Week 3 – Assignment Carol Ann Hartley ECO204: Principles of Microeconomics Raymond Hudson December 19, 2011 In this paper I will discuss the concentration ratios for fluid milk; women’s and girls’ cut and sew dresses, envelopes, and electronic computers. I will also define the difference of high and low level of competition between the four companies. I will discuss which companies are qualified as oligopolies manufacturer. Discuss whether or not oligopolies are considered to be bad for society or good for the economy. Here I will discuss the different rolls of product concept.
Table of Contents Corporate Overview 3 Industry Analysis 3 Business Strategy 4 Corporate Governance 5 Social Responsibility & Ethics 8 Quantitative Analysis 9 Executive Summary 9 Income Statement Analysis 10 Balance Sheet Analysis 11 Raito Analysis 13 Financial Health 15 Earnings Quality 15 Appendix A 18 Appendix B 19 Appendix C 20 Appendix D 22 Appendix E 23 Appendix F 24 Appendix G 26 Works Cited 18 Corporate Overview Industry Analysis Home improvement industry is highly fragmented; there is very little direct competition between companies in this industry. The only companies that exert direct competition against each other are Home Depot, Inc. and Lowe’s Company, Inc. These two companies dominate the industry by controlling more than 30% of the home improvement market each. Being the second largest retailer in the United States, Home Depot, Inc. is still considered to be the leader of the home improvement industry. By focusing on sales, service and execution, which helped the company, achieve considerable sales growth in the past few years.
Sweatshops may exist in any country but are more commonly found in LEDC’s. Many of the clothes sold in retail outlets in MEDC’s are manufactured in factories in LEDC’s. In many industries, including the fashion industry, jobs have been lost in MEDC’s because goods and clothes can be produced (manufactured) cheaply and more efficiently in the poorer parts of the world. This is because manufacturing overseas is cheaper; the wages there are lower, due to lots of workers being available and there being no minimum wage. Therefore manufacturers make bigger profit.
Although they are considered a highly diversified company they are faced with issues. With this case of Dukes vs. Walmart the lawyers are stating that women do not receive the pay and promotions that are equal to the men at the organization. Walmart disputes this claim by stating that this disparity in pay or promotions may be attributable to retail-related trends which is an issue that is not only affiliated with Walmart, but is consistent throughout the retail industry (Daft, 2012). According to the case Walmart states that more men than women tend to apply for higher paying dock jobs-a trend that skews numbers toward a higher average pay for men. Likewise, more women than men tend to apply for lower-paying cashier positions-a trend that inadvertently skews averages down for women.
Marxist theories state that inequality is not a female issue, but a class one, for they note that middle class women are often better off than working class men. This point seems futile; can inequality not be a problem of the female and the working class male? Class aside, it is an indisputable fact that by and large, women are affected more harshly by poverty than men, in Pearce’s research into poverty in the United States, she found that two thirds of the poor who were over 16 were women. Poverty is rapidly becoming a female problem. Marxists however claim that we should focus on the eradication of capitalism, because then gender disparities will swiftly follow.
In his opinion the nation and it's leaders are at fault for not addressing this problem. 4. The complexity of the problem seems to determine the order of the examples where they begin with simple problems and then escalate. The most memorable example for me is the one about the woman who mistakenly underwent a hysterectomy, it appears in the middle in paragraph fourteen. SOAPSTone: Subject: Kozol discusses the causes and effects of illiteracy in our society.
Black women earn 63 cents and Latinas 57 cents (also quoted as 72 and 60 cents).  Women are 40% more likely to be poor than men, 70% of older women. 60% of “extremely poor” (less than half poverty line) are women.  READING NOTES “Excerpts from Angela Davis: An Autobiography” pg 105  “In such a state the keepers could control their victims. I would not let them conquer me.
In the society today, social norms are determined by the aesthetic appearance of a person, black or white, as well as social economic class. This is mostly a circle of events because African Americans are not given the chance to prosper there for are insufficient in both groups by their skin tone and economic class. This, over time, also leads to a gap in accumulated wealth. In a 2010 study, The Other Pay Gap, researchers found that while the median net worth of single white women between the ages of 36-49 is $42,600, the median net worth of single women of color in the same age range is $5. While this is a median, meaning there are figures above and below $5, the pay and wealth gap is a tragic reality for women of color (The pay gap, 2013).
Utilizing concentration ratios we find that the top four firms operating within the fluid milk industry (311511), control 42.2 percent, and envelopes (322232) with 51.1 percent of their respective market shares. Although market shares of 51 and 42 percent are large, they fall below 75 percent which is not enough to allow the top firms to influence pricing within the market, or to be considered as an oligopoly competitive market structure. Fluid milk and envelopes are such homogenous products that if the top 4 companies attempted to create a price increase they would see their customers choosing other sources for their product. The top 4 firms, with a fairly high share of the market would likely compete more on a strategic level then attempting to sell at a lower price. The top 4 firms within the women's and girl’s cut
BUSI 740 CASE STUDY Mercury Athletic Footwear: Value the Opportunity Group #3 Fu Yao Guo Peixuan Ma Yifan Fei Yunshu 2 Executive Summary AGI is a generally successful footwear company especially in operating volatility and supply chain management. But it has a relatively low growth rate partly because it faces competitive market and its small market size was becoming more of a disadvantage. One thing is that they suffer from outsourcing supplier conflicts. Contrast to that, Mercury Athletic Footwear is a subsidiary of a large clothing company and yield large revenue even though it is very small. Besides Mercury has a high growth rate and good relation with outsourcing manufactories.