War of wits on BP Exxon

Reading this makes me wonder... On one side BP spins the Deepwater blowout disaster as an industry wide issue - it just happened to them.  On the other side, Exxon Mobil spins it as a BP issue and not an industry-wide systemic matter.  Time will tell.  But odds state I believe there is some truth on both sides.  I don't think it was all an industry matter- management oversight was an issue.  But that it cannot happen to Exxon, is a stretch of faith that only the foolhardy can take.

Dynergy - waiting for a better deal?

All the saga that has been going on with Dynegy (with Blackstone and Icahn) leaves me with one curious point.  The deal did not go through with Blackstone is because Dynegy thought they can get a better deal.  Alas, it is yet to come through.  Wonder -  if companies cannot get this correct, what about individuals.  FT has an update

US Corporate Tax

In this article, Martin Feldstein gives few key points of problems with higher US corporate taxes.  Higher taxes causes
- a shift of capital to sectors such as, housing where there are tax benefits
- companies tend to raise capital more with debt than equity
- less foreign capital flowing into US for corporate investments

Even foreign income by US corporates are taxed in a manner that puts US companies at a disadvantage relative to other countries.  Income is taxed at a rate equal to difference of US tax rate and foreign country rate.  End result is - companies prefer not to bring in foreign income into US but use it in the foreign country itself.

This is quite interesting - come to think of it - in India, where I grew up, under the protectionist era - restrictive policies were used on foreign companies to prevent capital from flowing out.  Seems like US tax policy is quite the reverse - or as they in DC - an "unintended consequence"