A confused customer is a profitable customer

Overdrafts should be a rare occurrence. It is pretty easy for a bank to clearly communicate your available current balance. But look at the language that banks use to describe available balance, with additional complexity from pending bills that have yet to be posted, checks that have been authorized but not cleared and temporary holds placed on the account. These are not difficult concepts to understand if you take the time, but banks go out of their way to make it as hard as possible to really understand what is going on with your own money. They have no incentive to help you understand, as a confused customer is a profitable customer. We’ve joked that one of the greatest innovations in banking is every decreasing font sizes. Read more at banksimple.net

The Defence Department is already the largest employer in the country. It spends $26 billion a year, most of it on wages for soldiers and operations in places like Afghanistan but some of it on embarrassing items such as Chesterfield sofas, oil paintings and “stuff”, according to a recent Fairfax investigation.

According to Fairfax’s Linton Besser, Defence spent $1.4 billion on travel, accommodation and conferences in the past four years alone.

Just yesterday, the Australian Financial Review reported that the Australian Defence Force buys $30 million worth of ammunition from two factories managed by giant French defence corporation Thales and that it pays an additional $100 million to Thales simply to keep the factories open.

Defence has real trouble paying its staff correctly. The department’s payroll facilities are so antiquated that soldiers serving in Afghanistan are regularly overpaid and then forced to pay back “debts” they didn’t know they’d incurred.Read more at newmatilda.com

Black people? Back in 1800 or whenever? They liked being slaves. True! Many savvy, industrious Negroes actually volunteered for that fine, desirable position. It was a completely balanced, fair, hugely successful system, until those damn liberals came along and ruined everything. I know, right? What a shame.

Do you know what else? America was wholly victorious in Vietnam.

America has very much won its recent, God-sanctioned wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Angry Allah loses again!

Did you know, back in the frontier days, that Native Americans welcomed the white man with open arms?

These irrefutable facts — and many more just like them — are brought to you by the Texas State Board of EducationRead more at www.sfgate.com

Shareholders must start exercising the latent power they have always had. By focusing almost exclusively on regulation, we are failing to take advantage of the fundamental power shareholders have had but have abdicated. It is akin to voters focusing on the need for campaign finance reform, railing against lobbyists, and then continuing to re-elect politicians who are too cozy with lobbyists. While we demand regulation and government activism to control Wall Street, we shareholders are ducking our own responsibility: We own the corporations whose behavior we disdain, yet we fail to use our power to control them.

Corporate governance should be viewed as a chain—the critical links are the CEO, the board, the management, and the shareholders.

t is only the negligence of shareholders that has permitted corporate power to flow upstream to the board and CEOs.

Shareholders of the world, unite—take back your power!Read more at www.slate.com

Parents now send their children to the brickworks and into metalworking companies where no one is worried about corporate image. The families need the money to survive. The local sports companies are aware of what’s happened but they want to fulfil the wishes of their Western customers. After all, the people who spend a lot of money on footballs want to do so with a clear conscience. The customer in a sports retail outlet doesn’t realize that young girls are now hauling bricks right next door to Danayal, the stitching factory.

The Pakistani suppliers have had a good reputation among global sports firms ever since child labor was officially banned here. Children as young as 10 years old used to stitch footballs until there was an international outcry about it. The sports companies, accustomed to nurturing their image with huge sums of money, got worried about their reputation. So they sided with human rights campaigners and exerted pressure.Read more at www.spiegel.de

Look for Opportunities

“It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference.” – Michael Dell, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Dell Inc.

Believe in Yourself “I always knew I was destined for greatness.” – Oprah, Media Mogul

Create an Atmosphere of Success

“It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” – Warren Buffet, Investor

Empower Others

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates, Co-founder and Former CEO of Microsoft, currently the 2nd richest man in the world behind Carlos Slim.

Focus

“In the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.” – Donald Trump, Real Estate Investor/Developer, TV Personality

Learn From Your Mistakes

Only Go ForwardRead more at www.dumblittleman.com

MILLIONS of Britons are descended from the

ffspring of aristocrat-defiled domestic drudges, it was claimed yesterday.

According to new research, y

According to new research, your potato scrubbing female ancestors were dishonoured by the dashing but amoral sons of the gentry who had nothing better to do at the time

you can be proud of your authentically blue-blooded ancestry, which will impress Americans,

We hope this news will encourage people to visit Britain’s stately homes, where your great-great-great grandmother could have lived in splendour Read more at www.thedailymash.co.uk

The more difficult the decision we face, the more likely we are not to act, according to new research by UCL scientists that examines the neural pathways involved in ’status quo bias’ in the human brain.

“When faced with a complex decision people tend to accept the status quo, hence the old saying ‘When in doubt, do nothing.’

Whether it’s moving house or changing TV channel, there is a considerable tendency to stick with the current situation and choose not to act,

As the task became more difficult, the bias became even more pronounced. The fMRI scans showed that a region of the brain known as the subthalamic nucleus (STN) was more active in the cases when the default was rejectedRead more at www.sciencedaily.com

One overreaching idea within his book is to show how fiction changed from Shakespeare to the modern thriller. One factor that has changed between the two is the way in which internal dialogue went from being directed to an audience, to directing it to the reader. The soliloquy from Shakespearean times was often directed to God(s) or the audience, whereas now, the reader takes the position of God, the character someone we look into

I found that Wood fires me up and makes me want to go grab the classics off the shelf. It helped knowing the four that I did (Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Conrad, and a bit of Flaubert) just so I could feel like less of a slouch. Even still, Wood tastefully and often humorously peppers his book on writing with his own well-turned phrases. Readers will see he surely loves writing as much as he does reading.

So many ideas crammed into this little book provides hours of contemplative thought on what we’ve read and what we will read.Read more at www.poisonedpenblog.com