The Race Is On

For the last few years, my head has been hosting a competition between bald and gray. Bald has taken an early lead on the crown, while gray is dominating the sides. I've never gotten anywhere on my looks so this doesn't bother me all that much, but given the choice I'd prefer the race was ended early on account of sufficient progress by both teams.

I've wondered what hair style, or lack thereof, will best suit the final state of my head. Here are a few options.

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Exhibit One: the combover

A strong contender. My hair is too curly, though I suppose I could straighten it and then flop some overly lengthy strands across the top.

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Exhibit Two: the ponytail

Maybe overcompensating on the back end will distract from the folically challenged front. I'd have to get a Camero though and that's just a deal breaker for me.

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Exhibit Three: the chrome dome

Whoops, wrong gender. Didn't mean to scare you. Here's the one...

This has been my personal favorite for some time. Classic, easy to maintain, plus there's always an excuse to wear hats.

Today, however, everything changed. I've found the right style.

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I'm sure you will agree with the paraphrased version of another baldy's most famous hit, nothing compares to this:

Two More Thoughts

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

.....-- Margaret Thatcher

From the always good XKCD:

Really Congress? Seriously?

Yesterday the House passed its version of a bill that will tax bonus income at 90%. The Senate plans to vote next week and expectations are high that the joint Congressional committee will work out the final law quickly. Yes, it's limited to employees of companies that received at least $5 billion in federal bailout funds. Yes, you have to have household income of $250,000 to be hit by the 90% rate. So no big deal right? This will only affect like, oh everyone who has been working on Wall Street more than a couple of years. But they are all bad, bad people who destroyed the world so it's alright.

Let me put a few points on the interwebz for your amusement. I get that this is an emotional issue as much as anything, but consider:

• Most producing employees at the affected companies earn most of their income in bonus. First year associates earn around $120,000 in salary. Senior managing directors may earn $300,000 in salary. The first, in a normal year, gets 0.5x to 1.5x his salary as a bonus. The latter gets 10.0x to 50.0x. Salaries just don't rise all that much in spite of total earnings rising dramatically. (Let's leave aside the moral discussion of whether these amounts are "fair". Most of us would agree that above a certain level they are not.) Call a spade a spade: Taxing bonus income at 90% isn't far from a 90% tax on all compensation for almost all relevant employees.
• If the goal is to punish the bad men who brought down global finance and by extension put additional burdens on Americans, how does taxing everyone help? To provide just one example: Last year my team produced around $24 million in revenue. About 60% of that was profit. Just six of us returned more than $14 million to our bank's shareholders. We've done that for years and will continue to, unless the opportunity gets legislated away. We take no risk, require no capital, and break no laws. How exactly does punishing tens of thousands of other people on similarly profitable teams across the street accomplish anything productive?
• If we turn the compensation structure upside down, will that make the populists happy? Using the same numbers as before, if top first years are paid a salary of $250,000 and a $50,000 bonus with top senior producers receiving a salary of $15 million and a $300,000 bonus would people feel better? Hey, no more big bonuses; mission accomplished. Some form of compensation shifting is already in the works at most firms. I'm a jaded cynic, but having spent a decade doing finance stuff I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple of people around with the skills and motivation to restructure the numbers and cleanly avoid the intent of this new tax. Should take about one percent of the time it's taking Congress to put the measure in place.
• Retroactive taxation on any bonus paid since December 31, 2008. Americans are okay with this? Really? Here, let me write it again: Retroactive taxation.
• I understand why some people support redistributivist measures. For those who have no intention of earning enough to worry about becoming a target of tax authorities, taking more from "the rich" is seen as a way to increase their own piece of the pie. What makes no sense to me is that other professionals are silent or supportive. Do the doctors, lawyers, engineers, consultants, non-Wall Street financiers and executives believe the mob isn't coming for them? Maybe it isn't; perhaps I'm too close to the situation and completely wrong. I just can't get Martin Niemoller's poem out of my head.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

We're over the edge of the slippery slope and it's a long way down.

On Stability

Madame Delicious and I have recently been discussing potential changes that would significantly impact our family. While it's too early (at least for me) to know what will happen, uncertainty is nonetheless unsettling. We both value control. A small glimmer of light on the path is better than total darkness.

Last night we were discussing the same topic that has occupied 80% of our March conversations. As I was drifting off to sleep, Denise commented on the virtues of stability in some aspects of life (family, employment, good Italian food, etc). Though I was too groggy to verbalize it, the following analogy occurred to me:

During a storm at sea, some people may take comfort from lashing themselves to the mast. This will dramatically lower their risk of going overboard and likely provides a measure of short-term security.

Unfortunately, being bound to the ship is much less appealing if the vessel sinks.

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I think I know what this means to me, but your insight (including pointing out that I don't even sail and would be better served to spend more time sleeping than making up analogies of questionable value) is welcome.

Please Remind Me How Many Horsemen There Will Be

I was so shocked by Utah's need to label common hinge-hung hallway barriers that a radio advertisement I heard while on my recent visit slipped my mind. Apparently MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were scheduled to jointly headline in Orem in early March. I thought it was a radio DJ joke or a planned parody show.

Turns out that this is the second troubling signal for the future of that pretty great state. The rappers performed together. In concert. In 2009. And people paid to attend.

Move Along

There is nothing amusing about this headline, so don't read it.

Thank you.

Readin', Ritin', Rithmatic

There is a persistant mistruth spread in some circles that all higher education is of equal value and that receiving a degree from a school like, oh I don't know, the University of Utah or BYU just to pick two at random, is the same as a degree from any other accreditated school. This is a lie with harmful long-term implications. However, there isn't time to get into discrediting that falsehood right now.

For the last three years I've been asked to speak at the University of Utah Finance Conference. (This says far more about the pool of talent on which they have to draw then on my value as a presenter.) Generally I spend a day in Salt Lake making people cry because they are shocked to learn that in spite of being told that their education is just as good as anyone else's, employers --and you may want to be seated for this next bit -- prefer to hire people from better schools. The fact that almost no one understands that getting a job on Wall Street takes a couple years of learning, networking, interning, and interviewing (as opposed to most student's plan of waking up one day in the spring of their senior year and skimming through the help wanted section of the campus paper) further compounds their challenges.

While I was at the school last week, I came across the best evidence yet that the University of Utah isn't positioning itself to produce Rhodes Scholars in abundance. I believe this explains not only the job search challenges students face, but goes a long way toward putting into perspective where the foolish attitudes mentioned in the opening paragraph come from.

I took this picture Friday afternoon in one of the business school buildings:

The third line of text on the sign reads, "It may open".

Leaving aside the fact that college and graduate school students probably shouldn't need to be told what doors are, I'm not sure why we need to warn them. Much like the fact that I'm one of a handful of people asked to speak at their conference each year, the implications of this sign do not bode well for the future prospects of Utah-based higher education.