college:centralnewmexicocommunitycollege course ... · the danger is that the u.s. labor market...

College: Central New Mexico Community College Course: Introduction to Business Instructor: Marian Matthews Text: Better Business, Poatsy and Martin

Contents: Interview Summary .....................................................................................................................................2

Assignment 1 ..................................................................................................................................................3

Text for Assignment 1 ..................................................................................................................7

Assignment 2 ..................................................................................................................................................14

Syllabus for course .......................................................................................................................................59

*The instructor did not sent Assignment 3. Reading for Assignment two comes from online sources listed in the assignment..

1 of 19

CNM BA Interview Marian Matthews, November 22, 2pm

• She teaches an online version of the course at the moment, so students MUST read the text.

• She gives an assignment for every chapter or concept taught. • Some assignments are more research paper like, others are not. • She tries to make the initial assignments more basic with increasing difficulty

as the semester progresses. 3 cases

• Digging Deeper assignment (first week, Chapter 1, graded sample attached.) • Street Talk assignment (happens in the middle of the semester, as part of a

larger semester long project. graded sample attached.) or Marketing assignment (happens in the last 3rd of the semester, fairly challenging. she will send graded sample)

• Final Stock market assignment (she'll send an example from last semester).

2 of 19

LM2Ch1_Fall2011_DiggingDeeper 20 Points Available Topic No. 2 (20 points) Factors of Production. One of the Factors of Production discussed on Page 4 is labor. There are approximately 13 million unemployed in the U.S. right now. You might be surprised to know that there’s some 3 million jobs U.S. employers can’t fill. These statistics come from an article that Peter Coy wrote1 . The assignment: Read Mr. Coy’s article and using it2 and at least one other source that you identify, answer the following questions in your own words: 1. What are the major factors causing a “mismatch” between the unemployed and the unfilled jobs?

Current unemployed people are from industries that are vastly different from industries that are currently hiring. Also the housing market is not helping. As Coy states, “...the worst housing bust in decades has left the unemployed frozen in place. They can't move to get work because they can't sell their homes.” (Peter Coy)

2. Coy writes about the “evidence of an emerging structural shift in the U.S. economy…” Using another source besides the Coy article, describe what a “structural shift” in the economy means. Investopedia.com defines structural change as “An economic condition that occurs when an industry or market changes how it functions or operates.” (Investopedia.com) For example, when the auto industry moved toward a more automated robotic assembly line, this shifted its workforce dramatically. No longer did it need as many skilled assemblers, but it did see an increased need in people that could service the new equipment. Many of the expenses shifted from labor to technology.

3. What are the likely long-term consequences of a “structural shift” for American workers? Unfortunately the second page of the article was not present, so I can only speculate on what Coy’s opinion on the long-term consequences of a “structural shift” would be. He did mention something that did catch my attention. He wrote that Congress and the Administrations could pass more laws that “…could make matters worse in the long run, such as insulating workers from the cost of long-term unemployment to the point where they lose their appetite for work.” (Peter Coy) This could be a real problem if otherwise qualified people are looked over for jobs because of their length of unemployment. (R.A) Businesses are learning to more with less, so they can wait for the perfect candidate.

1 Peter Coy, Help Wanted: Why That Sign’s Bad, Bloomberg Businessweek On-‐Line, April 30, 2009. Retrieved: August 19, 2011 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm 2 You should fully cite the Coy article in your bibliography. In the text of your answer, when you are using information from the article, you may indicate the source by (Coy) after the material used. Or you may show the source as I did in Question 2.

3 of 19

4. What is the most significant thing that you learned about the labor market from this assignment? The most significant thing I learned about the labor market from this article is that while we have huge unemployment we still can’t fill several professional management level jobs. Typically I hear that there is a shortage of skilled workers, but this article implies it’s at the management level where there is a gap. I was also surprised to learn that many people do not relocate for employment by choice. I’m not sure what to make of this. Are things not as bad as I am led to believe? All in all, the Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey was a statistic that I was unaware of until now, but I find that it adds another dimension to unemployment issue. I think the can’t-sell-their-house situation is a huge barrier to people moving. Since houses are selling, if someone moves they have to pay on the old mortgage and pay for living expenses somewhere else. That can be prohibitively expensive for many middle income people. Bibliography Peter Coy, Help Wanted: Why That Sign’s Bad, Bloomberg Businessweek On-‐Line, April 30, 2009. Retrieved: August 19, 2011 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm Ivestopedia.com, definition of Structural Change. Retrieved: September 4, 2011 http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/structural_change.asp#axzz1X2xmdtgT R.A, Long-‐term unemployment is a sticky situation , The Economist online, July 26, 2011. Retreived: September 4, 2011 http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/07/labour-‐markets Forrest – this is a good work product. I’m not sure why you couldn’t find the second page of the article. I thought you might have done somewhat stronger research on what a structural shift in the economy means. Even without the second page of Coy if you’d done a bit more work on that question your answer to No. 3 could have been stronger. In broad terms the “structural” shift in the U.S. economy is that we’ve moved from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge (or information) economy and that has huge ramifications. But we’ll return to this topic in Chapter 2. Points: 19/20

4 of 19

Get our new FREE iPad app now

COVER STORY April 30, 2009, 5:00PM EST

Help Wanted: Why That Sign's BadThe nation has 3 million jobs going begging. And without retraining, U.S. workers may not beable to fill them

By Peter Coy

Surprising statistic: In the midst of the worst recession in a generation or more, with 13 million peopleunemployed, there are approximately 3 million jobs that employers are actively recruiting for but so far havebeen unable to fill. That's more job openings than the entire population of Mississippi.

Sound like good news? It's not. Instead, it's evidence of an emerging structural shift in the U.S. economy thathas created serious mismatches between workers and employers. People thrown out of shrinking sectors suchas construction, finance, and retail lack the skills and training for openings in growing fields including education,accounting, health care, and government. At the same time, the worst housing bust in decades has left theunemployed frozen in place. They can't move to get work because they can't sell their homes.

As bad as it is now, the mismatch will create bigger problems when the economy begins to expand again. First,the unemployment rate is likely to remain distressingly high because many people who want jobs will lack theappropriate qualifications. Second, inflation could pick up sooner than expected if employers are forced intobidding wars to recruit the few people who are qualified for the work. Third, if unemployment stays high it will putadditional political pressure on Congress and the Obama Administration to push through fixes that could makematters worse in the long run, such as insulating workers from the cost of long-term unemployment to the pointwhere they lose their appetite for work.

HARSH NEW REALITIES

Help Wanted: Why That Sign's Bad - BusinessWeek http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130...

1 of 3 2/6/12 4:11 PM5 of 19

The danger is that the U.S. labor market will become less flexible at the very time that Europe's labor market isfinally loosening up. To avoid that situation, both employers and governments will have to step up retraining.Meanwhile, workers and employers will have to accept harsh new realities: lower pay for workers starting newcareers, and imperfect fits for employers filling vacancies.

All in all, not a pleasant prospect. Says JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Economist Bruce Kasman: "It's been apretty damaging recession. A lot of relatively skilled full-time workers are losing jobs that are just not going to bethere again. There is likely to be an unusually large skills mismatch."

The U.S. economy has changed dramatically over the past couple of years—faster, it seems, than the workforcecan adapt. The evidence is clear in an underappreciated report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics known asJOLTS, for Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey, which has been issued monthly since December 2000. Itcontains a statistic called the job openings rate, which is the percentage of all jobs in the U.S. that are unfilled.An employer must be actively recruiting on the outside for an opening to be counted. On the last business day ofFebruary, 2.2% of all jobs in the U.S. were open—3 million altogether. That figure is corroborated by theConference Board's report of 3.2 million online advertised vacancies as of March.

True, dislocation occurs in every recession (although not on quite this scale). True, too, the surplus of unfilledjobs is smaller now than it was at the beginning of the recession, according to both the Bureau of Labor Statisticsand the Conference Board. At 2.2%, the JOLTS rate is down from 3% in February 2008. But some decline is tobe expected. The surprise is how many unfilled jobs there still are given that, in the same year, theunemployment rate shot up from 4.8% to 8.1%.

Just as the unemployment rate measures problems in the labor market from the workers' perspective, the jobopenings rate measures the difficulty that employers have filling slots. While economists usually focus on theunemployment rate, in many ways the job openings rate is just as important.

To get a complete picture of the labor market, BusinessWeek constructed a new measure that we call the "jobsmisery index." It is simply the sum of the unemployment rate and the jobs openings rate. This sum was stable ataround 8% for years, including during the 2001 recession. But starting last spring it began a steep ascent tomore than 10%. The question is whether it will return to the 8% range when the economy recovers or stay highfor years to come.

One reason the jobs misery index is so high: The housing bust has reduced Americans' mobility. The CensusBureau reported on Apr. 22 that the percentage of the population that moved was the lowest sincerecordkeeping began in 1948. Home-owners, the Census found, were only one-fifth as likely to move as renters.The upshot is pockets of persistently severe unemployment—coincident with places such as North Dakota,where the 4.2% jobless rate is the nation's lowest. Sykes Enterprises (SYKE) plans to close a 200-person callcenter in Minot, N.D., on May 10 for lack of workers, and fast-food restaurants there are putting workers onovertime to cover shifts.

Immobility is sometimes a matter of choice. Dean Drako, the CEO of security and network appliance companyBarracuda Networks, has been hunting for months for a vice-president of worldwide sales, as well as other keypositions. Out of desperation he gave up a Friday night with his family in April to attend a mixer heavy on IvyLeaguers at San Francisco's tony University Club, certain he could poach some talent there. When Drakohanded his card to a potential recruit who had been out of work for six months, the person looked at thecompany's Campbell (Calif.) address and sniffed: "Oh, forget it, you're geographically undesirable." Says Drako:


2 of 3 2/6/12 4:11 PM6 of 19

"He practically handed my business card back to me!"

WAITING IT OUTEven some people from hard-hit cities such as Detroit and Cleveland have passed up well-paying jobs withmedical device companies in places like North Carolina because they don't want to move, says Lisa Mesnard, anexecutive recruiter with the Wellington Group in Fuquay-Varina, N.C. "I find it daily," she says. "They're ingrainedin the community. [Although] they don't have a job, they're willing to wait it out."

Where moving is not an issue, employers are nonetheless exasperated by the difficulty of filling jobs when somany people are out of work. Just ask Irina Lutinger, who is at wits' end trying to hire laboratory workers at NYULangone Medical Center in Manhattan. The senior administrative director for clinical laboratories says 10% of theunionized jobs are unfilled, slowing down patients' lab work. Laboratory technologists earn from themid-$40,000s to the high $60,000s a year, with good medical benefits and four weeks of vacation. Is thatattracting career switchers who want to get retrained and take the licensing exam? Says Lutinger: "We haven'tseen it yet here."

Labor advocates don't buy the argument that the U.S. is suffering from worker shortages. They say employerssimply aren't willing to pay enough to attract workers. "Whenever employers want a more vulnerable workforce,they declare a labor shortage," says Ana Avendaño, chief counsel and director of the immigration workerprogram for the AFL-CIO. She has a point. For example, the shortage of primary care physicians that PresidentBarack Obama has been talking about would likely work itself out if primary care doctors were paid anythingclose to what specialists get.

But higher pay is no panacea. Some jobs require specialized skills for which no amount of money will generatehigher labor supply until a new generation can be trained. Demand for accountants, for example, is likely to staystrong even after the financial crisis. Right now, "the restructuring business, bankruptcy attorneys ... they all areincredibly busy. And it's not as if you can all of a sudden invent these people," says Brian Sullivan, chairman andCEO of CTPartners, a New York-based executive search firm.


3 of 3 2/6/12 4:11 PM7 of 19

LM3Ch16_Fall2011_”Street”Talk.ResourceAnalysis 60 Points Available Use this sheet as your answer sheet, typing your answer to each question or subpart under the appropriate question or subpart. You’ll be uploading your completed paper as an attachment. Be sure and label your upload correctly:

yourfirstnamelastname_LM3Ch16_Fall2011_”Street”Talk.ResourceAnalysis

and…don’t forget to spell-‐check. Why We’re Doing This The Stock Market Project memo has a complete listing of the relationship of this project to the course learning objectives. I won’t repeat that here. I would add one thought: Whether or not you eventually become a stock market investor (I’m assuming most of you are not currently investors), the market casts a huge shadow in business, the economy, the country and the world. Whether or not you pursue a career in business, the market will be part of your culture, your society and your life. Having some knowledge of it will help you navigate in this society and this world. This week’s reading Chapter 16 The Stock Market Project memo

This week you will begin learning the language and some of the concepts that relate to the stock market and the sources that provide information about the stock market. Next week you will “spend” your $10,000 and buy your stock and mutual fund. Assignments Part I. (50 points) “Street” Talk – Understanding the language and concepts on Wall Street. The Research Rules This is a research paper. The Rules for Research Papers & Avoiding Plagiarism memo applies – whether or not you read them. I’m not going to repeat them here. Read the memo. The Presentation Matters memo also applies. Your answers to the questions below should be in your own words, and you must show your sources (except for Nos. 7 & 8) in your answers. You may use the textbook as a source, but it must be cited correctly. Use complete sentences in answering the questions.

NO SOURCES, NO GRADE THE QUESTIONS (Answer the questions completely, but don’t feel compelled to write a book. Try not to exceed two pages maximum.)

8 of 19

1. Shares of stock are issued by all corporations, but the public can only buy stock easily in what are known as “public” companies. A difference between a “public” company and one that is “privately” owned is that the stock in privately-‐owned (or closely-‐held) corporations is not available on stock exchanges. How does a corporation become “public” so that its stock is traded on a stock exchange? Name a public company. A company goes public to raise revenue. When a company goes public it is then responsible to answer to their shareholders. They are basically selling ownership of their company to raise money. The only other way for a company to raise revenue is to take out a business loan but turning the company public is the better option. Target is a public company. Qwoter. Qwoter. n.d. 10 September 2011 <http://www.qwoter.com/college/going-‐public/how-‐does-‐a-‐

company-‐go-‐public.html>. This is true but it doesn’t explain how it occurs. Please see the homework solution. Points: 2 2. Explain the function that a stock exchange, such as the New York, NASDAQ or American, serves for investors. When a company wants to expand or start a new business they start selling shares of their company. They can either sell shares or borrow money but selling shares is the best way to create more revenue. Selling shares create capital, not revenue. Those terms have different meanings in business. The stock exchange is in place to regulate and manage selling and buying stock. They are also there to enforce and laws to make sure everyone is playing fair. Shares, Greek. Learn to invest. n.d. 11 September 2011 <http://www.greekshares.com/works.php>. Points: 5 3. What is “the Dow,” also known as the Dow Jones Industrial Average? Explain what the Dow tells you about the market. “The Dow” is used to tell how the market is doing in general. They use 30 major companies and average their progress in the market overall. This tells the stockholder an overall summary of the market is doing at that time. A Discovery Company. How Stuff Works. n.d. 10 September 2011

<http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-‐finance/financial-‐planning/dow-‐jones-‐industrial-‐average.htm>.

Points: 5 4. Explain the two ways an investor can actually (not just “on paper”) make money in the stock market. The two ways an investor can make money is collect dividends or “buy low and sell high.” When an investor is patient and waits to sell their stock at a higher value it is called capital gain. "Better Business Second Edition." Martin, Kendall, Mary Anne Poatsy and Michael R. Soloman. Upper

Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 528. Points: 5 5. How does an investor actually lose money (not just “on paper”) in the stock market?

9 of 19

An investor will lose money in the market by experiencing capital loss. That is when an investor guys the stock and the value decreases and they are forced to sell. The investor is seldom “forced” to sell. It is a matter of choice. Even though the value of shares decrease, the investor can decide to hang on and see what happens. "Better Business Second Edition." Martin, Kendall, Mary Anne Poatsy and Michael R. Soloman. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 528. Points: 4 6. Explain why a corporation issues stock that the public can buy. A corporation issues stock to create more revenue. Again, it’s not revenue; it’s capital. It helps to expand business and kick start a new business. This is the best way to make revenue instead of taking out a loan. Shares, Greek. Learn to invest. n.d. 11 September 2011 <http://www.greekshares.com/works.php>. Points: 5 7. Assume that General Motors issues stock and you buy 100 shares of that stock. After any applicable commissions, who receives the proceeds from the sale? The applicable commission goes to the broker and General Motor. This isn’t responsive to the question. See the homework solution. Points: 1 8. Assume you decide to sell your General Motors stock next year. After any applicable commissions, who receives the proceeds from the sale? The applicable commission goes to the broker, General Motor and the stakeholder who sold. Points: 1 9. In addition to buying shares of stock in individual companies, you can buy shares in mutual funds. What is a mutual fund? A mutual fund is a group of people that pool their money together to invest as a group. With this type of investment everyone shares the amount of investment returns. "Better Business Second Edition." Martin, Kendall, Mary Anne Poatsy and Michael R. Soloman. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 532. Points: 5 10. Explain how purchasing shares of a mutual fund is different than buying stock in an individual company. Explain the advantages or disadvantages in buying mutual funds rather than stock in individual companies. A mutual fund is a good way for an inexperienced investor to start investing or with little money to start. Some of the benefits include diversification, professional management, liquidity and cost. One of the disadvantages is that this is not the type of investment when you are investing a large amount of money. "Better Business Second Edition." Martin, Kendall, Mary Anne Poatsy and Michael R. Soloman. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. 533. Points: 5 Part II (10 points) Resource Analysis

10 of 19

By now you should have begun researching information about individual stocks and mutual funds. In Part II I am asking you to identify two sources that you have been using to do research in preparation for investing your $10,000. These are probably NOT the sources you identified to answer the questions in Part I. 1. Identify two sources you have been using to do research in preparation for investing your $10,000? http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/marketsdata.html http://www.nyse.com/ 2. What are the advantages of each source? WSJ-‐ The information on the website is very straight forward NYSE-‐ There is a glossary to help me understand 3. What are the disadvantages of each source? Each source has so much information and it is hard to go through all of it. 4. Which do you prefer and why? I prefer the Wall Street Journal site because I feel like there is better, clearer information. Points: 10 Total points: 48/60 This was a good effort, Nicole.

11 of 19

12 of 19

13 of 19

14 of 19

15 of 19

16 of 19

17 of 19

18 of 19

19 of 19

college:centralnewmexicocommunitycollege course ... · the danger is that the u.s. labor market...

Documents