DaleWilliams.net

Level 1: You are burning the midnight oil, sacrificing your friendships, social life, and most of all sleep in achieving your goal, but you press on with caffeine to stay ahead.

Level 2: You are trying to succeed, the ulcers have started to form, but you push on like a dedicated student, working through the pain to reach your goal of becoming a cpa.

Level 3: Your head begins throbbing, you can’t think straight, at this point you can’t tell an operating from a capital lease if it hit you on the head. You need to dull the pain of cramming as the test date looms.

Level 4: It’s Friday night, your friends are playing flip cup and you have turned off your phone to avoid knowing just how much fun everyone you know is having right at this moment. This Bud’s for you.

Level 5: Beer just couldn’t cut it this time, you are done thinking. You are done trying. You don’t want to remember the next 8 hours. Remember to drink water, you have to start your final lecture in the morning.

Level 6: Maybe you just found out you didn’t pass your last test, and the hours you spend and hundreds of dollars invested were for naught. You want to burn it all, but that little voice in the back of your head reminds you that you will just have to buy all the study materials over again. You can’t burn it all, but the symbolism of sending the CD case back to the depths of hell from which it came should suffice.

Level 7: Let’s step back for a second. You don’t want to be here. A day off will do you good. Keep telling yourself that by the time you get out of prison from going postal, (which will be a long time from now because you are broke from exam fees and are stuck with a public defender who really just didn’t ‘get’ law school) all your tests will have lapsed and you will be starting from square one. Save yourself the legal or hospital bills, if you are at this level, take your anger out on something productive (like a dangerous carnivorous watermelon- just be sure to yell “it’s coming right for us” before shooting, it may be a protected species…)

Obama’s new corporate tax policy claims to “close the tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas”. While this may instill a nice populist fire in the hearts of the American people, the repercussions of this move will likely be very harmful to our economy.

The loophole that is being thrown around is the combination of tax credits to mitigate the effects of the United States’ unique tax system. Nearly all countries tax commerce within their borders, the US however taxes based on both residency and citizenship. This means that a US corporation pays taxes based on both US income, and is also responsible for paying US taxes on foreign income as well. The ‘loophole’ that may be closed, is the way through the tax code in which US corporations can compete on a similar footing to their foreign competitors. Under the current system, the income earned abroad is only taxed when it comes back to the US. If the income stays permanently invested overseas, the current us tax code does not penalize the foreign subsidiary for being part of a US concern and does not impose an additional incremental tax on the foreign sub (difference between the US and foreign tax). US corporations in this way will be placed at an economic disadvantage in the global marketplace, as all their earnings, around the world, will be taxed at one of the highest rates worldwide.

Then you have to ask yourself: “I were a CEO, why would I want to remain incorporated in the US with its high tax rates and unfavorable domestic business environment, when I can re-incorporate in a lower tax country and pay the same taxes on US and foreign sales that all my competitors are?” I can tell you, CEO’s, boards, and shareholders will seriously look at answers to these questions. While it may be hard to see now, traditionally companies in a capitalist society were supposed to be wholly focused on earning the highest possible returns for their owners.

–Begin Rant–
Oh, and by the way, I wrote owners; I did not write ‘stakeholders’ which is an MBA buzz word that pisses me off. It’s right up there with using the term ‘Black Swan’ without ever reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book first. If you are a publically traded company, worry about making money: I don’t give a damn about your green initiatives (If I want to feel warm and fuzzy, I’ll buy some brown organic toilet paper that scratches my asshole), cushy retirement plans, and employee benefits in your MD&A, or how you ‘give back to the community’. If I invest money with you, I expect to get more money back, reflective of the risk of the investment, plus a nice fat alpha because I’m that f-ing good. I have no problem with charity, but I want 100% of my money earning a return on investment. My donations to charity I prefer to make on my own, with my own time, with my own money (which is not entrusted to me by others to earn a return), to my own causes.
–End Rant–

It is simple, in today’s world, capital flows freely. If it becomes clear that the US, with some of the world’s highest corporate tax rates, unfavorable business climate, and punitive regulations, is no longer suitable for conducting business; business will leave. I hope that the talk coming out of Washington remains just talk. If words become actions, I fear it will be another step in a direction our country should not be heading.

Google has a new program called “Latitude” was playing with that can broadcast your location based on your cell phone. Most new cell phones have built in GPS that can pinpoint your location to a few meters anywhere on earth. My phone is older, so as best as I can tell, it either determines my location based on triangulating cell phone signals, or more than likely based on what network I’m on. Whether you think it’s cool or creepy is up to you, but I like playing with it.