What do you believe is contributing to the lower life expectancy in the US compared to other similar countries? Does increased healthcare spending translate to better health outcomes, why or why not?

1. Explain why many schools look like they make no profit on sports. In fact why is it consistently 0?

2. What is a multiplier? With respect to government spending, what is crowding out?

Explain the benefits of using health care expenditures as a percentage of a nation’s gross domestic product over per capita health care expenditures in comparing health care spending across nations.

What are the main arguments made by opponents of government “stimulus” spending? How does Wolfson address each of these points?

How is this question especially relevant in spring 2020?

# 7: How to Fix the Great American Growth Machine

What seems to be Alan Greenspan's thesis toward achieving sustained economic growth?

Imagine that a version of the World Economic Forum was held in Davos four centuries ago. From across the globe, the great and the good of 1618 gather in the Alpine village: Chinese scholars in their silk robes, British adventurers in their doublets and jerkins, Turkish civil servants in their turbans and caftans. They have come together to discuss the great question of who will dominate the centuries ahead.

The Chinese point to their superb civil service and mighty navy. A Turk boasts that the Ottoman Empire is expanding westward and will soon hold Europe in the palm of its hand. A plucky Briton argues that his tiny country has broken with the corrupt, ossified continent and is developing dynamic new institutions, including a powerful parliament and a new sort of organization, the chartered corporation, which can trade all over the world. Yet in the entire discussion one region goes unmentioned: North America.

Four hundred years ago, North America was little more than an empty space on the map -- an afterthought in educated minds and a sideshow in European great-power politics. The entire continent produced less wealth than the smallest German principality.

Today, the United States has the most powerful economy in the world: With less than 5% of the world's population, it still accounts for almost a quarter of global GDP. America has the world's highest standard of living apart from a handful of countries with small populations, such as Qatar and Norway. It also dominates the industries that are inventing the future -- intelligent robots, driverless cars, life-extending drugs. The fact that 15 of the world's top 20 universities are based in the U.S., according to the QS World University Ranking, suggests that it is well-placed to dominate the ideas economy.

The rise of the U.S. to economic greatness is an extraordinary story. But it is a story with a sting in the tail. Productivity growth in the U.S. has all but stalled in recent years. The number of new companies being created has reached a modern low. Geographical mobility has been in decline for three decades. Economists worry that America's potential rate of growth -- the pace at which annual output can expand without pushing up inflation -- is also falling.

Why did America become the world's greatest economy? Why has it lost its momentum in recent years? And what light can history throw on the question of whether the U.S. can be as successful in the future as it was in the past?

The key to America's success lies in its unique toleration for "creative destruction," the destabilizing force described by the economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Creative destruction reallocates society's resources from less productive pursuits to more productive ones -- from spinning jennies to factories, for example, or from horse-and-buggies to motorcars.

A range of things, from geography to political culture, have contributed to this enduring preference for change over stability. Consider the sheer size of the U.S., which has allowed it to suck in millions of immigrants and construct continent-spanning companies. It has also allowed the country to shift relatively easily from one industry to another. In Britain, railroads had to make strange loops to avoid ancient settlements. In America, they could carve a straight line from "Nowhere-in-Particular to Nowhere at All," as the Times of London put it in 1874. The U.S. has sometimes paid a heavy price, both aesthetically and economically, for rapid development, but unlike its European peers, it has avoided chronic stagnation.

There is also the fact that the U.S. was the first country to be born in the modern world of growth and perpetual change. The War of Independence began a year before the publication of the greatest work of free-market economics ever written, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). For most of recorded history, people had inhabited a society that was static and predictable. Smith advanced a vision of society in which the market transformed the pursuit of individual self-interest into the creation of universal progress. Many European countries took generations to come to terms with this insight (some still haven't). America was born dynamic.

But size and newness are not enough on their own, or else Brazil would be an economic colossus. The U.S. possessed two secret ingredients that turned it into a growth machine.

The first is its entrepreneurial culture. Americans admire business people in the same way that the English admire gentlemen and the French admire intellectuals. Americans are more inclined to found companies than the people of other countries and are also better at turning small companies into giant ones. The U.S. was the first country to make it easy to create companies without going cap in hand to local bureaucrats who had a right to tell them what to do.

This spirit of entrepreneurship was built into the country's DNA. The U.S. was founded by settlers who wanted to escape from the restrictions of Europe's ancient regime: Puritans who wanted to escape from the grip of established churches, younger sons who wanted to escape from the consequences of primogeniture, adventurers who wanted to escape from closed societies.

A striking proportion of America's entrepreneurial heroes have been immigrants or the children of immigrants. Alexander Graham Bell and Andrew Carnegie were born in Scotland. Andy Grove and Sergey Brin were born, respectively, in Hungary and the Soviet Union.

The U.S. has also benefited enormously from its founding political structure. The Constitution, written in 1787 and ratified in 1788, did its best to constrain the ability of politicians to interfere in the economy. It limits the reach of the federal government by guaranteeing the rights of citizens, not least the right to property, and by dividing power among its branches and with the states. Though governmental powers to tax and regulate have grown enormously over the past century, they remain a world apart from the state control that has long prevailed among America's chief rivals.

The most remarkable period of creative destruction in U.S. history was the era from 1865 to 1900, when government confined itself to providing a stable environment for growth. Titans such as Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller built the world's biggest and most efficient companies. Railway barons knitted a continent together into the world's biggest single market.

Though this great revolution was sometimes brutal, it laid the foundations of an era of mass prosperity. Carnegie and Rockefeller reduced the price of steel and oil by almost 90%. R.H. Macy sold "goods suitable for the millionaire at prices in reach of the millions." Henry Ford trumpeted the Model-T as "a car for the common man." Their efforts gave Americans a richer diet than their European contemporaries and earlier access to innovations such as electric lights, telephones and cars.

As for the travails of today's economy, much of it has to do with a retreat from the dynamism of the past. The Economist recently found that more than three-quarters of America's major economic sectors have seen a decline in competition, with the top handful of firms taking an increasing market share. In 1980, according to the Census Bureau, one in eight companies had been founded in the past year; in 2015 (the last year for good data), the ratio had fallen to fewer than one in 12.

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 showed creative destruction at its worst. The combination of fear and herd behavior led people to overreact to bad news and to plunge economies into self-reinforcing cycles of decline. Nor did the federal government's heavy-handed regulatory response to the crisis help matters.

Fiscal policy has also hurt the economy. The growth of entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare has crowded out the funding of long-term investment in the private sector and in crucial infrastructure such as roads and airports. Millions of baby boomers are retiring and starting to receive benefits while still quite capable of being productive. In 1965, entitlement spending amounted to 5% of GDP. Today it stands at 14% and is projected to increase still more as the baby boomers retire.

The relative economic stagnation of the past decade has had serious political consequences, breeding discontent and dysfunction in both parties. While President Donald Trump imposes growth-restricting tariffs and bullies errant companies, Democrats embrace ever more interventionist plans to make companies embrace "social purposes."

The threats now facing the U.S. are bigger than in the past. For the first time in its history, the country confronts, in China, an economic power that is even more populous than itself. But America still has a chance to solve its problems, not least because it continues to have a unique genius for business.

The most important item on an agenda for reform is to address the fragility in the American financial system exposed by the financial crisis. Financial institutions play a vital role in allocating society's savings to fund new ideas and new businesses. Consider how venture capitalists have funded Silicon Valley startups, persuading investors to take long-term risks in return for a stake in a potential breakthrough company.

But too many recent financial innovations have been problematic, not least because they are so sophisticated that even senior bankers don't fully understand them. They have increased risk by encouraging financiers to package and sell questionable products, such as subprime mortgages. They have also encouraged financiers to become rent-seekers, more interested in serving their own interests than those of the economy as a whole.

In the wake of the crisis, the federal government passed the monstrously complicated Dodd-Frank Act, which tried to reduce risk in the financial system through regulation. A better approach would have been to focus on the amount of capital that banks are required to hold in order to operate. In the run-up to the crisis, banks on average kept about 8 to 10% of their assets as equity capital. If regulators had forced them to keep 25%, or better still 30%, it would have radically reduced the probability of contagious defaults -- the root of all financial crises. Today, despite Dodd Frank, they've only increased it to a little over 11%.

Such a move would greatly increase overall confidence in the financial system. It would allow lawmakers and regulators to repeal the bank-related provisions in the Dodd-Frank leviathan with a clear conscience because any bank losses would be absorbed by shareholders rather than by taxpayers. It would also allow them to focus their energies where they are best employed, in stamping out fraud.

The usual objection to increasing capital requirements is that it would suppress banks' earnings and therefore their ability to lend. But a look at history says otherwise. From 1870 to 2017, with rare exceptions, the net income of commercial banks as a percentage of their equity capital fluctuated within a narrow range of 5% to 10% a year, regardless of the size of their capital buffers. This suggests that a gradual rise in banks' mandated amount of capital would not damage their rate of return or their ability to lend.

A second crucial reform would be to get entitlement spending under control. Putting the system on a more sustainable footing could be done by raising the retirement age by a couple of years, indexing it to life expectancy so that the problem doesn't keep cropping up -- and more importantly, in the longer term, shifting from a system of defined benefits to one of defined contributions, as Sweden accomplished in the 1990s.

Such reforms would assure long-term solvency, release more savings for productive investment and bring down the federal budget deficit. Nor would the reforms impose great suffering on America's retiring baby boomers. The retirement age was fixed in 1935, when the system was set up, at a time when life expectancy was much shorter.

America's problems, in short, are problems of poor policy-making rather than of senescent technology or a lack of entrepreneurial drive. This does not mean that they are insignificant. Unless the U.S. changes course, its economy will continue to flag, holding out the unhappy prospect of a self-reinforcing cycle of low growth and populist rage.

Some economists think that the U.S. is mired in a swamp of low growth. We prefer to think that it is trapped in an iron cage of its own making. Out-of-control entitlements and ill-considered regulations are condemning the economy to perform well below its potential. Swamps by their nature are very difficult to escape. Cages can be opened, provided that you have the right keys -- and are willing to turn them.

Soputan Design produces and sells two types of office desk: Standard and Exclusive desk. The budgeted direct costs for each of the product in 2019 are as follows:

Information regarding the direct materials for March 2019 is available below.

Information regarding the unit cost of direct costs for February and March 2019 are as follows:

It should be noted that manufacturing overhead (both fixed and variable) is allocated to each product base on budgeted direct manufacturing labour‐hours per product. The budgeted variable manufacturing overhead rate for March 2019 is $35 per direct manufacturing labour‐hour. The budgeted fixed manufacturing overhead for March 2019 is $42 500. Both variable and fixed manufacturing overhead costs are allocated to each unit of finished goods. The following data is related to finished goods inventory for March 2019:

Budgeted sales for March 2019 are 740 units of the standard and 390 units of the Exclusive. The budgeted selling prices per unit in March 2019 are $1,020 for the standard desk and $1,600 for the exclusive desk. Assume that the following in your answer:

There is no work‐in‐process inventory at the end of each month.

Direct materials inventory and finished goods inventory uses the First In First Out method (the first

in cost per unit of the material is firstly charged into production) to determine the production cost.

Unit costs of direct materials purchased and finished goods are constant in March 2019.

Prepare the following budgets for March 2019 in tabular format (show all workings):

Marks

1 Sales budget 10

2 Production budget. 10

3 Direct materials usage budget in units and dollars 20

4 Direct manufacturing labour budget 10

5 Manufacturing overhead budget, and Manufacturing overhead rate per hour 20

6 Calculate ending inventory budget of Finished goods. 20

7 Cost of goods sold budget 10

can you please post Answers for Q5-7 please and thankyou

1) What is the correct order in which the following budget schedules are prepared? Direct materials purchases Production Direct labor Sales Manufacturing overhead (5pts)

a. 2,1,5,3,4

b. 4,2,1,3,5

c. 2,3,1,4,5 d.

4,1,5,3,2

e. None of the answer choices is correct.

2) Garibaldi Inc. collects 40% of its sales in the month of sale and the other 60% in the following month. The following shows budgeted sales for October through December.

October $3,900,000

November $4,350,000

December $4,725,000

What is the amount of cash receipts budgeted for November? (5pts)

a. $4,080,000

b. $1,740,000

c. $2,340,000

d. $2,835,000

None of the answer choices is correct.

3) Miller Inc. had the following sales during 2016:

Quarter 1 10,000 units

Quarter 2 11,000 units

Quarter 3 14,000 units

Quarter 4 12,000 units

Miller expects sales in each quarter of 2013 to be 10% more than the respective quarters for 2016. If each unit sells for $110, what amounts will appear as sales revenue in the quarterly sales budgets for 2013? (5pts)

a. $990,000; $1,089,000; $1,386,000; $1,188,000

b. $1,100,000; $1,210,000; $1,540,000; $1,320,000

c. $1,421,750; $1,421,750; $1,421,750; $1,421,750

d. $1,210,000; $1,331,000; $1,694,000; $1,452,000

e. None of the answer choices is correct.

4) Which of the following best describes a master budget? (5pts)

a. An estimate of cash expenditures for long-term assets.

b. An estimate of all operating costs other than production.

c. A long-term budget that focuses on the daily operations of the organization.

d. A series of budget schedules outlining the organization's plans for the upcoming period.

e. None of the answer choices is correct.

8)Which of the following remains the same when comparing a flexible budget to a master budget?(5pts)

a. Total sales.

b. Net income.

c. Total variable costs.

d. Total fixed costs.

e. None of the answer choices is correct.

Birth Date and Canadian Ice Hockey

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), Malcolm Gladwell speculates that Canadian ice hockey players that are born early in the year have an advantage. This is because the birthdate cutoff for different levels of youth hockey leagues in Canada is January 1st, so youth hockey players who are born in January and February are slightly older than teammates born later in the year. Does this slight age advantage in the beginning lead to success later on? A 2010 study¹ examined the birthdate distribution of players in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), a high-level and selective Canadian hockey league (ages 15-20), for the 2008–2009 season. The number of OHL players born during the 1st quarter (Jan–Mar), 2nd quarter (Apr–Jun), 3rd quarter (Jul–Sep), and 4th quarter (Oct–Dec) of the year is shown in the table below. The overall percentage of live births in Canada (year 1989) are also provided for each quarter. Is this evidence that the birthdate distribution for OHL players differs significantly from the national proportions? Calculate the chi-square statistic, find the p-value, and state the conclusion in context.

Table 1 Birthdates nationally in Canada and for elite hockey players
¹Nolan, J. and Howell, G., "Hockey success and birth date: The relative age effect revisited," International Review of Sociology of Sport, 2010; 45(4): 507–512.

Calculate the chi-square test statistic and the p-value.

Round your answer for the chi-square statistic to two decimal places, and your answer for the p-value to three decimal places.

χ2= __________________________

p-value = ______________________

Is there evidence that the birthdate distribution for OHL players differs significantly from the national proportions?

Yes or No?