To the board of the Renaissance University Essay Example for Free

To the board of the Renaissance University Essay I am writing this recommendation letter on behalf of Adam Levine. Adam’s life revolves around his band and music. The experience and passion Adam holds are powerful qualities in his favor. He is a zealous music coach and musician. He helps his students and team on The Voice by inspiring them and pushing them to sing outside of their comfort zone and to explore different genres. He challenges young musicians and singers to grow as artists and helps them explore who they are as performers. Adam is young and talented himself, and because of that he communicates well with younger students. Adam Levine is a well-rounded, independent person. Not only is Adam famous for his musical talents he has branched out into television, starting from a comedic role on Saturday Night Live to his fulltime role as a judge on the reality show The Voice. Adam has struggled his whole life with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He started a world-wide project known as â€Å"The Own It Project†, which is his way of encouraging young adults and adults to tell their story about how they deal with ADHD. Adam also is a big supporter of lesbian and gay rights (LGBT) and strongly believes it is something you are born with. His brother, Michael, is openly gay which the family has known about since Michael was two years old. Adam Levine has worked hard to gain confidence and overcome an in-born shyness he had since he was a little boy. His love of music, family, and friends has shaped him to be the man he is today. Adam now exhibits a personality so lively and outgoing that people are enamored by his entertaining qualities. In my eyes Adam has a very gentle personality. People are drawn to him, because he radiates warmth and a caring nature. Adam is the peacemaker on The Voice, always making an effort to find the good in the contestant’s performances, rather than being too critical of their mistakes. People sense Adams desire for a loving and spiritual environment. Adam may not have had strength when he was younger for the music business, but he has proved himself to be able to do anything he sets his mind to. Yours truly, ______________

Comparing Do not go gentle into that good night and When I consider how

Comparing Dylan Thomas's poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and John Milton's poem When I consider How My Light Is Spent Dylan Thomas's poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" and John Milton's poem "When I consider how my light is spent" were written during times of trouble in their respective poet's life. Thomas was faced with losing his father to death; Milton was dealing with becoming completely blind at the age of forty-three. As each poet struggles to deal with the crisis occurring in his life, he makes a statement about the relationship between mankind and God, the reasons that God gives and then takes away certain gifts, and the proper way to live life. Thomas and Milton ended up with contrasting answers to these fundamental questions about life. The poets' use of personal events in their lives as a topic and their use of the personal pronouns "I" and "my" resolve possible questions of voice in both poems. Because Thomas refers directly to "my father" (line 6) and Milton opens his poem with the line "When I consider how my light is spent" (1), the reader can, with some basic knowledge of the history of each poem, reasonably assume that the poet and the speaker are interchangeable. Both Thomas and Milton chose to share their private thoughts on intensely personal matters with the world through their poems. By drawing from their own experiences, the poets give these works a tone that resonates with the reader because he/she can connect the words of the poem with his/her own life. Thomas and Milton present contrasting views of the relationship between mankind and God or the inevitable events of life. Thomas sees humans as having some degree of control; his father may not be able to live forever, bu... ...erent men at very different points in history, but both poets were struggling with difficult situations and trying to decide how they should react. Although their final conclusions are completely opposite , the raw emotion behind each poem resonates with the reader whether the poem is 45 or 345 years old. The human struggle to understand life, regret, and why God gives and withholds certain gifts will continue as long as humanity exists; each person who considers these questions will come to his/her own personal conclusions just as Thomas and Milton did. Works Cited: Milton, John. "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Compact Edition. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Longman, 2000. Thomas, Dylan. â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.† Literature and Ourselves. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1997.

Merrill Lynch-Bank of America Merger

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that focuses on the moral, philosophical characteristics from formal, systematic and ethical principles. Moral judgments are calculated from ethical principles which need to be applied as a standard for everyday choices in life and business. This is directly related to the decisions human beings make. Cavico (2009) states utilitarianism is more than just moral philosophy. It is a way of reformation and used extensively in government decision making. This will be discussed further in the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch merger.Utilitarianism is considered a scientific system of ethics and not just a philosophical theory of ethics. Utilitarian ethics follows the belief of maximizing the greatest good for the largest number of people. As utilitarianism is identified, one needs to learn that the greatest good could be based on aggregate principle or a distributive principle. The Bank of America-Merrill Lynch merger will be assessed in regards to who, what an d how the greater good will be affected in this merger. Within utilitarianism, a moral philosophy is developed that focuses on the consequences of specific actions.An action is done, then observed and then analyzed. After identifying all the people that were involved, one needs to ask the question, â€Å"Do the sum of good consequences outweigh the sum of the bad consequences? † Quantify all the good and bad consequences in the scenario and if the good consequences are greater than the bad consequences then the action was moral and vice versa. In this paper, the actions of the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch merger will be discussed, evaluated and quantified with the Richard DeGeorge Utilitarian perspective.Pinpointing the stakeholders in this case will show who was direct and indirectly affected and how they were affected. Furthermore, it will be discussed the overall affect it had on society from a global perspective, reaction from competitive markets and the economic impact it created within the United States and worldwide. Critical points and actions will dominate the course of action on how utilitarian ethics was applied in this situation. Identifying the individual people or groups that were in this scenario will be evaluated on a pleasure v. ain scale where it will show the extent of good or bad in the situation and the possible outcomes that followed. The pleasure v. pain comparison will then be quantified on a grading scale that represents extreme pleasures and pains in Bank of America-Merrill Lynch merger. After totaling up the good and the bad points, it will determine if the actions in this merger were moral. In late 2008, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch were in negotiations for a business deal. Bank of America was going to buy Merrill Lynch for one of the largest bank mergers and acquisitions in the world.On the surface, Bank of America thought the merger was a good idea and a good business deal to pursue. Former Chief Executive of Bank of America, Kenneth Lewis, and the board of Bank of America saw this business deal as a way to expand into different sectors of the financial markets and strengthen many of its counterparts. With all the extensive financial records of both companies and balance sheet assessments, the deal looked great for smooth sailing. Catastrophically, the deal went through and contributed towards a massive failure in our financial markets that affected and crippled everyone worldwide.The private deal that once seemed so good has now become a nightmare. All of a sudden, the government has stepped in and has announced it will give twenty billion dollars in assistance from tax payer’s money. Investors and the public were shocked something of this magnitude was happening and felt betrayed, cheated and crippled. Within all the mayhem, the actions that will be evaluated come from Merrill Lynch and Bank of America and their failures to disclose pertinent financial information that would have shown greater losses than expected.United States (2009) stated the lack of transparency to investors and to the public showed that there was a negative atmosphere among them that they feared to disclose from the public. In addition to this, rumors circulated that the government had ties to this merger and flexed its power in order to make the merger happen. There were a great amount of people affected in this merger. Merrill Lynch as a company was being bought out in order to be saved financially. Merrill Lynch’s investors, shareholders and CEO, John Thain were a part of this corporation.Bank of America was the number one candidate for purchasing Merrill Lynch at the time. Bank of America’s investors, shareholders and CEO, Kenneth Lewis were all a part of this major merger. United States (2009) includes the Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson and Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke were on the governmental side of this merger that apparently knew what was going on and forcefully made Bank of America buyout Merrill Lynch. This merger can also contribute to affecting the general public, global economies cross the world and the financial banking industry. As this case develops, there is uncertainty that Merrill Lynch and former CEO, John Thain, have to reveal massive amounts of losses and at one point a fourth quarter loss of fifteen billion dollars. In response, former CEO of Bank of America, Kenneth Lewis analyzes this and decides it may not be a good idea to pursue the merger. Secretively, the Fed, Paulson and Bernanke force Lewis to buy into the deal because if he doesn’t this could create a complete and total meltdown of the financial systems.Utilitarian ethics was used by considering the global economy; the government had to step in to minimize the blow as best as they could to help the greater good of society. In addition to this, there has been speculation that if Lewis hides these huge losses before the merger and reveals the m after the merger he could gain more government help in regards to the massive hit Bank of America now faces. Although the economy is in a meltdown and financial banks are getting hit harder than ever before, this merger may prove to save some of our largest financial institutions and lessen the blow of a complete loss for the global economy.On one spectrum of the scale we have the financial banks abusing high leverage investments in order to gain more money without caring about negative consequences but then on the other hand, the nation is faced with minimizing damages and saving as much as it can because in a result of total loss, the public could be in a greater state economic loss. With Merrill Lynch being saved and Bank of America taking on the bigger role of keeping afloat, Merrill Lynch now has the opportunity to be bought out and saved compared to total collapse and bankruptcy.In this case, it was a smart move for Merrill Lynch to be acquired by Bank of America and a fores eeable good in the future of the financial markets. Kenneth Lewis took the daunting task of acquiring Merrill Lynch and the bad debt expense that the company brought with it. Acquiring Merrill Lynch would provide a huge blow to Bank of America at first but restructuring and getting government help in the merger would prove to be a successful task that would provide foreseeable good in the future. Some people believe that Paulson and Bernanke used their governmental power to make this merger happen.Bank of America’s Acquisition (2009) states they forced Kenneth Lewis to buyout Merrill Lynch and if not Kenneth Lewis and the board of Bank of America would have been terminated. Although this may have been a threatening action, it was in the government’s best interest to make this merger go through or a total collapse of the financial markets would be devastating for the American population and further seep into global chaos. It is a very tough situation to assess but follo wing Utilitarianism considered the greater good of the population and this needed to be done.In addition to this, individual investors were hit very hard with the downturn of the economy. In many cases, people lost more than fifty percent of their investments which sounds terrible but comparing it to a nongovernmental bailout, those individuals would be left with nothing. In this research study, it is needed to define the severity of good and bad consequences for each individual or group that was affected in this case on a numerical grading scale. Each individual or group will be considered according to the Richard DeGeorge Utilitarian approach.The scale will be ranked from +5 being the best and -5 being the worst situation from a pleasure versus pain standpoint. Merrill Lynch being bought out by Bank of America is more of a good thing. Ranking it at +2 gives Merrill Lynch and Bank of America merger the positive side because without this merger people would be in greater amounts of trouble. Ranking a +1 for investors and shareholders of each company provides a positive side of this outcome. Although investors did lose over fifty percent of investments into the companies, this loss is better than losing everything that was invested.Other financial markets were consolidated and restructured. By getting rid of bad assets, other financial institutions could start over and reinvest in the proper markets. This was also a learning lesson for the financial industry and for them to never repeat these careless mistakes again. A rank of +3 will be given to the financial markets. Hank Paul and Ben Bernanke did prove to show excessive force in making this merger happen but only in regards to saving the U. S. economy and limiting the blow that it could’ve potentially produced.Giving the government a ranking of +2 shows they provided a better option for America and the possibility of avoiding a complete financial meltdown. Assessing our global economy by looking back at it over the past five years gives it a ranking of 0. This explains that as a country and globally, we have made minimal increases in our economy. One month says we are getting back on the right track while the next month says we are sinking deeper and deeper into recession. The economy shows a recovery in the stock arket one month but the next month there is speculation that the European markets are going to crash and take everyone with them. Living in these highly volatile times gives uncertainly and fear for most investors which hinders potential growth and recovery. After summing up all the pleasure and pain rankings, the total equals +8. This shows that amidst all the chaos, deceiving and cheating, the outcome created a positive effect that saved our economy as best as possible rather than let it sink and destroy everything.This tragic merger proves to be a morally correct standpoint regardless of the tough actions that were taken in order to achieve this outcome. No individu al cheated the system or manipulated the system in order to gain financial strength. It was in the best interest of the individual companies and the U. S. economy to keep them in tact or greater consequences could’ve occurred. Saving two of our largest banks provides us with a loss in investments but something that would be accepted rather than total and complete collapse of our financial systems.Primary Source: United States. (2009). Bank of America and Merrill Lynch: How did a private deal turn into a federal bailout? : joint hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, first session. Washington: U. S. G. P. O. Secondary Source: Bank of America’s Acquisition of Merrill Lynch: A â€Å"Shotgun Merger†?. (2009, June 16). My Bank Tracker. Retrieved August 4, 2012, from www. mybanktracker. com/news/2009/06/16/bank-of-americas-acquisition-of-merrill-l ynch-a-shotgun-merger/

Not Judge Others And I Should Forgive Essay - 727 Words

As a Christian, I have always been told that I should not judge others and I should forgive. As a Christian, one is also born in sin and that is why Jesus died on the cross. According to Luke 6:37-42, â€Å"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.† Basically, this scripture is reminding us to do unto others as you would like them to do unto you, and we should also respect each other’s lifestyles and decisions. For this reason, I believe that as a man, one should be able to live their life freely and one should not be punished or be feel oppressed because of their sexual orientation. We live in a diverse society that is comprised of different cultures, ethnicities, races, and religion. For that reason, one should not be forced to live by the Western ideology of femininity or masculinity. Oliver emphasizes that â€Å"if the predominant images and metaphors that circulate in Western political theory lead us to concretely understand our ourselves in these terms, then we are a social community with underdeveloped resources for representing and thereby negotiating love, cooperation, growth, and human flourishing† (Oliver 2004, 141). The Western ideology of masculinity molds and shapes in our men and society and causes ourShow MoreRelatedThe Characteristics Of Pride In Arthur Millers The Crucible1507 Words   |  7 Pagesinteract with each other and with certain events in the story. Pride isnt always a good characteristic to have and we see this as the trials continue even when most people realize that the whole idea is wrong and the people are innocent. 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