I’m not as much a “specialist”, but isn’t it only the net income from a Schedule C or a K-1 that is carried to the 1040? So these small businesses mentioned are netting 250K, not just grossing 250K and then having to pay employees. It seems to me the argument is confusing, and these folks should be on a par with people who receive 250K net from their paychecks.

In management accounting, where we learned about present value, we learned why the acceleration of a credit is stimulative and valid.

Investment not coming off the bench and businesses need to see debt reduction in order to invest. Unsupport/ed/(able). Tax concerns are freezing business…. Regulatory concerns are freezing banks? Well, I can only imagine small businesses and banks doing all they can to make business, they aren’t just sitting around reading the paper. Banks have a higher hurdle because we just had a credit crisis…It’s a fallacy that businesses hold back anything… ever…

Also there is a 3rd option to paying or defaulting on debt, and that is leaving it out there and paying interest on it. Don’t say it is not legitimate. Except for Clinton, every government in the last 50 years has used this strategy.

The problem IS an EU problem, and I don’t know the rules for dealing with a problem country that doesn’t live within its means. can they expel them?

Otherwise, within the EU, it will be cheaper to support a plan by Greece to get bailed out. They actually have the leverage of “the stick” because they could otherwise default, which will cost more to the other EU bondholders.

Were you making anlaogies to the American economy? Because it is ridiculous for us to consider our deficits before we first consider our economy and jobs. Think: you could have a deficit of -0- if you eliminated ALL government spending, haha but you wouldn;t want the implications. Our government needs to first support the productivity and stability of our people, which provided the engine for us to have had a balanced budget through the period of the 90′s etc.

Interesting. As an editorial staff of Internal Auditor magazine, I reviewed an article from a prospective futurist who supposed what was going to happen in the profession 10 years from now. His answer to the question was that there would be a lot more systems, expert systems, automatic reporting etc.

I indicated that the premise of the article had to be expanded, first of all why should we care about what the profession is in 10 years? And then, is that all there is, it will become an IT profession?

See, to your question of knowing more is knowing less about what is beyond. The person was trying to create interest about wanting to know more about the future, but didn’t say why we would want to know more, nor had a very exciting prediction…

If I had written the article, I would say that we want to speculate on the future in IA because we want to try to anticipate it with the proper leadership in creating control mechanisms at the leadership level: regulations, structures for control etc.

And the future is going to include a lot of humans making programming mistakes, not monitoring effectively, trying to bypass systems, trying to program fraud or avoiding detection of fraud through steering programming away from it. And leading reporting efforts that don’t fairly capture the substance of the transactions they are doing.

There will be plenty of work. Dan

What do you suggest by social unrest? I think it will be peaceful. London’s bankers were just hit by a 50% windfall tax on their excess bonuses over $40,000. But I didn’t hear of the related news story about revolutions, pitchforks, new pilgrim boats, etc. We should have a similar windfall tax and we will expect peace as well, in the greatest country in the world, in spite of heathcare that rivals Turkey’s, the most prominent EU country that hasn’t nationalized yet.

Threat of filibuster in the Senate is on 80% of the bills with the new Republican majority, it was at 20% under the Democratic minority under Bush. The Repubs reject single-payer or government-owned healthcare, while we praise Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration, successful examples of each in this country, with administrative costs of 2%, as opposed to the healthcare companies’s 20%. No, a clear-thinking financial person like you or I should have NO IDEA how costs could be saved here I suppose.

We’ve screwed the value of our own currency through Bush-era deficits after a Clinton surplus. Two unfunded wars helped. It’s a free world and in honesty, the Euro is a safer haven than the dollar now. What this will likely cause is $4-5 per gallon gas and austerity that will finally drive us toward energy independence.

Any opinions about the economy are unfounded: do you know the joke about the economists, one said the economy was improving, the other said it was deteriorating, and the answer was that they were both wrong, haha. But optimism is always called for: you , as a Keynesian should recognize that optimism will hold off the thrift paradox, people saving and not pumping money into the recovery.

To finish with a joke: are you going to believe me or your own eyes? haha Dan

And they peg the remninbi? on the dollar, so that they don’t kill the dollars coming from the US’s consumer economy into China. If rates floated, the dollar would devalue and we wouldn’t be able to afford Chinese goods. The austerity in the US would slow the trade deficit and more balance the currencies. We would actually like that and have advocated that.

We have actually been a monetarist economy for at least 20 years, not a Keynesian. The “Greenspan put” was to lower interest rates to stimulate the economy when any slowness or blip occurred.

The thing is, our rates have lowered to nearly zero, and so only Keynesian measures were left. So the stimulus and bailout spending.

Well their profitability is impressive but not always; the CP companies fall into unprofitability anytime we have a rash of hurricanes etc. And many companies refuse to insure cars in New Jersey etc. The liability minimums are always something like 100/300, I would agree that this should be by the driver, but what about theft?

Anyway, let’s say that we find that insurance company profits are ridiculous and excessive. So you would advocate for regulation that limits their profits, like a utility. They are already regulated but for the purpose of fair reporting and keeping the minimum amount of capital in place so that they can pay and not go bankrupt. But aren’t you decrying that regulation that requires insurance is the problem?

OK I’m just teasing, requiring insurance is a good regulation idea as are minimum capital requirements. But companies are giving you that rate because of the free market.

If you don’t like it, we should start an insurance company that offers 100/300 liability to drivers for $1 for the 2nd 99 cars, but separates out the theft element by truck.

Hey, tell me: you’re a free market guy… states regulate auto safety through drivers licenses and registrations, right? For safety purposes in their state, right? Then why should states require immigrants to demonstrate their legitamacy, it isn’t the states’s requirement to police the national borders and the resultant unlicensed immigrants on the road go against the states’s safety objectives… and businesses and business-oriented border states (California) are against this policing as well for this and other reasons…

One idea I always thought would be interesting to entertain is to simply have distributed a good junk of the “TARP” money directly to the population with the requirement of paying off their debt related to housing and credit (in form of tax refunds) much like a zero interest loan agreement. Bad debt (related to mortgages and other assets)would largely disappear from the balance sheet of banks (a major current problem!), while consumers would become more comfortable spending again in light of a “re-financed” consumer to government loan payoff plan. Since the money is borrowed from our international investors, they would eventually end up owning indirectly that bad debt, while freeing US based institutions largely from bad assets, stabilizing the housing market and providing a government sponsored mandatory re-financing tool to homeowners. But then, again….I guess the devil of who qualifies for what and how much…lies in the details…:)