Meaning of Life Essay Example for Free

Meaning of Life Essay We ask ourselves everyday if our life has meaning. We view our lives and others lives in different ways. I agree with life being viewed as a game, and life as learning is adding meaning to our life. I disagree with life having no meaning at all. Every human being views life differently and believes your life is influenced by different ideas and lessons. Life as a game creates a theory that we cant just take our lives too seriously or else we wont be happy and feel as if we have fulfilled our lives and/or our purpose on earth. In our textbook it says if you believe your life is a game, you must pick the type of game you wish to play in your life. You can play games that are purely for fun, for superiority, social, hurting your opponents, or to help others. If you pick to have your game of life to be played just for fun then this could possibly be the happiest way to play your game of life. When being able to play a game for fun it excludes the worry of being judged and having to conquer other opponents to become the winner in your game of life. Your opponents could be your friends, family, co-workers, peers, mentors throughout your life and this could make you a miserable person if they turn their backs on you, or fight against your game of life. If we pick to play our life in a game to hurt our opponents then do we decide who our opponent is? Our opponents could be people in our lives who we do not like. They could become our friends and family and if we disagree, then do they become an opponent to us because we dont see eye to eye? There are so many different ways you could pick to play your game of life. And only you can pick your game, but others around us do influence our choice of what we choose for a game. We dont want to pick a game to which we are setting ourselves up to become targeted as a loser. We all want to be the winner. I believe in our game of life we should be able to choose if we are going to be the winner in our game of life and who the losers will be. Or should everyone be a winner? Some games in particular could cause chaos in our lives. If we choose to play our life as a competitive game then this could end up giving us enemies, and then what is life really about when you have people against you. In a competitive game it is hard to see the ending outcome of the game, so it is always a gamble to what your life or even the next day might bring. When you dont know what the next day will bring, does the rules in your game of life change? It is possible when playing a game, the rules will change and new ones can be created and taken away. As little kids playing games, when they dont like a rule, or merely forget a rule, this changes the game. And these changes affect the outcome of your ending result. Unfortunately I think the rules of your game can change because you learn new things and new technology comes out every day. Life as learning is something we all are introduced to throughout our lives. But do we pay attention to the things life is trying to teach us? Our textbook refers to having a bad experience and turning it into a situation we can learn from. I think we take all situations we are put into and get some kind of lesson or moral meaning out of it. If you view life in different ways then it could change how you react to your life lessons and the idea you should get out of the story. I believe we should all try everything once if it is presented to us and it is morally right. If you cant live your life to the fullest, then are you actually learning everything you can from your life? Do we encounter things in our life because we should learn from them? Is life supposed to have flaws so we can become a better person and make ourselves better prepared for the next time the problem arises? We can ask ourselves all theses questions and if we listen to the ending result and want to understand then we will take something out of the issue as a life learning situation. But can we shut the ideas and ending decisions out, and ignore the life lesson? I think that each and every event that happens in our life was presented to us to teach us a new life lesson and prepare us better for the next time if it comes up in our life again. These life lessons can hurt us but if life was perfect all the time, then when faced with a flaw in our life we wouldnt know how to respond and cope with the problem. Some people in life cant face their flaws of life and walk away or give up. People might do this because they cant deal with the pain and suffering they believe they are being faced with. With the two philosophies above I do agree that our life is a game, and life is learning. We pick what we want to believe and understand. And in our life we play a game where we can pick the winners and losers. We believe that we make the ending decision in our life and pick what our life stories and experiences actually mean. When we are surprised with conflict and a sudden problem, we might not be able to control our life until we can understand what is going on. And if we take time to understand, then arent we still controlling our life? We could always walk away and ignore the new problem. The idea I disagree with the most is life has no meaning at all. Albert Camus said in his book The Myth of Sisyphus that the absurd had become a widespread sensibility in our times. He also relates life having no meaning at all to atheism. If there is no external meaning, then he believes there is no point in life. If life had no meaning then wouldnt we careless about our future and live for that moment. If life has no meaning then would we be in school trying to receive a quality education? Albert Camus believes that most humans are frightened by the idea of living on earth with no purpose to life. And this allows humans to create a purpose to live. In our textbook it states a quote from his book, The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of it own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. This to me means that when you are asked to conquer something that is impossible for you to accomplish, then it is the worse thing that would happen in your life. This makes you feel like you have failed at what god has asked you to do. I believe we all have a meaningful life. Each and every one of us affects someone in the world, either if its a positive way or sometimes in a negative way. We wont always realize our affect on others unless it is pointed out to us. As we discussed in class, a drug addict might share his story, and affect children and teenagers and show them the life they lived and how they are now. I think as a teacher you add meaning to your life by teaching others about a variety of topics in life and history. The question does life have a meaning is worth answering. Each and every one of us has our own opinion of life and if it has meaning. We truly cant look up the definition in the dictionary and believe that is what life is. We need to look at our personal situations, as well as experiences to see how it molds our view of what life means. The definition of life from The American College Dictionary states a corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived as belonging to the soul. This to me means that as long as we have a presence on earth they have life on earth. This definition isnt the only one about life; we create our own meaning which is molded to our life. If life is just about existence, then life may have no meaning. We are here on earth to impact people in same way and form. If we are here just for existence then we arent living life. In reality I think life can be looked at in many different ways and there is not just one definition. Is their just one definition and would this change the way we live our lives? Would we be different people than who we are today? Life is a special thing, and we can view our life in different perspectives. As mentioned in my paper we can view life as a game, as learning, and life can have no meaning at all. I dont agree with all the ways we can view our life, but each and every one of us can pick our own way to view life. For me I agree with the fact that life is a game. We pick if we want to play a game for fun, or to be the king of the world. The way we decide to play our life game determines who we are as a person and it helps affect the mood we are in. I also believe life as learning. In life we are given many different life lessons. And what we take from these life lessons is teaching us life. If we dont take the time to learn, then our life isnt complete. Or we at least arent living our life to the fullest. I disagree with the fact that our life has no meaning. We make our having meaning, and if we dont put meaning in our life, then it will be meaningless. You might view your life as meaningless, and to others your life could be filled with meaning. Your view of your life can be different than the way others view your life. Life can have many different meanings and can affect our lives in different ways. In the end we choose what our life will be, and how we will live our life. No one else can choose how you should live your life. In the end it is your choice and your choice alone. We can be influenced by others, but they cant make the final decisions.

Educational Equity :: essays research papers

Develop an argument on or some ideas of understanding about curriculum as multicultural text by relating the works of Darling-Hammond, French, & Garcia-Lopez, Delpit, Duarte & Smith, Greene, Nieto and Sletter to your experience of curriculum, teaching, and learning as affirming diversity. You could think specifically about the following questions: Is there a need for diversity in curriculum studies and designs? Why? What measures do you think will be effective in incorporating such a need into curriculum studies and designs? What is the relevance of diversity to your career goal, to education in your family, community, and school, to education in Georgia, and to education in general? In which way can you develop a curriculum which helps cultivate empathy, compassion, passion, and hope for citizens of the world, and which fosters social justice? â€Å"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Declaration of Independence,1776) This quote is symbolic of the expressed opinions and ideology of the founding fathers of America. History, especially the history of the American educational system, paints a contradictory portrait. Idealistic visions of equity and cultural integration are constantly bantered about; however, they are rarely implemented and materialized. All men are indeed created equal, but not all men are treated equally. For years, educators and society as a whole have performed a great disservice to minorities in the public school sector. If each student is of equal value, worth, and merit, then each student should have equal access and exposure to culturally reflective learning opportunities. In the past, minorities have had a muted voice because of the attitude of the majority. Maxine Greene summarizes a scene from E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, after which she poses questions that many minorities have no doubt asked silently or loud. â€Å"Why is he unseen? Why were there no Negroes, no immig rants? More than likely because of the condition of the minds of those in power, minds that bestowed upon many others the same invisibility that Ellison’s narrator encounters† (Greene,1995, p. 159). Multicultural education is needed because it seeks to eradicate â€Å"invisibility† and give voice, power, and validation to the contributions and achievements of people with varied hues, backgrounds, and experiences. Multicultural education is a process of comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students. It challenges and rejects racism and other forms of discrimination in schools and society and accepts and affirms pluralism (ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, and gender, among others) that students, their communities, and teachers reflect (Nieto, 2000).

Has Our Political System Succeeded Essay

The political system began with the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson on July 4, 1776. After that document the Articles of Confederation came out, which were adopted in 1777. The Articles of Confederation was the first attempt to set up a government in the US. Then our Constitution came out in 1787,it was made into three plans: the Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, and then the Connecticut compromise. Four things our Constitution accomplished were indirect democracy, limited government, checks and majority rule, and an outline of what the different branches of government do. The US two main parties are Republican and Democrat. The Democratic Party was founded in 1828, and the Republican party was founded in 1854. Our political system has succeeded in many forms. One form would be our checks and balances within the federal government and on a local level. Provisions have been improved over the years to regulate proper placement of funds and equal rights to citizens. The origin of our political system begins with congress. The main responsibilities of congress are making laws, overseeing the FBI and CIA, casework, representing their districts, setting an agenda, and conflict resolution. Our society has relied upon a bicameral system, where there have been a House of Representatives and a Senate. Some of the responsibilities of the House of Representatives include reviewing bills and beginning the impeachment process. The Senate’s duties include giving advice and consenting on treaties, conducting impeachment trials, and appointing upper-level judicial officers. Where I feel our political system has not done so well is with bureaucrats. Bureaucracy has some positive aspects like specialization, making sure rules and regulations are carried out, and neutrality. There are two types of bureaucrats. The first one is a civil servant who is hired based on merit, and the second one is a political appointee who is selected based on whom they know. It is a common issue that bureaucrats are given too much power and that they abuse those powers, which causes flaws in our political system. It does, however, seem that bureaucrats are vital for the functioning of any political system; they are generally not well liked, though. Several attempts to reform bureaucracy have been made, such as the Sunshine laws, which are laws that dictated that agencies have to be conducted in the public eye. Privatization is another reform where the government turns over more jobs to private sectors. A good change for our society was when the Government Performance and Results Act of 1997 were introduced. This sought to improve governmental efficiency by making agencies describe their goals and create mechanisms for evaluating their goals. Overall, our political system has proven to be stable and has succeeded. Of course, there are going to be positive and negative aspects, but, at the end, for what our nation has had to deal with in the past 228 years, we have done far better than any other country.

Shipping companies listed on New Yorks Stock Exchange - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 10 Words: 3081 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Business Essay Type Research paper Did you like this example? This study was based on 21 shipping companies listed in New York Stock Exchange, over the period of 2005 to 2009. On the table below the selected shipping companies are shown. Shipping Companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange DIANA SHIPPING INC NAVIOS MARITIME HOLDINGS INC 3 SAFE BULKERS INC 4 GENCO SHIPPING TRADING LIMITED 5 TEEKAY CORPORATION 6 TSAKOS ENERGY NAVIGATION LIMITED 7 EXCEL MARITIME CARRIERS LTD 8 DANAOS CORPORATION 9 AEGEAN MARINE PETROLEUM NETWORK INCORPORATION 10 FRONTLINE LIMITED 11 SEACOR HOLDINGS INCORPORATED 12 NORDIC TANKERS 13 GLOBAL SHIP LEASE INCORPORATION 14 GENERAL MARITIME CORPORATION 15 SEASPAN CORPORATION 16 SHIP FINANCE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 17 KIRBY CORPORATION 18 OVERSEAS SHIPHOLDING GROUP, INC 19 DHT MARITIME INCORPORATION 20 INTERNATIONAL SHIPHOLDING CORPORATION 21 TIDEWATER INC This paper seeks to examine the relationship among three corporate governance mechanisms (board composition, chief executive status and audit committee) and some firm performance measures (return on investment capital, return on equity, Return on Assets and Current Ratio). Also , the essay examines the relationship among these three corporate governance mechanisms and the operating performance (Net Sales to Operating Cost) of the corporations. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Shipping companies listed on New Yorks Stock Exchange" essay for you Create order Part 1 Corporate Governance Corporate governance is the set of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions affecting the way a corporation (or company) is directed, administered or controlled with the objective to enhance shareholders wealth. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the stakeholders involved and the goals by which the corporation is governed. It is supposed that better corporate governance leads to better corporate performance by preventing the expropriation of controlling shareholders and ensuring better decision-making. Corporate governance is a priority along with financial indicators when evaluating investment decisions according to investors. The majority of them are prepared to pay a premium for companies having high governance standards. On the opposite, there are also bad forms of corporate governance that lead corporations to problems. Good corporate governance is considered to be a fundamental necessity to run a firm successfully. Moreover corporate gov ernance is a process which can ensure growth for a firm and the economy in general. Most of the selected shipping companies are foreign private issuers established in Marshal or Bermuda islands. The minority of the selected companies are U.S corporations. Consequently most of them are not required to comply with the corporate governance practices followed by U.S. companies following the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing standards. However, they are required to state any significant differences between their corporate governance practices and the practices required by the NYSE according to Section 303.A.11 of the NYSE Listed Company Manual.  Furthermore almost every chosen shipping company adopts NYSE required practices, such as having a majority of independent directors, establishing audit and compensation and nominating committees as well as adopting a Code of Ethics. NYSE requires companies to adopt and disclose corporate governance guidelines.   The guidelines should address to the director qualification standards, the director responsibilities, the director access to management and independent advisers, the director compensation, the director orientation and continuing education, management succession as well as an annual performance evaluation. However,   most of the shipping companies trade in NYSE are not obliged to comply with these rules due to that they are foreign private issuers as well as most of them are offshore. For these companies there is no obligation of complying with any corporate governance guidelines or code of ethics. Shareholders can be informed via the annual reports and Code of Ethics, both of which have been publicly filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission available on the companies web-sites. Corporate governance guidelines and shipping companies intend to publish an overview of the Companys guiding principles which focuses on social issues. This Code cannot cover every app licable law or provide answers to all questions that may arise but it can set out general principles about an organization belief on matters such as mission, quality, conflicts of interest, internal reporting, privacy or the environment. Furthermore, it may define proper procedures to determine whether a violation of the code of ethics has occurred. Code of ethics and corporate social responsibility is a neglected issue in the shipping industry. Traditionally there is no reason for the shipping companies to invest in advertising or in any other activity that could improve their image. Consequently the main goal of the management of a shipping company is to attract as many as possible new clients. Any characteristic that can improve the reputation of the company is not a priority for the managers of a shipping company. Many years have passed and shipping companies were not obliged to follow some rules of social responsibilities. Fortunately, the last decade various regulations hav e been imposed to the operation of a shipping company, although the control mechanisms were not always efficient. Board of Directors An important aspect that influences the corporate governance is the board of directors. The board of directors plays an important role to the company operation. It oversees top management and is entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring and supervising the company resources and operation. Moreover, it undertakes the obligation of appointing a qualified person as the Chief Executive Officer and other management staff. Therefore, the board is seen as a team of individuals with fiduciary responsibilities of leading and directing a firm, with the primary objective of protecting the shareholders interests with high sense of integrity and commitment to the firm. The role of the Board is significant in designing efficient corporate monitoring and ratification mechanisms. With respect to reducing agency costs at the Board level, Boards of directors have three key decision rights: (1) Monitoring (2) Ratification (3) Reward and punishment rights. They may even remove top managers fr om their positions and sanction them for their decisions. NYSE rules require the size of the board of directors not to be smaller than three members. As it can be observed by the survey the size of the board of directors of the sample is between five and seven members. Although there are some shipping companies that have more than seven members in the board and some others that have less than five members. It can be concluded that the majority of the board members in the board of directors are outside directors (member of a company board of directors who is not an employee or stakeholder in the company). The role of independent directors on the board of directors is to effectively monitor and control firm activities in reducing opportunistic managerial behaviors and expropriation of firm resources. The majority of the board members are outsiders for most of the companies; some of them use relatives as well as acquaintances as board members. This indicates a tendency for the shipp ing companies to be governed by a closed team of people. In accordance to NYSE rules the board should have audit, compensation, and nominating committees made up entirely by outside directors. Almost all of them are consisted by the three obligatory committees opposed to the majority of the selected shipping companies that do not have the obligation to comply with the NYSE rules. The role of these committees is significant; they are assigned to evaluate the board The role of the Audit Committee The purpose of the Audit Committee is to: Monitor the integrity of the firm financial statements. Monitor the qualifications, independence and performance of the company independent auditors. Monitor the performance of the company internal audit function. The audit committee ensures that the books of the company are not fake and that shareholders are properly informed of the financial status of the firm. In this essay it is made an effort to examine the importance of the audit committee in shipping companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE requires from a listed U.S. company to have an audit committee with a minimum of three members. But it is permitted by Rule 10A-3 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that audit committees of foreign companies can have less than three independent members in the audit committee. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Status The Chief Executive Officer position and the whole management team is an important position to hold in a corporation. They are responsible for Operating the firm in an effective way. Preparing the annual operating plans and budgets. Establishing an effective system of internal control. In this essay it is examined the role of the Chief executive officer (CEO) in the shipping companies. There are two types of leadership structure i.e. combined leadership structure and separated structure. Combined leadership structure happens when the CEO is also the chairman of the board. On the other hand separated leadership structure takes place when the Chairman of the board is a different person from the CEO. Many studies identifying the implications of CEO duality exist. It is thought that the operating performance may be improved as a result of less debate among the CEO and chairman and/or other directors. From the sample of the shipping companies that it was taken a significant tendency cannot be provided. In some of the shipping companies the CEO is also the chairman of the board while in others is not. Part 2 Methodology The aim of this research is to figure out if the corporate governance mechanisms have an effect on firm performance. Therefore, the measurement of firm performance is primarily comprised of two factors: operating and financial performance. The data used for this research were extracted from the audited financial statements of 21 shipping companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange. The survey covers the time period through 2005 2009. The sample consists of the annual observations for the board size of every company, for the CEO status and for the size of the audit committee of every shipping company. The aim of the research is to find if these corporate governance mechanisms influence the operating and financial performance ratios. Consequently regression models have been constructed in order to prove the association between the corporation governance in operating and financial performance. Microsoft Excel and the statistical package Eviews were used so as to collect the data run the appropriate regressions and identify the results. Moreover except from the companies annual reports a lot of information was extracted through the Thomson Database. In the end panel data methodology was adopted because it combined time series and cross sectional data. The method of analysis is that of multiple regressions and the method of estimation is Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). By running the appropriate regressions via Eviews and by using Return on equity and the profit margin as the dependent variables, the results were considered inadequate. Consequently it was considered integral to proceed to further research. That is why the below financial ratios were used as dependent variables. For the financial performance: Return on equity ratio: Profitability ratio, it can indicate the management effectiveness Return on assets ratio: Profitability ratio, it can also indicate the management effectiveness Return on investment capital ratio: Profitability r atio, it can also indicate the management effectiveness Current ratio: liquidity  ratio Finally in order to measure the operating performance: The above formulas contributed on calculating the ratios of the shipping companies for the time period of 2005 2009. Moreover, many independent variables were used to define the most accurate and specifically those that would give some results. Consequently as independent variables are defined the above: Out_Board = the proportion of the independent directors over the total directors. CEO = if the same person occupies the post of the chairman of the board and the Chief executive is defined by valuing with zero, otherwise value with one. Audcom1 = the proportion of the audit committee. In the end in order to run the regression, the economic models should be defined. For the return on equity: For the return on assets For the return on investment capital For the current ratio So as to measure the op erating performance of the shipping companies the above economic model was used. Furthermore the above parameters should be defined. ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²o:Constant term ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²1:Coefficient of the regression ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²2: Coefficient of the regression ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²3: Coefficient of the regression eit: Disturbance term Empirical Results and Discussion It is important to mention some important data before continuing to comment on the outputs of the regression. First of all the regression outputs will be tested for all the three confidence intervals 90%,95% and 99%. In order to have a statistical significant output the t statistic has to be greater than 1.64, 1.96 and 2.576 respectively. Moreover so as to have a statistically significant variable the p value has to be less than 0,1 , 0.05 and 0.01 respectively. As it can be observed from the table below, the three independent variables are statistically insignificant because the t statistics are lower than the critical values. Moreover it can be confirmed because all the p values are greater than the level of significance. Dependent Variable: ROE Method: Panel Least Squares Total panel (unbalanced) observations: 99 Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob. OUT_BOARD -0.00683 0.552604 -0.01236 0.9902 CEO 0.017437 0.17098 0.101982 0.919 AUDCOM1 -0.002796 0.101423 -0.027571 0.9781 C 0.18661 0.529641 0.352334 0.7254 R-squared 0.000114 Adjusted R-squared -0.031461 F-statistic 0.003613 Prob(F-statistic) 0.999698 S.E. of regression 0.791347 Dependent Variable: ROA Method: Panel Least Squares Total panel (unbalanced) observations: 99 Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob. OUT_BOARD -0.095721 0.061678 -1.551956 0.124 CEO -0.032232 0.019084 -1.688972 0.0945 AUDCOM1 0.009389 0.01132 0.829387 0.409 C 0.140099 0.059115 2.369954 0.0198 R-squared 0.078318 Adjusted R-squared 0.049212 F-statistic 2.690791 Prob(F-statistic) 0.050602 S.E. of regression 0.088325 Dependent Variable: ROA Method: Panel Least Squares Total panel (unbalanced) observations: 99 Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob. OUT_BOARD -0.104552 0.060653 -1.723773 0.088 CEO -0.028425 0.018493 -1.537033 0.1276 C 0.171387 0.045439 3.771807 0.0003 R-squared 0.071644 Adjusted R-squared 0.052303 F-statistic 3.704289 Prob(F-statistic) 0.028204 S.E. of regression 0.088181 It is evident from the tables above that there is a correlation between return on assets and the independent variables. On the first table it can be observed that the CEO independent variable is statistically significant on 10% confidence interval. Also R- Squared is 7.16% of the variability of the return on assets and is explained by the regression. On the second table one independent variable is excluded from the regression in order to prove that the proportion of the outside directors over the total number of the board is also statistically significant at the 90% confidence interval. It is evident that these two variables influence the financial performance of th e shipping companies that are selected in the sample. On the table below it is shown the regression output between the return on investment capital and the independent variables. It can be observed that the proportion of the outside directors and the CEO are statistically significant on the 90% confidence interval. It implies that the majority of the sampled firms, in the period under study, have separate persons occupying the posts of chief executive and the board chair. Dependent Variable: ROIC Total panel (unbalanced) observations: 97 Method: Panel Least Squares Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob. OUT_BOARD -0.108758 0.062348 -1.744367 0.0844 CEO -0.031869 0.019189 -1.660741 0.1001 AUDCOM1 0.00542 0.011377 0.476405 0.6349 C 0.199476 0.059341 3.361532 0.0011 R-squared 0.081182 Adjusted R-squared 0.051542 F-statistic 2.738981 Prob(F-statistic) 0.047783 S.E. of regression 0.088251 Dependent Variable: CURRENT_RATIO Method: Panel Least Squares Total panel (unbalanced) observations: 99 Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic OUT_BOARD 0.554821 1.498786 0.37018 CEO -0.636588 0.463736 -1.372737 AUDCOM1 0.538569 0.275082 1.95785 C 0.954122 1.436504 0.664197 R-squared 0.047648 Adjusted R-squared 0.017574 F-statistic 1.584356 Prob(F-statistic) 0.198271 S.E. of regression 2.146311 Another ratio so as to observe the financial performance of a company is the current ratio. By running a regression it can be concluded that the audit committee size is statistically significant at a 90% and 95% confidence interval. Because of the different financial performance ratio it can be observed a different correlation between the dependent and the independent variable. On the particular output the positive relationship between the liquidity ratio and the audit committee seems to be a very reasonable result. Shipping companies follow the corporate governance guidelines which are given by the NYSE for the audit committees. In the end a regressio n was run for the operating performance of the shipping companies. On the table below it is shown that the proportion of the outside directors is statistically significant at 90% confidence interval with t statistic greater than the critical values. Also it is shown that the audit committee variable is also statistically significant for all the confidence intervals. But the R squared of the output is very low which means that only the 8.76% of the variability of the dependent variable is explained. Dependent Variable: OPER_PERF Method: Panel Least Squares Total panel (unbalanced) observations: 99 Variable Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob. OUT_BOARD -0.951585 0.50254 -1.893552 0.0613 CEO 0.083654 0.15549 0.538005 0.5918 AUDCOM1 -0.23875 0.092234 -2.588514 0.0112 C 3.109729 0.481657 6.456321 0 R-squared 0.087671 Adjusted R-squared 0.05886 F-statistic 3.043024 Prob(F-statistic) 0.032629 S.E. of regression 0.719653 Descriptive statistics The table below presents the result of the descriptive statistics analysis between the dependent variables and the independent variables by measuring the mean, the standard deviation and the percentage of distribution range of the pooled years of the sample under study.      Descriptive Statistics     Oper_Perf Roa Roe Roic Cur_ratio Out_Board CEO AUDCOM1 Mean 1.741854 0.078202 0.18183 0.11603 3.243112 0.762211 0.474747 2.808081 Median 1.527139 0.072055 0.156449 0.110134 1.86132 0.777778 0 3 Maximum 5.409894 0.513177 3.84573 0.368966 70.57955 1 1 5 Minimum 0.889839 -0.42841 -4.60062 -0.41285 0.1406 0.428571 0 1 Std. Dev. 0.737746 0.090581 0.779185 0.09045 7.100746 0.153031 0.501903 0.816623 Skewness 1.867152 -0.45139 -1.94635 -1.54254 8.614659 -0.20659 0.101139 0.250996 Kurtosis 8.233289 16.32647 24.76835 14.17857 81.7566 2.085215 1.010229 3.44567 Jarque-Bera 177.3846 735.9403 2017.183 549.1192 27351.86 4.156112 16.50043 1.858795 Probabil. 0 0 0 0 0 0.125173 0.000261 0.394791 Sum 179.411 7.741993 18.00119 11.3709 327.5543 75.45889 47 278 Sum Sq. D. 55.51539 0.804091 59.49867 0.793579 5042.06 2.295021 24.68687 65.35354 Observ. 103 99 99 98 101 99 99 99 As it can be referred from the table above the number of the observations is all close to the hundred. This is because some of the data were not available and could not be extracted from the financial reports. Moreover another reason of the lack of some data is that some of the shipping companies were listed in the New York Stock Exchange after 2005. Conclusion The aim of this essay was to prove that there is a relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and firm performance using a sample of 21 shipping companies which are listed in the New York Stock Exchange from 2005 until 2009. The study used firm performance ratios and three mechanisms to prove the above relationship. Panel data methodology is employed; the method of analysis is multiple regressions and the method of estimation is Ordinary Least Squares. The study concludes to the followings: There is no significant relationship between ROE and none of the independent variables. There is a significant relationship among ROA and CEO status and the proportion of the outside directors. There is significant relationship among ROIC, board composition and CEO status. There is a significant relationship between Current ratio and audit committee. And there is a significant relationship among operating performance, board composition and audit committee. Concerning future research, efforts should be made to increase the sample size and the corporate governance variables to achieve a clearer view about the affection of the corporate governance mechanisms on the shipping companies. It can be said that shipping industry has been expanded all over the world from family to family. It is a closed industry which excludes many people. Consequently the nature of the industry makes it very difficult to perform an in depth research and establish an outcome. References Web Sites https://www.investopedia.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org https://www.dianashippinginc.com https://www.frontline.bm