Tara’s Treasures Inc. is a publicly traded company that develops, manufactures, and distributes professional quality exercise equipment. The firm was established in 1965 in Burlington, Vermont and went public in 1975. Sales were initially from only the Northeast region of the United States, but since going public the company has grown significantly and now supplies exercise equipment in all fifty states. In 2015 the company reported a market capitalization of $950 million. Recently, the company has decided to enter the INTERNATIONAL Market in order to enhance their growth potential. Tara’s Treasures, Inc.’s CFO, has been with Tara’s Treasures, Inc. for 20 years and has held the position of CFO for the past 5 years. Your Role: Assume that you are the Financial Accounting Controller for Tara’s Treasures, Inc. You report directly to the CFO. Recently, the CFO came to you with an article that he found on CFO.com that deals with adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The CFO wants to know more about the implications of IFRS adoption. Specifically, he has asked you do some research and find answers to the following questions: 1. What are the primary benefits of IFRS adoption for US firms in general? Describe at least three benefits. 2. What are the primary costs of IFRS adoption for US firms in general? Describe at least three costs. 3. The CFO does not understand how IFRS differs from current US GAAP. Briefly describe the differences between GAAP and IFRS and in support of your analysis include two areas of Tara’s Treasures financial statements that could be reported differently under IFRS. 4. Based on your research, do you think that Tara’s Treasures should be in favor of or opposed to IFRS adoption and is there any plans they should be making to prepare for the consequences.

Directions: Determine whether each sentence is a run-on, is a comma splice, or is punctuated correctly.

Directions: Determine whether each sentence is a run-on, is a comma splice, or is punctuated correctly.

Point/Counterpoint from chapter 14. Take a stand. Do you agree or disagree? Write a minimum of one paragraph.

Chapter 14

Exporting E-waste: A Fair Solution?

Point

Yes Exporting is always and everywhere a win-win situation: The more companies and countries export, the more they improve market efficiency. Exporting enables companies to increase sales, improve productivity, and diversify activities. Likewise, exporting helps countries generate jobs, accelerate innovation, and improve living standards. In broader terms, it promotes connections among countries that improve foreign relations and stabilize international affairs. Despite these virtues, some contend there is a dark side of exporting, namely the trade of hazardous waste in the form of obsolete tech equipment. E-waste—trash composed of computers, monitors, electronics, game consoles, hard drives, television, smartphones, and other items—inexorably increases as the Information Age rolls on. In 2006, nearly 66 million used electronic components were collected for reuse or recycling in the United States; most were exported. By 2016, e-waste was pushing several hundred million pieces, representing more than 4 million tons.58 Ongoing trends crank out newer, cooler, faster, smaller, fancier devices that, in replacing their predecessors and then eventually being replaced themselves, will increase e-waste nearly 500 percent over the next decade. Where Should E-waste Go? Where to put all this e-trash is a tough question. Many countries and municipalities in the United States, for example, ban outright dumping of e-waste in local landfills. This legislation means that disposing of e-waste products, when possible, in any given industrialized country costs from $2,500 to $4,000 a ton. In contrast, untreated waste can be sold to countries in Africa and Asia—where it will be recycled, reused, or dumped—for reportedly as little as $50 a ton.59 Low costs are a result of cheap labor, different environmental regulations, and growing processing capacity. Plus, the absence of public opposition reduces processing expenses and desperate folks seeking work dampens public objections. As might be expected, major e-waste shipping routes show that the industrial nations export the bulk of their e-waste to developing countries, notably China, Malaysia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, and Bangladesh (see Map 14.1).60 Benefits for All Exporting e-waste to recycling centers throughout the world is an efficient solution to an escalating problem. First and foremost, recycling sustains our resources and helps us protect the environment. In developing countries, industries have sprung up to recycle old computers, monitors, circuit boards, scanners, printers, routers, cell phones, and network cards. While rudimentary, these industries create jobs in places where jobs are hard to find and difficult to sustain. To their credit, developing countries have converted their superior location economics into vital jobs, income, and markets. There are more than 6,000 businesses employing 100,000 workers at ground zero of the e-waste trade: Guiyu, China. Previously subsistence farmers and fishermen, they now process an endless stream of truckloads of e-waste that arrive daily.61 Mexico has similar spots, many waiting for the 18-wheelers full of spent batteries from cars, phones, computer, solar appliances, and tools that cross the U.S.–Mexican border each day. Again, the locals benefit. Despite the dangerous, dirty work of recycling spent batteries, people living near the Acumuladores de Jalisco plant find opportunity. As the wife of one worker said, “There are not many other jobs around here.”62 Similarly, exporting e-waste helps entrepreneurs in developing countries create value by recovering, recycling, and reusing scarce resources. Copper, a valuable commodity, can represent nearly 20 percent of a mobile phone’s total weight. Rising commodity prices have made these activities quite profitable. Atul Maheshwar, owner of a recycling depot in India, says of U.S. exports, “If your country keeps sending us the material, our business will be good.”63 In addition, some of the equipment shipped to Asia helps improve the local standard of living. Graham Wollaston of Scrap Computers, a recycler in Phoenix, claims that virtually every component of old electronic devices is reusable. Old televisions turn into fish tanks in Malaysia, while silicon shortage creates demand for old monitors elsewhere. “There’s no such thing as a third-world landfill,” Mr. Wollaston explains. “If you were to put an old computer on the street, it would be taken apart for the parts.”64 Similarly, Luc Lateille of the Canadian firm BMP Recycling says, “We don’t send junk—we only send the materials that they are looking for.”65 Exporting hazardous waste also helps MNEs improve their social responsibility. Samsung, Mitsubishi, and Nokia, among others, increasingly take a cradle-to-grave responsibility for their products. The eCycling Leadership Initiative, launched in 2010, commits makers of consumer electronics to recycle a billion pounds of e-waste responsibly by 2016; in 2011, members spent more than $100 million to recycle about 500 million pounds of old electronics. Elsewhere, state regulation spurs laggards to support green recycling. Since 2004, more than 20 U.S. states have required manufacturers to recycle used electronics. Like-minded laws are on deck in other states. Companies often comply by exporting their e-waste to countries that have an interest in recycling and the infrastructure to do it. A Tough Solution Certainly, callous companies dump useless, toxic e-waste around the world. And, yes, some of it pollutes landfills, poisons waterways, and fouls the air. Overall, though, exporting e-waste works for citizens, consumers, companies, and countries. Ultimately, nations really don’t have a choice. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, concedes inappropriate practices have occurred in the recycling of e-waste, but suggests stopping its export is not truly practical. Likewise, poor nations really have no choice; they must generate income some way or condemn themselves to poverty.

Counterpoint

no In theory, recycling is beneficial and exporting e-waste does improve efficiency. Still, recycling your e-waste does not always mean you’re doing the right thing. Explained the director of the Basel Action Network, “The dirty little secret is that when you take [your electronic waste] to a recycler, instead of throwing it in a trashcan, about 80 percent of that material, very quickly, finds itself on a container ship going to a country like China, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, Pakistan— where very dirty things happen to it.”66 Added the chief executive of RSR, a Dallas-based lead recycler that operates solely in the United States, “We’re shipping hazardous waste to a neighbor ill-equipped to process it, and we’re doing it legally, turning our heads, and pretending it’s not a problem.”67 Growing exports of hazardous waste encourage dangerous recycling industries in many developing countries. Going forward, exports will accelerate as e-waste increases far faster than other sorts of rubbish. Collectively, the tsunami of e-trash imposes far more costs than the pittance that recycling it generates. A Witch’s Brew Most developing countries lack the regulatory codes or disposal infrastructure to safeguard against such dangers. Locals often use crude methods that, besides being illegal in the United States, expose workers and residents to a witch’s brew of toxins. For example, some e-waste contains trace amounts of precious metals like copper and silver. Extracting them encourages cash-strapped, loosely regulated recyclers to use unsafe, antiquated open-air incineration methods. Burning electronic parts to separate copper, solder, or other metals from plastic coatings releases dioxins and other hazardous chemicals. Indeed, snagging that sliver of silver unleashes a mixture of more than a thousand chemicals, including toxic metals (e.g., lead, barium, and mercury), flame-retardants, cadmium, acids, plastics, and chlorinated and brominated compounds. Local air quality suffers as “circuit boards are burned after acid washing, spewing deadly smoke and exposing workers and people living around these facilities.”68 Once local scrap shops finish disassembling equipment, the trash goes into public landfills, the acid runoff flows into groundwater, and the noxious fumes follow air currents—all mercilessly contaminating the environment. Casual Inhumanity Madhumita Dutta of Toxics-Link Delhi argues that these problems are less disturbing than the “appalling” working conditions in recycling facilities: “Everything from dismantling the computer to pulling out parts of the circuit boards to acid-washing boards to recover copper is done with bare hands without any protective gear or face protection.” Rare is the worksite that uses proper disposal practices. Workers and society, to say nothing of environmental sustainability, suffer. What, then, of the premise of charity—that is, sending computer equipment from countries where it has little use to countries where it can make a difference? Critics shred this straw man, asserting that wealthier countries and powerful companies conveniently donate obsolete equipment to dodge high recycling expenses. “Too often, justifications of ‘building bridges over the digital divide’ are used as excuses to obscure and ignore the fact that these bridges double as toxic waste pipelines,” said one critic.69 Moreover, most of the computer equipment sent is worthless trash—waste that can be neither repaired nor resold.70 Institutional Gaps Some argue that manufacturers need to step up and take full responsibility for the hazardous materials they used to build products that had earned them profits.71 Companies have moved in this direction, sponsoring green campaigns to recycle e-waste. Substantive progress has been slow, however. Environmentalists recommend that countries set tougher standards to monitor, control, and certify cross-border shipments of e-waste. That has proven disappointing. Inspections of e-waste cargo headed from European seaports to developing countries, for example, found that nearly half was illegal.72 Then again, presumed solutions can lead to unintended problems. The fact that many U.S. states require companies to take responsibility for recycling electronic equipment has curtailed the export of e-waste to developing countries—but only of the more valuable components. Processors cherry-pick parts that can be refurbished for reuse. The remainder is disassembled, with urban miners targeting silver, gold, and palladium. The final batch of trash, the worst of the worst, has no reuse market and is shipped to developing countries for disposal.73 Who to Turn To? Others endorse stronger enforcement of the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, a United Nations treaty that regulates the generation, management, movements, and disposal of hazardous waste. It proposes aggressive measures, including an international ban on the export of all toxic waste, no matter whether for recovery, recycling, reuse, or final disposal. As of 2015, 182 states and the European Union are parties to the Convention. Haiti and the United States have signed the Convention but not ratified it.74

A sample of 17 states found that the average cigarette tax was 91.06 cents with a standard deviation of 38.37 cents. Find the 90% confidence interval for the cigarette tax in all 50 states. Then find the 95% confidence interval for the cigarette tax in all 50 states. How do the confidence intervals compare?

Read the article titled, “Auto Insurance Costs: Where Does Your State Rank?” Be prepared to discuss. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/auto-insurance-costs-where-does-your-state-rank/ Please respond to one (1) of the following two (2) bulleted items: • From the activity, the table shows Average Insurance Costs by State. Select two (2) states that are of interest to you. Next, speculate on three (3) possible reasons why the states you have chosen would have a difference in average insurance costs. • From the activity, select ten (10) states and calculate the mean and standard deviation for average insurance costs. Next, calculate the mean and standard deviation for average insurance costs for all 51 states (including Washington, D.C.). Compare and contrast the means and standard deviations for the ten (10) states you selected and all 51 states.

The current dollar−pound exchange rate is $2 per British pound. A U.S. basket that costs $100 would cost $140 in the United Kingdom. For the next year, the U.S. Fed is predicted to keep U.S. inflation at 2% and the Bank of England is predicted to keep U.K. inflation at 3%. The speed of convergence to absolute PPP is 15% per year.

1. (Scenario: Monetary Approach in the Long-run) What is the current U.S. real exchange rate with the United Kingdom? A) 1.4 B) 0.8 C) 0.71 D) 1.2

2. (Scenario: Monetary Approach in the Long-run) What do you predict the U.S. real exchange rate with the United Kingdom will be in one year’s time? A) 1.34 B) 0.86 C) 1.17 D) 1.2

3. (Scenario: Monetary Approach in the Long-run) What is the expected rate of real
depreciation for the U.S. (versus the United Kingdom)?
A) -4.3%.
B) -2.5%
C) -3%
D) -1%.

4. (Scenario: Monetary Approach in the Long-run) What is the expected rate of nominal
depreciation for the U.S. (versus the United Kingdom)?
A) -3.5%
B) -1.3%
C) 0.5%.
D) -5.3%

5. (Scenario: Monetary Approach in the Long-run) What do you predict will be the
dollar price of one British pound a year from now?
A) $1.5
B) $1.89
C) $1.93
D) $2

Based on the article(Hospitals Facing BigDivide in Pro-andAnti-ACA States), explain how the divide between pro-- andanti--ACA states may impact the U.S. health care system. As health care professionals, how do we respond as more states become divided on the issue of Medicaid expansion?

Please answer the following questions clearly.

1) If two quantum states differ only by a phase factor, are they considered the same ? if so in what sense ?

2) Explain entaglement quickly?

3) why is the composite of quantum states is given by a tensor product whereas the composite of a classical states is given by a Cartesian product?