Mail from Students- current and former- 2012-2013: One measure of an Educator

• I just wanted to let you know that I got the fall internship at ...... and I wanted to thank you for the wonderful letter of recommendation you wrote.  It was a valuable asset which helped me greatly at the interview! ...JW
• Just a note to say I recieved my ...  results this week. I succeeded in achieving a First Class Honours. I am absolutely delighted. The fun starts now looking for a job!...KD
• It has been some time since we have last spoken. I wanted to reach out to see how things were going on your end. Have you been taking on any new journeys, endeavors, challenges?...When you have a moment, please let me know what has been going on in your life. I'd also like to meet up if schedules will allow in the near future... If you ever need my support in future endeavors, please don't hesitate to ask. Your patience; guidance; and passion for intellectual growth are large contributors to the foundation of my progress on this journey I'm currently on....ZJ
• This is fantastic news. Thank you very much for all of your assistance during this process! ...MP
• I hope you are enjoying the beginning of your summer. I had an excellent semester and I wanted to thank you for all of your guidance this past semester...AM
• I just wanted to say thank you very much for writing me a recommendation letter in the fall.  I wanted to let you know that I was accepted into the Master of Arts in European Union Studies at the... I was also selected for a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship to study Turkish with the help of your recommendation....I am beyond excited to be a part of this program and extremely grateful for your help, both for your recommendation but more importantly your teaching and guidance...CE
• I would also like to thank you so much for helping me with the scholarship.  I am very honored to have received the ... Scholarship and I appreciate your guidance and support...AG
• Just wanted to let you know that I received the internship position at ... and wanted to say thank you for thinking of me and recommending me for this opportunity/experience. ...RP
• Hi!  I just wanted to touch base with you and see how you are doing.  This past year has flown by.  I cannot believe that it was already last spring that I was in your Intro to Global Business class!  From what I recall, you had received a grant that was to bring you to Ireland.  How has that experience been for you so far?  I don’t recall specifically what the grant was for, but from my understanding you are spending part of your time teaching out there.  That sounds like a great opportunity and will probably give you even more material to discuss next time you teach Global Business...I have continued working on earning my accounting degree this year.  After the upcoming fall semester I will be graduating.  Beyond that, my intention is to complete the  necessary credit hours to sit for the CPA exam...CA
• I wanted to check in with you and let you know what I'm up to out here in Denver. I did get the position an organization called... JZ
• I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Dr. Gopal's class.  He was very insightful and qutie helpful.  I am looking forward to the next 5 weeks with him...AG
• I was just wondering if you were back in the country and if you are going to be in your office before the term starts.  I was hoping to go over a few things to make sure I'm on track with all my classes.  Also, a few opportunities came to my attention that  I wanted to go over with you...AG
• I want to thank you for your guideance durring my time at Elmhurst.  I truely have enjoyed the start of my career which has been focused on supply chain.  I have you and the other professors at Elmhurst to thank for that...JH
• I look forward to seeing you Sunday. I'm glad we have stayed in touch the last four years and I definitely want it to stay like that. ..KH
• Just want to send you a quick note and let you know that I have recently finished the CPA exam. ..KD
•  I went to India during last holidays, and now I'm studying in Rouen Business School, Top 20 of the Financial times Master in Management 2012 ranking. I m quiete proud and corporate :)  I'm orienting my career in order to be product chief in the web and mobile applications. JMG
•  Thank you so much again for always believing in me and pushing me. ..KH
• 
  

Cut taxes and spend on jobs? Big 0 for O-bama

Obama Challenges GOP To Accept Corporate Tax Deal : NPR: "CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — President Barack Obama on Tuesday offered congressional Republicans a new corporate tax cut and jobs spending package he said might "help break through some of the political logjam in Washington," only to have GOP lawmakers immediately throw cold water on the idea.

The announcement and quick rejection underscored how elusive common ground is between the Democratic White House and Republicans in Congress on fiscal issues. The divide was particularly stark on the corporate tax proposal given that both parties generally have supported overhauling the code for businesses, though the White House and Republicans have differed on specifics.

Obama outlined his proposal in a speech at a massive Amazon.com plant in Chattanooga, his latest stop on a summertime campaign to refocus his agenda on the economy. He said "serious people" in both parties should accept his offer."

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Eminent use of Eminent Domain?

A City Invokes Seizure Laws to Save Homes - Yahoo! Finance: The power of eminent domain has traditionally worked against homeowners, who can be forced to sell their property to make way for a new highway or shopping mall. But now the working-class city of Richmond, Calif., hopes to use the same legal tool to help people stay right where they are.

Scarcely touched by the nation’s housing recovery and tired of waiting for federal help, Richmond is about to become the first city in the nation to try eminent domain as a way to stop foreclosures.

The results will be closely watched by both Wall Street banks, which have vigorously opposed the use of eminent domain to buy mortgages and reduce homeowner debt, and a host of cities across the country that are considering emulating Richmond.

The banks have warned that such a move will bring down a hail of lawsuits and all but halt mortgage lending in any city with the temerity to try it.

But local officials, frustrated at the lack of large-scale relief from the Obama administration, relatively free of the influence that Wall Street wields in Washington, and faced with fraying neighborhoods and a depleted middle class, are beginning to shrug off those threats.

[Click here to check home loan rates in your area.]

“We’re not willing to back down on this,” said Gayle McLaughlin, the former schoolteacher who is serving her second term as Richmond’s mayor. “They can put forward as much pressure as they would like but I’m very committed to this program and I’m very committed to the well-being of our neighborhoods.”

Despite rising home prices in many parts of the country, including California, roughly half of all homeowners with mortgages in Richmond are underwater, meaning they owe more — in some cases three or four times as much more — than their home is currently worth. On Monday, the city sent a round of letters to the owners and servicers of the loans, offering to buy 626 underwater loans. In some cases, the homeowner is already behind on the payments. Others are considered to be at risk of default, mainly because home values have fallen so much that the homeowner has little incentive to keep paying.

Many cities, particularly those where minority residents were steered into predatory loans, face a situation similar to that in Richmond, which is largely black and Hispanic. About two dozen other local and state governments, including Newark, Seattle and a handful of cities in California, are looking at the eminent domain strategy, according to a count by Robert Hockett, a Cornell University law professor and one of the plan’s chief proponents. Irvington, N.J., passed a resolution supporting its use in July. North Las Vegas will consider an eminent domain proposal in August, and El Monte, Calif., is poised to act after hearing out the opposition this week.

But the cities face an uphill battle. Some have already backed off, and those that proceed will be challenged in court. After San Bernardino County dropped the idea earlier this year, a network of housing groups and unions began working to win community support and develop nonprofit alternatives to Mortgage Resolution Partners, the firm that is managing the Richmond program.

“Our local electeds can’t do this alone, they need the backup support from their constituents,” said Amy Schur, a campaign director for the national Home Defenders League. “That’s what’s been the game changer in this effort.”

Richmond is offering to buy both current and delinquent loans. To defend against the charge that irresponsible homeowners who used their homes as A.T.M.’s are being helped at the expense of investors, the first pool of 626 loans does not include any homes with large second mortgages, said Steven M. Gluckstern, the chairman of Mortgage Resolution Partners.

The city is offering to buy the loans at what it considers the fair market value. In a hypothetical example, a home mortgaged for $400,000 is now worth $200,000. The city plans to buy the loan for $160,000, or about 80 percent of the value of the home, a discount that factors in the risk of default.

Then, the city would write down the debt to $190,000 and allow the homeowner to refinance at the new amount, probably through a government program. The $30,000 difference goes to the city, the investors who put up the money to buy the loan, closing costs and M.R.P. The homeowner would go from owing twice what the home is worth to having $10,000 in equity.

All of the loans in question are tied up in what are called private label securities, meaning they were bundled and sold to private investors. Such loans are generally the most unfavorable to borrowers and the most likely to default, Mr. Gluckstern said. But they are also the most difficult to modify because they are controlled by loan servicers and trustees for the investors, not the investors themselves. If Richmond’s purchase offer is declined, the city intends to use eminent domain to condemn and buy the loans.

The banks and the real estate industry have argued that such a move would be unprecedented and unconstitutional. But Mr. Hockett says that all types of property, not just land and buildings, are subject to eminent domain if the government can show it is needed to promote the public good, in this case fighting blight and keeping communities intact. Railroad stocks, private bus companies, sports teams and even some mortgages have been subject to eminent domain.

Opponents, including the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors and some big investors have mounted a concerted opposition campaign on multiple levels, including flying lobbyists to California city halls and pressuring Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration to use their control of the mortgage industry to ban the practice.

Tim Cameron, the head of Sifma’s Asset Management Group, said any city using eminent domain would make borrowing more expensive for everyone in the community and divert profits from the investors who now own the loan to M.R.P. and the investors financing the new program. “Eminent domain is used for roads and schools and bridges that benefit an entire community, not something that cherry-picks who the winners are and who the losers are,” he said.

Representative John Campbell, Republican of California, has introduced a bill that would prohibit Fannie, Freddie and the F.H.A. from making, guaranteeing or insuring a mortgage in any community that has used eminent domain in this way. Eminent domain supporters say such limits would constitute a throwback to the illegal practice called redlining, when banks refused to lend in minority communities.

Opponents have also employed hardball tactics. In North Las Vegas, a mass mailer paid for by real estate brokers warned that M.R.P. had “hatched a plan to make millions of dollars by foreclosing on homeowners who are current on their payments.”

In a letter to the Justice Department, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California complained that the opposition was violating antitrust laws and that one unnamed hedge fund had threatened an investor in the project.

But not all mortgage investors oppose the plan. Some have long argued that writing down homeowner debt makes sense in many cases. “This is not the first choice, but it’s rapidly becoming the only choice on how to fix this mess,” said William Frey, an investor advocate.

Mr. Frey said that the big banks were terrified that if eminent domain strategies became widespread, they would engulf not only primary mortgages but some $450 billion in second liens and home equity loans that are on the banks’ balance sheets. “It has nothing to do with morality or anything like that, it has to do with second liens.”

Many of the communities considering eminent domain were targeted by lenders who steered minority families eligible for conventional mortgages into loans with higher interest rates and ballooning payments. Robert and Patricia Castillo bought a three-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Richmond because their son, who is severely autistic, would anger landlords with his destructive impulses. They paid $420,000 for a home that is now worth $125,000, Mr. Castillo, a mechanic, said.

They have watched as their daughter’s playmates on the block have, one by one, lost their homes. But they are reluctant to walk away from the house in part for the sake of their son.

“We’re in a bad situation,” Mr. Castillo, 44, said. “Not only me and my family, but the whole of Richmond.”

Alan Blinder contributed reporting.

The Big Banks- too charged up to be ethical

JPMorgan Accused of Energy-Market Manipulation by U.S. Agency - Bloomberg: "The New York-based bank has agreed to sanctions including a fine of about $400 million in a settlement that may be announced as early as tomorrow, according to a person familiar with the case who asked not to be identified because the terms aren’t yet public. Other sanctions may include forfeiting profits, this person said.
Brian Marchiony, a JPMorgan spokesman, declined to comment on the FERC action.
The case marks another setback for the biggest U.S.-based bank, which sailed through the 2008 financial crisis without a single quarterly loss. Last year JPMorgan lost more than $6.2 billion from wrong-way derivatives bets placed by traders in London. The incident prompted a U.S. Senate investigation, the departure of two senior executives and a debate over whether Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon should keep his chairman role. In May shareholders re-elected him as chairman."

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Too much talk for one planet: good one from Mr. Booker

Too much talk for one planet: why I'm reducing my word emissions | Charlie Brooker | Comment is free | The Guardian: "Anyway, I haven't quit the newspaper, but I have, for the meantime, stopped writing weekly, partly because my overall workload was making that kind of timetable impossible, and partly because I've recently been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of jabber in the world: a vast cloud of blah I felt I was contributing to every seven days.

If a weatherman misreads the national mood and cheerfully sieg-heils on BBC Breakfast at 8.45am, there'll be 86 outraged columns, 95 despairing blogs, half a million wry tweets and a rib-tickling pass-the-parcel Photoshop meme about it circulating by lunchtime. It happens every day. Every day, a billion instantly conjured words on any contemporaneous subject you can think of. Events and noise, events and noise; everything was starting to resemble nothing but events and noise. Firing more words into the middle of all that began to strike me as futile and unnecessary. I started to view myself as yet another factory mindlessly pumping carbon dioxide into a toxic sky.

This is perhaps not the ideal state of mind for someone writing a weekly column in a newspaper. Clearly it was time for a short break."

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Does iPad = iSmart? iPads required in schools!

Schools ask parents to stump up £200 for iPads | Education | The Observer: "What price progress? The answer for parents who send their children to state schools for what they thought would be a free education is that it can be very high indeed. More and more parents are being asked to buy tablet computers for their children to use in class, at a cost of several hundred pounds. And the move is drawing grumbles from families on tight budgets and fuelling fears of a "digital divide" in education.

With the use of digital technology expanding quickly in schools, headteachers are keen to be at the forefront of new teaching methods that they believe will save money in the long run on equipment such as books.

Now, ahead of the new school year in September, many schools are asking parents to stump up between £200 and £300 for an iPad or other tablet for their child, or pay for a device in instalments that can vary from £12 to £30 a month, as they rush to keep at the head of the information revolution."

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Protestign Fracking Sussex-fully

Anti-fracking protesters halt Sussex shale gas operation | Environment | The Guardian: "Anti-fracking campaigners claimed a surprise victory on Thursday against attempts to extract oil in the home counties.

Dozens of protesters blockaded a drill site outside the West Sussex village of Balcombe. The drill was operated by Cuadrilla, the energy company headed by former BP chief Lord Browne.

Earlier in the day, the Department for Energy granted a drilling permit for the site to Cuadrilla, which also operates hydraulic fracturing rigs in Lancashire. It is looking for oil in the Sussex shale and says it may need to use controversial high pressure hydraulic fracturing techniques to extract it.

After a seven hour stand-off between Cuadrilla and a group of environmentalists and local opponents – including several groups of parents and children from the village – a lorry that was carrying a generator essential for the drilling on the site was forced to move away, bringing cheers from the protesters. Drilling 3,000ft into the rock had been due to start on Monday."

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Arctic thawing - too hot to handle?

Arctic thawing could cost the world $60tn, scientists say | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "Rapid thawing of the Arctic could trigger a catastrophic "economic timebomb" which would cost trillions of dollars and undermine the global financial system, say a group of economists and polar scientists.

Governments and industry have expected the widespread warming of the Arctic region in the past 20 years to be an economic boon, allowing the exploitation of new gas and oilfields and enabling shipping to travel faster between Europe and Asia. But the release of a single giant "pulse" of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East Siberian sea "could come with a $60tn [£39tn] global price tag", according to the researchers who have for the first time quantified the effects on the global economy.

Even the slow emission of a much smaller proportion of the vast quantities of methane locked up in the Arctic permafrost and offshore waters could trigger catastrophic climate change and "steep" economic losses, they say."

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Indian Mind, never mind India

Why Buffett Bailed on India - Bloomberg: "In theory, no Western executive or investor can ignore the vast potential of Indian consumers, 29 percent of whom are under age 15. India’s geopolitical importance is rising in step with China’s ambitions. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, visiting New Delhi this week, is hoping to deepen Washington’s bond with a possible bulwark against Beijing’s influence, as well as increase bilateral trade.
The problem is an Indian government that won’t get out of its own way. The long debate over foreign-investment limits says it all. In September 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government passed a law allowing big retailers to open stores directly in India, yet no one has. Reasons are legion: too many prerequisites; constraints on whom goods can be purchased from; a raft of regulations limiting franchise models and factory construction; and the hair-pulling need to negotiate separately with each of India’s 28 states."

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Social capital- social cohesion

Social capital yeilds big dividends - Life & Style | Trends, Tips, News & Advice | The Irish Times - Sat, Jul 20, 2013: "That such pride is justified was confirmed once more in a survey by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation, which rated Ireland 11th out of 35 countries for social cohesion, described as “the level of solidarity exhibited by people living and working in a geographical community”. Only those peskily perfect Scandinavian countries and the likes of the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand came ahead of us, which means we’re keeping pretty good company.
Survey after survey determining levels of national happiness and quality of life have pinpointed the abundance of social capital here as a key ingredient in what makes Ireland such a relatively content country. All those GAA cumainn and golf clubs, choral societies and amateur dramatic groups, history societies and reading groups, Mass-goers and volunteers, and yes, all those conversation-filled pubs – they all contribute to a sense of belonging to a place and having strong bonds with the people who live there."

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No motor in this CIty

Detroit Becomes Biggest U.S. City to File for Bankruptcy - Bloomberg: "Detroit became the most populous U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, seeking court protection from creditors while it tries to eliminate a budget deficit and cut long-term debt.

“I authorize this necessary step as a last resort to return this great city to financial and civic health for its residents and taxpayers,” Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, said in a letter today authorizing Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency manager, to file the petition.

Michigan’s largest city has seen its population decline to 707,000, down 7 percent since 2010, according to U.S. Census data. Median household income was less than $28,000, compared with $49,000 statewide, and more than 36 percent of residents lived in poverty as of 2011, Census data show. The median home value of $71,000 was barely half the $137,000 value statewide.

The city listed assets and debt of more than $1 billion in a Chapter 9 petition filed today in court in Detroit. Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code is reserved for municipalities and differs from the rules used by bankrupt companies in Chapter 11."

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Big Mac frozen in Iceland

BBC NEWS | Business | McDonald's pulls out of Iceland: "McDonald's is to close its business in Iceland because the country's financial crisis has made it too expensive to operate its franchise.
The fast food giant said its three outlets in the country would shut - and that it had no plans to return.
Besides the economy, McDonald's blamed the "unique operational complexity" of doing business in an isolated nation with a population of just 300,000.
Iceland's first McDonald's restaurant opened in 1993."

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The English are feeling more English and increasingly less British, report claims - UK News | Online Newspaper | The Irish Times - Wed, Jul 10, 2013

The English are feeling more English and increasingly less British, report claims - UK News | Online Newspaper | The Irish Times - Wed, Jul 10, 2013: "More than a third, or 35 per cent, place their English identity before any sense of Britishness, while just one-in-10 claims “to be more British than English”.
“What has emerged is a different kind of Anglo-British identity in which the ‘Anglo’ component is increasingly considered the primary source of identity,” says the report.
The intensification of feelings about identity in England is being fuelled by a sense of grievance by, for example, a feeling that the Scots get more than their fair share of tax revenues.
Devolution has had its impact, too – not so much about the greater self-government enjoyed by the fringe, but rather the ability of the fringe’s MPs to vote “on English laws” in the House of Commons."

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Google doing Koch- worse than any drug

Google hosts fundraiser for climate change denying US senator | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "Google, which prides itself on building a "better web that is better for the environment", is hosting a fundraiser for the most notorious climate change denier in Congress, it has emerged.

The lunch, at the company's Washington office, will benefit the Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe, who has made a career of dismissing climate change as a "hoax" on the Senate floor.

Proceeds of the 11 July lunch, priced at $250 to $2,500, will also go to the national Republican Senatorial Committee.

It's the second show of support from Google for the anti-climate cause in recent weeks.

Last month, the Washington Post reported that the internet company had donated $50,000 for a fundraising dinner for the ultra-conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute – topping the contributions even of the Koch oil billionaires."

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Light Choice, Heavy Decision

Indian airline GoAir to hire female-only cabin crew in bid to cut fuel bill | Business | guardian.co.uk: "Budget airlines are constantly on the lookout for ways to cut their fuel bills and India's GoAir is no different.

Its latest idea is to hire female-only cabin crew, refusing applications from their heavier male counterparts in a bid to limit fuel burn.

The low-cost airline has calculated that the move will save up to 30m rupees (£330,000) a year, because women 20kg lighter on average.

Around 130, or 40%, of GoAir's existing crew members are male, and they will keep their jobs. But men will miss out in the future, as the airline presses ahead with ambitious expansion plans for 80 new aircraft by 2020 and around 2,000 cabin crew and pilots. It currently has a fleet of 15 aircraft.

The chief executive, Giorgio De Roni, said the decision was driven by the rupee's sharp fall against the dollar over the past year.

"The rupee's fall has hurt the industry badly. All major expenses – aircraft leasing, spare parts and fuel costs – are linked to the dollar," he told the Times of India.

"We are looking at every possible way of cost-cutting to remain profitable.""

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I've got a CRUSH on you...the Police

How algorithms rule the world | Science | The Guardian: "Crush stands for "Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History". Translated, it means predictive policing. Or, more accurately, police officers guided by algorithms. A team of criminologists and data scientists at the University of Memphis first developed the technique using IBM predictive analytics software. Put simply, they compiled crime statistics from across the city over time and overlaid it with other datasets – social housing maps, outside temperatures etc – then instructed algorithms to search for correlations in the data to identify crime "hot spots". The police then flooded those areas with highly targeted patrols."

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