a different type of linsanity

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/nyregion/for-food-delivery-workers-speed-tips-and-fear-on-wheels.html?google_editors_picks=true&_r=1&pagewanted=all


an article about a bicycle delivery man in manhattan...pasted some of the parts that stuck out...

"This first delivery of the dinner shift was more than a mile from the restaurant. Arriving, he surged off the bicycle, lashing it to a nearby pole with a heavy chain. A doorman stepped from the gleaming entrance of a prewar building on Park Avenue and pointed him to a side alley.

Mr. Lin hurried down a ramp, past trash bags and through a door into the basement. There, a building worker waited to take him up in a manually operated freight elevator. He exchanged few words with the customer, who handed over $15.50 and a $2 tip.

Deliverymen and women have few defenders or advocates. They lack the cultural aura that once gave bad behavior by bicycle messengers an outlaw appeal. Nobody romanticizes deliverymen — and they are almost all male — as urban cowboys.

“It’s one of those things that New Yorkers just look away from,” said Kevin Bolger, 40, a former owner of a messenger company who has worked as a food deliveryman. “Delivery workers are like dishwashers on wheels.”

He was awake at 8:40 a.m., and his routine was simple: brush teeth, take 10 minutes to dress, compose himself and pray before heading downstairs to buy breakfast: one roll, one milk tea, $2. It was the only money he would spend on food all day.

“A customer returned this food, so I get to eat it,” Mr. Lin said of his dinner, sweet-and-sour chicken with green beans. “Our boss is really good.”

Mr. Lin, who works six days a week with Mondays off, was initially vague about his earnings but eventually said he received a base pay of $30 a day, with additional tips totaling $30 to $50. In a good week, he could pull in nearly $500

He removed a wad of cash from his pocket and counted the day’s haul from nearly 25 miles of travel for more than two dozen deliveries. His helmet still on, he fingered through the folded $20s and wrinkled singles to count about $50 for the day. That would become less than $40 after the tips were pooled and split, he said."

...and some people wonder why occupy wall street started here...this is the other side of nyc...about a woman who wanted to buy a place in manhattan...has a phd in electrical engineering but works as an analyst at a financial firm (as charlie brown would say, "ugh"...one of the many things wrong with today's job market/economy)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/realestate/the-hunt-when-the-math-says-buy.html?pagewanted=all

But “the apartment screamed for renovation,” said Ms. Giannelli, who is from Florence, Italy. The floor “had little hills, it was all up and down.” Her rent rose over time, though not a lot — the increases averaged 1.66 percent per year, she said. She ended up paying $2,450 a month.

Ms. Giannelli, 43, who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and works as an analyst for a bank, started running online calculations. “You can see, based on certain assumptions, if it is more convenient for you to rent or to buy,” she said. “For me, I was a little better off buying because my rent was so expensive.”

Ms. Giannelli’s price began in the $600,000s, and she saw a lot of places that were dark and overpriced. Realizing that finding a nice apartment under $700,000 was going to be difficult, she soon raised her limit.

Last spring, she saw a spacious one-bedroom at the Hamilton, a postwar co-op on East Ninth Street. It was listed at $725,000, with a maintenance fee of almost $1,300 a month, which to her seemed high.

“When I heard there was this blind bid where you have to present your offer and see if it goes through,” she said, “I was very stressed out. You never know whether you offered enough.” With an offer of $715,000, she hadn’t, but she wasn’t terribly disappointed. The apartment sold for $730,000.

Farther uptown, a large one-bedroom in a prewar Art Deco co-op building on 16th Street had a beautiful terrace with a view of Stuyvesant Square. The price, originally $985,000, had been lowered to $925,000 — over Ms. Giannelli’s budget, but maybe it could be negotiated down further.

A few months later, good news arrived: The owner of the unseen twin on East 18th Street would be moving after all. The price was $759,000, with a maintenance fee of almost $1,100. Ms. Giannelli offered $775,000, “just to be on the safe side,” she said.

this is just ridiculous...i'm not blaming the woman...she probably worked hard to get where she is...i'm just pointing out that there is something wrong with the system when someone who is willing to work as hard as mr. lin can make only enough to eat $2 dollars of food a day, and the financial analyst's (what do they do that is so difficult?...electrical engineering i can understand...finance, not so much) main concern is wondering if a million bucks is too much for a tiny apartment...that's my take on the two articles....now on to some side ramblings...

i guess i should be grateful for what i have when compared to what mr. lin goes through, but i am not...it reminds me of a passage i read recently about us being slaves to our consumerism from a korean book titled pavane for a dead princess...it talked about how every time we buy something, every time we reach a certain financial level, the bar goes up...buy a new car, the bar goes up...buy a house, the bar goes up...we are conditioned to want a little more each time we get what we thought we wanted...i have definitely experienced this...i buy a gun...then i want another...i buy a car, and then want something better...assuming i can close on my house, i will probably want something better...there must be a way to just be satisfied with what i have...that's why, sometimes i think if i have nothing but the essentials to live, then i will remove the bar and want no more...i don't think i'm the only one who feels this way since there are more people starting to do things like try to live with only 50 or 100 possessions...i'll have to work harder to not buy so much crap...except books and firefly...those are essential

it's the end of the world as we know it

http://blog.ted.com/2012/02/28/fear-and-the-coming-collapse-of-civilization-paul-gilding-at-ted2012/

ted talk about how the earth can't sustain us at the rate we are producing...it's pretty simple and obvious to scientists since it's a finite world with finite resources...not so obvious to economists, politicians, and business people who want infinite growth for maximum profit...just imagine when china and india reach first world status...the world won't be able to take it...maybe i should forget getting a house and use that money to become a full-time prepper

one

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/garden/the-freedom-and-perils-of-living-alone.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

article about people who live alone...i've lived alone for a long time, but i don't do the things mentioned in the article...i close the bathroom door, don't drink from the carton, usually prepare meals but sometimes i might just eat some fruit or whatever is around instead, i do all my dishes immediately after using them...i clean the apartment regularly but never seems to be clean...the only quirk that might be a quirk is that i freeze a lot of food...i would make 2 to 3 cups of rice and freeze them in single serving portions...marinate 5lbs of beef and freeze them in single size portions...even stews, soups, and certain fruits, i would freeze sometimes...i don't think it is a real quirk but a way to get around trying to cook for just one...i have trouble sleeping at normal hours, but that is because of insomnia and not because i live alone...there is definitely more freedom when living alone though...i can have firefly on all day long

solve for x

it's like TED but by google

http://www.wesolveforx.com/

things like this and google x are what differentiate google from other major tech companies...yes, google is just a search engine with only a few good apps like email, chat, and maps and their income is mostly from ads...however, they are willing to spend money on things that are not necessarily related to search and ads...maybe they really want to do good and try to solve the world's problems...that seems too naive to me, but there may be some truth to it...i think google knows that by branching out and doing r&d on other things like robotics can lead to new tech that can be profitable even if wall street frowns upon heavy spending

on a side note, i remember reading an article about google's last earnings report, and how wall street was unhappy about them spending a lot of money to hire people even though the company made a ton of money...then i read another article that stated that the stock market went down because of a weak job market report, illustrating the stupidity of our financial system...on one hand they're not happy because too much money was spent on hiring people, but on the other hand, they're unhappy because not enough people were hired...morons

the point is that a lot of tech companies are really innovative in the beginning, which help them become successful, and then they go public...then the company is pressured to have their stock perform...their focus shifts from r&d, engineering, and coming up with new stuff to sales, marketing, and finance to increase profit, and they end up losing their innovation - the thing that made them successful

right left

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/why_conservatives_and_liberals_see_the_world_differently1

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

interesting videos that examine liberals and conservatives

facebook pics

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/nearly-3-years-later-deleted-facebook-photos-are-still-online.ars?

article from ars technica about pictures that are still available on facebook even after they were deleted by the user...i deleted all of my personal pics from fb, but it is possible that they are still there somewhere...i did download all the data that facebook has on my account, and none of my pics were there...however, that does not necessarily mean that my pics are actually gone from their servers...so true that once it is out there in the internet ether, it never really goes away

magellan

pretty amazing story about a teen sailing around the world...she'll have an escape route if zombies ever take over

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/21/world/americas/st--maarten-teen-solo-voyage/?hpt=hp_t2


Some 518 days after she first set off alone in her sailboat, 16-year-old Laura Dekker glided into a Caribbean port on Saturday to complete her historic, and controversial, voyage around the globe.
The Dutch citizen arrived in Sint Maarten around 3 p.m. (2 p.m. ET), her spokesman Anton Van de Koppel told CNN. And a picture linked from Dekker's official website Saturday shows her standing behind a group of children holding a sign, "Congratulations Laura Dekker ... Welcome back to St. Maarten."
While other teens have made similar sea voyages -- some of them without stopping, as Dekker did -- the Dutch girl unofficially appears to be the youngest to do so sailing alone. In 2010, Australian Jessica Watson finished a non-stop, unassisted solo circumnavigation days before her 17th birthday.
But sailing journalists have said, and her team didn't dispute, that her route was less than 21,600 orthodromic (or, in the same direction for a great circle) nautical miles, which is the length of the equator and the distance generally used for round-the-world sailing records.
Dekker states on her website that she traversed about 27,000 nautical miles on her own solo voyage aboard her 38-foot yacht, which she has dubbed Guppy. She was 14 when she began August 21, 2010, in Gibraltar and then headed west across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific, through the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and ultimately to her final destination in the Caribbean.

sopa blackout

wikipedia went dark and google covered up their logo to spread the word about sopa...reddit should be next...clicking on google's logo gives you this page...i want to sign the petition, but my paranoid side makes me wonder what the gubment will do with my email

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

emergency food

i need a plan b for food when the world ends this year...i might have to buy a box of twinkies

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9S5NU900.htm


Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies, is preparing to refile for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just two years after emerging, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
A spokesman for the privately held Irving, Texas, bakery company declined to comment on the report.
The Wall Street Journal said people familiar with the matter said the company is facing a cash crunch with more than $860 million in debt, high labor expenses and rising ingredient costs.
When the company, then called Interstate Bakeries and based in Kansas City, Mo., filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004, it blamed low sales and high fixed costs. It emerged in February 2009.
Hostess Brands employs about 19,000 workers and operates in 49 states. Annual sales are about $2 billion, according to the company's website.

lady chinky eyes

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/08/us/new-york-papa-johns-receipt/index.html

receipt from papa johns...interesting how powerful a single customer can be (intentional or not) now with twitter, facebook, reddit, etc...many examples of customers making their voices heard when companies do things that they don't like...netflix, go daddy,  paypal, and b of a are just a few examples of companies that had to back pedal after making some announcement, policy change, or poor treatment of a customer service issue...

the danger is that some people might just be posting something for a smaller circle of people, but then it blows up like this receipt incident

$100k plus for unused vacation time

most companies have a cap on vacation time, and sick time is never carried over...the majority of government jobs get all the federal holidays, tons of vacation, easy working hours, overtime pay, and even a pension...must be nice to retire and get a six figure pension...better than some crappy 401k

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-county-pay-20120108,0,2155879,full.story

By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

January 7, 2012, 6:43 p.m.
 When Lt. Marie Hannah retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 2010, she left with the well-wishes of her colleagues, a six-figure pension and a one-time payment so large it surprised even her: $183,683 for unused time off.

Hannah accumulated her 325 days of vacation, sick time, comp time and holiday credit over a 30-year career. Under county rules, she was paid for all of it at her final $147,600 salary.

 "I've always been a person who believes in saving for a rainy day," Hannah said of her decision to skip family trips, to work when she felt under the weather and to stockpile the time off. "But I didn't expect [the check] to be this much."

Although Hannah tops the list of more than 3,900 county employees who collected termination compensation for unused time in 2010, she's not the only one who reaped a substantial amount. Sixty-four departing employees received checks in excess of $100,000, county data show. The vast majority of them, 49, worked for the Sheriff's Department.

In all, Los Angeles County paid more than $48 million to retiring employees for unused time off in 2010. About a third of that, $16 million, went to workers leaving the Sheriff's Department even though they made up only 13% of the county's retiring employees, payroll data show.

The county is not alone in allowing public sector employees to bank large amounts of time. State and local governments across the country offer workers large future payoffs in lieu of immediate benefits, especially during tough economic times.

Such provisions can also be used to reward political allies.

Gov. Jerry Brown maintained the state's 80-day cap on vacation in all but one of six union contracts he renegotiated after taking office in January. The exception was the deal for the powerful prison guards union, whose members spent nearly $2 million on his election campaign. They can now accrue unlimited vacation.

Even with the cap in place, however, managers at state agencies have granted so many exceptions that the limit holds little meaning. Last year, nearly a third of retiring state employees got paid for more than 80 days, data from the state controller show.

"There needs to be some consequence to ignoring the cap," said Kline. "Just like the general public has to adhere to speed limits and tax deadlines … public officials should have to follow the rules placed on them."

In 2010, a retiring state prison doctor cashed in more than 21/2 years, for $594,976, records show. A Forestry and Fire Protection administrator walked away with a check for $294,440. And a parole agent, who'd saved nearly three years, collected $268,990.

Most private employers place much more restrictive caps on the amount of unused vacation workers can accrue; 25 days is a common limit. Employees who exceed such caps are typically paid within a year or so of when they earned the time off.

Experts say a similar policy, if used by state and local governments, would alleviate the sudden strain that huge lump-sum payments place on already stretched public budgets.

"Agencies should pay this out at the rate it was earned," said David Kline, spokesman for the California Taxpayers Assn. "You want to have enough money to keep paying for the public safety services the people need, and when you have giant payouts like this, it affects those services."

Hannah came close to maxing out nearly every category of unused time county rules allow employees to accumulate: 60 days of comp time, 80 days of vacation and 90 days of sick time.

She also banked 105 days for working on official holidays, county records show. The county recognizes 11 official holidays each year. Hannah's lump sum payout was made in addition to her $139,600 annual pension.

Sheriff's Department spokesman Michael Parker said that his agency performs a crucial 24-hour public safety function, so it's not always possible for key employees to take time off. He also noted that six-figure payouts are the exception, not the rule.

The average payout to a departing Sheriff's Department employee was $31,816 in 2010, the data show.

Retiring firefighters, who also serve a 24-hour-per-day mission, averaged $32,698. But only four of them, three assistant chiefs and a captain, got paid more than $100,000 for unused time off last year.

Asked to explain why so many more Sheriff's Department employees got big checks, Ryan Alsop, assistant to county Chief Executive William T Fujioka, wrote in an email, "The labor agreements for these entities would have to be considered before making any comparisons."

He said he wasn't familiar enough with the contract details to explain the difference.

Steve Whitmore, another Sheriff's Department spokesman, said the deputies have taken less vacation and used fewer sick days recently in an effort to drive down overtime costs.

Hannah declined to describe her daily duties at the Sheriff's Department or to say why she was required to work so much. "We worked the holidays and around the clock," she said. "Crime doesn't stop on Christmas or Thanksgiving."

Parker said Hannah retired from the civil management unit of the Court Services Division, which is responsible for serving court papers and carrying out evictions and repossessions, according to the Sheriff's Department website.

Because such large payouts can trigger higher taxes, some state employees have been allowed to burn off large amounts of time by taking vacations that last months, or even years, at the end of their careers.

They stop showing up, their desks remain empty, but they keep getting paid until their accrued time runs out. Because they're technically still employed, the extended vacation counts toward their overall length of service, which ultimately boosts their pensions.

State officials acknowledge the practice, known as "running out the clock," but they don't have a system for tracking how many employees have done it, said Jacob Roper, a spokesman for the controller's office.

County employees can run out the clock, too, Alsop said. But leaving a job vacant for such a long time is especially difficult at the Sheriff's Department.

Hannah said that she was offered no such option and that she paid "significant" taxes on the lump sum. Still, she had no complaints about the big check, which she earned with decades of commitment to her job.

"Certainly, it's a lot of money, and I'm not downplaying that," Hannah said. "But when you look at it over a 30-year career, it doesn't look like quite so much."

surgeons?

doesn't help my trust in doctors

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128481569245646.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Secrets of the Operating Room

Fragile egos, obese patients and talking organs: A surgeon's view of what happens under the scalpel

By PAUL A. RUGGIERI

"Get this thing out of my operating room!" The colon stapling device exploded into pieces when I hurled it against the operating room wall. I was fed up with its failure to work as advertised by the manufacturer. The stapler had probably cost less than $100 to make. The hospital paid $300 for it (and then billed the patient, or insurance company, $1,200). Now the thing didn't even work.

I do not react well to imperfection inside the operating room. I cannot tolerate it in the tools I use, the staff assisting me, or myself. Defective devices—I can have them replaced. Unmotivated staff—I can have them removed from the operating room. I haven't quite figured out yet what to do with myself.

Surgeons are control freaks. We have to be. And when things don't go our way in the operating room, we can have outbursts. Some of us curse, some throw instruments, others have tantrums. These explosions are a go-to reaction when we're confronted with the ghosts of prior complications.

Several months earlier, I had performed the same operation on a 66-year-old patient, using an identical stapling device. Everything seemed to have worked perfectly until the patient developed severe complications four days after his surgery. We soon discovered the cause: the nonperformance of the stapling device.

When the stapler hit the wall, I had been in the operating room for more than four hours, struggling to remove a diseased segment of colon from someone I'll call Mr. Baker, a 330-pound middle-aged man. Trying to keep his fat out of my way during the operation had been a continuous battle. The pain in my upper back reminded me that I was losing the fight.

Obese patients create more physical work for a surgeon during any type of procedure. The operations take longer, tie our upper body in knots and leave us with fatigue and frustration. Obese patients also automatically face an increased risk of complications like infection, pneumonia and blood clots during recovery.

If the difficulties posed by Mr. Baker's obesity weren't enough, he had been steadily losing blood during the procedure. His tissue reacted to the slightest graze with more bleeding.

Why does this guy have to bleed like this? As if it were his fault. Here I was blaming him, even though I was the one causing the bleeding. But in surgery, it always has to be someone else's fault. It's never the surgeon's fault.

Interestingly, after an operation, most surgeons tend to underestimate the amount of blood that was lost. Whether it's ego or denial, they can't help themselves.

The reality is that blood loss can be measured. Hospitals know which surgeons are losing blood, and how much, during every operation. They have data from their operating rooms, but the public cannot get access to this information. And this information matters, too. A large amount of blood lost during an operation can be a harbinger of complications to come.

Like poker players and their cards, surgeons are sometimes only as good as the patients they are dealt. Obesity, excessive scar tissue from a previous surgery in the same area, disease that is more advanced than anticipated—any one of these physiological conditions creates more work and a more difficult environment for the surgeon.

Even before the surgery begins, underlying or chronic conditions such as a history of hypertension, cardiac disease or lung disease put patients at risk for complications. Today, based on your medical history, surgeons can usually analyze, quite accurately, your risk of complications (or death) before setting foot in the operating room. All you have to do is ask.

I had no idea how bad Mr. Baker's colon disease would be until I opened him up and looked inside. It was a mess. If I were playing poker and this man's anatomy were the hand dealt, it would be time to fold.

"That is one of the ugliest pieces of colon I've ever seen." I grabbed the scrub nurse's hand. "See, touch that thing. Look how inflamed it is." When given the chance, scrub nurses love to touch organs in the operating room. "OK, don't poke it too hard, it will start to bleed again." Her hand drew back onto the instrument stand. I was in for a long night.

Tonight, the diseased colon on the menu was angry, cursing and taunting me: "Good luck, Mr. Big-Time Surgeon, trying to remove me." Surgeons frequently have conversations with the body parts or organs they are trying to remove. We also have conversations with ourselves; it's a way to blow off steam while our minds scramble to deal with the unexpected.

"By the time you are done with me, your back muscles are going to be in a heap of pain," the colon went on. "Looking forward to that drive home in your new Porsche? Well, too bad. It's going to have to wait. You better take your time or I'll come back to haunt you in a few days." I could hear the colon laughing at me. I was crying inside.

"Nurse, hand me a curved scissors." Finally, I was granted a little success in freeing up one end of the colon. But that was short-lived. More bleeding. I hate this. And I had cut myself. I stared at my finger. "Nurse, I need a new glove." The outer skin under my glove was breached, but not deeply.

"Almost got you," the colon said. I could not shut the thing up. "How do you know I don't have hepatitis or H.I.V.?"

Just great, I thought. Now I have something else to worry about.

"You're going to earn your fee tonight, Dr. Surgeon." The colon kept talking. "I hope you're not in this business for the money, like the last guy who operated on me. Between what Medicare pays you, the phone calls in the middle of night and the time you spend guiding my recovery, I figure you will make about $200 an hour for this operation. How does that grab you?"

Should have gone for my M.B.A., I mumbled to myself. Big mistake going into medicine, never mind surgery. If I could only go back and do it over again.

The colon's rant continued: "Wait, subtract what it costs you in overhead to bill for this operation (double that if the claim gets rejected), plus malpractice costs for the day, and we are now at $150 an hour. And how could I leave out the biggest expense of all? The price of the mental stress from worrying about me after the surgery (and double that if there's a complication). Now, I figure you're under $100 an hour. Plumbers make more than that just to step inside your house. I bet they sleep well at night. Just remember, Dr. Surgeon, nobody put a gun to your head. You chose this profession."

I could swear that the thing was laughing at me. "Forget about keeping those dinner reservations tonight. You and me, we're going for breakfast once this is over."

—Adapted from "Confessions of a Surgeon" by Paul A. Ruggieri, M.D. (Berkley Books).

taxes

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/estee-lauder-heirs-tax-strategies-typify-advantages-for-wealthy.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp#

As he stood in the opulent marble foyer of a Fifth Avenue mansion late last month, greeting the coterie of prominent guests arriving at his private art gallery, Ronald Lauder was doing more than just being a gracious host.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Neue Galerie, Lauder's museum of Austrian and German art, he exhibited many of the treasures of a personal collection valued at more than $1 billion, including works by Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, and a Gustav Klimt portrait he bought five years ago for $135 million.

Yet for Lauder, an heir to the Estée Lauder fortune whose net worth is estimated at more than $3.1 billion, the evening went beyond social and cultural significance. Just beneath the surface was a shrewd use of the U.S. tax code. By donating his art to his private foundation, Lauder has qualified for deductions worth tens of millions of dollars in federal income taxes over the years, savings that help defray the hundreds of millions he has spent creating one of New York City's cultural gems.

The charitable deductions generated by Lauder — whose donations have aided causes as varied as hospitals and efforts to rebuild Jewish identity in Eastern Europe — are just one facet of a sophisticated tax strategy used to preserve a fortune that Forbes magazine says makes Lauder the world's 362nd-wealthiest person.

From offshore havens to a tax-sheltering stock deal so audacious that Congress later enacted a law forbidding the tactic, Lauder has for decades aggressively taken advantage of tax breaks useful only for the most affluent.

The debate over whether to reduce tax shelters and preferences for the rich is one of the most volatile in Washington and will move to the presidential campaign.

Some billionaires, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have joined Democrats in calling for an elimination of the breaks, saying the current system adds to the budget deficit, contributes to the widening income gap between the richest and the rest of society, and shifts the tax burden onto small businesses and the middle class. Republicans have resisted, saying the tax increases on the wealthy would harm the economy and cost jobs.

Big money, big ideas

The tax burden on the nation's superelite has steadily declined in recent decades, according to a sliver of data released annually by the IRS. The effective federal income-tax rate for the 400 wealthiest taxpayers, representing the top 0.000258 percent, fell from about 30 percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 2008, the most recent data available.

When Lauder ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for mayor of New York and released his tax return to the public, he reported paying 30 percent in total federal, state and city taxes on about $30 million in income in 1988. At the time, his net worth was estimated at nearly $250 million.

Lauder's more recent tax returns remain private, and he declined to make them available for this article.

Lauder, 67, was born into a storied American fortune. His mother, Estée Lauder, the daughter of Eastern European immigrants, began selling homemade beauty creams at a few New York City hair salons in the 1940s and built her product line into a multibillion-dollar global empire.

As the son of a fabulously wealthy fashion icon, Lauder developed aristocratic tastes — and grand aspirations — at an early age. He summered in Vienna as a boy, developing a passion for Austrian art and medieval armor. At 13, he bought his first Egon Schiele work with money from his bar mitzvah. He grew so enthralled by politics as a young man that he told friends he dreamed of becoming the first Jewish president of the United States.

While the family's wealth was created by hard work and ingenuity, it was bolstered by aggressive tax planning, a skill that has become Ronald Lauder's specialty. When Lauder's father, Joseph, died in 1983, relatives fought the IRS for more than a decade to reduce their estate tax. The dispute involved a block of shares bequeathed to the family; the estate valued it at $29 million, while the IRS placed it at $89.5 million. A panel of judges ultimately decided on $50 million, a decision that saved the estate more than $20 million in taxes.

"Truly rich" tax code

Lauder's stake in Estée Lauder Cos., according to regulatory filings, is valued at more than $600 million. Nearly $400 million of that stock is pledged to secure various lines of credit. Many financial planners consider it imprudent for principal shareholders in a company to borrow against their stock. But it remains a popular way for wealthy taxpayers to get cash out of their holdings without selling and paying taxes.

"There's real truth to the idea that the tax code for the 1 percent is different from the tax code for the 99 percent," said Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado. "Any taxpayer lucky enough to have appreciated property is usually put to a choice: cash out and pay some tax, or hold the property and risk the vagaries of the market.

Only the truly rich can use derivatives to get the best of both worlds: lots of cash and very little risk."

In 1976, at age 32, Lauder's donations helped him become the youngest trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He later served as chairman of the Museum of Modern Art and remains an honorary chairman.

He has donated and lent artwork to an assortment of museums. Part of his collection of lavishly decorated ceremonial armor is on display at the Met, in a gallery named for him.

As all art collectors may, Lauder is entitled to deduct the full market value of artworks donated to museums. For years, Lauder availed himself of a quirk in the tax code that allowed donors to take a deduction for donating a portion of an artwork, without handing over the art. That break, known as fractional donation, was eliminated in 2006. The tax code also allows artwork in offices to be deducted as a business expense.

Unlike some wealthy collectors who are criticized for using tax breaks to underwrite private collections that offer little access to the public, Lauder is widely praised for making his artwork a community asset.

Some tax-overhaul advocates say it is unfair that the wealthiest can subsidize their lifestyles using myriad offshore maneuvers and complex accounting strategies.

"It's admirable when people back their charitable impulses up with donations," said Scott Klinger, tax-policy director of the group Business for Shared Prosperity.

"But the tax code shouldn't allow the wealthy the kind of loopholes that let them, essentially, force other taxpayers to underwrite donations to their pet causes."

uc davis

dumbass cops...how can the uc allow this?...these students were just sitting there...nice way to tell future potential students to stay away since the school is willing to pepper spray their customers...i wonder what the response would have been if these were harvard or stanford students...they probably wouldn't protest since those students would be part of the 1%

sopa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

good video that summarizes what sopa is about...under the guise of protecting intellectual property, this law will give media corporations blanket authority to shut down any site they deem is using copyrighted material illegally...the law is worded so broadly that you could even go to jail if you posted a video of yourself singing a copyrighted song

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/11/stop-sopa-save-the-internet.html


Google knows it. Viacom knows it. The Chamber of Commerce knows it. Internet democracy groups know it. BoingBoing knows it. But, the Internet hasn't been told yet -- we're going to get blown away by the end of the year. The worst bill in Internet history is about to become law. Law is very real here in the United States and legal language is often different than stated intentions -- this law would give government and corporations the power to block sites like BoingBoing over infringing links on at least one webpage posted by their users. Believe the EFF, Public Knowledge, Google when they say this bill is about much more than copyright, it's about the Internet and free speech everywhere.

The MPAA, RIAA, Hollywood knows that they have been flying in CEOs of as many companies as possible, recruiting people to get petition signups at malls in California, and here's the big point-- they know they have gotten their message through to Congress -- the worst bill in Internet history, the one where government and their corporations get unbelievable power to take down sites, threaten payment processors into stopping payment to sites on a blacklist, and throw people in jail for posting ordinary content is about to pass before the end of this year. The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now.

PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites "by accident," mistakenly, or for NOT doing "enough" to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples' sites, including slowing down your connection. That's right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.

This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) this bill need to be shamed by the Internet community for wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill jobs and great startup companies, huge blogs, and social networks.

Everyone, the entire Internet community needs to stand together if we don't want to see this bill actually become law. Internet and democracy groups are planning an Internet-wide day of protest called American Censorship Day on Wednesday, November 16th for the day Congress holds a hearing on these bills to create the first American Internet censorship system. Every single person with a website can join and needs to.

Boing Boing, Grooveshark, Free Software Foundation, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Demand Progress, Open Congress/PPF, TechDirt, Fight for the Future and dozens of other sites have created this day to ask you to join them to stop S. 978 and HR 3261, as hard as you can. Write them, protest, call them, protest, support your favorite sites, protest, sign a letter, block out your site, protest.

Many public intellectuals who are often the ones to help win the public interest over and over are about to come out to lead the charge to stop PROTECT IP/ SOPA - they have to when they learn that the House and Senate will be working to pass this bill before the Christmas. From those doing work on the hill, it's very clear we have been stacked comparatively lightly. The House bill has 40 co-sponsors and major industry support. The only thing that will change the dynamic now is if Congress gets a knock on their door by CEO"s of small and large tech companies, blogs, and news sites and if Internet users start piling on, one by one, and protest.

Tech companies, blogs, news sites are already in a death-do-die battle cry -- listen to them -- it's a few days before the hearing on this bill. But, we need more tech companies, blogs, new sites before the hearing on this bill. Help get them.

I've been trying to think about whether or not the world is going to end if this bill passes like it's supposed to -- and the answer is, "kind of yes". When small sites, and it's the small sites that get turned off in the night and no one for the most part notices, say my friend's political blog or news site gets blocked by the US government and she has no way to get it back up even though everything she did was legal according to current law, and no one can help her except she can choose to file suit to defend herself, I feel like I die inside a little. Living in a country where you are being shut out and left powerless to really defend yourself is like living in another country, the ones you hear about. Life starts to feel shot when that happens, especially to our friends or our favorites sites.

Every site who has user-generated content, posts links or videos to anything copyrighted in it could face new legal threats.

If a copyrights holder disliked links you have on your site, they could simply file a complaint with a payment processor (Visa, PayPal), who would then have 5 days to respond to their request or risk legal ramifications. If bills like this are allowed to pass, we'll be spending another $47 million dollars every year to help corporations fill out and enforce Internet blacklists.

Sites that would be legal under the DMCA and its safe harbor provisions would now risk losing everything for allowing user generated content. It also has added in the streaming felony bill that would make it so ordinary Internet users are at risk of going to jail for 5 years for post any copyrighted work that would cost $2,500 to license. And because copyright is so broad, that means videos with copyrighted music in the background, kids in a school play, people singing karaoke could all be a risk.

Because the law affects almost every Internet user and the sites they use every day and have come to love, and because granting sweeping blacklisting powers is just sickening to almost everyone, we need your help -- if you can encourage your favorite site to join the protest, and help drive the maximum number of people to contact Congress on November 16th (until the bill dies), please help.

These bills represent a major blow to openness and freedom on the Internet, free speech rights, and the fabric of the Internet itself. If SOPA is allowed to pass, the Internet and free speech will never be the same again.

more ows

damn cops pepper sprayed an 84 year old woman...

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/16/dorli-rainey-octagenarian-pep.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29

http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/occupy-seattle-octogenarian-activist-dorli-rainey-on-being-pepper-sprayed-by-seattle-police-importance-of-activism

occupy wall street

ows ended last night after cops pepper sprayed, beat, lrad'ed protesters...lrad is long range acoustic device which is basically a sound cannon...i spent about an hour watching it on http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution after seeing #ows overflow with tweets...no major networks were covering what was happening, and the only way to get information was through twitter and live video feeds that people at the protest were uploading...whether one agrees with ows and their agenda or lack of, what you can't condone is preventing the press from covering the protest in order to allow cops to beat protesters without worry of it being aired on national tv...it seems like a bad precedent was set, and the same might be done at other "occupy" locations where police brutality is used under a press blackout to kick out the protesters...the fear is that other more traditionally defiant areas might erupt in riots... the bay area could be one of those areas since oakland is already pissed off with what the police did and historically has had a bad relationship with them...critical mass might be building in berkeley after the protesters in oakland moved there (hope they don't trash the campus)...it also signals a change in how we receive news...not through the major media channels like tv and radio where it is filtered, censored, and skewed, but live and direct from the source over the net...one of the main reasons why i keep a twitter account even though i tweet very seldomly

people say that ows has no agenda, but i think that the agenda is an overwhelming frustration with the overall corruption of both financial and government institutions...the people have no other viable outlet to voice their frustration since the media is controlled by those same institutions...protesting in public was the only way to get any message out...also, it is impossible to have a narrow and defined agenda for something as broad as trying to fix financial and government systems that feed off each other's corruption

this shouldn't be about a liberal or conservative agenda...this is to try to stop the rich and powerful from rigging the system to help themselves year after year...i read franzen's freedom recently, and two quotes from it summarize the ows situation very well

“It’s all circling around the same problem of personal liberties,” Walter said. “People came to this country for either money or freedom. If you don’t have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can’t afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.”

“The reason this system can’t be overthrown in this country,” Walter said, “is all about freedom. The reason the free market in Europe is tempered by socialism is that they’re not so hung up on personal liberties there. They also have lower population growth rates, despite comparable income levels. The Europans are all-around more rational, basically. And the conversation about rights in this country isn’t rational. It’s taking place on the level of emotion, and class resentments, which is why the right is so good at exploiting it.” - Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

politics is crap

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57319075/jack-abramoff-the-lobbyists-playbook/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook

Jack Abramoff, the notorious former lobbyist at the center of Washington's biggest corruption scandal in decades, spent more than three years in prison for his crimes. Now a free man, he reveals how he was able to influence politicians and their staffers through generous gifts and job offers. He tells Lesley Stahl the reforms instituted in the wake of his scandal have had little effect.

---

The following is a script of "The Lobbyist's Playbook" which aired on Nov. 6, 2011.

Jack Abramoff may be the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time. He was at the center of a massive scandal of brazen corruption and influence peddling.

As a Republican lobbyist starting in the mid 1990s, he became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients. He was so good at it, he took home $20 million a year.
Jack Abramoff: Inside Capitol corruption

How corrupt is lobbying in Washington, DC? Enough to get "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl angry when she hears how Jack Abramoff bribed and influenced legislators.
It all came crashing down five years ago, when Jack Abramoff pled guilty to corrupting public officials, tax evasion and fraud, and served three and a half years in prison.

Today he's a symbol of how money corrupts Washington. In our interview tonight, he opens up his playbook for the first time.

And explains exactly how he used his clients' money to buy powerful friends and influence legislation.

Jack Abramoff: I was so far into it that I couldn't figure out where right and wrong was. I believed that I was among the top moral people in the business. I was totally blinded by what was going on.

Jack Abramoff was a whiz at influencing legislation and one way he did that was to get his clients, like some Indian tribes, to make substantial campaign contributions to select members of Congress.

Abramoff: As I look back it was effective. It certainly helped the people I was trying to help, both the clients and the Republicans at that time.

Lesley Stahl: But even that, you're now saying, was corrupt?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: Can you quantify how much it costs to corrupt a congressman?

Abramoff: I was actually thinking of writing a book - "The Idiot's Guide to Buying a Congressman" - as a way to put this all down. First, I think most congressmen don't feel they're being bought. Most congressmen, I think, can in their own mind justify the system.

Stahl: Rationalize.

Abramoff: --rationalize it and by the way we wanted as lobbyists for them to feel that way.

Abramoff would provide freebies and gifts - looking for favors for his clients in return. He'd lavish certain congressmen and senators with access to private jets and junkets to the world's great golf destinations like St. Andrews in Scotland. Free meals at his own upscale Washington restaurant and access to the best tickets to all the area's sporting events; including two skyboxes at Washington Redskins games.

Abramoff: I spent over a million dollars a year on tickets to sporting events and concerts and what not at all the venues.

Stahl: A million dollars?

Abramoff: Ya. Ya.

Stahl: For the best seats?

Abramoff: The best seats. I had two people on my staff whose virtual full-time job was booking tickets. We were Ticketmaster for these guys.

Stahl: And the congressman or senator could take his favorite people from his district to the game--

Abramoff: The congressman or senator uh, could take two dozen of his favorite people from their district.

Stahl: Was all that legal?

Ira Rosen is the producer.


Abramoff: We would certainly try to make the activity legal, if we could. At times we didn't care.

But the "best way" to get a congressional office to do his bidding - he says - was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary.

Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, "You know, when you're done working on the Hill, we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us." Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to 'em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they're gonna do. And not only that, they're gonna think of things we can't think of to do.

Neil Volz: Jack Abramoff could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck, that's how persuasive he was.

Neil Volz was one of the staffers Abramoff was talking about. He was chief of staff to Congressman Bob Ney, who as chairman of the House Administration Committee had considerable power to dispense favors. Abramoff targeted Volz and offered him a job.

Stahl: You're the chief of staff of a powerful congressman. And Jack owns you and you haven't even left working for the congressman.

Volz: I have the distinct memory of, you know, negotiating with Jack at a hockey game. So we're, you know, just a few rows back. The crowd's goin' crazy. And Jack and I are havin' a business conversation. And, you know, I'm-- I'm wrestlin' with how much I think I should get paid. And then five minutes later we're-- he's askin' me questions about some clients of his.

Stahl: When you look back was that the corrupting moment?

Volz: I think we were guilty of engaging in a corrupt relationship. So there were several corrupting moments. There isn't just one moment. There were many.

Abramoff: At the end of the day most of the people that I encountered who worked on Capitol Hill wanted to come work on K Street, wanted to be lobbyists.

Stahl: You're telling me this, the genius of figuring out you could own the office by offering a job to the chief of staff, say. I'm having two reactions. One is brilliant. And the other is I'm sick to my stomach.

Abramoff: Right. Evil. Yeah. Terrible.

Stahl: 'Cause it's hurting our country.

Abramoff: Shameful. Absolutely. It's the worst thing that could happen. All parts of the system.

Stahl: I'm mad at you.

Abramoff: I was mad at me--

Stahl: I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

Abramoff: Look I did things and I was involved in the system I should not have been in. I'm ashamed of the fact I was there, the very reason why now I'm speaking about it. And now I'm trying to do something, in recompense, is the fact that I thought it was-- it was wrong of me to do it.


One of the offices he keyed on was that of his good friend, the Majority Leader Tom Delay, eventually hiring his deputy chief of staff and his press secretary, and going into business with Delay's chief of staff.

Stahl: Did you own his staff?

Abramoff: I was as close to his staff as to any staff. I had a very strong personal relationship with a lot of his staff.

Stahl: How many congressional offices did you actually own?

Abramoff: We probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at the time.

Stahl: Come on.

Abramoff: No.

Stahl: A hundred offices?

Abramoff: In those days, I would view that as a failure. Because that leaves 335 offices that we didn't have strong influence in.

Stahl: Did he own you?

Bob Ney: Oh, I don't believe Jack Abramoff owned me. But were we involved in the culture of corruption together? Absolutely.

Former Republican Congressman Bob Ney was ambitious and looked at Abramoff as a way to build alliances with the White House and the majority leader.

Ney: I wanted to be speaker of the House and Jack Abramoff was the beautiful light of day for me to get to the person who I had had some conflicts with, Tom Delay.

Abramoff began inviting Ney on golf trips including one to Scotland and to his restaurant Signatures, where Ney was given food and drinks on the house, a violation of the congressional gift limit laws. Ney says he was hardly the only one crossing the line.

Ney: But I will still tell you, at that point in time, in order to get a drink at Signatures you had to shove White House staffers of George Bush the heck away from the bar. And it was packed with people. And there were members. Now that doesn't mean everybody did everything for Jack. But if you wanna talk about strict interpretation of violation of the-- of-- of the laws of drink and food, Katey bar the door, she was wide open, two shotguns blarin'.

After months of taking handouts, Ney was approached by Neil Volz, his former chief of staff, by then a lobbyist for Abramoff.

Volz: I let you down man and I'm sorry...

Volz asked Ney to insert some language into a reform bill that would give a backdoor license to an Indian casino owned by one of Abramoff's clients. You often hear about lobbyists getting special secret deals for their clients like this. It's an insidious technique that Abramoff perfected.

Abramoff: So what we did was we crafted language that was so obscure, so confusing, so uninformative, but so precise to change the U.S. code.

Stahl: Here's what you tried to get tacked on to this reform bill.

Abramoff: Yeah.

Stahl: "Public law 100-89 is amended by striking section 207 (101 stat. 668, 672)."

Abramoff: Right. Now isn't that obvious what that means? It was perfect. It was perfect.

Stahl: So that's what you tried to get inserted?


Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And that was gonna provide for a casino?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And who on earth is gonna know that?

Abramoff: No one except the chairmen of the committees.

Stahl: Who stuck it in there?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And that's one of the things you used to do?

Abramoff: Yes.

Stahl: And it was deliberately written like that?

Abramoff: Precisely. Yes.

Stahl: And that's done a lot?

Abramoff: Members don't read the bills.

Stahl: You didn't even know what it was for?

Ney: Had no idea. And then when we got the written language--

Stahl: Well-- why didn't you know what it was for?

Ney: I didn't-- I didn't care.

Stahl: Oh!

Ney: It was a great big shell game. And I was in the middle of it, whether, you know, knowing or not. I-- I was dumb enough to not say, "What's this thing do?"

Ney would eventually serve 17 months in federal prison, the only congressman who was ever charged in the scandal. But Abramoff says that there were many other members that did his bidding that could have been charged.

Stahl: Was buying favors from lawmakers easy?

Abramoff: I think people are under the impression that the corruption only involves somebody handing over a check and getting a favor. And that's not the case. The corruption, the bribery, call it, because ultimately that's what it is. That's what the whole system is.

Stahl: The whole system's bribery?

Abramoff: In my view. I'm talking about giving a gift to somebody who makes a decision on behalf of the public. At the end of the day, that's really what bribery is. But it is done everyday and it is still being done. The truth is there were very few members who I could even name or could think of who didn't at some level participate in that.

Abramoff prided himself on being a man who did good. He was devoutly religious and exorbitantly charitable and he says he gave away 80 percent of his earnings. When he fell from grace, his reputation was in tatters because it was not just that he had corrupted Congress - it was found he had cheated his clients, like the Indian tribes.

Abramoff: Most of the money I made I gave away, to either communal or charitable causes. So I thought frankly I was one of the most moral lobbyists out there.


Things began to unravel for Abramoff when the Washington Post published a largely unflattering portrait of him in 2004, reporting that he charged his clients 10 times more than any other lobbyist in town.

Abramoff: My first response was, "What's the big deal? I don't understand what this is about. This is what lobbyists do.

What he didn't understand was the part that said he and a former aide to Tom Delay had overbilled four of his Indian casino clients by $45 million.

In the end, he was brought up on federal charges of tax evasion and ripping off Indian tribes. On the day he went to court and pled guilty, Abramoff looked grim. The judge sentenced him to four years.

Stahl: I really think what you were doing was-- was subverting the essence of our system.

Abramoff: Yes. Absolutely right. But our system is flawed and has to be fixed. Human beings populate our system. Human beings are weak.

Stahl: And you preyed on that?

Abramoff: I did. I was one of many who did. I did. And I'm ashamed of that fact.

He was sent to a medium security facility in Cumberland, Maryland. When he was released last June, he began working as an accountant at a kosher pizza parlor. Turns out Jack Abramoff was broke, partly because he is paying off nearly $24 million in restitution to the Indian tribes. Today he lives in his old house in Maryland with his wife, five children and the two doberman pinschers Mrs. Abramoff bought to protect the family while he was away.

After the scandal, Congress instituted a package of reforms, making what Abramoff did - like plying members of Congress with free expensive meals - illegal. But he doesn't see the new reforms as being very effective.

Abramoff: The reform efforts continually are these faux-reform efforts where they'll change, they'll tweak the system. They'll say, "You can have a meal with a congressman if they're standing up, not sitting down."

Stahl: Is that serious? Or are you joking?

Abramoff: Oh no, I'm not joking at all.

Stahl: So, it's okay if you pay for lunch as long as you stand up?

Abramoff: Well, it's actually worse than that. You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak of something like that. But you can take him to a fundraising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fundraiser. And have all the same access and all the same interaction with that congressman. So the people who make the reforms are the people in the system.

Stahl: Could you do the same thing today? I'm asking you whether you think the system's been cleaned up?

Abramoff: Could do the same thing that I? Yeah. No, the system hasn't been cleaned up at all.

Stahl: At all.

Abramoff: There's an arrogance on the part of lobbyists, and certainly there was on the part of me and my team, that no matter what they come up we, we're smarter than they are and we'll overcome it. We'll just find another way through. That's all.

He says the most important thing that needs to be done is to prohibit members of Congress and their staff from ever becoming lobbyists in Washington.

Abramoff: If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself. When you're done, go home. Washington's a dangerous place. Don't hang around.

Former Congressman Bob Ney now works part-time as a radio host.

His former chief of staff Neil Volz is currently working as a night janitor at a Florida restaurant.

And Jack Abramoff has written a memoir called "Capitol Punishment."

© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

finance is crap

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/max_keiser_financial_pornography_and_goldman-sachs/

the video shows how financial institutions make up money out of nothing...

occupy wall street might not have an official cause that they are protesting about, but to me, the protest stems from the frustration with major financial institutions that commit crime on a global scale and then expect bail outs

stem majors

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html

article about why many students fail to follow through with a science, engineering, or math major...simple answer is that it's pretty difficult, and students give up after a year or two...however, i think that has always been the case, and it is well known that you have weeder classes early on so that students who can't take the work or find out that they don't like it can switch majors before it is too late...the article also mentions about having x number of engineers and scientists by a certain year, but the problem isn't so much that the students aren't completing these majors...the problem is that many these students who get stem degrees are going into other fields like finance, because the money is better...if they are serious about getting more people interested in becoming engineers and scientists, then start paying them investment banker level salaries...i'm pretty sure that engineers and scientists have had a much greater positive impact on the advancement of the human race than financiers...example...einstein vs jp morgan...genius who figured out brownian motion, relativity, and photoelectric effect vs greedy robber baron...the other issue is that with most stem jobs, an undergraduate degree is usually not enough and need to get at least a masters