Build Your Own Wine Rack

How to Make Your Own Wine Rack

Sure, and it may be easy task for anyone to go and buy a wine rack, you don't even need to leave your house, but if you really want a sense of self satisfaction, then why not try your hand at making your very own wine rack? There are a lot of great design plans out there for you to follow, some are obviously easier than others, but most of them are clear enough so that even the inexperienced carpenter can produce a nice looking wine rack to store his vineyard wines.
So regardless of what type of wine rack you are looking to build, be it made of glass, wood, steel or any other material, there are a few design ideas which you should definitely consider.
Mounted Wooden Wine Rack

The mounted wooden wine rack is one of the most popular designs for wine racks, and it is also one of the easiest to build. It is a very basic, traditional design that can be altered to fit any number of wine bottles, within reason. One of the main advantages of this type of wine rack is that it is wall mounted, so you don't really have to worry about stability to the extent that you would with freestanding wine racks.

To build this type of wine rack you only require a few raw materials; wood (of your choice), mounting screws to fix the rack to the wall, and finally a finishing oil or varnish, that's all! You will also likely require a table saw, band saw, drum sander, and a few hours of your time to complete the rack.

To begin with you should prepare the wood; sanding and staining, or whatever else you may have to do to get the wood so it is ready to use. Obviously this depends on the quality of wood which you are using; if you are using finished wood then you do not need to prepare the wood in at all. Next, you need to join the wood together to form a u-shape; you don't need to worry too much about the ends of the boards because these can be trimmed at a later stage.

Now you are going to want to cut the wine rack into its final shape. Many people choose to stick with basic shapes for their wine racks, primarily for simplicity. However, some more ostentatious carpenters prefer to add an individualistic touch to their wine rack to make it more unique, often this can be as simple as just rounding the corners. At this point you should bear in mind that the size of the wine rack is going to affect your ability to personalise it, but you should also consider where you are going to put the wine rack in your home.

When the time comes to mount the wine rack on the wall, you need to ensure that you leave a bit of space to allow for awkward shaped bottles such as decanters, or ship decanters. Once you have mounted the rack you can congratulate yourself; give yourself a pat on the back, you have constructed an attractive, stylish wine rack worthy of storing even the finest chardonnay wine bottles; sauvignon blanc wine, zinfandel wine, the list goes on. What's more you should have saved yourself some money in the process. But it doesn't end there, you could give racking another go, maybe try something a bit harder, or maybe try making something slightly different such as a wine glass rack, it's all up to you!

Daycare Article

What is Daycare?

Broadly speaking daycare refers to the provision of care for children or adults by individuals outside the immediate family. Adult daycare is typically designed to assist physically or mentally impaired adults; individuals who might otherwise require institutional or long-term care and rehabilitation. However, daycare is a service typically provided for children and infants, primarily conducted by nurseries or childminders. Daycare provides a viable solution for working parents who require their children to be looked after during the day. Take, for instance, the situation for a single working parent, there is clearly a major necessity to work, yet at the same time the child must be properly cared for; a predicament which daycare resolves. Hence, daycare can be extremely helpful. However, to assess whether it is more advantageous, when compared to other forms of child care services, it is necessary to analyse the ways in which it is different.

Differences

The core distinguishing characteristic between daycare and other types of child care services is that with daycare, the child is taken to the nursery or childminder's home so that the daycare services can be provided. Alternative forms of child care, however, such as a babysitter, differ from this in the sense that the care is brought to the child, not the other way around; the babysitter comes to the child's home to watch the child. A further difference is that daycare can also take a more formal structure, with education, child development, and discipline, all of which can be characterized by pre-school. Typically, other forms of child care are void of this quality. Moreover, daycare is commonly an ongoing service during specific periods such as the parents working hours, whilst other forms of child care tend to involve less regularity and reliability.

Finding Daycare Services

If, having read the differences outline above, you feel that daycare is the best option for you; then there are a few things that you should take into consideration before you select a daycare service. It is important that you make sure that you find a reputable and reliable daycare provider, after all it is the safety of your child or infant which is key.

The best course of action for finding a daycare service is to first find out what daycare services are available in your area. Next you should do a bit of research on each of the options available to you; to discover which providers are the most reputable, that way you get to choose from the pick of the litter. Asking around a bit is a great way to do this because it gives you personal opinions and accounts regarding the daycare services you are looking at. Doing proper research is essential, you must take the time to ensure that you are sending you child somewhere safe and in the hands of responsible careers, especially if you are going to be leaving a young infant in the hands of these individuals.

There are numerous daycare companies available to you, so you are certain to find one to suit your requirements, be they time, financial or location orientated. Just remember that the most important thing is that you are able to leave for work with the knowledge that your children are in safe and capable hands.

Bankruptcy Article

If you have debt problems, you may be thinking about the possibility of bankruptcy; it isn't permanent, so you may choose it as a way of clearing your debts and making a fresh start. However, it's important to understand what bankruptcy is, you certainly shouldn't think of bankruptcy as being an easy way out because it certainly is not.

What is Bankruptcy?

Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability of an individual or business to pay its creditors, and can be a way of clearing debts that cannot be paid. It is possible for creditors to file a bankruptcy petition against a debtor (involuntary bankruptcy) in an effort to retain a portion of the debt which they are owed. However, in the majority of cases bankruptcy is initiated by the debtor (a voluntary bankruptcy). When an individual or business files for bankruptcy, all excess income and their non-essential assets, i.e. their property and possessions, are used to pay off creditors. At the end of the bankruptcy period, most of the debt is then discharged, allowing the debtors to make a fresh start; having shed the chains of debt, but at a significant cost.

Many people in modern society know people who have filed for or been affected by bankruptcy, it is becoming an increasingly common feature of today's borrow to buy culture. However, not many people completely understand the bankruptcy process, and hence are unable to deduce whether it is a good decision. If you are in a financially unstable position and are considering filing for bankruptcy yourself, or just looking to learn more about it, there are a few crucial points which you should be aware of.

Who is it Right for?

Bankruptcy is a serious matter; you'll have to give up your home and possessions of value. Whilst it gives you a fresh start, it is important to note that you will have to start from with nothing. Bankruptcy destroys your credit rating and as a result you will not be able to get a loan, any line of credit or financing for at least seven years. This is simply because creditors will be able to see that you have previously filed for bankruptcy and will refuse to enter into business with you.

However, you don't have to become bankrupt just because you're in debt. You can try to make arrangements with your creditors instead. For instance you can form an individual voluntary arrangement, where an insolvency practitioner helps you negotiate repayment terms. Many other repayment agreements exist and should be looked into before you make you final decision. To do this, it is often advisable to take the time to talk to a professional; they can take a look at your financial situation and determine the best course of action given your current situation and your debt levels. In some situations they may advise that you file for bankruptcy and will help you by providing you with detailed bankruptcy information.

The main models of oligopoly in which firms compete according to output

The study of oligopolistic markets is inherently more difficult than that of monopolistic or perfectly competitive markets as it deals with the way firms interact with each other as well as with consumers। In an oligopoly, a small number of large firms dominate a particular industry and produce identical or closely substitutable products। Firms in an oligopolistic industry are interdependent, thus the central problem faced by a firm in oligopoly is that its decisions affect the price and quantity choices of its rivals; the likely response of other firms is a major factor influencing its own price and output decisions। An oligopolist therefore cannot take its demand curve as given as equilibrium output depends on enterprise behaviour. Possibilities range from the competitive outcome of the Cournot model with competing firms to the monopoly equilibrium characteristic of a cartel. Hence there is a general indeterminacy that lies at the heart of the oligopoly market structure.

This article reviews the theory of oligopolistic competition from the perspective of the non-collusive, conjectural variation models of Cournot and Stackleberg, within which firms compete according to output.

In 1838 Antoine Augustin Cournot, using the analogy of mineral water to illustrate his claims, laid out the foundation of oligopoly theory by proposing a solution concept to oligopolistic interaction. The Cournot model, in which the firm’s basic decision variable is output, assumes that each firm takes the level of output of its rivals as given in choosing its own. Hence in the Cournot model all firms are assumed to have zero conjectural variation. In equilibrium, the expectations of each firm about the output choice of its competitors are realised. The outcome in terms of the Cournot market structure can be categorised by the price-cost margin:

From this formula it is clear that the price-cost margin in the Cournot equilibrium declines as the number of firms increases. The outcome will therefore approximate the competitive equilibrium as the number of firm’s approaches infinity. This indicates the incentive for firms to collude to ensure that a zero-profit outcome is avoided.

The Cournot model is best explained diagrammatically with reference to isoprofit curves and reaction functions. In a duopoly, in which both firms have equal cost functions, the profits attainable for a firm depend on the output decision of its rival because the price obtained for the product depends on the total industry output. Equilibrium occurs at the intersection of the two reaction functions. Each reaction function plots the profit maximising level of output for each firm given every conceivable expected value of production which could be chosen by its rival. Therefore, at the equilibrium point each firm is choosing to produce the level of output expected by its rival.




It is clear from the diagram displayed above that a strong incentive to collude exists at the Cournot equilibrium. Although firms generate positive profits, industry profits are not maximised. The equilibrium point yields a greater output and a lower price, implying lower profits, when compared to a pure monopoly (M1 or M2) . Both firms could increase profits by reducing output, and moving into the shaded region, provided that its rival responded equally. This establishes the result that, whilst the behavioural assumptions of the Cournot model lead to a stable non-collusive equilibrium, there is a strong incentive for firms to co-operate to maximise industry profits which would suggest that collusion is a potential outcome in oligopolistic markets.

The hierarchal Stackleberg model, incorporating the idea of commitment, can be developed as an extension of the Cournot framework. In the Stackleberg model, the leader recognizes its interdependence, and seeks to improve upon its position in equilibrium in the knowledge that the followers will act according to the behavioural assumption of the Cournot model, and treat the leader’s output decisions as given. Hence, in duopoly, the follower will adjust output in response to the leader’s level of production according to its own reaction function. The leader, however, chooses an output level above that implied by its own reaction function in order to maximise profits subject to the followers reaction function. The resulting Stackleberg equilibrium occurs where the leader’s isoprofit curve is tangent to the followers reaction function. The Stackleberg model is therefore characterised by the fact that the leader and the follower have different conjectural variations. The follower act’s the same as all firms do in the Cournot model, and therefore the conjectural variation term for them is zero. The conjectural variation term for the leader is given by the slope of the follower’s reaction function, as it builds its knowledge about the follower’s reaction function into its decision making. A problem arises in the Stackleberg model if both firms seek to be leaders. If both firms understand the other’s Cournot behaviour, then they will either agree to collude or enter a price war until the competitive price, which equals marginal cost, has been reached and the Stackleberg warfare point is attained, clearly if non-collusion and competition lead to a zero profit outcome, the formation of cartels will seem more attractive.

A comparison of the Cournot and Stackleberg equilibria provides some intuition about how the leader uses its knowledge to its advantage.



The Stackleberg equilibrium is more competitive than since the leader selects a high output in order to induce subsequent firms to cut back, making the equilibrium price unambiguously higher in the Cournot case. A further dissimilarity lies in the fact that Von Stackleberg’s leader, with its higher output is expected to earn greater profits than under the Cournot behavioural assumption, whilst the follower with a smaller share of industry output will receive fewer profits when compared to firms in the Cournot model. Thus whilst the incentive to collude to maximise joint profits still exists, the leader is likely to be less sympathetic towards the formation of a cartel under these circumstances than it would under the Cournot conditions.
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