INSTRUCTIONS

Read the following case study about Amazon, and then submit a posting with answers to the 5 questions below. Your answers will be graded primarily on content, but grammar, spelling, syntax, etc will also count. Please make sure that your answers are labeled to match the Question numbers so that I can easily read (and grade) your submissions

CASE STUDY: THE AMAZON OF INNOVATION

On December 2, 2013, Amazon.com customers ordered 36.8 million items worldwide, an average of 426 items per second, with more than half of the orders from mobile devices. At the peak of sales for the Xbox One and the Playstation 4, Amazon customers purchased more than 1,000 of those units per minute. The last local express delivery was ordered by a customer in Everett, Washington at 12:26pm and was delivered at 3:56pm that same day.

You may think of Amazon as simply an online retailer, and that is indeed where the company achieved most of its success. To do this, Amazon had to build enormous supporting infrastructure – just imagine the information systems and fulfillment facilities needed to ship 36.8 million items on a single day. That infrastructure, however, is needed only during the busy holiday season. Most of the year, Amazon is left with excess infrastructure capacity. Starting in 2000, Amazon began to lease some of that capacity to other companies. In the process, it played a key role in the creation of what are termed “cloud services,” which you will learn about shortly. For now, just think of cloud services as computer resources somewhere out in the Internet that are leased on flexible terms.

Today, Amazon’s business lines can be grouped into three major categories:

• Online Retailing
• Order fulfillment
• Cloud services

Consider Each.

ONLINE RETAILING

Amazon created the business model for online retailing. It began as an online bookstore, but every year since 1998 it has added new product categories. The company is involved in all aspects of online retailing. It sells its own inventory. It incentivizes you, via the Associates program, to sell its inventory as well. Or it will help you sell your inventory within its product pages or via one of its consignment venues. Online auctions are the major aspect of online sales in which Amazon does not participate. It tried auctions in 1999, but it could never make inroads against eBay.

Today it’s hard to remember how much of what we take for granted was pioneered by Amazon. “Customers who bought this, also bought that;” online customer reviews; customer ranking of customer reviews; books lists; Look Inside the Book; automatic free shipping for certain orders or frequent customers; and Kindle books and devices were all novel concepts when Amazon introduced them.

Amazon’s retailing business operates on very thin margins, meaning it makes very little money off of any one item. Products are usually sold at a discount from the stated retail price, and 2-day shipping is free for Amazon members (who pay an annual fee of $99) How does it do it? For one, Amazon drives its employees incredibly hard. Former employees claim the hours are long, the pressure is severe, and the workload is heavy. But what else? It comes down to Moore’s Law and the innovative use of nearly free data processing, storage, and communication.

ORDER FULFILLMENT

In addition to online retailing, Amazon also sells order fulfillment services. You can ship your inventory to an Amazon warehouse and access Amazon’s information systems just as if they were yours. Using technology known as Web services your order processing information systems can directly integrate, over the Web, with Amazon’s inventory, fulfillment, and shipping applications. Your customers need not know that Amazon played any role at all. You Can also sell that same inventory using Amazon’s retail sales applications.

CLOUD SERVICES

Amazon Web Services (AWS) allow organizations to lease time on computer equipment in very flexible ways. Amazon’s Elastic Cloud 2 (EC2) enables organizations to expand and contract the computer resources they need within minutes. Amazon has a variety of payment plans, and it is possible to buy computer time for less than a penny an hour. Key to this capability is the ability for the leasing organization’s computer programs to interface with Amazon’s to automatically scale up and scale down the resources leased. For example, if a news site publishes a story that causes a rapid ramp-up of traffic, that news site can, programmatically, request, configure, and use more computing resources for an hour, a day, a month, or whatever it needs.

With its Kindle devices, Amazon has become both a vendor of tablets and, even more importantly in the long term, a vendor of online music and video. And to induce customers to buy Kindle apps, in 2013 Amazon introduced its own currency, Amazon Coins. And, recently Amazon opened a 3D printing store from which customers can customize their own toys, jewelry, dog bones, and dozens of other products. Amazon is also beginning its foray into drone delivery.

QUESTIONS

1. Based on the facts presented, what do you think is Amazon.com’s competitive strategy?
2. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com has stated that the best customer support is none. What does that mean?
3. Suppose you work for Amazon. What do you suppose is the likely reaction to an employee who says to his or her boss, “But, I don’t know how to do that”?
4. Using your own words and your own experience, what skills and abilities do you think you need to have to thrive at an organization like Amazon?
5. What should UPS and FedEx be doing in response to Amazon’s interest in drone delivery?

INSTRUCTIONS

Read the following case study about Amazon, and then submit a posting with answers to the 5 questions below. Your answers will be graded primarily on content, but grammar, spelling, syntax, etc will also count. Please make sure that your answers are labeled to match the Question numbers so that I can easily read (and grade) your submissions

CASE STUDY: THE AMAZON OF INNOVATION

On December 2, 2013, Amazon.com customers ordered 36.8 million items worldwide, an average of 426 items per second, with more than half of the orders from mobile devices. At the peak of sales for the Xbox One and the Playstation 4, Amazon customers purchased more than 1,000 of those units per minute. The last local express delivery was ordered by a customer in Everett, Washington at 12:26pm and was delivered at 3:56pm that same day.

You may think of Amazon as simply an online retailer, and that is indeed where the company achieved most of its success. To do this, Amazon had to build enormous supporting infrastructure – just imagine the information systems and fulfillment facilities needed to ship 36.8 million items on a single day. That infrastructure, however, is needed only during the busy holiday season. Most of the year, Amazon is left with excess infrastructure capacity. Starting in 2000, Amazon began to lease some of that capacity to other companies. In the process, it played a key role in the creation of what are termed “cloud services,” which you will learn about shortly. For now, just think of cloud services as computer resources somewhere out in the Internet that are leased on flexible terms.

Today, Amazon’s business lines can be grouped into three major categories:

• Online Retailing
• Order fulfillment
• Cloud services

Consider Each.

ONLINE RETAILING

Amazon created the business model for online retailing. It began as an online bookstore, but every year since 1998 it has added new product categories. The company is involved in all aspects of online retailing. It sells its own inventory. It incentivizes you, via the Associates program, to sell its inventory as well. Or it will help you sell your inventory within its product pages or via one of its consignment venues. Online auctions are the major aspect of online sales in which Amazon does not participate. It tried auctions in 1999, but it could never make inroads against eBay.

Today it’s hard to remember how much of what we take for granted was pioneered by Amazon. “Customers who bought this, also bought that;” online customer reviews; customer ranking of customer reviews; books lists; Look Inside the Book; automatic free shipping for certain orders or frequent customers; and Kindle books and devices were all novel concepts when Amazon introduced them.

Amazon’s retailing business operates on very thin margins, meaning it makes very little money off of any one item. Products are usually sold at a discount from the stated retail price, and 2-day shipping is free for Amazon members (who pay an annual fee of $99) How does it do it? For one, Amazon drives its employees incredibly hard. Former employees claim the hours are long, the pressure is severe, and the workload is heavy. But what else? It comes down to Moore’s Law and the innovative use of nearly free data processing, storage, and communication.

ORDER FULFILLMENT

In addition to online retailing, Amazon also sells order fulfillment services. You can ship your inventory to an Amazon warehouse and access Amazon’s information systems just as if they were yours. Using technology known as Web services your order processing information systems can directly integrate, over the Web, with Amazon’s inventory, fulfillment, and shipping applications. Your customers need not know that Amazon played any role at all. You Can also sell that same inventory using Amazon’s retail sales applications.

CLOUD SERVICES

Amazon Web Services (AWS) allow organizations to lease time on computer equipment in very flexible ways. Amazon’s Elastic Cloud 2 (EC2) enables organizations to expand and contract the computer resources they need within minutes. Amazon has a variety of payment plans, and it is possible to buy computer time for less than a penny an hour. Key to this capability is the ability for the leasing organization’s computer programs to interface with Amazon’s to automatically scale up and scale down the resources leased. For example, if a news site publishes a story that causes a rapid ramp-up of traffic, that news site can, programmatically, request, configure, and use more computing resources for an hour, a day, a month, or whatever it needs.

With its Kindle devices, Amazon has become both a vendor of tablets and, even more importantly in the long term, a vendor of online music and video. And to induce customers to buy Kindle apps, in 2013 Amazon introduced its own currency, Amazon Coins. And, recently Amazon opened a 3D printing store from which customers can customize their own toys, jewelry, dog bones, and dozens of other products. Amazon is also beginning its foray into drone delivery.

QUESTIONS

1. Based on the facts presented, what do you think is Amazon.com’s competitive strategy?
2. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com has stated that the best customer support is none. What does that mean?
3. Suppose you work for Amazon. What do you suppose is the likely reaction to an employee who says to his or her boss, “But, I don’t know how to do that”?
4. Using your own words and your own experience, what skills and abilities do you think you need to have to thrive at an organization like Amazon?
5. What should UPS and FedEx be doing in response to Amazon’s interest in drone delivery?

summarize it How Central Banks Monetize Government Debt By Matthew Johnston | March 25, 2016 — 9:29 AM EDT Share With the Bank of Japan’s announcement on Jan. 29 to navigate into negative interest rate territory by charging interest on reserve deposits, yields on government debt have fallen precipitously. The yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds recently fell to a record negative 0.135%, below the BOJ’s negative 0.1% reserve deposit rate. With the BOJ purchasing government bonds at an unprecedented annual rate of approximately 80 trillion yen, it is becoming exceedingly difficult for the BOJ governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, to deny that these policies are not a form of government debt monetization. We explain why below. (See also: How Negative Interest Rates Work.) Independent Central Banks Any government that issues its own currency (e.g. not Greece) could, in theory, continue to create money without limit. The idea that governments either have to tax or borrow in order to spend is really just a consequence of the legal and institutional infrastructure we, as a society, have created. Things could be otherwise, but when the monetary printing press is in the hands of politicians, the temptation to inflate currency is strong. There is the fear that excessive printing of money and subsequent spending will lead to inflation, then hyperinflation, and then eventual abandonment of the currency. Further, assuming the limited nature of economic resources, if the government has unlimited amounts of money, then it could potentially control all of those resources, essentially “crowding out” the private sector. Obviously, this is problematic for some, and any attempt to compete with the government in utilizing resources leads to a bidding up of the price of those resources. (See also: Worst Hyperinflations in History). To mitigate these fears, modern governments have delegated the responsibility of money issuance to independent central banks, hoping to keep fiscal policy considerations separate from monetary policy ones. Since the primary goal of central banks is to maintain price stability (usually interpreted as low and stable inflation of around 2% a year), governments cannot depend on central banks to fund their operations and must either rely on tax revenue or, like everyone else, borrow money in private markets. Debt Monetization The willingness of the private sector to hold government debt will depend on the return and riskiness of that debt relative to alternative investments. Any government that issues debt far in excess of what it could collect in taxes is perceived as an excessively risky investment and will likely have to pay increasingly higher interest rates. Thus, a government’s fiscal policy has definite market constraints. However, central banks have the power to manipulate interest rates. In fact, it is interest rates that they are targeting when they carry out their daily open market operations (OMO) to achieve price stability. The central bank typically states an interest rate target it believes will help it achieve its inflation target, and then increases or decreases the reserves of commercial banks through asset purchases – typically short-term government bonds – in order to achieve that target (QE has extended these purchases to other assets like MBSs as well as longer term government debt). (See also: Open Market Operations vs. Quantitative Easing). The central bank then, by purchasing government bonds in private markets can keep interest rates low, and in a sense, monetize government debt. However, these daily OMO are not what the more hawkish types have in mind when they talk about government debt monetization. What they have in mind is when central banks, by using their power to create money, accommodate massive deficit spending by the government, inflating the government’s debt to levels where it is not clear how or if it will ever be paid off. Such a move causes one to wonder how independent the central bank really is. The Bottom Line At a level of government debt that is more than 230% of its GDP, Japan is the most indebted nation in the world. With bond yields in negative territory, the government is now getting paid to borrow. By charging private banks interest on reserves held at the BOJ, Japan’s central bank is effectively transferring wealth, and thereby the ability to control the economy’s resources, from the private sector to the public sector. It amounts to a “helicopter drop” of new money that is channeled into the economy either through tax cuts or direct government spending. Sounds a lot like debt monetization. Yet, while the potential for inflation is worrisome for the monetary hawks, inflation is actually Kuroda’s intended goal. With deflationary pressures plaguing the Japanese economy, Kuroda has stated, “What’s important is to show people that the BOJ is strongly committed to achieving 2 percent inflation and that it will do whatever it takes to achieve it.” He is still trying to maintain the BOJ’s primary monetary policy objective; it just so happens that the Japanese government is the only economic agent willing and able to spend, thus creating the aggregate demand that is so badly needed. He just doesn’t want to call what he is doing “debt monetization” in hopes that people will still believe that the BOJ maintains, at the very least, a modicum of independence.

As we emerge from COVID-19’s lockdowns, there will be many new features to the landscapes of our lives. The most significant will be the shifting economic path from the capitalism of interdependent free trade to the mercantilism of independent economic nationalism.

To those who study the future, the COVID-19 pandemic is a singularity — an event, usually unanticipated, that fundamentally upends the way we live. In other words, it is a major paradigm shift.

One classic example is the mass production of the automobile early in the last century, shifting transportation from organic sources (horses) to mechanical alternatives (cars). A more recent case is the development of the Information Superhighway in the 1980s that ushered in the world of the personal computer in which we now live.

The COVID-19 pandemic originated late last fall in Wuhan, China. Wuhan is a city in Central China with 10 million people and a major transportation hub for domestic rail travel and international air flights. It was also the host of an international athletic meet and a Chinese New Year celebration that attracted tens of thousands of tourists who then unwittingly spread the deadly new virus rapidly across the globe.

For whatever reasons, both the Chinese communist government and the United Nations’ World Health Organization failed to alert the world in sufficient time to stop this spread. As a result, it has now reached literally every country in the world.

At this writing, there are more than 3 million COVID-19 cases and more than 200,000 deaths worldwide. The United States is the world’s leader with in excess of 1 million cases and about 60,000 deaths.

To break the spread of this pandemic, stay-at-home orders have been imposed for individuals and shutdowns for most nonessential businesses (variously defined) for the past six to eight weeks. As we emerge from the wreckage, what we behold are eerily invisible societies and ruined economies.

In the United States, there are nearly 30 million unemployed and a contraction of the economy not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

From these horrendous statistics, there is an automatic compulsion to assign blame. Since President Trump is at the national helm, it is easy to blame him, and his sub-par performance at the daily White House press conferences has not helped. If he was a little slow to recognize the threat of COVID-19, Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer and Andrew Cuomo were no faster.

If blame is to be pinned on anyone, it must be on the communist government of China, which withheld information on the pandemic for far too long. And, bluntly, the World Health Organization was complicit in this silence.

In truth, we have much to be proud of in the American response. Under the capable leadership of Vice President Mike Pence, the COVID-19 Task Force has brought before the American public the reassuring medical expertise of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. For all the bitter partisanship to our politics, a welcome bipartisanship between Republicans and Democrats in both houses of Congress, together with the White House, has enacted several pieces of legislation that has brought some $3 trillion of financial relief to individuals and businesses.

Further, government and private industry are cooperating to achieve massive production shifts — like General Motors’ switch from making cars to manufacturing ventilators in just weeks — at a level of coordination not seen since World War II.

In confronting the COVID-19 singularity, three new features immediately come to mind. One is a migration from crowded, vulnerable cities to the safety of small-town America. Another is a dramatic increase in the reliance on the internet for employment, retail spending, education and even health care, and away from the brick-and-mortar settings of person-to-person interactions.

The most far-reaching of this paradigm shift, however, will be the rise of mercantilism at the expense of free trade liberalism. Since much of our pre-COVID-19 prosperity came from this interdependence of resources, labor and capital to the least costly place of production, this may seem strange.

The beneficiary of this “free” trade was the global consumer who enjoyed the reasonable prices that came from cheap imports. The flaw to this “prosperous” system was that most of the global supply chains, and especially that of medical supplies and equipment, led to China. Indeed, by 2020, fully half of all global manufacturing is “made in China.” The flaw lies in the loss of independence, both economic and political, to the winner of such interdependence.

The father of mercantilism, Friedrich List (1789-1846), contended that an industrial economy was the bedrock of national power, and that the goal of any economy was to achieve trade surpluses to preserve the nation’s economic independence and political sovereignty. Indeed, such mercantilism has been the guiding light to China’s massive growth and trade surpluses all over the world. Hopefully, rising from the invisible devastation of COVID-19 will be a visible counteracting forest of signs saying “made in the USA.”

• Summarize the article
• How do this relate to the 16^th century theory of mercantilism?

Item 1

In the case below, the original source material is given along with a sample of student work. Determine the type of plagiarism by clicking the appropriate radio button.

Which of the following is true for the Student Version above?

Word-for-Word plagiarism

Paraphrasing plagiarism

This is not plagiarism

Hints

Item 2

In the case below, the original source material is given along with a sample of student work. Determine the type of plagiarism by clicking the appropriate radio button.

Which of the following is true for the Student Version above?

Word-for-Word plagiarism

Paraphrasing plagiarism

This is not plagiarism

Hints

Item 3

In the case below, the original source material is given along with a sample of student work. Determine the type of plagiarism by clicking the appropriate radio button.

Which of the following is true for the Student Version above?

Word-for-Word plagiarism

Paraphrasing plagiarism

This is not plagiarism

Hints

Item 4

In the case below, the original source material is given along with a sample of student work. Determine the type of plagiarism by clicking the appropriate radio button.

Which of the following is true for the Student Version above?

Word-for-Word plagiarism

Paraphrasing plagiarism

This is not plagiarism

Experiment 1: Exploring Charge with Scotch® Tape
In this experiment, you will observe the behavior of charged objects using pieces of Scotch® tape.

Materials
Scotch® Tape
Ruler
*Pen     
*Flat Work Surface

  

Procedure
Part 1
1.   Use the ruler to measure a piece of tape that is 10 cm long.
2.   Tear the tape to remove the 10 cm piece from the roll.
3.   Create a “handle” on one side of the piece of tape by folding down the piece of tape 1 cm from the end, leaving a 9 cm sticky piece with a 1 cm handle.
4.   Stick the entire sticky surface of the tape to a table top, counter top, or another flat surface.
5.   Repeat Steps 1 – 4 with a second 10 cm piece of tape. Stick the second piece of tape at least 15 cm away from the first piece on the same surface.
6.   Quickly pull off both strips of tape from the surface and ensure that the pieces do not touch.
7.   Carefully bring the non-sticky sides of the tape together and record observations about the behavior of the pieces in Table 1.
8.   Discard the tape.
Part 2
1.   Use the ruler to measure a piece of tape that is 10 cm long.
2.   Tear the tape to remove the 10 cm piece from the roll.
3.   Create a “handle” on one side of the piece of tape by folding down 1 cm of tape from one end.
4.   Stick the entire sticky surface of the tape to a table top, counter top, or another flat surface.
5.   Use a pen and write “B1” on the tape. “B” stands for bottom.
6.   Repeat Steps 1 – 4 with a second 10 cm piece of tape. This time, press the second strip of tape on top of the one labeled “B1”.
7.   Use the pen to label the top piece with a “T1”. “T” stands for top.
8.   Create a second pair of pieces of tape by repeating Steps 1 – 7. This time, label the bottom piece “B2” and the top piece “T2”.
9.   Use the T1 handle to quickly pull off T1 strip of tape from the flat surface.
10.   Use the B1 handle to peel off the bottom strip from the flat surface. Keep both B1 and T1 pieces away from each other.
11.   Bring the non-sticky sides of B1 and T1 together and record observations about the behavior of the pieces in Table 1.
12.   Set the pieces of tape, non-sticky side down, on the table approximately 15 cm away from each other. Do not stick them back on the table!
13.   Repeat Steps 9 - 12 for B2 and T2.
14.   Carefully bring the non-sticky sides of piece “T1” and “B2”. Record observations about the behavior of the pieces in Table 1.
15.   Set them back down, non-sticky side down.
16.   Repeat Steps 14 - 15 for “T1” and “T2”. Record your observations in Table 1.
17.   Repeat Steps 14 - 15 for “B1” and “B2”. Record your observations in Table 1.
18.   Repeat Steps 14 and 15 for “T1” and the hair on your leg or arm. Record your observations in Table 1.
19.   Repeat Steps 14 and 15 for “B1” and the hair on your leg or arm. Record your observations in Table 1.

Table 1: Electric Charge Observations

***The observation is filled.

Post-Lab Questions

1.   Describe the interaction between the top and bottom strips as they relate to electric charge. Did the behavior of the pieces change when the tape was from different sets?

2.   Describe the interaction between two top and two bottom pieces of tape as they relate to electric charge. Is this consistent with the existence of only two types of charge? Use your results to support your answer.

3.   Did the top tape attract your arm hair? Did the bottom tape attract your arm hair? Usually arm hair is neutral; it has equal number positive and negative charges. Use this information to explain your results.

4.   Which pieces of tape are positively charged? Which pieces of tape are negatively charged? Explain your reasoning.

5.   Use your data to create a rule describing how like charges, opposite charges, and neutral bodies interact.

6.   What do you observe about the force of attraction or repulsion when the pieces of tape are closer together and farther apart? Does this change happen gradually or quickly?

I am looking for journal entries for part F.

Long-Term Asset Acquisition

Roxy and Harley (R & H) is considering a significant equipment replacement. R & H would like to replace some of their equipment before December 31, 2017. The equipment originally cost $850,000 and the equipment’s accumulated depreciation balance at the end of 2016 is will be $790,000. At this point the equipment is depreciated to its salvage value.

Your long-term asset accountant, Joe, tells you about four equipment options as follows:

construct new equipment and sell the old equipment,

exchange the old equipment for new equipment that is more efficient,

purchase new equipment that is more efficient and sell the old equipment, or

overhaul the old equipment.

The estimated life of any new equipment is 7 years.

R & H would like you to analyze the four options to determine the financial impact of each decision and any non-financial considerations that may result from each decision. Additional information about each option is presented below:

Option 1: Construct the new equipment in-house and sell the old equipment for cash at a fair value of $60,000. R & H would take out a one-year construction loan for $900,000 at the time construction begins at a short-term borrowing rate of 10% for the construction Anticipated actual expenditures for constructing the equipment are $980,000, and on a weighted-average basis the expenditures are approximately $625,000. The bulk of the $980,000 will be financed with the construction loan, and the balance will be financed through accounts payable. The interest on the short-term note is due and payable by year-end. (Note: Construction is assumed to be completed at year-end of 2017.)

Option 2: Exchange the equipment for a similar piece of equipment with a fair value of $995,000. The fair value of the old equipment is $60,000. R & H can borrow $850,000 on a one-year, 10% note. the balance will be funded with an accounts payable arrangement with the supplier. (Assume the exchange has commercial substance.)

Option 3: Purchase the new equipment by giving a non-interest-bearing note with five payments of $199,000 to the supplier (starting on the first day of note’s term and each year thereafter) and selling the old equipment for $60,000 cash. The first $199,000 payment would be made in late December 2016. The prevailing interest rate for obligations of this nature is 10%.

Option 4: Overhaul the existing equipment. The following expenses are anticipated under this approach: (1) The normal annual cost for lubrication and replacement of minor parts to maintain the integrity of the exterior body would be $55,000. (2) The cost of re-wiring interior components in an overhaul would be $250,000. (3) Replacing old worn components would cost $148,000 with associated labor costs of $310,000 for installation. The overhaul is estimated to extend the useful life of the equipment another four years. (The present equipment’s original useful life was eight years, starting January 1, 2008.) The costs will be financed at the end of 2017 through a one-year loan for at 10%.

Instructions

Prepare journal entries in general journal form for each of the four options.

Write a brief memo on how each option affects the financial statements. Include your journal entry(ies) in the body of your memo for each option. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each option.

(c) Since you are now in the process of analyzing the quantitative effects of this decision, you decide to also consider whether the acquisition of any new equipment will cause any employees to lose jobs. Also you wonder if there are other non-financial and/or ethical considerations you should include in your analysis. Write a memo describing other qualitative or subjective issues that you think R & H should consider in their analysis.

(d) At the next management team meeting, Roxy & Harley express some concern that any new equipment acquired to replace the old equipment may become obsolete within the next three to six years. Roxy & Harley want to know how the accounting rules for impairments would apply to any new equipment. Research the accounting literature (e.g., access the FASB Codification), to determine the official guidance for information on impairments including the timing and calculation of the amount. Be sure you describe the reasons for recording impairments and how recording any impairment actually can benefit the financial statements.

(e)   You seem to remember that asset impairments could be used to “manage earnings.” Search the Internet and accounting journals for recent stories in the business press about asset impairments and earnings management. Prepare a memo explaining how earnings might be managed through asset impairments

(f) What if you found out that the Research and Development account included current year costs of $380,000 and R& D Equipment with a cost of $200,000 and an estimated useful life of 10 years. Describe how that would impact the financial statements (do not revise the financial statements) and prepare the necessary journal entries assuming the financial statements have not been issued yet

Sammy Benson supervised greater Downtown Bank's Special Check Sorting Unit, which processed odd-sized, foreign, and damaged checks. Once the checks were sent to his unit, they were manually interpreted, recorded, entered into the appropriate account transactions, and filed for return. Sammy supervised three check sorting clerks in his department. These jobs were staffed by relatively untrained, entry-level individuals who had just graduated from high school. During the summer, Greater Downtown Bank hired low-income, disadvantaged young people for various jobs throughout the company as part of its Community Upbeat campaign. To participate in this effort, representatives from the Human Resources Department visited selected high schools to interview students. Since the students were already prescreened by the school, the interviews were little more than "get-acquainted" discussions. Last summer, Sammy's unit supplied one of the jobs in this effort. Juanita Perez was hired in this context to work as a Special Checks clerk. She was scheduled to begin working in June after graduating from the local vocational high school, where she maintained a C average. This was her first full-time job. When Juanita reported to the bank for a brief induction program, she was scared. It was not only her first day on the job, but the first time she had ever been in the bank. Nevertheless, she kept up her courage and reported to the Human Resources Department as planned. After waiting in the lobby for a while, she was taken to a small meeting room where she and two other new hires were shown how to fill out and sign various forms and documents. Next, an administrative assistant read to the new hires a series of personnel policies about work schedules, breaks, overtime, pay secrecy, attendance, and benefits. She signed more forms, wondering what all this meant. As the meeting drew to a close, Sammy Benson arrived after receiving a call from Human Resources. He and Juanita were introduced for the first time. Sammy escorted Juanita back to the Human Resources Department, showing her the bank's various offices and other departments. He gave her a quick tour of his area, introducing her to the other clerks as he went. Sammy was careful not to interrupt their work, however, nor did he explain to Juanita what they were doing. It was obvious by the expressions on their faces that the employees were surprised to see her. After a quick tour and passing introductions, Sammy gave Juanita some basic instructions in her job. He gave Juanita the job of processing foreign checks. He felt this task was the easiest job to learn and do correctly. During her first day on the job, Sammy spent about 15 minutes showing her the procedure: inspect, record, enter, adjust, file. Since he had to prepare for a meeting later that day, that was all the time he could spend with her. By the end of the first week, Juanita seemed to be getting the hang of things: She came to work on time, stayed busy, and was fairly pleasant and easy to get along with. Sammy intended to spend as much time as possible with her during this period; however, because she seemed to catch on quickly and he was very busy, he saw her only occasionally over the next few weeks. Then, after about a month, Juanita called in sick one day. A replacement was brought in, and as she looked through Juanita's desk for a notepad, she found what appeared to be a large pile of unfiled checks. When Sammy looked through the pile, he found that there were, in fact, quite a few unprocessed checks, some of which dated from Juanita's first day on the job. As they were the more unusual kinds of checks the department handled, Sammy assumed that she apparently had not known how to process them. Unfortunately, the combined value of these checks totaled around $65,000. The bank had lost the "float" value on them, and Sammy knew that customer complaints would be coming in soon. Sammy expected Juanita to come back to work the following day, and he wondered if he should write up a warning notice for her immediately.

(Source: Alan Clardy, Ph.D., Advantage Human Resources, HRD Press, 1994)

1- What could be done by Sammy to manage Juanita's poor performance problem? Suggest four (4) methods of how Sammy can provide Juanita with skills and knowledge to improve her performance. Provide suitable example to support your answer.

2- Managers have the most significant impact on employee performance. Based on this statement, how would Sammy align the performance of his staff with the organizational goals? Propose four (4) work practices that Sammy can apply which lead to both high individual and high organizational performance. Provide suitable example to support your answer.

please I need some extra lines to write, our answer based on ( Stephen P. Robbins, Mary A. Coulter Management thirteenth edition ) book

This program is broken down into phases for your convenience only. Please turn in only the final phase. Before turning in your program, please make sure that it does something reasonable if the user enters a negative number the first time.

Phase I: Write a program for a theater that will keep track of how many people in each of 5 age categories attended a particular movie. Use the 5 age categories listed below in the sample screen output. The user will enter a number of ages, entering a negative number when there are no more ages to enter. Your program will then report on how many people in each age group attended. Sample screen output:

    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 34    
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 16
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 68
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 53
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 39
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 23
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 21
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): -1

    age 0  to 18: 1
    age 19 to 30: 2
    age 31 to 40: 2
    age 41 to 60: 1
    over 60: 1

Phase II: Modify your program so that, in addition to the report that the program currently produces, it also gives the average age of the people in attendance, the age of the oldest person in attendance, and the age of the youngest person in attendance. Sample screen output:

 
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 34    
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 16
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 68
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 53
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 39
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 23
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 21
    Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): -1

    age 0  to 18: 1
    age 19 to 30: 2
    age 31 to 40: 2
    age 41 to 60: 1
    over 60: 1

    The average age was 36.
    The youngest person in attendance was 16.
    The oldest person in attendance was 68.

Phase III: Modify your program so that it also asks each attendee for a theater concession stand purchase. The attendee must make a selection based on the following choices …

1 - Soft Drink (such as Coca Cola, ICCEE, Mineral Water etc...)

2 - Popcorn

3 - Nachos       

4 - Soft drink & Popcorn

5 - Soft drink & Nachos

6 - Organic and Gluten-free snacks       

7 – None

The program output should now also provide a theater concession stand sales summary with a count of each category purchased.

Note: Include a validation routine to ensure that a correct choice is input for each attendee.

Check the sample screen output below for the final formatted display of theater statistics.

 
  ==========================
  THEATER STATS PROGRAM
  ==========================

Movie theater snacks available for purchase
==========================================
1 - Soft Drink (such as Coca Cola, ICCEE, Mineral Water etc...)
2 - Popcorn
3 - Nachos
4 - Soft drink & Popcorn
5 - Soft drink & Nachos
6 - Organic and Gluten-free snacks
7 - None
==========================================

Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 34
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):4
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 16
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):5
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 68
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):12
Invalid selection, please choose from 1 - 7
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):6
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 53
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):6
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 39
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):1
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 23
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):2
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 21
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):3
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): 21
Movie theater snack purchased. (Select items 1 - 7):4
--------------------------
Enter age of attendee (-1 to quit): -1

==================================
  THEATER STATS PROGRAM RESULTS
==================================

age 0  to 18:    1
age 19 to 30:    3
age 31 to 40:    2
age 41 to 60:    1
over 60:         1

The average age was 34
The youngest person in attendance was 16
The oldest person in attendance was 68

Theater Concession Stand sales
==================================
Soft Drink (such as Coca Cola, ICCEE, Mineral Water etc.): 1
Popcorn: 1
Nachos: 1
Soft drink & Popcorn: 2
Soft drink & Nachos: 1
Organic and Gluten-free snacks: 2

Process returned 0 (0x0)   execution time : 169.589 s
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