Oregon Tax News

Money is not the teacher problem in Portland
By Richard Leonetti,
By Oregon Tax News,

A response to the Portland Public School’s call for a half-billion education bond and The Oregonian Editorial Board’s response.

Not so fast with a property tax increase of $2.00 per thousand for Portland Schools. Portland Schools already have borrowed $470 million and are already spending $50 million a year on capitol projects. The proposed new borrowing would make the total borrowing over $1 billion. Consider how well managed the Water Bureau and Portland’s recent computer upgrade turned out with multi-million dollar cost overruns on much smaller spending. Read more…

By Oregon Tax News,

- Did you know that of the 50 best-performing CEOs in the world only 14 had an MBA?

Josh Kaufman, a 28-year-old entrepreneur and former assistant brand manager for Procter & Gamble (P&G), thinks business school is a waste of time and money. Instead of paying $80,000 to $100,000 to attain an MBA, Kaufman suggests self-education. In an interview with Poets & Quants, Kaufman stated that MBA programs are so expensive that students “must effectively mortgage their lives” and take on “a crippling burden of debt” to get what is “mostly a worthless piece of paper.” Kaufman believes that MBA programs “teach many worthless, outdated, even outright damaging concepts and practices.” Read more…

The youth jobless numbers are staggering, and it is wrecking housing, consumer spending and marriage rates
By Oregon Tax News,

This year, the nation hit a record high unemployment rate more than 17% of 20 to 24-year-olds. The Labor Department reports that even young adults with college degrees face a 9.3% jobless rate. The figure doubles for older graduates. In fact, the employment-to-population ratio for those ages 16 to 24 reached an all time low of 42.6 percent.

As if skyrocketing unemployment rates are not enough, the Pew Research Center indicates that a large number of employed workers in their 20s, more than any other age group, lost hours or were cut down to part-time status. The research center expects these low wages to depress future earnings because most workers see their incomes increase slowly and steadily over the course of their careers, as opposed to sharp increases. Read more…