The Downturn

A bit off topic for me, but if you're interested in all of the turmoil and volatility in the markets at the minute (which I've been following a little too closely for my own health), and what to do about it, take a look at this slide show from Sequoia Capital, one of the best VC companies out there. As well as the how we got there part, they're also telling their portfolio companies what they should do to handle it as well, so whether you're in the start up world or in a more established company, there's probably some good advice in there. (via Fred)

Sequoia Capital on startups and the economic downturn

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: depression recession)

Recession?

Sure, so the only thing you can do is dive into the booze, drugs and vice (stocks).

Julie thinks Lindsay got out of Wallstrip with perfect timing

How Not to Run a StartUp

The 20 worst venture capital stories....

Hasta La Vis(t)a, Baby!

Chase, the issuing bank of my United Visa Card suck. I had been in the thoughts of changing cards since United was no longer my airline of choice (prices too high, staff who hate their jobs and refuse to smile at you, slim chances of ever getting upgrades no matter how good your status and various other crap that pissed me off), but the thought of spending time updating my automatic payments was just too much to bear.

However, Chase decided to make it a lot easier for me today - the card got rejected when I tried to fill the car up this lunchtime (despite it working this morning for my BMW Car Club membership - I'll post about that at some point when I'm not so angry). So, having had them shut down the card at inopportune moments in the past (think week of the wedding when trying to pay for the flowers, despite me making a courtesy call to them the week before I left for England telling them that there were going to be a lot of big charges from a foreign country on there), I thought I knew the drill - ring up, tell them the charges were legit, and they'd apologize, re-instate the card and I'd be good to go.

Of course, they have to throw in a curve ball, given that I'm about to embark on one of those nightmare travel few months when you grab a day or two here and there in your own bed while desperately trying to stay sane. The card was just cancelled - no discussion, no negotiation, no explanation of any worth (the security team decided it had been compromised was the most I got out of anyone), and the new one won't arrive for another 4 or 5 business days (meaning 2 hotels, 2 flights, a rental car and untold meals etc later). And they can't automatically transfer my regular payments over to some other account because the number has to change, and that's just beyond their capabilities.

So, if I have to do all the leg work anyway to change that stuff, I may as well take the opportunity to never use the card again. American Express, you now have the chance to win my business for life, so please, don't let me down.....

Welcome to America

So the boss around here (well, we all own a piece of the company, but he's the one who tells us what to do, gets more of the headaches, and has the President title on his business card) became a US citizen yesterday, passing all the rigourous testing, pledging allegance (and helping a random pregnant woman to the front of the line so she could obtain the required paperwork before the baby dropped!).

So, it got me thinking about things - like whether or not I would ever become one. I'm probably a prime candidate - married an American woman, got a greencard, been here nearly 10 years now (what!!!!!), and still smile when I look out the office window at the snow capped mountains Colorado is luckily enough to share the state with. I even occasionally get pissed off at politicians, and love the fact that Vegas is less than 2 hours away if I need a break (or to lose some money very quickly).

Then I looked at the pros of the situation - realistically there's only a couple - you get to vote, you don't have to reapply for your greencard every 10 years, and if anything really really scary happened, and they kicked out all the non-citizens some day, I guess I'd be on the boat. You also get to apply for family members to come over and live in the US (something you can't do on a greencard), so if the rest of the clan ever decided to come over on a permanent basis, I guess I'd be applying.

So, not a bad collection of stuff I guess, but what about the cons - here's the kicker (and why I have so far resisted the (minor) temptation to consider an application) - if you're a US citizen, no matter which country you reside in, you owe Uncle Sam some tax. Now, for countries who have a special "you can tax ours if we can tax yours" policy like the UK, it doesn't really count - you pay local tax and you're pretty much good to go (although I did hear a rumour that you had to pay a little extra back to the mainland as well as the local, but that's never been confirmed). In countries where they don't have that in place, you get to play Double Jeapardy - pay local, pay US - that completely sucks. However, the one that gets me (given I'm still harbouring distant dreams of becoming incredibly wealthy and retiring somewhere nice), is that even if you sod off to some distant land that doesn't charge any tax, making your money last a little longer (Jersey, for example), the US isn't as generous as the UK with their "well, you're not using our country, so you don't have to pay for it approach". Oh no, they come after you each and every year for you to pay your little bit (or big I guess, if you've got enough money to retire to a tax free island).

So that's that. I considered it again, still have dreams of hitting the big time, so putting it off again. I want to fully enjoy my retirement loaded on a nice little island somewhere that doesn't charge tax...

Oh yeah, and this post (before I got side-tracked) was supposed to be about how there are still some pretty stupid laws in existence in this country.

Make sure you claim for this on your tax return

Looks like the good old USA took a little too much tax from our phone bills, so make sure you get some of it back. Apparently it's all legit - details are here.