Wednesday

For a piece of good news, all you have to do is look out the window at 5 PM and actually see the world rather than pitch darkness.  Really, this is a good thing to have going.  The darkest of the days are done.  Get through another six weeks and we'll be worrying about the picks in March Madness.

This was the time two years ago when I was going through my fight with pneumonia.  My calendars for then just have daily entries of "Sick" for about a week.  Three courses of the Z-Pack antibiotics finally knocked the worst of it out of me.  It was a four-month recovery.  Yuck.

The Super Bowl hoopla does not amuse me.  I have little interest in the teams.  Less in the press corps covering the event.  And the commercials have never meant much to me.  (Well, a couple of the Budweiser frog spots were pretty good.)

The White House's trial balloon of changing the rules and taxing the income from the 529 College Savings Plans fizzed-out to a quiet early death.  As a tax professional, I've always had a skepticism for long term financial planning based on a particular IRS Code rule that created a consistent favorable outcome for taxpayers.  If it works out too well for people, there's a tendency for the IRS to "tweak" the rule because revenue is it's middle name.

Few of this President's proposals meet with bipartisan disfavor, so it was interesting to hear and read the panning of this item after the SOTU address.  One article/post suggested that one of the reasons that the criticism was so immediate and widespread was that the media class was probably a big participant in the 529 program.  That posit makes some sense.  Journalists are education-oriented people.  Most went to college.  And they know how much it is going to cost to send their own kids to school.  Funny how taxing "the rich" (who, according to BO, are the only ones using 529's), gets a little close to home for the not-so-rich.

It came as no surprise to me that the White House has already pulled the plug on the proposal.  Politics is politics.

(I heard another idea about raising revenue by eliminating the home mortgage interest and real estate tax deductions for everyone.  I actually have no problem with these suggestions.  They fall into my bigger-picture approach of eliminating all deductions and going to a gross-income or consumption tax.  The real estate industry would go into an apocalyptic fit, of course.  Lobbyists would take Capital Hill by siege.  But getting rid of all of the deductions would simplify the process.  It won't happen in my lifetime.)

Our new Barracuda network security system is too good.  I routinely can't access sites that have been in my rotation for years.  Some of my Yahoo email is blocked.  I have to give the site address to our IT vendor to get it excepted from the screening utility.  It has happened when I go to print an airline reservation or an order from Gap.  It doesn't like Lululemon.  I feel so much more secure.

The markets continue to rock up and down.  Uncertainty about Europe.  Slowing growth rate in the US.  Oil under $45 a barrel.  A pricier dollar compared to the Euro and other currencies.  Microsoft makes BILLIONS in the quarter...and the stock goes down 10%.  Buckle up.

All for today.

BCOT