Are You An Administration Courtesan?

Inside Higher Ed recently had a very interesting piece on being an "administrative courtesan":

It'’s not in the job description. Few of your colleagues will mentor you in this line of work. It is the by-path on the road to tenure that no one wants to talk about - — providing certain benefits to The Administration that it passionately desires and can only obtain from a young, fresh, junior member of the faculty such as yourself. We do not wish to be misunderstood; despite some less-than-flattering appellations by which we might be known, we are proposing nothing illegal, or even unethical. If you follow our advice, you will not hate yourself in the morning. But you might get tenure.

Most of the time junior professors don'’t seem to get noticed by The Administration , but when your moment comes, you must know what The Administration wants. It is a fickle Leviathan of great appetites that will devour you if you do not approach it carefully. Above all, it serves the god Mammon. The reliable sources of its satisfaction are twofold: parents and donors.

Read the whole thing here.

The article makes a simple point - keeping the people in the Administration happy and helping them accomplish their goals is a good way to help yourself to tenure.

And what's their main goal? When you're at a research school, the focus is on donors, and when you're at a teaching one, you need to keep parents happy. But, the principle is the same. The important thing on the administration's mind is (big surprise here):

Getting money out of alumni and keeping parents happy (so they might give money too).

Unfortunately, academics often look at fundraising as something that's either beneath (or, they look at it as "selling out"). I think part of this attitude is due to the fact that many (if not most) of my tribe are less than extremely interpersonally gifted. Some are, but they are the exception, and I'm not sure they're all that trusted by their peers. By nature, we're not at our best in the public eye, and most of us are not exactly born schmoozers (I'm lucky that way, since my father was a salesman, and so is my brother).

However, being able to "talk the talk" with alumni (or parents) makes the administrative fund raisers' job much easier.

Getting tenure involves publishing enough research and teaching well enough that you meet whatever standards there are at your university. But just as important, you have to have the people who vote on your tenure on your side. First of all, that means being a good enough colleague that the senior faculty in your department and school will feel comfortable having you around for a long time (once you're tenured, they're stuck with you).

Even more important, you have to have the administration on your side. And being an "administrative courtesan" is one way to do it.

I've never said that I can't be bought. I just try to keep the price high enough to keep out the window shoppers.

Managing Cash Flow

The Kauffman Foundation has a great collection of articles on managing cash flow for small businesses. There's a bit of everything there-- anecdotes/stories, tools, and a number of very good "how-to" guides. As I tell my corporate finance class, it's Cash Flows, Not Profits, that matter.

HT: The always educational The Entrepreneurial Mind

“Dirty Dozen” Tax Scams for 2006

The IRS recently announced its 2006 "Dirty Dozen" list of tax scams. Since this is the season, many people will be persuaded to try an easy way out of paying taxes. Here are a few of the items on the IRS list:

Zero Wages - in this one, a taxpayer attaches to his or her return either a Form 4852 (Substitute Form W-2) or a "corrected"” Form 1099 that shows zero or little wages or other income. This might also involve the taxpayer including a statement indicating the taxpayer is rebutting information submitted to the IRS by the payer.

Form 843 Tax Abatement - This scam, also new to the Dirty Dozen, rests on faulty interpretation of the Internal Revenue Code. It involves the filer requesting abatement of previously assessed tax using Form 843.

Phishing - Internet-based criminals pose as representatives of a financial institution and send out fictitious e-mail correspondence in an attempt to trick consumers into disclosing private information. Sometimes scammers pose as the IRS itself. In recent months, some taxpayers have received e-mails that appear to come from the IRS. A typical e-mail notifies a taxpayer of an outstanding refund and urges the taxpayer to click on a hyperlink and visit an official-looking Web site. The Web site then solicits a social security and credit card number. REMEMBER - never give out your private information over the internet (or a phone) unless you're initiated it and you know who you're giving it to.

Zero Return - Promoters instruct taxpayers to enter all zeros on their federal income tax filings. In a twist on this scheme, filers enter zero income, report their withholding and then write "“nunc pro tunc", Latin for "“now for then" –on the return. They often also do this with amended returns in the hope the IRS will disregard the original return in which they reported wages and other income.

Trust Misuse - For years unscrupulous promoters have urged taxpayers to transfer assets into trusts. They promise reduction of income subject to tax, deductions for personal expenses and reduced estate or gift taxes. However, some trusts do not deliver the promised tax benefits, and the IRS is actively examining these arrangements, and currently has more than 200 active investigations underway and three dozen injunctions against promoters since 2001.

Frivolous Arguments - Promoters have been known to make the following outlandish claims: the Sixteenth Amendment concerning congressional power to lay and collect income taxes was never ratified; wages are not income; filing a return and paying taxes are merely voluntary; and being required to file Form 1040 violates the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. These arguments are false and have been thrown out of court.

Return Preparer Fraud - Dishonest return preparers can cause many headaches for taxpayers who fall victim to their schemes. Such preparers derive financial gain by skimming a portion of their clients'’ refunds and charging inflated fees for return preparation services. They attract new clients by promising large refunds.

“No Gain” Deduction - Filers attempt to eliminate their entire adjusted gross income (AGI) by deducting it on Schedule A. The filer lists his or her AGI under the Schedule A section labeled "“Other Miscellaneous Deductions"” and attaches a statement to the return that refers to court documents and includes the words "“No Gain Realized."

There are others - read the whole list here.

A few things to keep in mind:

• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
• Consult a reputable tax preparer (one you trust) before you try any "non-standard" approach to your taxes.
  

Hey, paying taxes surely stinks. But not nearly as much as going to jail or paying the taxes you would have anyway along with huge penalties and interest.

Yak Shaving Razor #39 (from the Evangelical Outpost)

Joe Carter has the latest collection of Yak Shaving Razors up at Evangelical Outpost. In case you didn't know, a Yak Shaviing Razor is

Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you're working on.

Basically, YSRs are ways of solving common problems using tools that were developed form other purposes.

Cool!

The phrase "cool" has been, well, cool for longer than just about any slang. Here's a very cool history of cool.

HT: Newmark's Door who for a middle aged economist is actually somewhat cool himself.

This Week's Carnival of The Capitalists

This week's COTC is up at AnyLetter. Sorry for the delay in linking, but blogger was down last night. In any event, here are my picks of the week, late but not forgotten:

First off, Daniel Harrison at The Global Perspective does a takedown of a particularly bad piece of journalism about IPOs. This was my favorite piece of the week - suitable to give to some of my students. Well done- he's getting an MBA, and he'd be welcome in m y class any time.

Joy Levin is guesting at Small Business Trends, and has a great piece on doing marketing research. Good advice, and lots of resources.

FMF at Free Money Finance tells us to Make Sure Your Financial Advisor is Not a Loser. Sounds like good advice to me.

Most bloggers figure stuff out as they go along. Steve Nipper at The Invent Blog has been blogging for two years now, and he shares a few things he wished he'd known when he started.

Jeff Cornwall at the Entrepreneurial Mind has some good thoughts on the importance of forecasting revenue accurately for a new venture.

Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade has another great piece on in his continuing series titled Should I Buy A Home? Part 3: Consequences.

James Hamilton at Econbrowser discusses the latest employment data and finds it good.

TT at Retire at 30 the story of an English kid who turnd a crazy idea into a cool milion in Million Dollar Idea - Pixels for Sale.

As usual browse around when you've read these. There's always lots of good stuff at a Carnival, and everyone's tastes (and needs) are different.

Resolution Update - Week 6

Here's the latest in the continuing saga of my New Year's resolutions.

First off, still not getting myself out of bed by 6 - I only managed it three times this week. Again, I need to get to bed by 10:30.

I'm still holding on to the research resolution. In fact, I'm now up to 35 straight days in which I've spent at least an hour of research each day. I only managed an hour on four of the last seven days (as you might recall, we had some hectic stuff going on), I put in 3 1/2 hours one day, and 6 another. So, I only managed about an hour and a half a day, but as I've heard, it's the "zero productivity days that'll kill your output. Most of the week was dedicated to putting together a research grant for the summer (due tomorrow). It still has a few wrinkles to iron out, but should be done by tomorrow noon. Then it's on to other projects.

I worked out four times this week (once inside on the wind trainer for 20 minutes, and thrice outside). So far, I've been doing an eight mile route. It's not that much, but it's a start, and it's beginning to get a lot easier. I've come to the conclusion that wearing a wind breaker is like a drag chute when you open the zipper. On Friday, it got up to 60 degrees, so I got out the tight bike shirt. With the lower wind resistance, I rode about 2 mph faster with a lot less effort. Once it gets warm enough to go without the windbreaker, I should start adding miles pretty quickly.

And, since it;s now 10:30, time for bed.

"It's the [something], stupid" (via Vegreville)

Many people remember the "It's the Economy, Stupid" phrase from the Clinton campaign. It was a good way of focusing the campaign on what they though was the one key issue. The idea was that they had one message that they wanted to keep pounding home, and the sentence was a good reminder.

Unfortunately, it's too easy to forget this idea when we're preparing a paper, a lecture, or a talk. Every time we're preparing for one of those, we should have a "It's the [something],stupid" sentence in mind.

Vegreville has a post that's hits this topic dead on. He also a great line to put in a referee's report:

"This paper does not kick any ass. Sorry."

To steal a phrase, "heh"

Mortgage Resources (from the WSJ)

Today's Wall Street Journal has a piece titled "Getting Wise to Mortgages" that mentions several online tools geared towards helping consumers better evaluate their mortgage options:

A few entrepreneurs are developing new tools to help home buyers tackle one of the most confusing projects they face: figuring out whether a mortgage is a fair deal.

Comparison-shopping for mortgages has long been a job only a masochist could love -- a world of "points," "ARMs" and a barrage of surprise fees. In recent years, it has become tougher amid the proliferation of complex new interest-only mortgages and others designed to enable buyers to delay more of the pain of paying off that debt.
Now, as interest rates climb, it is important for mortgage borrowers to aggressively shop around for the best terms. Over 10 years, a difference of just 0.125 percentage point on the mortgage rate on a $500,000 loan can rack up more than $6,000 in extra interest payments.

The problem for borrowers is that lenders have a vested interest in making it tough to compare rival offerings.

"The general public, they think they know how to shop for mortgages," says Mike Stoffer, who owns a mortgage brokerage in North Canton, Ohio. "They have no clue."

Some entrepreneurs are stepping in to give consumers some added muscle. One of the quirkiest tools available is a Web site, www.mtgprofessor.com, by a maverick retired finance professor who has made a hobby of skewering mortgage lenders. The site is a compilation of tutorials, calculators and a glossary defining everything from "balloon mortgage" (one that is payable in full at an early date) to "right of recission" (your right to back out of a refinancing within three days of closing).

Click here for the whole thing (Note: online subscription required.

The article makes a good point - once you get outside the "plain vanilla" 30-year fixed mortgage market, a mortgage loan can be an extremely complicated product. It becomes very hard to compare all the facets of a loan. So, good resources are golden. I have a finance Ph.D., and I'm a bit of a research junkie (it comes with the academic turf - people like me often end up in the academy, since we don't fit anywhere else). But, even with those advantages, getting my first mortgage was extremely frustrating.

The best option is to have a good, honest mortgage broker on your side. Unfortunately, since it's a complicated product, it's not just hard to evaluate the product, but also to evaluate the competence and honesty of the person selling it to you.

Having checked out the www.mtgprofessor.com site, I'd definitely recommend it. Another good site is Bankrate.com, which has a wealth of resources.

Finally, there are a couple of bloggers that I regularly read that have a lot of good mortgage-related content - Searchlight Crusade and Pacesetter Mortgage. Of course, as I mention them, I realize that I've been reading them for months, I never got around to adding them to the blogroll. Sorry guys, you're on now.

Bad News

Blogging's been a bit light lately because of some bad news in the Unknown Household. As some of you may recall, our son was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma in October of 2002 (at age 4). After three years of treatment (chemo, radiation, surgery, and some very experimental stuff), he went into remission this last fall, to cheers all around.

This week, we found out that the cancer has recurred. The latest set of scans showed a small spot on his right femur (large leg bone). It's one of the sites where the cancer previously manifested (in fact, it was the last one to "clear"). At present , he shows no visible symptoms, and probably won't for some time, but it is pretty disheartening. Not unexpected, since cases like his often relapse, but disheartening nonetheless.

We're fortunate in that we've previously met (and even had the boy treated by) many of the top people in the field, and in fact we'll be consulting with one of them next week. So, blogging will likely be a bit sketchy for a while what with the medical stuff combined with beginning-of-semester madness and a few major deadlines. It never gets easy.

We're probably in better shape emotionally than you'd expect, for a number of reasons. One is that we've been here before, The other is that (without going into too much detail), we have what most would describe as a "spiritual" view of the world. In any event, prayers are appreciated if you're so inclined. We're big believers in it.

Of course, in typical bloggy fashion, I'll keep you all up to date as things unfold. Stay tuned.