You are the manager of a U.S. company situated in Los Angeles and manages the import/export division of the company. The company distributes (resells) a variety of consumer products imported to the U.S.A from Europe and also exports goods manufactured in the U.S.A. to Canada.

The first transaction is for the import of good quality wines from France, since a retail liquor trading chain customer in the United States, for who you have been doing imports over the past five years has a very large order this time. The producer in France informed you that the current cost of the wine that you want to import is and €2,500,000. The producer in France will only ship goods in three months’ time due to seasonal differences but payment will have to be conducted six months from now.

The second transaction is for the export of 3d printers manufactured in the U.S.A. The country where it will be exported to is Canada. The payment of CAD 2,500,000 for the export to Canada will be received twelve months from now.

You consider different transaction hedges, namely forwards, options and money market hedges.

You are provided with the following quotes from your bank, which is an international bank with branches in all the countries:

Forward rates:

Bank applies 360 day-count convention to all currencies (for this assignment apply 360 days in all calculations).

Annual borrowing and investment rates for your company:

Bank applies 360 day-count convention to all currencies. Explanation – e.g. 3 month borrowing rate on $ = 2.687%. This is the annual borrowing rate for 3 months. If you only borrow for 3 months the interest rate is actually 2.687%/4 = 0.67175% (always round to 5 decimals when you do calculations). Furthermore, note that these are the rates at which your company borrows and invests. The rates are not borrowing and investment rates from a bank perspective.

Option prices:

Bank applies 360 day-count convention to all currencies. (Students also have to apply 360 days in all calculations). Option premium calculations should include time value calculations based on US $ annual borrowing interest rates for applicable time periods e.g. 3 month $ option premium is subject to 2.687%/4 interest rate.)

1. Compare the forward quotes and money market hedges with each other to determine the best exchange rate hedges for Canada

Table 7: Canada exchange rate hedges compared:

Which hedging technique should be applied? ____________________________________

Throughout history of capitalism, there has been one persistent criticism. The whole system seems to be based on selfishness the more one works, the more one prospers. If one is unable to work, the system seems to have no answer to his or her problems. Furthermore, there does not seem to be any moral or spiritual foundation to the system. Where do businesses get their values? What about concepts such as sharing, helping neighbors, and protecting the environment? It is important to make a distinction between plain capitalism and democratic capitalism. Democratic capitalism is a system based on three components: (1) free enterprise; that is, freedom to own your own businesses and farms and freedom to keep the profits, (2) a freely elected government that has internal checks and balances, and (3) moral, ethical, and spiritual values that are part of the very fabric of the country and the business system. Plain capitalism is a system where there is free enterprise, but no freely elected government and no foundation of moral, ethical, and spiritual values. There are several “capitalist” countries headed by right-wing dictators that do not have democratic capitalism and do not have the relative prosperity and social justice that we have in the United States. Let’s explore democratic capitalism in more detail so that you can understand how the system works. One of the most important elements of democratic capitalism is its moral and spiritual base. When the U.S. was being settled, there was so much religious debate and rivalry among religions that people were tortured and killed for their beliefs. When it came time to establish a free and separate U. S., however, the founding fathers were adamant about freedom of religion. They were very religious people themselves. Thomas Jefferson was proud of his religious heritage and his fight for religious freedom in the U.S. He asked that his epitaph should read: “Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” Jefferson felt that freedom of religion was one of his most important contributions. He felt it was as important as being President of the United States. Democratic capitalism cannot work effectively and fairly without all three components. With all three, the democratic capitalist system can become the most fair and equitable economic system in the world. Not everyone agrees on the role of government in the democratic system and on how much of the total gross national product the government should control. (Recent history indicates that somewhere between 20% and 25% of GDP gives the government the funds it needs to create more social justice and more equitable distribution of wealth.) A freely elected government is important to democratic capitalism because if the people feel that the system is not fair, they can elect new politicians to change the rules. Discussion Questions Do you see any evidence that the moral, ethical, and spiritual foundation of the American democratic capitalist system is eroding? How does that affect the ability of capitalist proponents to promote capitalism in other countries such as China and India? Why is it so necessary to have a freely elected government for democratic capitalism to create a prosperous and fair economy? Go through the three components of democratic capitalism and picture an economy without each one. What happens to freedom, fairness, and moral and ethical behavior? Which part of the system seems weakest today? What can be done about it?

I need 7-8 sentences responding to each paragraph written by my peers. Please make sure each paragraph is error/grammar free. Please separate each paragraph written by number 1 and 2. Thanks, Chegg

1- The financial crisis in the United States in 2008-09 was caused by a lack of understanding of probability. Do you think this statement is correct? Why or why not? Please find evidence to support your argument.The statement is correct. Work in risk management has produced a large number of Nobel winners. Sometimes it feels when markets drop the chances of this happening was zero to begin with. No risk management model covers all conceivable possibilities. Social sciences are often based on probabilities.

Here is what happened in the crisis. The money to investors comes from homeowners and if people defaulted less money would flow to the banks and thus the investors. The investment banks put all of the mortgages into a box and called it collateralized debt obligations (CDO's). These packages were sold to others like hedge funds and banks. Some of the mortgages were not very risky but other were subprime. This is were the probability comes in.

The reality is that the banks underwrote very risky assets and insured them with credit default swaps. Underlying these are statistics and probability. The banks predicted that the mortgages, which had been split into solid, okay, and very risky divisions, would stay mostly intact and could gain a AAA credit rating. The small probability that some would go under was a bearable risk. These were going to be insured directly through banks. Otherwise the banks could be sold on the market for ever increasing house prices. The probability that default would happen was in fact much higher than thought. The expected negative return per default situation turned out to be very high. The probability is not constant, that is, it changes over time and is not homogeneous. As more people defaulted more houses went on the market. The more supply the less value to the house. The less market value the less willing people were to pay because they became underwater. This resulted in a reflexive feedback loop increasing the probability of default. In summary, a lack of understanding of probability caused the 2008-2009 financial crisis here in the United States.

2-I think it is correct. Since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of government-sponsored mortgages provide loans to borrowers with lower credit scores, the risk of default on such loans is high, so the possibility of these borrowers not repaying the loan is ignored. The root cause is the excessive expansion of housing loans and the lack of strict risk control; excessive innovation in financial products, a large number of structured products that are too complex, difficult to accurately estimate, and risk opaque; financial institutions have excessive leverage and defects in risk management models; financial supervision systems are not Perfect, uncoordinated, inadequate supervision, and not strict accountability; insufficient due diligence of intermediaries, deviations in financial audit and credit rating; excessive incentives and high salaries of financial institutions, which can easily stimulate managers to take risks and pursue profits; for financial institutions and the financial sector Insufficient understanding of the problem contagion and the systemic risks that may arise, and weak monitoring and management. I think that if the government, lenders, and financial institutions have a certain understanding of the probability of default, this will minimize the probability of default.

Pacific Rim Industries is a diversified company whose products are marketed both domestically and internationally. The company’s major product lines are furniture, sports equipment, and household appliances. At a recent meeting of Pacific Rim’s board of directors, there was a lengthy discussion on ways to improve overall corporate profitability. The members of the board decided that they required additional financial information about individual corporate operations in order to target areas for improvement.

Danielle Murphy, the controller, has been asked to provide additional data that would assist the board in its investigation. Murphy believes that income statements, prepared along both product lines and geographic areas, would provide the directors with the required insight into corporate operations. Murphy had several discussions with the division managers for each product line and compiled the following information from these meetings.

The division managers concluded that Murphy should allocate fixed manufacturing overhead to both product lines and geographic areas on the basis of the ratio of the variable costs expended to total variable costs.

Each of the division managers agreed that a reasonable basis for the allocation of depreciation on plant and equipment would be the ratio of units produced per product line (or per geographical area) to the total number of units produced.

There was little agreement on the allocation of administrative and selling expenses, so Murphy decided to allocate only those expenses that were traceable directly to a segment. For example, manufacturing staff salaries would be allocated to product lines, and sales staff salaries would be allocated to geographic areas. Murphy used the following data for this allocation.

The division managers were able to provide reliable sales percentages for their product lines by geographical area.

Murphy prepared the following product-line income statement based on the data presented above.

Required:

Prepare a segmented income statement for Pacific Rim Industries based on the company’s geographical areas. The statement should show the operating income for each segment. (Round intermediate calculations to 2 decimal places (i.e. 0.1234 is 12.34%) and final answers to the nearest dollar amount.)

This is messy - the problem was provided in excel and I have copied to Word. There is a similar problem answered, but I need excel formulas.

Saxum Vineyard, in Paso Robles, CA, is one of the more than 8,000 wineries in the United States. While Saxum produces a number of different kinds of wine, they focus their production on Syrah (also known as Shiraz). Saxum sells their wines all over the United States. Suppose you manage a vineyard like Saxum and want to determine how much you should charge for your Syrah. Suppose the market demand function for Syrah is as follows.

QD = 200 - 38.18PO + 8.35PS - 2Pc + 10Inc + .8TS + .5M21

Where QD is monthly demand for bottle of Syrah (in millions), PO is the price of Syrah in the market, PS is the average price of substitute bottles of wine (other varieties), Pc is the average price of a pound of cheese and is used to gauge the price of complementary goods, Inc is the average US per capita income (in thousands), TS is the number of wine trade shows and competitions each year in which firms can attend to market their wines, and M21 is the number (in millions) of millennials in the US over the age of 21. This last variable is included to capture a change in consumer preferences; millennials are drinking wine at a much higher rate than previous generations.

The market for Syrah also has supply, produced by wineries similar to Saxum Vineyard and your winery, which can be stated as follows.

QS = -100 + 22.93PO - 5PPI - 10PS + 8Temp + 1Sup

Where QS is monthly supply of bottles of Syrah (in millions), PO is the price of Syrah in the market, PPI is the Producer Price Index (an index used to gauge changes in the costs of production in the US), PS is the price of substitute wines which could easily be produced instead of Syrah, Temp is the expected temperature during the harvest season for grapes, and Sup is the number of wineries that supply Syrah in the market (in thousands).

Using the market supply and demand functions for Syrah given, fill in the template provided with the coefficients for each function. Using the information below, fill in the values for each of the variables except Price of Syrah.

Demand:

-Price of Substitutes: $18

-Price of Cheese: $15

-Income: $53,000

-Trade Shows/Competitions: 3

-Millennials = 45 million

Supply

-PPI: 111

-Price of Substitutes: $18

-Temperature: 60

-Number of Suppliers: 8,000

Market Demand

                                          Coefficient         Values

Intercept                          ?                          ?

Price of Syrah                  ?                          ?

Price of Substitute         ?                          ?           

Price of Cheese               ?                          ?

Income                             ?                          ?

Trade Shows                    ?                          ?           

Millenials                         ?                          ?

Market Supply

                                         Coefficients        Values

Intercept                          ?

Price of Syrah                  ?                          ?

PPI                                    ?                          ?

Price of Substitute          ?                          ?

Temperature                    ?                          ?

Suppliers                          ?                          ?

1. When the price of Syrah increases by $1, what is the effect on quantity demanded and quantity supplied?

2. How much does a $1 decrease in the price of substitute bottles of wine shift the demand and supply curves?

3. Suppose that the price of Syrah is currently $22 per bottle. How many bottles will be demanded and supplied monthly? Is there a shortage or surplus and of how much?

4. If the market price of Syrah falls to $16 per bottle, how many bottles will be demanded and supplied monthly? Is there a shortage or surplus and of how much?

5. Trying prices in $1 increments between $16 and $22, at what price and quantity does the market equilibrium occur?

6. Suppose that the PPI increases to 123.222. If the price of wine stays at $20 per bottle, what quantity will be supplied in the market, and will the increase in the PPI create a shortage?

7. With the increase in PPI to 123.222, at what price will the market be in equilibrium? What quantity will be demanded and supplied at this price?

Pacific Rim Industries is a diversified company whose products are marketed both domestically and internationally. The company’s major product lines are furniture, sports equipment, and household appliances. At a recent meeting of Pacific Rim’s board of directors, there was a lengthy discussion on ways to improve overall corporate profitability. The members of the board decided that they required additional financial information about individual corporate operations in order to target areas for improvement.

Danielle Murphy, the controller, has been asked to provide additional data that would assist the board in its investigation. Murphy believes that income statements, prepared along both product lines and geographic areas, would provide the directors with the required insight into corporate operations. Murphy had several discussions with the division managers for each product line and compiled the following information from these meetings.

1. The division managers concluded that Murphy should allocate fixed manufacturing overhead to both product lines and geographic areas on the basis of the ratio of the variable costs expended to total variable costs.

2. Each of the division managers agreed that a reasonable basis for the allocation of depreciation on plant and equipment would be the ratio of units produced per product line (or per geographical area) to the total number of units produced.

3. There was little agreement on the allocation of administrative and selling expenses, so Murphy decided to allocate only those expenses that were traceable directly to a segment. For example, manufacturing staff salaries would be allocated to product lines, and sales staff salaries would be allocated to geographic areas. Murphy used the following data for this allocation.

4. The division managers were able to provide reliable sales percentages for their product lines by geographical area.

Murphy prepared the following product-line income statement based on the data presented above.

Required:

1. Prepare a segmented income statement for Pacific Rim Industries based on the company’s geographical areas. The statement should show the operating income for each segment. (Do not round your intermediate calculations and round your final answers to the nearest dollar amount.)

The first transaction is for the import of good quality wines from Australia, since a retail liquor trading chain customer in the United States, for who you have been doing imports over the past five years has a very large order this time. The producer in Australia informed you that the current cost of the wine that you want to import is AUD$2,500,000. The producer in Australia will only ship goods in three months’ time due to seasonal differences but payment will have to be conducted six months from now.

The second transaction is for the export of 3d printers manufactured in the U.S.A. The country where it will be exported to is Canada. The payment of CAD 2,500,000 for the export to Canada will be received nine months from now.

You consider different transaction hedges, namely forwards, options and money market hedges.

You are provided with the following quotes from your bank, which is an international bank with branches in all the countries:

Forward rates:

Bank applies 360 day-count convention to all currencies (for this assignment apply 360 days in all calculations).

Annual borrowing and investment rates for your company:

Bank applies 360 day-count convention to all currencies. Explanation – e.g. 3 month borrowing rate on $ = 2.687%. This is the annual borrowing rate for 3 months. If you only borrow for 3 months the interest rate is actually 2.687%/4 = 0.67175% (always round to 5 decimals when you do calculations). Furthermore, note that these are the rates at which your company borrows and invests. The rates are not borrowing and investment rates from a bank perspective.

Option prices:

Bank applies 360 day-count convention to all currencies. (Students also have to apply 360 days in all calculations). Option premium calculations should include time value calculations based on US $ annual borrowing interest rates for applicable time periods e.g. 3 month $ option premium is subject to 2.687%/4 interest rate.)

Canada exchange rate hedges compared:

Which hedging technique should be applied? ____________________________________

Value of the forward position

please solve all question

Morrigan Department Stores (The Ethics of Forced Software Upgrading)Morrigan Department Stores is a chain of department stores in Australia, New Zealand,Canada, and the United States that sells clothing, shoes, and similar consumer items in aretail setting. The top managers and their staff members meet once a year at the nationalmeeting. This year’s meeting took place in Hawaii—a geographical midpoint for them—andseveral accounting managers participated in a round-table discussion that went as follows:Roberta Gardner (United States): One of our biggest problems in our Aukland office isthe high cost and seemingly constant need to upgrade our hardware and software. Everytime our government changes the tax laws, of course, we must acquire software that reflects those changes. But why do we need new hardware too? All this discussion of‘‘64-bit machines’’ is a mystery to me, but the IT department says the hardware in the oldmachines quickly become outdated.Donalda Shadbolt (New Zealand): I’ll say! If you ask me, all these upgrades are costly,time consuming, and even counter-productive. I do a lot of work on spreadsheets, forexample, and constantly ask myself: ‘‘Why do I have to spend hours relearning how toformat a simple column of numbers in the newest version of Excel?’’ It takes time andeffort, it’s frustrating, and in the end, I’ve spent hours relearning skills that I already knowhowtodointheolderversion.Linda Vivianne (Canada): I know what you mean, but the newer hardware is faster,cheaper, and more capable than the old machines. Hard drives have moving parts in them,for example, and they eventually wear out. The newer software runs under the neweroperating systems, which are also more competent and have more built in security such asantivirus software.Ed Ghymn (Australia): I agree with you, Linda, but I think a lot of these new capabilitiesare more hype than real. If the security software was competent, we wouldn’t need allthose patches and upgrades in the first place. And why must we upgrade so often, just toget newer capabilities that most of us don’t even need?Alex McLeod (Australia): I don’t think anyone can stop the march of progress. I think thereal problem is not the upgrades to new software, but the fact that our company expects usto learn it without proper training. Personally, I don’t buy my boss’s argument that ‘‘you’rea professional and should learn it on your own.’’Linda Vivianne (Canada): I’m also beginning to realize just what advantages there arein outsourcing some of our accounting applications to cloud service providers. Thatwon’t solve all our problems because we all still need word processing and spreadsheetcapabilities, but at least we can let cloud providers deal with the software upgrades for ouraccounting software. Given how dispersed we are, that might also make it easier for us toconsolidate our financial statements at year’s end too.

Questions:

1. Do you think that Roberta Gardner’s description of “64-bit machines is accurate? Why or why not?
2. Many software vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe and Apple ship software packages with both known and unknown defects in them. Do you feel that it is ethical for them to do so? Why or why not?
3. Do you agree or disagree with the argument made in this case that many hardware and software upgrade are unnecessary? Why?

Read the case study and answer the questions

When many people think of a traditional, established company, they think of IBM. IBM has been famous for its written and unwritten rules—such as its no-layoff policy, its focus on individual promotions and achievement, the expectation of lifetime service at the company, and its requirement of suits and white shirts at work. The firm was one of the mainstays of the “man in a gray flannel suit” corporate culture in the United States. Times have certainly changed. IBM has clients in 170 countries and now does two-thirds of its business outside the United States. As a result, it has overturned virtually all aspects of its old culture. One relatively new focus is on teamwork. While IBM uses work teams extensively, like almost all large organizations, the way it does so is unique. To foster appreciation of a variety of cultures and open up emerging markets, IBM sends hundreds of its employees to month-long volunteer project teams in regions of the world where most big companies don’t do business. Al Chakra, a software development manager located in Raleigh, North Carolina, was sent to join GreenForest, a furniture manufacturing team in Timisoara, Romania. With Chakra were IBM employees from five other countries. Together, the team helped GreenForest become more computer-savvy to increase its business. In return for the IBM team’s assistance, GreenForest was charged nothing. This is hardly altruism at work. IBM firmly believes these multicultural, multinational teams are good investments. First, they help lay the groundwork for uncovering business in emerging economies, many of which might be expected to enjoy greater future growth than mature markets. Stanley Litow, the IBM VP who oversees the program, also thinks it helps IBMers develop multicultural team skills and an appreciation of local markets. He notes, “We want to build a leadership cadre that learns about these places and also learns to exchange their diverse backgrounds and skills.” Among the countries where IBM has sent its multicultural teams are Turkey, Tanzania, Vietnam, Ghana, and the Philippines. As for Chakra, he was thrilled to be selected for the team. “I felt like I won the lottery,” he said. He advised GreenForest on how to become a paperless company in 3 years and recommended computer systems to boost productivity and increase exports to western Europe. Another team member, Bronwyn Grantham, an Australian who works at IBM in London, advised GreenForest about sales strategies. Describing her team experience, Grantham said, “I’ve never worked so closely with a team of IBMers from such a wide range of competencies.”

Required Questions:

Question 01: If you calculate the person-hours devoted to IBM’s team projects, they amount to more than 180,000 hours of management time each year. Do you think this is a wise investment of IBM’s human resources? Why or why not?

Question 02: Why do you think IBM’s culture changed from formal, stable, and individualistic to informal, impermanent, and team-oriented?

Question 03: Would you like to work on one of IBM’s multicultural, multinational project teams? Why or why not?

Question 04: Multicultural project teams often face problems with communication, expectations, and values. How do you think some of these challenges can be overcome?

Pacific Rim Industries is a diversified company whose products are marketed both domestically and internationally. The company’s major product lines are furniture, sports equipment, and household appliances. At a recent meeting of Pacific Rim’s board of directors, there was a lengthy discussion on ways to improve overall corporate profitability. The members of the board decided that they required additional financial information about individual corporate operations in order to target areas for improvement.

Danielle Murphy, the controller, has been asked to provide additional data that would assist the board in its investigation. Murphy believes that income statements, prepared along both product lines and geographic areas, would provide the directors with the required insight into corporate operations. Murphy had several discussions with the division managers for each product line and compiled the following information from these meetings.

1. The division managers concluded that Murphy should allocate fixed manufacturing overhead to both product lines and geographic areas on the basis of the ratio of the variable costs expended to total variable costs.

2. Each of the division managers agreed that a reasonable basis for the allocation of depreciation on plant and equipment would be the ratio of units produced per product line (or per geographical area) to the total number of units produced.

3. There was little agreement on the allocation of administrative and selling expenses, so Murphy decided to allocate only those expenses that were traceable directly to a segment. For example, manufacturing staff salaries would be allocated to product lines, and sales staff salaries would be allocated to geographic areas. Murphy used the following data for this allocation.

4. The division managers were able to provide reliable sales percentages for their product lines by geographical area.

Murphy prepared the following product-line income statement based on the data presented above.

Required:

1. Prepare a segmented income statement for Pacific Rim Industries based on the company’s geographical areas. The statement should show the operating income for each segment. (Do not round your intermediate calculations and round your final answers to the nearest dollar amount.)