Category: News

Beethoven’s Fifth + 5%:
Seeking a refund, orchestra says concerts are educational and shouldn’t be subject to sales tax:

Are performances by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra entertainment or education?

Think carefully about the answer. Millions of dollars depend on it.

According to the state, orchestra concerts are entertainment, and therefore sales tax must be paid on tickets.

For years, the orchestra has been paying the state sales tax on the face value of each ticket sold, and it continues to do so. The money is paid out of general orchestra funds. Now the orchestra wants a refund.

The local sports teams cannot wait to explain that they’re big phys ed classes.

Remember rolling blackouts in California in 2001? Apparently, so do the power utility regulators, and the Public Utility Commission misses them:

California regulators on Thursday banned the three companies that supply most of the state’s power from buying electricity from high-polluting sources, including most coal-burning plants.

The rules are aimed at reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. While there are almost no coal-fired plants in California, about 20 percent of the state’s electricity comes from coal plants in other Western states.

“It represents a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to address the challenge of climate change,” said Michael Peevey, president of the Public Utilities Commission.

Not to mention a significant milestone in ongoing efforts to throttle supply while demand continues to rise. No doubt, though, when the unforeseen consequences (unforeseen by the blinkered green government officials, but obvious to anyone with any insight into economics above the grade school level), the Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission (in California, they need 2 bureaucracies to cover it) will find some corporation that’s to blame for people getting trapped in elevators, for server farms crashing, and for elderly people dying from heat.

But rest assured, the costs to the economy and the citizens of California are worth it for some negligible, unproven impact on the Mother Gaea.

Whenever I catch the midday hourly news on the radio, I can’t wait to hear the stock report. Typically, I hear it on my way to lunch or back from lunch. My commute coincides with the final minute allocated to local news on the jazz, country, or greatest hits of the 60s-70s-80s-90s-and-today radio station. I’m always eager to hear the instant analysis of a bored local brokerage functionary or the economic epiphany suffered by the newsreader.

“The stock market is down at this hour…” the deep FM voice narrates. Quite frankly, the day traders who inflated the stock market bubble at the end of the last century didn’t rely on radio to make decisions. The Internet allows people to check the instant progress of their individual portfolios. The day traders who are still trading, instead of flipping burgers or bagging groceries, have access to mystical Level-2 quotes, which are somehow better than simple quotes everyone can get on Yahoo! So FM Man is talking to himself, and me, alone in my truck at a stoplight.

“…as investors react to the latest White House pronouncement / War on Terror speculation / forgettable Reality TV Show decision….” The professionally-trained or university-radio-station-warm-body intones. I’m unclear on what authority the newsreader makes this prognostication or diagnosis, but it’s probably right. Short-term reactions in the marketplace include short-term investors who react to the slightest jostle in the world marketplace by shrieking that someone has picked their pockets. Employment has dropped to 94.2 percent? SELL SELL SELL! The guy on the radio says the market’s down? SELL SELL SELL!

Of course, those who sell on whatever macroeconomic metrics arrive from political, pop cultural, or sociological sources don’t consider the nature of their individual investments. They lose sight of the long-term prospects of the companies of which they have become a part and in whose long-term direction they, as investors, can exert some small amount of control. Instead, they try to be the head cows in the stampede into or out of a bull run on Wall Street or Main Street, or wherever investors huddle. These short-sighted investors react to the lemming clarion call of astrological percentages and to the deep, comforting voice on our radios that makes it into a daily catechism.

“The Dow Jones is down 56.75 points and the NASDAQ is down just under 10,” the fickle fate of Frequency Modulation reports. These numbers represent a selective representation of how certain big name firms, selected especially for their big names, traded that day. Personally, I don’t own anything indexed by Dow Jones or the NASDAQ exchange, so their numbers don’t tell me whether I can retire in 40.2 years or 45.9; instead, they tell me something else, of what I am not certain, but the helpful newsreader and his or her friendly analysts will color the results for me, Joe-Six-Pack-of-Guinness, to understand.

That simple hourly report, crammed into five seconds, fails to capture the state of the United States or world economy. Instead, it only represents the latest sports score in the never-ending playoff between the Bulls and the Bears, played on the limited field of the indices. I can chuckle, or cluck, at the purported performance, but I know the current, somber market report has little impact on my ragtag fugitive fleet of bonds, equities, and mutual funds. By the time the announcer breaks for the updated weather forecast, his prognostication for financial well-being will be as irrelevant as it is forgotten.

U.S. restaurants blast Kevin Federline TV ad:

A leading restaurant association has called for the cancellation of a TV commercial featuring Britney Spears’ estranged husband, Kevin Federline, as a failed rap star working in a fast-food eatery.

In a 30-second ad for Nationwide Insurance, Federline is shown dreaming he is a rap star but then snaps out of it to face reality — he’s working at a burger restaurant.

The commercial is due to be aired during the National Football League’s Super Bowl championship on Sunday, February 4, advertising’s biggest televised sporting event of the year. Last year’s Super Bowl drew more than 90 million viewers.

But the National Restaurant Association’s Chief Executive Steven Anderson has written to Nationwide saying the ad leaves the impression that working in a restaurant is demeaning and unpleasant and asking the commercial to be dumped.

“An ad such as this would be a strong and a direct insult to the 12.8 million Americans who work in the restaurant industry,” wrote Anderson, head of the association that represents 935,000 U.S. restaurants.

What a stuffed shirt.

Because no one working in a restaurant dreams of a better life; no, says this comfortably office bound and expense-account bearing gentleman, who could dream of something better or who could recognize humor in their situation when working in a restaurant? Not the mindless automatons in the industry.

But his press release got into the paper, didn’t it?

And you, consumer, do you think more highly of the restaurant (owners and franchisers) of America that they have chosen this stalwart Dun Quixote to stand up for them (but not their workers)?

MLK Party Causes Uproar on Texas Campus:

Authorities at Tarleton State University said they plan to investigate a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel.

“I feel like there is no excuse for this type of ignorance,” said Donald Ray Elder, president of the Stephenville school’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

So mocking stereotypes is as offensive and ignorant as actually believing them?

Ah, who cares, let’s call the attorneys. Certainly having a sense of humor should be worth some punitive damages to those who do not.

Billboard where Ladue student was slain draws fire:

A billboard advertising the apartment complex where a Clemson University student from Ladue, Mo., was strangled with a bikini top is drawing criticism for its sexually suggestive images.

It shows a young woman in a spaghetti strap shirt smiling, with the word “Reserved” below her. A second photo shows a woman sporting a tattoo on her lower back, accompanied by a pair of fuzzy dice. It reads: “Not so Reserved.”

Yes, the billboard is tacky, but really, does the apartment complex have to avoid any mention of sex or bikinis for the rest of its existence to avoid offending the employees of charity where the woman in the murder worked? That’s a little too sensitive even for my bleeding little heart.

Meanwhile, AP headlines this story with a cliché based on a metaphor for actual firearm usage with the intent to kill. Do you think they were being clever, tacky, or merely clueless?

Undocumented carp:

Senator Dick Durbin and Representative Judy Biggert have introduced legislation that would approve funding for a barrier to stop the spead of the Asian Carp.

[snip]

The carp have no natural predators in the area and threaten Great Lakes species by competing with local fish for food and habitat.

The legislation would authorize the Army Corp of Engineers to finish building a permanent barrier in the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal and study options to stop the fish.

Asian Carp: They just eat the grubs that American carp won’t. I know, some of you will point out that the nation’s carp are all immigrant carp, but that’s not important.

What is important is that the Democrats in Congress recognize the danger of unchecked influx from the south.

The rah-rah:

The Democratic-controlled House voted overwhelmingly to cut interest rates on need-based student loans Wednesday, steadily whittling its list of early legislative priorities.

The legislation, passed 356-71, would slice rates on the subsidized loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent in stages over five years at a cost to taxpayers of $6 billion. About 5.5 million students get the loans each year.

The short term fix that will have unintended, and startlingly unforeseen, consequences:

The House bill aims to reduce the $6 billion cost by reducing the government’s guaranteed return to lenders that make student loans, cutting back the amount the government pays for defaulted loans and requiring banks to pay more in fees.

Let’s see, Congress has just:

• Cut the profitability by limiting the upside (the interest) that lenders can make.
• Increased the risk by cutting out the government “insurance” against default. Instead, those defaults will have to be covered with the reduced margin for error (the interest; profitability is just unused margin for error).
• Increased fees that the lenders have to pay to have access to lowered profit potential and increased risk.

That’s the sort of fiscal and economic thinking that comes from not having to balance your checkbook.

So in 20 years, when student loans are harder to come by, the poor students will have to enter the workforce with naught but a high school education and, to those who can afford it, an Associates degree. To struggle, not make it very far, and vote Democrat.

Just kidding. The same people who strangle the privatesque solution today will determine that education is a right, like health care, and the government–they–should be the ones to fund it and mete it out.

Pet German shepherd kills Affton woman

In response, the nearby municipality of Shrewsbury, the aldermen and mayor whipped out their special banning pen and began crafting an ordinance to ban German Shepherds, Germans, shepherds, and dachsunds (because they have a German name).

Except for police K-9 units, of course. Because the police can be trusted with German Shepherds, and the citizens cannot.

Local family businesses are taking extreme measures:

St. Louis shoppers can expect to see more grocery prices fall as competitors react to Schnuck Markets Inc.’s move to cut what it charges for some 10,000 items.

“We’ve always been competitive, and we always will be. That’s the bottom line,” said Greg Dierberg, president and chief executive of Chesterfield-based Dierbergs Markets Inc. “We’ll react to any items that we need to.”

Are they providing better values for the customers in the region out of the goodness of their hearts or in cutthroat competition between the chains?

Of course not.

Schnuck Markets launched its aggressive pricing strategy on Sunday, ahead of what it sees as rapid expansion of Wal-Mart Supercenters into the St. Louis metro area. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., has more than 2,100 Supercenters in the U.S., including seven in the St. Louis market [sic, in that the story lacked a period]

Proof again that Wal-Mart is destroying mom-and-pop businesses and ultimately hurting the consumer. But it’s so subtle that you can’t see it unless you squint really, really hard until the very dust motes before your eyes become capitalistic monsters.

Compare and contrast:

• Illinois House votes for electricity rate freeze
  

  In response to sharp increases in Illinois electric rates this month, the Illinois House voted Sunday to freeze rates at their previous levels.

• Chavez to nationalize companies in move toward ‘socialist republic of Venezuela’:
  

  President Hugo Chavez announced plans Monday to nationalize Venezuela’s electrical and telecommunications companies, pledging to set up a socialist state in a move with echoes of Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution.

  “We’re moving toward a socialist republic of Venezuela, and that requires a deep reform of our national constitution,” Chavez said in a televised address after swearing in his Cabinet. “We are in an existential moment of Venezuelan life. We’re heading toward socialism, and nothing and no one can prevent it.”

Very different, no? One is a national entity that is controlling electrical rates for the benefit of its citizens and the power-mad people who want the control, and the other is a state government. Also, the national entity will ultimately be responsible for production of the electricity or its decline, whereas the state entity will merely be responsible for holding hearings on why companies go bankrupt when pressed for increasing service for no increased revenue.

Buried in the story of another US submarine colliding with another Japanese merchant vessel (man, those Navy guys are still pissed about Pearl Harbor, ainna?), we get this nugget:

The Mogamigawa was traveling from the Gulf to Singapore and was carrying a crew of eight Japanese and 16 Filipinos. It is expected to arrive in the port of Khor Fakkan later Tuesday, company spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.

Apparently, it’s protocol in some companies that if you leak information about where your valuable ships and their valuable cargo are going and when, you must do so anonymously.

Odd the things those Japanese write into their employee handbooks.

Hidden within the story that Taser, International will offer models of its patented drunk killing device to the general public, we see what kind of superscam this really is:

Taser has however said that it will be sold inert, and activated after the purchaser takes part in an online background check.

That is, you, gentle reader, would spend your filthy lucre on a device that won’t work until Taser, International, says you’re okay to have a working Taser.

The next step, of course, is a Taser-As-Service model, where the self-defense tool only works if you keep up on the monthly subscription fee. Forget to tell Taser, International, that your credit card expiration date changed, and you’re in for a big surprise on that underlit street where you encounter a couple ruffians.

This American Dream?

Briny Breezes is a down-market relic of old Florida, surrounded by glamorous multimillion-dollar homes and splashy high-rise condos.

The Briny Breezes brochure calls it a “self-governed mobile home community of kindred souls.” Residents of the Palm Beach County town cruise the narrow streets on golf carts, passing palm trees and tiny, neatly manicured yards. They wave to each other and chat about the next neighborhood outing — water aerobics at the community pool, shuffleboard near the clubhouse, bowling night.

An idyllic place where a hundred thousand dollars or so buys you a trailer on the ocean in paradise, where you can live almost inexpensively through your golden years (whenever you make them)?

That’s so 1959. This American Dream:

Briny Breezes’ board recently approved the sale for $510 million. The owners of the 488 trailers have until Jan. 10 to ratify or reject the deal. A two-thirds majority is needed to sell. The amount each person would get depends on how many shares the resident owns. Each share is worth roughly $32,000 under the developer’s offer. Owners would not get any money — and wouldn’t have to move out — until 2009.

Kevin Dwyer, 47, is all for the deal. Dwyer, who paid $37,500 for his trailer nine years ago, would make about $800,000.

“See these pockets? They’re empty,” Dwyer said, a stack of unpaid bills sitting on a table in his single-wide trailer less than 100 yards from the ocean. “I’ve nickeled and dimed my whole life. I hit the lottery.”

The American Dream of 2007, shared by many individuals and their elected officials, where you can get rich through a small investment and the forced relocation of your neighbors.

Suddenly, I don’t think we’ve learned so much as a nation since the founding days.

Scientists predict 2007 May Be Warmest Yet. Well, in that spirit, I’d like to say a few things about 2007:

• It may be the worst smelling year ever if everyone forgets to shower and the dogs run amok and defecate everywhere, leading people to track it into buildings.
• It may be the coldest year ever if El Padre locks El Nino in his room for not doing his homework.
• It may be the worst hurricane season ever, or the best, or somewhere in between.
• It may be the year Prince Charles ascends the throne and orders an invasion of the United States and Canada to restore them to British hands, if he goes completely mad.

I mean, come on, they’re scientists. They make predictions that may come true, but they’re working off of slightly less incomplete sets of data than Pat Robertson. How come these fellows get a headline more sympathetic than scientists who say man might have actually lived concurrently with dinosaurs? How about those who say the natural world has a greater tolerance than mankind could overcome even if it tried?

Because one might move public policy in a more progressive direction, you think?

The Bush administration and its Iraqi policy gets a boost from an Oakland resident, who realizes that the violence in Iraq is no worse than that of a typical American city:

“There have been three drive-by shootings in the past two months on my street,” said Miltiades Mandros, whose North Oakland neighborhood was the scene of a feud between rival drug dealers in 2006. “There are bullet holes all over my building from automatic weapons. It looks like it’s Baghdad or Beirut.”