Michael hauck claimed that he was discharged by his employer, sabine pilot service, because he refused its direction to perform the illegal act of pumping the bilges of the employer’s vessel into the waterways. hauck was an employee at will, and sabine contends that it therefore had the right to discharge him without having to show cause. hauck brought a wrongful discharge action against sabine. decide. [sabine pilot service, inc., v. hauck, 687 s. w.2d 733 (tex.)]

Blue computers, a major pc manufacturer in the united states, currently has plants in kentucky and pennsylvania. the kentucky plant has a capacity of 1 million units a year and the pennsylvania plant has a capacity of 1.5 million units a year. the firm divides the united states into five markets: northeast, southeast, midwest, south, and west. each pc sells for $1,000. the firm anticipates a 50 perc~nt growth in demand (in each region) this year (after which demand will stabilize) and wants to build a plant with a capacity of 1.5 million units per year to accommodate the growth. potential sites being considered are in north carolina and california. currently the firm pays federal, state, and local taxes on the income from each plant. federal taxes are 20 percent of income, and all state and local taxes are 7 percent of income in each state. north carolina has offered to reduce taxes for the next 10 years from 7 percent to 2 percent. blue computers would like to take the tax break into consideration when planning its network. consider income over the next 10 years in your analysis. assume that all costs remain unchanged over the 10 years. use a discount factor of 0.1 for your analysis. annual fixed costs, production and shipping costs per unit, and current regional demand (before the 50 percent growth) are shown in table 5-13. (a) if blue computers sets an objective of minimizing total fixed and variable costs, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? (b) if blue computers sets an objective of maximizing after-tax profits, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? variable production and shipping cost ($/unit) annual fixed cost northeast southeast midwest south west (million$) kentucky 185 180 175 175 200 150 pennsylvania 170 190 180 200 220 200 n. carolina 180 180 185 185 215 150 california 220 220 195 195 175 150 demand ('000 units/month) 700 400 400 300 600

Which of the following is a function performed by market prices? a. market prices communicate information to buyers and sellers. b. market prices coordinate the decisions of buyers and sellers. c. market prices motivate entrepreneurs to produce those products that are currently most desired relative to their costs of production. d. all of the above are functions performed by market prices.

Baskin promotions, inc. sells t-shirts decorated for a variety of concert performers. the company has developed the following budget for the coming year based on a sales forecast of 80,000 t-shirts: sales $ 1,400,000 cost of goods sold 820,000 gross profit 580,000 operating expenses ($100,000 is fixed) 418,400 operating income 161,600 income taxes (30% of operating income) 48,480 net income $ 113,120 cost of goods sold and variable operating expenses vary directly with sales, and the income tax rate is 30% at all levels of operating income. if the concert season is slow due to poor weather, baskin estimates that sales could fall to as low as 60,000 t-shirts. assume baskin actually achieves the 60,000 unit sales level, and that net income actually earned at this level was $70,000. a performance report would indicate that net income was: