Some politicians, labor unions, and special interest groups argue that US trade deficits are harmful to the economy and nations that run large trade surpluses with the US are benefiting from unfair trade practices and agreements. These parties support increasing tariffs on imports, elimination, or re-writing of trade agreements.

Respond to the following in a minimum of 275 words:

• Discuss what credible economists say about the effects that tariffs, changing trade agreements, and/or manipulating exchange rates will have on the total US trade balance.
• Do you agree with their assertions? Why or why not?

The company has three bond issues and uses the effective interest method to amortize discounts/premiums.  Information for each is below:

There was a bond issue with a par value of $250,000 on July 1, 2015 when the market rate of interest was 6%.  The bonds have a coupon rate of 5% and interest is paid semiannually on January 1 and July 1. The bonds have a ten-year life when issued. This bond issue is convertible into common stock at the rate of 10 shares for every $1,000 of face value (note - common stock has a par value of $10 per share).  On January 2, 2019, $50,000 of face value was converted into common stock. The company uses the book value method to record conversions. The market price of the stock was $90 per share when the bonds were converted.

On May 1, 2015, the company had a bond issue with principal of $200,000.  The bond issue has a seven-year life. Interest is payable semi-annually on May 1 and November 1.  The coupon rate is 7%. The market rate of interest at issue was 6%. On November 2, 2020, the company called the entire bond issue at 115.  

On November 1, 2014, the company issued serial bonds at par.  The face value of the issue was $150,000, and the coupon interest rate is 6%.  Interest is paid annually on November 1st. The principal will be paid with six equal payments of $30,000 on November 1, 2015 through November 1, 2019.

Required:

Compute the price of the first two bonds (the serial bonds are issued at par).

Prepare amortization tables (effective interest method) for the first two bonds from the issuance date.  

Prepare all journal entries needed for each bond from the date of issue through December 31, 2017.  The company has a year-end of December 31st.

Prepare the journal entry to record the bond conversion (first bond) on January 2, 2019.

Prepare the journal entry to record the bond call (second bond) on November 2, 2020

The University of California, Berkeley (Cal) and Stanford University are athletic archrivals in the Pacific 10 conference. Stanford fans claim Stanford's basketball team is better than Cal's team; Cal fans challenge this assertion. In 2004, Stanford University's basketball team went nearly undefeated within the Pac 10. Stanford's record, and those of Cal and the other eight teams in the conference, are listed in In all, there were 89 games played among the Pac 10 teams in the season. Stanford won 17 of the 18 games it played; Cal won 9 of 18. We would like to use these data to test the Stanford fans' claim that Stanford's team is better than Cal's. That is, we would like to determine whether the difference between the two teams' performance reasonably could be attributed to chance, if the Stanford and Cal teams in fact have equal skill.

To test the hypothesis, we shall make a number of simplifying assumptions. First of all, we shall ignore the fact that some of the games were played between Stanford and Cal: we shall pretend that all the games were played against other teams in the conference. One strong version of the hypothesis that the two teams have equal skill is that the outcomes of the games would have been the same had the two teams swapped schedules. That is, suppose that when Washington played Stanford on a particular day, Stanford won. Under this strong hypothesis, had Washington played Cal that day instead of Stanford, Cal would have won.

A weaker version of the hypothesis is that the outcome of Stanford's games is determined by independent draws from a 0-1 box that has a fraction p_C of tickets labeled "1" (Stanford wins the game if the ticket drawn is labeled "1"), that the outcome of Berkeley's games is determined similarly, by independent draws from a 0-1 box with a fraction p_S of tickets labeled "1," and that p_S = p_C. This model has some shortcomings. (For instance, when Berkeley and Stanford play each other, the independence assumption breaks down, and the fraction of tickets labeled "1" would need to be 50%. Also, it seems unreasonable to think that the chance of winning does not depend on the opponent. We could refine the model, but that would require knowing more details about who played whom, and the outcome.)

Nonetheless, this model does shed some light on how surprising the records would be if the teams were, in some sense, equally skilled. This box model version allows us to use Fisher's Exact test for independent samples, considering "treatment" to be playing against Stanford, and "control" to be playing against Cal, and conditioning on the total number of wins by both teams (26).

Q1) On the assumption that the null hypothesis is true, the bootstrap estimate of the standard error of the sample percentage of games won by Stanford is ?

Q2) On the assumption that the null hypothesis is true, the bootstrap estimate of the standard error of the sample percentage of games won by Cal is ?

Q3) The approximate P-value for z test against the two-sided alternative that the Stanford and Berkeley teams have different skills is ?

Note :*The z-score for the difference in sample percentages is 2.97685*

How a Welsh jeans firm became a cult global brand

With a look of concentration on her face, a worker guides the sheet of denim through the sewing machine, and a pair of jeans starts to take shape.

As the needle goes up and down in a blur of movement and rattling noise, a line of stitching starts to form a neat trouser leg.

When most people think about the global fashion industry it is safe to say that a sleepy town in far west Wales does not immediately spring to mind.

Yet Cardigan, on Wales' Irish Sea coast, has for the past five years been home to a high-end jeans-maker - the Hiut Denim Company.

Beloved by a growing number of fashionistas from New York to Paris, and London to Melbourne, Hiut ships its expensive jeans around the world.

As orders arrive via its website, Hiut's workforce of just 15 people gets to work hand-cutting and sewing the trousers from giant rolls of indigo-coloured denim that the company imports from Turkey and Japan.

Despite only making around 120 pairs of jeans a week, founder and owner David Hieatt has big ambitions to expand.

While it may seem a little incongruous that a posh jeans business is based in west Wales, Cardigan (population 4,000) actually has a long history of jeans-making.

For almost 40 years the town was home to a factory that made 35,000 pairs of jeans each week for UK retailer Marks & Spencer. But in 2002 the facility closed with the loss of 400 jobs when production was moved to Morocco to cut costs.

Fast forward 10 years, and when Mr Hieatt - a proud Welshman - was looking to open a factory to start making jeans, he chose Cardigan. The company name is a combination of the first two letters of Mr Hieatt's surname and the word "utility".

"Where better to locate ourselves than in a town with a history of jeans-making, where the expertise remains?" he says.

Employing machinists who had previously worked in the old factory and not lost their years of jeans-making skills, Mr Hieatt says he was confident that Hiut could be successful if it concentrated on selling directly to consumers around the world via its website.

"Without the internet we'd have been dead within 12 weeks," he says. "But the internet has changed only everything. The internet allows us to sell direct and keep the [profit] margin... it enables us to compete."

Now exporting 25% of its jeans, it takes Hiut about one hour and 10 minutes to make one pair, compared with 11 minutes at a highly mechanised jeans industry giant.

And rather than staff doing just one part of the manufacturing process, such as sewing on the pockets, each machinist at Hiut makes a pair of jeans from start to finish.

Mr Hieatt refers to the workers as "grand masters". This is in reference to the fact that some of them have more than 40 years of jeans-making experience, and new joiners have to train for three years before they can start making jeans for customers.

In running Hiut Mr Hieatt and his co-owner, wife Clare, have benefited from their experience of previously owning a clothing firm called Howies, which they sold to US firm Timberland for £3.2m in 2011.

But what has also been invaluable is Mr Hieatt's previous career working in advertising.

This advertising nous has enabled him to very effectively market and promote Hiut, from its snazzy website, to its extensive use of social media; both adverts in people's Facebook feeds and arty photos of people wearing its jeans.

"The interesting thing about social media for me is that up until Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and SnapChat you had to have a huge budget in order to tell your story," he says.

"In effect you were locked out of telling that story because the costs [of advertising and wider marketing] were too high. But social media has actually allowed the smaller maker [small firms that manufacture things] to go and tell his story.

"And actually, if David wants to beat Goliath, the best tool in the world is social media."

Mr Hieatt also sends out free jeans to what he calls "influencers", either fashion bloggers or famous people, in the hope that they will write or talk positively about the brand.

Successful examples of this have been an increase in orders from Denmark after Hiut sent a pair of its jeans to celebrated Danish chef Rene Redzepi, and also UK TV presenter Anthony McPartlin of the duo Ant & Dec tweeting about the company.

As Hiut continues to win overseas orders for its jeans costing up to £230 ($300) a pair, Mr Hieatt admits that one negative issue the company has to deal with is a return rate of "about 14%" - people sending them back because they don't fit.

To counter this problem Hiut is exploring using technology that can accurately tell from a photo a person's perfect jeans size.

Dr Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, fashion marketing course leader at London College of Fashion, says that if Hiut wants to expand its overseas sales it needs to "have the website in different languages" and consider partnerships that will see its jeans listed on other websites.

Back at Hiut's small factory on the edge of Cardigan, Mr Hieatt says the long-term aim remains to recreate 400 jeans-making jobs in the town.

"Our aim is to get 400 people their jobs back. If you ask me when is that going to happen, the honest answer is I don't know.

"But I believe in compound interest. Small things over time gather huge numbers."

QUESTION:

What international marketing strategy would you recommend to the firm?

Phil is a self employed plumber and his wife, Lauren, is a full-time employee for the University. Lauren has health insurance from a qualified plan provided by the University, but Phil has chosen to purchase his own health insurance rather than participate in Lauren's plan. Besides paying $5,400 for his health insurance premiums, Phil also pays the following expenses associated with his plumbing business:

Plumbing tools and supplies $1,300

Rent on Phil's plumbing shop 6,250

Transportation between Phil's shop and various job sites 500

Plumber's Uniform    50

Plumbing truck rental     7,200

Self employment tax (1/2 is employer's share 400

What is the amount of deductions for AGI that Phil can claim this year (2018)?

Include diagrams and calculations for the following: ​​​​​

A.In a recent random sample of 200 students at a large university who were recently forced to watch their lectures on-line, 65 indicated that they preferred on-line lectures as opposed to the normal in-class lectures. Estimate, with 90% confidence, the true proportion of all students at this large university who prefer on-line lectures. (Include a concluding statement similar to concluding statements from examples already covered in class.)

B.In a random sample of 50 Nevada automobile owners who recently had the oil in their cars changed, 30 asked for synthetic oil. Estimate, with 99% confidence, the population proportion of Nevada automobile owners who preferred synthetic oil over regular oil. (No concluding statement is necessary when answering this question.)

Matt and Meg Comer are married. They do not have any children. Matt works as a history professor at a local university and earns a salary of $64,000. Meg works part-time at the same university. She earns $21,000 a year. The couple does not itemize deductions. Other than salary, the Comers’ only other source of income is from the disposition of various capital assets (mostly stocks). Assume they file a joint return. (Use the tax rate schedules.) (Round final answers to the nearest whole dollar amount.)

a. What is the Comers’ tax liability for 2017 if they report the following capital gains and losses for the year?

study of the effect of college student employment on academic performance, the following summary statistics for GPA were reported for a sample of students who worked and for a sample of students who did not work. The samples were selected at random from working and nonworking students at a university. (Use a statistical computer package to calculate the P-value. Use μ_employed − μ_{not employed}. Round your test statistic to two decimal places, your df down to the nearest whole number, and your P-value to three decimal places.)

t= df= P=
Does this information support the hypothesis that for students at this university, those who are not employed have a higher mean GPA than those who are employed? Use a significance level of 0.05.

3. We want to estimate the difference between the mean starting salaries for recent graduates with mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering bachelor’s degrees from an university. The following information is provided:

a) A random sample of 49 starting salaries for mechanical engineering graduates produced a sample mean of $64,650 and a standard deviation of $7,000.

b) A random sample of 36 starting salaries for aerospace engineering graduates produced a sample mean of $63,420 and a standard deviation of $6,830.

(1) Find a 95% confidence interval for the difference between the two mean starting salaries.

(2) Someone made a statement that mechanical engineering new graduates make more money than aerospace engineering new graduates on average at the university. Do you agree with the statement? Explain why.