Volume 2 Issue 52
April 15, 2003
Tax Day!
More talk of Syria, waiting for the FEC reports, and a grand old lady of the seas will sail again.
Happy Tax Day!
The throngs are out in front of the main DC post office across from where I work today. I think I saw the Larouche people, as well as the anti-tax Libertarians. That must be a fun conversation. At least it's a nice day to wait in a line that stretches around the block!
Though my taxes are done, some stuff at work ain't, so no rant today, enjoy the insanity!
Taxes: Oh, and here is a good piece on why taxes are important, lest you need reminding today -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26667-2003Apr14.html
I love Damascus in April...: Israel would kindly like the US to take out Syria. Um...Ariel, why don't you do it yourself? You have a big army... -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-647404,00.html
The British praised the Syrian President though, also known as sending a signal to the US that they won't help in an attack on them -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-647500,00.html
Where's Saddam? The British say he's still in Iraq -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-646987,00.html
American's Love a Winner: Bush's approval rating has hit 73%. But that ain't what he had after 9/11, and no where near what 41 had in 1991 -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/15/national/15POLL.html?pagew anted=all&position
Is Looting Good? One economist argues that the looting that took place in Iraq is mostly a good thing, as it helps to spread the wealth around -
http://slate.msn.com/id/2081469/
Here they come: NBC is trying to be the first to make a movie about rescued POW Jessica Lynch...even though we don't know half the details about her capture yet -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/international/worldspecial /10LYNC.html
NBC plans to do the project even if they don't get rights from the family. They can do this because no one actually owns the movie rights to their lives...a good explanation -
http://slate.msn.com/id/2081488/
Hunting Down Treasures: The British Museum, famous most for looting treasures from colonies, is now helping to find the looted artifacts from Iraq's Museum of Antiquities -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-647085,00.html
Look Who's Running for President: The first quarter fundraising numbers go final today, as the candidates file with the FEC, who is supposed to post the reports online almost immediately. In addition to getting the amounts from the candidates we haven't heard from yet, ABC's The Note put up a good list of what to look for. Some highlights:
Here's what we'll be looking for:
(a) Is anyone flying on corporate planes? If so, which corporations are playing?
(b) How demographically broad are the donor bases for the candidates? How diverse are they? Are they all lawyers? All Brahmans? All New Yorkers?
(c) How much has each candidate taken out of his or her homestate? How geographically diverse is their donor base?
(d) How much money is everyone spending on staff and salaries and consultants? There will be particular focus on Senator Kerry because he is said by some to have been unusually free spending.
(e) What is the current "burn rate" of the campaigns? This is a subset of question (d), but the point is that the level of expenditures in January and February is not really important — its the level of expenditures in March that is much more predictive of what will happen on the expense side in the second quarter. The focus on the three-month expenditure numbers in 1999 led some to miss just how much Gore spending was soaring, because basically Gore spent very little in the first two months of 1999, but began to escalate in March of that year — which set the stage for a Gramm-like second-quarter spending spree.
(f) What vendors are being used? Have any of the campaigns turned on their telephone and/or direct mail operations big time?
(g) How many donors have maxed out by giving $2000? How many spouses and adult children have bundled together?
(h) Assuming the campaigns are going to take matching funds, then who has a large number of low dollar donors and thereby will generate a large match? It is sort of the opposite of question (g). This issue is particularly acute now that the match value has been cut in half by the increased individual donation limit from $1,000 to $2,000. Someone could have $7 million that will yield an $800,000 match; someone else could have $7 million that yields a $7 million match. The spread in match yield will be much wider in 2004 than it was in 2000.
(i) Which donors have given to more than one candidate?
...
(k) Who has the coolest celebrity donors?
(l) Who has how much cash on hand?
(m) Does anyone look like they'll be able to raise enough to forego matching funds? Look at how many maxed out potential "Pioneers" there are.
(n) How much is raised in chunks of less than $200 (which will probably show up as unitemized contributions) which usually indicates strong Internet and/or mail operations....
(p) How "Jewish" is Lieberman's donor group? If not so much, where is the Jewish money going? Is Steve Grossman capable of delivering Jewish cash for Dean?
(q) Is there big gay dollar support for Dean?...
(s) Who has spent the most in New Hampshire already? In Iowa? If these candidates are going to accept the federal match, they will eventually hit the spending caps in the key states, and everyone wants to save as much as they can for TV and radio at the end. On the other hand, campaigns can really fudge the state by state spending totals at this stage. Do any of the candidates actually see an advantage in telling the voters of a state/or their opponents they're spending money there?
(t) Are there any financial footprints that show that Gephardt is supporting the effort to move up Michigan?
(u) Has anyone gotten $1 from a labor PAC?
Look for details in the media tommorow...and of course I'll share some with you here!
Look Who's Running for President 2: Howard Dean released his tax returns today. No word if the other members of the ballclub will do so -
http://www.adn.com/24hour/politics/story/854017p-5983810c.html
Other Elections: The separatists have gone down in a landslide defeat in Quebec's provincial elections, as the movement to secede from Canada seems to have died out for now -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2948401.stm
The Liberal Government now will have to show it can preserve Quebec's culture as a part of a federal Canada -
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/Quebec/2003/04/14/64902 -cp.html
Whoops: And these people want to run the whole student loan program??? From the Chronicle of Higher Ed -
Officials at Sallie Mae acknowledged to The Chronicle on Monday that they have inadvertently undercharged 800,000 borrowers because of an error in the installation of a computer program the company uses to calculate monthly payments. As a result, the company, which is the largest financier of federal student loans, will be sending letters to these borrowers over the next month, alerting them to the mistake and telling them that they must make larger monthly payments to finish repaying their loans on schedule.
The borrowers who have been affected are those who had agreed to pay back their loans over the standard 10-year term. Because of the error, those borrowers have been paying too little each month to completely pay off their loans in that time period.
Sallie Mae officials said they did not believe that the increase in payments would be too burdensome for most of the borrowers. Ninety percent of the borrowers, these officials said, will have a monthly-payment increase of $40 or less. These officials said they did not know how many borrowers would see their payments grow by $100 or more, but Congressional aides -- who had been briefed by Sallie Mae officials after they heard about the problem from The Chronicle -- estimated that 2 percent of the borrowers would see their payments grow by that magnitude...
Company officials say it took them several months to build a new computer program to determine what the proper monthly payments should be and then to determine how best to resolve the problem.
It took them several months to do the math? Should these people really be involved in one of the largest government programs?
Another Reason not to like the Slots: As a casino purist, I hate these new slots only parlors that states are opening...and now its getting worse...coinless slot machines are now the rage -
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/5634139.htm
Some Good News: The SS United States, the fastest passenger liner ever built, will be restored to its former glory and sail again as part of a new US Flag Fleet being built by Norwegian Cruise Lines -
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/04/15/historic.cruise.ship.ap /index.html
http://www.ncl.com/news/pr041403.htm
Watch out for hamsters! An AP wire story about a new shark exhibit in Baltimore has this line in it -
Shark attacks are extremely rare. People are more likely to be injured by a hamster or killed by lightning than by a shark.
Glad you know that, huh?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22426-2003Apr14.html
Have a great day! Enjoy paying those taxes!
