates of the death penalty also refer to the bible. Genesis 9:6 states, whoever sheds mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed. This classic argument in favor of the penalty has usually been interpreted as a proper and moral reason for killing a murderer. Those who are for the death penalty, also often quote An eye for an eye. Both of these quotes imply that it is the murderers own fault for being on death row and he or she deserves to die. Supp...

Bay Of Pigs Invasion Essays - CubaUnited States Relations

Bay Of Pigs Invasion Essays - CubaUnited States Relations Bay Of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion. The story of the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs is one of mismanagement, overconfidence, and lack of security. The blame for the failure of the operation falls directly in the lap of the Central Intelligence Agency and a young president and his advisors. The fall out from the invasion caused a rise in tension between the two great superpowers and ironically, years after the event, the person that the invasion meant to topple, Fidel Castro, is still in power. To understand the origins of the invasion and its ramifications for the future it is first necessary to look at the invasion and its origins. The Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961, started a few days before on April 15th with the bombing of Cuba by what appeared to be defecting Cuban air force pilots. At 6 a.m. in the morning of that Saturday, three Cuban military bases were bombed by B-26 bombers. The airfields at Camp Libertad, San Antonio de Los Baos, and Antonio Maceo airport at Santiago de Cuba were fired upon. Seven people were killed at Libertad, and forty-seven people were killed at other sites on the island. Two of the B-26s left Cuba and flew to Miami, apparently to defect to the United States. The Cuban Revolutionary Council, the government in exile, in New York City released a statement saying that the bombings in Cuba were . . . carried out by 'Cubans inside Cuba' who were 'in contact with' the top command of the Revolutionary Council . . . . The New York Times reporter covering the story alluded to something being wrong with the whole situation when he wondered how the council knew the pilots were coming if the pilots had only decided to leave Cuba on Thursday after . . . a suspected betrayal by a fellow pilot had precipitated a plot to strike . . . .. Whatever the case, the planes came down in Miami later that morning, one landed at Key West Naval Air Station at 7:00 a.m. and the other at Miami International Airport at 8:20 a.m. Both planes were badly damaged and their tanks were nearly empty. On the front page of The New York Times the next day, a picture of one of the B-26s was shown along with a picture of one of the pilots cloaked in a baseball hat and hiding behind dark sunglasses, his name was withheld. A sense of conspiracy was even at this early stage beginning to envelop the events of that week. In the early hours of April 17th the assault on the Bay of Pigs began. As in the spirit of a movie, the assault began at 2 a.m. with a team of frogmen going ashore with orders to set up landing lights to indicate to the main assault force the precise location of their objectives, as w ell as to clear the area of anything that may impede the main landing teams when they arrived. At 2:30 a.m. and at 3:00 a.m. two battalions came ashore at Playa Girn and one battalion at Playa Larga beaches. The troops at Playa Girn had orders to move west, northwest, up the coast and meet with the troops at Playa Larga in the middle of the bay. A small group of men were then to be sent north to the town of Jaguey Grande to secure it as well. When looking at a modern map of Cuba it is obvious that the troops would have problems in the area that was chosen for them to land at. The area around the Bay of Pigs is a swampy marsh land area which would be hard on the troops. The Cuban forces were quick to react and Castro ordered his T-33 trainer jets, two Sea Furies, and two B-26s into the air to stop the invading forces. Off the coast were the command and control ship and another vessel carrying supplies for the invading forces. The Cuban air force made quick work of the supply ships, sinking the command vessel, the Marsopa, and the supply ship the Houston, blasting them to pieces with five-inch rockets.

Australia’s legal system

Australias legal system Disclaimer: This work has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work produced by our Law Essay Writing Service . You can view samples of our professional work here . Australia’s legal system Australia’s legal system also known as ‘Common law system’ is based on the model which was inherited by those countries whose development was influenced by British Colonialism in particular the commonwealth countries and the U.S. Under the Australian legal system all people whether domestic or international are treated equally before the law and safeguards to ensure the unfairly judgment by government or officials. Australian courts work on ‘adversarial’ system, which innate within the English legal system. This system comprise of two parties presenting their case against each other, where the third party known as judge or magistrate presides the case directly. Whereas in the adversarial system, witness is not handled by the judge directly. The judge listens to each side’s discussions and after the cross-examination of witnesses by both sides then only the judge makes the decision. But in other countries like France In France, ‘inquisitorial’ system of courts operate, where the judge plays an active role in examining evidence and questioning witnesses. The Australian Constitution Australia operates in a constitutional monarchy. At a federal (Commonwealth) level, the first institution of law in Australia is the Commonwealth Constitution. The Constitution comprise of rules which controls the power, authority and operation of a Parliament. In Australia, each State has its own constitution. The Commonwealth Constitution consists of federal government, the federal parliament, and the federal courts, the territories, and the creation of new states. Thus, the Commonwealth Constitution is the fundamental document of empowerment in the Australian political and legal systems. It establishes that, where the Commonwealth and a State pass conflicting laws, any valid Commonwealth law trumps (overpowers) the State legislation. States can pass laws on any subject matter. The federal govern ment has the power to enact legislation about certain areas given by the Constitution. In activities such as marriage, immigration and taxation the Commonwealth has the power to order the law. But in the buying and selling of property and criminal laws constitutional capacity of the Commonwealth Parliament could not do anything. Division of Powers â€Å"The law making powers which are not stated in the constitution as belonging to the commonwealth remains with the state†. A federation involves a division of powers between the constituent elements in Australia that is between the States and the federal body, the Commonwealth of Australia. One of the most important roles of the constitution is the division of powers between the Federal and state legislatures. The constitution confers a limited number of exclusive powers such as defence, foreign trade and immigration etc but most of the Commonwealth’s powers, granted under s. 51, are concurrent powers. These powers can be exercised by the Commonwealth and the states but, in the event of conflict, the Commonwealth law will prevail (s. 109). Powers which are not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, residual powers remain with the States. Seperation of powers Governing Australia needs lots of power. The Constitution says that this power is divided between three groups of people so they can balance each other. Each group checks the power of the other two. This division of power stops one person or group of people taking over all the power to govern Australia.