Tag Archives: Taxes

What’s to “Like” about the Facebook IPO

  By Carl | May 27, 2012 - 10:21 am | Uncategorized
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I have to tell you I feel for a lot of people on the Facebook IPO. Let me walk through my thoughts in as organized a manner as a maniac can get.

First of all I am proud of the general consumer of stock. A lot of Wall Street was expecting Facebook Frenzy and thought that the demand was going to give them a lot of people wanting Facebook at any price so the traders are the ones that have been hurt the most by the IPO. Given the fact that Wall Street continues to not recognize the pain on main street, maybe this can help them get on the Cluetrain.

Secondly, I feel for the employees of Facebook. In the past on another stock, I made the mistake of not declaring the value of my stock until required by law. The result was that my shares were valued at the price of the opening as income. The result at the end was that I owed the government 75% of the value of the stock by the time I sold it. (And Yet I am still a Liberal). My expectation is the Facebook employees will have a lot of guys like me in their mix, so I feel for them. This includes Eduardo Saverin who is trying to solve the problem of paying to much.

Third, I feel for NASDAQ and Morgan Stanley who were suppose to have a shining moment and ended up with egg on their face. These opportunities to learn from your mistake often come at the price of executives being removed, or worse the blame being misplaced. Either way, I feel for those involved.

Now for those of us still interested in investing in Facebook the stock restrictions end in about 85 days. I would say wait until those who were as ignorant as I and not as smart as Eduardo, sell to pay their taxes.
Then you can buy the stock. Don’t be surprised if that dip brings it down into the teens. Their a lot of people with stock and taxes to cope with.

And I feel for those people who are paying those taxes the most, since I am sure they will not see the benefits of being good citizens, just the cost.

And for those in that pain, I want you to know that I am “like” you.

Go Figure: Solving the Deficit.

  By Carl | November 15, 2010 - 8:22 am | Opinion
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The time has come the Walrus said to speak of many things,

The New York Times has put up an interactive deficit model that I find very helpful in discussing the Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson proposals on ending the deficit.

When I looked at what I could live with I found the mix was pretty good at 65% Spending Cut and 35% Revenue increases.

I could work to improve this more and the problem or runaway healthcare is still the biggest problem.

For me, this just proves that the Health Reform was the right move. As I sit and watch my family age, I am all to aware that the existing insurance models are broken.

Of course i have other suggestions on what can be done to solve the deficit not listed on the system, but my two favorite topics are there. The amount of troops we have stationed around the world and the amount of farm subsidies we have that are seriously off track.

When my friends talk to me about Welfare states, I wonder if they realize that these two expenditures are the same kind of problem.

If you want to have a positive conversation start with the simple question, what is the baseline we want to achieve. If we want people to stand on there own two feet who can and give them aid when they can’t. That’s a good place to look at the big picture.

By the way, I may sound liberal, but according to the Libertarians, I am only a left leaning centrist.

Go Figure. Literally, I mean go to the link and go figure.