Topic: Mini Project - Apply your analysis to an independent owner of a six-story hotel in the business district in a major city (population at least 100,000) near where you live. Use the different reading materials and references to analyze the questions posed in the ?Body? section below.

Below is a recommended outline.

1. Introduction
a. A thesis statement
b. Purpose of paper
c. Overview of paper
2. Body
a. Assume that the hotel is insured for $ 200,000 under a commercial property insurance policy. The policy contains an 80 percent coinsurance clause. The hotel sustained a $ 50,000 loss because of a fire in a storage area. The replacement cost of the hotel at the time of loss is $ 500,000. a. What is the insurer?s liability, if any, for this loss? Show your calculations. b. Assume that the hotel carried $ 500,000 of property insurance on the hotel at the time of loss. If the amount of loss is $ 10,000, how much will the hotel collect?
b. The hotel?s Human Resources manager has asked the Life Insurance agency representative to provide an educational seminar to several new employees from the housekeeping staff. What basic points should the agent address regarding the needs approach is widely used for determining the amount of life insurance to purchase? Describe the following needs for a typical family head: 1. Cash needs 2. Income needs 3. Special needs b. Explain the capital retention approach for deter-mining the amount of life insurance to own.
c. During the same seminar to the housekeeping staff what important details should the agent describe regarding explain the following life insurance contractual provisions. a. Suicide clause b. Grace period c. Reinstatement clause?
3. Conclusion ? Summary of main points
a. Lessons Learned and Recommendations

"Is Life Insurance a Good Investment?" Include in your discussion the five aspects of a this type of investment as it relates to insurance coverage:

Safety or Level of Risk
Rate of Return
Liquidity
Tax Treatment
Flexibility

Post a short commentary on the acquisition you identified. The post will cover the following issues.

a. Provide information on the acquisition deal (or the proposed deal). Include such things as: Brief information on each company (size, product range, markets, etc.); what kind of an acquisition it was/is (friendly or hostile; vertical or horizontal). The strategic rationale for the acquisition from the point of view of both the acquiring and acquired company. What happened after the acquisition? Was it considered successful?
Use the following acquisition
03/08/2010 American Life Insurance Company and Metlife Inc merger

Discussion of Case Study
The Facts
Your parents are both 69 years old. Your mother has had bouts with heart trouble over the past four years and has begun to show signs of failing health. Your father is overweight with slightly arthritic knees and is finding it more difficult to get up and down the steps from the bedroom on the second floor to the living area on the first floor. Your mother, who never worked, also creates stress in the household because she periodically forgets to take her heart medication.

Still, both are looking forward to a long retirement together; your grandparents all lived into their mid 80s. Your parents are staunchly independent and still reside in the four-bedroom two-story home where they raised you. They manage the upkeep of both the household and their quarter-acre yard, most of which is trees, flowers, and bushes.

Your father did pretty well in life and saved a reasonable amount of money in his 401K program. That is, until he lost a considerable portion of it in the stock market crash of the late 1990s when, unknown to you, he invested in the dot-com industry and did not monitor the funds closely. Still, they have the following assets:

about $40,000 in annual income (including social security and income produced by the 401K),
another $50,000 in the bank (not including the money in the 401K),
their home, worth about $250,000, which they own mortgage-free, and
your fathers whole life, life insurance policy with about $75,000 in benefits, that will be fully paid off when your father reaches age 70.

Your father also has pretty good health insurance benefits; a retiree health plan and Medicare limit his liability for most routine medical care and hospitalization. His drug benefit is, however, not great, and the company has announced they will cancel the employer-sponsored drug benefit for retirees who are eligible for Medicare, now that Medicare provides drug coverage. Assume your parents have no other significant investments or financial obligations (e.g., they own their relatively late model automobile outright).

Finally, after years of your urging, your parents have begun to talk with a lawyer about estate planning. The lawyer recommended they consider purchasing a long-term care policy before they became too disabled to qualify for coverage. Your father, not knowing much about this issue, seems skeptical about the need to protect himself against the need for nursing home care - he would never leave his home and anyway, Medicare covers nursing home services. Still, he values your opinion and asks your advice. What should he do?

Your Assignment
For this Case Study, provide a thoughtful response to your father (and mother). How would you describe the issues involved, the risks of becoming disabled, and the options for protecting himself and providing for the possibility of living the life that he and your mother desire? Finally, based on the information in the case, what would you recommend he do?

-combinig life insurance with trusts to provide greater family financial
protection
-4 to 5 sources but one must be Estate Planning With Life Insurance, 2nd
Edition, Glenn R. Stephens,LL.B.
-8 page paper
-footnotes and citation whatever way you want
-1. introduction
2.What is a trust?
3.Elements of a trusts
a. trustor
b. trustee
c. Corpus
d. beneficiaries
e. written trust document
4. Determining a trustee
5. Types of trusts(taxation issues of each)
a. inter vivos trusts
1.revocable
2.irrevocable
b. testamentary trusts
1.irrevocable
c.charitable trusts
1. remainder trusts
2. lead trusts
3. unitrusts
6. purpose(objectives)of a trusts
7. life insurance trusts
1. benefits
2. drawbacks
8. examples of trusts citing case law
1. famous case that set precedence
2. an example of where trusts was used and was beneficial
3. an example of where trusts were not used and should have been(a few
examples)
9. conclusion
10. bibliography

I manufactor sell and service a sophisticated life insurance product to the Fortune 100 of America. What I seek are papers that would help me to differentiate my team and help the unique financial intermediaries that sell our products. There has been of late a confluence of financial products, like derivatives that are sold in conjunction with life product to help mitagate risk and hedge down side earnings/credit exposure. Also, I would like to see something on Fund of Funds hedge funds--Also making their way into special life insurance products for Corporations, banks and high net worth individuals.

Can you help me ? I might just be opening up a whole new market for you.

Sam

Specific: Essay paper no quotations or parenthetical citations or footnotes needed. Talk about two or three key points in the Article. Article details provided below. Key point: should insurance companies be allowed to use genetc testing to determine eligibility for insurance and/or to set premiums; Key point: Privacy of individuals, discrimation and ethics as related to protecting access to health insurance. Talk about the Principle of Utmost Good Faith and how parties to an insurane contract are hed to a higher standard of honesty than parties to a non-insurance contact. Is it ethical or breach of contract for that party? Or is it Innocent mispresentation of material fact? What if the party is ingnorant of their family history or simply not aware of details. Briefly mention the purposed of acquiring insurance.

Genetic Testing and Insurance, Insurance is a business that depends on predicting health risks and setting premiums to account for them and so insurers are very likely to be interested in genetic testing for indivdulas. The question is whether and under what conditions genetic testing out to be allowed.
Setting premiums by predicting risk, the insurance business attemps to set premiums at levels that allow payment for all legitimate claims with money left over every year as profit. To do this, insurance companies do their best to understand the cossts they will bear if they agree to cover individuals wo will make up the group whose risks are pooled. Health disability and life insurance offer protectionfrom the real costs of health care, premature death, and dsability by collecting premiums from may people but paying large claims on only a few. Premiums are set using informatin about individual's health, lifestyle, family history, and diagnostis tests for everything frm drug screening and heart monitoring to HIV tests. Genetic testing may add to the predictive infrmation available to insurers, but at what costs both to them and to those they insure. Genetic testing is expensive and in most cases can only provide limited information about the risk of disease since ther are so many factors; genetic and otherwise that determine who will get sick and when. And it can be used to determine access to insurance or to justify increased premiums, which may result in necessary coverage being denied to individual and their familes.
Protecting accessto health insurance, because of the importance of heath isurance almost half the states and a recent federal law now bar large health insurers from using genetic testing to discriminate against individual because they may develop a disease in the future. The argument is that health insurance is so important that it should be treated as a community resource, with individuals' risk shared across the pool of all who are covered. It makes sense to treat health insurance in this way because of the special nature of health care. Bu what abut life and disability insurance? Lilfe and disability insurance ca be seen as optionals as comparted to health insurance, ad so we might be more willing to treat them differently. But if genetic testing were used to deny insurance or to set very high premiums for death or disability caused by the predicted disease< ten it hardly makes sense to buy coverage> the irony is that insurance would be denied for jsut he possibility that insurance is meant to cover the likelihood of premature death or disability

Singled out by science, even so, using genetic testing t distinguish individulas might make sense if it were really able to single outthos truly at greater genetic risk. In fact we all carry some assortment of genetic defencts, but for most of us science has yet to discover our paticular defects or test to identify them. Since genetic tests are available for only a fraction of the diseases that likely have at least a genetic component, it is unfair to single out those people affected by the few diseases for which we now can test. Until a critical mass of genetic information has been discovered and test to asses it have been developed, it is unfair to allow the inequitable use of genetic testing to decide who whould have access to insurance ans what its cost should be.


There are faxes for this order.

Read the following website on the mortality of indigeneous people in Australia:
http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/health-facts/overviews/mortality
Topic: Discuss from an ethical perspective whether Australian insurers should charge different life insurance premiums for indigenous and non-indigenous people.

This essay should include:
1. introduce the problem and define its ethical implications;
2. provide pros and cons;
3. formulate a recommendation based on the above.

Additional useful links:
http://www.pc.gov.au/gsp/ier/indigenous-expenditure-2012
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/links-human-rights-organisations-and-resources
There are faxes for this order.

in estete planning and taxation please answer to the following questions, please respond around 275 words pee question

1) What issues should be considered when a freezing order is issued against your client?
2) Discuss the tax return requirements for trusts and estates with nonresident alien beneficiaries.

3) When should a client consider a variable life insurance?
4) Discuss the considerations in using limited partnerships and LLCs in life insurance estate planning

Directions: Read the essay below and respond by creating your own question and answering it. Your answer must include a discussion on ethics of economics: economic content and application, along with your economic rationale (justification).

HINT: Check out Economics of Insurance -

Check out: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Insurance.html

Right above Search Encyclopedia on the right-hand side type in Economics of Insurance or Insurance of Economics.

Post your response to the Assignment Folder by Day 7 of Week 5:

Post a response with a word count of 325 to 350 words in third person in APA format.

A minimum of 2 references: 1 of the references must be independent from the essay.



If further clarification is needed please ask.





How would you respond if you were to find out that the company you worked for has purchased an insurance policy on you and they were the beneficiaries without your knowledge? According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, December 2002, How Corporations Built Finance Tools Out of Life Insurance, a practice that has taken place since the 1980s. The article affirms that after the September 11th, 2001 attacks some of the first life insurances payoffs went to employers of deceased workers. Corporations now are among the largest beneficiaries of life insurance. Most workers that are insured by corporations have never consented, and the policy remains in force even after they leave the company with no benefit to the person insured.



The reason companies are dabbling in this market is due to the tax allure. Money put into life insurance grows tax-free and death benefits are not taxed. Gains on investment from the flow to the company's income statement bolstering profits numbers for the year. According to Money Group Inc.'s sales of life insurance to companies soared 128% from a year earlier to $124 million, while its? other life insurance sales fell 3% to $94 million. Since the 1980s companies have changed the strategy in regards to life insurance. Most companies started with KEY MAN policies, to insure the lives of important executives to insure their entrepreneurial ability. Instead of inexperience term insurance, corporations started to purchase whole life, universal life policies, which have no time limit and investment option for the buyer with the death benefits. Of course all of this was untaxed.



Companies shoveled large amounts into these investments because they sought tax free build up and could borrow form the policies and deduct the interest. In 1986 Congress in an attempt to share a piece of the pie passed the law that stated only interest on the first $50,000 borrowed on a given policy would be deducted. Of course most companies found a loop hole and it revolved around quantity. Buy a lot of policies, and insure not just KEY MEN but everyone (know as janitor insurance). The reasoning was that if we can do it for $200,000.00 why not $20,000.00.



Changes in the law again started in 1995 when Congress received a list of companies with life insurance policies, that concluded that a company could earn $1.2 billion over 10 years by insuring 50,000 employees. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alone had made itself the beneficiary of insurance of 350,000 employee lives from 1993 to 1995. Later in 1996, Congress voted a three-year phrase of all deductions for interest on loans against life insurance. The Joint Tax Committee estimated $1.6 billion savings over 10 years to taxpayers.



In addition, the IRS states that under tax law, life insurance by a corporation is supposed to have a business purpose. Janitor insurance mutated into managers insurance, because it made it easier to argue that the insurance was being used for employee benefits, since managers were almost eligible for benefits. Another change was implemented, rather than keeping life insurance buying a secret from employees, companies usually obtained their consent. However, employees rarely tell employees how much they are insured for.



For example, Enron took out $500 million of life insurance on employees, which it used to finance its deferred compensation program and executive pensions. Enron borrowed most of the assets within the policies, leaving roughly $145 million short of what it owed its executives. Now these policies are assets in Enron's bankruptcy proceedings. Waiting in line is Enron's creditors, to whom Enron executives are worth more dead than alive.



For example:

This article brings to attention, a market that has been created due to demand from businesses trying to make their money work for them. For these corporations life insurance is being used as business capital to help earn and then finance different benefit and employee incentive packages. The question remains; Is it unethical to use an employee as a puppet to make money with out their consent? Should we consider Adam Smith's principle of the Invisible Hand? Each firm (individual) in society acts in such a way as to maximize his own gain, the function of the free market will assure, as a result, the maximum possible benefit to society as a whole. Ultimately businesses are making money will lead to lower prices which is what we want and need right now.

Please write this in APA 5 th edition and one of the sources should be the attached article. If you have questions I can be reached at 718-242-7421 or at [email protected]

This report is to be 3250 words. discussing the following Issues, layout and context is outlined below.


Prepare a Statement of Advice (SOA) from Australian financial planning for David and Brenda Smith. The information provided in the client scenario below is to be used in preparing your calculations and advice. As the assignment is to be a SOA for clients, it should be in a suitable format and use appropriate language. Clarity and conciseness are important but full explanations are required.
Your SOA should show the structure you recommend for their portfolio, how they can achieve their goals and where the capital and income will be sourced. Your SOA should address a long-term plan to provide income and should include projections. Explain any social security issues.
The marks will be allocated as follows:
? Depth of analysis ? (up to 25 marks)
? Completeness, including estimates and budgets ? (up to 20 marks)
? Use of appropriate strategies and investment vehicles ? (up to 20 marks)
? Structure ? (up to 5 marks)
? Presentation and professionalism ? (up to 5 marks)
Please explain any assumptions made. (please pay attention to dates and all scenarios are to be within Australian regulations.)
Client Scenario
David and Brenda Smith have just been to see you on 2 December 2010 with the focus of the meeting being on their retirement planning and David?s pending termination from a local bank.
David was born on 14 April 1948 and Brenda on 7 February 1957.
They are planning to retire when David finishes with his company on 30 June 2011 after 25 years of service. Brenda currently works full time as a primary school teacher.
David has always worked in the administration area of the bank and earns $60,000 per annum. Brenda currently earns $55,000 per annum.
David is not keen to go back into the workforce unless there is an advantage to doing so. Brenda is happy to continue working but would like to know if she can reduce her hours or retire when David does, but is not sure of the financial consequences of either working part time or fully retiring.
Their home in the suburbs of Sydney is paid off. It is jointly owned and valued at $750,000. They have two sons, Craig aged 27 and Matthew aged 33. Both sons have recently married and David and Brenda have helped them both purchase their first homes in Sydney.
Matthew and his wife are expecting their first child in June 2011. David and Brenda would like to gift $5,000 to this grandchild and to each subsequent grandchild (up to an estimated four in total) in the year of their birth, to be redeemed on the child?s 16th birthday.( Please interpret as each grandchild only gets one amount of $5,000 when they are born. Four (4) grandchildren * $5,000 = Total of $20,000.)
On 30 June 2011, David will be paid his accumulated annual and long service leave as follows:
Annual leave $10,000(pre- tax)
Long service leave $75,000(pre-tax)
David will also be receiving a genuine redundancy payment based on his years of service totaling $120,000. The potential value of any redundancy was specified in his employment contract before 10 May 2006. (Extra information that can help here is Briefly, payments made upon termination of employment that are in respect of an approved early retirement scheme or a bona fide redundancy and that exceed the other amounts that the employee would have received upon voluntary retirement are taxed as:
In 2011-12, the first $8,435 plus $4,218 for each completed year of service are tax free.
In 2012-13, the amounts are $8,806 and $4,404.
The rates are indexed each year so for earlier years, you will need to look them up.(ATO)
The balance above the tax free amounts are taxed as an untaxed element ETP.)

David and Brenda have private health insurance which they intend to continue after David retires.
Other assets they disclose to you include:
Holden Commodore $25,000 (David?s name)
Contents of home $50,000 (Jointly owned)
They also have the following shares which earn 4% fully franked per annum:
Company Current value Owner
Harvey Norman $7,500 Brenda
Telstra $5,500 David
AXA $9,500 Joint
Westpac $20,000 Joint
They are not sure whether to keep these shares or sell them, particularly given the current volatility in the share market.
They also have two savings accounts in joint names ? an online account with BankWest of $20,000 earning 5.5% per annum and a Commonwealth Bank Bonus Saver account for $40,000 earning 4% per annum.
Their son Craig has a $40,000 line of credit on his lawn mowing business. Given that Craig has lost a few contracts recently and is strapped for cash, David and Brenda would like to clear this debt for him if possible before July 2011. Craig?s business worries have put a strain on his marriage and have also jeopardised his ability to service his mortgage. Craig?s house is jointly owned with his wife.
David?s superannuation is estimated to be worth $350,000 when he retires in June 2011. He would like to know the best thing to do with it, given that he would like to receive the Age Pension when he reaches 65. The components of his superannuation are as follows:
Taxed $270,000
Tax exempt $80,000
these are the same fund giving David only 1 lot of super @ $350,000. Just to make it simple
David has been a member of his company?s defined benefit superannuation scheme which is a taxed fund. He followed a friend?s advice a few years ago to invest his additional non-concessional contributions in the high-growth portfolio. Because he is in a defined benefit scheme, when he leaves he will be paid a lump sum of $350,000 based on his years of service and final salary. He has the option of rolling over into the fund?s accumulation scheme and would pay no entry or exit fees. In the accumulation scheme he has the following investment options with associated management fees:
Option Fees
Balanced 0.56%
Cash Plus 0.42%
Socially responsible 0.89%
High growth 0.65%
Cash 0.25%
Fixed interest 0.43%
Australian shares 0.60%
International shares 0.66%
Through his superannuation fund, David has had $200,000 of life/TPD cover priced at $1.90 per $1000 of cover for his age. He can continue this cover if he rolls over into the accumulation scheme but only up to age 65.
Brenda also has funds within an industry superannuation fund valued at $280,000. Her employer contributions are invested in the default balanced scheme and she has made no additional contributions. Brenda has life/TPD and income protection cover within her super fund. The life/TPD cover is for $190,000 and costs $6.00 per week through the super fund. The income protection cover is $4,000 per month for two years at premiums of $20 per week paid within the super fund.
Brenda?s default balanced fund has returned 10% per annum over the last five years with management fees of 1.2% per annum. The asset allocation for this option is as follows:
Australian shares 25%
International shares 20%
Growth alternatives 5%
Bonds 15%
Defensive alternatives 15%
Property 10%
Cash 10%
They are not sure what the best asset mix is for them as they have little experience investing but both appreciate that they would need a return on their investment that at least matches inflation. They know that the money they have in superannuation has to last for the rest of their lives and want to invest it wisely to achieve that aim. They have completed a risk profile form that has determined them to be ?balanced? investors.
David also has an AXA Whole of Life plan that was started in 1980 and which has a surrender value of $30,000 with life insurance of $40,000 and accumulated bonuses of $10,000. He is paying $50 per month on this plan. The premium expiry date is age 85 and he is not sure what to do with this plan and whether it is a good plan to be in.
Because David and Brenda have got their life/TPD insurance and income protection cover automatically through their superannuation, they do not really understand it. They do not know if the cover is adequate, they do not know if the cost is right and they are not sure if they need to continue it or not. They are looking for your advice.
David and Brenda expect that their living costs when David retires will be approximately $40,000 per annum in today?s dollars.
David and Brenda are very concerned about how their estate will pass to Craig. They worry that their money may end up going to Craig?s creditors or, that if Craig gets divorced, their money may end up with his ex-wife. They do not have the same concerns for their other son, Matthew, but appreciate that things could change in the future. They have heard about testamentary trusts, but do not know how they work, how much they cost and whether it would be worthwhile.
Their objectives when David retires in 2011 are:
? Provide $5,000 for up to four grandchildren (if they can)
? Renovate their kitchen and bathroom (expected to cost $35,000)
? Go on a three month holiday late 2011 to Europe (estimated to cost $50,000)
? Travel around Australia in the next 2 - 3 years with a budget of $30,000
? Maintain an emergency account of at least $15,000
? David to receive the Age Pension when he turns 65 years of age(Asset test exempt Income stream test highlighted in scan pages 1&2 this can help.)
? Review their insurance needs
? Ensure their estate passes effectively to their children and/or grandchildren.
Their overall aims are to ensure that there is enough money for them to live on in retirement and that their estate is distributed effectively. They are both in good health and are looking forward to a long and active retirement.

Context
Any tables at the back, Appendices and Attachments used to support your analysis and recommendations.
As for Disclaimers, etc, it would be a good idea to have a look at a commercial template if you can to see how they go about telling the clients about the necessary and important information such as who the adviser is, who they work for, who is the dealer group, FSG detail, fee structure, Authority to proceed, Complaints handling procedure, etc and all the required information in an FSG. Have you reported that you gave the clients a copy of your FSG?
provide key strategies, identified the main issues, (for example) identify 5 issues but for a particular reason you identify that only 3 of the 5 issues are key issues to be analysed and reported on but you should be clear and state why you identify that these 3 issues are key issues.
I know there are commercial templates that can easily access commercial reports and information from the internet, banks, insurance companies, etc. This is good to help you understand the different ways to present, some here and there are OK however please don?t plagiarism from copying just from one commercial source and remember use Australian regulation.
Layout
? Essay ? divided into subsections with appropriate subheadings,
? a margin of at least 4cm on the left hand side
? Double spaced in 12 point type
? References ? alphabetical listing of works to which you have referred.
Resourses

ASIC
ATO
Material that can show you how to structure SOA.

? Citing/ referencing
?
?
? Primary Sources: Case Law
? ?The formula is
? ?Case name (year) volume ABBREVIATION page number, pinpoint reference
? ?Brodiev Singleton Shire Council (2001) 206 CLR 512
? ?Which represents:
? ?Brodiev Singleton Shire Council: Case name.
? ?(2001): Year
? ?206: Volume
? ?CLR: Report series abbreviation (Commonwealth Law Reports)
? ?512: page case starts on.
?
? Primary Sources: Statutes
? ?The formula for citing statutes is, pay attention to what is italicised:
? ?Statute name Year (Jurisdiction) pinpoint
? ?Dividing Fences Act 1991 (NSW)
? ?The pinpoint reference to a statute will usually be to a section
? ?Dividing Fences Act 1991 (NSW) s 15(1)(a).
?
? Secondary Sources
? ?Even though you may access a journal article through an online database via the library, or a book as an online book via the library, if possible use the citation methods below and do not include the URL or web address.
?
? Books
? ?The formula for books is as follows:
? ?Author Name, Title (Publisher, edition, date of publication) pinpoint reference ?usually a page number.
? ?D Johnston, Roman Law in Context (Cambridge University Press, 1999) 35.
? ?R Krever, Mastering Law Studies & Exam Techniques (LexisNexis, 7th ed, 2011) 45.
?
? Journal Articles
? ?Journal articles use the following formula:
? ?Author Name, ?Article Title? (year) journal volume, Journal Title, starting page number of article, pinpoint.
? ?P Stein, ?The Two Schools of Jurists in the Early Roman Principate? (1972) 31 Cambridge Law Journal 8, 22.
? ?This would be a pinpoint reference
?
? Thanx

You will create an imaginary person and the paper is about working as a personal financial counselor for the person.
The paper should include the profile, career and life paths of the fictional person you created, and financial problems that you are helping with. Please have at least 3 problems to solve. Examples are personal or corporate tax problems, real estate, small business financing, auto insurance, home owners or renters insurance, life insurance, helth insurance, and annuity, etc. Please state each problem in detail relating it with the person's situation. Please do NOT use financial planning software packages or commercially-marketed planning software in the paper.

Assume that Riordan is now considering an expansion to Japan and that Robert Lord's pay is $140,000 per year in the United States.

Develop a 1,750- to 2,000- word paper in which you address the following:

? Taking into consideration that an expatriate's pay would include housing, healthcare, transportation, allowances and premiums, and so forth, how would Robert Lord's pay as an expatriate differ from the pay of a Japanese national of the same age? Is this difference equitable?

? How would Robert Lord's pay differ if he were relocated back to the United States? Is this difference equitable?

? Evaluate the effect of trade unions and employee involvement on the Japanese national compensation system. What role does the social contract play in the Japanese system?

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

Notes: Robert Lord will be listed in the Riordan portal as the Director of Plant Operations in the PRC joint venture.. Do not let this confuse you. Consider him as stated above as having $140,000 compensation as a U.S. employee.

Objective of Paper Key Concepts:
Objectives
Assess the role of the social contract on compensation systems internationally.
Evaluate the equity in compensation between expatriate and nationals within the same country.
Evaluate the effect of trade unions and employee involvement on compensation systems for cross border organizations.
Compare and contrast pay systems across countries.

Materials
SUPPLEMENT: Week Six Mind Map
SUPPLEMENT: Week Six Concept Outline

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EBOOKS
EBOOK COLLECTION: Chapter 16 - Cascio. (2003). Managing Human Resources(6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
EBOOK COLLECTION: Chapter 16 - Milkovich & Newman. (2005). Compensation (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Riordan Backround information for global Pay:

.

Internet
##
Intranet
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.
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Home
Finance & AccountingOverview
Balance Sheet
Income Statement
Budgets
Economic Forecast
Communications
Product Inventory
Invoices

Sales & MarketingMarketing Information System
Sales Plan - 2006
Customer List
Sales Chart - 2005
Product Catalog

Human ResourcesOrganizational Charts
Job Classifications
Job Descriptions
Policies & Procedures
HRIS
EEOC Reports
Work Force Demographics
Employees
Employee Files
Reports
Communications
Employee Handbook

OperationsProduction
Inventory
Supply Chain
Project Process
Strategic Planning
Sustainability Study
Communications

LegalOverview
Communications
Corporate Governance Plan

Information TechnologyNetworks
Communications

Riordan IndustriesOverview
Balance Sheet
Income Statement

. .


Policies & Procedures

Annual Pay Adjustments
Compensation Philosophy
Employee and Labor Relations
Employee Recognition Programs
Global Operations
Key Jobs
Pay Grades
Recruitment & Selection Practices
Training & Development




Annual Pay Adjustments

The company has a process for annual performance evaluations and pay adjustments, which happens on a fiscal year basis, with all raises taking effect the first day of the new fiscal year.

Managers complete a performance appraisal with each employee using a behaviorally-anchored rating scale. At the end of the performance appraisal, each employee receives an overall rating of "does not meet expectations" "meets expectations," or "exceeds expectations." Managers receive a pool of merit increase dollars, which are divided among employees using the following matrix (where "x" is the average percentage of wage increase). Managers may not allocate more money for raises than they receive in their increase budget.




Does Not Meet

Meets

Exceeds




Position in relation to the external market...
Above market median

0

?x

1x



Position in relation to the external market...
Near market median (+ or ? 10%)

0

1x

1.5x



Position in relation to the external market...
Below market median

0

1.5x

2x

Top
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Compensation Philosophy and Rewards Practices

Our Employees
?We will maintain an innovative and team-oriented working environment.
?By assuring that our employees are well informed and properly supported, we will provide a climate focused on the long term viability of our company.

Other Factors
?R & D is critical to the mission (industry leader in identifying industry trends).
?Exceeding ISO 9000 standards is important to the organization.

Compensation Philosophy

The purpose of the pay program at Riordan Manufacturing is to help the company achieve its mission and goals by attracting, motivating and retaining the most highly-qualified people, with a particular focus on attracting people in critical disciplines such as R & D and quality. Base pay opportunities will be competitive by targeting the median of the appropriate external comparative group for average or satisfactory performance. Because we are focused on creating a team oriented working environment, teams who perform in an above average manner will have the opportunity to earn variable pay to improve their competitive pay position. The company is closely held, therefore, stock options will be available only to officers of the corporation.

Our pay bands are broad ranges which allow for considerable flexibility in rewarding individual performers based on their specific skills and contributions. We expect managers to make base pay decisions based on market information, which is provided annually during the salary review process.

Incentive plans for teams are developed individually, based on the specific results that each team is expected to achieve.

Because we want to properly support our employees, we will offer the following benefits to all full-time, U.S. employees, in addition to those benefits required by law, such as social security and workers' compensation.
?Health insurance for employees and their dependents
?Dental insurance for employees and their dependents
?Life insurance for employees
?Flexible working schedules, when approved by individual managers or teams
?401(k) savings program, with a company match
?Vacation (schedule varies with seniority)
?Paid holidays
?Educational assistance/tuition reimbursement

We also provide the following benefits through our flexible benefits program.
?Child care reimbursement account
?Medical reimbursement account (flexible spending account)

International pay and benefits are based on applicable laws in the country in which we operate.
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Employee and Labor Relations

Currently, all of Riordan?s facilities are non-union facilities. Employee relations are part of the Human Resources department.

Key employee relations policies include the following:
1.The company has an ?open-door? policy, where employees are encouraged to share any concerns with higher-level supervisors if they are not satisfied with a supervisor?s decision. The process is loosely defined, and employees do not have a formal process for appealing supervisory decisions.
2.There is an employee handbook given to employees on their first day of employment. Employee policies, such as attendance, etc. are explained in the handbook. Employees are encouraged to read and understand the handbook.
3.Safety technicians are in place to encourage safe and healthy work practices.

The Pontiac facility is a provider of parts to the automotive industry. To date, there have been no attempts by any union to organize the facility; however, there are rumors that an organizing drive may be focused on the plant during the next 12 months. While the company has officially agreed to remain neutral if there is an organizing campaign (as required in its vendor agreement), unofficially, company officials are opposed to unionization and would prefer to stay union-free.
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Employee Recognition Programs

In addition to compensation and team-based incentives, the company has some programs for recognizing outstanding employees.
1.Outstanding Employee Award - One employee per year is named as the outstanding employee of the year. Employees are nominated by their peers, and a committee of executives and employees selects the winner. The criteria for this award are as follows: 1.Performed above and beyond normal job duties
2.Demonstrated a high level of teamwork and support for others
3.Modeled respect for diversity

2.Employee Suggestion Program - Employees can make suggestions for improving products or the work process. When a suggestion is adopted, employees receive a $25 check for their contribution and their picture in the company newsletter.
3.Seniority Awards - These awards are given to employees upon their first, fifth, tenth, and 20th year of employment, as follows: 1.One year - 1 day off with pay
2.Fifth year - Silver company logo lapel pin
3.Tenth year - Gold company logo lapel pin
4.20th year - Gold watch and induction into the "20-year club" - Annual dinner with Riordan president for the club.

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Global Operations

The company has a joint venture facility in Hangzhou, China, where plastic fan parts are produced. Riordan owns 60% of the joint venture, and the plant manager is an expatriate from the United States who is one year into a three-year assignment. All of the other employees are host-country nationals.

The plant manager is compensated on a home-country based method. His pay level is comparable to that of the plant managers in Pontiac and Albany. The plant manager also participates in a management incentive plan, which is based on overall corporate performance, not performance of the joint venture.

Specific allowances for expatriate duties include the following:
?Foreign service premium - 25% of base pay
?Home visit leave - One visit to the US per year with his family (not counted as part of regular vacation)
?Relocation benefits
?Educational assistance for two children (tuition at a school for English-speaking students)
?Housing allowance
?Cost of living adjustment based on international survey data

The company uses a balance sheet approach in calculating benefits, including equalization of taxes.

The manager has been asked to develop a host-country national who can assume the plant manager position at the end of his three year assignment and the manager will receive a one-time incentive payment if he does this successfully.

Engineering personnel may travel between the US and China for specific projects, but there are no expatriate engineers from the US in China, and no Chinese employees currently work in the US operations.
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Key Jobs

As a company that specializes in leading in R & D, engineering jobs, particularly in R & D are critical. In addition, those who work on patent and legal issues are very important to the organization.

Another group of employees that are very important to operations are the CAM support specialists-most of the products manufactured are produced by NC machinery. If this machinery is down, production schedules cannot be met.
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Pay Grades



Pay Grades

Jobs Included

FLSA Status

# of Incumbents




Executive Band

All Officers, Vice Presidents and Directors

Exempt

21



Manager

All positions with supervisory responsibility

Exempt

25



Professional

All other exempt professional positions - no supervisory responsibility

Exempt

76



Sales 1

Sales representative

Exempt

12



Technicians

All technicians

Nonexempt

23



Administration

All non-exempt, clerical or administrative positions

Nonexempt

21



Production

All production and shipping employees

Nonexempt

127








Remaining employees are in China and on a home-country pay system.


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Recruitment and Selection Practices

Riordan Manufacturing currently recruits employees primarily from outside the organization for entry-level jobs, whether they are hourly or professional. The company also recruits most engineering staff from outside the organization. The organization uses the following methods for recruitment:
?Online advertisements at Monster.com
?Local newspaper advertisements
?Employee referrals
?Use of employees from temporary agencies
?Attendance at engineering conferences

There is a formal job-posting process in the company when there are openings. However, the company does not pay for relocation from one facility to another unless the position has budgeted for relocation as part of the hiring process. In the past two years, two managerial positions have been filled by internal candidates. There is currently no formal succession planning process.

The company uses contract workers for some engineering work, international sales and IT support in China. It has some part-time jobs, and there are two women who job-share in the corporate office. Benefits administration has been outsourced to a third-party provider.

Riordan is a small employer in both Pontiac and Albany and sometimes has trouble attracting the types of employees it would like. It also has had some difficulty attracting employees in San Jose although its reputation is somewhat better there.

Average turnover rates are low; most employees have been with the company for longer than two years.

The selection process uses the following tools:
?Application
?R?sum? review
?Face-to-face interviews with the HR recruiter
?Face-to-face interviews with hiring managers (In the case of production teams, these are group interviews with team members.)

The company does not conduct reference checks and does not use any form of testing, other than testing all prospective employees for drugs using standard testing methods.

The company has no federal contracts and does not have any affirmative action plans or goals.
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Training & Development

Riordan provides the following mandatory training for all employees within 90 days of hire:
?New employee orientation (1 day) - offered once per month
?Six Sigma - for all production, shipping and quality employees

Supervisors are also expected to attend the following workshops within 12 months of becoming a supervisor:
?Interviewing guidelines
?Preventing EEO claims and sexual harassment in the workplace
?Performance reviews

Self-directed teams operate throughout the plants in Pontiac, Albany and China. Team members cross-train on jobs within the team, as well as attend training sessions on goal setting, scheduling, selection processes and managing conflict. These are provided on an ?as-needed? basis by the HR employee relations specialist at each site.

The company offers tuition reimbursement for work-related educational activities.

The company will also pay for professional organization fees for engineers in order to encourage them to stay current in their field.

.
Virtual Organizations Portal. ## ?2005, 2006, 2012 Apollo Group, Inc. All rights reserved.


Sample eesay are avaiable on the OPPAPER SIte, I just have to have surgery and this is my last class, teacher is the toughest grader, etc. However, thanks in advance
.

Reading: Chapter 2 text ( will uploaded right away)

Write two pages on how this reading might cause you to keep or adapt the program you developed for last weeks assignment. You will need to answer the questions I asked in response to your last posting in order to be able to do this.


Below isthe question from last week:

This is a well-thought out and detailed plan with good rationales for your choices. You didn't specifically outline the things that would be covered in the group. When you outreach to your target market what are you going to say they will learn, understand and be able to do as a result of the group?


(Below is last week's assignment) The addendum is my response my last posting:

Coaching For Women in Life Insurance and Financial Planning
Coaching is an excellent tool used to impart the desired knowledge and skills to a specific population. The coaching group should have a specific format and objectives. The book Group Coaching: A Comprehensive Blueprint explores my understanding of group coaching. The author supports my knowledge base of how to lay the foundation for group coaching. The book also dictates that the coach must have strong facilitating skills as the coach sets the parameters and encourages the flow of the process. Utilizing those concepts to springboard forward I determined my group coaching outline would be created for women in life insurance sales and financial planning. This population has been historically underserved as traditionally it has been dominated by males. You might surmise, these male experienced professionals-have not always been motivated to mentor or encourage the growth of women in this profession. This outline was designed to equip the women with effective marketing skills that they can adopt to achieve their learning goals and objectives. During the application process the women will need to fill out a questioner to help comb out each woman's five year business and/or financial goals . Listed below are the four areas that have to be addressed when creating a prosperous Insurance and Financial Planning business.
Outline of the Coaching Program
Target
The members of the group will develop a target population for their particular business, for example-women business owners, or people that have recently received a huge cash settlement. My targets for the coaching program will be the women in life insurance sales and financial planning. This group is important as they form the most active group among the women population involved in marketing and financial planning. Significant analysis of the market needs show that unlike the males working as financial planners, women face the challenge of limited knowledge on ways of improving their marketing and financial planning skills, thereby, the significance of the coaching program. In addition, I believe it is imperative to provide opportunities that will empower the women become knowledgeable as men are in the current contemporary society (CorporateCrossovers. 2012).
Prospecting
Searching for the best opportunities to deliver their business services to is a concrete foundational step to each member's business plan. My prospecting for the group will begin with a list of women that have received their appropriate licenses. When prospecting a coach will need to consider a variety of factors such as the needs of the women in life insurance sales and financial planning. Needs analysis obtained by performing market analysis will allow the organization to come up with the strategic objectives of meeting the needs of the program. Similarly, the cost of the program will be considered basing on their affordability of the program. An affordable program will receive a significant boost from the target group, thereby, the need for the consideration of factors such as the content, duration, and language used in delivering the desired message to the target population. Determining the level of awareness of the target population will also influence the success of the program. Low level of awareness will translate into the use of a detailed coaching program unlike in women having a high level of awareness for the program (CorporateCrossovers. 2012).
Media Marketing
Marketing is key to any new business and social media can be a cost effective means to reach potential clients. The method of marketing the coaching program will influence its usability significantly. As such, a combination of different strategies for marketing the content will be imperative. The program will utilize the use of social networks, including the Facebook, Linked in, and Twitter to market the coaching program. Using these platforms will increase its consumption as a large percentage of the global populations use these sites on their daily basis. Similarly, online methods such as sending person's emails containing the coaching program will boost it significantly. Combining the use of these methods will create awareness across the global populations, thereby, high utilization of the coaching program.
Education
The coaching program for women in insurance sales and financial planning will adopt a general educational approach. The approach adopted will try to consider the learning needs of these women, as well as, trying to cover all the critical areas affecting the women group in focus. The learner-centered approach will also be used to address the needs of the learners utilizing the resource. Such will be possible with the creation of a platform that allows for interaction between the tutor and the students or the users of the content (CorporateCrossovers. 2012).
In addition, the coaching program will learner-specific. It will target women with masters degree in business related fields, those with insurance certifications, series six license and the financial planners. The learner specificity nature of the life-coaching program will ensure the maintenance of objectivity of the project. Similarly, the learner-centeredness will ensure that feedback obtained from the consumers will be population specific rather than being generalized. Therefore, considering these factors will certainly deliver the expected results of the program.

References

Cockerham, G. (2011). Group Coaching: A Comprehensive Blueprint. USA, Bloomington: iUniverse.
CorporateCrossovers. (2012). Welcome to Elevate! Business Group Coaching Programme Starting March 2013. YouTube. Accessed 24th July 2014 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL8Sk8zEGZ4





addendum
As a licensed Agent/Financial Planner, you know the product! I will show you have to turn your
knowledge into $$$$$$$$$!

As a member, you will MASTER:

1.) The verbiage.
a. Elevator script 5 minute introduction for chance meetings for potential clients
b. Script to build comfort and trust during first meeting
c. Script that will have clients rushing to give you at least 10 referrals

2.) I will show you how to solidify residual income

3.) I will show you how to get your clients to request your presence at least annually to
add more of your products to add to their portfolio.

4.) you will also learn about the appropriate certifications-which ones are important
and how to earn them.





There are faxes for this order.

Assignment 3: Accounting for Pensions and other Post-Retirement Benefits
Due Week 9 and worth 150 points

Using the Internet or Strayer databases, go to the FASB Website, located at http://www.fasb.org, and other resources to research the Disclosure of Postretirement Health Care and Life Insurance Benefits.

Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you:

1.Based on your research, compare and contrast the early historical accounting for Postretirement Health Care and Life Insurance Benefits with the guidance / rules in place today. .

2.Based on your research, make at least two (2) recommended changes to the guidance / rules that you believe would improve the financial accounting and reporting of the benefits in question. Provide support for your recommendation. .

3.Predict the significant manner in which the future of accounting for these benefits could change, based on potential changes in the business and political climate that you foresee. Provide support for your prediction(s). .

4.Create a scenario in which at least two (2) types of Postretirement Health Care and Life Insurance Benefits change. Predict the potential impact of these changes on financial accounting and reporting practices. .

5.Develop an argument that supports your proposed changes in Question 4. Next, create correspondence to your Chief Financial Officer in which you justify your position. .

6.Use at least three (3) quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources..

This is NOT an essay but a questionaire. We are only filling out a questionaire, no essay.

The literature is Nixon's Checkers Speech which I have copied for you below.

The thesis statement has already been approved and graded. Do not redo it. I provided it to you so that you could have it.

1. Write a two sentence thesis statement for The Checkers Speech.

The Checkers Speech sounds very effective to many members of the viewing audience, but it is rendered ineffective when the speech is broken down. This is due to Nixon's use of the logical fallacies of red herring, appeal to emotion, and non-sequitar.

2. Write your topic sentence for paragraph 2 below. It should tie to the first item in your listing in the thesis statement.

(should be about red herring illogical fallacy)

3. Write a brief quote supporting the topic sentence for paragraph 2 below.

4. Write commentary supporting numbers 2 and 3 above on the lines below.

5. Write your topic sentence for paragraph 3 below. It should tie to the second item in your listing in the thesis statement.

(should be about appeal to emotion logical fallacy)

6. Write a brief quote supporting the topic sentence for paragraph 3 below.

7. Write commentary supporting numbers 5 and 6 above on the lines below.

8. Write your topic sentence for paragraph 4 below. It should tie to the third item in your listing in the thesis statement.

(should be about non-sequitar.logical fallacy)

9. Write a brief quote supporting the topic sentence for paragraph 4 below.

10. Write commentary supporting numbers 8 and 9 above on the lines below.

11. Write a brief summary on the lines below of all three assertions. Be specific.

12. Write the final sentence or sentences which should be a relevant generalization or universal application of your point.



The Checkers Speech

My Fellow Americans:

I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice Presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity have been questioned.

The usual political thing to do when charges are made against you is to either ignore them or to deny them without giving details.

I believe we've had enough of that in the United States, particularly with the present Administration in Washington, D.C. To me the office of the Vice Presidency of the United States is a great office and I feel that the people have got to have confidence in the integrity of the men who run for that office and who might obtain it.

I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth. And that's why I'm here tonight. I want to tell you my side of the case.

I am sure that you have read the charge and you've heard that I, Senator Nixon, took $18,000 from a group of my supporters.

Now, was that wrong? And let me say that it was wrong??"I'm saying, incidentally, that it was wrong and not just illegal. Because it isn't a question of whether it was legal or illegal, that isn't enough. The question is, was it morally wrong?

I say that it was morally wrong if any of that $18,000 went to Senator Nixon for my personal use. I say that it was morally wrong if it was secretly given and secretly handled. And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors got special favors for the contributions that they made.

And now to answer those questions let me say this:

Not one cent of the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to me for my personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.

It was not a secret fund. As a matter of fact, when I was on "Meet the Press," some of you may have seen it last Sunday??"Peter Edson came up to me after the program and he said, "Dick, what about this fund we hear about?" And I said, "Well, there's no secret about it. Go out and see Dana Smith, who was the administrator of the fund."

And I gave him his address, and I said that you will find that the purpose of the fund simply was to defray political expenses that I did not feel should be charged to the Government.

And third, let me point out, and I want to make this particularly clear, that no contributor to this fund, no contributor to any of my campaign, has ever received any consideration that he would not have received as an ordinary constituent.

I just don't believe in that and I can say that never, while I have been in the Senate of the United States, as far as the people that contributed to this fund are concerned, have I made a telephone call for them to an agency, or have I gone down to an agency in their behalf. And the records will show that, the records which are in the hands of the Administration.

But then some of you will say and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?"

Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip that is, for himself and his family between his home and Washington, D.C.

And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office, to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California is enough to hire thirteen people.

And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator??"it's paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll, but all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business. Business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veterans Administration and get some information about his GI policy. Items of that type for example.

But there are other expenses which are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.

Do you think that when I or any other Senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home state to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers?

Well, I know what your answer is. It is the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem. The answer is, "no." The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.

But then the question arises, you say, "Well, how do you pay for l these and how can you do it legally?" And there are several ways that it can be done, incidentally, and that it is done legally in the United States Senate and in the Congress.

The first way is to be a rich man. I don't happen to be a rich man so I couldn't use that one.

Another way that is used is to put your wife on the payroll. Let me say, incidentally, my opponent, my opposite number for the Vice Presidency on the Democratic ticket, does have his wife on the payroll. And has had her on his payroll for the ten years??"the past ten years.

Now just let me say this. That's his business and I'm not critical of him for doing that. You will have to pass judgment on that particular point. But I have never done that for this reason. I have found that there are so many deserving stenographers and secretaries in Washington that needed the work that I just didn't feel it was right to put my wife on the payroll.

My wife's sitting over here. She's a wonderful stenographer. She used to teach stenography and she used to teach shorthand in high school. That was when I met her. And I can tell you folks that she's worked many hours at night and many hours on Saturdays and Sundays in my office and she's done a fine job. And I'm proud to say tonight that in the six years I've been in the House and the Senate of the United States, Pat Nixon has never been on the Government payroll.

There are other ways that these finances can be taken care of. Some who are lawyers, and I happen to be a lawyer, continue to practice law. But I haven't been able to do that. I'm so far away from California that I've been so busy with my Senatorial work that I have not engaged in any legal practice.

And also as far as law practice is concerned, it seemed to me that the relationship between an attorney and the client was 80 personal that you couldn't possibly represent a man as an attorney and then have an unbiased view when he presented his case to you in the event that he had one before the Government.

And so I felt that the best way to handle these necessary political expenses of getting my message to the American people and the speeches I made, the speeches that I had printed, for the most part, concerned this one message??"of exposing this Administration, the communism in it, the corruption in it??"the only way that I could do that was to accept the aid which people in my home state of California who contributed to my campaign and who continued to make these contributions after I was elected were glad to make.

And let me say I am proud of the fact that not one of them has ever asked me for a special favor. I'm proud of the fact that not one of them has ever asked me to vote on a bill other than as my own conscience would dictate. And I am proud of the fact that the taxpayers by subterfuge or otherwise have never paid one dime for expenses which I thought were political and shouldn't be charged to the taxpayers.

Let me say, incidentally, that some of you may say, "Well, that's all right, Senator; that's your explanation, but have you got any proof7"

And I'd like to tell you this evening that just about an hour ago we received an independent audit of this entire fund. I suggested to Gov. Sherman Adams, who is the chief of staff of the Dwight Eisenhower campaign, that an independent audit and legal report be obtained. And I have that audit here in my hand.

It's an audit made by the Price, Waterhouse & Co. firm, and the legal opinion by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, lawyers in Los Angeles, the biggest law firm and incidentally one of the best ones in Los Angeles.

I'm proud to be able to report to you tonight that this audit and this legal opinion is being forwarded to General Eisenhower. And I'd like to read to you the opinion that was prepared by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and based on all the pertinent laws and statutes, together with the audit report prepared by the certified public accountants.

It is our conclusion that Senator Nixon did not obtain any financial gain from the collection and disbursement of the fund by Dana Smith; that Senator Nixon did not violate any Federal or state law by reason of the operation of the fund, and that neither the portion of the fund paid by Dana Smith directly to third persons nor the portion paid to Senator Nixon to reimburse him for designated office expenses constituted income to the Senator which was either reportable or taxable as income under applicable tax laws. (signed) Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher by Alma H. Conway."

Now that, my friends, is not Nixon speaking, but that's an independent audit which was requested because I want the American people to know all the facts and I'm not afraid of having independent people go in and check the facts, and that is exactly what they did.

But then I realize that there are still some who may say, and rightly so, and let me say that I recognize that some will continue to smear regardless of what the truth may be, but that there has been understandably some honest misunderstanding on this matter, and there's some that will say:

"Well, maybe you were able, Senator, to fake this thing. How can we believe what you say? After all, is there a possibility that maybe you got some sums in cash? Is there a possibility that you may have feathered your own nest?" And so now what I am going to do-and incidentally this is unprecedented in the history of American politics-I am going at this time to give this television and radio audience a complete financial history; everything I've earned; everything I've spent; everything I owe. And I want you to know the facts. I'll have to start early.

I was born in 1913. Our family was one of modest circumstances and most of my early life was spent in a store out in East Whittier. It was a grocery store ??" one of those family enterprises. he only reason we were able to make it go was because my mother and dad had five boys and we all worked in the store.

I worked my way through college and to a great extent through law school. And then, in 1940, probably the best thing that ever happened to me happened, I married Pat??"who is sitting over here. We had a rather difficult time after we were married, like so many of the young couples who may be listening to us. I practiced law; she continued to teach school. Then in 1942 I went into the service.

Let me say that my service record was not a particularly unusual one. I went to the South Pacific. I guess I'm entitled to a couple of battle stars. I got a couple of letters of commendation but I was just there when the bombs were falling and then I returned. I returned to the United States and in 1946 I ran for the Congress.

When we came out of the war, Pat and I??"Pat during the war ad worked as a stenographer and in a bank and as an economist for Government agency??"and when we came out the total of our saving from both my law practice, her teaching and all the time that I as in the war??"the total for that entire period was just a little less than $10,000. Every cent of that, incidentally, was in Government bonds.

Well, that's where we start when I go into politics. Now what I've I earned since I went into politics? Well, here it is??"I jotted it down, let me read the notes. First of all I've had my salary as a Congressman and as a Senator. Second, I have received a total in this past six years of $1600 from estates which were in my law firm the time that I severed my connection with it.

And, incidentally, as I said before, I have not engaged in any legal practice and have not accepted any fees from business that came to the firm after I went into politics. I have made an average of approximately $1500 a year from nonpolitical speaking engagements and lectures. And then, fortunately, we've inherited a little money. Pat sold her interest in her father's estate for $3,000 and I inherited $l500 from my grandfather.

We live rather modestly. For four years we lived in an apartment in Park Fairfax, in Alexandria, Va. The rent was $80 a month. And we saved for the time that we could buy a house.

Now, that was what we took in. What did we do with this money? What do we have today to show for it? This will surprise you, Because it is so little, I suppose, as standards generally go, of people in public life. First of all, we've got a house in Washington which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000. We have a house in Whittier, California, which cost $13,000 and on which we owe $3000. * My folks are living there at the present time.

I have just $4,000 in life insurance, plus my G.I. policy which I've never been able to convert and which will run out in two years. I have no insurance whatever on Pat. I have no life insurance on our our youngsters, Patricia and Julie. I own a 1950 Oldsmobile car. We have our furniture. We have no stocks and bonds of any type. We have no interest of any kind, direct or indirect, in any business.

Now, that's what we have. What do we owe? Well, in addition to the mortgage, the $20,000 mortgage on the house in Washington, the $10,000 one on the house in Whittier, I owe $4,500 to the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C. with interest 4 1/2 per cent.

I owe $3,500 to my parents and the interest on that loan which I pay regularly, because it's the part of the savings they made through the years they were working so hard, I pay regularly 4 per cent interest. And then I have a $500 loan which I have on my life insurance.

Well, that's about it. That's what we have and that's what we owe. It isn't very much but Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we've got is honestly ours. I should say this??"that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat. And I always tell her that she'd look good in anything.
Click here to listen to this part of the Checkers speech in Real Audio

One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don't they'll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.

It isn't easy to come before a nation-wide audience and air your life as I've done. But I want to say some things before I conclude that I think most of you will agree on. Mr. Mitchell, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made the statement that if a man couldn't afford to be in the United States Senate he shouldn't run for the Senate.

And I just want to make my position clear. I don't agree with Mr. Mitchell when he says that only a rich man should serve his Government in the United States Senate or in the Congress. I don't believe that represents the thinking of the Democratic Party, and I know that it doesn't represent the thinking of the Republican Party.

I believe that it's fine that a man like Governor Stevenson who inherited a fortune from his father can run for President. But I also feel that it's essential in this country of ours that a man of modest means can also run for President. Because, you know, remember Abraham Lincoln, you remember what he said: "God must have loved the common people??"he made so many of them."

And now I'm going to suggest some courses of conduct. First of all, you have read in the papers about other funds now. Mr. Stevenson, apparently, had a couple. One of them in which a group of business people paid and helped to supplement the salaries of state employees. Here is where the money went directly into their pockets.

And I think that what Mr. Stevenson should do is come before the American people as I have, give the names of the people that have contributed to that fund; give the names of the people who put this money into their pockets at the same time that they were receiving money from their state government, and see what favors, if any, they ave out for that.

I don't condemn Mr. Stevenson for what he did. But until the facts are in there is a doubt that will be raised.

And as far as Mr. Sparkman is concerned, I would suggest the same thing. He's had his wife on the payroll. I don't condemn him for that. But I think that he should come before the American people and indicate what outside sources of income he has had.

I would suggest that under the circumstances both Mr. parkman and Mr. Stevenson should come before the American people as I have and make a complete financial statement as to their financial history. And if they don't, it will be an admission that they have something to hide. And I think that you will agree with me.

Because, folks, remember, a man that's to be President of the United States, a man that's to be Vice President of the United States must have the confidence of all the people. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing, and that's why I suggest that Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Sparkman since they are under attack should do what I am doing.

Now, let me say this: I know that this is not the last of the smears. In spite of my explanation tonight other smears will be made; others have been made in the past. And the purpose of the mears, I know, is this??"to silence me, to make me let up.

Well, they just don't know who they're dealing with. I'm going l tell you this: I remember in the dark days of the Hiss case some of the same columnists, some of the same radio commentators who are attacking me now and misrepresenting my position were violently opposing me at the time I was after Alger Hiss.

But I continued the fight because I knew I was right. And I an say to this great television and radio audience that I have no pologies to the American people for my part in putting Alger Hiss vhere he is today.

And as far as this is concerned, I intend to continue the fight.

Why do I feel so deeply? Why do I feel that in spite of the mears, the misunderstandings, the necessity for a man to come up here and bare his soul as I have? Why is it necessary for me to continue this fight?

And I want to tell you why. Because, you see, I love my country. And I think my country is in danger. And I think that the only man that can save America at this time is the man that's runing for President on my ticket ??" Dwight Eisenhower.

You say, "Why do I think it's in danger?" and I say look at the record. Seven years of the Truman-Acheson Administration and that's happened? Six hundred million people lost to the Communists, and a war in Korea in which we have lost 117,000 American casualties.

And I say to all of you that a policy that results in a loss of six hundred million people to the Communists and a war which costs us 117,000 American casualties isn't good enough for America.

And I say that those in the State Department that made the mistakes which caused that war and which resulted in those losses should be kicked out of the State Department just as fast as we can get 'em out of there.

And let me say that I know Mr. Stevenson won't do that. Because he defends the Truman policy and I know that Dwight Eisenhower will do that, and that he will give America the leadership that it needs.

Take the problem of corruption. You've read about the mess in Washington. Mr. Stevenson can't clean it up because he was picked by the man, Truman, under whose Administration the mess was made. You wouldn't trust a man who made the mess to clean it up??" that's Truman. And by the same token you can't trust the man who was picked by the man that made the mess to clean it up??"and that's Stevenson.

And so I say, Eisenhower, who owes nothing to Truman, nothing to the big city bosses, he is the man that can clean up the mess in Washington.

Take Communism. I say that as far as that subject is concerned, the danger is great to America. In the Hiss case they got the secrets which enabled them to break the American secret State Department code. They got secrets in the atomic bomb case which enabled them to get the secret of the atomic bomb, five years before they would have gotten it by their own devices.

And I say that any man who called the Alger Hiss case a "red herring" isn't fit to be President of the United States. I say that a man who like Mr. Stevenson has pooh-poohed and ridiculed the Communist threat in the United States??"he said that they are phantoms among ourselves; he's accused us that have attempted to expose the Communists of looking for Communists in the Bureau of Fisheries and Wildlife??"I say that a man who says that isn't qualified to be President of the United States.

And I say that the only man who can lead us in this fight to rid the Government of both those who are Communists and those who have corrupted this Government is Eisenhower, because Eisenhower, you can be sure, recognizes the problem and he knows how to deal with it.

Now let me say that, finally, this evening I want to read to you just briefly excerpts from a letter which I received, a letter which, after all this is over, no one can take away from us. It reads as follows:

Dear Senator Nixon:

Since I'm only 19 years of age I can't vote in this Presidential election but believe me if I could you and General Eisenhower would certainly get my vote. My husband is in the Fleet Marines in Korea. He's a corpsman on the front lines and we have a two-month-old son he's never seen. And I feel confident that with great Americans like you and General Eisenhower in the White House, lonely Americans like myself will be united with their loved ones now in Korea.

I only pray to God that you won't be too late. Enclosed is a small check to help you in your campaign. Living on $85 a month it is all I can afford at present. But let me know what else I can do.

Folks, it's a check for $10, and it's one that I will never cash.

And just let me say this. We hear a lot about prosperity these days but I say, why can't we have prosperity built on peace rather than prosperity built on war? Why can't we have prosperity and an honest government in Washington, D.C., at the same time. Believe me, we can. And Eisenhower is the man that can lead this crusade to bring us that kind of prosperity.

And, now, finally, I know that you wonder whether or not I am going to stay on the Republican ticket or resign.

Let me say this: I don't believe that I ought to quit because I'm not a quitter. And, incidentally, Pat's not a quitter. After all, her name was Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick's Day, and you know the Irish never quit.

But the decision, my friends, is not mine. I would do nothing that would harm the possibilities of Dwight Eisenhower to become President of the United States. And for that reason I am submitting to the Republican National Committee tonight through this television broadcast the decision which it is theirs to make.

Let them decide whether my position on the ticket will help or hurt. And I am going to ask you to help them decide. Wire and write the Republican National Committee whether you think I should stay on or whether I should get off. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.

But just let me say this last word. Regardless of what happens I'm going to continue this fight. I'm going to campaign up and down America until we drive the crooks and the Communists and those that defend them out of Washington. And remember, folks, Eisenhower is a great man. Believe me. He's a great man. And a vote for Eisenhower is a vote for what's good for America.

* Nixon meant to say $10,000.

On January 1, 2012 Vincent Agee turned 66 and became entitled to Social Security and his monthly payment was $1700. His wife, Peppy Agee, was only 62, but she applied for Social Security as well. Her earnings that year are $17,000. They have 3 children, Red, age 17, Blue age 19 and Green age 21. Green was born with profound birth defects and never will work or leave her family. Red, Blue and Green are in high school. Vincent continues to work while he is receiving benefits and earns $102,000 annually. He has savings and investments worth over $1 million dollars. His Social Security benefit will increase next year because he continues to work. However on December 31, 2012 he dies, leaving his family well off because he had purchased a $4 million dollar life insurance policy.

1. Compute and explain the Social Security benefits each member of the family will receive monthly in 2012 and also after Vincent Agee dies. (You do not need to compute the family maximum reduction if there is one here.)

2. People who study Social Security often say that Social Security is an entitlement/insurance program and a social welfare program. In the scenario above, the benefits that the members of the Agee family receive have features of both an entitlement/insurance program and a social welfare program. Explain which aspects of the benefits they receive or will receive are entitlement/insurance features and which are social welfare features.

3. Assume Vincent has a former wife, Doloris, who is entitled to Social Security divorced spouses benefits because they were married for 10 years. Given that women generally live longer than men and now most women work outside the home and almost 50% of marriages end in divorce, does this benefit to Doloris comport with contemporary patterns of work and family support? Explain your answer.

Cutting Costs at VentaCare
VentaCare Nursing Homes provides private care for over 500 residents in three different locations. The company employs 250 staff members with a variety of responsibilities including RNs, nursing assistants, kitchen staff, custodians and administrators. VentaCare has a reputation of providing superior care and has a waiting list for residents ready to move in to their homes. Further, the company enjoys a relatively low employee turnover rate. However, some recent cuts in federal funding have created some financial difficulties for the company.
VentaCare has cut costs in all aspects of their operations, but the company still has not accounted entirely for their expected budget shortfall and must now examine personnel costs. Due to state requirements for minimum levels of staff to residents, cutting staff is not an option. They have decided to temporarily freeze salaries, but this will still not create enough savings for the company. Allison Wiggan, the Director of Human Resources, has been asked to examine the company benefit program for cost cutting options.
The company offers a fairly generous benefits program, which is quite costly for the company. In addition to a health insurance plan, the company provides both short-term and long-term disability insurance and life insurance for which the company pays the full premium. The company provides paid time off including eight paid holidays, an average of ten vacation days and five sick days each year. As a retirement benefit, the company provides a 401(k) plan where they match the first 3% of the employees contributions. The company also offers tuition reimbursement for employees pursing any advanced degree. To promote employee wellness, they offer a variety of programs such a monthly lunch to discuss health concerns. And finally, they offer a full-service Employee Assistance Program.
Changing or eliminating any of these benefits is going to be a challenge. Part of the reason VentaCare has had such success is that they are able to retain talented and dedicated staff members. While the companys pay rates are in line with their competitors, their benefits program is clearly more generous. Allison is concerned that making cuts to the program could cause employee turnover or create challenges in future recruiting efforts.
1. What are the discretionary benefits provided by VentaCare? What are the legally required benefits required by VentaCare?
2. How should Allison approach evaluating VentaCares benefit program?
3. What are some benefits Allison should consider changing or eliminating? Why?

Evco Insurance, a multimillion-dollar life insurance firm, has asked you to help troubleshoot the network at its corporate headquarters. The network manager admits that he has not kept very close tabs on the network's growth over the last year, and he thinks this omission has something to do with the congestion problems.

The Marketing Department, which is experiencing the worst network response, has added 40 people in the last six months to make a total of 146 people. At some times during the day, the marketing director has complained of waiting 10 minutes before one small e-mail message can get across the wire.

He shows you to the telecommunications closet that serves the troubled department. Inside, you find a stack of eight expensive new hubs, blinking away.

Discuss with your classmates your thoughts about why these users might be getting such poor response.

Due Week 3 and worth 150 points
During Week 1, you were prompted to submit a project topic to your instructor for approval. This assignment will be the foundation for the project you develop throughout the course. Once you have received your professor?s approval for your project topic, this assignment will help you organize the components of your project.
Write a 3-4 page paper in which you: The proposed write up is stated below at the very bottom, titled: Business Development/startup for Choice Spring LLC,please use this as a guide and yardstick or better use your discretion.

State the type of project and identify the business problem it will solve.
Determine three (3) major deliverables of the project.
Assess the impact of not doing this project and the three (3) major risks of doing it.
Assign the measurement criteria for each deliverable that will be used in the project.
Estimate the costs and timeline involved with the project.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student?s name, the professor?s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
Analyze corporate strategy and the project life cycle phases to define the project and initiate a project plan.
Apply the concepts of project management to prioritize project portfolios and align the projects with corporate strategies, culture, and organization.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in project management.
Write clearly and concisely about project management using proper writing mechanics.
Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic / organization of the paper, and language and writing skills. Click here to access the rubric for this assignment.



Business Development/startup for Choice Spring LLC

The mission of this anticipated project is to start, build and nurture a new business by the name Choice Spring LLC which its office will be located and headquartered in Towson, Maryland, The defined goal is to help individuals, families and companies attain financial goals and needs and to be competitive in its set industry, some of the products/services to be offered are and not limited to, health/life insurance, commercial policies for your business, rental/home insurance,401k/Retirement/IRA plans, Mutual funds and Stocks etc
The set vision and mission of this company is a six(6) month goal to get the company up and running, the first was to pick out a name, register the business name and acquire all licenses to operate in each services rendered, meet state regulations and secure office space in the Towson area, Towson was chosen as it is without much competition, has the social class needed, statistics shows the elites in the Baltimore area live in Towson, the Cultural values abound well, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing the nature of the business and business location have all been factored in and the positive does outweigh the negatives which will further be discussed, have put all this into consideration and moving on with this project making the presence of Choice Spring LLC know is another great mission, joining the chambers of commerce, sponsoring community events/sports programs for kids/youth are just examples of ways to set foot in the door.
The project is also to device means of marketing the company and its products and some of the options are but not limited to direct mailing, word of mouth, referrals, internet leads, cold calling, event marketing, sales representatives are assigned to individuals/families and some to strictly render our services to companies/businesses and also have individual assigned to each project goal, giving room for division of labor and able to attain the best of each assigned projects and reports are giving to me at a given and appointed time and/or days of the week
The company/project as a budget of no more than fifteen thousand dollars to embark of this project and see it come through, this funds includes, rent/bills, office equipment, marketing, logistics, bonding, payroll and other miscellaneous, this are funds to be managed and rationed well with hopes of having left over yet maximizing every step along the way as opportunities present itself.

You are to write a 3-page paper. You are to State the Question First and then continue to answer. Read the Case Study, at the end of case study answer the discussion question. Do Not Use Outside Sources.

Chinas Developing Accounting System

Attracted by its rapid socialist planned economy into a market economy, economic annual growth rate of 10 to 12 percent, and a population in excess of 1.2 billion, Western firms over the past 10 years have favored China a site for foreign direct investment. Most China as an emerging economic superpower with an economy that will soon be as large as that of Japan and will surpassed United States in sizes sometimes after 2010 if current growth projections hold true.
The Chinese government fees for a direct investment as a primary engine of Chinas economic growth. To encourage such investment, the government has offered generous tax incentives to foreign firms that invest in China, either on their own or in a joint venture with a local enterprise. These tax incentives include two-year exemption from corporate income tax following an investment, plus a further three years during which taxes are paid at only 50 percent of the standard tax rate. Chinas vast internal markets have made the country a prime site for investment by Western firms. However, once established in China, many Western or firms find themselves struggling to comply with the complex and often obtuse nature of Chinas rapidly evolving accounting system.
Accounting in China has traditionally been rooted in information gathering and compliance reporting designed to measure the governments production and tax goals. The Chinese system was based on the old Soviet system, which had little to do with profit or accounting systems created to report financial positions or the results of foreign operations. Although the system is changing rapidly, many problems associated with the old system still remain.
One problem for investors is a severe shortage of accountants, financial managers, and auditors in China, especially those experienced with market economy transactions and international accounting practices. Estimates suggest that China needs some 600,000 accountants, but as of 2003 there were still only 130,000 in the country. Chinese enterprises, including equity and cooperative joint ventures with foreign firms, must be audited by Chinese accounting firms, which are regulated by the state. Traditionally, many experienced auditors have audited of the state owned enterprises, working through the local providence or city authorities in the state audit Bureau to report to the Government entity overseeing the audited firm. In response to the shortage of accountants schooled in the principles of private sector accounting, several large international auditing firms have established joint ventures with emerging Chinese accounting and auditing firms to bridge the growing need for international accounting, tax, and securities expertise. Still, the current lack of experienced auditors in China raises questions about how accurate the financial statements of Chinese companies actually are.
This is becoming an issue for foreigners since more and more Chinese companies have been tapping global capital markets, and more foreigners have been investing in Chinese companies through the Shanghai Stock exchange. Foreign investors want to be assured that the financial picture they are getting a Chinese enterprises is reliable. So far, that has not always been the case. In December 2003, for example, China Life Insurance successfully listed its on the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges, raising some $3.4 billion. However, in January 2004, the head of Chinas National Audit Office let it slip that a routine audit of China Lifes state-owned parent company had uncovered $652 million in financial irregularities in 2003. The stock immediately fell, and China Life found itself the target of a class action lawsuit on behalf of the US investors claiming financial fraud. Shortly afterward, plans to list China Minsheng Banking Corp., Chinas largest private bank, on the New York Stock Exchange were put on hold after the company admitted that it had faked a shareholder meeting in 2000. The stock of another successful Chinese offering in New York that of Semiconductor Manufacturing International slid in 2004 when its chief financial officer made statements that contradicted those contained in filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Apart from weak auditing, another probable cause of problems such as these has been the somewhat halting evolution of Chinas emerging accounting standards. Lacking its own standards, China has signaled that it will move toward adopting international standards developed by the IASB. In 2001, China adopted a new regulation, called the Accounting System for Business Enterprises, that is largely based on ISAB standards. The system is now used to regulate both local and foreign companies operating in China. Still, the Chinese have not totally embraced IASB rules, and they may not. As recently as 2004, the chief accounting regulated in China stated that the country would follow some but not all IASB rules because international rules do not take into consideration the special situation in China. He said, China is different from other Western markets in many areas. China still has many companies that are state owned enterprises while overseas markets mainly had privately owned companies. He went on to note, We would like (international) standards to be set in a way that gives more consideration to the market situations in China, or else give exceptions in accounting treatment for Chinese firms.

Discussion Question
If the evolving Chinese system does not totally conform with IASB standards, but instead to standards that the Chinese government deems appropriate to Chinas special situation.

Question: How might this affect foreign firms with operations in China?

I need a paper that describes the effects of second hand smoke. Why smoking should be banned in public places. My side would be on banning smoking. The harmful effects of smoking. Facts on deaths and diseases that smoking causes. After every fact I need the source to be cited. The effects smoking is having in other countries such as China, and Africa. Below is a rough draft to work from that is written very poorly.


Should smoking be banned in public places? Smoking should be banned in public because smoking harms innocent people. Not every body chooses to smoke cigarettes so why should there be innocent casualties? People who smoke know the consequences of their actions. There needs to be rules put in place to protect people who do not smoke. People should not have to walk down the street and have second hand smoke effect their life because the person in front of them wants to smoke cigarettes. There are hundreds of thousands in other countries that are being harmed from second hand smoke. The media is playing a pivotal role in preventing the violence of second hand smoke. After smokers become aware of the dangers they are inflicting with second hand smoke and decide to quite, it takes several attempts for the majority of smokers. Smoking needs to be banned in public places for the health of mankind.

Secondhand smoke is very deadly and often over looked. Second hand smoke is smoke that has been exhaled or smoke from the lighted end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar and inhaled by another person. The second hand smoke contains over 7000 chemicals, which 69 are known to cause cancer and 200 poisons. Second hand smoke is already classified as a group A carcinogen ? cancer-causing substance in humans by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Second hand smoke occurs in public places such as bars, casinos, vehicles, and outdoors. Pregnant women who smoke expose their child to Second hand smoke increase the chances of a spontaneous abortion, stillborn, low birth weight, along with pregnancy and delivery problems. Second hand smoke has drastic effects on children that result in severe asthma attacks, ear infections, and increases the risk of SIDS (Sudden infant death syndrome). For children that are a year and a half and younger is estimated to cause 150,000-300,000 cases of pneumonia and bronchitis every year. The Cardiovascular vascular system is affected immediately for non-smokers that have are subjected to second hand smoke. Non-smokers increase of heart disease by 25-30% by being around second hand smoke, and are a result of estimated 46000 heart disease deaths annually. ?????? The extra costs of medical care from second hand smoke in the United States for, illness and death is over $10billion a year. Although second hand smoke has dramatically decreased in the past 20 years do to the growing laws that ban smoking along with knowledge and awareness and dangers that second hand smoke causes. For people living below the poverty levels in America 60.5% were exposed to second hand smoke in 2007-2008. Substantial differences in exposure with African-American male workers, Construction workers, blue collar workers and service workers remain to be among the highest levels of second hand smoke even with the decrease over the past two decades. Second hand smoke in females is still being studied if it causes breast cancer or not. We know that smoke does reach the breast tissue and breast milk. A report from the California Environmental Protection Agency in 2005 have proven that in high concentrations second hand smoke causes breast cancer in rodents. There is no links to cigarette odors and cancer in people. Research has showed particles of secondhand smoke settle in dust and other surfaces, which can remain for months after the smoke is gone. Researchers dubbed this third hand smoke.

In 2011 NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law a ban on smoking in city parks, beaches, public plazas, and boardwalks. Every time a person is caught smoking they could face a $50 fine. This law was put into place to protect people from the health risks of second hand smoke. Although with the ban many are skeptical. Many think it is ridiculous that walking through central park you can receive a ticket. Others think that it will just be another reason to stop people. In 2005 a Michigan business Weyco installed a smoking ban for employees during working hours and non working hours. The employees would be tested at random and if found to fail the test would be fired. The state legislature passed a bill banning the practice of regulation of off work smoking because Michigan did not consider this to be discrimination. Many people believe that smoking is a civil rights violation of the Constitution and smoking is a freedom and choice that needs to be preserved. Almost all United Sates and Territories have a form of a smoking ban weather it is in restaurants or in public places. Nearly half of The United states have banned smoking in general public places.

China is a country that is having large issue with battling cigarettes. More then 3.5 million Chinese could die from smoking related illnesses by 2030. China has around 100,000 people die from exposure to second hand smoke each year. China is failing to help their citizens kick the habit by not being able to get the pledges to help the 300 million smokers. China as the world leading tobacco producer and consumer pledged to ban indoor smoking that has taken effect after over 5 years of its announcement. Although China is moving in the right direction to ban smoking, China score is low for implementation of tobacco control and FCTC obligations.

Media has played an important and effective role is banning smoking. Through media people have been given awareness that it is impolite and unethical to smoke between non-smokers. Due to this smoking in public places is becoming unaccepted. Various medical practitioners have refused to treat smokers. Life insurance premiums have increased for smoking clients. The Media displays how disgusting disease from second hand smoke can become. The media has launched different advertisement on banning and quitting smoking for the sake of loves one and him/her self. Some of the examples of different advertisements are; in romance displaying that smoker get rejection from their spouse, another advertisement emphasizing the harmful consequence due to passive or second hand smoke on family, kids or friend, finally media promoted advertisement showing that smokers are usually preferred unattractive to other because they have unhealthy lifestyle. The media is also doing a large part with living a healthy lifestyle complains that compliments no smoking.
Smokers that realized smoking are devastating for mankind and try to quite find it harder then first realized. Report of the surgeon general shows that smoking, heroin and cocaine have similarities. Nicotine is the active ingredient that smokers become addicted to and become so dependent on. Nicotine increases the release of glutamate by stimulating the receptors. There are many ways that have been developed to quite smoking. Some of those are the electronic cigarettes that vaporize a propylene glycol- or glycerin- or ply ethylene glycol- based liquid solution into an aerosol, which acts like the act of smoking. There is also the more common older tool. The nicotine patch is a transdermal patch. When quitting most smokers will have symptoms of avoidance and depression like moods from the nicotine withdrawals according to the Surgeon generals report. The patch releases nicotine to cure the craving. Smokers that try and quite by using the patch are to reduce the time the patch is on and the frequency of wearing the patch to slowly reduce the craving for nicotine. Most people are not able to quite without one of the helpful tools and takes them two or three attempts to quite.
Second has smoke is a killer. People choose to not smoke and do not want the risk involved with smoking. Their needs to be laws put in place to protect the people. There is no difference between murder and killing people with second hand smoke. One might be instant however the end result is the same. People know the effects of first and second hand smoke. Though they might not know the details they know the end result is most often death. The people who choose to have a healthy lifestyle by not smoking need to be protected.







Bibliography
Centers for disease control and prevention, Secondhand smoke facts.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/general_facts/index.htm

American Cancer Society, Tobacco and cancer- secondhand smoke.
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/secondhand-smoke

China smoking deaths could triple by 2030, report warns.
January 7, 2011 by Fran Wang
http://phys.org/news/2011-01-china-deaths-triple.html

Most Women Exposed To Secondhand Smoke In China, Which May Raise Pregnancy Complication Risks.
Reuters, 11/06/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/women-secondhand-smoke-china-pregnancy-complicaitons_n_2081334.html

www.no-smoke.org
Bryant, Jennings, Oliver, Beth, Mary (2009). Media effects: advances in theory and research. Published by Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0805864490, 9780805864496. 470-475

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/tobaccosmoke/full_report.pdf

Utilizing 3 the references below, or any other references write a 4 page paper answering the following questions.


In your opinion, what do you believe are the four major issues that companies face with regard to employee benefits?

In your opinion what are the most four most important things that an organization needs to do to deal with the issues identified above?

In your opinion what are some potential future issues that organizations will encounter regarding employee benefits? What do you think they should do to deal with these issues?



Combating Employee Benefit Cost and Control Issues: The Case for Coalition Purchasing Louis N Anastasio. Benefits Quarterly. Brookfield: First Quarter 2005. Vol. 21, Iss. 1; p. 15 (4 pages)

The 403(b) Industry-Issues and Practices Glenn L Wood & Mohsen Attaran. Benefits Quarterly. Brookfield: First Quarter 2005. Vol. 21, Iss. 1; p. 26 (5 pages)

The Future of Employee Benefits Jerry S Rosenbloom. Journal of Financial Service Professionals. Bryn Mawr: Jan 2005. Vol. 59, Iss. 1; p. 61 (5 pages)

THE FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE: MANAGING THE FOUR SECTORS OF COSTS Philip F Saussy. Journal of Financial Service Professionals. Bryn Mawr: Jan 2005. Vol. 59, Iss. 1; p. 29 (2 pages)

LIFE INSURANCE ENCOUNTERS THE EMPLOYEE BENEFIT RULES John T Adney & Jason K Bortz. Journal of Financial Service Professionals. Bryn Mawr: Nov 2004. Vol. 58, Iss. 6; p. 16 (3 pages)

Keep your eyes on defined contribution plans Vivette S Walker. Nursing Management. Chicago: Sep 2004. Vol. 35, Iss. 9; p. 60 (4 pages)

Career Consequences of Flexible Work Arrangements: The Daddy Track Elizabeth Dreike Almer & Louise E Single. The CPA Journal. New York: Sep 2004. Vol. 74, Iss. 9; p. 56 (3 pages)

Rethinking Employee Benefits: Part I David E Morse. Benefits Law Journal. New York: Summer 2004. Vol. 17, Iss. 2; p. 1 (4 pages)

please use simple English because I am an ESL student.

Please only use academic published books, journals and other reliable sources. No unreliable web source is allowed, except the well-established academic organization or government websites(no more than five).


Pleas also make the table of contents,many small sections, and page number



The final dissertation questions name is how can we make profit through investing on Stock Market. This is the overall title of the final dissertation. In fact, about this dissertation I am going to create a not real case, but similar to real thing. Here, I need to explain it in detail.

The fictitious case:

Ruby Carmine, a banker of a branch of HSBC, she owns 10,000 deposit in her account as an idle capital. Now she would like take this money to invest on stock market. As far as she has known that in order to avoiding investing risk she should separate this amount money into several parts. For easily calculation, she would like equally divided into 4 parts of this amount. It is means that she will invest 2,500 on each sort of share for 4 shares. Then she needs to research what kinds of share she is better invest on. For well knowing about business industry and financial industry, I am playing a role of her colleague to offer her some advices and helps for investing on Stock Market. So I advice her looking at Banks, Financial Services, Life Insurance, Real Estate Investment Trusts, Real Estate Investment & Services, Nonequity Investment Instruments, Nonlife Insurance and Industrial Transportation, these industry sectors. And she will mainly use the official website of London Stock Exchange for checking the share price, http://www.londonstockexchange.com.

The purpose of this dissertation is well aware of operating of financial market, applying to economics theories and approach to invest on Stock Market and concentrating on new information about financial industry. Because Stock Market is not stable, have highly risk and high return. The highly return always are attracted to lots of investors. But not many people would get profit that they expected, why? I would also concentrate on how to choose a good share, and when should I buy it and sale it. Now I would like simple why we want to invest on Stocks and where can we get the profit from it.
a. we will possible get return from listed company each year, i.e. participate dividend or bonus share.

b. we can exchange it in the Stock Market and get profit through difference of sale price and buy price.

c. we can get equity capital expansion when the performance of quoted company increased and the scale of operation become large.

d. the amount of investment is flexible. Comparing futures with real estate, we do not need too much capital. Because of the diversification of share price, investors can choose the affordable shares to invest.

e. if we need money immediately, then we can sale the shares intraday. So the next exchange date we can receive the capital of shares. Comparing with real estate, it is easy to change it to cash.

f. during the inflation, good shares can help us to avoiding that currency to be depreciation.

I must know about several factors before I buy this share.

a. what is the main services in this company
b. how this company operate in the past
c. industrial trends is rise or fall.
d. the share price trend of company in the past, etc.

Stock market analysis includes fundamental analysis and technical analysis. The fundamental analysis mainly study what factors will influence the changing relationship of demand and supply. It analysis the national macroeconomics factors, stock market policies, the various circumstance of quoted company and other information are possible to affect the changes of stock market as reference to stock investment for help investors justify the future development trends of stock market. And it conducts investors to choose the right time to buy shares in stock market and choose the quoted company which can get higher profit from it to invest.

I am learning Managerial economics, economics of financial and investment and monetary economics. I want apply these knowledge that I learned so far to help this dissertation. Define economics factors, politic factors, companys factors, industrial factors, market factors and psychological factors would influence stock market and shareholders.

I am going to advices her make short term investment for about 3 months from 1st Dec to 28th Feb. And I will also outline tables in my dissertation about my plan timetable and relevant details about shares. So I will help her to choose 4 shares from different financial industry before 1st Dec and buy through using 2,500 for each share. Meanwhile, I will help her to concern the share price and record the intraday share price, and explain why the share price goes up and goes down and find out more key turning point to explain what happens make this big changes on this share. The most important is analysis the researching information about share or company circumstances and make further forecast for future trends. If the forecast is wrong, I would like research information why I did wrong. Finally I will calculate the profit and loss in this investment and summary why this is fail or success. Then I will outline which theories and formula is useful in practical stock investment.

Video Tape Analysis

For this assignment, I have chosen the Adlerian Model, need to address model in paper.

Sources include, Video Tape, Power Point Notes (email), and from textbook -Theories and Psychology and Counseling by Richard S. Sharf (4th Edition) pages 112 to 126 (will fax)

Answer questions as follows:

1. What is the main goal of the Adlerian Model? What are the goals of this approach?


2. What did you observe in video that you liked/agreed with?

3. What did you observe in video that you disliked/disagreed with?

4. What are the benefits and drawbacks of Adlerian Therapy?

5. What is the main thing that you learned from writing about Adlerian Therapy or the Adler Model.



See Video Tape Transcript below
Counseling and Personality Theories
Wednesday, May 14, 2008

INSTRUCTOR: ...Adlerian and personal centered therapies tonight and get out of our get a little more out of the past from psychoanalysis and Jungian analysis which are very pathology oriented and very much rooted in the past as well.
I hope you find these approaches from your reading as well I hope you found these to be more enlightening. I think as you see them on videotape, it may be a little clearer.
The video of Carl Rogers is very poor, and so it's a the problem is the video is about 500 bucks, and so we're going to still I still want you to see part of it so you can kind of get a sense of what he was like.
Adlerian is based on the work of Alfred Adler. And his theory is important to understand. It was based on his earlier experiences in life, and he experienced multiple illnesses and didn't walk until the age of four. He was coddled I guess you could say by his mother because of his illnesses. And so when you start to look at one of the primary approaches of his approach, is the idea of moving from what somebody would call inferiority, and this is organ inferiority, the idea that your body compensates. So for example, if you have an injury to one lung, the other will work harder. That's what your body does. And they call it compensation and Adler believed that people started to compensate when they had a struggle. And it could be emotional or physical. And this is important from our field being in disabilities, because we see that that's what people do. And oftentimes they develop stronger senses or stronger abilities in one area or another when they are struggling in another area. So much of his early experience influenced the way he eventually developed his theory.
He earned a MD. This is the third person through the theorists we've talked about who received a medical degrees and went to the University of Vienna, which is where Freud went.
He was originally an ophthalmologist and worked with in a general practice. And he actually worked in an area where they had carnivals in and out. And which sounds like an odd thing, but because in those days carnivals aren't quite what they are today. So he had a lot of people who were had were sort of put out on the stage as being odd or strange or, you know, like literally put out to make money. And so people would stare at them and, you know, go, What happened to that person? Kind of these sight shows that were very much a part of the late 1800's and early 1900's. And what happened was Adler would see a lot of these people who could come to talk to him. It was off the beaten path of a person who might walk in from a job or family situation. He would see people dealing with another level of adversity in the world and constantly finding himself in a place of finding himself in the how do these people deal with adversity that a lot of people would never experience in their lives. And he found that many of them compensated and developed other skills and abilities.
So very early on he saw this focusing on people's strengths. By the way, he was the first who talked about it. Jung recognized it, but didn't draw it out with them.
His works are "social interest" we'll talk about that, the social interest and the other is individual psychology of Alfred Adler. If you were going to go back to his original writings, you'd go back to that one. There were other people who followed with his work later on.
He was invited by Freud to participate in an informal discussion group. He wasn't a student, but he was invited to be part of these Wednesday night discussion groups so he, in fact, right away saw differences in Freud and himself and had no problems standing up to Freud. Even for that day and age where Freud was seen as a developer of these great ideas. He was very clear that there were limitations to the way Freud saw things versus the way he saw things. He was very much part of the psychoanalytic movement with Freud, but there were differences between their thoughts and modes of thinking.
He became the President of Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1910 and just prior to when Jung sort of left Freud's inner circle around 1911 and 1912 and 1914 when they really split actually Adler started to split from Freud before that.
So there were a number of dissenters who really initially were really gravitating toward Freud, and the closer they got to them they went, I don't think so, I don't really see this in the same light. There was quite a bit of dissension in the early years.
Unlike Freud, Adler believed in the social realm, and it's a very important to the development of the person and that you have to understand the social context in which behavior occurs. In other words, if you can't really understand why the person would act the way they would or what would cause the behavior, unless you understand the context the person's in. I think this is clearer as we get deeper in the theory.
He disagreed with the idea of power. And Freud thought it was sexual drive, and he was much more interested in gender and politics as being influences in people's lives.
Interesting. Think about this for a second. What a novel idea that was at that point in time that somebody would stand up and think not primarily biological. The surroundings people are in, including the political things, has an influence on gender and the person's perceptions. And Freud said it contributes to the superego, but it's not that much of an influence in the scope of things. Freud was like, these processes that exist within the id are the primary force in people's lives. He formed the Society of Individual Psychology which is sometimes what his approach is called individual psychology in 1912. And he developed an approach that could be used at a community level. This is very important because Adler's work went later on went to influence schools and what had became known as guidance counseling, in fact. It was very much based on Adler's initial ideas.
If you're looking for roots where this stuff began, look no further, because his original idea of taking toll in the community was important. He worked with community hospitals and social settings where people were dealing with war and dealing with all kinds of threats that, you know, all of human kind is going to face and was very interested in how you needed to participate in an active participant in the level. It's not sufficient enough for the person to change as an individual, it has to be taken out into the world and it has to turn into action somehow.
So again, let's comparatively, thinking about Jung and Freud who were very internally focused, change the internal process and that should be sufficient. But Adler said, it's not just about what you do as an individual in terms of making those psychological changes, you must take it a step further and take it out into the world.
Adler's ideas were further developed by Rudolf Dreikers, if you read his work, and he was the primary developer and Don Dinkmeyer and Jon Carlson that had the haircut you were all admiring. (At the beginning of class he showed a video clip with a therapist who had kind of wild looking hair.) And he died in 1937.
Let's talk a little bit about his theory. Now, I want to I'd like you to think about this in terms of what that might look like. Think about how an Adlerian might look different than somebody practicing psychoanalysis or Jungian psychology.
Okay, so Adler was a transitional theorist, meaning that he crossed over multiple paradigms, but he was primarily psychological and didn't pay as much attention to biological and viewed people as constantly becoming and moving toward fissional goals that they believe lead to superiority. They use these terms that kind of sound more technical than they were.
What's a fictional goal?
CLASS MEMBER: Like unrealistic.
INSTRUCTOR: Kind of unrealistic. It's kind of a combination between a future that somebody wants for themselves, but oftentimes it's a little bit outside of what most people are going to attain, but it's set pretty early, according to him. There's disagreement.
And I thought about eight or nine, and I don't think I had a goal.
But he said it starts developing back then. It's an idealistic view of things, the way you want things to be. So it's off base. They came too high; I guess you could say or too grandiose.
What is superiority?
CLASS MEMBER: If you believe you're superior, you compare yourselves to others and want to be better than others and better than you were and be superior.
INSTRUCTOR: Let's tweak that the little bit.
Same kind of imprint. So what you'll often see is that people will remember very significant things, but most of the time for most people, before the age of four it's very hit and miss. If they think they remember something, it's often what Adler is saying is someone else's construction. They said you were like this at the age of four and you conjured up your own thought of what you think it was like.
But here's the fact of the matter, you'll never know for a fact what you really remembered at that age and what was part of a construction from a conversation with other people. You're just not going to know. And the fact is that memory, that early shifts and changes significantly over the year, how you remember and what you remember and so on. So it's good news in some ways. That's how the body copes with things and how your psyche is able to cope with things. And you don't feel the same way 20 years later that you felt earlier.
CLASS MEMBER: How about when you're three or 21 or 22? Isn't the idea that the mind has plasticity? And the cells that you had at three are not the same cells?
INSTRUCTOR: Exactly. And the synapses close at ten or twelve. That's why you see a young child learn to play piano like Chopin. And you're like, I can't learn to play that way at an older age. Kids have those open. Their ability to learn and digest information is quick. That's a different ability than something that's imprinted on you. The whole process of learning is easier for children, but the actual remembering of events is a different part of the brain.
So we have to consider when somebody experiences something, how does it imprint on them? If it's too early in life, you're not going to know what was reality. When you have a situation and you thought about it years later and you say, I'm not sure it happened or not, have you had that happen?
CLASS MEMBER: I had an incident that happened this last week, and my older sisters described an event that happened when I was two.
And they said, you know, you couldn't remember. It's funny you brought that up, because we actually we were sitting around the table trying to decide whether or not I could remember this at two years. There were images, but maybe the stories been told so many times.
INSTRUCTOR: And you've seen pictures.
CLASS MEMBER: Yeah, I actually did do that.
INSTRUCTOR: That's a tough it's really tough to know but most people, unless you're extraordinary are just not going to remember but so what Adler's getting at, which is different than Freud, is that it really doesn't matter exactly what the event was. It matters what you experienced with it, what your perception's of it.
Now that has taken hold today. We still again, we talked about trauma theory in the last class and splitting off aspects. It's the same kind of thing. You'll hear people describe they were at the same place at the same time when something happened, and yet their experiences with it are very different. And that has to do with culture and has to do with family and has to do with the person's cognitive ability and whether they're more visual or auditory and so many things. But for us, your best pathway is not to get hung up on that. Your theory will tend to direct you towards one thing or the other. I want to encourage you to stay away from your theory and learn from the person which is what Adler was the first person to really talk about it. He said, You know what, I'm going to set the theory aside or not try to figure out whether this is stored in the unconscious or figure out if it's more this or that. I'm going to ask them to describe it. Because they're living in the reality that's been imprinted. They have their own story about it. That's what they're interested in, the story, not whether it's real or not real or true or not true.
If you came across in your reading you'll come across constructivism. But it's become a bigger sort of thing in psychology and family therapy and as part of contextual and the reality is constructed. You interact with the world in a certain way and interpret things and you live your world according to your story of the world, and there's nobody has a market cornered on social reality.
So Adler was very interested in social reality and how do people form social realities, which is based on the idea of constructivism. He was interested in the person's perceptions of the past and how this interpretation of the early events has an ongoing influence. He believed the early years did influence how people acted in the present, but based on the perceptions of the early experiences not the experiences themselves and believed that people are primarily motivated by the social aspects rather than sexual urges. Behavior is seen as purposeful and goal directed. It's to get something and achieve something and it's typically in a direction of the fictional goal people were moving towards.
Adler stressed choice and responsibility and meaning in life and striving for success. So he thought it was important, again, for people to take it out in the world, but also there has had to be substance to it because sometimes people ask the big questions. We'll see this with the existentialism. And he thought those things come about at different times in life, but nonetheless, most people deal with them in any culture, but these look a little different.
By the way, we used to do this a lot with kids. I would ask them questions. I'd have a teenager doing whatever and referred by the court and breaking and entering or assault or whatever.
And I'd see them and I'd say, So, what do you think you're on this planet for?
And you knew when you'd get a smart aleck remark like, Take up space.
But for some kids it was the deer in the headlights.
And they'd ask, What am I doing here?
And I'd say, What do you want to get done and accomplish before you become an adult? Because it's going to be here before you know it.
And they start to look at things in a little different way.
And, Wow, there's a period of time when this is going to come.
It's a different way of asking a question. It's about the nature of being. And I've heard people say, I think kids just don't want to live in the present and they don't want to think about tomorrow. And I have to say, I completely disagree that kids don't think about tomorrow. I think it's pretty scary when you turn on CNN. There's a lot of reasons to not want to think about tomorrow. I think it's there, and they don't want to face it. They're aware of it. When you hear it all the time you're thinking about it.
We want to consider the fact that reality is right there to everybody. What do you make of it? It depends on the person. It absolutely depends on the person. So it's, you know, those watching if you've with the two earthquakes, I'm sure more than one of you have seen this. Every time I see it I have, not just feeling for families and so on, but just the terrible tragedy. I want to get on a plane and go there and start digging and do whatever, do whatever you have to do. And I think that's what Adler was getting at in the end was that do more than just for yourself, make the changes because it's good for humankind in general.
Central to his theory was this idea of feelings of inferiority, which I mentioned a minute ago. He saw this as a normal condition. And it sounds like a negative thing. It's like Jung's idea of complexes. If you think of the point of time, they sound extreme. He didn't mean it as, this is necessarily a pathological thing. Everybody feels inferior or less than about something at some point in time. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with it in and of itself. It's not a problem. It's a problem when it's unrealistic for them. Rather than a sign of weakness or abnormality Adler believed such feelings could be a wellspring of creativity.
The existentialists talk about anxiety. If I asked you what anxiety would mean, we have a negative connotation of anxiety in this society. A very negative but the fact of it is, is anxiety can be good as long as it's not neurotic and keeps people indoors and they don't live their lives. Anxiety can be a creative thing because it gets people to think differently about a situation and gets them to expand their way of looking at the world.
If you hear I always it's interesting it's such a I I'm always fascinated. I'd love to see a Saturday Night Live skit on this when they interview athletes. They say the same things over and over.
What do you need to do?
We have to make the fewest mistakes and capitalize on the opportunities.
They say the same things. This is the thing that's interesting to me.
The person says, I'm not nervous about it.
Dude, you need to be nervous about it. That's going to make you perform at a higher level. If you can't get excited and a little bit worried, then are you really are you really getting that last bit of adrenaline? And those who are at the top of the game, they're nervous and they dug a little deeper.
If you're worried about something it means something is meaningful to you and you care about something.
So Adler was saying, it's all right. A little anxiety is okay. It's okay to come in class and say, I don't know if I'm going to understand this. Maybe it will spur you to dig deeper and make sure you do get it.
When I first studied these theories, I have to tell you in all honesty, I understood about 20%. It was a flash for me. And I said to myself, if I'm going to understand what I'm doing, I'm going to have to take a look at these theories and you know, I actually worked backwards. I went and studied theories and studied something that I was interested in. And I studied these different theories and realized they came out of cognitive theory. And I relearned the theories by working backwards. If I had to sit down and learned Adlerian, I would say I don't get it. I don't understand this. It was a bit of anxiety to push further and be willing to ask the questions that are contributing to your not understanding something. But a little anxiety is okay.
And that's what Adler was saying. You don't want to be overwhelmed, but it's a good thing and use it to make you more creative.
Feelings of inferiority can motivate people to strive for higher levels of mastery.
A little more on the theory. They believe around six years of age people develop fictional visions of themselves as perfect and an overall life goal. This is a point of contention with his approach. Again, a lot of people say, I don't have an overall life goal, but you will hear something interesting that kids will say. Kids will say things like not my daughter is a perfect example. My daughter's nine and so, she says she'll say things like, she wanted to be a teacher before and now she wants to be a veterinarian. But here's the unifying things she talks about. She wants to help other people. That's the thing. That's the life goal that you think about. That's likely to stay there in some form. It's not a specific task or a specific job. You see what I'm saying? So now that it still may shift a little bit. It's likely she'll come back at some point of time. I don't know what it will look like for her. There's too much life left to find out and interests to pursue. You'll see people taking things apart and interested in mechanical sides of things and some like nature. So don't think this as a specific life goal and this is what I'm going to do when I grow up. It's an orientation to the world, I guess you could say.
If you were to think back to yourself at the age of eight, nine, ten years old, and think you can remember some of the things you were interested in at that point in time and see if there's consistency and think about that. You might have to look for loose associations. So when I was a kid, I was going to be a baseball player or I was going to be a rock star. Didn't work out too well.
[LAUGHTER]
But you know, if I looked back and think about all the activities I was involved in and what really interested me, then I don't see it as a great step away from what I do now. I think there are plenty things I can find connective tissue around. I knew I wasn't going to work in a financial company, even when I was ten years old. No interest, and have no interest. That has not changed one bit. But the fact of the matter is some things work out and some things don't. Look for the connective thread.
And then what Adler was saying is, what's the motivation that moves people in that direction? And typically it's some sort of mastery that's helping them move toward the vision. What are they trying to accomplish? Obviously at a young age you decide to be this or that. You gravitate to skills or abilities to move to the next level with it.
So like I I had when I was a um a junior in high school. I was Player of the Year in baseball and that was my joke because I played in the same league as Tom Glavins, and he's going to be in the Hall of Fame. I had a better run average and more wins than Tom Glavins, and how does it work out? Life goals unify the personality and becomes the source of motivation. So what you focus on tends to create that reality that you live in, and part of that becomes you over time.
You are a conglomeration of multiple things and who you are as a person. So personality is a construct and not a fixed thing. Number of things go into it and contribute to who you are as a person. And again, that life goal is a source of motivation for people and something they're moving towards.
Here's the present, future orientation. Past events have an effect, but where people are moving towards in the future is important to the person as well, towards that goal. Adlerians see people as not merely influenced by heredity. And it's a growth, not problem focused approach. I think hopefully you're getting this.
People will come in a can come in with a specific concern; however, most of it is about, where are you going? And what do you want for yourself? And what are you striving for yourself?
And again, if you polled a hundred local therapists, you would find three who call themselves Adlerians and people would use aspects of this approach, particularly in guidance counseling, and particularly in some of the techniques we're going to see, but the techniques a lot cut across different approaches.
So Adlerians may focus on birth order more than a cognitive therapist, but it's not beyond the cognitive therapist to talk about birth orders.
You see how they cut across multiple disciplines even though they're associated with a particular theory? Because we're starting with the early approaches, a lot of the concepts came out of these approaches. All right.
So let's move on further here.
All right. Last slide of theory here. So basic tenets or if you want to call them assumptions associated with Adlerian. The driving force is driving from a perceived negative to a hoped for positive situation. And that's the definition of inferiority and superiority. Each person strives for a particular direction for a unique goal or an ideal self and because the goal is and idea is fictional. What is social interest?
CLASS MEMBER: Like politics or the community outside your family.
INSTRUCTOR: Outside of yourself or out of your family or out of the own little comfort zone that you build that's your world. Contribution to something bigger than yourself. That's what it comes down.
The individual perceptions of self and the world and the subsequent interpretation of those perceptions are all aspects of the lifestyle.
You'll hear this term cognitive map. It's the person's construct of the world. And the Adlerians believe that lifestyle is a big proportion of that: work, love and friendship.
Individuals cannot be seen separate from the social context and all important life problems are social problems according to Adler. If they weren't social problems, we would literally people would stick to themselves and the world would go and not make a difference. But the fact of the matter is something that affects one person in some way affects somebody else. And we just have to consider what those effects are.
Maladjustment is characterized by increased inferiority feelings. The further they get to having negative feelings about their lives and the more inferiority feelings and the more depression and the more substance abuse and the more trouble in their relationships, so it's just skewed. Skewed thinking is what we're getting at here.
CLASS MEMBER: So is this the idea that all our problems are not just ourselves but a part of the social context, that what we do effects somebody else? Is that what started the systems theory?
INSTRUCTOR: No, not really. That came out of something else. He talked about that, but not as a treatment approach, whereas the systems theory is the actual focus on changing relationships. But he was a few years ahead of that. You could look through his writings and you might say, I see a connection here, but it wasn't a precursor. Systems theory came out of biology and social systems theory both of which we'll talk about in here.
The process of counseling for Adlerians. First of all, use of DSM diagnosis is inconsistent with the Adlerian approach. They don't do that in that approach.
As with all approaches from here on out, if you're in a climate where a diagnosis is required, you're going to have to assign a diagnosis to get reimbursed and assign a diagnosis for people to get services. What I would encourage you to think about is having people have conversations, and you should be disclosing that to your clients, and you should say a diagnosis is required for reimbursement of services. So you should make that very clear to people and you should make it clear what happens after you assign the diagnosis, meaning that if it stays within your organization, that's one thing. You may have to assign a diagnosis. And if somebody audits your records, prove it. However, if you have to submit a diagnosis, meaning it goes outside of your organization or your practice, you need to inform people of that. Because the fact of the matter is, even though our systems are somewhat improved in terms of confidentiality, there is the possibility that the diagnosis can be accessed by other people, meaning that it all goes into a mainframe computer. So life insurance it's happened with people, and they go to get life insurance. And the person says, Well, you were am I right, you were diagnosed with major depression ten years ago? And the person said, It was ten years ago, and it was situational.
It's a sad thing. It can happen. But I'm here to tell you, it does happen.
Labels are much harder to get rid of than they were to assign. So just be aware of that.
And that's why many people in the same way that they choose to get go and pay for a massage or dental work outside of their insurance will do that. And they pay out of pocket for mental health services. And it's just one of those things that you just you need to let people make the best educated decision they can for themselves. And I would say 97% of the time it's not going to be an issue for them. But in the event it is, you need to let people be aware. That's all.
So, um I again, have a couple of colleagues. Dr. Conway was this way, as well, for those who knew him. I never when I had my private practice and had an office didn't accept insurance. And people knew that up front because I did not want
Several reasons. One was the potential stigma that can occur from it and the other was I didn't want to deal with insurance companies. So it's one of those things. You just have to decide.
But from this perspective, diagnosis doesn't play a role in working with people. So you typically would not gravitate at a time towards that.
Assessment involves the use of interviewing and inventories and questionnaires. You're going to see this on the tape. I'll give you examples in a minute.
Focus on exploring the family constellation. Family is very, very important to the Adlerians wanting to understand what the early relationships were like. And they're meticulous. Tell me about your relationships with your mother and early memories about your mother. What about your father, and who was he close to? They really are meticulous. You were not close to her or him? They get more involved in mapping out the family.
Sometimes it's inventories, and they'll have a questionnaire. And they'll kind of use it as a guide while interviewing with somebody.
I notice you have six brothers and sisters. What was that like for you growing up in a big family? And move into the order. What did you notice about your relationship with your sister? How close or distant were you from the youngest sibling?
They delve into that family constellation and get into friendships, work, and love, and examples of processes, using lifestyle inventories. And you'll see this in the tape when Jon gets into birth orders.
Dreams. Early on, they might have questions on dreams, but not really a part of the way people work these days. But again, it's another way of understanding how people's perceptions develop over time.
So your focus is getting into conversation with people about different things that happened in their life but not to relive them, but to get a sense of what are the things that influenced their perceptions that are affecting the way they were in the present. There is the belief that those perceptions affect what's going on right now. It's to get a sense of how they were influenced now.
Goal setting. The goal setting is focused on helping people to lead socially useful lifestyles and the challenge of everyday tasks of work, love, and friendship, and ultimately to achieve a higher level of social interest. And again, that involves going and being involved in the world and going beyond just your immediate self and what your immediate needs are, your primary goals.
Let's talk about a couple concepts. Social interest, which we've talked about. If somebody asked you what is the primary components of Adlerian, one is social interest, being involved in the community and being involved with other people and family constellation and the importance of the early family development that teaches people closeness and how to be in a relationship with one another and teaches social skills. And again, it's based on perception. Lifestyle, work, friendship, and love relationships. This is sort of the overall frame you're looking at.
So whenever you're asking questions they're typically in one or more of the areas. You're gathering information. People will focus more on the other. I had a conflict with my boss, move into the work realm. Chances are the there is significant conflict showing up as a theme. You'll find connective tissue elsewhere and trouble from relationships somewhere, maybe not to the same degree, but somewhere.
Inferiority versus superiority. Moving from a negative situation to a positive one.
Life goal. What are people moving towards in life? And what are they trying to achieve? And what are they hoping for?
And basic mistakes. They are errors in people's thinking. When moving towards a fictional goal, there are errors in thinking. So in other words, they're in the position of feeling, having the feelings of inferiority. And say, they're getting worse and worse and worse, at some point the person starts making errors in their thinking like, you know, the way my dad treated me as a younger child, all men, that's what they do, and that's how treat their kids. When working with men I need to keep this in mind. It's an error in thinking and a dichotomous way of thinking. So look for the errors contributing to people's upset.
Oftentimes from moving from inferiority towards superiority, you start to see distorted thinking and errors in perception.
So what are some of the methods you might use? Restatements, guesses, interpretations.
Restatements are things like restating what somebody has said to you. I'm just feeling really lonely.
So you're describing yourself as being really lonely.
It's a restatement.
A guess is something like, so I'm wondering about. I was just curious about. It's an idea. You're not saying you are. You're saying I'm wondering about. You're asking the person rather than assuming.
Freud would give a literal interpretation and say, You're an angry person. But the Adlerian would say it sounds like, even if the person didn't use the word.
I'm wondering if you're angry.
And they might say, No, I'm not. Or maybe I am.
It's not interpreting, it's asking. It's a position of curiosity. It's how you frame your questions.
Interpretations are given loosely and given with the approach of the person having the last word. So the person you're working with gets to say, Yeah, that sounds right. Or no, it doesn't.
It's how you deliver the interpretations rather than saying, Clearly it means this. You're saying, I wonder if it could be this? Or have you considered the possibility this might have ... and it's a result of this.
And client says no, yes, maybe.
CLASS MEMBER: How does restating help them? And what is that doing for you?
INSTRUCTOR: Let's them know you're listening. And sometimes it's a good way to summarize what they said. Sometimes hearing what you just said is a different way of experiencing it. I have a friend who says, Let me see what I say so I know what I think.
Once you put it out in the world and you hear it back to you, then it's acknowledging it and normalizing it, because you're not labeling it. You're not saying, the person says, I'm really sad. And you say, So you've been really sad. Sounds like you've been down from what you're describing. You're not saying it's bad. They're not labeling, but they're catching the essence of what you said. So that process of reflection let's people know you're there. When it comes to parroting, it might sound like you're repeating. And we all restate to some degree. You'll see this with Rogers.
Encouragement and encouraging people to take steps in their lives and move forward and use their skills and abilities and be creative about things.
Asking "The question." In the question goes a little bit like this it's a future focused question. If I had a pill to make fill in the blank go away, how would things be better in your life?
When we get to solutions therapy in the last part of this course, you'll hear the idea of the miracle question. And it's interesting because the miracle question was developed by a couple of people in Milwaukee. And they both passed away in the last couple of years. And they were given credit for this question, but in fact the question, Adler's question proceeded that. And Milton Ericson also has had a variation. And it's the idea of getting a sense of what better is. If you know what better is like for the person, then you can help them to move sort of backwards to make that happen. If they describe how their lives would better if they took a pill, and how can we get to that to happen? And now you know the end point and what they want. So it's a bit of a future focus.
CLASS MEMBER: In the course of therapy, would you wait a while to ask questions like that? I mean I mean.
INSTRUCTOR: You asking me from this approach or asking me in general?
CLASS MEMBER: First in this approach.
INSTRUCTOR: In this approach, you would wait.
CLASS MEMBER: Would it be automatic after your assessments?
INSTRUCTOR: I would say
CLASS MEMBER: I guess why I ask, I'm wondering how is this a quicker therapy than like Freudian or Jung or does it is it more processed long term?
INSTRUCTOR: It's shorter term than Jungian analysis and Freudian analysis; however, it depends on the person.
A lot more Adlerians would ask focused questions and a lot don't get to those questions until further on down the road. It depends stylistically.
The fact of the matter is that most people who practice in this way are off the beaten path a little bit. They're not quite they're not true necessarily to all these ideas, so they it may look different
When you see Jon Carlson, Carlson is a constructivist, and he is a brief therapist and wants to help the person to move forwards.
CLASS MEMBER: He would ask sooner?
INSTRUCTOR: Sooner than someone else. In general, I would encourage you to ask them sooner than later. If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.
The whole point is, I need to know what better is. If I don't know what better is, how am I going to know how therapy is good for the person and that they don't need to come back and how improvement is made? I argue, and some people say, clients don't really know. They don't know what better is.
INSTRUCTOR: And my response is, that's a problem. I need to work with the client, if they don't know what they're trying to get out of therapy and don't know what better is, not coming in and saying A, B, and C and I will sleep better at night. Rather than getting two hours of sleep, I'll get six hours of sleep. Great. We have something we can agree to work on. If I don't know what that is in four, five, six sessions and still in the same spot, this is where the research data comes flooding in. The data says most of the change and all metaanalytic studies show the same thing. The trajectory of change is highly predictable in the first handful of sessions. Typically the first three to five sessions they show some kind of response or some kind of movement. If they don't and the therapist fails to recognize that and fails to make adjustments and uses the same approach, the likelihood is this client's going to get worse. And what happens then is that the therapist starts to see the client as resistant, non motivated and not wanting to change and noncompliant.
CLASS MEMBER: You change approaches?
INSTRUCTOR: Absolutely.
CLASS MEMBER: Keep trying something new?
INSTRUCTOR: So the key is I hope this piece comes out in some way the key is to have a conversation with people and put it out on the table and say, From where I'm standing, I'm struggling to get a sense on how this helping you or how things might be improving or getting worse. Ask the client. The thing therapists struggle is they get in their heads and try to figure it out. Therapists are lousy judges of the strength of the relationship. They don't really know. They look at cues from the client and say, This is a good relationship. You ask the client later, and they say, I don't feel her. I don't feel like the person understands what's going on with me. What we're aiming with is going back in conversation and saying, How are you seeing this? And from the very beginning getting into those kinds of conversations.
And if you look at data on strength of relationship between a effective therapists, most therapists early on see this, that are really effective.
Chalk's disappearing.
You look at the first sessions, one through five, and look at the trajectory of this is where the therapist and this is how let's say this is a number of sessions, and these are high alliance scores. High, low alliance scores. This is the client's rating of the relationship. Most therapists, what you'll see is the alliance kind of goes like this. (Drawing on the graph. One line shows an increase right away and then a leveling off. The line representing the effective therapist shows a slight increase and then a small dip and then a steady increase.)
Why do you think that effective therapists have lower alliance scores earlier than a therapist who goes like this? Because this doesn't necessarily mean better all the way, always. I'll explain why in a second.
CLASS MEMBER: Maybe not used to the therapist and build trust.
INSTRUCTOR: Why does it improve?
That follows in some ways.
Why a lower score initially and why isn't the person dishonest and you give them a tool and you say I want you to rate how this session went. And many of the -- those therapists get a lower score earlier. Why do you think that is?
CLASS MEMBER: Maybe they take more time to do the assessment and to get to know the client before they before they give them treatment for the specific thing.
INSTRUCTOR: Could be. That's plausible. There's another reason. Okay. Ever put take yourself to a position where you've been take this into a social realm and everyday relationships. What is the first thing men and women do when they meet somebody? To try and everybody does this.
CLASS MEMBER: Impress.
INSTRUCTOR: Impress. Exactly. You want to impress the person right away. You don't want to dare get into that stuff.
And there's another side to that. You could obviously go dump something on somebody and that might push them away as well.
But the key is that people that tend to put something out on the table and show that there is some level of, I'm not perfect kind of. That tends to be a little more endearing in the long run. I can't tell you how much that amount is, but therapists tend to here they don't candy coat and say, I don't really know what it's going to be like for you. But here's the thing, I'm going to check in with you to find out how things are going pretty routinely. And I want you to be honest with me. If something isn't working well, you're not going to hurt my feelings. You're not going to dampen my confidence but I need to know this from the beginning.
So from the beginning, they get feedback that isn't always so good; whereas the other person comes in and paints this picture of, I can absolutely things are going to improve and set the exception that everything's going to be perfect. And the client is scared to give feedback. And what if I say something that makes them feel bad? And they start to rescue the therapist in some way and then what happens? What happens for the person with high scores but didn't feel like they can give feedback? They might rate them high, but not being challenged. So their outcome scores people with these sort of lower dips, their outcome scores are likely to continue up before they flatten out. But here, the scores kind of flatten like this. They still say, I like meeting with the person, but they're not showing any improvement. That's the trouble, is it becomes a little more fused, the relationship, more dependent. There's a not being pushed at any point of time. I mean pushed in confrontation and not challenged in a way that helps them move forward in some way. So the big difference is that the therapists here are just setting it on the table from the beginning and they're saying, Look, you know here's my exception of you, to be honest with me. And I want you to know I think things are going to improve quickly, and it might be a possibility we get stuck points. If you help me, we can make adjustments and figure out what's working and not working. And that's when you change the model or approach. Getting comfortable with saying, Do you feel like we're focusing on what you want to focus on or spending too much time on an area that's not useful for you? When you open those doors for people you'll hear things like, Now that you mention it, I'm not really sure why we're spending time on this. I thought you thought it was important, but that's not really why I'm here. I'm really here because of this. And all we're saying, if you ask the questions, you get a better chance to attend to any ruptures that might be occurring in the relationship and make adjustments and change your model if you need to.
CLASS MEMBER: How often and I hear that and think about this. How often do therapists get offended whenever they try to do that and someone, a client says, Well, I don't really like what you've done here. And I'd like to focus here. Granted we should be thinking okay, you know, it's mainly for the client. How often do the clients get offended by those things and are ineffective the whole rest of the way?
INSTRUCTOR: Let me say this: When you ask questions of when you're asking questions about the strength of the relationship, you're asking about process, not about character. You're not saying, I want you to tell me whether you think I'm a good therapist. Do you think I'm going a good job? You don't ask that to people. That gets into character. Then you ask them to judge your character. That's not your job for the client to judge your character. What you want them to do is judge the process and say, Is the way we're approaching your situation working for you? Are we talking about what you want to talk about? Not am I a good person or therapist? This is a parallel for working with your clients.
You've got to get the personality disorder thing the other day when you start thinking about the person as characterologically flawed, do I have the ability to judge somebody in that way? Even if 3% of the population does the worst thing on the face of the planet and should never be let out of jail and does horrible things, does that give us the right to judge others?
You've heard people say this I've heard parents say this to their kids and he's acting just like a murderer. Acting like a (pausing for effect). Think about the complication. It's a threat to somebody's character, to who they are as a person. But if you're saying, I don't like that you do this. This bothers me when you do this. I don't like the actions or that behavior, you're getting at process level not getting at character.
Do you see this difference? If you work with couples, you have to get past this point.
The minute that people start to attack each other's character and get to the level of intent if one person thinks the other person is trying to hurt them, purposely doing this, that is a completely different level than the person who says I know he does this, he doesn't mean to do it. He does it, but it hurts my feelings. One is act and action and one is about a character issue. when you get into character, you get into intent.
Does this make sense at all? You'll know it when you feel it too and when you feel it from the client. He's trying to hurt me. He's trying.
I did a whole piece on. I don't want to diverge too much. I did a piece on it's in the book. It's called the problematic stories. You cut problems into four areas.
One is that they think things won't change and stories of impossibility.
Another is a story of blame which is about intention. He's doing that on purpose and trying to hurt me. That's a when you hear those stories, you should hear have a buzzer go off in your head.
Stories of invalidation and somewhere somebody says, Don't feel that way. And let it go. And they're not ready to. It feels invalidating to you. You shouldn't feel that way. That's the way I feel. You know that's not the problem. So it feels invalidating.
And the last is stories of non accountability. I can't help it. My mom didn't give me my medication. And if people wouldn't cut my off I wouldn't have to run into them. That's the story of non accountability. And they don't take responsibility for their actions or use an excuse.
Most of what you hear is going to fall into one of those areas. When you're asking for feedback, it's not judging you or talking about who you are as a person but talking about the process and commenting on the process or your approach.
And I think, Ryan, it keeps it out of that area of being personal if that makes sense?
CLASS MEMBER: I understand that. I was curious how often that occurs?
INSTRUCTOR: I think when it's set up from the beginning, it may take a few people to get used to the fact that until you understand what they're asking of them, it can happen. They is say, I don't want to say something that offends you. You have to create that context, you know. My job is to help you to figure out how you can move forward with this. You're not going to in any way offend me if I'm doing something that's not useful. You have to develop a sense of a bit of a thicker skin with this.
Anyway, if you put yourself out there, you have to develop a bit of a thicker skin. Sometimes it's difficult, you know I mean, everybody can be cut in some way. And as long as the intent is not to say they're not trying to put you down but give you a useful comment and you have to sift through that and ask a few more questions.
When I went to seminars, there'd be 200 people and I'd get 195 good evaluations and five that were scathing. And I'd say, Is there something useful I can take away? Or is it something if it's characterological, I dismissed it. It was rare. People don't take an attack on your character, but if they do you have to see through it and go, That's not me. If they don't like the way I presented something or did something, that's one thing. I can learn from that. That's the point of evaluation. You have to be able to
I had somebody say. It happened at this school. It was probably seven, eight years ago. I had a student put on an evaluation, professor didn't always wear socks.
It was like summer. I have I have worn socks every day I've taught here. But I wore loafers or something during the summer. I'm like, that's not really a useful comment on an evaluation.
But
CLASS MEMBER: Are you serious?
INSTRUCTOR: It was on an evaluation. I mean, what do you
You'll get but you have to kind of that's the same thing with therapy. You're asking for it at a certain level. You have to be able to step back and say, it's not really about me when it comes to that. So kind of you have to sift your way through it.
Let's get through the last little bit, and we'll take a break and a couple more methods.
Catching oneself. Who you are how are you going to stop yourself from, "Woe is me." And they picture a hand, and they have a keyword that comes up. Some way of stopping that process of continuing down that path of everything's terrible.
Acting as if. What if you were, today, to walk out the door and act as if. Going to have a successful career. What would you do? What would you do that is different. This is an interesting thing. You see a lot of people who
There's a great book came out couple years ago called it's the Cambridge book and after studying business people and studying athletes and all these people who were very successful and interviewing people like Warren Buffet. And he used to say, I'm hard wired that way. That's the way I was born that way.
And in fact, there's nothing that can be further from the truth according to the data. Warren Buffet studied financial documents day and night, market trajectories. And he's the perfect example of somebody who created a lot of his genius by immersing himself. If you find people who are successful as people, it's not a mystery. The top 10% of musicians practice 20% more than others. The top 10% of athletes have certain things that they do that are different than the next 10%. And it's beyond just that ability, you must have been born that. It doesn't ferret out. They learn from other people and practice. And many have the idea of focusing on the future, not where have I been, but where am I going, and not worried about the final end step but taking the steps in between to get there. If you didn't think that, if you if you really, really wanted a master's degree or bachelor's, if it's all you wanted is just that piece of paper, you go get one from some university that's not accredited and take another process.
But the fact of the matter is, you come to a whole bunch of classes that's going to take two years, and probably three for most people and maybe more and complete a whole lot of papers and come to a whole lot of lectures like this and be very tired. If you didn't see that there were steps in between that you could gain from, you wouldn't bother. Now you may not think about it in those terms, but every time you come here and go through one class, you take a step further along. And pretty soon you're at the end of the semester, and you've completed two classes or three and four and build and builds and then you're there. All these people think about is the things in between and breaking it up. If you drive here from California, you wouldn't go, Wow, jeez, we're I'm 1620 miles from where I need to be. You'd go, it's a hundred miles to here. It's 250 miles to Kansas city. You break it down and feel like you're making progress and you do that in your own way.
My point is thinking about that next step forward. And for the clients, rather than saying here's the end point and this is where I have to get, what are the sort of things in between we need to steer them towards. One is to think acting as if.
Spitting in the soup is when you challenge a client and the person's saying, I'm just really exhausted. And you say, You know, I hear that you're exhausted, but it seems to me like as long as you continue to work these ten hour days that that's probably going to be a part of your lifestyle. And wait a minute, I've got to work ten hours a day. It sounds like a choice to me. You're not confronting the person and say, Quit being a cry baby. But there's a choice. And I'm going to challenge you. That's kind of going in there and saying, I'm not disrespecting you or telling you you're wrong, but looking at it through a narrow way. And I'm going to throw a rock in the water and let it go out in ripples. The result is you're going to have to think about things differently. It's not just the way you see it right now. I'm going to challenge you to think about the world slightly different.
So another we'll see this in other approaches, challenging absolutes and so on.
There's a couple more, pushing the button. This is like when you have a person, you can have them envision something positive or an event that they're not feeling strongly one way or the other and have them think about the positive sides and have them think about the negative sides, and emotion that go with that. And they tip the scales for themselves just through the process of experiencing that.
And the one last one is homework and to give them assignments and take them in the world. And most change doesn't occur in the office, it occurs in the world when they go out and live their lives. Most change takes some action on the part of the people. No matter how they talk about it, they give us great lines. And now you've got to go do it and develop plans with people how they can take actions, realistic action and small actions, not overwhelming. But that's often a good starting point for people.
So what I want to do is take a break and come back and see about 20 minutes of video of Jon Carlson doing Adlerian and give you a sense of what this looks like. So take a break.

[Break.]

INSTRUCTOR: So this is Jon Carlson, and he's pretty prominent in the ACA, American Counseling Association. If you ever get to the conference last year it was Hawaii. And next year it's like Nashville or someplace like that. Usually the conference is a pretty good conference.
He's working with a woman. The guy I was with did this series with family therapy with the experts, but they're displaying the approaches. These are real clients, not role playing or something. She's come in and kind of ambiguous about what's going on with her. But what he's going to do is demonstrate the theory. And you'll see a lot of the things we talked about. See what you notice. You may want to choose to write your critique of it's up to you. But I think it's pretty I'll make it and stop it at a couple of points, but I think it's mostly self explanatory. Look for the process we talked about and the key things we talked about and the role of the past, and the importance of perceptions. We'll talk about the family constellation and early recollections and so.
Here we go.
CLASS MEMBER: I have a question really quick. This is what our paper's on? We critique the video?
INSTRUCTOR: So the next four videos you see today and next class. I want you to choose one. You may not know until you've seen them all. I want you to choose one to answer those areas I gave you on that paper.
CLASS MEMBER: And use these videos as the basis for our papers, or you know.
INSTRUCTOR: The video is the basis for that paper. Yes, yes. It is. So your responses should be to this. Okay.

[Video]

JON CARLSON: I've been wanting to meet you for a while. I've watched you come in and out of our set and haven't had the chance to talk to you. I appreciate you filling out the forms.
CLIENT: You're welcome.
JON CARLSON: Let me summarize what I learned from those and see if it makes sense. If I understand things, you're in a transition right now and moving from being married to you've divorced now.
CLIENT: Mm hmm.
JON CARLSON: You're a single mom?
CLIENT: Yes.
JON CARLSON: Two sons?
CLIENT: Yes.
JON CARLSON: Okay.
CLIENT: Yes.
JON CARLSON: And you're moving into the last year of the 30 something's?
CLIENT: Yes. Yes, I am.
JON CARLSON: And you indicated that your family of origin, there were four children and you're the hold oldest?
CLIENT: Yes, I am.
JON CARLSON: Three girls and one boy.
CLIENT: Two girls and two boys.
JON CARLSON: Two girls and two boys.
CLIENT: The two older are girls.
JON CARLSON: And the two youngest are boys?
Coming in today, did you have ideas about what you wanted to talk about right now?
Anything challenging?
CLIENT: Every day's challenging actually. Nothing really pressing or anything like that. It's just these last couple of weeks I've had conversations with family members and friends and this overwhelming theme of amusement parks and choice of rides. You have people who ride the merry go round and the roller coaster. And my mother told me I ride the roller coaster. And I've been using it the last two weeks, talking with my friend, and it's amazing how it's real true.
JON CARLSON: It's a metaphor?
CLIENT: We were saying is that you can exist in life or live life. Those people that go on merry go rounds go around and around. There's no excitement and challenge. They're existing. But you have people like me that like roller coasters. And you know, they're scary. And you've got that moment where you close your eyes, but yet you kind of expect it and you kind of thrive on it. And each time you go on a roller coaster, it's not the same, more people on, less people. They speed it up or slow it down. And it's more like living.
JON CARLSON: So where are you right now on the roller coaster?
CLIENT: I'm going back on for more rides. I'll keep riding.
JON CARLSON: Are you more up or down.
CLIENT: Up, up, up.
JON CARLSON: Like from a scale from one to ten, one at the bottom and ten at the top?
CLIENT: 9.5.
JON CARLSON: So.
CLIENT: Very up. Very up.
JON CARLSON: So these are good days for you?

DR. BERTOLINO: So people talk in metaphor a lot. It's very common.
CLASS MEMBER: Was she talking about a class she attended when she started talking about the carnival?
CLASS MEMBER: I'm like what the hell's the roller coaster.
CLASS MEMBER: She's talking about family and life.
DR. BERTOLINO: She was having a conversation with her mother and the mother used the metaphor of life is just like a roller coaster. And they just got talking about that.
CLASS MEMBER: She brought it up.
DR. BERTOLINO: Yeah, she brought it. Where would you like to start? She's like my mother and I were having this conversation the other day about life and
CLASS MEMBER: Okay.
INSTRUCTOR: He's tuning into the story. It was kind of random.
Let me make a point about that. There's been a lot of research about the what is the right starting question, and there isn't one. And what I would encourage you to do is to not try and start with your own agenda. I would encourage in other words, I would encourage you to stay away from asking a specific question like, What's your problem? Or you know, what would you like to change? I would leave it open, because when people walk in the door, they want to start wherever they're most comfortable.
It's like if you walked in wherever you live now and you walked in and you live with somebody and first thing out the other person's mouth was something like
CLASS MEMBER: (Unintelligible.)
INSTRUCTOR: Sorry?
CLASS MEMBER: What's your problem?
[LAUGHTER]
INSTRUCTOR: I wouldn't say that, because that's not a kind of question therapy. It wouldn't make sense. It really wouldn't make sense.
What would be a question? Walk through the door and the person said, What do you want for dinner? Now that's a reasonable question, but wouldn't you prefer the person saying, How are you doing? How's it going? And really that applies to therapy. Start general.
What brought you in What would you like to talk about? What's on your mind? How are things going?
You're going to eventually move towards what you need to. If you funnel people in, you're cutting them off and not giving them the opportunity to start.
In subsequent sessions some people start on a thread and they tell you just what happened when they came in and not talking about the problem. They want to tell you and catch you up to speed. And if you check in and, You said you mentioned you had an argument with your son, that's a little different than what we talked about last week. Was it on your mind or is it something you'd like the spend time? I just wanted to tell you about it. Just didn't that's not how I hoped the day will go. What I really want to talk about is this. You're checking in with the person. You should go where the client wants to go, and you can always at more structure in as you need to.
He's just following her and staying on the metaphor. He's tagged on it nicely. He is using scaling. It's not an Adlerian idea, because it's a constructivism approach and how they construct reality. Scaling makes sense. He wants a sense of how they put reality together. Wow, this will help me better understand. Is she more up or down, ten being the top end and one being not so good? By her rating it, he gets a better idea.
CLASS MEMBER: It's general practice? Before you asked why you're here. He was reiterating a history of her. Is that typical before you go into a problem they get a family history, you know, of where they came to, where they're at, and where are we at?
DR. BERTOLINO: It's part of the conversation and they'll start and say I was going over some of you stuff you filled out. And as we get started, I'm going to start requesting you questions. He's more deliberate. They've only got a certain amount of time. He's more fact of the matter. He's pushing more to show the approach, but I suspect if he weren't being taped and there weren't the kind of pressure, he would start general and filter it in from there.
When she talked about the