City Life

As a child growing up in a rural environment, that was the only life I knew and thought it was the best. Adulthood brings into focus maturity. I moved into the city, and came to the realization that I had to adjust to a different way of living, another transition of my life. I was very overwhelmed by hustle and all the excitement of the life that surrounded me. For this reason rural life and city life can be compared and contrasted in regards to cost, standard of living, accessibility and entertainment. Living in a rural environment gives one the sense of a community. Everyone becomes your family sharing concerns for each other, Neighbors can look out for each other and care for your property, less concerns among people for each other exist when living in the city, but as a result of busy schedules and time constraint it is understandable. The most noticeable difference between city life and rural life is cost. Living in the city is very expensive due to a higher demand of goods and services due to demographics in population. The basic necessities of life for example housing (rent or own) food consumption, utility bills, and to maintain that social standard can be overbearing, but there are better educational opportunities and wider range of professional government jobs and higher pay. Living in a rural area, the standard of living is inexpensive, there is a smaller population growth and the demand for goods and services is on a much smaller scale. In contrasting rural and city life, accessibility to services in the city is very easy. Taxicabs are readily available to take you to your destination of choice. Hospitals and emergency services are also readily available. In the rural areas, taxi cab service is not as prompt, often you have to wait for hours for a cab, or the journey to a hospital and access to other medical service will take a much longer time due to poor road conditions. Entertainment forms a part of everyday living and there is so much to do in the city. There are fancy shopping areas; fabulous restaurants for dining, movies, clubs, amusement parks for kids and other places of interest are in close proximity. In rural areas there is not much entertainment, often people stay home most of the time, less live entertainment and the life is much more serene. People in the rural areas grow most of their own crops and have home-cooked meals. Amusement parks are rare in the rural areas and kids in play in their backyard. Whatever we do and say people’s personality will make them decide on a favorable option that satisfies their needs. This is the individual choice; some people will choose to reside in the city because they like the easy access to services and entertainment, while others will reside in the rural areas because it is more affordable and peaceful. As for me I love the city life, I can’t imagine a better life anywhere.

Madoff Scandal

Contents Introduction2 Early Career2 The Firm3 Sales Strategy4 Investment Strategy5 The Scandal7 He was not alone9 The Markopolos Whistle11 The collapse13 Charges and Sentence13 The Victims14 2009 Ponzi Schemes16 The SEC Failure17 SEC post- Madoff19 Hedge Fund Transparency20 Conclusion21 Bibliography25 Tables Table 1: List of Madoff Clients (taken from the â€Å"The New York Times†, last updated June 24, 2009)15 Table 2: 2009 Ponzi Scheme SEC Charges17 Figures Figure 1 Fairfield Sentry vs Gateway6 Figure 2 Madoff Investor Funds (taken from http://orgnet. com/madoff. html)7 Introduction Operating from central Manhattan, Bernie Madoff developed the first and biggest global Ponzi scheme, an event of greed and dishonesty that lasted for more than 20 years, in which $65 billion dollars vanished from the pockets of some of the world’s richest people, charities and ordinary investors alike. This scheme lasted longer than any other white collar crime in history and along the way ruined countless individuals and organizations. The Madoff Ponzi scheme has changed the rules of trust that governed the money game. † Unlike other similar schemes, Madoff’s Ponzi scheme also scammed wealthy and investment savvy individuals that Madoff associated with. Bernard Madoff is a former financier, American hedge-fund investment manager, chairman of the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) stock exchange, and chairman of the firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. He is the main conspirator of the history’s largest investor fraud committed by a single person. As a result of his act, Madoff was sentenced on June 29th, 2009 to 150 years in prison for crimes that the judge called â€Å"extraordinarily evil†3 and imposed a sentence that was three times as long as the federal probation office suggested and more than 10 times as long as defense lawyers had requested. Early Career Bernard Lawrence Madoff was born in New York City on April 29, 1938 and grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. He earned a degree in political science from New York’s Hofstra University in 1960 and founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC the same year. 1 He was a pillar of finance and charity. As an outstanding philanthropist he served on boards of nonprofit organizations around the world such as businesses, charities and foundations, many of which were entrusted by his endowments. The firm started as a penny stock trader with $5,000 dollars he saved from working as a sprinkler system seller and lifeguard. In the beginning the firm started trading common stock over the counter (OTC) through the National Quotation Bureau using Pink sheets. It later challenged the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) old brokers by using powerful marketing techniques to win clients and promoting electronic trading using innovative computer information technology. His firm grew with help from people around him such as his father-in-law, who referred him to friends and family. Madoff helped created NYSE rival, NASDAQ, where he later became the chairman. The Firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC functioned as a securities broker and/or dealer in The United States and internationally. Headquartered in New York City, it provided executions for dealers, brokers and financial institutions. The firm had been one of the top market makers on Wall Street with Madoff as the principal face. In plain terms, a market maker is an institution (brokerage company or bank) that is ready to execute stock trades (buying and selling) at every second of the trading day and charges a small fee for every trade via the use of a spread in the ask or bid price. It functioned as a third-maker provider by directly implementing commands from retail brokers. At one point, Madoff Securities was the largest market maker at the NASDAQ and in 2008 was the sixth largest market maker on Wall Street. Sales Strategy Around the 1970s, Madoff began administrating money for investors, some on them he knew personally and several others who belonged to clubs he was member of. He attracted billions of dollars and several large hedge funds also invested in the firm because he did not charge usual fees and only collected fees for processing trades. Madoff offered modest and steady returns to exclusive clients instead of offering high returns to all clients, giving the appearance of his firm to be exclusive. The firm’s annual returns were abnormally consistent, a key factor in achieving the fraud. Most business men believed the story that a single person could generate returns of 12 to 13 percent a year trading the stock market no matter what happens without a single down quarter. 7 Some of these people applied for membership to the clubs that Madoff was a member of, in order to meet and be accepted by him. In addition, he never hustled anyone for investing with him; instead he let them come to him. Thus, he created this aura of exclusivity around him and everyone wanted to be a part of his club. One of the groups targeted by Madoff was the â€Å"Jewish circuit. Being Jewish, Madoff attracted many wealthy Jewish people he met at country clubs on Long Island and Palm Beach. This was an Affinity Ponzi Scheme, as it was called by Newsweek article. 7 Affinity fraud includes investment frauds that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, language minorities, and the elderly or professional groups. Around 1995, some of the most prominent Jewish individuals in finance and industry began to invest with Madoff. 1 His most effective recruiter, Jacob Ezra Merkin, was president of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, member of Yeshiva University, Carnegie Hall and other nonprofit organizations. Mr. Merkin started the investment firm named Gabriel Capital Group. Embraced by philanthropies and installed in a superior position of trust, Merkin seemed to be a Wall Street wise and trusted person to manage other peoples’ money. 1 Investment Strategy His investment strategy consisted of purchasing blue-chip stock, from well established companies like Coca Cola, Intel and General Electric, having stable earnings and no extensive liabilities, and taking option contracts on them. Typically, a position will consist of the ownership of 30-35 S&P 100 stocks, most correlated to that index, the sale of out-of-the-money calls on the index and the purchase of out-of-the-money puts on the index. † When done correctly, this strategy creates boundaries in the stock and protects them against a quick decline in the share price. The investment strat egy used in Madoff’s feeder fund, Fairfield Sentry, is called the split-strike conversion strategy and involves a combination of stocks and options. In plain terms, Madoff bought 40-50 stocks from the S&P 100 index. He then bought put options on the index at strike prices below the market's current level and sold call options above the index's current price. It is similar to using collars, an options strategy that limits losses along with the gains for a particular stock. The following chart outlines the returns of the Madoff feeder fund against Gateway, a fund running the same split strike strategy. A feeder fund is a fund that conducts virtually all of its investing through another fund. Madoff used such feeder funds to mask the fact that he’s acting like a hedge fund in order to avoid SEC investigation. Figure 1 Fairfield Sentry vs. Gateway After the stock market crash of 2001, Gateway follows a downward path for a period of almost 3 years, before it starts to gain positive traction that will last until mid 2007, just in time for the mortgage meltdown that ignited one of the worst recessions in history. Interestingly enough, Madoff’s returns shows no signs of volatility and continue to gain positive traction with only minor fluctuations. Apparently he worked with multiple feeders and the network of individuals and funds were set up to pass money to him. Most of the investors did not know that all of their money was going to the same place: Madoff’s firm. The next diagram depicts the depth and interconnections of Madoff’s funds. The directions of the arrows represent the direction of the money flow. Figure 2 Madoff Investor Funds The Scandal The investment scandal was unveiled with Madoff’s confession. He reportedly confessed to his two sons during the first week of December 2008 that his business was â€Å"giant Ponzi scheme. † Madoff sons, Mark and Andrew, turned him in to U. S authorities on the day after his confession. On December 11, 2008 he was arrested and charged with securities fraud; also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, securities fraud covers a wide range of illegal activities, all of which involve the deception of investors or the manipulation of financial markets. He said to the agents that there was no innocent explanation to the fraud that cost clients $65 billion dollars. He traded and lost money and paid investors with money that was not there. How did Bernard Madoff set the most audacious fraud in history? Madoff said that had absolutely nothing, everything was just a big lie and it was essentially a giant Ponzi scheme. No one ever questioned the investment strategy and resources of the firm. No verification of the accounting was ever made. 7 A Ponzi scheme is a type of illegal pyramid scheme. It is named after Charles Ponzi who became infamous throughout the United States for using the technique in the early 1920s. The Ponzi scheme operation pays returns to investors from their own money or from money paid by new investors, rather than from actual return earned. This type of schemes attracts many investors because it offers high and consistent returns that other investments cannot provide. Eventually the system is destined to collapse under its own weight because earnings are usually less than the payments. â€Å"The business had been insolvent for many years. † Madoff was lying to his clients when he said he was investing their money and generating stable returns. 3 The money of new clients was used to pay clients who wanted to cash out. Some may still ask the question of why he started the scheme in the first place. A possible explanation of his actions could be that he incurred some trading losses and in order to recoup them quickly, put a quick plan together where he would shuffle money between new and old accounts. Initially he may have had the intention of paying all the investors back, but since his real investing strategy did not work fast enough, he stuck to the scheme. His initial intentions were probably not to carry on indefinitely to its present point. However, once his real trading strategies were not producing enough returns to cover his advertised returns (when the market was performing well), he continued until he lost control. If the economy were not in a recession, he would most likely keep going. The only reason he gave up is because investors started withdrawing money and he could not cover the upcoming withdrawals. If the economy kept going strong, Madoff would have been able to attract new money and continue living his double life as usual. He was not alone Few people knew that Bernard Madoff had a highly structured second life for more than 20 years. Bernard Madoff confession and the afterward fraud scandal triggered the investigation to uncover Madoff’s mysteries. He initially claimed that he committed the crimes all by himself, but because it extended trough decades and continents â€Å"a fog of suspicion immediately engulfed Madoff family members who worked at the firm, as well as employees and business associates. There were some small clues on how he pulled off the massive fraud, for instance, the 1980s server that Madoff refused to replace even though some data had to be typed by hand. When government investigated the machine it discovered that it was the heart of the fraud. The statements printed out from this old IBM machine showed trades that were never made. 15 First, the in vestigators turned to the accounting department. Madoff’s accountant David Friehling was also charged with securities fraud, investment adviser fraud and false filings made to the SEC. Unlike any other professional who protects the interests of his clients, accountants have the commitment to protect the public by ensuring accurate financial reporting. â€Å"They are the first line of defense against fraud. † Friehling’s duty at the investment firm was to ensure clients’ securities and money were they when they wanted to withdraw it. In addition, the SEC filed a civil enforcement action against him alleging that he did not perform his duties as an auditor. David Friehling was the auditor and the bookkeeper, which means that he audited his own work. It’s no great surprise that he found nothing wrong with any of his own work. †18 Next, they turned attention to the person second in command at Madoff’s firm. Frank DiPascali was Madoff’s right hand man for 33 years and his unofficial title was director or of options trading and chief financial officer. Nobody was sure what he did or what his official title was, but everyone knew he was a big deal. DiPascali rose to the position of CFO despite his lack of education and financial experience industry. On August 11, 2009, he pled guilty to ten counts of fraud related to the Madoff investment scandal and he is currently trying to negotiate his sentence (to be set on May 2010) in exchange of information of additional people involved in the scheme. Madoff trusted DiPascali completely to keep the secret of the scam operations. DiPascali manipulated fake returns on some key investors and if one of these clients had large gains, he would fabricate a loss to reduce the tax bill. 15 This means, if true, that these investors knew their returns were suspicious. JP Morgan Chase was the primary bank Madoff used to make his Ponzi deposits. According to one estimate, his deposits totaled $5. 5 billion sometime in 2008, and the after-tax profits grew to $483 million over a period of sixteen years. The bank withdrew a total of $250 million in the summer of 2009, due to suspicions arising from due diligence in Madoff’s investment-advisory business. According to a pending lawsuit against the bank: â€Å"Upon acquiring this knowledge, Chase entered into a conspiracy with Madoff and BMIS in violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (â€Å"RICO†), 18 U. S. C.  § 1961 et seq. 19Depending on the outcome of the lawsuit, along with many more to come, JP Morgan Chase may have to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement. Madoff’s family was also the center of attention to find clues of Bernard Madoff’s fraud, although none of them have been charged or accused so far. During the plea hearing Madoff took all the responsibility of the fraud most likely to c over up his family. Peter Madoff, Bernard Madoff’s brother, was the chief compliance officer of the firm. He was in charge of ensuring adequate internal control and that the client funds and securities were properly protected. Even though Madoff sons, Mark and Andrew, did not have any position with the investments firm, they were involved in other areas within the firm. They are the ones that turned Madoff in. The family must have known about the long running scheme and should be indirectly responsible for some of the investor losses incurred, as the scheme had supported their lavish lifestyles. Irving Picard, the court appointed trustee in charge of liquidating Madoff’s firm, sued some of the Madoff family members (two sons, brother, niece) for $198. 7 million seeking defrauded investor damages. The Markopolos Whistle Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC firm was inspected at least 8 times and he was personally interviewed twice in a period of 16 years by the SEC and other regulators before being uncovered. For years, he avoided regular reviews by saying that he was managing accounts for hedge funds instead of running an investment advisory business. During the years of 1999 and 2000 the SEC was worried that the firm was violating a trading rule and sent examiners to investigate but in response Madoff summarized new procedures to deal with the findings. 12 In 2001 some outsiders were becoming suspicious of Madoff’s firm activities. Harry Markopolos, Barron’s, a Dow Jones & Co. publication and Marhegdge, a hedge fund trade publication, raised concerns about Madoff’s steady returns. 12 In 2005 Mr. Markopolos met with SEC investigators in New York and prepared a 21-page report entitled â€Å"The World’s Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud† summarizing his concerns. The memo specified 29 red flags and in part concluded that â€Å"Bernie Madoff is running the world’s largest unregistered hedge fund† and â€Å"†¦yet since Bernie Madoff is not registered as a hedge fund but acting as one via third party shields, the chances of Madoff escaping SEC scrutiny are very high. 12 The SEC examined Madoff and did not find any violations. He failed for 8 years to get SEC to step in until the scam collapsed and prompted Madoff to confess. In his report, Markopolos clearly outlines some pretty obvious (by now) facts that the regulatory authorities omitted. Here is a short summary of some points that stood out: †¢If the Madoff returns are legitimate, they’re due to insider trading (unlikely scenario). If they’re illegitimate, they’re due to the setup being a Ponzi scheme (likely scenario). †¢The secrecy around the fund’s assets doesn’t make sense as a typical hedge fund would brag about such returns. The secrecy is probably due to the fact that Madoff doesn’t want the regulatory authorities to know he exists as a secret hedge fund. †¢Since Madoff is a broker-dealer, he can generate any trade tickets he wants, therefore generate false information. †¢The Madoff family has held important leadership positions in NASD, NASDAQ ® and other prominent industry bodies that would not be inclined to lead an investigation. †¢Out of 174 months, only 7 months (4%) saw negative returns in Madoff’s Fairfield Sentry fund. No MLB hitter bats . 60, no NFL team has ever had a 96-4 record out of 100 games, and no money manager is up 96% of the months. †¢Since Madoff is not registered as a hedge fund but acting as one via third party shields, his chances of escaping SEC investigations have remained high. The collapse The final weeks of the biggest scheme in history began on December 2008 when the market continued to fall. Madoff struggled to keep the scheme afloat wh en investors tried to withdraw $7 billion from the firm. In typical Ponzi scheme fashion, Madoff desperately needed money from new investors to pay off existing investors. Ten days before his arrest, he received $250 million dollars from Carl Shapiro, a 95 year old philanthropist and entrepreneur, and one of Madoff oldest friends. Mr. Shapiro helped Madoff launch his investing career by giving him money to invest in 1960. He also asked others to invest including Wall Street financier Kenneth Langone. Madoff said he was raising money, between $500 million and $1 billion, for a new investment vehicle for exclusive clients. Mr. Langone declined to invest. 13 Mr. Langone’s denial could have been based on quantitative analysis that most of Madoff’s investors failed to undertake. In addition, by the time Madoff proposed the new investment vehicle to Mr. Langone, rumors of his questionable returns had increased considerably. Charges and Sentence â€Å"On March 10, 2009, a Criminal Information was filed in Manhattan federal court charging Bernard L. Madoff with eleven felony charges including securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (â€Å"SEC†), and theft from an employee benefit plan. † The case is United States v. Bernard L. Madoff, 09 Cr. 213 (DC). The criminal information or complaint declared that Madoff had defrauded his clients for $65 billion. On March 12, 2009 he pleaded guilty to all eleven counts and on June 29, 2009 he was sentenced to 150 years of imprisonment at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York (he was later moved to a prison in Butner, North Carolina) and $170 billion in restitution. A breakdown of his sentencing is given below:19 †¢40 years for two counts of international money laundering †¢20 years for securities fraud †¢20 years for mail fraud 20 years for wire fraud †¢20 years for false filing with the S. E. C. †¢10 years for money laundering †¢5 years for investment adviser fraud †¢5 years for false statements †¢5 years for perjury †¢5 years for theft from an employee benefit plan The Victims Some of Madoff’s clients included hedge funds, banks, charities, universities, astute financiers, hospitals, film prod ucers and many others. According to the latest Trustee Interim Report assigned for fund recovery, as of June 30, 2009 the recovery of funds from Bernard Madoff has been $1,088,507,818 with an additional $13. billion in incoming recovery requests. A short list of the investors with the largest losses follows: CLIENTTYPE OF CLIENTEXPOSURE Fairfield Greenwich Group Financial Firm$7. 5 Billion Kingate ManagementFinancial Firm$3. 5 Billion Tremont Group HoldingsFinancial Firm$3. 3 Billion Banco SantanderFinancial Firm$3. 1 Billion of client exposure Bank MediciFinancial Firm$2. 1 Billion Ascot Partners, run by Jacob Ezra Merkin, GMAC’s chairmanFinancial FirmMost of the firm's $1. 8 billion in assets Access International AdvisorsFinancial firm$1. 4 billion Fortis Bank NetherlandsFinancial firm$1. billion Union Bancaire PriveeFinancial firmunder $1. 08 billion HSBC HoldingsFinancial firm$1 billion Picower FoundationCharity$958 million Carl ShapiroIndividual$545 million Carl & Ruth S hapiro Family FoundationCharity$145 million Yeshiva UniversityCharity$100 to $125 million Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of AmericaCharity$90 million Korea Life InsuranceInsurer$50 million Fairfield, Conn. pension fundPension fund$42 million Madoff Family FoundationCharity$19 million Jewish Community Foundation of Los AngelesCharity$18 million Alicia KoplowitzIndividual$14 million Table 1: List of Madoff Clients (taken from the â€Å"The New York Times†, last updated June 24, 2009) As if the loss of fortunes were not tragic enough, there were also 2 suicides that stemmed from the scandal. Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, who lost more than $1 billion of his own and his investors’ money, took his own life on December 23, 2008 after realizing that he would not be able to recoup his investment. The Magon de la Villehuchet family was one of the most prominent families in France, building its fortune in the shipping industry during the 17th century. William Foxton, 65, was the second suicide victim of the scandal, but unlike the first victim, he had never heard of Madoff and lost his investment through one of Madoff’s feeder funds. 2009 Ponzi Schemes The now infamous Ponzi scheme may have been popularized by Bernie Madoff during the present year, but the SEC has been uncovering such schemes at a rapid pace since the Madoff scandal. The following is a list of all the Ponzi schemes charges the SEC has issued in 2009 so far: DATEDEFENDANTSPONZI AMOUNT (In millions) 1/08/09Joseph Forte, Joseph Forte LP$50 1/15/09James G. Osie, CRE Capital$25 /19/09Robert Allen Standford$8,000 2/19/09Marvin Cooper, BCI Inc$4. 4 3/11/09Anthony Vassalo, Kenneth Kenitzer$40 3/26/09Millenium Bank$68 4/01/09Edward T. Stein$55 4/06/09Weizhen Tang$50-75 4/08/09Shawn Merriman$17-20 4/09/09Robert P. Copeland$35 4/13/09Clelia Flores, MRI Inc$23 6/09/09Peter Son, Jin Chung$80 6/10/09Gregory Bell & Lancelot Mgmt$2,000 6/15/09David J. Hernandez$11 6/24/09M ichael C. Regan, Regan & Co$15. 9 6/24/09Moises Pacheco, AMM, BD&C$14. 7 6/28/09John Bravata, Richard Trabulsy$50 9/08/09Philip Barry, Leverage Group$40 9/28/09Frank Bluestein$250 10/16/09Homepals14. 3 Table 2: 2009 Ponzi Scheme SEC Charges According to the SEC website, 2008 SEC Ponzi charges totaled $470 million (excluding Madoff charged on December 11), compared to 2009’s approximate amount of $11 billion YTD. The earliest Ponzi scheme on SEC recent records dating back to 1997 is reported on July 4, 2001 for $67. 5 million. There is no mention of another such scheme until June 9, 2005 for $6 million, while the next such scheme is reported on July 24, 2007 for $41. 9 million. The SEC Failure Bernie Madoff was so above suspicion that he even got his name informally applied an SEC rule. The â€Å"Madoff exception† allowed market makers such as Mr. Madoff to sell stock short to facilitate a customer buy order, even if the stock in question was ticking downward. Under a rule that was in place until 2007, short sales on a downward-ticking stock were normally prohibited. In a short sale, investors borrow stock and sell it, hoping to repay with shares bought at a lower price. Madoff was frequently and unsuccessfully investigated by the SEC. His firm’s first contact with the SEC was in the early 90’s when he hired two accountants, Frank Avellino and Michael Bienes, for his first small investment advisory business. The accountants helped him recruit more than 3,000 clients. They were violating the law selling unregistered securities; however they were not accused of securities fraud. The SEC shut down the Avellino & Bienes operation and forced Madoff to return more than $400 million to investors. 13 In 2000, the SEC Boston office is contacted by Markopoulos where he outlines his first concerns about Madoff. Unable to persuade an investigation, Markopoulos is told to contact the SEC New York office. 13 However, no further investigation is conducted partly because the information presented to the SEC is not understood by its investigators due to its highly complex nature. Since then many other letters from concerned outsiders are being sent to the SEC about Madoff. No action is taken from the SEC until January 2006 when it launches an investigation prompted by the Markopolos memo. After an interview with Madoff in May 2006 in its case-closing recommendation, the SEC said it â€Å"found no evidence of fraud. †13 After the uncovering of the investment fraud, the SEC conducted an internal investigation entitled â€Å"Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. A 477-page report was released in September 2009 were the SEC Office of Inspector General (OIG) analyzes the SEC failure to uncover Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, how it missed all the red flags and identifies recurring opportunities to find the fraud and how unsuccessful their efforts were. In a recent PBS interview with Henry Pitt, former SEC commissioner from 2001-2003, Mr. Pitt indirectly pointed out some SEC flaws:31 †¢The SEC’s exami nation program was put in place in the mid 90’s is fatally imperfect. The total staff of the SEC is 3,500 people (not all of them do examinations) and there are 11,000 registered investment advisers subject to the SEC’s jurisdiction. There will never be enough money, enough people and enough sophistication to conduct examinations the way they needed to be conducted. †¢The law for broker-dealers was setup in 1934 and in 1940 for investment advisers. The relationship between the two entities is treated separately. In today’s marketplace, this viewpoint needs to change. This is one of the reasons why Madoff continued to be in business after the Avellino and Bienes scandal. The SEC was heavily focused on legal analysis, while not paying too much attention to economic and financial analysis. †¢There needs to be more hedge fund transparency, something the SEC has failed to convince the courts to do so up to now. Arthur Levitt Jr, former SEC chairman from 1993-2001, maintains a view that supports a more focused approach on risk-assessm ent within the SEC. Mr. Levitt has been drawing criticism lately regarding his personal and business relationships with Madoff. When asked about SEC resources, he raises a valid point: â€Å"Since 2002, the number of investment advisers — such as Madoff Securities — has increased by 50%. Yet enforcement resources have been flat or even reduced. The number of SEC enforcement division personnel was cut by 146, to 1,192 in 2007 from 1,338 in 2005. †37 SEC post- Madoff Since the Madoff scandal, the SEC has been taking significant steps to reduce the probability that such frauds will occur in the future. A summary of the post-Madoff Reforms are included on the following list: †¢Safeguarding Investors’ Assets †¢Revitalizing the Enforcement Division †¢Revamping the Handling of Complaint and Tips †¢Advocating for a Whistleblower Program †¢Conducting Risk-Based Examinations of Financial Firms Increasing Focus on Agency-Wide Risk Assessment †¢Improving Fraud Detection Techniques for Examiners †¢Recruiting Staff with Specialized Experience †¢Expanding and Targeting Training †¢Seeking more Resources †¢Integrating Broker-Dealer and Investment Adviser †¢Enhancing Licensing, Education and Oversight Regime for †Å"Back-Office† Personnel In summary, the changes focus where the SEC had previously failed: enhancing investigator financial education, providing incentives for whistleblower tips, allocating additional resources. Hedge Fund Transparency One of the SEC’s attempts towards hedge fund transparency came in 2003 where the entity unsuccessfully tried to enforce the registration of a majority of hedge fund managers by re-interpreting the definition of ‘client’ to an investment-adviser. This rule would have required hedge funds to register as investment advisers. This attempt was dismissed by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on June 23, 2006. The hedge fund industry as a whole is against regulation in part because such regulations would reveal the trading strategies employed internally to the competition. This is a viable argument in favor of the hedge fund industry, however not viable enough to prevent further regulation, at least in the US markets. A possible suggestion could be to create a quasi-government committee made up of various former heads of finance-related industries that are given the power to review and approve hedge funds. The information they have on their hands is solely between them and certain high level members of the SEC, with secrecy comparable to that of the likes of the Department of Defense. In this way, hedge funds avoid public disclosure of their strategies, while the SEC accomplishes the regulation they have always been pursuing. There could be different levels of approval according to the market value of a hedge fund. While this suggestion may not be the most viable, it is serves an option for both the SEC and hedge fund managers. Conclusion Given its impact on the financial world, it would seem that this scandal could have been prevented much earlier. Why did FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), SIFMA (Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association), SEC, and other regulatory bodies not act quicker? Below follows a list of possible concluding points for such long inaction. The world to which the securities laws apply — laws now 70 and 75 years old — is light years away from the world we have today. †34 Point 1: Bernie Madoff was a legend on Wall Street. He and his family were among the elite of the Street and, due to his long career and connections, he obtained a God-like status on the Street and as someon e who could do no wrong. As any religious individual, they do not question God’s actions, they just believe. Furthermore, individuals who commit fraud usually do not have Madoff’s impressive background, connections and reputation. Madoff used his status on the Street as an advantage to raise more money and fly under the radar for as long as he did. A scheme is the last thing one would expect from someone whose resume includes a time as former chairman of NASDAQ. In addition, Harry Markopolos admits that he did not contact FINRA due to his family’s connections with the regulatory authority. In particular, Andrew Madoff served as an incoming District 10 member of FINRA in 2003 while his brother Mark served on FINRA’s Mutual Fund Task Force in 2004. Also, Bernie Madoff’s brother Peter served on the board of directors of SIFMA. Point 2: Madoff was not using any illegal trading strategies. The split-strike option is a legitimate strategy that has been employed for years by a few experienced industry professionals, such as Harry Markopolos. It is a highly complex strategy that even Markopolos in his SEC paper admits that few really understand, hence many of Madoff’s experienced investors failed to quantitatively analyze, yet they rather based their assumptions on word of mouth. In the same token, the SEC did not pay attention to something that they could not completely understand and did not put as much emphasis as they should have. Point 3: Red flags were not raised initially due to the overall economy’s performance. When the market was performing well, a 12% return was within reasonable lines of S&P returns. Some flags came up when the market started producing negative returns, yet Madoff’s returns kept their usual steady, profitable path. If the market were still performing neutral to slightly above neutral levels, chances are that the scandal would still lie beneath fake returns. Point 4: The SEC did not act any sooner possibly due to the psychological structure of its own investigators. A typical SEC investigator is young, non-aggressive, and lacks enough resources to fully take on such a case single-handedly. The aggressive and talented individuals get absorbed by Wall Street due to obvious lucrative reasons. This is not to say that the SEC does not employ talented, aggressive individuals; all that is being conveyed here is that probably some of the investigators’ psychological and character structure coupled with the lack of resources was a key mixture of ingredients the organization was missing. Plus, in order to raise such a high stakes complaint an SEC investigator would have to go through the usual bureaucratic red tape inherent in government process. Point 5: The SEC is made up of lawyers, thus lack the experience and knowledge of financial markets. The institution is not a financial entity that relies on satisfying shareholder returns; it is a regulatory authority that interprets and applies the law. Lawyers are not fund managers, thus are not familiar with the complexities and headaches that come with such territory. Point 6: The SEC failure in the Madoff case is yet another example of a ‘failure’ of the invisible hand to regulate capitalism’s promotion of self-interests. While de-regulation of capital markets was very instrumental to transform the US economy into a global powerhouse, lack of de-regulation brought upon the Madoff scandal along with one of the worst recessions in US history. If the markets were more heavily regulated from the beginning, one can only speculate on how far the US economy could have reached. In his testimony to Congress, Allan Greenspan admitted that his ideology of free market capitalism has a major flaw: â€Å"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks, is such that they were best capable of protecting shareholders and equity in the firms. † In short, Greenspan’s flaw was a variable he never considered as part of his ideology of free market capitalism: human greed. Not surprisingly, Greenspan’s flaw has influenced many areas of free markets from credit-default swaps and mortgage lending tactics, to unregistered hedge fund management practices. Bernard Madoff has left his imprint on Wall Street's ‘disgraced' list and his case will be used as an example to further regulate hedge funds and transparency needed in the financial industry. His life story of rising to the top and falling from grace highlights the double-edged sword of capitalism's laissez faire attitude. It will be very interesting to see how effectively the regulatory authorities will tackle this issue, as Madoff's case moves from the public eye to university case study in the coming years. Bibliography

Pharmaceuticalisation of Sexual and Repruductive health Essay

When it comes to the interaction of males and females with social structures in society, a degree of inequality has always been existent. Many times the female gender bears the brunt of these inequalities. Cultural ideologies drive these inequalities, and shape our ways of being and views on life’s situations; particularly evident when it comes to the issue of sexual and reproductive health. These phenomena have gained significant amounts of popularity with the evolution of time. And have also been subject to much social construction. It is from those constructions that the pharmaceuticalization of sexual and reproductive health arose. This essay will look at sexual and reproductive health as social constructs, and discuss the impact of these social constructions on pharmaceuticalization and how they have influenced it. The essay will also explore the differences in how sexual and reproductive health have been pharmaceuticalized in male and females, and the possible reasons behind it Pharmaceuticalization is a process which is intimately linked with medicalisation. In this way these two phenomena could be defined as processes by which more and more of society’s social problems have come to be seen and described under medical terms, and hence medical interventions have been put forth as solutions for these problems (Zola, 1983, p. 295). Hence we can say that one is as is by the influence of the other, pharmaceuticalization driving and sustaining medicalisation (Conrad 1981). However the medicalisation of society is as much a result of medicine’s potential as much as it is society’s desire for medicine to use that power (Zola, 1972, p 182). Given this statement, it can therefore be argued that the society’s ideas, culturally motivated or otherwise, have a lot to do with the pharmaceuticalization of sexual and reproductive health. Almost as though it is society’s ‘wish’ for pharmaceuticalization to exists. Hence we can say that pharmaceuticalization is also in part a process of capitalizing on the views of sexual health and reproduction. The evidence of the existence of the four bodies indicates that the body is not just an excluded or separate entity from social structure. Similar is the case for the meaning attached to the penis in males. It is not just another organ carrying out its designated functions but it carries a lot meaning for the man in society. The penis is not only intimately connected to men’s sexuality but it is also connected to masculinity and virility. And as with most things that carry meaning in society, the meaning of ‘the proper/perfect’ penis has been a subject of much social construction. A study(2012) conducted in Australia among 103 women found that the majority of the women preferred or were more attracted to men with larger penises, it was argued that the reason behind that had to do with the famous saying that ‘bigger is better’. This comes upon a time were sex has increasingly become used for recreation rather that procreation. Hence we see hear reports of penis enlargement pills and surgical procedures that can bring forth that kind of penis which is desired by the men and their women. In contrast however, we find that women’s sexual health has not been pharmaceuticalised to the extend it has been in men. Perhaps it has to do with the old age stereotype that women are passive and fragile. This notion links into the idea of sex in a way that the man is the one who is most active during the sexual act. And hence the one who carries the responsibility for the sexual climax of both himself and his partner. And it is because of this pressure to perform that more and more men are using pharmaceutical methods in order to acquire ‘the perfect penis’ to do the ‘perfect job’, proving their masculinity in the process. This ties in with the use of Viagra in older males. Another interesting factor is the wide commercialization of the male condom as a form of sexual health in the context of HIV/AIDS, whereas the female condom is to some extend looked down upon by both male and females, UK study (1997). We also find that female sexual health has not been commercialized to the extend it has been in males. The Johannesburg CBD for example, is crowded with posters at all corners advertising penis enlargement resources and guaranteeing a ‘better, bigger penis’; the long term effects of which are not well known, similarly the credibility thereof. Among all these posters I have yet to witness an advert for female sexual health. And you find that even men in the prime of their youth use these penile enlargement resources, debunking the stereotype that it utilization of these resources is by aged men. It is not to say however that women do not use sexual enhancement pharmaceutical products. Whereas in women it is found that the use of sexual enhancement resources is done most by older women, a majority of which have been through menopause. When we come to sexual reproductive health however, we find that there is an interesting shift in positions. It is women who are often put under the spotlight of pharmaceutical companies. Again this can be said to have arose because of the common stereotype ‘the weaker female body’ has to be the one with the issue when confronted with infertility. So the pharmaceutical companies position themselves to target women with solutions for sexual reproductive health. Here we see medicalization, whereby women are encouraged to go for regular pap smears to reduce the risk of cervical cancer and infertility in the future. This pressure on sexual health may be said to result from the fact that women are only fertile up to a certain age whereas men can be fertile till the day they die. This essay argued the extends to which male and female sexual and reproductive ability have been medicalised and pharmaceuticalized. I extended my exploration to the possible reasons behind the approaches that may have influenced this differences in the degrees of pharmaceutilisation. In addition my analysis showed how these different approaches are influenced by socio-cultural factors.

HRM Outsourcing Paper Term Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

HRM Outsourcing - Term Paper Example The question on what should be outsourced has always been a widely debated issue. This paper will explore the issues around human resource outsourcing, particularly those concerned with firm’s performance, strategic direction, ethics and corporate social responsibility. It will also evaluate these issues with regard to how they can be addressed and balanced to achieve the best performance, productivity, and efficiency. An Evaluation of HR Outsourcing One of the ultimate gains of outsourcing is the division of work and skill/expertise specialization, which results in a better outcome and performance. Business process outsourcing (BPO) including HR outsourcing is not only aimed at financial value; relevance of a strong relationship management is that it leads to value addition such as innovation and customer satisfaction (Enlow & Ertel, 2006). The importance of a healthy relationship management cannot be overlooked. According to McKinsey & Company, as quoted by Enlow and Ertel ( 2006), 50% of outsourced services fail to create the expected value. Firms find value when specialists, who can be more effective in providing services that were previously handled internally, are engaged because both the firm and the supplier can focus on what they do best to improve performance. HR outsourcing is beneficial to any firm and whatever the size of the organization, outsourcing must follow phases for it to succeed. According to Anonymous (2007, July), the use of outsourcing as a strategy proved beneficial in a large funeral and cemetery company, Service Corp. International. The company boasted of the workforce of 2,400 employees in 2,500 locations. The funeral company decided to outsource human resources services; through an advisory firm, various sources of outsourcing were used while focusing on the various phases of the outsourcing process. Because of the many administrative tasks of the company, HR outsourcing led to a reduction in costs. Outsourcing and shared ser vices provide avenues for reducing cost while enhancing efficiency in organizations. Cost cutting associated with outsourcing occurs when staff is assigned with other tasks through involvement of experts or by saving money (Anonymous, 2007, April). While outsourced members focus on their areas of expertise, organization’s staff members focus on core responsibilities. Information Technology investments may not yield results for a long time. Thus, outsourced IT services help to avoid colossal capital investment costs. Equally, the use of shared services appears to be advantageous to organizations by reducing the need for maintaining a massive workforce leading to a reduction in costs through sharing of talents and resources and enhancing productivity (Anonymous, 2007, April). Ethical issues that have been associated with HR outsourcing have included loss of employment in the host country where firms are outsourcing human resource. The practice of getting expertise and staff fro m other places in order to save costs has been perceived negatively from a social point of view by the local communities from which the outsourcing firm hails, particularly when outsourcing involves expertise or skills that are also available locally. Cultural differences are another concern of outsourcing, which has been mentioned especially among multicultural environments where different skill sets are in existence (Adobor, 2012, p.245). For example, there exist immense

Forecasting methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Forecasting methods - Essay Example In a stable data, the forecast for any period is equivalent to actual value of previous periods. Companies compile data to determine their current values and future position in business. Companies like Puma and Nike uses this technique to determine market progress and future sales volume. Communication and transport industries also use this technique to assess their progress (Turchin, 2010). Estimating the average forecast is another techniques used by many organization. The value is calculated by determining forecast error. In determining forecast error, the actual value is subtracted from the predicted value of a time series. Forecast error can be either a calendar forecast or cross sectional forecast error. In calculation of forecast error, an organization can use calculating methods such as root mean squared error, mean percentage error, forecast bias and tracking signal (Kimberly, 2008). Some organization like Emirates Airline, Virgin Atlantic uses this technique. Use of forecast techniques has led to growth of many companies and industries. Each business organization should consider using forecast methods to determine

No Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

No - Essay Example sis shall in addition provide a discussion on the suggestions of what are to be done in order to improve the profit performance of the industry in the future. The following analyses are the probable reasons for the reduction of the industry’s profit according to the London’s time and tide (2011) newspaper explanation. According to the Excellence Clothing Company journal of 2014, there is a general decrease in base of revenue for the company. The revenue of the industry declined from  £255063 to  £215623 from the years 2013 to 2014. Since profit is a direct related function of revenue, that is profit = revenue – cost (cost of sales). Such a reduction in revenue consequently leads to loss realization or profit decline. There can be quite a number of factors that may lead to such a reduction in revenues. The policies of London have been proved to be ignorant on the clothing industries. The policies have not allowed for any incentive offer to be given to the industry. There are also varieties of stringent restrictive actions imposed by the London policies that have subjected the industry to many operation ceilings (Clutterbuck, & Crainer, 2012). This means that the company cannot operate beyond a certain set level of production even if it has the capacity of doing so. Most of the policies especially those by the London government have imposed huge amount of taxation on the industry in the year 2014. The industry is being taxed hugely in cases where the clothing raw materials to be used are imported. The custom duty to be paid in such cases of raw materials importation have been cutting deep in to the amount of cost expenses that are to be paid by the industry. The company is as well expected to be paying excise duties monthly and submitting their returns for excise duty charges. The above mentioned costs of taxation are of a negative impact to the industries revenues. Since such costs have to be paid by the industry through making withdrawals and deductions

Cancer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 4

Cancer - Essay Example Cancer was initially completely untreatable. With medical advances, such as autopsies, anesthesia and the microscope, scientific oncology was born. Finally, in the eighteenth century, the understanding of molecular epidemiology led to the modern study and treatment of cancer (American Cancer Society). The origin of cancer lies in abnormal cell division. In normal cell division, new cells are produced as and when needed for a healthy body and when cells become old or damaged, they die and are replaced with new cells. Sometimes, there is damage to the cell DNA, the basic material in genes. These defective genes may be caused by mutations or may also be inherited. Instead of dying, these damaged cells lead to the formation of groups of malignant clones, or duplicates of the abnormal cells. These groups form a mass of tissue called a  tumor. A benign tumor is harmless and its cells do not spread to other parts of the body. A malignant tumor is cancerous. Its cells invade adjoining tissues and spread to other parts of the body in a process called metastasis. Cancer cells spread through the blood and lymph systems. There are more than 100 different types of cancer. The main types of cancer are: Carcinoma - cancer which originates in the skin or the lining of tissues; Sarcoma – cancer which begins in in bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, blood vessels, or other connective or supportive tissue; Leukemia – cancer in the blood and bone marrow; Lymphoma and myeloma  - cancers that begin in the cells of the  immune system; Central nervous system cancers  - cancers that begin in the tissues of the brain and spinal cord (National Cancer Institute). The types of cancer are named according to the name of the organ or tissue in which they originate. The main types are: Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma, Adrenal Gland Tumor, Amyloidosis (blood), Anal Cancer, Appendix Cancer, Astrocytoma

Individual Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Individual Project - Essay Example Economic appraisal is noted to act on the physical attractiveness. The role of physical attractiveness in economics requires appraisal. There is a vast literature on physical attraction and its importance in a number of areas: game theory (Solnick and Schweitzer 1999), earnings (Hamermesh and Biddle 1994), election results (Rosar, Klein and Beckers 2008). The retail car price negotiations (Ayres, 1991), teaching evaluations (Lawson and Stephenson 2005), and election results (Rosar, Klein and Beckers 2008) to name just a few. Mankiw (2007) has highlights the role of height to suggest, perhaps tongue in cheek, taxation on height. He suggests a similar recommendation regarding physical attractiveness. (Pokrywka, Cabric and Krakowiak 2006; Grundl, EisenmannKlein, and Prantl 2009; Swami, Furnham and Joshi 2008; Swami, Einon, and Furnham 2007) Conventional wisdom suggests feminists in general identify with the political left. Likewise, Deirdre McCloskey (2000) argues that to the liberation of women, feminist economists offer less support to the free markets than typical non-feminist economists. Female professors are far more likely to identify with the Democratic Party than male economists as Cardiff and Klein (2005) support; see Table 1.2. In part, this results to a view that the underlying assumptions of economic theory are gender biased, with differences evident in Strober (1994) and Nelson (1995). Beauty pageants chronically have been sites of controversy and resistance. For example, during its first decade, the Miss America contest was attacked by religious groups and women’s clubs as vulgar, indecent, and degrading (Cohen et al. 1996). In response, in order to create an aura of respectability for the pageant, organizers subjected contestants to constant monitoring and surveillance. Due to a state of relentless policing of femininity and behavior (Banet-Weiser 1999: 39), participants

The Effects of the Great Depression on Children Essay

The Effects of the Great Depression on Children - Essay Example It is an idea of creating a clinic, which will give the needed services to the children who are economically challenged families. For this clinic to be successful and efficient, some employees must be involved. They must be qualified to be dedicated to their work. They must be equipped to develop a health center with services that focus on the prevention of some diseases (Dunlop, 1995). Two doctors must be hired, and four nurses who will help to provide the necessary services. The support staffs hired should be from the local for the benefit of the community. Equipment is the most essential, therefore, spending a lot to purchase and maintain will enable the doctors and nurses perform their work effectively. The staff should be there to give the needed support to the doctors and nurses (Dunlop, 1995). The clinic will handle approximately 150 children in a day. The possible challenges might be the shortage of employees and equipment to be used. Lack of support from the government to the clinic will be a challenge too. Children who may not get the required service may get a referral to other hospitals. Those who cannot afford the stated cost may acquire medical cover early enough for future

Socio-economic and political environment of America Essay

Socio-economic and political environment of America - Essay Example The new racism highlighted the differences within the black community. Interestingly, the new racism also raised controversy vis-a-vis ‘old’ versus ‘new’ civil rights. The civil liberation movement of Martin Luther King based on racial differences had turned into new racism where blacks started fighting within themselves. The black community seemed to be divided on the basis of sexuality. The homosexual blacks saw themselves as victims who were discriminated because of their sexuality. Most importantly, this new racism also became the major factor for the non discriminatory practices and bridged the racial differences between white and black community. The new conscious awareness vis-a-vis sexuality and gender helped realigned social forces and reduced the racial differences. The participation of black community in the mainstream economy has seen trickle down effect. The empowerment of black community has become a reality and election of Barrack Obama as Pre sident is testament to the growing strength of blacks within and outside the American socio-political arena. The development of Rainbow Coalition as economic restructure for African Americans has become a key feature of trickle down economics that has helped black community to become economic partners in America society (Hines, pg. 591).

Turbochargers to be used in commercial two wheelers Essay - 1

Turbochargers to be used in commercial two wheelers - Essay Example The first turbocharger was invented in the early 20th century by the ‘Swiss engineer Alfred Buchi’ who introduced a prototype in order to increase the power of a diesel engine. At the initial stage, turbocharger was meant to be used on airplanes which could use thinner air and fly at higher altitudes and to be used to deliver ample power for stable flight. In the engineering world turbochargers was in much attention as World War I brought the increased need for the aviation technology. The concept of turbocharging in those days was very little accepted. But, in the last few years, turbocharging has been a vital product in almost every diesel engine, with an exception being very small diesel engines. Turbochargers use in the petrol engines have also shown good boost for the power output. The first turbochargers were applicable limited to large engines such as marine engine. In the automobile industry turbocharging was firstly implemented into truck engines. In 1938, ‘Swiss Machine Works Saurer’ built turbocharged engine for trucks. In 1962, the Chevrolet Corvair Monza was the first turbo powered engine car which was introduced in United States. Poor efficiency and reliability made them to disappear from the market. In 1973, after the oil crisis step in, turbocharging was again found be acceptable in the diesel engine applications resulting an increase in the turbocharged truck engines. As a result today every engine of the truck is turbocharged. After few years, turbochargers were introduced in the motor sports mainly into Formula 1 racing. The word ‘turbo’ started to become quite popular. In those days, almost every manufacturer of automobiles implemented turbocharging in at least one of their top model with a turbocharged petrol engines. Although this engines were very powerful it still did not made an impression to take a further step because of the more fuel consumption and more importantly the delayed response named as ‘turbo lag’ was

Hispanic and Latino Americans Essay Example for Free

Hispanic and Latino Americans Essay The poem â€Å"Legal Alien† by Pat Mora is in the open poem form, it has no stanzas. It does have a few words that rhyme which are â€Å"English† (5) and â€Å"Spanish† (6) and also with â€Å"Mexicans† (14) and then with â€Å"Americans† (15). The poem also has rhythm, it is a low steady beat. It is a straightforward poem about how life is for a person with the same race/ethnicity as others and at the same time, different from others. The poem â€Å"Legal Alien† is about a woman of Mexican parents, who is born and raised in America. An American citizen established by law, but at the same time this person feels like an illegal alien because of how some people treat her. She is fluent in both, English and in Spanish. Feels American because she is, but at the same time she doesn’t. She is looked at by Americans (Anglos) as inferior, and looked at by Mexicans like she doesn’t belong. They make her feel like she is not one of them, like she doesn’t fit anywhere. â€Å"An American to Mexicans a Mexican to Americans a handy token sliding back and forth between the fringes of both worlds† (14-18). – What this means is that she feels like she could be from both places and at the same time from neither, but on the border of each. Happy, sad, confused, lost but at the same time she tries to cover all her feelings and what she is thinking â€Å"by masking the discomfort† (20) is that she has to grin and bear the fact that she is being condemned for having two nationalities. After reading this poem over and over I can say that I have felt what the speaker mentions in the poem, I have been in her shoes. Yes it’s hard to believe but if you think about it we are all different and at the same time we are all the same. For some people it is hard to accept people of different nationality, but the only thing we can do is to move on. I am Mexican American, also bilingual, with two different cultures, born in America with Mexican parents. I think this poem â€Å"Legal Alien† is a little about racism which is everywhere and it has been around for a long time. I have felt looks from Mexicans and Americans, and to be honest it doesn’t feel that good. But I think that the only thing we can do is to just let it go and live life at the fullest and accept everyone as they are. Race, color, religion, or even language should not matter. In the end, and underneath of it all, we are all the same.

Analysis of Weinbergers Concepts of Cyberwarfare

Analysis of Weinbergers Concepts of Cyberwarfare In June 2010, analysts from the antivirus software company VirusBlokAda examined a computer in Iran due to suspicion of malware activity. Lurking inside the machine was a computer worm known as Stuxnet. Stuxnet possessed an array of abilities, among them was the ability to target the software that controls pumps, valves, generators and other industrial machines (Weinberger, 2011). Unlike other viruses that use forged security clearances to gain access into systems, Stuxnet took advantage of two digital certificates of authenticity stolen from respected companies (Weinberger, 2011). Furthermore, it exploited four different zero day vulnerabilities' which are security gaps that system creators were unaware of (Weinberger, 2011). According to Liam O Murchu, chief of security response of Symantec, once Stuxnet infected a system, the crucial parts of its executable code would become active only if that machine was also running Siemens Step 7, one of the many supervisory control and data (SCADA) systems used to manage industrial processes (Weinberger, 2011). Symantec also discovered that the majority of infections were in Iran and that the infections seemed to have been appearing there in waves since 2009 (Weinberger, 2011). Further investigation performed by Ralph Langner, a control-system security consultant, resulted in evidence that Stuxnet had been deliberately directed against Iran, the most likely target being Irans Nuclear Enrichment Facility in Natanz. (Weinberger, 2011). According to Langner, Stuxnet was designed to alter the speed of the delicate centrifuges which separated Irans rare but fissionable isotope uranium -235 from the heavier uranium -238 (Weinberger, 2011). Improper alteration of the cent rifuges could result in them spinning out of control and breaking. Although the Iranian Government refuses to admit that Stuxnet was responsible for the destruction of many centrifuges at Natanz, the results from Langner and others is credited by reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA documented a precipitous drop in the number of operating centrifuges in 2009, the year that many observers think Stuxnet infected computers in Iran (Weinberger, 2011). There is no evidence beyond rumor that Israel or the US Government may have been behind the attack. Symantec notes that a name embedded in Stuxnets code, Myrtus, could be a reference to a biblical story about a planned massacre of Jews in Persia (Weinberger, 2011). Moreover, Langner believes that the U.S. Government could have been behind the attack considering they possess both the required expertise in cyber warfare and a long-standing goal of thwarting Irans nuclear ambitions (Weinberger, 2011). Irrespective of Stuxnets creator, the main growing fear is who will redesign it. Stuxnet was the first weapon created entirely out of code and proved that groups or nations could launch a cyber-attack against a societys vital infrastructures (Weinberger, 2011). Many of the investigators that studied Stuxnet concluded that it essentially laid out a blueprint for future attackers to learn from and perhaps improve (Weinberger, 2011). Stuxnet opened a new era of warfare and with its code available online for anyone to study and improve, it has computer scientists like Yuval Elovici concerned that the next wave of cyber-attacks would be much stronger than the impact of setting several atomic bombs on major cities (Weinberger, 2011). In IS THIS THE START OF CYBERWARFARE? Sharon Weinberger questions whether or not Stuxnet started a new era of warfare. One might find that Weinbergers use of supporting evidence from many credible sources imposes a compelling answer to an interesting topic of study. Weinberger emphasizes the inferred answer is indeed yes, Stuxnet introduced a new era of warfare. Statements such as Stuxnet is the harbinger of a new generation of cyber threats and that it provided chilling proof that groups or nations could launch a cyber-attack against a societys vital infrastructures are well validated by the many investigators that studied it (Weinberger, 2011). Overall, one would appreciate Weinbergers supportive writing style and the information she presented in this article. Weinberger was heavily resourceful and made certain that every point she made was reinforced by credible supporting evidence. Furthermore, one would relish how she tailored her article to a broader audience. Easy and straightforward for a non tech-savvy individual to understand, and yet interesting to captivate the minds of those that are tech-savvy, she capitalized on the statements made from some of the most respected cyber security experts in the world. As a student who often finds himself being the rescue to many of his friends or familys infected PCs, choosing Stuxnet as my topic of study seemed like the obvious choice. I have always been very interested in computer malware since the day my laptop first got infected. I was bombarded with annoying ads telling me that I had a virus on board and that I needed to type in my credit card number to purchase antivirus protection. Although very annoying, it had me asking myself many questions like how did this happen, isnt Windows secure and best of all how do I delete my browsing history. Since then, I have always had a keen interest in malware and have developed a hobby of testing the capabilities of different antivirus programs in VMware Player. I find many things interesting about Stuxnet but the thing I find most interesting is how it spread. Although Stuxnet possessed the ability to spread through networks, it couldnt infect industrial control systems via the internet since a majority of them lack internet connectivity to protect them from malware and hostile takeover. (Weinberger, 2011). To get past this obstacle, Stuxnet had the ability to covertly install itself on a USB drive (Weinberger, 2011). Like a biological virus, Stuxnet used humans (plant operators specifically) as its host of transmission. If one careless plant operator were to plug in an infected USB flash drive into a control-system computer, Stuxnet would begin its destruction.   Weinberger, S. (2011, June 9). IS THIS THE START OF CYBERWARFARE? Nature, 142-145. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/docview/872363390?accountid=14694 Last years Stuxnet virus attack represented a new kind of threat to critical infrastructure. Just over a year ago, a computer in Iran started repeatedly rebooting itself, seemingly without reason. Suspecting some kind of malicious software (malware), analysts at VirusBlokAda, an antivirus-software company in Minsk, examined the misbehaving machine over the Internet, and soon found that they were right. Disturbingly so: the code they extracted from the Iranian machine proved to be a previously unknown computer virus of unprecedented size and complexity. On 17 June 2010, VirusBlokAda issued a worldwide alert that set off an international race to track down what came to be known as Stuxnet: the most sophisticated computer malware yet found and the harbinger of a new generation of cyberthreats. Unlike conventional malware, which does its damage only in the virtual world of computers and networks, Stuxnet would turn out to target the software that controls pumps, valves, generators and other industrial machines. It was the first time wed analysed a threat that could cause real-world damage, that could actually cause some machine to break, that might be able to cause an explosion, says Liam O Murchu, chief of security response for the worlds largest computer-security firm, Symantec in Mountain View, California. Stuxnet provided chilling proof that groups or nations could launch a cyberattack against a societys vital infrastructures for water and energy. We are probably just now entering the era of the cyber arms race, says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for F-Secure, an antivirus company based in Helsinki. Worse yet, the Stuxnet episode has highlighted just how inadequate are societys current defences and how glaring is the gap in cybersecurity science. Computer-security firms are competitive in the marketplace, but they generally respond to a threat such as Stuxnet with close collaboration behind the scenes. Soon after Virus- BlokAdas alert, for example, Kaspersky Lab in Moscow was working with Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, to hunt down the vulnerabilities that the virus was exploiting in the Windows operating system. (It was Microsoft that coined the name Stuxnet, after one of the files hidden in its code. Technically, Stuxnet was a worm, a type of malware that can operate on its own without needing another program to infect. But even experts often call it a virus, which has become the generic term for self-replicating malware.) One of the most ambitious and comprehensive responses was led by Symantec, which kept O Murchu and his worldwide team of experts working on Stuxnet around the clock for three months. One major centre of operations was Symantecs malware lab in Culver City, California, which operates like the digital equivalent of a top-level biological containment facility. A sign on the door warns visitors to leave computers, USB flash drives and smart phones outside: any electronic device that passes through that door, even by mistake, will stay there. Inside the lab, the team began by dropping Stuxnet into a simulated networking environment so that they could safely watch what it did. The sheer size of the virus was staggering: some 15,000 lines of code, representing an estimated 10,000 person hours in software development. Compared with any other virus ever seen, says O Murchu, its a huge amount of code. Equally striking was the sophistication of that code. Stuxnet took advantage of two digital certificates of authenticity stolen from respected companies, and exploited four different zero day vulnerabilities previously unidentified security holes in Windows that were wide open for hackers to use. Then there was the viruss behaviour. Very quickly we realized that it was doing something very unusual, recalls O Murchu. Most notably, Stuxnet was trying to talk to the programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that are used to direct industrial machinery. Stuxnet was very selective, however: although the virus could spread to almost any machine running Windows, the crucial parts of its executable code would become active only if that machine was also running Siemens Step7, one of the many supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems used to manage industrial processes. Many industrial control systems are never connected to the Internet, precisely to protect them from malware and hostile takeover. That led to another aspect of Stuxnets sophistication. Like most other malware, it could spread over a network. But it could also covertly install itself on a USB drive. So all it would take was one operator unknowingly plugging an infected memory stick into a control-system computer, and the virus could explode into action. 6.1 Murky Motives It still wasnt clear what Stuxnet was supposed to do to the Siemens software. The Symantec team got a clue when it realized that the virus was gathering information about the host computers it had infected, and sending the data back to servers in Malaysia and Denmark presumably to give the unknown perpetrators a way to update the Stuxnet virus covertly. Identifying the command and control servers didnt allow Symantec to identify the perpetrators, but they were able to convince the Internet service providers to cut off the perpetrators access, rerouting the traffic from the infected computers back to Symantec so that they could eavesdrop. By watching where the traffic to the servers was coming from, O Murchu says, we were able to see that the majority of infections were in Iran at least 60% of them. In fact, the infections seemed to have been appearing there in waves since 2009. The obvious inference was that the virus had deliberately been directed against Iran, for reasons as yet unknown. But the Symantec investigators couldnt go much further by themselves. They were extremely knowledgeable about computers and networking, but like most malware-protection teams, they had little or no expertise in PLCs or SCADA systems. At some point in their analysis they just couldnt make any more sense out of what the purpose of this thing was, because they were not able to experiment with the virus in such a lab environment, says Ralph Langner, a control-system security consultant in Hamburg, Germany. Langner independently took it upon himself to fill that gap. Over the summer, he and his team began running Stuxnet in a lab environment equipped with Siemens software and industrial control systems, and watching how the virus interacted with PLCs. We began to see very strange and funny results immediately, and I mean by that within the first day of our lab experiment, he says. Those PLC results allowed Langner to infer that Stuxnet was a directed attack, seeking out specific software and hardware. In mid-September 2010, he announced on his blog that the evidence supported the suspicion that Stuxnet had been deliberately directed against Iran. The most likely target, he then believed, was the Bushehr nuclear power plant. 6.2 Industrial Sabotoge Speculative though Langners statements were, the news media quickly picked up on them and spread the word of a targeted cyberweapon. Over the next few months, however, as Langner and others continued to work with the code, the evidence began to point away from Bushehr and towards a uranium-enrichment facility in Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges were separating the rare but fissionable isotope uranium-235 from the heavier uranium-238. Many Western nations believe that this enrichment effort, which ostensibly provides fuel for nuclear power stations, is actually aimed at producing a nuclear weapon. The malware code, according to Langner and others, was designed to alter the speed of the delicate centrifuges, essentially causing the machines to spin out of control and break. That interpretation is given credence by reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, which document a precipitous drop in the number of operating centrifuges in 2009, the year that many observers think Stuxnet first infected computers in Iran. True, the evidence is circumstantial at best. We dont know what those machines were doing when they werent in operation, cautions Ivanka Barszashka, a Bulgarian physicist who studied Iranian centrifuge performance while she was working with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC. We dont know if they were actually broken or if they were just sitting there. Moreover, the Iranian government has officially denied that Stuxnet destroyed large numbers of centrifuges at Natanz, although it does acknowledge that the infection is widespread in the country. And IAEA inspection reports from late 2010 make it clear that any damage was at most a temporary setback: Irans enrichment capacity is higher than ever. However, if Natanz was the target, that does suggest an answer to the mystery of who created Stuxnet, and why. Given the knowledge required including expertise in malware, industrial security and the specific types and configurations of the industrial equipment being targeted most Stuxnet investigators concluded early on that the perpetrators were backed by a government. Governments have tried to sabotage foreign nuclear programmes before, says Olli Heinonen, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and former deputy director-general of the IAEA. In the 1980s and 1990s, for example, Western governments orchestrated a campaign to inject faulty parts into the network that Pakistan used to supply nuclear technology to countries such as Iran and North Korea. Intelligence agencies, including the US Central Intelligence Agency, have also made other attempts to sell flawed nuclear designs to would-be proliferators. Stuxnet, says Heinonen, is another way to do the same thing. Langner argues that the government behind Stuxnet is that of the United States, which has both the required expertise in cyberwarfare and a long-standing goal of thwarting Irans nuclear ambitions. Throughout the summer of 2010, while Langner, Symantec and all the other investigators were vigorously trading ideas and information about Stuxnet, the US Department of Homeland Security maintained a puzzling silence, even though it operates Computer Emergency Readiness Teams (CERTs) created specifically to address cyberthreats. True, the CERT at the Idaho National Laboratory outside Idaho Falls, which operates one of the worlds most sophisticated testbeds for industrial control systems, did issue a series of alerts. But the first, on 20 July 2010, came more than a month after the initial warning from Belarus and contained nothing new. Later alerts followed the same pattern: too little, too late. A delayed clipping service, said Dale Peterson, founder of Digital Bond, a SCADA security firm in Sunrise, Florida, on his blog. There is no way that they could have missed this problem, or that this is all a misunderstanding. Thats just not possible, says Langner, who believes that the Idaho labs anaemic response was deliberate, intended to cover up the fact that Stuxnet had been created there. But even Langner has to admit that the evidence against the United States is purely circumstantial. (The US government itself will neither confirm nor deny the allegation, as is its practice for any discussion of covert activity.) And the evidence against the other frequently mentioned suspect, Israel, is even more so. Symantec, for example, points out that a name embedded in Stuxnets code, Myrtus, could be a reference to a biblical story about a planned massacre of Jews in Persia. But other investigators say that such claims are beyond tenuous. There are no facts about Israel, declares Jeffrey Carr, founder and chief executive of Taia Global, a cybersecurity consulting company in Tysons Corner, Virginia. 6.3 The Aftermath The who? may never be discovered. Active investigation of Stuxnet effectively came to an end in February 2011, when Symantec posted a final update to its definitive report on the virus, including key details about its execution, lines of attack and spread over time. Microsoft had long since patched the security holes that Stuxnet exploited, and all the antivirus companies had updated their customers digital immune systems with the ability to recognize and shut down Stuxnet on sight. New infections are now rare although they do still occur, and it will take years before all the computers with access to Siemens controllers are patched. If Stuxnet itself has ceased to be a serious threat, however, cybersecurity experts continue to worry about the larger vulnerabilities that it exposed. Stuxnet essentially laid out a blueprint for future attackers to learn from and perhaps improve, say many of the investigators who have studied it. In a way, you did open the Pandoras box by launching this attack, says Langner of his suspicions about the United States. And it might turn back to you guys eventually. Cybersecurity experts are ill-prepared for the threat, in part because they lack ties to the people who understand industrial control systems. Weve got actually two very different worlds that traditionally have not communicated all that much, says Eric Byres, co-founder and chief technology officer of Tofino Industrial Security in Lantzville, Canada. He applauds Symantec, Langner and others for reaching across that divide. But the effort required to make those connections substantially delayed the investigation. The divide extends into university computer-science departments, say Byres, himself an ex-academic. Researchers tend to look at industrial-control security as a technical problem, rather than an issue requiring serious scientific attention, he says. So when graduate students express interest in looking at, say, cryptography and industrial controls, they are told that the subject is not mathematically challenging enough for a dissertation project. Im not aware of any academic researchers who have invested significantly in the study of Stuxnet, agrees Andrew Ginter, director of industrial security for the North American group of Waterfall Security Solutions, based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Almost the only researchers doing that kind of work are in industrial or government settings among them a team at the Idaho National Laboratory working on a next-generation system called Sophia, which tries to protect industrial control systems against Stuxnet-like threats by detecting anomalies in the network. One barrier for academics working on cybersecurity is access to the malware that they must protect against. That was not such a problem for Stuxnet itself, because its code was posted on the web shortly after it was first identified. But in general, the careful safeguards that Symantec and other companies put in place in secure labs to protect the escape of malware may also inadvertently be a barrier for researchers who need to study them. If youre doing research into biological agents, its limited groups that have them and they are largely unwilling to share; the same holds true for malware, says Anup Ghosh, chief scientist at the Center for Secure Information Systems at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. To advance the field, researchers need access to good data sets, says Ghosh, who was once a programme manager at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and is now working on a malware detector designed to identify viruses on the basis of how they behave, rathe r than on specific patterns in their code, known as signatures. Academic researchers are also inhibited by a certain squeamishness about digital weaponry, according to Herb Lin, chief scientist at the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the US National Research Council in Washington DC. He points out that to understand how to guard against cyberattacks, it may help to know how to commit them. Yet teaching graduate students to write malware is very controversial, he says. People say, What do you mean: youre training hackers?' 6.4 Preparing for the Next Attack A study last year by the JASON group, which advises the US government on science and technology matters, including defence, found broad challenges for cybersecurity (JASON Science of Cyber-Security; MITRE Corporation, 2010). Perhaps most important was its conclusion that the field was underdeveloped in reporting experimental results, and consequently in the ability to use them. Roy Maxion, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who briefed JASON, goes further, saying that cybersecurity suffers from a lack of scientific rigour. Medical professionals over the past 200 years transformed themselves from purveyors of leeches to modern scientists with the advent of evidence-based medicine, he notes. In computer science and in computer security in particular, that train is nowhere in sight. Computer science has developed largely as a collection of what Maxion calls clever parlour tricks. For example, at one conference, the leading paper showed how researchers could read computer screens by looking at the reflections off windows and other objects. From a practical point of view, anyone in a classified meeting would go, pooh, he says. In places where they dont want you to know [whats on the computer screen], there are no windows. Yet, that was the buzz that year. Maxion sees an urgent need for computer-science and security curricula to include courses in traditional research methods, such as experimental design and statistics none of which is currently required. Why does it matter? he asks. Because we dont have a scientific basis for investigating phenomena like Stuxnet, or the kind of defences that would be effective against it. Also troubling for many of the Stuxnet investigators was the US governments lacklustre response to the virus (assuming that it was not the perpetrator). Stuxnet represents a new generation of cyberweapon that could be turned against US targets, but there is no evidence that the government is making the obvious preparations for such an attack for example, plans for a coordinated response that pools resources from academia, research institutes and private business. Other countries seem to be taking the threat more seriously. Some of Chinas universities and vocational colleges have reportedly forged strong connections with the military to work on cybersecurity, for example. And Israel also seems to be exploiting its computing expertise for national security. A few months before the discovery of Stuxnet, Yuval Elovici, a computer scientist and director of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel, told Nature that he was working closely with the countrys Ministry of Defense on cybersecurity. He presciently warned that the next wave of cyberattacks would be aimed at physical infrastructures. What would happen if there were a code injection into SCADA? What if someone would activate it suddenly? Elovici asked. He and other experts have been warning for several years now that such an attack on SCADA systems controlling the electricity grid could spark nationwide blackouts, or that the safety systems of power plants could be overridden, causing a shutdown or a serious accident. Similar disruptions could hit water and sewage systems, or even food processing plants. Such attacks, Elovici warned, are both realistic and underestimated. Asked how bad one would be, Elovici was unequivocal. I think, he said, it would be much stronger than the impact of setting several atomic bombs on major cities.

Petty Officer Of The Navy Commerce Essay

Petty Officer Of The Navy Commerce Essay Responsibility, authority, and accountability always go hand in hand. Its known that the more authority one has then the need of being more responsible and accountable. Figures in authority have to bear a lot of responsibility and with the weighty decisions they make they have to be we see the need of all that. Petty officers also commonly know as the PO is a leader with authority in the navy. They are involved in the decision making process and the delegation of duties to the naval crew. They come up with the strategies and they are responsible for all the actions being executed. Being a leader you always have to lead by example and be willing to teach and take the necessary corrections when the need arises. The PO has a lot to do concerning corrections. They are charge with the responsibility of warning and reprimanding the personnel. They also put the personnel on the report if there are any mistakes they have done in line of duty. Tasks given to them might not be easy to undertake but they come as part of the responsibility they have. There is the utilization of the principle of delegation of authority in the workforce. This authority is the responsibility of the officers since they are the ones who are responsible for the actions of their juniors. Everyone who has been assigned a particular task has the obligation of accomplishing it, hence there is completion of the tasks. In the navy cases of bad behavior are always there. One can say that you cannot expect every one to behave exceptionally well given that they were all brought up differently and in different environments. Many things can bring up the negative side of an individual. Depending on the conditions and the environment a person is in, the character of the given person is expected to show up though the same person may try as much as possible to hide it. In the navy for example, the sailors always go on expeditions which can last for several months without one having to step on land. Many sailors will experience sea sickness while others may develop psychological problems. The most important thing when this happens is if the affected officer will cope with what is affecting there them. Carrying naval officers on board who are not in their correct state of mind can prove costly especially in circumstances such as during war. Every marine on board should be able to think exceptionally well and perform a given task as needed. Whenever the sailors achieve anything good they all take credit for it and do the same when everything does wrong they dont point fingers at any of them because they are a team. Whom do we blame when things go wrong? Some can say its the people who were assigned the task, others can argue that its the leaders or simply those put oversee the complete of the task. Both sides could be right but they could also be wrong. Different circumstances result in different measures being taken to correct them. When instructions are given it is upon the person giving them out to ensure that they are all followed and also the person given to follow them as needed (Stavridis Girrier, 2004). Importance of good behavior Military schools and academies are said to give the best training towards a persons character. They mould them into dependable people whom their countries have much expectation on. When they leave the academies, one can easily tell whop has changed or not. Others might not be able to change at all. While on the navy there are those who tend to break the rules. The petty officer is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the regulations set are followed. Whenever something goes wrong he will be answerable many things the crew has done. We find that the behavior of any given officer a matters a lot. Some incidents can bring diplomatic rows, others may be detrimental to the force but for a force to stand its ground there should be mechanisms which are in place to correct any irregularity when it arises. Thought its not at a high level of command the position held by the petty officer plays an important role by correcting mistakes made. OP is tasked with ensuring the safety of his crew. Excising ones authority over grownups can be challenging having in mind that the person you are in-charge is the same age as you or could be even older. One has to be responsible and accountable. The example you set may make someone to respect or despise you as a leader. Disciple is an important aspect of any military unit. There is no exception when it comes to the navy as well. For order to be their, there has to be discipline within then people concerned. People have to behave. Many sailors exhibit high sense of discipline. They do as they are ordered to do by those above them in the chains of command. You find that orders given are done as needed with few doing the opposite of that. Some orders may come from the highest order of command. When such an order is given and it has to be done by the most junior person in the command line its the sole responsibility of those who have been delegated the order to ensure that the task is c ompleted and if not it would be against the military discipline that you always have to followed orders from your superiors and ensure that they are done. When a junior officer misbehaves and a petty officer is around the PO has to punish the misbehaving officer or he will be reprimanded. All the petty officers are charged with the responsibility of chain of command. There must be indication to all of them that one is punishable incases of any instances of inappropriate behavior in the chain of command. When they do the punishment they are assuming their moral of authority and undertaking his responsibility. Punishment is another way of instilling discipline. Depending on the seriousness of the rules broken the type of punishment also varies. If there is a fight and a petty officer is present it is his responsibility to punish the responsible offenders. The authority given to the petty officer has to be used where needed. Accountability is a quality that a petty officer must also have. When you punish a person for a mistake he/she has done you should be able to give an account of what the person had done to warrant such a punishment. Some punishments can be too harsh and when the person being punished complains you have to take the explain reasons why you think the punishment is the right one and that you are not biased against the person. Being a petty officer, it could be a hard thing making decisions which are right or even making any given decision. Being a human being can sometimes make life hard for us. This happens when making decisions which can change a persons life forever. An example is writing a report which could lead to someone being sacked. No one would like to see a person suffer after losing a job. Being in such a situation is tough even for a PO but one has to choose between doing your job and giving the person another chance. On being given the rank of the petty officer it came with a responsibility that requires one to do the job as is expected. The person who committed the offence is guilty as charged because he had the option of not committing the offence in the first place. The person did not behave as expected prompting action to be taken against him. A mistake by one officer of a naval unit may bring an internal conflict within the unit and when there is a conflict; coordination between the officers cannot be at its best. This can raise a security situation depending on what activity the navy was involved in though there has to be unity every time and also the reason we find the need of positions like that of the petty officer. Effects of disrespect to authority Respect is a virtue that has to be earned. It is not something that one can demand for. To get respect one has to earn it. One can earn respect just as easily as one can lose it. Its one of the military core values. Officers in military have to respect each other so that discipline can prevail. Senior officers in the military are to ensure that junior soldiers respect one another. Like in the navy the petty officers are among those who are tasked with ensuring that junior officers respect each other. They as leaders try to do their best at enforcing respect and discipline within the officers. Disrespect on the other hand can be termed as that the show of indifference towards figures in authority. Within the navy there are cultures and courtesies to be observed. When a naval officer does not observe these courtesies it can be termed as disrespect. It is hard sometimes to tell when someone shows disrespect to a person unless someone speaks up while in some cases signs of disrespect can be easily noted. For example not making the customary salute to a superior officer when you are supposed to do so is a sign of disrespect. Being rude to your superiors is also termed as disrespect. Another example of disrespect is using uncouth language in the presence of your superior or when referring to the officer while using the same language. The superior officer does not have to be there for it to be considered disrespect. The military runs smoothly on trust but trust cannot exist if there is no respect. It always takes a lot to earn a soldiers trust then respect. Why would an officers respect a superior officer they cannot trust? As a leader a petty officer need to have the ability to guide direct and influence the people who are his juniors. This is leading by example. There have been many cases of disrespect within the military. When such a thing happens those involved usually have a case to answer to the superiors. It is said if you cant respect anyone in authority then at-least respect the position the person is holding. Any disrespect towards the authority is usually punishable in many countries. Military units are not left out of this. When a soldier in a military unit is punished, the person doing the punishment should have in mind that the officer must not be demoralized but instead take the punishment positively and not to repeat the same mistake. Perception of respect varies for different people. Something might be perceived as disrespect by one party but another party can perceive it differently. The perception usually has an effect on the kind of punishment given. Some punishments can be termed as harsh while others lenient. People have been imprisoned for disrespecting those in authority. Many of these cases are undertaken by dictatorial regimes. In countries with open democracy imprisoning a person because of disrespect are not common. Signs of disrespect cannot be taken kindly in military institutions. People are sometimes suspended pending investigation. When the investigation is complete some loose their jobs, some are transferred to different stations while others continue in their suspension. When a very junior officer in a military unit disrespects another one with very senior position, blame may be directed towards the immediate superiors of the officer and it assumed that they allowed such a behavior to develop by not taking any action to correct that same mistake that the officer showed. Rarely do we find junior officer disrespecting their seniors but few cases occur. As part of the responsibility of a petty officer, it is part of their work to instill discipline on the junior officers. They should also be accountable when a junior officer shows disrespect to those superior to him and even those on the same rank (Montor, 1998). Before any punishment is given to any officer it has to be approved by a court- martial and the maximum punishment would be being discharged because of inappropriate behavior, going without pay and allowances and detention for a year. Unauthorized absence of a sailor from his post There are many forms of absenteeism. The sailor might not go to the place of duty at all or that he goes to his post then leaves it to go somewhere else without any authority or reason given for absenting oneself. The unauthorized absence means that the sailor knew he had to be at the specified place at that time or, he had been ordered to be there but failed to be there. The punishment for not being at the intended place at a given time will be determined by a court martial. Before any punishment is given out it has to be proven that the accused knew that he was supposed to be there and had absented himself from certain exercises he knew of. They always depend on circumstantial evidence for this. Unauthorized absence can be through motivated forms of the same like a situation where one leaves his post with the intention of leaving it untended. One may not really have the intention of unauthorized absence while being held by civilian authorities for a crime he committed or might not have committed. One is punished is if he is found guilty of that crime. The duration being held does not matter that much. Whether one was on leave or not and is being held by civilian authorities it does not give a person an excuse of being absent neither can it be said that it was intentional. Conviction does not also give the person an excuse not return to his post as what happened is was a result of his own intentions. The only situation where one is found to be innocent is if he is released by the authorities with no trial being done or if the person was on leave when he was arrested but was later proven innocent after hearing the case. Sometimes sickness, lack of transport facilities make one absent from his post and is part of unauthorized absence but when reviewing the offence committed by the person it should be given careful considerations before judgment is passed (Mack, Seymour McComas, 1998). After unauthorized absence there are ways where the unauthorized absence can be written off. When one is been arrested by civilian authorities before the navy gives any request, informing the navy of the arrest makes the absentee available for return to navy control. While under military control the absence is terminated. Surrendering oneself to military authority and notifying them of your unauthorized absence shows that you are wiling to submit yourself to there control. This also brings to an end illegal absence. Other ways which the unauthorized absence can be terminated are when the absentee is personally arrested by the navy and arrest of the absentee at the request of the navy. In some cases one can be found to be absent more than once under a single specification. Unauthorized absence by the naval officer from his post is punishable but the punishment usually depends mostly on how long the sailor had been absent. For the naval officer or sailor if he fails to go to his post for a time not more than three days he will have to go without two-thirds of his monthly income for a period of one month and will also be confined for the same duration of time. If the sailor absents himself for a period of less than thirty days but more than three days he will just be earning a third of his usual monthly in come and will be confined for half a year. For an absence of more than thirty days the sailor will not get his pay but also go into detention for one year. He will also have a dishonorable discharge. If the sailor is arrested after being absent for more than a month the sentence would be the same but he will be detained for six more months. For other forms of absence like absence from his post as a guard and absence as a guard but with the will of bein g absent, he would get the following sentences respectively: being detained for a quarter of a year while he earns a third of his salary. The other sentence would be going without pay, will be detained for half a year and be discharged from the force for bad-conduct. We can now determine that the absence of the sailor from his post would be punishable unless it is proven that it did not happen out of his own will. In conclusion every one in the force has to be responsible and accountable in whatever they do as any action undertaken has an effect which can either be positive or negative.