Tidbits on September 8, 2011
Bob Jensen
at Trinity University
This week I feature my
favorite photographs of Erika's domestic roses
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Roses/Domestic/Set01/DomesticRosesSet01.htm
I must thank Professor Albrecht for the honor.
"Prof Albrecht’s Most Influential," by David Albrecht, The Summa,
August 28, 2011 ---
http://profalbrecht.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/profalbrechts-most-influential/
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Blogs of White
Mountain Hikers (many great photographs) ---
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02242409292439585691
Especially note
the archive of John Compton's blogs at the bottom of the page at
http://1happyhiker.blogspot.com/
Question
Are their trails in our White Mountains of New Hampshire that have ice in summer
as well as winter?
See "The Ice Gulch, Would I do it Again" by John Compton, August 5, 2011 ---
http://1happyhiker.blogspot.com/2011_08_05_archive.html
Okay, you might ask, is there
really ice in the Ice Gulch, even in August? Yes, there is! The next photo
shows one small patch of ice. There were many larger patches, but they were
at the bottom of some of those deep gaps that I mentioned above. I took some
photos, but none of them really turned out, even with using a flash to
illuminate these dark, dank, deep spots.
White
Mountain News ---
http://www.whitemtnews.com/
"Say goodbye to cavities: New gel could help your teeth fix themselves,"
(see tidbit below)
Tidbits on September 8, 2011
Bob Jensen
For earlier editions of Tidbits go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/.
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page is at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
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
Demonstration of an optical illusion by an MIT professor ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/mit_checker_shadow_illusion.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Marlene Dietrich Screen Tests for The Blue Angel (1929) ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/marlene_dietrich_screen_tests_for_the_blue_angel.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Destino: The Salvador Dalí – Disney Collaboration 57 Years in
the Making ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/destinodalidisney.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Enlightened Muslim, explains he has been ill, and then he
begins to speak eloquently in Toronto and wisely about the problems facing us
and other countries and how we are losing our freedom in silence ---
http://www.livestream.com/ideacity/video?clipId=flv_fd017d81-dc18-42cc-821a-18b86fdea840
Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame sings "The Elements" ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSAaiYKF0cs&feature=youtu.be
Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" animated ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM-wSKFBpo
Much more seriously
The Periodic Table of Videos ---
http://www.periodicvideos.com/
Download Free Courses from Top Philosophers: From Bertrand
Russell to Michel Foucault ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/stars_of_philosophy_offer_free_courses_online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Bob Jensen's threads on thousands of free lectures ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
American Geological Institute: Educational Resources [included
earth science promo videos] ---
http://www.agiweb.org/education/resource/
Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of
Nails It ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/arthur_c_clarke_looks_into_the_future_1964.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
What Clarke admits he failed to predict was the worldwide explosion in cell
phone technology.
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Taps (beautiful) ---
http://www.flixxy.com/trumpet-solo-melissa-venema.htm
Sing About Science ---
http://www.singaboutscience.org/
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and
Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
You must watch this to the ending to appreciate it.
The Guardian’s Guide to Opera (and Free Opera Until Sept. 12)
---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/the_guardians_introduction_to_opera_and_free_opera_until_sept_12.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
'Porgy And Bess': Messing With A Classic ---
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/21/139784251/porgy-and-bess-messing-with-a-classic
Mozart's Sister ---
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2011/08/22/139847160/picturing-nannerl-a-new-film-about-mozarts-silenced-sister
Partner Content from WGBH (complete concert) ---
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134765307/cellist-wendy-warner-in-a-russian-mood
The Banjo's Roots, Reconsidered ---
http://www.npr.org/sections/music-news/
Hear the world premiere recording of Philippe
Gaubert's rare ballet Le Chevalier et la Damoiselle ---
http://www.npr.org/music/genres/classical/
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
The Search for Cleopatra ---
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/cleopatra/brown-text
George Handy Bates Samoan Papers (and
photographs) ---
http://fletcher.lib.udel.edu/collections/bsp/
Miami Art Museum [Flash Player] ---
http://www.miamiartmuseum.org/
Tse-Tsung Chow Collection of Chinese Scrolls and
Fan Paintings ---
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/digilib/scroll/
National Portrait Gallery: Asian American
Portraits of Encounter ---
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/encounter/
Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA)
Archives, 1885-1990s ---
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/oaaaarchives/
Mathematical Imagery ---
http://www.ams.org/mathimagery/thumbnails.php?album=28#galleries
2010 Found Math Gallery ---
http://www.maa.org/FoundMath/FMgallery10.html
William P. Palmer III Collection [pre-Columbian and Northwest
Coas] ---
http://library.umaine.edu/hudson/palmer/
Photography of Homer L. Shantz (botany) ---
http://uair.arizona.edu/item/274074
Spode Exhibition Online (pottery and art history) ---
http://www.winterthur.org/?p=824
Apple’s Steve Jobs: A decade in pictures ---
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apples-steve-jobs-a-decade-in-pictures-2010-12-08
The City That Time Forgot ---
http://vlm32.com/savedHTML_2/thecitythattimeforgot.html
Burgert Brothers Collection of Tampa Photographs ---
http://guides.lib.usf.edu/content.php?pid=86148&sid=640824#
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
Literature Brings the Physical Past to Life ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Literature-Brings-the-Physical/128706/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
The Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally: 1764-1765 ---
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/sally/
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages ---
http://www.bartleby.com/89/
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 September 8, 2011
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2011/TidbitsQuotations090811.htm
The booked National
Debt on August 21, 2011 was slightly over $14 trillion ---
U.S. National Debt Clock ---
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
The January 2010 Booked National Debt Plus Unbooked Entitlements Debt
The GAO estimated $76 trillion Present Value in January 2010 unless something
drastic is done.
Click Here |
http://www.pgpf.org/~/media/PGPF/Media/PDF/2010/03/fiscalsustainabilityGAONationsLongTermFiscalOutlook03032010.ashx?pid={97E10657-8193-4455-871C-4E7A6A9EE084}
There are many ways to describe the
federal government’s long-term fiscal challenge. One method for capturing
the challenge in a single number is to measure the “fiscal gap.” The fiscal
gap represents the difference, or gap, between revenue and spending in
present value terms over a certain period, such as 75 years, that would need
to be closed in order to achieve a specified debt level (e.g., today’s debt
to GDP ratio) at the end of the period.2 From the fiscal gap, one can
calculate the size of action needed—in terms of tax increases, spending
reductions, or, more likely, some combination of the two—to close the gap;
that is, for debt as a share of GDP to equal today’s ratio at the end of the
period. For example, under our Alternative simulation, the fiscal gap is 9.0
percent of GDP (or a little over $76 trillion in present value dollars) (see
table 2). This means that revenue would have to increase by about 50 percent
or noninterest spending would have to be reduced by 34 percent on average
over the next 75 years (or some combination of the two) to keep debt at the
end of the period from exceeding its level at the beginning of 2010 (53
percent of GDP).
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
"An Idea from My Boss" (former AAA President Nancy Bagranoff), by Joe
Hoyle, Teaching-Getting the Most from Your Students. September 2, 2011
---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2011/09/idea-from-my-boss.html
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Competency-Based Assessment ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/competency.htm
There are a few really noteworthy competency-based distance education
programs including Western Governors University (WGU) and the Chartered
Accountancy School of Business (CASB) in Canada. But these compentency-based
programs typically have assigned instructors and bear the costs of those
instructors. The instructors, however, do not assign grades to students.
It appears that the Southern New Hampshire University (a private institution)
is taking competency-based distance education to a new level by eliminating the
instructors. It should be noted that SNHU has both an onsite campus and online
degree programs.
"Online Education Is Everywhere. What’s the Next Big Thing?" by Marc
Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 31, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/online-education-is-everywhere-whats-the-next-big-thing/32898?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
. . .
The vision is that students could sign up for
self-paced online programs with no conventional instructors. They could work
at their own speeds through engaging online content that offers built-in
assessments, allowing them to determine when they are ready to move on. They
could get help through networks of peers who are working on the same
courses; online discussions could be monitored by subject experts. When
they’re ready, students could complete a proctored assessment, perhaps at a
local high school, or perhaps online. The university’s staff could then
grade the assessment and assign credit.
And the education could be far cheaper, because
there would be no expensive instructor and students could rely on free, open
educational resources rather than expensive textbooks. Costs to the student
might include the assessment and the credits.
“The whole model hinges on excellent assessment, a
rock-solid confidence that the student has mastered the student-learning
outcomes,” the memo says. “If we know with certainty that they have, we
should no longer care if they raced through the course or took 18 months, or
if they worked on their courses with the support of a local church
organization or community center or on their own. The game-changing idea
here is that when we have assessment right, we should not care how a student
achieves learning. We can blow up the delivery models and be free to try
anything that shows itself to work.”
Continued in article
"A Russian University Gets Creative Against Corruption: With
surveillance equipment and video campaigns, rector aims to eliminate bribery at
Kazan State," by Anna Nemtsova, Chronicle of Higher Education, January
17, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Russian-University-Gets/63522/
Jensen Comment
In its early history, the University of Chicago had competency-based programs
where grades were assigned solely on the basis of scores on final examinations.
Students did not have to attend class.
Bob Jensen's threads on competency-based assessment ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/competency.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education alternatives are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
I should point out that this is very similar to the AAA's Innovation in
Accounting Education Award Winning BAM Pedagogy commenced at the University of
Virginia (but there were instructors who did not teach) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
Newsweek Magazine on September 5, 2011 has a feature entitled "The
Best Colleges for You," by Clark Merrefield, Lauren Streib, Ian Yarett,
Newsweek Magazine, September 5, 2011---
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/newsweek-ranks-the-best-colleges.html
I still can't get Google to give me Newsweek instead of The Daily Beast
The lists are linked at
http://www.thedailybeast.com/topics/college-rankings-2011.html
Whereas we pretty much understand the university rankings from US News,
the WSJ, Business Week, etc., the Tina Brown (Newsweek Editor)-inspired
rankings are vague and open to as much dispute as publicity seeker Tina Brown
herself..
Categories include the following "Best Colleges for":
Future CEOs
Partiers
Return on Investment (job pay)
Best Food
Future Politicians
Free-Spirited
Most Rigorous
Least Rigorous
Activists
Service-Oriented
International
Gay-Friendly
Brainiacs
Athletic
Cheapest
Best Weather
Horniest
Artistic
Computer Geeks
Greenest
Most Beautiful
Healthiest
Accessible Professors
Happiest
Foreign Students
Obviously some of these rankings are jokes.
The supposed "Horniest" universities are:
Wesleyan
Yale
Rice
Bowdan
Stanford
Newsweek testers obviously did not test the horny students at Texas
A&M where males have to travel hundreds of miles to find good looking women
The old joke about the difference between a brainy Aggie Engineering Student and
a Catfish is that one's a fish.
The "Least Rigorous" universities purportedly are:
SUNY Binghamton (where's that?)
University of Florida
University of Wisconsin at Madison
University of Minnesota
University of Maryland
Aside from the University of Florida what about the dumb-jock schools like
Auburn, LSU, FSU, etc.?
The "Most Rigorous" universities purportedly are:
St. John's NM (where's that on the map?)
Furman University
Middlebury College
Franklin & Marshall
Columbia University
It appears that the Newsweek testers did not study the grade inflation
tables for some of these winners ---
http://www.gradeinflation.com/
For example, grade inflation at Furman rose from 2.68 in 1984 to 3.22 in 2007.
Grade inflation rose at Middlebury from 3.04 in 1987 to 3.34
Grade inflation at Columbia rose from 3.20 in 1982 to 3.42 in 2006
Do the above universities sound "more rigorous" to you
than colleges like Iowa University, Evergreen, and Wright State where grade
averages remain today below 3.0?
The "Free-Spirited" colleges are:
Burlington College
Sarah Lawrence College
Bennington College
Hampshire College
Lewis & Clark College
But "Free-Spirits" are not noted for being horny accounting to Newsweek
Magazine.
And they don't care much for "Partying" like:
West Virginia
Alabama
UCLA
Illinois
Syracuse
You might laugh at some of these outcomes, but how many high school graduates
starting up classes at the University of Texas are sorry that they did not
choose a university that partied more, was less rigorous, or had a more horny
student body?
Bob Jensen's threads on controversial media rankings of colleges and
universities are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings
Harvard Entrance Examination from 1869 ---
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf
Jensen Comment
How times have changed over the years. Harvard graduates today could not pass
the entrance examination of 1869 because what was deemed important to
scholarship in the 19th Century is no longer deemed as important in the 21st
Centrury.
On August 29, 2011 Professor XXXXX at Trinity University wrote the following
reply:
Better yet, could a Harvard student of 1869 show you an aerial view of
each of the listed Geography sites on the exam. I trust a 2011 student can.
Would a 1869 student be able to use Mathematica to solve the math
problems listed on the exam.
Only the year before (1868) DNA was described. Could the 1869 student
suggest how DNA controlled growth? Could the 1869 student detail the
chromosome number of humans, after all Mendel was in his garden at the time.
Could the Harvard student of 1869 recount Darwin's work which had been
around for 10 years? My goodness could the 1869 candidate program his smart
phone? "His" was chosen deliberately because the gals had to seek admission
elsewhere.
Latin, Greek, Geography, minimal math.... don't solve the problems of 7
billion people. I really don't know how to saddle a horse or hitch a wagon;
but I can put up a web page and attach a QR code to document. So there, take
that Charles Eliot, phooey on your exam of 1869.
XXXXX
August 30, 2011 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi XXXXX,
You seemed to skip over the question of whether Harvard graduates today
should at least be able to do the algebra, trig, and geometry parts of the
admission test.
I think much of this debate goes back to the very heated and eventually
personal exchanges that went on between professors in Trinity's Math
Department regarding whether students in integral calculus should learn how
to integrate or learn how to use calculators that perform the integrations.
It would seem that the exchanges would not have been so personal and heated
if students were simply required to do both. But some math professors no
longer see the advantage of knowing how to integrate without using a
calculator or computer.
There are of course arguments on both sides --- Jerry/Phoebe and
Scott/Bill have long since departed our Math Department.
Few people are more avid supporters of technology in education than me,
but somehow scholarship just does not seem the same when students are really
good at punching buttons on a calculator and using Google/Bing maps with
almost total ignorance of integral calculus and geography.
One respondent to this thread wondered how many students today know the
Po and the Ganges are rivers, or where they are, let alone their origins.
Perhaps this is useless information in the 21st Century.
And perhaps knowing more than one language will be a useless waste of
time in the 22nd Century.
Times do change, but I have a hard time defining scholarship on the basis
of computer skills alone.
Eventually I suspect humans will indeed be ignorant slaves to the
computers embedded behind their ears.
Respectfully,
Bob Jensen
Question
Could You Pass the 1885 Admission Test for High School?
From the University of Houston
See
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/multimedia.cfm
In particular go to
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/quizzes/highschool_test.cfm
Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from academic or
vocational high schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the United States,
and 66 percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in the European
Union. Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United
States.
Simoleon Sense ---
http://www.simoleonsense.com/
"Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? The country's achievements in
education have other nations doing their homework," by LynNell Hancock,
Smithsonian.com, September 2011 ---
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html?c=y&story=fullstory
. . .
The transformation of the Finns’ education system
began some 40 years ago as the key propellent of the country’s economic
recovery plan. Educators had little idea it was so successful until 2000,
when the first results from the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA), a standardized test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40
global venues, revealed Finnish youth to be the best young readers in the
world. Three years later, they led in math. By 2006, Finland was first out
of 57 countries (and a few cities) in science. In the 2009 PISA scores
released last year, the nation came in second in science, third in reading
and sixth in math among nearly half a million students worldwide. “I’m still
surprised,” said Arjariita Heikkinen, principal of a Helsinki comprehensive
school. “I didn’t realize we were that good.”
In the United States, which has muddled along in
the middle for the past decade, government officials have attempted to
introduce marketplace competition into public schools. In recent years, a
group of Wall Street financiers and philanthropists such as Bill Gates have
put money behind private-sector ideas, such as vouchers, data-driven
curriculum and charter schools, which have doubled in number in the past
decade. President Obama, too, has apparently bet on competition. His Race
to the Top initiative invites states to compete for federal dollars using
tests and other methods to measure teachers, a philosophy that would not fly
in Finland. “I think, in fact, teachers would tear off their shirts,” said
Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience.
“If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”
There are no mandated standardized tests in
Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high
school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between
students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded. The
people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to
local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or
career politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from
the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish
child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter
whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. The
differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the
world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Equality is the most important word in
Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on
this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union.
Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from
academic or vocational high schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the
United States, and 66 percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in
the European Union. Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student
than the United States.
Still, there is a distinct absence of
chest-thumping among the famously reticent Finns. They are eager to
celebrate their recent world hockey championship, but PISA scores, not so
much. “We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,”
said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in
Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. “We are not much interested in
PISA. It’s not what we are about.”
Maija Rintola stood before her chattering class of
twenty-three 7- and 8-year-olds one late April day in Kirkkojarven Koulu. A
tangle of multicolored threads topped her copper hair like a painted wig.
The 20-year teacher was trying out her look for Vappu, the day teachers and
children come to school in riotous costumes to celebrate May Day. The
morning sun poured through the slate and lemon linen shades onto containers
of Easter grass growing on the wooden sills. Rintola smiled and held up her
open hand at a slant—her time-tested “silent giraffe,” which signaled the
kids to be quiet. Little hats, coats, shoes stowed in their cubbies, the
children wiggled next to their desks in their stocking feet, waiting for a
turn to tell their tale from the playground. They had just returned from
their regular 15 minutes of playtime outdoors between lessons. “Play is
important at this age,” Rintola would later say. “We value play.”
Jensen Comment
When comparing Finland with other nations in terms of education, perhaps too
much stress is being placed upon differences in schools and teachers. There are
more important factors to K-12 education than schools, the most important factor
being home environment and discipline. Finland has the lowest percentage of
single-parent homes. The United States has one of the highest rates of
single-parent homes. ---
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/single-parents-around-the-world/
The U.S. has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancies
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/8Comparison.htm
Teen pregnancies per 1,000 teenagers:
United States 98.0
United Kingdom 46.6
Norway 40.2
Canada 38.6
Finland 32.1
Sweden 28.3
Denmark 27.9
Netherlands 12.1
Japan 10.5
Finland ranks Number 3 in terms of having the lowest overall crime rate.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
Also see
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/8Comparison.htm
Murder rate for males age 15-24 (per 100,000 people):
United States 24.4
Canada 2.6
Sweden 2.3
Norway 2.3
Finland 2.3
Denmark 2.2
United Kingdom 2.0
Netherlands 1.2
Germany 0.9
Japan 0.5
Rape (per 100,000 people):
United States 37.20
Sweden 15.70
Denmark 11.23
Germany 8.60
Norway 7.87
United Kingdom 7.26
Finland 7.20
Japan 1.40
Armed robbery (per 100,000 people)
United States 221
Canada 94
United Kingdom 63
Sweden 49
Germany 47
Denmark 44
Finland 38
Norway 22
Japan 1
Like all cold climates, Finland struggles somewhat (certainly not highest
among nations) with alcohol abuse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption
But Finland does not have near the problems of of the United States in terms of
substance abuses other than alcohol. And Finland's DWI laws are among the
strictest in the world. You just do not drink and drive in Finland.
Added Jensen Comment
While shaving this morning, I overheard Senator Boxer raving in support of a new
program to have public funding of online tutors for home-schooled children. This
struck me as odd because home-schooled children tend to do much better in
scholastics than children who attend public schools, especially urban public
schools. It seems to me that rather than provide online support for
home-schooled children we should first be putting that money into online
tutorials for children attending lousy urban public schools. Of course
home-schooled children may be more likely to make use of free tutorial services
do to advantages of their home environments and home discipline.
"Young and Jobless," by Catherine Rampell, Economix Blog in the New
York Times, August 25, 2011 ---
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/young-and-jobless/?src=tp
Jensen Comment
Note how the unemployment statistics are badly understated as of late because so
many unemployed young people have simply stopped trying to get a job. Many are
going to school, but many are also simply living with parents and wasting what
should be the most opportune times of their lives.
Minimum wage levels most certainly have led to dramatic declines in teen
employment during times when employers are struggling with revenue declines.
Whereas minimum wages are important to low-skilled workers seeking to raise
families on low incomes, minimum wage increases can be job killers for teens
seeking part-time work and school vacation work. Perhaps more relief should be
given to employers who can demonstrate what portion of work on the job is
devoted to raising skill levels. Perhaps employers should be allowed to pay less
than minimum wage for portions of job time devoted to vocational training.
Many economists argue that minimum wage hikes are not as destructive to the
numbers hired as business firms argue ---
Click Here
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/guest-post-minimum-wage-laws-and-the-labor-market-what-have-we-learned-since-card-and-krueger%e2%80%99s-book-myth-and-measurement/
But these studies focus heavily on industries where jobs are not easily exported
to lower wage countries, especially fast food hiring. The argument is that the
numbers hired at minimum wage in the fast food industry will not dramatically
increase if the minimum wage is lowered. This may well be true, but liberal
economists tend to shy away from industries like the calling industry where call
operators in the U.S. tend to lose their minimum wage jobs to India even though
customers would rather have call operators that they can better understand in
English.
This happened to me as a customer of both Sears and Dell. I now have to deal
with some operators in India that are hard for me to understand on the phone.
"What Ever Happened to the Top MBAs of 1991?," Business Week,
August 31, 2011 ---
Click Here
http://www.businessweek.com/business-schools/what-ever-happened-to-the-top-mbas-of-1991-08312011_page_3.html
Jensen Comment
I could care less whether you read the above "promo" for elite MBA programs.
Sadly, it's articles like this that motivate thousands of college graduates to
go deeply into lifetime debt for prestigious MBA degrees that end up having, for
them at least, a very negative rate of return.
What I do recommend is that you read the comments
following the above article.
I suppose most of us that have been on the inside of administration (in my
case only four years as a department chair in a large state university). We've
all been guilty of lavishing praise on our successful graduates and never
mentioning the ones that are homeless alcoholic embezzlers, syphilitic
prostitutes, and/or showing off their motorcycle gang tattoos in prison. In my
case, I authored a departmental annual report in which I had a centerfold
praising the year's outstanding alumnus, usually one who just pledged the most
money that year for our program.
One year I got a the best pledge from an alumnus who owned a horse ranch in
Florida. Shortly after I ran a centerfold on him his first pledge check bounced.
Soon thereafter a grand jury elected to prosecute him. I think he ended up with
a 10-year felony conviction. He never sent us a nickel from the slammer.
Wide Gaps Between Graduation Rates of Football Players Versus Other Males
in NCAA Division 1 Universities ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/01/qt#269379
Wide gaps persist in the graduation rates of
Division I football players and other male students, and these gaps are not
limited to "football factory" institutions, according to a report released
this morning by the College Sport Research Institute of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study found only two conferences in
Division I -- the Southwestern Athletic Conference and the Mid-Eastern
Athletic Conference -- in which football players graduated at rates greater
than the full-time male student body. The Pac-12 (formerly the Pac-10) had
the greatest gap, with football players graduating at a rate 26 points lower
than other male students.
Also see
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/big-graduation-rate-gap-looms-between-football-players-and-full-time-male-students/35848
Bob Jensen's threads on athletics controversies in higher education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Athletics
"Want to Rent out That Spare Room? The Growing Popularity of
'Collaborative Consumption," Knowledge@Wharton, August 25, 2011 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2834
The founders of Internet startup Airbnb were
accustomed to rejection. Joe Gebbia, Brian Chesky and Nathan Blecharczyk
peddled to venture capitalists their idea for using the Internet to help
people rent out a room, or even a couch, to frugal travelers. All of the
venture capitalists took a pass. But after receiving funding as well as
mentoring from incubator Y Combinator in 2009, the startup exploded. Airbnb
-- the name was originally Airbed and Breakfast in a reference to the use of
airbeds for guests -- has listings in 16,000 cities around the world and has
booked more than two million nights.
What those early VCs missed was a burgeoning trend
in what is now called "collaborative consumption." At the core of this trend
is the idea that technologies like the Internet and smartphones can help
consumers monetize assets that they own -- their home or car, for example --
in ways that were previously difficult or downright impossible. "There are
two forces converging," says Wharton marketing professor
David Bell. "First is the notion that it might be
better to have access to something than to own it outright. And the second
is the realization that people have slack resources. So that car you own may
sit idle for 22 hours a day. The grease that makes the whole thing work is
social media and technology, like iPhone applications that can create
markets that didn't exist before."
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Although there are many ways to collaborate on consumption without loaning out
your car or rooms in your house, some good-hearted folks in San Antonio and
Houston got taken when letting Katrina victims use rooms in their houses in days
following the storm. Months or even years later some of these folks did not want
to cease being "guests."
And evicting a room renter who's no longer wanted can be a troublesome and
even dangerous process. It's hard enough getting your freeloading adult
"children" to leave home.
"The ProfHacker ‘Open Letter’ Series: For Grad Students, Profs, and Chairs,"
by Jason B. Jones, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 29, 2011 ---
Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/the-profhacker-open-letter-series-for-grad-students-profs-and-chairs/35690?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
I don't quite buy into all the words of advice
below, but Millennials should consider this package of advice.
Actually, they hear such horror stories about low hiring rates of college
graduates that they probably are following this advice before it was written.
"When Entitlement Meets Unemployment," by Andrew McAffee, Harvard
Business Review Blog, August 29, 2011 ---
http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/mcafee/2011/08/when-entitlement-meets-unemplo.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date
. . .
Let's dispense
with this idea that Millennials are somehow just smarter than all the
generations that have come before. When I learn that over one-third of
undergraduates these days
show no significant gains after four years in vital skills
like critical thinking and written communication,
I have trouble seeing the broad genius of Gen Y.
Many employers
evidently agree; as of March, the
unemployment rate among Millennials was, at
18.8%, almost twice that of the general workforce. Given this state of
affairs, let me offer some advice to young job seekers that goes against
current practices.
Take the first
decent job that's offered to you. Stop waiting for one that
recognizes all your talents and plays to all your strengths.
Offer your
employer superior ROE — return on employee. Compared to your
peers, give your employer more and ask less. Trust me on this: it'll be
recognized, and you'll come across as a huge breath of fresh air.
Take every
chance offered to you to learn a new skill.
Learn to serve,
not just to lead. Of course you think you could do a better job
running the place; everyone else thinks they could, too. Until that
happens, learn to be a good subordinate, teammate, or customer liaison.
Humility and selflessness are two of those new skills you've just
committed to learn after reading the previous bullet point.
Keep in mind
that self-esteem comes from achievement, not the other way
around.
You Millennials, through
no fault of your own, have been dealt a bad hand; you're just starting
out during the worst job market in decades. I wish you luck in the world
as you navigate this, and I beg you to stop asking for Pilates rooms.
Getting and keeping a job is workout enough these days.
Added Jensen Comment
McAffee hires mostly programmers and other tech graduates who are probably more
demanding in job interviews (they all want the perks offered by Google). I think
most history graduates and MBA school graduates are more grateful if they can
just get a job offer.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education ---
The 2011-12 Almanac Issue ---
http://chronicle.texterity.com/chronicle/20110826a?sub_id=yf6H2Es7OzfJ#pg1
Here's the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher
Education.
Click here to browse
and read your copy of The Chronicle's Almanac of Higher Education 2011-12.
And for the most current job opportunities in all of academe,
click here.
The Chronicle's annual Almanac of Higher Education
provides an in-depth analysis of American colleges and universities, with
data on students, professors, administrators, institutions, and their
resources.
The latest Almanac of Higher Education gathers an
assortment of key data about the most important trends in higher education.
Quick tips for reading your digital edition can be
found by clicking on the HELP icon on the navigation bar found at the top of
every page. But if you experience any technical difficulties, please
click here.
If you would like a print edition of our annual
Almanac, visit
The Chronicle's online store. You'll also find
other special reports and issues published by The Chronicle of Higher
Education and The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
pages links
Table of Contents
THE NATION FINANCE
3 Resources and Expenditures Page 3
Giving 8
College Costs 11
Research 14
THE PROFESSION 16
Salaries 22
The Institution 28
Views of College Leaders 29
STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS
Enrollments and Population 31
Student Characteristics 34
Degrees Awarded 39
ACCESS AND EQUITY
Race, Ethnicity, Gender 42
Admissions 45
Financial Aid 45
After Graduation 48
TECHNOLOGY
Student Use 51
Attitudes About Tech 51
Campus Infrastructure 52
INTERNATIONAL
Global Trends 54
Trends in the U.S. 58
Jensen Comment
Among the 1,601,368 undergraduate degrees awarded, 346,972
were in Business. That's nearly 22%.
Among the 662.072 masters degrees awarded,
168,367 were in Business. That's over 25%.
Among the 154,425 doctoral degrees awarded,
2,123 were in Business. That's less than 2%.
I'm not certain how the enormous number of for-profit degrees are dealt with
in this report. I suspect that for-profit universities are excluded from the
report.
Average salaries for new assistant professors in Business ($93,926) were the
highest among all disciplines, followed by Law ($91,828) and Engineering
($76,518)
Average salaries for full professors in Law ($134,162) were highest among all
disciplines, followed by Engineering ($114,365) and Business ($111,621)
Average salaries for new assistant professors tend to be higher than averages
for associate professors, indicating compression problems in virtually every
discipline
Averages for associates are skewed by lifetime associate professors versus those
that are only in transition to full professorship promotions
Average salaries for women still lag those of men, but this is skewed somewhat
by higher-paid disciplines having much higher proportions of men to women.
Average salaries are much higher in the larger research universities, but
these are not set apart in the 2011-12 Almanac.
Average salaries in general are skewed downward by the large number of
lower paying small colleges.
Since lower paying small colleges have no law schools this partly explains
why Law salaries appear to be higher than Engineering and Business even though,
in universities having law schools, Business and Engineering graduate school
professors may have the highest salaries ---
http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/salaries.asp
The IRS 990 tables reveal that medical professors tend to be the highest paid
employees of universities, but the way they are paid is so varied and
complicated that medical schools are not included in the above data tables of
the 2011-12 Almanac. Medical schools often have their own sources of
revenues if their staff members are also serving patients in university
hospitals.
For breakdowns of sub-disciplines within the Business category, go the the
AACSB database ---
http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/dataglance.asp
This data excludes many of non-AACSB accredited colleges included in the above
2011-12 Almanac. Hence items like average salaries are not comparable ---
http://www.aacsb.edu/dataandresearch/salaries.asp
Bob Jensen's threads on Higher Education Controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
"Camden Pays Students $100 Each to Not Skip School: Anti-truancy
program pays Camden high school students to go to school," by Teresa
Masterson, NBC Philadelphi, August 24, 2011 ---
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Camden-to-Pay-Students-100-Each-to-Not-Skip-School-128311368.html
To receive the promised $100, each
of the 66 targeted students must attend classes as well as
conflict-resolution and anger-management workshops until Sept. 30.
Not everyone was happy about the
pay-off program at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, according to the
Inquirer. Board member Sean Brown voiced his anger that he just learned of
the truancy program.
Former board member Jose Delgado
said that it was “outrageous” and it sends the wrong message to kids,
reports the
Inquirer.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Many things are wrong with this, not the least of which is the timing. The
payoffs should come at the end of the year so that the kids do not threaten
truancy for another $100 every three months during the school year. Better yet
the $100 should be paid on the basis of performance improvement rather than just
dozing in class.
Worst of all this is an incentive for students not receiving the payoffs to
become worse truants and get in on the action.
Also some may get the clever idea that they should also be paid $100 per day
not to rob business establishments.
There was a time when getting a school education was considered a privilege.
What happened to the good old days?
Bayes' Theorem ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes_theorem
"A History of Bayes' Theorem," LessWrong, August 29, 2011 ---
http://lesswrong.com/lw/774/a_history_of_bayes_theorem/
Jensen Comment
Some of the classic Bayesian statistics books in business education came out of
Harvard in the 1950s, I was weined on Robert Schlaifer's classic ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schlaifer
Business education has gone through various cycles of academic fad. A lot of
us in the 1960s pinned our hopes on the Bayesian revolution that proved to be
just that --- a passing fad in many ways while most accountics statistical
analysis is still rooted in classical inference works of earlier history.
Reverend Bayes disappeared from The Accounting Review about the time that
case studies and field studies went by the boards, or should I say under the
Boards.
Faculty urged not to be “too choosy” in admitting new cash-cow graduate
students
"Not So Fast," by Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Ed, August 29,
2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/08/29/essay_suggesting_faculty_members_should_be_dubious_of_drive_for_new_graduate_programs
. . .
New graduate programs are often proposed and
pushed by the administration, not the faculty.
Why? Grad students are cash cows. (Remember, we’re talking here about the
new professionally oriented programs, not humanities Ph.D.s for which
stipends are offered.) Universities often charge more for grad programs and
grad students will pay, taking out loans in order to do so. Or, they’ll be
used as cheap labor, working on campus, for professors, and maybe even
teaching some of those pesky intro classes that no one else wants to. And
did I mention the prestige? Rankings reward programs with grad offering.
Then there is the issue of quality control. The
recently leaked memo from a British university reminding professors
not to be “too choosy” in admitting new graduate students
illustrates the perils of graduate admissions,
particularly for faculty members. How is teaching and supervising
underprepared (and possibly unmotivated and disinterested) graduate students
a perk? The M.A. (or worse, Ph.D.) will be the new B.A., insofar as students
will feel entitled to their degree on the basis of having a) been accepted
and b) paid for it. The best and the brightest (and
the richest) will continue to go to the "best"
institutions, while everyone else will move from one mediocre program to
another. You'll be able to say that you supervise grad students, but at what
cost?
Continued in article
Bad Habits of Misleading Prospective Students are Hard to Break
"Law Schools Pump Up Classes and Tuition, Though Jobs Remain Scarce,"
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 16, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/law-schools-pump-up-classes-tuition-though-jobs-remain-scarce/34657
Even as their
graduates face a shriveled job market, law schools have raised tuition
four times as fast as colleges and enrolled increasingly large classes,
reports The New York Times in an
article that puts New York Law School under
special scrutiny.
Though it ranks in the
bottom third of all law schools in the country, New York Law School
charges more than Harvard, and in 2009 increased its class size by 30
percent. That same year, its dean, Richard A. Matasar, urged his
colleagues at other law schools to change the standard business model
and focus more on helping students.
What happens at New York
Law School is, “for the most part, standard operating procedure,” writes
the Times. “What sets N.Y.L.S. apart is that it is managed by a
man who has criticized many of the standards and much of the procedure.”
Jensen Comment
When assessing admission standards, accrediting bodies should look first to the
biggest cash cows on campus, which are typically colleges of education, law, and
business. Traditionally law schools are notorious cash cows due to very high
student/faculty faculty ratios, large class sizes, and the tendency to use low
cost adjunct practitioners for teaching many of the specialized courses such as
advanced taxation courses.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/08/29/essay_suggesting_faculty_members_should_be_dubious_of_drive_for_new_graduate_programs
"How would students grade their law schools? The notion lingers that
teaching practical skills is somehow not their business," by Sheldon M.
Bonovitz," The National Law Journal, September 05, 2011 ---
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202513363358&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1
Jensen Comment
Whereas accounting majors want more help in passing the CPA examination, law
students want more help in passing a BAR examination. Teaching to such
examinations seems to be negatively correlated with average GMAT and LSAT scores
in each graduating class. Schools with the highest admission standards generally
do not have to compete as hard to fill their admissions quotas (due to prestige
of their universities) and tend to assume their students have the ability to
pass the certification examinations without as much certification examination
hand holding as schools with lower admission standards that do more bottom
feeding to meet admissions quotas. For example, the University of Texas Law
School takes pride in having a more philosophical curriculum than a BAR
examination curriculum.
Prestigious accounting programs like the one at the University of Illinois at
one time taught more toward the CPA examination, including having one of the
most popular CPA review courses in the nation. Now the U of I purportedly
teaches much less toward this examination ---
http://aaahq.org/AECC/changegrant/chap9.htm
Other change experiments (some of which failed) ---
http://aaahq.org/AECC/changegrant/index.htm
"Receive Files in Dropbox with FileStork," by Jason B. Jones,
Chronicle of Higher Education, August 25, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/receive-files-in-dropbox-with-filestork/35567?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
We’ve written before about options for receiving
papers electronically outside either e-mail or a campus-based learning
management system. (For example, earlier this month I wrote about
GoFileDrop, which lets you receive files of any
type into your Google Docs account. Also see
Send to Dropbox or
Dropbox Forms.)
The advantages of such a
system are, basically, that it gets files out of your e-mail and directly
into a location where you can start to work with them, that it eliminates
uncertainty around e-mail receipt, and that it doesn’t get you locked into
the LMS. Handy!
A recent entry into the
file-receipt market is
FileStork (Via
LifeHacker). FileStork makes it incredibly simple
for
Dropbox users to request files from people on
either a one-time or more open-ended basis. (This is probably a little
easier and safer than sharing a folder with an entire class.) Here’s how it
works.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on archiving and storage ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#archiving
"The Beloit College Mind-Set List Welcomes the 'Internet Class'," by
Don Troop, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 23, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Beloit-College-Mind-Set/128783/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Jensen Comment
Until today I never knew that Arnold Palmer was a drink.
"7 in 10 Students Have Skipped Buying a Textbook Because of Its Cost,
Survey Finds," by Molly Redden, Chronicle of Higher Education, August
23, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/7-in-10-Students-Have-Skipped/128785/
Jensen Comment
Recall the phrase "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
It has an entire different meaning in college than it had in the Second Grade.
SSRN Top 700 Law Schools ---
http://hq.ssrn.com/rankings/Ranking_Display.cfm?TMY_gID=2&TRN_gID=1
Jensen Comment
From a reputational standpoint it pays to open share scholarship and research.
Reverse Mortgage ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Mortgage
"Reverse Mortgages," by Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, Townhall,
August 2011 ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/carrieschwabpomerantz/2011/08/31/reverse_mortgages/page/2
. . .
There are several drawbacks (to reverse
mortgages); one of the major ones is cost. As part of
the process, you'll pay loan origination fees, appraisal fees and a hefty
upfront mortgage insurance fee of two percent of the value of your home (on
a $400,000 home that's $8,000!), making this an expensive proposition. To
counter this concern, last fall, the FHA introduced a new mortgage product
called the HECM Saver loan, which significantly reduces upfront costs. The
Saver loan doesn't let you borrow as much, but the reduced cost makes it
more manageable.
That's one down, but there's more. For one thing,
your debt, plus interest, is constantly rising. For another, while you keep
the title to your home with a reverse mortgage, the bank owns a little bit
more of it every day.
You're also still responsible for taxes,
homeowner's insurance and upkeep. That may not be a problem now, but if
there came a time when you couldn't make these payments or keep your
property in good condition, it could be considered a default and the loan
would come due. If you couldn't pay off the balance, you'd be at risk of
losing your home.
If at some point you decide to sell your home, you,
or your estate, must repay the money you received from the reverse mortgage,
plus interest and fees. Historically, the rules stated that a borrower or
his or her heirs never have to pay back more than the house is worth, even
if the loan balance is greater than the value of the house.
However, new HUD rules introduced in 2008 say that
while the borrower never has to pay back more than the value of the house, a
borrower's heirs -- (set ital) even a spouse that isn't a co-borrower on the
loan (end ital) -- must pay the full balance if they want to keep the house.
That's regardless of whether the home is worth less than the loan. This is
currently being challenged in court but -- especially in an environment of
dropping home values -- make sure you're both on the reverse mortgage so one
of you isn't left hanging should something happen to the other. And you may
want to give your heirs a heads-up.
There's a lot to consider. Fortunately, a lender is
required to put you in touch with a HUD-approved counselor before going
ahead with the loan. Ask questions and make sure you understand the issues.
While a reverse mortgage may make sense in some circumstances, especially
for those who very much want to stay in their home and who have few other
options, it's far from risk-free. Proceed carefully.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's personal finance helpers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/BookBob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers
Teaching Case on the End of the Party for For-Profit Universities
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on August 26,
2011
Party Ends at For-Profit Schools
by:
Melissa Korn
Aug 23, 2011
Click here to view the full article on WSJ.com
Click here to view the video on WSJ.com
TOPICS: Financial Accounting, Financial Statements, Goodwill,
Impairment
SUMMARY: For-profit educational institutions are reporting dismal
financial results due to declining student enrollments and, in the case of
Corinthian Colleges specifically discussed in the linked video, goodwill
impairment.
CLASSROOM APPLICATION: The article is useful to help students
differentiate among types of educational institutions. The need to generate
financial performance, the student loan default rates that led to federal
investigations of enrollment practices, and the questions about outcomes
from educational investment may be new to many students. The article also
covers the topic of goodwill write-down during these dire times for these
colleges.
QUESTIONS:
1. (Advanced) What is the difference between for-profit higher
educational institutions and ones that are not for profit? Name two types of
higher educational institutions that are not for profit.
2. (Introductory) From where has the author of this article getting
her information about these companies? What does she mean when she says
during the video that the institutions "reported numbers" this week?
3. (Introductory) According to the article, what source of
information led to state and federal government investigations of these
colleges in 2010?
4. (Introductory) According to the article, what were the
problematic recruiting practices that were uncovered via state and federal
investigators last year?
5. (Advanced) Access the Corinthian College, Inc. Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Form 10-K made on August 24, 2011 and
available on the web at
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001066134
Proceed to the statement of operations. What large expense item impacted the
company's performance? Explain the meaning of this charge.
6. (Advanced) Proceed to the 3rd footnote, "Detail of Selected
Balance Sheet Accounts." What portion of goodwill was written off during
this reporting period?
7. (Advanced) What factors led to assessing this goodwill and to
the write-off? Explain how those factors leading to this assessment are
required by promulgated accounting standards, citing professional sources in
your answer.
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
RELATED ARTICLES:
Corinthian Colleges Earnings Down 90%
by Melodie Warner
Aug 23, 2011
Online Exclusive
"Party Ends at For-Profit Schools," by: Melissa Korn, The Wall Street
Journal, August 23, 2011 ---
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904279004576524660236401644.html?mod=djem_jiewr_AC_domainid
For-profit colleges are facing a tough test:
getting new students to enroll.
New-student enrollments have plunged—in some cases
by more than 45%—in recent months, reflecting two factors: Companies have
pulled back on aggressive recruiting practices amid criticism over their
high student-loan default rates. And many would-be students are questioning
the potential pay-off for degrees that can cost considerably more than
what's available at local community colleges.
"People are just frozen or deferring, delaying
decisions to go to school," said DeVry Inc. Chief Executive Daniel Hamburger
in a conference call earlier this month. "The average person in the U.S. has
become much more risk-averse and cautious when it comes to spending or
committing to anything. It's unrealistic for us to think that education
would be immune from this."
Undergraduate new-student enrollment fell 25.6% at
DeVry's namesake university in the quarter ended June 30. The
company—considered by many industry watchers as one of the stronger school
operators because of its portfolio of business, technology and health-care
courses—had earlier forecast earnings growth for the current fiscal year but
now expects relatively flat bottom-line results.
Per-share earnings at
Corinthian Colleges Inc. are expected to be down
about 72% when it reports results Tuesday, according to analysts' forecasts.
The company, with offerings in health care and criminal justice among other
areas, has seen its stock sink to 11-year lows, closing Monday at $2.10, off
from its 52-week high of $7.35. In early 2009 the stock was trading about
$20 a share.
At Corinthian, which implemented changes to its
recruiter compensation in April, new-student enrollment declined 21.5% in
the first calendar quarter, compared with an 8% decline in the previous
quarter.
A representative from Corinthian declined to
comment, citing a quiet period before releasing earnings.
Enrollment at for-profit colleges soared during the
recession, amid heavy advertising that appealed to suddenly jobless people
needing new skills. But while the advertising continues, a number of
for-profit schools including Corinthian,
Apollo Group Inc. and others have tamped down
aggressive recruiting. They've cut back on recruiter bonuses based on
factors such as how many students make it past their first term. Apollo,
operator of the University of Phoenix chain, has been criticized for
targeting injured veterans and homeless adults to fill seats.
Apollo spokesman Alex Clark said the company's
policy on such tactics is "clear and unambiguous," and it doesn't allow
employees to visit homeless facilities for recruiting purposes. "Any
employee who violates this policy faces disciplinary action up to and
including termination," Mr. Clark said.
As for military students, Mr. Clark said University
of Phoenix "is proud to meet the needs of active-duty military students and
veterans of the armed forces."
Some companies are feeling pain not only from
students shying away but from their own tightened admissions standards.
Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Higher Education,
like Apollo, now requires certain students to participate in a trial program
before enrolling and paying tuition. Kaplan reported a 47% decline in
new-student enrollment for the June quarter. Even without the orientation
program, new-student enrollment would have dropped 36% in the quarter.
Corinthian briefly stopped accepting students
without a high-school diploma, but reversed its policy this spring and once
again admits students who take the "Ability to Benefit" test intended to
show they would benefit from higher education.
Cutting recruiter commissions had a rapid and
profound effect at
Capella Education Inc., which introduced a new pay
structure in January: New-student enrollment dropped 35.8% in the first
quarter, compared with a 10.7% decline in the period immediately before the
launch.
The specter of a hefty debt load dissuaded Jason
Tomlinson from enrolling to study business at Berkeley College, a for-profit
school with locations in New York and New Jersey. Mr. Tomlinson, now 25,
said he would have had to pay more than $20,000 per year, for four years,
for that school's bachelor's degree program.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on for-profit universities operating in the gray zone
of fraud ---
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904279004576524660236401644.html?mod=djem_jiewr_AC_domainid
"Enrollments Plunge at Many For-Profit Colleges," by Rachel Wiseman,
Chronicle of Higher Education, August 16, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Enrollments-Plunge-at-Many/128711/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
. . .
Bucking the
Trend
While some of the biggest for-profit colleges saw
declines, a few showed enrollment increases. Total enrollment in the
American Public University System, which charges $250 per undergraduate
credit—less than many of its proprietary peers do—grew 28 percent in the
quarter ending June 30. The system is operated by American Public Education
Inc.
With a similarly low price point, Bridgepoint
Education saw a slight uptick in new-student enrollment. But whether
enrollment will continue to climb is open to question, given the company's
revelation in May that New York's attorney general
is investigating its business practices.
How for-profit enrollments will trend in the future
is "difficult to call," said Robert L. Craig, a managing director of the
investment bank Stifel Nicolaus. He says external factors such as the
economy and federal student aid will affect how well those institutions
fare. He expects the for-profit sector will continue to grow in the long
term, as emphasis is placed on expanding higher education to a greater
portion of Americans and as traditional options for acquiring a degree reach
capacity in some states.
But some analysts are concerned that if
institutions do not lower their prices, they risk losing applicants and
profits. "A lot of these institutions have a cost system that is going to be
untenable for the consumer," said Mr. Safalow, as more traditional
universities enter into online education and the number of available
applicants plateaus. "This is an industry that is closer to saturation than
I think most people realize."
Jensen Comment
The big exception is American Public Education (University) Inc. that was
bolstered when Wal-Mart elected to heavily subsidize employees who elect to
further their educations from APE.
Does this pass the Academy’s smell test?
"Wal-Mart Employees Get New College Program—Online," by Marc Parry,
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 3, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Wal-Mart-Employees-Get-New/24504/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The American Public
University System
has been described as a higher-education version
of Wal-Mart: a publicly traded corporation that mass-markets moderately priced
degrees in many fields.
Now it's more than an
analogy. Under a deal
announced today, the for-profit online university
will offer Wal-Mart workers discounted tuition and credit for job experience.
Such alliances are
nothing new; see these materials from
Strayer and
Capella for other examples. But Wal-Mart is the
country's largest retailer. And the company is pledging to spend $50-million
over three years to help employees cover the cost of tuition and books beyond
the discounted rate, according to the
Associated Press.
"What's most significant
about this is that, given that APU is very small, this is a deal that has the
potential to drive enrollments that are above what investors are already
expecting from them," Trace A. Urdan, an analyst with Signal Hill Capital Group,
told Wired Campus. "Which is why the stock is up."
Wal-Mart workers will be
able to receive credit—without having to pay for it—for job training in subjects
like ethics and retail inventory management, according to the AP.
Wal-Mart employs 1.4
million people in the U.S. Roughly half of them have a high-school diploma but
no college degree, according to
The New York Times. A department-level
manager would end up paying about $7,900 for an associate degree, factoring in
the work credits and tuition discount, the newspaper reported.
“If 10 to 15 percent of
employees take advantage of this, that’s like graduating three Ohio State
Universities,” Sara Martinez Tucker, a former under secretary of education who
is now on Wal-Mart’s external advisory council, told the Times.
"News Analysis: Is 'Wal-Mart U.' a Good Bargain for Students?" by Marc
Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 13, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Wal-Mart-U-a-Good/65933/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
There might have been a
Wal-Mart University.
As the world's largest
retailer weighed its options for making a big splash in education, executives
told one potential academic partner that Wal-Mart Stores was considering buying
a university or starting its own.
"Wal-Mart U." never
happened. Instead, the retailer chose a third option: a landmark alliance that
will make a little-known for-profit institution, American Public University, the
favored online-education provider to Wal-Mart's 1.4 million workers in the
United States.
A closer look at the deal
announced this month shows how American Public slashed its prices and adapted
its curriculum to snare a corporate client that could transform its business. It
also raises one basic question: Is this a good bargain for students?
Adult-learning leaders
praise Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, for investing in
education. But some of those same experts wonder how low-paid workers will be
able to afford the cost of a degree from the private Web-based university the
company selected as a partner, and why Wal-Mart chose American Public when
community-college options might be cheaper. They also question how easily
workers will be able to transfer APU credits to other colleges, given that the
university plans to count significant amounts of Wal-Mart job training and
experience as academic credit toward its degrees.
For example, cashiers
with one year's experience could get six credits for an American Public class
called "Customer Relations," provided they received an "on target" or "above
target" on their last performance evaluation, said Deisha Galberth, a Wal-Mart
spokeswoman. A department manager's training and experience could be worth 24
credit hours toward courses like retail ethics, organizational fundamentals, or
human-resource fundamentals, she said.
Altogether, employees
could earn up to 45 percent of the credit for an associate or bachelor's degree
at APU "based on what they have learned in their career at Wal-Mart," according
to the retailer's Web site.
Janet K. Poley, president
of the American Distance Education Consortium, points out that this arrangement
could saddle Wal-Mart employees with a "nontransferable coupon," as one blogger
has described it.
"I now see where the
'trick' is—if a person gets credit for Wal-Mart courses and Wal-Mart work, they
aren't likely to be able to transfer those to much of anyplace else," Ms. Poley
wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle. Transferability could be important, given
the high turnover rate in the retail industry.
Inside the Deal Wal-Mart
screened 81 colleges before signing its deal with American Public University.
One that talked extensively with the retailer was University of Maryland
University College, a 94,000-student state institution that is a national leader
in online education. According to University College's president, Susan C.
Aldridge, it was during early discussions that Wal-Mart executives told her the
company was considering whether it should buy a college or create its own
college.
When asked to confirm
that, Ms. Galberth said only that Wal-Mart "brainstormed every possible option
for providing our associates with a convenient and affordable way to attend
college while working at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club," which is also owned by
Wal-Mart Stores. "We chose to partner with APU to reach this goal. We have no
plans to purchase a brick-and-mortar university or enter the online education
business," she said.
The Wal-Mart deal was
something of a coming-out party for American Public University. The institution
is part of a 70,000-student system that also includes American Military
University and that largely enrolls active-duty military personnel. As American
Public turned its attention to luring the retail behemoth, it was apparently
able to be more flexible than other colleges and willing to "go the extra mile"
to accommodate Wal-Mart, said Jeffrey M. Silber, a stock analyst and managing
director of BMO Capital Markets. That flexibility included customizing programs.
APU has a management degree with courses in retail, and its deans worked with
Wal-Mart to add more courses to build a retail concentration, said Wallace E.
Boston, the system's president and chief executive.
It also enticed Wal-Mart
with a stable technology platform; tuition prices that don't vary across state
lines, as they do for public colleges; and online degrees in fields that would
be attractive to workers, like transportation logistics.
Unlike American Public,
Maryland's University College would not put a deep discount on the table.
Credit for Wal-Mart work
was also an issue, Ms. Aldridge said.
"We feel very strongly
that any university academic credit that's given for training needs to be
training or experience at the university level," Ms. Aldridge said. "And we have
some very set standards in that regard. And I'm not certain that we would have
been able to offer a significant amount of university credit for some of the
on-the-job training that was provided there."
Awarding credit for
college-level learning gained outside the classroom is a long-standing practice,
one embraced by about 60 percent of higher-education institutions, according to
the most recent survey by the Council for Adult And Experiential Learning. A
student might translate any number of experiences into credit: job training,
military service, hobbies, volunteer service, travel, civic activities.
Pamela J. Tate, president
and chief executive of the council, said what's important isn't the percentage
of credits students get from prior learning—a number that can vary widely.
What's important, she said, is that students can demonstrate knowledge. Workers
might know how they keep the books at a company, she explained. But that doesn't
automatically mean they've learned the material of a college accounting course.
Karan Powell, senior vice
president and academic dean at American Public University system, said credit
evaluation at her institution "is a serious, rigorous, and conservative
process." But will the credits transfer? "Every college or university
establishes its own transfer-credit policies as they apply to experiential
learning as well as credit from other institutions," she said in an e-mail.
"Therefore, it would depend on the school to which a Wal-Mart employee wanted to
transfer."
Affordable on $12 an
Hour? Then there's the question of whether low-wage workers will be able to
afford the degrees. One of the key features of this deal is the discount that
Wal-Mart negotiated with American Public.
"Wal-Mart is bringing the
same procurement policies to education that it brings to toothpaste," said John
F. Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, a distance-learning institution
based in New York.
American Public
University's tuition was already cheap by for-profit standards and competitive
with other nonprofit college options. It agreed to go even cheaper for Wal-Mart,
offering grants equal to 15 percent of tuition for the company's workers. Those
employees will pay about $11,700 for an associate degree and $24,000 for a
bachelor's degree.
But several experts
pointed out that public colleges might provide a more affordable option.
The Western Association
of Food Chains, for example, has a partnership with 135 community colleges in
the western United States to offer an associate degree in retail management
completely online, Ms. Tate said. Many of the colleges also grant credit for
prior learning. Though the tuition varies by state, the average tuition cost to
earn the degree is about $4,500, she said. By contrast, she said, the American
Public degree is "really expensive" for a front-line worker who might make $12
an hour.
"What I couldn't figure
out is how they would be able to afford it unless Wal-Mart was going to pay a
substantial part of the tuition," she said. "If not, then what you've got is
this program that looks really good, but the actual cost to the person is a
whole lot more than if they were going to go to community college and get their
prior learning credits assessed there."
How the retailer might
subsidize its employees' education is an open question. In announcing the
program, Wal-Mart pledged to spend up to $50-million over the next three years
"to provide tuition assistance and other tools to help associates prepare for
college-level work and complete their degrees."
Alicia Ledlie, the senior
director at Wal-Mart who has been shepherding this effort, told The Chronicle in
an e-mail that the company is "right now working through the design of those
programs and how they will benefit associates," with more details to be released
later this summer.
One thing is clear: The
deal has a big financial impact on American Public. Wal-Mart estimates that
about 700,000 of its 1.4 million American employees lack a college degree.
Sara Martinez Tucker, a
former under secretary of education who is now on Wal-Mart's external advisory
council, suggests 10 or 15 percent of Wal-Mart associates could sign up.
"That's 140,000 college
degrees," she told The Chronicle. "Imagine three Ohio State Universities' worth
of graduates, which is huge in American higher education."
Jensen Comment
This Wal-Mart Fringe Benefit Should Be Carefully Investigated by Employees
It does not sit well with me!
- If Wal-Mart
would pay the same amount of benefit for online state university degrees
(e.g., the University of Wisconsin has over 100,000 online students) as the
for-profit American Public University that charges higher tuition even at a
Wal-Mart discount, why would a student choose the less prestigious and
relatively unknown American Public University? Possibly American Public wins
out because it's easier to get A & B grades with less academic ability and
less work.
"Want a Higher G.P.A.? Go to a Private College: A 50-year rise in
grade-point averages is being fueled by private institutions, a recent study
finds," by Catherine Rampell. The New York Times, April 19, 2010 ---
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109339/want-a-higher-gpa-go-to-a-private-college?mod=edu-collegeprep
- I certainly hope
that the Wal-Mart contributions toward tuition can be extended to
state-supported colleges and universities having more respected credits. For
example, online degrees from the University of Wisconsin or the University
of Maryland are are likely much more respected for job mobility and for
acceptance into graduate schools.
- Giving credit
for "job experience" is an absolute turn off for me. Most adults have some
form of "job experience." This is just not equivalent to course credit
experience in college where students face examinations and academic
projects. Weaker colleges generally use credit for "job experience" ploy as
a come on to attract applicants. But the credits awarded for job experience
are not likely to be transferrable to traditional colleges and universities.
- The "discounted
tuition" in this for-profit online program is likely to be higher than the
in-state tuition from state-supported colleges and universities.
- I'm dubious
about the standards for admission in for-profit colleges as well as the
rigor of the courses. Watch the Frontline video served up by PBS.
On May 4, 2010, PBS Frontline broadcast an hour-long video called
College, Inc. --- a sobering analysis of for-profit onsite and online
colleges and universities.
For a time you can watch the video free online
---
Click Here
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=toparea&utm_source=toparea
- The American
Public University System is accredited by the North Central Association
accrediting agency that is now under investigation for weakened standards
for college credits.
"Inspector General Keeps the Pressure on a Regional
Accreditor," by Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 27,
2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Inspector-General-Keeps-the/65691/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The inspector general of
the U.S. Department of Education has reaffirmed a recommendation that the
department should consider sanctions for the Higher Learning Commission of the
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, one of the nation's major
regional accrediting organizations. In a
report this week, the Office of Inspector General
issued its final recommendations stemming from a
2009 examination of the commission's standards
for measuring credit hours and program length, and affirmed its earlier critique
that the commission had been too lax in its standards for determining the amount
of credit a student receives for course work.
The Higher Learning
Commission accredits more than 1,000 institutions in 19 states. The Office of
Inspector General completed similar reports for two other regional accreditors
late last year but did not suggest any sanctions for those organizations.
Possible sanctions
against an accreditor include limiting, suspending, or terminating its
recognition by the secretary of education as a reliable authority for
determining the quality of education at the institutions it accredits. Colleges
need accreditation from a federally recognized agency in order to be eligible to
participate in the federal student-aid programs.
In its examination of
the Higher Learning Commission, the office looked at the commission's
reaccreditation of six member institutions: Baker College, DePaul University,
Kaplan University, Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota-Twin
Cities, and the University of Phoenix. The office chose those institutions—two
public, two private, and two proprietary institutions—as those that received the
highest amounts of federal funds under Title IV, the section of the Higher
Education Act that governs the federal student-aid programs.
It also reviewed the
accreditation status of American InterContinental University and the Art
Institute of Colorado, two institutions that had sought initial accreditation
from the commission during the period the office studied.
The review found that
the Higher Learning Commission "does not have an established definition of a
credit hour or minimum requirements for program length and the assignment of
credit hours," the report says. "The lack of a credit-hour definition and
minimum requirements could result in inflated credit hours, the improper
designation of full-time student status, and the over-awarding of Title IV
funds," the office concluded in its letter to the commission's president, Sylvia
Manning.
More important, the
office reported that the commission had allowed American InterContinental
University to become accredited in 2009 despite having an "egregious" credit
policy.
In a letter responding
to the commission, Ms. Manning wrote that the inspector general had ignored the
limitations the accreditor had placed on American InterContinental to ensure
that the institution improved its standards, an effort that had achieved the
intended results, she said. "These restrictions were intended to force change at
the institution and force it quickly."
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
The most successful for-profit universities advertise heavily about credibility
due to being "regionally accredited." In some cases this accreditation was
initially bought rather than achieved such as by buying up a small, albeit still
accredited, bankrupt not-for-profit private college that's washed up on the
beach. This begs the question about how some for-profit universities maintain
the spirit of accreditation acquired in this manner.
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone
of Fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education alternatives (some for-profit
universities have onsite as well as online programs) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Misleading Promotional Sites for For-Profit Universities
For-profit universities provide some free Website services in an effort
to lure people into signing up for for-profit programs without ever
mentioning that in most instances the students would be better off in more
prestigious non-profit universities such as state-supported universities
with great online programs and extension services.
I'm bombarded with messages like the following one from ---
http://www.paralegal.net/
Then go to the orange box at
http://www.paralegal.net/more/
If you feed in the data that you're interested in a bachelor's degree in
business with an accounting concentration, the only choices given are
for-profit universities. No mention is made of better programs at the
Universities of Wisconsin, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc.
I've stopped linking to the many for-profit university sites like this.
My threads on distance education alternatives are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Questions
Why is Moody's in big trouble?
Why is it unlikely that Moody's will have the guts to downgrade U.S. Debt?
Answers (SEC Comment S7-18-11-33, August 8, 2011) by
http://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-18-11/s71811-33.pdf
"10 risky default settings in social media that you need to check"
The New
Web, August 2011 ---
http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/08/18/10-risky-default-settings-in-social-media-that-you-need-to-check/
Thank you David Albrecht for the heads up.
I keep getting telephoned appeals to give money to the New Hampshire Firefighters Trust.
With some effort, I found out that the mailing address is in Brooklyn, New York.
This makes me too suspicious to send even a penny to this outfit. But then
again, I never send money to solicitors on the phone unless I know them
personally.
"A Value-Added Tax Fuels Big Government: In Europe the VAT hasn't
substituted for income taxation. It's merely added to the tax burden," by
Ernest S. Christian and Gary Robbins, The Wall Street Journal, August 24,
2011 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903596904576518274100145458.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t
Jensen Comment
It's hard to get extreme liberals and extreme conservatives to agree on much of
anything, but one thing they equally despise as the VAT tax. But they hate it
for different reasons. Conservatives hate it because it raises prices and
reduces demand for products and services. Liberals hate it because, like sales
taxes in general, the VAT tax is regressive in that prices are higher for the
poor as well as the rich.
I personally am an advocate of the VAT tax. At a minimum it should replace
the corporate income tax which simply is not working in the United States. The
corporations making the most profits, like General Electric, are paying no
corporate income taxes. I like the VAT tax for the same reason business firms
hate it --- it's very easy and cheap to collect just as the sales tax is much
easier to collect than income taxes and property taxes.
The conservative protests that a VAT tax will simply fuel bigger government
are arguable. Congress could both reduce government and collect a VAT tax to
reduce the some of the need for borrowing from China and elsewhere in the world.
The liberal protests that it is regressive are hard to refute. But there are
steps that can be taken just as many states now take some steps to make sales
taxes less regressive. And since nearly half the taxpayers in the United States
do not pay any income tax, I think it's time to force people at all income
levels to pay for some of the government services that benefit them personally.
For example, even the poor people in Canada pay something towards basic services
such as health care.
"Academic Job Market for Sociologists Has Rebounded, Association Reports,"
by Peter Schmidt, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 20, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Academic-Job-Market-for/128765/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en
"Was Buffett Right? Do Workers Pay More Tax than Their Bosses?," by
Roberton Williams, Tax Policy Center, August 23, 2011 ---
Click Here
http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2011/08/23/was-buffett-right-do-workers-pay-more-tax-than-their-bosses/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+taxpolicycenter%2Fblogfeed+%28TaxVox%3A+the+Tax+Policy+Center+blog%29&utm_content=Netvibes
. . .
Warren Buffett may be right when he says that
high-income taxpayers could pay more, especially given the extremely rapid
rate of
income growth at the top of the distribution. And
he’s certainly correct when he says that the low tax rate on investment
income cuts his tax bill well below that of many Americans. But he’s off
base when he suggests that all high-income taxpayers pay a smaller share of
their income in taxes than their middle-income coworkers.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Especially note the graph in this article.
"Study Critiques Disproportionately High Grades for Education Students,"
Inside Higher Ed, August 23, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/23/qt#268520
Students in education courses are given
consistently higher grades than are students in other college disciplines,
according to
a study
published by the American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research Monday. The study, by Cory Koedel, an assistant
professor of economics at the University of Missouri at Columbia, cites that
and other evidence to make the case that teachers are trained in "a larger
culture of low standards for educators," in line with "the low evaluation
standards by which teachers are judged in K-12 schools."
Jensen Comment
Years ago, Trinity University was one of the early universities to require a
fifth year (masters degree) program for all majors in the Education Department.
More importantly, students now have to major or minor in their chosen
disciplines as well. For example, a mathematics teacher must major/minor in
mathematics, thereby competing with other math majors. A biology teacher must
major/minor in biology and so on. The important point is that there are no
watered down major or minor courses geared especially for education majors. In
part this move was made to overcome the stigma that majors in the Education
Department did not have an easier curriculum in their concentration disciplines.
This is also intended to help minority students who otherwise often have more
difficulties on the certification examinations.
More than half of the black and Latino students who
take the state teacher licensing exam in Massachusetts fail, at rates that are
high enough that many minority college students are starting to avoid teacher
training programs,
The Boston Globe reported. The failure rates
are 54 percent (black), 52 percent (Latino) and 23 percent (white).
Inside Higher Ed, August 20, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/20/qt
"The Next Generation of Technology: 35 Innovators under 35," MIT's
Technology Review, September/October, 2011 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/article/38322/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-23
Selecting
Technology Review's
yearly list
of 35 innovators under the age of 35 is a
difficult but rewarding process. We search for candidates around the world
who are opening up new possibilities in technology, and then we seek the
advice of a
panel of expert judges before finally selecting
the winners. We look for people who are tackling important problems in
transformative ways. Sometimes that transformation comes from developing an
entirely new technology, such as
graphene transistors that could one day replace
silicon devices in microprocessors. Sometimes it means using existing
technologies in novel ways, such as creating an effective way for
local businesses to advertise electronically or
organizing social networks to build up a community of patients suffering
from a disease. This is the 11th year we have
chosen innovators under 35, and each year the young technologists, taken as
a group, present a snapshot of how technology is changing. The 2011 TR35 are
already shaping the future. We hope you find as much pleasure in reading
about them as we did in writing about them.
See this year's
list of winners ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/?p1=TR35
Jensen Comment
A few that caught my attention are as follows:
Xiao Li
Anticipating what Internet users are searching for (like an organization's
genuine home page)
Chris Poole
Designing online communities for anonymous collaboration
Maybe someday MIT will discover XBRL.
"What the Catcher Tells the Pitcher," by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog,
August 21, 2011 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2011/08/what-catcher-tells-pitcher.html
Jensen Comment
This is good advice about getting the most from your students like a catcher
tries to do for a pitcher with hand signals. But Bob Jensen has a word of
caution here. In today's technology with video cameras on mobile phones, it's
best to use a more open form of signaling to students. A teacher could lose
his/her job by squatting down and sending a hand signal from the groin to a
student.
Islamic Accounting
August 24, 2011 message from Mohammad Asim Raza
Hi Robert -
Read your response on the AECM listserv - I think you would find the Thomas
McElwain's writing on interest in his Islam in Bible to be interesting. Here
is excerpt.
Usury
Islamic banking is well-known in the financial
world and is becoming popular as an investment alternative even outside the
sphere of Islam. The prohibition of usury or charging interest on any
lending is described in the literature of every Islamic school of
jurisprudence. In justification of the prohibition Ali (1988, 141a) quotes
Qur'an 2:275 `Those who swallow interest will not (be able to) stand (in
resurrection) except as standeth one whom Satan hath confounded with his
touch.'
The Bible is also very clear on the matter of
usury. It is in perfect harmony with Islam. The Arabic term for usury, raba,
is rather neutral, coming from a root meaning to remain over or increase.
The Biblical term for usury, neshek, is strongly negative, coming from a
root whose basic meaning is to strike as a serpent.
The term neshek itself is used twelve times in the
Bible, but related words are used several times as well. All of them either
prohibit usury or speak of it in deprecating terms.
Leviticus 25:36,37. `Take thou no usury of him, or
increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt
not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.'
The Hebrew term for increase here, tarbath, is a cognate of the Arabic riba.
The word `or' in the translation of verse 36 is an interpretation of the
undesignated copula we-. This is an example of the typical Hebrew habit of
pairing synonyms.
Exodus 22:25. `If thou lend money to any of my
people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as a usurer, neither
shalt thou lay upon him usury.' This text already brings up the question of
whether usury in general is prohibited, or merely usury of a brother, that
is one under the covenant of God. The Torah has been interpreted to permit
usury from unbelievers.
Deuteronomy 23:19-20. 'Thou shalt not lend upon
usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing
that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but
unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the Lord thy God may
bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou
goest to possess it.'
Here the import of the passage in Exodus becomes
clear. Usury is prohibited from those under the covenant, but permitted from
strangers, that is, unbelieving heathens. Beyond this clarification there is
an interesting remark on economy. The strength and well-being of the
economic situation is considered to depend on the avoidance of usury.
Psalm 15:1-5. `Lord, who shall abide in thy
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that putteth not out his
money to usury...' The prohibition of usury in the Psalms is universal,
whether the loan is made to believers or unbelievers.
Jeremiah 15:10. `Woe is me, my mother, that thou
has borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I
have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one
of them doth curse me.' The words of Jeremiah imply not only a prohibition
on lending with interest, but on borrowing with interest as well. The guilt
is thus attached to both parties in the transaction.
As part of the divine definition of justice we find
in Ezekiel 18:8-9, `He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath
taken any increase... he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.'
This is a positive approach to the problem, as well as another affirmation
that neshek and tarbith are equivalent.
Ezekiel 18:13 makes the point negatively, `Hath
given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he
shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die;
his blood shall be upon him.' The context suggests that the abomination of
usury is one of the sins provoking the Babylonian captivity. Verses
seventeen and eighteen release the innocent children of the effects of their
parents' sins in taking usury.
Ezekiel 22:12. `In thee have they taken gifts to
shed blood; thou has taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained
of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.'
The taking of usury is equated here with bribes in judgement resulting in
the execution of the innocent, and with extortion. Ezekiel thus defines more
carefully what he means by `abominations' in chapter eighteen.
After the captivity the matter of usury arose
again, and was put to a quick end by the intervention of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah's argument is not based on fear of renewed captivity as a result of
usury. Rather, he appeals directly to law and justice. Having authority as
governor, his measures were met with success: Nehemiah five.
The Gospel references to usury are neither
legislative nor normative. In a parable we find Jesus quoting a master
scolding a servant for neglecting his property. Matthew 25:27 'Thou oughtest
therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I
should have received mine own with usury.' The same story is repeated in
Luke 19:23. Jesus makes no comment here on usury as such. The text does
reveal that Jesus' hearers were familiar with the practice and that at least
some, those having capital, approved of it. The context might well be
lending to unbelievers.
In sum, usury is prohibited in the Torah when
between believers. The prophets suggest usury to be one of the factors
resulting in the Babylonian captivity. Ezekiel uses very strong language
against usury, equating it with bribery and extortion. The Psalms seem to
apply the prohibition not merely within the context of believers but in
general.
Although it appears that the Torah at least might
permit usury in some contexts, the sum of Biblical teaching comes down
firmly against it. The Islamic form of banking finds support not only in the
Qur'an but in the Bible as well.
http://www.al-islam.org/islaminthebible/index.htm
Regards, Mohammad Asim Raza, CPA
Baltimore, MD 21208
August 25, 2011 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Mohammad,
I don't want to get into any religious debates over debt versus equity or
how nations of Islam participate in global capital markets today. I think
Islamic finance ministers have become masters of structured finance that
avoid the terms "interest" and "usury"---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_finance
Bob Jensen's threads on Islamic Accounting are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#IslamicAccounting
I do think a "rose" by any other name is still a "rose" such that a
changed definition of lending will not change lending in and of itself. For
example, deferred-collection sales contracts are a form of interest-bearing
debt even if the word "interest" is never mentioned when negotiating
deferred payment prices.
What we do know is that there should be a trade-off between risk and
return so as to attract varied investors who are willing to take on varied
levels of risk and expected returns. If investors are not allowed to lend
(say by buying U.S, Treasury Bonds that earn the closest thing we have to
risk free returns) then the governments of virtually all nations will have
to find some other way to finance long-term projects and deficits.
If equity investors cannot obtain financial leverage with debt, this will
greatly affect willingness to invest in ownership shares.
I totally disagree with Robert Walker about debt if he will not agree to
a risk-return variation in investment alternatives. If virtually risk-free
investing is still an alternative then I think we just have a rose by
another name.
Will Robert Walker also ban deferred collection sales contracts?
What Robert Walker fails to mention is that the modern economic world has
entered into the realm of "structured financing" where old definitions of
debt versus equity become blended in very complex ways, often with
derivative financial instruments and hedging management of risk ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_finance
Bob Jensen's threads on Islamic Accounting are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#IslamicAccounting
Respectfully,
Bob Jensen
August 25, 2011 reply from Mohammad Asim Raza
Hi Bob - there is no doubt that Islam prohibit the
use of interest - but does allow mark up which in principle is not interest.
Interest and interest on interest is prohibited in Islam. My mention of the
link was due the fact that other scriptures also are negative or against the
use of interest as mentioned by McElwain.
There is an on going debate on the topic of
interest whether it is paid on money or capital. Muslim scholars recognize
that the loaned funds either create debt or asset. The question is if they
are used to create additional wealth then why should the lender only be
remunerated a fraction of money, interest in this case, since justice would
require that the lender be compensated to the extent of involvement of
financial capital in creating the incremental wealth - the point that well
made by Dr Abbas Mirakhor.
Ps see the remarkable work on Islamic Economics by
Baqir AsSadr (Pls note that there is no such thing as Islamic Economics,
wrote it for convenience, in Islam the term is Iqtisad which is derived from
qasdis-sabil, i.e., the straigh path. Other meanings of Iqtisad are straight
and upright, maintaining a moderate attitude and holding neither less or
more). The book covers several important topics and was his original work on
the subject.
That said, Islamic finance is still developing
(read: not perfect) and there are quite a hurdles to over come from the
practical (there are much more traditional banks to work with) point of view
- pls see the two attached documents - on Islamic Securitization, and
Islamic home ownership in the US. The third attachment is a recent research
mostly focusing on Australia, but provides a table indicating the activities
of Islamic banking from asset percentage point of view in comparing to
regular banking.
Not but least, Islam allows several arrangements as
I am sure you must be aware of Mudaraba (commenda) and Musaraka
(partnership), Beneficence loans (Al Qard al Hassan, as Quran mentions it) -
non interest bearing loans to those who are in need, deferred payment sale
(bay Muajjal), deferred payment installment in which the price of the
product is agreed to between buyer and seller at the time of the sale and
can not be changed for deferring payments, leasing (Ijara), cost plus sale,
service charge, just to name a few. My friend Muath is covering some of the
developments that have beeen taking place
http://islamicfinance2009.blogspot.com/
So, Islamic financing is still developing and
scholars are working on the alternatives - there is no doubt that interest
causes ill and perpetuate greed in general.
Thank you for your reply, Bob, I may not be able to
quickly reply to you as you know I am currently working on my dissertation
work which is taking a whole lot of time.
Respectfully,
Raza
August 27, 2011 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Raza,
When you invest proceeds of bond debt into "capital," your debt still
remains along with the bond debt's cash flow or fair value risk that can
never be simultaneously eliminated (shifted) until the debt is paid off.
What you do with the proceeds can never shift both types of risk. It's
impossible to shift both types of risk even though you keep harping on "risk
shifting" with proceeds into "capital investment" without being perfectly
clear about what type of risk is being shifted with such an investment.
It's impossible to simultaneously eliminate both a debt's cash flow and
fair value risks no matter whether or not you created a "capital" investment
with the bond proceeds. And these risks exist apart from insolvency risk.
The bonds can be risk-free in terms of insolvency risk and still have cash
flow or fair value interest rate risk.
It's also questionable whether you've created capital with some uses of
the proceeds?
What if you borrow in U.S. dollars for the purposes of speculating in
options on Euros where the bond proceeds go to paying for options on Euros?
Is this a capital investment?
What if you borrow U.S. dollars to speculate in U.S. Treasury Bond
options on interest rates? Is paying $1 million in option premiums of
interest rate options a capital investment?
One added point that should perhaps be shared with the AECM is that your
supposed risk shifting from debt to capital means that this capital
investments must be tied to particular contracts in the capital structure of
a firm..
This violates the "capital structure irrelevancy theory" of Modigliani
and Miller ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem
This was one of the main reasons Modigliani won the Nobel Prize in
Economics. It will be earth shaking if you can convince economists that
you've refuted that theory. Keep up the good work even if you can't convince
me about the relevancy of capital structure.
August 27, 2011 reply from Raza
Hi Bob - you seem still confused (or want to get
your last word in, just like in every other post) and harping on the side
topics. The money is only a potential capital. For the money to become a
capital, there has to be entrepreneurial effort. In other words you get
interest on your debt while return on your capital. Debt is unsustainable,
interest is bad, and also corresponds to your biblical values considering
you are a conservative.
Respectfully,
Raza
Jensen Comment
I never mentioned my "biblical values" in this or any other thread in my life.
Added Jensen Comment
The Financial Commercial Bank: A Saudi Joint Stock Company
For the Year Ended December 31, 2007
www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/IslamicJointStockCompany.pdf
Somebody sent this to me. Please note that I did not add any of the
yellow highlights or comments.
Nor do I have the slightest idea who added these yellow highlights or
comments.
Nor do I defend the implication in Footnote 3(f) that Special Income Revenue
and Expense and Special Income Rate Swaps are the equivalent as interest as
defined in the Western world.
Nor do I have any idea who the counterparties are to these contracts or if
they viewed Special Income Revenue and Expense as Interest Income and
Expense.
I especially found Footnote B.1-1 interesting on how changes in Special
Commission Rates will affect future cash flows or fair values. This is on
printed Page 46 (also Page 49 on my reader).
A Rose by Any Name
Islamic Home Finance ---
http://guidanceresidential.com/how-it-works
"A Federal Jump-start for Health IT: White House aide leads push to
improve health-care IT with billions in stimulus funds," by David
Talbot, MIT's Technology Review, September 6, 2011 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/38475/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-09-06
In a landmark government effort to drive American
health care into the information age, the February 2009 stimulus bill
earmarked about $30 billion in incentives for doctors and hospitals who
install electronic medical records—paying up to $63,750 to individual
physician and millions to hospitals.
Now comes the tough part: implementing "EMRs" and
proving they really can reduce medical errors or get doctors to keep better
track of chronically ill people. As National Coordinator for Health IT,
Farzad Mostashari coordinates federal efforts to promote adoption of EMRs
and to prod reluctant hospitals to share patient data.
Mostashari was recruited to take over the federal
effort in February, after leading a patient-records initiative as an
assistant health commissioner in New York City. He spoke with Technology
Review's chief correspondent, David Talbot, about when we'll start
seeing evidence that the technology is working.
TR: What problems are we attacking
with this huge medical IT outlay?
Mostashari: Start with "First, do no harm." Right
now we do harm to patients through health care. The estimates,
conservatively, are 100,000 to 200,000 people killed each year by things
like hospital-acquired infections and adverse drug events. Electronic
medical records provide an opportunity to create standardized protocols, to
provide decision-support and reminders for doctors, and to tell them about
the patient's medications and drug allergies, as well as any dangerous drug
interactions, at the point of care. Those are all proven interventions.
What else can software do besides cut back
on accidental hospital deaths?
All too often, people come into the doctor's office
with high blood pressure which will kill them from stroke or heart attack,
but the patient is complaining about something else. Doctors can get
distracted and not pay attention to the most important thing—which might be
that the patient's blood pressure is out of control, or the flu shot that
hasn't been given. Electronic records can make it easy to provide these
reminders. It can also make a list of patients who have not come
in, who have high blood pressure or diabetes, and must be seen.
Why is the health care industry so far
behind other industries?
Unfortunately, the business case often has not been
strong enough to support adoption and use of electronic records. But we
have now reached a point where the incentives are turning the other way—with
greater emphasis on paying for outcomes and value rather than volume.
Bring us up to date since February 2009,
when the bill passed. What is the progress to date on getting the IT
installed?
The ice has broken after decades of talk. Back in
2009, only 10 percent of hospitals and 20 percent of primary care providers
used basic EMRs. Within a year, the doctors went from 20 percent to 30
percent. I expect it to get to 40 percent this year. We have about 10,000
new providers a month registering for incentives. About $400 million has
gone out in payments already, and is expected to hit the $1 billion mark by
early 2012.
But this is more than installing software—it's
about a concept called "meaningful use." The health IT incentive payments
are predicated on very specific criteria. For example, the electronic health
record must contain blood pressure readings, height and weight, lab data,
the patient's problem list, and allergies; the patients' preferred language
will be recorded; and the system must have a whole series of functionalities
around sharing information with] patients and public health agencies.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's health care threads are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
From the Scout Report on August 19, 2011
VLC 1.1.11 ---
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
There are many media players available for general
use, and this iteration of VLC is well worth a look. VLC is an open source
cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia
files, along with DVDs and audio CDs. The application can also be used to
convert various media file formats, and it also plays most codecs. This
version is compatible with all operating systems, including Linux.
SketchBook Express 5.2.1 ---
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sketchbook-express/id404243625?mt=12
For those people looking to explore a free drawing
application for the Mac, SketchBook Express is a good place to start. With
this version, visitors can use over 65 different painting tools and brushes
to create and save images. The palette of colors is quite extensive, with
over 400 pre-set colors, and there are a number of finishing features
designed to make each image perfect. This version is compatible with
computers running Mac OS X 10.6.6 and newer.
After a protest in San Francisco, civil libertarians and others raise
concerns over BART's actions BART admits halting cell service to stop
protests
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-08-13/news/29883195_1_bart-police-bart-service-downtown-san-francisco-stations
FCC to Investigate BART Cell Service Shutdown
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391168,00.asp
FCC: Wireless Services: Cellular Services: Operations, Blocking & Jamming
http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/index.htm?job=operations_2&id=cellular
BART statement on temporary wireless service interruptions in select BART
stations on August 11
http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2011/news20110812.aspx
BART made right choice to shut cell service to thwart protestors
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/08/bart-made-right-choice-shut-cell-service-thwart-protesters
Cell Phone Censorship in San Francisco?
http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/cell-phone-censorship-san-francisco
From the Scout Report on August 25, 2011
Paparazzi! --- http://derailer.org/paparazzi/
Paparazzi! is a small utility program that makes
screenshots of webpages. Visitors will find that the program is quite easy
to use and there's a very useful FAQ section here. Before selecting a
webpage to capture, visitors can crop the desired area as they see fit and
also select the desired file format. This version is compatible with
computers running Mac OS X 10.3 and newer.
Bean 2.4.4 ---
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html
Are you looking for a simple and easy-to-use rich
text editor? This edition of the Bean program may be just the thing. The
features of Bean include a live word count, an autosave feature, a floating
windows option, and a find panel. Overall, it offers an elegant alternative
to other more fussy text editors, and it is compatible with computers
running Mac OS X 10.4 and newer.
Beloit College releases its annual Mindset List
The Beloit College Mind-Set List Welcomes the 'Internet Class'
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Beloit-College-Mind-Set/128783/
Annual Beloit College mindset list will make you feel old
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/128238168.html
The Mindset List
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/
LBJ Library & Museum
http://www.lbjlibrary.org/
A Brief History of the Internet
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
Harvard Entrance Examination from 1869 [pdf]
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf
From the Scout Report on September 2, 2011
Caffeine 1.1.1 ---
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/caffeine/id411246225?mt=12
You don't want to spill coffee on your computer,
but perhaps it could use a bit of this "caffeine." The Caffeine application
prevents one's computer from automatically going to sleep, starting
screensavers, or dimming the screen. Once installed, the application icon
can be found on the right side of the menu bar, and it just requires a
simple click to operate. This version is compatible with computers running
Mac OS X 10.6 or later.
IObit Toolbox 1.2 ---
http://www.iobit.com/toolbox.html
While IObit Toolbox is described as being for
"computer geeks," even casual computer users will find this toolbox quite
useful. The application is web- based and does not need to be downloaded.
Visitors should note that the application includes 20 different tools,
including a file shredder, a registry defrag, and a startup manager. The
program is compatible with computers running Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000.
What's the best way to avoid mental fatigue? A walk in the park, perhaps?
Coffee Break? Walk in the Park? Why Unwinding Is Hard
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904199404576538260326965724.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_health
Why You Can't Make a Good Decision at 5:00PM
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/08/18/why-you-cant-make-a-good-decision-at-500-pm-decision-fatigue/
Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? [Free registration may be required]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=1
Fatigue: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003088.htm
Video: Need to relax? Take a Break for Meditation
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/meditation/MM00623
Sleep Tips: 7 Steps to Better Sleep
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sleep/HQ01387
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
Annenberg Learner: Monthly Update ---
http://www.learner.org/about/news/updates.html
ARTStem [humanities teaching]
http://www.artstem.org/
Completion Matters - STEM Earn and Learn ---
http://www.completionmatters.org/summary/STEM Learn and Earn
Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory
[interdisciplinary collaboration] ---
http://hastac.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth ---
http://naehcy.org/
Technology Challenge Grants ---
http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/projects/
Sloan Career Cornerstone Center: Podcasts (Over 45 Careers in Science,
Medicine, and Engineering) ---
http://www.careercornerstone.org/podcast.htm
There are no accounting, finance, or business careers covered at this site
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Sing About Science ---
http://www.singaboutscience.org/
National Science Foundation: Education-Research Overview ---
http://www.nsf.gov/news/overviews/education/
National Science Teachers Association: Lab Out Loud (podcast) ---
http://www.nsta.org/publications/laboutloud.aspx
STEMNET (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) ---
http://stemnet.org.uk/
STEM Career (science careers)
http://stemcareer.com/
STEM Transitions ---
http://www.stemtransitions.org/
Teaching Medical Physics ---
http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/elibrary/collection/565/teaching-medical-physics
Center for Non-Verbal Studies ---
http://center-for-nonverbal-studies.org/1501.html
The Student Source: Medical Resources and Software ---
http://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/menu/othermeded.cfm
Tough Talk: A Toolbox for Medical Educators ---
http://depts.washington.edu/toolbox/
Photography of Homer L. Shantz (botany) ---
http://uair.arizona.edu/item/274074
Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame sings "The Elements" ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSAaiYKF0cs&feature=youtu.be
Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" animated ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM-wSKFBpo
Much more seriously
The Periodic Table of Videos ---
http://www.periodicvideos.com/
American Geological Institute: Educational Resources [included earth science
promo videos] ---
http://www.agiweb.org/education/resource/
Genomics in Education ---
http://www.nslc.wustl.edu/elgin/genomics/
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
You must watch this to the ending to appreciate it.
Discover Engineering ---
http://www.discoverengineering.org/
Nano.gov ---
http://www.nano.gov/
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
Transgender Law and Policy Institute ---
http://www.transgenderlaw.org/
National Institute of Standards and Technology: Manufacturing Portal ---
http://www.nist.gov/manufacturing-portal.cfm
Discovering African-American History in Rural Ohio ---
https://communitywithin.kenyon.edu/
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
Transgender Law and Policy Institute ---
http://www.transgenderlaw.org/
National Institute of Standards and Technology: Manufacturing Portal ---
http://www.nist.gov/manufacturing-portal.cfm
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Math Tutorials
Sing About Science ---
http://www.singaboutscience.org/
CAUSEweb Resources (statistics education) ---
http://www.causeweb.org/resources/
Loci: Constructing Mathlets Quickly Using LiveGraphics3D ---
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/23/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=11
Mathematical Imagery ---
http://www.ams.org/mathimagery/thumbnails.php?album=28#galleries
2010 Found Math Gallery ---
http://www.maa.org/FoundMath/FMgallery10.html
50 Great Examples of Data Visualization ---
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/
IBM's Website for Data Visualization ---
---
http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/app
IBM's site lets people collaborate to creatively visualize and discuss data on
fast food, Jesus' apostles, greenhouse-gas trends, and more.
Bob Jensen's threads on visualization of multivariate data ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm
Bayes' Theorem ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes_theorem
"A History of Bayes' Theorem," LessWrong, August 29, 2011 ---
http://lesswrong.com/lw/774/a_history_of_bayes_theorem/
Jensen Comment
Some of the classic Bayesian statistics books in business education came out of
Harvard in the 1950s, I was weined on Robert Schlaifer's classic ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schlaifer
Business education has gone through various cycles of academic fad. A lot of
us in the 1960s pinned our hopes on the Bayesian revolution that proved to be
just that --- a passing fad in many ways while most accountics statistical
analysis is still rooted in classical inference works of earlier history.
Reverend Bayes disappeared from The Accounting Review about the time that
case studies and field studies went by the boards, or should I say under the
Boards.
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
History Tutorials
Download Free Courses from Top Philosophers: From Bertrand Russell to Michel
Foucault ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/stars_of_philosophy_offer_free_courses_online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Bob Jensen's threads on thousands of free lectures ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Digital History - Multimedia ---
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/multimedia.cfm
The Search for Cleopatra ---
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/cleopatra/brown-text
Computing History
UCLA's Internet Project ---
http://www.ccp.ucla.edu/pages/internet-report.asp
Timeline of Computing History ---
http://www.computer.org/computer/timeline/
The History of Computing ---
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/
American University Computer History Museum ---
http://www.computinghistorymuseum.org/
The Apple (Computer) Museum ---
http://www.theapplemuseum.com/
A History of Microsoft Windows (slide show from Wired News)
---
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/pcs/multimedia/2007/01/wiredphotos31
Oldcomputers.com ---
http://www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp
Aesthetics + Computation Group: MIT Media Laboratory ---
http://acg.media.mit.edu/projects/
American Presidents ---
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presidents/
George Handy Bates Samoan Papers (and photographs) ---
http://fletcher.lib.udel.edu/collections/bsp/
Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) Archives, 1885-1990s ---
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/oaaaarchives/
World War II - Prisoners of War - Stalag Luft I ---
http://www.merkki.com/
William P. Palmer III Collection [pre-Columbian and Northwest Coas] ---
http://library.umaine.edu/hudson/palmer/
Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory
[interdisciplinary collaboration] ---
http://hastac.org/
Miami Art Museum [Flash Player] ---
http://www.miamiartmuseum.org/
Spode Exhibition Online (pottery and art history) ---
http://www.winterthur.org/?p=824
The Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally: 1764-1765 ---
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/sally/
San Fernando Valley History ---
http://digital-library.csun.edu/SFV
Discovering African-American History in Rural Ohio ---
https://communitywithin.kenyon.edu/
Tse-Tsung Chow Collection of Chinese Scrolls and Fan Paintings ---
http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/digilib/scroll/
National Portrait Gallery: Asian American Portraits of Encounter ---
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/encounter/
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages ---
http://www.bartleby.com/89/
Burgert Brothers Collection of Tampa Photographs ---
http://guides.lib.usf.edu/content.php?pid=86148&sid=640824#
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
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages ---
http://www.bartleby.com/89/
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
August 22, 2011
August 23, 2011
August 24, 2011
August 25, 2011
August 26, 2011
August 27, 2011
August 30, 2011
August 31, 2011
September 1, 2011
September 2, 2011
September 3, 2011
September 6, 2011
September 7, 2011
"Say goodbye to cavities: New gel could help your teeth fix themselves,"
Mike Wehner, Yahoo News, August 24, 2011 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/goodbye-cavities-gel-could-help-teeth-fix-themselves-163934426.html
THE YEAR IS 1911
This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
************ ********* ***********
The year is 1911 --- One hundred years ago. What a difference a century
makes! Here are some statistics for the Year 1911:
************ ********* ************
The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
Fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower !
The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, A dentist $2,500
per year,
a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year,
and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births took place at home .
Ninety percent of all Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they
attended so-called medical schools, many of which
were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month,
and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from
entering into their country for any reason.
The Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4.. Heart disease 5.
Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars...
The population of Las Vegas , Nevada , was only 30!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was neither a Mother's Day nor a Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and only 6 percent
of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter
at the local corner drugstores.
Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion,
gives buoyancy to the mind, Regulates the stomach and bowels,
and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health!"
( Shocking? )
Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic
help ....
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !
I am now going to forward this to someone else without typing it myself.
From there, it will be sent to others all over the WORLD -
all in a matter of seconds!
Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.
Jensen Comment
Although my father was not born until 1912, in 1925 his first trip away from the
Seneca Home Farm was a Model T trip to Canada ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/vernon.htm
Medication Recommendations from Bob Overn
Disease |
Wine |
Daily Dose |
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Brunello, Cabernet
Sauvignon
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Burgundy , Santenay
Rouge
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Erectile Disfunction
(ED)
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Cheers! |
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Forwarded by Paula
Libyan Madman Turns Up in New Hampshire
CONCORD, NH (The Borowitz Report)
The mystery surrounding Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s whereabouts was resolved today as
the dictator announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination
in a town hall meeting in Concord, New Hampshire. In announcing his candidacy,
the Libyan madman joins a Republican field which is believed to number in excess
of seven hundred candidates.
While some New Hampshire Republicans seemed surprised to see Col. Gaddafi
shaking hands and kissing babies at the Concord town hall, an aide to the Libyan
strongman said his transformation to GOP candidate made perfect sense. “In those
final days in Tripoli he was becoming increasingly disconnected from reality,”
said the aide. “So I think he’ll fit right in.” Mr. Gaddafi, dressed in his
trademark yellow turban and matching robe and riding in on a Republican
elephant, got mixed reviews in his first appearance on the campaign trail, with
some New Hampshire citizens saying that his six-hour stump speech was badly in
need of pruning.
Additionally, some felt that his rhetoric needed to be toned down, especially
his closing line about fighting for the Republican nomination “until the last
drop of blood.” But others gave him high marks for his grasp of history and
geography, which most agreed was stronger than Michele Bachmann’s.
Perhaps underscoring the challenges that lie ahead for Mr. Gaddafi in his
quest for the GOP nod, current polls show him in the back of the pack, leading
former Senator Rick Santorum but trailing the pizza guy. “Unfortunately for
Muammar Gaddafi, he might be out of step with the current crop of Republican
candidates,” one pollster said. “There’s a perception that he’s too moderate.”
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Christian One Liners
Don't let your worries get the best of you; Remember,
Moses started out as a basket case.
Some people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited until
you try to sit in their pews..
Many folks want to serve God, But only as advisers.
It is easier to preach ten sermons than it is to live
one.
The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose,
but mosquitoes come close.
When you get to your wit's end, You'll find God lives
there.
People are funny; they want the front of the bus, the
middle of the road, and back of the church.
Opportunity may knock once, but temptation bangs on the
front door forever.
Quit griping about your church; if it was perfect, you
couldn't belong.
If a church wants a better pastor, it only needs to pray
for the one it has ..
God Himself doesn't propose to judge a man until he is
dead. So why should you?
Some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed up and
permanently set.
Peace starts with a smile.
I don't know why some people change churches; what
difference does it make
which one you stay home from?
A lot of church members singing 'Standing on the
Promises' are just sitting on the premises.
Be ye fishers of men; you catch 'em - He'll clean 'em.
Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.
Don't put a question mark where God put a period.
Forbidden fruits create many jams.
God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.
God grades on the cross, not the curve.
God loves everyone, but probably prefers 'fruits of the
spirit' over 'religious nuts!'
God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.
He who angers you, controls you!
If God is your Co-pilot, swap seats!
Prayer: Don't give God instructions, just report for
duty!
The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power
behind us.
The Will of God never takes you to where the Grace of
God will not protect you.
We don't change the message, the message changes us.
You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to
discourage him.
The best mathematical equation I have ever seen: 1 cross
+ 3 nails = 4 given.
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's
about learning to dance in the rain.
Humor Between August 1 and August 31, 2011
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book11q3.htm#Humor083111
Humor Between July 1 and July 31, 2011
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book11q3.htm#Humor073111
Humor Between May 1 and June 30, 2011
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book11q2.htm#Humor063011
Humor Between April 1 and April 30, 2011
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book11q2.htm#Humor043011
Humor Between February 1 and March 31, 2011
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book11q1.htm#Humor033111
Humor Between January 1 and January 31, 2011
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book11q1.htm#Humor013111
Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/
Find a College
College Atlas ---
http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
-
With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review
(TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral
Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH
CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and
Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the
vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/
Interesting Online Clock
and Calendar
---
http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones ---
http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) ---
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
Also see
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
Facts about population growth (video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth ---
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq ---
http://www.costofwar.com/
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons ---
http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.
Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
CPA Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle ---
http://cpareviewforfree.com/
Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at
http://iaed.wordpress.com/
Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social
Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Online Books, Poems, References,
and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials
Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at
http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting
educators.
Any college may post a news item.
Accountancy Discussion ListServs:
For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a
ListServ (usually for free) go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
AECM (Educators)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/
AECM is an email Listserv list which
provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software
which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the
college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and
peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets,
multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base
programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc
Roles of a ListServ ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
|
CPAS-L (Practitioners)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/
CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of
all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an
unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments,
ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed.
Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L
or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for
a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional
accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or
education. Others will be denied access. |
Yahoo
(Practitioners)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA.
This can be anything from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ
initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA. |
AccountantsWorld
http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1
This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as
accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed
assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and
taxation. |
Business Valuation
Group
BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com
This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag
[RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM] |
Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) ---
http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm
Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Some
Accounting History Sites
Bob Jensen's
Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
Accounting
History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) ---
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
The above libraries include international accounting history.
The above libraries include film and video historical collections.
MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting ---
http://maaw.info/
Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/
Sage Accounting History ---
http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269
A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of
thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
"The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional
Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005
---
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 ---
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm
A nice
timeline of accounting history ---
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING
From Texas
A&M University
Accounting History Outline ---
http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html
Bob
Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
History of
Fraud in America ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
All
my online pictures ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/
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