How to Register Your Business

 Have you ever wondered how businesses register their names? You can  now check a name online for possible use as a business name. The New Jersey State Business Gateway Service has a free online search feature here. Checking Google is also a recommended site to get an understanding of similar names to ones you like.  The IRS does not accept punctuation in the title of a business of any kind, including apostrophes, except a dash (-). Asking an attorney to check a prospective name is also a good idea.

It's important to register the name of a new business to get a national or federal tax ID number and pay taxes. This exact situation happened to me last  week as I registered the name of my new business. Your banker can help you set up a sole proprietorship, and draw up papers for Limited Partnerships and more complicated businesses.

An article in today's Wall Street Journal happens to address this very topic of  choosing business names and the legal problems that can arise if names are repeated or even close to another name. Many big businesses monitor the market to be sure their names aren't misused around the world as well. Perhaps McDonald Corp.'s hounding of the "McDonald Castle" owners in Scotland was going a bit too far in the direction of reputation management.

Watch Out For Flaming Tornadoes!

These must be exogenous shocks; any one of which, if true, could conceivably affect stocks and real estate investments:

dailykos.com

* Flaming tornado: On rare occasion, the wind can whip fire into a whirl as strong as a tornado. A storm of such twisters killed 38,000 people in Tokyo in 1923.

* Poisonous cloud: In 1986 in Cameroon, 1,700 people and 3,500 animals mysteriously dropped dead simultaneously. Scientists discovered that a nearby lake had absorbed carbon dioxide from the dormant volcano beneath it, and then spewed out a 16-mile cloud of death that moved at 125mph.

* Asteroid strike: Astronomers believe a 220 million-pound asteroid hit the earth's atmosphere over Siberia in 1908, producing an impact equal to 185 atomic bombs, and felling 80 million trees—but killing no one, because the area was so remote.

* Snake attack: Days before Mount Pelee blew in the Caribbean in 1902, hordes of poisonous snakes, sensing the coming eruption, poured into the streets, biting and killing at least 50 people.

Daily Beast

Christina Romer's Optimistic Presentation: "Back to a Better Normal"

    Christina Romer's lecture called "Back to a Better Normal: Unemployment and Growth in the Wake of the Great Recession" presented at Princeton University, April 17, 2010, exceeded my excited anticipation. Her message remained solidly optimistic, despite present day observations of an ominous nature. My synopsis is taken from my notes and the written speech.

   "By almost every indicator, the US economy is finally on the road to recovery."

   "The New Normal" is a concept discussed by President and advisers frequently. "We are very far from normal."

    Current unemployment rates reflect a severe shortfall, a collapse of aggregate demand as an effect of the financial crisis that caused a loss of wealth, disruptions of credit, devastation of state and local government budgets, greater caution on the part of consumers and firms, and fall in output around the world. The "rise in long-term unemployment is the almost-inevitable consequence of the severe recession." Romer emphasizes "there is every reason to expect that long-term unemployment will come back down when aggregate demand recovers."

    Challenges reduced but not yet eliminated are credit that remains tight, businesses aren't hiring, state governments have budget shortfalls...It's currently "a replay of what happened during the recovery from the Great Depression."

Christina Romer, President Obama, Lawrence Summers

Photo by Pool/Getty Images North America

    Consumption is not likely to be "the main engine of a strong recovery." Monetary policy is "unusually tight given the condition of the economy". We are"growing again, but not booming". The economy is "not predicted to reach normal levels for an extended period...There are limits on the role government can play."

"What More Can We Do?"

a) "Our focus as policymakers should be on how we can help the private sector recover faster."

b) tax incentives for businesses to employ and retain workers.

c) "additional fiscal relief to the states" extend unemployment insurance benefits extensions, caused by shortages of jobs not workers, and provide capital to small banks to lend to small businesses.

d) open markets to US goods, to move "global economy to more balanced growth."

e) energy conservation through rebate programs.

    Rapid recovery can "help ensure that unemployment does not remain permanently higher". Return of economy to normal is "both possible and a policy imperative...High unemployment is a disaster for the economy"and "more importantly, a tragedy for those affected."

   Can we do better than "just get back to where we were before the recession?" "Could good economic policies lead to economic growth that is stronger and more durable than before?" The answer, Romer says, is yes, with these economic transformations:

1. "Dealing with the Budget Deficit": "budget problem was years in the making." To get fiscal house in order, health reform legislation include mechanisms experts say will "slow the growth of health care costs over time...Vigilance on "implementation of the reforms" is necessary "to make sure that those mechanisms work" and a range of other measures are needed.

2. "Rebalancing Demand": higher personal savings and investment are the goals. New investments in clean energy, biotechnology, healthcare and information technology are better than borrowing, consumption spending and "unsustainable" construction.

3. "Financial regulatory reform" : new sets of rules needed to "curb destructive bubbles" require greater accountability of Wall Street, consumer protections, new rules for financial system  -  a "regulatory framework where capital and liquidity requirements control excessive risk-taking and where regulators consider risks to the system as a whole and not just to individual institutions."

4."Investing in Education and Innovation": with investments in education, basic science, new labs and research facilities.

Forbes: Billionaire Similarities

Forbes Magazine found a few connecting dots between billionaires in this year's The 400 Richest Americans 2009 list:

Many of them :

1) Had an important early failure that they learned from.
2) Had parents with math-related careers.
3) 15% didn't finish college. Of course this means that 85% did finish college, and the others, such as Bill Gates had superior social advantages and earlier schooling.
4) Received MBAs from top-tier colleges. At least MBAs don't hurt.
5) Had September birthdays.
6) Worked awhile at Goldman Sachs.
7) Were members of Yale's Skull & Bones Club.

Few of us have September birthdays or were members of Yale University (and a former boys' club). Few of those who made their own billions had dark skin or were female, I notice. Oprah Winfrey, a notable exception, powered past many of the white male majority of billionaires.


Oprah Winfrey

Obviously, these billionaires are more different than alike. The world is changing, and the future has yet to be written. Let's see more diversity. That list should include more women, too, more than one half of the world's population.

Here's An Interesting Stock Strategy

Bryan and Bob Auer | Auer Growth Fund

Bryan, 73, had been managing his own investments quite successfully for a long time when his son Bob, 48, took a job as a broker at Dean Witter Reynolds in 1986. Bryan opened accounts with his son but wasn't interested in the firm's research or recommendations. Rather, he had his own stock-picking system -- one the duo continues to employ at Auer Growth fund to this day: Cull through thousands of stocks looking for 25% earnings growth, at least 20% sales growth and a forward price/earnings multiple of less than 12. "Once a stock stops having those characteristics or doubles in price, we sell," Bryan says. "We started that process in 1987 and by 2007 our accounts had an annualized return of more than 30%," says Bob. So in late 2007 they launched Auer Growth, with Bob acting as portfolio manager and Bryan in charge of portfolio analysis. Naturally 2008 was an inauspicious time to start a fund, but for the year to date it's up 22%. When asked what's the greatest lesson he's learned from his dad, Bob laughs. "Only how to compound money at 30% a year." Wall Street Journal

Bob Auer was interviewed on CNBC today and made some sense on the bullish side. The article, called "Five Father-Son Teams Share Investing Secrets" by Dan Burrows,isappropriate to read anytime and now, just before Father's Day.

Their criteria :

1. EPS Growth This Year Over 25%,

2. Sales Growth Qtr over Qtr Over 20%,

3. P/E Under 10.

Summary of Treasury Secretary Paulson's exit interview

This afternoon, outgoing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson honored CNBC T.V.'s Maria Bartiromo with an exit interview.

His basic points are in italics.

- It takes a big crisis to make big changes that need to be made in the United States.
- To be successful in any job, it's better to be expansive than narrow, and to solve problems.
- Confidence and sincerity are key to moving the economy up out of the recession.
- Banks need to lend rather than hoard money. (Why not demand accountability retroactively?)
- He says he has learned a lot from his job as Treasury Secretary. (Just one of the benefits of a job that began May 30, 2006)
- He did not want Lehman Brothers to fail. He did not have TARP money then, so he could not save it.

It is not true then, as many say, that the government "wanted" Lehman Brothers to fail.

Wikipedia says: "In August 2007, Secretary Paulson explained that U.S. subprime mortgage fallout remained largely contained due to the strongest global economy in decades." In this interview, he says that he privately told President Bush as soon as he arrived in Washington that there would soon be a serious crisis of the financial system.

Also in Wikipedia: "On August 10, 2008, Secretary Paulson told NBC’s Meet the Press that he had no plans to inject any capital into Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.[21] On September 7, 2008, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went into conservatorship."

His future plans, after a rest, involve working for the environment. But "working for the environment" covers everything from home gardening to international oil and energy negotiations, doesn't it? Since it's likely he hasn't planted a pansy for awhile, it isn't hard to guess which way he'll be going.