Student Loan Bubble Putting Hundreds of Colleges at Risk
May 21st, 2012Via: Business Insider:
The size, scope, and impact of this problem is an enormous anchor weighing down our next generation and our nation’s economy.
Make no mistake, this anchor is not only impacting thousands of students and families but is also having an equally burdensome impact on colleges and universities nationwide.
…
1. Using this post-crash model (and may it not be “mid-crash”), 207 colleges and universities—31% of the 678 institutions in the database— have, under at least some circumstances, more debts than cash and marketable investments. In the model these 207 inadequate-capital institutions have projected net financial asset balances ranging from a negative few hundred thousand dollars to nearly a negative $400,000,000. More than half of the 205 had negative projections from ($10,000,000) to ($100,000,000).
2. This means that the inadequate-capital institutions (which might include a third or more of NAICU members) are exposed to severe disruption from negative factors such as declines in cash and investments, escalation of interest payments on variable-rate debt, and required accelerated repayment of principle, particularly if several negative factors were to coincide.
Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.
Update: Low of Day Opening Minutes: $33.05
Man, bust out the calliope music for this one.
—End Update—
It looks like they’re trying to defend $35 now.
Denmark: Children Who Co-Sleep Nightly Are 70% Less Likely to be Overweight vs. Kids Who Never Sleep with Their Parents
May 21st, 2012That’s great, but I’m sick of getting kicked in the nuts. 😐
Via: Inhabitots:
In odd but true news, yet another perk of co-sleeping has been revealed – reduced obesity. According to a new study from Denmark, kids who co-sleep nightly are 70% less likely to be overweight as compared to kids who never sleep with their parents. The study also found that even occasional co-sleeping had benefits, as part-time co-sleepers were 50% less likely to be overweight as compared to total non-co-sleepers.
The Future of Sustainable Agriculture at Disney EPCOT: GMO and Styrofoam
May 21st, 2012Sponsors of “Living With The Land” at Disney EPCOT:
The Sierra Club has launched a campaign against genetically engineered foods. We’re targeting Kraft Foods, which is the largest packaged food producer in America.
We’re asking Kraft to remove all genetically engineered products from their foods. This includes not using milk from rBGH-treated cows (the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that permits this practice) and not using genetically engineered (GE) corn, potatoes, soy and so forth.
The Nestlé boycott is a boycott launched on July 7, 1977, in the United States against the Swiss-based Nestlé corporation. It spread quickly throughout the United States, and expanded into Europe in the early 1980s. It was prompted by concern about the Nestle’s promotion of breast milk substitutes (infant formula), particularly in less economically developed countries (LEDCs), which campaigners claim contributes to the unnecessary suffering and even deaths of babies, largely among the poor.[1] Among the campaigners, Professor Derek Jelliffe and his wife Patrice, who contributed to establish the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), were particularly instrumental in helping to coordinate the boycott and giving it ample visibility worldwide.
The United Fruit Company was frequently accused of bribing government officials in exchange for preferential treatment, exploiting its workers, paying little by way of taxes to the governments of the countries in which it operated, and working ruthlessly to consolidate monopolies. Latin American journalists sometimes referred to the company as el pulpo (“the octopus”)…
The piece below is from 2007.
Via: Inhabitat:
I spent the majority of my time at EPCOT hovering around the LAND exhibit and going on behind-the-scenes tours of EPCOT’s greenhouses. The entire agri-tech research center area has been re-branded under the rubric of “sustainability” and now includes a public exhibition on agricultural technology and global ecology called ‘Living With Land’ – a rousing exhibit on farming and agricultural innovation which takes the very 1950?s-esque position that humanity can solve its food shortages and environmental problems by improving agricultural technology. I’m not really sure that I buy this, but the exhibit was certainly a fascinating romp through the history of “the future”.
…
The 6-year-old then asked our guide about genetic experimentation, and pretty quickly we all learn that most of the crops within the “Living With The Land” greenhouses are genetically modified. At this point in the tour I’m starting to think that perhaps EPCOT needs to give media training to their interns – because lots of talk about genetically modified crops and copious use of styrofoam “because its cheap and disposable” doesn’t exactly paint the rosiest of pictures for an exhibit supposedly about “Living With The Land”
Research Credit: tal
JP Morgan Trade Losses Could Reach $5 Billion… Or More
May 21st, 2012Via: Business Insider:
When JPMorgan first announced that its CIO office had blundered into a huge trading loss, the number was pegged at $2 billion, though the company said it could go higher.
Then the loss was reported to be $3 billion.
And now…
$5 billion or more?
From WSJ:
The nation’s largest bank has said publicly that its losses on the trades have surpassed $2 billion, and people familiar with the matter have said they could over time reach $5 billion.
But the losses could be even bigger if the company sells its positions into a market that has turned against its positions, some traders say. Improvements in the markets could slice the bank’s losses.
Microsoft to Charge Customers $99 to Remove OEM ‘Crapware’
May 20th, 2012This issue is definitely becoming more ridiculous as the profit margins disappear in the commodity PC meat grinder. I spend about fifteen minutes removing crapware from each new Windows based machine (Dell and Lenovo) that I prepare for use by a small company here.
The good news is that uninstalling the stuff is simple using the control panel in Windows, but the fact that people have to do it at all is absurd.
Now, why not hang a $99 price tag out there to remove garbage that shouldn’t be on the machines in the first place?
Innovation!
Maybe Microsoft is trying to grow Apple’s market share.
Via: ZDnet:
Will people be willing to pay Microsoft to remove the crapware that the OEMs install on new PCs? Microsoft thinks they will.
For around two and a half years, Microsoft has been offering what it calls Signature editions of certain PCs. According to Microsoft, these PCs give you faster and easier access to “the applications you want right away without getting sidetracked talking to trialware or other sample software”.
In other words, when you boot up your new PC, instead of having to deal with a blizzard of pop-ups and dialog boxes related to trialware and demo software — collectively known as crapware — the system boots to a clean Windows desktop.
U.S. Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban
May 20th, 2012Ah well, might as well make it official.
Via: Buzzfeed:
An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.
The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee’s official website.
The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.
The bi-partisan amendment is sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State.
In a little noticed press release earlier in the week — buried beneath the other high-profile issues in the $642 billion defense bill, including indefinite detention and a prohibition on gay marriage at military installations — Thornberry warned that in the Internet age, the current law “ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way.”
The bill’s supporters say the informational material used overseas to influence foreign audiences is too good to not use at home, and that new techniques are needed to help fight Al-Qaeda, a borderless enemy whose own propaganda reaches Americans online.
Robert Reich to New College Graduates: ‘You’re F*cked’
May 20th, 2012I’ve excerpted what I think are the key sentences.
Via: Robert Reich:
So much of what was once considered “knowledge work” – the kind that college graduates specialize in – can now be done more cheaply by software. Or by workers with college degrees in India or East Asia, linked up by Internet.
Related: The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps
Ireland May Need Second Bailout
May 19th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
Ireland may be forced into a second bailout by mounting loan losses in its banking system, according to Deutsche Bank AG.
Ireland’s bailed-out banks may need capital to cover as much as 4 billion euros ($5.1 billion) more bad-loan provisions than assumed in stress tests last year, Deutsche Bank analysts David Lock and Jason Napier said in a report published today.
Half of Florida High School Students Fail Reading Test
May 19th, 2012Via: Reuters:
Nearly half of Florida high school students failed the reading portion of the state’s new toughened standardized test, education officials said on Friday.
Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50 percent of sophomores scored at their grade levels.
Students in the 10th grade must pass the exam in order to eventually graduate but can retake it if they fail.
