I think you forgot something. let me ask you this. What does the owner has on his hand at the end of the day? A fake $50 dollar, which he exchanged it back with a real $50 bill. Lost of $21 shoe plus the change to the scammer. If the owner never exchange the fake money with the neighbor he would lost only $50. since he used a real 50 bill in exchange of a fake one he lost additional $50.
ROFLMAO!! Yall thought it was so easy to solve, but then you all are arguing over which answer is correct. My answer is $100 bucks is what he lost at the end of the day. $94 in cash and product ($50 next door, $15 in shoes, $29 in change)... and $6 in lost revenue. I like Deke's answer the best! He does have a fake $50 bill to spend somewhere so all is not a total loss!
$44 is the "correct" answer but I think 44 and 50 are correct answers because the question is crap. If you consider the loss of the profit, a loss, then the correct answer is $50. If you are counting just the shoe's value to the store owner, then it is a $44 loss. It would be quite reasonable to consider the 6 dollars profit a loss also because he spent his labor and store space to make the 6 dollars. Possibly lost another customer because helping the first one and then running to another store just for change! I love how "even a chinese camerman is smarter than americans" slant to this whole story. "this is a math problem for 10 year old girls in china" No its not, its a problem designed to trick. And its a poor one at that.
one thing i need to point out in the world of business and readers need to understand: profit/opportunity cost - it costed $15 to make the shoe, but without those shoes, owner would never be able to make that $6 dollars profit. Therefore, owner lost more than $15, he lost $21 dollars. here is what you wrote: "After the scam, the crrok has $29 and a pair of shoes, the owner had $21 and a $50 fake note, and the neighbor had $50." I think this is the problem to your logic. The owner at the first transaction with the scammer only left him with a fake $50 bill. his $21 dollars is within that $50 fake bill. therefore $50 out the door and $50 into the door. second transaction with the neighbor. $50 real money for $50 fake money. Ask yourself this, what does the owner left with at the end of the day? -a fake $50 bill, lost $21 shoes and $29 change to the crook.
His labour and store space is part of the cost. The $6 is pure profit and should not count towards the cost. If the owner had expected 1 million dollars of pure profit for a shoe that cost him $15 to make, would you say that it's reasonable to count it as part of his loss?
owner lost $21 on the shoes owner also lost $29 on the money he gave to the guy the real answer is $79 when you add in the fact that he also had to pay back the $50 to the other guy (discounting for the $21 he got to keep after giving the guy change) owner loss = $79
HAH!! We totally agree! If you were doing a profit and loss chart from an accounting chair the loss would be a $50 dollar loss. This question tries to be smart but its so freakin dumb.
It is incomplete. The answer is supposed to be 44 dollars. But I could make a reasonable argument that the answer is 44 or 50 based on how you add up losses.
Yes, but it would cost him another $15 to get another pair of the shoes and he could still sell it for $21, hell he could even sell it for $50 to make up for the lost to the crook. The profit is NOT part of the cost, he could charge a million dollars for it but as long as it only costs $15 to make the shoes, all he lost was just $15. It's not $21 shoes, it's $15. He could get another pair of shoes for $15 and still sell it for $21.
you're forgetting that he gets to keep the $21 in real money he got from his neighbor therefore 100-21=$79
So he has a fake $50 dollar bill, essentially a scrap of paper. He lost a $15 dollar shoe (it cost him $15 bucks to make it). Yes, he lost the change ($29) to the scammer, but that was out of the $50 he received from his neighbor. So after all that, he had a net gain of $6 (-15 + 50 - 29 = 6). Then, he pays back his neighbor $50. So, in the end he loses $44. Huh? See above. That's all there is to it.
if you are gonna count the pure potential of $6 into account, maybe you should also include the interest rate and inflation in your calculation. if the shoe guy couldn't sell the shoes for $21, and had to settle for $15, would you say that he actually lost money?
yes because the revnue of the shoe is $21. you lose the $15 you also lose the $6 profit from it. total loss would be $21 on the shoe
But he spent his time and labor and store storage space on those shoes. The transaction was over and all those considerations are factored into the markup. If you did a profits and loss review he would have lost 44 in shrinkage and 6 in profits. Profits pay for overhead. The problem never said if the 15 includes the overhead. If you ASSUME it does then the loss is $44.
we can argue about the $6 later but right now you're forgetting that he also has to pay that $29 back to the neighbor. in other words, he "paid" the buyer $29 to take the shoe and then had to repay his neighbor that $29
Yes, because he could have helped another customer instead of that customer. Its possible another customer walked in, saw the store empty then walked out. I realize the "right" answer is 44, I am just showing how the question is crap.
