Tag Archives: Financial Services

Financial

No, this is not a commercial: How to save on home & auto insurance

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I really don’t like shopping for insurance, but after my current vendor raised my homeowner’s insurance by $1,200 I figured it was time.  The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (Motto: “As boring as it sounds!”) has various affinity programs so I checked them out and found Liberty Mutual.  I’m really glad I did.

I saved $540 from what I was paying for home & auto and $1,660 from what I was about to be paying, with lower deductibles.  I also got much simpler billing and “first accident free forgiveness” as well.

If you are in the market, call Rizwan Jaffer at Liberty at 877-750-3033.  He was very helpful.  They have other discounts besides the AICPA one that I used.  Note: It won’t benefit me in any way.  I just like to see people save money and I like to reward good businesses and employees.

One friend said he has been very happy with Liberty, especially when he had a claim after hurricane Ike.  And another friend just switched to Liberty and saved a lot.

Financial, Politics

Another waste of taxpayer funds by people who don’t understand business

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Government employees who have little, if any, business experience are bound to come up with wasteful ideas.  Here’s another one:

Via Obama Announces $33 Billion Hiring Tax Credit for Jobs – ABC News.

Under the president’s proposed tax credit, businesses would receive a $5,000 tax credit for every net new employee that they employ in 2010. The total amount of credit will be capped at $500,000 per firm to ensure that the majority of the benefit goes to small businesses.

This is simple: While a few companies might hire employees they otherwise wouldn’t have due to these incentives, the vast majority of businesses fall into one of two categories:

  1. Business that don’t have demand for their goods and services and don’t need to hire.  Even with a $5,000 incentive, hiring new employees means they’ll be paying more for wages than necessary.   They won’t use this program.
  2. Businesses that were going to hire anyway.  They had demand for goods and services but didn’t need the additional incentives.  Sure, they’ll cash the checks, but what’s the point?

Leave the $$ with the taxpayers and let them spend it how they like.  That will stimulate demand and lead to real hiring.  Don’t give it to an inefficient government that will take its cut then waste the rest by giving it to companies that were going to hire people anyway.