Use the following information to complete Armando and Lourdes Gonzales’s 2018 federal income tax return. If any information is missing, use reasonable assumptions to fill in the gaps. ∙ You may need the following forms and schedules to complete the project: Form 1040, Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule C, Schedule D, Schedule E, Schedule SE, Form 4562 (for the dental practice), Form 4562 (for the rental property), Form 4797, Form 8863, and Form 8949. The forms, schedules, and instructions can be found at the IRS website (www.irs.gov). The instructions can be helpful in completing the forms. Facts: 1. Armando Z. and Lourdes K. Gonzales are married and file a joint return. Armando is self-employed as a dentist, and Lourdes is a college professor. Armando and Lourdes have three children. The oldest is Ricardo, who lives at home. Ricardo is a law student at the University of Cincinnati and worked part time during the year, earning $1,500, which he spent for his own support. Armando and Lourdes provided $6,000 toward Ricardo’s support (including $4,000 for Ricardo’s fall tuition). They also provided over half the support of their daughter, Selena, who is a full-time student at Edgecliff College in Cincinnati. Selena worked part time as an independent contractor during the year, earning $3,200. Selena lived at home until she was married in December 2018. She filed a joint return with her husband, Tony, who earned $20,000 during the year. Felipe is the youngest and lived in the Gonzales’s home for the entire year. The Gonzaleses provide you with the following additional information: ∙ Armando and Lourdes would like to take advantage on their return of any educational expenses paid for their children. ∙ The Gonzaleses do not want to contribute to the presidential election campaign. ∙ The Gonzaleses live at 621 Franklin Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211. ∙ Armando’s birthday is 3/5/1960 and his Social Security number is 333-45-6666. ∙ Lourdes’s birthday is 4/24/1963 and her Social Security number is 566-77-8888. ∙ Ricardo’s birthday is 11/6/1995 and his Social Security number is 576-18-7928. ∙ Selena’s birthday is 2/1/1999 and her Social Security number is 575-92-4321. ∙ Felipe’s birthday is 12/12/2006 and his Social Security number is 613-97-8465. ∙ The Gonzaleses do not have any foreign bank accounts or trusts. 2. Lourdes is a lecturer at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where she earned $30,000. The university withheld federal income tax of $3,375, state income tax of $900, Cincinnati city income tax of $375, $1,860 of Social Security tax, and $435 of Medicare tax. She also worked part of the year for Delta Airlines. Delta paid her $10,000 in salary, and withheld federal income tax of $1,125, state income tax of $300, Cincinnati city income tax of $125, Social Security tax of $620, and Medicare tax of $145. 3. The Gonzaleses received $800 of interest from State Savings Bank on a joint account. They received interest of $1,000 on City of Cincinnati bonds they bought in January with the proceeds of a loan from Third National Bank of Cincinnati. They spi18394_appc_C-C26_online.indd 7 4/17/18 3:23 PM C-8 Appendix C paid interest of $1,100 on the loan. Armando received a dividend of $540 on General Bicycle Corporation stock he owns. Lourdes received a dividend of $390 on Acme Clothing Corporation stock she owns. Armando and Lourdes received a dividend of $865 on jointly owned stock in Maple Company. All of the dividends received in 2018 are qualified dividends. 4. Armando practices under the name “Armando Z. Gonzales, DDS.” His business is located at 645 West Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211, and his employer identification number is 01-2222222. Armando’s gross receipts during the year were $111,000. Armando uses the cash method of accounting for his business. Armando’s business expenses are as follows: Advertising $ 1,200 Professional dues 490 Professional journals 360 Contributions to employee benefit plans 2,000 Malpractice insurance 3,200 Fine for overbilling State of Ohio for work 5,000 performed on welfare patient Insurance on office contents 720 Interest on money borrowed to refurbish office 600 Accounting services 2,100 Miscellaneous office expense 388 Office rent 12,000 Dental supplies 7,672 Utilities and telephone 3,360 Wages 30,000 Payroll taxes 2,400 In June, Armando decided to refurbish his office. This project was completed and the assets placed in service on July 1. Armando’s expenditures included $8,000 for new office furniture, $6,000 for new dental equipment (seven-year recovery period), and $2,000 for a new computer. Armando elected to compute his cost recovery allowance using MACRS. He did not elect to use §179 immediate expensing, and he chose to not claim any bonus depreciation. 5. Lourdes’s mother, Maria, died on July 2, 2012, leaving Lourdes her entire estate. Included in the estate was Maria’s residence (325 Oak Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211). Maria’s basis in the residence was $30,000. The fair market value of the residence on July 2, 2012, was $155,000. The property was distributed to Lourdes on January 1, 2013. The Gonzaleses have held the property as rental property and have managed it themselves. From 2013 until June 30, 2018, they rented the house to the same tenant. The tenant was transferred to a branch office in California and moved out at the end of June. Since they did not want to bother finding a new tenant, Armando and Lourdes sold the house on June 30, 2018. They received $140,000 for the house and land ($15,000 for the land and $125,000 for the house), less a 6 percent commission charged by the broker. They had depreciated the house using the MACRS rules and conventions applicable to residential real estate. To compute depreciation on the house, the Gonzaleses had allocated $15,000 of the property’s basis to the land on which the house is located. The Gonzaleses collected rent of $1,000 a month during the six months the house was occupied during the year. They incurred the following related expenses during this period: Property insurance $500 Property taxes 800 Maintenance 465 Depreciation (to be computed) ? spi18394_appc_C-C26_online.indd 8 4/17/18 3:23 PM Appendix C C-9 6. The Gonzaleses sold 200 shares of Capp Corporation stock on September 3, 2018, for $42 a share (minus a $50 commission). The Gonzaleses received the stock from Armando’s father on June 25, 1982, as a wedding present. Armando’s father originally purchased the stock for $10 per share on January 1, 1969. The stock was valued at $14.50 per share on the date of the gift. No gift tax was paid on the gift. 7. Armando and Lourdes have given you a file containing the following receipts for expenditures during the year: Prescription medicine and drugs (net of insurance reimbursement) $ 376 Doctor and hospital bills (net of insurance reimbursement) 2,468 Penalty for underpayment of last year’s state income tax 15 Real estate taxes on personal residence 4,762 Interest on home mortgage (paid to Home State Savings & Loan) 8,250 Interest on credit cards (consumer purchases) 595 Cash contribution to St. Matthew’s church 3,080 Payroll deductions for Lourdes’s contributions to the United Way 150 8. The Gonzaleses filed their 2017 federal, state, and local returns on April 12, 2018. They paid the following additional 2017 taxes with their returns: federal income taxes of $630, state income taxes of $250, and city income taxes of $75. 9. The Gonzaleses made timely estimated federal income tax payments of $1,500 each quarter during 2018. They also made estimated state income tax payments of $300 each quarter and estimated city income tax payments of $160 each quarter. The Gonzaleses made all fourth-quarter payments on December 31, 2018. They would like to receive a refund for any overpayments. 10. Armando and Lourdes have qualifying insurance for purposes of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

INDIVIDUAL TAX RETURN PROBLEM 5 Required: ∙

Use the following information to complete Armando and Lourdes Gonzales’s 2018 federal income tax return. If any information is missing, use reasonable assumptions to fill in the gaps. ∙ You may need the following forms and schedules to complete the project: Form 1040, Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule C, Schedule D, Schedule E, Schedule SE, Form 4562 (for the dental practice), Form 4562 (for the rental property), Form 4797, Form 8863, and Form 8949. The forms, schedules, and instructions can be found at the IRS website (www.irs.gov). The instructions can be helpful in completing the forms.

Facts:

1. Armando Z. and Lourdes K. Gonzales are married and file a joint return. Armando is self-employed as a dentist, and Lourdes is a college professor. Armando and Lourdes have three children. The oldest is Ricardo, who lives at home. Ricardo is a law student at the University of Cincinnati and worked part time during the year, earning $1,500, which he spent for his own support. Armando and Lourdes provided $6,000 toward Ricardo’s support (including $4,000 for Ricardo’s fall tuition). They also provided over half the support of their daughter, Selena, who is a full-time student at Edgecliff College in Cincinnati. Selena worked part time as an independent contractor during the year, earning $3,200. Selena lived at home until she was married in December 2018. She filed a joint return with her husband, Tony, who earned $20,000 during the year. Felipe is the youngest and lived in the Gonzales’s home for the entire year. The Gonzaleses provide you with the following additional information:

Armando and Lourdes would like to take advantage on their return of any educational expenses paid for their children.

>The Gonzaleses do not want to contribute to the presidential election campaign.

>∙ The Gonzaleses live at 621 Franklin Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211.

>∙ Armando’s birthday is 3/5/1960 and his Social Security number is 333-45-6666.

>∙ Lourdes’s birthday is 4/24/1963 and her Social Security number is 566-77-8888.

>Ricardo’s birthday is 11/6/1995 and his Social Security number is 576-18-7928.

>∙ Selena’s birthday is 2/1/1999 and her Social Security number is 575-92-4321.

>∙ Felipe’s birthday is 12/12/2006 and his Social Security number is 613-97-8465.

>∙ The Gonzaleses do not have any foreign bank accounts or trusts.

2. Lourdes is a lecturer at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where she earned $30,000. The university withheld federal income tax of $3,375, state income tax of $900, Cincinnati city income tax of $375, $1,860 of Social Security tax, and $435 of Medicare tax. She also worked part of the year for Delta Airlines. Delta paid her $10,000 in salary, and withheld federal income tax of $1,125, state income tax of $300, Cincinnati city income tax of $125, Social Security tax of $620, and Medicare tax of $145.

3.The Gonzaleses received $800 of interest from State Savings Bank on a joint account. They received interest of $1,000 on City of Cincinnati bonds they bought in January with the proceeds of a loan from Third National Bank of Cincinnati. They paid interest of $1,100 on the loan. Armando received a dividend of $540 on General Bicycle Corporation stock he owns. Lourdes received a dividend of $390 on Acme Clothing Corporation stock she owns. Armando and Lourdes received a dividend of $865 on jointly owned stock in Maple Company. All of the dividends received in 2018 are qualified dividends.

4.Armando practices under the name “Armando Z. Gonzales, DDS.” His business is located at 645 West Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211, and his employer identification number is 01-2222222. Armando’s gross receipts during the year were $111,000. Armando uses the cash method of accounting for his business. Armando’s business expenses are as follows:

Advertising $ 1,200

Professional dues          490

Professional journals           360

Contributions to employee benefit plans 2,000

Malpractice insurance        3,200

Fine for overbilling State of Ohio for work 5,000

performed on welfare patient Insurance on office contents        720

Interest on money borrowed to refurbish office 600

Accounting services        2,100

Miscellaneous office expense 388

Office rent 12,000

Dental supplies            7,672

Utilities and telephone         3,360

Wages     30,000

Payroll taxes        2,400

In June, Armando decided to refurbish his office. This project was completed and the assets placed in service on July 1. Armando’s expenditures included $8,000 for new office furniture, $6,000 for new dental equipment (seven-year recovery period), and $2,000 for a new computer. Armando elected to compute his cost recovery allowance using MACRS. He did not elect to use §179 immediate expensing, and he chose to not claim any bonus depreciation.

5. Lourdes’s mother, Maria, died on July 2, 2012, leaving Lourdes her entire estate. Included in the estate was Maria’s residence (325 Oak Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211). Maria’s basis in the residence was $30,000. The fair market value of the residence on July 2, 2012, was $155,000. The property was distributed to Lourdes on January 1, 2013. The Gonzaleses have held the property as rental property and have managed it themselves. From 2013 until June 30, 2018, they rented the house to the same tenant. The tenant was transferred to a branch office in California and moved out at the end of June. Since they did not want to bother finding a new tenant, Armando and Lourdes sold the house on June 30, 2018. They received $140,000 for the house and land ($15,000 for the land and $125,000 for the house), less a 6 percent commission charged by the broker. They had depreciated the house using the MACRS rules and conventions applicable to residential real estate. To compute depreciation on the house, the Gonzaleses had allocated $15,000 of the property’s basis to the land on which the house is located. The Gonzaleses collected rent of $1,000 a month during the six months the house was occupied during the year. They incurred the following related expenses during this period:

Property insurance $ 500

Property taxes 800

Maintenance 465

Depreciation (to be computed) ?

6. The Gonzaleses sold 200 shares of Capp Corporation stock on September 3, 2018, for $42 a share (minus a $50 commission). The Gonzaleses received the stock from Armando’s father on June 25, 1982, as a wedding present. Armando’s father originally purchased the stock for $10 per share on January 1, 1969. The stock was valued at $14.50 per share on the date of the gift. No gift tax was paid on the gift.

7. Armando and Lourdes have given you a file containing the following receipts for expenditures during the year:

Prescription medicine and drugs (net of insurance reimbursement) $   376

Doctor and hospital bills (net of insurance reimbursement) 2,468

Penalty for underpayment of last year’s state income tax 15

Real estate taxes on personal residence 4,762

Interest on home mortgage (paid to Home State Savings & Loan ) 8,250

Interest on credit cards (consumer purchases) 595

Cash contribution to St. Matthew’s church 3,080

Payroll deductions for Lourdes’s contributions to the United Way 150

8. The Gonzaleses filed their 2017 federal, state, and local returns on April 12, 2018. They paid the following additional 2017 taxes with their returns: federal income taxes of $630, state income taxes of $250, and city income taxes of $75.

9. The Gonzaleses made timely estimated federal income tax payments of $1,500 each quarter during 2018. They also made estimated state income tax payments of $300 each quarter and estimated city income tax payments of $160 each quarter. The Gonzaleses made all fourth-quarter payments on December 31, 2018. They would like to receive a refund for any overpayments.

10. Armando and Lourdes have qualifying insurance for purposes of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Article

Why Are the Poor Poor? Explanations of poverty, like explanations of inequality in general, differ in several ways. They may focus on individuals or on social structures. They may interpret poverty as inevitable—perhaps even necessary—or as the product of the efforts of the powerful and wealthy to protect their own inter- ests. Let’s look at some of these explanations, keeping in mind that despite their differences, each may contain elements of validity and therefore may offer at least a partial answer to the question of why some people are poor. Individual-Focused Explanations In explaining poverty, individual-focused theories stress the personal respon- sibility of people in determining their place in the social hierarchy. These theories fall closely in line with the popular thinking about the poor in America. This is because they complement well the dominant ideology of individual- ism. The essential idea is that if people are poor, it is mainly because of their own actions or inaction, as well as their personal traits. The source of poverty, in other words, lies with the poor themselves. The two major individual- focused theories emphasize either biological traits or cultural traits. Biological Explanations A theory once widely held maintains that people are poor because of inherent deficiencies in their character or mental makeup—that is, they are biologically less “fit” than others. Because they are genetically handicapped, they are bound to be poor. This biological deterministic explanation was popular early in the last century and was a basic part of the notion of social Darwinism. Some social scientists and commentators held that one’s wealth or poverty was a dem- onstration of one’s inherent capabilities. This idea was put forth by those such as British social scientist Herbert Spencer, who asserted that the emer- gence of the poor, as well as the emergence of an elite at the top of the social hierarchy, was a natural development. Spencer drew an analogy to Darwin’s notion of survival of the fittest among animal species. Applying the idea to human societies, Spencer maintained that through a process of free and natural competition, the most able would rise to the top and the least able would sink to the bottom. In this way the social Darwinists ratio- nalized the extreme inequality that typified the newly industrialized societies at the turn of the twentieth century, like Britain and the United States. If the poor were a natural development, so the theory went, there was nothing that could be done to alleviate their condition. Giving assistance to the poor would only extend their inevitable decline. Indeed, the most desirable occurrence would be the rapid extinction of this element of the society. Calls for social welfare programs of one kind or another to help lift the poor from their condition were therefore met with the argument that these were fruitless and wasteful efforts. Social Darwinism in its most crude form is an idea that no longer holds much weight among social scientists or even the general public. Yet there are remnants of a genetic explanation for poverty that occasionally surface. In 1994 psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and sociologist Charles Murray authored a controversial book, The Bell Curve, in which they proffered a theory of poverty that is well within the tradition of social Darwinism. The essence of their position is that IQ is the most significant factor in determin- ing people’s place in the social hierarchy. Herrnstein and Murray posit that intelligence, as measured by IQ, is in large part genetic. They see strong relationships between IQ and various social pathologies. Those with lower IQs have a greater proclivity toward poverty, crime, illegitimacy, poor edu- cational performance, and other social ills. Because IQ is mostly genetic, they argue, there is no way to change the condition of those with low intel- ligence through educational reforms or welfare programs. Because lower- intelligence people are reproducing much faster than are higher-intelligence people, the society is faced with the possibility of a growing underclass increasingly dependent on the more intelligent and productive classes. Her- rnstein and Murray hold that such an underclass is apt to remain in a state of dependency on the nonpoor and continue to engage in antisocial activi- ties. Thus, they question the value of welfare payments, remedial educa- tional programs, affirmative action, and other efforts designed to raise the social and economic levels of the poor. Herrnstein and Murray’s arguments were countered by most mainstream sociologists, who claimed that their methods were flawed and their reason- ing specious (Fischer et al., 1996; Fraser, 1995; Jacoby and Glauberman, in and adapt to the mainstream. The poor, then, are attuned to a dysfunctional culture. Although poverty is not seen as biologically based, it is nonetheless attributable, in this view, to personal characteristics of the poor. The idea of a culture of poverty was first put forth in the early 1960s by anthropologist Oscar Lewis, who studied poor families in Mexico City, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and New York City. Lewis lived among those families and concluded that there were basic behavioral traits and attitudes that typified the poor everywhere, which together constituted a coherent “culture of poverty.” Some of the key features of that culture, Lewis explained, were a present ori- entation (rather than the future orientation typical of the middle class), a fatal- istic view of the world and one’s place in it, a tendency toward female-headed families, authoritarianism within the family, a high rate of abandonment of wives and children, frequent use of violence in settling disputes and in disci- plining children, a high rate of alcoholism, a belief in male superiority, and a martyr complex among women (Lewis, 1961, 1965, 1966). Lewis maintained that these values and behaviors are responses to the conditions of poverty but that in the process they become well-entrenched cultural traits that are passed on from one generation to the next. “By the time slum children are age six or seven,” Lewis wrote, “they have usually absorbed the basic values and attitudes of their subculture and are not psychologically geared to take full advantage of changing conditions or increased opportunities which may occur in their lifetime” (1965:xlv). Lewis explained, however, that not all poor people necessarily live in or develop a culture of poverty. A related view of poverty and the poor is suggested in the work of political scientist Edward Banfield (1968, 1974). Banfield asserted that the plight of the urban poor was a result of their failure to adopt conforming, specifically middle-class, social values. He focused primarily on the urban black poor, claiming that their situation and their behaviors must be seen not as a product of racial discrimination but as class behavior. European immigrants of earlier decades, he pointed out, were also mostly poor and manifested high crime rates, unstable families, and low school performance, but they eventually assimilated to the dominant culture and improved their economic standing. Poor blacks are therefore simply experiencing the same process of transition to a higher class position. The problems of the urban black poor, in this view, will abate once they are solidly part of the middle class and have embraced middle-class values and lifestyles. As part of the culture-of-poverty thesis, structural factors and the “acci- dent of birth” may be acknowledged, but these are not seen as unconquer- able obstacles. People may not choose to be poor, but through their personal efforts, the road out of poverty is open to them. They need only subscribe to the mainstream culture. Critics of this cultural explanation of poverty have pointed out that the basic argument blames the poor themselves for being poor. That is, their condition is essentially a product of their failure to adopt middle-class norms and values rather than of a restructured economy or ethnic discrimination (or both) that makes escape from poverty, for most, difficult at best (Ryan, 1975; Valentine, 1971). Moreover, much debate has centered on the culture-of-poverty concept itself. Some sociologists and anthropologists took issue with Lewis’s conceptualization of the poor as a “culture.” Are the behaviors and values of the poor a culture in the sense of a way of life consciously passed on from one generation to the next, or are these traits simply adaptive mechanisms that would be discarded once the material conditions of poverty were removed (Gans, 1968; Lewis, 1967)? Critics of the culture-of-poverty thesis suggest the latter and contend that its exponents confuse cause and effect. Even if poor families could somehow be transformed culturally into some middle-class ideal (both parents present, working, religious), this would have very limited impact on preventing future poverty. Researchers Jens Ludwig and Susan Mayer (2006) explain that there is a dearth of evi- dence to support the idea that parents who choose to marry, work, and regularly attend church are more likely to produce children who will experience long-term economic success. Moreover, they show that a majority of poor adults have grown up in just such “pro-social” households.

Question

Which theory do you think best explains why people are poor in American society?

Why?

CASE 4.3
One Nation under Walmart

THE HUgE CORpORATIONS THAT produce our cars, appliances, computers, and other products—many of them household names like Nike, Coca-Cola, and Johnson & Johnson—are a familiar feature of contemporary capitalism.

But Walmart represents something new in the economic landscape. Now the world’s largest company, Walmart has achieved its corporate preeminence not in production but in retail. No other retailer, at any time or in any place, has ever come close to being as large and influential as Walmart has become. After years of nonstop growth, there are now more than 8,400 Walmart stores worldwide, and 140 million shoppers visit its U.S. stores each week. And the company is opening more stores all the time as it moves beyond its stronghold in the rural South and Midwest and into urban America. In fact, 82 percent of American households purchase at least one item from Walmart every year. As a result, the company’s marketplace clout is enormous: It controls about 30 percent of the market in household staples; it sells 15 percent of all magazines and 15–20 percent of all CDs, videos, and DVDs; and it is expected to control soon over 35 percent of U.S. food sales. For most companies selling consumer products, sales from Walmart represent a big chunk of their total business: 28 percent for Dial, 24 percent for Del Monte, and 23 percent for Revlon. Walmart is also responsible for 10 percent of all goods imported to the United States from China.

The good news for consumers is that Walmart has risen to retail supremacy through the bargain prices it offers them. The retail giant can afford its low prices because of the cost efficiencies it has achieved and the pressure it puts on suppliers to lower their prices. And the larger the store gets, the more market clout it has and the further it can push down prices for its customers.

Everyone, of course, loves low prices, but not everyone, it seems, loves Walmart. Why not? Here are some of the charges that critics level against the retail behemoth:

Walmart’s buying power and cost-saving efficiencies force local rivals out of business, thus costing jobs, disrupt- ing local communities, and injuring established business districts. One Walmart worker replaces approximately 1.4 other local retail workers, and typically within five years after a Walmart Supercenter opens, two other supermarkets close. Further, Walmart often insists on tax breaks when it moves into a community, so its presence does little or nothing to increase local tax revenues.

Walmart is staunchly anti-union and pays low wages. Its labor costs are 20 percent lower than those of unionized supermarkets; its average sales clerk earns only $8.23 an hour, and most of its employees must survive without company health insurance. Small wonder that employee turnover is 44 percent per year. Moreover, because of its size, Walmart exerts a downward pressure on retail wages and benefits throughout the country. Critics also charge that Walmart’s hard line on costs has forced many factories to move overseas, which sacrifices American jobs and holds wages down.

Government welfare programs subsidize Walmart’s poverty-level wages. According to one congressional report, a 200-employee store costs the government $42,000 a year in housing assistance, $108,000 in children’s health care, and $125,000 in tax credits and deductions for low-income families. And internal Walmart documents, leaked to the press, confirmed that 46 percent of the children of Walmart’s 1.33 million workers are uninsured or on Medicaid. The document also discusses strategies for holding down spending on health care and other benefits—for example, by hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at the store by requiring all jobs to include some physical labor.

As Walmart grows and grows, and as its competitors fall by the wayside, consumer choices narrow, and the retail giant exerts ever greater power as a cultural censor. Walmart, for example, won’t carry music or computer games with mature ratings. As a result, the big music companies now supply the chain with sanitized versions of the explicit CDs that they provide to radio stations and that are sold elsewhere. The retailer has removed racy magazines such as Maxim and FHM from its racks, and it obscures the covers of Glamour, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan with bind- ers. Although many locations offer inexpensive firearms, Walmart won’t sell Preven, a morning-after pill—the only one of the top ten drug chains to decline to do so.

For these reasons, Walmart’s expansion is frequently meeting determined local resistance, as concerned residents trying to preserve their communities and their local stores and downtown shopping areas from disruption by Walmart through petitions, political pressure, and zoning restrictions. As one economist remarks, for Walmart “the biggest barrier to growth” is not competition from rivals such as Target or Winn-Dixie stores but “opposition at the local level.” As a result, Walmart has begun responding to the criticism that it is a poor corporate citizen and a miserly employer by improving employee health insurance coverage and adopting greener business practices. And even its usual critics applauded when the company responded rapidly to Hurricane Katrina, sending truckloads of water and food, much of it reaching residents before federal supplies did.

When it comes to Walmart, Professor John E. Hoopes of Babson College encourages people to take a long-term view: “The history of the last 150 years in retailing would say that if you don’t like Walmart, be patient. There will be new models eventually that will do Walmart in, and Walmart won’t see it coming.” And, indeed, in recent years the company’s sales growth has slipped as the Internet has changed people’s shopping habits and as other discounters have done a better job of attracting affluent consumers and providing higher quality and better service.

In the meantime, where you stand on Walmart probably depends on where you sit, as Jeffrey Useem writes in Fortune magazine: “If you’re a consumer, Walmart is good for you. If you’re a wage-earner, there’s a good chance it’s bad for you. If you’re a Walmart shareholder, you want the company to grow. If you’re a citizen, you probably don’t want it growing in your backyard. So, which one are you?”

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Do you like Walmart? Do you shop there? If so, how frequently? If not, why not?

2. Is there a Walmart store in your area? If so, has it had any impact on your community or on the behavior of local consumers? If there’s no store in your area, would you be in favor of Walmart opening one? Explain why or why not.

3. Is Walmart’s rapid rise to retail dominance a positive or a negative development for our society? What does it tell us about capitalism, globalization, and the plight of workers?

4. Can a retailer ever become too large and too powerful?

5. Is opposition to Walmart’s expansion a legitimate part of the political process or is it unfair interference with our market system and a violation of the company’s rights? Do opponents of Walmart have any valid concerns?

in c++ please

In this program you are going to have several files to turn in (NOT JUST ONE!!)

• hangman.h – this is your header file – I will give you a partially complete header file to start with.
• hangman.cpp – this is your source file that contains your main function
• functions.cpp – this is your source file that contains all your other functions
• wordBank.txt – this is the file with words for the game to use.  You should put 10 words in this text file.

COMPILE THIS WAY:
g++ -Wall -std=c++11 hangman.cpp functions.cpp –o hangman

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

You will create a C++ program that will allow the user to play the game Hangman.  Hangman is traditionally a paper & pencil game.  One player thinks of a word and the other player tries to guess it by suggesting letters that may be in the word.  Your program will be player one, by pulling a word from a “word bank” and then player two is the user of your program.  The game is over when one of two things happen:

• The user correctly completes the word.
• The user incorrectly guesses a letter six times.

ARRAYS

You will have four arrays.  Three of the arrays will be C-Strings (NOT C++ STRING CLASS STRINGS!!!).  

• Character array of size 21 (20 characters plus one null-terminator) that will hold the word read in from the “word bank”.  You may assume that the game only plays with words, not phrases.  (No spaces).
  char word[21];
• Character array of size 21 (20 characters plus one null-terminator) that will at first hold all underscores.  Then, as the user makes correct guesses, the underscores will be replaced with the correct letters.  This means you will have to assign each element to an underscore ‘_’  before the user starts to make any guesses.
  char underScores[21];
• Character array of size 27 (26 characters plus one null-terminator).  Initialize this array when you define it to all the uppercase letters in the alphabet.  “ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ”.  
  char alphabet[27] = “ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ”;
• Boolean array of size 26 (26 boolean values).  This array will have a true/false toggle for each letter of the alphabet.  If the user has guessed the letter B, then this array at element 1 will have the value of true.  Assign false to each element before the user starts to make any guesses.  
  bool userGuesses[26];

WORD BANK

You will have to create an input file called wordBank.txt.  You need to manually type in TEN or more words to this file.  Your program will not be outputting to this file.  wordBank.txt will be used as an input file only.  Here is one of my wordBank.txt files to see what I mean.  Please do not use my words – make up your own!

FUNCTION:  INT MAIN()

• Open the input file wordBank.txt.  If the file can’t open, print out a message that a word could not be found in the word bank.
• Allow the user to play this game (run the program) multiple times.  

SETTING UP FOR THE GAME

• Set all the elements of the userGuesses array to false
• Using a loop, set all elements of the underScores array to the underscore character ‘_’.  
• Set the stage variable to zero (the starting stage)
• Read in a word from the input file (get the word) – make sure that if the user runs the program multiple times that they get a different word each time from the file.

GAME PLAY

• While the game has not ended (user is not at stage 6 yet and they have not guessed the word), then do the following:
  • Call the printWord function sending the word array and the underScores array as arguments.
  • Call the printStage function sending the stage variable as an argument.
  • Call the printLettersGuessed function sending the userGuesses array and alphabet array as arguments.
  • Ask the user for their guess.  If it is a lowercase letter, then you need to make it an uppercase letter.  
    cout << “  WHAT LETTER DO YOU GUESS?  “;
    cin >> letter;
    letter = toupper(letter); //the toupper function will make letter uppercase.
    Make sure the letter is not a letter already guessed.  If it is a letter they have already guessed, then force the user to enter in a different letter.  
  • Take the usersGuesses array and make the letter they just guessed true instead of false.  For example, if they guessed the letter ‘C’ then you will need to make usersGuesses[2] = true;
  • Find out if the letter that they guessed is inside the chosen word from the word bank.
    • If the letter guessed is found in the word array, then print out CORRECT! And then put the letter in the underScores array in the same location as the wordFromFile array.
      underScores[x] = word[x];  // where x is an integer incremented by the for loop.
    • If there were no letters found, then print out WRONG!, increment the stage number.  If the stage number is already 6, then call the printStage() function.
    • Tell the user to press enter to continue.
  • Find out if the user has guessed every letter in the word, because if they have, then the game is done and the loop will stop.  
    • Find out the length of the chosen word
      wordLength = strlen(word);
    • Do a special string comparison that will compare two words up to a given length.  The function is strncmp() that you will need to use.  If the chosen word (word array) and theunderScores array match, then the user has guessed the word and the game is over.  Print out a message that the user won the game.

Function:  void printStage(int)

This function will accept as a parameter the current stage and print out the respective diagram to the screen.  Each time the user guesses, a diagram is printed out.  The diagram represents the user being closer and closer to being “hanged” – which is why the game is called Hangman.  At the beginning of the game, the diagram starts at stage 0.  The user will stay at stage 0 (zero) until he or she guesses incorrectly, and then he/she will advance one stage to stage 1.  There are 7 stages (stage 0 to stage 6) to represent the user guessing incorrectly six times.  If the user gets to stage 6, they lose the game.  I have already provided this function for you!

Function:  void printWord(char[], char[])

This function will print out the letters in the word that have already been correctly guessed.  At the beginning of the game, this function should just print out underscores to represent each letter.  This lets the user know how many letters is in the word they are trying to guess.

WORD:  _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Then, as the user guesses a letter, replace the underscore with the letter:

WORD:  W _ _ _ _ _ _

How the function should work:

• Figure out the length of the character array word (use strlen c-string function)
• Use a loop to go through as many iterations as the length of word
  • Print out each character of the underScores[] array.  It should be the same length as word.
  • For example, if the word array is ‘R’’A’’V’’E’’N’, then the string length is 5.  Write a for loop that will iterate five times printing out the characters in underScores[] array.  The underScores array may have more than 5 characters in it, but you will only print out 5.

Function:  void printLettersGuessed(bool[], char[])

This function will print out all the letters the user has guessed so far (correct & incorrect).

LETTERS YOU HAVE ALREADY GUESSED:  Q W X Z

How the function should work:

• Starting at 0, for every element up until 25, if the current element of usersGuesses is true, then output the letter (from the alphabet array) of the same element.  
• Make sure you print out: “ LETTERS YOU HAVE ALREADY GUESSED:  “ before you print out the letters.

Spruce Street Shelter Sam Donaldson, the laundry supervisor of the Spruce Street Shelter, stared at the memo that had just reached his desk: The shelter has adopted a responsibility accounting system. From now on you will receive quarterly re- ports comparing the costs of operating your department with budgeted costs. The reports will highlight the differences (variances) so that you can zero in on the departure from budgeted costs. (This is called management by exception.) Responsibility accounting means you are accountable for keeping the costs in your department within the budget. The variances from the budget will help you identify which costs are out of line, and the sizes of the variances will indicate the most important ones. Your first such report ac- companies this announcement. [Exhibit 1] As this report indicates, your costs are significantly above budget for the quarter. You need to pay par- ticular attention to labor, supplies, and maintenance. Please get back to me by the end of this week with a plan for making the needed reductions. Mr. Donaldson knew he needed a plan, yet midwinter was the busiest time of the year at the shelter, and the laundry was piling up faster than his staff could wash it. BACKGROUND Spruce Street Shelter was located in the heart of a large metropolitan area in the north-central United States. Founded in the late 1800s, it had been serving the homeless ever since, providing hot meals, shelter, and companionship. Situated on a busy urban thoroughfare, it was a haven of last re- sort for many of the city's indigent, and “home” for many others. As might be expected, the de- mand for its services was especially high in the winter, when temperatures frequently dropped to below freezing, and life “on the street” became unbearable. The shelter provided three services. Its most significant activity was the Hot-Meal Program, where it served hundreds of meals a day. A meal of hot soup and a sandwich was available to any- one who arrived between the hours of noon and 2pm and 5pm to 7pm. Its second program was its Overnight Hostel, where it had 150 beds that were available on a first-come, first-served basis. The linen was changed daily, and fresh towels were always available, so that the shelter’s clients could look forward to “clean sheets and a hot shower.” Finally, it had a counseling program, in which a staff of three full-time social workers assisted clients to cope with the difficulties that had brought them to the shelter, and in establishing themselves in a more self-sufficient lifestyle. SYSTEM CHANGES In March, the shelter had hired a new administrator to improve its business activities. A busi- ness school graduate with prior experience in manufacturing and service companies in the private sector, one of his first steps had been to introduce what he called “responsibility accounting.” He had instituted a new budgeting system, along with the provision of quarterly cost reports to the shelter’s department heads. (Previously, cost data had been presented to department heads only in- frequently.) The annual budget for the current fiscal year had been constructed by the new administrator, based on an analysis of the prior three years’ costs. The analysis showed that all costs increased each year, with more rapid increases between the second and third year. He considered establishing the budget at an average of the prior three years' costs hoping that the installation of the system would reduce costs to this level. However, in view of the rapidly increasing prices, he finally chose HBSP Product Number TCG267 THE CRIMSON PRESS CURRICULUM CENTER THE CRIMSON GROUP, INC. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ This case was prepared by Professor David W. Young. It is intended as a basis for class discussion and not to illus- trate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright © 2014 by The Crimson Group, Inc. To order copies or request permission to reproduce this document, contact Harvard Business Publications (http://hbsp.harvard.edu/). Under provisions of United States and interna- tional copyright laws, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from The Crimson Group (www.thecrimsongroup.org) For the exclusive use of S. Nguyen, 2018. This document is authorized for use only by Sydney Nguyen in Costs/Budgets - 2018 Fall taught by YONG GYO LEE, University of Houston from Aug 2018 to Feb 2019. the prior fiscal year’s costs less 3 percent for the current year’s budget. He decided to measure ac- tivity by client nights, and to set the budget for pounds of laundry processed at last year’s level, which was approximately equal to the volume of each of the past three years. Quarterly budgets were computed as one-fourth of the annual budget. Mr. Donaldson had re- ceived the report shown in Exhibit 1 in mid-January. He reflected on its content: A lot of my costs don’t change, even if the number of pounds of laundry changes. I suppose laundry la- bor, supplies, water-related items, and maintenance vary with changes in pounds, but that’s about all. Nevertheless, shouldn’t my budget reflect those changes? Also, I hadn’t planned for the fact that I was given a salary increase as of October 1—was I supposed to refuse it to help keep my budget in balance? Finally, I think it’s important to note that I had to pay overtime to the staff because the department became inundated with laundry during the cold snap we had back in mid-December. Because of this, my average hourly rate for the whole three months was $10.20 instead of the $9.00 that was in my budget. In fact, and maybe this is a little picky, the average number of minutes it took my staff to wash a pound of laundry actually dropped from .48, which was my budget target, to .47 for the quarter. Somehow, even though it’s pretty small, I think that should be taken into consideration.

Assignment

1. What is your assessment of the method the administrator used to construct the budget?

2. Prepare a flexible budget for the laundry department. What does it tell you?

3. Compute the appropriate labor variances. What do they tell you?

4. What should Mr. Donaldson tell the administrator about his budget variances?

SPRUCE STREET SHELTER E

xhibit 1. Performance Report -- Laundry Department

October - December (Over) % (Over) Under Under Budget Actual Budget Budget Client nights 9,500 11,900 (2,400) (25) Pounds of laundry processed 125,000 156,600 (31,600) (25) Costs Laundry labor $9,000 $12,512 $(3,512) (39) Supplies 1,125 1,875 (750) (67) Water and water heating and softening 1,750 2,500 (750) (43) Maintenance 1,375 2,200 (825) (60) Supervisor's salary 3,125 3,750 (625) (20) Allocated administrative costs 4,000 5,000 (1,000) (25) Equipment depreciation 1,250 1,250 - 0 --------- --------- -------- ------- Total $21,625 $29,087 $(7,462) (35)

The owner of a local supermarket wants to estimate the difference between the average number of gallons of milk sold per day on weekdays and weekends. The owner samples 8 weekdays and finds an average of 218.91 gallons of milk sold on those days with a standard deviation of 33.376. 10 (total) Saturdays and Sundays are sampled and the average number of gallons sold is 377.74 with a standard deviation of 49.365. Construct a 99% confidence interval to estimate the difference of (average number of gallons sold on weekdays - average number of gallons sold on weekends). Assume the population standard deviations are the same for both weekdays and weekends.

Question 8 options:

Question 9 (1 point)

It is believed that using a solid state drive (SSD) in a computer results in faster boot times when compared to a computer with a traditional hard disk (HDD). You sample a group of computers and use the sample statistics to calculate a 99% confidence interval of (1.12, 10.49). This interval estimates the difference of (average boot time (HDD) - average boot time (SSD)). What can we conclude from this interval?

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Question 10 (1 point)

A pharmaceutical company is testing a new drug to increase memorization ability. It takes a sample of individuals and splits them randomly into two groups. After the drug regimen is completed, all members of the study are given a test for memorization ability with higher scores representing a better ability to memorize. Those 21 participants on the drug had an average test score of 24.483 (SD = 4.32), while those 25 participants not on the drug had an average score of 22.121 (SD = 6.091). You use this information to create a 90% confidence interval for the difference in average test score of (-0.302, 5.026). Which of the following is the best interpretation of this interval?

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Question 11 (1 point)

Disability Services introduced a new mentorship program to help students with disabilities achieve better scholastic results. Test grades were recorded for 27 students before and after the program was introduced. The average difference in test score (after - before) was 9.632 with a standard deviation of 3.293. If Disability Services is interested in creating a 99% confidence interval for the true average difference in test scores, what is the margin of error?

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Question 12 (1 point)

Researchers in the corporate office of an airline wonder if there is a significant difference between the cost of a flight on Priceline.com vs. the cost of the same flight on the airline's own website. A random sample of 5 flights were tracked on Priceline.com and the airline's website and the mean difference in price (Priceline.com - Airline Site) was $-65.796 with a standard deviation of $17.3604. Create a 90% confidence interval for the true average difference in costs between the vendors.

Question 12 options:

Question 13 (1 point)

A new drug to treat high cholesterol is being tested by pharmaceutical company. The cholesterol levels for 26 patients were recorded before administering the drug and after. The 90% confidence interval for the true mean difference in total cholesterol levels (after - before) was (-15.31, 15.82). Which of the following is the appropriate conclusion?

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Question 14 (1 point)

Automobile manufacturers are interested in the difference in reaction times for drivers reacting to traditional incandescent lights and to LED lights. A sample of 21 drivers are told to press a button as soon as they see a light flash in front of them and the reaction time was measured in milliseconds. Each driver was shown each type of light. The average difference in reaction times (traditional - LED) is 1.6 ms with a standard deviation of 5.61 ms. A 90% confidence interval for the average difference between the two reaction times was (-0.51, 3.71). Which of the following is the best interpretation?

Question 14 options: