TomorrowYesterday

WiserAdvisor.com University: Top 12 Mistakes 401k Investors Make
Here is what a former SEC Chairman has to say on the issue: “You should fire your broker and find an investment advisor. Brokerage firms would like you to think that they perform the same functions as investment advisors. Many brokers call themselves ‘financial consultants’ or ‘financial advisors’. But they are not the same as independent investment advisors… an investment advisor’s fiduciary duty is on a higher plane, like that of a lawyer, a trustee, or the executor of an estate.” – Arthur Levitt, Former SEC Chairman

interesting

What Pilots Can Teach Hospitals About Patient Safety – New York Times
“We’re where the airline industry was 30 years ago” when a series of fatal mistakes increased scrutiny and provoked change, said Dr. Stephen B. Smith, chief medical officer at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the teaching hospital for the University of Nebraska.
It is well established that, like airplane crashes, the majority of adverse events in health care are the result of human error, particularly failures in communication, leadership and decision-making.
“The culture in the operating room has always been the surgeon as the captain at the controls with a crew of anesthesiologists, nurses and techs hinting at problems and hoping they will be addressed,” Dr. Smith said. “We need to change the culture so communication is more organized, regimented and collaborative, like what you find now in the cockpit of an airplane.”
After the Canary Islands accident, NASA convened a panel to address aviation safety and came up with a program called Cockpit or Crew Resource Management. The Federal Aviation Administration requires that all pilots for commercial airlines and the military undergo the training. They learn, among other things, to recognize human limitations and the impact of fatigue, to identify and effectively communicate problems, to support and listen to team members, resolve conflicts, develop contingency plans and use all available resources to make decisions.

interesting

“The trend is not surprising given the similarities between health care and aviation,” said Dr. David M. Gaba, associate dean of immersive and simulation-based learning at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif.
“Both involve hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror,” he said.

GULP

MercuryNews.com | 10/30/2006 | Non-stop flights dwindling at S.J.
When Barbara Norvell of San Jose boards a plane these days, her destinations are typically faraway and exotic — South America, Asia, Europe. But in recent months, her choice of airports has become faraway, too.
Norvell, who lives just 12 minutes from Mineta San Jose International Airport, flies out of San Francisco far more often than she once did. That’s because she has fewer non-stop options from San Jose on her preferred carrier, American Airlines.
“It’s very discouraging,” she said.
These days, it seems the airport is “international” in name only.
Destinations such as Paris, Taipei and Vancouver are no longer available, and American Airlines flew its last San Jose-Tokyo route on Friday, ending a 15-year run. If you want to fly internationally, you’ll have to settle for one of three daily flights to Mexico on Mexicana Airlines.
But even as business struggles, especially on flights operated by American, airport officials believe a turnaround is coming.
Last week, Frontier Airlines announced that it has applied to the Department of Transportation to begin service from San Jose to Cabo San Lucas four times a week in March. Bill Sherry, the airport’s director of aviation, said he is also in talks with three other carriers on trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific routes, including Tokyo.

How true. How sad.

St. Louis is U.S.’s most dangerous city – Yahoo! News
A surge in violence made St. Louis the most dangerous city in the country, leading a trend of violent crimes rising much faster in the Midwest than in the rest of nation, according to an annual list.
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The city has long fared poorly in the rankings of the safest and most dangerous American cities compiled by Morgan Quitno Press. Violent crime surged nearly 20 percent in St. Louis from 2004 to last year, when the rate of such crimes rose most dramatically in the Midwest, according to
FBI figures released in June.
“It’s just sad the way this city is,” resident Sam Dawson said. “On the news you hear killings, someone’s been shot.”
The ranking, being released Monday, came as the city was still celebrating Friday’s
World Series victory at the new Busch Stadium. St. Louis has been spending millions of dollars on urban renewal even as the crime rate climbs.
Mayor Francis Slay did not return calls to his office seeking comment Sunday.

doh

GAO chief warns economic disaster looms – Yahoo! News
Calculations by Boston University economist Lawrence Kotlikoff indicate that closing those gaps — $8 trillion for Social Security, many times that for Medicare — and paying off the existing deficit would require either an immediate doubling of personal and corporate income taxes, a two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits, or some combination of the two.
Why is America so fiscally unprepared for the next century? Like many of its citizens, the United States has spent the last few years racking up debt instead of saving for the future. Foreign lenders — primarily the central banks of China, Japan and other big U.S. trading partners — have been eager to lend the government money at low interest rates, making the current $8.5-trillion deficit about as painful as a big balance on a zero-percent credit card.
In her part of the fiscal wake-up tour presentation, Rogers tries to explain why that’s a bad thing. For one thing, even when rates are low a bigger deficit means a greater portion of each tax dollar goes to interest payments rather than useful programs. And because foreigners now hold so much of the federal government’s debt, those interest payments increasingly go overseas rather than to U.S. investors.
More serious is the possibility that foreign lenders might lose their enthusiasm for lending money to the United States. Because treasury bills are sold at auction, that would mean paying higher interest rates in the future. And it wouldn’t just be the government’s problem. All interest rates would rise, making mortgages, car payments and student loans costlier, too.
A modest rise in interest rates wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, Rogers said. America’s consumers have as much of a borrowing problem as their government does, so higher rates could moderate overconsumption and encourage consumer saving. But a big jump in interest rates could cause economic catastrophe. Some economists even predict the government would resort to printing money to pay off its debt, a risky strategy that could lead to runaway inflation.
Macroeconomic meltdown is probably preventable, says Anjan Thakor, a professor of finance at Washington University in St. Louis. But to keep it at bay, he said, the government is essentially going to have to renegotiate some of the promises it has made to its citizens, probably by some combination of tax increases and benefit cuts.
But there’s no way to avoid what Rogers considers the worst result of racking up a big deficit — the outrage of making our children and grandchildren repay the debts of their elders.
“It’s an unfair burden for future generations,” she says.

oh noes

GAO chief warns economic disaster looms – Yahoo! News
David M. Walker sure talks like he’s running for office. “This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids,” the comptroller general of the United States warns a packed hall at Austin’s historic Driskill Hotel. “We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed.”
[snip]
From the hustings and the airwaves this campaign season, America’s political class can be heard debating Capitol Hill sex scandals, the wisdom of the war in
Iraq and which party is tougher on terror. Democrats and Republicans talk of cutting taxes to make life easier for the American people.
What they don’t talk about is a dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows, or at least should. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to correct it.
There’s a good reason politicians don’t like to talk about the nation’s long-term fiscal prospects. The subject is short on political theatrics and long on complicated economics, scary graphs and very big numbers. It reveals serious problems and offers no easy solutions. Anybody who wanted to deal with it seriously would have to talk about raising taxes and cutting benefits, nasty nostrums that might doom any candidate who prescribed them.

doh

The Cheapest City on Earth – WSJ.com
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — From my hotel window I can see one of Asia’s tallest buildings — the dramatic Petronas Twin Towers. My room is spacious and has all the little touches, such as thick terry cloth robes, that you’d expect from a five-star hotel. Downstairs, near the gym, there is a spa with hot and cold whirlpool baths. The breakfast buffet features specialties from Malaysia, China and Japan. All of this, with taxes and service charge, at the Shangri-La Hotel, is costing me $107 a night.
[The Petronas Towers]
The Petronas Towers
I haven’t asked the manager for a discount, nor have I used airline miles to cover two-thirds of the cost. Rather, my room is so inexpensive because I’ve taken a trip to the world’s cheapest major city.
Every three years, Swiss banking giant UBS does a survey of prices around the world, including what a tourist would pay for a typical overnight package of an upscale hotel room, meals, transportation and theater outings. In this year’s survey, released recently, Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, took the honors, outranking cities with a reputation for budget travel such as Mumbai and Prague. Kuala Lumpur’s total UBS travel package costs $260 — less than one-quarter of what the same package would go for in London ($1,180) or Tokyo ($1,090), the two most expensive cities for tourists. Of the four U.S. cities in the survey, the lowest package cost $720 in Los Angeles and the highest was $920 in New York.

Good to know

The Expat Life – WSJ.com
A couple of friends had purchased cars with the help of African expat “Beijing Bob,” who was said to make the process quick and painless. After browsing his Beijing Car Solution Web site, I told him we were interested in a Mitsubishi Futurer, which has a starting price of just over $20,000 total as well as a confusing array of Chinese named products all grouped together. He said he would arrange for us to see them. The next day, his employee Alice called and said the dealer was “close, close. Off the 4th Ring Road.” Rebecca would be coming from the office to meet us there.
The 4th Ring Road runs fairly close to our house, but it also circles Beijing and once Alice’s driver got on it, we turned south and drove nearly to the other side of the city, passing at least two Mitsubishi dealers en route. After 40 minutes, we got off and drove through a maze of side streets before emerging near a string of car dealers. Oddly, rather than pulling into one of them, we parked by the side of a dirt field bisected by a metal construction fence. As I got out of the car, Rebecca called to say Mr. Dou, her office driver, was lost. This furthered my feeling of being on another planet; he never gets lost. Alice’s driver took the phone and he and Mr. Dou had an animated discussion.
Meanwhile, a young woman appeared, peeling back a section of the fence to allow us through. We crossed more dirt before entering a large, unmarked hangar-like structure. Four or five vans sat in the middle, each covered with a heavy layer of dust and grime. Alice cheerfully said, “Here they are.” The dusty cars represented the different models, from cheapest (manual transmission, cloth seats, no air bags) to most expensive (leather seats, dual airbags, DVD player). It was the strangest way to view new cars I could imagine.
By the time Rebecca arrived, it had started raining and the dirt field was growing muddy. We asked if we could take the top-of-the line model for a test drive. They seemed puzzled but said okay. We circled the bumpy dirt road around the large building. The car seemed okay, though I had serious reservations about the in-dash DVD player, and big questions about just what made this car, which bore a Chinese logo, a Mitsubishi. “Mitsubishi engine,” Alice explained. “What about this one?” I asked, pointing to the next cheaper model. “Mitsubishi design,” she said matter-of-factly.
The next stop was what Alice described as a Hyundai dealer. We drove almost an hour to reach the showroom, where they obviously had some connection with Bob, but they turned out to sell “Hindais.” At least I think they did; maybe it was a joint venture with Hyundai, but the van said “JAC” and it only had one airbag, breaking the main requirement I had laid out. We returned home after spending hours literally driving around in circles, annoyed and confused and no closer to having a new car.
[snip]
Figuring out how to get the dealer 160,000 renminbi shouldn’t have been difficult since we had the money sitting in the bank, aware that financing was not an option since we are foreigners. I was about to learn just how naïve I actually am about international finance. I transferred the money into a Citibank account designed for expats in which we usually only keep a small amount of cash for ATM withdrawals, then walked into a Beijing branch to transfer the money to the dealer’s account. Liu was waiting to go pick up the car.
The nice people at Citi restrained their laughter and explained that I could not access my U.S. account. Tracy Tian, a bilingual bank manager who would prove to be something of a guardian angel, patiently explained that I had to open a separate renminbi account, then transfer the money. Ready to scream, I opened the account and wired in the funds.
I then had to convert it from dollars to renminbi, which can only be done at the rate of $10,000 per day. After three more trips downtown, I could finally see a light at the end of the tunnel and could only hope it was not a train. When I had 183,000 renminbi in the account I asked Tracy for a cashier’s check and she looked at me as if I had inquired if she ever laid eggs. They don’t really do checks in China so I had two choices — withdrawing bags of cash, as most Chinese customers do (there is no currency larger than a 100 renminbi note), or transfer the money into the dealer’s account, which I chose to do.

ANd there’s more – what a crazy story.

What Your Pet is Thinking – WSJ.com
Just about every pet lover has a story about the astonishing intelligence of his cat, dog, bird, ferret or chinchilla. Ethologists, the scientists who study animal behavior, have amassed thousands of studies showing that animals can count, understand cause and effect, form abstractions, solve problems, use tools and even deceive. But lately scientists have gone a step further: Researchers around the world are providing tantalizing evidence that animals not only learn and remember but that they may also have consciousness — in other words, they may be capable of thinking about their thoughts and knowing that they know.
In the past few years, top journals have been publishing reports on self-awareness in dolphins and wild chimps whose different nut-cracking “technologies” constitute unique cultures. Others argue that rats have a sense of fun, mice show empathy for cage-mates and scrub jays are capable of “mental time travel” that enables them to remember where they stashed worms and seeds.
[rhesus macaque monkey]
Rhesus macaque monkeys have been the subject of memory studies in Atlanta
While researchers have yet to attain the field’s holy grail — proving that animals are self-aware — the findings already have broad implications. For the 69 million U.S. households that own a pet, such knowledge might lead owners to question their animal companions’ awareness of what they’re fed, how they’re housed and how often the kitty litter is changed. All of that would be a boon for the pet industry, which generates $38 billion in annual revenue, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, selling everything from food and grooming services to pet exercise gear, hotels and psychics.
Drug companies are already addressing animals’ feelings. Some 15 million dogs have taken Pfizer Inc.’s animal pain-reliever Remadyl. The company’s Anipryl targets “cognitive dysfunction syndrome” in dogs. (In a dog, symptoms include failing to recognize people or respond to its name and getting lost in the house.) Experts expect a steady stream of drugs aimed at pets’ minds instead of bodies.

interesting

Boeing 787 gives investors a sudden fright
The Boeing Co. threw a scare into Wall Street on Wednesday when it announced it was pouring hundreds of millions of dollars more into the development of its hot-selling 787 jetliner to head off problems that could otherwise threaten the project.
With the first flight less than a year away, the Dreamliner is still too heavy. And some suppliers are falling behind schedule.
Boeing said it has funded a contingency plan to hire more machinists to help with 787 final assembly at the Everett plant should they be needed to keep the program on track. The additional jobs — Boeing wouldn’t say how many — would be temporary.
Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney, in a conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings Wednesday, reassured analysts several times that he believes the 787 issues will be resolved and will not delay the plane’s entry into service in May 2008.

Remember, investment and hiring is bad for stock prices.