Can Deaf People Learn To Speak Clearly?

I am not at all sure what “Oralists” are advocating, since there are quite a few divergent views. I’m not involved in child education.

HOWEVER I will hazard a reply that from my observation and experience the central argument of oralism is that deafness does not preclude learning to speak intelligibly and learning to lipread/speechread sufficiently to understand speech. Naturally the individual ability in both areas will vary, depending on both native aptitudes and practice, degree of hearing loss and age of onset of hearing loss.

Leaving out politics and emotionalism, the question is CAN deaf people learn to speak clearly? CAN “most” deaf people learn to lipread adequately to understand speakers under ideal conditions (and with repetition).

Further, Since the evidence is that SOME deaf people can do both of the above (and very well, too!), should the education and therapy systems attempt to teach both speaking and speech reading skills to ALL deaf people?

If not all deaf people are capable of learning speech skills, (which of course are very difficult to learn and master without hearing) then WHAT criteria will be used to decide which deaf people (presuming children) will be taught with speech training and which will be taught in sign only?

Financial Websites

My question now concerns financial websites such as motley fool, money extra among others.

They seem to have a lot of information on them, but I cant help feeling that their prime motive is to sell the products they advertise (they are both very ad-laden) – much of their advice appears to steer you towards specific products and I wonder how impartial they are?

What do people think about them? Are there any other UK finance sites I should look at which are perhaps more objective in their advice?

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Payday Loans Good or Bad?

Avoid those places like the plague. You’d be better off going to a pawn shop if you need quick cash.

A friend of mine did a payday loan a few years ago, before those places were popping up every other block, and I kept trying to tell her that she was just digging herself a hole. She borrowed $500. Her spending habits stank, and the next week, she had to get and extension on the loan, for a $120 fee. So, week 1, she still owes the $500 and just paid $120 for the privilege. This went on for 6 or 7 weeks, each week costing her $120. The
company did not take partial payments of the debt – it was all or nothing (with a fee). Her husband ended up working tons of overtime to pay that off.

You and Your Finances

I believe in being in, near, total control of my finances.. I situation isn’t very complex and would never require a on-going financial planner or adviser. This is because I am retired and have no significant investment, aside from my real estate.

However, after doing my own taxes for 30+ years, I ultimately went to a CPA / Financial Planner with my taxes after a divorce.. Just to make sure everything was done correctly and to have his support incase there was any problems later on.  I continued to use his services for 4 years, just for my taxes. All this time I got good sound advise on not only my taxes but retirement and social security matters. Since I was paying by the hour for the tax services, I was ultimately paying for the advice… Towards the end of this 4 year period, I was already fully retired and my financial matters were pretty ’static’. And my taxes situation was by then identical year after year.. No need to pay a couple hundred bucks any more. I now back to doing my own taxes again.

My point! Engage a trusted financial advisor on an interum basis and learn what is going on, with the objective that you can ultimately perform these functions on your own.. If you find that his functions are more complex than you can handle, then you may want to continue with the service, but at least
you will have the benefit of the knowledge.

If your finances involve a lot of investment management then be sure you agent isn’t manipulating these investment to benefit him with additional fees/commisions.

Corp-S Confusion

Question:

I have a Corporation S. I am the only employee. I need to file a return for 2002. This is the first time my Corp-S had any income. In the prior 2 years, I filed “no business activity, because I had no income”. My biggest problems are that I used both, my personal and business bank account to receive income in the form of wire transfer deposits. I also used both personal and business accounts to pay for business expenses. I also never paid Medicare, Fica and Social Security tax. I will most likely see a tax professional to help me fix my problem, but I would like to know what you think. What is the best way to deal with my situation. How should my income and expenses be reported, and how to deal with the unpaid employment taxes?

Answer:

There are different ways of withdrawing money from an s-corp and you can look these up on irs.gov site and others but your best bet is to see a tax professional – ask around, the initial consultation is usually free.

If you withdrew money it could be to balance the advances you made from your personal account, or repay cost you paid in years you didn’t have any income. In either case a salary may not be expected.  Get form 1120S and if you can’t figure it out with all the comments made you’ll need help, but I have done several 1120s without knowing what a pro should.  If you’re smart enough to run a profitable business it’s pretty hard to do something so wrong that you’re penalized if you half-way tried to do it right.  You do need to know the concepts of Capital Contributions, Start-up costs, and standard accounting proceedures.