Biming chen is a college student from cleveland, mississippi. soon to graduate, biming was approached recently by a life insurance agent, who set up a group meeting for several members of his fraternity. during the meeting, the agent presented six life insurance plans and was very persuasive about the benefits of a universal life insurance plan that his company calls affordable life ii. under the plan, the prospective graduate can buy $100,000 of permanent life insurance for a very low premium during the first five years and then pay a higher premium later when income presumably will have increased. biming was somewhat confused after the meeting, as were his friends. armed with your knowledge from this personal finance book, you have been asked to respond to some of their questions. do you think universal life insurance is good deal for these peoples? why or why not?

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

Suppose a holiday inn hotel has annual fixed costs applicable to its rooms of $1.2 million for its 300-room hotel, average daily room rents of $50, and average variable costs of $10 for each room rented. it operates 365 days per year. the amount of operating income on rooms, assuming an occupancy* rate of 80% for the year, that will be generated for the entire year is *occupancy = % of rooms rented

The martinez legal firm (mlf) recently acquired a smaller competitor, miller and associates, which specializes in issues not previously covered by mlf, such as land use and intellectual property cases. given the increase in the firm's size and complexity, it is likely that its internal transaction costs willa. decrease. b. increase. c. become external transaction costs. d. be eliminated.