Describe and trace the setting in “The Secret Lion”. Does it change? Use specific examples. Are there points in the story where a particular location becomes important to the author? What mood is created and how?
In your response, give your opinion about how persuasive the speech is. Your response may be positive or negative, or a combination of both, as long as you are clear about your overall opinion. To support your argument, focus on McCullough’s point of view, and his use of both evidence and rhetoric. Be sure to cite or describe specific evidence to support your ideas, organize ideas appropriately, use transitions to move from one idea to another, and end with a closing stateme
In your readings, you reviewed the caseU.S. v. Gonzalez-Lopez. Explain what the government’s main argument was in this case. Discuss the reasoning the court used in either accepting or rejecting the government’s argument. If you were a justice, how would you have voted and why?
In your readings this module, you were introduced to Activity-Based Costing or ABC. It is a method used to determine a reliable predetermined benchmark for the allocation of overhead costs to the products produced based on their activity levels.
Tasks:
Merit-o-cracy PLC is a specialist advertising agency. It has been long-established but is experiencing difficulties in winning new business. The Chief Executive believes that its pricing methods are leading to the loss of large customer advertising campaigns while it is consistently winning smaller business.
Merit-o-cracy costs work for pricing purposes on the basis of direct advertising costs (i.e. space or time purchased from newspapers, radio and TV) plus 100%. The 100% is intended to cover all the overheads of the business, which run at $2 million per year. It does not include any profit margin. This budget cost comprises:
Creative staff $500,000
Production staff $750,000
Administrative & support staff $300,000
Rental and associated costs $450,000
Merit-o-cracy classifies its advertising campaigns as either small or large. Of the 350 campaigns the agency wins, about 325 are classified as small. A typical small advertising campaign incurs direct advertising costs of $4,000 each (and therefore is allocated $4,000 of overheads under current methods). The other 25 advertising campaigns are large and incur direct advertising costs of $28,000 each.
Merit-o-cracy’s accountant has heard of activity-based costing. After speaking to the management team, she has gathered information on the most common causes of costs. She believes that creative staff costs are linked to the number of advertising campaigns the agency competes for. Production staff costs are related to the number of advertising campaigns the agency wins. Administrative and support staff costs are related to the number of customers the agency has. Rental and associated costs are people-based and as a similar number of staff is employed in each of the three departments, the costs should be equally shared.
The accountant has also collected data on the activity levels in each of the three departments over the budget period. These are:
Creative
Production
Admin & support
Use the Bragg condition, (2d sin(θ) =nλ), the de Broglie relationship (λ=h/p), and conservation of energy for the accelerated electrons (assuming the electrons start from rest at the filament and move through a potential difference V) to show that the diameter D of each diffraction ring is related to the electron accelerating potential V by:
D= ((Lh)/d)*(2/(meV))1/2
Here, h= Planck’s constant, m and e are the mass and charge of the electron, L is the distance from the graphite target to the observing screen, and d is the distance between nearest-neighbor scattering planes. Use the small angle approximation in the Bragg rule to derive the equation for D
IncidentBeamdd ,(a)(b)Figure 2: (a) Bragg condition for constructive interference, (shown in reflection mode). (b) Crystal structure of graphiteshowing two sets of scattering planes corresponding to di – 1.23 A and de – 2.13 A. Since the crystals are arranged at variousangles, their individual diffraction pattern combines around 360" to form rings.
incident 2 To Heck with Them!
Isabelle Anderson is the North Carolina plant manager for Hall Manufacturing Company, a company that produces a line of relatively inexpensive painted wood furniture. Six months ago Isabelle became concerned about the turnover rate among workers in the painting department. Manufacturing plant turnover rates in that part of the South generally averaged about 30 percent, which was the case at Hall. The painting department, however, had experienced a turnover of nearly 200 percent in each of the last two years. Because of the limited number of skilled workers in the area, Hall had introduced an extensive training program for new painters, and Isabelle knew that the high turnover rate was very costly.
Isabelle conducted exit interviews with many of the departing painters. Many of them said that they were leaving for more money, others mentioned better benefits, and some cited some kind of personal reasons for quitting. But there was nothing to help Isabelle pinpoint the problem. Isabelle had checked and found that Hall’s wages and benefits were competitive with, if not better than, those of other manufacturers in the area. She then called in Nelson Able, the painting supervisor, to discuss the problem. Nelson’s response was, “To heck with them! They will do it my way or they can hit the road. You know how this younger generation is. They work to get enough money to live on for a few weeks and then quit. I don’t worry about it. Our old-timers can take up the slack.” After listening to Nelson for a moment, Isabelle thought that she might know what caused the turnover problem.
Questions
1. Interpret a turnover rate of 200 percent. What does it mean?
2. Do you believe that the exit interviews were accurate? Explain your answer.
3. What do you believe was the cause of the turnover problem?
Incident – The Safety Problem
ABC Manufacturing Company employs 300 workers at its main plant in the Northern Ontario. One of its major product lines is compressors for air conditioners. All compressors are tested when they come off the assembly line. Two years ago William Carlson was 28 years old, a high school graduate, and had been employed in the compressor division for five years. His job was to test each compressor using a standard procedure. Each inspector goes through an extensive training program where proper procedures for testing compressors are explained and demonstrated. In addition, inspectors are required to follow the detailed procedures for testing each unit specified in the company manual. No deviations from those procedures are permitted by a company policy.
Two years ago as Carlson was testing a compressor when it exploded and he was killed on the spot. The ABC Manufacturing Company expressed sympathy to the family but also indicated that the company had provided proper training, proper clothing, proper warnings, and proper procedures. It reiterated its commitment to employee safety and implied that the cause of the explosion was probably due to improper employee testing procedures, which were neither known nor approved by the company.
Carlson’s family hired an attorney on a contingency basis to pursue a lawsuit against the ABC Manufacturing Company. Recently, the case was heard in the court. During court testimony it was revealed that most of the inspectors, including Carlson, had developed various “shortcuts” to reduce the time required to test each compressor. Some continued to use the shortcuts, even after the accident. The plaintiff’s lawyer argued that it was not clear that Carlson had violated procedures, but if he did, the company had an obligation to know about the deviations and take steps to bring inspectors back to the proper testing procedures. In addition, he argued the company was responsible for providing training, periodically reinforcing proper procedures, and monitoring practices to assure conformity to proper procedures. The jury then retired to consider a verdict and, if the company was found guilty of safety violations, to assess appropriate penalties.
ABC Manufacturing then brought in an attorney from corporate headquarters to defend the company. Thomas King had a law degree from Queen’s University School of Law and had been practicing law for 27 years, and 12 of those years he had been counselor for ABC Manufacturing with an excellent track record of defending the company in areas of safety and health. King had focused his law practice in the area of health and safety and was always up-to-date with information regarding data and trends in this field. For example, he knew the following:
· There are approximately 4.3 million injuries per year among private sector firms.
· Each year the cost of occupational injuries and illnesses total more than $165 billion.
· In any year approximately 80 million working days are lost because of the job injuries
· In the most recent 6,480 employees died from work accidents
King knew that Ontario legislature passed the Occupational Health and Safety Act in 1990 to ensure the safety and health of workers by settling and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach and education; establishing partnerships; and encouraging continual improvements in workplace safety and health. The most recent fatality numbers were only about one-third of the number of workers deaths reported in the late 1980s. Consequently, most observers believed the Act has been effective in reducing workplace injuries.
King was also aware that a supervisor in another company’s construction site was charged with criminal negligence because he had failed to take “reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm” that had caused a worker’s death on his watch. Five years ago the supervisor pleaded guilty to eight counts of failing to ensure compliance under the Act and received a $50,000 fine. Subsequently, the same company was charged with criminal negligence for causing another death related to failure to correctly package cement blocks on pallets. The company subsequently pleaded guilty and paid another fine of $110,000 dollars. King knew he needed to prove to the jury that ABC Manufacturing had done everything they could to develop safety policies, communicate these policies to all employees, and train new and current employees periodically regarding safety procedures.
Question: What are some recommendations that can be made to help resolve the main issues facing the firm. Provide a step by step breakdown of what tools/systems the company can implement to help remedy their main problems (examples of their problems not enough monitoring by managers, not hiring the right employees who are skilled and able to follow safety procedures).
Incidence and prevalence are two extremely important concepts in epidemiology, certainly among the most important ways of looking at disease in a community. What is the relationship between incidence and prevalence? Provide an example of this relationship for any specific disease or condition that you select.
Twenty-nine-year-old Moe Miller had recently been appointed managing director at M&M Pizza, a premium pizza producer in the small country of Francostan. As a third-generation director of M&M Pizza, Miller was anxious to make his mark on the company with which he had grown up. The business was operating well, with full penetration of the Francostani market, but Miller felt that the financial policies of the company were overly conservative. Despite generating strong and steady profitability of about F$100 million per year over recent memory, M&M Pizza’s stock price had been flat for years, at about F$25 per share.1
His new office, Miller discovered, had an unobstructed view of the nearby marble quarry. How wonderfully irrelevant, he thought to himself as he turned to the financial analysis on his desk. With borrowing costs running at only 4%, he felt confident that recapitalizing the balance sheet would create sustained value for M&M owners. His plan called for issuing F$500 million in new company debt and using the proceeds to repurchase F$500 million in company shares. The plan would leave assets, profits, and operations of the business unchanged but allow M&M to borrow at the relatively low prevailing market yields on debt and increase dividends per share. Committed to raising the share price, Miller felt it was time to slice up the company’s capital structure a little differently.
Francostan
The Mediterranean island nation of Francostan had a long tradition of political and economic stability. The country had been under the benevolent rule of a single family for generations. The national economy maintained few ties with neighboring countries, and trade was almost nonexistent. The population was stable, with approximately 12 million prosperous, well-educated inhabitants. The country was known for its exceptional IT and regulation infrastructure; citizens had unrivaled access to business and economic information. Economic policies in the country supported stability. Price inflation for the national currency, the Franco dollar, had been near zero for some time and was expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. Short- and long-term interest rates for government and business debt were steady at 4%. Occasionally, the economy experienced short periods of economic expansion and contraction.
The country’s population was known for its high ethical standards. Business promises and financial obligations were considered fully binding. To support the country’s practices, the government maintained no bankruptcy law, and all contractual obligations were fully and completely enforced. To encourage economic development, the government did not tax business income. Instead, government tax revenue was levied through personal income taxes. There was a law under consideration to alter the tax policy by introducing a 20% corporate income tax. To maintain business investment incentives under the plan, interest payments would be tax deductible.
The Recapitalization Decision
Miller’s proposed recapitalization involved raising F$500 million in cash by issuing new debt at the prevailing 4% borrowing rate and using the cash to repurchase company shares.2 Miller was confident that shareholders would be better off. Not only would they receive F$500 million in cash, but Miller expected that the share price would rise. M&M maintained a dividend policy of returning all company profits to equity holders in the form of dividends. Although total dividends would decline under the new plan, Miller anticipated that the reduction in the number of shares would allow for a net increase in the dividends paid per remaining share outstanding. With a desire to set the tone of his leadership at M&M, Miller wanted to implement the initiative immediately. The accounting office had provided a set of pro forma M&M financial statements for the coming year (Exhibit 1).
Based on a rudimentary knowledge of corporate finance, Miller estimated the current cost of equity (and WACC) for M&M with the current no-debt policy at 8% based on a market risk premium of 5% and a company beta of 0.8. Miller appreciated that, because equity holders bore the business risk, they deserved to receive a higher return. Nonetheless, from a simple comparison of the 8% cost of equity with the 4% cost of debt, equity appeared to be an expensive source of funds. To Miller, substituting debt for equity was a superior financial policy because it gave the company cheaper capital.3 With other business inputs, the company was aggressive in sourcing quality materials and labor at the lowest available cost. Shouldn’t M&M do the same for its capital?
Questions
1. How do the financial statements for M&M Pizza vary with the proposed repurchase plan? Do the alternative policies improve the expected dividends pershare?
2. What impact does the repurchase plan have on M&M?s weighted-average costof capital?
3. What are the debt and equity claims worth under the alternative scenarios?
4. Which proposal is best for investors? What do you recommend Miller to do?
Please use some exhibit to calculate the plan.
Attached file is the Exhibit 1.
What’s the correct answer to the following question
Inc: orrec l Question 9 0 3′ 1 pts If the P50 for oxygen of hemoglobin is 50 mmHg in a lung capillary, what wouldbe the P50 for oxygen in a capillary ofa metabolically active systemic tissue? * also 50 mmHg cannot be determined less than 50 mmHg greater than 50 mm Hg
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