You were a teacher of this stuff? Wow!

One of the flaws of discounted cash flow techniques (that I see) is that we would seldom embark on construction projects that take more than three years to build. Sometimes we have to make decisions that are based on a leap of faith rather than than the numbers.

Another flaw is that if a financial analysis is using bad techniques, the analyst is likely long gone when the mistake is discovered. There is little accountability in this field.

But we still need some number crunching beforehand. The numbers can tell us if the project is clearly financially viable, something to avoid, or a "proceed with caution."