Portrait of Hooper as a Drama Minor Pulling an All-nighter for the Finance Exam

Return on Investment (ROI) tests management’s efficiency.
Capital is a scarce resource and must be used efficiently.
Observe the relationship of short-term assets to liabilities
with a test known as the current ratio. Currently, Hooper
is said to be inefficient when he plays Biff Loman
in the University’s production Death of a Salesman.

Tangible assets have physical substance, e.g. diamonds.
Intangible assets lack physical substance and are hard
to value because evidence of their existence is elusive.
“What happened to the old confidence?” Happy asks Biff
in the school’s dramatic production Death of a Salesman.

Because they hinge on estimates of future operating results,
capital budgeting decisions are complicated.
“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?”
Biff asks himself. “The doors of your life are wide open!”
say campus recruiters who invest in seniors with high
grade points, otherwise known as earnings potential.

Happy is confused but hard-skinned, refusing to admit
he is lost. Biff shouts, “Pop, I’m nothing! Nothing, Pop,”
sinking Willy’s dreams for his success. However regrettable,
a write-off can enable change, and so a cost that has been
irrevocably incurred is called sunk because it is irrelevant

to future decisions, however disappointing to Pop.
More relevant are Opportunity Costs: the benefits
forgone when choosing one course of action over another.
These costs tend to be subjective, for example,
the happiness Biff foregoes when unable to say who he is.
Opportunity costs are not recorded in the accounting records.

Copyright © 2008 Charles Sweetman All rights reserved
from Enterprise, Inc.
Dream Horse Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission