Many smokers like to point to the late george burns, a famous actor who smoked cigars continuously for many years and lived to be nearly 100, as evidence that smoking is relatively harmless. these individuals tend to ignore the thousands of people who die every year from lung cancer. they are utilizing

When calculating the bountiful returns that retirees allegedly would glean from stock investments, privateers use rosy projections about a continually booming market. but when predicting bankruptcy for social security, they switch to pessimistic projections of a low-growth economy with abnormally low payments into the fund. in fact, far from going broke, social security produces enormous surpluses. from __ to americans paid more in social security taxes than were paid out in benefits. according to the congressional budget office, the social security trust fund will remain solvent until at least social security is the only federal program that produces about $150 billion yearly surplus, the only program that shows every sign of being selfsupporting and solvent for over thirty years to come yet is repeatedly described by its enemies as being in danger of insolvency?

Consider the local telephone company, a natural monopoly. the following graph shows the monthly demand curve for phone services and the company’s marginal revenue (mr), marginal cost (mc), and average total cost (atc) curves. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 price (dollars per subscription) quantity (thousands of subscriptions) d mr mc atc 8, 60 suppose that the government has decided not to regulate this industry, and the firm is free to maximize profits, without constraints. complete the first row of the following table. pricing mechanism short run long-run decision quantity price profit (subscriptions) (dollars per subscription) profit maximization marginal-cost pricing average-cost pricing suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to marginal cost. complete the second row of the previous table. suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to average total cost. complete the third row of the previous table. under average-cost pricing, the government will raise the price of output whenever a firm’s costs increase, and lower the price whenever a firm’s costs decrease. over time, under the average-cost pricing policy, what will the local telephone company most likely do

Magic realm, inc., has developed a new fantasy board game. the company sold 15,000 games last year at a selling price of $20 per game. fixed expenses associated with the game total $182,000 per year, and variable expenses are $6 per game. production of the game is entrusted to a printing contractor. variable expenses consist mostly of payments to this contractor.required: 1-a. prepare a contribution format income statement for the game last year.1-b. compute the degree of operating leverage.2. management is confident that the company can sell 58,880 games next year (an increase of 12,880 games, or 28%, over last year). given this assumption: a. what is the expected percentage increase in net operating income for next year? b. what is the expected amount of net operating income for next year? (do not prepare an income statement; use the degree of operating leverage to compute your answer.)