If a firm is considering using its own funds (rather than borrowing) to finance investment projects, will higher interest rates discourage the firm from undertaking these projects? explain. (hint: think of yourself as the owner of a firm that has earned profits and imagine that you are going to use the profits either to finance new investment projects or to buy bonds. will your decision to invest in new projects in your firm be affected by the interest rate? )

Oceanside marine company manufactures special metallic materials and decorative fittings for luxury yachts that require highly skilled labor. oceanside uses standard costs to prepare its flexible budget. for the first quarter of the year, direct materials and direct labor standards for one of their popular products were as follows: direct materials: 2 pound per unit; $ 11 per pound direct labor: 2 hours per unit; $ 19 per hour oceanside produced 2 comma 000 units during the quarter. at the end of the quarter, an examination of the direct materials records showed that the company used 7 comma 500 pounds of direct materials and actual total materials costs were $ 98 comma 100. what is the direct materials cost variance? (round any intermediate calculations to the nearest cent, and your final answer to the nearest dollar.)

What impact might an economic downturn have on a borrower’s fixed-rate mortgage? a. it might cause a borrower’s payments to go up. b. it might cause a borrower’s payments to go down. c. it has no impact because a fixed-rate mortgage cannot change. d. it has no impact because the economy does not affect interest rates.

Amanufacturer has paid an engineering firm $200,000 to design a new plant, and it will cost another $2 million to build the plant. in the meantime, however, the manufacturer has learned of a foreign company that offers to build an equivalent plant for $2,100,000. what should the manufacturer do?