Comic Book Investing - High Risks and Low Gains :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

A few years ago, the popular media of the United States focused on the comic book world for one dramatic, 'tragic' event - the death of Superman.   After months of hype, the long-awaited death issue, Superman #375, was released, packaged in a black bag bearing a blood-red logo, complete with a black arm band.   The book's price immediately skyrocketed.   Thousands of people who normally paid no attention to the comic universe swarmed local shops, driving the book's 'value' to upwards of thirty dollars overnight.   Over the next few weeks, the book could be found with a price tag of as high as $100.   Today, Superman #375 is valued in Wizard: The Guide to Comics at a disappointing, anticlimactic ten bucks. What happened?   To start, the book was printed in enormous quantities.   After the first few weeks of sales, when new shipments of the issue arrived in comic stores, the book's price began to drop.   The long-term value of the book was also adversely affected in two ways.   First, Superman returned to the comic scene, alive and well, a mere four months later.   This may have been a surprise (or an outrage) to many of the non-collectors who purchased the book, but was not much of a shock to the average fifteen-year old Superman fan, well acquainted with the 'dead today, back tomorrow' mentality of the genre.   Finally, the black package or "polybag," while supposedly designed to preserve the book, was actually made of a cheap, slightly-acidic plastic that would eventually turn the issue's once-white pages to a plaque-like brown.   Thus, collectors were forces to decide between damaging their copy of Superman #375 by opening it or by keeping it in it's corrosive wrappin g.   Both paths ultimately led to a drop in the book's value. Sadly enough, this sort of hype with no follow-through occurs on a near-monthly basis in the world of comics.   Major publishing houses routinely emphasize the 'collectibility' of their output, hoping to snag the attention of young collectors eager to validate their hobby by earning a bit of cash on the side.   The simple truth is that the vast majority of the comics that are produced today are highly unlikely to become valuable, mostly because of one simple, undeniable fact. Today's comics are published in enormous quantities.   A typical issue of The Amazing Spider Man will have a print run between 300,000 and 500,000 copies.

Presidents And Affirmative Action :: essays research papers

Presidents and Affirmative Action In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order #11246 at Howard University that required federal contractors to undertake affirmative action to increase the number of minorities that they employ. He wanted to ensure that minorities were recruited to have real opportunities to be hired and then eventually get a promotion. In 1969, the Department of Labor exposed widespread racial discrimination of the Construction Department so President Richard M. Nixon decided to encorporate a system of "goals and timetables" to evaluate federal construction companies according to affirmative action. This idea of "goals and timetables" provided guidelines for companies to follow and comply with affirmative action regulations. During the presidency of Gerald R. Ford, he extended affirmative action to people with disabilities (3) and Vietnam veterns (4) but there were no goals or timetables for these two groups. This type of affirmative action required recruitment efforts, accessability, accommodation and reviews of physical and mental job qualifications. President Jimmy Carter consolidated all federal agencies that were required by law to follow the affirmative action play into the Department of Labor. Before Carter did this, each agency handled affirmative action in its own individual way, some were not as consistant as other agencies were. He created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP) in 1978 to ensure compliance with the affirmative action policies. Affirmative action began to go downhill when Ronald Reagan and later George Bush came into office. Affirmative action lost some gains it had made and was mor or less ignored by the Republicans in the White House and in Congress. Affirmative action was silently being "killed" by our federal administrators. But among this destruction there was one positive aspect, the passage of Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (5). Finally to the Presidency of Bill Clinton. The Republicans are attempting to scare people into changing their party lines by misusing affirmative action. They are saying that affirmative action is nothing more than a quota (6) or reverse discrimination (7).