Archive for the ‘Marilia Garcia’ Category

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Women X Men at work

October 12, 2009

Comparing Men and Women at work

 

Since the entry of women into the labor market, comparing men and women in the workplace, has become increasingly necessary. Since women entered in the labor market, the society has been realizing the main differences at work between genders. Thus, the main differences are women multi-ability compared to men, differences in life objectives, and also, satisfaction at work.

 While women have the ability to do so many things at the same time, men don’t, and this skill reflects at work. In lots of researches it’s a consensus that men can think up three things at the same time, but just can do one thing at a time, while women, can do sixteen things at the same time. Some scientists says that this skill comes from the women necessity of homemaking, managing their career, and taking care of their children at the same time, while the men role consists in how they will earn money and spend it. And, this is a sex difference maybe unchangeable, just because since women are girls they are “trained” to have this skill. For instance, as child a woman has balanced different aspects of her life, she also has helped her mother at home, has helped the teacher at school, has had hobbies, has done her homework, and has practiced piano and dance. Moreover, this difference is frequently observable at work, while a woman can talk at telephone, sends an e-mail, has lunch, manage her house and children, and talk with her boss. While a man, just can send the e-mail at that time, for example. Thus, men don’t have the multi-ability of women, what can be clearly distinguished at work.

 Another comparative point between men and women at work is the life objectives between then. While women had been prepared all their lives to be mothers, men just were prepared to win money. So most of time women quit their job to take care of their babies, or just stay in conflict about having babies or continuous their career. Because of these, in most companies only a minority of women are vying for the CEO position, compared to men who make up the majority of senior executives, including the CEO. By this reason, sometimes men don’t worry to get more challenges, or travel around the world with the company that they work, or accept a promotion, while a women can think more in her life, and her family lives, and sometimes deny this type of motion. However, this actual generation, thinks different and they are thinking in don’t have children, or just have one child, or no one, women are increasingly thinking on their career and thinking less in constructing a family with children. Thus, women and men have different life objectives, which can impact on their work.     

 Another difference between women’s and men is the satisfaction at work. Women are more flexible and can adapt themselves faster, what makes then more satisfied than men at work. Men create such high expectations about their careers that end up frustrated when they don’t reach the expected goals. Furthermore, women working in labor market sectors that are predominantly male or have a balanced proportion of male and female workers jobs, have high job satisfaction, while men, who work in predominantly female or gender-proportionate jobs, have significantly lower job satisfaction. The reason why women are more satisfied working with more men or with the same proportional of men and women relates to their perceptions of fewer income problems, flexibility of hours, and use of job skills, and, maternity benefits. Thus, women and men have different standard of satisfaction at work.

  Thus, there are so many differences between women and men at work. However, men and women have to learn how working together and learn to be competitive with each other. Moreover, there is too much women get into the labor market and companies have to figure out with women multi-ability, differences in life objectives, and also, satisfaction at work to improve the company climates.

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The creation of Sovereign Funds at Singapore :- Cause and Effect

September 28, 2009

The creation of Sovereign Funds at Singapore

The alternative of using sovereign funds as Government of Singapore Invesment Coporation(GIC), and Temasek Holding are partially the expression of a desire to bolster Singapore’s standing as an international financial centre. First of all, a sovereign fund is a state-owned investment  Fund composed of financial assets  such as  stocks, bonds, property,precious metals or other financial instruments, which invests globally, to create savings accounts to the government. The main reason why Singapore had decided to implement the sovereign wealth funds (SWF) as an alternative to boost their economy are their independence late, the lack of natural resources and the inability to develop primary activities such as cattle raising and agriculture, the lack of space given the small size of the territory of Singapore, and the equity and wealth of Singapore’s government to achieve certain public policy and macroeconomic goals.

The first reason why Singapore had decided to implement the sovereign Wealth funds (SWF) as an alternative to boost their economy relates to the late independency of the country, at 1965. Until 1959, Singapore was a colony of England, when it attained its independence and joined the Commonwealth. In 1963, he joined the Federation of Malaysia, which separated two years later to become an independent state on 9 August 1965. Because of their culture difference, between Malayans and Chinos and Singapore’s abrupt independent, their government didn’t know how to develop and control their economy. At that moment brings exchange money to the country by the structure of sovereign wealth funds (SWF) was a first-class strategy to save money to build up an education, health and habitation program to their citizens. It’s important to mention that the funds owner is the government, but, is the funds managements who decide their investment themes and where they can create value fund for the nation and contribute to the Government’s budget. The Government can allocate up to 50 per cent of the net annual income generated by the funds to the Ministry of Finance’s spending. For instance, Temasek Holdings Incorporated in 1974, which have committed almost $1 billion over the last decade to fund research institutions, scholarships and other public good beneficiaries, of which S$500 million was endowed to the Temasek Trust in May 2007. More recently, they gifted another S$100 billion to the Temasek Trust, this time to support Temasek Cares for community programmers in Singapore. Therefore, after Singapore’s independence, as an alternative to boost their economy, after their independence, they created two sovereign wealth funds (SWF).

            The second reason why Singapore had decided to implement the sovereign wealth funds (SWF) as an alternative to boost their economy relates to the lack of natural resources and the inability to develop primary activities such as cattle raising and agriculture, the lack of space given the small size of the territory of Singapore. Non natural exporting counties such as Singapore, which countries finance their SWFs is the transfer of assets from foreign exchange reserves, ensures to their future generations that they can continue to live prosperously using the earnings of their forefathers. Next, most sovereign wealth funds of all country types are created to diversify a country’s income so that it can respond to shocks to the country’s comparative advantages. When a country is faced with a competitiveness crisis, it can call on its sovereign wealth fund assets to reinvest in new sectors of the economy that can revive the country’s competitive advantages. Laurence Lien, director of investment for the Ministry of Finance, which owns Singapore’s funds, supports the idea that mainly in the case of Singapore which has no other alternatives to develop its economy and ensure future generations; the initiative for SWFs is to be paramount to ensure the sustainability of the country as well as a positive trade balance.

            The third reason why Singapore had decided to implement the Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) as an alternative to boost their economy relates to the equity and wealth of Singapore’s government to achieve certain public policy and macroeconomic goals. The first idea of governance model to Singapore as an independent country was give to their citizens an excellent education system and a habitation system. They believe that with a good education and habitation everything can be constructed, and there is a particularity at Singapore, the wealthy of Singapore’s government brings to the government system and government enterprises the best professionals at the market. However, to run down those public and macroeconomic goals they needed the support of a good finance system, through the creation of the Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF), managed by the finance minister of Singapore. For example, the wealthy of Singapore’s government is so spread around the world, and the Singapore’s SWFs investment themes centre on Transforming Economies, Growing Middle Class, Deepening Comparative Advantages and Emerging Champions, guarantee to the shareholder too much confidence. Thus, to achieve certain public policy and macroeconomic goals the creation of SWF was a strong and wealthy strategy of the government.

            Singapore as a young independent country, the lack of natural resources and the inability to develop primary activities such as cattle raising and agriculture, the lack of space given the small size of the territory of Singapore, and the equity and wealth of Singapore’s government to achieve certain public policy and macroeconomic goals certain are the main reason to implement sovereign funds as a finance important model to acquire money. Of course, after that they need to develop by themselves. But, they had begun with mastery, with the state controlling and owning firms that comprise at least 80% of the GDP through government entities such as the sovereign fund as Temasek, it has an open business environment, relatively corruption-free and transparent, stable prices, and one of the highest per capita Gross domestic products (GDP) in the world.

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Marilia :- Postpone classes because of the swine flu isn`t the best solution.

September 14, 2009

Postpone classes because of the swine flu isn`t the best solution.
 

Should the Brazilian government have postponed classes because of the Swine Flu? No. In the beginning of the second semester, the government of São Paulo decided to postpone the beginning of classes to contain the spread of the disease. This initiative doesn’t work because, first, it doesn’t control the spread of the disease because while children weren’t at school, they could have been contaminated anywhere else. Second, postponing classes at school interferes in children’s and teacher’s vacations, because if the classes start later, they will also have to finish later. Third, postponing classes will open a precedence for any kind of diseases in the future to cause schools to shut down.

The first problem of postponing classes is that such measure does not control the spread of the disease. While children weren’t at school, they were at shopping malls, or at the movies or maintaining contact with lots of people, which would be equivalent of them being at school with other children. Maria Clara Pinna, a 13-year-old girl, wasn’t at school on the first week of August because of the postponing of classes, but was infected by H1N1. Probably, Maria Clara was infect while she was at the cinema with her best friend, Pietra Moura, who studies with her at the same school and were diagnosed with the Swine Flue three days before Maria Clara had being diagnosed contaminated. Therefore, postponing classes wasn’t a great solution to control the spread of the disease.

The second problem of postponing classes is the interference in children’s and teacher`s vacations because classes began later, hence, they will finish later too. The academic calendar will be greatly affected by this delay in the start of classes, because all the classes were programmed before the beginning of the year. Consequently, the classes that had been previously agreed on will have to be given at the end of the courses, which will disturb summer vacations in Brazil. For instance, the Garmendia family comes from Venezuela and their family will be waiting for them in Caracas on December 20th for the summer time. Their tickets have already been bought so they won’t be able to return it without paying $500 per person to the airline company. This problem just takes place because they can’t go to Caracas on December 20th just because Pedro, their 13-year-old son who studies at Colégio Bandeirantes, has tests until December 22nd. His parents have already talked to the high school principal, Mauro Sales de Aguiar, to allow Pedro to take his final tests before the other students. Nevertheless, the director couldn’t do anything because the class schedule was not subject to change and children have to attend all the classes before taking their tests. Moreover, opening up an exception to Pedro would force the school to accept other exceptions, making it impossible for the school to schedule several tests on different dates. Therefore, having postponed classes because of the Swine Flu interferes with summer vacations.

The last problem in postponing classes to contain the virus in children relates to the fact that this act may open up a precedence to any kind of diseases being able to cause a school to shut down because a contagious virus or bacterium appears. The Flu is a type of disease that can have so many different forms because of mutation. Besides, if the government decides to control the spread by postponing classes every time that a different virus show up, children won’t have classes anymore. For example, the Aviary Flu didn’t cause this panic and it was much more dangerous than the H1N1 Flu. Lots of people around the world have died because of this disease. In this particular case, the government didn’t have the same attitude, didn’t spread the panic and didn’t stop classes. Why has the government decided to close down schools in this case? Just to say that they are doing something to protect our children. However, this attitude would just be necessary if the Swine Flu flew, and according to studies, it can’t fly. Therefore, stopping classes because of the Swine Flu opens a precedence to have the same attitude in any similar case.

All in all, the government should revise this decision of postponing classes since this solution is a bitter pill to swallow, just because the virus couldn`t just be spread at school, but can be spread in every place that there is a person contaminated by the H1N1 virus. To really contain the spread of the H1N1 virus, the government should provide information and explanation about the disease and its treatment. Moreover, the attitude of postpone the start of classes, only generates more panic in society, Being that, there should be no panic, based on the existence of an appropriate treatment to the swine flu. Thus, Brazilian government shouldn’t have postponed classes because of the Swine Flu.

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Marilia – Writing #1

August 19, 2009

     I’ve never had thought that my life could be so much better after my mother sick. Nowadays we don’t have time to think about us and what we can make better for each other, people don’t use to think in each other and in their family. Everyone just believe that don’t have time enought to take care of thenselfs or to stay with their family. And this hapenned to my mom.

    Two years ago I really could believe that my life was so perfect. I was dating a nice guy, I was at the colege that I chose, and at that moment I just wanted to enjoy my youth. I just could fancy at that period that  nothing poor would happen to me. But, at the same time I couldn’t realize that my mother wasn’t living her life.

   However, the worse hapend. My mon was with breast cancer. My family and I were terrified, we could’nt believe at that time that she was sick. At that moment we just could think in the worst and in the big affects that illness could cause in her life an in our lifes. The probability of my mother die invaded our thoughts and we get so nervous and sad. Then, my mon suffered a sugery and the doctor sad that she would be treated with chemotherapy and radioterapy, we couldn’t  imagine her reaction in front of this problem, cause we knew that the treatment was so violent.

So, after a month she started with the medication. Was so hard and dificulty, she was so weak and delibited, and after two doses of the drug her hair fell, it was very dificulty at the first moment. The therapy lasted eight months, and it was the worst months of our lifes, cause we saw my mom suffer.

However, for our surprise, we realized that my mon’s life had begun after that eight months. After all, she discovered that she was died inside before get sick, she didn’t used to go out with my father, and enjoy her life. She just was living by inertia.