government jobs: October 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

GDAE Podcast - Episode 36

October 31, 2010 - Released

Left / Right Populism - Part VII

Can genuine conservatives and progressives clean up our democratic institutions?

Motivation for Reaching out to the Political Right on Issues of Common Concern: Preventing the Drift toward "Barbarism".

Right-Wing TV/Radio Incitement: The case of Byron Williams who attempted to murder eleven people in San Francisco after listening to Glenn Beck and others.

Walden Bello: A historical perspective on the Drift toward "Barbarism" and its relation to the Movtiation to reach out to genuine conservatives.

2006 Conservative Essay: "Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance: A rebel alliance already exists that could stop Bush administration attacks on the Constitution."

Prosecution of Bush Officials: Beating the drum with the help of revelations from WikiLeaks of US complicity with abuse and torture.

Iraqi Blogger Raed Jarrar: Personal experience with WikiLeaks revelations.

Start with Episode 29 for Full Series on Left/Right Populist Alliance
or
Start with Episode 30 for Quick 20-minute Kickoff

Play Episode 36 from this page:

Click to Download Episode 36.

Play Episode 35 from this page:

Click to Download Episode 35.

Listen to Part V in the series, Episode 34:

Listen to Part IV in the series, Episode 33:

Listen to Part III in the series, Episode 32:

Listen to Part II in the series, Episode 31:

Listen to Part I in the series, Episode 30, (20-minute abridged version):

Saturday, October 30, 2010

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TRICK OR TREATERS

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Info on tourist information in Toscana/Tuscany, Italy

Here are some links on tourist information in Toscana/Tuscany, Italy:

TOSCANA/TUSCANY TOURIST INFORMATION BY PROVINCE

AREZZO

AREZZO – "Portale di Arezzo e provincia" – Source: arezzocitta.com – In English, French, Italian
Arezzo - Travel and Tourism Information for Arezzo Italy – By Martha Bakerjian – Source: Italy Travel section of About.com
Arezzo Tourist Information – Source: Italy Heaven – "How, why, where and when"
Arezzo tourist information – Source: Webtourist®.Net – In multiple languages

FIRENZE

Florence – "Tours, Sightseeing & Things to do" – Source: Viator – "Unforgettable tours & experiences. Unbeatable deals.℠ " – In multiple languages
Welcome to Florence!!! – Source: virtourist.com – "traveling the world"

GROSSETO

Grosseto (province) Tourist Information – Source: You • travel – "The Travel Site You Help Build"
Grosseto tourist information – Source: Webtourist®.Net – In multiple languages

LIVORNO

LIVORNO – Source: travel tuscany

LUCCA

Welcome to the Tourism Portal of the Province of Lucca, Versilia and Garfagnana. – Source: Provincia di Lucca – "Sito Ufficiale della Provincia di Lucca" – In English, Italian

MASSA CARRARA

Massa Carrara - Travel and Tourism Information for Massa Carrara – By James Martin – Source: Europe Travel section of About.com

PISTOLA

Pistola Vacations, Tourism & Travel Information – Source: uptake – "We search 5,000 travel sites so you don't have to"

PISA

Pisa Information and Tourism – Source: world guides – "City Guides and Travel Information"
Tourist Information for Pisa, Italy – by Mary Freeman, Demand Media – Source: TravelTips found within the Travel section of USATODAY

PRATO

Prato tourist information – Source: Webtourist®.Net – In multiple languages
Tourist information - Prato – Source: Monash University Prato Centre – In English, Italian

SIENA

Sangimignano.net – "San Gimignano la Citta dalle belle Torri (The town of beautiful towers)" – Source: web site – In English, Italian
WELCOME TO ABOUT SIENA – "...your Tourist Guide to Siena" – Source: web site – In English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

MISCELLANEOUS

SEE ALSO:

Info about sightseeing information for Toscana/Tuscany, Italy *, dated Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Info about suggested itineraries for Tuscany/Toscana, Italy *, dated Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Info on museums in Tuscany/Toscana, Italy *, dated Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Info on some of my blog entries (URLs) for Tuscany/Toscana, Italy *, dated Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Info on tourist offices in Tuscany/Toscana, Italy *, dated Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Info on guides for Tuscany/Toscana, Italy *, dated Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Info on the "Top Ten" for Tuscany/Toscana, Italy *, dated Tuesday, February 17, 2009

* = Blog entry has been updated.

For your specific interest, please search the web for further information using

.

The above links as of this date are/were current. If anyone has any suggestions for any other additional web sites and/or links for reference, please feel free to post your comment and I'll update this blog entry.

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That's it for Wednesday, 27 October 2010: mercoledì, 27 Ottobre 2010

Ciao, Ben

government jobs – #1 source of links About, For or On Italy for those individuals moving, traveling or already living in Italy.

Today’s quote is an Italian proverb, author unknown.
"Un belle gioco dura poco."
"A good game lasts a short time."

When you have a free moment or two, please read my wife's interesting and entertaining blog about our life in Italy with photographs:

Friends and Family in Italy

Going to Spain, read my new blog:Return to list of posts

Info About, For or On Spain – a source of links About, For or On Spain for those individuals traveling or already living in Spain.

Please note: The time listed below for this posting is Central European Time (CET)/ GMT+1.

$3 Billion Trillion Shortfall In State Pension Plans: $1.5 Billion Trillion Shortfall If Drastic Pension Policy Changes Enacted

From "Policy Options for State Pension Systems and Their Impact on Plan Liabilities" by Joshua D. Rauh, Northwestern University - Department of Finance and Robert Novy-Marx, University of Chicago - Booth School of Business:

We calculate the present value of state pension liabilities under existing policies, and separately under policy changes that would affect pension payouts including cost of living adjustments (COLAs), retirement ages, and buyout schedules for early retirement. Liabilities if plans were frozen as of June 2009 would be $3.2 trillion if capitalized using taxable municipal curves, which credit states for a possibility of default in the same states of the world as general obligation debt, and $4.4 trillion using the Treasury curve. Under the typical actuarial method of recognizing future service and wage increases, liabilities are $3.6 trillion and $5.2 trillion using municipal curves and Treasury curves respectively. Compared to $1.8 trillion in pension fund assets, the baseline level of unfunded liabilities is therefore around $3 trillion under Treasury rates. A one percentage point reduction in COLAs would reduce total liabilities by 9-11%, implementing actuarially fair early retirement could reduce them by 2-5%, and raising the retirement age by one year would reduce them by 2-4%. Even relatively dramatic policy changes, such as the elimination of COLAs or the implementation of Social Security retirement age parameters, would leave liabilities around $1.5 trillion more than plan assets under Treasury discounting. This suggests that taxpayers will bear the lion's share of the costs associated with the legacy liabilities of state DB pension plans. [Bold added]

Ungated version of paper available here and here.

The Tea Party and the Fascist Impulse

True, people toss around the term fascism without care. Hopefully this post isn't another such case.

An essay, Global Capitalism versus Global Community, by Walden Bello, begins with some historical background. He talks about unbridled capitalism's rise "in what is now known as the first age of globalization that spanned the ninteenth century and ended with World War I in 1914." It included the late 1800s Robber Barron era.

This "first age of globalization" saw "the emergence of sharp disparities in the distribution of income and assets." Bello then notes that this "provoked a countervailing push from society, especially the lower and middle classes", and this is where my insight begins.

At first I didn't understand why he didn't define the "first age" to continue through the 1920s to the Great Crash. Then I realized that it's central to my insight.

We on the left like to think of the "countervailing push" to re-balancing the inequities caused by unfettered capitalism to be solely our domain; the little people reasserting their say in the socio-economic system, asserting public freedom over excessive private freedom. But Bellos reminded me that this isn't the way it really works.

... not all of the responses to globalization were progressive. For example, fascism, which Karl Polanyi defined as "the reform of the market economy achieved at the price of the extirpation of all democratic institutions," was also part of this countervailing drive, one that hijacked the search for community in the service of reaction, counterrevolution and racism.

Yes. The "first age of globalization" does find a break-point at World War I, after which Hitler found a desperate populace that was itself hijacked in his service.

It's this seam of social orientation that we find the impulse for the Tea Party movement. And they are following the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Tom Delay, all of whom are very pro-corporation. It now makes more sense, particularly when one considers other definitions of fascism, like this one by FDR:

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Monday, October 25, 2010

Climate Change Raises Indigenous Species Quandary For Environmentalist

From "When to welcome ‘invading’ species: Climate refugees challenge environmental distinctions between friend vs foe" by Janet Raloff on ScienceNews:

As climate changes, some environments are becoming hostile to the flora and fauna that long nurtured them. Species that can migrate have begun to move into regions where temperatures and humidity are more hospitable. And that can prove a conundrum for officials charged with halting the invasion of non-native species, says Jon Jarvis, a biologist who for the past year has headed the National Park Service.

One problem: What’s native? Species move at will as conditions change. What’s native in one century may be gone five generations later. Newly arrived species, meanwhile, may be environmental refugees.

“Policies that are currently in place view those [immigrants] as exotics,” Jarvis says — invading homesteaders that should, at all costs, be evicted. But such species may be on the move simply “because this is their last refuge,” he points out.

Read the complete ScienceNews article here.

The Marginal Value Of US Medical Service Is High So Medical Prices Are High

A comment I posted to "Health Care Prices: Ignored Once Again?" by Chris Fleming on HealthAffairs Blog:

It is the prices stupid, but if researchers only look at the cost of the medical service, as the authors mentioned above do, they miss the total economic price that a patient pays.

Opportunity costs to patients have to be included. Opportunity costs help explain the value of medical services to patients and why prices for US medical services appear to be high. As long as the price of a medical service has a positive marginal value to the patient, the patient will be willing to pay the higher price.

The US has very high productivity and high GDP per worker. A lost day's work has a very high opportunity cost to an American worker. Even if the worker receives sick pay, a day's absence from work often means for many a backlog of work when they return. An extra few day's work missed by going to the doctor more often for treatment or staying in the hospital longer is very expensive to an American worker. It is also not just the number of visits, but also the lost productivity due to the time it takes a patient to get better. For example, imagine a patient with a bad knee who can get knee surgery in a couple of weeks versus one who has to wait a few months for the surgery. The longer waiting time surgery might be cheaper, but the opportunity cost of the lost worker productivity until the surgery has to be included in the comparative cost. Medical costs studies as a rule do not include these opportunity costs to the patient and the employer.

American workers are willing to pay more for medical services because US medicine is more efficient and reduces the number of days of wait until treatment, of missed work due to doctor visits, uncured illness and hospital stays. This is why we visit the doctor less and have fewer days of hospital stay.

Opportunity costs extend to relatives of the patients. Often a parent is taking a child to the doctor or staying home with the child until the child gets well. Likewise, adult children often assist with the care of their elderly or sick parents.

I would say that the reason these studies were ignored is that they presented an interesting fact but also an incomplete story. Show me a comparative study that analyzes medical prices that includes patient (or caregiver) opportunity costs.

My gut feeling is that prices of medical services in the US are at a level where the marginal value to patients equals the marginal costs, including opportunity costs, to patients.

Also see my later post, "Health Care Costs And Worker Opportunity Costs" relating to this topic.

Improving Mother's Literacy Improves Disadvantaged Child's Academic Performance

From NIH news release, "Improving mothers' literacy skills may be best way to boost children's achievement" about an NIH funded study, "Family and Neighborhood Sources of Socioeconomic Inequality in Children’s Achievement" appearing in Demography by Narayan Sastry, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, and Anne R. Pebley, Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles.

"The findings indicate that programs to improve maternal literacy skills may provide an effective means to overcome the disparity in academic achievement between children in poor and affluent neighborhoods," said Rebecca Clark, Ph.D., chief of the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Ungated copy of the research paper is available here and here.

The full abstract of the paper states:

We examined family and neighborhood sources of socioeconomic inequality in children’s reading and mathematics achievement using data from the 2000–2001 Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study. To describe inequality in achievement test scores, we used Gini coefficients and concentration indices and multilevel regression models. There was no inequality in children’s achievement by family income once other variables in the model were held constant. Mothers’ reading scores and average neighborhood levels of income accounted for the largest proportion of inequality in children’s achievement. Neighborhood economic status appears to be strongly associated with children’s skills acquisition.

Federal Career Opportunities in the Puget Sound: Environment and Science

Who: Representatives From Local Federal Agencies
What: Panel Discussion
When: October 28, 2010 @ 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Where: Parrington Hall, Commons

Representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), US Geological Survey (USGS), US Army Corps of Engineers, Forest Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will join us for a moderated discussion followed by an open question and answer period.

There will also be a short presentation on the breadth of environmental and science careers within the federal government.

This will be a great chance to hear how a variety of individuals got their start as a federal employee and what positions their agencies will be hiring for in the next few months.

McKinsey Quarterly Drops Gate, Becomes Free But Requires Registration

Another publication, McKinsey Quarterly, will drop the gated, paid subscription model and freely open its articles to the public. If it had also dropped the required registration, it audience would be even bigger and not spied upon.

From an email sent to registered users:

In an effort to make McKinsey Quarterly content more easily accessible, in November of 2010 we will begin phasing out Premium Membership.

At that time, you will no longer need to pay to access mckinseyquarterly.com content. Instead, all content—including articles, videos, podcasts, and multimedia—will be available upon registration. In future months, we will be enriching the site even more, adding new types of content and making content more accessible.

Associated Press Blows it on Health Care Poll Reporting

What's up with the Associated Press (AP)? Seems it's been captured by the transnational corporations too (like the other three branches: U.S. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Executive). AP has teamed up on polling with GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications... I'm not kidding, that's their name.

I was drawn to this realization after reading a recent AP article entitled, "AP-GfK Poll: Americans Split On Health Care Repeal." Oh really? "Split" usually means 50 percent for and 50 percent against.

So, out come the latest AP corporate communications numbers on the recent health care legislation:

40% Support Health Care legislation
11% Neutral on it
51% Total

45% Oppose the Health Care legislation

45% to 51% percent is almost a "split," only six points apart, but not on "repeal" of the legislation.

32% want to repeal it completely, which isn't exactly a "split" when compared with 40% who "support."

But what really got me was that the AP article makes the lame oversight that so many polls do on this topic; it doesn't directly address the question that some people who are "opposed" to the legislation didn't feel it goes far enough to truly reform health care. Well it did, but it stacked that number up against "repeal" and called it a "split."

I went to the Oct. 13-18, 2010 corporate communications poll [PDF] to look at the numbers. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the follow-up question, "of those opposed, who wants stronger legislation?" But, you can get close to the answer of that question. Here are the numbers:

18% say leave the Health Care legislation as it is.
39% say change the Health Care legislation so it does MORE.
57% Total say keep it the same or stronger Health Care legislation

9% say change the Health Care legislation so it does LESS.
32% say completely repeal the Health Care legislation.
41% Total say make it weaker or repeal it.

41% Repeal or does LESS, 57% Keep as-is or does MORE. This should have been the headline, not a lame twisting of the number to say Americans are "split" on wanting to repeal the Health Care legislation.

Instead, AP cherry picks two numbers from "likely voters" that fit a story line: Those who want stronger health care legislation and those who want repeal it, as if that is a logical comparison.

But, the damage of the headline is done, less than two weeks before the elections. Shame on the Associated Press and its corporate communications partner. It's telling that it was AP's corporate communications partner that does the interpretation of the poll video.

Let AP Know What You Think:

Contact AP:

E-mail: info@ap.org
Phone: 212 621-1500

Contact FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting to let them know what you think.

E-mail: fair@fair.org

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Outsourcing Teachers Via The Internet

From "British Kids Log On and Learn Math — in Punjab" by Julia Werdigier:

Once a week, year six pupils at Ashmount Primary School in North London settle in front of their computers, put on their headsets and get ready for their math class. A few minutes later, their teachers come online thousands of kilometers away in the Indian state of Punjab.

Read the complete New York Times article here.

Where Does Boundless Economic Growth Inevitably Lead?

Yesterday I explored the notion of "imperialism," that natural tendency for industrialized nations with mass production that manufactures too much to be absorbed at home and must be sold abroad... by force if necessary (the imperialism part).

OK, so lets take the long view. "Economic Growth" is actually an acceleration; it's not good enough to be stuck at x% growth... the increase needs to be increasing year after year. This raises questions about carrying capacity and the wisdom of an economic framework that demands growth for the sake of "a healthy economy."

This question is explored by William Fort, 80-year-old founder of Praxis, a transnational corporation that is on par with with large nations. Fort is a fictional character, living in 2010, but his insights are pretty real. He knows that the global carrying capacity is finite and he is smart enough to know that economic growth in today's sense isn't sustainable; the economic model must change. The setting is a discussion among a few people chosen by William Fort to think about this issue:

One morning he spend an hour talking about feudalism -- how it was the clearest political expression of primate dominance dynamics, how it had never really gone away, how transnational capitalism was feudalism writ large, how the aristocracy of the world had to figure out how to subsume capitalist growth within the steady-state stability of the feudal model.

One can debate whether or not this question should be left up to the "aristocracy of the world", but the existence of the underlying question is not open to debate.

William Fort eventually reveals his insights on the matter to his select group:

The opportunities for growth are no longer in growth.

Sounds like a puzzle stated by a martial arts instructor or something. Fort continues,

We've got to identify the new nongrowth growth markets, and get into them.

He talks about "nonmarketable capital", which he boils down infrastucture investment, a long-term investment. One of the participants in the discussion observes that such "nonmarketable capital" is publicly owned, to which William Fort responds:

Yes. Which means close cooperation of the governments involved. Praxis's gross annual product is much larger than most countries'. What we need to do is find countries with small GNPs and bad Country Future Indices [bad future prospects]. ... We identify those, go to them and offer them a massive capital investment, plus political advice, security, whatever they need. In return, we take custody of their [nonmarketable captial]. We also have access to their labor. It's an obvious partnership. I think it will be the coming thing.

It's not "coming;" it's already been here. It's "imperialism" writ large. It's privatization. A particularly insidious form is described John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."

Sources:

Green Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

A New, Faster Way To Run The Bases In Baseball

From "Winning the World Series with math: A nearly circular path could be the fastest way to home plate" by Julie Rehmeyer in ScienceNews:

Mathematicians computed that this path around the bases is, theoretically, the fastest. The red lines show the direction the runner is accelerating.
Credit: D. Carozza, S. Johnson, and F. Morgan
To run the bases faster, baseball players just need a bit of mathematics, according to research by an undergraduate math major and his professors. Their calculations show that the optimal path around the bases is one that perhaps no major-league ball player has ever run: It swings out a full 18.5 feet from the baseline.

Read the full article here.

Capitalism and Why We're Imperialists

The title probably sounds like the ranting of a lefty wing-nut. But a little sober thought reveals a reality that is hard to deny.

Way back in 1902 an English economist, John A. Hobson, provided a simple explanation of the term imperialism, which holds to this day. In simple terms, mass production creates too many products for domestic consumption. This necessitates finding foreign markets, and the capitalists who make the products use the power of their government to secure those markets using military force if necessary. Hobson puts the motivation for new markets this way:

It is open to Imperialists to argue thus: "We must have markets for our growing manufactures, we must have new outlets for the investment of our surplus capital and for the energies of the adventurous surplus of our population: such expansion is a necessity of life to a nation with our great and growing powers of production."

Hobson then puts words to the next logical step: Corporations influencing government's use of the military to secure foreign markets:

After 1870 this manufacturing and trading supremacy was greatly impaired: other nations, especially Germany, the United States, and Belgium, advanced with great rapidity, and while they have not crushed or even stayed the increase of our external trade, their competition made it more and more difficult to dispose of the full surplus of our manufactures at a profit. The encroachments made by these nations upon our old markets, even in our own possessions, made it most urgent that we should take energetic means to secure new markets. These new markets had to lie in hitherto undeveloped countries, chiefly in the tropics, where vast populations lived capable of growing economic needs which our manufacturers and merchants could supply. Our rivals were seizing and annexing territories for similar purposes, and when they had annexed them closed them to our trade. The diplomacy and the arms of Great Britain had to be used in order to compel the owners of the new markets to deal with us: and experience showed that the safest means of securing and developing such markets is by establishing 'protectorates' or by annexation....

What strikes me is that the logic is so simple and it explains the corruption of our government by corporations.

Friday, October 22, 2010

ObamaCare Will Decrease Workforce Labor And Increase Healthcare Spending On Previously Uninsured Says CBO

From CBO Director Doug Elmendorf's October 22, 2010, presentation, "Economic Effects of the March Health Legislation" at the Schaeffer Center of the University of Southern California:

The legislation will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by roughly half a percent, primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply.

The legislation will increase spending on health care for people who would have been uninsured in the absence of the legislation.

The legislation will decrease spending on health care for people who would be insured with or without the legislation. The magnitude of that decrease, and the extent to which it will be achieved through greater efficiencies in the delivery of care or through reductions in access to care or quality of care, are unclear.

See the complete slide presentation here, on Scribd or embedded below.

CBO Economic Effects of New Healthcare

Obesity Is Rising Around The World: McKinsey & Co.

From McKinsey Quarterly, the business journal of McKinsey & Company, "Why governments must lead the fight against obesity" by Jeffrey Algazy, MD, MPH, Steven Gipstein, MD, Farhad Riahi, MD and Katherine Tryon, MD:

The world is getting fat. In many countries, the proportion of people at an unhealthy weight has more than doubled in the past few decades. Globally, at least 1.3 billion adults and more than 42 million children are overweight or obese.

***

Source: McKinsey & Co.

Read the complete McKinsey Quarterly article here.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

36 Percent Decline In Teen Deadly Auto Crashes

From "Teen Drivers Have Fewer Deadly Accidents" by Todd Neale:

The number of fatal car crashes involving 16- and 17-year-old drivers has continued to drop in recent years, according to the CDC.

The annual number of deadly crashes with teen drivers fell from 2,230 in 2004 to 1,437 in 2008, a 36% decline, researchers from the agency's Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention reported in the Oct. 22 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Read the complete article here.

New FDIC Authority For Ending Too Big To Fail

From a speech by FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, "Ending Too Big To Fail: The FDIC and Financial Reform", 2010 Glauber Lecture at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, October 20, 2010:

One of the most fundamental problems that led to the crisis was that a number of large banks and other financial companies were Too Big To Fail. This term is really just shorthand for the dilemma that policymakers faced in the Fall of 2008, when a number of these institutions ran into serious trouble.

We faced this choice: To let them fail, and risk destabilizing the entire financial system. Or to bail them out – imposing costs on the taxpayer and encouraging the type of risky behavior that caused the crisis in the first place. Needless to say, both of these options were highly problematic.

How did we get into this situation? One big reason is that neither bank holding companies nor non-bank financial companies, both of which figured prominently in the crisis, were subject to an FDIC-like receivership authority. That means they could not be resolved in an orderly fashion without bailing out debt and equity holders or disrupting the financial system. Instead, these entities were subject to the commercial bankruptcy process, where it takes a long time and a lot of money to determine what creditors ultimately stand to collect. For example, the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy has cost almost a billion dollars to administer so far, and many creditors still do not know where they stand. By contrast, because of our ability to plan in advance, the FDIC receivership process for insured banks and thrifts sorts most of this out over a much shorter time frame, and generally returns the failed institution to private hands right away.
***The Dodd-Frank Act for the first time gives the FDIC a similar set of receivership powers to close and liquidate systemically-important financial firms that are failing.
***Our proposed rule makes clear that some creditors will never be deemed essential to operations or maximizing value. It states clearly that shareholders, subordinated debt and long-term bondholders will never qualify to receive additional payments above their liquidation value under the statutory priority of claims.

It also affirms that secured creditors will only be protected to the extent of the fair value of their collateral, with any unsecured portion remaining subject to loss. By ensuring that all creditors know they are at risk of loss in a failure, this proposed rule is a solid first step in implementing the resolution authority under Dodd-Frank and ending Too Big To Fail.

Read Bair's complete remarks here.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Info on car sharing in Italy

Here are some links on car sharing in Italy:

CAR SHARING PROGRAMS

INFORMATION

ARTICLES

Car Sharing: l’avvio del servizio di Brescia e le ultime novità dal mondo – In Italian Only – "2 febbraio 2010" – Source: Marco De Mitri – "Muoversi in modo sicuro, sostenibile, efficiente e pulito. Novità, approfondimenti, riflessioni e confronti con gli esperti del settore"
Car sharing e car pooling: a che punto siamo in Italia? – In Italian Only – "Articolo del: 24/10/08" – Source: current .... – "country specific versions: Italia, UK & Ireland, US"
Car sharing comes to Florence – "New car sharing service proves popular with Florentines" – "(issue no. 13/2005 / July 21, 2005)" – Source: The Florentine – "The English speaking local newpaper in Florence"
Il car sharing in Italia – In Italian Only – "6 aprile 10" – Source: rinnovabili.it – "quotidiano d'informazione sulle fonti rinnovabili"
Car sharing Modena: l’assessore Sitta commenta le dichiarazioni del consigliere Leoni (PdL) – In Italian Only – "19 ago 10" – Source: MODENA2000

BLOG ENTRIES

Le origini e la diffusione del car sharing in Italia – In Italian Only – "martedì 23 marzo 2010" – Autori: Eric Britton, editor, Enrico Bonfatti – Source: Nuova Mobilità – "IL DIARIO ITALIANO DEL TRASPORTO SOSTENIBILE"

Archivio delle Categorie: car sharing

Iniziativa Car Sharing – English Version – Source: web site

Iniziativa Car Sharing – In Italian Only – Source: web site
CITIES

Bologna
Brescia
Firenze
Genova
Milano
Modena
Palermo
Parma
Rimini
Roma
Savona
Torino
Venezia

RoadSharing – "Autostop and Carpooling for commuters, free Car sharing and Hitchhiking service" – Source: web site – In English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
"VIAVAI" CARPOOLING – In Italian Only – Source: VIAVAI

CITIES

BOLOGNA

Car Sharing (caratc) – In Italian Only – Source: atc – "Transporti Pubblici Bologna e Ferrara"

BRESCIA

Car Sharing Brescia – In Italian Only – Source: web site

FIRENZE/FLORENCE

CARSHARING FIRENZE – In Italian Only – Source: web site

GENOVA/GENOA

Genova Car Sharing – In Italian Only – Source: web site

MILANO/MILAN

CarSharing Italia – In Italian Only – Source: web site
GuidaMi – In Italian Only – Source: web site – "CAR SHARING MILANO"

PALERMO

Car Sharing Palermo – In Italian Only – Source: web site – "l'Auto solo quando serve"

PARMA

Parma Car Sharing – In Italian Only – Source: web site – "IL NUOVO SERVIZIO DI CAR SHARING PER USARE L'AUTO DOVE E QUANDO VUOI"

RIMINI

Rimini Car Sharing– In Italian Only – Source: web site

ROMA/ROME

Car Sharing - Rome – Source: East Clearing House (EgE)
ROMA carsharing – In Italian Only – Source: web site – "La tua auto in comune"

SAVONA

Savona Car Sharing – In Italian Only – Source: web site – "Il car sharing è arrivato Savona."

TORINO/TURIN

Car Sharing – Source: CarCityClub – In English, French, Italian, Spanish

VENEZIA/VENICE

Car Sharing – In Italian Only – On the Home Page, please scroll down to "Car Sharing" – Source: ASM VENEZIA – In English, Italian
Expansion and diversification of the car sharing scheme in Venice – "This measure foresees the expansion of the car sharing scheme and differentiation of services offered, also including corporate car sharing and the introduction of vehicles suitable for drivers with disabilities." – Source: East Clearing House (EgE)

MISCELLANEOUS

SEE ALSO:

Info on some of my blog entries (URLs) for Tuscany/Toscana, Italy *, dated Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Info about Driving in Italy *, dated Friday, March 17, 2006
Info on On-Line Route Planning and Maps of Italy *, dated Thursday, November 17, 2005

* = Blog entry has been updated.

For your specific interest, please search the web for further information using

.

The above links as of this date are/were current. If anyone has any suggestions for any other additional web sites and/or links for reference, please feel free to post your comment and I'll update this blog entry.

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Broken links: Since November, 2005, I have written over 300+ blog entries with 1,000's of corresponding links/URLs for government jobs, covering a varied and wide range of topics. In the event if you come across a broken link or a non-functioning link/URL, please post a comment and report the non-functional link. I wish to thank you in advance for assisting me in the ongoing maintenance and the updating of this successful and informative blog.

Please note: I do NOT represent or endorse any of these links nor do I receive payment for listing them in my blog.

That's it for Wednesday, 20 October 2010: mercoledì, 20 ottobre 2010

Ciao, Ben

government jobs – #1 source of links About, For or On Italy for those individuals moving, traveling or already living in Italy.

Today’s quote is a Sicilian proverb, author unknown.
"Unni cci vidi, nun cci voli occhiali."
"You don't need eyeglasses to see what you're already looking at."

When you have a free moment or two, please read my wife's interesting and entertaining blog about our life in Italy with photographs:

Friends and Family in Italy

Going to Spain, read my new blog:

Info About, For or On Spain – a source of links About, For or On Spain for those individuals traveling or already living in Spain.

Please note: The time listed below for this posting is Central European Time (CET)/ GMT+1.

XKCD: Using 'The Economic Argument' To Debunk

From the wonderfully creative and insightful xkcd comic:

The Economic Argument

Flash Crash Caused Unavoidable Taxes For Investors

From "Congress, Not IRS, Must Provide Tax Relief from Flash Crash" by James Hamilton on Jim Hamilton’s World of Securities Regulation blog:

Absent the enactment of a relief provision by Congress, the IRS is not authorized to provide for the non-recognition of gain for stop-loss orders executed on the day of the flash crash in the markets, May 6, 2010. An SEC-CFTC report said that the flash crash was triggered by large trader automated sell algorithms triggered during a an unusually turbulent day for the markets. According to an IRS Information Letter, 2010-0188, various non-recognition provisions in the Code are not applicable to the situation.

Read the complete blog post here.

Placebos In Drug Studies Contain Biologically Active Compounds

From "Study: That 'placebo effect' may have a hidden meaning" by John Carroll on FierceBiotech:

in the vast majority of cases, developers never disclose what they put in the phony therapy, which is supposed to be made up of harmless materials. But in the few cases when researchers did find the ingredients, they amazingly concluded that researchers may have hurt as well as helped the chances of their experimental therapies.

Case in point: In one study "olive oil and corn oil have been used as the placebo in trials of cholesterol-lowering drugs. This may lead to an understatement of drug benefit: The monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids of these 'placebos,' and their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, can reduce lipid levels and heart disease."

Read the complete article about the study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine here.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Missed Opportunities

Not sure it's kosher, but I'm going to re-print a Paul Krugman blog post in it's entirety:

In today’s [New York Times] report on the foreclosure mess, a revealing sentence:

As the foreclosure abuses have come to light, the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.

Surely this can serve as a generic statement:

As NAME ISSUE HERE has come to light, the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.

Stimulus, bank rescue, China, foreclosure; it applies all along. At each point there were arguments for not acting; but the cumulative effect has been drift, and a looming catastrophe in the midterms.

Or to put it another way, the administration has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And soon there won’t be any more opportunities to miss.

===== End ====

Ouch!

Is The Foreclosure Rate Unrelated To The Housing Bubble And Close To Long Term Trend

Part of a comment I posted on "The Breakdown of the U.S. Mortgage Market" on Rortybomb:

Chart from Rortybomb.

Additionally and interestingly, the Mortgage Bankers Association chart shows an upward trend in mortgage foreclosures from 1979 to 2002. Defaults appear to be about 5 times greater in 2002 than in 1979.

The foreclosure drop from 2002 to 2006 can be attributed to the housing bubble price appreciation, which allowed homeowners to avoid foreclosure by selling their homes at a price that paid off the mortgage and other second lien debt.
If the home bubble had not occurred we might have seen a foreclosure rate of about 2 to 2.5 percent now, based on an eyeball estimate of the upward slope of the chart.

The high rate of current foreclosures may only be slightly higher than the expected trend line and the bubble allowed avoidance of trend line foreclosures from 2002 to 2006.

The current foreclosure rate may seem high because the housing bubble artificially allowed the foreclosure rate to deviate from the trend line and suppress it, but it may be close to trend now.

The economic and social factors that raised the foreclosure rate from 1979 to 2002 probably are an important force in today’s foreclosures and the collapse of the housing bubble and the higher than norm unemployment maybe less of a cause than common consensus believes.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Most Effective Breast Cancer Prevention Is Having Children Early

From "Here is why having a baby reduces breast cancer risk":

Many women fail to realize the single most effective measure they can take to reduce their risk of developing breast cancer is to have a baby as early as they can and avoid any induced abortion.
***Studies have shown having a full-term pregnancy or having a baby at age 18 can reduce the risk of breast cancer by 50 to 75 percent compared to those who have a baby at 30.

Read the complete article for an explanation of why carrying a pregnancy to term at a young age reduces breast cancer risk here.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Paradoxically, US Hispanics Outlive Whites And Blacks

Hispanics in the US, who are generally poorer, less educated and more likely without medical insurance or access to medical care, have a longer life expectancy than the rest of the US population. The general consensus is that more income, more education and more medical care are associated with a longer life expectancy and thus the Hispanic paradox.

From "United States life tables by Hispanic origin," by Elizabeth Arias, Ph.D., Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Health Stat 2(152), 2010.

Life expectancy at birth for the total population in 2006 was 77.7 years. Life expectancy was 80.6 years for the Hispanic population, 78.1 years for the non-Hispanic white population, and 72.9 years for the non-Hispanic black population. The Hispanic population has a mortality advantage at birth of 2.5 years over the non-Hispanic white population and 7.7 years over the non-Hispanic black population.
***
The results show that the Hispanic population has higher life expectancy at birth and at almost every subsequent age than the non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black populations. The finding of higher life expectancy for the Hispanic population seems paradoxical because on average the Hispanic population has lower socioeconomic status than the non-Hispanic white population. Given the relationship between socioeconomic status and mortality, a mortality profile similar to that of the non-Hispanic black population would seem more likely for the Hispanic population.

This seemingly paradoxical result has been found in numerous research studies using a variety of data sources, including state and national vital statistics, local surveys, and national linked mortality follow-up surveys, such as the NLMS and the National Health Interview Survey–Multiple Cause of Death (NHIS–MCD) linked data. All such studies have consistently found a Hispanic mortality advantage over the non-Hispanic white population even when differences in demographic and socioeconomic characteristics are taken into account. Research into the causes of this paradox has been extensive although not conclusive.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Monday, October 25, 2010

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