The President of the United States gives his old underwear to charity. We know this because Washington Post reporter LLoyd Grove, perusing the past 10 income tax returns of Bill Clinton and his ever-loving wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, happened to notice the couple’s use of a feature of Federal tax law, the reduction of income by the amount of charitable gifts. When a gift is other than cash, taxpayers can trim their intake by the value of the goods they donate. It is up to the taxpayer to assess the merchandise or have it assessed by experts. It is up to the Internal Revenue Service to decide whether the claimed deduction is fair and reasonable. The December 28 article by reporter Grove did not mention the Clintons’ unmentionables in conjunction with challenges by the IRS, so we can safely presume that the tax returns were completely lawful, as befits America’s highest elected official. The First Lady, H R Clinton, did not fill official forms with a list of dainties she gave to the poor or at least others who had lost theirs. H R’s itemised gifts of unwanted apparel included a dress, gloves and five sets of daughter Chelsea’s pajamas.

Knickers

This philosophy is far more appropriate for a public figure and it will lead ordinary Americans, who all think about their underwear when tax time arrives, to follow H R’s example, if they can figure out what it is. The First Lady may simply wear her underwear until it is completely shot, a popular custom. Or she may give it away from time to time, but not to nonprofit organisations. Or she may in fact donate tons of the stuff to charity in a discreet and First Ladylike fashion. Reporter Grove spoke to an expert accountant about the matter and discovered that the authority had never heard of specifically itemising discarded (but presumably still wearable) underwear in an income tax return. This came as no surprise to us. We had never imagined, let alone heard of, anyone giving underwear to charity. But Bill Clinton is a remarkable man, to say nothing of his ascension to great heights from humble beginnings, and perhaps his rise in politics coincided with a change in the size of his knickers. The newspaperman did not speculate about the President’s actions, although he must have asked some imaginative questions of the accountant and other people he interviewed about the matter, including a couple of shrinks. The intrepid reporter also sent a written list of questions to the White House press secretary, the aptly named Dee Dee Myers. Dee dee, or didi, is the English phonetic rendering of a Vietnamese word for run or flee, a fact that is probably unknown to President Clinton, who had better things to do than visit Vietnam when it was a popular if somewhat dangerous national pastime. Dee Dee didi-ed. The reporter’s questions, which included an inquiry about President Clinton’s preferred style of underwear – briefs or boxers? – went unanswered. The Washington Post story will undoubtedly serve as an inspiration to many taxpaying Americans and to corporations, such as IBM, too. We don’t expect IBM to donate underwear to the poor. By Hesh Wiener

The company has already given out enough pink slips and doesn’t need to remind anyone. What we had in mind was IBM giving equipment it no longer wants to worthy causes, machinery that must be piling sky high. This must be done meticulously, the way the President handled his drawers. Otherwise IBM might find itself compared to Kendall Square Research, a young developer of parallel computers that got all mixed up about which computers it had sold and which it had given to deserving institutions and subsequently had to restate its financial reports and repopulate its executive suite. We are confident that IBM could spare some of its model 3495 Toonerville Trolley automated tape libraries. These award-winning machines could of course help out at an impoverished mainframe shop, such as one finds in academia or Resolution Trust Corporation’s Savings and Loan Orphanage. Alternatively, the Toonerville Trolleys, with their grasping little robot arms and

irrepressible urge to wander up and down their tracks, could be reprogrammed for another important task. Imagine the robot working on the Long Island Railroad, taking fares and punching tickets, simultaneously separating with computerised precision the psychopathic commuters from the merely neurotic. IBM could then rename its contraption; it could call it a semi-conductor. IBM has also discovered that it has scads of unused personal computers. Most of these are old, we suppose, and feeble of processor. But with a little more effort on OS/2 – it would be small in comparison to the billion or so outsiders say is already invested – the old PCs could have new useful lives. Surely this is within the power of a company that has given so many people new careers of late and which invented a software feature called Rapid Resume, which we are sure is pronounced only one way. IBM executives who don’t already own personal computers could be given the otherwise unwanted equipment. They could take it home and have their children show them how to use it. The thing that IBM has the most of and which it wants least is of course its debt, probably between $25 billion and $30 billion at the end of 1993. If only IBM could somehow give that away. If the President could find a new home for his long underwear, even if it is the Arkansas trap door model, surely IBM could find some place its debts would be accepted. How about Cuba, which is trying to become more like other countries? Isn’t a burden of obligations to the banks and financial institutions of the industrialised world part of the normalisation process? In return for helping Cuba join the beleaguered of nations, IBM could perhaps find jobs for Fidel Castro’s children in a no smoking zone far away from their stogie-toking father’s harangues.

Skivvies

Having repeatedly absorbed large non-recurring charges during the past few years, IBM may have many items on its books at paltry, if accurate values. Giving such stuff away can’t cost much and it might make a nice gift. However, as one of our vigilant fiscal advisors pointed out, there may be limits, if not to corporate charity, then to its tax deductibility. Whaddayu nuts? he exclaimed. They lost their shirts. They seen so much red ink their bookkeepers think they’re postage meters. Half their former employees are hanging around thrift shops hoping some of Clinton’s old underwear will fit them. Uncle ain’t gonna let them write off squat, not this year. Besides, the crowd running that IBM outfit now wouldn’t give you ice in the winter. They’re takers, not givers. Stick with Clinton. He’s got a plan. Even without underwear, he can always get by in Scotland. This potentially bright future for President Clinton, like the implicit forecast for IBM contained in its rising share price, carries with it some unexamined postulates. In Clinton’s case, for instance, there is the presumption that his underwear is men’s underwear. In IBM’s case, one must believe that the big losses stemmed mainly from a payroll that had been fed steroids, and is now history. This last axiom has a corollary: IBM can now reduce prices and still turn a profit as the market’s elasticity sees to an increase in sales volume. Like the recycling of President Clinton’s skivvies, the process will call for considerable skill with the big iron.

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