Citi- A VP who gets 8 years

Ex-Citigroup VP gets eight years for stealing $22 million - Business - US business - msnbc.com: "Gary Foster, 35, pleaded guilty in September to siphoning the money from his employer between 2003 and 2010, transferring the funds to Citigroup's cash account before wiring it into his own personal account at a different bank.
He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Eric Vitaliano in Brooklyn federal court to 97 months on the bank fraud charge.
An attorney for Foster was not immediately available for comment. A spokesman for Citigroup declined comment."

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Christie priorities: friends first, party next, and public last

Christie Curbs Scrutiny of Halfway Houses - NYTimes.com: "Gov. Chris Christie on Friday curbed an effort by the New Jersey Legislature to improve oversight of the state’s system of large, privately run halfway houses.


Mr. Christie, a Republican who has close ties to a company that is the dominant operator of halfway houses in the state, used a line-item veto to reduce new disclosure requirements about halfway houses that the Democratic-controlled Legislature inserted in the state budget approved this week...
...

In a message to the Legislature, the governor said he issued the vetoes because the reporting requirements were burdensome and threatened the security of the facilities.

“The administration recognizes the critical importance of maintaining client safety as well as accountability for the efficient expenditure of state dollars,” the message said, adding, “The administration has retained robust reporting requirements.”

In response to articles in The New York Times that detailed widespread violence, gang activity, drug use and escapes plaguing the halfway houses, Mr. Christie ordered the Corrections Department last week to step up their inspections and the Legislature sought to increase their scrutiny.

After the governor’s vetoes, Democratic lawmakers on Friday denounced him, saying he was trying to protect Community Education Centers, the dominant halfway house operator, which has long had connections to prominent politicians of both parties.

A close friend and political adviser of Mr. Christie’s, William J. Palatucci, is a senior vice president at the company. Mr. Christie was registered as a lobbyist for the company in 2000 and 2001, when he was a private lawyer, and in recent years he has repeatedly visited and praised the company’s facilities.

Community Education received roughly $71 million of the $105 million that was spent on halfway houses in New Jersey in the fiscal year ending last June 30..."

Flaunting its English, the wrong way

flaunt: to show or make obvious something you are proud of in order to get admiration
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/flaunt?q=flaunt



US flaunts new interview-less visa process for some categories to woo Indians - The Economic Times: "NEW DELHI: Home to some of the world's exotic destinations, the United States on Friday made an attempt to woo maximum number of tourists from India by flaunting its new initiatives like Interview Waiver Programme under which an applicant can get visa without having to appear in person. "

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When even BBC makes a mistake...

Mistakes, when rushing to publish....
Germany lost to Italy 0-2 in Euro 2012 Soccer Championship...
The BBC headline follows:

Starbucks- not the coffee, but the "experience"

Starbucks presents coffee alternative: wine - chicagotribune.com: "Starbucks' customers in Schaumburg will have a new coffee alternative beginning Friday that some might find surprising: wine.

The Streets of Woodfield cafe will be the first Starbucks location outside the Pacific Northwest to host a new concept the chain has dubbed Starbucks Evenings. Beginning at 4 p.m., customers may order wine priced at $7 to $15 a glass and up to $50 per bottle, and choose food from a small plates menu, including warm rosemary cashews, bacon-wrapped dates, flatbreads or chocolate fondue. Beer will also be available.

"This concept is trying to deliver the same atmosphere and the same service that everybody's grown to love and expect from Starbucks," said Rachel Antalek, director of new concept development at Starbucks Coffee Co. "We're constantly innovating and trying new things, and this is something our customers have asked us for that in a lot of ways hearkens back to European coffeehouse heritage."

The concept is just the latest in a string of new ventures for Starbucks, which is the third-largest restaurant chain in the U.S., with nearly $9.8 billion in sales at its nearly 11,000 restaurants as estimated by Technomic. But some experts wonder if the company is straying from its core coffee-and-espresso mission, a problem that plagued the chain four years ago.

Antalek said customers will order at the counter as usual, but the cafes will offer limited table service to ask patrons if they'd like anything else after they've gotten comfortable. The cafe eventually will feature live music and poetry readings. The idea is to create the opportunity for a "no-stress book club" or for busy moms to unwind after dropping the kids at soccer practice.

"As soon as customers see it, they see all kinds of ways to use it," Antalek said.

The seven Starbucks cafes offering wine and beer in the Pacific Northwest have seen double-digit same-store sales increases after 4 p.m., the company said.

Antalek said the chain won't do much advertising for the evening offerings, aside from social media outreach. Stores will post signs to make customers aware of the service, and baristas will encourage morning customers to visit again in the evening.

Starbucks is planning to offer wine and an evening menu at as many as six more Chicago-area locations by year end, including openings in Burr Ridge and in the city at Sheffield and Diversey avenues by early August. Two more Chicago locations are in the permitting process.

The Schaumburg cafe is the first to introduce the small plates menu, but the new food items will be offered at the seven locations already selling wine and beer. Items include warm cashews for $3.45 and a shareable chocolate fondue for $6.95.

Starbucks began experimenting with alcohol on the menu at a Seattle location in October 2010.

"Wine has a tendency to appeal more to women … and heavy users of specialty coffee," Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst at NPD Group, said, noting that the concept bodes better for Starbucks than such chains as Burger King and White Castle, which have been experimenting with wine and beer.

Riggs said she thinks the Starbucks Evenings plan could be successful in "large markets and, maybe, airports."

Later this year, Starbucks will extend the wine and evening menus to Atlanta and Southern California, where the chain is eyeing locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Some experts believe Starbucks might be moving too far afield from its core.

"I think it's going to create a lot of confusion for their customers," said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic. "They may be headed from being a great place to go for coffee and baked goods in the morning or afternoon to trying to do way too much."

Starbucks Evenings is the latest expansion into new business for the quick-service chain, which removed the word "coffee" from its corporate logo early last year to underscore its ambitions beyond coffee. Within the last six months, Starbucks has opened test stores for Tazo Tea, Seattle's Best Coffee and Evolution Fresh juice. In May, Starbucks announced the acquisition of La Boulange bakery, promising to bring the products to its stores and expand the bakery chain.

Starbucks spokeswoman Alisa Martinez said the coffee giant has an emerging-brands team that handles the auxiliary retail concepts, adding that each brand is relevant to the company's core customer.

Starbucks has returned to industry darling status after navigating a turnaround nearly three years ago. Founder Howard Schultz returned to the CEO position in 2008, as the chain's store traffic and stock price began to slip. At the time Schultz said the company had lost its focus and a bit of its "soul" after years of rapid growth.

The company closed underperforming stores and trimmed ancillary businesses, like in-store music, homing in on coffee and espresso drinks and working to boost the quality of its food. Starbucks has posted same-store sales gains since the fourth quarter of 2009.

Other observers said that mixing alcohol and a quick-service atmosphere could be a recipe for conflict, with young employees overseeing a situation that could become charged if patrons are overserved.

But Antalek said alcohol in restaurants hasn't been a problem so far, adding that the company has a comprehensive alcohol training program in place.

"We don't find we have customers coming in to overindulge," she said. "They're not using the space that way."

Germany pushed back, in EU Summit and in Euro 2012 soccer

Merkel Outflanked in Crisis Summit as Hollande Backs Italy-Spain - Bloomberg: "French President Francois Hollande led a rebellion against Germany’s prescriptions for dealing with the debt crisis, rattling Europe’s political system with demands for immediate relief for hard-hit countries.

Hollande put French endorsement of a German-inspired deficit-control treaty on hold, and Italy and Spain withheld approval of a 120 billion-euro ($149 billion) growth-boosting package unless Germany authorizes steps to calm their bond markets.

By provoking an open breach with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the new French leader overturned the austerity-first consensus that has dominated the debt-crisis response and risked fracturing the Berlin-Paris alliance that built the European Union and euro.



“We now need to have a stability policy in order to support the countries that took some efforts,” Hollande told reporters early today at a summit in Brussels, the 19th since the crisis erupted. “Stability measures should be a priority before any other consideration.”"

BBC Sport - Germany 1-2 Italy: "Mario Balotelli secured Italy a place in the Euro 2012 final against Spain as his goals defeated Germany in Warsaw."

Health Care Ruling

Health Care Ruling and Obama’s Place in History - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — For Barack Obama, who staked his presidency on a once-in-a-generation reshaping of the social welfare system, the Supreme Court’s health care ruling is not just political vindication. It is a personal reprieve, leaving intact his hopes of joining the ranks of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan as presidents who fundamentally altered the course of the country."

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The Apple that grows like an i-weed

Strategy Analytics: Apple Has Shipped 250M iPhones, Made $150B In Revenues In The Past 5 Years | TechCrunch: "We know that Apple has been making a killing from the iPhone, with the device reigning as the single-most popular smartphone in a number of markets — despite Android-based handsets collectively having a bigger lead. Now, with the fifth anniversary of the iPhone fast approaching — it’s June 29 — Strategy Analytics has calculated just how big that killing is: Apple has shipped 250 million iPhones worldwide, and the iPhone has generated $150 billion in cumulative revenues, it estimates.

The figures cover the entire family of iPhone devices — from the first model released in 2007 through to the most recent iPhone 4S. Of them, Strategy Analytics tells me that the device that has topped the list has been the iPhone 4 — both in terms of price and volume. However, there is a dark shadow around today’s news, too. Strategy Analytics believes that if the first five years were awesome, the next five will be a lot more challenging, for several reasons:"

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Stockton gets a knockdown

Stockton, California, to File for Bankruptcy Protection - Bloomberg: "Municipal bankruptcies in the U.S., while still rare compared to corporate filings, became more common after the housing and financial crisis began. Ten of 42 cases filed since 1981 came in the past four years, according to court records.
The biggest municipal bankruptcy was filed last year by Jefferson County, Alabama, which is trying to restructure $4.2 billion in debt, most of which is tied to sewer bond deals tainted by corruption."

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Exxon's CEO: blames "illiterate" public but does not accept scientific findings himself

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson- a good example of the ignorant ones becoming CEOs. On the one hand, he blames the "illiterate" public and  a "lazy" press, but on the other he does not accept the reviewed findings and models of the scientific community. He further claims that the world will 'adapt' but does not take any responsibility for reducing the burden on the public.



Exxon's CEO: Climate, energy fears overblown - Bottom Line: "ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson says fears about climate change, drilling, and energy dependence are overblown.

In a speech Wednesday, Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt. The risks of oil and gas drilling are well understood and can be mitigated, he said. And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain, he said.

Tillerson blamed a public that is "illiterate" in science and math, a "lazy" press, and advocacy groups that "manufacture fear" for energy misconceptions in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He highlighted that huge discoveries of oil and gas in North America have reversed a 20-year decline in U.S. oil production in recent years. He also trumpeted the global oil industry's ability to deliver fuels during a two-year period of dramatic uncertainty in the Middle East, the world's most important oil and gas-producing region.

"No one, anywhere, any place in the world has not been able to get crude oil to fuel their economies," he said.

In his speech and during a question-and-answer session after, he addressed three major energy issues: Climate change, oil and gas drilling pollution, and energy dependence.

Tillerson, in a break with predecessor Lee Raymond, has acknowledged that global temperatures are rising. "Clearly there is going to be an impact," he said Wednesday.

But he questioned the ability of climate models to predict the magnitude of the impact. He said that people would be able to adapt to rising sea levels and changing climates that may force agricultural production to shift.

"We have spent our entire existence adapting. We'll adapt," he said. "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution."

Andrew Weaver, chairman of climate modeling and analysis at the University of Victoria in Canada, disagreed with Tillerson's characterization of climate modeling. He said modeling can give a very good sense of the type of climate changes that are likely. And he said adapting to those changes will be much more difficult and disruptive than Tillerson seems to be acknowledging.

Steve Coll, author of the recent book "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power," said he was surprised Exxon would already be talking about ways society could adapt to climate change when there is still time to try to avoid its worst effects. Also, he said, research suggests that adapting to climate change could be far more expensive than reducing emissions now. "Moving entire cities would be very expensive," he said.

Facebook- the face of the superficial

Ex-employee offers insider take on Facebook's culture - Bottom Line: "Losse also says employees would use a secret app built on the Facebook platform called Judgebook to quickly display images of Facebook users for company employees to score.
The Facebook culture seems to put an emphasis on attractiveness according to Losse, who says in her book during VIP parties in Las Vegas, Facebook employees would have bouncers bring women to their table, then turn them away for not being attractive enough.
Privacy is another subject Losse touches on in her book, claiming employees had access to every profile in the early days of Facebook."

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iPad first, baby shunted

The Hindu : Health / Medicine & Research : Study identifies iPad danger for brain shunt devices: "Researchers found that the magnets can change the valve settings if held within 5 centimetres of the valve, causing a valve malfunction until the problem is recognised and the valve is adjusted to the proper setting.

The study was undertaken after when one of the researchers’ patients, a 4-month-old girl, experienced a shunt malfunction after her mother used an iPad2 while holding her.

Despite their findings, the researchers stressed that the iPad 2 could still be used safely with the same precautions that would normally be employed around other household magnets"

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Supreme Court - Supremely Corrupt in Upholding Citizens United Despite the Evidence

Supreme Court Declines to Revisit Citizens United - NYTimes.com: "The four members of the court’s liberal wing dissented in an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who said that Citizens United itself had been a mistake.

“Even if I were to accept Citizens United,” Justice Breyer continued, “this court’s legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana. Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the state had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations.”

Justice Breyer added, “Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so.”"

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Water: what the doctor ordered but none to be had

40 surgeries put off due to water shortage in Delhi - The Times of India: "NEW DELHI: The severe water shortage in the city has begun to take a toll on urgent health services. At Bara Hindu Rao, the largest municipal hospital in the city, more than 40 surgeries were cancelled over the past week because water could not be arranged for the procedures.

Doctors at the hospital said there was no water to sterilize instruments, wash the operation theatre, clean the linen and wash hands - without which surgeries could not be conducted.

At other hospitals such as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Ambedkar and Safdarjung, patients said they were having to buy water from outside for most of their needs as hospital taps ran dry. Washing and cleaning, a vital function in hospitals to prevent infections, has mostly been abandoned at many institutions."

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Cook gets the Apple of the Profits, the Stores employees don't even get a decent wage

Apple Stores’ Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay - NYTimes.com: "But most of Apple’s employees enjoyed little of that wealth. While consumers tend to think of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., as the company’s heart and soul, a majority of its workers in the United States are not engineers or executives with hefty salaries and bonuses but rather hourly wage earners selling iPhones and MacBooks.

About 30,000 of the 43,000 Apple employees in this country work in Apple Stores, as members of the service economy, and many of them earn about $25,000 a year. They work inside the world’s fastest growing industry, for the most valuable company, run by one of the country’s most richly compensated chief executives, Tim Cook. Last year, he received stock grants, which vest over a 10-year period, that at today’s share price would be worth more than $570 million.

And though Apple is unparalleled as a retailer, when it comes to its lowliest workers, the company is a reflection of the technology industry as a whole."

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Tea-sing with the Tazo- the Starbucks way

Move Over, Coffee: With Tazo Store, Starbucks Aims to Reinvent Tea - DailyFinance: "With the launch of Tazo, its first tea-only store, the coffee giant is aiming to turn tea into the Next Big Thing. "We want to elevate the premium tea experience and grow the tea category, just as we've done for coffee," said Holly Hart Shafer, Starbucks communications manager. The store is set to open in October in Seattle, the heart of coffee country.

Tazo--named for the Starbucks-owned brand that is also sold in supermarkets, drugstores and cafes--will offer an "immersive" and "interactive" tea-shopping experience "that's differentiated from other folks in the retail space," Shafer said. "

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Former IRA commander agrees to meet Queen - FT.com

Former IRA commander agrees to meet Queen - FT.com: "Martin McGuinness, the former IRA commander who is now deputy first minister in Northern Ireland, has accepted an invitation to meet the Queen, raising the prospect of a symbolic first handshake between a Sinn Féin representative and the monarch.
The meeting will take place on Wednesday during a two-day visit to Northern Ireland by the Queen to mark her diamond jubilee. It will be another significant step forward for the peace process, which brought an end to almost 30 years of bloodshed during “the Troubles”."

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Romney and Bain- not taking credit for smart decisions: export jobs and pollution, import products and increase profits

Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas - The Washington Post: "One of those was a California bicycle manufacturer called GT Bicycle Inc. that Bain bought in 1993. The growing company relied on Asian labor, according to SEC filings. Two years later, with the company continuing to expand, Bain helped take it public. In 1998, when Bain owned 22 percent of GT’s stock and had three members on the board, the bicycle maker was sold to Schwinn, which had also moved much of its manufacturing offshore as part of a wider trend in the bicycle industry of turning to Chinese labor."

Dr. Merkel- setting high standards for leadership

Ten EU nations to press ahead with market transaction tax - The Economic Times: "BERLIN: Germany and nine other European Union nations will press ahead with plans to introduce a financial market transaction tax, following failed attempt for an agreement to levy it across the EU.

The finance ministers of the 27-nation EU, who met in Luxembourg on Friday, came to the conclusion that an agreement to impose the tax across the bloc will not be possible in the foreseeable future, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the media after the meeting. "

Lawsuit-hungry Apple loses a big one

Federal judge tosses Apple patent suit against Motorola - chicagotribune.com: "A U.S. judge on Friday ruled that Apple Inc. cannot pursue an injunction against Google's Motorola Mobility unit, effectively ending a key case for the iPhone maker in the smartphone patent wars.

The ruling came from Judge Richard Posner in Chicago federal court. He dismissed the litigation between Apple and Motorola Mobility with prejudice, meaning it can't be refiled.

The ruling is a blow for Apple, which had hoped a decisive ruling against Motorola would help it gain an upper hand in the smartphone market against Android.

"Apple is complaining that Motorola's phones as a whole ripped off the iPhone as a whole," Posner wrote. "But Motorola's desire to sell products that compete with the iPhone is a separate harm -— and a perfectly legal one -— from any harm caused by patent infringement.""

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Reasons to go long on media, and ultra-short on politicians and on ethics

Dark Money: Will Secret Spending by a Group of Billionaires Decide the 2012 Election? (Pt. 1): "The 2012 presidential election is set to become the most expensive race in history, with spending projected to top $11 billion — more than double the 2008 total. It will be the first presidential election since the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United decision, which lifted a 63-year-old ban prohibiting corporations, trade associations and unions from spending unlimited amounts of money on political advocacy. We’re joined by reporter Andy Kroll and editor Monika Bauerlein of Mother Jones magazine, whose new cover story is "Follow the Dark Money." The article warns: "Super-PACs, seven-figure checks, billionaire bankrollers, shadowy nonprofits: This is the state of play in what will be the first presidential election since Watergate to be fully privately funded.""

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Language preservation, courtesy Google

Google backs online project to preserve endangered languages - Technolog on msnbc.com: "Language preservation is a thriving institution, but the number of skilled linguists and dedicated historians may not be enough to save the thousands of languages (half those extant in the world today) that are in serious danger of disappearing altogether. Google has worked with preservation-minded groups to produce the Endangered Languages Project.

It's a platform on which preservationists can store and access media related to fading languages like Campidanese Sardinian and Jonkor Bourmataguil. You can see where the languages are spoken, how many people speak them, and learn other linguistic data. There are over 3000 languages plotted on the site's map, though as the site is new, few have many multimedia resources available. Others, like Navajo and Aragonese, have video samples, word lists, and more."

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Capitalism at its corrupt best- autotrader.com IPO

Didn’t We Learn from Facebook? AutoTrader.com IPO Filing Shows Market Is as Sleazy as Ever | Breakout - Yahoo! Finance: "New federal filings show that Autotrader.com is looking to become the first internet company to retest the waters of the IPO market since Facebook's May 18th debut. There's only one problem; six weeks ago AutoTrader insiders borrowed $400 million in order to turn around and pay themselves a one-time dividend in the same amount. I call it, cashing in before you cash out, while my co-host Jeff Macke is more blunt.
"There's nothing illegal about this, it's just kind of scummy," he says in the attached video. "They've made it a lesser company and immediately after doing so, they're pitching on to the public."
It was Dan Primack's article, Dividends For Us, Not For You in Fortune Magazine that first pointed this out and highlighted the nearly 50% increase in AutoTrader's long-term debt as well as the payout to pre-IPO shareholders including Cox Enterprises and two private equity investors, Providence Equity Partners and Kleiner, Perkins."

Hire, then delay, the Infosys way

Infosys delays joining dates for engineers hired from campuses as slowdown bites - The Economic Times: "
Engineering graduates who were offered jobs at campus placements in August-September 2011 have started receiving their joining dates, which extend anywhere from September 2012 to July 2013.

"Based on business imperatives and manpower requirements, we expect onboarding of fresh hires to be completed by the first quarter of fiscal 2014 (which ends in June)," Infosys said in an emailed reply.

For a company struggling to match industry growth rates, this may erode its perception on campuses besides raising further investor scrutiny, at a time it is seeking to pursue a changed strategic direction with higher focus on software products and business platforms. Infosys has also temporarily frozen salaries for its 1.5 lakh staff and cut variable pay.

After sales shrunk 2% in the March quarter from three months ago, Infosys expects flat sales growth in the three months to June. For the full year, it expects to grow 8-10%, which is lower than the 11-14% sector growth forecast by industry body Nasscom or the 20% forecast from Cognizant."

Prof. Nestle's interesting look at economics and obesity

Finance Geek » Why We’re Fat: It’s the Government and Wall Street’s Fault, Marion Nestle Says: Forty years ago, obesity was a small concern -- if one at all -- to governments, health care professionals and individuals. Today, obesity rates have skyrocketed around the globe and present one of the single biggest challenges, both nutritionally and economically, in recent history.

Nearly 14 percent of women in the world are considered obese, up from 7.9 percent in 1980. Among men, 10 percent are obese, up from 5 percent in 1980. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts the obesity rate will jump from 36 percent in 2012 to 42 percent by 2030. Around the world, 10 percent of adults are obese, and an estimated 3 million deaths worldwide are caused every year by obesity-related illnesses. In the U.S., 70 percent of adults and 17 percent of teens and children are either overweight or obese.

The cost of treating obesity-related illnesses like heart disease and diabetes in the U.S. equals $147 billion every year -- that's almost one-fifth of the country's total health expenditures. The CDC defines adult obesity as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher. The CDC considers adults with a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 a "healthy weight."

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public policy at New York University, and one of the leading nutritional experts in the nation, has been trying to change how people eat for years. She's written many books on the food industry, detailing how government policy has become intertwined with food choice and obesity. One of the arguments she makes in her latest book, "Why Calories Count," focuses on the impact Wall Street has made on food companies and ultimately what people consume. Obesity rates started to rise in the 1980s, she says in the accompanying video, largely because of demands Wall Street placed on food makers.

Wall Street "forced food companies to try and sell food in an extremely competitive environment," she says. Food manufacturers "had to look for ways to get people to buy more food. And they were really good at it. I blame Wall Street for insisting that corporations have to grow their profits every 90 days."

Traders and analysts may have shifted food companies' focus to producing profits over health, but changes to government policy also contributed to people's relationship with food, she notes. Large government subsidizes given to the corn, wheat, soybean and sugar industries allowed farmers to reap high returns on their crops. Farmers could grow these commodities cheaply and were encouraged by the food industry "to plant as much as they could. Food production increased, and so did calories in the food supply," Nestle writes in her book.

Inexpensive food encouraged more eating, and more eating led to bigger waistlines. "Today, in contrast to the early 1980s, it is socially acceptable to eat in more places, more frequently and in larger amounts, and for children to regularly consume fast foods, snacks and sodas," she writes.

Obesity may be on the rise, but some government officials and private business are trying to stop the upward trend. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed banning large sugary sodas and drinks sold at fast-food restaurants, movie theaters and street carts. A Reuters investigation found that the food and beverage industry has spent $1.5 trillion to defeat soda taxes and marketing restrictions in cities and states and has "mounted referendums to overturn the taxes in the two states" that passed soda taxes. The Walt Disney Company recently announced it would stop airing junk-food TV advertisements on children's programming by 2015.

Nestle supports both initiatives but says individuals will not make healthier food decisions until the government does certain things.

"People perceive fruits and vegetables as being very expensive," she says. "And in fact they are relatively because since 1980 the index cost of fruits and vegetables has gone up by 40 percent. Whereas the index price of sodas and snack foods have gone down by 20 to 30 percent. So there's something wrong with the way we're pricing foods, and that has a lot to do with government policies. I think we need to create a society that makes it easier for people to eat more healthfully."

A Glass of Happiness

Happiness is a glass half empty | Oliver Burkeman | Life and style | The Guardian: "In an unremarkable business park outside the city of Ann Arbor, in Michigan, stands a poignant memorial to humanity's shattered dreams. It doesn't look like that from the outside, though. Even when you get inside – which members of the public rarely do – it takes a few moments for your eyes to adjust to what you're seeing. It appears to be a vast and haphazardly organised supermarket; along every aisle, grey metal shelves are crammed with thousands of packages of food and household products. There is something unusually cacophonous about the displays, and soon enough you work out the reason: unlike in a real supermarket, there is only one of each item. And you won't find many of them in a real supermarket anyway: they are failures, products withdrawn from sale after a few weeks or months, because almost nobody wanted to buy them. In the product-design business, the storehouse – operated by a company called GfK Custom Research North America – has acquired a nickname: the Museum of Failed Products.

This is consumer capitalism's graveyard – the shadow side to the relentlessly upbeat, success-focused culture of modern marketing. Or to put it less grandly: it's almost certainly the only place on the planet where you'll find Clairol's A Touch of Yogurt shampoo alongside Gillette's equally unpopular For Oily Hair Only, a few feet from a now-empty bottle of Pepsi AM Breakfast Cola (born 1989; died 1990). The museum is home to discontinued brands of caffeinated beer; to TV dinners branded with the logo of the toothpaste manufacturer Colgate; to self-heating soup cans that had a regrettable tendency to explode in customers' faces; and to packets of breath mints that had to be withdrawn from sale because they looked like the tiny packages of crack cocaine dispensed by America's street drug dealers. It is where microwaveable scrambled eggs – pre-scrambled and sold in a cardboard tube with a pop-up mechanism for easier consumption in the car – go to die.

There is a Japanese term, mono no aware, that translates roughly as "the pathos of things": it captures a kind of bittersweet melancholy at life's impermanence – that additional beauty imparted to cherry blossoms, say, or human features, as a result of their inevitably fleeting time on Earth. It's only stretching the concept slightly to suggest that this is how the museum's proprietor, an understatedly stylish GfK employee named Carol Sherry, feels about the cartons of Morning Banana Juice in her care, or about Fortune Snookies, a short-lived line of fortune cookies for dogs. Every failure, the way she sees it, embodies its own sad story on the part of designers, marketers and salespeople. It is never far from her mind that real people had their mortgages, their car payments and their family holidays riding on the success of products such as A Touch of Yogurt.

"I feel really sorry for the developer on this one," Sherry says, indicating the breath mints that inadvertently resembled crack. "I mean, I've met the guy. Why would he ever have spent any time on the streets, in the drug culture?" She shakes her head. "These are real people who sincerely want to do their best, and then, well, things happen...."

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Middle class morality, in evidence

Barely alive, Rohini sisters rescued from home - The Times of India: "NEW DELHI: The middle class neighbourhood of Rohini's Sector VIII woke up on Saturday to a shocking story of neglect and social apathy. Two sisters - allegedly suffering from depression and malnutrition for months with their bodies having started to rot - were sent to hospital by one of their relatives who stays in the area after the stench from the house became unbearable. How the 65-year-old mother of the two women and her grandson, 14-years-old, managed to live in these conditions without seeking help is a mystery.

The neighbours admitted that they chose to ignore the screams and stench for over two years believing that "the matter did not concern them.'' And on Saturday morning, they came to know the truth only through television."

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Diabetes and Fast Food

The Hindu : States / Tamil Nadu : Shantha points to the diabetes-fast food link: "The consumption of high-fat, energy-dense, fast food leads to diabetes, said V. Shantha, Chairperson, Cancer Institute, here on Saturday.

Speaking after launching the M.V. Centre for Diabetes Senior Citizen Outpatient Privilege Card, she said that the number of people afflicted with diabetes in India was high compared to other countries. This was due to food habits and lack of exercise.

Thanks to advances in the medical field, many diseases could be cured. The medical fraternity had moved from cure to control. As far as the non-communicable diseases — cancer, diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases — were concerned, the thrust area should be prevention. Care, cure and control should be the motto to tackle these health problems.

Vijay Viswanathan, managing director, M.V. Hospital for Diabetes, said that annually 4.6 million people died around the world due to diabetes, of which 48 per cent of people were below the age of 60.

In the United States, diabetes patients could avail themselves of insurance polices whereas such patients in India were not included under the insurance cover and had to spend from their pocket."

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Pizza Vending Machines: Cheesy?

Pizza Vending Machines Coming to U.S. : Discovery News: "After some initial success in Europe, Italian Claudio Torghel is getting ready to roll out his Let's Pizza vending machines in the United States. Since you're already getting your flicks from that Redbox by the grocery store, you might as well top off movie night with a fresh pizza pie.

Fresh, you balk? Yes, fresh. Let's Pizza machines say they're a cut above factory farmed pizzas. Here's the fresh factor: After customers pay, they begin by selecting one of four kinds of pizza available. Inside, a machine mixes flour and water together and kneads it into dough, which is then rolled flat. After toppings are added, the pizza is cooked in an infrared oven and dispensed in a take-home box. Voila, your very own 10.5-inch pie in under three minutes."

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Lessons from Ireland

Irish Tell Spain to Imagine the Worst in Banking Bailout - Bloomberg: "Ireland has this banking advice for Spain: imagine the worst and double it.
Like Ireland, Spain sought a bank bailout after being felled by a real-estate crash. Now, just as the Irish did, the Spanish are awaiting the results of outside stress tests gauging the size of the hole in the banking system.
“Think of the worst possible scenario on banking losses: then double it,” said Eoin Fahy, an economist at Kleinwort Benson Investors in Dublin. “Adopt the most conservative assumptions.”
Nine hundred miles northwest of Madrid, Irish analysts wring three lessons from its own banking crisis, among the worst in history. First, quickly present an accurate estimate of the bad loans. Second, force banks to face up to losses, possibly through the creation of a so-called bad bank. Third, share as much of the loss as possible with bank bondholders."

Spain’s government already ordered banks to set aside provisions equivalent to 45 percent on the nation’s 307 billion- euro ($387 billion) book of loans linked to real-estate developers, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said May 11.

Outside Audit

By bringing in outside experts to examine the banks, signs are that Spain is drawing some lessons from Ireland’s mistakes. After agreeing to a bailout of as much as 100 billion euros for its lenders, the Spanish government is awaiting the results of an audit of the banks by international firms Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and Oliver Wyman Ltd.

The International Monetary Fund, in a report released last week, said that Spain’s banks need at least 37 billion euros to weather a contracting economy.

It took Ireland 2 1/2 years after guaranteeing the financial system in 2008 to bring in outside experts to comb through the banks’ books.

In October of 2008, Lenihan called the Irish guarantee the cheapest bailout in the world, as the state had injected nothing into its lenders at that point. Two months later, he said the banks may need much as 10 billion euros. Two years later, the central bank ordered lenders to raise a further 29.2 billion euros. In September 2010, they needed a further 12.1 billion euros, as loans were sold to the country’s bad bank.

Lesson Learned

With bank costs escalating, investors shunned Irish sovereign debt and forced the nation into a bailout. As part of the rescue agreement, the central bank hired BlackRock Inc. (BLK) to assess the capital shortage at the banks. Based on those tests, the banks needed an additional 24 billion euros.

“Spain has learned one key lesson,” Fahy at Kleinwort Benson Investors said. “Bring in outside, completely independent people to assess the losses.”

Once the losses are quantified, Spain must consider how to deal with those bad loans. For now, Spain is sticking to propping up and restructuring failing lenders, defying some pressure from its aid partners to take more radical action.

Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said on June 11 that Spain should split up some lenders, with some loans dispatched to a bad bank, as Ireland did.

Crystalizing Losses

On the advice of economist Peter Bacon, Lenihan decided to set up the National Asset Management Agency to purge its banks of about 74 billion euros of toxic real estate assets.

The agency paid about 32 billion euros for the commercial real-estate loans, crystallizing massive losses in the Irish financial system.

While the then-government originally estimated that banks would suffer an average 30 percent discount on the loans, by the time the final loans were transferred in 2010 the discount had risen to 57 percent. The capital holes were then mostly filled by the state.

“Conceptually, it’s still the best way of cleaning up the banks,” said Bacon in an interview. “I’m not sure about the Spanish banks, but if there is a credibility issue over their ability to manage risky property loans, than it’s probably better to remove them from their balance sheets.”

In theory, the removal of risky real estate loans freed the Irish banks to restart lending. In reality, that hasn’t happened, as banks hoard capital to guard against future losses on their souring mortgage loans and public funding markets remain closed.

‘Tread Carefully’

NAMA’s operations are also drawing criticism. Bacon said this week that the agency may be doomed to losses as the agency sells assets in a falling market. Irish commercial property prices have declined about 65 percent since their peak in 2007, according to Investment Property Databank Ltd.

“I’d advise that Spain tread carefully,” said Michael McGrath, finance spokesman with Ireland’s Fianna Fail, which was the main ruling party when NAMA was created. “If they set up a NAMA-type company, they may find a black hole that is much worse than they ever imagined, as was the case in Ireland.”

Once the losses and capital needs are known, the state needs to figure how to fill the holes. While the European Central Bank has ruled out imposing any losses on senior bank bondholders, the Irish playbook suggests junior bondholders may be at risk. In 2010, Ireland introduced emergency laws allowing the state to secure court orders to change the terms of junior bonds.

Bondholder Risks

In all, subordinated bondholders suffered about 15 billion euros of losses in Ireland, helped by the direct or threatened use of the new laws, due to expire this year.

Spain may be reluctant to impose losses on holders of junior debt. Bankia Group (BKIA) is among Spanish lenders that sold 22.4 billion euros of preferred stock to individual investors through retail branches, according to data compiled by CNMV, the financial markets supervisor.

Because of capital structure rules, these investors should be wiped out before losses are imposed on junior debt holders, a move Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government may shy away from unless he introduces laws to protect them.

Other key differences between Ireland and Spain’s banking crisis are emerging, said Philip Lane, head of economics at Trinity College Dublin. Writing on the irisheconomy.ie website, he noted that real estate loans peaked at 77 percent of the Irish economy, compared with 29 percent in Spain. The Spanish bailout is also 9 percent of their economy, compared with 63 billion euros, or 43 percent, in Ireland.

‘Receding Horizon’

Yet the core issues are the same, according to Irish analysts, who expect Spanish banking woes to push the nation into a full bailout. Spain’s 10-year bond yield rose to a euro- era record of 6.998 percent yesterday. Ireland sought a full bailout when yields reached 7.99 percent on Nov. 19, 2010.

“Spain, like Ireland, has over the last few years been pushing through fiscal and financial reforms,” said Ray Kinsella, a professor of finance at University College Dublin. “But, like Ireland, it continues to chase a receding horizon in terms of banking stability. The situation continues to move ahead of the Spanish authorities.”

The State of Race

When it Comes to Politics, Are We More Racist Than We Think? | Work + Money - Yahoo! Shine: "The state with the highest racially charged search rate was West Virginia, where 41 percent of voters chose Keith Judd, a white man who is also a convicted felon currently in prison in Texas, over Obama just this May. Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Alabama, and New Jersey rounded out the top 10 most-racist areas, according to the search queries used.

Even if states that are considered fairly liberal, racism is prevalent enough in certain areas to put the entire state high up on the list. "Other areas with high percentages included western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, upstate New York and southern Mississippi," Stephens-Davidowitz points out in his New York Times article.

The 10 states with the fewest racially charged searches were Utah, Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Washington DC, Minnesota, Oregon, Montana, and Wyoming.
"

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India and beef exports: Is it a rise or fall?

Exports of buffalo meat soar from India - FT.com: "India’s economy and exports may be waning compared with a year ago, but there is one sector still experiencing big growth – exports of beef in the form of water buffalo meat.
Indian beef exports are set to rise to 1.525m tonnes this year, up from 609m tonnes in 2009, outstripping Australia, which is expected to ship 1.425m tonnes in 2012 and Brazil, with 1.35m, according to US Department of Agriculture figures."

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M Class Mommys: have the M(oney) but not the S(ocial Consciousness)

Indian moms driving up SUV sales of Toyota, M&M, BMW and other carmakers - The Economic Times: "MUMBAI: In the United States, they've been dubbed the 'soccer moms'; in China they are the 'tiger moms'. In India, you could call them - mothers ferrying their kids and groceries in rugged sports utility vehicles (SUVs) - the ' M Class maas .' And they're doing their bit to contribute to double-digit growth in this segment even as sales in the overall passenger vehicle market remain sluggish.

"The trend is catching on and more women - many of them mothers - are opting to drive SUVs as they become easier to manoeuvre and steer," says Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director, Toyota Kirloskar. Along with Toyota, Mahindra & Mahindra, BMW, Audi and Mercedes are some carmakers that are seeing an increased demand for SUVs from moms. One such mom from Mumbai is 42-year-old Hemal Sawant, who recently traded in her Santro for a flaming red Scorpio."

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Criticism of Economics

Why do we take economists so seriously? | Suzanne Moore | Comment is free | The Guardian: "But we are indeed in reduced circumstances when debate is reduced to bankers arguing with economists. This clash of ideologies is not really left versus right. It is more akin to fundamentalists talking to agnostics. To be an austerity groupie, one has to ignore the actual behaviour of people; to believe fervently in Keynes, one has to ignore the behaviour of politicians.

Economics is not a science; it's not even a social science. It is an antisocial theory. It assumes behaviour is rational. It cannot calculate for contradiction, culture, altruism, fear, greed, love or humanity at all."

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Psychic Madrid, Bloomberg Discovers

Bloomberg - Business, Financial & Economic News, Stock Quotes: "In Madrid, Unemployment Leaves Psychic Damage"

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ProSoccer talk, "always been"

Offshore drilling, Euro 2012: Germany 1, Portugal 0 | ProSoccerTalk: "It’s a strikers life to always been on a unforgiving hunt, but late on Saturday, Gómez bagged his prey. "

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When the Markets become the Masters

Spain Accepts Bailout Deal From Europeans for Its Banks - NYTimes.com: "MADRID — Responding to increasingly urgent calls from across Europe and the United States, Spain on Saturday agreed to accept a bailout for its cash-starved banks as European finance ministers offered an aid package of up to $125 billion.

European leaders hope the promise of such a large aid package, made Saturday in an emergency conference call with Spain, will quell rising financial turmoil ahead of elections in Greece they fear could roil world markets.

The decision made Spain the fourth and largest European country to agree to accept emergency assistance as part of the ongoing euro crisis. The aid offered was nearly three times the $46 billion in extra capital the International Monetary Fund said was the minimum that the wobbly Spanish banking sector needed to guard against a deepening of the country’s economic crisis, but it is unclear if Spain would accept the full amount."

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Cutting Deals comes back to bite President Obama

E-Mails Highlight Extent of Obama’s Deal With Industry on Health Care - NYTimes.com: "On June 3, 2009, one of the lobbyists e-mailed Nancy-Ann DeParle, the president’s health care adviser. Ms. DeParle reassured the lobbyist. Although Mr. Obama was overseas, she wrote, she and other top officials had “made decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose importation” on a different proposal.

Just like that, Mr. Obama’s staff signaled a willingness to put aside support for the reimportation of prescription medicines at lower prices and by doing so solidified a compact with an industry the president had vilified on the campaign trail. Central to Mr. Obama’s drive to remake the nation’s health care system was an unlikely collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry that forced unappealing trade-offs."

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Modern Capitalism- Looting the public, and corrupting elections

Outrageous CEO Compensation: Wynn, Adelson, Dell and Abercrombie Shockers

Every day, Michelle Leder and the crew at Footnoted.com pick through Securities and Exchange Commission filings in search of interesting tidbits on executive compensation. Every month she joins us to discuss some of the highlights and lowlights. In May, we learned that companies showered lavish compensation on well-known casino magnates, and at executives at highly visible firms like Abercrombie & Fitch and Dell.

The Suite Life with Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon Adelson, who presides over the Las Vegas Sands (LVS) empire, is a larger-than-life figure. A multibillionaire, he injected himself in the presidential campaign by bankrolling Newt Gingrich's quixotic primary effort. Adelson also lives large. And the company he controls helps to foot the bill. The company's proxy, filed in early May, revealed that Las Vegas Sands shelled out $2.6 million to cover security costs for Adelson and his family. That sounds like a lot of money. But the company reported that the controversial Adelson needs the protection. "The Company has received reports from its independent security consultant on the need to provide security coverage to Mr. Adelson and his family, most recently in March 2010 and April 2012," Las Vegas Sands reported in the proxy. In addition, Adelson's daughter and her family lived in suites at The Venetian for some period of time. The rent they paid, which was determined by a third party: $98,020. Oh, and Adelson's son-in-law, a vice president of corporate strategy, received nearly $600,000 from the company last year.

Wynn Wins Big. The stock of casino operator Wynn Resorts (WYNN) has been muddling along over the past couple years, as this chart shows. But in Vegas, the house always wins. Last year, Steve Wynn, the charismatic CEO of Wynn Resorts, saw his compensation rise to $16.47 million. The salary of $3.87 million was just the beginning. For most professionals, a single bonus is a nice surprise at the end of the year. But Wynn received two bonuses last year, one for $2 million, and another -- a "non-equity incentive plan compensation" bonus — for over $9 million. Now, with that kind of money being paid out, you'd think a guy would be able to afford his own personal travel, to put a roof over his head, and to buy luxury goods at retail prices. But Wynn clearly needed some extra help, courtesy of the shareholders. Footnoted.com found that Wynn received $1.5 million in "Other Compensation." That included: "$910,345 worth of personal flying time on the company's aircraft. There was also $503,831 worth of usage from a company-provided villa and $71,561 in merchandise discounts."

Bermuda Shorts. Insurance companies like to locate in Bermuda for several reasons. The weather is balmy, and the regulation and taxes are light. But planting offices in the pink sands of the Atlantic island doesn't mean you escape scrutiny of shareholders. Ordinarily, you'd think that convincing a professional to take a job in Bermuda wouldn't take much coaxing. But Axis Capital Holdings, which recently named Albert Benchimol as chief executive officer, has asked its shareholders to make some extra efforts. The offer letter to Benchimol included a $1.1 million salary, a target bonus of $1.9 million, and 500,000 restricted shares. Those shares vest over time, but are currently valued at $17.3 million, according to Foonoted.com. But wait, there's more. To avoid the isolation associated with living on a small island, Axis (AXS) shareholders will pay for Benchimol to have "up to 30 hours of personal use of the Company aircraft each calendar year." And because it's tough to find a nice place to live in Bermuda on a $1.1 million salary, shareholders will also pitch in to help Benchimol find shelter. He'll receive a $25,000-per-month housing allowance, which comes out to $822 per day.

Dressing Up Compensation at Abercrombie. Based on the returns they've been getting (here's a five-year chart), shareholders of Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) likely can't afford to splurge much on clothing or other discretionary purchases. But CEO Michael Jeffries' rich compensation package should supply him with the fuel to shop at Barney's, Nordstrom's, and Neiman-Marcus for years to come. Footnoted.com reported that Jeffries "received more than $48 million in total compensation, although whether he will realize anywhere near that number is doubtful, if the company stays on its current, not-so-profitable course." He took home a $1.5 million salary, a $1.2 million bonus, $719,182 in other compensation and a whopping $43.2 million in restricted stock and other investment vehicles. This, at a time when the stock trades for about half the price it did a year ago. Shareholders rarely mobilize to oppose CEO pay at U.S. companies. But last year, only 56 percent of shareholders voting approved the company's executive compensation plan.

You're Getting a Dell. And $16 million. Remember Michael Dell? The entrepreneur started a direct-order personal computer company out of his dorm room and built it into a massive global firm. Dell (DELL) was one of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 in the 1990s. But for the last several years, it's had a hard time booting up. (Here's the depressing five-year chart.) The stock trades today about where it did in early 1998. And yet Michael Dell is still partying like it's 1999. Footnoted.comreports that the chairman and chief executive officer of the eponymous company received $16.1 million in compensation, way up from $4.3 million the previous year. Dell, who owned about 243 million shares in the company as of last spring, received a combined $11.8 million in stock and option awards. Oh, and he also got a $3.3 million cash bonus. Because when you're a billionaire and already own more than 10 percent of the company's common shares, it's only the prospect of more cash and shares that keeps you showing up for work every day. Nice work if you can get it.

Footnoted.com found another great nugget buried in the Dell proxy. It's common for companies to help senior executives move — especially if they have to sell their homes and move cross-country. "But Stephen F. Schuckenbrock, whose title is "President, Services", got a whopping $1.9 million in relocation benefits," Footnoted.com reports. Must have been a long-distance move, right? Not really. Schuckenbrock moved Round Rock, Texas, just outside Austin, to Plano, Texas, which is just outside Dallas —a move of about 200 miles. It wasn't the mover Schuckenbrock needed help with, apparently. Rather, it was getting out from under a poor real estate investment. Most of the assistance came in the form of "a cash payment of $1,500,000 to compensate him for the loss on the sale of his house in the Austin, Texas area."

Skin WHitening- dark light on India's attitudes

BBC News - Has skin whitening in India gone too far?: ""Do you think twice before wearing certain clothes because they don't seem to suit your body's uneven skin tone?" asked one half-page advert in a respected newspaper.

"Notice how the colour of your hands is different to the colour of your face?" asked another.

Continue reading the main story
Money and glamour

In 2010 India's whitening cream market was worth $432m and growing at 18% per year, according to ACNielsen
Stars who have promoted the products include: John Abraham, Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Preity Zinta, Sonam Kapoor
It seems illogical that such prejudices should continue to exist in modern day India, but they do.

One wannabe actress told me she failed to get parts in films because directors bluntly told her she was too black.

You only have to look at posters and ads in India to see glamorous Bollywood stars who, thanks to a bit of graphics software, have dramatically lighter skin tones - with others going the whole hog and endorsing the products.

These are the stars who are worshipped by so many in India, and if many of them are complicit too, then it's fair to assume that this industry will only continue to grow."

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iPhone like product- for $1.29

Taco Bell on Verge of Comeback: Sells 100 Million Doritos Tacos in 10 Weeks | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance: "There's a new product on the market that is selling like hot cakes, with 100 million units sold in just 10 weeks. And no, it is not the iPhone or any other Apple product.
It's Taco Bell's new nacho cheese flavored Doritos Locos Taco, which sells for $1.29 and features a shell made from a Doritos chip on the outside, maintaining the same taste as a Taco Bell classic crunchy taco on the inside.
"To put some perspective on the 100 million tacos sold, Taco Bell notes that McDonald's sold its first 100 million burgers in 1958 — 18 years after the first McDonald's burger stand opened, and three years after Ray Kroc started his first McDonald's franchise," reports The Orange Country Register.
The new taco — which debuted in Taco Bell's 5,600 stores on March 8 — has quickly become the company's most successful product launch in its 50-year history. It even led its parent company Yum Brands (YUM) to a 73% profit jump in the first quarter of this year."

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Dim-witted but dangerous - public and legislators alike

Republicans Bungle the Battle Over Light Bulbs | The Exchange - Yahoo! Finance: "Republicans in the House of Representatives are taking a stand for your right to light -- progress and savings to the American consumer be damned.
These valiant defenders of the Constitution, according to Bloomberg, "adopted a provision designed to save traditional incandescent light bulbs by blocking what one lawmaker called the 'energy police' from enforcing an efficiency standard.""

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Student Debt: Who is responsible?

Students Pay SLM 9.25% on Exploitative Loans for College - Bloomberg: "Unlike the federal student-loan program, which lets consumers borrow at fixed rates directly from the government, these loans from at least 30 banks and other private lenders feature mostly variable rates that can be more than twice what some people pay in the U.S. program. With college costs spiraling, the marketing and interest rates of these loans are drawing increasing complaints from borrowers and regulators, who say teenage consumers often don’t understand their terms...

Loans from banks and other private lenders make up about 15 percent of the $1 trillion in outstanding student debt, according to an estimate by Mark Kantrowitz, who runs FinAid.org, a website about college grants and loans. About 2.9 million students have private loans, according to the most recent federal data analyzed by The Institute for College Access and Success, an Oakland, California-based nonprofit group.

Now, with college costs continuing to soar, Discover and SLM are both working to expand their student-loan businesses.

“Student lending is a good investment,” said Carlos Minetti, president of consumer banking and operations at Discover. (DFS) “It has an attractive customer base that tends to have higher earning potential and lower unemployment over time.”

JPMorgan, the largest U.S. lender by assets, said in April it would stop offering student loans on July 1 except to bank customers. The shrinking private student-loan market and the government’s expansion into originating federal student loans are behind the bank’s decision, Steve O’Halloran, a spokesman, said in an interview.