The United States is suffering from a high rate of unemployment.

1. Identify two fiscal policy actions that Congress might initiate to solve the problem.
2. Using a correctly labeled AD/AS graph, show and explain how the policies you identified in (a) will affect each of the following in the short-run.
   1. aggregate demand
   2. output and employment
   3. price level
3. Explain how the policies you identified in part (a) will impact real interest rates in the short-run.
4. If the interest rate effect you identified in part (b) continues in the long run, explain how economic growth will be impacted.

Sunland Enterprises, Inc. operates several stores throughout the western United States. As part of an operational and financial reporting review in a response to a downturn in its markets, the company’s management has decided to perform an impairment test on five stores (combined). The five stores’ sales have declined due to aging facilities and competition from a rival that opened new stores in the same markets. Management has developed the following information concerning the five stores as of the end of fiscal 2019.

Determine the amount of impairment loss, assume that (1) the estimated remaining useful life is 10 years, (2) the estimated annual cash flows are $2,947,320 per year, and (3) the appropriate discount rate is 5 percent. (Round present value factor calculations to 5 decimal places, e.g. 1.25124 and the final answer to 0 decimal places e.g. 5,125. If no loss, enter amount as 0.)

Word Find A popular diversion in the United States, “word find” (or “word search”) puzzles ask the player to find each of a given set of words in a square table filled with single letters. A word can read horizontally (left or right), vertically (up or down), or along a 45 degree diagonal (in any of the four directions) formed by consecutively adjacent cells of the table; it may wrap around the table’s boundaries, but it must read in the same direction with no zigzagging. The same cell of the table may be used in different words, but, in a given word, the same cell may be used no more than once. Write a computer program in C++ for solving this puzzle.

Steve is a contract carrier for the United States Postal Service. He has been hauling mail for nearly thirty years. His current contract is to haul mail between 20 cities in the eleven western states. Steve currently has a fleet of 16 tractors and employs over 20 drivers. He does not own any trailers as all of the trailers are owned by the Postal Service. Steve’s drivers drive scheduled routes between the cities.

The Postal Service has just awarded Steve an additional contract that will require Steve to purchase six new tractors. He competed aggressively for the contract and spent a total of $45,000 in costs to prepare and submit the bid. Steve has narrowed his decision of which truck to buy down to two choices. He can purchase Volvo tractors or Kenworth tractors. The Volvo tractors would cost $285,000 each where the Kenworth would only cost $255,000 each. Both models would be depreciated to zero over 5 years using straight-line depreciation.

The Postal Service contract pays Steve $2.85 per mile. Costs associated with each new tractor include wages for the drivers at $80,000 per truck per year and regular service and maintenance at a cost of $1,750 per month per truck. Fuel costs vary as Volvo is more fuel-efficient than the Kenworth. Assume the tractors will be driven 105,000 miles per year and diesel costs will average about $3.25 per gallon. The Volvo is expected to get 3.6 miles per gallon while the Kenworth will get 3.3 miles per gallon. Insurance and licensing is expected to cost $6,000 per truck per year and is the same for both trucks.

Both models will require a complete engine overhaul at 300,000 miles and Steve estimates that this will be during the third year of ownership. The cost of an overhaul on the Volvo is estimated at $45,000 per truck while the cost on the Kenworth is estimated at $52,000 per truck. All other maintenance costs are believed to be the same for each tractor.

Steve expects to keep the trucks for six years after which time he will sell them. He will not overhaul the tractors in year 6 as it will not increase their value. He predicts that he will be able to sell the Volvo’s for $60,000 each, but the Kenworth will be worth only $50,000 each. Steve’s cost of capital is 14%. The company is in the 34% tax bracket.

When Steve got started in the business his first truck was a Volvo. While they cost more Steve believes that they are a better truck and he love’s the sleek and powerful look of a Volvo. Because of this he is leaning towards buying the Volvo tractors. But after hearing that you have learned about capital budgeting in your Finance class at UVU he wants to take advantage of your expertise. Steve has asked you to analyze his choices and give him some advice on what he should do.

Prepare an analysis and professional report for Steve that includes the following items:

1.         Determine the cash flows associated with the different trucks for each year of the project.

2.         Calculate the PB period, Discounted PB, IRR, and NPV for the two alternatives. Explain to Steve what the different methods mean and how he can use them to help him make a decision.

Generally, schools in the United States are organized around four goals: Academic, Civic, Personal, and Vocational. The academic goals are the knowledge and curriculum that we expect students to learn in school (English, math, science, etc). With the civic goals we want our students to learn about the American system of government and to learn the skills and attitudes to become informed citizens (courses such as American government, social studies, political science). The personal goals help our students with issues such as development of personal talents (think music, drama, athletics, etc.), life skills (maintaining a bank account, economics, consumer information) and health (PE, health classes, biology). In the vocational goals, students learn skills and knowledge which will make them productive in the workplace; able to leave school and to participate in the job market.

Question: Based on this information, which goal or goals do you think are most important for our schools. Which goals should American schools concentrate on? Explain your answers.

Lionel Corporation manufactures pharmaceutical products sold through a network of sales agents in the United States and Canada. The agents are currently paid an 18% commission on sales; that percentage was used when Lionel prepared the following budgeted income statement for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019

Since the completion of the income statement, Lionel has learned that its sales agents are requiring a 5% increase in their commission rate (to 23%) for the upcoming year. As a result, Lionel’s president has decided to investigate the possibility of hiring its own sales staff in place of the network of sales agents and has asked Alan Chen, Lionel’s controller, to gather information on the costs associated with this change.

Alan estimates that Lionel must hire eight salespeople to cover the current market area, at an average annual payroll cost for each employee of $80,000, including fringe benefits expense. Travel and entertainment expenses is expected to total $650,000 for the year, and the annual cost of hiring a sales manager and sales secretary will be $175,000. In addition to their salaries, the eight salespeople will each earn commissions at the rate of 10% of sales. The president believes that Lionel also should increase its advertising budget by $550,000 if the eight salespeople are hired.

Required

1. Determine Lionel’s breakeven point (operating profit = 0) in sales dollars for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, if the company hires its own sales force and increases its advertising costs. Prove this by constructing a contribution income statement.

2. If Lionel continues to sell through its network of sales agents and pays the higher commission rate, determine the estimated volume in sales dollars that would be required to generate the operating profit as projected in the budgeted income statement.

REQUIREMENT 1

Determine Lionel’s breakeven point (operating profit = 0) in sales dollars for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, if the company hires its own sales force and increases its advertising costs. Prove this by constructing a contribution income statement. (Do not round intermediate calculations. Enter your answers in thousands of dollars.)

• Required 2

If Lionel continues to sell through its network of sales agents and pays the higher commission rate, determine the estimated volume in sales dollars that would be required to generate the operating profit as projected in the budgeted income statement. (Do not round intermediate calculations. Enter your answers in thousands of dollars.)

United States Motors Inc. (USMI) manufactures automobiles and light trucks and distributes them for sale to consumers through franchised retail outlets. As part of the franchise agreement, dealerships must provide monthly financial statements following the USMI accounting procedures manual. USMI has developed the following financial profile of an average dealership that sells 3,100 new vehicles annually:

USMI is considering a major expansion of its dealership network. The vice president of marketing has asked Jack Snyder, corporate controller, to develop some measure of the risk associated with the addition of these franchises. Jack estimates that 90% of the mixed costs shown are variable for purposes of this analysis. He also suggests performing regression analyses on the various components of the mixed costs to more definitively determine their variability.

Required:

1. Calculate the composite dealership profit if 4,400 units are sold.

3. The regression equation that Jack Snyder developed to project annual sales of a dealership has an R-squared of 60% and a standard error of the estimate of $9,300,000. If the projected annual sales for a dealership total $58,900,000, determine the approximate 95% confidence interval for Jack’s prediction of sales. (Hint: The 95% confidence interval uses 2 standard errors in determining the interval.)

Motorola Mobility LLC is a company that develops mobile devices. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States, the company was formed on January 4, 2011 by the split of Motorola Inc. into two separate companies; Motorola Mobility took on the company's consumer-oriented product lines, including its mobile phone business and its cable modems and set-top boxes for digital cable and satellite television services, while Motorola Solutions retained the company's enterprise-oriented product lines. Early 2012, Google decided to purchase Motorola mobility LLC for $12.5b. Google had a plan to keep Motorola mobility for 5 years. Google financial analysis team made the following forecasts:

And that the average book value of asset is $8b and Google’s required rate of return is its WACC.

7- Calculate payback period USING EXCEL. If you know that google accepts projects with 4 years payback period. Would you accept that project?

Davis Stores sells clothing in 15 stores located around the southwestern United States. The managers at Davis are considering expanding by opening new stores and are interested in estimating costs in potential new locations. They believe that costs are driven in large part by store volume measured by revenue. During a discussion, one of the managers suggests that number of employees might be better at explaining cost than store revenues. As a result of that suggestion, managers collected the following information from last year’s operations (revenues and costs in thousands of dollars):

d-1. Enter the regression coefficients.

d-2. Estimate the cost of a store with 42 employees using the results from a simple regression of store cost on employees.

Enter the regression coefficients. (Round your answers to 2 decimal places. Negative amounts should be indicated by a minus sign.)

Estimate the cost of a store with 42 employees using the results from a simple regression of store cost on employees. (Round your intermediate calculations and final answer to 2 decimal places.)

What is your favorite color? A large survey of countries, including the United States, China, Russia, France, Turkey, Kenya, and others, indicated that most people prefer the color blue. In fact, about 24% of the population claim blue as their favorite color.† Suppose a random sample of n = 54 college students were surveyed and r = 11 of them said that blue is their favorite color. Does this information imply that the color preference of all college students is different (either way) from that of the general population? Use α = 0.05. (a) What is the level of significance? 0.05 Correct: Your answer is correct. State the null and alternate hypotheses. H0: p = 0.24; H1: p > 0.24 H0: p = 0.24; H1: p ≠ 0.24 H0: p ≠ 0.24; H1: p = 0.24 H0: p = 0.24; H1: p < 0.24 Correct: Your answer is correct. (b) What sampling distribution will you use? The Student's t, since np > 5 and nq > 5. The standard normal, since np < 5 and nq < 5. The Student's t, since np < 5 and nq < 5. The standard normal, since np > 5 and nq > 5. Correct: Your answer is correct. What is the value of the sample test statistic? (Round your answer to two decimal places.) -0.04 Incorrect: Your answer is incorrect. (c) Find the P-value of the test statistic. (Round your answer to four decimal places.) 0.24 Incorrect: Your answer is incorrect.