About Me 0052: January 2011

Monday 24 January 2011

Making Money Jobs

Tucked within the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 (WHBA) was a tax carry-back provision. It allows homebuilders to count the losses of 2008 and 2009 against taxes paid up to 5 years ago—during their peak profit years. In short, the act allowed for a big tax refund pay-off for big builders, particularly the biggest of them all, PulteGroup.

During PulteGroup’s fourth quarter 2009 earnings call, the company announced that it expected a tax refund of approximately $955 million, $917 million of which would come from the tax loss carry back . Several months later, PulteGroup received $880 million in tax refunds for 2009 thanks to the net operating loss (NOL) tax carry back provision of the Act.

The WHBA Act was intended by Congress and President Obama as a job creation measure. The fact sheet on the legislation stated, “Today President Obama signed legislation to help create jobs by providing tax cuts for homebuyers and businesses, while providing much-needed support for workers who are still struggling to find jobs.”

Later in 2009, an investment analyst from Barclays Capital asked Pulte’s CEO what the company’s priorities were for allocating their cash, which after the tax refund would be close to $3 billion in cash. In his response, CFO Roger Cregg mentioned land, land acquisition, and debt restructuring – but not job creation.

On November 3, 2010, Putle’s CEO announced “approximately $7 million for employee severance and related cost, associated with organizational changes and operations realignment implemented during the quarter.” Just recently, Pulte laid off another 350 workers at a plant in Phoenix, AZ.

Tim Geithner led an Administration effort yesterday to publicize in glowing terms the tax cut deal passed by Congress and signed by the President during the lame duck session in December. Concurrently, they sent out a fact sheet with some similar statistics that Geithner described in a press briefing. He claims that 159 million workers will benefit from the payroll tax cut, and there’s no reason to doubt him on that point. But the analysis suffers from a major sin of omission.

Geithner said that the payroll tax cut, totaling about $110 billion according to new estimates, will lead to an increase in take-home pay for the average worker by about $700 a year, and for the average working family about $1,000 a year. It’s important for him to use those numbers, because they are greater than the $400 per individual, $800 per family Making Work Pay tax cut which this payroll tax cut essentially replaces for 2011. The difference comes in how those taxes get calculated and where they phase out.

Making Work Pay was a flat $400 for every worker, but the benefit phased out for workers making over roughly $95,000 a year. That meant it was targeted directly to people who would spend it and offered a pretty nice benefit. By contrast, the payroll tax cut applies to every worker in America, as Geithner says. Bill Gates will get a payroll tax cut. Alex Rodriguez will get a payroll tax cut. Paris Hilton will get a payroll tax cut. Because the payroll tax itself caps out currently at $106,800, the tax cut for Gates, Rodriguez, Hilton and anyone else making that number is $2,136. But that’s $2,136 more than they got under Making Work Pay. I’ll leave it toy you to determine whether that’s something they need, and something which will work to stimulate the economy.

By contrast, at the low end of the scale, the “benefit” from the payroll tax cut ends up worse than the benefit from Making Work Pay. Making Work Pay was a flat benefit of $400; with the payroll tax cut it’s a percentage of income. So any individual making under $20,000 a year or family making under $40,000 a year will see less of a benefit under the payroll tax cut. That comes out to roughly 50 million workers, or close to 1 in 3, using Geithner’s numbers.

So you have this crazy circumstance where the payroll tax cut ends up a worse deal for low-income workers, who would spend the money, and a better deal for high-income workers, who probably won’t.

It’s true that the payroll tax cut comes out to $110 billion in tax relief for 2011, roughly $50 million more than Making Work Pay on an annual basis. But it’s woefully targeted. And the phony use of “average tax cut” promulgated by Geithner belies the fact that it’s a worse deal for 1 in 3 workers. Similarly, all the examples on the fact sheet are careful to use people making over $20,000 a year, to avoid the embarrassment of admitting that the deal raised taxes for those under that threshold.

I’m sure Geithner and the Administration would reply that it’s unfair to compare the payroll tax cut with Making Work Pay, because Making Work Pay was expiring. Well, so were the Bush tax cuts. And yet they were characterized as needing to be extended to avoid a tax increase. Under their own logic, the payroll tax cut effectuated a tax increase for 50 million workers.

What’s more, I’m sure the White House would look toward all the other wonderful provisions in the deal. Most of them, they’d have to admit, extend current law from 2010 into 2011 and 2012. Geithner was sure to mention the bonus depreciation for new capital investment, which gets accelerated in the bill from current law. But that’s a very lonely provision that represents something different from 2010, a time of sluggish growth.

The Administration and leading economists are sticking to their predictions that the economy will grow 3-4% in 2011, and that this package, in the words of Geithner, will add at least 1.5 million jobs. So far, economic indicators are decidedly mixed on that front. But I wish they would acknowledge all the facts of the payroll tax cut part of the deal, which is a raw one for the working poor.

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

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For the past few months, HBO has been talking to Aaron Sorkin about his long-gestating drama set behind the scenes at a nightly cable news show. However, with him busy on the awards circuit with his latest film, The Social Network, ...

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(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...

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Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

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Transfer news Football Spy video: Latest on Liverpool's chase for ...

Darren Lewis is back with the best round-up of transfer news and gossip on the web.

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Network Project Awaits Greenlight At HBO ...

News Happening Now - KRQE

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Making Money With Options

Yesterday we learned that talks between the Astros and Yankees about Jeff Keppinger didn't get very far. The 30-year-old utility player appeared to be a fine fit for a team in need of bench help, but New York could instead turn to rookie Eduardo Nunez to fill the role. That, however, seems like a Plan B more than anything right now.

If the Yankees want to sift through other options on the open market they'll find that there isn't much left to choose from. Former Yankee prospect Cristian Guzman is still available after posting a less-than-stellar .648 OPS with the Nationals and Rangers. Despite a solid body of work throughout his career, Julio Lugo disappointed in Baltimore last season, hitting .249/.298/.282 in 93 games. Both players offer average defense at shortstop (-0.2 and -0.4 career UZR/150, respectively) but Lugo has more experience playing second base. Those two are essentially the cream of the free agent utility infielder crop.

The Yankees have had trouble signing bench players in recent years in part because no free agent in their right mind would join the Yanks only to sit on the bench behind their impressive cast of regulars. They've had to trade for bench help as a result, grabbing the likes of Wilson Betemit, Jerry Hairston Jr., Eric Hinske, and Austin Kearns at the deadline in recent years. John Hickey of Sportspress Northwest writes that the Mariners need to make a deal if they hope to free up spending cash this winter, so perhaps a deal involving Jack Wilson and the $5MM left on his contract deal could make sense for both sides.

GM Brian Cashman has started each of the last two seasons with young gloveman Ramiro Pena on his bench, so the team could go with him again if they feel Nunez needs more minor league seasoning. The Yankees have money to spend after missing out on Cliff Lee, but quality reserve players are tough to find these days. Overpaying for bench players is a good way to waste money, so don't be surprised if New York starts the season with Pena before making yet another in-season trade. What do MLBTR's readers think the Yankees will do with their bench during before Spring Training?

Mike Axisa contributed to this post.

Facebook has backtracked on controversial plans to allow users to share their address and cellphone number with advertisers, after facing vocal criticism from privacy advocates. Announced on Friday, Facebook billed the option as a way to “easily share your address and mobile phone with a shopping site to streamline the checkout process, or sign up for up-to-the-minute alerts on special deals directly to your mobile phone”; however, while the standard privacy tools were offered, many believed the social networking site had a greater responsibility to notify users when they were giving out the data.

“Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks” Facebook statement

As a result, Facebook has “temporarily” disabled the address and phone number sharing feature, though it will not be gone for good. Instead, the company will be working on new ways to indicate to users when their data is being made available, with a mind to reinstating the functionality “in the next few weeks.”

For the social networking site – which makes its money through advertising – anything that allows its sponsors better or easier access to users is a benefit, and it’s unsurprising that, despite the privacy set-back, it intends to push ahead with options to make personal data more available. Whether the responsibility for educating users about the potential harm in sharing that information is the site’s will remain a much-argued question.

Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

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Major earthquake strikes southwestern Pakistan – This Just In ...

[Updated at 4:47 p.m. ET] An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 struck Wednesday morning in a remote area of southwestern Pakistan, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The earthquake occurred at 1:23 a.m. (3:23 p.m. ...

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Apple shares have dropped after the announcement that CEO Steve Jobs is taking some time off to deal with medical issues. Shares of Apple fell 6.45% immediately after markets opened on Tuesday morning, but quickly made up about half of ...

Friday 14 January 2011

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The main areas of law which are still eligible for public funding are Criminal, the Tenant part of Landlord & Tenant and Family/Matrimonial. Some criminal matters may be means tested and may require a contribution towards the legal advice costs but legal aid is available for most people facing criminal prosecution.

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The situation with Aid for family/matrimonial matters is somewhat different and the rules are beyond the scope of this article. Broadly speaking if a litigant is on benefits then they won't have to make a contribution toward their legal costs and it will all be funded by Legal Aid. If they are not on benefits and earning a wage they may have to make a contribution towards the cost of their legal work. It happens that very few people who are not on benefits fall in to the category where all their costs would be publicly funded.

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Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Hybrid Streetlights: Good Or Bad News For Utilities?

Urban Green Energy — a New York City startup that designs and manufactures small wind turbines — has released and installed the first of its new,

Blagojevich defense wants Obama subpoenaed - Chicago Breaking News

Attorneys for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich today asked a federal judge to subpoena President Barack Obama to testify in Blagojevich's upcoming corruption trial on charges that include allegations Blagojevich sought to sell Obama's former ...

Thursday 13 January 2011

Making Money Opportunities

The last few days have been a blaze of reports about the future of Android and the sub $100 smartphone in 2011. I've been sucked into pieces from Fred, Fortune, Horace, and even some random dude (with good points to make) just as much as the next guy which is why it behooves me to say this now:

If you live in the world of startups (as an entrepreneur, rockstar hacker, seed investor, VC, or even cheerleader) none of this inside baseball stuff about who is going to take market share in the smartphone wars matters to you.

There, I've said it. If you are like me and don't actually follow sports, this whole market share thing is a great substitute.

It's also a big deal for the big tech companies. For instance, at HP we were highly motivated to have Android commoditize smartphones (at least until they went and bought Palm). Google also suffers tremendously if search doesn't port well to this new platform. And clearly Apple (which has already sold Macs to every sucker willing to pay the premium) loves the idea of selling more CPUs to the folks in the cult (me included).

But if you are building the next big SaaS startup? The next social commerce killer app? The next Internet infrastructure bit? You should absolutely not give a shit at all.

In fact, let me tell you what the recipe for determining what your "smartphone strategy" should be:

1. Think hard about whether you can ship an HTML5 version that your customers can find, use, and be delighted by. If so, do that and skip the rest.
2. If the answer to #1 is no, build an iOS app.
3. After you get to a million downloads (yes, 10^6) think about writing a version for Android. But only after you GOTO #1 and re-evaluate that issue.

Before you stop reading, consider this: I have three Android phones. I worked on several Android projects at HP. I love Android, but I love it as a political statement only because Apple's controlling stance on everything creeps me out.

If you want users with credit cards that spend money, mainstream reach, or a platform that actually might make an interesting case for abandoning open standards ("write once, run almost anywhere"), then iOS is it-- for everything else, just be happy the mobile web is now a legit platform to deploy to.

I meet with so many entrepreneurs who run startups and say something like "yeah, we love Android" and then go on to give me a demo on iOS. Why? Because this is where the users are. Not because it is more polished (it is), or because it has a higher quality filter in the AppStore's approval process (it does), but because when you are running a startup, you've got limited resources — and navel gazing about whether the $85 smartphone is going to cause Android to "explode" doesn't help to get you closer to winning, nor does betting precious development resources on political causes (backing the more "open" guy).

But wait, doesn't the openness engender more startup opportunities? Try as I might, I've only found four types of Android specific startup opportunities, none of which have made me particularly excited about investing:

1. Alternatives to key OS functionality (think Swype for the keyboard or Fring for the dialer). Because apps on Android can replace key OS-provided functionality, there are companies trying to invent a better keyboard, a better telephony app, etc. I love Swype (it is super cool), but as a business you only need to look back 15 years at all of the folks who thought they could replace subpar Microsoft-provided functionality for Windows.

2. Enterprise-proofing Android. I think there might be a couple of companies who will build interesting acquisition targets here (especially in the crumbling of the RIM empire) but there is high risk that someone on the actual Android team may wake up soon to the fact that CIOs everywhere (who buy "in bulk") want smartphones made enterprise-safe and thus significantly shorten the runway for all of these startups.

3. Making Android a much better platform for other sensor input. Blood glucose monitors. Bluetooth video cameras. Traffic analyzers. All of these seem to me to be cases for Android's more general form multi-tasking which is quite a bit better than the mongrel Apple shipped, but in the fullness of time, I suspect the folks in Cupertino will catch on to this (or at least the batteries should catch up).

4. Customizing Android for dumb "box maker" OEMs. This is an interesting small business opportunity, but if you want to know what the limited upside is here, just go and find one of the Canonical guys who've been dealing with HP and Dell for years.

Other than that, Android is only better for startups for one Really Big Reason: it puts more HTML5 capable browsers in the pockets of regular users. But guess what? No matter who wins (iOS, Android or even Rim/Nokia), these very capable browsers are now jacks-to-enter in the realm of smartphones.

Smartphones are great for startups, full stop. But Android versus iOS? Sort of like wondering whether the early customers to Amazon.com in 1996 were coming from Windows or Mac. Either way, the big deal was access not whose vehicle you came in.

There, I've said it. If you are like me and don't actually follow sports, this whole market share thing is a great substitute.

But if you are building the next big SaaS startup? The next social commerce killer app? The next Internet infrastructure bit? You should absolutely not give a shit at all.

In fact, let me tell you what the recipe for determining what your "smartphone strategy" should be:

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

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Zak and Sarah Kustok leave after a court hearing today for their father, accused of killing their mother. At right is the family attorney Pete Rush. (Alex Garcia/Chicago Tribune) Bail of $2 million was set today for Allan Kustok, ...

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

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Dallas Cowboys Tidbits: Snacking On Cowboys News - Blogging The Boys

Get the latest roundup of Cowboys in the news. Dallas Cowboys Tidbits are for those that like to eat and run!

Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin will give her first interview since the Arizona shootings--and her controversial "blood libel" video--to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Palin will appear on "Hannity" on Monday, Jan. 17.

Kustok held on $2M bail in wife's homicide - Chicago Breaking News

Monday 10 January 2011

Making Money Internet

You're probably reading this on junk. And I'm not talking about newsprint - industry woes aside, that's high-quality stuff. But if you're on a computer or an iPad, and you're not plugged into an Internet jack in the wall? Junk, then.

But it's not your MacBook or your tablet that's so crummy. It's the spectrum it's using.

Spectrum, in the words of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, is the economy's "invisible infrastructure." It's the interstate system for information that travels wirelessly. It's how you get radio in your car, service on your cellphone and satellite to your television. It's also how you get WiFi.

But not all spectrum is created equal. "Beachfront spectrum" is like a well-paved road. Lots of information can travel long distances on it without losing much data. But not all spectrum is so valuable.

In 1985, there was a slice of spectrum that was too crummy for anyone to want. It was so weak that the radiation that microwaves emit could mess with it. So the government released it to the public. As long as whatever you were doing didn't interfere with what anyone else was doing, you could build on that spectrum. That's how we got garage-door openers and cordless phones. Because the information didn't have to travel far, the junk spectrum was good enough. Later on, that same section of junk spectrum became the home for WiFi - a crucial, multibillion-dollar industry. A platform for massive technological innovation. A huge increase in quality of life.

There's a lesson in that: Spectrum is really, really important. And not always in ways that we can predict in advance. Making sure that spectrum is used well is no less important than making sure our highways are used well: If the Beltway were reserved for horses, Washington would not be a very good place to do business.

But our spectrum is not being used well. It's the classic innovator's quandary: We made good decisions many years ago, but those good decisions created powerful incumbents, and in order to make good decisions now, we must somehow unseat the incumbents.

Today, much of the best spectrum is allocated to broadcast television. Decades ago, when 90 percent of Americans received their programming this way, that made sense. Today, when fewer than 10 percent of Americans do, it doesn't.

Meanwhile, mobile broadband is quite clearly the platform of the future - or at least the near future. But we don't have nearly enough spectrum allocated for its use. Unless that changes, the technology will be unable to progress, as more advanced uses will require more bandwidth, or it will have to be rationed, perhaps through extremely high prices that make sure most people can't use it.

The FCC could just yank the spectrum from the channels and hand it to the mobile industry. But it won't. It fears lawsuits and angry calls from lawmakers. And temperamentally, Genachowski himself is a consensus-builder rather than a steamroller.

Instead, the hope is that current owners of spectrum will give it up voluntarily. In exchange, they'd get big sacks of money. If a slice of spectrum is worth billions of dollars to Verizon but only a couple of million to a few aging TV stations - TV stations that have other ways to reach most of those customers - then there should be enough money in this transaction to leave everyone happy.

At least, that's some people's hope. Some advocates want that spectrum - or at least a substantial portion of it - left unlicensed. Rather than using telecom corporations such as Verizon to buy off the current owners of the spectrum, they'd like to see the federal government take some of that spectrum back and preserve it as a public resource for the sort of innovation we can't yet imagine and that the big corporations aren't likely to pioneer - the same as happened with WiFi. But as of yet, that's not the FCC's vision for this. Officials are more worried about the mobile broadband market. They argue (accurately) that they've already made more beachfront spectrum available for unlicensed uses. And although they don't say this clearly, auctioning spectrum to large corporations gives them the money to pay off the current owners. But even so, they can't do that.

"Imagine someone was given property on Fifth Avenue 50 years ago, but they don't use it and can't sell it," says Tim Wu, a law professor at Harvard and author of "The Master Switch." That's the situation that's arisen in the spectrum universe. It's not legal for the FCC to run auctions and hand over some of the proceeds to the old owners. That means the people sitting on the spectrum have little incentive to give it up. For that to change, the FCC needs Congress to pass a law empowering it to compensate current holders of spectrum with proceeds from the sale.

One way - the slightly demagogic way - to underscore the urgency here is to invoke China: Do you think it's letting its information infrastructure stagnate because it's a bureaucratic hassle to get the permits shifted? I rather doubt it.

Of course, we don't want the Chinese system. Democracy is worth some red tape. But if we're going to keep a good political system from becoming an economic handicap, there are going to be a lot of decisions like this one that need to be made. Decisions where we know what we need to do to move the economy forward, but where it's easier to do nothing because there are powerful interests attached to old habits. The problem with having a really good 20th century, as America did, is that you've built up a lot of infrastructure and made a lot of decisions that benefit the industries and innovators of the 20th century. But now we're in the 21st century, and junk won't cut it anymore.

Values, Value and Valuation — The money is all relative

Oh how timing sometimes works out to be funny. I was driving home tonight and started thinking about the value of products, the valuation of companies and how the values that a company portrays can change the rest. No sooner had I sat down to write this piece than the news of Goldman Sachs investing $500 million into Facebook broke and refreshed the entire thing in my mind. So let’s look at these three things, and try to see if one manages to sway the rest.

Values

Do you, like me, find yourself more inclined to use or purchase something that comes from a company that you can believe in? The ethos of a company can — for me at least — completely break me away from the product. That very fact, because I feel that I’m likely not alone in my actions (or lack thereof) can have a serious impact on the bottom line of a company.

Look at Facebook, for instance. When the Social Graph was announced and the new privacy changes went into effect, many people threw up their hands in disgust. But many others continued with life as usual, even if a bit annoyed. Why? Because Facebook has this outward appearance of a company that’s simply trying to do cool things, and it needs information in order to do them. The company’s values seem, for the most part, to be in line with the things that we Internet users want. As such, there was a lot more wagging and a lot less barking from the angry dogs crowd.

You’re starting a company? There’s likely something to be said for developing an ethos ahead of time, making it known and then sticking to it. Would Google be where it is today if not for the “don’t be evil” tag line? Even if you don’t fully believe that the company runs that way, you still remember it. Point made.

Value

When value exceeds cost, even by a single cent, the purchase will be made – Grant Cardone

That quote is one that has stuck with me for some time now. A few years ago I was making my living selling cars and it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to overcome the objection of price. In the technology world, we’re constantly being offered products for “free”. The only cost? A bit of information, a slice of our privacy or somethings similar. But then, after using those “free” products, we start to build our own value for them.

Don’t believe me? Just look at some of the things that you likely use every day. Gmail? You’d pay for that. Twitter? You don’t want to admit it, but it’s likely become a valuable asset to your daily Internet life. The same can be said for so many things and yet we get them for “free”. But there’s a down side to this issue as well — it becomes very difficult for a maker to charge for a product when there are free alternatives. Don’t believe that? When was the last time that a box office movie didn’t get a torrent version?

And yet, even as companies try to build value in their products, still others think that the economy allows for them to set their own values and tell us what something is worth. TV networks are probably the most well-known perpetrators of this heresy. Apple TV launched, ABC and Fox decided to jump on board and see what would happen. Some of the rest? They decided that $.99 was devaluing the product and yet as the provider of the product, there is no one entity that is more unqualified to name the value.

Consider it a lesson in business, I suppose. The potential buyer will determine the value of your product. Always.

Valuation

Now here’s a sticky one. Valuation is one of those strange things because it means so many different things to different people. To the potential investors, it’s a measure of how much money can be made. To the business owner it’s a gauge of how well the business has done. To the end user? It’s…honestly not much.

As a case in point, around TNW we love Twitter. We want to see it succeed and we are sure that it will. The valuation continues to climb prior to any IPO and yet, as users of the service, it really doesn’t matter much to us. Sure, it would matter if the site closed its doors, but beyond that there simply isn’t anything about the valuation number that matters.

And so, as an entrepreneur you have to ask yourself where the balance lies. Do your company values allow you to build value in your product? If so, then the chances are that your valuation will end up right where it needs to be. There’s a fair amount of truth in the thought that, if you handle the small stuff, the big stuff will fall into place.

So with that, I offer you a thought going into the new year — start with your values. The rest will fall into place.

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