The conclusion can be drawn from the text that in the wake of Andersen’s scandal, the government()
A. may make only modest change B. will take drastic countermeasures C. will adopt corporate restructuring D. will investigate Enron’s collapse
A.
President Bush takes to the bully pulpit to deliver a stern lecture to America’s business elite. The Justice Dept. stuns the accounting profession by filing a criminal indictment of Arthur Andersen LLP for destroying documents related to its audits of Enron Corp. On Capitol Hill, some congressional panels push on with biased hearings on Enron’s collapse and, now, another busted New Economy star, telecom’s Global Crossing. Lawmakers sign on to new bills aimed at tightening oversight of everything from pensions and accounting to executive pay.
B.
To any spectators, it would be easy to conclude that the winds of change are sweeping Corporate America, led by George W. Bush, who ran as "a reformer with result." But far from deconstructing the corporate world brick by brick into something cleaner, sparer, and stronger, Bush aides and many legislators are preparing modest legislative and administrative reforms. Instead of an overhaul, Bush’s team is counting on its enforcers, Justice and a newly empowered Securities & Exchange Commission, to make examples of the most egregious offenders. The idea is that business will quickly get the message and clean up its own act.
C.
Why won’t the outraged rhetoric result in more changes For starters, the Bush Administration warns that any rush to legislate corporate behavior could produce a raft of flawed bills that raise costs without halting abuses. Business has striven to drive the point home with an intense lobbying blitz that has convinced many lawmakers that over-regulation could startle the stock market and perhaps ener the nascent economic recovery.
D.
All this sets the stage for Washington to get busy with predictably modest results. A surge of caution is sweeping would-be reformers on the Hill. "They know they don’t want to make a big mistake," says Jerry J. Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. That go-slow approach suits the White House. Aides say the President, while personally disgusted by Enron’s sellout of its pensioners, is reluctant to embrace new sanctions that frustrate even law-abiding corporations and create a litigation bonanza for trial lawyers. Instead, the White House will push for narrowly targeted action, most of it carried out by the SEC, the Treasury Dept. , and the Labor Dept. The right outcome, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill said on Mar. 15, "depends on the Congress not legislating things that are over the top."
E.
To O’Neill and Bush, that means enforcing current laws before passing too many new ones. Nowhere is that stance clearer than in the Andersen indictment. So the Bush Administration left the decision to Justice Dept. prosecutors rather than White House political operatives or their reformist fellows at the SEC.
Social-networking sites offer users easy ways to present idealized images of themselves, even if those ideals don’t always square with their real-world personalities. Psychology researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh has discovered a way to poke through the offline-online curtain: she has used Faeebook to predict a person’s level of narcissism and self-esteem.
B.
Mehdizadeh, who conducted the study as an undergraduate at Toronto’s York University, gained access to the Faeebook accounts of 100 college students and measured activities like photo sharing, wall postings and status updates; she also studied how frequently users logged on and how often they remained online during each session. Her findings were published recently in Cyberpsyehology, Behavior and Social Networking.
C.
After measuring each subject using the Narcissism Personality Inventory and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Mehdizadeh, who graduated from York this past spring, discovered narcissists and people with lower self-esteem were more likely to spend more than an hour a day on Facebook and were more prone to post self-promo-tional photos ( striking a pose or using Photoshop, for example). Narcissists were also more likely to showcase themselves through status updates (using phrases like "I’m so glamorous I bleed glitter") and wall activity (posting self-serving links like " My Celebrity Look-alikes" ).
D.
Self-esteem and narcissism are often interrelated but don’t always go hand in hand. Some psychologists believe that narcissists--those who have a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration, as well as a lack of sympathy--unconsciously inflate their sense of self-importance as a defense against feeling inadequate. Not enough empirical research has been produced to confirm that link, although Mehdizadeh’s study seems to support it. Because narcissists have less capacity to sustain intimate or long-term relationships, Mehdizadeh thinks that they would be more drawn to the online world of virtual friends and emotionally detached communication.
E.
Although it seems that Facebook can be used by narcissists to fuel their inflated egos, Mehdizadeh stops short of proclaiming that excessive time spent on Faeebook can turn regular users into narcissists. She also notes that social-networking sites might ultimately be found to have positive effects when used by people with low self-esteem or depression. "If individuals with lower self-esteem are more prone to using Facebook," she says, "the question becomes, ’ Can Facebook help raise self- esteem by allowing patients to talk to each other and help each other in a socially interactive environment’ I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that people with low self-esteem use Facebook.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel won over German voters in the Federal Election on Sept. 27. Can she now be won over by a French charm offensive (1) at repairing the relationship that was once at the heart of Europe That’s the question being asked in Paris, (2) top government officials are (3) talking about their desire to rekindle closer ties (4) their neighbors across the Rhine. (5) the end of World War II the Franco-German relationship has been the motor of European integration, the (6) force behind the creation of the European Union and, more recently, the introduction of the euro. But the ardor has (7) in this decade, particularly under Merkel, who has regularly struggled to (8) her irritation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s grandstanding. Sarkozy, (9) , has often been impatient with what he (10) Merkel’s lack of resolve.
B.
The sometimes (11) personal rapport is a long way from the public shows of affection their predecessors staged, particularly Helmut Kohl and FranCois Mitterrand, who movingly held (12) in 1984 in a Verdun cemetery. There’s been tension on (13) , too. Charles Grant, director of the London-based think tank Centre for European Reform, points out that France and Germany have been (14) on issues from how best to reflate their economies during the economic (15) to the smartest strategies for dealing with Russia.
C.
But influential movers in France are now (16) to put the relationship back on a friendlier footing. In a recent paper French think tank Institute Montaigne (17) an ambitious agenda for the two nations, (18) that a new impetus is needed if Europe’s voice is to be heard in a world (19) of big new players, such as Brazil and India, and at a time when President Obama seems fax more (20) with China and the rest of Asia than with America’s traditional allies in Europe.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel won over German voters in the Federal Election on Sept. 27. Can she now be won over by a French charm offensive (1) at repairing the relationship that was once at the heart of Europe That’s the question being asked in Paris, (2) top government officials are (3) talking about their desire to rekindle closer ties (4) their neighbors across the Rhine. (5) the end of World War II the Franco-German relationship has been the motor of European integration, the (6) force behind the creation of the European Union and, more recently, the introduction of the euro. But the ardor has (7) in this decade, particularly under Merkel, who has regularly struggled to (8) her irritation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s grandstanding. Sarkozy, (9) , has often been impatient with what he (10) Merkel’s lack of resolve.
B.
The sometimes (11) personal rapport is a long way from the public shows of affection their predecessors staged, particularly Helmut Kohl and FranCois Mitterrand, who movingly held (12) in 1984 in a Verdun cemetery. There’s been tension on (13) , too. Charles Grant, director of the London-based think tank Centre for European Reform, points out that France and Germany have been (14) on issues from how best to reflate their economies during the economic (15) to the smartest strategies for dealing with Russia.
C.
But influential movers in France are now (16) to put the relationship back on a friendlier footing. In a recent paper French think tank Institute Montaigne (17) an ambitious agenda for the two nations, (18) that a new impetus is needed if Europe’s voice is to be heard in a world (19) of big new players, such as Brazil and India, and at a time when President Obama seems fax more (20) with China and the rest of Asia than with America’s traditional allies in Europe.
Social-networking sites offer users easy ways to present idealized images of themselves, even if those ideals don’t always square with their real-world personalities. Psychology researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh has discovered a way to poke through the offline-online curtain: she has used Faeebook to predict a person’s level of narcissism and self-esteem.
B.
Mehdizadeh, who conducted the study as an undergraduate at Toronto’s York University, gained access to the Faeebook accounts of 100 college students and measured activities like photo sharing, wall postings and status updates; she also studied how frequently users logged on and how often they remained online during each session. Her findings were published recently in Cyberpsyehology, Behavior and Social Networking.
C.
After measuring each subject using the Narcissism Personality Inventory and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Mehdizadeh, who graduated from York this past spring, discovered narcissists and people with lower self-esteem were more likely to spend more than an hour a day on Facebook and were more prone to post self-promo-tional photos ( striking a pose or using Photoshop, for example). Narcissists were also more likely to showcase themselves through status updates (using phrases like "I’m so glamorous I bleed glitter") and wall activity (posting self-serving links like " My Celebrity Look-alikes" ).
D.
Self-esteem and narcissism are often interrelated but don’t always go hand in hand. Some psychologists believe that narcissists--those who have a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration, as well as a lack of sympathy--unconsciously inflate their sense of self-importance as a defense against feeling inadequate. Not enough empirical research has been produced to confirm that link, although Mehdizadeh’s study seems to support it. Because narcissists have less capacity to sustain intimate or long-term relationships, Mehdizadeh thinks that they would be more drawn to the online world of virtual friends and emotionally detached communication.
E.
Although it seems that Facebook can be used by narcissists to fuel their inflated egos, Mehdizadeh stops short of proclaiming that excessive time spent on Faeebook can turn regular users into narcissists. She also notes that social-networking sites might ultimately be found to have positive effects when used by people with low self-esteem or depression. "If individuals with lower self-esteem are more prone to using Facebook," she says, "the question becomes, ’ Can Facebook help raise self- esteem by allowing patients to talk to each other and help each other in a socially interactive environment’ I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that people with low self-esteem use Facebook.