It’s not your father’s library anymore.
I’ve written that I access my local library (Alexandria, Virginia) electronically. Any hour of the day or night. And, as long as I have a valid library card, I can view current (ok- three weeks older and more) journals and magazines; even some digital books.
Continue reading The Times, they are a-changing..
I know most of you run your companies on a cash basis. Your gross is small enough that the IRS does not require you to run accrued financials, which are more difficult to maintain. But, it would behoove most firms to check their positions using accrued financials every once in a while.
Continue reading Financials are just a blip in time…
We have tough choices. We’ve been requiring the use of ethanol in our fuel, to lower our consumption of foreign oil. Now, we find we can (actually, now that the price of fuel is high enough, it makes sense to) obtain even more fuel from American sources, or at the very least from Canadian sources.
Continue reading Alternative Transportation Fuels
Regardless of what happens with the fiscal cliff, there are some pretty major changes to our tax situation. Of course, some of them will only affect those at the upper ends of the income scale, but it’s worthwhile to evaluate what your net income will be starting next week- now.
Continue reading Taxes- 2013 Style!
We’ve heard all the complaints. The Death Panels. It will kill business employment. It goes on and on. But, there needs to be some sanity, some truth to the discussion.
Continue reading Grandstanding?
I have written before about the military’s push for alternative energy sources. Not necessarily because they want to be innovative, but for purely logistical reasons. The need to get power to the troops- often within the enemy confines, which adds the danger of attack to the delivery requirements. Which is why there now is an Assistant Secretary for Operational Energy in the Department of Defense [DOD] hierarchy. (Shannon Burke assumed this position in 2010.)
Continue reading Unconventional energy is what our military forces need
We all (ok, 80+% of us, including our employers) pay for health insurance so that we have it when and if we need it. And, we expect that insurance to cover our costs (less a deductible), when we do need it.
Continue reading Take your medicine!
One of my friends, Paula Lee Bright, wrote last week about how Baby Boomers have had their retirement nest eggs destroyed. I remarked at the time, that I had lots to say on this subject, but wanted to avoid the Politics (I have no problems discussing politics on this blog)- and had written extensively on this subject in various other blogs and publications.
Continue reading It can happen here. It shouldn’t!
Pricing. Ok- don’t run away yet. I know it’s tough to pick the right price. I’ve been trying to get it perfect for nigh 40 years- sometimes it’s a little high, sometimes it’s a little low…and, no, Goldilocks has no better choices, either.
Continue reading Shh. Price Increase. (Are you timid about that?)
As we discussed in Parts 1 and 2, it sure looked like BankUnited was a “success” on paper. Its mortgage portfolio (the value of loans the bank held) had escalated from $ 6.1 billion in 2004 to $ 12.5 billion by 2007. (Unfortunately, some 70% of their entire portfolio was based upon Option ARM’s.) A few months later, the value of these Option ARM loans were equal to almost 6 X the entire capital held by the bank. (Capital is the money the bank has on hand to insure against failure; it is not the same thing as the bank’s assets [which would be the loans, in this case]- but if the assets are homes subject to mortgages that exceed their worth, you can see the obvious problems.) By the spring of 2008, 92% of BankUnited’s Option ARM’s were underwater. And in 2009, BankUnited was taken over by the Feds.
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