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August 31, 2005
Leases, Capital and Operating
... or, don't make me think so fast! Today's ACC455 in-class exercise had us figuring out the classification, and crunching the numbers, for a hypothetical capital lease, and looking at how the lessee and lessor account for such a lease. This class is one that does not allow any daydreaming -- the material comes at you pretty fast, so you have to stay focused on the task at hand. Fortunately, Dr. Wilburn sticks fairly close to the material as presented in the text, so you get two chances to absorb it.
This afternoon's ACC456 class will be talking about partnerships -- a useful discussion in light of the fact that Kafalas.com is an LLC, which is not exactly a partnership but shares a lot of the characteristics of one.
Posted by Urbie at 02:54 PM | Comments (1)
August 30, 2005
Tax Class, Day 1
Today was the first day of tax class, ACC375. One of the first points the instructor (Dr. Bob Kilpatrick) made was one that should be familiar to anyone who has ever filled out a tax return: one should not expect tax law to follow any logical pattern. There may have been some underlying rationale in the beginning, but at this point, it's all politics. A good example of this is the "sunset" provision of the estate tax, whereby the tax goes down, then goes away entirely in 2010, then comes back in 2011 -- but to where it was in 2001, not 2010. This was the compromise that was reached in order to get the tax eliminated. Presumably, Congress will enact a permanent elimination before 2011 -- but who can say for sure?
Another point of confusion resulted from the discussion of progressive, proportional, and regressive taxes. In popular parlance, a regressive tax is one that taxes a higher percentage of your income if you're poor and a lower percentage of you're rich (e.g., the sales tax). But in tax class, a sales tax is considered proportional, because it's not your income we're considering as the tax base -- it's the dollars being taxed. A "regressive" tax, in the formal sense, is much less common -- something like the FICA Social Security tax, or similar "capped" levies.
Posted by Urbie at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2005
Let the fun begin!
This morning was the first day of Accounting 455, "The last of the popular series of Financial Accounting courses," as my instructor put it. (For those who may be new, this is at the Northern Arizona University College of Business Administration.) ACC455, Financial Reporting III, used to be called Advanced Accounting, and I can see why -- it's definitely going to require heavy-duty concentration from Day 1. We started right in, with capital and operating leases and how they're accounted for. We'll do more on that, followed by pensions.
I can see this is going to be tough. By the 400-level, the B-team of accounting students have been winnowed out, so we've got only the smart kids left. I count myself as one of the smart kids, of course, but the grading curve is going to be high. We'll make it, though.
Posted by Urbie at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
Paying for radio -- who'da thunk it?
I admit it -- I was skeptical about satellite radio. But since Meg subscribed to Sirius a couple of month ago, I've had to do a flip-flop, because they provide a lot of value for the money. Most of the channels aren't of much interest to me, but there are several that offer good music, old radio shows, and other content that makes the subscription worth it. And it has a screen that tells you the artist and name of each selection -- that's a great feature, and it allows the DJ to stay in the background most of the time.
Who would have thought that people would pay for radio? Certainly not me. But commercial radio has become such a vast wasteland of nothing, that there is essentially no point in listening to it at all today. The pop stations play the same half-dozen songs over and over, the commercials are ever louder and more annoying, and you can't hardly find a decent classical station anymore, even on public radio. (KNAU, the classical station in Flagstaff, is a real-life version of P.D.Q. Bach's "Wall-to-wall Pachelbel" concept.)
So the satellite radio entrepreneurs came along and said, "OK, if you're fed up with the total lack of content on the air, here's some good stuff, if you don't mind paying for it." And people are paying for it. And I can see why. I'm a little annoyed that I sold my stock in Sirius -- I had it a couple of years ago, at around $1.50 a share, and as of this morning, it's trading at $6.57. I think I had 1,000 shares, so you can do the math on that one. (I sold all my stocks about two years ago, when it became apparent that I was in for a long period of career retrenchment here in Flagstaff. But that's beyond the scope of this discussion.)
But in any case, I can see why people are jumping on the satellite radio bandwagon.
Posted by Urbie at 09:17 AM | Comments (2)
August 06, 2005
Class action suits -- why bother?
I recently received a check in the mail, for $0.41 (that's "ZERO DOLLARS AND 41/100") from the Boehr Settlement Administrator of Faribault, Minnesota. The check was in payment of my share of a class-action settlement in response to a suit brought by one Christopher Boehr against American Express Centurion Bank (I used to have one of their credit cards, but I cancelled it about a year ago.)
Here's a story about the settlement:
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2005/07/25/editorial3.html
Apparently, American Express Centurion Bank was charging late fees even if you paid your bill on the due date, if the payment didn't arrive by 10:00am. While this is obviously not a practice designed to generate consumer satisfaction, it did generate a fair amount of late-fee revenue for the bank.
So this guy Boehr sues them on behalf of some huge number of class participants -- and then, when the case is settled, he gets a huge chunk of cash, while those of us who were actually affected by the bank's policies get 41 cents apiece.
I've received several class-action settlement notices in the past ten years, since I bought a '74 Chevy pickup truck. It's usually pretty much the same pattern: some lawyer has identified a design flaw (real or imagined) in the truck, which may or may not have caused any real harm to anyone -- but in any event, he has brought legal action against GM, and they've responded by offering a certain amount of money to make him go away. One of the settlements, if I recall, offered a $1,000 discount on the purchase of any new GM truck. Like I'm going to go out and buy a new truck because of this settlement? If you walk into any Chevy truck dealer, any day of the week, and say, "I'll buy this truck if you give me $1,000 off," the salesman will say "SOLD!" and hand you a purchase contract. Thanks a lot, Mr. Class Action Attorney.
I haven't decided whether I'm going to cash this 41-cent check that's sitting on my desk. It's good until January 8, 2006, so I've got awhile to decide. Should I take the money and run -- to the post office, maybe, to buy a stamp?
I'd like to know how much money Boehr got out of the deal....
Posted by Urbie at 04:37 PM | Comments (2)
August 02, 2005
Nikos Dimitriadis, "Solo Oud"
I just got a recent CD by a Greek oud player named Nikos Dimitriadis. (For those who might be unfamiliar with the oud, it's a stringed instrument similar to the bouzouki or the lute. The oud is played primarily in Middle Eastern countries: Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, as well as Greece.) The instrument Dimitriadis plays has 11 strings: 10 of them are arranged in pairs, with the bottom one tuned alone.
Dimitriadis, who hails from Thessaloniki, plays seven selections on the CD, four labeled "Taqasim" and the rest, "Instrumental." The liner notes indicate that the former are "extemporisations," with the latter being compositions based on 4- or 5-note motives. All of the selections, however, present ample opportunity for improvisation and expressive playing. Each tends to be based around one particular harmony -- I'm not sure how to describe some of it, but there's a lot of Dorian mode in there, and a lot of altered scales with augmented seconds and diminished fifths all over the place.
If you like Spanish guitar or Middle Eastern folk music, you'll like "Solo Oud." It's very listenable, not at all difficult for the Western ear. Dimitriadis displays a very accomplished technique; his command of the instrument shows throughout the CD, in seemingly effortless flights of improvisation. His technique, though, is always subordinate to the music he's playing, and the selections are fairly long, ranging from 5:13 to 16:06 -- Dimitriadis takes plenty of time to expand on the ideas present in each piece. It's good stuff.
You can get the CD directly from Dimitriadis at http://www.oud.gr -- he takes PayPal, and he'll ship you a CD anywhere in the world for $15.00. His Web site also has a lot of interesting information on the oud and other stringed instruments.
"Solo Oud" is Nikos Dimitriadis's first CD. Let's hope there'll be more!
Posted by Urbie at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)