Zara

Yeah, I heard about this earlier this morning. Check this out: NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Guess who's helping Bank of America pay for its $4.1 billion purchase of Countrywide Financial? Answer: The taxpayers of the United States. That's because Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), which is solidly profitable, will be able to use some of Countrywide's losses to offset its own taxable income. The tax break could total about half a billion dollars over the first five years, according to an estimate by tax guru Robert Willens, who left Lehman Brothers Friday after a 20-year run and will be in business as Robert Willens LLC starting next week. The losses could be worth considerably more to Bank of America starting in the sixth year, depending on how big Countrywide's losses are when Bank of America formally acquires it. At this point, of course, no one knows how much in losses Countrywide has run up since the junk mortgage market began souring and defaults accelerated. Countrywide (CFC, Fortune 500) itself probably doesn't know. But it seems almost certain to ultimately be in the billions. In tax circles, Bank of America is famous for its 1988 purchase of the failed FirstRepublic Bank of Dallas, which was being auctioned off by federal regulators. Bank of America, then known as NCNB Corp., the parent of North Carolina National Bank, discovered a way to structure the deal to save $1 billion of taxes, using a convoluted strategy that none of the other bidders knew about. That allowed NCNB to outbid its rivals for the bank, and still come out way ahead. The Countrywide tax break isn't in that league, but it would still be worth a lot of money. Willens estimates that Bank of America will be able to deduct $270 million of Countrywide's losses annually for the first five years it owns the firm. That's based on a $6 billion purchase price - $4 billion to Countrywide's common stockholders, plus the $2 billion of preferred stock that Countrywide sold to Bank of America in August. Willens says that you multiply that $6 billion by 4.49 percent - the so-called "long-term tax-exempt rate" - to calculate how much of Countrywide's losses Bank of America can deduct annually for five years after the purchase. A $270 million annual deduction would save Bank of America something more than $100 million a year in federal and state income taxes. The long-term tax-exempt rate, which is based on Treasury rates and other things so complicated that they make my teeth hurt. The rate changes each year, Willens says, but not by much. When I asked how it's calculated, Willens, a master of tax arcana, threw up his hands. (Metaphorically, of course.) "It's like the formula for Coca-Cola," he said, "no one outside the circle knows it" and it's so complicated that, "no one else wants to find out." So over the first five years, Bank of America can use a total of $1.35 billion of Countrywide's losses to shelter its income. (That's five years of $270 million annual losses.) If Countrywide's embedded losses when Bank of America buys it exceed $1.35 billion, Willens says, the bank will be able to deduct the rest of the losses, without limit, starting in the sixth year. Isn't life fun? http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/11/news/compa...sion=2008011115

Thanks. That was really nice. I liked the first and third ones the most. Though they are the same song they have a different feel/different emotions are expressed.

Also...here is the bio of the ambassador http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/44295.htm

ok...so his name is The Honorable J. Thomas Schieffer and the packet is about 40 or 50 pages so I'll just leave a bibliography-ish thing with the sites "Overview of Japan-US Relations". Embassy of Japan in the United States of America, June 2007. http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html...rview2007_2.htm Reynolds, Isabel. "Tokyo Trims Funding for US Forces in Japan." Boston.com, December 12, 2007. http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/arti...orces_in_japan/ Kitazume, Takachi. "Despite Improvement, Japan-US Relations Need More Work." The japan Times, March 3/2005. http://classifieds.japantimes.com/ads/kkc/...kc20050303b.htm "Japan-US Summit Meeting (Summary)." The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, June 6, 2007. http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/summit0706.html Schieffer, J. Thomas. "Remarks to the Houston Chapter of the Asia Society." Asia Society, October 5, 2007. http://www.asiasociety.org/visit/texas/07_schieffer.html "Press Release: Opinion Poll: 2007 US Umage of Japan Study (Summary)." Embassy of Japan in the United States of America, June 25,2007. http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/htm;...s/2007/0625.htm Walsh, Bryan. "Can Shinzo Abe Find His Way?" Time magazine, February 15, 2007. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...1590160,00.html Fackler, Martin "As Japan Ages, Universities Struggle to Fill Classrooms." The New York Times, June 22, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/world/as...amp;oref=slogin Life at a Japanese High School. http://chikushi.fku.ed.jp/kouryu/dailylife.htm and http://chikushi.fku.ed.jp/kouryu/culture.htm

I agree. That's what I was so puzzled about. Why is he blond? I was thinking about it today...I guess it's probably for the people there to feel like they can relate to him or...I guess...feel closer to him. Most people there are blond and white and have 5 or 6 kids (we went to Costco so we saw what the general family looked like).

It would be funny to have someone with a name like that in a class or something.

I was spending the New Year in Utah (I have some relatives of relatives living there) and we went to the downtown area. It was really small and the majority of buildings were for the Mormon religion. It was weird. They had office buildings and meeting halls exclusively for their religion. We went into one of the 'educational' buildings to see what was going on. They had a lot of things that I found sketchy, to say the least, and in the center of the room they had a circular shelf with the Book of Mormon translated into many different languages. Sure enough, I looked to see if Armenian was there and there it was (in Eastern Armenian). There was also a Mormon rep. who was Armenian (I spoke to her but she didn't say anything that I didn't already know). Does anyone else find this weird??? Are they just doing this to try and appeal to more people??? Also...Jesus wasn't blond, was he? every depiction of Jesus was that he was blond and had really white skin (almost like he came from Norway or something) over there. Jesus also seemed fuller (body-wise) than I thought he was and he had big muscles.

I know this has nothing to do with Armenia but I think it will be interesting. Next week there is going to be a Town Hall meeting with a presentation about Japanese-American relations by the ambassador to Japan from America. I'm going to go and see what he has to say. If you guys are interested I can report what happens. There is a briefing packet (haven't read it yet so I don't know what the presentation is about beyond country relations). There are a bunch of articles from the net. If you guys are interested I can post them. I attended a Town Hall meeting a few months ago to hear the Comptroller General of the United States. He spoke about the national debt, baby boomers, ect. I can also give some articles about that if anyone is interested.

I'm just curious but how did the Canadian educational system approach the issue of the genocide (if at all) before all of this was proposed? In LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) the issue is purposely avoided in all textbooks and courses (I took a European History, World History, and an American History course in high school and it was never brought up - and all the classes were college level with textbooks that were used by universities). All three years I volunteered to speak about it (I said it would only take a few minutes and ended up speaking for the entire hour ) and, to be honest, not too many people knew much (if anything at all) about what happened. I was the only Armenian there and I'm sure if I wasn't there those people would still be clueless. If it were not for the initiatives taken by the students in LAUSD the issue would, in my opinion, never come up.