ObamaCare is flawed. No question about that. But when one side gets to push its own agenda while the other side refuses to participate, then flawed is the result. But that’s not the issue. The real issue that neither party will face up to is that as long as OUR generation continues to cash in at the expense of the next and refuses to pay taxes for the services that it enjoys then we have a fiscal disaster looming before us. Benefits have to be cut and taxes have to be raised. As long as one side refuses to raise taxes and the other side refuses to cut benefits then no progress is possible and disaster draws closer. Given that, today’s decision by the Supreme Court was irrelevant in the larger scale of things. What does matter is whether we begin to tackle the cost of healthcare. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: June 2012
Mind that sandwich
Some products are not subject to VAT in Europe; others are. With VAT in the UK at 17.5% and going to 20.0% whether it is taxed or not makes a big difference. So, is a toasted sandwich from Subway just that and not subject to VAT or is it hot takeaway food when, apparently, it is subject to VAT? In a related dispute, a sandwich eaten sitting down inside the door is subject to VAT, but one eaten standing up just outside the door is not. Go figure!
The Generational Gap
Two articles about the rich, mainly white elderly and the poor, very diverse young appeared in the New York TImes today. Continue reading
Managerial Accounting – Sorry state of
I was bemoaning recently the sorry state of managerial accounting. It is heavily oriented to manufacturing where few of our students will ever work and uses techniques that go back unchanged for a century. Continue reading
When to murder a husband was treason
Many moons ago, forty years to be precise, I wrote this article for the newspaper. It appeared June 3rd, 1972. Enjoy this gruesome tale:
Father’s Day 2012
I don’t know how your day passed but mine passed with several stories on the radio about sons and fathers. I suppose the theme common to all the stories ran something like I hated my father when I was a kid but when I grew up all I saw was this sorry old man and I couldn’t hate him anymore. I suppose the sub-theme was each son trying to avoid being like his father but slowly and gradually and in some case unwittingly it seemed falling into the same pattern — or a reverse of the father that made the son not an image but a counter-impage. Interesting perspectives. Continue reading
Father’s Day 2012
I don’t know how your day passed but mine passed with several stories on the radio about sons and fathers. I suppose the theme common to all the stories ran something like I hated my father when I was a kid but when I grew up all I saw was this sorry old man and I couldn’t hate him anymore. Continue reading
Risk averse – sometimes
A fascinating article in the New York Times by a retired trader, now neuroscientist at Cambridge John Coates entitled “The Biology of Bubble and Crash.” In it, he notes that when someone enters a trade, the body feeds testosterone into the system of the trader, creating a sense of invincibility and generating a very high tolerance for risk. Bad news, however, feeds cortisol into the system generating an irrational level of risk aversion.
Our models tend to assume that people have a relatively stable level of risk aversion. Investment houses give tests to be filled in at home after hours to determine one’s tolerance for risk. What Coates work has shown, is that risk tolerance fluctuates wildly and does so at the hands of our hormones. Younger males — the typical traders — are particularly susceptible to volatile body chemistry.
Risk Averse – Sometimes
A fascinating article in the New York Times by a retired trader, now neuroscientist at Cambridge John Coates entitled “The Biology of Bubble and Crash.” In it, he notes that when someone enters a trade, the body feeds testosterone into the system of the trader, creating a sense of invincibility and generating a very high tolerance for risk. Bad news, however, feeds cortisol into the system generating an irrational level of risk aversion. Continue reading
