What Mark Everson can teach us about Ethics

Thanks to the taxwise Kay Bell at Don't Mess With Taxes, I've become aware of the firing of the CEO of the American Red Cross, Mark Everson. In case you didn't know, since the deaths of Washington Redskins Safety Sean Taylor and Gatorade inventor Dr. J. Robert Cade seemed to hog yesterday's spotlight, Mark Everson was forced to step down after having an affair with a subordinate. Everson, former commissioner of the IRS, had only taken his position with the Red Cross back in May, and lasted a mere six months as the CEO of the best-known not-for-profit organization in the country.

I found this article by Stephanie Strom, which seems to put more of a negative spin on the organization that fired him rather than Everson himself. Perhaps it is my military background, or my recent and ongoing ethics training, but I am quite in disagreement with this article. For those of you too busy to read it (or in case the link expires or becomes password-protected), the gist is that Everson shouldn't have been fired because it took the American Red Cross so long to hire him in the first place, and despite his actions, he should have only suffered a temporary suspension or a loss in pay. While I am not privy to the details in Everson's contract, I assume the author of this article is not either. I would safely assume there is a Code of Ethics that all paid employees are to follow and before accepting employment they must sign a contract agreeing to abide by this code. The CEO would, for sure, as he is the public face of the organization. People who work for any large company usually have to sign some conduct agreement, and members of the military have to abide by the UCMJ. That said, I don't exactly think the issue was unaddressed for Mr. Everson.

The reason for Everson's termination is that he had an affair with a subordinate, a woman who is the president of a Red Cross chapter on the gulf coast. Both Everson and his subordinate are married, and the latter is pregnant. Personal relationships with people with whom you hold a position of power are generally never allowed and certainly not between two married people. The American Red Cross may have acted quickly in firing Everson, though I don't believe they acted rashly. With great power comes great responsibility. All across the military you see commanders being relieved of their commands due to "a loss of confidence in their ability to govern." Off the top of my head the commanders of the Arleigh Burke, the Helena, the Higgins, the Hampton, the Halsey, VAQ-140, VFA-122, the Newport News, and the Minneapolis-St Paul have all been fired in 2007. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten, to say nothing of the rest of the military. My point is, while you'd certainly hope that the person you hand-picked to lead an organization possesses the skills, common sense, and good judgment necessary to get the job done, this is not always the case, and when someone shows their incompetence, they should be relieved of their command as quickly and quietly as possible. Simply having good business skills or leadership experience is not enough to head an organization as well-known as the American Red Cross. The Red Cross is funded by voluntary contributions from taxpayers. If they feel the organization is going to turn a blind eye to someone acting unethically or irresponsibly by abusing his power and betraying his wife, most people would donate their money elsewhere. Lord knows there are enough other charities begging for it.

Problems at the top have a funny way of filtering down through the entirety of an organization and can negatively affect its culture. While some people feel that ousting the head of a group is a harsh move, I believe it is the right one. Despite his "impeccable credentials," Everson proved he lacks the integrity and personal responsibility necessary to lead an organization that is more respected than the IRS.

Small Investments, Big Pay Offs - The Best Investments You Can Make

Many people make the sad mistake thinking that they need to have a great deal of money in order to invest.? That’s far from the truth.? You do not need to have a lot of money to invest you just need to know where to invest it at.? You can make small investments that will have big pay offs in the end.

There are many options for first time investors to get started with $1000 or even as little as $50.? One of the easiest investments that you can get into is a 401(k) Plan.? You do not need any money at all to start with and you can add a minimum of 1% of your pay to the plan with each paycheck.? A great perk of these kinds of plans is that your employer will also put money in at the end of their fiscal year so that means you will get free money each year that is earning money for you.??

This means if you earn a yearly income of $30,000 with bi weekly paychecks, you can have as little as $11.50 taken out for your retirement fund from each paycheck.? This is taken out pretax so you will only see about $9 missing from your check.? Most people recommend that you contribute at least 10% of your pay to your retirement in order to save enough to live a comfortable life style when you retire.??

You can save for college with a 529 plan and you can start it up with as little as $25.? You would then need to have at least a $15 automatic deduction from another account like a savings or checking that will go directly into the 529 plan.? This is a great way to invest in your child’s future and there are great plans that you can get into such as Upromise where you save on things that you buy each day.??

These plans are tax exempt when they are used for qualified education costs of the beneficiary on the account.? With plans like Upromise, you can sign up with different credit cards from yourself as well as family and friends.? Each time they take certain purchases with those credit cards, a percent of the purchase is places into an account for your child for college.? You can then take those savings and use them in a 529 account.??

Another great investment choice would be U.S. Savings Bonds.? All you need to buy one is $25 dollars and you add to it in $25 increments.? Generally you can buy Savings Bonds right through your payroll as an automatic deduction.? The good thing about this is that the interest on the Savings Bonds are exempt from both state and local taxes and most often federal taxes as well.??

Investing doesn’t have to take a great deal of money.? Just do a bit of research before you invest your money so you can go with the best option for your goals.?

Getting online discounts and coupon codes

Whenever you buy anything online, it’s always a good idea to do a quick search for coupons or discount codes. You can often easily find 10% off, 20% off, and free shipping. Many times the values are even higher than that.

With many purchases or just large ones, these discounts can add up quickly. Whenever you are checking out and see a box for a promo code, it's always prudent to take a quick look for some codes before submitting the form.

You can find some great discounts with Adobe coupons. (Although university students can get very cheap education packages from their campus bookstores) If you need to get a copy of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Acrobat, or any of Adobe's other products, then you should check it out

You can get discounts with Kohls coupons or Macys coupons. This could save you a chunk of change, versus shopping at their department stores. And if you wanted, you could even go take a look at the items in the brick and mortar stores beforehand.

Hopefully you will be able to find some great bargains and codes that will save you money today and down the road.

This post has been sponsored by ‘Coupons for Everyone’.

Writing Off 2008 Already

The new year has a rough start. Will it continue? Who knows but historically the beginning of the new year has little impact on what happens for the rest of the year as shown in the following article from Marketminder.com.

January Ineffect
1/7/2008

Story notes:

• January’s rough start has many investors invoking the old saying, “So goes January, goes the year.



• Statistically, this belief isn’t supported. History shows negative starts can be followed by positive years and vice versa.



• Market volatility is normal, no matter when it happens, and doesn’t mean a prolonged downturn is at hand.

_________________________________________________________________________

January has commenced with gray weather, record snows, fierce storms, already broken New Year’s resolutions (stupid leftover pumpkin pie), and the usual post-holiday gloom—not to mention a continuance of December’s volatility. Most major market indexes are negative so far this year, leading many investors to invoke the old saw “so goes January, goes the year.” Already, we’re seeing stories highlighting the long and widely held belief that a rough start to January portends trouble ahead.

The Stress Is Just Beginning
By Tomoeh Murakami Tse, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/05/AR2008010500149.html

This article states, “If the first three trading days of the year are any indication, 2008 is bound to test the nerves of even the most poised investors.” Fair enough—volatility always “tests nerves.” Except the first three trading days are never an indication of what’s ahead. Not ever. Three days of any month, no matter the calendrical significance, tell you nothing. Investors wouldn’t make a stock forecast based on the Ides of March—there’s nothing about any one day or group of days’ returns that tells you anything about what to expect looking forward.

Statistically, this is easy to disprove by checking historical data to see what happened each January and the annual results. Throughout history, negative starts to January have been followed by all sorts of combinations of positive and negative returns. Positive start, negative January, positive year. Negative start, positive January, negative year. On and on. Looking at the six worst first 10 days for the S&P 500, you see US stocks ended positively four of those times—one year up a big 42%! Another up 26%! What does that tell you? Nothing—beyond stocks are positive more than negative. And the third best start ever ended the year down 15%. Not so great.

Fundamentally, this makes even less sense. What do a few days in January tell us about investor demand for securities? Markets don’t obey a calendar. There’s nothing magical about January’s start suggesting markets must suddenly begin “behaving” themselves. Markets are volatile. They can be volatile in January, July, on Tuesday, the day after the Fourth of July—pretty much any time. Markets don’t have neat steps-and-stairs increases, and if they did, you wouldn’t be happy with the return you got. If you want that kind of steady appreciation, you’re going to have to be satisfied with what you can get by buying US Treasuries and holding them to maturity (i.e., not much).

We call the market “The Great Humiliator” (TGH for short) around here for a reason. Its sole purpose is to humiliate as many people as it can for as long as it can for as much money as it can. Scaring investors out of superior long-term returns with a bumpy start to the year is one way the market robs otherwise rational people of their senses.

We remain confident the world is altogether too dour. Don’t let TGH humiliate you out of the market with a bumpy start to the year—that’s just what that filthy trickster wants

Gratuitous publicity, or something

My blog was recently reviewed on debtconsolidationcare.com, a site which claims to be "the internet's first get-out-of-debt community" and boasts ninety thousand or so members. While this may be the case, not a single hit on my sitemeter has come from this community since this review was published. :-) I cannot vouch for the Debt Consolidation Care's expertise or competence, and my browser settings really don't work well with their page, but maybe you'll have better luck than I did. I use Mozilla Firefox with ad-block on Windows XP, and have blocked most video sites by default. Nonetheless, some of the scripts affiliated with the site kept hanging my browser. Just be cautious.
I *can* tell you the Debt Consolidation Care community is based out of Calcutta, India, based on the time of the emails received (usually after 10PM Pacific) and my site stats, so take that as you will.

I'm obviously not getting paid to write this review, but am doing at the request of one of their staff members, one Liza Jolie, who has been, shall we say, very relentless in her emailing. So here it is. I'm sure my link to their site will make a huge difference in their traffic. ;-)

Stock Screen for 6-11-08

I may start a new feature that uploads my nightly stock screens which I did for my MarketStockWatch community back in 2004 to 2007. The excel sheet shows you what my screens are spitting back at me each night based on the specific parameters I run. Tonight (Wednesday night) is probably not the best night to do this since the market has been getting into trouble but what the hell. I am also using google docs for the first time on the blog and so far they seem great to use (I can't stand Microsoft anymore - for anything)

The stocks present on the screens tonight are described in detail in the two links below:

• Fundamental Screens and Scans


• My CANSLIM Screening and Buying Strategy

Take a look and let me know what you think. I typically view the charts of each stock in the excel sheet below and narrow the list to 10 to 20 stocks that I would like to keep an eye on (both long and short). I do this every night and look for patterns or trends; stocks that continue to appear on multiple screens and show-up on consecutive days. That is when I calculate risk/reward setups and enter new positions. These screens give me the stocks I highlight in my “Stock of the Day” posts and my Daily Screen “Stocks”.

I will highlight and expand analysis on the stocks that do interest me going forward as I did with my equity research website.