Tell It To Al

When you work at a large corporation, you can expense almost anything – or at least try.

Robert Half Management Resources recently asked chief financial officers to name the most unusual things they’ve seen listed on an employee expense report.

I love this one: “A fine for crashing into a toll booth.” And then there’s the more predictable: “Hotel charge for viewing adult movies.”

Cosmetic surgery, hot tub supplies and pet food are among the items cited in the survey.

Click here to read more about the survey.  What is the most bizarre thing you’ve ever tried to expense?

I hate the expression “give back to my community” because it implies that you took something.

In a  survey of 555 millionaires,  59% said they agree or strongly agree with the statement, “I have an obligation to give back to my community.”

The eighth annual Wealth and Values Survey, entitled “Responsibility and Money: How the Wealthy View Their Role in Society,” was released today by PNC Wealth Management, a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. It showed the number of millionaires wanting to give back to their community hasn’t changed since 2008. Click here to read more details on the survey.

Despite  a struggling economy, the number of millionaires concerned about their ability to give back has declined to 11% from 20%. Among those surveyed, 22% intend to cut back on charitable giving, 46% plan no change and 21 percent plan to increase their giving.

The number of millionaires who donated between $25,000 and $999,000 to charities was 24%, up from 12% in 2008. And  49% agreed with billionaire Warren Buffett’s statement that wealthy individuals should pay more in taxes and give more to charities.

“It is encouraging to see that millionaires, considering today’s economic headwinds, recognize a personal responsibility to give back,’” said R. Bruce Bickel, senior vice president of PNC Wealth Management.

The giving is laudable, even if it’s just for tax purposes or getting one’s name on a building. But why can’t they just say, “give”? Why do they have to say “give back?” Are the non-millionaires of the world missing something?

Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry must be the first Republicans in history to complain about a private equity firm for destroying jobs.

Their attacks on Mitt Romney, for his record at Bain Capital, borrow a script straight from Occupy Wall Street.

To be sure, there’s plenty to criticize in the cutthroat world of venture capital – or “vulture capitalism,” as Perry dubs it. But really. This kind of investing has been going on for decades and the Republican party has been its biggest apologist. Why all of a sudden the change of heart?

Obviously, capitalism produces winners and losers. I guess we can count Gingrich and Perry among the losers. You can bet they won’t be complaining about corporate raiders and looters once they’ve been forced to bow out of the race.

Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.

Like “the most interesting man in the world” in the Dos Equis commercials, I don’t drink beer very often, but when I do, I try not be photographed for Facebook.

Ever check out a friend’s Facebook photo album and every picture of him or her is at a party with a drink in their hand? Maybe they don’t even drink all the much, but they’ve been caught on camera at enough parties that they appear to the casual Facebook observer as a total lush.

I try not to be that guy. I set down my bottle of Bud when the camera comes out at a party, or I hide it behind my back. But sometimes I get caught by the camera, anyway.

On New Year’s Eve, for instance, I was at a beachside restaurant in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where a guy named Rambo, dressed in traditional Bandito attired, grabbed my head and poured straight tequila down my throat. A witness to this moment of debauchery caught it on camera and posted it on my Facebook page, where it stayed for weeks for my friends and fans.

Reading about some of the things that happen to people thanks to pictures like these, I decided to take it down. I am not, after all, the most interesting man in the world.

Click here to read my column on Marketwatch.

It is getting difficult to live in Denver where religious football fanatics  preach that God wants the Broncos to win the Super Bowl.

This indemonstrable belief is spreading like a virus, far beyond the Mile High City. According to a recent poll, 43% of Americans attribute  divine intervention to at least part of  quarterback Tim Tebow’s success.  Click here for details from Poll Position.

Even Rush Limbaugh has opined that God is on the Bronco’s side, contributing to the public’s  fundamental theological ignorance and superstitious behavior.

I am not sure Tebow means to have this negative effect on the non-thinking public. He is just trying to be a good witness. It is more what people say about Tebow than what Tebow says himself. And many of these people are nuts.

Here is a simple logical proof that their proposition is wrong:   If God is indeed just, fair and loving, as the Bible promises, He would not go around rigging football games. If He did, the rabid fans of all the other football teams would have a legitimate reason to be angry with Him and align themselves with Satan, who I  believe is an equal-time fan of all sports teams since they so clearly lead so many people to perdition.

God does not care who wins the Super Bowl any more than He cared about whether North or the South won the Civil  War – and believe me, both sides prayed for a bloody victory. No where in the Bible will you find the word, football. And if Jesus had anything to say about the matter – which he does not – he’d say take all that money you’re blowing on tickets, jerseys and tailgate parties and give it to the poor.

There is no football in heaven, but there may be in hell. Repent, religious Broncos fans! The end is near!

It’s hard to find top executives of banks, investment firms and mortgage companies in federal prisons, but it’s not so hard to find the little people who peddled their subprime mortgage products.

Mortgage broker Maria Echeverria is almost done serving her time after pleading guilty to mortgage-related fraud last year. She’s hardly the poster child for the systemic mortgage fraud that destroyed our economy. She’s a grandmother who does crochet and bakes cakes.

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch. And click here to read the piece I wrote on Echeverria last year.

It is easier for a rich man to squeeze through the eye of a needle, than it is for a camel to go to heaven – the Bible, I think, says something like that.

The IRS is giving rich Americans yet another chance to repent, confess their offshore holdings and pay their taxes.

In previous tax amnesty efforts, it has collected $4.4 billion. The U.S. government has also been cracking down on banks and bankers around the world who’ve been aiding and abetting America’s richest tax cheats.

The net result is that offshore banks are no longer clamoring for U.S. accounts. In fact, some of them are telling their U.S. customers to leave, not wanting to comply with U.S. laws.

Working people have little choice but to pay taxes. They come right out of their paychecks. The rich – for all their whining about taxes – have had a lot more options, legal and otherwise. Click here to read more on the IRS’s latest program.

So far, the snow is pretty thin in Colorado, translating into a decline in skier visits and a drop in Vail Resorts stock. I talk about it with 9News anchor Matt Flener. Click here if the video above doesn’t load.

Love him, or not, but odds are that President Obama will be reelected in November.

These odds, of course, are only probabilities, so there is plenty of room to bet.

A Chicago-based futures exchange wants to provide options that would essentially allow investors to bet on election outcomes: Who will be the next president, and which party will control the House and Senate.

The Commodities Futures and Trading Commission, however, has put the proposal on 90-day review and one of its commissioners says it amounts to “political poker.”

Yossi Bernart, CEO of NADEX, or the North American Derivatives Exchange, says the options would allow investors to hedge against such things as a potential tax increase, and that it would provide a more accurate portrait of what voters are thinking. Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

Denver boutique jeweler BB Becker inspired a No. 1 hit on the music charts in the United Kingdom.

The first image you will see in this tear-jerking video is his bracelet.

Funny how little things can happen and change everything for an entrepreneur. Becker only recently found out about this, but the retailer who carriers his product says he’s inundated with orders.

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.