By Jordan Lofton - July 27th, 2011  Category: CCMBA 2012 It was Saturday afternoon when I hopped in my car to run errands. The thermostat in the car told me the temperature was a cool 93 degrees, but the sensation of walking into a sauna told me that the humidity in Atlanta was much higher. As I put my basket of dry cleaning in the car I heard a little girl’s voice call out, “Lemonade! Lemonade for sale!” I looked over my shoulder and at the entrance of the next block were two sisters with a table, a pitcher, and a few plastic cups. The younger of the two girls was clearly in charge of advertising, as she hopped up and down, yelling at passing cars to let them know the sale was on.
I grabbed my wallet and walked over to get a cup of lemonade for the road. “Good afternoon ladies, I would like a glass. How much is it?” I remember how much my lemonade stand used to be, but with inflation, I had already located a $1.00 bill to hand to the little girls.
The oldest sister went directly into her sales pitch, “Our lemonade is fresh squeezed and is 25 cents. We are also donating 25% to the local Humane Society.”
I have to say at that point I was actually shocked. Here were two girls, who the oldest could not have been more than 7 years old, offering me a product of value. The cost of the lemons and sugar that their parents purchased could not have been covered by the meager 25 cents per glass and yet on top of this, these little girls were donating 25% to a charity.
I smiled at the little girl and said, “Oh that’s wonderful. I don’t have any change so I’m going to give you a whole dollar and you can keep the extra money.”
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By Nick Sarraf - June 29th, 2011 Category: CCMBA 2012| Introductions While the economic travesty of our generation persists and the methods and policies to restore sanity in the system falters – a diverse group of odd students would take it on itself to find hope in what future holds. The CLASS OF DUKE CCMBA 2012!!!
Everyone with his own philosophy, his own reason – to meet his/her (or parents’) expectation of accomplishment, to find an alternative to current career path, to make more money or in case of a few, to create a plank to launch a venture of his/her own. And all these reasons are backed by the fundamental belief in a bright outlook for the future.
As a self-taught student of economics, I have watched Keynesian economics panned and trickle-down economics fail. And in fact I often wonder if trickle-down economics is just an alias for trickle-down politics. While the scope of an MBA extends far beyond learning basic tenets of economics, it can’t be overlooked that every personal, financial and professional decision of an individual just as a corporation is largely a function of P/L. Essentially, when all is said and done, an MBA may yet just be a study of perfecting the art to maximize that P and minimize that L – against all adversities, market conditions, competition, evolving tactics, disruptive technologies, regional politics, negative public perception etc..
OR it may just be an opportunity to specialize in the area of leadership with specific focus on client partnering, models of emb
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By Syed Husain - April 10th, 2010 Category: CCMBA 2010D| Residency 4: Shanghai The next two weeks will be a very interesting time to be in China. The chairman of the Fed recently met up with the Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan to discuss the issue of letting the Yuan float. The Chinese government may or may not allow this to happen. If it does happen, it is difficult to say what the full implications may be and this will make it a very exciting time for us to be visiting the country as MBA students. Even if doesn’t happen while we are there it will still be interesting to see how the country is preparing for it to happen eventually. The price of raw material acquired from outside China will probably drop but the price of it’s exports will rise. What happens to the price of goods inside China? What happens to the price of the suits we are all planning to have tailored in Shanghai?
A common consensus among economists is that the Yuan is undervalued and a stronger Yuan may cause inflation in the rest of the world, seeing as how China is a big exporter of goods to a lot of countries. Inflation is probably considered a good thing for countries looking to jump start their inflationary cycle. I know that the Federal Reserve is worried about deflationary forces currently present in the U.S economy and maybe this is a good way to counteract that concern. I know Greece would love to see inflation ease some of it’s debt burden but I’m not entirely sure how that works completely.
I was wondering about the other implications of the revaluation of the Chinese currency, could this signal a trend towards further reform in China? Can we see that bump in the road (democracy) more clearly now? All of this is of course just speculation on my part and none of this is certain but I know one thing, I’m going to buying Yuan while I’m in China.
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