The Cold War Essay example -- History, Global Power

The second World War brought untold suffering to million across the globe, but it also launched the United States into the position of a superpower for the next 50 years. With the utter destruction of nations across Europe, Africa, and Asia, both winners and losers, America easily assumed a dominant position in the coming international system and captured the ability to reconstruct the world using its high democratic ideals. The United States was the most powerful nation in the world. It is said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and with postwar America it was no different. Given the unilateral power to spread its ideals of self-determination, liberty, equality, and individualism; America instead effectively subverted these principles not only around the world, but domestically as well. The unlimited global power and Cold War paranoia of the postwar years to the assassination of John F. Kennedy proved a fatal mixture to American ideals. As World War II came to a close, the Uni ted States gained the world as the most powerful country on earth; But to maintain this power it sadly reverted to the imperalism abraod and the Red Scare at home; its reversion made her loose her soul. These hypocritical actions and policies shaped a new world not set by democratic and liberal ideals of FDR’s â€Å"Four Points,† but by the power motivated creeds of repression, greed, and violence. In the race to fill the power vacuum created by World War II, the United States abandoned its civic nationalist tradition to compete with the Soviet Union and ensure its economic and political dominance around the globe. If the 18 years after the war saw unprecedented levels of U.S. power and growth around the world, it also witnessed the deterioration of the cou... ...or the rights of humankind as it claimed, but to dominant the globe in all aspects and destroy all competition. The story of the United States after World War II is one of triumph and tragedy. After almost two centuries of proclaiming liberty and freedom, the country finally had the power to pursue those ideals across the globe. Unfortunately, as the U.S. gained more power it also lost its soul, relying on policies of self interest to expand and maintain its new dominance instead of harnessing its authority to improve the world. These policies accomplished the opposite of the traditional American ideals of self-determination and liberty, instead creating an atmosphere of fear at home and a system of imperialism abroad. It is only by accepting this failure can one stop the United States’ continued policy of self interest and try to regain its great soul of freedom.

Hall of Fame (Essay/Response)

Earlier in the year I presented a speech that was about believing in yourself and pursuing your dreams. Shortly after I did that, a song called ‘The Hall Of Fame’ by a band called The Script, featuring a rapper from the pop group The Black Eyed Peas, Will. I. Am, was released on the 19th of August 2012, and has been in the Top 100 Billboard charts since then. The lyrics in this song really motivates me in so many ways, and just inspires me to reach higher, and strive harder everyday. The three phrases that were used repeatedly in these song lyrics were ‘You can’, ‘You Could’, and ‘Do it’.These constant sayings in the song are the words that motivate me the most. ‘You can’, because you can do anything. â€Å"You can be the greatest, You can be the best, You can be the king kong banging on your chest. †, are the first 3 lyrics that are sung, telling you that if you want to be somewhere great in your life, you can a chieve it. That ‘can’ is letting you know that it is possible, anything is possible, and that it is achievable. ‘You could’, because with your belief, you could achieve the greatest record, with your belief. You could go the distance, You could run the mile, You could walk straight through hell with a smile. † These are another 3 lyrics that are sung in the second verse of the song. This ‘could’ Is telling you the possibilities that are open for you to take a chance in, letting you know that the world records that you think can never be broken, could be broken, with your effort & faith. ‘Do it’, because you only live once, and may never get the chance again. â€Å"Do it for your people, Do it for your pride†¦ Do it for your country, Do it for your name. The ‘Do it’ is telling you to make your people proud, to prove your haters wrong, and to do it for yourself, your diginity. â€Å"Dedicate yourself and you can find yourself standing in the hall of fame. † In my personal opinion, it’s one thing if you have a dream and want to pursue it, but you have to dedicate yourself. Working hard at not what you want, but what you need. This lyric lets me know that if I believe in something, put my best efforts into it, and keep a smile on my face, with great possibility I can be standing in the hall of fame.When they say ‘Standing In the Hall Of Fame’, I don’t necessarily think it means being a celebrity or being famous, but being the best you can be, in a ‘hall’ as they like to call it, which to my imagination, is a hallway filled with records broken, and names to remember. The reason why I like this song so much is that I can easily relate it to my normal life. And I’m sure not only mine, but to plenty others too. It makes me feel better about myself in such a way that I know that anything is possible.Everyone has a goal, or a dream whether i t’s losing a few pounds for summer or breaking and Olympic record, everyone has one. Having a goal is the greatest way to get somewhere you want, because a goal paints a picture in your mind of what you want and need, and I can honestly say that when I picture myself being onstage, and daydream about working with my favourite producers, it gives me an motivational boost that tells me, ‘it’s possible. ’ But imagining things isn’t the only way I can keep motivated, listening to music keeps me motivated.And with this particular song being released, it is a mash of the two, which is why it’s so inspirational to me, and it’s also why I am writing a response to it at this moment. â€Å"Be students Be teachers Be politicians Be preachers Be believers Be leaders Be astronauts Be champions Be true seekers† This repetition is what caught my ears the most in this song. That persuasive ‘Be’ makes you just want to get up and do something. The vocals they use in the song while singing these enhance even more, it’s as if they are chanting for you to do it, it makes you feel like you’re in a stadium having people cheer you on to pursue your dream.It’s giving you that motivation and support which you might not be able to find at home or at school. One last thing I would like to elaborate on, is when the lyric reads, ‘Don’t wait for luck. ’ It’s pretty much a way of saying, don’t be lazy. Which is an excellent example of why teenagers today aren’t achieving much. It’s because they get lazy. I’ve met so many people around my age who have huge dreams and goals, but they never get anywhere because they are just waiting for something to happen. In order to get what you want, you need to fight.

Edocs, Inc. †Case questions

3. The most important terms for edocs founder Kevin Laracey to further discuss in future negotiations will be the following: †¢ The valuation proposed by the Venture Capital investors, a number that could easily be inflated by shopping the deal around as the venture capital market is booming. †¢ The Board of Directors provision, as Mr. Laracey wants to make sure that in the first years of the Company he will remain CEO, and that the co-founders of edocs will be part of it as well. †¢ The share vesting schedule, which Mr. Laracey feels represents a lack of faith by the Venture Capital Investors in them. †¢ The Anti-dilution and Right of First Refusal which in essence binds edocs to future and larger equity participations from CRV. †¢ The warrants issue subject to the availability of other VC investors. This clause is troublemsome for the CEO of edocs because it will cause further dilution of his his colleagues stakes in the Company. 4. As for Charles River Ven tures, Mr. Guerster has essentially two main things in mind regarding the term sheet: †¢ The board composition, because he feels that Mr. Canekeratne is not suitable to be a board member as he will bring no added value to the company, and a large board of directors is not feasible. †¢ The warrants issue that Mr. Guerster feels is an appropriate penalty for edocs if they cannot find other investors to do the deal with. 5. edocs is searching for venture capital financing in 1998, a vibrant year for the market. Furthermore, the term sheet that was presented to them was quite investor friendly, with some strict provisions that unnecessarily burden the entrepreneurs. In short, edocs can and should negotiate some of the terms presented to them by CRV. First of all edocs is aware that if it shopped the deal around it could get a higher valuation and the provision to include the employee share option pool in the valuation seems too onerous. An acceptable compromise between committing to CRV and to dilute their stake so much in the beginning would be to exclude the option pool from the valuation. This would change the VC’s stake from 38% to 33%. May not seem like a respectable sum at first, but it may be relevant to encourage future financiers. The lower the A round investor’s stake, the better. Another provision that should be altered is the board composition. As it was mentioned before, this is bound to be one of the most contentious issues between the entrepreneur and the VC. The founders argue that all 3 of them should be on the steering wheel after the investment, while CRV insists on having a small board of directors with as many board representatives as the founders (2 and 2). It is likely that the founders will have to cave in on this issue because it’s not likely that they would get better terms elsewhere. Even if it is unreasonable to put the 3 founders of the company on the board, as the VC will not want it to have a founder majority, at least Mr. Laracey should be granted a place as a CEO for a fixed amount of time. In a very early stage it is important for the Company to have the guidance of someone who founded and knows the business by heart. Perhaps more importantly we have the warrants provision. There is a rational economic reasoning behind this provision. If CRV cannot find another party to invest in the Company thi s will mean two things: investors are not willing to bet on the success of edocs which sends a negative signal to CRV, and it will result in an undiversification of its portfolio and consquently more risk. CRV will consequently want a compensation for this extra risk and the warrants are apparently the answer. We have to take edocs’ position into account though. As we will see later they have negogiating leverage and as such are in a position to change the provision. On the other hand, the clause at the least creates some perverse incentives for CRV. If CRV is or turns out to be confident about the future success of edocs it will not try to look for additional investors and will just cash in the cheap warrants. As such, and to make the term sheet a little more Company favorable we believe that the side letter should not be included in it. In conclusion in a time where a large inflow of capital to VC funds is pushing valuations up, edocs has an opportunity to use that leverage to, while not explicitly shopping around the deal, eliminate the provisions that dilute their shareholdings excessively and to have some control of the Company during its first years. From the preceding discussion we can conclude that the term sheet is more investor friendly –i. e. CRV friendly- than company friendly –i. e. favorable for edocs. Therefore, in the negotiation process the venture capitalists have more to lose when the terms of the deals after negotiation, giving edocs more power in turn. Also, from Exhibit 18-8 we can tell that the commitments of venture capitalists have been increasing exponentially over the past years. From this we can conclude that there are many potential VCs out there who might very well be willing to finance edocs at more favorable terms, giving the latter again more bargaining power in the negotiation process. Laracey, Moran, and Canekeratne have done an extensive study on the competitive landscape in the electronic payment and bill presentment services market. They identified several (potential) competitors such as IBM, MSFDC, Checkfree, International Billing Services, and document services. Compared to edocs these firms are more established and are active in the market for a longer period of time, nonetheless they are all largely competing for the same clientele. In order to outperform these parties edocs builds on many different key elements. First of all it offers advantages to the billing entity in the sense that it allows them to differentiate from their competitors’ â€Å"print only† offerings. From a cost perspective, edocs allows for significant savings in terms of document delivery, processing, remittance, and printing costs. Also, the service will be beneficial for the customer who receives the bills. They can push the documents to the preferred e-mail package, and bill payment will be easier and not as time-consuming. Especially, the technological and strategic partnership with CyberCash will allow for â€Å"one-click† bill payment. The main point at which edocs differs from its competitors is that edocs is offered as a software product, whereas the competitors mainly offer Internet document production and delivery as a service. The founders figured that competitors had a hard time gaining acceptance for these service-only offerings, since customers are concerned about third parties standing in between the biller and the customer. Also, the fact that Laracey, Moran, and Canekeratne had access to cheap software development personnel in Sri Lanka allowed them to differentiate themselves from their competitors, because edocs software was now developed both more quickly and cheaper than competitors could develop the software. Edocs can also be compared to similar firms from a financial point of view. Exhibit 18-6 gives an overview of financial data of comparable firms. However, it must be noted that it is questionable to what extent these firms are all really comparable to edocs. More specifically, IBM and Xerox are much more established, mature firms. Documentum and Document Sciences are, like edocs, both young firms, because they only reveal sales data as of 1995. Checkfree is the only start-up in this context that is not making profit so when wanting to do a relative valuation, using multiples that include net income does not make much sense. Hence, in order to come up with an implied valuation for edocs, we propose to do a multiple valuation, including the average market value-to-sales multiple of comparable start-up firms as a relevant measure to compute the value of edocs. Appendix A gives an overview as to how we came up with this number. As said before, we disregarded the data from IBM and Xerox because these firms are in a much more mature phase than edocs. Subsequently, we computed the average MV-to-sales multiple for Documentum, Document Sciences and Checkfree over the period of 1994 to 1997. Next, this number was multiplied with each of the sales forecasts under the â€Å"target performance scenario†(retrieved from Exhibit 18-4). Averaging the value of the period between 1998 and 2002 leaves us then with an implied value of $268. 3 million.