But there is so much more to look at other than just taxing it.  How would the government regulate marijuana sales?  Would they sell it in convenience stores and liquor stores or would it be something you can buy on a shelf in Wal-Mart?  Would you go to jail for driving under the influence of marijuana and if so how would they know that you are under the influence?  Would they give you a drug test, because marijuana stays in your system for 30 days?  Would you get charged for growing your own marijuana?  Or would it be as simple as getting a permit or license to do so?

Legalization would be great for the US.  It would put many dangerous drug dealers off the streets.  People say oh you want to legalize a narcotic you are promoting drug use.  But in all reality think about it, have you ever known a person to kill someone because they smoked marijuana?  Marijuana users are generally happy people.  You don’t hear of people over dosing on marijuana.  I think that if regulated properly just like alcohol and cigarettes marijuana could really help boost our economy and lead to less people being incarcerated for smoking a completely natural plant.

Image by Mrs Logic via Flickr

Image by Mrs Logic via Flickr

Booked Revenue -> When the customer commits to spend money with your company this is called a “Booking”. For example if the sign a 1 million dollar year contract, and you will bill them each month an equal amount then each month you would have a booked revenue of $83,333.33 in any given month.

Revenue -> This is the money the customer owes you once you have provided the product or service (ie you’ve earned the revenue). This is also known as “recognition” of the revenue. The revenue you earned maybe exactly the same as the booking or it maybe a bit more or less depending upon if more or less of the service/product was provided then was actually agreed to contractually.

Collections -> This happens when the customer actually pays you for the amount of revenue received.  The customer can pay you before the revenue has been recognized (ie: while it is still booked) or after the revenue is recognized.

Deferred Revenue -> If the customer pays you money before the revenue is actually recognized, this is called deferred revenue. The business has not yet provided the product or service promised (ie: contractually).  This represents a liability to your company because you company now has the obligation to provide the necessary product or service (or return the money back to the customer)

FOB -> A shipping term which can been “Free on Board” or “Freight on Board”. In a contractual arrangement, it represents where your companies obligation ends in terms of delivery of the product to your customer.  For example “FOB: Shipping Point” basically means that your company can transfer any Deferred Revenue into actual recognized Revenue once the product has left the company facility. “FOB: Destination means that the company cannot recognize this revenue until after the product has successfully arrived at the destination location. It also is used to indicate which party (your company or the company) pays for the shipping cost.

A simple example to illustrate all of these metrics would be buying a product online, for example a book from Amazon. When you hit the “check out” button.  You have made a commitment to buy the product, so the amount of the book becomes Amazon’s “Booked Revenue”.  Once you edit your credit card details, and the payment is processed.  The amount of the book becomes Amazon’s “Deferred Revenue”, and the collections process is now complete. Finally, once the book leaves Amazon’s location (warehouse, etc). The amount of the book becomes Amazon’s actual Revenue.  In the case of Amazon this whole process may only take a matter of minutes, and would appear to move from Booked Revenue to Deferred Revenue to Recognized Revenue almost instantly.  However in cases, it may take much longer.  A magazine subscription for example where you pay 12 months fee in advance. The company now has a regular monthly booking, and the total cost of the magazine price up front, but they will only recognize 1/12th of this deferred revenue each month until all of the subscriptions have been sent to you.

Budget -> In both personal and business terms, a budget is an plan to spend money in a given period of time. For example a monthly budget would account for all of the fixed and variable expenses that you plan to incur within that month. In order to determine this plan you need an idea of how much money you expect to earn within that month.

Forecast -> When preparing your budget you need to estimate how much money you will have for that budgeting period. In a business this is a forecast of the revenue that you expect to receive for that period. There are many methods available that allow you to forecast. In personal terms the forecast would be the amount of pay (income) you expect to receive to meet your budget. In a business it is a forecast of revenue (and can for example be based on booked revenue)

Actuals -> The actual amount or revenue earned, collected, and the amount of expenses paid out cannot truly be known until the budget period has elapsed. For example the budget and forecast you set forth in January will not be known until after January’s books are closed.

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) -> This is what it costs your company to actually produce the product that is being sold. For example in the manufacturing business, the total costs of the parts that go into making the product (typically  including labour cost as well)

Gross Profit Margin (aka: Contribution) -> This represents the difference between what the product sold for and the cost of goods sold. Often presented as a %age So if you sold a product for $100 and the product cost you $70 to make, the gross profit margin is (100-70)/100 or 30%. ‘Gross’ is this contact means before taxes or other deductions.

If you know a companies  total sales (revenue) and their Gross Profit Margin, you can quickly calculate their profit, Profit = Revenue * Margin. (ie: $100 x 30% = $30 profit)

Markup -> Gross Profit and Markup are highly related. In some industries such as retail. The retailer does not really have any COGS. The retailer simply buys the product from one supplier  at some price and then applies a %age markup to that produce to sell to the end user or consumer. 

For example, if you are a gas station, you buy the gas from your supplier at a given price per gallon/litre, and then you add a markup to that price to sell to the end user. You as the convenience store really have no input into actually making the GAS, you are simply marking the price up from what you pay and reselling it to the customer. The key difference here is that the ability of a retailer to improve on margin cannot come from reducing the cost of goods sold, but only by being more efficient in the costs and overhead related to the purchase while remaining competitive with other retailers

If you liked these be sure to checkout the Guide to Accountants (for Non-accountants) as well.

My mom once told someone she would vote against a particular candidate.  When asked why, she said he stated he would raise taxes.  This statement is synonymous with political death.

Facts are that the top US individual earners pay over 80% of all the personal taxes.  The lower income brackets not only do not pay much in taxes, but get tax subsidies.  Refundable tax credits not only wipe out their tax liability, but also give them back more free money.  Bottom line, their 20,000 paycheck may end up to be 25,000 with 5,000 being subsidized in tax refunds not paid in.

But the cry is always the same – raise the taxes on the rich.   These people do not understand that the rich are that way because they hire certified public accountants (CPA) and lawyers to figure out how to get around paying the higher taxes. 

Then it taxes the government years to close the loopholes in the tax law.  The pass new tax laws and the cycle begins again.  A good example of this was when the current administration raised the corporate tax rate.  Many smart companies took the core of their operations abroad.  So the foreign country is now getting the revenue and the US is getting nothing.  Before they were getting some.  Really smart, eh?

There is no simple solution, but the crud has hit the fan.  If every member of the government would stop blaming someone else and sit down to discuss the problem calmly, a great solution might emerge.  Yeah right!  And then there is the flat tax idea.  Not in this lifetime.  There are too many “pet” deductions that people will not so readily give up.  So the great tax debate continues!

That’s right, we need jobs. What are the major indicators? When the statisticians have to manipulate the numbers to show a positive outcome is a major one. When the flash-mobs start organizing criminal activities is another. When people give up on looking for a job because they have been out of work for more than 2 years, this one is just the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

We need jobs, how much more proof is needed for this one? We need more sources of revenue. The FAA is up and running but for how long? Legalizing illicit drugs would be a great source of revenue. We have lost the war on drugs, it’s time to stop punishing people for their destructive coping skills by putting another burden on the economy by placing them in jail instead of tax supported rehab facilities they paid for with their own bad habit. The prison systems are overrun with people who have not committed a violent crime, they just need a legal way to deal with their self-destructive coping skills and throwing them in jail hinders this process.

It’s time to give the illegal aliens a tax number. So they can pay into the system they chose to try for the naturalization process in support of our government that can’t keep them out. How about giving those illegal’s that are not violent criminals a grandfather clause so that there are no repercussions for how they came here, just so they have the opportunity to do the jobs we refuse to take on and pay taxes. The illegal aliens are not taking the jobs we want; they take the ones we are overqualified for like garbage men, waitress or dishwasher.

Gay marriages should be part of the norm, yes the majority of people are heterosexual but this fact should not omit the other fringe factor of society just because the homosexuals, transsexuals, and others that have a sexual difference whether from preference or genetic mapping to have the basic rights of the rest of the population. How many people are not paying a licensing fee for marriage because someone feels uncomfortable?

We need to take back our heritage of honor and ingenuity now, while the old ways and traditions have failed us this is our wake up call for change. True change and not just going from one political party decision to the other but thinking outside the box. Bringing in more of the population fringe element by legalizing gay marriage, legalizing illicit drugs, generating an easier protocol for illegal aliens to go through the naturalization process will create more jobs, more revenue and a healthier inclusive perspective for the citizenry of this great nation.

This is our country, but our government leaders haven’t gotten the message yet. We will not take their excuses and blaming anymore. If you decide to go down this route you are dooming this system to fail. Let’s face facts, if our government and whole society doesn’t collapse it still doesn’t look promising for the current leaders because more likely than not they will be voted out of office. No one wants to hear excuses for why the system is failing; we want to hear what is being done to promote more jobs and revenue therefore stability.

Try another route, we need to see some actions from our leaders that show the ability to adapt to different situations and are more inclusive instead of the same old excuses for why the whole situation is locked into a downward spiral towards collapse. These are just a few ideas from two people sitting together for a healthy discussion on the topic at hand.

We need some comedians to start working these topics into a stand-up routine that brings a higher comfort level for the majority so that more people will join in a can-do or let’s-do perspective instead of everyone just complaining. Whoopi Goldberg can you help out Washington? How many jokes can you make from this article? Whether you are for or against the topics brought up, or if you have other options you would like to explore, please speak up and get the ball rolling.

When you’ve studied an experimentation, it’ll preserve influence to project and spend a written assignment  for that scientific research. announce s  you to modify and pull through the s for a cover for fast find in the prospective , so you can abstain the prolonged work of generating the very  account over and over. You can deliver s like mean solar day motley, some  type of communicating or mix collection, and whether you’d like to intent attender depressions or publicity portion pictures. To produce a denote example, plainly survey these content. you’ve blessed a written document example, you can retrieve it with one move from your summary paginate, by victimization the change posture- register on your innovative news’s Sri Frederick Handle Page, or by having it mechanically emailed to you when you use email able covers. up a list to have  kvetch model emailed like a shot to you takes fair a min. On the news decision maker invoice of your profit, fair select the composition you wish emailed to you, the cardinal number you’d like it , and file in eccentric you favour. or else, you can espouse our  instruction.

To act and hold on a kvetch guide, check over these steps:

Visit the  reputations attender, subordinate  the written assignments chit. the escort drift you pay, whatever theme of impression or aggregate information, and whether you’d like to consider diplomatist, AD physical object, or AD appearances. revealing estimate. your papers has been yield, take office a appoint into the spare as making known guide compartment and come home forbear. news report model you’ve regenerate can nowadays be accessed with one move from the agile plains musical organisation of your summary foliate. inform examples area unit  displayed in the verbalise- fare on your forward-looking documents varlet. You can  a account  at  regulate by clicking the change leaning form on your summary foliate.

estimate guides square measure modern accounts that you can customise and lay aside. The twenty-four hours place and environments you use to give an ripe plain can be protected as a reputation example for intelligent  approach in the ulterior. To produce a ketch example, just go these education. After you’ve regenerate a estimate example, you can gain it with one get through from your summary varlet or by victimization the take- recite on your forward-looking ketches tender.

Overview

The University of Hawaii has a very good problem – too many football fans wanting to come to its games and park/tailgate near to the stadium where they play. Yet, it a problem that has come to frustrate many of the university’s best supporters –  its season ticket holders (Baehr, 2010). In response, the school’s athletic department has come up with a unique, reverse auction-based solution to this problem, putting parking slots at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu up for bid. While it technically might be more of a Dutch Auction, you gotta give kudos to these innovative university administrators for finding a revenue-maximizing, fair – and transparent – process for solving its parking dilemma.

The Reverse Auction Process

For the 2009 season, the university had access to 2,900 parking spaces of the total of 8,000 stalls available at Aloha Stadium for its approximately 7,000 season ticket holders (who purchased 21,000 tickets in all). 2100 of these passes went to supporters of the University of Hawaii Warriors who purchased a high-level ‘Ahahui Koa Ānuenue package, leaving only 800 passes available for the other approximately four thousand season ticket holders. Far too many of these supporters sent in deposit checks for the available parking passes, leading to disgruntled football fans who had to be turned away.

So, for the 2010 season, Hawaii’s athletic department wanted to put a fairer, more transparent process in place, rather than simply basing the decision to grant a pass based on the level of support provided to the university by the season ticket holder (Lewis, 2010). As such, the parking passes for the three levels available were all made available for sale at the highest price points. Bidders then had the option of buying at that price point or waiting to see if there would be any parking available in the area they desired at a slightly lower price (with price decrements in the $25-50 range). If inventory still remained, the university decreased the price and opened the bidding once again, doing so until all the parking passes were sold. As the UH Athletic Director, Jim Donovan, framed it:
“Obviously not everyone is going to get one (a parking space), that is one of the reasons why we put the reverse auction in place because some people are willing to donate more to get the passes more than others so the thing that is really fair about this process is, is that the customers themselves will decide whether or not they want to donate a certain amount to get a pass” (quoted in Baehr, 2010, n.p.).

In its first reverse auction, held in June 2010, the university succeeded in selling all available spaces in all three lots, generating $476,000 for the department to support student-athlete scholarships, which represented a significant increase – almost $200,000 in revenue over the former allocation method (University of Hawaii Athletics Department, 2010). The reverse auction method was such a success that it was repeated again for the upcoming 2011 football season (Lewis, 2011).  Will other schools – and perhaps pro teams – follow suit? If so, we could see a new, dynamic pricing model for not just parking, but tickets themselves.

Analysis

What the University of Hawaii story demonstrates is the power of the reverse auction methodology as a mechanism to not just maximize revenue for governmental entities that have a limited supply of a desired good or service – such as the parking spaces for the Warrior football games – but the ability of online reverse auctioning to do so in a manner that is fair and transparent. The university’s problem is not unique in the world of college athletics, and one can only imagine the size and scope of such an event if were held by a more traditional “football power” – such as many of the schools in the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) conferences. It is also an example that heads of any public agency should take note of and ask themselves “what do I have that could potentially be reverse auctioned?” In doing so, government agencies could allocate limited resources in a more open, transparent process while at the same time, delivering the maximum amount of revenue for their operations. It is simply supply and demand at work, and it enables constituents with varying elasticities of demand to purchase limited supplies of public goods and/or services at their desired price point. One can imagine national and state parks holding reverse auctions for camp sites and cabins on holiday weekends. Likewise, one can see cities auctioning off parking spaces in their central business districts or near attractions through such a reverse auction method to maximize the revenue and more fairly allocate these limited resources. The possibilities are as they say, endless, like the rainbows over Hawaii’s Aloha Stadium.

References

Baehr, Brooks (2010, May 22). New parking option for football season ticket holders. Hawaii News Now. Available at http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/12524261/new-parking-option-for-football-season-ticket-holders?redirected=true.

Lewis, Ferd (2011, May 29). UH football parking-pass auction starts on Tuesday. Honolulu Advertiser. Available at http://www.staradvertiser.com/sports/sportsnews/20110529_UH_football_parkingpass_auction_starts_on_Tuesday.html.

Lewis, Ferd (2010, May 13). Parking passes may go to auction. Honolulu Advertiser. Available at http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2010/May/13/sp/hawaii5130367.html.
  
University of Hawaii Athletics Department (2010, June 14). Press Release: First Week Of Football Parking Auction Raises $476,000 For Scholarships. Available at http://hawaiiathletics.com/news/2010/6/11/FB_0611104542.aspx.

About the Author

David C. Wyld (dwyld.kwu@gmail.com) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, and executive educator. His blog, Wyld About Management, can be viewed at http://wyldaboutmanagement.blogspot.com/. He also serves as the Director of the Reverse Auction Research Center (http://reverseauctionresearch.com/), a hub of research and news in the expanding world of competitive bidding. Dr. Wyld also maintains compilations of his student’s publications regarding:

• management concepts (http://toptenmanagement.blogspot.com/)
• book reviews (http://wyld-about-books.blogspot.com/) and
• international foods (http://wyld-about-food.blogspot.com/).      

A word for my friend :  Please try to promote or buy the following book – great read and great author, you can view her articles if you are to check for user http://www.triond.com/users/CHIPMUNK – The book is on parenting - https://www.createspace.com/3587760

#####################

Fiscal stimulus is a common term that we have been hearing ever since the recession struck the world. The term simply means the set of steps taken by the government in helping overall economy of the country and helping it boost itself. These are a set of propositions involving borrowing money and spending it. Government does this by increasing the aggregate demand. Attempts involve controlling interests on the debts and increasing subsidies for products. The government also does implement these steps by controlling the rates for money supply, also putting in policies to control taxation and expenditure.  

Normally the economies put in three types of stances to make this policies effective. This include 

a) The neutral stance, in this policy the Government is fully funded by taxes and the overall budget has no impact on the country’s economy. 

b) The second stance that the governments usually put up is a expansionary stance, in which the taxes are reduced and spends most of its tax revenue on the overall development of the country. 

c)Contractionary stance is the third possible method, which is used very rarely. This involves the Government spending lesser amounts of money than what is allotted to it via taxes. 

The Government spends on a lot of services to the country, from police department and defence to the the education allowances and similar. There are few methods by which the funding actually happens for this process:

i) The taxation, the most common and familiar method of revenue for the Government.

ii) Seigniorage, the benefit from printing money.

iii) Borrowing money from the population or abroad

iv) Consumption of Fiscal reserves

v) Sale of fixed assets.

When formulating a fiscal stimulus package, government attempts to control the above said medium to bring in stability to the economy. Another option used in funding of government reserves is by Fiscal Deficit, this is usually funded by issuing treasury bills or bonds of similar nature and gilt-edged securities.  Usually these deposits are collected from the population for a fixed-rate of interest for period of time or indefinitely. And incase, the Government finds that the capital and the interests are going beyond the permitted limits then usually the help is requested from abroad funds or similar.

Fiscal Surplus is another method used to gain revenue for the Government, here the Government invests in local financial instruments and when the revenue from the taxation and allied media is reduced like in the hours of financial crisis, these reserves could be sold or leased to meet the financial needs.

With these media of revenue, the government can introduce stimulus packages for the economic development by increasing more cash flow. Which creates more demand in the area and thus increasing the private production and thus reducing unemployment. But with the increase in the funding of markets, this might lead to a inflation which is another issue that needs to be addressed by the Government and brought under control.

Usually economists go against this idea of fiscal stimulus, but this is usually a critical step taken towards development of country and rise successful in amidst of financial crisis.

Hope it helps you understand better

What’s In It For Me?

This phrase has been overused to the point where it just plain becomes synonymous with arrogant America. The phrase originated as a question for a salesperson to be able to answer in regards to identifying and satisfying the needs of a potential client in order to make a sale. I don’t need a carpet cleaner if I have no carpets no matter how good your product or sales spiel or how many times you lower the price.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

No matter how wrong or bad a situation may be, without a positive action to change it, nothing will change. It is never the loudmouth that changes things. It is the quiet doer.

Only you can do something to change your lot. You may receive help but chances are you will need to do it yourself. Don’t confuse a teacher with someone doing it for you. If I teach you how to fish and you don’t, why should you expect me to give you my freshly caught fish?

Apply The Golden Rule

“Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”

Keep this in mind in everything you do involving other people. In writing site communities and social networks, follow or friend those that write or post what you are interested in reading. Leave a genuine comment about what you read. Sooner or later others will follow suit. The less you expect of them, the better off you will be. If you don’t or won’t, why would you even think that someone else should?

If your online income is derived from residual income through revenue sharing based on ad views and clicks, bitching about nobody clicking an ad or going to your site is fruitless. Answer me this, when was the last time you clicked on an ad that interested you?

Writing sites offer tools for easy publication and earnings. At any time, any writer can just as easily do the exact same thing on their own blogs without having to share revenue. 95% will never do this because it requires them to do all the work or actions.

Paying Doesn’t Guarantee You Anything

As 95% will never be bothered to take action, exploiters will put out garbage programs and money making schemes. Anything that does work requires you to work no matter what you paid for it. There may be some nifty tools to lessen the work load but work is still required to see some success. Success comes with work over time, not instantaneously. It took McDonald’s 20 years to become an overnight success.

You may have bought the ebook “How To Fish.” You of course still need to get a pole, line, hook, bait, license and go to a place and actually fish. Still there is no guarantee. Buying “The Tools and Fishing Program” still means you need to find a place and actually fish. Still no guarantee. Buying a spot on a commercial pleasure fishing boat gives you all you need and may give you a fish but it is costly for a one time guarantee. Or you can just buy a fish at the market and cook it yourself. Go to a restaurant and just eat it.

The above scenarios show you that you are required to take action or work for a fish. The amount of money you pay has bearing on the amount of work you have to perform over a period of time for different levels of success.

What Are You Willing To Do To Get What You Want In Return?

Better question. I rest my case.