Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 42

Google Ngram election news

I decided to play the Google Ngram game again. If you’re new to it, it’s played as follows. Enter a word or short phrase (no more than four words) followed by an asterisk into the Google Ngram Viewer and it will show you the words that most frequently follow what you entered in the corpus of books and articles it has scanned. Use that new word to continue the story until you make a complete (if ungrammatical) sentence, then start with a new word or phrase. Since the prediction is based solely on the last three or four words, Ngram loses track of the subject and often the verb, which can lead to some amusing results. The words I used to start these sentences are in italics. The rest is produced by Google. Note: ‘s is considered a separate word by Ngram.

Joe Biden and his wife were both naked.

Donald Trump‘s election as President of the United States of America by Oxford University Press in the UK and U.S. have been the most important thing.

Both candidates were elected to the House of Commons.

Pence‘s office and the police department budget is not a good idea.

Harris and the other man were still alive.

The election results were announced in the press that the United States was the only country in the world.

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I voted today

You should, too.

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How companies shaft employees: stock options

If you’ve read my last post you know that corporate officials, i.e. “suits”, are out for their own financial benefit and not for the benefit of the company employees. Take stock options. SEC rules and various laws generally require companies to offer employee stock options equally to all employees.

So you’ve just graduated from college and get hired at Megacorp. During orientation, they tell you that you are entitled to employee stock options. What are those? They are the right to buy company stock at lower than market prices or at a fixed price. Great! you think. That’s a guaranteed profit; buy low then sell at market. Not so fast. You usually don’t get to exercise the options until they’ve “vested.” Typically that’s after you’ve been an employee for five years, although terms vary. SEC rules also prevent insiders, including you, from selling except during certain periods. Also, if the stock doesn’t do well, your option may be worthless, but it’s usually a freebie or low-risk purchase. Other rules apply and taxation varies depending on the type of options. It can be complicated and the topic in general is beyond the scope of this post.

I mainly want to focus on one aspect employers, i.e. the suits, use to game the system and benefit themselves at the expense of the employees. Since options hold the potential to sell at a profit, the suits don’t want a lot of other people selling their shares at the same time, which would depress the price and lower their profits. So how do they prevent it? Through layoffs or scheduled firing of employees before their options vest. People like you work for Megacorp (or a startup – they’re probably even worse) for four and half years and suddenly you get a pink slip. You were doing a good job, you think. Well, they don’t want you and everyone in your entry “class” to exercise their options. You end up abandoning them unexercised. Some state laws may give you some rights, but in general this sort of thing happens a lot.

It’s not just about stock options, though. The related issue is salary. People expect regular salary increases as they gain experience and seniority. In many industries it’s cheaper to hire and train new people constantly and let the senior ones go. It may seem cruel and unfair, but from a business perspective, it’s a valid business reason. They will probably keep the best workers, but they will cull the crop at about that time. Big law firms typically hire new associates every year, and by year five or maybe seven a few will make partner, but most will be shown the door if they haven’t made partner by then. Employers have always cherry-picked the best people, but most used to keep the rest on in lower-paid jobs until retirement. That’s less common now. The difference between the salary culling and stock option culling is that most employees know or expect that they will hit a ceiling on salary at some point but they do not realize that the stock option promise is a false one.

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How companies shaft employees: Deferred Compensation Plans

Companies, or, more specifically, the “suits” at the top, take unfair advantage of their employees in a number of ways. This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about how this is done. The first method I want to discuss is deferred compensation plans. For most employees, this means your 401(k) plan. There are other plans under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) that qualify, including 401(a), 403(b) and 457 plans, but the main corporate plans are 401(k) plans.

As you may expect, tax deferral is much more beneficial to the most highly compensated employees (HCE). The official IRS term for the rest of us plebes is NHCE, with a “non” at the beginning. I’m not going to get bogged down in the technicalities of who qualifies as an HCE. When deferred comp plans were designed, the potential for abuse was recognized, so the statutes and regulations required that the benefits of the plans be equally available to all employees, not just the HCE’s. Remember, one goal of such plans is to benefit the government by ensuring that most employees save up a nest egg for their retirement years and not become a burden on the state.

One way the law does this is to require the company to allow nearly all employees in. They prohibit the company from making an employee be employed for years before being allowed to participate. They also want to give an employee an incentive to start saving early, so the plans must require the employees to join up relatively quickly once they do become eligible. This is all well and good, and doesn’t hurt the employee. The real problem comes with the “top heavy” rule.

A company plan is “top heavy” if more than 60% of the deferral benefits go to HCE and key employees, basically, the “suits.” If it’s top heavy then the plan isn’t a “qualified plan” and the suits don’t get the deferral they want. The problem for them is that the low-paid employees don’t make enough money to be able to contribute heavily to the plan. They need their entire income just to live day-to-day. Many, if not most, don’t participate at all. One possible solution would be to pay the rank and file more. But no, that would cost too much and they don’t care about the rank-and-file. They take another route. They determine which employees contribute, and how much, and start laying people off. Generally, this is done by contracting out the lowest paid positions like receptionists, janitors, and security guards. This is not only tough on those workers who no longer get the company benefits but it also deprives the other employees of the higher-quality services they get from in-house employees. I’ve been a security director and believe me when I tell you that an in-house guard is much better quality and more loyal than one working for a security contractor. Even mid-level employees doing a good job are at risk of being laid off when times get tough if they don’t contribute to the 401(k) plan. That could be the deciding factor when the final cut is made and they probably wouldn’t even know that it is.

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To the Land of Long Lost Friends by Alexander McCall Smith

To the Land of Long Lost Friends by Alexander McCall Smith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is yet another charming addition to the #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series. Nominally mysteries, they are in reality musings on life and human foibles, written with humor and keen insight to human nature. The author has an obvious love of Botswana and depicts it as an easy living bucolic place where the simple things in life still dominate. Farming. Family. Friends. Not the hellhole where everyone lives in mud huts and has AIDS as one high U.S. government official has declared.

Those who are expecting action or even a real plot will be disappointed, but if this is read with the right mindset it can be enjoyed by anyone. It helps to be familiar with the characters. I believe the first few books in the series were better, with more of a plot line. This is not the best one to introduce yourself to the characters. The BBC/PBS series starring Jill Scott was absolutely wonderful. Hearing the accent and speech curiosities of Botswana sets the mood. Reading them on the page can seem a bit odd.

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Bring back Grape-Nuts Flakes!

For several months now my wife has been unable to find Post Grape-Nuts Flakes in the stores. It’s my favorite cereal, but I can no longer get it. I believe it has been discontinued since I see it is no longer listed on the Post website as one of their brands. Amazon lists it as “currently unavailable.”

One of my most viewed posts is when I complained about Mother’s cookies no longer making macaroons. Many agreed with me, but to no avail. Maybe I’ll have better luck this time. I’m hoping it’s due to some shortage because of the pandemic.

Post, I implore you, bring back my favorite cereal!

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Law Schools in the United States

A while back I did a post showing the law schools in the United States where U.S. Supreme Court Justices studied. Now that a new justice has been nominated, I thought it was a good time to revisit the topic. Amy Coney Barrett attended Cambridge College, a small religious college in Tennessee, and Notre Dame Law School. If confirmed, she’ll be the first justice who didn’t attended Harvard, Yale, or Columbia law school since Sandra Day O’Connor (Stanford Law School) who was appointed in 1981. I see that as a plus, although I would have preferred to see someone from a higher ranked school like Berkeley, Stanford, or the University of Chicago.

I decided to explore what opportunity a prospective lawyer would have for studying law in their state, or even in another state. Below is a graph showing the number of accredited law schools in each state on a per capita basis. A few are private, but none are unaccredited. Some are accredited only by their own state, but most are accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA).

Florida has the most per capita, as indeed, it has many colleges and universities for its size no doubt due to capitalizing on its geographic appeal to college students. Alaska is the only state with none. I included the District of Columbia which, as seat of government, has quite a few, but I left out Puerto Rico.

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New Gym Workout

After months of being unable to work out at the gym, due to the pandemic lockdown, I was finally able to go again to exercise. I thought it might be worth sharing my experience. My gym is 24-Hour Fitness. I had to reserve a time, but that was not difficult. It cannot be done on a desktop computer. You need to download the 24GO app on your phone.

I did so but it would not recognize me by member number  and my password didn’t work, even though I’ve been a customer for years, including paying dues (only a few) during the lockdown. When I clicked the link to rest my password, it did not recognize that either. I emailed customer support using another link and they promptly got back to me with a link to another page where I could sign it with date of birth and the pin I use when I show up at the club. Once I got past that glitch, the app recognized me and has continued to do so without need to sign in.

Once I got there, I had to wear a mask, per local law. It was uncomfortable, but it is a necessary safety measure and I expected it. The gym was not crowded at all. It looked almost abandoned. Where there would normally be several dozen people working on the mats and machines, there were perhaps five or six, including me. I recognized one of them as a pre-lockdown regular.  There were plenty of hand sanitizing stations around. I did my normal twenty-minute workout and left.

That was on Sunday. One thing I had sort of anticipated occurred Monday (and Tuesday and Wednesday) and that is sore muscles. Working out after a long layoff will do that. Be prepared if you go back for the first time. Take it easy. I worked out again today, Wednesday, and the soreness has almost disappeared already. Today’s workout may bring it back, but in my experience after two or three times, that goes away.

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The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne

The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a combination thriller/detective novel that doesn’t quite hit on either count. The title character, a biologist, fits the trendy “unreliable narrator” mold since he is awkward, insecure, and generally clueless about pop culture and personal relationships. He uses his scientific knowledge and computerized data analysis tools to determine that a “bear” that allegedly killed his ex-student near where he is doing field work was really a man.

The story line is rather frustrating because he cannot get anyone to believe him and he does various reckless and illogical things to chase the killer himself. I wasn’t impressed with the ending, either the character’s actions or the “solution” to the mystery. Despite that, it was interesting enough to serve as an airplane read and I got it free from Prime, so I can give it three stars.

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Our ignorant newsies – apopalyptic

Here’s another newsworthy gem from our media reporters. The California fires are truly apopalyptic.

I suppose the apocalypse could cause apoplexy.

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