The G-Men are on the case - with Gibson Guitars

Thank goodness the Feds are taking care of things these days! Gibson Guitars is suspected of trading in forbidden wood and has been made to surrender wood to the Feds or face fines and penalties (or court costs, who knows?). I read about this a few months ago and figured it would just pass, but it seems to go on and on.

Let's hope that the wood police are satisfied and Gibson can go on making their trademark, world famous and coveted instruments.

Another example of "too much govt."

Groupon gets into more mud with accounting measures

This may be old news, but Groupon has changed its income accounting yet again. In anticipation of eventually completing its IPO, Groupon just keeps revising things, hoping that the next revision will make everything alright for investors and the SEC simultaneously.

In August, the firm dropped Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income, or ACSOI, from its IPO submission. ACSOI isn't GAAP, and it sounds fishy. But it shows how hard it is to reconcile investment with accounting sometimes; ACSOI allows them attempt to measure the value of their customer network or loyalty, or something, and amortize marketing costs over time. Unfortunately, it's just too fishy. Accounting has to figure out how to deal with fishy, I guess.

There were also questions in July, when I started looking at Groupon and its ilk and wondering how it wasn't a cash flow Ponzi scheme.

Didn't ZZZZ Best run into this kind of trouble?

There was another recent business model that suffered from the inability to amortize marketing expense properly, but I can't recall what it was. Hmmm.

Health Care Costs are Up: What did we expect?

From this article, it sounds like the insurance companies are tickled to death that ObamaCare (the Affordable Care Act) is coming to bail them out. After all, they'll get to price most of us out of the market and cater to only the largest employers and healthiest people. Yippee for THEIR business models.

I'm not sure how to feel about this, but I think it scares me.

Thanks AP: The wealthy pay more taxes than the middle class. Duh?

The AP rules in on the current class warfare rhetoric and vitriol that's being spread out there. I don't know why it took them so long - the numbers are available from the IRS anytime anyone wants to look at them.

Believe it or not, the wealthiest Americans pay more taxes than the rest of us. Who knew?

From the article:

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46 percent of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year. Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.

In fact, some folks will pay negative taxes. How does that happen? Well, programs such as EITC use the tax code as a redistribution platform. Sad but true.

Another good one, last two paragraphs:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed at a White House briefing on the number of millionaires who pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-income families. He demurred, saying that people who make most of their money in wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income from investments pay at lower rates.

"So it really depends on what is your profession, where's the source of your income, what's the specific circumstances you face, and the averages won't really capture that," Geithner said.

This from the SecTreas that didn't pay his taxes until he was nominated. Fat lot he knows about the situation, evidently. If you work as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, you don't pay taxes. Is that how it works?

Borders Closes Its Doors

Here's a HouChron blog piece about the closing of the Kirby Drive Borders store, which ended its 11-year run yesterday. As you may know, I spent a great deal of time at Borders over the past few years-their upstairs coffee bar was my office-away-from-the-office on many occasions. When they switched to opening at 10 I booked it to Anderson Library. Free Wi-Fi and cheap refills, and a great selection (but pricey).

I hope the best for the folks who lost their jobs. They're a talented bunch.

Gulf Coast Job Fair update!!!

As of yesterday at 10 AM we had 52 firms coming on campus to take resumes and a waiting list for others in case of cancellations. Wow. That sure is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our Career Services staff at UHCL.

The Big Show comes down on 9/21 (next Wednesday) 1:30 until in both atria of the Bayou Building. Please fix up your resume, get your suit cleaned, and plan to show up. Practice smiling in front of a mirror for a while... Get ready to shake some hands.

Click the title to sign up, or go to www.uhcl.edu/jobfairs .

WashPo wants us to pay attention to faith, suddenly

Seems strange, but the Washington Post today has an article about Gov. Perry and his speech at Liberty University that makes it sound like his faith is something new. I'd argue that our governor has always been pretty open about his personal faith. If this is supposed to hurt his candidacy, as it sounds from the tone of the piece, I'm not sure how.

If it's an effort to tell me that Gov. Perry is somehow pandering to the Evangelical Right, I'd argue that he's doing nothing different from the rest of his political career, and that it isn't pandering if you live your life that way.

Folks who hold a candidate's faith against them are going to do that regardless of what the Washington Post thinks. I seem to recall that the sitting prez wrote and spoke a lot about HIS faith when he was running, too...

Tole Ja. Social Security trustees say there are fewer than 2 payers for each recipient

Fact of life: we're going to have to tax people more to pay for Social Security. No way around it. It is, in fact, a Ponzi scheme, as somebody mentioned recently.

The trustees tell us stuff occasionally.

VW-Porsche merger may not happen after all

Sounds like the hedge fund lawsuits against Porsche (the holding company) might snag the whole merger with VW. Let's hope they get things resolved.

Jamie Dimon Blasts Basel III

Can you blame him? This is from the same bunch who brought us the PIGS mess (that's Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, please).

Big News: Gulf Coast Job Fair

Don't forget the upcoming job fair hosted at UH Clear Lake on 9/21. We have a laundry list of employers coming, and it always looks good to have lots of students there (in professional dress) asking for jobs. Caitlin Weekley of Career Services sent out a list of employers on Wednesday of this week.

Be ready when you get there - 2.5 hours goes by pretty quickly. Good luck.

This is Caitlin's flyer:

The Office of Career Services Presents the 2011 GULF COAST JOB FAIR

University of Houston-Clear Lake, Bayou Building, Atrium I & II

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

1:30 PM – 4:00 PM

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to connect with companies and organizations from various industries looking to connect with UHCL students and alumni!

Visit www.uhcl.edu/jobfairs for more information and to register!

We are grateful to our sponsor level employers for helping to support this event: Enterprise Holdings, ALS Environmental, Dahill, David McDavid Automotive Group, MetLife and Verizon Wireless.

Attending Employers:

AARC Environmental, Inc. Adult Protective Services ALS Environmental Arrow-Magnolia International, Inc. AXA Advisors Banker's Life and Casualty Beaumont Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) Boxer Property City of Deer Park Dahill A Xerox Company David McDavid Automotive Group Defense Contract Audit Agency Department of Veterans Affairs Emission Monitoring Service, Inc. Enterprise Holdings Enterprise Products Fastenal Company Federal Bureau of Prisons First Investors Corporation Green Mountain Energy Houston Baptist University - Graduate School Houston Technology Center INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA Internal Revenue Service Kroger

MetLife NASA/JSC Northwestern Mutual Null Lairson, P.C. Region 4 Alternative Certification Program S&S Professional Services Shell Federal Credit Union Siri INFOSOLUTIONS Skolix LLC Southwestern Consolidated Directory Co Inc Spring Branch ISD- Technology Target Corporation Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Texas Department of Public Safety Texas Parks and Wildlife Department The Reynolds and Reynolds Company U.S. Department of State UHCL Admissions United Allergy Labs United Fire Group United States Department of Justice University of Houston USMC Officer Selection Verizon Wireless

US Treasury reports tax credits to folks with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs)

The US Treasury recently released 2010 numbers describing the credits and taxes paid by those folks in this country who use an ITIN rather than an SSN. It's an interesting look into the costs and benefits of our current tax structure.

The IRS site describing who needs ITINs is here. It says that

IRS issues ITINs to individuals who are required to have a U.S. taxpayer identification number but who do not have, and are not eligible to obtain a Social Security Number (SSN) from the Social Security Administration (SSA).

ITINs are issued regardless of immigration status because both resident and nonresident aliens may have a U.S. filing or reporting requirement under the Internal Revenue Code.


I guess the most interesting part is the tax credit stuff.

Jeff Bezos' rocket shot not as successful as Amazon

Turns out that launching stuff into orbit is tougher than it looks. That's the future of US space exploration right there.

Apollo 18, the canceled mission

Evidently NASA withheld support from a new movie (opening tomorrow) that uses a "found footage" format (think Blair Witch Project) to tell a fictional story of the canceled Apollo 18 mission. [The REAL Apollo 18 Saturn V booster is either at JSC or Kennedy, I forget which.]

Although I liked "Red Planet" a lot, mainly for the actors involved, I can say that nothing ever goes well when NASA, or the Navy for that matter, refuses to lend support to a movie about NASA or the Navy.

Who knows whether this thing is dreck or not? I can say that it's a neato premise, because the guy that did "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon" also used (real) found footage to try to expose the moon shot as a scam*. Somebody took his idea one step further and turned it into science fiction without the conspiracy theories as a motive. Good call. I hope it works out for them.

I'm also of the opinion that anything that brings the Apollo program back to hearts and minds is probably a good thing. We should never forget the men, women and families that sacrificed here and Houston and around the world to make the moon shots happen. People gave their lives for that effort, literally, and some folks are still dealing with the pain that it caused them.

* Please don't give Bart Sibrel hits on his moonmovie.com site if you can help it. Having heard him on Coast-to-Coast and other shows back around of the time of his movie's debut, I can attest that he's probably a moron. But if you remember the controversy that the Fox specials caused about 10 years ago, you should figure that he's probably a moron who's made money with it. I put the link here so I didn't forget the rage.