QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I am not young enough
to know everything."
Oscar Wilde

LUCKY NUMBER 13

My son Ben and his wife Halie recently had their first child, Madalyn. She's the bald one on the left sporting the Kopsa Otte t-shirt.

Some of you may know Ben. We are all very proud of his service overseas in Iraq.

The addition of Madalyn brings my grandchild total to Lucky #13. I couldn't be more proud.

Larry Kopsa CPA

HUGE LOSSES THROW PUBLIC PENSION FUNDS INTO CRISIS

Losses of $1 trillion on investments by U.S. state and local pension funds covering police officers, teachers and other government employees are forcing managers of the retirement plans into a difficult choice. They must either try to boost returns by taking on even riskier investments or start cutting benefits. An analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers concludes that within an average of 15 years, public pension funds will have less than half of the money needed to pay promised benefits. The Washington Post

COMPETITION FOR JOBS IS TOUGHER THAN EVER

There is an average of about 6.3 unemployed workers for every job opening, a Labor Department report indicates. There is a "jobs gap" of 10 million that needs to be filled just to keep up with population growth, economists said. "Fewer people are facing job loss, but once you have lost your job, you are in serious trouble," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. TIME/The Associated Press

NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL TAX CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON

I just returned from the National Tax Conference in Washington D.C. It was a great conference in that the speakers are inside the belt-way and can give us some indication of what they think might be happening in 2010.

A lot of the talk was on the possibility of tax increases and the impact that tax increases would have on the upcoming 2010 elections. No currently seated congress person wants to go home and say, “vote for me” but at the same time having voted for a tax increase. That being said, the consensus was that the politicians will just let President Bush’s tax reductions expire at the end of 2010. By doing this they can say that they did not vote for a tax increase. I’m having a little trouble understanding the logic because it seems if taxes go up it would be an increase, but apparently the politicians can put some kind of spin on this.

There was a lot of talk about health care reform. There were three bills in the House and two bills in the Senate and they were trying to narrow these down to one bill that everyone could vote on. Since I returned back to the office, Harry Reid, majority leader of the Senate, has decided on the bill that he wants to bring forward. It’s amazing the cost of this whole thing. According to the congregational budget office, the total cost would be $1 trillion $55 billion dollars. The House bill is at about $894 billion dollars. It does look like the IRS is going to be more aggressive with 1099’s and 1099 matching. They are looking under every rock to try to find money to reduce the deficit.

More on the session in future issues.

CREDIT TIGHT FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Credit is still tight for small businesses, Fed survey finds

Bank lending is continuing to tighten for small and midsize businesses in the U.S., and most banks do not anticipate relief for commercial borrowers before the middle of 2010, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve. Fearful of losses on commercial real estate and credit card loans, banks are hanging onto their cash rather than lending it to businesses. "The banks are just deathly afraid," said Sam Thacker, a partner in Business Finance Solutions. "I don't see commercial banks coming back to the market anytime soon." The New York Times

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"There is no such thing as a
great talent without
great will power."

Honoré de Balzac