TAX

We know from having heard numerous stories reported again and again on TV and in newspapers over the years about “pork barrel” spending, that our government is not necessarily judicious in watching the purse strings (to say the least). However, I heard an expose reported by ABC news in Phoenix earlier this week that made my blood pressure rise.

The headline: “Social Security spends $700,000 on Phoenix conference.”

This investigative report was broken by Channel ABC 15 News in Phoenix (snipurl.com/ng2qk) and reported to the Social Security Administration and members of Congress, who are now conducting additional investigations. Here’s the story’s highlights:

675 Social Security managers attended a “motivational management” conference at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, a high-end Phoenix area resort last week that cost $700,000. The conference’s costs included airfare, hotel entertainment, dancers, motivational speakers, and food. The Social Security Administration provided ABC 15 with a list of courses offered at the conference, which included, “Techniques to Empower You,” Mentoring the Generations,” and “Emotional Intelligence.”

A spokesperson from the SSA’s regional office said the conference was essential, that teleconferencing was not an option, and that all 675 managers needed to meet in person. They did put the conference out to bid, and rooms for the conference were booked at $85 per night, versus the rack rate of $400 for a room during the prime tourist season. However, as you might note, it is not prime tourist season in Phoenix in July…..

The SSA omitted from their report to ABC 15 that the conference also included an after-hours casino trip, family members staying at the resort, or a dance that was observed by the reporters.

“This was a training conference. The location was selected through the government’s competitive bidding process. The facility that was selected was the lowest bidder, and we paid well-below the prescribed government rate.” Leslie Walker, Regional Communications Director, SSA.

By the way, Social Security trustees said in May that the program will begin paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, and the program’s trust fund will be depleted by 2037. 2016 is little more than six years away from now….

This story offends on so many levels. Let me count just a few of the the ways:

-They’re spending my money (and yours) on unnecessary perks and travel when they don’t have the funds. Repeat: they don’t have the money! When was the last time your company sent you to the Biltmore for a few days of motivational training?

- Why is there a different standard for the public sector versus the private sector? Since when it is acceptable to “do as I say, but not as I do?”

- Haven’t they heard about holding webinars and using GotoMeeting.com as an alternative to personal travel?

- Corporations and the banking industry in particular have been vilified by the Obama Administration, who promised during campaigns to cut waste in the government. In fairness, I do recall that Obama announced a 10% cut in the budgets of his director reports in February or March, which resulted in a couple hundred million saved. Yes, we need MUCH more of this kind of action. Every new major legislative proposal is presented as a cost saving initiative, yet how many trillions in debt are we now with no apparent end in sight for additional new Federal programs?

- How can these agencies continue to spend money they don’t have? Contrary to what Joe Biden (always interesting) said this week in a speech to the Association of Active Retired Persons (snipurl.com/oay25), everyone knows you STOP spending when you go bankrupt; you don’t spend MORE!

- Training & developing their managers is OK and economically justifiable for a major benefit program that has no assets that all of us have paid into for many, many years.

- What’s happened to fiduciary responsibility in the government? The SEC would throw the SSA execs in jail if it were a private sector agency, based upon the way it’s been managed. Essentially it’s a Ponzi scheme. There are no assets because the government has robbed Peter to pay Paul.

- What about the people who’ve paid into FICA for decades, counted on receiving retirement benefits from the SSA, are legitimately disabled, and/or worked in lower level jobs so they didn’t save enough money for retirement? Particularly after the financial “repression” we’ve experienced resulting in drastically reduced 401K balances and housing values, many “would-be retirees” are delaying retirement.

The hypocrisy and arrogance of the public sector and our politicians for both parties is just unbelievable to me!! We need leaders who are tough enough to take on the challenge of addressing the fact that the SSA is on the verge of bankruptcy and will fix it so it can be restored to serve its original purpose. It’s been pillaged & plunged for many years, and now we’re seeing the results of that greed and failure to control spending.

Several months ago, I wrote about Wells Fargo (snipurl.com/o95ov) buckling to public pressure and canceling their annual employee recognition event scheduled to be held in Las Vegas. They had the money set aside in their budget to pay for this event yet canceled it due to public pressure for TARP recipients regarding compensation practices.

What’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander anymore. I really worry about our future. California’s on the verge of going bankrupt with its recently downgraded credit rating just above junk bond status as our legislators fail to agree on viable budget solutions. Is our nation also at risk for going bankrupt a few years hence? Is the SSA situation simply a foreshadowing of bigger issues to come? How do we get out of this mess?

I’m going on vacation for a long weekend…..and hope to be more positive when I return!

Becky Regan, M.A., CCP began her own consulting practice in 1995, Regan HR, Inc. to provide human resources consulting services to businesses in California. She has been successful in growing her business through reputation and client referrals. Her work as a consultant includes the full spectrum of HR technical expertise, including C-level recruitment, compensation studies (design, market and executive pay studies, sales compensation plans), training & teaching, interim assignments as a HR Director for organizations, and employee relations, including workplace investigations and written responses to formal complaints. For more HR tips and to receive my FREE “The Top 5 Secrets to Building a Better Organization that Every HR Pro Must Know

business

They say it’s almost impossible to call the top of the business cycle or the bottom of a recession. Usually, it is six months after the fact until anyone knows for sure that a recession is occurring or that a recession has ended. This is because often recessions test themselves at the bottom and may go lower and it’s hard to say where the bottom is while you are in it.

Of course, the same thing goes for the top of the business cycle. No one knows for sure when we hit the apex because sometimes it goes down a little bit and then goes back up. So, when I was recently asked if it is time to start a business yet, and if this recession was over, I said it depends while addressing a college class of MBA students. The reality of the question is quite interesting; because it depends on which type of business they will be entering, and which industry.

Different industry sectors expand and contract at different times based on a multitude of variables. This is not a time that I would start an airline, an auto manufacturing company, a home residential construction company, or a bank that makes home loans, but I might start a service company of some type. I might start a wholesale company that sells to “first to recover” type of industry and to the public. So it really depends.

One thing I can tell you is there is a lot of money to be made when you buy everything at the lowest possible prices, right now everything is inexpensive, that means the equipment that will be needed to run a new business, the land or the buildings that the business will be located at, and even hiring top talent; it won’t get any cheaper than it is now and that’s always a consideration.

Any good stockbroker will tell you the way to make money in stocks is to “Buy low and sell high!” So I’d like you to consider that if you’re thinking about getting into a business. Now might actually be a very good choice and good timing. Please consider all this.

Shipping

Shipping is a very important part of a business. Shipping times and quality of shipments can make or break any business. In this article I am going to explain how to ship and how to properly prepare your shipments so your customers are happy and come back to give you business.

When figuring out how to ship, the most important thing you will learn is that packaging is key. Making sure your products are packed tight and right will keep your customers coming back for more. It also saves your business time and money on returns, defects, and broken shipments. The first thing you need to do is make sure your boxes are the correct size for your products.

Each item should only have about 4-5 inches of area around the product being shipped. It’s also smart to properly pack your boxes with bubble wrap or some other packaging material. When boxing an item for shipping remember to first lay your packaging material first, then put your item into the box. After this put your bubble wrap or packaging on all sides of the product. Once it’s snug in the box, finish it up with packaging material on the top of the product so the product is secure from all sides. This will help keep your products safe and reliable on delivery.

Learning how to ship can sometimes be a grueling process but once you get the hang of it, its really quite simple. Just remember that people like their products fast and not broken. If you remember these two simple things you will figure out how to ship in no time

A Singapore man undergoing treatment for cancer was detained for four hours by U.S. immigration officials after the drug he was taking caused his fingerprints to disappear.

Foreign visitors undergo mandatory fingerprint screening when they enter the United States.

Now, the unidentified man's oncologist is asking patients taking the commonly used drug, capecitabine, to carry a doctor's note when they travel to the United States.

The oncologist, Eng-Huat Tan of the National Cancer Center in Singapore, described the encounter in a letter published in the current issue of the cancer journal Annals of Oncology.

The 62-year-old cancer patient, identified as Mr. S, eventually was allowed to enter the United States and visit relatives after officials determined he did not pose a security threat.

According to the oncologist, the patient had neck and head cancer that had spread. He responded well to chemotherapy.

To prevent a recurrence, doctors placed him on capecitabine, marketed in the United States as Xeloda.

Google spent Wednesday morning trying to get developers excited about the next generation of Web technologies by showing off how future Web applications will mimic desktop apps.

"It's time for us to take advantage of [this]. . .amazing opportunity," Google's Eric Schmidt told developers.

"It's time for us to take advantage of the amazing opportunity that is before us," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, kicking off Google I/O 2009 in San Francisco. Schmidt was referring to the growing sense that the Internet and browsers--rather than a computer's operating system--will be the future foundation for application development.

The industry isn't quite ready for that yet. Many of applications demonstrated before the crowd of around 4,000 developers will require the widespread adoption of HTML 5 technologies, which are still under development by a consortium of companies and organizations.

Still, Google's Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering, noted that the four modern open standards browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome,and Opera) are all adopting some HTML 5 technologies as they become more stable, taking every opportunity possible to ding Microsoft's Internet Explorer for lagging behind the other four browsers.

However, offstage after his keynote, Gundotra downplayed any conflict with Microsoft, noting that its task in moving toward HTML 5 is more complex because of the large number of enterprises running Internet Explorer, and the possibility that internal applications developed for that browser could break. "As they follow through, they are going to have a huge impact on moving the Web forward," he said.

Gundotra showed off how Web applications will be able to take advantage of five main HTML 5 concepts: canvas tags, video tags, geolocation, application caching and database, and Web Workers.

A crude bomb made from a water bottle was used in an explosion that damaged a Starbucks coffee shop on New York's posh Upper East Side, New York police said.

Monday's explosion shattered glass at the Manhattan Starbucks coffee shop. No one was injured.

The Memorial Day explosion damaged the shop, but no one was injured and no motive has been identified for the bombing.

"We believe it to be ... a six- to 10-ounce water bottle that was wrapped in black tape," New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told CNN on Wednesday.

He said the bomb's powder may have come from fireworks components, including a fuse. The powder was placed inside the bottle in a way that made it "more powerful," Kelly said.

He said a forensics unit is working on finding fingerprints.

The homemade bomb, which went off around 3:30 a.m., shattered glass, but no one was injured. The store was not open. Police have said the device was planted under a wooden bench outside the coffee shop.

"We have a witness who believes he saw two young people he describes as teenagers, both white males," the commissioner said. One is described as blond, wearing a red shirt, and the other had brown hair and wore a gray shirt.

Kelly said the witness saw the two approach the Starbucks, then looked away. After the witness heard the blast, he said he saw the two young people run away from the building.

Kelly said that for now, it's impossible to say whether the bombing was politically motivated.

"We don't know if they were a corporate target or somebody had a problem [with] what was going on on that corner, in general ... we're not ruling anything out."

In 1999, a Starbucks in Seattle, Washington, was vandalized during a world trade conference. In February 2008, a Vancouver Starbucks and another restaurant were damaged by an overnight explosion.

Meet Kaden, bomb-sniffing dog in training.

His name, a Gaelic word meaning "little battle," is fitting for the energetic 12-pound puppy with a perky tail that curls like a cinnamon bun.

At 4 months old, Kaden is a playful, black- and white-coated basenji being schooled at Georgia K9 National Training Center. Once fully trained, he will assist federal and local police officers as well as private corporations in nosing out deadly explosives at schools, airports and public events.

His detective skills can potentially save thousands of lives in an era where law enforcement agencies are aggressively fighting against drugs and terrorist attacks.

"Think about a scenario like the 1996 Olympic bombings," says Kaden's trainer Jeff Schettler, a cheery man who has coached hundreds of dogs to sniff out bombs, drugs, missing people and corpses since the mid-1990s.

Police dogs remain the most affordable and reliable solution to solving crimes that require scent detection, police officers say. Trained dogs can track down cocaine camouflaged inside car seats. They can find children who have mysteriously vanished overnight. Detection dogs can even weed out pest-infested apples and oranges accidentally left in suitcases at airports.

"They are a growing aspect of law enforcement," says Jim Watson, secretary at the North American Police Work Dog Association and a handler for decades.

Earlier this month, investigators were baffled during the international manhunt for George Zinkhan, a former University of Georgia professor accused of fatally shooting his wife and two other people.

Two weeks into the search, two cadaver dogs, a German shepherd named Circe and an Australian shepherd named Madison, arrived. Within 10 hours, the dogs picked up the scent of Zinkhan's remains in a shallow pit hidden in a thick forest. Once the dogs neared the suspect's body, they gave their handlers personalized signals. Circe barked excitedly. Madison lay down.

Trainer Jeff Schettler explains Kaden is an unlikely candidate for police work. Basenjis, a breed that originated in central Africa, are usually used as hunting or show dogs. There are only two other trained police dog basenjis recorded by the North American Police Work Dog Association.

Most trainers in the police dog world dislike experimenting with new dogs, preferring to stick to breeds with a proven track record. Most law enforcement agencies rely on Belgian Malinoises and German shepherds for detection work because of their protective yet friendly personalities, but labs, bloodhounds and beagles also can be used.

"We're not trying to fix anything," Schettler says. "We're trying to enhance it."

Schettler points out some of Kaden's advantages: The dog's weight will peak at about 25 pounds, enabling him seamlessly to sift between cramped luggage and lockers. Kaden is barkless because basenjis have an oddly shaped larynx, ideal for quiet searches.

On a recent rainy Saturday morning at the Georgia K9 National Training Center, little Kaden undergoes testing. Passing the exam depends on his whiffing talents.

Upon the instructor's command, Kaden's pencil-thin legs playfully trot along the damp grass to an oversize wall scattered with dozens of holes. His instructor has hidden black gunpowder wrapped in pantyhose in one of the holes.

If Kaden's nose sniffs out the gunpowder, he will immediately sit.

Kaden begins on the left side, quickly taking a zigzag pattern from one hole to another. His pace is methodical, a sniff for each hole. Soon he slows, pauses, inhales again and then sinks his tiny hindquarters to the ground.

"What a good boy," coo several of Kaden's trainers, stroking his sleek fur and rewarding him with one of his favorite treats, torn bits of venison jerky.

As Kaden nibbles on his treat, Schettler admits there are drawbacks to training basenjis. Basenjis don't have a furry coat to endure cold weather like a German shepherd.

Basenjis are also a highly independent, stubborn breed with personalities similar to cats, making them difficult to train. Kaden's personality, however, is contrary to most basenjis. He was culled from a litter in Atlanta at 7 days old because of his unusual sociability with humans.

"At eight weeks, he was in the airport going up to people and running around like he owned the place," Schettler says.

Training detection dogs such as Kaden often begins during puppyhood so imprinting scent differentiation becomes innate, handlers say. Puppies are selected based on breed purity, confidence, sociability and temperament.

In any training program, there are doggie dropouts. In those instances, the puppies become pets.