Getting My Blog On In 106

Monday, October 15, 2007

Possible Research Topics

1) Should imports of foreign cars or other foreign products be limited or restricted by law? (Business Audience, Consumers)

2) Have the large salaries of professional athletes had a negative impact on the athletes or the sports? (Anyone who watches professional sports)

3) To what extent should individuals have the protection of the law and the assistance of the medical establishment in terminating their own lives? (Psychology, Medical)

Plan for revision

1) Make the paper flow a better using meta commentary
2) Adjust the perspective of the paper, it is a little too business orientated in my mind.
3) Include more quotes, and reference the sources better.
4) Insert a Naysayer

CHANGED TOPIC

Decided that I'll write about Wal-Mart and their negative effect on small business in america, and also on their widely criticized business ethics

I think this may sound a little too much from the business aspect...let me know what you guys think.

The capitalistic ideals that Wal-Mart pushes are first-rate for business. But, when those principles are forced upon the naive of the small business world there is nothing but desolation for those who are trying to fight for the best of capitalism. Sure they are the largest company in the world, but one can argue they simply wield their power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. Until Wal-Mart takes another look at where their current business strategies lie, they will always be known as the company that tolerates the high costs of low prices.

These issues are a problem in every neighborhood across the country that has a Wal-Mart nearby. Due to the fact that they promise “Everyday Low Prices” they have set themselves up to continue in this downward spiraling effect. According to Charles Fishman of FastCompany.com, the retailer has a obvious policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change in model from year to year, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year (Fishman, 68). But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to put a stranglehold on dispensation from vendors. For most small companies and even many larger vendors to survive the price demands, they have been forced into laying off employees and closing U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas. So not only is Wal-Mart putting large vendors in a squeeze, all of the Mom and Pop stores across the nation are being forced out by ruthless competition.

Another issue that is being met with strong opposition from those fighting for fair and honest capitalism is the unfair treatment of Wal-Mart employees. It’s a pretty well known fact that they focus on trying to hire those looking for a first job or senior citizen employees. This is because Wal-Mart does not look to provide all the health care benefits and other standard benefits normally seen in Mom and Pop stores. If they were to provide real benefits consumers would the face the obvious price hike to their in-store product, instead of the “Everyday Low Prices.” The current prices that the consumer is faced with today are due to the lack of fair and legitimate benefits that employees of Wal-Mart have been faced with forever.

With those issues being the most imperative Wal-Mart needs to look at what they can do to try and find the balance between the worst of capitalism and the best. To help tackle the issue of outsourcing and forcing companies out of town, they can look to a few different options. If Wal-Mart were to start expanding their current vendor base and look to more innovative and growing companies and actually used their global name recognition to help these smaller companies grow they would be looked at as more of a goodwill company. What better way to start a positive streak of news in your name then to show the world you are in fact interested in supporting the Mom and Pops of America (Hanft). Not only will you help another business, some sort of referral system could be set up due to the provided support, which could only lead to even more growth for the largest company in the world.

Now faced with scrutiny about their current employee treatment and labor situations out of the country Wal-Mart needs to do something to calm to storm. One choice could be to open up their business to the world as much as possible. Currently Wal-Mart more often then not denies comment on so many questions from reporters that if they were to start answering and defending themselves with the honest truth they would be seen a little higher in the capitalistic world. The most important factor that Wal-Mart must learn and value is that they must stop treating their employees like commodities. If it weren’t for their employees—which most of the time are also parts of their loyal customer base—they would be nothing. The least they can do is to provide some sort of benefit plan to help support them. They also need to change the way employment is looked at in their company. Very few people actually go into a Wal-Mart for their first or second jobs planning on growing as an individual and turning into a long lasting career path, and that is what Wal-Mart must change in order for them to be respected in the business world.

Overall, Wal-Mart does not practice the best of capitalism; instead they have been only focused on running small companies out and delivering the best prices possible. To the untrained eye, one would think that Wal-Mart is a fantastic enterprise that is doing everything in its power to help our economy and deliver fair prices to consumers. But in reality they are accepting trade offs that an honest company looking to better society and the capitalistic world would never consider taking part of.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Bibliography for Violence

American Psychological Association. (2003, February 19).
 Violence in the media - psychologists help
 protect children. Retrieved October 3, 2007,
 from APA Web site:http://www.psychologymatters.org/mediaviolence.html

Brown, K., & Hamilton, C. (n.d.). The influence of violent
 media on children and adolescents: A public health
 approach. Retrieved October 1, 2007, from ProQuest database.

Hatch, O. G., & Majority Staff, Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
 (1999, September 14). Children, violence, and the media.
 Retrieved October 3, 2007, from United States Senate Web
 site: http://judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/mediavio.htm

Surgeon General. (n.d.). Appendix 4-B: Media violence exposure
 and content. In Youth violence: A report of the Surgeon General.
 Retrieved October 3, 2007, from http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/
 library/youthviolence/chapter4/appendix4bsec2.html#MajorBehavioralMedia/

Summary of First Source

From a public-health perspective, there is support that violent imagery has short-term effects on arousal, thoughts, and emotions, increasing the likelihood of aggressive or fearful behavior. However, the research does not correlate as well with older children and teenagers in this case. The research that discusses sex differences, suggests that boys are more likely to show aggression after viewing violent media than girls. That is something that had always been a long argued topic because many feel that boys are naturally more aggressive and therefore more likely to be influenced by violent subjects. Long-term outcomes for children viewing media violence are more controversial, mostly because of the practical difficulties in linking behavior with past viewing. Theories of aggression have been used to explain these effects have predicted a stronger influence of media violence for those with a predisposition for aggressive behavior because of their disposition or situational factors like growing up inside a violent home environment or even both. However, there is only weak evidence from correlation studies linking media violence directly to crime, but certainly enough to be able to claim that media violence does have some sort of negative effect on children and their development.

I don’t necessarily agree with their findings for a number of reasons. I myself grew up pretty well exposed to everything on TV, movies, and videogames including violence. But I cannot honestly say that at any time I felt inclined to imitate what I had seen on TV. If at all, it would be more likely to see me trying to fly like superman or dunk a basketball like Michael Jordan. So I guess from there you can at least make the assumption that media will always have an effect on child development because when we are young it is a “Monkey see, monkey do” attitude, but I don’t think that’s enough to jump to saying violence on TV is the only factor that makes children violent. But don’t get me wrong, I understand exactly what the author is saying, and he also doesn’t feel that media is the only attribute to violence. He also points out how other factors such as environment or a previous disposition, but my response is more to those out there who feel like media is the real villain in the exposition of violence to our children.