The Spirit of America
Mark Johnson is one of my favorite young entrepreneurs, because he exhibits the perseverance to follow his dream—and be successful. It’s the end of the week, so I thought I would post one of his latest videos, featuring two of the Playing For Change performers; Grandpa Elliott, and Louis Mhlanga, performing at Dodger Stadium. Even though he is blind, Grandpa Elliott obviously loves his country. This should give us all something to think about.
Mark Johnson’s dream is to bring peace to the world through music, and he is following his dream and persevering in spite of the challenges. He has carried this dream for 10 years, and worked steadily on it for the past 4 years—and he shows no signs of slowing down.
How strong is your dream?
Consider This!
According to House Minority Whip, Eric Cantor, proposed programs and policies rushed through Congress “…create more debt in the first six months of this year than in the previous 220 years combined.”
I wonder if anyone besides me believes this is a lot of money.
I wonder when the spending will stop—or if.
I wonder who will pay for all this spending.
I wonder…I wonder…I wonder.
Putting Tax Cuts in Terms Everyone Can Understand
Some time ago I ran across the following post from Mark Gwilliam (see below), and I just had to post it here in its entirety. This might be a little tongue-in-cheek?
“Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you
are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost
of your daily beer by $20.”Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so
the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could
they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair
share?’
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted
that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man
would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s
bill by roughly the same [ratio] amount, and he proceeded to work out the
amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings)
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four
continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men
began to compare their savings.
“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He
pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”
“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back
when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine
sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the
bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough
money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how
our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the
most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for
being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they
might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat
friendlier.
FOR THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND, NO EXPLANATION IS NEEDED.
FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND, NO EXPLANATION IS POSSIBLE.
An excerpt from: David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics University of Georgia”
Mark Gwilliam is the founder and Managing Director of the Business Advisory Services Group a professional services organisation that provides accounting; tax; corporate governance & risk management; business consulting and secretarial services throughout New Zealand and Australia. Mark’s blog is very informative for all small businesses, and can be found here.
Corporate Pay
It seems like every day we hear of some big company CEO receiving outlandish paychecks for poor performance. Here is one I just read about:
Ray Irani
CEO of Occidental Petroleum, where share value fell by 22 percent for 2008. Yet, the board of directors paid Irani a whopping $60.5 million for his “superior performance.” Of course, his performance must not have been as good as 2007, when he received $77.6 million.
For comparison, let’s look at:
William Crenshaw
CEO of Publix Super Markets, Inc., a grocer that posted a 4 percent increase in sales ($23.9 Billion) in 2008, while other grocery firms trended downward. Because of the recession, Crenshaw asked the company’s board not to increase his pay. Oh, Crenshaw’s 2008 pay?–$795,466.
It appears to me that something is wrong with this situation–no one person is worth $60, $70, $80 million in annual pay. This is especially true when their companies have performed poorly.
I guess it must be all right though, since our Treasury Secretary said the government should not be involved in compensation issues at the big “bailout” banks. Apparently, Mr. Geithner only wants to control auto industry compensation.
Am I the only one that becomes infuriated over this stuff?
How Bad Off is Our Banking System?
For some reason, the mainstream media never made much mention (at least I never saw or heard it) of how close we came to a total collapse of our banking system and the world economy as well.
Listen to what Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania) told an interviewer on C-Span recently. It doesn’t get frightening until about 2:24 into the video.
Maybe we were too harsh in our criticism of Secretary Paulson when he changed courses when spending the bank bailout money. We also may be too harsh in criticizing Secretary Geithner when he said it would take a lot of time, and a lot of money to get us out of this mess. It appears the economic crisis was-and is-much more serious than we thought.
I just wish government would tell it to us straight and give us some detailed assurances that they know what the problems are and that they know how to correct them–and what it might cost. Hopefully President Obama and Secretary Geithner will be doing that shortly. The American public needs to know just how bad things are, and what it is going to take to correct our economic problems. If it is going to take $3 trillion, tell us now.
Small Business–Hammered Again!
Well, our all-knowing Congress appears to be doing it again—hunting mice with a cannon.
Somehow, I missed all the prior controversy over a new law about to take effect: the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). But then, the mainstream media has barely mentioned it.
It seems that this act threatens to drive out of business tens of thousands of small makers of children’s products (not just toys—it appears that zippers and snaps are now considered “lethal”). Moreover, any thrift shop that sells secondhand children’s products (including clothes) will be put at risk for liability.
I am still trying to get up to speed on the elements of this new law, but attorneys are referring to February 10, 2009 as “bankruptcy day”—the day the new law takes effect. Apparently, that is when all manufacturers must “freeze” inventories of children’s products, and components of children’s products, until they can be modified (or destroyed) to comply with CPSIA. Many small businesses in this industry will not be able to afford such a drastic requirement. This could impact as many as 50,000 small businesses…not to mention the impact on retail stores and thrift shops.
It seems like Congress, in its infinite wisdom, will be putting people out of work faster than their stimulus plan can create new jobs. But then, I guess most members of Congress believe it is their duty to protect us from ourselves.
For more information on CPSIA, check out CPSIA Chronicles, February 6.
FLASH: There has been a partial and ineffective reprieve (check out the Chronicles). What’s going on in Washington makes the Keystone Cops look organized.
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