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10 Gifts For Book Lovers
Zachary Stewart • New York City • Dec 20, 2009
Kenneth Turan's new history of The Public Theater, Free For All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told, has been over 20 years in the making. Told in an oral-history format consisting of testimony and first-person accounts from over 150 people connected with Papp (who died in 1991) and the Public over the years, the book turns out to be an invaluable means of preserving some of New York great theatrical voices. (Indeed, about a quarter of Turan's cast of characters is deceased.) Moreover, the oral-history format proves to be an intensely dramatic and extremely enlightening way to tell the story of America's preeminent not-for-profit drama organization.
The excitement stems not out of epic battles or tragic moments for Papp and his theater (though there are plenty), but the conflicting accounts of history offered by each of Turan's subjects. For instance, in the chapter about the successful Broadway transfer of the Shakespeare Festival's musical Two Gentlemen of Verona, both LuEsther Mertz and Bernard Gersten claim credit for the idea of having the Public be the sole investor in the Broadway production, a strategy that -- especially in the case of A Chorus Line -- underwrote the Public's operating budget for years. Turan presents these conflicting accounts without commentary, often back-to-back, just as any good dramatist would allow his characters to speak for themselves.
Papp emerges from this tome even more a legend and less a mere mortal than before. What starts as a biography of Papp and his impoverished childhood in Brooklyn quickly refocuses to Papp's professional life and the company he creates by the second chapter. One can tell that, whether they love him or hate him, everyone who comes in contact with Papp has a deep respect for the man. We are introduced to Papp the businessman, Papp the general, and Papp the socialist -- and it is the latter of these roles that Turan's interviewees unanimously agree deeply informed almost all of Papp's decisions about programming. Nothing that Papp produced could be merely "art for art's sake." He wanted the work he put on to have to have a meaningful and progressive social impact.
If we are to believe that "socializing" theater -- especially in terms of access -- was Papp's mission, as Turan's subjects and the book's title suggest, then he accomplished his goal. Despite instances of wealthy theater-goers hiring line-sitters to get their tickets for them, Shakespeare in the Park still offers the masses the most egalitarian way to see free, world-class productions every summer; audiences are only asked to give up the requisite time it takes to obtain a ticket. This "socialized" or public theater, and the myriad copycat companies that it has spawned, is truly Papp's greatest legacy.
Geoffrey Block's Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Showboat to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber is a critical analysis of some of the most significant Broadway musicals of the last century, including Porgy and Bess, Carousel, and West Side Story. Block's list of subjects is by no means comprehensive -- for example, neither Cabaret nor A Chorus Line are covered -- but by focusing on a select few shows, Block is able to give each a thoughtful exploration. A musicologist by trade, Block gives particular attention to the role of music and lyrics, offering several musical diagrams along the way to illustrate his points. (A rudimentary knowledge of how to read music is important.) In short, Enchanted Evenings is a superb read for more academically-inclined theater enthusiasts.
Despite its title, Dick Van Patten's new memoir, Eighty is Not Enough is not all about his experience playing all-American dad Tom Bradford on television's Eight is Enough. Instead, this easy-to-read romp elaborates on the veteran actor's storied stage career, which includes working with such theatrical luminaries as Max Reinhardt, Fredric March, Alfred Lunt, and Lynn Fontanne. Since Van Patten started his career as a child actor, this is the rare biography that gives equal time to the subject's childhood, which makes for an engaging read.
Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain is a complete history of the popular revue show of Broadway parodies. With help from a dozen Forbidden Broadway alums sharing their personal memories, creator Gerard Alessandrini guides the reader from the show's beginning at Palsson's Supper Club in 1981 right up to its final (for now) incarnation in 2009. In between, Alessandrini includes well-edited scripts and hilarious lyrics from his ever-changing show, along with numerous color production stills as well as backstage photos of Broadway luminaries like Ethel Merman, Stephen Sondheim, and Carol Channing.
In Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, the beloved song made popular by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis, is given a new context when it is set to Liz Murphy's charming and imaginative illustrations of Bernadette Peters' dog Kramer sledding, caroling, and generally getting into the holiday spirit. (A portion of the proceeds go to support Peters' Broadway Barks charity which promotes the adoption of shelter animals.) All of Murphy's seemingly simple drawings incorporate bits and pieces of printed text, which will confound the curious reader who attempts to decipher the source material. A CD of Peters singing the classic song before a live audience is included in the back; even better, the padded front cover can be used as a picture frame.
Gerald Nachman's Right Here on Our Stage Tonight: Ed Sullivan's America is a sweeping work of biography, entertainment history, and cultural criticism all rolled into one four-part book. It traces the 23-year history of The Ed Sullivan Show from Sullivan's television debut in 1948 through the advent of rock 'n' roll, which staged its largest invasion of American homes through Sullivan's show in the form of Elvis and The Beatles. Nachman has an encyclopedic knowledge of Americana, and he is particularly good at placing The Ed Sullivan Show in the larger context of America's development.
Theatre World: Volume 65 continues the series' long-running mission of creating the most complete record of American theater in print. A book like this could never be exhaustive, but editor Ben Hodges and company come pretty darn close. With this edition, Hodges reintroduces seasonal reviews at the beginning of each chapter (Broadway, Off Broadway, Regional, etc.) -- a practice that was abandoned in the mid-1990s -- giving Theatre World that bit of analysis that always seemed missing in previous editions. And with lines like "Jane Fonda. Jeremy Irons. Marcia Gay Harden. Jeremy Piven getting sick on sushi," it is clear that this is a yearbook of the American stage that no theater documentarian should be without.
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|Bookshelf Home | Contents | Index | PDF
Siebel Finance Guide > Managing Holdings And Interests >
Process of Administering Securities
This process represents a portion of the tasks carried out in the Scenario for Promoting a Market Opportunity to Targeted List of Clients. This process includes:
Typically, securities information is imported into Siebel Finance using Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM). Your organization can import the data displayed in the Securities views from one or more other systems (such as a trading system).
You can also manually add or edit records of securities using administrative functions described in this section.
For more information about EIM, see Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide.
|Siebel Finance Guide

subset: commoncrawl


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Allen West is not going to apologize for lying about apologizing to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, or is he? Unable to find anything more popular than Social Security, Medicare and the mortgage deduction, congressional gangs are devising ways to target roller coasters, puppies and Monday Night Football. And congressional women have a new spot to squat. Yay! This is HUFFPOST HILL for Wednesday, July 20th, 2011, two days until Eliot returns:
So let's see if we have this right. The Gang of Six proposal that congressional leaders and the White House think is a good idea does this: Cuts Social Security, with pain that'll be felt within six months, before the next election; cuts hundreds of billions from Medicare; cuts the homeowner tax credit and the 401(k)/IRA credits. Look, we get that our democracy is bought and paid for, corporate-owned, etc., but actual people still actually vote, don't they?
MCKEON: GANG OF SIX CUTS TOO MUCH - Republican House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon is against the Gang of Six plan, Colin Clark reports. McKeon: "Defense has already shrunk $439 billion over 10 years. In its current form, I cannot support the Gang of Six proposal." [AOL Defense]
REID INTERRUPTS THE GANG-OF-SIX-GASM - Lawmakers on the Hill have been preaching that there's enough time -- before financial Armageddon -- for Congress to write, score, and pass a major deficit reduction deal that's been sitting on the shelf for months. Even the White House hinted that they'd be open to a short-term debt-ceiling solution if it meant that a Gang of Six-like plan could be passed and attached to it. Several reporters had lunch with Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday. And, among other things, he basically called a one-month, time-extending, debt ceiling deal delusional. [Huffpost's Sam Stein]
SANDERS CONGRATULATES GOP - There's not much left for Bernie Sanders to do. His office put out this release today: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today congratulated Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) on their very significant victory in negotiating a deficit-reduction plan which achieves their long-term goal of dismantling every major social program relevant to working families."
CFPB OPEN FOR BUSINESS TOMORROW - The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially leaves the Treasury tomorrow. The CFPB will have at least a year of independence -- which the Amish call rumspringa -- during which it can drink, get high, have sex, investigate financial institutions for defrauding customers and otherwise experience life outside the control of the White House.
In Tomorrow's Roll Call: David M. Drucker reports that within days, vulnerable Senate Democrats will cast perhaps the toughest vote of their career on politically volatile legislation to raise the debt ceiling. But such votes have been in remarkably short supply this year, just as the hard-charging Democratic class of 2006 turns cautious as it approaches its first re-election challenge.
ANOTHER LOOMING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: The House voted along party lines this afternoon to approve a GOP-sponsored bill reauthorizing the FAA's operating authority through Sept. 16. But the bill is likely to face strong opposition from Senate Democrats. One of the biggest sticking points is a GOP provision tightening union restrictions on airline and railroad employees. The FAA's current operating authority ends on Friday. If no agreement is reached, the agency could shut down, furloughing large numbers of workers. [AP]
Federal Reserve orders Wells Fargo to pay $85 million fine for illegally pushing perhaps more than 10,000 borrowers into more-expensive subprime mortgages and falsifying loan documents over a four-year period, Shahien Nasiripour reports. It's the most expensive fine ever levied by a federal bank regulator in a consumer protection case. Wells Fargo turned a $3.9 billion profit last quarter; it's made $7.7 billion in profit thus far this year. Borrowers who lost their home because they were wrongly forced to make higher payments can get up to $7,000 in restitution. The bank did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement.
WOMEN'S RESTROOM OPENS OFF HOUSE FLOOR - On Monday, a long-awaited women's restroom opened adjacent to the House floor -- a luxury male lawmakers have enjoyed for decades. Up until now, women have had to trek a few hundred yards toward the center of the Capitol to relieve themselves. But as we reported in February, the only reason this restroom exists is because of a Capitol land grab by John Boehner. He got to take over the historic offices of the House Appropriations Committee as his new area, give a small space to women for a bathroom -- and look like a gender parity activist while living like a king. [HuffPost's Amanda Terkel]
@RepDonnaEdwards: Love the new Ladies room off the floor of the House. Three cheers to @SpeakerBoehner!
No word on if Allen West thinks Debbie Wasserman Schultz is entitled to use the new facility.
AND.... SPEAKING OF ALLEN WEST - The Florida Republican was alllllll over the place on Wednesday. His campaign sent out a fundraising appeal playing up what a
dickbag bad ass he was in calling Wasserman Schultz "vile." Then, he told The Huffington Post's Jen Bendery that he had actually apologized to the DNC chair. But wait! Neither the DNC nor Wasserman Schultz's office received an apology. Sure enough, West's office clarified that people would have to be stupid to think he'd be so gracious. "Absolutely false," West's spokesperson Angela Sachitano said of West's own statement. "The Congressman is waiting on an apology from the Congresswoman."
Classy. So, who's right? Bendery. Here is the actual transcript of her chat with West -- and if the whole episode is giving you a headache, there is a Minnesota Republican lawmaker who has medication for that.
HuffPost:: I saw that there's a bunch of congresswomen having a press conference to talk about your email to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Does that bother you that they're doing that?
West: No, it doesn't bother me.
HuffPost:: They're probably going to say something about being anti-woman.
West: I've been married for 22 years, I have two daughters.
HuffPost: So what does that mean? That you respect women or….
West: And I just apologized.
HuffPost: And you just apologized?
West: Mmmhmmm.
And here's the audio. Either Allen West's office is lying to reporters or Allen West lied to his office.
Allen West Was Second - Why are we so angry at Allen West for calling DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz "vile" and "heinous" and "not a Lady"? After all, he's just echoing the mockery of Tea Party financier American Crossroads. Just a couple months ago, Crossroads boss Steven Law declared that the breast-cancer surviving Wasserman Schultz lacked "charm," and his outfit put out a video that needled her for having "all of the grace of a punch in the face."
We've been agreeing with Larry Summers an awful lot lately. And he nails it with his take on his now-famous meeting with the Winklevi twins, portrayed in The Social Network: "One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at three o'clock, there are two possibilities. One is that they're looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole. This was the latter case. Rarely have I encountered such swagger, and I tried to respond in kind."
Wall Street Prostitutes Busted: No, that is not an unkind euphemism for Congress. Seventeen people were just indicted for running a prostitution ring out of Brooklyn catering to financial professionals. Supposedly they scored $7 million over three years, but it's unclear how much of that was financed by TARP. [Reuters]
DEMS HEART REAGAN - "I find myself these days quoting Ronald Reagan," said Sen. Barbara Boxer Wednesday. So sayeth The Communicator: "The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate...The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result." [Mike McAuliff]
The Onion: Congress Continues Debate Over Whether Or Not Nation Should Be Economically Ruined
Not The Onion: Al Sharpton is gonna get that 6 p.m. slot on MSNBC it appears. Cenk Uygur, who had been hosting that hour, is reportedly out after refusing to change time slots.
UNIONS HIT OBAMA TWICE IN ONE DAY Mike McAuliff: "President Obama's rocky relationship with unions took a few more lumps Wednesday as labor groups pounded a deficit-cutting proposal he embraced and his White House's welcome for Walmart."
MSNBC/HUFFPOST: COLOMBIAN UNION MEMBERS STILL ROUTINELY MURDERED - A group of Colombian union members visited the HuffPost DC office to rebut assertions by pro-trade pact partisans that the Colombian killing of labor leaders is a thing of past, as the U.S. insists. Dave Jamieson was on Dylan Ratigan's show to discuss his story: "For Juan Cambindo, a Colombian sugar cane worker and union leader, the news of significant progress has come as a great surprise....He first learned of his new and improved lot while watching television. 'The United States was talking about how our situation has gotten better,' Cambindo. 'But that's not true. Our situation continues to be bad, and it's getting worse.' Colombia remains by far the world's most dangerous country for union leaders and members. Nearly 3,000 activists have been murdered there in the last 25 years, with convictions resulting in a paltry 6 percent of the cases. According to the non-profit labor rights group U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project, 51 Colombian unionists were killed last year and 338 received death threats. The country generally accounts for about half of the unionist murders worldwide these days." [HuffPost and MSNBC]
Example of labor negotiations in Colombia: "Tell that man if he does not stop running off at the mouth we will cut out his tongue."
MoJo unearths [organic bottled water].
MICHELE BACHMANN BELIEVES 47 PERCENT OF AMERICANS DON'T PAY TAXES - During a Twitter town hall today, Bachmann was asked, "Why isn't anyone talking about the 47% of Americans that don't pay taxes?" -- a hardline conservative meme that's been blowing up the batsh*t blogosphere lately. So the congresswoman responded: "I am. Simple. Fair. Flat. Everyone should pay something." If only it were so! The Tax Policy Center has estimated that 47 percent of Americans didn't pay income taxes last year. But there are, of course, boatloads of other taxes out there -- payroll taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, etc. Only 14 percent of Americans didn't pay either income taxes or payroll taxes in 2009, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities -- and the vast majority of those were awfully poor. The 47 percent income tax figure is also significantly inflated by that whole worst recession since the Great Depression thing. In normal years, the figure is in the 30s. Notably, even if 47 percent of Americans really didn't pay any taxes, implementing a flat income tax that raised taxes on the poor would still be a clear violation of Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge. Also waiting for the drive-by lamestream media to misquote Bachmann with an: "I am simple."
How do we know the 47% number is a meme lately? From the volume of @aol.com emails we've been getting that include that precise number.
OCC Still a Sick Joke Masquerading as a Federal Agency - Remember when all those state regulators wanted to crack down on predatory lending in, like, 2004? And remember when the OCC stepped in to say, "Aw hell naw"? And remember when those horrible mortgages wrecked the global economy? Well, the OCC wants another go-round. Today, the agency finalized a new set of "preemption" rules that are pretty much just like the old ones, protecting the nation's biggest banks from state scrutiny. Americans for Financial Reform says the new regulations directly violate last year's Wall Street reform bill, which required the OCC to ease the preemption rules.
More Murdoch Misery - Erik Wemple thinks Rupert Murdoch should also apologize for falsely reporting that some racecar exec had a Nazi orgy in 2008, and for blackmailing women the guy slept with. Yeah fine, Wemple, but everybody knows the real Murdoch scandal was that time he forced out a reporter for refusing to dress up like Harry Potter.
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - It's the combination of fuzzy and stabby that makes hedgehogs so adorbz. [youtubes via reddit]
DEM CALLS REPUBLICAN FRINGE A 'CULT' - From Sen. Tom Harkin: "On the Republican side you've got scores of Republicans who say, fine, let the country default. Need I remind you Michele Bachmann [was] running around my state saying she wouldn't vote to raise the debt limit no matter what? No matter what. Got that? No matter what. This is one of their leading contenders for the presidency. So the debate and fight is not between Democrats and Republicans; it's between some Republicans and their sort of cult fringe, as I refer to them, out there."
At the same press conference, an aide almost dropped a "Cut, Cap and Kill Medicare" poster onto Sen. Barbara Mikulski -- on her birthday. "Don't cut, cap and kill me!" Mikulski said. Never change, BAM!
Alan Grayson has a way to save $2 trillion: Stop waging war all over the damn place.
FOLEY FROWNER - Erick Velazquillo, 22, was stopped last October for driving with his high beams on, and arrested for driving with an expired license. (North Carolina changed its laws for undocumented immigrants and driver's licenses after he received his license, making it impossible to renew.) Velazquillo entered the U.S. from Mexico with his family when he was two years old. He has no criminal record and graduated from Central Piedmont Community College in 2009. Yesterday, an immigration court judge gave him a 45-day extension on his deportation charge so federal authorities can consider whether to allow him to stay in the states. "I came in at the age of two, I've been living here for 20 years and I basically grew up as an American. I should have a chance to contribute back."
THE POWER OF BACHMANN'S PRAYER - Bradlee Dean, the vitriolic, rap-metal drumming preacher linked to presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann, may have yet to see the Rapture, but he has seen his fortunes -- and the fortunes of his ministry rise -- since the congresswoman took an interest in him. Bachmann had famously prayed for Dean's organization to grow ten-fold. So HuffPost Hill assigned investigative reporter Jason Cherkis to check it out. He reports back that in 2008, tax records show Dean earned a mere $27,433 as president and director of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide Inc., a nonprofit tax exempt ministry based in Bachmann's suburban Minnesota district. In 2009, Dean's salary ballooned to $51,303 plus an additional $45,887 in a housing allowance. Dean refused to comment about the tax records. When asked on their tax records if they ever engaged in "direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to" any candidates running for public office, Dean and Co. checked "No." [Classic Dean Rants]
Don't be bashful: Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to email@example.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill
POLITICO MORE OR LESS CALLS FRATES A THIEF - If you're a very important recipient of POLITICO's very important "Influence" email newsletter, you likely noticed an editor's note in Wednesday's edition. "Some POLITICO Influence readers recently received emails sent to an improperly obtained subscriber list," it read. "We apologize for this. Please rest assured that POLITICO has not sold or intentionally shared our confidential subscriber list."
(Deep breath. Deeeeeeep breath. DAMN IT, BREATHE)… 'Who the F*CK would mess with the integrity of the list!?!?!'
The note was clearly aimed at Chris Frates, the guy who helped build the list while at POLITICO before bolting to the National Journal so he could
have a social life become their lobbying correspondent. Frates (as we envision it) perspired profusely when we asked him for an explanation. Like all guilty suspects, he deferred to "management." Their response: "[F]or clarity's sake, this was a list of Frates' contacts, not an official 'Politico list.' Hence their reference to 'SOME of you may have received.'" If the list doesn't fit, you must acquit.
Okay, the big story: It's hot. I warned you it was going to be hot. You don't have to listen. Just know that it's going to stay hot. That's what a heat wave is. There's a good chance it'll hit 100 degrees. Tomorrow, which means that it's going to feel like you're in a sauna. Drink lots of water. Thanks, JB!
Bayonet kabobs and candied bacon in this week's Russian-themed Epic Meal Time. [EMT on the youtubes]
Discovery Channel has set up a live webcam at the Georgia Aquarium's shark tank. [ustream]
The Gregory Brothers autotuned that (fake?) "I LOVE CATS" eHarmony video. [G.Bros on the youtubes]
The Planet of the Apes prequel will probably look something like this. [gizmodo]
Japanese inventor creates flying rescue sphere. [youtubes via reddit]
Arming apex predators with futuristic beam-swords can only end well. [collegehumor]
Capoeira Badminton's got nothing on Kung Fu Soccer Volleyball. [collegehumor]
The ketchup-dispensing R/C tank you were waiting for. [youtubes]
If it's dead but moving, it's either a zombie or this seafood dish. [youtubes via thedailywh.at]
@pourmecoffee: It feels like MacGruber is in charge of the debt ceiling crisis.
@daveweigel: Q: If Sarah Palin wrote a Facebook post about Bachmann's migraines, would the Internet explode?
@omarbhester: .@140townhall google santorum
5:30 p.m.-7 p.m.: Buckle your safety belts kids, because it's Rob Portman's "Annual and Awesome Chili Fest!" night at the NRSC. [425 2nd St., NE]
6 p.m. - Waaay late: The NRSC Policy Board will enjoy barbecue together while Portman shills his chili back at headquarters. [410 7th St., NW]
6 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.: Been a while since you had vomit on your shoes? Fear not, McFadden's has your number tonight at a "Liberty On The Rocks" happy hour for college students, interns, and other "fans of liberty." [2401 Pennsylvania Ave., NW]
8:30 a.m.: Napa Valley's own Mike Thompson raises cash over breakfast, inexplicably depriving guests of the chance to get buzzed on his district's finest export. [400 North Capitol St., NW #175]
8:30 a.m. Look for Michael Bennet at the classy Mott House mansion, which might explain why he's charging double the typical fundraiser ticket: A cool $1,000 per person. For breakfast. [122 Maryland Ave., NE]
9 a.m.: Now that Paul Ryan's budget firestorm has been replaced by a different budget firestorm, the man is finally free to pad his coffers in peace. [300 First St., SE]
12 p.m.: Ready the record books, folks, because Leonard Lance is hosting his 32nd fundraiser at the Capitol Club in three years. If you know someone who's had more there in less time, we want to know. [300 First St., SE]
12 p.m.-1:30 p.m.: PayPal lobbyist Becky Relic co-hosts a lunch for Jerry Moran, a leading opponent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. PayPal users, beware. [234 3rd St., NE]
1 p.m.: The people who haul fossil fuels out of the ground (aka the American Council of Engineering Companies) take time to grease up the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Jim Inhofe. [400 North Capitol St., NW #175]
6 p.m.: Bloomberg's B-Gov woos potential customers Wall-Street style, with "An Evening of Politics and Pinot" at swanky Sonoma. High-priced escorts from Brooklyn not included. [223 Pennsylvania Ave., SE]
7 p.m. - 9 p.m.: Susan G. Komen launches its junior fundraising circle -- discussion of summer homes and tiny dogs virtually assured. [3251 Prospect St., NW]
7 p.m. - 9 p.m.: If you think that doing shots of rail booze with barely legal staffers sounds like a good time, you're right. It is. Get your fix at George's intern happy hour. [3251 Prospect St., NW]
Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (firstname.lastname@example.com), Ryan Grim (firstname.lastname@example.com) or Arthur Delaney (email@example.com). Follow us on Twitter @HuffPostHill (twitter.com/HuffPostHill). Sign up here: http://huff.to/an2k2e


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By Gary Brooks, CFP®
Survey data is regularly publicized by a wide variety of financial firms and research entities. It often is used to make a particular point about savings, investing, views on the economy, etc. It seems that frequently these surveys are based on responses from a relatively small group of people, something close to 1,000. While the survey sponsors suggest that this is a large enough sample size to correlate to a broader audience and be representative of broadly held views, it seems a little light.
So when analysis is published that represents actual activity of millions of people it naturally should carry more weight.
Vanguard is a popular employer retirement plan administrator, providing the platform for 3.9 million employees to save and invest for retirement. With the opportunity to evaluate this statistically significant sample size, Vanguard provides some interesting observations in How America Saves 2015.
One that is counterintuitive represents unintended consequences of encouraging more people to contribute to their retirement accounts. Automatic enrollment has become commonplace over the past several years. But Vanguard attributes this very good trend to harming another important element of retirement savings.
With the rise of auto enrollment, the average salary deferral of Vanguard retirement plan participants has actually come down. The problem is that when people accept auto enrollment they are more likely to accept the default contribution rate which in many cases is just 3% of salary. Without the automated nature of enrollment, people choose higher contribution rates. It's almost as if people assume the default contribution rate comes with some sort of endorsement that the 3% is enough for people to save.
Using 2014 data, the participation rate in plans administered by Vanguard was 77%. The average salary deferral was 6.9% but this number is down from 7.3% when auto enrollment features become more common.
Of course, identifying how much of someone's salary needs to be saved and invested as an important resource to withdraw income from in retirement is a challenge that requires financial planning and an understanding of personal goals.
When adding employer matching funds to employee contributions, the average contribution rate rises to 10.4%. This is getting closer to the territory most frequently required to maintain preferences for standard of living in retirement. But knowing how much is preferable requires an understanding of how much income Social Security will provide, what your other income resources might be, and a sense of the preferred level of spending.
Other findings include:
• The average stock market portfolio weight for the 3.9 million participants was 72%. Knowing that this includes a wide mix of participant ages and tolerances for risk, this emphasis on stocks is surprising. A 72% stock portfolio goes beyond the typical definition of a balanced approach and into the beginnings of aggressive territory.
• There is clearly a set-it-and-forget-it mentality among 401(k) participants. Only 10% of participants traded within their accounts, shifting balances from one fund to another or changing their investment allocation in some way. This is partly due to the emergence of target date retirement funds that automatically rebalance and are intended to be an all-in-one investment solution.
• Many employer retirement plans offer the option of investing in company stock. This can lead to dangerous concentration. Not only is the participant's salary tied to the company's performance, but so is their retirement balance. In 2014, 28% of participants held more than 20% of their 401(k) in the stock of their employer. This weight increases risk but it is trending down slightly over time. Any single stock position larger than 10% of a portfolio could be considered a concentrated risk.
• The stock market recovery of 2009-2014 provided a healthy lift in account balances. For continuous participants through the five-year period, the median account balance rose by 137%. This figure includes additional contributions and investment returns.
• Roth 401(k) features are used by only 14% of plan participants. Understanding the long-term tax benefits of the Roth apparently requires more education. "We anticipate steady growth in Roth adoption rates, given the feature's tax diversification benefits" the Vanguard report notes.
On the whole, more people are participating in employer retirement plans and the costs of investment selections within these plans has declined.
Now, it's important to get people to think more strategically about how much they should be saving in the context of their retirement income goals, their spouse's savings rate and the many other needs that they will ultimately want to put this deferred income to work toward.
~ Brooks, Hughes & Jones Wealth Advisors — Gig Harbor, Washington


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Education, training are 2 keys to wider IoT deployment
At the 2014 Internet of Things World Forum, Cisco officials say creating global connectivity in a rapidly-evolving technology will require a deeper talent pool.
As manufacturing, and indeed all device-driven enterprises, race toward the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), a major barrier in the way is the human infrastructure to deliver on its promise.
That was one of the major themes on the opening day of the 2014 Internet of Things World Forum in Chicago. The event, presented by Cisco and sponsored by nearly 30 global industrial and IT companies, has more than doubled in size since the opening event last year in Barcelona, Spain. That growth is a reflection of the increased emphasis on IoT at all levels of operations as a way to collect, manage and effectively act on data throughout the enterprise.
"It's a convergence of people, process and data," said Inbar Lasser-Raab, vice president of enterprise production and solutions marketing for Cisco. "It's triggered by connecting machine to machine. It triggers a whole new business outcome."
For that to take place, however, a new generation of workers must be educated and trained around the new technology. Cisco officials noted at the event that while there are still 11 million unemployed workers in the U.S., 45% of employers across all industries report job openings they cannot fill due to the skills gap.
Talent acquisition and education
"CEOs believe because of amount of change and reinvention around IOT, talent will be the #1 agenda item for the next few years," said Jeanne Dunn, who heads Cisco's talent acquisition and training efforts. "If you think about process automation on factory floor, we have to get non-IP-based network professionals educated to the Internet. We need to reskill about 400,000 engineers.
"We are going to need a fundamentally different educational system," Dunn added. "If we don't create talent differently than we do today, we're not going to get there."
Among the first announcements at the IoT World Forum was the creation of the Industry Talent Consortium. The first members of the group include Pearson, the New York Academy of Science, MIT Sloan Executive Education, Xerox, CareerBuilder, Knod, GE, Udacity, Rockwell Automation and Davra Networks. Dunn expects more companies and educational groups to get involved.
But she added another place to begin is at the local level. "There is a tremendous need for upskilling and reskilling," Dunn said. "It's important for every company to think about their role in this."
Those roles will rapidly evolve. Cisco officials said during the Oct. 14 keynote kicking off the IoT World Forum that 86% of manufacturing leaders and 91% of oil & gas leaders expect to invest in IoT-related technology in the coming year. That comes as IoT leaders continue to educate just about everyone as to the potential benefits and the immediate needs of the Internet of Things.
In creating industry-specific steering committees and study groups in advance of the forum, Lasser-Raab said there were five key areas of emphasis in that education process:
- Showing the value of IoT
- Creating a sense of urgency for adopters: to build a network now or be left behind
- Address network security concerns
- Strengthen the IoT ecosystem
- Educate the industry about IoT.
It's that last area that indicates the difference between last year's event in Spain and the 2014 World Forum. "Last year we felt like pioneers; this year we have 250 public customers participating," Lasser-Raab said. "We know that it's happening now. The question now is, how do we take this from early adoption to very wide deployment? We're seeing it happening in front of our eyes. How do we move it faster?"
- Bob Vavra is content manager, Plant Engineering, part of CFE Media, along with Control Engineering and Consulting-Specifying Engineer, firstname.lastname@example.com.
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Annual Salary Survey
Before the calendar turned, 2016 already had the makings of a pivotal year for manufacturing, and for the world.
There were the big events for the year, including the United States as Partner Country at Hannover Messe in April and the 2016 International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago in September. There's also the matter of the U.S. presidential elections in November, which promise to shape policy in manufacturing for years to come.
But the year started with global economic turmoil, as a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing triggered a worldwide stock hiccup that sent values plummeting. The continued plunge in world oil prices has resulted in a slowdown in exploration and, by extension, the manufacture of exploration equipment.
Read more: 2015 Salary Survey


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|Reviews for El Beso del Diablo The Kiss of the Devil
| Fuu chapter 7 . 12/6/2002
Cool chapter, a little sad, but a liked very much
| animelover28 chapter 7 . 12/6/2002
OMG! That was so sad, yet so cute! I loved it! I smiled and cried, please update!
| iris dreamer chapter 7 . 12/6/2002
such a great story! And i love the plot of the soap opera. And it was so sad the reason why she vowed never to sing again. Sonomi's dead? sakura's lost her voice and Syaoran just woke from coma. Oh dear. Oh, and are Syaoran and Sakura related? Sakura and Tomoyo are cousins right?
Anyhow, this is an awesome fic. continue
| Guest chapter 7 . 12/6/2002
SWEET KAWAII, u always haf a thing for plot
| KyteAura chapter 7 . 12/5/2002
*sniffles* Pobre Tomoyo! Que lastima...Anyways I do hope everything will work I for her. And between her and Eriol *winks* lolz -KyteAura
| Rini-sama chapter 6 . 12/5/2002
! *pant*pant*gasp!* How! Why! Your just as ebil as Mysteri0-chan! EBIL!1 But great story Keep it up! Don't get too comfy with cliffies. I might send Rage, DC, Toei, Quatre, and Cappy(yes the hamster from Hamtaro) After you!
| blueangel4 chapter 6 . 12/5/2002
ooohhhhh my, what happened to tomoyo? ne, isn't great that now they are working together? hopefully tomoyo would change her mind abt eriol. ~.
| SVZ chapter 6 . 12/4/2002
NO! IT'S A CLIFFHANGER! You mUST continue this! Its such a good fic
| SVZ chapter 4 . 12/4/2002
This is sucha good chapter! lol, I wonder why Eriol got carried away *winks*
| Fuu chapter 6 . 12/4/2002
MM, cool chapter, I like teverithing, Tomoyo fainted, ne? Why could have happend? He, I will have to wait the next chpater
Continue, you are doing it very well
(Please, upload Hikari Kawa)
| christie chapter 6 . 12/3/2002
yo syaoran no hime!
wat da?hell was that ending?
**questioning look, raised eyebrow**
i mean ... uhh...
wel... um...that was unexpected...
but i only think it was a bit rushed for the end of this chapter.
hope u finish the story!
christie :P
| blue eyes chapter 6 . 12/3/2002
please continue soon pretty please ur doing a great job
| Ranka chapter 6 . 12/2/2002
very nice!
keep up the good work!
| crystalheart chapter 6 . 12/2/2002
nooooooooo u evil person i wanna kno wat happens more more more
| KyteAura chapter 6 . 12/2/2002
O_O What happen to her?... Syao-chan did you give her some kind of allergic reaction to a male's touch? LoLz -KyteAura


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Hip Hop Recording Artist, BD Miguel, lands a fan based hit with his new release "A Pretty Sight Ta See" featuring J1. The track is gaining momentum on national and international music blogs as it approaches its official radio debut across America.
As March kicks off "Women's History Month," the inspiration behind the track is to celebrate the beauty and excellence of women and the roles they play in family, relationships as well as roles of achievement.
In a recent media interview, BD shared about how he came to write the track: "I love a beautiful woman who does her thing and beautiful not only in looks but how she carries herself and how she handles her business."
"The singer on the track is my friend J1. He is a dope engineer/producer/musical mastermind from Tacoma, Washington. He produced the beat and I wrote the song in 24 hours. He liked my hook and he asked me could he sing along with what I was saying on the mic and the rest is history. It felt good to create this song to give a shout to the ladies in all of our lives including moms, aunts, sisters, and all that they do."
BD Miguel is on countdown for a 2017 feature in THISIS50 scheduled to debut in March. In addition to his momentum on the record, he is currently preparing for a special announcement regarding a national tour including a special appearance in Los Angeles. BD Miguel is an artist, writer, producer and lead executive with KTINC Music Group.
KTINC Music Group is a Seattle based record label founded by producer and recording artist, BD Miguel. As a producer and label visionary, BD Miguel produces a roster of talent including Rob Rollie along with his own signature projects surrounded by some of the industry's most progressive indie talent on the rise.
Check out BD Miguel's "A Pretty Sight Ta See" featuring J1.


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A few years ago my niece fell in love with this cottage while we were out on a wander one day. She said she would love to live there, and called it her dream home.
So when I was commissioned to paint it in watercolour, by its new owners I really looked forward to working on it.
I hadn't done any house portraits for a while, as I have been working mostly in acrylics on canvas, only coming back to watercolour for the odd piece of work, and when asked to do classes.
I used to paint pictures of houses and pubs which were commissioned presents for retirement, birthday or wedding anniversaries, when my children were small.
Alongside a part time job, and I do not know where I found the time!
the owners would be happy with it, then I started with
the trees at the top of the painting.
I built it all up very gradually in washes to get the muted
colours in the roof tiles and thatch. Then got the details in.
It was even better when I had a mount fitted, which
I like to add so that it is properly finished and
ready to frame.
I am really pleased with how this painting has turned out and now it resides inside the cottage, with its happy owners.


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People Round Neck Three-Fourths Sleeve Short Kurta
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|Dark Blue


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USA: Modine Forms Fuel-Cell Products Group to Address Emerging Opportunity
Modine Manufacturing Company (Nasdaq: MODI) has created a Fuel-Cell Products Group to bring its heat-transfer expertise to an emerging, energy-revolution opportunity. ``Modine intends to be the preeminent supplier of heat-transfer components and systems to the PEM fuel-cell industry,'' said Donald R. Johnson, Modine's president and chief executive officer.
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Fancy Egg Scramble
If you like it, save it!
Save and organize all of the stuff you love in one place.Got it!
If you like something…
Click the heart, it's called favoriting. Favorite the stuff you like.Got it!
Author Notes: This recipe is something my mom makes when the whole family is together, and it inspires a lot of polite maneuvering when trying to procure seconds. It is rich and creamy, a completely decadent egg dish worthy of any celebration. —kitchenwitchcookie
Serves 10
Cheese Sauce
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 2 cups milk
- 1 cup (4 oz.) shredded American cheese
- Melt butter.
- Stir in flour, salt and papper.
- Add milk; cook and stir until bubbly.
- Stir in cheese until melted.
Egg Casserole
- 1 cup (4 oz) Canadian bacon, diced
- 1/4 cup green onion, chopped
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 12 eggs, beaten
- 1 3 oz can mushroom pieces and stems, drained
- 1 recipe Cheese Sauce
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 2 1/4 cups soft bread crumbs (3 slices)
- 1/8 teaspoon paprika
- In large skillet, cook Canadian bacon and onion in the 3 T butter until onion is tender but not brown.
- Add eggs to skillet and scramble just until set.
- Fold mushrooms and cooked eggs into Cheese Sauce.
- Turn into a 12X7X2-inch baking dish.
- Combine remaining melted butter, crumbs, and paprika; sprinkle atop eggs.
- Cool, cover and chill until 30 minutes before serving.
- Bake uncovered, in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Brunch Eggs
More Great Recipes:
Eggs|Breakfast & Brunch


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Samsung Galaxy Tab Meetup SF #sfgalaxytab
Friday, June 3, 2011 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Event Details
WE'RE SOLD OUT! Please add your name to the waiting list and we'll release tickets if and when they become available.
Who says good things come to those who wait? Because you're a Very Influential Person -- that's why you've been directed here -- you're invited to be among the first to try out the brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 – weeks ahead of its availability in stores. Get up close and personal. Come to our VIP Preview -- hosted by the expert bloggers who've been keeping you abreast of the Tab's march into the market. Along with getting to touch the Tab 10.1, you'll also be able to chat it up with Samsung executives.
Oh yeah, by attending, you'll have a chance to win one of five Galaxy Tabs or one of five other Samsung Galaxy S smartphones. That's a one in 40 chance of taking home a top-of-the-line Samsung product. Food and refreshments provided. All ages welcome. Act fast. The doors are open to the first 400 people who sign up.
When: 7- 10 p.m., Fri, Jun 3, 2011
Where: 620 Jones, bar and restaurant, 620 Jones St., San Francisco, CA
Your Hosts:
- Pressian Karakostov, editor-in-chief of PhoneArena
- William Park, editor-in-chief of IntoMobile
- Marin Perez, senior editor of IntoMobile
- Blake Stimac, editor of IntoMobile
- Yoeau Slivkoff, co-founder of IntoMobile
- Thomas Langridge, co-founder of IntoMobile
- Calvin Chan, lead developer of IntoMobile
- Joe Wilcox, managing editor of BetaNews
- Xavier Lanier, editor-in-chief of GottaBeMobile
- Chuong Nguyen, editor of GottaBeMobile
- Aaron Baker, editor-in-chief of PhoneDog.
- Patrick Houston, editorial director of NetShelter
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/netshelter/sfgalaxytab
Presented by
When & Where
620 Jones
620 Jones St
San Francisco,
Friday, June 3, 2011 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Add to my calendar
About inPowered: inPowered (formerly NetShelter) is changing the world of online advertising. The company has created an earned advertising platform that enables brands to amplify what experts are saying about them. The platform discovers positive articles and blog posts authored by credible experts and helps marketers amplify that earned media through paid advertising and social channels. Unlike other forms of paid advertising, inPowered harnesses the trust and credibility of earned media to influence consumer behavior. inpwrd.com


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Relevance ranks synonyms and suggests the best matches based on how closely a synonym's sense matches the sense you selected.
Complexity sorts synonyms based on their difficulty. Adjust it higher to choose from words that are more complex.
Length ranks your synonyms based on character count.
- lists
- blocks
Common words appear frequently in written and spoken language across many genres from radio to academic journals.
Informal words should be reserved for casual, colloquial communication.
adj very old
Synonyms for archaic
adj very old
Antonyms for archaic
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.Cite This Source
Usage Notes
Archaic is used as a label in this dictionary for terms and definitions that were current roughly as late as 1900 but are now employed only as conscious archaisms, as described and exemplified in definition 2 above. An archaic term is generally more recognizable, as when encountered in literature, than one labeled Obsolete.
More words related to archaic
adj. old, often very old
adj. out-of-date; prehistoric
adj. in the past
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.Cite This Source


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What made Ronald Reagan tick? What was the secret to his greatness, the source of his influence, the key to his character, the strength behind his leadership?
And why does it matter to the nation today?
Just the mention of his name still evokes deep admiration and affection among Americans of every stripe, on both sides of the aisle. Many have previously sought to capture the essence of this very public figure often called "mysterious and unknowable". But now, as James Rosebush tells Reagan's story from firsthand experience in True Reagan, we come closer to understanding the heart of this great American.
In his roles as the longest-serving chief of staff to Nancy Reagan and deputy assistant to President Reagan (his point man on philanthropy and public/private partnerships), James Rosebush had unrivaled one-on-one access to Reagan, observing his personality, his decision making, and his guarded nature. Rosebush's revelations are moving and meant to inspire us to look to our 40th president for guidance now as we face the global challenges of a complicated 21st century.
Ronald Reagan was first and foremost an intensely private person, although the life he led placed him at the center of people's attention from his earliest years. Small-town boy and college athlete, sportscaster and lifelong sports fan, actor and movie star, union leader and TV spokesman, Democrat and Republican, governor and president: What an incredible and extraordinary path. Rosebush tells how his center core was formed by his mother, who devoted herself to helping others even as the Reagans struggled themselves. The spiritual foundation she instilled in him by teaching him the Bible governed his thoughts, beliefs, and actions all his life.
In a very real sense, his upbringing destined Reagan to become a global evangelist for American exceptionalism - but, importantly, as Rosebush learned firsthand, that did not mean Reagan thought Americans themselves were superior, as today's pundits and politicians often preach. Rather, Reagan believed that the ideals of America's founding were superior, enabling all Americans to live lives based on high ideals and spiritual principles and thus achieve unparalleled success. Reagan was uniquely able to lead from true conviction and strength, his confidence stemming from an unshakeable fundamental belief system.
Better understanding the essence of this inspiring and principled leader is critical to our future. Journey back with Rosebush through the innumerable examples he recounts from firsthand observation, and marvel once again at True Reagan.
©2016 James Rosebush (P)2016 Hachette Audio
"Jim captures the wit, wisdom, and warmth of President Reagan. He was there as Reagan set out to change America and wound up changing the world. Jim had a unique perch to understand the character and leadership attributes of our beloved 40th President. He also was a keen observer of the real, not Hollywood, love affair between the President and Nancy and the impact that had on Reagan's achievements." (Kenneth M. Duberstein, former White House chief of staff to President Reagan)
"Rosebush understands Reagan - what motivated him and what made him great. We need a whole lot more of Reagan's powerful moral courage and Jim Rosebush has shared what the President revealed to him on this subject during the years he worked in the White House. A must-read for anyone who loves Reagan and wants to understand him better. A blueprint for our current and future leaders. They could learn a lot from this book." (Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior contributor, radio host of the nationally syndicated Larry Kudlow Show)
"Jim Rosebush brings special perspective to the subject of Ronald Reagan. He enjoyed the unique position of having worked for both the President and First Lady. Jim is a natural communicator and, as such, has the capacity to reach a wide audience on a topic of great national interest." (Susan Eisenhower)
There are no listener reviews for this title yet.
"I'm a changed American having read this book"
How grateful I am that I chose to read this book. I knew a bit about Ronald Reagan, but after reading this book I feel like I know him as a friend. His example, how he lived his life, from beginning to end, is one every American should know. Regardless of your thought on politics and political parties, he was a good man. And goodness should be what we all strive for! Thank you, Jim Rosebush, for spending the time, the effort and giving us a thoughtful explanation of this extraordinary man. Reagan inspires me. In his last formal communication to his country, he is ever optimistic of America's place and purpose in this world. His example has further inspired me to strive, ever more purposefully, to live a life worthy of being one of those fortunate few who live in "the city on the hill." Thank you, Jim Rosebush, for allowing us the privilege to know better this remarkable man.
"James's first hand experience with Reagan"
makes this book revealing Reagan's life come to life. I graduated college in 1980 and became an adult under his leadership.
Enjoyed this book very much. Which gave a much needed look at faith and how to lead a nation
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Scientists have used data from the Cassini radar mapper to map the global wind pattern on Saturn's moon Titan using data collected over a four-year period, as depicted in this image.
The arrows indicate the direction in which sand is inferred to be transported along dunes observed in Titan radar data. Underlying the arrows is a base map from Cassini's imaging science subsystem. Many of the equatorial dark areas without arrows might have dunes but have not yet been imaged with radar. The dune orientations represent only the net effect of winds. It could be that sand transport only occurs on rare occasions, and winds from different directions can combine to yield the observed dune orientations.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
To save photo:


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Product Description
This powerful environmentally friendly cleaning combination digests grease, oil, protein, fat, starch, and other solid organic wastes to keep a clean, odour-free environment. The biological activity keeps working to ensure that cleaning and odour removal occur long after the initial product application.
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After diluting down, apply, clean, wipe. Use All Purpose Cleaner on tough soap scum and mildew build-up in the bathroom, shower, sink, floors or tile walls. All Purpose Cleaner can also be used to spot clean or shampoo carpets, drapes or laundry. The cleaner penetrates deep into the fibres to remove odours and organic stains such as food, wine, vomit and urine. Sprayed nightly into kitchen and bathroom sinks, it will keep drain pipes clean and clear of residual wastes and foul odours. The biological nature of All Purpose Cleaner makes it a safe, and environmentally friendly choice.
Liquid form, pink colour, pleasant odour.
500 ml bottles.
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Store in a cool, dry area.
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- Eliminates exposure to hazardous cleaners & corrosive acids.
- Packaged in ready-to-use containers.
- Safe for use on aluminium.
Additional Information
|Cost per Litre
|Diluted cost per 1/2 litre = £0.65p


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06/29/2017 13:55 to 01/01/2018 17:00 Important Message! Effective July 1, 2017 the State Board of Equalization has been restructured to better serve taxpayers. Learn more about the restructuring
Sales & Use Tax
Property Taxes
Special Taxes & Fees Returns
Filing Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
Sales & Use Tax
Property Taxes
Special Taxes & Fees
List of All Tax & Fee Programs
Sales & Use Tax
Property Taxes
Special Taxes & Fees
Register for a Permit, License or Account
Close a Permit, License or Account
Guide for New Permit and License Holders
Special Taxes and Fees Registration & Renewals
BTLG Table of Contents > Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax Law > Chapter 4 > Section 7520
7520. Requirement to disclose multiple locations. Every person required to be licensed by the board shall provide the board with the names and addresses of all agents operating in this state, the location of all offices or other places of business in this state, and any other information as the board may require.
1Added by Stats. 2000, Ch. 1053 (AB 2114), operative January 1, 2002.
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UN DESA | DPAD | Development Policy Analysis Division
Capacity Development and Advisory Services
Macroeconomic policy, external shocks and social protection
Costa Rica highlights
Costa Rica is a well diversified economy, but it is also very open and must be ready to react to external conditions
In the event of either a 50% fall in the price of Costa Rica's main exports or a 50% drop in non-FDI net capital inflows, the country's GDP growth would fall by 4% annually and poverty would increase by 4 percentage points. Employment in formal sectors, which are more closely linked to international markets, would fall by half of the GDP rate, and informality would increase. The net effect is negative, and affects women in particular. In another simulated shock, an increase in world food prices would have a small effect on poverty since the country is a net-exporter of these products. Rural households would gain from higher incomes, while urban households would suffer.
External shocks have a large effect on poverty rates due to Costa Rica's open economy and links between labour markets and exports
Social policies are effective, but carry a large cost
In terms of social public policy simulations, the results show that, while they can have an important short term benefit and help to alleviate poverty, they are fiscally expensive. The financing for these policies requires an important domestic component which crowds-out of private domestic investment. Nonetheless, the policies with the larger impact on household poverty following an external shock are those that transfer income directly, such as a grant to poor households with school-age children and unemployment grants. In less drastic, and more realistic, external shocks, these policies are sufficient to completely compensate for the negative effects of the shock on poverty rates.


text:
David Schultz appears in the following:
Nintendo Wii Helped Budding Surgeons Move To Head Of The Class
Thursday, February 28, 2013
How's this for a tough assignment?
A group of Italian researchers forced 21 surgical residents to play video games on a Nintendo Wii for an hour a day, five days a week, for four weeks. Whew!
Then the researchers had the residents perform a simulated keyhole surgery. They found that ...
Drugs May Help More Americans Keep Hypertension Under Control
Monday, October 22, 2012
A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows progress in the fight against cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. One reason may be that mo...
Transportation Nation: Speeding up the Pace of Spending
Thursday, February 25, 2010
In partnership with WNYC Radio in New York, The Takeaway's Transportation Nation looks at the changing shape of America's transit landscape.


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"It's okay to be in the service industry, but building a product is where the money's at." These wise words come from a trusted advisor who was encouraging me to think deeper about building income streams.
I can't say that he's wrong. In fact, if I were to calculate sales of the ebook I launched last month, I'd have a healthier bank account at this very moment. True, not everyone who downloaded the book for free would pay for the same thing. But many would and, at $9 or $10 a pop, that would be a good payday.
I've stressed this elsewhere, but I believe we're at a point where people will need to build multiple revenue streams to excel. Not just survive, any desk job with a paycheck can help you do that. But really, truly, honestly excel to the point where you get to do some really cool things.
Does this frighten you? Have you seen this at work in your own life? When I sit down and look at where I have income coming in, here's what I find:
- Amazon affiliates
- A salary and a stipend
- Small contracting projects
- The occasional speaking gig (although, these are becoming less and less frequent because of the extensive speaking we do at Monk)
I see a gaping hole in there for product. Product development is where I'm focusing a lot of my thought and energy, as it's the key to my financial freedom. Yours too.
Here are a few ideas I've toyed around with:
- Continue writing ebooks, both free and paid.
- Develop a physical product that benefits remote/virtual workers.
- Develop social media and productivity resources.
- Build the ever-elusive app.
Time will tell if any of these will get past the planning stages, but I'm gearing my thinking this way. I think you should too. After all, few of us actually push ourselves to our limits. So why not give it a go?
This is all an experiment. I'd love to hear how yours is going. Let me know in the comments below and we can learn together!


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Republican Party Continues War Against Contraception (H.R. 2458)
Let's talk about fertilized eggs. Read up on the stages of human embryological development and you'll see what a tiny, tiny thing a fertilized egg is. Read some more and you'll figure out that many stages of development, over many days, must occur before an


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Drag City
Back in 1978, The Mekons were riding high at the forefront of the emerging post-punk movement, only to seemingly miss their chance and disappear from view like so many others from the scene. Their resurrection with a new line-up in 1984 was as unexpected as the new direction they took. In the thirty odd years since, they have developed a music that sounds terrible in theory — a mix of Americana, world music, punk, trip-hop, reggae, morris dance — allied to surrealist imagery and left wing politics that bizarrely works against all odds.
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Continue reading Chivalrous Amoekons – Fanatic Voyage […]


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There was something about Matt Davis that made everyone's heart skip a beat, mostly when he was outside, on the field, practicing Soccer with the Glen Heights High Soccer team. Matt is what you would call a heartthrob – he was the kind of guy you could just see as a Hollywood leading man; tall, blond, and a thousand watt smile. Of course, all serious heartthrobs are in serious relationships, with girls who you never know how they started dated. For Matt, that was Kiki Morris; she was the cheerleader of all cheerleaders – petite with bleach blond hair, and a nasty side that scared even the teachers. They had been dating for a year, and everyone thought they were Glen Height's golden couple – there was no doubt they would end up prom king and queen.
So it came as quiet a surprise when Matt, in the middle of the hallway, broke up with Kiwi. I, of course, was first hand to witness the break-up. It was messy, and loud, and Kiki nearly screamed as Matt told her that she wasn't the right girl for him, and that they needed to break up before things got to serious. The look on Kiki's face was priceless, and the way she asked "why" was almost heartbreaking, if someone didn't remember how much of a bitch she was in real life. I, of course, remembered her true face, and so I got a real kick out of watching their breaking up conversation. Later, after Matt had walked off, and she was standing there alone, she turned around and noticed me, giving me an awful look. "What are you looking at?" She muttered, pushing past me, "Loser."
I didn't take Kiki's harsh words badly – I knew I was a loser, or at least what my peers at Glen Heights would consider a loser. I was a writer; I spent my Saturday nights finishing up homework, instead of dating, and I was always the top of my class in everything, except sports. Of course, later as I was spilling the details back to my best friends Sarah and Michelle, I skipped that part, mostly because I was slightly embarrassed. They, of course, got quite the kick out of the public embarrassment of the school's bitch, and then started talking about now that Matt was single, who they thought that he would start dating now.
"A boy like that is never single for very long." Sarah said. "He'll have a new girlfriend within a week." We were all lying across Sarah's bed, a mound of Cosmo magazines spread before us. I wasn't really a fan of the magazine, I found it kind of mindless, but she and Michelle loved reading all about the beauty tips, trying them out in the middle of the afternoon.
Michelle tested some lip-gloss and then turned back towards us, a newly pink pout. "It will probably be something like Gina Connor." Gina Connor, like Kiki, was a school princess, who would have been the perfect match for Matt because she was beautiful, and popular, and could have easily adorned the cover of teen magazines. "She would be perfect for him – beautiful and mindless, like him. They would have beautiful little children." She picked up another little lip-gloss and examined it, then turned to us after she had applied it. "What do you think?"
Sarah shook her head, as though she was a beauty critic. "I think it's too pink." Michelle nodded, and picking up a tissue, removed the too pink gloss.
Picking up one of the Oreo cookies that we had on a plate as our treat, I nibbled on it, and then sighed. "Do you really think that he's mindless?" I asked; the truth was, since the first grade when he had walked into my glass, and sat down beside me at my table, I had a life-sized crush on him. Most people don't keep their crushes that start that young, but even as we grew up, and he went off with the popular people, and I went off with the loser people, my crush remained; the day I had watched him dump Kiki, I wasn't just happy because he was dumping her, but because a tiny part of me wanted him to find me, and like me, even if the chance of that happening was one in a million.
"Looks like Drea is crushing again." Michelle said in her typical singsong voice.
I glared at her, "I am not." I told her, giving her a look. It was obvious that I was crushing on him, but I didn't want it being declared to the entire world. "And besides, it doesn't matter." God. Those words were true, but that hurt. It was sad that just because I wasn't one of the popular, beautiful girls, that he wouldn't give me a second glance. I sighed, and picked up a random magazine, attempting to change the conversation. "Lose ten pounds in two seconds." I said in joking matter, not even reading the magazine. "Wow, that's cool." Out of the corner of their eyes, I could see both Sarah and Michelle shake their heads, and roll their eyes, but I ignored it, pretending to be engrossed in the magazine I wasn't even reading. It worked; after a couple minutes, both girls went back to fixing their make-up, and I sat on my own, thinking about the harsh truth.
A couple days later, while sitting in the newspaper office, I got a surprise. I am the head reporter, which was a job that took me two years to get, so when Mr. McKinney walked up to me that afternoon, I knew that the story he was about to pitch was going to be mine. "Drea." He said, waking over. I looked up from my computer, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah?" I asked, stopping my typing. I was finishing up a story on the cafeteria, and how they were beginning to offer both healthier choices, but also vegan friendly options; it was pure fluff, and slightly boring, but it was my foot into the door of writing, and journalism, and I didn't mind writing about it. "What do you got for me?" I asked, sounding like a journalist. He threw a sheet of paper down on my desk, and I read it. It was a pitch for an article on the school's top athlete – Mathew Davis. I looked up from the sheet towards Mr. McKinney, and looked confused. "What's this?" I asked.
He looked over. "The pitch."
"I mean," I began, clearing my voice and trying not too sound too emotional. "Is that Alex usually handles the sports." I told him, looking over at Alex Olsen, who was our sports writer, and who handled these kinds of articles, instead of me. "I mean, this is more his territory than mine." I paused, fixing my blazer. "Sports really isn't my foray."
Mr. McKinney shook his head: "Didn't you read the whole sheet?" He asked. I sheepishly shook my head – I was so caught up in the fact that I was going to have to get the goods on Matt, that the second I had read his name I had paused, and looked up in shock. "It's not a sports article." He told me, and I looked down, reading over the pages as he spoke. "It's a person article; the boy behind the sport, that kind of thing." I looked up nodding, "Think you can handle it?" He asked me, as if he doubted my writing skills. I nodded – of course I could handle this, he was just another article; that was all – and picked up my pen.
"You can count on me." My voice was enthusiastic. I was ready.
"Good." He started, "Now go out to the soccer field, and get some preliminary notes. I want this article for two weeks from now." He instructed me, and I nodded, even though I wasn't sure that I could do all I wanted in two weeks; I wanted this to be the best article I could do. I cleaned up my computer, printing off my final copy of the cafeteria article – handing it to McKinney, who smiled brightly at my great work – and then walked out of the room, ready to start this article. I stopped at my locker - locking up my computer safely – grabbing my trusty notebook, which had all the notes to my articles in it from this year, and then walked off in the direction of the gym. The cheerleaders were practicing, and I could see them staring as me as I walked through – my tweed blazer, and my black rimmed glasses.
"What is she doing here?" One of them asked, with venom in her voice.
Ignoring her, I continued on my way through the gym, until I opened the Gym doors, which led to the Soccer field, and noticed where the guys were practicing their soccer moves. I noticed Matt over near the Soccer goal – his shirt was off, and he had a dark tan on his shoulders, which I imagined was from his soccer practices. I inhaled deeply, adjusted my glasses, then walked down the hill to where all the players were, and over to the Coach, who was an older man with thinning hair. "Hello." I said, as I walked over, shaking his hand. "My name is Drea Cruise," I spoke professionally, like I had practiced so many times before, for the days when I would be doing it as a professional, instead of just a high school job.
He kept darting his attention from me, to the field. "Nice to meet you." He said, then something caught his eye, and he started his Coach dilate. "Kelly!" He yelled, and I looked over towards the ongoing practice. "What did I tell you about hogging the ball?" His voice bellowed, and I decided that he was perfect as a coach – his voice carried far. Turning his attention to me, he smiled. "What can I do for you?" He asked.
"I'm with the school paper." He nodded as I spoke. "And we're doing an article on Matt Davis." I pointed out towards the field where Matt was doing soccer drills, back and forth, his muscles moving as he took each turn. The coach looked over at me, and I smiled. "I was hoping I could talk to him for a couple minutes."
"Right now?" He asked.
I bit my lip. "Well," I started, "If right now is a bad time, maybe I could ask you a couple questions, would that be okay?" Looking down at my sheet, which had sample questions to ask his fellow teammates and coaches, I read over them and the cleared my throat. "What do you think of Matt, as a soccer player?" As the coach began to talk, I copied down short jot notes. I asked him a series of questions. Eventually, he got too distracted by the field, and I sat down ready to wait for Matt to finish. I was never really a fan of soccer – or any sport – but as I watched him play, I couldn't help but get drawn in. I wasn't sure if it was my crush on him, or because I was writing about him, but I was suddenly a fan.
Practice ended, and as everyone began to pack up there things, I swooped right in, ready to ask questions. "Hey." I said, as I stood before him. "Matt?" I asked, as though I had absolutely no idea who he was – what a lie. I could feel butterflies in my stomach, and a nervousness that made me question whether or not I could handle the one on one questioning that I had in store.
"Do I know you?" He asked.
I smiled, trying to act professionally. "Not really." I told him; my voice sounded so fake, and I wanted to be me, but I doubted that I could get all my questions out. "I'm with the school newspaper. My name's Drea." Pause. "We're doing an article on you." My voice was enthusiastic, and I was hoping that maybe he would be happy about that, or scared.
"An article?" He asked, as I nodded. "An article on what exactly?"
He nodded, and I went on to explain as much about it as I could. I told him it was about his life outside of being a soccer player, the personal stuff that no one really knew. I could see his hesitation towards the questions, but I assured him that it wouldn't be that personal, and that he wouldn't have to worry about his peers knowing his deep dark secrets, and I would do my best to make sure he was portrayed in the best possible light. "Well," He said, smiling – which was always a good sign. "I guess that I can put myself in your hands then." I smiled, although I was taking that more literal than I should have been.
"Super." I paused. "I guess, I should get your phone number." The second I said it I immediately regretted it. I had just asked the most popular (and attractive) guy in my school, the guy that almost every girl wanted to get alone with, for his phone number. What was I thinking?
He didn't hold back though. "No problem." He told me, reaching over and taking my pen, then writing his phone number across the top of my notebook, "So there, call me anytime if you need to ask something." I nodded, and then watched as he slipped on his tee shirt and threw his duffle bag over his shoulder. "So do you need anything else?" He asked, as the two of us stood there together.
I shook my head, then looked down at my sheet – although it was just an act – and then nodded. "I think we're good."
He walked away from me, and I headed back towards the building, picking up my lap top and book-bag, then walking out into the parking lot where my Volvo was parked. I tossed everything into the back seat, and then climbed into the driver's side; as I stuck the key into the ignition, I paused, thinking about what I was getting into. It was enough to have a secret crush on someone like Matt Davis, but to then have to an article – an unbiased article – on him, that was another thing completely. I didn't know what I was getting into, and I couldn't believe it was happening to me, but I couldn't just turn around, walk back into the school, and say I couldn't happen this. He was just a boy, a super attractive boy, but a boy none the less. I could handle this; I had to handle this.
Later that night, I was sitting at my computer, typing out an essay for English – advanced, obviously – when I looked over on my bulletin board and noticed the pitch that I had received, with the whole idea for the article, his phone number written across the top. Really, if it was any other article I would have already got enough information to write up, but the only thing I had so far was a couple quotes from the coach. My phone was beside me, untouched, and it would have been so simple just to pick it up, and dial his number. I bit my lip, seriously thinking about it. And then, I did something completely out of character for me; I picked up the phone and dialled Matt's number, without a questioning it any. It was only later, when the phone was ringing, that I realized what I was doing.
"Hello?" His voice sounded different over the phone that it did in person, deeper, huskier. It made him sound more like the heartthrob that he was.
I paused, breathing deeply. "Hey." I paused again, realizing that he probably had no idea who was calling him. "Drea." Another pause, and I guess he didn't remember that I had told him my name. "The girl with the paper." I said finally.
"Oh, hi."
I could tell that he thought it was weird for me to be calling right now; it was pretty late, although probably not for someone of his popularity. "Sorry to call so late." I told him, "I just had a couple questions to ask you, to get a basic idea of the kind of person you are." It was a lame excuse – I wasn't calling to ask him questions, I was calling because I was… something. I was abusing my newspaper privileges all because I had a stupid crush. That was definitely not professional – what was I going to do if I someday had to interview Brad Pitt, just call him up in the middle of the night stating I had to "ask him some questions." I would so be fired.
But, being as I told him that I needed to ask him some questions, I continued on, asking him about his grades – which he laughed about, but in the end I found out he did excellently – and his private life which I found out that he liked to keep private, but before I could stop myself I was asking him private questions, questions that I doubted I would end up using in the article anyways. "What do you look for in a girl?" I asked, hoping that he wouldn't think I was a crazy person.
"This is what the article is about?" He laughed.
I tried to keep it light. "I'm sure the girls out there are curious to know. You're like the Colin Farrell of our school – everyone wants to know what you look for when it comes to dating." I was trying to play it off, making things light, but I was still scared he would think I was crazy.
After that, though, I managed to get stuff out of him. I asked him more questions, playing it off humourless, and trying to find out as much as I could. It was a good conversation, one of the best interviews I had ever done, even if I had another motive. Before I knew it, it was close to midnight, and I still hadn't finished my English essay. "Listen," He started, and I listened as I cradled the phone in my hand. "I really have to get going."
"I understand," I told him. "Thanks for everything."
"No problem."
After we had hung up, I sat down on my computer and started writing my essay again. Every so often, though, my mind would wander and I would start thinking about him, and our conversation. Maybe this is silly, but I started to think that maybe it was more than just an interviewer/interviewee conversation; maybe we had a serious connection, like in the movies. Sexy guy, smart girl who meet each other, and through it all – the stares, the comments from his popular friends – we would work it out and live happily ever after, or something like that. Or maybe I was seriously delusional, and I just needed to get it through my head that it was one little article, and that in the end he would probably go back to his friends, as would I, and this whole thing would just be a dream that never came true.
I spent a couple days spending time, interviewing him. We really got to know each other; the first place he took me was to a coffee shop, where I pulled out my notebook, writing down his favourite things; he loved espresso, books by Nick Hornby, and on Saturday morning's he always caught Spongebob before he started his day. It was interesting, writing everything down, learning his secrets. I sipped my cappuccino – which he bought for me – and every so often asked him a question, slipping in the questions to which I wanted to know the answers, mostly about his relationships, and such.
"You sure want a lot." He told me, after answering one particularly tough question.
I smiled. "It's my job."
At school, Mr. McKinney wasn't so keen that I was taking so long on my article. By now, with any other article, I would have already submitted my rough draft, having him check over it, then going out and getting more information. This time, I hadn't even started my article yet; I wasn't sure what I was waiting for, but I knew that I couldn't start it yet. Of course, I just told Mr. McKinney that I was just making sure that I got everything perfect before I got him to look over my first draft. "You're not going to let me down, are you kid?" I shook my head no, although I wasn't sure. I hadn't put stuff of so much before; I was stuck in this crush mode, and suddenly realizing that it was interfering in my school life. And that wasn't good.
I spent that night with Matt, at Wendy's, eating French fries and learning all about his College plans. I found out that he had been offered scholarships to three amazing schools. "Wow." I said, after he told me their names. "Those are impressive schools." He nodded, but I could tell that he wasn't as excited about it as I seemed to be. "But no so exciting I asked?"
He shook his head. "No, not that."
This was what I had been searching for when it came to the article, real dirt, and the kind of answers that made him seem like a real person. "What's up?" I asked; I wondered if he felt the same kind of connection that I felt every time I was around him.
"Nothing." He told me, "Don't worry about it." Of course, being the reporter that I was I couldn't leave that question alone, I had to find the answer, and so because of that I kept on pressing, or rather, telling him that he could tell me anything, no matter why, because I would listen. "Thanks." He smiled, although it seemed weird, or strained, and then we turned back to eating our meals – his cheeseburger, my grilled chicken burger – and I shared my fries with vinegar. He was quiet for a long time, and I was too scared to say anything more, so I remained quiet, and munched on my fries. "Listen," He said after a long time. "I should get going, I have soccer practice early in the morning."
I smiled. "Okay, thanks for everything."
"No problem." We stood up, beginning to leave, and he leaned in and gave me a hug. It was a surprise – I seriously hadn't been expecting something like that – but I hugged him back. On the way home, while I drove through my neighbourhood, I got to thinking about it. What did it mean that he had hugged me? I wanted to believe that there was some kind of deeper meaning behind it, but then came the whole social barrier – him popular, me not. Could he be ignoring that, and through it all, just caring about two people, and what they could feel for each other.
So I sat in front of my computer, looking over my notes and preparing what I was going to write. I had so much, but the words weren't coming. It was as though my head was being blinded by the crush I had on Matt. There was just so much I wanted to say about him, but most of it was the heartthrob that he was, and I wasn't sure if the male readers of the newspaper would be interested in how cute he looked in his soccer uniform. No. I wanted to do serious journalism, and not some fluff piece that would make everyone notice my lifelong crush on him. I started typing, but everything ended up mentioning either how cute he was, or how nice, and I just had to stop, sit back and try to right something later.
And so, I decided something; instead of sitting around trying to figure out what to write – which I imagined wasn't just going to happen – so instead, I found my way out into the night, driving around. Maybe I was acting crazy, obsessed, or maybe I was just one minded, but whatever it was I was out on the road, looking for Matt, or maybe just my inspiration.
Stopping at the coffee shop where we had sat days before, talking about anything and everything, trying to figure out what I wanted to say. I probably would have left right then and there, off in search of another place where we had been, thinking about what I could write about, if I hadn't noticed Matt sitting in the café, sipping on his coffee. And this was where things got crazy – I turned off the ignition, unbuckled my seatbelt, and started my way into the café. It was going to be a casual bumping into, "Oh, what are you doing here" situation. I walked in, smiling, ready to get my drink, and then "bump" into him, when I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks. Because he wasn't alone - there, beside him, was another girl smiling happily and holding his hand. I Moved behind a big fake plastic plant, and looked over there again, watching as he smiled, and kissed her cheek. I could feel my heart sinking; this wasn't how I had imagined this whole thing ending.
I knew I couldn't just stand there all night, and I knew that I couldn't just run off climbing into my car, and driving away. So, instead, I held my head high and walked over to the counter and ordered a small vanilla latte – which cost me five dollars – and then turned around to walk away when I noticed Matt looking in my direction. "Drea." He said surprised. I bit my lip, and then gave him a fake smile. "What are you doing here?"
"Just craving one of these amazing drinks." I told him, sipping my too hot latte, which burnt my tongue.
I couldn't even look at the girl beside him, I was too scared, but he didn't notice and automatically, like a normal person, introduced her to me. "This is my date Kirsten." He told me, motioning towards her, and I smiled in her direction and muttered "hi". She was pretty, beautiful in fact, and happy enough. I wondered what he saw in her; it would have been silly to ask him, to pretend it was just another question, under the guise of the article. I had done that so much, to get to know him, and in the end it didn't matter, because he didn't choose me. "So do you need to get more information for the article tomorrow?" He asked, cheerily. All I could stare at was the way he was holding her hand, so carefully, and all I wanted was for him to hold my hand that way.
"No," I stepped back I spoke, sipping the drink. "I think I have everything I need."
I walked out of there after that, leaving him behind, tossing my over priced drink down in the trash as soon as I was out of sight, and climbing into my car. Tears were welling in my eyes, but I pushed them aside; it was silly to cry about something that had never happened, or had any chance of ever happening. After a long car ride, and too many sad songs on the radio, I found my way home and back to my bedroom where it all started. Sitting in front of my computer, I was still fighting back tears, trying not to cry about something as silly as a boy who didn't like me back. Words began pouring out, through my fingers and onto the computer screen, and it was almost as though I couldn't stop myself.
I finished the article in two days, and when I finally handed off the article to Mr. McKinney, I was proud of myself. It was unbiased – although that had been the hardest part about writing it, not putting in the anger that I was feeling towards him – and portrayed him in the light that I had saw him; funny, witty, and someone that was just more than a soccer player and heartbreaker. And that had helped me, more than I could even realize, because now I knew that there was nothing special about him, really. He wasn't a movie star, he wasn't heartthrob; he was just a guy, like I was girl, who did more with my heart than just make it flutter. First crushes are never easy, and are usually never reciprocated. But there is something about the first heartbreak, when you realize that not all guys are fairytale princes. Matt Davis was that for me – sexy, popular, and my first heartbreak.