Odds & Ends

Frank Talk Banner
Print    Email

11-15 of 19

Doing Good And Getting Results

    July 08, 2009

Providing basic health care to 55,000 people and carrying out 50,000 eye surgeries in remote corners of Latin America.

Cataracts Screening Peru 070809

Those are among the achievements of the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative (CGSGI) in its two years of existence.

CGSGI is one of the philanthropies that I am most deeply involved in.

I was there in the summer of 2007 when former President Bill Clinton and businessman Frank Giustra formed CGSGI to work with governments, communities and the private sector to help address health care, employment and other challenges facing emerging nations.

The project immediately gained the support of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who matched Giustra’s $100 million pledge.

CGSGI’s efforts in Peru and Colombia also include improving child nutrition and education, supporting creation of small businesses and encouraging sustainable agriculture and tourism.

Some 80 percent of the world’s population lives in emerging nations, and that’s also where 80 percent of the world’s natural resources are found. The wealth is not broadly shared in many of these resource-dependent countries, the result being high levels of poverty, a chronic lack of jobs, inadequate health care and poor schools.

CGSGI’s innovative approach has already made a difference in the lives of thousands of families, and its work is just getting started.  

Learn More About CGSGI

By clicking the link you will be directed to the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative Web site. U.S. Global Investors is not responsible for the content of this Web site. While we generally support the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, we do not necessarily endorse every opinion expressed on its Web site. 09-460

 

Ten Taxpayers Walk Into a Bar…

    June 29, 2009

A friend recently sent me a story that does a good job of explaining the problem with our tax system in simple terms.

I did some checking and discovered that this story—and a similar one about ten guys at a bar—has been around since 2001 but it’s still a mystery where the original story came from.

Regardless of its origins, the piece is a thought-provoking look at our tax system.

Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men—the poorest—would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth man—the richest—would pay $59.

That’s what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement—until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.” So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free.

But what about the other six—the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?”

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59.

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth.

“But he got $7!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man, “I only saved a dollar, too…
It’s unfair that he got seven times more than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man, “why should he get $7 back when I got only $2?
The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “We didn’t get anything at all.
The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night he didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him.

But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important.

They were $52 short of paying the bill!

Imagine that!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

Where would that leave the rest?

Unfortunately, most taxing authorities anywhere cannot seem to grasp this rather straightforward logic!

09-435

 

“Happy” Tax Day

    April 15, 2009

If you haven't already done so, the deadline for filing your taxes with the IRS is today. The IRS estimates that roughly one out of every seven tax filers will submit their return today.

In honor of Tax Day, I put together a short list of things you probably didn't know about America's tax history.

  • The official Tax Day was moved to April 15 in 1955. Prior to that, income tax reports were due a month earlier on March 15.
  • The IRS was originally created as the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1904. The Bureau's name was changed to the Internal Revenue Service in 1953 in an effort to stress the "service" aspect of the Bureau.
  • Congress was given the permanent power to tax income with the passing of the 16th Amendment in 1913. At the time, the average income was only $1,296 and tax rates were between 1 and 5 percent.
  • The Revenue Act of 1932 was the largest peacetime tax increase in the nation's history, pushing top tax rates up to 63 percent. A few years later, the Wealth Tax Act of 1935 increased the top tax rate to 75 percent. By 1945, top earners paid as much as 94 percent of their income back to the government.
  • Denmark has the world's highest personal tax rate at 63 percent. Denmark also has the highest rate of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP coming in just under 50 percent.
  • The first 1040-forms were introduced in 1914 but were only used for record keeping purposes.
  • Lincoln passed the Tax Act of 1862, instituting the nation's first progressive income tax rate in order to pay for the Civil War. Once the war was over, the tax was repealed.
 

The Credit Crisis, Simplified

    April 02, 2009

Much has been written and said about the global financial calamity, but not many of these discussions have captured the issue’s origins as well as a short video called “Crisis of Credit Visualized.”

The creator uses appealing animation and an easy-to-follow sequence to spell out the key relationship between Main Street and Wall Street—the escalation of leverage by both.

The graphical explanations of how leverage works and how mortgage-backed securities are created are especially clever and illuminating.

I encourage you to check out this video—it’s an 11-minute tutorial that will give you a better understanding of how we got to where we find ourselves now.


09-243

 

A Tragic Tale of “Gold for Bread”

    March 26, 2009

A powerful video appeared on YouTube a couple of weeks ago on the current political and financial crisis in Zimbabwe.

It’s called “Gold for Bread” and this title says it all—hyperinflation has rendered the Zimbabwean currency so worthless that desperate citizens, young and old, have to spend long days laboring in rudimentary gold mines just to be able to buy a day’s worth of food for themselves and their dependents.

The video was shot in early March by Sam Chakaipa, a Zimbabwean who’s an activist for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and shows the terrible state of the country under President Robert Mugabe.

Watch the video below:

Zimbabwe’s current plight is a good example of why we work with groups like the International Crisis Group. Crisis Group, which seeks to avoid and address conflict around the world, has played a key role in facilitating negotiations between political parties in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe was once one of the wealthiest and most productive countries in Africa, but more than two decades of kleptocracy and de facto dictatorship under Mugabe has left the country economically and politically bankrupt.

It is the important work of people like Sam Chakaipa and groups like Crisis Group that will enable Zimbabwe to return to its productive past and allow its people to flourish, not merely survive through back-breaking work in gold mines.

*Visit Crisis Group’s Zimbabwe Advocacy Page

*You are leaving U.S. Global Investors, Inc's site. You are now being redirected to the Crisis Group Website. U.S. Global Investors does not endorse any information supplied by this website and is not responsible for any of its content. While we generally support Crisis Group International, we do not necessarily endorse every opinion expressed on its website.

All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. 09-221

 

 

11-15 of 19

RSS Feed

How To Invest | Access My Account | Investment Professionals | Explore Our Funds

U.S. Global Investors • 7900 Callaghan Road San Antonio, Texas 78229 • 1-800-US-Funds
© Copyright 2009, U.S. Global Investors, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by U.S. Global Brokerage, Inc.

Prospectus | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use Agreement | Policies and Procedures | Contact Us