New Bookmarks
Year 2006 Quarter 1: January 1 - March 31 Additions to
Bob
Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
For
earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Tidbits Directory ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Click here to
search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/.
Choose a Date Below for Additions to the Bookmarks File
Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on March 31,
2006
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/.
Fraud Updates
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Bob Jensen's various threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
(Also scroll down to the table at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )
Facts about the earth in real time ---
http://www.worldometers.info/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today. Think it over
http://www.inlibertyandfreedom.com/Flash/Think_It_Over.swf
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/
Stay up on the latest and the oldest hoaxes --- http://www.snopes.com/
I really like the Digital Duo show that appears weekly once again on PBS. I found that you can bring up prior shows on your computer by going to http://www.pcworld.com/digitalduo/index/0,00.asp
Click Here for Tidbits and Quotations Between March 1 and March 31
Click Here for Humor Between March 1 and March 31
My music download page ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
My electronic literature page ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
My search helper page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm
"Common Name, Uncommon Valor: The story of Paul Smith,
the
Iraq War's only Medal of Honor recipient so far,"
The Wall Street
Journal, March 29, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110008153
Since his days growing up in Tampa, Fla., the lanky kid with the slightly mischievous smile had wanted to be a soldier. By this bright morning, April 4, 2003, Sgt. First Class Paul Ray Smith had more than fulfilled his dream. He had served 15 of his 33 years in the U.S. Army, including three tours of duty in harm's way--in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Now all his training, all his experience, all the instincts that had made him a model soldier, were about to be put to the test. With 16 men from his First Platoon, B Company, 11th Engineer Battalion, Sgt. Smith was under attack by about 100 troops of the Iraqi Republican Guard.
"We're in a world of hurt," he muttered.
That "world" was a dusty, triangular walled compound about half the size of a football field, near the Saddam Hussein International Airport, 11 miles from Baghdad. Sgt. Smith's engineers, or "sappers," had broken through the 10-foot-high concrete-block southern wall with a military bulldozer and begun turning the compound into a temporary "pen" for Iraqi prisoners as U.S. forces pressed their attack on the airport.
. . .
Sgt. Smith could have withdrawn as well, back south through the compound. But beyond it was a lightly defended aid station crowded with 100 combat casualties and medical personnel. To protect it from being overrun, Sgt. Smith chose to fight no matter what the odds. Under intense fire, Sgt. Smith's men heroically extracted all three wounded crewmen from the APC. Sgt. Smith then entered the vehicle, ordering Spc. Michael Seaman to join him as driver and "keep me loaded" with ammo belts. Sgt. Smith popped up out of the turret hatch and grabbed the grips of the .50-caliber machine gun mounted on top.
The Iraqis were practically on top of him. Coolly grasping the situation, Sgt. Smith ordered Spc. Seaman to back the APC south into the compound to a position half way down the eastern wall. There he could arc the big machine gun back and forth, from the gate entrance to the north, all along the western wall of the triangle, to the Iraqi occupied tower in the southwest corner to his left.
To fire the machine gun, Sgt. Smith had to stand in the APC's main hatch, his body exposed from the waist up to a withering fire coming at him from three directions. On the ground through the blur of combat, Sgt. Matthew Keller saw Sgt. Smith grimly firing measured bursts from atop the APC even as a hail of bullets hit around him.
Sgt. Keller yelled at him to get out. Sgt. Smith looked back at him and with a slight shake of his head, made a cutting motion across his throat with his right hand. Sgt. Keller would always remember the look in his eyes. "There was no fear in him whatsoever."
As Spc. Seaman, crouching in the adjoining hatch, fed him ammunition belts, Sgt. Smith directed an expert and murderous fire with the long-barreled M2, hitting Iraqis who tried to enter the compound through the gate or over the wall. He tried also to suppress renewed fire coming from the Iraqis in the guard tower to his left.
Finally, one of his fellow sappers, First Sgt. Timothy Campbell, led a small fire team which stole up to the tower and killed all Iraqis inside. But by this time, Sgt. Smith's machine gun had fallen silent. The attack had been broken. Nearly 50 Iraqi dead lay all over the area. Others were in retreat. But Sgt. Smith was now slumped in the turret hatch, blood soaking the front of his uniform.
Spc. Seaman jumped out of the vehicle in tears. "I told him we should just leave," he said. Pvt. Gary Evans drove the APC out of the compound at high speed to the nearby aid station.
But it was too late. When Medic Michelle Chavez tried to remove Sgt. Smith's helmet, she realized that it was holding his head together. A bullet--one of the last fired from the tower--had entered through Sgt. Smith's neck and traveled up into his brain, shattering his skull from the inside. There were 13 bullet holes peppered over his armored vest--the impact from any one of them enough to knock a man down. The vest's ceramic armor inserts, back and front, had been cracked in numerous places. "Sapper Seven," the wiry, hollow-cheeked guy who had been so hard on his men in training, so exacting, so insistent on "doing it right"; the guy who had led them into battle on the first day of the war with a rock-'n'-roll tape blaring from his Humvee; the guy who had personally got down on his knees in front of their convoy to patiently, carefully extract the deadly mines when they ran into a minefield near the Karbala Gap, was dead.
A chaplain and a sergeant in dress uniforms came to Birgit Smith's home near Fort Stewart, Ga., late on the night of April 4 to break the terrible news. Mrs. Smith, the German girl Paul had met and married during his tour of duty in Western Europe in 1992, listened numbly to her visitors. She fought the growing dread and pain by grasping at a desperate hope:
"Our name is so common," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "Maybe it's a mistake."
There was no mistake. Paul Ray Smith had given his life protecting his men and his position. He had almost single-handedly blunted an overwhelming attack which might well have overrun the nearby aid station.
"There are two ways to come home, stepping off the plane and being carried off the plane," Sgt. Smith had written in an unsent email to his parents. "It doesn't matter how I come home, because I am prepared to give all that I am to insure that all my boys make it home." He had been the only American killed in the courtyard fight.
On April 4, 2005, exactly two years after his selfless action, his wife and their children David and Jessica stood in the White House as President Bush presented them the nation's highest decoration for bravery, the Medal of Honor. It was the first awarded in the Iraq War. Paul Ray Smith had indelibly marked his "common name" on history's small bright roll of those forever remembered for their uncommon valor.
Mr. Bennett writes the "American Heroes" series for the American Security Council.
American Resolve Versus the Media Polls
From the Federal Trade Commission
American's Top 10 Dot Cons ---
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/dotcon/
Bob Jensen's threads on consumer and credit card frauds are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm
Question
What can you do to prevent being taken on eBay?
(Word of Caution: Never open an email message that pretends to be from
Pay-Pal)
To which "Kate" replied: "That's true, indeed. I
just scammed you, sorry for that, it's nothing personal. ... It's what I do, and
it pays well." How did Smith get into this mess? The way any confidence-game
victim does - by letting an overabundance of trust overwhelm ordinary caution.
Jeffe Gelles, "Psssst ... wanna buy a wedding dress?" The News-Sentinel,
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/13980893.htm
Two brothers have published a book of "true tales of
treachery, lies and fraud" from eBay. "Dawn of the eBay Deadbeats" contains
stories written by eBay buyers and sellers. From stories of disappointing
purchases to out-and-out fraud, the book is a manual of what can go wrong when
buying and selling on auction sites. Brothers Stephen and Edward Klink co-wrote
the book, illustrated by Clay Butler. The idea for the book sprung from a
website Stephen Klink had created. A New Jersey police office, he founded
eBayersThatSuck.com - a site that aims to help people avoid auction scams -
after he himself was ripped off online.
Ina Steiner, "Dawn of the eBay Deadbeats: New Book Uncovers Online Auction
Treachery," AuctionBytes.com, December 28, 2005 ---
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m12/i28/s01
"Beware of eBay deadbeats, author warns," PhysOrg, March 1, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news11295.html
Imagine buying vintage Spiderman comics for $16,000 and receiving instead, a box of printer paper or losing a whopping $27,000 in purchasing a big rig that didn't exist in the first place. These are just many of the online auction fraud horror stories that brothers Edward and Steve Klink compiled from their eBay watchdog Web site eBayersThatSuck.com (E.T.S.).
In their book "Dawn of the eBay Deadbeats," some 70 strange-but-true stories were collected and retold with the help of illustrator Clay Butler.
The December 2005 publishing of the book comes just in time as the online auction giant has been criticized by consumer groups, most recently by the U.K. magazine "Computing Which?" for its passive and sometimes delayed approach in handling fraud reports.
At any given time, the site has 78 million listings, and 6 million new listings are added each day.
And while, eBay maintains that less than .01 percent of all listings end in a confirmed case of fraud, that could mean that of the 1.9 billion listings reported by eBay in 2005, that 190,000 cases were confirmed frauds in the last year.
Currently there are almost 900 horror stories from eBay fraud victims are on the E.T.S. site whose motto is "Winning the war on deadbeats."
And already the brothers are working on the next volume of horror stories, encouraging victims who want to get their tales to be told to get into contact with them.
United Press International spoke with Edward Klink about the recent book, their watchdog Web site, and the current state of eBay.
"We had collected hundreds of stories on the Web site and figured it was time to take these stories to a wider audience and let the victims have their say," Edward Klink said. "Plus with our combined backgrounds, Steve is a police officer and I'm a business writer, we felt we were ideally suited to get the job done."
Fraud on eBay can take on many forms including items paid for that vary from the description in the sale, unpaid items, and spoof eBay or Pay-Pal e-mails.
And like the many victims on their site, the brothers too have encountered the problem of auction fraud.
In 2003, Steve, a New Jersey police officer, won a set of "new" speakers, only to find that it looked as if they were "gnawed on by a wild animal."
"The seller said they weren't that way when mailed, and eBay said there was nothing they could do," Klink said. "Annoyed that he was stuck with the merchandise and given no recourse, Steve started www.ebayersthatsuck.com and stories began pouring in from around the world."
And the site has received a positive response since it's been up and running.
"People love it," Klink said. "On eBay, their official boards are closely monitored and talk about problems and scams and eBay's failings are not generally tolerated. So E.T.S. gives them an outlet. When it first came out Ebayersthatsuck.com was featured on Courttv.com and newspapers as far away as South Africa."
According to Klink, while eBay has what could be considered --"the ultimate business model" -- of collecting fees and delegating the marketing, selling, packaging, shipping, and customer service to eBay users, it's very easy for these same users to fall victim to fraud.
"I think consumers let their guard down when they are sitting at home and surfing the Web with their coffee," he said. "If a stranger offered them a $1,400 antique vase on the street they'd most likely walk away, but when that same vase is on the Internet for some reason the reaction is more, 'Say, now that looks interesting.'"
And have the brothers seen any improvements in eBay's handling of the fraud issue?
"eBay says it is a tiny fraction of all auctions," Klink said, "but the hundreds of people who told us their stories hate being in that tiny group and never thought they would be. Lots of fraud is underreported, too. EBay encourages users to settle it among themselves, and if they can't, then they are directed to pay $20.00 to have SquareTrade, a third party, mediate the dispute. But it's not often a scammer shows up for mediation!". . .
"We want people on eBay to have a good buying and selling experience - transparent, well-lit, and safe," the spokesperson said. "Fraud on all levels is something we take seriously."
The company also has a team dedicated to working with law enforcement rather it be educating them on fraudulent cases and working proactively taking information on specific cases to them or cooperating with investigations.
"We would invite anyone to visit the site and read more," said the spokesperson, who also emphasized that the no. 1 issue for online shoppers is to pay safely using Pay-Pal or a credit card than any other form of payment.
In many cases, consumers are able to get their money back, Pay-Pal offers up to $1,000 back with buyer protection and credit card programs usually have a pay back program in cases of fraud. In many cases, Pay-Pal offers a way for consumers to make purchases without providing personal information and at the same time protecting money.
"Dawn of the eBay Deadbeats" ($12.95) is available on Amazon, eBay, and in select bookstores.
Bob Jensen's threads on consumer and credit card frauds are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm
March 3, 2006 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
THE EVOLUTION OF AN ONLINE COURSE
"Like all learners, new online instructors need hands-on experience, feedback, and ongoing support to become comfortable and proficient in the virtual classroom. It is unrealistic to expect even the most self-motivated, creatively pedagogical, and technically inclined instructor to fly solo after just a few hours of training." In "Uniting Technology and Pedagogy: The Evolution of an Online Teaching Certification Course" (EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY, vol. 29, no. 1, 2006), Bonnie Riedinger and Paul Rosenberg explain how and why a certification course for online teaching was moved out of the classroom and into an online environment. The authors note from this experience that the online environment presents an "opportunity for instructors to examine their pedagogical habits." The complete article is available online at http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm06/eqm0616.asp?bhcp=1 .
EDUCAUSE Quarterly, The IT Practitioner's Journal [ISSN 1528-5324] is published by EDUCAUSE, 4772 Walnut Street, Suite 206, Boulder, CO 80301-2538 USA. Current and past issues are available online at http://www.educause.edu/eq/ .
See also:
"The Myth about Online Course Development: 'A Faculty Member Can Individually Develop and Deliver an Effective Online Course'" by Diana G. Oblinger and Brian L. Hawkins EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 41, no. 1, January/February 2006 http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0617.asp
......................................................................
TIPS FOR USING LAPTOPS IN THE CLASSROOM
For tips on how to make your students' laptop computers part of their learning activities, see "14 Good Ideas from Liesel Knaack for Using Laptops in the Classroom" (SIDEBARS, January 2006). Knaack is a professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology where every student gets an IBM Thinkpad on their first day of class to use throughout their studies at the University. The article is online at http://online.bcit.ca/sidebars/06january/on-the-side-1.htm .
SideBars [ISSN 1718-3685] is published by the Learning Resources Unit of the British Columbia Institute of Technology [ http://www.lru.bcit.ca/ ]. "Founded in December 2001, SideBars provides useful information and news items for instructors, course developers, educational technologists, and anyone else who has an interest in distributed learning in its various manifestations." Current and back issues are available at http://online.bcit.ca/sidebars/ . Email subscriptions are available at no cost at http://online.bcit.ca/sidebars/subcribe.html .
......................................................................
SCHOLARLY JOURNAL ON PLAGIARISM
In January the University of Michigan Scholarly Publishing Office launched a refereed online journal, PLAGIARY. The purpose of the journal is "to bring together the various strands of scholarship which already exist on the subject, and to create a forum for discussion across disciplinary boundaries." Papers in the first issues include:
-- "The Google Library Project: Both Sides of the Story"
-- "Copy This! A Historical Perspective On the Use of the Photocopier in Art"
-- "A Million Little Pieces of Shame"
Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification [ISSN 1559-3096] is available free of charge as an Open Access journal on the Internet at http://www.plagiary.org/ . For more information contact: John P. Lesko, Editor, Department of English, Saginaw Valley State University, University Center, MI 48710 USA; tel: 989-964-2067; fax: 989-790-7638; email: jplesko@svsu.edu
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm
......................................................................
SOME NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE RESOURCES
Since Infobits reaches subscribers all over the world, we welcome information about resources in other languages besides English. This month, we present these:
USE http://munin.bui.haw-hamburg.de/amoll/use/ "USE: Usability Engineering fur E-Learning" is an online document produced by the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Department of Information. The document, written in German, shows how to involve students when planning and designing an e-learning website.
STICEF http://sticef.univ-lemans.fr/ "STICEF: Sciences and Technologies Information and Communication for Education and Training" presents research "undertaken in the field of communication and information technologies in the service of human training." Papers are in French, but English abstracts are available. Recent papers include:
-- "Reusing Available (educational) Software developed by CAL (Computer Assisted Learning) Researchers?"
-- "Effet d'un feedback informatif sur la prise de notes dans un environnement d'apprentissage informatise'"
Editor's note: Machine translation certainly has its limitations; however, in order to decide if the text is relevant to your needs, sometimes you need a "quick and dirty" translation of a web page into your preferred language. In these cases, try Google's translation tools at http://www.google.com/language_tools . A 2005 evaluation of machine translation systems conducted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) rated Google's tool best overall. The NIST report is online at http://www.nist.gov/speech/tests/mt/mt05eval_official_results_release_20050801_v3.html .
For more on machine translation see Seb Schmoller's June 2005 FORTNIGHTLY MAILING article, "Combining human with machine translation." http://www.schmoller.net/mailings/20050612.shtml#1
On
the Leading Edge of Learning and Education Technology
Sharing Professor of the Week --- Dan Madigan at Bowling Green State University
---
http://fp.dl.kent.edu/learninginstitute/madigan.htm
Dan Madigan is the Director of the Scholarship and Engagement and Professor of English at Bowling Green State University.
Dan has a newsletter on Teaching Tips (usually with respect to technology) and other helpful teaching resources --- http://www.bgsu.edu/ctlt/page12182.html
I discovered Dan Madigan in the February 2006 issue
of Accounting Education News ---
http://aaahq.org/ic/browse.htm
In that issue of AEN, a summary of provided of his Idea Paper #43 on "New
Technologies that are Shaping Education and Learning." Excerpts from that
summary are provided below.
|
March 30, 2006 reply from David Albrecht [albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]
Dan is an exceptional person and has had much influence how I go about my teaching assignments. He, for instance, taught me about the learning centered classroom. This took place when he was directing our CTLT (Center for Teaching & Learning using Technology). He did such a great job that he got promoted.
Dave Albrecht
Emerging Learning Technologies on the Ohio Learning Network --- http://www.oln.org/emerging_technologies/
Bob Jensen's threads on education technologies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Tools of Education Technology --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
"The US has regained top position in the 2005 information technology
rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum after slipping to fifth place in
2004," Frances Williams, Financial Times, March 28, 2006 ---
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a75c5b56-be37-11da-b10f-0000779e2340,s01=1.html
Big Tax Return Preparer is Watching You: Yet another
incentive to do your own tax returns
The person who prepares your tax return may sell your private
information
(Repeated from March 31 edition of New Bookmarks)
This link
was forwarded by Scott Bonacker
[cpa@BONACKERS.COM]
"IRS plans to allow preparers to sell data: Critics said the
proposed regulation could lead to a loss of privacy for clients," by
Jeff Gelles, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 21, 2006 ---
Click Here
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell information from individual returns - or even entire returns - to marketers and data brokers.
The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."
IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning to update outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.
Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing deadline.
"The normal interaction is that the taxpayer just signs what the tax preparer puts in front of them," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America, one of several groups fighting the changes. "They think, 'This person is a tax professional, and I'm going to rely on them.' "
Criticism also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and other risks.
"There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling," Obama wrote.
The IRS first announced the proposal in a news release the day before the official notice was published, headlined: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer Information."
The announcement did not mention potential sales of tax information. It said the proposed rules were guided by the principle "that tax return preparers may not disclose or use tax return information for purposes other than tax return preparation without the knowing, informed and voluntary consent of the taxpayer."
IRS spokesman William M. Cressman defended the proposal in similar terms.
"The heart of this proposed regulation is about the right of taxpayers to control their tax return information. The idea is to emphasize taxpayer consent and set clear boundaries on how tax return preparers can use or disclose tax return information," Cressman said in an e-mail response to questions.
Cressman said he was unable to explain "why this issue has come up at this time other than our effort to update regulations that date back to the 1970s and predate the electronic era."
Not all the changes have drawn opposition.
Beth A. McConnell, director of the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group (PennPIRG), said she welcomed a requirement that a taxpayer would need to consent to overseas processing of any portion of a tax return.
"That's a positive development, but I don't think it's worth giving up our tax returns' privacy for," said McConnell, who plans to testify on behalf of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group at an April 4 IRS hearing in Washington on the rule changes.
McConnell accused the IRS of using the new limit on overseas processing to dress up changes that would chiefly benefit tax preparers, marketers and data brokers.
"That's a disturbing trend among Washington officials lately," McConnell said. "They'll offer a modest consumer protection in one area in exchange for dramatic weakening of consumer protections in another area, and then try to convince the public that it's all in our interests."
Critics of the proposal said it could do more than open up sales of tax information to data brokers and marketers, because it could undermine taxpayer confidence in the entire tax system.
"Privacy protections for tax information are especially critical given the largely voluntary nature of the U.S. tax system," said Chi Chi Wu, a tax-law specialist at Boston's National Consumer Law Center.
Wu and other critics said they were uncertain who or what was behind the proposed changes in IRS privacy rules, which currently prohibit tax preparers from selling returns to third parties for marketing purposes, and require written consent if they want to use it for marketing by companies under their own corporate umbrella.
Officials at H&R Block and Jackson-Hewitt, two of the nation's largest tax-preparation firms, did not respond to requests for comment. Cressman said the IRS had so far received only about a dozen comments on the proposal.
"I think this just flew under the radar screen for so many people," McConnell said.
Continued in article
"IRS Plans to Allow Preparers to Sell Data," SmartPros, March 22, 2006 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x52297.xml
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell information from individual returns - or even entire returns - to marketers and data brokers.
The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."
IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning to update outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.
Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing deadline.
"The normal interaction is that the taxpayer just signs what the tax preparer puts in front of them," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America, one of several groups fighting the changes. "They think, 'This person is a tax professional, and I'm going to rely on them.' "
Criticism also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and other risks.
"There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling," Obama wrote.
The IRS first announced the proposal in a news release the day before the official notice was published, headlined: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer Information."
The announcement did not mention potential sales of tax information. It said the proposed rules were guided by the principle "that tax return preparers may not disclose or use tax return information for purposes other than tax return preparation without the knowing, informed and voluntary consent of the taxpayer."
"How to Google: 10 Tricks and Timesavers," SmartPros, March 2006 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x52012.xml
Conduct a simple search. Some basic tips are included here along with recently added search features. These tips refer to the search box on Google's homepage.
- Quotations. Put quotation marks around the phrase: "SEC study". Don't worry about capitalization: "sec sTuDy" will return the same results as "SEC study"
- Tracking. Need to track your shipment from a major shipping company like UPS or USPS? Simply type in the tracking number in the search box. Do the same for tracking a flight: enter the airline followed by the flight number.
- Dictionary. Find the definition of a word by typing define: ethics
- Calculator. That's right. Type in a math problem and Google will spit out the answer. Try this: (256-96)/96
- Directions/Maps. Many Web sites offer maps and driving directions. Now Google does too. Type in an address in the box and the results will return a street map and a satellite image. From here, type in from/to driving directions.
Explore "more." From the Google homepage, click on "More" and you're in Google heaven.
- Toolbar. If you use Google often, download the Google toolbar to your Web browser. Not only do you have instant Google access, you can block pop-ups and auto fill your personal information into Web forms.
- News. With Google News, access news stories from a myriad of sources, from The New York Times to Christian Science Monitor to PC World. When you search in Google News, you get results of how that word or phrase appeared in periodicals within the last 30 days. This feature saves you from having to visit several different news sites for the same story or topic. Give it a test run by typing in FASB.
- Local. Find local businesses and services with a map pointing to the exact physical position. Traveling to Seattle for a conference and need to find the nearest Westin hotel? Type in Seattle Westin.
- Special Searches. When looking for a specific government document, search .gov Web sites only. Other special search options include Public Service Search, University Search, and Microsoft Search.
- Alerts. Are you following a particular company in the news? Customize an Alert and you'll be notified via email when Google finds that topic. A practical application would be to monitor your company, industry, or competitors.
This is just a small helping of what Google has to offer. In addition to cool search capabilities, Google has email, a photo editor, satellite imaging, a Web blog tool, a language translator, instant messaging, and a mobile-device tool (all free). To further your Google knowledge, don't miss the Help page, which provides tips for basic and advanced searching.
Happy googling!
NIQUETTE KELCHER is the Web Managing Editor for SmartPros Ltd.
Political Bias in Undergraduate Education
In this month's Carnegie Perspectives, Tom Ehrlich
and Anne Colby revisit the highly politicized Academic Bill of Rights
legislation. Tom and Anne lead the Foundation's work on the importance of civic
and political engagement among undergraduate students. In this piece, they argue
for the necessity for college faculty members to become much more self-conscious
of the variety of ways in which they communicate their political and social
views to students. They provide recommendations and precautions for campus
leaders who seek to create opportunities for teaching and inquiry that will
encourage student learning around difficult issues.
Lee S. Shulman, President The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching, March 29, 2006 ---
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/conversations/sub.asp?key=244&subkey=1565
Bob Jensen's threads on Higher Education Controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Question
What may be some of the direct and indirect commodification implications for you
and your college under various new legislation and pending legislation in
Washington DC?
Hint: Under the bill, colleges can no longer be able to turn down credits
solely based on a school's source of accreditation.
"Higher-Education Bill Aims to Stir Up Academia," by John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2006; Page A8 --- Click Here
Republicans are "opening up a tremendous number of provisions for the for-profits," says Ms. Flanagan. "Those are the ones with a seat at the table. The rest of us have been left out."
Congress recently handed for-profit schools a big win when it eliminated a rule requiring all colleges to offer at least half of their instruction in brick-and-mortar classrooms to be eligible for federal financial aid. The restriction, intended to prevent fraud, had hindered online education programs that are especially popular offerings among education companies.
A provision in the latest bill would weaken another requirement -- that schools receive no more than 90% of their revenue from federal financial aid. The rule was intended to prevent a repeat of widespread fraud in the 1980s and early 1990s, when some trade schools signed up unqualified low-income students in order to collect federal aid. For-profit schools are most likely to bump up against the 90% limit because they lack other funding sources and often cater to low-income students. Schools would now have more time to get back in line with the rule if they fall short.
Yet another measure would put for-profits more on equal academic footing with established schools. Traditional schools have long tended to reject degrees and course credits from students at for-profit schools, which often lack the imprimatur of long-established regional accrediting agencies. Under the bill, they would no longer be able to turn down credits solely based on a school's source of accreditation.
Jensen Comment
This legislation can have far-reaching impacts on faculty. It will open
employment opportunities in for-profit colleges. But it will also increase
competition, especially in graduate professional programs in business, law,
pharmacy, nursing, etc. I think it will also greatly increase the danger of
fraud.
What is the meaning of “commodification” in education today?
When asked to list the top 10 problems facing
the academy today, I bet most professors would include the
“commodification” of education. By that they mean a sort of creeping
penetration of market-forces into the academy such that earning a B.A.
is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from, say, buying a Camaro.
As an adjunct I am not privy to the way this trend has altered the wider
institutional structure of higher education, beyond noticing that that
very little of the tuition my students pay finds its way back to me.
However, as someone who regularly teaches service courses I have
extensive experience with bread and butter teaching, and I am familiar
with what “commodification” is supposed to mean in this context: the
idea that professors are expected to produce “customer satisfaction” in
their students, and students are supposed to actually “enjoy” the
classes they take.
Alex Golub, "The Professor as Personal Trainer," Inside Higher Ed,
October 24, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/10/24/golub
March 30, 2005 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
In a very rare turn of events, I find myself in total 100% agreement with Bob's speculation on this one. In reply to Glen's response, I'm not sure the federal employees had as much to do with this bill as lobbyists. Congress is generally more attuned to the needs of lobbyists than it is to federal employees.
And as Bob points out, this smacks not only of lobbyists, but good old fashioned planking politics, knee-jerk politics.
Okay, (yawn), so what else is new?
But what I'm really wondering is: Why we accounting professors -- of all people -- haven't been able to see the connection between the "calls for transparency in corporate reporting", and the "calls for accountability in higher education"?
Why don't we have transparency when it comes to judging the quality of a transcript? Why do we pay so much attention to accurate, transparent, and fair financial reporting of corporations, but so little attention to such qualities when it comes to transcript reporting?
Isn't education more important than mere money? (Okay, okay, I know the real answer, but we're *supposed* to be ACADEMICS, aren't we??)
What's good for the goose should be good for the gander, right? Take a close look at this concept.
We require companies to go to astoundingly complex, costly, gyrating, unimaginable effort to publicly report on the results of their operations. Why? So the public can openly compare quality between organizations, and thereby make good decisions. To support this public reporting, we have established an unbelievably-complex set of rules -- and then mandated adherence to them -- about how to create those annual reports. And then we require periodic audits to ensure "uniform" application across organizations to promote public confidence in the comparisons. We require certification of those who do the checking, too.
Why not apply the same principle to higher education? Isn't hiring an employee tantamount to making an investment? Shouldn't there be some way of comparing the quality of various individuals' transcripts, just as there is a way to compare stocks and bonds? Why don't we care about the quality of a transcript the way we do a stock certificate?
Why don't we propose a set of "generally accepted academic reporting principles" for the issuing organization (e.g., universities, colleges, diploma mills, etc.) and mandate adherence to these uniform reporting standards.
Oh, come on, sure, you can claim that education is more complex and multi-dimensional than simple cash flows and net income calculations. But hey, get serious -- have you looked at derivative or SPE or pension accounting lately? I rest my case.
And we already have the audit mechanism in place -- kinda -- (given our dean's worshipful obeisance to the AACSB). (footnote: can you imagine having the AACSB spend four weeks at your institution EVERY YEAR after the May commencement? Wow, what a thought! I wonder which junior is going to get stuck spending his weekend proofing the assessment figures!)
And talk about malfeasance and negligence! If the accrediting agencies were held to the same standards as financial auditors, just think of the job opportunities this would create for all those poor law-school students who might otherwise face an oversupply of lawyers in our economy in the coming years.
While I believe Congress is acting politically and irrationally (both as always), they are at least responding to a problem about bias in decision making relating to the quality of transcripts. They are responding to a changing market environment in transcripts. I'm not confident in the winners of popularity contests to come up with solutions to difficult problems. Can we as academics do any better?
My experience has been that just because a bricks-and-mortar school is accredited says very little about the quality of its education (inputs maybe, outputs no). And while there are many fraudulent on-line educational programs, my brother- in-law's experience teaching at such an institution (named after its home town in Arizona) would seem to indicate that with proper management, proper administration, proper mission definition, proper faculty hiring decisions, and proper execution (!), the concept can possibly result in as good an education as bricks-and-mortar.
But after all my devils-advocating at the fundamental level, I repeat, I agree with Bob. I see such a law as this creating far more problems than it solves.
And of course, my whole post here assumes the WSJ article got things right in the first place. My experience with WSJ reporting's quality leaves this assumption in grave doubt... We need transparency and accuracy of reporting in the media FAR FAR more than we need it in financial reporting or education or anything else, for that matter.
David Fordham
Actually David, I think the WSJ article got it right this time although without the details about the political fight described below by Doug Lederman.
"Partisanship Reigns," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, March 30, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/30/hea
The rest of the rhetoric as lawmakers began work on the key piece of higher education legislation probably left many of those who watched it longing for a different era, or perhaps a different political system entirely. Republican and Democratic lawmakers mostly talked past each other, with Democrats accusing Republicans of shortchanging students in the bill and squelching debate by restricting the number of amendments to the measure, and Republicans charging Democrats with distorting the goals of the legislation and devolving into unnecessary partisanship.In terms of actual legislating, very little got done Wednesday, in part because the House Rules Committee, which sets the terms of debates and voting for each piece of legislation, approved only 14, mostly minor amendments that could be offered on the House floor Wednesday.
Although Democrats complained that Republican leaders were purposely trying to limit their ability to try to alter the Higher Ed Act legislation — “shutting down this process,” Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) said – the Rules Committee, in a highly unusual move, met late into the night Wednesday to craft a second rule that cleared the way for 8 of the other 100 or so proposed amendments to be debated and voted on today.
Included among them are a sweeping Democratic “substitute” that takes different approaches to many of the issues in the bill — which faces near-certain defeat; a proposal to ease reporting requirements on college costs and strip language from the legislation that would allow states to begin accrediting colleges; another that would bar colleges from denying a student’s transferred academic credits based solely on the accreditation of the “sending” institution; and one that would require colleges that receive federal funds to submit an annual report about whether and how they take race into account in admissions.
The only amendment of real substance that was considered Wednesday was offered by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), and vigorously opposed by higher education groups. It sought to require colleges that receive funds through the Higher Education Act’s international education programs to report in a public database any donations they received from foreign sources.
While Burton and other supporters of the measure portrayed it as an anti-terrorism effort – a news release from Burton quoted David Horowitz as saying the amendment would prevent “the undue influence of foreign monies” – Burton also did not hide the fact that he was primarily targeting campus Middle East studies programs, some of which conservatives have accused of being hotbeds of Muslim radicalism.
“The underlying goal of the amendment is to draw attention to the anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic rhetoric being preached at some college’s ‘Middle East Studies’ centers,” said the Burton news release, which featured a line at the top boasting that the “American Jewish Congress strongly supports disclosure.”
College groups lobbied hard against the Burton measure, and it was defeated soundly, by a vote of 306 to 120.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on controversies in higher education are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Bob Jensen’s links to online global training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
The Pending Collapse of the Western Economies
"Seven Pillars of Folly," by Edward Chancellor, The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2006; Page A20 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114179101554692300.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
The oil exporters of the Persian Gulf are flush with cash. Some of that money is going towards acquiring P&O, the British shipping concern, thus sparking off the heated controversy over foreign control of U.S. ports. This has led people to worry that Arab petrodollars might be scared away from the U.S. In fact, unlike during the last oil boom of the late 1970s, relatively little of the current Arab oil surplus has been directly invested in U.S. assets or even deposited in the international banking system. This time much of the oil money has remained at home where a classic speculative mania is now being played out.
Lawrence of Arabia took the title of his celebrated book from a passage in the Book of Proverbs: "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." In homage to Lawrence, we identify the seven pillars of folly upon which the Great Arab Boom has been weakly constructed.
• The first pillar is liquidity:
OPEC members have earned around $1.3 trillion in petrodollars since 1998, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The extra liquidity injected into the Gulf economies by the oil price hike since 2002 is estimated at around $300 billion by HSBC. Some of this money has been spent on building up foreign currency reserves and on the acquisition of foreign companies, such as P&O. Arab takeovers of European and U.S. firms totaled $30 billion last year. Some money has even been invested in hedge funds and gold. However, a great deal has stayed in the Gulf region.This has contributed to an extraordinary explosion of bank credit in Saudi Arabia and its neighbors. Since the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council link their currencies to the U.S. dollar, they have also enjoyed the Federal Reserve's easy money policy. The Saudi government has recently repaid around $100 billion of outstanding debt, further contributing to domestic liquidity.
The deposit base of Gulf commercial banks has increased by over 60% since 2000, according to a recent report from Credit Suisse. Bank loans have financed business investment, personal consumption, property development and stock margin loans, thereby boosting both the economy and asset prices.
• The second pillar is the new economy:
The Gulf economies are growing rapidly, along with corporate profits. Returns on equity in the region are approaching 20%, calculates Credit Suisse. Saudi Arabia has recently joined the World Trade Organization. Kuwait is selling off some state-owned businesses. A new era of permanently high oil prices and perpetual prosperity has been hailed.The Gulf rulers are seeking to reduce their economies' dependence on oil. This is spurring a massive investment boom. Dubai is attempting to transform itself into a leading financial center and tourist resort. Saudi Arabia intends to become a world leader in fertilizer production. A bridge costing $3 billion is proposed to span the Red Sea. A new economy is coming into being. The current oil boom, unlike former ones, won't be followed by a bust, say the believers. This time it's different.
• The third pillar is the stock market:
The recent performance of Arab stock markets makes the Nasdaq of the late 1990s look like a slouch. Since January 2002, the Egyptian, Dubai and Saudi stock markets are up respectively by over 1,100%, 630% and 600%. Only four years ago, Gulf companies were priced at around twice book value. Today they trade on an average of 44 times historic earnings and at over eight times book value. Gulf banks are valued at over nine times book value, according to Credit Suisse.Sabic, a Saudi conglomerate, is currently ranked among the world's 10 largest companies by market capitalization. The Saudi stock exchange has a market cap of around $750 billion. That's roughly three times the country's GDP. By comparison, the U.S. stock market reached a peak of 183% of GDP in March 2000. In fact, the relative overvaluation of the Saudi stock market is even greater than these figures suggest. Nomura analyst Tarek Fadlallah points out that as the oil industry remains in state hands, a far smaller fraction of Saudi economic activity is captured by the stock market than in the U.S.
• The fourth pillar is an IPO boom:
In the late 1980s, the Japanese authorities kindled a speculative mania by floating telecom giant NTT. In unconscious imitation, the Gulf states have stimulated their mania with privatizations and IPOs at bargain prices. It is not unknown for stocks to climb 500% on the first day's trading. Applications for new issues have been oversubscribed by up to 800 times. One IPO in the United Arab Emirates attracted aggregate subscriptions greater than $100 billion, a larger sum than the UAE's GDP.• The fifth pillar is a property boom:
Dubai is the fastest-growing city in the world. Hundreds of new buildings are under construction, including what is planned to be the tallest building ever, the Burj Tower. Cynics point out that the capping of the world's highest property, from the Empire State Building to the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, has occasionally in the past coincided with economic crises. Reports suggest that the majority of new Dubai properties are being acquired for speculative purposes, with only small deposits put down. They are being flipped in the contemporary Miami manner.• The sixth pillar is market inefficiency:
Financial information in the Gulf is totally inadequate. The Saudi megacap conglomerate Sabic attracts no domestic financial analysis, says Nomura's Mr. Fadlallah. Companies report their results in a rudimentary fashion. It is against the law to sell short overpriced stocks in the Saudi market. And foreigners' financial sophistication is absent since only Gulf nationals can purchase Saudi stocks. Instead, speculators operate in an information vacuum in markets reportedly dominated by insider trading and practiced manipulation.• The seventh pillar is the madness of crowds:
Newspapers gleefully report stories of police called to protect banks from overeager IPO subscribers. A Saudi woman is said to have been divorced by her husband for no reason other than that he'd had lost money in the stock market. Up to two million of the 16 million Saudi population are said to be playing the market. Interest-free loans are commonly available. Saudi bank foyers are lined with LCD screens showing stock movements. A local TV station has started to provide stock market reports. The education minister has warned teachers to stop day-trading at schools. People are quitting their jobs to trade.This is a familiar tale of folly, similar in certain aspects to the global technology bubble of the late 1990s. And like the tech bubble it is set to burst. The current Gulf prosperity is a mirage created by a haze of liquidity. The Federal Reserve, which inadvertently caused the Arab bubble when it slashed interest rates in 2002, is currently mopping up that liquidity. The Gulf Arabs are likely to be rudely awoken from their speculative dreams. In fact, the Arab markets are beginning to crack: Dubai has fallen 40% from its November peak, and the Saudi market is down by around 12% in the past few days.
There are several implications of the coming Arab crash. Speculative booms lead to capital being misallocated. Many of today's investments in the Gulf region may appear, in retrospect, as extravagant as U.S. fiber-optic expenditures in the late 1990s. As for Dubai's desire to become an international financial center, it is spookily reminiscent of Tokyo's ambition to rival New York and London in the 1980s. Japan's ambition was shattered by the collapse of its bubble economy.
The political consequences could be more serious. Arab rulers have deliberately encouraged the boom in the hope that rising asset prices and a strong economy would distract their youthful populations from religious fundamentalism. This strategy could backfire. History teaches that when speculative bubbles burst and the public loses large sums, there is normally a political backlash. This was true of the U.S. in the 1930s, and to a lesser extent in the early 2000s, and of Japan in the 1990s. It's not hard to imagine Islamists capitalizing on a future bust with denunciations of stock-market gambling. Some of today's young Arab day-traders could well turn into tomorrow's al Qaeda recruits.
Mr. Chancellor is deputy U.S. editor for Breakingviews.com.
Bob Jensen
unfinished essay on the "Pending Collapse of the United
States"
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm
Gore and Blood
We see a lot of snide remarks and jokes about Al Gore the conservative media,
and he (like his counterpart George W. Bush) has made some rather dumb remarks
in highly boring speeches. But when teamed up with the former head of Goldman
Sachs Asset Management, Gore and Blood (not the best of last name combinations)
produced a rather good, albeit short, article about some severe accounting
limitations.
I commend The Wall Street Journal for carrying this piece which I would normally expect to appear in a more liberal media outlet.
"For People and Planet: When will companies start accounting for environmental costs?" by Al gore and David Blood, The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2006 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008151
Capitalism and sustainability are deeply and increasingly interrelated. After all, our economic activity is based on the use of natural and human resources. Not until we more broadly "price in" the external costs of investment decisions across all sectors will we have a sustainable economy and society.
The industrial revolution brought enormous prosperity, but it also introduced unsustainable business practices. Our current system for accounting was principally established in the 1930s by Lord Keynes and the creation of "national accounts" (the backbone of today's gross domestic product). While this system was precise in its ability to account for capital goods, it was imprecise in its ability to account for natural and human resources because it assumed them to be limitless. This, in part, explains why our current model of economic development is hard-wired to externalize as many costs as possible.
Externalities are costs created by industry but paid for by society. For example, pollution is an externality which is sometimes taxed by government in order to make the entity responsible "internalize" the full costs of production. Over the past century, companies have been rewarded financially for maximizing externalities in order to minimize costs.
Today, the global context for business is clearly changing. "Capitalism is at a crossroads," says Stuart Hart, professor of management at Cornell University. We agree, and we think the financial markets have a significant opportunity to chart the way forward. In fact, we believe that sustainable development will be the primary driver of industrial and economic change over the next 50 years. The interests of shareholders, over time, will be best served by companies that maximize their financial performance by strategically managing their economic, social, environmental and ethical performance. This is increasingly true as we confront the limits of our ecological system to hold up under current patterns of use. "License to operate" can no longer be taken for granted by business as challenges such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, water scarcity and poverty have reached a point where civil society is demanding a response from business and government. The "polluter pays" principle is just one example of how companies can be held accountable for the full costs of doing business. Now, more than ever, factors beyond the scope of Keynes's national accounts are directly affecting a company's ability to generate revenues, manage risks, and sustain competitive advantage. There are many examples of the growing acceptance of this view.
In the corporate sector, companies like General Electric are designing products to enable their clients to compete in a carbon-constrained world. Novo Nordisk is taking a holistic view of combating diabetes not only through treatment but also through prevention. And Whole Foods and others are addressing the demand for quality food by sourcing local and organic produce. Importantly, the business response is about making money for shareholders, not altruism.
In the nongovernmental sector, organizations such as World Resources Institute, Transparency International, the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (Ceres) and AccountAbility are helping companies explore how best to align corporate responsibility with business strategy.
Over the past five years we have seen markets begin to incorporate the external cost of carbon dioxide emissions. This is happening through pricing mechanisms (price per ton of carbon dioxide) and government-supported trading platforms such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme in Europe. Even without a regulatory framework in the U.S., voluntary markets are emerging, such as the Chicago Climate Exchange and state-level initiatives such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. These market mechanisms increasingly enable companies to calculate project returns and capital expenditures decisions with the price of carbon dioxide fully integrated.
The investment community has also started to respond. For example, the Enhanced Analytics Initiative, an international collaboration between asset owners and managers, encourages investment research that considers the impact of extrafinancial issues on long-term company performance. The Equator Principles, designed to help financial institutions manage environmental and social risk in project financing, have now been adopted by 40 banks, which arrange over 75% of the world's project loans. In addition, the rise in shareholder activism and the growing debate on fiduciary responsibility, governance legislation and reporting requirements (such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the EU Business Review) indicate the mainstream incorporation of sustainability concerns. While we are seeing evidence of leading public companies adopting sustainable business practices in developed markets, there is still a long way to go to make sustainability fully integrated and therefore truly mainstream. A short-term focus still pervades both corporate and investment communities, which hinders long-term value creation.
As some have said, "We are operating the Earth like it's a business in liquidation." More mechanisms to incorporate environmental and social externalities will be needed to enable capital markets to achieve their intended purpose--to consistently allocate capital to its highest and best use for the good of the people and the planet.
Mr. Gore, a former vice president of the United States, is chairman of Generation Investment Management. Mr. Blood, formerly head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, is managing partner of Generation Investment Management, which he co-founded with Mr. Gore.
"Kyoto? No Go. How to combat "global warming" without destroying the economy,"
by Pete Du Pont, The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2006 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110008113
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory and intangibles are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#TheoryDisputes
"CED Releases Recommendations for Improving Corporate Governance," AccountingWeb, March 24, 2006 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=101942
The Committee for Economic Development (CED), a business-led public policy group, on Tuesday released a policy statement examining the state of corporate governance in the U.S. and offering practical recommendations for restoring public trust in business.
“The high-profile corporate scandals of the past few years, coupled with numerous problems regarding financial statements, have shaken shareholders’ trust in many businesses leaders and their companies,” Roderick M. Hills, co-chair of CED and chair of the CED Subcommittee on Corporate Governance, said in a prepared statement. “It is imperative that we take concrete steps to restore the practices and processes that are the foundation of good business ethics. Specifically, I believe that the auditing process must reflect responsibility by company leaders, not just a rigid adherence to accounting rules. The auditing process needs to be guided by an over-arching set of principles that guarantee that the CEO, Board of Directors, and other top company officials know that they are fully committed to providing a truly fair and clear presentation of the firm.” Hill is currently a partner at Hills, Stern and Morley.
CED’s recommendations include:
- Making Audit Committees Autonomous and Vigorous
In order to accurately present a company’s position, the board of directors must have access to all pertinent data. This will only occur if a board’s auditing committee is competent, independent and establishes effective control over both internal and independent external auditors. The relationship between the audit committee and the internal and external auditors is crucial. The audit committee should exercise the same tone of control over the internal auditor as it does over the external auditor, extending to decisions of hiring, firing and compensation.
- Ensuring that Users Understand that financial Information is Based on Judgments
Financial statement would be more useful if they were governed by fewer rules and displayed more judgment that lies behind estimated numbers. Stock analysts, the investing public, and regulators, must recognize the inherently judgmental character of accounting statements and financial information. Ranges of values, rather than precise numbers, should be explained and understood as such. In addition, financial statements should be supplemented with non-financial indicators of value.
- Giving Sarbanes-Oxley a Chance to Work
CED sees room to tailor the requirements imposed by Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley within the existing statute, and endorses the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implementation guidance, based on their evaluation of the first-year experience. The guidance, issued simultaneously by the two agencies in May 2005, should lower the costs and increase the value of Section 404 compliance. Moreover, CED does not recommend a broad exemption from Sarbanes-Oxley requirements for small capitalization companies, but nevertheless, supports the objective of mitigating the costs to smaller companies.
- Taming Excessive Executive Compensation
In CED’s view, the disparity of income between top corporate executives and average employees is a cause for serious concern. The differentials that exist today too often reflect neither market conditions nor individual performance. The procedure for determining executive compensation has been broken at far too many of our larger corporations, and CED believes that the solution to excessive compensation must be regarded as a matter of process and disclosure, including compensation committees must adopt measurable, specific, and genuinely challenging goals for the performance of their businesses, and judge management by them; the compensation process must be run by compensation committees composed of independent directors; the compensation committee should have direct authority over all terms of any management contract, including all forms of compensation; management should have a substantial equity interest in their company; and management should make a full, timely, and transparent disclosure to shareholders of its compensation.
- Using Independent Nominating Committees to Select and Appraise Directors
A paradox of corporate stewardship is that, despite the principle that directors represent shareholders in the selection and retention of management, historically, most directors have been selected by management. In the CED’s view, the best approach to building high-quality boards is to assign to truly independent nominating committees the responsibility for recommending new board candidates and for evaluating the performance of existing board members. The nominating committee should also have the responsibility of recommending committee assignments. ,/li> “We acknowledge at the outset that no laws or policies will ever be sufficient to end all corporate misbehavior – or, for that matter, misbehavior in any segment of public life,” Hills continues. “We are confident, however, that truly independent and inquisitive boards of directors will provide the best safeguard against corporate wrongdoing.”
"Stanford Will Establish Center To Study Corporate Governance," by Rebecca Buckman, The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2006; Page B2 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114160549262689961.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Stanford University is setting up a research center to focus on the emerging academic discipline of corporate governance, funded with $10 million from legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Arthur Rock and his wife.
The new institution at Stanford Law School will be led by law professors Robert Daines and Joseph Grundfest and will study issues such as executive pay, shareholder rights and the state of the auditing industry, the university said. Organizers hope the center will also be more hands-on, interacting with regulators and judges and creating teaching materials for business-school students.
"We don't want to be just an academic center," Mr. Grundfest said in an interview. "We also want to help improve the quality of corporate governance in the real world." He added that Stanford's law school has been active in the area since 1993, when it launched a program called Directors College to help educate corporate-board members.
Mr. Grundfest served as a commissioner with the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1985 to 1990. He will direct the center with Mr. Daines, a corporate-law scholar who once worked at investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on corporate governance are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#Governance
From Jim Mahar's Blog an March 29, 2006 ---
The Influence of Audit Committee Financial Expertise on Earnings Quality: US Evidence by Bo Qin
SSRN-The Influence of Audit Committee Financial Expertise on Earnings Quality: US Evidence by Bo Qin
More evidence that board make-up matters. In this peice, Qin finds that, having an
..accounting-literate professional as SEC initially proposed serving on the audit committee are more likely to have high quality of reported earnings than others without such an expert.
Interestingly the final definition of financial expert that was adopted by the SEC yielded a MUCH weaker finding so it appears that not only board make-up matters, but also definitions!
Cite: Qin, Bo, "The Influence of Audit Committee Financial Expertise on Earnings Quality: US Evidence" (March 2006).
Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=799645
From Jim Mahar'
