Aristotelism, handel och det liberala systemet

Uppsatsen tar sin utgångspunkt i Aristoteles tankar om handel och vänskap och klargör bl.a. hur privat äganderätt, genom att den ger upphov till ”en sfär av frihet där självstyrda verksamheter går att utövas utan att förtrampas av andra”, är en nödvändig förutsättning för uppnående av målet om mänsklig blomstring eller människans moraliska välbefinnande. Den kommersiella verksamhet som äganderätt möjliggör, med frivilliga transaktioner människor emellan, ses som ett exempel på ”nytto-” eller ”fördelsvänskap” som är central för den sociala ordningen.handel; äganderätt; Aristoteles; mänkslig blomstring; vänskap

Intertextual Representations of Drugs, Violence, and Greed in Breaking Bad

In the last two decades there has been a spate of what is considered quality television. The success of these shows, especially in regards to critical approval, has broadened the perspective from which the medium of television is viewed. Television now affords the viewer and critic alike the opportunity to examine and scrutinize elements of these shows in much the same way literature can be examined. A notable example of this phenomenon is the AMC cable show Breaking Bad (2008-2013), the subject of my research. Specifically I am focusing on the idea of intertextuality in order to unravel, in much the same way a critic examines allusions, symbolism, and the imagery of a printed text, an interpretation of Breaking Bad which requires multiple and subsequent viewings. My methodology is to examine the sampling of the intertextual references in Breaking Bad with the specific focus of discussing their relationship to the show’s themes of neoliberalism and medical debt. I have chosen a selection three different types of intertextual reference: music, poetry and film. I have opted to focus on the references that engage in a critique of neoliberalism. By looking at these examples of each type of reference and how they connect to series protagonist Walter White (Bryan Cranston), I read the series’ narrative arc and the psychological split of its main character, Walt, into the Heisenberg persona he uses as a drug kingpin, as related to the effects of unregulated capitalism brought on by neoliberalism. I will analyze examples of intertextuality from the show and then conclude by illustrating how the overall response of frustration to the advent of neoliberal economic policies can be determined from each of these references and Breaking Bad as a whole. It is my contention that by looking at these elements and how they contribute to the narrative of Breaking Bad that the show is drawing a parallel between Walt’s psychological corruption and the corruptive influence of neoliberalism

Derivative observations in Gaussian Process models of dynamic systems

Gaussian processes provide an approach to nonparametric modelling which allows a straightforward combination of function and derivative observations in an empirical model. This is of particular importance in identification of nonlinear dynamic systems from experimental data. 1)It allows us to combine derivative information, and associated uncertainty with normal function observations into the learning and inference process. This derivative information can be in the form of priors specified by an expert or identified from perturbation data close to equilibrium. 2) It allows a seamless fusion of multiple local linear models in a consistent manner, inferring consistent models and ensuring that integrability constraints are met. 3) It improves dramatically the computational efficiency of Gaussian process models for dynamic system identification, by summarising large quantities of near-equilibrium data by a handful of linearisations, reducing the training size - traditionally a problem for Gaussian process models

The Prime Directive

Agency costs dominate academic thinking about corporate governance. The central challenge is to devise legal rules to align the interests of the managers (the agents) with those of the shareholders (the principals). This preoccupation is misplaced. Whether it is finding a baby-sitter or a dean, the challenge of hiring the right person dwarfs the challenge of aligning that person’s incentives. The central task for corporate governance—its Prime Directive—.0is to ensure that the right person is running the business. In this essay, we suggest that the challenge of aligning the managers\u27 incentives has been drastically overstated and the way in which legal rules affect hiring (and firing) decisions has been too often ignored. The current preoccupation with executive compensation runs the risk of inducing the board to worry more about the details of the employment contract rather than selecting the best person in the first instance. More important, the law can play an important role ensuring bad managers are fired. The market for corporate control does this, but debt contracts also play a crucial role, one that has been largely neglected. Covenants in debt contracts can insure that underperforming managers are called to task. Indeed, they may be as important as the market for corporate control

Fourt (or Five) Easy Lessons from Enron

Temptation. It lies at the heart of financial swindles. The promise of 50% returns in three months can lure thousands of investors-so too can a stock that soars 500% in three years. But those who are tempted are often skeptical. Before they invest, they want to know how one can enjoy such supracompetitive returns. The answer usually is a facially plausible story, though with a bit of mystery attached. The mystery is often touted as the reason that the investment opportunity is exclusive to the entrepreneur who discovered it. It is what ensures that the gains are not competed away. The classic case remains that of Charles Ponzi. While not a very adept con artist-he was caught several times-in a six-month period in 1920, Ponzi convinced ten thousand investors to part with an aggregate of $9.5 million. He promised amazing returns-50% in ninety days. As a testament to his financial wizardry, Ponzi often paid off his investors in half the time he had initially promised. How could he work such financial magic? Allegedly, Ponzi had discovered a lucrative arbitrage opportunity in postal reply coupons. Postal reply coupons allowed the sender of a letter to ensure that the recipient in another country would be able to obtain sufficient postage to respond. For example, a letter writer in America would purchase a reply coupon here and send it along with a letter to a relative in another country, say, Spain. The Spanish relative could then redeem the coupon for Spanish stamps sufficient to send a reply. Ponzi noticed a pricing discrepancy in the postal reply coupons. One could buy a coupon in one country for, say, one penny, and redeem it in another for six cents worth of stamps. This opportunity existed because exchange rates had been set in a postal convention in 1906, well before the outbreak of the Great War. The Great War changed the relative value of many currencies, but the rates for postal exchange coupons remained fixed. The failure to adjust the exchange rates on postal reply coupons meant that a trader could buy a postal reply coupon in a country where the relative value of the currency had declined, redeem it in a country where the relative value of the currency had increased, and turn a profit. There were, in theory, gains to be had by exploiting government inertia. But transaction costs limit any opportunity to profit from arbitrage. Consider the steps necessary to exploit this state of affairs. Money would be gathered in the United States. This money then had to be converted into a foreign currency and put in the hands of an agent in the appropriate foreign country. The agent would have to buy the postal reply coupons in large quantity, although there were limits on the number of coupons that could be bought at one time. The agent then had to send the coupons back to the United States. Another agent would have to redeem them. Given these elaborate requirements, it is hard to imagine how anyone could purchase a sufficient number of reply coupons to support the millions of dollars that Ponzi collected

Private Debt and the Missing Lever of Corporate Governance

Traditional approaches to corporate governance focus exclusively on shareholders and neglect the large and growing role of creditors. Today’s creditors craft elaborate covenants that give them a large role in the affairs of the corporation. While they do not exercise their rights in sunny times when things are going well, these are not the times that matter most. When a business stumbles, creditors typically enjoy powers that public shareholders never have, such as the ability to replace the managers and install those more to their liking. Creditors exercise these powers even when the business is far from being insolvent and continues to pay its debts. Bankruptcy provides no sanctuary as senior lenders ensure that their powers either go unchecked or are enhanced. The powers that modern lenders wield rival in importance the hostile takeover in disciplining poor or underperforming managers. This essay explores these powers and begins the task of integrating this lever of corporate governance into the modern account of corporate law

The End of Bankruptcy

The law of corporate reorganizations is conventionally justified as a way to preserve a firm’s going-concern value: Specialized assets in a particular firm are worth more together in that firm than anywhere else. This paper shows that this notion is mistaken. Its flaw is that it lacks a well-developed understanding of the nature of a firm. Initially, it is easy to confuse size with specialization and overstate the extent to which assets are dedicated to a particular enterprise. Even when such dedicated assets exist, they often do not need to stay in the same firm. As Coase taught us, as the costs of contracting go down, so too does the value of keeping assets in a particular firm. But even when specialized assets must be kept inside a firm, two other forces limit the need for a traditional law of corporate reorganizations. Capital structures are increasingly designed with financial distress in mind. For these firms, control rights shift from one set of investors to another as the firm encounters difficulty. Such firms either never file for bankruptcy, or, if they do, it is only to vindicate the predetermined allocation of control rights. Even where control rights are not sensibly allocated, a quick sale of the firm restores order. When firms can be sold as going concerns, the need for the traditional negotiated plan of reorganization disappears. The vast majority of firms in financial distress never enter bankruptcy. Today the Chapter 11 of a large firm is an auction of the assets, followed by litigation over the proceeds. To the extent we understand the law of corporate reorganizations as providing a collective forum in which creditors and their common debtor fashion a future for a firm that would otherwise be torn apart by financial distress, we may safely conclude that its era has come to an end