Rebate Versus Low Interest Rate. Kyle Parker of Concord, New Hampshire, has been shopping for a new car for several weeks. He has negotiated a price of $34,000 on a model that carries a choice of a $2,500 rebate or dealer financing at 2 percent APR. The dealer loan would require a $1,000 down payment and a monthly payment of $578 for 60 months. Kyle has also arranged for a loan from the bank with a 5 percent APR. Advise Kyle about whether he should use the dealer financing or take the rebate and get financing from the bank.

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

Robert black, regional manager for ford in texas and oklahoma, faced a dilemma. the ford f-150 pickup truck was the best-selling pickup ever, yet ford's headquarters in detroit had decided to introduce a completely redesigned f-150. how could mr. black sell both trucks at the same time? he still had "old" f-150s in stock. in his advertising, mr. black referred to the new f-150s as follows: "not a better f-150. just the only truck good enough to be the next f-150." this statement represents ford's of the new f-150.

Trey morgan is an employee who is paid monthly. for the month of january of the current year, he earned a total of $4,538. the fica tax for social security is 6.2% of the first $118,500 earned each calendar year, and the fica tax rate for medicare is 1.45% of all earnings for both the employee and the employer. the amount of federal income tax withheld from his earnings was $680.70. his net pay for the month is .