Tidbits on June 17, 2010
Bob Jensen
On Sunday, June 6 while I was pruning our
wild roses out front, a man introduced himself
and asked permission to photograph our wild roses and other wild flowers
He's a retired school teacher named Wes Lavin from Ashland, NH
He carries a huge camera on a tripod and does professional-quality photography
Here's a beautiful lupine picture that he later sent to me.
Bob Jensen's Walk Down Lovers Lane
On June 16, 2009 I took a walk down a country road called Lovers Lane that
begins at our Sugar Hill Community Church heading north. First I had to walk
down Sunset Hill Road where I passed the The Sampler (gift barn and museum)
owned by
Barbara Zarafini ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090303.htm
Barbara and her husband Joe live across the
road in "The Cabin" that is surrounded by lupine fields. Joe mows walking paths
through one of the fields so tourists can see the lupine up close.
About a half mile down from the Sampler is our
Sugar Hill Community Church. The Cape Cod house next to the Church was once a
guest house owned by the famous sportscaster Curt Gowdy ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Gowdy
After Gowdy died, the house was bought by Bud and Mary Weiler---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2008/tidbits081111.htm
In front of the Gowdy-Weiler house is a rail fence covered with roses in bloom
this time of year.
South from our Church is Sugar Hill's Main
Street that contains some houses and only one store called Harmon's General
Store and Cheese House ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090115.htm
Heading north from our church is the beginning of one of Sugar Hill's country
roads called Lovers Lane. This "lane" passes through woods so dense that the
trees form a canopy over the road. About a quarter mile down from the road is a
huge red barn that most likely was a dairy barn at one time. Surrounding the
barn are lush pastures now grazed upon by three Percheron draft horses --- two
blacks and a gray that is so light-colored it looks white from a distance.
Across from these horses is a farm known as
Hilltop Farm that has the traditional New Hampshire stone fences. Robert Frost,
who once lived in a house down from where I live, once wrote "good fences make
good neighbors." His house up here is now a museum and center for poetry
readings ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070905.htm
The pictures below show the stone fences of
the beautiful Hill Top Farm on Lovers Lane. At this point I encountered two of
our pastor's ten children also taking a morning stroll on the Lane. Seven of the
children moved here last year with their parents. They live beside the
Gowdy-Weiler house in the former Foxglove Inn ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2008/tidbits080916.htm
About a quarter mile up from the Hill Top Farm
is what I call the Peckett Farm. In the early 1900s
there were four luxury resorts in the Sugar Hill vicinity. My cottage now sits
where the Sunset Hill House Hotel and Resort thrived in the early part of the
20th Century ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070326.htm
Up from our cottage about a half mile was the smaller Lookoff Hotel and Resort.
All of Sugar Hill's four luxury hotels were demolished in the latter part of the
20th Century as summer living/playing cultures evolved and the passenger
railroads ceased to operate in remote parts of America.
About two miles
from our cottage was the
Peckett's-On-Sugar
Hill Resort. Although a sign on Lovers Lane says the first ski school in the
United states was at the Peckett's resort, I'm told it was really the second but
better-known ski school. It was run by a well-known ski instructor from Austria
---
http://www.nesm.org/page.php?cid=doc30
Near where the
Peckett's hotel once stood is the following Lovers Lane barn with its sweeping
views of fields and the mountains in the background. Both the Hill Top and
Peckett farms are quiet as cemeteries these days except when tractors move in on
occasion to cut hay. There are no longer crops or animals on these or most other
Sugar Hill farms. There are woods and fields of lupines and other wild flowers.
Not far from the Peckett Farm is the Butternut
Farm on Blake Road. Butternut at one time was owned by film star Bette Davis ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070801.htm
She and her mother Ruthie
moved into the farm house. Soon afterward Bette bought a huge dairy barn in
Vermont and had it carted in pieces across the mountains to her farm. She then
reconstructed the barn into a magnificent home called Butternut Lodge. Butternut
Lodge looks like a big old dairy barn. It's now a private residence and is not
visible from a public road or walking trail.
Bette Davis
married her Sugar Hill neighbor and Pecketts' Resort manager Arthur Farnsworth
in 1940. In 1943 she was investigated and suspected but never charged with his
mysterious death. After he died, she purportedly placed a bronze memorial plaque
on the rock at the bottom of a mountain brook where Farnsworth "rescued her" in
1939 before they were married. This plaque still exists in the stream and can be
viewed at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070801.htm
At the
intersection of Lovers Lane and Coffin Road is a house with a panoramic view of
the Iris Farm down below (with silos). Unlike most farms around Sugar Hill, the
Iris Farm is still a working farm with horses, sheep, chickens, and a herd of
Scottish Cows. A portion of Lovers Lane borders on an Iris Farm field. Alongside
the field are wild iris blooms shown below.
Lovers Lane begins at the Sugar Hill Community
Church and ends at Highway 117. To the east about a half mile is the village of
Franconia chartered in 1764 ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franconia,_New_Hampshire
About a half mile to the west is Hildex Farm where you will find the legendary
Polly's Pancake Parlor ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090105.htm
Having come to the end of Lovers Lane,
however, I did not return home via the Hildex Farm or stop for pancakes. Instead
I crossed over to Birches Road where I took more pictures along the two miles
remaining before I returned to our cottage. The pictures from Birches Road will
be shared with you in subsequent editions of Tidbits.
Slide Show on Cactus in Bloom (forwarded by Blan McBride)
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/CactusInBloom.pps
Awesome Beauty of Space
(Hubble) Slide Show ---
Click Here
Old Barns and Old People ---
http://www.dc2net.com/Old-Barns.htm
Beautiful Photographs Slide Shoe
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/BeautifulPhotos.pps
Resurrection Sunday Dance, Budapest, Hungary ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dSIL358NM
Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18 ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2010/05/stephen_fry_what_i_wish_i_had_known_when_i_was_18.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on June 17,
2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations061710.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Tidbits on June 17, 2010
Bob Jensen
For earlier editions of Tidbits go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/.
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page is at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
CPA
Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Cool Search Engines That Are Not
Google ---
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/coolsearchengines
World Clock and World Facts ---
http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf
U.S. Debt/Deficit Clock ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Free Residential and Business Telephone Directory (you must listen to an
opening advertisement) --- dial 800-FREE411 or 800-373-3411
Free Online Telephone Directory ---
http://snipurl.com/411directory [www_public-records-now_com]
Free online 800 telephone numbers ---
http://www.tollfree.att.net/tf.html
Google Free Business Phone Directory --- 800-goog411
To find names addresses from listed phone numbers, go to
www.google.com and read in the phone number without spaces, dashes, or
parens
Find a College
College Atlas ---
http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Daily News Sites for Accountancy, Tax, Fraud, IFRS, XBRL, Accounting
History, and More ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Cool Search Engines That Are Not
Google ---
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/coolsearchengines
Bob Jensen's search helpers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
Education Technology Search ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Distance Education Search ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Search for Listservs, Blogs, and Social Networks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm
Bob Jensen's essay on the financial crisis bailout's aftermath and an alphabet soup of
appendices can be found at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
The Master List of Free
Online College Courses ---
http://universitiesandcolleges.org/
149 Interesting People to Follow on Twitter (but I don't have time to follow
them) ---
http://ow.ly/1sj5q
-
- I see from my house by the side of the road
- By the side of the highway of life,
- The men who press with the ardor of hope,
- The men who are faint with the strife,
- But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
- Both parts of an infinite plan-
- Let me live in a house by the side of the road
- And be a friend to man.
Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)
For earlier editions of Tidbits go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New
Bookmarks go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long
and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was
generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My
wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm
Bob Jensen's blogs and various threads on many topics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
(Also scroll down to the table at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )
Global Incident Map ---
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
If you want to help our badly injured troops, please check out
Valour-IT: Voice-Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops ---
http://www.valour-it.blogspot.com/
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
574 Shields Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
- With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting
Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Publish Poop or Perish
We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm#Poop
Gaming for Tenure as an Accounting Professor
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTenure.htm
(with a reply about tenure publication point systems from Linda Kidwell)
"So you want to get a Ph.D.?" by David Wood, BYU ---
http://www.byuaccounting.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=So_you_want_to_get_a_Ph.D.%3F
Do You Want to Teach? ---
http://financialexecutives.blogspot.com/2009/05/do-you-want-to-teach.html
Jensen Comment
Here are some added positives and negatives to consider, especially if you are
currently a practicing accountant considering becoming a professor.
Accountancy Doctoral Program Information from Jim Hasselback ---
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoctInfo.html
Why must all accounting doctoral programs be social science
(particularly econometrics) "accountics" doctoral programs?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH
CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the
vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
"The
Accounting Doctoral Shortage: Time for a New Model,"
by Neal Mero, Jan R. Williams and George W. Krull, Jr. .
Issues in Accounting Education 24 (4)
http://aaapubs.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=IAEXXX000024000004000427000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=Yes&ref=no
ABSTRACT:
The crisis in supply versus demand for doctorally qualified faculty members in
accounting is well documented (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of
Business [AACSB] 2003a, 2003b; Plumlee et al. 2005; Leslie 2008). Little
progress has been made in addressing this serious challenge facing the
accounting academic community and the accounting profession. Faculty time,
institutional incentives, the doctoral model itself, and research diversity are
noted as major challenges to making progress on this issue. The authors propose
six recommendations, including a new, extramurally funded research program aimed
at supporting doctoral students that functions similar to research programs
supported by such organizations as the National Science Foundation and other
science-based funding sources. The goal is to create capacity, improve
structures for doctoral programs, and provide incentives to enhance doctoral
enrollments. This should lead to an increased supply of graduates while also
enhancing and supporting broad-based research outcomes across the accounting
landscape, including auditing and tax. ©2009 American Accounting Association
Bob
Jensen's threads on accountancy doctoral programs are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Resurrection Sunday Dance, Budapest, Hungary ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dSIL358NM
Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18 ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2010/05/stephen_fry_what_i_wish_i_had_known_when_i_was_18.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Video: Why Accountants Don't Run Startups ---
http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/262670582#r=zWvHyWU~&s=li
Walter Brennan Reading Mark Twain ---
http://earideas.com/earideas/explore/show/92250/Walter+Brennan+Reading+Mark+Twain
Webwise 2010: Imagining the Digital Future [Flash Player,
Windows Media]
http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/webwise/100303/
Jagdish Gangolly clued me in on this link
Tom Lehrer on the great Russian mathgematician Lobachevsky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNC-aj76zI4&feature=related
Xeno-Canto: Bird Sounds From the Americas [Real Player] ---
http://www.xeno-canto.org/
Digital Comic Museum ---
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
Slide Show on the Classics ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Classics.pps
12. Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature) ---
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/
The Asia Foundation: Multimedia ---
http://asiafoundation.org/media/
Video: The Invisible Chair ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=6NPF0A_vGC4
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Video: Resurrection Sunday Dance, Budapest,
Hungary ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dSIL358NM
Slide Show on the Classics ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Classics.pps
Eydie Gorme Carol Burnett Hollywood Music Medley ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FQHYNejFks&NR=1
National Science Foundation: Science Nation
[Flash Player]
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/
The Mathematical Association of America: Podcast
Center
http://www.maa.org/audio clips/podcast/podcast.html
Exploratorium 40th Anniversary: Speaking of Music
Rewind [iTunes]
http://www.exploratorium.edu/40th/podcasts.php
Bonnaroo 2010: Regina Spektor In Concert ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10001
Sarah Jaffe: A Lullaby For Adults ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127533476
Web outfits like
Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content
that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2
TheRadio (my favorite commercial-free
online music site) ---
http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) ---
http://www.slacker.com/
Gerald Trites likes this
international radio site ---
http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:
Search for a song or band and play the selection ---
http://songza.com/
Also try Jango ---
http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) ---
http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live ---
http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note U.S. Army Band recordings
---
http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp
Bob Jensen listens to music free online (and no commercials)
---
http://www.slacker.com/
Photographs and Art
NASA Clips ---
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/
Balzac's Paris: A Guided Tour
http://www.balzacsparis.ucr.edu/
HistoryWorld ---
http://www.historyworld.net/
Nature Milestones ---
http://www.nature.com/milestones/
"The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (over 7,000 photographs)
---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187
Slide Show on Cactus in Bloom (forwarded by Blan McBride)
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/CactusInBloom.pps
Digital Comic Museum ---
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
The Allure of the Automobile (museum)
http://www.high.org/main.taf?p=3,1,1,17,1
Old Barns and Old People ---
http://www.dc2net.com/Old-Barns.htm
The Henry Ford Museum ---
http://www.hfmgv.org/
Cincinnati Art Museum: The Collection ---
http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/absolutenm/templates/ArtTempCollection.aspx?articleid=124&zoneid=71
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee Book Arts
Collection ---
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/digilib/bookarts/index.cfm
LaVie: The Penn State Life (Yearbook History
Going Back to 1890) ---
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/digital/lavie/
UW Student Newspapers Archive ---
http://content.lib.washington.edu/dailyweb/index.html
You don't want to see these
Photos of the Gulf of Mexico ---
http://holykaw.alltop.com/photos-of-gulf-of-mexico-by-andy-levin
From the Scout Report on June 11, 2010
New evidence from Saturn's moon Titan
suggests possibility of alien life and reveals new clues about early Earth
as well Saturn moon offers hints of early life on Earth
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2010-06-06-titan_N.htm
Titan: NASA Scientists discover evidence 'that alien life
exists on Saturn's moon'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7805069/Titan-Nasa-scientists-discover-evidence-that-alien-life-exists-on-Saturns-moon.html
Astrobiologist tries to set the record straight about
extraterrestrial life on Titan
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=astrobiologist-tries-to-set-the-rec-2010-06-08
Saturn's Beauty and Power
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8564405.stm
The Saturn System: A Feast for the Eyes
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/cassini_equinox/cassini_equinox_slideshow.html
Eerie Sounds of Saturn's Radio Emissions
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07966.html
Windows to the Universe: Saturn
http://windows2universe.org/saturn/saturn.html
Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various
types electronic literature available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
12. Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature) ---
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/
"The Rockets' Red Glare": Francis Scott Key and the
Bombardment of Fort McHenry
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/137FOMC/137fomc.htm
Journal of Aesthetics & Culture ---
http://journals.sfu.ca/coaction/index.php/jac
Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters ---
http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/
Balzac's Paris: A Guided Tour
http://www.balzacsparis.ucr.edu/
HistoryWorld ---
http://www.historyworld.net/
From the University of Missouri:
Collection of Fourth of July Speeches ---
http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jul;cc=jul;tpl=home.tpl
A Biography of America ---
http://www.learner.org/resources/series123.html
Bear Expedition Digital Collections ---
http://polarbears.si.umich.edu/
LaVie: The Penn State Life (Yearbook History Going Back to
1890) ---
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/digital/lavie/
UW Student Newspapers Archive ---
http://content.lib.washington.edu/dailyweb/index.html
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on June 17,
2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations061710.htm
No sugar coating from this Wharton professor
"National Retirement Expert: 75 needs to be the new 62," by Carla Fried,
CBS Moneywatch, June 2010 ---
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/retirement-planning/blog/retirement-beat/national-retirement-expert-75-needs-to-be-the-new-62/644/
Olivia Mitchell is one of the
nation’s foremost retirement experts, having spent an impressive career
studying the evolving nature of retirement planning issues for individuals,
corporations and government. The short version of Mitchell’s resume is that
she is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania and executive director of the Pension Research
Council. I’ll let you peruse
Mitchell’s full 23-page CV at your own leisure.
So I was interested to read a recent PRC paper
Mitchell penned that digs into some of the most pressing
retirement security issues in the wake of the financial crisis.
Sugarcoating is not her way.
My message is straightforward and, I fear, not
particularly upbeat: current and future generations of managers and
employees will not be able to use the ‘old fashioned’ model of
provisioning for retirement. Instead, the 21st century economy will
require an entirely new perspective on retirement risk management.
From there Mitchell ticks off the big risks
weighing on the current model: We’re not saving enough, we don’t have a clue
how to deal with longevity risk — in fact, we don’t have a clue about basic
financial concepts — traditional pensions are in major trouble, the PBGC is
not exactly rock solid, and then there’s the little issue of Social
Security, a topic near and dear to her heart, having served on the 2001
bipartisan presidential
Commission to Strengthen Social Security
The Retirement Fix
Mitchell concludes the report with a perfectly
serviceable call to action:
Part of the task is to enhance financial
literacy and political responsibility. We will also need to save more,
invest smarter, and insure better against longevity. Another task will
be to develop new products which can be used to hedge longevity and
better protect against very long term risks including inflation.
What struck me in her report was this final
thought:
But when all is said and done, most of us will
simply have to work longer to preserve some flexibility against shocks
in the long run.
And there it is: one of the nation’s foremost
retirement thinkers concludes that at the end of the day, it’s working
longer that is going to be our ticket out of any shortfalls and “shocks.”
Retire Early….at 75
Mitchell points out that working two to four more
years can go a long way to closing a retirement funding gap. But that’s
directed at Baby Boomers. Given ever-expanding longevity forecasts for
younger generations she has this bit of advice for Gen X and Gen Y:
For the younger generation, age 75 might be a
good target for early retirement, and later if possible!
Confirmation, from one of the country’s leading
retirement thinkers, that 75 may indeed be the new 55.
Jensen Comment
At the moment we're between a rock and a hard place apart from each person's
private problem concerning retirement. The global problem is that extending
retirement age to 75 contributes significantly to decline of employment
opportunities for younger people versus the need to extend retirement age to 75
to save the U.S. Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs.
Video on IOUSA
Bipartisan Solutions to Saving the USA
If you missed Sunday
afternoon CNN’s two-hour IOUSA Solutions broadcast, you can watch a 30-minute
version at
http://www.pgpf.org/newsroom/press/IOUSA-Solutions-Premiers-on-CNN/
(Scroll Down a bit)
Note that great efforts were made to keep this a bipartisan panel along with the
occasional video clips of President Obama discussing the debt crisis. The
problem is a build up over spending for most of our nation’s history, It landed
at the feet of President Obama, but he’s certainly not the cause nor is his the
recent expansion of health care coverage the real cause.
One take home from
the CNN show was that over 60% of the booked National Debt increases are funded
off shore (largely in Asia and the Middle East).
This going to greatly constrain the global influence and economic choices of the
United States.
By 2016 the interest
payments on the National Debt will be the biggest single item in the Federal
Budget, more than national defense or social security. And an enormous portion
of this interest cash flow will be flowing to foreign nations that may begin to
put all sorts of strings on their decisions to roll over funding our National
Debt.
The unbooked entitlement obligations that are not part of the National Debt are
over $60 trillion and exploding exponentially. The Medicare D entitlements to
retirees like me added over $8 trillion of entitlements under the Bush
Presidency.
Most of the problems
are solvable except for the Number 1 entitlements problem --- Medicare.
Drastic measures must be taken to keep Medicare sustainable.
I thought the show
was pretty balanced from a bipartisan standpoint and from the standpoint of
possible solutions.
Many of the possible
“solutions” are really too small to really make a dent in the problem. For
example, medical costs can be reduced by one of my favorite solutions of
limiting (like they do in Texas) punitive damage recoveries in malpractice
lawsuits. However, the cost savings are a mere drop in the bucket. Another drop
in the bucket will be the achievable increased savings from decreasing medical
and disability-claim frauds. These are important solutions, but they are not
solutions that will save the USA.
The big possible
solutions to save the USA are as follows (you and I won’t particularly like
these solutions):
-
Extend retirement age significantly
(75 years maybe?).
When Social Security was enacted, life expectancy was slightly over 65 years
of age.
Now it is well over 75 years of age.
-
Hit Medicare retirees like me with
higher fees for physicians, hospital services, and Medicare D drug payments.
Perhaps this should be on a scale based upon wealth/income levels such that
people, like me, who can afford to pay more must pay more.
-
Greatly curb the biggest cost of
Medicare --- keeping dying people alive in expensive hospitals for a few
weeks or maybe even a few months. Sometimes dying people must be kept alive
in ICU units costing over $10,000 per day when there is no hope of recovery.
There was not any hint of suggesting euthanasia as an alternative. But dying
people can be allowed to die more naturally and pain free.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5737437n&tag=mncol;lst;3
(wait for the commercials to play out)
-
Limit the National Debt is some way.
It’s now more common in Europe to limit national debt to 60% of GDP. Various
other means of constraining our National Debt were discussed in the CNN
longer version of the IOUSA Solutions video.
Watch for
the other possible solutions in the 30-minute summary video ---
http://www.pgpf.org/newsroom/press/IOUSA-Solutions-Premiers-on-CNN/
(Scroll Down a bit)
You can search video and start the video when a particular word crops up
YouTube's Interactive Transcripts ---
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/06/youtubes-interactive-transcripts.html
YouTube added a cool feature for videos with closed
captions: you can now click on the "transcript" button to expand the entire
listing. If you click on a line, YouTube will show the excerpt from the
video corresponding to the text. If you use your browser's find feature, you
can even search inside the video. Here's an
an example of video that includes a transcript.
Bob Jensen's search helpers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
You might be interested in this “special” University of Wisconsin Scout
Report even though most of the links are off topic for the AECM.
The Scout Report finds interesting new (sometimes old) bookmarks
(usually around 15-20 per week).
Best
of 2009-2010
-
Xeno-Canto: Bird Sounds From the Americas [Real
Player]
-
Nasa eClips
-
Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters
-
Exploratorium 40th Anniversary: Speaking of
Music Rewind [iTunes]
-
National Science Foundation: Science Nation
[Flash Player]
-
The Mathematical Association of America: Podcast
Center
-
Balzac's Paris: A Guided Tour
-
BioEd Online: Podcasts Plus Lessons
-
HistoryWorld
-
Nature Milestones
Webwise 2010: Imagining the Digital Future [Flash Player, Windows Media]
http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/webwise/100303/
Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price
You might want to examine the NYT feature while it is still free ---
http://nyti.ms/9EegB2
"Hooked on Gadgets and Happy About It," by Alexandra Samuel, Harvard
Business Review Blog, June 8, 2010 ---
Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/06/hooked_on_gadgets_and_happy_ab.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE
Yesterday's New York Times has a two-page
feature,
Hooked
on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price . It's a
sign of the growing awareness and concern about how our network-centric
lives are not only affecting our work but also our personal lives, and even
our bodies — you might say,
our souls.
The Times article looks at one wired
family to make the point that all these gadgets negatively affect us.
"Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information
can change how people think and behave" the story reads. "They say our
ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information."
This is the same argument made by Nicholas Carr in
his
recent article for Wired and his new book,
The Shallows, released yesterday. It's interesting
to learn from Carr that neuroscientists can now illuminate some of what
happens in our heads when we go online. But then again, their concerns are
not fundamentally different from the worries expressed about the Internet
over the past fifteen years.
The Internet is bad for our brains, the argument
goes. It's bad for our relationships, our families and maybe (if it stops us
thinking creatively or deeply) it's even bad for our careers.
As a pathological gadget and Internet user, I'm not
going to join the chorus and argue that network and screen time impoverish
our minds, our friendships and our communities. Maybe they do, but so what?
Networks aren't going anywhere, nor is our time online likely to decrease.
In fact, there's every indication that our time online is going to keep
expanding.
What we need are practical strategies for how to
reduce the negative impact of the net on our brains, and to magnify its
positive effects. The Times article notes one study that showed
Internet users "showed greater brain activity than nonusers, suggesting they
were growing their neural circuitry," and another study of video gamers
showed that games "can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details
amid clutter."
I haven't got an MRI machine handy, so I can't
document the impact of my net-taming practices at the neural level, but here
are some strategies I can recommend for those who want to mitigate the
personal and social impact of multitasking, and amplify the benefits:
- Ration your e-mail: E-mail is one of
the chief sources of distraction since so many of us feel compelled to
check for new messages throughout the day. Different friends have shared
their strategies for keeping e-mail at bay, like scheduling a specific
two-hour period to process e-mail each day, or checking for new messages
only after emptying the inbox. I rely on Gmail filters to support
my
own system for maintaining an empty inbox and
I find that the practice of processing my inbox to zero also helps me
focus my e-mail checkins on the moments when I actually have time to
respond.
- Structure your monotasking: I'm used
to working with a dozen programs and fifty windows open on my computer,
and as per the practice reported by the Times, I'm switching
windows constantly to follow links or check e-mail. So when I'm trying
to write a report or do any kind of focused work, I break my
multitasking habit by working on a computer that has very limited memory
(so I can only have a couple of applications open at a time), or I
restart my main computer and launch only a couple of applications. You
could even create another account on your computer that has access to
only Word or Excel, and no Internet connectivity, so you can force
yourself to monotask.
- Take a tech sabbath: The
National Day of Unplugging married the Jewish
practice of observing the sabbath with the growing need to get some
distance from technology. Try taking one day with no screen time. That
means no TV, no Blackberry, no Internet. If you find it creates a useful
pause in your wired-up life, consider making it a weekly practice.
- Find hope outside your inbox: Last
year I started experimenting with
ways to break my constant email and Twitter check-ins.
I realized I was looking for that jolt of
excitement, the possibility that some sort of good news would come my
way with each check-in. When I started exploring other ways to get a
little unexpected delight in my day — by talking to a stranger, or
visiting a new part of town — I was able to reduce my reliance on the
net as the bearer of good news.
- Use your right brain/use your left brain:
If you spend your computer time geeking out in Excel or checking Google
Analytics, it's time to give your right brain a workout with a browse
through Flickr or a film editing project in Final Cut. If you spend your
computer time writing poetry or creating collages in Photoshop, it's
time to give your left brain a workout with a game of Scrabble or some
financial management with Mint.com. The more you vary your online diet
with activities that draw on both hemispheres, the more you'll be
tapping into the net's potential to grow your brain's circuitry.
If you had to sit through a meeting with me, and watch me take notes in
Evernote, tweet, and chew my nails at the same time) you would find that
these practices have hardly turned me into a picture of mellow monotasking.
But I take some comfort in the fact that I'm still able to focus on a single
task for up to 5 minutes at a time. Considering the amount of time I spend
online, neuroscientists might call that a miracle.
Bob Jensen's gadgets bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#Technology
PC World Videos on New Products ---
http://www.pcworld.com/video.html
A Different Set of Heroes, Ethics, Morals, and Rules
"Bernie Madoff, Free at Last In prison he doesn’t have to hide his lack of
conscience. In fact, he’s a hero for it," Steve Fishman, New York
Magazine, June 6, 2010 ---
http://nymag.com/news/crimelaw/66468/
Last August, shortly after his arrival at the
federal correctional complex in Butner, North Carolina, Bernard L. Madoff
was waiting on the evening pill line for his blood-pressure medication when
he heard another inmate call his name. Madoff, then 71, author of the most
devastating Ponzi scheme in history, was dressed like every other prisoner,
in one of his three pairs of standard-issue khakis, his name and inmate
number glued over the shirt pocket. Rec time, the best part of a prisoner’s
day, was drawing to a close, and Madoff, who liked to walk the gravel track,
sometimes with Carmine Persico, the former mob boss, or Jonathan Pollard,
the spy, had hurried to the infirmary, passing the solitary housing unit—the
hole—ducking through the gym and the twelve-foot-high fence and turning in
the direction of Maryland, the unit where child molesters are confined after
they’ve served their sentences. As usual, the med line was long and moved
slowly. There were a hundred prisoners, some standing outside in the heat,
waiting for one nurse.
Madoff was accustomed to hearing other inmates call
his name. From July 14, the day he arrived, he’d been an object of
fascination. Prisoners had assiduously followed his criminal career on the
prison TVs. “Hey, Bernie,” an inmate would yell to him admiringly while he
was at his job sweeping up the cafeteria, “I seen you on TV.” In return,
Madoff nodded and waved, smiling that sphinxlike half-smile. “What did he
say?” Madoff sometimes asked.
But that evening an inmate badgered Madoff about
the victims of his $65 billion scheme, and kept at it. According to K. C.
White, a bank robber and prison artist who escorted a sick friend that
evening, Madoff stopped smiling and got angry. “Fuck my victims,” he said,
loud enough for other inmates to hear. “I carried them for twenty years, and
now I’m doing 150 years.”
For Bernie Madoff, living a lie had once been a
full-time job, which carried with it a constant, nagging anxiety. “It was a
nightmare for me,” he told investigators, using the word over and over, as
if he were the real victim. “I wish they caught me six years ago, eight
years ago,” he said in a little-noticed interview with them.
And so prison offered Madoff a measure of relief.
Even his first stop, the hellhole of Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC),
where he was locked down 23 hours a day, was a kind of asylum. He no longer
had to fear the knock on the door that would signal “the jig was up,” as he
put it. And he no longer had to express what he didn’t feel. Bernie could be
himself. Pollard’s former cellmate John Bowler recalls a conversation
between Pollard and Madoff: “Bernie was telling a story about an old lady.
She was bugging him for her money, so he said to her, ‘Here’s your money,’
and gave her a check. When she saw the amount she says, ‘That’s
unbelievable,’ and she says, ‘Take it back.’ And urged her friends [to
invest].”
Pollard thought that taking advantage of old ladies
was “kind of fucked up.”
“Well, that’s what I did,” Madoff said
matter-of-factly.
“You are going to pay with God,” Pollard warned.
Madoff was unmoved. He was past apologizing. In
prison, he crafted his own version of events. From MCC, Madoff explained the
trap he was in. “People just kept throwing money at me,” Madoff related to a
prison consultant who advised him on how to endure prison life. “Some guy
wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, ‘What, I’m not good
enough?’ ” One day, Shannon Hay, a drug dealer who lived in the same unit in
Butner as Madoff, asked about his crimes. “He told me his side. He took
money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more,” says Hay, who
was released in December. People, in other words, who deserved it.
There is, as it happens, honor among thieves, a
fact that worked mostly to Madoff’s benefit. In the context of prison, he
isn’t a cancer on society; he’s a success, admired for his vast
accomplishments. “A hero,” wrote Robert Rosso, a lifer, on a website he
managed to found called convictinc .com. “He’s arguably the greatest con of
all time.”
From the day Bernard Lawrence Madoff, prisoner No.
61727-054, arrived at the softer of Butner’s two medium-security facilities
in handcuffs and shackles, his over-the-collar hair shorn close, his rich
man’s paunch diminished, he was a celebrity, even if his admirers were now
murderers and sex offenders. The Butner correctional complex, which includes
four prisons and a medical center, already has its share of crime kings.
Pollard, the Israel cause célèbre who spied for the Jewish homeland, lived
in Madoff’s housing unit, Clemson (the dorms are named after Atlantic Coast
Conference colleges). Persico, the former Colombo-family godfather, lives in
nearby Georgia Tech. Omar Ahmad-Rahman, the blind sheikh who helped engineer
the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is in Butner. The Rigases from
Pennsylvania, the father and son who bankrupted Adelphia Communications
Corporation, are there—they wear crisp, pressed uniforms, which inmates
assume they pay others to maintain.
Yet even in this crowd, Madoff stands out. Every
inmate remembers the day he arrived. “It was like the president was
visiting,” a visitor to Butner that day told me. News helicopters buzzed
overhead, and the administration locked down part of the prison, confining
some inmates to their units, while an aging con man with high blood pressure
shuffled through processing, where other inmates fitted him for a uniform
and offered a brief orientation: “Man, chill out and go with the flow, ” was
the advice of one former drug dealer.
Quickly, the flow came to Madoff. From the moment
he alighted, he had “groupies,” according to several inmates. Prisoners
trailed him as he took his exercise around the track. (Persico had also
attracted a throng when he arrived, but was disgusted and quickly put an end
to it.) “They buttered him up,” one former inmate told me. “Everybody was
trying to kiss his ass,” says Shawn Evans, who spent 28 months in Butner.
They even clamored for his autograph.
And Madoff was usually more than happy to respond.
“He enjoyed being a celebrity,” says Nancy Fineman, an attorney to whom
Madoff granted an interview shortly after his arrival at Butner. (Fineman
represents victims who are suing some of Madoff’s “aiders and abettors,” as
she calls them.) Madoff seemed surprised and tickled by the lavish
treatment, though he steadfastly refused to sign anything. Even in prison,
he wasn’t going to dilute the brand. “He was sure they would sell it on
eBay,” Fineman told me. “He still did have a big ego.”
Remarkably, that ego appears to have survived
intact. H. David Kotz, the Security and Exchange Commission’s inspector
general, investigated his agency’s failure to uncover Madoff’s Ponzi scheme,
and Madoff volunteered to speak to him—he is, no doubt, the world’s expert
on the subject. He quickly reminded Kotz of his stature—“I wrote a good
portion of the rules when it comes to trading,” Madoff said. He insisted
that he’d been “a good trader” with a solid strategy, explaining that he’d
stumbled into trouble because of his success. Hedge funds—“just marketers,”
he said with evident disgust—pushed cash on him. He overcommitted, got
behind, and generated a few imaginary trades, figuring he’d make it up—and
never did. Whatever his own missteps, Madoff saved his scorn for the SEC. He
did impressions of its agents, leaning back with his hands behind his head
just as one self-serious agent did—“a guy who comes on like he’s Columbo,”
but who was “an idiot,” Madoff said, as recorded in the extraordinary
exhibit 104, a twelve-page account of the interview that is part of Kotz’s
report. Madoff is no ironist. His disdain for the SEC is professional, even
if the agency’s incompetence saved his skin for years—all Columbo had to do
was make one phone call. “[It’s] accounting 101,” Madoff told Kotz, still
amazed.
Madoff’s ego was on display in prison, too. “Bernie
walked around prison confident,” says ex-con Keith Mack, adding, with a
trace of resentment, “he acted like he beat the world.” And to most inmates
he had. Many—and I communicated with more than two dozen current and recent
Butner inmates (though not Madoff)—can recount stories of his conquests, a
good number of them related by Madoff himself. “He said something to me one
day,” recalls an ex–drug trafficker, released in February. “He could spin
the globe and stop it anywhere with his finger, and chances are he had a
house there or he’d been there. I was pretty blown away.” One evening,
Bowler, a drug trafficker (“I’m not a con man, I’m a businessman,” he wrote
to me), sat next to Madoff watching a 60 Minutes segment about him. Prison
authorities keep the volume off, and inmates wear headphones and tune in to
the radio signal that broadcasts the sound. Bowler removed one earpiece.
“ ‘Bernie, you got ’em for millions,’ I said to him. ‘No, billions,’ he told
me.” Another evening, one former inmate was watching a TV news report on the
auction of Madoff’s much-chronicled watch collection—he owned more than 40,
from Rolexes to a Piaget. The watch featured that evening fetched just $900,
and Madoff, whose only watch now is a Timex Ironman that he bought at the
commissary for $41.65 and is likely engraved with his inmate number, called
out, “They told me that watch was worth $200,000.” The inmates laughed along
with him. They didn’t see any reason for Madoff to regret his past. “If I’d
lived that well for 70 years, I wouldn’t care that I ended up in prison,”
Evans says.
Inmates were impressed by the sheer scale of
Madoff’s operation and turned to him for guidance in getting their own
ambitions on track. Madoff had always enjoyed being counselor to the wealthy
and powerful. That had been part of the scheme’s seduction: Bernie, the
scrappy kid from Queens, depended on by rich businessmen. “He wants to be
remembered as a titan of Wall Street,” says Fineman, and one who subsidized
the private schools and fancy vacations of his wealthy friends, even if it
was with the funds of other investors. And to inmates he still was a titan.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on Madoff and Ponzi frauds in general ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#Ponzi
"New Analysis on Poverty and Education," Inside Higher Ed, June
9, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/09/qt#229616
The Institute for Higher Education Policy is today
releasing a report, "A Portrait of Low-Income Young Adults in Education,"
with data showing the education gaps between those young adults in poverty
and those who are more affluent. Over all in 2008, 44 percent of young
adults in the United States were from a low-income background -- and they
had low levels of educational attainment, with levels even lower for black,
Latino and Native Americans.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on global online training and education alternatives
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Question
Is this analogous to television show recorders that eliminate commercials?
Viewers all like to see those commercials removed. But advertising revenue
sustains the producers of those television shows and the networks that
distribute those shows.
If our television sets could strip away commercials and speed up programming
between segments of shows we just might not have any worthwhile shows to watch
that are broadcast "free" to us.
Keep in mind that advertising is what pays for our
popular Web sites like Google, Bing, YouTube, and Wikipedia.
Of course Bob Jensen's blockbuster Website has no advertising.
"Will Apple's Latest Browser Hurt Publishers (of Web sites)? Removing ads
from Web pages may be an attempt to push content creators toward the iPad and
iPhone." by Stephen Cass, MIT's Technology Review, June 9, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/25309/?nlid=3094
The latest version of Apple's Web browser, Safari
5, sports a feature called "Reader" that concatenates the multi-page
articles seen on most news sites (including Technology Review's) into a
single scrollable window. According to Apple, the stripped down format
"removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles."
It, of course, also removes advertising revenues
from the people who created those articles. Ad blocking software is nothing
new; personally I've appreciated the option to block pop-ups that are
incorporated into most modern browsers. What is new is that Apple doesn't
give the user the option to not block ads in Reader. This option wouldn't be
technically difficult to add in comparison to the work Apple has already
done on developing Reader: most websites already provide links to stripped
down versions of their articles, under a "printer-friendly" link, which
contain one or two static ads that could be integrated into the Reader
presentation of a story without being disruptive.
Why would a reader want an ad-enabled version?
Well, for the same reason I don't install any of the freely available ad
blockers; I'm happy to support sites that I think strike a reasonable
balance between advertising and content. Having to, say, watch a few
30-second commercial breaks in exchange for free video-on-demand from Hulu
seems a fair deal. Similarly, seeing a few display ads scattered around a
news article also seems like a fair exchange for original reporting and
writing. But Apple's Reader doesn't give users the flexibility to make that
choice; if they want Reader's functionality, they have to accept its
philosophy, which is firmly oriented towards what's best for Apple, not
users.
Some have interpreted Apple's ad-less Reader as a
blow for the little guy. But I don't think Apple really cares about sparing
surfers from advertising; it seems more likely the Reader is designed to
push publishers towards delivering their products via custom apps on the
iPad and iPhone, where ads can't be blocked. And if, as Apple hopes,
publishers serve ads using Apple's own iAd platform, the company will
happily take its 40 percent right off the top.
I can only imagine how loudly Apple would complain
if news websites retaliated against Reader by blocking Safari outright, and
heaven knows no-one wants a return to the days when many sites came with a
notice stating "Warning: Your browser is not supported!" if you dared to
visit them with anything other than the one or two browsers that had been
officially blessed. Instead, I hope a balance between Apple and content
providers can be struck, perhaps as simply as by adding a "Display
printer-friendly ads" checkbox in Safari's preferences.
Here's an interesting comment that follows the article:
When the Reader creates the concatenated article
view, it performs all page- and ad-views that would be involved in reading
the article page-by-page. So from the publisher's perspective, ad revenue
should not be affected by it. However, if enough people start using it (is
there any way for a publisher/advertiser to know this?), advertisers would
presumably be less likely to buy ads since they'll never be seen by the
user, which could set up an interesting problem.
That aside, I think it'd be a ballsy
and perhaps welcome move for some big publishers to block Safari over this.
Bob Jensen's technology bookmarks are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm
Update on Wal-Mart University
Does this pass the Academy’s smell test?
"Wal-Mart Employees Get New College Program—Online," by Marc Parry,
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 3, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Wal-Mart-Employees-Get-New/24504/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The American Public
University System
has been described as a higher-education version
of Wal-Mart: a publicly traded corporation that mass-markets moderately priced
degrees in many fields.
Now it's more than an
analogy. Under a deal
announced today, the for-profit online university
will offer Wal-Mart workers discounted tuition and credit for job experience.
Such alliances are
nothing new; see these materials from
Strayer and
Capella for other examples. But Wal-Mart is the
country's largest retailer. And the company is pledging to spend $50-million
over three years to help employees cover the cost of tuition and books beyond
the discounted rate, according to the
Associated Press.
"What's most significant
about this is that, given that APU is very small, this is a deal that has the
potential to drive enrollments that are above what investors are already
expecting from them," Trace A. Urdan, an analyst with Signal Hill Capital Group,
told Wired Campus. "Which is why the stock is up."
Wal-Mart workers will be
able to receive credit—without having to pay for it—for job training in subjects
like ethics and retail inventory management, according to the AP.
Wal-Mart employs 1.4
million people in the U.S. Roughly half of them have a high-school diploma but
no college degree, according to
The New York Times. A department-level
manager would end up paying about $7,900 for an associate degree, factoring in
the work credits and tuition discount, the newspaper reported.
“If 10 to 15 percent of
employees take advantage of this, that’s like graduating three Ohio State
Universities,” Sara Martinez Tucker, a former under secretary of education who
is now on Wal-Mart’s external advisory council, told the Times.
"News Analysis: Is 'Wal-Mart U.' a Good Bargain for Students?" by Marc
Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 13, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Wal-Mart-U-a-Good/65933/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
There might have been a
Wal-Mart University.
As the world's largest
retailer weighed its options for making a big splash in education, executives
told one potential academic partner that Wal-Mart Stores was considering buying
a university or starting its own.
"Wal-Mart U." never
happened. Instead, the retailer chose a third option: a landmark alliance that
will make a little-known for-profit institution, American Public University, the
favored online-education provider to Wal-Mart's 1.4 million workers in the
United States.
A closer look at the deal
announced this month shows how American Public slashed its prices and adapted
its curriculum to snare a corporate client that could transform its business. It
also raises one basic question: Is this a good bargain for students?
Adult-learning leaders
praise Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, for investing in
education. But some of those same experts wonder how low-paid workers will be
able to afford the cost of a degree from the private Web-based university the
company selected as a partner, and why Wal-Mart chose American Public when
community-college options might be cheaper. They also question how easily
workers will be able to transfer APU credits to other colleges, given that the
university plans to count significant amounts of Wal-Mart job training and
experience as academic credit toward its degrees.
For example, cashiers
with one year's experience could get six credits for an American Public class
called "Customer Relations," provided they received an "on target" or "above
target" on their last performance evaluation, said Deisha Galberth, a Wal-Mart
spokeswoman. A department manager's training and experience could be worth 24
credit hours toward courses like retail ethics, organizational fundamentals, or
human-resource fundamentals, she said.
Altogether, employees
could earn up to 45 percent of the credit for an associate or bachelor's degree
at APU "based on what they have learned in their career at Wal-Mart," according
to the retailer's Web site.
Janet K. Poley, president
of the American Distance Education Consortium, points out that this arrangement
could saddle Wal-Mart employees with a "nontransferable coupon," as one blogger
has described it.
"I now see where the
'trick' is—if a person gets credit for Wal-Mart courses and Wal-Mart work, they
aren't likely to be able to transfer those to much of anyplace else," Ms. Poley
wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle. Transferability could be important, given
the high turnover rate in the retail industry.
Inside the Deal Wal-Mart
screened 81 colleges before signing its deal with American Public University.
One that talked extensively with the retailer was University of Maryland
University College, a 94,000-student state institution that is a national leader
in online education. According to University College's president, Susan C.
Aldridge, it was during early discussions that Wal-Mart executives told her the
company was considering whether it should buy a college or create its own
college.
When asked to confirm
that, Ms. Galberth said only that Wal-Mart "brainstormed every possible option
for providing our associates with a convenient and affordable way to attend
college while working at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club," which is also owned by
Wal-Mart Stores. "We chose to partner with APU to reach this goal. We have no
plans to purchase a brick-and-mortar university or enter the online education
business," she said.
The Wal-Mart deal was
something of a coming-out party for American Public University. The institution
is part of a 70,000-student system that also includes American Military
University and that largely enrolls active-duty military personnel. As American
Public turned its attention to luring the retail behemoth, it was apparently
able to be more flexible than other colleges and willing to "go the extra mile"
to accommodate Wal-Mart, said Jeffrey M. Silber, a stock analyst and managing
director of BMO Capital Markets. That flexibility included customizing programs.
APU has a management degree with courses in retail, and its deans worked with
Wal-Mart to add more courses to build a retail concentration, said Wallace E.
Boston, the system's president and chief executive.
It also enticed Wal-Mart
with a stable technology platform; tuition prices that don't vary across state
lines, as they do for public colleges; and online degrees in fields that would
be attractive to workers, like transportation logistics.
Unlike American Public,
Maryland's University College would not put a deep discount on the table.
Credit for Wal-Mart work
was also an issue, Ms. Aldridge said.
"We feel very strongly
that any university academic credit that's given for training needs to be
training or experience at the university level," Ms. Aldridge said. "And we have
some very set standards in that regard. And I'm not certain that we would have
been able to offer a significant amount of university credit for some of the
on-the-job training that was provided there."
Awarding credit for
college-level learning gained outside the classroom is a long-standing practice,
one embraced by about 60 percent of higher-education institutions, according to
the most recent survey by the Council for Adult And Experiential Learning. A
student might translate any number of experiences into credit: job training,
military service, hobbies, volunteer service, travel, civic activities.
Pamela J. Tate, president
and chief executive of the council, said what's important isn't the percentage
of credits students get from prior learning—a number that can vary widely.
What's important, she said, is that students can demonstrate knowledge. Workers
might know how they keep the books at a company, she explained. But that doesn't
automatically mean they've learned the material of a college accounting course.
Karan Powell, senior vice
president and academic dean at American Public University system, said credit
evaluation at her institution "is a serious, rigorous, and conservative
process." But will the credits transfer? "Every college or university
establishes its own transfer-credit policies as they apply to experiential
learning as well as credit from other institutions," she said in an e-mail.
"Therefore, it would depend on the school to which a Wal-Mart employee wanted to
transfer."
Affordable on $12 an
Hour? Then there's the question of whether low-wage workers will be able to
afford the degrees. One of the key features of this deal is the discount that
Wal-Mart negotiated with American Public.
"Wal-Mart is bringing the
same procurement policies to education that it brings to toothpaste," said John
F. Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, a distance-learning institution
based in New York.
American Public
University's tuition was already cheap by for-profit standards and competitive
with other nonprofit college options. It agreed to go even cheaper for Wal-Mart,
offering grants equal to 15 percent of tuition for the company's workers. Those
employees will pay about $11,700 for an associate degree and $24,000 for a
bachelor's degree.
But several experts
pointed out that public colleges might provide a more affordable option.
The Western Association
of Food Chains, for example, has a partnership with 135 community colleges in
the western United States to offer an associate degree in retail management
completely online, Ms. Tate said. Many of the colleges also grant credit for
prior learning. Though the tuition varies by state, the average tuition cost to
earn the degree is about $4,500, she said. By contrast, she said, the American
Public degree is "really expensive" for a front-line worker who might make $12
an hour.
"What I couldn't figure
out is how they would be able to afford it unless Wal-Mart was going to pay a
substantial part of the tuition," she said. "If not, then what you've got is
this program that looks really good, but the actual cost to the person is a
whole lot more than if they were going to go to community college and get their
prior learning credits assessed there."
How the retailer might
subsidize its employees' education is an open question. In announcing the
program, Wal-Mart pledged to spend up to $50-million over the next three years
"to provide tuition assistance and other tools to help associates prepare for
college-level work and complete their degrees."
Alicia Ledlie, the senior
director at Wal-Mart who has been shepherding this effort, told The Chronicle in
an e-mail that the company is "right now working through the design of those
programs and how they will benefit associates," with more details to be released
later this summer.
One thing is clear: The
deal has a big financial impact on American Public. Wal-Mart estimates that
about 700,000 of its 1.4 million American employees lack a college degree.
Sara Martinez Tucker, a
former under secretary of education who is now on Wal-Mart's external advisory
council, suggests 10 or 15 percent of Wal-Mart associates could sign up.
"That's 140,000 college
degrees," she told The Chronicle. "Imagine three Ohio State Universities' worth
of graduates, which is huge in American higher education."
Jensen Comment
This Wal-Mart Fringe Benefit Should Be Carefully Investigated by Employees
It does not sit well with me!
- If Wal-Mart
would pay the same amount of benefit for online state university degrees
(e.g., the University of Wisconsin has over 100,000 online students) as the
for-profit American Public University that charges higher tuition even at a
Wal-Mart discount, why would a student choose the less prestigious and
relatively unknown American Public University? Possibly American Public wins
out because it's easier to get A & B grades with less academic ability and
less work.
"Want a Higher G.P.A.? Go to a Private College: A 50-year rise in
grade-point averages is being fueled by private institutions, a recent study
finds," by Catherine Rampell. The New York Times, April 19, 2010 ---
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109339/want-a-higher-gpa-go-to-a-private-college?mod=edu-collegeprep
- I certainly hope
that the Wal-Mart contributions toward tuition can be extended to
state-supported colleges and universities having more respected credits. For
example, online degrees from the University of Wisconsin or the University
of Maryland are are likely much more respected for job mobility and for
acceptance into graduate schools.
- Giving credit
for "job experience" is an absolute turn off for me. Most adults have some
form of "job experience." This is just not equivalent to course credit
experience in college where students face examinations and academic
projects. Weaker colleges generally use credit for "job experience" ploy as
a come on to attract applicants. But the credits awarded for job experience
are not likely to be transferrable to traditional colleges and universities.
- The "discounted
tuition" in this for-profit online program is likely to be higher than the
in-state tuition from state-supported colleges and universities.
- I'm dubious
about the standards for admission in for-profit colleges as well as the
rigor of the courses. Watch the Frontline video served up by PBS.
On May 4, 2010, PBS Frontline broadcast an hour-long video called College
Inc. --- a sobering analysis of for-profit onsite and online colleges and
universities.
For a time you can watch the video free online
---
Click Here
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=toparea&utm_source=toparea
- The American
Public University System is accredited by the North Central Association
accrediting agency that is now under investigation for weakened standards
for college credits.
"Inspector General Keeps the Pressure on a Regional
Accreditor," by Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 27,
2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Inspector-General-Keeps-the/65691/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The inspector general of
the U.S. Department of Education has reaffirmed a recommendation that the
department should consider sanctions for the Higher Learning Commission of the
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, one of the nation's major
regional accrediting organizations. In a
report this week, the Office of Inspector General
issued its final recommendations stemming from a
2009 examination of the commission's standards
for measuring credit hours and program length, and affirmed its earlier critique
that the commission had been too lax in its standards for determining the amount
of credit a student receives for course work.
The Higher Learning
Commission accredits more than 1,000 institutions in 19 states. The Office of
Inspector General completed similar reports for two other regional accreditors
late last year but did not suggest any sanctions for those organizations.
Possible sanctions
against an accreditor include limiting, suspending, or terminating its
recognition by the secretary of education as a reliable authority for
determining the quality of education at the institutions it accredits. Colleges
need accreditation from a federally recognized agency in order to be eligible to
participate in the federal student-aid programs.
In its examination of
the Higher Learning Commission, the office looked at the commission's
reaccreditation of six member institutions: Baker College, DePaul University,
Kaplan University, Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota-Twin
Cities, and the University of Phoenix. The office chose those institutions—two
public, two private, and two proprietary institutions—as those that received the
highest amounts of federal funds under Title IV, the section of the Higher
Education Act that governs the federal student-aid programs.
It also reviewed the
accreditation status of American InterContinental University and the Art
Institute of Colorado, two institutions that had sought initial accreditation
from the commission during the period the office studied.
The review found that
the Higher Learning Commission "does not have an established definition of a
credit hour or minimum requirements for program length and the assignment of
credit hours," the report says. "The lack of a credit-hour definition and
minimum requirements could result in inflated credit hours, the improper
designation of full-time student status, and the over-awarding of Title IV
funds," the office concluded in its letter to the commission's president, Sylvia
Manning.
More important, the
office reported that the commission had allowed American InterContinental
University to become accredited in 2009 despite having an "egregious" credit
policy.
In a letter responding
to the commission, Ms. Manning wrote that the inspector general had ignored the
limitations the accreditor had placed on American InterContinental to ensure
that the institution improved its standards, an effort that had achieved the
intended results, she said. "These restrictions were intended to force change at
the institution and force it quickly."
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
The most successful for-profit universities advertise heavily about credibility
due to being "regionally accredited." In some cases this accreditation was
initially bought rather than achieved such as by buying up a small, albeit still
accredited, bankrupt not-for-profit private college that's washed up on the
beach. This begs the question about how some for-profit universities maintain
the spirit of accreditation acquired in this manner.
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
"Want a Higher G.P.A.? Go to a Private College: A 50-year rise in
grade-point averages is being fueled by private institutions, a recent study
finds," by Catherine Rampell. The New York Times, April 19, 2010 ---
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109339/want-a-higher-gpa-go-to-a-private-college?mod=edu-collegeprep
Over the last 50 years,
college grade-point averages have risen about 0.1 points per decade, with
private schools fueling the most grade inflation, a recent study finds.
The study, by Stuart
Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, uses historical data from 80 four-year
colleges and universities. It finds that G.P.A.'s have risen from a national
average of 2.52 in the 1950s to about 3.11 by the middle of the last decade.
For the first half of the
20th century, grading at private schools and public schools rose more or less in
tandem. But starting in the 1950s, grading at public and private schools began
to diverge. Students at private schools started receiving significantly higher
grades than those received by their equally-qualified peers -- based on SAT
scores and other measures -- at public schools.
In other words, both
categories of schools inflated their grades, but private schools inflated their
grades more.
Based on contemporary
grading data the authors collected from 160 schools, the average G.P.A. at
private colleges and universities today is 3.3. At public schools, it is 3.0.
The authors suggest that
these laxer grading standards may help explain why private school students are
over-represented in top medical, business and law schools and certain Ph.D.
programs: Admissions officers are fooled by private school students' especially
inflated grades.
Additionally, the study
found, science departments today grade on average 0.4 points lower than
humanities departments, and 0.2 points lower than social science departments.
Such harsher grading for the sciences appears to have existed for at least 40
years, and perhaps much longer.
Relatively lower grades
in the sciences discourage American students from studying such disciplines, the
authors argue.
"Partly because of our
current ad hoc grading system, it is not surprising that the U.S. has to rely
heavily upon foreign-born graduate students for technical fields of research and
upon foreign-born employees in its technology firms," they write.
These overall trends, if
not the specific numbers, are no surprise to anyone who has followed the debates
about grade inflation. But so long as schools believe that granting higher
grades advantages their alumni, there will be little or no incentive to impose
stricter grading standards unilaterally.
Buying grades is also common in some foreign universities ---
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=vincent_johnson
Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#GradeInflation
And
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#RateMyProfessor
Ketz Me If You Can
"Grade Inflation," by: J. Edward Ketz, SmartPros, June 2010 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x69779.xml
I was interviewed recently about grade inflation,
which motivated me to return to this familiar topic. While I have little new
to offer, that does not mean that nothing can be done about the problem. If
accounting faculty members have the will, they can reduce the amount of
grade inflation in the system.
I remember when grade inflation began. I was an
undergraduate at Virginia Tech during the Vietnam War. In 1969 Congress
passed legislation, signed by President Johnson, that stopped students from
staying in school indefinitely to avoid the draft, limiting the deferment to
four years. The act required students to have at least a C average, else
they could be drafted. (It also created the draft lottery. I even remember
my draft lottery number—187.)
The public turned from supporting the war to
opposing the war around this time. A number of university professors opposed
the war; other faculty members who did not oppose the war did not want the
blood of young men on their conscience. So, many of them refused to give
less than a C grade to any student. The only significant exception was the
engineering college, which apparently thought that ignorant engineers could
be dangerous to society. Overall, there was an immediate and statistically
significant upward shift in the university’s GPA the next quarter.
As everybody knows, the other major impact on
grades is student evaluations. Universities, striving to objectivize the
assessment of instructor performance, have turned to students. Universities
used to employ evaluations by other faculty members—and a few still do—but
faculty members are loathe to cut the throats of those who may return the
favor.
There are many problems with student evaluations,
but I’ll mention only one here. Instructors can manipulate the system by
playing the game and patronizing the students. I learned this early in my
career when I was a member of the Promotion and Tenure Committee two years
in a row. The first year we had a person who regularly attained about
1.5-2.0 on a seven point scale, one being low and seven being high. When the
committee castigated his teaching one year, he came back the following year
with 6.5s in all his sections. The committee learned that he achieved this
feat by giving students the exam questions a few days before the exam and
offering coffee and donuts during the exams.
Today there is no draft, so the consequences of a
bad grade does not carry the weight of yesteryear. Perhaps it will lead to a
lower self-esteem, but self-esteem is overrated. It only leads to inflated
egos.
I have sympathy toward untenured faculty who need
to avoid giving promotion and tenure committee members reasons to deny
tenure. But, tenured faculty have no such excuses. They can and should tell
administrators to quit satisfying students’ demands when they involve a
decline in educational quality.
This past semester a colleague and I team-taught
Introductory Accounting to about 700 students (the number at the beginning
of the term). About 200 students dropped the course. Of those who stayed,
the class achieved a course GPA of 2.2; in other words, the median grade in
the class was C+.
We think we avoided grade inflation. Our teaching
evaluations will take a hit, but so what? The class deserved the grades they
obtained and no higher.
Surely other instructors hold the line as well, but
some others do not. We need as many faculty as possible to quit giving
grades out merely because somebody paid tuition. The way to stop grade
inflation is simple—just do it.
"Want a Higher G.P.A.? Go to a
Private College: A 50-year rise in grade-point averages is being fueled by
private institutions, a recent study finds," by Catherine Rampell. The New York
Times, April 19, 2010 ---
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109339/want-a-higher-gpa-go-to-a-private-college?mod=edu-collegeprep
Grade Inflation is the Number One Disgrace of Higher Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#GradeInflation
"Publish or perish? Not at these prices, UC says," by Matt Krupnick,
Contra Costa Times, June 10, 2010 ---
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_15270766?nclick_check=1
University of California librarians are urging
professors not to submit research to Nature or 66 related journals to
protest a 400 percent increase in the publisher's prices.
A new contract with Nature Publishing Group would
raise the university's subscription costs by more than $1 million, library
and faculty leaders wrote in a letter this week to professors throughout the
10-campus system. With recent budget cuts, UC libraries simply can't handle
the higher price, which would take effect in 2011, the letter said.
Boycotting the Nature group would be a huge step
for a university that, according to UC estimates, has provided 5,300
articles to the 67 journals in the past six years. Nearly 640 of those
articles went to Nature itself, one of the world's premier scientific
journals.
"We understand that it's an important journal,"
said Laine Farley, executive director of UC's California Digital Library,
which manages most systemwide journal subscriptions. "But we can't simply
wipe out our savings on one publisher."
In a written response to the university,
London-based Nature Publishing Group criticized UC's "sensationalist use of
data out of context" and said the negotiations were supposed to be
confidential. The pricing dispute is rooted in confusion over whether UC is
one institution or many, Nature's response said. that (UC) is paying an
unfair rate."
This week's volleys represented an escalation of a
long-simmering battle between universities and journal publishers, who have
been criticized for charging thousands of dollars for annual subscriptions
to some publications. Many titles have been consolidated under a handful of
major publishers, including Nature, making it more difficult for
universities to negotiate lower prices.
Several UC professors have fought back against
publishers, refusing to contribute work to highly priced journals. But a
widespread boycott of one of the most prestigious journals would present a
dilemma for faculty members under pressure to publish research in order to
gain promotions.
The so-called publish-or-perish structure is
fundamentally unfair to professors, said Michael Eisen, a UC Berkeley
biology professor who refuses to publish his research group's work in
Nature's journals.
"The university is forced to give away information
for free and then to buy it back at a huge markup," he said. "The whole
thing is just completely screwed up. The only alternative the university has
is to strike back at what Nature really values."
A boycott of the Nature group would not hurt UC
professors' careers, said Lawrence Pitts, the university's provost.
"The reality is that there is a number of quality
publications," said Pitts, UC's chief academic officer. "Nature Publishing
Group isn't the only game in town."
Some journals, recognizing that universities are
struggling to afford them, have cut prices in recent years. Others have
invented ways to give away their articles for free.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, for example, makes its contributions available for free six months
after publication, said its editor-in-chief, UC Berkeley biologist Randy
Schekman.
"Nature's just being tone-deaf," said Schekman, who
is considering writing an article for Nature. "They have to know that
California is in a perilous financial state. They can't win this one."
Bob Jensen's threads on Commercial Scholarly and Academic Journals and
Oligopoly Textbook Publishers Are Ripping Off Libraries, Scholars, and Students
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals
The whole world is invited to learn from BYU's Many online courses (except
for high school athletes)
"Black Mark for BYU," by Doug Lederman , Inside Higher Ed, June 9, 2010
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/09/byu
Brigham Young University's Independent Study
program appears to be wildly successful. At any given time, students are
taking more than 100,000 high school courses and 22,000 college classes, for
a variety of reasons: to get courses out of the way in the summer, finish
high school or college early, or improve their performance in classes in
which they struggled. Based on those numbers and
the
fees the program charges for its
nearly
600 online courses, the program generates millions
of dollars in revenue a year. (BYU officials won't say.)
A tiny fraction of its
enrollments -- about 500 a year -- are high school athletes seeking to use
the BYU program's courses to
meet
the National Collegiate Athletic Association's freshman eligibility
standards. Yet for the second time in several
years, dealings with the high-stakes world of big-time college athletics
appear to pose a potentially serious threat to the 90-year-old program's
status. Last month,
the NCAA decided to "de-certify" the BYU program
(and one other,
the American School) as a legitimate provider of
"nontraditional" courses. The decision came in
response to a change in NCAA rules this spring requiring "nontraditional"
courses to include regular interaction between students and professors, and
to set specific timeframes in which the courses must be completed.
Brigham Young officials
expressed dismay about the NCAA's decision, which they said had caught them
by surprise. "We do want to look at what we can do to be in compliance with
what the NCAA has put in place," said Carri Jenkins, a spokeswoman for the
university.
She noted that BYU
Independent Study had made a set of changes in its programs and policies the
last time
it drew NCAA
scrutiny -- when athletes at several colleges were
found to have earned credit from their institutions for
courses at BYU in which they did little or no work (or cheated to complete).
Among other changes, Jenkins noted, BYU Independent Study altered its
policies surrounding when and how tests are administered, and stopped
letting athletes enrolled in NCAA member colleges enroll in its classes.
But the courses remain a
commonly-trod path for high school athletes seeking to meet the NCAA's
academic eligibility standards for freshman athletes, which require students
to surpass a minimum grade-point average in 16 core high school courses to
compete in their first year in college. BYU and the American School, which
is based in Illinois, are among the most common programs from which high
school athletes seek eligibility through nontraditional courses, which the
association defines as "[t]hose taught via the Internet, distance learning,
independent study, individualized instruction, correspondence, and courses
taught by similar means, including software-based credit recovery courses."
Use of the courses has
burgeoned, and in March the association's Division I members approved a rule
aimed at toughening oversight of them, said Chuck Wynne, an NCAA spokesman.
"Members were obviously concerned that prospective student-athletes were
taking these courses and not being prepared for the rigors of college
academics," he said. The changes require that instructors and students have
"ongoing access to one another and regular interaction with one another for
purposes of teaching, evaluating and providing assistance to the student
throughout the duration of the course"; that the "student's work ... is
available for review and validation"; and that "[a] defined time for
completion of the course is identified by the high school or secondary
school program."
In the wake of the rules
changes, NCAA officials began reviewing providers of nontraditional courses,
and the association has "approved a bunch" as meeting the new standards,
Wynne said. So far, only BYU Independent Study and the American School were
found to fall short. (American School responded to the NCAA's findings,
which it is appealing,
here.)
Wynne declined to specify
exactly how and why BYU was deemed to fall short of the NCAA standards. But
he said that most of the scrutiny of the nontraditional programs focused on
the lack of regular, sustained interaction between students and instructors
-- ideally interaction initiated by the instructor, designed to ensure at
least some oversight of the students' work -- and on some programs' failure
to set a minimum timeframe for the completion of course work.
One NCAA review -- "not
necessarily at BYU," Wynne said -- found that one high school athlete had
completed "a semester of algebra in six minutes."
"We understand that these
are good quality educational tools when implemented and done right," Wynne
said, noting that the NCAA is not philosophically opposed to online
learning. "It's mostly about the administration of these programs. You can
have the best curriculum in the world, but if someone does algebra in six
minutes, you know there's something wrong."
Jenkins of BYU insisted
that the six-minute-algebra incident had most definitely not taken
place in one of the university's online offerings. She said that the
university plans to do whatever it needs to to reassure the NCAA that its
courses are of high quality, and that the independent study program had not
heard from past, current or prospective students who might be concerned
about a stigma from the NCAA's action.
Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
June 8, 2010 message from Zabihollah Rezaee (zrezaee)
[zrezaee@MEMPHIS.EDU]
I have developed and taught a
"Corporate Governance, Ethics and Business Sustainability" course. All MBA
students are required to take this course at the University of Memphis. I am
attaching the course syllabus and will gladly share my PPT slides and other
teaching materials.
Best,
Zabi
Zabihollah "Zabi" Rezaee, PhD,
CPA, CMA, CIA, CGFM, CFE, CSOXP, CGRCP, CGOVP
Thompson-Hill Chair of Excellence/
Professor of Accountancy Fogelman College of Business and Economics 300
Fogelman College Administration Bldg.
The University of Memphis
Memphis, TN 38152-3120
901.678.4652 (phone)
901.678.0717 (fax)
zrezaee@memphis.edu (e-mail)
https://umdrive.memphis.edu/zrezaee/www/
June 8, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen
Thank you for sharing Zabi,
In addition to your attachment, I found the links at
https://umdrive.memphis.edu/zrezaee/www/
You might find some helpful references at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance
Includes a Harvard University Guidance Link
Bob Jensen
"Preventing Plagiarism," by Amy Cavender, Chronicle of Higher
Education, June 11, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Preventing-Plagiarism/24695/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
In the ideal world, none of us would ever have to
write a note on a student's paper like the one in this photo. Since this
isn't the ideal world, we're likely to have to deal with plagiarism
every now and again. Dealing with instances of plagiarism will be the topic
of my post for next week.
This week, I'd like to float a few ideas on
preventing plagiarism.
The way we approach writing assignments can
certainly make a difference. Most faculty are well aware that reusing the
same essay prompts from one year to another is a bad idea, and asking
students to submit longer papers in stages is useful for catching potential
problems before they get a student into real trouble. (Incremental
due dates may also reduce the temptation for students to plagiarize, since
they force students to get started earlier.)
There are some good suggestions for instructors at
pages maintained by the
The University of Texas and
The University of Alberta Libraries.
Further, I'm convinced that a lot (certainly not
all) of the plagiarism committed by undergraduates is less than fully
intentional, and that much of it stems from poor information-management
practices.
That conviction has persuaded me that I need to
change my approach to teaching students how to use
Zotero. Some
time ago, I wrote a post on
teaching tech in Political Science. In that post,
I mentioned introducing students to Zotero in order to emphasize the
collaborative nature of scholarship and to make it easy for students to
format their citations properly.
But Zotero is also a marvelous
information-management system, and is therefore well-suited to avoiding the
accidental plagiarism that results from not keeping good track of one's
sources. If students get into the habit of keeping both their sources
and their notes in Zotero, they're much less likely to inadvertently
neglect to cite a source, or to accidentally cite something as a paraphrase
or summary when it's really a direct quote.
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Second Life passes on to its Life Number Two
June 10, 2010 message from Steven Hornik
[shornik@BUS.UCF.EDU]
Yesterday Linden Labs
announced a significant restructuring laying off 30% of their workforce with
the stated intent to focus on two endeavors:
1) Create a browser based
Second Life vs. the downloaded client you need today and
2) Extend Second Life into
more Social networks.
The twitterverse, etc. among
educators is pretty active now wondering what this means for us. As a
pretty big supporter of Second Life I wish I knew as one of the laid off
employees Claudia Linden was the point person for education, and this
follows on the heals of the layoff of Pathfinder Linden who was the initial
trailblazer for Second Life and the education community.
It does seem that this is
intended to position Second Life more towards the mass consumers and in that
respect I look forward to the changes that might come. One of the biggest
hurdles to using SL is overcoming the learning for the software that needs
to be used and the hardware requirements that many students newly bought
laptops, netbooks, and coming soon iPads and other tablets don't have - not
to mention iPhones and Android devices. So if this change enables students
to access 3-D learning objects and environments on those devices than this
will be a huge plus.
What most educators are unsure
about is that in the PR release that mentions the 2 areas of focus, the CEO
of Linden Lab, Marc Kingdon states: ""We've emerged from a two-year
investment period during which, among other things, we've spent a
considerable amount of time improving reliability and the overall user
experience. Today's announcement about our reorganization will help us make
Second Life® even simpler, more enjoyable, relevant and engaging for
consumers starting with their first experience." So many are asking are the
consumers a general term for your virtual clothing creating/buying
individuals, business' for meetings, and educators? Or is it just the
former that will be the focus for LL.
To be honest I'm not sure it
matters that much. When I first began to explore SL for use in my class it
was probably 95% focuses on the former and educators like myself simply saw
SL as a platform or tool that might be used (same thing that happened with
the web if my memory serves me ).
_________________________
Dr. Steven Hornik
University of Central Florida
Dixon School of Accounting
407-823-5739
Second Life: Robins Hermano
Twitter: shornik
http://mydebitcredit.com
yahoo ID: shornik
June 10, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Steve,
Might we conclude that Second Life has entered Life
Number Two?
Thanks for the heads up!
My threads on Second Life (including your previous
messages) are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife
Bob Jensen
"Senators Get
Donor $8 Million Earmark," Judicial Watch, June 8, 2010 ---
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/jun/senators-get-donor-8-million-earmark
In yet another example of
lawmakers unscrupulously funneling tax dollars to their political
supporters, New Jersey’s two U.S. Senators steered a multi million-dollar
earmark to enhance a campaign donor’s luxury condominium development.
Democrats Frank
Lautenberg and Robert Menendez allocated $8 million for a public walkway and
park space adjacent to upscale, waterfront condos built by a developer whose
executives have donated generously to their political campaigns. The veteran
legislators have received about $100,000 in contributions from the
developer, according to federal election records cited in a news report this
week.
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
The Most Criminal Class Writes the Laws ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#Lawmakers
Question
Can any of you identify the mystery "Fraud Girl" who will be writing a weekly
(Sunday) column for Simoleon Sense?
Hint
She seems to have a Chicago connection and seems very well informed about the
blog posts of Francine McKenna.
http://retheauditors.com/
But I really do know know who is the mystery "Fraud Girl."
"Guest Post: Fraud Girl Says, “Regulators, Ignore the Masses — It’s Your
Responsibility!!”
(A New SimoleonSense Series on Fraud, Forensic Accounting, and Ethics)
Simoleon Sense, April 25, 2010 ---
Click Here
http://www.simoleonsense.com/guest-post-fraud-girl-says-regulators-ignore-the-masses-it%e2%80%99s-your-responsibility-must-follow-series-on-fraud-forensic-accounting-and-ethics/
I’m exceptionally proud to introduce you to Fraud
Girl, our new Sunday columnist. She will write about all things corp
governance, fraud, accounting, and business ethics. To give you some
background (and although I can not reveal her identity). Fraud girl recently
visited me in Chicago for the Harry Markopolos presentation to the local
CFA. We were incredibly lucky to meet with Mr. Markopolos and enjoyed 3
hours of drinks and accounting talk. Needless to say Fraud Girl was leading
the conversation and I was trying to keep up. After a brainstorm session I
persuaded her to write for us and teach us about wall street screw-ups.
So watch out, shes smart, witty, and passionate
about making the world a better place. I think Sundays just got a lot
better…
Miguel Barbosa
Founder of SimoleonSense
P.S. For Questions or Comments: Reach fraud girl at:
FraudGirl@simoleonsense.com
Regulators, Ignore the Masses — It’s Your Responsibility
Men in general judge more by the sense of
sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but only
a few can test feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know
what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against
the general opinion, supported by the majesty of the government. In
the actions of all men, and especially of princes who are not
subject to a court of appeal, we must always look to the end. Let a
prince, therefore, win victories and uphold his state; his methods
will always be considered worthy, and everyone will praise them,
because the masses are always impressed by the superficial
appearance of things, and by the outcome of an enterprise. And the
world consists of nothing but the masses; the few have no influence
when the many feel secure.
-Niccolo Machiavelli,
The Prince
Why are Machiavelli’s words so astonishingly
prophetic? How does a 500 year old quote explain contagion, bubbles, and
Ponzi schemes? Do financial decision makers consciously overlook reality or
do they merely postpone due diligence? That is the purpose of this series —
to analyze financial fraud(s) and question business ethics.
Recent accounting scandals i.e. Worldcom, Enron,
Madoff, reveal a variety of methods for boosting short term performance at
the expense of long run shareholder value. WorldCom recorded bogus revenue,
Enron boosted their operating income through improper classifications, and
Madoff ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Sure these scandals were
unethical, deceived the public, and made a ton of money. But what is the
most striking similarity? Each of these companies was seen as the golden
goose egg; an indestructible force that could never fail. Of course, the key
word is “seen”, regulators, attorneys, financial analysts, and auditors
failed to see reality. But why?
Fiduciaries are entrusted with protecting the
public and shareholders from crooks like Skilling, Pavlo, and Schrushy. An
average shareholder lacks the knowledge and expertise of a prominent
regulator, right? Shareholders don’t perform the company’s annual audit,
review all legal documentation, or communicate with top executives. No,
shareholders base their decisions off information that is “accurate” and
“meticulously examined”.
Unfortunately in each of these instances regulators
failed to take a stand against consensus and became another ignorant face in
the crowd. “Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are;
and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion”. Who are
the few that really know who these companies are? The answer should be
evident. What isn’t clear is why these cowardly few are in charge of
overseeing our financial markets.
When Auditors Look The Other Way
A week ago, I came across this article:
Ernst & Young defends its Lehman work in letter to clients.
I chuckled as I was reading it, remembering Roxie Hart
from the play Chicago shouting the words “Not Guilty” to anyone who would
listen. Like Roxie, the audit team pleaded that the media was inaccurate. In
recording Lehman’s Repo 105 transactions, they claimed compliance with GAAP
and believed the financial statements were ‘fairly represented’. But, fair
reporting is more than complying with GAAP. Often auditors are “compliant”
while cooking the books (a mystery that still eludes me). In this case, the
auditors blatantly covered their eyes and closed their ears to what they
must have known was deliberate misrepresentation of Lehman Brother’s
financial statements.
We will explore the Lehman Brothers fiasco in next
week’s post…but here’s the condensed version. Days prior to quarter end,
Lehman Brothers used “Repo 105” transactions, which allowed them to lend
assets to others in exchange for short-term cash. They borrowed around $50
Billion; none of which appeared on their balance sheet. Lehman instead
reported the debt as sales. They used the borrowed cash to pay down other
debt. This reduced both their total liabilities and total assets, thereby
lowering their leverage ratio.
This was allegedly in compliance with SFAS 140,
Accounting for Transfers and Servicing of Financial Assets and
Extinguishments of Liabilities that allowed Lehman to move the $50 Billion
of assets from its balance sheet. As long as they followed the rules,
auditors could stamp [the] financial statements with a “Fairly Represented”
approval and issue an unqualified opinion.
Clearly in this case complying was unethical and
probably illegal.
Howard Schilit, the author of Financial Shenanigans:
How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports,
once said, “You [the auditor] work for the investor, even though you are
paid by someone else”. He insists that auditors should look beyond the
checklists and guidelines and should instead question everything. Auditors
are the first line of defense against fraud and the shareholders are
dependent upon the quality of their services. So I ask again, with respect
to Lehman Brothers, were the auditors working for the investors or where
they in the pockets of senior management?
What can we do?
An admired value investor believes in a similar
tactic for confirming the honesty of companies. It’s known as “killing the
company”, where in his words, “we think of all the ways the company can die,
whether it’s stupid management or overleveraged balance sheets. If we can’t
figure out a way to kill the company, then you have the beginning of a good
investment”. Auditors must think like this, they must kill the company, and
question everything. If you can’t kill a company, then (and only then) are
the financial statements truly a fair representation of the firms
operations.
There was no “killing” going on when the lead
auditing partner said that his team did not approve Lehman’s Accounting
Policy regarding Repo 105s but was in some way comfortable enough with them
to audit their financial statements. This engagement team failed in looking
beyond SFAS 140 and should have realized what every law firm (aside from one
firm in London) was stating; that the accounting methods Lehman Brothers
used to record Repo 105s were a deliberate attempt to defraud the public.
So I repeat: Ignoring reality is not an option.
Ignoring the crowd, however, is an obligation.
See you next week….
-Fraud Girl
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud are linked at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting news are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
"Guest Post – Fraud Girl: “Fraud by Hindsight”- How Wall Street Firms
[Legally] Get Away With Fraudulent Behavior!," Fraud Girl, Simoleon Sense,
June 6, 2010 ---
Click Here
http://www.simoleonsense.com/guest-post-fraud-girl-%e2%80%9cfraud-by-hindsight%e2%80%9d-how-wall-street-firms-legally-get-away-with-fraudulent-behavior/
Last week we discussed the credit rating
agencies and their roles the financial crisis. These agencies provided false
ratings on credit they knew was faulty prior to the crisis. In defense,
these agencies (as well as Warren Buffet) said that they did not foresee the
crisis to be as severe as it was and therefore could not be blamed for
making mistakes in their predictions. This week’s post focuses on
foreseeability and the extent to which firms are liable for incorrect
predictions.
Like credit agencies, Wall Street firms have
been accused of knowing the dangers in the market prior to its collapse. I
came across this post (Black
Swans*, Fraud by hindsight, and Mortgage-Backed Securities)
via the Wall Street Law Blog that discusses how
firms could assert that they can’t be blamed for events they couldn’t
foresee. It’s a doctrine known as Fraud by Hindsight (“FBH”) where
defendants claim “that there is no fraud if the alleged deceit can only be
discerned after the fact”. This claim has been used in numerous securities
fraud lawsuits and surprisingly it has worked in the defendant’s favor on
most occasions.
Many Wall Street firms say they “could not
foresee the collapse of the housing market, and therefore any allegations of
fraud are merely impermissible claims of fraud by hindsight”. Was Wall
Street able to foresee the housing market crash prior to its collapse?
According to the writers at WSL Blog, they did foresee it saying, “From 1895
through 1996 home price appreciation very closely corresponded to the rate
of inflation (roughly 3% per year). From 1995 through 2006 alone – even
after adjusting for inflation – housing prices rose by more than 70%”. Wall
Street must (or should) have foreseen a drastic change in the market when
rises in housing costs were so abnormal. By claiming FBH, however, firms can
inevitably “get away with murder”.
What exactly is FBH and how is it used in
court? The case below from Northwestern University Law Review details the
psychology and legalities behind FBH while attempting to show how the FBH
doctrine is being used as a means to dismiss cases rather than to control
the influence of Wall Street’s foreseeability claims.
Link Provided to Download "Fraud by Hindsight" (Registration Required)
I’ve broken down the case into two parts. The
first part provides two theories on hindsight in securities litigation: The
Debiasing Hypothesis & The Case Management Hypothesis. The Debiasing
Hypothesis provides that FBH is being used in court as a way to control the
influence of ‘hindsight bias’. This bias says that people “overstate the
predictability of outcomes” and “tend to view what has happened as having
been inevitable but also view it as having appeared ‘relatively inevitable’
before it happened”. The Debiasing Hypothesis tries to prove that FBH aids
judges in “weeding out” the biases so that they can focus on the allegations
at hand.
The Case Management Hypothesis states that FBH
is a claim used by judges to easily dismiss cases that they deem too
complicated or confusing. According to the analysis, “…academics have
complained that these [securities fraud] suits settle without regard to
merit and do little to deter real fraud, operating instead as a needless
tax on capital raising. Federal judges, faced with overwhelming caseloads,
must allocate their limited resources. Securities lawsuits that are often
complex, lengthy, and perceived to be extortionate are unlikely to be a
high priority. Judges might thus embrace any doctrine [i.e. FBH
doctrine] that allows them to dispose of these cases quickly” (782-783). The
case attempts to prove that FBH is primarily used for case management
purposes rather than for controlling hindsight bias.
The psychological aspects behind hindsight
bias are discussed thoroughly in this case. Here are a few excerpts from the
case regarding this bias:
(1)“Studies show that judges are vulnerable
to the bias, and that mere awareness of the phenomenon does not ameliorate
its influence on judgment. The failure to develop a doctrine that
addresses the underlying problem of judging in hindsight means that the
adverse consequences of the hindsight bias remain a part of securities
litigation. Judges are not accurately sorting fraud from mistake, thereby
undermining the system, even as they seek to improve it” (777).
(2) “Judges assert that a company’s
announcement of bad results, by itself, does not mean that a prior
optimistic statement was fraudulent. This seems to be an effort to divert
attention away from the bad outcome and toward the circumstances that gave
rise to that outcome, which is exactly the problem that hindsight bias
raises. That is, if people overweigh the fact of a bad outcome in
hindsight, then the cure is to reconstruct the situation as people saw it
beforehand. Thus, the development of the FBH doctrine suggests a
judicial understanding of the biasing effect of judging in hindsight and of
a means to address the problem” (781).
(3) “Once a bad event occurs, the evaluation
of a warning that was given earlier will be biased. In terms of evaluating a
decision-maker’s failure to heed a warning, knowledge that the warned-of
outcome occurred will increase the salience of the warning in the
evaluator’s mind and bias her in the direction of finding fault with the
failure to heed the warning. In effect, the hindsight bias becomes an
‘I-told-you-so’ bias.” (793).
(4) “In foresight, managers might reasonably
believe that the contingency as too unlikely to merit disclosure, whereas in
hindsight it seems obvious a reasonable investor would have wanted to know
it. Likewise, as to warning a company actually made, in foresight most
investors might reasonably ignore them, whereas in hindsight they seem
profoundly important. If defendants are allowed to defend themselves by
arguing that a reasonable investor would have attended closely to these
warnings, then the hindsight bias might benefit defendants” (794).
Next week we’ll explore the second part of the
case and discuss the importance of utilizing FBH as a means of deterring the
hindsight bias. We’ll see how the case proves that FBH is not being used for
this purpose and is instead used as a mechanism to dismiss cases that simply
do not want to be heard.
See you next week…
-Fraud Girl
Bob Jensen's Rotten to the Core threads on credit rating agencies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#CreditRatingAgencies
Bob Jensen's Rotten to the Core threads on banks and brokerages ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking
Bob Jensen's Fraud updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
June 8, 2010 reply from Robert Bruce Walker
[walkerrb@ACTRIX.CO.NZ]
The link below is a book review of Michael Lewis’s
latest book ‘The Big Short’. The book is clearly based on an article that
Bob uncovered about 9 months ago. The mechanism underpinning the ‘short’ is
better explained in the NYRB essay and, presumably, in the book itself. It
seems that the ‘mezzanine’ tranches (BBB rated) of a series of MBS were
packaged, rated AAA and then issued in another MBS. Dubious this might be,
but fraud it will not be. It lacks the central element of mens rea. In the
face of an accusation of fraud the accused will generally resort to the
defence of incompetence or inadequacy – a dangerous thing when facing civil
action as well – but better than being seen to have acted ‘knowingly’.
No-one knew the property markets would collapse. Many people, including me*,
thought that it was inevitable – but we did not know it.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/heart-crash/?pagination=false
*When I was first told of the ‘low doc’ loan
concept by an investment manager, I could hardly believe it. He, on the
other hand, described the packager of such products as very clever. The
investor in question failed badly due to an over-exposure to MBS. Funny
that.
"Guest Post – Fraud Girl: “Fraud by Hindsight”- How Wall Street Firms
[Legally] Get Away With Fraudulent Behavior! Part 2," by Fraud Girl,
Simoleon Post, June 13, 2010 ---
Click Here
http://www.simoleonsense.com/guest-post-fraud-girl-%e2%80%9cfraud-by-hindsight%e2%80%9d-how-wall-street-firms-legally-get-away-with-fraudulent-behavior-part-2/
Last week we discussed the first part of the “Fraud
by Hindsight” study. As we learned, the FBH doctrine is utilized in
securities litigation cases. In learning about the FBH doctrine we reviewed
the Debiasing Hypothesis and the Case Management Hypothesis. According to
the Debiasing Hypothesis, FBH is used as a tool to “weed out” hindsight bias
in order to focus on legal issues at hand. The Case Management Hypothesis,
on the other hand declares that FBH is used to dismiss securities fraud
cases in order to facilitate judicial control over them. This week we will
strive to analyze how Fraud By Hindsight has evolved, meaning, how the
courts apply the doctrine (in real life), which differs markedly from the
doctrine’s theoretical meaning.
History
The first mention of FBH was in 1978 with Judge
Friendly in the case Denny v. Barber. The plaintiff in this case claimed
that the bank had “engaged in unsound lending practices, maintained
insufficient loan loss reserves, delayed writing off bad loans, and
undertook speculative investments” (796). Sound familiar? Anyway — the
plaintiff plead that the bank failed to disclose these problems in earlier
reports and instead issued reports with optimistic projections. Judge
Friendly claimed FBH stating that there were a number of “intervening
events” during that period (i.e. increasing prices in petroleum and the City
of New York’s financial crisis) that were outside the control of managers
and it was therefore insufficient to claim that the defendant should have
known better when out-of-the-ordinary incidents have occurred. The end
result of the case provided that “hindsight alone might not constitute a
sufficient demonstration that the defendants made some predictive decision
with knowledge of its falsity or something close to it” (797). Friendly
established that FBH is possible, but that in this case the underlying
circumstances did not justify a judgment against the bank.
The second relevant mention of FBH was in 1990 with
Judge Easterbrook in the case DiLeo v. Ernst & Young. Like the prior case,
DiLeo involved problems with loans where the plaintiff plead that the bank
and E&Y had known but failed to disclose that a substantial portion of the
bank’s loans were uncollectible. This case was different, in that there were
no “intervening events” that could have blind sighted managers from issuing
more accurate future projections. Still, Easterbrook claimed FBH and said,
“the fact that the loans turned out badly does not mean that the defendant
knew (or should have known) that this was going to happen” (799-800).
Easterbrook believed that the plaintiff must be able to separate the true
fraud from the underlying hindsight evidence in order to prove their case.
Easterbrook’s articulation of the FBH doctrine set
the stage for all future securities class action cases. As the authors
state, the phrase was cited only about twice per year before DiLeo but it
increased to an average of twenty-seven times per year afterwards.
Unfortunately, the courts found Easterbrook’s perception of the phrase to be
more compelling. Instead of providing that the hindsight might play a role
determining if fraud has occurred, Easterbrook claimed that there simply is
no “fraud by hindsight”. This allows the courts to adjudicate cases solely
on complaint, therefore supporting the Case Management Hypothesis.
The results of many tests provided in this case
proved that courts were using the doctrine as a means to dismiss cases. Of
all the tests, I found one to be most interesting: The Stage of the
Proceedings. The results of the test shows that “over 90 percent of FBH
applications involve judgments on the pleadings” (814) stage rather than at
summary judgment. In the preliminary (pleading) stages, the knowledge of
information is not provided, meaning that it is less likely that hindsight
bias will affect their decisions. The more the judge delves into the case,
the more they are susceptible to the hindsight bias. If the judge is
utilizing the FBH doctrine mostly during the pleading stages where hindsight
bias is “weak”, then the Debiasing Hypothesis is not valid.
The authors point out the problems with utilizing
the FBH doctrine in this way:
“The problem, however, is that the remedy is
applied at the pleadings stage, not the summary judgment stage. At the
pleadings stage, a bad outcome truly is relevant to the likelihood of fraud.
At this stage, the Federal Rules do not ask the courts to make a judgment on
the merits, and hence the remedy of foreclosing further litigation is
inappropriate. By foreclosing further proceedings, courts are not saying
that they do not trust their own judgment, but that they do not trust the
process of civil discovery to identity whether fraud occurred” (815).
Because cases are being dismissed so early in the
litigation process, courts are not allowing for the discovery of fraud that
may be apparent even though hindsight is a factor in the case.
By gathering this and other evidence, the case
concludes that judges utilize FBH as a case management tool. They cited that
the development of the FBH doctrine could be described as “naïve cynicism”.
Though judges understand that hindsight bias must be taken into
consideration, they express the belief that the problem does not affect
their own judgment. The courts are relying on their own intuitions and
gathering the necessary facts to prove fraud by hindsight. The authors note
a paradox here saying, “Judges simultaneously claim that human judgment
cannot be trusted, and yet they rely on their own judgment”.
The problem is that the naively cynical (FBH)
approach has led to securities fraud cases to be governed by moods. The
authors say that “In the 1980s and 1990s, as concern with frivolous
securities litigation rose, courts and Congress simply made it more
difficult for plaintiffs to file suit. In the post-Enron era, this
skepticism about private enforcement of securities fraud might have abated
somewhat, leading to lesser pleading requirements” (825).
Recap & Implications
Overall the case proves that the courts have not
yet been able to establish a sensible mechanism for sorting fraud from
mistake. It therefore allows cases that really involve fraud to potentially
be dismissed. In cases since DiLeo, the win rate for defendants in FBH cases
is 70 percent, as compared with 47 percent in those cases that did not
mention it. The mere declaration of “Fraud by Hindsight” gives the defendant
an automatic advantage over the plaintiff. Now, the defendant may in fact be
innocent – but the current processes are not able to determine who is or
isn’t guilty. Remember, judges spend much of their time in these cases
separating the hindsight bias from the fraud. This task can become very
complex and time consuming.
In sum, the increasing use of FBH has been
beneficial for (1) judges because they don’t have to listen to these
complicated cases and (2) defendant’s because they are likely to win the
case by using the doctrine. The only ones who don’t benefit from doctrine
are the plaintiff’s who may truly have been victims of fraud. It is crucial
that the judiciary revise the way the FBH is interpreted in order to protect
the innocent and convict the guilty.
Have any ideas on how to fix the FBH problem? Send
me an email at fraudgirl @ simoleonsense.com.
See you next week.
- Fraud Girl
Click Here To Access The Original Fraud by Hindsight Case – Part II ---
http://www.scribd.com/doc/32994403/Fraud-by-Hindsight-Part-II
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm
"Microsoft Office Simplified For the Web," by Walter S. Mossberg,
The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575296681972150418.html
I am writing this in Microsoft Word, hardly an
unusual way to author a document. But I'm not using Word as you know it—part
of the large, complex Microsoft Office suite installed on your computer's
hard drive. Instead, I am using a new, streamlined version of Word that for
the first time resides on remote servers you reach through the Internet.
This new version of Word is used inside a Web
browser. It works on both Windows PCs and Macs, and via the newer versions
of the major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and
Chrome. It's free and it doesn't require you to have regular Office on your
computer.
Word isn't the only Office component that's now
available in a free online version. Microsoft has created similar simplified
versions of Excel, PowerPoint and its OneNote note-taking program as part of
the free online suite called Office Web Apps, which is available at
office.live.com. To use the new online Office, you'll need a free account
for the company's broader Windows Live online service.
WSJ's Personal Technology columnist Walt Mossberg
takes a look at the new free, online version of Microsoft Office, called
Office Web Apps. It's a stripped down version of the familiar desktop
edition of Office, and runs on both PCs and Macs. Walt says it may be all
you'll ever need in an Office suite. Microsoft is also releasing a new
version of its traditional desktop Office for Windows next week, called
Office 2010. But in my view, the online edition is the most interesting new
development for consumers in this round of updates. It's part of the broader
trend toward cloud computing—doing tasks online rather than with desktop
programs. And it's meant to help the software giant compete with rival
online office suites from competitors like Google and Zoho.
I've been testing Office Web Apps on both Windows
and Mac computers, and in all four major browsers, and I like it. It has
some downsides and is still a work in progress. It lacks many of the more
sophisticated features of the local, desktop version of Office. In fact,
Microsoft—apparently trying to protect its profitable desktop suite—refers
to Office Web Apps as a "companion" to desktop Office, for "light" work.
Mossberg Mailbox Mossberg on buying an iPad for
children But these are capable, if simpler, programs that look and feel like
their desktop counterparts and they will likely meet the needs of many
consumers who produce basic documents, even if they don't own desktop
Office. Also, the new Web Apps are connected to a generous 25 gigabytes of
free online storage for your documents, via a companion Microsoft online
storage system called SkyDrive.
Another big benefit: Microsoft boasts its Office
Web Apps produce documents that use the same file formats as the desktop
programs and thus, look fully accurate when opened in desktop Office. The
company calls this "fidelity." In my tests, this claim held true, at least
on my Windows PC. (A revised version of Microsoft Office for the Mac, tuned
to work with Web Apps, is in the works.)
The new version of the desktop Office suite also
has many new features, but a lot of these are for power users or corporate
users, and, overall, it isn't nearly as big a change as its predecessor,
Office 2007. Among the new desktop features consumers will notice and use
are the extension of the consolidated top tool bar called the "Ribbon,"
introduced in the 2007 version in most Office programs, to Outlook; a new
unified view for printing, sharing and previewing documents, called
"Backstage"; and richer graphics. You can also now customize the Ribbon.
In my tests of the streamlined Office Web Apps, I
was able to use a variety of fonts and styles, insert and resize photos, and
create tables. And I was able to view my documents, though not edit them, on
an iPhone and iPad. This also works with other mobile devices.
One glitch I ran into in the Word Web App was that,
if you use a tab to start a paragraph, it changes the left margin of each
subsequent line. Microsoft says this is a bug and it is working to fix it.
Another downside for some users may be that the Web
Apps only directly open documents from, and save them to, your online
SkyDrive storage, not your hard disk. So you have to upload files from your
hard disk to SkyDrive to edit them in the Web Apps. And, like most
cloud-based programs, they can only be used when you're online.
There are numerous things you may be used to doing
in desktop Office that can't be done in the online version. For instance,
you can't drag photos by the corners to resize them, embed videos, create
slide transitions or add new spreadsheet charts.
You can, with one click, open a Web version of your
document in the full desktop program, to take advantage of richer editing.
However, this only works with certain combinations of browsers and desktop
Office versions.
Two of the Web apps, Excel and OneNote, allow
multiple users to log on and work on the same document together. The others
don't yet. In fact, in my tests, I couldn't open a Word document locally
until I had closed it online, and vice versa. Microsoft says it is working
on expanding simultaneous use to all the apps.
Office Web Apps are a good start for Microsoft at
bringing its productivity expertise to the Web, and may be all many
consumers need for creating simple documents.
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
From the Scout Report on June 11, 2010
JetPhoto Studio 4.8
---
http://www.jetphotosoft.com/web/home/
A number of photo software programs make bold
promises, but JetPhoto Studio actually delivers the goods. The program is
designed to help users manage their photograph collections, and some of the
application's perks include GPS tracking, photo keyword tagging, and an
interactive calendar feature which organizes photos by date. The program
also features some basic editing tools, and the interactive online user
guide is quite nice. This version is compatible with computers running
Windows 2000 and newer and Macs running OS X 10.3 and newer.
New evidence from Saturn's moon Titan suggests possibility of alien life
and reveals new clues about early Earth as well Saturn moon offers hints of
early life on Earth
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2010-06-06-titan_N.htm
Titan: NASA Scientists discover evidence 'that alien life exists on
Saturn's moon'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7805069/Titan-Nasa-scientists-discover-evidence-that-alien-life-exists-on-Saturns-moon.html
Astrobiologist tries to set the record straight about extraterrestrial
life on Titan
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=astrobiologist-tries-to-set-the-rec-2010-06-08
Saturn's Beauty and Power
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8564405.stm
The Saturn System: A Feast for the Eyes
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/cassini_equinox/cassini_equinox_slideshow.html
Eerie Sounds of Saturn's Radio Emissions
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07966.html
Windows to the Universe: Saturn
http://windows2universe.org/saturn/saturn.html
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
Webwise 2010: Imagining the Digital Future [Flash Player, Windows Media]
http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/webwise/100303/
Video: The Worst Thing You Can Do in Life is Set Goals
Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18 ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2010/05/stephen_fry_what_i_wish_i_had_known_when_i_was_18.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Walter Brennan Reading Mark Twain ---
http://earideas.com/earideas/explore/show/92250/Walter+Brennan+Reading+Mark+Twain
Find a College
College Atlas ---
http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Global Drug Reference Online ---
http://www.globaldro.com/
Drug Information --- http://matweb.hcuge.ch/Medical_search/Drugs_pharmacology_pharmacy.html
Drug Information --- http://www.coreynahman.com/medicalinfodatabases.html
Drug Information --- http://library.pbac.edu/drug_information_databases.htm
BioEd Online: Podcasts Plus Lessons
http://www.bioedonline.org/podcasts/
Nature Milestones ---
http://www.nature.com/milestones/
National Science Foundation: Science Nation [Flash Player]
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/
NASA Clips ---
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/
Xeno-Canto: Bird Sounds From the Americas [Real Player] ---
http://www.xeno-canto.org/
U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory ---
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usgginventory.html
Southern Forests for the Future ---
http://www.seesouthernforests.org/
Bear Expedition Digital Collections ---
http://polarbears.si.umich.edu/
Bob Jensen's threads on free online science,
engineering, and medicine tutorials are at ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science
Social Science and Economics Tutorials
"Video: Ted Talk – Sweat The Small Stuff:
Hilarious examples of Behavioral Economics," Simoleon Sense, June 9,
2010 ---
http://www.simoleonsense.com/video-ted-talk-sweat-the-small-stuff-hilarious-examples-of-behavioral-economics/
Bob Jensen's not-so-hilarious threads on EMH controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#EMH
Global Drug Reference Online ---
http://www.globaldro.com/
Drug Information --- http://matweb.hcuge.ch/Medical_search/Drugs_pharmacology_pharmacy.html
Drug Information --- http://www.coreynahman.com/medicalinfodatabases.html
Drug Information --- http://library.pbac.edu/drug_information_databases.htm
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia [Flash Player,
pdf] http://www.escwa.un.org/
The Asia Foundation: Multimedia ---
http://asiafoundation.org/media/
Digital Comic Museum ---
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and
Philosophy tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social
Law and Legal Studies
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Math Tutorials
The Mathematical Association of America: Podcast Center
http://www.maa.org/audio clips/podcast/podcast.html
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
History Tutorials
"The Rockets' Red Glare": Francis Scott Key and the Bombardment of Fort
McHenry
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/137FOMC/137fomc.htm
From the University of Missouri: Collection of
Fourth of July Speeches ---
http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jul;cc=jul;tpl=home.tpl
12. Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature) ---
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/
The Allure of the Automobile (museum)
http://www.high.org/main.taf?p=3,1,1,17,1
The Henry Ford Museum ---
http://www.hfmgv.org/
A Biography of America ---
http://www.learner.org/resources/series123.html
"The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (over 7,000 photographs)
---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187
HistoryWorld ---
http://www.historyworld.net/
Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters ---
http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/
Cincinnati Art Museum: The Collection ---
http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/absolutenm/templates/ArtTempCollection.aspx?articleid=124&zoneid=71
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee Book Arts Collection ---
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/digilib/bookarts/index.cfm
Exploratorium 40th Anniversary: Speaking of Music Rewind [iTunes]
http://www.exploratorium.edu/40th/podcasts.php
Bear Expedition Digital Collections ---
http://polarbears.si.umich.edu/
Digital Comic Museum ---
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
LaVie: The Penn State Life (Yearbook History Going Back to 1890) ---
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/digital/lavie/
UW Student Newspapers Archive ---
http://content.lib.washington.edu/dailyweb/index.html
Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Language Tutorials
Slide Show on the Classics ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Classics.pps
Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages
Music Tutorials
Exploratorium 40th Anniversary: Speaking of Music Rewind [iTunes]
http://www.exploratorium.edu/40th/podcasts.php
Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music
Writing Tutorials
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
June 10, 2010
June 11, 2010
June 14, 2010
June 15, 2010
June 16, 2010
Fentanyl Pain Patches ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl
Brand names include Sublimaze, Actiq, Durogesic, Duragesic, Fentora, Onsolis[2],
[3] and Instanyl[4] — is a synthetic primary μ-opioid agonist and a potent
narcotic analgesic with a rapid onset and short duration of action .
Historically it has been used to treat chronic breakthrough pain and is commonly
used in pre-procedures.
Global Drug Reference Online ---
http://www.globaldro.com/
Drug Information --- http://matweb.hcuge.ch/Medical_search/Drugs_pharmacology_pharmacy.html
Drug Information --- http://www.coreynahman.com/medicalinfodatabases.html
Drug Information --- http://library.pbac.edu/drug_information_databases.htm
"New Report From Carnegie Foundation Recommends Changes in Medical
Education," by Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, June
8, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/New-Report-From-Carnegie/65809/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Comedy Video
on Financial Crises
I'm beginning to think these are not perfect storms. I'm beginning to think
these are regular storms and we just have a sh**ty boat.
Jon Stewart ---
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/jon-stewart-takes-on-perfect-storms.html
Groups of free riders
on the Paris Metro have created informal insurance pools that pay the fine when
riders get caught. The groups call themselves mutuelles des fraudeurs --
fraudster mutuals.
NPR ---
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/05/dont_pay_your_fare_on_the_subw.html
Jensen Comment
One issue not considered in the above article is how many misdemeanors it takes
for the sum to become a felony.
Also could
these frauds affect credit scores?
Digital Comic Museum ---
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Awful Puns For the Educated
1. King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with
the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most
valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the
pawnbroker, to ask for a loan.
Croesus said, "I'll give you 100,000 dinars for it."
"But I paid a million dinars for it," the King protested. "Don't you know who
I am? I am the king!"
Croesus replied, "When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you
are."
2. Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid
bowlers. Unfortunately, all the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire,
...and so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.
3. A man rushed into a busy doctor's office and shouted, "Doctor! I think I'm
shrinking!" The doctor calmly responded, "Now, settle down. You'll just have to
be a little patient."
4. A marine biologist developed a race of genetically engineered dolphins
that could live forever if they were fed a steady diet of seagulls. One day, his
supply of the birds ran out so he had to go out and trap some more. On the way
back, he spied two lions asleep on the road. Afraid to wake them, he gingerly
stepped over them. Immediately, he was arrested and charged with-- transporting
gulls across sedate lions for immortal porpoises.
5. Back in the 1800's the Tate's Watch Company of Massachusetts wanted to
produce other products, and since they already made the cases for watches, they
used them to produce compasses. The new compasses were so bad that people often
ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California. This, of course, is the
origin of the expression -- "He who has a Tate's is lost!"
6. A thief broke into the local police station and stole all the toilets and
urinals, leaving no clues. A spokesperson was quoted as saying, "We have
absolutely nothing to go on."
7. An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man.
After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk
rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one
inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see
how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but
the malady lingers on."
8. A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his name
missing from the town register. His wife insisted on complaining to the local
civic official who apologized profusely saying, "I must have taken Leif off my
census."
9. There were three Indian squaws. One slept on a deer skin, one slept on an
elk skin, and the third slept on a hippopotamus skin. All three became pregnant.
The first two each had a baby boy. The one who slept on the hippopotamus skin
had twin boys. This just goes to prove that... the squaw of the hippopotamus is
equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides. (Some of you may need
help with this one).
10. A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American folk remedies
with the assistance of a tribal Brujo who indicated that the leaves of a
particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the
anthropologist expressed his doubts, the Brujo looked him in the eye and said,
"Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas."
Jagdish Gangolly clued me in on this link
Tom Lehrer on the great Russian mathgematician Lobachevsky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNC-aj76zI4&feature=related
Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/
Find a College
College Atlas ---
http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
-
With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review
(TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral
Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH
CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and
Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the
vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/
Interesting Online Clock
and Calendar
---
http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones ---
http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) ---
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
Also see
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
Facts about population growth (video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth ---
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq ---
http://www.costofwar.com/
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons ---
http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.
Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
CPA Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle ---
http://cpareviewforfree.com/
Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at
http://iaed.wordpress.com/
Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social
Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Online Books, Poems, References,
and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials
Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at
http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting
educators.
Any college may post a news item.
Accountancy Discussion ListServs:
For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a
ListServ (usually for free) go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
AECM (Educators)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/
AECM is an email Listserv list which
provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software
which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the
college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and
peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets,
multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base
programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc
Roles of a ListServ ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
|
CPAS-L (Practitioners)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/
CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of
all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an
unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments,
ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed.
Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L
or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for
a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional
accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or
education. Others will be denied access. |
Yahoo
(Practitioners)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA.
This can be anything from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ
initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA. |
AccountantsWorld
http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1
This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as
accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed
assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and
taxation. |
Business Valuation
Group
BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com
This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag
[RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM] |
Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) ---
http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm
Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Some
Accounting History Sites
Bob Jensen's
Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
Accounting
History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) ---
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
The above libraries include international accounting history.
The above libraries include film and video historical collections.
MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting ---
http://maaw.info/
Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/
Sage Accounting History ---
http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269
A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of
thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
"The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional
Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005
---
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 ---
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm
A nice
timeline of accounting history ---
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING
From Texas
A&M University
Accounting History Outline ---
http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html
Bob
Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
History of
Fraud in America ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone: 603-823-8482
Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu