AskDong

I’m a great lover of food. There are few foods I dislike, mushrooms probably being the most notable. Recently I’ve been trying to be more conscience of my grazing habits. I want to eat well, but I also want to eat in a sustainable manner. One of the things I’m trying to cut back on is certain types of seafood.  Much of the most popular seafood; tuna, shrimp, chilean sea bass, etc are either endangered in the case of bluefin tuna or raised in an environmentally destructive manor as with shrimp.

I’m probably going to pick up a copy of Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. Taras Grescoe the author was recently interviewed on Salon.  I like food books even when they’re an attack on the things I love.

I’m never going to be utmost environmentally conscience consumer.  Vegetarianism is probably the way to go, but I like I meat more than quite a bit. Seafood, however, represents a unique ethical problem.  Seafood as the name implies is harvested from the seas. But who sows and tends these crop? Hardly anyone.  The oceans as they rightly should be, belong to everyone and as result nobody actually takes any ownership. The Oceans are the ultimate commons.  Fishing boats from around the world fish the same seafood thousands of miles from home shores.

As with most commonly shared resource, an ethical crisis tends to arise - Tradgedy of Commons.  Simply stated Tragedy of the Commons is that individuals in this particular case the fishing industry from a multitude of nations act logically in their own self  interest to overuse the common resource of the oceans.  All food production has an environmental impact, but oceanic fishing is one of the few that takes place free from national borders.  It’s a difficult industry to regulate, and as result it’s even more critical how we as consumers behave. The burden is upon all of us to collectively demand environmentally sustainable fishing by adjusting what we eat. The Salon interview highlighted a fantastic tool from the Monterey Aquarium on what to buy and eat.  As a result I had mussels instead of the Atlantic Halibut last night.  It was cheaper to boot.

According to my estimates, I will owe taxes next year come April 15th. I will owe enough taxes that I should be paying estimated taxes. I already missed my 1st payment on April 15th. I didn’t forget. I missed the payment on purpose. I had decided that I rather pay the penalty rather than pay the actual taxes. I made this decision because I believed the penalty rate was determined by the short term fed rate. Given that the short term fed rate is currently sitting at 2.75% as measured by the fed fund rate, I figured I would be doing about the same by leaving the money in a high yield savings account.

In my haste I missed that penalty rate is actually the short term fed rate plus 3%. The total penalty is 6% according to IRS.. So today I made my first estimated tax payment. Even if the penalty rate was the lower rate that I believed it to be, I think I might have still changed my mind and made a payment.

I’m no tax lawyer, and am confused somewhat exactly on how the penalty is assessed. In my original post about filing taxes, I stated that a safe way to determine what the safest minimum payment required by the IRS is 110% of the previous year’s taxes. That’s what I’ve chosen to do. However, if I choose not to make any estimated tax payments at all, do I have to pay the penalty on the full amount that I owe? For example let’s say my taxes last year were $1000, and this year I’m required to make estimated tax payments. I can make pay $1100 in estimated taxes even though I know I’ll owe $2000 in taxes. I pay the remaining balance of $900 on April 15th, and still avoid paying a penalty because made payments that were 110% of my last year’s taxes during the course of the year. However, had I chosen not make any estimated tax payments do I owe a penalty on the full $2000 or the $1100 that I was suppose to make? Since I know I’ll actually owe more taxes than my required estimated taxes, I’ve decided not to find out.

I’m not the mightiest of bargain hunters. In animal kingdom of bargain hunters, I’m probably a badger - an omnivore that predominantly preys on pocket gophers.  I don’t go out of my way for bargains, but at the same time I want to try to get a better deal when I can.

Last night I was helping my girlfriend shop for a hotel.  She’s going on a trip to Puerto Rico with one of her friends this coming weekend.  I recommended that she stay at the Marriott Hotel and Casino in Coronado.  Last year at my friend’s Bachelor Party, we stayed at the Radisson around the corner, but we actually hung out at the beach at the Marriott.  The Marriott has a nice beach front, pool, and outdoor bar.

My girlfriend looked online to book the hotel, and could only find an average nightly rate of $270/night which was much more than many of the other hotels in the area including the Radisson.  The previous year I had asked at the desk about rate and was quoted a rate in the $170 range.  My first couple Internet searches returned the rate she was seeing. Generally speaking, I expect the different travel portals to return approximately the same rate.  I usually don’t usually bother with the individual portals but go through aggregator kayak.com.  What I expect to vary is the hotel selection, not prices.

Though after a slightly more exhaustive search, I found that Travelocity had the hotel for less than $200/night. Not a great rate, but quite a bit better than what we were finding before. The average rate would’ve been lower had all the nights been in May.  As is there was one night in April.  In my experience May and June are two of the better months to go down to the Caribbean, especially May. Both months are only slightly past peak season, but not in the dead heat of summer. Prices and crowds are both much better.

I was very surprised to find that the major travel portals quoting very different prices for a major hotel chain. I had never encountered this before. I’ve encountered different prices, but usually in some kind of special package promotion. I guess it always pays to make a thorough search.

I like many other employees I am partially paid in the form company stock. Companies rightly choose to pay their employers by stock options or outright stock grants as means to better align company and employee interests. Enormous stock option packages get a lot of press as they often pad CEO pay excessively, but stock options and outright grants are an important part of the pay package for many individuals. Stock options have made millionaires out of many Microsoft employees in the 80s and 90s. Today we have Google millionaires.

The real question of stock denominated benefits is are we to treat them like cash or are we to treat them as something more? I think most people treat them as something more. Some of this makes sense given that stock compensation typically have to become vested. Usually it takes at least a year before options or stock grants are vested. If an employee is terminated or leaves before the vesting period is over that employee forfeits his or her claim. That’s one issue - stock options and grants that have a lengthy vesting periods are only claims on compensation rather than outright compensation. For that reason, an employee might not want to count (reinvest) too early the chickens before they’ve hatched.

However, aside from the vesting issue which most employees have a pretty good sense if they will fulfill or not, there aren’t really all that many good reasons to hold onto stock grants or options unless required to by rules even when those grants haven’t vested. An employee can easily sell short company shares, or options without actually owning the shares or options. This might be seen as a vote of no-confidence, but it’s really an act of diversification. Most employees don’t have that much influence on the stock a price. If an employee were promised a cash payment, it would be generally be ridiculous for that employee to go and buy options or shares of the company. Effectively that’s what we do when we do nothing and hold onto shares or the options.

The risk because of the vesting period is that we never receive those grants or options. However, the only situation in which the hedges (i.e. selling short shares or options, or buying put options) would be out of the money is when the company is chugging along nicely, i.e. the stock price has risen. Under these circumstances, the most likely reasons for a employee not to meet shorter term vesting requirements are under the employee’s control. Either the employee chooses to leave or is terminated because of performance issues. The sensible thing for an employee with short term vesting options or shares is to hedge. This action would’ve certainly served the many employees at Bear Stearns well. Of course by hedging, it’s possible to miss out on millions like the ones reaped by employees of MSFT and/or GOOG. However for every Google there are dozens of pets.com. Keep the stock or options only if you think you would actually buy those same options in the open market.

Last night, I watched Clinton’s and Obama’s speeches after the Pennsylvania primary. There wasn’t too much new in the speeches. Watching Obama’s speech, however, I couldn’t help but notice three young men in a row sporting very prominently Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts. At first, I didn’t think too much of it.

As the crowd cheered and banners were raised, I became suspicious. Thoese three men were less than enthusiastic. They lifted their Obama signs half heartedly, and clapped without vigor. I started thinking about the recent incident when Comcast paid attendees to take up the good seats at a FCC hearing. That was bad, but this if Abercrombie plants are in my opinion worse. Here’s a link to a video from CNN, and make your own judgment.  I just wrote the other day of the blurring of entertainment and advertising.  What I saw last night was the blurring of politics, public discourse, and advertising. If I were Obama, I would be immensley upset that my stage had been co-opted for product advertising.

If it were any other clothing company, I probably would not be as suspicious. However, Abercrombie and Fitch has a history or controversy, ranging from nudity to racism. I wouldn’t be suprised if that the three Abercrombie men were intended to stir controversy and free advertising for which I too am guilty of as I write about it.

I think there is a place for advertising, and consumerism even. There’s nothing inherently wrong with companies wanting to spread knowledge of their products. In the same light there’s nothing wrong with people wanting to buy those products. However, I increasingly feel that we as a society have crossed an invisible line in which consumerism has become an ends on itself.  Andy Warhol would be proud.