With resistance growing to the GOP’s border adjustment tax, The Wall Street Journal reports on a truly heinous plan B to fund a corporate tax cut. This half-baked plan comes courtesy of the American Enterprise Institute. The AEI plan would cut corporate taxes to 15% and pay for the reduction by taxing dividends and capital gains at ordinary income rates (that’s 39.6% pre-Obamacare taxes and over 43% post). Capital gains would be paid on a mark-to-market basis. If you bought a stock for $100 and it appreciated to $200 at the end of the year, but you held onto it, you would still owe $40 in … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2017
Little Could be the New Big in Wind Power Tech
For much of the last two decades the key to getting better wind power efficiency was larger and larger turbines. Garrad Hassan writes of the trend in greater turbine size Source: Garrad Hassan The past exponential growth of turbine size was driven by a number of factors. The early small sizes, around 20-60 kW, were very clearly not optimum for system economics. Small wind turbines remain much more expensive per kW installed than large ones, especially if the prime function is to produce grid quality electricity. This is partly because towers need to be higher in proportion to … [Read more...]
It’s Only ‘Safety First’ That Will Make You Money: Part II
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, on the heels of releasing his annual report, said that the stock market isn’t in a bubble and “measured against interest rates, stocks actually are on the cheap side compared to historic valuations.” In the same interview, he also warned “That doesn’t mean the stock market can’t go down 20% tomorrow.” A buying opportunity he’d welcome with open arms. It’s good to be Warren. Believe me when I tell you that I appreciate the methods Warren Buffett deploys to make money. One big one being that at the core of his methods he’s America's #1 stockbroker. Between … [Read more...]
You’ll be Shocked by this Statistic on Norway
On a per person basis, Norway is one of the world's leading oil producers. One might assume that with all of that oil, the Norwegian automobile fleet would be among the world's least fuel efficient, but the opposite is true. Norway is the world's most developed national market for electric cars. Last year, battery-powered cars and plug-in hybrids together accounted for 29% of all new car sales. Though the country's fleet is still only 5% electric, the government says it is realistic to expect an end to sales of new cars powered by fossil fuels within the decade. The Economist has more. TO … [Read more...]
Can China Complete its Painful Capacity Reductions?
China plans to cut its steel production by 50 million metric tons, and its coal production by 150 million tons in 2017. But can the country achieve those goals while simultaneously meeting its 9% target for fixed-asset investment? Fanfan Wang and Grace Zhu report at The Wall Street Journal: Last year, the government cut steel overcapacity by 45 million tons and coal by 250 million tons. The government also aims to realize 9% growth in fixed-asset investment this year, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a report delivered at the National People’s Congress. Beijing had … [Read more...]
This is why Trump just put Germany in his Crosshairs
During the Presidential campaign Trump promised to get tough on trade. Mexico was the focus of much of his rhetoric, but that isn't the only trading relationship the new administration is looking to renegotiate. The FT reports that the Trump administration wants to have a sit-down with Germany on the country's massive trade surplus. Germany's membership in the euro-area keeps its currency undervalued and provides it with a meaningful trading advantage. If the Germans brought back the Deutsche mark, most economists estimate it would appreciate significantly vis-à-vis the euro thereby … [Read more...]
These 14 Simple Tax Changes are Needed Now
America desperately needs a tax overhaul to fix a system that has become unwieldy and difficult for business. Reforms could boost the economy, and even the thought of tax reforms has sent markets soaring. Here, from Fidelity, are fourteen tax changes that could show up in any potential reform package. Tax rates: The Trump plan and the House plan would both cut the top rate to 33 percent from 39.6 percent, raise the lowest rate to 12 percent from 10 percent, and collapse the number of brackets — different tax rates at different income levels — to three from seven. The Senate leadership has … [Read more...]
Lithium-Ion Battery Pioneer Makes Major Improvements to Battery Technology
Fortune explains here the new battery that John Goodenough, one of the co-investors of the lithium-ion battery, recently introduced in the Journal of Energy & Environmental Science. Goodenough and his team say the battery charges faster, would never explode, and performs well at low temperatures. 94 year-old John Goodenough, one of the co-inventors of the lithium-ion battery that now powers everything from phones to Teslas, has developed a new solid-state battery formula that promises to hold three times more energy than li-on. Goodenough and his team also say the new battery, which … [Read more...]
Is the Old Retirement Model Broken?
In an interview with Fidelity Viewpoints, Stanford Center for Longevity founding director Laura Carstensen says the old model of retirement just won't work anymore. Life expectancy throughout most of human evolution was somewhere between 18 and 20 years. Life was short. By the mid-1800s life expectancy had reached the mid-30s in the United States, and in 1900 it was 47 years. By the end of the century, life expectancy had reached 77. It gained 30 years in one century—that’s unprecedented. More years were added to average life expectancy in the 20th century than all the years added in all … [Read more...]
How the KISS Prinicple is Powering GE’s Digital Solutions Unit
Throughout the years, I've extolled the KISS principle, an abbreviation of Keep it Simple, Stupid. Over complicating matters rarely generates benefits greater than the drawbacks associated with all the complication. GE stumbled on the same idea when it combined three digital businesses into a single Digital Solutions unit a few years ago. The business was having trouble generating new business because it took potential clients months to parse through GE's reams of contract language. To speed up business and boost revenue, GE focused on creating a single plain language contract to replace its … [Read more...]
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