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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Challenge of Development

Delhi Metro's third phase construction work will kill 11,500 trees in Delhi, DMRC to do compensatory afforestation - The Economic Times: "'The construction for the third phase of Metro is on and everything is in place. Though we have estimated the loss of around 11,500 trees, we will plant more plants than we will destroy in the capital,' aDMRC official said.

'With the completion of this phase, a large number of people who till now did not have the access will start commuting through the Metro. The felling of trees is a small price for the convenience of lakhs of people,' added the official.

Officials say the corporation will make sure that on cutting each tree, at least 10 trees are planted. On behalf of the DMRC, the forest department will plant the trees."

Goldmans' Aluminium Grip

Goldman's new money machine: warehouses - Business - US business - msnbc.com: "A string of warehouses in Detroit, most of them operated by Goldman, has stockpiled more than a million tonnes of the industrial metal aluminum, about a quarter of global reported inventories.

Simply storing all that metal generates tens of millions of dollars in rental revenues for Goldman every year.

There's just one problem: much less aluminum is leaving the depots than arriving, creating a supply pinch for manufacturers of everything from soft drink cans to aircraft.

The resulting spike in prices has sparked a clash between companies forced to pay more for their aluminum and wait months for it to be delivered, Goldman, which is keen to keep its cash machines humming and the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world's benchmark industrial metals market, which critics accuse of lax oversight.

Analysts question why London's metals market allows big financial players like Goldman to own the warehouses which store huge quantities of metal even as they trade the commodity. Robin Bhar, a veteran metals analyst at Credit Agricole in London says the conflict of interest is so acute he wants U.S. and European anti-trust regulators to weigh in.
...

Business model
Goldman's warehouse business relies on a lucrative opportunity enabled by the LME regulations. Those rules allow warehouses to release only a fraction of their inventories per day, much less than the metal that is regularly taken in for storage.

In the year to June 30 Metro warehouses in Detroit took in 364,175 tonnes of aluminum and delivered out 171,350 tonnes. That represented 42 percent of inventory arrivals globally and 26 percent of the metal delivered out, according to the London Metal Exchange said.

The metal that sits in the warehouse generates lucrative rental income.

Little wonder that so many want in. Metro was acquired by Goldman in February 2010, while commodities trading firm Trafigura nabbed UK-based NEMS in March 2010, and Swiss-based group Glencore International acquired the metals warehousing unit of Italy's Pacorini last September.

Henry Bath, a warehousing firm and founding member of the London Metal Exchange in 1877, has been owned for about 40 years by traders or banks including Metallgesellschaft in the 1980s and failed U.S. energy trader Enron at the turn of the century. It now comes under the umbrella of JP Morgan, which bought the metals trading business of RBS Sempra Commodities in July last year.

Despite its rental income, Goldman's warehouse strategy apparently hasn't been enough to snap a slumping performance in commodity trading, with the company reporting a "significant" drop in revenues from a year ago in its latest quarter, the sixth time in the past 10 quarters that it has failed to expand."

Saturday, July 30, 2011

We can drink tea to this...

US economy: The Tea Party is a real threat to America | Observer editorial | Comment is free | The Observer: "Economically, the Tea Party argument is feeble. Countries' debts are not like individual households; they can be serviced over generations. In the aftermath of a credit crunch, a country that tries simultaneously to cut public and private debt will suffer prolonged economic stagnation or depression. The cost in lost opportunity, broken lives and bust businesses is too high to slash public debt; indeed, the right action may be to increase it.

Nor is tax in essence different from any other fee: it is the cost of services rendered, and some services such as defence, security, healthcare and investment in innovative technology are best rendered by society as a whole. Hence taxation.

All the US's great advances – in the internet, computers, aerospace, space, the internal combustion engine, drugs, optics – have had the federal government as their sponsor. A well-designed social security system offers people security while not removing their incentive to work; well-judged federal spending on innovation boosts the economy; a banking system needs federal deposit insurance and a central bank as a lender of last resort when banks are distressed."

Friday, July 29, 2011

No need to tread gingerly with Ginger

The Hindu : Health / Rx : Ginger can help reduce side-effects of chemotherapy: doctors: "Doctors at AIIMS are now working upon an herbal way to help cancer patients cope with the side-effects of chemotherapy.

Oncologists at the hospital here have been experimenting with ginger root powder in order to reduce the severity of the chemotherapy induced nausea vomiting (CINV).

Nausea and vomiting are the major side effects that a cancer patient encounters after chemotherapy treatment.

“The severity of chemotherapy induced nausea vomiting was reduced by ginger, our experiments showed. After the success of the study, we can say that there is a need to have ginger root powder available as capsules in varied dosages in order to use it as an add-on therapy in patients receiving chemotherapy with high vomiting potential,” said Dr Sameer Bakhshi, additional professor, department of medical oncology, AIIMS."

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Not even a pretense anymore

Companies are coming out and saying, in very clear terms, that they are "rightsizing" or laying off domestic workers, while simultaneously increasing foreign employment.Nothing wrong with that, except that these are the same companies that want lower taxes and claim that they will use repatriated profits to create jobs.


Boston Scientific to reduce staff by up to 1400 - Yahoo! Finance: "Medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp. reported better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter Thursday and announced it would reduce its staff by between 5 and 6 percent to streamline operations.

The company announced a global restructuring program to eliminate unnecessary administrative positions and automate some production work. The company expects to shed between 1,200 and 1,400 employees by the end of 2013 through layoffs and attrition. Boston Scientific expects the cuts to save between $225 million and $275 million annually, some of which will be invested in other areas of the company. The company didn't specify which divisions would be cut.

The announcement came one day after Boston Scientific unveiled plans to expand operations in China, including the hire of up to 1,000 new employees."

If the federal debt is to be blamed for all ills, why are the CEOs so eager to grab government contracts?

Lockheed Martin gets $72 million TSA contract - Yahoo! Finance: "Lockheed Martin Corp. said Thursday it won two regional orders for a combined $72 million to help the U.S. government set up new passenger-screening equipment at about 300 airports.

The orders from the Transportation Security Administration will cover airports in eastern and central states. The company said work had begun in the East.

The TSA plans to install so-called advanced imaging technology systems and to upgrade software. The orders are one-year deals with one option year."

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

When even a semblance of logic is too much to ask for from Republicans

House Republicans Try to Roll Back Environmental Rules - NYTimes.com: "With the nation’s attention diverted by the drama over the debt ceiling, Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation.

One would prevent the Bureau of Land Management from designating new wilderness areas for preservation. Another would severely restrict the Department of Interior’s ability to police mountaintop-removal mining. And then there is the call to allow new uranium prospecting near Grand Canyon National Park.

There is little chance that all the 39 proposals identified by Democrats will be approved by the Senate, which they control, or that a substantial number could elude a presidential veto. In fact, one measure — to forbid the Fish and Wildlife Service to list any new plants or animals as endangered — was so extreme that 37 Republicans broke ranks Wednesday and voted to strip it from the bill.

Although inserting policy changes into appropriations bills is a common strategy when government is divided as it is now, no one can remember such an aggressive use of the tactic against natural resources. Environmental groups and their Democratic allies in Congress worry that more than a few of these so-called riders could stick when both sides negotiate and leverage budget concessions in the fall.

“You have a fatal political momentum,” said David Goldston, director of government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. “They are going to load up this bill in an unprecedented fashion.”

Republicans frame their proposals — which are being debated and voted on this week on the House floor — as the best way to counter overreaching regulatory agencies.

The unusual breadth of the attack, explained Representative Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho, is a measure of his party’s intense frustration over cumbersome environmental rules.

“Many of us think that the overregulation from E.P.A. is at the heart of our stalled economy,” Mr. Simpson said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency. “I hear it from Democratic members as well.”

But Democrats argue that the policy prescriptions are proof that Republicans are determined to undo clean air and water protections established 40 years ago.

Many of these new restrictions, they point out, were proposed in the budget debate earlier this year and failed. They are back, the Democrats say, because Republicans are doing the bidding of industry and oil companies.

“The new Republican majority seems intent on restoring the robber-baron era where there were no controls on pollution from power plants, oil refineries and factories,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat, excoriating the proposal on the floor.

Environmental regulations and the E.P.A. have been the bane of Tea Party Republicans almost from the start. Although particularly outraged by efforts to monitor carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas linked to the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, freshmen Republicans have tried to rein in the E.P.A. across the board — including proposals to take away its ability to decide if coalash can be designated as a toxic material and to prevent it from clarifying rules enforcing the Clean Water Act.

The appropriations bill in question covers the Department of Interior, the Forest Service and the E.P.A., and it was voted out of committee and onto the House floor strictly along party lines — with the Republicans prevailing 28 to 18. The bill cuts annual combined funding for agencies by 7 percent — and by nearly 18 percent for the E.P.A. alone — but it is controversial mostly because of the onslaught of policy changes.

Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat of Washington and ranking minority member on the appropriations committee, said Republicans were adding provisions unchecked to the law and getting away with very little scrutiny. He expected even more regulatory rollbacks to be added to the bill this week. The bill is under open debate on the House floor, and policy changes requested by members but not included by the appropriations committee can now be added one by one to the bill, in addition to the 39 riders that came out of the committee.

“It is already like a wish list for polluters,” Mr. Dicks said, “and it is going to get worse on the floor.”

Conservatives have been adding amendments at a furious pace. Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group, counted more than 70 anti-environmental amendments filed as of Wednesday morning and was monitoring for more.

Dave Conover, a senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington analysis and advocacy group, and a former Republican staff member with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said the large number of provisions was less about policy and more a way for the conservatives in the House to signal the depths of their discontent with a broken political process.

“It is clear that the Senate is not going to pass all these appropriations,” said Mr. Conover, adding, “And the message is that in a down economy excessive environmental regulations are a bad move.”

But Mr. Goldston of the Natural Resources Defense Council said that although most of the policy attachments would never become law, the Republican appropriations flurry was still unnerving — and could pose more reason for concern in coming months. ”We are then going to be in a situation again where the Senate and president face the question of whether they are willing to shut down the government or appease a motley group in the House over a spending bill,” he said. “No one knows how that plays out.”"

A 'Capital' Green Argument

Response: No, Greens must not cosy up to capitalism. They must resist it | Comment is free | The Guardian: "In your interview with Mark Lynas he describes his conversion to 'an environmental movement that is happy with capitalism', and urges greens to join him (Have the greens lost their way?, 2 July).

'Is the green movement a leftwing, anti-capitalist movement?' your article asks. 'Mark Lynas believes it is, and that those who style themselves as greens should be marginalised and allowed to die off so that they can be replaced by a new breed of market-friendly environmentalists like him.' Is this really the future of the green movement? If so, it's one of defeat.

Along with human overpopulation, the principal driver of the accelerating eco-crisis – anthropogenic climate change, biodiversity crash, destruction and degradation of wild habitat, and a virtual holocaust of animal species – is precisely capitalism. Far from being realistic, to propose as a solution more of what is causing the problem is nothing less than delusional. Any green movement worth its name must therefore resist industrial capitalism, however hopeless that may appear, and the only serious questions concern how.

Lynas also condemns anti-nuclear protesters as "just as bad for the climate as textbook eco-villains like the big oil companies". But in the absence of a radical programme to reduce energy consumption and increase energy conservation, the hypertechnology of nuclear powersimply extends capital's empire. So too would the further industrialisation of remaining relatively wild nature through huge-scale wind "farms". Like putting a price on so-called ecosystem services and creating a financial carbon market – the acme of "market environmentalism" – these measures are all about turning a massive new profit. They also perpetuate the lie that no one has to make any significant changes in the way they live. Again, a green movement must have the courage to point this out.

What alternative vision does a truly green movement have to offer against that of Lynas? Not one that depends on business; nor government, hopelessly entangled through its fiscal dependency; nor technoscience, now equally corrupted.

What hope there is lies in building and strengthening local communities, civil associations and citizens' movements with a shared understanding that without ecological integrity, no other kind is possible. We need a sustainable society and culture with ecological values at its heart, where value isn't reserved for the imperial rulers – what Lynas calls "the God species" – but is identified with the common natural good that sustains all species alike.

As for the future of the green movement itself, if all it can offer is collaboration with business as usual, why should anyone bother? The "clause-four moment" that Lynas wants for the green movement (as if New Labour was the realisation of the labour movement, rather than its betrayal) would be its death warrant, and that of much more besides. Greens urgently need to engage with people's ecological intuitions, impulses and aspirations. Only that deserves to be called realism."

Cause and Effect, Profit and Loss



Tellabs' CEO Discusses Q2 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha: "As part of this effort, we will reduce overall headcount by 330 employees or about 10% of our workforce. We plan to add headcount in low-cost geographies, and I expect our net headcount to come down about by 200 over the next 4 quarters. In connection with these cost reduction efforts, we expect to take $23 million in restructuring charges, of which we expect about $19 million will be taken in 3Q."

Tellabs shares jump on cost-cutting hopes - Yahoo! Finance: "Shares of Tellabs Inc. rose 11 percent Tuesday after the telecommunications equipment maker said it plans to cut 330 jobs to slash $50 million from its expenses.

The announcement came along with Tellabs' second-quarter report, in which it swung to a second-quarter loss that, excluding special items, narrowly beat analyst expectations."

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Caterpillar - more catty than a pillar of honesty

Caterpillar CEO- wants tax reform (lesser taxes) on one hand, and a government plan to improve infrastructure on the other (improvements that will directly add to Cat's revenues). This shameful conduct is all too common among the "how fast can I make my money" managers.

Caterpillar 2Q profit jumps but shares tumble - Yahoo! Finance: "'China is doing a good job of balancing growth and inflation, and our expectations for China remain positive,' he said.

Overall, the company predicts 3.5 percent growth in the global economy in 2011, down from 3.9 percent last year.

Oberhelman said he believes the current lack of confidence in the U.S. business climate is the biggest impediment to a stronger recovery.

'Lack of clarity on a U.S. deficit reduction plan, trade policy, regulation, much needed tax reform and the absence of a long-term plan to improve the country's deteriorating infrastructure do not create an environment that provides our customers with the confidence to invest,' Oberhelman said. 'We're confident that as a country we'll eventually get it right, and we're positioning Caterpillar to be ready when we do.'"

Monday, July 25, 2011

U.S. Bankers + Chinese Firms- the stuff that Ultimate Capitalism is made of

Reverse Mergers Give Chinese Firms a Side Door to Wall St. - NYTimes.com: "How companies like Rino wormed their way into the temples of American capitalism is a story for these financial times. Even amid the wreckage of the 2007-8 financial collapse, an ecosystem of Wall Street enablers — bankers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, auditors — spirited Chinese companies to the United States. With some deft financial maneuvers, these businesses essentially went public while sidestepping the usual rules. Before long, many were trading on the Nasdaq stock market, alongside the likes of Google.

It was all perfectly legal. With bankers’ help, the Chinese companies executed what are known as reverse mergers. They bought American companies that were merely shells and assumed those companies’ stock tickers — sort of the Wall Street equivalent of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” The strategy let them avoid reviews with state and federal regulators that are normally required for initial public stock offerings.

At issue now is who should bear responsibility for the bursting of yet another Wall Street bubble. Should it be the Chinese executives and their bankers, who engineered the deals and celebrated these companies? Or should it be the investors, who bought these stocks when, in hindsight, the risks seemed clear enough? The lawsuits are flying."

When customer calls just constitute "noise"...

On the Call: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings - Yahoo! Finance: "QUESTION: Netflix prides itself on customer service. Did the call volume after the price change surprise you at all? Calls were actually being disconnected instantaneously. And what about the social media reaction? Was the noise level in line or higher than you expected?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, the noise level was actually less than we expected, given a 60 percent price increase for some subscribers."

China's X Factor

In one of the talks I gave in 2005 and again in a talk I gave in 2009 I predicted that the outsourcing of basic IT services to India and outsourcing of manufacturing to China would be followed by significant migration of R&D efforts to these countries. The announcement by GE is one more data point in this direction.

GE moving X-ray leadership team from US to China - Yahoo! Finance: "GE Healthcare, a maker of diagnostic imaging equipment, said Monday it is moving its X-ray global headquarters from the United States to Beijing as it seeks to tap China and other emerging markets.

The General Electric Co. unit is the first business of the industrial and financial giant to relocate to China.

Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare Global X-Ray, told a news conference that the decision to move from Waukesha, Wisconsin, was made two years ago and will be completed by early fall.

She said 'there is certainly the opportunity' to move other GE Healthcare units to China, but that is 'something that we will continue to evaluate.'

The move involves LeGrand and a handful of her top managers. In an interview, she said they will add other people to the team as they expand in China, but no jobs will be lost.

The move follows an announcement last year that GE plans to invest $2 billion in China, including $500 million in six research centers, one of which GE X-ray is developing in Chengdu in central China. The company has already hired 'close to 100 engineers' for the center in Chengdu, LeGrand said."


Sunday, July 24, 2011

Fare-well to customers, who are not faring so well...

Airlines are taking savings from expired taxes - Yahoo! Finance: "Airlines are tossing consumers aside and grabbing the benefit of lower federal taxes on travel tickets.

By Saturday night, nearly all the major U.S. airlines had raised fares to offset taxes that expired the night before.

That means instead of passing along the savings, the airlines are pocketing the money while customers pay the same amount as before.

American, United, Continental, Delta, US Airways, Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue all raised fares, although details sometimes differed. Most of the increases were around 7.5 percent.

For consumers who wanted to shop around, only a few airlines were still passing the tax break on to passengers Saturday night, including Virgin America, Frontier Airlines and Alaska Airlines."

Saturday, July 23, 2011

A "Health"y Tax

Tax Soda, Subsidize Vegetables - NYTimes.com: "Yet the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn’t matter, because the fixes are not really their problem. Their mission is not public health but profit, so they’ll continue to sell the health-damaging food that’s most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise. That “other force” should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix.

Rather than subsidizing the production of unhealthful foods, we should turn the tables and tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyperprocessed snacks. The resulting income should be earmarked for a program that encourages a sound diet for Americans by making healthy food more affordable and widely available.

The average American consumes 44.7 gallons of soft drinks annually. (Although that includes diet sodas, it does not include noncarbonated sweetened beverages, which add up to at least 17 gallons a person per year.) Sweetened drinks could be taxed at 2 cents per ounce, so a six-pack of Pepsi would cost $1.44 more than it does now. An equivalent tax on fries might be 50 cents per serving; a quarter extra for a doughnut. (We have experts who can figure out how “bad” a food should be to qualify, and what the rate should be; right now they’re busy calculating ethanol subsidies. Diet sodas would not be taxed.)

Simply put: taxes would reduce consumption of unhealthful foods and generate billions of dollars annually. That money could be used to subsidize the purchase of staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit."

Friday, July 22, 2011

A boom in corporate profits, a bust in jobs - Business - Stocks & economy - msnbc.com

Quite a few writers have written about the jobless recovery, in the midst of spectacular corporate profits, especially those of the multi-nationals. Two interesting articles are listed below. My perspective, as I wrote in a comment in the NYT, is as follows:
When President George W. Bush promoted the "Ownership Economy" he clearly signaled that policy was shifting towards "ownership" versus "working." No one should be surprised at the results. The wealthy owners control a large part of the country's assets, and there is no requirement that they create jobs.

The biggest problem in the United States is the lack of critical thinking among a broad cross-section of citizens, and their willingness to be brain-washed with blatant pro- free market, anti-government rhetoric, much of which has been proven to be untrue.
The public wants smaller government and less regulation and less taxes, but more non-tradable jobs! Congress wants to give companies like Cisco a big tax reduction on repatriation of foreign income (expecting it to create jobs) while Cisco just announced a 6500 person layoff.
If the public desires to keep the current jobs and grow them, then it has to a) force its young people to work very hard (which kids in other countries are doing), b) make them learn difficult, value-adding skills, and c) educate them on the role of government. It is hard to see that this could happen when one looks at the current leadership in the government and in the private sector.
****

Is There Hope for the Unemployed?

The Nontraded Sector
Although a few links in the value chains of the nontraded sector may have been produced abroad as well, the bulk of their links tend to be home-produced.

Thus it is not surprising that, according to the authors of the report, close to 98 percent of the 27.3 million new jobs in the American economy in the last two decades were created in the nontradable sectors, led by government and health care in first and second place.

These two sectors alone accounted for 40 percent of the total job growth over the last two decades. They were followed by retailing and construction, both of which grew on the back of heavy debt financing and a real-estate bubble.

Whence the Future Job Growth?
The American people look to the president and Congress to create jobs — or, more precisely, to create the economic conditions in which job growth occurs.

At the same time, the American people now look to the president and Congress to rein in government spending in general and health-care spending in particular, at a time when a sizable deleveraging by consumers and business has sharply put the brakes also on retailing and construction.

So how can these desiderata –- creating jobs and, at the same time, cutting back on government and health care spending –- add up to a rosy future jobs picture? Can any government actually deliver on these conflicting goals?

****

A boom in corporate profits, a bust in jobs - Business - Stocks & economy - msnbc.com: "In the same period after the 2001 recession, wages and salaries accounted for 15 percent. They were 50 percent after the 1991-92 recession and 25 percent after the 1981-82 recession.
Corporate profits, by contrast, accounted for an unprecedented 88 percent of economic growth during those first 18 months. That's compared with 53 percent after the 2001 recession, nothing after the 1991-92 recession and 28 percent after the 1981-82 recession.
What's behind the disconnect between strong corporate profits and a weak labor market? Several factors:
  • U.S. corporations are expanding overseas, not so much at home. McDonalds and Caterpillar said overseas sales growth outperformed the U.S. in the April-June quarter. U.S.-based multinational companies have been focused overseas for years: In the 2000s, they added 2.4 million jobs in foreign countries and cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States, according to the Commerce Department.
  • Back in the U.S., companies are squeezing more productivity out of staffs thinned out by layoffs during Great Recession. They don't need to hire. And they don't need to be generous with pay raises; they know their employees have nowhere else to go.
  • Companies remain reluctant to spend the $1.9 trillion in cash they've accumulated, especially in the United States. They're unconvinced that consumers are ready to spend again with the vigor they showed before the recession, and they are worried about uncertainty in U.S. government policies.

"Lack of clarity on a U.S. deficit-reduction plan, trade policy, regulation, much needed tax reform and the absence of a long-term plan to improve the country's deteriorating infrastructure do not create an environment that provides our customers with the confidence to invest," Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman said.

Caterpillar said second-quarter earnings shot up 44 percent to $1.02 billion— though that still disappointed Wall Street. General Electric's second-quarter earnings were up 21 percent to $3.76 billion. And McDonald's quarterly earnings increased 15 percent to $1.4 billion..."

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Cutting to the Core of Cisco's Chambers: (Job) Cuts, Lies, and (Tax) Cuts

Cisco’s 6,500 Job Cuts May Hurt Tax Holiday Push - Yahoo! Finance: "Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO)’s plan to eliminate about 6,500 jobs worldwide is complicating the corporate lobbying campaign for a tax holiday that would allow multinational companies to return $1 trillion in offshore profits to the U.S. at a low tax rate.

The San Jose, California-based company, the world’s largest networking-equipment maker, has been among the most vocal supporters of a repatriation holiday being considered in the U.S. Congress. Cisco chief executive John Chambers has said he wants to return as much as $30 billion in overseas profits to the U.S. The company could increase its headcount by 10 percent, depending on details of a repatriation bill, he said before the job-elimination announcement."

Wedded to Waste, Loyal to Ignorance, Blind to Poverty

The Associated Press: India weddings faulted for prodigious food waste: "As the ranks of India's wealthy surge with rapid economic growth, many families are staging extravagant displays of food at their children's weddings to show off their newfound affluence.
The prodigious waste that follows has horrified many in a nation where food prices are skyrocketing and tens of millions of young children are malnourished.
At the recent wedding of the son of a ruling party leader, more than a 100 dishes representing Thai, Chinese, Mediterranean and Indian cuisines were served to over 30,000 guests. About 20 percent would've been thrown away.
India's Food Minister K.V. Thomas wants to curtail what has become known as the Big Fat Indian Wedding.
He says about one-fifth of the food served at weddings and social gatherings is discarded.
'It's a criminal waste,' Thomas told The Associated Press.
The tons of food wasted at social gatherings across the country each day contrasts sharply with the food shortages, often bordering on chronic starvation, faced by millions of poor Indians."

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

An Honest(ea) Exercise

Chicago first, New York last in Honest Tea "experiment" - chicagotribune.com: "As part of a 'social experiment' yesterday, Honest Tea put out tables of their organic tea in 12 cities with a suggested price of $1 per bottle and watched people via hidden camera. When the results were tallied, Chicagoans (and tourists in Grant Park) finished first, just ahead of Boston, Seattle and Dallas.

“We wanted to challenge people to think about how honest Americans are as a whole, particularly when no one is watching,” said Seth Goldman, president of Honest Tea.

Here were the final results (by percentage of people who paid for the tea):"

  • Chicago 99
    Boston 97
    Seattle 97
    Dallas 97
    Atlanta 96
    Philadelphia 96
    Cincinnati 95
    San Francisco 93
    Miami 92
    Washington D.C. 91
    Los Angeles 88
    New York 86

So, while we here in The Greatest City In America paid for ours, roughly one out of every seven New Yorkers didn't. You may draw whatever conclusions from that you wish.

(Although, as one colleague points out, this may be a point of pride in the Big Apple: What chump pays for something when you can get it for free?)

Fox Guarding the Murdoch coop

Fox going light on scandal coverage, study finds - Business - US business - Media biz - msnbc.com: "Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal, which has covered the scandal, defended Murdoch and its parent company News Corp. in a strident editorial.
'It is also worth noting the irony of so much moral outrage devoted to a single media company, when British tabloids have been known for decades for buying scoops and digging up dirt on the famous,' the Journal said.
The Journal's chief executive officer Les Hinton, a top News Corp. official who worked for Murdoch for 52 years, was forced to resign because of his role overseeing News of the World, which was shut down July 10.
The relatively light coverage on Fox has provided fodder for news pundits and comedians including Jon Stewart on 'The Daily Show.'

The relatively light coverage on Fox has provided fodder for news pundits and comedians including Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show."

One episode that was noticed was a segment on the Fox News show "Fox & Friends" in which guest Bob Dilenschneider of the Dilenschneider Group compared hacking cases involving Citicorp and Bank of America with that of News Corp.

Eric Wemple of the Washington Post pointed out that Dilenschneider is comparing the banks, who were victims of hacking, to News Corp., which allegedly employed phone hackers.

"We expect a light touch when News Corp. (sort of) covers News Corp.," Wemple wrote. "But at least get the logic right!"


"

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Small doesn't fly

Delta Cuts Flights to Small Cities in Midwest - NYTimes.com: "Delta Air Lines said Friday it was reducing the number of flights to small cities in the nation’s midsection, saying it could not make money on flights that were sometimes empty.

The affected flights connect Delta’s hubs to 24 small cities in rural Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota. Some of the cities are served only by Delta, but regional airlines might take over some of the routes. Delta also said it would ask for federal subsidies to keep some of the flights.

Most of the affected flights are on Delta’s 34-seat Saab turboprops, which it is phasing out by the end of this year. Higher fuel prices have made it difficult to operate small planes profitably, because the fuel bill is divided among a small number of passengers. Even the next-larger option, the 50-seat regional jets flown by Delta and other airlines, is often unprofitable for the same reason. Delta is retiring many of those planes, too.

Delta, which is based in Atlanta, said it was losing $14 million a year on the flights included in Friday’s announcement. Their occupancy averaged just 52 percent, compared with a systemwide average of 83 percent last year. The average occupancy out of Thief River Falls, Minn., was just 12 percent, Delta said. The flight from Greenville, Miss., runs just 27.6 percent full. Some flights have been empty, it said.

Flights in 16 of the cities on Delta’s list are subsidized by the federal Extended Air Service program. The Transportation Department solicits bids from airlines to see how much money it would take to get them to serve a particular city. Delta said it was looking for regional haulers, including Great Lakes Aviation, to take over those routes.

Great Lakes operates 19-seat planes, a size that might operate profitably. A Great Lakes spokeswoman declined to comment on the possibility of taking over the Delta routes.

The Transportation Department can make an airline keep serving a city even after its subsidy contract runs out, a spokesman, Bill Mosley, said.

It is theoretically possible that no airlines would bid to serve a city. “It’s very rare,” Mr. Mosely said. “We would rebid if that were the case.”"

Monday, July 18, 2011

Plenty of Thought goes into this Food Pricing

Some time ago I had commented on the psychology of pricing by grocery stories, including bundling and the $X for Y items trick.


A recent article sheds more information on this topic.

Grocery Stores Use Big Quantities to Entice Shoppers - NYTimes.com: "The old gimmick — buy one, get one free — has been expanded to include some pricing equations worthy of Isaac Newton, or at least of middle-school math class. Using buying patterns detected from loyalty cards, receipts and other research, grocery chains are searching for the multiples sweet spot: The current Pathmark circular advertises Bush’s baked beans at three for $5 and Yoplait yogurt at 10 for $6. At Cub Foods, Sprite 12-packs are on sale at three for $11.97. Kroger has lemonade, socks and Kroger gummi bears candy on sale at 10 for $10.

“We look at the customer buying behavior, and that’s how we land on multiples — to get customers a little higher than their typical purchase rate,” said Tom O’Boyle, executive vice president for merchandising and marketing at the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, which owns grocery stores including Pathmark, A.&P. and Food Emporium."

A (Green) Murderous Development

Anyone who has visited Hyderabad in recent times and survived the extreme pollution and heat will boil at this sad story. The city cannot afford this kind of development- a different model has to be developed, based on large-scale public transportation.

Green murder: 1,110 trees to be axed to make way for ring road project - The Economic Times: "HYDERABAD: The city is all set to lose another 1,110 trees to the Outer Ring Road (ORR) project. In a meeting held last week the tree protection committee, terming the move as 'necessary', gave the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) the go-ahead to fell these trees, most of which are four-five years old. Axing the green cover will pave the way for HMDA to take up road-widening work on the 1.3 km-long Hyderabad-Medak-Bodhan highway that will now have six lanes as against the existing two. Earlier, as per government records, nearly 5,000 trees have been felled across Hyderabad's outskirts to facilitate the same project."

Sunday, July 17, 2011

When CEOs (like Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd) can get fired with a multi-million dollar severance, why can't everyone else?

Superintendent merry-go-round yields fat severances - chicagotribune.com: "tanley Fields resigned after just a year as superintendent of a suburban Cook County school district where he was put on leave, faced with firing and ultimately required to apologize to the community. Still, he walked away with a $100,000 severance payment.

He also had prematurely left his prior job, at a Lake County high school district, cashing out $30,426 in unused vacation. The school board waived a $60,000 breach-of-contract payment from Fields, now superintendent in another Chicago-area school district.

Fields' experience illustrates a statewide phenomenon that is costing the public millions in buyout deals worked out in secret by school boards, a Tribune investigation found.

The newspaper's review of more than 100 superintendent contracts, financial records and severance agreements over a decade revealed that boards have handed out six-figure separation checks; district-paid health care; cash or retirement credit for hundreds of sick days; and, in one case, a Mercedes — all to be rid of superintendents.

The severance packages are fueled by high superintendent and board turnover, fear of lawsuits, and board policies and state laws that boost buyouts — such as sick days that can accrue to limits uncommon in the private sector, experts said. In many cases, the money funding a buyout could pay one or more annual teacher salaries.

The deals raise questions in an era of accountability and fiscal woes, said Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association, an advocacy group.

If a superintendent leaves by choice, "I really question why any of these compensation packages should be included," she said.

If a superintendent is pushed out over performance, she added, "Then I think you have to say, 'What is fair for the superintendent? What is fair for children? What is fair for the taxpayers?'

"In these tough economic times, we've got to make common-sense, fair decisions. It probably is not going to look like it has in the past. We cannot mirror Wall Street. These are publicly paid individuals."

In Illinois, board members have mixed views.

"Boards have not been held responsible because they do not care about taxpayers, period. … They do not care about how much money they spend," said Kenneth Williams, board president in Thornton Township High School District 205, which recently approved a $350,000-plus severance package for J. Kamala Buckner, a veteran superintendent. Williams tried unsuccessfully to rescind the package in May.

"After 38 years of committed service and 12 years as superintendent … I thought it was appropriate," Buckner said.

Chris Welch, president of the Proviso 209 board, who signed off on Fields' $100,000 severance, believes boards are well-meaning and take seriously the hiring of district leaders. An attorney, Welch said severance deals can be less costly than legal battles if superintendents contest or sue.

"The termination of a superintendent is not cheap," he said. "At some point, it's wise for boards to sit down to talk about all options, and that includes buyouts or resignation agreements."

After all, experts said, boards enter legally binding contracts with superintendents and must honor their commitments.

Short but sweet

The Tribune found boards doling out hefty payouts even for short-time superintendents.

Only about four months into a three-year contract, Dick Best resigned as superintendent effective in 2004 from DuPage's Addison District 4, records show. Still, he got a full year's salary of $150,000 and a parting payment of $50,000. Best is now an assistant superintendent in South Holland.

In Western Springs, Seth Harkins resigned in 2002 as superintendent of District 101 after one year of his three-year contract. The board paid $126,304 to the state so he could retire early and collect his full pension. He's now a professor.

Some buyout deals also include stellar recommendations that help superintendents get new jobs.

The Dolton District 149 board placed its superintendent, Doris Hope-Jackson, on remediation and administrative leave before she left the job in 2003. She was described in an evaluation as "very harsh" toward parents, taxpayers, board members and staff, among other criticisms.

Yet, the board's recommendation letter said that Hope-Jackson served the district "with pride and sophistication" and that "her leadership style was based upon a foundation of cooperation with the school community."

Hope-Jackson sued and got a six-figure settlement, including title to a Mercedes-Benz, records show. She moved to Calumet School District 132, where she departed when the board said it needed new leadership, and then to Michigan, where an Ypsilanti school board forced her out last year. She filed a lawsuit there, which is pending.

The Addison board, after about four months, recommended Best as someone who brought "a great deal of energy and expertise to his role." And Burr Ridge-based District 181 praised James Tenbusch's "operational and strategic guidance." Tenbusch resigned as superintendent after a year in District 181, leaving in 2008 with a $170,000 severance payment, plus $26,154 in unused vacation pay and up to $10,000 for expenses to find a new job.

The superintendent severance agreements usually are discussed behind closed doors, allowed under open-meeting laws. Also, they often demand confidentiality by all parties, unless disclosure is required by a subpoena or law. The Tribune obtained severance information under the state's Freedom of Information Act. Several districts refused to provide recommendation letters, among other records. The Illinois attorney general's office is reviewing whether those documents should be made public.

Overall, some superintendents were forced out or deemed not a good fit. Others chose to retire or leave for another job. Rarely did boards demand superintendents pay penalties for leaving early.

One exception is Jean-Claude Brizard, new CEO of Chicago Public Schools, who left Rochester, N.Y., schools before his contract ended. The Rochester board prohibited him from cashing in unused sick and vacation days, records show. In Chicago, Brizard's contract, released last month, includes a penalty that requires him to repay $30,000 in relocation-related expenses if he leaves before June 30, 2012.

Hard times

School administration experts say superintendent terminations have been on the rise in the wake of added education mandates, financial pressures and school board instability.

"It is a very difficult job, and it has been made more difficult over the last five or eight years as the economic circumstances of the state and districts have changed dramatically," said Harkins, now a National-Louis University assistant professor. "I think it's very hard for many administrators to maintain coalitions that are necessary for policy work."

As to his stint in Western Springs, Harkins said, "We simply had an agreement to part ways."

Fields, now superintendent of South Berwyn School District 100, said that when he was in Mundelein in Lake County, "It was a difficult financial time. … The board and the community were under the understanding that they had significant money in the bank when really they did not. Regardless of who delivers that message, it's a hard one."

He described his separation from Mundelein as amicable but declined to discuss his Proviso departure. In his resignation letter, in which he apologized to the community, Fields referenced a "lack of communication" as well as a "deterioration of trust" with the board, records show.

In Best's case, he said, "It was an issue between the school district, the board and the superintendent, so we together made the decision that it wasn't the right fit."

The Tribune found that school boards rarely fire superintendents, opting instead to give them severance deals.

After seven months in Zion-Benton Township High School District 126, Peter Alvino was advised that the school board "believes sufficient cause exists to justify his termination" relating to "serious inadequacies of performance" and other allegations, records show.

He was suspended in February 2001, but the board ultimately allowed Alvino to resign and continue to get his $130,000 salary until June of that year. Alvino moved to California, where, in one district, he was reassigned from a principal job to a teaching job before resigning, records show. He's now working on an online law degree.

Alvino said that after a disagreement with the school board president, "things went south." He differed with the board's version of his performance.

High turnover

School boards can change dramatically in a short period, said Hank Gmitro, a former DuPage superintendent who is now president of the search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates.

"A board can change over completely in an election cycle," he said. "You can have a situation where one board hires a superintendent … and in April, that board changes and says, 'We don't want that person the last board hired.'"

Michael Smith attributed board turnover to his 2007 resignation as superintendent from McHenry County's Cary District 26.

"It was just a situation where professionally the board that hired me was no longer there, and there was a different direction set than the direction (for which) I was hired," he said.

Following Smith's resignation, the district changed the locks on his office door but allowed him to keep his superintendent title and spend nine months, at his $142,000 salary, researching the impact of federal No Child Left Behind reforms. He was required to file a report on that research. Meanwhile, the board hired a $600-a-day acting superintendent, records show. Smith also was given $75,000 as part of his resignation agreement. He is now a superintendent downstate.

Using available state data, the Tribune tracked the number of superintendents in Illinois school districts from 2000 to 2010, finding nearly half had gone through three or more superintendents.

That turnover not only fuels buyout deals but can take a toll on issues ranging from policy to student achievement.

"If you have musical chairs and you turn over superintendents every two to three years, it's not helping your district … (or) your students," said Thomas Jacobson, CEO of the McPherson and Jacobson search firm.

Changeover also means some superintendents get multiple severance payouts.

Rosemary Hendricks got a $132,000 settlement in 2009 after filing a lawsuit against Hoover-Schrum District 157, where she had served as superintendent about a year. Earlier, she had gotten a $75,000 settlement in Bellwood District 88, where she had a short stint as superintendent, records show. She is back as Bellwood superintendent.

Richard Drury left his Wisconsin superintendent contract prematurely in 2007 and retired. He got almost $40,000 in vacation and sick payouts, five years of district-paid health insurance and $70,515 to cover insurance premiums after that. He then became Wheaton's District 200 superintendent, resigning effective March 2010 after "differences arose" with the board, records show. He was given $60,000 as part of a resignation agreement and paid out the remainder of his $208,000 salary.

And downstate, the Peoria 150 school board spent $228,134 in 2004-05 on the final year of salary, unused vacation days and health insurance for Superintendent Kay Royster, even though she had been placed on leave during that time. She moved to a Missouri district, where after less than two years, the board bought out her contract in 2008 for $119,243 and paid her $25,691 for unused vacation.

Even cash-strapped districts have poured money into separation deals.

In DuPage, Glenbard High School District 87 was in fiscal crisis after voters turned down referendum initiatives. In the fallout, Timothy Hyland resigned as superintendent and retired, getting a deal of more than $300,000 in 2005, two years before his contract was to end.

Elgin's struggling District U-46 is still paying Connie Neale, who took a leave of absence as superintendent and then retired in 2008. Her retirement agreement included about $127,000 for unused vacation and $44,000 a year for a tax-deferred retirement plan until 2012. She also collects a public pension from Illinois.

Also, the district pays Neale's health care insurance — with a price tag of $16,000 this year. Districts often stop paying when a retired superintendent reaches Medicare age.

But Neale, who is 65, gets a better deal. U-46 taxpayers will pay her health care premiums for the rest of her life."

Regulations that can fly - in the passenger seat

Business Line : Industry & Economy / Logistics : Attention airlines: Stop charging more for preferred seats, says DGCA: "From now on, you will not have to pay extra for your preferred seat on a domestic low-cost airline.

IndiGo and SpiceJet charge between Rs 50 and Rs 750 for this service. JetLite and KingfisherRed and Air India don't charge extra for preferred seating.

Coming down heavily on airlines, the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked them to immediately stop taking extra money from passengers for their preferred seating. Passengers picking their preferred seats on the Web are charged extra by some airlines. “Airlines will have to refund fee for seat assignment to those passengers who are booked on flights after July 15 and paid extra for preferred seat,” a senior DGCA official told Business Line.

In a letter to CEOs of scheduled domestic airlines, the DGCA has not just asked them to stop levying such charges but has also directed them to delete any mention about them from their Web site immediately. However, even 24 hours after the communication was sent out, the airline Web sites still showed these services and charges..."

Saturday, July 16, 2011

The Nouveau Riche of the World, the Mercedes and BMW buyers need to see this...

A grotesque symbol of starving Africa - Africa, World - The Independent: "Increasing numbers of children are dropping dead on the long trek to refugee camps. Those who do get there are more severely malnourished than ever before. And, says the UN, the number of people under threat has now reached 11 million – equivalent to every man, woman and child in Belgium facing starvation. Thus, the chronic food crisis of the Horn of Africa edges with every hungry day towards full-blown famine.

One image captures the degrading awfulness now facing millions. It is not that of a wide-eyed, swollen-bellied child crying for food – although there are countless numbers of them. It is the sight of mothers using rope to bind their stomachs so they will deaden the pangs of hunger as they give what little food they can get to their children – a grotesque parody of the gastric bands used for slimming in the West."

Sweet Georgia

Report details largest US school cheating scandal - US news - Life - msnbc.com: "A new Georgia state report details the nation's largest-ever cheating scandal, concluding that half of Atlanta's schools allowed practices that inflated students' scores to go unchecked for as long as a decade.
The report reveals that schools turned a blind eye to — or even condoned — teachers who erased wrong answers on test sheets or encouraged students to copy off one another."

Friday, July 15, 2011

Where 14% attrition is just A B(asic) Normal Rate

TCS to hire 20,000 in Q2 & 60,000 in FY12; chasing 12 large deals: CEO - The Economic Times: "MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest software services exporter, expects uncertainty in the global economy to continue for some time, and also expects to hire up to 20,000 people this quarter, its chief executive said.

'The company during second quarter is expected to hire 17,000 to 20,000 people,' CEO MD N Chandresekaran said here.

The company plans to hire about 60,000 people in the ongoing financial year (2011-12). During the quarter ended June 30, the company made a gross addition of 11,988 employees, while 8,412 left the organisation. The net remaining with the organisation stood at 3,576 headcounts, taking total headcount to 2,02,190.

The attrition rate during the first quarter was 14.8 per cent as compared to 14.4 per cent last quarter (Q4 FY11).

"During the first quarter, attrition does tend to go up but for us it is just 0.4 per cent. People leave for higher studies and there are also cases of dissatisfaction because of the wage hike in April quarter causing certain amount of attrition.

"If you ask me attrition rate is high but is also reflective of growth in the industry. Going foreward we expect 13-14 per cent attrition rate to live with, but we believe it will come down," TCS Vice-President and Head (Global HR) Ajoy Mukherjee said..."

Coming off the Rails

The railroad companies have been doing very well- the 2010 profit numbers for some of the big ones:

Union Pacific: $ 2.78 B
CSX: $1.563 B

However the train services in the cities are being cut back drastically, because of the budget deficits. The working class that relies on public transit is going to be hit hard.

Metra warns it may cut trains on every line but one in 2012 - chicagotribune.com: "Faced with a looming budget deficit in 2012, Metra board members are considering a list of service reductions that would save the agency $8.2 million a year.

Under a recommendation proposed by Metra CEO Alex Clifford and his staff Friday, 31 weekday trains on 10 of Metra’s 11 lines would be eliminated"

Great Lakes Parks and Climate Change

Report says climate change harming Great Lakes parks - chicagotribune.com: "Some of the Great Lakes' treasured national parks are showing ill effects of climate change that are likely to worsen in coming decades, from shoreline erosion to decline of certain wildlife and plant species, a former park system administrator said Wednesday.

Without changes in public policies and personal habits that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the parks could lose qualities that attract visitors and support unique ecosystems, Stephen Saunders, former deputy assistant secretary of the Interior Department, said in a report released by two advocacy groups."

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Eco-balance

Loss of predators in the food chain can alter the ecosystem - USATODAY.com: "Take away the predators at the top of the food chain — the lions, tigers, wolves and cougars — and entire ecosystems start to change. A paper in today's edition of the journal Science suggests that humans' destruction of these top predators is causing reverberations worldwide in ways not apparent even a decade ago, including changes in the landscape and even increases in wildfires.


Although the idea that there are serious ecosystem consequences to the removal of top predators isn't new, with this paper, 'it's come of age,' says Aaron Wirsing, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Washington in Seattle."

Search and Destroy

Online search engines may be affecting memory, studies say - The Washington Post: "Search engines may be changing the way our brains remember information, according to research released Thursday.

In a series of experiments, Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow and her colleagues produced evidence that people are more likely to remember things they do not think they can find online and will have a harder time remembering things they think they’ll be able to find online. In addition, people are better at remembering where to look for information on the Internet than they are remembering the information itself, the studies found."

Way to Go!

Girl Power Wins at Google's First Science Fair - NYTimes.com: "If Google’s first science fair is any indication, the top scientists of the future will be women. Google has announced the fair’s winners, and they are all young women.

Shree Bose, age 17, from Fort Worth, Tex., won the grand prize for developing a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment for patients who have developed a resistance to chemotherapy. Naomi Shah, 16, from Portland, Ore., found ways to improve indoor air quality and decrease people’s reliance on asthma medications. And Lauren Hodge, 14, from Dallastown, Pa., researched the effects of different marinades on potential carcinogens in grilled chicken.

“As a girl, to see that my gender actually is going to come into this field that’s been so dominated by men is exciting to me, and to be a part of that is even more exciting,” Ms. Bose said in an interview."

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Actor Bernanke Stars in QE3- The Helicopter Frontier

Fed Ready to Act, but Not Now, Bernanke Says - NYTimes.com: "Bernanke Says Fed Would Consider New Stimulus
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, gave a subdued account of the economy’s health Wednesday and said that the Fed was prepared to expand its economic aid campaign once again, if necessary, though such a step was not imminent.

Less than a month has passed since Mr. Bernanke said at a press conference that the central bank intended to stand back and take the measure of the nation’s sluggish recovery. Wednesday’s remarks amounted to acknowledgment that so far, the news has been almost uniformly bad.

“I think we have to keep all the options on the table,” Mr. Bernanke said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. “We don’t know where the economy is going to go.”

He described options, including a public commitment to maintain existing aid programs for a longer period, new asset purchases to drive down interest rates, or steps to encourage banks to withdraw money kept on reserve at the Fed and use it to make loans."

Murdoch's Operations

Rupert Murdoch facing BSkyB defeat as parties unite in call to drop takeover | Media | The Guardian: "Rupert Murdoch will today face the humiliation of the Commons issuing a unanimous all-party call for his scandal-ridden News Corporation to withdraw its £8bn bid for BSkyB, the great commercial prize he has been pursuing to cement his dominance of the British media landscape.

In an extraordinary volte-face, David Cameron will disown the media tycoon by leading his party through the lobbies to urge him to drop the bid. Murdoch can defy parliament and press ahead with the bid, prompting a Competition Commission inquiry, but he risks finding himself ostracised by a political class that once scrambled to bend to his wishes."

Monday, July 11, 2011

Shifting the Debt burden on to the poor and the elderly

It appears that the President and the Republicans are trying to outdo each other in shifting more of the country resources faster than ever into the hands of the wealthy, while starving the weak or the elderly.

Obama: We 'need to' get a debt deal in 10 days - Yahoo! Finance: "The meeting came a day after House Speaker John Boehner abandoned efforts to bargain for a $4 trillion, 10-year debt trimming agreement. Boehner said a smaller deal that would reduce the deficit by about $2.4 trillion over the next decade was more realistic...."

Geithner says hard times to continue for many - Yahoo! Finance: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (GYT'-nur) says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.

He says President Barack Obama rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will keep working to strengthen the economy. But Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.

Geithner tells NBC's 'Meet the Press' that it's a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people 'it's going to feel very hard, harder than anything they've experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.'"
***

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (GYT'-nur) says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.

He says President Barack Obama rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will keep working to strengthen the economy. But Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.

Geithner tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that it's a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people "it's going to feel very hard, harder than anything they've experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come."

Geithner: We want `biggest deal possible' on debt - Yahoo! Finance: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the Obama administration wants to seek 'the biggest deal possible' on debt reduction."

Conn. says "large-scale" layoffs to begin - Yahoo! Finance: "he number of layoff notices being issued to state employees in Connecticut is expected to ramp up.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said 'large-scale' layoff notices will likely be issued this week, possibly beginning on Tuesday.

The Democratic governor has already said that about 6,500 job cuts are needed to help balance the budget after unionized state employees rejected a labor savings and concessions deal. He said hundreds of notices have already been issued."

Tenuous Tenure

TISS to recruit faculty on contractual basis - The Economic Times: "MUMBAI: Performance indicators and pink slips are no longer the domain of grueling corporate jobs. Something fundamental is changing in public universities of India that have always provided their teachers job security and the comfort of fixed work hours.

The government funded Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) plans to recruit faculty on their Hyderabad campus on a contractual basis. It is only after a regular annual assessment, which includes students' evaluation, will their term be extended.

The new campus which saw initial financial support from the Azim Premji Foundation , will conduct several interdisciplinary courses, essentially requiring more than just teaching from a text. The decision on recruitment rules was taken as it was felt faculty sign up with a lot of enthusiasm but, as years roll by, the 'promise of pension' turn many to deadwood, said sources."