Wednesday, March 25, 2009

AIG Bonus -- What's Not Highlighted

If you have not heard of the outrage over bonuses AIG gave to its employees, I guess you are blissfully not listening to the news these days. Which may not be such a bad thing. Amongst all the politicians' outrage highlighted in the media, what is not highlighted is that the bonuses were NOT given to the same folks who put AIG (and us) in this mess. They are bonuses given to retain or pull in people who can untangle AIG (and us) from this mess. These are some of the few articles that seem to highlight and/or mention it -- an opinion piece in WSJ. Search on Google which turns up this blog site, Welker's Wikinomics, that aims to drive this point home. And this Seattle Times article points out that folks who created the mess have left AIG and those receiving retention bonus are not the same folks.

So knowing that and knowing that most executives returned the bonuses, it sucks to be those employees. The mass media and less complete reporting has transformed hard, tough job into a very very thankless job for folks who are trying to undo the mess. Lesson of the day? Apparently, abandon ship as soon as possible so that you are not mistaken for folks who created the problem.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Use or Non-use of the Word "Rape"

So I have noticed that in the last few years that news media stopped reporting that a woman was "raped." Instead, you frequently hear that a woman was "sexually assaulted." I don't understand what that means, do you?

Merriam-Webster defines "assault" as :a threat or attempt to inflict offensive physical contact or bodily harm on a person (as by lifting a fist in a threatening manner) that puts the person in immediate danger of or in apprehension of such harm or contact.

Legally, "assault" means an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.

So if I string all that together I take "sexual assault" may mean threatening or attempting to inflict harm in sexual manner. It doesn't seem to me that "sexual assault" means someone inflicted harm by committing unconsensual sex.

However, when you listen to the news media, the context makes it pretty clear that they use "sexual assault" synonymously with "rape." It seems like the news media decided the word "rape" carries harsher tone so they decided not to say that anymore. Which is cowardly and unjust to rape victims. Rape is a violent and, in my humble opinion, an unforgivable crime. Why soften that up for criminals who commit rape? Why belittle what happened to rape victims by softening up by using words which do NOT literally translate to rape?

I say, if someone actually commits rape, call it as it is -- it's rape. If someone "intends to do harm by creating fear of committing harm by using sex," then call it "sexual assault." And describe how that person did that to fully and accurately report how the person created the apprehension. Did the person say he was going to commit rape? Did the person bind and gag a victim, stripped himself so it appeared he would rape but did not actually commit rape? Don't let criminals off easy by erasing the word "rape" from our news vocabulary.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Follow This Guy on Twitter for Free Donation to School

So one of my friends tweeted about this blog where Tim Ferriss is donating $1 for each follower he gets on Twitter, and an anonymous donor is matching $2. So each follower to his Twitter would end up donating $3. He is capping it at 50,000 followers. He already has more than 25,000 followers. It's easy enough to follow someone, so I decided to follow him on Twitter. I hear how education is getting cut, teachers need money, etc. so this seems like a great timely drive. If you have a Twitter account, you might want to follow this guy. Can't hurt.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

How Safe is Our Money in Banks?

Bank failures and financial crisis have flooded our news in the past months. That's not really news anymore. But at least, people count on FDIC insurance to trust that our money in banks really is safe. Or is it really? According to the head of the FDIC, Sheila Bair, she warned that unless FDIC is shored up somehow (i.e. more fees, loan from the Treasury, something), FDIC will not have sufficient funds to cover our money in banks. This is one of the articles I've read (there are others... but very small, obviously to not alarm the public, probably).

The thing is, as scary as this sounds, it makes sense. If all banks fail, and if everyone has to rely on the safety net, yes, that safety net will be stretched and may be gone. But that safety net is there so that we don't have the public running to the bank, pull money out, and cause even more bank failures. If that happens, would having our money under our bed really help? Probably not. That may lead to hyper-inflation and paper money could become valueless.

So really, even if our money may not be safest in the bank, the only hope is to keep our money in the bank and do what it takes to make sure that banks survive. Hopefully, by then, FDIC will also be a much stronger safety net because banks would stop failing. Definitely interesting times to be living through... and may we all rise to the occasion!

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Evolution in Action

I was reading this news article about how the most common flu is now resistant to the main drugs. Which reminded me of the book I read about evolution still working in our times -- The Beak of the Finch. Basically, part of the process for the evolution is that once traits that cannot survive die off, the traits that did survive will start to proliferate. So if a drug has been used to kill off most flu strains, then resistant flu strains that survived will thrive. Well, that means job security for medical industry, I guess. ;)

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Thoughtless (i.e. Stupid) Scam Email

Yes, we all get kzillions of this spam -- someone from Africa has incredible amount of money and needs your help to transfer the money, for which you will get gobs of money. I used to forward those to FBI back when they first started surfacing (yes, you can refer them to law enforcement agencies... because it is a crime). But these days, I just throw them into spam folder and forget about them. On a whim, I read one before I decided to throw into my spam folder. And I just about fell laughing off of my chair because of the last thing this spammer/scammer asks.

"Dear Friend,

I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise, I got your contact address from the computerized search. My name is Mr Sani Mukila. I am the Bill and Exchange (assistant) Manager of Bank of Africa Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of nine million three hundred thousand United State of American dollars (9.3MILLION USA DOLLARS) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer Mr Kurt Kuhle from Alexandra Egypt who died along with his family in Siber airline that crashed into sea at Isreal on 4th October 2001.

Since I got information about his death I have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we can not release it unless somebody applies for it as the next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines, but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don't want the money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill. Am contacting you because our deceased customer is a foreigner and a Burkinabe can not stand as a next of kin to foreign customer.

The banking guidelines stipulate that the fund should be transferred into the bank treasury after 8 years if nobody is coming for the claim. I have agreed that 33% of this money will be for you as foreign partner in respect to the provision of your account for the transfer, 2% will be set aside for expenses that might occurred during the business and 65% would be for me, after which I shall visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated. Please I would like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a top secret as you may wish to know that I am a bank official. Indicating your interest and also Contact me via this email ( sanimukila1@hotmail.fr )

Please reply with the assurance, come up with the information's showed below:-

1)YOUR FULL NAME...................
2)YOUR AGE...................
3)MARITAL STATUS...................
4)YOUR CELL PHONE NUMBER...................
5)YOUR FAX NUMBER...................
6)YOUR COUNTRY...................
7)YOUR OCCUPATION...................
8)SEX...................
9)YOUR RELIGION...................
10)YOUR PRIVATE E-MAIL ADRESS...................

Yours sincerely,
Mr Sani Mukila.
PHONE ( 00226 71 35 28 65 )"

Ummm. Yes. If the guy needs me to reply back (since he emailed me first) with my private email address, how stupid is that?? It was rather amusing, and livened my Sunday night.