Tidbits Quotations
To Accompany the June 26, 2013 edition of Tidbits
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2013/tidbits0626.htm  
Bob Jensen at Trinity University




My Free Speech Political Quotations and Commentaries Directory and Log ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Political/PoliticalQuotationsCommentaries.htm

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton

Chelsea Clinton Laments: My Great Grandmother Did Not Have Access to Planned Parenthood.
Say what?
http://www.lifenews.com/2013/06/20/chelsea-clinton-laments-my-grandmother-did-not-have-access-to-planned-parenthood/

Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in the 2012 elections 65,909,451 Obama 60,932,176 Romney votes.
Among the 48 million people of food stamps, how many voted for Mitt Romney?
The GOP will never win without gaining half the food stamp votes.

Humor
The GOP will never recover if they continue to rely on leaders who come up short ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/tall-nba-player-regular-people-2013-6

(The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets) reported Thursday that Cincinnati IRS employees are now telling investigators that they took their orders from Washington. For anyone with a memory of 2010 politics, that was obvious from the start.
Kimberly A. Strassel, June 6, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578529571309012846.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

Officials: NSA Scheme Broke Terrorist Plots In Over 20 Counties ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/officials-nsa-scheme-thwarted-terrorist-plots-in-over-20-counties-2013-6

No significant warming for 17 years 4 months ---
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/13/no-significant-warming-for-17-years-4-months/
NZ Greens lose interest in global warming – ‘no hellfire, no brimstone’ ---
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/16/nz-greens-lose-interest-in-global-warming-no-hellfire-no-brimstone/

Video:  A Philosopher's Take on Surveillance --- Click Here
http://live.wsj.com/video/opinion-a-philosophers-take-on-surveillance/1624EA24-B455-4345-A55F-DB872B21EA6F.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h#!1624EA24-B455-4345-A55F-DB872B21EA6F
Jensen Comment
Nevertheless I think terrorists have become so problematic that we need increased rather than decreased surveillance. We will eventually bless surveillance when terrorists choose more worrisome targets like our water supplies, power grids, food supplies, schools, etc. Also surveillance worries won't be mentioned again after the first biological terror incidents kill more than a million people with long-term after effects.




Nearly 400,000 giant windmills needed to power up the city of San Antonio, almost one windmill for every three residents
"The Rationale for Wind Power Won't Fly," by Jay Lehr, The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324310104578507242336481504.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h


African American Economics Professor Walter E. Williams is one of my heroes ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams
His American Dream of rising from a Philadelphia housing project came true.

The 20 Greatest Quotes From Walter Williams ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/06/18/the-20-greatest-quotes-from-walter-williams-n1621952?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl


Fraud Beat (Diploma Mill Degrees in Developing Countries)
"Politicians, Fake Degrees and Plagiarism," by Philip G. Altbach, Inside Higher Ed, June 16, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com//blogs/world-view/politicians-fake-degrees-and-plagiarism

Vladimir Putin not only did not write a single word in his Ph.D. thesis, it's not clear that he ever read a single word in his Ph.D. thesis ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#Celebrities
Maybe he was too busy building his billion dollar house on the Black Sea.

Bob Jensen's threads on diploma mills ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#DiplomaMill

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating in academe ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm


Fraud Beat:
Canadians Massively Screwed by Their City, Province, and Local Governments ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-three-reasons-canada-is-in-big-trouble-2013-6

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


The Economist Dean of the Columbia University Business School is Not a Fan of Ben Bernanke or Paul Krugman

"Glenn Hubbard Explains The Doomsday Scenario That America Will See In 20 Years If There's No Change In Spending," by Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider, June 24, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/glenn-hubbards-doomsday-scenario-2013-6

We recently had Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Business, in to discuss his book Balance: The Economics of Great Powers from Ancient Rome to Modern America.

Hubbard's main argument is that the US must reduce its long-term deficit, and that if it's not addressed, then within 20 years the US will see a "doomsday scenario" of virtually no social spending and monstrous taxes.

Watch the video

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


Another Socialism Failure
"The Big Money Is Bailing On Argentina, Again, Over Fears Of Fresh Crisis," by Brian Winter, Business Insider, June 13, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/investors-are-leaving-argentina-2013-6

More than a decade after Argentina's epic financial collapse of 2001-02, many investors are rushing for the door once again.

From big Chinese and Brazilian companies like miner Vale do Rio Doce SA, to small-business owners and savers, the fear of a new crisis has led to canceled investments and suitcases of cash leaving the country.

The mass exodus, which has been limited only by leftist President Cristina Fernandez's capital controls, is threatening to undermine Latin America's No. 3 economy even further by leaving it short of hard currency and new jobs.

The underlying problems range from Fernandez's hostile treatment of the private sector, to severe financial distortions such as a parallel exchange rate, to the general feeling that Argentina is due for one of the periodic spasms that have racked the country every 10 years or so going back to the 1930s.

Some say such worries are overblown, arguing that Argentina has defied doomsday predictions for the past decade, which was by some measures its best economic run since World War Two.

Yet for many, the feeling is of a gathering storm.

"The end of this story has already been written, and it ends in crisis," said Roberto Lavagna, who as economy minister from 2002 to 2005 helped create Argentina's current export-driven policy framework, and is still widely respected on Wall Street.

While everyone agrees any crisis won't be as bad as the 2001-02 meltdown - which saw nationwide riots, two presidents quit, and the economy shrink by one-fifth - it could still be enough to severely disrupt lives and business plans.

By relying on short-term fixes such as price controls and bans on Argentines buying dollars, Fernandez may just be delaying the inevitable while piling up even more problems.

"The longer they try to delay things, the worse they will be," said Lavagna, who worked for Fernandez's late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, before falling out over what he saw as the couple's increasingly anti-business agenda.

"You can't have growth without investment."

Continued in article

   

Another Capitalism Success
Miracle in Chile --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile
Note that Chile did not end the wealth gap in Chile nearly as much as it raised the levels of income and opportunity for the poor higher than the rest of Latin and South America. The rich got richer and the poor got richer.

Also see where the Chilean state lends a hand ---
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02719329

Programs for New Small Businesses in Chile ---
http://startupchile.org/


FINRA --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FINRA
Something tells me Barry does not have a whole lot of respect for FINRA.

"The Latest Fuckery from FINRA," by Barry Ritholtz , June 17, 2013 ---
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/06/the-latest-fuckery-from-finra/

What kind of fuckery is this?
You made me miss the Slick Rick gig (oh Slick Rick)
You thought I didn’t love you when I did (when I did)
Can’t believe you played me out like that (Ahhh)

-Amy Winehouse,  Me & Mr Jones
Pop star drug addict who committed suicide

I have throughout my career in finance, studiously avoided having much to do with FINRA, WallStreet’s woefully corrupt self-regulatory entity.

I never got into trouble when I was on the Sell Side (i.e., series 7 licensed individual), so I never experienced their crony-flavored version of justice. But I was very much aware of their role in screwing investors — out of their legal rights to a trial (via mandatory arbitration) and thus out of their monies. If you want a primer on this, check out William Cohan’s series on FINRA arbitrations. It is astounding.

The latest nonsense from this wholly self serving cesspool of corruption is detailed by Susan Antilla, in Dealbook’s A Rise in Requests From Brokers to Wipe the Slate Clean. It turns out that bad brokers can have their records of misdeeds, if not expunged, well then cleaned up quite a bit. Try doing that with a felony or even misdemeanor if you are not a juvenile.

I cannot begin to express my disdain for this organization, which serves the interests of wirehouses and not investors. Indeed, I believe they have done immeasurable damage to individual investors over the decades — through their kangeroo (non)courts, and by the way the “Self” regulate, an inherent contradiction in terms if ever there was one.

Don’t take my word for it. Read Cohan’s series, and do some digging into their formation and background. Just don’t have a large meal first . . .

Bob Jensen's threads on rotten to the core brokers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking

"Why Are Some Sectors (Ahem, Finance) So Scandal-Plagued?" by Ben W. Heineman, Jr., Harvard Business Review Blog,  January 10, 2013 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/scandals_plague_sectors_not_ju.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Greatest Swindle in the History of the World ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Bailout

The trouble with crony capitalism isn't capitalism. It's the cronies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#CronyCapitalism

Subprime: Borne of Greed, Sleaze, Bribery, and Lies (including the credit rating agencies) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Sleaze

History of Fraud in America --- 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm

Rotten to the Core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

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


Lt. Col. Gade is an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy. In 2005, he lost his right leg in combat in Iraq. His views do not reflect those of the Defense Department, Army or the U.S. Military Academy. This essay is adapted from an article in the upcoming Summer 2013 issue of National Affairs.

"Why the (Veterans Administration) VA Is Buried in Disability Claims The biggest factor by far is how Veterans Affairs defines 'disability.' by Daniel Gade, The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324688404578541540407691684.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

For a sense of how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is coping with an unprecedented number of disability claims, consider that nationwide nearly 900,000 disability claims are backlogged or sitting in the processing queue. Veterans wait, on average, 273 days for their claims to be processed. For new claimants from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wait is 327 days. In some claims centers, the average wait approaches two years.

Budget cuts are not to blame. The VA's 2013 budget is $140.3 billion—more than double the 2001 level, adjusting for inflation. And it's not that the VA hasn't made enormous efforts to address the problem: For each of the past three years, VA claims-processors have managed to handle more than one million claims.

The VA has identified a number of factors driving the claims increase, including higher demand driven by a weak economy, an aging generation of Vietnam veterans and hundreds of thousands of post-9/11 veterans leaving the service. Making matters worse, the move to digital from paper claims is just getting started and the VA and the Defense Department continue to struggle in implementing compatible medical-records systems.

But the biggest issue by far is how the current system defines "disability." The average American may picture a disabled veteran as a wartime amputee, burn patient or wheelchair user. Fortunately, this isn't the case. The number of major amputations from Iraq and Afghanistan combined is less than 2,000, and the number of serious burns is around 2,500.

The reality is that the majority of veterans' disability claims are for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or minor physical conditions, including common age-related ailments such as hearing loss, lower-back pain and arthritis. Furthermore, 62% of the claims in the backlog of unprocessed claims are not first-time claimants, but are from veterans reapplying for increased benefits.

The financial structure of the claims process gives veterans further incentive to make claims. By getting a disability adjusted upward to 90% from 70%, a veteran will gain an additional $500 per month. It should come as no surprise, then, that many veterans will appeal or refile their claims in hopes of getting a higher disability rating. There are so many conditions that the VA dubs disabilities that the average veteran in the system now claims more than eight conditions as "disabling." The average during the post-World War II era was one or two.

By categorizing minor conditions as disabilities, the process threatens to become a kind of stealthy welfare system, where those with minor conditions might feather their nests at the expense of both taxpayers and truly disabled veterans trapped behind them in a line that stretches over the horizon. This also harms the veterans who are being told the lie that they are "disabled" and being paid to believe it. Sadly, this process can decrease veterans' work incentives and dull their ability to contribute to society after military service.

The good news is that a small number of simple steps would result in a more just, streamlined and efficient claims system. First, the VA's authorizing legislation should be updated so that only true disabilities are compensated. There is no moral or financial reason why minor or age-related conditions should be labeled as disabilities or compensated as such. Of course, the VA should continue to treat veterans for their service-connected conditions of whatever severity, but the era of labeling a veteran "disabled" for age-related degeneration should end.

Second, the claims currently in the queue should be prioritized. First-time claims should move to the front of the line so that seriously injured veterans can get necessary assistance.

Third, the focus of the entire system should shift to retraining, rehabilitating and reintegrating veterans into the workforce. Those with serious disabilities should be compensated for their pain and reduced quality of life, but they should also be encouraged to work. Paying veterans to stop working is the wrong course for veterans and for broader American society.

The real crisis is not a backlog of claims; it's that the current system is focusing on the wrong goals. Instead of working to push the maximum number of claims through the system, the VA should take a step back and ask what we really owe our veterans.

Social Security Disability Insurance --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Disability_Insurance

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSD or SSDI) is a payroll tax-funded, federal insurance program of the United States government. It is managed by the Social Security Administration and is designed to provide income supplements to people who are physically restricted in their ability to be employed because of a notable disability, usually a physical disability. SSD can be supplied on either a temporary or permanent basis, usually directly correlated to whether the person's disability is temporary or permanent.

Unlike Supplemental Security Income (SSI), SSD does not depend on the income of the disabled individual receiving it. A "legitimately" (i.e. according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and via other similar legal and medical backing) disabled person of any income level can theoretically receive SSD. Most SSI recipients are below an administratively-mandated income threshold, and indeed these individuals must in fact stay below that threshold to continue receiving SSI; but this is not the case with SSD.

. . .

This is a pretty good blog for those seeking disability benefits, especially SSI benefits ---
http://disabilityblogger.blogspot.com/2010/10/applications-for-social-security.html

One problem, in my opinion, of the SSD program is that family income and wealth are not taken into consideration. The 20-yer old wife or husband of a spouse making $10 million a year is eligible for SSD (and Medicare) lifetime benefits if she or he becomes mentally or physically disabled and unable to continue working. Joint ownership of $100 million in investments will not prelude receiving lifetime SSD and Medicare benefits even when entitled to half of those investments in the case of divorce.

I have a physician friend back in Iowa who has a very high income annually to a point where he and his working wife could well have afforded the best of care for their disabled child in a care home. Nevertheless the child received the maximum SSD benefits and Medicare that now continue into adult life.

In May 2013 there were over 14 million persons under age 65 receiving non-VA Social Security Disability benefits ---
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
The trend since 1970 is shown at
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/OASDIbenies.html
The number of recipients has doubled since 2002. There are many causes for this doubling, including the rise in unemployment (faked claims are especially high among workers who lose their jobs) coupled with the expansion of the definition of "disability" to cover depression and other forms of mood swing mental illness that were less commonly qualified for disability benefits in the 20th Century. This is in most cases fair and equitable if mental illness impairs job performance. Both soft tissue (e.g., spinal column) and some mental illnesses present rule enforcement problems because, with the help of questionable physicians and shyster lawyers, these impairments become more easily faked than, say, amputations and disabling cancer. To my knowledge, SSD recipients who are granted permanent lifetime disability are not required ever again to prove continued legibility. The millionaire SSD guy on the golf course daily may really have had a back injury 27 years ago.

At age 65 most SSD and SSI recipients are shifted into the Social Security retirement system even if they paid very little into the system, such as those that never were able to work since early childhood and paid nothing into the system.


"Benjamin Lawsky Fills in for AWOL Feds," by Jonathan Weil, Bloomberg, June 20, 2013 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-20/benjamin-lawsky-fills-in-for-awol-feds.html

The superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services today said Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi-UFJ Ltd. agreed to pay $250 million to settle allegations that it violated state banking laws when it carried out transactions with Iran and other countries subject to international sanctions. You have to wonder, too, what's going on over at the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

In December, the Treasury division concluded a parallel investigation of Bank of Tokyo and settled for only $8.5 million. The contrast reinforces the perception that the feds are going light on large financial institutions, and that Lawsky is out to fill the vacuum where he can using New York state laws.

It's the second big case for Lawsky this week. On June 18, Lawsky said Deloitte Financial Advisory Services would pay $10 million to resolve the agency's investigation into its consulting work for Standard Chartered Plc, the London-based bank that paid $340 million to the state to settle money-laundering claims last year. The agreement with Deloitte included a one-year ban on accepting new consulting work related to matters pending before the New York agency.

The Deloitte agreement had one feature that was particularly striking -- and rare for a regulator. The consulting firm, which is an affiliate of the Big Four accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP, admitted to violations of state banking law.

In the settlement agreement, Deloitte admitted that it broke state law by "knowingly disclosing confidential supervisory information to'' Standard Chartered about other banking clients.
Admissions such as these should be a model for all regulators. The New York department's consent order with Bank of Tokyo didn't include any direct acknowledgements, but at least it didn't have the dreaded language saying the company "neither admits nor denies" the allegations.

The way the consent order with Bank of Tokyo was structured, representatives for both the company and the regulator signed their names to a list of the agency's findings, which made it seem that Bank of Tokyo agreed they were true. One of the provisions said Bank of Tokyo "estimates that it cleared approximately 28,000 U.S. dollar payments through New York worth close to $100 billion involving Iran, and additional payments involving Sudan and Myanmar."

There's a glimmer of hope that other regulators may change their usual "no-admit" approach, at least on the margins. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White this week said the agency's enforcement division will seek more admissions of wrongdoing from defendants as a condition of settling cases. The agency's default position for decades has been for defendants to neither admit nor deny its claims.

Continued in article

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


"Barnes & Noble, the Last Big Bookseller Standing: But for How Long," Knowledge@Wharton, January 16, 2013 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3167

How long can onsite bookstore owners hang on?
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on June 24, 2013

We’ve got a few big name companies reporting earnings this week. Barnes & Noble is expected to post another quarterly loss on Tuesday amid declining revenue. Its Nook digital business led the company to post a small loss in the previous quarter and has lagged behind in the tablet wars, writes MoneyBeat’s Paul Vigna.

The Demise of Bookstores ---
http://www.jamiechavez.com/blog/2011/06/the-demise-of-bookstores/

Judge Posner Hails the Demise of Bookstores ---
http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/01/13/judge-posner-hails-the-demise-of-bookstores/

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

Bob Jensen's threads on free electronic literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm


When more is built on the coast, more gets destroyed on the coast ---
https://www.facebook.com/FinanceProfessorBlog/posts/527266357323027


"Even Comrades Can't Make This Up: Unions Exempt from Extortion Laws," by John Ransom, Townhall, June 16, 2013--- Click Here
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2013/06/16/even-comrades-cant-make-this-up-unions-exempt-from-extortion-laws-n1620930?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl


"Markets Discover There is No Exit Strategy (from stimulus and continued printing of trillions of dollars)," by Peter Schiff, Townhall, June 20, 2013 ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/peterschiff/2013/06/20/markets-discover-there-is-no-exit-strategy-n1623209?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl


"Uncovering the Camp Bastion Cover-Up," by Michelle Malkin, Townhall, June 21, 2013 --- Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/06/21/uncovering-the-camp-bastion-coverup-n1623731?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl


Jensen Cautions
In the Academy we are always suspicious about verbs like "proved" or "confirmed." These are loaded verbs that carry a lot of baggage regarding underlying assumptions and failure to apply to all circumstances. There's little doubt that the overwhelming majority of members of the Academy classify themselves into varying degrees of liberalism with fewer and fewer members classifying themselves as conservative. There is little doubt that universities are politically biased in such things as choosing commencement speakers.

 However, this certainly does not translate to "shutting out of conservatives" in admissions to doctoral programs, hiring of faculty, granting of tenure, and running universities.

This certainly does not translate to a majority of those professors attempting to to indoctrinate rather than educate.

Even in circumstances where instructors want to indoctrinate their students politically there are countervailing restraints. First and foremost are teaching evaluations that, in the 21st Century, greatly impact tenure and promotion outcomes. If an instructor's students overwhelmingly complain about political indoctrination their teaching evaluations reveal violations of AAUP rules against political indoctrination.

Also the world can view students' comments about their instructors at www.RateMyProfessor.com where there are over a million students who have made public comments about particular faculty members and their colleges. There are horror stories about liberal bias and indoctrination, but such reports are not the norm.

"Suspicions Confirmed: Academia Shutting Out Conservative Professors," by Rachel Alexander, Townhall, June 10, 2013 --- Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2013/06/10/suspicions-confirmed-academia-shutting-out-conservative-professors-n1616406?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Conservatives have long suspected there is discrimination against conservative professors in academia, and now there is evidence to prove it. Sociology professor Neil Gross, a self-described liberal, reveals the results of surveys showing this bias in his new book, Why Professors are Liberal and Why do Conservatives Care?

Sociologist George Yancy asked professors if they would be more or less likely to hire someone if they were a Republican, evangelical or fundamentalist. Three-quarters said political affiliation would not affect their hiring decision. But the one-quarter that did say it would influence their decision virtually all said they would favor a Democrat over a Republican. Almost half of the sociology professors surveyed said they would look unfavorably upon evangelicals and fundamentalists trying to get a job in their department!

In a 2005 survey, researcher Gary Tobin asked professors how favorably or unfavorably they felt about various religious groups. Fifty-three percent of academics responded that they regard evangelicals unfavorably. The next highest unfavorable rating was 33 percent regarding Mormons.

Professor Gross performed his own “audit study,” sending in fake applications to upper academia at universities around the country. One set of applicants, the control group, had nothing political listed on their resumes. The other two sets of applicants indicated they had either worked on the McCain or Obama 2008 presidential campaigns. He found, “On average, the DGSs (directors of graduate studies) responded less frequently, more slowly, and less enthusiastically to the conservative applicant.”

The average professor is three times as liberal as the average American, and academia is even more liberal now than it was in the 1960s. Gross provides evidence indicating that feminism greatly increased the drift of college faculty to the left, in every field except engineering. Today, 63 percent of female academics describe themselves as feminists. Seventy-three percent of academics describe themselves as moderates, liberals or radical leftists. Gross admits, “…it would be foolish for anyone with truly antifeminist sensibilities to become a sociologist,” due to how liberal that field has become. The Sex and Gender Section is the second largest section in the American Sociological Association. New departments have emerged like Women’s Studies where conservatives would not even bother applying.

Gross’s thesis is that conservatives self-select other professions, independently choosing not to become professors because academia is so liberal. But this sidesteps the clear evidence Gross provides revealing faculty bias in hiring. Gross cites, yet ignores, a study which found that seven percent of conservative academics report having been the victim of political discrimination. Conservative professor Mary Grabar debunks Gross’s thesis, publishing essays from six white male professors who have been blocked out of higher academia, in her new book, Exiled: Stories From Conservative and Moderate Professors Who Have Been Ridiculed, Ostracized, Marginalized, Demonized and Frozen Out. Most of them cannot obtain well-paying full-time work at four-year institutions, and instead are relegated to “perpetual adjunct status, teaching twice as many classes as the average course load, for wages that work out to be less than minimum wage.”

In the second half of Gross’s book, he tries to understand why conservatives care about this bias. Besides the fact that it is unfair to conservatives who want to become professors, the obvious answer is because many professors insert their political biases into their grading and teaching. Gross correctly answers this question on page three in his book’s Introduction and should have stopped there, “Stick an impressionable twenty-year old in a classroom for fifteen weeks with a charismatic instructor who makes the case that conservatives are heartless or deluded and that the United States has evil designs, and the student is likely to veer left.” Gross interviewed professors on whether they engage in political indoctrination, or “critical pedagogy.” Two of fifty-seven professors he interviewed fully admitted they were guilty of it.

Yet Gross cannot understand the conservative mind, and wastes the second half of the book analyzing stereotypes and red herrings. Professor Grabar reviewed Gross’s book and concluded, “Even as he attempts to look fair-minded, Gross presents caricatured pictures of conservatism.”


Gross attempts to make conservatives look bad throughout the book, but much of it backfires. He asserts, “social conservatives tend to come from lower social class origins in the contemporary American context,” and, “Professors tend to come from better educated, higher income families than other Americans.” However, this just goes to validate the complaint by conservatives that academia is composed of elitist liberals who come from wealthy, connected families.

The good news is not all areas of study are heavily dominated by professors on the left. Economics, criminology, and engineering still have a significant portion of conservative professors, although not quite 50 percent.

Jensen Comment
Be fair Rachel. The University of Colorado, with great fanfare, just hired a chaired conservative (but not with tenure)

"New View of Faculty Liberalism:  Why are professors liberal?" by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, January 18, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/18/liberal 

"Moving Further to the Left," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, October 24, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/24/survey-finds-professors-already-liberal-have-moved-further-left

Academics, on average, lean to the left. A survey being released today suggests that they are moving even more in that direction.


 

Among full-time faculty members at four-year colleges and universities, the percentage identifying as "far left" or liberal has increased notably in the last three years, while the percentage identifying in three other political categories has declined. The data come from the University of California at Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute, which surveys faculty members nationwide every three years on a range of attitudes.


 

Here are the data for the new survey and the prior survey:

  2010-11 2007-8
Far left 12.4% 8.8%
Liberal 50.3% 47.0%
Middle of the road 25.4% 28.4%
Conservative 11.5% 15.2%
Far right 0.4% 0.7%


 

Gauging how gradual or abrupt this shift is complicated because of changes in the UCLA survey's methodology; before 2007-8, the survey included community college faculty members, who have been excluded since. But for those years, examining only four-year college and university faculty members, the numbers are similar to those of 2007-8. Going back further, one can see an evolution away from the center.


 

In the 1998-9 survey, more than 35 percent of faculty members identified themselves as middle of the road, and less than half (47.5 percent) identified as liberal or far left. In the new data, 62.7 percent identify as liberal or far left. (Most surveys that have included community college faculty members have found them to inhabit political space to the right of faculty members at four-year institutions.)


 

The new data differ from some recent studies by groups other than the UCLA center that have found that professors (while more likely to lean left than right) in fact were doing so from more of a centrist position. A major study in 2007, for example, found that professors were more likely to be centrist than liberal, and that many on the left identified themselves as "slightly liberal." (That study and the new one use different scales, making exact comparisons impossible.)


 

In looking at the new data, there is notable variation by sector. Private research universities are the most left-leaning, with 16.2 percent of faculty members identifying as far left, and 0.1 percent as far right. (If one combines far left and liberal, however, private, four-year, non-religious colleges top private universities, 58.6 percent to 57.7 percent.) The largest conservative contingent can be found at religious, non-Roman Catholic four-year colleges, where 23.0 percent identify as conservative and another 0.6 percent say that they are far right.


 

Professors' Political Identification, 2010-11, by Sector

  Far left Liberal Middle of the Road Conservative Far right
Public universities 13.3% 52.4% 24.7% 9.2% 0.3%
Private universities 16.2% 51.5% 22.3% 9.8% 0.1%
Public, 4-year colleges 8.8% 47.1% 28.7% 14.7% 0.7%
Private, 4-year, nonsectarian 14.0% 54.6% 22.6% 8.6% 0.3%
Private, 4-year, Catholic 7.8% 48.0% 30.7% 13.3% 0.3%
Private, 4-year, other religious 7.4% 40.0% 29.1% 23.0% 0.6%


 

The study found some differences by gender, with women further to the left than men. Among women, 12.6 percent identified as far left and 54.9 percent as liberal. Among men, the figures were 12.2 percent and 47.2 percent, respectively.


 

When it comes to the three tenure-track ranks, assistant professors were the most likely to be far left, but full professors were more likely than others to be liberal.


 

Professors' Political Identification, 2010-11, by Tenure Rank

  Far left Liberal Middle of the Road Conservative Far right
Full professors 11.8% 54.9% 23.4% 9.7% 0.2%
Associate professors 13.8% 50.4% 24.0% 11.5% 0.4%
Assistant professors 13.9% 48.7% 25.9% 11.2% 0.4%


 

So what do these data mean?


 

Sylvia Hurtado, professor of education at UCLA and director of the Higher Education Research Institute, said that she didn't know what to make of the surge to the left by faculty members. She said that she suspects age may be a factor, as the full-time professoriate is aging, but said that this is just a theory. Hurtado said that these figures always attract a lot of attention, but she thinks that the emphasis may be misplaced because of a series of studies showing no evidence that left-leaning faculty members are somehow shifting the views of their students or enforcing any kind of political requirement.

Continued in article

"The Liberal Skew in Higher Education," by Richard Posner, The Becker-Posner Blog, December 30, 2007 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

"The Liberal Skew in Higher Education," by Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, The Becker-Posner Blog, December 30, 2007 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

"Noam Chomsky Spells Out the Purpose of Education," by Josh Jones, Open Culture, November 2012 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/noam_chomsky_spells_out_the_purpose_of_education.html

Review of the Book:  Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?
"Self-Fulfilling Professorial Politics," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Education, April 9, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/04/09/new-book-explores-professors-politics-and-debates-about-those-politics

"Professor Calls Republicans Stupid & Racist (in classes at USC)," by Ted Starnes, Townhall, April 11, 2013 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2013/04/11/professor-calls-republicans-stupid--racist-n1564681

"How California's Colleges Indoctrinate Students: A new report on the UC system documents the plague of politicized classrooms. The problem is national in scope," by Stanford's eter Berkowitz at Stanford University, The Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2012 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312361540817878.html#mod=djemEditorialPage_t

"College Employees Give Millions to Federal Campaigns, Especially to Democrats," by Kevin Kiley, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 22, 2010 --- http://chronicle.com/article/College-Employees-Give/124572/

Bob Jensen's threads on liberal bias in academe ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias


State and Local Property Tax Collections (Per Capita) by State ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4eab53ef01910357ea2a970c-popup
California is still relatively high (well average at least)  in spite of the horror stories about Proposition 13
Think of where California would be without Prop 13 --- probably scarlet on the map


Why India Trails China (NYT) ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/opinion/why-india-trails-china.html?_r=0

Jensen Comment
India performs worse on both inequality and birth control. Both nations restrain economic growth with high levels of government corruption.


Stanford to open resource center to foster engagement on the Muslim world ---
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/may/markaz-resource-center-052913.html

Jensen Comment
To my knowledge there are no resource centers for other religions ---
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/may/markaz-resource-center-052913.html
However, Stanford does have a multifaith chapel and chaplain.


"Hating America," by Walter E. Williams, Townhall, May 15, 2013 --- Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2013/05/15/hating-america-n1593700?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl


Update on Housing Discrimination
"Here's What Happened When 8,000 Pairs Of Equally Qualified Whites And Minorities Went House Hunting," by Emily Badger, Business Insider, June 11, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/housing-discrimination-still-exists-2013-6

Jensen Comment
We could quibble over some of the methodology issues in this study, but I doubt that it would change the conclusions in a serious way. Was the race of the real estate agent a confounding factor? How would whites in predominantly minority neighborhoods fare? Is age a confounding factor such as when landlords fear loud nightly music that they dislike? Are ages of children a confounding factor? Landlords often experience troubles with school dropouts and dropout rates vary by race.

But given the sample size, I doubt that those issues mentioned above seriously detract from the study's main findings. The bottom line is that we still have a long way to go in overcoming insidious racial discrimination in housing.

Many of the comments that follow this article are of the red neck variety.


America's Lost Youth Are Concentrated In These States [MAP] ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/youths-without-high-school-diploma-by-state-2013-6


"Angry Old Gray Lady If it's racist to criticize Obama, what does that say about the New York Times?" by James Tarantto, The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578531443908053734.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

The administration has now lost all credibility." That's the New York Times editorial board, using recent news stories about the National Security Agency's antiterror data-mining operations as its latest weapon in the war against the black man in the White House.

OK, that racial reference is a non sequitur. We're trotting out a leftist technique of argumentation in order to make some points in a fun way. We borrowed the language, in fact, from MSNBC's Martin Bashir, sometimes known as the thinking man's Piers Morgan.

On his eponymous program Wednesday, Bashir denounced Rep. Darrell Issa and other congressional Republicans investigating the Internal Revenue Service's efforts to stifle Obama's political opponents during Obama's re-election campaign. As NewsBusters.org notes, Bashir said: "Despite the complete lack of any evidence linking the President to the targeting of Tea Party groups, Republicans are using it as their latest weapon in the war against the black man in the White House."

He concluded: "So this afternoon we welcome the latest phrase in the lexicon of Republican attacks on this president--the IRS. Three letters that sound so innocent, but we know what you mean." What "we know . . . you mean," incredibly enough, is the worst racial slur in the American vernacular, one so offensive that even the enraged Bashir cannot bring himself to say it. Through the segment, he uses the euphemism "N-word."

There are a few problems here. For one, there is a Butterfieldian quality to Bashir's complaints that Republicans are investigating "despite" the lack of evidence implicating the president. There is sufficient evidence of serious wrongdoing--provided by the IRS itself--to justify an investigation. As to the extent and nature of the president's involvement, those are questions that merit investigation, not answers that preclude it.

For another, by virtue of his position the president is implicated in the IRS scandal even if he himself did nothing illegal or unethical. He is, after all, the president, which means that he is responsible for overseeing all the agencies of the executive branch, including the IRS. The most charitable way to characterize Obama's role in the scandal is as a case of administrative incompetence.

And that is charitable indeed. Our colleague Kim Strassel provides a helpful political timeline in which she shows how Obama and his supporters in Congress and the press spent 2010 trying to stir up a moral panic about conservative organizations. She sums up:

The president of the United States spent months warning the country that "shadowy," conservative "front" groups--"posing" as tax-exempt entities and illegally controlled by "foreign" players--were engaged in "unsupervised" spending that posed a "threat" to democracy. Yet we are to believe that a few rogue IRS employees just happened during that time to begin systematically targeting conservative groups?

Mediaite's Noah Rothman notes one further problem with Bashir's presentation. Bashir cited a 1981 interview with Republican strategist Lee Atwater (who died in 1991). But Bashir dowdified Atwater's comments "in order to make them appear more sinister than they really were."

Continued in article


From the TaxProf on June 15, 2013 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/

The IRS Scandal, Day 37

 

The IRS Scandal, Day 38

 

 


"The IRS Boldly goes where no Agency has Gone Before," by Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, June 20, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/06/the-irs-boldly-goes-where-no-agency-has-gone-before.html


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


Yawn! News that medical providers, medical insurance companies are defrauding Medicare is hardly newsworthy anymore
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on June 12, 2013

Former Wellcare CFO found guilty of Medicaid fraud
The former CFO and former CEO of Wellcare Health Plans were found guilty by a federal jury in Tampa, Fla., of a scheme to defraud the state’s Medicaid program,
the WSJ reports. Ex-CEO Todd S. Farha and former CFO Paul L. Behrens were both convicted of two counts of health-care fraud. Mr. Behrens was also convicted of two counts of making false statements relating to health-care matters. According to the Justice Department, the defendants falsely submitted inflated information in order to reduce contractual payback obligations for behavioral health-care services.

 


The Unaffordable Health Care Act
"Coverage may be unaffordable for low-wage workers," by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Yahoo News, June 13, 2013 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/coverage-may-unaffordable-low-wage-workers-151922273.html

It's called the Affordable Care Act, but President Barack Obama's health care law may turn out to be unaffordable for many low-wage workers, including employees at big chain restaurants, retail stores and hotels.

That might seem strange since the law requires medium-sized and large employers to offer "affordable" coverage or face fines.

But what's reasonable? Because of a wrinkle in the law, companies can meet their legal obligations by offering policies that would be too expensive for many low-wage workers. For the employee, it's like a mirage — attractive but out of reach.

The company can get off the hook, say corporate consultants and policy experts, but the employee could still face a federal requirement to get health insurance.

Many are expected to remain uninsured, possibly risking fines. That's due to another provision: the law says workers with an offer of "affordable" workplace coverage aren't entitled to new tax credits for private insurance, which could be a better deal for those on the lower rungs of the middle class.

Some supporters of the law are disappointed. It smacks of today's Catch-22 insurance rules.

"Some people may not gain the benefit of affordable employer coverage," acknowledged Ron Pollack, president of Families USA, a liberal advocacy group leading efforts to get uninsured people signed up for coverage next year.

"It is an imperfection in the new law," Pollack added. "The new law is a big step in the right direction, but it is not perfect, and it will require future improvements."

Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, the 2-million-member service-sector labor union, called the provision "an avoidance opportunity" for big business. SEIU provided grass-roots support during Obama's long struggle to push the bill through Congress.

The law is complicated, but essentially companies with 50 or more full-time workers are required to offer coverage that meets certain basic standards and costs no more than 9.5 percent of an employee's income. Failure to do so means fines for the employer. (Full-time work is defined as 30 or more hours a week, on average.)

But do the math from the worker's side: For an employee making $21,000 a year, 9.5 percent of their income could mean premiums as high as $1,995 and the insurance would still be considered affordable.

Even a premium of $1,000 — close to the current average for employee-only coverage — could be unaffordable for someone stretching earnings in the low $20,000's.

With such a small income, "there is just not any left over for health insurance," said Shannon Demaree, head of actuarial services for the Lockton Benefit Group. "What the government is requiring employers to do isn't really something their low-paid employees want."

Based in Kansas City, Mo., Lockton is an insurance broker and benefits consultant that caters to many medium-sized businesses affected by the health care law. Actuaries like Demaree specialize in cost estimates.

Another thing to keep in mind: premiums wouldn't be the only expense for employees. For a basic plan, they could also face an annual deductible amounting to $3,000 or so, before insurance starts paying.

"If you make $20,000, are you really going to buy that?" asked Tracy Watts, health care reform leader at Mercer, a major benefits consulting firm.

And low-wage workers making more than about $15,900 won't be eligible for the law's Medicaid expansion, shutting down another possibility for getting covered.

It's not exactly the picture the administration has painted. The president portrays his health care law as economic relief for struggling workers.

"Let's make sure that everybody who is out there working hard and doing the right thing, that they're not going to go bankrupt because they get sick, that they're going to have health care they can count on," Obama said in a Chicago appearance last summer during the presidential campaign. "And we got that done."

White House senior communications advisor Tara McGuinness downplayed concerns. "There has been a lot of conjecture about what people might do or could do, but this hasn't actually happened yet," she said. "The gap between sky-is-falling predictions about the health law and what is happening is very wide."

The administration believes "most businesses want to do right by their employees and will continue to use tax breaks to provide quality coverage to their workers," she added. Health insurance is tax deductible for employers, and the health law provides additional tax breaks to help small businesses.

Virtually all major employers currently offer health insurance, although skimpy policies offered to many low-wage workers may not meet the requirements of the new law. Companies affected have been reluctant to telegraph how they plan to comply.

"It clearly isn't going to be a morale-boosting moment when you redo your health plan to discourage participation," said Stern, the former labor leader, now a senior fellow at Columbia University. "It's not something most want to advertise until they are sure it's the right decision."

The National Retail Federation's top health care expert said there's no "grand scheme to avoid responsibility" among employers. "That is a little too Machiavellian," said Neil Trautwein.

Nonetheless, he acknowledged it's "a possible outcome" that low-wage workers could find coverage unaffordable because of the wrinkle in the law.

Continued in article

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




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

Bob Jensen's Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm 

Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals

Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:

Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm

Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Enron --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm

Rotten to the Core --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

American History of Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm

Bob Jensen's fraud conclusions ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on corporate governance are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance 

 

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

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave  --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen

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

Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

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

Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/