Certifications

I am reading The Wealth of Nations. He brings up an interesting point regarding apprenticeships and how they help raise the wages of the tradesmen above what their natural rate should be. We have the same things today. Apprenticeships still exist in many trades. As an accountant I'm working towards getting a CPA. Why? So that I can make more money. The other funny thing about certifications is that they are always lobbied as safe guards for the consumer. Well ya I guess that is true. If you pay me more I will probably have more time to do a better job but is that really the governments job. It reminds me of a sign I once saw in a barber shop that said "You can have a haircut 1.That is Fast 2.That is Cheap 3.That Looks Good. Pick any two".

Early Predictions

Today at the office we were discussing who we thought would make it to the conference finals. My theory is that early in the season you should say all of the teams will do bad and not make it to the finals. The logic is that only 2 teams out of 30 will, so the odds of you being right go up dramatically. Ya you will be wrong about 2 but everyone will think you're a genius for getting 28 out of 30 correct.

IRC 731

Unless your a tax geek, skip this post. If your still reading this I have a question. Under code section 731 if I make a distribution of cash or marketable securities in excess of a partners basis I have to treat that as a gain to the partner. Now what would happen if that partner happened to be another partnership. Perplexing.

AMD

Several months ago I got ambitious and decided to buy some stock. Admittedly it was my first time and I only bought $200 worth but we all have to start somewhere. Today they announced that a company from Abu Dhabi bought $600 million of new shares. I have a hard time getting to excited about that. As of September AMD has lost $1.6 billion. The good news is that even before the new cash inflow they are still pretty liquid. And it could always be worse. I could own stock in GM.

Climate Change

The UN is at it again. I mean why wouldn't you trust the UN. After all it was created to keep us all safe... I guess I just don't trust their scientists. There is now a whole industry built on climate change. If I was a scientist and my paycheck depended on my finding problems with warming I'm pretty sure I would find it. I think my skepticism stems from all the independence rules they teach us in auditing. I would say that the scientists have some serious problems there.
My second problem with the climate warming is that they tell us sea levels will rise a few feet and a few species might die. As coyote blog points out so well, is that worth the huge economic costs.
If you want to delve into climate change more deeply the creator of coyote blog has another great blog at climateskeptic.

School Lunch

So the first thing I want to complain about with my new found blog is Chartwells. Chartwells is the company that is contracted on the U of U campus to provide the food service.
First the food is really not that good. I think this has to do with their suppliers. I saw a poster on the wall saying how stuff was organic. Well that would explain why the chicken on my chicken sandwich was so small. Please just pump them full of steroids and quit shoving your ideas of health down my throat.
Second, If you want to your hunger to go away by the time your done eating you're going to have to throw down at least $7. And don't waste your time looking for the dollar menu because there isn't one. I mean should a bottle of anything cost $1.39.
So I guess the moral of the story is if you want to serve sub par food, force your activists ideas on people and make them pay for it get an exclusive contract with the government.

Lift Off

Ok so this first post is just a test. To see what happens