Answer the following questions and also the 5 questions on page 17 of the attached PDF, in the Ethics in Practice Case “Does Business Have Too Much Power?”  You should recognize that your answers to these discussion questions should be well reasoned and supported with evidence. Make certain that you use chapter material and theory as the basis for your answers.  No outside material.  All work must be original as this will be submitted through Turnitin.  No plagiarism.  

1. Question: In discussion of business and society, why is there a tendency to focus on large firms rather than small- or medium-sized firms? Have the corporate ethics scandals of the past decade affected small- and medium-sized firms? If so, in what ways have these firms been affected? 

2. Question: What is the greatest strength of a pluralistic society? What is the greatest weakness? Do these characteristics work for or against business? 

3. Question: Identify and explain the major factors in the social environment that creates an atmosphere in which business criticism takes place and prospers. Provide examples. How are the factors related to one another? Has the revolution of rising expectations run its course, or is it still a reality among young people today? 

4. Question: Give an example of each of the four levels of power discussed in this chapter. Also give an example of each of the spheres of business power. 

5. Question: Explain in your own words the Iron Law of Responsibility and the social contract. Give an example of a shared understanding between you as a consumer or an employee, and a firm with which you do business or for which you work. Is Congress justified in creating new regulations to govern the financial services industry?

WRITING ASSIGNMENT From sources dated August 1 – December 7, 2016, collect 4 articles that relate to 4 different microeconomic topics discussed this semester in class( I attached the table of contents and a sample of how my work should be on the the files below).Refer to the Table of Contents in your book for a list of eligible general topics. For each of the 4 articles, highlight or underline the salient points within the article. Use staples or tape to attach the article or a photocopy of the article to a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper and list the topic, source, author, date, page, and title of the article next to or directly below the article. You can fold the article under if needed. On the same page, write a 3 to 4 sentence summary of each article as well as a 2 to 3 sentence personal impact (PI) statement explaining how the event or information may affect you as an individual. Articles can come from the same source but no more than 2 articles can come from the same week (Sunday through Saturday). Articles can be taken from any reputable news source including publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Dallas Morning News, The Economist, and Time, and must relate to the course material. If you get your newspaper or magazines online, you can use it as your source. If you are not sure if an article is suitable, see me after class or come by during my office hours and I will be look it over with you and give you advice. You need 4 different articles that discuss 4 different microeconomic topics. Some articles may cover more than one topic but can be used only once. For example, if you have found 2 articles that both talk about demand and supply in the oil market and the cost of oil as an input, then use 1 of them for the topic of demand and supply and the other for costs of production. Each article must be on a separate sheet of paper along with the information noted above. The cover page must have the following information: Last Name, First Name Econ. 1100.014 Fall, 2016 All five pages (4 articles and 1 cover page) must be stapled together in the top left-hand corner. Assignments assembled with paper clips, folders, folded corners, etc. will receive a grade of zero. This assignment is accepted during class when called for on December 7 for full credit. Refer to the Writing Assignment Example for guidance on how to complete each article. This assignment is worth a total of 40 points (10 points for each article) toward the final semester total of 1,000 points.

CASE 11-1 Let There Be Light Lamp Shade Company

Started in Madison, Wisconsin, after the student unrest of the 1960s had died down, the Let There Be Light Lamp Shade Company served an upscale local market for many years. It designed and built custom lamp shades and lamp globes. In the mid-1980s, some architects who had once studied under Frank Lloyd Wright in nearby Spring Green were commissioned to design several large public buildings in Asia. A total of 5,400 identical lights were to be installed, and the Let There Be Light Lamp Shade Company wished to bid on the work. Terms of sale would include delivery to the foreign port where the buyer would take possession.

Transportation costs would be a hurdle. In the initial design, the shades were cylinders that were 11 inches high and 11 inches in diameter and were packed into boxes that were 12 by 12 by 12 inches. (We refer to these shades as style A.) The packages cost 60 cents each and weighed 1 pound each. The shades cost $4 each to manufacture. They weighed 9 pounds each and 10 pounds packaged.

They would be shipped to the Port of Oakland. The land rate to Oakland was $1,000 per 40-foot container, without regard to weight, although the weight of the load could not exceed 44,000 pounds per loaded container because of highway weight restrictions. The interior dimensions of the intermodal container were 8 feet wide by 8.5 feet high by 40 feet long.

Ocean rates from Oakland to the overseas port were $22 per ton (2,000 pounds), except that the ocean conference used a measurement ton that indicated that for bulky loads every 40 cubic feet would equal 1 ton for rate-making purposes. (That is, a shipment weighing, say, 130 pounds and occupying 80 cubic feet would cost as though it weighed 4,000 pounds.) Insurance costs were 2 percent of the value of the shipment ready to be loaded aboard ship in Oakland. (This is calculated as all of the company’s costs up to this point.)

Because of the large size of the order, Let There Be Light Lamp Shade Company realized that it could custom design a shade that, rather than being a cylinder, would be shaped like a cone. The advantage to that was that the shades could be nested. Some padding would be required between the shades, but the nested shades would also help protect each other. However, cutting out material for conical shapes results in waste, so production costs would be higher. Two alternative cone-shaped designs were proposed (referred to as styles B and C).

Style B cost $5 per shade to manufacture and could be shipped nested in packages of six. The package dimensions were 12 by 12 by 48 inches, and when holding six shades, a package weighed 62 pounds. Each package cost $2, and this included padding between the shades.

Style C cost $6 per shade to make and could be shipped nested in packages of 10. The package dimensions were 12 by 12 by 50 inches, and when holding 10 shades, a package weighed 101 pounds. Each package cost $3, including padding between the individual shades.

Questions

• 1. How many style A shades can be loaded into an intermodal container?
• 2. How many style B shades can be loaded into an intermodal container?
• 3. How many style C shades can be loaded into an intermodal container?
• 4. What are the total costs of delivering the style A shades to the port of importation?
• 5. What are the total costs of delivering the style B shades to the port of importation?
• 6. What are the total costs of delivering the style C shades to the port of importation?
• 7. Which style would you recommend? Why?

EPA Assignment Part II: Opposition Legal Memorandum

For Part II of the assignment, you’ll be assessing the other side of the issue and writing a legal memorandum to your supervising attorney:

Ralph Jones, owner of Waste, Inc., originally received an investigation request from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based on suspected illegal dumping. Waste ignored the request for information. Waste has now received a subpoena to compel production of the information. Ralph has hired your firm, Saul Goodman and Associates. Your boss, Saul Goodman, has asked you to draft a legal memorandum to determine whether we can fight the subpoena and if so, please be specific on any possible grounds and defenses.

Your memorandum should be 1-2 pages long and should be “Law Office Ready”.