Business & Economics: March 2005 Archives
Say you've got a modest-sized church with an annual budget of $200,000. A new member joins who makes $1 million a year and he starts tithing $100,000. What should you do? There are a few options.
1. Raise the budget to $300,000. This is probably what most churches would do, but it doesn't seem like a wise decision to me. The church would be dependent on one person for a third of its income, and individual jobs can be very volatile. The giver could die, retire, move, change churches, go to jail, get divorced, get fired, or even try to dictate church policy using his money. If the money he was giving is spent on normal budget items and recurring expenses, the loss of revenue could easily lead to foreclosed mortgages or laid-off staff members.
2. Invest it. I like this idea. The church can then add the interest to its regular budget without worry about the giver losing his job. However, from a spiritual standpoint it may not be the best solution. Churches are supposed to operate off giving, not business investments, and the government might not like a non-profit making money this way.
3. Spend it on non-recurring expenses. Rather than adding the new money to the budget, it makes more sense to spend most of it on non-recurring items. For example, rather than hiring a staff member who would need to be laid-off, the church could buy property (for cash, not a mortgage!). The church could also do construction or other improvements. The idea is to avoid financial committments that would be endangered if the big giver stops giving.
In general, I think it would be wise for a church to prevent any one giver from supporing more than, say, 10% of its recurring expenses and regular budget items. In the example above, the church could add $20,000 to its budget for a total of $220,000, and then spend the other $80,000 each year on non-recurring items. The solution may seem a bit awkward, but I think it's safer than becoming overly dependent on any individual.
This may be news to you, it was to me. My brother just sent me a link about craigslist winning an auction to transmit data into deep space.
Beam your craigslist ad into spaceWHAT: craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster won an eBay auction for the first private communication transmission light years into deep space, with the idea of offering this opportunity to craigslist users.
HOW: The friendly folks at Deep Space Communications Network (DSCN) will beam the postings trillions of miles into space using redundant klystron transmitters and a satellite dish.
HOW MUCH: The winning bid was $1225, but craigslist is negotiating with DSCN for extra capacity to accomodate the anticipated volume of craigslist postings to be transmitted - 10,000 ads were designated by users for transmission during the first 24 hours!
WHEN: The transmission is currently scheduled for May 15th, 2005, directly following the launch of the space shuttle Discovery.
WHERE: Cape Canaveral, FL
WHY: It seemed fitting for craigslist users to be the first to beam internet postings and classified ads into deep space.
PRESS::::::::: craigslist press release ::::::::: google news search ::::::::PR contact - Susan Mactavish Best
They say there's more info here.
Lots of people, including myself, bought fixed-rate mortgages over the past few years, but in a twist that's surprising to most economists interest rates haven't risen even as the economy has heated up and the Fed has raised their funds rate significantly. Robert Samuelson thinks low rates may indicate a healthy economy, and he looks at some of the possible indicators.
Via Tom Maguire, as he wishes Paul Krugman happy anniversary for his many wrong predictions. The thing with Krugman is that I just don't believe he's stupid enough to be wrong so often... I think he's wrong on purpose, because he's more intent on politics than economics.
One of the toughest things about searching for a job is evaluating an offer once you get one. Here are a few free tools for finding salaries for various professions, as an employee or consultant.
Salary Information at CareerJournal
Salary Survey results from Dice.com
SalaryExpert
Salary.com
Engineer Salary Calculator
PayScale salary comparisons
There are more, but these should be more than enough to give you a ballpark figure.
