Three Martini Lunches v Stodgy Business Meetings

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Dave Barry has it right.....

The modern business meeting, however, might be better compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose

TWC hasn't worked for the other guy much and certainly I've spent very little time in the corporate world, which has spared me an eternity of pointless meetings.  That doesn't mean I've escaped entirely unscathed.

For instance, I have been deposed a few times. There is nothing more pointless than a deposition. The attorneys are drawing down hundreds of dollars an hour in droning fees. And they agree that you, the guy whose time they're wasting, can't possibly be considered an expert witness. Oh, gentle reader, it has nothing to do with what you think. It's all about the money. Expert Witnesses get paid by the minute to answer dumb questions that everyone already knows the answer to. The rest of us get the cattle jury rate of $15.00 per day plus mileage and good luck getting that.

And while the generally purposeless nature of the average business meeting is self-evident to everyone except those who called the meeting, the business lunch is something entirely different.

Way back in the days of my vagrant yoot, when sitting in gas lines two mornings a week was the norm and our wallets were ravaged by idiotic economic policies that produced Peronista style inflation, the most significant problem on Jimmy Carter's mind was Mad Men's tax deductible three martini lunches. And he meant to do away with them.

To his credit, President Ford defended the concept thusly.....

The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?

Now stay with me here. The Imperial Presidency and the Imperial CONgress have unlimited entertainment budgets that are financed by you and I. And those ignorant bastages have no idea how much real business is accomplished during a civilized lunch with a couple of glasses of wine. But they weren't going to stand for the likes of Don Draper and Roger Sterling swilling a liquid lunch and writing it off as a business expense.

And that's why business lunches and other entertainment expenses are only 50% deductible.

Three things you now know.

Photo Credit: Unknown

Happy Throwback Thursday.