The Senate Finance Committee held another hearing Tuesday on the taxation of carried interest at private equity and venture capital partnerships and hedge funds. I looked quickly through the prepared testimony–it’s three law professors saying the current (low) tax treatment is ridiculous, a venture capitalist in Denver saying he wants …
Pregnant jobseekers: when to divulge the bulge?
As if pregnant women don’t have enough on their minds, what with the nausea and the genetic testing and the elephant ankles. If you’re interviewing while pregnant, is it wise to tell prospective employers of your impending change of family status? If so, when? How?
This came up recently over lunch with a friend, whose partner is …
The Journal is Murdoch’s, it appears
The W$J is reporting that Rupert Murdoch now has enough votes lined up to buy Dow Jones & Co. This after News Corp. intimated yesterday that it was about to give up. What changed things was apparently the decision by those in charge of a Denver-based Bancroft family trust that controls 9.1% of Dow Jones voting shares:
Helping persuade
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Why I love currency markets, the loonie edition
From Bloomberg:
The Canadian dollar fell for a fourth day as investors sold commodity-linked currencies on speculation U.S. subprime mortgage losses will slow the world’s largest economy.
The Canadian currency was the second-worst performer among the 16 most actively traded currencies, trailing only Japan’s yen, while falling 0.3
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A clearer explanation of Blackstone’s sweet tax deal
A few weeks ago David Cay Johnston wrote a front-page NYT story (warning: available to Times Selectoids only) on how Blackstone had “devised a way for its partners to effectively avoid paying taxes on $3.7 billion, the bulk of what it raised last month from selling shares to the public.” I wrote a post at the time commenting upon the …
What if the unintended consequences of taxing private equity fairly are good consequences?
The W$J reports this morning that:
Some prominent Democrats are beginning to rethink proposed tax increases on hedge-fund and private-equity managers’ earnings, after an aggressive pushback by industry lobbyists and arguments that the impact could extend far beyond Wall Street. …
“When you first hear about it, it seems like, ‘Yes,
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I don’t date my sources
…because I’m married. But I did have this running fantasy about interviewing Ichiro Suzuki for a story, during which he would fall madly in love and propose. I would of course have to quit the noble calling of journalism to manage his vast fortune and to raise our many little Ichiros. We would be the Posh and Becks of Japan. Maybe I’d …
Glenn Hubbard puts odds on good times, recession
Economist and Columbia Business School Dean Glenn Hubbard was making the rounds of summer executive education classes this morning, giving his spiel on the state of the economy. I happened to be sitting in with a class full of Chinese CEOs. Here are the three scenarios for the immediate future that Hubbard laid out for them:
1) The good …
10 steps for women going back to work
I checked out a new web site called YourOnRamp.com. It’s flawed, but of potential use to women who have left the workforce and are attempting a comeback. I say women because the site is clearly targeted to moms, despite the fact that more and more men are making similar choices. Their loss: gentlemen readers, perhaps a market …
The private equity guys can’t count on the business community, but they can count on Chuck Schumer
The FT has a story about how corporate lobbying groups like the Business Roundtable and the Financial Services Forum aren’t lining up in support of their private equity brethren on the battle over how to tax private equity partners’ paychecks. And why ever would they? Corporate executives have to pay the full 35% income tax rate on their …
Michael Mandel’s low-rate world collides with my end of easy money
Business Week‘s Michael Mandel wrote Wednesday, in response to my article on “The End of Easy Money“:
But here’s the problem–long rates are falling. The ten-year rate is now down to only 4.91% on the bloomberg machine outside my office (at roughly noon). And the latest mortgage rate for 15-year mortgages is 6.38%…that’s compared to
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If Sumner Redstone is Haile Selassie, is Rupert Murdoch Abe Lincoln?
From Patrick Goldstein’s excellent column in today’s LA Times:
The conclusion is almost inescapable: Redstone’s imperial behavior is a drag on Viacom’s future. When I spoke to him last year after the Cruise affair, he had the air of an elderly grandfather, straining to keep up with the conversation. He now resembles one of those old
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