The People vs. Goldman Sachs

By Matt Taibbi

May 11, 2011 9:30 AM ET

They weren't murderers or anything; they had merely stolen more money than most people can rationally conceive of, from their own customers, in a few blinks of an eye. But then they went one step further. They came to Washington, took an oath before Congress, and lied about it.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511

We're in worse shape than I thought.

Question. 9)

Wrong

 

In 2010, the average compensation for a CEO of a large U.S. corporation is how many times the compensation for an average worker
	A.	57 times
	B.	155 times (your answer)
	C.	287 times
	D.	364 times (correct answer)
	E.	433 times

Blackwater's Prince grows ever stronger as a force for evil

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder

By MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.

News Item > Bankruptcy Filings Up Slightly in March

Bankruptcy Filings Up Slightly in March

May 06, 2011

Bankruptcy filings for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, rose 2.6 percent when compared to bankruptcy filings for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2010,

http://www.uscourts.gov/News/NewsView/11-05-06/Bankruptcy_Filings_Up_Slightly_in_March.aspx?CntPageID=1

multitasking - surface thoughts

One thing at a time, please

ByTim Harford

The result was fascinating: on the multitasking runs, people were perfectly good at making predictions on the fly, but couldn't then explain the underlying patterns, or apply them flexibly in other contexts. The technical term for this is that their "declarative learning" was stunted by the distraction. In short, multitaskers seem competent at the time but may not be taking much away from their experiences.

I try hard not to make that mistake. Even the twin monitors are designed so that while I'm reading a research paper on screen, this column stays in view.

But I am guilty of an entirely different form of multitasking: in any given month, I have lots of projects on the go. This feels a world away from distracting myself with instant messaging. In fact it feels symptomatic of being a grown-up in the 21st century. But perhaps it, too, is unhelpful.

The psychologists' lab isn't well-suited to testing that hypothesis, but there is a new working paper from three economists, Decio Coviello, Andrea Ichino and Nicola Persico. They studied the caseload of 31 judges in a specialised court in Milan, who over five years dealt with over 58,000 cases. Because of the way cases are randomly assigned, and a rule stating that cases must open no later than 60 days after assignment, some judges find themselves with many more cases open at the same time. Coviello and his colleagues find that judges who have been obliged to work on many cases in parallel take longer to complete similar portfolios of cases. One implication is that the 60-day rule probably slows the average case down rather than speeding it up.

The message for the rest of us is that Publilius Syrus was right about multitasking. One thing at a time is best. The exception, I suppose, is if you'd rather not remember what you're supposed to be doing. No wonder so many of us check our BlackBerries in meetings.

Tim Harford's latest book is 'Dear Undercover Economist' (Little, Brown)