document.write('

How not to get killed in public
2009-03-21 16:50:00
When a company\'s image suffers a setback it normally changes its name with the hope of doing business as usual. In 2001 when Andersen Consulting got a bad rep because of Enron it changed its name to Accenture and after a ValueJet Airlines Flight 592 crashed in the Everglades on May 11, 1996 killing 105 passengers and 5 crew members the airline was renamed Airtran Airways.

While A.I.G. is still calling itself A.I.G. some are abandoning ship according to The Tennessean " The Nashville-based subsidiary of insurer A.I.G. is dropping those tarnished initials, a rebranding that separates it from its troubled parent and, officials say, highlights its individual identity.

In coming weeks, a new sign that emphasizes the initials of the unit, American General Life and Accident Insurance, will replace the one outside of its Brentwood-area headquarters that read "A.I.G. American General" until the parent\'s name was covered up this week."

And who can blame them, the popular New York City blog Gawker has posted a leaked memo to the staff of A.I.G., about the things they should do to avoid being killed by an angry mob of taxpayers.

As more is revealed about A.I.G. no wonder the public anger and frustration is growing according to an investigation done by Reuters titled A.I.G. traders richly rewarded as rivals pay slashed the so called contracts signed for the payment of bonuses were after the firm had racked up $11 billion in paper losses in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Now, I may be Joe the Zilch with no training to be a businessman or a trader but I wouldn’t promise billions of dollars in bonuses to a group of people who lost 11 billion dollars. My response would have been "Cut the crap and fix it and fix it now or go find another job, we have no intention of retaining you"

Give me more, give me more, I have no shame, give me more!
2009-03-20 14:30:00
The government (we the people) gave A.I.G tax dollars to help it survive, we know that.

So now the Government owns 80% of A.I.G.\'s stocks and is thus a majority share holder in A.I.G., we know that too!

What is new is that A.I.G. has taken these tax dollars and is now using it to sue the government (the majority owner of the company) for the return of $306 million in tax payments. What is more amazing is that under the terms of the tax financed bail out, they can legally do that - Use the bail out money to sue the government! And the kicker is that some of the tax money is related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.

According to the New York Times the lawsuit was filed on Feb. 27 in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Also according to the article "United States tax law allows American companies to claim a credit for any taxes paid to a foreign government. But the I.R.S. denied A.I.G.’s refund claims in 2008, saying that it had improperly calculated the credits. The I.R.S. has identified so-called foreign tax-credit generators as an area of abuse that it is increasingly monitoring."

When asked about the lawsuit, Mark Herr, an A.I.G. spokesman, told The New York Times “A.I.G. is taking this action to ensure that it is not required to pay more than its fair share of taxes.” (I wonder how much bonus he got, just for saying that)

What will the Congress do if the government loses the case and has to refund A.I.G the 306 million, maybe impose a 90% tax on the tax refund?

Do not leave us, please stay - try it and we will make it difficult
2009-03-08 13:29:00
Even a dumb guy like me knows that the housing sector drove down the economy, people are hurting and trying to pinch a penny any way they can, there are millions of unsold houses on the market and foreclosures are effecting property values in all communities. State and Federal governments are trying to fix this problem, they are trying to make it easier to sell houses by introducing new laws and incentives like the tax credit for new home buyers etc.

Every government agency wants to do what it can to ease the hardships and help the housing sector - STOP - let me rephrase that almost all government entities, there are some that are actually trying to make it more difficult for people to sell houses! The town council of the Town of Cutler Bay in Miami-Dade County, Florida is actually considering an ordinance that basically will make it mandatory for a seller to get Re-Occupancy Certification from the town before the property can change ownership! The Ordinance was introduced by Council Member Tim Meerbott.

In an email to the council a citizen fighting this ordinance called it "unnecessary, vague, abusive, worthless, injurious to the seller, injurious to the buyer, foolish, discriminatory, illegal, costly, and intrusive." well, talk about asking someone to cut the crap!

What are these folks in Cutler Bay thinking? Is the town manager due a big raise, that the council has to find new ways to raise money? or is it that the folks there love their neighbors so much that they want to make it as difficult as possible for anybody to move out of Cutler Bay and by the same token move into Cutler Bay?

What will the Council think of next in Cutler Bay? I know........ every house in Cutler Bay will have to be ADA compliant otherwise the house will be condemned, the homeowner slapped with a big fine and a lawsuit will be filed against the homeowner.

Your half penny at work (not)
2009-03-08 12:52:00
Note to Miami Dade County Commissioners

Dear County Commissioners,

My boss has PhD in finance and economics (we still had to lay-off people and take a salary freeze, but that is another story for another day) any way he discovered a long time back that I better than him in drafting letters. So, as a good Miami-Dade citizen, and I am aware of how busy you are managing the county, I am taking the liberty of drafting out this letter that you ought to send out to your constituents.

Dear Suckers sorry, sorry we mean Dear Miamians,

We are aware that in 2002 we promised you the moon, well not the moon exactly nor a ride to the moon but we did promise you that if you paid half a penny sales tax surcharge we will use that money for new projects such as extending Metrorail and increasing bus routes. What we did not tell you was this money would be used as bail-out money for the chronically underfunded transit agency. Weeellll a minor omission on our part no biggie! Now hold your horses, a while back we did admit we messed up, wasn’t that magnanimous of us? And didn’t we remind you every day with that nice little slogan on the side of all metro busses "Your half penny at work" which you could stare at while you were stuck in traffic.

And for a while we even increased bus routes, ok it was selfish of us to put in new routes not based on ridership demands but on demands of some of our loyal supporters. There is nothing wrong with that! Most of you do not take the time to vote, volunteer in our reelection campaigns or donate money to our campaigns. There is nothing wrong in putting in a new bus route or two for people who support us, that is how we can get reelected and spend your tax dollars.

We are happy to inform you that this month we have completely negated the 2002 mandate now instead of using all of the transit-tax proceeds for new projects; we will set aside only 10 percent for capital projects. The other 90 percent will go to transit operations that already exist.

You will get some more buses, repairs of elevators and such at Metrorail stations, continued maintenance of transit property and exactly 2 ½ miles of new rail line.

In conclusion we urge you to continue your practice of not coming out to the polls on election days and if you do please vote for the incumbents there is a lot we have to accomplish for you.

Sincerely

Your friendly county commissioner

Note County Commissioners

I am a very reliable and trustworthy, if you feel this letter is too candid, please ignore it and trust me to keep the contents confidential, I promise to post this on the internet and urge my readers to post it on their websites, face book pages and wherever the hell they please.

Thank you

JZ

Saving Joe the Bellman
2009-03-07 16:58:00
AIG got our $85 billion tax dollars (rescue money), they turned around and threw themselves a lavish party at a pricey California retreat when the word got out everybody was mad people were mad, the politicians were mad, the common Joe was mad, hell even Joe the Zilch was mad (do not know about Joe the plumber, the guy from Ohio maybe he was mad too!).

So what happens? Perhaps at closed door corporate executive meetings around the country the executives decided that there will not be any parties any more instead they would use the bail out money to redecorate offices, buy new jets (yeah, fire a few minimum wage Joes, that will pay for the fuel!)
Anyway the end result no more parties.

But wait a minute there a millions of dollars invested in fancy resorts in places like Las Vegas and South Florida just for company execs to come and have expensive junkets and blow some steam, after all it takes a lot of work to lose millions of dollars of investor’s money. According to the Miami Herald "The \'\'AIG effect\'\' has hit the Miami market particularly hard, given its reputation as a lavish destination with some of the country\'s highest room rates."

The tourism industry is fighting back with "Joe the Bellman" and catchy phrases like "Meetings Mean Business"

Am I getting this right? the common Joe works hard at low wages and pays taxes. Of course if you do not pay your taxes you might stand a chance of being nominated by President Obama to a high level government job where you could decide how to give away the tax dollars to losers! Anyway back to Joe the bellman. These taxes are then given to bail out failing businesses (AIG is not expected to survive in spite of receiving over 150 million, GM too is also finding it difficult to survive even after receiving the money) which the travel industry wants the losers to come and party at their resorts so Joe the bellman can keep his job!

Hello Mr. Hotel Executive is this they teach you at MBA school? There is no money going around except for the rescue money "Meetings Might Mean Business" but there can be no meetings without business. Cut the crap sir, Learn from McDonald’s they made more money selling value meals not high priced 4 course gourmet dinners.

According to the New York Times "As of November, the latest data available, the company had delivered 55 consecutive months of increases in global same-store sales. During a year when the stock market lost a third of its value — its worst performance since the Great Depression — shares of McDonald’s gained nearly 6 percent, making the company one of only two in the Dow Jones industrial average whose share price rose in 2008. (The other was Wal-Mart.)"

Dear Travel Industry executives put your MBA education to good use and try a winning strategy like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s and save Joe the Bellman, Joe the Cook and Jane the Housekeeping maid, remember they do not have golden parachutes or leaving bonuses, you are leaders in your industry, it’s time to cut the crap and show some leadership.

Meet Joe
2009-03-01 09:46:00
Hi,

My name is Priyanshu, my friend Joe asked me to introduce him and his blog. I am not as smart as Joe but I told him I\'ll try. Although everybody calls him Joe the Zilch or simply JZ he is no fool, even if he was born on April 1st.

You are perhaps wondering why JZ chose this funny sounding name for his website – Lexical-Disabiguation.Com and what the hell does lexical disambiguation mean.

Well I looked it up on dictionary.com and this is what I got “noun - disambiguation of the sense of a polysemantic word (polysemantic means having many meanings) I think it means clarification that follows from the removal of ambiguity or to use Joe’s favorite phrase “cut the crap” and that made sense, knowing JZ it would be something that he would pick.

What you will read here is in Joe’s words. They are his thoughts and his opinions so dear readers, if you happen know me (Priyanshu) or not know me, please do not hold me responsible for making your life more complicated than it is now or on the other extreme if what you read here makes no sense at all!

Thank you

Priyanshu

');