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Mitt Romney Defends 2008 Stance To ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt’

Dave Jamieson — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:17:21 +0000

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WASHINGTON — Speaking at the Arizona GOP debate less than a week before the Michigan primary, Mitt Romney defended the stance he took in 2008 against a federal assistance plan for Detroit automakers, arguing that the companies should have been left to go bankrupt and face the free market. “These companies need to go through managed bankruptcy,” Romney said to applause from the Michigan crowd. Rather than receive federal aid or loans to whether the downturn, the companies should have been left on their own to “shed the extra costs” incurred by labor contracts with the United Auto Workers union, Romney said. “No way would we allow the auto industry to totally implode and disappear,” Romney added carefully. “It would go through bankruptcy.” In fact, GM and Chrysler eventually did go through bankruptcy — with the help of the $80 billion financing plan started under the Bush administration and broadened under the Obama administration. Many people believe it’s unlikely the companies could have weathered the bankruptcy process without some kind of federal intervention. In November 2008, Romney penned an oft-cited opinion piece for the New York Times laying out his position. The piece was entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye,” the piece started. “It wonât go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.” Three years later, the auto industry has largely recovered since the crisis, and the financial rescue plan has played to Obama’s political benefit. Romney’s hardline stance may have endeared him to free-market conservatives, but there may be plenty of Republican voters in Michigan who continue to view the financial package as a prudent move. During Wednesday night’s debate, fellow GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum knocked Romney for what he described as inconsistency on the bailout issue. The former Massachusetts governor may have bristled at the idea of an auto bailout, Santorum noted, but he supported the much larger bailout of America’s major banks, an industry that counts Romney as one of its own. “He supported the folks on Wall Street,” Santorum said of Romney. “When it came to the folks in Detroit he said no…. I believe in markets, and not just when they’re convenient for me.” Separating the auto and bank rescues, Romney argued that leaving the major lenders to the free market would have had devastating effects across the economy. “I was concerned that if we didnât do something there was a pretty high risk that not just Wall Street but all banks would collapse,” Romney said.

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Mitt Romney Defends 2008 Stance To ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt’

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Rep. Charles Rangel: Unemployment and Poverty in America

Rep. Charles Rangel — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:07:11 +0000

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The recent payroll tax deal struck by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama will keep an average of $1,000 in the pockets of 160 million American families through 2012 in addition to enabling tens of millions of seniors to continue seeing the doctor of their choice under Medicare. It also provides unemployment benefits for millions of people who have been unable to find a job; however many Republicans continued to ignore the impact unemployment insurance has on poverty in America. They argue that jobless individuals would rather collect unemployment benefits than look for work. This argument is both insensitive and baseless. Unemployment insurance is an individual worker’s insurance program, not a handout. Just as with automobile or homeowners insurance, one must first have paid into the system to receive compensation. To do so he must have been employed full-time and have lost his job at no fault of his own by being laid off. Under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, Republicans have demanded unnecessary requirements that make it more difficult for unemployed Americans to collect their benefits. States can now require drug tests for certain beneficiaries. Republicans also have included burdensome provisions that will require recipients to undergo “reemployment assessments” and “national job search requirements.” Fortunately the enacted legislation excluded further damaging Republican measures such as raising Medicare costs for beneficiaries that would have caused 170,000 seniors to lose health coverage. Republicans also attempted to pass a provision that would have denied insurance benefits to any recipient who lacks a high school diploma or a GED (General Equivalency Diploma) certificate and is not currently enrolled in classes to obtain one. This would have impacted 47 percent of America’s workers over 45 years old that have paid into the system during their working years, but are now jobless and in the process of securing their future. Yet with 13 million Americans still unemployed , the deal only extends current levels and length of unemployment insurance through May of this year. Afterwards, maximum lengths of benefits decrease in steps depending on individual states’ unemployment rate. For New Yorkers, it is projected that the new law will retain the current maximum level of 93 weeks through May, reduce the maximum to 73 weeks over the summer and to 63 weeks in September. Today there are around 50 million Americans living in poverty. In New York City alone the poverty rate is 19.1 percent , higher than the national average of 15 percent . It is deplorable that we would put further constraints on one of the few programs that helps keep Americans out of poverty and provides assistance at a very difficult time for them. This is an insurance policy that workers pay for. Their federal government is simply providing extra assistance — as it historically has done every time the national unemployment rate exceeds 7.5 percent — because the current unemployment rate is currently so high. The most recent Census proves that unemployment insurance lifted an estimated 3.2 million Americans out of poverty. Out of those numbers, 861,000 were children living with a family member who qualified for unemployment insurance. Finding a job is already a daunting enough task while trying to make ends meet with unemployment benefits. The national average amount received is merely 36 percent of the recipient’s previous weekly wage; in New York the average income is $32,000. Having that cut by 64 percent would leave a worker at risk of living in poverty and deprive him the security gained by full-time employment. Since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the historic Social Security Act of 1935, unemployment insurance has kept American families from falling into poverty and provided some relief while they look for a new job. Seventy seven years later, this vital lifeline for unemployment insurance recipients continues to be weakened. We are talking about people who have played by the rules yet still lost their hope for a better future. They are hard working Americans who have caught a tough break and must now worry about surviving one day at a time. Rather than enforcing stringent requirements to receive their entitled benefits, we should be providing them the assistance and confidence they need while trying to start a new career. Drug testing, reemployment assessments and additional cumbersome requirements are the last things they need right now.

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Rep. Charles Rangel: Unemployment and Poverty in America

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WATCH: Oil Man’s Son Fights Pipeline And ‘Decline Of A Civilization’

Joanna Zelman — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:05:24 +0000

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Lee Brain may claim to be “no one in particular,” but after a speech delivered last weekend to a pipeline review panel, many identify him as the oil man’s son who “does not see eye to eye” with his father. Brain delivered his stirring speech in Prince Rupert on February 18 to Canada’s Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel. As the Vancouver Observer highlighted , it was “the most moving moment” of the hearings. The proposal to run a pipeline from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia has been fought by many environmental and aboriginal groups. According to their website , the government-mandated Joint Review Panel is working to “assess the environmental effects of the proposed project and review the application under both the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the National Energy Board Act.” Growing up in Prince Rupert as the son of an EPCM contractor, 26-year-old Brain is an unlikely pipeline opponent. A few years ago, his father sent him off to experience the oil industry first-hand. His month-long experience on one of the worldâs largest oil refineries in rural India gave him serious doubts about the future of the oil industry. “It’s time for us to dismantle the institutions that are beginning to imprison us,” he said. Brain told the panel he witnessed villages that had slowly become impoverished — he believes this occurred after a refinery project arrived carrying a slew of troubles, from a pipeline break to cheap labor issues. Brain said that his experiences left him believing that “those who work in industry can get excited about growth and yet subsequently, can turn their eyes off towards any adverse impacts they are creating as a result.” Looking to the future, he suggested moving away from fossil fuels, and focusing on a new energy economy. Although Brain was interrupted for presenting an argument over oral evidence of his personal experience, his speech was met with loud applause and a standing ovation, according to the YouTube description . Brain concluded his speech by asking whether people will choose to embrace a new way of life or “a predictable path that leads to the slow, inevitable decline of a civilization.” The Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel describes the panel’s mission on its website, stating they are “an independent body, mandated by the Minister of the Environment and the National Energy Board. The Panel will assess the environmental effects of the proposed project and review the application under both the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the National Energy Board Act.” According to Reuters, many groups that oppose Keystone XL are also against Northern Gateway : They say the route of the pipeline is too dangerous, owing to seismic activity, frequent landslides and other natural hazards that could lead to oil spills. They also say the chemical makeup of the diluted bitumen that would flow through the pipeline is more corrosive than conventional oil, a contention that has not been proven by independent study. Enbridge claims their pipeline follows a safe route and uses new technologies which will cut down on rupture risks.

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WATCH: Oil Man’s Son Fights Pipeline And ‘Decline Of A Civilization’

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Obama Signs Payroll Tax Cut Extension

AP — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:13:56 +0000

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama signed the payroll tax cut extension into law Wednesday, notching an election-year victory and rare bipartisan agreement in the continuing partisan battle over jobs, taxes and debt. The $143 billion measure that Congress passed overwhelmingly on Friday continues the 2 percentage-point reduction in the tax that funds Social Security, a cut begun last year to aid the nation’s struggling economic recovery. It also extends jobless benefits for between 63 weeks and 73 weeks, and averts a big cut in the reimbursements doctors get for treating Medicare patients. The president signed the measure without ceremony Wednesday, having already celebrated its passage at an event Tuesday at the White House. Obama senior adviser David Plouffe emailed his gratitude to people who sent the White House their stories about how losing the tax cut would affect their lives. “Extending the payroll tax cut was a critical step for middle class families, but we still have a lot more work to do. So get ready,” Plouffe wrote in an email that included a photograph of Obama signing the bill at his Oval Office desk. The payroll tax cut became a centerpiece of the jobs plan Obama unveiled in September – and of a re-election strategy that seeks to cast his GOP foes as protectors of the rich and out of touch with the worries of working families. The administration estimates that for a worker earning 50,000 a year, the tax holiday means $80 a month in extra take-home pay. For better-paid employees, the bonus could total $2,200 a year. But the cost to the deficit is substantial: another $93 billion for the latest extension. However, bowing to its inevitability, House GOP leaders last week agreed not to demand spending cuts to offset the lost tax revenues. The legislation also extended benefits for the long-term unemployed that average about $300 a week, though Obama and Democratic allies compromised over an initial demand for 99 more weeks. Those benefits will be paid for by auctioning broadcast frequencies and requiring newly hired federal workers to contribute more to their pensions. Obama maintained that both extensions are crucial to supporting a still-fragile recovery from the nation’s deepest recession since the 1930s. GOP leaders initially balked at the extensions, then clashed with Obama and congressional Democrats over how to pay for them. As the holidays approached in December, their opposition drew a fierce public backlash, especially when House Republicans rejected a compromise that Senate leaders had brokered. In the end, Republicans accepted a two-month extension – after paying a heavy political price. “We did not want to repeat the debacle,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said. “We’re dumb, but we’re not stupid.” The extension puts off until December – after the presidential and congressional elections – a mix of taxing and spending decisions, including whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts, increasing the debt ceiling and meeting a trillion-dollar spending cut requirement. ___ Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

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Obama Signs Payroll Tax Cut Extension

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Good News For Obama, But Trouble Ahead

AP — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:05:59 +0000

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is reaping political benefits from the country’s brighter economic mood. A new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are increasingly saying the nation is heading in the right direction and most independents now approve the way he’s addressing the nation’s post-recession period. But trouble could be ahead: Still-struggling Americans are fretting over rising gasoline prices. Just weeks before the summer travel season begins, the Associated Press-GfK survey finds pump prices rising in importance and most people unhappy with how Democratic president has handled the issue. It’s seemingly no coincidence that Obama this week is promoting the expansion of domestic oil and gas exploration and the development of new forms of energy. It’s his latest attempt to show that he, more than any of the Republican presidential contenders, knows that voters’ pocketbooks remain pinched even as the economy improves overall. And on that question of empathy, solid majorities continue to view him as someone who “understands the problems of ordinary Americans” and “cares about people like you,” the AP-GfK survey found. There is evidence that the nation is becoming markedly more optimistic, and that Obama benefits from that attitude. Thirty percent in the poll describe the economy as “good,” a 15-point increase since December and the highest level since the AP-GfK poll first asked the question in 2009. Roughly the same share say the economy got better in the past month, while 18 percent said it got worse, the most positive read in over a year. Looking ahead, four in 10 said they expect the economy to get better in the next year and a third said they think the number of unemployed people in the U.S. will decrease, the highest share on either question since last spring. A quarter of those surveyed said they expect the economy to get worse over the next 12 months, while 31 percent said it would stay the same, the poll found. As optimism has risen, Obama has received a corresponding bump in his approval rating for handling the economy. Forty-eight percent now say they approve of how he’s handling it, up 9 points from December. Still, for some it’s hard to sense an improvement – or give Obama credit for it – when any extra money is being gobbled up at the gasoline pump. “I give him credit for trying to make improvements, but I don’t believe it’s had that much effect,” said Michael Lee Real of Indianola, Iowa, a city water authority worker who counts himself as a Republican-leaning independent. The cost of gasoline is “one of the big things,” says Real, 58. “It fluctuates so much, it makes it hard for me to budget my money.” Overall, seven of 10 respondents called gas prices deeply important, up 6 points from December. Those who view gas prices as “extremely important” rose 9 points, to nearly 39 percent. The average cost of a gallon has risen 30 cents in that time, according to the Energy Information Administration. Views on the president’s handling of the issue are about the same as in December: Six in 10 respondents disapprove, including 36 percent who strongly feel that way, while 39 percent approve. Presidents don’t have a great deal of control over oil or gas prices, which now are being influenced by higher U.S. demand and tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. But few factors generate as much interest and anxiety among Americans. The rise in prices, faced almost daily by voters, could undercut Obama’s argument that he’s strengthening the economy and making families more financially secure. Though Obama’s approval rating on the economy has climbed, his negative rating on handling gas prices is stagnant. Just 39 percent approve of what he’s doing there, and 58 percent disapprove. Republicans, locked in battle for the right to face Obama in the general election, expect gas prices to be a top issue by the time Americans set out on their summer vacations. The four vying for the GOP nomination already are warning of higher prices and are pushing for more drilling and relaxed regulations on domestic oil production. Some are talking dollars and cents: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is dangling the prospect of $2.50-a-gallon gas if he’s elected; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is warning of $5-a-gallon gas if he’s not. Generally, the public’s approval of Obama has risen with the economy’s climb from recession. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent in January, the lowest level in nearly three years. The housing market is flashing signs of health ahead of the spring buying season, with mortgage rates still low, sales of previously occupied homes at their highest level since May 2010, and more first-time buyers making purchases. The nation is far from a full recovery. Millions of Americans remain out of work. And Wall Street investors still worry over the details of Greece’s economic bailout plan. According to the poll, Obama’s overall approval rating ticked upward slightly, from 44 percent in December to 49 percent now. The 9-point approval increase for his handling of the economy comes from Democrats and independents, constituencies crucial to Obama’s re-election hopes. Among Democrats, his approval on the economy has shot from 67 percent to 83 percent. Among independents, 49 percent now approve, up from 38 percent in December. Obama also gained support among women during a period in which his administration seemed to stumble over whether religious employers should be forced to pay for contraception. In overall approval, Obama rebounded from 43 percent among women in December to 53 percent now, according to the survey. And half of all adults now say Obama deserves to be re-elected, a 7-point rise from December that reverses a downward trend that had been in place since May. More than eight in 10 Democrats say he should be elected to a second term, and half of all independents feel the same way, the survey found. The AP-GfK poll was conducted Feb. 16-20 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and had a margin of error of 4.1 percent. ___ AP Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta, Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report. ___ Online: http://www.ap-GfKpoll.com

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Good News For Obama, But Trouble Ahead

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‘The Scream’ And Other Shockingly Expensive Works Of Art

The Huffington Post — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:15:17 +0000

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With an estimated price tag of more than $80 million, some may gawk right back at Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” the iconic painting to be auctioned in May. But based on recent sales, potential buyers are likely anxious to get out their checkbooks. One of four versions of Norwegian expressionist painter Munch’s classic piece of work will soon be auctioned by Sotheby’s for an estimated $80 million. It could even fetch double that amount, according to some art experts . Interestingly, this version is the only one not currently owned by a Norwegian museum and instead part of a private collection. The other three versions of “The Scream” have all been stolen and subsequently recovered in recent years. According to the head of Sotheby’s impressionist and modern art department, Simon Shaw, the timing is especially favorable given that next year marks the 150th anniversary of Munch’s birth . That said, surpassing the price of some recent sales will be no easy feat. Just this month it was revealed that the royal family of Qatar completed the most expensive art transaction in history when it bought Paul CÃ©zanne’s “The Card Players” for $250 million . Likewise, the record for most expensive auction sale was set in 2010 when Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” fetched over $106 million at a Christie’s auction. Here are the ten most expensive works of art sold either privately or at auction ( h/t AOL Money ):

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‘The Scream’ And Other Shockingly Expensive Works Of Art

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West Virginia Mine Boss Gary May Charged in Fatal Explosion

John Rudolf — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:11:23 +0000

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Federal prosecutors in West Virginia filed criminal charges on Wednesday against a former senior supervisor of the Upper Big Branch coal mine, where an explosion killed 29 miners in April 2010. Gary May, 43, was charged with felony conspiracy for what prosecutors said was his role in thwarting federal inspectors in their efforts to enforce safety regulations at Upper Big Branch. The mine was owned by Massey Energy at the time of the explosion and purchased in June 2011 by Alpha Natural Resources. The charges were filed directly with the court, rather than with a grand jury, suggesting that May is cooperating with authorities. May, the highest-ranking mine official charged so far, faces up to five years in prison if found guilty. Prosecutors said the investigation is “absolutely” not over. May’s testimony could implicate high-ranking corporate executives at Massey Energy in safety violations and fraud, including Don. L. Blankenship, the company’s former CEO, said Mark D. Moreland, a West Virginia attorney who represents several families of miners who died at Upper Big Branch. “The way that Massey Energy managed its mines was very hands-on by corporate people,” said Moreland, who also served as a miners’ representative during the federal investigation into the explosion. “From that, you can extrapolate that corporate people knew what was going on and directed what was going on.” Three investigations reports into the Upper Big Branch disaster concluded that inadequate ventilation allowed highly explosive dust to build up in the mine, causing the explosion. A 972-page report by the Labor Department in December 2011 found more than 300 violations of federal mine safety law and concluded that “unlawful policies and practices” by Massey were the “root cause of the tragedy.” The charges against May are part of an increasingly aggressive push for accountability by federal prosecutors in the Upper Big Branch case. On Feb. 14, U.S. attorney Booth Goodwin urged a federal judge in Charleston to give Hughie Elbert Stover , the former mine security chief at Upper Big Branch, a 25-year maximum sentence for lying to investigators and attempting to destroy evidence in the federal investigation of the disaster. “A sentence consistent with the magnitude of the defendant’s conduct and its consequences will send a resounding message: Gambling with coal miners’ lives risks the most severe punishment available under the law,” Goodwin wrote in a motion filed with the court. “Tens of thousands of similar federal sentences are handed down every year,” he wrote. Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a sentence between 33 and 41 months, but a judge is not bound to follow those guidelines. The push for a heavy sentence for Stover is yet another signal of a far less tolerant attitude by federal officials toward mine safety violations, Moreland said. “I think it’s another indication that there’s a new sheriff in town,” he said. “I think Goodwin is trying to make it clear to the industry that he’s going to take these things very seriously.” Alpha Natural Resources released a statement on Wednesday noting that Gary May became an employee of a company subsidiary after its acquisition of Massey Energy in 2011, but had since been placed on administrative leave. “Although Alpha was not operator of the mine at the time of the accident, the company supports efforts that will lead to a full understanding of the circumstances that precipitated this tragic event,” the company said.

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West Virginia Mine Boss Gary May Charged in Fatal Explosion

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Philipp Schwind: Why Cornel West Supports Unionizing Cafeteria Workers at University of Miami

Philipp Schwind — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:51:43 +0000

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When Cornel West made a surprise appearance at a University of Miami Vigil for foodservice workers last night, I was in shock. However, his support only affirmed what I already thought to be true: if we as students believe that everybody on our campus deserves respect, nothing should stop us from fighting alongside with them. This story begins at the beginning of last summer. I was sitting down having dinner at the University of Miami food court, when an older Hispanic lady pulled me aside. She was a food service worker from my campus and wanted to talk to me about problems at her workplace, a pizzeria on our campus. Other workers had told her that STAND (Students Toward A New Democracy), our student group on campus, was supportive when our janitors successfully unionized and bargained for fair wages and healthcare in 2006. But now once again, workers were being treated unfairly and they were asking for our support. The lady told me that one of the restaurants on our campus was closing and laying off the employees with only a weeks worth of pay instead of reassigning them to one of the dozen other food restaurants. They were told that they could reapply within the company, but that no guarantee could be given that they would be rehired. Many of these workers had worked for up to ten years for on our campus. It was soon clear to us that we needed to help these workers. As a grassroots organization, STAND doesn’t follow an agenda of its own. Rather, we stand in solidarity with groups and communities in Miami that are not being treated fairly by our university’s policies. The University of Miami is the second largest employer in Miami and thus has a massive influence over the economy and how workers are treated. Over the summer, we collected petitions on our campus asking the university to demand from its contractor Chartwells to rehire those workers. Although few students were on campus over the summer break, it wasn’t difficult to collect over 100 signatures. We were soon called by an administrator and told that the workers would be reassigned . We had learned something critical: we as students have power. Talking to these food service workers, we soon realized that the underlying issue was that these workers had no voice to represent their interests. We started asking more questions: How were these workers doing? How was their pay? Do they have any benefits? The salaries many of these workers are often below the living wage . Many of them have to support a family with less than $1300 a month in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. This makes even a subsidized health plan unaffordable. In the case that they wanted to cover two dependents in their insurance, they would have to pay a substantial portion of their paychecks. After the majority of workers in the dining halls began expressing that they wanted to form a union, workers reported that Chartwells management began reacting. We know that in 2006 when the janitors on our campus fought for a union, workers were laid off for their support of the union. We are afraid that the same might happen again. In order to make sure that our food service workers can exercise their right to form a union, STAND is mobilizing students on campus in order to tell the university to guarantee a fair process. Some weeks ago, our student newspaper covered the issue and endorsed our campaign . Why am I fighting with these workers? What makes me expect that my university pays these people more salary and gives them better benefits than the minimum the market demands? How is it possible for an institution of higher learning to educate young minds, help to turn them into responsible critical citizens and leaders while at the same time ignoring the plight of those who work in my community? We cannot be critical students in the classroom and at the same time blind consumers when we go to lunch. Sure, it would cost the university some money to let these workers unionize and negotiate a contract that includes a better pay and more benefits. However, every week we receive emails about expansions or million-dollar fundraising efforts . Thus, it is not beyond our means as a university to treat these food service workers with the dignity and respect they deserve. Last night at our vigil to support their right to a union and living wage, Cornel West gave me hope; so did Father Corbishley from the St. Bede Episcopal Chapel and the large audience of students, 1Miami supporters and workers. If more students and faculty listened to them, and pressured their university to act responsibility and not tolerate worker abuses or subpoverty wages, we could all help shape a better world.

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Philipp Schwind: Why Cornel West Supports Unionizing Cafeteria Workers at University of Miami

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Blythe McGarvie: Improving Your Reputation

Blythe McGarvie — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:48:13 +0000

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Recently a magazine editor asked me to respond to questions from his readers who were mainly Chief Financial Officers and future C-Suite executives. As I reflected on the theme of some of the best questions, it struck me that readers in any executive management position make decisions each day that either enhance his or her reputation or hurt it. So, if you are interested in enhancing your reputation in and with the financial community, consider the following suggestions. Changing the CFO Image:Â The title “CFO” is a bad word these days. Have we brought that on ourselves or is it the fault of the media? – Bryce in London, England Dear Bryce, I agree that the position of CFO is the most misunderstood and underappreciated position in a corporation. My personal experience as a CFO showed me that being an example of integrity is the most important part of the role. Once others see that the CFO challenges the status quo in an effective manner by working through the current management and executive processes, others will appreciate what a high impact and important job it is. It doesn’t matter if we or the media created the negative aura. What matters is that each of us who has financial skills uses them to build trust between the company’s management and employees, customers and investors. In time, the reputation of the CFO position will rebound. Courage Quotient: Can you identify a leader with aÂ high CQ Â (Courage Quotient) and walk through how that is making him or her a better leader? – Jill in Cleveland, OH Dear Jill, The example I used in my bookÂ Shaking the Globe Â is John Bryan, who served as CEO of the Sara Lee Corp. for many years. I worked with him to gain personal knowledge. He stood up for his beliefs even in the face of the most fearsome of naysayers. He also showed empathy for others and willingness to stand out when an opportunity to help others presented itself. These traits made him a better leader as he embraced diversity and made sure he and others recruited and retained the most talented people available through formal and informal channels, regardless of race or gender. Transparency Overkill:Â Having a high CQ means more open and direct communication. Am I supposed to let everyone view my financials at will? – Lew in New York, NY Dear Lew, Never disclose private or confidential information. That being said, I think we over-dramatize what is confidential when, in fact, it is not because much of the information is already available either through analyst reports, public filings or presentations. I learned that when I, as CFO, would ask someone within my company for information, if he said it was confidential, normally that meant he did not have the analysis or data. Transparency kills unsavory practices by putting a spotlight on available information and usually builds better communications throughout an organization by minimizing the reliance on rumor or innuendo to understand the process of a decision. Decision-Making Optimization:Â Do you have any insights or research that may point to practical ways in which individuals, business functions and entire organizations can increase the speed of their decision-making? – Mary in New York, NY Dear Mary, Your question about how can you increase the speed of decision-making has a simple but complex answer, ‘it depends.’ One of the most important aspects of decision-making speed is driven by the type of industry in which your company competes. Some industries, such as airplane manufacturing, require a great deal of lead time and technological development before management will make an investment. The risk of being wrong carries a high price tag. Just imagine the delays of the Boeing Dreamliner and the effect that will have on future decision-making in the company. The second important aspect isÂ howÂ the company makes decisions. You need to determine if decisions are made through directive, participative or consensus means. Obviously, the directive approach will be the quickest approach and often is found in start-up organizations in which most employees know each other and have no legacy systems or processes to be followed. In addition, customers and competitors may require the company to speed up decisions due to a change in the ecosystem of the industry. Point this out to your management to create a sense of urgency and need for speed.

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Blythe McGarvie: Improving Your Reputation

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Delia Lloyd: Five Facts About Social Mobility

Delia Lloyd — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:38:55 +0000

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One of the hallmark features of adulthood is believing that you have the means to better yourself. As you step outside the comfort zone of the home in which you were raised, part and parcel of your newfound freedom and responsibility is harnessing that independence towards making something of yourself. In the American context, at least, there’s the added belief that where you start doesn’t affect where you end up. Describing the putative American Dream , Horatio Alger wrote that we live in “a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” In other words, people of my generation — and those before me — were all raised believing that, regardless of where we started, we could achieve a life for ourselves that was as good as — if not better than — that of our parents. What a bummer to discover that this great national mythology that’s sustained us for so many generations may no longer be true. Indeed, a spate of recent studies suggests that Americans — unlike many of their European counterparts — are no longer upwardly mobile. Here’s what I’ve learned: 1. Social mobility is declining in the U.S. The basic data are startling. According to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts , despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths. Meanwhile, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths. Pew further found that nearly one third of individuals raised in middle-class families couldn’t hold on to their status when they reached adulthood. Yikes. 2. Increased income inequality is a major culprit . In a recent article in the Atlantic on this topic , Timothy Noah talks about one of the major causes of downward mobility in America: rising income inquality. Drawing on data by labor economist Alan Kreuger and others, Noah notes that during the American industrial revolution, growing income inequality was the price the United States paid for growing economic mobility. In the present era, in contrast, income inequality may be choking off opportunity. If you want to see this in comparative perspective, have a look at this graph of this so-called Great Gatsby Curve on Paul Krugman’s blog at the New York Times , which shows quite clearly that the U.S. is both more unequal than other comparable developed countries (as measured by its Gini coefficient) and also has quite limited social mobility (as measured by income heritability). Kreuger further predicts that the persistence in the advantages and disadvantages of income passed from parents to children will rise by about a quarter for the next generation as a result of the rise in inequality that the U.S. has seen in the last 25 years. ( The U.K. exhibits a similar trend .) 3. The higher education system is also to blame . Another culprit is America’s higher education system, which — despite efforts to broaden its applicant pool — remains highly exclusive. A Georgetown University study of the class of 2010 at the country’s 193 most selective colleges showed that of entering freshmen, only 15 percent of students came from the bottom half of the income distribution, while sixty-seven percent came from the highest-earning fourth of the distribution. (Again, you see a similar trend in the U.K. ) Another study showed that recruiters for the best firms in investment banking, law and consulting hire disproportionately from only five top schools . With a year’s worth of higher education clocking in at near $50,000, is this at all surprising? 4. Race and gender matter too . The Pew Study on Economic Mobility also showed that a number of factors have impacted adults’ ability to earn a middle-class income like their parents. Among them are marital status, educational attainment, race and even gender. For instance, those who are divorced, widowed or separated are more likely to fall out of the middle class, and women face a greater likelihood than men. Also, Americans who don’t attend college are likely to face downward mobility, with African American men the most likely to drop out of the middle class. 5. Class tension is also on the rise . In light of all of the above, it should come as no surprise that class conflict is also on the rise. According to a different study by Pew, conflict between rich and poor now eclipses racial strain and friction between immigrants and the native-born as the greatest source of tension in American society.

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Delia Lloyd: Five Facts About Social Mobility

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Flickr Is Getting a Major Makeover

Ramona Emerson — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:10:25 +0000

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The new photo view will hit on Feb. 28, Mr. Spiering said, and with it comes a new upload interface. Flickr’s uploading page nowÂ looks more like an app than a website. Goodbye, retro blue links. Hello, swoopy drag-and-drop.

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Flickr Is Getting a Major Makeover

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Even His ‘Fastidious Narcisissm’ Couldn’t Keep Steve Jobs Smelling Good

Ramona Emerson — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:01:51 +0000

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Steve Jobs, the book, is very much a product of its time, which is to say, a product of its subject’s fastidious narcissism and the broader culture’s limitless capacity for nurturing it.

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Even His ‘Fastidious Narcisissm’ Couldn’t Keep Steve Jobs Smelling Good

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FCC Pressures Internet Providers To Protect Customers From Internet Fraud

Reuters — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:56:00 +0000

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Internet service providers need to work harder to prevent hacks, data theft and other fraud, including contacting customers whose infected computers have been hijacked by organized crime and helping them clean out viruses, the head of the Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he sought “smart, practical, voluntary solutions” to the massive problem of Internet fraud and data theft. He estimated that 8.4 million credit card numbers are stolen online each year. Policymakers are eager to prevent security problems and subsequent bad publicity from slowing the growth of the Internet market, worth about $8 trillion a year. “If consumers lose trust in the Internet, this will suppress broadband adoption and online commerce and communication, and all the benefits that come with it,” Genachowski said in a speech. In addition to helping customers whose computers have been pulled into a botnet, a network of computers used to send spam aimed at committing fraud, Genachowski urged network owners to adopt standards to ensure that Internet traffic goes through the most efficient route and to prevent any hijacking. That step would presumably prevent a repeat of a 2010 incident where some 15 percent of Internet traffic was diverted through Chinese servers for about 18 minutes, said Genachowski. The reason for the diversion, whether an innocent mistake or cyber espionage, has never been established. Lastly, Genachowski urged Internet providers to adopt a system called DNSSEC to ensure that if an Internet user, for example, types the Internet address of their bank that they will go to their bank’s web site rather than a fraudulent web site designed to steal passwords. Comcast, which already contacts customers who have been pulled into botnets and which already uses DNSSEC, praised the chairman’s speech. “To be effective, everyone who is a part of the Internet ecosystem must play a meaningful role in ensuring that private and government networks, and personal computers and devices are secured,” said Comcast/NBCUniversal President Kyle McSlarrow in a blog posting. There was no immediate reaction from Verizon or AT&T Inc. Internet security experts were pleased at the prospect of Internet service providers informing customers when their machines were pulled into criminal botnets, and helping them clean up their machines. “The notification has to happen in some way. I think it’s overdue,” said Johannes Ullrich, a cybersecurity specialist at the SANS Institute Internet Storm Center, which monitors threats. Some of the ISPs found that it was cheaper to notify customers before they telephoned to complain. “If you’re infected with malware, your computer is going to be slow. And the first thing they (customers with slow computers) do is call the ISP,” said Ullrich. Dmitri Alperovitch, president of Asymmetric Cyber Operations, said he supported any effort to clear out botnets but said the FCC effort would do little to stop two other major threats: state-supported cyber-espionage, often blamed on China, or securing mobile devices. Prominent hacking targets have included VeriSign, RSA, an authentication company owned by storage maker EMC Corp, and defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp. Others include web search leader Google Inc, Citigroup bank and exchange operator Nasdaq OMX. There are other efforts in Washington to ensure the Internet continues to function smoothly. On Capitol Hill, the Senate is considering a bipartisan bill that requires the secretary of homeland security to designate certain infrastructure like air traffic control as critical and compel steps to defend against hackers. The U.S. House of Representatives is considering similar legislation. (Reporting By Diane Bartz; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Geoffrey Anderson: As the House Transportation Bill Languishes, There’s Still Time to ‘Fix It First’

Geoffrey Anderson — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:40:06 +0000

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Let’s look on the bright side of life. By all accounts, you would be hard-pressed today to find anyone who views congressional inaction positively. But with the House of Representatives’ transportation package languishing amid opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, members of Congress at least have added time to address the bill’s severe shortcomings. Our country’s roads and bridges are in desperate need of repair, so crafting economically beneficial legislation with bipartisan support should be lawmakers’ top priority. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica has already shown us what’s possible when business development and other interests meet, including language in the House bill that would spur development around transit stations and jumpstart real estate investment. With that kind of cooperative leadership as a model, the House would be wise to make the following revisions, showing voters that it’s the congressional branch with the capacity to get things done in an election year: Restore guaranteed funding for public transportation. Let’s talk economics, not politics; historically, investments in public transportation generate 31 percent more jobs per dollar than construction of roads and bridges. Moreover, millions of Americans rely on transit systems to get them to and from work, shops and schools every day. Retaining a dedicated source of funding for public transportation adds certainty that those economic connections remain in place. Ignoring 30 years of bipartisan policy, destabilizing business growth and stranding seniors and commuters without cars hardly seems like a way to win hearts and minds. More emphasis on bridge and road repair. Our existing transportation infrastructure is falling apart: One in nine of the bridges and overpasses American drivers cross each day is rated in poor enough condition that they could become dangerous or be closed without near-term repair. The longer we wait to fund these maintenance projects, the more they’ll cost; according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, every dollar spent to keep a road in good condition avoids 6-14 needed later to rebuild the same road once it has deteriorated significantly. Reinstate measures that provide funding to pedestrian and bicycling safety programs. The decades-long neglect of pedestrian safety in the design and use of American streets comes at heavy cost: From 2000 to 2009, 47,700 pedestrians were killed in the United States. Considering the unfathomable toll such deaths take on families and on economic development and medical costs, it simply doesn’t make sense to cut safety funding when we really should be adding to it. With an increasing percentage of the American population wanting to live in walkable communities with housing options near jobs, shops and schools, the transportation bill needs to support programs in line with those market trends. Transportation comes first. Partisan add-ons have marred Congress’ recent debate over the transportation bills. While lawmakers certainly have the power to raise contentious issues in enacting new legislation, those are distractions that will keep the country from achieving its primary goals. Whatever you think of the specific proposals, everyone knows they amount to poison pills that will delay needed funding and reform until next year. It goes without saying that Americans are ready for an economically sound, people-friendly, and bipartisan transportation bill. It’s a good thing our elected officials have extra time to meet those expectations.

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Geoffrey Anderson: As the House Transportation Bill Languishes, There’s Still Time to ‘Fix It First’

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Romney Saw Marriott Use Tax Shelters As Auditing Chairman

Bloomberg — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:37:56 +0000

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Mitt Romney has long had close ties to hotel operator Marriott International Inc. (MAR) The candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, whose full name is Willard Mitt Romney, was named after the chain’s founder, J. Willard Marriott, a friend of his father. He joined the company’s board in 1993, and has served on it for 11 of the past 19 years, including six as chairman of the audit committee.

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Romney Saw Marriott Use Tax Shelters As Auditing Chairman

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How Can You Green Your Roof?

James Gerken — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:32:21 +0000

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From EarthTechling’s Susan DeFreitas: Those shingles on your roof have nothing better to do than soak up the sun all day long — why not put them to work in powering your home as solar power producers? Itâs a commonsense concept, and one that Dow Solar (a division of Dow Chemical) has been working on for a while . But new research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia may go one better, by helping to develop solar shingles that also help to heat your home. Researchers at the university have produced a prototype of a photovoltaic/thermal system that has demonstrated the ability to produce warm (25 degrees Celsius, or 77 Fahrenheit) throughout winter. The technology employed by the system was developed by UNSWâs School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Engineering , and will be integrated into roofing panels, which will then be tested and further developed through the schoolâs Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Low-Carbon Living this year. The shingles are one of a number of âcarbon-positiveâ products, as theyâre called, designed to help to prepare Australia for a zero carbon building code, which is being introduced in the UK and Europe in 2016. With Australia increasingly ramping up renewable energy — and cutting the carbon emissions across the board, as evidenced by its recent passage of a significant carbon tax on big polluters — it seems likely to follow suit. These products, aimed at cutting the carbon footprint of the average Australian home, will be tested beginning later this year in UNSWâs âliving laboratories,â the latest of which is located in the recently constructed Tyree Energy Technologies Building, built by Brookfield Multiplex, one of the CRCâs industry partners, at the universityâs Kensington campus. During testing, the buildingâs residents and staff will test the effectiveness of these solar roofing materials, with feedback incorporated into the design process in preparation for the commercial market. In the U.S., similar efforts are under way to develop products for the green building industry through the Energy Innovation Hub in Philadelphia, which was established back in 2010 as a center for research innovations in the field of green building . This Hub brings together researchers from Penn State, the private sector and two national laboratories with the aim of developing and testing technologies with the power to cut the carbon footprint of the built environment. As for solar shingle technologies in this country, they have already hit the commercial market, but in a curiously small way, as Dow Solar has made its Powerhouse solar shingle systems commercially available exclusively to homeowners in the state of Colorado. Theyâre being sold as part of a three-part solar roofing system , which includes an array of shingles, an inverter and an energy monitoring system . Dow is certainly not the first company to throw its hat in the solar shingle ring, but its brand recognition and partnerships with mega-builders like D.R. Horton may well give it an edge in this burgeoning market for such tech. The company is currently working on establishing a network of authorized dealers for Powerhouse shingles in Colorado, and will also launch the product in another, undisclosed U.S. market soon.

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How Can You Green Your Roof?

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Jason Alderman: Take ‘America Saves Week’ to Heart

Jason Alderman — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:31:51 +0000

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After four years of coping with a stagnant economy, probably the last thing you want to hear is how important it is to sock away money for a rainy day — you already know that. But hear me out, just in case. Those who struggle with long-term unemployment or under-employment often simply don’t have spare cash available to save (although people can be remarkably resourceful, as you’ll see below). Others, worn out by years of being frugal, just want to buy things again, as we saw during the recent blockbuster holiday shopping season. Even as we wait for economic recovery it’s still good to remember — or perhaps learn for the first time — why saving is so vital: You could lose your job or see your hours or wages cut. Most financial experts recommend having six to nine months’ income saved for emergencies, but even $500 gathered $10 a week could help bail you out of a sticky situation. Medical care, retirement and college tuition far outpace inflation. In fact the average college graduate now carries roughly $25,000 in outstanding loans — debt that can’t be discharged through bankruptcy and has no statute of limitations. If you’re approaching or in retirement, your net worth has probably been hammered by plummeting home and retirement account values in recent years, so your cushion may not be as comfortable as you’d once hoped. Long-term funding for government-provided benefits like Social Security and Medicare is in doubt, so not only might tax rates rise in the future, but benefits will likely decrease or become more expensive, putting more of the onus on you to pay. Thanks to the power of compounding , money saved will grow exponentially faster the sooner you begin saving. If nothing else, you can teach your children good financial habits that will serve them well during hard times. So where can you learn sound savings habits? One great resource is America Saves , a national campaign sponsored by more than 1,000 non-profit, government and corporate organizations. Their goal is to encourage people from all income levels to save money and build personal wealth using their free financial tools, savings services, advice and other resources, including: A Personal Wealth Estimator that helps you calculate your current net worth and estimate your future net worth. A Weekly Blog from national financial experts on topics such as money management, investment basics, building wealth through home ownership, saving during tax time and getting out of debt. Inspirational Saver Stories from people like the Florida woman who started building an emergency fund by saving loose change, having small amounts automatically deducted from her paycheck, and learning how to cut back on impulse buying. Tips for saving money on everything from groceries to utilities to insurance premiums. Links to numerous websites offering financial education materials. Last year, more than 2,000 organizations, including non-profits, employers, government agencies, educational institutions and unions participated in the fifth annual America Saves Week , reaching millions of Americans through events that included: Local banks offered low-fee savings accounts and higher-rate CDs to encourage new savers with small balances. Homeownership savings expos around the country. Free tax preparation assistance and credit counseling. Worldwide Military Saves drives to encourage savings by military families. This year’s America Saves Week, “Set a Goal, Make a Plan, Save Automatically,” is slated for Feb. 19-26, 2012. Here are some great ways to start saving that first $500: Direct deposit part or all of your federal tax refund into a savings account or savings bond. (Check this IRS web page for details.) Avoid overdraft and late fees by regularly monitoring your bank and credit card accounts. Brown-bag it to work more often. If you saved $5 a week, you’d be half-way there. Kick bad habits. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day might cost $2,000-plus a year. If you have low-deductible homeowners, renters or auto insurance, consider raising the deductible to $500 or $1,000. Many save 15 to 30 percent or more on their premiums. Visit Energy Star for tips on reducing home energy consumption. For example, each degree you lower your thermostat saves up to 3 percent on your heating bill. If you get a raise, continue living on your old salary and either direct deposit the increase or use it to pay down interest-bearing debt. For more budgeting ideas, see my previous blog, Feeling the Pinch? Try These Expense-Trimming Tips . And, if you need help creating a budget, see my blog, With Budgeting, Slow and Steady Wins the Race . Saving can be a tough habit to start, but once you’re hooked, you’ll never go back. This article is intended to provide general information and should not be considered legal, tax or financial advice. It’s always a good idea to consult a legal, tax or financial advisor for specific information on how certain laws apply to you and about your individual financial situation. To participate in a free, online Financial Literacy and Education Summit on April 23, 2012, go to Practical Money Skills .

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Jason Alderman: Take ‘America Saves Week’ to Heart

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: Oil Slicks: Who Benefits From Gambling on Gas Prices?

Richard RJ Eskow — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:29:08 +0000

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Anybody who doesn’t believe that energy speculators can change election results might want to ask Gray Davis, the former Governor of California who was removed in a recall drive partly prompted by voter frustration over California’s ongoing energy crisis. Only afterwards did we learn that the crisis was caused by speculators who backed his opponents’ deregulatory agenda — and benefited from it. Coincidence? We report, you decide. And anyone who doesn’t believe that gas prices affect election results might want to ask former President Jimmy Carter. If the 1980 election hadn’t turned out the way it did we might be living in a very different world. Today gas prices continue to rise, despite the fact that demand for oil is lower than it’s been in the last fifteen years. Are speculators affecting our fate again? That’s the subject of heated technical debate, although I find the evidence very compelling. But here’s something to consider: The prime suspects for oil speculation — Goldman Sachs, the Koch Brothers, etc. — are the people who are fighting tooth and nail to make sure government never has the power to investigate their actions. Here’s the California scenario in a nutshell: Deregulation unleashes the dogs of speculation on energy markets, driving up prices and creating scarcity. A moderate Democrat loses office as a result, turning the reins of power over to a Republican who calls for … more deregulation. Could it happen again? Speculation Speculation People keep debating the question, just as they did in 2008: Are speculators affecting oil prices? Skeptics point to the crisis in Iran and recent signs of increased demand as real-world factors that could affect prices. But end-user demand remains low. I find the pro-speculation arguments compelling. But the professional approach to any financial question requires us to “put the ‘anal’ in ‘analyst,’” so the most professional thing to say is: We don’t know for sure. And we can’t know for sure until the government gets the authority and the resources to investigate fully. (More about that in a minute.) Here’s what we do know: Oil prices rose while demand fell. Futures and other financial instruments have allowed all sorts of people to bet on the oil market, along with other commodities markets, for more than twenty years. And whenever demand and prices don’t track together, something is happening that we can’t see. If prices are rising based on expectation that things will get better in the future, that suggests speculators are at work. And if they fall whenever there’s a sign of an upcoming economic storm, that also suggests that prices are being driven by intermediaries who are gambling on the future rather than suppliers responding to demand. Those intermediaries happen to be the same people who keep lobbying to make sure we don’t have the ability to find out what’s happening or the authority to stop it. The Skeptics Some of the people who reject the idea that speculators are at work are also defending a separate but related idea: That oil is a limited commodity and we’re overly dependent on it. That’s true, and some people are afraid that the “speculator” argument will be seen as a blank check to continue our over-reliance on oil. But two things can be true at the same time: Speculation may be affecting the price of a commodity that will nevertheless continue to grow in direct and indirect cost, meaning that we should therefore begin reducing our dependence on it. The Case Why is the case for oil speculation prices so compelling? Not only is there that mysterious divergence between demand and price, but there are also convincing analyses like the one Michael Masters did which linked the last price surge to $60 billion in speculator purchases. Twenty years ago, speculators purchased roughly 30 percent of the world’s future oil deliveries. As of 2011 that number has risen to 70 percent. They wouldn’t be doing it if there weren’t money to be made. It’s hard to believe that they would stake trillions of dollars merely on the wisdom of their educated guesses — especially if they had the opportunity to manipulate the results instead. You can count Goldman Sachs among the believers. Last year it issued a warning that speculation was getting out of hand and driving prices too high. Since Goldman was present at the creation of the speculation market, it has a lot of credibility on the topic. Nobody knows more about Frankenstein’s monster than Dr. Frankenstein himself. Speculation/Manipulation Speculation is one possible cause of rising prices. Another is outright price manipulation, as took place in California. If we have no clear proof that speculators are driving prices, that means we also lack proof of outright manipulation. How do we get proof? There are three possible scenarios: One is that speculators are innocent of any wrongdoing, and aren’t even hurting the economy. Another is that they’re acting legally, but destructively, which may spur calls for new legislation. And the third is that some of them are engaged in criminal behavior. The way to find out is through government investigation, and by strengthening the regulatory power of the appropriate agencies. But look who’s blocking those actions. Cui Bono? As the old prosecutors used to say, Cui Bono? Who benefits? The people who would have both the motive and the opportunity to manipulate markets are the same people who are blocking real investigations. Wall Street firms have been at the forefront of blocking even the mild financial reforms of Dodd/Frank — reforms which include increased limits on their ability to gamble in the commodities market. Energy distributors like the infamous Koch Brothers also have both motive and opportunity. The Koch Brothers own oil suppliers and distributors, and introduced the first oil-indexed Wall Street swap way back in 1986. As suppliers, they can influence price. As speculators, they can make a fortune. Wall Street firms and energy distributors also happen to be pouring enormous sums of money into Washington to make sure they’re never subjected to meaningful regulatory oversight. They’re in bed with a number of prominent politicians, especially in the GOP. (Ten years ago they were literally “in bed” with one another, since Sen. Phil Gramm’s wife was on Enron’s board even as Gramm pushed the deregulation of oil speculation.) Who else benefits from rising oil prices? Republican politicians, who have been using them all week to attack the President and Democrats in general. Coincidence? We report, you decide. To be clear, we’re not suggesting that anybody’s sinking tens of billions of dollars into oil purchases just to decide this year’s election. There are probably cheaper ways to purchase democracy. But if it is all coincidence, it’s all working out pretty nicely for somebody. A Populist Issue As we said in the beginning, we can’t know for sure what’s behind these oil prices. But what we can know is that we don’t know — and that our government should have the resources to track these markets and intervene when they’re being misused. Some people believe the oil price boom may be ending, and that’s possible. But with so much that’s hidden from view, we can’t know. If they continue to rise that could change the course of the upcoming election and lead the President to defeat. Fortunately there are things he can be doing now that would greatly benefit the country, and parenthetically would also help his reelection efforts. Last year he announced an investigation into possible oil speculation, but it was underfunded and seems to have gone nowhere. The President should immediately ramp up that effort and give it real resources. Secondly, the President should mount a strong defense for financial regulation and make the case for strong oversight of commodities trading. He can point to rising oil prices, should they occur, and tell the public that his opponents won’t give him the resources he needs to handle the problem. Third, he can point to GOP-backed moves like the amendment passed in Congress last week which would force U.S. taxpayers to keep guaranteeing big banks’ speculation in oil and other markets as a sign of what this battle is really about: economic security for the many vs. government-guaranteed greed and speculation for the few. To be sure, this latest move had “bipartisan” support, as so much dangerous deregulation has in the past. ( This picture serves as a harsh reminder of Clinton-era coziness with Wall Street.) But that’s exactly the kind of bipartisanship the President should reject: the bipartisanship of corporate politics. That’s a route the President would be well-advised to take. Should he? Yes. Will he? We don’t know — and we’re not in the business of speculating. We discussed oil prices last week with Thom Hartmann in his television show, The Big Picture :

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: Oil Slicks: Who Benefits From Gambling on Gas Prices?

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Marty Zwilling: Scaling a Business by Cloning Yourself Is Tough

Marty Zwilling — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:42:31 +0000

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Many writers have outlined the critical success factors for product companies, like sell every unit at a profit, patent the design, and continuous product improvement. But recently I was asked about success factors for services startups, and I quickly realized that there is very little published to help the thousands of startups that fall in this category. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see. Products are tangible and can be consumed now or later, while services are intangible and have no shelf life. A product business can usually be scaled with minimal people, which can lead to enormous profits and “making money while you sleep.” Scaling services means cloning yourself. Obviously we can find many critical success factors, like finding and retaining high-value customers, which apply to companies that are product centric or services centric. Here are a few which I believe are at least most relevant and important to the services arena: Do what you know and what you love. If your business offers a service, like marketing or management consulting, you are the product. If you or any of your partners really don’t have the credentials, the commitment or the interest, you won’t succeed. Customers don’t like people who don’t show their passion and love for the job. Make sure your service is innovative. Being the low-cost commodity level service provider is not a recipe for success. It’s hard to make up for a low margin by increasing your volume of work. You need to demonstrate innovative approaches, more knowledge, more productivity and superior results to get the references you need. Networking and relationships. No expert or consultant can know everything they need to know. That’s why it is just as important that you can fill in the gaps by having the right relationship with people to back you up. Networking is the way to stay current yourself and nurture those relationships. Clearly communicate the vision, mission, and values. It’s hard to “touch and feel” services ahead of time, to see if you are buying what you expected. Thus it’s up to you to communicate effectively what you are about, to customers as well as your own team. Attract and retain the highly skilled and motivated people. Services people need to hit the ground running. Customers don’t like to see you learning on the job or outsourcing. Every partner and employee can kill your success potential in a heartbeat, so don’t take shortcuts on your hiring and training practices. Define and document the service process you sell. You can’t measure, scale, or patent a service process that is not clearly documented. Even if your service is artisan based, like commercial photography or interior design, the principles, vision, and style need to be clearly communicated to your team as well as your customers. Create and maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is very important for all companies, but it is everything for a services company. You don’t have tangible product items which can be compared for quality and cost in the value proposition. In reality, every company has a services business component, if nothing more than customer service. Thus these are the critical success factors that apply to every company, rather than the ones you typically see for product companies. In addition, the statistics show that over half of new startups, perhaps as high as 75%, provide services only (no product). Another reality is that angel investors and venture capital groups almost never invest in a services-only company. Their perspective is that these entrepreneurs need only to sell themselves, but shouldn’t need capital up front for product development or manufacturing. That’s another reason that your services business is all about you, and what you bring to the table for skills, resources, and customers. In essence, you are the ultimate critical success factor for your business. Make it happen.

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Marty Zwilling: Scaling a Business by Cloning Yourself Is Tough

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Qnexa Proponents Ask U.S. Experts To Back The Obesity Drug

Reuters — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:42:00 +0000

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* Qnexa helped patients lose weight * One ingredient tied to birth defects * Uncertain effect on the heart * FDA advisory panel to vote on drug Wednesday afternoon * Vivus shares halted pending vote By Anna Yukhananov SILVER SPRING, Md., Feb 22 (Reuters) – Proponents of a new obesity medication from Vivus Inc told U.S. reviewers on Wednesday that the drug’s health benefits exceed heart and birth defect risks. A panel of outside experts to the Food and Drug Administration will vote later on Wednesday on whether to recommend approval for what would be the first new prescribed drug for obesity in 13 years. The FDA first rejected Vivus’ Qnexa in 2010 because of safety problems, along with two other obesity pills that are also seeking a second round of consideration. The FDA usually follows panel recommendations, although it is not required to. It will make a final decision by April 17. Qnexa, which combines the appetite suppressant phentermine and anti-seizure drug topiramate, helped patients lose at least 10 percent of their weight after a year of treatment, the company said . Obesity, a leading cause of diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems, has reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with about a third of the population obese and more than half overweight. “Back in medical school, I was taught that when the risk of not treating the condition exceeds the risk of treating it, we should treat,” said Dr. Arya Sharma, a chair in obesity research at the University of Alberta in Canada and paid consultant to Vivus. “We have an obligation to change how we measure obesity. Qnexa addresses an urgent and substantial unmet medical need for our patients,” he told panelists. The FDA has set a high approval bar for weight loss drugs because such a large portion of the general population is likely to want to take them, and has not approved a new obesity drug since 1999. Also, many diet pills have been linked to serious heart-related risks. But patient groups say the FDA is holding obesity drugs to a higher standard than other treatments because of views that it is a choice, not a disease. They are urging the FDA to approve new obesity drugs that would give patients another option between lifestyle changes and surgery. Shares of Vivus were halted on Nasdaq on Wednesday pending the outcome of the FDA panel meeting. They closed at $10.55 on Tuesday, well above the stock’s low around $4.70 after the pill was first rejected. SAFETY RISKS FDA staff presenting on Wednesday said the key issues with Qnexa were about safety, not efficacy. Staff reviewers have said patients taking the drug had more safety problems, including memory loss and higher heart rates, than those on a placebo, and some of these problems could get worse over time. They have also noted that exposure to one of the ingredients in Qnexa has been linked to a higher rate of birth defects. A Vivus study showed topiramate caused a higher rate of oral clefts in infants of women taking the drug during pregnancy, and the company said it would limit Qnexa to women who are not pregnant. The FDA has said the rate of potential birth defects is about two to five times higher with topiramate than with placebo. Vivus officials said obesity, and its common symptom diabetes, come with their own risks to pregnancy, such as stillbirth, premature birth and other complications. The FDA and the company generally agreed on a program to mitigate the drug’s risks to pregnant women, including limiting the drug to certified pharmacies and training doctors who would prescribe it. Panelists will discuss whether they think the program is stringent enough to protect patients from the risk of birth defects. In clinical trials, Qnexa also increased patients’ heartbeats, leading to fears it may have negative effects on the heart. However, Vivus said the drug also reduced blood pressure, and a link between heartbeat and heart health was not conclusive. (Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Daniel Dicker: Here Comes $5 Gas!

Daniel Dicker — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:24:26 +0000

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Here we go again: With gas prices spiking so early in the new year, it’s easy to predict that the United States will see $4 gas sometime this summer. I would even put the chances of $5 gasoline at one in three. And it’s not the pure fundamentals that are driving prices higher right now, which makes this situation even more frustrating. Gasoline demand in the US is at 10-year lows, and we are today literally swimming in refined products. In fact, the United States has become a net exporter of gasoline for one of the few times in our history. Our cars continue to get more efficient and we’re even driving less — our total miles on the road have been dropping steadily for the past three years. So wait a minute — more supply, less demand — why are prices headed upwards then? It doesn’t seem to make much sense. The truth is that supply threats combined with the overwhelming influence of money chasing the oil trade is driving the price of fuel higher. Let me try to map out this ‘perfect storm’ of rising energy prices. Middle East tensions are the kindling for the fire of rising prices. Every day seems to ratchet up the war of words between Iran and the West. The United States continues to add pressure to their financial sanctions, now helping to crater the Iranian rial. They have limited access to any international banks that continue to do business with Iran and have gained tremendous cooperation in the plan to boycott Iranian oil supplies. While the EU has pledged to end imports of Iranian oil as of July 1, even the Chinese have cut their imports of Iranian oil by more than 10% as have the Indians and Japanese, by far the three largest customers of Iranian barrels. Of course, the specter of Israeli military action against Iran continues to loom. And the Iranians have continued to rattle their own sabers, threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, intimating their own preemptive military actions and cutting off oil exports to Britain and France. There is a very strong threat of Iran’s 3mln barrels a day coming out of the global supply chain. Now, throw a little gas on this kindling of geopolitical unrest and you’ve got a recipe for steadily rising prices — and that gas is the unfettered access to financial oil products. One correlation that no one bothers to look at, but has become vital to oil prices are the levels of equity indexes, now reaching again to their highest levels since June of last year and since the Spring of 2008. My book, Oil’s Endless Bid describes this in detail, but the most simple truth is that money flows as easily into hard assets like oil as it does through the stock market. So it’s not just speculators buying oil on the prospects of continuing tensions in the Mideast and the removal of Iranian barrels from the global market, it is the hedge funds, money managers and institutional funds adding to their commodity holdings as they continue to buy stocks. It sounds bizarre, but it’s true — asset investments — bets on oil — are costing us every time we fill up. And with the Iranians refusing to back down on their nuclear aspirations, and stock markets around the world in recovery mode, only a major financial setback in Europe or China is likely to derail this oil rally. And perhaps cost you $5 a gallon at the pumps this summer.

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Obama, Romney Propose Surprisingly Similar Corporate Cuts

Zach Carter — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:23:00 +0000

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have begun a new form of competition: proposing corporate tax cut plans that they claim, wrongly, won’t cost the Treasury a dime. Almost immediately after Obama unveiled his plan on Wednesday, one of the nation’s leading tax policy experts threw cold water on the administration’s claim that its tax overhaul could be implemented “without adding a dime to the deficit.” A separate plan released Wednesday by Republican presidential contender Romney, the expert said, would almost certainly expand the deficit. The Treasury Department on Wednesday laid out a set of principles for rewriting the corporate tax code. The plan would increase the amount of money the government collects from companies by closing loopholes, but would lower the basic corporate tax rate from 35 to 28 percent. It would also require companies that stash money in offshore tax havens to pay a minimum amount in tax every year and provide a special tax break for manufacturing businesses. While the plan’s basic outlines have been advocated by both liberal and conservative tax experts for decades, the prospect of accomplishing those goals without adding to the deficit is far-fetched, said Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel for federal tax policy at the nonpartisan nonprofit Citizens for Tax Justice. “We think at best it’s revenue-neutral, and that is very disappointing,” Wilkins told HuffPost. “Corporations are already paying a really low rate, and lots of corporations aren’t paying any taxes at all. There’s really an opportunity to broaden the base and raise revenue, and you hate to see them leaving that on the table.” In the past three years, 30 of the nation’s largest corporations have paid zero federal income tax. Less than 10 percent of total U.S. tax revenue currently comes from businesses. For much of the 20th century, that number was closer to 30 percent. As a percentage of total American economic output, corporate tax collections are at historical lows. Overall, the tax cuts proposed by the Treasury Department would cost about $1.2 trillion during the next decade. The Obama administration outlined plans to narrow that deficit by $300 billion by closing certain business tax loopholes, but roughly $900 billion in other offsets was left unspecified. In early 2011, Obama first proposed a “revenue-neutral” corporate tax overhaul — meaning the plan would have had no overall effect on the federal budget deficit. But the 2011 plan did not go into the same level of detail that Wednesday’s announcement provided. While the latest announcement does not rule out the possibility that the plan would increase total tax revenues from companies, the administration refused to explicitly discuss such an outcome. “The President is committed to corporate tax reform that does not add a dime to the deficit,” the plan states. Last year when the administration suggested revenue-neutral corporate tax reform, Chuck Marr said , “At a time when cuts to access to college, cuts to scientific research are on the table, it makes no sense to take corporate taxes off the table.” Marr is director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank focused on economic issues. Romney adviser and economist Glenn Hubbard told reporters on a Wednesday conference call that Romney’s latest tax proposal is a “revenue-neutral plan on the corporate side,” inadvertently emphasizing the degree to which the Obama overhaul conforms to generally conservative tax principles. But like the Obama administration, Romney’s team declined to specify exactly which corporate loopholes would be eliminated in order to pay for the proposed corporate cuts. The Romney tax plan announced Wednesday was broadly identical to a proposal released several months ago, aside from a new 20 percent across-the-board cut in individual tax rates. The Romney campaign insisted that this proposal would maintain the “progressivity” of the existing tax code, meaning that the total share of taxes paid by the wealthy would remain constant or increase relative to the share paid by the poor, even though all groups would receive tax cuts. “The across-the-board rate cut … that’s significant,” said Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “That’s going to cost a lot of money, and just waving the hand about how to pay for it really makes it hard to know what the effects will be.” While Hubbard insisted that the individual tax plan was also “revenue-neutral,” the press release announcing the plan suggests that it would need help from spending cuts and overall economic growth to avoid increasing the deficit. “Stronger economic growth and reductions in spending will help to ensure that these tax cuts do not expand deficits,” the release reads. Moreover, the Romney plan’s shift to a so-called territorial international corporate tax system would in fact create an incentive for U.S. corporations to funnel money through offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes. Under the existing U.S. system, companies that stash money in the Cayman Islands do not pay taxes on it until it is brought back to the United States. Under a territorial system, companies never have to pay taxes on those profits, whether they bring them back to the U.S. or not. “It’s just a permanent exemption from tax,” said Wilkins. The Obama administration suggested its proposed global minimum corporate tax rate could prevent companies from skirting their tax bills by pushing money into offshore tax havens. But some small-business advocates are concerned that an excessively low global minimum would have the opposite effect. “President Obama’s outline draws attention to some very important themes, including closing corporate tax loopholes and curtailing the abuse of offshore tax havens, but the devil is in the details,” said Scott Klinger, tax policy director of Business for Shared Prosperity, a nonpartisan small-business advocacy group. “Until the president proposes a rate for his global minimum tax, we remain concerned that this positive idea could be turned into a permanent repatriation tax holiday for tax-avoiding corporations.”

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Fixing A ‘Gaping Hole’ In Fracking

AP — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:22:41 +0000

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PITTSBURGH (AP) â A nonprofit group has opened an office in western Pennsylvania to help the public with health concerns over Marcellus Shale gas drilling operations. The Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project opened an office last week in McMurray, southwest of Pittsburgh, and says its mission is to support people “who believe their health has been, or could be, impacted by natural gas drilling activities.” “The state lacks enough resources to really address this,” Director Raina Rippel said Tuesday. “There is this gaping hole for the community.” Rippel said the project has several paid staff members, including a nurse. Other medical and research experts are consultants. The onsite nurse will make house calls in Washington County, but phone calls or emails from other parts of the state are welcome, Rippel said. The nurse will provide referrals, help clients navigate the health care system and consult with environmental health specialists. All the project services are free, she said. Rippel said her group has met with local public health officials, and will work with them. The group also is setting up a network of physicians to refer people to, and has been in contact with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Timothy Kimmel, director of the Washington County Department of Human Services, was out of the office Tuesday afternoon and could not immediately be reached. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, said it supports a thorough, unbiased health assessment. “We live, work and raise our families in these communities, and are absolutely committed to ensuring that our air, water and public health are protected,” coalition President Kathryn Klaber told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “There is no higher priority, and to the extent this initiative can advance objective, fact-based research, we welcome it.” Rippel acknowledged that some people who worry about gas drilling could have been exposed to pollutants from another industry or have medical conditions that originated before the drilling boom of the last five years. Old coal mines and oil wells have been identified as possible sources of methane gas in drinking water wells. “You don’t necessarily have clear data,” she said, of possible links between recent gas drilling and health problems. But she said the only way to better understand these issues is through outreach and research. Dr. Helen Podgainy, a pediatrician who has treated children from Washington County, said more studies need to be done on the health risks for those living near gas wells. “It’s difficult for those in the medical community to know what we should be on the lookout for, and how to address problems that we might see,” Podgainy told the Post-Gazette. “I do not want my patients to become ‘the canaries in the coal mine.’ A proactive approach is to everyone’s benefit.” The Health Project office is open Tuesday through Friday. It is funded by the Heinz Endowments, the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Claneil Foundation. ___ Online: http://www.environmentalhealthproject.org

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Fixing A ‘Gaping Hole’ In Fracking

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Brazen Life: 6 Tough-love Tips for Getting Hired After College

Brazen Life — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:11:07 +0000

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By Erin Palmer Consider me a cautionary tale. I was one of many misguided college graduates who underestimated how difficult it would be to find a job after graduation. I didn’t expect to collect my diploma and walk into a sea of headhunters waiting to hire me, but I had no idea that it would take me a year after graduation to find a job in my field. I thought I was doing things right. I took my classes really seriously, got good grades and built relationships with my professors. I paid my own way through school, so I had to balance a full-time job with being a full-time student. Unfortunately, my crazy schedule left no time for internships (or sleep). Now my younger sister is in college, and I’m determined to make sure she doesn’t go through the same post-college struggles that I did. College students, please heed the following advice. Your wallet and your sanity will thank me later. 1. Don’t wait until graduation to start your job search It sounds obvious, but this is a common mistake. I told myself I was too busy, which was true. But I should have made the time. Job-hunting is a long process that takes patience. In fact, when I finally got an interview for my current job, it was after months of checking the company’s website for an appropriate opening. I knew I wanted to work here, so I kept checking until a position opened up that I was qualified for. Start making your post-college career plans as soon as possible. 2. Show off your skills A resume can only say so much, particularly when you don’t have a lot of experience yet. Consider starting a blog , creating a website or making a video to show off your specific talents. Listing “strong writing skills” on my resume isn’t nearly as effective as showcasing those skills with particular examples of my work. To really capture a company’s attention, try making your site or blog tailored specifically to your dream job. This will give you an opportunity to show how much you’ve researched the company and the requirements of your desired position. For example, if you want a technical writing position, put together a sample proposal as if you already had the job. This not only shows what you can do, but also gives the company examples of the ideas that you would bring to the position. 3. Be an active intern The “go get me some coffee” internship stereotype exists for a reason. Just because you’re assigned menial tasks doesn’t give you an excuse to be passive. Ask for more difficult tasks . Offer your ideas. Find out about what the company’s hiring process is like. Talk to your superiors and seek out a mentor . Get descriptions of entry-level positions within the company and work towards gaining the necessary skills to land them. One of my friends from college had a company create a position for her after graduation because they were so impressed with her as an intern. It isn’t enough to land an internship. Make yourself indispensible. 4. Apply high One of my favorite college professors advised me not be afraid to “apply high.” She said this after I complained that every job I wanted required years of experience that I did not yet have. She told me just because a job has specific requirements didn’t mean I shouldn’t try for it if I believed I was capable of performing. I admit, I thought my resume would get thrown away as soon as employers realized that I didn’t meet every requirement. Yet when I found out about the opening for my current position, I went for it despite my minimal experience. I wrote a strong cover letter that got my resume through the door. I came to the interview confident and well-prepared. And even though I didn’t meet each job requirement on paper, I still got the job. As a newbie to the workforce, you have to be ready to prove that you can do it — but it’s well worth the fight. 5. Network here, there and everywhere Though the job market isn’t ideal right now, new graduates have an incredible array of networking tools at their disposal. Use every single one of them. Maximize every possible resource. Streamline all of your social media pages to reflect your job search. Use your LinkedIn and Facebook contacts to connect to new people in your field or people that work at companies that you’re interested in. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that networking ends on the computer. Talk to any and everyone you can that might be able to help you. Use your internship, your job, your professors and friends of your mom. Job-hunting is not the time to be timid . 6. Be a realistic dreamer People always advise “do what you love,” and students often apply this philosophy when deciding what to study. The truth is, certain majors are more likely to lead to a job. I believe that people should chase their dreams, but I’m also a realist. If you major in esoteric knowledge, your job options will be far more limited than those of someone who majors in accounting. You have to figure out a way to make your dream job work in the real world. I majored in writing, so I’m no stranger to disdainful comments about my job prospects. If I had a dollar for every person who made a writing major joke to me, I wouldn’t even need a job; I could retire early and work on my novel. Though fiction is my one true love, I took every possible writing class while I was in college. By graduation I had experience in fiction, nonfiction, technical writing, journalism, publication editing and design, writing for advertising, writing for public relations and writing for broadcast. I wanted to be as well-rounded as possible to increase my job options. Though I now write in a corporate environment, I love my job. I might not be on the shelves of Barnes and Noble (yet), but I am getting paid to write. I am pursuing my dream and paying my bills at the same time. It might have taken a year after graduation to get here, but I’m here now. The lesson: Don’t wait for the perfect job to land in your lap. Work hard, network and don’t give up on your dreams — just be smart about them. Erin Palmer works as a writer and editor with Villanova University’s online programs. Villanova offers programs such as PHR certification prep courses, in addition to an HR masters online degree program. Erin can be reached on Twitter @Erin_E_Palmer .

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CVPS CFO Plans Departure for Electric Power Research Institute

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

RUTLAND, VT–(Marketwire – Feb 22, 2012) – Pamela Keefe, who as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Central Vermont Public Service ( NYSE : CV ) played a critical role in the company’s financial recovery and return to investment grade, has been appointed CFO of the Electric Power Research Institute effective April 1. Keefe will remain at CVPS until March 30 to ensure a smooth transition.

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CVPS CFO Plans Departure for Electric Power Research Institute

‘Unhealthy’ To Stare At Tweets All Day, Twitter Co-Founder Says

CP — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:54:08 +0000

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MONTREAL – Twitter co-founder Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone has a message for those followers who stare at their tweet feed for hours on end. It’s not healthy. Stone says he’d prefer that people visit the popular social networking site frequently than sacrifice their life to it. He told a Montreal business audience even he is amazed by the influence of Twitter, which the founders initially thought would just be used for fun. Stone says it has instead ended up linking millions of people and been used to spur social change such as the so-called Arab spring, triggered by pro-democracy movements in the Middle East. The entrepreneur’s speech focused on tips for business people including that they should show empathy for their employees and shouldn’t be afraid to fail. He also says creativity is an unendingly renewable resource.

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Randall Amster: Debt of Gratitude: Less Earning, More Learning

Randall Amster — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:42:59 +0000

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I’d like to share a story, a personal story, a common story, an American story. For nearly two decades, I have carried the burden of a crushing student loan debt, well over six figures and impossible for me to fathom paying off in this lifetime. While I have written before about debt in a more generalized sense — advocating for a ” Jubilee ” as the ultimate stimulus and a chance for all of us to start anew — I’ve never connected it publicly to my own plight. The reasons are complex, but have to do with fear; fear of vulnerability, fear of judgment. I suspect that many people burdened by debt feel similarly and are often constrained to bear the pressures silently. My story is relatively straightforward. I attended a private college (majoring in physics and astronomy, which did not yield any obvious career potential for me) and then a private law school. After clerking for a federal judge for a year, I was hired in the fall of 1992 to work at a large corporate law firm in mid-town Manhattan, complete with the accouterments of privilege and compensation. I seemingly “had it all,” at least on the outside, and any rumblings of discontent — after a lifetime of being a working-class person — seemed somehow ungrateful. Still, a series of events eventually forced that discontentment to the surface. Working for corporate polluters, white-collar criminals, militaristic multinationals and the like can have its deleterious effects on one’s psyche, no matter what it pays at the end of the month. I realized in fairly rapid fashion (about ten minutes, actually, even though it took me ten months to extricate myself from the firm) that I could not separate my ethics from my earnings or my morals from my meals. I wanted to work with people, not for (or even against ) them, and likewise had a strong desire to try and make the world a better place rather than the worsening one experienced by the vast majority of people. In the end, the expensive suits and loft apartment couldn’t mask the fact that my soul was sick and my spirit dying. Yes, I could have worked at the high-powered firm for five to seven years (which sounds like a prison sentence, in retrospect) and likely paid off my debts, and then written my own ticket (financially speaking) after that — but the implicit (and carefully concealed) violence I would have done to human and ecological systems in the process simply made the cost too high. Indeed, it is mainly the manner in which our lives are shielded from the true costs of our actions and choices that makes modern society even possible to endure, and it is the steady erosion of this thin veil of constructed ignorance that is beginning to alter the widespread “false consciousness” in ways that are simultaneously horrifying and promising. One of the experiences that helped prompt me to walk out the door and never look back was the nascent friendship I had randomly struck up with a homeless man on the streets of the city. I didn’t realize it fully at the time, but his impact on me was as great as any person’s in my life, and he’ll likely never know it. The emerging realization of this came to me one day when some colleagues from the firm saw me having lunch with my homeless friend, and afterwards commented to me how nice it was that I was trying to “save” him. I thought about this for a minute, and (in a moment of personal recognition) replied that “he’s actually saving me.” A few weeks later, I had quit my high-paying job, sold most of my belongings, and had nothing but the unknown road ahead. I spent the next couple of years mostly car-camping, sleeping rough, staying with friends, eating potatoes, bartering, writing bad poetry, making music, getting healthier in my own skin, following signs (literal and figurative), and otherwise chasing rainbows. I also used the time to plant the seeds of the next chapter in my life, which serendipitously emerged in the opportunity to attend graduate school and pursue a doctorate in Justice Studies. While ambivalent about the institutional nature of this move, I realized that it had the potential to allow me to reclaim my core values while still participating more directly in the world at the same time. The following years found me living on about $10,000 or less annually, riding a bike or skateboard to school, learning about justice in its fullest sense, and becoming an advocate and activist around issues of homelessness and poverty. My dissertation was completed in 2002 and spoke directly to these themes, and in 2008 a revised version appeared as the book Lost in Space . In 2001, I was hired as an instructor at Prescott College to teach Peace Studies, which doubled my salary but still left me at about one-fifth the level I was making in my law firm days. Despite this sense of apparent downward mobility, I realized that I had found a calling. But then another sort of calling began in earnest: debt collectors calling me , repeatedly, at work and elsewhere. For about a decade I hadn’t earned much more than $20,000 in any given year (and most years far less), but once I was hired as a faculty member (again increasing my salary but still leaving me way down on the scale for someone with two doctorates) the sharks started to sense blood and swarm around me. At first I felt paralyzed with a mix of remorse, shame, and fear, so I did nothing. Soon after, my wages were being garnished, which embarrassed me at my place of employment, and the fuller experience of the stress that comes with the realization of permanent impoverishment and lifelong indebtedness began to emerge. Despite having studied poverty issues and being well-versed in the social psychology attendant to them, I still felt the internalized stigma of societal “failure” at not having “made it” by the usual measures of success. In 2008, I took a second full-time job (again nearly doubling my salary) as Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, driven partly by my life’s work as someone dedicated to the pursuit of peace and justice at all levels, and also partly by the fact that I now had two young children in the mix. At this juncture, I was able to finally work out some sort of agreement with the student loan collectors, lumping everything together to the tune of over $150,000 and making regular monthly payments that push myself and my family to the brink (past it, actually) of being able to make ends meet. But the recognition, in all likelihood, of never being able to get out from under this massive burden still weighs on me every day. Just recently a reminder of that pervasive vulnerability — the one that comes from a lifetime of being working-class, always one paycheck away from dispossession, and having no savings whatsoever to fall back on — was delivered to my doorstep. Apparently, one relatively small student loan had been somehow omitted from the consolidation process, to the tune of about $5000, and the collection agency began calling random people at my place of employment in an attempt to shame me into calling them back and paying it off. This was quite likely illegal, in that they identified the company they were with to these colleagues, but it had the desired effect of making me feel, again, vulnerable and exposed. Now I have to pay them another $100 per month on top of the already-untenable figure being paid on the larger debt. Two decades after walking out of a corporate house of mirrors in search of more useful and meaningful horizons, I remain tethered to that choice through years of compound interest, penalties, fees and such. Yet I am grateful in some ways for that, since it serves to keep my life “real” on many levels and even perhaps ensures that I maintain a reflective process about who I am, what I am doing, and why. Still, it yields a great deal of perpetual stress, constrains my life choices in the world, and impinges upon my capacity to provide for my family. I suppose, at the end of the day, that the corporate masters get their money either way — a pound of flesh or the equivalent in monthly payments. But they did not get my soul, and perhaps that makes all the difference… I mention all of this here with a mix of fear and hope. While the experiences of my own life serve to inform my writing, I generally strive to keep the personal details and motivations in the background rather than the foreground. But why? In my daily life and activism, I hold firmly to the belief that personal choices are eminently political ones, and vice versa. I try to live simply, consume consciously, treat others how I would be treated, be of service to the world, and in general “walk the talk” as much as possible — so why don’t I feel safe writing about things in those terms? I surmise that the uncomfortable nature of personal vulnerability is also bound up with the collective (and perhaps ultimate) vulnerability of living in a time when the continuation of our human existence hangs in the balance by increasingly delicate threads. To some extent, this palpable sense of vulnerability has been individualized and privatized, much like the debts one accrues in pursuit of an education and the basic desire to be socially useful. Will telling this tale change the paradigm? Unlikely. But maybe if we all begin to do so — to connect the personal and political, to share the fear rather than bear it alone — maybe things will at least improve enough in our own lives so that we become more empowered and learn to explore the bonds of authentic community in the process. If my personal financial burden is useful even a little bit in that regard, then it is, in the end, one that I must acknowledge as a debt of gratitude.

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Randall Amster: Debt of Gratitude: Less Earning, More Learning

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In Wealthy Florida County, Charity Plans Tent City For Homeless

Matt Sledge — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:38:27 +0000

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When the wealthy come to visit Indian River County on Florida’s Treasure Coast, they can sleep in $7 million pads on Ocean Drive in Vero Beach or hit the holes at the Indian River Club. For Matthew Martone, 47, who has been homeless since August, the options are more limited. “It is kind of hard to pedal out to the beach to shower, and pedal by all those beautiful homes, and just be grateful that you have a bar of soap in your bag,” he said. Amenities for poor people in the county, one of the country’s 100 richest, are limited. There is only a shelter for those with children. For people without children, the options include crashing on a friend’s couch at night or sleeping in the library during the day. Martone has done both but he refuses to do what some in his situation are turning to: pitching a tent in the acres of private, undeveloped land nearby. “They have no safe, legal housing options whatsoever,” said Sonya Morrison, executive director of the local Christian homeless charity The Source. “The best I can offer them is a tent, some bug spray and send them off into the woods.” For many people in Florida, this is the picture that homelessness is now taking on — not of people crowding into a city shelter but rather of individuals pitching a tent in the woods. Across the country, federal efforts to ease homelessness will help only 1 out of 10 of those lacking housing, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The question is what to do for the rest. The housing downturn has hit all of Florida’s Treasure Coast especially hard . In Indian River County, home to Piper Aircraft and citrus growers, but also including large residential swaths, local industry has struggled to make up for job losses. About a year ago, The Source’s Morrison came up with an alternative to dispensing bug spray. Since 2007, a Catholic charity near St. Petersburg has offered homeless people land to pitch a tent or simple wooden sheds . Tents have also been adopted in sections of California with a warm climate. Now The Source is seeking to build its own tent city, a place to be called Camp Haven. The arrangement is a far cry from more permanent housing, but national homelessness experts say this is better than nothing. “There’s not enough money for shelter,” said Neil Donovan, executive director at the National Coalition for the Homeless. “So we’re really left with having to think outside the shelter.” He would like the country to take a far more comprehensive look at the root economic causes of homelessness. Until then the tent camp alternative is “far from an ideal, but it’s viable. And when you’re presented with difficult options, sometimes that’s the best you can ask for.” While living in the woods, friends of Martone have been bitten by snakes and brown recluse spiders, Martone said. And when the sheriff comes along to break up camps on private land, the squatters are simply pushed deeper into the woods or to The Source, which currently offers no beds. Morrison has arrived at work to find 30 people on her doorstep, desperate for help, she said. Being homeless comes with a litany of hardships, which Martone had never encountered until a few months ago, he said. Ever since he was young, he has held jobs — as a welder, a mechanic and a crane operator. Though Martone had weathered precarious times before, the lingering effects of the recession and a recent breakup resulted in his landing on the streets this time. Martone’s story is hardly unique: Seasonally unadjusted unemployment in Indian River County reached 11.4 percent in December, far above Florida’s 9.7 percent average. Over the past few months Martone has had his share of unpleasant experiences: He was jumped outside a 7/11 by some young kids just for being homeless, he said. He is now accustomed to others taking one look at him and deciding who he is. In contrast, the help offered at The Source — temporal and spiritual — has been a great comfort; there, homeless people can find a welcoming community, he said. “When you have a comfortable life and you’ve got the steady job and security and all of that, you don’t think all that much about God, because you’re doing your thing and everything’s covered,” Martone said. “When you find yourself sleeping in a laundromat, you tend to ask yourself, How did I come to this?” Martone is confident, though, that when he finds a job, he’ll be able to house himself, he said. But for homeless people living in the woods right now, “it is a full-time job to live like that,” Marone said. “You have to walk all of your food and things into the woods.” Once Camp Haven gets set up, “that would be organized; that would be different,” he said. In December The Source received a $25,000 donation for the Camp Haven project. Morrison is now in the process of looking for land, gaining community support and figuring out how to navigate the county’s zoning process. Camp Haven has many hurdles yet to cross, but the community’s reaction so far has been warm, Morrison said. “In some ways the economy has been good for our mission,” she said. “A few years ago the reception was different. There tended to be the idea that homelessness was the result of some sort of character defect.” These days, everyone understands that these are tough times and that almost anyone could find themselves homeless, Morrison added. “There has been a tendering of the heart toward the plight of the homeless,” she said. “People understand it’s not a character defect; it’s a reality of the times we’re living in.”

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In Wealthy Florida County, Charity Plans Tent City For Homeless

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GM CEO Makes BIG Out-of-pocket Donation To Detroit Revitalization

The Huffington Post — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:21:00 +0000

Huffington Post…

Just days before home-building charity Habitat for Humanity celebrates its 25th anniversary , the organization will launch a $25 million project to expand its work and rehabilitate homes in MorningSide, a neighborhood on Detroit’s east side. The three-year project, “Leaders to ReBuild Detroit,” kicked off Wednesday afternoon at J.E. Clark Preparatory Academy with a $1 million personal donation from General Motors Chairman and CEO Daniel Akerson and his wife, Karin. While Habitat has built 79 new homes in the MorningSide neighborhood in the last five years, according to Director of Development Tara Franey, the ongoing project will focus primarily on rehabilitation, critical repairs, energy-efficiency upgrades and weatherization projects, helping 500 families by 2014. Habitat will also work with community and outside organizations to provide programs like financial literacy trainings and homeownership workshops. Franey said the organization was planning work that would help revitalize the entire community. “We’re looking at the whole neighborhood,” she said, “rather than building one house and leaving.” The project is part of the statewide $225 million “ReBuild Michigan” campaign, and Habitat has several partners in it , including Wayne County, Michigan State Housing Development Authority, the Detroit Land Bank Authority and Detroit Public Schools. According to Franey, the organization is particularly concerned with children’s safety while walking to school, and Habitat is thrilled to partner with the school district. DPS Emergency Manager Roy Roberts spoke at the Wednesday afternoon announcement , along with Karla Henderson, group executive of Planning and Facilities for the City of Detroit and Akerson. Detroit students even presented Karin Akerson with flowers . While Habitat has procured its cornerstone gift for the campaign from the Akersons, organizers have a long way to go to reach their $25 million fundraising target. Franey hopes other community members will be inspired to donate to the campaign. “We named it ‘Leaders to ReBuild Detroit’ for a reason,” she said.

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GM CEO Makes BIG Out-of-pocket Donation To Detroit Revitalization

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Amazon Pulls 5000 Kindle Titles

ZoA Triska — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:11:39 +0000

Huffington Post…

Yesterday, the Independent Publishers Group (IPG) announced that Amazon has removed all their Kindle editions from the site , totaling around 5,000 books. According to Publishers Lunch, IPG’s president, Mark Suchomel, sent out an email alert yesterday stating, “I am disappointed to report that Amazon.com has failed to renew its agreement with IPG to sell Kindle titles.” Independent Publishers Group was founded in 1971 and is the second biggest independent book distributor, representing around 400 publishers. According to their site, they were the first organization expressly created to represent titles from independent publishers. IPG first made its titles available as e-books in 2001. Amazon turned off the buying button on the approximately 5,000 Kindle IPG titles because they refused to accept a revised set of terms regarding revenue from Amazon. In an interview with paidcontent.org, Suchomel said, âWeâre offering [the e-book sales terms] we offered last week, and somehow they think itâs not quite good enough.” Suchomel says that their print editions remain available on Amazon, and that their e-book editions are still available from other retailers, such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Suchomel noted that IPG’s current terms are still acceptable to their other e-book retailers, so he remains unworried. He told paidcontent.org, âIf half the accounts werenât buying from us, Iâd have to question it, but everyone else is.â This isn’t the first time Amazon has pulled a publisher’s titles over a contract dispute. In late January 2010, it pulled all Macmillan e-books in a pricing dispute. Amazon returned the titles after a week, giving in to Macmillan’s demands to raise its e-book prices. Despite the disagreement, Suchomel seems hopeful about future business with online retailer. He also wrote in his email, “Remember that Amazon continues to be an important account that sells a lot of units. This is a business decision on Amazon’s part, and hopefully they will soon decide to reverse it and buy at our standard terms.”

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Amazon Pulls 5000 Kindle Titles

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Robert Reich: Corporations Don’t Need a Tax Cut, So Why Is Obama Proposing One?

Robert Reich — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:10:00 +0000

Huffington Post…

The Obama administration is proposing to lower corporate taxes from the current 35 percent to 28 percent for most companies and to 25 percent for manufacturers. The move is supposed to be “revenue neutral” — meaning the administration is also proposing to close assorted corporate tax loopholes to offset the lost revenues. One such loophole allows corporations to park their earnings overseas where taxes are lower. Why isn’t the White House just proposing to close the loopholes without reducing overall corporate tax rates? That would generate more tax revenue that could be used for, say, public schools. It’s not as if corporations are hurting. Quite the contrary. American companies are booking higher profits than ever. They’re sitting on $2 trillion of cash they don’t know what to do with. And it’s not as if corporate taxes are high. In fact, corporate tax receipts as a share of profits is now at its lowest level in at least 40 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, corporate federal taxes paid last year dropped to 12.1 percent of profits earned from activities within the United States. That’s a gigantic drop from the 25.6 percent, on average, that corporations paid from 1987 to 2008. And it’s not that corporations are paying an inordinate share of federal tax revenues. Here again, the reality is just the opposite. Corporate taxes have plummeted as a share of total federal revenues. In 1953, under President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, corporate taxes accounted for 32 percent of total federal tax revenues. Now they’re only 10 percent. But now the federal budget deficit is ballooning, and in less than a year major cuts are scheduled to slice everything from prenatal care to Medicare. So this would seem to be the ideal time to raise corporate taxes — or at the very least close corporate tax loopholes without lowering corporate rates. The average American is not exactly enamored with American corporations. Polls show most of the public doesn’t trust them. (A recent national poll by the University of Massachusetts at Lowell found 71 percent with an unfavorable impression of big business — about the same as those expressing an unfavorable view of Washington.) The administration’s initiative doesn’t even make sense as a bargaining maneuver. Republicans will just accept the administration’s lower corporate tax rate without closing any tax loopholes. House Republicans have already made it clear that, to them, closing a tax loophole is tantamount to raising taxes. And corporate lobbyists in Washington know better than anyone how to hold tight to loopholes they’ve already got. Big business will fight to keep their foreign tax shelters. After all, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between their foreign and domestic earnings, which is why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies have spent the past three years trying to make it even easier for companies to defer U.S. taxes on income they supposedly earn outside the country. Representative David Camp, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Ways and Means Committee, has already proposed a 25 percent corporate top rate and changes that would let companies avoid paying U.S. taxes on even more of the income they say they earn outside America. Nothing is going to be enacted this year, anyway, so it would have made more sense for the administration to support a hike in corporate taxes — and use it to highlight the difference between the president and his likely Republican challenger. Mitt Romney wants to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent before eliminating any tax loopholes. Rick Santorum wants to cut the rate to 17.5 percent and eliminate corporate taxes for manufacturers. Newt Gingrich wants to cut the rate to 12.5 percent and let companies write off all capital investments immediately. It’s discouraging. The President gives a rousing speech, as he did on December 6 in Kansas. Then he misses an opportunity to put his campaign where his mouth is. Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future , now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org .

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Bill Bartmann: A New Kind of Killer App: RoboSigning 2.0

Bill Bartmann — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:52:19 +0000

Huffington Post…

“Killer,” as in what big debt-collection companies are doing to destroy countless families. We’re all familiar with recent excesses in the mortgage industry. One of the more-shocking examples was the practice of “robo-signing.” In order for a lender to file suit against a borrower and foreclose a home, the law requires that the lender sign an affidavit. It’s a document that states the lender has some basis to believe the borrower in fact owed money to the bank and is now in default. Sounds reasonable. Where reason went out the window was when some clever companies decided to take the “person” out of “personal knowledge” and have employees sign documents without having any clue about the borrowers. In one case, a single employee was found to have signed around 10,000 documents in one month. Embarrassed banks halted foreclosures, and just last week the government announced a settlement with some big banks over these types of abuses. When the news hit of how banks were abusing borrowers through robo-signing, not everyone was shocked. Some major players in the debt-collection business were leaning forward at the television, with broad smiles on their faces and pens in hand. They were furiously taking notes because they realized it could be soooo much better for debt collectors. In a flash they saw how they could explode their collections and profits through the use of Five Easy Pieces. To fast forward, this is what they in fact did: Piece 1: Automated signing. The mortgage boys who were signing 10,000 documents in a month were playing sandlot stickball compared to the debt-collection industry. One robo-signer/debt collector admitted to signing 4,000 documents per day as an officer of five different banks. Piece 2: Automated filing. No need for pesky appearances of actual humans at the courthouse in order to file a lawsuit. Debt collectors figured out how to file suits by computer for as little as $40 each. Piece 3: Low-visibility notifications. You’d think that if debt collectors were suing you, they’d want to make a big deal out of it, right? Wrong: Their preferred method of delivery was a plain, first-class letter. Why? Because the mere fact of mailing was considered proper notice. That meant they didn’t work really hard to make sure the addresses were accurate. In one case, a debt collector mailed notice of a suit to an address where the intended target had not lived for 23 years. Piece 4: No-shows mean default judgments. If you owe money, are sued, and don’t appear, now it’s regarded as dissing the court. In New York, as many as 94 percent of borrowers in debt suits do not show up. This has led to the easiest piece of all for debt collectors… Piece 5: Now courts become an arm of debt collectors. For as little as 40 bucks and a first-class stamp, debt collectors get to collect using gavels and guns. One borrower was strip-searched and sprayed for lice for a debt owed to AIG (of government-bailout fame). In other cases, people were jailed and bail was set for the same amount that was owed to the debt collectors. The lobbyists, lawyers, and lackies for debt collectors are quick with a response: “It was a few bad apples, and we fired them.” Oh really? Just a few bad apples? More like a rotten orchard: In 2010, one company reported that it filed 400,000 credit card collection lawsuits, up from 250,000 in 2009. New York City alone had nearly 500,000 debt-related lawsuits filed between January 2006 and July 2008. Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago said: “If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it’s 100 times bigger in credit card accounts.” That’s why it’s a good thing that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is finally up and running, and is beginning to scrutinize debt collectors. That bureau estimates that 15 percent of U.S. consumers are affected by debt collection , which means roughly 30 million Americans. Compare that to the one million consumers affected by the mortgage mess, and you start to get a sense of why we so far have seen only a weak demo version of the game-changing killer app that’s being released in a neighborhood near you.

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Bill Bartmann: A New Kind of Killer App: RoboSigning 2.0

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Amy Schrier: Has a Woman Ever Created a Billion-Dollar Company?

Amy Schrier — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:50:14 +0000

Huffington Post…

As any entrepreneur knows all too well, nothing can begin until the money is raised. Who to look to? Well, first I start with those that inspire me. Part of the process, the fun part, is thinking about who are the people who have done what I would like to do? So, lately I have been putting together that list. Those are the people I generally want to ask first for money. The company I am launching, MISSION.tv, is a digital platform about making a difference in the world. We will produce and curate premium content — video, articles, photos — and create a social community. We will offer the most comprehensive, independent database of volunteer travel opportunities on the Internet, and perhaps of widest interest, we will connect visitors with nonprofit causes so they can, through activism and philanthropy, literally help change the world. I have worked on the numbers diligently, carefully, thoroughly. I know them like the back of my hand. We have an ambitious but realistic model. We are seeking to raise an angel round now, and plan to generate many millions by the fifth year. This is what we wrote and plan to execute, but the plan doesn’t stop there. When we succeed in meeting our numbers, there will be ways we to expand upon the brand, increase the revenues, grow into the global market of the Internet. I mean… who doesn’t want to make a difference in the world? So, I put a list together of some of the greatest companies of all time and the entrepreneurs who founded them. Then I Googled them to learn their annual revenue size. The first thing I noticed on the list was there were no women. The list by the way, was Apple/Steve Jobs, $65 billion, Microsoft/Bill Gates $60 billion, Amazon/Jeff Bezos $34 billion, Google/Larry Page + Sergey Brin $29 billion, Ebay/Pierre Omidyar $9 billion, AOL/Steve Case $2 billion, Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg $2 billion. I began to wonder, were there simply no women who had billion-dollar ideas? I went to Inc. magazine’s list of top 10 women entrepreneurs. None had I ever heard of. All companies were under $100 million, and 60% were under $20 million. Buddhism teaches you never to get angry or upset about anything, just to observe it and note the information. So, that’s what I did. There must be some purpose for me noting this. I typed right into the Google search bar: Has a woman ever started a billion-dollar company? And the 2nd response on the list was: in bright fuchsia… Miss Dallas 2011 Princess… The Miss Dallas Scholarship Organization, a local division of Miss America. Can you believe that? It’s true. I emailed my MBA friends… Has woman ever started a billion-dollar company? No one seemed to know for sure. The replies were slow, awkward and uncertain. Of course we all know women have had billion-dollar ideas. But it is challenging to go from billion-dollar idea up the long and arduous path of venture capitalist acceptance than ends in billion-dollar company. And not one woman has made it yet. It might be helpful if there was affirmative action for investments. Imagine if fifty cents out of every VC dollar went to a woman-founded company. What a different world we would live in ten years from now. I think I would like it better.

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You Won’t Believe Where The TVs Are Tuned To Porn

The Huffington Post — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:50:03 +0000

Huffington Post…

TVs at electronic retailers may provide customers with a bit of entertainment while they shop, but the images on the screens at one Best Buy had a customer far from amused. Gloria Berg was shopping for TVs with her son and grandchildren at a Best Buy in Greenville, South Carolina when a pornographic image of a man and woman suddenly appeared on screen, local News Channel 7 reports . The image remained on the screen for several minutes until it was removed by a manager who claims that the store’s wifi had been hacked, allowing the offending image to be uploaded. “They, like, brush it off like it’s…who cares?” Berg told News Channel 7 . “Nobody cares. It’s pornography. And we are getting adjusted to that kind of mentality. That’s why we are losing our morals.” Pornography in the workplace and the public space has become an increasingly divisive. The issue gained particular attention in 2010 when a report came out revealing that at least 31 employees at the Securities and Exchange Commission, a federal agency tasked with regulating the securities industry, had spent hours viewing pornographic websites at work around the time of the 2008 financial crisis, raising concerns about employee negligence. Still, such instances remain fairly common. Seventy percent of porn viewed on the Internet occurs between the usual work hours of 9am and 5pm . But work isn’t the only place where Americans are encountering porn. Some may be finding it on the screens of their public libraries. Despite banning activities such as sleeping, eating and being barefoot, the Seattle Public Library will not prohibit patrons from viewing pornographic material on the library’s computers, according to SeattlePI.com . Residents have filed several complaints against the library on the grounds that the adult material is often seen by children. The library maintains that filtering out such content for adults would be a violation of free speech. New York city adopted a similar policy last year. “In deference to the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech, the New York Public Library cannot prevent adult patrons from accessing adult content that is legal,” a public library spokeswoman told the NY Post . Best Buy’s holiday sales disappointed at the end of last year, in part because of tougher competition with Amazon.com.

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You Won’t Believe Where The TVs Are Tuned To Porn

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SG Biofuels Names Miguel Motta as Chief Operating Officer

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:35:07 +0000

Here’s %category%-related post from
Marketwire – Management Changes:

SAN DIEGO, CA–(Marketwire – Feb 22, 2012) – SG Biofuels, Inc. (SGB), a bioenergy crop company developing elite hybrid seeds of Jatropha as a low-cost source for biodiesel, bio jet fuel and specialty chemicals, has named Miguel Motta as its chief operating officer. As COO, Motta will be responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of the company’s business development, global operations, marketing and human resources organization.

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SG Biofuels Names Miguel Motta as Chief Operating Officer

Australia Unearths Country’s Largest Pink Diamond Ever

The Huffington Post — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:00:58 +0000

Huffington Post…

A massive rough pink diamond has been unearthed in Rio Tinto’s Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia , CNN reports. At 12.76 carats, the remarkable find is said to be the largest stone ever discovered in the country and is expected to sell for up to $10.6 million, according to the Herald Sun . Named the Argyle Pink Jubilee , the gem is similar in color to the 24-carat Williamson Pink given to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding gift, explains the Telegraph . “A diamond of this caliber is unprecedented — it has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone, and we may never see one like this again,” Argyle Pink Diamonds Manager Josephine Johnson said in a statement . The gem is being cut and polished into a single stone over a 10 day period and will be up for auction later in the year, Rio Tinto said. In November 2010, Sotheby’s Geneva office sold a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond for more than $46 million , which set the world’s auction record for any diamond and jewel at $1.86 million per carat. More than 90 percent of the world’s pink diamonds come from the Argyle mine.

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Australia Unearths Country’s Largest Pink Diamond Ever

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Xirrus Appoints Calix CEO Carl Russo to Board of Directors

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:00:00 +0000

This is from
Marketwire – Management Changes:

Telecommunications Industry Veteran and Former Cisco Executive Brings Industry Leadership and Strong Operational Background to Bolster Xirrus’ Next Phase of Growth

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Xirrus Appoints Calix CEO Carl Russo to Board of Directors

Dr. Sasha Galbraith: For Female CEOs – Is Work/Life Balance a Myth or Reality?

Dr. Sasha Galbraith — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:55:40 +0000

Huffington Post…

This is the fourth post in a series about Sandra Peterson, CEO of Bayer CropScience It’s still a sad commentary that today, in 2012, women are faced (much more so than men) with the issue of organizing their work life in the context of their home life. According to a study by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, nearly half of all senior executive women are childless, but only 19 percent of their male counterparts have no kids. Such tradeoffs are normal for most high-profile senior women. Sandra Peterson, Bayer CropScience CEO, also faced crucial decisions in her life. “Anyone who ends up being a leader of a large complicated organization, whether you’re a male or a female, you’re working an immense amount of hours and you can’t do everything. You can’t have complete work/life balance. Some of the sacrifices and trade-offs clearly I made was with my first child. I was already a mother when I joined McKinsey [in 1987], which was quite unusual. I didn’t even tell them I had a child because I thought they might not hire me because it just was so unusual then. My husband traveled around the world working in international education. We had au pairs, but there were times when we struggled. My son ended up having to spend time with his grandparents for three or four weeks at a time every once in a while because my husband and I couldn’t figure out how one of us could be home while the other was traveling. When we decided to have a second child, we ended up having this discussion about how do we have two children and continue this life we have. It was clear that we couldn’t so he made a very large personal sacrifice when he said, “I’m going to stop working; one of us needs to be home to take care of the children.” I was very cognizant of the sacrifices he was making. When I was not working, when our children were little, our life was all about our kids and our relationship. We didn’t spend tons of time going off and spending time with friends and going on vacations alone.” Then Sandra faced a huge personal tragedy when her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer. At that point she stopped working as Group President of Medco Health Solutions to care for him. Fortunately for Bayer and for aspiring women everywhere, she was able to rejoin the workforce and continue to contribute her considerable expertise. Sandra Peterson very clearly knows how to get ahead in the masculine world of the C-Suite without losing or denying her own femininity. Moreover, she knows that there are differences between men and women and she actively works to support women and their success. Stay tuned on how she is shaping the future of Bayer CropScience, and in the meantime, one thing is for sure — she truly is a person to follow! This post first appeared on Forbes.com .

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Dr. Sasha Galbraith: For Female CEOs – Is Work/Life Balance a Myth or Reality?

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Dylan Ratigan: 30 Million Jobs Tour Heads to College: What’s Your Experiment?

Dylan Ratigan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:50:26 +0000

Huffington Post…

Last week, I went on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon , and I brought a prop — a weird-shaped lightbulb from Firefly LED Lighting , an Austin-based green tech company. The lightbulb, by taking an approach that dissipates heat through metal sidings instead of concentrating it in the bulb itself, has dramatically increased efficiency. It’s an experiment, backed by a pilot project, data, and a small amount of seed funding. And if we’re going to save America, it’s going to be experiments like those I’ve seen in Austin and elsewhere that will lead us there. For the past three years, I’ve been talking about the politics of Washington, D.C., and the financing conventional wisdom from New York City. My eyes were opened to the realities of the system in 2008, when I saw the bailouts up close as an anchor on CNBC. It’s depressing, closed, and difficult to see the gears of America chew up human potential. But now I’ve found myself more enthusiastic than I’ve been in years, as I’ve shifted my attention from D.C./NYC to cities burgeoning both with ideas and with the excruciating pain that Washington and New York have inflicted on them. What’s become apparent to me is that the rate of change on this planet, due to technological, ecological, and financial mechanisms, is the highest it’s ever been. That means that our rate of adaptation must also be high, that we must adapt our communities, companies, and selves to what is quickly becoming a new and different world. We must experiment, or die. And as we experiment, with new communities, new technologies, and new financing structures, we must do so with an eye for quality and for learning. I want to inspire all of us to experiment with our lives, the way that America itself is an experiment in forming a more perfect union. Here’s what we’re going to have to do to restore this entrepreneurial spirit. 1) We must get over our abject and irrational fear of failure. One of my heroes, Salman Khan, has built a learning model that uses the Internet and in person teaching, and the goal is mastery. The method is failure. Do the problem set again and again, until you get it all correct. It doesn’t matter if you fail, it only matters if you don’t try again. 2) We must build a capital market that can make investments of between 30 thousand and 3 million dollars, which is what most experiments cost. The old model is broken — Facebook will have a $100 billion valuation and raise billions in its IPO, but this is so the original investors can cash out, not to fund innovation. By contrast, Firefly LED had a seed round of $325k in 2010. That’s the kind of capital that builds innovation, and we should have more opportunity to get it. 3) We must deal with the student debt problem, which is a direct incentive to not experiment . When you are young, you are in the most experimental part of your life. Don’t burden our young with unpayable debt, it’s guaranteed stasis. And stasis in a rapidly changing world that demands adaptation, as we know, means cultural death. 4) We must get rid of the employer based health care system. If experimenting means you can’t see a doctor when you are sick, then you aren’t going to experiment. That’s bad. We need to find a new way to deliver care, so we can thrive as a society. 5) We must deal with the upside down housing market. The main store of wealth for the middle class, who should be a seat of innovation, is home equity. Without writing down debt and restoring a healthy housing market, this store of wealth will gradually be destroyed and rendered unusable. People won’t be able to move or tap lines of credit if we don’t fix the housing finance system. We must restore our distribution mechanism for financing the way we live, and we haven’t yet done so. More than all of these, though, we need a culture that values innovation. We need to experiment in our own lives, with ourselves, our business endeavors, our government, and our surroundings. With a million high quality experiments, we’ll learn so much that we will see a new Renaissance in how we deal with the rapidity of change we are currently experiencing. And if there were ever a time we need such a Renaissance, it’s now. My pledge to you is that I will be exploring America the experimental. I will challenge myself, and everyone I meet, and I will use all the resources at my disposal, to encourage the cultural shift we know we need. MORE: Dylan visits Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to talk about the 30 Million Jobs tour and creating a culture of experimentation:

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Dylan Ratigan: 30 Million Jobs Tour Heads to College: What’s Your Experiment?

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Trump Makes Big Move For GOP Candidate

AP — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:45:37 +0000

Huffington Post…

NEW YORK — Donald Trump is telling Michigan voters that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is a career politician who doesn’t know how to create jobs. Mitt Romney’s campaign deployed an automated phone call from Trump Wednesday in Michigan, a state that has become a must-win for the former Massachusetts governor. Trump also recorded a Michigan radio ad for Romney. The real estate mogul and reality show host endorsed Romney earlier this month. On the call, Trump says he’s tired of Santorum “pretending” to be the outsider in the race. Trump says the former Pennsylvania senator has been entrenched in the Washington culture for decades. Trump calls Romney a good man who is working hard.

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Trump Makes Big Move For GOP Candidate

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Steven Kurlander: Has Anyone in Washington Noticed the Price of a Box of Pasta Lately?

Steven Kurlander — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:30:48 +0000

Huffington Post…

I took my daughter to the local Walmart supermarket over the weekend to return a movie and get some school groceries when we passed a display with boxes of the chain’s “Great Value” pasta. I couldn’t believe the price displayed — $1.79 for a box of pasta — and it was being advertised as a special. I am used to paying about $1 for a box of pasta on sale. Pasta has always been very cheap to buy. It seems that food, and I mean basic items like a pound of bacon, a package of Swiss cheese, a head of lettuce, and yes, a box of pasta, are continuing to go up in price. Every week, going food shopping is getting more and more expensive. Ask the average American shopping in the supermarket and he or she will tell you that over the last year, there has been a significant rise in prices. Before last year, while Americans have already cut back significantly in discretionary spending during this Great Recession (Depression), most did not significantly reduce their expenditures in a similar way for basic items at the grocery store. That changed with a substantial increase in energy and food prices early last year. While most Americans spend about 10% of their family’s budget on groceries, about one-third of them actually spend closer to 20%, so large increases in grocery prices means less spending on consumer goods, which account for a great portion of our economic activity. That in turn hurts chances of a near term economic recovery. If you believe the government, we have no immediate threat of inflation at all and everything appears to be fine. The Department of Labor reported last week that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased only 0.2 percent in January, an increase for only the second time in four months. For the last twelve months, the CPI was up 2.9%. The Fed is forecasting a target for inflation at 2% for 2012. But the CPI, the standard benchmark of inflationary pressures, excludes food and energy prices (a truly dishonest gimmick to keep increases in payments like Social Security, which are indexed to the CPI, at a minimum). Thus, the CPI alone is a false indicator of true inflation situation. The Department of Labor does keep separate indexes for food prices, but you never hear about them in the context of discussing inflationary pressures. These separate indexes for “food at home” and “food away from home” for the prior 12 month period were up 4.4% and 5.3% respectively. The new spike in gasoline prices which are predicted to surpass $4.00 a gallon by the summer will lead to greater transportation costs for food, and judging on the price of a box of pasta, we are already seeing the beginning of another spike in prices in the supermarket again. It’s going to get worse. The Obama Administration and Congress are setting up for an epic battle in regard to the expiration of a farm bill that provides farmers with massive subsidies for crop insurance and food production. The president wants to cut $23 billion from this program and reform crop insurance — interestingly enough in line with a similar proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin last year. Republicans, particularly from the farm belt, are looking instead to save money in this area by making huge cuts in food stamp and nutrition outlays, which are used to preserve farm programs. Either way, such cuts could eventually translate into even higher costs at the supermarket to allow farmers to cover expenses once now paid for by government agricultural supports. In terms of delivering food to its citizens, the US government has done a good job in maintaining constancy in availability and cost management through its agricultural policies. The abundance and variety of staples in the US food supply and the relative stability in pricing at the supermarket has been an unappreciated given for generations. An extension of the farm bill is likely this election year, but this time two years from now, the price of gasoline combined with serious government cutbacks to agriculture could result in much higher prices, a decrease in food production, and even shortages at the grocery stores. It would be nice if there were changes in the CPI index to give Americans an honest number in regard to inflation, particularly at a time when increased energy costs and changes in the way we pay our farmers are going to greatly influence prices at the grocery store. Instead, keep monitoring the price of that box of pasta, not the CPI, if you want a true indication of how inflation and food costs impact the American economy and lifestyle. Join Steven Kurlander’s blog Kurly’s Kommentary and read his columns in the Sun Sentinel and Florida Voices. Email him at kurly@stevenkurlander.com.

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Steven Kurlander: Has Anyone in Washington Noticed the Price of a Box of Pasta Lately?

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Brian Tolle: Why You Don’t Get Invited to Funerals

Brian Tolle — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:19:08 +0000

Huffington Post…

I actually mean post-mortems but funeral seemed a bit more eye-catching. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s my point. You could be undermining your credibility and trustworthiness by how you take part in post-mortems. Refresher: post-mortems are those project reviews with the full cross-functional team after a product has launched that are routine at high performing companies. The standard agenda is “what went well, what didn’t, what should we do differently next project.” We add another dimension where the team draws out a timeline as to how the project actually unfolded with all the drama and twists and turns depicted. It usually ends up being quite cathartic. Whichever format you use, the real value of a post-mortem is the opportunity it provides the team members to get the full story of how the project and product came to be or met an early demise. The process relies on getting the team members’ many different perspectives out on the table (and on paper), usually for the first time to learn everyone’s side of the story. It’s as if the project is this huge floral centerpiece, smack in the middle of the project team, so big that one member can’t see around it or imagine another team member’s view of the project. As you might suspect, criticizing or judging someone’s viewpoint undermines the process. One’s perspective is really one’s reality. Here is where credibility and trust come into play. Recently I took part in a post-mortem where one of the team members shared their perspective that senior management sent mixed signals about the scope of the project and how it seemed to add unnecessary time and cost. The most senior manager in the room responded by saying, “I don’t think that’s how it happened. What I saw happen was this…” and proceeded to give her perspective. Imagine the chill in the air after she finished. Is it OK to have a different perspective, in effect, to disagree? Absolutely. There’s a better way though to disagree that doesn’t shut down the discussion. Take the empathy route — seeing the situation through someone else’s eyes (think Being John Malkovich ). Try this instead: I can see how you would see the situation that way. I probably would have as well if I were in your shoes. Let me describe how I saw it from where I was sitting. The bottom line is this. If you want to be able to influence others to get things done, you need to be at the top of your game when it comes to credibility and trust. And if you’re not aware of the impact your behavior has on others, you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot. Keeping shooting that way and one day the shot will be fatal. Then it’s your post-mortem we’ll be attending.

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Brian Tolle: Why You Don’t Get Invited to Funerals

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‘Sage’ Investor Sued For Negligence

D.M. Levine — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:17:34 +0000

Huffington Post…

Hedge fund manager John Paulson has been hailed as a finance sage for making billions betting against the subprime mortgages beloved by Wall Street in the run-up to the financial crisis. Lately the accolades have died down. His fund is facing losses and he’s now the target of a lawsuit alleging incompetence. As the Wall Street Journal reported , a lawsuit filed in federal court early Tuesday by Hugh F. Culverhouse (who happens to be a former U.S. prosecutor and son of longtime Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Hugh Culverhouse Sr.) accuses Paulson of gross negligence for pumping roughly $800 million of investorsâ money into a company called the Sino-Forest Corporation — which operates huge farms in China that grow and harvest trees for commercial use. The suit claims that Paulsonâs hedge fun, Paulson Advantage Plus, failed to conduct a thorough investigation of Sino-Forest before deciding to buy up a 14 percent stake in the company — an investment that, according the suit, ultimately cost its backers (including Culverhouse) roughly $460 million. âThis investment should never have been made,â Harvey Gurland, Culverhouseâs lawyer and a partner at the law firm Duane Morris, told The Huffington Post. âPeople invest millions of dollars with Paulson because heâs supposed to be one of the best if not the best in the world. Thatâs why we say [his investment in Sino-Forest] was gross negligence and itâs egregious.” Sino-Forest first came into the national spotlight this past June after the release of a damning report by research firm Muddy Waters Research, accusing the company of, among other things, being an âinstitutional fraudâ and a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. The Muddy Waters report prompted a massive drop in the companyâs share price and led Paulsonâs fund to sell its entire stake in the company (a subsequent report questioned some of Muddy Watersâ most incendiary accusations, but still raised doubts about the companyâs valuation). The Sino-Forest disaster contributed to a very bad year for Paulson, whose Advantage Plus hedge fund lost roughly 52 percent of its value in 2011. The lawyers hope the suit will gain class action status so as to include all of Paulsonâs investors who lost money in Sino-Forest. Paulson famously made between $3 and $4 billion in 2007 by betting against the subprime mortgage market at around the same time that fervor for these loans (and the fancy bundles of securities that they were converted into by Wall Street banks) was at its peak. Repeated calls to Paulson’s fund went unanswered, but in an update to its original story, the Journal reports that late Tuesday, the fund sent a letter to its investors addressing the suit’s allegations. “We firmly believe that the lawsuit is completely without merit and that there is no basis in law or fact for the action,” the Journal reported the letter as saying.

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‘Sage’ Investor Sued For Negligence

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Can Vermont Meet Its Ambitious Renewable Energy Goals?

AP — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:00:41 +0000

Huffington Post…

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) â Two key state lawmakers said Tuesday that Vermont won’t meet its goal of getting 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2017, and they’re withdrawing their support for setting a new goal of 30 percent renewable power by 2025. Reps. Tony Klein and Margaret Cheney, the chairman and vice chairwoman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, also said legislation passed three years ago to offer premium prices to renewable energy project developers had fallen far short of its goal of bringing 50 megawatts of new renewable power onto the Vermont electric grid. Cheney said just 7.1 megawatts worth of such projects had been built. The two Democrats said they were surprised to learn recently from the state Department of Public Service, which regulates utilities, that the state likely would fall short of its 2017 goal. Of backing away from the more ambitious 2025 goal, Cheney said, “We don’t want to put out a percentage because it sounds good and not be able to meet it.” “You have to balance ambition and what’s doable,” Klein said. Citing a DPS report, the lawmakers said renewable energy projects already operating and in the pipeline currently add up to 16.5 percent of Vermont’s retail electric sales. Five years is not long enough to plan and build enough new projects to reach the 20 percent goal, they said. And development is expected to slow in part because two key federal incentives for renewable power development are expiring. The energy committee has been working since early January on legislation that had set the new 2025 goal. Klein said he was putting that bill aside to work on legislation to move the state toward mandatory recycling of solid waste. He said he had asked DPS officials to appear before the committee next week to make a new proposal regarding renewable energy. Klein and Cheney said they had been hearing a groundswell of concern voiced by business lobbyists that getting more power from renewable sources, which are usually more expensive than electricity generated with nuclear or fossil-fuel-fired power, would drive up electric rates and make Vermont less competitive economically. Scaling back the drive for renewable power is a big change for a Legislature and administration that have been pushing to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and had touted wind, solar, biomass and other renewable energy sources as keys to fighting climate change tied to burning fossil fuels. A long-term energy plan issued by Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration in the fall calls for Vermont to get 90 percent of its energy â for electricity, transportation and space heating â from renewable sources by 2050. Elizabeth Miller, commissioner of the Department of Public Service and Shumlin’s point person on energy issues, agreed there is doubt about the state meeting its 2017 renewable power goal. If all projects now in the planning stages are built â and that’s uncertain â Vermont would be getting about 18 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2017, she said. Renewable energy advocates said they would continue to push for a more ambitious agenda. Gabrielle Stebbins, executive director of the industry group Renewable Energy Vermont, rebutted business concerns about harm to Vermont’s economy by saying her industry had the potential to add many jobs in the state. Ben Walsh, energy advocate with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said his group would push Shumlin and lawmakers to keep campaign promises about supporting renewable energy. “We live in a state where people elected an administration and legislature that … said they were going to build a future of clean energy for Vermonters,” Walsh said. “We’re still very hopeful that’s what will happen in the end.”

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Can Vermont Meet Its Ambitious Renewable Energy Goals?

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Resonate Ready to Revolutionize Big Data Through Breakthrough in Values Marketing

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:45:00 +0000

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Jared Bernstein: Corporate Tax Reform: Be Careful What You Wish For

Jared Bernstein — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Huffington Post…

Pretty much every discussion of tax reform these days ends with an agreement that we need to broaden the base and lower the rates. Well, the White House today will release the broad outlines of a plan to do just that on the corporate side of the federal tax code. According to advance info from this morning’s NYT , the proposal will be to cut the current top corporate rate of 35 percent down to 28 percent, and to close a bunch of loopholes to make up the difference. Some other features include: a lower rate — 25 percent — for manufacturers; a minimum tax rate on foreign earnings to discourage tax sheltering by multinationals; added incentives for R&D (probably making that tax credit permanent, something the administration has long supported) and clean energy investments; a bunch of other loophole closures… And therein lies the rub. It is widely recognized that many corporations already pay far less than the statutory rate — from the WaPo story on the proposal: Today, the U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent is one of the highest in the world, but an abundance of loopholes and deductions means that many companies pay far less than that — or nothing at all. Companies in the United States pay almost half the taxes than companies do in other rich countries, compared to the size of the economy, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Last I checked, we were collecting around 1.3 percent of GDP in revenue from the corporate sector. That’s low both in our own historical terms (the average has been about 2 percent over the past few decades) and especially in international terms, despite the fact that we have a higher statutory rate. And it’s not just the recession depressing corp revenues, though that’s part of it, because corporate profitability is once again soaring. This tells you two things. First, a lot of companies take advantage of the breaks in the code and second, getting to a revenue-neutral 28 percent will mean taking away a lot of those goodies. Some of the biggies are accelerated depreciation, interest deductibility, the ability to pass corporate capital gains over to the individual side of the code (where it gets favorable treatment), and a bunch of international loopholes, like deferral — the ability to avoid U.S. taxation by holding multinational profits overseas. I don’t think today’s release will go into much detail on specifics, but the implication is clear: if those who have been clamoring for a lower corporate rate are serious, they need to step up and support these loophole closures. In that sense, the White House’s proposal creates an interesting political challenge. For years now, American corporations and their reps here in D.C. have been calling for a lower rate while at the same time availing themselves of billions in tax breaks that have kept them from paying the statutory rate. In my debates with supply-siders, they’re all about the rate… they’re happy to trade more base for points off of the rate. In the next chapter of this debate, we’ll get to see how much they meant it. Everyone loves the first part of the mantra: lower the rates. Now let’s see how the feel about the second part: broaden the base. This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein’s On The Economy blog.

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Jared Bernstein: Corporate Tax Reform: Be Careful What You Wish For

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Apprion Names Jason Glende as VP of U.S. Sales

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:00:00 +0000

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Plandai Biotechnology, Inc. Announces the Appointment of World Renowned Scientist to Its Scientific Board

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:30:00 +0000

SEATTLE, WA–(Marketwire – Feb 22, 2012) – Plandaí Biotechnology, Inc. ( OTCBB : PLPL ) Chief Executive Officer Roger Duffield announced today that Dr. Volker Böhm has accepted a position on the company’s scientific board. This appointment was enthusiastically supported and approved company-wide, particularly by Dr. Tom Matula, Chairman of the scientific Board.

Egnyte Board of Directors Welcomes Todd Rulon-Miller

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

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Wal-Mart posts 5.9% rise in Q4 sales

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:55:02 +0000

menafn.com…

(MENAFN) Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said that in the fourth quarter, net sales, excluding membership fees from its Sam’s Club division, went up 5.9 percent from the same period in the previous year to …

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Wal-Mart posts 5.9% rise in Q4 sales

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