Tidbits on December 1, 2010
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

This week I made a special photograph file of Set 3 of my 2010 Summer Favorites
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/SummertimeFavorites/Set03/2010Set03.htm  

In addition I featured a few of wedding photographs

 

 White Mountain News --- http://www.whitemtnews.com/

Please do what you can to lend financial support to Wikipedia --- Keep Knowledge Open Sourced, Interactive, and Free ---
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/WMFJA010/en/US?utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=20101125JA006&utm_source=20101124_JA011A_US&country_code=US
Wikipedia is about the power of people like us to do extraordinary things. People like us write Wikipedia, one word at a time. People like us fund it, one donation at a time. It's proof of our collective potential to change the world.

Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on December 1, 2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations120110.htm         

Please do what you can to lend financial support to Wikipedia --- Keep Knowledge Open Sourced, Interactive, and Free ---
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/WMFJA010/en/US?utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=20101125JA006&utm_source=20101124_JA011A_US&country_code=US
Wikipedia is about the power of people like us to do extraordinary things. People like us write Wikipedia, one word at a time. People like us fund it, one donation at a time. It's proof of our collective potential to change the world.

Tidbits on December 1, 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/.

 
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 




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

Gladys Ingle of the '13 Black Cats' puts a new landing gear on a disabled plane in mid-air in 1924. Note - no parachute!:---
http://www.flixxy.com/mid-air-airplane-repair.htm

I'm Keeping Kosher for Christmas --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p9TE8dRPX0

Christmas With a Capital C --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAckfn8yiAQ  

Medal of Honor Winner Was a Sandwich Artist --- http://devour.com/video/medal-of-honor/

Science Videos --- http://www.scivee.tv/

The Best Gift of All from Scott Stratton --- http://www.thebestgiftofall.com/

Milton Friedman answers Phil Donohue's questions about capitalism.--- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/MiltonFriedmanGreed.wmv

UCI Libraries: Stage to Stage: The Theatrical Work of Robert Cohen ---
http://www.lib.uci.edu/about/publications/exhibits/stage/index.php

Science 360 [Flash Player, Real Player, pdf] http://www.science360.gov/files/


Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

I now carry this card to present to TSA Security Officials at airports:
I Just Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore  (video)  --- http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20071221/MULTIMEDIA/283841756
Also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8R51IUtYCQ
Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwoZjsHs86A

How Great Thou Art (Alan Jackson Hymn) --- http://www.openmyeyeslord.net/UltimateFreedom.htm

A Mother's Desperate Act: 'Margaret Garner' From Opera Carolina --- http://www.npr.org/2010/11/17/131395936/a-mother-s-desperate-act-margaret-garner

80-Year Old Janey Cutler Has No Regrets --- http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/7464575?fr=yvmtf

Adam Haworth Stephens On Mountain Stage (folk music) --- http://www.npr.org/2010/11/19/131441803/adam-haworth-stephens-on-mountain-stage

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

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

Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival --- http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/01/harbin_ice_and_snow_sculpture.html

The Tech Museum of Innovation: Exhibits --- http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/

Alexander Allison's New Orleans (photographs) --- http://nutrias.org/~nopl/exhibits/allison/allison.htm

Franck-Bertacci Collection: Louisiana Digital Library --- http://louisdl.louislibraries.org/FBC/Pages/home.php

This Planet Earth by Van Gogh or Vice Versa --- http://gizmodo.com/5694634/this-is-planet-earth-by-van-gogh++or-viceversa

Posters of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1922 --- http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=history&col_id=195

National Gallery of Art: The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photograph and Painting, 1848-1875
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2010/preraphaelite/slideshow/index.shtm

The British Museum: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead --- http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/book_of_the_dead.aspx

New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science: Exhibits --- http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/onlineexh.html

Japanese and Chinese Prints and Drawings donated by Gillette G. Griffin ---
http://diglib.princeton.edu/xquery?_xq=getCollection&_xsl=collection&_pid=pudl0026

Japanese Fine Prints, Pre-1915 --- http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/jpdhtml/jpdabt.html

Harvard Map Collection: Digital Maps --- http://vc.lib.harvard.edu/vc/deliver/home?_collection=maps

The Museum of Connecticut History Home Page --- http://www.museumofcthistory.org/

American Precision Museum --- http://www.americanprecision.org/index.php

The Labor Trail --- http://www.labortrail.org/index.html

Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art http://www.nmafa.si.edu/exhibits/grassroots/index.html

The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960
http://repository.library.northwestern.edu/winterton/

Museum of Science, Boston: Podcasts [iTunes] --- http://www.mos.org/events_activities/podcasts

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

UCI Libraries: Stage to Stage: The Theatrical Work of Robert Cohen ---
http://www.lib.uci.edu/about/publications/exhibits/stage/index.php

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 December 1, 2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations120110.htm         

Peter G. Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/

Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

Whether or not you love or hate the scholarship and media presentations of the University of Chicago's Milton Friedman, I think you have to appreciate his articulate response on this historic Phil Donohue Show episode. Many of the current dire warnings about entitlements were predicted by him as one of the cornerstones in his 1970's PBS Series on "Free to Choose." We just didn't listen as we poured on unbooked national debt ($60 trillion and not counting) for future generations to deal with rather than pay as we went so to speak! . And yes Paul and Zafer, I know there may be better alternatives than capitalism as a basis for optimization of economies in theory. But all economic systems must deal with inherent greed in practice. Friedman always advocating operating within the law and argued against concentration of market power in large companies.
The Grand Old Scholar/Researcher on the subject of greed in economics
Video:  Milton Friedman answers Phil Donohue's questions about capitalism.--- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/MiltonFriedmanGreed.wmv 




Yahoo Education ranks "hot careers" through 2018 and beyond.
Accountants/audits get top billing, which is probably the first time we've ever been called "hot."
http://education.yahoo.net/articles/hot_careers_through_2018.htm
Thank you Dan Stone for this heads up.

Bob Jensen's threads on careers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers


A Statement from the President of the University of Oregon
"Saving Public Universities, Starting With My Own The solution is an endowment funded by public and private contributions. Here's how to do it," by Richard Lariviere, The Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312504575618303611410956.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t

Oregonians don't whine. In the face of adversity, we grit our teeth and carry on. Land use, bottle- deposit bills, beach protection—Oregon has led the nation.

But Oregon's 25- to 34-year-olds are less likely than their parents to have college degrees. We have one of the worst-funded systems of public higher education in America: Oregon ranked 44th in the latest measurement of state funding per student.

The easy response to decades of reduced funding is to simply ask the state for more. But with Oregon expecting a $3.3 billion budget shortfall for the coming biennium and a "decade of deficits," as Gov. Ted Kulongoski recently put it, asking for more money is futile.

Boldness is a necessity—and we think we have the answer. Our plan is to stabilize the University of Oregon's financial situation by establishing an endowment funded by a partnership of private and public monies.

Twenty years ago, the state legislature appropriated $63.3 million for the University of Oregon. Our state funding for the current fiscal year has dropped to a projected $60 million. Adjusted for inflation, that's just $34.9 million in 1990 dollars.

State funding currently makes up less than 8% of the university's overall budget, while tuition and fees now account for about 40%. A generation ago, state funding per student was twice the amount received in tuition. Because of a dramatic rise in enrollment and an equally dramatic decline in state funding, tuition has increased by an average of 7.5% each year for the past 38 years. But the rise in tuition has been erratic, due largely to fluctuations in state appropriations, with annual tuition increases ranging from 2% to 25% in a single year.

This unpredictability adds to the already tremendous burden on middle-class families hoping to send their children to the university. College is being put beyond the reach of too many worthy students. The goal at our university is to sustain high academic quality, while providing these young Oregonians with an affordable education.

To accomplish this goal, we propose three steps. First, the university needs careful governance by a publicly appointed board specifically charged with overseeing the university's operations. Second, the university should be more accountable to the state-level board that oversees its educational goals and standards. And finally, we propose a first-of-its-kind formula for replacing year-by-year state appropriations to the university with a public-private endowment. Earnings from the endowment's invested capital will replace the unpredictable muddle of state funding.

It is this third element—replacing the state's annual appropriation with a public-private endowment—that makes our proposal unique. We are asking lawmakers to lock public appropriations for the university at $63 million over 30 years—enough to make debt payments, at a 7% taxable bond rate, on $800 million in general obligation bonds.

Meanwhile, the university will pledge to match the $800 million in bond proceeds with private donations, and we will raise the private money before the public money is used for these bonds. The combined $1.6 billion public-private endowment will create a solid base for the university's financial operation, replacing the erratic seesaw of annual state appropriations.

Using historical returns from the University of Oregon Foundation as a benchmark, the new public-private endowment will generate $64 million in operating revenue for the university in its first year. This is more than the current annual appropriation.

Projecting returns of 9% and assuming distributions of 4%, the endowment's annual payout will increase to $263.4 million in its 30th year. The endowment's capitalized balance of $6.9 billion at that point will secure the university's future.

Some have labeled our projected returns as overly optimistic. But the University of Oregon Foundation's own endowment has returned an average of 9.8% annually since 1994 (the earliest year for which reliable information is available). That takes into account three years of negative returns—including a 17.8% loss in 2008, during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression—as well as a strong return of 10.1% in 2009.

Over the next 30 years, there will inevitably be good times for the state of Oregon, and it will undoubtedly invest more in higher education. But we're willing to exchange the prospect of an eventual increase in state funding for a predictable level of support—even at today's low level. Having a steady income stream through the public-private endowment will enable us to better control the rate of tuition increases.

As the proposal heads toward legislative consideration next year, we are now also in discussions to include a requirement that the new endowment maintain a portion of its investment portfolio in local companies, so we can help jump-start the state's economy.

Oregon's experience with higher education funding is not unique. Economic and demographic changes are demanding a response from universities across the nation. We believe that we've come up with a viable answer to the question of how to provide educational opportunity without sinking our state deeper into the financial hole—and we hope other states consider following suit.

Mr. Lariviere is president of the University of Oregon.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/higheredcontroversies.htm


I apologize that the tidbit below appears to be political. I do so however, in the spirit of what I consider to be the Number 1 Rule of Our Academy --- Owning Up to Mistakes. It provides an illustration that we might pass along to our students.

It takes a big person to admit advocating something in total error
I had almost zero respect for Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's persistent advocacy of corn ethanol that takes more energy to produce than is gained. Also ethanol purportedly generates twice as much ozone as gasoline in traditional combustion engines and is absurdly expensive to transport.

Members of the Academy all do not admit mistakes, but my respect for teachers/researchers increases when they publically admit to their own errors
Al Gore is not a card carrying member of the Academy, but he just did a very academic thing.
I'm still not in Al Gore's for a number of reasons, but I do like to give credit where credit is due,"

"Al Gore's Ethanol Epiphany:  He concedes the industry he promoted serves no useful purpose"  The Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572404575634753486416076.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t 

Anyone who opposes ethanol subsidies, as these columns have for decades, comes to appreciate the wisdom of St. Jude. But now that a modern-day patron saint—St. Al of Green—has come out against the fuel made from corn and your tax dollars, maybe this isn't such a lost cause.

Welcome to the college of converts, Mr. Vice President. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

No kidding, and Mr. Gore said he knows from experience: "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President."

Mr. Gore's mea culpa underscores the degree to which ethanol has become a purely political machine: It serves no purpose other than re-electing incumbents and transferring wealth to farm states and ethanol producers. Nothing proves this better than the coincident trajectories of ethanol and Mr. Gore's career.

Continued in article

Farm lobbies in the United States have succeeded in putting  barriers up to importation of sugar cane ethanol from places like Brazil to protect the interest of corn growing agribusiness in the U.S.

 

Jensen Comment
This does not necessarily mean that all ethanol in general is a totally bad idea. Producing sugar cane ethanol seems to have more benefits than cost in Brazil relative to corn ethanol which experts tell us has more cost than benefit. Apparently sugar cane is a better source of ethano,l and Brazil has vast amounts of sugar cane and very little oil in production.

Sugar cane not only has a greater concentration of sucrose than corn (by about 30%), but is also much easier to extract. The bagasse generated by the process is not wasted, but is used in power plants as a surprisingly efficient fuel to produce electricity

. . .

One problem with ethanol is that because it is easily miscible with water, it cannot be efficiently shipped through modern pipelines, like liquid hydrocarbons,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol

Research should proceed full bore ahead to make cheaper and/or better fuels of all types. But even Al Gore admits that the sign our our pumps that reads "10% Ethanol" is all politics and not science.


Makes Me Wonder About Accounting Research Without Accountics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
Will this greatly impact promotion and tenure evaluations of anthropology faculty?


"Anthropology Without Science: A new long-range plan for the American Anthropological Association that omits the word “science” from the organization's vision for its future has exposed fissures in the discipline," by Dan Berrett,  Inside Higher Ed, November 30, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/30/anthroscience 

The plan, adopted by the executive board of the association at its annual meeting two weeks ago, includes "significant changes to the American Anthropological Association mission statement -- it removes all mention of science," Peter N. Peregrine, president of the Society for Anthropological Sciences and professor at Lawrence University, wrote in a widely circulated e-mail to members. The changes to the plan, he continued, "undermine American anthropology."

The Society for Anthropological Sciences, which is a smaller and more recently formed group than the larger, older and broader association, embraces and promotes empirical research. It condemned the move by the century-old, 10,000-member American Anthropological Association, Peregrine wrote.

The move has sparked debate on blogs and among the various sub-specialties of the discipline about the proper place of science in anthropology. Some also say privately that this conflict marks the latest in a running cycle of perceived exclusions among the heterodox discipline. In the past, archaeologists and practicing and professional anthropologists have argued that the discipline as a whole has become dominated by cultural anthropologists, and has grown indifferent to their interests.

More fundamentally, the dispute has brought to light how little common ground is shared by anthropologists who span a wide array of sub-specialties, said Elizabeth Cashdan, chair of anthropology at the University of Utah. For example, some anthropologists might mine the language and analytical tools favored by such humanities as literary criticism, while others may be more likely to deploy statistical methodology as befits social science. Still others might rely on the biological metrics, hard data and scientific method used by natural scientists. "This is reflective of tensions in the whole discipline," said Cashdan, a bio-cultural anthropologist who described herself as "very dismayed" by recent developments.

The association said that the long-range plan's change in language reflected a simple wordsmithing choice more than a true shift in purpose. The removal of any mention of science from the plan's mission statement applies only to the long-range plan -- and not to the organization itself or its larger direction, said Damon Dozier, a spokesman for the association. "We have no interest in taking science out of the discipline," he said. "It’s not as if the anthropology community is turning its back on science."

Dozier added that the alterations to the plan, though already adopted by the executive board of the association, are part of an ongoing dialogue and will be subject to revision. "This isn’t something that’s written in stone," he said. "This long-range plan is something that will be tweaked over time."

Still, the change seemed to resonate uncomfortably with some more scientifically oriented anthropologists, who perceived a broader shift in the discipline that they say began decades ago. "It’s become so dominated by, not so much humanistic scholars, but by scholars who are actively hostile" to science, said Raymond Hames, chair of anthropology at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and a cultural anthropologist who favors a scientific approach.

Hames and Cashdan echoed an argument that was articulated more provocatively in a recent blog post in Psychology Today by Alice Dreger, who holds a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science, and who distinguished between "fluff-head cultural anthropological types who think science is just another way of knowing" and those who pay closer attention to hard data -- and follow that data wherever they lead. To one group, objective truth as revealed by science is an ideal to pursue, while to the other, that notion poses problems because it embodies Westernized and colonial ideals. "Our only strength is that we use the scientific method and try to get things right rather than act as a vocal, emotional do-gooder group who’ll use any argument," said Hames. "We can use science to understand culture."

It is unclear what the reasoning was for the change, and leaders of the executive board of the anthropological association did not respond to requests for comment. Some observers pointed to an opinion that appeared on the blog, Recycled Minds, posted by someone describing himself as a doctoral candidate in applied anthropology at the University of South Florida. The blogger, Dooglas Carl, argued that continuing to use the term "science" in the association's mission statement had become a concern because it maintained "the colonizing, privileging, superior positionality of anthropology that continues to plague the discipline."

In contrast, scrubbing science from the plan's mission statement would allow anthropologists to better incorporate and appreciate the ways of knowing practiced by the people that scholars study and work with closely. "It is well past the time for this to change," wrote Carl. "Do anthropologists still use science? Of course, and science may well offer the most appropriate methodology for many. Still, we must also recognize that there are other means to knowing, exploring, and explaining."

Such arguments found expression at the recent annual meeting of the association, where some anthropologists held themselves to very high ethical standards in dealing with informants and sources; some argued that being an anthropologist, by necessity, meant that one had to advocate on behalf of one's subjects.

Hames did not dispute the need for advocacy, but faulted what he saw as an imbalance in the methods used to pursue that aim. Culturally centered interpretations must be subjected to empirical evaluation, even if doing so exposes anthropologists to charges of disrespecting local customs in favor of the "hegemonic" scientific method, he said. He described a hypothetical field study in which children being studied in a community were found to be dying of dysentery or cholera. "Are we to accept the local explanation that children are dying ... because someone is breaking a taboo and the gods are angry," he said, "or do we look to see how fecal matter is being introduced to the water supply?"

Jensen Comment
One year when I was in a think tank (CASBS) on the Stanford campus, a  well know anthropology scientist described Margret Mead as "an old lady in tennis shoes." Maybe her work will be more respected in the new non-scientific field of anthropology.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Bob Jensen's threads about the absence of interest in validity testing and replication in accounting science ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm


Prestigious U.K. MBA Program Offers Courses on Facebook
"British Business School Offers M.B.A. Courses on Facebook." by Travis Kaya, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 30, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/british-university-offers-m-b-a-courses-on-facebook/28463?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Facebook has changed the way students, faculty members, and administrators communicate outside the classroom. Now, with the introduction of the London School of Business & Finance’s Global MBA Facebook app, Facebook is becoming the classroom.

The Global MBA app—introduced in October—lets users sample typical business-school courses like corporate finance and organizational behavior through the social-networking site. The free course material includes interactive message boards, a note-taking tool, and video lectures and discussions with insiders from industry giants like Accenture Management Consulting and Deloitte. This may be a good way to market a school, notes an observer from a business-school accrediting organization, but it may not be the best way to deliver courses.

Unlike most online business courses, the Global MBA program will not require students to pay an enrollment fee up front. Instead, students can access basic course material free of charge and pay the school only when they are ready to prepare for their exams. School administrators hope that letting students “test drive” the online courses before actually shelling out the tuition money will boost graduation rates.

While the school offers a large collection of study material on Facebook—including 80 hours of Web video—students seeking formal accreditation must qualify for entrance into the M.B.A. program. Once enrolled in the paid course, students are given access to additional content on the business school’s InterActive course management system, and are required to sit for examinations—like they would if they were enrolled in more traditional distance-learning or brick-and-mortar programs. The Facebook MBA program is accredited by the University of Wales and costs a total of £14,500—about $22,000.

Steve Parscale, director of accreditation for the Kansas-based Accreditation Council for Business Schools & Programs, said sample classes offered through social-networking sites could provide great advertising opportunities for online colleges. “The younger generation is all on social media,” Mr. Parscale said. “If you can get them on Facebook to test-drive a class, then you can get them to actually enroll.”

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education training and education alterntives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm


Amazing Monetary Policy 1969-1974:  The Secret Diary of Arthur Burns
"Inside the Nixon Administration: The Secret Diary of Arthur Burns," covers five of the most astounding years in monetary history," by Seth Lipsky, The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704700204575643350150001176.html

In the midst of the current crisis—with the dollar having collapsed to barely more than a 1,400th of the value of an ounce of gold, the United Nations calling for a new world currency and Ben Bernanke becoming a political punching bag for the "quantitative easing" that critics fear will ignite inflation—we now have a book containing the secret diaries of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board during Richard Nixon's presidency, a time of turmoil in currencies and markets and of policies that haunt our economy to this day.

Arthur Burns, the pipe-puffing ex-Columbia professor who served as Fed chairman under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter, turns out to have kept a diary between 1969, shortly before he became the 10th chairman of the Fed, and 1974, when President Nixon resigned. The diary was given by Burns's widow, Helen, to the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and released for publication in 2008. The scoop— "Inside the Nixon Administration: The Secret Diary of Arthur Burns"—is edited by Robert H. Ferrell, a scholar of American history.

The diary covers five of the most astounding years in monetary history. They encompass the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, under which foreign governments could redeem their dollars with our government for gold; the closing of the gold window, ending such convertibility; the imposition of wage-and-price controls, supposedly to stanch inflation; and an import surcharge. They saw the failure of the Smithsonian Agreement, an attempt to stabilize things by devaluing the dollar, and then the beginning of the great inflation, during which the dollar lost much of its value, falling, by early 1980, to less than an 800th of an ounce of gold from the 35th of an ounce it had been set at under Bretton Woods.

Burns's "secret diary" isn't likely to make big headlines in this era of Wikileaks. Nor is it intended to offer a complete or coherent narrative of these events. But for those with an eye on today's monetary debate, it is a little gem of a volume, offering brief, occasionally trenchant, sometimes galling insights, with lots of waspish comments about various figures within and around the White House. These start with the president himself, who, in the early entries, is treated in warm and respectful terms.

When he is still serving as a presidential counselor, just ahead of his Fed appointment, Burns writes of Nixon: "He clearly likes his job. He wants to be a good president, really a president of all the people. I can hardly recall a single partisan utterance." But by the middle of the book he is writing: "The President's preoccupation with the election frightens me. Is there anything he would not do to further his reelection? I am losing faith in him, and my heart is sick and sad."

On members of the administration Burns can be caustic. Henry Kissinger is "admittedly ignorant of economics." John Connally, who for part of the period is Treasury secretary, is "a thoroughly confused politician." George Shultz, who would follow Connally at Treasury, is described as "a no less confused amateur economist," though he rises in Burns's estimation as the years go on.

Not that Burns comes out much better, even in his own view. At one point he writes, in the diary's clipped prose, that he is "the only one there with any knowledge of the subject, but even I not a real expert on some aspects of the intricate international problem!" So it turned out. He seems throughout his own diary to grasp that inflation is not the way out of America's underperforming economy but to be unable—even as chairman of the Fed—to put his foot down.

At the time there were observers outside the White House—not least Henry Hazlitt, a New York Times editorial writer in the 1940s—who had warned from the beginning that Bretton Woods as a system was inherently inflationary and, not to put too fine a point on it, doomed. "Inside the Nixon Administration" gives the impression that, when it came to monetary policy, Nixon, Shultz, Connally and Burns himself were but corks on the water, carried along by economic forces larger than themselves.

If Burns's diary is a guide, none of these figures thought about money in terms of the Constitution. There is no reference here to the fact that the Founders thought of the dollar as a fixed amount of silver or its free-market equivalent in gold. Nixon and Burns let go of the American currency in a series of small decisions. At one point the chairman of the Federal Reserve writes that he would be for a price freeze—"but only for 30 days."

Burns comes off as relatively conservative figure, but also weak. "My efforts to prevent the closing of the gold window—working with Connally, [Paul] Volcker, and Shultz—do not seem to have succeeded," he writes on Aug. 12, 1971, three days before the event. "The gold window may have to be closed tomorrow because we now have a government that seems incapable, not only of constructive leadership, but of any action at all. What a tragedy for mankind!"

So here were are now in a new crisis, with a different chairman at the Fed, preparing to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy as part of a desperate effort to boost demand and keep the economy from going back into recession. One wonders whether Ben Bernanke is keeping his own "secret diary." Burns's was kept in two spiral notebooks, one of which, this volume tells us, cost 49 cents. Today similar notebooks are listed at Staples.com at $5.49. They are similar, at the moment, to the Federal Reserve's one-dollar bills—worth but slightly more than the paper they're printed on.


This tidbit was inspired by a November 20, 2010 WSJ article (about engineering faculty supply and demand and tenure) that is quoted near the bottom of the tidbit.
It shows why some engineering faculty prefer non-tenure tracks to tenure tracks 

I apologize for so often repeating my sermons about the sad state of accounting doctoral programs.

Question
If engineering is such a tough discipline, why do they have hundreds of PhD applicants for even non-tenure track positions in colleges when accounting programs in major universities get less than ten PhD applicants for tenure-track positions and many universities cannot get a single applicant?

Answer
It's obviously a matter of supply and demand. There are around 140 new accounting PhDs annually in the U.S. facing over 1,000-tenure track openings --- http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf
Studies show increasing shortages of supply as baby boomer accounting professors commence to retire in greater numbers. Universities that cannot get enough suitable tenure-track assistant professor applicants are now filling teaching needs with professionally qualified non-doctoral adjunct instructors. This, however, detracts from the accounting research missions of major universities.

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 new engineering PhDs annually in the U.S. ---
http://engtrends.com/IEE/1006D.php
This number is higher for engineering than for accounting largely because, unlike in accounting, there's heavy demand for engineering PhDs seeking non-academic careers. In the U.K. there is even a distinction between academic/research versus professional engineering doctorates ---
http://www.professionaldoctorates.com/explained.asp 

Whereas new accounting PhDs are getting tenure-track offers in academe for well over $100,000 and in some cases closer to $200,000 in top U.S. universities, the lower starting salaries of engineering assistant professors is a reflection that shortage is much less of a problem in engineering academe than in accounting academe ---
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Doctorate_(PhD)%2c_Engineering/Salary

Why is there a much greater shortage of accounting doctoral graduates than engineering doctoral graduates?
This is a very complicated question with no definitive answers. One reason is that, when there were twice as many accounting doctoral graduates annually before 1990, there were some very large "mills" like the University of Texas and the University of Illinois each graduating 10-20 accounting PhDs per year that are now producing less than five each per year. Some universities like Rice dropped their doctoral programs completely. Whereas some very large engineering programs like Purdue University produce hundreds of engineering PhDs per year, Purdue now averages graduating less than one accounting PhD per year --- http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf

One reason for the shortage of accounting faculty commences clear back with high school counselors who encourage high school graduates to seek "exciting" engineering careers and discourage "dull" accounting careers by portraying accounting work as clerical drudgery. Hence first year demand to major in engineering is very heavy relative to very low, almost non-existent, first year demand to major in accounting. Demand picks up a bit on campus after word-of-mouth broadcasts that accounting graduates are getting some of the best jobs among all majors in the university except, perhaps, graduates of the medical school.

Probably the main reason for so few accounting PhD graduates per year, however, is the length of time it takes to finally earn a PhD or DBA in accounting. An engineer can earn a PhD in about 7-8 years beyond a K-12 education. In accounting it's more like 10-12 years beyond K-12. The typical accounting major now is required to have 5-6 years of college with a major in accounting just to sit for the CPA examination. Most earn professional masters degrees. Then accounting doctoral programs want applicants to have 1-5 years of industry experience. When accounting doctoral program applicants with graying hair are finally admitted to accounting doctoral programs they face another five years or more on average of full-time, on-campus study and research. There are no respectable online accounting doctoral programs. The good news is that onsite accounting doctoral programs are virtually free from major universities that often pay living support stipends as well. However, for accounting doctoral students who by now have young children to support, it can be a financial and academic struggle that discourages them from enrolling in doctoral programs at such advanced stages of their lives.

Running a close second to discouraging accounting doctoral program applicants is the "accountics" nature of virtually all North American accounting doctoral programs. Accountants were educated to pass the CPA or CA examinations in North America. They afterwards worked in their professions. But the accounting doctoral programs have virtually no professional accounting courses. The accounting doctoral courses are in advanced mathematics, statistics, econometrics, and psychometrics for which most doctoral applicants have little interest in after being professional accountants. This is a really huge impediment to attracting applicants to accounting doctoral programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

Lastly, but certainly not leastly, is that the "old" prospects for admission to accounting programs at relatively advanced stages in their lives have heard horror stories about what it takes to earn tenure in universities. Some of the horror tales are probably exaggerated, but assistant accounting professors will all discover that teaching performance is less important for tenure than research and publication. And publish or parish research is not mere scholarship. Researchers must contribute to new knowledge and then publish papers in accounting research journals that reject over 80%-90% of submissions. But they probably have not heard about the games assistant accounting professors play to obtain tenure:

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)

 

"How to Succeed in Teaching Without Lifetime Tenure:  The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering attracts 140 applicants for every faculty position. And they can even be fired," by Naomi Schaefer Riley, The Wall Street Journal, November 20,2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575548320163094444.html

When Richard Miller told his colleagues that he was leaving his tenured position as dean of the University of Iowa's engineering school, a number of them asked if he was smoking dope. Mr. Miller was stepping down to become the first president of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts—and Olin, which opened its doors 10 years ago, does not offer tenure to its faculty.

"Don't you realize that if you go there you'll never work in higher education again?" Mr. Miller recalls his friends asking. "They'll think you turned in your union card—that you don't care about the core values of academic freedom." Mr. Miller, a jovial man who now presides over a campus of 350 students in this suburb west of Boston, says he didn't care. Having tenure is like being placed in "golden handcuffs," he told me. "There are more important things than permanent employment"—like offering students a fulfilling education.

One wishes that other academics shared his opinion. In the meantime, Olin is showing what's possible when a school sheds tenure, one of the most antiquated and counterproductive employment policies in the American economy. Instituted at a time when people in most professions remained in the same job for life, tenure today is an economic anomaly. The policy protects laziness and incompetence—and rewards often obscure research rather than good teaching.

F.W. Olin was an engineer and industrialist who amassed a fortune from a variety of manufacturing enterprises in the early 20th century. In 1938, he transferred much of his wealth to a foundation that bore his name, and, for the next 50 years or so, the foundation supported higher education on more than 50 campuses across the country.

But by the 1990s, the trustees were frustrated with their inability to promote change—particularly in the field of engineering. Engineering, a commission of the National Science Foundation concluded a number of years ago, had become too specialized and wasn't giving young engineers the skills to compete globally.

Little came of the commission's work. And so the Olin board of trustees decided to start over. Along with a $200 million founding gift, the trustees laid out their idea for a college, which included creating a "culture of innovation" and thus deciding not to offer faculty tenure.

This creative culture is apparent to any campus visitor. Unlike students in most engineering programs, who spend their first three years taking physics and math before they work on designing an actual structure, Olin students begin to design things on the first day. I watched as one professor gave his mechanical engineering students instructions to build a bridge spanning two tables. They would be judged on how much weight it could bear, its aesthetic appeal and its cost efficiency.

Olin students—a significant number of whom turn down more prestigious schools like MIT, Stanford and Berkeley partly because of Olin's significantly lower tuition—take a variety of liberal arts courses as part of their general curriculum, as well as courses at Babson College, a business school adjacent to their own. During senior year, they work with a local company as consultants for an engineering project.

Some have worked on products like a photovoltaic system to power greenhouses. Others have helped develop advanced robotic devices and medical instruments that will result in less invasive surgeries. Their school is ranked 8th in undergraduate engineering by U.S. News and World Report.

Mr. Miller says that promoting a culture of entrepreneurship has been especially important. Like entrepreneurs, "engineers are people who envision things that have never been and do whatever it takes to make them happen," he says.

Olin's trustees put some structures in place to keep that entrepreneurial culture strong. In addition to the lack of tenure, the entire curriculum must be re-evaluated every seven years. There are no formal departments.

Students are also engaged in a constant process of evaluating their education: They are asked for extensive feedback about each course, and alumni are surveyed routinely. When I asked senior Theresa Edmonds how these policies affect her education, she said her professors are very "responsive" to the concerns of students.

Though Olin doesn't offer lifetime employment, the school's vision has been appealing enough to attract an average of 140 applicants for every faculty position. In all but three cases, Olin got its top choice to fill each teaching slot.

Mark Somerville left a tenure-track position in the physics department at Vassar to teach at Olin. "It was not a hard decision to make," he says. Mr. Somerville says he has found that the lack of tenure has changed his teaching and research interests for the better.

"When one is on the tenure track," he says, "the clock is ticking. There is a certain day on which you will have to produce a stack of papers." He's no longer worried about publishing a certain amount by a particular date. Instead, he's free to pursue research he finds interesting—something Mr. Somerville says has been "liberating."

The passion of the Olin faculty and students is unmistakable. Mr. Miller calls them "a community of zealots"—not exactly what you expect from a bunch of engineers. But then giving up tenure seems to do some strange things to people.

Ms. Riley is a former Wall Street Journal editor. Her book, "The Faculty Lounges . . . And Other Reasons That You Won't Get the College Education You Pay For" is forthcoming from Rowman and Littlefield.

November 20, 2010 reply on the AAA Commons from Amelia A. Baldwin

Bob says:

Why is there a much greater shortage of accounting doctoral graduates than engineering doctoral graduates? This is a very complicated question with no definitive answers. One reason is that, when there were twice as many accounting doctoral graduates annually before 1990, there were some very large "mills" like the University of Texas and the University of Illinois each graduating 10-20 accounting PhDs per year that are now producing less than five each per year. Some universities like Rice dropped their doctoral programs completely. Whereas some very large engineering programs like Purdue University produce hundreds of engineering PhDs per year, Purdue now averages graduating less than one accounting PhD per year --- http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf

In fact, the vast majority of established programs have all shrunk significantly in the past 20 years. In that period, the only growth in program size has been in new programs. Unfortunately, only a handful of new programs have been created in recent years (UTSA, Jackson State, etc.) and they are small. A few programs have even disappeared off the radar.

I don't know if this is only because programs are not getting enough applicants or if it is only because programs are not accepting enough applicants, or some combination of the two (more likely) but it is a disturbing and now established trend. See the related table illustrating the few growing programs versus the many shrinking programs in:

Baldwin, A. A., C. E. Brown and B. S. Trinkle. 2010. Accounting Doctoral Program Demographics. Advances in Accounting Education 11, 101-128.

Or, the article that originated the presentation that started this thread:

Baldwin, A. A. and C. E. Brown. 2011. An Analysis of the Accounting Doctoral Industry: Observations and Unanswered Questions, Advances in Business Research, forthcoming.

Both chronicle the shrinkage factor (the first only as one of many factors and the second in a more comprehensive and visual way). We should all be disturbed by the trends and looking for solutions.

Is hiring accounting faculty difficult now? ...especially for non-doctoral granting departments? Wait a few years, it's only going to get worse.

November 20, 2010 reply from Jagdish Gangolly

Bob,

I agree with most of your points in the message below. However,

1. Professional doctorates exist even in the US. In engineering, there is Dr. Ing or D. Eng. Some (such as Texas A&M and Berkeley offer them, but as academic degrees.

In business, I guess DBA was supposed to be our equivalent of a Dr. Ing, but it never caught on, and most have reverted to a PhD.

2. Unlike in accounting, an engineering PhD is not expected to walk on water immediately on graduation. Many who want an academic career do post docs for a few years. Such post doc positions prepare them for research far better than straight teaching as in accounting. That may be the reason for a culture of excellence that exists there.

Also, there are dozens of industrial research labs that value PhDs in engineering as well as science. Our neighbours, GE Global Research at Schenectady and IBM Watson Research at Hawthorne and Yorktown Heights employ hundreds of PhDs in those fields, mostly from wellknown universities.

This is in contrast to the lack of PhDs in the accounting firms in research, and many of the PhDs there are in practice rather than research.

3. PhD programs in engineering and science emphasise methodology, tools, techniques, and most importantly protocols which reflect best practices. Most accounting PhD programs, on the other hand do not provide the students the tools and techniques, and protocols. This is reflected, for example, in the neanderthal statistical techniques used that mimic past work in related areas.

I do have suggestions for improving the quality of the program, but they are likely to be perceived as subversive. Also, in my humble opinion, the only test of the quality will be the high regard that the practice holds accounting PhDs. Until then, we will be plodding along to meet the job quotas dictated by mass low quality relatively skill-free education.

 Jagdish Gangolly (gangolly@albany.edu )
Department of Informatics College of Computing & Information
State University of New York at Albany
7A, Harriman Campus Road, Suite 220 Albany, NY 12206
Phone: (518) 956-8251, Fax: (518) 956-8247


Questions
Did auditing firms not warn that banks were failing "going concern" auditing rules based upon ill-advised speculation that governments would bail out failing banks?

Did auditors not object to greatly underestimated loan loss reserves  based upon speculation that governments would bail out failing banks?

Since well over a thousand banks failed in the U.S. immediately following the subprime scandal., this was not a very good alleged speculation on the part of CPA firm auditors..

"Big 4 Bombshell: “We Didn’t Fail Banks Because They Were Getting A Bailout,” by Francine McKenna, re:TheAuditors, November 28, 2010 ---
http://retheauditors.com/2010/11/28/big-4-bombshell-we-didnt-fail-banks-because-they-were-getting-a-bailout/

Leaders of the four largest global accounting firms – Ian Powell, chairman of PwC UK, John Connolly, Senior Partner and Chief Executive of Deloitte’s UK firm and Global MD of its international firmJohn Griffith-Jones, Chairman of KPMG’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region and Chairman of KPMG UK, and Scott Halliday, UK & Ireland Managing Partner for Ernst & Young – appeared before the UK’s House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee yesterday to discuss competition and their role in the financial crisis.

The discussion moved past the topic of competition when the same old recommendations were raised and the same old excuses for the status quo were given.

Reuters, November 23, 2010The House of Lords committee was taking evidence on concentration in the auditing market and the role of auditors.

Nearly all the world’s blue chip companies are audited by the Big Four, creating concerns among policymakers of growing systemic risks, particularly if one of them fails.

“I don’t see that is on the horizon at all,” Connolly said.

The European Union’s executive European Commission has also opened a public consultation into ways to boost competition in the sector, such as by having smaller firms working jointly with one of the Big Four so there is a “substitute on the bench.”

“Having a single auditor results in the best communication with the board and with management and results in the highest quality audit,” said Scott Halliday, an E&Y managing partner.

The Lord’s Committee was more interested in questioning the auditors about the issue of “going concern” opinions and, in particular, why there were none for the banks that failed, were bailed out, or were nationalized.

The answer the Lord’s received was, in one word, “Astonishing!”

Accountancy Age, November 23, 2010: Debate focused on the use of “going concern” guidance, issued by auditors if they believe a company will survive the next year. Auditors said they did not change their going concern guidance because they were told the government would bail out the banks.

“Going concern [means] that a business can pay its debts as they fall due. You meant something thing quite different, you meant that the government would dip into its pockets and give the company money and then it can pay it debts and you gave an unqualified report on that basis,” Lipsey said.

Lord Lawson said there was a “threat to solvency” for UK banks which was not reflected in the auditors’ reports.

“I find that absolutely astonishing, absolutely astonishing. It seems to me that you are saying that you noticed they were on very thin ice but you were completely relaxed about it because you knew there would be support, in other words, the taxpayer would support them,” he said.

The leadership of the Big 4 audit firms in the UK has admitted that they did not issue “going concern” opinions because they were told by government officials, confidentially, that the banks would be bailed out.

The Herald of Scotland, November 24, 2010: John Connolly, chief executive of Deloitte auditor to Royal Bank of Scotland, said the UK’s big four accountancy firms initiated “detailed discussions” with then City minister Lord Paul Myners in late 2008 soon after the collapse of Lehman Brothers prompted money markets to gum up.

Ian Powell, chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, said there had been talks the previous year.

Debate centred on whether the banks’ accounts could be signed off as “going concerns”. All banks got a clean bill of health even though they ended up needing vast amounts of taxpayer support.

Mr. Connolly said: “In the circumstances we were in, it was recognised that the banks would only be ‘going concerns’ if there was support forthcoming.”

“The consequences of reaching the conclusion that a bank was actually going to go belly up were huge.”  John Connolly, Deloitte

He said that the firms held meetings in December 2008 and January 2009 with Lord Myners, a former director of NatWest who was appointed Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury in October 2008.

I’ve asked the question many times why there were no “going concern” opinions for the banks and other institutions that were bailed out, failed or essentially nationalized here in the US.  I’ve never received a good answer until now.  In fact, I had the impression the auditors were not there.  There has been no mention of their presence or their role in any accounts of the crisis.  There has been no similar admission that meetings in took place between the auditors and the Federal Reserve or the Treasury leading to Lehman’s failure and afterwards. No one has asked them.

How could I been so naive?

If it happened in the UK, why not in the US?

Does Andrew Ross Sorkin have any notes about this that didn’t make it to his book?

Will Ted Kaufman call the auditors to account now that he is Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel?

Is there still time to call the four US leaders to testify in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission?

What is the recourse for shareholders and other stakeholders who lost everything if the government was the one who prevented them from hearing any warning?

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's questions on "Where Were the Auditors?" ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#AuditFirms


Historically Black Colleges and Universities --- http://www.college-scholarships.com/historically_black_colleges_universities.htm
Online Degree Alternatives (does not include some of the newer black college alternatives and strangely excludes some of the bigger alternatives such as the University of Wisconsin System, the University of Maryland System, and ) --- http://www.college-scholarships.com/ssac.htm

"Black Colleges Are Slowly Adding Online Degrees," by Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 23, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/black-colleges-slowly-adding-online-degrees/28385?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

 

Jensen Comment
Currently 19 out of 105 historically black colleges and universities have selected online degree programs.

In my search of a sampling of the historically black college and university distance education degree alternatives, I could not find any accounting degree programs available online.

Bob Jensen's threads on distance training and education alternatives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/CrossBorder.htm


Don't MessWith the IRS or da Judge
You Realize We Will Be Without Wesley Snipes for Three Years, Don’t You? --- Click Here
http://goingconcern.com/2010/11/you-realize-we-will-be-without-wesley-snipes-for-three-years-dont-you/

Is this just because he did not read Bob Jensen's tax helpers?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation


Question
Have you experienced the heartbreak of psoriasis or loss of a thumb drive just before a presentation?

"Hate PowerPoint? Here Are 5 Web-based Alternatives," Read/Write Blog, November 27, 2010 ---
http://www.readwriteweb.com/biz/2010/11/hate-powerpoint-here-are-5-web-based-alternatives.php

Bob Jensen's threads on PowerPoint
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#PowerPointHelpers


"Video: Trapped (A Must See!)," by Nadine Sabai, Sleight of Hand Blog, November 29, 2010 ---
http://sleightfraud.blogspot.com/2010/11/video-trapped-must-see.html

Summary (Via Cato Institute):

Trapped: When Acting Ethically Is against the Law featuring John Hasnas, a Professor of Law and Ethics at Georgetown University Business School and with comments by Alice Fisher, Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Law Division at the Department of Justice.

Since Enron's collapse in 2002, the federal government has stepped up its campaign against white-collar crime. In "Trapped: When Acting Ethically Is against the Law", John Hasnas compellingly illustrates how the campaign against corporate fraud has gone overboard. Hasnas debunks the common assumption that the law only mandates ethical behavior. That may have been true 20 years ago, but no longer. Hasnas points out that business executives have responsibilities to their stockholders, employees, customers, and suppliers. And in addition to their contractual obligations, CEOs have ordinary ethical obligations as human beings to honor their informal commitments. Those ethical complexities are rarely acknowledged by contemporary federal policies that demand compliance with myriad rules and regulations. The result is increasingly a Catch-22 situation in which businesspeople must act either unethically or illegally.

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


"GMAT Cheaters Beware As B-school hopefuls prepare for the GMAT, the test's sponsor warns about the monumental risks, and the minuscule benefits, of cheating," by Lawrence M. Rudner, Business Week, November 22, 2010 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/nov2010/bs20101112_437248.htm?link_position=link15 

In 2008, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which publishes the GMAT, shut down a website allowing prospective test takers to access "live" test questions—in effect, it was a "sneak peek" at the test. When the smoke cleared, 84 test takers who used the site had their test scores voided and their business schools notified.

Aside from moral objections to accessing standardized test questions in advance, the risks far outweigh any possible benefits.

As the admission testing season swings into high gear, the first place many students will turn to is the Internet, where they will find that an entire industry has evolved to offer test preparation services. These sites offer information about specific tests, advice on how to prepare, discussions of testing experiences, presentations of success stories, access to practice questions, and more. Most of this information is available free, and most of these sites are legitimate.

For a fee, however, some sites offer subscriptions for access to "special" test questions. A typical testimonial might say, "I saw four of the special questions and did real well on the test." Subscribers are encouraged to return after they take the exam to post questions they saw.

Only a tiny fraction of test-takers take the bait, and they foolishly—and permanently—jeopardize their reputations and careers. Accessing live test questions in advance, like having someone take the test for you, is cheating. Other than the obvious reasons not to cheat, all test takers should understand the potential risks and rewards.

Extensive Damage

The immediate risks are having your score canceled and being banned from testing. If you are already in school, you could be thrown out. If you're on a student visa, you may have to leave the country in disgrace. If you have graduated, your degree could be revoked. What's more, any of these things could happen at any time—months or even years after the test is taken.

GMAC and other major testing companies routinely cancel scores when they suspect an irregularity in the behavior of the test taker. They recognize their obligation to the hundreds of thousands of honest examinees who take the tests each year, and so have the courts. Test publishers need only a good-faith reason to question the validity of a test score to follow through with a cancellation or other action. GMAC, for one, identifies the reason for a score cancellation on GMAT score reports sent to schools.

If you can find a website offering "special questions," so can the test sponsor. Chances are, the test sponsor is already monitoring that website. Testing companies work with the FBI, eBay, PayPal, the courts, and others to protect the quality of their tests and access to live test questions that are currently in use on the exam.

GMAC has gotten numerous websites to voluntarily remove "special questions" and has persisted when website operators have refused. In the highest-profile case so far, GMAC won a default judgment against the operator of Scoretop.com in 2008. When caught, the owner of that website fled the country. GMAC, in fairness to all honest GMAT test takers, was able to examine the tests taken by all the subscribers. Scores were canceled and schools notified.

Too Little Payoff

While the risk is great, what are the potential benefits? In analyzing the Scoretop data, GMAC found that actual rewards were slight, if nonexistent, for most people. Many of the testimonials were fiction, written by the owner of the website. The collections of "special questions" included very few live questions. The GMAT is a "computer adaptive" test, which selects questions for each test taker based on his or her performance on previous questions. Realistically, on a computer adaptive test with a large question bank like the GMAT exam, the chance of actually seeing a posted question on test day is extremely low. The chances of seeing a given posted question you would have gotten wrong are even lower.

The rewards offered by illegitimate companies on the Internet may seem attractive, but they are obviously overblown. Testing companies are committed to ensuring their exams provide a fair measure of every test taker's abilities. The smart consumer will consider the source when reading testimonials touting an unfair advantage. The risks involved are very real—and quite permanent.

Lawrence M. Rudner, PhD, MBA, is vice-president for research and development at the Graduate Management Admission Council, sponsors of the Graduate Management Admission Test.

Jensen Comment
I don't agree that the rewards are minimal for those cheaters who receive such a high GMAT score that they are admitted to one of the top five business schools of North America for MBA or doctoral studies.

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm


Questions
Do College Rankings Matter?
Should College Rankings Matter?

Existing tools and measurements could allow colleges to develop meaningful rankings to replace widely discredited rankings developed by magazines, according to a report being released today by Education Sector, a think tank. The report repeats criticisms that have been made of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, saying that they are largely based on fame, wealth and exclusivity. A new system might use data from the National Survey of Student Engagement and the Collegiate Learning Assessment as well as considering new approaches to graduation rates and retention, the report says. Current rankings reward colleges that enroll highly prepared, wealthy students who are most likely to graduate on time. But a system that compared predicted and actual retention and graduation rates — based on socioeconomic and other data — would give high marks to colleges with great track records on educating disadvantaged students, even if those rates were lower than those of some colleges that focus only on top students.
Inside Higher Ed, September 22, 2006

Bob Jensen's threads on misleading rankings of accounting education programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryRankings.htm

When person is unfamiliar with details of a school that they are to evaluate, the elitist reputation of the university as a whole, in my viewpoint, dominates the evaluation of the business school. For example, Princeton University does not have a business school. If Princeton started up a business school, before evaluators knew a single thing about that business school they would probably rate it in the Top 20 simply because it is la la Princeton. The same thing would never happen if one of the various St. Cecelia institutions started up a business school. They aren't sufficiently la la la in terms of international prestige of their universities as a whole.

I do know these rankings are important to some schools for some purposes. Seattle University undergraduate business school comes in at Business Week's Rank 46 in the West region, It's probably a big deal for Seattle University to be ranked so far ahead of the University of Utah coming in at Rank 109. And Seattle University is not all that far down from cross town "rival" --- that immense research University of Washington that came in at Rank 33. Can these two business schools even be compared meaningfully? Yeah I know they can be compared on some basis, but I don't think there's any use for comparing Rank 33 with Rank 46 among the hundreds of schools being ranked by Business Week.

And its probably an embarrassment for the University of Utah that will probably not mention its Rank 109 on its Website. The business school at Utah might've mentioned it if it had made the Top 20. Sigh!

It's probably an embarrassment for Southern Methodist to fall from grace according to Business Week graduate business rankings? But its fall from grace in football is probably more of an embarrassment to alumni of SMU.

  • "Rising Up Against Rankings," by Indira Samarasekera, Inside Higher Ed, April 2, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/04/02/samarasekera 
  • Business Week's Business 2010 School Rankings of Undergraduate Business School Programs --- Click Here
    http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/index.html?chan=bschools_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010

    There are also rankings by region

    Top Global Business Schools ---Click Here
     http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/nov2010/bs2010119_517831.htm?chan=bschools_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010

    Top Graduate Business Programs --- Click Here
    http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/rankings_history_us_10.html?chan=bschools_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010

     

     

    The methodology behind Bloomberg Business Week's rankings of the world's best business schools --- Click Here
    http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/nov2010/bs2010111_640958.htm?chan=bschools_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010_special+report+--+best+b-schools+2010

    To begin the ranking process, we sent a 50-question survey to 17,941 MBA graduates from the Class of 2010 at 101 schools in North America, Europe, and Asia. We received 9,827 responses for a response rate of 55 percent. In 2008, Harvard Business School (Harvard Full-Time MBA Profile) and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (Wharton Full-Time MBA Profile) declined to provide student contact information for our survey; this year all 101 schools helped us contact grads, either by supplying e-mail addresses or distributing the survey invitations to students on our behalf.

    The Web-based survey asks graduates to rate their programs according to teaching quality, the effectiveness of career services, and other aspects of their b-school experience, using a scale of 1 to 10. The Class of 2010 survey results count for 50 percent of each school's total student satisfaction score. Our 2008 survey, which polled 16,704 graduates, and our 2006 survey, which polled 16,565, each count for an additional 25 percent. Using six years' worth of survey data encompassing 26,389 individual responses effectively ensures that short-term issues, problems, and improvements won't skew results.

    Next we asked David M. Rindskopf and Alan L. Gross, professors of educational psychology at City University of New York Graduate Center, to analyze the data. The idea was to ensure that the results were not marred by any attempts to influence student responses or otherwise affect the outcome. The professors tested the responses to verify the data's credibility and to guarantee the poll's integrity.

    The second stage of the ranking process involves a survey of corporate MBA recruiters. This year we surveyed 514 recruiters and received 215 responses, for a response rate of 42 percent.

    Recruiters were asked to rate the top 20 schools according to the perceived quality of grads and their company's experience with MBAs past and present. Companies could rate only schools at which they have actively recruited in recent years, on- or off-campus. With the survey completed, we first calculated each school's point total, awarding 20 points for every No. 1 ranking, 19 points for every No. 2 ranking, and so on. Using each school's point total—along with information on the schools where each recruiter hires and the number of MBAs it hires—we calculate a recruiter score. The 2010 score was then combined with scores from the 2008 and 2006 recruiter surveys, totaling 680 responses. (The 2010 survey contributes 50 percent, while the 2008 and 2006 polls each contribute 25 percent.)

    At this stage, 26 schools with poor response rates on one or both 2010 surveys were eliminated from ranking consideration, leaving 75 schools eligible to be ranked.

    Continued in article

    Jensen Comment
    The top business school media ranking outfits are US News, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Business Week. Business Week used to use alumni.  It tends to be a bit more of a combination approach using alumni and recruiters.

    US News rankings are based upon surveys of business school deans who tend to favor research reputations in such schools as Stanford, Chicago, UC Berkeley, Wharton, MIT, Harvard, etc. The WSJ surveys recruiters who hire MBA graduates. Recruiters are often looking for "best buys" in terms of quality at less price which, at least before the demise of Wall Street investment banks, tended to favor Dartmouth's Tuck School over outrageously high priced Harvard and Wharton graduates.

    "The Rankings, Rejiggered," by Eric Hoover , Chronicle of Higher Education, August 17, 2010 ---
    http://chronicle.com/blogPost/The-Rankings-Rejiggered/26253/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

    The most glaring weakness in all of these media rankings is that the people providing inputs to these rankings have such variable knowledge of all the schools being ranked. They are most familiar with the schools they attended, the schools where they visit on recruiting trips, and in the case of deans the schools where they are employed.

    When person is unfamiliar with details of a school that they are to evaluate, the elitist reputation of the university as a whole, in my viewpoint, dominates the evaluation of the business school. For example, Princeton University does not have a business school. If Princeton started up a business school, before evaluators knew a single thing about that business school they would probably rate it in the Top 20 simply because it is la la Princeton. The same thing would never happen if one of the various St. Cecelia's institutions started up a business school. They aren't sufficiently la la la in terms of traditional prestige.

    There is also a certain amount of tradition that keeps some schools ahead of the pack. For example, Babson (Rank 17 undergraduate) has always ranked ahead of Bentley and will probably continue to do so even though I personally think Bentley should move ahead of its cross town rival Babson.

    There was a time when one professor could make or break the reputation of a program such as back in the 1950s when having accounting research professor Carl Nelson on the faculty of the University of Minnesota made the Gofer's accounting PhD program Golden. Minnesota never attained such prominence among the top accounting doctoral programs since the days of Carl Nelson (who by the way like Ohio State's Tom Burns was more of a research leader than a research publisher) --- http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf

    And thus I return to sleep not caring two hoots about how business schools get ranked basically on the basis of either how they ranked the last time or the prestige image of their host universities as a whole.

    Bob Jensen's threads on misleading rankings of accounting education programs ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryRankings.htm

    Bob Jensen's threads on ranking controversies in general ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings


    Watch the Video
    "Video: Garry Kasparov @ Google," Simoleon Sense, November 25, 2010 ---
    http://www.simoleonsense.com/video-garry-kasparov-google/

    Garry Kasparov was the highest-rated chess player in the world for over twenty years and is widely considered the greatest chess player that ever lived. On Thursday, 10th March, 2005 Kasparov announced his retirement from competitive chess. He remains the highest-rated player in the history of the game and the only true icon in a sport with over 100 million players. He was the first player to break through the “four minute mile” of chess, a rating over 2800. He remains the only player who topped the 2850 mark. His 2851 ELO rating is still an all-time record.

    Today this master of strategy applies the insights and unique perspective from his extraordinary chess career to the issues of leadership, logical thinking, strategic thinking, and success on the speakers’ circuit and to Russian politics.

    Known as an extremely intuitive chess player, Kasparov emphasizes intuition’s role in reaching one’s full potential as an individual and achieving superior performance as the leader of a group or organization. His contests with the super-computer “Deep Blue” were worldwide headline news and he was at the forefront of innovation in chess for over twenty years. He was at the cutting-edge of research and the battles between humans and computers as far back as 1989.

    Bob Jensen's threads on metacognition ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm


    I received the message below from a professor friend. I'm still working on finding the answer and perhaps somebody on the AECM can lend a hand.

    In the process of starting to search for an answer, I stumbled upon a great Website and blog maintained by a finance professor. That site did not have the answer to the Excel question below, but it is a great, great site for students seeking help with finance functions in Excel. You might pass the two links below to your students:

    TVMCalc.com --- http://www.tvmcalcs.com/
    In particular note the Bond Yield Calculations .

    Excel Blog --- http://www.tvmcalcs.com/blog/ 

    *******************

    November 20, 2010 message from Chris Deeley

    Hi Bob,

    Thank you very much for your email. Please don’t go to any trouble to dig up old adaptive factor analysis and multi-dimensional scaling material on my account. I now realize I’m working at a much more basic level using fairly simple analytical tools.

    However, there is one thing that you may be able to help me with. This concerns Microsoft’s Excel YIELD function, which uses 100 iterations of Newton’s Method. What I would like to know is how does that function arrive at a starting-point? No information on this aspect is provided by Microsoft (or, if it is, I haven’t been able to find it). The point of my inquiry is that I have devised a more efficient way of determining a coupon bond’s yield than Newton’s Method. But I can’t demonstrate this without using the same starting-point as Microsoft. Any help you give me to obtain this information would be much appreciated and duly acknowledged. I could also provide you with details of my method if it’s of any interest.

    Kindest regards,

    Chris

    Chris Deeley
    Senior Lecturer in Accounting& Finance School of Accounting,
    Faculty of Business Charles Sturt University,
    Locked Mail Bag 588Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678Ph:
    +612 69332694 Fax: +612 69332790

    Email: cdeeley@csu.edu.au
    Web: www.csu.edu.au

    November 21, 2010 message from Bob Jensen to Tim Mayes

    Hi Tim,

    I stumbled onto your Excel helper page and discovered that you and I share a lot in common. I'm a retired accounting professor (named American Accounting Association's Outstanding Educator in 2002)and provide a massive amount of helper material at my Website --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ 

    This morning I received a request for help (on Bond Yield interations) from a professor in Australia, and perhaps you can help me answer the following. You can send the answer directly to him (with a copy to me) or you can send it to me and I will forward it to Chris. 

    Bob Jensen

    November 20, 2010 reply from Timothy R. Mayes

    Bob and Chris,

    Unfortunately, after a great deal of searching, I can't seem to find anything of value. I haven't even seen anything that definitively says that they are using Newton's method, though I assume that they are (they must be). I'll ask John Walkenbach and a couple of Excel MVPs that I "know" and see if they know who I could contact to get a definitive answer.

    I ran across several links to Chris' paper (“Superseding Newton with a superior bond yield algorithm”), but I haven't been able to access it. The SSRN site isn't responding for for me at the moment. So, Chris, if you could send me a copy I would be very interested in seeing it.

    In fact, if you don't have a publication outlet for the paper I would ask that you take a look at the new online refereed journal that I, and a few others, created last year:

    http://www.afmet-online.org/ 

    We are currently trying to publish once per year until we can attract enough attention to get more submissions.

    Tim

    Timothy R. Mayes, Ph.D.
    Professor of Finance
    Metropolitan State College of Denver

    http://www.tvmcalcs.com 
    Free financial calculator, Excel and time value of money tutorials.

    My Excel Blog: http://www.tvmcalcs.com/blog/ 

    http://www.facebook.com/mayest

    November 21, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen

    Wow! What a quick response on a Sunday no less.

    May I post your response in two of my blogs?
    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

    One of my AECM buddies responded as follows in an interesting reply that, nevertheless, did not really answer the Excel starting point question.

    Bob,

    The following webpage explains the method graphicallyvery well.
    http://www.instructables.com/id/Spreadsheet-Calculus-Newtons-method/


    So long as the function is "well-behaved" (satisfies the hypothesis of the Banach
    fixed point theorem), the algorithm should converge to the yield very quickly.
    Netwon's method is an example of the application of fixed point iteration.
    A very good page for this, as usual is the wikipedia entry at:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_iteration

    Hope the above helps.
    Jagdish


    The Absolutely Best Education Technology News of 2010
    At one point, Blackboard really wanted royalties from every distance education in the world
    "Blackboard Drops Appeals on Software Patent," by Josh Keller, Chronicle of Higher Education,  November 30, 2010, 6:43 pm

    Blackboard Inc.’s protracted legal fight to retain the software patent it used to successfully sue course-management rival Desire2Learn is over. It lost.

    Patent No. 6,988,138 granted Blackboard the rights to course-management software in which a single user could have multiple roles in multiple courses. A federal jury in Texas ruled in 2008 that Desire2Learn had infringed the patent and ordered it to pay Blackboard $3.1-million.

    But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled later in 2008 that the patent should be invalidated because others had used similar technology to what Blackboard said it had invented. Blackboard officials vowed to have the ruling overturned on appeal.

    Last week, a Blackboard representative said in an e-mail that the company had ended its appeals and that the patent had been officially terminated.

    “Blackboard chose to abandon the ’138 patent in April and not pursue additional appeals,” said a spokesman, Matthew Maurer. “Upon its official termination by the USPTO earlier this month, we removed it from the Patent Pledge and stopped marking it on our products and Web site as required by law.”

    This entry was posted in Legal Troubles, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

    Jensen Comment
    One of the reasons for dropping the patent fight was the exceedingly ill will that Blackboard created for itself in the Academy for pursuing this patent ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

    Bob Jensen's threads on education technology ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm


    "Copying Right and Copying Wrong with Web 2.0 Tools in the Teacher Education and Communications Classrooms," by Ewa McGrail and  J. Patrick McGrail, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 10(3), 2010 --- http://www.citejournal.org/vol10/iss3/languagearts/article1.cfm 
    PDF Download --- http://www.citejournal.org/articles/v10i3languagearts1.pdf

    Understanding the tenets of copyright in general, and in particular, in online communication and publishing with Web 2.0 tools, has become an important part of literacy in today’s Information Age, as well as a cornerstone of free speech and responsible citizenship for the future. Young content creators must be educated about copyright law, their own rights as content creators, and their responsibilities as producers and publishers of content derived from the intellectual property of others. Educators should prepare them for responsible and ethical participation in new forms of creative expression in the Information Age. The recent integration of video and audio content and the implementation of Web 2.0 tools in the contemporary English language classroom has made this learning environment a particularly appropriate proving ground for the examination of current student practices with respect to intellectual property. This paper describes an approach employed with English education and communications students to prepare them for such a complex subject matter.

    Continued in article

    Bob Jensen's threads on the DMCA are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright


    "5 tips for effective cloud security," by Jerry Trites, IS Assurance Blog, November 15, 2010 ---
    http://uwcisa-assurance.blogspot.com/

    "When Disaster Strikes, Customer Relationships Can Be Critical," by Christopher J. Bucholtz, Ecommerce Times, November 11, 2010 ---
    http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/When-Disaster-Strikes-Customer-Relationships-Can-Be-Critical-71216.html?wlc=1290208191 
    I thank Jerry Trites E-Business Blog for this heads up.


    Two Videos on Old and New Ways of Cheating
    David Albrecht has a Summa Blog with two videos instructing students on how to cheat or, conversely instructing exam proctors on what to watch out for when students are taking an examination in a classroom ---
    http://profalbrecht.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/the-latest-cheating-scandal/

    These videos support my threads on New Kinds of Cheating ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm#NewKindOfCheating 


    Social Security Trust Fund --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund 

    Should those so-called "assets" should've been placed on the left hand side of the balance sheet or left off the balance sheet?
    Don't put your "trust" in the U.S. Congress
    It's a little like taking money from your safety deposit box and writing your self IOUs to someday put your money back in the box
    In the case of Social Security trust funds the government owes itself $2.5 trillion
    It's time for the Fed to turn the crank on bigger bills in the printing presses --- 600 $1billion dollar bills just won't cut it Ben

    "Are The Social Security Trust Funds A Mirage?" by Alex Blumberg and Chana Joffe-Walt, NPR Audio, November 19, 2010 ---
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/11/18/131420919/are-the-social-security-trust-funds-a-mirage

    Proposals to fix the deficit are coming fast and furious in Washington these days. One major target: Social Security.

    Whether you favor cutting Social Security may depend on how you view the Social Security trust funds, which currently contain $2.5 trillion for retirement benefits. That's $2.5 trillion that, according to some people, don't actually exist.

    Here's the back story.

    If you look at your paycheck, in the spot where it lists deductions, there's a line that says "FICA." That's the money that gets taken out of your check to pay for Social Security.

    For the past 25 years or so, the amount of money the government has raised through those taxes has been greater than what it's been spending to fund Social Security.

    The surplus came largely from the baby boomers — and we're going to need that extra money when they retire and start collecting Social Security.

    This is where the $2.5 trillion trust funds come in.

    The government has invested all that money in Treasury bonds, which are traditionally considered among the safest investments in the world.

    But a Treasury bond, remember, is the way the government borrows money. So the government is lending the Social Security surplus to itself. And the obligation to repay those loans is the trust funds.

    "They are nothing like any trust fund that any one of us would think of," says Maya MacGuineas of the New America Foundation. "It conjures up an image of really holding savings, and it doesn't do that at all."

    But there's another way to think about what the government is doing here.

    The federal government owes $2.5 trillion to the Social Security trust funds. And if the government doesn't pay that money, it will default on its debt — something the U.S. has never done in its history.

    By the middle of the next decade, the Social Security surplus will turn into yearly deficits as more Baby Boomers retire. And the government will have to come up with hundreds of billions of dollars a year to cover its obligations to the trust fund.

    At that point, the debate over whether or not the trust funds exist becomes a moot.

    "The policy choices that we have to make good on Social Security obligations are exactly the same with the trust fund or if we'd never had the trust fund," MacGuineas says. "Raise taxes, cut Social Security benefits, cut other government spending, or borrow the money. That's the only way to repay the money."

    Smoke and Mirrors
    The Sad State of Government Accounting and Accountability
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#GovernmentalAccounting


    Reviewed by Steve Zeff and Michael Granof
    "Small Business Inventory Expensing," by Calvin H. Johnson University of Texas at Austin - School of Law
    Tax Notes, 2010 U of Texas Law, Law and Econ Research Paper No. 193 The Shelf Project
    SSRN. November 16, 2010 ---  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1710153

    Calvin H. Johnson is a professor of law at the University of Texas. The author wishes to thank Stephen Zeff and Michael Granof for helpful comments without binding them to conclusions with which they disagree.

    The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) recently recommended allowing small businesses to expense their inventory and exclude their customer receivables from tax. The PERAB proposals are a tax shelter or subsidy that are better than no tax. Investing with deducted or excluded funds is economically equivalent to an exemption of profit from tax, and when the interest deduction is taken into account, the result is a negative tax.

    Records to reflect inventory and receivables are easy to maintain and are getting cheaper with the availability of computerized accounting. Every business knows how much its customers owe it, and no business has lost money reflected in valuable inventory it still has on hand. The PERAB proposal is prone to abuse as dentists and lawyers seek shelter. Indeed it would always be open to abuse.

    The Shelf Project is a collaboration among tax professionals to develop proposals to raise revenue in the impending revenue crisis by defending the tax base. It is intended to raise revenue without a VAT or a rate increase in ways that will improve the fairness, efficiency, and rationality of the tax system. The Shelf Project ordinarily proposes amendments to close existing loopholes, and the PERAB proposal to allow expensing of inventory and deferral on receivables is a loophole. Blocking enactment of the PERAB proposal would prevent the revenue loss that the PERAB proposal would cause.

    An overview of the Shelf Project is found in ‘‘How to Raise $1 Trillion Without a VAT or a Rate Hike,’’ Tax Notes, July 5, 2010, p. 101, Doc 2010-13081, or 2010 TNT 129-4. Congress adopted its first Shelf Project in March 2010. New section 871(1), enacted in the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, is based on the Shelf Project proposal by Reuven Avi-Yonah, ‘‘Enforcing DividendWithholding on Derivatives,’’ Tax Notes, Nov. 10, 2008, p. 747, Doc 2008-22806, or 2008 TNT 219-34.

    Shelf Project proposals follow the format of a congressional tax committee report in explaining current law, what is wrong with it, and how to fix it.

    Paul Caron notes possible abuses ---
    http://taxprof.typepad.com/

    The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) recently recommended allowing small businesses to expense their inventory and exclude their customer receivables from tax. The PERAB proposals are a tax shelter or subsidy that are better than no tax. Investing with deducted or excluded funds is economically equivalent to an exemption of profit from tax, and when the interest deduction is taken into account, the result is a negative tax.

    Records to reflect inventory and receivables are easy to maintain and are getting cheaper with the availability of computerized accounting. Every business knows how much its customers owe it, and no business has lost money reflected in valuable inventory it still has on hand. The PERAB proposal is prone to abuse as dentists and lawyers seek shelter. Indeed it would always be open to abuse.

    Bob Jensen's small business helpers are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness


    She was a long-term and loyal customer of Camtasia Studio from TechSmith
    All she was trying to reach were safe loads of codecs that would play her old Camtasia videos
    In particular she wanted a safe download of the ACELP.net audio codec
    The following pictures show how TechSmith came to help her out
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/tidbits120110.htm

    We expect companies like Microsoft, Apple, and TechSmith to be loyal to long-term faithful customers

    In the process, we end up in trouble.

    And when you find yourself in trouble...

    and you're stuck in a situation that you can't get out of...

    there is one thing you should always remember...

    The company that got you into this trouble is not necessarily there to help you out of trouble caused by that company.

     

    The tidbit below has been added to my running essay at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/VideoCodecProblems.htm

    Big Brother Publishing House sneaks into libraries in the dead of night and, without warning, selectively purges the history books and videos

    It strikes me as ironic that the only preservers of some unpublished research papers may be the journals that rejected the papers

    Hi Richard,

    You wrote "don't expect your yellowed course notes from the 60's to be useable in the year 2010.". I don't think you intended this to really read as it sounds, but it easily can read "don't expect yellowed pages in your campus library books to be of use to anybody in the future."

    As fate might have it the only record I have of much of my research during my two CASBS think tank years on the Stanford Campus in the 1970s is on very yellowed pages of notes stored in my barn or lost entirely by me. An Australian professor, Chris Deeley, last week requested photocopies of some of that unpublished  work on adaptive factor analysis and multidimensional scaling. My work went unpublished because of a fatal flaw that exists in virtually all adaptive multivariate models that sequentially feed in predictor variables. That flaw is that the predictive power of some of the predictor variables varies with the arbitrary orders in which they are fed into the model. I discovered that in three subsequent moves (to Florida, Texas, and New Hampshire) that I'd thrown out most of my research notes just like many authors discard the only drafts of their unfinished books. I did not anticipate that  "my yellowed course notes from the 60's to be useable in the year 2010."

    It strikes me as ironic that the only preservers of some unpublished research papers may be the journals that rejected the papers.
    Suppose that you want to read the rejected submissions of long-dead Professor X to The Accounting Review in the 1980s. Perhaps the only record of those rejected submissions or those submissions as originally submitted before substantive revision is in some obscure "yellowed-page" file of the American Accounting Association.

    I recently had a conversation with our departing TAR editor about a particular submission that was rejected by referees in 2005. In this particular instance the author had later on sent me his rejected submission. The TAR editor was able to recover that well-known author's original TAR submission plus the referee recommendations/conditions for revision that the author apparently declined to revise and resubmit. Someday the AAA might have the only copy of that author's rejected submission on very "yellowed pages."

    I don't know how long the AAA keeps editorial files of submitted manuscripts, but history scholars would prefer that such files never be destroyed. Interestingly, authors submit doc files electronically these days. These computer files are the cheapest way of storing and transmitting manuscripts. But what if Big Bother decides to no longer support the reading of older doc files produced before 1990? While cursing Big Brother, history scholars would be very grateful if the AAA also preserved at least one version of every submitted manuscript and referee report in hard copy.

    It will never happen for my course and research notes, but long into the future the discovery of the "yellowed course notes from the 60's" of a few accounting professors may be of great value to historical scholars. One of the frequent joys of historical scholars is to discover letters, notes on bits of paper, and other original works great authors, statesmen, Einsteins, etc. that have been uncovered decades or centuries later in time. No such luck for work preserved in some by technology software subject to the whims of Big Brothers that we put too much faith in until we learned how willing they are to purge all libraries of all works produced in their publishing houses.

    This is your uncaring Big Brother purger of historical knowledge
    Your TechSmith friend, Richard, is obviously a techie or cost accountant and not a historian scholar when he wrote the following to you:

    The 133ex05a.wmv referenced from the saga uses the ACELP.net audio codec, which has been deprecated by Microsoft for many years, and as far as I can tell, does not ship with Windows 7. The WMV also uses the Microsoft Screen codec, which is similarly old, but still supported (barely) on Windows 7. These WMV files were created with a very old version of Camtasia. Newer versions of Camtasia use different codecs that are better supported.

    Some of us trusted in the Big Brother publishing house that provided no warning that old Camtasia videos published by perhaps thousands of trusting scholars and researchers and stored in perhaps tens of  thousands of "libraries" could be purged by Big Brother from libraries everywhere in the world by some cost-saving arbitrary Big Brothers like Microsoft and TechSmith who destroy library works without the least bit of warning. We all knew that such storage media as magnetic tapes and other recording tapes had limited storage lives so we transferred these files to other physical media such as printouts (for text and pictures) and modern hard drives for video. But we perhaps did not anticipate that Big Brother publishing houses would make computers no longer able to read the video files that we transferred to newer physical media.

    Think of how unpopular it would be to give a human Big Brother or a Hitler the power to purge every library in the world of books that were produced before 1900 or every Camtasia video produced before 2002. The Academy would never allow their libraries to purge books simply because the pages are turning yellow. In fact some of the most yellow-paged books in college libraries are placed in special collections and preserved in a variety of ways just to save them for future scholars. You can blame the now-dead scholar for placing too much trust in Microsoft and TechSmith publishing houses, but that does little good now that the unwarned scholar is dead.

    And yet nobody in the Academy, other than David Fordham and Bob Jensen on the AECM, protests in the least when some cost accountant/techie in Microsoft or TechSmith makes a decision to purge all libraries of some historical Camtasia works that researchers and other scholars have entrusted to its electronic "publishing houses."  You, Richard, blame the authors for not re-recording their works on newer software, but this is perhaps denying history scholars access to many works of long-dead scholars who are no longer able to keep re-recording their obscure works.

    One of the frequent joys of historical scholars is to discover letters, notes on bits of paper, and other original works great authors, statesmen, Einsteins, etc. that have been uncovered decades or centuries later in time. No such luck for work preserved in some of our advanced technology subject to the whims of Big Brothers that we put too much faith in until we learned how willing they are to purge libraries of works produced in their publishing houses.

    It strikes me that one of the real hazards for historical preservation is when Websites suddenly, and perhaps without serious warnings to the world, stop hosting scholarly works. To date my Web host, Trinity University, preserves Websites of retired and even deceased professors unless officially requested to pull the sites down. But at some point a university for whatever reason might pull a Website down even if the only preserved copies of some scholarly works. Hopefully, it would pull the sites down only after preserving files somewhere for posterity.

    The tidbit above has been added to my running essay at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/VideoCodecProblems.htm

    Many other problems with Big Brother and the dark side  education technology are discussed at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm

    If the ACELP.net audio codec is now archived in Microsoft and TechSmith, it cannot be very expensive to allow users to download the codec file. This old file allows me to run my old Camtasia videos in my 64-bit Windows 7  computer. But other users around the world still cannot view many old Camtasia videos. Microsoft and/or TechSmith would be trusted sources of this codec's download if they were not so uncaring about preserving scholarly Camtasia videos.


    Dell Sells 64-bit Windows 7 Computers But the Sales Division is Still Relying on 32-Bit Windows XP Computers
    Maybe that tells us something about backwards compatibility problems of 64-bit Windows 7 computers

    I sure would like to know if and why some 64-bit Windows 7 computers can run the videos such as the videos at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5341/ 
    Most such computers, however, cannot run the above samples of part of my life's work.

    My experience also tells me that there's something to being able to store your life's work in hard copy on library shelves.

    When I recently bought a 64-bit Dell Studio 17 Laptop, Dell assigned me to a good guy named Charlie Mullins in the Sales Division. Charlie not only held my hand so to speak and tracked  my order before my new computer was built, he continues to hold my hand figuratively-speaking throughout my three-year onsite service warranty that I paid extra for when I bought my computer.

    When I have a hardware problem, I must pass through Charlie to get access to a Dell hardware technician who then walks me through some tests to determine if I really have a hardware problem. On this Charlie is very efficient and merely forwards my phone call to the hardware specialist. I am having troubles with a flaky on-off switch, and the hardware technician spent an hour with me yesterday on the phone guiding me through a series of tests. He even remotely took charge operating my new computer. It turns out that I really do need a new switch and possibly a new motherboard such at a hardware technician will soon visit my house. Since I live in the far-away New Hampshire mountains some Dell technician may have to travel all the way from Boston, thereby giving me his entire day and maybe more just to replace a switch (I think the motherboard is fine).

    I also have a problem in that a huge part of my life's work producing educational media files will run perfectly on my old Dell 32-bit XP laptop, but my life's work will not run on my new Dell 64-bit laptop due to what a popup claims are missing codecs. It turns out that this is a huge problem for Microsoft to the extent that the 64-bit Windows Media Player in Windows 7 is not the default WMP player you see on your screen. Microsoft embeds a 32-bit WMP player in Windows 7 that is the default player in your new 64-bit Windows 7 machine. The reason is the shortage of 64-bit codecs for the world of media playback. But if you choose to do so, a few techies in the world know how to change to a 64--bit WMP:
    WMP 64-bit switch --- http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/10/25/how-to-set-64-bit-windows-media-player-12-wmp12-as-default-player/

    Things get more complicated when I have a software problem under warranty on my new computer. Dell only offers a warranty on applications that are built into the Windows 7 operating system and not other software that Dell installs such as MS Office software. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit WMP applications are buried in the operating system, so I argued with Charlie Mullins that my WMP problem is under warranty. He's now writing up a proposal pleading with Level 2 technicians at Dell to talk to me.

    I turns out that I do not have to go through Charlie to reach Level 1 technicians at Dell. I first did so with my codec problems. Two Level 1 technicians concluded that my codec problem cannot be solved. I will have to keep keep my old XP computer running for the rest of my life if I want to replay my life's work. And so will any other accounting educator and researcher who wants to view the videos of my professional career.

    This just does not seem right, so I want access to Level 2 experts at Dell. However, to do so I have to describe my problem to Charlie Mullins who then must write up a formal proposal on my behalf to try to convince Level 2 experts to consider my problem. Two Level 1 technicians at Dell who declared my problem unsolvable privately admitted they did not understand problems of missing codecs and how to resolve the problems of not having codecs present in the Windows 7 operating system that were and still are present in the old Windows XP operating system.

    When sending Charlie an email describing my problem I asked him to try to run any one of these sample accounting theory wmv video files on an XP machine and a Windows 7 machine ---
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5341/
    In my case all the wmv videos run perfectly on my old Windows XP machine and not on my new 64-bit machine. By the way, many people have by now contacted me claiming they cannot run my accounting education and research videos on their 64-bit computers, although a few have mysteriously managed to get them to run on their 64-bit computers. In most cases they don't fully understand why they work on their 64-bit Windows operating machines.

    By the way, the Quicktime player from Apple never would play my wmv files. Nor will any other video player such as VLC that I installed play my life's work on a 64-bit machine even though these players work fine on my 32-bit machine.

    Charlie wrote back and informed me that he cannot try to run my sample videos linked above on a 64-bit computer, because nobody in his Sales Division at Dell has a 64-bit computer even though virtually all the computers sold by this division are now 64-bit computers. I'm not sure Charlie was supposed to let this out, but to me this tells me something about Dell still having worries about leaving the 32-bit architecture.

    One sign of getting too old is when years of a professor's work can no longer be used under current versions of hardware and software. It's a little like having a double tree for horses on a wagon in the era of tractors or an old threshing machine in the era of harvesting combines.


    The real definitive sign is when your wife wants you evaluated on the PBS "Antiques Road Show."

    My experience also tells me that there's something to being able to store your life's work in hard copy on library shelves.

    I sure would like to know if and why some 64-bit Windows 7 computers can run the videos such as the videos at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5341/ 

    A Bit of History
    This reminds me of when Apple used to come out with new versions of the Mac operating system that were not backwards compatible. I recall sharing a cab in Manhattan with the University of Waterloo's Efrim Boritz years ago. Efrim grumbled that Apple had destroyed years of his work by not making the new version of the Mac operating system sufficiently compatible with an updated version.

    For years one huge advantage of Microsoft was insistence on making new versions of DOS compatible with older versions which led to millions of lines of code that would've been unnecessary if new versions of DOS were not backwards compatible.

    That does not seem to be the case today.

    Boo on TechSmith! Boo on Microsoft! Boo on Apple!

    They are sometimes uncaringly destroying years of our work with new upgrades.


    Bob Jensen's Codec Saga: How I Lost a Big Part of My Life's Work
    Until My Friend Rick Lillie Solved My Problem
    Bob Jensen at Trinity University

    The essay below is on the Web at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/VideoCodecProblems.htm

    There are many newer 64-bit Windows 7 computers that will not playback videos compressed on computers such as my 32-bit Windows XP computer. Give your 64-bit computer a test. The most popular video I ever produced is my 133ex05a.wmv video that's still being downloaded by thousands of security analysts and auditors. Even before I purchased a new computer I was getting complaints that this video would not play on 64-bit Windows 7 computers.

    Give your computer test by trying to playback the 133ex05a.wmv video at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5341/

    Playback problems are also arising in videos created by millions of people other than me, especially Camtasia videos produced on 32-bit computers. The trouble is that Microsoft's set of codecs embedded in Windows 7 leaves out some important codecs in earlier versions of Windows.Many high level tech support groups still don't know how to solve this problem. For example, two days ago three Level 2 experts in the Dell Technical Support Division did not have a clue on how to solve the problem. Even though the video above would not run on my various video players such as Windows Media Player, VLC Player, Realtime, and Quicktime, Dell Level 2 technicians suggested I try three other players. None of these players corrected my problem.

    Codec --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec
    Warning: There are many outfits on the Web that offer free or fee downloads of codecs. Don't trust any of them unless somebody you really trust informs you that these downloads are safe. Many of codec downloads carry malware malicious code that will put such things as Trojan horse viruses into your computer. One outfit even claims to playback virtually all videos without using a codec. I don't trust this company enough to even try its download. Quite a few people have downloaded the K-Lite Codec Pack, but my Sophos Security blocker would not allow this download. Friends who have the K-Lite does tell me that they still can't run many older videos in 64-bit machines that will run in 32-bit computers.

    To make a long story short, a technical support expert named Ian at California State University in San Bernardino proposed a solution to the problem at the behest of my good friend and education technology expert Professor Rick Lillie.

    On Thanksgiving Day Rick sent the following recommendation:

    The problem is specifically an audio codec that did not come with Windows 7. Ian found a trustworthy place which provides that particular codec:
    http://www.voiceage.com/acelp_eval_eula.php

    Trinity University requires that I honor a relatively tough Cisco Systems security barrier called Sophos if I want to run my files on servers at Trinity. The VoiceAge download mentioned above not only passed through my Sophos barrier, unlike the K-Lite Codec Pack, the download took place in the blink of an eye.

    Now old videos play wonderfully on my new 64-bit Windows 7 laptop from Dell. However, this is a limited solution in that users around the world who do not know about this solution or an equivalent solution will either not be able to run many old videos or they will be clogging my email box. I am asking that all of you inform your tech support group about this solution. I informed the Dell Support Group.

    A better solution for my hundreds of videos still being served up on the Web would take weeks of my time. Windows 7 OS 64-bit computers will play my huge uncompressed avi files that I store in my barn. It is out of the question to serve up enormous avi files that can be compressed into files that save over 90% of of storage and transmission size. However, I did experiment with recompressing a couple of avi files on my 64-bit machine. These files will playback in wmv, rm, swf, and mov formats using only Windows 7 codecs. But at this stage of my life I don't want to spend weeks of my time solving a problem that Microsoft could solve with little cost or trouble.

    Why compress raw avi videos into compressed wmv, mov, mpg, rm, scf, or some other compressed versions?
    The reason is largely a file size issue with raw avi videos. If I captured an avi file that is over 200 mb in size it takes up a huge amount of space on a server and takes forever to download over the Internet. By compressing it into something liike a wmv format for Windows Media Player, a mov format for Apple's Quicktime, or a rm format for Real Media, or a swf format for an Adobe Flash player, I can reduce the file size by over 90% without serious loss in video playback quality. I should, however, store the original avi file somewhere if I think I may want to edit and recompress the video in the future.

    Hilarious Enron home video (originally reported by the Houston Chronicle)
    A hilarious Enron home video (really made by genuine Enron executives like Jeff Skilling at Rich Kinder's resignation party) example is shown at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/
    The raw Enron1.avi video of 201 mb is poor quality video that a friend at Villanova captured in 2003. It will take you over 20 minutes to download this avi video, but since it is in avi format it will play on my new 64-bit Windows 7 computer. When I compressed the video into an Enron1.wmv format it only takes up 20 mb of space (over a 90% savings) on the server and will download in less than two minutes.

    However, until I downloaded the VoiceAge codec this wmv compressed version would not play on my new 64-bit Windows 7 computer. It always did play on my old 32-bit computer. The reason is that Microsoft left out some historic codecs for in the latest version of 64-bit computers.

    In fact the problem is so severe with old 32-bit media that in Windows 7 Microsoft made the 32-bit version of Windows Media Player (WMP) the default player even though a 64-bit version is also available such that techies can, if you so choose, make the 64-bit version your default WMP ---
    WMP 64-bit switch --- http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/10/25/how-to-set-64-bit-windows-media-player-12-wmp12-as-default-player/


    However, even if you are using the default 32-bit WMP video player in your new 64-bit computer, there are historic Windows XP codecs missing such that many historic compressed videos will not play on your 64-bit computer using Microsoft's default 32-bit Windows Media Player, and that is the reason I am writing this essay today.

     

    Camtasia Studio (for Windows and belatedly the Mac OS) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camtasia_Studio
    TechSmith's Home Page for Camtasia Studio --- http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/

    I was an early adopter of Camtasia and produced Camtasia videos on Win95, XP 32-bit, and Windows 7 64-bit computers. In the earliest days I recorded hundreds of Camtasia videos with a microphone so I could narrate while solving homework, quiz, and examination problems on my computer screen. Since many of these were textbook problems and cases  that I could not legally solve in videos  for public viewing, I served my Camtasia video solutions up on a LAN server that only my students could study. Textbook publishers would not have been happy if I put video solutions to their homework problems and cases on a public Web server.

    An example of a very early homework solution video can be found at in the
    PDQ05-15tEST2/PDQ05-.15tEST2.wmv file at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/PDQ05-15tEST2/
    The mouse motion in this video begins after a minute or so. J had to dig up the original avi version recorded years ago and then recompress the avi version into a wmv compressed video on my new 64-bit, Windows 7 computer.

    Some historic (e.g., 2001) compressions created on my old 32-bit computer will run on 64-bit Windows 7 computers. See for yourself by trying to run any of the sample videos at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct1302/camtasia/
    I suspect that I recorded these sample videos at a different audio sampling rate years ago. This does show that there will be problems playing back all 32-bit computer compressions of avi files.

    After some playing around I think that the problem is in the audio sampling rates that TechSmith used in compressing some of my historic videos. TechSmith did not always use the same sampling rates when compressing avi files into wmv,mov, rm, scf, and other compressed versions of avi files.

    The reason for this compatibility problem is that TechSmith does not write codecs. TechSmith relies on codecs available in whatever among codecs built into the Windows operating system you're using. And Microsoft in an uncaring way did not include some of the Windows XP codecs for 32-bit computers  in its Windows 7 upgrade for 64-bit computers.

    Another solution I attempted and that failed to add needed codecs (actually I need Expression since FrontPage is no longer being upgraded)
    Microsoft Expression --- http://social.expression.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/encoder/thread/3eabf903-b49f-4f92-b508-f28a795d6c90
    Some known problems with Microsoft Expression---
    http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5863960/MICROSOFT_EXPRESSION_STUDIO_4_ULTIMATE_(activated)_%5Bthethingy%5D

    There are many downloads that might work that I would not trust downloading into my computer. If you want to take a chance with your 64-bit computer be my guest --- http://www.x64bitdownload.com/downloads/t-64-bit-dziobas-rar-player-download-wbwseasx.html
    Also see http://www.canadiancontent.net/tech/download/Dziobas_Rar_Player.html
     

    Please let me know if you can playback the 133ex05a.wmv file using these or other solutions (if they did not infect your computer with malware)..
    My playback test videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5341/
    Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu

    December 1, 2010 reply from Richard Campbell

    Bob:
    I posted your question on the Techsmith intranet and received this response.

    This is a reply from Dave O'Rouke of Techsmith - Camtasia's Lead Developer"

    "Your friend is wise not to download codecs from untrusted sources. Soooo many systems have been corrupted by these. I've personally looked at several escalated TechSupport cases where this is the root of the problem. Often the uninstall is worse than the install. So it's definitely good advice to only install codecs from a trusted source, and avoiding codec "packs" unless they come from a vendor you trust.

    The 133ex05a.wmv referenced from the saga uses the ACELP.net audio codec, which has been deprecated by Microsoft for many years, and as far as I can tell, does not ship with Windows 7. The WMV also uses the Microsoft Screen codec, which is similarly old, but still supported (barely) on Windows 7. These WMV files were created with a very old version of Camtasia. Newer versions of Camtasia use different codecs that are better supported.

    As the platform changes (such as 32-bit to 64-bit) codecs must be updated in order to function on the newer platform. In addition, there have been many new advances in compression methods in the last decade. Codecs that were state of the art in the year 2000 are supplanted by newer, better ones in 2010. Such is the nature of the computer industry.

    This seems in conflict with your friend's desire to preserve his work indefinitely. The truth is that there's no one video format that will live forever. He could store his files as uncompressed AVI files, and accept the huge file size. That would avoid a dependency on a particular vendor. Or he could choose a format that has broad industry support today, such as MP4 (H.264 video + AAC audio). There's no guarantee here either, but it's certainly a good bet that this format will live for a while longer."

    Richard J. Campbell

    mailto:campbell@rio.edu

    December 1, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen

    Hi Richard,

    I also contacted TechSupport at TechSmith and got essentially the same brush off. You have permission to forward my  reply below to all the uncaring officials at TechSmith. TechSmith could at least warn people who purchase that avi files must be preserved if they want to preserve all their Camtasia Work. No such warning appeared in all the versions of Camtasia that I purchased. In fact lawyers might have fun with the brush off reply that your quoted above.

    Boo on TechSmith
    This company is just saying there's not sufficient value in old scholarship to care about preserving this scholarship!

    Thank you so much for the clarification. TechSmith relies on Microsoft to maintain video compression codecs. TechSmith apparently does not write, or at lease preserve, its own video compression codecs.

    It appears that I was correct all along. TechSmith just does not care. They could write codecs so that older Camtasia videos, such as wmv files, compressed in older versions of Camtasia could be viewed in the latest version of Camtasia Studio and recompressed, but TechSmith violated our faith that they would do all they can to preserve our life's work.

    TechSmith is simply saying take your Camtasia history and shove it unless you want to spend months or years of your life creating the history every time Windows has a major upgrade.

    I suggest you save all the work you did for Wiley in avi formats. Someday with some Windows OS upgrade all your months of work will have to be redone unless Wiley chooses to let it die.

    I'm courious if your Wiley files will currently run on 64-bit Windows 7 computer. If would be a shame if all your work would only run for students and faculty with 32-bit computers not running on Windows 7,

    Boo on TechSmith
    This company is just saying there's not sufficnt value in old scholarship to care about preserving this scholarship!

    I also contacted TechSupport at TechSmith and got essentially the same brush off. You have permission to forward my above reply to all the uncaring officials at TechSmith. TechSmith could at least warn people who purchase that avi files must be preserved if they want to preserve all their Camtasia Work. No such warning appeared in all the versions of Camtasia that I purchased.

    In fact lawyers might have fun with the brush off reply that your quoted above.

    Bob Jensen

    The tidbit above has been added to my running essay at
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/VideoCodecProblems.htm


    Question
    In the Central Florida University cheating scandal was  it student cheating or instructor laziness?
    Watch the video?

    This article below blames the Central Florida University management instructor  (Richard Quinn) for being lazy in using test questions that the publisher allowed students to download for study and review. Perhaps it was not the scandal as grave as we were led to believe. It certainly appears the media over-reacted on this one.
    Also see http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/17/cheating

    In the article below you have to scroll down past the LSU physics professor discussion to see the discussion on the  Richard Quinn video that's now off the air.
    But no, I found the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbzJTTDO9f4
    It may not stay there long!

    "Video Killed the Faculty Star," by Jack Stripling, Inside Higher Ed, November 18. 2010 ---
    http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/18/videos

    November 21, 2010 reply from Randy Elder

    My undergraduate auditing students often ask for an open book or take-home exam – I tell them they would not want an exam that challenging.  I don’t use the CPA exam as a benchmark or a guide, but do note that it is not open book.  As for the real-world, there is a body of knowledge that we are expected to have reasonable command of, and it is not acceptable to always say that you will need to look it up.  Students who understand principles, and know how to think, can usually reason to the correct answer, subject to authoritative confirmation.

    Having said the above, student expectations and evaluations often cause us not to stretch students on exams. An old and recently deceased prof at SU is known to have said “work from what you know to what you don’t know.” (Sometimes also attributed to my former colleague Leon Hanouille, who may still be lurking on this list, as I have for many years.)  I suspect that most profs don’t ask too many questions that students don’t know, or  at least should know.

    There are many things to blame in the UCF situation – class too big, use of test bank, etc.   In this current environment, one has to assume that a test bank has been compromised.  Further, I have never seen a test bank that was sufficiently challenging.  However, if a prof selected randomly from a test bank, and students studied the entire test bank, perhaps learning occurred.

    Randy Elder, Senior Associate Dean
    Whitman School of Management
    Syracuse University
    415B Whitman School of Management
    721 University Avenue| Syracuse, New York 13244-2450

    Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm


    "Singapore's Newest University Is an Education Lab for Technology With vital input from MIT—and China—an unorthodox idea takes shape, with implications beyond the city-state's borders," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 28, 2010 ---
    http://www.insidehighered.com/

    Every year automakers roll out "concept" cars, which incorporate novel design elements that may become standard years from now. Singapore has taken the rarer step of building a concept university, one meant to road-test the latest in teaching theory and academic features.

    Singapore University of Technology and Design, now under construction, is a big gamble for a high-tech city-state that considers a globally competitive work force its key to national survival. Government officials are betting more than $700-million that the new venture will cultivate the next generation of innovators in architecture, engineering, and information systems.

    One selling point of the institution, which is to start classes on a temporary campus in 2012, is that it is associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On many renderings of the logo, the words "Established in collaboration with MIT" appear in red letters, suggesting that the new venture expects to replicate the prestigious U.S. university.

    But it will be anything but a carbon copy. MIT researchers are treating Singapore's new university as an education laboratory where they can try out new teaching methods and curriculum, some of which may then be taken back to Cambridge.

    "Our guiding philosophy has been to try to establish something that's very distinctive," says Thomas L. Magnanti, the Singapore institution's first president, who is a former dean of engineering at MIT. "If we just went and decided to build a new comprehensive university, in 20 years we may not stand out."

    MIT has had mixed success in exporting its brand. It was forced to close branch campuses of its Media Lab in Ireland and India after only a few years of operation, after they failed to gain enough financial support. But it has long worked well with universities in Singapore. For years the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology has supported joint research, and MIT helps run the thriving Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab to explore video-game design.

    The Singapore leaders are not counting only on MIT, though. The new university has also forged a link with a top Chinese research institution, Zhejiang University, which will design some courses, provide internship opportunities, and conduct joint research. Singapore is even importing an ancient Chinese building, donated by the movie star Jackie Chan, to remind students of Eastern design traditions.

    "Singapore within the region seems to be stepping into the deeper waters of the global-university phenomenon," says Gerard A. Postiglione, a professor of social science at the University of Hong Kong and director of China's Wah Ching Centre of Research on Education. He speculates that government leaders in Singapore may hope that the unconventional institution will spur educational innovations that can be adopted by the nation's other universities as well.

    The "design" in the new university's name does not mean fashion design. Engineering is the focus, and "design" was used to suggest the mission of taking on real-world problems and quickly moving research from the lab to the marketplace.

    Will this "distinctive" new university prove to be a model for the future of education in engineering and design, or will some of its methods prove not ready for the open road?

    No Boundaries Sitting in a conference room in the university's temporary office space on a recent afternoon, Pey Kin-Leong, associate provost, outlines the venture's unusual model. On the wall behind him hang blueprints of buildings that will one day rise on the future campus.

    From Day 1, students will be encouraged to apply what they've learned to their own designs, and to find applications for the theories they learn in class, he says.

    Traditional disciplinary boundaries will be played down. For the first three semesters, all students will go through the same battery of courses, whether they want to end up as architects, technology-systems managers, or mechanical engineers. That's one semester longer for the core curriculum than at MIT.

    In their junior and senior years, students will choose one of four "pillars": architecture, engineering product development, engineering systems, or information systems. Those will be the closest things to majors at the new university, which won't have traditional academic departments.

    All students will be required to work in teams to create a final design project and bring it to life.

    If a team decided to design a "smart house," for instance, an architecture student would draw the blueprints, technology designers would plan the sensors and other electronics, and the engineering-systems concentrators would help it all work together.

    "We want our students to be able to communicate and interact, and cut across the pillars," says Mr. Pey.

    Zhejiang University is designing five elective courses for the Singapore institution, all focused on familiarizing students with the cultural aspects of China as an increasingly influential economic power. Among the proposed course titles: "Business Culture and Entrepreneurship in China," "Sustainability of Ancient Chinese Architectural Design in the Modern World," and "History of Chinese Urban Development and Planning."

    "Because the Chinese market is huge, this is an opportunity that we are going to give to our students," says Mr. Pey. "If we can understand their mind-set, when our students do the design, the design will be very appealing to people in the Chinese market."

    The Singapore university will also connect its students with internship opportunities in the United States, in China, and at a group of major technology companies in the city-state that have agreed to take part.

    "The uniquely Singapore part is we have a chance to expose ourselves to multicultural influences," says Mr. Pey. "We're a cross point between East and West."

    The university has already selected its first class of students (82 said yes out of 119 who were admitted), mostly from Singapore, some of whom delayed starting college to wait for these doors to open. Eventually, an enrollment of 4,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students is expected; the university says it will meet a government requirement of admitting 20 to 30 percent of its students from abroad.

    Government officials would not reveal the venture's exact price tag, but Chong Tow Chong, the provost, says the government is spending at least one billion Singapore dollars—about $771-million—to build the campus and hire professors from around the world. Enlightened Self-Interest Singapore chose MIT to collaborate in the new university after reviewing bids from several major institutions in the United States and Europe. For MIT, the draw was to upgrade its own curriculum, says Sanjay Emani Sarma, an MIT professor of mechanical engineering who directs its role in the collaboration.

    Continued in article

    Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm


    From the Scout Report on November 19, 2010

  • Slideshare --- http://www.slideshare.net/ 

    SlideShare is billed as the "world's largest community for sharing presentations", and if you are looking for a way to join their community, this is the place to visit. Visitors can use the program to share their own presentations and documents, and it lets users embed slideshows into a blog or website, synch audio to slides, and also market their events on the website. The site also includes some video demonstrations that show users what they can do with the program and a very active online forum of fellow Slideshare enthusiasts. This version is compatible with all operating systems.


    Audioboo --- http://audioboo.fm

    For those people who want to use their smart phone to record and upload audio for friends, family, or countless others, Audioboo is well worth a look. After watching a short video introduction to the application, visitors can move on over to the "Let Us Show You Around" section to find out how the recording and uploading process works. Visitors can also create their own profile and check out the work of other Audioboo users. This version is compatible with all operating systems and users will also need a smart phone.


    As tensions mount, there is growing concern about the unrest in Western Sahara Diplomacy over Western Sahara: Morocco v Algeria http://www.economist.com/node/17421589?story_id=17421589&fsrc=rss 

    U.N. asked to investigate violence in Western Sahara
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/16/AR2010111602813.html?hpid=moreheadlines 

    BBC: Q&A: Western Sahara clashes http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11712267 

    Morocco defends raid on Sahrawi camp http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11763092 

    BBC: We Are Saharawis http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p0058zfm 

    Human Rights Report: Western Sahara http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/nea/136076.htm


    From the Scout Report on November 24, 2010

  • Remember The Milk --- http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

    Do you need to remember the milk when you go out to the store? Well, that might seem a bit old-fashioned, but the Remember the Milk application can help users do much more. Visitors just need to sign up for a free account, and they will be able to use their account to manage tasks from anywhere, sign up for email or SMS reminders, share tasks, integrate items with Google Calendar, and also manage tasks offline. Visitors can also locate their tasks geographically via Google Maps, and also customize their lists via theme, title, and date. This version is compatible with all operating systems.


    OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 --- http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ 

    OpenOffice continues to grow and change, and this new version of the program is worth a look. The OpenOffice suite includes applications that allow users to make text documents, spreadsheets, diagrams, and databases. This latest version includes templates for professional writers, and export tool for functionality with Google Docs, and enhanced blog publishing. This version is compatible with computers running Mac OS X 10.4 and newer.


    The origins of "OK" explored. OK: How Two Letters Made 'America's Greatest Word'
    http://www.npr.org/2010/11/17/131390650/ok-how-two-letters-made-america-s-greatest-word  

    The Straight Dope: What Does "OK" stand for?
    http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/503/what-does-ok-stand-for 

    Linguistically, America is A-OK
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/29/AR2010102907644.html  

    The 'O' Word
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/books/review/Blount-t.html?src=me 

    American Languages: Our Nation's Many Voices
    http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AmerLangs/ 

    Dictionary of American Regional English
    http://dare.wisc.edu/


    Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks


    Education Tutorials

    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

    Yale National Initiative (K-12 teaching) --- http://teachers.yale.edu/default.php

    The Tech Museum of Innovation: Exhibits --- http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/

    Prison University Project --- http://www.prisonuniversityproject.org

    Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch


    Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

    Science 360 [Flash Player, Real Player, pdf] http://www.science360.gov/files/

    Science Videos --- http://www.scivee.tv/

    Museum of Science, Boston: Podcasts [iTunes] --- http://www.mos.org/events_activities/podcasts

    Museum of Science and Industry: Simple Machines [Flash Player] --- http://www.msichicago.org/fileadmin/Activities/Games/simple_machines/

    The Tech Museum of Innovation: Exhibits --- http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/

    What's in the Food You Eat --- http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=17032

    Rodale Institute (organic farming)  --- http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/home

    Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT --- http://www.rle.mit.edu/

    Mobile Health 2010 --- http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Mobile-Health-2010.aspx

    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:  Milton Friedman answers Phil Donohue's questions about capitalism.--- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/MiltonFriedmanGreed.wmv

    Prison University Project --- http://www.prisonuniversityproject.org

    The Media Institute --- http://www.mediainstitute.org/

    Project for Excellence in Journalism: Analysis: Our Studies --- http://www.journalism.org/research_and_analysis/Studies

    Extra! (fairness in media reporting) ---  http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4

    Knight Digital Media Center (journalism tutorials) --- http://knightdigitalmediacenter.org/

    Maynard Institute for Journalism Education --- http://www.maynardije.org/
    Project for Excellence in Journalism: Analysis: Our Studies --- http://www.journalism.org/research_and_analysis/Studies

    Institute for Strategic Dialogue [government  --- http://www.strategicdialogue.org/home/

    Association for Applied Sport Psychology --- http://appliedsportpsych.org/home

    Kiwi Conservation Club --- http://www.kcc.org.nz/

    Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/

    Oklahoma Today --- http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oktoday/index.html

    The Labor Trail --- http://www.labortrail.org/index.html

    Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language --- http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/

    Menus: The Art of Dining --- http://digital.library.unlv.edu/collections/menus

    Restaurants and Diets --- http://businesstravel.about.com/cs/restaurants/ 

    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

    Prison University Project --- http://www.prisonuniversityproject.org

    Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law


    Math Tutorials

    MAA Online: Classroom Capsules and Notes --- http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/20/

    The Bridges Organization (mathematics and art) --- http://bridgesmathart.org/

    Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics


    History Tutorials

    Whether or not you love or hate the scholarship and media presentations of the University of Chicago's Milton Friedman, I think you have to appreciate his articulate response on this historic Phil Donohue Show episode. Many of the current dire warnings about entitlements were predicted by him as one of the cornerstones in his 1970's PBS Series on "Free to Choose." We just didn't listen as we poured on unbooked national debt ($60 trillion and not counting) for future generations to deal with rather than pay as we went so to speak! . And yes Paul and Zafer, I know there may be better alternatives than capitalism as a basis for optimization of economies in theory. But all economic systems must deal with inherent greed in practice.
    The Grand Old Scholar/Researcher on the subject of greed in economics
    Video:  Milton Friedman answers Phil Donohue's questions about capitalism.--- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/MiltonFriedmanGreed.wmv

    The Tech Museum of Innovation: Exhibits --- http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/

    Alexander Allison's New Orleans (photographs) --- http://nutrias.org/~nopl/exhibits/allison/allison.htm

    Oklahoma Today --- http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oktoday/index.html

    Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/

    Carleton Digital Media Archive --- http://apps.carleton.edu/digitalcollections/mediaarchive/

    Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Digital Archive at Bowdoin College ---
    http://learn.bowdoin.edu/joshua-lawrence-chamberlain/

    National Gallery of Art: The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photograph and Painting, 1848-1875
    http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2010/preraphaelite/slideshow/index.shtm

    The British Museum: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead --- http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/book_of_the_dead.aspx

    Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: Exhibitions --- http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/35/

    Secrets of the Dead (including Egyptian tombs) --- http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/

    Century of Progress World's Fair, 1933-1934 --- http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm4/index_uic_cop.php?CISOROOT=/uic_cop

    New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science: Exhibits --- http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/onlineexh.html

    Harvard Map Collection: Digital Maps --- http://vc.lib.harvard.edu/vc/deliver/home?_collection=maps

    The Museum of Connecticut History Home Page --- http://www.museumofcthistory.org/

    Connecticut History Online --- http://www.cthistoryonline.org/ 

    Magnificent Maps [Flash Media Player] --- http://www.bl.uk/magnificentmaps/

    American Precision Museum --- http://www.americanprecision.org/index.php

    The Labor Trail --- http://www.labortrail.org/index.html

    Posters of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1922 --- http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=history&col_id=195

    Chicago History Museum [Flash Player] http://blog.chicagohistory.org/

    Japanese and Chinese Prints and Drawings donated by Gillette G. Griffin ---
    http://diglib.princeton.edu/xquery?_xq=getCollection&_xsl=collection&_pid=pudl0026

    Japanese Fine Prints, Pre-1915 --- http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/jpdhtml/jpdabt.html

    Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art http://www.nmafa.si.edu/exhibits/grassroots/index.html

    The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960
    http://repository.library.northwestern.edu/winterton/

    UCI Libraries: Stage to Stage: The Theatrical Work of Robert Cohen ---
    http://www.lib.uci.edu/about/publications/exhibits/stage/index.php

    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

    Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages


    Music Tutorials

     

    Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music

    Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm


    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/

    November 18, 2010

    November 19, 2010

    November 22, 2010

    November 23, 2010

    November 25, 2010

    November 26, 2010

    November 29, 2010

    November 30, 2010

    December 1, 2010

     


    Lung Cancer Answers ( http://www.lungcancer-prognosis.com  ) provides information on causes, types of lung cancer, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment options. Here are some of the pages we offer which your site visitors might find to be relevant:

    Our page on lung cancer causes: http://www.lungcancer-prognosis.com/causes.html
    Our page on lung cancer symptoms: http://www.lungcancer-prognosis.com/symptoms.html
    Our page on lung cancer treatment: http://www.lungcancer-prognosis.com/treatment.htm

     


    Mobile Health 2010 --- http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Mobile-Health-2010.aspx




    Forwarded by Bill Ellis

    How the QE stimulus package really works Robert Sullivan Bantry,Co Cork.

    Irish Independent IT IS a slow day in a dusty little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted.

    Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

    On this particular day a rich tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

    The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

    The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

    The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

    The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub.

    The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit.

    The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.

    At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

    No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

    And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the stimulus package works

     


    Forwarded by Paula

    ---------- BE SURE YOU LOCK YOUR DOORS AND WINDOWS AT HOME!

    A local man was found dead in his home over the weekend.

    Detectives at the scene found the man face down in his bathtub.

    The tub had been filled with milk, sugar and cornflakes.

    A banana was sticking out of his butt.

    Police suspect a cereal killer.


    I now carry this card to present to TSA Security Officials at airports:
    I Just Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore  (video)  --- http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20071221/MULTIMEDIA/283841756
    Also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8R51IUtYCQ
    Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwoZjsHs86A

                        

     

     

     

     




    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

    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