Comment on the following: John Smith is planning to invest $1.5 million in a new restaurant in Bayside. When he applied for a loan, the bank officers asked whether he had conducted any research. Mr. Smith replied, "I checked on research and a marketing research company wanted $20,000 to do the work. I decided that with all the other expenses of opening a new business, research was a luxury that I could do without." Do you think Mr. Smith should get the loan? What information should his marketing research uncover? Are there ways he could have acquired this information at a cost below $20,000?