In 2017 my
Website was migrated to the clouds and reduced in size.
Hence some links below are broken.
Contact me at
rjensen@trinity.edu if you really need to file that is missing.
Happy New Year (Abba) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qCRQqOz63s
One year of
changing seasons (video) ---
http://www.vimeo.com/2639782
Snowy Views ---
http://www.photojenic.ca/
Mountain Images ---
http://www.mountain-images.co.uk/
One year of changing seasons
(video) ---
http://www.vimeo.com/2639782
2008
Year in Review (Humor) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiXy55OHyY
Happy Holidays (beautiful) ---
http://ecard.ashland.edu/index.php?ecardYear=2004adm
Aside from bed and breakfast
inns, our Village of Sugar Hill, there is only one business (Harmon's) in the
center of the village, and Polly's Pancake Parlor out on Hildex Farm.
In the next edition of Tidbits I
will feature Harmon's General Store and Cheese House. This week I will feature
Polly's Pancake Parlor, which is about a mile down from our cottage on Route
117. Visitors to New England often make this a scheduled stop in their holidays,
which also means that there is often a bit of a wait to get a table. But the
wait is well worth the home made food served at Polly's. There's nothing low in
calories in this land of maple sugar. I mean why is our village called Sugar
Hill? At Polly's they make their own maple sugar products for both the
restaurant and for their onsite and online stores. The home page is at
http://www.pollyspancakeparlor.com/
Polly's Pancake Parlor History since 1830 ---
http://www.pollyspancakeparlor.com/history.html
The building which houses "Polly's Pancake
Parlor" was built about 1830. It was originally used as a carriage shed and
was later used for storage of firewood. During the depression of the
thirties Polly and Wilfred (Sugar Bill) Dexter converted the building to a
small, quaint tea room (capacity - 24 people). When they started serving in
1938 they offered pancakes, waffles and French toast - "All you can eat for
50¢." The idea was to stimulate sales of their maple products.
Polly and Will's daughter married Roger
Aldrich in 1949 and in that year took over the management of "Polly's
Pancake Parlor."
Wilfred Dexter passed away in 1960 and in
1964 Polly followed him. Since that time Nancy and Roger have gradually
expanded the operation from three months to six months and the dining room
size has been increased three times.
Nancy and Roger's daughter, Kathie and her
husband, Dennis Cote are now very actively assisting on a full-time basis
with the management and production which assures our long list of friends
that there will be family continuity for many years to come.
The antique tools and other items
displayed here are mostly family relics found in the attic and sheds here on
the farm. Some have come from relatives and a few have been purchased. Our
home and farm has been continuously occupied by the same family (through
marriage) since it was originally settled in 1819. Some of the ancestors
portraits are hanging on the walls in the pancake parlor. There are Civil
War relics along with the old tools. There are old "Trades Cards"
advertising posters and sheet music covers. None of the antique articles
displayed are for sale, but you're sure to find them interesting.
The original menu has been greatly
enlarged to include Buckwheat, Cornmeal, Oatmeal Buttermilk and Whole Wheat
pancakes and waffles which are varied by combining them with blueberries,
walnuts,coconut, or chocolate chips, along daily pancake specials such as
gingerbread! We serve country style patty sausage and smoked bacon and
smoked ham made by our friends at North Country Smokehouse here in New
Hampshire. Sandwiches made with our own homemade bread (white, whole wheat,
dark rye or oatmeal) are available. We also serve English muffins, quiche,
soups, baked beans and other items as specials, ALL HOMEMADE here!
We use no prepared mixes. Our pancake
batters are prepared from the original recipes from the flour on up. We use
the best ingredients obtainable in an effort to serve the lightest,
fluffiest pancakes possible. Our whole Wheat, Buckwheat, Oatmeal Buttermilk
and Cornmeal Pancakes and Breads are made with organically grown grains,
which we stone-grind ourselves. The Whole Wheat is high protein, hard spring
wheat. For dessert we serve choice fresh fruits in season, plus homemade
pies, wondrous Maple Bavarian Cream, and Maple Hurricane Sundae. We serve
fresh eggs, any style, and the best coffee you ever had, made with our pure
fresh mountain water.
We invite comments in our guest register
and while they are overwhelmingly favorable, we pay attention to the
unfavorable ones in order to improve our service. Our all time favorite
comment was left by a guest from England: "Polly's Pancake Parlor is an
oasis in the American food desert."
Our syrup is personally selected for color
and flavor and is hot packed here to insure perfection. The granulated maple
sugar and maple spread which is served with our pancakes and waffles is
homemade by us here at the farm using a process and some machinery invented
by "Sugar Bill" Dexter. The process is slow and time-consuming and certainly
not competitive but the flavor, light color and fine texture that we desire
cannot be produced by any other method.
Where else can you buy granulated maple in
bulk containers? Most places sell it in "plastic age" shakers "for your
convenience." These products are consumed by the hundreds of pounds at the
"Pancake Parlor" and many people take same home with them for their own use
or as gifts for friends. We also sell by mail and if you care to leave your
address we will send you our gift list at Christmas.
Among our guests we have a high percentage
of repeat customers, who, over the years, have become our very good friends.
We hope to list you among them.
In ROADFOOD, the coast-to-coast guide to
over 400 of America's Regional Restaurants published by Random House, Jane
and Michael Stern say, "We don't know a better place to eat pancakes than
Polly's. The Parlor is in an 1830-vintage building on Hildex Farm. From your
table you look over the New Hampshire countryside through the clear mountain
air. The pancakes served here are made from light cornmeal, whole wheat, or
buckwheat batter, filled with chopped nuts, blueberries, or coconut. And the
star of the show is maple, brought to your table as maple sugar, maple syrup
and maple spread."
How to Live Your Life ---
Click Here
RefuseToHate ---
http://vimeo.com/2213624
Tidbits on January 5, 2009
Bob Jensen
For earlier editions of Tidbits go to
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/.
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page is at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/
Bob Jensen's Search Helpers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
Free Telephone Directory (you must listen to an opening advertisement) ---
800-FREE411
or
800-373-3411
Free Online Telephone Directory ---
http://snipurl.com/411directory [www_public-records-now_com]
Free online 800 telephone numbers ---
http://www.tollfree.att.net/tf.html
Google Free Business Phone Directory --- 800-goog411
To find names addresses from listed phone numbers, go to
www.google.com and read in the phone number
without spaces, dashes, or parens
You might want to check if your
cell phone numbers can be easily obtained:
To find some cell phone numbers (for a fee):
The "Free Cell Phone Tracer" only indicates that it has found the cell phone
owner's name and address. Then your must pay to see that name and address.
http://www.b2byellowpages.com/directory/b2b_directory_guide/800-phone-directory.shtml
Bob Jensen's essay on the financial crisis bailout's aftermath and an alphabet soup of
appendices can be found at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Essay
-
Introductory Quotations
-
The Bailout's Hidden, Albeit Noble, Agenda
(for added details see Appendix Y)
-
A Step Back in History Barney's Rubble
Appendix A: Impending Disaster in the U.S.
Appendix B: The Trillion Dollar Bet in 1993
Appendix C: Don't Blame Fair Value Accounting
Standards This includes a bull crap case based on an article by the former
head of the FDIC
Appendix D: The End of Investment Banking as We
Know It
Appendix E: Your Money at Work, Fixing Others’
Mistakes (includes a great NPR public radio audio module)
Appendix F: Christopher Cox Waits Until Now to
Tell Us His Horse Was Lame All Along S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaws Fueled
Collapse And This is the Man Who Wants Accounting Standards to Have Fewer
Rules
Appendix G: Why the $700 Billion Bailout
Proposed by Paulson, Bush, and the Guilty-Feeling Leaders in Congress Won't
Work
Appendix H: Where were the auditors? The
aftermath will leave the large auditing firms in a precarious state?
Appendix I: 1999 Quote from The New York Times
''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the
way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
Appendix J: Will the large auditing firms
survive the 2008 banking meltdown?
Appendix K: Why not bail out everybody and
everything?
Appendix L: The trouble with crony capitalism
isn't capitalism. It's the cronies.
Appendix M: Reinventing the American Dream
Appendix N: Accounting Fraud at Fannie Mae
Appendix O: If Greenspan Caused the Subprime
Real Estate Bubble, Who Caused the Second Bubble That's About to Burst?
Appendix P: Meanwhile in the U.K., the
Government Protects Reckless Bankers
Appendix Q: Bob Jensen's Primer on Derivatives
(with great videos from CBS)
Appendix R: Accounting Standard Setters
Bending to Industry and Government Pressure to Hide the Value of Dogs
Appendix S: Fooling Some People All the Time
Appendix T: Regulations Recommendations
Appendix U: Subprime: Borne of Sleaze, Bribery,
and Lies
Appendix V: Implications for Educators,
Colleges, and Students
Appendix W: The End
Appendix: X: How Scientists Help Cause Our
Financial Crisis
Appendix Y: The Bailout's Hidden Agenda
Details
Appendix Z: What's the rush to re-inflate
the stock market?
Personal Note from Bob Jensen
On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long
and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was
generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My
wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm
Bob Jensen's blogs and various threads on many topics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
(Also scroll down to the table at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )
Global Incident Map ---
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
Set up free conference calls at
http://www.freeconference.com/
Also see
http://www.yackpack.com/uc/
Bob Jensen's Search Helpers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
Free Telephone Directory (you must listen to an opening advertisement) ---
800-FREE411
Free Online Telephone Directory ---
http://snipurl.com/411directory [www_public-records-now_com]
Free online 800 telephone numbers ---
http://www.tollfree.att.net/tf.html
Google Free Business Phone Directory --- 800-goog411
To find names addresses from listed phone numbers, go to
www.google.com and read in the phone number
without spaces, dashes, or parens
To find some cell phone numbers (for a fee):
The "Free Cell Phone Tracer" only indicates that it has found the cell phone
owner's name and address. Then your must pay to see that name and address.
http://www.b2byellowpages.com/directory/b2b_directory_guide/800-phone-directory.shtml
U.S. Social Security Retirement
Benefit Calculators ---
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator/
After 2017 what we would really like is a choice between our full social
security benefits or 18 Euros each month ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
Free Online Tutorials in Multiple Disciplines ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Chronicle of Higher Education's 2008-2009
Almanac ---
http://chronicle.com/free/almanac/2008/?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on economic and social statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Tips on computer and networking
security ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm
Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) ---
http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm
If you want to help our badly injured troops, please check out
Valour-IT: Voice-Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops ---
http://www.valour-it.blogspot.com/
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Stonehenge Mystery Solved? (maybe) ---
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks
The U.S. Flag
(Robin Williams) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_L1vLv84vs
The U.S. Flag (Johnnie Cash) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whmVGRSgAe8
One year of
changing seasons (video) ---
http://www.vimeo.com/2639782
PC World 2008
Gadget Review Video (after the commercial) ---
http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,975-page,1-bid,0/video.html
Also go to www.amazon.com and search for
gadgets in the Electronics category
Prevent Heart Damage (video) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=179
2008 Year in Review (Humor) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiXy55OHyY
Finding the Strength
to Get Back Up ---
http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html
The Great Issues Forum (great for dissertation and book ideas)
---
http://www.greatissuesforum.org/
Interviewing Failed Suicide Bombers (video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imx0AnNxUmY
The Engines of Our Ingenuity (audio history of creativity) ---
http://www.uh.edu/engines/engines.htm
United Nations Audio Library: Radio Classics [iTunes]
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/library/classics/date.html
From Business Week Magazine
Tech Trends to Expect in 2009 Mark Anderson predicts the year's coming
developments, from expanded home entertainment to voice recognition to new,
lightweight netbooks ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc20081211_906153.htm?link_position=link1
Repeatedly click the background of this highly unique
multimedia Christmas card ---
http://jsmagic.net/emissarypage7/
Watch 'Dem Bones Panhandle ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uhbUBB4_GE
A Great Dog Enjoying Our Deep Snow ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sUL0KCIc48
Whisky Commercial (not for children) ---
http://www.forgetfoo.com/?blogid=9678
For those who like a simple (yeah right) explanation of the
financial crisis ---
http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/blog/jeff_frankels_weblog/2008/12/05/origins-of-the-economic-crisis-in-one-chart/
Free music downloads ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
TheRadio (My Favorite, Enter singer, song title,
composer, or category such as opera) ---
http://www.theradio.com/
Josh Groban - O Holy Night ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQWXfHzOKUU
Jukebox ---
http://hfm3.com/jukebox/jukebox.html
Old 45s ---
http://oldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheFifties.htm
Oscar Peterson: Piano Master ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98358091
Stand By Me
Bailout Humor and Music Videos (forwarded by David Albrecht)
Sponsor a CEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDC0qcf0kzE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKmzGPIx4YQ
Where's my bailout?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIjbMRU1EgU&feature=pyv&ad=2098126103
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9nk8XwHbS4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTMp1Zl0eGM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipHNmneFwV0
Would buy weed if given bailout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYC25oNTx9o
Santa Claus bailout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxBl9BXLom4
Subprime meltdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5VeNwG3xms&feature=related
Bailout man song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUXXSxZPhw
Twelve days of bailouts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55xJnIqq9ZI
700 Billion Dollar Bailout - the Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzzRzZJmwEM
Wall Street Bailout Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD6z5IIWLTs
"Give it to me" Bailout Rap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRR80Eq3FQM
The SubPrime Blues #2, Will Inflate Stated Income for Food
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5lTymSFxPU
SubPrime Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3G1PdipmtI
Foreclosure Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnYZJB-8tf8
Bob Jensen listens to music free online (and no commercials)
---
http://www.slacker.com/
Photographs and Art
Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts
(Great Charts on Bad Budgeting) ---
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/BudgetChartBook/index.html
Reconstructing American History ---
http://newt.org/Portals/0/Capitol Visitor Center Report_.pdf
Moore's Law for Computer Processors (click on the
photo gallery) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/21901/?a=f
The Roger Reynolds Collection (video)
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/rreynolds/rreynolds-hom
Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian ---
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html
National Museum of the American Indian: Beauty Surrounds Us ---
http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/beauty_surrounds_us/flash8.html
Historic Photographs (including Lincoln) ---
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2008/11/24/life-images-hosted-by-google/
Holiday Photos (Spectacular Slide Show) ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/HolidayPhotos.pps
2008: Year in Photographs ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2152750/posts
The William Morris Society Website (art and
literature) ---
http://www.morrissociety.org/
Museum of Biblical Art (video) ---
http://www.mobia.org/index.php
American Society of Limnology and Oceanography
---
http://aslo.org/index.html
The Master Of Graphite Pencil (Linda Huber) ---
http://www.here2see.com/the-master-of-graphite-pencil-linda-huber/
Glass and Light ---
http://veryveryfun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=1
Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern
Renaissance in Italian Glass (video) ---
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/lino/
2002 Postcards ---
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/picturepostcard/picturepostcard2002.asp
Artnet Galleries ---
http://www.artnet.com/net/galleries/gallery_home.aspx
Turner Prize 2008 (art history) ---
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/turnerprize2008/
The
Metropolitan Museum of Art's Timeline of Art History http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm
From Dartmouth University
Hood Museum of Art ---
http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various
types electronic literature available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Links to Poets and Their Online Poems
---
http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/
Poets of Old and Their Poems ---
http://oldpoetry.com/oauthor/list
The Auden Society
http://audensociety.org/
Poets: W.H. Auden
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/120
Best Poems ---
http://100.best-poems.net/
From the University of Michigan
The American Verse Project ---
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/
The Kipling Society ---
http://www.kipling.org.uk/
Graham Greene Land ---
http://members.tripod.com/greeneland/
Bartleby's Free Online Books ---
http://www.bartleby.com/titles/
Forgotten Books ---
http://www.forgottenbooks.org/catalog/index.php
From the University of South Carolina
F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary ---
http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/
Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts (Great Charts on
Bad Budgeting) ---
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/BudgetChartBook/index.html
Online
Historical Population Reports ---
http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/
State of World Population 2008 (read a free chapter) ---
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2008/en/
Digital History ---
http://digitalhistory.unl.edu/
Economic Indicators ---
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/indicators/
EconStats ---
http://www.econstats.com/index.htm
Also see
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics
A Literary Map of Maine ---
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/literarymap/map.html
Teaching Tolerance Magazine ---
http://www.tolerance.org/teach/magazine/index.jsp
"St. Olaf Wrestles With Milton's Angel, and Prevails," by Jennifer Howard,
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 21, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i13/13a00104.htm
Here are some of the things you learn when
you participate in a Milton marathon:
- Milton is not as boring as you think.
Paradise Lost has something for everyone: Hot but innocent sex!
(You thought Adam and Eve spent all their time in Eden gardening?)
Descriptions of hellfire that would make The Lord of the Rings'
archfiend, Sauron, weep with envy! Epic battles, with angels hurling
mountains at their demonic foes! This is edge-of-your-seat material.
"It's a really cool story, which I wasn't expecting," said Anna Coffey,
a sophomore who took part in the reading to get a jump on her homework
for a "Great Conversations" core-curriculum course.
- Milton is not that hard to read out
loud. As Mr. DuRocher pointed out in a set of "Guidelines for Reciting"
he handed out before the marathon, "Paradise Lost is written in
modern English." Compared with Beowulf, Paradise Lost is a
walk in the park.
- Milton is really hard to read out
loud. Very few people get words like "puissance" right on the first try.
Milton loved a runaway sentence and just about any now-obscure classical
or geographical reference he could get his hands on, many of them
polysyllabic nightmares. Partway through Book VI, Mr. DuRocher offered
advice to the tongue-tied. "Whenever you encounter a word you don't
know, that's a word to pronounce with special certainty," he said. "It's
probably best to mispronounce demonic names anyway."
- It's worth it. "It's really a good
poem," said Mr. Goodroad. "It's a lot better to hear it than to read
it."
From Dartmouth College
Poems 1645 ---
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/contents/
Citizen (John) Milton ---
http://www.cems.ox.ac.uk/citizenmilton/
It is not just
pit-gazing that is hard work, but life-gazing. It is difficult for us to
contemplate, fixedly, the possibility, let alone the certainty, that life is a
matter of cosmic hazard, its fundamental purpose mere self-perpetuation, that it
unfolds in emptiness, that our planet will one day drift in frozen silence, and
that the human species, as it has developed in all its frenzied and
over-engineered complexity, will completely disappear and not be missed, because
there is nobody and nothing out there to miss us. This is what growing up means.
And it is a frightening prospect for a race which has for so long relied upon
its own invented gods for explanation and consolation.
Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be
Frightened Of (Random House, 2008) as quoted in a recent email message by
Amy Dunbar
Amy points out that in spite of this morbid topic, the book is filled with humor
as well as serious philosophy of life.
How and When They Departed This Earth ---
http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/articles/display_article.php?id=00011
Their works live on even if they died miserably and/or tragically. Success does
not always equal happiness when departing life.
* Euripides [480-406 B.C.] Greek Playwright - Mauled by a
pack of wild dogs owned by Archelaus, the King of Macedonia.
* Dante Alighieri [1256-1321] Italian Poet - Fell ill and
died about an hour after completing The Divine Comedy.
* Francis Villon [1431-1464?] French Poet - May have been
attacked by a mob of bandits or hanged by authorities after a brief prison
stay for murdering a priest. Take your pick. Left France at the age of 32
and was never heard from again. "Where are the snows of yesteryear?"
* Christopher Marlowe [1564-1593] English Playwright -
Stabbed with a dagger during a bar fight at the inn of the Widow Bull in
Deptford. Was it an argument over the bill?
* Richard Lovelace [1618-1658] English Poet - Believed to
have died of consumption "in a very mean lodging" in Gunpowder Alley, Shoe
Lane. "I could not love thee, dear, so much/Loved I not honour more."
* Thomas Chatterton [1752-1770] English Poet - Killed self
by drinking arsenic at the age of 17. Apparently in despair over lack of
recognition. Gained popularity after death. [Editor’s Note: Chatterton’s
father was well known around town for a rather dubious talent - he could put
his entire fist in his mouth.]
* Lord Byron [1788-1824] English Poet - Killed by doctors
during a "blood letting" attempt to cure malarial fever. Last words: "I must
sleep now."
* Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] English Poet - Drowned
while sailing near Spezia, Italy, and was cremated on the beach. [Editor’s
Note: Shelley’s heart wouldn’t burn and was given to his wife, Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley as a souvenir.]
* Honore De Balzac [1799-1850] French Author - Believed to
have choked on too much coffee.
* Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] American Author - Died of
"acute congestion of the brain" several days after he was discovered lying
unconscious in a Baltimore street, wearing someone else’s tattered clothes.
* Leo Tolstoy [1828-1910] Russian Author - Gave away
entire fortune, froze to death in a railroad station on a cold winter night.
* Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914?] American Author -
Disappeared in Mexico while reporting on the Pancho Villa’s rebellion. May
have been murdered by bandits.
* Arthur Rimbaud [1854-1891] French Poet - A probable
victim of syphilis, had right leg amputated, became paralyzed and gradually
slipped into permanent coma.
* Lionel Johnson [1867-1902] British Poet - Fell off a
barstool during a bout of heavy drinking, according to legend.
* Alfred Jarry [1873-1907] French Dramatist - Paralyzed in
both legs at the age of 34. Last request was for a toothpick.
* Sherwood Anderson [1876-1941] American Author -
Complications of peritonitis in Colon, Panama, after ingesting a toothpick
along with a hors d’oeuvre at a cocktail party.
* Jack London [1876-1916] American Author - A "raging
alcoholic," died of uremia brought on by a morphine overdose at the age of
40.
* Vachel Lindsay [1879-1931] American Poet - Killed self
by drinking disinfectant.
* Virginia Woolf [1882-1941] British Author & Critic -
Filled pockets with stones and drowned self in the river Ouse.
* Franz Kafka [1883-1924] - Died of tuberculosis and was
buried in Prag-Straschintz. Had requested that all of his work be destroyed
after his death.
* Ezra Pound [1885-1972] - Arrested for treason after
World War II for broadcasting Fascist propaganda, declared mentally ill and
committed to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington D.C. Released in 1958 and
died a semi-recluse in Italy. [Editor’s Note: Born in Hailey, Idaho, Pound’s
middle name was Loomis.]
* Maxwell Bodenheim [1893-1954] American Author - Shot
with a .22 rifle by an insane dishwasher.
* Sergei Esenin [1895-1925] Russian Poet - Cut wrists,
wrote a final poem in own blood (called "Do svidania drug moi" or "Goodbye
my friend") and hanged self in a hotel room in Leningrad.
* F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940] American Author -
Legendary boozer suffered a heart attack while working as a screenwriter in
Hollywood for a couple of hundred bucks a week. According to John O’Hara,
Fitz died "a prematurely old little man haunting bookshops unrecognized."
[Editor’s Note: Zelda died in a fire at an Asheville, North Carolina, mental
hospital in 1948.]
* William Faulkner [1897-1962] American Author - Suffered
a heart attack after falling off a horse.
* Hart Crane [1899-1932] American Poet - While en route to
New York aboard the S.S. Orizaba, leapt into the Caribbean Sea; reputedly
said "Good-bye everybody."
* Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961] American Author - Blew
brains out with a hunting rifle in Ketchum, Idaho.
* Thomas Wolfe [1900-1938] American Author - Suffered a
cerebral infection, leaving an eight-foot-high manuscript for his editors to
sort through. Buried in Riverside Cemetery, Asheville, North Carolina. ". .
. the last voyage, the longest, the best."
* Nathanael West [1903-1940] American Author - Car
accident killed West and his wife after he ignored a stop sign. His buddy,
F. Scott Fitzgerald, died the same weekend.
* Robert E. Howard [1906-1936] Sword & Sorcery Writer -
Spent all-night vigil at bedside of comatose mother and died of
self-inflicted gunshot in the morning; mother died that same night.
* Malcolm Lowry [1909-1957] British Author - A
"sleeping-pill suicide," fell dead with a plate in hand while starting in on
a midnight snack, according to writer Donald Newlove. ". . . and how alike
are the groans of love, to those of dying."
* Tennessee Williams [1911-1983] American Playwright -
Choked on a bottle cap while trying to get hands on some barbiturates.
* Albert Camus [1913-1960] French Author - Single-car
automobile crash while returning to Paris from the South of France.
* John Berryman [1914-1972] American Poet - Jumped from a
bridge over the Mississippi River; reputedly waved at passersby on way down.
* Dylan Thomas [1914-1953] Welsh Poet - Alcohol poisoning
during a lecture tour of the United States. "I’ve had 18 straight whiskies .
. . I think that’s the record."
* Roland Barthes [1915-1980] French Critic & Philosopher -
Run over by laundry truck outside the College de France. "Literature is the
question minus the answer."
* Jack Kerouac [1922-1969] American Author - Abdominal
hemorrhage at mother’s home in St. Petersburg, Florida, while watching "The
Galloping Gourmet."
* Flannery O’Connor [1924-1964] American Author - Became
gradually immobilized by lupus and died at the age of 40.
* Yukio Mishima [1925-1970] Japanese Author - Committed
seppuku (hara-kiri) and was beheaded during failed attempt to overtake a
Japanese garrison.
* Anne Sexton [1928-1974] American Poet - Committed
suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of her home.
* Sylvia Plath [1932-1963] American Poet - Stuck head in a
kitchen oven.
* Jerzy Kosinski [1933-1991] Polish-Born American Author -
Think he committed suicide by placing a plastic bag over his head in the
bathtub. Can anyone else confirm this?
* Richard Brautigan [1935-1984] American Author -
Self-inflicted gunshot wound; body wasn’t discovered for several weeks.
* Seth Morgan [1949-1990] American Author - Rode
motorcycle off the Golden Gate Bridge and into the San Francisco Bay.
* John O’Brien [1960-1994] American Author - Committed
suicide just two weeks after selling the movie rights to "autobiographical
novel" Leaving Las Vegas. Book served as suicide note.
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
On the heels of their crusade against girls going to
schools, the Taliban have now issued new dictum in the areas under their sway
asking parents of the grown up daughters to marry them to militants or "face
dire consequences". This new force-marriage campaign is being run in most of the
areas in the Pakistan's troubled NWFP through regular announcements made in
mosques to congregations. Such instances have come to light recently through
some of the affected women daring to go to authorities for justice rather than
meekly surrender to the militants’ dictates. Salma, who teaches in a primary...
"Girls to marry militants, orders Taliban," The Times of India,
January 2, 2009 ---
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Girls_to_marry_militants_orders_Taliban/articleshow/3926460.cms
Jensen Comment
It's hard to find a single redeeming grace in these evil self-serving monsters.
The Hamas founding covenant explicitly calls for the
extermination of all Jews. Hitler never made total extermination an official
plank of the the Nazi party platform....
Ron Rosenbaum, "Some Differences
Between Hamas and the Nazi Party." Pajamas Media, January 4, 2008 ---
Click Here
Health care, says the man most concerned with that
17 percent of America's economy, can be "a nation-ruining issue." As Michael
Leavitt ends four years as secretary of health and human services, he offers
this attention-arresting arithmetic: Absent fundamental reforms, over the next
two decades the average American household's health care spending, including the
portion of its taxes that pays for Medicare and Medicaid, will go from 23
percent to 41 percent of average household income.
George Will, "Health Care Costs Keep
Growing and Growing," RealClearPolitics, January 1, 2009 ---
Click Here
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global
sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew
to a close. Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but
rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from
September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or
downwards. The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic
Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the
Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Michael Asher, "Sea Ice Ends Year at
Same Level as 1979," Daily Tech, January 1, 2009 ---
http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834
Also see
"Rumors of the Death of Arctic Sea Ice Greatly Exaggerated," by Timothy
Birdnow, Pajamas Media, December 20, 2008 ---
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/rumors-of-the-death-of-arctic-sea-ice-greatly-exaggerated/
Bring it on you great big quivering gelatinous
invertebrate jelly of indecision.
Boris Johnson: London's Mayor Issues
a Challenge to Gordon Brown ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123094404164150567.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
The hard truth is that no matter how much Israelis
crave peace, they cannot achieve it through concessions and compromises and
"road maps" - not when their enemies view such overtures and agreements as signs
of weakness, and as proof that terrorism works. For 60 years, Israel has had to
contend with the hostility of its neighbors and the heavy costs of war; its
yearning for peace is understandable. But there will be no peace without
victory, and no victory without fighting for it . . . The proximate cause of the
fighting in Gaza was the sharp increase in rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli
civilians after Hamas refused to extend its tenuous cease-fire with Israel past
Dec. 19. But the deeper cause was the transformation of Gaza into an Iranian
proxy and terrorist hub following Israel's reckless "disengagement" in 2005.
Israelis convinced themselves that ethnically cleansing Gaza of its Jews and
handing over the territory to the Palestinians would reduce violence and make
Israel safer. It did just the opposite.
Jeff Jacoby, "Has Israel learned its
lesson?" Boston Globe, January 1, 2008 ---
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/01/has_israel_learned_its_lesson/
No money down, two years interest free,
Buying a house was no problem you see.
And so the young man along with his spouse,
They could not afford, but yet bought the house.
. . .
Stocks, commodities and private equity too,
It seems every sector has stepped in the poo.
Hedge Fund Trader Todd Federman as quoted by Mary
Pilon, "Fannie, Freddie, Bear & Hard Times: Wall Street's Collapse, Told in
Rhymes Crisis Inspires New Odes to Financial Ruin; Quoth the Trader,
'Nevermore'," The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123068329002444149.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
I'm never a person to carp,
But nobody oversees TARP.
One anonymous "hold"
Stopped the process out cold
Of confirming an IG who's sharp.
Corporate lawyer Madeleine Kaneas quoted by Mary
Pilon, "Fannie, Freddie, Bear & Hard Times: Wall Street's Collapse, Told in
Rhymes Crisis Inspires New Odes to Financial Ruin; Quoth the Trader,
'Nevermore'," The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123068329002444149.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of
government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote
themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public
treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal
policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Alexander Tyler. 1787 - Tyler was a Scottish history professor that had
this to say about 2000 years after "The Fall of the Athenian Republic" and about
the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution.
As quoted at
http://www.babylontoday.com/national_debt_clock.htm (where the debt clock in
real time is a few months behind)
The National Debt Amount This Instant (Refresh your browser for
updates by the second) ---
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
Question
As of December 2008, what do Zimbabwe and the United States have in common?
Answer
Rather than taxing or borrowing to cover deficit spending, both governments are
simply printing more money?
What's wrong with that?
First look at what it did to Zimbabwe. Then read about Gresham's Law ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_Law
The instant the Federal Reserve announced this new funding policy in December,
the U.S. dollar plunged in value relative to foreign currencies. The reason is
obvious.
"Fed Cuts Key Rate to a Record Low," by Edmund L. Andrews and Jackie Calmes,
The New York Times, December 16, 2008 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/business/economy/17fed.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=printing
money&st=cse
In effect, the Fed is stepping in as a
substitute for banks and other lenders and acting more like a bank itself.
“The Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote the
resumption of sustainable economic growth,” it said. Those tools include
buying “large quantities” of mortgage-related bonds, longer-term Treasury
bonds, corporate debt and even consumer loans.
The move came as President-elect Barack
Obama summoned his economic team to a four-hour meeting in Chicago to map
out plans for an enormous economic stimulus measure that could cost anywhere
from $600 billion to $1 trillion over the next two years.
The two huge economic stimulus programs,
one from the Fed and one from the White House and Congress, set the stage
for a powerful but potentially risky partnership between Mr. Obama and the
Fed’s Republican chairman, Ben S. Bernanke.
“We are running out of the traditional
ammunition that’s used in a recession, which is to lower interest rates,”
Mr. Obama said at a news conference Tuesday. “It is critical that the other
branches of government step up, and that’s why the economic recovery plan is
so essential.”
Financial markets were electrified by the
Fed action. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 4.2 percent, or 359.61
points, to close at 8,924.14.
Investors rushed to buy long-term Treasury
bonds. Yields on 10-year Treasuries, which have traditionally served as a
guide for mortgage rates, plunged immediately after the announcement to 2.26
percent, their lowest level in decades, from 2.51 percent earlier in the
day.
Yields on investment-grade corporate bonds
edged down to 7.215 percent on Tuesday, from 7.355 on Monday. Yields on
riskier high-yielding corporate bonds remained in the stratosphere at 22.493
percent, almost unchanged from 22.732 on Monday.
By contrast, the dollar dropped sharply
against the euro and other major currencies for the second consecutive day —
a sign that currency markets were nervous about a flood of newly printed
dollars.
Some analysts predict that the Treasury will have to sell $2 trillion worth
of new securities over the next year to finance its existing budget deficit,
a new stimulus program and to refinance about $600 billion worth of maturing
government debt.
For the moment, Mr. Obama and Mr. Bernanke
appear to be on the same page, though that could abruptly change if the
economy starts to revive. Fed officials have already assumed that Congress
will pass a major spending program to stimulate the economy, and they are
counting on it to contribute to economic growth next year.
In more normal times, the Fed might easily
start raising interest rates in reaction to a huge new spending program, out
of concern about rising inflation.
But data on Tuesday provided new evidence
that the biggest threat to prices right now was not inflation but deflation.
The federal government reported on Tuesday
that the Consumer Price Index fell 1.7 percent in November, the steepest
monthly drop since the government began tracking prices in 1947. The decline
was largely driven by the recent plunge in energy prices, but even the
so-called core inflation rate, which excludes the volatile food and energy
sectors, was essentially zero.
Mr. Obama’s goal is to have a package
ready when the new Congress convenes on Jan. 6. His hope is that the House
and Senate, with their bigger Democratic majorities, can agree quickly on a
plan for Mr. Obama to sign into law soon after he is sworn into office two
weeks later.
The Fed, in a statement accompanying its
rate decision, acknowledged that the recession was more severe than
officials had thought at their last meeting in October.
“Over all, the outlook for economic
activity has weakened further,” the central bank said.
“Labor market conditions have
deteriorated, and the available data indicate that consumer spending,
business investment and industrial production have declined.”
The central bank added: “The committee
anticipates that weak economic conditions are likely to warrant
exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for some time.”
With fewer than 10 days until Christmas,
retailers from Saks Fifth Avenue to Wal-Mart have been slashing prices to
draw in consumers, who have sharply reduced their spending over the last six
months. On Tuesday, Banana Republic offered customers $50 off on any
purchases that total $125. The clothing retailer DKNY offered customers $50
off any purchase totaling $250.
Ian Shepherdson, an analyst at High
Frequency Economics, said falling energy prices were likely to bring the
year-over-year rate of inflation to below zero in January.
The Fed has already announced or outlined
a range of unorthodox new tools that it can use to keep stimulating the
economy once the federal funds rate effectively reaches zero. On Tuesday,
Fed officials said they stood ready to expand them or create new ones to
relieve bottlenecks in the credit markets.
All of the tools involve borrowing by the
Fed, which amounts to printing money in vast new quantities, a process the
Fed has already started.
Since September, the Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned from about $900
billion to more than $2 trillion as it has created money and lent it out. As
soon as the Fed completes its plans to buy mortgage-backed debt and consumer
debt, the balance sheet will be up to about $3 trillion.
“At some point, and without knowing the
timing, the Fed is going to have to destroy all that money it is creating,”
said Alan Blinder, a professor of economics at Princeton and a former vice
chairman of the Federal Reserve.
“Right now, the crisis is created by the
huge demand by banks for hoarding cash. The Fed is providing cash, and the
banks want to hoard it. When things start returning to normal, the banks
will want to start lending it out. If that much money is left in the
monetary base, it would be extremely inflationary.”
This is the thing I’ve been afraid of ever since I
realized that Japan really was in the dreaded, possibly mythical liquidity trap.
You can read my 1998 Brookings Paper on the issue
here. Incidentally, there were a bunch of us at
Princeton worrying about the Japan problem in the early years of this decade. I
was one; Lars Svensson, currently at Sweden’s Riksbank, was another; a third was
a guy named Ben Bernanke. I wonder whatever happened to him?
Paul Krugman, "ZIRP," The New York Times, December 16, 2008
---
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/zirp/?scp=8&sq=printing money&st=cse
As it has so often in recent months, the market
elation that greeted the Federal Reserve's epic monetary easing earlier this
week has turned to worry. Stocks fell off again yesterday, but the big news of
the week has been the slide in the dollar. The nearby chart shows the
greenback's story since September. From its dangerous summer lows, the buck
soared at the height of the credit panic as investors looked for safety in a
hurricane. But the dollar has fallen like Newton's apple in December, as
Chairman Ben Bernanke and his comrades signaled that they are willing to cut
interest rates to near-zero and print as much money as it takes to prevent a
deflation.
"A Dollar Referendum Currency markets reflect a lack of faith in Bernanke,"
The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122965017184420567.html
James Howarth is a little confused by two letters he
has received from the Internal Revenue Service. The Detroit defense lawyer
received one letter in November that said he owed the IRS money — five cents. He
was warned that he should pay "to avoid additional penalty and/or interest," the
Detroit Free Press reported Saturday. Howarth says he then received a second
letter telling him the government owes him money — four cents. He was told he
would have to request the refund since it's less than $1.
"Detroit lawyer gets 5-cent IRS bill, 4-cent refund," Atlanta
Journal Constitution, January 5, 2008 ---
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/ODD_Change_Owed.html
Jensen Comment
Remember the compound interest factor. If the Canarsee Indians has invested the
$24 they received for Manhattan Island in 1626 at six percent compound interest,
they could buy back the entire island and all its skyscrapers today with plenty
of money left over. Actually the price was 60 Dutch Guilders which at the time
were worth somewhat more than $24.
Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with
what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody
murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over
a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even
clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting
mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay
the course." . . . Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for
paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care
problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away
at our country and milking the middle class dry. I have news for the gang in
Congress and the Senate. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing
and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is
being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some
bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys
show some spine for a change? I honestly don’t think any of you have one! . . .
The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in
handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody
seems to know what to do. And the press is waving ‘pom-poms’ instead of asking
hard questions. That’s not the promise of the ‘ America ‘ my parents and yours
traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?
Lee Iococca (the former and
successful CEO of Chrysler) as quoted in Jim Sinclair's Mailbox on
December 20, 2008 ---
http://www.jsmineset.com/
Madoff made off with $50 Billion!
Where did it go?
Who will pay it back?
Cartoon link forwarded by David
Fordham
http://blogs.indystar.com/varvelblog/archives/2008/11/feeding_time.html
|
A Tale of Four Investors
Forwarded by Dennis Beresford
Four investors made different
investment decisions 10 years ago. Investor one was extremely risk
averse so he put $1 million in a safe deposit box. Today he still
has $1 million. Investor two was a bit less risk averse so she
bought $1 million of 6% Fanny Mae Preferred. She put the $15,000
she received in dividends each quarter in a safe deposit box. After
receiving 40 dividends, she recently sold her investment for $20,000
so she now has $620,000 in her safe deposit box. Investor three was
less risk averse so he bought and held a $1 million well diversified
U.S. stock portfolio which he recently sold for $1 million, putting
the $1 million in his safe deposit box. Investor four had a friend
who knew someone who was able to invest her $1 million with Bernie
Madoff. Like clockwork, she received a $10,000 check each and every
month for 120 months. She cashed all the checks, putting the money
in her safe deposit box. She was outraged to learn that she will no
longer receive her monthly checks. Even worse, she lost all her
principal. She only has $1,200,000 in her safe deposit box. She
hopes the government will bail her out.
Lawrence D. Brown
J. Mack Robinson Distinguished Professor of Accounting
Georgia State University
December 18, 2008
|
"We need to
get out there and get names and get unified so that we can go to the
government and make our case," she said. "Everybody has a horror
story, everybody has bills, and everybody is devastated."
Joe Bruno quoting a Madoff Hedge Fund investor, "Madoff investors
hope for bailout," Associated Press, December 18, 2008
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hfAsiWtv09AYdmjEEn6e8BEaI-tgD955ECK80
But government program limits claims to
$500,000 even if claims are honored.
|
Moral of the
story: If you want to design such a scheme (with
unlimited claims) and get away with it,
make it legal — like investments in subprime mortgages, or
investments in energy from water. Then involve as many people as
possible, so that it becomes “too big to fail.” Some of the $700
billion bailout money may actually be used to rescue some of your
investors.
Utpal Bhattacharya, "Do Bailouts Encourage Ponzi Schemes?" The
New York Times, December 18, 2008 ---
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/do-bailouts-encourage-ponzi-schemes/?hp
Utpal Bhattacharya is finance professor at the Kelley School of
Business at Indiana University.
Banks Secretive About How Bailout
Money is Spent
But after receiving billions in aid from
U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track
exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to
discuss it. "We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've
not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,'" said
Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25
billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to
the public. We're declining to." The Associated Press contacted 21
banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and
asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on?
How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?
None of the banks provided specific answers.
"Where'd the Bailout Money Go? Shhhh, It's a Secret,"
AccountingWeb, December 22, 2008 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x64188.xml
Bob Jensen's threads on the bailout are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
|
At the same
time, HUD pressured the federally subsidized giants to lower their
loan-to-value ratios and other underwriting requirements to
accommodate minority borrowers. HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo even
admitted that the administration was mandating a policy of
"affirmative action" lending (his words, not ours).And it was
Clinton who initially spread the subprime rot to Wall Street. To
help Fannie and Freddie reach their "affirmative action" lending
quotas, HUD in 1995 let them get affordable-housing credit for
buying subprime securities that included loans to low-income
borrowers.Less than two years later, Freddie partnered with Wall
Street investment banker Bear Stearns to issue the first
securitizations of low-income CRA loans.There's even a press release
still available on the Web that memorializes the historic deal,
which dumped hundreds of millions of dollars in the risky loans on
the market — a down payment on the hundreds of billions that were to
follow.
"The Subprime Lending Bias," Investors Business Daily,
December 19, 2008 ---
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=314582096700459
|
For those who like a simple (yeah right) explanation of the financial crisis
---
http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/blog/jeff_frankels_weblog/2008/12/05/origins-of-the-economic-crisis-in-one-chart/
Few forecast these (2008 economic
meltdown) events; although, in an outbreak
of retrospective foresight, an increasing number now claim they saw
it coming. The reality is that among all the banks, investors,
academics and policy-makers, only a handful were able to identify
ahead of time the causes and potential scale of the crisis. (The
Handful were - Bill White, formerly of both the Bank of Canada and
the Bank for International Settlements; Harvard University’s Ken
Rogoff; Nouriel Roubini of New York University; Wynne Godley of
Cambridge; and Bernard Connolly of AIG Financial Products).
I came across
this
paper by Caludio Borio of BIS.
Amol Agrawal, Mostly Economics Blog, December 19,
2008 ---
http://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/
Jensen Comment
Hindsight: This 2006 video makes fools
out of Ben Stein and Art Laffer and makes a hero out of Peter
Schiff.
To this I might add Peter Schiff. Arthur
Laffer's preditions in 2006 predictions became a sick joke. Also you
Ben
Stein lovers may have second thoughts watching him proclaim, in
2006, that the subprime problem is going to be a "tiny" problem.
Watch Peter Schiff make fools out of
Art Laffer,
Ben Stein, and other finance “experts” in this video.
Watch Ben Stein recommend that you invest
heavily in Merrill Lynch before its shares tanked. Some of these
popular media "experts" need to spend more time studying and reading
and less time broadcasting poorly-researched advice to investors.
Peter Schiff, on the other hand, does his homework. This video is
really revealing about the advice we get on television.
The video is available at the Financial
Rounds Blog, November 18 at
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/peter-schiff-prophet-from-past.html
Update on the bet Art Laffer made with Peter Schiff ---
Listen to Laffer try to weasel out of paying up ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3WjgKUf-kA
SEC = Suckers Endup Cheated
David Albrecht, Bowling Green University"
SEC Director Chris Cox's reaction to the
Madoff scandal has been to blame his subordinates in the Commission,
rather than to take responsibility himself. That is not an endearing
reaction. The standard governmental response to a major governmental
failure is reorganization. The government wants to prove that it is
doing something to prevent a repetition of the failure, and the
cheapest yet most visible and dramatic way to show that it has
"gotten the message" and is going to "do something" is to
reorganize. Hence the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security and the Directorate of National Intelligence in the wake of
the 9/11 attacks. It is beginning to seem likely that there will be
an ambitious reorganization of the financial regulatory system. In
the course of that reorganization, the SEC may be abolished. If so,
Bernard Madoff and Christopher Cox can share the credit.
Richard Posner, "The Madoff Ponzi Scheme," The
Becker-Posner Blog, December 21, 2008 ---
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/
The most memorable line came from a Palm
Beach, Fla., doyenne who reportedly said of his name last week, "I
know it's pronounced 'Made-off,' because he made off with the
money." A more sober observation came from a Manhattan woman who
spoke, on the night Mr. Madoff was arrested, and as word spread
through a Christmas party, of the general air of collapse in America
right now, of the sense that our institutions are not and no longer
can be trusted. She said, softly, "It's the age of the empty suit."
. . . Those who were supposed to be watching things, making the
whole edifice run, keeping it up and operating, just somehow weren't
there. All this has hastened and added to the real decline in
faith—the collapse in faith—the past few years in our institutions.
Not only in Wall Street but in our entire economy, and in
government. And of course there's Blago. But the disturbing thing
there is that it seems to have inspired more mirth than anger. Did
any of your friends say they were truly shocked? Mine either. The
reigning ethos seems to be every man for himself . . . We should
experience "the current crisis" as "a gigantic wake-up call." We've
been living beyond our means, both governmentally and personally.
"We have to be willing to face up to our problems. But we have a
capacity to roll up our sleeves and get down to work together."
Peggy Noonan, "Who We (Still) Are: A little perspective
for the pessimistic "age of the empty suit," The Wall Street
Journal, December 19, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122963827032919761.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
The Performance of the
SEC is shameful: In 2005 the SEC was warned that Madoff was
running a Ponzi scheme
Due-diligence firms use the fees collected from their clients to
hire professionals to meticulously review hedge firms for signs of
deceit. One such firm is Aksia LLC. After painstakingly
investigating the operations of Madoff's operation, they found
several red flags. A brief summary of some of the red flags
uncovered by Aksia can be found here. Shockingly,
Aksia even
uncovered a letter to the SEC dating from 2005 which claimed that
Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme.
As a result of
its investigation, Aksia advised all of its clients not to invest
their money in Madoff's hedge fund. This is a perfect case study
showing that the SEC is incapable of protecting investors as well as
free-market institutions can. The SEC is becoming increasingly
irrelevant and people are beginning to take notice. It failed to
save investors from the house of cards made up of mortgage-backed
securities, credit default swaps, and collateralized debt
obligations that resulted from the housing bubble. Now it has failed
to protect thousands more individuals and charities from something
as simple and old as a Ponzi scheme!
Briggs Armstrong, "Madoff
and the Failure of the SEC," Ludwig Von Mises Institutue, December
18, 2008 ---
http://mises.org/story/3260
The chairman
of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation,
acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall
Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial
crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down. The S.E.C.’s oversight
responsibilities will largely shift to the Federal Reserve, though the
commission will continue to oversee the brokerage units of investment banks.
Also Friday, the S.E.C.’s inspector general released a report strongly
criticizing the agency’s performance in monitoring Bear Stearns before it
collapsed in March. Christopher Cox, the commission chairman, said he agreed
that the oversight program was “fundamentally flawed from the beginning.” “The
last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not
work,” he said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the
beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision
voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from
this voluntary supervision at their discretion diminished the perceived mandate”
of the program, and “weakened its effectiveness,” he added.
"S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaws Fueled Collapse," by Stephen Labaton, The
New York Times, September 26, 2008 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27sec.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Madoff losses will do what the SEC would not do ---
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_52/b4114000908444.htm?link_position=link1
Market choice will inflict far more damage to hedge funds than the government
could ever do.
There are seven sins in the world:
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice, and
Politics without principle.
Mahatma Gandhi as quoted recently in an
email message from Jagdish Gangolly
Wouldn’t it have been helpful if we had more
corporate executives and board members who’d had such training in their college
years and were primed to question the fundamental assumptions of the industries
in which they were engaged? Who didn’t assume that if they got a big bonus at
year’s end, they must be doing everything right? Instead, we are left with an
economy in near-ruin by the collective action of individuals who, I’m quite
sure, got good grades, who knew how to ace the examinations on which they’d been
coached, and whose long-term vision stretched no further than the end of the
term. That view is great while it lasts, but, like that shiny “A” one crams for
on the quiz, the substance is gone before the ink is dry.
Ralph Hexter (President of Hampshire
College), "The Economic Collapse and Educational Values," Inside Higher Ed,
December 18, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/12/18/hexter
"On Wall Street, Bonuses, Not Profits, Were
Real," by Louise Story, The New York Times, December 17, 2008 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/18pay.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
The financial services industry has claimed an
ever-growing share of the nation’s income over the past generation, making the
people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if
much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And it’s not
just a matter of money: the vast riches achieved by those who managed other
people’s money have had a corrupting effect on our society as a whole . . . But
surely those financial superstars must have been earning their millions, right?
No, not necessarily. The pay system on Wall Street lavishly rewards the
appearance of profit, even if that appearance later turns out to have been an
illusion . . . Now, as we survey the wreckage and try to understand how things
can have gone so wrong, so fast, the answer is actually quite simple: What we’re
looking at now are the consequences of a world gone Madoff.
Paul Krugman, "The Madoff Economy," The New York Times, December 19, 2008
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/opinion/19krugman.html?_r=1&em
Put Madoff In Charge of Social Security
W. Holman, The Wall Street
Journal, December 18, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122947442947812429.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Jensen Comment
The theory being that his fund and the U.S. Social Security System are both
Ponzi schemes and have similar accounting system deceptions --- no joke!
But there is a more compelling reason why Japanese
car makers would want welfare for Detroit: precisely because it would perpetuate
the high labor and retailing costs (and the UAW)
that put the Big Three at such a disadvantage vis-à-vis
Toyota and other foreign manufacturers.
The Wall Street Journal Newsletter,
December 16, 2008
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick make her, why can't Ford?
"Treasury to Ford: Drop Dead The GMAC rescue plays favorites," The Wall Street
Journal, January 2, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123085986972148021.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
When the Bush Treasury decided to bail out
Detroit, GM and Chrysler quickly said yes to the taxpayer cash, but Ford
Motor Co. said it didn't need the money and declined. Ford's reward for this
show of self-reliance? Treasury is now helping GM again by giving it a
credit pricing advantage against Ford in the marketplace
That's one little-noted result of
Treasury's action earlier this week to rescue GMAC, the GM credit arm that,
as it happens, is 51% owned by the Cerberus private-equity shop that also
owns Chrysler. With $5 billion in taxpayer cash in its pocket, GMAC quickly
decided to offer 0% financing on several of its models. "I think it would be
fair to say that without this change . . . we would not be able to do this
today," explained GM Vice President Mark LaNeve in a conference call with
reporters this week.
GM said it will offer 0% financing for up
to 60 months on the 2008 Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy and Saab 9-7X
sport utility vehicles through GMAC. The Saab 9-3 and 9-5 sedans also
qualify for 0% financing. The car maker is also offering financing between
0.9% and 5.9% on more than three dozen other 2008 and 2009 models, including
many trucks and SUVs. The deal runs through January 5, and no doubt GM is
hoping for a booming sales weekend.
The messy little policy issue is that
these GM products compete with those sold by Ford, Toyota, Honda and
numerous other car makers that won't benefit from GMAC's cash infusion. And
with the cost of financing often crucial to buyer decisions, the feds have
now put the muscle of the state behind one company's products.
Ford in particular must wonder what it did
to deserve this slap. CEO Alan Mulally joined the GM and Chrysler chiefs in
testifying for the bailout even while insisting his company didn't want the
funds. And once the bailout was announced, Mr. Mulally said that "All of us
at Ford appreciate the prudent step the Administration has taken to address
the near-term liquidity issues of GM and Chrysler." So much for gratitude.
Ford -- and for that matter Honda and
Nissan and most others -- makes cars with American workers. President Bush
justified the auto bailout in the name of saving jobs, but apparently GM's
jobs are more valuable than others. And with the taxpayers now having a
stake in GM and Chrysler success, the Washington temptation will be to take
other steps to help the two companies gain market share at the expense of
their private competitors. Never mind that Ford is still struggling and
Toyota recently posted its first full-year loss in 70 years.
This is always what happens when
politicians decide to muck around in private industry. Even when made with
the best intentions, their policy decisions have unintended consequences
that help some companies at the expense of others. Meanwhile, your neighbor
who buys a GM SUV this weekend with 0% financing should thank you when he
pulls into the driveway. He did it with your money.
Why not bail out everybody and everything? ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Everybody
It is not just
pit-gazing that is hard work, but life-gazing. It is difficult for us to
contemplate, fixedly, the possibility, let alone the certainty, that life is a
matter of cosmic hazard, its fundamental purpose mere self-perpetuation, that it
unfolds in emptiness, that our planet will one day drift in frozen silence, and
that the human species, as it has developed in all its frenzied and
over-engineered complexity, will completely disappear and not be missed, because
there is nobody and nothing out there to miss us. This is what growing up means.
And it is a frightening prospect for a race which has for so long relied upon
its own invented gods for explanation and consolation.
Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be
Frightened Of (Random House, 2008) as quoted in a recent email message by
Amy Dunbar
Amy points out that in spite of this morbid topic, the book is filled with humor
as well as serious philosophy of life.
THE LAST time sunspot activity was as minimal as it
is now was at the time of the ‘Federation droughts’ at the turn of the 20th
century, and that has local expert Robert Baker watching the Sun with the
keenest of interest. Dr Baker, of the University of New England, has put forward
an analysis which links periodic changes in the Sun’s magnetic field with global
weather patterns. This discovery could enable scientists to gain a clearer
understanding of how additional factors - such as greenhouse gases - contribute
to those weather patterns. A newly-published paper by Dr Baker establishes the
connection between solar cycles and the weather by correlating sunspot activity
and rainfall figures for south-eastern Australia over the past 130 years.
"Sunspot clue to weather," The Armidale Experess, December 24, 2008 ---
http://armidale.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/sunspot-clue-to-weather/1394623.aspx?storypage=1
School children have tried to poison their classmate
at a primary school in Hamburg because she was too smart, daily Express reported
this week. The eight-year old girl still can’t believe what happened to her.
“They wanted to poison me and wanted me to die,” she said in an interview on
television broadcaster RTL’s “Punkt12” show, the paper reported on Wednesday.
Her fourth grade classmates apparently disliked the smart girl because she got
the best marks and had already skipped two classes. Two boys and two girls were
so jealous they plotted to poison her. One of the boys mixed what the students
thought would be a deadly cocktail of shoe polish, perfume, window and bath
cleaner at home. Another boy poured the mix into the girl’s drink bottle during
recess the next day at school.
The Local, December 8, 2008 ---
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20081218-16221.html
Jensen Comment
In such places as Germany and Japan, the pressures on K-12 students to perform
is extreme since being admitted to college is much more competitive than it is
in the U.S. In the U.S. we have father’s getting into fist fights with other
fathers coaching Little League Baseball and a mother who murders a girl who
might beat her daughter in the cheerleading competition. Tonya Harding was part
of a conspiracy to injure Nancy Kerrigan’s Olympic skating challenge, and
repeatedly top athletes take illegal drugs to give them an unfair competitive
edge. Welcome to the new world!
The West is indirectly funding the insurgency in
Afghanistan thanks to a system of payoffs to Taleban commanders who charge
protection money to allow convoys of military supplies to reach Nato bases in
the south of the country. Contracts to supply British bases and those of other
Western forces with fuel, supplies and equipment are held by multinational
companies. However, the business of moving supplies from the Pakistani port of
Karachi to British, US and other military contingents in the country is largely
subcontracted to local trucking companies. These must run the gauntlet of the
increasingly dangerous roads south of Kabul in convoys protected by hired gunmen
from Afghan security companies. The Times has learnt that it is in the
outsourcing of convoys that payoffs amounting to millions of pounds, including
money from British taxpayers, are given to the Taliban.
Tom Coghlan, "Taleban tax: allied
supply convoys pay their enemies for safe passage," The London Times,
December 12, 2008 ---
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5327683.ece
The Internal Revenue Service is advising
(K-12, but not college) teachers and other educators to
save their receipts for purchases of books and other classroom supplies. They
will be able to deduct up to $250 of such expenses again this year, following
recently enacted legislation.
AccountingWeb, December 15, 2008 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x64079.xml
The number of black children being raised by two
parents appears to be edging higher than at any time in a generation, at nearly
40 percent, according to newly released census data. Demographers said such a
trend might be partly attributable to the growing proportion of immigrants in
the nation’s black population. It may have been driven, too, by the values of an
emerging black middle class, a trend that could be jeopardized by the current
economic meltdown. The Census Bureau attributed an indeterminate amount of the
increase to revised definitions adopted in 2007, which identify as parents any
man and woman living together, whether or not they are married or the child’s
biological parents.
Sam Roberts, "Two-Parent Black
Families Showing Gains," The New York Times, December 17, 2008 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/us/17census.html?_r=1
No coincidence, then, that Hyppolite, the narrator
of her first novel, would complain about professors who “raised problems only in
order to solve them, and brought their lectures to a conclusion with maddening
punctuality.” Instead, he goes to excesses that leave him half insane. For all
her interest in the avant garde, Sontag never pursued any course quite so
dramatic as that. Perhaps the stolidity won out in the end. She ended up, in her
later years, much closer to
Philip Rieff’s perspective on culture than either
of them might have admitted.“To write,” notes Sontag in 1961, “you have
to allow yourself to be the person you don’t want to be (of all the people you
are).” Self-creation, like self-consciousness itself, leads to all sorts of
paradoxes.Reborn gives readers a glimpse of this process as it unfolded at the
start of Sontag’s career. Two forthcoming volumes will carry the story to the
close of her life. (David Rieff’s recent book on her final days,
Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir,
offers a sort of preface to this body of posthumous writings by his mother.)
Scott McLemee, Becoming
Susan Sontag, Inside Higher Ed, December 17, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/12/17/mclemee
The Media Research Center, one of our best media
monitors, came up with this list of outrageous quotations for its 21st Annual
Awards for the Year’s (2008) Worst Reporting. A panel of 44 distinguished judges
determined the recipients of the awards. Among those judges were Midge Decter,
author; Barry Farber, radio talk show host; Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in
Media, another important media monitor; Marvin Olasky, editor of World magazine;
Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist, whose work appears in The Bulletin; and Walter
E. Williams, economics professor and syndicated columnist, whose work appears in
The Bulletin. We’ll start with the “Quote of the Year” as determined by the
panel of judges. It involved an exchange between Chris Matthews, co-anchor on
MSNBC, and Keith Olbermann, another MSNBC co-anchor:
Herb Denenberg, "Awards For The Year's Worst Reporting,
The Bulletin, December 30, 2008 ---
http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2008/12/30/herb_denenberg/doc495967ec1bdc7155302948.txt
California Courts Impose Liability Risks to Being Good Samaritans
Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier: Don't
help beyond dialing 911
The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a
young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn't immune from
civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical. The divided high
court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained
professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that
someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued. Lisa Torti of
Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by
yanking her "like a rag doll" from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.
Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow
department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that
ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004. But in a sharp dissent, three of the
seven justices said that by making a distinction between medical care and
emergency response, the court was placing "an arbitrary and unreasonable
limitation" on protections for those trying to help.The California Supreme Court
ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle
isn't immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical.
The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the
responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first
ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith
could be sued. Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered
by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her "like a rag doll" from the wrecked car on
Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Torti now faces possible liability for injuries
suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a
paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004. But
in a sharp dissent, three of the seven justices said that by making a
distinction between medical care and emergency response, the court was placing
"an arbitrary and unreasonable limitation" on protections for those trying to
help.
Carol J. Williams, "California Supreme Court allows good Samaritans to be sued
for nonmedical care," Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2008 ---
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-good-samaritan19-2008dec19,0,4033454.story
Baby Dolls Raise a Stink In More Ways Than One
Does this toy really help in child development or parenthood development (keep
in mind if you don't feed her she won't poo)?
Betsy Wetsy: Baby dolls just got a whole lot more real.
Put her on her little pink plastic toilet. Press the
purple bracelet on Baby Alive Learns to Potty. "Sniff sniff," she chirps in a
singsong voice. "I made a stinky!" This season's animatronic Baby Alive -- which
retails for $59.99 -- comes with special "green beans" and "bananas" that, once
fed to the doll, actually, well, come out the other end. "Be careful," reads the
doll's promotional literature, "just like real life, sometimes she can hold it
until she gets to the 'potty' and sometimes she can't!" (A warning on the back
of the box reads: "May stain some surfaces.")
Brigit Shulte, "Baby Dolls Raise a
Stink In More Ways Than One," The Washington Post, December 22, 2008 ---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
If Betsy Wetsy is not quite real enough, an elderly couple can rent a real child
for an outing in Japan. The rented child takes the place of grand children that
their own children either did not have or are unwilling to share for outings.
More serious and questionable child rental sites advertise child rental, but I
really don't know how legitimate, legal, and ethical such sites are in reality
---
http://www.rent-a-child.com/
Supposed cost of raising (not including college costs) of raising a child ---
http://www.rent-a-child.com/
Maybe it's better to settle for a Besy Wetsy
Accounting Question (possible student assignment in a cost
accounting course)
Why are there probably an enormous unstated variances around the cost
estimates shown at ---
http://www.rent-a-child.com/ ?
Estimating the cost of raising a child confronts a student with all sorts of
systemic problems of cost estimation, including issues of joint costing,
indirect costing, fixed costs that vary outside the period of time over which
fixed costs supposedly remain fixed, sunk costs, time value of money, nonlinear
costs, contingency costing such as health and provisions for handicaps,
estimation error such as estimation of future medical price inflation, etc.)
Bob Jensen's threads
on systemic problems in accountancy ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
- Systemic Problem:
All Aggregations Are Arbitrary
- Systemic Problem:
All Aggregations Combine Different Measurements With Varying
Accuracies
- Systemic Problem:
All Aggregations Leave Out Important Components
- Systemic Problem:
All Aggregations Ignore Complex & Synergistic Interactions
of Value and Risk
- Systemic Problem:
Disaggregating of Value or Cost is Generally Arbitrary
- Systemic Problem:
Systems Are Too Fragile
- Systemic Problem:
More Rules Do Not Necessarily Make Accounting for
Performance More Transparent
- Systemic Problem:
Economies of Scale vs. Consulting Red Herrings in Auditing
- Systemic Problem:
Intangibles Are Intractable
|
"The 'Market' Isn't So Wise After All: This year saw the end of an
illusion," by Thomas Frank, The Wall Street Journal, December 31,
2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069094735544743.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
As I read the last tranche of disastrous
news stories from this catastrophic year, I found myself thinking back to
the old days when it all seemed to work, when everyone agreed what made an
economy go and the stock market raced and the commentators and economists
and politicians of the world stood as one under the boldly soaring banner of
laissez-faire.
In particular, I remembered that
quintessential work of market triumphalism, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree,"
by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. It was published in the
glorious year 1999, and in those days, it seemed, every cliché was made of
gold: the brokerage advertisements were pithy, the small investors were
mighty, and the deregulated way was irresistibly becoming the global way.
In one anecdote, Mr. Friedman described a
visit to India by a team from Moody's Investor Service, a company that
carried the awesome task of determining "who is pursuing sound economics and
who is not." This was shortly after India had tested its nuclear weapons,
and the idea was that such a traditional bid for power counted for little in
this globalized age; what mattered was making political choices of which the
market approved, with organizations like Moody's sifting out the hearts of
nations before its judgment seat. In the end, Moody's "downgraded India's
economy," according to Mr. Friedman, because it disapproved of India's
politics. The Opinion Journal Widget
Download Opinion Journal's widget and link
to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web
page.
And who makes sure that Moody's and its
competitors downgrade what deserves to be downgraded? In 1999 the obvious
answer would have been: the market, with its fantastic self-regulating
powers.
But something went wrong on the road to
privatopia. If everything is for sale, why shouldn't the guardians put
themselves on the block as well? Now we find that the profit motive,
unleashed to work its magic within the credit-rating agencies, apparently
exposed them to pressure from debt issuers and led them to give high ratings
to the mortgage-backed securities that eventually blew the economy to
pieces.
And so it has gone with many other
shibboleths of the free-market consensus in this tragic year.
For example, it was only a short while ago
that simply everyone knew deregulation to be the path to prosperity as well
as the distilled essence of human freedom. Today, though, it seems this
folly permitted a 100-year flood of fraud. Consider the Office of Thrift
Supervision (OTS), the subject of a withering examination in the Washington
Post last month. As part of what the Post called the "aggressively
deregulatory stance" the OTS adopted toward the savings and loan industry in
the years of George W. Bush, it slashed staff, rolled back enforcement, and
came to regard the industry it was supposed to oversee as its "customers."
Maybe it's only a coincidence that some of the biggest banks -- Washington
Mutual and IndyMac -- ever to fail were regulated by that agency, but I
doubt it.
Or consider the theory, once possible to
proffer with a straight face, that lavishing princely bonuses and stock
options on top management was a good idea since they drew executives'
interests into happy alignment with those of the shareholders. Instead, CEOs
were only too happy to gorge themselves and turn shareholders into bag
holders. In the subprime mortgage industry, bankers handed out iffy loans
like candy at a parade because such loans meant revenue and, hence, bonuses
for executives in the here-and-now. The consequences would be borne down the
line by the suckers who bought mortgage-backed securities. And, of course,
by the shareholders.
At Washington Mutual, the bank that became
most famous for open-handed lending, incentives lined the road to hell.
According to the New York Times, realtors received fees from the bank for
bringing in clients, mortgage brokers got "handsome commissions for selling
the riskiest loans," and the CEO raked in $88 million from 2001 to 2007,
before the outrageous risks of the scheme cratered the entire enterprise.
Today we stand at the end of a long
historical stretch in which laissez-faire was glorified as gospel and the
business community got almost its entire wish list granted by the state. To
show its gratitude, the finance industry then stampeded us all over a cliff.
To be sure, some of the preachers of the
old-time religion now admit the error of their ways. Especially remarkable
is Alan Greenspan's confession of "shocked disbelief" on discovering how
reality differed from holy writ.
But by and large the free-market medicine
men seem determined to learn nothing from this awful year. Instead they
repeat their incantations and retreat deeper into their dogma, generating
endless schemes in which government is to blame, all sin originates with the
Community Reinvestment Act, and the bailouts for which their own flock is
desperately bleating can do nothing but harm.
And they wait for things to return to
normal, without realizing that things already have.
January 5, 2008 eply from Paul Williams after I asserted this is what he's
believed his entire adult life
Bob,
Not all of my life. As a "youngster" I was a true believer. But people
mature, both physically, ethically, and intellectually. The self-correcting
market is a myth based on Smith's analogizing to what was the 17th century
view of the natural world -- notably Newton's clockwork model and
naturalists belief in self-regulating natural forces (e.g., conditions
favorable for rabbit reproduction creates favorable conditions for fox
reproduction which automatically corrects for the overpopulation of
rabbits). All of this consistent with Biblical notions of the great
clockmaker in the sky -- "neither do they sow or reap, yet your Heavenly
Father takes care of them." Contemporary free-market ideologues have merely
substituted markets for gods that guide our affairs always in a favorable
direction (ala Dr. Pangloss).
Darwin, Freud and Einstein pretty much upset that
comfortable belief about the world. Unfortunately for the economics espoused
by the accountics, it is still stuck with a 17th century model. If it can
still be found, a very instructive collection of essays that were created
for a conference at the Yale School of Forestry in 1970 is titled, "Man and
his Environment: The Ecological Limits to Optimism." One essay, in
particular, by William R. Burch, Jr. is titled "Fishes and Loaves: Some
Sociological Observations on the Environmental Crisis."
Throughout your life there are those moments when
something you read or someone says that lead to epiphanies. This essay
connecting the inherent optimism of belief in the omniscience and justness
of markets to Biblical belief in miracles was one of those moments. In spite
of all of our contention that we are convinced only by the empirical
evidence, we persist in believing in things that the empirical evidence long
ago indicated was nonsense.
Paul
Bob Jensen's threads on the economic meltdown are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008bailout.htm
In particular note
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008bailout.htm#InvestmentBanking
AAUP Faculty Salary Survey ---
Click Here
Snipped ---
http://snipurl.com/2008aaupsalary [chronicle_com]
Reconstructing American History ---
http://newt.org/Portals/0/Capitol Visitor Center Report_.pdf
"Dissertation cheats: the dark, corrupt slice of the Internet," by
Zack Whittaker, zdnet, December 10, 2008 ---
http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=652&tag=rbxccnbzd1
I thank Scott Bonaker for pointing this link out to me.
The Internet is slowly becoming a rubbish tip for
junk, useless information, knitting patterns and videos of
blind Scottish men being hit in the nuts with a baseball.
Because nothing on the web really ever disappears,
we can see into the looking glass of the past.
Over the last few decades, we’ve accumulated a lot of content, and the
amount of “immoral” websites and services available; essay writing services
for university students who want to cheat, have increased. Take this made up
example:
Students can spend anything as little as a few
hours up to a few weeks for an average, normal essay part of their
undergraduate studies. Some will have more essays than others, but they’re
an important part of a qualification.
They show how the learner understands the knowledge they have acquired,
how to reference and cite sources, as well as a
discipline in writing formats. It’s an art, rather than a chore; maybe
that’s why so many Bachelor of Arts degree qualifications have essays - art
and arts.
But the other day, I received an email from
CheatHouse.com, a website which “specialises in essays and papers for
students”. They offer a variety of ways to plug into the database, but the
primary way is to pay for access, allowing you to read through and access
thousands of pre-written essays and dissertations.
From
their about page:
“To stimulate learning. Simply. We have gotten
a lot of critisism in the past, and I suspect this will continue in the
future, but we are trying to build a community, where students come
together.”
Considering the name of the damn website is “CheatHouse”,
are we supposed to fall for that? Now let’s face it; the chances of somebody
buying a unique essay to study it and not to plagiarise it, is
little-to-none. As a society, we are unfortunately not that moral.
It does, however, try to justify it on a specific
page buried within the mass of links, and dodging the “encouraging cheating”
question with another question; whilst creating a loophole to wiggle out of
the plagiarism question. Just because the person who wrote the essay cites
all the sources, references and acknowledges authors, doesn’t mean someone
else can hand it in as theirs. It just doesn’t work like that. A dictionary
definition won’t detract away from what appears to be a standard policy of a
university.
“So you didn’t write this essay?” … “No, but
all the sources are cited and it’s referenced.” … “Oh that’s OK then,
well done, you’ve got a first.”
Idiots.
Why pick out this website? Because not only do they
offer a slice of temptation cake to students, they also send out spam emails
to Hotmail addresses. I just wish I hadn’t deleted the email in the first
place. It’s not just them though; there are so many “services” out there
which promote and actively support this.
Google, back in June, began to blacklist
advertisements which promoted essay-writing services, which has certainly
cut the number of these immoral ads from the main Google search,
but for local search locales, it seems to have little effect.
Considering that a degree, or a masters or
doctorate qualification enables a person to go on to very specific,
specialised practices, I cannot see how the people who buy and use these
essays should be let through to graduate. They surely wouldn’t, except they
aren’t detected. The websites that provide these, especially this particular
website which spam’s people as well, should be absolutely ashamed of
themselves.
Putting it simply, it’s cheating a way into a
qualification, which could be used to gain a job position or academic
status. That, my friends, is fraud.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Plagiarism is generally thought of as being a literal or nearly-literal stealing
of parts of the writings of others. It can, however, also entail the stealing of
ideas without citation as to where those ideas were borrowed from in the
literature or other media. It is especially relevant in this era of Weblogs,
blogs, and YouTube where many ideas are stated that do not necessarily appear in
traditional printed versions such as journals and books.
By way of illustration, suppose I was looking for an idea for an accounting
dissertation. I stumble upon this particular module obscurely buried at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
How to play tricks on fair value accounting by "managing" the closing
price of key securities in the portfolio
Painting the Tape (also called Banging the Close)
This occurs when a portfolio manager holding a
security buys a few additional shares right at the close of business at an
inflated price. For example, if he held shares in XYZ Corp on the last day
of the reporting period (and it's selling at, say $50), he might put in
small orders at a higher price to inflate the the closing price (which is
what's reported). Do this for a couple dozen stocks in the portfolio, and
the reported performance goes up. Of course, it goes back down the next day,
but it looks good on the annual report.
Jason Zweig, "Pay Attention to That Window Behind the Curtain," The Wall
Street Journal, December 20, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122973369481523187.html?
The above module has great potential for dissertation study. A doctoral
student who does so, however, and fails to cite Jason Zweig for the idea is in
fact cheating even if not a single phrase is lifted from Zweig's article.
The problem with this non-literal text phrasing is that plagiarism search
engines often cannot detect the plagiarism of ideas.
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism and cheating are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Learning Styles Sites
January 1, 2009 message from Pat Wyman
[raisingsmarterchildren@gmail.com]
Hello Bob,
Happy New Year! Your name came up through a google
alert, attached to my website and the complimentary learning styles
inventory at
http://www.howtolearn.com
It is on your page, from the community at
http://www.elearninglearning.com/learning-styles/microsoft/&query=www.howtolearn.com
I want to thank you for this is and if there is any way I can contribute
to your blog and yours to mine, articles, interviews, etc. I'd love to
connect with you.
You're doing wonderful work!
Warmly,
Pat Wyman, M.A.
-- Pat Wyman Best selling author, Learning vs.
Testing Co-Author,
Book Of The Year In the Medicine Category, The Official Autism 101 Manual
University Instructor of Continuing Education, California State University,
East Bay Founder,
http://www.HowToLearn.com and
http://wwwRaisingSmarterChildren.com
Winner, James Patterson PageTurner Award Get your copy of Learning vs.
Testing with complimentary materials at http://www.learningvstesting4.html
Get Tips For Raising A Smarter Child at
http://www.RaisingSmarterChildren.com
"There are two ways you can live your life - one as
if nothing is a miracle, and the other as if everything is a miracle."
Albert Einstein
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment and learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on metacognitive learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on education technology ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Sex and the Modern Language Association Academic Conferences
One panelist shows up wearing a bathrobe
By comparison, academic accounting conferences are pretty darn dull
"Tricks of the Trade," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, January 2,
2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/02/mla
Here’s a shocker: The one-night stand may be being
replaced by long-term monogamous relationships when it comes to sex at
academic conferences. That was among the revelations Tuesday at a panel of
the Modern Language Association devoted to conference sex. Well, actually it
was devoted to theorizing and analyzing conference sex, although it was
probably the only session at the MLA this year in which a panelist appeared
in a bathrobe.
The annual meeting of the MLA has long been known
(and frequently satirized) for the sexual puns and imagery of paper titles —
even if many of the papers themselves are in fact more staid than their
names would suggest. As the MLA meeting concluded on Tuesday, however, one
session sought to put sex at academic conferences center stage. Drawing on
literature, theory and experience, panelists considered not only the role of
sex at conferences, but talked about identity, love and (perhaps more timely
to many MLA attendees) the dismal academic job market.
Many presenters at the MLA use categorization to
make their points, and this session was no exception. Jennifer Drouin, an
assistant professor of English and women’s studies at Allegheny College,
argued that there are eight forms of conference sex (although she noted that
some may count additional forms for each of the eight when the partners
cross disciplinary, institutional or tenure-track/non-tenure track, or
superstar/average academic boundaries).
The categories:
1. “Conference quickies” for gay male scholars to
meet gay men at local bars. 2. “Down low” sex by closeted academics taking
advantage of being away from home and in a big city. 3. “Bi-curious”
experimentation by “nerdy academics trying to be more hip” (at least at the
MLA, where queer studies is hip). This “increases one’s subversiveness”
without much risk, she said. 4. The “conference sex get out of jail free”
card that attendees (figuratively) trade with academic partners, permitting
each to be free at their respective meetings. This freedom tends to take
place at large conferences like the MLA, which are “more conducive” to
anonymous encounters, Drouin said. 5. “Ongoing flirtations over a series of
conferences, possibly over several years” that turn into conference sex.
Drouin said this is more common in sub-field conferences, where academics
are more certain of seeing one another from year to year if their meetings
are “must attend” conferences. 6. “Conference sex as social networking,”
where academics are introduced to other academics at receptions and one
thing leads to another. 7. “Career building sex,” which generally crosses
lines of academic rank. While Drouin said that this form of sex “may be
ethically questionable,” she quipped that this type of sex “can lead to
increased publication possibilities” or simply a higher profile as the less
famous partner tags along to receptions. 8. And last but not least — and
this was the surprise of the list: “monogamous sex among academic couples.”
Drouin noted that the academic job market is so tight these days that many
academics can’t live in the same cities with their partners. While many
colleges try to help dual career couples, this isn’t always possible, and is
particularly difficult for gay and lesbian couples, since not every college
will even take their couple status seriously enough to try to find jobs for
partners. So these long distance academic couples, gay and straight, tenured
and adjuncts, must take the best academic positions they can, and unite at
academic conferences. “The very fucked-upness of the profession leads to
conference fucking,” Drouin said.
The idea that many academic couples have so little
time together that they need academic conferences to see one another
suggests a broader comparison, she said. “Conference sex is a metaphor for
life in the academy: One takes what one can get when one can get it.”
Ann Pellegrini, associate professor of performance
studies and religious studies at New York University, was the panelist who
presented while in a bathrobe (although it should be noted in fairness that
she wore it over her clothes). While Pellegrini was playful in her attire,
her serious talk — which brought knowing nods in the audience — was about
how literature scholars’ infatuation with books and ideas is, for many of
them, the first love that dare not speak its name. “For many of us, books
were our first love object.”
What is “the passion that compels us to a specific
author,” she asked, or the genre that “makes us hot?”
For many academics, part of growing up was getting
strange looks from friends or family members who couldn’t understand all
that time reading, and who continue to not understand as a graduate student
devotes years to analyzing passages or an author’s story.
These kinds of passions lead to books that are in
some ways “annotated mash notes.” But however much passion academics feel
for the works they study, their devotion doesn’t fit into the categories of
“recognized intimacy” society endorses. At the MLA conference, with its
sessions and parties devoted to this or that subfield, such passions are to
be expected, but not elsewhere.
And Pellegrini noted that this separateness from
society extends beyond the initial connection between budding scholars and
some book or set of ideas. Academics are regularly “accused of speaking only
about ourselves,” she said. “But when we venture out into public square,”
and try to share both their knowledge and beliefs, “we are accused of being
narcissistic” and of speaking only in “impenetrable jargon.”
Milton Wendland of the University of Kansas linked
the jargon and exchanges of academic papers to academic conference sex. The
best papers, he said, “shock us, piss us off, connect two things” that
haven’t previously been connected. “We mess around with ideas. We present
work that is still germinating,” he said. So too, he said, a conference is
“a place to fuck around physically,” and “not as a side activity, but as a
form of work making within the space of the conference.”
At a conference, he said, “a collegial discussion
of methodology becomes foreplay,” and the finger that may be moved in the
air to illuminate a point during a panel presentation (he demonstrated while
talking) can later become the finger touching another’s skin for the first
time in the hotel room, “where we lose our cap and gown.”
For gay men like himself, Wendland said, conference
sex is particularly important as an affirmation of elements of gay sexuality
that some seem to want to disappear. As many gay leaders embrace gay
marriage and “heteronormative values,” he said, it is important to preserve
other options and other values.
“Conference sex encounters become more than mere
dalliance and physical release,” he said. It is a stand against the
“divorcing physicality from being human, much less queer,” he said.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen does not have any threads on sex. Perhaps sex is better without
threads.
The Anti-Intellectual Crisis
Now, in the post-9/11 era, American
anti-intellectualism has grown more powerful, pervasive, and dangerous than at
any time in our history, and we have a duty — particularly as educators — to
foster intelligence as a moral obligation. Or at least that is the urgent
selling point of a cartload of books published in the past several months.
Thomas H. Benton is the pen name of William Pannapacker, "On Stupidity" A
cartload of recent books suggests that it's time to reverse the customer-service
mentality plaguing academe," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 1.
2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/08/2008080101c.htm
The Latino Education Crisis
Latinos have the worst record of completing college
degrees of any group; between 9 and 11 percent for the last three decades;
African Americans, for example, have been making slow but steady progress over
the past three decades, from 11 percent in 1975 to 18 percent in 2006. Mothers
have been identified in many studies as being key to motivating their children
educationally. This is no different for Latinos, in spite of the fact that these
mothers have much less formal education, on average, than mothers of all other
major ethnic groups. Over 40 percent of Latina mothers have less than a high
school education. This compares to approximately 12 percent of African American
mothers.
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed,
December 22, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/22/latino
Nobel Prize Selection Committees Investigated for Bribery ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2152165/posts
Also see Celia Farber, Splice Today, December 11, 2008 ---
Click Here
Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts (Great Charts on Bad Budgeting)
---
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/BudgetChartBook/index.html
"Donor List," by Chuck Bennett, New York Post, December 18, 2008 ---
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12182008/news/nationalnews/bill_clinton_releases_donor_list_144800.htm
Also see
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
Former President Bill Clinton released a
list of donors to his private foundation this morning after resisting making
the names of his Saudi Arabian and other foreign benefactors public for
years.
The moves comes as Sen. Hillary Clinton
prepares to become Secretary of State under President-elect Barack Obama and
highlights the potential conflicts of interest she may face when sits down
to negotiate with heads of state of foreign countries.
For instance, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
itself donated between $10 million to $25 million to the William J. Clinton
Foundation, the nonprofit that manages his presidential library in Arkansas
as well as donate to charities around the world.
Foreign governments directly donated at
least $41 million.
In addition, Saudi businessman Nasser
Al-Rashid gave between $1 million to $5 million, as did the organizations
Friends of Saudi Arabia and the Dubai Foundation.
Other Middle Eastern government donors
include Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Oman - all of whom gave between $1 million
to $5 million. Norway donated $5 to $10 million while Italy and Jamaica gave
between $50,000 to $100,000.
Also on the list are influential Indian
politicians and businessmen which critics say could hurt a Secretary of
State Clinton's perception of being an impartial arbiter between India and
Pakistan.
The list also underscores ties between the
Clintons and India, a connection that could complicate diplomatic
perceptions of whether Hillary Clinton can be a neutral broker between India
and neighbor Pakistan in a region where President-elect Barack Obama will
face an early test of his foreign policy leadership
In 2007, 61.82% of America's public debt was held by foreign investors,
most of them Asian.
So the U.S. public debt held by nonresident foreigners is equal to about 109.39%
(113.86%) of GDP
"U.S. debt approaches insolvency In 2007, 61.82% of America's public debt was
held by foreign investors, most of them Asian," Spero News, December 19, 2008
---
http://www.speroforum.com/a/17305/US-debt-approaches-insolvency
In the United States, the danger of
debt insolvency is growing, putting at risk the currency reserves of foreign
countries, China chief among them. According to new figures published by
Bloomberg in recent days (Nov. 25,
2008 [1]),
the American government has employed a total of 8.549 trillion dollars to
stop the financial crisis. This means a total of about 24-25.4 trillion
dollars of direct or indirect public debt weighing on American taxpayers.
The complete tally must also include the debt - about 5-6 trillion dollars -
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are now quasi-public companies, because
79.9% of their capital is controlled by a public entity, the Federal Housing
Finance Agency, which manages them as a public conservatorship.
In 2007, public debt in the United
States was 10.6 trillion dollars, compared to a GDP (gross domestic product)
of 13.811 trillion dollars. In just one year, direct and indirect public
debt have grown to more than 100% of GDP, reaching 176.9% to 184.2%. These
percentages exclude the debt guaranteed by policies underwritten by AIG,
also nationalized, and liabilities for health spending (Medicaid and
Medicare) and pensions (Social Security)[2].
By way of comparison, the Maastricht accords require member states of the
European Union (EU) to reduce their public debt to no more than 60% of GDP.
Again by way of comparison, in one of the EU countries with the largest
public debt, Italy, public debt in 2007 was equal to 104% of GDP.
In 2007, 61.82%
[3] of America's
public debt was held by foreign investors, most of them Asian. So the U.S.
public debt held by nonresident foreigners is equal to about 109.39%
(113.86%) of GDP. According to a study by the International Monetary Fund,
countries with more than 60% of their public debt held by nonresident
foreigners run a high risk of currency crisis and insolvency, or debt
default. On the historical level, there are no recent examples of countries
with currencies valued at reserve status that have lapsed into public debt
insolvency. There are also few or no precedents of such a vast and rapid
expansion of public debt.
The United States also runs large deficits
in its public balance sheet and balance of trade. Families and businesses
are also deeply in debt: in 2007, American private debt was equal to a
little more than 100% of GDP. At the moment, it is not clear how much of
America's private debt has been "nationalized" with the recent bailouts.
In the early months of next year, when the
official data are published, the United States will run a serious risk of
insolvency. This would involve, in the first place, a valuation crisis for
the dollar. After this, the United States could face a social crisis like
that in Argentina in 2001. A crisis in U.S. public debt would likely have a
severe impact on the Asian countries that are the main exporters to the
United States, China first among them. Chinese monetary authorities, thanks
to a steeply undervalued artificial exchange rate, at about 55% of its fair
value, have limited imports (including food) and have achieved an export
surplus. This has allowed them to accumulate a large stockpile of dollar
reserves. In a currency crisis, China risks losing much of the value of its
accumulated currency reserves. At the same time, pressure on imports (wheat,
other grains, and meat) have led to inflation in the prices of food, the
most important expenditure for more than 900 million Chinese. This is
nothing more than a small confirmation of the recent statements of the pope,
in his message for the World Day for Peace, where the pontiff calls the
current financial system and its methods "based upon very short-term
thinking," without depth and breadth (nos. 10-12), preoccupied with creating
wealth from nothing and leading the planet to its current disaster.
[4]
[1] See Bloomberg, 2008, 11-25 16:35:48.130 GMT “U.S.
Pledges Top $8.5 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit (Table)”
[2] In this case, exluding AIG policies, one arrives at a
total equal to 429.37 of GDP.
[3] Cf.
Economic crisis: US, China and the coming monetary storm
[4] Cf. AsiaNews.it 11/2/2008
Message for Peace
2009: the poor, wealth of the world;
Global solidarity to fight poverty and build peace, says Pope
Bob Jensen's threads on the National Debt time bomb are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on the Bailout's Hidden Agenda are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#HiddenAgendaDetails
"Financial Restoration for the United States," December 2008," by
James C. VanHorne, A. P. Giannini Professor of Banking and Finance at
Stanford University, December 2008 ---
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/financial-restoration.html/?tr=kb0812
The Antecedents to 2008 During the past 200 years,
there have been 16 credit crises in the United States, all marked by
speculative excesses in the years immediately preceding. Following the 1907
and early 1930s crises, the Congress undertook substantial reform of the
financial services industry. Again it is time for substantial
regulatory/supervisory change. Recall that beginning in the late 1970s,
there began a period of deregulation of financial services in the United
States. Much good came in lowering costs and inconvenience, but it came with
greater risk taking and less disciplined behavior. No longer did a lender
need to carry a loan on its own books, but could securitize it and capture
fat front-end fees and not have to worry if the borrower paid.
Self-regulation and market discipline, frequently quixotic, cannot stem the
type of systemic risk we have recently experienced.
The Reform Needed As the ultimate safeguard to stem
a financial panic, the government should have in place the apparatus that
will allow it to curtail speculative excesses in advance of their triggering
a financial panic. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” if you
will. A number of things are in order. Regulatory authorities dealing with
the financial services industry broadly defined should be consolidated.
There are too many of them, often with conflicting objectives, and
competition among them—relics of the past. More specifically, I would have
the Securities and Exchange Commission responsible only for disclosure of
information to investors on new and existing securities, together with
oversight of mutual funds. No regulation of investment banks and others, for
which it has proven to be inept. The FDIC should continue its present role,
as should the Fed under its now expanded mandate.
I would consolidate all other regulatory agencies
into a new agency with broad powers to regulate investment banks, insurance
companies, mortgage companies, hedge funds, finance companies, thrifts,
credit unions, commodity firms, brokerage firms, prime brokers, derivative
and futures markets dealers, and banks not regulated by the Fed and FDIC.
Any U.S. or foreign financial institution that operates in U.S. financial
markets would fall under the agency’s purview. For other than depository
institutions, however, I would establish size thresholds for inclusion in
regulatory oversight; say, above $10 billion in assets and/or $40 billion in
derivative positions (notional amount) for a single institution or
collective institutions under interlocking ownership. Supervisory and
regulatory oversight would embrace asset quality, leverage, and counterparty
risk, as well as overall risk with full power of the agency to curtail
overly risky activities. The governing board should be independent and
appointed by the Congress and the president for, say, 10-year terms on a
staggered basis.
As part of the change, a new department should be
established to facilitate workouts for mortgages and other loans. Presently
many loans have been securitized with legal impediments to workouts.
Efficiently managed workouts benefit both the borrower, in reducing payment
outlays, and the lender, in not having to charge off as much of the loan.
While many other worthwhile changes are possible, I will mention only three.
1) Restore the uptick rule, where short sales can be consummated only upon a
rise in security price. This is a better remedy than periodically freezing
short sales. 2) Require loan originators to retain a small portion, say 5 to
7 percent, of loans that are securitized. This creates a discipline that
otherwise does not occur. 3) Have credit-rating agencies paid by the
government from fees collected by the government from security issuers. This
move will result in more objectivity and align the incentives of the rating
agencies with investors.
Social Allocation of Capital Finally, the method by
which the capital is socially allocated is a matter of concern. Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac were actively pressured by the Congress and the Department
of Housing and Urban Development to promote housing ownership through low/no
down payment and deferred interest types of mortgages. Seemingly there is no
cost, as long as the government’s implicit guarantee of these agencies does
not occur. When it did in 2008, the cost is huge. A more efficient method
for socially allocating capital is for the government to pay an
interest-rate and/or principal subsidy to the lender or to the borrower for
certain types of socially desirable loans. In this manner, the lender
receives the market clearing rate of interest while the borrower pays this
rate minus the subsidy. The cost of socially allocating capital is
recognized up front and the allocation of capital in society is more
efficient.
A Closing Thought While not a complete or
comprehensive set of reforms, I believe the proposals outlined above would
do much to reduce systemic risk in the financial services industry and save
taxpayers much in the process.
James VanHorne
Note: Below are listed the credit crises in the United States during the
past 200 years by year in which they (approximately) began and/or peaked.
There is no beginning/peak in the 1930s, as there were several. During the
War of 1812 there was a credit crisis of sorts. However, it was not
occasioned by speculative excesses in the years preceding but rather by the
British occupying Washington and I have chosen not to include it. The
classifications are partially subjective on my part – particularly with
respect to the exact year in which a crisis occurred.
The credit crises by year are: 1819; 1837; 1857; 1873; 1893; 1907; 1919;
1930s; 1949; 1958; 1970; 1974; 1981; 1991; 2002; 2008.
Bob Jensen's threads on the financial crisis of 2008 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
"U.S. Deficit Would Top $1 Trillion with New Method (more accurate
method of accounting)," AccountingWeb, December 15, 2008 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x64135.xml
The federal deficit for 2008 would top $1 trillion
if the government had to use the same accounting methods as private
companies.
And that doesn't even account for the huge costs of
the Wall Street bailout, which didn't really start until the new budget year
began on Oct. 1.
The government is promising $49 trillion more than
it can deliver on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid over the next 75
years unless Congress steps in to shore up the system. Some combination of
tax increases, benefit cuts or other policy changes is needed to stave off
unsustainable deficits.
That was the finding Monday when the administration
released a 188-page "Financial Report of the United States Government" for
the 2008 budget year that ended on Sept. 30.
The report, released by the Treasury Department and
the White House budget office, found that under the accrual method of
accounting used by businesses, the deficit for 2008 would have totaled $1
trillion - not the $455 billion reported in October under the cash system of
accounting.
Under the accrual method, expenses are recorded
when they are incurred rather than when they are paid. That tends to raise
costs for liabilities such as pensions and health insurance. The big jump in
the 2008 budget year was largely due to changed calculations for the payment
of veterans benefits.
Even under regular cash accounting, the deficit is
expected to top a staggering $1 trillion for the ongoing 2009 fiscal year,
reflecting the costs of the Wall St. bailout, weaker tax revenues from the
deepening recession and the costs of President-elect Barack Obama's upcoming
economic recovery measure.
What's more: The report doesn't factors in the
enormous potential liabilities incurred by the Federal Reserve System over
the past few months as it has tried to stabilize the financial system by
taking steps like guaranteeing $306 billion worth of Citigroup troubled
assets. Fed transactions aren't reported on the government's books.
Despite the turmoil caused by the financial crisis,
the longer term liabilities facing the government are even more staggering.
Virtually every budget expert warns that the
long-term costs of federal retirement programs like Social Security and
Medicare are going to swamp the budget as more and more baby boomers retire.
The long-term shortfall for Medicare grew by $3.1 trillion over the past
year.
"This report shows we have fiscal cancer and once
you have cancer you have to treat it,' said Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee
Democrat. "Our problems are metastasizing at the rate of about $3 trillion a
year, and that's before the bailout."
"We must not forget the long-term needs that pose a
significant threat to our economy's fiscal sustainability," said Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson. "Changes are needed to ensure these programs are
fiscally sustainable."
"It is without question that we face extraordinary
challenges in our financial markets and the larger economy," said White
House budget chief Jim Nussle. "As a result, the bottom-line budget results
in the short-term are sobering."
The fiscal results also amplify President George W.
Bush's record on the deficit. Virtually every administration promise on the
deficit has failed to come to pass.
Bush hands President-elect Barack Obama a
government in bad fiscal shape, but Obama's unlikely to tackle the deficit
until an economic recovery begins.
Bush inherited a budget seen as producing endless
huge surpluses after four straight years in positive territory. That stretch
of surpluses represented a period when the country's finances had been
bolstered by a 10-year period of uninterrupted economic growth, the longest
expansion in U.S. history.
Twelve years ago, Congress ordered the government
to start issuing annual reports using the accrual method of accounting in an
effort to show the finances in a way that was comparable with the private
sector.
Bob Jensen's threads on the entitlement program economic disaster are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm
Question
How did a grandmother help build the corruption case against the Democratic
Party political machine in Illinois?
"Secret Tapes Helped Build Graft Cases In Illinois: Hospital CEO
Reported Shakedown, Wore Wire," by Carrie Johnson and Kimberly Kindy, The
Washington Post, December 22, 2008 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/21/AR2008122102334.html?hpid=topnews
The wide-ranging public corruption probe that led
to the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich got its first big break when
a grandmother of six walked into a breakfast meeting with shakedown artists
wearing an FBI wire.
Pamela Meyer Davis had been trying to win approval
from a state health planning board for an expansion of Edward Hospital, the
facility she runs in a Chicago suburb, but she realized that the only way to
prevail was to retain a politically connected construction company and a
specific investment house. Instead of succumbing to those demands, she went
to the FBI and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in late 2003 and agreed
to secretly record conversations about the project.
Her tapes led investigators down a twisted path of
corruption that over five years has ensnared a collection of
behind-the-scenes figures in Illinois government, including Joseph Cari Jr.,
a former Democratic National Committee member, and disgraced businessman
Antoin "Tony" Rezko.
On Dec. 9, that path wound up at the governor's
doorstep. Another set of wiretaps suggested that Blagojevich was seeking to
capitalize on the chance to fill the Senate seat just vacated by
President-elect Barack Obama.
Many of the developments in Operation Board Games
never attracted national headlines. They involved expert tactics in which
prosecutors used threats of prosecution or prison time to flip bit players
in a tangle of elaborate schemes that Fitzgerald has called pay-to-play "on
steroids."
But now, Fitzgerald's patient strategy has led to
uncomfortable questions not only for Blagojevich but also for the powerful
players who privately negotiated with him, unaware that their conversations
were being monitored. Democratic Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. faces queries
about his interest in the Senate seat, and key players in the Obama
presidential transition team -- White House Chief of Staff-designate Rahm
Emanuel and adviser Valerie Jarrett -- are being asked about their contacts
with the governor on the important appointment.
Pamela Meyer Davis had been trying to win approval
from a state health planning board for an expansion of Edward Hospital, the
facility she runs in a Chicago suburb, but she realized that the only way to
prevail was to retain a politically connected construction company and a
specific investment house. Instead of succumbing to those demands, she went
to the FBI and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in late 2003 and agreed
to secretly record conversations about the project.
Her tapes led investigators down a twisted path of
corruption that over five years has ensnared a collection of
behind-the-scenes figures in Illinois government, including Joseph Cari Jr.,
a former Democratic National Committee member, and disgraced businessman
Antoin "Tony" Rezko.
On Dec. 9, that path wound up at the governor's
doorstep. Another set of wiretaps suggested that Blagojevich was seeking to
capitalize on the chance to fill the Senate seat just vacated by
President-elect Barack Obama.
Many of the developments in Operation Board Games
never attracted national headlines. They involved expert tactics in which
prosecutors used threats of prosecution or prison time to flip bit players
in a tangle of elaborate schemes that Fitzgerald has called pay-to-play "on
steroids."
But now, Fitzgerald's patient strategy has led to
uncomfortable questions not only for Blagojevich but also for the powerful
players who privately negotiated with him, unaware that their conversations
were being monitored. Democratic Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. faces queries
about his interest in the Senate seat, and key players in the Obama
presidential transition team -- White House Chief of Staff-designate Rahm
Emanuel and adviser Valerie Jarrett -- are being asked about their contacts
with the governor on the important appointment.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"The Most Criminal Class Writes the Laws" ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#Lawmakers
Can you activate Microsoft Office on another computer?
I checked with a Microsoft contact (that's one of
the perks of my job, and it's a lot easier than trying to decipher an End User
Licensing Agreement). The answer is yes. You're allowed to move a license (how
many licenses you have depends on your version of Office) from one computer to
another. You can also reinstall it onto the same computer. Should the activation
wizard refuse to reactivate, call the 800 number displayed on your screen. A
customer service representative will fix the problem for you. (to
which Jensen comments "yeah right!"
Lincoln Spector, PC World via The Washington Post, December
22, 2008 ---
Click Here
Bob Jensen's technology helpers are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm
This sure beats having the government buy the garbage!
If your executives got you into garbage investments, pay their bonuses in
garbage
From the "Best of the Web Today" newsletter of The Wall Street Journal
on December 19, 2008
A Financial Innovation Everyone Should Love
"Credit Suisse Group AG's investment bank has found a
new way to reduce the risk of losses from about $5 billion of its most
illiquid loans and bonds: using them to pay employees' year-end bonuses,"
Bloomberg reports:
The bank will use leveraged loans and commercial
mortgage- backed debt, some of the securities blamed for generating the
worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, to fund executive
compensation packages, people familiar with the matter said. The new
policy applies only to managing directors and directors, the two most
senior ranks at the Zurich-based company, according to a memo sent to
employees today.
"While the solution we have come up with may not
be ideal for everyone, we believe it strikes the appropriate balance
among the interests of our employees, shareholders and regulators and
helps position us well for 2009," Chief Executive Officer Brady Dougan
and Paul Calello, CEO of the investment bank, said in the memo.
The securities will be placed into a so-called
Partner Asset Facility, and affected employees at the bank,
Switzerland's second biggest, will be given stakes in the facility as
part of their pay. Bonuses will take the first hit should the securities
decline further in value.
This is such a great idea, we're
surprised it took this long for someone to think of it. And contrary to the
memo, this does seem "ideal for everyone." Shareholders gets relief from the
risk associated with imprudent investments. Credit Suisse executives get
their bonuses despite having made those imprudent investments--and if the
risk pays off, they get the reward. What's not to like?
Labor Unions Want Less Financial Disclosure and accountability: Why?
From day one of the Obama era, union leaders want
the lights dimmed on how they spend their mandatory member dues. The AFL-CIO's
representative on the Obama transition team for Labor is Deborah Greenfield, and
we're told her first inspection stop was the Office of Labor-Management
Standards, or OLMS, which monitors union compliance with federal law. Ms.
Greenfield declined to comment, citing Obama transition rules, but her mission
is clear enough. The AFL-CIO's formal "recommendations" to the Obama team call
for the realignment of "the allocation of budgetary resources" from OLMS to
other Labor agencies. The Secretary should "temporarily stay all financial
reporting regulations that have not gone into effect," and "revise or rescind
the onerous and unreasonable new requirements," such as the LM-2 and T-1
reporting forms. The explicit goal is to "restore the Department of Labor to its
mission and role of advocating for, protecting and advancing the interests of
workers." In other words, while transparency is fine for business, unions are
demanding a pass for themselves.
"Quantum of Solis Big labor wants Obama to dilute union disclosure rules,"
The Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122990431323225179.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Advice on How to Study
December 30, 2008 email
message from David Albrecht
[albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]
I'm starting to get my spring courses together. I
usually put some "how to study" resources into my syllabus. Here are the
resources that I'll link to this time around.
from accounting professor
http://profalbrecht.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/ace-your-accounting-classes-12-hints-to-maximize-your-potential/
Howtostudy.org
http://www.howtostudy.org/
How-to-study.com
http://www.how-to-study.com/
Keys to effective studyt
http://www.adprima.com/studyout.htm
from pharmacy professor
http://www.uic.edu/classes/phar/phar332/how to study.htm
David Albrecht
Bob Jensen's threads on resources are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm#Resources
Every so often we check in on one of the most
popular threads on The Chronicle’s discussion forums — called
“‘Favorite’ student e-mails,” — where professors
post amusing (and often frustrating) messages from their students. The
professors change the names and course titles to protect the clueless and to
comply with student-privacy laws.
Here are three recent entries, along with thoughts
about what they say about student attitudes toward professors in an age of
e-mail.
Many Students Ask for Do-Overs
Many of the e-mail messages posted by professors
involve students pleading for a chance to do extra academic work or to
retake tests to raise their grades.
This one got a particularly lively response on the
forums:
Dear Professor, I saw that I lost points on the
lab for questions I left blank. I thought they were rhetorical questions.
Can I answer them now and get back the points?
-Sweet Student Who Marches to a Different Drummer
As the professor explains: “This really is a
favorite e-mail because the student is a sweet kid and I do believe him, but
I swear I have no idea how to respond to this.”
And Students Offer to Do More Than Just Homework
Since it is finals season at many colleges, several
professors have recently posted student e-mail messages begging for higher
grades, one way or another. Like
this one:
Dr. Kif,
I worked my butt off on the paper, and I will honestly do
ANYTHING it takes to get a C in the class. I don’t think you
understand how desperate I am for a C. I don’t know where I went wrong on
the final either…I thought I did so well??? I’ll cook you breakfast, lunch,
dinner, and serve it to you. I mean…I’m pretty freaking desperate,
obviously. Please let me do something. You name it…anything.
Thanks so much,
Pretty Little Snowflake Thang
As the professor joked, “Hmm. My car does need
washing. And those leaves are piling up.”
One Professor Starts Semester With Guidelines
for Sending E-Mail Messages
One professor said he or she got one too many
e-mail messages like this: “i haven’t looked on
blackboard yet but i’m wondering where the video lecture is.” Turns out, the
video lectures were clearly on Blackboard, the college’s course-management
system, and in a folder marked “Video Lectures.”
So the professor has started setting some e-mail
ground rules at the beginning of the semester. “I will say that I begin
every semester off with a brief introduction of how to email a professor,”
the faculty member writes. “I do this in my undergraduate, graduate, and
online courses. I don’t have time to try and decipher an e-mail that doesn’t
make sense. And I tell them that if they don’t get a response within 24
hours, it’s because their e-mail was grammatically incorrect, rude, or
completely incoherent. This has helped so much with the disrespectful,
ignorant, and confusing emails. I also tell students to write down all of
their questions, try to figure them out on their own, and then email me all
questions in one email if, and only if, they are unable to figure it out.”
Have others tried creating similar rules for their
courses?
December 17, 2008 message from Scott Bonacker CPA
[cpa@BONACKERS.COM]
I have been reading a book that is helping to put a
perspective on things. Much of what is happening now has happened many times
before, and will probably continue to occur periodically in the future.
http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/1594201927
The writer tells a good story, by which I mean it
is understandable and I don't feel overwhelmed with statistics and technical
jargon.
Scott Bonacker CPA
Springfield, MO
This site has been around for years, but it is still interesting
Text to Speech ---
http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal
RFID Vendor Site
December 31, 2008 message from Holly Andrews
[hollya968@hotmail.com]
Hi Bob!
I was checking out your page on ubiquitous
computing page earlier, found here:
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm
Some great stuff here! I was particularly
interested in your section "have your objects call my objects." Very
interesting article. I find the development of RFID fascinating, especially
considering such giant retailers as Wal Mart are utilizing it. I'm doing
some research on barcode technology and RFID. My parents opened a store over
the summer, and they're having trouble keeping track of their products and
inventory.
Also, I got a lot of good information on RFID,
barcode equipment and information on Barcodes Inc.
They're a vendor too, and we're thinking about
getting some of their products to try and streamline things a bit. Thought
it would be a good resource for your readers, as it was for us. They have a
lot of excellent introductory information that hopefully you'll find useful.
Here's the URL if you're interested in adding it:
http://www.barcodesinc.com/solutions/rfid-solutions/
Thanks again.
Regards,
Holly Andrews
The Latino Education Crisis
Latinos have the worst record of completing college
degrees of any group; between 9 and 11 percent for the last three decades;
African Americans, for example, have been making slow but steady progress over
the past three decades, from 11 percent in 1975 to 18 percent in 2006. Mothers
have been identified in many studies as being key to motivating their children
educationally. This is no different for Latinos, in spite of the fact that these
mothers have much less formal education, on average, than mothers of all other
major ethnic groups. Over 40 percent of Latina mothers have less than a high
school education. This compares to approximately 12 percent of African American
mothers.
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, December 22, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/22/latino
DSL Information
December 24, 2008 message from ashley smith
[ashleys780@gmail.com]
Hi Professor Jensen,
I'm a Trinity alum and I was looking over the
school's site when I came across when I came across your FAQs about the WWW
page. Great Idea. I know I could use a lot more knowledge when it comes to
the Internet and computers. I noticed you had a section on ISPs. I use Qwest
for my Internet Service and they have some useful info about DSL on their
site:
http://www.qwestdeal.com/faq.html . Just thought since it helped me out
it could potentially dumb things down for some of your other users. I'm no
computer wiz, but it helped me a ton! Happy Holidays,
Ashley Smith
Bob Jensen's technology bookmarks are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm
Bob Jensen's Technology Glossary is at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm
"America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree," by Marty
Nemko, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2. 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i34/34b01701.htm
Also, the past advantage of college graduates in
the job market is eroding. Ever more students attend college at the same
time as ever more employers are automating and sending offshore ever more
professional jobs, and hiring part-time workers. Many college graduates are
forced to take some very nonprofessional positions, such as driving a truck
or tending bar.
How much do students at four-year institutions
actually learn?
Colleges are quick to argue that a college
education is more about enlightenment than employment. That may be the
biggest deception of all. Often there is a Grand Canyon of difference
between the reality and what higher-education institutions, especially
research ones, tout in their viewbooks and on their Web sites. Colleges and
universities are businesses, and students are a cost item, while research is
a profit center. As a result, many institutions tend to educate students in
the cheapest way possible: large lecture classes, with necessary small
classes staffed by rock-bottom-cost graduate students. At many colleges,
only a small percentage of the typical student's classroom hours will have
been spent with fewer than 30 students taught by a professor, according to
student-questionnaire data I used for my book How to Get an Ivy League
Education at a State University. When students at 115 institutions were
asked what percentage of their class time had been spent in classes of fewer
than 30 students, the average response was 28 percent.
That's not to say that professor-taught classes are
so worthwhile. The more prestigious the institution, the more likely that
faculty members are hired and promoted much more for their research than for
their teaching. Professors who bring in big research dollars are almost
always rewarded more highly than a fine teacher who doesn't bring in the
research bucks. Ernest L. Boyer, the late president of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, used to say that winning the
campus teaching award was the kiss of death when it came to tenure. So, no
surprise, in the latest annual national survey of freshmen conducted by the
Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los
Angeles, 44.6 percent said they were not satisfied with the quality of
instruction they received. Imagine if that many people were dissatisfied
with a brand of car: It would quickly go off the market. Colleges should be
held to a much higher standard, as a higher education costs so much more,
requires years of time, and has so much potential impact on your life.
Meanwhile, 43.5 percent of freshmen also reported "frequently" feeling bored
in class, the survey found.
College students may be dissatisfied with
instruction, but, despite that, do they learn? A 2006 study supported by the
Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below
"proficient" levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as
understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card
offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The
students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas
station.
Unbelievably, according to the Spellings Report,
which was released in 2006 by a federal commission that examined the future
of American higher education, things are getting even worse: "Over the past
decade, literacy among college graduates has actually declined. … According
to the most recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, for instance, the
percentage of college graduates deemed proficient in prose literacy has
actually declined from 40 to 31 percent in the past decade. … Employers
report repeatedly that many new graduates they hire are not prepared to
work, lacking the critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills
needed in today's workplaces."
What must be done to improve undergraduate
education?
Colleges should be held at least as accountable as
tire companies are. When some Firestone tires were believed to be defective,
government investigations, combined with news-media scrutiny, led to higher
tire-safety standards. Yet year after year, colleges and universities turn
out millions of defective products: students who drop out or graduate with
far too little benefit for the time and money spent. Not only do colleges
escape punishment, but they are rewarded with taxpayer-financed student
grants and loans, which allow them to raise their tuitions even more.
I ask colleges to do no more than tire
manufacturers are required to do. To be government-approved, all tires must
have — prominently molded into the sidewall — some crucial information,
including ratings of tread life, temperature resistance, and traction
compared with national benchmarks.
Going significantly beyond the recommendations in
the Spellings report, I believe that colleges should be required to
prominently report the following data on their Web sites and in recruitment
materials:
- Value added. A national test, which could be
developed by the major testing companies, should measure skills
important for responsible citizenship and career success. Some of the
test should be in career contexts: the ability to draft a persuasive
memo, analyze an employer's financial report, or use online research
tools to develop content for a report.
Just as the No Child Left Behind Act mandates
strict accountability of elementary and secondary schools, all colleges
should be required to administer the value-added test I propose to all
entering freshmen and to students about to graduate, and to report the
mean value added, broken out by precollege SAT scores, race, and gender.
That would strongly encourage institutions to improve their
undergraduate education and to admit only students likely to derive
enough benefit to justify the time, tuition, and opportunity costs.
Societal bonus: Employers could request that job applicants submit the
test results, leading to more-valid hiring decisions.
- The average cash, loan, and work-study
financial aid for varying levels of family income and assets, broken out
by race and gender. And because some colleges use the drug-dealer scam —
give the first dose cheap and then jack up the price — they should be
required to provide the average not just for the first year, but for
each year.
- Retention data: the percentage of students
returning for a second year, broken out by SAT score, race, and gender.
- Safety data: the percentage of an
institution's students who have been robbed or assaulted on or near the
campus.
- The four-, five-, and six-year graduation
rates, broken out by SAT score, race, and gender. That would allow
institutions to better document such trends as the plummeting percentage
of male graduates in recent years.
- Employment data for graduates: the percentage
of graduates who, within six months of graduation, are in graduate
school, unemployed, or employed in a job requiring college-level skills,
along with salary data.
- Results of the most recent
student-satisfaction survey, to be conducted by the institutions
themselves.
- The most recent accreditation report. The
college could include the executive summary only in its printed
recruitment material, but it would have to post the full report on its
Web site.
Being required to conspicuously provide this
information to prospective students and parents would exert long-overdue
pressure on colleges to improve the quality of undergraduate education.
What should parents and guardians of prospective students do?
- If your child's high-school grades and test
scores are in the bottom half for his class, resist the attempts of
four-year colleges to woo him. Colleges make money whether or not a
student learns, whether or not she graduates, and whether or not he
finds good employment. Let the buyer beware. Consider an
associate-degree program at a community college, or such nondegree
options as apprenticeship programs (see
http://www.khake.com
), shorter career-preparation programs at community colleges, the
military, and on-the-job training, especially at the elbow of a
successful small-business owner.
- If your student is in the top half of her
high-school class and is motivated to attend college for reasons other
than going to parties and being able to say she went to college, have
her apply to perhaps a dozen colleges. Colleges vary less than you might
think (at least on factors you can readily discern in the absence of the
accountability requirements I advocate above), yet financial-aid awards
can vary wildly. It's often wise to choose the college that requires you
to pay the least cash and take out the smallest loan. College is among
the few products that don't necessarily give you what you pay for —
price does not indicate quality.
- If your child is one of the rare breed who
knows what he wants to do and isn't unduly attracted to academics or to
the Animal House environment that characterizes many
college-living arrangements, then take solace in the fact that countless
other people have successfully taken the noncollege road less traveled.
Some examples: Maya Angelou, David Ben-Gurion, Richard Branson, Coco
Chanel, Walter Cronkite, Michael Dell, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Henry
Ford, Bill Gates, Alex Haley, Ernest Hemingway, Wolfgang Puck, John D.
Rockefeller Sr., Ted Turner, Frank Lloyd Wright, and nine U.S.
presidents, from Washington to Truman.
College is a wise choice for far fewer people than
are currently encouraged to consider it. It's crucial that they evenhandedly
weigh the pros and cons of college versus the aforementioned alternatives.
The quality of their lives may depend on that choice.
Marty Nemko is a career counselor based in Oakland, Calif., and has
been an education consultant to 15 college presidents. He is author of four
books, including The All-in-One College Guide: A Consumer Activist's
Guide to Choosing a College (Barron's, 2004).
Liberal Bias in K-12 History Textbooks
"Distorting History and Current Events for Fun and Profit," by James Shott,
American Sentinel, December 2008 ---
http://theamericansentinel.com/2008/12/18/distorting-history-and-current-events-for-fun-and-profit/
A new book by Larry Schweikart, a professor of
history at the University of Dayton, details some of this in 48 Liberal Lies
about American History. In an interview with FrontPageMagazine.com,
Professor Schweikart discusses some of the inaccuracies he found in the top,
best-selling college U.S. history textbooks that he examined.
About the idea that it was Mikhail Gorbachev, not
Ronald Reagan, that ended the Cold War, Mr. Schweikart responded: “This lie
is prominent, and in some form appears in most of the textbooks … Gorby is
portrayed as this good-hearted, wonderful reformer who had to convince that
evil Ronald Reagan that nukes were bad. It’s absurd … [Gorbachev] had to do
something about the Soviet economy because … it was collapsing like a house
of cards. Reagan kept the pressure on, especially with ‘Star Wars,’ and the
evidence is overwhelming from the former Soviet archives that this was what
happened. Reagan forced Gorbachev to change, not vice versa.”
Among the perfidies Prof. Schweikart exposes are
these (presented as undisputed facts):
- Columbus was responsible for killing millions
of Indians
- Women had no rights in early America
- The Constitution was the creation of powerful
elites protecting their financial interests
- The Rosenbergs were not spies, and were
wrongfully executed
- Sen. Joseph McCarthy concocted the “Red
Scare,” and there was nothing to fear from Communist subversives
- John F. Kennedy was killed by LBJ and a secret
team to prevent him from getting us out of Vietnam
- Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK because he was a
deranged maniac—not because he was a Communist
- LBJ’s Great Society had a positive impact on
the poor
- Neither Ronald Reagan’s election nor the
“Contract with America” proved the triumph of conservative ideas
- September 11 was not the work of terrorists—it
was a government conspiracy
- No terrorists, al-Qaeda leaders, or weapons of
mass destruction were hiding in Iraq
- Muslim terrorists are poor and uneducated and
hate us because we support Israel
- Global warming is a fact—and it’s a man-made,
American-driven problem.
What kinds of images do distortions like those
exposed in Prof. Schweikart’s book create in the minds of readers? Can they
really understand their country and what it stands for? Will they be moved
to defend its ideals if they believe those lies represent the truth?
When history is not factual, when it is distorted
to make a story more appealing or to accomplish some narrow political goal,
when the reporting of historical and contemporary events is in the hands of
unprincipled, dishonest and biased people, truth is lost, and without truth
we are a rudderless ship in a fierce storm.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
I remember a history textbook required in all Texas schools that stated the
United States ended the Korean War by using the Atomic Bomb!
"A Disturbing Book Worth Reading," by Tony Blankley, Townhall,
December 24, 2008 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/TonyBlankley/2008/12/24/a_disturbing_book_worth_reading
He is, regrettably, right. While these days one may
expect "sensitive deference" to Muslim sensitivities, the authors show how
American textbooks have gone so far as to outright proselytize Islam.
As "The Trouble with Textbooks" shows, textbooks
relate Christian and Jewish religious traditions as stories attributed to
some source (for example, "According to the New Testament "), while Islamic
traditions are related as indisputable historical facts. The authors cite
the textbook "Holt World History," where one can read that Moses "claimed to
receive the Ten Commandments from god," but "Mohammed simply 'received' the
Koran from God." The textbook "Pearson's World Civilizations" instructs that
Jesus of Nazareth is "believed by Christians to be the Messiah" -- which
would be a fine comparative religion study observation if the book didn't
also disclose that Muhammad "received revelations from Allah."
"The Trouble with Textbooks" is filled with such
shocking examples. It also reports on a textbook ("McDougal Littell World
Cultures and Geography") that relates that "Judaism is a story of exile" and
that "Christians believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah" but that the
Quran "is the collection of God's revelations to Muhammad." As "The Trouble
with Textbooks" makes only too clear, one instance perhaps could be
overlooked, but in fact, there is a consistent malicious practice of Islam
-- and only Islam -- being described as historical truth in numerous
prominent public-school textbooks. In those textbooks, Christianity and
Judaism equally as consistently are described as mere notions of their
believers.
I have no problem with religions being taught in
public-school textbooks on a comparative basis. But to see Islam alone
taught as the "truth" is an outrage. This is only one small part of the
assault on truth in textbooks by organized Muslim special pleaders that is
analyzed in the book "The Trouble with Textbooks." As you might expect,
there are constant examples of American textbooks describing recent
Israeli/Palestinian history in a manner consistent with the late Yasser
Arafat's version rather than anything approaching honest and accurate
history.
I understand that perfect objectivity in the study
of history is never possible. And it would not surprise anyone that each
country tends to teach its children its history -- and the history of the
world -- in a manner that makes the country look better than it perhaps is.
What is particularly galling in this report on American textbooks is that a
fraction of the 5 million or so Muslims in America are winning the battle
for textbook writing against the interest and tradition of the 275 million
or so Judeo-Christian Americans.
"The Trouble with Textbooks" is a wake-up call to
the parents of America to fight back to reinsert the truth of our history in
our children's textbooks and classrooms. Is it too much to ask that in
American schools our traditions and faith not be denigrated but rather get
equal treatment with other faiths and traditions?
Liberal Bias in Arctic Warming "Exaggerations"
"Rumors of the Death of Arctic Sea Ice Greatly Exaggerated," by Timothy
Birdnow, Pajamas Media, December 20, 2008 ---
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/rumors-of-the-death-of-arctic-sea-ice-greatly-exaggerated/
The Gang Green — those who believe that man is
destroying the planet via our release of industrial emissions — have
struggled to convince the populace that their viewpoint, based almost
entirely on computer simulations and not on actual recorded data, is
correct. (I often refer to global warming as the Goldilocks theory; if it is
too hot, too cold, or just right it must be global warming!) Every time Al
Gore gives a speech the temperature drops into single digits. We haven’t had
any real planetary warming
since 1998, and this year has been
unseasonably cool, a likely result of an anemic sunspot cycle and reversals
in wind and wave oscillations in the Pacific. So the alarmists are forced to
making desperate pronouncements designed to panic the average Joe.
One issue that they’ve employed to good advantage
is the loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Just run a quick Google search
on “Arctic sea ice vanishing” and you will find a series of breathless
warnings of coming doom and pictures of drowning polar bears. The alarmist
will triumphantly point to the opening of the Northwest Passage and the
unusually low ice levels of 2007 and 2008, claiming this is absolute proof
that anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW) is wrecking the planet.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for example, recently
released a dire warning that “between 1.5
and 2 trillion tons of ice have melted in Greenland, Antarctica,
and Alaska” and that this proves that we are in the throes of a man-made
crisis, one that will trigger massive sea level rise as polar ice melts
away. Clearly human greenhouse gas emissions are becoming a planetary
emergency.
But are they?
Climate Science, the weblog of climatologist Roger
Pielke Sr., discusses the issue of Arctic sea ice melt and explains why the
freeze and thaw dates are important to
establishing whether ice loss/gain is related to greenhouse gases.
The upshot of his argument is that the start of the
freeze-up should come later in the fall, as the melt should likewise begin
earlier. It’s not simply a matter of how much ice is lost, but when it is
lost.
Dr. Pielke Sr. quotes from a recent paper on the
matter:
Indeed, this is what is
claimed in a recent talk by Mark C. Serreze of the Cooperative Institute for
Research in Environmental Sciences/National Snow and Ice Data Center (CIRES/NSIDC)
at the University of Colorado Boulder (November 10, 2008, titled “The
Emergence of Arctic Amplification”) …
The abstract includes
the statement “As the climate warms, the summer melt season lengthens.”
So, we should be able to discern if the season is
actually lengthening by examining the melt/thaw dates.
Which is precisely what William Chapman, author of
the
Chryosphere Today blog, has done.
Here is a table showing the melt and thaw
periods with the minimum and maximum ice level dates starting in 1979; you
will note that this year’s maximum was equal to 1981 (at .1943), and the
minimum at .6876 is likewise equal to 1981. So, does that mean we are in a
greenhouse warming cycle reminiscent of 27 years prior?
Actually, the chart shows no discernible pattern
whatsoever, with 1985 representing the high for the maximum and 2005
representing the nadir of the minimum, a close second to 1985. In short,
there is no evidence for an increase in warming — at least not in regards to
when sea ice freezes and melts.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global
sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew
to a close. Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but
rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from
September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or
downwards. The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic
Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the
Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Michael Asher, "Sea Ice Ends Year at
Same Level as 1979," Daily Tech, January 1, 2009 ---
http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
--- http://www.ipcc.ch/
Critique of the test by a geoscientist ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070918.htm#GlobalWarming
Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. ---
http://www.arcus.org/
Arnold Arboretum: South Central China and Tibet: Hotspot of Diversity ---
http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/library/tibet/expeditions.html
U.S. Department of Energy: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy ---
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/
Western Waters Digital Library ---
http://harvester.lib.utah.edu/wwdl/
Oxfam International Climate Change Video ---
http://www.oxfam.org/en/video
Bob Jensen's threads on global warming are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science
From the "Best of the Web Today" newsletter of The Wall Street Journal
on December 19, 2008
A Social-Work Housecleaning
Yesterday we noted the case of William Felkner, a
student at Rhode Island College's School of Social work who is suing the
school claiming that professors discriminated against him because he
disagreed with their left-liberal political views. It turns out a similar
lawsuit two years ago had impressive results. The
Associated Press reported on the suit when it was
filed, in November 2006:
A Missouri State University graduate has sued the
school, claiming she was retaliated against because she refused to
support gay adoption as part of a class project.
Emily Brooker's federal lawsuit, filed on her
behalf Monday by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group,
claims the retaliation against her Christian beliefs violated her First
Amendment right to free speech. . . .
She said one of her professor's [sic], Frank G.
Kauffman, accused her of the violation after he assigned a project that
required the entire class to write and each sign a letter to the
Missouri Legislature in support of gay adoption. Brooker said her
Christian beliefs required her to refuse to sign the letter. . . .
Brooker said she was called before a college
ethics committee on Dec. 16, where she was questioned for two hours by
faculty members. She alleges they asked her questions such as "Do you
think gays and lesbians are sinners?" and "Do you think I am a sinner?"
She said she was also asked if she could help gay and lesbian people in
social work situations.
Brooker said she was required to sign a contract
with the department pledging to follow the National Association of
Social Work's code of ethics, which does not refer to homosexuality. She
alleges the contract requires her to change her religious beliefs to
conform to social work standards to continue enrollment in the School of
Social Work.
It took less than a week for Brooker to
get satisfaction. In a
press release dated Nov. 8, 2006, the university
announced that it had agreed to strike the disciplinary action from
Brooker's record, pay her $9,000, and reimburse her for tuition and living
expenses for two years' graduate education.
It gets better. In addition to the
terms of the settlement agreement, the press release announced that Kauffman
had "voluntarily stepped down" as head of the social work program and "had
begun weekly consultations" with a provost, "which will continue at least
through the spring 2007 semester."
Further, the university's president,
Michael Nietzel, pledged to "commission a comprehensive, professionally
directed evaluation of the Missouri State Social Work Program" and "appoint
an ad hoc committee to recommend ways in which the university can better
publicize and more effectively implement its policies regarding freedom of
speech and expression on campus."
The
report came out in March 2007. The
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
described it:
The report is scathing, citing ideological
coercion on the part of the faculty against dissenting students and the
chilling effect of such actions and policies on the school's
intellectual atmosphere. . . .
MSU's report is encouraging—generally universities
try to cover up and excuse their mistakes, and MSU has done neither. MSU
should be applauded for expending the effort for some serious
self-reflection and its students will no doubt benefit from the overdue
recognition that MSU had been providing them with an atmosphere of
ideological coercion.
Bob Jensen's threads on political correctness and freedom of speech in
higher education are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#PoliticalCorrectness
From the Securities Law Professor Blog on December 18, 2008 ---
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/securities/
SEC Files Insider Trading Charges Against Former Lehman Broker and
Others
The SEC
filed
insider trading charges in another "pillow-talk" case, alleging that a
former registered representative at Lehman Brothers misappropriated
confidential information from his wife, a partner in an international public
relations firms, and tipped a number of clients and friends. The SEC's
complaint alleges that from at least March 2004
through July 2008, Matthew Devlin, then a registered representative at
Lehman Brothers, Inc. ("Lehman") in New York City, traded on and tipped at
least four of his clients and friends with inside information about 13
impending corporate transactions. According to the complaint, some of
Devlin's clients and friends, three of whom worked in the securities or
legal professions, tipped others who also traded in the securities. The
complaint alleges that the illicit trading yielded over $4.8 million in
profits. Because the inside information was valuable, some of the traders
referred to Devlin and his wife as the "golden goose." The complaint further
alleges that by providing inside information, Devlin curried favor with his
friends and business associates and, in return, was rewarded with cash and
luxury items, including a Cartier watch, a Barneys New York gift card, a
widescreen TV, a Ralph Lauren leather jacket and Porsche driving lessons.
The complaint alleges that, based on the
information provided by Devlin, the defendants variously purchased the
common stock and/or options of the following public companies: InVision
Technologies, Inc.; Eon Labs, Inc.; Mylan, Inc.; Abgenix, Inc.; Aztar
Corporation; Veritas, DGC, Inc.; Mercantile Bankshares Corporation; Alcan,
Inc.; Ventana Medical Systems, Inc.; Pharmion Corporation; Take-Two
Interactive Software, Inc.; Anheuser-Busch, Inc.; and Rohm and Haas Company.
At the time that Devlin tipped the other defendants about these companies,
each company was confidentially engaged in a significant transaction that
involved a merger, tender offer, or stock repurchase.
The SEC's complaint names nine defendants as well
as three relief defendants. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern
District of New York filed related criminal charges today against some of
the defendants named in the SEC's complaint.
Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Bob Jensen's Rotten to the Core threads are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
Question
How can you both send large files across the Internet and convert them to PDF
format?
From the Scout Report on December 12, 2008
You Send It Express 1.7
http://www.yousendit.com/cms/standalone-app
Sending large files to colleagues and friends
around the world can be cumbersome, so it's nice to learn about YouSendIt
Express. Visitors who sign up to use the application can send up to 2GB,
convert files to the pdf format,
and also take advantage of password protection and certified delivery. This
version is compatible with computers running Windows XP, Vista, or Mac OS X
10.4.11 or higher. Additionally, it's worth noting that this is a trial
version which is offered for free for fourteen days.
Jensen Comment
Other alternatives for sending large files ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#SendingLargeFiles
December 19, 2008 reply from M Robert Bowers
[M.Robert.Bowers@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU]
Just a reminder if you want to convert files to
pdf. There is a program, cutepdf (
www.cutepdf.com )
that converts any file to pdf. If the program has a File|Print feature,
it allows you to print to cutepdf.
Process Terminator 1.0 ---
http://www.jcsoftware.co.nr/
Getting rid of an unresponsive program or process
on a computer can be frustrating, so it's nice to learn about this
application. Process Terminator allows users to list the running processes,
examine them, and quickly terminate the processes in question. You can find
the program by clicking on "Downloads" from their homepage. This version is
compatible with computers running Windows 95 and newer.
From the Scout Report on December 19, 2008
Google Chrome 1.0
http://www.google.com/chrome
Google recently released their first full version
of the web browser Chrome, and by most accounts, it's a valuable addition in
this particular area of applications. Visitors will note that the focus here
is on the pages that people are viewing, rather than the sometimes
cumbersome applications and tools that are gathered around the borders.
Chrome doesn't really offer many plug-ins, but it does have detachable tabs
which can be rearranged as users see fit. This version is compatible with
computers running Windows 95 and newer.
TrailRunner 1.8
http://trailrunnerx.com/
Everyone's looking for an improved running or
walking path, and TrailRunner can help you do just that. TrailRunner 1.8 is
essentially a route planning application designed for sports like running,
biking, and inline skating. Visitors can create interactive maps, review
alternate routes, and export the directions onto their iPod. This version is
compatible with Mac OS X 10.3.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Celebrates 60th Anniversary
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Marks 60th Anniversary [Real Player]
http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2008-12-09-voa49.cfm
Cuban activists say they were beaten on eve of 60th human rights
anniversary
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1211/p25s02-woam.html
BBC News: World Marks UN Human Rights Day
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7771429.stm
Human rights violations in our own backyard
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/09/ED5S14KPD6.DTL
Mary Robinson: Climate change is an issue of human rights
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-robinson-climate-change-is-an-issue-of-human-rights-1059360.html
Human Rights Day 2008 [Real Player, [pdf]
http://www.un.org/events/humanrights/2008/index.shtml
United Nations Audio Library: Radio Classics [iTunes]
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/library/classics/date.html
"The Admissions Gap for Big-Time Athletes," by Doug Lederman,
Inside Higher Ed, December 29, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/29/admit
Consider two would-be college basketball players.
One scored 850 on his SATs and had a high school grade point average of
2.75; the other scored 975 and had a GPA of 3.2. But the former enrolls at a
university where his SAT is within 150 points of the average for all
students at the institution. The latter’s test score, though higher, puts
him more than 300 points below those for the average freshman who will be
sitting alongside him in class.
Which one is at more of a disadvantage academically
in college? Are colleges doing a disservice to athletes if they have
markedly different admissions standards for them than for other students?
Or, as many sports officials argue, should colleges be held accountable more
for the ultimate academic performance of their athletes on the way out
(e.g., do they graduate?) than for their credentials on the way in?
Questions like those have arisen periodically about
big-time college athletics, and they are likely to to be raised anew by
an investigative report published Sunday by the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The package of articles is based on a
year-long review of information submitted as part of the National Collegiate
Athletic Association’s accreditation-like “certification” process by more
than 50 public universities that play big-time football or basketball. As
part of that process, colleges provide a wide range of information and data,
including, typically, on the admission of athletes.
The data collected by the Atlanta paper are
difficult to compare from college to college, because they cover different
years; institutions participate in the NCAA certification process only once
a decade, and so admissions information for the 54 colleges range from the
late 1990s through 2006.
Still, they offer an unusual glimpse at data that
rarely see the light of day, and, taken together with recent investigative
reports by USA Today (examining
the clustering of athletes in certain academic majors), the
Indianapolis Star (exploring the rates at which Division I colleges
use
“special” processes to admit athletes
and other students), and the Associated Press (showing the
significant sums that colleges are pouring into academic support
for athletes), the Atlanta paper’s report draws
attention to the tension inherent in a system in which major colleges
increasingly provide sports as high-profile entertainment with athletes whom
they argue are in many ways like regular students at their institutions.
The problem is that there are many ways in which
athletes, especially in sports such as football and basketball, differ
radically from average students. They spend dozens and dozens of hours a
week on their sports, travel away from campus for days at a time and, in
some cases, integrate little with other students on campus. Some of these
same things can be said of students in other time-intensive activities, such
as musicians or student newspaper editors.
But that’s where the question of academic
preparation comes in: If athletes are entering college with significant
lesser academic preparation than their peers (as measured, it should be
said, by measures such as standardized test scores and high school grades
that are admittedly imperfect, though widely used), does that put them at a
major disadvantage, given the intense demands on them?
Athletes Lag
The Atlanta newspaper’s project puts those
questions front and center for many colleges. It focused its research on
colleges in the six major Bowl Championship Series conferences — those that
play at the highest level of NCAA football — plus a few other institutions
that were highly ranked in football or basketball polls in 2007-8. It sought
access to the institutions’ NCAA certification reports, a process that the
NCAA treats as confidential except for its ultimate result.
The newspaper did not bother to collect information
from the private universities that compete in those conferences —
prestigious and high-profile institutions such as Duke, Stanford and
Northwestern Universities and the University of Notre Dame — because they
are not subject to the state open-records laws on which the
Journal-Constitution based its requests for information. (The newspaper
did include data on one private institution, Syracuse University, that was
contained in its certification report, which it
made public on the athletics department’s Web site.)
Most of those independent institutions tend to have academically selective
student bodies but to recruit from the same population of athletes as other
institutions, giving them wide gaps in qualifications between their athletes
and other students.
Despite those laws, even some of the public
universities did not provide the relevant information, the
Journal-Constitution noted. “Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh
refused to provide the information. The University of Kansas and West
Virginia University said their most recent NCAA certification self-study did
not include the information. Kansas State University deleted all of its
sport-by-sport data,” the newspaper explained.
For those colleges that did report their
information, the gaps in academic preparation between athletes and other
students are wide. The average SAT for all freshmen at the colleges in
question was 1161, while the average for all athletes was 1037, 124 points
lower. The average SAT for football players was 941, and for male basketball
players, 934.
The averages mask much wider variation among
colleges. The University of Cincinnati, Clemson University, the University
of California at Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology all had
average SAT scores for their men’s basketball players of roughly 950. But at
Cincinnati, the basketball players were within 124 points of the student
body at the urban public university; at Clemson, the gap was 201 points; at
California, a highly selective flagship, 350 points; and at Georgia Tech,
one of the nation’s leading public institutions for science and particularly
engineering, 396 points.
Similar gaps show up within conferences. To judge
by the SAT scores of its freshmen, the University of Florida is the most
selective institution in the Southeastern Conference, yet its football
players had the lowest average SAT score, 346 points lower than the average
for all students. Mississippi State’s football recruits had a roughly
similar academic profile, within about 20 SAT points, yet its football
players were much more in line with the qualifications of the general
student body there.
Whether the data suggest a problem at any
particular college — or for the powers-that-be in the NCAA — is open for
debate. Officials at selective institutions with big gaps say such
divergences are the price of competing with institutions with more open
admissions policies, and tend to point to high graduation rates as evidence
that they are helping to ensure that the athletes they admit succeed,
regardless of their incoming credentials.
Continued in article
Special Admission Students in Varsity
Athletics
Many universities
fill the spots on their football squads through the use of “special
admits,” a phrase that means that these students didn’t meet regular
admissions requirements, according to an article and survey in
The Indianapolis Star. While most
colleges have provisions for special admits, which in theory are for
truly special applicants, very few non-athletes benefit. For example,
the Star noted that 76 percent of the freshman football class at Indiana
University at Bloomington is made up of special admits. Among all
freshmen last year, only 2 percent are special admits. Some universities
rely even more on special admits for football, the survey found: the
University of California at Berkeley (95 percent of freshmen football
players, compared to 2 percent for the student body), Texas A&M
University (94 percent vs. 8 percent), the University of Oklahoma (81
percent vs. 2 percent). While some universities didn’t report any
special admits, the Star article quoted athletics officials who are
dubious of these claims. Myles Brand, president of the National
Collegiate Athletic Association, told the newspaper he was surprised by
the extent of special admits, but said the issue was whether
universities provide appropriate help for these students to succeed
academically.
Inside Higher Ed, September 8, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/09/08/qt
Bob Jensen's threads on athletics controversies in higher education are at
www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
Education Solutions for Our Future ---
http://www.solutionsforourfuture.org
Reading Rockets (teaching children to read) ---
http://www.readingrockets.org/
Changing the Game: The Federal Role in Supporting 21st Century Educational
Innovation ---
Click Here
Teaching Tolerance Magazine ---
http://www.tolerance.org/teach/magazine/index.jsp
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Essentials of Geology ---
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/geo/egeo/welcome.htm
MIT OpenCourseWare: Introduction to Geology ---
Click Here
Exploring the Environment: Modules & Activities (K-12 activities) ---
http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/modules.html
Interactive Teaching Units: Green Chemistry ---
http://www.rsc.org/Education/HElecturers/Resources/ITUs.asp
American Society of Limnology and Oceanography ---
http://aslo.org/index.html
National Institute of Informatics ---
http://www.nii.ac.jp/index.shtml.en
World Health Organization: Health Economics ---
http://www.who.int/topics/health_economics/en/
EXPLO.TV (funky science learning videos) ---
http://www.exploratorium.edu/webcasts/index.php
Stonehenge Mystery Solved? (maybe) ---
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks
Bob Jensen's threads on free online science,
engineering, and medicine tutorials are at ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science
Social Science and Economics Tutorials
The Great Issues Forum (great for dissertation and book ideas) ---
http://www.greatissuesforum.org/
Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts (Great Charts on Bad Budgeting)
---
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/BudgetChartBook/index.html
Economic Indicators ---
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/indicators/
EconStats ---
http://www.econstats.com/index.htm
Also see
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics
The 19th Century Trade Card ---
http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/19th_century_tcard/
Migration Policy Institute: State Legislation Database ---
http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/statelaws_home.cfm
Teaching Tolerance Magazine ---
http://www.tolerance.org/teach/magazine/index.jsp
Pueblo, USA: How Latino Immigration is Changing America ---
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/immigration/
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies ---
http://www.jointcenter.org/
Online
Historical Population Reports ---
http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/
State of World Population 2008 (read a free chapter) ---
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2008/en/
World Health Organization: Health Economics ---
http://www.who.int/topics/health_economics/en/
Investigating Atheism ---
http://www.investigatingatheism.info/
Mumbai: A Battle in the War for Pakistan ---
http://www.cfr.org/publication/17981/
Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and
Philosophy tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social
Law and Legal Studies
Teaching Tolerance Magazine ---
http://www.tolerance.org/teach/magazine/index.jsp
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Math Tutorials
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
History Tutorials
Reconstructing American History ---
http://newt.org/Portals/0/Capitol Visitor Center Report_.pdf
The Engines of Our Ingenuity (audio history of creativity) ---
http://www.uh.edu/engines/engines.htm
The 19th Century Trade Card ---
http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/19th_century_tcard/
Digital History ---
http://digitalhistory.unl.edu/
The National Archives: The Cabinet Papers, 1915-1977 ---
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/
The William Morris Society Website (art and literature) ---
http://www.morrissociety.org/
Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian ---
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html
National Museum of the American Indian: Beauty Surrounds Us ---
http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/beauty_surrounds_us/flash8.html
A Literary Map of Maine ---
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/literarymap/map.html
Investigating Atheism ---
http://www.investigatingatheism.info/
Virginia Historical Society: Heads and Tales
http://www.vahistorical.org/exhibits/headstales_main.htm
American Civil War
History Site ---
http://www.factasy.com/
Wisconsin Goes To War: Our Civil War Experience ---
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/subcollections/WIWarAbout.html
Turner Prize 2008 (art history) ---
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/turnerprize2008/
The
Metropolitan Museum of Art's Timeline of Art History http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm
From Dartmouth University
Hood Museum of Art ---
http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/
The Great Issues Forum (great for dissertation and book ideas) ---
http://www.greatissuesforum.org/
From the Scout Report on December 19, 2008
Retired Space Shuttles for sale, shipping not included For sale: used
space shuttles. Asking price: $42 million apiece
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=for-sale-used-space-shuttles-asking-2008-12-18
Request for information on space shuttle orbiter and space shuttle main
engine placement
http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=133299
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Phase Two The Flight Continues
http://www.nasm.si.edu/getinvolved/giving/phasetwo/
Shuttle and Station Video Podcasts
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/shuttle_station_index.html
Buran – the Soviet 'space shuttle'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7738489.stm
How Space Shuttles work
http://www.howstuffworks.com/space-shuttle.htm
Paper Toys: Space Shuttle
http://www.papertoys.com/shuttle.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Language Tutorials
Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages
Writing Tutorials
Who versus Whom ---
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/1469/;jsessionid=9F9B05380CFFB4673303CC5AC6DCE141
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
December 18,
2008
December 19,
2008
December 24,
2008
Features
December 29,
2008
December 30,
2008
December 31,
2008
Features
January 3,
2009
Prevent Heart Damage (video) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=179
Fine Tune Your Eyeglasses Without Going to an Eye Doctor
We've seen small scale
liquid lenses
progress from
concepts to
commerical applications, and now Joshua Silver, a
retired physics professor at Oxford University, has perfected what he calls
"adaptive glasses," applying similar tech in a singular and ingenious way. Aimed
at helping developing nations where glasses are expensive and doctors are often
in short supply, Silver's spectacles are made of tough plastic with with
silicone liquid in the lenses. When purchased, each lense will have a syringe
attached to it, and the wearer will be able to adjust the amount of liquid in
the lenses -- which essentially changes the prescription -- without the need for
an optician. About 10,000 pairs have been distributed in Ghana on a trial basis,
with plans to distribute one million pairs in India in the next year -- the
ultimate goal is one billion by 2020. And somewhere else in the world, a room
full of opticians cry into their beer.
Laura June, "British physics professor perfects "tunable eyeglasses" -- no eye
doctor required," Engadget, December 23, 2008 ---
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/british-physics-professor-perfects-tunable-eyeglasses-no-ey/
World Health Organization: Health Economics ---
http://www.who.int/topics/health_economics/en/
"Why We Take Risks — It's the Dopamine," Alice Park, Time Magazine,
December 30, 2008 ---
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869106,00.html
As quoted by Jim Mahar on January 2, 2008 ---
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
A new study by researchers at Vanderbilt University
in Nashville and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City
suggests a biological explanation for why certain people tend to live life
on the edge — it involves the neurotransmitter dopamine, the brain's
feel-good chemical.
Dopamine is responsible for making us feel
satisfied after a filling meal, happy when our favorite football team wins
....It's also responsible for the high we feel when we do something
daring,...skydiving out of a plane. In the risk taker's brain, researchers
report in the Journal of Neuroscience, there appear to be fewer
dopamine-inhibiting receptors — meaning that daredevils' brains are more
saturated with the chemical, predisposing them to keep taking risks and
chasing the next high.....
The findings support Zald's theory that people who
take risks get an unusually big hit of dopamine each time they have a novel
experience, because their brains are not able to inhibit the
neurotransmitter adequately. That blast makes them feel good, so they keep
returning for the rush from similarly risky or new behaviors, just like the
addict seeking the next high...."It's a piece of the puzzle to understanding
why we like novelty, and why we get addicted to substances ... Dopamine is
an important piece of reward.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Be that as it may, some risk takers are merely trying to recover or at least
average out losses which, if successful, is more of a relief than a thrill. The
St. Petersburg Paradox may be more as a recovery strategy than a thrill ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox
Bernie Madoff probably got dopamine surges from his villas, Penthouses, and
thrills of scamming investors, but at some point he might've been speculating
recklessly in options derivatives in a panic to save his butt. The same might be
said for any gambling addict who first gets "doped up" on the edge, and then
bets more recklessly by betting the farm at miserable odds when "sobered up."
Apparently Bernie is now going to plead insanity. I think that's great
defense as long as the court insists on long-term confinement as a pauper in
Belleview rather than a posh psychiatric hospital ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellevue_Hospital
This may be a reason why some students, certainly not all, cheat for a better
grade. Just the thrill of getting away with breaking the rules may lead to a
dopamine surge just like a person who shoplifts an item that she/he neither
needs nor wants. In my small hometown in Iowa, the wife of a high school coach,
an other very dignified woman, was addicted to shop lifting items that she
really didn't need or want. Our coach made an arrangement with downtown
merchants to simply bill him for items that she thought she purloined without
payment. The merchants kept a sharp and silent watch on her whenever she entered
their stores.
Psychology of Cheaters versus Non-cheaters ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#CheatingPsychology
Bob Jensen's threads on academic cheating are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Forwarded by Maureen
Snopes says this is mostly accurate ---
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/bigwalmart.asp
Some things are from the Wal-Mart fact sheet that is updated more frequently ---
http://walmartstores.com/download/2230.pdf
HOW BIG IS WAL-MART?
1 . At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.
2 . This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th)
than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco +
K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.
And most can't speak English
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in
mind they did this in only 15 years.
8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chain s sought bankruptcy
(including Winn-Dixie).
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are
SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.
11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a
Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart
13. Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Ramblings of a Retired Mind
I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell phones that
everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse. I can't afford one. So, I'm
wearing my garage door opener. I also made a cover for my hearing aid and now I
have what they call blue teeth, I think.
You know, I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized that people didn't
like me anyway.
I was thinking that women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer
cans!
I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is 'when you still have
something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it.'
I thought about making a fitness movie for folks my age, and call it 'Pumping
Rust'.
I've gotten that dreaded furniture disease. That's when your chest is falling
into your drawers!
When people see a cat's litter box, they always say, 'Oh, have you got a
cat?' Just once I want to say, 'No, it's for company!'
Employment application blanks always ask who is to be notified in case of an
emergency. I think you should write, 'A Good Doctor'!
Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we
supposed to do...write to these men? Why don't they just put their pictures on
the postage stamps so the mailmen could look for them while they deliver the
mail? Or better yet, arrest them while they are taking their pictures!
I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as
they get older. Then, it dawned on me, they were cramming for their finals.
As for me, I'm just hoping God grades on the curve.
Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/
Interesting Online Clock
and Calendar
---
http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones ---
http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) ---
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
Also see
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
Facts about population growth (video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth ---
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq ---
http://www.costofwar.com/
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons ---
http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.
Three Finance Blogs
Jim Mahar's FinanceProfessor Blog ---
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
FinancialRounds Blog ---
http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
Karen Alpert's FinancialMusings (Australia) ---
http://financemusings.blogspot.com/
Some Accounting Blogs
Paul Pacter's IAS Plus (International
Accounting) ---
http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
International Association of Accountants News ---
http://www.aia.org.uk/
AccountingEducation.com and Double Entries ---
http://www.accountingeducation.com/
Gerald Trites'eBusiness and
XBRL Blogs ---
http://www.zorba.ca/
AccountingWeb ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/
SmartPros ---
http://www.smartpros.com/
Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Online Books, Poems, References,
and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Shared Open Courseware
(OCW) from Around the World: OKI, MIT, Rice, Berkeley, Yale, and Other Sharing
Universities ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Free Textbooks and Cases ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Mathematics and Statistics Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
Free Science and Medicine Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science
Free Social Science and Philosophy Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social
Free Education Discipline Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm
Teaching Materials (especially
video) from PBS
Teacher Source: Arts and
Literature ---
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/arts_lit.htm
Teacher Source: Health & Fitness
---
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/health.htm
Teacher Source: Math ---
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/math.htm
Teacher Source: Science ---
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/sci_tech.htm
Teacher Source: PreK2 ---
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/prek2.htm
Teacher Source: Library Media ---
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/library.htm
Free Education and
Research Videos from Harvard University ---
http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp
VYOM eBooks Directory ---
http://www.vyomebooks.com/
From Princeton Online
The Incredible Art Department ---
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/
Online Mathematics Textbooks ---
http://www.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html
National Library of Virtual Manipulatives ---
http://enlvm.usu.edu/ma/nav/doc/intro.jsp
Moodle ---
http://moodle.org/
The word moodle is an acronym for "modular
object-oriented dynamic learning environment", which is quite a mouthful.
The Scout Report stated the following about Moodle 1.7. It is a
tremendously helpful opens-source e-learning platform. With Moodle,
educators can create a wide range of online courses with features that
include forums, quizzes, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, and surveys. On the
Moodle website, visitors can also learn about other features and read about
recent updates to the program. This application is compatible with computers
running Windows 98 and newer or Mac OS X and newer.
Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials
Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at
http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting
educators.
Any college may post a news item.
Accountancy Discussion ListServs:
For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a
ListServ (usually for free) go to http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
AECM (Educators)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/
AECM is an email Listserv list which
provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software
which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the
college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and
peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets,
multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base
programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc
Roles of a ListServ ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
|
CPAS-L (Practitioners)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/
CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of
all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an
unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments,
ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed.
Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L
or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for
a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional
accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or
education. Others will be denied access. |
Yahoo
(Practitioners)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA.
This can be anything from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ
initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA. |
AccountantsWorld
http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1
This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as
accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed
assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and
taxation. |
Business Valuation
Group
BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com
This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag
[RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM] |
Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) ---
http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone: 603-823-8482
Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu