Richly deserved Plaudits for President Lula

Outgoing Brazil prez to continue fight on poverty - Yahoo! Finance: "Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he will try to fight poverty in Africa and Latin America after leaving office at the end of the year.

Silva says he wants to use the knowledge acquired through his successful social programs in Brazil to help nations 'still fighting extreme poverty and hunger.'

He said Tuesday in a weekly column that 'it's all about sharing the good things we learned.'

The popular president says he will rest for a while after he is termed out in December after eight years in office. He also plans to help Brazil undergo a political reform.

During Silva's presidency, some 20 million people have been lifted from poverty in a country of 190 million."

What Government ownership means...

GM spent $2.72M in 2Q to lobby US government - Yahoo! Finance: "DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Co. spent $2.72 million in the second quarter lobbying the federal government on energy and defense spending, safety regulations and research funding for autos that run on alternative fuels, according to a disclosure report.

That's slightly less than the $2.76 million the automaker spent a year earlier but more than the double the $1.36 million it spent in the first quarter this year.

GM, now 60.8 percent owned by the U.S. government, also lobbied on driver distraction, event data recorders, compliance with recalls and safety regulations, health care reform, electric vehicle infrastructure, pensions, climate change, tariff and trade bills and highway funding, according to a report it filed July 20 covering April through June.

GM lobbied Congress, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the International Trade Commission and the Departments of Defense, Energy and State, among others, according to the report it filed with the House clerk's office."

Job Seekers need to turn into Lobbyists

Plenty of money is being lobbed at the government and the legislature by firms of all sizes and industries. Time Warner, Disney, etc. lobby legislators, and legislators provide ad money (directly or indirectly) to TW, Disney, and others. Nice arrangement.

Disney spent $780,000 lobbying in 2Q - Yahoo! Finance: "Disney spent $780,000 lobbying in 2nd quarter on retransmission fee rules, broadband plan"

Time Warner Cable spent $1.44 mln lobbying in 2Q - Yahoo! Finance: "Time Warner Cable spent $1.44 million lobbying in 2nd qtr on targeted online ads, other issues"

Honeywell spent $1.7 million on 2Q lobbying

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin spent $3.2 million on second-quarter government lobbying

Lockheed Martin spent $3.2M on 2Q lobbying

American Express spends $630K in 2Q to lobby government on credit reform, financial overhaul

American Express spent $630,000 on lobbying in 2Q

MasterCard spends $2.33 million lobbying government about card issues in financial overhaul

We can certainly bank on Banks getting around the rules

Beware That New Credit-Card Offer - WSJ.com: "...Professional cards aren't covered under the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, or Card Act for short. Among other things, the law prohibits issuers from controversial billing practices such as hair-trigger interest rate increases, shortened payment cycles and inactivity fees—but it doesn't apply to professional cards (see table).

Until recently professional cards largely had been reserved for small-business owners or corporate executives. But since the Card Act was passed in March 2009, companies have been inundating ordinary consumers with applications. In the first quarter of 2010, issuers mailed out 47 million professional offers, a 256% increase from the same period last year, according to research firm Synovate..."

Useful information - cancer signs

BBC News - Top eight cancer signs pinpointed: "The Keele University team also points to the age at which patients should be most concerned by the symptoms, which include blood in urine and anaemia.

The other symptoms are: rectal blood, coughing up blood, breast lump or mass, difficulty swallowing, post-menopausal bleeding and abnormal prostate tests."

The Printing Press of Mighty Ben

Boeing says 787 is delayed, again.

Intel lowers the revenue forecast for 3Q.

GDP growth is lowered -U.S. Stocks Advance on GDP Data, Bernanke Pledge to Spur Growth - BusinessWeek: "Benchmark indexes rebounded from seven-week lows today after the government said the U.S. economy grew at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the second quarter, topping the average economist estimate of 1.4 percent.

‘Not as Bad’

“The GDP numbers were bad, but not as bad as expected,” said Frank Ingarra, a Stamford, Connecticut-based money manager at Hennessy Advisors Inc., which oversees about $850 million. “The whisper numbers were 1.3, 1.4 percent. That’s why the market sold off so much during the week because everyone was expecting these numbers to be awful.”"

SO why was the market up by more than 1.6%?

Fed Stands Ready to Do More, Bernanke Says - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Bernanke said the Fed, having kept short-term interest rates at nearly zero since 2008, had essentially four options:

It can purchase more government debt and long-term securities. It can try to coax down long-term interest rates by announcing its intention to keep short-term rates extremely low for even longer than the markets currently expect. It can lower the interest rate it pays on the funds banks hold at the Fed. And it can raise its medium-term target for inflation, which would discourage banks from sitting on their cash."

Shoddy work, Shoddy Explanation- by American

AA is charged by FAA for not meeting standards. AA says that passengers were never in danger. Is that the benchmark- the Airline management determines the airplane safety, with no oversight? As long as the liability is capped why not avoid any expenses on repairs and maintenance and safety regulations?

Summary Box: American hit with $24.2M penalty - Yahoo! Finance: "The Federal Aviation Administration proposes a record $24.2 million penalty against American Airlines for flying more than 14,000 flights with planes that FAA says didn't meet standards to prevent dangerous electric arching near fuel tanks.

AIRLINE'S RESPONSE: American says passengers were never in danger and no penalty is warranted. It plans to appeal.

COSTLY DISPUTE: American has already paid dearly for the allegedly shoddy work of bundling electrical wires on its McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 series jets. The airline canceled more than 3,000 flights and inconvenienced 350,000 passengers to fix the work back in 2008. Now it faces a penalty that could top the record, which is $9.5 million. That penalty, in 1987, went mostly unpaid after Eastern Airlines went out of business."

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings - NYTimes.com

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com: "The mainstream media has no motivation to go after the truth, as it makes money through the status-quo. Spending by the political parties contributes significantly to the bottom line of the media companies, so greater the lies and TV ads the better. The Murdoch entities including Fox and the WSJ, along with the likes of Rush, make a lot of money exploiting public ignorance and spreading fear and hatred.

More than sheer ignorance, the lack of desire to learn and to discern the truth among a large percentage of the public is very troubling. Companies defer to investors, and major investors have not expressed any concern at the state of affairs. Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Warren Buffet, and others complain about the education system, but individually and collectively the wealthy and influential investors have not criticized the level of public ignorance and the role of their investments in this disastrous state of affairs."

Yelp, Please!!!!

The social networking sites are all offering "Soupons" these days...

Yelp testing 1-day sales of local coupons - Yahoo! Finance: "Review website Yelp said Thursday that it is testing out 'Yelp Deals' -- large discounts at local businesses that site users can buy on one day only.

The move comes as sites such as Groupon have gotten extremely popular by combining social media with the power of group buying, offering shoppers daily deals on products and services in their communities. With Groupon, however, the deals are only made active once a certain number of people in a city have agreed to participate...

Ichinose said Yelp is delving into the deals market because consumers are often already intending to make some sort of purchase when they go to Yelp to check out a business reviewed on the site. And businesses have asked how they can offer discounts to Yelp users.

Yelp now allows businesses to list specials on their Yelp pages, such as a discount being offered for joining a health club when you mention the review site, which are teased on the site's front page."

Northbrook....where Brains went South

Rather than encouraging homeowners to get rid of grass and grow vegetables, Northbrook turns a grass-eye to the efforts of good people trying to live in a sustainable manner.

This year's harvest could be last for resident's garden - Triblocal - Voice of the town: "A Northbrook woman has found a better use for her front yard than a manicured lawn. She turned it into a vegetable garden.

But that doesn’t quite fit Northbrook’s regulations for front yard use, according to director of community planning Thomas Poupard.

The 69-year old Russian immigrant doesn’t see herself as a revolutionary. She just wants to have fresh tomatoes available for the friends and relatives who frequently visit."

Price of Productivity Gains

The S&P 500 companies reported very healthy profits for 2Q 2010. The Asia factor was common across all firms. In addition, many industrial/software companies saw gains from capital spending. In the absence of significant demand growth, capital expenditures are intended to drive productivity gains rather than an expansion of facilities to produce more with higher inputs. The 'productivity increase' investments will then enable the firms to meet the demand with lower labor costs, further dampening demand.

On the recent recall of a half billion eggs, a number of scientists and writers have weighed in with their views. The "productivity" driven industrialization of food production has given us the dozen eggs for under $2.00, but at what price?

Why Eggs Became a Salmonella Hazard - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com: "A half billion eggs have been recalled for possible salmonella infection, but the cause of the problem, at two giant farms in Iowa, has not yet been pinpointed, said Margaret Hamburg, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration..."

David Kirby on "The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy and Poultry Farms on Humans and the Environment": "Something else we feed chickens that people don’t realize is beef products. And when those chickens eat that beef product, some of it falls into their litter. Well, we produce so much chicken litter in this country, because of these factory farms, and it is so rich in phosphorus and nitrogen, its land application uses are limited. So you have surplus chicken litter and nothing to do with it. What do they do with it? They feed it to cattle. So we feed beef cows chicken crap. That chicken litter often contains bits and byproducts of cattle. So we are actually feeding cattle to cattle, which is a risk factor for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. We actually feed cattle products to cattle in three different ways: chicken litter, restaurant scraps, and blood products on dairy farms. And all the mad cow cases in this country came from mega-dairies where, when that calf is born, they remove it from its mother immediately, because that mother’s milk is a commodity, it’s worth money, so instead they feed that calf a formula that includes bovine blood products, and again increasing the risk of mad cow disease."

Michael Pollan speaks on egg recall | Berkeleyside: "Local food expert Michael Pollan was on CNN Monday night explaining why no one should be surprised that 550 million eggs have been recalled because they may have been tainted by salmonella.

Salmonella in eggs can be linked back to the 1970s and 1980s when industrial farmers started crowding chickens together to streamline their growth, said Pollan, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Nowadays, there can be 10 chickens to a cage, which can add up to 1 million chickens in each henhouse.

When President Obama took office, he tried to create a single agency to oversee all food safety issues, said Pollan. The food industry strenuously fought that attempt. “Our food industry has fought to keep power divided and power divided is never strong,” Pollan told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta."

Proudly Celebrating the Lack of Ethics

"Vanity" License Plate of a vehicle...

The owner of this vehicle is joined by quite a few commercial property owners and their investors, as the following WSJ story reveals. These folks have the money to pay their debts, but are choosing not to, because it makes "good business sense."

One more data point- where "good business sense" is not only 180 degrees from "ethical behavior" but it is being encouraged and rewarded as a "pragmatic" decision. It should not surprise anyone that the country is in a mess.

Commercial Property Owners Choose to Default - WSJ.com: "Like homeowners walking away from mortgaged houses that plummeted in value, some of the largest commercial-property owners are defaulting on debts and surrendering buildings worth less than their loans.

Companies such as Macerich Co., Vornado Realty Trust and Simon Property Group Inc. have recently stopped making mortgage payments to put pressure on lenders to restructure debts. In many cases they have walked away, sending keys to properties whose values had fallen far below the mortgage amounts, a process known as 'jingle mail.' These companies all have piles of cash to make the payments. They are simply opting to default because they believe it makes good business sense....

These pragmatic decisions by companies to walk away from commercial mortgages come as a debate rages in the residential-real-estate world about "strategic defaults," when homeowners stop making loan payments even though they can afford them. Instead, they decide to default because the house is "underwater," meaning its value has fallen to a level less than its debt...

"We don't do this lightly," said Robert Taubman, chief executive of Taubman Centers Inc. The luxury-mall owner, with upscale properties such as the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, decided earlier this year to stop covering interest payments on its $135 million mortgage on the Pier Shops at Caesars in Atlantic City, N.J.

Taubman, which estimates the mall is now worth only $52 million, gave it back to its mortgage holder.

"Where it's fairly obvious that the gap is large, as it was with the Pier Shops, individual owners are making very tough decisions," he said...

Banking-industry officials and others have argued that homeowners have a moral obligation to pay their debts even when it seems to make good business sense to default. Individuals who walk away from their homes also face blemishes to their credit ratings and, in some states, creditors can sue them for the losses they suffer.

But in the business world, there is less of a stigma even though lenders, including individual investors, get stuck holding a depressed property in a down market. Indeed, investors are rewarding public companies for ditching profit-draining investments. Deutsche Bank AG's RREEF, which manages $56 billion in real-estate investments, now favors companies that jettison cash-draining properties with nonrecourse debt, loans that don't allow banks to hold landlords personally responsible if they default. The theory is that those companies fare better by diverting money to shareholders or more lucrative projects.

Older but Sunny

Solar System Older Than Once Thought : Discovery News: "The solar system may be almost 2 million years older than previously thought, a new study shows.

Data from a newly studied meteorite recovered from the Saharan Desert show that the solar system formed 4,568.2 million years ago, 0.3 million to 1.9 million years earlier than other estimates. The results were published online August 22 in Nature Geoscience.

'All the interesting things we want to understand about the chemistry of our solar system happened within the first five to 10 million years,' says study coauthor Meenakshi Wadhwa, a cosmochemist from Arizona State University in Tempe. 'When you push it back by 2 million years, that's a substantial proportion of that 5 to 10 million years.'"

Easy Money...and Not Very Taxing Either

In Hard Times, Dreams of Easy Money - BusinessWeek: "...Even in good times, people have a strong fascination with easy money. The lottery industry, for instance, is bigger than either the music or movie industry, according to the North American Association of State & Provincial Lotteries.

Government-run lotteries generated more than $70 billion in gross sales in North America during the fiscal year ended June, up $1 billion year on year, according to the association. By comparison, Hollywood.com Box Office reported that 2009 box office sales in the U.S. and Canada were about $10.6 billion, and IFPI estimates that global music sales were $17 billion last year.

'Hard work is useful when it's productive,' says Gary Fong, author of The Accidental Millionaire, a memoir about how he succeeded as a wedding photographer and inventor with the help of some unforeseen coincidences. His mantra is to relax and stop worrying about expectations—success comes when one least expects it. While most people will encourage you to pursue your goals through hard work, Fong says, 'I have a little saying: When the going gets tough, bail.'..."

Obama Giving Rich Big Wet Kiss With Proposal On Bush Tax Cuts - Business in The Beltway - Money & Politics - Forbes: "As Adam notes, the argument we are having is “whether to extend all of the tax cuts or merely to extend the vast majority.” Or, to put it a slightly different way: Do we want to “extend an extra $310,000 in tax relief to the wealthiest 120,000 taxpayers or … instead make a relatively small down payment toward fiscal responsibility?”

As Adam’s graph (and the Tax Policy Center analysis upon which it is based) shows, the highest 0.1% of earners (average income $8 million) would still benefit, to the tune of more than $61,000, even if the top rate is increased from today’s 35 percent to 39.6 percent, as President Obama prefers. How would they get a $60,000+ tax cut, relative to current law, if their rates are increased?

There are two big reasons. First, remember that Obama would extend the Bush tax cuts for income of $200,000 or less ($250,000 for joint filers). Thus, high-earners would still enjoy the benefits of lower rates on their first few hundred thousand dollars of income. They would also benefit from Obama’s proposal to tax dividends at 20 percent since that levy would rise to 39.6 percent (the same as the top rate on ordinary income) if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire..."

A Sad Day...when a bank fails Depositors and Tribune fails "Chiacgo"

ShoreBank fails, South Side lender bought by big investors - chicagotribune.com: "Chiacgo's ShoreBank fails, is bought by investors
South Side institution billed itself as the leading lender to low- and moderate-income urban areas"

Chasing Growth....and Leaving Ethics Behind

Sales Strength Of Starbucks' Via Coffee Questioned - NYTimes.com: "Tyler Swain, a barista in Omaha, Nebraska, said his store is under intense pressure from its district manager to deliver Via sales. Swain said he has given out complimentary drinks to persuade customers to buy Via and that he has been coached to teach others to do the same.

'It is a never-ending pressure,' said Swain, who is involved in a movement to unionize Starbucks employees. 'I don't feel like a barista anymore. I feel like a salesman.'

Two business school students, who asked not to be named, told Reuters that a Manhattan barista this week gave them two free drinks in exchange for buying a package of Via."

A Cluttered Story of Wal-Mart-esque Proportion

Wal-Mart 2Q profit rises 3.6 pct on cost-cutting - Yahoo! Finance: "Wal-Mart benefited during the recession as affluent shoppers traded down to cheaper stores. But it acknowledged in May that it's losing some of those customers, who've started to trade back up. Meanwhile, stubbornly high unemployment and tight credit are still squeezing its main lower-income customers, who are having more trouble stretching their dollars to the next payday...

Wal-Mart has said it's own strategies are partly to blame for its weak U.S. business. Wal-Mart has acknowledged that its campaign to declutter its stores went too far, leading shoppers to flee to rivals such as Target Copr. for favorite brands. It has been scrambling to restock some products over the past year..."

The 15% Kudlow

Mr. Kudlow of CNBC seems to have developed a fatal attraction for 15% flat tax policy. Like any Fox(y) Republican he completely ignores the evidence from the Bush and Reagan tax cuts- ballooning budget deficits and a deteriorating economy. It can be argued, with good evidence, that Bush's tax cuts lit the match that caused the mortgage market to burst into a towering inferno. SOme guests on the show suggested that spending should be slashed. However a CNBC report also said that the main driver of joblessness is government, federal and local, that is laying off workers. Either these so-called economists have had a lousy education, or they are consciously trying to hoodwink the masses. Unfortunately neither is a crime.

No Wrongdoing by Any Corporation

Sign of a Corrupt Nation...

Government brings a case against a corporation, the latter pays a measly fine, and does not admit to any wrongdoing.

If there is no wrongdoing, why should the corporation pay the fine? And why should the government accept money if the corporation didn't do anything wrong?

Money in these cases is just the grease that appears to be applied by corporations and investors to ensure that the wheels of business are not obstructed by stuff like ethical behavior.

Now, it appears that even governments can settle charges the same way...

NJ settles SEC fraud charges over bond sales - Yahoo! Finance: "The state of New Jersey has settled federal civil fraud charges of failing to inform bond investors that it had not met obligations to its largest pension plans, federal regulators said Wednesday.

In announcing the settlement, the Securities and Exchange Commission said New Jersey did not give municipal bond investors enough information to fully assess the state's financial picture.

New Jersey was the first state ever charged for violations of the securities laws. New Jersey neither admitted nor denied the allegations. It did agree to refrain from future violations of the securities laws."

Intel Settles Claim That It Tried to Stifle Competition - NYTimes.com: "The Federal Trade Commission and Intel announced on Wednesday that they had agreed to settle charges of anticompetitive behavior that the agency claimed stifled competition in the market for computer processing and graphics chips.

The settlement prohibits Intel from the practice of paying customers to buy its computer chips exclusively or to refuse to buy chips from other manufacturers. It also prohibits Intel from redesigning its chips purely to harm a competitor. Intel also agreed not to retaliate against computer makers if they do business with non-Intel suppliers...This agreement provides a framework that will allow us to continue to compete and to provide our customers the best possible products at the best prices,' Mr. Melamed said. In agreeing to the settlement, Intel did not admit to any wrongdoing or that the accusations were true."

HP reaches settlement with DOJ in kickbacks case - Yahoo! Finance: "Hewlett-Packard Co. said Monday that it has agreed in principle to settle a lawsuit by the Department of Justice, which alleged that HP and other technology companies paid kickbacks to Accenture PLC in exchange for recommendations for government work.

HP denied 'engaging in any illegal conduct.' It said the deal will lower its fiscal third-quarter profit by 2 cents per share. That's about $50 million given that it has 2.33 billion shares outstanding...."

GE to Pay $23.5 Million to Settle SEC Kickback Charges - WSJ.com: "...'GE failed to maintain adequate internal controls to detect and prevent these illicit payments,' said Cheryl J. Scarboro, chief of the SEC's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit. 'It failed to properly record the true nature of the payments in its accounting records.'

GE will pay a $1 million penalty and return $22.5 million in profits plus interest that the subsidiaries are estimated to have earned on the transactions, GE said. The company agreed to pay the fines without admitting or denying guilt...."

Goldman Sachs Agrees to Settle Fraud Case for $550 Million - CNBC: "'They pay $550 million and they get an $800 million pop in their stock price—they got off easy,'' said Kevin Caron, a market strategist at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co in Florham Park, New Jersey.

The settlement came on the same day that the financial overhaul bill won final approval in the Senate, imposing the stiffest restrictions on banks and Wall Street since the Great Depression.

The deal calls for Goldman to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission fines of $300 million. The rest of the money will go to compensate those who lost money on their investments....

...CNBC understands that the SEC was originally looking for a settlement near $750 million dollars and that management change within Goldman was not on the table during the negotiations. Goldman's response over the complaint would have been due on Monday.

The fine was the largest against a financial company in SEC history. Goldman earned $3.3 billion in the first quarter of this year. It earned $13.4 billion in 2009.

The settlement also requires Goldman to review how it sells complex financial mortgage investments. Goldman acknowledged in a court filing that its marketing materials for the deal at the center of the charges omitted key information for buyers.

But Goldman did not admit any legal wrongdoing...."

Dell Inc. paying $100 million in SEC deal - Yahoo! Finance: "Computer maker Dell Inc. is paying $100 million to settle civil charges that it fraudulently used payments from Intel to pump up its profits to meet Wall Street targets over five years, the government announced Thursday....

The SEC said the company also failed to disclose to investors large payments it received from Intel Corp. in exchange for not using central processing units made by Intel's main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Those payments enabled Dell to meet its quarterly earnings targets, the agency said. After Intel stopped the payments, Dell again misled shareholders by not disclosing the real reason its profits had dropped, according to the SEC. The company, Michael Dell, Rollins and Schneider falsely portrayed the means by which the company met or surpassed earnings targets from 2001 through 2006, the SEC said in a civil lawsuit. Without the payments from Intel, the agency said, Dell would have missed analysts' estimates in every quarter during that span.
The company and Michael Dell neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing."

Capitalism for Investors, Socialism for the Rest

Bizarre business of government giving "public taxpayer money" to "FOR PROFIT" educational institutions as part of the federal student loan programs. According to the Dept. of Education, more than half of these institutions have a high percentage of students not repaying principal when due. The companies keep the money (as part of tuition and fees that's paid) but the government is stuck with the loss. If the students of these institutions do not find an adequate job (or any job, in some cases) the government has to take write-downs. The pain is distributed to the public, while the companies and the investors make money the easy way- taking it from the government. In this regard this business is no different than banks getting government money, either through "mortgage guarantees" or through bailouts.

Capitalism, only when it benefits the investors.

Stocks of for-profit colleges fall after government report - USATODAY.com: "The Department of Education data show 53% of the 181 publicly traded for-profit institutions had fewer than 35% of students repaying principal on their loans in a timely manner, according to FBR. That's well above the 37% of not-for-profit schools with such low repayment rates.

For-profit institutions that fall below a 35% repayment rate could lose their right to collect money from federal student loan programs under rules proposed to begin in the 2012 school year. Schools with repayment rates below 45% may have restricted access to federal aid programs, which account for a large percentage of their revenue.

Among the hardest hit stocks: Strayer Education (STRA) and Capella Education, (CPLA) which fell 18% to $163.26 and 13% to $60.94, respectively, as investors thought their repayment rates would be 45% or higher, says Trace Urdan, analyst at Signal Hill."

Geithner's Online Course: Government should be the Borrower, and Government Should be the Lender

Geithner Affirms U.S. Role as Mortgage Backer - NYTimes.com: "He said continued government support was important “to make sure that Americans can borrow at reasonable interest rates to buy a house even in a downturn.” The absence of such support, Mr. Geithner said, would make future recessions more severe because private lenders would not provide enough money for loans.

His opening remarks underscored the limits on the possibilities that the Obama administration is pondering as it opens a public conversation on reworking the government’s role in housing finance — including the future of the housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now wards of the state..."

**********

Government is borrowing money on a large scale, and Geithner wants to commit government to support the F&F in a big way. Why should the government encourage home ownership and not something else? Instead of creating another bubble, why doesn't the government reduce the burden on people, like cost of health insurance and cost of healthy food?

Driving Fear INTO the Workplace, the Hurd Way

At Tellabs the highly respected founder CEO Mr. Mike Birck made a commitment to 'Driving Fear Out of the Workplace." Employees felt comfortable in speaking franklyto Mr. Birck . Being an engineer at heart, he strove to find and fix management problems.

Mr. Hurd of HP is clearly made of a different cloth, the same cloth that dressed other "chainsaws" like Al Dunlop and Jack Welch. Why would any talented person want to work for these sleazeballs?

Despite H.P.’s Efforts, Mark Hurd Spectacle Goes On - NYTimes.com: "The accusations linking Mr. Hurd to improper spending resonate because he had built up a culture of severe financial accountability at H.P. A former H.P. executive said that Mr. Hurd’s meetings were known internally as “rectal exams” because of the fierce questioning.

“If you put up a slide with lower financial forecasts, he would spot it right away,” the executive said, requesting anonymity because he still deals with H.P. “Then, he would demand that you fix the situation.”

Stories abound of Mr. Hurd’s slicing into marketing costs and making employees fight for every dollar in the budget (although Mr. Hurd often found marketing money to sponsor tennis events, uniting his love of the sport with H.P.)."

Satellite pictures of parking lots keeping analysts busy

New Big Brother: Market-Moving Satellite Images - Yahoo! Finance: "As part of a growing trend among hedge funds and Wall Street firms, Cold War-style satellite surveillance is being used to gather market-moving information.

The surveillance pictures are often provided by private- sector companies like DigitalGlobe in Colorado and GeoEye in Virginia, which build and launch satellites and take pictures for US government intelligence agency clients and private-sector satellite analysis firms."

Down by the Internet

The Hindu : Health / Medicine & Research : Depression in youths: "A large Chinese study suggests that otherwise healthy teenagers are much more vulnerable to depression if they spend too much time on the Internet. Researchers who followed more than 1,000 students at high schools in Guangzhou — all of them free of anxiety and depression at the start of the study — found that after nine months, rates of severe depression among “pathological” users were 2.5 times those of the others.

The study was published August 2 in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. It used self-rating scales to assess anxiety and depression, along with an addiction test.

Of the 1,041 subjects, 94 per cent were classified as normal Internet users and 6 per cent as moderately pathological or at severe risk for addiction. After nine months, 87 students, or 8.4 pe rcent, developed mild to severe depression."

The Fruits of a Good Education

The following images were captured at approximately 8:30 PM Central Time, August 14, 2010.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8004316/ns/video

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&topic=t

Putting Gas in Cars - Compressed Natural Gas, that is.

The Hindu : Business News : Maruti Suzuki launches five CNG models: "Maruti Suzuki on Friday unveiled its flagship CNG engine technology — ‘intelligent-Gas Port Injection' or i-GPI — on five popular models. The models include SX4, Eeco, WagonR, Estilo and Alto and will be available in the entire National Capital Region, including Delhi, Mumbai and Gujarat.

While sedan SX4 Vxi is priced at Rs. 7.47 lakh, WagonR Lxi comes with a price tag of Rs. 4.11 lakh. Prices of other models are: Estilo Lxi Rs. 4.05 lakh, Eeco 5-seater AC Rs. 3.64 lakh and Alto Lxi Rs. 3.23 lakh.

“With this initiative, the CNG footprint of the company spreads across entry-level cars, compact cars, sedans and MPV segments. We are confident that customers would value our i-GPI technology that is safe, reliable, clean and environment-friendly. Adapting the CNG technology in our vehicles is another step to keep low cost of ownership for our customers,” said Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R. C. Bhargava...."

A Painful Subject

Women Feel More Pain Than Men : Discovery News: "Globally, women have more chronic pain than men, more recurrent pain, they are more likely to have multiple sources of pain, and they are definitely neglected as it relates to treatment,' said Jennifer Kelly, an independent psychologist in Atlanta.

Kelly presented a review of research on gender and pain today at a meeting of the American Psychological Association.

Along with findings that a combination of genes, hormones, emotions and even social roles influence the experience of pain, accumulating evidence suggests that doctors might some day personalize the management of pain, based on the genders of their patients. For now, scientists are still struggling to understand the nuances of chronic pain, which is notoriously hard to treat."

No Morality when Borrowing, No Morality when Defaulting

Good data in a troubling story in the NYT.

Borrowers Refuse to Pay Billions in Home Equity Loans - NYTimes.com: "The delinquency rate on home equity loans is higher than all other types of consumer loans, including auto loans, boat loans, personal loans and even bank cards like Visa and MasterCard, according to the American Bankers Association.

Lenders say they are trying to recover some of that money but their success has been limited, in part because so many borrowers threaten bankruptcy and because the value of the homes, the collateral backing the loans, has often disappeared.

The result is one of the paradoxes of the recession: the more money you borrowed, the less likely you will have to pay up."

Fed out of Focus

The 2Q earnings reports have shown explicitly- that the large (and many small) public companies are sitting on huge piles of cash. Case in point - Apple ended the quarter with $32 billion in Cash equivalents/readily available cash including Net receivables. All the big banks reported gigantic earnings and are sitting on piles of cash.

If these Cash machines are not buying debt or are not investing, and if the "markets are right" then the federal /Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/state and local debt are bad investing options. That could be one reason why the Fed, which loaded up on debt in excess of a trillion dollars, wants to continue loading up. It is clear where the Fed money is ending up- in the coffers of the big corporations which are all too happy with the scenario. Yes, liquidity helps the market- makes the money flow to the market participants. Unfortunately the Fed Debt is socializing the pain, but capitalizing the gain.

The shell game is too obvious- Fed "effectively" prints and gives the government money by buying debt, and gives an easy way for banks to make money by banking with the Fed. With huge long-term debt on its balance sheet, will the Fed raise rates and risk taking a hit on its assets? One more sign that the rates will be low for a long, long, time.

Saying Recovery Has Slowed, Fed to Buy U.S. Debt - NYTimes.com: "Federal Reserve officials, acknowledging that their confidence in the recovery had dimmed, moved again on Tuesday to keep interest rates low and encourage economic growth. They also signaled that more aggressive measures could follow if the job market and other indicators continued to weaken.

...

From January 2009 to March 2010, the Fed bought $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and about $175 billion in debt owed by government agencies, primarily the housing finance entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Fed had planned to allow the size of that portfolio to shrink gradually as the securities matured or the debts were prepaid.

Instead, the Fed will now reinvest those principal payments in longer-term Treasury securities. (The central bank said it would continue to roll over its holdings of other Treasury securities as they mature.)

The money involved is unclear. In March, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated that at least $200 billion of the mortgage-related securities and debt would mature or be prepaid by the end of 2011...."

Giving, the IIT way

Outgoing IIT-Bombay batch pledges 1% of salary for alma mater-Education-Services-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times: "MUMBAI: Charity begins on campus. The seed of the idea, that has now got 735 students of the current outgoing batch of IIT Bombay (IIT-B) to pledge 1% of their salaries to their alma mater, came from former student Bakul Desai, an Hyderabad-based entrepreneur.

Desai, a graduate of the 1982 batch, came up with the idea of a programme that is now being called ‘Give One for IIT-B’. At rough count — taking the starting salary of a fresh graduate to be Rs 7 lakh per annum — it is likely to add a robust Rs 50 lakh to IIT-B’s coffers in the first year alone. “In the second year, we hope to bring in Rs 1 crore; in the third, Rs 1.5 crore and so on,” says Desai. No pressure of course, but it appears that most of the 735 students — or approximately 70% of the graduating batch — is more than willing to pledge a fraction of their salaries."

Obama, like UPS, turns 'Right' and Avoids 'Left'

Obama's Presidency to date is a dream-come-true for the Republicans and the 'right' (sic) wing, while it is one of hopes dashed for those truly concerned about the country and the world. The key Bush policies and modus operandi are still in place-Gitmo is still operating, President is against same-sex marriage, wars are continuing, deficits are piling up, health care is a disaster, the economy is a mess, and signing statements are still being used.

Robert Gibbs, representing the President, really poured kerosene on the President's supporters and threw a lighted rocket with his liberal harangue.

White House spokesman blasts liberal critics - latimes.com: "Festering tensions between the White House and liberal activists flared Tuesday, with presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs scolding what he called 'the professional left' for its vocal objections to President Obama's record.

In an interview with the Hill newspaper, the president's chief spokesman voiced disdain for liberal critics who've likened Obama to former President George W. Bush.

'These people ought to be drug tested,' Gibbs said. 'They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality. They wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.'

Later in the day, Gibbs put out a statement saying he had spoken "inartfully.""

Left-Hand-Turn Elimination - New York Times: "It seems that sitting in the left lane, engine idling, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so you can make a left-hand turn, is minutely wasteful — of time and peace of mind, for sure, but also of gas and therefore money. Not a ton of gas and money if we’re talking about just you and your Windstar, say, but immensely wasteful if we’re talking about more than 95,000 big square brown trucks delivering packages every day. And this realization — that when you operate a gigantic fleet of vehicles, tiny improvements in the efficiency of each one will translate to huge savings overall — is what led U.P.S. to limit further the number of left-hand turns its drivers make."

Statistical Roadblocks

Govt may fund PG degree in statistics to meet staff crunch-Education-Services-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times: "NEW DELHI: The government could soon fund a postgraduate degree in statistics to fill up vacancies in the statistical service, as enough students do not seem to be interested in the profession making economic and social data collation difficult.

Those applying for the statistical service must have studied statistics or applied statistics as their main subject at both the graduate and post-graduate level.

But with not many students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in statistics, and even fewer studying it at the postgraduate level, the government is finding it difficult to attract enough candidates."

Market's Up, Services are Down

The equity market has rallied sharply over the past year, bond yields are staggeringly low, investors are in nirvana...but the services, public and private, are suffering. Local governments are cutting back- City of Naperville has eliminated brush pickup in the Fall. Airlines have gone to an à la carte model.

Op-Ed Columnist - America Goes Dark - NYTimes.com: "The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.

Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.

And a nation that once prized education — that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children — is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead....

And what about the economy’s future? Everything we know about economic growth says that a well-educated population and high-quality infrastructure are crucial. Emerging nations are making huge efforts to upgrade their roads, their ports and their schools. Yet in America we’re going backward.

How did we get to this point? It’s the logical consequence of three decades of antigovernment rhetoric, rhetoric that has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right...."

Good article on Statins by LA Times...certain to get the Blood Pressure Up.

www.chicagotribune.com/health/la-he-statins-20100809,0,2194618.story

Effectiveness of statins is called into question

The drugs clearly help patients who have already had a heart attack. But their use has skyrocketed in patients hoping to prevent a first heart attack. In those cases, the benefits are dubious.

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

August 9, 2010

As the world's most-prescribed class of medications, statins indisputably qualify for the commercial distinction of "blockbuster." About 24 million Americans take the drugs — marketed under such commercial names as Pravachol, Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor and Crestor — largely to stave off heart attacks and strokes.

At the zenith of their profitability, these medications raked in $26.2 billion a year for their manufacturers. The introduction in recent years of cheaper generic versions may have begun to cut into sales revenues for the brand-name drugs that came first to the market, but better prices have only fueled the medications' use: In 2009, U.S. patients filled 201.4 million prescriptions for statins, according to IMS Health, which tracks prescription drug trends. That's nearly double the number of prescriptions written for statins in 2001, four years after they arrived on the American pharmaceutical landscape.

But in recent months the drugs' touted medical reputation has come under tough scrutiny.

Statins were initially approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the prevention of repeat heart attacks and strokes in patients with high cholesterol who had already had a heart attack. And used for that purpose — called "secondary prevention" — the drugs are powerful and effective medications, driving down patients' risk of another heart attack or stroke by lowering their levels of LDL (or "bad") cholesterol.

Then physicians came to believe statins could also reduce the risk of a first heart attack in people who have high LDL cholesterol but are nonetheless healthy. This use of statins — called "primary prevention" — has driven the growth in the market for statins over the last decade.

Today, a majority of people who use statins are doing so for primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes. It is this use of statins that has come under recent attack.

"There's a conspiracy of false hope," says Harvard Medical School's Dr. John Abramson, who has cowritten several critiques of statins' rise, including one published in June in the Archives of Internal Medicine. "The public wants an easy way to prevent heart disease, doctors want to reduce their patients' risk of heart disease and drug companies want to maximize the number of people taking their pills to boost their sales and profits."

The stakes of many

Heart patients and their physicians are not the only ones to pin their hopes on statins. The drug companies that brought statins to the market have explored the medications' benefits in prevention or treatment of such conditions as Alzheimer's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, prostate and breast cancer, kidney disease, macular degeneration and diabetic neuropathy. Although clear proof that statins could forestall or treat any of these diseases might bring in millions of new, paying customers, results have largely been mixed, inconclusive or disappointing.

In an ideal world, debate over the clinical virtues or vices of a drug would be long settled by the time the medication saw a meteoric rise in use. But in a healthcare system that relies on commercial incentives to spur drug development, prescription medications are a product like any other.

The FDA assesses drugs' safety and effectiveness for specific use; but its judgments are based on preliminary data, most of it generated by a drug company seeking approval for its product. Once the agency approves a drug for marketing, the company that makes it will move quickly and aggressively to expand the universe of patients taking its product.

Sometimes, by the time the deliberate pace of medical research and debate suggests that a drug is not all it's been cracked up to be, it's already become a bestseller. Statins, say some who study the relationship between medicine and the drug industry, seem to fit that pattern.

Statins appear to drive down the risk of heart attack or stroke by lowering the levels of fatty deposits circulating in the bloodstream. Research suggests that the drugs dampen inflammatory processes that can prompt deposits of plaque to break away from blood vessel walls and cause sudden blockages of arteries leading to the heart or brain.

And yet, the relationship between cholesterol-lowering and heart disease is not perfectly understood, and the precise role of inflammation in heart disease is also uncertain.

Statins certainly decrease rates of heart attack in people who have clear signs of cardiovascular disease, but it's not so clear they work that way in people who are healthy. In spite of that uncertainty, statins' use for primary prevention has skyrocketed.

Behind the numbers

That's the issue in the latest round of debate, which spilled onto the pages of the Archives of Internal Medicine in late June: whether statins prevent, safely and at a reasonable cost, the development of cardiovascular disease in people who are still healthy but are considered to be at high risk of a heart attack or stroke.

In the first of three studies published in the Archives last month, medical researchers found that, contrary to widely held belief, statins do not drive down death rates among those who take them to prevent a first heart attack. A second article cast significant doubt on the influential findings of a 2006 study, called JUPITER, that has driven the expansion of statins' use by healthy people with elevated blood levels of C-reactive protein, a measure of inflammation. A third article suggested potential ethical, clinical and financial conflicts of interest at work in the execution of the JUPITER study and concluded the widely hailed trial was "flawed" and raises "troubling questions concerning the role of commercial sponsors."

"Tens of billions of dollars of revenue for the sponsor over the patent life of the drug were at stake in the JUPITER trial, as well as potentially millions of dollars in royalties for the principal investigator," wrote Dr. Lee Green of the University of Michigan Medical School in an editorial accompanying the trio of studies. "Doubtless, both sponsor and investigative team believe they made their design decisions for the right reasons," Green added. "But social psychology research provides abundant evidence that we human beings both respond strongly to self-interest incentives and firmly believe that we do not."

Statins still have ardent admirers, including cardiologist Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. For many patients on a clear collision course with heart disease but not there yet, he said, statins make a difference. And even though recent studies question whether statins reduce heart attack deaths, Nissen added, many patients' lives are clearly improved by pushing a heart attack further into the future.

The stakes of this debate are big and continuing to grow (see related story, "Pinning down the side effects of statins"). As many as three-quarters of patients currently taking statins haven't yet had a stroke or heart attack; they have diabetes or high LDL cholesterol, conditions widely thought to put them at high risk of having one.

Those patients largely joined the ranks of statin consumers after 2001, when the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute adopted guidelines on the treatment of patients with high cholesterol. The guidelines, updated again in 2004, suggested that as many as 36 million Americans should take statins — essentially tripling overnight the potential American market for the drugs. Of the nine experts involved in drafting the cholesterol treatment guidelines, the National Institutes of Health later acknowledged that eight had substantial financial ties to statin makers — links that may have predisposed them to view evidence of statins' benefit in its most positive light.

Said Abramson, the author of "Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine": The best way to drive down the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the first place is to exercise regularly, not smoke, drink in moderation and eat a healthy Mediterranean-style diet. But, he added, "this message gets drowned out by the commercial interests" of pharmaceutical companies who stand to benefit from increased sales.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

Who is worth What?

A great investigative report by LA Times.

The President of the U.S.A. makes $400 K per year. It is reasonable to assume that he shoulders greater responsibility than any other leader in the country. Most of the Fortune 1000 CEOs make much more than the President. If one extrapolates the LA Times report, there may be plenty of city managers who make more than the President.

Smart folks like Mr. Herbert of the NYT are alarmed to see the country falling behind in education. What is the point of getting an "education" when the system of incentives and rewards makes a mockery of education?

Is a city manager worth $800,000? - latimes.com: "Bell, one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, pays its top officials some of the highest salaries in the nation, including nearly $800,000 annually for its city manager, according to documents reviewed by The Times.

In addition to the $787,637 salary of Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo, Bell pays Police Chief Randy Adams $457,000 a year, about 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck or Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and more than double New York City's police commissioner. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 annually, more than most city managers."

Blago not the only 'failure' story in Illinois

Feds close Chicago bank - Chicago Breaking News: "Federal regulators shut down the Ravenswood Bank this evening, and the Northbrook Bank and Trust Company will take over the failed banks' accounts effective immediately, officials said...

Ravenswood Bank becomes the 109th bank to fail in the United States this year, and the 13th in Illinois."

Falsifying Documents, and Getting $35 Million ...

Yet another example of a CEO committing unethical acts, and getting paid millions.

Mark Hurd, the ex-CEO of HP, "rightsized" HP through mass layoffs, but had no moral compunction in using company coffers for his personal "extracurricular" activities. The Board is rewarding him with a $12.2 million 'severance' payment. It is highly unlikely that a non-executive HP employee would get ANY severance money if he committed such unethical activity.

HP CEO abruptly resigns amid harassment claims - Yahoo! Finance: "Hewlett-Packard Co. ousted CEO Mark Hurd on Friday for falsifying expense reports and other documents to conceal a secret relationship with a former contractor and help her get paid for work she didn't do...

HP said Hurd was forced out after the company discovered he had a relationship with a woman who worked with HP on marketing matters. The company said he falsified expense reports and other financial documents to conceal the relationship and help get the contractor paid for work she didn't do...He will get a $12.2 million severance payment...Hurd is departing after cutting tens of thousands of jobs and launching an expensive expansion, including the $13.9 billion acquisition of technology-services provider Electronic Data Systems, the $2.7 billion takeover of computer-networking equipment maker 3Com Corp. and the $1.4 billion deal for mobile phone maker Palm Inc."

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd Resigns After Sexual Harassment Probe - WSJ.com: "Mr. Hurd's severance agreement calls for a cash payment of $12.2 million, and other stock and bonus payouts that could bring the total to more than $35 million."

(Un)Healthy Definition of 'Improvement"

Humana and other health insurers reported obese and obscene profits and profit gains. The principal driver behind these is the "improvement" in the benefit ratio - decreasing payments for benefits (numerator) and increasing premiums (denominator). An insurance company that only pays out (in benefits) 82% of what it collects in premiums, provides its executives a gross compensation, reduces headcount, and reports profits of $340 million for THREE MONTHS...

This type of capitalis begs the question "how much profit does one person extract from another's pain and suffering?"

Humana 2Q net income rises 21 percent on premiums - Yahoo! Finance: "...Humana said its lucrative Medicare Advantage business posted double-digit enrollment growth in the quarter. Medicare Advantage plans are government-sponsored, privately run programs for seniors that offer comprehensive health coverage.

Meanwhile, the company's second-quarter consolidated benefit ratio -- the percentage of premiums paid to cover medical claims -- also improved from a year ago.

The company earned $340.1 million, or $2 per share, up from $281.8 million, or $1.67 per share, a year ago. Revenue rose 9.5 percent to $8.65 billion from $7.9 billion..."

Humana Reports Second Quarter 2010 Financial Results - Yahoo! Finance: "...Benefit expenses – The impact of GAAP to non-GAAP(a) reconciliation items on the consolidated benefit ratio (benefit expenses as a percent of premium revenues) is detailed in the following table:

Consolidated Benefit Ratio � 2Q10 � 1H10
GAAP � 81.9% � 82.6%
Higher-than-expected favorable prior-year medical claims reserve development (c) � 0.4% � 0.9%
Higher-than-expected favorable 1Q10 medical claims reserve development (c) � 1.0% � -0-
Non-GAAP (a) � 83.3% � 83.5%
� �
The 2Q10 consolidated benefit ratio of 81.9 percent compares to 83.3 percent in 2Q09. On a non-GAAP(a) basis the 2Q10 consolidated benefit ratio of 83.3 percent was unchanged versus the 2Q09 consolidated benefit ratio. The non-GAAP(a) consolidated benefit ratio for 2Q10 reflected the combined impact of a 120 basis point increase in the non-GAAP(a) benefit ratio for the Government Segment and a 520 basis point improvement in the non-GAAP(a) benefit ratio for the Commercial Segment. The drivers of these changes are detailed in the segment discussions below....Premiums and administrative services fees:

Medicare Advantage premiums and administrative service fees of $4.89 billion in 2Q10 increased 18 percent compared to $4.15 billion in 2Q09, primarily due to an 18 percent increase in average Medicare Advantage membership year over year.
Medicare stand-alone PDP premiums of $700.2 million in 2Q10 increased 10 percent compared to $638.8 million in 2Q09, reflecting an 18 percent increase in premiums per member per month, partially offset by a 7 percent decline in average membership year over year.

Military services premiums and administrative services fees during 2Q10 decreased $38.7 million to $907.9 million compared to $946.6 million in 2Q09.""

What drugs are the Tea Party-ers on?

Colorado Candidate Warns of Bicycle Plot - Green Blog - NYTimes.com: "The front-runner for the Republican nomination in the Colorado governor’s race is causing a stir with claims that his likely Democratic opponent, Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver, is bringing the city under United Nations control by promoting bike riding and other sustainability measures."

Pension Tension

As predicted in this blog a few years ago the benefits enjoyed by the "middle class" at the expense of cheap labor elsewhere are slowly getting squeezed.

Increasing the retirement age for workers is directionally negative for young people wanting to join the workforce, thus a directional negative for employment. On the flip side states can reduce taxes because the expenses are lower. States could reduce borrowing but the need for continuous redistribution of wealth- issuing debt (and putting the burden on all), and distributing it to a few at the top will make debt reduction a pipe dream.

Politicians and bureaucrats are making all-out efforts to hack the benefits of workers, but there are no efforts to curb or reduce the benefits of politicians.

Stressed States Are Forcing Workers to Retire Later - WSJ.com: "In Illinois, where state lawmakers voted in March to increase the retirement age for most new hires to 67 from 60, 'it had everything to do with the financial straits the state is in,' said Tim Blair, the executive secretary of the State Employees' Retirement System of Illinois. 'The scales have tipped.'

The states are taking aim at long-held and sometimes controversial pension plans. In Utah, new fire and public safety employees as of July 1, 2011, must work 25 years, up from 20, before getting a full pension. Most other state employees must now work 35 years instead of 30 before receiving their pension.

In Illinois, teachers can retire as early as age 55 with 35 years of service. But starting Jan. 1, 2011, new hires must reach age 67 with 10 years of service.

In June, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reached a tentative contract agreement with six public-employee unions to bump up the retirement age by five years for new hires. The governor's office and six other unions remain in negotiations, with one of the sticking points a proposed increase in the retirement age.

The changes could add momentum to raise the age at which Americans receive payments from Social Security, say industry experts."

Jobs gushing at Capgemini

Capgemini India hires 10,000 people in 2010, to recruit 7,000 more-Jobs-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times: "Bullish on strong growth prospects in India, global IT consultancy Capgemini has hired 10,000 people so far in 2010 and plans to recruit another 7,000 by the year-end.

'We have already hired more than 10,000 people as of July. We plan to recruit further 7,000 within this year,' Capgemini India Executive Chairman Salil Parekh said.

Placing emphasis on the importance of the Indian market in the group's growth strategy, Parekh said,'Capgemini India is an important resource centre to drive Capgemini's Rightshore model and is also the main innovation hub for the group.'"

New Equation in Education GS+C/P = E A/B

GS (Google Search) + C/P (Copy & Paste) = Easy A or B

Interesting article in the NYT

Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age - NYTimes.com

My comment:

"Combining this article with 'Want a Higher G.P.A.? Go to a Private College' (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/want-a-higher-g-p-a-go-to-a-private-college/) where the author Ms. Rampell writes 'The study, by Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, uses historical data from 80 four-year colleges and universities. It finds that G.P.A.’s have risen from a national average of 2.52 in the 1950s to about 3.11 by the middle of the last decade.' yields a revealing picture. Ms. Rampell also writes that 'Based on contemporary grading data the authors collected from 160 schools, the average G.P.A. at private colleges and universities today is 3.3. At public schools, it is 3.0.' I have some students who are highly ethical, work hard, and graduate with honors- but their performance is almost indistinguishable from that of others who take the easier way out. An economic argument can be proposed for downloading (music or movies or books or anything else) illegally. Failure to cite is an indication of laziness or trying to pass off another person's work as one's own, or both.
In the larger picture, it is hard to punish the plagiarism violations when society rewards the much bigger misdeeds of the leaders of Wall Street and other industries with big bailouts and bigger compensation. Before we come down too hard on the students, let's first point the finger at the adults in society. Teachers and professors are expected to demonstrate high ideals and set good models of behavior and conduct. When they succumb to parents' pressure or an administration's push for leniency we should not expect much better from our students. Unfortunately the widespread and increasing use of adjunct faculty and other non-tenure track faculty creates an economic incentive to let plagiarism and other misdeeds slide.