GuruFocus Updates (Free subscription) | 16/11/2009
By gurujk. This is the group of companies who raised their dividend during the week: Universal Corporation ( UVV ), Kimco Realty Corporation ( KIM ), Microchip Technology ( MCHP ), and Aaron's, Inc. ( AAN ). Read more » »
Dividend Growth Investor (Free subscription) | 09/11/2009
Many investors are being sold on the idea of generating income in retirement by solely focusing on fixed income securities. That way they would have a stable income pretty much for life and there is a high likelihood that the principle would be returned intact after the bond matures. The main problem with this strategy is that while the income would remain unchanged over time, its real purchasing...
Bishop Hill (Free subscription) | 28/10/2009
This is shamelessly stolen from Jeff Id . The idiom is American, but the point is universal. At first I thought this was funny….. then I realized the awful truth of it. Be sure to read all the way to the end!… A Tax Poem Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table At which he’s fed. Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes Are the rule. Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for...
NDN Blog - NDN Blog (Free subscription) | 20/10/2009
Last week, Finland made broadband access a universal right . Now, Mexico has announced their intention to levy a tax on all telecom services , including internet. If that seems regressive to you, that's because it is. Broadly speaking, it makes good policy sense to tax items with negative externalities (like tobacco, alcohol, or, say, carbon emissions) and to leave untaxed things that help create...
They gave us a republic (Free subscription) | 13/10/2009
After Monday's fury over the health insurance industries attempted extortion bid, first the tax-shelter specialist accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers ran away from their own report as fast as they could last night. PWC as a firm, I might add, has that has no special healthcare expertise, other than a willingness to produce reports that say whatever the organization paying for them want them to...
Bigthink - Site Features Feed (Free subscription) | 06/10/2009
After all the debates over the efficacy of Canadian health care , the Canadian government is pursuing a unique track in cutting the costs and easing some of the burden placed on its universal health care system. Despite some obvious drawbacks, most notably a potential hit to the tourist industry, Canadian government at the federal and provincial levels are taking an aggressive stance against the tobacco...
Full Comment (Free subscription) | 30/09/2009
Give me your best Dr. Evil voice now: Ontario is going to sue Big Tobacco for “$50 BEEEEEEEELLION DOLLARS.” Tobacco companies are the last refuge from which government can squeeze an endless supply of money. They are the convenient Nosferatu for which there is seldom dissent against a hardline stance. They’re peddlers of addiction and cancer, of long-term heart disease and emphysema....
Media Matters for America (Free subscription) | 28/09/2009
Rolling Stone 's Tim Dickinson reports that Betsy McCaughey's mid-1990s lies about health care reform -- lies that helped torpedo the Clinton administration's efforts to provide universal health care -- were, in effect, the result of tobacco-industry propaganda: McCaughey's lies were later debunked in a 1995 post-mortem in The Atlantic, and The New Republic recanted the piece in 2006. But what has...
Seattle Times (Free subscription) | 23/09/2009
This New York Times story undercuts the argument that Americans have shorter lifespans than Europeans and Japanese because they have universal health insurance and we don't
Confessions of a Bibliovore (Free subscription) | 13/09/2009
Book: Sonny's House of Spies Author: George Ella Lyon Published: 2004 When Sonny's daddy left, he said, "A man can't live in a house of spies." But seven years later, thirteen-year-old Sonny feels as if he has no choice but to spy. Nobody will tell him anything, and there are so many things he doesn't understand. Where did his father go? Why did he go? Is he ever coming back? Over the course...
Pam's House Blend (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
Karen Ocamb has recently posted a (very) worthy primer on the Prop 8 campaign here (pls feel free to follow the link and rec her diary!). What follows is intended to serve as supplementary material for those who might be interested in viewing a sequential presentation of the various YouTube clips that Karen references in her post. March 28, 2009. Washington, DC. 2009 Pollie Awards and Conference. American...
Stories on Malawi (Free subscription) | 09/09/2009
Blantyre - Malawi has expelled four South Africans working for international tobacco firms for price cutting and sabotaging the economy, President Bingu wa Mutharika said on Wednesday. "They were sabotaging the economy and harming tobacco growers," Mutharika said in a strongly worded denunciation of the four, in a special live broadcast. Calling the four "colonialists", Mutharika...
Stories on Malawi (Free subscription) | 09/09/2009
Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Malawi, the world’s largest burley tobacco producer, said it will deport officials of Alliance One Inc. and the local unit of Universal Corp. for paying below government-mandated prices for the leaf. “This is the action I have taken,” President Bingu wa Mutharika said in a speech broadcast live on the state-owned Malawi Broadcasting Corp. radio station today....
The RBC (Free subscription) | 31/08/2009
I always liked Bill Bradley when he was a Senator, but as a bipartisan dealmaker, he leaves something to be desired: Since the days of Harry Truman, Democrats have wanted universal health coverage, believing that if other industrialized countries can achieve it, surely the United States can. For Democrats, universal coverage speaks to America's sense of decency and compassion. Democrats also believe...
taxmanblog (Free subscription) | 18/08/2009
Bob Beckel comes clean on Obamacare tort reform; or the lack of it. Universal healthcare has been our fight for 50 years. It is ingrained in our DNA and we are close. There are no guarantees, but Democrats offering tort reform will confound the Republicans, take away one of their most potent arguments, and put us back on the offensive. If that means throwing some trial lawyers under the bus, so be...
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