2003 Wisconsin Political Lobbying

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Katherine Skiba summarizes state political lobbying spending (data is from the Wisconsin Ethics Board). I was surprised at Wisconsin’s top spender(s):

Big Media & Politics

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OnPoint’s Tom Ashbrook interviewed NBC’s Tim Russert last Wednesday. I listened to a bit of this interview while running errands.
One segment, stuck: Russert described a recent Oval Office visit where the President hosted some baseball greats, and invited Russert and his son to participate. Ashbrook correctly asked Russert if this was an example of a cozy insider relationship (I’m paraphrasing) and therefore, can one be objective in covering politicians. Russert insisted that he of course, can……
This is a great example of a major problem today: the cozy relationships between major media and the political establishment. There’s also this: Meeting the press and surviving it; which describes Russert’s recent interview with Colin Powell. Powell’s press aide pulled the camera away when Russert evidently broke the interview’s ground rules.

More on Corporate Culture and Leadership: Herb Kelleher

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Herb Kelleher on the survival of an airline; a recent talk to Southwest’s Senior Leaders:

In a wide ranging discourse on the current state of affairs in the airline industry, Herb?s talk was packed with historical truths and current observations based on over 35 years of industry experience. Here is a synopsis of his remarks.

  • As an airline executive, his prime goal and proudest accomplishment has been job security for the People of Southwest.
  • Nothing is as injurious to one?s quality of life as a layoff or furlough.
  • In spite of being in one of the worst businesses in the history of business, Southwest has prospered because of its People.

Tuning out the Media

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Dot Com era Billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban on why we’re tuning out the media…

We are now in an era where media searches for stories that will generate media coverage of the story. Stories are written not for the value they bring the readers, viewers or listeners, but rather the volume of coverage they will bring.
The question I had then, is the same question I have now? What is the goal of these media outlets? How do they define what is ?newsworthy.? It sure appears to me that the newsmedia has evolved from ?all the news that is fit to print? to ?How much free publicity can we get from this story??

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds who correctly states: “They’re churning out Granadas and Chevettes and telling us that we’re idiots for complaining.”

Corporate Culture & Travel

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I’ve written before about Madison’s air travel challenges and opportunities.
I continue to believe that only the arrival of Southwest will truly change Madison’s air transportation opportunities. The “Southwest Effect” is just what Madison needs: the average fare decreases and the number of passengers dramatically increases when Southwest enters a market.
I recently phoned Gary Kelly, Southwest’s CFO to encourage them to fly to Madison. Southwest gets major points for having a real person answering the phone and playing good music while the call is being routed around the company.

Tax Avoidance & Intellectual Property

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Dave writes about Amazon’s controversial one-click purchase patent (many business process patents, are I believe an abuse of the patent process). Evidently, Amazon assigned their patent(s) to Deutsche Bank as part of a credit agreement between 1995 and 1997.
I wonder if there might be a tax shelter angle to this (amazon was generating huge losses at the time, and other firms might wish to do a deal for the tax benefits of those losses)? Years ago, I worked for a major international beverage firm. One of their (this firm was not unique) tax reduction/avoidance strategies was to create the flavors in tax havens (Puerto Rico, Cyprus, Ireland among other places) and sell that essential component back to US entities at high prices (this is of course a rather simplistic analysis). The US entities then generated small margins or losses while the offshore unit generated the large margins. This tax strategy, among many others is discussed in the very enlightening book by NY Times reporter David Cay Johnston: Perfectly Legal.
Deutsche Bank, like many others, has been part of a number of tax shelter strategies.
This abusive patent process is the major reason I do not link to amazon (barnes & noble online is a fine alternative).