Independent Corporate Boards

                

Investors seem to  agree that an independent board of directors is important and they would hope all companies in which they invest, as opposed to merely trade, would have a truly independent board.

                       

The question is: What is a truly independent board of directors? I would say, the one primarily in charge of spending, costs, and audits. Also, the CEO and the board chairman should not be the same executive.

                       

Who is a good manager or not is often too subjective to be a critical factor in determining how effective the board can be. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

Get Real Unemployment Figures

                     

When reported month-to-month new net job increases are running about half the rising number of Americans, and you, yourself, see more and more unemployed around you, but the media insists on reporting a drop in the official unemployment rate, you just know something is wrong.

                       

When a skilled worker can’t find a permanent job but instead gets part-time, temporary work for a couple of

weeks, he is considered employed by the media when it suits them fine to parrot the resultant employment numbers.

                       

Nor does the media tell you how the employment numbers are actually estimated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not by accurate head-count but a sort of poll subject to the pitfalls of such a system. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

Impaired Economic Confidence

                    

You will never really get this from the media headlines, who repeat anti-business threats from politicians who should know better.

                       

You will never create jobs when business owners and managers are unsure of the future, or fear what government will throw in their paths in the future.

                       

The best way to keep an economy in a recession or the doldrums, is to rant at businessmen, or threaten them with more taxes, or raise their costs in many bureaucratic ways. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

A Prompt Stimulus?

                 

A stimulus planned during a recession must act quickly, if it is to be practical. It’s supposed to stimulate the economy with minimal cost.

                       

A government really fully aware of how to stimulate a morbid economy would institute a quick tax cut on all types of personal income; that always works.

Tax cuts on interest and capital gains.

Corporate tax cuts also are tremendous boosts to an

overall depressed economy, especially when most foreign country rates are much lower than those in America. (See the Earl J Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole tweets.)

Lower College Tuition?

                   

There’s no reason college cannot be cheaper;  colleges are not under pressure to reduce costs.

                                           

Take a study done by Christopher Matgouranis, Jonathan Robe, and Richard Vedder, a Professor of Economics at Ohio University, and the director of the Center College Affordability and Productivity group.

                       

Reporting data at the main campus, at Austin of the University of Texas, the study said tuition fees could be cut in about half by asking 80% of the faculty with the lowest teaching loads to teach half as much as the 20% with the biggest loads. The top 20% now cover about 57% of the teaching.

                       

Many professors simply do not teach but spend time on research, much of questionable utility. Also, student- teacher ratio standards make little sense, while college bureaucracies are in need of major cost-saving overhauls and streamlining which can reduce tuition costs even more. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

Need More Teachers?

                  

All classes in my youth had well over 40 students per teacher. And the students did well, far better than the graduate and drop-out crops being turned out today with a bit more than 20 students per teacher, on average.

                       

Moreover, we had no internet and other devices to assist teachers, other than weathered books, old-fashioned blackboards and handy rulers for law and order.

                       

The need to “invest” in more and more teachers is the mantra from school unions who want to grow at taxpayer expense, more than any positive aid to students. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

Oil Pricing

                

The media has done a poor job in explaining how oil pricing works. As a result, the American public goes berserk whenever it costs them more to buy fuel at the pumps. When prices drop, there’s little comment, or attempts to find out why.

                       

This ignorance is perfect for politicians who are often responsible for much of American gasoline and fuel oil pricing sensitivity.

                       

The subject is too complex to fully explain here but there is one essential factor that overrides all. The more American oil we produce, the cheaper the product will be.  The U.S. can become a major producer of the product for at least the next couple of hundred years, until we can produce alternate fuels that won’t bankrupt us.

                       

It’s the politicians who only imagine they see environmental problems under every rock.(See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

The Responsibility of Securities Advisers

                   

I have no sympathy for advisers who often charge clients for services the clients may well do themselves. But why sue such advisers who have no crystal ball and who cannot see if an investment will turn out poorly?

                       

And yet many pension funds have sued advisers who could not see a downturn, as one example, in the mortgage markets a few years back.

                       

This lacks common sense on the part of the investors, other than a ruse to collect money from any source available. So why not sue, hoping a judge and jury will not be conversant with how legitimate securities markets work in real life? (See the Earl J Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole tweets.)

Needed Retirement Funds

                   

It’s common for the financial media to fill up space with comments on how much you have to save for comfortable retirement. All that discussion is meaningless, except to fill that chatter.

                       

There is no magic amount to save, as some advisers would have you believe. There are simply too many contingencies in life that make a pat-formula simplistic and useless.

                       

The practical solution to proper retirement is to save and invest all you can. And secondly, to depend on alternate sources of retirement income, other than Social Security and personal investments. That means the possibility of having a source of part-time earnings, a subject I constantly discuss. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole®

comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

Political Hangings

Since 1978, The U.S. Supreme Court has permitted prosecutors to threaten defendants with even more charges and tougher penalties, at a federal trial.

                       

At the same time, Congress has legislated more federal crimes, many of which defendants are not aware of until they are arrested for the transgression.

                       

On average, about 57 new crimes have been legislated each year over the past ten years, stipulating mandatory minimum penalties which can run to twenty years.

                                       

With such official license to threaten and bully, many innocent defendants have been pleading guilty for smaller sentences. Just to avoid the major sentences, once a hanging jury and judge get the case.

                       

American politicians keep talking “justice” but because many of the innocent victims are businessmen, the outrageous practice goes on. While prosecutors attain their own fame and fortune in politics. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at twitter)

A Good Job Interview

                                  

I started and helped operate a profitable major employee- contracting business for 17 years. The service varied from ordinary clerical workers, to nurses and physicians.

                       

Lots of suggestions get thrown about the important subject of securing a job employers want filled. Let me tell you one that makes most sense than others I see offered

                       

Try this job interview technique with a prospective employer After the interview: Now that we have had our discussion, do you have any reservations about me that you would like to have me explain or answer?

                       

That helps get into any problems that may be about to stymie your efforts. (See the Earl J Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole tweets.)

A Moratorium on Federal Regulations

                       

An important suggestion that the vast majority of Americans are not thinking of: There should be a year’s moratorium or until the next presidential election, on all new federal regulations until an independent audit can be arranged to evaluate what we now have.

                       

I can guarantee the U.S. economy and political system will not spin out of control. But we will get an idea of duplications and inanities.

                       

And also imperative is an audit of the massive Federal Register to reduce it’s ridiculous size. (See the Earl J Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole tweets,)

State and City Budget Problems

                       

The public marvels at Wall Street’s salaries and bonuses, while government salaries get slight attention. While we know about Uncle Sam’s spending, state and local outlays are also beginning to get commentary because severe budget problems are a tremendous source of problems for all states and cities as well.

                                           

I am referring to exorbitant pensions held by millions of active and retired state and local public employees. These include city managers, teachers, cops. garbage collectors, guards and others. They represent at least three quarters of public employees who have what is called defined- benefit retirement plans

                       

They have the ability, unfortunately, to organize voters and thus control politicians who keep adding to taxpayer burdens until there are not enough taxpayer funds to go around for the feeding frenzy to persist. (See the Earl J Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole tweets.)

The Media’s Economics

                      

The media has a huge impact on the economy because of its influence in politics. Unfortunately, research and just pure independent observation easily show bias and slant, so that impact can be dangerous to the economy and the country.

                       

The media’s impact, moreover, exceeds its inherent ability, composed as it is of individuals who often are not truly fit to be in their influential positions.

                       

The average citizen is thus imbued with one, overriding form of Keynesian theory which has been refuted over many decades of experience. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)