Tidbits on July 14, 2015
Bob Jensen
at Trinity University
Wes
Lavin's Panoramic Pictures of Bob Jensen's Flower Gardens in 2015
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Lavin/2015June/Set02Panoramic/2015Panorama.htm
Tidbits on July 14, 2015
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/
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Video: Our unhealthy obsession with choice ---
http://www.ted.com/talks/renata_salecl_our_unhealthy_obsession_with_choice
The Declaration of Independence Read by Thespians: Morgan
Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Renee Zellweger & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/the-declaration-of-independence-read-by-thespians-morgan-freeman-kevin-spacey-renee-zellweger-more.html
Video: New 300 ppi version -- Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
---
http://lisnews.org/new_300_ppi_version_amazon_kindle_paperwhite
The 11 biggest box-office bombs of 2015 so far ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-box-office-bombs-2015-first-half-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3fbmc6bit
Beautiful Things Going Unnoticed in the Back Yard ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQiszdkOwuU&hd=1&feature=iv&src_vid=xHkq1edcbk4&annotation_id=annotation_631148
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Misty Copeland named first black female principal
at ABT---
http://news.yahoo.com/misty-copeland-named-first-black-female-principal-abt-162920709.html
With Medieval Instruments, Band Performs Classic
Songs by Deep Purple, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica & The Beatles ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/with-medieval-instruments-band-performs-classic-songs-by-deep-purple-red-hot-chili-peppers-metallica-the-beatles.html
Two Documentaries Introduce Delia Derbyshire, the
Pioneer in Electronic Music ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/two-documentaries-introduce-delia-derbyshire-the-pioneer-in-electronic-music.html
Musicked Down the Mountain: How Oliver Sacks
Saved His Own Life by Literature and Song ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/09/oliver-sacks-a-leg-to-stand-on/?mc_cid=1d542944af&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Lost in the 50s: The Way it Was ---
http://safeshare.tv/w/FEDEwZHZXu
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
Pandora (my favorite online music station) ---
www.pandora.com
TheRadio (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's threads on nearly all types of free
music selections online ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm
Photographs and Art
See an Unprecedented Close-Up of Pluto's Surface
---
http://time.com/3954477/nasa-pluto-new-horizons-planet/?xid=newsletter-brief
178 Beautifully-Illustrated Letters from Artists:
Kahlo, Calder, Man Ray & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/178-beautifully-illustrated-letters-from-artists.html
18 rare color photographs of the Russian Empire from over 100
years ago ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/vintage-color-photos-of-the-russian-empire-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3fOlB5QBm
14 incredibly preserved historic villages and towns around the
world ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/unesco-historic-villages-and-towns-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3fVtTqv79
28 stunning aerial photos that will change the way you see the
world ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/aerial-photos-from-daily-overview-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3fVv65Du6
This stunning combat art reveals what aerial warfare was like
during World War II ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-stunning-combat-art-reveals-what-aerial-warfare-was-like-during-world-war-ii-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3fVwbIP00
See Venice in Beautiful Color Images 125 Years
Ago: The Rialto Bridge, St. Mark’s Basilica, Doge’s Palace & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/venice-in-beautiful-color-images-125-years-ago.html
Artist Turns 24-Volume Encyclopedia Britannica
Set into a Beautifully Carved Landscape ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/06/artist-turns-24-volume-encyclopedia-britannica-set-into-a-beautifully-carved-landscape.html
18 NOPE Travel Adventures 17 Most Unique Homes
From Around The World ---
http://www.swifty.com/lifestyle/15681/17-most-unique-homes-from-around-the-world#slide/0
2,200 Radical Political Posters Digitized: A New
Archive ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/2200-radical-political-posters-digitized-a-new-archive.html
There's an algorithm that can see whether a photo has been
faked ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/verifeyed-czech-tech-startup-detects-fake-and-manipulated-images-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3elEzI5sM
25 Years of Hubble ---
https://webcast.stsci.edu/webcast/detail.xhtml?talkid=4418&parent=1
The world's largest megacity already has more people than
Canada, Argentina, or Australia ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-mega-city-has-more-people-than-canada-argentina-or-australia-2015-7#ixzz3fKIHYzWe
The Art of Restoring a 400-Year-Old Painting: A
Five-Minute Primer ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/the-art-of-restoring-a-400-year-old-painting-a-five-minute-primer.html
Mr. Gauguin's Heart: The Beautiful and
Bittersweet True Story of How Paul Gauguin Became an Artist ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/08/mr-gauguins-heart/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
20 raw images from the streets of New York ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photographer-andre-wagner-documents-the-streets-of-new-york-2015-7
23 incredible photos of fjords that will make you want to
travel to Norway ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-norwegian-fjords-2015-6?op=1#ixzz3fbpZshAr
National Geographic: Atlas Explorer ---
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/map/atlas
National Geographic: Maps ---
http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/maps
Crow riding on top of a bald eagle ---
http://www.grindtv.com/wildlife/rare-photo-shows-crow-riding-atop-a-flying-bald-eagle/#js4TX0XvQRJyBwo4.97
Jensen Comment
A golden eagle once landed exhausted in our front yard after being dived bombed
in the air by five crows. The eagle rested for 20 minutes with its backside
protected by the huge rock alongside my well head. The crows did not both the
eagle when it was on the ground, but continued their aerial attack when it took
off again toward the mountains.
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
New Archive Offers Free Access to 22,000 Literary Documents
From Great British & American Writers ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/06/new-archive-offers-free-access-to-22000-literary-documents-from-great-british-american-writers.html
The Millions (essays, etc.) ---
http://www.themillions.com
Slate's Audio Book Club ---
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_audio_book_club.html
Amanda Palmer Reads Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska’s
Poem “Life While-You-Wait” ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/02/amanda-palmer-reads-wislawa-szymborska/?mc_cid=2e1e781938&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Mr. Gauguin's Heart: The Beautiful and Bittersweet True Story of
How Paul Gauguin Became an Artist ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/08/mr-gauguins-heart/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
The Invention of Clouds: Goethe's Poems for the Skies and His
Heartfelt Homage to the Young Scientist Who Classified Clouds ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/07/the-invention-of-clouds-luke-howard-hamblyn/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
The Magic Box: A Whimsical Vintage Children’s Book for Grownups
About Life, Death, and How To Be More Alive Every Day ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/02/the-magic-box-pintauro-laliberte/?mc_cid=2e1e781938&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
The 321 Books in David Foster Wallace’s Personal Library: From
Blood Meridian to Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/the-321-books-in-david-foster-wallaces-personal-library.html
Free Electronic Literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on July 14, 2015
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2015/TidbitsQuotations071415.htm
U.S. National Debt Clock ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Also see
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
Peter G.
Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/
GAO: Fiscal Outlook & The Debt ---
http://www.gao.gov/fiscal_outlook/overview
Bob Jensen's threads on entitlements ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Free TechSmith Smart Player for Office ---
https://www.techsmith.com/techsmith-smart-player-for-office.html
Thank you Richard Campbell for the heads up
With TechSmith Smart Player for Office, you can
seamlessly integrate interactive content made with TechSmith products like
Camtasia and Snagit into your PowerPoint and Excel documents right from
OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. To truly make your content
measurable and collaborative, you can also add quiz and survey questions at
any point in your video to make your content a two way communication tool.
Then use our preview version of TechSmith Results
to see your quiz and survey results and measure how well your message is
received. Instead of back and forth questions via email and meetings,
clarify document expectations or instructions with visual communication.
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Why Siri sucked — and what's coming next ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-siri-sucked-2015-7#ixzz3fbnQ0RoH
. . .
But Siri has improved considerably since its early
days to better match Google Now. Siri can now identify songs playing nearby,
give you sports scores, movie times, and stock comparisons. It can find
songs and albums in Apple Music, find nearby restaurants and book
reservations, tell you haiku and stories, and find apps in the App Store for
you.
As for the next evolution of Siri, Apple wants you
to search less and have more information find you instead. Soon, Siri will
suggest applications to use based on your habits, so if you like listening
to music in the morning, or playing Candy Crush, Siri will show you an icon
in the bottom of your screen to quickly activate those apps.
You'll be able to use Siri to search within
applications as well. So if you're looking for a specific lasagna recipe,
Siri can point you to relevant content within the various apps on your
phone, and also give you direct links to the web, with easy back-links, too.
. . .
Microsoft has Cortana, and Google has Google Now,
which is better than Siri at listening and comprehension. Google's new
product called "Now On Tap" can read anything on your phone's screen and
instantly show you more information about what you're looking at.
Read more:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-siri-sucked-2015-7#ixzz3fbnnKjlT
Kurtosis ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurtosis
W. S. Gosset (Student) provided this useful aid to help us remember the
difference between platykurtic and leptokurtic distributions ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2015/07/student-on-kurtosis.html
Parallel Computing ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_computing
From Econometrics Beat by David Gilles on July 8, 2015 ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2015/07/parallel-computing-for-data-science.html
The
book's coverage is clear from the following chapter titles:
1. Introduction to Parallel Processing in R
2. Performance Issues: General
3. Principles of Parallel Loop Scheduling
4. The Message Passing Paradigm
5. The Shared Memory Paradigm
6. Parallelism through Accelerator Chips
7. An Inherently Statistical Approach to Parallelization:
Subset Methods
8. Distributed Computation
9. Parallel Sorting, Filtering and Prefix Scan
10. Parallel Linear Algebra
Appendix - Review of Matrix Algebra
Question
How can you present a question about econometrics or statistics in general to an
expert?
Answer
New Forum from David Gilles, Econometrics Beat ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2015/06/readers-forum-page.html
Jensen Comment
Can you imagine that accountics scientists might set up a similar forum for
questions about the mathematical models that appear in virtually all articles in
The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting and
Economics, Contemporary Accounting Research, The British Accounting Review,
Abacus, etc.?
I cannot imagine such a forum since there is not one accountics scientist in
the world even willing to manage a blog?
The AAA Commons is a perfect place for an accountics science forum ---
http://commons.aaahq.org/pages/home
But the Commons never caught on with accountics scientists
http://commons.aaahq.org/search?find=Lease
How Accountics Scientists Should Change:
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
Jensen Question
Is it the Commons blocking just me or are there other members of the AAA who
cannot sign into the Commons by clicking on "Sign in" at
http://commons.aaahq.org/pages/home
The sad state of the Firefox browser and its recovery efforts
Rust Never Sleeps: How Mozilla Could Become Cool Again ---
http://readwrite.com/2015/07/02/mozilla-rust-programming-language-potential
Jensen Comment
I use Firefox as my primary browser, but there are problems on my system. For
me, Firefox has never worked well for Flash videos. When I encounter a Flash
video I want to watch I copy the URL and open up Chrome. Even worse Firefox
crashes more often with a simple recovery button that pops up like Mozilla knows
that recent crashings are a problem.
Artificial Intelligence ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
Deep Learning ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning
"IBM is combining different AI techniques, including deep learning, in the
commercial version of Watson," by Will Knight, MIT's Technology Review, July
9, 2015 ---
Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/539226/ibm-pushes-deep-learning-with-a-watson-upgrade/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150710
Leslie’s Law shows how startups can own their markets.
"In Technology, Small Fish (Almost Always) Eat Big Fish (Like IBM)," by
Mark Leslie, Stanford Graduate School of Business, July 8, 2015 ---
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/technology-small-fish-almost-always-eat-big-fish
For decades it was inconceivable that anyone could
compete against IBM’s absolute dominance of the computing industry. It owned
65% of the market, with the rest divvied up between what were then known as
the “BUNCH” companies — Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell.
They each had their own proprietary hardware and software stacks and kept to
themselves. Everyone was fat, dumb, and happy.
They were so happy, in fact, that they didn’t even
blink when, in 1959, Digital Equipment developed and delivered the PDP-1 — a
new breed of mini-computer with standard memory of 4K, 18 bit words, and a
200K clock speed. At the time, this seemed trivial compared to an IBM
mainframe. But 30 years later, Digital Equipment had annual revenue topping
$14 billion and had given birth to a new industry, seeding companies like
HP, Data General, Prime, Varian and a host of others.
Coinciding with the shift in hardware, the UNIX
operating system — developed by AT&T in the late 1960s and early 70s —
entered the mix, eating away more of IBM’s domain and opening the door to
microprocessor-based systems hosting UNIX, such as those from Sun
Microsystems, which became the primary computing platform of the 1990s.
By the end of the decade, these companies had
vanquished king IBM, relegating it to its shrinking yet still profitable
mainframe business. For the last half of the 20th century, it was almost
impossible to find any business or industry article on the IT industry that
didn’t mention IBM. Now you’d be hard-pressed to find any article mentioning
them at all — except to describe their descent.
Eventually, and inevitably, these “small” entrants
eat their way up the food chain into the market, capturing a larger and
larger share, until the behemoths of the sector are forced to retreat back
into a narrowing market niche.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
The article leaves many unanswered questions like how Apple became and still is
the largest cash cow in the world. When will the small parasites shrivel the
Apple? True, Apple never was and still is not a dominant player in terms of
computers and operating systems. But it is certainly king of the hill in mobile
phones and emerging products like music players and television.
Microsoft is an other unanswered question. While Apple garners all the
headlines Microsoft's generations of new Windows operating systems are still
dominant in terms of operating system cash cows. The next test will be Windows
10 that from all accounts will be another winner standing out among the loser
products that Microsoft introduced other than Windows and MS Office.
Windows certainly is not a winner in terms of quality and reliability and
hacking security. Computer scientists generally despise Windows. But Bill Gates'
marketing strategy made the world's organizations (homes, businesses, government
agencies, etc.) so familiar with Windows applications that no other software has
toppled its dominance in the PC market place. For example, accountants worldwide
virtually all prefer Excel to other spreadsheet startups. Computer users
in general do not want to relearn their sometimes fabulous skills in using
Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.
My point is that small entrants (fish) don't always do so well when their
products require enormous re-training time and costs in homes, businesses,
government agencies, etc. Startups do better when training is relatively
simple like learning to use a mobile phone or Netflix relative to learning to
word process and graphing creatively in Excel.
Microsoft and Apple remain viable. But stagnation and decay certainly has
taken its toll on giants like IBM, AT&T, Motorola, HP, Nokia, Blackberry, etc.
Moodle Unveils Free Cloud Hosting for Educators ---
http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/07/06/moodle-launches-free-cloud-hosting-for-educators.aspx
Why Economics is Not a Science: When Bad Politics = Smart Economics
"Does Jeb Bush Understand Economics?"
No says Kurt
Eichenwald, Newsweek, July 10, 2015 ---
http://www.newsweek.com/jeb-bush-its-stupid-economy-352232
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush set off
a firestorm this week by appearing to say in a newspaper interview that
Americans should work longer hours. Democrats pounced, even as the Bush
campaign said his comments were taken out of context.
But everyone is missing the real story. Whether
Bush’s comment was a criticism of American workers or a lament about a
weakened job market, his words demonstrated
such a lack of knowledge of economics that it’s virtually impossible to
understand what was the context of his words.
Bush’s full statement was: “My aspiration for the
country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4% growth as far as the eye can
see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce
participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that
people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more
income for their families.”
Continued in article
Yes Says Ben Casselman
Nate Silver's Blog 5:38 Blog, July 9, 2015
Jeb Bush Was Right: Americans Need To Work Longer Hours
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/jeb-bush-was-right-americans-need-to-work-longer-hours/
. . .
But rather than focusing just on one controversial
phrase, it’s worth looking at Bush’s whole statement.
Bush is highlighting one of the most basic formulas in
macroeconomics: In its most simplified
form, a country’s economic output is the product of its number of workers
times how many hours they work times how much they can produce in an hour.
If you want the economy to grow faster, you have to get at least one of
those three factors — workers, hours or productivity — to accelerate.
Right now, as Bush says, the U.S. is struggling in
all three areas. Start with the number of workers: Labor force participation
— the share of the adult population that’s working or actively looking for
work — has been falling for 15 years and is at its lowest level since 1977.
The drop in labor force participation is being
driven in significant part by a demographic trend that’s beyond the control
of any president: The
retirement of the baby-boom generation. But as
I’ve
discussed at greater length in the past, aging
boomers can’t explain the entire decline. Even among Americans in their
prime working years, participation is declining, for reasons that remain
hotly debated by economists.
On hours — the issue that got Bush in trouble — the
story is a bit more complicated. The
length of the average workweek dropped sharply
during the recession but has since rebounded. Over the
longer term, working hours have fallen since the
1970s but have held fairly steady over the past 15 years at a bit more than
34 hours a week. (Pre-2006 data is available only for nonmanagers.) Those
numbers are based on data from employers; workers themselves
report longer hours,
but surveys show the same steady trend.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
If Bush is correct then one naive conclusion is that the USA should open its
borders to tens of millions of more hard working immigrants so that the USA can
be more productive without having our existing workers work more hours.
But there's a huge difference between between long-term versus short term
labor economics in the era of robotics. Over the long term there's little doubt
that technology (think ever more "intelligent" robots)
will be causing longer unemployment lines at nearly all skill levels. Having
more workers in the USA will eventually translate into longer unemployment lines
due to capital (e.g., for robots) replacing labor. And robots do not need such
benefits as health insurance for themselves and their families, retirement
contributions, free college tuition, subsidized child care, subsidized union
dues, etc. And robots don't go on strike for higher pay and sue for billions
fraudulently for back aches and mental distress.
A related problem with economics is that what seems to be true in some
instances turns up false in other instances
"Get a life," The Economist, September 24, 2015 ---
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/working-hours
. . .
Some research shows that higher pay does not, on
net, lead workers to do more. Rather, they may work less. A famous
study by Colin Camerer and colleagues, which
looked at taxi drivers, reached a controversial conclusion. The authors
suggested that taxi drivers had a daily income "target", and that:
When wages are high, drivers will reach their
target more quickly and quit early; on low-wage days they will drive
longer hours to reach the target.
Continued in article
"Student Loans May Be Driving the Tuition Explosion," by Janet Loren,
Bloomberg, July 9, 2015 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-09/why-is-college-tuition-rising-blame-student-loans-fed-says?cmpid=BBD070915_BIZ
The surging cost of U.S.
college tuition has an unlikely culprit: the generosity of the
government’s student-aid program, a report by the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York said.
Increases in federal loans, meant to help students cope with rising
costs, are quickly eaten up by schools in higher prices, wrote David O.
Lucca, Karen Shen and Taylor Nadauld.
Private colleges
raise their tuition 65 cents for every dollar increase in federal
subsidized loans and 55 cents for Pell grants given to low-income
students, according to the report. College tuition has outstripped U.S.
inflation for decades.
“The subsidized loan
effect on tuition is most pronounced for expensive, private institutions
that are somewhat, but not among the most, selective,” they wrote in a
paper released this month.
The
premise, raised in 1987 by former Education
Secretary William Bennett, is more pronounced today as the sticker price
of college has increased to $65,000 annually at some private schools.
About two-thirds of undergraduates take out loans to fund their
education. Outstanding student debt is now more than
$1.36 trillion, according to the Federal
Reserve Bank. Government loans account for the bulk, almost $1.2
trillion.
The government has made
significant changes to the loan program since it began in 1965, such as
giving parents access to federal loans and increasing annual borrowing
limits for undergraduates.
Students took out $120
billion in education loans in 2012, up from $53 billion in 2001, with 90
percent of the borrowings backed by the government, according to the
paper.
Tuition rose 46
percent in the period on average, “resembling the twin house price and
mortgage balance booms,” Lucca and Shen of the Federal Reserve and
Nadauld of Brigham Young University, said in the report.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Collateral ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_%28finance%29
The CFO, eventual felon Andy Fastow, of Enron had over 3,000
SPEs doing the same thing --- using Enron's stock as collateral for Enron's
loans
That's a bit like putting on a few more pounds so you can borrow more money
using more of yourself as collateral.
The USA courts banned corporations from using their own stock as collateral or
otherwise profiting from their own stock following the great railroad frauds of
the 1800s.
When the price of Enron's shares crashed so did Andy's SPEs for which there were
lousy accounting rules before the Enron implosion ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/speOverview.htm
"This Is Why So Many Chinese Companies Are Suspended," by Tracey
Alloway, Bloomberg Business, July 8, 2015 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-08/this-is-why-so-many-chinese-companies-are-suspended?cmpid=BBD070815_BIZ
At least 1,331 companies have halted trading on
China's mainland exchanges, freezing $2.6 trillion of shares, or about 40
percent of the country’s market value, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell 5.9 percent on
Wednesday. It's now about 32 percent below the peak of 5,166 it reached on
June 12. The unwinding of margin loans is adding fuel to the fire.
Individual investors in China, as we all know by now, have used generous
margin financing terms to enter the stock market and then build up their
portfolios. Less-known is that Chinese companies have been doing the same
thing by using their own corporate stock
to secure loans from banks.
This means that they stand to lose a lot when those
share prices start trending dramatically lower.
Continued in article
The Enron Fraud Was Much More Complicated Than the Above Chinese Corporate
Frauds
Testimony of Frank Partnoy
Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law
Hearings before the United States Senate
Committee on Governmental Affairs, January 24, 2002
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudEnron.htm
. . .
The critical piece of
this puzzle, the element that made it all work, was a derivatives
transaction – called a “price swap derivative” – between Enron and Raptor.
In this price swap, Enron committed to give stock to Raptor if Raptor’s
assets declined in value. The more Raptor’s assets declined, the more of
its own stock Enron was required to post.
Because Enron had committed to maintain Raptor’s value at $1.2 billion, if
Enron’s stock declined in value, Enron would need to give Raptor even more
stock. This derivatives transaction
carried the risk of diluting the ownership of Enron’s shareholders if either
Enron’s stock or the technology stocks Raptor held declined in price. Enron
also apparently entered into options transactions with Raptor and/or LJM1.
Because the securities Raptor issued were backed by Enron’s
promise to deliver more shares, investors in Raptor essentially were buying
Enron’s debt, not the stock of a start-up telecommunications company. In
fact, the performance of Rhythms Net Connections was irrelevant to these
investors in Raptor. Enron got the best of both worlds in accounting terms:
it recognized its gain on the technology stocks by recognizing the value of
the Raptor loan right away, and it avoided recognizing on an interim basis
any future losses on the technology stocks, were such losses to occur.
It is painfully obvious how this story ends: the dot.com
bubble burst and by 2001 shares of Rhythms Net Communications were
worthless. Enron had to deliver more shares to “make whole” the investors
in Raptor and other similar deals. In all, Enron had derivative instruments
on 54.8 million shares of Enron common stock at an average price of $67.92
per share, or $3.7 billion in all. In other words, at the start of these
deals, Enron’s obligation amounted to seven percent of all of its
outstanding shares. As Enron’s share price declined, that obligation
increased and Enron’s shareholders were substantially diluted. And here is
the key point: even as Raptor’s assets and Enron’s shares declined in value,
Enron did not reflect those declines in its quarterly financial statements.
B. Using Derivatives to Hide Debts
Incurred by Unprofitable Businesses
A second example involved Enron using derivatives with
two special purpose entities to hide huge debts incurred to finance
unprofitable new businesses. Essentially, some very complicated and unclear
accounting rules allowed Enron to avoid disclosing certain assets and
liabilities.
These two special purpose entities were Joint Energy
Development Investments Limited Partnership (JEDI) and Chewco Investments,
L.P. (Chewco). Enron owned only 50 percent of JEDI, and therefore – under
applicable accounting rules – could (and did) report JEDI as an
unconsolidated equity affiliate. If Enron had owned 51 percent of JEDI,
accounting rules would have required Enron to include all of JEDI’s
financial results in its financial statements. But at 50 percent, Enron did
not.
JEDI, in turn, was subject to the same rules. JEDI could
issue equity and debt securities, and as long as there was an outside
investor with at least 50 percent of the equity – in other words, with real
economic exposure to the risks of Chewco – JEDI would not need to
consolidate Chewco.
One way to minimize the applicability of this “50 percent
rule” would be for a company to create a special purpose entity with mostly
debt and only a tiny sliver of equity, say $1 worth, for which the company
easily could find an outside investor. Such a transaction would be an
obvious sham, and one might expect to find a pronouncement by the accounting
regulators that it would not conform to Generally Acceptable Accounting
Principles. Unfortunately, there are no such accounting regulators, and
there was no such pronouncement. The Financial Accounting Standards Board,
a private entity that sets most accounting rules and advises the Securities
and Exchange Commission, had not – and still has not – answered the key
accounting question: what constitutes sufficient capital from an independent
source, so that a special purpose entity need not be consolidated?
Since 1982, Financial Accounting Standard No. 57, Related Party Disclosures,
has contained a general requirement that
companies disclose the nature of relationships
they have with related parties, and describe transactions with them.
Accountants might debate whether Enron’s impenetrable footnote disclosure
satisfies FAS No. 57, but clearly the disclosures currently made are not
optimal. Members of the SEC staff have been
urging the FASB to revise No. 57, but it
has not responded. In 1998, FASB adopted FAS
No. 133, which includes new accounting rules for derivatives. Now at
800-plus pages, FAS No. 133’s instructions are an incredibly detailed – but
ultimately unhelpful – attempt to rationalize other accounting rules for
derivatives.
As a result, even after two decades, there is no clear
answer to the question about related parties. Instead, some early guidance
(developed in the context of leases) has been grafted onto modern special
purpose entities. This guidance is a 1991 letter from the
Acting Chief Accountant of the SEC in 1991,
stating: “The initial substantive residual
equity investment should be comparable to that expected for a substantive
business involved in similar [leasing] transactions with similar risks and
rewards. The SEC staff understands from discussions with Working Group
members that those members believe that 3 percent is the minimum acceptable
investment. The SEC staff believes a greater investment may be necessary
depending on the facts and circumstances, including the credit risk
associated with the lessee and the market risk factors associated with the
leased property.”
Based on this letter, and on opinions from auditors and lawyers, companies
have been pushing debt off their balance sheets into unconsolidated special
purpose entities so long as (1) the company does not have more than 50
percent of the equity of the special purpose entity, and (2) the equity of
the special purpose entity is at least 3 percent of its the total capital.
As more companies have done such deals, more debt has moved off
balance-sheet, to the point that, today, it is difficult for investors to
know if they have an accurate picture of a company’s debts. Even if Enron
had not tripped up and violated the letter of these rules, it still would
have been able to borrow 97 percent of the capital of its special purpose
entities without recognizing those debts on its balance sheet.
Transactions designed to exploit these
accounting rules have polluted the financial statements of many U.S.
companies. Enron is not alone. For
example, Kmart Corporation – which was on the verge of bankruptcy as of
January 21, 2002, and clearly was affected by Enron’s collapse – held 49
percent interests in several unconsolidated equity affiliates. I believe
this Committee should take a hard look at these widespread practices.
In short, derivatives enabled Enron to avoid consolidating
these special purpose entities. Enron entered into a derivatives
transaction with Chewco similar to the one it entered into with Raptor,
effectively guaranteeing repayment to Chewco’s outside investor. (The
investor’s sliver of equity ownership in Chewco was not really equity from
an economic perspective, because the investor had nothing – other than
Enron’s credit – at risk.) In its financial statements, Enron takes the
position that although it provides guarantees to unconsolidated
subsidiaries, those guarantees do not have a readily determinable fair
value, and management does not consider it likely that Enron would be
required to perform or otherwise incur losses associated with guarantees.
That position enabled Enron to avoid recording its guarantees. Even the
guarantees listed in the footnotes are recorded at only 10 percent of their
nominal value. (At least this amount is closer to the truth than the amount
listed as debt for unconsolidated subsidiaries: zero.)
Apparently, Arthur Andersen either did not discover this
derivatives transaction or decided that the transaction did not require a
finding that Enron controlled Chewco. In any event, the Enron derivatives
transaction meant that Enron – not the 50 percent “investor” in Chewco – had
the real exposure to Chewco’s assets. The ownership daisy chain unraveled
once Enron was deemed to own Chewco. JEDI was forced to consolidate Chewco,
and Enron was forced to consolidate both limited partnerships – and all of
their losses – in its financial statements.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron and WorldCom sagas ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudEnron.htm
Faking Credentials
Another Cherokee Wannabee That Brings Back Memories of Ward Churchill at the
University of Colorado ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HypocrisyChurchill.htm
"Fake Cherokee?" by Scott Jaschik,
Inside HIgher Ed, July 6, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/06/scholar-who-has-made-name-cherokee-accused-not-having-native-american-roots
When the scandal broke last month over Rachel
Dolezal, the Spokane, Wash., NAACP leader and adjunct instructor of Africana
studies at Eastern Washington University who apparently faked being
African-American, there was
widespread discussion in academe. But Dolezal was
not a major player in African-American studies.
The focus on Dolezal has renewed scrutiny of Andrea
Smith, associate professor of media and cultural studies at the University
of California at Riverside, who is being accused of faking a Cherokee
heritage that many say she lacks. Smith, unlike Dolezal, is a prominent
scholar. Her books are considered significant in Native American studies,
and her writing and public appearances have routinely included references to
her having Cherokee roots.
Smith's ethnicity also played a role in a tenure
dispute. In 2008, the women's studies department at the University of
Michigan (one of two departments in which Smith worked) voted against
Smith's tenure bid there, but the American culture program (the other
department in which she worked) backed the bid. Lack of backing from both
divisions doomed her chances. In the ensuing protest, graduate students and
others who supported Smith
accused the women's studies program of abandoning a talented minority
scholar. Some say that Smith has since admitted to
not being Cherokee (while the record on that is in dispute). But when her
job was threatened, she allowed her defenders to point to her Cherokee
status as a reason Michigan should have promoted her.
Continued in article
"When College Is Free, or Free(ish)," by Goldie Blumenstyk,
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 8, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/When-College-Is-Free-or/231421/
The
"free college" idea is back in the headlines. Last
week Oregon lawmakers passed legislation similar to Tennessee’s to make
community college free. And on Wednesday in the U.S. Congress, several
Democratic lawmakers and the U.S. secretary of education, Arne Duncan, are
expected to unveil the America’s College Promise Act of 2015, a federal
proposal to make two years of
community college free.
But actually those are just a few of the ways
students can attend college free, or at little cost — call it "Free(ish)
College." Although those free(ish) paths still account for just a small
proportion of American college students, the paths are growing bigger by the
day.
. . .
Those developments aren’t all universally welcomed,
particularly when promoted as part of the so-called DIY College movement.
The Association of American Colleges and Universities, among others,
maintains
that higher education — including lower-level,
general-education curricula — shouldn’t just be a hodgepodge of MOOCs, free
courses, and low-cost community-college classes that students cobble
together.
Mindful of that concern, many providers of those
courses say they see themselves as a partial alternative to college, not a
replacement.
Here are some of the most prominent free and
free(ish) options:
University of the People
This all-online institution calls itself the
world’s first nonprofit, tuition-free university "dedicated to opening the
gates to higher education for all individuals." The university, which opened
in 2009, now enrolls about 2,000 students, who pay nothing to attend, $50 to
apply, and just $100 per course for an end-of-year examination, if they have
the money.
Continued in article
"Bernie Sanders's Charming, Perfectly Awful Plan to Save Higher Education,"
by Kevin Carey, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 6, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Bernie-Sanderss-Charming/231387/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Bernie Sanders, the self-described socialist
senator, Internet hero, and apparent front-runner in the race for second
place in the 2016 Democratic presidential campaign, has ideas about
higher-education reform. Like the man himself, they are bold, charmingly
utopian, kind of weird, and most important for how they might eventually
move the boundaries of mainstream political culture.
Sanders wants every student in America to be able
to attend a public college or university without paying tuition.
Legislation he proposed to that effect a few weeks
ago includes a reasonably plausible mechanism of multibillion-dollar federal
subsidies and new regulation of state spending. The current Congress, it is
safe to say, will not soon be passing such a bill.
But in trying to define a new fiscal federalism for
American higher education, Sanders has sparked a conversation that is likely
to expand. Without something like the Sanders plan, the disgraceful
dismantling of public higher education, underway in many states, will
certainly continue.
Continued in article
Book Review
College or Not
By Chad Grills
Price on Amazon: $6.95 or Free on Kindle,
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/aaronbandler/2015/07/05/book-review-college-or-not-n2019237?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Video: New 300 ppi version -- Amazon Kindle Paperwhite ---
http://lisnews.org/new_300_ppi_version_amazon_kindle_paperwhite
The History of Economics & Economic Theory Explained with Comics, Starting
with Adam Smith ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/the-history-of-economics-economic-theory-explained-with-comics.html
This is not a free download ---
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810988399/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0810988399&linkCode=as2&tag=openculture-20
. . .
The book covers two (plus) centuries of economic
history. It starts with the Physiocrats, Adam Smith and theoretical
development of capitalism, and then steams ahead into the 19th century,
covering the Industrial Revolution, the rise of big business and big
finance. Next comes the action packed 20th century: the Great Depression,
the New Deal, the threat from Communism during the Cold War, the tax reforms
of the Reagan era, and eventually the crash of 2008 and Occupy Wall Street.
Along the way,
Goodwin and the illustrator
Dan E. Burr demystify the economic theories of
figures like Ricardo, Marx, Malthus, Keynes, Friedman and Hayek — all in a
substantive but approachable way.
As with most treatments of modern economics, the
book starts with Adam Smith. To get a feel for Goodwin’s approach, you can
dive into the first chapter of Economix,
which grapples with Smith’s theories about the free market, division of
labor and the Invisible Hand. Economix can be purchased
online here.
Related Content:
An Introduction to Great Economists — Adam Smith, the Physiocrats & More —
Presented in a Free Online Course
60-Second Adventures in Economics: An Animated Intro to The Invisible
Hand and Other Economic Ideas
Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey (Free Course)
Jensen Comment
I ordered a used copy of this book from Amazon. This book is a most interesting
way to learn the history of economics succinctly.
One surprise is that the book has a relatively good index. Another surprise
is that the book has some small sections on my special interest --- derivative
financial instruments and hedging, although these play a miniscule role in the
comic book.
A few interesting quotations are shown below:
Page 17and Page 19
Enter Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), who became
the finance minister of France in 1665. He thought money was wealth, end of
story. ... French thinking on economics change. Maybe wealth wasn't a
stockpile of silver like Colbert thought. Maybe wealth
circulated, like blood circulates throughout a body. Laws,
regulations, tariffs, subsidies, and so on would get in the way of that
natural circulation.
Page 61
Marx's logic applied to the
Ricardo model and we don't live in that model. (Neither does
Greece)
Page 22and Page 23
Bakers didn't work because some Bread Planner told
them to, or because they were saints who wanted people to be well fed. They
worked because it was good for them ... So in Smith's economy, competition
kept everyone honest. Every baker --- saint or greedhead alike --- was led,
"as if by an invisible hand," to sell bread at fair price, high enough
to pay for the baker costs and work, low enough that others didn't steal the
customers.
Page 183
Way back in the 1920s, the Austrian economists Ludwig
von Mises (1881-1973) and Freederick Hayek (1899-1992) saw economic planning
become political dictatorship in country after country. They saw that when
people lose their economic liberty, they lose their political liberty. ...
Haye especially was a formidable thinker; instead of assuming the
market worked, which economists had be doing since Ricardo, Hayek looked to
how it worked --- how interaction of small units (people) creates a complex
intelligence (the market), which responds to shortages, changes in
taste, or new technologies far better than any human planner can ("invisible
brain" might be a better term than "invisible hand.") . . . People who
try to replace this brain with their own systems will fail, and in
the process of failing, they'll do a lot of dmagbe.
Page 184
Like Hayek, Friedman stressed that concentrated power
is threat to freedom. But he didn't seem to see that power cn
concentrate in more than one form.
Page 185
(Market failure) refers to how --- even
textbook-perfect markets--- can give bad results. for instance, with
externalities which are essentially side effects of economic transactions.
Bad externalities are everywhere, because the people mking decisions aren't
the ones getting hurt. (in mathematical models these externalities
are sometimes called non-convexities).
Page 240
By the 1980s, the
IMF was full of neoliberals. Strure adjustment came down to adopting
neoliberalism. Structural adjustment was hard to refuse; The World Bank,
private lenders, business, the US Treasury, even aid donors would all steer
cler of a country that the IMF was unsound (say what?)
Still, people hated structural adjustment, and
the IMF knew it. So part of the program was protected democracy in which the
economic program was protected from democracy.
Continued in a nice summary of Economix
Added Comment
If you want to learn more about controversial Keynesian economics you might
start with this book.
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on July 9, 2015
Corporate America could use more competition
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-corporate-america-needs-competitive-spirit-1436384494?mod=djemCFO_h
A decline in competition as market power becomes
concentrated in the hands of fewer companies is bad for innovation and
consumers. But policy makers can reverse the trend, writes Greg Ip. The
answer isn’t just tougher antitrust oversight, since mergers can be good for
customers and innovation, but for policy makers to take into account how any
new policy or rule helps or hurts new entrants to an industry.
"China’s Stock Plunge Is Scarier Than Greece: There are four
basic signs of a bubble, and the Chinese stock market is on the extreme end of
all four," by Ruchir Sharma, The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2015
---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-stock-plunge-is-scarier-than-greecechinas-stock-plunge-is-scarier-than-greece-1436309780?tesla=y
. . .
When China’s economy slowed following the 2008
global financial crisis, Beijing pumped massive amounts of liquidity into
the system. First that money went into the property market, later into the
various debt-related products sold through the shadow banking system. But
when property slumped and the shadow banks started to pose systemic risks,
China had only one major market left to flood—stocks.
Funneling some of China’s $20 trillion in savings
into stocks was a last-ditch effort to revive flagging economic growth by
giving the country’s debt-laden companies a new source of financing. The aim
was to trigger a slow and steady bull run, but the somnolent stock market
exploded into one of the biggest bubbles in history.
There are four basic signs of a bubble: prices
disconnected from underlying economic fundamentals, high levels of debt for
stock purchases, overtrading by retail investors, and exorbitant valuations.
The Chinese stock market is at the extreme end on all four metrics, which is
rare.
The sharp equity rally took place despite
sputtering economic growth and shrinking profits. By official count, margin
debt on the Chinese stock market has tripled since June 2014. As a share of
tradable stocks, margin debt is now nearly 9%, the highest in any market in
history. At the leading brokerages, 80% of margin finance has been going to
retail investors, many of them new and inexperienced.
Today China’s 90 million retail investors outnumber
the 88 million members of its Communist Party. Two thirds of new investors
lack a high school diploma. In rural villages,
farmers have set up mini stock exchanges, and some say they spend more time
trading than working in the fields.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
With all the headlines glaring at us readers often fail to realize that Greece
is a relatively small nation with only 11 million people. That's less than half
the population of Shanghai. China has a populace of nearly 1.5 billion people.
Naturally almost every economic disaster in China will dwarf such disasters in
other nations.
This article gives a very short summary of
each first-year course in the Harvard MBA Program
"The most mind-blowing things I
learned in my first year at Harvard Business School," by Ellen Chisa,
Business Insider, May 26, 2015 ---
https://medium.com/thelist/what-s-one-thing-you-ve-learned-at-harvard-business-school-that-blew-your-mind-fdea346a0422#ixzz3evdpK4Gw
For example, the Financial Reporting and Control (FRC) course is quoted below:
. . .
FRC: Create an Entrepreneurial Gap.
FRC is the “accounting” class at HBS. We did also
learn accounting mechanics, but we also learned a lot about motivation and
compensation.
My favorite was the idea of “span of
accountability” — what an employee is responsible for vs. “span of
control” — what the employee can dictate based on their job. For instance, a
PM has a lot of accountability (shipping the product), but relatively little
control (no direct reports).
When an employee has more accountability than
control, this is considered an “entrepreneurial gap.” It’s typically created
via an incentive system that encourages the employee to go beyond their span
of control. The key thing is to get the incentive system right. What
behaviors will it encourage? What levers can employees pull to move the
metric?
Before I wanted to hire smart people and pay them
“fairly.” Now I want to hire smart people, and give them an entrepreneurial
gap with an incentive system that works well for them and for the company.
It’s more fair that way.
Recommended Case: Nordstrom.
Jensen Comment
Students usually do not go into a MBA program to become specialists like CPAs.
MBA programs such as the Harvard MBA program do not offer enough specialty
courses to sit for licensing examinations such as those in accounting,
information technology, computer science, internal auditing, fraud examination,
etc. MBA programs are very general, and the best two-year programs are designed
for students who did not take business courses as undergraduates.
My point is that when studying things like
accountancy at the HBS the curriculum ignores most of the gory technical
details. Students do not go to the HBS to become professional accountants and
accounting firms do not recruit accountants at prestigious MBA universities
unless those universities also have other tracks for accounting majors such as
the accounting major track at Cornell.
The prestigious
Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania goes a lot
further in open sharing where each MBA core course can be taken free (not for
credit) as a MOOC ---
https://www.coursera.org/specialization/whartonfoundations/38
Note that the following are not MOOCs since they are not free and enrollment
is competitive
"Harvard Business School hopes to fundamentally change online education with
its new $1,500 pre-MBA program," by Richard Feloni, Business Insider,
February 27, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-business-school-hbx-1500-online-program-2015-2
This week, Harvard Business School launched an
innovative new online education program to the public that it thinks is so
far ahead of free online courses that it's worthy of a $1,500 price tag.
The 11-week pre-MBA program called CORe accepts
about 500 students and is taught in the school's signature case-study
method. The first official session started on Feb. 25, and applications are
open for spring and summer sessions.
CORe is the flagship offering from HBS's new
digital platform,
HBX, which aims to
become a full-fledged branch of the school rather than a place to dump video
recordings of classroom lectures.
CORe is made up of three courses —
economics for managers, business analytics, and
financial accounting — and primarily
targets young professionals with liberal arts backgrounds who aspire to rise
to management or are considering getting an MBA.
Students who pass the program receive a certificate
that carries the weight of one from HBS's executive education program.
HBX chair Bharat Anand tells Business Insider that
most online course offerings are still in their infancy, where long video
lectures posted alongside multiple choice questions is the norm.
Conversely, HBX CORe is built on a proprietary
platform that uses the case-study technique that distinguishes HBS. "This
has some very interesting and exciting potential for education," Anand says.
It started as a way to find an online tool to
address the "non trivial" 20% to 30% of students accepted to HBS's MBA
program who lacked the necessary background in "the language of business":
accounting, economics, and data analysis. These students always had access
to a two-week primer before matriculating in the fall, but Anand says the
short time was insufficient for achieving a thorough understanding, and
traveling to HBS's campus before the school year officially starts could be
an inconvenience for many students.
From T.H.E. Journal's Resources
Network Readiness Guide for Schools (including a flipped classroom guide)
--- Click
Here
http://thejournal.com/whitepapers/2015/06/cisco-network-readiness-guide-062515.aspx?&pc=E5130E01&utm_source=webmktg&utm_medium=E-Mail&utm_campaign=E5130E01
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of
the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Retraction Watch (cheating in research) ---
http://retractionwatch.com
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating in higher education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Retraction Watch (cheating in research) ---
http://retractionwatch.com
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating in higher education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Jim Hunton appears to have become the
Scarlet Letter Professor of Accounting Research. Once a professor becomes
known as a cheat his or her entire body of research may be retracted. To my
knowledge no accounting researcher attempted to replicate Jim's research. It
should be noted, however, that replication cannot prevent cheating in research.
Fiction can, and sometimes is, repeated in real life.
The American Accounting Associated brought the total number of Jim's
retractions up to 25 retractions to 25 plus a section of an article ---
http://aaahq.org/Portals/0/documents/Website-FinalListofRetractedArticles-6-25-15.pdf
A list of the retractions is provided.
It is extremely rare to detect an accounting professor who cheated.
Bob Jensen's threads on the Jim Hunton saga plus a listing of professors in
other disciplines who cheated ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize
June 28, 2015 reply from Bob Jensen
I'm not sure how to formulate my question. What
about the other authors on these retracted papers? It's difficult for me to
believe that Hunton controlled all of this research in such a way that it's
all suspect.
Thoughts?
Pat
June 28, reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Patricia,
In the first article retracted by TAR the co-author from Canada claimed
she had no knowledge that the data collected by Jim was fabricated. Bentley
did some investigation of this and found that, in this one case, the
co-author appeared to be innocent. Jim kept may have kept his cheating
secret from co-authors on other papers, although I'm suspicious that this
may not have been the case in 27+ papers and counting. It's not clear,
however, that there was even cheating in all retracted papers. It may be
that some papers were retracted simply because they were tainted with Jim
Hunton's name and cheating reputation.
We may never know unless Jim writes a tell-all article or book about his
cheating history. If done well, the book could probably have some decent
sales in the academic market. However, he could be vulnerable to lawsuits if
he rats on co-authors.
Sometimes cheaters do tell all out of conscience, greed (book sales and
speaker fees), or revenge. I watched the show "American Greed" last night
about Ponzi felon (20 years in Club Fed) and big-time Miami Hurricanes
booster Nevin Shapiro ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevin_Shapiro
Apparently out of revenge Shapiro ratted on Miami's coaches,
administrators, and players who were lured into luxurious partying,
gambling, and sex by the high-living Nevin Shapiro.
My point is that sometimes those who get caught drag others down with
them --- often out of revenge. Eight players did get kicked off Miami's
team, but they were not part of his Ponzi fraud. Dragging them down seems to
be low meanness even for a scumbag like Shapiro.
Bob Jensen
June 28, 2015 reply from Dan Stone
Regarding Bob's post about the most retracted scientists
"Here are the most-retracted scientists in the world, ranked," by
Julia Belluz, Vox, June 25, 2015 ---
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/24/8834405/scientists-most-retractions
Jim Hunton is moving up this list with 25 American Accounting Association
retractions. And I'm betting that we haven't seen the last of the retracted
Hunton papers.
Here's the AAA list:
http://aaahq.org/Portals/0/documents/Website-FinalListofRetractedArticles-6-25-15.pdf
I have written an essay about this episode:
Dan N. Stone (2015) Post-Hunton: Reclaiming Our
Integrity and Literature. Journal of Information Systems, In-Press.
which is available to AIS section members of the
AAA:
http://aaajournals.org/doi/10.2308/isys-51094
Abstract
A Bentley University investigation of allegations of data fabrication by
Jim Hunton concludes that, "...The whole body of Dr. Hunton's extensive
research while a faculty member at Bentley University must now be
considered suspect (Malone 2014 p. 5)." Jim served as President of the
Information Systems (IS) section of the American Accounting Association
(AAA) in 2002-2003 and is the most cited author in the Journal of
Information Systems (JIS) (Guffey and Harp 2013). This essay is a
personal reflection on, with proposed lessons for the AIS community
from, the Hunton fraud. These include developing skepticism, recognizing
the limited usefulness of Cressey's fraud "stump" (formerly triangle),
noting the dysfunctional implications of agency theory, and adopting
contemplative practices designed to increase observational awareness.
Sincerely,
Dan Stone
1,400 India school teachers resign in fake degree probe ---
http://news.yahoo.com/1-400-india-school-teachers-resign-fake-degree-092737797.html
"Ariane David - Non-Positional Thinking," by Jim Martin, MAAW's Blog,
July 8, 2015 ---
http://maaw.blogspot.com/2015/07/ariane-david-non-positional-thinking.html
Non-Positional Thinking is a very interesting
concept or technique. It is a form of critical thinking, and seems to be
closely related to systems thinking. The following notes are from a
transcript of Ariane's presentation at the In2:In Thinking 2015 conference.
For more see the links below.
Non-Positional Thinking: Thinking Beyond the
Obvious.
Beneath every apparent problem is a condition that
fosters the problem, complex and hard to see. Solving only the apparent
problem (the symptom) leads to worse problems. The actual problem involves
culture and people and how they think about the problem. Discovering what
the actual problem is is the most important part of finding the solution! A
new way of solving problems. Non-positional Problem Solving.
Continued in article
Journal of Finance and Accountancy,
Volume 16 (September), pp. 4-14
Abstract:
Nearly one-quarter of a
century has elapsed since Williams et al. (1988, p. 62) pleaded for
additional research concerning minorities and the
accounting profession.
Subsequently, a number of academic and practitioner research studies
have been undertaken in an effort to recruit and retain minorities in
the profession. One area that has not been addressed is the
effectiveness of the socialization process on minority undergraduate
accounting students. This
research has tremendous implications, in that
accounting programs which
effectively socialize minority undergraduate
accounting students to the
norms of the profession may contribute to higher minority accountant
new-hire retention rates, especially in public
accounting.
The current research investigates whether the
accounting curriculum in
AACSB-accredited minority colleges of business effectively socialize
senior minority undergraduate
accounting students towards their responsibilities to the
accounting profession.
Clikeman and Henning’s (2000) survey methodology is adapted to conduct
this research. The sampling frame consists of
accounting majors and non-accounting
business majors enrolled at a minority southeastern university in the
United States. The results indicate that no statistically significant
difference exists between senior and sophomore
accounting students’
perceptions of their responsibilities to financial statements with
respect to misstatements, disclosures, cost-benefits, and CPA
responsibility. These results persist for students with high grade point
averages. Likewise, no significant difference exists between senior
accounting and non-accounting
business majors’ perceptions of accountants’ responsibility to financial
statement users.
Future research may investigate the degree to which faculty experience
(i.e. Big “N” experience, industry experience, faculty research
interests, etc.) influences the socialization process of senior minority
undergraduate accounting
majors.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 11
"The Accounting Faculty Shortage: Causes and Contemporary Solutions,"
Douglas M. Boyle, Brian W. Carpenter, and Dana R. Hermanson, Accounting
Horizons, Volume 29, Issue 2 (June 2015), pp. 245-264 ---
http://aaajournals.org/doi/full/10.2308/acch-50967
Not a free download
Abstract
The shortage of doctorally qualified accounting faculty has been a concern
for the accounting profession for many years (Plumlee, Kachelmeier, Madeo,
Pratt, and Krull 2006; Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession [ACAP]
2008; Pathways Commission 2012; Plumlee and Reckers 2014). One potential
strategy for mitigating the shortage is the expansion of more flexible
doctoral programs that would allow interested practitioners the opportunity
to pursue doctorates without completely exiting the labor market (Trapnell,
Mero, Williams, and Krull 2009; Pathways Commission 2012; Association to
Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International [AACSB] 2013). The
success of this solution will depend largely on the acceptance of the
resulting candidates by the parties that would hire them. This study
examines factors associated with the accounting faculty shortage in general,
and more specifically with the perceived value of attracting practitioners
into more flexible doctoral programs as a means of potentially reducing the
shortage. Based on a survey of over 800 accounting faculty and
administrators, the results suggest that the expected future shortage of
doctorates will be more pronounced in smaller, public, and non-doctoral
institutions. Overall, faculty and administrators value attracting
practitioners into academia, but only moderately support the creation of
more flexible doctoral programs for such individuals. The perceived value of
attracting practitioners into academia and support for the creation of more
flexible doctoral programs are stronger in smaller, non-doctoral
institutions. Overall, the results
suggest that non-traditional doctoral programs may initially provide
graduates primarily for smaller, non-doctoral institutions, where the future
shortage of doctorates is expected to be most acute.
. . .
The survey results indicate that, overall, the
participants perceive a relatively high degree of value in attracting
practitioners into academia. Moderate support was expressed for the creation
of AACSB-accredited doctoral programs that would allow these practitioners
to pursue their degrees on a part-time basis. However, participants from
doctoral-granting institutions and larger institutions placed less value on
bringing practitioners into academia and were less supportive of flexible
programs. These findings imply that acceptance of graduates from flexible
programs is dependent upon the nature of the hiring institution, with
smaller, non-doctoral-granting institutions likely being most accepting of
such graduates. This is possibly in part because, as noted above, smaller,
non-doctoral institutions reflect the segment of the market facing a more
serious future faculty shortage. This segment of the market also is likely
to be open to a broader range of faculty research contributions beyond
top-tier basic research, which is the primary focus of traditional Ph.D.
programs and the focus of tenure requirements at doctoral-granting
institutions.
We also find that tenure-track faculty and
administrators have less positive views of non-traditional doctoral
education than lecturers. Thus, academic
support for non-traditional doctoral education is strongest in the group
that has the least power in the academic hierarchy, reflecting a potentially
important barrier to change in doctoral education.
Despite this challenge, non-traditional doctoral education appears to be
gaining some momentum in the academic marketplace, as evidenced by the
number of new programs being established.
The next section provides background information.
The following sections address the methodology, results, and discussion and
conclusion.
. . .
Specific support for such an expansion of
non-traditional approaches to doctoral education was recently expressed by
the Pathways Commission (2012), which also pointed to the important role of
practitioners in accounting education. Several of the Commission's
recommendations and objectives highlighted the value of integrating
accounting practitioners into the learning process. Specifically, objective
1.1 calls for academia to “integrate professionally oriented faculty more
fully into significant aspects of accounting education, programs, and
research” (Pathways Commission 2012, 11). In addition, the Commission noted
that the traditional full-time model for accounting doctoral education is
currently the “only one real path” to a terminal degree. To address this
issue, the Commission called for accounting educators to “develop mechanisms
to meet future demand for faculty by unlocking doctoral education via
flexible pedagogies in existing programs and by exploring alternative
pathways to terminal degrees that align with institutional missions and
accounting research goals” (Pathways Commission 2012, 31).
. . .
In terms of variations in perceptions across
groups, two main patterns appear most notable.
First, participants from larger institutions and those
with doctoral programs are less supportive of alternative paths to a
doctorate. However, this lower level of
support from larger institutions and those with doctoral programs may not
greatly impede the overall acceptance of alternative models, since the
aggregate negative impact of the faculty shortage appears to most heavily
reside with smaller institutions (Plumlee and Reckers 2014), consistent with
our survey results. Thus, the potential solution of attracting practitioners
into newly created part-time AACSB-accredited doctoral programs is more
strongly supported by the institutions that are most negatively impacted by
the shortage. Overall, while flexible doctoral education does not have
strong, broad-based support, it does appear that there is a match between
the institutions most exposed to the faculty shortage and those most
supportive of non-traditional doctoral education—namely, smaller,
non-doctoral institutions. Thus, it is reasonable to expect non-traditional
programs, at least initially, to primarily serve the faculty needs of
smaller, non-doctoral institutions.
Second, lecturers often have perceptions that are
quite different from those of the other academic ranks. In particular,
lecturers are much more supportive of alternative paths to a doctorate. This
finding highlights an important potential barrier to change, specifically
that the strongest proponents of flexibility in doctoral education are those
with the least power and influence in the academic hierarchy.
These results also suggest that further research
should be performed to better understand how the factors of faculty
retirement and accreditation requirements might be addressed to further
mitigate the growing shortage, as well as examining potential solutions for
the opportunity costs and significant time commitments for even the more
traditional pools of potential doctoral candidates. The highest-ranking
solutions to the faculty shortage included increasing the compensation for
doctorally qualified faculty, subsidizing the educational cost incurred by
practitioners who transition to academia, and reducing pressure on
doctorally qualified faculty to publish research. While compensation for
newly hired doctorally qualified accounting faculty has been on the rise,
further research is needed to examine and ensure the competitiveness of
faculty compensation at all ranks compared to other options within the
broader accounting profession. The ADS Program has provided sustainable
funding for early stage practitioners interested in pursuing doctoral study
in traditional full-time programs and focusing on audit or tax. The results
of this effort should be further studied and potentially replicated for
practitioners with higher levels of experience or in other areas of
accounting that are facing shortages of faculty. Additionally, the pressure
expressed by the participants to publish research warrants further
investigation, as the study's results indicate that such pressure was
perceived to be a significant contributing factor to the current shortage.
Investigating potential implementation issues related to all of these
possible solutions also provides a robust area for future research.
Other avenues for future research exist as well.
The AACSB recently implemented new faculty-qualification criteria, moving
from two categories (academically or professionally qualified) to four
categories of faculty. Future research can examine any effects of this
change on the faculty shortage or the remedies to the shortage. Also,
research may examine any effects within the college of business if
accounting departments move to hiring a larger number of non-traditional
doctoral faculty, while other business disciplines do not.
The findings and implications of the study should
be viewed in light of several limitations. First, while the sample size is
nearly 900 participants, it represents 12.4 percent of the population and as
such may not reflect the views of the entire population. A comparison of the
characteristics of the sample to the population indicates that the sample
appears to be similar to the population on several dimensions. In addition,
we note that the response rate appears reasonable in light of prior research
(e.g., Bailey et al. 2008). Second, those who elected to participate and
complete the survey may represent individuals who are more sensitive to the
accounting faculty shortage, and thus the results may reflect a heightened
perception of the shortage and different views of potential solutions than
may actually exist in the population. Third, participants were asked to
indicate the likely quality of part-time doctoral programs in accounting,
but these programs currently exist in a limited number. Thus, it is likely
that the majority of the participants have not had any direct exposure to
such programs and may be without a meaningful basis to make such an
assessment of quality.
The accounting faculty shortage has been of concern
for at least two decades. We hope that the insights provided in this study
will be useful to practitioners, faculty, administrators, and other parties
in better understanding and mitigating the shortage. The results of this
study suggest that there is perceived value in attracting practitioners into
academia and that there is a moderate support for the flexible programs that
may be required to attract practitioners in numbers great enough to notably
impact the current doctorate shortage, primarily at smaller, non-doctoral
institutions.
Jensen Comment
I would be more supportive of traditional accounting doctoral programs if they
were doing a better job. In truth they are generating accounting Ph.D.s who do
not understand the limitations of their models.
First of all accountics scientists have almost
zero interest in validating their findings ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
Second they don't seem to understand the
limitations of their models
Common Accountics Science and Econometric Science Statistical Mistakes ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsScienceStatisticalMistakes.htm
Third they don't seem to be aware of the limitations of their craft or the
power of non-traditional (read that non-mathematical) methodologies of research
"A Scrapbook on What's Wrong with the Past, Present and Future of Accountics
Science"
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccounticsWorkingPaper450.pdf
But at the moment all power for generating accounting Ph.D. graduates resides
with accountics scientists
From the Econometrics Beat Blog by David
Gilles on June 30, 2015 ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2015/06/july-reading.html
Now that the (Northern) summer is
here, you should have plenty of time for reading. Here are some
recommendations:
-
Ahelegbey, D. F., 2015. The econometrics of networks: A
review. Working Paper 13/WP/2015, Department of Economics,
University of Venice.
-
Camba-Mendez, G., G. Kapetanios, F. Papailias, and M. R.
Weale, 2015. An automatic leading indicator, variable
reduction and variable selection methods using small and
large datasets: Forecasting the industrial production growth
for Euro area economies. Working Paper No. 1773, European
Central Bank.
-
Cho, J. S., T-H. Kim, and Y. Shin, 2015. Quantile
cointegration in the autoregressive distributed-lag modeling
framework. Journal of Econometrics, 188, 281-300.
-
De Luca, G., J. R. Magnus, and F. Peracchi, 2015. On the
ambiguous consequences of omitting variables. EIEF Working
Paper 05/15.
- Gozgor,
G., 2015. Causal relation between economic growth and
domestic credit in the economic globalization: Evidence from
the Hatemi-J's test. Journal of International Trade and
Economic Development, 24, 395-408.
-
Panhans, M. T. and J. D. Singleton, 2015. The empirical
economist's toolkit: From models to methods. Working Paper
2015-03, Center for the History of Political Economy.
- Sanderson.
E and F. Windmeijer, 2015. A weak instrument F-test in
linear IV models with multiple endogenous variables.
Discussion Paper 15/644, Department of Economics, University
of Bristol.
MIT: Recommended from Around the Web (Week Ending July 4, 2015)
A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the
staff at MIT Technology Review. ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/538766/recommended-from-around-the-web-week-ending-july-4-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150703
Information Diffusion
"Why Wikipedia + Open Access = Revolution," MIT's Technology Review,
July 2, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/539001/why-wikipedia-open-access-revolution/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150703
Sweet Briar College ---
http://www.sbc.edu/
Only 250 students, less than half its enrollment in
the most recent academic year, are expected to return this fall to Sweet Briar’s
campus near Lynchburg, Virginia
Michael McDonald, Nate Silver's 5:38 Blog, July 1, 2015 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-01/a-women-s-college-survives-death-only-to-lose-half-its-students
Jensen Comment
in steady state that leaves about 50+ student in each class to spread among 50
or so majors. Classes will be small even with some growth over the next few
years.
From Money Girl
Three 3Real Estate FAQs for Buyers, Sellers, and Investors ---
Click Here
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/money-finance/real-estate/3-real-estate-faqs-for-buyers-sellers-and-investors?utm_source=MG20150702&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=moneygirl#sthash.22xMboTd.dpuf
Bob Jensen's personal finance helpers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers
"What's Blocking The $11 Trillion Internet Of Things Opportunity," by
Matt Asay, ReadWroteWeb, June 29, 2015 ---
http://readwrite.com/2015/06/29/internet-of-things-11-trillion-obstacles-open-source
"Women are replacing men in the global workforce," by Lianna Brinded,
Business Insider, July 1, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/barclays-women-replacing-men-in-labour-market-2015-7#ixzz3edw2uUhx
Bob Jensen's threads on the history of women in the professions ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#Women
"How Not to Be Misled by Data: Numbers can deceive just as surely as
words—so here’s a guide to avoid being led astray," by Jordan Ellenberg,
The Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-not-to-be-misled-by-data-1435258933
A number has a way of ending an argument. What can
you say to it? There’s no nuance, no room for interpretation—it is what it
is.
Unfortunately, numbers turn out to be a lot like
words: powerful and illuminating but capable of being deployed to bad ends.
Here’s a little manual of some of the most common ways that data, for all
its precision, can take you down a wrong path.
Failure to compare. Last fall, New
York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo crowed, “The news that our
unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest since 2008 is proof that New
York is on the move.” What Mr. Cuomo said about the unemployment rate was
true:
Only 6.2% of New Yorkers were unemployed in
September 2014. But he didn’t mention another number: the overall U.S.
unemployment rate, which stood at 5.9%—also the lowest since 2008. If New
York is on the move, it is moving at the same speed as the country as a
whole. A number by itself is often meaningless; it is the comparison
between numbers that carries the force. (Gov. Cuomo’s office didn’t
respond to a request to comment.)
My favorite example of this lapse came from the
blogger Vani Hari (aka “Food Babe”),
who warned her air-traveling readers in 2011, “The
air that is pumped in [to an airplane cabin] isn’t pure oxygen either, it’s
mixed with nitrogen, sometimes almost at 50%.” Almost 50% adulteration
sounds terrible—until you remember that the natural proportion of nitrogen
in Earth’s atmosphere is 78%. (Yvette d’Entremont wrote about the mistake on
Gawker; Ms. Hari has pulled down
the offending post.)
Unrepresentative representative.
Suppose you give college students around the world a values questionnaire,
asking them (for instance) to agree or disagree with the statement, “Making
a lot of money is a high priority for me.” Now suppose that 35% of American
students strongly agree—the highest proportion in the developed world. Does
this mean that American capitalism has soured our youth into nasty
greedheads?
Maybe, maybe not. Questionnaires have lots of
questions. Maybe this one also included items like, “Material comfort is
more important than personal fulfillment” or “I would sedate children and
sell their kidneys if it got me into a higher tax bracket,” on which the
U.S. was in the middle of the pack.
When you’re telling a story, it’s natural to pick
the most vivid and persuasive detail. In this case, it was the question on
which the answers of U.S. students represented an extreme. But providing the
impressive number without conceding the existence of the unimpressive ones
is a kind of numerical malpractice.
Needle in the haystack. A closely
related trick is to pull out the most exciting finding—the needle—from a
scientific study that is mostly a big heap of hay.
A 1998 study in New Zealand asked: Did a serious
fall on the playground make children more fearful of heights later?
Continued in article
Hillary Was Too Expensive, So Her Daughter Spoke on Campus at University
of Missouri-Kansas City for Only $65,000
"A college balks at Hillary Clinton’s fee, books Chelsea for $65,000 instead,"
by Philip Rucker and Rosalind S. Helderman, The Washington Post, June 30,
2015 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-college-balks-at-hillary-clintons-fee-so-books-chelsea-for-65000-instead/2015/06/29/b1918e42-1e78-11e5-84d5-eb37ee8eaa61_story.html
Jensen Comment
Years ago I did an eight-hour gig on this campus in 1995, but the
honorarium for me was $0 --- just one of those humbling experiences in life. My
audience of faculty and students was very cordial, and I learned a lot from
them.
"Hypermedia Case Development," ," by Bob Jensen, An Eight-Hour
Presentation at the Bloch School of Business,
University of Missouri at Kansas City, December 20, 1995.
And yes the School of Business is named after Henry W. Block (i.e., of H&R
Block fame and money) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%26R_Block
Here are the 5 best credit cards for cash back rewards ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/5-best-credit-cards-for-cash-back-rewards-2015-6#ixzz3eN1m9wTO
"Obama’s Overtime Proposal Could Be Costly for Colleges," by Paul
Basken, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Obama-s-Overtime-Proposal/231287/?cid=at
. . .
American institutions of higher education employ
more than 3.8 million people, according to government data cited by the
College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. That
figure includes more than 1.5 million faculty members; 238,000 people in
executive, administrative, or managerial positions; 800,000 in other
professional positions; and more than 900,000 in other positions not
exempted from federal overtime rules, the association said.
Many entry and midlevel professional positions —
including many in student life, development, administration, and academic
affairs — pay less than $50,440 per year, said Andy Brantley, the
association’s president and chief executive officer.
An increase in the overtime threshold "was long
overdue," Mr. Brantley said. "Unfortunately, a change of this magnitude will
have a significant impact for every campus."
The effect will be most pronounced for colleges in
parts of the country that have lower average wages and lack state laws that
already set stricter rules on overtime pay, said Tara E. Daub, a partner at
the law firm Nixon Peabody.
Colleges will have to absorb that cost in some way,
such as cuts in services or tuition increases, said Shannon D. Farmer, a
partner at Ballard Spahr, a law firm with clients in higher education. And
the effect would linger, she said, as Mr. Obama’s proposal calls for
automatic increases in the future tied to average incomes.
Worries About an ‘Ambush’
Even more concerning, Ms. Farmer said, is the
possibility that the Department of Labor will end or revise the exemption
for teaching positions. That exemption also applies to many doctors and
lawyers, who, along with professors, are in positions that are either
relatively well paid or involve wide fluctuations in numbers of hours worked
each week, she said.
The administration’s proposed change does not
explicitly suggest repealing the teaching exemption, she said, though it
does invite comments on it. "So what people are concerned about is that
there is going to be basically an ambush rule here," where the Department of
Labor might endorse a change in the teaching exemption later in the process,
she said.
That type of change — sought by many advocates of
adjuncts as part of an overall campaign for
improving pay and conditions for part-time,
non-tenure-track faculty members — could perhaps happen some day, said Ms.
Daub, a member of Nixon Peabody’s Labor and Employment group. But it won’t
happen in the current rule-making process, she said, because revising the
teaching exemption has not been included in the terms of the initial
proposal.
"It would have to go through the whole
notice-and-comment period," said Ms. Daub, who was scheduled to address the
topic on Wednesday morning at the annual conference of the National
Association of College and University Attorneys in Washington. "They can’t
just slip that in at the end."
Either way, at least one university doesn’t seem
especially concerned. At the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, Mr.
Obama’s scheduled visit on Thursday to outline the plan is largely a matter
of celebration, given that it will be the first time a sitting U.S.
president has ever visited the campus. It’s "an historic opportunity for our
UW-L community," the chancellor, Joe D. Gow, said in a
campuswide email.
Continued in article
"For-Profit Chain Settles with Feds for $13 Million," Inside Higher
Ed, June 30, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/06/30/profit-chain-settles-feds-13-million
Education Affiliates, a for-profit chain with 50
campuses, has settled with the federal government over false-claim
allegations, the U.S. Department of Justice
said. The Maryland-based company agreed to pay $13
million in response to allegations that it received aid payments from
unqualified students, some of whom the for-profit admitted by creating false
or fraudulent high school diplomas. Education Affiliates also referred
prospective students to diploma mills, according to the feds, and falsified
students' federal aid applications.
“The various cases that were settled here include
numerous allegations of predatory conduct that victimized students and
bilked taxpayers,” said Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell, in a
written statement. “In particular, the settlement provides for repayment of
$1.9 million in liabilities ordered by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
that resulted from EA awarding federal financial aid to students at its
Fortis-Miami campus based on invalid high school credentials issued by a
diploma mill.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"Can a Longtime Fraud Help Fix Science? Diederik Stapel faked more than 50
studies in social psychology. What can we learn from his misdeeds?" by Tom
Bartlett, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 22, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Can-a-Longtime-Fraud-Help-Fix/231061/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
. . .
You remain tortured by what you did.
True.
You understand why you did it.
True.
You’ve tamed your demons.
Yeah. They’re dead now.
You believe you’ve paid for your wrongdoing
at this point.
True.
How do we prevent future Diederik Stapels
and Michael LaCours?
I think focusing less on ego and individual
scientists and focusing more on groups. Less focus on research output in the
sense of numbers of publications and more on grants or interesting books.
And also on other dimensions like education and team building. It’s an
argument against perverse incentives. If you make incentives more complete
and more complex, there’s less of a sense that you need to do this one thing
to be successful.
Is redemption possible? What would it look
like in your case?
I don’t understand the question because I’m not the
one to judge. I guess I redeemed myself. In the end, that’s all I can do.
The rest is not up to me. You can’t ask others for forgiveness. The only
thing you can do is forgive yourself.
What is the thing that you want now?
I don’t know. Just to fit in somewhere. Make some
money. Take care of my family. I don’t need to be visible. Survival, that
would be nice. And moderately happy, so you don’t wake up every morning
like, "Shit, what’s next?"
It is extremely rare to detect an accounting professor who cheated.
Bob Jensen's threads on the Jim Hunton saga plus a listing of professors in
other disciplines who cheated ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize
Science Fraud Getting You Down
Who Can You Trust ---
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/follow-friday-science-fraud-watchdogs/
Video: Our unhealthy obsession with choice ---
http://www.ted.com/talks/renata_salecl_our_unhealthy_obsession_with_choice
Jensen Comment
Sadly, as we get older a "been-there-done-that" syndrome sets in to a point
where habit becomes stronger and it's more difficult to mount efforts to try new
adventures. For example, Erika and I used to look forward to travels to Germany,
Holland, England Scandinavia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. Now the first thing that
comes to mind is how awful it's become to fly and how hotels do not offer the
comforts of home even at $250+ per night.
Sometimes I dream up book titles such as:
- Do the Bananas Look Too Green?
- Lilacs Smell the Same in Canada
- The Sun is Just Too Hot on the Beach These Days
- The Tinier the Bikini the Less Interesting It Becomes
- Wiping Down a Dog Coming In Ten Times a Day From the Mud and Snow is
Just Too Much Bother
- Drinks with Tiny Umbrellas Have Too Many Calories
- I'd Rather They Would Remember Us Like We Used to Look
- The Views Are Better From the Front and Back of Our Mountain Cottage
- I Prefer Mowing a Lush Lawn to Paying to Look at a Brown Golf Course
- Let's Stay Home --- the Security Might Go Off Due to a Weak Battery
While We're Gone for Two Weeks
- I Prefer It When the Furnace Runs in July
"STUDENT EVALUATIONS -- MY SUGGESTIONS," by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog,
July 6, 2015 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2015/07/student-evaluations-my-suggestions.html
Mr. Wieman hopes that
adoption of his inventory will lead colleges to put far less weight on the
end-of-semester ritual of course evaluations, when students get to anonymously
judge their professors on a standardized form. In his paper, Mr. Wieman wrote
that one of his goals was to free professors from "the capricious, frustrating,
and sometimes quite mean-spirited tyranny of student evaluations."
"Everyone Complains About Evaluations. A Nobel Laureate Offers an Alternative."
by Meg Bernhard, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 15, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Everyone-Complains-About/230885/?cid=at
Jensen Comment
I'm vehemently opposed to the present system of teaching evaluations because it
is the leading cause (in my opinion) of dysfunctional grade inflation in the USA
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#RateMyProfessor
I prefer to go back to the old days where
teaching evaluations are communicated only to the instructor. I don't think
most students will ever give the time and attention to writing essays about
their teacher in each and every course. Also I don't think they often
appreciate the teacher that makes them sweat to learn on their own or the
teacher that gives them a B- or below.
Of course, as long as RateMyProfessor.com exists
there will always be self-selecting students who make their evaluations public.
From the Scout Report on July 3, 2015
Edmodo ---
https://www.edmodo.com
Edmodo, which functions as a fully-loaded social
network tool for the classroom, rivals popular platforms like Facebook in
look and functionality while also designed with learning in mind. The site
allows teachers to post lesson plans, information, assignments, and other
content. Then students can post, have online conversations, collaborate, and
work together or separately on quizzes, projects, and a number of other
activities. Sign up is simple and free; all that is required is an email
account. From there, it takes some time to set up the site to one's
specifications, but teachers may find it worth the trouble.
Off-the-Record Messaging ---
https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/
Very few of our activities on the Internet are,
strictly speaking, private. Nearly everything we do is logged somewhere, and
our instant messaging is no exception. This is where Off-the-Record (OTR)
Messaging can help. For those who are chatting about confidential matters
(e.g., medical histories) or those who simply want their privacy, OTR can
help keep instant messaging secure. OTR uses standard and well-tested
cryptographic algorithms to keep our conversations confidential and prevent
impersonation of our correspondents (e.g., in the event of account
hijacking). In fact, many messengers, including the popular Adium for Mac
and IM+ for Android devices already have OTR built-in. On Windows, OTR can
be added to the popular Pidgin messenger by using the "Primary download"
link on the OTR homepage, then going to Tools > Plugins and activating the
Off-the-Record Messaging plugin.
The Internet Has Survived the Leap Second, but Is It Necessary?
Leap Second Will Extend the Day, and Might Roil the Internet
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/science/leap-second-will-extend-the-day-and-might-roil-the-internet.html
‘Leap Second’: Why June 30 will have one extra second
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-june-30-leap-second-20150629-story.html
Leap second causes Internet hiccup overnight
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2942992/leap-second-causes-internet-hiccup-particularly-in-brazil.html
The origin of leap seconds, and why they should be abolished
http://qz.com/432787/the-origin-of-leap-seconds-and-why-they-should-be-abolished/
What Is a Leap Second Anyway, and Why Do We Use It?
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/leap-second-anyway-use/
World Will Gain a Leap Second
on Tuesday: Here’s Why
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/150629-leap-second-atomic-astronomical-time-earth-rotation-physics/
From the Scout Report on July 10, 2015
Google URL shortener ---
http://goo.gl/
The Google URL shortener is as intuitive as it is
powerful. Users may paste any web address into the appropriate text box,
select Shorten URL, and a shorter, more manageable URL will appear. For
instance, "https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/home," which is 49
characters long, becomes "goo.gl/8rrlvp," which is just 11 characters long.
Though most users will most likely shorten URLs for Twitter, Facebook, and
other social media platforms, these concise versions can also be helpful for
business cards and presentations, among other possibilities. In addition,
the Google URL shortener saves your activity and tracks the number of times
the shortened URL is clicked, either in the past two hours, day, week,
month, or all time.
Easel.ly ---
http://www.easel.ly/
To date, 800,000 users have created over one
million infographics on Easel.ly. The reason is clear: Easel.ly manages to
make the usually tedious and time consuming process of creating engaging
infographics relatively simple and efficient. The interface is fairly
minimal and user-friendly. Most users will want to begin with a Vheme
(template). From there, the site offers fresh options each step of the way,
using drag and drop functions to fill out your targeted product. The results
look surprisingly professional and can help users present even complex
information in streamlined and attractive formats.
Aging, Anti-Aging, and the Quest to Stay Healthy in the Long Run
Study of 1,000 38-year-olds shows 'biological age' ranges from 30 to 60
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/07/07/study-of-1000-38-year-olds-shows-biological-age-ranges-from-30-to-60/
Ageing rates vary widely, says study
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33409604
Dan Belsky: Duke University
http://sites.duke.edu/danbelsky/
Researchers Study 3 Promising Anti-Aging Therapies
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/researchers-study-3-promising-anti-aging-therapies/
American Federation for Aging Research: Infoaging
http://www.afar.org/infoaging
What it's like to grow old, in different parts of the world
http://blog.ted.com/what-its-like-to-grow-old-in-different-parts-of-the-world/
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
MIT Video (150 channels and over 12,000 videos) ---
http://video.mit.edu/
Code.org (computer science education and learning) ---
http://code.org/
Free Computer Tutorials at GCFLearnFree ---
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computers
The Ultimate Student’s Guide to Search Engines ---
http://alexmiller.com/the-students-guide-to-search-engines/
Bob Jensen's search helpers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
Google, Yelp, and the Future of Search ---
Click Here
http://ppr.li/r?src=paperli.email&trail=contributor%3Dtwitter%3A19778187&url=https%3A%2F%2Fhbr.org%2F2015%2F07%2Fgoogle-yelp-and-the-future-of-search&urlhash=bba3b245
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center ---
http://nscresearchcenter.org/
The Poetry Foundation: Learning Lab: Teacher Specific Resources ---
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/resources#teacher
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
National Geographic: Atlas Explorer ---
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/map/atlas
National Geographic: Maps ---
http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/maps
Bob Jensen's bookmarks for multiple disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Teaching Structural Geology in the 21st Century: Visualizations ---
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/structure/visualizations.html
Retraction Watch (cheating in research) ---
http://retractionwatch.com
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating in higher education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Marie Curie’s Research Papers Are Still Radioactive 100+ Years Later ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/marie-curies-research-papers-are-still-radioactive-100-years-later.html
Botanical Society of America ---
http://botany.org
25 Years of Hubble ---
https://webcast.stsci.edu/webcast/detail.xhtml?talkid=4418&parent=1
The Invention of Clouds: Goethe's Poems for the Skies and His Heartfelt Homage
to the Young Scientist Who Classified Clouds ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/07/the-invention-of-clouds-luke-howard-hamblyn/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Finding and Using Health Statistics ---
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm
Frontiers in Psychiatry ---
http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/psychiatry
Mosaic: The Science of Life ---
http://mosaicscience.com/
Women in Science and Mathematics (WiSM) ---
http://www.eiu.edu/wism/index.php
Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians ---
http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/index.html
Free Computer Tutorials at GCFLearnFree ---
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computers
Bob Jensen's threads on free online science,
engineering, and medicine tutorials are at ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Social Science and Economics Tutorials
Retraction Watch (cheating in research) ---
http://retractionwatch.com
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating in higher education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Mosaic: The Science of Life ---
http://mosaicscience.com/
Unmarried
Women Now Drive America’s Fertility Trends, And They’re Having Fewer Kids
---
Neil Shah,
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/07/10/unmarried-women-now-drive-americas-fertility-trends-and-theyre-having-fewer-kids/
Frontiers in Psychiatry ---
http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/psychiatry
Reporters Without Borders ---
http://en.rsf.org/
It's No Laughing Matter: Analyzing Political Cartoons
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/activities/political-cartoon/resources.html
Perspectives on the Boston Massacre ---
http://www.masshist.org/features/massacre
Farm Sanctuary (protecting farm animals from cruelty) ---
http://www.farmsanctuary.org/
The Millions (essays, etc.) ---
http://www.themillions.com
Humanitarian Tracker ---
http://www.humanitariantracker.org/
Multiracial in America: Proud, Diverse and Growing in Numbers ---
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/
Women in Science and Mathematics (WiSM) ---
http://www.eiu.edu/wism/index.php
WASwondering.org (women in science) ---
http://www.iwaswondering.org/
When Woman Is Boss: Nikola Tesla on Gender Equality and How Technology Will
Unleash Women's True Potential ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/10/nikola-tesla-when-woman-is-boss/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Civil Rights Data Collection ---
http://ocrdata.ed.gov/
The Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum ---
http://www.rgm.lv/
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center ---
http://nscresearchcenter.org/
Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians ---
http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/index.html
Finding and Using Health Statistics ---
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm
Podcast Archives: Buddhist Geeks ---
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/category/podcast/
The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values ---
http://thecenter.mit.edu/
Meditation 101: A Short, Animated Beginner’s Guide ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/meditation-101-a-short-animated-beginners-guide.html
Bob Jensen's threads on economic statistics and databases ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics
Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and
Philosophy tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Law and Legal Studies
Farm Sanctuary (protecting farm animals from cruelty) ---
http://www.farmsanctuary.org/
Humanitarian Tracker ---
http://www.humanitariantracker.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Math and Statistics Tutorials
Finding and Using Health Statistics ---
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm
Women in Science and Mathematics (WiSM) ---
http://www.eiu.edu/wism/index.php
WASwondering.org (women in science) ---
http://www.iwaswondering.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
History Tutorials
New Archive Offers Free Access to 22,000 Literary Documents From Great
British & American Writers ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/06/new-archive-offers-free-access-to-22000-literary-documents-from-great-british-american-writers.html
Humanitarian Tracker ---
http://www.humanitariantracker.org/
The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change ---
http://www.thekingcenter.org/
The Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum ---
http://www.rgm.lv/
An Experiment in Love: Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Six Pillars of
Nonviolent Resistance and the Ancient Greek Notion of 'Agape' ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/01/martin-luther-king-jr-an-experiment-in-love/?mc_cid=2e1e781938&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
The Millions (essays, etc.) ---
http://www.themillions.com
Amanda Palmer Reads Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska’s
Poem “Life While-You-Wait” ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/02/amanda-palmer-reads-wislawa-szymborska/?mc_cid=2e1e781938&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
The Invention of Clouds: Goethe's Poems for the Skies and His Heartfelt Homage
to the Young Scientist Who Classified Clouds ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/07/the-invention-of-clouds-luke-howard-hamblyn/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
The Declaration of Independence Read by Thespians: Morgan Freeman, Kevin
Spacey, Renee Zellweger & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/the-declaration-of-independence-read-by-thespians-morgan-freeman-kevin-spacey-renee-zellweger-more.html
Knitting - Victoria and Albert Museum ---
http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/k/knitting/
Mr. Gauguin's Heart: The Beautiful and Bittersweet True Story of How Paul
Gauguin Became an Artist ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/08/mr-gauguins-heart/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Westchester County: Digital Collections ---
http://archives.westchestergov.com/digital-collections-main
MoEML: The Map of Early Modern London ---
https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/
18 rare color photographs of the Russian Empire from over 100 years ago ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/vintage-color-photos-of-the-russian-empire-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3fOlB5QBm
The Art of Restoring a 400-Year-Old Painting: A Five-Minute Primer ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/the-art-of-restoring-a-400-year-old-painting-a-five-minute-primer.html
See Venice in Beautiful Color Images 125 Years Ago: The Rialto Bridge, St.
Mark’s Basilica, Doge’s Palace & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/venice-in-beautiful-color-images-125-years-ago.html
Two Documentaries Introduce Delia Derbyshire, the Pioneer in Electronic Music
---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/two-documentaries-introduce-delia-derbyshire-the-pioneer-in-electronic-music.html
2,200 Radical Political Posters Digitized: A New Archive ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/2200-radical-political-posters-digitized-a-new-archive.html
Marist: Archives & Special Collections: Poughkeepsie Regatta ---
http://library.marist.edu/archives/regatta/
Women in Science and Mathematics (WiSM) ---
http://www.eiu.edu/wism/index.php
WASwondering.org (women in science) ---
http://www.iwaswondering.org/
Multiracial in America: Proud, Diverse and Growing in Numbers ---
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/
Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians ---
http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/index.html
When Woman Is Boss: Nikola Tesla on Gender Equality and How Technology Will
Unleash Women's True Potential ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/10/nikola-tesla-when-woman-is-boss/?mc_cid=0bae3fff91&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Becoming Richard Pryor ---
http://www.becomingrichardpryor.com/pryors-peoria/
Slate's Audio Book Club ---
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_audio_book_club.html
Perspectives on the Boston Massacre ---
http://www.masshist.org/features/massacre
Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
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-Part2.htm#Languages
Music Tutorials
Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Writing Tutorials
Roberto Bolaño’s 12 Tips on “the Art of Writing Short Stories” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/roberto-bolanos-12-tips-on-the-art-of-writing-short-stories.html
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Bob Jensen's threads on medicine ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
June 29, 2015
June 30, 2015
July 1, 2015
July 2, 2015
July 3, 2015
July 7, 2015
July 9, 2015
July 10, 2015
July 11, 2015
A nasty parasite is thriving in swimming pools ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-nasty-parasite-is-thriving-in-swimming-pools-2015-7
Also see
Yuck! What’s Really in Your Swimming Pool? ---
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20150701/yucky-pools
Jensen Comment
I owned two swimming pools in my life, one in Florida and one in Texas. One of
the happiest days of my life was the day I no longer owned a swimming pool.
Finding and Using Health Statistics ---
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on economic statistics and databases ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics
Meditation 101: A Short, Animated Beginner’s Guide ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/meditation-101-a-short-animated-beginners-guide.html
Podcast Archives: Buddhist Geeks ---
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/category/podcast/
The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values ---
http://thecenter.mit.edu/
Forwarded by Steve Markoff on January 29, 2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian
Society of Pediatrics
state infants aged 0-2 years should not have any
exposure to technology, 3-5 years be restricted to one hour per day, and
6-18 years restricted to 2 hours per day (AAP 2001/13, CPS 2010). Children
and youth use
4-5 times the
recommended amount of technology, with serious and often life threatening
consequences (Kaiser Foundation 2010, Active Healthy Kids Canada 2012).
Handheld devices (cell phones, tablets, electronic games) have dramatically
increased the accessibility and usage of
technology, especially by very young children (Common Sense Media, 2013). As
a pediatric occupational therapist, I'm calling on parents, teachers and
governments to ban the use of all handheld devices for children under the
age of 12 years. Following are 10 research-based reasons for this ban.
Please visit zonein.ca
to view the Zone'in
Fact Sheet for referenced research
Jensen Comment
Decades ago when I grew up on an Iowa farm we had hand-held devices. But
we only used them in secret in the outhouse.
From the Scout Report on July 10, 2015
Aging, Anti-Aging, and the Quest to Stay Healthy in the Long Run
Study of 1,000 38-year-olds shows 'biological age' ranges from 30 to 60
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/07/07/study-of-1000-38-year-olds-shows-biological-age-ranges-from-30-to-60/
Ageing rates vary widely, says study
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33409604
Dan Belsky: Duke University
http://sites.duke.edu/danbelsky/
Researchers Study 3 Promising Anti-Aging Therapies
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/researchers-study-3-promising-anti-aging-therapies/
American Federation for Aging Research: Infoaging
http://www.afar.org/infoaging
What it's like to grow old, in different parts of the world
http://blog.ted.com/what-its-like-to-grow-old-in-different-parts-of-the-world/
A Bit of Humor July 1-14, 2015
It's No Laughing Matter: Analyzing Political Cartoons
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/activities/political-cartoon/resources.html
A Redneck Love Song ---
http://1funny.com/if-my-nose-was-running-money/
Man in wheelchair robs New York bank, gets away ---
http://news.yahoo.com/man-wheelchair-robs-york-bank-gets-away-185021518.html
Becoming Richard Pryor ---
http://www.becomingrichardpryor.com/pryors-peoria/
Darwin Awards ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards
Nominated for a Darwin Award in July 2015
Devon Staples, 22, was killed in a bizarre incident
that took place in a backyard as Staples and his friends were firing off
fireworks. Investigators said Staples had placed the fireworks mortar tube on
top of his head and set it off.
http://www.wgme.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/maine-police-say-1-man-killed-calais-fireworks-accident-28113.shtml
Oldies That Are Good for Another Round
Tower: "TWA
2341, for noise abatement turn right 45Degrees."
TWA 2341: "Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up
here?"
Tower: "Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makeswhen it hits a 727?"
___________________________________________
O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a
Fokker,
one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."
United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this...I've got the little
Fokker in sight."
____________________________________________
A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While attempting
to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked: "What was your last known
position?"
Student: "When I was number one for takeoff."
____________________________________________
A DC-10 had come in a little hot and thus had an exceedingly long roll out
after touching down.
San Jose Tower Noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of
the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadeloupe exit
off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."
___________________________________________________
Message from Tower: "Delta 351, you have traffic at
10 o'clock, 6 miles!"
Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"
__________________________________________
A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich, overheard
the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in
Germany.Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because
you lost the bloody war!"
_______________________________________________
One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of
the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned
around, and taxied back past the Cherokee.
Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radioand said, "What
a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"
The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real
zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll
have enough parts for another one."
________________________________________________
The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airportare renowned as a
short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking
location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was
with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following
exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call
sign Speedbird 206.
Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt,Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
The 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been
to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark -- And I didn't
land."
_________________________________________________
While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight
departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a
United 727.
An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew, screaming:
"US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to turn right onto
Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's
difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!"
Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting
hysterically: "God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll takeforever to
sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You
can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour, and I want
you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You
got that, USAir 2771?"
"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.
Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent
after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging
the irate ground controller in her current state of mind.Tension in every
cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high.
Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone,
asking: "Wasn't I married to you once?"
Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Update in
2014
20-Year Sugar Hill Master Plan ---
http://www.nccouncil.org/images/NCC/file/wrkgdraftfeb142014.pdf
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/
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
The Cult of Statistical Significance:
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
How Accountics Scientists Should Change:
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review
I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral
Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH
CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and
Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the
vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/
Interesting Online Clock
and Calendar
---
http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones ---
http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) ---
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
Also see
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
Facts about population growth (video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth ---
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq ---
http://www.costofwar.com/
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons ---
http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.
Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
CPA Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle ---
http://cpareviewforfree.com/
Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at
http://iaed.wordpress.com/
Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social
Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Online Books, Poems, References,
and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials
Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at
http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting
educators.
Any college may post a news item.
Accounting and Taxation News Sites ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
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://listserv.aaahq.org/cgi-bin/wa.exe?HOME
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.
Over the years the AECM has become the worldwide forum for
accounting educators on all issues of accountancy and accounting
education, including debates on accounting standards, managerial
accounting, careers, fraud, forensic accounting, auditing,
doctoral programs, and critical debates on academic (accountics)
research, publication, replication, and validity testing.
|
CPAS-L
(Practitioners)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/ (Closed
Down)
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] |
FEI's Financial Reporting Blog
Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2008 ---
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2008/smart_stops.htm
FINANCIAL REPORTING PORTAL
www.financialexecutives.org/blog
Find news highlights from the SEC, FASB
and the International Accounting
Standards Board on this financial
reporting blog from Financial Executives
International. The site, updated daily,
compiles regulatory news, rulings and
statements, comment letters on
standards, and hot topics from the Web’s
largest business and accounting
publications and organizations. Look for
continuing coverage of SOX requirements,
fair value reporting and the Alternative
Minimum Tax, plus emerging issues such
as the subprime mortgage crisis,
international convergence, and rules for
tax return preparers. |
|
|
The CAlCPA Tax Listserv September 4, 2008 message from Scott Bonacker
[lister@bonackers.com]
Scott has been a long-time contributor to the AECM listserv (he's a techie as
well as a practicing CPA)
I found another listserve
that is exceptional -
CalCPA maintains
http://groups.yahoo.com/taxtalk/
and they let almost anyone join it.
Jim Counts, CPA is moderator.
There are several highly
capable people that make frequent answers to tax questions posted there, and
the answers are often in depth.
Scott
Scott forwarded the following message from Jim
Counts
Yes you may mention info on
your listserve about TaxTalk. As part of what you say please say [... any
CPA or attorney or a member of the Calif Society of CPAs may join. It is
possible to join without having a free Yahoo account but then they will not
have access to the files and other items posted.
Once signed in on their Yahoo account go to
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxTalk/ and I believe in
top right corner is Join Group. Click on it and answer the few questions and
in the comment box say you are a CPA or attorney, whichever you are and I
will get the request to join.
Be aware that we run on the average 30 or move emails per day. I encourage
people to set up a folder for just the emails from this listserve and then
via a rule or filter send them to that folder instead of having them be in
your inbox. Thus you can read them when you want and it will not fill up the
inbox when you are looking for client emails etc.
We currently have about 830 CPAs and attorneys nationwide but mainly in
California.... ]
Please encourage your members
to join our listserve.
If any questions let me know.
Jim Counts CPA.CITP CTFA
Hemet, CA
Moderator TaxTalk
|
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
Bob Jensen's
Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.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