Tidbits on February 28 2019
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Historic Photographs (Set 06) of the Sunset Hill House Resort Shared by Gunsmith Ron Resden from Vermont
Featuring Golf Course and Cog Railroad
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Resden/2019/06ResdenSSH.htm

 

Tidbits on February 28, 2019
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Bob Jensen's Tidbits ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

For earlier editions of Fraud Updates go to http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Bookmarks for the World's Library --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm 

Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   

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

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at htt p://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

Updates from WebMD --- Click Here

Google Scholar --- https://scholar.google.com/

Wikipedia --- https://www.wikipedia.org/

Bob Jensen's search helpers --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm

Bob Jensen's World Library --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ubl

Mathematical Association of America: On This Day --- www.maa.org/news/on-this-day




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio

History of Ancient Greece in 18 Minutes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/the-history-of-ancient-greece-in-18-minutes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Interactive TED Videos (add your own questions and track student progress) ---
https://ed.ted.com/videos

Skype a Scientist --- www.skypeascientist.com

Build a Lesson Around TED Animated Videos ---
https://ed.ted.com/lessons?content_type=animations&direction=desc&sort=publish-date

The Inn on Sunset Hill (just down from our cottage) ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5cqUX0LcbU&t=9s


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

A Six-Hour Time-Stretched Version of Brian Eno’s Music For Airports: Meditate, Relax, Study ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/a-six-hour-time-stretched-version-of-brian-eno-music-for-airports.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Jimmy Hendrix in London in London in 1966 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/jimi-hendrix-arrives-in-london-and-blows-eric-clapton-away.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Hear the First Musical Composition Created by a Computer: The Illiac Suite (1956) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/hear-the-first-composition-created-by-a-computer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm


Photographs and Art

74 years ago, Allied bombers obliterated one of Germany's most beautiful cities — here are 18 photos of the bombing of Dresden ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-dresden-germany-bombing-world-war-ii-2018-2

Europe's Tree of the Year Contest (2019) ---
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2019/feb/15/european-tree-year-contest-2019-in-pictures

Art UK (over 200,000 pieces of art)  --- https://artuk.org/

10 Cities Every Architect Should Visit ---
https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/article/10-cities-every-architect-must-visit/?fbclid=IwAR0D9U9x0kUGhvQLhGWNoKXz_JuWb7Qg15lbye0pGUklmJnoMSrOD4umPXs

How Obsessive Artists Colorize Old Photographs & Restore the True Colors of the Past ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/how-obsessive-artists-colorize-old-photographs-restore-the-true-colors-of-the-past.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

A photographer captured a tender, bromantic nose rub between two male lions, and people are stunned ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/african-lions-peoples-choice-award-wildlife-photo-contest-2019-2

Cat ladders: a creative solution for felines in flats – in pictures ---
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2019/feb/14/cat-ladders-a-creative-solution-for-felines-in-flats-in-pictures

Real life Jaws? Photographer captures terrifying great white images ---
https://www.foxnews.com/science/real-life-jaws-photographer-captures-terrifying-great-white-images

Australia's Brutal Drought ---
https://qz.com/1551995/aerial-photos-show-brutal-drought-in-new-south-wales-australia/

Africa’s Black Panthers Emerge From a Century in the Shadows ---
Click Here
Also see
https://qz.com/africa/1550530/black-leopard-colored-photos-seen-in-laikipia-kenya/

The Lifespan of Ancient Civilizations Detailed in a Handy Infographic: Are We Headed Towards Our Own Collapse?
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/the-lifespan-of-ancient-civilizations-shown-in-handy-infographic.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

These 11 photos are the best of the US military in 2018, according to an award-winning Army photographer ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/award-winning-army-photographer-identifies-top-2018-us-military-photos-2019-2

The Grand Canyon is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. Here are 13 things you might not know about it.---
https://www.businessinsider.com/things-you-didnt-know-about-the-grand-canyon-2019-2

Bob Jensen's threads on art history ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#ArtHistory

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on libraries --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#---Libraries

10 Poems by African-American Poets --- https://daily.jstor.org/10-poems-by-african-american-poets/

10 Favorite Love Poems --- https://daily.jstor.org/ten-favorite-love-poems/

800 Illuminated Medieval Manuscripts Are Now Online: Browse & Download Them Courtesy of the British Library and Bibliothèque Nationale de France ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/800-illuminated-medieval-manuscripts-are-now-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

T

Free Electronic Literature --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI




Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on February 28, 2019
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2019/TidbitsQuotations022819.htm             

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ubl

To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the booked obligation of $19+ trillion) ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2016/05/25/spring-2016-to-whom-does-the-us-government-owe-money-n2168161?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
The US Debt Clock in Real Time --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 
Remember the Jane Fonda Movie called "Rollover" --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(film)

To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the unbooked obligation of $100 trillion and unknown more in contracted entitlements) ---
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/15/news/economy/entitlement-benefits/
The biggest worry of the entitlements obligations is enormous obligation for the future under the Medicare and Medicaid programs that are now deemed totally unsustainable ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm

Entitlements are two-thirds of the federal budget. Entitlement spending has grown 100-fold over the past 50 years. Half of all American households now rely on government handouts. When we hear statistics like that, most of us shake our heads and mutter some sort of expletive. That’s because nobody thinks they’re the problem. Nobody ever wants to think they’re the problem. But that’s not the truth. The truth is, as long as we continue to think of the rising entitlement culture in America as someone else’s problem, someone else’s fault, we’ll never truly understand it and we’ll have absolutely zero chance...
Steve Tobak ---
http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2013/02/07/truth-behind-our-entitlement-culture/?intcmp=sem_outloud

"These Slides Show Why We Have Such A Huge Budget Deficit And Why Taxes Need To Go Up," by Rob Wile, Business Insider, April 27, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/cbo-presentation-on-the-federal-budget-2013-4
This is a slide show based on a presentation by a Harvard Economics Professor.

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

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

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




Georgia Tech's bid to be the leader in university innovation ---
Click Here

Over the decades, I have always considered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be the leader in innovation in higher education. Ever since its open courseware initiative was launched 18 years ago, followed by a steady stream of innovations including edX, there have been no rivals -- until now.

 

My admiration continues for MIT and the innovations it continues to bring to higher education and to making groundbreaking technologies accessible to all. Just to name one, its work in documenting and modeling the use of blockchain in higher education has accelerated the application of this emerging technology for the rest of us in higher education. MIT wrote the blueprint for using blockchain to distribute academic credentials. It will not be long before we all are using blockchain to distribute validated transcripts to other institutions and employers.

 

MIT’s cutting-edge research in both AI and blockchain is unveiling unprecedented innovations -- such as the work of MIT spin-off Endor, which enables predictive analytics of encrypted data. Imagine being able to predict future trends from data without decrypting the data itself! Endor can process encrypted data without ever decrypting it, on and off blockchain, and it enables business users to ask predictive questions and get automated accurate predictions. No data science expertise is required.” IRBs at institutions around the world will welcome that development.

 

But what really impresses me is the audacity of Georgia Institute of Technology connecting with Udacity and AT&T, among others, to create the largest computer science department in the world, followed by several other online at-scale master’s degree programs. Even more so, it is the revolutionary commitment as a university to education for the lifetime of learners that is on the cutting edge of transforming higher education.

Georgia Tech's provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, Rafael L. Bras, gave the charge to the Commission on Creating the Next in Education that put a focus on deliberate innovation and lifetime education. Part of the final report released last year is a universitywide commitment to lifetime education. Bras says, “Because of the Georgia Tech Commitment, future generations of learners will no longer say, ‘I got out,’ but instead will happily say, ‘I’m forever in.’” I encourage you to read the final report for inspiration.

Jensen Comment
Although Georgia Tech is becoming a leader in prestigious online degrees from a R1 research university, MIT still leads the way in offering so much of its curriculum free in online MOOCs --- especially very advanced courses in science and entineering. These are not students without prerequisites or students unwilling to shed blood, sweat, and tears to learn very tough material. There's no hand-holding in these MOOCs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
What's surprising is the long history of MIT's leadership in free online learning --- remember that Open Knowledge Initiative. Whereas Columbia University fumbled the ball early on, MIT swooped in to win the game.

Now added bravos also go to Georgia Tech and Arizona State for finding niches in higher education innovation, but nothing quite like the wonders of MIT.


Google Fuchsia --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fuchsia

It's an open secret that Google is quietly working on an entirely new operating system that's different than Android — here's everything we know about 'Google Fuchsia' ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-fuchsia-os-first-look-2018-1


Papa John's has offered to pay the tuition of around 20,000 employees enrolled in Purdue University Global's online undergraduate and graduate-degree programs ---
https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Papa-Johns-offers-free-college-tuition-for-employees-505991211.html?elqTrackId=3a885d0d515c461796111feb02f56c76&elq=c27b13832aab47b98b52843cdca2b5dc&elqaid=22298&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10978
Jensen Comment
This follows a succession of fast-food company announcements of free college benefits to employees, including those of Starbucks, McDonalds, and Taco Bell. Most are online degree programs, but I think McDonalds will also pay local onsite tuition. Walmart is among the earliest major companies to cover tuition for college degrees. Large accounting firms for years have had much smaller and more-focused degree programs for employees that entail more extensive leaves from jobs to enroll in on-line campus courses. Also in this competitive market for top recruits it's increasingly common to offer new employees student-loan repayment assistance.

Skype a Scientist --- www.skypeascientist.com

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education alternatives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm

Mega-Universities (unexpectedly) on the Rise ---
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/Trend19-MegaU-Main?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=818d19efc4804478bc59234df45cb112&elq=e45302a1d7524e09bb00395f674bd07c&elqaid=22287&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10969

Liberty, Southern New Hampshire, Grand Canyon, Western Governors, and a few other universities have found a new way to play the game that many colleges are losing. Could they one day lay claim to a significant share of the nation’s new college students?

. . .

At a time when many colleges are struggling with shrinking enrollment and tighter budgets, Southern New Hampshire is thriving on a grand scale, and it’s not alone. Liberty, Grand Canyon, and Western Governors Universities, along with a few other nonprofit institutions, have built huge online enrollments and national brands in recent years by subverting many of traditional higher education’s hallmarks. Western Governors has 88,585 undergraduates, according to U.S. Education Department data, more than the top 14 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings combined.

Jensen Comment
Especially note the graph of enrollment trends at Arizona State, Grand Canyon, Liberty, Southern New Hampshire, and Western Governors.
The most important key to success, in my viewpoint, is the attraction of top students coupled with tougher admission standards that are key to academic reputations. If admission standards are not tough reputation depends upon academic standards for flunking out low performers. If you graduate low performers you can soon develop a reputation for being a diploma mill ---  which is the fate of most of the for-profit universities that have closed or will soon close.

Of course the attraction of reputable faculty is important, especially in research (R1) universities, but often the top research faculty are not even teaching undergraduates. What the Mega-Universities have to concentrate is on hiring and nurturing of great teachers who are experts in their disciplines. This will increasingly change accreditation standards and enforcement.

Arizona State University is somewhat unique in that it seems to want to be both a reputable R1 research university (with distinguished researchers) along with a diversity of missions such as providing Starbucks' funded degrees to any Starbucks employee (including part-time employees) who want to do the academic work for free.

Note that religion is no key to success in and of itself. Many religious colleges are on the verge of bankruptcy while Liberty University enrollments soar.

For me the greatest surprise is how competency testing seems to not be the kiss of death that I predicted in this era where students are constantly brown nosing teachers for grades and seeking leniency based upon race and age. Both WGU and Southern New Hampshire are noted for grading based upon competency testing ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge

Skype a Scientist --- www.skypeascientist.com

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials --- http://aem.cast.org/


Nature:  How to Improve the Tenure Process
To move research from quantity to quality, go beyond good intentions ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/how-to-improve-the-tenure-process.html


*How to Mislead With Statistics
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that $3 billion in tax credits should be given to Queens NYC residents, not Amazon — and a new poll shows that nearly half of Americans agree ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/poll-most-dont-support-amazon-hq2-style-deal-2019-2

Jensen Comment
For argument's sake suppose that there are 2.5 million Queens residents give or take. I don't know how many of those residents file NY tax returns, but for argument sake suppose that 2 million residents will file NY tax returns. This is a high estimate since some people who do not currently file tax returns (including children) might file for the tax credit if it exceeds the value of being exemptions on their parents' returns.

It's not clear how long the $3 billion would benefit Amazon, but a number thrown out is 25 years ---
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-queens-long-island-city-explained

Dividing $3 billion by 25 years averages out to $120 million per year. Dividing $120 million by 2 million tax filers works out to be $60 per person per year. Oops that's probably not enough for some children to give up their value of being exemptions on their parents' tax returns. So let's divide $120 million by 1 million taxpayers to get $120 per year. How wonderful for Queens! Yeah Right!

Will $120 per year tax credit for each Queens taxpayer have the same impact as the Amazon deal will have on Queens?
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-queens-long-island-city-explained

According to the state, Amazon will generate $27.5 billion in state and city revenue over 25 years, a 9:1 ratio of revenue to subsidies—an arrangement Cuomo called “the highest rate of return for an economic incentive program the state has ever offered.”

Even if we complicate the analysis with time value of money Alexandria's proposal is what I call Democratic Socialist economics.

 

NY State Budget Director on Amazon ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/ny-state-budget-director-on-amazon.html

The open letter on Amazon from Robert Mujica, New York State’s Budget Director, is on fire. It shines an unflattering light on many people involved in the Amazon decision but it’s analysis of twitter mobs goes well beyond Amazon.

In my 23 years in the State Capitol, three as Budget Director, Amazon was the single greatest economic development opportunity we have had. Amazon chose New York and Virginia after a year-long national competition with 234 cities and states vying for the 25,000-40,000 jobs. For a sense of scale, the next largest economic development project the state has completed was for approximately 1,000 jobs. People have been asking me for the past week what killed the Amazon deal. There were several factors.

First, some labor unions attempted to exploit Amazon’s New York entry. The RWDSU Union was interested in organizing the Whole Foods grocery store workers, a subsidiary owned by Amazon, and they deployed several ‘community based organizations’ (which RWDSU funds) to oppose the Amazon transaction as negotiation leverage. It backfired.

…Organizing Amazon, or Whole Foods workers, or any company for that matter, is better pursued by allowing them to locate here and then making an effort to unionize the workers, rather than making unionization a bar to entrance. If New York only allows unionized companies to enter, our economy is unsustainable, and if one union becomes the enemy of other unions, the entire union movement – already in decline – is undermined and damaged.

Second, some Queens politicians catered to minor, but vocal local political forces in opposition to the Amazon government incentives as ‘corporate welfare.’ Ironically, much of the visible ‘local’ opposition, which was happy to appear at press conferences and protest at City Council hearings during work hours, were actual organizers paid by one union: RWDSU. (If you are wondering if that is even legal, probably not). Even more ironic is these same elected officials all signed a letter of support for Amazon at the Long Island City location and in support of the application. They were all for it before Twitter convinced them to be against it.

…Furthermore, opposing Amazon was not even good politics, as the politicians have learned since Amazon pulled out. They are like the dog that caught the car. They are now desperately and incredibly trying to explain their actions. They cannot.

…Third, in retrospect, the State and the City could have done more to communicate the facts of the project and more aggressively correct the distortions. We assumed the benefits to be evident: 25,000-40,000 jobs located in a part of Queens that has not seen any significant commercial development in decades and a giant step forward in the tech sector, further diversifying our economy away from Wall Street and Real Estate. The polls showing seventy percent of New Yorkers supported Amazon provided false comfort that the political process would act responsibly and on behalf of all of their constituents, not just the vocal minority. We underestimated the effect of the opposition’s distortions and overestimated the intelligence and integrity of local elected officials.

Incredibly, I have heard city and state elected officials who were opponents of the project claim that Amazon was getting $3 billion in government subsidies that could have been better spent on housing or transportation. This is either a blatant untruth or fundamental ignorance of basic math by a group of elected officials. The city and state ‘gave’ Amazon nothing. Amazon was to build their headquarters with union jobs and pay the city and state $27 billion in revenues. The city, through existing as-of-right tax credits, and the state through Excelsior Tax credits – a program approved by the same legislators railing against it – would provide up to $3 billion in tax relief, IF Amazon created the 25,000-40,000 jobs and thus generated $27 billion in revenue. You don’t need to be the State’s Budget Director to know that a nine to one return on your investment is a winner.

The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocalminority and self-interested politicians.

…Make no mistake, at the end of the day we lost $27 billion, 25,000-40,000 jobs and a blow to our reputation of being ‘open for business.’ The union that opposed the project gained nothing and cost other union members 11,000 good, high-paying jobs. The local politicians that catered to the hyper-political opposition hurt their own government colleagues and the economic interest of every constituent in their district. The true local residents who actually supported the project and its benefits for their community are badly hurt. Nothing was gained and much was lost. This should never happen again.

Even if you think the end result was fine, as I do, this was a political fiasco for New York. Amazon was wise to exit when they did because the pecking of the chickens would only have intensified as they sunk investments.

Alexandria the Economist:  Bill de Blasio: Alexandria Didn't Understand Amazon Deal...at All ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2019/02/18/bill-de-blasio-aoc-didnt-understand-amazon-dealat-all-n2541634?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested Sunday that Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) had no idea what she was talking about when arguing that Amazon pulling out of its deal to build a new office complex in Long Island City would’ve freed up money to fix the subway system and hire more teachers.

In an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, the host said the tax breaks offered to Amazon weren’t “money you had over here. And it was going over there.”

“Correct,” de Blasio replied. “And that $3 billion that would go back in tax incentives was only after we were getting the jobs and getting the revenue.”

To clarify, Todd said, “There not $3 billion in money…”

“There’s no money—right,” de Blasio said. 

Todd played a clip of Ocasio-Cortez’s reaction to the news Amazon was backing out of its deal to build the complex. 

Continued in article

 

Alexandria the Politician:  Amazon winners and losers ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/amazon-winners-and-losers.html
J
ensen Comment
Alexandria is a big winner in Amazon's back out, because this way she keeps her low-income voter support that might've been diluted by higher wage earners

The Young Left’s Anti-Capitalist Manifesto: Its goal is to remake our economic system — and the Democratic Party ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-young-lefts-anti-capitalist-manifesto/

 


Nearly Half of Undergraduates Are Students of Color. But Black Students Lag Behind. ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Nearly-Half-of-Undergraduates/245692?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=4b25b4445cd449deab2ac48c46f77478&elq=e53c5591cbc9463eaa6a81d8ee5ad6fd&elqaid=22249&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10942

The key data points in the American Council on Education's new report on race and ethnicity in higher education come as no surprise: College-student populations are growing more diverse, yet achievement gaps persist among different racial groups.

Still, the poor outcomes for black students in particular are glaring.

All students of color now make up more than 45 percent of the undergraduate population, compared with less than 30 percent two decades ago, the association's report found. Nearly one-third of graduate students are now people of color. Hispanic students have shown the most growth; they are enrolling in and completing college at levels never seen before.

Black students, too, represent a larger share of the undergraduate- and graduate-student population than 20 years ago, and a larger share of the students who earn degrees. But black students who began college in the fall of 2011 had higher dropout rates and lower six-year completion rates — 46 percent at public institutions, 57 percent at private institutions — than any other racial group.

The gender gap for black students is wider than it is for any other group, as nearly two-thirds of black undergraduates, and more than two-thirds of black graduate students, are women. Black male students pursuing bachelor's degrees were the most likely among any demographic group to drop out after their freshman year.

Black undergraduates also owed 15 percent more than other students after graduation: an average of $34,010, compared with $29,669 for all students. One-third of black students accumulated more than $40,000 in debt after graduation, versus 18 percent of students over all.

Even with a bachelor's degree, black graduates between the ages of 25 and 34 had lower salaries than other graduates of a similar age, and their unemployment rate was two-thirds higher, on average.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
The phrase "color" is somewhat ambiguous in the USA --- especially since Latinos are multiracial, particularly in terms of origins from Europe versus darker native heredity ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity
It would seem that "whites" are now underrepresented in undergraduate enrollments in the USA.

According to the 2010–2015 American Community Survey, the racial composition of the United States in 2015 was:

Race

Population (2016 est.)

Share of total population

Total

318,558,162

100%

One race

308,805,215

96.9%

  White

233,657,078

73.3%

  Black or African American

40,241,818

12.6%

  American Indian and Alaska Native

2,597,817

0.8%

  Asian

16,614,625

5.2%

  Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander

560,021

0.2%

  Other races

15,133,856

4.8%

Two or more races

9,752,947

3.1%

  White and Black or African American

2,525,509

0.8%

  White and American Indian and Alaska Native

1,884,407

0.6%

  White and Asian

1,956,740

0.6%

  Black or African American and American Indian and Alaska Native

318,302

0.1%

Population distribution by race 1940-2010 (in %)

Hispanics are shown like part of the races. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, decennial census of population, 1940 to 2010.[47]

Years

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000*

2010*

White

89.8

89.5

88.6

87.5

83.0

80.3

75.1

72.4

Black or African American

9.8

10.0

10.5

11.1

11.7

12.1

12.3

12.6

American Indian and Alaska Native

       

0.8

0.8

0.9

0.9

Asian and Native Hawaiian
and other Pacific Islander

       

1.5

2.9

3.8

5.0

Some other race

       

3.0

3.9

5.5

6.2

Two or more races

           

2.4

2.9

Sum (%)

99.6

99.5

99.1

98.6

100

100

100

100

*Data are shown for the White, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and Some other race alone populations.

 


Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Fold — here are the best features of the $1,980 foldable phone ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-fold-best-features-foldable-phone-2019-2

Samsung's new $2,000 folding smartphone has one bizarre, glaring flaw ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-folding-phone-galaxy-fold-screen-bezels-2019-2


Meet R.J. Scaringe, Founder Of Rivian Automotive—And Tesla’s Worst Nightmare ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chucktannert/2019/02/08/meet-rj-scaringe-founder-of-rivian-automotiveand-teslas-worst-nightmare/#411631e07113

Jensen Comment
This isn't Tesla's worst nightmare. Tesla's worst nightmare is that a major company with dealerships across the world will commence to market a serious competitor to Tesla, one that has greater range and/or shorter recharging times.

What Scaringe is showing the world is that electric car manufacturing is perhaps a cottage industry at the moment. But this will change when the big companies get serious.


Internet Archive's ebook loans face UK copyright challenge ---
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/22/internet-archives-ebook-loans-face-uk-copyright-challenge


NYT:  Similarities in 2 Novels Raise Questions About the Limits of Literary Influence on Dan Mallory ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/books/dan-mallory-woman-window-denzil.html

February 17, 2019 Retraction Watch Weekend Scandal News ---
https://retractionwatch.com/2019/02/16/weekend-reads-article-retracted-because-of-racial-characterizations-indias-high-retraction-rate-meet-the-fraud-finder/
Harvard should be embarrassed over Jill Abramson's plagiarisms
Why are students expelled for cheating but not faculty?
Remember the 60+ Harvard students expelled for plagiarizing a homework assignment in a political science course?
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#UVA

For a review of Abramson's book (with no mention of plagiarism) see
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/279251/kill-jill

Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism and other forms of cheating such as data fabrication ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm


Amherst College experienced a catastrophic technical mishap last week that left the campus without access to online services -- for five days ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/21/almost-week-no-internet-amherst-college?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=3904afdf65-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-3904afdf65-197565045&mc_cid=3904afdf65&mc_eid=1e78f7c952
Jensen Comment
I wonder how many students had to ask directions to the campus library?
This could be more devastating to universities heavy into distance education courses. For example, MOOC lectures would then be available only to on-campus students.


The Modern German University, Satirized ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/21/modern-german-university-satirized-film?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=3904afdf65-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-3904afdf65-197565045&mc_cid=3904afdf65&mc_eid=1e78f7c952


Amazon winners and losers ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/amazon-winners-and-losers.html

Jensen Comment
Alexandria is a big winner in Amazon's back out, because this way she keeps her low-income voter support that might've been diluted by higher wage earners  and economic and population growth.


A former Virginia Tech professor was found guilty last week of conspiring to commit federal grant fraud for submitting funding proposals for research that had already been done in China ---
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdva/pr/former-virginia-tech-professor-found-guilty-grant-fraud-false-statements-obstruction?elqTrackId=e28c027d57c94d89892ce0ed9c08939f&elq=69292fdd6e2b4e68853246f891c61b12&elqaid=22342&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=11002

Bob Jensen's threads on professors who cheat ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#RebeccaHoward


YouTube’s copyright strikes have become a tool for extortion ---
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/11/18220032/youtube-copystrike-blackmail-three-strikes-copyright-violation

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


Tumult over the decision to remove the current dean, James Ellis, at the Marshall School of Business at USC ---
Click Here


Coffee for Overachievers: A Comprehensive Guide to Better Brew ---
https://graphics.wsj.com/image-grid/off-duty-coffee/

A new generation of java obsessives is ditching Starbucks and embracing the next level of joe. Here’s a guide to their world—from latte-art rivalries to brew tips, coffee trivia and more


The Washington Post:  Farmworkers vs robots: Will tomorrow fruit pickers be made of steel and tech?
https://ritholtz.com/2019/02/10-tuesday-am-reads-229/

Jensen Comment
One of our son's inlaws farm mostly rice and tomatoes on over 5,000 acres north of Sacramento. Thirty years ago I was amazed while while watching combines pick tomatoes and fill semi-trucks moving alongside the combines. In my youth growing up (for a time) on a family farm it was amazing to watch the transition for hand picking corn to corn picking machines to corn combines. But we never imagined that combines in the 20th century would harvest something as delicate as tomatoes. Now in the 21st Century robots can pluck fruit from trees and bushes.

One has to wonder what will happen to farmworkers, factory workers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, warehouse workers, supermarket workers, etc. as machines take over the world of work. Yeah chatbots may even take over the technical part of teaching while professors become more like preachers (life inspiration) than teachers of technical detail..

Chatbot --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatbot


Unemployment --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment

American Economic Association:  Do we still want to look only at the unemployment rate to measure the amount of labor market slack?
https://www.aeaweb.org/research/part-time-work-business-cycles

When the economy enters a recession, pundits are quick to trot out unemployment numbers to argue about the health of the economy or the success of the government's response.

Of course, job loss should be front and center when talking about the economy, but companies have more options than just hiring and firing employees.

“Do we still want to look only at the unemployment rate to measure the amount of labor market slack?” economist Etienne Lalé said in an interview with the AEA. “After the latest recession, it's not clear. It seems that we really shouldn't ignore involuntary part-time work.”

In fact, part-time work adjustments have driven one-third to half of the hours lost during recessions in the US and UK, according to his paper published in the January issue of the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.

 

Lalé and co-author Daniel Borowczyk-Martins argue that economists have made important advances in understanding how an economy’s total working hours adjust when employees are hired and fired—what economists call the extensive labor margin, which is basically the decision to work or not.

What hasn’t been thoroughly addressed is the so-called intensive labor margin—the decision of how much to work. And switching between part-time and full-time is an important way that firms and workers make adjustments along the intensive margin.

The authors discovered several important facts about working hours from analyzing the US and UK over the last half-century.

The ups and downs that their economies underwent were accompanied by large changes in the hours worked per week. The authors found that the average ranged from less than 38 hours to more than 40 hours a week per worker.

Two hours might not sound like a big difference, but some workers bore much more of the brunt than others. About half of all workers experienced some reduction in hours during recessions.

A good portion of that reduction comes from people losing work, but nearly half of the fluctuations in average hours worked could be explained by people moving into part-time positions.

People who switched to part-time during a recession typically lost about a day and a half of work per week. If they also changed employers, they saw an even larger drop in hours of roughly five to nine hours a week more.

Workers weren’t typically losing their jobs and picking up hours as Amazon pickers or Uber drivers; jumping into the gig economy doesn’t appear to be a big part of the story. Instead, full-time employees were taking part-time work at the same employer.

Continued in article


Four Nordic countries are among seven countries with the lowest level of public-sector corruption, according to a report. The USA plummeted out of the top 20.---
https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2019/feb/countries-with-cleanest-reputations-201920564.html?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=18Feb2019

Reply to a Valued Colleague Regarding the Corruption of Donald Trump

Hi XXXXX,

I don't deny that Trump had a negative impact, but corruption in the public sector was rampant before Trump was born. Exhibits A and B are Detroit and Chicago throughout the 20th Century.

Trump no doubt was corrupt since his days of having to construct hotels with Mafia-ridden NYC labor unions. It's amazing he's still alive since a close friend tells me Trump sometimes used scab labor.

Interestingly Trump's term as President is conducted in the middle of gnarling watchdogs. It's harder for him to make his family richer with graft in office like Pelosi made her husband rich over her years in office with government contracts. Trump had to shut down his abuse of the Trump Foundation largely because of being more in the public eye since becoming President.

Don't take this as meaning I voted for Trump or advocate his re-election in 2020. His corruption as President has more to do with his paranoia than his personal financial graft of public money since being in office.

It would be interesting to view his tax returns. My theory is that they might be more embarrassing to the IRS than Trump since the IRS supposedly has been auditing his taxes continuously for years before and after he was elected.

He's an immoral man and a liar. But as President he operates in a sea of angry whistleblowers.

Bob Jensen

 


 

David Giles:  A Tremendous Book on the Linear Model ---
https://davegiles.blogspot.com/2019/02/terrific-new-book-on-linear-model.html#more

From David Giles --- https://davegiles.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-reading.html

February 2019 Readings in Econometrics

Now that Groundhog Day is behind us, perhaps we can focus on catching up on our reading?

·                     Deboulets, L. D. D., 2018. A review on variable selection in regression. Econometrics, 6(4), 45.

·                     Efron, B. & C. Morris, 1977. Stein's paradox in statistics. Scientific American, 236(5), 119-127.

·                     Khan, W. M. & A. u I. Khan, 2018. Most stringent test of independence for time series. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation, online.

·                     Pedroni, P., 2018. Panel cointegration techniques and open challenges. Forthcoming in Panel Data Econometrics, Vol. 1: Theory, Elsevier.

·                     Steel, M. F., J., 2018. Model averaging and its use in economics. MPRA Paper No. 90110.

·                     Tay, A. S. & K. F. Wallis, 2000. Density forecasting: A survey. Journal of Forecasting, 19, 235-254.

 


P-value --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value

How to Mislead With Statistics
P-values can be misleading when hypotheses are incorrect

February 6, 2019 Message from Tom Dyckman (now retired from Cornell University)

Bob: Here is a new paper you might want to alert your readers too along with Dave's blog today.

Greenland, S., S. J. Senn, K. R. Rothman, J. B. Carlin, C. Poole, S. N. Goodman, & D. G. Altman, 2016. Statistical tests, p values, confidence intervals, and power: A guide to misinterpretations. European Journal of Epidemiology, 31, 337-350. 
https://fermatslibrary.com/s/statistical-tests-p-values-confidence-intervals-and-power-a-guide-to-misinterpretations

Abstract
Misinterpretation and abuse of statistical tests, confidence intervals, and statistical power have been decried for decades, yet remain rampant. A key problem is that there are no interpretations of these concepts that are at once simple, intuitive, correct, and foolproof. Instead, correct use and interpretation of these statistics requires an attention to detail which seems to tax the patience of working scientists. This high cognitive demand has led to an epidemic of shortcut definitions and interpretations that are simply wrong, sometimes disastrously so—and yet these misinterpretations dominate much of the scientific literature. In light of this problem, we provide definitions and a discussion of basic statistics that are more general and critical than typically found in traditional introductory expositions. Our goal is to provide a resource for instructors, researchers, and consumers of statistics whose knowledge of statistical theory and technique may be limited but who wish to avoid and spot misinterpretations. We emphasize how violation of often unstated analysis protocols (such as selecting analyses for presentation based
on the P values they produce) can lead to small P values even if the declared test hypothesis is correct, and can lead to large P values even if that hypothesis is incorrect. We then provide an explanatory list of 25 misinterpretations of P values, confidence intervals, and power. We conclude with guidelines for improving statistical interpretation and reporting.

Continued in article

How Many Ways Can You Misinterpret p-Values, Confidence Intervals, Statistical Tests, and Power? 25  
https://replicationnetwork.com/2019/02/09/how-many-ways-can-you-misinterpret-p-values-confidence-intervals-statistical-tests-and-power-25/

Jensen Comment
The sad thing is that journal editors of leading accounting research journals seem to not care --- they're addicted to P-values


How to Mislead With Statistics
Why a 70% Top Tax Rate Will Miss Its Mark ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/marginal-tax/

When Top Rates Were So High:  Do you really think Bing Crosby and Bob Hope paid 90 percent of their income to the taxman?
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-29/hollywood-stars-didn-t-pay-90-percent-tax-they-created-loopholes


 

How to Mislead With Statistics
Tesla owners are more satisfied than any other auto brand's, according to Consumer Reports ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-tops-consumer-reports-owner-satisfaction-list-2019-2
I might also point out that the Chevy Bolt electric car also came out in the Top 10

Jensen Comment
This is what I call "satisfaction" being conditioned on unmentioned supplements. Nearly every owner of a Tesla or Bolt has a supplement of a second gas-guzzling vehicle (think SUV or pick up truck). What would be more interesting to me is if Consumer Reports asked two-car owners which car they would give up if they were only allowed to keep only one of their two cars. My guess is that the most satisfying single car owner might be one with a hybrid rather than severely range-limited Teslas or Bolts.

Alternately the survey question might be if two-car owners would be as happy with two electric cars as with one electric car and one conventional vehicle.

My point is that Tesla owners are conditionally satisfied as long as they have a convenient supplemental vehicle option for driving 300+ miles without having to spend so much time recharging batteries on longer trips.

Also sample selection is quite biased in this survey.
Roughly half the Tesla USA buyers live in sunny California with most of those buyers living in or near larger California cities where there are convenient Tesla recharging stations and service centers. We can't extrapolate their wonderful experiences with electric cars to Great Falls, Montana owners facing -30F frigid days of batteries working poorly and no Tesla recharging center or service center.

Tesla shares fall after Consumer Reports says it will no longer recommend Model 3 (due to reliability issues)  ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/tesla-tanks-subaru-soars-in-consumer-reports-new-reliability-survey.html

 



How to Mislead with Statistics
Muller: Law School Ruin Porn Hits USA Today
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/02/muller-law-school-ruin-porn-hits-usa-today.html

Jensen Comment
The basic complaint here is treating outliers like a norm.

This does not mean that outliers are not important --- think Black Swans in the investment world ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

But treating outliers like the norm is very misleading. The media these days is prone to this such as when a student or faculty member  posts a sexist or racist message on the social media the entire university gets a black eye. Or when an undocumented immigrant commits murder or rape this means all undocumented immigrants are criminally inclined.


How to Mislead With Statistics
t's undoubtedly a blue-state bastion. But far from being a socialist hellhole, the Golden State is thriving after years of malaise ---
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/21/trump-california-attacks-economy-225191

Jensen Comment
This a popular liberal site that's very biased. It's not a fake news site, but it does heavily cherry pick for liberal views and leaves out conservative counterpoints. A good example is the above Politico site. Except for housing costs it brings out the many positives of California and leaves out the negatives such as high income taxes (just about the highest in the nation). high fuel costs (highest in the nation), traffic (among the worst in the nation), overcrowded prisons it can no longer afford, and the severe natural disasters such as forest fires and extreme cycle of droughts to floods and back again.

The site fails to mention flight of businesses. Exhibit A is Apple's decision to invest over a billion dollars in HQ2 in Austin, Texas ---
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/12/apple-to-build-new-campus-in-austin-and-add-jobs-across-the-us/

The site praises the trend downward in the number of undocumented immigrants flowing across the southern border without giving any credit to the highly effective fencing installed by the Federal government.

California is a sanctuary state that protects undocumented residents at the expense of legal residents. For example, home and business cameras now have options for face recognition software. But in places like San Francisco face recognition technology is now banned because it might recognize non-citizens ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-cruel-to-stop-government-using-facial-recognition-2019-2

The article never mentions that California lost the drug war ---
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sfpd-efforts-fight-opioid-epidemic-question-police-net-dozens-arrests/

Police in San Francisco have seized more than 125 pounds of narcotics and $500,000 in drug money so far this year, the latest numbers on police efforts to curb the opioid crisis show.

A targeted operation in the Tenderloin and South of Market netted 62 drug arrests in a single week last month, Cmdr. David Lazar said at the most recent Police Commission hearing last Wednesday.

Yet drug users continue to inject on city sidewalks and the usual street corners remain open-air drug markets. Several members of the Police Commission questioned the merits of the enforcement efforts.

“We know that jail isn’t working,” Police Commissioner Cindy Elias said at the hearing. “It’s very frustrating for officers who see these people day in and day out, even if they arrest them it’s not making a difference.”

Are the slums of San Francisco worse than slums of India, Haiti, Africa? (Possibly because of drug addiction)
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2019/02/07/slum-by-the-bay-n2540841?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=02/07/2019&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

San Francisco Health Department:  There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools ---
http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/about-SFUSD/files/sfusd-facts-at-a-glance.pdf
And most of those injection drug users are among the hordes of homeless defecating in the streets
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/18/san-francisco-poop-problem-inequality-homelessness

The article laments housing shortages but never mentions that much of the problem is due to rent control.

Here's what left-leaning Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman says about rent control ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent-affair.html

. . .

The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable.

And as for the way rent control sets people against one another -- the executive director of San Francisco's Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board has remarked that ''there doesn't seem to be anyone in this town who can trust anyone else in this town, including their own grandparents'' -- that's predictable, too.

None of this says that ending rent control is an easy decision. Still, surely it is worth knowing that the pathologies of San Francisco's housing market are right out of the textbook, that they are exactly what supply-and-demand analysis predicts.

But people literally don't want to know. A few months ago, when a San Francisco official proposed a study of the city's housing crisis, there was a firestorm of opposition from tenant-advocacy groups. They argued that even to study the situation was a step on the road to ending rent control -- and they may well have been right, because studying the issue might lead to a recognition of the obvious.

So now you know why economists are useless: when they actually do understand something, people don't want to hear about it.

Faced with a housing shortage and skyrocketing rents, Oregon is poised to become the first state to impose mandatory rent controls, with a measure establishing tenant protections moving swiftly through the Legislature ---
https://outline.com/ZjFACN

House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said 30,000 housing units must be built per year to meet the state’s current housing deficit and to build for the future as more people move to Oregon.

Jensen Comment
Is Tina Kotek the comedian of the day?
What's the incentive to build new rental units? What prospective landlords would want to invest in long-term housing subject to rent control limits on revenue and unrestrained risk on expenses?
Short-term returns may not sound too bad in this era of low interest rates, but over the long-term you've got to be stupid to invest under these rent-controlled restrictions.
One year in the future Oregon will at last legislate landlord incentives to invest, but not today.
This is not the answer to providing shelter for the homeless, many of whom are addicts and/or on welfare.

 


How to Mislead With Statistics
Compensation Watch ’19: Internal Auditors
---
https://goingconcern.com/compensation-watch-19-internal-auditors/

Jensen Comment
Salary studies like this mislead due averaging (neans or medians) across many things, including company size, office location, public versus private sector, fringe benefits (especially retirement plans), opportunities for growth, technical expertice, and on and on and on. One can hardly compare the salrary of an internal auditor on Wall Street working for a huge investment bank with an internal auditor working for a small agricultural products company in Ames, Iowa. One can hardly compare an internal auditor trained primarily in traditional accounting with an internal auditor highly proficient in blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Averages, especially means, are misleading if standard deviations and skewness (kurtosis)  are not revealed. When Bill Gates walks onto a college campus everybody on campus at that time becomes a millionaire.

 


How to Mislead With Statistics
Students in a new Rutgers study indicate pay doesn't matter in selecting a major
---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/17/rutgers-study-pay-doesnt-affect-students-major-choice?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=e04f10c3ed-DNU_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-e04f10c3ed-197565045&mc_cid=e04f10c3ed&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Jensen Comment
I did not investigate details of this survey. Hence I can only speculate based upon my 40 years of experience in teaching mostly accountancy. There are two types of pay. One is starting salary. The other is long run opportunity salary.

Students now pay a price for majoring in accountancy. It's not possible to take the uniform (nationwide) CPA examination without getting 150 credits which, in nearly all instances, entails getting a masters degree in accountancy. Secondly, there are a lot of accounting, tax, ethics, law, computer, auditing, and other courses that must be taken before being allowed to sit for the CPA examination, although the numbers of such courses vary among the 50 states. And on top of that starting accounting salaries are not notably high when compared with average starting salaries for students with degrees in engineering, pharmacy, etc.

This begs the question of why do students major in accounting?
The answer is somewhat complicated. Firstly, accounting graduates are almost (not entirely) assured of getting multiple job offers before they even graduate. Secondly, accounting majors are attracted to internships that are usually offered in the senior year, internships that usually lead to job offers during the internships. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, accounting firms tend to offer tremendous training programs and on-the-job exposure to multiple clients, clients that in turn often end up offering jobs to younger graduates still in training by public accounting firms.

My point is that high starting salaries do not attract most accounting majors. What attracts them are lots of job openings at graduation date combined with long-run opportunity trails, some of which lead to the executive suites.
 What attracts accounting majors is the virtual assurance of getting a job after earning their masters degrees and the tremendous and varied career choices that those starting jobs lead to further down the road. Being an accounting graduate can be a great track to becoming a highly paid executive. Plus there's the possible choice of going on for a Ph.D. after some years of professional experience where accounting Ph.D.s are the highest paid graduates going into academe (there's a tremendous shortage among colleges for tenure-track candidates in accountancy).

I might also add that "pay" is somewhat relative. For example, why do so many students major in KI-12 education. Some just want to serve the world as teachers. But others think ahead to to earning salaries and still having 2-3 months each summer for raising a family, writing books, farming, or teaching summer school to earn added "pay" not measured in the salary data not shown in to students in the above Rutgers survey.

Lastly, I might mention that students are sometimes attracted to majors where they're more likely to graduate with high grade averages. What limits the number of accounting graduates is that accounting is usually a tougher major other majors in the business school. In a top engineering school students who do poorly the first year often track into other majors including business degrees. Weaker business schools sometimes are in universities that have very tough engineering schools.

Also the some majors are so popular that universities limit the number of those majors by setting minimum grade averages for those majors. It's not uncommon for universities to require a 3.0 gpa or higher to major in accounting as an undergraduate. And students who want to sit for the CPA exam must qualify for admission to a masters program that usually entails having a high grade average plus a respectable score on the GMAT or GRE.

 


MIT:  How DeepMind’s AlphaZero program rewrote the rules of gameplay on its own It taught itself to be a chess grandmaster, exhibiting an unprecedented degree of creativity ----
Click Here


Functional Finance --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_finance

Printing Money:  What’s Wrong With Abba Lerner's Functional Finance? ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/opinion/whats-wrong-with-functional-finance-wonkish.html
This article may not be free much longer

Jensen Comment
Abba Lerner had in mine printing money to create money. Most nations do not create money in this manner. For example, the USA Treasury printed the greenbacks in your wallet. But the USA Treasury as a rule does not create money in the USA money supply. Commercial banks create money in the money supply. Suppose you go to the bank to get a $10,000 loan for a new swimming pool. When the bank credits your checking account for $10,000 the bank has created money. You can spend that money without ever converting it into greenbacks. You can simply write checks to the people who build your pool. Those people can in turn deposit your checks into their accounts and spend it without ever converting that $10,000 into greenbacks. But suppose the company that built your pool needed $100 in petty cash. That company could've converted $100 its checking account into $100 in greenbacks. In economics we say that the company simply has made a $100 liquidity preference decision.

My point is that the USA Treasury prints money to satisfy liquidity preferences regarding money that was created previously by commercial banks.

But commercial banks cannot go wild like Zimbabwe when creating money ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply

Quantitative easing is a controversial exception that I won't go into here ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

Abba Lerner's theoretical "Functional Finance" is an entirely different way of creating money and a very risky way for governments to create money  ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_finance


How to Mislead With Statistics
This Presidential Candidate Wants to Give Every Adult $1,000 a Month (costing over $3 trillion per year) ---
Click Here

. . .

Yang’s plan is a bit different, however. He intends to pay for it with a value-added tax, a consumption tax levied on goods at each stage of their production. “The big trap that America is in right now is that as artificial intelligence and autonomous cars and trucks take off, we’re going to see more and more work disappear and we’re not going to have new revenue to account for it,” he said. “The big winners are going to be the biggest tech companies like Amazon and Google and Facebook who are great at not paying a lot of taxes. So the way we pay for a universal basic income is by passing a value added tax which would get the American public a slice of every Amazon transaction and Google search.”

Jensen Comment
This is a typical politician's ploy of trying to make you believe big companies like Amazon and Walmart would pay the $3 trillion tax. But big companies don't pay sales taxes (which is what this VAT really amounts to). Big companies collect sales taxes from customers. To collect over $3 trillion per year those same people getting the $1,000 per month would be paying for it themselves. It would mostly be a wash. Old folks would benefit most because they buy fewer retail goods than younger families.

Since I'm retired I decided that I'm going to vote for Andrew Yang in 2020 to become our next President of the USA. Bring on my added $1,000 per month.

Alas to add pain to the sales tax, the IRS would probably tax the $1,000 per month like it taxes Social Security benefits. Ignorant people don't realize that when they retire they must pay income taxes on their Social Security benefits.


How to Mislead With Statistics:  When "sexual assault" becomes mere "assault"
German Police Lie About Migrant Crime Statistics “To Preserve Civil Peace” ----
https://gatesofvienna.net/2019/02/german-police-lie-about-migrant-crime-statistics-to-preserve-civil-peace/

. . .

from what I have understood, the police chief will make a written note on the report which says: “Please review this.”

This is a signal to alert the police officer who wrote the report to remove certain terms which are provocative and could have a negative influence on the statistics.

 In these statistics you will find the term assault instead of sexual assault, without any further specification.

This means the statistical accumulations are differently weighted and presented differently as what the clear insights in detail would reveal.

Germany:  Muslim migrant accused of gang rape with 10 others will be tried in juvenile court; he’s 22 ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3730147/posts


Scarlet Letter Protections
The Atlantic:  Accused College Students Deserve the Presumption of Innocence ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/title-ix-ags/582673/
Jensen Comment
Probably the most difficult aspect of this controversy is evidence of consent or lack thereof

The Atlantic:  Rise of the Victimhood Culture ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/jussie-smollett-story-shows-rise-victimhood-culture/583099/


Venture Capital --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital

History of Venture Capital in the USA ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/vc-an-american-history-by-tom-nicholas.html


Recent Trade War Timeline:  How Countries Won U.S. Tariffs Exemptions: Retaliation Threats, Intense Lobbying and an Emphasis on Alliances ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-countries-won-u-s-tariffs-exemptions-retaliation-threats-intense-lobbying-and-an-emphasis-on-alliances-1521838750?mod=wsj_eng_chtrd_215

The Trump administration began punishing imports of steel and aluminum from around the world early Friday—but not metal coming from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Mexico and South Korea.

An hour before the global tariffs took effect, the White House released proclamations signed by President Donald Trump that temporarily exempted select countries from the tariffs that he said were needed on national security grounds.

Some allies’ reactions were mixed: happy to be spared from the duties—at least until May—but wary as talks with the U.S. continued. “People are relieved that we don’t have an immediate confrontation, but the fact that it is time-limited means we are still worried by this approach, which we don’t think is the right approach,” EU Ambassador to the U.S. David O’Sullivan said Friday.

Japan, a top U.S. ally not granted a temporary exemption, and other trading partners, chafed at having their steel exports to the U.S. taxed at 25%, with aluminum taxed at 10%, on top of any other duties Washington already imposes. The brunt of the tariffs will fall on China and Russia, which the Trump administration has identified as national security challenges.

 

More than a dozen trading partners complained about the unilaterally imposed U.S. tariffs at the Geneva headquarters of the World Trade Organization. The trade body’s director general, Roberto Azevedo, called on Friday for “restraint and urgent dialogue as the best path forward to resolve these problems.”

Mr. Trump announced the tariffs primarily as a way of putting global pressure on China. Defenders of the U.S. domestic industry and trade hawks in Mr. Trump’s administration pushed hard to avoid too many national exemptions from the tariffs. Top backers of the tariffs also want to limit the number of products that may soon be excluded through a 90-day process at the U.S. Commerce Department.

Still, the global tariffs risked alienating allies and trading partners locked in negotiations with Washington, all at a time when U.S. officials are seeking to isolate China over its trade practices.

The excluded countries all made the case that their metal exports don’t impair U.S. national security, the legal basis for the tariffs, but different economies emphasized different approaches. Some threatened retaliation, a tactic that appeared to pay off for those nations, according to a business lobbyist in Washington.

Brazil and Australia claimed their exports of semifinished steel help rather than hurt the U.S. industry. Brazilian Ambassador Sergio Amaral and Brazil Steel Institute Chief Executive Marco Polo de Mello Lopes said they argued that their resource-rich country isn’t “part of the problem” but “part of the solution.”

Brazilian steel slab feeds an Alabama plant that rolls finished metal for the southeastern auto industry.

Continued in article


Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling released from federal custody ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/r-former-enron-ceo-jeffrey-skilling-released-from-federal-custody-2019-2

Bob Jensen's threads on the famous Enron fraud (that among other things helped to destroy the huge 85,000 employee Andersen auditing firm) ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm

Especially note the Timeline and the Enron Quiz




From the Scout Report on February 22, 2019

NYPL Digital Collections: Navigating the Green Book --- http://publicdomain.nypl.org/greenbook-map/
We originally featured Navigating the Green Book in the 2-5-2016 Scout Report, and this resource is still a wonderful way to learn about an important aspect of African-American history. Between 1936 and 1967, a black postal worker from Harlem named Victor Green published an annual directory known as the Green Book. In it, Mr. Green listed businesses that would gladly (and safely) serve African-American travelers, including hotels and restaurants, nightclubs and bars, beauty salons and gas stations. Here, readers will find an inspiring new project from the New York Public Library that engages public domain collections of the Green Books. Readers may browse covers from the 1947, 1948, 1955, 1956, and 1960 issues, explore the digital collection itself, or map a trip using aggregated data from a number of the books. This last feature offers the most creative way to navigate the Green Book. After entering a starting point and a destination, the program uses data from the original guides to visualize where black travelers would have been allowed to stop for a drink, buy gas, eat at a restaurant, or sleep. For readers interested in the history of discrimination in the United States, these excellent resources will pay big dividends.


Free Online Tutorials, Videos, Course Materials, and Learning Centers


Education Tutorials

Skype a Scientist --- www.skypeascientist.com

The Food Programme --- www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnx3

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

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for multiple disciplines --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm

Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

 


Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

Skype a Scientist --- www.skypeascientist.com

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials --- http://aem.cast.org/

Neuroscientists Say They've Found an Entirely New Form of Neural Communication ---
https://www.sciencealert.com/neuroscientists-say-they-ve-found-an-entirely-new-form-of-neural-communication

When Kodak Accidentally Discovered A-Bomb Testing ---
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a21382/how-kodak-accidentally-discovered-radioactive-fallout/

From an MIT Newsletter
A new weather model in the US is facing a storm of protest It predicts temperatures will be a few degrees colder than they actually are ---
Click Here
This reveals that some of the green protest are more anti-establishment than science. It's consistent with Bill Mahar's wish for an enormous recession that could sweep the Democrats back in power.

New Universe map unearths 300,000 more galaxies ---
https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/new-universe-map-unearths-300000-more-galaxies-doc-1dl6xk1

Audubon's Birds of America --- http://audubon.library.pitt.edu/

Internet Bird Collection --- www.hbw.com/ibc

Science NetLinks: Look Up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard --- http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/look-bird-watching-your-own-backyard/

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Social Science and Economics Tutorials

From commonplace to rarer tragedy - declining child mortality across the world ---
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-global-overview

The Food Programme --- www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnx3

The Black Student Strike of 1969 --- https://news.wisc.edu/black-student-strike/

Anthropology

Hearst Museum of Anthropology --- https://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/explore/

Sapiens Podcast (Anthropology) --- www.sapiens.org/sapiens-podcast

Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal --- http://teachinglearninganthro.com/

Deja Lu (Anthroplogy Journals) --- www.wcaanet.org/dejalu

Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology --- http://perspectives.americananthro.org/

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Law and Legal Studies

Is 'New York Times v. Sullivan' in Danger of Being Overruled?
https://psmag.com/news/is-new-york-times-v-sullivan-in-danger-of-being-overruled

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to Law


Math Tutorials

The Impossible Mathematics of the Real World --- http://nautil.us/issue/69/patterns/the-impossible-mathematics-of-the-real-world-rp

Byrne's Euclid ---  www.c82.net/euclid

Mathematical Association of America: On This Day --- www.maa.org/news/on-this-day

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to Mathematics and Statistics

Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


History Tutorials

From commonplace to rarer tragedy - declining child mortality across the world ---
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-global-overview

The History of Ancient Greece in 18 Minutes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/the-history-of-ancient-greece-in-18-minutes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Lifespan of Ancient Civilizations Detailed in a Handy Infographic: Are We Headed Towards Our Own Collapse?
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/the-lifespan-of-ancient-civilizations-shown-in-handy-infographic.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Connected Histories (British Museum) --- www.connectedhistories.org

When Kodak Accidentally Discovered A-Bomb Testing ---
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a21382/how-kodak-accidentally-discovered-radioactive-fallout/

800 Illuminated Medieval Manuscripts Are Now Online: Browse & Download Them Courtesy of the British Library and Bibliothèque Nationale de France ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/800-illuminated-medieval-manuscripts-are-now-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

J. J. Sylvester, in an 1877  commencement address at Johns Hopkins University, gave his view on the relation between teaching and research ---
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Sylvester.html

History of Venture Capital in the USA ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/vc-an-american-history-by-tom-nicholas.html

The Incomplete History Told by New York’s K.G.B. Museum ---
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/incomplete-history-told-new-yorks-kgb-museum-180971458/

The Black Student Strike of 1969 --- https://news.wisc.edu/black-student-strike/

Atlas of Endangered Alphabets --- www.endangeredalphabets.net

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to History
Also see http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm  

Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Language Tutorials

Atlas of Endangered Alphabets Language Arts www.endangeredalphabets.net

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Languages


Music Tutorials

Atlas of Endangered Alphabets --- www.endangeredalphabets.net

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to Music

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


Writing Tutorials

Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries



Bob Jensen's threads on medicine ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine

CDC Blogs --- http://blogs.cdc.gov/

Shots: NPR Health News --- http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots

Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/

February 14, 2019

February 16, 2019

February 19, 2019

February 21, 2019

February 22, 2019

February 26, 2019

View All Health News

 


Bill Gates is Really Into Germs and Worms

Bill Gates says a diet 'breakthrough' based on the microbes crawling in your gut could help the world's waistlines ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-diet-breakthrough-microbiome-2019-2

Return of the Outhouse ---
A $350 toilet powered by worms may be the ingenious future of sanitation that Bill Gates has been dreaming about ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-foundation-helps-invent-tiger-toilets-powered-by-worms-2019-1

Jensen Comment
This is a marvelous invention the environment and people living in warm climates. I'm not so sure about about walking to a privy this morning when it's -6F outdoors. Of course it's possible to have a short heated walkway to the privy.
The savings of precious water alone makes this an intriguing idea.

This could also be an answer to homeless concentrations on the streets.

The worms may be fat and healthy while longing to be free.




Humor for February 2019

Humor from Canada
A hockey coach in Canada mic'd up his 4-year-old son to 'understand he was doing out there' and the results are adorable ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/a-hockey-coach-in-canada-micd-up-his-4-year-old-son-to-understand-he-was-doing-out-there-and-the-results-are-adorable-2019-2

Jensen Comment
When my son Marshall was 4-years old he played hockey in the University of Maine's new arena.
In his first game his team was beaten 15 to zero.
Afterwards he skated (wobbled really) over to me and asked:
"Who won Dad?"

 

Things to Look for While Growing Old (forwarded by Paula)

Your  kids are becoming you......but your grandchildren are perfect!    

~Going out is good.. coming home is even  better!
    

~You forget names.... but it's OK,  because other people forgot they even knew you!!!


~You realize you're never going to be  really good at anything.... especially golf.
    

~The things you used to care to do, you  no longer care to do, but you really do care that you don't care to do them  anymore.
   

~You  sleep better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring than in bed. It's called  "pre-sleep."

~You miss the days when everything  worked with just an "ON" and "OFF" switch..
    

~You tend to use more 4 letter words ...  "what?"..."when?"...???


~Now that you can afford expensive  jewelry, it's not safe to wear it anywhere.


~You notice everything they sell in  stores is "sleeveless?!"
    

~What used to be freckles are now liver  spots.
    

~Everybody  whispers.
    

~You have 3 sizes of clothes in your  closet.... 2 of which you will never wear.
    

~But "Old" is good in some things:  

Old Songs, Old  movies ...
and best of all, our dear ...OLD  FRIENDS!!    

Stay well, "OLD FRIEND!" 

 




Humor February 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q1.htm#Humor0219.htm    

Humor January 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q1.htm#Humor0119.htm   

Humor December 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q4.htm#Humor1218.htm  

Humor November 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q4.htm#Humor1118.htm 

Humor October 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q4.htm#Humor1118.htm

Humor October 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q4.htm#Humor1018.htm   

Humor September 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q3.htm#Humor0918.htm 

Humor August 2018 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q3.htm#Humor0818.htm  

Humor July 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q3.htm#Humor0718.htm 

Humor June 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q2.htm#Humor0618.htm

Humor May 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q2.htm#Humor0518.htm

Humor April 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q2.htm#Humor0418.htm

Humor March 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q1.htm#Humor0318.htm 

Humor February 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q1.htm#Humor0218.htm

Humor January 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q1.htm#Humor0118.htm 

Humor December 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q4.htm#Humor1217.htm

Humor November 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q4.htm#Humor1117.htm

Humor October 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q4.htm#Humor1017.htm

Humor September 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q3.htm#Humor0917.htm 

Humor August 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q3.htm#Humor0817.htm

Humor July 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q3.htm#Humor0717.htm

Humor June 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q2.htm#Humor0617.htm

Humor May 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q2.htm#Humor0517.htm

Humor April 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q2.htm#Humor0417.htm

Humor March 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q1.htm#Humor0317.htm

Humor February 2017 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q1.htm#Humor0217.htm

Humor January 2017 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q1.htm#Humor0117.htm

 




Tidbits Archives --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.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/

Online Distance Education Training and Education --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone of Fraud  (College, Inc.) --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://faculty.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://faculty.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://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://faculty.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://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

 

For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for free) go to   http://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Some Accounting History Sites

Bob Jensen's Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links --- http://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

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

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

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.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