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Judging from tales about the rise and fall of empires, there is always a point when things are going so well that the emperors doubt that anything could ever go wrong. "Thrift," warned Nero’s adviser Seneca, "comes too late when you find it at the bottom of your purse. " In the Old World, nations grew fat and then lazy, until they collapsed under their own weight. But that was not to be our story. American greatness—the vision of the founders, the courage of the pioneers, the industry of the nation builders—reflected a mighty faith in the power of sacrifice as a muscle that made young nations strong. Banks were like gyms for the soul: the first savings banks in Boston and New York were organized as charities, where "bumble journeymen" could exercise good judgment, store their money and not be tempted to waste it on drink. Architect Louis Sullivan carved the word THRIFT over the door of his "jewel box" bank nearly a century ago, for it was private virtue that made public prosperity possible. That virtue died with the baby boom, but it had been ailing ever since the Depression, argues cultural historian David Tucker in the Decline of Thrift in America. That crisis, he writes, invited economists to recast thrift as "the contemptible vice which threw sand in the gears of our consumer economy. " A White House report in 1931 urged parents to let children pick out their own clothes and furniture, thereby creating in the child "a sense of personal as well as family pride in ownership, and eventually teaching him that his personality can be expressed through things. " Somewhere along the way, thrift did not just stop being a value; it became a folly. Saving was for suckers; you’d miss the ride, die leaving money on the table when you could have lived it up. There are no pockets in a shroud, as the saying goes. We once saved about 15% of our income. By the roaring 80s the rate was 4%; now we’re in negative numbers. Bob Hope liked to joke that "a bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. " But that too changed as easy credit bloomed and usury became another of those vices that had somehow lost its juice. The average American has nine credit cards with a total $17, 000 balance. We borrow against our houses and pensions to live in a way that dares us to actually grow old. "Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon. " Fidelity mastermind Peter Lynch advised, but we embraced all kinds of investments about which we understood nothing except the hollow promise that they would never fail. When the economy began to swoon we kept spending, effectively sending ourselves rebate checks from accounts already way overdrawn, as if it would make us feel better to buy a new TV and charge it to our kids. George W. Bush has never been reluctant to frame policy debates in moral terms, targeting an "axis of evil", casting tax cuts as the removal of unfair burdens on hardworking people, calling tariff reduction a moral imperative. But thrift is one virtue he never invokes, and a restoration of restraint is a strain of conservatism he seldom promotes. In fact, it was after the most tragic day in modern U.S. history, when Bush urged people who wanted to help to go shopping, that profligacy officially replaced prudence as a patriotic duty. There’s no way to tell during this cun’ent distress whether we’re repenting or just retrenching. Thriftstore sales are up. Cats are shrinking. P. Diddy retired his private jet to save on gas. In hard times, people often rediscover the peace that prudence brings, when you try to spend a little less than you have because tomorrow might be worse. But that feels almost un-American; we’re optimists by nature, and we’ve been living large for so long that solvency feels like a sacrifice. It will take some sustained character education—and leadership—to understand that morning in America is more likely to come again if we prepare for midnight. The author is likely to agree that
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Background InformationBusiness communication is used to promote a product, service, or organization; relay information within the business: or deal with legal and similar issues. It is also a means of relaying between a supply chain, for example, the consumer and manufacturer. At its most basic level, the purpose of communication in the workplace is to provide employees with the information they need to do their jobs. Business communication encompasses a variety of topics, including Marketing, Branding, Customer relations, Consumer behavior, Advertising, Public relations, Corporate communication, Community engagement, Research & Measurement, Reputation management, Interpersonal communication, Employee engagement, Online communication, and Event management. It is closely related to the fields of professional communication and technical communication. Business is conducted through various channels of communication, including the Internet, Print(Publications), Radio, Television, Ambient media, Outdoor, and Word of mouth. Midnight Apps Had Failed A small little application called Cha-Ching, developed by Midnight Apps, was offering licenses for its next version in the Macheist bundle. Users would be invited to beta test the next version of Cha-Ching if they bought the bundle and all was glorious. Unfortunately, what happened was a complete failure of Midnight App’s communication strategy for the application. It really starts with this thread on the Macheist forums. While the developer did respond in this forum, you can sense the frustration stemming from a lack of progress updates from the developers. In fact, in the thread where people are wondering where the beta application is, the conversation starts to turn against the company. The conversation gets so heated, that users begin recommending other applications. One forum poster takes a stab at Midnight Apps by recommending Moneywell: the reason given-- "developers are committed". The commentator "rookie" even goes so far as to say "So I take it, we’ve given up on ever seeing Cha-Ching 2.0" This hostility then pours out to their own forum where people post threads like this one. Midnight Apps had failed to meet their promise of a beta, and then failed to communicate why. The users were revolting, but they weren’t just angry, they started recommending other products. So why did many of the forum users recommend Moneywell What was the difference Communication is the only way The answer was quite simple.Kevin Hoctor, the developer of Moneywell, is a master of support and communication. You can take one quick glance at nearly every single post on the Moneywell user forums and see that Kevin is involved in nearly every one. This approach constrains his time and his resources, but the man is still able to release builds and fixes. While Moneywell is not updated weekly, his customers feel confident in their software choice. This is what lead disenchanted Cha-Ching users to point others in his direction, and his communication efforts explain one of the modem tenants of good business and why Midnight Apps created a mess for themselves. Steady communication builds steady/loyal customers Communication, and a steady channel of communication, is what turns a good company into a fantastic company. It is one of the key tenants of modem web applications, where the principle concept is "ask the users" . People feel more invested in their software, their design and their website if they are constantly reminded of your awareness of them. There are always exceptions to the communication rule, and there are instances of constant user feedback ruining communication. However, most websites, software, and pretty much any consumer/business relationship benefits from having a steady stream of updates. It builds consumer trust and lets the user know their co-existence with your product is valid. There is a happy ending to this story The great news is that Midnight Apps realized their stream of non-communication was not worth the productivity time it gave them. They could generate more users and carve out more interest in their application by opening themselves up and talking about what happened. They even asked "How are we doing" to extremely positive reviews after their communication efforts increased 100-fold. This goodwill has spread to their business and applications, as Cha-Ching for iPhone is an excellent application. Constant communication, even if you feel like you have nothing to say, makes everyone feel involved in the process. Don’t waste it just saying hello, or talking about the weather, but explain what you’re doing and what’s happening. Don’t wait for the juicy update, give micro-updates. People will always want to know more about what’s coming, but a taste of what’s happening now will appease them. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to send out a weekly email, but its reward is almost 1 000%. So, get on with it.Exercises enchant
In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range of his vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence he kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman’s calendar as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich yon Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy. The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it "afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner’s territorial possessions. A famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, had wrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of petty landowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgment of the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandals had embittered the relationships between the families for three generations. The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one since Ulrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the world whom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of the quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed border-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or been compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in the way. As boys they had thirsted for one another’s blood, as men each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this windscourged winter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the dark forest, not in quest of fourfooted quarry, but to keep a look-out for the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the land boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm-wind, were running like driven things tonight, and there was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing element in the forest, and Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came. The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to the passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the code of a restraining eivilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an offence against his hearth and honour. And before the moment of hesitation had given way to action a deed of Nature’s own violence overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass of falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich yon Gradwitz found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and the other held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches, while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting-boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if his fractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it was evident that he could not move from his present position till some one came to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his face, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side, so near that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have touched him, lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously as helplessly pinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick-strewn wreckage of splintered branches and broken twigs. We know from the first paragraph that Ulrich von Gradwitz
甲公司职工人数为120人，全体职工均于2010年3月1日签订了1年期的劳动合同。从2010年9月起，由于市场发生变化，生产经营发生严重困难，甲公司开始拖欠职工工资。 2011年1月，甲公司濒临破产，被法院裁定进行重整。甲公司决定裁减部分职工，裁减人数初步确定为18人，不支付经济补偿。公司要求被裁减人员办理解除劳动合同手续时遭到拒绝。后经公司再次研究，修改裁员方案，裁减人数修改为10人，并按有关法律规定向被裁减人员支付经济补偿。赵某认为自己不应当被裁减，理由是自己还有6年就退休了，为公司已连续工作17年，没有功劳也有苦劳，公司认为其理由不能成立。 2011年5月，甲公司经过重整，生产经营好转，决定重新向社会招聘职工。赵某得知后，要求在同等条件下被优先聘用。 要求：根据上述资料，回答问题。 下列说法中正确的有（）
某生产企业位于城市郊区，公司相关情况如下： (1)该企业2010年初实际占用的60000平方米土地面积中，企业内的职工医院和托儿所共占地2000平方米，经批准改造的废弃土地占地5000平方米(已使用3年)，厂区内直接用于鸡鸭养殖的用地6000平方米，除上述土地外，其余土地均为该企业生产经营用地。另外，2010年6月21日，经批准，此企业新征用非耕地5000平方米的土地使用权。 (2)2010年企业拥有10辆客车、自重为5吨的三轮汽车5辆、自重20吨的载货卡车10辆。 已知：当地政府规定，该地每平方米城镇土地使用税年税额为3元；载客汽车年单位税额450元，载货汽车的车船税税额为70元/吨。 要求：根据上述资料，回答下列小题。 该企业2010年应缴纳的城镇土地使用税为( )元。
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