Which of these factors hide economic problems in the 1920s?
a. investors lost confidence in the market.
b. farmers sold crop surpluses to pay off their debts.
c. americans purchased many consumer goods on credit.
d. wages increased at the same pace as worker productivity.

Assume today is december 31, 2013. barrington industries expects that its 2014 after-tax operating income [ebit(1 – t)] will be $400 million and its 2014 depreciation expense will be $70 million. barrington's 2014 gross capital expenditures are expected to be $120 million and the change in its net operating working capital for 2014 will be $25 million. the firm's free cash flow is expected to grow at a constant rate of 4.5% annually. assume that its free cash flow occurs at the end of each year. the firm's weighted average cost of capital is 8.6%; the market value of the company's debt is $2.15 billion; and the company has 180 million shares of common stock outstanding. the firm has no preferred stock on its balance sheet and has no plans to use it for future capital budgeting projects. using the corporate valuation model, what should be the company's stock price today (december 31, 2013)? round your answer to the nearest cent. do not round intermediate calculations.

Imagine us is a startup that offers high definition 3d prenatal ultrasounds for high-end customers. the service process includes four activities that are conducted in the sequence described below. (the time required for each activity is shown in parentheses): activity 1: welcome a patient and explain the procedure. (20 minutes)activity 2: prep the patient (e.g., show them to the room, apply ultrasound gel). (17 minutes) (*your id number represents the amount of time needed to complete this task)activity 3: take images. (5 minutes)activity 4: discuss diagnostic with patient. (20 minutes)at each location there are employees (servers) s1, s2, and s3. the assignment of tasks to servers is the following: s1 does activities 1 and 2.s2 does activity 3.s3 does activity 4.a. what is the capacity of this process (in customers per hour)? b. suppose 3 patients arrive every hour on average. ignoring any “start of day” or “end of day” effects, what are the utilizations of all three servers (%)? c. suppose each activity can be done by any server and any server can do any set of activities. however, each activity is done by only one server. for example, a possible assignment includes: s1 does activity 1, s2 does activity 2, and s3 does activities 3 and 4. of course, the original assignment of servers to activities is also feasible. what is the maximum capacity of the process (in customers per hour)? d. now consider the capacity measures in (c) and (a), what is the percentage change? why can you improve capacity without using additional resources? (there is no free lunch, right? )note: for all hw assignments, show your process of getting the results. only providing the final answers is not acceptable and will get 0%. if necessary, use a separate sheet of paper to show your work.

Zara, a global retail and apparel manufacturer based in spain that has successfully implemented this idea by having a continuous flow of new products that are typically limited in supply. zara has created a system that draws its clientèle into its stores, on average, 17 times per year as compared to 4 times per year for most stores. how is zara using it to gain competitive advantage? what specific technologies are used by zara to maintain this advantage over its competition?