William Chang » Business

Later Brian Beaulieu

William Chang — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 01:49:50 +0000

My foe and good friend is heading out very soon for basic training near San Antonio, Texas for the United States Air Force. He will be finish with basic training around February 2007 and hopefully getting involve with the Special Operations Command unit. Stay safe and good luck!

We had a good weekend. In our welcoming group, we all know each other way back since elementary school. It was quite amazing that every phase of our lives we spontaneously kept in touch. We party whenever, play pool, make fun of each other, and get a little fat from eating. A crazy topic I remembered we talked about was excreting feces in the toilet. Talk whatever, do whatever, don’t care for anything, just have some fun!

There was no music in my car for the past four months because the online retail MP3PlayerStore kept sending me defective Innovatek DVD-386 players three times in a row and their process of returning was slow. I complained for compensations and they upgraded my order to a Innovatek DVD-995 with a 3.6 inch video screen attached. It was nice for them, but I am somewhat satisfy because I had doubts about the player’s reliability.

Good news on the Nintendo Wii, according to a loose-lipped Toys R Us manager, Nintendo has some big plans slated for the Wii. In addition to a $50 price drop from $250 to $200, Nintendo plans on rolling out multi-colored Wii’s in as little as 3 months.

DieHard is out. Happy Holidays! See you all next year.

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Fast-Track to Game Development

William Chang — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:31:41 +0000

I spent many days buckling down and getting things done. Rest assure I do what I say, even though it’s not always on time, least it gets done. As a developer and a leader, it’s tough for many people to face the unknown because their lives was full of instructions or guidance, spoon feed to them. When I started putting myself through those days of programming and developing art for the game engine, I had to create something from nothing. But, it does not mean reinventing the wheel again. A lot of time spent researching just to find one command to do what you want it to do. It seems I’m at the forefront, on the edge, breaking the ice, to establish a foundation for everybody else to “easily” start from. I accept the challenge. I guess, leaders can’t make leaders sometimes.

It was a good experience putting myself on a fast-track to game development. I was learning the Ogre rendering engine and got myself back into C++ programming language (using fun pointer syntax and doing header files). I didn’t stop there, I integrated another great feature to the game engine, Newton physics engine, helping the game do collision detection seamlessly and more. So, I finished creating a base class to work with everything, next, I have to test it against real cases. So, I have to learn a major 3D graphic tool, Autodesk Maya. Again, researching more, watching video tutorials, and playing with the tool to start creating art. After all that, the game engine works against the real cases.

I’ll continue developing as much spare time I have. Leading myself and everyone else to follow, we will get to the finish line together.

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Why the Rich Get Richer

William Chang — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 01:55:21 +0000

Work Hard, Earn Less?

American workers have been getting the short end of the stick since 1943.

That’s when the United States Congress, in response to the costs of World War II, passed the Current Tax Payment Act. The act requires employers to withhold taxes from their employees’ paychecks, overturning the previous system in which workers were paid first and settled their tab with the government later.

The Current Tax Payment Act is why so many people look at their paychecks and wonder where all their money has gone.

My poor dad — who also happened to be my real dad — often said to me, “Go to school, get good grades, so you can find a good, secure job with benefits.” My rich dad, on the other hand, had a different point of view.

Instead of advising me to work hard for money, my rich dad said, “If you want to earn more and pay less in taxes, you need to have people and your money work hard for you.” In other words, my rich dad encouraged me to be an entrepreneur and investor.

Today, workers who save money and invest in a 401(k) plan are the highest taxed people in America. Now, I can hear some of you asking, “Isn’t saving money and investing in a 401(k) having your money work for you?”

No — at least not according to the IRS. A worker’s pay is taxed at the highest tax rate possible. So are your savings and income from your 401(k). In most cases, money goes into a 401(k) tax-deferred but comes out as highly taxed ordinary income.

One of the reasons the rich are getting richer is because they have more control over our number one expense: Taxes.

For example, my passive income from real estate can be the lowest taxed income of all. On one of our commercial properties, my wife and I receive approximately $30,000 a month in income — almost tax-free. When we sell the property, we can legally take the capital gains without paying capital gains tax, which in our state would be 20 percent. Try doing that with stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or real estate investment trusts (REITS). In fact, mutual funds can be a tax trap if you do not understand the rules.

Another example, when we invest in oil and gas projects, we receive approximately a 70% tax deduction and a depletion allowance — another tax break — for income from oil and gas revenues. That means if I invest $10,000 in oil and gas, I can deduct approximately $7,000 from my income as well as receive a tax break for income from the sale of the oil and gas.

Obviously, I’m not a tax professional and you should not make any tax or investment decisions based on this brief article. My point is this: If I had followed my poor dad’s advice and got a job with a 401(k), there would be almost nothing an accountant could do to protect me from higher taxes. The 1943 Current Tax Payment Act saw to that. Today, employees with a 401(k) work hard and earn less.

The federal government provides the biggest tax breaks for business owners and investors in oil and gas and real estate. Why? Business owners provide jobs and jobs mean employees who pay higher taxes. The economy needs oil and gas so anyone who explores for oil and gas are given big tax breaks. And people who invest in real estate are given big tax breaks because the government needs investors to provide housing. If investors didn’t provide housing, the government would have to.After 1943, people who worked for money lost most of their tax breaks. Now, entrepreneurs and investors get the big tax breaks — and that’s another reason the rich get richer.

Source:
http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/article/richricher/1095

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