Rate of return on investments.

This is one of the things we discussed in Finance this week. We talked about why it is important to diversify investments, and how risk was related to the rate of return on investments. The one thing that was mentioned was that diversification was important because while it didn't guarantee a return on investments made, your money spread out in different investments would have a greater chance of a higer return than all of one's eggs put into the proverbial basket. For instance, the employees who invested all of their funds in Enron stocks lost their entire investments. If they had diversified portfolios, they might not have lost their entire investments. We also talked about how the rate of return was related to risk; it stands to reason that the higher the return expected on an investment, the higher the risk was for that investment. For instance, with a stock vs. a CD, a CD guaranteed a return on investment, but at a lower rate, whereas a stock yielded a higher rate of return, but the risk was higher because there is no guarantee that the stockholder or investor would get a return on their investments. The chapter implored investors to consider the pros and cons of different investments and to make the wisest choices for themselves.

In sociology this week, we discussed the concept of cohabitation. Some of the suggested advantages of cohabitation were as follows: ease of terminating a relationship if it didn't work out, getting to really know a person when you live with them, and separate family lives (visiting with one's own family members separate from their partners). One of the disadvantages included not being able to collect on a partner's insurance for oneself and any kids created during the time of cohabitation in the event that one's partner dies or otherwise defects from the relationship. Another disadvantage is that more women find themselves caring for more of the domestic responsibilities than married women, as the partner is not that committed to the relationship.

In marketing, we learned about one-on-one marketing and how companies can utilize this particular marketing strategy to build their customer base by paying attention to customer purchase patterns and targeting that customer or those customers with specific merchandise and/or mailings.