Restoring manufacturing jobs to the United States’ struggling Rust Belt communities was one of President-elect Donald Trump’s biggest campaign promises — and Apple is stepping up to the plate. The consumer electronics giant is exploring the possibility of moving smartphone production to the United States.

Electronics maker Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest suppliers, confirmed on Sunday that it was mulling a $7 billion investment to create a flat-panel manufacturing facility in the United States, Reuters reported. This would bring one of the major components in smartphones to American shores and would be an important step toward building iPhones in the U.S. Founder and chairman Terry Gou said the move may create as many as 50,000 jobs and would involve Japanese subsidiary Sharp; talks were reportedly underway in Pennsylvania and in other states. Rumors swirl about “Made in the USA” Speculation on Apple’s plans began in late 2016, and heightened following an interview with Donald Trump in The New York Times, during which he recounted a phone conversation with Tim Cook urging the CEO to move part of Apple’s production line to the U.S.: “I was honored yesterday, I got a call from Bill Gates, great call, we had a great conversation, I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple, and I said, ‘Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States, where instead of going to China, and going to Vietnam, and going to the places that you go to, you’re making your product right here.’ He said, ‘I understand that.’ I said: ‘I think we’ll create the incentives for you, and I think you’re going to do it. We’re going for a very large tax cut for corporations, which you’ll be happy about.’”

Trump has spoken on a number of occasions since about Apple moving production to the U.S. Days before his inauguration, the president-elect spoke with Axios, saying that Cook had his “eyes open to it” and that he thinks Cook “loves this country, and I think he’d like to do something major here.” Such a move may become more feasible given Foxconn’s plans. The company first confirmed that it was exploring investing in the U.S. in early December: “We are in preliminary discussions regarding a potential investment that would represent an expansion of our current U.S. operations,” Foxconn said to CNNMoney. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son met with Trump shortly after to announce a planned $50 billion investment in U.S. startups. The CEO held a paper with Softbank’s and Foxconn’s name, along with the following text: “commit to: Invest $50bn + $7bn in US, generate 50k + 50k new jobs in US in next 4 years.” That led to speculation that Foxconn would have a role in bringing jobs to the U.S.

“While the scope of the potential investment has not been determined, we will announce the details of any plans following the completion of direct discussions between our leadership and the relevant U.S. officials,” the manufacturer told CNNMoney.

Trump is a vocal supporter of U.S. companies that build their products in the U.S. and has proposed levying steep tariffs — potentially as high as 45 percent — on competing Chinese importers.

Nikkei, citing a source familiar with Apple’s plans, reports that the Cupertino, California-based company has tasked Foxconn and Pegatron, the two tech firms responsible for assembling more than 200 million of Apple’s iPhones annually, with investigating the feasibility of building plants in the U.S. “We’re going to get Apple to build their computers and things in this country instead of other countries,” Trump said in a speech in January. “How does it help us when they make it in China?” Pegatron reportedly demurred, citing logistical concerns. Foxconn agreed to compile a report as soon as June, but company chairman Terry Gou warned that it would show drastically higher productions costs. The potential result? An iPhone made in the U.S. could retail for as much as $740 to $1,300 for a 32GB iPhone 7 versus $650 today, according to Nikkei.

Apple has previously declined to move iPhones production stateside, citing costs. What would a U.S.-made iPhone cost? A thorough report in the MIT Technology Review found that moving iPhone assembly to the U.S. would add $30 to $40 to the cost of an iPhone thanks to “transportation and logistics expenses [that] would arise from shipping parts.” Manufacturing the smartphone’s hundreds of components domestically is an even pricier — and vastly more complex — proposition. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told CBS’ 60 Minutes in December 2015 that the U.S. labor pool lacked the skills necessary to carry out iPhone production, and Apple executives have estimated that it would take as long as nine months to recruit the roughly 8,700 industrial engineers that oversee Chinese assembly lines. And that’s before efficiency is taken into account: A 2012 CNN Money report noted that Chinese factories house workers in employee dormitories and “can send hundreds of thousands to the assembly lines at a moment’s notice.” Then there’s the U.S.’s lack of natural resources to consider. MIT Technology Review points out that few of the 75 elements required to manufacture the iPhone are available commercially in the U.S. Aluminum, for instance, requires bauxite, and there are no bauxite mines in the U.S. China, on the other hand, produces 85 percent of the world’s rare earth metals. Further complicating matters is Apple’s sprawling supply chain of more than 750 firms in over 20 countries. Taiwan Semiconductor produces crucial iPhone chips; South Korea’s SK Hynix and Japan’s Toshiba produce the handset’s memory modules, and Japan’s Japan Display and Sharp provide the iPhone’s display. “To make iPhones, there will need to be a cluster of suppliers in the same place, which the U.S. does not have at the moment,” an industry executive familiar with iPhone production told economics blog NorthCrane. But Apple’s plan isn’t without precedent. In 2013, Motorola Mobility employed more than 3,800 employees to assemble the Moto X, a flagship Android phone, at a factory in Fort Worth, Texas. Just a year later, though, it was forced to shutter production as a result of “exceptionally tough” market conditions, according to Motorola president Rick Osterloh. The company subsequently moved production to China. Others have been more successful. Foxconn established a stateside iMac computer assembly line in 2012. A year later, Singapore-based Flextronics, the manufacturer of Apple’s Mac Pro desktop computer, built a production line in Austin, Texas.

In October 2015, Sharp president Tai Jeng-wu suggested that if Apple were to begin producing smartphones in the United States, it would likely follow suit. “We are now building a new [advanced organic light-emitting diode] facility in Japan. We can make [OLED panels] in the U.S. too,” he said. “If our key customer demands us to manufacture in the U.S., is it possible for us not to do so?

With reference to the case study, discuss the impact that relocating would have on the factors affecting location decisions. (Further research is required by the student into the factors that affect location decisions.) (30)

2. a. The founder &samhoud has practiced entrepreneurial leadership, do you agree or not? Please provide the answer in detail

b. What do you think that make Samhoud so successful in leading his company?

Describe the following Perspectives:

Sociocultural

Psychodynamic

Biological

Please make sure you discuss in detail:

1) Founder of that theory, if applicable

2) Major contributions of that theory to Psychology

3) How they are used today, in 2018

Please answer all questions

Select from among the statements below any or all that are true.

Select the correct statements.

Which of the following is the most accurate summary of the holding in Jackson v.Holiday Furniture?

The laws of most states require that contracts between accountants and their clients be in writing.

True

False

Employers and employees may not modify the employment at will doctrine by contract.

True

False

Which of the following statements are true?

Consider the case of United Recycling Inc.:

United Recycling Inc. is one of the largest recyclers of glass and paper products in the United States. The company is looking into expanding into the cardboard recycling business. The company’s CFO has performed a detailed analysis of the proposed expansion.

The company’s CFO used sophisticated software to analyze a large number of scenarios and generate estimated rates of return and risk indexes.

Based on the information given, determine which of the statements is correct.

A. The company’s CFO conducted a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the project’s financial model.

B. The company’s CFO used a Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the project’s financial model.

Evaluating risk is an important part of the capital budgeting process. Which of the following is measured by the variability of the project’s expected returns?

A. Market, or beta, risk

B. Stand-alone risk

C. Corporate, or within-firm, risk

_______________ is measured by the project’s impact on uncertainty regarding the firm’s future returns.

A. Market risk

B. Stand-alone risk

C. Corporate, or within-firm, risk

D. Risk-adjusted cost of capital

"It's not necessarily what you learn in an MBA program, but where you learn it." This type of bias has the potential to undermine hiring decisions. What truth is there to it and how can this bias be countered in a hiring process?

Elegant Constructions is a construction company which was established in the year 2020. Ms. Adeela is the founder of the company. The company is involved in the construction of excellent quality buildings which had aesthetic elevations and appearance. Elegant Constructions Company became popular in Rustaq region in the Sultanate of Oman. Like all other companies, this new company also should get their financial statements audited. The financial statements and all other operations of the company was checked and verified by Ms. Zeenat, the head of Marketing Department who is very knowledgeable and has more 15 years of experience. The shareholders of the company and the audit committee decided to appoint Smart Audit Services as the auditors for the company.
Answer the following questions:

Identify the type of assurance engagement between Elegant Constructions and Smart Audit Services and Justify by explaining.   

‘Auditing and assurance are parts of the same process of verifying the information on the company’s accounting records for accuracy and compliance with the accounting standards and principles’- Explain.

C. Differentiate the audit services of Ms. Zeenat, the head of Marketing Department and Smart Audit Services, the auditors of the company.   

Ethics of Exporting Used Batteries

Lead is a highly toxic metal, and lead in this case relates to exporting used batteries to Mexico. Elevated levels of lead in the human body have been associated with damage to many organs and body tissues, including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, and reproductive and nervous systems. High lead exposure in young children is particularly worrying. It can result in lower intelligence and learning disabilities, impaired hearing, reduced attention span, hyperactivity, and antisocial behavior. It is not surprising then that exposure to lead has been highly regulated in developed nations. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has mandated tough rules designed to limit lead pollution. One consequence of these rules has been to increase the cost of recycling lead batteries. These rules, however, do not prohibit companies from exporting used batteries to other nations where standards are lower and enforcement is lax.

A study conducted by the reporters from the New York Times found that about 20 percent of used vehicle batteries and industrial batteries in the United States are exported to Mexico, tripling this form of export in just five years. The lead in these batteries is then extracted and resold on commodities markets. It is a booming business. Lead scrap prices stood at $0.73 a pound in July 2015, up from $0.05 a decade earlier. Recycling in Mexico is also a dirty business. While Mexico does have some regulations for smelting and recycling lead, the laws are weak by American standards, allowing plants to release about 20 times as much as their American equivalents. To make matters worse, enforcement is lax due to the lack of funds for quality control. For example, a government study in Mexico found that 19 out of 20 recycling plants did not have proper authorization for importing dangerous waste, including lead batteries.

At some recycling plants in Mexico, used batteries are dismantled by people wielding hammers and their lead smelted in furnaces whose smokestacks vent into the open air. Point in case, a sample of soil collected from a schoolyard next to one of the recycling plants showed a lead level of 2,000 parts per million, five times the limit for children’s play areas in the United States, as set by the EPA. The New York Times reporters documented several cases of children living close to this plant who had elevated levels of lead in their bodies. One four-month-old had 24.8 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, almost two and a half times as much as the level typically associated with serious mental retardation.

The value chain for used batteries and this form of lead exports is also done by intermediaries in the United States who buy up old batteries and then ship them across the border to the cheapest processors, typically a Mexican company. Some large multinationals are also in this business, however, although they mostly try to adhere to stricter standards and regulations. For example, one large U.S. battery company, Exide Technologies, has five recycling plants in the United States and it does no recycling in Mexico. According to an Exide official, it was not in the company’s best interest to skirt regulations. Another large U.S. battery manufacturer, Johnson Controls, does ship a significant number of batteries to Mexico, but it has its own recycling plants in Mexico as well. Johnson Controls states that its Mexican facilities abide by the stricter U.S. regulations, rather than the Mexican standards. Its recycling operations in Mexico are also well below current U.S. standards for employee blood levels and substantially better than average.

1.Which country’s regulations should apply to a company—the stricter regulations or the country’s regulations in which operations are taking place? What happens if all multinational corporations focus on countries with the least strict standards?

2. With more than 200 countries in the world, is it realistic to expect ethical guidelines to be established across all countries or even within industries across countries? Is one person’s or one company’s ethics likely to be similar to other people’s or companies’ ethics?

.

Please share your research, experience, and thoughts: In today’s society, we are dealing with a New Era, health care access and coverage for the LGBT Community in the United States are on the rise. While these changes are expected to increase health insurance coverage and access for LGBT individuals and their families, many challenges and questions remain, including:

• What will be the impact of state policy choices on access and coverage?
• How will new protections against discrimination be translated into practice and where do gaps remain?
• Now that gay/lesbian marriage is legal in most states, is the more conservative institution of healthcare positioned for this change?
• Should this group become a protected class under law?

**Note that some states are designing legislation to abolish counseling for transgender individuals--which tends to always fail. Should policy simply be to provide "treatment" and surgery for these individuals? Recently a transgender teen threw herself in front of a bus and died because her counseling had failed--and surgery seemed farther away.