THTR 1020 : A Free Man Of Color Review

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azuremammoth471

15 Mar 2019

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A free man of color was a very good play. A free man of color review been interested in history, and with it being about the louisiana purchase, that just made it much more interesting. I enjoyed the humor that came out right at the beginning of the play. The main character had a way to involve the audience in a positive way that kept our attention. I did like how throughout the play they sort of explained what happened or what was about to happen as it was hard to keep up with all the characters. There were a few things i did not like about the play. I didn"t like how many different things the play had going on at once. It was really complicating to keep up with who was who and what country they came from and who their wife was. It was just a few too many things going on at once.

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Read or listen to Morals in Business: Walter Pavlo Share your thoughts and opinions regarding this real life situation. Be sure to include your ideas about what businesses can do to avoid similar problems.

https://spotlightenglish.com/listen/morals-in-business-walter-pavlo

Transcript Voice 1 Hello. Iâm Marina Santee. Voice 2 And Iâm Ruby Jones. Welcome to Spotlight. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live. Voice 1 Would you consider stealing six million [6,000,000] dollars from a company, if you had the chance? Most people would immediately answer ânoâ to this question. The majority of people consider themselves to be good, honest citizens. Walter Pavlo used to describe himself like this. Walter was a young, successful business man. He studied hard. And he worked hard. In time, he got a good job at an international communications company called MCI. MCI managed billions of dollars each year. Walterâs office was a highly pressured working environment. Walter worked hard to meet targets and goals. If someone had asked him back then - would he steal six million dollars from the company? He would have answered, âNo way!â Yet only a few years later, Walter went to prison for stealing money from MCI. What made this good man turn to crime? Here is his story. Voice 2 Walter Pavlo was born into a good family. His parents taught him Christian values. He said; Voice 3 âI was taught, âdo not stealâ; âdo not cheatâ; âbe honestâ; âbe truthful in everything that you do.â Voice 2 Walter held these values for a long time. However, slowly, other values in the business world began to influence him. At the age of thirty-two, Walter was a senior manager at MCI. He managed millions of dollars. His job was very pressured - and difficult. Then, for the first time in his life, it looked like Walter would not meet his targets. He had to do something. He asked a co-worker for advice. His friend told Walter to cheat a little. He told him that everyone else was doing it. It was normal. Voice 1 Pavlo looked around him. It seemed that his friend was right. The world of business was full of successful cheats. Maybe a little dishonesty was not so bad. In his mind, Walter rationalised cheating. He made it seem reasonable. Voice 2 Pavlo learned how to hide customersâ debts. He made small changes in the companyâs financial books to make them look better. This meant that Walter kept his good record of achievement. And it meant that the companyâs records looked good to investors. Voice 1 However, this led Walter to a bigger temptation. Why not use the same method of dishonesty to enrich himself? Again, Walter rationalised his plan. He said later; Voice 3 âTo me it looked like everyone was cheating. And I joined in. It did not seem that bad. Customers were getting richer. And I wanted my share.â Voice 2 Something else was happening inside Walter. He was becoming hostile in his heart. All around him were lies and cheats. He saw that people only cared about themselves. He saw the company and customers making themselves richer. He said, Voice 3 âI hated the customers. I hated the company. And then, I hated myself. Then, nothing mattered anymore.â Voice 1 And so, Walter set up a secret bank account in the Cayman Islands. Customers with debts paid money directly into this bank account. Then, Walter made their debt disappear on MCIâs records. Over a six month period, Walter and a co-worker took six million dollars! Voice 2 However, as time passed, Walter became afraid. He lived in fear of getting caught and arrested. The lies and secrets created much pressure. Walter said he became emotionally unbalanced. He came to believe that he would surely be caught - it was only a question of when. Voice 1 After a few months, MCI noticed a series of payments going into a Cayman bank account. They questioned Walter about it. Walter remembers; Voice 3 âI just said I did not want to talk about it. In a way I could not avoid uncovering my secret, because I was no longer able to hide what I was doing.â Voice 1 Walter resigned from MCI. He hoped that the investigations would stop. But they did not. MCI called in the police. Voice 2 Pavlo admitted his crime. His punishment was a prison sentence of three years and five months. He would also have to sacrifice some of his future earnings - over the next twenty-seven [27] years. Voice 1 In prison, Pavlo learned a lot about himself. He looked at the process that resulted in such severe crime. He said; Voice 3 âI do not think of myself as a bad person. For me to do something bad, or illegal, I have to make myself believe it is not bad. I rationalised, reasoned, what I was doing. I did this so much that I became far removed from reality. I told myself things like - everyone else is doing it, I need to get by, my family deserves this - and so on. This is what happens to a lot of people. They will rationalise in order to do something wrong.â Voice 2 Walter finished serving his difficult sentence in 2003. Life outside of prison was not to be easy either. His wife had divorced him. His friends had disappeared. No one wanted to employ the man who had stolen millions. However, people did want to hear about it. Voice 1 Many businesses saw the power of telling such a story. It could prevent their employees making the same mistake. Business schools and universities wanted their students to hear Walterâs story. Voice 2 And so Walter decided on a new kind of work. Today, he goes into business schools, companies and universities. He tells his story. He warns people of the easy path that leads to crime. He gives this message to business students: Voice 3 âThe chance of you facing a difficult moral decision at some time in your business life is one hundred percent. It will happen. There is no way round it...â âYou will never know what your values are worth until the test. The things that your parents have taught you, the things that you learned in school. What about them? When you are tested, what will you do?â Voice 1 Walter Pavloâs values had not survived this test. However he hopes that his weaknesses may strengthen others. He hopes that his story will strengthen peopleâs values. And then, when they are tested they will not fall. Voice 2 The writer and producer of todayâs programme was Marina Santee. All quotes were adapted for the programme. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. Computer users can hear our programmes, read our scripts and see our word list on our website at http://www.radio.english.net. This programme is called, âMorals in Business: Walter Pavloâ Voice 1 You are welcome to comment or ask about todayâs programme. You can e-mail us at radio @ english . net. Thank you for joining us today. Until next time. Goodbye.

As you may recall in the work of Triplett (1898), the presence of others in a bicycle race was found to enhance individual performance. This is called social facilitation (Williams, Harkins, & Karau, 2007). At times, however, the presence of others can detract from individual performance, which is termed social inhibition (Crisp & Turner, 2007). Similarly, social loafing can occur when an individualâs performance within a group decreases due to his or her reliance on others in the group (Crisp & Turner, 2007).

For this Discussion, review the media program, Week 5: The Virtual Office. Focus on the characters in the media and determine which characters displayed social facilitation, social inhibition, and social loafing.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post by Day 3 a description of the characters in the media program demonstrating social loafing, social inhibition, and social facilitation. Explain how you identified them. Then, select one of the characters and, using the current literature, explain two ways you might mitigate their behavior.

Media Program

(Onscreen Text: The employees at the United Cardboard Company often work individually on projects, but as with most environments, they are occasionally asked to participate in group projects. One such group is about to meet right now to plan a presentation for the Board of Directors. Observe the conversation and reactions of various group members to determine which group members exhibit signs of the following: Social Loafing, Social Inhibition, and Social Facilitation.)

(Interior of an office. Ken stands at the front of the conference room.)

KEN: OK, I guess we might as well all get started. As we all know, the big man has requested the five of us to get together and write and conceptualize a presentation to the board on our new packaging system. Maybe we can start by going around and throwing out some initial ideas.

KATHY: Sounds good to me. I think a PowerPoint presentation would do the job well.

GAVIN: I agree. We could follow it up with a physical demonstration of how the packaging looks and folds-- maybe a video of the larger pieces that won't fit into the boardroom.

KEN: Sounds perfect to me. Amanda, Brian, what do you guys think?

BRIAN: Yeah, what you guys said sounds fine.

(Amanda thinks, âI donât know what to say!â)

KEN: Amanda?

AMANDA: I don't know. I didn't really get much chance to think about this. We only found out we needed to do this together three days ago.

KEN: OK, no worries. Let's focus on the PowerPoint idea. I've been doing a lot of them lately, so I'm happy to take the lead on the design aspect. What do you guys think we should all incorporate into the slides?

GAVIN: I think we should start with where we got the idea for this new packaging -- the company that designed it and the different sizes that it comes in.

KATHY: We should follow that with a graph comparing the old prices to the new ones to illustrate how much we'll be saving over time. Amanda, didn't you have most of that information collected at some point?

(Amanda thinks, âOh no! What if I deleted that?)

AMANDA: I don't know, maybe, it's been so long. I didn't think I'd need it again for a group project like this.

(Gavin thinks, âI wonder whatâs gotten into her. Sheâs not usually this tense.â)

KEN: That's OK, Amanda, I'm sure we can easily dig it up again. Brian, do you have any other ideas for the PowerPoint slides?

BRIAN: Nah, I think what you guys mentioned sounds right.

(Kathy thinks, âWow. Way to contribute Brian.â)

KEN: OK then, Kathy and Gavin why don't you send me all of the info and I'll write it up and make the slides. Amanda, don't worry about the cost saving document, I'm sure I can dig it up from my old emails and put it into that slide too.

AMANDA: Are you sure? I'm happy to look. I mean I'm sure I have it somewhere. (Kathy thinks, âShe really needs to get it together. Why is she so nervous?â) At least I think I have it somewhere. You won't tell the Board of Directors if I lost it, will you?

KEN: Of course not, we're in it together. So as I was saying, I'll write up and prepare all the PowerPoint slides. Then we can start our presentation with reading and explaining each slide. Then, what?

KATHY: Well, and then I think we should show them the packaging live, and the quick deconstructing techniques.

KEN: Great idea. You and Amanda can demonstrate the folding, while I narrate what you're doing.

(Amanda thinks, âIs he doing too much of the work? And what if I drop everything while heâs talking?â)

GAVIN: And after you all demonstrate the smaller packaging, we could show a quick video of how the really big ones function down at the warehouse. Brian, would you be able to go film that quickly one of these days?

BRIAN: I don't really have any experience with video cameras or anything like that, so...

(Gavin thinks, âI should have seen that one coming.â)

KEN: That's OK. My wife actually just got me this great little camera for our anniversary. It takes great videos. So I can just run down to the warehouse, get some footage, then put it together on this new editing software I just downloaded. Maybe add a little music. It's going to be really slick!

KATHY: Are you sure, I wouldn't mind doing that too.

KEN: Oh no, it's fine. I love this kind of stuff; just leave it to me. But I suppose that's enough planning. Now it's time to get to work and make the presentation a knock out. Go team!

National Health Company (NHC) became one of the nationâs leading providers of healthcare during the early 2000s, through aggressive mergers and acquisitions. The company provides both in and out patient care such as convalescent care, rehabilitation, physical therapy, outpatient surgical centers, ultrasounds, mammograms, MRIâs, CT scans, and other medical services. The companyâs rapid expansion initially resulted in a substantial amount of profit and success in the healthcare market. However it became increasingly difficult to maintain the growth and expansion in light of the economic climate, continued pressure from Medicare, the insurance companies to cut costs, competition from other health field carriers and the concern over potential government funded health care programs. As the NHCâs management failed to sustain the expected growth, its management resorted to other strategies that not only maintained the expectation of its shareholders, but would also allow management to keep their extravagant life style.In this case, we will follow the struggles and anguish faced by Karen Larson, NHCâs Chief Financial Officer, as she battles her way through making the right financial and corporate governance decisions and not to allow herself to be allured, by fancy titles, avarice and greed as well as upper management pressure placed before her. We will present not only the decisions she has to make but also the outcome of her decisions.

Background

National Health Company (NHC) is one of the nationâs largest providers of healthcare. It is ranked in the top ten nationally in terms of size and revenue. The company reached its ranking by expanding rapidly through aggressive mergers and acquisitions throughout the late 1990âs through the 2006. The company had 50 facilities across the nation in 1990. By 2006the company had purchased another 28 hospitals and 45 outpatient rehabilitation facilities from National Health Enterprise.In 2003, NHC purchased ReLive, a major healthcare chain. In 2005, NHC acquired Medical Surgical Corporation, Novacare, Health Imaging, Horizon and several other healthcare providers, with acquisition costs totaling approximately $2.5 billion. The buying binge positioned the companyas one of the major players in the healthcare industry.As the expansions continued, the NHCâs stockholders became accustomed to a period during which they enjoyed double digit growth rate in their investments. Yet, once this growth began to truly slow down, management and Karen Larson, NHCâs Chief Financial Officer (âKarenâ) did not pay any heed but instead took various steps to ensure that the price of the stock would continue to soar.

In December 2008, Karen was celebrating a triumphant moment in her career. She had been made the CFO in a company she loved. For Karen, this moment did not come soon enough. For 20 years, she had set her sight on this position. She had toiled in the trenches, putting in long hours and sacrificing even her vacation time in hopes of attaining her dream job. Achieving this position was a fitting culmination of her years of dedication. It was a richly deserved reward that she cherished and relished. Now Karen was too pre-occupied with her thoughts. As she sat huddled in the corner of her dark prison cell, surrounded by belligerent, mentally unstable inmates, Karen Larsonâs mind could not help but revisit the fateful day when her plunge from the lofty perch in a major corporation to the bowels of prison began. Painfully, it was time for her to trace back her steps to what had brought her here.

The Plan

No sooner had Karen settled on her new position, when her troubles started. Approximately nine months into her new job, Karen Larson was lying awake, sleepless and listless on her bed. Her thoughts wandering around the meeting she had earlier in the day with several other members in upper-level management. George Dawson (âGeorgeâ), the CEO of the company had gathered all the members of upper-level management with direct relations to the finance and treasury departments. George had started the meeting with a speech about how proud he was to be working with such trustworthy and loyal associates, and how he was very fond of everyone and how they were all like family to him. After Georgeâs welcoming introduction, the real topic of the meeting came into play. George stated that, âIâm sure youâre all aware of our current financial position as a company.â Karen and everyone there nodded with the understanding of his statement. He continued, âThis recent quarter has been very bleak, the bleakest one this company has ever seen in its history.â Everyone continued to nod in agreement with his words.

George went on, âHowever, I believe our company can pull through this stumble. All I ask is a small favor in order to bring the company to new heights.â A deep silence swept across the room in the anticipation of his next words. âAll I ask is that we hide the stumble we had this quarter from the public. Not everyone in the public might agree with our strengths and abilities. And if word got out that we the giant in the healthcare industry was faltering, it would hurt the company as a whole.

And we wouldnât want that now would we?â Whispers started out among everyone all at once, at the notion of what was being asked of them. George, the CEO of the company, the one that she had looked up to, was asking her and everyone else in the room to commit fraud and falsify the accounting books and records. George started to silence the whispers, as he continued, âI will hold personal responsibility in this act and request. All Iâm asking for is to make this one quarter look positive to the eyes of the public. And next quarter, Iâll ensure the company truly has a positive quarter. Iâll let you all think it over for a few days, and weâll continue this meeting then.â Over the next several days Karen agonized over the decisions that she was going to have to make, yet there were so many unanswered questions. These questions continued to spin in her mind. Was she really a part of the play to deceive the public? And if she wasnât, should she tell someone about the companyâs wrongdoings and the CEO? She thought about the sincerity ofGeorge Dawson when he stated that he would bring the company into positivecash flow over the next quarter, in line with the financial markets expectations. Then she thought about all her fellow associates,all of her friends and all of the people who worked under her. She hadbeen working for NHC for over 20 years, she had worked hard and diligently to gain her last position as Chief Financial Officer. She had also worked hard to gain the trust and loyalty of her fellow associates. However, what the members of top management had asked her to do against the oath she had sworn when she became a CPA, and her fiduciary duties as one of the officers in the company. It also went against the very morals and fibers of her upbringings and had left her in utter turmoil. She continued to ponder. What would have been the outcomes if the company had reported a loss? What would have been the outcomes if she and those involved did not get caught in the fraud they were about to commit? What was she going to do?

The Afterthought

A debate raged in Karenâs head. She thought if she agreed to commit fraud then the company would have no reason to lay off any of their workers. All of the jobs would be saved. But then what if the jobs were saved but the investors lost their money? She shook the thoughts out of her head. It was only going to be this one quarter, as far as she could tell and dared to believe and hope for. She convinced herself then that agreeing to commit to the act would be the best course, especially if everyone else in the meeting agreed to it. She didnât want to be the outcast, nor did she want to disappoint everyone. She didnât want to constantly have to look over her back with all the ridicules about why she didnât go along with the decision. And she definitely wasnât going to tell anyone for fear of losing her own position in the company; the position that she had worked so hard to achieve. Karen had finally decided that she was going to accept the CEOâs plea.

The next meeting took place around October of 2009. The meeting room was quiet. All her fellow upper management associates looked tired, as if they too didnât get very much sleep the last few days. But they also all had a stern look; she could tell that everyone else probably went through a similar ordeal to her own. She could also see in their eyes, as they waited for George, that they were all going to agree with what George had proposed a few days earlier.As George walked through the doors of the meeting room, he was quick to notice the deadly silence, and was quick to break it and get down to business. He asked,âSo has everyone come to a decision?â They all nodded their heads. âWhat is it then?â George asked, âAre you with or against me?â A short silence fell over everyone, as no one seemed willing to be the first to admit to conspiring to the devious plan. Then Patricia Kim the corporationâs in-house counsel stood up and gave her answer, âI agree to your idea George and stand behind you and your decision all the way.â At that moment, everyone else was quick to chime in with similar affirmations.The rest of the meeting went into a discussion of how they were going to hide this from the public and cover their tracks to make it difficult for an auditor to find the deception, if one ever came to investigate.

The plan that they came up with was to decrease a contra asset account as well as the expense accounts, either of which would increase earnings and correspondingly the assets. In addition, they were going to create fictitious journal entries to correspond with the generally accepted accounting principles. Furthermore they were going to create false documents to support the bogus accounting entries.After the meeting adjourned, George came into Karenâs office and said âwe are going to be reporting all of this additional income and with the capital gain NHC had from the sale of an asset this year, I am concerned about the inability from a cash flow standpoint for NHC to pay its corporate income tax. We need to find a way to offset the companyâs potential tax liability, which in part was due to a large capital gain from the sale of an asset and I would like you to consider some of the tax shelters out there.â Karen wanting to help out George came across a tax shelter, called âSon of Bossâ, 11which was designed to reduce capital gains. The transaction is a âlisted transactionâ with the IRS. However, George had made it clear that it was necessary to defer any immediate issues with their taxes with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and requested that Karen not file the listed transactions form with the IRS. Karen complied with this request in order to please her boss.The Aftermath The plan went off without a hitch. Everything had gone according to plan. However, the next quarter rolled by and passed rather quickly and still George didnât or couldnât hold up his end of the bargain. They all held another similar meeting, and George asked to continue the plan for another quarter. One quarter after another came and passed with no end to the accounting and financial subterfuges insight. Then one day, rather unexpectedly and without discussing it with anyone, George sold his stocks of NHC. Even though NHCâs business was supposedly booming, the first of National Heath Company's accounting problems started to surface in late 2010 after George sold $85 million in stocks several days before the company posted a large loss, the first in the companyâs history. The SEC started to investigate whether or not Georgeâs decision to sell his stocks was related to the posting of a large loss. NHC hired an outside law firm to review Georgeâs stock sale in order to try to postpone the SECâs investigation. The outside law firm concluded that the sale and profit loss were not related. This however did not ease the SEC's suspicions. The SEC not only looked into the stock sale but began examining the books and records of the company along with the FBI. As the investigations progressed, various employees were interviewed, including Karen. The FBI and the Department of Justice met with Karen and offered her a reduced sentence if she would come clean with what she knew. On the evening of June 13, 2012,FBI agents executed search warrants at the company's headquarters after the company's CFO Karen agreed to wear a wire, in which she was able to get George to talk about the fraud. A number of months thereafter, the Federal Grand Jury issued indictments against all upper management, including Karen for committing fraud, for falsifying NHCâs books and records, and for aiding and abetting to defraud shareholders. Now, less than a year later, Karen agreed to a plea deal in which she would be sentenced to 18 months in prison and a fine of $500,000 in return for her cooperating with the government. Had she not cooperated with the government she could have received 10 years. As Karen Larson sat outside the courtroom waiting to testify for the government against George, the governmentâs first defendant, she began to recollect her thoughts on her misguided actions and the ordeals she would now have to go through. She no longer was a CFO, she no longer had a job, she lost her CPA license, she lost her right to practice before the IRS, she was facing 18 months in prison and when she get out of prison, she could look forward to repaying $500,000 in restitution.What could she have done to avoid these problems, especially of the devastating pitfall of languishing in prison for 18 months? How she could be so foolish, Karen muttered to herself in retrospection. What was she thinking? How could she possibly believe that the fraud would only last a quarter? George was a human, not a god. Karen sighed deeply. She had allowed herself to be deceived. She had been myopic to think that she could save her own skin and her colleaguesâ jobs through fraud. Perhaps now, Karen thought bitterly, she would be able to clearly discern her misguided actions to ensure that she never acts in that manner again. With at least another year of her life devoted to testifying on behalf of the government against other defendants with respect to the fraud committed by NHC and its officers and directors and 18 Burch, R. G. (2006). Director oversight and months of prison time yet to serve, Karen will certainly have sufficient time to dwell on all her missteps.

I need to answer the following 2 part question, thank you

4. Aside from participating in the scheme,

what are Karen Larsonâs other options

in face of the dilemma?

5. What are the pros and cons of each of

her options?

orchidminnow920

THTR 1020 : A Free Man Of Color Review

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