Making Money on Internet

Some weeks, there’s just too much to write about. This is one of those weeks. [Notice that I've fixed the grievous typo; no need to tell me about it again!] Not only is my brain percolating with my own ideas for articles, but the internet is abuzz with interesting stories about personal finance. Pity the blogger with a ton of material!

Rather than waste time with a long intro, I’m going to jump right in. Here are some recent articles you folks have sent me, or that I’ve found through my own web surfing:

Earlier this week, I sang the praises of index funds. If you’re interested in index funds, but don’t know where to start, you may want to consider ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Nearly all ETFs are index funds, but they’re traded like stocks. Confused? Kiplinger’s has an informative article on how to make ETFs work for you. This isn’t just a light-weight breezy piece; it contains solid info.

Elsewhere, that lovable curmudgeon Warren Buffett is at it again. He has a talent for making both liberals and conservatives angry. In this case, Buffett says that the rich should be paying higher taxes. “Taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett told ABC News. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”

Next, GRS reader Brendan Quinn sent me a link to presentation he recently gave to fellow students at Boston College. In his talk entitled Your Money: Buy Anything You Want, Guilt-Free, Brendan covers what he calls the three rules of personal finance:

• Spend less than you earn.


• Make the money you have work for you.


• Prepare for the unexpected.

I think it’s great to see college students taking the initiative to teach each other about financial literacy. Great work, Brendan!

Last week, The New York Times published a story about Nick Martin, who inherited $14 million ($10 million after taxes) in 1998. “But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches,” writes Geraldine Fabrikant, “the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.” I used to mock folks who squandered sudden riches like this (and there are countless similar tales), but lately I’m more sympathetic. As Flexo at Consumerism Commentary wrote about this story, “It’s easy to be judgmental. The internet is a place where armchair quarterbacks feel comfortable. Very few people know what would happen if the same situation — an unexpected windfall — occurs to them.”

Finally, here are two recent articles from USA Today. Cindy Perman has a long (and controversial) piece about Americans dying with debt. Many boomers have little saved for retirement. But more than that, the article reports that “nearly 40% of retired Americans said they’ve accumulated credit-card debt in their twilight years — and aren’t worried about paying it off in their lifetime”. In happier news, here’s a short piece about a homeless Arizona man who returned a backpack containing $3300 cash and a laptop. Now, that is an awesome story.

There are plenty of other great stories in my stack, but this is already one of the biggest “Spare Change” round-ups I’ve ever posted. We’ll call this good for now.

What drives an entrepreneur to start a business?  Is it solely about money?  Or is there something more?  I argue that often it is the  same creative drive that compels an artist to paint, a musician to compose, or a sculptor to look at a piece of rough marble and see an angel inside.  And those who understand the mind of the small business owner know why the proposed tax increase in 2011 will do more harm than good to the very people this economy needs most to create jobs.

On FBN’s Bulls & Bears recently Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, the token liberal steak tossed into the wolf den of laissez faire commentators, uttered words to the effect that if we allow the Bush tax cuts to remain, the “rich” (I guess that’s me?) will not put the money into the economy but rather just squirrel it away “in their banks…It would not go into job creation or creating capital for small business.”

My first thought  was: “In my bank? Really?  How many businesses have you owned?” (To be fair she did co-found some internet venture called Urban Hang Suite which shuttered in 2003).  But then I reminded myself that, like Ms. Greene herself who has been in non-profit and/or government almost her entire career,  very few people in the  Obama administration, from the president on down, have ever started a business.  Thus they cannot understand what drives entrepreneurs to succeed.  They think it is just about take-home pay.

It’s said that small business owners work eighteen hour days for ourselves so we don’t have to work eight hours a day for someone else.  And often our income on a dollar/hour basis is less than the established firms we may have left to go on our own. Certainly this is generally true for those few scary years at the beginning when a myriad of mistakes are made and unanticipated events occur that prompt the principals to pay ourselves only after all other obligations have been met   So why do it?  Why take such risk?

First, the sense of pride of ownership and having built something from nothing is as strong in an entrepreneur as it is in the artists I alluded to earlier.  This is often a foreign concept to those who have spent their lives in secure positions in academia, government, or as line workers and middle managers in huge firms and thus do they discount our passion to create something while passing judgments like Ms. Greene’s.  Do not underestimate the fact that more than just money drives us to take such enormous personal risk.

Secondly, there is of course  that brass ring of selling the firm and walking away with a nice pay-out in hand.  Still, I know of very few successful entrepreneurs who upon a sale leave the world of business.  Rather they look for new ventures.  New challenges.  New job creating entities. Name an artist satisfied at just one piece.

Now, our company’s value is enhanced by increased business.  We have to grow in order to build our firm into a salable entity. And that usually means a larger workforce to generate more revenues.  It’s no coincidence that the targeted 2% of Americans making north of $250k create 28% of the nation’s new jobs.   The reason letting the tax breaks expire is an impediment to that growth is that many small business owners have their business and personal income intertwined. And as such a 5% tax on their personal income is a de facto 5% surcharge on their business.  For someone making $1mm a year, that is a $50k  hit to their business…two entry level employees.  In the end, we are employers, not charity wards.  We take the risks, it is our capital—and homes—at stake and so we will look to other ways to cut before reducing our own deserved compensation.  So in order to make up the shortfall and keep an owner level with 2010 all else being equal, these two employees may get let go.  Certainly an owner will put off hiring until he/she knows if they can afford new hands or not.  The new mantra for small business is “don’t hire one until you need two.”  Not the best recipe for getting the job creators excited about growing the payroll is it?

Before sitting down to write this I looked over my small company’s five-year projections.  Always we try to gage our fixed costs.  When we have some certainty on costs we can plan around them and ‘stress test’ to see how we survive in given revenue scenarios and prepare measures today in anticipation of any issues down the road.  Then we can better tell, for example, how much interest we can afford each month on a loan (assuming we can get one) to bring in more capital and expand the firm—and hire people we need to get us to the next level and that much closer to that holy grail of being bought out while satisfying our desire to build something special along the way.  But right now there is a big blank “N/A” on the spreadheet cells labeled “Federal Income Tax.”  Until I know what to plug in there, it will be hard to move forward.

natural bench craft company rip off

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

advertising enlargement herbs

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

bench craft company rip off pill reviews

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

photos of bench craft company rip off

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

safe bench craft company rip off

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

fast advertising enlargement

Some weeks, there’s just too much to write about. This is one of those weeks. [Notice that I've fixed the grievous typo; no need to tell me about it again!] Not only is my brain percolating with my own ideas for articles, but the internet is abuzz with interesting stories about personal finance. Pity the blogger with a ton of material!

Rather than waste time with a long intro, I’m going to jump right in. Here are some recent articles you folks have sent me, or that I’ve found through my own web surfing:

Earlier this week, I sang the praises of index funds. If you’re interested in index funds, but don’t know where to start, you may want to consider ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Nearly all ETFs are index funds, but they’re traded like stocks. Confused? Kiplinger’s has an informative article on how to make ETFs work for you. This isn’t just a light-weight breezy piece; it contains solid info.

Elsewhere, that lovable curmudgeon Warren Buffett is at it again. He has a talent for making both liberals and conservatives angry. In this case, Buffett says that the rich should be paying higher taxes. “Taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett told ABC News. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”

Next, GRS reader Brendan Quinn sent me a link to presentation he recently gave to fellow students at Boston College. In his talk entitled Your Money: Buy Anything You Want, Guilt-Free, Brendan covers what he calls the three rules of personal finance:

• Spend less than you earn.


• Make the money you have work for you.


• Prepare for the unexpected.

I think it’s great to see college students taking the initiative to teach each other about financial literacy. Great work, Brendan!

Last week, The New York Times published a story about Nick Martin, who inherited $14 million ($10 million after taxes) in 1998. “But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches,” writes Geraldine Fabrikant, “the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.” I used to mock folks who squandered sudden riches like this (and there are countless similar tales), but lately I’m more sympathetic. As Flexo at Consumerism Commentary wrote about this story, “It’s easy to be judgmental. The internet is a place where armchair quarterbacks feel comfortable. Very few people know what would happen if the same situation — an unexpected windfall — occurs to them.”

Finally, here are two recent articles from USA Today. Cindy Perman has a long (and controversial) piece about Americans dying with debt. Many boomers have little saved for retirement. But more than that, the article reports that “nearly 40% of retired Americans said they’ve accumulated credit-card debt in their twilight years — and aren’t worried about paying it off in their lifetime”. In happier news, here’s a short piece about a homeless Arizona man who returned a backpack containing $3300 cash and a laptop. Now, that is an awesome story.

There are plenty of other great stories in my stack, but this is already one of the biggest “Spare Change” round-ups I’ve ever posted. We’ll call this good for now.

What drives an entrepreneur to start a business?  Is it solely about money?  Or is there something more?  I argue that often it is the  same creative drive that compels an artist to paint, a musician to compose, or a sculptor to look at a piece of rough marble and see an angel inside.  And those who understand the mind of the small business owner know why the proposed tax increase in 2011 will do more harm than good to the very people this economy needs most to create jobs.

On FBN’s Bulls & Bears recently Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, the token liberal steak tossed into the wolf den of laissez faire commentators, uttered words to the effect that if we allow the Bush tax cuts to remain, the “rich” (I guess that’s me?) will not put the money into the economy but rather just squirrel it away “in their banks…It would not go into job creation or creating capital for small business.”

My first thought  was: “In my bank? Really?  How many businesses have you owned?” (To be fair she did co-found some internet venture called Urban Hang Suite which shuttered in 2003).  But then I reminded myself that, like Ms. Greene herself who has been in non-profit and/or government almost her entire career,  very few people in the  Obama administration, from the president on down, have ever started a business.  Thus they cannot understand what drives entrepreneurs to succeed.  They think it is just about take-home pay.

It’s said that small business owners work eighteen hour days for ourselves so we don’t have to work eight hours a day for someone else.  And often our income on a dollar/hour basis is less than the established firms we may have left to go on our own. Certainly this is generally true for those few scary years at the beginning when a myriad of mistakes are made and unanticipated events occur that prompt the principals to pay ourselves only after all other obligations have been met   So why do it?  Why take such risk?

First, the sense of pride of ownership and having built something from nothing is as strong in an entrepreneur as it is in the artists I alluded to earlier.  This is often a foreign concept to those who have spent their lives in secure positions in academia, government, or as line workers and middle managers in huge firms and thus do they discount our passion to create something while passing judgments like Ms. Greene’s.  Do not underestimate the fact that more than just money drives us to take such enormous personal risk.

Secondly, there is of course  that brass ring of selling the firm and walking away with a nice pay-out in hand.  Still, I know of very few successful entrepreneurs who upon a sale leave the world of business.  Rather they look for new ventures.  New challenges.  New job creating entities. Name an artist satisfied at just one piece.

Now, our company’s value is enhanced by increased business.  We have to grow in order to build our firm into a salable entity. And that usually means a larger workforce to generate more revenues.  It’s no coincidence that the targeted 2% of Americans making north of $250k create 28% of the nation’s new jobs.   The reason letting the tax breaks expire is an impediment to that growth is that many small business owners have their business and personal income intertwined. And as such a 5% tax on their personal income is a de facto 5% surcharge on their business.  For someone making $1mm a year, that is a $50k  hit to their business…two entry level employees.  In the end, we are employers, not charity wards.  We take the risks, it is our capital—and homes—at stake and so we will look to other ways to cut before reducing our own deserved compensation.  So in order to make up the shortfall and keep an owner level with 2010 all else being equal, these two employees may get let go.  Certainly an owner will put off hiring until he/she knows if they can afford new hands or not.  The new mantra for small business is “don’t hire one until you need two.”  Not the best recipe for getting the job creators excited about growing the payroll is it?

Before sitting down to write this I looked over my small company’s five-year projections.  Always we try to gage our fixed costs.  When we have some certainty on costs we can plan around them and ‘stress test’ to see how we survive in given revenue scenarios and prepare measures today in anticipation of any issues down the road.  Then we can better tell, for example, how much interest we can afford each month on a loan (assuming we can get one) to bring in more capital and expand the firm—and hire people we need to get us to the next level and that much closer to that holy grail of being bought out while satisfying our desire to build something special along the way.  But right now there is a big blank “N/A” on the spreadheet cells labeled “Federal Income Tax.”  Until I know what to plug in there, it will be hard to move forward.

bench craft company rip off drugs

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

advertising enlargement info

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

advertising enlargement exersizes

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

bench craft company rip off excercises

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

bench craft company rip off product

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

bench craft company rip off product

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

bench craft company rip off operation

Some weeks, there’s just too much to write about. This is one of those weeks. [Notice that I've fixed the grievous typo; no need to tell me about it again!] Not only is my brain percolating with my own ideas for articles, but the internet is abuzz with interesting stories about personal finance. Pity the blogger with a ton of material!

Rather than waste time with a long intro, I’m going to jump right in. Here are some recent articles you folks have sent me, or that I’ve found through my own web surfing:

Earlier this week, I sang the praises of index funds. If you’re interested in index funds, but don’t know where to start, you may want to consider ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Nearly all ETFs are index funds, but they’re traded like stocks. Confused? Kiplinger’s has an informative article on how to make ETFs work for you. This isn’t just a light-weight breezy piece; it contains solid info.

Elsewhere, that lovable curmudgeon Warren Buffett is at it again. He has a talent for making both liberals and conservatives angry. In this case, Buffett says that the rich should be paying higher taxes. “Taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further,” Buffett told ABC News. “But I think that people at the high end — people like myself — should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”

Next, GRS reader Brendan Quinn sent me a link to presentation he recently gave to fellow students at Boston College. In his talk entitled Your Money: Buy Anything You Want, Guilt-Free, Brendan covers what he calls the three rules of personal finance:

• Spend less than you earn.


• Make the money you have work for you.


• Prepare for the unexpected.

I think it’s great to see college students taking the initiative to teach each other about financial literacy. Great work, Brendan!

Last week, The New York Times published a story about Nick Martin, who inherited $14 million ($10 million after taxes) in 1998. “But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches,” writes Geraldine Fabrikant, “the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.” I used to mock folks who squandered sudden riches like this (and there are countless similar tales), but lately I’m more sympathetic. As Flexo at Consumerism Commentary wrote about this story, “It’s easy to be judgmental. The internet is a place where armchair quarterbacks feel comfortable. Very few people know what would happen if the same situation — an unexpected windfall — occurs to them.”

Finally, here are two recent articles from USA Today. Cindy Perman has a long (and controversial) piece about Americans dying with debt. Many boomers have little saved for retirement. But more than that, the article reports that “nearly 40% of retired Americans said they’ve accumulated credit-card debt in their twilight years — and aren’t worried about paying it off in their lifetime”. In happier news, here’s a short piece about a homeless Arizona man who returned a backpack containing $3300 cash and a laptop. Now, that is an awesome story.

There are plenty of other great stories in my stack, but this is already one of the biggest “Spare Change” round-ups I’ve ever posted. We’ll call this good for now.

What drives an entrepreneur to start a business?  Is it solely about money?  Or is there something more?  I argue that often it is the  same creative drive that compels an artist to paint, a musician to compose, or a sculptor to look at a piece of rough marble and see an angel inside.  And those who understand the mind of the small business owner know why the proposed tax increase in 2011 will do more harm than good to the very people this economy needs most to create jobs.

On FBN’s Bulls & Bears recently Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, the token liberal steak tossed into the wolf den of laissez faire commentators, uttered words to the effect that if we allow the Bush tax cuts to remain, the “rich” (I guess that’s me?) will not put the money into the economy but rather just squirrel it away “in their banks…It would not go into job creation or creating capital for small business.”

My first thought  was: “In my bank? Really?  How many businesses have you owned?” (To be fair she did co-found some internet venture called Urban Hang Suite which shuttered in 2003).  But then I reminded myself that, like Ms. Greene herself who has been in non-profit and/or government almost her entire career,  very few people in the  Obama administration, from the president on down, have ever started a business.  Thus they cannot understand what drives entrepreneurs to succeed.  They think it is just about take-home pay.

It’s said that small business owners work eighteen hour days for ourselves so we don’t have to work eight hours a day for someone else.  And often our income on a dollar/hour basis is less than the established firms we may have left to go on our own. Certainly this is generally true for those few scary years at the beginning when a myriad of mistakes are made and unanticipated events occur that prompt the principals to pay ourselves only after all other obligations have been met   So why do it?  Why take such risk?

First, the sense of pride of ownership and having built something from nothing is as strong in an entrepreneur as it is in the artists I alluded to earlier.  This is often a foreign concept to those who have spent their lives in secure positions in academia, government, or as line workers and middle managers in huge firms and thus do they discount our passion to create something while passing judgments like Ms. Greene’s.  Do not underestimate the fact that more than just money drives us to take such enormous personal risk.

Secondly, there is of course  that brass ring of selling the firm and walking away with a nice pay-out in hand.  Still, I know of very few successful entrepreneurs who upon a sale leave the world of business.  Rather they look for new ventures.  New challenges.  New job creating entities. Name an artist satisfied at just one piece.

Now, our company’s value is enhanced by increased business.  We have to grow in order to build our firm into a salable entity. And that usually means a larger workforce to generate more revenues.  It’s no coincidence that the targeted 2% of Americans making north of $250k create 28% of the nation’s new jobs.   The reason letting the tax breaks expire is an impediment to that growth is that many small business owners have their business and personal income intertwined. And as such a 5% tax on their personal income is a de facto 5% surcharge on their business.  For someone making $1mm a year, that is a $50k  hit to their business…two entry level employees.  In the end, we are employers, not charity wards.  We take the risks, it is our capital—and homes—at stake and so we will look to other ways to cut before reducing our own deserved compensation.  So in order to make up the shortfall and keep an owner level with 2010 all else being equal, these two employees may get let go.  Certainly an owner will put off hiring until he/she knows if they can afford new hands or not.  The new mantra for small business is “don’t hire one until you need two.”  Not the best recipe for getting the job creators excited about growing the payroll is it?

Before sitting down to write this I looked over my small company’s five-year projections.  Always we try to gage our fixed costs.  When we have some certainty on costs we can plan around them and ‘stress test’ to see how we survive in given revenue scenarios and prepare measures today in anticipation of any issues down the road.  Then we can better tell, for example, how much interest we can afford each month on a loan (assuming we can get one) to bring in more capital and expand the firm—and hire people we need to get us to the next level and that much closer to that holy grail of being bought out while satisfying our desire to build something special along the way.  But right now there is a big blank “N/A” on the spreadheet cells labeled “Federal Income Tax.”  Until I know what to plug in there, it will be hard to move forward.

natural bench craft company rip off

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

bench craft company rip off magazine

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

Sarah Palin isn't running…for one job at least. She doesn't appear to be a candidate to Chair the Republican National Committee. The Note, authored by ABC News' Rick Klein, covers politics, the White House, Congress, Democrats, ...

Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>

Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.

bench craft company rip off advice

Hulu plans its own entertainment <b>news</b> show, but will anyone watch?

As Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports, Hulu is currently casting for a presenter for the show which will be published daily, taking a 'Daily Show'-style satirical approach to the latest entertainment news. Hulu (backed by US TV giants NBC ...

Sarah Palin Passes On RNC - The Note

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Making Money With Options

Every time I listen to NJ Chris Christie I want to stand up and salute. Today is no different.

Please watch this 4 minute video where Chris Christie blasts LeRoy Seitz, Superintendent of Schools for the Parsippany School District about Seitz's threat to leave the state if his salary is reduced to $175,000.



NorthJersey.com has more details in Governor sets sights on Seitz contract

Last week the Parsippany-Troy Hills Board of Education voted 6-2 to renew Superintendent LeRoy Seitz's contract, which included a 2 percent per year salary increase.

What made the contract noteworthy, aside from the dozens of people that spoke out against it and the tongue lashing the Board and the Superintendent received from Gov. Chris Christie was that the contract Seitz is currently working under doesn't expire until July 1, 2011.

The Board began contract negotiations during the summer, at about the same time the Christie administration released information about a plan to cap chief administrator's salaries and tying the numbers to the enrollment in the district.

By finalizing the contract now the Board effectively agreed to give Seitz a salary well above the governor's proposed cap for almost five years.

At the Board meeting Mark Tabakin, the Board attorney, told the gathering of about 90 people that the cap is still in the proposal form, that the contract was approved by the County Executive Superintendent Kathleen Serafino and that it is a legal action. "People are upset," he acknowledged, "but it's up to the will of the Board."

The controversial contract drew township residents and protesters from as far away as Clifton and Hackettstown, who were outraged over the Board's end run around the proposed cap.

At times the dissenters were so vocal Board President Anthony Mancuso, who remained calm and in control throughout the proceedings, had to call for a 10-minute recess to let the outbursts subside. The police were also called during one of the breaks though they never had the need to take action.

When the public was allowed to speak the floodgates opened. Taking a sarcastic tact the first speaker Roman Hoshovsky said, "How can anyone be expected to live on $200,000?" Then he produced an empty canister and proposed using it as a collection jar in businesses around town to raise money for Seitz.

Barbara Hackling pointed out the Board had laid off teachers and refused to negotiate with the paraprofessionals, "but found money for him."

Karen Blunt, a 36-year Parsippany resident and a paraprofessional in the district said, "He is looking out for his future. I haven't had a raise in 4 years who is looking out for my future?"

The day before the meeting Seitz is quoted in the Daily Record as saying, "Because of the proposed salary caps, I have to look at my future and the financial welfare of my family. I certainly would have options if I didn't feel the compensation in this district, or New Jersey, is appropriate."

The governor reacted to Seitz's veiled threats to leave New Jersey and go to a nearby state where there is no state salary. "I will say in response to Mr. Seitz, 'Let me help you pack.' We have real problems in our state that we have to fix and we don't have the time, nor the money, nor the patience any longer for people who put themselves before our citizens," Christie railed.

I Applaud LeRoy Seitz

A tip of the hat goes to LeRoy Seitz for being such an arrogant SOB that that the meeting to discuss the new contract overflowed with citizens fed up with school board greed.

It is not easy standing up to thugs who want nothing more but to raise your taxes. But the voters did. That's how riled up they were.

I recommend voters in the Parsippany School District send a message to the ignoramuses who agreed to give LeRoy Seitz a new contract. Vote them off the school board.

Fortunately it takes approval from another level to agree to that raise, so the raise is not a done deal yet.

New Jersey taxpayers are fed up, and rightfully so. If LeRoy Seitz thinks he can get $212,000 elsewhere, more power to him. The same holds true for every public "servant". If you can get more in the private sector, shut up and do it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

We won't know until Friday whether the final proposal from Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles can attract the votes of 14 of the commission's 18 members. Right now, the outlook is doubtful. But we do have the final proposal, so we know the policy options they're offering. Here are the four best and five worst parts of the plan:

The good:

A payroll tax holiday in 2011: Simpson and Bowles embrace the Bipartisan Policy Commission's proposal for a payroll-tax holiday in 2011. Actually, "embrace" might be a strong word. They say Congress should "consider" it. Still, a nod toward the need for policies speeding recovery is better than ignoring that need altogether.

Process, process, process: The Simpson-Bowles recommendations correctly identify congressional inertia as the central impediment to deficit reduction. And so they try to address it. To enforce discretionary spending cuts, they make spending that busts the caps ineligible for the reconciliation process, demand that Congress take a separate vote, and then instruct OMB to cut appropriations spending across-the-board by the amount that Congress has overspent unless Congress takes another vote to stop them. Inertia, in this case, is on the side of the deficit hawks.

On the health-care side, they strengthen the Independent Payment Advisory Board by applying it to all health-care providers sooner. They push tax reform through a "failsafe" that automatically increases taxes if Congress doesn't rework the system by 2013. They also include rules forcing different bodies to watch over health-care spending and the full government budget and automatically offer recommendations for reform if costs exceed preset limits. Whether these are the exact right procedural reforms is up for debate -- and probably doubtful. But the commission is right to emphasize the need for procedural reforms.

Defense spending and tax expenditures are major problems: The most positive impact the commission has had on the debate has been to move two formerly sacrosanct categories of spending onto the table. There's a lot of money in the defense budget, and much of it is wasted, but when Washington talks about cutting spending, it usually talks about "non-defense discretionary spending." The commission cuts equally from defense spending and non-defense spending. Tax expenditures like the mortgage-interest deduction also tend to get a pass, but here they come under the knife. It's very difficult to imagine any budget deal that isn't aggressive on both these fronts, so kudos to the commission for adding them.

A two-sided deal on Social Security: I don't particularly like the commission's Social Security recommendations, but I do like their vision of a deal that's more than just cuts and taxes. Their proposal sharply increases Social Security's minimum benefit, making it a better deal for poor retirees, if not for the average retiree. It also increases benefits for very old retirees, who may have outlived their savings. That's a good addition to the eventual debate over the system's solvency and sufficiency.

The bad:

The tax section: In an odd bid for Republican support, the commission caps revenues at 21 percent of GDP. That's higher than they are now, or than they've been historically. But we're also a larger, older country than we've been historically, with more social spending to support. The commission's mandate was to balance the budget, not decide the size of government. This overstepped it.

But at least that made some political sense. Simpson and Bowles's timidity on tax options is odder. They correctly emphasize the need for tax reform, but they limit themselves to the design of the current system -- a system which almost all experts agree is flawed. No mention of a carbon tax or a value-added tax, both of which are preferred by many, if not most, tax-policy experts.

The 2012 start date: Simpson and Bowles start their cuts in 2012, as they assume the economy will have recovered by then. But what if it hasn't? A better approach would've been using an economic indicator as a trigger. For instance, we could've held stimulative measures like unemployment insurance and a payroll-tax cut until the unemployment rate dipped to 6.5 percent and then, when that milestone was hit, moved to austerity. As it is, there's no real guarantee we'll be recovered by 2012, and if we're not, then we shouldn't start cutting.

Raising the retirement age: If we want to cut Social Security benefits, we should cut Social Security benefits. Raising both the early and full retirement ages mainly penalizes those who hate their jobs or can no longer physically fulfill them. That's not the right way to reform Social Security.

Hobbling government: Among the plan's worst ideas is to cut congressional and White House budgets by 15 percent. Given the role of government and the complexity of modern life, members of Congress are probably understaffed even now. Taking staff away from them just means they'll either be more ignorant about the bills they're voting on, less responsive to their constituents or more reliant on lobbyists and outside players. That's a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach: The small short-term savings will probably be dwarfed by the deep long-term costs.

The same goes for the plan's other aggressive cuts to the government. One proposal, for instance, relies on "attrition" -- not to mention a three-year pay freeze -- to sharply cut the federal workforce by 200,000. "Washington needs to learn to do more with less, using fewer resources to accomplish existing goals without risking a decline in essential government services," the report says. But that's magical thinking. Companies and governments typically do less with less, and though having less saves some money on the front-end, too few banking regulators with too low pay, for instance, might end up costing us a lot of money later on. I'm for smart and targeted reforms to the federal workforce, but these aren't them.

Cowardice on health-care reform: The plan's health-care savings largely consist of hoping the cost controls (IPAB, the excise tax, and various demonstration projects) in the new health-care law work and expanding their power and reach. But the commission "does not take a position" on the new law. In the event that more savings are needed, they throw out a grab bag of liberal and conservative policies, ranging from a public option and government purchasing to Medicare privatization, but don't really put their weight behind any of them. Given that health-care costs are the single most significant driver of our long-term budget problem, the commission's decision to hide from the big questions here is quite disappointing, particularly given their self-styled focus on making hard decisions and telling unpopular truths.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off
NMA <b> Noticias </ b> | Los Simpson | Los Simpson Fox <b> Noticias </ b> | NMA MediaiteTaiwan News ha dado a la batalla entre Los Simpson en la Fox Broadcasting y sus primos corporativos conservadora de Fox News, que representa tanto de los ataques recientes Simpson en la red, así como Bill O'Reilly ...

Exclusiva: el general Petraeus no &#39; &#39; Claro victoria en Afganistán en 2014 <b> ...</ b> En mi entrevista exclusiva con el general David Petraeus se sentía alentado por los progresos realizados desde el aumento del Presidente Obama de las fuerzas en Afganistán, pero que confía en que el ejército afgano puede asumir el liderazgo de las fuerzas de EE.UU. en la OTAN.

Apple ya vende paquetes de tarjetas de regalo IPAD | iLounge <b> Noticias </ b> de noticias iLounge discutir el Apple ahora vende paquetes de tarjetas de regalo IPAD. Buscar más noticias de Apple iPod de los principales independientes, el iPhone, y el sitio de IPAD.


bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

Every time I listen to NJ Chris Christie I want to stand up and salute. Today is no different.

Please watch this 4 minute video where Chris Christie blasts LeRoy Seitz, Superintendent of Schools for the Parsippany School District about Seitz's threat to leave the state if his salary is reduced to $175,000.



NorthJersey.com has more details in Governor sets sights on Seitz contract

Last week the Parsippany-Troy Hills Board of Education voted 6-2 to renew Superintendent LeRoy Seitz's contract, which included a 2 percent per year salary increase.

What made the contract noteworthy, aside from the dozens of people that spoke out against it and the tongue lashing the Board and the Superintendent received from Gov. Chris Christie was that the contract Seitz is currently working under doesn't expire until July 1, 2011.

The Board began contract negotiations during the summer, at about the same time the Christie administration released information about a plan to cap chief administrator's salaries and tying the numbers to the enrollment in the district.

By finalizing the contract now the Board effectively agreed to give Seitz a salary well above the governor's proposed cap for almost five years.

At the Board meeting Mark Tabakin, the Board attorney, told the gathering of about 90 people that the cap is still in the proposal form, that the contract was approved by the County Executive Superintendent Kathleen Serafino and that it is a legal action. "People are upset," he acknowledged, "but it's up to the will of the Board."

The controversial contract drew township residents and protesters from as far away as Clifton and Hackettstown, who were outraged over the Board's end run around the proposed cap.

At times the dissenters were so vocal Board President Anthony Mancuso, who remained calm and in control throughout the proceedings, had to call for a 10-minute recess to let the outbursts subside. The police were also called during one of the breaks though they never had the need to take action.

When the public was allowed to speak the floodgates opened. Taking a sarcastic tact the first speaker Roman Hoshovsky said, "How can anyone be expected to live on $200,000?" Then he produced an empty canister and proposed using it as a collection jar in businesses around town to raise money for Seitz.

Barbara Hackling pointed out the Board had laid off teachers and refused to negotiate with the paraprofessionals, "but found money for him."

Karen Blunt, a 36-year Parsippany resident and a paraprofessional in the district said, "He is looking out for his future. I haven't had a raise in 4 years who is looking out for my future?"

The day before the meeting Seitz is quoted in the Daily Record as saying, "Because of the proposed salary caps, I have to look at my future and the financial welfare of my family. I certainly would have options if I didn't feel the compensation in this district, or New Jersey, is appropriate."

The governor reacted to Seitz's veiled threats to leave New Jersey and go to a nearby state where there is no state salary. "I will say in response to Mr. Seitz, 'Let me help you pack.' We have real problems in our state that we have to fix and we don't have the time, nor the money, nor the patience any longer for people who put themselves before our citizens," Christie railed.

I Applaud LeRoy Seitz

A tip of the hat goes to LeRoy Seitz for being such an arrogant SOB that that the meeting to discuss the new contract overflowed with citizens fed up with school board greed.

It is not easy standing up to thugs who want nothing more but to raise your taxes. But the voters did. That's how riled up they were.

I recommend voters in the Parsippany School District send a message to the ignoramuses who agreed to give LeRoy Seitz a new contract. Vote them off the school board.

Fortunately it takes approval from another level to agree to that raise, so the raise is not a done deal yet.

New Jersey taxpayers are fed up, and rightfully so. If LeRoy Seitz thinks he can get $212,000 elsewhere, more power to him. The same holds true for every public "servant". If you can get more in the private sector, shut up and do it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

We won't know until Friday whether the final proposal from Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles can attract the votes of 14 of the commission's 18 members. Right now, the outlook is doubtful. But we do have the final proposal, so we know the policy options they're offering. Here are the four best and five worst parts of the plan:

The good:

A payroll tax holiday in 2011: Simpson and Bowles embrace the Bipartisan Policy Commission's proposal for a payroll-tax holiday in 2011. Actually, "embrace" might be a strong word. They say Congress should "consider" it. Still, a nod toward the need for policies speeding recovery is better than ignoring that need altogether.

Process, process, process: The Simpson-Bowles recommendations correctly identify congressional inertia as the central impediment to deficit reduction. And so they try to address it. To enforce discretionary spending cuts, they make spending that busts the caps ineligible for the reconciliation process, demand that Congress take a separate vote, and then instruct OMB to cut appropriations spending across-the-board by the amount that Congress has overspent unless Congress takes another vote to stop them. Inertia, in this case, is on the side of the deficit hawks.

On the health-care side, they strengthen the Independent Payment Advisory Board by applying it to all health-care providers sooner. They push tax reform through a "failsafe" that automatically increases taxes if Congress doesn't rework the system by 2013. They also include rules forcing different bodies to watch over health-care spending and the full government budget and automatically offer recommendations for reform if costs exceed preset limits. Whether these are the exact right procedural reforms is up for debate -- and probably doubtful. But the commission is right to emphasize the need for procedural reforms.

Defense spending and tax expenditures are major problems: The most positive impact the commission has had on the debate has been to move two formerly sacrosanct categories of spending onto the table. There's a lot of money in the defense budget, and much of it is wasted, but when Washington talks about cutting spending, it usually talks about "non-defense discretionary spending." The commission cuts equally from defense spending and non-defense spending. Tax expenditures like the mortgage-interest deduction also tend to get a pass, but here they come under the knife. It's very difficult to imagine any budget deal that isn't aggressive on both these fronts, so kudos to the commission for adding them.

A two-sided deal on Social Security: I don't particularly like the commission's Social Security recommendations, but I do like their vision of a deal that's more than just cuts and taxes. Their proposal sharply increases Social Security's minimum benefit, making it a better deal for poor retirees, if not for the average retiree. It also increases benefits for very old retirees, who may have outlived their savings. That's a good addition to the eventual debate over the system's solvency and sufficiency.

The bad:

The tax section: In an odd bid for Republican support, the commission caps revenues at 21 percent of GDP. That's higher than they are now, or than they've been historically. But we're also a larger, older country than we've been historically, with more social spending to support. The commission's mandate was to balance the budget, not decide the size of government. This overstepped it.

But at least that made some political sense. Simpson and Bowles's timidity on tax options is odder. They correctly emphasize the need for tax reform, but they limit themselves to the design of the current system -- a system which almost all experts agree is flawed. No mention of a carbon tax or a value-added tax, both of which are preferred by many, if not most, tax-policy experts.

The 2012 start date: Simpson and Bowles start their cuts in 2012, as they assume the economy will have recovered by then. But what if it hasn't? A better approach would've been using an economic indicator as a trigger. For instance, we could've held stimulative measures like unemployment insurance and a payroll-tax cut until the unemployment rate dipped to 6.5 percent and then, when that milestone was hit, moved to austerity. As it is, there's no real guarantee we'll be recovered by 2012, and if we're not, then we shouldn't start cutting.

Raising the retirement age: If we want to cut Social Security benefits, we should cut Social Security benefits. Raising both the early and full retirement ages mainly penalizes those who hate their jobs or can no longer physically fulfill them. That's not the right way to reform Social Security.

Hobbling government: Among the plan's worst ideas is to cut congressional and White House budgets by 15 percent. Given the role of government and the complexity of modern life, members of Congress are probably understaffed even now. Taking staff away from them just means they'll either be more ignorant about the bills they're voting on, less responsive to their constituents or more reliant on lobbyists and outside players. That's a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach: The small short-term savings will probably be dwarfed by the deep long-term costs.

The same goes for the plan's other aggressive cuts to the government. One proposal, for instance, relies on "attrition" -- not to mention a three-year pay freeze -- to sharply cut the federal workforce by 200,000. "Washington needs to learn to do more with less, using fewer resources to accomplish existing goals without risking a decline in essential government services," the report says. But that's magical thinking. Companies and governments typically do less with less, and though having less saves some money on the front-end, too few banking regulators with too low pay, for instance, might end up costing us a lot of money later on. I'm for smart and targeted reforms to the federal workforce, but these aren't them.

Cowardice on health-care reform: The plan's health-care savings largely consist of hoping the cost controls (IPAB, the excise tax, and various demonstration projects) in the new health-care law work and expanding their power and reach. But the commission "does not take a position" on the new law. In the event that more savings are needed, they throw out a grab bag of liberal and conservative policies, ranging from a public option and government purchasing to Medicare privatization, but don't really put their weight behind any of them. Given that health-care costs are the single most significant driver of our long-term budget problem, the commission's decision to hide from the big questions here is quite disappointing, particularly given their self-styled focus on making hard decisions and telling unpopular truths.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

NMA <b>News</b> | Simpsons | Simpsons Fox <b>News</b> | Mediaite

Taiwan's NMA News has taken on the battle between The Simpsons over at Fox Broadcasting and their conservative corporate cousins at Fox News, depicting both of The Simpsons recent attacks on the network as well as Bill O'Reilly's ...

Exclusive: Gen. Petraeus Not &#39;Sure&#39; Victory in Afghanistan by 2014 <b>...</b>

In my exclusive interview with General David Petraeus he was encouraged by the progress made since President Obama's surge of forces into Afghanistan, but is he confident that the Afghan army can take the lead from US forces by NATO's.

Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Apple now selling iPad Gift Card packages. Find more Apple news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

Every time I listen to NJ Chris Christie I want to stand up and salute. Today is no different.

Please watch this 4 minute video where Chris Christie blasts LeRoy Seitz, Superintendent of Schools for the Parsippany School District about Seitz's threat to leave the state if his salary is reduced to $175,000.



NorthJersey.com has more details in Governor sets sights on Seitz contract

Last week the Parsippany-Troy Hills Board of Education voted 6-2 to renew Superintendent LeRoy Seitz's contract, which included a 2 percent per year salary increase.

What made the contract noteworthy, aside from the dozens of people that spoke out against it and the tongue lashing the Board and the Superintendent received from Gov. Chris Christie was that the contract Seitz is currently working under doesn't expire until July 1, 2011.

The Board began contract negotiations during the summer, at about the same time the Christie administration released information about a plan to cap chief administrator's salaries and tying the numbers to the enrollment in the district.

By finalizing the contract now the Board effectively agreed to give Seitz a salary well above the governor's proposed cap for almost five years.

At the Board meeting Mark Tabakin, the Board attorney, told the gathering of about 90 people that the cap is still in the proposal form, that the contract was approved by the County Executive Superintendent Kathleen Serafino and that it is a legal action. "People are upset," he acknowledged, "but it's up to the will of the Board."

The controversial contract drew township residents and protesters from as far away as Clifton and Hackettstown, who were outraged over the Board's end run around the proposed cap.

At times the dissenters were so vocal Board President Anthony Mancuso, who remained calm and in control throughout the proceedings, had to call for a 10-minute recess to let the outbursts subside. The police were also called during one of the breaks though they never had the need to take action.

When the public was allowed to speak the floodgates opened. Taking a sarcastic tact the first speaker Roman Hoshovsky said, "How can anyone be expected to live on $200,000?" Then he produced an empty canister and proposed using it as a collection jar in businesses around town to raise money for Seitz.

Barbara Hackling pointed out the Board had laid off teachers and refused to negotiate with the paraprofessionals, "but found money for him."

Karen Blunt, a 36-year Parsippany resident and a paraprofessional in the district said, "He is looking out for his future. I haven't had a raise in 4 years who is looking out for my future?"

The day before the meeting Seitz is quoted in the Daily Record as saying, "Because of the proposed salary caps, I have to look at my future and the financial welfare of my family. I certainly would have options if I didn't feel the compensation in this district, or New Jersey, is appropriate."

The governor reacted to Seitz's veiled threats to leave New Jersey and go to a nearby state where there is no state salary. "I will say in response to Mr. Seitz, 'Let me help you pack.' We have real problems in our state that we have to fix and we don't have the time, nor the money, nor the patience any longer for people who put themselves before our citizens," Christie railed.

I Applaud LeRoy Seitz

A tip of the hat goes to LeRoy Seitz for being such an arrogant SOB that that the meeting to discuss the new contract overflowed with citizens fed up with school board greed.

It is not easy standing up to thugs who want nothing more but to raise your taxes. But the voters did. That's how riled up they were.

I recommend voters in the Parsippany School District send a message to the ignoramuses who agreed to give LeRoy Seitz a new contract. Vote them off the school board.

Fortunately it takes approval from another level to agree to that raise, so the raise is not a done deal yet.

New Jersey taxpayers are fed up, and rightfully so. If LeRoy Seitz thinks he can get $212,000 elsewhere, more power to him. The same holds true for every public "servant". If you can get more in the private sector, shut up and do it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

We won't know until Friday whether the final proposal from Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles can attract the votes of 14 of the commission's 18 members. Right now, the outlook is doubtful. But we do have the final proposal, so we know the policy options they're offering. Here are the four best and five worst parts of the plan:

The good:

A payroll tax holiday in 2011: Simpson and Bowles embrace the Bipartisan Policy Commission's proposal for a payroll-tax holiday in 2011. Actually, "embrace" might be a strong word. They say Congress should "consider" it. Still, a nod toward the need for policies speeding recovery is better than ignoring that need altogether.

Process, process, process: The Simpson-Bowles recommendations correctly identify congressional inertia as the central impediment to deficit reduction. And so they try to address it. To enforce discretionary spending cuts, they make spending that busts the caps ineligible for the reconciliation process, demand that Congress take a separate vote, and then instruct OMB to cut appropriations spending across-the-board by the amount that Congress has overspent unless Congress takes another vote to stop them. Inertia, in this case, is on the side of the deficit hawks.

On the health-care side, they strengthen the Independent Payment Advisory Board by applying it to all health-care providers sooner. They push tax reform through a "failsafe" that automatically increases taxes if Congress doesn't rework the system by 2013. They also include rules forcing different bodies to watch over health-care spending and the full government budget and automatically offer recommendations for reform if costs exceed preset limits. Whether these are the exact right procedural reforms is up for debate -- and probably doubtful. But the commission is right to emphasize the need for procedural reforms.

Defense spending and tax expenditures are major problems: The most positive impact the commission has had on the debate has been to move two formerly sacrosanct categories of spending onto the table. There's a lot of money in the defense budget, and much of it is wasted, but when Washington talks about cutting spending, it usually talks about "non-defense discretionary spending." The commission cuts equally from defense spending and non-defense spending. Tax expenditures like the mortgage-interest deduction also tend to get a pass, but here they come under the knife. It's very difficult to imagine any budget deal that isn't aggressive on both these fronts, so kudos to the commission for adding them.

A two-sided deal on Social Security: I don't particularly like the commission's Social Security recommendations, but I do like their vision of a deal that's more than just cuts and taxes. Their proposal sharply increases Social Security's minimum benefit, making it a better deal for poor retirees, if not for the average retiree. It also increases benefits for very old retirees, who may have outlived their savings. That's a good addition to the eventual debate over the system's solvency and sufficiency.

The bad:

The tax section: In an odd bid for Republican support, the commission caps revenues at 21 percent of GDP. That's higher than they are now, or than they've been historically. But we're also a larger, older country than we've been historically, with more social spending to support. The commission's mandate was to balance the budget, not decide the size of government. This overstepped it.

But at least that made some political sense. Simpson and Bowles's timidity on tax options is odder. They correctly emphasize the need for tax reform, but they limit themselves to the design of the current system -- a system which almost all experts agree is flawed. No mention of a carbon tax or a value-added tax, both of which are preferred by many, if not most, tax-policy experts.

The 2012 start date: Simpson and Bowles start their cuts in 2012, as they assume the economy will have recovered by then. But what if it hasn't? A better approach would've been using an economic indicator as a trigger. For instance, we could've held stimulative measures like unemployment insurance and a payroll-tax cut until the unemployment rate dipped to 6.5 percent and then, when that milestone was hit, moved to austerity. As it is, there's no real guarantee we'll be recovered by 2012, and if we're not, then we shouldn't start cutting.

Raising the retirement age: If we want to cut Social Security benefits, we should cut Social Security benefits. Raising both the early and full retirement ages mainly penalizes those who hate their jobs or can no longer physically fulfill them. That's not the right way to reform Social Security.

Hobbling government: Among the plan's worst ideas is to cut congressional and White House budgets by 15 percent. Given the role of government and the complexity of modern life, members of Congress are probably understaffed even now. Taking staff away from them just means they'll either be more ignorant about the bills they're voting on, less responsive to their constituents or more reliant on lobbyists and outside players. That's a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach: The small short-term savings will probably be dwarfed by the deep long-term costs.

The same goes for the plan's other aggressive cuts to the government. One proposal, for instance, relies on "attrition" -- not to mention a three-year pay freeze -- to sharply cut the federal workforce by 200,000. "Washington needs to learn to do more with less, using fewer resources to accomplish existing goals without risking a decline in essential government services," the report says. But that's magical thinking. Companies and governments typically do less with less, and though having less saves some money on the front-end, too few banking regulators with too low pay, for instance, might end up costing us a lot of money later on. I'm for smart and targeted reforms to the federal workforce, but these aren't them.

Cowardice on health-care reform: The plan's health-care savings largely consist of hoping the cost controls (IPAB, the excise tax, and various demonstration projects) in the new health-care law work and expanding their power and reach. But the commission "does not take a position" on the new law. In the event that more savings are needed, they throw out a grab bag of liberal and conservative policies, ranging from a public option and government purchasing to Medicare privatization, but don't really put their weight behind any of them. Given that health-care costs are the single most significant driver of our long-term budget problem, the commission's decision to hide from the big questions here is quite disappointing, particularly given their self-styled focus on making hard decisions and telling unpopular truths.

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