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USA number 1, CA number 1
Ok I will get to the funny family stuff here in a minute, but there are some important stuff to bring to your attention.
The USA in number 1. I know they said that about 37 times during the Country Music Awards show last night, but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the world leader. Yes the US is now the world leader in corporate income tax. You see Japan lowered their top rate to 38.01%. That was after the UK had lowered its rates to the 24% range. The US now has the highest corporate tax rate in the world with the top rate at 39.2%. But it gets better, as we are one of the few countries left in the world that has taxes on repatriated revenue from overseas. Just so you can grasp that, last year Steve Balmer from Microsoft was chastised by shareholders for floating 20 year bonds (debt) at 2.4% instead of using the 40 billion cash on Microsoft's Balance Sheet. That added tax works out to about 10.2%. So he could get money for 2.4% for 20 years or get it now and pay an additional 10.2% (or more). He ain;t no dummy. (In an effort of full disclosure, great arguments can be made for or against a repatriation tax.) This does not just affect giant companies like Microsoft. PADI is a small business and we must carefully analyze the most efficient way to move already taxed dollars in from The UK, Europe, or Asia Pacific as we get taxed when we bring monies back into the US.
Now I am really blessed because California is number 1. Yes it looks as though voters in California are going to support Governor Jerry Brown's efforts to tax the upper end of earners at the 13.3% rate. That would put us West Coaster's at the highest level in the US.
According to today's IBD, California State Senator Bob Huff was quoted as saying "There is nothing more portable than a millionaire and his money." That is the point of providing this information. Please remember the quote we shared here a couple of weeks ago, attributed to Margaret Thatcher. "Socialism is great, till you run out of wealthy people." New Jersey learned this lesson well as their 2004, 2.6% tax hike relocated an estimated 70-90 billion in wealth out of the state between 2004-2009.
Now we can look at Warren Buffet and say he wants to pay more taxes. He does not think it is fair that he pays less taxes than an administrative assistant working at Berkshire Hathaway. (Warren owns about 26% of BRK/A). Obviously he is talking about a percentage basis. He actually paid 7 million in taxes in 2010. (BRK/A paid 5.6 billion in US taxes.) His investment strategies lean towards the conservative side and he holds onto investments forever. That assumes he has some non taxable income via government bonds. We can also assume that his income is mostly derived from dividends that are taxed at the 15% level as they are capital gains. Any other gains would also be capital gains taxed at 15%. So his effective tax rate might be 13% and the administrative assistant might be 22-28%.
Warren, please feel free to write a bigger check to the government. If we back into the number, we might estimate he earned 52 million dollars in 2010. Just go ahead and pay them 15 million and it would be more fair, or just move to California as Jerry has your problem solved.
Social Media Fun
It's funny now a days with folk spewing their political freedoms on their Facebook page. About 8 months ago I had the chance to help a graduate from college start their trek for finding a job. The first thing I did was to visit their Facebook page.
Now he had some very conservative opinions and was proud of the fact that he and his family were staunch Republicans. While applauded his familiarity with the Constitution, I had to warn him that employers will check his Facebook page as part of the screening process. He had alienated 45% of the employers in Southern California and god forbid he wanted to work in the Bay Area.
I strongly suggested he keep his political rants to himself until he had attained a station in life where he did not depend on others to earn a decent wage. Then I asked him to take the pictures from his recent Las Vegas trip where he was drinking tequila shooters from the navel of a semi-clad woman off his Facebook Page as well. I warned him if he did not keep his political opinions in check and tone down his extreme life style, he would be doomed to become the Governor of California.
Home Again
We had a normal day today, as normal as we get. While I was gone, we had a little spring appear in our garage. Under our new fancy garage floor, there was a puddle of water forming (not to be confused with the puddle we had last week which was a leak from a chimney installation.). Now Devin had to deal with that while I was cleaning up mice raisinettes in the Utah pantry.
(Guys- do not call your wife and complain about 40 mile an hour winds while fly fishing in Utah while she is dealing with a water leak bubbling out of the floor of your new garage as she will not provide you comfort and solice in your moment of discomfort. Most of all DO NOT send a picture from river side showing your smiley face and a sunny sky and snow covered mountains behind you. Trust me on this one.)
Anyway, I got Jack to school and headed to work. During the weekend, I received a nice blog from one of our readers Sharon who did a nice piece on Gluten and Gluten Free diets. (I just noticed that Gluten look a lot like Glutton Mmmmm.) My daughter has been avoiding gluten for about 3 months now. (For those that need a primer I recommend Sharon's "Survey Of One" blog. I have provided a link off there to the right in the tool box. She does really good stuff and is a lot more professional than I. She does real research.) But I digress.
Anyway my intent was to have my spinach and egg bagel in a tortilla in order avoid gluten. (I know now flour tortillas have gluten.) I walked in put my Kindle and hat down and walked over to order and they had already made my bagel. I will have to start going to a new breakfast place to avoid gluten. In the interest of health I only ate 75% of my bagel. It could have been 76%, I am not sure. Please read about gluten celiac disorders.
How did they know?
Now for a rare Devin moment before we get to the stock stuff. As I said we watched the CMA awards last night on television. I was working on the blog and Devin decided to record the rest of the awards so she could go get her bath. She was gone about 35 minutes. When she came back of course she wanted to go back to where she had left. She started rewinding and noticed a little black mark on the bar on the TV that showed where the stop points were on the recording. She then asked me, "Is that black mark where I left the room?"
The minute she said even she erupted in laughter. I replied, "Yes dear, they know when you leave the room and mark it on the scroll bar." It was really funny. The black market happened to be the top of the hour, in this case 9:00PM. It was funny. | 
