Owning Common Stock

Approximately 47% of Americans own some common stock, usually through a retirement account of a particular mutual fund or funds, although you can also trade on the stock exchange for shares of common stock that appeal to you for one reason or another.  But what really does common stock represent?  I mean what is it that you are receiving for providing your hard-earned money to a mutual fund or for buying shares of Apple? 

First off, as you might expect, there are different types of stock, for instance, you might work for a company that issues you restricted stock, which typically means that until you have worked for that company for a certain number of months or years, that restricted stock is not available to you, because you have not accomplished the criteria for the restricted stock to be vested, but once vested, those restricted shares will become in essence the same as you owning common stock in said company and consequently material assets to you.  Additionally, there is preferred stock , as you might suspect just based on the name alone, preferred stock has more rights than common stock, such as the fact that in any insolvency of a company, it is the preferred stockholders that must be paid before any common stockholders receive a dime; additionally, whereas dividends are paid to common stockholders at the discretion of the board of directors to which they can increase or decrease or suspend the dividend, for preferred stockholders the dividend is paid regularly, and should that dividend be missed for any reason, because that dividend is guaranteed by the virtue of owning preferred stock, preferred stockholders will receive any mandated dividend payments before any dividends can be paid to common stockholders.

Companies may also issue different classes of stock, to which one stock class "A" will have greater voting rights than another stock class "B".  Although both classes of stock will have the same claim upon the profits of the company and its dividend payments per share, having less of a voting right, usually substantially less at perhaps a 1:100 ratio, means that company insiders have typically majority control over the company's voting rights, and consequently means that they are never in a position to which their aggregate vote can be challenged by any outside parties, including especially the lower class stockholders.

So at the end of the day, what does the typical common stockholder really own, when he buys stock of a particular company?  He essentially owns the right to receive his just due from any dividends approved and issued by the Board of Directors of said company, voting rights per his ownership and share class status, typically the right to attend the corporation's annual shareholder meeting, also the right to a copy of the company's annual report, as well as the ability to trade in or out of the particular stock at his own volition.

So why buy shares of common stock in the first place?  Usually, this is done because there is a belief that said company will make more often than not a profit, demonstrate growth in sales, and issue dividends that in whole will push the stock price up so on an annual basis the overall return of your common stock will be at a greater rate or a better return than other investments that you could select such as CDs or bonds or real estate or whatever.  

Music is our Universal Language

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said that: "music is the universal language of mankind."   When the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" came out in 1977, the five-tone motif created was used in order to communicate and to demonstrate that the culture and life on planet earth was universal in nature and that it was a given that an alien culture in its mother-ship would be cognizant that the tonality of these notes were indicative of a civilization that was advanced and not primitive.  Previously, to this movie, who can forget the menacing warning of the two note musical pattern, from the blockbuster movie, "Jaws," indicative of an impending attack and stalking of the great white shark, which is absolutely unforgettable.

One must remember that there are myriad ways for mankind to communicate with one another, and that even the human language when spoken contains its own melodies or cacophony.  What is clear though in any conversation is that the tonality of the words being spoken and how they interplay with each other is extremely meaningful to the audience receiving these words, over and above the actual words themselves.  Music can express all of the basic human emotions such as love, amity, happiness, conflict, strife, disgust, and fear.  Hearing these emotions in music allows us to comprehend what the artist is trying to convey and to appreciate their effects upon us.

Music creates a sound, which comes to us as a vibration, creating the acoustics that we both hear with our ears while also relating to these vibrations with our mind.  While most music today is created by musical instruments, before the advent of these instruments, the music that was created previously was done by the chanting of our voice alone.  These chants were used not just as a communication device from one person to another or in conjunction with another, but as a voice chanting to our Godhead, to help to focus and to touch our higher consciousness.

The beauty about music is that it is understood almost innately by humans, that is to say, in general, if music contains consonant melodies we associate it with pleasure, whereas if it contains dissonance it is perceived as unpleasant.  It is music that we listen to or that we create that enables us to feel or to experience or to have expressed emotions that mean something intrinsically consequential to us.  It is music that allows us to feel that ineffable joy of being conscious of what we are and to proclaim that feeling or emotion to others or to our God himself.  Music is far more than mere entertainment or an expression of joy; it is the essence of the cosmic vibration that through our understanding of and devotion to allows us to become one.  Music is that universal language for us because it crosses all cultures and all peoples in its ability to impart basic emotions, feelings, information, and devotion from one party to another from this world to the next that is both ineffable and sweet.

Low Oil Prices

You would think that oil as a commodity would not be as volatile as it is, year after year, but oil, almost behaves more like a low-beta stock, as opposed to the most valuable commodity that the world has ever known.  For instance, taking a look over the last ten fiscal years, from 2005-2014, the average price of domestic oil in America on a yearly basis has ranged from a low in 2005 of $50.04/barrel to a high of $91.48 in 2008, with 2014, because of the recent precipitous slide in pricing estimated to be on track to be lower in aggregate price than either 2008 or 2013.  To get a better perspective on the price of oil, recognize that in 2005, the average price of oil as reported by inflationdata.com was $50.04 a barrel, which was the first year in the history of oil that the price of oil had exceeded $40/barrel on an annual basis, let alone the price of $50/barrel.  The recent sudden drop in oil prices is consequently not historically unfamiliar, nor should we expect this volatility to go away anytime soon. 

While there are some pundits that will argue that a reduction in crude oil pricing does both harm to our economy as well as to job creation, their reasoning is based on the premise that America produces a considerable amount of oil each year, employing indirectly or directly a few million people, there are fundamental factors to be acknowledged as to why this position is basically wrong.  For instance, in 2009, Exxon/Mobil made a profit of $19.42 billion, while this was a considerable drop off from 2008 in which their profit was a record $44.06 billion, this speaks volumes though about  the real cost of extracting oil and the profitability of the business in aggregate.  It also indicates, that large corporations, such as Exxon, recognized that because the price of oil can go up as well as down, that it behooves such a company to "hedge" their oil prices so as to normalize their earnings expectations.   It is this type of hedging that should be a matter of policy and principle for America's oil, shale oil, and fracking producers, and for those that haven't learned the lesson of the prudence of doing so, they will, one way or another.

Additionally, most people simply look upon lower oil prices as equating to lower gasoline prices and while this is most certainly true, the price of oil and its massive importance to our economy and to the pocketbook of Americans has far deeper ramifications than just gasoline for our vehicles.  For instance, crude oil, when refined and processed, will become plastics, detergent, heating oil, jet fuel, synthetic rubber, synthetic fabrics, fertilizers, food additives, medicine, paints as well as cosmetics.  All of this basically means, that the price of oil affects the pricing of the foregoing products and consequently lower oil prices is an almost certain unmitigated good.

Finally, while America which was once the greatest oil exporter in the world has recently found ways through hi-technology, equipment, and fracking to increase its domestic oil production to rates not seen in a generation, it is still a nation of petroleum importers.  According to the EIA.gov the "…the U.S. imported approximately 10.6 million barrels per day of petroleum in 2012 from about 80 countries. We exported 3.2 MMbd of crude oil and petroleum products, resulting in net imports (imports minus exports) equaling 7.4 MMbd."  Clearly, the United States is still a massive importer of petroleum products and consequently anytime that the price of oil drops, it is beneficial for Americans, because it leads to lower fuel prices as well as to lower pricing for petroleum based products.

He, who lives by the sword, must die by the sword

"Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." (Matthew 26:52).  This biblical passage carries an important lesson, both metaphorically as well as literally.  The fact that Jesus the Christ, could at the time of His hour, recognize and impart the truth that in His mission there was no place for Simon Peter to bring his own version of vigilante justice, but instead it was imperative that Peter understood the wisdom and placed his faith in God's law and justice, and not to rely on a tit-for-tat philosophy, demonstrated that Christ understood the fallacy of ever believing that the ends justify the means, or that fight was necessary to prove right.

Those that take up the physical sword in response to a perceived injustice, are destined to follow the sword's path which can only lead to further violence and bloodshed as well as often involving innocents into this display of arms that leaves a devastating trail of tears for many.  The Messiah wishes to impart the spiritual truth that man's way is often impulsive, retaliatory, quick to judgment, quick to justice, and lacks wisdom and faith in God himself.

There are many people that do not believe in the metaphorical wisdom that he, who lives by the sword, must die by the sword, because in their life they do not see this happening.  For instance, in everyday life, they may see a select few elites running riot over others, or an obvious physical injustice being perpetrated by one man against another, or the smooth talking of a slick con artist which fools a simple man.  All these are examples of people that are living one way, but appear to not to be suffering the consequences of their wrongful actions, in fact, they appear to be directly benefiting from them.

One must remember, however, that God is not a God that can be mocked, that for every wrong action there is an appropriate right action, and for every wrong, there is a path for righteousness.  Those that believe that you can fool God and God's law will in the end, receive their just desserts, as God's law is never subservient to man's designs or trickery.  So rest assured that the man that fooled and deceived you to get his way unjustly will ultimately face the music, one way or another, as God sees and comprehends it all, whereas man often only can perceive bits and pieces and thereby lacks knowledge of the bigger picture and of ultimate truth.

Peace and justice do not enter into the doors of this world through unjustified violence or knavery.  While there may indeed be a time to take up the sword, those that become beholden to the sword, miss the point that the sword in the hands of erring humans will often be used unwisely and to their ultimate destruction, should they not have the knowledge and wisdom to sheath the sword when its appropriate duty has been performed.  Our Messiah needed no human hands or weapons to defend Him, even to His death onto the cross, because the physical is never lord over the spiritual, as one is material and finite, while the other is indestructible and infinite. 

Choose today what you shall live to, as this becomes you.

E10 mixture vs. regular gasoline

Years ago when you filled up your vehicle with gasoline, the fuel that you bought was 100% gasoline.  However, upon the implementation of the Renewable FuelStandardAct of 2007, our gasoline has become blended with ethanol ,so that nowadays when filling up your car with gasoline, it is no longer just gasoline, but in actuality a blend of ethanol and gasoline, to wit the sign at the gas pump will state something to the effect that the gasoline that you are pumping "may contain up to 10% ethanol,"  which is known in the trade as E10, meaning that the blend is 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline.  While there are many arguments, pro and con, as to why we should or shouldn't be using ethanol as a fuel in America, that is a subject for a different day, instead the question being raised is E10 blended gasoline with an octane rating of 87 the same as regular gasoline at the octane rating of 87.  The answer is no.

First off, in order to create an octane mixture of 87 with regular gasoline, that mixture actually would contain gasoline at an octane rating of 84, blended with ethanol which has an octane rating of 113.  The fact that ethanol has a significantly higher octane rating than gasoline must imply that ethanol is the superior fuel, but in actuality octane does not equate to more power, more fuel efficiency or superiority in any way, but instead refers to the ignition quality of the gas, or in lay terms, the "knocking" of your car engine or the compression ratio necessary for your vehicle's sparkplugs and pistons to generate horsepower.  The octane that is necessary for any particular vehicle is listed in your owner's manual and while you can always trade up in octane, there isn't any valid reason to do so, whereas going down in octane from the recommendations of your owner's manual, will increase your risk of engine damage. 

In America, most vehicles that are sold run on an octane rating of 87, to which most of that gasoline that is sold for that octane, is a blend of 10% ethanol at an octane rating of 113, with 90% gasoline at an octane rating of 84, making for a combined octane rating of 87.  However, the fuel efficiency of an E10 gasoline blend is significantly less than the fuel efficiency of regular gasoline, a fact that most people are not cognizant of.  As reported by the midwestenergynews.com, the E10 blend has a lower BTU than regular gasoline, to the tune of 96.67% of gasoline's BTU, which means that E10 will get less gas mileage than regular gasoline and consequently should you be able to find a gas station that is actually selling regular gasoline without any blends to it, you can pay approximately 3.44% higher for that gasoline to achieve the same value for your dollar. 

In summary, E10 blended gasoline is not the same as regular gasoline in regards to fuel efficiency, it is inferior by about 3.33% which is the discount that you should receive for utilizing this fuel in your vehicle as compared to regular gasoline.  This means that your E10 blended gasoline will consistently get less gas mileage than regular gasoline, because this blended gas is inferior to regular gas for fuel efficiency.  America consumed 134,506,764,000 gallons of finished motor gasoline in 2013; one would hope that the environmental "benefits" of ethanol has made up for its inefficiency as a motor fuel.

Diego Garcia Island

As reported by the http://www.telegraph.co.uk the Diego Garcia Island is: "… a 17 sq. mile horseshoe-shaped atoll in the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago. It has a tropical climate with thick jungles and white sand beaches."  Initially, upon reading this, one might suppose that this must be some sort of tourist destination catering to the rich and famous and hardly newsworthy.  Unfortunately, it isn't, instead, from the years 1968-1973, the native Chagossians were forcefully deported by Great Britain which had become the principal colonial power of the Diego Garcia, upon the implementation of the Treaty of Paris in 1814.  Like anything, the immediate question to ask was why the approximately 1,500 Chagossians were deported from their island of residence?  The short answer is that the United States strongly desired to have a strategic presence in the Indian Ocean that would allow their military vital access to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.  Therefore the deportation of the peoples there was primarily done with the purpose of establishing an important strategic base without the annoyance of the indigenous people populating the island interfering with the base, and also creating possible compromised communications or inconvenient protests.

Since the time of the deportation, the Chagossians have lived in exile, and although they were given some money as a settlement for being re-located, they have also pursued various lawsuits in the fight to return to their land of their birth.  Not too surprisingly, the Chagossians have not been successful in their lawsuits and based upon the vested interests of both Great Britain and the United States, they will not be succeeding in returning to their homeland anytime soon, if ever.  Perhaps therefore one should simply look upon this incident as just another injustice perpetrated against innocent civilians, all for the purpose of the so-called "greater good" or simply for the convenience of Great Britain or its proxy, its designated lessee the United States being able to take possession of a strategically placed desirable location so that timely military force is capable of being applied against countries in the immediate region.

In a modern world in which colonial powers have voluntarily or through pressure relinquished their power and control of colonial countries and governments, the Diego Garcia deportation incident should follow this same pattern and consequently the Chagossians should be masters of their own fate.  Once and for all, the Chagossian people should be given a choice to return to their homeland with appropriate compensation and materials to rebuild their homes and lifestyle or instead to voluntarily surrender their right to return to their homeland on an individual basis.    Instead, Great Britain pushed through a Marine Protection Act for the Chagos archipelago which in essence, will preclude Chagossians from ever returning to their homeland, because the environmental protections of the marine reserve will stop them from being able to effectively fish the waters of their native land, should they be repatriated to their homeland.

In the United States lust for empire, it has no guilt, nor compunction, asserting itself against other sovereign peoples as if their way is the only way, the right way, and God's way.  It isn't.

Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone Speech

No doubt, most people are unaware of who Alexander Stephens was, but he was the first and the last Vice President of the Confederate States of America, who on March 21, 1861, at the Athenaeum in Savannah, GA made a extemporaneous speech which in its words and in its effects describes the founding principles of the Southern States and for what they stood for.  This speech puts to rest, forever, the so-called "lost cause" of the Confederacy, to which the South claims that their cause was both noble and chivalrous, and further that the South lost the war not because that they were in the wrong, but only because they could not overcome the uncouth North's numerical and industrial advantages which brought wanton destruction and depredations upon the South, that forever destroyed and upset the traditional and genteel ways of Southern life.

At the time of Stephens' speech, Abraham Lincoln had just been inaugurated only two weeks earlier in the month, so that when Stephens bragged that the "revolution ….been accomplished without the loss of a single drop of blood," the Southern attack upon Ft. Sumter had not yet been made, so that the absence of blood that Stephens referred to would be plentiful enough for the next bloody four years.  Further, in order to justify the Southern secession from the Union, Stephens drew upon the founding fathers of our country and was surprisingly candid in stating fairly and profoundly that: "The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. …Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it-when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."" Stephens makes two essential and critical admissions, the first is that our founding fathers believed completely in these words that "all men are created equal", and further that the Southern states upon ratifying the Constitution were in agreement in principle that slavery would over a period of time fade away from this great land, to which the Constitution stated that a tax or duty on the importation of persons may be permitted, beginning in the year 1808.  Subsequently to the enacted Constitution, a further Federal act was passed in 1807, forbidding the importation of slaves in 1807, which became effective in 1808.  In fact, slavery was in continual decline in the United States from the inception of our Independence until the advent of the cotton gin, which changed the economics and importance of slavery in fundamental ways.

Stephens went on to state that: "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition." This self-serving statement is demonstrative proof of the delusion of the South.  The United Kingdom had in 1833, outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire, in a time when the sun did not set on this empire.  The mistake that the United States had made was in their enactment of our Constitution there was assumed that over a period of time, and additionally through taxation and later through the prohibition of slave importation that slavery as an institution, would become marginalized, outdated, and outmoded, but instead new technology and the inherent greed of money making put a lie to that noble purpose.

The South, far from having a meaningful "lost cause" instead when defeated at the ballot upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, decided to rebel in order to skirt its attendant obligations and duties, and to instead impress upon people who had done them no wrong, that they were born to be forever enslaved to the Southern cause and to the Southern way, so that the Southern man could live well upon the bread and blood he had extracted unjustly from his fellow man.

Your Personal Computer is very personal in a very bad way

Seemingly, no matter what you do, even your own personal computer and its peripheral devices act as if it is your "big brother", most of the time without you even remotely being aware that this is happening.  For instance, most everyone has a printer in order to print out and to document items of importance, but that color printer, depending upon its make, inkjet or laser, and sophistication of said printer may easily have an invisible code that identifies that printer to the actual user.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) discovered that certain laser printers contained a coding pattern of virtually invisible yellow dots placed into an arrangement that shows: "…which printer was used to print a particular document, and sometimes also shows when it was printed."  The ostensible reason for the large conglomerate printer manufacturers to add this hidden tracking device onto their color printers is so as to help identify and to convict money counterfeiters, but in reality this sophistication can just as easily be used for sophisticated domestic surveillance and consequently to stifle or to compromise legal civil dissent that our government finds to be "inconvenient".

Most computers have a combined CD/DVD burner to which whenever a CD or DVD is created (burned) that CD or DVD probably will contain as part of that burning mechanism a unique sequence of numbers that identifies clearly the source of the CD or DVD which can then be consequently verified and cross-checked against the CD/DVD burner that resides within your personal computer.   Further, most blank CDs or DVDs contain within the center of the disc itself, coding information, that enables a government agency to determine where the batch came from, and subsequently perhaps even where they were purchase from or a general idea thereof.

Microsoft Office is America's most popular word processing and document creating platform, but contained within Word are tools that track the creation of a document which when unmasked will show changes/comments/corrections and dates that are all contained within the details of the document itself, which will also feature as wellthe original author information, and additionally in all probability a unique number or coding sequence assigned to the document which will probably identify the Word document against the purchased copy of Word itself. 

If you use your computer to download documents or media files, you may not be aware that this too is tracked by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to which the very fact that you have downloaded a file will be part of their database, identifying you through your unique Internet Protocol (IP) address that is assigned to your personal computer upon signing up for ISP service.  This means that should you download a document that is copyrighted, you may receive a warning or worse from an agency or company demanding payment or the possibility of a lawsuit for the violation of federal copyright laws.

None of the above items fit the description of items that consumers would be clamoring for while purchasing and subsequently using a PC but they are all there to track you, to monitor you, to harass you, to compromise you, and to convict you.  Your personal computer is an evidence gathering machine whether you like it or not.

Why Does Apple Inc. Issue Corporate Bonds?

Apple Inc. has a staggering market capitulation of $660 billion dollars as of the autumn of 2014.  Additionally, Apple has somewhere around $150 billion in cash or cash equivalents on hand, which would, by definition, mean that they would not have any need whatsoever to issue debt such as bonds, yet in the last couple of years, Apple has done just that.  There are two significant reasons why Apple has gone to the bond market, to which the most compelling reason being that Apple has just about $138 billion of its cash assets held overseas, which they cannot repatriate back into America without suffering huge tax consequences, consequently Apple deliberately utilizes legal tax havens overseas, effectively lowering their United States tax rate immensely because the taxes that they pay in the States are based on profits made in America.  The other reason for the bond issuance is that the credit worthiness of Apple at AA-plus is the same as United States treasuries, with Apple being able therefore to issue debt at yield rates to investors that are just modestly above US treasuries, assuring themselves of an incredibly low debt cost and therefore a very enviable low cost to service borrowed money.

It is important to understand that In order for there to be fairness and justice, law must be equally applied and applicable to all, but when you are dealing with literally billions of dollars, and recognizing too that every dollar that you pay in taxes is a dollar that disappears from your corporation piggy-bank; as a corporation, you may well take the position, that it is in your company's best interests as well as in your stockholder's best interest to do everything imaginable to lower and thereby to reduce your tax consequences, while still being able to state with pride that your corporation pays all of its legal taxes, but this same corporation cannot also truly contend that it pays all of its taxes within the "spirit of the law".

Apple too recognizes that with the cost of money being at historic lows and with their credit rating being equivalent to US treasuries, that thereby by definition their credit rating is higher than all but nineteen nations in the entire world.  This therefore translates into Apple's ability to issue bonds that will be well received, if not oversold, at incredibly competitive rates, which in actuality as compared to US treasuries are just basis points above them.  However, Apple has demonstrated in 2014 that they are even smarter than the smartest guys in the room, because in 2014, they were able to issue additional debt which according to Reuters results in:"eight-year notes issued in Europe, Apple's bonds will yield 1.082%, while 12-year notes will yield 1.671%."  This means that Apple's new bonds will yield considerably less than equivalent US Treasures in which the 10-year US treasury currently resides at 2.32%.  Apple is able to accomplish all this because bond yields in Europe are even lower than in the United States.

Consequently, because Apple is so successful at their bond issuance, they therefore have the capital and flexibility to pay out dividends at a satisfactory yield to satisfy stockholders, to make planned purchases of corporate stock in buybacks to either help support their stock price or to appreciate it through the attendant increase in earnings per share and return on equity, to take advantage of the deductibility of debt interest, and finally to have the flexibility and wherewithal to make investments into instruments that yield or will produce returns higher than the debt that they are paying.

There will never be an IPO like Apple or Microsoft Again

Financial news magazines, pundits, television commentators, love to talk and to talk and to talk up IPOs ad nauseam.  It makes you wonder, if IPOs are so glorious, so good and such an easy path to easy money, why anyone that is an insider at these IPO companies would ever even consider selling a share.  While there have been some phenomenal IPOs, such as Google or Apple there have also been phenomenal flame-outs such as pets.com and etoys.com.  Whether an IPO is a good investment or not depends on a lot of factors, such as the underlying value of the company, its growth rate, its return on equity, its market share, and its cache.  The one thing that you seldom heard about is that IPOs and the astonishing returns such as Apple or Microsoft have generated will never occur again, or at least, will never occur again with the likes of Facebook or Google.

To get an appropriate picture of IPOs of today, we should compare them against a few from the previous century, starting with Apple Computer.  When Apple's IPO came out on December 12, 1980, its market capitalization after the first day of trading was higher than any other IPO since Ford Motor Company of 1956, and the market capitalization of Apple was $1.778 billion at the close of business that day, making it a resounding success.  Today, the market capitalization of Apple is the largest in the entire world at a staggering $669.94 billion, which is a percentage increase of 37,579%.  Microsoft's IPO came out in 1986 and at the close of business on its first day of trading its market cap was $778 million, to which its closing price was substantially higher than its IPO offering of $21 whereas it closed at $27.75 a share.  Today, the market capitalization of Microsoft, which at one time had the largest market capitalization of any stock in America, is $408.72 billion, which is a percentage increase of 52,434%.  The stock that generated the most insane media frenzy during the 20th Century had to be Netscape, to which people were literally salivating to get in onto the deal.  Netscape closed at $58.25 in 1995, making it the very first stock to more than double its IPO price on its very first day of public trading and giving it a market capitalization of $2.9 billion.  However, over the next few years, Netscape essentially stagnated in the market, before being bought out in an all stock deal by AOL for $4.2 billion in 1999, or a percentage increase of 45%.

In the 21st century, there have been some mega IPOs but none of these will reach the heights and returns of Microsoft or Apple.  For instance, there is Google which after its first day of trading in 2004 finished with a market capitalization of a very impressive $23 billion, today its market capitalization is $373.96 billion, which equates to spectacular 1,525% return.  Facebook's IPO came out in 2012, in which after its first day of trading its market capitalization was $104.2 billion to which the underwriters of Facebook struggled all day to keep the stock above its IPO price, to which it was later to fall significantly under, only to recover quite strongly so as of today, it is worth some $209.4 billion, a percentage increase of 101%.  Finally, there is Alibaba, the largest IPO in the history of public offerings, which upon its 1st day of trading in 2014 had a market capitalization of a simply unfathomable $231 billion, and currently is at $286.6 billion, a percentage increase of 24%.

Obviously, the IPOs of the 21st century have had not the longevity of Apple or Microsoft, but comparing Microsoft's IPO v. Google's IPO, over each of their first ten years, shows Microsoft cleaning Google's clock with a return of 9,151% to 1,525% which is an astonishing difference, especially considering that Google has been a monstrous success.  The problem that Google, Facebook, and Alibaba have is simply the law of large numbers, that is to say, because their market capitalization was so high to begin with they will never reach the returns of Microsoft or Apple, especially in regards to Facebook and Alibaba in which any hope of matching these aforementioned titans is surreally pathetic.  This doesn't mean that Facebook or Alibaba are necessarily bad investments, to date they have done quite well, what it does

mean is that there is no possibility that you can take a "toothpick" of an investment in them and hope to get anything of real substance in return.  For instance, with Microsoft an investment in 1986 of 100 shares at $27.75 would have cost you $2775.00 + commission, but today after all their splits and even without taking into account any dividends that you would have received while owning Microsoft you would have a stock value of $1,424,448 or thereabouts with a corresponding dividend yield of 2.51% which equates to $35,754 annually in dividend payments just for the pleasure of owning the stock.  

The Power to Tax is the Power to Own

It has been said that the power to tax is the power to destroy, which is true, but I find it more meaningful to state that the power to tax is the power to control and ultimately the power to own the labor of others.  If you think about it, if your labor is taxed at 100%, you are effectively a slave to that taxing authority, so while 100% taxation is slavery, than it follows that 0% taxation is complete individual freedom without attendant social or government obligations, so somewhere in-between these two numbers should be a happy medium.

A great revolutionary war was fought in this country to protest that there shall be no taxation without representation.  Yet you would find few people today that can honestly claim that their current state of taxation is represented well or even fairly.  Taxation in America ranges from property taxes, to user taxes, to sales taxes, to local taxes, to State taxes, to Federal taxes, and then there are the indirect taxes which aren't even called taxes.  The tax laws and the tax books in America are so long, so convoluted, with so many exceptions and exemptions, that two people can be making the exact same income and have wholly independent tax obligations depending upon their interpretation and their sophistication in regards to our tax code.

While there are many reasons why our tax code is so convoluted and so messed up, most of that blame can rest on lobbyists and legislatures that stumble through a strange symbiotic relationship.   The only thing that is clear in regards to our tax codes is that those without power, without special interests or influence, will ultimately pay considerably more than those that are connected.  This means that the present power to tax is in fact, the power to control and to take from the labor of unwitting others, to which the government taxing authorities specialize in wringing the bread from the laborious sweat of honest men's faces.

The fact that one's labor is taxed to begin with is the fundamental crux of the problem in the land that claims to be the land of the free.  The taxing of labor or the taking of income from labor by legal taxiing authorities is a form of enslavement to the State apparatus.  In point, the labor that you create, should be the labor that you keep, as the State has a multitude of ways to effect income, such as through lotteries, import duties, and excise taxes. 

There is, however, one more form of taxation which is fair to the people as well as to the State, and that is the estate (death) tax.  While you are alive you should definitely be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but upon your death, there are extremely valid arguments as to how a significant portion of those monies accumulated should be sacrificed to the State, and not to be gifted indiscriminately to your designated heirs.  The man of great wealth cannot use this material wealth in the world to come and should not either be permitted to still wield earthly power through delegated agents while he resides in the undiscovered country to which such passage is free of monetary taxation.

The Dangers of Remote Control Access and P2P file sharing of your Computer

There are plenty of computer programs that allow you to control or to access your desktop or other computer when you are visiting a client, residing at home, on vacation, and so forth.  These programs, such as logmein or gotomypc actually work quite well so that you are able to essentially get inside your main computer and copy files, manipulate files, utilize files and programs, and overall to conduct work as if you were actually in front of your main desktop.  There are other utilities that one can use for peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing which allows you to share files such as music, picture, or video files, from one computer to another.  All of this appears pretty wonderful, the fact that you can share or swap files remotely and routinely, work on tasks remotely, and so on, but this assumes that you live in a Mr. Rodgers type of neighborhood but in fact, you don't.

Anytime that you open up your computer to remote control access or to P2P sharing, you have basically opened up Pandora's Box, and things that you think are under your control, are not.  Sure, there are always controls, protocols, security codes, crosschecks, and so forth that will in theory protect your information and ensure the integrity of your computer, but all of these can be compromised.   Every P2P network as well as remote access programs will tout its protections and integrities, but they are all vulnerable to hackers that know how to exploit them and once a hacker gets into your computer through security leaks or bots or through cracking passwords or through malware, your files are vulnerable to being copied and exploited.

As bad as remote control access and P2P networking can be to the integrity of your computer and to yourself, the simple fact that you utilize the internet, and further that your internet is up 24 hours/7 days a week, means that your entire computer and its contents are vulnerable to being exploited and attacked at any moment, whether that attack is done through a backdoor malware attachment, a network phishing expedition, a "false-flag" website that will initiate malware, or a peripheral device setup to look and behave normally but containing malicious software that activates upon installation.

The basic fact is that once your computer is accessed by an outside computer, whether intentionally or not, that monitoring computer will through a skilled technician hands have the ability to wreak havoc within the subject computer itself, to which it can monitor, copy, or compromise the target computer as if it was by actuated by you, or perhaps the attack will be considerably less invasive depending upon a multitude of conditions and efforts submitted.  This in essence means that any government agency, foreign or domestic, or criminal consortium, or hacker can in all probability readily keep track or compromise your activities on your computer, the websites that you visit, along with the documents that you create, both private and confidential, the web chats that you have, and the exact identity of who and what you are. 

Smoking at Age 21

The United States allows States, counties, cities, and towns to set their own age limits on the legal age to purchase cigarettes, so that merely crossing from one county line to another country line, or leaving one city to another city nearby, or crossing State lines, will change the legality of whether you can purchase cigarettes or not.  For the most part, the purchase age for cigarettes is at age 18, but this like many laws that the "nanny state" plays with, is in the process of change and flux, so that the law essentially changes depending upon where you are physically located.

In America, you legally become an adult at age 18; although for some people through marriage they can become emancipated at an age under 18.  Consequently it is the height of hypocrisy to have one set of laws for certain ages of adulthood, along with other separate laws for certain ages of adulthood, which in essence means that there are different degrees of adulthood, which logically is absurd, because either you are legally an adult with all the attendant risks and rewards or you are not.  But here in America, for certain things, despite being 18 or 19 or 20 you are treated as if you are a juvenile, even though legally you are an adult for most everything else.  This is incredibly bad law, a gross injustice, and indefensible.

To be an American, to be your own person, implies free will and choice, but too often in today's society, there are those that will use or create law to make crimes of things which should never be criminalized, because these certain "do-gooders" believe that they know better than you do, and consequently what you should or should not be doing.  The crux of the matter is that the law should not be used as a cudgel to effect change, but instead the law should be equally applied to all, so that the setting up of special laws for adults that are at the ages of 18-20, is fundamentally a violation of the 14th Amendment which stipulates that all persons are subject to "equal protection of the laws". 

For those that are so focused on the evils and dangers of smoking, do what a reasonable and fair person would do, make your argument in the public square, and devote your resources, your time, and your money to activities that support your viewpoint.  To utilize instead, oppressive, unequal and unfair laws, that allow the majority to dictate to the minority, is a pox upon this country and for what it stands.  Quite frankly, if those anti-smoking advocates are unable to persuade smokers to cease and desist, perhaps they need to consider that there are a multitude of factors that are involved in people's decision to begin smoking in the first place, and unless those factors and influences are replaced with something of equal interest to the smoker himself, the activity will probably continue.

There are far too many people that when they see an activity that upsets them, disturbs them, or annoys them, believe that there "ought to be a law", but alas, they should instead understand: "Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite… "(Matthew 7:4-5)

Naked Short Selling

The average investor believes that there is only one bet that you can make in regards to the stock market which is to buy a stock and hope (or pray) that your particular equity goes up in price over time, and thereby allowing you to reap profitable returns.  That is probably the most common type of trade but it certainly isn't the only way to play the market.  For instance, there are other people, who are naturally pessimistic, or perhaps don't believe in the particular hype of a certain stock, or are contrarians for one reason or another, that also want to play the stock market, but do not want to buy a stock that they hope will go up, but instead would like to invest in some manner where they can bet that a stock will go down in monetary value.  Not too surprisingly, since Wall Street desires to accommodate all comers, that type of investment is known as a "short sell", which basically means that you are borrowing the shares at today's price, which gives you thereby the option of purchasing the shares later, at what you hope to be at a lower price, and subsequently garnering a profit.  In summation, when you go long, you for example  purchase 100 shares at $12/share, and if you later sell the same stock and all your shares for $15 share you have made a profit of $30 ($150 sell price - $120 buy price), which doesn't take in account any commissions that you may have paid.  When you short a stock at let's say $12 share for 100 shares, that means you have borrowed the shares, when you later actually buy the 100 shares at $10 share and thereby close out your position you have made a profit of $20 ($120 sell price - $100 buy price).  Again, the concept of selling short a stock is your belief that the stock will fall, so you borrow the shares from your brokerage company at the higher price, and then return the same shares at the lower price, pocketing the difference.

All of the above is perfectly legal and fairly routine, as the fact that an investor can bet on either the "long" or the "short" side of a particular security allows investors to place a bet per their volition. The key thing to remember is that when you purchase shares of a stock, those shares are issued to your brokerage and assigned to your account, whereas when you short shares, you are borrowing shares from your brokerage company that you will replace at a future point at your discretion.  The difference between naked short selling and short selling is that in regards to naked short selling, the actual shares themselves are never borrowed in the first place.  While that might on the surface just sound like quibbling, the problem with naked short selling is that these phantom shares can be utilized by sophisticated traders in certain stocks, to artificially push down the price of a stock, because this oversupply of phantom shares disturbs the normal equilibrium between the actual shares of stock being bought as well as the actual shares of stock being borrowed or sold, and too many sellers at the same time will have a strong tendency to lower the price of the equity.  So that with naked short selling, because you do not have borrowed shares and are in fact in a position in which in actuality you will "fail to deliver" the actual borrowed shares of stock because you are naked short selling, this increased volume of sellers, will in essence corrupt the equity system, and typically result in the equity price being lowered, and consequently when you close out your phantom position, you will have made money at the expense of legitimate stockholders.

While naked short selling is a financial crime, it is also a crime that is hard to discover, and also hard to prove, consequently the practitioners of naked short selling ply their trade, recognizing that the lure of easy money far outweighs any ethical concerns that they may have or legal concerns that might worry those of a different ilk. 

Cell Phones and the Police

On June 25, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that police officers must have a warrant in order to search a suspect's cell phone. Chief Justice Roberts wrote in regards to cell phones: “They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers.”  You would think that this Supreme Court decision would mean case closed with a correspondent great and grand victory for those that believe in the Fourth Amendment that protects one against unreasonable searches and seizures but when you have an object as common and as sophisticated as a smart-phone, which contains incredibly detailed information about your calls, conversations, contacts, location, and your browser history to mention just a few of its attributes, the police will absolutely never allow this proverbial treasure trove of information to just simply be ignored.  To the police, cell phones are the holy grail of data that contain the very basis of actionable information to arrest you and/or other people, or and at a minimum to better understand your life and position, to which their review of your cell phone data gives the police an almost God-like understanding of what you are about.

There are way too many people that believe that their lame password somehow protects their cell phone from prying eyes, while this may be so in a few certain circumstances, for the most part the typical cell phone security lock is only there to give you the illusion that your privacy is protected when in actuality it is not.  America is a high-technology country and for just about everything created with a pass-code, there is a device that can break that code and subsequently allow another person or department to peruse your cell phone contents completely and unobtrusively.  For instance, police are well aware that mobile forensic devices will accomplish a complete and thorough extraction of your cell phone data typically in a matter of minutes either out in the field, or back in the home office, to which, in theory, these extraordinary police actions might be overturned in court, or be found out by the public or media to their disapproval, or on the other hand be considered exigent exceptions to the warrant requirement, or simply never discovered by anyone outside of those that are in the know.

The bottom line is that certain police departments will never willingly desist from extracting actionable data that rests in plain sight when they believe that they are dealing with a perpetrator or someone of that ilk.  If police were given a choice between using enhanced interrogation techniques or the unlimited access to cell-phone data they would choose the cell-phone data.  If police were given a choice between a warranted search of a suspect's home and all of his possessions with the exception of his cell-phone, as compared to justa search of the specific cell-phone itself, they would select the cell-phone data. 

Cell phone data is the ultimate temptation for police departments, few will willingly resist, and virtually all will desire it, consequently one can say with a certainty, that Supreme Court decision or not, police departments will do what they will do and let the chips fall where they may.

Bar Mitzvah

Bar Mitzvah is a wonderful Jewish ceremony and celebration (Bat Mitzvah for females) to which upon turning thirteen, the subject young man comes of age, and is according to judaism.about.com "now morally and ethically responsible for his decisions and actions."  While many of us are familiar with the celebratory aspects of bar mitzvah, the young initiate is often required to do all or some of the following:

                1.  To lead as well as to read a specific prayer during the religious service, often                                                                                           encompassing a traditional chant.

                2.  Giving a speech or a particular reading to the assembly

                3.  The completion of a charitable project

For most Americans, secular or not, turning thirteen is a non-event, it typically means the end of kid meals discounts if not before, as well as discounted amusement park events, yet it is still too early for a driver's license, however it does signify the very first year of becoming a "teen"-ager, which could if of itself, be a reason for a ceremony or celebration and probably should become one.

While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with treating teenagers between the ages of 13-17 as juveniles, especially in a legal sense, there are very valid reasons why they should be expected to be more responsible and more cognizant of their decisions and their actions.  It is a grave mistake and a grand disservice to teenagers to treat them as if they were perpetual children, when they most certainly are far wiser, more manipulative, and definitely knowledgeable on a fundamental level of right as opposed to wrong activities and behaviors.

I love the concept that before the age of 13 in the Jewish culture, it is the parents that are held responsible for their children's actions, whereas after that age, it is the person himself that is held accountable for their actions.    The bar mitzvah ritual is of immense importance and significance, in allowing and permitting those that are now 13, to take and to make their own way in this world.  In fairness, too, bar mitzvahs are not thrust upon those that receive them, but are events that are knowingly anticipated far in advance of their time, so that the skills, maturity, and preparation needed can be attended to for the successful application thereof.

It is said that success is when preparation meets opportunity, and therefore you should not readily expect success if the time and the attention needed is not spent with your children to prepare them to one day to become good and responsible citizens.  While it can be said that lessons can be learned on any given day and while there is truth to that, there is more truth in knowing that if the goal is clear, the steps taken to achieve that goal are knowable and subsequentlya pathway can be properly built stone by stone to bring about this success.

As a parent you can, should you desire, simply let the chips fall where they may, but why hope for the best, when you as parent can help guide and to formulate the moral, ethical, and foundational principles that will allow your children to become or at a minimum have the opportunity to be the better part of your goodness.  When you birthed your child, there was tremendous joy, yet there is even more joy when your child grows up and becomes truly that apple of your eye.

Antibiotics, Growth, Breeding, and Chickens

As published in a study for Poultry Science three different chicken strains were compared from 1957, 1978, and a commercial Ross 308 strains (2005) at the University of Alberta.  Each of the chicken strains was fed the same feed under the same conditions, and their respective weights were measured at 56 days of age.  Part of their conclusion was that: "From 1957 to 2005, broiler growth increased by over 400%," which means that over the last fifty years, the poultry producers have figured out how to through genetic modification increase the size of their chickens over 400%, which is simply stunning, through selective breeding and genetic genius.  To the consumer of chicken, this means that the price of chicken is cheaper, in fact significantly cheaper than what it would be if this unprecedented growth had not occurred, and for the producer of poultry this means significantly less money spent on chickens per the yield of chicken meat and a more efficient utilization of space for the farming of chickens themselves.

The poultry industry is big business so that commercially bred poultry for mass production are virtually in all cases not free-range chickens but bred instead inside long, low, and dark sheds which are filled with chickens and more chickens that have difficulty in even walking due to lack of space and the disparity of the weight of their breast meat and overall body to their legs.  Under these conditions the main concern for poultry producers is not the comfort of the chickens themselves, but the constant assurance that there is no imminent danger of a contagious chicken-borne disease that would decimate the population of the chickens, consequently most poultry producers make it a routine practice to add antibiotics to their animal feed so as to assure themselves of the continual good health of their product.

For poultry producers antibiotics are that "perfect storm" of correct animal feed because not only does the antibiotic control or reduce infectious diseases to the birds themselves, it also produces increased weight gain for chickens, so that this type of dual benefit seems like a gift from the gods.  However, like anything that is routinely used to fight or to stave off diseases, bacteria itself will develop over time resistance to these antibiotics, to which when inadvertently transferred over to humans, endangers the safety of human beings because of their resistance to typical antibiotic drugs which could result in extensive hospitalization or even death.

Not too surprisingly, poultry producers are reluctant to correct or to change the very things that have allowed them to make massive profits over the years as well as providing to consumers a product that is both cost-efficient and extremely popular.  Consequently, the only hope of making meaningful change when it comes down to antibiotics in our poultry feed is transparency along with specific rules and regulations passed by the FDA that would apply equally to all.  However, pharmaceutical companies and large agribusinesses along with the respective logistical chain organizations that are utilized to provide us with cheap poultry have a vested interest in keeping things the way that they currently are, but this type of short-sighted thinking does a grand disservice to the public at large and puts ultimately human life and health at risk under the banner that the lust for money rules all.

Who is Jeanette Rankin?

I have always had and will always have a great deal of respect and admiration for those that are willing to stand up for principles of real merit, especially when their viewpoint is out of the ordinary, out of the norm, against the mob, against unenlightened public opinion, while often being the voice of reason, of justice, and of love, which I find even more poignant when that voice is the voice of just one.  In any country, in any person, justice loses out and begins to erode, when people that know better, that have been blessed with uncommon wisdom and insight, let their voices be silenced for whatever reason or whatever purpose in order to just get along.  Jeanette Rankin, was a two-term congresswoman from Montana,  the first woman to be elected to congress, who served terms from 1917-1919, and from 1941-1943, in which in both of her terms she would be called to vote on the resolution of war by her nation.  The United States declaration of war on Germany in 1917, was somewhat controversial, especially considering that President Wilson had run for his second term under the banner of "He kept us out of the war", nevertheless when the votes were tallied, the Senate voted 80-6 for war, and the congress voted 373-50, of which Congresswoman Rankin was one of the dissenters.   However, after the "day in infamy" in regards to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when Franklin D. Roosevelt asked congress for a declaration of war on Japan, the vote in the Senate was 82-0, and in the House the vote was 388 in favor to which Congresswoman Rankin was placed under enormous pressure to simply state "present" when it came for her turn to vote, as that non-vote would not be counted for or against the war resolution, effectively making the call for war unanimous in both houses.  Congressman Rankin would not be dissuaded from her vote, making her vote the only dissenter in World War II and making her the only congressman to have voted against the resolution of war in both World Wars.

Jeanette Rankin was a pacifist, who voted against war as a matter of conscience, and who believed strongly that without the influence of women in the polling vote as well as in public office, that war with its attendant destruction and devastation of human life, property, and the senseless sacrifice of men would continue to be the lot of humanity.  Congresswoman Rankin came to power in the time of woman's suffrage and was famous for saying, "the first time I voted, I voted for myself."  She believed strongly that in giving women the vote, that then, there would be a real opportunity for more peaceful resolutions to be taken seriously and acted upon.  She well understood that a mature and responsible country should lead by example and consequently should act in a manner becoming their Constitution and the intended legacy that they wished to leave for humankind and generations yet unborn.  She recognized that countries have a responsibility to live up to their ideals, to practice what they preach, and to not do so, is an inconsistency that in of itself tells the true tale of that country.  Congresswoman Rankin believed that the United States should be that beacon of hope, of liberty, of freedom, for all, and in order to accomplish such noble goals, should demonstrate mature forbearance in times of trouble rather than becoming quick to anger, quick to judgment, and quick to war.

Where are the Affordable Electric Cars?

It seems just about everyone has heard of Tesla, considered to be the premier American manufacturer of electric cars.  But what of their cars, for instance, their cheapest entry into the market, their Model S, retails for a base price of around $70,000, hardly a price that would entice most Americans, except for those that are making amounts of money that far exceed the median of American income.  When one takes a more detailed look at electric cars in America, it is the pricing of these cars that is the most shocking, as none of the electric vehicles offered has a reasonable price point, with the Nissan Leaf, the most popular electric car in America, retailing for nearly $30,000.  Not too surprisingly, the sales of the Leaf are the best of any electric in America, at a ballpark of 25,000 units per year, which is robust for electric cars, but anemic overall.  The lack of both affordable electric cars and sales is especially troubling because of all the tax incentives and benefits that are setup to "goose" their sales, such as the $7500 federal tax credit, up to an additional $6000 State tax credit in States such as Colorado, free charging stations for new electric cars for up to two years, free HOV lane access, car insurance discount, electric vehicle supply equipment tax credit, and parking fee exemptions or privileges, with most of these benefits dependent upon the State that you reside in.

The most basic reason for the sales of electric cars being so poor, to which the Obama administration is on record of stating that they desire to see 1 million electric vehicles on the road in 2015, can be contributed to both the performance and the price of the vehicle itself.  For instance, to get a brand-new economical electric vehicle will cost you close to $30,000 and easily way more for most models, whereas a brand-new gas powered car or even a hybrid can be had for about $15,000 or even less, an incredibly substantial difference.  Then there are the tax credits for owning an electric vehicle, to which all of these credits are set up for people that make really good money.  In order to avail yourself of the full $7500 federal tax credit, you will have to have an income of over $52,000, to which only about 25% of all Americans make that amount of money or more in a given year.

The real reason why there aren't any affordable electric cars is that the manufacturers of said cars can't make them affordable, that is to say they simply cost a lot more money to manufacture than gasoline or hybrid vehicles.  That, in itself, doesn't bode well for the industry, so despite Consumer Reports prostrating themselves at the foot of Tesla, cars that are manufactured for the elite, aren't deserving of any special accolades.  If, on the other hand, car manufacturers are really interested in producing and selling electric vehicles in the low millions of units, they will have to recognize first, that it cannot be done without manufacturing cars that are affordable and practical for the masses, as opposed to a selected section of the American population that buys these types of cars because it makes them feel that they are contributing to keeping the planet more green. 

Despite all the financial incentives, gimmicks, and hokey "feel good" nonsense, today's electric vehicles are simply not attractive to mainstream America, who neither has the time nor the money to unduly waste on all flash and no real substance.

The Minimum Wage Battle

Most people do like the fact that a floor has been set for a minimum wage, so that at least they know when they are working  that their wages can't legally go lower than that.  There are a lot of positives to say about having a minimum wage and for fairness in general when it comes to paying a wage, but at the same time, one must consider that you cannot just legislate or dictate or demand your way to prosperity.  There are a lot of factors that help set the wage that you work for, such as age, experience, reliability, work ethic, work output, sociability, and so on, with the important caveat too that employees are free to look for employment elsewhere, so that as long as you are not essentially in a one-company town, each side has some degree of power.

In recent times, our President has requested that the federally mandated minimum wage be lifted from the current $7.25/hr to $10.10/hr but there is really no realistic hope of this passing.   The fact of the matter is that labor costs are a critical part of a company's ability to maintain an appropriate gross margin and to remain competitive in their respective industries.  Additionally, the raising of a minimum wage always has unintended consequences.  For instance, if the minimum wage was to be raised up $2.85/hr you would have all those short of the new minimum wage receiving the full additional $2.85/hr, plus all those that were in-between in pay of the old minimum wage and the new mandated minimum wage would received their respective increase, and those that were previously making $10.10/hr or a little above that wage, would be asserting their own pressure, that their wages needed to be increased in order to create a gap between their old pay scale as compared to those that were merely just making the new "minimum".  The consequence of all this, depending upon the industry, could range from a minimal impact, to something of a truly massive concern to the enterprises' bottom line, or even towards its entire business operation and continuing successful operation.    The upshot, is that these companies would take a long and careful look at their labor staffing, to which in all probability positions would be terminated, hours would be sliced and diced in such a manner as to reduce staff during slow periods and to only ramped up during busy periods, and further a careful study would be made as to determine whether additional equipment or machinery could replace human labor.  In essence, as always, this would mean that those that were least qualified for the new minimum wage mandate, would be the first to be let go or not hired in the first place, while those that received the increased wages would clearly benefit from this program.

There is another way, however, that might be able to best satisfy all parties involved.  Currently, our National Government offers an Earned Income Credit (EIC) for lower income families and while this credit as currently structured is primarily for benefit of families as opposed to just individuals, it could readily lend itself to some basic modifications.  For instance, the EIC could be restructured in such a manner, that if you worked, for example, 2000 hours at the wage of $7.25/hr, that our government would provide as an EIC credit the additional $2.85/hr for you so that you would in essence have earned $10.10/hr.  This would provide the dual benefit of raising wages for the poor, as well as providing incentives for disadvantaged people to find employment.  Additionally, this particular EIC credit could be set up quarterly, rather than annually, to provide the money to individuals in a timelier manner.  The only real fly in the ointment for this proposed plan is that there would also have to be employer penalties or respective credits set up so as to make sure that employers didn't "game" the system, meaning that steps would have to be taken so as to preclude employers from using the government EIC to make up for any shortfall that they should have provided in fair labor pay. 

This proposal seems practical, fair, sensible, and purposeful for all involved.