Reach for a Lime

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

-Robert F. Kennedy

Cost savings for quitting smoking:

Savings on Medical Premiums:
$300.00 per year ($12.50 X 24 pay periods)

Savings on Cigarette Purchases:
$2007.50 per year for "pack a day" smokers (using $5.50 per pack)
$1003.75 per year for "1/2 pack a day" smokers (using $5.50 per pack)

Look at the site. Post on in there. Pepsi is really trying to capitalize on the state of things. But I can't really decide what they are attempting to do. Venerate Brand Image? Expand brand awareness? Impressions to sales? I don't think an avid Coke consumer is going to buy Pepsi now because they want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. I mean, on the whole, do people really deep down care? "In reality, PepsiCo owns some of the most sought after brands in the world, including Gatorade, Tropicana, Frito-Lay, and Doritos. It does business in more than 200 countries worldwide, including key emerging market economies like China and India". So this global "one love" thing-how is it going to help? In this author's mind, I think it is going to raise audience involvement and make Pepsi a more personal brand. The cause is to tap into cause-related marketing or pro-social marketing, by which corporations seek to back up their talk about benefiting society.

So Coke and Pepsi couldn't compete in price anymore. Now they get to compete in who is more of a philanthropist. Pepsi points a finger saying Coke capped its donations at $500,000 and says look at us we are doing 40 times that. Coke comes back and says, "[it]will donate a dollar to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America each time a visitor to the Coca-Cola fan page on Facebook (facebook.com/livepositively) shares a virtual Coke gift" and that the 500k was only "a portion of the almost $60 million in cash and in-kind donations".

Either way it is showing innovation and evolution of the advertising industry.

Valentine’s Day has come and gone. Hopefully love was abounding. That’s said; let’s take a second to embrace the inner nerd in the quest for saving money. When it comes to matters of the heart at higher levels such as marriage, income tax becomes a chess piece. Filing jointly you get breaks, but you are also in a higher bracket now which means higher tax rate.

Once the ring is on the finger, the scene changes. Sometimes one spouse wants to leave the rat race and build the nest. If the budgeting and career planning are correct, families can flourish. Of course there are others like newlyweds, which have everything, but taxes on the brain. They never thought about the credit of the other, nor were financial issues like outstanding student loans ever discussed prior to the exchange of vows. Many lose out on larger returns because they don’t realize that if most of the year they were not married, then they can still file as single. And what if you are marrying someone with kids?-kids that you are planning on taking care of. Well, there are a few ways to capitalize on that situation too. Ensure the support you are providing is deducted via medical expenses, Earned Income Credit or Child Tax Credit.

Love doesn’t always work out, nor is it always true at face value. Divorce is never auspicious for both sides. Manipulation over control of assets and the claiming of exemptions and benefits for children he/she isn’t entitled to claim make the process very messy. It gets even more confusing when both parties supply equal support.

And believe you me, there are a number of people out there who have managed to see the tax fraud availability in marriage. Audits all around. Some people like to file as head of the house and get their EIC even though they are married and don’t qualify if a joint return was filed. Some people try to claim their family members kids; of which they have never given support to or maybe even met. Fraud in love? Who knew…


TaxFiling.net

1. Phil Vassar Last day of my life


“So I'm gonna bring home a dozen roses,
An' pour us a glass of wine.
An' I'm gonna put on a little music,
An' turn down the lights.
An' I'm gonna wrap my arms around you,
An' rock you all through the night,
An' I'm gonna love you,
Like it's the last day of my life.


2. Diamond Rio One more day


“One more day
One more time
One more sunset, maybe I'd be satisfied”


3. Bucky Covinton I’ll walk


She said, I'll walk.
Please come and hold my hand.
Right now I'm hurt, and I don't understand.
Lets just be quiet, and later we can talk.
Please stay, don't worry.
I'll walk.


4. Tim McGraw Don’t take the girl


“Johnny hit his knees and there he prayed
Take the very breath you gave me
Take the heart from my chest
I'll gladly take her place if you'll let me
Make this my last request
Take me out of this world
God, please don't take the girl”


5. Brad Paisley Whiskey Lullaby (Featuring Alison Krauss)


“Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby”


Honorable Mentions


One wing in the fire

When I call your name

Watching Airplanes

The best I ever had

If tomorrow never comes

3 wooden crosses

Tonight I wanna cry

This comes to us from a fellow post-grad student of mine. I felt inclined to share it with the masses.

"I agree that the mind has an extraordinary ability to interpret what is being said, written, drawn,etc. That, I think has more to do with a more biological sense of decoding that is based solely on the abilities of the brain to process what it has seen, heard, etc. I think that decoding in a marketing sense is using the experience and knowledge of a person to interpret the meaning conveyed in a message. For instance, the world is much more technologically advanced these days. There is new terminology coming out everyday that is being added to the dictionary that would have meant nothing even 5 years ago. For a Gen Yer, they probably know it all. However, for our grandparents, they may not be familiar with it all. So if a computer company is targeting a new software to the elderly, they probably don't want to use all of the up-to-date lingo or even if they are mass marketing something, they need to be aware that everyone is not "up" on the lingo. It may be confusing to the elderly or to anyone else who has little knowledge of technology. In this example, a person's lack of knowledge could be a huge stumbling block to them decoding the message. A company needs to know these things along with experiences of their target group in order to correctly encode the message they plan to send. "

Now, I am not one to say screw those who are not active consumers of the new "tech" and "buzz", but the same was thought about television. To avoid misquoting I will paraphrase by saying a prominent member of the scientific or technological community visited The Worlds Fair. After seeing the innovation he pronounced boldly that TV would never catch on because family's wouldn't want to have to sit in front of it for hours on end. We all know how that one played out.

I think that's the beauty of the model in the Gen X, Gen Next groups. It is dynamic; ever seeking the perfect media mix. Yes, there are road blocks for many. But as a whole, the target markets are being put more and more in the driver seat. Focus groups are becoming obsolete. Feedback happens in realtime such as twitter or company blog comments are exit surveys. The sites like Google Adwords, Analytics and other coding programs like SPSS tell these companies not only the best ways to communicate, but the best media vehicles as well.

All you hear anymore is SEO this and click through rate that. People, we are telling these gigantic corporations how to speak to us. Granted I'm younger and may very well be biased on the subject, but Pepsi opted out of a multi-million dollar Superbowl ad this year in favor of allocating those funds towards social media. That has to mean something right? I for one will not forget the foundational value of the traditional communication model , nor will I cease to venerate the likes of Berlo for his "simplest and most influential message-centered model of our time" I do not however have any qualms about expressing by love for the personal evolution the industry is undergoing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to check my facebook. Adieu.

Abstract:
So It's no longer a small crowd that has been exposed to the FairTax idea. But I figured it couldn't hurt to post about it anyways. God willing, one day it will be recognized and taken into serious consideration.

Fair Tax

On August 15^th of last year something really weird happened. A book about taxes was pronounced a #1 New York Times Bestseller. The book was called The Fair Tax Book by Neal Boortz and John Linder. Here’s the cliff notes version of the book: it covered the history of the American tax system, how the practice of withholding came to pass, put a price tag on compliance, shined a spotlight on hidden costs, and finally is showed how H.R. 25 (The FairTax) would solve it all.

Quite simply, FairTax is a progressive national sales tax at 23%. Federal income tax and payroll based taxes would be abolished (Yay.). It would tax you only on what you spend and not on what you earn. Despite what some up on the hill say, it is a nonpartisan movement. I mean, party doesn’t really come into play when you start saying things about no IRS. Think about it. The repeal of the 16^th Amendment isn’t a small task and the bill does have its critics but still, the idea of take “home pay” just being-pay does seem to resonate. But how much does the average American really know about the dealing of the IRS? What are the Federal Tax Withholding Tabels?

Why is our tax code under such scrutiny? When you have 3,697,733 words to it (Title 26) it’s easy to understand. It also becomes obvious then, why so many of us have difficulty understanding the process and then attempting to file correctly every year.

The largest complaints against the plan is that the price of goods and services would increase, the tax isn’t indexed for inflation, it could open up “black markets” to avoid taxation, it doesn’t solve high taxation for government spending and that a blanket sales tax would be disastrous for our economic freedom. As I said there was quite a bit of criticism about the Fair Tax system and the nixing of the revered IRS. So Boortz and Linder fired back in 2008 with another book: FairTax: The Truth.

It is a huge movement with quite a large following. Google ”FairTax” or “fair tax“ and you will come up with 51,900,000 hits. A number of congressional committees have heard testimony on the proposed reform, the bill now has 21 co-sponsors in DC and a number of economists say it would pump life into our dying economy. There is even an organization dedicated to its implementation: Americans For Fair Taxation .

Our constitution says,

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

So they can tax us to death so long as we the people are willing to stand for it? So does it really make sense or is it just acceptance? Either way, I would advise you to do some research of your own and just hop off that fence.

We’ve all see those commercials with the three guys jamming out in mom’s basement, in the Geo Metro, at the pirate restaurant, and at the renaissance fair. Freecreditreport.com is the name of the site. That’s exactly what we’re looking for right? A credit report that costs us nothing. Too good to be true= fine print. Those dudes with their catchy songs about credit scores and their funny outfits and atmospheres were all smoke screens! “Monitoring with Experian begins within 48 hours of enrollment in your free trial. Monitoring with Equifax and TransUnion takes approximately 4 days to begin, though in some cases cannot be initiated during your trial period. You may cancel your trial membership any time within 9 days of enrollment without charge.” Whoa! The sites called freecreditreport.com. Capitalism at its best.

There are three main nationwide consumer credit reporting companies:

· Equifax: 1-877-576-5734; www.alerts.equifax.com

· Experian: 1-888-397-3742; www.experian.com/fraud

· TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289; www.transunion.com

You are entitled to one free report from each every 12 months under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. They can be requested all at once or spread out over the year. You can request your free report online, by phone or by mail. Visit AnnualCreditReport.com, call 1-877-322-8228, or fill out the Annual Credit Report Request form and mail it to Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. It just goes to show, consumers are only as smart as advertisers allow us to be. There are organizations in this country that make millions off a service consumers can get for free. God bless America. Why? Well, it’s because research is too complicated and tedious and advertising is too expensive for the government to indulge in. Or maybe it’s because these companies generate money that the government then get a chunk of on the back end in taxes.

Hope this has been informative and will save a couple blue and white collars out there some change.