Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (051006)

9:45 AM: Oops — This accidentally was posted into yesterday. Apologies for the delay.
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Free Links:

• Chavez hikes oil taxes — So Hugo Chavez isn’t satisfied with the $36 billion (5th paragraph at link) “his” country will get in extra oil revenues if oil stays at $70-plus a barrel. That’s a multiple of ExxonMobil’s “obscene” profit, but I digress. Here’s what stuck with me:
  

  Chavez said during his six-hour talk that the new tax on producers would be 33 pct, and replace an existing oil royalty of 16.7 pct.

  SIX HOURS?? And who was listening at the end? Bill Clinton’s audience at the 1988 Democrat convention almost lost control when he spoke for just over an hour. Chavez won’t have to resort to brutal methods to take out his opponents; he’ll simply bore them to death.

• What a Ridiculously Biased Headline (”Republicans Set Aside Middle-Income Tax Cuts to Focus on Rich”) — Keeping the investment-related provisions of the law in place, and quickly, is more important so companies and investors, rich or otherwise, can make credible plans. The family-related provisions that expire in 2010 don’t negatively affect the economy if they aren’t made permanent right away, but tell you what, guys and gals — make it all permanent as fast as you can and get it over with.
• A few years ago, there was a funny list of dumb tech-support questions going around, like the caller who couldn’t find the CD drive but wondered why the computer had a cup holder. It looks like this may be the beginning of the list of dumb voting-machine user stories:
  

  Some technophobic voters, we concede, will never get used to the newfangled machines. In Youngstown, one exasperated man was reported to have scrawled a write-in vote directly onto the device’s screen with a pen.

• There should be a big push-back from the small business community on this (”Privately held firms facing SOX-like auditing standards”) — The stricter audit standards would take effect for annual financial statements with year-ends after December 31, 2007 (the article is incorrect about the effective date). There is no good reason for tougher audit standards on private companies, except to create revenues for the CPA firms. Most privately-held firms are small, and have financial audits for one reason: to keep their lending banker happy. The lending banker ordinarily has a direct relationship with the company’s owner or owners. There is no reason to lard on the internal control requirements expected of public companies, and the costs will be prohibitive. Many banks will consider exempting clients from the audit requirement, or risk losing business to other banks who will do the same. The result will thus be a combination of more costs pushed onto smaller businesses not exempted, and more risk being taken on by the banks for the ones that are. Neither outcome is desirable.
• This writer believes that Microsoft’s Vista operating system, when it arrives, will be very problematic from a security standpoint.
• The telcos, other special interests, and knee-jerk conservatives are trying to portray the issue of Net Neutrality (covered previously here) as the province of the MoveOn left. Unless Gun Owners of America has suddenly switched sides, that myth is officially busted (HTs to E-mailer Kevin and “S.O.B.er” Weapons of Mass Discussion).

Subscription-only Link:

• This is one of those pieces that I hope comes out from behind The Wall Street Journal’s subscription wall onto OpinionJournal.com, as sometimes happens. It’s all about why certain groups are advancing economically and others aren’t. Here is the key excerpt:
  

  Still, some claim that the benefits of this economic boom are being enjoyed only by the relatively well-off, and that we have left the rest of our workforce behind. Is this true? Over the last 25 years, the wages of the skilled have continued to grow faster than the wages of the less skilled. For example, the wages of the college-educated have grown by 22% since 1980, while the wages of high-school drop-outs has fallen by 3%.

  This does not mean, however, that the rich are benefiting at the expense of the poor. Instead, it means that the return to investing in education and training continues to grow. Most economists believe that the increased divergence between the wages of the skilled and the unskilled reflects technological advancements that make workers’ skills more valuable. Having an economy that places a greater value on skills and education is a good thing. Our economy can grow more quickly when the returns to investment are high, and human capital investment is the most important form of investment.