After reading the message below please provide your personal opinion in detail of what you learned.

I was sitting in one of those fluorescent corporate cafeterias eavesdropping on the women at the next lunch table. One had vacationed in Thailand. The other had returned from a group tour of Vietnam.

"Over there, it was nothing to see two generations of family crammed into a house no bigger than my living room," said the Vietnam traveler. "Makes you appreciate what we have here, in America."

I will probably never see that American woman’s living room. But I'm willing to bet that it's larger—and certainly more weather-proof—than my childhood home in Ireland. And as for that multi-generational-living thing? Yup, we managed to cram two parents, five kids, two grandparents, and the family dog into a thatch-roof house with three tiny bedrooms.

But, sitting there in that air-conditioned cafeteria, did I interrupt my lunch neighbors to say: “Whoa! Wait. You have no clue how it really is. You have no clue about what I learned from my live-in grandparents, or that poverty and cultural exotica are a lot more than the sum of our non-commodities, of what we don’t possess?"

Nope. I just kept munching on my salad. Ten minutes earlier, I had ordered and paid for that salad in my best expat-American patois.

These days (I have since switched jobs), I work as the communications director for a nonprofit. In my own office, among my own colleagues, I say nothing about my rural, hardscrabble beginnings. Equally, I don’t stand at the office photocopier belting out a Gaelic-language song, just as I don’t brag about how, once, I used to design and knit fisherman-knit sweaters. You'll never see me pulling up a boardroom chair to re-tell one of my live-in grandfather’s fireside stories, like that one about how, as a little boy, his mother (my great-grandmother) took him to town where he saw a huge ship sitting way, way out in the harbor. His mother said that the ship was on a stopover between England and America. It was called the Titanic.

So as an expatriate in America, am I in a perpetual state of what my late mother called “putting dogs on windows” (a.k.a., pretending or trying to be someone I’m not)?

Today In: Leadership

No. And yes.

In my private, non-working life, among my American friends, everything is fair game. Actually, I’m often the one quizzing them about their childhoods. But in the workplace, I’m quite content to “pass” as American.

PROMOTED

I was 24 years old when I landed from Ireland at JFK Airport. It was a freezing December afternoon. I had an overstuffed backpack and a borrowed $200 and a set of directions for how and where to catch a Trailways bus.

In my early American years, I worked as a waitress in an Irish-American pub in a jazzy college town. This was the swingin’ ’80s, and that cash ’n’ carry restaurant life was one eye-popping culture shock. Also, in any country or culture, waiting tables is a safari of human behavior: the good, the bad, and the downright weird (especially after midnight).

In that Irish-American pub, for the first time in my life, I had to become—well, Irish. I discovered this “all-Irish” meal called corned beef (yuck) and cabbage. My bar customers ordered this “Irish” beer drink called a Black and Tan. By the way, if you had ever offered my history-buff father any food or beverage of that name, he would have laughed in your face or spat at your feet. (The “black and tans” were a band of temporary British constabularies sent to fight the IRA during the Irish War of Independence. Mostly comprised of World War I vets, the “tans” were famous for their civilian attacks.)

The first week on the job, I learned that the way I spoke was called a “brogue.” And my “brogue” brought a string of questions: Oh, what brought you here? Don’t you miss your family? Aren’t all you Irish chicks named “Colleen?”

Of course, I was grateful for this job and this all-American chance to reinvent myself from my heretofore life as a parochial school teacher in a rural Irish village. So, bit by bit, I began to assume this packaged, offshore brand of Irishness.

Three years after arrival day, I quit that pub gig to start an evening graduate-school program and to work a string of day jobs, most of them in offices. I’m not proud to admit this, but as I interviewed for and started each new job, I wasn’t above laying on the brogue and the Maureen O’Hara charm.

What I didn’t yet know was this: Playing to a set of Hollywood stereotypes, to a set of broad-brush cultural assumptions, is “putting dogs on windows." And worse, it will deplete our sense of self and self-esteem.

I finished that graduate degree and landed better-paid jobs, including my first gig in business writing and communications.

In one position, I had to deliver a short, monthly overview of the organization's public information policies as part of the new-hire orientation. As an ex-teacher, preparing content and delivering a short, lively presentation was a snap. So I assumed that my participant evaluations would be glowing.

They were.

Then I scrolled down to those add-on, narrative comments: “I liked the communications woman’s accent.” “Love that accent!” “She’s really cute!”

Gulp. What about my carefully prepared content?

Outside of work, I was also building a career as a creative writer. My publications and bylines landed me on some book-discussion panels and public presentations.

More than once, an audience member would approach the podium to say: “Heck, with that accent, you could stand there and read the phone book, and I’d sit here and listen.”

But here’s the thing: I didn't want to read any phone books. I didn't want to have crossed an ocean and navigated a whole new country just to achieve “cute.”

Then came our 21st-century recession. And with it came a lot less room, a much narrower tolerance, for blather or swagger. In a 2008, 8-10% unemployment America, in an America where both the communications and the publishing industries were changing and dipping faster than the NASDAQ, it took real, hard-core skills to snag a new job. And, in a perpetually merging and downsized workplace, keeping that job means being trained, ready, and willing to produce the goods.

I find this delightful. I find it really freeing. Without the cultural distractions, I’m just another middle-aged woman with a skill base that's continually challenged and updated. I'm a woman valued for what I know and what I can do, not for where I came from.

Still, since that day in the lunchtime cafeteria, I have imagined myself turning to those women and regaling them with enough hardscrabble childhood stories to put them off their sandwiches. Like how I remember reaching for the family sugar bowl to sweeten my morning porridge only to discover that the mice had (again) decided to deposit their—ahem—food additives in there. Or how, without indoor plumbing or central heating, a kid needs both skill and stamina to snag herself a Saturday-night bath. Or how infuriating it was to finish all my third-grade homework only to get up in the morning and find it (again) stained with brown rain leaked through the thatch roof.

We weren't a poor family. Thanks to my father’s double life as a weekday truck driver and a weekend farmer, we were actually quite well off—at least by 1970s rural Ireland standards, and at least by how we viewed ourselves or, indeed, where we ranked in our village's socio-economic pyramid. Based on what I overhead at that lunchtime table, our set-up probably didn't match how those women grew up, but in our village primary school, most of my classmates had live-in grandparents. The lucky among us had a pair of good shoes just for Sunday, plus a warm winter coat. If it had once been a sister’s or a cousin’s coat, what difference?

But in that imaginary lunch speech, the glossary becomes longer than the actual content. There are more cultural footnotes, more lost-in-translation asides than any of us would have time for.

And anyway, from our company dress codes to our bullet-pointed, buzzwordy chatter, today’s workplaces breed a certain homogenization. We assume that most or all of us watched after-school TV and used the microwave on the kitchen shelf and went to U.S. colleges where Dad delivered us for freshman orientation and Mom kitted out our dormitory with a mini-fridge.

There are those of us who didn’t. There are those of us who get up in the morning and stand under the shower belting out a foreign-language song. We go home at night to dream in another language. But in our fluorescent, white-walled workplaces, we abandon all that in the downstairs lobby. Why? Because, as I learned the hard way, the socio-economic dissonance and the cultural quirks can eclipse what’s really there, what we can really do.

I can improve America. There. For 20-plus years now, I’ve been longing to just come out and say that. In my own small way, in my creative and working life, I believe that I can be the softly spoken (ha!) but persistent voice for better healthcare, better education, and fairer public policies—the kinds of policies that let kids go to bed at night with full bellies and go to school in the morning without a bullet-proof backpack.

But tell me: How can a woman improve a country, how can she write or fight for anything—anything worthwhile, anyway—if all she’s considered by the people around her is “cute?”

In October 2012, the average house price in the USA was $223,500. In October 2003, the average price was $285,000. What was the nominal (APR) annual change in the average selling price compounded monthly? What was the per month rate of change in the average selling price? What was the EAR annual rate of change?

According to the US Government 68% of adults weigh more than they should. A dietician, Dr. Scales, believes that drinking 8 or more glasses of water a day was associated with not being overweight. She obtained a random sample of 580 American adults who consumed 8 or more glasses of water a day, weighed each adult, and classified each one as overweight or not. The table below shows the observed frequencies and the expected frequencies. Use alpha = .05.

a. Write the null hypothesis.

b. Write the alternative hypothesis.

c. What type of test would be used to analyze this data? Be specific.

d. What are the percentages of overweight and not overweight participants in the study?

e. What is the critical value for alpha = .05? (need the table in the book)

f. Is the result of the statistical test significant?

g. Write the result in correct APA statistical notation.

h. Summarize the results in one or two sentences.

Watson Co. is a specialty fabrics manufacturer and retailer who operates mainly in the Carolinas. A partial trial balance showing Watson’s equity, revenue and expense balances as of its December 31, 2019 year-end follows:

    Debits              Credits

Dividends                                                                     $   321,960

Retained earnings (1/1/19)                                                                     $   859,265

Unrealized holding loss – ECM bonds (1/1/19)                      53,710

Interest revenue                                                                                         17,805

Sales revenue                                                                                        9,147,540

Advertising expense                                                           116,385

Cost of goods sold                                                         5,947,660

Depreciation expense                                                         241,195

Interest expense                                                                 108,470

Salaries and wages expense                                           1,859,255

Utilities expense                                                                212,090

In addition, the following information is available for the company for 2019. Unless indicated otherwise, this information has not yet been reflected in the company’s accounts. All of the dollar amounts are stated on a before-tax basis.

1. In early January 2016, Watson purchased certain equipment at a price of $81,750. Watson began depreciating the equipment using the straight-line method and estimates of 10 years for useful life and $16,350 for salvage value. Watson depreciated the equipment on this basis through 2018 (actually 2019 – see the Note below). In early January 2019, the company determined that its initial estimates needed to be revised. Watson increased the useful life from 10 to 15 years and decreased the salvage value from $16,390 to $5,250.

Note – Watson mistakenly computed depreciation on this equipment for 2019 using the original estimates (10 years and $16,350). The depreciation expense of $241,195 shown in the partial trial balance above reflects use of the original estimates for this equipment.

2. In March 2019, Watson extinguished bonds payable having a book value of $429,350. Watson paid the investors $392,675 to retire these bonds.

3. In November 2019, Watson discovered that it understated the sales revenue reported in its 2018 financial statements. As a result, the company’s 2018 sales revenue was understated by $74,290. Watson plans to record the correcting entry before year-end 2019 and report the correction as required by GAAP in its 2019 financial statements.

Note – The discovery and correction of the 2018 error will not change the sales revenue for 2019. The $9,147,540 figure in the partial trial balance above is correct.

4. In preparing its 2019 financial statements, Watson has determined that it must write down certain inventory items by a total of $46,310.

5. In 2015, Watson purchased bonds issued by ECM Co., which it continues to hold as an available-for-sale investment. The fair value of Watson’s investment increased in 2019, from $283,415 to $369,185.

Note – The $53,710 Unrealized holding loss – ECM bonds (1/1/19) in the partial trial balance above relates to this item and, of course, is stated net of income taxes.

6. In September 2019, the government of South Africa expropriated a manufacturing facility that Watson owned in the country. The South African government informed Watson that it does not intend to compensate the company for this action. Watson’s accounts show a book value for the manufacturing plant at the time of expropriation of $239,850. This event satisfies the conditions of unusual and infrequent.

7. At year-end 2019, Watson decided to change its inventory cost flow method from First-in, First-out (FIFO) to Average Cost. The effect of the change on 2019 and prior years is as follows:

     2019            Prior Years

Cost of goods sold – FIFO                                 $5,947,660        $14,732,000

Cost of goods sold – Average Cost                     6,081,390           15,316,000

Note – The cost of goods sold figure in Watson’s partial trial balance above reflects use of the old method (FIFO) for 2019.

8. In April 2019, Watson shifted its business strategy, resulting in the August 2019 sale of a component of the company considered a separate major line of business. The sale produced a loss on disposal of $71,920. The operations of the component, prior to the sale in August, produced an income of $22,070.

Assume the above amounts are material. Also, assume the income tax rate applicable to all years and all income items is 30%. Finally, note that Watson uses the multiple-step format for the reporting of income items and the two-income statement approach for the display of other comprehensive income items.

– Instructions –

Prepare the financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019 to show the proper reporting of Watson’s:

Prepare an Income statement and retained earnings statement from the informantion above.

Prepare these statements in good form, according to GAAP requirements.

After the success of the company’s first two months, Santana Rey continues to operate Business Solutions. The November 30, 2015, unadjusted trial balance of Business Solutions (reflecting its transactions for October and November of 2015) follows. No. Account Title Debit Credit 101 Cash $ 39,164 106 Accounts receivable 12,918 126 Computer supplies 2,645 128 Prepaid insurance 1,980 131 Prepaid rent 2,960 163 Office equipment 8,400 164 Accumulated depreciation—Office equipment $ 0 167 Computer equipment 21,200 168 Accumulated depreciation—Computer equipment 0 201 Accounts payable 0 210 Wages payable 0 236 Unearned computer services revenue 0 307 Common stock 68,000 318 Retained earnings 0 319 Dividends 6,400 403 Computer services revenue 33,474 612 Depreciation expense—Office equipment 0 613 Depreciation expense—Computer equipment 0 623 Wages expense 2,500 637 Insurance expense 0 640 Rent expense 0 652 Computer supplies expense 0 655 Advertising expense 1,698 676 Mileage expense 694 677 Miscellaneous expenses 200 684 Repairs expense—Computer 715 Totals $ 101,474 $ 101,474 Business Solutions had the following transactions and events in December 2015. Dec. 2 Paid $995 cash to Hillside Mall for Business Solutions’ share of mall advertising costs. 3 Paid $460 cash for minor repairs to the company’s computer. 4 Received $4,050 cash from Alex’s Engineering Co. for the receivable from November. 10 Paid cash to Lyn Addie for six days of work at the rate of $115 per day. 14 Notified by Alex’s Engineering Co. that Business Solutions’ bid of $7,600 on a proposed project has been accepted. Alex’s paid a $2,500 cash advance to Business Solutions. 15 Purchased $1,100 of computer supplies on credit from Harris Office Products. 16 Sent a reminder to Gomez Co. to pay the fee for services recorded on November 8. 20 Completed a project for Liu Corporation and received $5,775 cash. 22–26 Took the week off for the holidays. 28 Received $3,500 cash from Gomez Co. on its receivable. 29 Reimbursed S. Rey for business automobile mileage (500 miles at $0.32 per mile). 31 The company paid $1,300 cash in dividends. The following additional facts are collected for use in making adjusting entries prior to preparing financial statements for the company’s first three months: a. The December 31 inventory count of computer supplies shows $640 still available. b. Three months have expired since the 12-month insurance premium was paid in advance. c. As of December 31, Lyn Addie has not been paid for four days of work at $115 per day. d. The computer system, acquired on October 1, is expected to have a four-year life with no salvage value. e. The office equipment, acquired on October 1, is expected to have a five-year life with no salvage value. f. Three of the four months' prepaid rent has expired. Prepare an adjusted trial balance as of December 31, 2015.

Question: Historical Relationship between South African Rand, US dollar and currencies of the BRIC Countrie...

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Historical Relationship between South African Rand, US dollar and currencies of the BRIC Countries I BRICS is an acronym for the association of the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and BRIC is a similar acronym excluding South Africa. Mweleco FX Pty LTD, a foreign exchange trading company based in Johannesburg, has been contracted by a hypothetical Namibian Stock Exchange (NSE) to examine the historical relationship between the Rand(as a proxy for the Namibian Dollar- N$), currencies of the BRIC countries and the US Dollar from April 9, 2006 to March 27, 2011. Issues of interest to the NSE are: • The historical volatility (risk) between the currencies of the BRIC currencies, South African Rand and the US dollar during the period; Project Historical Relationship between South African Rand, US dollar and currencies of the BRIC Countries II • The relationship between BRICS currencies. You are required to provide a brief report (Minimum 4 pages and maximum 8 pages (including tables, figures, references etc.) to the NSE covering the following:

(a). A brief introduction of the study;

(b). Brief literature review on general issues around currency volatility (risk) and returns;

(c). Relationship(s) between the South African Rand, US Dollar and the sampled currencies of BRIC countries and whether the relationship(s) can be, predictably, explored;

(d). Brief discussion of the empirical findings from the study;

(e). Conclusion and some recommendations to the NSE.

An ethical issue is one with an identifiable problem, situation or opportunity requiring an individual or organization to choose from among several actions that must be evaluated in terms of right and wrong. Ethics is therefore the study of right and wrong. You are asked therefore to consider the following scenario.

South Africa has one the highest AIDS population in the world and the great majority of the South African population is unable to pay for the viral drugs to combat the AIDS virus and the Government resources are stretched to the limit and they are unable to pay for drugs to make it available to the poor people of South Africa where the highest percent of the AIDS population exist.

In South Africa there is a company that manufactures the drugs to combat the AIDS virus. This company is a public company and raises its funds from shareholders who invest their money and is seeking a return on their investment. The company has had the experience in the past on one occasion where it did not perform well and their shareholders did not get a good return on investment causing many investors threatening to pull their investments, which would in turn cause the company to experience heavy financial losses and perhaps threaten its very existence.

The South African government has approached the South African company that manufacturers the drugs requesting that they sell the drugs below cost as well as donate some of the drugs to those who cannot afford the viral drugs because they are poor (which is by far the greater portion of the AIDS population). Without these drugs those people are almost guaranteed death.

The company has turned down the request of the South African government.

you are to present arguments supporting the position of the company.

An ethical issue is one with an identifiable problem, situation or opportunity requiring an individual or organization to choose from among several actions that must be evaluated in terms of right and wrong. Ethics is therefore the study of right and wrong. You are asked therefore to consider the following scenario.

South Africa has one the highest AIDS population in the world and the great majority of the South African population is unable to pay for the viral drugs to combat the AIDS virus and the Government resources are stretched to the limit and they are unable to pay for drugs to make it available to the poor people of South Africa where the highest percent of the AIDS population exist.

In South Africa there is a company that manufactures the drugs to combat the AIDS virus. This company is a public company and raises its funds from shareholders who invest their money and is seeking a return on their investment. The company has had the experience in the past on one occasion where it did not perform well and their shareholders did not get a good return on investment causing many investors threatening to pull their investments, which would in turn cause the company to experience heavy financial losses and perhaps threaten its very existence.

The South African government has approached the South African company that manufacturers the drugs requesting that they sell the drugs below cost as well as donate some of the drugs to those who cannot afford the viral drugs because they are poor (which is by far the greater portion of the AIDS population). Without these drugs those people are almost guaranteed death.

The company has turned down the request of the South African government.

you are to present arguments that disagree with the position of the company.

Prepare the correct journal entries for the following transactions:

12/01 Issued capital stock for $300,000 cash.

12/03 Received $144,000 for magazine subscriptions to run for two

years from this date. The magazine is published monthly on the

23rd.

12/04 Paid for advertising to be run in a national periodical for six

months (starting this month). The cost was $36,000.

12/ 07 Purchased for cash an insurance policy to cover a two-year

period beginning December 15, $24,000.

12/12 Paid the annual rent on the building, $36,000, effective through

November 30, 2013.

12/15 Received $216,000 cash for two-year subscriptions starting

with the December issue.