Logistics solutions provides order fulfillment services for dot merchants. the company maintains warehouses that stock items carried by its dot clients. when a client receives an order from a customer, the order is forwarded to logistics solutions, which pulls the item from storage, packs it, and ships it to the customer. the company uses a predetermined variable overhead rate based on direct labor-hours. in the most recent month, 120,000 items were shipped to customers using 2,300 direct labor-hours. the company incurred a total of $7,360 in variable overhead costs. according to the company’s standards, 0.02 direct labor-hours are required to fulfill an order for one item and the variable overhead rate is $3.25 per direct labor-hour.

required: according to the standards, what variable overhead cost should have been incurred to fill the orders for the 120,000 items? how much does this differ from the actual variable overhead cost? break down the difference computed in (1) above into a variable overhead rate variance and a variable overhead efficiency variance.

Suppose that hubert, an economist from an am talk radio program, and kate, an economist from a nonprofit organization on the west coast, are arguing over government bailouts. the following dialogue shows an excerpt from their debate: kate: to recent financial crises, the concept of bailouts is a hot topic for debate among everyone these days. hubert: indeed, it’s gotten crazy! a government bailout of severely distressed financial firms is unnecessary because free markets will properly price assets. kate: i don’t know about that. without a bailout of severely distressed financial firms, the economy will experience a deep recession. the disagreement between these economists is most likely due todifferences in scientific judgments . despite their differences, with which proposition are two economists chosen at random most likely to agree? business managers can raise profit more easily by reducing costs than by raising revenue. central banks should focus more on maintaining low unemployment than on maintaining low inflation. employers should not be restricted from outsourcing work to foreign nations

Annuity payments are assumed to come at the end of each payment period (termed an ordinary annuity). however, an exception occurs when the annuity payments come at the beginning of each period (termed an annuity due). what is the future value of a 13-year annuity of $2,800 per period where payments come at the beginning of each period? the interest rate is 9 percent. use appendix c for an approximate answer, but calculate your final answer using the formula and financial calculator methods. to find the future value of an annuity due when using the appendix tables, add 1 to n and subtract 1 from the tabular value. for example, to find the future value of a $100 payment at the beginning of each period for five periods at 10 percent, go to appendix c for n = 6 and i = 10 percent. look up the value of 7.716 and subtract 1 from it for an answer of 6.716 or $671.60 ($100 × 6.716)

Acoase solution to a problem of externality ensures that a socially efficient outcome is to