You are six months from graduating college and begin to think about your future. Knowing that you’ll soon be searching for a job increases your interest in the health of the economy. This is because jobs for students with your major are highly dependent on economic growth. Categorize the following hypothetical headlines as either good news or bad news. a. Unemployment rate drops to 5.6% from 6.1%, the third straight drop in the last three months.
b. GDP comes in at $17 trillion this quarter, compared to $16.5 trillion last quarter.
c. Prices, as measured by the CPI, increased by 10% last year and it could be even higher this year.
d. GDP drops by 2% in the 3rd quarter, after growing at 5% in the 2nd quarter.

Goals that are overly ambitious can discourage employees and decrease motivation, yet the idea of stretch goals is proposed as a way to get people fired up and motivated. as a manager, how might you decide where to draw the line between a “good” stretch goal and a “bad” one that is unrealistic?

The owners of backstreets italian restaurant are considering starting a delivery service forpizza and their other italian dishes in the small college town where they are located. theycan purchase a used delivery van and have it painted with their name and logo for $21,500.they can hire part-time drivers who will work in the evenings from 5 p. m. to 10 p. m. for$8 per hour. the drivers are mostly college students who study at the restaurant when theyare not making deliveries. during the day, there are so few deliveries that the regular employeescan handle them. the owners estimate that the van will last 5 years (365 days per year)before it has to be replaced and that each delivery will cost about $1.35 in gas and othermaintenance costs (including tires, oil, scheduled service, they also estimate that onaverage each delivery order will cost $15 for direct labor and ingredients to prepare andpackage, and will generate $34 in revenue. a. how many delivery orders must backstreets make each month in order for the service to break even? b. the owners believe that if they have approximately the break-even number of deliveries during the week, they will at least double that number on fridays, saturdays, and sundays. if that’s the case, how much profit will they make, at a minimum, from their delivery service each month (4 weeks per month)?

Ardmore farm and seed has an inventory dilemma. they have been selling a brand of very popular insect spray for the past year. they have never really analyzed the costs incurred from ordering and holding the inventory and currently fave a large stock of the insecticide in the warehouse. they estimate that it costs $25 to place an order, and it costs $0.25 per gallon to hold the spray. the annual requirements total 80,000 gallons for a 365 day year. a. assuming that 10,000 gallons are ordered each time an order is placed, estimate the annual inventory costs. b. calculate the eoq. c. given the eoq calculated in part b., how many orders should be placed and what is the average inventory balance? d. if it takes seven days to receive an order from suppliers, at what inventory level should ardmore place another order?