AKA: The Quick Ratio.
"Quick! How liquid are we?" The acid test, or quick ratio, is a measure of how well (or not-so-well) a company is positioned to be able to quickly pay off the bills it owes, i.e. its liabilities.
Why the quickly in there? Because the assets used to pay off the liabilities need to be quickly available assets, like cash or bank CDs or publicly traded stocks or bills the company will collect in the next 90 days or so. The company likely owns other assets, like a tractor-smelting company, but like…is it really going to sell that smelter to then pay off its bill to U.S. Steel for, uh.. steel?
Ok…the actual ratio looks like this:
(Cash + sellable securities + money people owe the company) / (liabilities)
So basically, the Quick Ratio compares your total liquid assets to how much you owe. It's important to note that you don't count your current inventory as part of your assets, as it's typically hard to sell everything you have right this moment, and then not at a big discount. The higher the quick ratio, the healthier the liquidity position.
Another good way to test your liquidity? Stand in front of a radiator and see how quickly you evaporate.
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sure we've all heard of mystery stories, but what really makes a mystery
a mystery? okay yeah if you're reading something called the big book of [boy picks book off shelf]
mysteries, that's a pretty good hint. but we're looking for something a bit more
general than that. like most stories a mystery will contain stuff like
characters a setting and a plot, but there are a whole bunch of other
ingredients that give mysteries that are distinctive and dare we say mysterious, [chef mixes ingredients]
taste. and no none of those ingredients are the mystery machines. well the first
one is a central problem aka a mystery to be solved like a crime. it's pretty
tough to solve a mystery if there's you know no mystery to solve. well you could
have a story where a detective goes to the beach with his friends and has a [2 men toss beach ball]
great time but with no problem well you've got no mystery. and sure the
detective might appreciate the day off but mystery stories aren't about
creating fond memories for fictional detectives. well the second element is a
list of suspects. if there's a crime to be solved then somebody must have [lineup shown]
committed that crime. and if there's only one suspect it's gonna be a pretty short
story, and not much of a mystery. so if you're bad at solving mysteries, well it
might be right up your alley. well the third element is a set of clues.
in a good mystery both the characters and the reader use clues to figure out [detective examines house]
who committed the central crime, and know the answer is rarely Miss Scarlet with
the candlestick in the billiard parlor. the fourth element is a bunch of red
herrings. and no red herring isn't an alternate name for swedish fish. [red candy fish]
we like that. in mysteries red herrings are false clues. things that suggest the
guilt of a suspect who's really innocent. even though readers like to try and
solve mysteries they don't want the solution to be too easy. it's like the
difference between playing chess with your grandpa and playing chess with a
toddler. yeah the win against the toddler well [man plays with old man, and young child]
it's gonna be way more satisfying than the win against your grandpa. what? she's
a prodigy. grandpa's just senile and last but not least a mystery story must
contain a dénouement. well this is the resolution which comes at the end of the
story. it reveals the suspect who committed the central crime and it [detective points out perp from lineup]
solves the mystery. and if you ever had a hard time coming up with a decent ending
to your mystery keep this in mind. Edgar Allan Poe once ended a story by
basically saying the orangutan did it .so when in doubt you know blame the [student grimaces]
orangutan.
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