My Chicago Rant

Archive for October, 2009

Want your Site to be unique? Want it to perform like never before? Have you ever tried using a Flash Audio Tool? One thing is for sure – it is more effective than just using plain text. If you want to learn more about it, keep reading this article.

Quick introduction

The concept behind this system is quite simple yet smart – “Embed Audio Into Flash” Tool enables you to quickly convert music/audio file(s) to a special Web-format. The process is quite short and easy. You provide it with the requested files, select a player type and that is it. By the end you get a small code that needs to be embedded onto your desired webpage.

The following process enables you to create a ‘streaming webaudio’ file – it can be played immediately without having to wait till the entire file is downloaded.

Using such technology provides numerous opportunities and advantages; for example: helping and guiding your visitors on crucial points on your Website (registration/download/order etc.) or having audio-driven Websites which are currently taking the Internet by storm.

Tip

There is one important rule to remember while using this technology: focus on your listeners – talk more about/to them, not about yourself. One other thing: there are many complicated and expensive solutions out there, start with the simple ones – you’ll quickly find out that it is sufficient in most cases.

Summary

Thanks to Flash Audio Tool we can significantly improve the affectivity and profitability of our online business. We all understand that we need to move beyond just written words. It is advised to test it in order to explore and see how it can easily improve the productivity of your online business.

Tom Sheinberg
http://www.articlesbase.com/audio-articles/quotembed-audio-into-flashquot-tool–the-unbelievable-truth-741927.html

A working city Palma is home to half the islands population. Palma is the capital of the Balearic Islands and is the cultural hub of the island. Despite having become a modern city Palma has retained its culture charm and its old town. Millions of visitors pass through its airport every year and is Palmas main industry and also has the largest port in Mallorca with a working fishing fleet.

Outside the tourist season Palmas streets can be peaceful. Palma livens up briefly on New Years Eve for the festa de lestendard which celebrates the end of the year. The wildest night is 23 June when bonfires and music celebrate the summer solstice. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week when hooded penitents in coloured robes representing the islands 50 brotherhoods file solemnly through the streets of Palma.

Some of Palma attraction are the castle of Bellver the Royal Palace and the Cathedral.

The Cathedral of Palma is a Gothic style building that was built over 300 hundreds years ago and it is know by the locals as La Seu. The Cathedral is a landmark of the city. The Cathedral has one of the worlds largest stained glass window containing 1236 pieces of glass.

Bellver Castle is about 3km from the city centre and is over 112m above sea level. It is the home of the history Museum and construction began on the castle in 1309 by King James 11. Palma City Council care for the castle and the surrounding woodlands. The terraces of the castle offer panoramic view over the city and bay.

The palace is opposite the Cathedral and overlooks the harbour. On visiting the palace you will find most of the rooms and corridors empty but will impressed with the gardens that surround the palace.
Art lovers are well catered for by two grand new public exhibition spaces the Palau March featuring the work of such international sculptors as Rodin and Henry Moore, and the Es Baluard museum of modern Spanish art.

The pearls of Mallorca are made from natural marine products and there produces 50 million artificial pearls every year.

Avinguda Jaume 111 is the newest street and best know street in the city for shopping.

Many of the bar are owned by British or Germans. People in Palma do not go out until 10.00pm because the bar stay open until 3 or 4am

Douglas Scott
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/the-beatiful-city-of-palma-107304.html

A working city Palma is home to half the islands population. Palma is the capital of the Balearic Islands and is the cultural hub of the island. Despite having become a modern city Palma has retained its culture charm and its old town. Millions of visitors pass through its airport every year and is Palmas main industry and also has the largest port in Mallorca with a working fishing fleet.

Outside the tourist season Palmas streets can be peaceful. Palma livens up briefly on New Years Eve for the festa de lestendard which celebrates the end of the year. The wildest night is 23 June when bonfires and music celebrate the summer solstice. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week when hooded penitents in coloured robes representing the islands 50 brotherhoods file solemnly through the streets of Palma.

Some of Palma attraction are the castle of Bellver the Royal Palace and the Cathedral.

The Cathedral of Palma is a Gothic style building that was built over 300 hundreds years ago and it is know by the locals as La Seu. The Cathedral is a landmark of the city. The Cathedral has one of the worlds largest stained glass window containing 1236 pieces of glass.

Bellver Castle is about 3km from the city centre and is over 112m above sea level. It is the home of the history Museum and construction began on the castle in 1309 by King James 11. Palma City Council care for the castle and the surrounding woodlands. The terraces of the castle offer panoramic view over the city and bay.

The palace is opposite the Cathedral and overlooks the harbour. On visiting the palace you will find most of the rooms and corridors empty but will impressed with the gardens that surround the palace.
Art lovers are well catered for by two grand new public exhibition spaces the Palau March featuring the work of such international sculptors as Rodin and Henry Moore, and the Es Baluard museum of modern Spanish art.

The pearls of Mallorca are made from natural marine products and there produces 50 million artificial pearls every year.

Avinguda Jaume 111 is the newest street and best know street in the city for shopping.

Many of the bar are owned by British or Germans. People in Palma do not go out until 10.00pm because the bar stay open until 3 or 4am

Douglas Scott
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/the-beatiful-city-of-palma-107304.html

Pokagon Fund hands out money for projects

By H-P STAFF
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:09 PM EST

NEW BUFFALO – The Pokagon Fund’s board has granted $183,301 for new projects ranging from scouting to sports programs.

Getting grants in the December-January funding round are:

– St. Mary of the Lake School and New Buffalo Area Schools, $8,965 for the Girls on the Run Program, a national program aimed at building confidence in girls in third through fifth grade. It’s a 12-week course and they train for a 3.1-mile competitive run in May.

– LaSalle Council of Boy Scouts of America, $6,600 for an after-school scouting program.

– Harbor Country Chamber of Commerce, $4,500 to underwrite formation of a strategic plan.

– New Buffalo Sports Inc., $7,750 to support its 2009 season and an unsolicited grant of $500 to provide scholarships for youths whose families find it hard to pay registration fees.

– New Buffalo Township, $3,500 for additional work on amending its master plan.

The fund is also continuing to loan New Buffalo Township $136,486 to pay for police protection in January, February and March. The fund has supported the township’s police force since January 2008, and the loan will be paid back with proceeds from the Local Revenue Sharing Board when those funds are released.

The fund is also taking steps to ensure that organizations that get grants can deliver services. Executive Director Mary Dunbar said the fund is entering a $15,000 agreement with Executive Service Corp. of Chicago toward that end.

“We want very much to see our grantees succeed in delivering their programs and their mission.” Dunbar said.

Executive Service Corps will survey all organizations getting grants to assess strengths and any weaknesses, then hold workshops on any areas that need help. Workshops could include such topics as board development, finance, fund raising, and marketing.

The Pokagon Fund began funding grant proposals in November 2007, and since that time has provided over $3.4 million in funding. Grant funding supports initiatives in the fields of health, human services, art, education, recreation, and environment.

The fund supports municipalities and non-profit groups in New Buffalo, Chikaming, and Three Oaks townships, and in and around Pokagon Band land trusts in Dowagiac, Hartford and North Liberty, Ind. The fund is a private foundation supported by 2 percent of electronic gaming revenue from the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Township.

dimoffer
http://www.articlesbase.com/causes-and-organizations-articles/pokagon-fund-hands-out-money-for-projects-751765.html

Pokagon Fund hands out money for projects

By H-P STAFF
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:09 PM EST

NEW BUFFALO – The Pokagon Fund’s board has granted $183,301 for new projects ranging from scouting to sports programs.

Getting grants in the December-January funding round are:

– St. Mary of the Lake School and New Buffalo Area Schools, $8,965 for the Girls on the Run Program, a national program aimed at building confidence in girls in third through fifth grade. It’s a 12-week course and they train for a 3.1-mile competitive run in May.

– LaSalle Council of Boy Scouts of America, $6,600 for an after-school scouting program.

– Harbor Country Chamber of Commerce, $4,500 to underwrite formation of a strategic plan.

– New Buffalo Sports Inc., $7,750 to support its 2009 season and an unsolicited grant of $500 to provide scholarships for youths whose families find it hard to pay registration fees.

– New Buffalo Township, $3,500 for additional work on amending its master plan.

The fund is also continuing to loan New Buffalo Township $136,486 to pay for police protection in January, February and March. The fund has supported the township’s police force since January 2008, and the loan will be paid back with proceeds from the Local Revenue Sharing Board when those funds are released.

The fund is also taking steps to ensure that organizations that get grants can deliver services. Executive Director Mary Dunbar said the fund is entering a $15,000 agreement with Executive Service Corp. of Chicago toward that end.

“We want very much to see our grantees succeed in delivering their programs and their mission.” Dunbar said.

Executive Service Corps will survey all organizations getting grants to assess strengths and any weaknesses, then hold workshops on any areas that need help. Workshops could include such topics as board development, finance, fund raising, and marketing.

The Pokagon Fund began funding grant proposals in November 2007, and since that time has provided over $3.4 million in funding. Grant funding supports initiatives in the fields of health, human services, art, education, recreation, and environment.

The fund supports municipalities and non-profit groups in New Buffalo, Chikaming, and Three Oaks townships, and in and around Pokagon Band land trusts in Dowagiac, Hartford and North Liberty, Ind. The fund is a private foundation supported by 2 percent of electronic gaming revenue from the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Township.

dimoffer
http://www.articlesbase.com/causes-and-organizations-articles/pokagon-fund-hands-out-money-for-projects-751765.html

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life.

He said to them, “A battle is raging inside me….it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, friendship, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The old man fixed the children with a firm stare. “This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather,

“Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee replied: “The one you feed.”

Let’s spend the next few minutes feeding the good wolf.

As a Doctor of Natural Health, a lot of people have asked me about how to feel better. People just want to feel better. Now, what did they mean by feeling better? Did they mean physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or all of the above?

While we’re talking about feeling better, let me give you some statistics on three common conditions – depression, anxiety and panic attacks, and hypertension or high blood pressure.

These statistics come from such sources as the Harvard University, the World Health Organization, The National Mental Health Association, and The National Institute for Mental Health.

We’ll start with depression. Depression or some depressive disorders affects about 18.8 million people. That’s about 9.5 percent of the entire population 18 years or older. Preschoolers are the fastest growing market for antidepressants. That’s incredible to me. At least 4% of the preschoolers (that’s over 1 million kids) are clinically depressed.

15% of the population of most developed countries has some form of severe depression. So it’s not just an American problem. It’s global. 15% of depressed people will commit suicide. 80% of depressed people are not currently having any treatment whatsoever. And depression results in more absenteeism than any other physical disorder. It costs employers more than 51 billion dollars per year in absenteeism and lost productivity. And that 51 billion dollar figure does not including the high medical costs and the pharmaceutical costs that are related to depression.

As far as anxiety goes, 1 in every 8 Americans between the ages of 15-18 suffers from some kind of anxiety disorder. That’s over 19 million people. That’s everything from obsessive-compulsive, to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, any kind of phobias, or panic disorders.

Research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health shows that anxiety issues are the number one health issue among American women and are second only to alcohol and drug abuse among men. Women suffer from anxiety almost twice as much as men. It’s the most common mental illness in America and it surpasses depression. It’s the most common mental illness in adults 65 years or older and it costs the United States 46.6 billion dollars every year. Anxiety sufferers will see an average of 5 doctors before somebody even diagnoses them properly. Panic attacks occur to about 1.7% of the population. That’s 4.6 million people.

Hypertension—that’s one you hear about all the time. High blood pressure killed over 50 thousand Americans in 2002. About 65 million Americans age 20 and over have high blood pressure. That number translates to nearly 1 in 3 adults having high blood pressure. Of those people with high blood pressure, only about 65% of the people were aware of it and less than 50% are under any kind of treatment. Of the people in treatment, only about 30% of them have it under control.

The cause of about 90 to 95% of cases of high blood pressure isn’t known according to the statistics. The death rate from high blood pressure increased 29.3% from 1993 to 2003. So, in a ten year period, it rose 30%, roughly.

To better understand what’s going on with all these conditions and why people want to feel better, we need to look at the bigger picture. Quantum Physics has showed us that everything in the universe is composed of energy whether it’s the electricity running through wires or whether it’s electrical current that runs through our nervous system and sparks movement, or whether it’s the electrical impulse that beats the heart. Whatever it is, there’s an energy charge to it. So, one of the best ways to think of the body is as an open energy system. An open energy system that takes the energy coming from the universe, takes the energy from the food, takes the energy from its surroundings, and sends that energy back into the universe as work, love, movement, etc.

Again, as we can see from Quantum Physics, everything is energy. Anytime that we interact with something or someone, we interact with its energy field. One of the laws of Quantum Physics states that once two energy fields intermingle, they can never fully separate. So, we need to take that into account when we look at everything that we do, everything that we say, everything we read, every TV show we watch, everything we listen to, everything we smell, everything we touch, everything that we eat, and every person that we come into contact with is all part of the energy of the universe and our own personal energy as it flows through us. The key to feeling better is to have the energy in a positive form instead of a negative form.

Many people that want to feel better are feeling pretty negative right now. And the negativity is controlling their lives. It’ll show up in their relationships, it’ll show up in their health. So, let’s talk a little bit about positivity and negativity and give you some background on that. There was a study done at the Chicago School of Psychology that took two groups of people – 1 group in Mexico City, and the other in Chicago, both with people between 20 years old and 65 years old. They discovered that BOTH GROUPS of people had more negative words than positive words or even neutral words.

People in general know more negative words than they do positive or neutral words. The proportion basically comes out to be 50% of the words we know are negative, 30% of the words are positive, and 20% are neutral. What happens throughout daily life is that you don’t much attention to the positive words, when you’re talking with people. That’s because positive words pretty much mean that things are okay and as a result, you don’t have to pay much attention to it. It’s the negative words that give us a signal that something is wrong and so we start spending more time, paying more attention, and giving more detail in our thinking in a negative form. Overall, we end up living our lives on more negative words.

Did you ever notice how the negative people in your lives are the ones that get the most attention and cause you the most tension? 20% of the people that we interact with in an average day are negative. They’re the ones that stir up all the trouble, and we spend 90 to 92% of our day paying attention to them. The positive people in our lives are about 20% of our friends, relatives, and colleagues at work. We spend about 1% of our time with them. The in-between type people are about 60% of any group. And we spend about 7% of our time with the in-between group.

A little bit more of the negativity is the average amount of negative input that you have in an average day. There was an experiment conducted by Dr. Lacey Hall that concluded that most people experience 90% of negative input in an average day. That’s a whole lot of negative thinking or negative input.

Let’s put it into perspective. Now, our verbal conversation, when we’re talking with an average person, is about 300-500 words per minute. Internally, you and I talk to ourselves at an incredibly fast speed. It’s somewhere about 3000 to 5000 words per minute; that’s 10x faster. And all that chatter goes on in our heads constantly. Now, here’s the really scary part – it’s estimated that most of your self-talk is somewhere around 60-85% negative. That’s just the talk that you give to yourself.

Motivational speaker Zig Ziegler says that the most influential person that you’ll talk to all day long is you. So, you should be particularly careful about what you say to YOU. The answer to all your problems is right under your nose – Your mouth controls your life by what comes out of it and by what you put into it. The answer really is right under your nose.

This material is a part of my ongoing 8-week e-Class called The Answer is Right Under Your Nose. It is available through the ‘Personal Coaching’ section of my website at www.JerryRyanPhD.com.

Jerry Ryan, Ph.D.
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-improvement-articles/the-importance-of-words-124603.html

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life.

He said to them, “A battle is raging inside me….it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, friendship, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The old man fixed the children with a firm stare. “This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather,

“Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee replied: “The one you feed.”

Let’s spend the next few minutes feeding the good wolf.

As a Doctor of Natural Health, a lot of people have asked me about how to feel better. People just want to feel better. Now, what did they mean by feeling better? Did they mean physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or all of the above?

While we’re talking about feeling better, let me give you some statistics on three common conditions – depression, anxiety and panic attacks, and hypertension or high blood pressure.

These statistics come from such sources as the Harvard University, the World Health Organization, The National Mental Health Association, and The National Institute for Mental Health.

We’ll start with depression. Depression or some depressive disorders affects about 18.8 million people. That’s about 9.5 percent of the entire population 18 years or older. Preschoolers are the fastest growing market for antidepressants. That’s incredible to me. At least 4% of the preschoolers (that’s over 1 million kids) are clinically depressed.

15% of the population of most developed countries has some form of severe depression. So it’s not just an American problem. It’s global. 15% of depressed people will commit suicide. 80% of depressed people are not currently having any treatment whatsoever. And depression results in more absenteeism than any other physical disorder. It costs employers more than 51 billion dollars per year in absenteeism and lost productivity. And that 51 billion dollar figure does not including the high medical costs and the pharmaceutical costs that are related to depression.

As far as anxiety goes, 1 in every 8 Americans between the ages of 15-18 suffers from some kind of anxiety disorder. That’s over 19 million people. That’s everything from obsessive-compulsive, to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, any kind of phobias, or panic disorders.

Research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health shows that anxiety issues are the number one health issue among American women and are second only to alcohol and drug abuse among men. Women suffer from anxiety almost twice as much as men. It’s the most common mental illness in America and it surpasses depression. It’s the most common mental illness in adults 65 years or older and it costs the United States 46.6 billion dollars every year. Anxiety sufferers will see an average of 5 doctors before somebody even diagnoses them properly. Panic attacks occur to about 1.7% of the population. That’s 4.6 million people.

Hypertension—that’s one you hear about all the time. High blood pressure killed over 50 thousand Americans in 2002. About 65 million Americans age 20 and over have high blood pressure. That number translates to nearly 1 in 3 adults having high blood pressure. Of those people with high blood pressure, only about 65% of the people were aware of it and less than 50% are under any kind of treatment. Of the people in treatment, only about 30% of them have it under control.

The cause of about 90 to 95% of cases of high blood pressure isn’t known according to the statistics. The death rate from high blood pressure increased 29.3% from 1993 to 2003. So, in a ten year period, it rose 30%, roughly.

To better understand what’s going on with all these conditions and why people want to feel better, we need to look at the bigger picture. Quantum Physics has showed us that everything in the universe is composed of energy whether it’s the electricity running through wires or whether it’s electrical current that runs through our nervous system and sparks movement, or whether it’s the electrical impulse that beats the heart. Whatever it is, there’s an energy charge to it. So, one of the best ways to think of the body is as an open energy system. An open energy system that takes the energy coming from the universe, takes the energy from the food, takes the energy from its surroundings, and sends that energy back into the universe as work, love, movement, etc.

Again, as we can see from Quantum Physics, everything is energy. Anytime that we interact with something or someone, we interact with its energy field. One of the laws of Quantum Physics states that once two energy fields intermingle, they can never fully separate. So, we need to take that into account when we look at everything that we do, everything that we say, everything we read, every TV show we watch, everything we listen to, everything we smell, everything we touch, everything that we eat, and every person that we come into contact with is all part of the energy of the universe and our own personal energy as it flows through us. The key to feeling better is to have the energy in a positive form instead of a negative form.

Many people that want to feel better are feeling pretty negative right now. And the negativity is controlling their lives. It’ll show up in their relationships, it’ll show up in their health. So, let’s talk a little bit about positivity and negativity and give you some background on that. There was a study done at the Chicago School of Psychology that took two groups of people – 1 group in Mexico City, and the other in Chicago, both with people between 20 years old and 65 years old. They discovered that BOTH GROUPS of people had more negative words than positive words or even neutral words.

People in general know more negative words than they do positive or neutral words. The proportion basically comes out to be 50% of the words we know are negative, 30% of the words are positive, and 20% are neutral. What happens throughout daily life is that you don’t much attention to the positive words, when you’re talking with people. That’s because positive words pretty much mean that things are okay and as a result, you don’t have to pay much attention to it. It’s the negative words that give us a signal that something is wrong and so we start spending more time, paying more attention, and giving more detail in our thinking in a negative form. Overall, we end up living our lives on more negative words.

Did you ever notice how the negative people in your lives are the ones that get the most attention and cause you the most tension? 20% of the people that we interact with in an average day are negative. They’re the ones that stir up all the trouble, and we spend 90 to 92% of our day paying attention to them. The positive people in our lives are about 20% of our friends, relatives, and colleagues at work. We spend about 1% of our time with them. The in-between type people are about 60% of any group. And we spend about 7% of our time with the in-between group.

A little bit more of the negativity is the average amount of negative input that you have in an average day. There was an experiment conducted by Dr. Lacey Hall that concluded that most people experience 90% of negative input in an average day. That’s a whole lot of negative thinking or negative input.

Let’s put it into perspective. Now, our verbal conversation, when we’re talking with an average person, is about 300-500 words per minute. Internally, you and I talk to ourselves at an incredibly fast speed. It’s somewhere about 3000 to 5000 words per minute; that’s 10x faster. And all that chatter goes on in our heads constantly. Now, here’s the really scary part – it’s estimated that most of your self-talk is somewhere around 60-85% negative. That’s just the talk that you give to yourself.

Motivational speaker Zig Ziegler says that the most influential person that you’ll talk to all day long is you. So, you should be particularly careful about what you say to YOU. The answer to all your problems is right under your nose – Your mouth controls your life by what comes out of it and by what you put into it. The answer really is right under your nose.

This material is a part of my ongoing 8-week e-Class called The Answer is Right Under Your Nose. It is available through the ‘Personal Coaching’ section of my website at www.JerryRyanPhD.com.

Jerry Ryan, Ph.D.
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-improvement-articles/the-importance-of-words-124603.html

Socially Responsible Investing for Idiots

Sí, Money! (http://simoney.us)
By Michael Grodsky

If I have to be an idiot, at the least I’m a green idiot. I believe in clean air, corporate responsibility, community activism, licorice, pizza and Thai food. And healthy living, freedom, and of course freedom raisins.

Shiny happy raisins

I love trees, sky, and ah, the OXYGEN! But I’m worried about the dismal state of health care, education funding, the ozone hole, the Medicare donut hole, and your little dog too! Did you know the North Pole is melting? That really scares me. Plus I need to cut down on my Chunky Monkey intake.

In everything I do, in every move I make, it seems that I’m part of the worldwide web of production and consumption. So I pertly place my recyclables in the blue bin, our family uses reusable grocery bags, and I vote. What more can a light-switch thumping, gasoline-pumping 21st century fox do?

C’mon, baby, light my SRI fire…

 

It was only a couple of years ago a friend remarked to me that real estate was the only investment that made any sense, as if his seat on the Ferris Wheel of investments, propelled by an invincible source, would forever be going up, up, UP! Instead, what happened was “up, up and away.”

The first Ferris wheel, from 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago

The desire for a sure thing is hard to resist. Albert Einstein, succumbing to pressure to support the idea of a static universe, in his 1917 paper added an adjustment number called the “cosmological constant” to his equation for general relativity. In 1931 he publicly renounced this static cosmology and endorsed the Big Bang expanding universe model, ditching the cosmological constant and returning to his original equation. He later called his bowing to peer pressure the greatest blunder of his entire life. You can read about the adventure in author Simon Singh’s “Big Bang – The Origin of the Universe.”

Many philanthropic foundations have long drawn a wall between their socially conscious mission statements that drive grant making, and the investment holdings of their endowment. There is a truism that investing for social benefit results in lower returns. But just as scientific peer consensus eventually embraced the Big Bang theory, so has the thinking of philanthropic foundations changed. The reasons are twofold: A recognition that corporate responsibility and societal concerns are valid parts of investment decisions, (1) and a growing number of academic studies have demonstrated that socially responsible investment (SRI) mutual funds perform competitively with non-SRI funds over time. (2)

For example, according to University of Maastricht and Erasmus University Rotterdam economists in their prize-winning paper, “we find little evidence of significant differences in risk-adjusted returns between ethical and conventional funds for the 1990-2001 period.” (3)

Foundation investment choices seem to be increasingly guided by effect upon society as a whole, not just financial gain, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article. (4) Fresh thinking in the nation’s largest foundations may be driving the impetus ever faster: The $8.5-billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Menlo Park), the $6.1-billion John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Chicago), the $7.8-billion W.K. Kellogg Foundation (Battle Creek, Michigan) all have made recent changes to improve the social effect of their investments. (5)

SRI assets are also growing faster than assets as a whole: according to the non-profit Social Investment Forum’s 2005 biennial report, SRI assets rose more than 258 percent from $639 billion in 1995 to $2.29 trillion in 2005. Over those ten years, SRI assets grew four percent faster than the entire universe of managed assets in the United States. (6)

Some have already been on the SRI track: the nation’s second largest foundation, the Ford Foundation, along with others such as the F.B. Herron Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation and the Nathan Cumings Foundation, have for a long time aligned their charitable and investment practices.

What is Socially Responsible Investing?
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is a broad-based approach to investing that now encompasses an estimated $2.3 trillion out of $24 trillion in the U.S. investment marketplace today. (7) The release of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment–subscribed to by some of the world’s largest institutional investors, asset managers, and related organizations representing over $9 trillion in assets as of mid- 2007–underscores the widespread acceptance of the principle that investors cannot, in the long run, achieve their goals by investing in corporations that externalize their costs onto society. (8)

How do I research SRI funds?
A good place to start is the Social Investment Forum (http://www.socialinvest.org). Look at the resource list at the end of this article too.

How do I start investing?
If you participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan, there may be SRI funds already available to you. If you manage your own IRA or other plan, look into what’s available. But don’t just go adding a fund without considering the entire makeup of your portfolio.

The key to earning decent long-term returns and limiting overall risk is to have a proper asset allocation, meaning you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. For do-it-yourself-ers, check out the government’s website about asset allocation (http://tinyurl.com/2825hw), or purchase “All About Asset Allocation” by Richard A. Ferri ($13.57 at Amazon), a great introduction to the topic. Your personal financial advisor or company where you have your investment or retirement accounts can help.

How do I know which funds will produce the highest returns?
You don’t, you can’t, and you won’t, so just forget about it because past performance doesn’t predict future results. The day-to-day ups and downs of the market receive the media attention, but the daily, quarterly, or even yearly returns are largely irrelevant in constructing an individual’s portfolio whose objectives are long-range.  What you want to look for are funds that perform well over the long run within their particular sector, as compared to the appropriate benchmark indices. Various areas of the economy are always moving up and down and sideways, and so far no one has ever been able to know ahead of time what the pattern will be. Asset allocation, I’ll say again, may be the key to long-term success in building a financially secure future. Not panicking helps too!

What makes an SRI fund different?
If a prospective company is a fit according to a fund’s stated objectives, research is performed to determine whether or not it’s a good idea to buy stock at the current offering price. It boils down to the question “Within the guidelines of the stated objectives of the fund, will this purchase help to achieve the highest possible return for the fund’s shareholders?”

The three core socially responsible investing strategies are screening, shareholder advocacy, and community investing. Screening means a fund will include or exclude companies based upon criteria such as alcohol, tobacco, animal testing, and human rights, among others. These screens can be positive (e.g., including companies that treat employees well) or negative (e.g., excluding companies who do business with disturbed musicians).

Keep in mind that, as with all mutual funds, SRI funds have no guarantees of future return.

In any case, you’d better take this lad’s offering of raisins!

If you use electricity, drive a car, and participate in many other activities of daily living, in a very true sense you are already investing in the companies that allow and encourage your consumption. In other words, you are part of the “market” whether or not you actually own stocks or mutual funds. Socially responsible investing can be a way to make your dollars work toward something in which you believe, and support those companies you believe have a vision in line with your own.

Resources and suggested reading

1.    “The Mission in the Marketplace: How Responsible Investing Can Strengthen the Fiduciary Oversight of Foundation Endowments and Enhance Philanthropic Missions.” Social Investment Forum Foundation’s resource guide for foundations to manage risk and leverage their investment assets more fully with their core philanthropic purpose, while creating lasting value. http://tinyurl.com/35t49h
2.    “10 best” list of companies. Corporate Responsibility Officer magazine rates the citizenship disclosures, policies and performance of large-cap, public companies in the following industries: Auto & Vehicles, Paper, Technology Hardware, Technology Software, Transport, and Travel & Lodging industries, Chemical, Energy, Financial, Media and Utilities industries. http://www.thecro.com/node/580
3.    Social Science Research Network. http://www.ssrn.com/
4.    United Nations’ “The Principles for Responsible Investment.” An investor initiative in partnership with UNEP Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact. http://www.unpri.org/
5.    The Social Investment Forum; national membership association dedicated to advancing the concept, practice, and growth of socially and environmentally responsible investing. http://www.socialinvest.org/
6.    Social Investment Forum’s 2005 biennial report. http://tinyurl.com/258794
7.    Sristudies.org, a resource for quantitative aspects of socially responsible investing. Includes an annotated bibliography of studies of socially responsible investing. A project of the Moskowitz Research Program, which is affiliated with the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
8.    Socially Responsible Mutual Fund Charts of Financial Performance. http://www.socialinvest.org/resources/mfpc/
9.    SocialFunds.com, an advertising-driven website with information on SRI mutual funds, community investments, corporate research, shareowner actions, and daily social investment news.
10.    “Handbook on Responsible Investment Across Asset Classes.” For asset allocation junkies, individuals and institutional investors the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship created this work. http://tinyurl.com/2ffqbu

Footnotes

1. The Maturing of Socially Responsible Investment: A Review of the Developing Link with Corporate Social Responsibility by Russell Sparkes and Christopher J. Cowton. Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 52, Number 1 / June, 2004.
2. SriStudies.org
3. International Evidence on Ethical Mutual Fund Performance and Investment Style, paper by Rob Bauer, Kees Koedijk, Rogér Otten. Limburg Institute of Financial Economics, November 2002. (socialinvest.org/resources/research)
4. Foundations align investments with their charitable goals by Charles Piller, Los Angeles Times, December 29, 2007. Section C, p 1.
5. Ibid.
6. 2005 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States. Social Investment Forum. (www.socialinvest.org)
7. Socially Responsible Investing Facts. Social Investment Forum. www.socialinvest.org
8. PRI Report On Progress 2007. PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment), United Nations. (www.unpri.org)

Image credits

Sun-Maid/George Bush composite image
•    First Sun-Maid packaging to feature a likeness of Lorraine Collett as the “Sun-Maid Girl,” 1916. Designer unknown, incorporates painting by Fanny Scafford. Public domain in the United States.
•    Photograph of Bush speaking. Brazil, November 6, 2005. Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency, produced photograph. Published under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.5 Brazil.

Fox/Morrison composite image
•    Foxes by Franz Marc, 1913. The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. Public Domain.
•    Jim Morrison portrait, 2007, by Amadeu.taradell. Released by author into public domain.

Ferris Wheel/Superman composite image
•    The first Ferris wheel from the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The New York Times photo archive. Public Domain.
•    Screenshot of 1941 cartoon Superman. Fleischer Studios. This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 with a copyright notice, and its copyright was not renewed.

Musician holding Valentine’s Day raisins composite image
•    Photo of musician Jeff Hawley, 2007.  Manager, Marketing Content Pro Audio and Combo Division, Yamaha Corporation of America. Courtesy of Mr. Hawley.
•    Photo, August 3, 2005 by Mazbln. Halberstadt, Klosterkirche St. Burchardi, Ort des John-Cage-Projektes “As slow as possible.” Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
•    Original painting of Lorraine Collett by Fanny Scafford, 1915, later used on Sun-Maid raisin packaging. Public domain in the United States.

This column is meant to provide general information, and should not be construed as providing investment, legal, or tax advice. There is no guarantee as to the accuracy or completeness of the information in this article. There are no guarantees of future return for any fund, nor an endorsement of any investment product. Mutual funds are sold by prospectus only. For complete information on mutual funds including sales charges and expenses, call your financial professional for a prospectus. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing. Links are provided herein as a courtesy, and no guarantees are made as to the accuracy of the content on the referenced websites.

Sí, Money! – Vol. 2, No. 1  February 2008 – http://simoney.us

Michael Grodsky, AIF®
http://www.articlesbase.com/investing-articles/socially-responsible-investing-for-idiots-745542.html

Socially Responsible Investing for Idiots

Sí, Money! (http://simoney.us)
By Michael Grodsky

If I have to be an idiot, at the least I’m a green idiot. I believe in clean air, corporate responsibility, community activism, licorice, pizza and Thai food. And healthy living, freedom, and of course freedom raisins.

Shiny happy raisins

I love trees, sky, and ah, the OXYGEN! But I’m worried about the dismal state of health care, education funding, the ozone hole, the Medicare donut hole, and your little dog too! Did you know the North Pole is melting? That really scares me. Plus I need to cut down on my Chunky Monkey intake.

In everything I do, in every move I make, it seems that I’m part of the worldwide web of production and consumption. So I pertly place my recyclables in the blue bin, our family uses reusable grocery bags, and I vote. What more can a light-switch thumping, gasoline-pumping 21st century fox do?

C’mon, baby, light my SRI fire…

 

It was only a couple of years ago a friend remarked to me that real estate was the only investment that made any sense, as if his seat on the Ferris Wheel of investments, propelled by an invincible source, would forever be going up, up, UP! Instead, what happened was “up, up and away.”

The first Ferris wheel, from 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago

The desire for a sure thing is hard to resist. Albert Einstein, succumbing to pressure to support the idea of a static universe, in his 1917 paper added an adjustment number called the “cosmological constant” to his equation for general relativity. In 1931 he publicly renounced this static cosmology and endorsed the Big Bang expanding universe model, ditching the cosmological constant and returning to his original equation. He later called his bowing to peer pressure the greatest blunder of his entire life. You can read about the adventure in author Simon Singh’s “Big Bang – The Origin of the Universe.”

Many philanthropic foundations have long drawn a wall between their socially conscious mission statements that drive grant making, and the investment holdings of their endowment. There is a truism that investing for social benefit results in lower returns. But just as scientific peer consensus eventually embraced the Big Bang theory, so has the thinking of philanthropic foundations changed. The reasons are twofold: A recognition that corporate responsibility and societal concerns are valid parts of investment decisions, (1) and a growing number of academic studies have demonstrated that socially responsible investment (SRI) mutual funds perform competitively with non-SRI funds over time. (2)

For example, according to University of Maastricht and Erasmus University Rotterdam economists in their prize-winning paper, “we find little evidence of significant differences in risk-adjusted returns between ethical and conventional funds for the 1990-2001 period.” (3)

Foundation investment choices seem to be increasingly guided by effect upon society as a whole, not just financial gain, according to a recent Los Angeles Times article. (4) Fresh thinking in the nation’s largest foundations may be driving the impetus ever faster: The $8.5-billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Menlo Park), the $6.1-billion John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Chicago), the $7.8-billion W.K. Kellogg Foundation (Battle Creek, Michigan) all have made recent changes to improve the social effect of their investments. (5)

SRI assets are also growing faster than assets as a whole: according to the non-profit Social Investment Forum’s 2005 biennial report, SRI assets rose more than 258 percent from $639 billion in 1995 to $2.29 trillion in 2005. Over those ten years, SRI assets grew four percent faster than the entire universe of managed assets in the United States. (6)

Some have already been on the SRI track: the nation’s second largest foundation, the Ford Foundation, along with others such as the F.B. Herron Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation and the Nathan Cumings Foundation, have for a long time aligned their charitable and investment practices.

What is Socially Responsible Investing?
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is a broad-based approach to investing that now encompasses an estimated $2.3 trillion out of $24 trillion in the U.S. investment marketplace today. (7) The release of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment–subscribed to by some of the world’s largest institutional investors, asset managers, and related organizations representing over $9 trillion in assets as of mid- 2007–underscores the widespread acceptance of the principle that investors cannot, in the long run, achieve their goals by investing in corporations that externalize their costs onto society. (8)

How do I research SRI funds?
A good place to start is the Social Investment Forum (http://www.socialinvest.org). Look at the resource list at the end of this article too.

How do I start investing?
If you participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan, there may be SRI funds already available to you. If you manage your own IRA or other plan, look into what’s available. But don’t just go adding a fund without considering the entire makeup of your portfolio.

The key to earning decent long-term returns and limiting overall risk is to have a proper asset allocation, meaning you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. For do-it-yourself-ers, check out the government’s website about asset allocation (http://tinyurl.com/2825hw), or purchase “All About Asset Allocation” by Richard A. Ferri ($13.57 at Amazon), a great introduction to the topic. Your personal financial advisor or company where you have your investment or retirement accounts can help.

How do I know which funds will produce the highest returns?
You don’t, you can’t, and you won’t, so just forget about it because past performance doesn’t predict future results. The day-to-day ups and downs of the market receive the media attention, but the daily, quarterly, or even yearly returns are largely irrelevant in constructing an individual’s portfolio whose objectives are long-range.  What you want to look for are funds that perform well over the long run within their particular sector, as compared to the appropriate benchmark indices. Various areas of the economy are always moving up and down and sideways, and so far no one has ever been able to know ahead of time what the pattern will be. Asset allocation, I’ll say again, may be the key to long-term success in building a financially secure future. Not panicking helps too!

What makes an SRI fund different?
If a prospective company is a fit according to a fund’s stated objectives, research is performed to determine whether or not it’s a good idea to buy stock at the current offering price. It boils down to the question “Within the guidelines of the stated objectives of the fund, will this purchase help to achieve the highest possible return for the fund’s shareholders?”

The three core socially responsible investing strategies are screening, shareholder advocacy, and community investing. Screening means a fund will include or exclude companies based upon criteria such as alcohol, tobacco, animal testing, and human rights, among others. These screens can be positive (e.g., including companies that treat employees well) or negative (e.g., excluding companies who do business with disturbed musicians).

Keep in mind that, as with all mutual funds, SRI funds have no guarantees of future return.

In any case, you’d better take this lad’s offering of raisins!

If you use electricity, drive a car, and participate in many other activities of daily living, in a very true sense you are already investing in the companies that allow and encourage your consumption. In other words, you are part of the “market” whether or not you actually own stocks or mutual funds. Socially responsible investing can be a way to make your dollars work toward something in which you believe, and support those companies you believe have a vision in line with your own.

Resources and suggested reading

1.    “The Mission in the Marketplace: How Responsible Investing Can Strengthen the Fiduciary Oversight of Foundation Endowments and Enhance Philanthropic Missions.” Social Investment Forum Foundation’s resource guide for foundations to manage risk and leverage their investment assets more fully with their core philanthropic purpose, while creating lasting value. http://tinyurl.com/35t49h
2.    “10 best” list of companies. Corporate Responsibility Officer magazine rates the citizenship disclosures, policies and performance of large-cap, public companies in the following industries: Auto & Vehicles, Paper, Technology Hardware, Technology Software, Transport, and Travel & Lodging industries, Chemical, Energy, Financial, Media and Utilities industries. http://www.thecro.com/node/580
3.    Social Science Research Network. http://www.ssrn.com/
4.    United Nations’ “The Principles for Responsible Investment.” An investor initiative in partnership with UNEP Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact. http://www.unpri.org/
5.    The Social Investment Forum; national membership association dedicated to advancing the concept, practice, and growth of socially and environmentally responsible investing. http://www.socialinvest.org/
6.    Social Investment Forum’s 2005 biennial report. http://tinyurl.com/258794
7.    Sristudies.org, a resource for quantitative aspects of socially responsible investing. Includes an annotated bibliography of studies of socially responsible investing. A project of the Moskowitz Research Program, which is affiliated with the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
8.    Socially Responsible Mutual Fund Charts of Financial Performance. http://www.socialinvest.org/resources/mfpc/
9.    SocialFunds.com, an advertising-driven website with information on SRI mutual funds, community investments, corporate research, shareowner actions, and daily social investment news.
10.    “Handbook on Responsible Investment Across Asset Classes.” For asset allocation junkies, individuals and institutional investors the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship created this work. http://tinyurl.com/2ffqbu

Footnotes

1. The Maturing of Socially Responsible Investment: A Review of the Developing Link with Corporate Social Responsibility by Russell Sparkes and Christopher J. Cowton. Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 52, Number 1 / June, 2004.
2. SriStudies.org
3. International Evidence on Ethical Mutual Fund Performance and Investment Style, paper by Rob Bauer, Kees Koedijk, Rogér Otten. Limburg Institute of Financial Economics, November 2002. (socialinvest.org/resources/research)
4. Foundations align investments with their charitable goals by Charles Piller, Los Angeles Times, December 29, 2007. Section C, p 1.
5. Ibid.
6. 2005 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States. Social Investment Forum. (www.socialinvest.org)
7. Socially Responsible Investing Facts. Social Investment Forum. www.socialinvest.org
8. PRI Report On Progress 2007. PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment), United Nations. (www.unpri.org)

Image credits

Sun-Maid/George Bush composite image
•    First Sun-Maid packaging to feature a likeness of Lorraine Collett as the “Sun-Maid Girl,” 1916. Designer unknown, incorporates painting by Fanny Scafford. Public domain in the United States.
•    Photograph of Bush speaking. Brazil, November 6, 2005. Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency, produced photograph. Published under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.5 Brazil.

Fox/Morrison composite image
•    Foxes by Franz Marc, 1913. The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. Public Domain.
•    Jim Morrison portrait, 2007, by Amadeu.taradell. Released by author into public domain.

Ferris Wheel/Superman composite image
•    The first Ferris wheel from the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The New York Times photo archive. Public Domain.
•    Screenshot of 1941 cartoon Superman. Fleischer Studios. This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 with a copyright notice, and its copyright was not renewed.

Musician holding Valentine’s Day raisins composite image
•    Photo of musician Jeff Hawley, 2007.  Manager, Marketing Content Pro Audio and Combo Division, Yamaha Corporation of America. Courtesy of Mr. Hawley.
•    Photo, August 3, 2005 by Mazbln. Halberstadt, Klosterkirche St. Burchardi, Ort des John-Cage-Projektes “As slow as possible.” Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
•    Original painting of Lorraine Collett by Fanny Scafford, 1915, later used on Sun-Maid raisin packaging. Public domain in the United States.

This column is meant to provide general information, and should not be construed as providing investment, legal, or tax advice. There is no guarantee as to the accuracy or completeness of the information in this article. There are no guarantees of future return for any fund, nor an endorsement of any investment product. Mutual funds are sold by prospectus only. For complete information on mutual funds including sales charges and expenses, call your financial professional for a prospectus. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing. Links are provided herein as a courtesy, and no guarantees are made as to the accuracy of the content on the referenced websites.

Sí, Money! – Vol. 2, No. 1  February 2008 – http://simoney.us

Michael Grodsky, AIF®
http://www.articlesbase.com/investing-articles/socially-responsible-investing-for-idiots-745542.html

Want your Site to be unique? Want it to perform like never before? Have you ever tried using a Flash Audio Tool? One thing is for sure – it is more effective than just using plain text. If you want to learn more about it, keep reading this article.

Quick introduction

The concept behind this system is quite simple yet smart – “Embed Audio Into Flash” Tool enables you to quickly convert music/audio file(s) to a special Web-format. The process is quite short and easy. You provide it with the requested files, select a player type and that is it. By the end you get a small code that needs to be embedded onto your desired webpage.

The following process enables you to create a ‘streaming webaudio’ file – it can be played immediately without having to wait till the entire file is downloaded.

Using such technology provides numerous opportunities and advantages; for example: helping and guiding your visitors on crucial points on your Website (registration/download/order etc.) or having audio-driven Websites which are currently taking the Internet by storm.

Tip

There is one important rule to remember while using this technology: focus on your listeners – talk more about/to them, not about yourself. One other thing: there are many complicated and expensive solutions out there, start with the simple ones – you’ll quickly find out that it is sufficient in most cases.

Summary

Thanks to Flash Audio Tool we can significantly improve the affectivity and profitability of our online business. We all understand that we need to move beyond just written words. It is advised to test it in order to explore and see how it can easily improve the productivity of your online business.

Tom Sheinberg
http://www.articlesbase.com/audio-articles/quotembed-audio-into-flashquot-tool–the-unbelievable-truth-741927.html