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The Learning Improvement Course

Narconon Fresh Start has a series of courses that our clients go through on their journey to recovery. While we utilize several approaches to help our clients achieve sobriety, (cognitive behavioral modification, living in a supportive residential environment, education on life skills, relapse prevention methods) the educational courses that make up the Narconon Fresh Start program create a feeling of being a student rather than a client in rehab. While all the courses that make up our program teach valuable life skills, there is one that many of our students find to be exceptionally helpful throughout the rest of their program and their daily lives when they return home. It is the Learning Improvement Course. While it is very short in its duration, this course is extremely power in its application. Just as the name of the course states, it helps the student improve their ability to learn. We often hear our students say that they struggled in school or that they felt stupid compared to the other kids in their class. These feelings are sometimes why they turned to drugs. Worse yet, we hear of students who were misdiagnosed with having ADD or ADHD and were given prescription drugs to “help” them focus. What the parents and school system do not understand is that using prescription medication to control a person’s symptoms of ADD or ADHD is never a long-term solution. These children who were given Ritalin or Adderall in their school age years often turn to methamphetamine when they get older. After all, these substances are extremely similar.

Luckily, even if a person felt that they weren’t smart enough to learn when they were in school or was given prescription drugs for ADD or ADHD they can turn it all around and make a successful recovery. Often times, students in the Narconon Fresh Start program are relieved to find that they weren’t stupid of suffering with ADD or ADHD; they simply had many barriers to study that they didn’t realize at the time. So many of our program participants comment that they wish they had had this information when they were in school or that they are going to be sure to teach it to their children so they don’t have to struggle like they did.

The Learning Improvement Course is a key part of the Narconon Fresh Start program for many reasons. An individual’s ability to understand and retain new information is vital in navigating life. This includes everything from reading a book, listening to a conversation, watching a movie, going to school or even learning a new job. If the individual is unable to quickly and efficiently learn new information their capabilities in life are significantly diminished. In turn it leads to lowered feelings of self-worth and self-confidence.
While taking the Learning Improvement Course students learn:

• How to identify when you do not understand something so that you can address it as an alternative to “checking out”.
• The harmful effects of not comprehending something, which leads you to not liking to study a subject at all.
• The skills needed to be able to comprehend information and be able to apply that information to life.
• How one can really succeed in life if they apply study skills and put in the time to really take in the data.

 “I’m more confident in myself and I’m learning a lot from this program. I was never able to study, learn, memorize, and concentrate on taking a test. I definitely have much better test taking skills since the learning improvement course!”
A. E.

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Quality products at great prices—all purchases promote our Mission of Service to America's Military Patriots and their families.

Army Star stadium blanket

Our new cozy Army Star stadium blanket is a deep black fleece measuring 58" x 52". Edged with blanket stitching, it features the Army Star and “U.S. Army” in gold and white embroidery and comes with a black webbing strap which also serves as a handle to carry the rolled blanket. Perfect to snuggle under in cold weather.

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By the numbers

By the Numbers – Real Estate Outlook 2013

Housing will be the shining star of the economy in 2013

While it may not directly effect the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the Housing Sector is significant. In 2012, the 5% gain in national home prices boosted consumer’s net worth by an estimated $1 trillion, pushing consumer confidence to a 4 year high. Rising net worth typically decreases consumers’ savings, but provides a boost to overall consumer spending. Consumer Spending accounts for 70% of the US GDP.

The Fed will significantly influence mortgage rates

We believe the Fed will keep QE3, part of its plan to spend $40 billion per month in its mortgage buying program, alive through 2013. This took the refinance volume to the highest levels in four years. Changes in the QE3 program could likely raise rates quickly, but that would also mean a much healthier broader economy with improvements in employment, consumption and consumer confidence.

Short sales over foreclosures

Lenders have finally figured out that strategic short sales will be more prudent and profitable. California foreclosures dropped 49.6% in 2012 over 2011. Essentially, finding a quick, optimal solution by getting the loan off the books, taking a smaller loss, and being able to re-lend the capital elsewhere is a win-win for all.

Cash is king
Structuring is queen

Limited inventory and high buyer demand leads to an environment filled with multiple offers and higher sales prices, but all cash offers (over 30% in 2012) still command the market. As this continues into 2013, private lending structures that provide “cash at close’ options to buyers (who could close with cash from private financing and later re-finance from a traditional lender) could become more popular, especially given that interest rates are staying extremely low for now and cash rich investors would enjoy getting a yield-bump with the security of being backed by a (high demand) asset.

Inventory will likely remain tight

Generally, a 6 Month’s Supply of Inventory (MSI) is considered a balanced market. At the peak of the crisis in 2009, California had an MSI of 17 months and now it stands at an historic low of 3 months. The luxury market will continue to see aggressive bidding and multiple offers, while investors and all-cash buyers will compete with soaring demand from first time home buyers in other markets. Inventories of new homes are near 50 year lows and the rise in demand has led to much stronger building activity, with predictions of a 25%-30% rise in single family building starts in 2013 that could bring more inventory into certain markets. In hindsight, our recent under building has been the greatest aid to housing’s recovery.

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Dynamic Effort Squat/Dead, 11/5/14

Warm up

Putting on my squat briefs, then tying my shoes.

Box Squat

2×5 @ 45

135+1chain x 2

135+2chain x 2

185+2chain x 2

225+2chain x 2

8×2 @ 255+2ch, one minute rests.

Added a second set of chains this week, I thought a little more contrast would be OK, and my speed felt the same as last week.

6×1 @ 295, 30 second rests.

Reverse Hypers

Side Bends

3×12 @ 45

2×15 @ 315.

About Paul Stagg

Husband, lifter, MBA in Baltimore, MD. Will post about Powerlifting, politics, Classical Liberalism, Economics, building wealth, self improvement, productivity, heavy music, wine, food, beer, and almost anything else. View all posts by Paul Stagg

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Remarks of Board Member Charles D. Niemeier

It is an honor and a pleasure to be here in Brazil to speak with you about the remarkable changes in the nature and character of the world’s capital markets we have witnessed in the last five years. Among the many changes, perhaps the most far-reaching is that investors have in many ways broken down national borders to find opportunities all over the world, through mutual funds that target opportunities in other countries, through shares or depository receipts of foreign companies traded on their local markets, and most recently even through direct investment in shares listed on markets in other countries.

I am particularly excited to observe first-hand Brazil’s initiative to compete for capital on the basis high quality financial reporting on its newest exchange. Indeed, the Novo Mercado’s use of high quality financial reporting standards to improve pricing and liquidity sends a message to markets and companies around the world that investors value robust and reliable financial reporting.[1]

Today, I would like to describe for you some of the changes that have taken place in U.S. capital markets, beginning with some of the root causes of the devastating loss of investor confidence that led to the creation of the PCAOB, touching on several important reforms, and ending with a look at where we are today. Before I go further, however, I must note that the views I express today are my own, and not necessarily those of the other Board members or staff.

I. Stresses on Investor Confidence in U.S. Markets Were Building for Years Before the Revelations of Fraudulent Reporting by Some of Our Largest Companies.

The most obvious cause of the loss of investor confidence in the United States earlier this decade was the revelation of massive financial reporting frauds at some of the largest U.S. public companies. As astounding as the frauds themselves, though, was the exposure of numerous stress fractures in the underlying foundation of U.S. capital markets. Investors – both U.S. and non-U.S. – had confidence in the U.S. markets because they were understood to be based on fairly distributed, robust and reliable information upon which they could make their decisions whether to buy or sell interests in the companies that traded on those markets. This confidence made U.S. markets the most liquid, and the most cost-efficient for both investors and companies, in the world. When the frauds were disclosed – not just one, but one after another after another – investors questioned whether indeed U.S. markets did ensure fairly distributed, robust and reliable information, and having lost confidence in the answer to this question, swiftly cut off their previously free and reliable flow of capital.

Where were the fractures in the system? The sad fact is that there were numerous fractures, some of which we are only now beginning to see. Some, such as the IPO allocation process and, most recently revealed, corporate managements’ stock option granting practices, ran to the fairness of the system. Others, such as weaknesses in companies’ internal control over financial reporting and weaknesses in audits, ran to the reliability of the financial reports that are the lifeblood of system.

A. Audits Became Perceived to be Compliance Obligations as Opposed to the Linchpin of Reliable Financial Reporting.

Weaknesses in auditing did not happen overnight. Rather, they were the result of several years of pressure. In the years leading up to the Enron and WorldCom scandals, companies and auditors gradually began to treat auditing as a compliance exercise with little intrinsic value. Meanwhile, many audit firms found they could parlay the client relationships developed through providing services into lucrative, discretionary contracts to provide a seemingly limitless range of consulting services, and thus substantially increase the overall profitability of client relationships. These consulting services often involved engagements that were bigger, longer-term, and more leveraged from a staffing perspective, and that presented significantly lower risks than audit engagements.

Accountants who were successful in leveraging existing audit engagements into engagements to provide consulting services were encouraged in and rewarded for their efforts. Indeed, some audit plans – that is, the portion of the audit in which auditors critically evaluate risks of financial reporting errors and design a plan to identify and address any such errors – came to include studies of what kinds of additional services a client might need. Accounting firms began competing for audit engagements on the basis of price and fixed-fee commitments, notwithstanding the significantly higher risk of that work, on the theory that the more lucrative non-audit services would outweigh the disadvantage of doing so. Inevitably, the pressure on auditors to improve margins in this environment led to reduction of audit effort.

In this environment, some accountants shifted their own focuses from auditing to those other services, and many accountants even left the accounting profession entirely to apply their skills to the burgeoning consulting industry. The number of college graduates entering the auditing profession also declined, reflecting in my view the general perception that auditing was a tedious and largely unimportant compliance function.[2] While each of these developments might have started as a hairline fracture, over time, they contributed to a lack of preparedness by U.S. capital markets for managing the explosive growth in equity investment in the late 1990s.

B. Weaknesses in Controls over Corporate Accounting and Reporting Allowed Managers Free Reign to Manipulate Results as Reported to Investors.

At the same time, corporate reporting faced its own weaknesses. Although U.S. companies have been required to have internal control over their accounting since the U.S. Congress enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977, even by the 1990s many companies had failed to establish or maintain effective controls. I’m not talking about controls over the minute details of insignificant accounts. I’m talking about controls that would ensure integrity in the preparation of the overall financial statements by preventing management from hiding material changes to the financial statements.

Absent such controls, as a number of high-profile cases revealed years later, senior corporate managers were able to – and some did – manipulate official reported financial results to make them look better than they were. Indeed, in at least one high-profile case, senior U.S. managers appear to have manipulated corporate results by changing the accounts of a Brazilian subsidiary. As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged in a consented action filed against Xerox Corporation in 2002, as early as 1995 top U.S. managers at Xerox regularly directed that financial reports from its Brazilian operations be changed to reflect different revenue trends than applicable accounting standards would have required.[3] Corporate managers also used their ability to change detailed accounts at subsidiaries in Mexico and Europe to prevent the company’s investors from knowing the company’s true operating performance.[4]

Weakened by these fractures and others, the financial reporting framework as we knew it collapsed beginning in late 2001 with what appeared to the investing public to be a spontaneous implosion of two of the United States’ larges companies – Enron and WorldCom – and one of the world’s premier accounting firms, the venerable Arthur Andersen.

II. The Sarbanes-Oxley Reforms are Designed to Restore the Reliability of Audited Financial Statements as a Basis on which Investors Can Make Informed Decisions

I know I need not describe for you how the scandals led to the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. No matter where you were on the globe in 2002, if you were involved in the financial markets you were acutely aware. What I would like to discuss with you today, though, is the new paradigm that has shifted the balance of power from corporate managers, many of whom formerly had near absolute authority over both their companies’ financial reporting processes as well as their auditors, to audit committees, who now have renewed mandates and new tools to demand and ensure robust and reliable financial reporting.

A. Auditors Are Now Hired and Overseen by Independent Audit Committees, Instead of Corporate Management.

Because you’ve asked me to touch on the topic of audit firm rotation given what I understand is an initiative in Brazil to consider the topic, let me start by describing how auditor selection occurs in the United States today.

1. Sarbanes-Oxley Makes Audit Committees Responsible for Auditor Selection, Compensation and Oversight and Requires Periodic Audit Partner Rotation.

Sarbanes-Oxley did not require audit firm rotation, in part because in the Congress’s view the legislative record did not provide clear evidence that rotation would prevent the kinds of problems that led to the crisis in 2001. Instead, the Act did three things.

First, it required companies to establish audit committees comprised of independent directors and made those independent audit committees “directly responsible for the appointment, compensation, and oversight” of the companies’ auditors.[5] Formerly, in the United States, company management – typically a company’s CFO – hired and, importantly, had the authority to fire the auditor.

The wrath of CFOs was not a theoretical threat. For example, in the Xerox case I mentioned earlier, one of the charges that the SEC’s complaint levied against the company was that “when the engagement partner for the outside auditor challenged several of Xerox's non-GAAP accounting practices, Xerox's senior management told the audit firm that they wanted a new engagement partner assigned to its account. [And t]he audit firm complied.”[6] Today, an independent audit committee would provide a serious impediment to such a dismissal.

Second, Sarbanes-Oxley prohibited audit firms from providing audit services to an audit client if the lead or coordinating audit partner, or the partner responsible for reviewing the audit, has provided audit services to that client for the previous five years.[7] This is, in effect, a requirement that audit partners rotate off audits after five years to provide for a new team to take a “fresh look” at the audit client’s financial reporting process and accounting principles.

Of course, to the extent an audit firm has already signed-off on a questionable accounting method, incentives not to disagree with the firm’s, or one’s partners’, earlier positions still exist. I’m not aware of any empirical evidence on behavioral patterns before and after the new rule, but there is evidence that U.S. companies are restating prior period financial statements at a significantly greater rate than in the past.[8] Many of these restatements are attributed to errors identified in companies’ and auditors’ examination of the effectiveness of internal controls, but they tend to show that engagement partners and firms are not inclined to let errors continue unaddressed once they are identified. Indeed, the number of restatements by U.S. companies in 2005 reached a record level. Approximately 1 in 12 public companies restated their financial statements in 2005 to correct material errors.[9] While troubling that this number of material errors in U.S. companies’ financial statements still exist, it is, at the same time, a positive sign that, working with their auditors, U.S. companies are getting their accounting on the right path.

Finally, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act also required the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study of the potential effects of requiring the mandatory rotation of audit firms.[10] The Comptroller General did so, and in November 2003 published a report opining that “mandatory audit firm rotation may not be the most efficient way to strengthen auditor independence and improve audit quality.”[11] Importantly, the report also found that, in order to be effective in their role in enhancing auditor independence and audit quality, “audit committees need to have access to adequate resources, including their own budgets, to be able to operate with the independence necessary to effectively perform their responsibilities under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.”[12]

2. In Practice, There Has Been Considerable Audit Firm Turnover in the United States.

In the four years since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed, even without mandatory audit firm rotation, there has been considerable change in how audit firms and audit clients pair up. For one thing, 1,085 public company audit clients of Arthur Andersen – which, in 2001, was the fourth largest U.S. accounting firm – switched auditors when or shortly before the firm was indicted by the U.S. federal government in connection with its destruction of Enron audit records.[13] Separately, from 2003 to 2005, in the United States approximately one-third of all public companies changed accounting firms. In 2005 alone, 1,430 – or approximately 11 percent of – U.S. public companies switched their auditors.[14]

It’s difficult to say whether audit firm changes are overall enhancing auditor independence or audit quality. In the United States, unless there is an accounting disagreement between a company and its auditor or some other reportable condition exists, the company is not required to disclose the reason for the change. Further, not all of these changes reflect decisions by audit committees at all. In fact, recently some audit firms have resigned from clients because of resource constraints.[15]

Nevertheless, audit committees in the United States today do play an important role in considering whether to continue to retain the company’s audit firm every year, and some have even adopted policies of engaging in an in-depth comparison of options on a fairly regular basis. At those times, an effective audit committee can weigh the risk of fostering complacency by the company’s auditor against the risk of losing the auditor’s in-depth knowledge of the company’s business and its financial reporting system.

B. Audit Committees Have New Tools to Oversee the Financial Reporting Process in a Meaningful Way.

Audit committees’ authority to hire, oversee, and if necessary, fire, auditors provides audit committees much more than just the ability to make sure auditors approach their work with a “fresh look.” Rather, it frees auditors from the grip of management and establishes a tone for their relationship with the audit committee that is conducive to open, forthright, and robust discussion.

Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the implementing rules of the SEC and the U.S. exchanges, and audit committees’ own charters, there are, of course, a number of specific matters audit committees must handle, including establishing a mechanism for receiving and addressing complaints or anonymous information about the company’s accounting, and approving any non-audit services that may be performed by the company’s audit firm, among other things. In addition, audit committees play a key role in establishing and monitoring companies’ internal control over financial reporting.

These explicit requirements can help audit committees maintain a level of awareness about their respective companies’ financial reporting processes and risks that positions them well to examine with the outside auditors the quality, not just the acceptability, of the companies’ accounting and disclosures, as well as the effectiveness of the companies’ internal control over financial reporting. After all, this examination – this close dialogue between a company’s audit committee and its auditors – is one of the key solutions, or strategies if you will, for avoiding the breaches in the fairness and reliability of a company’s financial reporting that can so damage investor confidence.

III. Over Time, Quality of Financial Reporting Will Prove to be an Important Driver of Competition in and between Markets.

Weaknesses in financial reporting were not unique to companies and auditors based in the United States.

The U.S. SEC has brought numerous cases against non-U.S. companies whose shares are traded on U.S. markets and non-U.S. auditors who audit those companies. For instance, one spectacular case involved an IPO by a London-based company known as AremisSoft, at the height of the tech boom in 1999. During AremisSoft’s two-and-a-half years as a public company, it engaged in a number of fraudulent practices to make it appear to be a sprawling international software company, including by booking fake sales and accounts receivable and overstating earnings in two Cyprus-based subsidiaries. During that period, disappointingly, the company’s U.K. auditors issued unqualified reports on its financial statements, even though it later turned out that only a small fraction of reported revenues were real and that close to one-third of the company’s cash lay in the personal bank account of one of its co-chairmen and co-CEOs.[16]

Self-interest and deception are indeed global problems. What was unique to U.S. markets was their unparalleled reputation for robust and fair disclosure, transparency and accountability. This reputational advantage translated into real dollars for companies seeking access to capital, in the form of a premium on IPO pricing as well as sustained liquidity.

Today, some in the United States complain that burdensome regulation has discouraged companies from tapping U.S. capital markets. In support of this argument, they point to circumstantial evidence such as the number of large new IPOs choosing to list on non-U.S. markets as well as the growth in the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market for smaller companies, but it’s not clear to me that this is the case.

First, I understand the greatest costs companies listing in the U.S. face are not compliance costs but rather are underwriting fees. One recent study has estimated that underwriting fees consume 6.5 to 7 percent of IPO receipts in the U.S., compared to 3 to 4 percent in Europe.[17]

Moreover, it’s not clear to me that there is any evidence that the costs of starting and maintaining a listing on a U.S. market exceed the premium companies enjoy on such a market. Rather, the facts appear to confirm the continued attraction of U.S. markets to companies, because of the significant valuation premium for companies that can meet the requirements of U.S. listings. Indeed, seven out of the 29 U.S. companies that have listed on the LSE’s AIM have a dual-listing or otherwise trade on a U.S. market. As the Head of Nasdaq’s International Listings office has said, “The key reasons companies are still coming to the U.S. remain the same. International listing activity is still driven by U.S. valuations.”[18]

The New York Stock Exchange has estimated this valuation premium at 30 percent,[19] which is consistent with recent empirical research documenting statistically and economically significant differences in the cost of equity capital between countries. Specifically, after controlling for traditional measures of risk and differences between countries, a December 2005 study by two Wharton professors found that companies from countries with more extensive disclosure requirements, stronger securities regulation, and stricter enforcement mechanisms, have a significantly lower cost of capital.[20]

To be sure, though, stock exchanges’ marketing efforts have become global, and companies around the world now enjoy listing options not available even in the recent past. For example, the top five IPOs in 2005 were privatizations of state-owned entities in China and France. Not surprisingly, those companies listed on the local Hong Kong and Euronext markets, respectively. Notwithstanding the significant valuation premium in the U.S., there are political, cultural and other influences on such companies to list locally and I expect they will continue. In any event, it is questionable that sacrificing disclosure and governance quality requirements could attract these companies, although it does pose the very real risk of significantly reducing the U.S. valuation premium for all other companies listing in the U.S.

Short-termism – or making a decision based on a short-term perspective – is a disease that can affect companies as well as investors. For a while, some companies and investors may find markets with lax requirements attractive. However, I am confident that over time the lustre of that attraction will fade, because long-term investors depend on robust and reliable financial reporting.

In the meantime, other markets, like the Novo Mercado here in Brazil, are beginning to offer meaningful investor protections too. Now, that kind of competition on the basis of quality may indeed lure investors to new markets. I believe this is a positive development that regulators everywhere should support, though, because whatever happens it’s a race that investors will win.

[1] See Economist, “New Wave for the Novo Mercado; Brazilian IPOs,” Feb. 25, 2006.

[2] The number of U.S. accounting graduates (bachelor level) has declined or been flat in every year in the period 1991 through 2002, except 1994 (up 7 percent) and 2001 (up 2 percent). In 1999, 2000 and 2002 there were significant declines of 21 percent, 10 percent, and 8 percent, respectively. See AICPA, The Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits – 2005 , at 4.

[3] See Complaint Against Xerox Corp. (April 11, 2002), available here ("In most cases, application of ROE was a ‘top-side’ adjustment directed by corporate headquarters. Operating units allocated lease cash flows . . . according to long-established procedures. Before the financial results were reported publicly, Xerox's regional headquarters, using data supplied by corporate, recalculated these allocations to insure that Xerox's financing operations realized no more than a 15 percent return, regardless of its own capital or administrative costs or the interest rates paid by the customer to lease a copier. Initially, use of the ROE formula was limited to the United States and to Xerox Brazil, where the formula was implemented by at least 1995. As the pressure to meet earnings targets grew, and competition made selling copiers more difficult, ROE was expanded to Xerox Europe in 1998."). Xerox agreed to settle the SEC's complaint by consenting to the entry of an injunction by a federal district court in New York.

[4] See Complaint Against Xerox Corp., at 1.

[5] Sarbanes-Oxley Act , Section 301. The blueprint for this requirement lay in the 1999 recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Improving the Effectiveness of Audit Committees, established by the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange, and the National Association of Securities Dealers, in response to concerns expressed about the adequacy of the oversight of the audit process. The Committee recommended, among other things, that audit committee charters be required to specify that the outside auditor is ultimately accountable to the board of directors and the audit committee, as representatives of shareholders, and that these shareholder representatives have the ultimate authority and responsibility to select, evaluate, and where appropriate, replace the outside auditor. The bases for this recommendation were that (1) in most companies at the time, management selected or recommended auditors and changes in auditors, negotiated fees, and monitored the audit, and “[c]onsequently, the outside auditors typically develop over time close relationships with management,” and (2) “the expanding role of outside auditors, particularly in providing non-audit services, ha[d] further entwined the relationship of management and the outside auditors.” Report and Recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Improving the Effectiveness of Corporate Audit Committees, at 30, available here.

[6] See Complaint Against Xerox Corp., at 18.

[7] Sarbanes-Oxley Act , Section 203. In addition, the U.S. SEC has adopted certain rules implementing the Act’s audit partner rotation requirement, which among other things establish that a partner who is required to rotate off an audit engagement may not rotate back onto the engagement for another five years. See 17 C.F.R § 210.2-01(c)(6).

[8] “While the number of public companies announcing financial restatements from 2002 through September 2005 rose from 3.7 percent to 6.8 percent, restatement announcements identified grew about 67 percent over this period. Industry observers noted that increased restatements were an expected byproduct of the greater focus on the quality of financial reporting by company management, audit committees, external auditors, and regulators.” U.S. General Accounting Office, Financial Restatements: Update of Public Company Trends, Market Impacts, and Regulatory Enforcement Activities (GAO-06-678, July 2006) .

[9] See Glass Lewis & Co., Getting it Wrong the First Time, March 2, 2006, at 1.

[10] Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Section 207.

[11] U.S. General Accounting Office, Public Accounting Firms: Required Study on the Potential Effects of Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation (GAO-04-216, November 2003) . The report also suggested that the SEC and the PCAOB continue to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of existing requirements for enhancing auditor independence and audit quality.

[12] Id. at 9.

[13] U.S. General Accounting Office, Public Accounting Firms: Mandated Study on Consolidation and Competition (GAO-03-864, July 2003) , at 101.

[14] See Glass Lewis, Mum’s the Word, Yellow Card Trend Alert (July 27, 2006).

[15] See Jean, Sheryl, Overwhelmed Accounting Firms Focus on Big Client, Leaving Smaller Ones Behind, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Oct. 19, 2004.

[16] For example, in its 2000 Form 10-K, AremisSoft reported $97.5 million in revenue from its two Cyprus-based subsidiaries, which comprised 80% of its reported $123.6 million in consolidated revenue. The SEC later determined that, together, the two subsidiaries contributed only $1.7 million in revenue for the year. See Order Instituting Public Administrative and Cease-and-Desist Proceedings in re PKF, et al., SEC Release No. 33-8675, at 4 (April 12, 2006).

[17] See Oxera Consulting Ltd., The Cost of Capital: An International Comparison (June 2006) , at 4.

[18] Remarks of Charlotte Crosswell, Head of International Listings, NASDAQ, printed in Ernst & Young, Accelerated Growth: Global IPO Trends 2006, at 24.

[19] Remarks of Noreen Culhane, Executive Vice President, Global Corporate Client Group, New York Stock Exchange, id. at 26 (An “underlying motivation for most companies listing in the U.S. is the valuation premium (average 30 percent) that accrues as a result of adhering to high standards of governance.”).

[20] Hail, Luzi and Leuz, Christian, International Differences in the Cost of Equity Capital: Do Legal Institutions and Securities Regulation Matter?, Journal of Accounting Research (June 2006). Leuz and Hail estimated the cost of capital from 1992 to 2001 for several thousand companies from 40 countries.


text:
Tribeca Film Festival Reviews, Part 1

Love is Strange

 In Love is Strange, director Ira Sachs has at once written a love letter to lower Manhattan and also exposed its economically demanding realities. Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) are caught in the middle of this beautifully rendered predicament. They’ve spent 39 years together and have just gotten married, but this announcement forces the Catholic school where George teaches choir to fire him. The couple has to sell their ornately dressed West Village apartment and start desperately house hunting. In the meantime, they need somewhere to live.

This doesn’t seem like a large burden considering most of Ben’s family lives nearby in the city. But Sachs has made a delicate drama that seizes upon the subtleties of acclimatizing to new roommates. Ben moves in with his nephew (Darren E. Burrows), nephew’s wife (Maris Tomei), and their teenage son (Charlie Tahan), with whom he shares a bunk bed. George gets a stricter punishment, shacking up with a gay cop friend and his boyfriend. They’re significantly younger and throw weekly parties with loud music and kinetic energy.

Eventually these temporary living stations feel like places of solitary confinement. Things start to boil over. Sachs even throws in a teakettle whistling to hammer home the point. Ben’s presence and mindless chatting become quick annoyances and George struggles with apartment searching by himself, surviving by giving private music lessons to students. The tension lies in things unspoken. It’s clear that these men’s families and friends love them, but showing it beyond the length of a dinner party becomes a severely challenging chore.

The irony here is that two men have been married and they can’t sleep in the same house, let alone bed. Sachs doesn’t create a harsh tone of family disintegration though. The film is slow burned in a crockpot. It’s clever and patient and makes these qualities necessary to deliver its sweet and tender sendoff. There’s a lot of holding hands, looking into eyes, laughing, yelling, and thinking. It’s hard to get pacing just right with all of these emotions, but every stride is even here. That’s because Lithgow and Molina are so perfectly tethered to each other. It feels like they’ve actually been together for 39 years. It’s the greatest gift to a director. Sachs just has to roll tape.

Land Ho!

Two older men are also the subjects of Land Ho!, a buddy road comedy teeming with an irresistible charm. The men are Mitchell (Earl Lynn Nelson) and Colin (Paul Eenhoorn), brothers-in-law whose former wives were sisters. Mitchell, a Kentucky doctor with a baritone southern drawl, is a widower while Colin, a retiree from Australia, is recently divorced. To alleviate their isolated lives, Mitchell buys two tickets to Iceland and the spiritual shenanigans begin.

Mitchell pays for the entire trip and Colin obliges to tag along, playing sidekick to nights out on the small Icelandic town. Mitchell’s lexicon belongs to the generation before him. He still calls women “broads” and his misogynist tone provides most of the silly humor in that “shucks he’s just an old man” forgiving manner. Colin usually plays the audience’s surrogate in these situations, laughing while shaking his head. It’s almost a senior citizen version of Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip, which featured Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon conversing mindlessly, at times solemnly, throughout Great Britain’s landscapes.

Land Ho! carries a similar sensibility. Directors Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens film this feature like it’s their first time in Iceland, too. A lot of the movie is observing the country’s calm, chilly atmosphere. The camera pans and panders to the scenery, to the geysers, hot springs, mountains, cliffs and seas the men hike and Hummer through. The concept is so simple and inviting, but the movie’s protagonists provide its glow. They smoke pot, get drunk, and get lost. Their conversations revolve around movie references and occasionally become more reflective.

A lot of times, Land Ho! feels like it belongs in the1980s. Pink graphics display city names and musical interludes that break up conversations have loud drum hits and synthesizers, like the score from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. This is the movie John Hughes would have made about old men living it up one last time. Narrative cohesion isn’t this movie’s priority, as well it shouldn’t be. It’s more a travelogue ruminating about the past, about what could have been, about sharing a current experience. At one point Mitchell meets a couple on their honeymoon and advises them. “Don’t let the sun rise or fall on problems you’ll have,” he says. It’s a clear and honest moment in a clear and honest movie.

Lucky Them

Toni Collette plays Ellie Klug, a music critic at a transitioning Seattle-based rock magazine. She’s been in a writing funk lately and has a problem sleeping with small time band members she locks eyes with at local concerts. Her emotional baggage stems from her former boyfriend Matthew Smith, a Kurt Cobain-like figure who left an indelible mark with his music and with his mysterious disappearance. She’s still hung over from their relationship and her home is a cluttered repository of old records and stagnant memories. So when Ellie’s boss (Oliver Platt) gives her an assignment to track down Matthew for the tenth anniversary of his vanishing, she has a chance to revitalize her career and gain some closure.

Lucky Them is rising indie director Megan Griffith’s fourth feature film and she’s found a welcome mix of humor and drama with it. The story is loosely based on actor/writer Emily Wachtel, who helped pen the screenplay with Huck Botko. It’s propelled forward because it never doddles too long in Ellie’s extraneous relationships and winding search. Part of the reason is her road companion, played by Thomas Hayden Church. He’s a guilty rich, and comically decides to make a documentary of Ellie’s intermittent road trips in an RV he’s rented for a hobby. He’s dressed like a scholar, wearing professor’s glasses, and injects obvious filmmaking vocabulary as though it were a foreign language. He records the moving scenery with his handheld camera and explains to Ellie in deadpan that he’s taking “B-Roll.” Griffiths wittily takes his lead and shoots her own B-Roll right after.

Some of the film’s problems are matters of characters. Ellie falls for a heartthrob guitarist (Ryan Eggold) conducting an interview and their romance drags on into a dead end. It’s an aesthetically pleasing distraction from the task at hand. But Griffiths has found a talented cast, especially in Nina Arianda, playing Ellie’s friend and bartender. Arianda, engaging already this year in Rob the Mob, makes the cliché supportive friend somebody we might consider caring about more. She knocks sense into Ellie, exposing her nostalgic frenzy. We all have our Matthew Smiths she suggests, and we all have to move on from them. Ellie is just lucky enough to have a job where she can cathartically write about this realization.

One response to “Tribeca Film Festival Reviews, Part 1

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PFF25: The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki

Elvire Audi - October 25, 2016

There exists an incredible authenticity in Juho Kuosmanen’s feature debut The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, and it’s not only due to the fact that it’s a 60s piece shot in black and white.

Olli Mäki is based on the true story of the small-town Finnish boxer who, in 1962, had a shot at winning the World Featherweight Championship against the then-American champion, Davey Moore. A baker in his hometown, Olli (Jarkko Lahti) is an amateur boxer, recently turned pro and soon-to-be national hero. His coach, Elis Ask (Eero Milinoff), demands a lot from Olli, including making him slim down to 126 pounds, which the competition requires. However, Olli's budding romance with the beautiful and almost child-like Raija (Oona Airola) soon hinders his high-level training, two weeks from the big fight.

From relationship demands to professional obstacles and national attention, Olli manages a lot of pressure. Indeed, he is thrust into the harsh and hostile boxing world, the complete antithesis of his quiet life in his small town. His struggle to lose weight and Elis's demanding nature rob Olli of his humanity, leaving Olli little time for peace and quiet. Juho Kuosmanen, the director, perfectly tangles the harshness of the boxing world with the discreet and childish life in the country associated with Raija.

Raija and Olli share a very special bond, linked with puerile activities: not only do they sleep in bunk beds in Ellis’ apartment, as if they were roommates, they also cycle, play games, go to fairs, enjoy nature, and fly kites. But most importantly, they love each other in the purest of forms. It’s a love that doesn’t need explaining, and it gives Olli a series of impulses and gut feelings. I find it interesting for a boxing movie to make the sentimental Olli's drive, and not his passion and ambition for boxing.

Throughout the film, Olli is exposed to multiple forms of media, such as photographs, interviews, documentaries, and advertisements. He is quickly disgusted by his perceived artificiality and superficiality of that world. Jarkko Lahti gives an incredible performance as this infuriated and misunderstood boxer, especially when faced with self-representation. The "promotional film" Olli stars in claims to represent his truth, yet his lines are scripted, his actions are blocked, and the tone is unnatural.

Kuosmanen, with Olli Mäki, proves an incredible mastery of filmmaking skills. With primal and almost obsolete choices (the film is shot handheld, in black and white 16mm, and only uses diegetic sound), the audience is given a lesson in authenticity – of the craft, and of the mind. Indeed, when reduced to crucial questions on love and happiness, Olli responds with the beautiful innocence of a child, and for that, he wins all our hearts.

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki won the prize for the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival (a competition dedicated to filmmakers’ first and second works).

Elvire Audi

Elvire Audi is a senior in the College, double majoring in Cinema Studies and Intellectual History, from Paris, France. She recently started writing for the MovieGoer in order to have a new excuse to watch even more films. Her favorite directors include Wes Anderson, Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese and Yasujiro Ozu.


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BBQ Potatoes

I got this recipe off Pinterest, and I have to say…blech. My potatoes did not look like the picture on Pinterest. I even cooked them for longer than the recipe calls for. Maybe my potatoes were too big? Maybe this would work better for new potatoes? In any case, they had no taste, and we had to jazz them up a little with some sour cream. And why are they called BBQ potatoes?

rating: 5

BBQ Potatoes

1 1/2 pound potatoes (equal sized)
1 grated garlic clove or 1/4 to 1/2 tsp garlic powder
chicken or vegetable broth
tiny cubes butter
minced parsley
pepper and salt
Optional: lime or lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350Fº (175Cº).
Use an ovenproof dish. Place the peeled and washed (even-sized) potatoes in there and make sure they fit snuggly together. Add the grated garlic or powder to the broth and heat it for a minute to get the flavors going. Pour hot broth in there until there’s about 1 inch of broth in the dish and sprinkle a little salt and pepper on top of the potatoes. Place a tiny slice of butter on top of each potato. As the potatoes start to cook the butter will melt all over, it’s delicious. Not diet-friendly, but very tasty. Place the dish in your BBQ or oven and give them 35 to 40 minutes. Check them for readiness. Sprinkle the potatoes with finely minced parsley and if you really want to up the flavors: squeeze some lime or lemon juice on top. It’s crazy good.

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Talk:Directory:Bedini SG:Schematic

Lasted edited by Andrew Munsey, updated on June 14, 2016 at 9:43 pm.

  • This page has been imported from the old peswiki website. This message will be removed once updated.

You have reached the discussion page for the OS:Bedini SG:Schematic page for the Bedini School Girl (Simplified) open sourcing project.

Recommended Changes

The materials page is locked from editing to assure its accuracy. Post your recommended changes here so they can be integrated by someone with the necessary access privileges.

Technical clarifications

Sterling, You may want to remove Sheldon's schematic until it is corrected. The two batteries DO NOT share a common ground (negative) connection. The battery being charged is connected as follows: (+) connection to the CATHODE of 1N4007 and the (-) connect to the (+) connection of the first battery.

Actually the version I did works better at capturing the inductive energy. I have corrected it, however and sent it up as bedini2.jpg

submit here (click on "edit" button next to section heading)

Typos & corrections

In point #3, you say that the final destination of the wire is the Collector. Actually, it's the EMITTER.

submit here (click on "edit" button next to section heading)

Sterling, please correct the url for my kickstart-circuit. It is as follows: (Marcus)

Other Notes

In your comments about the batteries, you suggest that an endless rotation of the batteries WILL demonstrate that the motor energy is coming from somewhere else. Over the years, these kind of statements have lead many people to give up on the experiment prematurely. The ability of the machine to exhibit this effect is dependent on the BATTERIES working properly (ie. using undamaged batteries). Even brand new batteries may take a number of back and forth cycles (and a few recharges from a regular battery charger) before they become sufficiently "conditioned" to exhibit the endless rotation capability. This phenomenon is the END RESULT of the system working properly, but NEVER falls into the lap of the impatient tinkerer. (Peter L.)

This is quite false. While the circuit recaptures SOME of the energy in the coils, it never re-captures ALL of it. That is QUITE IMPOSSSIBLE. There are circuit losses and rotational losses.(Sheldon)

Sheldon, thank you for changing the schematic. The purpose of this project is to make ACCURATE information about John Bedini's work available to the public. What I have stated in the first paragragh is absolutely true, regardless of your disbelief. I do agree that less MEASURABLE energy is recovered from the system than is put in by the first battery. However, when this experimental circuit is built and run properly, a NEW PHENOMENON begins to appear in the second battery which defies the measurements. The second battery begins to charge in less and less time and with a denser charge. I have personally witnessed test set-ups built by John run for MONTHS in the manner described above, where the system was charging 4 batteries on the back end and running from 1 battery on the front. The "gain mechanism" in the system more than makes up for all of the classical losses you refer to. If you want to learn something new, instead of quoting your "book knowledge" at me, (which I know very well) then run the experiment! (Peter L.)

Other comments about the page

I would suggest a large Farad capacitor be placed across the terminals of the battery which powers the transistor. This would allow current to flow more rapidly through the transistor when energizing the coil.

comment here (click on "edit" button next to section heading)

Does this qualify as perpetual motion?

Hi, i'm new to this technology so can you clear something up for me.

Does thi actuall produce more power than it consumes?

If so couldn't it be built on a massive scale to create useable power?

Answer : At the outset of the project, we hoped it would tap into radiant/aetheric energy but three months later, with numerous replication attempts, we conclude that the plans as presented here do not result in over unity.


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Legal Property

* * * * * * * * * * * * * This blog is the intellectual property of Anne Baxter Campbell, and any quotation of part or all of it without her approval is illegal. * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Book Review - WITH EACH NEW DAWN by Gail Kittleson

Another World War II novel by Gail Kittleson filled with adventure and romance. Wars tear apart lives by the score, and between the sorrows comes God's healing care. Gail Kittleson has a talent for taking the tears (tares) and tears (teers) and weaving in lives mended by compassion.

Katie left Iowa for England with her Canadian Royal Air Force husband, hopeful of an idyllic life once the war ended. It is not to be. Alexandre is killed in a crash, and their baby is stillborn not long after.

Her best friend, Addie, has arrived early to help take care of the baby, and when that didn't come to pass she stayed on with Katie at the home of their employer's mother. Addie's husband was a rigid, sometimes violent man, constantly angry because of what he saw as Addie's disobedience to him. He's in the Air Force--or is he?

Katie knows she has to do something for the war effort. It's not in her makeup to sit back and let others do it all, especially now that she has neither husband or child. She finds out her parents were both involved in French intelligence during the first world war. When Charles Tenney, her employer, suggests a new employment, it seems that fate has decided she will replay her parents' activities.

Domingo is a Basque shepherd, but lately he's more often running errands, delivering messages, and taking care of downed pilots and parachutists for the Maquisards (French resistance fighters). He worries about his aging mother and his young brother who must shoulder all Domingo's farm responsibilities when he is increasingly gone into danger. His fiancee', Sancha, also becomes involved but is cruelly killed by the Gestapo.

How can these sorrowing hearts be healed? How can they survive until the invasion? It will take courage, stamina, and not a few miracles.

Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I received a free copy of this book from the author in return for an honest review.
Post a Comment


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Real Costs of Nuclear Power

BY pgs-admin
26 January 2009

Real costs of nuclear power extend beyond construction
By PGS Past President, Dr. Dale Dewar

December 8, 2008
Star Phoenix

Re: Invest in taking nuclear power to needy world (SP, Dec. 1) Darn right the province should pause over the “huge costs associated with building a nuclear plant.”
If the Bruce study pegs the costs as high as $10 billion, you can rest assured they will be much higher. Of Ontario’s 20 nuclear plants, not one came in on time or on budget, with cost overruns in the billions. The “stunning $10,000 per person in Saskatchewan” will be much higher.
What is not clear is the expense required to change the grid to accommodate the additional power. Furthermore, I suspect (but stand to be corrected) that nuclear power production does not integrate well with renewables because of its inability to fluctuate with outputs.
The cost of decommissioning isn’t included and the cost of insurance, which we will have to bear, goes unmentioned.
What of health costs? German studies show increased incidence of leukemia in children, related inversely to the distance from the nuclear plant. Radiation-caused solid cancers will follow, taking about 40 years before they become apparent.
What of the great promise of nuclear power? Given costs relative to other supply options, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said: “Nuclear power, which accounted for 16 per cent of electricity supply in 2005, can have an 18 per cent share of the total electricity supply in 2030 but safety, weapons proliferation and waste remain as constraints.”
Would you build a house that couldn’t get rid of its sewage?
Dr. Dale Dewar
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix
Now, about that climate change document that Harper hasn’t released – perhaps we should all write requesting a copy. It would start to worry him.


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Leek and Asparagus Quiche – Sundays with Joy

There is no doubt about it.  I have a new favourite cookbook.  Move over hummingbird bakery.  Stand aside Delia.  Joy The Baker is in town.  You can find her book here and, if you haven’t already, check out her blog.

I have poured over the recipes on Joy’s blog for a few years now, always loving her simple ideas and delicious recipes.  Everything she makes always seems to fit with just what I am craving that week and her recipes have always produced great results for me.  So needless to say when Joy released her cookbook I just had to order one!  And boy am I glad I did.  100 recipes of pure gorgeousness with cute little stories and introductions just like on her blog!

Front Cover Joy The Baker Cookbook

Continue reading


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Upside down Industrial Chic

What’s normal after all? It’s all a matter of perspective…

@AmagerCenter – Amagerbro – Copenhagen, Denmark

Abandoned heart

A few hours left to the New Year… Let’s leave all destroyed memories and bad thoughts behind, and begin this new year with a warm heart, hope and lots of joy! Happy 2016 everyone! It’s going to be a FANTASTIC year!

*Abandoned building in Harghita Bai, Romania #snow #abandon

The Tower

Copenhagen, even though it seems like a super romantic and fairy tale-y city, it can also be bold, weird and architecturally unexpected! 😉


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Transformations – Unit 1: Pt 24 Lightroom Slide Show

After a couple of weeks of major procrastination, hot weather, not enough sleep & too many external distractions, I decided that progress had to be made.

At the last class session, Zig suggested ustilising Adobe Lightroom to produce a slideshow version of what I was previously attempting in Adobe Premiere.

I had the images already prepared, so I gave it a ago. It was quite straightforward to upload the files, I then adjusted the Slide Length & Cross Fades timing until I was happy with the result. One thing I did notice was the minimum time for the Slide Length is one second. The Cross Fade time that suited this best was four seconds. Here is the result:

Not totally happy with the result & will need further work, but am fascinated how the images transform, melting from one to the other.

Tasks 2, 3, 4 & 5

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Festival/Local Life

Wandering through the Talang Street of the old Phuket town it is impossible not to notice the many fabric houses lining half the street. If you are looking for a more cultural gift or just a souvenir then these fabric shops are the ideal place for a visit.

Mainly aimed for locals, these shops stock many types of fabrics used in the traditional Phuket outfit. Amongst the most colorful of these fabrics is the ‘Batae’, a type of Javanese printed or hand painted cloth using wax to make fine patterns before dipping the cloth into different colored dyes.

The ‘Batae’ cloth has many uses, from home decoration as table cloth, or can be made into very chic pillow cases as well as playing a vital part in the traditional Phuket life.

In the olden days when at home, Phuket ladies wear the ‘Batae’ by draping the cloth as a sarong perfect for the hot, humid weather. Add a lace blouse and these ‘Batae’ sarongs are made instantly fit for a formal occasion, true Phuket style.

So if you’re looking for a souvenir that is going to reflect the real Phuket culture and its influences, then these relatively cheap, beautiful ‘Batae’ cloth must be taken into consideration! 🙂

No, this is not about Cannes or Hollywood. The red carpet we’re talking about is the carpet of red firecrackers left covering the streets of Phuket town during the famed Vegetarian Festival processions.

If you come to Phuket thinking that the sea, sand and sun are the only things there is to experience then you can think again. As apart from the attractions of a beautiful tropical island Phuket also offers many interesting traditions and festivals resulting from the diverse culture.

Amongst one of the most popular festival amongst excitement-seeking tourists is the Vegetarian Festival, a festival of Toaist Chinese origin now found only in Phuket and several bordering provinces.

The Vegetarian Festival was said to have started in Phuket when an illness spread across a village formed during the tin mining years called ‘Baan Nai Tu’ (now Krathu). At the time there was a group of Pekking Opera performers from China residing in the area, so when the members caught the illness they carried out ‘jia chai’ (Chinese) or the Vegetarian Festival in order to honour the gods ‘Kiew Ong Tai The’ and ‘Yok Ong Sone The’ and drive away the bad fortune. By retaining from the consumption of all animal products and eating only freshly cooked food under the rituals the illness subsided. The Vegetarian Festival is then adopted by the locals across Phuket and nearby areas and carried out yearly on the ninth lunar month in accordance to the traditional Chinese calendar.