Abc company has set the following standards for one unit of product: direct materials: 0.5 pounds @ $1.00 per pound; direct labor: 1 hour @ $10.00 per hour. the company produced 35,000 units and had the following actual costs: direct materials: 18,000 pounds at a total cost of $17,280; direct labor: 36,000 hours at a total cost of $374,400. compute the total direct materials variance.

The monthly demand equation for an electric utility company is estimated to be p equals 60 minus left parenthesis 10 superscript negative 5 baseline right parenthesis x, where p is measured in dollars and x is measured in thousands of killowatt-hours. the utility has fixed costs of $3 comma 000 comma 000 per month and variable costs of $32 per 1000 kilowatt-hours of electricity generated, so the cost function is upper c left parenthesis x right parenthesis equals 3 times 10 superscript 6 baseline plus 32 x. (a) find the value of x and the corresponding price for 1000 kilowatt-hours that maximize the utility's profit. (b) suppose that the rising fuel costs increase the utility's variable costs from $32 to $38, so its new cost function is upper c 1 left parenthesis x right parenthesis equals 3 times 10 superscript 6 baseline plus 38 x. should the utility pass all this increase of $6 per thousand kilowatt-hours on to the consumers?