“COLUMN: Wealth migration and state taxes - Aiken Standard” plus 3 more

COLUMN: Wealth migration and state taxes - Aiken Standard
Stocks Value Investing Legends Are Buying - Motley Fool
You Kant make this up: Bernard-Henri Levy falls for hoax - Los Angeles Times
Killswitch Engage, The Devil Wears Prada, and Dark Tranquility at ... - A.V. Club

COLUMN: Wealth migration and state taxes - Aiken Standard

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 05:55 AM PST

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The findings are from a study conducted by the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, the first study on interstate wealth migration in the country. The report found that wealthy New Jersey residents apparently grew tired of the state treating their success as an ATM for politicians and so they moved to Florida, Pennsylvania and even New York, a state not known for low taxes, but its levies are not as high as New Jersey's.

The study found that wealth migration is a relatively new phenomenon. In the five years preceding 2004, researchers discovered an influx of $98 billion into the state. That would have been during a period when New Jersey was enjoying tax cuts after a run of four successive Republican governors. The Democrats who followed raised taxes, some substantially.

Dennis Bone, chairman of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, told the Newark Star-Ledger, "This study makes it crystal clear that New Jersey's tax policies are resulting in a significant decline in the state's wealth."

The problem in New Jersey and with the federal government under Democrats and some Republicans is that ideology has trumped history and common sense when it comes to taxes and spending. Politicians can see the results of lower taxes, which bring greater prosperity and higher revenue to federal and state governments because more people are working and earning money. But their liberal ideology is so frozen it cannot move from its desire to "tax the rich," even though overtaxing the rich drives the rich to other states. Unfortunately, there is no escaping the long arm of the federal government, which may be why the Obama administration wants to cut back on space travel.

What can be said about politicians who refuse to see the obvious and stick, not to principle (a principle would make them change their minds), but to a rigid ideology that is cult-like in its refusal to accept reality? If you tax more, you will get less because businesses won't hire and in extreme cases - like New Jersey - people will move to other states.

The problem for New Jersey and other states - and Washington - is that governments are run by politicians whose main focus is their re-election. In this pursuit they don't want to say "no" to anyone's request for an earmark, a project, a program, or an "entitlement." The result has been a growing addiction by too many people to government instead of reliance on self. As more become dependent on government, more vote to preserve the status quo. And rabid political opponents will set upon anyone who suggests a cut in spending.

Welfare reform should have taught a valuable lesson. There were claims that people would starve in the streets if their welfare checks were ended and recipients were forced to get jobs. They got jobs and no one starved.

Government must begin weaning people from government. If it won't, we the people must do it. All programs should be continually subject to reauthorization and justification. Social Security and Medicare should be means-tested with incentives for people not to sign-up for them. Families should take care of elderly parents, like they once did. Government should be a last resort, not a first resource.

Just as too many have been conditioned to turn to government, we must be reconditioned to turn away from government and embrace the higher virtue of liberty. We can't go on taxing and spending ourselves into financial oblivion. New Jersey proves there are limits. Does the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress understand? Will they learn from history?

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Stocks Value Investing Legends Are Buying - Motley Fool

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 12:00 PM PST

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Recs

3

Scraping together enough coin to win the annual luncheon auction with Warren Buffet is probably beyond the means of most investors. With the proceeds going to benefit charity, last year's winning bidder forked over $1.68 million for the privilege.

But many investors would love the chance to chow down with Buffett and pick his brain on his investment philosophy and stocks he's considering buying. The same could probably be said for many other value investing legends, too.

Feast or famine
Maybe we can't break bread with the greats, but we can peek at their stock ideas through their SEC filings. What we'll do here is pore over the reports of some of the top investors and see which stocks they've chosen as their best investments. We'll then check in with Motley Fool CAPS members to see if they agree.

Obviously, there are a few caveats with a strategy of piggybacking on the masters.

There's a delay from when the stocks were bought and when they file their paperwork. If they were a good deal back then, are they still a good deal today? Have they sold out since?
These legends may be hot investors now, but that can change in an instant. Bill Miller was a wunderkind for beating the market 15 years in a row -- then he went cold for three. He came back in 2009, but we don't know what 2010 will bring.

Contrary to popular opinion
That's why we say you'll need to do further research, but with those points in mind let's take a look at Bruce Berkowitz, the founder of Fairholme Capital Management, whose leading Fairholme Fund (FAIRX) had net assets valued at more than $10.5 billion. Berkowitz is a value investor who, unlike many portfolio managers, runs a highly concentrated portfolio of just a few dozen stocks. His investing philosophy is simple:

We tend to be greedy when others are fearful, yet fearful when others are greedy. This often translates into taking a different path, going it alone or standing apart from market manias. In short, we ignore the crowd.

Fund: Fairholme Capital Management
Website: http://www.fairholmefunds.com
Number of Stocks Owned: 26
Top 5 Holdings: Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Sears Holding (Nasdaq: SHLD), St. Joe (NYSE: JOE), Hertz (NYSE: HTZ), and Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B).
Top Sectors: Health Care, Financials, Consumer Discretionary, Industrials.

Some of Berkowitz's services would require you to have a minimum account size of $5 million before he'll consider investing your money, or you can look at some of his best ideas below. They include completely new additions to his portfolio at the time of the filing and were the largest purchases relative to the size of the portfolio. They also include positions that he increased.

Stock	Avg. Price	Recent Price	% Chg	CAPS Rating (out of 5)
Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH)	$30.86	$33.25	7.7%	****
Leucadia (NYSE: LUK)	$23.71	$22.08	-6.9%	*****
Berkshire Hathaway	$97,473.90	$114,950.00	17.9%	*****
Humana	$34.50	$46.82	35.7%	***

Source: SEC Filings.

Naturally, we want you to look a bit closer at these stocks before buying. You can get low-priced appliances in the dent-and-ding section of your home-remodeling superstore, but their quality might not be so good. Same thing here: Make sure there's nothing seriously wrong with the company before you plug it into your own portfolio.

Price is what you pay
With the threat of a massive government intrusion into the health care industry at least momentarily off the table, Cardinal Health can focus on growing its distribution business. While profit fell in the second quarter after it spun off its medical technology business, CareFusion, Cardinal Health raised its guidance for the rest of the year, suggesting conditions are improving in the industry. That was underscored by both AmerisourceBergen and McKesson giving investors a preview that better times are ahead.

CAPS member alars79 thinks Cardinal would have benefited regardless of pending legislation, because its generic drug business would have dovetailed with the stated goals of health reformers to reduce costs.

New filibuster-proof Congress should reduce the risk of any sweeping health care changes in the near future. Their focus on growing generics would help them remain competitive regardless. Solid ROE, good work being done to increase focus on core competancies, and pharmaceuticals should continue to have recession- and inflation-resistant demand.

More than 400 members have distributed their opinion on the Cardinal Health CAPS page, with 92% believing it will outperform the broader market averages. Why not join them in injecting your voice into the discussion?

Value is what you get
It pays to start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made, all from a stock's CAPS page.

Sign up today for the completely free service, and tell us whether these stocks are as good a value as these investing legends think they are.

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You Kant make this up: Bernard-Henri Levy falls for hoax - Los Angeles Times

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 10:20 AM PST

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Reporting from Paris - A self-inflicted case of Botulism has claimed a prominent victim: the debonair, silver-coiffed French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.

Known here simply as BHL, Levy is a veritable rock star of philosophy in a nation where the covers of weekly glossies have posed leading thinkers in superhero, v-line formation, looking as if they are ready to attack or to take flight.

Levy usually leads this pack in terms of media attention, in part for his controversial political views and in part for his looks. (His hair flows back in waves, and he tends to be seen in public in starched-collar dress shirts left generously open to chest level.)

On Thursday, Levy's new tome, "On War in Philosophy" ("De la Guerre en Philosophie"), hit the stands, amid the usual widespread public attention.

But this time, for an unusual reason.

On Page 122, in making a negative point about 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant, Levy cites the research of French philosopher Jean-Baptiste Botul.

Trouble is, Botul is not real (a fact that even Kant can agree on).

Rather, Botul is the well-known creation of Frederic Pages, a philosopher himself and journalist for the satirical weekly, the Canard Enchaine.

Said to have lived from 1896 to 1947, Botul has spurred a school of thinking known among knowing Parisians as Botulism. There is also a Friends of Jean-Baptiste Botul Society, which has debated such subjects as "For or Against the Year 2000?"

"Philosophy," says the group's website, "is something far too serious to be abandoned to professional philosophers."

The fact that Levy actually cited the non-existentist has attracted widespread media attention, spurring questions about his work methods, and making a mockery of perceived intellectual elitism.

"It's possible that in a few centuries Botul will exist, and BHL will no longer exist," said Herve Le Tellier, a member of the Botul association. "After all, we don't really have proof of the existence of Socrates or Plato."

"An atomic blunder that raises quite a few questions about the BHL'ian work method," read a headline in the daily Nouvel Observateur.

Levy's new book, according to early reviews, is largely about how to be an active, "engaged intellectual" today. Levy argues that in between Marx's call to revolution and Kant's inactive theorizing, philosophers can find a middle ground by trying to "repair" society with their ideas and involvement in humanitarian causes.

According to Pages, Levy's reference came from Botul's "The Sex Life of Immanuel Kant."

In that fake account, Kant is said to have an obsession with masturbation, while arguing for a "race of single people," such as philosophers, who "refuse the doubtful joys of marriage in order to consecrate themselves to the transmission of knowledge, that is to say, to culture."

Levy, in his own Kant rant, refers to a series of conferences Botul supposedly held with neo-Kantians in Paraguay after World War II.

Then, in perhaps the ultimate irony of the ignoble episode, Levy writes that Botul made it clear in those long-ago meetings that Kant (yes, Kant) was actually a "philosopher without life and without body . . . a false abstraction, a pure spirit of pure appearance."

In a column Thursday in the weekly Le Point, Levy appeared to be both enlightened and contrite, shouting a "hat's off" to "the artist" who tricked him.

"Chapeau," wrote Levy. "I admit even feeling a certain pleasure in letting myself get tricked . . . by such a well-rigged hoax."

The headline to the column: "Long Live Jean-Baptiste Botul!"

Lauter is a special correspondent.

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Killswitch Engage, The Devil Wears Prada, and Dark Tranquility at ... - A.V. Club

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 01:33 PM PST

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City Life : Jock Itch Skeletons, guns, & drunken skiers: reasons to watch the winter Olympics

Feb, 12 - 12:05 a.m.

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