Category Archives: Imported from Bill’s Blog

In 1983 we went on vacation to the Yucatán Peninsula. We initially reserved rooms (and paid for them) at a hotel in Cancún. Mexico devalued the peso and suddenly Cancún became everyone’s destination. The hotel defaulted on our reservation. Apple … Continue reading →

While testing a new Linux distribution, I went to the Wall Street Journal online to see how the video-in-a-browser worked. It didn’t.[1] Oh well. Sometimes I find a video that might be on point, but I pass it by. I … Continue reading →

In 2005 I started a new job in Philadelphia. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was spending more per month on gas than the cost of a SEPTA pass, SEPTA being the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, swallower-up … Continue reading →

I received a client’s trial balance, along with some other working papers, from the client’s auditor. When the email came in, I saw what the workpapers were and filed them. Yesterday I had to go look at them in some … Continue reading →

04/04/2015 “Felix would be better off in the sense of higher lifetime earnings if he were given a cash transfer to invest than a subsidy restricted to education.” (Lovenheim-Turner, Economics of Education, forthcoming from Macmillan Education) This libertarian thinks we … Continue reading →

03/01/2016 This page is made up of several files, but it does not contain a JavaScript file. JavaScript is the programming language of the Web. Many web pages rely heavily on JavaScript, and they may upload several files to your … Continue reading →

03/07/2016 Economists talk about sunk costs as being irrecoverable, hence not relevant to decision making. But it seems to me that a lot of sunk costs are also investments, and investments really should be considered in the budget. Say you … Continue reading →

02/04/2016 I sat in a committee meeting recently as we labored over depreciation. I had a hard time because I rarely consider it. The number is just a calculation I must do based on estimated useful lives of questionable accuracy. … Continue reading →

12/30/2015 I sat down today to read the audited financial statements of a client. I had not performed the audit and was unconcerned with it. The only users were the banks, and we could easily answer their questions. I keep … Continue reading →

10/12/15 Twenty years ago my partner informed me we had to be on the World Wide Web. He might as well told me we were going to Mars. I dutifully downloaded Netscape and started surfing and reading about this new … Continue reading →