Letter To The Editor

registerlogo2013blackserviceI just wrote a letter to the editor. It was about a column in today’s Orange County Register.

It made me angry. Incensed. A lie masquerading as truth.

It was about fast food workers, McDonald’s in particular and the push for a higher minimum wage. The argument was made using the wrong data. With real world numbers it quickly falls apart.

Devious or dumb? Who knows? Both make me sad.

Alas, newspapers don’t have the impact they once had. My daughter will never buy a paper. She still consumes news, her own curated version. We all have that power today.

Columnists have fewer potential readers than ever before. It’s an older crowd that gets the paper. Competing content is everywhere.

Whatever reach he has, my letter (if published) correcting his misguidance will have even less!

I’m Not Mark Cuban… But

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Mark Cuban, outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks, TV shark and luckiest Internet bubble buyout recipient ever made news with a tweet early this morning.

Cuban is talking about corporate inversions. That’s where a large company buys a smaller company then adopts its favorable headquarters location for tax purposes.

It doesn’t move. It just declares this new place its HQ. By virtue of this paper shuffling they stop paying most federal taxes!

Cuban will sell their stock.

I can’t do that. I own no common stock. However, I pledge to stop supporting businesses that do this.

I’m talking to you Walgreens!

From the Wall Street Journal:

Walgreen is currently thinking about leaving American shores, as part a plan to buy the rest of Alliance Boots GmbH, which operates a U.K. drugstore chain and is based in Switzerland. The move could help Walgreen lower its U.S. tax bill saving the company hundreds of millions of dollars a year—money that wouldn’t flow into the U.S. Treasury.

That’s my prescription bottle at the top of this entry. Walgreens–it will be my last and I’ll absolutely join the boycott of your stores which will surely follow.

I’m not concerned whether your move is legal. I just know it’s wrong.

On Buying Health Insurance

There are more choices than there are distinctions. It’s impossible to see what’s different between various policies without being a statistician and actuary. I’m pretty math savvy and my head is swimming!

In the past we depended on insurance to help beginning with dollar one. Now, I’m wondering how important ‘dollar one’ really is.

obamacareSince I left FoxCT I have been insured through COBRA, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. All that means is no employer subsidy. I’m paying 100%.

Insurance is expensive. You probably already knew that.

Eighteen months have passed. I’m forced to get coverage on my own. This is among the most confusing things I’ve ever done!

First the good news. Under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, I can buy insurance! How that would have worked out before, considering my back surgery two summers ago and my age? All I know is, I’m insurable.

My beef with Obamacare is it doesn’t go far enough. Why do we bother with private insurance? Why must we confuse everyone? The rest of the world seems to prefer a single payer system. Seniors seem happy with Medicare.

There are too many choices.

Let me refine that. There are more choices than there are distinctions. It’s impossible to see what’s different between various policies without being a statistician or actuary. I’m pretty math savvy and my head is swimming!

In the past we depended on insurance to help beginning with dollar one. Now, I’m wondering how important ‘dollar one’ really is. Are we better off ‘self insuring’ for common medical problems and letting insurance kick in at big dollar amounts? How much out-of-pocket can I take?

Within the next day or two we will reach a decision. I wish it was a more educated decision.

On Taxes And Jobs

Our governmental policies and tax laws reflect an earlier, simpler time Back then more income meant more employees. Now not so much.

I’m not an economist. Duh!

Still some of what I hear over the federal budget battle seems a little hard to swallow. Specifically I’m talking about raising taxes and how that affects job creation. The mantra from Republicans is lower taxes go directly into more jobs.

As it turns out there was a tax decrease on airline fares this weekend. When the FAA charter wasn’t refunded the taxes and fees it collected expired. Let’s see how that worked out.

Airlines are tossing consumers aside and grabbing the benefit of lower federal taxes on travel tickets.

By Saturday night, almost all the major U.S. airlines had raised fares to offset taxes that expired the night before.

That means instead of passing along the savings, the airlines are pocketing the money while customers pay the same amount as before.

American, United, Continental, Delta, US Airways, Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue all raised fares, although details differed. Most of the increases were around 7.5 percent. – San Francisco Chronicle

Maybe the airlines looked at this tax decrease as too temporary to use as a hiring trigger, but using it as an opportunity to charge more seems unconscionable.

Unfortunately, I also understand why it happened.

Businesses are there to make money. I can’t say I blame them. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do. But we can’t look at them as what they are and through rose colored glasses simultaneously.

Our governmental policies and tax laws reflect an earlier, simpler time Back then more income meant more employees. Now not so much.

One of the major reasons for a spike in unemployment is fewer people are needed to produce the same work product. When you call a company for service or help and have your problem fielded by computers (or lower paid workers somewhere halfway around the world) you’re seeing a cause for unemployment firsthand. Companies are benefiting from this increase in productivity. They’re keeping that gain all to themselves.

A company’s interest is best served by producing a good or service for the minimum price. Maybe their interests and our society’s interests aren’t aligned anymore?

If we want more employment we’re going to have to add incentives that recognize full employment isn’t the employer’s natural goal. Certainly we’re going to have to take another look at incentives that actually work against full employment.

When banks swallow banks or AT&T swallows T-Mobile will layoffs follow? Unemployment costs our economy. Who’s paying for it? I sense it’s not the swallowing bank or AT&T. In the end our economy picks up the tab. The cost is shifted from them to us.

I agree with Republicans who say we shouldn’t penalize job creators. We shouldn’t. So maybe it’s time job creation itself was part of the equation in who got tax breaks. Not everyone deserves a break.

Prove you’re a creator and I’ll do what I can to help you. Otherwise, pound sand.

Like I said, I’m not an economist. However, I recognize BS when I see it.

We Saw “Inside Job” The Financial Documentary

Are these experts still running the show? Yes. Are they still flush with cash? Yes again. The only thing they’re missing is a guilty conscience.

We saw “Inside Job” today. It’s the sobering documentary on the fiscal crisis of 2008 narrated by Matt Damon and populated by a handful of interviewees who quickly asked themselves why they said yes! I spent a good part of the rest of this afternoon and evening wondering where my retirement funds would be safest: basement or mattress?

From Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson (“No End In Sight”), comes INSIDE JOB, the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, INSIDE JOB traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.

I can summarize Ferguson’s conclusions in a few short words: deregulation, conflicts of interest, incompetence, greed.

Actually I should have listed greed first. As the movie points out then points out again… and again… and again, when the bottom fell out those who greased the skids escaped with everything while the rest of us (and in this case us it is truly everyone–this is a worldwide meltdown) were left holding the bag!

There’s no doubt this movie has a progressive (aka: liberal) point of view. Still, plenty of blame is placed firmly on the Clinton Administration. The root of evil seems to be the three sided revolving door connecting the financial industry, financial regulation within the government and Ivy League academia.

Time-after-time quotes were provided from experts who supported what our massive financial industry was doing. The quotes kept coming right up until the moment the system failed! The support of these government leaders and academics gave the crooks on Wall Street legitimacy and cover.

Are the experts still running the show? Yes. Are they still flush with cash? Yes, again. The only thing they’re missing is a conscience.

The movie is as sobering as it is disturbing. I can’t recommend it enough.

Addendum: We saw the movie at Cine 4 in North Haven. I’ve written before how Helaine and I like to go to this independent theater which often shows quirky smaller films.

Today as the previews played I noticed the projector was slightly out-of-focus. It wasn’t horrible, but I’m a stickler for sharp focus. As the opening credits ran and the problem remained I went and told the only employee I saw of the problem. It was never fixed.

We’ll be back, but it’s troubling this problem wasn’t addressed.