Category Archives: business news

business news, national news

Shocking! Trump won’t release tax returns

White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said a few  things this morning that didn’t surprise me.

Perhaps the least-surprising statement was that her boss, Donald J. Trump, won’t release his tax returns for public review.

There. Having said that, the fact that it doesn’t surprise anyone doesn’t make it any less outrageous.

The president quite clearly should release the returns. He didn’t do so during his winning fight for the Republican nomination; he refused to do so while waging his winning campaign for the presidency.

He’s been relying on the dodge that the IRS was conducting a “routine audit.” The IRS has countered — while declining to comment on the specifics of an audit — that such a thing doesn’t preclude release of those returns for public scrutiny.

Now, though, the stakes have been raised to a new level since the election and the swearing-in of the president. There are swirling questions about whether the president has business dealings in Russia and, specifically with interests tied to the Russian government — which is the very government that has been accused of meddling in our presidential electoral process.

Trump has denied any such business ventures.

However, if the Watergate scandal taught us anything at all, it is that the public cannot take the president’s word on its face. To be fair, that rule has applied to many politicians before and after the scandal that toppled one of Trump’s predecessors.

If only this president would agree to disclose proof of what he has declared. Believe me, if he has no dealings with Russian government officials, he could start to rebuild the trust he will need to govern.

business news, national news, political news

Will the new president violate the Constitution right away?

An argument making the rounds for the past several months goes something like this: Donald J. Trump is going to be in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution at the moment he takes the oath of office as president of the United States of America.

The source of the violation? His myriad business interests.

This isn’t just a Democratic Party point of view. Republicans also are buying into a notion that Trump’s refusal to separate himself completely from his business dealings is creating a monstrous potential for conflict of interest.

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/19/510574687/ethics-lawyers-call-trumps-business-conflicts-nakedly-unconstitutional

According to National Public Radio: “A president is not permitted to receive cash and other benefits from foreign governments,” Norm Eisen tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And yet, Donald Trump is getting a steady flow of them around the world and right here in the United States.”

The “emoluments clause” is front and center in this debate. It’s written into the U.S. Constitution. It should be called the “anti-bribery clause.” Trump has refused to divest his myriad business interests; he has refused to put them into a blind trust.

NPR, quoting Richard Painter, former ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, reports: “The president needs to focus on protecting the United States and American interests in a very dangerous world,” Painter says. “I really hope that President Trump takes the steps he needs to, to be free of conflict of interest in that endeavor.”

There are questions about whether Trump’s business dealings abroad could interfere with U.S. policy. Trump refuses to release his tax returns. He declines to provide detailed financial reports. He keeps saying this discussion is a media creation.

Holy cow, dude! You’ve got some serious experts on this stuff suggesting you’re going to violate the Constitution you will swear to “defend and protect.”

Does a direct violation of that sacred oath create a reason for, um, impeachment?

Let’s all wait for this to play out.

business news, national news, political news

Hey, Mr. President-elect, how about those tax returns?

Donald J. Trump says only the media are concerned about his tax returns.

I beg to differ.

A lot of Americans way outside the mainstream media have become interested in those returns. You see, it’s that Russian hacking issue that has re-energized the interest in Trump’s returns. Specifically, it centers on whether he has business dealings in Russia. Trump denies it. But if prior presidential scandals have shown — such as, say, Watergate — we’ve all learned that we cannot take a president solely, exclusively at his word.

Trump keeps yammering about a “routine audit” that kept him from releasing the returns during the campaign. It was yet another “tradition” he tossed aside; presidential candidates have released those records every election cycle since 1976.

Trump won the election despite his refusal to comply with that tradition, not to mention all the other traditions he tossed over the cliff.

The taxman’s audit doesn’t preclude releasing these returns. Trump knows it. His accountants know it. So do his lawyers.

For that matter, Trump still hasn’t even provided proof that he, in fact, is even being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.

Come clean, Mr. President-elect. This inquiring mind — along with millions of others — want to know the unvarnished truth about those alleged Russian business dealings.

business news, International news, national news, political news

Divest, Donald! Divest

Of all the unexploded political ordnance laying in front of Donald J. Trump as he prepares to become president, one of them poses a seriously grave threat.

It’s this issue of divestiture … or Trump’s stubborn refusal to do what he should. That would be to divest himself fully of the enormous fortune he has acquired around the world.

He has chosen instead to hand all business operations over to his eldest son. Don Jr. is going to handle all the business dealings and Dad won’t have anything to do with it. None whatsoever.

That’s good enough for the president-elect to clear him of any potential conflicts of interest. Or so he says.

I am afraid it likely won’t provide nearly enough separation.

Indeed, this is just yet another demonstration of the non-traditional approach that Trump is taking toward his transition from fully private billionaire business executive to fully public leader of the free world/head of state and government/commander in chief.

The situation facing Trump is written in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. It’s called the “emoluments clause,” which has become common knowledge now among many Americans who before this election had never even heard of it.

The emoluments clause is founding father-speak that translates to “anti-bribery.” It prohibits a president from taking money from a foreign government, the acceptance of which opens the president up to being compromised as he conducts the affairs of state.

Trump is facing tremendous exposure, say, if Don Jr. consummates a business deal with a foreign government that deposits a few billion dollars into an account that has Daddy Donald’s name on the letterhead. The president-elect believes simply allowing his son do the transaction clears him of any suspicion. Wrong!

Divestiture of one’s assets is not a novel concept. My goodness, Trump’s team is going to make incredible sacrifice serving him and the government he will run. It is a reasonable expectation for the president himself to separate himself completely from his business holdings.

Short of complete divestiture, a much better option than the one Trump has chosen would be to put his holdings into a blind trust, to be operated and administered by someone with no ties at all either to the president-elect or his family.

The next president is playing a dangerous game of chicken with those who are waiting for a big mistake to occur.

business news, local news

Downtown dining district taking shape

Some interesting news is coming forth about downtown Amarillo’s future … which coincides nicely with the City Council’s decision to hire a new city manager.

The two things aren’t necessarily related directly, but City Hall’s new top hand — Jared Miller — is going to oversee a development that holds tremendous potential for the city he is about to manage.

They’ve broken ground on a new restaurant at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Polk Street. An established eatery, Crush, is moving across the street.

What does this mean? From what I understand, it moves forward the development of what’s been called in recent days a new “dining district” for the city’s downtown area.

We’ve got that brew pub being developed nearby. We’ll see another new structure going in with a couple of other dining establishments also in the immediate area. Napoli’s does business at the corner of Seventh and Taylor.

All the while, work on the Embassy Suites hotel is ongoing next to the parking garage.

What appears to be taking shape, as I see it, is a fundamental remaking of Amarillo’s downtown personality.

My wife and I arrived here in early 1995. To be candid, the downtown district didn’t have any kind of identity that either of us could recognize. Polk Street was in a moribund state. The Santa Fe Building sat empty at the corner of Ninth and Polk; that structure’s fortunes changed dramatically later that year when Potter County purchased it for a song and rehabbed it into a first-class office complex.

Now, though, the city is going through an extreme makeover.

Think of it: Embassy Suites will open soon; Xcel Energy is finishing work on its new office complex; that parking garage will open as well; West Texas A&M University is tearing the daylights out of the old Commerce Building to transform it into a new downtown Amarillo campus; this new dining district is now beginning to take some form.

Oh, and we’ve also cleared out the former Coca-Cola distribution center to make room for a ballpark that many of us want to see built eventually.

It’s not all entirely peachy. Many floors in the 31-story Chase Tower are going dark when Xcel and WT vacate the skyscraper. But I understand that the leasing agents working to re-fill those floors remain highly optimistic that the building will get new life.

The pace of change is a bit mind-boggling. I am prepared to keep watching — and waiting — for it all to bear fruit for the city.

business news

Fed up with poor service!

3 Comments

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

I made a personal pact not too many years ago to speak out when I get treated badly when I do business with someone.

Maybe it’s just because I am getting older — and as I draw closer to full-time retired status — which entitles me to some degree of crotchetiness.

The “service industry” has its name for a purpose: it is to inform those who work in that particular industry to provide good service to those with whom they are interacting.

That’s a simple concept to grasp, right? Right!

An event occurred some years ago that gave me the impetus to make the pact. I walked into an Amarillo coffee shop — I won’t mention which one — and apparently caught the barista in the middle of a very bad moment, or perhaps a bad day. He was rude to the max. I finished my transaction, walked out, went home — and then wrote a letter to the store manager complaining about the barista’s treatment of good ol’ yours truly. The manager responded with a note of his own — accompanied by a hand-written apology by the barista.

I’ve on occasion — along with my wife — verbalized displeasure with service. I have learned, as I’ve grown a bit older, that it’s a pretty painless endeavor.

Yesterday, it happened again. I went to a fast-food joint to make a small purchase. This place, too, shall remain anonymous. The young woman who took my order was, shall we say, apparently unhappy to take my money and provide me with the meal I had ordered.

No “thank you, sir.” No welcoming facial expression. No “Welcome, how may I help you?” Nothing, man!

I paid for my order, went home, consumed my lunch, and then wrote the store manager a note — which I just mailed this morning.

I’ve found these exercises to be somewhat cathartic. They are cleansing. They give me some emotional relief.

I don’t intend to make big deals of these encounters moving forward. My thought today is just to share with you the satisfaction one can get just by expressing oneself candidly.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not going to be firing off missives at every single slight. I’ll do it only when someone inflicts such a slight on me when I’m in no mood to take it.

business news

Amarillo’s EDC needs to get after it

Amarillo has a new director/president/CEO for its economic development corporation.

Welcome, Barry Albrecht, to Amarillo and good luck to you as you start your new gig as head of the Amarillo EDC.

Here is my particular hope: Turn the AEDC loose to pursue job growth and to lure businesses using a tiny portion of tax revenue generated by the purchase of goods and services within the city.

Albrecht seems like a top-drawer kind of guy with plenty of economic development experience in his background.

City Hall, though, did something this past spring that created a bit of concern. It essentially demoted AEDC, rolling many of its economic development functions into existing City Hall departments. Buzz David retired as president/CEO and the city took a good bit of time looking for a suitable replacement.

AEDC has been an important part of the city’s economic growth since its inception in 1989, when voters approved a measure that sets aside a half-cent of sales tax revenue for the purpose of luring business and industry to Amarillo.

AEDC has scored some monumental successes over the years using this strategy. I will cite two of them:

* Bell Helicopter’s massive aircraft assembly operation next to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport. The AEDC, as I recall, pledged tax incentives and actual cash amounting to around $45 million to lure Bell back to Amarillo in 1999 to assemble the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. Yes, it’s a lot of money. It has paid off rather handsomely.

* The Hilmar Cheese Plant in Dallam County. This project drew some criticism from those who wondered out loud why AEDC was granting money to a company to build an operation way up yonder in Dalhart. Buzz David was adamant that the investment would bode well for the entire region — including Amarillo. He was right.

Have there been hiccups along the way? Sure. But the AEDC has proved its mettle as an economic development inducement tool for Amarillo.

http://amarillo.com/2017-01-06/amarillo-economic-development-corp-names-new-president

The city would do quite well to spring AEDC loose on its quest to use the resources it banks every year from sales tax revenue to expand existing business and to attract future business to the city — and, yes, the region.

business news

Well done on job growth, Mr. President

The final monthly job-growth report card is in on President Obama’s two terms.

* 156,000 non-farm jobs were added to the nation’s payrolls in December.

* Joblessness ticked up to 4.7 percent.

* The president goes out of office while the nation enjoys 75 consecutive months of job growth, the longest such streak since 1939.

Not bad a legacy, Mr. President.

To be sure, the economic recovery hasn’t been as robust as Obama’s team would have wished. Wages haven’t grown as much; many jobs have been lost to automation as well as some companies have decided to take them offshore.

However, I need to say once again — with emphasis! — that the economy is nowhere near the dire straits that Obama’s foes have suggested. The foe in chief, the president-elect, injected a lot of unfounded fear in the hearts and minds of voters with suggestions that the economy was heading straight to hell. Donald J. Trump parlayed that fear into enough votes to be elected president.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/312977-december-jobs-report

We aren’t where we need to be economically. The nation, though, is a heck of a lot closer to that destination than it was when Barack Obama became president of the United States.

Well done, sir.

business news, entertainment news

Craft beer: Is its time coming in Amarillo?

Take a look at this illustration. The building it depicts is going to be built in downtown Amarillo.

What’s it called? Six Car Pub & Brewery.

Yep. It will be a brew pub, a place where one can purchase a cold one brewed in the back room. Right there. On site.

I have lived in Texas for nearly 33 years. We moved to Beaumont in the spring of 1984, gravitating to Amarillo early in 1995. I’ve never quite understood why craft breweries have not yet become part of either city’s commercial landscape.

My family and I moved to Texas from a community in the Pacific Northwest where craft beer has become the norm; it’s part of life in Portland, Ore. If you’ve been to the City of Roses, you’ll see a city bursting with life that includes brew pubs throughout its downtown district — and in neighborhoods all over the city.

Will the Six Car operation break the mold in Amarillo? Will it become the first of many such outfits here in the Yellow City? I do hope so. It’s not that I am going to consume a lot of beer at this place; I drink little of it, although I do like the taste of a cold one on a hot day.

We had that brewery on Olsen Boulevard. Then it closed. The Big Texan now has a brewery on site. If there are other such sites in Amarillo, I’m unaware of them.

Now we’re getting this Six Car Pub at Seventh Avenue and Polk Street.

This clearly is part of what appears to be the fundamental reshaping of Amarillo’s once-moribund downtown district. They’ve cleared the site where they hope to build the multipurpose event venue. The Embassy Suites hotel job is getting closer to its finish, right along with that parking garage next door.

Even though I don’t intend to imbibe regularly at this new place, my enthusiasm for its presence in downtown Amarillo is no less vigorous. My hope for the city is that it signals a new era as the city continues reshaping its downtown district.

And no, I’m not advocating that Amarillo become a city of drunkards and sloths. I do advocate that the city transform its central business district into a top-tier after-hours place where residents can chill out, relax and enjoy a better quality of life.

business news, local news

PID now on Amarillo’s tourism revenue table

I’m going to keep an open mind on this one.

Amarillo has surrendered hotel occupancy revenue while it has delivered tax breaks to businesses seeking space in the city’s downtown business/entertainment district.

As a result, hoteliers across the city might start charging guests a 2 percent surcharge to make up for the revenue shortfall.

It’s a bit of a complication in the city’s effort to revive its downtown district. One option might be to form a public improvement district (PID) that sets aside revenue for, well, improvements to certain areas or neighborhoods.

Some hotel owners are miffed that the city is considering adding the surcharge to their guests’ hotel bills. One of them asked: “Why is it always my guests that you are going after?”

http://amarillo.com/local-news/2016-12-27/council-2m-more-needed-market-city

This is a curious development. On the one hand, the city appears to have deprived itself of a revenue stream that it might have been able to project it needed down the road. If the city didn’t foresee the shortfall, why did it proceed with offering arguably too-generous tax incentives to businesses coming into the downtown district?

The Amarillo Globe-News reported: “Bobby Lee, who co-owns The Big Texan Steak Ranch and serves on the CVC board, said that while it’s a shame the tax revenue is being eaten up by downtown projects the typical tourist will never use, it’s important for hoteliers to look at and consider alternative ways to rebuild that revenue stream.

“’I don’t know where it went crooked, I really don’t,’ he said.”

Ouch! I kind of wish he hadn’t used such, um, descriptive language when talking about this matter.

Dan Quandt, vice president of the Amarillo Convention and Visitors Council, said the CVC plans to conduct some informational meetings in January to educate residents. He said the city is full of too much misinformation about the proposed PID.

OK, then. Let’s explain it, Dan. Be thorough. Keep it simple.

Those of us who are undecided cannot straddle the fence forever.