Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Nice song!
Labels: music video
Police inspector charged with bribery
SINGAPORE: A police inspector with Bedok Police Division was charged in court on Wednesday with bribery. He had allegedly accepted S$5,000 from a suspect, through his friend, in return for being lenient in the investigation.
The inspector was, at that time, in charge of the Commercial Crime Squad. In a statement, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said the officer was also accused of using the police force's computer system without authorisation to get the residential addresses of his former girlfriends and the ex-husband of one of those former girlfriends.
You know what's the reason right? He's not being paid enough. We should pay them more.. to prevent corruption.
The inspector was, at that time, in charge of the Commercial Crime Squad. In a statement, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said the officer was also accused of using the police force's computer system without authorisation to get the residential addresses of his former girlfriends and the ex-husband of one of those former girlfriends.
You know what's the reason right? He's not being paid enough. We should pay them more.. to prevent corruption.
Labels: crime and punishment, more money solves everything
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Immutable Laws of Gravity
1) What goes up must come down
2) When prices go up, they never come down.
3) Quality always goes down after a period of time and never goes up
4) Portions tend to go down over time while the corresponding prices go up.
2) When prices go up, they never come down.
3) Quality always goes down after a period of time and never goes up
4) Portions tend to go down over time while the corresponding prices go up.
Labels: Physics 101
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
My Christmas Eve Prediction
Next quarter, transport companies in Singapore will show that even in spite of the current economic crisis, they will report fairly high profits. Why? Because fare prices have gone up and petrol prices are coming down. And they will then proceed to give the people at the top nice fat bonuses to reward them for being able to pull that off.
Labels: transportation
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Nanocars!! Transform into.. a building?
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Storage&articleId=9123959&taxonomyId=19&pageNumber=1
Labels: tech
What they hey Australia? You used to be cool..
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,24833959-5014239,00.html
Guess no more bittorrents for them..
Guess no more bittorrents for them..
Labels: stupid policies
So now our transport fares are not linked to oil prices
From mrbrown.com
After years of being told our public transport fare hikes were because of fuel prices, today we learn a new thing about why public transport fares are NOT coming down, from our transport minister, Raymond Lim:
Mr Lim explained: "This is because the public transport fare is not directly linked to the oil prices. We link it to national factors, like the inflation level in Singapore, and the wage level in the whole of Singapore."
(via CNA)
Good thing Singaporeans don't have the habit of expressing themselves with their shoes. It would be hard to dodge more than one pair.
To reader Len: Yes, Singapore follows the Viagra Overdose School of Economics when it comes to prices — Easy to Go Up, Hard to Come Down.
Hmm.. and here I thought our rate of inflation was actually going down and that people in Singapore were actually getting wage freezes and pay cuts. Oh wait.. wage level in the whole of Singapore.. that includes the ministers.. who wreck the curve even though they probably don't take public transport at all.. Yup, that sounds fair enough. *
*More sarcasm
After years of being told our public transport fare hikes were because of fuel prices, today we learn a new thing about why public transport fares are NOT coming down, from our transport minister, Raymond Lim:
Mr Lim explained: "This is because the public transport fare is not directly linked to the oil prices. We link it to national factors, like the inflation level in Singapore, and the wage level in the whole of Singapore."
(via CNA)
Good thing Singaporeans don't have the habit of expressing themselves with their shoes. It would be hard to dodge more than one pair.
To reader Len: Yes, Singapore follows the Viagra Overdose School of Economics when it comes to prices — Easy to Go Up, Hard to Come Down.
Hmm.. and here I thought our rate of inflation was actually going down and that people in Singapore were actually getting wage freezes and pay cuts. Oh wait.. wage level in the whole of Singapore.. that includes the ministers.. who wreck the curve even though they probably don't take public transport at all.. Yup, that sounds fair enough. *
*More sarcasm
Labels: stupid policies
Charting the psychology of evil, decades after 'shock' experiment
From CNN.com
(CNN) -- If someone told you to press a button to deliver a 450-volt electrical shock to an innocent person in the next room, would you do it?
Common sense may say no, but decades of research suggests otherwise.
In the early 1960s, a young psychologist at Yale began what became one of the most widely recognized experiments in his field. In the first series, he found that about two-thirds of subjects were willing to inflict what they believed were increasingly painful shocks on an innocent person when the experimenter told them to do so, even when the victim screamed and pleaded.
The legacy of Stanley Milgram, who died 24 years ago on December 20, reaches far beyond that initial round of experiments. Researchers have been working on the questions he posed for decades, and have not settled on a brighter vision of human obedience.
A new study to be published in the January issue of American Psychologist confirmed these results in an experiment that mimics many of Milgram's original conditions. This and other studies have corroborated the startling conclusion that the majority of people, when placed in certain kinds of situations, will follow orders, even if those orders entail harming another person.
"It's situations that make ordinary people into evil monsters, and it's situations that make ordinary people into heroes," said Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University and author of "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil."
How Milgram's experiments worked
Milgram, who also came up with the theory behind "six degrees of separation" -- the idea that everyone is connected to everyone else through a small number of acquaintances -- set out to figure out why people would turn against their own neighbors in circumstances such as Nazi-occupied Europe. Referring to Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, Milgram wrote in 1974, "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"
His experiment in its standard form included a fake shock machine, a "teacher," a "learner" and an experimenter in a laboratory setting. The participant was told that he or she had to teach the student to memorize a pair of words, and the punishment for a wrong answer was a shock from the machine.
The teacher sat in front of the shock machine, which had 30 levers, each corresponding to an additional 15 volts. With each mistake the student made, the teacher had to pull the next lever to deliver a more painful punishment.
While the machine didn't generate shocks and a recorded voice track simulated painful reactions, the teacher was led to believe that he or she was shocking a student, who screamed and asked to leave at higher voltages, and eventually fell silent.
If the teacher questioned continuing as instructed, the experimenter simply said, "The experiment requires that you go on," said Thomas Blass, author of the biography "The Man Who Shocked The World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram" and the Web site StanleyMilgram.com.
About 65 percent of participants pulled levers corresponding to the maximum voltage -- 450 volts -- in spite of the screams of agony from the learner.
"What the experiment shows is that the person whose authority I consider to be legitimate, that he has a right to tell me what to do and therefore I have obligation to follow his orders, that person could make me, make most people, act contrary to their conscience," Blass said.
An update
Because of revised ethical standards for human subject research, this kind of experiment cannot be replicated exactly. But Jerry Burger, professor of psychology at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, made some tweaks to see if Milgram's results hold up today.
His study's design imitated Milgram's, even using the same scripts for the experimenter and suffering learner, but the key difference was that this experiment stopped at 150 volts -- when the learner starts asking to leave. In Milgram's experiment, 79 percent of participants who got to that point went all the way to the maximum shock, he said.
To eliminate bias from the fame of Milgram's experiment, Burger ruled out anyone who had taken two or more college-level psychology classes, and anyone who expressed familiarity with it in the debriefing. The "teachers" in this recent experiment, conducted in 2006, also received several reminders that they could quit whenever they wanted, unlike in Milgram's study.
The new results correlate well with Milgram's: 70 percent of the 40 participants were willing to continue after 150 volts, compared with 82.5 percent in Milgram's study -- a difference that is not statistically significant, Burger said.
Still, some psychologists quoted in the same issue of American Psychologist questioned how comparable this study is to Milgram's, given the differences in methods.
The idea of blind obedience isn't as important in these studies as the larger message about the power of the situation, Burger said. It's also significant that the participant begins with small voltages that increase in small doses over time.
"It's that gradual incremental nature that, as we know, is a very powerful way to change attitudes and behaviors," he said.
Stanford Prison Experiment
This idea of circumstances driving immoral behavior also came out in the Stanford Prison Experiment, a study done in 1971 that is the subject of a film in preproduction, written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Work on the film will resume in 2009 after McQuarrie's "Valkyrie" is released, his spokesperson said.
In this study, designed by Stanford's Zimbardo, two dozen male college students were randomly designated as either prison guards or prisoners, and lived in the basement of the university's psychology building playing these roles in their respective uniforms.
Within three days, participants had extreme stress reactions, Zimbardo said. The guards became abusive to the prisoners -- sexually taunting them, asking them to strip naked and demanding that they clean toilet bowls with their bare hands, Zimbardo said. Five prisoners had to be released before the study was over.
Zimbardo's own role illustrated his point: Because he took on the role of prison administrator, he became so engrossed in the jail system that he didn't stop the experiment as soon as this cruelty began, he said.
"If I were simply the principal experimenter, I would have ended it after the second kid broke down," he said. "We all did bad things in this study, including me, but it's diagnostic of the power situation."
Turning the principle around
But while ordinary people have the potential to do evil, they also have the power to do good. That's the subject of the Everyday Heroism project, a collection of social scientists, including Zimbardo, seeking to understand heroic activity -- an area in which almost no research has been done, he said.
Acts such as learning first aid, leading others to the exit in an emergency and encouraging family members to recycle are some heroic behaviors that Zimbardo seeks to encourage.
"Most heroes are everyday people who do a heroic deed once in their lifetime because they have to be in a situation of evil or danger," he said
I'm fairly familiar with Milgram's Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment having read about it and studied it before. However, I never saw the link that the Stanford Prison Experiment had with things that are happening closer to home. The thing about people in authority being abusive to those who are under them sounds very much like life in the armed forces. Where people not necessarily much older than you are given authority to rule over you and punish you as they see fit. People in higher positions probably know about it but for reasons or other, turn a blind eye. Why? Because they believe that they have the mandate to do it. Especially in a place like Singapore where the "sheeple" are so docile, such things are probably going to become more common.
(CNN) -- If someone told you to press a button to deliver a 450-volt electrical shock to an innocent person in the next room, would you do it?
Common sense may say no, but decades of research suggests otherwise.
In the early 1960s, a young psychologist at Yale began what became one of the most widely recognized experiments in his field. In the first series, he found that about two-thirds of subjects were willing to inflict what they believed were increasingly painful shocks on an innocent person when the experimenter told them to do so, even when the victim screamed and pleaded.
The legacy of Stanley Milgram, who died 24 years ago on December 20, reaches far beyond that initial round of experiments. Researchers have been working on the questions he posed for decades, and have not settled on a brighter vision of human obedience.
A new study to be published in the January issue of American Psychologist confirmed these results in an experiment that mimics many of Milgram's original conditions. This and other studies have corroborated the startling conclusion that the majority of people, when placed in certain kinds of situations, will follow orders, even if those orders entail harming another person.
"It's situations that make ordinary people into evil monsters, and it's situations that make ordinary people into heroes," said Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University and author of "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil."
How Milgram's experiments worked
Milgram, who also came up with the theory behind "six degrees of separation" -- the idea that everyone is connected to everyone else through a small number of acquaintances -- set out to figure out why people would turn against their own neighbors in circumstances such as Nazi-occupied Europe. Referring to Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, Milgram wrote in 1974, "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?"
His experiment in its standard form included a fake shock machine, a "teacher," a "learner" and an experimenter in a laboratory setting. The participant was told that he or she had to teach the student to memorize a pair of words, and the punishment for a wrong answer was a shock from the machine.
The teacher sat in front of the shock machine, which had 30 levers, each corresponding to an additional 15 volts. With each mistake the student made, the teacher had to pull the next lever to deliver a more painful punishment.
While the machine didn't generate shocks and a recorded voice track simulated painful reactions, the teacher was led to believe that he or she was shocking a student, who screamed and asked to leave at higher voltages, and eventually fell silent.
If the teacher questioned continuing as instructed, the experimenter simply said, "The experiment requires that you go on," said Thomas Blass, author of the biography "The Man Who Shocked The World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram" and the Web site StanleyMilgram.com.
About 65 percent of participants pulled levers corresponding to the maximum voltage -- 450 volts -- in spite of the screams of agony from the learner.
"What the experiment shows is that the person whose authority I consider to be legitimate, that he has a right to tell me what to do and therefore I have obligation to follow his orders, that person could make me, make most people, act contrary to their conscience," Blass said.
An update
Because of revised ethical standards for human subject research, this kind of experiment cannot be replicated exactly. But Jerry Burger, professor of psychology at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, made some tweaks to see if Milgram's results hold up today.
His study's design imitated Milgram's, even using the same scripts for the experimenter and suffering learner, but the key difference was that this experiment stopped at 150 volts -- when the learner starts asking to leave. In Milgram's experiment, 79 percent of participants who got to that point went all the way to the maximum shock, he said.
To eliminate bias from the fame of Milgram's experiment, Burger ruled out anyone who had taken two or more college-level psychology classes, and anyone who expressed familiarity with it in the debriefing. The "teachers" in this recent experiment, conducted in 2006, also received several reminders that they could quit whenever they wanted, unlike in Milgram's study.
The new results correlate well with Milgram's: 70 percent of the 40 participants were willing to continue after 150 volts, compared with 82.5 percent in Milgram's study -- a difference that is not statistically significant, Burger said.
Still, some psychologists quoted in the same issue of American Psychologist questioned how comparable this study is to Milgram's, given the differences in methods.
The idea of blind obedience isn't as important in these studies as the larger message about the power of the situation, Burger said. It's also significant that the participant begins with small voltages that increase in small doses over time.
"It's that gradual incremental nature that, as we know, is a very powerful way to change attitudes and behaviors," he said.
Stanford Prison Experiment
This idea of circumstances driving immoral behavior also came out in the Stanford Prison Experiment, a study done in 1971 that is the subject of a film in preproduction, written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Work on the film will resume in 2009 after McQuarrie's "Valkyrie" is released, his spokesperson said.
In this study, designed by Stanford's Zimbardo, two dozen male college students were randomly designated as either prison guards or prisoners, and lived in the basement of the university's psychology building playing these roles in their respective uniforms.
Within three days, participants had extreme stress reactions, Zimbardo said. The guards became abusive to the prisoners -- sexually taunting them, asking them to strip naked and demanding that they clean toilet bowls with their bare hands, Zimbardo said. Five prisoners had to be released before the study was over.
Zimbardo's own role illustrated his point: Because he took on the role of prison administrator, he became so engrossed in the jail system that he didn't stop the experiment as soon as this cruelty began, he said.
"If I were simply the principal experimenter, I would have ended it after the second kid broke down," he said. "We all did bad things in this study, including me, but it's diagnostic of the power situation."
Turning the principle around
But while ordinary people have the potential to do evil, they also have the power to do good. That's the subject of the Everyday Heroism project, a collection of social scientists, including Zimbardo, seeking to understand heroic activity -- an area in which almost no research has been done, he said.
Acts such as learning first aid, leading others to the exit in an emergency and encouraging family members to recycle are some heroic behaviors that Zimbardo seeks to encourage.
"Most heroes are everyday people who do a heroic deed once in their lifetime because they have to be in a situation of evil or danger," he said
I'm fairly familiar with Milgram's Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment having read about it and studied it before. However, I never saw the link that the Stanford Prison Experiment had with things that are happening closer to home. The thing about people in authority being abusive to those who are under them sounds very much like life in the armed forces. Where people not necessarily much older than you are given authority to rule over you and punish you as they see fit. People in higher positions probably know about it but for reasons or other, turn a blind eye. Why? Because they believe that they have the mandate to do it. Especially in a place like Singapore where the "sheeple" are so docile, such things are probably going to become more common.
Labels: abuse of power, interesting article, SAF
Execs Paid $1.6 Billion the Year Before Bailouts
From Time magazine:
Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.
The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages. (See TIME's Top Ten News Stories of 2008)
Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.
The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.
Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.
"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"
The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:
— The average paid to each of the banks' top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.
— Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five executives received a total of $242 million.
This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said. Facing increasing concern by its own shareholders on executive payments, the company described its pay plan last spring as essential to retain and motivate executives "whose efforts and judgments are vital to our continued success, by setting their compensation at appropriate and competitive levels." Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday declined to comment beyond that written report.
The New York-based company on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28.
— Even where banks cut back on pay, some executives were left with seven- or eight-figure compensation that most people can only dream about. Richard D. Fairbank, the chairman of Capital One Financial Corp., took a $1 million hit in compensation after his company had a disappointing year, but still got $17 million in stock options. The McLean, Va.-based company received $3.56 billion in bailout money on Nov. 14.
— John A. Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, took the reins of the company in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options.
Like Goldman, Merrill got $10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28.
The AP review comes amid sharp questions about the banks' commitment to the goals of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a law designed to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets. Last month, the Bush administration changed the program's goals, instructing the Treasury Department to pump tax dollars directly into banks in a bid to prevent wholesale economic collapse.
The program set restrictions on some executive compensation for participating banks, but did not limit salaries and bonuses unless they had the effect of encouraging excessive risk to the institution. Banks were barred from giving golden parachutes to departing executives and deducting some executive pay for tax purposes.
Banks that got bailout funds also paid out millions for home security systems, private chauffeured cars, and club dues. Some banks even paid for financial advisers. Wells Fargo of San Francisco, which took $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, gave its top executives up to $20,000 each to pay personal financial planners.
At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly's stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh and purchasing one in Manhattan, the company said.
Goldman Sachs' tab for leased cars and drivers ran as high as $233,000 per executive. The firm told its shareholders this year that financial counseling and chauffeurs are important in giving executives more time to focus on their jobs.
JPMorgan Chase chairman James Dimon ran up a $211,182 private jet travel tab last year when his family lived in Chicago and he was commuting to New York. The company got $25 billion in bailout funds.
Banks cite security to justify personal use of company aircraft for some executives. But Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., questioned that rationale, saying executives visit many locations more vulnerable than the nation's security-conscious commercial air terminals.
Sherman, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said pay excesses undermine development of good bank economic policies and promote an escalating pay spiral among competing financial institutions — something particularly hard to take when banks then ask for rescue money.
He wants them to come before Congress, like the automakers did, and spell out their spending plans for bailout funds.
"The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout," he said.
(See TIME's Pictures of the Week)
Wow America! You've only just realised that now? Singapore has been adopting that philosophy for years. See how unlike you decadent westerners, we Singaporeans who have adopted a Confucianist teaching have deftly avoided the financial crisis with our leaders' foresight which we managed to get by paying them oodles of money. *
*Heavily laced with sarcasm now.
Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.
The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages. (See TIME's Top Ten News Stories of 2008)
Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.
The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.
Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.
"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"
The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:
— The average paid to each of the banks' top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.
— Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five executives received a total of $242 million.
This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said. Facing increasing concern by its own shareholders on executive payments, the company described its pay plan last spring as essential to retain and motivate executives "whose efforts and judgments are vital to our continued success, by setting their compensation at appropriate and competitive levels." Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday declined to comment beyond that written report.
The New York-based company on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28.
— Even where banks cut back on pay, some executives were left with seven- or eight-figure compensation that most people can only dream about. Richard D. Fairbank, the chairman of Capital One Financial Corp., took a $1 million hit in compensation after his company had a disappointing year, but still got $17 million in stock options. The McLean, Va.-based company received $3.56 billion in bailout money on Nov. 14.
— John A. Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, took the reins of the company in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options.
Like Goldman, Merrill got $10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28.
The AP review comes amid sharp questions about the banks' commitment to the goals of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a law designed to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets. Last month, the Bush administration changed the program's goals, instructing the Treasury Department to pump tax dollars directly into banks in a bid to prevent wholesale economic collapse.
The program set restrictions on some executive compensation for participating banks, but did not limit salaries and bonuses unless they had the effect of encouraging excessive risk to the institution. Banks were barred from giving golden parachutes to departing executives and deducting some executive pay for tax purposes.
Banks that got bailout funds also paid out millions for home security systems, private chauffeured cars, and club dues. Some banks even paid for financial advisers. Wells Fargo of San Francisco, which took $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, gave its top executives up to $20,000 each to pay personal financial planners.
At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly's stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh and purchasing one in Manhattan, the company said.
Goldman Sachs' tab for leased cars and drivers ran as high as $233,000 per executive. The firm told its shareholders this year that financial counseling and chauffeurs are important in giving executives more time to focus on their jobs.
JPMorgan Chase chairman James Dimon ran up a $211,182 private jet travel tab last year when his family lived in Chicago and he was commuting to New York. The company got $25 billion in bailout funds.
Banks cite security to justify personal use of company aircraft for some executives. But Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., questioned that rationale, saying executives visit many locations more vulnerable than the nation's security-conscious commercial air terminals.
Sherman, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said pay excesses undermine development of good bank economic policies and promote an escalating pay spiral among competing financial institutions — something particularly hard to take when banks then ask for rescue money.
He wants them to come before Congress, like the automakers did, and spell out their spending plans for bailout funds.
"The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout," he said.
(See TIME's Pictures of the Week)
Wow America! You've only just realised that now? Singapore has been adopting that philosophy for years. See how unlike you decadent westerners, we Singaporeans who have adopted a Confucianist teaching have deftly avoided the financial crisis with our leaders' foresight which we managed to get by paying them oodles of money. *
*Heavily laced with sarcasm now.
Labels: financial crisis, Politics, stupid policies, sudden outbreak of common sense
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Son of an upside down camel!!
My PS3 just died!! It can't detect any disc now. Curse you Sony!!.. I've only played at most 40 times since I got it in 2006.. sigh.. so sad now.. And I was just in the middle of playing a game which I bought 2 weeks ago. Ah crap..
Labels: annoyed
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Bone in a tube!
Oh My..
This webpage was passed to me by my friend.
http://www.geekologie.com/2008/12/pfft_hearts_are_overrated_anyw.php
If I wasn't worried about my health, this would be really high on my menu.
http://www.geekologie.com/2008/12/pfft_hearts_are_overrated_anyw.php
If I wasn't worried about my health, this would be really high on my menu.
Labels: Food
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Where is Mas?
That's the question that no one else seems to be asking these days. He seems to have disappeared and no one seems to care or bother anymore. He escaped sometime in February. The information released shortly after seemed to indicate that officials were very very confident that he was still in the country. It is now almost a year since his escape. The newspaper doesn't publish anything about him anymore. People are now too engrossed with the economic crisis and honestly, who can blame them? However, the authorities should still be on the alert, since well, they let him go to begin with. I guess the perfect storm of events occured which made it possible for the officials to sweep this under the carpet until, well something big happens. Something similar to Mumbai perhaps?
Labels: mas selamat
