The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers

No 79: George Papandreou. for making the best of Greece's worst year.

rime minister | Greece
Even before the 2008 financial crisis, the Greek economy was running on borrowed time, an ossified system that predictably buckled under the weight of the crash. When George Papandreou took office as Greece's prime minister in October 2009, he found that the budget deficit was not 6 percent, as his predecessor had claimed, but 12.7 percent, four times that allowed by the eurozone's rules.
Papandreou has spent 2010 telling Greeks hard truths about the unsustainable nature of their welfare state -- and sounding an international warning that Greece is the canary in the European coal mine. The Minnesota-born son of a former socialist prime minister, he has rolled out an austerity plan that will raise taxes and rein in the bloated public sector, a package ambitious enough to convince Europe to keep Greece afloat even as it has provoked riots in Athens. And he has argued that the disaster should be a wake-up call for the threat sovereign debt poses far beyond Europe's borders. "It's not an issue of countries acting on their own," he said. "We need a more coordinated strategy not only in Europe but around the world."

Duke geneticist resigns as investigation continues

 From nature.com

Troubled Duke geneticist Anil Potti has resigned, according to an email sent by the Director of Duke University’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, Hunt Willard, and posted online by the Duke Chronicle today. Willard says that investigations into alleged research misconduct in Potti's work will continue. “He accepted full responsibility for a series of anomalies in data handling, analysis and management that have come under scrutiny in the past months,” he says.
Potti came under fire in July 2010 for allegedly puffing his resume. Duke halted clinical trials based on his research and opened a research misconduct investigation. The university restarted those trials in January 2010 after an earlier cessation caused by questions raised in 2009 by biostatisicians Keith Baggerly and Kevin Coombes of the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer in Houston. A key paper of Potti's was retracted earlier this week.
Update -- Statement from Duke
Duke now says that a second paper co-authored by Potti and published in Nature Medicine will also be retracted. "This process has been initiated due to concerns about the reproducibility of reported predictors, and their possible effect on the overall conclusions in this paper. Other papers published based on this science are currently being reviewed for any concerns," it says in a statement. It adds that the three suspended clinical trials have now been closed.

NASA Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets are Common

PASADENA, Calif. -- Nearly one in four stars similar to the sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California.

The study is the most extensive and sensitive planetary census of its kind. Astronomers used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii for five years to search 166 sun-like stars near our solar system for planets of various sizes, ranging from three to 1,000 times the mass of Earth. All of the planets in the study orbit close to their stars. The results show more small planets than large ones, indicating small planets are more prevalent in our Milky Way galaxy.

"We studied planets of many masses -- like counting boulders, rocks and pebbles in a canyon -- and found more rocks than boulders, and more pebbles than rocks. Our ground-based technology can't see the grains of sand, the Earth-size planets, but we can estimate their numbers," said Andrew Howard of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of the new study. "Earth-size planets in our galaxy are like grains of sand sprinkled on a beach -- they are everywhere."

The study appears in the Oct. 29 issue of the journal Science.

The research provides a tantalizing clue that potentially habitable planets could also be common. These hypothesized Earth-size worlds would orbit farther away from their stars, where conditions could be favorable for life. NASA's Kepler spacecraft is also surveying sun-like stars for planets and is expected to find the first true Earth-like planets in the next few years.

Howard and his planet-hunting team, which includes principal investigator Geoff Marcy, also of the University of California, Berkeley, looked for planets within 80-light-years of Earth, using the radial velocity, or "wobble," technique.

They measured the numbers of planets falling into five groups, ranging from 1,000 times the mass of Earth, or about three times the mass of Jupiter, down to three times the mass of Earth. The search was confined to planets orbiting close to their stars -- within 0.25 astronomical units, or a quarter of the distance between our sun and Earth.

A distinct trend jumped out of the data: smaller planets outnumber larger ones. Only 1.6 percent of stars were found to host giant planets orbiting close in. That includes the three highest-mass planet groups in the study, or planets comparable to Saturn and Jupiter. About 6.5 percent of stars were found to have intermediate-mass planets, with 10 to 30 times the mass of Earth -- planets the size of Neptune and Uranus. And 11.8 percent had the so-called "super-Earths," weighing in at only three to 10 times the mass of Earth.

"During planet formation, small bodies similar to asteroids and comets stick together, eventually growing to Earth-size and beyond. Not all of the planets grow large enough to become giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter," Howard said. "It's natural for lots of these building blocks, the small planets, to be left over in this process."

The astronomers extrapolated from these survey data to estimate that 23 percent of sun-like stars in our galaxy host even smaller planets, the Earth-sized ones, orbiting in the hot zone close to a star. "This is the statistical fruit of years of planet-hunting work," said Marcy. "The data tell us that our galaxy, with its roughly 200 billion stars, has at least 46 billion Earth-size planets, and that's not counting Earth-size planets that orbit farther away from their stars in the habitable zone."

The findings challenge a key prediction of some theories of planet formation. Models predict a planet "desert" in the hot-zone region close to stars, or a drop in the numbers of planets with masses less than 30 times that of Earth. This desert was thought to arise because most planets form in the cool, outer region of solar systems, and only the giant planets were thought to migrate in significant numbers into the hot inner region. The new study finds a surplus of close-in, small planets where theories had predicted a scarcity.

"We are at the cusp of understanding the frequency of Earth-sized planets among planetary systems in the solar neighborhood," said Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This work is part of a key NASA science program and will stimulate new theories to explain the significance and impact of these findings."

NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., manages time allocation on the Keck telescope for NASA. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration program office. More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

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Greece: Funding Opportunities for Postdoctoral Research

The Greek Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs invites all interested beneficiaries to submit proposal summaries for their inclusion in the Action "Support of Postdoctoral Researchers".

The aim of this Action is to facilitate the acquirement of new research skills by Postdoctoral Researchers (PR) that will promote their career development in any field and/or help them restart their careers after a leave of absence (but no more than seven (7) years following their doctorate conferment date). Emphasis will be given to the support of new scientists at the beginning of their career. The duration of the research projects should range from 24 to 36 months. Each candidate can submit only one (1) research proposal.

The total pubic cost of the present call is 30.000.000€ and it is co-financed by the ESF (European Social Fund). The maximum budget for each project is 150.000€. At least 60% of the total budget should be related to costs pertaining to activities undertaken by the PR and should include a monthly net allowance of 1.600€, subject to cost-of-living adjustments for different countries.

The potential beneficiaries of this call must be either

a) Greek or foreign nationals that have acquired their doctorate from a non-Greek University. These researchers should undertake their research in a University/Research Institution within Greece

or

b) Greek nationals that have acquired their doctorate from a Greek University. These researchers may undertake their research in a University/Research Institution either in Greece or abroad. In the first case the host Institution should differ from the University where the candidate PR obtained his/her doctorate and the PR should collaborate with a scientist other than his/her PhD supervisor. In the second case the PR should undertake the first 2/3 of his/her research in a University/Research Institution outside Greece and the final 1/3 in a University/Research Institution within Greece.

A two-stage submission procedure will be followed. Please, note that at this stage (i.e. 1^st stage) the PRs are not required to have established cooperation with the host Institution. They only need to indicate where (University/Research Institution) and with whom (Faculty member or Research Scientist of a public Research Institution that holds a PhD degree) they would like to cooperate. If a proposal is positively assessed during the evaluation of summaries (1^st stage), the respective PR will be asked to submit a full proposal (2^nd stage) as well as contact the proposed host Institution to ensure collaboration.

All summaries (as well as the full proposals at the 2^nd evaluation stage) will be reviewed by international experts. Further information for the 2^nd submission stage will become available in the near future.

All interested beneficiaries should register at the following link:

http://postdoc-ypepth.opengov.gr/register

and submit their summaries at: http://postdoc-ypepth.opengov.gr/

The summaries submission deadline is November 20, 2010 at 22:00 GMT.

UC Ph.D. programs rank high in National Research Council report

University of California doctoral programs rank among the best in the nation in a National Research Council report that universities consider the gold-standard assessment of Ph.D. studies. In its first comprehensive evaluation of university doctoral programs since 1995, the NRC reviewed 322 UC programs in science, math, engineering, social sciences and humanities.

In the report, released today (Sept. 28), 141 UC programs were ranked among the top 10 in their fields across a wide range of measures used by the NRC to assess quality.

"I am very proud UC campuses fare so well in these distinguished rankings," said UC President Mark Yudof. "It is clear that the University of California dominates in excellence across a wide range of disciplines. This performance is a function of our outstanding faculty and researchers, talented graduate students, and a diverse and gifted staff and student body."

The NRC, along with the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, make up the National Academies, which provide independent science, health and technology policy advice to the U.S. government. The NRC's periodic rankings of American doctoral programs are highly respected among academic institutions.

Program improvement and student guide

The assessment, according to the NRC, is designed to help universities improve the quality of their programs and to provide prospective graduate students with information to help them decide which programs may suit them best.

"The NRC and other ranking tools attest to the fact that UC is the finest public research university system in the nation, if not the world, and that we cannot let the threat of economic uncertainty diminish us in any way," said Yudof.

The new NRC report differs greatly from its previous version in 1995. That report was based mostly on a reputational assessment, with faculty across the United States rating each program, and it provided a top-to-bottom ranking of programs. The 2010 NRC version relies on data from 2005-06, collected from faculty and students. The report uses 20 different variables to rank programs, including research publications by faculty, percentage of students receiving financial support and their time to degree, and student and faculty diversity.

The NRC doesn't list a "best" program, but instead provides several ranges of rankings in which individual programs are likely to fall. A range, for example, can be second best to 12th best in the country.

Overall, the NRC ranked more than 5,000 doctoral programs at 212 U.S. universities.

Top of the class

At nine UC campuses, doctoral programs ranked at the top of their fields. UC's newest campus, UC Merced, was not included because data were collected in 2005-06, before its doctoral programs were fully established.

"The new NRC assessment validates what we and others who evaluate and rank programs have found about the excellence and quality of our graduate programs," said Steven Beckwith, UC vice president for research and graduate studies.

The NRC report is consistent with other recent findings about UC's graduate programs. A UC Office of the President's accountability report, which Beckwith recently presented to the UC Regents, highlighted the following:

• In 2009, UC enrolled 26,117 doctoral students at its 10 campuses.
• As the public institution with primary responsibility for granting doctoral degrees in California, UC awarded 63 percent of all academic doctoral degrees in the state. California led the nation with 5,923 doctorates awarded in 2007-08.
• UC awarded 3,500 Ph.D.s a year — 7 percent of the nation's doctoral degrees.
• In 2009, UC had 7 percent of all the graduate students in the United States, but they won 20 to 30 percent of the most competitive and prestigious fellowships in science, arts and humanities.

"Graduate students play an important role in conducting the research," said Beckwith. "They spark ideas, make discoveries, enrich the arts and work to solve some of society's most pressing problems as they push at the cutting edge of knowledge. They also play a key role in attracting and retaining faculty. Many of our top faculty come to UC because of the outstanding graduate students."

And the faculty themselves, he noted, are distinguished by the top awards and honors they consistently receive.

In the 2009 and 2010 classes elected to the National Academy of Sciences, for example, 66 of the 144 new members came from public universities, and 39 of these were from UC. "Put another way, more than half of the honored scientists from public universities teach and do research at UC," said Beckwith.

The full Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States report is available online.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/24184

International Advisory Committee for the Greek HE reforms

Some biographical information on the members of the advisory committee for the reform of Greek Universities.

David Naylor (Professor of Medicine), CANADA
David Naylor has been President of the University of Toronto since 2005. He earned his MD at Toronto in 1978, followed by a D Phil at Oxford where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Naylor completed clinical specialty training and joined the Department of Medicine of the University of Toronto in 1988. He was founding Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (1991-1998), before becoming Dean of Medicine and Vice Provost for Relations with Health Care Institutions of the University of Toronto (1999 - 2005). Naylor has co-authored approximately 300 scholarly publications, spanning social history, public policy, epidemiology and biostatistics, and health economics, as well as clinical and health services research in most fields of medicine. Among other honours, Naylor is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Foreign Associate Fellow of the US Institute of Medicine, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Gavin Brown. (Professor of Mathematics), AUSTRALIA
Former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney. (retired as Vice-Chancellor on 10 July 2008).
At the University of New South Wales, Brown held a number of academic administrative posts, including Head of the Department of Pure Mathematics, Head of the School of Mathematics, and Dean of the Faculty of Science. In 1992, he became the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Adelaide; later, in 1994, he became the Vice-Chancellor. He took up his final position as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney in 1996.
Brown was actively involved in the work of the Australian Research Council as a chairman of various funding committees from 1988-1993, and a member of the Council from 1992-1993.
Brown has authored more than a hundred research papers and he is on the board of several international journals. His research areas have been broad, including measure theory and algebraic geometry. He holds a Master of Arts degree (1st Class Honours and the Duncan Medal) from University of St Andrews (1963), a PhD from University of Newcastle upon Tyne (1966), an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of St Andrews (1997), and an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Dundee (2004). In 2006, Brown was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia.

Gudmund Hernes (Professor of Social Science), DENMARK
President International Social Science Council (ISSC), a scholar at the Norwegian Institute for Labour and Social Research and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
He was the state secretary to the Secretariat for Long-Term Planning 1980-1981, Minister of Education and Research and Ministry of Church and Cultural Affairs (church affairs) 1990, Minister of Education, Research and Church Affairs 1991-1995 and Minister of Health and Social Affairs (health affairs) 1995-1996 and 1996-1997.
Hernes holds a PhD in Sociology from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He became a Professor of Sociology at the University of Bergen (Norway) in 1969, where he was also Chairman of the Sociology Department and Director of the University’s Centre for Advanced Training in Social Research. Later he became a Professor at the University of Oslo. He was a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, Palo Alto, during the 1974-75 semesters, and twice Visiting Professor at Harvard University, in 1986 and in 1990.

James J. Duderstadt (Professor of Science and Engineering), USA
President Emeritus, University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan and Director, the Millennium Project.
A graduate of Yale (B.S.E. in electrical engineering) and Caltech (M.S. and Ph.D. in engineering science and physics), Dr. Duderstadt’s teaching, research, and publishing activities include nuclear science and engineering, applied physics, computer simulation, science policy, and higher education policy. He has served on and chaired numerous National Academy and federal commissions including the National Science Board; the National Academies' Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy; the DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee; and the NSF’s Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure, and the Intelligence Science Board. He has received numerous awards including the E. O. Lawrence Award for excellence in nuclear research, the Arthur Holly Compton Prize for outstanding teaching, the Reginald Wilson Award for national leadership in achieving diversity, and the National Medal of Technology for exemplary service to the nation. He is currently co-director of the program in Science, Technology, and Public Policy in the Ford School and director of the Millennium Project, a research center exploring the impact of over-the-horizon technologies on society, located in the James and Anne Duderstadt Center on the University's North Campus.

Jozef Ritzen (Professor of Economics), NETHERLANDS
Jo Ritzen is the President of the Universiteit Maastricht, where he advanced the international position of the university (attracting now 50% of its students from abroad) and the education quality (through problem based learning).
Before assuming his current position in February 2003, Mr. Ritzen was Vice President of the World Bank’s Development Economics Department. He assumed this position in August 1999. In July 2001 he assumed the position Vice President of the World Bank's Human Development Network, which advises the institution and its client countries on innovative approaches to improving health, education and social protection. Mr. Ritzen joined the Bank as Special Adviser to the Human Development Network in September 1998.
Prior to coming to the Bank, he was Minister of Education, Culture, and Science of The Netherlands, one of the longest-serving Ministers of Education in the world. During his term, he enacted a series of major reforms throughout the Dutch education system. Mr. Ritzen has also made significant contributions to agencies such as UNESCO and OECD, especially in the field of education and social cohesion. Prior to his appointment as Minister in 1989, Mr. Ritzen held academic appointments with Nijmegen University and Erasmus University in The Netherlands, and the University of California-Berkeley and the Robert M. LaFollette Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.
Mr. Ritzen obtained a master's degree in physical engineering in 1970 from the University of Technology in Delft, and a PhD in economics in 1977 from Erasmus University in Rotterdam. His dissertation on education, economic growth, and income distribution earned him the Winkler Prins prize.

John Sexton (Professor of law), USA

Sexton is the fifteenth President of New York University, having held this position since May 17, 2002, and is the Benjamin Butler Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law. From 1988 to 2002, he served as Dean of the NYU School of Law, which during his deanship became one of the top five law schools in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report. From January 1, 2003 to January 1, 2007, he was the Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; in 2006, he served as chair of the Federal Reserve System's Council of Chairs.
Sexton holds a B.A. in history (1963), an M.A. in comparative religion (1965), a Ph.D. in history of American religion (1978) from Fordham University, as well as a J.D. (1979) magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Supreme Court Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger.

During Sexton’s presidency, NYU has expanded its arts and science faculty by 20 percent; has opened a highly selective new campus in Abu Dhabi – “the world’s honor college” -- thereby becoming the first major US university to operate a comprehensive liberal arts abroad; has successfully concluded what was at the time the largest completed fundraising campaign in American higher education (over $3 billion); has increased the percentage of NYU students studying abroad to over 40 percent, opened several new Study Away academic centers, and been recognized by the Institute for International Education for sending more students abroad than any other US university.

Linda Katehi (Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering), USA
Linda Katehi became the sixth chancellor of the University of California, Davis, on August 17, 2009. As chief executive officer, she oversees all aspects of the university’s teaching, research and public service mission.
Chancellor Katehi (kah-TAY-hee) also holds UC Davis faculty appointments in electrical and computer engineering and in women and gender studies. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, she chaired until 2010 the President’s Committee for the National Medal of Science and the Secretary of Commerce’s committee for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. She is a fellow and board member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of many other national boards and committees.
Previously, Chancellor Katehi served as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign; the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University; and associate dean for academic affairs and graduate education in the College of Engineering and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan.
Since her early years as a faculty member, Chancellor Katehi has focused on expanding research opportunities for undergraduates and improving the education and professional experience of graduate students, with an emphasis on underrepresented groups. She has mentored more than 70 postdoctoral fellows, doctoral and master’s students in electrical and computer engineering. Twenty-one of the 42 doctoral students who graduated under her supervision have become faculty members in research universities in the United States and abroad.
Her work in electronic circuit design has led to numerous national and international awards both as a technical leader and educator, 17 U.S. patents, and an additional six U.S. patent applications. She is the author or co-author of 10 book chapters and about 600 refereed publications in journals and symposia proceedings.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1977, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from UCLA in 1981 and 1984, respectively.
The University of California, Davis, is one of 10 UC campuses and one of a select group of 62 North American universities admitted to membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities.

Patrick Aebischer (Professor of Medical Science), SWITZERLAND
President of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.Patrick Aebischer was trained as an MD (1980) and a Neuroscientist (1983) at the University of Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland.
From 1984 to 1992, he worked at Brown University in Providence (Rhode Island, United States), as an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Medical Sciences. In 1991, he became the chairman of the Section of Artificial Organs, Biomaterials and Cellular Technology of the Division of Biology and Medicine of Brown University. In the fall of 1992, he returned to Switzerland as a Professor and Director of the Surgical Research Division and Gene Therapy Center at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) in Lausanne.
In 1999, Patrick Aebischer was nominated President of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) by the Swiss Federal Council.
He took office as President on March 2000. Since then, he has significantly built EPFL’s reputation as one of Europe's foremost interdisciplinary scientific institutions. Patrick Aebischer's own current research at EPFL, where he teaches neurosciences, focuses on the development of cell and gene transfer approaches for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a fellow of the Swiss Academy of Medicine and founder of three biotech companies.

Lap-Chee Tsui (Professor of Biology), HONG-KONG

Professor Lap-Chee Tsui is the fourteenth Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.
Prior to his present appointment in September 2002, Professor Tsui was Geneticist-in-Chief and Head of the Genetics and Genomic Biology Program of the Research Institute, at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
Born in Shanghai and awarded his bachelor and master's degrees from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Professor Tsui is a native of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1979. After a brief training in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he joined the Department of Genetics at The Hospital for Sick Children. He received international acclaim in 1989 when he identified the defective gene that causes cystic fibrosis, which is a major breakthrough in human genetics. He has also made significant contributions to the study of the human genome, especially the characterization of chromosome 7, and, identification of additional disease genes. He has 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications and 65 invited book chapters and papers.
Professor Tsui has received numerous awards and honours for his outstanding work over the years. His honours include Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Fellow of Academia Sinica, Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), and Foreign Member, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In addition to many national and international prizes, he was awarded honorary doctoral degrees by University of King's College, University of New Brunswick, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, St. Francis Xavier University, York University, Tel Aviv University, University of Toronto, University of Aberdeen and King's College London and University of Edinburgh.
He is currently member of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, Executive Committee of the Commission on Strategic Development and the Advisory Committee on Corruption of the Hong Kong SAR Government. He received the Order of Canada (Officer), the Order of Ontario, Knight of the Légion d'Honneur of France, and the title of Justice of the Peace (HKSAR)

Plan after plan fails to make Oxbridge access fair

None of them work. The elaborate schemes supposed to widen access to the UK's top universities – the summer schools, the mentoring programmes, the taster days, the bursaries and scholarships – have failed. The proportion of poor students these universities accept has fallen over the past 15 years.

A new report by the Office for Fair Access (Offa) shows that intelligent children from the richest 20% of homes in England are seven times more likely to attend a high-ranking university than intelligent children from the poorest 40%. In the mid-1990s they were six times more likely. The better the college, the worse the figures become. The Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes the figures for individual universities. I've just been through the spreadsheets. In 2002-3, when the data begins, 5.4% of students at Cambridge and 5.8% at Oxford came from "low participation neighbourhoods". By 2008-9, the proportion had fallen to 3.7% and 2.7%. This has happened despite 13 years of a Labour government that listed its priorities as "education, education, education", and tens of millions spent – particularly by Oxford and Cambridge – on outreach and encouragement.

People of my social background (upper middle class, public school) dominate every economic sector except those – such as sport and hard science – in which only raw ability counts. Through networking, confidence, unpaid internships – most importantly through our attendance at the top universities – we run the media, politics, the civil service, the arts, the City, law, medicine, big business, the armed forces, even, in many cases, the protest movements challenging these powers. The Milburn report, published last year, showed that 45% of top civil servants, 53% of top journalists, 32% of MPs, 70% of finance directors and 75% of judges come from the 7% of the population who went to private schools. Even the beneficiaries should be able to see that this system is grotesque, invidious and socially destructive.

Children from privileged homes begin to creep ahead of their peers long before school begins: the link between background and attainment, Offa says, is evident at 22 months. But schooling widens the gap. By the time they sit GCSEs, the children of higher professionals are nearly three times as likely to get five good grades as the children of people in routine work. Fewer working-class children take A-levels, and those who do get lower scores. Pupils at private schools account for some 15% of entries but take around 30% of A grades.

But this isn't just about grades. Even when children from poorer homes do well, they are less likely to apply to the top universities. Going by grades alone, there's a shortfall of some 4,500 state sector pupils who should, all else being equal, enrol on the UK's top courses. These students aren't applying partly because their schools don't encourage them to do so; partly because they feel that the top universities aren't for the likes of them.

Private schools, by comparison, groom their pupils for Oxford and Cambridge. They pass from the quadrangles of Eton to the quadrangles of Oxford with a sense of entitlement. (Many of them spend the rest of their lives nannied in quadrangles, at the bar and the Palace of Westminster. They then instruct everyone else to stand on their own two feet). 
 
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Book chronicles how the Gov 2.0 movement is slowly becoming a reality

We’ve known for years how social media and Web 2.0 have been transforming the way political campaigns are run, the way we interact with big institutions, the way news is reported and distributed — indeed, practically all facets of modern society. So it comes as no surprise that social technologies are slowly transforming the way government works.
What is surprising is that editors Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma and O’Reilly Media have managed to make a potentially wonky topic like Government 2.0 accessible, fresh and actually interesting. Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice is a big (432 pages), beautiful book, from the gorgeous, sumptuous cover to the breadth of ideas and angles inside. In its collection of 34 essays written by thought leaders and practitioners in government reform, the book offers dozens of examples of a new approach to government: open, democratic, distributed, bottom-up, shareable, data-driven and focused on making “we the people” a reality again.
Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media — the best computer book publisher in the world — carried the same message in a webcast today that proved so popular my browser crashed four times. O’Reilly has been at the forefront of the open government movement and contributes the key second chapter, “Government as Platform.” O’Reilly Media co-produces the Gov 2.0 Expo, coming May 25-27, and Gov 2.0 Summit on Sept. 9-10, both in Washington, D.C.
In today’s “The Power of Platforms” webcast, O’Reilly touched on Apple’s iTunes Store, saying that Apple programmers had written only 15-20 apps for the launch of the iPhone but by opening up the platform (relatively speaking) to third-party developers, there are upwards of 200,000 apps in the store. “That’s the magic of the platform,” he said. He said governments need to take a similar approach, creating emergent platforms “instead of building finished solutions.”
O’Reilly cited a number of great examples (and the live chat contributed a few), ranging from Ushahidi in Haiti to the U.S. State Department on Twitter to the local businesses in Hawaii that decided to fix a key road themselves instead of waiting two years for government contractors. (I had already included a few of these examples in my upcoming Mobilize Your Cause Bootcamp at Personal Democracy Forum on June 2.) The webcast should be live soon — it’s worth a look
http://www.socialbrite.org/2010/05/11/open-government-review-big-beautiful-ideas/

Obama on Health Care in Portland, Maine April 1, 2010

April 1, 2010
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM
Portland Expo
Portland, Maine
3:17 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Portland! (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, Portland.
AUDIENCE: Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.
Well, what a wonderful -- I guess when the sun comes out around here, everybody gets pretty excited. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you!
THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.)
Now, I have to say, the last time I was in Maine was before the caucuses. (Applause.) It was a little cooler here -- (laughter) -- as I recall. But it is wonderful to be back. There are some people I want to say a few nice things about.
First of all, we could not have a better Small Business Administrator than your own neighbor, Karen Mills. And so please give her a huge round of applause. (Applause.) She's doing a great job. I think she has more than a few folks from Maine on her staff. She's kind of stocked them all over the place. And everybody is doing a great job over at the SBA. I want to thank --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you!
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) I want to thank one of the finest governors in the country, John Baldacci, who is here. (Applause.) Thank you, John. Where is he? There he is right there. Thank you. (Applause.)
Your outstanding mayor Nick Mavodones is here. (Applause.) And we've got two great champions from Maine whose tireless efforts have helped working families all across this state and all across this country -- Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and Congressman Mike Michaud. (Applause.)
All right, it is good to be back in Maine. (Applause.) And I want everybody to remember, when I came here during the campaign, I made a promise. And it wasn't a promise about any particular issue. It was a promise that our government would once again be responsive to the needs and aspirations of working families, of America's middle class. It was a promise that Washington would concern itself not just with the next election, but with the next generation of Americans. (Applause.)
Now, keeping that promise is even more critical now, at a time when so many families and so many small business owners are still struggling here in Maine and all across the country. Every time I visit with workers in a factory, or families in a diner; every time I sit down and read letters from Americans across the country, I see and hear the same questions. Folks are asking, “How am I going to find a job when I've only known one skill my entire lifetime and I just got laid off and I'm in my fifties? How am I going to retire when I keep spending my savings just to get by, or trying to make sure that my kid can go to college and tuition keeps on going up? How am I going to make it when I'm stretched to the limits on my mortgage and on my bills?” Those are the questions that I hear.
And I want you to know we are working every single day to spur job creation and to turn this economy around. That's why we worked so hard over the last year to lift one of the biggest burdens facing middle-class families and small business owners, and that is the crushing cost of health care right here in America. (Applause.)
And Mainers, I want you to know that last week, after a year of debate and a century of trying, health insurance reform became the law of the land -- last week. (Applause.) Last week.
AUDIENCE: Yes we did! Yes we did! Yes we did!
THE PRESIDENT: Yes we did. Because of folks like Chellie and Mike, it happened. (Applause.) Because of people like you, it happened. It happened because people had the courage to stand up at town hall meetings and talk about how insurance companies were denying their families coverage because of a preexisting condition. It happened because folks wrote letters about how premiums have gone up 50 or 70 or 100 percent, in some cases, and it was forcing them to give up their insurance. It happened because countless small business owners and families and doctors shared stories about a health care system that was working better for the insurance industry than it did for American people.
And when the special interests sent an army of lobbyists to Congress and blanketed the airwaves with millions of dollars in negative ads, all of you mobilized and organized and you refused to give up. And when the pundits were obsessed over what the polls were saying and who was up and who was down, and what would this mean for Democrats or Republicans, you never lost sight of what was right and what was wrong. (Applause.) You knew it wasn't about the fortunes of one party, it was about the future of our country. (Applause.) And today, Portland, because of what you did, the future looks stronger and more hopeful than it has in some time.
Now, over the last year, there's been a lot of misinformation spread about health reform. There's been a lot of fear-mongering, a lot of overheated rhetoric. You turned on the news, you'd see that those same folks who were hollering about it before it passed, they're still hollering, about how the world will end because we passed this bill. (Laughter.) This is not an exaggeration. John Boehner called the passage of this bill --
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: -- no need to -- we don't need to boo, I just want to give the facts -- called this passage of this bill “Armageddon.” You had others who said this is the end of freedom as we know it.
So after I signed the bill, I looked around. (Laughter and applause.) I looked up at the sky to see if asteroids were coming. (Laughter.) I looked at the ground to see if cracks had opened up in the earth. You know what, it turned out it was a pretty nice day. (Laughter and applause.) Birds were still chirping. Folks were strolling down the street. Nobody had lost their doctor. Nobody had pulled the plug on Granny. (Laughter.) Nobody was being dragged away to be forced into some government-run health care plan.
But the thing is, though, you have to love some of the pundits in Washington. Every single day since I signed the reform law, there's been another poll or headline that said “Nation still divided on health care reform. Polls haven't changed yet.” Well, yeah. It just happened last week. (Laughter and applause.) It's only been a week. (Applause.)
Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm? (Laughter.) You planted some seeds, and they came out the next day, and they looked, and nothing's happened! (Laughter and applause.) There's no crop! We're going to starve! Oh, no! (Applause.) It's a disaster! (Laughter.)
It's been a week, folks. (Laughter.) So before we find out if people like health care reform, we should wait to see what happens when we actually put it into place. Just a thought. (Applause.)
Now, look, this reform is not going to solve every problem with our health care system. It is a huge, complicated piece of business -- a couple of trillion dollars, thousands of people affected, thousands of people working in the industry. It's not going to bring down the cost of health care overnight. We're going to have to make some adjustments along the way. But it represents enormous progress. It enshrines the principle that every American should have the security of decent care; and that nobody should go bankrupt because they've got a kid who's sick with a preexisting condition -- (applause) -- that small businesses shouldn't be burdened because they want to do the right thing by their employee. So now that this bill is finally law and all the folks who have been playing politics will finally have to confront the reality of what this reform is, they're also going to have to confront the reality of what it isn't.
They'll have to finally acknowledge that this isn't a government takeover of our health care system. They'll see that if Americans like their doctor, they will keep their doctor. And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn't happened yet. It won't happen in the future.
What this reform represents is basically a middle-of-the-road solution to a very serious problem. It's not single-payer. Some people wanted that, I understood that, but that is not -- (applause) -- see? But -- so it's not that. But it's also not what the Republicans were advocating for, which is essentially that you completely deregulate the insurance industry, you let them run wild, and that somehow you are going to benefit. That was their theory. It was called the “foxes guarding the chicken coop” health care plan. (Applause.)
So it's not the plan that some on the left supported in the past. It's not what some on the right supported, but it is a commonsense plan. This reform incorporates ideas from both Democrats and Republicans -– including, by the way, a number of ideas from your senator and somebody I consider a friend, Olympia Snowe, who spent many hours meeting with me on this bill. (Applause.)
And what this reform does is it builds on the system of private health insurance that we've already got, so that if you have insurance, this reform will make it more secure and more affordable. If you can't afford insurance or if you've been denied coverage, you're finally going to be able to get it. And over time, costs will come down for families, businesses, and the federal government, reducing our deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next two decades. That's what this reform will do. (Applause.)
Now, Portland, it will take about four years to implement this entire plan, because we've got to do it responsibly, we need to get it right. But there's also a set of reforms that will take effect this year. So I just want to -- I want everybody to understand what's going to happen this year.
Starting this year, millions of small business owners are going to be eligible for a tax credit that will help them cover the cost of insurance for their employees. (Applause.) And let me talk about -- let me talk about what this means for a small business owner like Bill Milliken. (Applause.) Bill, stand up. (Applause.) That's Bill right there. (Applause.) Now, I want to give a little plug to Bill here. (Laughter.) Bill owns Market House Coffee and the Maine Beer and Beverage Corporation, both here, right here in Portland. (Applause.) In exchange for this publicity, I hope that I'm going to get some samples of the beer. (Laughter and applause.) Okay. He nodded in the affirmative. (Laughter.)
Now, he wants to give his part-time employees health insurance and he wants to give them more hours, but he can't do both, he can't afford to do both. So this tax credit will make it easier for an employer like Bill who wants to do the right thing by his workers.
Starting now, small business owners like Bill will have the security of knowing that they can qualify for a tax credit that covers up to 35 percent, over a third of what they pay for their employees' health insurance. And starting now -- (applause) -- starting now, small business owners that provide health care for their workers can sit down at the end of the week, they can look at their expenses, and they can begin calculating how much money they're going to save. And for small business owners who don't currently provide health insurance, they're going to be able to factor in this new benefit when they're deciding to do so.
Now, it won't solve all our problems, but it means that employees that work for Bill have a better chance of keeping their health care or getting health care. And if they're already getting health care, it means Bill has got some extra money. That means he might hire that extra worker, right? (Applause.)
So this health care tax credit is pro-jobs, it's pro-business, and it starts this year. (Applause.) This month, we're going to be -- this month we're going to be sending out details on how to apply for this credit to millions of small businesses across the county, but if you want to learn about it today, we're going to put all the facts on our Web site, www.whitehouse.gov. All right? So that happens this year.
Here's what else happens this year. Tens of thousands of uninsured Americans with preexisting conditions, and parents whose children have a preexisting condition, will finally be able to purchase the coverage that they need. That happens this year. (Applause.)
So last week, I met a man named David Gallagher, whose daughter Lauren had written me a letter last year. When Lauren's mom lost her job, their entire family lost their health insurance. When they tried to get new insurance, David was denied coverage because he once had a complication-free hernia surgery, but the insurance companies wanted to weed him out. They figured, well, the guy has been sick before; we don't want to have to cover him, we don't want to bear that risk. So Lauren has been worried sick about what would happen if her father became ill or injured. Now, because of this reform, David Gallagher can finally have access to health insurance again. That begins this year. That starts this year. (Applause.)
So that's just one of the insurance reforms that starts this year. Here's what else happens: Insurance companies won't be able to drop people's coverage when they get sick; or place lifetime limits or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care they can receive. (Applause.)
Now, this isn't some abstract concept. There was a story in a local paper this week about a woman named Theresa D'Andrea. And Theresa's husband --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: D'Andrea.
THE PRESIDENT: D'Andrea, excuse me. Thank you. Where is she? Are you up there? Stand up. Stand up, Theresa. (Applause.) Now, Theresa's husband passed away recently from cancer, and before he died, he hit the lifetime cap on his insurance. As a result, Theresa has not only had to cope with the loss of her husband, but with $60,000 in medical bills –- and this is after she's already spent all of their retirement savings on medical care. Now, because of this reform, a situation like Theresa's won't happen again in the United States of America. And that's going to start this year. And we're inspired by stories like yours. (Applause.)
Starting this year, all new insurance plans will be required to offer free preventive care. And starting this year -- this may interest some of you here -- if you are a young person who doesn't have insurance or doesn't have a job that offers insurance, you're going to be able to stay on your parents' insurance policy until you're 26 years old, starting this year. Starting this year. (Applause.) So now --
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome. (Laughter.) Thank Chellie and Mike. They voted for it. Thank them. (Applause.)
This year, seniors who fall into the coverage gap known as the doughnut hole -- some seniors probably know about that -- they're going to receive $250 to help pay for prescriptions, and that's just the first step, because what we're going to be doing is over the next several years closing that gap completely. And I want seniors to know -- (applause) -- I want seniors to know despite some of the stuff that's been said out there, these reforms don't cut into your guaranteed benefits. What they do is eliminate co-payments and deductibles for preventive care, like check-ups and mammograms. You will be getting those for free now. (Applause.)
This is why AARP supported this bill -- because it's good for seniors. It's the right thing to do. (Applause.) It's good for young people. It's the right thing to do. (Applause.) It's good for people who've hit these lifetime limits. It's good for people with preexisting conditions. All that -- all that happens this year.
And then, by 2014, each state will set up what we're calling a health insurance exchange, but it's basically just a competitive marketplace where uninsured people and small businesses, who right now are out there on their own trying to negotiate with insurance companies, they can now be part of a big pool -- millions of people coming together, leveraging their purchasing power, which is going to lower their rates. They'll get a better deal.
Walmart, the reason they are able to give you low prices is because they buy and they tell their suppliers, we're the biggest -- we're a 800-pound gorilla when it comes to whatever product you're talking about, so you've got to give better prices. Well, the same thing is true when it comes to the insurance markets. So everybody who can be part of this pool is going to get a better deal than they would otherwise get.
And by the way, members of Congress are going to be part of this pool. So you know it's going to be good because they're going to have to use it themselves for their own families. (Applause.)
So that'll happen in the next few years. And when this exchange is up and running, millions of people are also going to get tax breaks to help them afford coverage. So even though this pool will give you lower rates, you'll get a better deal, some folks still can't afford it. So we're going to give you tax credits to help you afford it. And that adds up to the largest middle-class tax cut in health care in history. That's what this bill is about. (Applause.)
So think about it. So think about it. That's what this is about. We're setting up a pool using the private market to give people a better deal. We're giving tax breaks to working people -- some of them working two, three jobs who still can't get insurance -- we're going to give them some help. We're going to give small businesses help so that they can help their workers and improve their bottom line. And we've got a whole bunch of insurance reforms so people like Theresa aren't going to be disadvantaged and taken advantage of when they need it most. That's what this bill is. And it's paid for. And it saves on our deficits. (Applause.)
Now, this is what everybody has been hollering about as the end of freedom. (Laughter.) And now that it's passed, they're already promising, we're going to repeal it.
AUDIENCE: Boo!
THE PRESIDENT: They're going to run on a platform of repeal in November. And my attitude is, go for it. You try to repeal it. (Applause.)
I want these members of Congress to come out of Washington, come here to Maine, and tell Mr. Milliken there, you know what, we're going to take away your tax credits, essentially raise your taxes. If you want to -- if they want to do that, be my guest.
If they want to look at Lauren Gallagher in the eye and tell her they plan to take away her father's ability to get health insurance, that's their right. If they want to go tell Theresa that once again you could face a lifetime of debt if you lose a family member, they can run on that platform.
If they want to have a fight, I welcome that fight, because I don't believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver's seat. I'm happy to have that argument. (Applause.) I'm happy to have that argument.
Now, in fairness -- and I want to be scrupulously fair -- some of them have now said, well, we want to repeal and replace this bill with our brand of insurance reform. But when you poke and prod and you ask them, well, what is it exactly you're going to replace it with, it turns out they want to deregulate the insurance market. We've already been there. We know what that's like. We're not going back. We're not going backwards. This country is ready to move forwards. Portland, Maine, is ready to move forward. (Applause.)
And while we're talking about moving forward, I just want to mention one thing. Kind of lost in the shuffle of all this health care debate is the fact that part of the bill that we signed, that I signed this week, is going to provide an additional $68 billion that used to go to banks and financial services companies, and that's now going to go to the student loan program to expand Pell Grants and to make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America. (Applause.) And I want to know, do they want to repeal that as well, because I'm happy to have that discussion. (Applause.)
Now, $68 billion -- $68 billion -- was going to banks and financial institutions. We've just taken that money from the banks, from the financial institutions, doubling Pell Grants, making sure that -- making sure that young people, if you've got debt when you go out of college -- and I know I did so you probably do, too -- that you will never have to pay more than 10 percent of your income in repayments -- (applause) -- so that you're not going broke because you decide to get a college education that makes our economy stronger, that makes America stronger. If they want to repeal that, too, we can have that discussion. (Applause.)
The road to this victory has been long. It has been -- it has been difficult. And it's absolutely true that because health care is such a complicated issue, a lot of people got worried. A lot of people got scared. And the misinformation seeped in. And then the process was ugly and everybody was arguing and there was all kinds of stuff going on in the Senate and the House, and everybody just said, ah, this looks like a mess.
I understand that. That's part of our democracy. This is a -- democracy is a messy business. It is the worst form of government except for all the other ones that have been tried. (Laughter and applause.) That's what Winston Churchill said. That's what Winston Churchill said -- he's absolutely right. It can be frustrating sometimes, but ultimately that's what makes our country so great, is because everybody is able to voice their opinions; everybody is able to get out there and organize. (Applause.) And you're free to call your President an idiot. (Laughter.)
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: No, that's a wonderful thing. As I was driving by, people were waving. Everybody was clapping. And then one guy's like “Eh.” (Laughter.) He saw me through the window, too, going, “Eh.” (Laughter.) I thought, that's a great thing about the country. (Applause.)
Look, but I want everybody to learn the lesson from this debate. In reaching this milestone, it doesn't represent the end of all our problems. We still have jobs to create and deficits to reduce. We still have children to educate. We still face enormous challenges in this country. Jobs haven't been returning fast enough, despite everything that we're doing. The economy is growing again, but people still haven't been hired back as fast as they need to. Small businesses are still having trouble getting credit out there. So there are all kinds of issues we're going to have to work on.
But what this fight has taught us about ourselves and about this country -- it's bigger than any one issue. It reminds us that change is never easy, but it's always possible. It reminds us that in the United States of America, we still have the power to shape our own destiny. And it reminds us that we, as a people, don't shrink from a challenge. We don't shirk our responsibilities. We embrace challenges. (Applause.) We don't fear the future. We shape the future. That's what we do. That's who we are. That's what you're about. That's why you're here. That's why I ran for President of the United States of America. That's what makes us the United States of America. (Applause.)
Thank you, Portland. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

Here is the video.

Applications to Elite Universities Rise

(from the NYT)
Applications to elite private colleges rose again this academic year, despite the economic constraints on many families.
As a result, admission rates often fell to record lows. Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Cornell, Stanford, M.I.T. and Duke each reported sharp increases in applications this year compared with last year. Undergraduate applications to Harvard, for example, rose nearly 5 percent, to 30,489, said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid. Only 6.9 percent of those applicants, or 2,110, were admitted, Mr. Fitzsimmons said, down from 7.5 percent in 2009.
The admission rate to Stanford, which received 32,022 applications this year, was nearly identical to that at Harvard: 7.2 percent. (Over all, applications to Stanford climbed 5 percent, and the admission rate fell from 7.6 percent a year earlier.) The University of Pennsylvania, which had an 18 percent rise in applications this year — for a total of nearly 27,000 — admitted 14 percent of its applicants compared with 17.6 percent in 2009. At M.I.T., applications rose 6 percent to 16,632, while the admission rate fell to 10 percent from 10.7 percent.

FBI raids California university

The FBI and California investigators raided the administrative offices of Sonoma State University yesterday morning to probe the possible misappropriation of federal grant money by a former university office, reports The Press Democrat.
“The investigation is focused on 20 grants originally awarded and administered by the California Institute of Human Services,” university president Ruben Arminaña says in a campus alert. “The University welcomes the investigation and is working in full cooperation with the task force.”
Founded in 1979, the institute tried to “to redress the lives of people suffering from domestic violence, individuals living with disabilities or facing debilitating economic disadvantage, immigrant populations who struggle against language barriers.” It was closed in 2007 and allegations made then included hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on unapproved labor costs, improper payments to administrators, and expenses that were improperly billed. A 2007 state audit said the institute piled up more than $2 million in questionable expenses.
“Tens of millions of federal funds are involved here and it will take a long time to unravel the voluminous number of documents involved,” Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua told The Press Democrat.

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/02/federal_investigation_of_sonom_1.html

Crisis in a Stoic Land

From today's NYT

By VASSILIS VASSILIKOS

Published: February 13, 2010

Athens

Greece has entered the third millennium having survived many foreign occupations. The most trying was that of the Ottoman Empire, starting in 1453 when Constantinople was renamed Istanbul, from the Greek phrase meaning “going to the city.” Since our liberation from the Turks in 1821, we have suffered many dictatorships, the most recent following the coup d’état of 1967 and lasting seven years. But since then, Greece has entered its longest period of peace and democracy since it was constituted as an independent state.
Excuse me for this prologue, but it is indispensable in order to explain the present “crisis” over Greece’s exploding debt. This mess is actually a small problem by historic standards. Over the last two centuries my compatriots have survived much worse.
Historically, Greece has had three patrons: Britain, France and Russia. In the early days of the reborn Hellenic state, Germany was usually an unfriendly country; it became an ally of Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey and a foe in both world wars. Now we are facing the delicate situation of accepting the protection of a Germany that, along with France, dominates the euro zone. (Britain’s role as a patron was handed off to the United States with the Truman doctrine of 1947.)
Yet the vast majority of Greeks do not consider the European Monetary Union a threat to national sovereignty. On the contrary, we feel that the common currency offers valuable protection from the headwinds of the international economic crisis, and is thus an extra guarantee to national sovereignty.
A neighbor of mine, Yiannis, recalls the days of nonstop devaluations of the drachma, our national currency before the euro. If you wished to go to, say, Delphi by car, you would take a suitcase of drachmas to pay for fuel.
The first signs of our current fiscal derailment appeared in 2007 with the crashing of our own real estate bubble. Last October, Prime Minister George Papandreou was elected with a strong mandate to fight corruption and navigate the country through the fiscal storm.
The political and economic morass that our journalists call the “Greek tragedy” became an opportunity to push forward an unprecedented agenda of regulatory reform and policy initiatives to support a new model of sustainable, environmentally friendly development. And the Greek people gradually have come to understand that they themselves must help in creating a new model of economic development.
Therefore, we are for the most part reacting with stoicism to the government’s proposed austerity measures. The demonstrations by civil servants over the last few days got a lot of press coverage, but they were relatively modest, without the infamous “pulse” of earlier eras. They were much tamer than the December 2008 riots that followed the police shooting of a 15-year-old student.
I sense that the majority of Greek people seem to understand the urgency of the economic situation and are willing to accept sacrifices. They demand deep and radical change right now. Our politicians also appear united, a demonstration of cohesiveness in Greek society that may be without precedent, at least in the 35-year history of the Republic.
My cousin Stella, for example, was telling me she would be willing to sacrifice a part of her monthly income if that would help the country. But she thinks that burden-sharing needs to be fair and just for the measures to get broad social support. This is a major challenge for our top economic officials: to use the existing labyrinth of obsolete and inefficient bureaucracies and procedures to come up with a proposal for financial restoration that the public will accept.
The man in the street also feels more positively about the United States than ever before. Most Greeks think that on issues from foreign policy to restoring the social safety net, the Obama administration’s goals are in sync with their own. The Greek people also share President Obama’s anger and frustration over the behavior of bankers.
While the European Union last week promised “determined and coordinated action” on Greece’s debt problem, none of us is quite sure what that will amount to. The one thing I am certain of, however, is that my country will overcome the financial crisis with national pride and international dignity intact.

Vassilis Vassilikos is the author of “Z” and, most recently, “The Few Things I Know About Glafkos Thrassakis: A Novel.”

Wall St. Helped Greece to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis

An interesting article in today's NYT.

By LOUISE STORY, LANDON THOMAS Jr. and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

Published: February 13, 2010

Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels.
Even as the crisis was nearing the flashpoint, banks were searching for ways to help Greece forestall the day of reckoning. In early November — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.
The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.
It had worked before. In 2001, just after Greece was admitted to Europe’s monetary union, Goldman helped the government quietly borrow billions, people familiar with the transaction said. That deal, hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan, helped Athens to meet Europe’s deficit rules while continuing to spend beyond its means.
Athens did not pursue the latest Goldman proposal, but with Greece groaning under the weight of its debts and with its richer neighbors vowing to come to its aid, the deals over the last decade are raising questions about Wall Street’s role in the world’s latest financial drama.
As in the American subprime crisis and the implosion of the American International Group, financial derivatives played a role in the run-up of Greek debt. Instruments developed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and a wide range of other banks enabled politicians to mask additional borrowing in Greece, Italy and possibly elsewhere.
In dozens of deals across the Continent, banks provided cash upfront in return for government payments in the future, with those liabilities then left off the books. Greece, for example, traded away the rights to airport fees and lottery proceeds in years to come.
Critics say that such deals, because they are not recorded as loans, mislead investors and regulators about the depth of a country’s liabilities.
Some of the Greek deals were named after figures in Greek mythology. One of them, for instance, was called Aeolos, after the god of the winds.
The crisis in Greece poses the most significant challenge yet to Europe’s common currency, the euro, and the Continent’s goal of economic unity. The country is, in the argot of banking, too big to be allowed to fail. Greece owes the world $300 billion, and major banks are on the hook for much of that debt. A default would reverberate around the globe.
A spokeswoman for the Greek finance ministry said the government had met with many banks in recent months and had not committed to any bank’s offers. All debt financings “are conducted in an effort of transparency,” she said. Goldman and JPMorgan declined to comment.
While Wall Street’s handiwork in Europe has received little attention on this side of the Atlantic, it has been sharply criticized in Greece and in magazines like Der Spiegel in Germany.
“Politicians want to pass the ball forward, and if a banker can show them a way to pass a problem to the future, they will fall for it,” said Gikas A. Hardouvelis, an economist and former government official who helped write a recent report on Greece’s accounting policies.
Wall Street did not create Europe’s debt problem. But bankers enabled Greece and others to borrow beyond their means, in deals that were perfectly legal. Few rules govern how nations can borrow the money they need for expenses like the military and health care. The market for sovereign debt — the Wall Street term for loans to governments — is as unfettered as it is vast.
“If a government wants to cheat, it can cheat,” said Garry Schinasi, a veteran of the International Monetary Fund’s capital markets surveillance unit, which monitors vulnerability in global capital markets.
Banks eagerly exploited what was, for them, a highly lucrative symbiosis with free-spending governments. While Greece did not take advantage of Goldman’s proposal in November 2009, it had paid the bank about $300 million in fees for arranging the 2001 transaction, according to several bankers familiar with the deal.
Such derivatives, which are not openly documented or disclosed, add to the uncertainty over how deep the troubles go in Greece and which other governments might have used similar off-balance sheet accounting. 
The tide of fear is now washing over other economically troubled countries on the periphery of Europe, making it more expensive for Italy, Spain and Portugal to borrow.
For all the benefits of uniting Europe with one currency, the birth of the euro came with an original sin: countries like Italy and Greece entered the monetary union with bigger deficits than the ones permitted under the treaty that created the currency. Rather than raise taxes or reduce spending, however, these governments artificially reduced their deficits with derivatives.
Derivatives do not have to be sinister. The 2001 transaction involved a type of derivative known as a swap. One such instrument, called an interest-rate swap, can help companies and countries cope with swings in their borrowing costs by exchanging fixed-rate payments for floating-rate ones, or vice versa. Another kind, a currency swap, can minimize the impact of volatile foreign exchange rates.
But with the help of JPMorgan, Italy was able to do more than that. Despite persistently high deficits, a 1996 derivative helped bring Italy’s budget into line by swapping currency with JPMorgan at a favorable exchange rate, effectively putting more money in the government’s hands. In return, Italy committed to future payments that were not booked as liabilities.
“Derivatives are a very useful instrument,” said Gustavo Piga, an economics professor who wrote a report for the Council on Foreign Relations on the Italian transaction. “They just become bad if they’re used to window-dress accounts.”
In Greece, the financial wizardry went even further. In what amounted to a garage sale on a national scale, Greek officials essentially mortgaged the country’s airports and highways to raise much-needed money.
Aeolos, a legal entity created in 2001, helped Greece reduce the debt on its balance sheet that year. As part of the deal, Greece got cash upfront in return for pledging future landing fees at the country’s airports. A similar deal in 2000 called Ariadne devoured the revenue that the government collected from its national lottery. Greece, however, classified those transactions as sales, not loans, despite doubts by many critics.
These kinds of deals have been controversial within government circles for years. As far back as 2000, European finance ministers fiercely debated whether derivative deals used for creative accounting should be disclosed.
The answer was no. But in 2002, accounting disclosure was required for many entities like Aeolos and Ariadne that did not appear on nations’ balance sheets, prompting governments to restate such deals as loans rather than sales.
Still, as recently as 2008, Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, reported that “in a number of instances, the observed securitization operations seem to have been purportedly designed to achieve a given accounting result, irrespective of the economic merit of the operation.”
While such accounting gimmicks may be beneficial in the short run, over time they can prove disastrous.
George Alogoskoufis, who became Greece’s finance minister in a political party shift after the Goldman deal, criticized the transaction in the Parliament in 2005. The deal, Mr. Alogoskoufis argued, would saddle the government with big payments to Goldman until 2019.
Mr. Alogoskoufis, who stepped down a year ago, said in an e-mail message last week that Goldman later agreed to reconfigure the deal “to restore its good will with the republic.” He said the new design was better for Greece than the old one.
In 2005, Goldman sold the interest rate swap to the National Bank of Greece, the country’s largest bank, according to two people briefed on the transaction.
In 2008, Goldman helped the bank put the swap into a legal entity called Titlos. But the bank retained the bonds that Titlos issued, according to Dealogic, a financial research firm, for use as collateral to borrow even more from the European Central Bank.
Edward Manchester, a senior vice president at the Moody’s credit rating agency, said the deal would ultimately be a money-loser for Greece because of its long-term payment obligations.
Referring to the Titlos swap with the government of Greece, he said: “This swap is always going to be unprofitable for the Greek government.”

2010 Quality of Life Index

http://www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/

Country	Cost of Living	Leisure & Culture	Economy	Environment	Freedom	Health	Infrastructure	Risk & Safety	Climate	Final Score
France	55	81	69	72	100	100	92	100	87	82
Australia	56	82	71	76	100	87	92	100	87	81
Switzerland	41	86	79	78	100	95	96	100	77	81
Germany	54	82	71	83	100	89	90	100	79	81
New Zealand	62	82	65	77	100	88	70	100	84	79
Luxembourg	44	76	85	77	100	87	66	100	83	78
United States	56	79	67	62	92	78	100	100	84	78
Belgium	41	83	66	64	100	88	96	100	86	78
Canada	62	76	69	62	100	84	85	100	69	77
Italy	56	85	63	74	92	90	62	100	87	77
Netherlands	48	71	69	67	100	87	92	100	75	77
Norway	39	60	89	76	100	90	89	100	60	77
Austria	41	86	68	87	100	85	68	100	76	77
Liechtenstein	44	80	100	65	100	80	44	100	79	76
Malta	63	70	53	84	100	89	52	100	95	76
Denmark	33	88	69	84	100	86	72	100	78	76
Spain	56	68	63	75	100	90	65	100	79	76
Finland	39	93	66	68	100	81	76	100	76	75
Uruguay	60	72	52	72	100	76	64	100	93	75
Hungary	58	76	48	77	100	84	77	93	76	74
Portugal	55	72	52	74	100	86	56	100	83	73
Lithuania	63	68	48	81	100	80	56	100	79	73
Andorra	52	74	61	60	100	85	58	100	82	73
Czech Republic	48	78	52	74	100	82	78	100	67	73
United Kingdom	30	82	65	72	100	84	80	100	66	73
Argentina	61	67	52	71	83	82	56	100	91	72
Slovenia	53	69	56	74	100	72	56	100	83	72
Greece	52	64	58	70	92	84	64	100	79	72
Monaco	44	85	66	59	92	80	48	100	89	72
Sweden	0	94	68	75	100	82	92	100	68	71
Chile	60	67	54	71	100	73	73	100	59	71
Estonia	60	82	44	77	100	75	64	86	74	71
Costa Rica	62	64	53	78	100	78	48	93	79	71
Panama	62	63	52	77	92	72	74	93	69	71
Poland	51	74	52	72	100	80	64	86	76	71
Japan	24	92	51	71	92	89	64	100	84	70
Croatia	58	68	48	77	83	76	52	93	95	70
Brazil	64	58	65	71	83	73	59	83	82	70
Ecuador	72	60	45	93	75	69	45	86	96	70
Latvia	59	75	40	86	92	75	64	86	73	70
Ireland	28	81	60	70	100	79	72	100	65	70
Korea- South (Rep of)	39	82	56	68	92	81	52	93	83	69
Slovakia	48	60	52	71	100	79	68	86	77	69
Bulgaria	61	69	47	78	83	78	48	86	80	69
Cyprus (Greek)	48	65	58	62	100	85	36	100	76	68
Mexico	63	65	50	68	75	76	57	79	92	68
Israel	39	83	61	68	92	85	36	71	84	67
Iceland	36	85	40	74	100	86	48	86	74	67
Bermuda	25	57	89	41	92	73	64	100	66	66
Saint Kitts & Nevis	64	44	45	72	100	70	54	100	57	66
South Africa	59	60	45	75	83	57	44	86	98	66
Dominica	65	39	44	90	100	68	36	100	57	65
Romania	51	74	48	75	83	65	56	79	71	65
Cayman Islands	61	39	65	26	92	86	64	100	57	65
Moldova	69	86	45	75	50	67	56	71	70	65
Colombia	68	58	48	72	58	72	44	71	92	64
Taiwan	50	47	58	75	92	68	51	79	68	64
Bolivia	80	61	45	75	67	59	52	57	83	64
Macedonia	66	64	45	72	67	62	44	79	79	63
Barbados	35	78	48	72	100	62	40	100	57	63
Mauritius	65	61	47	74	92	72	32	93	42	63
Namibia	66	75	42	46	83	41	64	86	74	63
Belize	60	47	50	80	92	55	52	79	62	63
Paraguay	76	60	44	64	67	71	36	86	68	63
Albania	60	61	45	74	67	74	36	71	89	63
Bosnia-Herzegovina	73	65	45	70	58	67	40	71	82	63
Bahamas	28	67	56	74	100	62	32	100	65	63
Ukraine	49	61	42	74	75	68	60	71	78	62
Grenada	55	53	44	75	92	66	48	86	57	62
Singapore	51	71	68	39	42	74	69	100	39	61
Antigua & Barbuda	54	56	53	74	83	50	32	100	57	61
Turkey	49	60	45	68	67	76	40	86	73	61
Dominican Republic	58	47	45	81	83	69	40	79	57	61
Seychelles	59	58	48	78	67	52	36	100	55	61
Bhutan	80	28	58	83	42	27	40	100	79	61
Peru	66	53	50	70	75	56	32	64	80	60
Jamaica	58	44	40	77	75	71	52	79	57	60
Nicaragua	66	57	42	70	67	66	36	71	68	60
Botswana	70	40	45	78	83	35	44	79	65	60
Honduras	70	32	42	70	67	66	40	71	83	60
Suriname	65	44	47	78	83	59	59	64	39	60
Puerto Rico	55	43	45	42	100	72	36	100	45	59
Tunisia	63	61	45	68	17	73	36	86	85	59
Brunei	65	60	69	100	25	52	44	79	25	59
Malaysia	70	71	48	62	50	68	44	86	24	58
El Salvador	63	43	42	65	75	70	36	79	57	58
Guatemala	61	39	44	74	58	65	32	71	84	58
India	65	39	55	68	75	60	44	64	47	58
Venezuela	54	67	48	84	50	66	32	71	52	58
Cuba	63	75	44	77	8	79	56	57	63	57
Trinidad & Tobago	30	36	53	78	83	63	32	100	57	57
French Polynesia	44	56	45	33	92	60	44	100	55	57
Guyana	63	61	42	77	75	56	44	64	39	57
Tonga	70	25	40	65	50	66	36	100	63	57
Mongolia	68	60	47	70	83	56	52	64	14	57
Nauru	86	8	47	64	100	55	0	100	38	56
China	63	59	69	54	8	67	40	57	79	56
Georgia	56	38	40	80	50	62	48	57	79	56
Ghana	61	28	44	67	92	40	40	71	62	56
Maldives	63	63	45	36	50	66	32	100	49	56
Armenia	64	53	45	81	33	46	44	64	72	56
Lesotho	70	38	44	41	75	30	36	71	93	55
Martinique	63	36	47	38	92	64	4	100	57	55
Jordan	56	60	45	59	33	80	28	71	68	55
Philippines	69	60	42	68	58	46	36	71	45	55
Kuwait	46	60	74	42	50	70	56	71	18	55
Kiribati	75	13	42	57	100	54	12	100	38	55
French Guiana	49	33	47	29	92	54	66	100	28	55
Belarus	65	44	50	75	8	51	52	64	77	54
Thailand	68	65	44	61	42	63	32	71	43	54
Russia	29	67	53	71	42	71	48	57	64	54
Zambia	56	43	44	71	67	19	40	64	89	54
Lebanon	68	56	50	65	42	85	36	21	61	54
Palau	59	47	48	70	100	52	8	86	18	54
Malawi	60	40	45	68	50	32	40	64	89	54
Morocco	43	35	44	67	42	63	36	93	78	54
Samoa (Western Samoa)	55	22	39	68	83	68	46	79	35	54
Swaziland	56	51	42	81	17	27	40	86	91	54
Bahrain	59	67	61	64	33	43	32	86	30	54
Fiji	53	65	40	68	25	59	60	71	43	53
Sri Lanka	64	35	44	78	50	52	44	71	40	53
Madagascar	61	28	44	59	58	37	40	64	87	53
Tuvalu	80	4	42	30	100	75	20	100	17	53
Syria	69	49	44	61	8	68	44	71	60	53
Vietnam	54	53	44	71	33	58	36	64	67	53
Comoros	61	36	37	74	58	36	36	100	40	53
Nepal	73	19	42	68	50	42	36	64	71	52
Qatar	54	63	92	54	25	47	24	79	13	52
Indonesia	46	44	47	74	75	52	32	57	47	52
Macau	46	43	62	0	50	61	24	100	79	52
Vanuatu	54	36	45	33	83	51	40	79	49	52
Senegal	50	18	42	67	67	36	40	79	73	52
Solomon Islands	69	28	45	61	58	61	16	79	43	52
Tajikistan	74	25	45	67	25	50	40	50	79	51
Egypt	55	49	47	65	25	76	36	79	32	51
Benin	60	24	42	64	83	37	36	64	51	51
Kenya	51	46	39	62	58	32	32	57	88	51
Kyrgyzstan	59	42	45	70	42	58	32	64	47	51
Azerbaijan	48	60	50	71	25	40	40	64	62	51
Korea- North (DR of)	64	54	42	51	0	70	28	64	79	51
United Arab Emirates	49	53	76	16	25	76	58	79	10	50
Cape Verde	60	29	44	36	100	49	32	64	36	50
Marshall Islands	73	19	39	26	100	70	8	86	23	50
Tanzania	55	28	44	74	58	30	44	64	51	50
Bangladesh	65	30	42	62	50	36	52	57	49	50
Algeria	51	51	44	67	25	51	36	36	89	50
Uganda	54	33	44	61	42	33	36	64	80	50
Uzbekistan	70	52	47	62	0	62	44	57	40	49
Cambodia	61	53	42	77	25	30	40	64	47	49
Iran	65	54	50	71	17	69	40	0	64	49
Mozambique	65	4	44	70	67	12	32	64	76	49
Gambia	61	10	44	61	42	39	44	71	60	48
Papua New Guinea	54	22	45	64	58	36	40	57	55	48
Mayotte	79	4	40	17	92	40	0	100	46	48
Kazakhstan	50	43	44	65	25	60	52	64	27	48
Mali	61	13	42	62	75	25	32	64	50	48
Libya	29	50	52	51	0	71	44	71	67	48
Guinea-Bissau	65	21	40	64	50	31	36	64	47	47
Micronesia	59	36	40	42	100	66	0	71	5	47
Togo	54	43	39	64	33	33	36	64	58	47
Myanmar (Burma)	75	35	40	71	0	50	44	57	35	46
Turkmenistan	84	22	48	61	0	41	16	64	61	46
Ethiopia	55	11	48	67	33	13	40	57	86	46
Congo- Republic of	53	39	44	61	25	28	40	64	62	46
Rwanda	55	21	47	68	25	31	36	64	62	46
Nigeria	45	29	44	62	42	27	44	64	58	46
Gabon	46	14	45	65	33	44	52	64	49	46
Oman	50	44	53	62	25	56	44	64	2	45
Saudi Arabia	60	68	53	51	8	71	28	36	22	45
Iraq	100	49	45	41	17	55	36	0	38	45
Laos	68	19	45	74	8	30	40	57	51	45
Cameroon	50	29	42	65	17	30	36	64	66	45
Mauritania	56	13	40	58	25	34	36	71	64	45
Niger	61	3	45	64	58	21	40	57	42	44
Burkina Faso	61	6	42	65	50	27	28	64	48	44
Equatorial Guinea	41	46	58	75	0	28	36	50	55	44
Burundi	53	25	40	57	42	30	36	36	75	44
Pakistan	56	3	42	67	42	51	40	7	77	43
Haiti	60	19	39	61	42	39	36	36	53	43
Zimbabwe	33	58	0	77	8	37	44	57	100	43
Central African Republic	60	25	39	72	33	23	36	36	54	43
Cote d'Ivoire	55	25	40	67	25	37	32	43	55	43
Liberia	58	39	44	57	58	14	40	36	28	42
Congo- Democratic Republic of	35	29	42	58	17	26	44	64	62	42
Angola	43	36	52	67	25	1	36	57	52	42
Guinea	66	14	42	61	17	35	40	57	22	41
Eritrea	61	24	39	29	8	28	36	57	73	40
Djibouti	53	13	44	65	33	34	44	57	8	40
Sierra Leone	63	7	42	62	67	9	36	21	24	38
Afghanistan	88	7	40	77	8	0	32	0	58	37
Chad	45	10	37	68	8	14	36	36	50	34
Sudan	53	19	44	65	0	28	40	29	7	33
Yemen	58	21	40	19	33	38	52	21	0	33
Somalia	61	0	39	55	0	7	36	36	16	30
country	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0