Just read in the Wall St. Journal that the cost for the government to produce a penny now costs “slightly more than a penny” and that a nickel costs 5.5 cents. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to think about this. On one hand, does it matter? On the other, there seems to be something wrong when a penny costs more than a penny.
I don’t have any great insight here, I just found it interesting.
Just added more pictures of the Penchuk boys. Just click the Pictures link above. Let me know if you need a password…
I just read an article in the Wall St. Journal about Time Warner and its plans for its AOL division. Here’s the first two paragraphs:
Time Warner Inc. expects its AOL unit to sacrifice nearly $1 billion of operating profit through 2009 under a proposed plan to offer the online service free of charge to some customers, according to internal company forecasts. The company, however, is also forecasting that growth in Internet ad revenue will partially offset the expected decline in subscription revenue and ultimately leave the company more profitable.
The new proposal would cut roughly in half profit from AOL’s sale of Internet subscriptions in the U.S. in the next three years, the forecasts show, from $1.6 billion this year to about $800 million in 2009. According to the forecasts, AOL, which has 18.6 million U.S. subscribers now, would end up with just over six million by the end of 2009.
Let me get this straight… They think the best thing to do to save the company is intentionally reduce profit to give away the same product for free and make it up via advertising revenue? Am I the only one that thinks this is a terrible strategy? I don’t get it at all. Excluding the fact that they have a terrible product, I’m not surprised that they have a dying business.
It’s a rhetorical question because the answer is yes. How often do you hear the opposite? We hear politicians say the way to raise government “revenue” (read your money) is to increase taxes. Here’s today’s NY Times.
On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year’s levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago.
Also in the news on this Saturday is Gov. Corzine of NJ ending his state’s government shutdown. How’d they do it?
On Thursday, the impasse was finally broken when Mr. Corzine reached an agreement with the speaker of the General Assembly, Joseph J. Roberts Jr., on a proposal to raise the sales tax to 7 percent from 6 percent.
Under a compromise, Mr. Corzine agreed to use half of the revenue from the increase or about $550 million to help offset the state’s property tax rates, which are among the highest in the nation.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to cut property taxes rather than raise the sales tax to offset another tax? Two completely different approaches. One will work, the other will fail.
I’ve had the Penchuk.com domain for over 5 years now and I’ve never really done much to promote it to search engines. I’ve submitted it a few times through free online services but that never did anything. Then I switched to WordPress as my content engine and voila. Now, search “penchuk” through Google and this site gets the #1 ranking. I always wondered how if you searched for the root of the domain, it didn’t come up. I guess I don’t need to wonder anymore.
Actually, here are a few other search engines:
So, I know which search engines are my favorites. Ha!
Thanks to a trust Google Alert, I now receive notifications whenever the word “Penchuk” pops up around the globe. For a long time, I thought we (meaning my immediate and not too distant family) were the only ones. Turns out, that’s not the case. There’s a clan up north in Alberta. Apparently they enjoy genealogy. I’m surprised Lorna hasn’t contacted me yet.
Here’s a link from the Ukraine that refers to a businessman named Borys Penchuk.