Architect Santiago Calatrava (Milwaukee’s Art Museum) is set to make his mark on New York City’s skyline with a new residential tower.
Category: Business
Customer Service/Appreciation @ 35,000 ft.
A first:
I (along with others) received this very nice thank you note from the captain of a UA 737 yesterday.
Tom Peters on Outsourcing
Tom Peters posts 16 points on outsourcing/offshoring. Points 6 and 7 are interesting.
6. Americans’ “unearned wage advantage” could be erased permanently. (“There is no job which is America’s God-given right anymore.” — Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard)
7. The wholesale, upscale entry of 2.5 billion people (China, India) into the global economy at an accelerating rate is almost unfathomable.
His conclusion: we need to train many, many more creative, risk-taking entrepreneurs. That will require a massive shift in how we educate our youth. The only reliable indicator of whether you will be an entrepreneur: you are the son or daughter of an entrepreneur. If that skillset can’t be transferred more generally, most people will be left behind.
Thanks to John Robb.
I’ve lived in the west, and there’s no question, that residents in Wisconsin and the Midwest in general need to start to take some business risks, and grow more entrepreneurs (It is truly genetic, I believe).
The Politics of Tax Policy
David Cay Johnston writes today in the New York Times that a federal grand jury in Manhattan is investigating the sale of tax shelters by KPMG, the big accounting firm, to corporations and wealthy individuals who used them to escape at least $1.4 billion in federal taxes.
I sent this email to letters@nytimes.com today:
Good Morning:
I am writing in response to your periodic coverage of “abusive” tax shelters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/business/20kpmg.html
I believe articles such as this would better serve your readers if they included references to the mess that is the US Tax Code (David Cay Johnston’s book includes many useful references). The code is ripe for all sorts of strategies and tactics, many that I’m sure remain to be discovered and exploited.
One of the worst examples, I believe, is the deductibility of vehicles over 6000lbs – which has lead many independent and small business owners who formerly drove sedans to purchase very large, gas guzzling vehicles, simply for tax reasons. What has this policy cost the treasury?
This Edmunds article mentions $17billion over 10 years.
How about ethanol?
Yet another example:
Prior to a 1986 Tax Law change, real estate partnerships (among other examples) were created for the purpose of generating tax losses. Partnerships were created for the sole purpose of selling tax losses.
I find the political grandstanding on this issue absurd. Does Senator Levin disapprove of the massive SUV tax subsidies?
Why has this issue been attractive to some politicians, vs other tax matters? Is there another agenda? Who benefits if the accounting firms are largely taken out of the tax shelter game? Do law firms and investment banks continue to do their deals?
Best wishes –
Jim Zellmer
You can watch, and view transcripts of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs November, 2003 hearings on this matter here [Day 1 | Day 2]
Rowe Pottery Works – Closing?
Venerable Cambridge based Rowe Pottery works is operating under a court-appointed receiver and is scheduled to close by May 1, founder Jim Rowe said Thursday.
Tupperware on PBS
Fascinating WGBH special on Tupperware.
Here’s a site that sells retro tupperware.
90,000 Cow Dairy Herd?
A pair of Californian entrepreneurs want to turn an empty lake bed just east of town into a non-polluting dairy farm for 90,000 cows, and to convert the cows’ prodigious produce of manure and flatulence into a renewable form of energy. This ?cowtown?, which will cover 1,900 acres, is the brainchild of William Buck Johns and Henry Orlosky.
See also the Harper Lake Energy Project.
Organic Valley
LaFarge based Organic Valley is a $184 million company with dairy, meat and egg producers in 16 states and one Canadian province. It’s the third largest brand name in the entire organic foods industry, according to the latest Mike Ivey Column.
Fifth Avenue American Girl Store
Doris Hajewski updates us on Mattel’s American Girl Company (formerly the Pleasant Company), including their new Fifth Avenue store. American Girl, based in Middleton, was sold to Mattel by Pleasant Rowland for $700M in 1998.
$100M of the proceeds is funding Madison’s Overture Center for the Arts.