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But, maybe there is another reason. With the stock price up from the 70's last year to $114 today. The shareholders? The Executives? Institutions investing in IBM for IRA, 401K, 403B, 457 accounts? Well all the above.
The Executives stand out as benefiting the most with Stock Options that are expiring June 30, 2008 awarded June 30, 1998. As they say, "Greed is good". So there might be a "sell off bubble" before June 30, 2008. You will not see the individual sell of Louis V Gerstner Jr of his 20,000,000 shares as he is no longer a VP or director. His strike price along with the other 34 Stock Option award receivers is about $53 so if the price, at the time of sale is $114 as of today, Gerstner will glean $61 a share times 20,000,000 or $1,220,000,000 in his bank account.
After giving this chart to a reporter at the IBM stockholder meeting a few years ago, the information disappeared from the cbsmarketwatch.com website. You can probably find these stock option awards in the archive filings at the SEC however.
In the following chart, I visited www.cbsmarketwatch.com and looked at each person listed that received stock Options on June 30,1998. The day Gerstner negotiated his outrageous contract and stock options. So these assumptions are made, we know that these folks sold shares, but lets assume, they did not, are good employees like me, and held their shares and are going to cash them in today. All of them. Now when they do, we will assume, that all the money is taken out of the company, at the present share price of $114, Feb 27, 2008.
The Options, June 30, 1998 were issued with an exercise price of $106, there was a split in June 1999 of 2 for 1 share, the amount of stock would double and the exercise price would halve to $53 a share. But, did you know, that Gerstner had the power to change the exercise price from what the shareholders approved in 1998? The $53 stock option can be turned in, Lou mentions this on page 99 of his "Elephant" book as distasteful. You can see this as Lou bought a lot of shares at $13 and so did many of these "35 people" and turned around and sold the same $13 share the next day for $115.
Stock Options Awarded June 30, 1998 to "35" People:
|Name||Title||Stock Options Awarded in 1998||Stock Options Following June, 1999 2 for 1 Split||Value of Stock if Sold on Feb 27, 2008|
|Beitzel, George (affiliated)||VP||2,132||4,264||$486,096|
|Gerstner, Louis V||COB||10,713,960||21,427,920||$2,442,782,800|
|Metz, Frank||Officer, Director||14,753||29,506||$3,363,684|
|Thompson, John M||Officer, Director||80,213||160,426||$18,288,564|
Three Billion, four-hundred fifteen million, seven hundred eighty two thousand, dollars divided up somewhat unevenly for "35" people, granted on June 30, 1998 and if sold at a share price for $114, June 30, 2008, in this example. No matter how you cut it, it is $3.4 Billion that is available to be removed from IBM assets and put in the bank accounts of "35" people.
I considered taking even more radical steps to increase IBM's commitment to its employees. Those at the top were doing fantastically well on stock options-despite the fact that Williams (Al Williams, then IBM President) and I stopped taking options in 1958, after Williams said, "We don't want to look like pigs." While IBM's workers were making good money, they couldn't look forward to the rich capital gains that executives with options had. I asked myself, "How much more am I worth to IBM than that guy down at the bottom of the pay scale? Twice as much? Sure. Ten times as much? Maybe. Twenty times as much? Probably not."
Pg 311, Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond, by Thomas J. Watson Jr.
These folks are way beyond pigs...
I've been a good performing employee in the company for almost 34 years. Mostly 1's and 2's.
In the last year, however, I have lost faith in IBM and it's management. They have also lost faith in me as well. For the first time their business models don't make sense to me as well as to many of my colleagues. I realize it's time to go and believe me, I hope the best for those still working in the company but I think it'll be a problem to work there at least in the United States.
In any case, I am very lucky and can retire, so I am planning to advise my management that I will retire on June 30. This is almost 120 days away.
So the question is: If I call up the ESC, and give them the date and I hear it is then "cast in concrete", will I be able to move it up in the event of a major change in the retirement plan? Although the chances are remote, there could be for example a pension change announced let's say on April 1 just after I agreed to retire "cast in concrete" on June 30. Frankly, I don't trust (never have) the management of this company.
Is there ERISA protection for those who decide to formally have a date to retire beyond the normal 90 days or should I just wait until March 30? I know this is a small deal compared to what many thousands have suffered here in the last decade.
I also plan not to sign anything as I go out the door, no HR sponsored "remembrance book", etc. I have 2 patents and a half dozen more in application status, but I don't agree with their new confidentiality agreement "reminder". I'll just leave my badge and AMEX card on someone's desk and go quietly out the door to a new career, whatever it may be. Scary, but it's can't be worse than staying inside this mess that some called the "blue pig"!
In parallel with this, your manager has to work with HR on your exit paperwork (i.e. your resignation from IBM).
If IBM should announce something in the next few months, you can always change your retirement date. ERISA protects your vested benefits, so there is little reason to think that something would happen between now and June 30 that would force you to rush out the door. You are already retirement-eligible, your pension is already frozen and you aren't earning anything more, and IBM can't take away what you have already earned.
One thing to think about as far as the date goes... if you retire on June 30, I don't believe you will receive any variable pay for 2008. But if you retire on July 31, you will receive a pro-rated amount. It's your choice as to whether you think it is worth it to hang around for an extra month.
Be sure to use your floating holidays before you use any vacation days. And keep track of how many earned-but-unused vacation days you still have as of your retirement date, as IBM will pay you for those.
As you age, the conversion factor that is used to calculate your monthly pension benefit decreases, causing your pension amount to increase slightly for each additional month you postpone starting your pension.
The lump sum works differently. The lump sum is based on the age-65 value of your pension in 1999, when the cash balance plan was implemented. To calculate the lump sum value, a long term interest rate is used. This used to be the rate on 30-year bonds, but when the Pension Protection Act was signed into law in 2006, it allowed companies to switch to using an interest rate based on high quality corporate bonds, which is generally higher than the 30-year bond rate. This causes the value of the lump sum to decrease. The phase over to the corporate bond rate is being implemented gradually from 2008 to 2012, and you can expect the lump sum value to decrease over that time.
In addition, the pension protection act also switches to new mortality tables, which also have an effect on the lump sums. Note that the change in interest rates and mortality tables does NOT change your monthly annuity amount. They only affect the lump sum amount.
Here is a recent article on this: http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2008/03/lump-sum-payout-vs-distribution.html
It is my understanding that IBM has been updating the interest rates only once per year, at the end of the year. I'm not sure if this has changed or not, but it might be that it has. Finally, as has been mentioned before, the lump sum is often a poor deal for employees who are not close to age 65 and have a normal life expectancy, as it gives up the early retirement subsidy which can be quite valuable.
Also, it may be to your benefit if your salary is cut 15% before you leave. The summary plan description indicates that if your salary is cut more than 10%, you are eligible for a severance package.
In addition, you are not required to give advance notice of your retirement, it is done as a courtesy to IBM for planning. At least 45 days has to elapse before a 1st day of a month for you to receive your pension, although you will receive retroactive pay. As an example, I told HR on January 15th that I'm retiring on 2/29, but I will not be paid until April 1, not my first retirement day on March 1st. I will receive retroactive pay for March on April 1st, in addition to my April payment, because they want the signed paperwork with your payment choices at least 45 days before your first check. Good luck with your decision.
After 33 years of 1 and 2 appraisals and doing what I thought was the right thing, I was not very surprised to get my first "3" in 33 years but I was surprised to be threatened with getting managed out of the business. In the past, I'd search out another job and transform myself once again, but the "new IBM" is not about creating employees with great broad expertise, it's about using up people in a narrow job and getting rid of them once they get tired, sick, obsolete or irrelevant. You can't grow technically or intellectually here anymore. It's also about adulation of management, much like hollywood stars and politics. These guys really think they are infallible gods as they reach the VP levels.
During last year, another division requested my well publicized and very specialized expertise in a particular industry and set of technologies. When asked to help, I immediately did so (with management approval) went out of my territory and closed some more business for them. In 2008 they asked for more help and when my management refused they just escalated and blew them away. It turns out they now hold that against me. At least I'll get canned for doing the right thing! One colleague said "You are committing career suicide. Go ahead and enjoy it, you have nothing to worry and you'll do better outside of IBM!" I've agreed to work as a subcontractor for the other division if I get canned out of IBM.
Interesting point on the 15% cut triggering a severance package. Although I'm not involved (I was an IT Networking Architect for at least 10 years in IGS and now an SSL in IGS GTS sales) I've passed this tidbit to some of my old delivery friends and at least one has acted on that tip.
I've disclosed my decision to a couple of friends and have been pleasantly shocked at their reactions. More than one suggested that I just sit on my ass and encourage management to give me the "3" package of 13 weeks pay and CORBA which will save me money over the FHA theft victim rates for a year. One potential new employer and friend even said "Go for it! Let them fire you! It doesn't hurt a bit - it may even make your resume look better - and you can take some more money from the bastards as you go out the door!".
Another good friend, and well known past poster (by his ID) here, just said "Well I'm happy you have decided to wean yourself out of that meagerly paycheck. Now we have to work on weaning the IBM thinking out of you so you can be successful out there!". I've received 3 unsolicited job offers and calls to interview at HP, Cisco and an IBM Business Partner.
I'm not taking the lump sum because actuarially it is essentially another attempt of theft from management and my health seems good. Here's my steps: 1) I've decided to not formally announce my retirement to my management until the last minute, maybe 30 days to 2 weeks out. I don't hate them, I just can't understand the business model they are operating. I really think they are powerless to do much anyway. 2) I am requesting a pension estimate from the ESC this week. 3) I'll clean up my admin stuff and making sure I'm ready to leave at a moment's notice in case I'm lucky and get a severance package. 4) I'll take all of my holidays ASAP. 5) Since I'm mobile, I have no worries about an office, but I think I'll stock up on office supplies.
Thanks for the help, folks.
"It's all well and good for [Bernanke] to say there's no inflation, but that's just not the case for the supermarket shopper or the average person filling their gas tank," says Arthur Hogan, an analyst with Jefferies and Co., an investment bank. Hogan believes the Fed is more concerned with the dangers of an economic slowdown than inflation. ...
But lofty prices don't just loom in the grocery aisle and at the gas pump. Look closely and there are pockets of inflation across many sectors of the economy. ...
Then there's the real killer: health insurance. Since 2001, insurance premiums have jumped 78% for family coverage, far outpacing inflation, according to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based health care policy research foundation.
One way is to offer superior customer service, the better to compete for the fewer number of dollars out there, and set yourself up with loyal customers for the inevitable economic rebound. A new report finds a lot of companies like Wal Mart and Home Depot seem to have a different plan. ...
Cutting back on service is an easy way to save a buck when things slow down, but it's also short-sighted. Gruca is putting the finishing touches on a follow-up report that measures a firm's willingness to invest in service and spruced up stores against long term profitability growth. He doesn't have final numbers yet, but he says the preliminary results show a strong link.
Here's the quandary: If you claim benefits at 62, you can retire while you're young enough to enjoy it, but you'll receive reduced benefits for the rest of your life. By contrast, waiting to file until at least full retirement age (66 for boomers who turn 62 this year) will increase your monthly payments, reducing the risk that you'll run out of money in your old age. For many boomers, though, that means working longer — a hard pill to swallow if you hate your job and want to spend more time with your grandchildren.
What most retirees don't realize is that they can change their minds. Under the Social Security Act, individuals who receive early-retirement benefits from Social Security can withdraw their application, repay the benefits they've received and refile for higher benefits at a later date, says Mary Jane Yarrington, senior policy analyst for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
When we want to hire lots of software engineers, there is a shortage in North America—a pretty significant shortage,” Gates said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We have this tough problem: If you can’t get the engineers, then you have to have those other jobs be [relocated to] where the engineers are.”
30 years and a raise every year? Unheard of in my project !!!!! GDP every year but nobody has gotten a raise every year in a long, long time. The best in the area average about every other year for the past 6 years. The "below best" are starting to starve. Some even cutting into their 401Ks to make ends meet.
It would appear in my area that the death spiral is out of control. Management screwed too many people and morale went to hell. The carrot no longer means anything and it shows in the work. Clients hit the pavement and the grunts could care less. You can only be beat up so many times. Now PBC's will drop further, moral will drop further, clients will drop. Soon it will just the first line and second line wondering what happened.
Here's my nominee: The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the government agency that protects the pensions of 44 million workers in case their employers can't (or won't) pay promised benefits, has announced that to avoid going bust it will double the percentage of its portfolio -- to 45% -- that it puts into stocks. An additional 10% will go into alternative investments, including hedge funds.
In other words, facing a $14 billion deficit and even larger projected shortfalls, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., or PBGC, decided not to save (by raising premiums) or to live within its means (by cutting benefits) but to gamble in the financial markets by taking on more risk. The PBGC was so proud of its new strategy that it announced it on Presidents Day, when the U.S. financial markets were closed and almost no one was paying attention.
So why is this so scary? Because as a result of 10 years of booms and busts -- the Asian currency crisis, the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund disaster, the tech stock bear market of 2000-02, the housing smash-up, the debt market debacle -- I've increasingly come to believe that those of us who play by the rules (work hard, live within our paychecks, save) are chumps. The way to get ahead is to gamble big and then, if you lose, find someone to cover your losses.
Buckley loved debate. Unlike today's cowardly conservatives, he debated the best minds he could entice on to a stage. He never used his opponents as props or punch lines for fixed fights. He liked them. Loving his own ideas, not just hating theirs, left room for liking them. ...
To get out of Iraq or into a new health care system will require some hard fighting, but also some hard thinking and most of all reasoned arguments to persuade, if not the opposition, certainly the public. If you want to see how far we are from having that kind of debate, watch an old episode of Firing Line and then watch a random hour of live cable television. That's how far.
Bill Buckley raised an army against a liberal establishment. Like Barry Goldwater, he often dissented in later years from a conservative establishment he helped create. The political debate Buckley launched is over, many of its old categories defunct. To shape a new debate we'll need at least a few people with the intellect, humanity, civility and great good humor of Bill Buckley. I hope we find them.
“You’re used to making $17 an hour with benefits, and now you have to take any job for $8 an hour,” Ms. Flennaugh says. On a recent afternoon, she sat in front of a computer terminal at an employment center in a gritty part of town, scrolling dejectedly through online job listings while sending another batch of applications into the ether. “I’ve literally sat and cried, but my friends with double degrees are doing worse,” she says. “It’s the economy. It’s really bad.” ...
Across the nation, the labor market has been deteriorating. Many companies, long reluctant to add workers, are hunkered down and waiting for improved prospects, engaged in what Ed McKelvey, a senior economist at Goldman Sachs, calls “a hiring strike.” Americans with jobs are taking cuts to their work hours; those without jobs are staying out of work longer, or accepting positions that pay far less than they earned previously. ...
Indeed, the increasingly anemic job market comes on the heels of six years of economic expansion that delivered robust corporate profits but scant job growth. The last recession, in 2001, was followed by a so-called jobless recovery. As the economy resumed growing, payrolls continued to shrink.
Michigan is not alone. Across the country, state and local government agencies, big nonprofit organizations and major corporations are rushing to do the same. One result is that the Medicare trust fund is evaporating even faster than expected. At the heart of what critics say is a major cost-shifting maneuver is a program called Medicare Advantage, which pays private insurers a bonus to take over Medicare coverage for seniors.
The payments to the private insurers average more per senior than the cost of care with regular Medicare. The bonus payments enable insurers to offer features that seniors in regular Medicare don't get.
Individual policies are portable, so workers don't have to worry about losing coverage if they change jobs. Plus, employees keep the funds in their HSAs, he says. Critics say workers with health problems may end up paying very high premiums, face exclusions for existing medical conditions, or wind up without insurance in the state-regulated individual market -- challenges not faced in group plans. In addition, when adopting novel ways of providing benefits, employers need to be mindful that they comply with state and federal laws. ...
Karen Politz, a research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, is one of the skeptics. Some 30 states have high-risk pools, but the premiums can be as much as double the usual rate. And some, such as in Florida, are closed to new enrollment because of lack of funding. Fewer than 200,000 Americans are covered through high-risk pools. As a coverage option, says Ms. Politz, "It's a fig leaf."
Ms. Coons, a 23-year-old waitress who rents a room and rarely eats out, said she could probably afford a high-deductible policy if she gave up her gym membership and spent less on her amateur photography. But she chooses instead to gamble against the odds of confronting a bankrupting catastrophe.
She worried that she might not be able to get health insurance, or even a job, if a genetic predisposition showed up in her medical records, especially since treatment for the condition, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, could cost over $100,000 a year. Instead, Ms. Grove sought out a service that sent a test kit to her home and returned the results directly to her.
Nor did she tell her doctor when the test revealed that she was virtually certain to get it. Knowing that she could sustain permanent lung damage without immediate treatment for her bouts of pneumonia, she made sure to visit her clinic at the first sign of infection
But then came the day when the nurse who listened to her lungs decided she just had a cold. Ms. Grove begged for a chest X-ray. The nurse did not think it was necessary. “It was just an ongoing battle with myself,” recalled Ms. Grove, of Woodbury, Minn. “Should I tell them now or wait till I’m sicker?”
The first, much-anticipated benefits of personalized medicine are being lost or diluted for many Americans who are too afraid that genetic information may be used against them to take advantage of its growing availability. In some cases, doctors say, patients who could make more informed health care decisions if they learned whether they had inherited an elevated risk of diseases like breast and colon cancer refuse to do so because of the potentially dire economic consequences.
Andrew Menter, founder of the Highland Campus Health Group, a company that bills and collects third-party insurance for college health centers, estimated that only 2 percent to 3 percent of centers nationwide are in-network providers with the large insurance carriers.
Campus health centers traditionally have been financed through tuition, general fees or specific health fees, allowing the same access for all students. More recently, a fee-for-service approach has become increasingly common. As a result, parents who are already buying their own insurance may have to pay substantial health fees and out-of-pocket costs for lab tests and X-rays.
Students could pay for health services themselves and then file for reimbursement from their insurance companies, but Mr. Menter said only about one in eight claims is reimbursed for out-of-network providers. And when they are paid, he said, it is sometimes for a fraction of the charge.
The 2003 Medicare prescription drug law requires that no more than 45 percent of total Medicare expenditures be paid for by general revenues, drawn mostly from the progressive income tax. (The other main funding sources are payroll taxes and beneficiary payments.)That restriction means that Congress can’t bolster Medicare with money generated by closing corporate tax loopholes or letting the president’s tax cuts for the wealthy expire. Those sensible steps would increase the amount of income tax supporting the program — pushing it over the arbitrary 45 percent cap. Instead, as health care costs rise and the population ages, the program will have to reduce services and reimbursements or find additional revenues elsewhere. ...
The administration has made no effort to reduce the lavish and unjustified subsidies granted to the private health plans that participate in Medicare. Eliminating them could save Medicare far more general revenue money than reducing drug-program subsidies would. Medicare needs to be reformed, but that debate should not be artificially constrained. Congress needs to focus on ways to restrain the relentless rise in health care costs that is bedeviling all health insurers, including Medicare. Congress and the administration need to be able to consider all possible sources of revenue for Medicare — on their own sound and equitable merits.
In America, a lucky employee with gold-plated employer-based coverage may well get access to A-level care (though that level of coverage becoming rarer by the month, even among the professional classes). On the other hand, about 50 million under-insured Americans are barely scraping by with C or D-level care; and the nearly 50 million with no insurance at all get next to no care whatsoever. Worst of all: 18,000 Americans die every year due to lack of access to healthcare. That’s one every 30 minutes, around the clock, every day of the year — the equivalent death toll of six 9/11s every single year that passes.
In Canada, everybody gets at least B-level care, pretty consistently across the board — and, on occasion, quite a bit better than that. You might not like those odds if you’re one of the shrinking handful of Americans who’s used to A-level care; but if that’s not you, you’d be getting a much better deal in Canada.
The private sector has had 20 years to prove that it could deliver low-cost, quality care using those vaunted business-style efficiencies; and it has failed us utterly and completely. This fact should be the ultimate nail in the coffin of the old conservative canard that “the free market always does it better.” If that was true, privatizing health care would have been the shining example that proved it once and for all. Instead, all we got was a colossally expensive national disaster that’s denying full coverage to a third of the country — and putting our health, competitiveness, financial and social capital, and national security at risk in the process. It’s also devastating the aspirations of our entire middle class, which is being hollowed out by our current health policies.
A famous Hebrew prophet once advised his followers to take the log out of their own eyes before trying to remove the splinter from someone else’s. As much as it hurts American pride to admit it, Canada and the rest of the industrialized world has us roundly beat on this one. Those who are so quick to criticize the Canadian system might be better off holding their fire until they’ve shown us they can do better. America, and the world, is waiting.
The efforts, which are getting a largely positive reception from consumer groups, are emerging amid public outrage in several states against insurers that have voided policies after the beneficiaries started racking up large claims for cancer or other serious illnesses.
Last week, an arbitration judge in California awarded $9.4 million, mostly in punitive damages, to a hairdresser whose medical coverage was canceled by Health Net Inc. The insurer, which acted while the woman was undergoing treatment for breast cancer, claimed that she had falsified information about her weight and failed to mention a heart murmur. The judge ruled that Health Net's conduct was "reprehensible" and unlawful. ...
Last year, the Connecticut attorney general's office investigated complaints about coverage denials by units of Assurant Inc. In one case, the company refused to pay a 34-year-old woman's bills after she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, according to the attorney general's office. The insurer claimed she had a pre-existing condition because during a postenrollment doctor's visit she recalled experiencing mild shortness of breath while exercising six months earlier, the office said. Under a state order, the company's decision was later reversed and the woman's claims were paid.
"The stories are heart wrenching of people who have paid their money and are relying on the care they paid for, only to have the rug suddenly pulled out from under them," said Betsy Imholz, special projects director at the nonprofit advocacy group Consumers Union.
The report says, “Medicare spends more per beneficiary in Medicare Advantage than it does for beneficiaries in the original Medicare fee-for-service program, at an estimated additional cost to Medicare of $54 billion from 2009 through 2012.” ...
Medicare makes substantial contributions to the earnings of insurers like Humana and UnitedHealth. Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said, “Medicare overpayments fatten company profits, even as many seniors face higher costs in private plans than they would in traditional Medicare.”
Democrats tried unsuccessfully last year to cut Medicare payments to private plans. CIBC World Markets, an investment bank, predicted last month that “Humana and the Medicare industry will have at least two years, and probably three years, of continued strong enrollment and earnings growth.”
Critics had said that restricting use of propofol would discourage patients from undergoing a colonoscopy. Cancers of the colon and rectum trail only lung and prostate cancer in cancer deaths among Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but survival rates are high when they are caught early. ...
The American Gastroenterological Association, a medical society representing the doctors who perform colonoscopies, had recommended that Aetna defer its plan and praised the company on Wednesday. But the battle is far from over. Aetna said that it expected the Food and Drug Administration to approve new devices or drugs that would allow it to revisit its coverage as soon as this summer with the support of doctors who perform colonoscopies.
Keep the Pressure on! Take a stand! SAY NO to Pay Cuts! Tell me more...
First of all, you don't have to attend unless you are directed by your line management IN WRITING to attend. You can't be accused of insubordination for not attending if your P/A holding manager has not formally directed you to attend. You don't report to HR or to legal and they can't force you to do anything. They can only force something if they have found you are doing something illegal and the action must be altered or stopped.
Second of all, if an IBM attorney attends, then in some states you have the right to legal representation if the attorney is present and performing as an attorney. You also don't have to sign any documents unless you have time to review them. Make sure if they are legal documents that there is a notary there as well (another witness) that is not beholden or representing one of the parties (IBM). Don't fall for them asking you to sign and "we'll get a notary later". In some states that's illegal. Tell that to the attorney's face. Ask the attorney "Do you as a member of the state bar agree that a notary is not required to be present to witness this document?" and that'll get them thinking.
I refused to attend my re-classification meeting. My response stated that I'd be happy to attend if I was allowed my legal representation or if I was allowed to videotape the meeting. I'm not in a hurry to be re-classified again. -Something Smells in HR-
It's the select few in upper management that are causing all of this as well. As one famous female of the group has stated to the ranks, "It will be like putting a square peg into a round hole. Keep POUNDING until it fits"
There is a drive to make the books look very good. They have been working with a consortium based in India for selling Global. Don't expect the fear mongering to stop when we sell either. The new group will look to level set FTE expenses with what it pays in other countries...cost of living is not a factor.
I am close to my retirement so I am putting in my time. I am sorry for those that are affected. The pay cuts are looking at an average of 26% now, versus the 32% that what the average prior. Select few didn't comprehend the billing factor (snicker), as far as legal exposure. They made money hand over fist when the bill over approx 48.00 because your salary is covered at that point, the rest is cream to pull off the table into the books at 100% Best wishes to everyone -insider-
As we have started the New Year I wanted to take a moment to thank each of you for your hard work in 2007. As the “In the Public Eye” newsletter mentioned in the email from this weekend, we made some good progress in 2007 but did not quite meet our objectives. I truly appreciate your efforts throughout 2007. I especially want to thank those of you who sacrificed some of your vacation time to contribute to the year end proposals the Government and other industries prior to the holidays. We had a number of significant new business wins in 2007, and are looking forward to an even stronger 2008.
While AIS had a number of strong wins and excellent delivery performance across a number of clients last year, 2007 AIS practice results were less than plan in several areas. We had a tough year with utilization challenges and finding qualified resources to join our team as well as some deals moving out to 2008. As we now have started 2008, I need your help and attention to various elements that significantly impact the success of our business. We can have a great 2008 with just a little effort on all of our parts and drive year-to-year growth.
As we prepare for these our 2008 challenges, I wanted to share with you some important policy information on capacity for Public Sector. Please ensure you read the information carefully and if you have any questions or need additional information, please contact your SAM, 2nd line or SAL or Delivery Executive.
Chargeable Hours. Over the last several years, the Sector’s overtime utilization (defined as the total amount of productive hours charged) has eroded from 110% to our current 107.2%. This erosion has led to a decrease in labor hours and higher labor rate costs. In addition, administrative and bid and proposal (B&P) labor hours and costs have increased as we pursue a number of new business opportunities. In order to maintain affordable labor rates for our customers, increase sector profitability, and increase available B&P, we need the following actions from each of you in 2008: 1) increase project charging to a minimum of 44 hours in all possible cases and 2) drive 10-15% overtime with billable (preferable) or non-project activities such as B&P, marketing, education, and investments. This capacity model allows us to meet our business targets and still accommodate planned time away for education, vacations, and holidays. This model is consistent with what is being driven across our other Public Sector practices.
A minimum 44 hour work week is standard across most industries, particularly the Consulting Services and IT Industry. We find that many of our practitioners are already charging a minimum of 44 hours per week. However there is many that are restricted to 40 hours by their project. In 2008, Public Sector has launched an initiative that will engage our Delivery Executives and Project Management teams to further promote the 110% capacity business model that includes reporting overtime hours for client billable, B&P, education, and other internal investments. Effective immediately all staff should submit their weekly time sheets with no fewer than 44 hours per week (unless you are out on vacation or are ill). If you are unable to charge at least 44 hours to your project you should contact your SAM or 2nd line to discuss how we can work with you and your project teams to accommodate this.
As a reminder, you should always charge all hours worked, whether these hours are Contract, Bid & Proposal, MOS, Authorized Education, Internal Project or Authorized Overhead When staffed full time on a project that is not capped to 40 hours per week, you should work and charge a minimum of 44 hours per week to the contract. When staffed on a contract that is capped at 40 hours per week and you are not working more than 40 hours, then you should charge 40 hours to the contract and a minimum of 4 hours to other activities such as Bid & Proposal work, Internal Projects, and/or authorized Education.
We are planning a large AIS networking and education event for later this year to provide technical training to a large audience in AIS. In order to have this event we need 1Q to start off with strong AIS business results.
Hours Plan: Each month, our practice is asked to forecast our utilization and headcount to the Public Sector and GBS leadership team. Your monthly hours plan is critical to that practice forecast. In 4Q 2007, we had over 200 of these plans that were not completed which meant 0% utilization was forecasted for those individuals in hours plan; this also meant our forecast reporting was not nearly as accurate as it could have and should have been. With over 1400 people in AIS, we need each and every person to complete an accurate forecast in hours plan. Hours plan forecasts as well as timely submission of timecards each week is very important to your personal performance as well as to the practice performance, and subject to our Public Sector“Administrative Good Standing” policy. If you have any problems working with hours plan, please contact your RDM or manager for assistance.
Current RDM Support is as follows: Barbara Pylant Lead RDM and Manager for all AIS RDMS RDM for O&M under Diane Chan and all of Brian's direct reports Jennifer Kramer AD - All people under Linda Zweibel Marisa Hart AD - All people under Milt Harrison Theresa Poffenberger Architect team under Stas Tarchalski and the Delivery teams under B. Koeritzer, W. Zeek, J. Wilcox, J. Thomas, W. Joyner, and T. O'Rourke Michelle Arena All of Security and Privacy under John Lainhart Diane Berry-Brownhill All of IOD under Suresh Kripalani James Newcomb TS&OS under Gary Foster for Wanda Stewart's team Mary Mudryk Remainder of TS&OS under Gary Foster and NSJ (Rusty Patrick & Lem Moore teams)
As you work throughout the year, please get to know your RDM and keep them in informed about your assignment. When you are scheduled to roll-off a project or assignment, the RDM is required to work with you 45 days before your assignment ends to help ensure you are assigned a new project. Your RDM and manager want to help you find you next engagement, so they must know details on when assignments are ending or renewing before it gets to that date. At a minimum, please let your RDM and manager know immediately if you are required to roll off early for any reason as well as if you are being extended on a project. This helps everyone work together at least 2 weeks before an assignment changes to ensure everyone has a project or assignment to move to.
We will also be working with project managers and project executives across the sector to ensure they are aware of these business metrics and can help positively impact our results.
Referrals: Public Sector still has a significant number of open positions to fill. If you have colleagues with strong consulting and technology skills, please refer them to IBM through the IBM Employee Referral Bonus and get a $5000 bonus for helping to bring them on board! See the note from Shelley Smith sent on February 14th for more information..
2008: I’m absolutely excited about the opportunities we have in 2008. We have some key large deals in the pipeline and a number of contracts performing extremely well which will no doubt lead to add-on signings for these contracts. We're only going to win these deals and delight our clients through the efforts of each and every one of you as you help lead AIS to an outstanding 2008.
Thanks for your help and commitment as we continue to drive up our utilization, headcount, signings, revenue and profitability.
Brian Helmey, AIS Practice Leader and Partner, IBM Global Business Services, firstname.lastname@example.org " -SameOldSong-
I have been gone for a month now and have never been happier. There are actually companies outside of IBM who treat their employees with respect. Granted the money isn't as good as I was getting paid but the peace of mind and happiness outweighs the treatment I was getting at IBM. So my advice to everyone that has their 30 years and collect their pension is to get your resume up to date, find a job and stick it to IBM. Why go through the best years of your life going to a job where you are being treated so bad and are miserable?
Maybe if enough highly skilled people leave they will realize that cutting pay and outsourcing isn't such a great idea. Also, another tip, if you do get resourced, you can report your manager to Corporate HR and still keep your severance package. Just make sure to write on the letter you are not filing an appeal or open door. -No More Big Blue-
Social security losses are one example. The employee contributes about 7.5% of his pay and the employer makes a matching contribution and so you lose an est. additional $750 in FICA contributions (when your pay is cut by $9k/yr ( you\'re losing the employer match contribution) That means less money in your retirement years too.
Your vacation pay...holiday pay.....and what if, God forbid, you ever need to claim disability benefits... overtime is not factored into those benefits now is it ? If you have earned three weeks of vacation per year you better figure on working 47 hours a week not just 46 to make up for those vacation days/weeks.
If you have a loan or credit card debt. Some of you may have your credit profiles readjusted as your debt to income ratio changes...you\'ll have a lower credit score... and that may increase the interest that you pay on your credit cards pushing you further into the hole.. Many people fail to see this relationship here as it is not necessarily immediate and your severance package.
We're about seven months away from the next round of H1-b students graduating. These foreign students are another opportunity for the company to cut cost again, Should you get hit with a layoff, your severance package will most likely be based upon base wags not overtime pay. Not to mention that effects to your local committees due to the loss revenue. Yes my friends, some people call it the trickle down economics effect.....but ..I call it piss on the people economics ! -oz-
I had my first offer three weeks after I learned of the pay cuts (I also started submitting my resume the day I found out about the cuts). When I received my offer letter in July it was an agreement between two bodies. IBM agreed to employ me, provide benefits, and pay me a specified salary in exchange for my effort as a consultant. Since they have decided that they don't need to keep up their end of the bargain, I have decided that I don't need to keep up my end. I have resorted to producing very little output. I spend my entire day finding a new job, and produce the bare minimum, and usually even less than that. I'm leaving, why should I care? I hope a lot more people are doing this.
I really think bringing this to the attention of the clients is important as well. The most insulting part of all this is that I was never classified correctly from the beginning. I never even wanted to be an IT Specialist. This was a miscommunication with HR when negotiating my position. Not having known better, I said "I don't want to be an IT Specialist, I want to be a consultant". The HR person answered me with: "Oh you will definitely be a consultant, we just call you an IT Specialist as an internal descriptor". I was too happy with the rest of the package to really push the issue, as they said I could change it whenever I want anyway. Boy did I learn my lesson there.
I don't even do work that resembles my job description, and I know for a fact that my appeal will be rejected. I hope it is. I wouldn't want my disgust with this horrid beast of a company to wane during my last weeks with the company. I have come to the same conclusion that others here have: the fact that IBM would make such a moronic decision as this is clear evidence that the company has completely lost its mind, and is not a place that I would ever want to work.
I will never work for (or with) IBM again, EVER. I have interviewed with 4 other prominent consulting companies, put my project work to a near halt, notified my project managers that I am leaving in the near future as I negotiate my new salary (which will be a SIGNIFICANT raise from my salary BEFORE it was cut). This was a favor to them (who don't need to be victims), because it gives them the opportunity to find my replacement. I waited until I had finished interviewing before notifying them. I have joined the alliance, but because I have lost faith in IBM, I now know that I would never stay at this company even if they gave me my old salary back. As a result I have not escalated to upper management. I spent that time preparing my resume and submitting it to prominent consulting companies. -Outta Here!-
Working for IBM is like being in an abusive relationship. The abuser will try to make you feel that you deserve the abuse, and couldn't possibly find better elsewhere. A good abuser will wear you down and make you actually believe that to some degree. So be grateful you're on your way out. Some of us are less mobile for a variety of reasons, and trying our best to leave. Just takes time. Not as easy for some as for you, you lucky dog you. :-) -Anon-
Thank you for such a wonderful growth opportunity, and thank you for letting me know just how shameful and cold hearted your company is... Not to mention how stupid your managers are! I mean, what are you thinking? Do you really think you can cut employee paychecks and expect them to stay?
If your plan was to drive away your most talented employees, then give yourself a pat on the back! Rest assured that most of the employees who stay with your company will be the bottom of the barrel: either they will be committed for pension reasons (one of the few reasons I can sympathize with), or they will be those employees who are too lazy, unskilled or apathetic to find something new. Either way, you can rest assured that your obvious goal of never getting anything done will be attained with the utmost efficiency.
Congrats! Since I am going to one of Fortune's "100 best places to work", I feel confident that my new managers would never do something as degrading and moronic as cut pay for highly skilled IT workers. Again, I thank you for being so short-sighted, disloyal, and callous. Your inept managerial staff has opened some incredible doors for me! Sincerely, -Outta Here!-
Vault's IBM Business Consulting Services message board is a popular hangout for IBM BCS employees, including many employees acquired from PwC.
Then a kind and more senior colleague that was about to leave Big Blue tells me to seek my fortune elsewhere and to look up Vault. I read the threads and felt more despondent about my job than ever, but a seed of hope gets planted. I finally work out the basic maths that being a contractor = doing pretty much the same work with less hours and more pay. I leave the blue pig and predictably, my work-life balance, bank balance and mental+physical health improves by leaps and bounds.
So a big thanks to Dose, civilliberty, ancientblueconsultant and all the posters here for giving me the courage to take that second chance to salvage my career! :)
I'm currently working as a contract coder in the custom application development space(mostly Java platforms) and for now, I'm quite happy about the way things are. I'm living life as a carefree twenty-something with time for a social life as well as the money to put away towards travelling and investing (instead of working late nights and weekends unpaid while watching my face and waistline prematurely age).
However, I don't want to end up stuck in a rut again by not making plans for the future. I was appalled by how many band 7s and 8s in Big Blue were so miserable but felt like they had no way out. I don't want to end up with outdated skills or a hopeless mind set like that, so I'm constantly looking to educate myself and upgrade my skills.
I've been working for my current client for about a year now and have become something of a go-to guy(to my surprise, hard work gets rewarded here, unlike at Big Blue), and they have started to occasionally let me take on more roles in smaller projects due to staff shortage and because they've grown to trust me and see me as a valuable asset they want to retain. Some of these roles included being a stand-in systems analyst while one of their analysts was away for a a long holiday and as a test team lead for a small upgrade project. It's just ridiculous that I got more rotation and variety in roles whilst working as a contractor than within the farcical grad program run by the blue pig.
Anyhow, can you give me any further career advancement advice? Should I move out of the customs application development space? Learn SAP? Siebel? Tibco? Enroll in a business degree?
I lean more towards the technical side of things and older contractors that I've met tell me that as long as I can rub 2 brain cells together, there should never be a shortage of contract work for techy people like me, but I don't want take that for granted. And I guess, I'm starting to get sick of doing the same thing and I'm looking to try something else(hopefully that something else will be a role that's harder to export to offshore teams). I'm not 100% sure if I would fancy being a project manager or being a true strategy consultant though. Looking forward to your thoughts!
For your own sake, develop an interest in the business side of IT, so that you can demonstrate to potential employers that you have business acumen coupled with technical ability. This is still viewed favourabley by many employers. I'm not sure ultimately where the ERP market is heading, but a US survey says that many business's see this as strategic (and quite rightly so since it is often a core enabler for enterprise these days)and one they are investing in more.
I'm hoping and expecting that as the failed off-shoring and out-sourcing efforts get more media attention fewer organisations will be prepared to take the risks - whether this represents a substantial turning of the tide remains to be seen though.
If you have a flair for management (with the interest that goes with it), then you may want to position yourself to take that path - I think there will always be a need for string management, regardless of outsourcing or off-shoring - it's a question of whether this is your field of interest (apart from occasional team lead activities I don't engage much in it).
When I see news stories like Sam buying W's summer home in Maine, I know the Illuminati or some bunch very much like them is running the country.
We are in a cycle, very similar to the late 1890's and mid 1920's, were CEOs were rock stars, had unfettered power and the pursuit of material gains was endemically popular with most Americans. The cycle reached its zenith in the 2004 election and the pendulum is moving back. It won't be long when many business schools will use IBM as the shining "bad boy" example of this latest cycle of unbridled greed and avarice fueled by materialism.
The new generation of Americans is seeing right through the con job. IBM's hiring among young Americans has become a problem. Sales job postings going begging even with promises of unlimited commission go unfilled now because today's youth don't want to experience the materialism and broken pension and medical promises given to their parents generation. That's one of the reasons for the move over seas. Not enough brand blinded materialistic and greedy young to be fooled anymore in this country.
I have just been offered a software engineer/individual contributor role at google. Although there is a degree of prestige there, it is a step back from my current role in terms of responsibility. Any insights that you guys can provide will be greatly appreciated.
In any case, the question is what do you want to do? Stating that being an individual contributor is a "step back" means you've drunk the kool-aid for management and you are on track to get out of the technical part of the business. Nothing wrong with that, but you should realize that you transitioned into management, not IT Architecture. Don't delude yourself into thinking you can be a techie and a manager at the same time, especially in a company like IBM. You have 2 sets of choices. Stay in IBM for a long time or not. Stay in management or not.
If you are a techie at heart and want to have an impressive resume, then I can't understand why you haven't moved to Google already. Having Google in your resume is like having Microsoft 10-15 years ago. You are leading edge.
If you are looking at a management career, then the key is having been successful in more than one culture. You have been successful at a large behemoth such as IBM and if you go to Google, get a supervisory position, then you can show the ability to excel and grow into management no matter what the corporate environment: large and process oriented (IBM) or fast growing and entrepreneurial (Google).
The longer you stay at IBM, the longer you risk being labelled a "lifer" IBMer, which is very "resume dangerous". Just to avoid this career issue, I'd just go to Google then you can come back (if you still think it's the right thing after being exposed and having your head reshaped by Google and the California Silicon Valley mentality) and get a higher position at IBM quicker than if you stayed and languished doing PBC's as a manager.
So the answer? What are you waiting for? I'm just stunned your asking for advice!
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Come out this month where we update our membership on all the happenings with I-NOMA!
The first winner of the 2018 Challenge has been announced! Click to read more.
The 2018 3-Exam Challenge has finally launched! Click to read more.
See the outcome of the Y.O.U. Center Renovation at the Erie Neighborhood House.
image by Aaron Persh via Curbed DC

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eBook By Aaron Steinmetz / DMCA
Highland High (The Sandy Mantle Series Book 2)
Sandy Mantle is a private investigator who won't sleep until he closes your case, whether he likes it or not.After agreeing to help a friend, Sandy finds himself in a case that will take him to trees of mystery, an enigmatic new high school and a secretive brothel in the woods as he puts together the pieces of a mystery that will stretch the boundaries of the natural all the way to the super.Sandy...
File Size: 2371 KB
Print Length: 388 pages
Publication Date: November 1, 2012
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
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Read it and draw your own conclusions, but I was astounded by the parallels between human society and the behavior of the other primate species. Regarding the stories - have read some, not all, and enjoyed some more than others. Markham's critics accuse her of not writing her own memoir (it's too good, they say, to be written by her), and of being a home-wrecker. There may be better books out there today, we used this in 1994. No-one claims responsibility. ebook Highland High (The Sandy Mantle Series Book 2) Pdf
. The binding and cover are great. A diferencia de los evangelios canónicos, cuyos escritores apenas señalan su autoría de los escritos, los autores de cada uno de los evangelios apócrifos destacan muchas veces la presunta autoría del escrito por parte de algún personaje distinguido de la comunidad (Pedro, Felipe, Santiago, María Magdalena, Tomás, etc. Nor am I in any doubt that Mrs Thatcher inflicted a vicious defeat not only on supposed radicals and militants but on the working class generally and on the disadvantaged generally, and that all kinds of unsavoury enterprises and their managements now get a pretty easy ride. The story line in this series is absolutely one that has me hooked. Nor is the "Infinite" the misleading part. How very disappointed I was. After he asks her out, Lauren invites Wold to lunch at her home for the following Monday. I love to buy it for gifts. Glad for FJ and the twins.
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exsanguination.duckdns.org seriogrotesque.duckdns.org omniferous.duckdns.org disservices.duckdns.org quadrupedant.duckdns.org Abba's Heart: Finding Our Way Back to the Father's Delight
“Highland High is the second book in the Sleepy P I series. Sandy Mantle is a "retired" assassin turned private investigator who has a little quirk. It seems once he takes a case (whether is an assassination or as a P I) he cannot sleep until the case...”
Mantle will learn: Reefer Madness is real.

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Devonshire Hall Drama Society presents FAME, the internationally bestselling musical featured for many years on both Broadway and The West End.
FAME traces the steps of a group of students going through their first year at New York City’s High School of Performing Arts, where they have to deal with gruelling schedules filled with dance, acting and music, yet try to deal with with issues like body image, social background and the temptations of love and drugs.
This high energy musical features many familiar tunes to have you singing from your seats, including “Think Of Meryl Streep”, “Let’s Play A Love Scene”, “Mabel’s Prayer” and, of course, “FAME”.
24 students of Leeds University bring their boundless energy and their remarkable talent to the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, Northern Ballet, where you are sure to be immersed in the story of FAME.
Get your tickets here. Only £7 concessions (students must present a valid university ID) and £11 for adults.
Uses original lyrics which may not be suitable for children aged under 12. Contains very limited minor swearing.
Directed by: Ellie Pead
Musical Director: Harry Style
Producer: Will Abell
Asst. Producer: Sophia Papadopoulos
Vocal Coach: Ben Landman and Sarah Calvert
Choreography: Charlotte Murphy and Imogen HalseyCAST:NICK PIAZZA – Frank Blackman
SERENA KATZ – Deanna Hobday
TYRONE JACKSON- Graeme du Plessis
IRIS KELLY – Charlotte Murphy
SCHLOMO METZENBAUM – Alex Vass
CARMEN DIAZ – Alice Higgins
JOE VEGAS – Ben Landman
MABEL WASHINGTON – Fiona Thompson-Shaw
GRACE “LAMBCHOPS” LAMB – Freya Parr
GOODMAN “GOODY” KING – Alex Parker
MISS ESTHER SHERMAN – Genevieve Brown
MS. GRETA BELL – Imogen Halsey
MR MYERS – Joel Briscoe
MR SHEINKOPF – Jordan Larkin
ENSEMBLE – Sarah Calvert, Joshua Ling, Peter Hodkinson, Lottie Morris, Anastasia Christmas, Sam McCagherty, Rosie Smith, Alex Weston

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to purchase or use Bazook Bullet, a dietary supplement sold for sexual enhancement, because the product contains a hidden drug ingredient that may cause serious health risks.
Through a laboratory analysis, the FDA confirmed that Bazook Bullet contains aminotadafil, an analogue of tadalafil, the active in gradient in the prescription erectile dysfunction drug Cialis. This undeclared ingredient may interact with nitrates found in some prescription drugs including nitroglycerin, resulting in dangerously low blood pressure. Men with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or heart disease often take nitrates.
Consumers who have this dietary supplement in their possession should stop taking it and discard it immediately. Those who suffer from concerning side effects should seek medical attention. Any adverse events following use of this product should be reported to the FDA MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting Program at www.FDA.gov/MedWatch/Report.htm.
The FDA’s public notification follows numerous other warnings regarding hidden drug ingredients in dietary supplements, which can pose a risk to consumers. Most often, these undeclared ingredients are found in supplements promoted for sexual enhancement, weight loss or bodybuilding. Since the FDA is unable to test and identify all dietary supplements that contain potentially harmful hidden ingredients, consumers are advised to exercise caution before purchasing any dietary supplement or conventional food marketed for sexual enhancement, weight loss, bodybuilding or even athletic performance.
Source: FDA Public Notification

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I owe a lot to my time on 'House of Cards' because, up until I booked that show, I had been working consistently for 12 years, but I wasn't working on anything that mattered in the way 'House of Cards' did to its audience, to casting directors, to directors and producers. The show hit this sweet spot.
Similar questions were posed to Allende as to me. Allende was told that he blamed everything on a conspiracy, on the economic crisis, that he blamed the high inflation that sabotaged him on the United States, and that he was frequently accusing the little lambs of Nixon and Kissinger of a coup. But everything became known later.


I did a quick review look around on this Forum and it is fantastic for any Hunter to join. Love the pictures and discussion,s. Been Hunting for over 25 year,s. Killed a lot of legal tagged Deer. I just traded my Ruger American .270 to a Savage Model 11 Bolt action 300 Winchester Magnum. The statistic,s on this caliber are fantastic.


Ps3 Controllers Don't Come With A Usb Cable
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Nov 16 2006, 03:43 PM
I don't know if this is true or not but if it is this is just another example of Sony not getting it.
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22 Jun Taurine – A Powerful Antioxidant and Mitochondrial Nutrient
Common Nutrient Deficiencies
The most prevalent mitochondrial nutrient deficiencies are those of magnesium, zinc, copper, vitamins A, C, D, B-vitamins, glycine, and taurine. An optimum intake of these and other micronutrients protect highly sensitive mitochondria from free-radical injury (i.e. oxidative stress), promote healthy mitochondrial function, and can reverse mitochondrial dysfunction and aging.
A Conditional Vitamin
Taurine is known as a conditional vitamin because it is synthesized by humans and animals, but often not in sufficient amounts, and thus must be consumed from the diet (or supplements) for optimal health and disease prevention.
Restoration of taurine levels restores respiratory chain activity (i.e. energy production), decreases free-radical production, and increases the synthesis of ATP. Taurine has been shown to be important in preventing numerous health issues including brain dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and mitochondrial diseases in large part due to its ability to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation via its powerful antioxidant properties.
Essential for Optimal Health and Wellbeing
Due to taurine’s extensive role in a number of chronic health issues that lead to a decline of overall health and well-being, it is considered a longevity nutrient. It can be found in high concentration in the cytosol and mitochondria, and is present in virtually all tissues at low concentrations. In humans and animals, diet is the primary source of taurine (a sulfur-containing molecule) with smaller amounts synthesized endogenously in the liver from the two sulfur-containing amino acids, methionine and cysteine. Rich dietary sources include fish, seaweed, eggs, and dark-meat poultry – all containing greater than 50 mg per serving. The average daily intake of taurine for adult, non-vegetarians is approximately 40-400 mg per day, typically falling closer to the lower end of the range.
Neuroprotective and Helps Remove Heavy Metals
Taurine also plays an important role in brain health and development, including neuronal proliferation, stem cell proliferation, and differentiation, and has no toxic effects in humans. It functions as a neuromodulator in the brain and nervous system where it inhibits the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, while activating the inhibitory and calming, GABA- and glycine-insensitive chloride channel.
Taurine helps to neutralize the presence of toxic heavy metals by reducing their generation of free radicals along with helping to promote the removal of these metals from the body.

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Deborah Meier writes again to Robert Pondiscio of Democracy Prep.
I don’t want to give you too much joy, Robert. But, yes, I’m always nervous about rapid changes (so I’m conservative in this sense), and I can’t bear being confined physically or intellectually. (I have strong libertarian impulses.) The inside of my house is being painted, and I wince over every decision that involves a change (in color, especially). And I always sit in confined places as close to the aisle and door as I can.
But I also—and here’s the rub—can’t stand unfairness. So I’m also eager for change in other contexts. It may be that I’m calling it change when at root it’s a return to something I experienced earlier. But regardless, I can’t become comfortable with how we conflate meritocracy with inherited advantage and luck when it comes to the lives of the young.
What happened in the South Bronx that made you drop some (which?) beliefs you thought of as liberal? My similar experiences had, perhaps, the opposite effect. I was stunned by how differently we school the rich and the poor. And likewise how differently the teachers in “wealthy” schools are treated vs. teachers who work in low-income communities. It was as though the contempt we feel for the students they teach transfers to a contempt for them as well. It seeps into the culture at every pore available—from the main office to the classroom, to the bells and whistles, the distrust over supplies, the monitoring, etc. Did you know that teachers are supposed to clock in and out if they leave the building for lunch in New York City public schools? And if I wanted to send a teacher to a conference I had to get permission x number of weeks ahead of time from y supervisor? I didn’t comply. “I got away with it.” That phrase itself enrages me.
Yes, “accountability"—and “responsibility,” which is a word I rather prefer—is a complex concept. But I remind you that democracy was invented for just that purpose. Even limited forms of democracy (in ancient Greece or England or the USA in its early years) were based on the idea that rulers were responsible to a broader constituency. That no one could operate outside of “the rules"—based on personal whim.
But is “voting with one’s feet” the only option we have for holding school systems responsible for our public schools? Voting “with one’s feet” is a market-based form of voting. But there is another better way. Actually voting. Mission Hill School is governed by several different mechanisms. There’s a governing board that consists of an equal number of elected parents and staff members who then agree on an equivalent number of “community” members. (At present, there is also an equivalent student group.) On certain critical decisions the board can only act if there is a majority of each constituency (three out of five).
Most decisions regarding curriculum, pedagogy, scheduling, and assessment are made by the faculty, as defined by the board. For some staff decisions, only those who’ve been voted onto the permanent staff at the end of a two-/three-year probationary period have a vote. Other decisions are made by the entire staff. Of course, democracy doesn’t mean one needs to get together as a whole to make every decision—wise schools delegate a good deal. But nothing is ever “undiscussable.” And we make sure there is sufficient time to do so. Leisure is an essential part of democracy.
It works. No doubt there are other forms of governance that would also work. But at its foundation is a common belief in “by, for, and of” those affected by the decisions being made. (Like any governing body there are decisions to be made about the age a voter must be.)
Choice is also desirable in any social arrangement. My mantra for years was on behalf of small, self-governing schools of choice. But, as with so much else in life, not all choices are the same. In no known society do we have complete free choice, but if the trade-offs that come from offering choices seem worth it, why not offer them? (Which is also why I’m for providing students with opportunities to exercise choice also.)
I’ve discovered, painfully, that my championship of choice for many years has turned into a monster. Instead, choice has become a way to reinforce segregation as well as encouraging the breakup of a sense of community, rather than bring communities together. Rhetoric defending choice has been used to justify attacking public education and increasing inequality, which was never my intention. It needn’t be so, however. I’m still for “controlled” choice under the right circumstances. Not if it exacerbates segregation by class, race, ethnicity, et al. Not if the primary purpose is competition! But all else being equal, one would always rather be where one wants to be than assigned willy-nilly. That goes for students, parents, and staff. But ... again, “it depends” on what is being traded off for what.
It’s interesting to see how we both worry about “fraud, abuse, and yes, profiteering” in different places. Decisions about materials made by faculty are far less likely to create abuse and fraud. They may choose “unwisely,” in my opinion. But that’s how we learn. And materials that staff have contempt for are of no use, or worse.
And when it comes to knowing whether kids are learning how to read or do basic math—there are so many better and more reliable ways to find out than high-stakes tests—ways that reassure parents, staff, and governing bodies. Mostly one on one, recorded, and “scored” by several staff. It can be done for every child, and sampling can be done on a district or state level as a check on very suspicious results. “Grade level” is a term I hate: It either is a political norm or a statistical norm. The latter means that half score higher and half lower. The former means it’s based on whether one wants high or low scores for political purposes. We absolutely must get over our trust in any form of standardized testing that has high stakes and/or serves more than one purpose.
So, finally, I’m intrigued by your comments, which make me realize I’m more a “process” than an “outcome” person. I’d rather have a faulty democracy than an efficient dictatorship, for example. And the kinds of adults I want to keep company with our children have to be treated as if we trusted their judgment—at least 90 percent of the time. But not all decisions in a democracy can be made at this level, nor should be. But in a time in which impersonal relationships, virtual worlds, threaten our freedom and community, schools are a critical place for demanding old-fashioned community life.
And I’m still for small sizes in part because it enables the adults to operate more democratically and collegially—and it’s easier for folks to be able to depend on their first-hand knowledge vs. the kind of data that’s far too easy to manipulate. At the heart of democracy is learning to exercise good judgment: with one’s own interests and the common good in mind. That’s best learned by experiencing what it feels like to live within a setting where everyone’s judgment is held in high esteem.
The opinions expressed in Bridging Differences are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

domain: sociology


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The article recounts the Triangle waist company fire incidence of March 25, 1911. It recollects stories from individual witnesses and news articles from New York Times and Literary Digest. It also includes the activities before the fire, where Clara Lemlich organized a strike in 1909 as an executive member of Local 25, which represented the shirtwaist workers. Clara Lemlich’s story of life in the shop, in which she gives a narration of the general conditions of the factory, sets off the article. Lemlich’s account is then followed by Samuel Gompers’ recount of the Cooper Union meeting of 1909. The report then proceeds to include a narration of the shirtwaist factory fire incidence according to different individuals’ points of view. First off, on March 26, 1911, New York Times article gives a foundation of the whole event. It indicates that three top levels of the ten-story building were burned down the previous day and 141 individuals got burned or jumped to the pavement to death (Stein 214). The article also gives an account of witnesses, survivors, and rescuers about the incident, and Literary Digest’s news story, which indicates that no individual was found guilty of the fire incident.
The article presents a series of articles and analyses of the Triangle waist factory incidence. For example, in the stories of survivors, witnesses, and rescuers, the New York Times reviews the accounts of Cecilia Walker. She survived the tragedy with a bruised body and burned hands. It is reported that she slid down the elevator at Washington Place, and she was on the eighth floor when the incident occurred. The article also gives accounts of eyewitnesses, who maintained that some workers jumped from the building before the firemen arrived at the scene.
Moreover, Samuel Levine, one of the machine operators at the factory, also gave his account of what transpired. He maintained that the elevator made one trip and did not stop at the ninth floor where he was posted (Stein 219). The Literary Digest news article’s story nine months after the incident is also featured in the article. It points out the actual number of people that died to be 147 and furthers that no one was found guilty of the factory fire.
The author’s argument is centered around the Triangle waist company, the incidences before the March 1911 fire incident, and the mistreatment of workers in the sweatshops. He maintains that before the fire incident, many clothing employees were never organized into specific unions. One of the instances given by the author as an example is the Cooper Union meeting held by garment employees in New York. At the meeting, Clara Lemlich called for a general strike, and many garment workers followed. Following the meeting, a historic arrangement formed a grievance framework in the garment factories was achieved with the garment employees’ strike of 1910. Admittedly for the employees, many shops remained under the control of corrupt entrepreneurs who ignored the entire workforce’s rights and subjected their workers to harsh working environments. These arguments point to the mistreatment of workers in the garment factories and their experiences working for these factories, including the Triangle waste company. The factory later experienced a fire incidence that would change the general view of the working conditions in factories across the city and all over the country.
No one heard the shirtwaist factory workers despite their plight regarding the overall working conditions. The author is trying to establish the consequences of poor working conditions at the factory. The workers held a series of strikes to channel their grievances about poor pay and working conditions, but they were ignored. The death of a large number of factory workers at the shirtwaist factory in 1911 shed light on the challenges faced by the workers. The supervisors, who were from the middle class, did not care about the working conditions at the factory, but all that took a turn after the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire incident. The author is trying to use the different information stories and primary sources to show all these aspects.
My thought on the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire incidence is that it opened people’s eyes to the hazardous and awful environments that different factory workers experienced before. On March 25, 1911, the Shirtwaist Fire was among the world’s most dangerous workplace disasters in U.S. history, killing 146 employees, the majority of whom were female immigrant workers. The fire became so dreadful that it took the city’s residents and the whole country by surprise, eventually leading to changes in safety laws and more conscientious initiatives to impose them. The welfare system of legislation passed into law in the aftermath of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire emerged from decades of requests made by employees and their labor organizations. It represented a vision for the future of administration. It was a watershed moment that opened the way for historic labor laws in New York and, subsequently, on a national basis. It resulted in New Deal pay rates, working hours, workplace conditions, and the right to join a trade union.
Stein, Leon. “Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle for Industrial.” Democracy. New (1977).


Food & Culture
The Fight to Preserve Salmon in the Pacific Northwest
Author Langdon Cook discusses his new book, "Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon From River to Table."
By Stephen Strom June 2, 2017
The Pacific Northwest is many things. Tall evergreen trees, gorgeous mountain peaks, beautifully carved islands and salmon. Wild, delicious salmon.
However, this vital food source for humans and orca whales alike, is beginning to thin out. In his new book, Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon From River to Table, author Langdon Cook dissects salmon culture in the Northwest and the importance of conservation for these incredibly intelligent creatures. Cook digs into how we can be mindful of the salmon population in years to come. We caught up with Cook ahead of his book launch at Town Hall (7:30 p.m. Monday) to discuss salmon recovery efforts and the book, which is now on sale at Amazon and local bookstores.
Seattle magazine: How did you come to write a book about salmon?
Langdon Cook: For the past decade I’ve been writing about the intersection of food and nature, specifically with wild foods and the foragers who seek them out. Salmon, as a subject, seemed like a logical extension of the research I had done on my previous book, The Mushroom Hunters, which is about the hidden economy of wild mushroom pickers and buyers at work in the woods. Little did I realize the tricky currents I was wading into. Whereas the wild mushroom economy is relatively new, little known and largely out of view, the salmon economy is ancient—going back to the arrival of the first people on the continent—and complex. Lots of dogs in the fight over salmon.
SM: How have salmon been impacted over the years?
LC: Wild Pacific salmon populations have been trending downward almost everywhere in North America outside of Alaska for more than a century, basically since the arrival of Euro-American settlers and the industrialization of salmon habitat. Even Alaska has its problems. The usual suspects are in play: dams, development, agriculture, timber harvest, mining and so on. Modern civilization has not yet found a way to easily coexist with the wild, but there are scientists and advocates doing innovative work right now that could change that.
SM: Why is salmon conservation so important?
LC: An ecologist once told me that anything we do to help wild salmon will also help people in the long run. Remember that while salmon might disappear into the blue pastures of the Pacific to mature, they return among us to spawn the next generation. Salmon need quality water and habitat to thrive, as do people.
SM: Salmon is a huge identifier of Pacific Northwest culture. If the salmon population continues to decline, how do you think this will affect our culture in years to come?
LC: Indeed, salmon are the ultimate totem for our region. It’s sad to think of all that iconography throughout the Northwest—the murals and sculptures and abstract flourishes—as a sort of memorial. In the short term salmon will likely continue to decline, but I’m holding out hope that we can find solutions to reverse the decline. Otherwise this will be a lonelier place.
SM: What do you think people can do on a personal level to help aid salmon recovery?
LC: Well, the first thing is simply education. Consumers need to recognize the differences, for example, between farmed salmon and wild salmon. Farmed salmon are raised in tight confinement like industrial livestock and fed a diet of fish pellets and antibiotics, along with chemical colorants to give their meat the desired pink hue. Recent studies suggest that salmon farms are having negative impacts on wild salmon in the form of disease and parasites. Wherever salmon farming has become big business—think of Scandinavia and the U.S. East Coast—the political will to protect wild runs has eroded. So, when you buy a farmed salmon, you’re supporting a business model that doesn’t value wild salmon.
That said, even within the wild salmon category, the terms can be slippery. Much of our so-called “wild salmon” harvest is supported by hatchery stocks, which are keeping our commercial salmon fishing industry afloat. The goal should be a future with a much smaller hatchery footprint. Hatchery salmon don’t have the genetic diversity for the long haul, and they’re negatively impacting wild populations.
SM: You were able to talk with many people of different backgrounds who are passionate about salmon in writing this book, what was the biggest thing you were able to learn?
LC: In North America we are more closely tied to salmon than any other wildlife. Entire human cultures have been organized around salmon—are still organized around salmon. When we hold up a mirror to salmon, we see our own reflection. The question now is: Do we like what we see?
SM: What’s your favorite salmon dish to cook?
LC: Like most people, I like to keep it simple when it comes to salmon. Nothing too fancy. I usually give a fillet a spice rub and grill it. The key is to keep the heat relatively low so you don’t burn up all the fat. That’s the way to keep it succulent. I also smoke a lot of my salmon. I coat the fillets with a dry brine that’s one part salt to three parts brown sugar along with some chopped garlic and cracked black pepper. After a night of brining, I rinse off the fillets and allow them to air dry for an hour or longer before going into the smoker. Typically, I use cherry wood or apple for the smoke, and sometimes a fresh branch of alder.
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domain: entertainment


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The international board, which will be effective as of 1 January 2015, includes Rhonda Brewer, Martiz Travel Company, who will take up the role of president, with Paul Miller, Spectra, taking over as immediate past president.
The full list of the SITE 2015 executive committee is as follows:
Rhonda Brewer, president; Maritz Travel Company, Fenton, Missouri, USA
Paul Miller, immediate past president; Spectra, London, England
Rajeev Kohli, president-elect; Creative Travel Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, India
Aoife Delaney, vice president finance; Ovation Global DMC, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland
Olga Navarro, vice president; ITB Dmc, Barcelona, Spain
Philip Eidsvold, executive committee member-at-large; AIMIA, Plymouth, Minnesota, USA
Kevin Hinton, ex-officio; Society for Incentive Travel Excellence, Chicago, Illinois, US
SITE president 2015, Rhonda Brewer, said: "SITE is extremely fortunate to have such a strong group of industry leaders to help drive the success of our association.
"I look forward to working with the group of people that will serve on this board."

domain: geography


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PREFIRE – CubeSat mission bolsters Arctic datasets for improved climate predictions
Like thermostats, the Arctic and Antarctic are important for regulating Earth’s temperature. The poles respond to warming with glacial melt that results in sea level rise, shifts in mid-latitude weather patterns and changes in global temperatures that can be harbingers of broader climate change. To date, limitations in satellite technology have hindered scientists’ ability to gather consistent information about the poles — the resulting data gaps have implications for the long-term accuracy of climate models and weather prediction.
A new NASA mission called the Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment, or PREFIRE, is on track to address these missing data and help scientists better understand how the Arctic regions regulate Earth’s temperature and climate.
“By filling the far-infrared observation gap and integrating these new observations into models, PREFIRE offers a pathway to improving polar climate predictions,” says Tristan L’Ecuyer, director of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and principal investigator of PREFIRE.
NASA is scheduled to launch PREFIRE’s two small CubeSats — roughly the size of a thick laptop computer — in December 2022. Each CubeSat will orbit Earth every 90 minutes, with staggered orbits to provide new data every 45 minutes. The detectors inside will scan the Earth’s surface and measure emitted energy in the far-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, an important piece of Earth’s energy budget and one that is approximately balanced by incoming sunlight. When outgoing and incoming energy are in balance, Earth’s climate is in equilibrium and global temperatures do not change. But when Earth absorbs more radiation than it emits, as is the case today, then the planet warms.
Over the Arctic, nearly 60 percent of radiation that is emitted to space is in the form of far-IR radiation, yet despite more than 50 years of satellite observations, scientists have little understanding of the processes that affect this key component of the polar energy budget. Historically, measuring far-IR wavelengths has been a technological and engineering challenge due to the small energies they carry that can easily be overwhelmed by noise or interference in the signal.
However, while developing instruments for studying the Moon and Mars in the early 2000s, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed breakthroughs in detector design that enabled low-cost and effective far-IR measurements for the PREFIRE mission. Each of the two PREFIRE satellites will carry a Thermal Infrared Sensor, or TIRS detector, to measure emissivities at various frequencies in the far-IR range. While loosely defined as a range of 5 to 1,000 micrometers in wavelength, the far-IR measurements captured by the PREFIRE mission will focus on a narrower range of 5–54 micrometers in wavelength.
“Unlike current instruments whose measurements are limited to wavelengths less than 15 micrometers which only cover about half of the energy Earth emits to space, the range of wavelengths measured by PREFIRE encompasses more than 97 percent of Earth’s emission,” says L’Ecuyer.
He also notes that while the focus of the mission will be Earth’s poles, the satellites will collect data from other regions such as the mid-latitudes and the tropics because it is important to consider the Earth as one large system when trying to understand its energy budget. The mission is currently planned to last one year and L’Ecuyer says that timeframe should provide a comprehensive picture of far-IR emissions over the poles and the rest of the Earth.
What is a CubeSat?
It’s a small satellite. Compared to previous generations of large, school-bus sized satellites that orbit the Earth, CubeSats’ diminutive sizes vary from a loaf of bread to an air conditioner unit and can be more readily deployed in space.
CubeSats mark the latest development in satellite remote sensing by making use of small and inexpensive satellites to answer specific scientific questions at a fraction of the cost of conventional Earth-observing satellites. CubeSats are not intended to carry multiple sensors or detectors, but can cover a wide spatial (and temporal) range by deploying multiple satellites per mission. For example, the TROPICS mission will launch seven CubeSats that will collect specific information around Earth’s equator and mid-latitudes in order to improve hurricane and tropical cyclone predictions.
Until now, satellites were designed as large, multi-purpose platforms intended for mission timelines of more than 10 years. Weather satellites such as GOES-16, Himawari-9 and NOAA-20 carry an impressive array of detectors and sensors, each requiring significant planning and design for function and longevity. These extra parameters add significant time to mission planning and construction. They also increase costs.
With the combined information gathered through long-term satellite missions and CubeSat deployments, atmospheric and climate scientists will have a more comprehensive understanding of the forces at play in Earth’s atmosphere.
Image credit: Blue Canyon Technologies, LLC
From beginning to end, student research crucial to PREFIRE mission
L’Ecuyer’s vision for the PREFIRE mission included students at every level of the project. Since 2017, undergraduate and graduate students have supported the mission through research, algorithm development, data analysis and most recently, communications. Altogether, there are 10 students working on the project from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of Colorado and the University of Michigan.
“We have more students on the project than science team members,” says L’Ecuyer. “It’s a statement of what you can do with these smaller missions. We have a small staff, a focused science question and we’re able to involve students to help answer these critical questions and arrive at solutions.”
Compared to previous satellite missions, PREFIRE’s $33 million budget is a fraction of the larger satellite programs like GOES-16 which cost more than $1 billion and took more than a decade to launch. L’Ecuyer sees smaller CubeSat missions as a promising way to answer urgent science questions with an added flexibility and responsiveness.
“There is no shortage of enthusiasm on the team,” says L’Ecuyer. “This work goes beyond an experiential internship for students — the mission’s success depends on their success and that brings a lot of positive investment and commitment to the project.”
One student, James Anheuser is a third year Ph.D. candidate who has been working with the PREFIRE mission since 2019. His research is focused on verifying the PREFIRE data as it is transmitted to a receiver on Earth. When a new satellite launches, a calibration period is required to ensure transmissions are usable, accurate and verified. This is done partly through a process known as collocation or comparing the new satellite’s data to other satellites currently in operation to confirm those data are within an acceptable range.
“My research involves the creation of algorithms that will collocate the observations of PREFIRE far-IR measurements with other satellites,” says Anheuser. “The idea is to match the far-IR observations with those of physical features such as clouds, ice thickness and ice concentration, to see how we can identify connections between atmospheric and surface features and how they radiate in the infrared.”
For decades, the global fleet of weather satellites have provided scientists with abundant information about atmospheric features like clouds, water vapor, ice crystals and surface measurements. Many of these radiate in the near-, to mid-IR providing a long-established database used to understand their radiative transfers. PREFIRE will collect new data not previously recorded in a systematic way, so verifying these measurements will be critical to its success.
“By studying those connections we can learn more about local weather, climate and the outgoing far-infrared and connect that with the greater climate picture,” says Anheuser. “Currently we are simulating what that data will look like and using those simulations to write algorithms that will take the data from the instrument and turn it into something more meaningful for climate and research.”
Other student-led PREFIRE research includes the development of machine learning algorithms for cloud detection, creating water vapor retrieval datasets, web design and preparing Antarctic data sets (provided in part by the UW–Madison Antarctic Meteorological Research Center) to help with satellite validation.
In June 2021, the PREFIRE mission passed a major planning milestone, known as the Critical Design Review, and is on track to complete the next phase at the end of the year.
“We’re at a sort of frontier in the Arctic regarding climate models,” says L’Ecuyer. “Climate models are fairly accurate, but they vary, resulting in disagreement on what the Arctic temperature and sea ice levels will be in 50 years.”
This research is supported by NASA. Image credit freevectormaps.com


Easy To Use
We enjoy going over pressure washers as we use them almost weekly to clean up our Side by Sides after a good ride. Most of the time we look at larger gas models that can clean up nasty dirt pretty quick. Those machines are great if you use them all the time and keep up with the maintenance. Not everyone needs or wants something that large. so for the past year, we have been looking at and testing smaller electric pressure washers. You have not seen them on our channel because most have broke before we were able to complete a video. We work hard not to show our fans junk!
Recently we were given the opportunity to take a look at the Greenworks elite electric pressure washers and the build quality with a metal frame and wheels looked nice. We brought one into the shop and started to use it on smaller jobs and testing everything out. This one looks nothing like the other models we have tried and it looks like the company designed it for longevity. If you look at many electric pressure washers you will see they are mostly plastic, so this one is a breath of fresh air.
Our Greenworks Elite 14A 2,000PSI Pressure Washer has a metal open frame design, on-board soap tank that can be quickly detached for cleaning. The wand utilizes quick-connect tips and they supply a 25 degree, 40 degree, 75 degree soap tip and a turbo nozzle so the user has a choice of the intensity of cleaning. The 35’ power cord has a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) built-in to reduce the risk of shock. The motor on this unit will turn on and off as needed. Basically, once the unit detects water movement, the electric motor will turn on and give you high pressure and once the trigger is released, it will shut off. Greenworks elite provides a 1-year warranty on this model.
Check out our YouTube video and see what this pressure washer can do.