Government Dirt

• CEO --Chief Embezzlement Officer.
• CFO-- Corporate Fraud Officer.
• BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.
• BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.
• VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.
• P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
• BROKER -- What my broker has made me.
• STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.
• STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
• STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
• FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.
• MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.
• CASH FLOW-- The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
• YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.
• WINDOWS -- What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.
• INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.
• PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use.

by Maria Fotopoulos

There’s absolutely no doubt that the W, Cheney and Rovian (WCR) Principles 101 software has been completely downloaded into the pod that is known as Sarah Palin, running mate of John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.

This weekend, pod person Palin utilized the device of making an outrageous statement based on a perverse reading of the facts to disparage the opposition and force discussion on a nonissue in order to derail discussion on real issues. (Note that WCR software is system compatible with units that are loaded with Literal Bible Interpretation software.)

Palin stated that Barack Obama began his political career in the living room of a terrorist. She has repeated that message in other iterations, including that Obama is someone who “would pal around with, and work with, a former domestic terrorist” and Obama “pals around with terrorists” – terminology that is pure Palin, WCR-enhanced. There also was Palin’s statement in Colorado: “Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Palin’s references are to Bill Ayers, a ‘60s activist. As reported in Florida’s St. Petersburg Times (Sept. 30, 2008), Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground. That radical group claimed responsibility for bombings between 1970 and 1974, which kept Ayers and his wife on the run until surrendering in 1980. Charges against Ayers were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct, according to the newspaper.

Ayers now is a professor of education at the University of Illinois – Chicago.

Let’s repeat that. Ayers now teaches at a university.

Senator John McCain is a gambler. If I'd known that right away I would have immediately seen what was wrong with his tax returns.

I am a tax attorney, so a tax return means more to me than it would to most. I reviewed McCain's tax returns as a basic check on the candidates. You can look at McCain's 2006 and 2007 tax returns for yourself. The tax returns are below a lot of verbiage about his charitable activities.

According to a New York Times article of September 27, 2008 "For McCain and Team, a Host of Ties to Gambling," reported by Jo Becker and Don VanNatta Jr., McCain gambled at the MGM Grand in May 2007. Apparently McCain is a habitual gambler; he usually plays craps. He even says, "I am a gambling man."

Gambling has tax implications. According to IRS Publication 17, "Your Federal Income Tax", 2007 edition, page 89 "Gambling Winnings. You must include your gambling winnings in income on Form 1040, line 21. If you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), you can deduct gambling losses you had during the year, but only up to the amount of your winnings." In other words, you can't subtract your losses from your winnings and just not report. You have to report the winnings, and then claim the losses.

But McCain's tax returns say nothing about gambling winnings or losses.

As a casino gambler, McCain is likely to have lost more than he won. But by not reporting his winnings, the different percentage calculations built into the tax calculation are thrown off, and if he gambled much at all, he has underpaid his tax. The amount of understatement of tax may be minimal, but that's not the point.

How cute...

The following are some of the top tax sweeteners in the Senate passed Bailout Bill. Not all the provisions are per se outrageous, but collectively are intended to help Congressional leadership get final passage of the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. 

1. Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children
   
   

Current law places an excise tax of 39 cents on the first sale by the manufacturer, producer, or importer of any shaft of a type used to produce certain types of arrows. This proposal would exempt from the excise tax any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means to enhance the spine of the shaft used in the manufacture of an arrow that measures 5/16 of an inch or less and is unsuited for use with a bow with a peak draw weight of 30 pounds or more. The proposal is effective for shafts first sold after the date of enactment. The estimated cost of the proposal is $2 million over ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Thanks Maria and Steve