Warren Buffett is known for making a lot of money over a long period of time.  He is also known for avoiding taxes whenever possible.  I find it odd that he is a liberal, in favor of more government interference in our lives.  He claims the estate tax is a good thing.  The idea is…

Kelly Clark notice this article in CFO about the IRS.    It seems the GAO found quite a few internal control failures in IRS procedures.  The IRS has fixed a few of them but only about half.  The IRS is Congress dirty little secret, inadequately funded for accomplishing its objective and not attracting the best…

Gold just hit $800 + and backed off.   This writer attempts to discuss what that means now and historically. I agree with his historic analysis about abandoning the gold standard. What that really did was let politicians expand the money supply at will without any thing behind the money.  You see, before Nixon abandoned…

Robert Samuelson ponders the impact of $100 oil.  He outlines how the past policy of energy availablity is in disarray.  While the press loves to excoriate oil companies during high price for high profits, actually this makes negotiating for leases and drilling rights very difficult. Why?  Okay, remember that as recently as 1998, oil was…

We noted the $39 B loss at GM in a recent post. Now analysts say operations are worse not better.  Note the use of the term continuing operations. We emphasize long term trendsin our presentations, that is what is failing to improve at GM.  Will an Indiana Jones type event emerge to save GM and…

Forbes had an article on how Cerebus is running Chrysler.  Deicisions are getting made, now, the opposite of the usual endless corporate meetings. Good thing, no company could use the change more that this one.  Forbes muses that private ownership, not beholden to penny a share snafus might be just the thing to get the…

Ever wonder what happens to that $3 gas money you are spending?  Well click on the Dubai Air Show to learn about the most luxurious jet yet.  A Saudi Prince, 13th riches person in the world, has purchased his own A 380. The plane will be custom fitted with all manner of luxuries and with…

J P Morgan recently did a presentation on why one should buy High Yield bonds of Neiman Marcus. Click on JPM for the link. This is a very well done presentation, notice how it leads you to the conclusion. Also notice how it uses a number of years to establish trends that stay in place,…

Securitization is the process of selling receivables to third parties. We study this in the capter on accounts receivable in Intermed I.  Turns out the wondeful thing about the process is that is does not have to be shown as debt.  The sale of the receivables gets a higher credit rating than the seller of…

CFO featured an interview with Delta Airlines CFO.  He discussed how Delta went from losing $4 B to making $1.5 B in the period after it came out of bankruptcy.  How did  Delta do it? They moved airplanes they owned to growing markets.  They became an international carrier instead of primarily a domestic one with…