Nanalysis of last year's financial statements produced the following results. current ratio 3.6 quick ratio 2.2 average collection period 78.0 days inventory turnover 4.4 fixed asset turnover 6.4 operating profit margin 11.9% net profit margin 6.1% return on assets 8.8% return on equity 13.7% debt ratio 35.5% times-interest-earned 9.3x payout ratio 41.4% use the following data to compute the comparable financial ratios for next fiscal year. has the firm's financial position changed?

The amberssen specialty company is a chain of twelve retail stores that sell a variety of imported gift items, gourmet chocolates, cheeses, and wines in the toronto area. amberssen has an is staff of three people who have created a simple but effective information system of networked point-of-sale registers at the stores and a centralized accounting system at the company head- quarters. harry hilman, the head of amberssens is group, has just received the following memo from bill amberssen, sales director (and son of amberssen’s founder). harry—it’s time amberssen specialty launched itself on the internet. many of our competitors are already there, selling to customers without the expense of a retail storefront, and we should be there too. i project that we could double or triple our annual revenues by selling our products on the internet. i’d like to have this ready by - giving, in time for the prime holiday gift-shopping season. bill after pondering this memo for several days, harry scheduled a meeting with bill so that he could clarify bill’s vision of this venture. using the standard con- tent of a system request as your guide, prepare a list of questions that harry needs to have answered about this project.

Consider the local telephone company, a natural monopoly. the following graph shows the monthly demand curve for phone services and the company’s marginal revenue (mr), marginal cost (mc), and average total cost (atc) curves. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 price (dollars per subscription) quantity (thousands of subscriptions) d mr mc atc 8, 60 suppose that the government has decided not to regulate this industry, and the firm is free to maximize profits, without constraints. complete the first row of the following table. pricing mechanism short run long-run decision quantity price profit (subscriptions) (dollars per subscription) profit maximization marginal-cost pricing average-cost pricing suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to marginal cost. complete the second row of the previous table. suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to average total cost. complete the third row of the previous table. under average-cost pricing, the government will raise the price of output whenever a firm’s costs increase, and lower the price whenever a firm’s costs decrease. over time, under the average-cost pricing policy, what will the local telephone company most likely do

Nellie lumpkin, who suffered from dementia, was admitted to the picayune convalescent center, a nursing home. because of her mental condition, her daughter, beverly mcdaniel, signed the admissions agreement. it included a clause requiring the par- ties to submit any dispute to arbitration. after lumpkin left the center two years later, she filed a suit against picayune to recover damages for mistreatment and malpractice. [covenant health & rehabilitation of picayune, lp v. lumpkin, 23 so.2d 1092 (miss. app. 2009)] (see page 91.) 1. is it ethical for this dispute—involving negligent medical care, not a breach of a commercial contract—to be forced into arbitration? why or why not? discuss whether medical facilities should be able to impose arbitration when there is generally no bargaining over such terms.