Taxes My youngest son just called me. He is doing his taxes on TurboTax and he had a question about some trust income and a K-1 that he had received that showed some foreign-source income. His question was whether he should include it or not in his return. I gave him my best answer to his questions to the best of my understanding as to how he should present his taxes to the IRS and…
The Good Earth Yes, I am borrowing Pearl Buck’s title and no, this story is not about a family living in a small Chinese village. This story is about sowing and reaping the resources that the Earth gives us. In microcosm, I am living the reality of reaping what I sow right here on this little hilltop. Some of my days are spent teaching and there is little that happens in this world that is…
Gentleman in Waiting It’s a funny thing in the expert witness game, the generally accepted view is that an expert’s ability to write extensive and factually accurate reports and rebuttals, all properly referenced and footnoted, is one level of proficiency. Being analytically astute, compelling and hard-charging are all attractive attributes but the analytical and written work constitutes only one level of proficiency as an expert. Please understand that these are very long and involved reports…
Investment Advice The old saying is that advice is worth what you pay for it. I am guessing that other than a doctor, an investment professional gets asked for free advice more than anyone else. Lawyers may fit into that spectrum somewhere as well, but I’m guessing that if you could meter advice you would find aches and pains in the lead, closely followed by how to make or not lose money, with the query…
Treat Em’ Mean It Keeps Em’ Keen I have a Welsh friend and while I have never been to Wales, I imagine it as a hard place where life has to be worked for one inch at a time. This friend was a rugby-playing, bar-brawling intellectual that one would think was reasonably enlightened, but no so much. Don’t get me wrong, he is a great friend of mine and we are Godfathers to one of…
Dead Presidents Tomorrow is President’s Day. That makes this President’s Week when many school have their winter holiday. My own grandkids are up at my house in Ithaca enjoying the snow during their week off. George Washington was born on February 11th, and conveniently, the only other United States president whose birthday we choose to deem worthy of celebration is Abraham Lincoln, who was north on February 12th. For many years we celebrated each of…
The New World Yes, the market expected modest jobs growth of 50,000 in the first reporting of the new year, and the number fell short by 1,000 with non-farm job growth of 49,000, but unemployment, which was expected to stay at about 6.7% at least fell to 6.3%. Overall, I suspect the markets and economists will take that as good news for the economy. Jobs growth is one of the common measures that everyone agrees…
You Can’t Win Against Crazy When I was a founding partner of a venture capital company that would up being very successful, I learned several important lessons. We had one company that failed early because the young, 23-year-old CEO started having a meltdown early on. He was a co-founder of his company and his partner was the reason we were in the investment in the first place. He got crosswise with that partner and used…
The Stop Game Stop Game I have been asked by several friends to write about the Game Stop issue and whether this is a new trend with the little guy triumphing over the big institutional investors on Wall Street. I know that everyone loves an underdog story, a David and Goliath battle where the stone and sling slay the giant. Everyone wants this to be a turning point where the rich stop getting richer and…
Getting Paid I have a friend who worked with me for fifteen years twenty years ago. Think about that for a moment, its been longer since we worked together than the time we worked together. He was one of three of us partners of our firm that were always called upon to act as Master of Ceremonies for whatever gathering we had. I guess that was because we each had a degree of presence that…