Discourage Waste, Not Work January 31, 2002February 21, 2017 The only truly good tax, of course, as I wrote in Time a dozen years ago, is a tax on someone else. Failing that, though, the best taxes are simple, fair and easy to collect, and – perhaps most important – they discourage the right things. (When you tax something, you discourage it.) Take the existing federal gasoline tax. Anyone can understand it (a flat 18.4 cents a gallon); it’s easy to collect and reasonably fair (the more you use the roads, the more you pay for them); and it discourages things we want to discourage: our dependence on foreign oil, the trade deficit, pollution, and traffic. As taxes go, this one’s a winner. Actually, it should be a lot higher – not immediately, and not all at once, but phased in over 12 years, say, after perhaps three years’ warning, a dime a year. And, by law, every penny of that tax revenue should be used to LOWER the tax on the things we want to ENcourage: working and saving. So you’d take every penny of the gas tax and use it to lower the bottom income tax bracket (that applies at all taxpayers) and to increase the earned-income tax credit (that applies to people who drive to work but don’t earn enough to pay income taxes). People would have a lot of time to begin factoring fuel efficiency into their automobile purchasing decisions – or not, if they chose not to, which they should be free to do – and manufacturers, anticipating the likely higher demand for fuel efficiency, would have time to accelerate their efforts to build more fuel-efficient cars. (Toyota and Honda already have cars that get 48 and 60 miles to the gallon.) The net result would be that we as a nation of workers and drivers pay not one red cent more in taxes than now. But that we get rewarded with more after-tax money from our work and our investments; and have an incentive to buy and burn less gasoline, to make us richer, safer and healthier as a nation. This will never happen. The oil companies would never allow it, and politicians have long since learned that otherwise bright, rational people become completely hysterical at the mention of any such thing. When, not many years ago, the federal gas tax was hiked from 14.1 cents to 18.4 cents a gallon – an annual tax hike of twenty-five dollars a year for the average driver – the Nightly News showed suburban women virtually in tears, protesting that it would drive their families to starvation. So you can rest easy that we will never get sensible energy policy or sensible gasoline tax policy. Which is just the way the Saudis and the Iraqis – and the oil companies, naturally -like it. Tomorrow: Lowering the Capital Gains Rate To ZERO (Really)
Ground Hog Day January 30, 2002January 25, 2017 From the Borowitz Report: Breaking News CHENEY’S BRIEF APPEARANCE, RETURN TO SECURE LOCATION MAY MEAN SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER, EXPERTS SAY * Some of you found my column on John Ashcroft and the calico cats and naked statuary implausible. So did you see on the news last night that the Justice Department has paid $8,000 to drape two provocative statues, one with a breast exposed? * Jay Glynn: ‘I saw the same Meet the Press and I, too, wish Dick Gephardt had been more direct. It’s such a shame to watch this happen after reducing the national debt as a percentage of GDP from almost 76% in 1993 to well under 60% in 2000. I shudder when I look at the same period in Japan (just under 60% in 1992 and cruising towards 140% now). I just don’t think people understand that even the biggest economies can be victims of poor management. I think people forget just how much President Clinton and his administration did to secure our place in the global economy. And they certainly don’t seem to understand how quickly it can come apart.’ * From Yesterday’s New York Times: U.S. Rejects Bid to Double Foreign Aid to Poor Lands By Joseph Kahn WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 – The Bush Administration has rejected an international proposal to double foreign aid in the wake of the war in Afghanistan, contending that poor countries should make better use of the assistance they now receive, diplomats said today. ☞ How on Earth can these poor people expect us to devote more than one-tenth of one percent of our Gross Domestic Product to help the rest of the world? Doubling the budget could cost us another $10 billion a year. That could cut sharply into the $700-odd billion we set aside in tax relief for America’s most fortunate over the next 10 years. (Last night, in his well-delivered State of the Union, President Bush appealed to Congress to make this 10-year $1.3 trillion tax cut – skewed heavily to the top 1% – permanent. The reason it’s ‘only’ $1.3 trillion this decade is that it phases in slowly. But once all the breaks are fully phased in, the tab for the next ten years could easily be $4 trillion or more in today’s dollars, skewed heavily to the most fortunate. No wonder we can’t find $10 billion a year to try to give a hand up to the poor and the suffering. First things first: the heirs of a newly deceased billionaire need tax relief!) * Randy Woolf: ‘You asked for the name of that book a few years ago that detailed the secret teaming life of your home. It’s The Secret House. * I know I promised Lowering the Capital Gains Rate To ZERO for today. Maybe tomorrow or, more likely, Friday. Sorry. But you’ve waited this long . . .
Lowering Your Capital Gains Rate (Really) January 29, 2002February 21, 2017 This was supposed to be the topic yesterday, because I had promised ‘something on personal finance for a change.’ I got carried away. (But trust me: what the country does on the economic questions raised yesterday will affect your personal finance.) Tonight is the State of the Union. For another view of it, albeit partisan, some of you may want to click here. But here’s the skinny on lowering your long-term capital gains tax rate from 20% to 18%. I’m going to give you the short form and then point you to a full, very well presented analysis, if you want to know more. The short form is that the long-term capital gains tax rate falls from 20% to 18% for assets held more than 5 years – but only if those assets were purchased after the year 2000 – and that you can, this year only, do something called a ‘deemed sale’ to make sure that any or all of the assets that wouldn’t otherwise qualify (because you bought them before 2001) do qualify. With the deemed sale, you pretend to have sold shares on January 2, 2001, and then to have bought back at the same price on the same day. It seems like a cause to celebrate. (Don’t worry – if you’re one of those obnoxious souls who has already filed his or her 2001 taxes, you can file an amended return any time until October 15 to register a deemed sale.) But actually it’s a cause to yawn and go back to playing with the kids. Here’s why. At very best, if all goes right, it’s true: by going through this (easy) exercise you might save a tiny bit when you pay your 2006 taxes in 2007. On a $10,000 gain, assuming Congress doesn’t make yet more changes, your tax would be $1,800 instead of $2,000. You’d get to keep $8,200 of the gain instead of just $8,000. Not nothing, of course. But there are potential costs. If the deemed sale is of something that had gained in value as of January 2, 2001, you have to pay tax – now – on that gain (unless you have enough realized losses in 2001 to offset the gain). Why pay a certain tax now in hope of slightly lowering your tax five years from now? Especially when you consider that you might never get that tax break anyway! (The stock might go down, you might choose to sell in fewer than five years, you might decide to give the stock to charity, Congress might change the capital gains tax in a way that makes this moot, or you might die.) If the stock you’re considering “selling” this way showed a loss on January 2, 2001, you do NOT get to take the loss. Only on stocks or mutual funds or other assets on which you had no appreciable loss or gain on January 2, 2001 might this make sense. So go ahead – if it’s worth an extra piece of your brain to deal with this. For those who love puzzling through these things for the fun of it – I’d guess it’s more about the game than the money – click here for Kaye Thomas’s excellent explanation and analysis. (It’s just one piece of his fairmark.com tax advice site.) And, no, it turns out this won’t work on your home. There were those who thought they could do a deemed sale as of January 2, 2001, taking a $200,000 gain, say – but paying no tax because of the $250,000/$500,000 exclusion of gains on the sale of a primary residence. That would have been great – suddenly the cost basis of the house had jumped $200,000, so if they ever sold it for real, they’d be $200,000 less likely to show a taxable gain. But no, the law doesn’t allow this. (Sorry.) Tomorrow: Lowering the Capital Gains Rate To Zero
Lowering Your Capital Gains Rate January 28, 2002February 21, 2017 GOOD NEWS: “We can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits, even if the economy softens.” — George W. Bush, March 27, 2001 BAD NEWS: The White House now estimates budget deficits stretching through fiscal year 2005 and has requested an immediate increase in the federal debt ceiling from $5.95 trillion to $6.7 trillion. * House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt was asked on ‘Meet the Press’ yesterday about delaying tax cuts and whether that’s the same as raising taxes. He called for a bipartisan summit to hash out the economic problems and gently criticized the composition of the Bush tax cuts. I’m a big Dick Gephardt fan, but I wish he hadn’t been so diplomatic. Here’s the answer I wish he had given: Listen, Tim. Let me be very clear. I don’t know of a single Democrat in the country – not a single Senator or Congressman and certainly not me – who has even suggested raising taxes. That’s number one. Number two, I don’t know of a single Democrat in the country who has suggested delaying by even one minute any of the tax cuts scheduled for 2002. Number three, I don’t know of a single Democrat who has proposed delaying even a penny of tax cuts for the so-called ‘bottom 98%’ of the country. So for 98% of your viewers, this isn’t even an issue, much as our friends in the other party might like to scare them into thinking it is. What some Democrats DO believe is that it is fair to ask whether – for the top 1% or 2% – we should delay the additional tax cuts scheduled for 2003 and beyond until we can afford them. That’s a question that I think should be asked and discussed. And if the Republicans won’t even ask it – if they believe we should keep cutting taxes for the top 1% or 2% no matter what it does to Social Security or the budget deficit or our ability to fight terrorism . . . no matter what it does to mortgage rates or to our ability to fund homeland defense or to provide a prescription drug benefit for seniors – then I think they should really give up once and for all on this notion that they are fiscally responsible or fair-minded. I want to cut taxes for the top 1% or 2%. But to me it’s not the absolute number one priority, and I don’t want to do it until we can afford it. And doing the fair, prudent thing shouldn’t require going over anyone’s dead body. My friend Bryan Norcross suggests an even simpler answer: Listen Tim: I just don’t see how we can do all the things the President says we need to do and still cut taxes every year for the top 1% or 2%. I didn’t see it before the President signed his tax bill, and I don’t see it now. But if the President can show us how to do it – wonderful! I’m all ears. In the meantime, Tim, make no mistake: if we don’t solve this, and mortgage payments start going up for the average family a year or two from now because of the budget deficits, people will see that those massive tax cuts were real for the top 1% – but illusory for everyone else. Tomorrow: Lowering Your Capital Gains Tax Rate (Really! Click It Now If You Don’t Believe Me)
Spaceship Earth January 25, 2002February 21, 2017 First they wanted to clean up the water, next they wanted to clean up the air – soon they’re going to want us to clean up our rooms! I’m talking, of course, about fringe environmentalists, who don’t understand that by the time the sprawl and pollution get really bad, we won’t be around to have to worry about it. Or technology will have invented a big vacuum cleaner to make it all OK and reverse whatever seemingly irreversible damage we may have done to the planet’s equilibrium. I am not cleaning up my room. And – while we’re getting all this out there – I am not cleaning, let alone replacing, my home-office carpet, either. It was good in 1977 when I installed it, and it remains good today. To change it would require moving everything out of the office – tons of stuff piled on tons of other stuff – and then, eventually, moving it back in. And for what? To change a gray carpet with a few coffee spots to a spotless gray carpet I’ll be terrified of spilling coffee on? Yes, there may be a trillion microbial mites living in that carpet (what was the name of that book a few years ago that detailed the secret teeming life of your home?), but they’re harmless enough. And I do allow a vacuuming every so often. It is a perfectly good carpet. Just not quite as fluffy as it was when the Dow was 840. Well, who is? And I’m not painting the office, either. It was white; now it’s off-white. What’s wrong with that? (My office is the one room over which, by prior agreement, Charles allows me free rein and free reign.) So no fringe environmentalist I. (Hell, I’m a Harvard MBA.) And no fringe environmentalist our President, either. (Hell, he’s a Harvard MBA.) Nor, for that matter, my Republican investment-banking Harvard MBA classmate Teddy Roosevelt IV – TR4, as he is known – direct descendant of bear-hunting, big-stick-carrying, Panama-Canal-digging Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. No fringe environmentalist he. Teddy is chairman of the League of Conservation Voters. And yet for all my non-fringiness (I am, I have to tell you, no slave to the snail darter), I was struck by the Report Card that the League recently issued grading the President’s first year in office. It is a 34-page Acrobat file, so if Mother Earth is your thing, and 56K is your baud rate, enjoy your weekend (Saturday to download, Sunday to read). Or just check out the overview: Presidential Appointments D President’s Budget D+ Presidential Initiatives F * Energy and Climate Change F * Public Lands and Land Management F * Pollution and Public Health D * Wildlife Conservation F * International Issues F OVERALL GRADE D- I know it doesn’t seem like all that good a record, but there is an obvious solution: More tax cuts. Little ones for the little guy – enough to buy a water purifier or some asthma medicine – but really large ones for the top 1%, because they own the most land, and have the most to preserve. Monday: Back to Personal Finance. At Least a Little.
Amazon; Cow Accounting January 24, 2002February 21, 2017 Lynn Smith: ‘I read yesterday that Amazon.com had earnings per share of $.01 last quarter. Their first ever in the black. The article also contained a bunch of gibberish about ‘pro forma’ profit. Any comment?’ ☞ Yes: Good for them! I’ve been rooting for Amazon from Day One (although I am also rooting for Barnes & Noble, whose web site lately, and anecdotally, seems to me to have been more on the ball). Amazon deserves tremendous credit for innovation and enthusiasm and, especially, for trying to delight its customer. Amazon stock was absurdly overpriced not long ago and I enjoyed making fun of it. It may still be overpriced, but at least it’s got a shot at someday justifying your owning it here. (I don’t.) A year or two ago, it was just complete loony tunes. Robert Doucette: ‘In case you were wondering how Enron came into so much trouble, here is an explanation reputedly given by a Colorado Aggie Professor to explain it in terms his students could understand: Capitalism You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income. Enron Capitalism You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by your CFO who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on six more. Now do you see why a company with $62 billion in assets is declaring bankruptcy? Dana D. Dlott: ‘The guys from Enron are not nice. They are simply Familiar. Unlike black inner-city youths who rob convenience stores who seem scary, the Enron guys are the people you went to school with. If a thousand inner-city black youths robbed a thousand convenience stores every day for ten years, they still would not have stolen as much as the Enron executives.’
Could Ken Lay Afford an Italian Mortgage? January 23, 2002February 21, 2017 ‘In Italy there are three private television networks and one major government network. The three private ones are owned by Silvio Berlusconi, and guess what? He’s the prime minister, so maybe he has a little influence over the government network also . . . ‘ – Nicholas von Hoffman in the New York Observer Fred Fernandez: ‘I thought you might be interested in a website mentioned in this month’s issue of Smart Money called decisionaide.com that provides a comprehensive set of calculators for evaluating mortgages. I especially liked the ones that evaluate costs of Private Mortgage Insurance and downpayments.’ Dan Flikkema: You wrote: << It’s hard to know what to say about Enron, or the tone to use, because they all seem like such nice folks, and maybe they are. The Arthur Anderson guys seem nice, too.>> ‘I think you’d be justified taking a tone of absolute outrage about this scandal. If you really see the Enron executives and Arthur Andersen as ‘nice folks,’ I’m not sure you grasp how outrageously bad this is. You should listen to the interview with Kurt Eichenwald on NPR’s show, Fresh Air. Listen to Thursday – January 17, 2002 regarding the scandal. The fact that this could happen to Arthur Andersen doesn’t surprise me. I worked there as an auditor for two years (93-95). The culture at Arthur Andersen was one of incredible arrogance. It was a culture totally lacking in self-doubt. From what I have read, Enron was no different. This ‘we can do no wrong’ attitude is the key element in the creation of scandals like this. The Arthur Andersen culture was not one of healthy confidence; it was simple arrogance. Arthur Andersen’s destruction of the audit work papers is really, really bad; incomprehensible actually. Whatever was in those documents must be devastating if Enron and Arthur Andersen chose to defy the SEC and a court order, rather than have their actions come to light. These are not nice guys, Andy.’
Japanese Vampire Tanks Up at Sunoco, Not Enron January 22, 2002February 21, 2017 WON’T SAVE YOU MONEY; MIGHT SAVE YOU SLEEP I have no connection whatever to Brookstone, and normally shun their products as being less cheap than I am, but here’s one to consider: an eye mask that even a vampire could love. It turns bright sunlight into pitch dark, whether because you are sleeping in after an all-nighter, your bed-mate has the halogen reading light on, or you find yourself on an airplane trying to get a really good nap. Yes, you will look like a bit of an idiot. But a well-rested idiot. YEN YEN YEN YEN YEN YEN YEN Japan’s in rough shape. The yen may need to be sharply devalued to save its economy. That would make consumer electronics and Honda Insights even cheaper here – but the Japanese market all the tougher for U.S. exports. WHAT’S THAT SMELL?! John Seiffer: ‘You’ve already extolled the damage the new car smell does to your wallet. Apparently it does damage to your lungs as well. Here’s a comment on the situation.’ ☞ In part: ‘ . . . a recent study by a Japanese public-health institute found that the interior of a representative test vehicle contained formaldehyde and 113 other potentially harmful, volatile organic compounds . . . the emissions exceeded World Health Organization indoor air-quality standards by up to 45 times.’ SUNOCO Jim Batterson: ‘One of your readers today commented about driving past a Mobil station to gas up at Sunoco. Good choice. This is from the Sunoco web page: ‘Each year Sunoco publishes a report detailing our HES (health, environment and safety) performance. This report adheres to the guidelines of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES). Sunoco was the first Fortune 500 company to endorse the CERES Principles – a comprehensive environmental code of conduct for corporations.’ Michael Young: ‘While you’re switching gas stations, consider a Sunoco MasterCard. They offer credits of up to 1% on regular purchases (but 1/2% until you reach a moderate threshold, a fact only seen in the very fine print), and 4% on fuel purchases. The credits can only be used for Sunoco purchases, and they’re applied automatically. When they ran a promotion last fall, they were offering an immediate $25 credit when you signed up. It was perfect for me, given that Sunoco was already my usual supplier, and my previous regular card had just bailed on its rebate program.’ ENRON David Smith: ‘Very disappointed in today’s article Andy. You’re capable of much better than mere mud-slinging.’ Paul Berkowitz: ‘Since 1989, Enron has made a whopping $5.8 million in campaign donations, 73 percent to Republicans and 27 percent to Democrats. I guess the $1.5+ million to the Democrats doesn’t count? Remember, sleaze is an equal opportunity destroyer.’ ☞ It is. And I think it’s fair to ask whether Enron got the Clinton administration to make bad public policy. (I don’t think it did, but it’s fair to ask.) But there are a couple of differences which – apart from whatever bias I bring to this – may account for my not focusing on the 27%: 1. The Clinton administration, being history, is no longer much relevant to the discussion of what our energy policy should be. The Bush administration makes decisions every day that will affect our lives. 2. In good measure, the sleaze here comes from our campaign finance system. Clinton/Gore and the Democratic Party have called for passage of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform almost from the beginning. The Republican leadership, to the great consternation of Senator McCain, staunchly opposes it. The Enron situation might give campaign finance reform enough oomph to make it through. (Democratic incumbents are not thrilled with abandoning a system that favors incumbents. But a lot more D’s than R’s have signed on to do it anyway.) 3. I don’t think anyone imagines that Ken Lay or Enron played a significant role in crafting the nation’s energy policy under Clinton/Gore. I do think some imagine they played a significant role in crafting it under Bush/Cheney. Having said all that, I was not thrilled with Friday’s column, either. (Except Andy Borowitz’s part, which I thought was very funny.) It’s hard to know what to say about Enron, or the tone to use, because they all seem like such nice folks, and maybe they are. The Arthur Andersen guys seem nice, too. But an awful lot of shredding was going on, even after – well, especially after – Arthur Andersen knew the SEC had launched an investigation of Enron. What we do know so far is that the company reported large and growing profits and found ways to pay no taxes on those supposed profits. And that the guys at the very top made out like bandits, while the rank and file employees made out very badly. And to me this just echoes the theme. We should spend the projected surplus largely on cutting taxes for the best-off. Not because we favor the rich, but because it’s good for America. We shouldn’t rush to shut down offshore tax havens. We should stimulate the recovery with, among other things, a $25 billion retroactive tax cut to companies already awash in cash, like IBM (and $254 million to Enron), not because we favor our big-money contributors, but because it’s good for America. We should drill in ANWAR but cut the budget for alternative-energy research in half not because the oil industry wants it, but because it’s good for America. Well, I don’t think it is good for America. To the extent the Clinton/Gore administration favored big-money contributors to the detriment of the country as a whole, that’s rotten, too. I just think the record shows that, while there may have been isolated instances I don’t know about, the clear theme of the Clinton/Gore administration was precisely the opposite: it was to RAISE (sensibly, not punitively) the top tax brackets for the best off, leaving unchanged the taxes for the other 95%, and to concentrate much of our effort instead on the average guys and gals in the middle and at the bottom – raising the minimum wage, raising the earned income credit, enabling every high school grad to afford college, launching Americorps, cutting the budget to bring down interest rates on mortgages and car loans, passing the Family and Medical Leave Act, seeking (unsuccessfully) to join the rest of the First World in covering everyone with health insurance. That kind of thing. The theme was different, the balance was different. And maybe it was just luck – or maybe it was a sell-out to the labor unions, who advocate for the average guy rather than the top 1% – but it sure seemed to work. In negotiations on the economic stimulus package, the Republicans wanted that $25 billion retroactive corporate AMT repeal; the Democrats wanted to aim tax cuts at people in greater need, who might actually spend the money and stimulate the economy. All of which you may deem a maddeningly roundabout way of saying that I’m not much worried that Enron unduly influenced the Clinton administration’s energy policy. But I do agree with you that it’s fair to ask (and agree with David Smith that this was not my best work).
Enron January 18, 2002February 21, 2017 From the Borowitz Report January 17, 2002 Breaking News U.S. MISSILE HITS ENRON FILE STORAGE FACILITY Intended for Tora Bora, Smart Bomb Destroys Company Documents Instead A so-called ‘smart bomb’ destined for Tora Bora changed course suddenly last night and hit a file storage facility of the Enron Corporation located on the outskirts of Houston. ☞ Look, I’m sure no Enron expert, but what do we know about Ken Lay? First, that he got enormously rich from Enron. Second, that he filed for the largest corporate bankruptcy in history. Third, that he may have been grossly negligent or else the greedy mastermind of a huge white-collar crime. Is this the guy you would look to as a key advisor to set the nation’s energy policy? Advising on things like energy deregulation and, perhaps, what actions the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should take – or not take – to keep California electricity prices from shooting to the moon? (The FERC was legally empowered to impose short-term emergency caps but took no action.) Maybe the nation’s energy policy – e.g., cutting the budget for alternative energy research in half, to the presumed delight of the oil industry – should now be revisited? And perhaps not in secret? One might even ask, ‘What did Ken Lay and Enron hope to gain from their six-figure gifts to the various Bush pursuits? And did they gain any of it?’ This is a company that went to elaborate lengths to pay zero income tax in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 while reporting ever-rising profits. That would suggest a healthy dose of good old-fashioned self-interest. Is it possible they put up $300,000 for the Bush Inaugural, and flew George and Barbara Bush to the inaugural, just as a matter of patriotism? If so, might it not have been at least as patriotic to pay a little income tax?
Minty Fresh Breath — $2.99 January 17, 2002January 25, 2017 WALGREEN’S V. SCOPE A lot of people think of Walgreen’s only when it comes to buying shirts. But what about their mouthwash? I have risked social ostracism to do extensive testing and can report that Walgreen’s $2.99 ‘Compare to Scope’ Mouthwash™ tastes just as good as the $5.69 bottle beside it, and I am no more unpopular than I was when I was using the name brand. INDIANA’S 529 Peter McCann: “I’m taking your advice and trying to pick 529 plans for my nieces and nephew. I’m curious why do you suggest the Indiana 529 plan. There is a 3.5% sales load. Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s a pretty heavy jockey.” ☞ You’re right. This was dumb. It was a mistake to suggest the Indiana Plan. I relied on a forthcoming book that plugged it, without checking directly myself. But when I did check, I saw the load – or the chance to avoid the load and pay too-high administrative fees for six years. You know how all traces of Stalin disappeared from the Soviet Union when he was discredited, years after his death? Just try to find any reference to the Indiana plan in my archives. EXXON, ONE LAST TIME Parks Stewart: “I’m a member of the loyal Republican opposition and I’m really wrestling with this domestic-partner benefits issue. (Where do we draw the line? What about people living together and not married? For how long to qualify? Was I a domestic partner of the two ladies I lived with for a time – separately – before I got married? How’d this get so messed up?) That said, I join the boycott out of support for you.” ☞ Thanks, Parks! Fair questions. I think the answer is: Continue to require a marriage license . . . except for employees denied the right to get one (i.e., inter-racial couples until 1967 in Virginia, and gay couples in 50 states today). For them, in jurisdictions like Vermont and New York City and San Francisco, where you can legally register your domestic partnership, require that. Elsewhere, the employee would just attest to it. Kevin Kroeger: “Believe it or not, we have something we actually agree on!! I think Exxon’s decision to rescind Mobil’s ‘domestic partnership benefits’ was a poor one. Your example of two weeks v. 10 years is an excellent one. But I do have a sincere question: How do we as a society ‘institutionalize’ domestic partnerships? Then the application of ‘domestic partner policy’ becomes black and white in my mind and this whole Exxon/Mobil debacle becomes moot. Perhaps this already exists and you could enlighten me to its existence/ application.” ☞ Vermont is the only state that permits same-sex civil unions, and it led to a huge battle in the normally tranquil state. Many others states have acted preemptively not only to forbid civil unions, but to assure that civil unions entered into in other states will not be recognized in their own. Dan Stone: “Why would the effect of a ‘stock boycott’ have to be infinitesimal when the effect of a product boycott would not be? And if one’s portfolio is diversified, how much does one lose when one decides not to profit from culprit corporations? We shouldn’t own companies whose products we would boycott.” ☞ Selling XOM could be right for you, even if you’d have tax to pay on your gain. It certainly “feels” right. I just don’t believe it would do any good. The shares you sell won’t disappear; they’ll just go from your hands to less caring hands (less likely to be raised when this comes up for a shareholder vote again next year). With a consumer boycott, millions of people might participate – people like to battle injustice – and that could lead to a small but noticeable drop in sales. Management, and gas station owners, would notice that. And they might get quiet pressure from big Wall Street shareholders who don’t see the point of alienating a segment of the population. I don’t own Exxon. But if I thought there were a big profit to be made, I might buy it and use that profit to do something useful . . . like promote the boycott.