Graduation of an All-Star Cast

Today is one the happiest days of my life, as my stellar cast of students graduated with high honors.
John Bratincevic and Michelle Smith- Summa Cum Laude, both finalists for the Senior of the Year.
Zach Jaggard - Cum Laude, which I am very proud of
Anna Krowczyk - Magna Cum Laude
MaryKate Rand
Kevin Van Leeuwen
Cecelia Larson - a great personality and a basketball player
Christine Strom
Darrel Sangster
Keri Polsley
Cynthia Hittleman
Mallory Spann
and many others!

Chips and Water, Books and Browser

Mr. Eric Bland of Discovery News writes in an article titled "Tech Lets Plants Phone for Water" that "Carrots might not scream when pulled from the ground,but new technology is giving vegetables a voice in how they are raised. Microchipped plants can now send text messages to a farmer's cell phone and ask for water. "It's akin to a clip on earring, very thin and smaller than a postage stamp, and is affixed to the plant leaf," said Richard Stoner, President of AgriHouse, a company marketing the technology. "The farmer would just need their regular cell phone service, and the plant would send a text message when it needed water." The existing sensors have to be connected to a power source to take readings and transmit them over commercial cell phone towers. Stoner hopes that future sensors can be equipped with batteries, solar panels or even piezoelectric generators to generate the power necessary to run the sensors and transmitters. Adding more sensors across wider areas will enable more detailed management of farms, saving farmers even more, says Stoner. Water in the western United States might be relatively cheap, but the electric bills to pump the water from underground aquifers do add up. And there is no guarantee that the water will remain cheap either. Being sustainable could end up being good business..."
***
Kindle is an interesting play by Amazon. According to Mr. Bezos, the CEO, investors should regard the digital-books business as being in "investment mode" right now rather than a "big cash-flow generator for us." His comment reinforces speculation in the publishing industry that Amazon is losing money on at least some of the books it sells for the Kindle. Most of the 290,000 titles available sell for $9.99 or less, a price point in many cases probably below what Amazon pays publishers. Generally speaking, retailers pay 50% of the publishers' list price, which for new, popular titles can be as much $25 to $30. (WSJ).

Transparent Ethics

The notion of "Social Justice" has received significant momentum at liberal arts institutions like ours. The idea that students can and should be taught values always creates significant debate. I take a minimalist point of view, and would prefer to inspire the students to aspire to the highest, not necessarily preach any particular form of values. Human beings are human beings everywhere. As the Nobel winner Mr. Yunus says, the natural state of human beings is to do good.

Unfortunately the natural state is often disturbed, sometimes to a tragic extreme. One instance of this is the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States military personnel (NYT). Some of the pictures have come out, and Obama had indicated that other pictures would be released. NYT reported that "President Obama said Wednesday that he would fight to prevent the release of photographs documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States military personnel, reversing his position on the issue after commanders warned that the images could set off a deadly backlash against American troops."
"“The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals,” Mr. Obama told reporters on the South Lawn. “In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”
The ethical thing to do would be to release the pictures sooner rather than later, get it out, and let the world know that we don't hide things however troubling they might be. Attributing everything to a "small number of individuals" and sweeping the events under the rug is exactly the kind of behavior that lowers us.

While Obama set this example, NYT had another article titled "A Promise to Be Ethical in an Era of Immorality" which leads off as follows:
"When a new crop of future business leaders graduates from the Harvard Business School next week, many of them will be taking a new oath that says, in effect, greed is not good.

Nearly 20 percent of the graduating class have signed “The M.B.A. Oath,” a voluntary student-led pledge that the goal of a business manager is to “serve the greater good.” It promises that Harvard M.B.A.’s will act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their “own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others.

What happened to making money?

That, of course, is still at the heart of the Harvard curriculum. But at Harvard and other top business schools, there has been an explosion of interest in ethics courses and in student activities — clubs, lectures, conferences — about personal and corporate responsibility and on how to view business as more than a money-making enterprise, but part of a large social community.

“We want to stand up and recite something out loud with our class,” said Teal Carlock, who is graduating from Harvard and has accepted a job at Genentech. “Fingers are now pointed at M.B.A.’s and we, as a class, have a real opportunity to come together and set a standard as business leaders.”

At Columbia Business School, all students must pledge to an honor code: “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” The code has been in place for about three years and came about after discussions between students and faculty...."
***
It is under difficult circumstances that one's mettle is tested. Let us hope that these MBAs live up to their oaths a few years from now.

Teaching Business....

I taught an intro course on Global Business to a diverse group of students. It was very challenging and time consuming, but rewarding.

Student Comments on the Global Business course

• This class has allowed me to see things in a whole new light...With Globalization of Business comes increasing responsibility not just towards a specific country or people but the world. SH
• I have learned how to handle many situations, and how to look at every angle before deciding what action to take....Professor Gopal challenges all of his students to think outside the box to contemplate ideas that might seem like a stretch, but once more thought is put into it, it is an imperative piece of the puzzle...This is a class about global business, but it is just as much about life and decisions. CB.
• This class has taught me how to work with people and collaborate in a respectful way. CH.
• BUS271 was probably the best class I took this semester because it had the most information that could be applied to the real world. AH
• Disparity between what is suggested as reality and how things truly work was the subject of many structured in-class debates. JZ
• Though I have found myself struggling at times, this class has truly forced me to think about concepts and ideas I had never thought twice about or even cared about before....The comments Dr. Gopal left on my papers challenged me to go even further beyond what I felt was an already well thought-out write-up to think extremely critically....DP.
• The main thing I got from this course is that if we want to progress as a whole world and as the human race in general, we all have to work together to achieve greatness. No one country can do everything by themselves. We can all progress individually but if everyone in the whole world works together, we can make a better world for everybody and these improvements will come at a faster rate. LB.
• My experience in this class was amazing. I gained so much in this class in terms of my understanding on globalization. AJ.

Text- can be bad for you

An article in the NYT today on texting makes interesting observations...

....Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier. The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.....

I have seen people texting while driving, while in the bathroom, and while walking to the car. I usually play music on my cell phone while walking.

Losing a job, Losing Lifetime Money Value

An interesting article in the Chicago Tribune about Layoffs.

Laid off? You'll likely never make as much

*****Laid off? You'll likely never make as much. Greg Burns. May 25, 2009
After two decades running a support group for the unemployed in the northern suburbs, Brian Healy has seen it time and again.

A former vice president caught up in a layoff eventually finds another job, but at the director level. An ex-director gets hired as a manager, and so on down the economic food chain.

"As a general rule, when you go back to work in this environment, you're going to be making less than you did before, certainly to start with," said Healy, regional manager of a shipping company. "Maybe you never get it back."

For those wondering how big a financial hit is in store if they get kicked out of their jobs during this brutal recession, a group of researchers has calculated an answer -- by tracking the victims of the equally brutal recession in the early 1980s.

Warning: It's a very depressing answer.

People who lost stable jobs in 1982 suffered an immediate 30 percent drop in their earnings, according to Social Security and other government records. As a group, they never recovered.

A decade later, their earnings were down 20 percent compared with workers with similar profiles who avoided a layoff. After 15 years, they made 10 percent less. Even 20 years down the road, they hadn't caught up.

"If you lose your job, you're going to have pretty big losses," said Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist and co-author of the study. "It's permanent and substantial. It's longer lasting than previously thought."

And it's widespread: Less than one in 10 who lose their job in a layoff eventually come out ahead.

The huge decline in lifetime earnings stems from two common-sense factors: For starters, it's tough to find a good job, even if you already had one. As von Wachter puts it, "It's hard to get lucky twice." Also, when industries downsize, demand declines for the relevant skills, which can leave an entire workforce high and dry. Ask a steelworker about it sometime.

Unfortunately, the next 20 years could be harder on those losing their jobs than the period of economic growth that followed 1982. Many experts predict that a globalized labor market will make it tough for jobless American workers to stage a financial comeback.

In addition, the economy has become more of a winner-take-all proposition, with outsize rewards at the top and less for all others.

The flip side: High earners suffer the most in a layoff. If factory workers lose 20 percent, investment bankers probably lose 40 percent, von Wachter noted.

At staffing firm Manpower Inc., Anne Edmunds looks for the bright side. Some recently laid-off workers gladly swear off the rat race. They're content making less money in a more rewarding or comfortable post than they held before. They figure out how to live better on less.

And that happy-go-lucky bunch amounts to, oh, about 20 percent to 25 percent of the total, she estimates. The other 75 percent to 80 percent want their old lifestyles back, paycheck included, and they're frequently disappointed, said Edmunds, regional director for greater Chicago.

She reckons that conditions are worse now than in 1982 because the layoffs are so widespread. It's not just the Rust Belt falling apart, she observed: "It's everyone."

The financial losses that follow a layoff probably reflect psychological damage. Getting whacked from a long-held job, with no similar opportunities at hand, inevitably forces a reckoning.

Edmunds sees parallels with the stages of grief, as anger and depression give way to a sad acceptance. "It is almost like a death," she said.

At his Holy Family Job Support Group in Inverness, Healy hears the frustration of people who did "everything" to be successful, but still got "a rotten deal." "It's a hard thing to go through by yourself." *****

Open Space Depression

During the early nineties I was working for Tellabs, a large high tech telecommunications equipment manufacturer. A great company to work for, Tellabs at the time was led by Mr. Mike Birck, one of its founders. We had launched the TITAN 5500, which has gone on to become perhaps the greatest core product in communications networks, and is still part of many of the TDM transport backbones.
Towards the end of the decade, Tellabs built a magnificent corporate office building, a palace paid for by the TITAN 5500. Unfortunately, as the complex was finished and was beginning to be occupied, the 2001 Internet dot-com bubble burst. Two years later, the beautiful complex was only half occupied, and part of the building looked like a ghost town.
These memories were revived thanks to an article onMSNBC titled "Cubicle graveyards disrupting office harmony-Empty workspaces creating morale problem for those who remain." The article reports that "Mass layoffs throughout corporate America have created cubicle and desk graveyards in office buildings from coast to coast. After years of shrinking office space for employees, the recession has brought about a new trend — more room for workers to stretch out.
An ever-growing office void-
The average square foot per office occupant has risen to 435 square feet so far this year, from 415 square feet in 2008, according to International Facility Management Association, or IFMA, in a soon-to-be released report. "There is simply more space per person in the workplace, meaning there are fewer people occupying a greater amount of space, and this is just over the course of a year," says George Deutsch, a spokesperson for the association. "We attribute this to the economic downturn and layoffs our nation is currently dealing with." It’s creating morale problems for employees, not to mention logistical nightmares for companies and the facilities maintenance staff.."

Changing Times

An article on MSNBC reports that "State colleges and universities, battered by declining endowments and state funding cutbacks, are facing a new and potentially far more troubling financial challenge. Out-of-state students, who pay a huge tuition premium to attend, are doing something no one ever thought they would: They're staying home.Hammered by the recession, they're opting in larger numbers to attend schools in their home states. In a recent study conducted by the College Board and Art & Science Group, a consultant to colleges and universities, 41 percent of high school seniors said they are giving much more consideration to attending a public institutions close to home in the fall because of current economic conditions. And many schools, including the University of Delaware and Ball State, are already reporting declines in out-of-state applications of as much as 40 percent, while in-state applications are up from 5 percent to 10 percent..."

NYT has an interesting story..."As job losses rise, growing numbers of American homeowners with once solid credit are falling behind on their mortgages, amplifying a wave of foreclosures.In the latest phase of the nation’s real estate disaster, the locus of trouble has shifted from subprime loans — those extended to home buyers with troubled credit — to the far more numerous prime loans issued to those with decent financial histories. With many economists anticipating that the unemployment rate will rise into the double digits from its current 8.9 percent, foreclosures are expected to accelerate. That could exacerbate bank losses, adding pressure to the financial system and the broader economy. “We’re about to have a big problem,” said Morris A. Davis, a real estate expert at the University of Wisconsin. “Foreclosures were bad last year? It’s going to get worse.” Economists refer to the current surge of foreclosures as the third wave, distinct from the initial spike when speculators gave up property because of plunging real estate prices, and the secondary shock, when borrowers’ introductory interest rates expired and were reset higher. “We’re right in the middle of this third wave, and it’s intensifying,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “That loss of jobs and loss of overtime hours and being forced from a full-time to part-time job is resulting in defaults. They’re coast to coast.” Those sliding into foreclosure today are more likely to be modest borrowers whose loans fit their income than the consumers of exotically lenient mortgages that formerly typified the crisis.Economy.com expects that 60 percent of the mortgage defaults this year will be set off primarily by unemployment, up from 29 percent last year..."

Sweet, and Organic

According to Discovery News writer Emily Sohn, "Sweeteners Linger in Groundwater. After tickling the tongue, artificial sweeteners pass through our bodies and end up in wastewater virtually unchanged. Some sweeteners are particularly widespread in the environment, according to a new study, making them ideal markers for following pollution from treatment plants and other sources into the environment. "Groundwater can be polluted by several sources, and it's sometimes not clear where that pollution comes from," said Ignaz Buerge, an environmental chemist at the Swiss Federal Research Station in Schloss. " We now have a marker of domestic wastewater which can be used in tracing pollution." Contaminated groundwater is both an environmental and public health issue. Once run-off gets into the environment, though, it can be hard to know whether it came from industry, agricultural fields, traffic, homes or other sources. Scientists have been looking for marker molecules that might help them track down and possibly reduce some of these inputs. Previous candidates for markers have included caffeine, pharmaceuticals and components of personal care products. Most of these chemicals, however, either break down quickly, appear in quantities too small to easily detect, or seep out of the water and into the soil."

Water, water...such a vital resource, and so abused.

On the other hand, organic is the way to go for jobs. An article in NYT, "Many Summer Internships Are Going Organic" by Kim Severone is worth everyone's attention. Reproduced below.

****Axelrod, who graduated from Barnard College last week with an urban studies degree, will not be fighting over the bathroom with her five roommates on the Upper West Side this summer. Instead she will be living in a tent, using an outdoor composting toilet and harvesting vegetables on an organic farm near Petaluma, Calif.

As the sole intern at a boutique dairy in upstate New York, Gina Runfola, an English and creative writing student, has traded poetry books for sheep.

And Jamie Katz, an English major at Kenyon College in Ohio, is planting peach trees at Holly Tree Farm in Virginia.

These three are part of a new wave of liberal arts students who are heading to farms as interns this summer, in search of both work, even if it might pay next to nothing, and social change.

They come armed with little more than soft hands and dog-eared copies of Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” which takes a dim view of industrial agriculture.

A few hope to run their own farms. Others plan to work on changing government food policy. Some are just looking for a break from the rigors of academia. But whatever the reason, the interest in summer farm work among college students has never been as high, according to dozens of farmers, university professors and people who coordinate agricultural apprenticeships.

Andrew Marshall, who began organizing apprenticeships for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association in 2003, used to see an average of 75 applications a year. This season, he has fielded over 200, with more coming in every day.

Katherine L. Adam, who runs the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, financed by the Department of Agriculture, said 1,400 farms sought interns this year, almost triple the number two years ago. The number of small farms, which attract the new agrarians and can use the cheap, enthusiastic help, has grown sharply since 2003, according to the department.

Of course, employing people who know a lot about food systems but nothing about farming can be as much a headache as a help. Manure spreaders get broken, carrot shoots get pulled instead of weeds, and people sleep in. It is not all hayrides and flowers for the apprentices, either. Ms. Adam sometimes gets complaints from interns who say the amenities are not good enough or the farmers work them too hard...."

Sponging up the Cultural Changes

Two interesting stories on the health front...

Apparently "The contraceptive sponge has bounced back — yet again. And this time it is repackaged for a younger generation who may not remember the Today Sponge — or the 1995 episode of “Seinfeld” in which Elaine hoarded her stash, for use only with boyfriends she deemed “spongeworthy.” "

NYT also reports that "According to a January survey by the benefits consulting firm Hewitt Associates, nearly two-thirds of large employers planned to transfer more costs to employees. At the same time, one-third planned to put greater emphasis on wellness plans — programs that encourage employees to adopt healthier lifestyles. (So long, Big Macs). "

The good news from my local front is that an increasing number of my students are eating healthier food. More students are staying away from soda and other sugar drinks (but are drinking Red Bull and its ilk). In my marketing course this term, the best project was by a group (J,J, and M) who created a new restaurant called Veggin' Out that served healthy and tasty vegetarian fare. The students are also recognizing that health insurance may not be a sure thing when they graduate and get a job.

'Crook'ed Democracy

India concluded its Parliamentary Elections recently . Despite the lower rates of education and literacy compared to the West, Indian public participates vigorously in these elections. However, there are too many destructive forces within the Indian election system. Financial Times has a good article on this topic - Indian democracy has an ugly side. In it, Mr. Rachman writes that "n most countries when politicians are slammed as “criminals” this is simply vulgar abuse. In India, it is often the literal truth. The British public, currently hyperventilating about expenses fiddles in the UK parliament, might be interested to know that 128 of the 543 members of the last Indian parliament had faced criminal charges or investigations, including 83 cases of murder. In a poor society, gangsters can and do use muscle and money to force their way into parliament....."

HP- 6400, AMEX - 4000, but Speed Readers in Demand..

Both HP and American Express announced additional job cuts this past week- HP is planning to lay off another 6400 heads while AMEX is chopping off 4K heads. UPS and a few others have also taken out the knives.

But all is not lost. According to a WSJ story, "Democrats in the House Energy and Commerce Committee have taken a novel step to head off Republican efforts to slow action this week on a sweeping climate bill: Hiring a speed reader.

Committee Republicans, who largely oppose the measure, have said they may force the reading of the entire 946-page bill, as well as major amendments totaling several hundred pages. So far, Republicans have decided not to use the procedural maneuver, but Chairman Henry Waxman of California is prepared.

The bill aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% over the next half-century, and is a top priority of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

A committee spokeswoman said the young man, who’s doing door duty at the hearing as he awaits his possible call to the microphone, was hired to help career staff. After years of practice, the panel’s clerks can certainly read rapidly, but she says the speed reader is a lot faster.

“Judging by the size of the amendments, I can read a page about every 34 seconds,” said the newly hired “staff assistant” who declined to give his name. Based on that count, it would take around nine hours to read the entire bill."

Another Year Gone By

Another school year is coming to an end for us. A great group of my advisees is graduating this year- unfortunately into a tough macro situation. Our commencement is at the end of the month.

The Channel Wire reports that "Google CEO Eric Schmidt told University of Pennsylvania graduates to turn off technology and look more toward the importance of people.

Speaking at Penn's commencement at Franklin Field in Philadelphia on Monday, Schmidt advised, "you need to turn off your computer, turn off your phone, look at people who are near and around you and decide that humans are the most important things, not the other aspects," according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

"You cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be in the right place and be ready," Schmidt also told graduates, according to the newspaper.

Schmidt also noted the differences between graduates today and those of his college days in the 1970s. "We had Tang. You had Red Bull. We had VCRs that held an hour of programming and cost $700. You have iPods that can upload 15 hours of videoin a minute. We didn't tell everyone about our most embarrassing moment; you record them and post them to Facebook and YouTube every day. I'm so happy my record for misachievements isn't around for posterity. I'm looking forward to yours to be there for many years."..."

RSS - Really Stressed Students

Students getting stressed around finals week is not new. But this year, at least some of the students have indicated their stress to me through the term. Some are trying to take more courses and graduate early, to avoid paying more tuition. Some are planning to go to graduate school, a stressful decision in itself. Even trying to get my students internships has been tough.
Today, there was an article in MSNBC about this very topic - Recession causing high anxiety for students.


In the February 2009 issue of HBR, Peter J. Williamson and Ming Zeng describe the "Lessons Western businesses must learn from emerging-market companies to succeed—at home and abroad" in their article "Value-for-Money Strategies for Recessionary Times." In this article, they recommend that companies "Go beyond low-cost sourcing in emerging markets." The write- "Almost all companies in the developed world source directly or indirectly from countries like China and India to cut costs. To grow, they must make bolder moves that involve relocating as many stages of the value chain as possible, from R&D to customer service.
Take computer peripherals maker Logitech, which set up a global production center in Suzhou, China, in 1 994 and closed its plants in Ireland and the United States. When that big bet prov ed insufficient to maintain its competitive advantage, the company added a major design hub in 2005. Eighty designers work at the Suzhou facility , and the number will soon double, since Logitech is shifting most of its product development there. Several other companies are doing the same: Foreign firms were operating 700 R&D centers in China by 2008. A few information technology giants have shifted the base of their globalization initiatives overseas. For example, in December 2007 , Cisco set up a globalization center in Bangalore and located its chief
globalization officer there. The CGO implements the company ’s global strategy, collaborating with functional leaders and developing disruptive business models aimed at creating new channels, markets, processes, and technologies. Earlier, in August 2005, Intel shifted responsibility for its channel platforms group to Shanghai. Running the group out of China allows the company to nurture demand in other emerging markets, as well as in segments of the developed world that need advanced technology at inexpensive prices. Cisco and Intel want their India and China operations to take their cost-innovation capabilities global—something their Silicon Valley headquarters may not be able to pull off, being, as they are, far away from unfamiliar markets and oriented toward selling high-tech products for dollars, not lowtech
goods for pennies."

Which should make everyone think about the outcomes of this downturn.

From MSNBC...
Recession causing high anxiety for students
Poll shows they're worried about finances and the pressure on their parents
The Associated Press
updated 9:47 a.m. CT, Tues., May 19, 2009
WASHINGTON - School's out, surf's up, summer beckons. Time for college students to see if they can stay afloat in the worst economy their generation has known.

Young people are carrying a load heavier than they normally bear as they scatter from campuses, judging from an AP-mtvU poll that finds students anxious about their finances, job prospects after graduation and the pressures facing their folks back home.

Josh Donahue, 23, an Oregon State University economics graduate, is living on food stamps. First in his family with a university degree, he stays with relatives and scrapes even for a menial job instead of the bank gig he'd dreamed about.

"A degree in economics," he said, "doesn't really prepare you to understand the economy very well."

To be sure, tight budgets are a rite of passage at college. Ramen noodles build character.

But in a nation that has lost more than 5.7 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, parent and student alike are swept up in the tempest. In the poll of students, nearly one in five reported that at least one parent lost a job in the last year.

Parents usually worry about their kids' finances. Now the kids are worrying about their parents'.

At George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., systems engineering junior Adrian Solomon, 21, of Virginia Beach, Va., said his mother, who is single and raising his 16-year-old sister as well as a foster child, is "trying to support me sometimes, when I need it." At other times she's asked him for money. "I would do what I can to help her out."

Jake Lear, 21, of Warrenton, Va., a digital arts major at George Mason, worked three jobs at a time through the semester and is doing one of them full-time this summer — a resident adviser helping to look after freshmen in dorms — because he gets free housing. His parents work for a federal contractor that shrank its work force and eliminated 401(k) matching contributions. The school is in suburban northern Virginia outside Washington.

"I'm pretty much independent as far as school goes," Lear said. "Where they would normally help me out with cash here and there they don't so much any more, just because money's so tight."'

The sleep-deprived but irrepressible Buchi Akpati, 18, of Woodbridge, Va., also juggled three jobs at once through the semester — one online, another at the gym and another as a beauty consultant. Her days have unfolded like this, once she gets out of bed between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m.:

"I go to class, study in between class, go to work, study at work, go to my other job, Mary Kay, do some facials, sell some products, study in between, go back to my dorm, study and eat at the same time, work online at the same time, study afterwards from like 2 to 6 a.m., then sleep, and then wake up and do the same thing."

She is majoring in "biology, pre-medicine, with a splash of Spanish" and adding two summer classes to her workload. "I never get any sleep," she said brightly. "That's the thing."

The poll surveyed students at 40 U.S. colleges, exploring financial pressures, job possibilities, their state of mind and when stress becomes depression. Among the findings on the economy:

22 percent of students said they worry a lot about having enough money to get through a typical week at school, and more — fully one-third — said they worry a lot about the finances of their parents.
Nearly one in five changed plans this year and decided to attend graduate or professional school after college because an undergraduate degree might not be enough to get them a job. Staying in school buys time for the economy to improve and defers repayment of student loans but adds living costs and debt.
11 percent of those whose parents lost a job veered away from grad school because they could not afford it. They were twice as likely to avoid grad school as those whose parents did not lose a job. Job loss in the family also made twice as many students consider dropping out — 27 percent. Overall, nearly one in five considered quitting school.
32 percent said financial worries have a lot of impact on the stress they're under, up from 27 percent last spring.
Nervousness is apparent on campuses, even in the midst of post-exam relief. So, however, is resilience.

Instead of being discouraged by the 29 applications for summer internships that got no response, Larry Robertson is pumped about the one that is landing him an interview.

"I HAVE to get a job," he said. Living at home in Washington, where he devotes Fridays and other times to looking after his grandmother, he's been commuting up to four hours a day to George Mason and scrimping at every turn as he prepares for law school. He'll graduate in December with a major in sociology and a minor in anthropology.

"I don't buy clothes," Robertson said. "I don't shop. I stay at home, I don't go out. I have a very strict academic life.

"I really try to prepare enough so that I'm not stressed out with money. That's the last thing you need to be stressed out by when you're in school."

Corwin Burton, a sophomore at the University of Maryland, also on the Washington outskirts, gave up his apartment and moved back home when the tips dropped off at the bar he tends. Studying nano-engineering, he's confident the economy will rebound by the time he gets out of grad school.

"It always does," he said. "It's nowhere near bad enough to think that the country's going to explode and fail. The economy naturally cycles. I've studied enough economics to know that. It goes up, it goes back down."

In Grants Pass, Ore., Donahue wonders when it's going to go up. He regrets stretching his bachelor of science in economics over five years, thinking he'd be a financial analyst now if he'd finished school in four, before the crisis. Given the turmoil in the financial industry, however, it's questionable whether an entry job would still be there.

Sharing his $200 a month in food stamps with his aunt and uncle in lieu of rent, he's applying for work as a delivery man, a hotel clerk, a bank teller and a white-collar job in the insurance industry. He's planning on going to law school.

"Having a college degree and having to ask other people for help is not a funny thing," he said. "It's a little demoralizing."

Still, faith persists among the young in the value of an education as a career builder, and a temporary shelter from the outside world.

Lear gets the occasional "panic-inducing thought" that capitalism itself is unraveling, a scary prospect with graduation ahead of him in December. "Right now, it's the only thing to do," he said of schooling. "There's always grad school and I'm not afraid of more education."

Then there's the laser focus of Robertson, on track to become a public advocacy lawyer.

"I've made up my mind about what I'm going to do and so I'm going to do it," he states. "If I have to endure some challenges and struggle a little bit, that's fine. If it's going to take me some extra time, I want those credentials, it's really important, so I'm going to do it."

The poll was conducted April 22 to May 4 by Edison Media Research and involved interviews with 2,240 undergraduate students aged 18-24 at four-year colleges. To protect privacy, the schools where the poll was conducted are not being identified, the students who responded were not asked for their names, and people interviewed for this story were not part of the survey. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The TV network mtvU is operated by the MTV Networks division of Viacom and available at many colleges. MtvU's sponsorship of the poll is related to its mental-health campaign "Half of Us," which it runs with the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit group that works to reduce suicide among young people.

Engaging Minds- Interesting Projects

My students did their project presentations last week for the Intro to Global Business course. They were all very thoughtful, and for first and second year students they did very well. The PowerPoints are on YouTube and are available for public consumption.

On Infrastructure

On Education


On transportation

On Health Care

Going Green

On Education

Monkeying with our Mind

From Discovery Channel: Monkeys are able to learn from their mistakes and will take risks to potentially win better rewards when playing games, according to a new study. "This is the first evidence that monkeys, like people, have 'would-have, could-have, should-have' thoughts," said Ben Hayden, a researcher at the Duke University Medical Center and lead author of the study published in the journal Science.

On the Human Front:

Elections in India are over and the Congress Party has won- this despite the atrocious showing by the government during the Mumbai attacks, and the runaway inflation that the poor are facing.

Dalia Grybauskaite has been elected Lithuania's first female president, according to official results."I am grateful for the responsibility invested in me," said Ms Grybauskaite, the European Union budget commissioner. Now, Lithuania has joined the ranks of countries with at least one female leader at the top. One more picture to be added to my list.

Lack of Standards

In Colleges and Universities faculty members, especially tenured ones, feel that they are masters of the Universe. A faculty member feels that he/she can do things in his/her own way, often with no consideration for students. Pity the poor student who has to take four courses in a term with four different instructors, each of whom follows his/her methods and systems. No wonder students are often confused. I believe in openness and share all my previous exams and grades with students. I do put in a lot of time and effort in creating new questions every time. The other day, two students told me (independently) about another professor whose course they were taking. This professor would give exams and then give the students a score, but would not give the exams back or tell students where they lost points. I talked to that professor later, and she indicated that she did not give exams back because she reused questions.
A sad state of affairs, where student learning takes a back seat to faculty member's conveniences and laziness.

An Educational Evening with an All-Star Lineup

Spending an evening in the company of graduating students and their parents is one of the great perks for an educator. This particular year, I have a number of top-notch seniors who are graduating- an exceptional graduating class of my advisees. While I have some strong juniors and sophomores, this graduating class will be one of my best ever.
It is absolutely delightful to meet the parents of the students.

Exploitation still alive

A bill working its way through Congress, if passed and signed into law, would guarantee workers up to seven days of paid sick leaver per year. Businesses are protesting this move- using the usual argument that it raises costs.

A long-stalled effort to guarantee American workers paid sick days takes a big step forward Monday with the introduction of legislation by Congressional Democrats.

The proposal went nowhere during the presidency of George W. Bush, but as a senator and then a presidential candidate, Barack Obama backed it, and Michelle Obama embraced the idea last week in a talk to business leaders. Now women’s groups, labor unions and other supporters are voicing optimism about its prospects. “The last eight years, you kept clawing and scratching and didn’t get anywhere, but we have a real opportunity now,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts will introduce the measure. “There’s something wrong when people have to choose between their jobs and taking care of themselves or their families when someone is sick.” Business groups are vowing to block the legislation, arguing that the recession makes this an inopportune time to create a new mandate that they say would raise costs for employers. “Given that small businesses are barely able to keep their heads above water in this economy, we don’t think this is the right legislation to be pushing right now,” said Susan Eckerly, senior vice president at the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small-business owners. Supporters, on the other hand, say the legislation is especially timely now, given the swine flu epidemic. The bill, the Healthy Families Act, would be binding on employers that had 15 or more workers. It would guarantee employees one paid hour off for each 30 hours worked, enabling them to earn up to seven paid sick days a year. They would be entitled to claim their days when they or a child, a parent, a spouse or someone else close to them became ill.

Outage...and Outrage

Big news today was that Google, the Heart of the Internet, was down for more than an hour. Gmail addicts like this author, and users of other Google services including search were left to get some sleep (in the U.S.). Given the load on Google, the site is quite remarkable in its up-time.

With the economy's distress, people's distress compounded by the high and rising cost of health care is getting everyone worked up. Suddenly major health care firms are offering some "freebies" in an attempt to thwart legislation on the issue. Pfizer announced that it would provide 70 of its most widely prescribed drugs, including Lipitor and Viagra, free to people who have lost their jobs and health insurance. The company said it would give away the medicines for up to a year to Americans who lost jobs since Jan. 1 and had been taking the Pfizer drug for three months or more. The move could earn Pfizer some good will; it has long been a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices. The program might also help keep those patients loyal to Pfizer brands.

Moving Out and Moving In

In India, where joint families are quite common, the story of recent years has been one of young people leaving their parents and getting a place of their own as they started working. Today the NYT ran an article on the increasing number of people in their thirties and forties who are moving back to live with their parents, in the U.S.

The Greatest Example of Creation - BCT

BCT = Banana Trees, Coconut Trees, Tamarind Trees

Today, I was discussing various trees with my mom. She pointed out that every part of the Banana tree is useful in an Indian kitchen. The leaves serve as a great compostable plate for eating, the fruits are a healthy food, the bark itself is peeled and used in cooking- it tastes great. A banana leaf actually adds flavor to what is served on it- it is till the preferred form for serving food in South Indian traditional weddings. Nothing in the banana tree is wasted. Similarly the coconut tree leaves are stitched together and used as a plate, and the coconut water and its flesh are very tasty and healthy. The tamarind tree leaves are used in various ways in the kitchen, both green leaves and dried leaves, and the fruit is a common ingredient in Indian dishes. What wonderful gifts from the Goddesses!

Mega-Mess

When I visited my Alma Mater, IIT Madras, earlier this year, our guide KL took us around the campus. When I was there as a student, every hostel (dorm) had its own cafeteria, or as it is called in India, the Mess. Now, KL pointed out, IIT had built one massive Mega-Mess that served all the students. It had multiple floors, and students could choose from a variety of menus. A far cry from our days when Dosas and Vadas and well made uttapams were our favorite foods. Now, pizzas and Chinese foods have taken positions next to the native dishes as choice foods. Even when we visited Infosys, the cafewteria there had subway and Pizza Hut and other fast food purveyors.

Talking about Mega Messes, the WSJ had an article examining growth of Indian cities, titled "Megacities Threaten to Choke India." One key statistic in the article is that "What's happening in India is part of a world-wide challenge. Megacities are sprouting around the globe. But in billion-person India, the trend is on steroids. The country already has 25 of the world's 100-fastest growing urban areas, according to City Mayors, an international urban-affairs think tank. That compares with eight in China. Pune, near Mumbai, has more than four million people, about the same as the Houston area. Kanpur, in north central India, has more than three million, as does Surat, in western India. India is expected to add 10 million people a year between 2000 and 2030 to its 5,161 cities, according to the United Nations."

Unhealthy appetite of Health Care Givers

A rather scary and touching article in the NYT today made for interesting reading...

Cancer Patients Challenge the Patenting of a Gene By John Schwartz

The drug companies have acquired patents on genes and the tests on them to identify potential risks. Patients are at the mercy of these companies, often when in situations where early detection might help significantly.

The article is reproduced below...

When Genae Girard received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2006, she knew she would be facing medical challenges and high expenses. But she did not expect to run into patent problems.

Ms. Girard took a genetic test to see if her genes also put her at increased risk for ovarian cancer, which might require the removal of her ovaries. The test came back positive, so she wanted a second opinion from another test. But there can be no second opinion. A decision by the government more than 10 years ago allowed a single company, Myriad Genetics, to own the patent on two genes that are closely associated with increased risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and on the testing that measures that risk.

On Tuesday, Ms. Girard, 39, who lives in the Austin, Tex., area, filed a lawsuit against Myriad and the Patent Office, challenging the decision to grant a patent on a gene to Myriad and companies like it. She was joined by four other cancer patients, by professional organizations of pathologists with more than 100,000 members and by several individual pathologists and genetic researchers.

The lawsuit, believed to be the first of its kind, was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union and filed in federal court in New York. It blends patent law, medical science, breast cancer activism and an unusual civil liberties argument in ways that could make it a landmark case.

Companies like Myriad, based in Salt Lake City, have argued that the patent system promotes innovation by giving companies the temporary monopoly that rewards their substantial investment in research and development.

Richard Marsh, Myriad’s general counsel, said company officials would not be able to comment on the lawsuit until they had fully reviewed the complaint.

The coalition of plaintiffs argues that gene patents actually restrict the practice of medicine and new research.

“With a sole provider, there’s mediocrity,” said Wendy K. Chung, the director of clinical genetics at Columbia University and a plaintiff in the case.

Dr. Chung and others involved with the suit do not accuse Myriad of being a poor steward of the information concerning the two genes at issue in the suit, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, but they argue that BRCA testing would improve if market forces were allowed to work.

Harry Ostrer, director of the human genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine and a plaintiff in the case, said that many laboratories could perform the BRCA tests faster than Myriad, and for less money than the more than $3,000 the company charged.

Laboratories like his, he said, could focus on the mysteries still unsolved in gene variants. But if he tried to offer such services today, he said, he would be risking a patent infringement lawsuit from Myriad.

Christopher A. Hansen, senior national staff counsel for the civil liberties union, said the problem was with the patent office, not the company. He recalled that when he first heard that the office had granted a patent for a gene, “I said that can’t be true.”

As the A.C.L.U. explored the restrictions on competition that companies like Myriad had put in place — blocking alternatives to the patented tests, and even the practice of interpreting or comparing gene sequences that involved those genes — the restrictions started to look like not just a question of patent law, Mr. Hansen said, but of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech as well.

“What they have really patented,” he said, “is knowledge.”

A patent was also granted to a single company for genetic testing on long QT syndrome, which can lead to heart arrhythmias and sudden death, and to the HFE gene, linked to hereditary hemochromatosis, a condition in which iron accumulates in the blood and can cause organ damage. Doctors and scientists have complained about both patents.

On the other hand, the company that owns the patent to the gene CFTR, which has been linked to cystic fibrosis, has licensed the testing to dozens of laboratories, drawing praise from the medical world.

The decision to allow gene patents was controversial from the start; patents are normally not granted for products of nature or laws of nature. The companies successfully argued that they had done something that made the genes more than nature’s work: they had isolated and purified the DNA, and thus had patented something they had created — even though it corresponded to the sequence of an actual gene.

The argument may have convinced patent examiners, but it has long been a sore point for many scientists. “You can’t patent my DNA, any more than you can patent my right arm, or patent my blood,” said Jan A. Nowak, president of the Association for Molecular Pathology, a plaintiff in the case.

So far, however, two panels of government experts who have looked at the issue have not found significant impediments to research or medical care caused by gene patents. A 2006 report from the National Research Council found that patented biomedical research “rarely imposes a significant burden for biomedical researchers.”

That report and others, however, warn that the patent landscape “could become considerably more complex and burdensome over time.”

In the future, genetic tests are likely to involve the analysis of many genes at once, or even of a person’s full set of genes. Some 20 percent of the human genome is already included in patent claims, amounting to thousands of individual genes, says a draft report from the National Institutes of Health. The report warns that “it may be difficult for any one developer to obtain all the needed licenses” to develop the next generations of tests.

For Lisbeth Ceriani, a single mother from Newton, Mass., and a plaintiff in the case against Myriad, the biggest obstacle that gene patents present is one of cost. She has had breast cancer and a double mastectomy, but wants to have BRCA testing to determine her risk of ovarian cancer and help her decide whether to have her ovaries removed. But Myriad has refused to work with her insurance plan, Mass Health, and paying for the test herself is beyond her means.

She is reluctant to have surgery that might prove unnecessary, she said, but she also worries about her 8-year-old daughter and the inherited risk she might face. Which is why, Ms. Ceriani said, she wants to “find out if I have the mutation, so I can take the necessary steps to stay on the planet.”

“I want to be here,” she said, “to make sure she does her screening by the time she’s 30.”

Regressive Progress

My students and I recently discussed Culture, especially business culture, in our class. A number of articles recently provide more insight into this complex area.

NYT has an interesting article titled "Women Bullying Women at Work." Apparently "during this downturn, as stress levels rise, workplace researchers say, bullies are likely to sharpen their elbows and ratchet up their attacks.It’s probably no surprise that most of these bullies are men, as a survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group, makes clear. But a good 40 percent of bullies are women. And at least the male bullies take an egalitarian approach, mowing down men and women pretty much in equal measure. The women appear to prefer their own kind, choosing other women as targets more than 70 percent of the time..."

An interesting question is whether this phenomenon is also observed in countries like Finland and Denmark, where the roles of men and women are more balanced and both sexes are more fairly represented.

Another educational though touching story is about people who made a big effort to change direction in their lives only to find that the environment had also moved on them. In an article titled "For Many Teachers, a Famously Fertile Market Dries Up Overnight" NYT reports that "Larissa Patel dreamed of teaching English at a Brooklyn public school this fall, motivated by a desire to help low-income children. But instead, on Friday, Ms. Patel spent the day filling out applications for 30 jobs at private schools.Ms. Patel’s abrupt change in plans was precipitated by a new citywide ban on hiring teachers from outside the school system.“Suddenly, overnight, I am rethinking my entire career,” said Ms. Patel, 30, a student at St. John’s University who left a job in the digital imaging industry to work as a substitute teacher and pursue an education degree. “It’s a very bleak point in time. It’s forced me to sort of look in a new direction.”In an effort to cut costs and avoid teacher layoffs, the Department of Education on Wednesday ordered principals to fill vacancies with internal candidates only. As a result, aspiring teachers at education schools and members of programs like Teach for America — a corps of recent college graduates — and the city’s Teaching Fellows — which trains career professionals to become teachers — are scrambling for jobs.Many are forwarding their résumés to charter schools and private schools; others are looking to the suburbs and across state lines. Some are reconsidering the teaching profession altogether.“This was a pretty big bomb that dropped,” said Pam Ritchie, 43, a substitute teacher in Park Slope, Brooklyn, who had hoped the connections she developed would land her a permanent job in the fall. “I’m devastated.”.

When the fox guards the chicken....

One of the main issues during the recent Presidential elections, and a key problem facing the country, is health care, or lack thereof. By some estimates, nearly fifty million people in the USA are without reasonable (or sometimes any) health insurance.
Obama, who had signaled that he would push for change on this issue, is now backtracking and kissing up to the elements that have driven up the costs of health care.
According to the NYT, "Doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies will join President Obama on Monday in announcing their commitment to a sharp reduction in the growth of national health spending, White House officials said Sunday. The officials said the plan could save $2,500 a year for a family of four in the fifth year and a total of $2 trillion for the nation over 10 years. That could make it less expensive for Congress to enact comprehensive health insurance coverage, a daunting challenge facing the Obama administration. At this point, administration officials said, they do not have a way to enforce the commitment, other than by publicizing the performance of health care providers to hold them accountable. By offering to hold down costs voluntarily, providers said, they hope to stave off new government price constraints that might be imposed by Congress or a National Health Board of the kind favored by many Democrats. In a letter addressed to Mr. Obama, six leaders of the health care industry say: “We will do our part to achieve your administration’s goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate, saving $2 trillion or more. This represents more than a 20 percent reduction in the projected rate of growth.” The letter was signed by executives of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a lobby for medical device manufacturers; the American Hospital Association; the American Medical Association; America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for insurers; the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; and the Service Employees International Union."

These organizations have vehemently opposed any type of restraints in the past, and continue to lobby effectively to kill any legislation that would impose regulations on their practices.

EU Does WINTEL

Two interesting news reports on the same day...
WSJ reports that "The European Commission on Wednesday will fine the world's biggest computer-chip maker, Intel Corp., for breaking European antitrust rules, people familiar with the matter said Friday. The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, will also tell Intel to make changes to the way it provides rebates to computer makers, the people said."

Computerworld reports that "European Union (EU) antitrust regulators have set an early June date for an oral hearing during which Microsoft Corp. can defend its practice of bundling Internet Explorer (IE) with Windows news reports said last week. Jonathan Todd, spokesman for the EU's Competition Commission, told several news outlets, including the Reuters and Dow Jones wire services, that the agency had set June 3-5 for Microsoft to respond to charges that it "shields" IE from competition."

Indian government runs down fair play

WSJ reports that the Indian government is encouraging airlines in India to replace foreign pilots with native ones. "India's airlines, in a slump, are sending the following message to the cockpit: Foreign pilots, go home.

It's an abrupt turnaround from the past several years, when Western pilots looked to growing markets like India as saviors for their profession. While carriers in the U.S. and Europe struggled with the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, India was opening its skies to new domestic carriers -- and hiring hundreds of foreign pilots to fill the new planes with experienced fliers.

But in the past several months, India's airline industry has contracted as the economic crisis has hit. Now, the industry is trying to cut costs.

Part of the solution: Firing expensive, though often more experienced, foreign pilots. India's government has effectively endorsed the purge. In March, it ordered airlines to get rid of all foreign pilots by July 2010.

The purge is the latest in a string of similar moves around the world, as governments try to reduce the number of foreign workers to free up jobs for native-born citizens. In Malaysia, the government has frozen recruitment of workers from overseas in some sectors and asked employers to lay off foreigners instead of locals. Australia has said it intends to cut its intake of skilled migrants by 14% amid rising unemployment. Last month, the Irish government said it was imposing rules to make it tougher for foreigners to get and renew work permits.

Such moves are making life harder for employers that have relied on overseas workers to keep costs low or make up for shortages of skilled labor. The restrictions are also creating new hardships for the workers themselves. Many made enormous sacrifices to travel abroad in search of better employment and new opportunities."

**On one hand, the Indian government and Indian companies protested loudly when President Obama wanted to clean up the H1-B visa program. Now, the Indian folks are not showing any qualms about guarding their own jobs.**

Capital Friends in High Places...Jobless in Low Places

Wall Street has been moving up in recent weeks, confident that its allies will always come to its rescue, irrespective of the consequences for the general public. The latest data point comes from the reports in the press about Stephen Friedman, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who abruptly resigned on Thursday, days after questions arose about his ties to Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Friedman was chairman of the New York Fed at the same time that he was a member of Goldman’s board. He also had a substantial stake in the firm as the Fed was devising a solution to keep Wall Street banks afloat. Denis M. Hughes, deputy chairman of the board, will take over as the interim chairman, the New York Fed said in a statement. (Read Mr. Friedman’s letter after the jump.)

Because the New York Fed approved a request by Goldman to become a bank holding company, the chairman’s involvement in Goldman was a violation of Fed policy, The Wall Street Journal said in an article earlier this week.

The New York Fed asked for a waiver, which, after about two and a half months, the Fed granted, the newspaper said. During that time, Mr. Friedman bought 37,300 more Goldman shares in December, which have since risen $1.7 million in value.

*** Mr. Friedman, who enriched himself this way, has not given back the loot, but instead has claimed that “I followed the rules, as I always have.”***

WSJ has an interesting report on the 'stress test results' titled "Banks Won Concessions on Tests- Fed Cut Billions Off Some Initial Capital-Shortfall Estimates; Tempers Flare at Wells."

This piece makes for good reading.

***The Federal Reserve significantly scaled back the size of the capital hole facing some of the nation's biggest banks shortly before concluding its stress tests, following two weeks of intense bargaining.

In addition, according to bank and government officials, the Fed used a different measurement of bank-capital levels than analysts and investors had been expecting, resulting in much smaller capital deficits.

The overall reaction to the stress tests, announced Thursday, has been generally positive. But the haggling between the government and the banks shows the sometimes-tense nature of the negotiations that occurred before the final results were made public.

Government officials defended their handling of the stress tests, saying they were responsive to industry feedback while maintaining the tests' rigor.

When the Fed last month informed banks of its preliminary stress-test findings, executives at corporations including Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. were furious with what they viewed as the Fed's exaggerated capital holes. A senior executive at one bank fumed that the Fed's initial estimate was "mind-numbingly" large. Bank of America was "shocked" when it saw its initial figure, which was more than $50 billion, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

At least half of the banks pushed back, according to people with direct knowledge of the process. Some argued the Fed was underestimating the banks' ability to cover anticipated losses with revenue growth and aggressive cost-cutting. Others urged regulators to give them more credit for pending transactions that would thicken their capital cushions.

At times, frustrations boiled over. Negotiations with Wells Fargo, where Chairman Richard Kovacevich had publicly derided the stress tests as "asinine," were particularly heated, according to people familiar with the matter. Government officials worried San Francisco-based Wells might file a lawsuit contesting the Fed's findings.

The Fed ultimately accepted some of the banks' pleas, but rejected others. Shortly before the test results were unveiled Thursday, the capital shortfalls at some banks shrank, in some cases dramatically, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bank of America's final gap was $33.9 billion, down from an earlier estimate of more than $50 billion, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

A Bank of America spokesman wouldn't comment on how much the previous gap was reduced, though he said it resulted from an adjustment for first-quarter results and errors made by regulators in their analysis. "It wasn't lobbying," he said.

Wells Fargo's capital hole shrank to $13.7 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Before adjusting for first-quarter results and other factors, the figure was $17.3 billion, according to a federal document.

"In the end we agreed with the number. We didn't necessarily like the number," said Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins. He said the company was particularly unhappy with the Fed's assumptions about Wells Fargo's revenue outlook.

At Fifth Third Bancorp, the Fed was preparing to tell the Cincinnati-based bank to find $2.6 billion in capital, but the final tally dropped to $1.1 billion. Fifth Third said the decline stemmed in part from regulators giving it credit for selling a part of a business line.

Citigroup's capital shortfall was initially pegged at roughly $35 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The ultimate number was $5.5 billion. Executives persuaded the Fed to include the future capital-boosting impacts of pending transactions.

SunTrust Banks Inc. also persuaded the Fed to significantly reduce the size of its estimated capital gap to $2.2 billion, after identifying mathematical errors in the Fed's earlier calculations, according to a person familiar with the matter.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc., saw a capital hole materialize at the last minute. As recently as Wednesday, PNC executives were under the impression they wouldn't need to find any new capital, according to people familiar with the matter. Thursday morning, the Fed informed PNC that it had a $600 million shortfall.

Regulators said other banks also were told they needed more capital than initially projected.

The Fed's findings were less severe than some experts had been bracing for. A weeklong rally in bank stocks continued Friday, with the KBW Bank Stocks index surging 10%. Investors were especially relieved by the relatively small capital holes at regional banks. Shares of Fifth Third soared 59%, while Regions Financial Corp.'s $2.5 billion deficit led to a 25% leap in its stock.

With the stress tests, government officials were walking a fine line. If the regulators were too tough on banks, they risked angering their constituents and spooking markets. But if they were too soft, the tests could have lost credibility, defeating their basic confidence-building purpose.

All the back-and-forth is typical of the way regulators traditionally wrap up their examinations of banks: Regulators often present preliminary findings to lenders and then give them time to respond. The process can result in changes to the regulators' initial conclusions. Some of the stress-test revisions, for instance, were made to account for the beneficial impact of the industry's strong first-quarter profits.

On Friday, some analysts questioned the yardstick, known as Tier 1 common capital, that regulators chose to assess capital levels. Many experts had assumed the Fed would use a better-known metric called tangible common equity.

According to Gerard Cassidy, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, the 19 banks' cumulative shortfall would have been more than $68 billion deeper if the government had used the latter metric, which accounts for unrealized losses....

Calling out and Touching Someone....on Craigslist

Craigslist is making the news for its "erotic services." The latest story, as reported by Newsday-
"Suffolk police have arrested a Hauppauge woman they say harassed her neighbor and possibly the neighbor's 9-year-old daughter by posting a sexually suggestive ad on Craigslist and directing nearly two dozen calls from men seeking sex to the neighbor's home phone number...."

According to Cyrus Farivar, Macworld.com, "Starting this fall, journalism students at the University of Missouri, Columbia will need to add an iPhone or an iPod touch to their shopping carts. Before you protest that it may seem ridiculous, lavish, or favoring Apple to force students to pick up one of these expensive pieces of hardware, Brian Brooks, associate dean of the journalism school, told the Columbia Missourian that the requirement "will not be enforced, however, and there will not be a penalty for students who chose not to buy an iPod touch or iPhone." So why require it? Brooks said that it'll helps students review recorded lectures, but the real reason for "requiring" the purchase is for the benefit of students on financial aid. He told the paper: The reason we put required on it is to help the students on financial need. If it's required, it can be included in your financial need estimate. If we had not required it, they wouldn't be able to do that..."

The bogus science behind the claims

Currently the markets are rallying amid the claims by the clowns that the economy has hit bottom and is now on the upswing. In a classic situation of the tail wagging the dog, these prognosticators point to the stock market as a leading indicator.
Lower mortgage rates are enabling people to refinance and that may prop up spending a little, but it is the employment picture that should be the driver. Currently it is as bleak as it has been. It is hard to get even unpaid internships for students.
It is rather sad to see young, talented, positively driven graduates running head-on into this massive tsunami.

DeadHeads still alive

The other day one of my students attended the Grateful Dead concert, albeit a Garcia-less Dead performance. I was surprised that the current generation has elements that like the Dead.

Yesterday, in my marketing class, I happened to mention Billy Joel in the context of work ethic, and sure enough, one student happened to like his music. There is no accounting for the retro tastes of the kids.

**Someone who sent me a comment anonymously , did not get the gist of my piece.  I am a BIG FAN of the Grateful Dead and Billy Joel, and love their music. I find it interesting that some of today's students enjoy those tunes- that is the point of the article. So yes, I do like the tastes of the current generation!**

Dates and Dating

Seahorses first stood up sometime after 25 to 20 million years ago, when bodies of open water between Australia and Indonesia changed, leaving these horse-resembling bony fishes with shallow sea grass habitat, according to a new study.

The study, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, explains that an upright stature, shared by humans but which is extremely rare throughout the entire animal kingdom, allowed seahorses to reside in what was essentially a lawn under water.

"The alleles of my Major Histocompatibility Complex are completely opposite from yours," might not sound like pillow talk, but it is the literal basis for the "chemistry" many couples have.

Two companies, Basisnote and Scientific Match, are developing technology to match couples based on the genetic components of the human immune system -- and their odor.

Studies have linked odor to immune systems and shown that people are most likely to be attracted to the smells of those who have different histocompatibility genes than their own. While those who have similar immune systems tend to not be attracted to each others' odors.