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I have been a big fan of the band xiu xiu ever since hearing "I Luv the Valley (OH!)" on their album Fabulous Muscles. (In fact, the song is so good, Stylus Magazine devoted a whole column to elucidate its meaning). The lead singer and motivating force behind the band, Jamie Stewart, has a knack for writing lyrics that come across as nonsensical, but are actually more cohesive than one would expect at first listen. The same can be said for their sound, which combines his warbling and fragile voice with cacaphonous and dischordant music. xiu xiu has just released a new single, "Boy Soprano," that seems a fairly typical effort for the band. The video, though, is even better. It riffs off the 16-bit Nintendo era, looking like a cross between Pit Fighter and Castlevania. It is hard to catch what the dialogue boxes that crop up periodically contain, but they seem to be absurdist and aphoristic musings on modern life. Here is the video, courtesy of YouTube (make sure to wait for the sad, futile ending): [youtube]EJFmpLvofrM[/youtube]

The estate tax is a tax imposed when somebody dies and bequeaths or devises money or property to some beneficiary, like their children. While it is It crops up quite a bit as a political hot button issue. The President and many Republicans want to reform or eliminate the estate tax, referring to it as the "death tax" in order to make it sound sinister and unwholesome. Most Democrats, on the other hand, see the estate tax as a good, in that it disrupts the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few and makes dynastic fortunes more difficult to sustain. I don't have a particularly strong view one way or another (especially because it is unlikely my parent's estate will be large enough for the estate tax to be an issue). But, if I was a scion of the wealthy I would hope they would die in the year 2010. Here's why: There have already been incremental changes to the estate tax, reducing the percentage estates are taxed at. But, in 2010, the estate tax will be dormant just for that year. In 2001, Congress passed a bill to phase out the tax, culminating in complete elimination in 2010. There are even special changes in the income tax code that will come into force that year, giving automatic increases to what is taxable under the income tax (if there is appreciation or depreciation in value between the original value of the property and the value of the property at time of death, that difference can eventually be taxable to the beneficiary if they ever sell the property. The income tax provisions creates a cushioning effect that would lessen the income tax burden, in conjunction with the elimination of the estate tax burden). Anyway, the bill has a built-in sunset provision that it is only applicable for 10 years. This means that in 2011, everything will revert to the pre-2001 state. Of course, that means there are 5 more years in which Congress can modify the bill or create new regulations, but if they don't, this will just be a decade of fooling around with the Code with no permanent consequences. That just strikes me as amusing, or at least as amusing as the Internal Revenue Code could possibly be. What do you think?

Someone once said "Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people." That somebody was probably in advertising. This is the first in a periodic series of posts about the many insulting commercials that advertisers foist on the public, assuming the unwashed masses are uniformly stupid. Here is a commercial for some product called Head On that I saw recently:

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There are so many annoying facets to this commercial I don't even know where to begin.

First, the voice rapidly screams an obscure directive at the viewer, as if you are a POW in some Kampuchean prison camp. I've seen The Deerhunter multiple times, I know the feeling one has when a foreign prison guard screams at you unintelligibly. An old dictum states that if you repeat something often enough, people start to believe it. But you have to do it more than three time. Three times is just enough to be annoying but not enough to trick you into thinking you must apply something directly to your forehead. The advertisers are treating you like a convict.

Second, why do you need to apply something to your forehead? What is this product for? I wanted to apply the business end of a hammer directly to my forehead after watching this ad, but that wasn't what they were going for. There is just not a lot going on in the forehead region. Wrinkles and acne is all I can think of, but that product looks like a big chapstick. The whole thing sounds a little creepy and is possibly sexual. The advertisers have not even deigned to consider that a consumer would want to know what is being sold to them, expecting that repetition and clear directives are all that the zombies in front of the television screen deserve.

Finally, that green grid in the background slowly folds towards the viewer, as if the robot announcer is lulling you into a stupor so Head On can capture you with his grid-net. The advertisers are treating you as prey.

Read this blog during your lunch hour. Read this blog during your lunch hour. Read this blog during your lunch hour.

People love to bemoan the supposed excess of corporate executives, especially in the wake of the major corporate scandals that have been front page news for the last few years. People say that executives are obese pigs feeding from the corporate trough, reincarnations of decadent Roman emperors gorging themselves on rampant profit, big-bellied Nash caricatures come to life, etc. Well, nobody actually says those things in those words, but that is the general sentiment. All things being equal, executive pay is the product of market forces and it is hard to argue with what the market is wiling to bear. Weak compensation committees on boards of directors may indirectly contribute, but that is the concern of the shareholders who elect board members, not John Q. Public. But all things are not equal and executives can and do use guile and omission to enrich themselves in ways that deceive the very shareholders they are supposed to be ultimately working for. Here is one such deceit.

Many corporate executives are paid partially in stock options. This, theoretically, aligns the incentives of the executive with the incentives of the corporation as a whole and its shareholders. The better the company does, the higher its stock price will rise, and the more money the executive can cash in his options for. For example, say Company ABC's stock price is $20 per share. An executive is issued 10,000 stock options priced at $20 per share as part of his annual compensation, optionable in three years time. At the end of those three years, ABC's stock price has risen to $30 per share. If the executive chooses to cash in his options, he effectively pays $20 to receive $30, a $10 profit. In this scenario, the executive makes $100,000 (10,000 options multiplied by the $10 increase over the option price). This is very simple stuff.

Sometimes, the options are issued not with a time constraint, like three years, but with a performance or market constraint. This means the options are not optionable unless some sort of performance or market outcome is reached. (and it also means these aren't strictly options, but they do have the same characteristic of only being worth anything under specific conditions). This ties the executive's pay directly to some specified goal. These are sometimes known as phantom stocks, because they don't really "exist" until the goal is met. If the goal is never met, then the executive never receives the stocks at all and gets nothing for that portion of his compensation.

But, crafty executives and rubber stamp boards of directors have found a way to ruin even this very specific incentivized compensation by creating phantom stocks that pay dividends regardless of whether the executive ever meets his goals. In some cases, phantom stocks paid out over $200,000 in dividends every year, completing defeating the original purpose of using phantom stocks.

Next time you are thinking of investing in a specific company, take the time to check out the company's yearly proxy statement, available for free on the SEC's website. Under new SEC regulations, the disclosure requirements for executive compensation have been expanded and particularized, making it easier for the average person to read and understand the convoluted structure of executive pay and making it harder for deceitful executives to hide the true nature and extent of their compensation packages.

Jason wrote an interesting post about whether the denizens of Slashdot were correct in claiming that CEOs are inherenly sociopathic. While it is tempting to label CEOs sociopaths because the nature of their job supposedly rewards lacking empathy and nobody likes the wealthy and powerful, they are not and here is why. A corporate executive has a fiduciary duty to the corporation’s shareholders. That means they need to think about growing the company and creating a profit so that shareholders make money. It also means they have to exercise due care and diligence, amongst other things, in their handling of corporate affairs and to refrain from committing any legal or ethical violations. To condemn CEOs for doing their jobs is to condemn the entire corporate system, which is held together by the trust that various people must place in others within the entity. This mutlifaceted trust is encapsulated by and embodied through the fiduciary relationship, which imbues all forms of legal agency. Keep this fiduciary duty in mind while looking at the DSM-IV factors for Antisocial Personality Disorder (which is grouped with general sociopathy in the DSM). Critically analyzing the nature of the executive position vis-a-vis these factors reveals that the fiduciary duty, the very defining duty of an executive, actually inhibits sociopathic behavior, rather than encouraging it or even tolerating it. Here are the seven factors: (1) Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. Lawful behavior for a CEO would be to conform to the various specific duties imposed by the general fiduciary duty he or she owes to the shareholders. (2) Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure. Deceitfulness and lying for personal profit would be clear violation of the fiduciary duty (and violations of many other laws). (3) Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead. This would be a potential violation of the fiduciary duty of dilligence and care, although not in all cases. But even when the actions are ambiguous enough that it is uncertain if there is a violation, they would still be actions that harm, rather than benefit, the company. CEOs are generally not interested in harming their own company and if they were, the shareholders, acting through the board of directors, would remove the offending CEO. (4) Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults. I don’t find that this is often a concern with CEOs. I am sure many CEOs are annoying to be around, but they don't normally commit assaults or get into fights (paper-based white collar crimes are more their style). (5) Reckless disregard for safety of self or others. See the response to factor 4. (6) Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations. Not honoring financial obligations is a violation of the fiduciary duty and mroe importantly is what leads companies to ruin and offers them up to hostile raiders or voracious creditors. (7) Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another. This is the only factor that has legs. While I cannot attest personally to the level of remorse the average CEO has, it is easily within the realm of reasonability that they are more likely to lack remorse. Ultimately, only one factor would be met by the “ideal� CEO who obeys the laws governing his or her office, hardly enough to posit that many CEOs are sociopaths. In fact, the fiduciary duty directs CEOs to avoid the behaviors listed above. The very nature of being a CEO is not sociopathic. If a CEO consistently violates that duty and his actions mesh with the factors above, then it may be appropriate to label him a sociopath, but that would constitute a deviation from what is considered to be appropriate and legal. Politicians on the other hand, they are inherently evil.