Chapter 14 blog

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/debt-collection-bad-economy-1265.php

Summary：
The article I read has an interesting name called “Struggling debt collectors to debtors: Let's make a deal.” In our daily life, as some credit cards and some debt delinquencies haven raised, collecting on overdue and bad debt has declined sharply. The economic downturn and unemployment rate increases force many debt collectors to try some new strategies for getting money back.
Some new strategies are:
- Accepting down payments on amounts owed instead of demanding payment in full.
- Stretching out payments over several months to give debtors a chance to pay off their debts slowly.
- Negotiating to receive a fraction of the amount owed if paid within a week or 10 days.
- Offering to report the debt -- if paid quickly -- as "paid in full" on the credit report instead of as a settlement, which remains on a debtor's record for seven years.
However, not every new strategy is easy on debtor since many credit card agencies are taking legal action sooner and filing lawsuits to get court judgments up from rather than just waiting for the money.

Connection:
The connection between this article and chapter 14 is the word “credit card” since most information in chapter 14 is talking about credit card. Today, the use of credit card is gradually substituting the use of cash, people found the use of credit card is safe, convenience and easy. However, this also raises some problems, like the debtors do not pay the payments back in the designate period, some people use the advantage of credit card to overdraw and so on. These problems make credit card agencies really hard, so they try to make new strategies to change the situation right now.

Reflection:
Due to the economy situation right now, to create some new strategies mentioned above maybe is a good way to deal with the debt delinquencies. To extend the payment period, stretches out payments sometime do help the people with financial problems. I think another way to change this situation is the credit card agencies need to consider more on the applicants’ financial position when they apply for the credit cards. Make sure the applicants have the ability to pay the payments back is very important.

Chapter 12 Blog

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/10/27/toyotasales.html

Summary:
This time, the article I read on the http://www.cbc.ca/ is named “Toyota sales slip for the first time in seven years”. The world economy for the second half year of 2008 is dark. Stock prices fall, oil prices drop and everything relates to the money is affect by the economy situation right now. Toyota Motor Corp. is an example for that. Toyota Motor Corp. said on Monday its world sales fell in the July-September quarter, marking the first decline in seven years for the Japanese automobile maker. The company only sold 2.24 million between July to September, and it is down four per cent compares to the same three months in 2007. The reason caused sales decline is weakening U.S. demands. The Toyotas sales of September in U.S. fell thirty-two percent due to the economic recession. Previously, Toyota’s U.S. sales had been supported by demand for fuel-efficient vehicles. On the other hands, Toyota has been battling with General Motors Company for the top spot in global vehicle sales too. In 2007, General Motor’s group sales 9.37 million for total, and it is just ahead of Toyota’s sale of 9.366 million vehicles. Therefore, we can estimate the total sales of 2008 for Toyota Motor Corp. may below 9.366 million because the sales are suffered in the economy recessions now.

Connection:
The main connection between this article and the information in Chapter 12 in our textbook is the word “Sales Slip” as we can see in the title. In our textbook, Chapter 12 introduces five kinds journal entries include the Sales Journal. The source documents for sales journal are sales invoices, charge sales slips and credit invoices issued. Absolutely we know that the most common way people buy and pay for their cars is down payment. Down payment means a person will issue a cheque for the partly payments of his car when the first time he bought it, then issue the cheques every month until the day he paid all his car debt. Therefore, Toyota Motor Corp. must have sales journal for the cars it sales. The transaction entries for this will be debit the bank, account receivable, and credit the sales revenue, GST and PST payable. However, since the economy does not do very well right now, the sales of Toyota Motor Corp will decrease, which means there are less sales journal than before. In addition, the revenue will decrease too.

Reflection:

Sometimes, some people may pay full amounts of the cars’ payment when they buy them; so the transaction entries for that will be much simple and easier. Debit the bank, credit the sales revenue, GST and PST payable. You do not need to debit the account receivables since there are no down payments. The sales journal is a major journal that direct affects your revenue and your net income. Therefore, due to what article said its sales fell down to the bottom, which means its revenue for this year will fall down. However, the decreasing of the revenue does not mean it will have a net loss. The people who work for Toyota Motor Corp. should pay attention to their jobs right now because due to the economy situation right now, many companies are beginning to cut the employees.

Chapter 11 blog

http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/top-stories/2008/09/03/meeting-challenges


Summary:
The article I read on www.bcbusinessonline.com by Peter Mitham talked about the challenges BC tourism will meet and the affects of convention centers and hoteliers. In this summer, a strong dollar, high fuel prices and economic storm clouds south of the border dogged B.C. tourism operators. The favorable exchange rates sent domestic travelers south of the border. In recent years, 80 per cent of B.C.’s foreign visitors came from U.S; however, since the US dollars were equal to the Canadian dollars, the visitors in U.S were no longer came to Canada. Therefore, these trends are going to make it very difficult for the convention business and hoteliers. Competition among small-scale convention centers is already a fierce battle, and the economic pressures gathering steam only promise to make it more so.

Connection:
The connection between the article and the information in the text is merchandising. As the article mentioned above, BC will lose a lot tourists from U.S since the exchange rates goes to 1:1. This will not only effect the convention centers and hoteliers, but also will effect the merchandisings in B.C. Many merchandisers in B.C. have their stores locate around the tourism places, but since the tourism rate went down, the merchandisers may not earn as much as they want. On the other hand, if the merchandisers will only made little amounts of sales, their gross profits will decrease.

Reflection:
The article above should attract the attentions of marketing departments in the companies. Before the tourism in B.C. will meet challenges, the people in marketing departmenst should make good plans in order to face the rescissions follow by. Especially to some merchandisers who have their stores around the tourism places or some merchandisers put their main forces on earning tourists’ money. By the way, the two plans any merchandisers can use are: first, you may decrease your inventories because you may not sale as much as before; second, you may want to design a good promotion plan in order to attract as many customers as you can.