CORPORATE WRONGDOING?

For years, corporations have ignored the rules set up by federal and state governments regarding employees and/or consultants.

(Please see an attorney before you even THINK about becoming a whistleblower. A whistleblower is an inside person who tells the authorities about wrongdoing.)

The main rules which were ignored were:

A person working on your premises, using your equipment, is almost always considered an employee. The penalty for the company could be that the company has to pay payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, etc. for all persons deemed to be employees, rather than consultants. This can include interest and penalties.

If an employee is not actually managing anything, the employee may NOT be exempt from overtime payments. In California, the company could owe three times the unpaid overtime.

If your employee is an exempt employee and works over 40 hours a week, you have to divide his salary by the hours he actually works, before you charge the federal government for his time.

READ YOUR CONTRACT. If you are doing business with the federal government, your contract should have a page or two of small print, most of which refers to laws, regulations and/or presidential proclamations. At the very least, your attorney needs to read all of the laws, regulations and/or presidential proclamations and tell you what you need to do to comply.

Sometimes the penalty for disobeying these laws, rules and regulations is that a company can lose the right to contract with the federal government. Sometimes all they do is refuse to pay you for your work.

DO NOT SAY THAT I DID NOT WARN YOU!

WARNING TO FELLOW BLOGGERS

The Federal Truth In Advertising laws apply to bloggers who receive money or goods to review a product. This means that you have to "disclose", which means you have to tell people about the money or goods you got regarding the product. You should do the disclosing in the same blog as the product review. If you are getting paid, in any way, you should check with an attorney to make certain you do not get into trouble.

Truth In Advertising also applies to social media. If I were doing social media advertising, I would be checking with my attorneys regarding the effect of this law on what I do.

An interesting question is whether the "Truth" in Truth In Advertising means only telling the truth about the product being "pushed", or does it also mean telling the truth about the sharing of personal data?

IS IT EVIL TO TELL A LIE?

I do think that it is evil to tell a lie, especially if that lie is told because you want to destroy a good person who does not fit your idea of a person with an acceptable ethnic profile.

Over and over again, Hawaiian officials have said that, according to official Hawaiian records, President Obama was born in Hawaii, which is a US State. Therefore, President Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States and eligible to run for US President.

One fourth of US citizens believe that President Obama was not born in the United States. I find it amazing that so many people are willing to believe a lie.

The latest lie being told is that the US Supreme Court is going to rule that President Obama is not a natural born citizen. The TRUTH is that the US Supreme Court has dismissed three lawsuits brought by the liars. (If a court dismisses a lawsuit, it means that the court found the lawsuit so idiotic that the court does not even have to hear the matter. Courts never use the word "idiotic", preferring to say "failure to state a cause of action".)

This country has REAL PROBLEMS, which we can not solve if large numbers of voters prefer lies to the truth.

TAKING BACK THE TRUTH

The truth can be a powerful weapon. Once you tell the truth about something, you can not take it back. The truth has a resonance that is instantly recognizable.

A while back, I blogged about the veteran's memorial in Downtown San Jose. I mentioned that the white flags were insulting as they were a symbol of surrender.

Now the memorial is boarded up because someone has been breaking the glass panels.

Leaving aside the lack of wisdom in using glass panels, it must now be considered whether to redesign the memorial or to just fix the memorial.

I vote for REDESIGN. I am certain that the people who built the memorial did not think about the symbolism of white flags. (I have yet to read what the white flags were intended to symbolize.)

But is does not matter. The people who are being honored do not feel honored, but feel insulted.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

One of the best things you can do to become a better person is to visit another country. Sometimes we believe that our way is the only way. Visiting another country always teaches us that there is more than one good way to do things.

I am TOTALLY SICK of hearing that men and women cannot be friends. It is like saying that a man and a woman cannot have a professional relationship. No one says that gay men cannot be friends with other gay men. NEWS FLASH! If all you think about is having sex with your women friends, it is YOU that has the problem.

Peaceful assembly is one of the more important rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. Sometimes a government will not listen until its citizens are upset enough to risk arrest and/or death to communicate their anger.

If you can hear music through the walls of your house or apartment, request that the person playing the music put their speakers on a foam pad. The foam keeps the sound waves from using the walls to transmit the sound. The person playing the music can only hear the sound in the air, so the foam does not affect their music.

D0 you own your house or does your house own you? Many people are hanging on to their home, putting all of their financial resources into keeping the home. If the homeowner cannot travel, eat out, or do anything other than pay for the house, it is time to consider selling the home, especially if you have an interest only loan. An interest only loan is like paying rent to the bank. You will ALWAYS have to pay the loan, because you are not paying back the principal.

Many cultures with a history of repression of women, have a special "honorary man" category for professional women. If a woman meets their criteria of a professional woman who is considered to be an honorary man, she is often treated better than a professional woman is treated in our society. The neat thing about being an "honorary man" is that no one judges your housekeeping or cooking. Being an "honorary man" really means that you are judged the same as if you were a man.

The reason that teachers and nurses do not get respect is that teachers and nurses are often women. The treatment of nurses by doctors used to be shameful. Now the treatment of nurses by doctors is better, but doctors STILL do not listen to nurses or respect the view of nurses. No wonder we have to import nurses from countries where women do not expect to receive respect.

CALIFORNIA REDEVELOPMENT AGENCIES -- WHO KNEW?

Redevelopment Agencies are run by cities. The RAs take between 12% and 30% of the area's property taxes. They are supposed to spend the money on upgrading poorer areas, building housing, theaters, arenas and other public use buildings.

The RAs have the authority to take your property, sell your former property to a developer, and give the developer monies to build something else on your former property. Often the developer chosen by the RA has given A LOT of money to the campaigns of those who run the city.

Did you know that the state has to replace the property taxes that the Redevelopment people take from the schools?

Did you know that there is almost NO oversight or controls over the Redevelopment Agencies?

Some of the RAs spend more money on advice from consultants than on actual redevelopment. Some of the RAs just do not bother to spend monies on housing as they are required to do.

Governor Brown wants to do away with the RAs. Personally, I think we could live without RAs for awhile. If we reinstitute RAs, then we need to give some state agency the authority to control the way RAs raise, and spend, the taxpayer's money. We also need to require that local protest of the RAs plans must be addressed prior to the plan being implemented.

TV SHOW -- HARRY'S LAW

Harry's Law is a new TV series about a "old lady" attorney who opens up a street front office in a lower class, dangerous neighborhood. It is fun to have a TV series that has a main character that I can identify with.*

LEGAL WARNING-- At least in the first episode, the things that are said in court are the things that attorneys, especially defense attorney, may WANT to say. However, the rules of court would prevent Harry and her assistant from saying much of what they said, especially in the manner in which they said it.

I enjoyed watching a court drama where the attorneys say what they think, rather than what the court allows to be said. We need to discuss the reality of the effect our legal system has on the average person. GO HARRY.

* Please do not think that my office is in a dangerous neighborhood. I can think of few places that are as safe as Campbell, California.