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Vol. 26, No. 7 • July, 2008
You can find this newsletter and some past issues on the web @ www.Freeman-Spicer.com
Note From The IRS . . . . . . The IRS is raising the standard mileage rate for business driving to 58.5¢ per mile for the last six months of this year . . . . a hike of 8¢. The agency’s rare midyear increase is in response to skyrocketing fuel prices. Also going up: the rate for medical and moving expenses, to 27¢ per mile for the rest of the year. That’s an 8¢ increase, too. But the rate for charity driving will stay as-is at 14¢ per mile. This rate is set by law . . . only Congress can change it. (Kiplinger Letter)
Working for Maximum Wage . . . . . Who says only capitalists get rich? A select few in the U.S. make a fortune in annual wages, according to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. And the wage gap between these and other working Americans is widening. In 2006, EPI President Lawrence Mishel says, the average person in the top 0.1% of wage earners made $2.1 million, 77 times as much as the average person in the bottom 90%. Indeed, it took that top earner just three days and three hours to make what an average bottom - 90% worker earned all year. In 1979, before the gap began growing, the top 0.1% worked a grueling 12 days to accomplish that. Mishel’s data extrapolate from a landmark study co-authored by Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley that tracked wages up to 2004. Says Mishel: “The highest earners are now in a totally different orbit.” (Peter Coy in BuinsessWeek)
A French Teacher . . . . . . . . . . .was explaining that in French, nouns are designed as either masculine or feminine! “House” is feminine - “la maison.” “Pencil” is masculine - “le crayon.” A student asked, “What gender is ‘computer’?” Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups - male and female - and asked them to decide for themselves whether “computer” should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for their recommendation. The men’s group decided that “computer” should definitely be of the feminine gender (“la computer”), because: No one but their creator understands their internal logic; The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review; and As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your salary on accessories for it. The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (“le computer”) because: In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on; They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves; They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model. The women won! (Christine Lauber)
“A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.” Steven Wright
Looking For Personnel . . . . . . . . Checking references for a possible new hire isn’t great fun. Nevertheless, at the final stage, we require 12 references. We are testing if our gut instinct is correct or not, and sometimes the last person on the list has saved us from a bad decision. It can be pretty amusing when you aks for 12 references - some candidates have an e-mail to us within an hour; some we never hear from again. I ask references, “What are the first 3 words that come to mind to describe this person?” and “If you had a magic wand what would you change about them?” Since starting this, our average length of stay is up from 2.3 years to 4.7. (INC.)
Bleak Paydays Ahead . . . . . . . . . The big wage increases in construction are unlikely to continue. Meanwhile workers in the banking industry may see a further fall in their real pay.
Two-year change in real wages and salaries for private workers: Leisure and Hospitality +3.6%., Professional Scientific and Technical Services +3.3%, Health Care and Social Assistance +2.9%, Construction +2.6%, Insurance +2.5%, Utilities +1.7%, Education Services +1.7%, Information 1.0%, Retail Trade +0.6%, Real Estate +.05%, Wholesale Trade 0.2%, Manufacturing 0.0%, Transportation and Warehousing -0.6%, Banks, Mortgage Bankers, and Other Credit Institutions -0.9%. (Third Quarter ‘05 - ‘07) (BusinessWeek Article with Data from: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Clips by Clicks Trim Expenses . . . . Online coupon sites are becoming increasingly popular with shoppers as they try to cope with rising costs, especially on food and other household staples. - “Coupon Mom” set a goal for her family of four this spring: feed them for $85 a week. Using store loyalty cards, newspaper coupons and, increasingly, coupons found online, you can save. See the following list of sites that you might want to check out to see if you can find some savings for your family: Couponinc.com leads you to different sites, Coolsavings.com, CouponMountain.com, Savings.com, and Couponmom.com. For most of these locations, you have to sign up for the program. This will mean more spam - but savings can outweigh the spam.
What Are Age Spots? . . . . . . Age spots are also known as sunspots or lentigines. They are flat, brown discolorations of the skin that usually occur on the back of the hands, neck and face of people older than forty years of age. Age spots are caused by an increased number of pigment-producing cells in the skin. As our skin becomes thinner with age, it also becomes more translucent, which makes these spots more obvious. Age spots are caused by the skin being exposed to the sun over many years and are a sign of sun damage. They are not harmful and do not represent skin cancer. (Why Do Men Have Nipples?)
Fed-Up Techies . . . . . . . A message from your company’s computer help desk: Go out for lunch, people! A recent survey of 150 IT Managers conducted by Sunrise Software, a British maker of programs that track help-desk activities, identified printer issues as the most common reason for a help-desk calls. But it also revealed that in a typical one-month period, 56% of tech workers had to troubleshoot at least one food-related computer mishap. The things they encountered: everything from potato chips in a CD drive to desktops stubbornly stuck to a desk by unknown substances. In the U.S., keyboards are regularly rendered unusable by crumb buildup, spill-related stickiness, and foul odors from decaying food, says Jon Aumann, a field-agent manager for Best Buy’s Geek Squad, which serves small businesses and home offices. Aumann’s scariest memory: “I once found a sandwich inside a computer tower,” he says, “With a bite out of it.” (Ben Levisohn in BusinessWeek)
Five Over Par . . . . . . . . Mark Twain once described golf as “a good walk spoiled,” a definition that researchers at one Swedish medical school might dispute. In a study of 300,000 local players, Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute found that the death rate for golfers in Sweden, where players typically walk the course, is 40% lower than for non-golfers of the same age, gender, and socioeconomic status. That translates into five-year increase in life expectancy for the average golfer, and slightly more for those with lower handicaps. Playing one round of golf - which on most courses means walking up to five miles - can burn up to 1,900 calories, increase hip and shoulder strength, and improve balance. Anders Ahlbom, a co-author of the study, notes that golf’s salutary effects may be particularly strong in Sweden, where most courses rent motorized carts only to players who have notes from their doctors. “I could very well expect not to get the same results in the U.S.,” Ahlbom says. Walking is discouraged or even disallowed on many U.S. courses, where renting out motorized carts can generate an extra $15 per player. (Diana Holden in BusinessWeek)
Gas Savings . . . . . . . Want to save up to 5 million gallons of gasoline a day and cut prices? Set the speed limit at 55 miles per hour on interstate highways. Over a year, U.S. gasoline consumption would drop at least 1.4 billion gallons and the reduction in demand would lop a nickel or more off prices at the pump. But politicians know better than to mess with Americans’ need for speed. No one is even suggesting lowering the limit. Compare that with 1974, when, facing gas prices at a whopping 53¢ a gallon, Congress pressured states to adopt 55 MPH by threatening to withhold federal highway funds if they didn’t. The fact is, lawmakers are paralyzed when it comes to gasoline prices (caught on the prongs of ideology, competing interests and self-preservation). The sparring over gas taxes spotlights the dilemma. When John McCain and Hillary Clinton proposed cutting taxes to easy the burden on motorists, the illogic of the move . . . lowering prices and thus encouraging more demand . . . subjected them to ridicule. But proposals to raise fuel taxes to spur conservation are equally spurned . . . seen, in fact, as radioactive by most elected officials. Ditto, temporarily waiving summer smog regulations that drive up gas prices. A waiver would offer short-term relief but no long-term help, and supporters would pay the price, in accusations that they don’t care about air pollution. (Kiplinger Letter)
Julia Child’s 10 Favorite Cookbooks [Besides Her Own] . . . . . . as contributed by Julia Child to “the Book of Lists” in 1980:
1. The Classic Italian Cook Book and its sequel by Marcella Hazan
2. The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher
3. Larousse Gastonomique
4. La Technique by Jacaues Pepin
5. The Cuisines of Mexico and its sequel by Diana Kennedy
6. American Cooking and The Theory and Practice of Good Cooking by James A. Beard
7. The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo
8. The Art of Making Sausages, Pates, and Other Charcuterie by Jane Grigson
9. The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Marion Becker
10. French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David.
Do you know why they call it “PMS”? Because “Mad
Cow Disease” was taken. – Unknown, presumed deceased
Sincerely,
Edward C. Levy
President