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Fed corporate tax killing state competitiveness

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One could sum up a report from the Tax Foundation as saying the equivalent of – the French are eating our lunch. And you know that is not good. We, for many reasons, including avoidance of indigestion, should be eating theirs. The latest report from the Foundation shows that nearly half of U.S. states tax job providers at a higher rate than any other country in the developed world. Counting the federal rate alone, the U.S. has the world’s highest corporate tax rate, but including average sub-national rates (federal plus state in the U.S.), Japan edges out the U.S. for the highest-tax location. This study breaks the tax down by state, adding each state’s corporate tax rate to the federal […]

17-year old wisdom

/0 Comments/in , /by Liam Day

We have an expression we use around the office: adult in the room, that person in any organization whose cooler head usually prevails when panic, or sometimes silliness, otherwise would. For example, the Patrick Administration didn’t have an adult in the room last January to say no to the Governor when he wanted a new Cadillac and damask drapes. That’s why Doug Rubin was brought in. Why the exposition of internal Pioneer lingo? Because of the report in today’s Globe on replacing the”underperforming” label for schools with a gentler euphemism. It seems the Massachusetts Board of Education has devoted parts of its last three meetings to debating nomenclature. Now, I’m not one to dismiss the significance of language, but this […]

Thanks TxDoT

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Our thanks to the kind folks at the Texas Department of Transportation who featured an excerpt of our research paper, Our Legacy of Neglect: The Longfellow Bridge and the Cost of Deferred Maintenance in the Winter edition of Horizon Magazine.

Counterintuitive Healthcare Cost Data

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It has been the conventional wisdom that small businesses are getting killed on healthcare costs and we’ve heard anecdotal evidence to support this when we’ve presented our research on the various costs associated with doing business in Massachusetts. But Charlie Baker at Harvard Pilgrim begs to differ, and he’s even got internal Harvard Pilgrim data to prove it. He notes: Small businesses, on average, had lower medical claims expenses per member than larger businesses, and lower health insurance premiums(!). In fact, much lower. On average, per member premiums for small businesses were 10 percent lower than the premiums paid by larger businesses, consistent with claims costs that were also about 10 percent lower. Why? Mr. Baker explains: I think it […]

The Sage of Omaha on Executive Compensation

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Today’s Globe contains news of potential inquiries by Congressman Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee looking at the ‘perverse incentives’ (love that term!!) in executive compensation and how that may have contributed to some of the inordinate risks afflicting many financial firms. At the end of the day, this space believes that the oversight of executive compensation lays with an engaged board of directors that properly aligns the interests of executives and shareholders. Warren Buffett has written early and often on this topic. This quote from a 1985 letter to shareholders (which should be required reading for everyone interested in the markets) brings up the key issues behind that misalignment: Ironically, the rhetoric about options frequently describes them as desirable because […]