Creative Accounting, or GO REBELS!

So Jeff Skilling got a new sentence handed down for his role in the financial shenanigans at Enron. Actually, it’s a reduction of the sentence he was given back in 2006 for stuff that happened throughout the 90s and caused the company’s collapse in 2004. In case you’ve forgotten:

Enron’s collapse put more than 5,000 people out of work, wiped out more than $2 billion in employee pensions and rendered worthless $60 billion in Enron stock. Its aftershocks were felt across the city and the U.S. energy industry.

That’s over and above defrauding local power companies and gouging “Grandma Millie.”

For years, Enron was able to make people think things were much better than they were. They were able to make people believe they were making money.

Which brings me to this item from ThinkProgress:

America’s colleges and universities used more than $2 billion in student fees — an average of more than $500 per student — to subsidize rapidly growing university athletic budgets, as Ohio University professor Richard Vedder wrote at BloombergView today. Those fees can top $1,000 a year at some schools, and as Vedder writes, reliance on them ends up making college more expensive for students and often places the burden on the poorest students. And most of the time, students don’t even know they’re paying the fees.

In addition to student fees, athletic programs are relying more on money from general university budgets, so taxpayers are also spending millions of dollars a year to cover shortfalls as athletic budgets continue to grow faster than academic budgets.

Now, I have long thought that the accepted wisdom of “sports brings in money and students so we have to fund it” was flawed. If sports are really profitable, why are students and taxpayers paying so much money to support them? I have suspected that the “accounting” used to make sports profitable would have made Jeff Skilling drool. How did they pay for the stadium? It would never have been built without wealthy donors who like having their names on buildings. What about the maintenance for that stadium? Oh, that’s a different budget. What about the scholarships for athletes? Another budget. The coaches? Oh, they’re faculty so that’s yet another budget. Security, ticket sales, advertising the big game? Three different budgets. So most of the expenses of a good athletic program are offloaded onto other areas, leaving only the juicy profits and the bragging rights.

The idea that the money for sports is — really, truly — being paid for by students rips back the curtain on the Great Oz. In an age where the cost of college is rising much faster than either inflation or the wages they can expect to earn, where a student loan crisis is on the horizon, how can any college justify these costs?

No wonder so many young adults don’t know how to handle money. Where would they have learned?

In case you didn’t get the title, University of Nevada Las Vegas’s sports teams are the Rebels. Enjoy this unintentionally hilarious radio ad. 

In Closing: a few items on the NSA, FBI, and the government spying on us including a petition you can sign; some stuff on food, obesity, additives, and whatnot; about time somebody used some freaking common sense; assorted nonsense about the latest attempt to make abortion so hard to get that it might as well be illegal; and corporate America running amok or returning from insanity.

Just How Much do We Value Privacy?

It has become clear that the United States government is spying on it’s citizens in the name of preventing “terrorism.” Just exactly what they are doing is under debate. Most experts outside the government itself seem to believe it is mathematically impossible for such surveillance to be effective. Many private citizens are asking what they can do (and here are two places to start).

But I’d like to mention a personal security breach that many people overlook: making private phone calls in public places.

Over the weekend, I did some shopping. Naturally, it was in a crowded public place. Nevertheless I heard several people having extremely sensitive phone calls and being really loud about it. The only way I could have avoided listening was to leave the area. Among the topics of conversation:

  • Legal troubles
  • An upcoming divorce (“Oh he doesn’t know it, but it will be good for him!”)
  • Personal health issues
  • Undergarments (No, I won’t be more specific)

Granted, nobody was discussing a hit, bomb, or robbery, but that is beside the point. These same people probably would be outraged that some cop could get a recording of that call, but all the cop has to do is ask random shoppers what they were talking about! No warrant required. I would gladly tell the officer what the obnoxiously loud lady who damn near ran over me with her cart was talking about.

More irony, these people probably use Amazon to buy their “embarrassing” items, the stuff they don’t want some cashier to know about.

Value your privacy? Step one is to STFU.

In Closing: running; facial recognition; jobs; girls on film.

Would You Shorties

What is Problem?: Putin sees no problems whatsoever with Prism.

Interesting Statistic: Young children with guns have killed more people than terrorism in the United States this year. Maybe we need a law prohibiting little kids from owning guns… um, yeah never mind.

Wake Up Call: Boomers, this is the future calling.

He swears he doesn’t know where his son could possibly have learned such language: Sure Dr. Heck. Stick with that story.

A Few Items Buried in the Immigration “Reform” Bill: No health benefits (as someone who has heard about multiple reports of tuberculosis in the community in the last 6 months, this strikes me as a recipe for an epidemic); Real ID back from the dead with a side order of a government list of people allowed to work (right, what could possibly go wrong).

A Few Items on Wages, Wage Inequality, and Wealth Inequality: Gatsby Curve; temps; wages for normal people are dropping; and wages vs tuition.

Food Myths: the truth about salt; and 7 other things.

Let me fix that for you, hun: before

These girls can’t get their ears pierced, they can’t take an Advil at school without parental permission. Yet, they can go into a pharmacy in this Brave New World of women’s equality and — quote — reproductive health and get a morning after pill.

Corrected…

These girls can’t get their ears pierced without a parent’s consent, they can’t take an Advil at school without parental permission without risking expulsion under zero tolerance policies. Yet, they can go into a pharmacy in this Brave New World of women’s equality and — quote — reproductive health and get a morning after pill that will keep them from having a baby they can’t take care of and that their body isn’t really mature enough to give birth to.

It’s not a boon for pedophiles. It’s a boon for girls who are mature enough to realize that babies having babies is a bad idea. And yeah, I think maybe schools ought to revisit policies for high schoolers on OTC meds such as Advil and Maalox. But that’s another issue.