text:
Bill Bengen: Revisiting Safe Withdrawal Rates
The creator of the 4% guideline discusses the implications of higher inflation and elevated equity valuations for new retirees.
Listen and subscribe to Morningstar's The Long View from your mobile device.
Our guest on the podcast today is William Bengen. Bill has been a prolific researcher of retirement planning matters over his career, and he pioneered the exploration of safe withdrawal rates with his groundbreaking 1994 research that gave birth to what's now called the 4% rule. Bill is the former owner of Bengen Financial Services, an independent Registered Investment Advisor that he launched in 1989, after his family sold the soda-bottling business that he had helped manage. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. Bill retired from his financial planning practice in 2013 but continues to conduct research on retirement planning and withdrawal rates. We're excited to have him here today.
In-Retirement Withdrawal Rates and Asset Allocation
"The Originator of 'the 4% Rule' Thinks It's Off the Mark. He Says It Now Could Be Up to 4.5%," by Neal Templin, barrons.com, Jan. 23, 2021.
"The Planner's Toolkit for Managing Retirement Withdrawal Plans," by William Bengen, financialplanningassociation.org, April 2021.
"Resolving the Paradox--Is the Safe Withdrawal Rate Sometimes Too Safe?" by Michael Kitces, kitces.com, May 2008.
"Bill Bengen Revisits the 4% Rule Using Schiller's CAPE Ratio, Michael Kitces's Research," by Bill Bengen, fa-mag.com, Dec. 17, 2020.
"Can We Raise Our Safe Withdrawal Rate When Inflation Is Low?" earlyretirementnow.com, Oct. 26, 2020.
"Economic Outlook: Still Rising," by Preston Caldwell, Morningstar.com, Oct. 3, 2021.
"Jonathon Guyton: What the Crisis Means for Retirement Planning," The Long View Podcast, Morningstar.com, June 17, 2020.
"Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data," by William Bengen, retailinvestor.org.
"The Rules of Retirement Spending Are Changing," by Anne Tergesen, wsj.com, Nov. 26, 2021.
"Choosing the Highest Safe Withdrawal Rate at Retirement," by William Bengen, fa-mag.com, Oct. 1, 2020.
Christine Benz: Hi, and welcome to The Long View. I'm Christine Benz, director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar.
Jeff Ptak: And I'm Jeff Ptak, chief ratings officer for Morningstar Research Services.
Benz: Our guest on the podcast today is William Bengen. Bill has been a prolific researcher of retirement planning matters over his career, and he pioneered the exploration of safe withdrawal rates with his groundbreaking 1994 research that gave birth to what's now called the 4% rule. Bill is the former owner of Bengen Financial Services, an independent Registered Investment Advisorthat he launched in 1989, after his family sold the soda-bottling business that he had helped manage. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. Bill retired from his financial planning practice in 2013 but continues to conduct research on retirement planning and withdrawal rates. We're excited to have him here today.
Bill, welcome to The Long View.
Bill Bengen: Thanks for inviting me. Glad to be here.
Benz: Well, we're happy to have you here. You pioneered the research in safe withdrawal rates starting back in 1994, and you and others have revisited the topic over the ensuing 25-plus years. The question is what were retirees and advisors doing before your original 4% guideline research? Did the fact that yield, organic yields, were higher in the decade leading up to the 1990s make serious study of how much you could safely take out unnecessary? Or how were people approaching it?
Bengen: I didn't become an advisor until 1989. So, I actually didn't have any clients that were in the retirement or approaching retirement at first. I don't know what other advisors were doing other than that--my understanding was that the recommendations were all over the lot. They were as high as 8%, and they were as low as 2%, depending upon whether you believed bonds or stocks were appropriate for retirees. The higher yields were helpful in the '90s from bonds, but you have to recall that we were increasing our withdrawals with inflation. Bonds are not particularly useful for that over time. We need something that can keep up with inflation. Stocks usually fit the bill. So, I feel that always stocks and bonds are both essential components of a retirement portfolio.
Ptak: I think we want to get into some of those topics that you just mentioned, in particular, inflation a little bit later in the conversation. But I did want to explore the relationship between valuation and withdrawal rates. I think that your research points to there being a high inverse correlation between the CAPE Ratio and withdrawal rates--the lower the CAPE Ratio, the higher the withdrawal rates--that would have been supported. But there can also be outlier situations where even though the CAPE Ratio was high at the start of someone's withdrawal period, they were able to take more because price multiples expanded during their retirement. So, the question is, how should retirees and their advisors incorporate valuations into their withdrawal systems and what role might inflation play in that calculation?
Bengen: Back in 2008, Michael Kitces, a renowned advisor, developed a chart which showed there was a strong correlation between stock market valuation, or CAPE, and the safe withdrawal rate for a particular year. I thought that was an amazing discovery. When you look at it closely though, it's very hard to use the CAPE to predict what a safe withdrawal rate is, because it's only about a 74%, 75% correlation. And you can choose several years that had identical market valuations and have a variation of up to 50% in the safe withdrawal rate. So, although it was a big step forward, it wasn't enough to provide predictive power. Last summer, I made a breakthrough when I found that if you add inflation, the starting inflation regime, into the picture, you get a much higher correlation. And using stock market valuation and using inflation together, you get a really good fix on what a safe withdrawal rate should be, at least historically.
Ptak: Maybe you can elaborate on that. What is the framework that you're describing using inflation in tandem with valuation in order to predict what might be a sustainable withdrawal rate in the future?
Bengen: When I took a look at the data, I discovered that you could aggregate withdrawal rates by inflation rate--the starting inflation rate creates what I call six inflation regimes. Each regime is about 2.5 points of inflation, like a low inflation regime would be from 0% inflation to 2.5%; modern inflation would be 2.5% to 5%, and so on. You could divide all the historical data into six inflation regimes. And when you sort that, and then within that, by the Shiller CAPE, it's an astoundingly close correlation. When you have low inflation and you have cheap stock market valuations is when you get your very high withdrawal rates as high as 13%, historically. And when you get a scenario like you had in the late '60s, early '70s, when you have high inflation and coming off high stock valuations, that's when you had your worst withdrawal rates. So, that's the framework that has emerged from all this work.
Benz: To follow up on that, and thinking about the current time frame, it does seem like in some respects, from that standpoint, we're looking at a perfect storm right now, and that we do have fairly high equity valuations, rising inflation, and very low bond yields. So, what does that translate into, from your standpoint, with respect to, say, starting withdrawal rates?
Bengen: The current environment it just sends you off the charts. We have valuations--we're almost 40 on the CAPE, which is only achieved once before, but we have higher inflation than was present when we reached that 40 level before. So, literally, it's almost impossible to tell what the safe withdrawal rate will be from this environment. It's unprecedented. I'm hoping that the 4.7% rate I developed recently holds, but there's possibility it might not if inflation becomes sticky and becomes like a 1970's kind of phenomenon. Of course, that's not certain yet. We don't know--it may return; it may be transitory.
Ptak: Does it depend on when in the retirees' drawdown period the high inflation occurs? Is it the high inflation early on that is especially worrisome because it inflates all subsequent withdrawals?
Bengen: That's exactly right. The early years in retirement are crucial. Both for inflation and for stock market action. What happens in those first five to seven years pretty much are going to set the tone for the rate in your retirement. And it's true of inflation. If you take a look at investors who retired in the late 1950s, they didn't really experience high inflation for about 10 or 12 years. And in the late '50s, a safe withdrawal rate was 6%, 6.5% because of the low inflation and the moderate valuation. So, yes, inflation early in retirement is particularly dangerous because it permanently inflates your withdrawal.
Benz: Do you think that the past decade of really low inflation made investors and their advisors complacent about the role and the risks that inflation can pose to a financial in retirement plan?
Bengen: So many advisors simply haven't seen high inflation. It's been 30 years or more--30 to 35 years. So, they haven't experienced in their career. I don't know if it's complacent or just simply ignorance of the devastating effects that high inflation can have on a portfolio. I hope we're not about to find out. I hope this inflation is not going to be anything like we had in the '70s. Very, very painful.
Ptak: We know that equity valuations are loosely predictive of future stock returns. We referenced that earlier. And bond yields are predictive of the returns that bond investors will earn more or less. What factors, in your experience, tend to be predictive for how inflation may play out over retirees' drawdown period?
Bengen: Now, that's really a question for an economist. I really don't know, to be perfectly honest with you, what you can use to predict inflation. It seems to me it depends on a complex set of factors. Because I look at our scenario today, and I read a lot of what economists say and there's clearly a division between very well-respected economists. Some say the inflation is going to be transitory. Others say it's going to be here for a long time. If they don't know, I certainly don't have much to offer in that respect.
Benz: In our recent research about withdrawal rates, we modeled in a 2.2% inflation rate that came courtesy of our colleagues in Morningstar Investment Management. Is that unrealistically low in your opinion for, say, a 30-year drawdown period? What would you recommend that people use?
Bengen: Well, my research, of course, just uses the historical inflation, whatever it was. If you're trying to project it, I don't think that's unrealistic if the inflation burst we have now is transitory. That's what we're averaging for quite a few years, I believe, for the last decade or more. And some economists seem to think we're still in an environment where oversupply is dominant and deflation forces reassert themselves. So, no, I don't think it's unreasonable. But I have no idea what the actual rate will be over the next 30 years.
Ptak: We take your point on that. All the same, I'm curious to understand how satisfied, I suppose, you are that the Fed and other policymakers can control runaway inflation, if we want to call it that? Are the policy tools for controlling inflation better understood than they were even a few decades ago? And could that make inflation a more fleeting phenomenon than it was in the 1970s?
Bengen: Once again, that's a tough question for a guy like me to answer. I'm not an economist. Obviously, back in the early '80s, we were successful, the Federal Reserve was successful in breaking the back of inflation. And that took Draconian measures to do it. We had two recessions; it drove interest rates up to all-time highs. I Imagine they could do that again. I don't know what other new tools they have that could be added to their arsenal. But if they have to go that route, there's going to be a lot of pain for a lot of people. At that time, I know, the Federal Reserve came under a lot of criticism for what it was attempting to do. And it was amazing they were able to hold steady and not be deterred from their course of action.
Benz: I wanted to ask about how retirees actually spend. The research suggests that retiree spending isn't actually a fixed real withdrawal pattern that retirees do tend to spend less as they age. So, do you think factoring in declining spending is a good course for planners and individuals to use? And would that support a higher starting withdrawal rate? Or is it not a good idea to assume that your spending will trend down later in life?
Bengen: Well, I think that's very much an individual thing. When I think back to my practice now and my clients, and they generally did reduce their travel spending and spending on other items during their later years, but that was offset in part by higher medical expenses and also by their desire to pass on more of their money to their heirs. And I'm doing that myself, even though I'm not spending as much as I did, let's say, five, seven years ago, for personal reasons. I'm trying to give more to my kids. And if you're going to do that, you have to treat that as an expense. And therefore, your withdrawal rate would not be affected. You have to be careful about setting up a scheme, a withdrawal scheme where you take more early in retirement, and then take the less. I think you'd be amazed that how sharply you have to reduce expenses to offset the higher spending rate earlier in retirement. Because once again, everything that occurs in the first five to seven years of retirement has a dramatic effect on what follows. So, if you spend at a higher rate in retirement, you may have to take literally a jump off a cliff later in retirement to reduce your expenses, and it may be uncomfortable to you.
Ptak: And you referenced healthcare costs. I wonder on the flip side how might healthcare costs fit into the discussion of how much someone can safely take out initially? In some ways, it's sort of the inverse of what you were just talking about. How should one think about that in your experience?
Bengen:. What you can take safely out of a portfolio is independent of what you're spending. It depends upon what your experience is in the markets, or what inflation is. So, I don't see how the healthcare costs don't themselves affect your safe withdrawal rate. They obviously affect your expenses and what you would like to withdraw from your portfolio. But beyond that, what you can take out of your portfolio is kind of independent of that.
Benz: You always take pains to note that retirees are all different and that there might be situations when a higher starting withdrawal rate might be appropriate and other situations where a lower one is best. Can you provide examples of each? I think that you have shared examples from your practice where if a client were expecting an inheritance within the next five to 10 years, you might have said, go ahead, take a little more and then in other situations, you might have urged someone to take less early on?
Bengen: Yes, every client situation is different. If you're really sure of your inheritance, and I don't know how anyone can be completely sure of what and when they might be inheriting, then you could make a case for withdrawing more earlier knowing that your cash flows would be enhanced later on. That's kind of a tricky area. You really have to be careful because if you misjudge the situation, you may put a big hole in your retirement portfolio. Somebody lives a lot longer than expected or else they decide to spend all their money on something else. So, it's a tricky area. And I guess the case for lower withdrawal rate was if, down in retirement, you're effectively saving in retirement to buy a major expense, maybe a new home or a large RV to travel a country, then you might want to take lower withdrawals earlier to allow you to save basically, accumulate funds for that major expense, let's say, five, seven years into retirement.
Ptak: There are a number of flexible systems for determining withdrawal rates, basically tethering withdrawal amounts each year to how the portfolio has behaved. Are there any that you particularly like?
Bengen: Jonathan Guyton came up with some great stuff, which I think can be very useful. There's sometimes when you don't know whether you're in a bull market or a bear market. And so, if that's the case, and valuations are kind of in the middle of nowhere, and inflation is fairly typical, you may want to employ a system like that to take care of some of the uncertainty. I'm hoping though that the breakthrough I made last summer where I was able to correlate safe withdrawal rates with inflation and with market valuations, they obviate the need for much of that kind of approach. Because if you have a good solid--I hate to say correct--but something justifiable by history, a safer withdrawal rate, that you won't need to make big adjustments at all, we can kind of ignore what the markets do. I like to think so anyway, but it's good to have multiple strings to your bow.
Benz: Have you gotten feedback from advisors saying that they're incorporating that general thinking, the thought of equity valuations and starting inflation rates as a means of guiding their client-portfolio withdrawals?
Bengen: No. It just shows I am out of touch with a lot of advisors today. I honestly don't know how a lot of them operate. I would hope that they would find that advice useful. But I honestly can't say that. I think part of the problem is it's not yet integrated into any software that advisors use, and advisors heavily rely on software to prepare financial plans. So, I think until it actually becomes an integral part of the software that they use, they may find it awkward to employ it in their practice.
Ptak: I wanted to return to the quandary that we were talking about earlier, which is the combination of low bond yields, a high CAPE ratio, rising inflation. One response to current conditions is that they warrant a more conservative starting withdrawal rate is that dramatically increasing the equity allocation might help since bond yields are low and we know that equities have out-returned bonds in most 30-year periods. Why is a 90% or a 100% equity allocation not advisable for new retirees?
Bengen: Well, historically, it's never worked. It's been dangerous. It actually reduced the safe withdrawal rate. Because if you get into a bear market situation, your portfolio is devastated with that high allocation of stocks. And it deflates it and damages its capacity to support withdrawals. So, I still think something in the middle range, 50 to 60, is good with the exception is that if you're absolutely sure that you're at the start of a bull market. Let's say you're in 1982, and you become optimistic, and you see the CAPE is around 7 and say, "How can this go much lower?" You might want to take a chance and for several years and play a much higher equity allocation, maybe 90 to 100. Because when stocks are that cheap, those allocations are actually relatively safe historically.
Benz: How about the reverse of that where you believe that equity valuations are notably scary? Would it be advisable to potentially take the equity weighting way down with the assumption that you would ramp it up later on?
Bengen: Yes. And essentially, that's what I'm doing in my portfolio. I'm only about 20% equities right now, because I think evaluations are ridiculous. And if you look at the chart of the CAPE, you'll see that when it reaches these peaks, in 1929, and it did so in the mid-60s, and then around 2000, that there was a sharp decline from that. It may take a number of years for it to happen. But it has always happened historically, and I don't know why this would be any different, the current environment. I just can't predict when it will happen. It will be six months, two years, who knows. But I'm a believer that the mean reversion--if we don't have mean reversion, it means we're in a whole new era and that the historical data doesn't mean really that much. So, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Ptak: With respect to a portfolio's equity allocation, I think you've indicated that diversifying a portfolio's equity sleeve, specifically raising allocations to small- and mid-cap and international stocks, can help lift the portfolio's withdrawal. Is that recommendation based on this particular moment in time when those asset classes appear to be relatively inexpensive by some measures? Or is that more of an evergreen recommendation?
Bengen: It is evergreen. It's broad-brushed across history. I know when I did my original research I employed just two asset classes--U.S. large-cap stocks and Treasuries, intermediate-term Treasuries. That's where I got that 4% or 4.15%. Then, when some years later, I just bought asset class small-cap stocks, it jumped at 4.5%. And it wasn't concentrated on any one period. It raised the withdrawal rates across the spectrum. And then, in my latest research, I added four more asset classes, three of which were stocks, and went from 4.5 to 4.7. So, it looks like we're approaching some kind of diminishing returns here that adding additional asset classes may not generate much more in the way of increases in withdrawal rates. So, I don't know where that point would be. I would suspect somewhere around 5% or so would be about as high as we might get, maybe a little bit beyond.
Benz: I'm curious, have you thrown in any alternative assets into the mix to see what would happen to commodities or anything like that?
Bengen: No, I haven't, primarily because I can't find databases that go back as far as 1926 for these assets. I'm trying to be consistent in using a database that begins in 1926. I sure wish I had stuff like that. But even for something as calling these emerging markets, there are no really reliable databases that go back that far.
Ptak: I wanted to go back to your earlier point. I think you had mentioned that for yourself, your portfolio allocation is skewing heavily toward fixed income because you're having trouble making sense of equity valuations. I would imagine that that sort of allocation might present some challenges to an advisor and his or her client, just because bonds are yielding so little, when they pull down in the portfolio, it means that they're going to have to invade principal, so to speak, to a certain extent. So, in your experience, is there a good way to offer that sort of advice or have that conversation with a client in a situation like that knowing it could be short-term uncomfortable, but long term, the prudent thing to do?
Bengen: I think all I would say is that I'm just glad I'm not managing money professionally for clients today. I just have a lot of respect for what advisors are doing today in probably the most difficult environment in history. I don't know if there are any easy solutions to anything because prospective returns for so many asset classes are so poor. I guess you just do the best you can and warn clients that this is not going to be easy. And advisors, they face career risk. If they don't generate the returns, their clients may leave them. And usually, that happens when markets are about to roll over. I remember I had that in 2000, I had a number of clients leave me because I had been lightening up on stocks. And then, two years later, nobody would come back to me and said, "Oh my goodness, we were devastated. We were all on tech stocks, and they all were destroyed." There was nothing I could do for them. I felt very bad. But I suspect we're going to see a repeat of that story sometime in the next few years.
Benz: I wanted to ask about when people take their withdrawals where they come from. I'm super interested in this topic. What do you think about the idea of varying the withdrawal source based on market conditions? So, you might pull withdrawals from cash and bonds when stocks are down with an eye toward leaving them in place. Does that have the potential to improve sustainable withdrawal amounts, sort of a tactical approach, if you will, to taking withdrawals?
Bengen: I think it happens naturally to an extent anyway. Because if you're rebalancing the portfolio, say, once a year, you're going to be taking most of the money from the asset class that's done the best in effect so that in years in which stocks have done well, most of the money will come from stocks. And vice versa, when bonds have outperformed stocks, most of the money will be coming from bonds presumably. This is a natural consequence of the rebalancing process.
Ptak: Maybe to stick with rebalancing, I think you've indicated you've been doing some research on the role of rebalancing in retirement and that you think rebalancing less frequently than, say, once a year is better. Why is that?
Bengen: The research I did back in 2006—which, I'm going to be revisiting here because I'd like to refine it--indicated that the optimal rebalancing period was probably closer to four to five years. And the reason for it is because stocks are cyclical. There are bull markets and bear markets. And bull markets typically have lasted five years--or in this last one, it's been a lot longer than that--and that if you rebalance too frequently, you're cutting off a lot of the return you might have earned from stocks. When you reduce returns, you also reduce capacity to support withdrawal rates. So, generally, I find out a longer rebalancing period, particularly if you're coordinated where you think you are in a bull and a bear market is beneficial than the standard accepted one-year rebalancing period.
Benz: So, what kind of a cadence do you think makes sense for rebalancing?
Bengen: I would think somewhere between four and five years was the indication I had then. Now, I'm going to take a look at that a little closely to see if that's how much that's dependent on where you started in a stock market cycle. But in 2009, I think you could have expected to wait for five years to rebalance. Turns out you could have waited 10. But five years, waiting five years was a big improvement over rebalancing every year 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 because stock returns were obviously pretty fabulous during that period of time.
Ptak: From a practical standpoint, in the current era of low yields, a good share of retirees' living expenses will have to come from harvesting appreciated equity holdings, maybe as part of a rebalancing. So, how should retirees thread that needle? They need cash to live on, but you also think they shouldn't be pruning too frequently or aggressively? Or do you think now is the time to be really aggressive because you think that equity sleeve is really overvalued?
Bengen: Well, right now, the equity is the only place that they can get returns to support their withdrawals from. So, I guess, it's going to come from equities primarily, whether we like it or not, no matter what effect that has upon rebalancing or so forth. How long that will continue? I don't know. At some point, we're going to have a big bear market in stocks. And it's possible that it may not be accompanied by a bull market in bonds, possible that bonds and stocks could both decline at the same time, which could be really uncomfortable. And then, you're just going to have to take your money from the portfolio, wherever it is. It's a very uncomfortable time to be doing this kind of thing.
Benz: I asked earlier about whether you had used alternative assets in any of your modeling. How about when you think about your own portfolio, are you attracted to any of those assets as a means of confronting this current environment, whether liquid alternatives or anything like that?
Bengen: I have some holdings in commodities, some holdings in gold, small holding in digital currency, bitcoin. I'm trying to spread my bets out as much as possible. I think diversification is even more important now than it usually is, because so many asset classes are overvalued, we really don't know where the returns are going to come from over the next four or five years.
Ptak: I wanted to talk about your own experience as a retiree. You've been retired for a while now. Can you discuss how you've approached withdrawal rates and asset allocation for your own retirement plan?
Bengen: I retired in 2013. And I used the 4.5% figure then because I thought stock valuations were pretty high even then, but I think compared to what they are today. And that's worked out well. I was reasonably fully allocated up to a couple of years ago--CAPE started getting into the mid-30s and I started to pare it back then. But my withdrawal rate, if you look at how it's evolved, it was at 4.5% in 2013. And if you measure it today, it's around 3.5% because the portfolio has grown significantly during that time, which is nice. It gives you kind of an extra measure of safety in there. I imagine next bear market that will balloon back up to something higher than that. But the last decade has been a boon for retirees, a fabulous experience. It's hard to make a mistake. Don't think it's going to be so easy going forward.
Benz: I wanted to ask about the Great Financial Crisis. You referenced earlier, the 2000 through 2002 period and clients who left and then later regretted that. It sounds like in the 2008 period, you helped your clients avoid the worst of the market losses, but you felt in hindsight that you were a little bit slow in getting them back into stocks. So, what role, if any, should tactical asset allocation play in retirement? And also, I'd like your thoughts on how good advisors are at that practice of tactical asset allocation. We monitor data on professionally managed mutual funds, and we see that a lot of the tactical asset allocators aren't that great at the end of the day. So, why should we think that advisors would do well at that?
Bengen: I use the service, an independent third-party service, to advise me on what I call risk management, what my allocation should be in my portfolio. And I'm even more conservative than that. So, I tend to take their recommendations and pair them down even further for myself to get to my comfort level. But I think advisors themselves would find it difficult, because these matters--risks require a lot of attention. I'd recommend they use some kind of a third-party service and there have been some that have done extremely well. And I think they're really necessary today. Years ago, when I started out as an advisor, I was a buy-and-hold person and saw no reason to do anything different. But as central banks have become increasingly active with monetary policy, and it's caused huge distortions in the economic system and the markets. I don't think retirees can afford to do a buy-and-hold approach anymore. It's just too dangerous. You just can't afford large losses in your portfolio when you're retired. I'd say the primary concern for retirees is protect that nest egg from a devastating loss, because who knows how long it will take to recover just the next time around. It's been pretty resilient the last 20 years, but that's because of extremely active monetary policy by central banks. What happens if that policy is no longer effective? And maybe it will take as long as it did after Great Depression for a portfolio to recover, 20 years or so. That's a scary prospect. So, I think myself that retirees with the help of an outside service or their advisors should be prepared to be more active protecting their nest eggs. That's just my point of view.
Ptak: And that's useful. Do you think that one of the factors here for some advisors is because strategic asset allocation has become almost writ--it's the conventional wisdom that there's a reluctance to stray too far from that? And so, you get kind of this groupthink, where they really are just going to stick to the buy-and-hold approach to which they and their clients have become accustomed?
Bengen: Well, yes, there's a risk for that. I think the environment has changed sufficiently. You have to start looking at it another way. Risk management to me is at the fore of consideration today, not return. So, you need a different approach. And it is uncomfortable, because the buy-and-hold approach was successful for so many years, from the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, into the '90s. For 50 years, it wasn't necessary to consider anything else. But I think after having, in the last 20 years, three pretty large bear markets, which had never happened before, and now valuations are threatened, an additional large bear market, and I think it behooves advisors to examine their basic principles and then consider alternatives.
Benz: You mentioned that you use an outside valuation service to help gauge how much risk to take in your portfolio. Can you give a sense of how people should evaluate those types of firms? What should they be looking for to tell if it's a good-quality firm? It seems like there are, frankly, some charlatans in that space. So, how can someone size up whether a firm is worth its salt?
Bengen: I think you have to look at their track record, literally how they performed in all those critical episodes we had--1987, 1992, 2000, 2008, 2020. How successful were they in protecting clients' capital? That's really the bottom line. And they should be able to demonstrate to you that they added value by their risk-management approach. And if the numbers don't add up, then it's just pretty straight cut and dry, they just don't cut mustard.
Ptak: What has been the main surprise for you, financial or otherwise, in your own retirement?
Bengen: How darn did this happen? I had no idea what I was going to really do in retirement. I just knew I wanted to go and put myself in a situation where I could be a better grandfather--my grandson was born just at the time I was retiring, and it's given me a lot of time for him. But in the last eight years, I've written three novels. I haven't gotten any published yet. I've only gotten a thousand rejections. So, I've still got a lot of agents to work through. I've added to my research and the 4% rule. Really, I view what I'm in not as retirement as much as almost a fourth career--I had three earlier careers--and I do have a little bit more time for golf and bridge and tennis than I had before. There's no doubt about it. But still, I'm fascinated by the world and what there is to learn, and I want to continue learning, and that probably is the main focus of my retirement now more than anything else.
Benz: Do you think more retirees should use that model where they're not just doing golf and tennis and bridge but embracing some other hobbies as well? Sounds like you do.
Bengen: I can't take my preferences and suggest other people should do it, because everyone is different. I know folks out here who play golf six days a week, and they enjoy it, they're having a great time, or they play tennis five days a week, and they don't want to be doing what I'm doing. They don't want to hear about it. But I think it's good that everyone have some kind of a strong interest or hobbies they can structure their retirement about, to give their life a pattern. The worst thing you can do is enter retirement in kind of a listless mode, where you don't really know what you want to do or what activities you're going to be involved in. That's dangerous, I think, if you cast yourself a adrift in the seas of retirement, you could drown in them very easily.
Benz: Well, Bill, we want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy retirement schedule to join us today. It's been a real treat for Jeff and me to spend time with you and to chat with you today. Thank you for doing it.
Bengen: Well, it's been a whole lot of fun for me too. Thanks for the opportunity.
Ptak: Thanks again.
Benz: Thank you for joining us on The Long View. If you could, please take a moment to subscribe to and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can follow us on Twitter @Christine_Benz.
Ptak: nd @Syouth1, which is, S-Y-O-U-T-H and the number 1.
Benz: George Castady is our engineer for the podcast and Kari Greczek produces the show notes each week.
Finally, we'd love to get your feedback. If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com. Until next time, thanks for joining us.
(Disclaimer: This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. Opinions expressed are as of the date of recording. Such opinions are subject to change. The views and opinions of guests on this program are not necessarily those of Morningstar, Inc. and its affiliates. Morningstar and its affiliates are not affiliated with this guest or his or her business affiliates unless otherwise stated. Morningstar does not guarantee the accuracy, or the completeness of the data presented herein. Jeff Ptak is an employee of Morningstar Research Services LLC. Morningstar Research Services is a subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. and is registered with and governed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Morningstar Research Services shall not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages or other losses resulting from or related to the information, data analysis, or opinions, or their use. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. All investments are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal. Individuals should seriously consider if an investment is suitable for them by referencing their own financial position, investment objectives and risk profile before making any investment decision.)
Subscribe to The Long View


We look forward to working with you to put together the best possible adventure vacation for your clients, both winter and summer!
We are Canada's largest Cycling, Walking and Ski tour wholesaler, and will provide your agency with timely service, competitive pricing, and knowledgeable staff.
An added bonus: as we are located in Ontario, Canada, your client's funds are protected by TICO, the best Industry Protection Insurance in North America.
The Vacation Station offers largest selection of ski resorts in the European Alps, Andorra, Bulgaria, Western USA, and Canada.
Properties range from basic "pensions" and apartments, to our Luxury Collection, when only the best will do.
Choose from "land only" packages or complete vacation bundles with flights included.
Stay aboard cruising barges, sailing ships, single hotel-stay, or cycle from hotel to hotel. We have an excellent range of cycle tours to various parts of the globe, with both guided and independent choices.
We have a great choice of walking and hiking tours in Europe; both guided and independent; suitable for both novice and experienced hikers.
Click here to get the best NET rates on rental cars to ALL destinations.


Modern hotel and restaurant with friendly atmosphere, overlooking Strathburn Park in Inverurie. The Strathburn Hotel Family owned since 1985. 25 bedroom hotel with ample parking. Restaurant and Lounge with menu of locally sourced fare. Open 7days. Relaxation and Beauty in our spa Room Twentyone.
Small family owned and managed hotel offering quality, comfort and consistency since 1985. Our aim has always been to provide comfortable surroundings and serve simple food in an efficient and friendly manner. We source our ingredients locally from a wide variety of quality producers.


text:
Spurs vs. Manchester United: Zen and the art of writing a Man of the Match article
Let go. It's okay.
By Dustin George-Miller@dustingm Mar 17, 2015, 9:00am GMT
Share All sharing options for: Spurs vs. Manchester United: Zen and the art of writing a Man of the Match article
"You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow."
– Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Dark clouds hover over our psyches in the wake of a less than optimal result on Sunday. The clouds that are hovering over Tottenham are as black as the comments on my Twitter timeline. Top four ambitions have all but vanished with nine matches left in the season. As fans, we feel pain. This hurts.
I can't claim to be a follower or even a scholar of Buddhism, but I remember enough from my liberal arts college background to recall that the Buddha emphasized in his teachings the link between desire and suffering. We want to feel happy and to avoid pain and sorrow, and yet we constantly put ourselves in positions that set us up to experience the very things that we try to avoid. We pin our happiness to things that we, frankly, have no control over whatsoever, in an attempt to wrangle meaning out of chaos. And further, we let the resulting feelings that spring from this framework of understanding define us, and we collapse into grief when our expectations are not met.
A three-nil loss to Manchester United is not pain. It is not suffering. It does not define who we are or how we feel about ourselves unless we assign meaning to it.
The Man of the Match for this Sunday's match against Manchester United is the feeling you get when you realize that it's okay to let go. It's the exhalation of breath that you realize you've been holding since July. It's the moment you accept that your lofty goals are not going to be realized, and that it's okay. It's the knowledge that it's not only all right to fail, but that even failure can carry an echo of glory.
It's the good book you've been meaning to read for weeks now but have never found the time. It's the science experiment you do with your children on a Sunday afternoon in April. It's a bike ride on the trail around the pond. It's that piece of Rumi poetry that you never really understood until this very moment.
And in sporting terms, it's the moment you realize that wonderful move by Andros Townsend is in itself an extraordinary piece of skill and is not in the least lessened by the fact that he (again) fired it over the bar from 20 yards. It's the game that doesn't matter, that shouldn't matter in the overall final standings, which makes it that much more fun to watch. It's that save by Hugo Lloris. You know the one. THAT one. Wasn't that great? Was that not in and of itself worthy of appreciation and joy?
The Buddha would have us stop watching sports entirely, or at least to watch only with an appreciative eye towards the beauty of the game itself, and not look beyond to the score, to the winnings and losings and the emotional attachments that come with it. I cannot bring myself to do so. For me, part of the joy of sports fandom is attaching myself to something to which I have no control. I have no confidence that Tottenham Hotspur are going to play well. How can I? If I knew with certainty that Spurs were going to go undefeated and win the league, would it not lessen the emotional impact?
I could never be a Buddhist. I cannot fully sever myself from the emotionality of fandom. But I can temper my expectations, and not fully tether myself to events that are neither within my sphere of influence nor itself impacted by my emotional response. Or if I can't do that, I can certainly not snap at my kids when the final whistle blows. I can exhale.
And paired with that comes an equally powerful emotional response, but one that is the antithesis of the crushing despair felt by the jilted sports fan: hope. It's the hope beyond all rationality that comes with the belief that even though bad things happen, often frequently and without a sense of respite, someday good things will come. Maybe even to Tottenham Hotspur.
Next season. Just wait until next season.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Dipesh Chakrabarty's Provincializing of Europe
By Abikal Borah
Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference is about recognising the limitations of Western social science in explaining the historical experiences of political modernity in South Asia. Chakhrabarty offers a critique of the Enlightenment concepts of a universal human experience and of secular modernity. However, his project is not about rejecting European thought as a whole but rather, an effort to renew European thought "from and for the margins" (16), where the diverse histories of human beings and belonging can have a place for themselves. In other words, the idea of Provincializing Europe represents Chakrabarty's attempt to pluralize the history of global political modernity.
Provincializing Europe is set in the intersection between subaltern studies and postcolonial theory. In alignment with postcolonial theory, Chakrabarty offers a critique of historicism both as philosophical thought and a conceptual category. He sees postcolonial thought as a practice of critically "engaging the universals—such as the abstract figure of the human or that of Reason—that were forged in eighteenth century Europe and that underlie the human sciences" (5). In other words, Chakrabarty locates a problem in Enlightenment philosophy for assuming the human as an abstract figure. Postcolonial thought, as Chakrabarty suggests, is invested in understanding the different conditions of being, which, in a way, allows one to recognize the diversity of human experiences. It is this recognition of diversity that compels Chakrabarty to describe the visions and experiences of political modernity in India as different from Europe. This recognition of historical difference allows him to further question historicism as an idea that suggests that, to "understand anything it has to be seen both as a unity and in its historical development" (6). Chakrabarty therefore, chooses to displace the temporal structure that historicism as a mode of thinking represents. He argues that historicism represents a stagist theory of development wherein modernity, capitalism and civilization appears in a "first in Europe and then elsewhere" temporal frame. As Chakrabarty problematises this linear temporal frame he proposes an alternative reading of the processes of global political modernity by engaging with its antinomies.
Dipesh Chakrabarty.
Furthermore, Provincializing Europe rejects the idea of a universal history of the globalisation of capital by examining the multiple constitutive elements of that history. This move enables Chakrabarty to interrogate Karl Marx's conceptual category, "abstract labour." Similar to his critique of historicism, Chakrabarty rejects the temporal totality of history. As opposed to Marx's universal history of capital, Chakrabarty conceptualises two histories of capital: "histories posited by capital" as History 1 and the histories that exist outside of "capital's life process" as History 2. Chakrabarty considers History 1 as purely analytical whereas History 2 beckons him "to more effective narratives of human belonging" (71) In other words, Chakrabarty calls for an exploration of the "politics of human diversity" and argues that various History 2s continuously modify History 1. The remarkable achievement of Chakrabarty's conceptualisation of History 2 lies in his ability to create room for incorporating the history of human subjective experiences into the history of capital and vice-versa. To put it differently, Chakrabarty shows a way toward a sensitive reading of the subject while we grapple with the diverse histories of capital's life processes.
Provincializing Europe also reflects on the problem of conceiving history as a secular subject. Chakrabarty considers secular histories inadequate when it comes to explaining the postcolonial conditions of being. In the particular case of India, there lies a difficulty in conceptualising political modernity as "the seemingly nonmodern, rural, nonsecular relationships and life practices" constantly influence the modern institutions of government (11). Since the task of conceptualising the present in the postcolonial context is laden with such anachronisms, Chakrabarty seeks to develop a conceptual framework that take into account other forms of the past, other histories that capital encountered as its antecedents. Chakrabarty's desire for the inclusion of the other forms of past makes his critique of secular histories powerful. In other words, the idea of Provincializing Europe matters for its reincarnation of the other forms of the past; pasts that constitute the postcolonial conditions of being and belonging.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, (Princeton University Press, 2000)
You may also like these articles in our Social Theory series:
Joshua Kopin discusses Walter Benjamin on Violence
Ben Weiss explain's Slavoj Žižek's theory of Violence
Jing Zhai on Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction
Charles Stewart talks about Foucault on Power, Bodies, and Discipline
Juan Carlos de Orellana discusses Gramsci on Hegemony
Michel Lee explains Louis Althusser ideas on Interpellation, and the Ideological State Apparatus
Katherine Maddox on Ranajit Guha's ideas about hegemony
Posted November 25, 2015 More Books


text:
Links 20/8/2010: PlayStation 3 Allegedly Hacked, MeeGo-based Nokia N9
Posted in News Roundup at 11:14 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux Share of Minds
A recent survey of IT decision-makers leads to the inescapable conclusion that FLOSS on the server will soon take many mission-critical roles that it has not already taken. Competitive forces will do the rest. Business is about making money and if your cost/performance is better with GNU/Linux you have the potential to compete well against others who cling to the old ways. About the only thing soon left to the monopoly will be managing its own clients. FLOSS can do everything else much better. Eventually the last barrier will fall, acceptance of that other OS on the client as the standard.
PlayStation 3 Security Foiled by Jailbreak USB Stick?
Sony's PlayStation 3 was long popular with the homebrew and tech-savvy gamer crowd, in part because Sony initially supported running Linux on the console. However, Sony removed Linux capability in a firmware update earlier this year, allegedly to staunch game and content piracy, and since then PlayStation 3 security has been garnering more than a little attention from enthusiasts and console modders eager to get back inside the console.
Rumor: Playstation 3 Has Been Jailbroken
Hopefully Playstation 3 users won't lose more functionalities (like Linux) because of this.
Sony PS3 gets jailbroken to run Linux
According to PSX Scene a bunch of open source hardware hackers have released a dongle called PS Jailbreak that will turn the PS3 back into a Linux machine.
Poll: One in five plan to buy Apple Mac
The remaining 7.7 percent answered 'Linux system'.
"I've been using Linux for too long. I can see no good reason to switch to Windows," commented octal.
Dell, Let Me Help You With the Maths
but it took in only $2.9 billion for consumer PCs. Imagine if those PCs had shipped with GNU/Linux and they had been able to pocket another $50-$100 per PC. That would have been another $100-$200 million revenue. Compare that to a $21 million loss.
Audiocasts/Shows
Webcast: The Open Innovation Revolution with Stefan Lindegaard
Chrome OS Tablet coming from Google and Verizon in November
Google's new Chrome OS cloud-based operating system is about to make its first appearance, not on netbooks, as was first thought, but on tablet devices instead.
Chrome OS tablet coming from Google and Verizon on Black Friday? (update: probably not)
The 2010 Linux Storage and Filesystem Summit, day 2
The summit was widely seen as a successful event, and the participation of the memory management community was welcomed. So there will be a joint summit again for storage, filesystem, and memory management developers next year. It could happen as soon as early 2011; the participants would like to move the event back to the (northern) spring, and waiting for 18 months for the next gathering seemed like too long.
Open-Source 2D, 3D For ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series GPUs
AMD continues to abide by their commitment to provide open-source support for their graphics cards and as proof of that this afternoon they have released their initial hardware acceleration code that supports the ATI Radeon HD 5000 "Evergreen" family of consumer grade graphics processors. While this Evergreen support isn't yet finished and for the time being is targeted towards Linux developers and enthusiasts, you can now play around with your ATI Radeon HD 5000 graphics processor on an open-source driver while having 2D EXA, X-Video, and OpenGL acceleration.
The ATI Radeon HD 5000 series family launched back in September of last year with the Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards, which was followed by the launch of other GPUs like the Radeon HD 5750, Radeon HD 5770, and Radeon HD 5970. Following those product milestones, in December there was the release of some Evergreen shader documentation and by this February, there was finally Evergreen KMS support for utilizing kernel mode-setting and other basic functionality with your new ATI Radeon hardware. This initial KMS support was merged into the Linux 2.6.34 kernel, but it went without any X-Video or 2D EXA acceleration support. In April there was another AMD code drop for Evergreen and it implemented the command processor, interrupts, and graphics initialization support along with providing new microcode for these ASICs.
Torrent Search – Torrent searching application for the Gnome desktop environment
How To Add / Delete Workspaces In Compiz Using Keyboard Shortcuts
Sessions and Users in PHP 5 CMS
Installing A Multiserver Setup With Dedicated Web, Email, DNS And MySQL Database Servers On Debian 5.0 With ISPConfig 3
Advanced Effects using Blender Particle System
Ubuntu 8.10 Linux tips for beginners
Android Scripting With Python
Generating labels and business cards in OpenOffice.org
Despite the fact that open source has specialty label-and-business-card programs like gLabels and capable desktop publishing apps like Scribus, most general office users are going to continue to create their documents in the word processor of the office suite they feel the most comfortable in, like OpenOffice.org Writer. It is certainly a good choice, too; it provides design wizards that simplify creating print-ready documents for standard label templates, and OpenOffice's mail merge backend is quite powerful.
CLIcompanion is a Terminal with a Customizable, Searchable Dictionary of Commands
If you've been itching to try Linux but are intimidated by all the command line work, free download CLIcompanion will ease your fears, providing a customizable list of popular commands and what they do.
Last day to take advantage of the 50% off Bordeaux Sale
Tomorrow will be the last day of our huge 50% off sale of Bordeaux for Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, PCBSD and OpenSolaris.
Bordeaux for Linux and BSD has been marked down to only $10.00 and Bordeaux for Mac and OpenSolaris will cost you only $12.50 during this sale.
The Open-Source 0 A.D. Game Gets An Alpha Build
Wildfire Games announced the release of 0 A.D. this morning. "This release comes with aggressive units that attack enemies on sight, lifelike animals that escape danger, two new maps, in-game multi-player chat and much more." This open-source 3D game is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X operating systems.
Choosing a Distribution of GNU/Linux
There are many more factors than 7 that could have been tested. Updates, local services, games, etc. all may affect choices. Installing and trying things out from several distros is an option users of that other OS lack. Installing using a package manager is cool. It's fast and you use the same tool to install the OS as the applications. Be sure to visit Distrowatch.com to help choose your distro.
Red Hat Pursuing Certification For RHEL 6, Hypervisor
Red Hat is pursuing a certification for its Linux OS and virtualization, paving the way for government agencies to use the technology to create secure, virtualized IT environments and private clouds.
GARM Technologies Partners with Cloud Linux Inc.
Cloud Linux Inc., a software company dedicated to serving the needs of hosting service providers, today announced that GARM Technologies, a hosting provider, will add CloudLinux to its shared hosting infrastructure. The company says that GARM Technologies specialize in shared and VPS hosting and selected CloudLinux for its new Lightweight Virtual Environment (LVE) technology that will deliver substantial performance improvements to its hosting customers.
Support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux extended by 3 years
Red Hat has added an additional 3 years to support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) via its new "Extended Life Cycle Support" (ELS). Available as a paid subscription, the added package prolongs the support of the Linux distribution for corporate customers from seven to ten years; this of particular interest to customers who are currently still using RHEL3, which was released in October 2003, as the regular support for this distribution will expire at the end of October.
Oppenheimer Reiterates Outperform Rating on Red Hat (RHT)
Oppenheimer is out with a research report this morning, where it reiterates its Outperform rating on Red Hat (NYSE: RHT); it has a $40.00 price target on the stock.
Massive Changes Coming to Ubuntu 10.10 'Maverick Meerkat' Installer
Proposed welcome screen looks pretty, readable and non-intimidating. Thats more like it. As a long time Ubuntu user, I really know how far these changes can help a newbie trying his luck in the new found Ubuntu world.
Ubuntu's SPARC & IA64 Ports Have Been Killed
A few months back we reported that the IA64 and SPARC versions of Ubuntu were in trouble and would be decommissioned if no individual(s) were to step-up and maintain these ports of Ubuntu Linux for these architectures that are much less popular and common than x86 and x86_64 hardware. Well, there still is no one backing the Intel IA64 and Sun SPARC versions of Ubuntu Linux so they are being dropped completely.
Canonical Teaches Ubuntu to Phone Home Every Day
No user-specific data is sent, Phoronix notes; rather, the package reportedly transmits only the operating system version, the machine product name and a counter.
Ubuntu 11.04 Release Schedule
The release schedule for Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) operating system has been published on the Ubuntu wiki. The distribution will be released at the end of April 2011.
Reasons to switch to Ubuntu from Microsoft Windows
It's hard to say why features are left the same or barely upgraded, but it is most likely done to familiarize the general public with Microsoft Windows itself. Interestingly enough, it comes in many forms and with different features, and the price seems to always be somewhere in the clouds, large price to pay for something so stale.
Perhaps one of the worst features of Microsoft Windows are the fact that users are extremely bound by computing law, even if they haven't noticed it because of customizable features. For example, Microsoft Windows cannot match the customizing abilities of Mac and Ubuntu, and it never will.
One should find it hard to believe that developers would even consider working with Microsoft Windows to create new applications and games if it wasn't for its popularity. The operating system itself is extremely unstable, one rouge application could crash the whole system or at least freeze the screen.
Canonical discontinues Itanium and SPARC support in Ubuntu
Ubuntu 10.10, code-named Maverick Meerkat, will not be ported to the Itanium and SPARC platforms. The Ubuntu developers were already dissatisfied with the quality of the two ports in the recent 10.04 LTS release, because the two processor platforms have been without a dedicated maintainer for some time.
Unison Ultra Tiny Linux OS Now Available for Actel SmartFusion Devices
Actel Corporation (Nasdaq: ACTL) and RoweBots today announced the immediate availability of Unison, an ultra tiny Linux® compatible OS for SmartFusion™ devices. Developers now have the option for Linux-based embedded design when using SmartFusion intelligent mixed signal FPGAs. With continued broadening of its ecosystem, Actel continues to provide ease of adoption of SmartFusion devices for embedded designers.
ChipWrights Stacks Linux Application Development Kit with Major Enhancements for IPTV Set-Top Boxes and IP Cameras
ChipWrights, Inc.'part of AD Group'New Linux Application Development Kit for the CW5631 System-on-Chip provides the components to develop low-cost IPTV set-top boxes and IP cameras and significantly improve time to market. The Kit'based on the OpenEmbedded build system'leverages thousands of open source packages.
Programming for Androids with App Inventor
Other open source mobile platforms are available, including Maemo on the Nokia N900 and the LiMo platform. Palm's WebOS is also worth keeping an eye on, which is Linux based even if closed source. That said, none of these make programming quite so easy as Google have just done for Android.
Nokia/MeeGo
Nokia N8 available for pre-order now, shipping October 10
…the last N-Series device from the Finnish company to offer Symbian OS, with future devices running the Linux-based MeeGo operating system.
Nokia N9 (RM-680) QWERTY MeeGo Magic Leaked
The Nokia N9 is a slider device with what looks like a full aluminium body, sliding device and amazing QWERTY keyboard. This Linux based device could well be perceived as a Nokia Booklet 3G Mini as it certainly looks as though it could be a full-bloodied portable computer.
Nokia N9 MeeGo-based Smartphone Appears in Leaked Images
The first unofficial pictures of the Nokia N9 have appeared. This device is apparently going to be the replacement for the N900, and the first phone based on MeeGo, an operating system still in development by Intel and Nokia.
Leaked Nokia N9 looks like MacBook Pro
Symbian popularity drops as Android advances
"The software giant will have a difficult time maintaining its market share above 5 [per cent] as the launching of its new Windows Phone 7 OS has been delayed to the fourth quarter and sales of Windows Mobile smartphones [are] still showing no signs of rebound."
We have hand it to Digitimes for showing such diplomacy. A more frank version would be that the Vole is sinking without a trace, Windows Phone 7 will be late and nobody wants its current crop of phones, but then again not everyone displays our lack of tact and sensitivity.
Android App Roundup: 75 of the Best Mobile Linux Downloads
Unlike the rigidly controlled Apple App Store, the Android Marketplace is a bit freewheeling. It can be hard to tell the gold from the dross. To help you find the gems, here's a list of 75 of the best apps the Android Marketplace has to offer.
Google's Tablet to Run Android or Chrome OS?
When Google first briefed the media last November on its plans to help spawn a new generation of Chrome OS-powered netbooks, the company said the first set of devices would be released this fall.
Despite some analyst's skepticism that the effort is on track, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), as recently as last week, said it expects Chrome OS netbooks to be available later this year.
Acer may delay tablet PC launch for another quarter to wait for Android 3.0
Acer's ARM/Android-based tablet PC is expected to be delayed to the first quarter of 2011, from the fourth quarter of 2010, as the company plans to wait until Google launches Android 3.0, which will feature support for larger display resolutions, according to sources from notebook players.
Google Chrome OS tablet headed for Verizon?
HTC is building a Chrome OS tablet for Google, set for a Verizon launch on Nov. 26, an industry report claims. Meanwhile, Pandigital released its second seven-inch Android-based e-reader tablet, with more memory than before plus a smaller, lighter design.
Google targeting Apple iPad with Chrome tablet?
Google Android was always going to be the heart of many Linux-based iPad like devices. That's not news. What is news is that Google and Verizon appear to be working together to create a Chrome operating system-based tablet.
According to a report from the Download Squad, HTC is building the Chrome OS tablet. The device will be sold in partnership with Verizon starting on November 26th. That date is already engraved in every retailer's heart as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and usually the biggest shopping day of the year.
Waiting out FLOSS
Some proprietary software businesses assume that FLOSS projects/businesses will die from lack of income. They expect they can buy up the projects and convert them to proprietary products or kill them. They don't get FLOSS. It's the licences that keep FLOSS free, not the price. FLOSS can be forked and escapes the trap. The current suit by Oracle to capitalize on Java or to kill it will fail both because there is no legal basis for the suit and because even if Java is killed, FLOSS can work around the problem. If Oracle wishes to become a patent troll, its days are numbered as everyone will know it is risky to do business with them. They cannot sue the world as SCOG found out.
Ready to be an open source contributor but don't know where to start?
OpenHatch is a place for developers who want to be involved in open source but don't know where to start. You can go to the site and search for a way to contribute based on a language you know or a project you like. You can even search for "bite-size bugs," the bugs that have been tagged by a project as being specifically good for new contributors.
Mozilla: Firefox Security Bug Won't Fool Users
A bug in the Firefox browser that can be used to bypass an alert for obfuscated URLs is unlikely to trick users, according to Mozilla.
Firefox 4 beta 4 adds hardware acceleration
Mozilla hopes to release its fourth beta of Firefox 4 on Monday, adding hardware-accelerated graphics for some Windows users but leaving it turned off by default.
Also coming is a major user interface change called tab sets, formerly known as tab candy.
CUBRID vs. MySQL: SSD Performance Test Results
The test confirmed that TPS levels of CUBRID and MySQL database systems increase on SSD equipped machines. During the I/O Bound workload CUBRID had 4.2 times increase in TPS, while MySQL had 2.8 fold improvement.
Oracle's anti-OSS stance
The next to fall victim was the PostgreSQL database. Although not owned by Oracle, the open source database software is a competitor to MySQL, now owned by Oracle. Sun Microsystems was contributing servers for the development of PostgreSQL, but at the end of July Oracle shut these down, leaving PostgreSQL work in limbo, and raising further questions about Oracle's commitment to open source.
Is Oracle building its own software stack?
I begin to wonder if Oracle is beginning to build its own stack. What brings this to mind is the announcement by Edward Screven, chief corporate architect, that Oracle wants to give companies access to a world where data centers have become "service centers."
Oracle has long had many of the parts: an operating system, Unbreakable Linux, and now Solaris; a DBMS, of course; and with the acquisition of Sun, Java and all the middleware you could ever want.
Is Oracle Taking OpenOffice.org Closed-Source?
I have written many articles in the past about how much I love OpenOffice.org. In fact OpenOffice is one of the applications that first gave me the confidence to switch to GNU/Linux six years ago. Today I downloaded and installed the latest stable version of OpenOffice, version 3.2.1. This is the best version of OpenOffice that I have ever used from a technical standpoint. However, there were a few things that I noticed that gave me great reason for concern. Based on what I saw, I have serious doubts as to whether OpenOffice.org will continue to be free software/open source in the distant future. Oracle seems to be allowing forces that could be seen as hostile influence, or at least interact with, the OpenOffice community. Perhaps more disturbingly, they appear to be trying to distance OpenOffice from the free software license under which it has propagated for so many years.
Is Oracle going after Google because Ellison is buddies with Jobs?
I can think of all kinds of reasons why Oracle is suing Google over its use of its Java IP (intellectual property) in Android. Making money from its Java patents strikes me and most experts as the most likely reason. But, I've also heard suggested, time after time, that the real reason is that Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO is buddies with Steve Jobs, aka Mr. Apple and he wanted to help Apple fight Android.
Could that be the case? Here's the logic that supporters of this theory use. First, Google and Apple are competiting head-to-head in the smartphone space. The iPhone certainly has more users, but the Android phone family is quickly catching up.
VA sees problems in open-source development for VistA
The Veterans Affairs Department sees advantages in using open-source software to modernize its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) system, but it anticipates several problems if it takes that step.
The VA issued a request for information Aug. 11 asking for industry to deal with anticipated concerns related to open-source development for VistA.
Learn Unix With OpenBSD
The State of Free Software
* Free Software has come from being ignored and ridiculed to being required by everyone. The world of IT now depends on Free Software.
Project Releases
VLC 1.1.3 is released! PPA for Ubuntu
Three reasons why open source is working for Alzheimer's research
Launchpad programming with Linux
Mike wrote a guide for programming MSP430 microcontrollers using the TI Launchpad under Linux. It makes use of the open source compiler MSPGCC rather than using a code-limited proprietary IDE.
Coder cooks up Java-built Flash Player
A version of Flash is being built using Java, two years after Adobe Systems opened the player's closed formats to external inspection.
Programmer Joa Ebert has demonstrated a Java build of Flash executing SWF. The player is apparently called JITB, and it was recently unveiled at an event in San Francisco.
Venezuelan press ban on crime pictures
The leading Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional printed the word "censored" across a white space on its front page today.
Connecticut AG Conducts E-Book Price Fixing Investigation
The Government's License To Steal
Almost none. This weekend, the Indianapolis Star ran a front-page article looking at where all the forfeiture money is going. I'd like to link to it, but in an apparent effort to keep the paper as irrelevant as possible, the Star has lately adopted a policy of not putting its most important pieces online. But as it turns out, Indiana attorney Paul Ogden actually beat the paper to the story by several weeks. Last month, Ogden put up a post on his blog that came to many of the same conclusions the Star published this weekend. Here's what Ogden found:
* Of Indiana's 92 counties, just five have paid any forfeiture money into the school fund over the last two years. Three of those made just one payment. One county made a single payment of $84.50. Only one county could arguably be seen as complying with the law: Wayne County made 18 payments totalling $38,835.56.
* The total amount of forfeiture money paid into the account from all 92 Indiana counties over the two-year period was just $95,509.72.
* To put that figure into perspective, Ogden notes that attorney Christopher Gambill—the private attorney who, as I noted in my article, handles civil forfeiture cases for three Indiana counties and argued the case for Putnam County to keep Anthony Smelley's money—made $113,145.67 in contingency fees off just a single forfeiture case.
Superman Lawyer Claims Warner Bros. Lawsuit Is A SLAPP
Earlier this year, we wrote about the odd decision of Warner Bros. studio to personally sue Marc Toberoff, the lawyer who successfully represented the heirs of the creators of Superman to win back some of their copyright, by using copyright's termination rules. Toberoff is making a career of this, and has been helping numerous other content creators start the process of reclaiming rights using the termination process — which makes him somewhat… disliked in the entertainment industry. Still, to sue him personally seemed quite extreme. As we noted at the time, the lawsuit seemed to be based on the idea that Toberoff is a jerk and a savvy business person. As we noted at the time, that doesn't appear to be illegal.
OMG! My Job is Threatened
I was horrified to read, "The days of DIY system administration are rapidly coming to a close." All those lovely GNU tools about to be replaced by automatons. Sigh. Change is a given in IT. Fortunately my system is small enough my home-made configuration works well and it will take some effort to implement puppet or one of the other automatic systems.
Autotune The News Becomes A Billboard Hit
From a cultural perspective, though, this whole story again shows how culture is changing in very interesting and powerful ways. When we talk about things like "remixing" and "mashups," we tend to hear from a chorus of folks who brush off such things as mere copying and not worthy of being considered art in itself. But there's a lot more to it than that. What makes culture culture is the shared experiences around that work. This song is not only musically interesting, but also calls attention to a horrible incident that happened as well. And, again, some will brush it off as being meaningless, but the power with which it has interested so many people is not something that should be ignored.
Security/Aggression
Council's CCTV Spy car on double yellows again
Medway Council's CCTV spy car has once again been captured parked on double yellow lines.
The all-seeing camera car, one of two operated by the council, was parked in a cul-de-sac outside Blockbuster's Chatham town centre store, off Best Street, on Saturday, July 31.
Ex-soldier forbidden from cutting grass around mother's grave
Derek Evans started tending the cemetery where his mother is buried after noticing the grass needed cutting.
The Army pensioner bought a £300 lawnmower and within a year was helping spruce up the gravesides for more than 70 grateful owners.
Ciggy Busters
Gutsy students from Medway have been snatching shoppers' cigarettes, in an effort to persuade them to kick the habit.
Feds: No charges in Philadelphia school laptop-spying case
Federal prosecutors will not file charges against a school district or its employees over the use of software to remotely monitor students.
U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger says investigators have found no evidence of criminal intent by Lower Merion School District employees who activated tracking software that took thousands of webcam and screenshot images on school-provided laptops.
US combat forces pull out of Iraq
Sources say that the final section of combat troops in Iraq, the United States Army's 4th Stryker Brigade, based at Fort Lewis, Washington, have made their way across the border between Iraq and Kuwait, formally ending combat operations within Iraq.
Iris Scanners Create the Most Secure City in the World. Welcome, Big Brother
Biometrics R&D firm Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI) announced today that it is rolling out its iris scanning technology to create what it calls "the most secure city in the world." In a partnership with Leon — one of the largest cities in Mexico, with a population of more than a million — GRI will fill the city with eye-scanners. That will help law enforcement revolutionize the way we live — not to mention marketers.
Facebook login page still leaks sensitive info
Facebook's login system continues to spill information that can be helpful to phishers, social engineers and other miscreants attempting to scam the more than 500 million active users of the social networking site.
Environment/Energy/Wildlife
Biotech Beets Banned
Last week, a federal district court judge in northern California issued an injunction against planting biotech sugar beets next year. Why? He accepted the activist argument that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) must issue a full environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act before permitting the improved sugar beets to be grown. An EIS is required when a federal government agency engages in actions that might be "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment."
Rising temperatures reducing ability of plants to absorb carbon, study warns
Rising temperatures in the past decade have reduced the ability of the world's plants to soak up carbon from the atmosphere, scientists said today.
Large-scale droughts have wiped out plants that would have otherwise absorbed an amount of carbon equivalent to Britain's annual man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Environment needs Muslim support
In early March, just days after the Kingdom of Morocco announced plans for a landmark environmental charter called "the first commitment of its kind in Africa and the Arab world", Mohamed Attaoui was sentenced to two years in prison in the Atlas mountains. His crime? Speaking out against illegal logging of shrinking cedar forests and corruption among the ranks of the forest service and local government officials.
Activists set up Climate Camp at Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters
Hundreds of climate activists have occupied land at the Royal Bank of Scotland's headquarters in protest at its multi-billion pound loans to the oil and mining industries, including firms involved in exploiting Canadian tar sands.
The protesters cut through a perimeter fence on Wednesday night, erecting scores of tents and marquees on landscaped meadows a few hundred metres from the headquarters building.
BP oil spill: scientists find giant plume of droplets 'missed' by official account
A 22-mile plume of droplets from BP's Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico undermines claim that oil has degraded
Barclays settles 'data stripping to beat sanctions' case
Barclays – which is settling criminal charges of breaking US sanctions by effecting wire transfers with Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma – was accused of stripping out identifying data in the transfers, it has emerged. The bank is awaiting court approval for the $298 million (£190 million) settlement.
PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
San Francisco's Free "Organic Biosolids Compost" is Toxic Sludge, and Not Good For You!
Independent testing commissioned by the Food Rights Network found toxic contaminants in San Francisco's sewage sludge "compost." In the sludge product given away free to gardeners from 2007 to March 4, 2010, are contaminants with endocrine-disruptive properties including PBDE flame retardants, nonylphenol detergent breakdown products, and the antibacterial agent triclosan. The independent tests were conducted for the Food Rights Network by Dr. Robert C. Hale of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
USA Today Drinks the Tea
USA Today's article emphasizes the decentralized nature of the Tea Party movement, reinforcing the idea that it is solely a grassroots movement. That has been far from the case. USA Today doesn't mention that, unlike other "grassroots movements," the Tea Party benefits from major media sponsorship by Fox News, and receives financial backing from corporate lobbyists. The article also fails to describe the many factions of the movement and their origins, which are confusing to many: the Tea Party Patriots (arguably the least well funded and most "grassroots" faction of the movement); the for-profit Tea Party Nation (a domestic for-profit business entity that sells baubles like bejeweled tea bags for $89.95 apiece) and the Tea Party Express, which is basically a professional PR campaign sponsored by FreedomWorks, which is headed by former Republican Majority Leader-turned-lobbyist Dick Armey.
Big Farmers Use PR to Boost Their Image
Documentary movies about the American food industry, like "Food Inc.," "Fast Food Nation", "King Corn" and "Supersize Me" for the first time gave millions of people a hard look at modern food production practices, including distasteful realities like factory farming. As a result, more people have become skeptical of modern farming practices and mindful about where their food comes from. But big farmers are starting to fight back.
Target Gets "Flashmobbed" for Supporting Right-Winger
Last month, it was revealed that Target contributed 150,000 to the gubernatorial campaign of conservative, anti-gay candidate Tom Emmer. Agit-pop activists have something to say about that: "Target ain't people so why should they be, allowed to play around with our democracy!" Watch:
Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights
Google rattles Germany
Google Inc.'s plans to launch its "Street View" mapping service in 20 German cities by year's end has ignited a debate in Germany over how to reconcile the country's cherished privacy laws with the realities of the digital age.
Ten ways to protect your privacy online
9) wi-fi – if you've got wi-fi at home, give it a good password (see above). Otherwise it allows intruders in with few barriers to overcome.
Julian Assange wins Sam Adams Award for Integrity
The award is judged by a group of retired senior US military and intelligence personnel, and past winners. This year the award to Julian Assange was unanimous.
Michael Moore praises suspected WikiLeaks source
Filmmaker Michael Moore is praising an Army private suspected of releasing classified war records to WikiLeaks and said he would contribute to his defense.
North Korea Twitter account banned in South Korea
South Korea has blocked access to the official North Korea Twitter account, a matter of days after the secretive state started posting messages.
Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM
Public Domain Mark: A Creative Commons effort to tag the public domain
Earlier this month, Creative Commons asked for comment on the new Public Domain Mark (PDM), "a tool that would make it easy for people to tag and find content already in the public domain."
Oops, Comcast Didn't Really Increase Your Internet Connection Speed
Robert writes that he received an exciting e-mail from his Internet provider, Comcast. They were giving him a better connection! Faster downloads! Then Comcast followed up a few days later to say, approximately, "hey, remember that e-mail we sent saying that your Internet connection is faster now? Yeah, it's not actually true."
Intellectual Monopolies
Pirate Bay Typo Squatter Applies For US Trademark On Pirate Bay As Well
It should be no surprise that various malicious typo squatters have targeted The Pirate Bay with fake sites that try to install malware, however Torrentfreak looked a bit deeper and found that one of the typo squatters, a company called BladeBook, appears to be trying to trademark the actual name, as well. Apparently, BladeBook's Craig Pratka first filed for the trademark the same day that it was announced that The Pirate Bay had been sold to GGF, a deal that eventually fell apart (as did the initial trademark application).
The High Cost of Copyright:
In my classes in IP law and copyright, I sometimes have difficulty conveying to students the "cost" side of the copyright regime. That is, though we often make reference to implementing the right copyright "balance" in our law, I think students (and others, for that matter) are often uncertain as to exactly what is being balanced against what. The benefits of a copyright regime are pretty obvious — if you give people a property interest in their creations, they'll be able to work out market arrangements to receive compensation for them; knowing that in advance, they'll create more works of art than they otherwise would absent that protection, and we're all better off as a result. That's easy enough to see. What's harder to see is why that principle should ever be limited — if protection yields more creative works, why won't more protection yield more creative works (to the benefit of all)? Why not make copyright perpetual, and copyright rights as broad and as deep as possible — won't that get us even more creative works to enjoy? [That's a viewpoint that many in Congress apparently share, as copyright protection has indeed gotten longer and longer and deeper and broader over the past 50 years or so — helped along, I suppose, by those stacked bundles of unmarked hundred dollar bills left in Congressional anterooms by representatives of the "copyright industries" — hey, don't sue me, that's just a joke).
Shameful Moments In American History's Copyright Censorship
Here is one of the nation's most prominent television critics at the time effectively admitting that a single copyright suit prevented countless of creative comedic works from being produced at the time – a shameful fact that is surely ignored in most law school and history classes today.
Grooveshark Pulled From Apple App Store Amid Record Label Complaints
After several months of battling App Store reviewers, the on-demand music service finally released its official iOS app last week. The reason for the app's removal? According to the Grooveshark blog, Apple received a takedown notice from Universal Music Group UK.
In February, UMG filed a lawsuit against Grooveshark over the service's use of IP. Grooveshark has also battled — and settled — with the music label EMI.
Professor Says News Should Get Special 24 Hour Protections So No Aggregator Can Link To It
We've seen all sorts of really bizarre and downright dangerous plans to change copyright law to favor newspapers, but a new one, posted at Henry Blodget's Business Insider may be the most ridiculous of all. It starts off with a bunch of really bad assumptions, and then suggests special copyright protections for publications against aggregators, including that no one could repost (even fair use reposting) any content from a daily publication for 24-hours or a week for weekly publications:
A first suggestion would be to provide newspaper and other journalistic content special protection, so that no part of any story from any daily periodical could be reposted in an online aggregator, or used online for any use other than commentary on the article, for 24 hours; similarly, no part of any story from any weekly publication could be reposted in an online aggregator or for any use purpose other than commentary, for one week.
Las Vegas Review-Journal Thinks Suing Sites Over Copyright Will Mean More People Link To It
Amusingly, the article also has the Righthaven folks admitting some "kinks" that need "to be worked out," such as the time it sued the very source for an article (apparently, this has happened more than once). In the one case that we wrote about, after that came to light, Righthaven dropped the lawsuit. I'm guessing that after some more lawyers start fighting back against Righthaven, it's going to discover quite a few more "kinks" in its system.
Rocker John Mellencamp likens Internet to A-bomb
Rocker John Mellencamp said on Tuesday that the Internet was the most dangerous invention since the atomic bomb, although new technology could paradoxically delay the inevitable demise of rock 'n' roll.
Felicia Day's Success With The Guild Highlights The Importance Of Authenticity With A Community
This is a key point that often gets lost in business model discussions. When we talk about different offerings, it's amazing how much people discount the importance of authenticity as a scarcity. We see it all the time with companies who want to sponsor something, and then have tremendous level of control — losing all of the authenticity and, with it, much of the value (and, eventually, audience). It's nice to see a situation where a company (in this case, Microsoft) properly recognized when not to get too involved.
Our shrinking commons
"Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures."
What's with the many movies we watch at home launching with this threat? You can't even fast-forward past it! And what's with day-care centers being threatened for decorating with Mickey Mouse images? And club proprietors who must caution open-mike artists against strumming published songs? Are rockers who fold in a few seconds from some popular work, and visual artists who quote commercial imagery, really thieves?
It wasn't always that way. Such cultural expression was, for centuries past, sharing, not theft. We've moved radically far in a long process of intellectual enclosure, privatizing and shutting down a vigorous cultural commons.
Lewis Hyde, MacArthur Fellow and professor at Kenyon and Harvard, offers a brilliant and absorbing account of the development of restrictive and enduring private ownership of shared experience. "Common as Air" develops, in Hyde's own words, "a model and defense of our 'cultural commons,' that vast store of unowned ideas, inventions and works of art that we have inherited from the past and that we continue to create."
Microsoft The Embarrasing moments


text:
Career Development /
Affinity Groups /
Group on Institutional Advancement /
GIA Awards /
Print and Digital Publishing: Single or Special Issue - Gold
Affinity Group
Penn Medicine Facts & Figures
Penn Medicine
Penn Medicine is a vast enterprise, encompassing the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Our employee population of more than 40,000 spans physical therapists in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania; nurses in Princeton, New Jersey; and highly specialized surgeons in Philadelphia.
We train medical students, graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, physician residents, and fellows, and the communities we serve span the greater Philadelphia region, the nation, and all corners of the world. All these individuals and places, in their various ways, are parts of a larger whole — and we work to tell their story to others, including the media and potential donors.
Facts & Figures helps tell that story and answer any question about the organization — even the most basic, like what is Penn Medicine? — in a highly accessible, data-forward format. This annual, comprehensive, pocket-sized report summarizes Penn Medicine's fiscal information and accomplishments, innovative projects, and unique capabilities.
What was the most impactful part of your award-winning entry?
Each year, Facts & Figures provides a broad overview of the $7.8 billion enterprise in a handheld format — which makes it easier for our constituents and new employees to take this information on the go and reference as needed.
What is one thing you learned from this experience?
Audience is king. For the 2019 report, we made a handful of upgrades with the user experience in mind. This included using more infographics for a visually intriguing read and creating a mobile-friendly version with Adobe Spark.
Hannah Messinger, hannah.messinger@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
More in Professional Development
What's New in CFAS
This is a collection of the upcoming news and events for CFAS
CFAS Resources
Council of Faculty and Academic Societies (CFAS) members have a wide range of services, tools, and news digests available to them through the AAMC.
Council of Deans
COD Fellowship Committee
The purpose of the Council of Deans Fellowship Committee is to select the incoming cohort for the yearlong COD Fellowship Program.
COD Fellows
Discover the current fellows of AAMC's Council of Deans Fellowship Program.
Mid-Career Women Faculty Leadership Development Seminar
For women who are associate professors, enhance leadership skills to support your progress along the path to leadership in academic medicine and science.


I'd say there's probably far too much going on in your life at the moment. Slightly overloaded, maybe? It's certainly not for me to say. However, just by reading your blog, I'd say you're a wee bit too involved with other issues at the moment. But don't worry, things have a way of changing, and quite quickly, too. Good luck with your book!


text:
El Niño Is Causing Massive Drought and Hunger In Africa
The prolonged warm weather pattern has been wreaking havoc on crops in the region and the UN is becoming "increasingly concerned" about the food security of an estimated 14 million people.
by Nick Rose
Photo via Flickr user FMSC
With the recent rash of water theft, massive beer shortages, and farmers selling water instead of growing crops, Californians can't be blamed for interpreting current weather conditions as a sign of a pending apocalyptic drought.
But it turns out that the very same force that may save California from turning into The Road could create truly cataclysmic drought and hunger for tens of millions in southern Africa, according to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
The prolonged warm weather pattern known as El Niño has been wreaking havoc on crops in the region and the UN's food relief program said in a press release that it has become "increasingly concerned" about the food security of an estimated 14 million people.
Perhaps the bleakest reality of the WFP's assessment is that El Niño seems to be affecting the region's most fertile areas.
READ: Water Kleptos Are the Bleakest Part of California's Drought
"Driving through southern Zambia, I saw fields of crops severely stressed from lack of water and met farmers who are struggling to cope with a second season of erratic rains," said WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin. "Zambia is one of the biggest breadbaskets in the region and what's happening there gives serious cause for concern not only for Zambia itself but all countries in the region."
The WFP also estimates that more than 40 million rural and 9 million urban people in the region live in areas that are highly impacted by this year's El Niño, which they call "the strongest such weather event for more than three decades."
All of which is driving up food prices and compounding the environmental threats in the region. Maize prices in South Africa hit a record high on Monday, with the March contract for the white variety reaching $304 per ton, according to Thomson Reuters.
In fact, this year's shortage is so pronounced that most small farmers are struggling just to feed their families. "I'm particularly concerned that smallholders won't be able to harvest enough crops to feed their own families through the year, let alone to sell what little they can in order to cover school fees and other household needs," Cousin said.
READ: A Harvard Professor Says "Starving Africa" Cliches Are Being Used to Promote GM Foods
The UN agency said that countries most affected by the recent lack of rain and massive crop failures are Malawi, where 2.8 million people are facing hunger, Madagascar (nearly 1.9 million people), and Zimbabwe (1.5 million), countries where chronic malnutrition rates are already among the worst in the world.
"One particularly worrying symptom of southern Africa's vulnerability to food and nutrition security is the alarming rate of chronic malnutrition," the WFP said. "Levels of stunting among children in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia are among the worst in the world. This affects children's physical growth, cognitive development, as well as their future health and productivity."
Tagged: MunchiesFoodafricaDROUGHTfarmingEl NiñoagricultureweatherEathungerfaminemozambiquecrops


We are looking for High quality Window, Door and Conservatory fitters to help with an influx of long term work . We are one of the best companies in the Midlands and only the best quality fitters need apply.
You'll be committed to installing to the highest standard along with providing excellent customer service, and be confident and professional with customers.
You'll have plenty of experience of installing windows, doors and conservatories, and a commitment to doing a high-quality job.
You'll be joining a fast-growing company with a strong local reputation for quality and professionalism and an ambition to be the best in our business.
There is also scope for promotion within our growing company. As part of a highly-engaged and determined team.
3 years' experience as a Lead Fitter of Windows doors and conservatories.
Full Time, Permanent, Directly employed, Van and tools Provided.
Or Sub contractor positions available too.
Salary negotiable £26,000 – £40,000 PA depending on ability.
If you're the Surveyor we're looking for, you'll be committed to providing excellent customer service, and be confident and professional with customers. You'll be organised, methodical, proactive and have the ability to problem solve and think on your feet. You will have 3 years of Double glazing Surveying experience and preferably have plenty of experience of installing windows, doors and conservatories, and a commitment to doing a high-quality job.
You'll be joining a fast-growing company with a strong local reputation for quality and professionalism and an ambition to be the best in our business. There is also scope for promotion within our growing company. As part of a highly-engaged and determined team, you'll be responsible for representing our brand and solving customer challenges with windows, doors and conservatories in the Wolverhampton and surrounding areas.
3 years' experience in Surveying and preferably Fitting Windows doors and conservatories.
Salary negotiable £30,000 – £32,000 PA depending on ability.
Ensuring the job runs smoothly by liaising with customers and installers.