[求助]陈向东逻辑p182第57题

57 Companies considering new cost-cutting manufacturing processes often compare the projected results of making the investment against the alternative of not making the investment with costs, selling prices, and share of market remaining constant.

Which of the following, assuming that each is a realistic possibility, constitutes the most serious disadvantage for companies of using the method above for evaluating the financial benefit of new manufacturing processes?

(A) The costs of materials required by the new process might not be known with certainty.

(B) In several years interest rates might go down, reducing the interest costs of borrowing money to pay for the investment.

(C) Some cost-cutting processes might require such expensive investments that there would be no net gain for many years, until the investment was paid for by savings in the manufacturing process.

(D) Competitors that do invest in a new process might reduce their selling prices and thus take market share away from companies that do not.

(E) The period of year chosen for averaging out the cost of the investment might be somewhat longer or shorter, thus affecting the result.

答案：D

为什么答案是D呢？而A不是答案？

material的价格都不知道怎么还能去进行投资结果的估计呢？A难道不是在削弱？

D又为什么是答案？

An interesting question!

D points out that the assumption of "with costs, selling prices, and share of market remaining constant" may not be true, and if so, the comparision doesn't make sense.  If what's dipicted in D does happen, then companies who opted to not invest in new cost-cutting manufacturing processes may be in a severe competitive disadvantages.

A says that "costs of materials  ... might not be known with certainty", but it does not rule out that the cost will stay constant or stay within a narrow range.  So, the comparision could still be useful.

只有D涉及到投资与不投资之间的关系。而且涉及到两者之间的桥梁，selling price和 market share