Being first a female scientist and then a male scientist has given Prof. Barres a unique perspective on the debate over why women are so rare at the highest levels of academic science and math: He has experienced personally how each is treated by colleagues, mentors and rivals.

"He, Once a She, Offers Own View On Science Spat," by Sharon Begley, The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2006; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115274744775305134.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

Based on those experiences, as well as research on gender differences, Prof. Barres begs to differ with what he calls "the Larry Summers Hypothesis," named for the former Harvard president who attributed the paucity of top women scientists to lack of "intrinsic aptitude." In a commentary in today's issue of the journal Nature, he writes that "the reason women are not advancing [in science] is discrimination" and the "Summers Hypothesis amounts to nothing more than blaming the victim."

In his remarks at an economics conference in January 2005, Mr. Summers said "socialization" is probably a trivial reason for the low number of top female mathematicians and scientists. But Prof. Barres, who as Barbara received the subtle and not-so-subtle hints that steer smart girls away from science, doesn't see it that way. The top science and math student in her New Jersey high school, she was advised by her guidance counselor to go to a local college rather than apply to MIT. She applied anyway and was admitted.

As an MIT undergraduate, Barbara was one of the only women in a large math class, and the only student to solve a particularly tough problem. The professor "told me my boyfriend must have solved it for me," recalls Prof. Barres, 51 years old, in an interview. "If boys were raised to feel that they can't be good at mathematics, there would be very few who were."

Although Barbara Barres was a top student at MIT, "nearly every lab head I asked refused to let me do my thesis research" with him, Prof. Barres says. "Most of my male friends had their first choice of labs. And I am still disappointed about the prestigious fellowship I lost to a male student when I was a Ph.D. student," even though the rival had published one prominent paper and she had six.

As a neuroscientist, Prof. Barres is also skeptical of the claim that differences between male and female brains might explain the preponderance of men in math and science. For one thing, he says, the studies don't adequately address whether those differences are innate and thus present from birth, or reflect the different experiences that men and women have. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who defends the Summers Hypothesis, acknowledges that the existence of gender differences in values, preferences and aptitudes "does not mean that they are innate."

The biggest recent revolution in neuroscience has been the discovery of the brain's "plasticity," or ability to change structure and function in response to experiences. "It's not hard to believe that differences between the brains of male and female adults have nothing to do with genes or the Y chromosome but may be the biological expression of different social settings," says biologist Joan Roughgarden of Stanford, who completed her own transgender transition in 1998.

Jonathan Roughgarden's colleagues and rivals took his intelligence for granted, Joan says. But Joan has had "to establish competence to an extent that men never have to. They're assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise. I remember going on a drive with a man. He assumed I couldn't read a map."

Actually, Ben Barres says there may be something to the stereotype that men are better map readers. The testosterone he received to become male improved his spatial abilities, he writes in Nature, though "I still get lost every time I drive."

Still, there is little evidence that lack of testosterone or anything unique to male biology is the main factor keeping women from the top ranks of science and math, says Prof. Barres, a view that is widely held among scientists who study the issue. Although more men than women in the U.S. score in the stratosphere on math tests, there is no such difference in Japan, and in Iceland the situation is flipped, with more women than men scoring at the very top.

"That seems more like 'socialization' than any difference in innate abilities to me," geneticist Gregory Petsko of Brandeis University wrote last year. In any case, except in a few specialized fields like theoretical physics, there is little correlation between math scores and who becomes a scientist.

Some supporters of the Summers Hypothesis suggest that temperament, not ability, holds women back in science: They are innately less competitive. Prof. Barres's experience suggests that if women are less competitive, it is not because of anything innate but because that trait has been beaten out of them.

"Female scientists who are competitive or assertive are generally ostracized by their male colleagues," he says. In any case, he argues, "an aggressive competitive spirit" matters less to scientific success than curiosity, perseverance and self-confidence.

Women doubt their abilities more than men do, say scientists who have mentored scores of each. "Almost without exception, the talented women I have known have believed they had less ability than they actually had," Prof. Petsko wrote. "And almost without exception, the talented men I have known believed they had more."

Which may account for what Prof. Barres calls the main difference he has noticed since changing sex. "People who do not know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect," he says. "I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man."

Also see http://physorg.com/news71935417.html

 

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Question
How do athletes at Auburn University find a way to ace sociology without having to go to class?

"Top Grades and No Class Time for Auburn Players," by Pete Thamal, The New York Times, July 14, 2006 --- Click Here

Professor Petee’s directed-reading classes, which nonathletes took as well, helped athletes in several sports improve their grade-point averages and preserve their athletic eligibility. A number of athletes took more than one class with Professor Petee over their careers: one athlete took seven such courses, three athletes took six, five took five and eight took four, according to records compiled by Professor Gundlach. He also found that more than a quarter of the students in Professor Petee’s directed-reading courses were athletes. (Professor Gundlach could not provide specific names because of student privacy laws.)

The Auburn football team’s performance in the N.C.A.A.’s new rankings of student athletes’ academic progress surprised many educators on and off campus. The team had the highest ranking of any Division I-A public university among college football’s six major conferences. Over all among Division I-A football programs, Auburn trailed only Stanford, Navy and Boston College, and finished just ahead of Duke.

Among those caught off guard by Auburn’s performance was Gordon Gee, the chancellor of Vanderbilt, a fellow university in the Southeastern Conference and its only private institution. Vanderbilt had an 88 percent graduation rate in 2004, compared with Auburn’s 48 percent, yet finished well behind Auburn in the new N.C.A.A. rankings.

“It was a little surprising because our graduation rates are so much higher,” Mr. Gee said. “I’m not quite certain I understood that.”

The N.C.A.A. cannot comment on specific academic cases. But when asked how much 18 players taking 97 credit hours could affect a football team’s academic standing, Thomas S. Paskus, the N.C.A.A.’s principal research scientist, said it would be likely to lift the number. He added that it would be difficult to gauge how much the classes helped the academic ranking.

In the spring of 2005, Professor Gundlach confronted Professor Petee, to whom he reported, about the proliferation of directed-reading courses. That spring, the university’s administration told Professor Petee he was carrying too many of the classes. Far fewer have been offered since.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on academic scandals in college athletics are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Athletics

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"Internet Con Artists Turn to 'Vishing'," PhysOrg, July 13, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news71990250.html

Internet con artists are turning to an old tool - the phone - to keep tricking Web users who have learned not to click on links in unsolicited e-mails.

User rating Not rated yet Would you recommend this story? Not at all - 1 2 3 4 5 - Highly

A batch of e-mails recently making the rounds were crafted to appear as if they came from PayPal, eBay Inc.'s online payment service. Like traditional phony "phishing" e-mails, these said there was some problem with the recipients' accounts.

Phishing e-mails generally instruct recipients to click a link in the e-mail to confirm their personal information; the link actually connects to a bogus site where the data are stolen.

But with Internet users wiser about phishing, the new fake PayPal e-mail included no such link. Instead it told users to call a number, where an automated answering service asked for account information.

Security experts tracking this scam and other instances of "vishing" - short for "voice phishing" - say the frauds are particularly nefarious because they mimic the legitimate ways people interact with financial institutions.

In fact, some vishing attacks don't begin with an e-mail. Some come as calls out of the blue in which the caller already knows the recipient's credit card number - increasing the perception of legitimacy - and asks just for the valuable three-digit security code on the back of the card.

"It is becoming more difficult to distinguish phishing attempts from actual attempts to contact customers," said Ron O'Brien, a security analyst with Sophos PLC.

Vishing appears to be flourishing with the help of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, the technology that enables cheap and anonymous Internet calling, as well as the ease with which caller ID boxes can be tricked into displaying erroneous information.

The upshot: "If you get a telephone call where someone is asking you to provide or confirm any of your personal information, immediately hang up and call your financial institution with the number on the back of the card," said Paul Henry, a vice president with Secure Computing Corp. "If it was a real issue, they can address the issue."

Continued in article

"IRS Warns Phishing Scams Increasing," AccountingWeb, July 12, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102335

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reminding taxpayers to be on the lookout for bogus e-mails claiming to be from the tax agency, on the heels of a recent increase in scam e-mails.

In recent weeks the IRS has experienced an increase in complaints about e-mails designed to trick the recipients into disclosing personal and financial information that could be used to steal the recipient’s identity and financial assets. Since November, 99 different scams have been identified. Twenty of those were identified in June, the highest number since the height of the filing season when 40 were identified in March.

“The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails asking for personal information,” IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson, said in a prepared statement. “Don’t be taken in by these criminals.”

The current scams claim to come from theirs, tell recipients that they are due a federal tax refund, and direct them to a web site that appears to be a genuine IRS site. The bogus sites contain forms or interactive web pages similar to the IRS forms or Web pages but which have been modified to request detailed personal and financial information from the e-mail recipients. In addition, e-mail addresses ending with “.edu” – involving users in the education community – currently seem to be heavily targeted.

Many of the current schemes originate outside the United States. To date, investigations by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration have identified sites hosting more than two dozen IRS-related phishing scams. These scam Web sites have been located in many different countries, including Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, China, England, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Singapore and Slovakia, as well as the United States.

Tricking consumers into disclosing their personal and financial information, such as secret access data or credit card or bank account numbers, is fraudulent activity which can result in identity theft. Such schemes perpetrated through the Internet are called “phishing” for information.

The information fraudulently obtained is them used to steal the taxpayer’s identity and financial assets. Typically, identity thieves use someone’s personal data to empty the victim’s financial accounts, run up charges on the victim’s existing credit cards, apply for new loans, credit cards, services or benefits in the victim’s name and even file fraudulent tax returns.

When the IRS learns of new schemes involving use of the IRS name or logo, it issues consumer alerts warning taxpayers about the schemes.

The IRS also has established an electronic mailbox for taxpayers to send information about suspicious e-mails they receive which claim to come from the IRS. Taxpayers should send the information to phishing@irs.gov. Instructions on how to properly submit possibly fraudulent e-mails to the IRS may be found on the IRS web site at www.irs.gov. This mailbox is only for suspicious e-mails, not general taxpayer inquiries.

More than 7,000 bogus e-mails have been forwarded to the IRS, with nearly 1,300 forwarded in June alone. Due to the volume or e-mails the mailbox receives, the IRS cannot acknowledge receipt or reply to taxpayers who submit possibly bogus e-mails.

Bob Jensen's threads on "Phishing , Pharming, Vishing, Slurping, and Spoofing" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#Phishing
 

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Question
What are the worst of the bad opening sentences to imaginary novels?

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2006 Results at San Jose State University --- http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2006.htm

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
Jim Guigli
Carmichael, CA

"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"
Stuart Vasepuru
Edinburgh, Scotland

Christy, lounging in the gondola which slipped smoothly through the enveloping mist had her first inkling that something was afoot as she heard pattering hooves below (for our story is not in Venice but Switzerland with its Provolone and Toblerone) and craning her not unlovely neck she narrowed her eyes at the dozen tiny reindeer, pelting madly down the goat trail.
Irene Buttuls
Lytton, B.C

She looked at her hands and saw the desiccated skin hanging in Shar-Pei wrinkles, confetti-like freckles, and those dry, dry cuticles--even her "Fatale Crimson" nail color had faded in the relentless sun to the color of old sirloin--and she vowed if she ever got out of the Sahara alive, she'd never buy polish on sale at Walgreen's again.
Christin Keck
Kent, OH

It was a day, like any other day, in that Linus got up, faced the sunrise, used his inhaler, applied that special cream between his toes, wrote a quick note and put it in a bottle, and wished he'd been stranded on the island with something other than 40 cases each of inhalers, decorative bottles, and special toe cream.
Chris Harget
Campbell, CA

Continued at http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2006.htm

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Web Site Comparing Shipping Rates Launches --- https://www.redroller.com/shippingcenter/home
Enter your address, the weight of a package and its destination, and the site displays a grid with the prices various couriers would charge to send the item, depending on the delivery time. With a few clicks, you can print a shipping label and schedule a pickup, or find the nearest drop-off center. "Instead of being designed to ship people, it was designed to ship packages," Van Wyck said.
"Web Site Comparing Shipping Rates Launches," PhysOrg, July 13, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news71989826.html

 

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Recent Examples of Cheating from "Cheating:  Everybody's Doing It," by Gay Jervey, Readers Digest, March 2006, pp. 123-124:

• Nine business students at the University of Maryland caught receiving text-messaged answers on their cell phones during an accounting examination.
   
• A Texas teen criminally charged for selling stolen test answers --- allegedly swiped via a keystroke-decoding device affixed to a teacher's computer --- to fellow students.
   
• Seven Kansas State University students in one class accused of plagiarizing papers off the Internet.
   
• A Kansas State University student hacked into a professor's online grade book and changed the grades on two examinations that he did not even take.
   
• 70 percent of students at 60 colleges admitted to some cheating within the previous year (Gallop reported 65%).

Bob Jensen's threads on "New Kinds of Cheating" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm#NewKindOfCheating
 

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Popular Mortgage Web Site Under Scrutiny
A lawsuit against Bankrate.com, which alleges that the Web site has become a haven for "bait-and-switch" loan pitches, underlines the difficulty consumers can have in locating reliable financial information online.
Michael Hudson, "Popular Mortgage Web Site Under Scrutiny:  Lawsuit Against Bankrate Spotlights Difficulty of Getting Sound Financial Data Online," The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2006 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115266435444704096.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

Bob Jensen's mortgage advice is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#MortgageAdvice

Bob Jensen's threads on banking fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking

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"An Easier Way to Send Large Email Attachments:  Free Application Helps To Avoid Clogging Inboxes; Speeds Still Might Vary," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2006; Page D5 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115265970702403948.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

How many times have you wanted to email a large attachment -- like a bunch of digital photos, an album of songs, or a hefty video -- but didn't do so because it exceeded your email provider's, or the recipient's, limits on attachment size, or because it might max out the recipient's mailbox?

This frustration is growing increasingly common as better digital cameras produce bigger photos and large video clips, and digital music becomes more widespread. Computer hard disks have grown nicely to accommodate these files, but limits on the size of email messages haven't. And, even if you could send such large attachments, it can take forever to send them via email, partly because broadband upload speeds lag far behind download speeds.

Instead of suffering the frustration of a bounced email, many folks have resorted to Web-based services like Shutterfly or Kodak EasyShare Gallery or YouTube.com or Google Video for sharing digital photos and videos. They upload the files to these sites, then send links to their friends and family. But this method has major drawbacks. The recipients don't get the full-size files on their own computers, and sometimes must register with the sites to view your material.

This week, we tested a new, free, application called Pando that aims to solve this problem without requiring you to use an intermediary Web site. Pando lets you email huge attachments -- up to one gigabyte each -- to anyone, without breaching email size limits, or clogging anyone's inbox. It comes in versions for both Windows and Macintosh computers, available for downloading at www.pando.com.

It sounded fishy to us, too, but Pando, from Pando Networks Inc., performed really well in our tests -- even in its current "beta," or trial, stage. It's simple, fast, and effective, and it solves the large-attachment problem.

Pando works by merging the mechanism of email with its own small program and a modified version of BitTorrent, a back-end file-transfer system best known until now for speeding up the downloading of large, unauthorized files, like pirated movies.

Here's how you use Pando. First, you download and install the small Pando program. Then, you select the files you want to send. These can be any type of files you want, or even whole folders of files. Then, still using the Pando software, you type in the addresses of the recipients, the subject, and a message. The software then does three things: it creates a Pando Package, a small special file that instructs the recipient's computer on how to fetch the files; it sends an email containing that package file, plus any text you want; and it uploads the files to a Pando server.

On the recipient's end, an email is received in his or her normal email program containing the Pando Package as a tiny attachment (one huge 94 megabyte attachment we sent required only a 22-kilobyte attachment). The recipient just opens the Pando Package attachment, and it in turn launches the Pando software, which then downloads the files or folders you sent. The first time the recipient receives a Pando email, he or she will have to download and install the Pando software. There's a link in the email to the download site.

Once downloaded onto the receiver's computer, all Pando files can be found in a special folder that Pando automatically creates. In Windows, it's called My Pando Packages and is in My Documents. On the Mac, it's called Pando Packages and is in the home folder. The files are also listed in the handy Received list in the Pando software.

As a bonus, Pando can sometimes transmit these large files faster than your email program or Web browser could. That's because it uses a modified version of the speedy BitTorrent technology.

We downloaded and installed Pando in just a few minutes. Opening the small Pando email attachment from Microsoft Outlook on Windows or Apple Mail on the Mac prompted a little Pando window to pop up, in which all sent and received files were organized. This window is simple, showing a thumbnail image and text description of each file. A list of received files shows who sent the file and when; the sent list shows to whom you sent files and when.

We started out big, sharing a 95-megabyte, high-resolution video. You must create a username and password to send using Pando, which we did, entering our email and first and last names. A simple "Send New" icon opens the email-like form, where we dragged and dropped this big video file.

No Pando Package can total more than one gigabyte, and an automatic tally shows you how large the Package is becoming as you drag and drop more files into it.

Continued in article

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From Mossberg's Mailbox
"How to Split Up MP3 Files," The Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2006; Page B4 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/mossberg_mailbox.html

Q: I'm downloading some lectures in MP3 format and then transferring each to an audio CD to listen to while driving. An occasional lecture in the series is too large to transfer to CD. Is there a program that will divide these into two tracks so that they can be written to separate CDs?

A: Yes, there are multiple little utility programs that can split (or join) MP3 files. I haven't tested any of them, so I can't recommend one. But you can find them by going to www.download.com and typing in "mp3 splitter."

Bob Jensen's audio helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#WebAudio

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"Are You Saving Enough for Retirement? A Guide to Figuring It Out and Funding It," by Jonathan Clements, The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2006; Page D1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115265948927403942.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

So what's your personal liability and how can you trim it? Brace yourself: We're in for some scary math.

• Bridging the gap.
"Corporate accounting requires companies to look at their pension obligations, to use reasonable assumptions and to fund those obligations on an annual basis," notes Charles Farrell, a financial consultant in Medina, Ohio. "A little bit of that corporate discipline can be helpful on the individual side."
 
 

Mr. Farrell's advice: Start by deciding how much income you will need from your portfolio to supplement whatever you expect from Social Security and any pensions you're entitled to. Next, multiply your desired portfolio income by 20, to get the target size of your retirement nest egg. (This assumes you use a 5% withdrawal rate in the first year of retirement, and thereafter step up your withdrawals with inflation.)

For instance, if you're looking to garner $40,000 in initial retirement income from your portfolio, you would need $800,000 saved. Let's say you have $300,000 salted away. That means your current unfunded retirement liability is $500,000.

To find out how much you need to save each month to amass this $500,000, head to www.dinkytown.net and call up the savings-goal calculator. One problem: Thanks to inflation, your target retirement income and your required savings could be whole lot bigger by the time you quit the work force. What to do? Mr. Farrell suggests thinking in terms of after-inflation "real" rates of return.

To that end, when using the dinkytown.net calculator, set inflation at zero and input what you think your annual return will be, over and above inflation. If your portfolio includes a decent helping of stocks and you're careful about investment expenses, you might opt for a 4% real return.

Finally, enter your portfolio's value, your current monthly savings and your time horizon. The calculator will then tell you how much you really need to save each month to accumulate your desired nest egg. But here's the key: To combat inflation and ensure you have enough at retirement, you will need to increase your monthly savings along with inflation.

• Raising the price.
Does your required savings rate seem a little steep? If anything, you should probably be socking away even more, for two reasons.
 
 

First, many financial planners consider a truly safe withdrawal rate to be 4.5% or even 4%. That means you ought to amass as much as 25 times your desired $40,000, boosting your retirement liability to $1 million.

This is clearly news to a lot of ordinary investors. According to a study recently conducted for insurer New York Life, 40% of those surveyed weren't sure how much they could safely withdraw from a portfolio -- and an additional 29% thought that a safe retirement withdrawal rate was 10% or more. "There's a pretty big gap between expectations and reality," says Ted Mathas, chief operating officer at New York Life.

Second, while you might want only $40,000 a year in portfolio income, you should be prepared to spend as much as $74,095 per person. That's the national average cost for a private nursing-home room, according to insurer MetLife's Mature Market Institute. In fact, if both you and your spouse need care at the same time, you could have to fork over some $150,000 a year.

Assuming you get $20,000 a year from Social Security, your out-of-pocket cost might be $130,000. Based on a 5% withdrawal rate, that means you need $2.6 million socked away. How's that for a retirement liability?

"Long-term care is a huge potential cost," Mr. Farrell says. "If you're not rich enough to self-insure, you've got to think about buying a long-term-care policy that gives you at least minimal coverage."

• Trimming the tab.
A long-term-care policy is one way to dial down your unfunded retirement liability.
 
 

What else can you do? To squeeze more retirement income out of your assets, you could take out a reverse mortgage and use maybe 25% or 50% of your savings to buy an immediate-fixed annuity that pays lifetime income.

In addition, "you could try to lower your fixed costs," Mr. Farrell says. "A smaller house is better, because that should lower your property taxes and lower your utilities. You might also want to reassess how many cars you have."

Of course, cutting back isn't easy. "Try to downscale before you retire, to see if you're comfortable with that," Mr. Farrell suggests. "If you're not, you might want to retire a little later."

Postponing retirement -- unpalatable as it seems -- can transform your chances of a comfortable retirement. By delaying, you will have more time to save and more time for your investments to grow. You will also shorten your retirement, so you can be more aggressive in spending down your nest egg.

As an added bonus, delaying retirement will allow you to postpone taking Social Security and purchasing an immediate annuity. Result: When you start Social Security and when you buy your annuity, you will get even more income.

Bob Jensen's investment helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers

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"Social Security: What’s the Magic Age? When to start collecting your benefits," by Kathryn Garnett, Journal of Accountancy, July 2006 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jul2006/garnett.htm

In determining the age at which a worker should apply for Social Security benefits, consideration should be given to current and expected future sources of income, age of beneficiary and spouse, health issues that could affect longevity and whether the beneficiary will continue to work while receiving benefits.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” answer for deciding when Social Security benefits should be started. Many workers will benefit by beginning to receive benefits at age 62 due to their circumstances and needs. For others, waiting until full retirement age, or even later, will provide higher annual income in the years ahead when their expenses might outpace their resources.

How long does it take to break even in the game of taking benefits at early vs. normal retirement age? If two retirees are now 65 and one started collecting Social Security benefits at age 62 and the other starts now, they will collect the same total amount of money when they are 77 years old.

It’s important to do preretirement calculations at least every three years, to take into account any changing circumstances and/or changes in the rules as they apply to Social Security benefits, pensions and investment savings.

From Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, July 2006 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jul2006/news_web.htm

RETIREMENT PLANNING SITES

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Green Golden Years
http://retireplan.about.com
CPA/PFSs can find retirement planning advice here, including information on rolling over qualified plans, an IRA fact sheet and five reasons to open a 401(k) plan. Take a quiz to see how much you know about the basics of retirement planning, calculate 401(k) plan savings or sign up for a free newsletter.

Wealth of Resources
www.fpanet.org
Free registration at the Financial Planning Association Web site gets planners access to a calculator that can figure the worth of your client’s 401(k) at retirement. Find checklists on the documentation you should ask clients to supply to begin working with them and questions they may ask about your qualifications. Take an investment fraud awareness quiz or research what to do with your retirement plan if you lose your job.

Ready to Retire?
www.theretirementpros.com
Read detailed Qs&As on retirement planning in the Ask the Experts section at this e-stop to find out whether your clients are set for their futures. Topics include annuities, general investing, Medicaid and Social Security. Access calculators to figure out how much savings your clients will need in order to quit working. Compare taxable and tax-free investment returns and inflation’s impact on savings, get the free Primer on Annuities report or register for free Webinars and the Safe Money Advisory newsletter.

Older and WISER
www.wiser.heinz.org
The Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER) Web site offers five things women need to do for retirement, as well as five reasons retirement is a challenge for female workers. You can find 10 ways baby boomer women can avoid retirement poverty, read up on issues related to retirement plans, such as divorce and widowhood, or see how well you do on a pension checklist.

Retirement Resources
www.wealthygeek.com
Don’t let the tongue-in-cheek Web address fool you: CPAs looking for pertinent information on retirement planning for themselves and their clients will find it here. Links take users to Q&A discussions on factors affecting 401(k) plans, such as active vs. passive plan management and when payments kick in and tips on how to manage investment losses.

Bob Jensen's investment helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#Finance

Bob Jensen's threads on finding professional help are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fees.htm

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In trading simulations students cheat just like real-world traders
At the end of the semester, the number of students in a simulated trading room who were caught in misconduct or misusing information for insider trading was significantly higher than at the beginning. The students said, "You taught us how to do it," Buono recalled. "For those of us who've spent our careers teaching this, it's been a disappointing time," said Buono, who has taught at the Waltham, Mass., college for 27 years. "Some of the most renowned names in the corporate world are now jokes at cocktail parties. And they were led by graduates of our business programs. "That made a lot of us sit up and rethink the approach of what we're doing."
"Business Profs Rethinking Ethics Classes," SmartPros, June 19, 2006 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x53572.xml 

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Gender Gap Grows
The proportion of college students who are men continues to shrink — but that does not mean male students are being shut out of higher education, the American Council of Education says in a new report.
Doug Lederman, "Gender Gap Grows," Inside Higher Ed, July 12, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/12/gender

"Yes, College Women Work Harder," The New York Times, July 12, 2006 --- Click Here

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One in four boys who have college educated parents cannot read a newspaper with understanding

"Where the Boys Aren't," by Christina Hoff Sommers, The Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2006; Page A10 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115188123858496631.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

The reading scores of 17-year-old boys overall have gone down in the past decade, hitting an all-time low in 2004. Judith Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska, has done a thorough analysis of the reading skills of white males from college-educated families. Using Department of Education data, she shows that at the end of high school, 23% of the white sons of college educated parents scored "below basic." For girls from the same background, the figure is 7%. "This means," Ms. Kleinfeld writes, "that one in four boys who have college educated parents cannot read a newspaper with understanding."

Education Sector's study concedes that African-American, Hispanic and low-income white males "are in real trouble." But it attributes their plight to larger social problems that have little to do with gender. Ms. Mead does not seem to have noticed that among these demographics, males are far behind their female counterparts. For example, Ms. Kleinfeld found that 34% of Hispanic males with college-educated parents scored "below basic" -- compared to 19% of Hispanic females.

Today, for every 100 women who earn a bachelor's degree, just 73 men get one. Not to worry, says Ms. Mead. It is actually good news for young men, because more of them are going to college today than did in the '70s and '80s. By this reasoning, we need not worry about the relatively low wages of women compared to men, since in "absolute terms" women are doing better than in the past.

We are strikingly better at educating young women than young men. Boys need our attention. It is difficult to understand why an organization devoted to improving education should regard the current concern for boys as a threat to girls' progress. Education Sector would be more constructively occupied if it looked for ways to help our boys keep pace with the girls.

Ms. Sommers is the author of "The War Against Boys" (Simon & Schuster, 2000).

---

"Mindless Reading Seen As Fundamental," PhysOrg, July 3, 2006 --- http://physorg.com/news71154237.html

Ever read the same paragraph three times? Or get to the end of a page and realize you don't know what you just read?

That's mindless reading. It is the literary equivalent of driving for miles without remembering how you got there - something so common many people don't even notice it.

In a new study of college students, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of British Columbia established a way to study mindless reading in a lab.

Their findings showed that daydreaming has its costs.

The readers who zoned out most tended to do the worst on tests of reading comprehension - a significant, if not surprising, result. The study also suggested that zoning out caused the poor test results, as opposed to other possible factors, such as the complexity of the text or the task.

The researchers hope their work inspires more research into why zoning out happens, and what can be done to stop it.

For now, they want the problem to be taken seriously.

"When you talk about this work at conferences, it does lend itself to a lot of jokes," acknowledges University of Pittsburgh professor Erik Reichle, co-leader of the study.

"It's so ubiquitous. Everybody does it," he said. "I think that's one of the main reasons it's been overlooked. And there's been a view that it is tough to study experimentally. Hopefully, now, there will be more interest in the topic."

The federal government is showing some.

Reichle and fellow psychology professor Jonathan Schooler did the study on a $691,000 grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, an arm of the Education Department. It is one of 178 federally backed projects aimed at giving schools a scientific basis for sound policies.

Over three experiments, students used computers to read the first five chapters of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace." (Reichle wanted some boring reading - better for zoning out.)

Reichle said the dry text itself did not skew the results toward mindless wandering. After all, the students were on alert, unlike the typical reader.

Participants were told to monitor and report instances of zoning out as they read text on a computer. Half of them got computer reminders, too: "Were you zoning out?"

Despite all that, many still reported zoning out at a regular pace.

"That's the amazing thing," Reichle said. "It shows how often this can happen even under conditions that are designed to keep it from happening."

The students said as their eyes scanned the words, their minds often were elsewhere.

They were hungry, or thirsty, or tired. They were thinking about plans, worries or memories. Some drifted into fantasies. Others stuck with the book, but their minds wandered into tangents about the plot.

Karen Wixson, a nationally recognized reading expert and professor of education at the University of Michigan, cautioned not to read too much into all this.

"This is a long ways away from having implications for reading instruction," Wixson said. "It could, eventually, down the line. But to draw inferences about this as a contributing factor toward reading comprehension would be a huge, huge leap."

To apply to younger kids - the target audience of reading classes - the findings would have to be replicated among school-age children, Wixson said.

She said participants may have zoned more often because they were reading off computer screens, and because they had no real incentive to pay attention, as they would in school.

But at the International Reading Association, Cathy Roller sees some direct payoff. She directs research and policy for the association, which represents literacy professionals.

By recognizing zoning out as problem, she said, teachers can do something.

Like asking students to put a checkmark next to paragraphs as they finish them and then summarize what they just read.

Or having students scan all the pictures and bold type before reading the text of a story, so that they have a general understanding of what's to come.

Zoning out may simply mean that the prose isn't interesting, Roller said. But it could also be a clear signal that students don't understand the work.

"You don't want to generalize narrow studies into large implications," Roller said. "But zoning out is probably not a whole lot different than not comprehending. And telling people to start using some good comprehension strategies is not likely to do any harm."

Roller knows. She had just been zoning out while reading a literature review.

By the way, last sentence here. If you missed anything, there's no shame in rereading.

---

Good Morning, Vietnam

Robert E. Rubin, "Good Morning, Vietnam," The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2006; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115266738867104170.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

Vietnam is close to having completed negotiations for accession to the World Trade Organization. Once it does join, Vietnam will become part of the multilateral global trading system, with lower barriers to trade for the goods and services of its trading partners, and lower trading barriers in overseas markets to Vietnam's goods and services. This will be another major impetus for economic growth and development in Vietnam, as well as for integration with the rest of the global community.

However, for the benefits of Vietnam's WTO membership to apply to the U.S., Congress must enact legislation that eliminates the Cold War-era requirement that Vietnam each year receive presidential certification of progress with respect to human rights. This is exactly the same permanent exemption that was granted to China in the 1990s, and reflects a view that increased engagement with the international community best serves our national security interests and also over time helps promote human rights and other values that lie at the heart of the American political system.

The U.S. bilateral trading agreement with Vietnam already provides good access to most Vietnamese markets, but now this access would improve with respect to services, agriculture and protection of intellectual property. More importantly, helping Vietnam grow increases its market for our goods and services -- which could over time be very substantial, given the country's large population -- and also its efficiency in providing goods and services to us less expensively.

Continued in article

---

From Jim Mahar's Blog on June 29, 2006 --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

Greenbaum on Corporate Governance

Stuart Greenbaum recently gave a very interesting and important speech at the Financial Intermediation Research Society Meetings in Shanghai China. Fortunately for those of who did not go to China to attend the conference, the keynote address is available through SSRN. The abstract does not do the speech justice, so I will provide some "visual bites" via some "look-ins":

*"Ben Hermalin and Michael Weisbach (2003) quote Adam Smith on agency problems arising from separation of finance and management....Berle and Means (1933) essay these same issues in the context of public corporations with diffuse ownership....Nevertheless, the current flowering of the corporate governance issue, accompanied by a tsunami-like surge of research...offers something new."

* "It was recently noted by Gillan (2006) that searching "corporate governance"� on SSRN yielded 3500 items....being impelled to reinterpret virtually all of Finance."

*"Finance may well become the business school's quintessential normative discipline. Teaching business ethics, always something of an embarrassment, may simply come to be teaching Finance well!"

* "The corporate governance issue divides itself conveniently into two complementary components of substance and implementation. The former asks the question of corporate purpose. Arguments in the corporation's alleged objective function are the domain of inquiry. Shareholders versus stakeholders is the vernacular phrasing."

"Tirole concedes three pedestrian reasons for the narrower construal of corporate purpose [that is why we should focus on shareholders] These include paucity of appropriable resources, parsimony (workability) and avoidance of foot-dragging and deadlocks in decision making (again, workability). There is no doctrinal defense of share- or debtholders' property rights. Tirole's concessions to shareholders' exclusivity as claimants to both cash flow and control rights are unabashedly and exclusively practical."

However,

*"Whatever your personal predilection---and mine veers toward the traditional, narrower view on Tirolean grounds--- it would be wrong to ignore the tectonic drift in public sentiment toward a greener, more European view of corporate purpose."

* "...the explosion of interest in corporate governance is too easily misinterpreted as a theme, even a nuance, in Finance. Nomenclature aside, corporate governance is a watershed, comparable to the reinvention of the field beginning in the late 1950's by Modigliani, Miller, Scholes, Merton, Jensen, Fama, et al."

*"The corporate governance movement breathed life into Behavioral Finance that sought explanations for anomalies of the frictionless, efficient markets so integral to the earlier recasting of Finance. But whereas Behavioral Finance deployed a set of unrelated psychological constructs as explanations for previously puzzling financial occurrences, corporate governance offered a cohesive story originating at the epicenter, the inner sanctum of corporate affairs"

Greenbaum then goes on to discuss the role of intermediaries:

*"...banks have been complicit in the more heralded corporate scandals...In any case, this failure of banks to perform expected monitoring was widespread. Standard explanations fell into the "�my brother thinks he'�s a chicken" category. That is, the fees paid to the intermediaries were too seductively large to be jeopardized....This is the same reason Arthur Andersen and Enron'�s lawyers were said to have looked the other way."

* He concludes: "The financial intermediaries, along with boards, external auditors, lawyers, the stock exchange and governmental regulators, are the guardians society depends upon to protect corporate integrity. The intermediaries' role is to monitor, but they are just as subject to subversion as those they are charged with monitoring."

Well said and a great speech. Definitely I^3 (which is I think the first time I have ever given a speech an I^3 rating.)

Highly recommended!

Cite: Greenbaum, Stuart I., "Corporate Governance and the Reinvention of Finance" (June 20, 2006). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=908613

---

June 29, 2006 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]

TABLET PCS AND FACULTY USERS

Many recent studies on tablet PCs in higher education have focused on student users. The purpose of the Seton Hall University project described in "The Tablet PC For Faculty: A Pilot Project" (by Rob R. Weitz, Bert Wachsmuth, and Danielle Mirliss in JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY, vol. 9, issue. 2, 2006, pp. 68-83) "was to test and evaluate faculty applications of tablet PCs apropos their contribution to teaching and learning. Put another way, how would real faculty teaching actual classes use tablets, and how would they evaluate the utility of doing so?"

Some of the study's findings:

-- "only a fraction of faculty are motivated to use tablet technology: roughly a third of faculty expressed an interest in replacing their notebook computer with a tablet computer"

-- "generally, participating faculty did indeed use tablet functionality in their classes and were convinced that this use resulted in a meaningful impact on teaching and learning."

The paper is available online at http://www.ifets.info/journals/9_2/6.pdf

The Journal of Educational Technology & Society [ISSN 1436-4522 (online), ISSN 1176-3647 (print)] is a peer-reviewed quarterly online journal published by the International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS). Current and past issues are available in HTML and PDF formats at no cost at http://www.ifets.info/

Bob Jensen's threads on tricks and tools of the trade are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

In particular note the module on Tablet PCs at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Tablets

---

June 28, 2996 message from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]

Some might find this interesting:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6547004.html?tag=nl.e501

(BTW, the Linksys WRT54GL is what we've been using to stretch the working range of 802.11 wireless from 300 feet to 52 miles. It is currently the only router (that we know about) which allows the user to re-program the protocol parameters (such as packet retry time-out values, etc.) to allow for such lengthy signal paths.

I assume that [the reprogrammability of the firmware] is why Fon is using them [the Linksys WRT54GL routers].

I made it sound as though Fon were using this model router because it could be reprogrammed to allow for long- distance networking. The long-distance aspect is probably unrelated to Fon's selection. Fon is using them because they can re-program the protocol parameters in OTHER ways, too.

The WRT54GL firmware is programmed in Linux, and is user- loadable. This is unique for a commercially-manufacturered router. It is also perfect for experimenters.

 

David R. Fordham

James Madison University

---

June 28, 2006 message from Andrew Priest [a.priest@ECU.EDU.AU]

G'day

Thought this might be of interest.

Regards
Andrew Priest

CIRI Instigator is the latest in CIRI Lab's sophisticated knowledge management technology. CIRI Instigator lets you:

• Read a document to identify and summarize relevant information
• Profile and organize a website or document collection
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CIRI Instigator is divided into three main functions: Read, Discover, and Profile

The Read function provides you with a synopsis, a detailed summary, and a navigateable map of the knowledge contained within any local document, or any page on the Internet.

The Discover function allows you to search for new ideas based on the content of a paragraph, document, or a profile. You can search on your local computer, or on the Internet.

The Profile function allows you to read multiple documents in one easy step, providing you with everything the Read function does and more! The profile function will also organize your knowledge into a sorteable, easy-to-navigate hierarchy that represents the content of your chosen documents. You can profile documents from your own computer, or from a website.

Download an evaluation of CIRI Instigator.
 

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Location: Room 16.220 Churchlands campus

 

Phone +61 8 9273 8116 

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---

"Nigerians foiled in black banknote scam in Vietnam," --- Thannnie News, June 26, 2006 ---  http://www.thanhniennews.com/overseas/?catid=12&newsid=17070

Vietnamese police have foiled three Nigerians in their scams duping thousands of dollars out of Vietnamese women who lent them money to ostensibly buy chemicals to restore ‘blackened US banknotes’.

A source said they had been deported from Vietnam.

The police refused to reveal their names or say whether the three cases were related, but they happened with different women earlier this year by different Nigerians with the same trick.

In April, one Nigerian befriended a café owner in southern Vung Tau resort city and promised to give her a share in a restaurant he was about to open if she lent him US$20,000 to buy chemicals to restore blackened banknotes worth an astronomical US$1 billion.

He claimed he had purposefully blackened the notes to dodge customs screenings and taxation.

He then did an experiment. After rubbing and cleansing in a ‘special solution’, he managed to turn two blackened papers the size of US$100 banknotes into real cash.

He generously gifted her the two notes.

The gullible woman later lent him $7,000 before being handed a stack of supposed banknotes wrapped in thick paper. He said the money had been treated with chemicals but had to wait for eight hours in cold temperatures before taking effect.

She then put the stack in her fridge and, after eight hours, opened it only to discover they were just plain paper.

Meanwhile, the ‘billionaire’ had fled.

A similar case occurred the following month with a woman in Ho Chi Minh City, who got to know a man claiming to be Brazilian through Internet chat.

The ‘Brazilian’, who is in fact Nigerian, flew to Vietnam and told her he had inherited $6.5 million which he wanted to invest in Vietnam.

He added the $500,000 he had initially transported to Vietnam had turned black and he needed $40,000 to buy chemicals.

Another woman also in Ho Chi Minh City was similarly defrauded of $30,000.

A policeman told Thanh Nien the tricksters secretly slid real banknotes underneath the black papers during ‘chemical treatment’ and secretly slipped the black papers out. The ‘chemical solution’ is just plain water, he added.

Bob Jensen's threads on Nigerian frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#NigerianFraud

---

Assessment of Learning Achievements of College Graduates

"Getting the Faculty On Board," by Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Inside Higher Ed, June 23, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/06/23/hrabowski

But as assessment becomes a national imperative, college and university leaders face a major challenge: Many of our faculty colleagues are skeptical about the value of external mandates to measure teaching and learning, especially when those outside the academy propose to define the measures. Many faculty members do not accept the need for accountability, but the assessment movement’s success will depend upon faculty because they are responsible for curriculum, instruction and research. All of us — policy makers, administrators and faculty — must work together to develop language, strategies and practices that help us appreciate one another and understand the compelling need for assessment — and why it is in the best interest of faculty and students.

Why is assessment important? We know from the work of researchers like Richard Hersh, Roger Benjamin, Mark Chun and George Kuh that college enrollment will be increasing by more than 15 percent nationally over the next 15 years (and in some states by as much as 50 percent). We also know that student retention rates are low, especially among students of color and low-income students. Moreover, of every 10 children who start 9th grade, only seven finish high school, five start college, and fewer than three complete postsecondary degrees. And there is a 20 percent gap in graduation rates between African Americans (42 percent) and whites (62 percent). These numbers are of particular concern given the rising higher education costs, the nation’s shifting demographics, and the need to educate more citizens from all groups.

At present, we do not collect data on student learning in a systematic fashion and rankings on colleges and universities focus on input measures, rather than on student learning in the college setting. Many people who have thought about this issue agree: We need to focus on “value added” assessment as an approach to determine the extent to which a university education helps students develop knowledge and skills. This approach entails comparing what students know at the beginning of their education and what they know upon graduating. Such assessment is especially useful when large numbers of students are not doing well — it can and should send a signal to faculty about the need to look carefully at the “big picture” involving coursework, teaching, and the level of support provided to students and faculty.

Many in the academy, however, continue to resist systematic and mandated assessment in large part because of problems they see with K-12 initiatives like No Child Left Behind — e.g., testing that focuses only on what can be conveniently measured, unacceptable coaching by teachers, and limiting what is taught to what is tested. Many academics believe that what is most valuable in the college experience cannot be measured during the college years because some of the most important effects of a college education only become clearer some time after graduation. Nevertheless, more institutions are beginning to understand that value-added assessment can be useful in strengthening teaching and learning, and even student retention and graduation rates.

It is encouraging that a number of institutions are interested in implementing value-added assessment as an approach to evaluate student progress over time and to see how they compare with other institutions. Such strategies are more effective when faculty and staff across the institution are involved. Examples of some best practices include the following:

1. Constantly talking with colleagues about both the challenges and successful initiatives involving undergraduate education.
2. Replicating successful initiatives (best practices from within and beyond the campus), in order to benefit as many students as possible.
3. Working continuously to improve learning based on what is measured — from advising practices and curricular issues to teaching strategies — and making changes based on what we learn from those assessments.
4. Creating accountability by ensuring that individuals and groups take responsibility for different aspects of student success.
5. Recruiting and rewarding faculty who are committed to successful student learning (including examining the institutional reward structure).
6. Taking the long view by focusing on initiatives over extended periods of time — in order to integrate best practices into the campus culture.

We in the academy need to think broadly about assessment. Most important, are we preparing our students to succeed in a world that will be dramatically different from the one we live in today? Will they be able to think critically about the issues they will face, working with people from all over the globe? It is understandable that others, particularly outside the university, are asking how we demonstrate that our students are prepared to handle these issues.

Assessment is becoming a national imperative, and it requires us to listen to external groups and address the issues they are raising. At the same time, we need to encourage and facilitate discussions among our faculty — those most responsible for curriculum, instruction, and research — to grapple with the questions of assessment and accountability. We must work together to minimize the growing tension among groups — both outside and inside the university — so that we appreciate and understand different points of view and the compelling need for assessment.

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on controversies in higher education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
 

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"Some CPAs Escape State Disciplinary Action," AccountingWeb, June 20, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102273

There have been more than 50 accountants sanctioned over 2005 and 2006 for professional misconduct and few of them have compensated shareholders for their complicity or neglect. The Associated Press reports that although sanctioned not to practice public accounting for between one and ten years by the SEC, these accountants still prepare, audit or review financial statements for public companies.

They also remain able to perform these services for private companies. While firms such as Arthur Andersen and others have paid huge sums in accounting damages, the individual accountants have escaped their professional penance, according to the Associated Press.

The disconnect seems to be an established communication system that would allow the SEC to advise state accounting boards of federal sanctions against rogue accountants. Another aspect of the disconnect is that state accountancy boards do not have staff to handle the number or reach of financial scandals such as Cendant, Enron or WorldCom.

Texas is one of many states facing this situation. License renewals are not a verifiable method of finding out about SEC sanctions unless without the accountant completing the questions truthfully. A spokesman for the Georgia board told the Associated Press that a CPA recently renewed his license online without disclosing his disciplinary action by the SEC.

William Treacy, executive director of the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, told the Associated Press, “We don’t have the staff on board to manage the extra workload that the profession has been confronted over the last few years, so we contracted with the attorney general’s office to provide extra prosecutorial power.”

One of the problems and potential fixes to this situation may be to fine accountants. After a landmark SEC settlement in which three partners at KPMG agreed to pay a combined fine totaling $400,000 for their complicity in the $1.2 billion fraud at Xerox, the Associated Press reports that one of the partners still holds his license in New York.

David Nolte of Fulcrum Financial Inquiry told the Associated Press, “The SEC has never sought serious money from errant CPAs. Unfortunately, the small fines in the Xerox case set a record of the amount paid, so everyone else has gotten off easy.”

With the heavy investment in internal controls and procedures by CPA firms, the human element of accounting and auditing helps even large CPA firms fail to identify accounting problems. Members of an audit team can identify insufficient knowledge, misrepresentation of information, sloppy accounting or even simple misrepresentation of information but must be able to see the warning signs of other risky behavior. The CPA Journal suggests a 360-degree assessment of members on an audit team. As a structured, systematic way to collect information, evaluators include the person’s boss, peers, direct reports, and even clients.

Continued in article

The Sad State of Professional Discipline in Public Accountancy

"SEC Accountant Fines Largely Go Unpaid," SmartPros, June 7, 2006 --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/x53399.xml

The Securities and Exchange Commission has taken disciplinary action against more than 50 accountants in 2005 and 2006 for misconduct in scandals big and small. But few have paid a dime to compensate shareholders for their varying levels of neglect or complicity.

It also turns out that nearly half of them continue to hold valid state licenses to hang out their shingles as certified public accountants, based on an examination of public records by The Associated Press.

So while the SEC has forbidden these CPAs from preparing, auditing or reviewing financial statements for a public company, they remain free to perform those very same services for private companies and other organizations that may be unaware of their professional misdeeds.

Some would say the accounting profession has taken its fair share of lumps, particularly with the abrupt annihilation of Arthur Andersen LLP and the jobs of thousands of auditors who had nothing to do with the firm's Enron Corp. account. Meantime, the big auditing firms are paying hundreds of millions of dollars in damages - without admitting or denying wrongdoing - to settle assorted charges of professional malpractice.

Individual penance is another matter, however, and here the accountants aren't being held so accountable.

Part of the trouble is that there doesn't appear to be an established system of communication by which the SEC automatically notifies state accounting regulators of federal disciplinary actions. In several instances, state accounting boards were unaware a licensee had been disciplined by the SEC until it was brought to their attention in the reporting for this column. The SEC says it refers all disciplinary actions to the relevant state boards, so the cause of any breakdowns in these communications is unclear.

Another obstacle may be that some state boards do not have ample resources to tackle the sudden swell of financial scandals. It's not as if, for example, the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy had ever before dealt with an accounting fraud as vast as that perpetrated at Houston-based Enron.

"We don't have the staff on board to manage the extra workload that the profession has been confronted with over the last few years," said William Treacy, executive director of the Texas board. "So we contracted with the attorney general's office to provide extra prosecutorial power."

Treacy said his office is usually notified of SEC actions concerning Texas-licensed CPAs, but the process isn't automatic.

With other states, communications from the SEC appear less certain. If nothing else, many boards rely upon license renewals to learn about SEC actions, but that only works if the applicants respond truthfully to questions about whether they've been disciplined by any federal or state agency. A spokeswoman for Georgia's board said one CPA recently disciplined by the SEC had renewed his license online without disclosing it.

Ransom Jones, CPA-Investigator for the Mississippi State Board of Public Accountancy, said most of his leads come from other accountants, media reports and annual registrations.

"The SEC doesn't necessarily notify the board," said Jones, whose agency revoked the licenses of key players in the scandal at Mississippi-based WorldCom.

Some state boards appear more vigilant than others in policing their membership. The boards in California and Ohio have punished most of their licensees who have been disciplined by the SEC since the start of 2005.

New York regulators haven't yet penalized any locals targeted by the SEC in that timeframe, though they have taken action against two disciplined by the SEC's new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. It is conceivable that cases are underway but not yet disclosed, or that some individuals have been cleared despite the SEC's findings. A spokesman for the New York State Education Department said all SEC referrals are probed, but not all forms of misconduct are punishable under local statute. New rules now under consideration would strengthen those disciplinary powers, he said.

Meanwhile, although the SEC deserves credit for de-penciling those CPAs who've breached their duties as gatekeepers of financial integrity, barely any of those individuals have been asked to make amends financially.

No doubt, except for those elevated to CEO or CFO, most accountants are not paid as handsomely as the corporate elite. That said, partners from top accounting firms are were [sic] paid well enough to cough up more than the SEC has sought, which in most cases has been zero.

Earlier this year, in what the SEC crowed about as a landmark settlement, three partners for KPMG LLP agreed to pay a combined $400,000 in fines regarding a $1.2 billion fraud at Xerox Corp. One of those fined still holds his license in New York.

"The SEC has never sought serious money from errant CPAs," said David Nolte of Fulcrum Financial Inquiry LLP. "Unfortunately, the small fines in the Xerox case set a record of the amou