• AN IMPORTANT ATTRIBUTE OF LEADERSHIP IS NOT WASTING OTHER PEOPLE’S TIME – a pretty sure way of alienating them. A few tips: (1) Don’t just ‘drop by’ which usually interrupts productivity and personal time management; confirm their availability first;(2) Don’t misrepresent why you’re meeting. Be upfront about the agenda – planning, technical, relationship building, whatever; (3) Communicate in the most expeditious manner – the fastest and most efficient way to avoid “endless communication loops” (like one real-time voice conference or message, versus multiple emails); (4) Don’t create false ‘deadlines’ for info which compels others to re-prioritize, then arouses resentment when not acted on promptly. [AMEX OPEN FORUM – Sep 19, 14]
  • “THE KIDGLOVES WHICH DEP’T OF JUSTICE AND SECURITIES EXCHANGE COMMISSION TAKE WITH WALL STREET is as inexplicable as it is indefensible.” Even when criminal acts are supported by credible whistle-blower testimony, they typically charge only one offence when there are dozens, wait until statutes of limitations are about to expire, then agree to headline-blaring settlements (almost always paid by shareholders), with tacit agreements not to pursue criminal prosecution of executives – not dissimilar conceptually from “charging a serial murderer with a single assault and giving them probation.” Over $3 billion in ‘historic settlements’ have met this profile in the past year with the six biggest banks directly responsible for the still struggling global economic crisis; the same type of compromise occurred a few years ago when Goldman Sachs “agreed to pay $550 million to settle a single case, with private assurance that S.E.C. wouldn’t recommend charges in any of the other deals.” This year, after direct discussions between its CEO and Atty General Holder, JPMorganChase settled for some $9 billion to avoid charges of “knowingly peddling” worthless securities – in the face of “all elements of the crime as defined by federal law: material misrepresentation and omissions, made willingly and with specific intent, consciously ignoring warnings from inside the firm and out.” For an astonishing and disgusting expose: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-witness-20141106    [ROLLING STONE – Nov 20, 14]
  • MORE CRAZY GOVERNMENT IN ACTION: (1) The S. Supreme Court is actually spending time to decide a case where a Florida fisherman was convicted and prosecutors want a 20-year prison sentence for “destroying evidence to impede a federal investigation…and cover-up scheme.” His crime: inadvertently catching 72 red-grouper fish “an inch or two shy of the 20-inch minimum,” receiving a citation ordering him to bring them to shore, but then “asking a crew member to toss them overboard and replace with bigger fish.” [THE ECONOMIST –Nov 8, 14]  (2) Treasury Dep’t Agents are chasing taxation of foreigners with ‘Dual Nationality’ or ‘Derivative Citizenship’ status – those living abroad who may never have even been to America but were birthed here, either by non-citizen parents or by citizen parents “who once lived in the U.S. for an extended period of time before departing.” [CALIFORNIA CPA- Nov 14]
  • MYOPIA, OR SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS, INVOLVES FUZZY EYESIGHT BEYOND AS FEW AS SIX INCHES. The biggest causal factor is lack of daylight (which helps release a chemical that controls the eye’s axial length) and a “combination of not being outdoors and doing lots of close-up work, like writing characters or reading, worsens the problem.” In East Asia, where kids are culturally pushed to spend most classroom and non-class time studying or using electronic devices indoors, Myopia afflicts over 80% of teens and 40% of primary schoolchildren. So glasses are the norm for most; in Beijing, one four-story mall is crammed only with spectacle shops which are the cultural solution, versus giving kids more outdoor time. But a Stanford University program nurtures this approach, after having distributed thousands of free glasses to Chinese students to find “a clearly higher impact on educational attainment than improving nutrition or quality of teaching.” [THE ECONOMIST – Nov 8, 14]
  • COLD SEASON TIP: After thirty years of research, the Journal of American Medical Ass’n reports that a cold ‘remedy’ actually exists – “high dose zinc lozenges.” When 18.75mg lozenges are mouth-dissolved every two waking hours from inception of cold symptoms, for up to three days max, “the mean duration of a cold is cut to only 4½ days,” and even if not certain that a sneeze or runny nose is really a cold, zinc lozenges still have “profound immune-boosting effects.” [LIFE EXTENSION – Dec 14]
  • THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: 85% of North Americans and some 2.9 billion others around the world use the internet, every single minute sending over 200,000 emails, uploading 100 hours of YouTube videos, downloading 48,000 iTune apps, spending $272,000 online shopping, and checking their Smartphone an average of 150 times throughout the day.

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