5 Unexpected Consequences Of The Aurora Shooting

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As victims of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado continue to grapple with injuries and trauma, and more details leak about the alleged shooter James Holmes (who has reportedly exhibited odd behavior in jail, spitting at officers so often they've slapped a face guard on him), people in Colorado and around the country have responded to the massacre in surprising, sometimes distressing ways. From stocking up on guns to filing lawsuits against the theater where the shootings took place, here are 5 consequences of the shootings:

1. Gun sales in Colorado have soared
Despite new condemnation of America's lax gun laws, which allowed the shooter to amass a veritable arsenal of weapons and ammunition, gun sales shot up in Colorado in the days after the massacre, with background checks up 41 percent. "Firearms instructors say they're also seeing increased interest in the training required for a concealed-carry permit," says Sarah Burnett at The Denver Post. "A lot of it is people saying, 'I didn't think I needed a gun, but now I do," Jake Meyers, a gun store employee, tells Burnett. "When it happens in your backyard, people start reassessing... 'Hey, I go to the movies.'"

2. An alleged copycat killer has emerged 
Police in Maine say they arrested a man on Sunday who claims to have attended a screening of The Dark Knight Rises with a loaded gun. The suspect, Timothy Courtois, was pulled over for speeding, and cops found "four handguns, an AK-47 assault weapon, ammunition, and articles about the Batman massacre in Colorado," says David Moye at The Huffington Post. Courtois allegedly told police that he was on his way to Derry, N.H., to murder his boss, and that he had attended the movie the previous night with a gun in his backpack. Charged with having a concealed weapon, among other charges, Courtois is being held in the York County Jail on a $50,000 cash bail and has reportedly made repeated requests for marijuana and Chinese food.

3. A lawsuit is filed against the Aurora theater 
Torrence Brown Jr., who was in the crowd when the shootings occurred, is suing Aurora's Century 16 theater for failing to equip the emergency exits with alarms or guards. While Brown sustained no injuries himself, his friend was killed, and he claims he has since developed extreme trauma. Brown is also suing Warner Bros., "claiming that The Dark Knight Riseswas so violent that it delayed the reaction of many moviegoers who thought the shooting was a promotional stunt," says Neetzan Zimmerman atGawker. Rounding out the suits, Brown is suing Holmes' doctors for failing to treat the suspected killer's "as-yet-unconfirmed medical condition." Brown's lawyer says someone has to be held responsible for the "rampant violence" that took place.

4. Facebook tributes to Holmes are proliferating 
In the aftermath of the shootings, "there's been a disgusting rise in Facebook fan pages paying tribute" to Holmes, says Erin Sherbert at SF Weekly. One page shows a doctored image of Holmes as a decorated soldier receiving a medal from President Obama, while another is written from the alleged killer's perspective. While Facebookers are mostly ignoring these tribute pages, says Sherbert, at least one is "collecting a disgusting number of 'likes.'"

5. Theater stocks are dropping 
"Movie-theater stocks have tumbled more than the broader markets" since the shootings, says Paul Bond at The Hollywood Reporter. Investors are not primarily concerned with repeat incidents, but rather with reports that theater owners are considering ramping up their security efforts, which could bump up ticket prices and hamper profits. The Dark Knight Rises,however, still managed to break the weekend box-office record for traditional 2-D movies.

Sources: ABC NewsThe Denver PostFox NewsGawkerThe Hollywood ReporterThe Huffington PostSF WeeklyThe Wall Street JournalThe Washington Post

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United Technologies Could Reach $100 With Shallow China Slowdown

We anticipate the trends to continue in to second quarter and impact revenue growth provided by higher sales at carrier heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems business division of the company.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/07/25/united-technologies-could-reach-100-with-shallow-china-slowdown/

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Corporate Crime Makes Economic Sense

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This week, Free exchange takes a look at whether corporate crime makes economic sense. (The full article, from the print edition, is here.)  

Banks, drug companies and weapons makers have all been stung with record fines recently.

But while fines keep going up, corporate rule breaking for example, the LIBOR banksters seems to be booming.

Why aren't high fines deterring bad behavior?

One reason could be that the fines, which can be seen as the price of crime, are too low.

The economics of crime would support this idea. Many crime economists use a framework set out by Gary Becker of the University of Chicago. (Mr Becker's blog is here.)

The idea is that would-be criminals rationally weigh up the expected costs and benefits of breaking the rules. If the probability of being caught or the level of fine is too low, then the expected costs might be outweighed by the benefits.

In this case, crime does pay and crime can be rational. The same logic applies to much more minor rules, which is why Mr Becker sometime chooses not to buy a parking ticket, as he explains in a 2006 interview with Tim Harford.

The notion of rational crime can be used to assess whether fines are set at sensible levels. One rule of thumb antitrust economists use is that cartels can achieve overcharges of 20-30%.

But the agencies that police cartels use fines of between 10-40% (Britain's watchdog is at the weak end of the scale, Americas is more beefy).

Mr Beckers crime calculus shows the problem with this: with a 50% detection rate, and fines ranging between 10-40%, the expected cost of cartel crime is in the 5-20% range.

Use a 10% detection rate, and expected punishment costs fall to 1-4%. So the expected benefits outweigh the costs. At the moment, it seems, some corporate crimes pay handsomely.

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When Is an 'Affordable' College a Bad Deal?

university students
It's easy to imagine that the well-worn path from high school to college to gainful employment has always been the norm, but you don't have to look too far back into the past to find a time when that wasn't the case. Only after the GI Bill took hold following World War II did Americans start going off to colleges en masse. In fact, we only recently surpassed the milestone of 30% of U.S. adults holding a bachelor's degree.

That being said, Americans' drive to get an education is growing at an accelerating rate. Enrollment in degree-granting schools rose 38% between 1999 and 2009, an astounding jump considering the same metric grew by just 9% in the preceding decade.

And that growth isn't just happening at four-year colleges and universities. In 2011, a record 43% of students were enrolled in community colleges. And what was once a small niche -- for-profit education -- has burst outward, climbing from 366,000 students in 2000 to 1.5 million by 2009.

As these for-profit schools become more and more commonplace, it's worth investigating whether they are worth the price of admission.

Dollars and Cents

Other than health care, no expense for American families has increased as much over the past 10 years as college education, so students should weigh their options -- both public and private -- carefully.

Of course, not every school costs as much as, say, Sarah Lawrence, which -- when tuition and room and board are considered -- adds up to $59,170 annually. But based on broad averages, for-profit institutions generally sit in the middle of the pack.

Annual Tuition
Source: The College Board.

If you're after a four-year degree, it's almost twice as expensive to attend a for-profit school as it is to go to an in-state public university. If, however, you're strongly considering going out of state or to private school, there are considerable price advantages to picking a for-profit school.

Price is one thing; what about quality?

There are several ways to address the quality of schooling, and no method will ever be universally agreed upon. In the end, the student is the real judge of the quality of education he or she received.

But there are governing bodies in place that monitor how well schools meet national quality standards. In the past couple of weeks, stock in Bridgepoint Education (BPI), a prominent for-profit school, plunged 61% on news that it failed to meet the standards set by the Higher Learning Commission and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Bridgepoint, however, is just one company, and isn't necessarily indicative of the for-profit education industry as a whole.

If, however, you were to use graduation rates as your measure of a quality educational institution -- and after all, what are you studying for if not to get your degree? -- then for-profit options fail badly. Over four-, five-, and six-year periods, for-profit schools have abysmally low graduation rates when compared to both private and public nonprofit schools.

Completion-rateSource: The College Board.

The crucial thing to notice here is that public institutions -- which, if you pick an in-state school, cost half as much as for-profit schools -- have a graduation rate two-and-a-half times that of for-profits schools. After six years, fewer than one in four students at a for-profit school has earned the bachelor's degree they were aiming for. With numbers that poor, it's reasonable to wonder why anyone would enroll at a for-profit school in the first place.

It's All About Flexibility

Beyond the cost advantage versus out-of-state and private institutions, for-profit education also has the added benefit of providing the kind of flexibility most students can't find anywhere else. As most FPE schools have online courses, necessary work can be completed whenever works best for the student.

That's in stark contrast to the historically rigid schedules most students expect when attending a traditional university. This may help explain why twice as many for-profit education students are over 24 years old, and are married or have dependents. They are also more likely to be working day jobs.

Though that flexibility may sound enticing, based on the completion rates, clearly, many people who thought they could balance work, family and school weren't able to, and dropped out before graduating.

It's likely that traditional colleges and universities will soon catch up to for-profit education and start offering the same flexibility. But that doesn't help students who want to start working on a degree right now. For-profit schools should only be considered after the costs, quality, and potential outcomes are weighed. For far too many, for-profit education hasn't lived up to its promises; but if you go in with eyes wide open, there's a chance it could work for you.


Motley Fool contributor Brian Stoffel does not hold any positions within the for-profit education sector. You can follow him on Twitter, where he goes by TMFStoffel. The Motley Fool owns shares of Bridgepoint Education. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended writing puts on Bridgepoint Education.



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Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/07/25/for-profit-colleges-affordable-bad-deal-low-graduation-rates/

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Drivers Befuddled By Area Of Bermuda Triangle Parking That Renders Car Remotes Useless

catcarlocknonoYou click the remote from several feet way, expecting that familiar "bip beep!" and flash of lights. But when you get to your car, it remains locked ? what gives? Business owners along a certain stretch of road in Yonkers, N.Y. are upset that a Bermuda Triangle type situation is rendering keyless remote entry systems [...]

Source: http://consumerist.com/2012/07/drivers-befuddled-by-area-of-bermuda-triangle-parking-that-renders-car-remotes-useless.html

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The 401(k) On Steroids

Whether you are a realtor, consultant, physician, attorney, independent contractor, sole proprietor, owner or a partner in a small or large business, you can turbo-charge your retirement with a cash balance plan on top of your existing 401(k) plan.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/07/24/the-401k-on-steroids/

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Are You the Next Teen Role Model?

Youth Pastors and Church Leaders: Read the article out loud to your students. Get their reactions to the stories mentioned and ask them to share a few stories of their own. Be sure to celebrate their hard work and generosity! Use the questions below to help your students dream big about their potential to make a difference!

With high-school bullying and drug use on the rise, it?s no wonder today?s teens get a bad rap. Of course, we all know there?s much more going on behind the scenes than the media outlets care to tell.

That?s why we asked Dave?s Facebook fans to weigh in on the topic. We?d love to share their stories of teens that are a tad different than what we see on the news. Forget celebrity idols! Follow in the footsteps of the students below and the next teen role model might just be you!

Take charge of your future

?My daughter is 12 and is saving for her first car in a few years. She's seen me as a single mother working five jobs to reach my goals. She knows that she wants to be able to have a great car when she turns 16, and she is working towards that goal!? ?Carrie

?My younger brother is in high school and is already an accomplished composer and musician, and he continues to grow his skills in all of those areas. He also is learning the skill of making musical instruments (violin, viola, cello so far). He performs with college and community orchestras and has had his composed pieces played by those groups.? ?Matt

?My sister-in-law is just out of high school and wanting to make it through college debt free; she works as many hours as she can get in the summer and in her spare time volunteers at several places in our home town. She has worked so hard to achieve her goal and graduate college with her CPA. She has saved enough to get through her first two years with no loans. I am very proud of her hard work.? ?Kelly

Make an impact on the future of others

?"My little brothers who are 14 and 13 have been collecting cans from neighbors and different people we know and cashing them in for money to buy livestock for people in India. They have been very faithful with it and have been able to buy quite a few animals.? ?Lauren

?Alex from Wichita, Kansas, is 18 years old and started a group, Restore Hope, Inc., with the goal of getting an old amusement park up and running again. Just recently he got accepted by the IRS to be a nonprofit. Even though the odds are against him, he is working hard on his dream. Having an amusement park in Wichita again would mean a lot to our residents and strengthen our sense of pride in our community. Alex understands this at his young age.? ?Sara

?4 Girls 4 Christ is an amazing group of four teenage girls who have dedicated their young lives to raising money to help people adopt children with Down Syndrome (so they can do it DEBT FREE!).? ?Sierra

Don?t let anything hold you back

?My daughter, Shelby, is 14 and battles a neuro-inflammatory disease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD). This year, she has gone from a volleyball player to wheelchair user?yet she runs support groups for adults with pain disorders, volunteers to throw a special needs prom every year for 300 people, shares her testimony about living as a godly teen with a disability, and works part time, saving her money. Plus she is known in Texas by politicians for being outspoken about health care?and she is 14!!! She is amazing and fundraising and saving!? ?Sara

?My stepson, soon to be 14, bought a lawnmower two years ago for $15 at a yard sale. Since then, he earned the money to purchase all of his own hockey gear, paid for one year of hockey lessons, and due to his ambition, won two $250 scholarships to play on his first hockey team. Not to mention he struggles with Asperger's syndrome! Not too bad in my book. In a world of entitlement-minded kids, he seems like a four-leafed clover.? ?Steven

?My 17-year-old daughter, Jordan, has Stargardt?s disease and lives each day to the fullest. She helps with her younger sister (age 9), she is a National Honor Society student who helps anyway she can at school, and she works at Pizza Hut. She keeps a positive attitude even though she fights hurting eyes every day of her life. She wants to get a degree in nutrition/personal training. I love how she uses this disease as an opportunity to grow and encourage everyone in her life rather than an excuse to not succeed!? ?Christina

Maybe you?re already changing the world around you. If you?ve made a difference?big or small?we?d love to hear about it! Share your story in the comments below.

Questions to Ask

  1. How can you take charge of your future?
  2. What is something you can do this weekend to make an impact on your community?
  3. What is something the youth group can do together?
  4. What talents, skills or dreams has God given you that can be used for His glory?

This fall, teach your teens what God says about money. For a limited time, Generation Change newsletter subscribers can get a Leader Kit with five Student Kits for only $99. Additional Student Kits are just $10.99 each!

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Source: http://www.daveramsey.com/article/the-next-teen-role-model/lifeandmoney_kidsandmoney

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HOUSE OF THE DAY: A Glamorous Ranch In Beverly Hills Can Be Yours For Under $17 Million

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A modern yet elegant Beverly Hills ranch that sits on two acres of land is on sale for $16.9 million.

The house spans 12,000 square feet, and features seven bedrooms and an unnecessary 13 bathrooms.

The estate has an impressive driveway and a two bedroom, two-bathroom guest house with a kitchen.

The home was built in 2001, and the listing describes the style of the house as "Contemporary Mediterranean."

The home on Loma Vista Drive is completely gated in.

It's one massive ranch.

The home overlooks hills and has city views.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Why Medical School For Women May Not Be Worth It

doctors-checking-on-patient

Over the last quarter century, women have been earning college and professional degrees in record numbers. In 1976, women earned only 45 percent of bachelor's degrees in the United States; by 2006 that had increased to 58 percent.

During that same interval, women have made even larger gains in advanced degrees. For example, in 1976 women constituted only 24 percent of first year medical students.

By 2006, that number which doubled to 48 percent.

Despite these gains in education, a number of recent studies find that women's incomes lag those of men. In a study of MBA students from a top program, Marianne Bertrand, Claudia Goldin, and Larry Katz found that while men and women had similar earnings at the outset of their careers ($115,000 per year for women versus $130,000 per year for men), within ten years of graduation men outearned women by $150,000 per year. Similar income gaps have been found for doctors and lawyers.

This raises two interesting and uncomfortable questions. First, why do women earn less? Second, if women benefit less from these high-end professional degrees — but pay the same high costs in time and money to acquire them — have their degrees actually paid off? That is, would women have been better off not getting those degrees?

In a study being published this month in the Journal of Human Capital, we try to shed light on these questions by looking closely at doctors in primary-care fields and a plausible alternative career for anyone entering medical school — Physician Assistants. Physician assistants (PAs) are medical professionals who diagnose and treat illness under the supervision of a physician and who may, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, write prescriptions. The first PA program started in 1965 at Duke University, and was initially designed to provide civilian medical training to field medics returning from Vietnam.

Interestingly, while the PA field started out all male, the majority of graduates today are female. The PA training program is generally 2 years, shorter than that for doctors. Unsurprisingly, subsequent hourly earnings of PAs are lower than subsequent hourly earnings of doctors.

Focusing on the financial repercussions of these career choices, we use a tool common for analyzing investment called a net-present-value (NPV) calculation. An NPV calculation adds up the costs of obtaining a degree, and all of the earnings received over the career that degree enables, taking into account the fact that money earned later is not as valuable as money earned earlier (due to interest), summarizing a career decision in a single number. This captures the insight that in order for an investment in the high up-front cost medical degree to overcome the lower up-front cost of a PA degree, not only do a doctor's wages have to significantly exceed those of the PA, but the doctor needs to be willing to work enough hours to make those wages pay off.

To see if doctors do indeed work long enough hours, we looked at data from a Robert Wood Johnson survey of physicians on how many hours female and male primary-care physicians work at different points in their careers. We combined that with data from the American Academy of Physician Assistants.

We then compared the earnings of male and female physicians in our data and estimate what those individuals would have earned if they had worked as PAs.

We found that, for over half of woman doctors in our data, the NPV of becoming a primary-care physician was less than the NPV of becoming a physician assistant. In contrast, the vast majority of male primary-care physicians earned an NPV greater than the NPV earned by a male PA. That is, while the vast majority of male doctors are financially better off for having become a doctor, the median female primary care physician would have been financially better off becoming a PA.

Where does this result come from? As you might have guessed, it is partially due to a wage gap. Male doctor earns more per hour relative to the male PA than the female doctor earns relative to the female PA. However, a big part of the difference comes from an hours gap. The vast majority of male doctors under the age of 55 work substantially more than the standard 40 hour work week. In contrast, most female doctors work between 2 to 10 hours fewer than this per week.

Even though both male and female doctors both earn higher wages than their PA counterparts, most female doctors don't work enough hours at those wages to financially justify the costs of becoming a doctor.

We also examined alternative medical professions such as pharmacy, and our basic findings were the same. Programs that have high upfront training costs only make financial sense if you plan to work enough hours later on, and many women doctors do not end up working enough to justify the costs they pay.

It is worth noting that this specific result pertains to women primary-care physicians who work about 40 hours a week. Obviously, some women doctors work more hours, and some work many fewer. Women working significantly more than this do get a financial advantage from becoming a physician.

Do these results mean anything for women undertaking other advanced professional degrees such as the JD or MBA? The kind of analysis that we do in our research is not easily applied to many other professions. For doctors, it is reasonable to assume (and the data support) a fairly simple relationship between hours and earnings. Work more hours, see more patients, make more money. It is much harder to track down the relationship between hours and earnings for many other professions.

However, the issues that our research raises are certainly relevant in other fields. Indeed, there is evidence that women doctors actually "drop out" less frequently than women lawyers and (especially) women MBAs. For example, a 2010 study by Herr and Wolfram find that in a sample of Harvard graduates, 94 percent of mothers with MDs remain working in their late 30s, compared to only 79 percent of JDs and 72 percent of MBAs. One of the attractive features of primary care medicine is the possibility to scale up or scale down the workload — flexibility often not feasible for an executive or investment banker. If one scales down enough, though, the upfront investment of becoming a doctor isn't recouped.

Does this mean that women should not become physicians? Certainly not. Our results suggest that correctly forecasting how much you will work later in life should influence your career choice. But that forecast may be very difficult for a young person to make accurately. Also, there are clearly a host of reasons that people choose their careers that are not captured in our NPV calculations--like inherent satisfaction from the work. Still, in a time when student debt can rival mortgage debt, the costs of higher education have never been higher. Thinking through what kind of work schedules would justify these costs is an important part of making smart career choices for both men and women.

This article originally appeared on The Atlantic.

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The 401(k) On Steroids

Whether you are a realtor, consultant, physician, attorney, independent contractor, sole proprietor, owner or a partner in a small or large business, you can turbo-charge your retirement with a cash balance plan on top of your existing 401(k) plan.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/07/24/the-401k-on-steroids/

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