Simon Company's year-end balance sheets follow.
At December 31 2014 2013 2012
Assets
Cash $25,351 $29,930 $30,560
Accounts receivable, net 74,211 51,859 41,158
Merchandise inventory 94,230 67,842 43,833
Prepaid expenses 8,327 7,701 3,361
Plant assets, net 227,566 213,086 192,888
Total assets $429,685 $370,418 $311,800
Liabilities and Equity
Accounts payable $103,782 $63,853 $41,569
Long-term notes payable secured by
mortgages on plant assets 79,973 86,048 68,908
Common stock, $10 par value 163,500 163,500 163,500
Retained earnings 82,430 57,017 37,823
Total liabilities and equity $429,685 $370,418 $311,800
1. Express the balance sheets in common-size percents. (Do not round intermediate calculations and round your final percentage answers to 1 decimal place.) 2. Assuming annual sales have not changed in the last three years, is the change in accounts receivable as a percentage of total assets favorable or unfavorable? 3. Assuming annual sales have not changed in the last three years, is the change in merchandise inventory as a percentage of total assets favorable or unfavorable?

In december of 2004, the company you own entered into a 20-year contract with a grain supplier for daily deliveries of grain to its hot dog bun manufacturing facility. the contract called for "10,000 pounds of grain" to be delivered to the facility at the price of $100,000 per day. until february 2017, the supplier provided processed grain which could easily be used in your manufacturing process. however, no longer wanting to absorb the cost of having the grain processed, the supplier began delivering whole grain. the supplier is arguing that the contract does not specify the type of grain that would be supplied and that it has not breached the contract. your company is arguing that the supplier has an onsite processing plant and processed grain was implicit to the terms of the contract. over the remaining term of the contract, reshipping and having the grain processed would cost your company approximately $10,000,000, opposed to a cost of around $1,000,000 to the supplier. after speaking with in-house counsel, it was estimated that litigation would cost the company several million dollars and last for years. weighing the costs of litigation, along with possible ambiguity in the contract, what are three options you could take to resolve the dispute? which would be the best option for your business and why?

Employees at a library check out books to patrons. books have an isbn and a name. the library sometimes has multiple copies of the same book. books have one or more authors. a patron is an individual who has an active (non-expired) library card. for each library card, we store the person's first and last names and their address. for each employee, we store their employee id, current salary, first and last name and their address. we also store the employee id of their current manager. each time we check out a book to a patron we need to store the date of the transaction, the employee who checked out the book to the patron, and the library card of the patron. some employees have library cards. if an employee patron turns in a book late, the fine that they pay is a percentage of their salary. some employees are authors who have library cards—they are allowed to check out as many books as they like.

1.     regarding general guidelines for the preparation of successful soups, which of the following statements is true? a. thick soups made with starchy vegetables may thin during storage. b. soups should be seasoned throughout the cooking process. c. finish a cream soup well before serving it to moderate the flavor. d. consommés take quite a long time to cool. student c   incorrect