US Casualties Increase in Iraq - These are the deaths that the president and his people try to sneak past the country.

But will Bushy be able to tie IRAQ to terrorism? I don't think so... I think Iraq is a dismal failure. Looting of antiques... Crime is up. Killing is up. Animals are running loose in the country and are running the country )or is anyone running the country/)...

There is no reliable accounting of Iraqi civilian deaths, but some rough calculations top 10,000. The number of Iraqi military dead is in the 5,000 to 6,000 range, according to think-tank estimates cited by Reuters. Also the number of US deaths are over 900. Not good. No end in sight. No freedom is ringing.

Reverse Mortgages Gain Among Elderly

When Koula Chumley and her husband paid $25,000 for a four-bedroom split-level 35 years ago, it was an investment in family. But Chumley's children have families of their own now, she's widowed, and is counting on that same house -- worth much more -- to ease life in retirement.

Chumley, however, is not selling. She's one of a small but growing number of older homeowners opting for a reverse mortgage, an arrangement that allows seniors to borrow against the equity in their homes. It gives seniors ready access to money without having to make monthly payments, and the loan doesn't have to be repaid as long as they continue to live in the house.

``I thought now is the time,'' said Chumley, who is 78, and is using the arrangement to pay off the remainder of the old mortgage on her Odenton, Md. home, help with monthly bills, update a bathroom and make plans for travel to Europe. ``So far, so good. Life is good, and I hope to stay healthy to enjoy some of it.''

Reverse mortgages are still largely unknown to many seniors, but they are gaining in popularity. And lenders are eyeing the potential for an even larger market as millions of baby boomers, less skeptical than their parents about relying on debt, approach their 60s.

The number of federally insured reverse mortgages has risen from fewer than 8,200 in 2001 to 21,600 last year. At the current pace, the number should almost double this year to nearly 40,000, industry executives estimate.

Reverse mortgages can be difficult to understand, and the arrangements vary widely. But all stem from Congress' 1987 vote to start a government-backed loan program to let older homeowners more easily tap the equity in their homes. Borrowers must be 62 to participate.

Private lenders structure the loans almost like annuities -- estimating how long a person is likely to live in their homes to calculate how much cash a homeowner can obtain and how much of the home's equity must be reserved as interest. When the homeowner moves out, the combination of borrowed principal and interest must be repaid.

The loans are not for everyone. They require borrowers to shoulder substantial fees, which are not always readily visible since they're built into the loan itself. The amount of cash available to homeowners can also vary greatly, depending on their age, the value of their home, where they live and fluctuations in interest rates.

But with careful consideration and advice from a counselor -- a free service -- they can be quite valuable and their appeal to homeowners in a variety of situations is broadening, consumer advocates say.

``These loans can really dramatically improve the quality of life for many, many people,'' said Bronwyn Belling, a reverse mortgage specialist for the AARP Foundation, the tax-exempt affiliate of the advocacy group for older Americans. ``But they need to go into the transaction with their eyes wide open.''

Federally insured reverse mortgages, which account for the overwhelming share of the market, have been around since 1989. But they've taken a long time to catch on among a senior population wary of being scammed, fearful that such a loan might mean forfeiting their homes, and reluctant to depend too much on borrowed cash.

That has started to change, though, partly because of positive word-of-mouth among seniors, and with the economic uncertainties of the past few years providing particularly strong incentives.

``You've had a strong housing market and a faltering stock market that leaves people with more of their wealth tied up in their home,'' said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst with Bankrate.com, a personal finance Web site. ``At the same time, low interest rates have slashed the income that they (seniors) get on their interest bearing accounts. And reverse mortgages really work to solve many of those problems for retirees.''

Interest rates are already rising, and the stock market, while faltering, is much healthier than a couple of years ago. But both are still at levels that should lead more consumers to consider reverse mortgages in the next few years, just as the oldest boomers expand the potential market.

``When you look at the demographics, it can't help but grow,'' said Peter Bell, president of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association, an industry group.

There are some signs the market is already starting to broaden. The typical reverse mortgage customer has long been a widow in her late 70s. But the past few years of very low interest rates have begun drawing in somewhat younger borrowers, including more single men and couples, lenders say.

In a bid to tap the market, reverse mortgage lenders have stepped up advertising on talk radio, the Weather Channel and elsewhere on cable television and magazines geared to older readers. Lenders continue to make the rounds of senior centers and other community groups to talk up the advantages of reverse mortgages.

``We have barely scratched the surface of the number of seniors who are out there who have equity in their homes and who could be taking advantage of this program,'' said John Lucas, a vice president and branch manager of Anaheim,Calif.-based Pacific Republic Mortgage Corp.

Most homeowners who secure a reverse mortgage take it in the form of a credit line, with only about one in 10 also choosing to draw a monthly advance. In theory, a homeowner who lives much longer than expected and stays in the home could pocket payments exceeding the value of the home. Even in such a case, the homeowner keeps the home. But when the owner dies or moves, there would be no remaining equity left in the home, and the loan would be satisfied when it was sold.

Some older homeowners who have taken out such loans say the arrangement has provided them with much more financial flexibility.

In addition to paying off the loan on her Maryland home, Chumley drew on her reverse mortgage for a small lump sum payment to cover items like the bathroom renovation and she also receives a monthly check to help with regular expenses. The arrangement provides her with a credit line, a routine feature of many reverse mortgages, that can be drawn on later based on need.

Bob Pepper, 78, of Mill Valley, Calif., was having trouble paying his bills. But the retired artist who now gets by doing odd jobs, was skeptical even after he heard a lending officer speak about reverse mortgages at a local community center. It was only after asking plenty of questions that he was able to put to rest fears that taking out such a loan might mean giving up his home.

``If I happen to live to 103, it will still be my house,'' he said.

Pepper used part of the proceeds for a $55,000 renovation of his home, and a monthly check to supplement Social Security and other income. He's drawing down on a credit line to pay for travel, and is considering buying a boat.

Seniors considering a federally insured reverse loan, called a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage, are required to talk it over with a counselor. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development maintains a list of all counselors, and AARP has its own list. Both maintain Web sites with calculators to give seniors an idea of how much money they'd be able to borrow.

``This is a really important new financial tool for many people,'' AARP's Belling said. ``But ... if they gloss over the details, they can misunderstand the inner workings of the transaction.''

In the end: No payments are due on a reverse mortgage while it is outstanding. The loan becomes due and payable when you cease to occupy your home as a principal residence. This can occur if you (the last remaining spouse, in cases of couples) pass away, sell the home, or permanently move out.

The home does not have to be sold to pay off the loan. You (or your heirs) can pay off the reverse mortgage and keep the home. In any event, the amount owed on the reverse mortgage can never exceed the value of the home at the time the loan must be repaid. Moreover, if the home is sold and the sales proceeds exceed the amount owed on the reverse mortgage, the excess money goes to you or your estate.

Sad, but the big wow moment yesterday during the RNC was when McCain said something about Michael Moore. That comment raised the biggest roar and the result..Moore is not showing up today. Our country is just SO badly divided.

Our man Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani -- Rudy was good for NYC but he ran too long.. His flip-flop message about Kerry is missing the story of why George doesn't change his mind.. because he doesn't have a mind. He does not know what to think. His people have to tell him what to think and what to say. Just think about his statement yesterday that "we won't win the war on Terror." His people had to fix the problem today, back pedal and tell us what he really meant -- not what he really said.

The Republicans are trying to get sympathy by playing on how everything changed after 9/11. Wasn't 9/11 a lapse of security? This is sad... they are trying to make us think that after 9/11 we have one choice: elect the man that sat there for 7 minutes with the deer in the headlights look and read children books because he did not want to scare the children... and this after he was told "a second plane hit the second tower and we are under attack." So Sad. We attacked IRAQ, we are still there, we have no plans for how we can leave. How can we make them free if they don't want freedom? Are the IRAQ people better off under our occupation or a dictator? Shouldn't they control themselves?

Sunday afternoon, Bob and I stood on 7th ave and 34 street for about an hour (he says it was for 2 hours) and we watched and cheered on the hundreds of thousands of protesters as they passed Madison Square Garden. We saw Police in droves and tons of fancy new police equipment. The reports are that there will be between 10,000 and 12,000 police on duty. This was the largest demonstration ever at a political convention (for my protest I wore two pins one said "no carb diet(no cheney, ashcroft, rumsfeld and bush)" and the other pin reads "be patriotic and vote bush out."

My plan is to protest at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday. Let's see how it goes.

This is a critical time for our country. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Republicans has droned on about death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.... Friends don't let friends vote Republican.

The New York Times > AP > National > Edwards: Bush Miscalculated Economy Too

Republican's policies have been "catastrophic for the middle class and successful for the very wealthy.''

"President Bush has finally admitted that he miscalculated on Iraq, so will he next admit that he has miscalculated on the economy?'' Edwards asked in remarks prepared for delivery in Beckley, W.Va., on Tuesday. "Will we next hear that his economic plan was a catastrophic success?''

Edwards accused Bush of undermining the middle class with fewer jobs, smaller paychecks and higher health care costs, and said the only thing Bush's term has accomplished is ``results for his corporate friends'' while middle-class people have seen only "empty promises, fewer jobs and higher costs.''

"American families are working harder than ever before,'' Edwards said, "and yet they are being squeezed like never before because of George Bush's miscalculations.''

The one-two-punch and Bush goes down. RNC is not a show place on what is good for America! Let's do what is good a vote Bush out!

The Spy Allegations - Damage Done


'Franklingate' appears more media hype than a substantive case of espionage.

Here's what Honestreporting says: "Larry Franklin, is not a 'high level' operative (as CBS originally reported), but rather a desk officer in the Defense Department's Near East and South Asia Bureau. (Franklin also is not Jewish.) A senior Bush administration figure told the press that

... from what we know, Larry Franklin looks more like an incompetent fool way out of his depth than a spy. He apparently passed on some papers to Israel without realizing the ramifications of his actions... Another senior source said that Israel did not need Franklin's information. Israel's contacts with high-level officials are such that a phone call to the US would have been sufficient to elicit the information."

Nice going CBS get the story right before you make something into a story that is just not.

The New York Times > Opinion > The Mighty Power of the Baby Boomers

On Friday, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned that programs like Social Security and Medicare might have to be scaled back when it is time for baby boomers to retire.

Mr. Greenspan said, "As a nation, we owe it to our retirees to promise only the benefits that can be delivered." He seems to be telling baby boomers: Don't expect too much in retirement. That should be a catalyst for action.

Issues like the trashing of a healthy budget surplus and an unwarranted, ultraexpensive Iraq war aside, our leaders should be reminded who fueled all that economic growth in the past five decades with their hard work, productivity and investment.

To suggest that baby boomers will just have to accept seeing their Social Security benefits further eroded because a robust economy has been squandered ignores the power in our ranks.

It may be time to remind our representatives that those who took to the streets over issues like Vietnam can do the same over being robbed of well-earned retirement benefits. We can also use our economic and investment clout in ways that will rattle the national economy as well. We have the numbers.

CPAs no longer the wallflowers of the financial industry...
The CPA, once the wallflower of finance, has become the prime attraction in the brokerage world. Could it be
a change in perfume? Let’s call it a function of the “new economy.” All those people benefiting directly and indirectly
from the Internet boom file tax returns, right? So even before they consider how to invest their new found riches
they beat a track to their CPAs for a little tax help. Dennis Gallant, a consultant for Boston-based Cerulli
Associates, puts it another way: Accountants are the “key access” to the “millionaire next door” -- the newly
minted mini-captain of industry who hasn’t yet made it into Who’s Who. So brokers, if they smell anything new about
accountants, it’s the sweet smell of Access.“Everybody now wants to network with the CPA,” says Mr. Gallant.

Accountants reluctant to make referrals to brokers for pay or for free…
Let’s take a step back. There have always been brokers who recognized the key role accountants could play
in developing business. Long before it became fashionable to network with the CPA crowd, those farseeing
brokers were slowly building deep relationships with their professional counterparts. In the last decade a number
of brokers and accountants created joint ventures; or CPAs and brokers built an informal but lucrative
referral system. Those relationships have taken many years to forge, in part because accountants are reluctant
to lend their good names to anyone -- be it a broker, lawyer, or window washer. Brokers say they need to
prove themselves before they can count on regular referrals. Recent changes in state securities regulations
enabling brokers to pay for accountant referrals hasn’t changed that. CPAs are cautious, says Cerulli’s Mr.
Gallant. “Their reputations are at stake. Brokers need to build a relationship (with CPAs). It doesn’t happen
just because you’re paying them for it.”

Many successful producers say they neverpay for a referral from accountants…
One million-dollar-plus producer at a major wirehouse has built a good chunk of his business on
accountant referrals. He never pays referral fees. Another major producer at a competing firm says not only
does she refuse to pay referral fees but the accountants she works with don’t want them. “They’re looking for
somebody they can trust. They are on the line when they give a referral,” she says, adding that the accountants
often recommend their clients check out two or three brokers before selecting one. One broker compares
the payment-for-referral system to selling proprietary mutual funds where the fees that are paid to the brokers are highest
but the returns may not be as attractive for clients. “Clients in this day and age are too smart for that,” he says. In
other words, high-end brokers and CPAs fear that accepting fees will compromise their integrity.

Referral relationships typically take more than a year to build...
One broker estimates that it takes more than one and a half years to build a meaningful relationship with an
accountant. She never cold calls either. Rather she says she develops relationships through client referrals,
newsletters, and mailings. Another says he will ask for the name of a client’s accountant. Then he calls to
introduce himself and ask if the CPA is accepting referrals –- could they meet for five minutes. He says he
then tries to determine whether this is a person he could work with. “You must share a similar investment philosophy,”
he says. For him the results have been phenomenal: Two-thirds of his top accounts resulted from
CPA referrals, he says.

Formal pay-for-referral programs appear to be languishing…
Wirehouse programs to pay for referrals from CPAs were launched with much fanfare. Cerulli consultant
Dennis Gallant says the current buzz on the programs has been less than spectacular. The wirehouses aren’t
saying much about how the programs are performing compared to expectations. Phyllis Bernstein, director of
personal financial planning for the American Institute of CPAs, views the wirehouse programs at best as transitional.
Accountants may join the programs for short periods, she speculates. “Tomorrow they may decide,
‘You know, I can do it (myself).’ It’s a step. Not a final result,” she says.

Wall Street may be attracting a Trojan horse into their homes…
To be blunt, the CPA trade association envisions a day when accounting firms will provide one-stop shopping
for client financial needs: taxes, estates planning, financial planning, investment management. Sticking to the
tax business is not a viable plan for growth, says Ms. Bernstein.“We need to be higher on the value chain.”
Companies like Vanguard Group offer free tax software on their websites. “If you’re a tax person, you’re a
commodity.You need to broaden yourself,” she says. On the one hand the potential for influx of competitors is
great. Ms. Bernstein estimates about 40% of its 340,000 members would make good candidates for financial
planning and investment management advice. But only a small percentage thus far have taken the plunge. To
encourage more CPAs to take that step the AICPA recently set up a Center for Advisory Services which will
help members start and manage an investment advisory practice.

Managed money may prove to be the route for CPAs entering the advisory foray…
Some pooh-pooh the notion of an onslaught of accountants in investment management. After all, the learning
curve is steep. Tax planning and selecting mutual funds or stocks require very different skills. Mr. Gallant suggests
that you may find CPAs willing to use managed money services for their clients.Clients may find it hard
to believe that one person can be expert in both arenas. Fee-based programs where they assume both the
responsibility and liability for client investments may be the preferred route, he suggests. Currently, registered
investment advisors can turn to Schwab or Lockwood Advisors for wrap programs. A new web-based program
of investment and technology serves has recently been launched by a new entree, Envestnet, which will
assume a fiduciary role in working with independent financial advisors.

The moral: Relationship-building remains the cornerstone of a successful business...
Programs paying referral fees to other professionals -- be they accountants, lawyers, or mortgage brokers --
may give a leg up to some brokers seeking to jump start their businesses. But the pros agree: Don’t base
your business on them. Relationships based on mutual respect are the crucible for success.

We’re more than bean counters or scent makers…
We know how to add up the numbers. And we know when a deal has the right scent or not. More important,
we’re here to advise you on which firms are best for your current business and the business you would like to
build.We’ve been advising Wall Street professionals for more than 15 years. The business changes and evolves
but some things remain the same: our interest in helping you determine the best strategy for boosting your business.

Accountants At Your Door

September 1, 2001- CPAs have long been the financial planning wild card. For decades they have performed what would later be called financial planning, but never capitalized on it. Through the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants they poured a fortune into creating and marketing a new, exclusive designation, only to receive lukewarm response from the rank-and-file CPAs and the general public.

Since 1985, financial planning at the AICPA has been synonymous with Phyllis Bernstein, who, as the institute's director of personal financial planning, was instrumental in creating a special membership section for financial planners. Bernstein also played a key role in developing the AICPA-administered personal financial specialist (PFS) credential, available exclusively to CPAs, and has been its staunchest defender. No one at the AICPA will publicly admit it, but despite its best marketing efforts, the PFS designation has not become as well known as its creators had probably hoped.

This was written in 2001 and the story is as fresh today as it was then. Said that we have not moved on as a profession and taken this space.

MRS. CHENEY'S LITERARY MASTERPIECE

The book is hard to get ... saw one on ebay today with her signature for over $300.

Amazon is out of print. But you can read a few pages at the whitehouse site.

Lynne and Dick Cheney have a lesbian daughter Mary.

You can hear on Air American radio some of sizzling western novel “Sisters” -- it is filled with hot, steamy stuff like lesbian love, prostitution and rape, and supports a sweeping pro-feminist agenda.... The protagonist, Sophie Dymond, is obviously bisexual as she makes love to her deceased sister’s former boyfriend (outside of marriage I might add), and doesn’t shy away from sex with women either.

CBS News | Peace In Najaf, Blood In Baghdad | August 27, 2004

President Bush acknowledges a "miscalculation" of the difficulties the United States would encounter in the post-Saddam era occupation of Iraq. Mr. Bush told The New York Times that the insurgency was the unintended result of a "swift victory" that led to Iraqi troops disappearing into the cities and mounting a rebellion.


962 US service members have died since ...

The New York Times > Washington > Times on the Trail > Taking Care of Business

New wage rules that have survived repeated challenges by Congressional Democrats and some Republicans go into effect next week. Advocates say the Labor Department rules will make millions of workers newly eligible for premium pay for working over 40 hours. Critics say they will deny overtime to millions of workers.

Overtime rules are going to get some time in the political spotlight... Is this all an "antiworker initiative that favors corporate America?" Or are "badly outdated wage-and-hour rules are cheating employees?"

What is the truth?

The New York Times > Business > KPMG Wrote New Versions of Shelters Ruled Illegal

August 26, 2004
KPMG Wrote New Versions of Shelters Ruled Illegal
By LYNNLEY BROWNING

PMG, the accounting firm under scrutiny for promoting tax shelters found to be abusive, discussed selling a new shelter highly similar to a banned version more than two years after the Internal Revenue Service outlawed the original one and any variations, according to newly disclosed internal e-mail messages.

The fresh documents, released on Monday by a Senate subcommittee investigating abusive tax shelters, offer a glimpse into KPMG's tax shelter activities. They do not show whether KPMG ever sold the new version of the old shelter, which was called OPIS, or Offshore Portfolio Investment Strategy.

"KPMG has taken strong measures to reorganize and restructure its tax practice, including changes to leadership, policies, practices and procedures," George Ledwith, the chief spokesman for KPMG, said yesterday. "Simply put, we are not doing today what we did years ago."

Nonetheless, the e-mail messages do show how KPMG's efforts to create and sell dozens of tax shelters appear much more rigorous and extensive than detailed in documents made public last fall by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It held a two-day hearing in November on questionable tax shelters that focused on OPIS and three other KPMG shelters, named FLIP, BLIP and SC2. From those four tax shelters alone, KPMG has said that it earned fees of $124 million.

The newly released e-mail messages, which dated from the mid-1990's to 2003, refer to at least a dozen new tax shelters that appear aggressive in their reading of the tax code, according to a government official who has reviewed the documents.

KPMG, based in Montvale, N.J., faces a federal grand jury investigation in Manhattan for its tax shelter work, as well as scrutiny by the I.R.S. and Justice Department. The firm is also a defendant in several investor lawsuits.

The I.R.S. never considered the original OPIS valid for deductions and formally declared it and any substantially similar variations invalid in August 2001. The original OPIS used complex financial moves to create paper losses that then offset in whole or in part legitimate taxable income.

The new version of OPIS was designed to do the same thing. But it used United States partnerships rather than foreign limited partnerships for certain parts of the transaction, according to a May 2003 e-mail message sent by Tracie Henderson, a KPMG tax partner, to Larry DeLap, a senior tax partner. The original OPIS was itself a close cousin to another banned KPMG tax shelter called FLIP, or Foreign Leverage Investment Portfolio.

The I.R.S. is in the midst of a broad crackdown on what it considers abusive tax shelters but has struggled to stay on top of their rapid proliferation since the mid-1990's and their increasingly complex structures. The Government Accountability Office has estimated that federal coffers have been deprived of $33 billion over the last 10 years by abusive tax shelters identified by the government.

The new e-mail messages also show that KPMG worked hand in hand with the bank First Union from at least March 1999 through March 2001 to sell questionable KPMG tax shelters to First Union's wealthy banking clients, with KPMG paying fees to First Union. An August 1999 internal e-mail message at First Union refers to an unspecified "KPMG investment/tax strategy which KPMG shared" with senior bank officials.

It goes on to say that "First Union has a very high profile across our franchise for being associated with 'tax' strategies; namely, FLIP and BOSS. Sandy does not want this kind of high profile to be associated with the new strategy." "Sandy" is a reference to William L. Spitz, a former KPMG tax partner who was most recently managing executive of financial planning at Wachovia, which merged with First Union.

Another internal KPMG e-mail message in March 2001 refers to "how we are bringing SC2 into certain First Union customers."

BOSS, or Bond Options Sales Strategy, has never been considered valid for deductions by the I.R.S. It was formally banned in 1999, while variations of it, also never considered valid, were banned in 2000. The strategies involve claiming losses for capital outlays that have actually been recovered.

The I.R.S. has also never considered SC2, or S-Corporation Charitable Contribution Strategy, which was designed by KPMG, valid for deductions, and formally banned it in April. SC2 improperly shifts the obligations of investors with big tax bills to tax-exempt organizations, like charities, to claim tax breaks.

Christy Phillips, a spokeswoman for Wachovia in Charlotte, N.C., declined to comment, saying only that Mr. Spitz no longer worked for the bank. She declined to say when or under what conditions he departed.

KPMG, the new e-mail messages show, engaged in exhaustive legal analysis of tax and civil court rulings and I.R.S. rulings to find loopholes in the ever-changing tax code to justify its shelters. "The I.R.S. position of what is 'final' is not 'real world view,' " asserted one undated KPMG slide presentation.

The KPMG e-mail messages also detail how beginning in the late 1990's, KPMG created a giant internal bureaucracy - with layers of departments, sophisticated software, scores of employees and bonuses - to develop and market tax shelters.

The effort included establishing interconnected "laboratories" and idea banks that served as factories to develop tax shelters and even awarded paperweights shaped like light bulbs to low-level employees with tax-shelter ideas. KPMG also had a rigorous telemarketing effort in which employees would cold-call potential investors and pitch shelters by reading from prepared scripts, some e-mail messages show.

The efforts were all part of KPMG's larger goal of establishing what it called in some of the e-mail messages an "investment banking model," in which it would join with small investment boutiques and large banks for access to financing needed for certain tax shelters for extremely wealthy individuals.

The e-mail messages also suggest that KPMG has not fully cooperated with investigators, even after being ordered to do so by the I.R.S. An April 2002 internal e-mail message from Ken Jones, who now runs KPMG's tax controversy services group, said, "We have just hand-carried the lists of investors over to the I.R.S., for the following deals." The e-mail message then listed nearly a dozen questionable tax shelters with names like Midco, Focus, Insureco, Othello, SC2 and Tempest. "Note that not all clients names were turned over for each of these solutions," Mr. Jones wrote.

My thought is--This is all so ugly that I hate to read it. Let's hope thsi all goes away and never ever happens again.

ACCORDING TO NEW PA TEXTBOOKS, ISRAEL IS PALESTINE
For the school year of 2003-2004, the Palestinian Authority's Education Ministry printed textbooks that delineate the borders of the West Bank and The Gaza strip but refer to the whole of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as "Palestine," THE JERUSALEM POST reported. The results of a study on PA textbooks were published in an Israeli government report. The report also reveals that all cities, villages and towns in Israel are titled with their Arabic names in the textbooks. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are referred to as the PA, a "temporary" territorial solution, whereas the combination of these two territories and Israel is mentioned as the "permanent Palestine."

The PA history books state that the Palestinian people have rights to the "country" [Israel] as they settled in it before the Jews. Some texts claim that Palestinians have resided in the area since the Stone Age while others express the "injustice in the establishment of the Jewish State" and state that Palestine gained independence in 1948, after the British Mandate ended. Zionists are also defined as "settlers" who emigrate from a strong country to a weaker country and take control of its land. The PA does not teach pupils about co-existence or peace and the overall policy "appears to be one of de-legitimization of the State of Israel and Zionism."

ISRAEL'S POPULATION STANDS AT 6.78 MILLION
Israel's population on the eve of Independence Day stands at 6,780,000, according to official government figures released Sunday by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Eighty one percent of the population - or some 5,180,000 people - is Jewish, and the remaining 19 percent of the population is Arab. Jerusalem is Israel's largest and most populated city, with 692,000 residents, of which 464,000 are Jewish and 228,000 are Arab. Haifa is Israel's third largest city with a population of 270,500. The city had a population of less than 100,000 in 1948.

Sixty-six percent of Israel's Jews were born in Israel, and 34 percent were born abroad. This contracts with 1948, which was just the opposite and just 35 percent of the Jewish population was native born.

Israel's first gold medal in Olympic history

Windsurfing champion Gal Friedman gets a gold medal. Others have won bronze medals, but this is the first gold. I woul dlove to see the ceremony and playing of the Hativah... With about 40 athletes representing Israel at this year's Games, I thought I could get a Swatch Olymipic watch with the Israeli Flag, but not there are only about 35 countries that have federations and thus, Swatch only makes watches for those countries..

A historical minute of silence: The 1972 Munich Olympics tragedy struck and Israeli athletes were unfortunately thrust into the media spotlight.... 11 members of the Israeli delegation were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in what has been described as the greatest disaster in the history of the modern Olympics.

More history: Yael Arad won Israel's first ever medal - a silver - at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and fellow judoka Oren Smadja brought home the bronze. In 1996, Gal Friedman won a bronze medal in windsurfing. Michael Kalganov took a bronze in the 1,000-meter kayak in Sydney in 2000.

Did you know that Immigrant athletes from the former Soviet Union make up half of Israel's delegation? Your dollars are doing great thinks for our little country...

But we are now hodlers of a gold metal. Not for swimming, not driving, not gynmastics--but wind surfing.

CNN.com - Israelis have plans for more housing units - Aug 23, 2004

Approved for 150 housing units in two settlements in the West Bank... growth in Israel is good. I have to support that

Bits and Bytes - Viewpoints of CPAs who care about our Profession

I assign the guilt for the mess we are in, in the following order: 1)Crooks who dress in executive clothing; 2)Congress; 3)Graduate Business Schools; 4)Investment Bankers; 5)Lawyers, 6) Auditors. To attack the auditors without dealing with the first four groups is to miss the boat entirely.

Good comments...

Bits and Bytes

I assign the guilt for the mess we are in, in the following order: 1)Crooks who dress in executive clothing; 2)Congress; 3)Graduate Business Schools; 4)Investment Bankers; 5)Lawyers, 6) Auditors. To attack the auditors without dealing with the first four groups is to miss the boat entirely.

Good comments...

Accounting Wars

Business week cover story a few ago...

The trend alarms some CPAs. Eli Mason, ex-president of the New York State Society of CPAs and senior partner at New York's Mason & Co., frets that auditors are crossing an ethical line: ''How can the independent accountant state that his audit report was prepared in conformity with accepted standards when he may be reviewing some of his own services?''

Levitt's solution: split auditing and consulting. On June 27, the SEC voted unanimously to issue a proposed rule that would bar accountants from providing a range of consulting services to companies that they audit. Levitt also wants to beef up public oversight of accountants, all with an eye to sending the profession back to its roots as vigorous guardians of investor interests. ''When the public loses confidence in our markets, or when the reliability of the numbers is diminished, the whole system is jeopardized,'' says Levitt. ''The sanctity of the numbers and of their reliability must be there.''

Report Finds Tax Cuts Heavily Favor the Wealthy

August 13, 2004
Report Finds Tax Cuts Heavily Favor the Wealthy
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

ASHINGTON, Aug. 12 - Fully one-third of President Bush's tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday.

The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090.

The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush's tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers. Those are also the people, however, who pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes.

The calculations, which were requested by Congressional Democrats, are all but certain to intensify a central debate between Mr. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Mr. Bush has argued that the tax cuts provided crucial support to the economy at a time when it was mired in a recession and reeling from the effects of a stock market collapse, terrorist attacks and corporate scandals.

Mr. Kerry has argued that the cuts were tilted so much in favor of the wealthy that they provided relatively little stimulus to the economy and set the stage for record budget deficits. Since 2001, the federal budget has deteriorated from a surplus of more than $100 billion to a deficit expected to exceed $400 billion in 2004.

Mr. Bush's top economic priority has been to make his tax cuts permanent, rather than letting them expire at the end of this decade as they would under current law. Mr. Kerry would seek to roll back the tax cuts for households with incomes above $200,000 a year, a move his campaign estimates would save $860 billion over 10 years, and use that money in large part to pay for a vast new national health care plan.

According to the new report from the Congressional Budget Office, about two-thirds of the benefits from the tax cuts, enacted in 2001 and 2003, went to households in the top fifth of earnings, with an average income of $203,740.

But the report also gave Republicans support for their contention that tax reduction had brought some benefit to people in almost all income categories. People with the bottom fifth of income, for example, averaging earnings of only $16,620, saw their effective tax rate drop to 5.2 percent from 6.7. Yet because lower- and many middle-income families had been paying very little federal income tax in the first place, those in that bottom fifth of earnings received an average tax cut of only $250.

"It doesn't matter who you are, the report shows that you are better off now than you were before the tax cuts,'' said a House Republican aide. "It's showing that everybody's tax burden has gone down as a result of the tax cuts.''

The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 reduced tax rates for people in all income brackets. But they had a disproportionate effect on people at the very highest income levels because they had already been paying a disproportionate share of total federal taxes and in part because stock dividends got a special lower rate.

People in the very top income categories fared better by almost any measure, according to the report. The average after-tax income for people in the top 1 percent of income earners climbed 10.1 percent, while that of those in the middle 20 percent climbed 2.3 percent, and that of those in the bottom fifth only 1.6 percent.

Put another way, people with the top 1 percent of income saw their share of the tax burden drop to 20.1 percent after the tax cuts from 21.9 percent under the old law.

William G. Gale, a longtime tax analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the new Congressional report was consistent with his own calculations on the distribution of benefits from Mr. Bush's tax cuts.

"It's not just that lower-income people are getting smaller benefits,'' Dr. Gale said. "It's also that these tax cuts will eventually have to be paid for with either spending cuts or tax increases, and those are likely to be less progressive than the taxes they are paying now.''

Folks, this is the NY Times-- I am not making is up! This is not my spin.

Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle
Presidential Campaigns Draw Differing Conclusions From Report

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A04


Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.

The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.

Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.

The analysis, requested in May by congressional Democrats, echoes similar studies by think tanks and Democratic activist groups. But the conclusions have heightened significance because of their source, a nonpartisan government agency headed by a former senior economist from the Bush White House, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. The study will likely stoke an already burning debate about the fairness and efficacy of $1.7 trillion in tax cuts that the president pushed through Congress.

"CBO is nonpartisan, it's independent, and right now it works for a Republican Congress with a former Bush economist at its head," said Jason Furman, economic director of the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). "There's no higher authority on the subject."

Girding for the study's release, Bush campaign officials have already begun dismissing it as "the Democrat-requested report."

"The CBO answers the questions they are asked," said Terry Holt, a Bush campaign spokesman. "To the extent the questions are shaded to receive a certain response, that's often the response you get."

The question posed was a standard request for analysis of the type members on both sides of the aisle routinely make of the CBO. In this case the ranking Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, the House and Senate budget committees and the Joint Economic Committee asked Holtz-Eakin -- the former chief economist of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers -- to estimate the distribution of the tax cuts among income levels, and compare that to tax levels if none of the cuts were passed.

The conclusions are stark. The effective federal tax rate of the top 1 percent of taxpayers has fallen from 33.4 percent to 26.7 percent, a 20 percent drop. In contrast, the middle 20 percent of taxpayers -- whose incomes averaged $51,500 in 2001 -- saw their tax rates drop 9.3 percent. The poorest taxpayers saw their taxes fall 16 percent.

Republican aides on Capitol Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tax cuts actually made federal income taxes -- as opposed to total taxes -- more equitable.

They point to a different set of numbers within the CBO study that show that the rich are actually paying more in individual federal income taxes. If Social Security, Medicare and other federal levies are excluded, the rich are paying a higher share of income taxes this year than they would have paid with no tax changes, the CBO found. If none of the tax cuts had passed, the top 20 percent would pay 78.4 percent of income taxes this year. Instead, they will pay 82.1 percent. In contrast, the middle-class share of income taxes dropped to 5.4 percent, from 6.4 percent if no tax cuts had passed.

"Are the rich paying their fair share?" asked one GOP aide. "Yeah. They're paying more."

But to Democrats, the conclusion was clear. For the bottom 20 percent of households, the combined Bush tax cuts averaged $250 each. The middle 20 percent received $1,090, while the top 1 percent garnered $78,460, said Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee who analyzed the report.

The tax cuts this year will boost the income of millionaires by 10.1 percent, while middle-income families see a boost of 2.3 percent, the Democrats said.

Congressional Republican aides said the CBO analysis has its limitations. For instance, it assumes that the beneficiaries of business tax cuts passed in 2002 and 2003 are the taxpayers who own stocks, bonds and other stakes in the businesses that received the reductions. But that analysis does not consider new workers hired because of the tax cuts, or higher wages that may have been granted because of the boost to the bottom line.

It also does not reflect that during the 1990s, the tax rates on lower-income households fell considerably due to an expansion of the earned income tax credit and other forms of low-income relief. In that sense, GOP aides said, tax cuts for the wealthy were overdue.

Besides, Holt said, looking narrowly at the distribution of tax cuts ignores the broader benefits -- such as investment, consumer spending, and job creation -- that flow from leaving more money in people's hands and that are spread far more evenly through the economy.

"Tax relief is about fairness, but it's also about economic growth," he said. "So the president's tax relief was both fair and effective, when it comes to bringing us from recession to growth."

But Republicans predicted that Kerry will make the report a major political event, and Furman said the results will be too stark to spin.

"This is the first really detailed government report that says not only did the wealthy get an enormous tax cut, but, if the conclusions are what we expect, the middle class will be left paying a larger proportion of the taxes than they were before," he said.


© 2004 The Washington Post Company

This is the Washington Post... this is not my handy work! If I posted this last week, sorry, but it gets me! pb

How Tax Cuts Help Rich the Most

Friday the 13th -- Tax Cuts Help the Rich and everyone else too!

I read that the top one percent got a tax cut 70 times larger than the typical middle income family...

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study documented that the top 20 percent of taxpayers would have paid 78.4 percent of all income taxes collected... if I got that right?

The New York Times headlined Friday story: "Report Finds Tax Cuts Heavily Favor the Wealthy." The Wall Street Journal: "Budget Office Says Biggest Tax Cuts Go to Richest 1%." And the Washington Post: "Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle." Reuters says, "CBO Report: Bush Tax Cuts Tilted to Rich"

In the Wall Street Journal, reporter Jackie Calmes led with a sentence that could have been written by the Kerry press office: "President Bush's three tax cut laws will reduce this year's income taxes for the richest 1% of taxpayers by an average of $78,460, more than 70 times the average benefit for the middle 20% of taxpayers, congressional analysts found." Calmes soon added that the report "confirms" Democratic claims: "The report, made at the Democrats' request, confirms what the Democrats and their presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, have charged -- that the wealthy disproportionately benefit."

...Bush has said the cuts provided crucial support to the U.S. economy after the Sept. 11 attacks and the three-year decline in U.S. stocks.
... Kerry has said the cuts did little for the economy, and helped cause the federal budget to swing from a more than $100 billion surplus in 2001 to a projected deficit exceeding $400 billion this year...

The report's methods matter. First, it measured all federal tax burdens, not just the income taxes affected by the Bush tax cuts. The CBO also counted payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, which the poor and middle class pay in higher percentages of income than the wealthy. Also, the report counts all household income, not just income filed on tax returns. That creates a larger pool of wealthy Americans... How does this report support that press?

Press Release of Hertage Foundation: The CBO Tax Report: Proof that Reporters Cannot Read

In its new study of tax burdens, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms what recent Tax Foundation research has shown: 40 percent of Americans pay no income tax.

Iran Focus-News - Nuclear - Iran warns Israel on pre-emptive strikes

On Monday, it threatened to attack Israel's nuclear reactor at Dimona if Israel tried to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities as it did Saddam Hussein's Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981 - often held up as the model for effective pre-emptive action.

Why can't we all just get along? This is crazy!

Iran Focus-News - Special Wire - Girl, 16, hanged in public in Iran for “sharp tongue”.

On Sunday, August 15, a 16-year-old girl in the town of Neka, northern Iran, was executed. Ateqeh Sahaleh was hanged in public on Simetry Street off Rah Ahan Street at the city center.

The sentence was issued by the head of Neka’s Justice Department and subsequently upheld by the mullahs’ Supreme Court and carried out with the approval of Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Shahroudi.

In her summary trial, the teenage victim did not have any lawyer and efforts by her family to recruit a lawyer was to no avail. Ateqeh personally defended herself. She told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii, that he should punish the main perpetrators of moral corruption not the victims.

The judge personally pursued Ateqeh’s death sentence, beyond all normal procedures and finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court. After her execution Rezai said her punishment was not execution but he had her executed for her “sharp tongue”.

Let’s not unfairly malign the Religion of Peace. After all, the article notes that the judge exceeded his authority. But he hanged the child anyway, in the name of Allah the merciful and the kind. We’d better get used to this, because once Iran has the bomb we’re all going to live in this kind of a society.

Breaking up is hard to do

... With no effective power – no national bureaucracy, no national police, no national army – even if the elections bring forth a clear winner, he will have great difficulty consolidating power.
Not only does democracy not grow overnight, but nation states don't, either.

Lot of Americans died (I think, about 10,000, but who is counting?) -- and we are still there! When will we ever learn! Will we ever learn?

Spam's ethics

One basis for this definition is a traditional Talmudic understanding of the commandment "Do not covet" – one of the Ten Commandments. This prohibition forbids coveting the possessions of others, but it raises the question of when exactly does "interest" or "desire" cross the line into "coveting"?

Israel earns judo bronze ... this is good news!

An Olympic Competitor Boycotts Israel, with Impunity - Franklin Foer

Rather than compete against an Israeli, Iranian judo champion Arash Miresmaeili quit the Olympics entirely. As the jukoda told the Iranian government's official news service: "I refuse to fight my Israeli opponent to sympathize with the suffering of the people of Palestine." Under Olympic protocol, such ad hoc political boycotts are forbidden. This is a typical tale. Israel continually suffers sporting boycotts, and officials, Olympic and otherwise, continually turn a blind eye toward this injection of politics into sport. If international sports officials wanted to, they could easily stamp out the anti-Israel boycott. (Wall Street Journal)

I'm not one that often reads or agrees with the opinions of the WSJ, but the International sports officials aren't going to stamp out the anti-Israel stuff. If they did they would never have accepted the "story" that Arash Miresmaeili ate too much gaining too much weight and granting an automatic disqualification.

Islamic group claims responsibility for Jewish center attack

Arson is suspected as fire razed a Jewish community center in eastern Paris before dawn on Sunday. Graffiti with anti-Semitic messages such as "Jews get out" were found, police said. No one was hurt as flames tore through the center on the first floor of a six-story building.

Here is what Natan Sharanksy said according to JPost:

"In France the radical Left and the intelligentsia demonize and deligitimize the very existence of Israel... There is a very close connection between that and the existence of anti-Semitism. The government of France doesn't want to acknowledge that and even denies it. Until they see the connection between the demonization of Israel and the deligitimization of Israel, the anti-Semitism will continue, even though they are truly, honestly doing more to combat anti-Semitism than any other government in Europe."

NY Times article Neo-Nazis in Paris Vandalize and Burn a Jewish Community Center

In July, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel set off a minor diplomatic crisis between France and Israel after he urged French Jews to move to Israel to escape the growing anti-Semitism. He later revised his remark to say that Jews should move to Israel because it is their homeland.

According to statistics from the Interior Ministry, there have been 135 acts of physical violence against Jews so far this year and 95 against Arabs and other ethnic groups, though there are nearly 10 times as many Arabs as Jews in France.

On Aug. 14, vandals drew a swastika and wrote "Death to the Jews" on a low wall in front of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris.

France has toughened punishments for anti-Semitic and racist crimes. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, visiting the scene of the attack on Sunday, said the
arsonists could face life in prison under the new law.

The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France issued a statement urging the authorities "to promptly arrest and sanction in an exemplary manner the perpetrators of this odious act that besmirches France."

Going to Paris in January again sounds okay, because-- if we don't go soon, it be ruined?

Financial Advice From Stockbrokers


NY Times Opinion
August 18, 2004
Financial Advice From Stockbrokers

Beware of stockbrokers bearing investment advice. In a regulatory misadventure now five years in the running, the Securities and Exchange Commission has exempted stockbrokers from the standards faced by registered financial advisers. This comes at a time when the distinction between the two has become increasingly fuzzy, as the brokerage industry shifts from a commission-driven model to a fee-based one in which brokers typically proffer advice as well as stocks.

That is largely a positive development because it reduces a broker's incentive to trade excessively simply to generate commissions, but it can also give people a false sense of security. While brokers are required to recommend investments suitable to a particular client, they are not subject to the broader obligations imposed on other financial planners. These include financial planners' duty to act in their clients' best interests and to disclose more information about their qualifications, disciplinary actions taken against them and any conflicts of interest.

The S.E.C., unfortunately, has ignored the objections of financial planners and consumer groups while reassuring the securities' industry that its brokers are safe from enforcement action under the investment adviser law. Fed up with the double standard, the Financial Planning Association, the membership organization for financial planners, has filed a suit in federal court asking the S.E.C. to withdraw the regulatory exemption for brokers who act as financial planners. The association deserves to prevail. Washington has taken up a raft of reforms affecting stock market participants in recent years, but the effort to protect individual investors will remain unfinished until the brokers who act as financial advisers are treated as such by law.

I have been saying this, but finally we read this in the NY Times. I will hand this out in my class this week and every week. Sorry, but this is big news. Not the SEC's proposal, not the FPA lawsuit, but the NY Times weighs in.

Legal Challenge to SEC's Broker-Dealer Rule

Nearly 250 comments letters have been written to the SEC, and more than 95 percent are opposed. These consumer groups include the Consumer Federation of America, AARP, and Fund Democracy. The head of FPA said at the national press club:

I urge you to talk to others who are strongly opposed to this rule. I think you will find there is strong consensus by all of us on this issue. When you examine the overall effect of this rule on investors, I think you will realize that financial planners, investment advisers and consumers share a common concern – that the rule creates a double standard for the delivery of financial planning and investment advice to the American public.

Let's level the playing field-- if you give investment advice and are in the business of doing that so you get paid for investment advice -- then you are an investment adviser-- plain and simple!

I don't usually take political sides (or do i?) in the blog, but the facts in the editorial below caught my attention...

Best Wishes, Phyllis

From The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com Featured Article today:

Liberal Loopholes
Edwards and Kerry want to raise taxes, but aren't wild about paying them.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

In embracing John Edwards, John Kerry has also endorsed his populist "two Americas" rhetoric and has put tax increases at the center of the election campaign. So it's fair to ask the two Democrats: How much of those tax increases will actually hit the super-rich like yourselves, and how much will end up on the backs of upper middle-class wage earners?

For an answer, let's look at what the two Senators have themselves been paying in taxes. It turns out that the Kerrys and Edwards have exploited plenty of tax loopholes over the years. Of course, nobody is obligated to pay more than what the letter of the law requires. But the complex tax code benefits the wealthy, who can afford tax attorneys and complicated schemes to skirt the law. And high marginal rates give them plenty of incentive to do so.

Senator Edwards talks about the need to provide health care for all, but that didn't stop him from using a clever tax dodge to avoid paying $591,000 into the Medicare system. While making his fortune as a trial lawyer in 1995, he formed what is known as a "subchapter S" corporation, with himself as the sole shareholder.

Instead of taking his $26.9 million in earnings directly in the following four years, he paid himself a salary of $360,000 a year and took the rest as corporate dividends. Since salary is subject to 2.9% Medicare tax but dividends aren't, that meant he shielded more than 90% of his income. That's not necessarily illegal, but dodging such a large chunk of employment tax skates perilously close to the line.

The Internal Revenue Service takes a dim view of such operations and "may collapse the structure entirely and argue the S corporation is not truly a separate entity," in the words of Tax Adviser magazine. Attorney CPA magazine lists it as No. 11 of its "15 best underutilized tax loopholes," but warns that the IRS "has successfully litigated cases against individuals, particularly sole shareholders of personal service S corporations, reclassifying such deemed distributions as wages subject to social security taxes."

As a political matter, the dodge is especially hypocritical because the income limits on which Medicare taxes are paid were lifted by Democrats in 1993 specifically to hit "the rich," as Mr. Edwards likes to call people in his tax bracket. And the supreme irony? Mr. Edwards has claimed that he set up the subchapter S company to protect himself from legal liability. You know it's time for tort reform when even the trial lawyers say they're afraid of getting sued.

Senator Kerry's personal finances are not so complicated, since most of his income comes from his government salary and a modest inheritance. But he owes his jet-setting lifestyle and indeed some of his political success to the wealth of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. Her personal assets have been estimated at up to $3.2 billion, and the couple travel among their five houses scattered around the U.S. on a $35 million Gulfstream V jet. During a tough election for the Senate in 1996, Mr. Kerry sidestepped a gentleman's agreement with opponent William Weld to limit the spending of personal wealth on either side to $500,000 by having his campaign borrow $1.7 million from his wife.

Mrs. Heinz Kerry's finances remain largely a closed book, since she has so far refused to release her tax returns. What we do know so far is that she has prepaid $750,000 in federal taxes on $5.1 million in income for 2003--an effective tax rate of 15%. That is because a significant portion of the income came from tax-free municipal bonds, which is perfectly legal.

Even so, her net income must be much higher. We know that since the death of her husband John Heinz in 1991, Mrs. Heinz Kerry has invested shrewdly and possibly even doubled her inheritance. Even if one takes a conservative estimate of her net worth, say $1 billion, an income of $5.1 million means a paltry return of just 0.5%. More likely, the majority of her investment income is sheltered within trusts so that tax is deferred until she or her family actually wants to spend it. Again, perfectly legal, but this is a luxury that the average middle-class professional working for a wage does not have. These are the non-rich who will pay the bulk of any Kerry tax increase.

So when John Kerry and John Edwards say that they want to tax the wealthiest Americans, let's be clear about what they really mean. They want to tax the most productive people at higher marginal rates and close loopholes for corporations, while they themselves dodge taxes by exploiting loopholes they plan to preserve.

Mr. Edwards is right that there really are two Americas. The people who work for their money and want to keep more of their own paychecks. And wealthy politicians who want to raise taxes on the middle class secure in the knowledge that they won't have to pay.

Health care is one of the nation's most critical issues. Mounting federal and state budget deficits make untenable the additional allocations of GDP necessary to fund universal health insurance. Health Saving Account (HSA) is known as the sleeper in the drug bill.

Rising health care costs, a relatively long recession, rising unemployment, and growing number of uninsured Americans makes health insurance on the of the national consciousness. Today's health care crisis is distinguished from others because of its impact on a vocal, visible and voting constituency - the employed middle-class.

Small-business owners can offer workers a high-deductible health insurance plan in conjunction with a Health Saving Account (HSA) and often save money in the process. The purpose of an HSA is to shift more cost to the worker and from the employer. Grant’s younger, healthier clients use insurance only for major medical expenses, but the public has gotten used to having medical insurance pay for everything.

One relatively unexplored area is using HSAs primarily as a savings vehicle - they are the only account that allows money to be withdrawn federal tax free and deducted when it is contributed. Clients who are well off can pay high deductibles without tapping into HSA, and let the money accumulate.

HSAs may well be the most important provision of the recently enacted Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. HSAs substantially reduce the distinctions between employer-financed health insurance and pensions or other employer contributions to tax-sheltered retirement saving. Tax treatment of HSAs is more favorable than that accorded to qualified pensions, 401(k) plans, IRAs, or other "tax-sheltered" saving. By reducing the barriers between health insurance and retirement saving, HSAs should cause many employers to reexamine the form and composition of both health and pension benefits. In particular, many employers may find it attractive to adopt high-deductible insurance and deposit into HSAs amounts at least equal to the gap between the old, low-deductible and the new, higher deductible and pay for the added cost of that shift through cutbacks in defined-contribution pension deposits. However, HSAs will NOT have a large impact on total health care spending....

Israeli gymnast on his way to all-around final

Judo: Iran vs Israel Israel wins. Iran gets to lose. Israelis win each refused match by default.


Judo: Tehran Defiant as Israel Urges Penalty

Judo Federation delays discussing Iranian judoka affair

said he wouldn't fight an Israeli opponent deliberately avoided the first-round bout by showing up overweight.

Iran does not recognize and bans any contact with Israel.

Political row as Iran snub Israel in judo

Olympic judo officials met in emergency session to decide how to handle the challenge but could not reach a conclusion.

Further discussions are scheduled for today. Meantime, the International Olympic Committee declined comment on the invasion of bitter Middle East politics threatening the Olympic ideal.

Bush/GOP info

The GOP National Committee announced today that it is changing the Republican emblem from an elephant to a condom because it more clearly reflects the party's political stance: A condom stands up to inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives one a sense of security while screwing others.

It was also reported today that at a White House staff meeting last week there was a heated discussion about the health of Vice President Cheney and his angina problem. President Bush interrupted and stated emphatically that "Men do not have angina's." The president was especially perplexed when a staffer said that Cheney has "acute angina."

KERRY, Israel, Jews, and the Middle East

"With the various right and left arms of the Israeli-
Jewish lobby firmly in control of both political parties in the
U.S...'the lobby' is assured that the key positions at the
White House, Congress, the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom,
and CIA will always be held by already-approved members
of their club.... Maybe even more importantly to the
Israelis, no one unacceptable to them can ever get
a top policy job in today's Washington the way
things have been arranged and organized."

MER - The Case Against George W. Bush:

"The Bush Administration cannot be trusted...
George W. Bush and his administration have taken normal
mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience...
They traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic
small lies, and ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself.
They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on."
Ron Reagan

MSN Careers - 6 Business Lessons From Martha Stewart - Career Advice Article

Believe in Yourself
Although she grew up in a troubled working class family, Martha knew she was destined for greater things. In her high school yearbook she wrote: "I do what I please, and I do it with ease." But things didn't come without difficulty. She had to sew her own clothes and work as a model and a maid to put herself through Barnard College. In 1968, when female stockbrokers were almost unheard of, she landed a job on Wall Street and became one the firm's top salespeople. Even later in her career, after she had published books and a monthly magazine, Martha had to fight to get her own television show. Executives cringed when they saw the pilot, but she persevered, and the rest is history!

Have Vision/Seize Opportunity
At a time when record numbers of women were working outside the home, Martha was one of the first to see the opportunity that existed in providing them an escape back into the domestic details of life. Her entrepreneurial career began with The Uncatered Affair, a catering service that made it appear that the hosts had prepared the food themselves, and it culminated in a cross-platform, multimedia business structure that no one has been able to duplicate.

Focus on your Goals
As Martha declared in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, "I can almost bend steel with my mind...I can make myself do almost anything." Martha never went into an endeavor saying, "Gee, I wonder how this will work out?" She always had the attitude: "I will do this, now what is the best way to go about it?"

Present Yourself with Style
Stewart has admitted that wearing hot pants helped make her a star on Wall Street. And it was her cool, well-scrubbed and low-key style that helped her become the arbiter of gracious living. From her kitchen products to her magazine, everything is designed with clean lines, colors and phrases that are soothing, yet authoritative.

Work Hard/Know Your Business
When Martha bought her now-famous house on Turkey Hill Road, it was literally a blighted property. She renovated it almost completely on her own. In his book, Martha, Inc. The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Omnimedia, Christopher Byron writes of how impressed K-Mart executives were at just how intimately involved Martha was in the day-to-day running of her enterprises: "Beneath the veneer of Greenwich-like gentility, beyond the rolling lawns and the staged holiday buffets, was a woman willing to get up at dawn, feed 120 chickens and goats, double-spade the flower beds, spread out 5,000 pounds of pine bark and peat moss and not come back inside until everything in sight looked exactly and perfectly like it ought to look."

Keep Your Perspective
Ironically, it may be this drive for perfection – combined with a dash of hubris and a sprinkling of bad judgment – that eventually undermined her. Those who know her say that because of her single-minded focus on her business, she lost touch with the outside world and didn't even bother trying to relate to those around her. It became normal practice for her to end conversations by simply walking away or hanging up the phone. Stories abound of her swearing at and berating her staff, refusing to pay vendors – even trying to mow down her neighbors' landscaper in her car! And in the end, she risked her billion dollar empire to save $43,000 in a stock trade.

Whatever her imperfections, few have managed to conceive of and execute as successful a brand and business enterprise. Fewer still have become billionaires doing work most considered insignificant and unprofitable. Martha Stewart is a both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Report Finds Tax Cuts Heavily Favor the Wealthy: "The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090.
The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush's tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers. Those are also the people, however, who pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes"

Spin of the Day: "Two new opinion polls show that Arab anger at the United States has deepened - 'to such an extent that in Egypt - an important ally in the region - nearly 100 percent of the population now holds an unfavorable opinion of the country,' reports the Washington Post's Dafna Linzer. The polls were conducted by Zogby International, which did similar polling two years ago. 'In Zogby's 2002 survey, 76 percent of Egyptians had a negative attitude toward the United States, compared with 98 percent this year,' Linzer writes. 'In Morocco, 61 percent viewed the country unfavorably in 2002, but in two years, that number has jumped to 88 percent. In Saudi Arabia, such responses rose from 87 percent in 2002 to 94 percent in June. Attitudes were virtually unchanged in Lebanon but improved slightly in the [United Arab Emirates], from 87 percent who said in 2002 that they disliked the United States to 73 percent this year.'"

As Middle East historian Juan Cole observes, this marks a significant change in attitude from the last year of the Clinton administration, when the U.S. favorability rating in some Middle Eastern countries was as high as 75%. "Even after the Afghanistan war, a third of Jordanians thought well of the US," Cole writes. "Now almost no one anywhere does. These changes in attitude (which greatly benefit al-Qaeda) are mostly the result of [the] war on, and occupation of Iraq."