In a 300-word essay, explain and contrast the financial supervision reforms that the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States have pursued to address the recent financial crisis.

1. Identify the various hidden costs mentioned in the article.

2. Identify a sunk cost trap in the article might be one or a couple.

Bonus: Identify other interesting concepts!

After years of offshore production, General Electric is moving much of its far-flung appliance-manufacturing operations back home. It is not alone. An exploration of the startling, sustainable, just-getting-started return of industry to the United States.

For much of the past decade, General Electric’s storied Appliance Park, in Louisville, Kentucky, appeared less like a monument to American manufacturing prowess than a memorial to it.

The very scale of the place seemed to underscore its irrelevance. Six factory buildings, each one the size of a large suburban shopping mall, line up neatly in a row. The parking lot in front of them measures a mile long and has its own traffic lights, built to control the chaos that once accompanied shift change. But in 2011, Appliance Park employed not even a tenth of the people it did in its heyday. The vast majority of the lot’s spaces were empty; the traffic lights looked forlorn.

In 1951, when General Electric designed the industrial park, the company’s ambition was as big as the place itself; GE didn’t build an appliance factory so much as an appliance city. Five of the six factory buildings were part of the original plan, and early on Appliance Park had a dedicated power plant, its own fire department, and the first computer ever used in a factory. The facility was so large that it got its own ZIP code (40225). It was the headquarters for GE’s appliance division, as well as the place where just about all of the appliances were made.

By 1955, Appliance Park employed 16,000 workers. By the 1960s, the sixth building had been built, the union workforce was turning out 60,000 appliances a week, and the complex was powering the explosion of the U.S. consumer economy.

The arc that followed is familiar. Employment kept rising through the ’60s, but it peaked at 23,000 in 1973, 20 years after the facility first opened. By 1984, Appliance Park had fewer employees than it did in 1955. In the midst of labor battles in the early ’90s, GE’s iconic CEO, Jack Welch, suggested that it would be shuttered by 2003. GE’s current CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, tried to sell the entire appliance business, including Appliance Park, in 2008, but as the economy nosed over, no one would take it. In 2011, the number of time-card employees—the people who make the appliances—bottomed out at 1,863. By then, Appliance Park had been in decline for twice as long as it had been rising.

Yet this year, something curious and hopeful has begun to happen, something that cannot be explained merely by the ebbing of the Great Recession, and with it the cyclical return of recently laid-off workers. On February 10, Appliance Park opened an all-new assembly line in Building 2—largely dormant for 14 years—to make cutting-edge, low-energy water heaters. It was the first new assembly line at Appliance Park in 55 years—and the water heaters it began making had previously been made for GE in a Chinese contract factory.

On March 20, just 39 days later, Appliance Park opened a second new assembly line, this one in Building 5, to make new high-tech French-door refrigerators. The top-end model can sense the size of the container you place beneath its purified-water spigot, and shuts the spigot off automatically when the container is full. These refrigerators are the latest versions of a style that for years has been made in Mexico.

In 2010, the U.S. population was about 309 million. The overall birth rate was 13.0 births per 1000, and the overall death rate was 7.4 deaths per 1000.
a) Approximately how many births were there in the United States?
b) About how many deaths were there in the United States?
c) Based on births and deaths alone (not counting immigration or emigration), about how much did the U.S. population increase during 2010?
d) Suppose that during 2010 the U.S. population actually increase by 3.5 million. Based on this fact and your results from part (c), estimate how many people immigrated to the United States. What proportion of the overall population growth was due to immigration?

In 2010, the U.S. population was about 309 million. The overall birth rate was 13.0 births per 1000, and the overall death rate was 7.4 deaths per 1000.
a) Approximately how many births were there in the United States?
b) About how many deaths were there in the United States?
c) Based on births and deaths alone (not counting immigration or emigration), about how much did the U.S. population increase during 2010?
d) Suppose that during 2010 the U.S. population actually increase by 3.5 million. Based on this fact and your results from part (c), estimate how many people immigrated to the United States. What proportion of the overall population growth was due to immigration?

In 2015, Forbes magazine listed Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, as the richest person in the United States. His personal wealth was estimated to be $76 billion. Given that there were about 322 million people living in the United States that year, how much could each person have received if Gates’s wealth had been divided equally among the population of the United States? (Hint: A billion is a 1 followed by 9 zeros while a million is a 1 followed by six zeros.)

Which group in each of the following pairs has the higher poverty rate: (a) children or people age 65 or over? (b) African Americans or foreign-born noncitizens? (c) Asians or Hispanics?

Section D (20%) – Essay Question Answer the question in this section. The question carries 20 marks. Question D1 “The Federal Reserve, saying “the coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States,” cut interest rates to essentially zero on Sunday and launched a massive $700 billion quantitative easing program to shelter the economy from the effects of the virus……….” PUBLISHED SUN, MAR 15 2020

Critical evaluate the short term and long term impact on quantitative easing program launched in the United States. Evaluation direction included labour market, financial markets, and future general price level as well as asset price in the United States.

1) Organizations do not operate in a vacuum and are subject to governmental regulation. This is particularly true with publicly traded organizations. Based on business here in the United States - who can name a few regulatory bodies that directly relate to financial management?

2) What exactly is risk aversion and can it relate to cultural differences? Even if you have never been overseas - can you give an example of this here in the United States?

3) I believe that we all know what currency is - think about having a United States dollar in hand. From a financial management standpoint, why is it important to understand currency fluctuations? What are some of the key factors that cause fluctuation?

A manufacturer wishes to make and sell 1.1 million units per year of an aviation part for 12 years with interest fixed at 14% per year. Option A is to build a manufacturing plant in the United States at a cost of $7 million, with endof-year expenses of $2 million per year. In order to meet environmental regulations, the manufacturer will need to invest $0.5 million for pollution control at the end of the fifth year. Option B is to build a manufacturing plant in Mexico for $4 million, with annual end-of-year expenses of $1.2 million. There will be a duty charge of 30% of the selling price in the United States. Find the aviation part selling price in the United States, at which the two options are equal.

1) Organizations do not operate in a vacuum and are subject to governmental regulation. This is particularly true with publicly traded organizations. Based on business here in the United States - who can name a few regulatory bodies that directly relate to financial management?

2) What exactly is risk aversion and can it relate to cultural differences? Even if you have never been overseas - can you give an example of this here in the United States?

3) I believe that we all know what currency is - think about having a United States dollar in hand. From a financial management standpoint, why is it important to understand currency fluctuations? What are some of the key factors that cause fluctuation?