Mediaboss Marketing

Run, Saverin! Run!

Were it not for the fact that youd still have to suffer the eternal torment of actually living with your wicked, miserable little self, life as a willing and active member of The State might be pretty tempting. After all, Team State operating in direct competition with Team Freedom enjoys some rather significant advantages, both on and off the field.

For one thing, Team State writes the rules of the gamerules it claims the right to change at any time and for any reason. It can choose to make Team Freedoms goal the size of a pea, for example, and its own goal the size ofwellwhatever it wants. It can recruit a million, steroid-jacked players to wear its own colours, and limit Team Freedoms membership to a couple of wimpy, though doggedly irreverent, newsletter writers. Who listens to those guys, anyway? Pshhh

Off the field, Team State may choose to sequester part or all of Team Freedoms funding. And if Team Freedom doesnt like it, Team State reading again from its own rulebook can choose to simply begin kidnapping members of Team Freedom at gunpoint and locking them up in cages.

More troubling still, Team Freedom suffers the added disadvantage of large scale defection and even of outright collusion with the enemy. In other words, many of Team Freedoms players are really (whether knowingly or not) playing for the other teamusing morally malleable catchphrases like fair share, civic duty and social contract as a way to distract and bamboozle some of Team Freedoms star players. They read aloud and with unashamed authority from Team States own rulebook, exclaiming with sweaty excitement, But its the law! Look, Team State wrote it down, right here!

And what can Team Freedom do about all this, other than vote for another member of Team State to act as game referee every four years or so? Nothing. Or so it would seem

Fellow Reckoners will by now be aware of the latest scheme by Team State to encroach on the lives of those they clearly consider to be their property. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey, two of the moreeractive members of Team State, held a press conference Thursday morning on Capitol Hill where they outlined legislation that would prevent Eduardo Saverin, the Brazilian-born, Singapore residing co-founder of Facebook, from ever returning to the United States.

Now, why would these senators do such a thing, you ask? What do a couple of freeloading, career barnacles have against the entrepreneurial spirits of a go-getting, 30-year-old success story?

Turns out that, back in September of last year, Saverin decided he didnt want to be considered a US tax slave anymorea move 1,700 other now-freer people also made during the same year. Abiding by the law, as decreed by members of Schumer and Caseys Team State, Saverin relinquished his citizenship and moved to Singapore back in 2010, a place where he (and his property) are treated in less of a gun-in-your-face, gimme-all-your-money manner.

According to industry estimates, the move should allow Saverin to keep about $67 million more of his own money than he would have otherwise been entitled to were he still officially a US resident when Facebook makes its IPO, tomorrow.

More here:
Eduardo Saverin and Team Freedom Versus Team State

Ontarians more stressed than other regions about the thought of retiring with debt Nearly six in ten Ontario homeowners indicate they would continue to work if they reached their planned retirement age and still had debt Manulife Bank surveyed 2,003 Canadians Audio clip and infographic attached

TSX/NYSE/PSE: MFCSEHK:945

Retiring from Debt in Ontario (CNW Group/Manulife Financial Corporation)

WATERLOO, ON, May 14, 2012 /CNW/ - Ninety per cent of Ontario homeowners indicate that "being debt-free" is very important to their definition of a successful retirement, according to a recent debt and retirement survey conducted by Manulife Bank of Canada . This is second only to "good health" (95%), and slightly higher than "sufficient retirement income to maintain my current lifestyle" (84%).

Ontarians are also more concerned about the thought of reaching their planned retirement age with debt still outstanding than are other Canadians. Fifty-seven per cent of Ontarians indicated that they would find this scenario extremely stressful, compared to 46 per cent of homeowners from the rest of Canada .

Forty-three per cent of Ontario homeowners who are neither debt free nor retired indicate that they will place a greater emphasis on debt repayment over retirement savings over the next 12 months. Only eight per cent stated the reverse, further reinforcing the high priority Ontario homeowners place on debt-freedom for their retirement.

This is the first time that Manulife Bank focused on surveying Canadians about debt in the context of retirement planning. Manulife Bank has increased the sample size to allow for regional-specific data demonstrating similarities and differences in how Canadians view debt across the country.

"Most people think about savings as the key financial consideration for retirement," stated Mike Gentile , a Chartered Financial Consultant & President of Personalized Investment Planning Inc. in Kitchener, Ontario. "But debt-freedom is a critical consideration for Ontarians, and they find the idea of retiring with debt extremely stressful. An experienced Financial Advisor employs tools such as Cash Flow Analysis and Financial Planning Concepts to assist clients in reducing their debts while giving them an opportunity to increase their tax advantaged savings."

Across Canada , debt-freedom expectations change as people get older

Manulife Bank's debt and retirement survey found that three in four Canadian homeowners consider debt-freedom to be among their top financial goals - a finding that is relatively consistent with Manulife Bank's past consumer debt studies. However, their expectation about when they will actually achieve debt-freedom appears to be largely dependent upon their age, a finding that is consistent across the country.

Follow this link:
For Ontarians, a Successful Retirement Requires a Debt Freedom Plan

A sign on a large beachfront home had a couple of our readers irate, so perturbed they snapped a picture and emailed it to us.

The sign read, Show us your um, bare chest.

I suspect it wasnt intended for me or any other man and has long been one of the most popular Bike Week catch phrases.

Kindly distribute this to our town leaders, the email read. Not only do we residents and property owner have to endure the noise and loose [sic] our sleep but now the children are effected [sic]. I would like to know how this promotes a family beach. Looks like greed of sales tax is more important than our values.

The use of the word values is instructive, because I sympathize with the sentiment.

I have two small kids who are as inquisitive as they come.

And they notice everything everything.

A sign like that is unlikely to miss their notice. What type of values am I trying to instill? And do signs such as this make that more difficult?

Im raising them along the Grand Strand, one of the nations most popular resort areas.

Though this is our place of residence for 365 days of the year, for about 14 million tourists, it is the devils playground a few days or weeks every summer season.

Follow this link:
Issac J. Bailey | Bike rallies demonstrate our freedom to get on each other’s nerves

Proponents of an American nanny state have a plan to improve your health: tax sugar and junk food so you will eat less of it. Subsidies for broccoli and beets are close behind. These plans for bureaucrats and politicians to remake your diet are bad news for four reasons.

First, it is no ones business but yours what you eat. The freedom to eat a slice of apple pie might not sound quite as stirring as freedom of speech, but the ability to choose how to live our lives is the most fundamental freedom. What you eat is no ones business but yours.

Second, even if the government has a role to play in guiding our dietary choices, efforts at restructuring Americans lives via the tax code are fundamentally flawed.

This strategy has given us a tax system of unimaginable complexity: the Internal Revenue Code is almost 10 million words long, and if you stacked IRS regulations into a pile theyd be more than a foot tall. The leading publication for tax professionals takes up nine feet of shelf space. And that doesnt count the tens of thousands of pages of laws and regulations concerning sales, use, property, excise, and other taxes levied by all layers of government.

Taxes need to be simple and easy to administer. As tax laws get fatter, they clog our economic arteries and stifle economic growth. Trying to fine tune Americans diets via a junk food tax will further fatten the tax laws, and the wallets of accountants and tax lawyers. If there are any Americans unaware that sugar and potato chips are fattening despite our $35 billion per year diet industry we dont need a tax to enlighten them, just some public service announcements.

Third, the governments record on dietary control is problematic. The federal government has been involved in the sugar market since the War of 1812. Nanny staters promise that this time theyll get things right but if they havent managed to do so in 200 years, why should we believe them now?

The details of official rules are written in back rooms in Congress and government agencies. When those details are drafted, those best able to influence the results are the lawyers and lobbyists for special interest groups.

For sugar, thats the manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup and the 17 domestic sugar cane producers that reap millions of dollars annually under our current agricultural subsidies and sugar tariffs not you and me.

Finally, the nanny state brigade promises to spend the extra tax money on subsidies for healthy foods and lifestyles. New York Times columnist Matt Bittman enthuses about money for gyms, pools, jogging and bike trails, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, Head Start programs for children, and supermarkets and farmers markets.

If we examine the governments record in spending the billions of dollars from state governments lawsuits against tobacco companies, we can see that this is pure fantasy.

Continue reading here:
‘Bad food’ taxes would help clog our economic arteries

A group trying to develop housing for veterans in historic structures at the Veterans Administration Montana Health Care System at Fort Harrison has sued the Montana Board of Housing, trying to overturn the boards April 9 decision denying the group low-income housing tax credits that may be essential for the project to move forward.

A Florida group hopes its Freedoms Path project will provide 40 units of housing for veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. It would use historic buildings that may not fit with the VAs future needs, and sought to get more than 80 percent of its funding from low-income housing tax credits, which give investors a tax shelter and enable funding for specific projects.

But after looking at scoring of the 14 applications for the credits, the Board of Housing did not allocate any to Freedoms Path. Six of the 14 applicants received credits.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in District Court in Helena, repeats an earlier claim by the developer that the scoring was erroneous and cites other problems with the boards decision. The suit wants to send the matter back to board with instructions to make the decision again with the correct scoring.

It also seeks an injunction preventing the board from allocation the credits until the matter is settled. It says the matter is time-sensitive because the project depends on cooperation with the VA, availability of historical preservation tax credits, and other factors.

More here:
Veterans group sues housing board