What Are Cruelty-Free Products

The term â€Å"cruelty-free product† is generally understood within the animal rights movement as a product that has not been tested on animals by the manufacturer. While you may not have a special affinity for rats, guinea pigs or even rabbits, its important for you to know that dogs, cats, and primates are all used in laboratory testing, and the tests are inhumane. Several mainstream companies, such as Bon Ami and Clientele, have been cruelty-free for years. Unfortunately, three of the largest cruelty-free companies, Avon, Mary Kay and Estee Lauder, recently resumed animal testing in order to satisfy legal requirements in China, so that they could sell their products in China. Revlon, which was one of the first large mainstream companies to go cruelty-free, is now selling in China but will not answer questions about their animal testing policy. Because of their refusal to answer questions, Revlon is now on the cruel list. For companies with such good reputations; and who have generated such goodwill by first renouncing animal testing to hide behind the excuse that the Chinese government requires some testing is ludicrous. The obvious step for them is to stop selling in China until China catches up with the 21st century. The tests conducted on animals for cosmetic purposes are redundant and can now be easily replaced with in-vitro testing.   In the United States, federal law requires drugs to be tested on animals, but no law requires cosmetics or household products to be tested on animals unless they contain new chemicals. With so many substances that are already known to be safe, cruelty-free companies can continue to offer new, quality products year after year without testing on animals. Gray Areas One of the gray areas is when the individual ingredients might have been tested on animals by a supplier to the manufacturer. Some animal rights activists seek to support companies that do not purchase ingredients from suppliers who test on animals. Another tricky issue is when a cruelty-free company is owned or acquired by a parent company that tests on animals. For example, The Body Shop is cruelty-free but was acquired by L’Oreal in 2006. Although The Body Shop still does not test its products on animals, L’Oreal continues to conduct animal testing. this leaves fans and patrons of The Body Shop with a dilemma.   Cruelty-Free v. Vegan Just because a product is labeled â€Å"cruelty-free† does not necessarily mean that it is vegan. A product that has not been tested on animals may still contain animal ingredients, rendering it non-vegan. Companies like Origins and Urban Decay are cruelty-free and carry both vegan and non-vegan products. The Urban Decay website has a page with vegan products, and if you visit an Origins store, their vegan products are labeled. Completely vegan, cruelty-free companies include Moo Shoes,  Method, Beauty Without Cruelty, Zuzu Luxe, and Crazy Rumors. Companies v. Products It is important to distinguish between whether a specific company tests on animals and whether a specific ingredient or product has ever been tested on animals. To expect that an ingredient has never been tested on animals is unrealistic because centuries of animal experimentation mean that almost every substance, even those that are natural and generally considered safe, has been tested on animals at some point in history. Instead of focusing on whether an ingredient or product has ever been tested on animals, ask whether the company or the supplier currently conducts animal testing. Where to Buy Cruelty-Free Products Some vegan, cruelty-free products, like Method, can be purchased at Costco, Target or mainstream supermarkets. PETA maintains a list of companies that do or do not test on animals, and their list of companies that don’t test on animals has a letter â€Å"V† next to the companies that are also vegan. You can also find vegan, cruelty-free products online at stores like Pangea, Vegan Essentials, or Food Fight. New companies, more enlightened than past counterparts, are cropping up every day so if you are shopping online, do a search using the words cruelty-free, vegan, not-tested-on-animals or contains no animal products often so you dont miss out on new products.   Updated  by  Michelle A. Rivera

Frankensteins Creature is a Victim, NOT A Villain Essays

Frankensteins Creature Is A Victim Not A Villain In this essay I aim to discuss the statement Frankensteins creature is a victim not a villain In 1814 Mary Wollestonecraft met Percy shelly, a poet and writer. They ran away together, to escape Marys family and Percys pregnant wife, Harriet. Harriet drowned herself and Mary and percy were married two weeks later. Frankenstein was started in 1816 and finally published in 1818. From 1815 to 1819 three of mary Shellys four children died in infancy, these series of deaths may have encouraged shelly to continue writing Frankenstein. Shelly was good friends with Lord Byron, a famous romantic poet. Along with her husband, he influenced shelly while she was writing†¦show more content†¦It is my thought that the creature was at first like a baby as he had just been born. Therefore he would have seen Frankenstein as his parent . However the creature is shunned by Frankenstein and is called such names as a miserable monster. Going on, Frankenstein feels that what he has done is totally wrong and starts regretting what he has done more and more calling his creation a miserable monster and a demoniacal corpse to which I have so miserably given life. The creature finds books belonging to Frankenstein. These include Frankensteins journal and Paradise Lost, a poem about the war between God and the Angel Lucifer. He takes this poem literally, believing it to have actually happened. Many times throughout the book he likens himself to Lucifer, cast away from his creator and forced to live in misery. This may deepened his self pity and his final hatred of Frankenstein. I, like the arch fiend is one line where he likens himself to the Devil. He sees himself as an earthly Satan, however is even envious of him, as Satan has his followers for company and the creature is alone with his pain. After he is attacked by the peasant family that he has watched over and finally approached, he says that he wished to spread havoc and destruction around me and then to have sat back and enjoyed the ruin. this shows the first temptation that the creature had to perform acts

Evaluating the Historical Capital Budgeting Method free essay sample

Currently AES employs Project Finance Framework. Project finance tends to be used in projects with tangible assets with predictable cash flows in which construction and operating targets can be easily established through explicit contract. The key to AES projects financing lies with the precise forecasting of cash flows. In effect, the possibility of estimating cash flows with an acceptable level of uncertainty allows for allocation of risks among various interested parties. The ensuing certainty in cash flows allows for high level of leverage and enables project assets to be separated from the parent company. Let us now take a closer look at the pros and cons of the Capital Budgeting System currently in place. Principal Advantages Non-Recourse The separation of the parent company is structured through the creation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). This SPV is the formal borrower under all loan documents so that in event of default or bankruptcy AES is not directly responsible before financial creditors. Instead, their legal claims are against the SPV assets. Maximize Leverage Currently AES seeks to finance the cost of development and construction of the project on highly leveraged basis. High leveraged in non-recourse project financing permits AES to put less in capital to put at risk permits AES to finance the project without diluting its equity investment in the project. Off-Balance Sheet Treatment AES may not be required to report any of the project debt on its balance sheet because such debt is non-recourse. Off balance sheet treatment can have the added practical benefit of helping the AES comply with covenants and restriction relating to borrowing funds contained in loan agreements to which AES is also a party. Agency Cost The agency costs of free cash flow are reduced. Management incentives are to project performance. Most importantly close monitoring by investors is facilitated. Multilateral Financial Institutions One of the four constituents that have contractual arrangement with the SPV in a typical project are the banks (an integral part group of financiers that include share holders, insurers, equipment manufacturers, export credit agencies and funds). Among these banks there are multilateral financial institutions (like IFC, CAF and etc). Presence of these institutions as financiers helps in raising capital from these institutes at lower cost and secondly it is also read as a positive sign by commercial banks. Drawbacks Projects V/S Division The company is not only expanding its geographical boundaries, but it is also diversifying its business through backward and forward integration. The current financial model does not provide the AES with the big picture, which now constitutes more number of variables that are being influenced by multiple factors due to the increase in depth and breadth of the organization. Complexity Financing of projects requires involvement of a number of parties. They can be quite complex and can be expensive to arrange. Secondly it demands greater amount of management time. Macroeconomic Risk The current methodology employed by AES for capital budgeting does not take into account the exchange rate risk. This risk will be of higher magnitude in the developing countries because of their unstable monetary and fiscal policies[2]. As we have seen that fluctuation in exchange rate has greatly hurt the AES business and they were unable to mitigate this risk as they haven’t anticipated it. This risk becomes important when the exchange rate fluctuation affects balance sheet items unequally. Thus keeping check on the foreign exchange rate requires timely adjustment of both the items of revenue and expenditure, and those of assets and liabilities in different currencies. Political Risk: This is another important factor which the current financial management system does not take into account. This will be of significant importance when it comes to investing in developing countries where frequent changes in government policies occur. Does this system make sense? The financial strategy employed by AES was historically based on project finance. This approach solely took into account those factors that minimized AES exposure to the project and achieved the most beneficial regulatory treatment thus ensuring availability of financial resources to complete the project. The model worked well for the domestic market as well as for the international operations, provided the opportunities undertook by AES were either in the sector of building and running a power plant or simply buying an existing facility and upgrading it and then operating. The underlying assumption over here was that the symmetrical and asymmetrical risks faced by the project were more or less same irrespective of its geographical location (Refer to Exhibit 3). However when AES started diversifying the breadth of its operations by incorporating other offshoots of energy related business and transforming from a cogeneration to a more utility organization with majority of expansion occurring in developing economies. This diversification of business increased the symmetrical risks like business risk, a classic example of which we see in Brazil where AES experience shortfall in demand /sales volume due to Energy Conservation Policy of Brazilian government and this had a chain effect on debt servicing capacity of the SPV as well the stock price of the parent company. Other factor that current model was not able to include was the risk of devaluation of currency in developing economies which resulted in significant losses due to the inability of the company to survive its international debt obligations. Expansion in developing economies also exposed the business to political risk where the policies change erratically with changes in government. Hence we see that the geographical diversification of business causes asymmetrical risk to increase causing bimodal behavior in the result. Project financing becomes less recommendable as a symmetrical risk becomes more manifest. This constitutes a problem for emerging countries where these risks tends to be at the forefront. Lal Pir Project Valuation Scenario 1: Pakistan In order to calculate the value of project for the Lal Pir project in Pakistan, we first need to calculate the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) using the new proposed methodology. For this we have followed the approach given in exhibit 8 of the case. The first step is to calculate the value of levered ? using the formula and information given in the case[3]. The value of the levered ? comes out to be 0. 3852 or 38. 52%, which essentially means that our project is not very highly correlated to the market return. Using this value of ? we now calculate the cost of Equity (refer Exhibit 4A). We have used the return on U. S. Treasury Bond (i. e. 4. 5%) as the risk free return in calculating the cost of equity. The cost of equity comes out to be 0. 072 and similarly, using the risk free return and the default spread (given in exhibit 7a of case) we calculate the cost of debt which comes out to be 0. 0807. It is important to note that the cost of debt and the cost of equity also need to be adjusted for the sovereign spread (0. 0990 for Pakistan). Once we have the adjusted costs of equity and capital we can now calculate the WACC for the project using the formula given in case where we essentially multiply equity and debt ratio with the adjusted costs of equity and debt respectively[4]. The WACC in this scenario comes out to be 0. 1595 or 15. 95%. However, now we need to adjust this WACC for the risks associated with doing the project in Pakistan and we do this by using Table A given in the case. We know that the total Risk Score for Pakistan is 1. 425 and since there is a linear relationship between business specific risk scores and cost of capital[5] we need to adjust our WACC by 7. 125% thus making our final WACC 23. 075%, using which we calculate our NPV (refer to Exhibit 6) from the year 2004 to 2023, and it comes out to be negative $234. 34 million. Scenario 2: USA For USA similar calculations are made to calculate the WACC (Exhibit 4B). However there are two things that are different. First we see the sovereign spread is equal to zero. Secondly, in this case we would need to calculate the business risk using the information given in exhibit 7a of the case (refer to Exhibit 5). This score comes out to be 0. 64 and using this score, our business risk comes out to be 3. 23% and adding it to our calculated value of WACC, we get our final WACC of 9. 64%. Using this we calculate our NPV for USA which comes out to be negative $ 35. 92 million (refer to Exhibit 7). Adjusted Cost of Capital and Probabilities of Real Events in Pakistan In calculating the adjusted cost of capital for Pakistan the WACC is adjusted for six common types of risks: Operational, Counterparty, Regulatory, Construction, Commodity, Currency and Legal. We can clearly see from table A given in the case that besides construction there is a probability of all these risks actually effecting the project in Pakistan. In these, the highest probability is that of currency risk and the legal risk. The adjusted cost that we have calculated is adjusted by the total risk score for Pakistan. There is a linear relationship between the total risk score and adjustment to the cost of capital, i. e. a score of 1 leads to an adjustment of 500 basis points in the WACC. When we calculate the WACC for Pakistan through traditional formula it comes out to be 15. 95%, however in order to incorporate the risk factor associated with Pakistan we need to adjust it for the Total Risk Score, which in this case is 1. 425. So we simply multiply this by 500 and we find out that we need to adjust our WACC 23. 075%. Since this 23. 075% is adjusted using the total risk score we can safely assume that it incorporates for the probability of the afro-mentioned six types of risks in WACC with respect to Pakistan. Discount Rate Adjustment: USA v/s Pakistan As mentioned earlier the discount rate is adjusted based on the total risk score of the country. This total risk score is compiled from 6 main types of risks, the probability of which varies from country to country. If we simply compare the risk scores for USA and Pakistan[6], we can see that there is a major difference between the risk profiles of both the countries. For instance, while currency, regulatory and legal risks are significantly high in Pakistan, they do not exist in the USA at all. Also we see that operational, counterparty and commodity risks are higher in USA as compared to Pakistan. Similarly when the respective WACCs of the two countries are adjusted for their risk we see that the adjusted WACC for Pakistan (23. 075%) is much higher as opposed to that of USA (9. 64%), which essentially implies that Pakistan is inherently a riskier country to invest in as opposed to the USA and any investments made in this region would have to cross a higher hurdle rate than if they were made in the US region.

Things Fall Apart Essay Thesis Example For Students

Things Fall Apart Essay Thesis All good aspects of humanity come unraveled as Achebe takes a story of a man and his society and stomps on it with tragedy. Uncontrollable forces are behind the things that unmistakably come crashing down in the end to reveal a totally mutual unhappy feeling. As life goes, everything appears to be fine and normal and everyone is getting along, having a good time, but it must come to an end sooner or later. Sooner or later everything starts to go in the opposite direction and all of a sudden everyone isn’t that happy. Mistakes are made, ties are broken and ultimately people will fall down and things will fall apart. Man is a complex being that evolves and goes through many different things. There are a lot of different parts to Man, meaning all of these feelings, emotions, changes, and significant actions that they may take. Man reacts in different ways to different things and they are always subject to make mistakes. Humans were made to do so living a life to their best ability and learning by what they do wrong. People fall and they get hurt or bruised and they can’t do anything but suck it up and try again. We will write a custom essay on Things Fall Apart Thesis specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Sometimes what they need is to be taught a lesson, kicked out, or sent back to the beginning. The truth is that people are what they make of themselves. They get together and they make these societies that is good to a certain extent but they really mean trouble because of the way they work. In a matter of time, corruption will take place in the midst of these â€Å"normal† people just trying to work together in peace because somewhere, a mistake will be made and someone will have to pay. It is a viscous cycle, the way things work. Everything seems like it needs to go perfectly but that is all wrong and when that kind of thing is worried about, bad things start to happen. In â€Å"Things Fall Apart,† the main character lives a good, wholesome life, leading as a successful yam-farmer and doing what he does best in his society in Africa, but something goes terribly wrong and things begin to turn away from him. He begins to fall and he soon finds himself looking at banishment from his own community. What had he done to make this happen? He heads into starting over, trying to get his feet back on the ground and everything goes his way for awhile. But, you guessed it, things will eventually turn on him again because of the mere fact that most, or at least half, of the stories of the world since forever end in tragedy. That is just the way things are done and this man was existing to hit rock bottom and lose everything leading all the way to his final act of indignity. Where do people see the need to treat their lives like a chore, thus causing them pain and unnecessary heartache? It is indeed possible, if one would open their eyes, to be happy and live a life where they actually prevent the things from falling apart so badly where there is no turning back. Society will always beat people down and hurt them while putting endless amounts of strain on them and, quite simply, these people just need to stick together and be stronger because otherwise someone will snap and things will go wrong. It makes sense to relax and play the cards as they lay or all that’s left will be a big jumbled up mess that could have easily been prevented. As one reaches the end of the line, a seemingly reasonable thing to do would be to just let history repeat itself but that would be the biggest mistake of all and turn everything upside down into a big fat tragedy.