maskawaih 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 (edited) Erm, found this on other forum. A guy used $8 to buy a chicken and sold it for $9. Later he thinks that its not a good deal, he used $10 to buy back the chicken, sell it away for $11 to another person. How much is his profit? There are various answer for how much he profits. 1) Some say that it's a breakeven. 2) The popular answer is $2. Profit minus cost. $9-$8=$1. $11-$10=$1. So the net profit is $2. Someone gave a situation like this, "$8 bought chicken and sold at $9. He has $9 now. Even if he don have the $1 extra, assume he borrow $1 from another person and bought the $10 chicken. Now he sold it $11. Then he pay back the $1 he borrowed and left $10." 3) Another answer is $1. Capital = $8 Sold = $9 Profit = $1 Buy another = $10 (Capital + Profit = $9 still missing $1) Pump in another $1 to make it up for the missing money Capital + Profit + $1 = $10 Sold second chicken = $11 Profit = $1 The profit covers back the $1 he pumped in therefore he is left with his first Capital+Profit again Therefore he made $1 as he retained his $9! Hmmm... EDIT: There's another answer (forgot to put it). 4) He had $8 at first and finally he has $11. So, he gains $3. Edited June 14, 2007 by maskawaih Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dave1001 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 He ends up with two dollars more than he originally did. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FECrtn2 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 ^Agree with that... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sc4Freak 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 4) He had $8 at first and finally he has $11. So, he gains $3. No, he doesn't. If he started with $8, he would have had to go in debt by $1 to buy back the chicken for $10. If he starts with $8, his final amount of cash is $10. Therefore, his profit is $2. I have no idea how the hell you'd break even, and answer 3 is flawed. If he sold it for $11, his profit is $1 up from his original $9. His actual gains from that transaction was $2, but as you said $1 goes back to repay that dollar he used to buy the chicken for $10. This leaves him with a net profit of $2, one dollar from the first transaction and one dollar from the second transaction. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BoB 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 (edited) I'm an accountant. He could recognise in the accounts a profit of $1 on each sale, so $2 profit overall. However, this could be an example of carousel selling/recycling and hence would most likely be illegal and indicate money laundering or suchlike. The word "Capital" in that case is not right... and whether a company goes into 'debt' to borrow money to funcion (i.e buy the thing back) has nothing to do with the profit is achieves (or not) on an individual transaction. Edited June 14, 2007 by BoB Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
killakanz 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 Total Captial converted to stock for chicken project (aka Cost): $8 + $10 = $18. Total Sales from chicken project: $9 + $11 = $20 Sales - Cost = Profit : $2. Here's a good one: Three men book into a bed and breakfast. They are charged £10 per room. They hand the receptionist £30. Later the receptionist realises a mistake. The rooms are now £9 each. Receptionist take 5 pound coins from the cash they gave her, and gives £1 to each man and put the other 2 back in the till. Each man has now paid £9, she's left with £2. What happened to the missing £1? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
k4l4sh 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 What happened to the missing £1? This is higly illogical, captain. There is no missing £. She's not left with £2, she's left with £27. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sc4Freak 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 Total Captial converted to stock for chicken project (aka Cost): $8 + $10 = $18. Total Sales from chicken project: $9 + $11 = $20 Sales - Cost = Profit : $2. Here's a good one: Three men book into a bed and breakfast. They are charged £10 per room. They hand the receptionist £30. Later the receptionist realises a mistake. The rooms are now £9 each. Receptionist take 5 pound coins from the cash they gave her, and gives £1 to each man and put the other 2 back in the till. Each man has now paid £9, she's left with £2. What happened to the missing £1? Huh? She's got £2 left from her original £5, with the correct £3 missing. In total she's got £27. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
killakanz 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 :huh: I think I've said it wrong somewhere... It was a really good one that my mate in Iraq told me about, but I'm not sure what I missed out there, whatever ever way we looked at it there was always £1 mysteriously missing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Logan Hartke 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 whatever ever way we looked at it there was always £1 mysteriously missing. I'm sure it was yours. Logan Hartke Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
weston 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 here ya go killa, this is how i've always heard it: Three sailors are on leave for the weekend when they decide to get a hotel room. None of the three men have enough money for their own rooms so they decide to split the cost for one room. When they arrive at the hotel the clerk tells them that the rooms are 25 dollars per night for two people and 5 dollars more for the third person. Each salior pulled a single 10 dollar bill from their pockets and paid the clerk leaving no money to tip the baggage clerk. After 1 hour went by the clerk realized that he had over charged the saliors becuase there is a 5 dollar discount for military personel. The clerk then hands the baggage clerk 5 dollars to return to the sailors. On the way to the room the baggage clerk realizes that the men know nothing of the 5 dollar discount, they never tipped him, and the three would have a hard time equally splitting 5 dollars. He decides to put 2 dollars in his own pocket and give each man back one dollar a piece. Each of the 3 sailors now only spent 9 dollars after the discount and the baggage clerk has 2 dollars of their money in his pocket. Now... If the 3 sailors 9 dollars each equal 27 plus the two in the baggage clecks pocket equal 29, what happen to the other dollar if they originally paid 30 dollars for the room? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
killakanz 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 the tip! That's what I forgot :P Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Red Leader 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 because each room is not 9 dollars but 8.333 dollars :) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Korona 0 Report post Posted June 14, 2007 They are trying to make you think the porter subtracted his 2 dollar tip from the 30 dollar kitty, but in reality he is adding it to the 25 dollar bill for the room. Think about it, the bill goes up to $30, then down to $25. Then to porter takes 2 dollars so the "bill" is now $27. $27/3 = $9 so there you go. All monies accounted for. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rattuskid 0 Report post Posted June 15, 2007 The better ones are good at masking a counting from 1 or 0 problem, and will have you in shambles doing out the math on a scrap piece of paper. Then again, my philosophy has always been that math is for work time and one should just keep putting down 10 dollar bills until the other person changes their expression. People like taking me out to dinner on an unrelated note. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tycoon-Master 0 Report post Posted June 15, 2007 (edited) Nevermind, I was pulling money out of thin air. Edited June 15, 2007 by Tycoon-Master Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
