URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT

1144 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 27, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

30 Seconds With Cris Carter
BYLINE: By RAY GLIER
SECTION: Section SP; Column 0; Sports Desk; 30 SECONDS; Pg. 11
LENGTH: 351 words
Cris Carter, who ranks second in career pass receptions with 1,101 in 16 seasons, is a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He owns a security company, Carter Brothers, based in Atlanta, and received an award for entrepreneurship from the National Urban League. Carter, 42, is a host for HBO's ''Inside the NFL,'' a faculty member and coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and an ordained minister.

RAY GLIER

TROY, OHIO, WHERE YOU WERE BORN, IS THREE HOURS FROM CANTON AND THE PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME. DID YOU EVER THINK YOU WOULD HAVE A CHANCE TO GET THROUGH THE DOORS WITHOUT BUYING A TICKET?

I went there once on a field trip, and I went there before an N.F.L. preseason game, but as far as ever thinking I would get in, no. I grew up playing more basketball, so me thinking I would accomplish something the upper level of football was totally out of the question.

YOU ARE A MENTOR TO RANDY MOSS. WHAT DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW ABOUT RANDY MOSS?

How disciplined he is and that he has a great desire to win championships. He has a greater desire to win championships than he does to be famous.

WHY IS THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE RELEVANT?

If you look in the African-American community, and who's who and who African-Americans respect for what they do in the community on a daily basis, it's the National Urban League. We didn't grow the company from nothing to get attention, but to get it from the Urban League, it meant a great deal to us.

ANY ADVICE TO AN N.F.L. PLAYER FORCED OUT BEFORE THE BIG PAYDAY BECAUSE OF INJURY?

If he's been out just two or three years, he needs to go back and get his degree, because if you're injured, you can still limp into a classroom, limp into an office building for a job, limp and still wear a suit. The other thing is the N.F.L. is a jump-start on life; you should not go into the league and look at it as when I'm done playing, that's it, I'm retired. I don't care how much money you make, because you could have a great career -- if you're really, really lucky -- and that career could end when you are just 38, 39 or 40.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: AMERICAN FOOTBALL (78%); SPORTS (78%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); AFRICAN AMERICANS (75%); INDUSTRY AWARDS (73%); SPORTS & RECREATION EVENTS (90%); BASKETBALL (72%)
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE (84%); NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE (83%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (65%)
GEOGRAPHIC: FLORIDA, USA (90%); OHIO, USA (90%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: January 27, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1145 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 27, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Extra Helping
BYLINE: By ROB WALKER
SECTION: Section MM; Column 0; Magazine; CONSUMED; Pg. 22
LENGTH: 792 words
Kiva.org

Over the last few months, some visitors to the Web site of Kiva, a nonprofit that lets users make interest-free ''microloans'' to entrepreneurs in low-development (that is, poor) countries all over the world, were greeted with a surprising message. ''Thanks Kiva Lenders!'' it began. ''You've funded EVERY business on the site!!'' Has a charity ever announced that it had enough money? Would-be lenders were dumbstruck, says Kiva's public-relations director, Fiona Ramsey: ''They're stunned for a second -- 'Here I am, I have money, I want to help someone, and you're telling me that I can't?' '' The note encouraged the visitor to check back soon, as a new batch of loan-seeking entrepreneurs will often appear mere minutes later. But still, Kiva is a philanthropic organization facing an extremely unusual challenge: maintaining adequate supply (people who need help) to meet demand (people who want to give it). ''We don't want people coming to the Web site who want to make a loan and there's no one to loan to,'' Ramsey says.

Kiva has attracted more than $19.5 million worth of loans, from more than 220,000 individuals. You may already be familiar with the project, which has received a phenomenal amount of glowing attention -- and that's one reason demand is so high. The site presents a photo of each loan seeker and a short summary of who and where they are and what they want the money for. A restaurant owner in Nigeria needs $450; a small farmer in Samoa needs $330. With a few clicks you can help someone on the other side of the world and play a part in solving the problems of global inequality that so often seem insurmountable. While it can be hard for charitable givers to really know where their money goes and whom it helps, Kiva lenders receive updates from the loan recipients. And they almost always see their loans repaid. (The default rate to date is 0.16 percent.)

The venture started in 2005, a time when skepticism about, for example, whether the huge sums donated to tsunami relief efforts were doing any good. It also dovetailed with an increased interest in a more capitalistic version of philanthropy that felt more like investing than simply giving. Add to this a drumbeat of high-profile attention and endorsements -- from the PBS series ''Frontline/World,'' the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Bill Clinton -- and you get spikes in demand normally associated with limited-edition luxury products. After Kiva was featured on ''Oprah'' this past September, for instance, ''we sold out,'' as Ramsey puts it. Since the holidays, individual loans have been capped at $25, to give as many people as possible the chance to participate.

Sometimes frustrated visitors to the site write in to demand an explanation for the dearth of needy people to help. Kiva's 23-person staff works with 77 ''field partners'' -- microfinance institutions on the ground in 39 countries, who line up potential borrowers. About 250 volunteer translators and editors around the world post new requests as quickly as they can -- which can mean gluts as well as shortages. ''We could keep, for lack of a better word, a stockpile of entrepreneurs,'' Ramsey says. ''But these are real people. We're not looking at them as inventory.'' It can take a while to vet potential borrowers. For example, a Sudan-based organization expressed interest in a partnership at a microfinance conference last August, and it took a couple of months of research, conversations and looking at financial statements before Kiva agreed to work with it. Even when that process was finally complete, Kiva had to help acquire the digital cameras to take pictures of borrowers; the organization is expected to start posting loan requests soon.

Ramsey says that the $25 cap will mostly be in effect for the next month or so, partly because Kiva sold about $2 million worth of gift certificates over the holidays, many of them still waiting to be invested. Meanwhile, some users get so caught up in helping that they behave like collectors, looking to add new countries and new kinds of businesses to their portfolios. (Entrepreneurs in Iraq and Afghanistan are particularly popular.) The chat boards on a kind of fan site called KivaFriends.org indicate the mixed feelings about the high demand for loan recipients. ''I was trying to leave the field open for the newcomers,'' one enthusiast there confessed recently, shortly after adding to a personal portfolio of 62 loans -- even as the number of hopeful borrowers was dwindling quickly. ''Makes me feel guilty.'' That's an odd thing for such a generous person to say, but it's one indicator of what an unusual dynamic Kiva's popularity has created. Even philanthropists don't want to look greedy.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: WEB SITES (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); PHILANTHROPY (89%); CHARITIES (89%); PUBLIC BROADCASTING (78%); PUBLIC TELEVISION (73%); PUBLIC RELATIONS (55%); LUXURY GOODS (50%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (71%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NIGERIA (79%); SAMOA (72%)
LOAD-DATE: January 27, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: DRAWING (DRAWING BY PETER ARKLE)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1146 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 25, 2008 Friday

Late Edition - Final

Those Sweet Mysteries of Life, Deciphered
BYLINE: By WILLIAM GRIMES
SECTION: Section E; Column 0; Movies, Performing Arts/Weekend Desk; BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Pg. 39
LENGTH: 967 words
THE LOGIC OF LIFE

The Rational Economics of an Irrational World

By Tim Harford

255 pages. Random House. $25.

The world is a crazy place. It makes perfect sense only to conspiracy theorists and economists of a certain stripe. Tim Harford, a columnist for The Financial Times and the author of ''The Undercover Economist,'' is one of these, a devotee of rational-choice theory, which he applies ingeniously and entertainingly to all kinds of problems in ''The Logic of Life.''

The premise is simple. Human beings are rational creatures who respond to incentives and rewards. No matter how bizarre a choice might seem, there is logic at work, and Mr. Harford intends to expose it.

''People smoke and gamble,'' he writes. ''Fools fall in love. Offices are run by morons. City neighborhoods boom or collapse for no apparent reason.'' To the keen eye of an economist it all makes sense, in the counterintuitive way exploited so successfully by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner in ''Freakonomics.''

Smoking provides Mr. Harford with one of his more arresting examples. Nicotine patches and nicotine gum, intended to wean smokers from their dangerous habit, actually seem to encourage teenagers to take the first puff, for reasons that any economist might have predicted. Since there are now products to help smokers quit, it becomes less risky, as a purely rational proposition, to pick up the habit.

Similarly, a rational cost-benefit analyst lures single women to big cities like New York, where prospects of finding a mate with a big income are greater than in small towns. There they overpopulate the marriage market and suffer the Carrie Bradshaw blues. A look at an economic model called the Marriage Supermarket might give them pause.

Imagine 20 men and 20 women in a room. Those who pair off and leave the room together receive a prize of $100, with the money to be shared by the partners by negotiation. When the two sexes are equal in number, everyone finds a partner and the split is 50-50. Subtract one man from the equation, and competition for the remaining 19 inexorably drives down each woman's share of the $100 to one penny -- except for the 20th woman, who gets nothing at all. This is why Mr. Big wears a smirk.

The Marriage Supermarket provides a stark illustration of the power of small demographic shifts to produce grossly distorted outcomes. Mr. Harford provides another one when he shows how mild preferences for living among people of one's own race or culture can produce neighborhoods so segregated that, at first glance, only virulent racism could seem to account for the result. ''Even though each person makes rational choices, the result can be something that none of them wanted; you might say that rational behavior by individuals can produce irrational results for society,'' Mr. Harford writes.

Flitting provocatively from topic to topic, Mr. Harford explains why gargantuan executive salaries make sense, although not in the way one might expect, and why a booming service economy indicates economic sophistication, not decadence. He makes a hopeful argument for the future of megalopolises like New York and Los Angeles, which are destined to prosper, he asserts, for many of the same reasons that cause environmentalists and futurologists to wring their hands in worry.

When Ted Baxter, on ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show,'' said that he planned to have six children in the hope that one of them might solve the overpopulation problem, he was on precisely the right track, Mr. Harford argues. People say they come to New York for the culture, but what they really pay a premium for, in high rents and expensive food, is access to other people and their knowledge. The more the better.

Mr. Harford has a knack for explaining economic principles and problems in plain language and, even better, for making them fun. He loves to overturn conventional thinking on matters as small as playing a poker hand and as large as the reasons behind the Industrial Revolution, which have nothing to do, he maintains, with a so-called entrepreneurial culture in Protestant Northern Europe. It all boiled down, he writes, to ''a calculated and deliberate response to high British wages and cheap British coal,'' which led inevitably to steam power and labor-saving technology.

Like some of the Texas Hold 'Em experts he describes, Mr. Harford occasionally overplays his hand, and he can be a little shifty. It makes some sense to explain the large increase in the number of young people who, between 1994 and 2004, reported engaging in oral sex as a rational-choice proposition: Oral sex reduces the risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. It seems blinkered to ignore the cultural factors at work, however, notably widely available pornographic images and mainstream Hollywood films that have helped normalize sexual behavior once considered risque or even taboo.

Finally, a poke in the eye. Mr. Harford, in the coolest possible language, sets out to prove that there was no point in voting for Al Gore in Florida in 2000. There's no point in voting at all, for that matter, as a purely logical act. So if you stayed home that day, relax. If you really want to make a difference, buy lottery tickets -- your chances of hitting the jackpot are roughly equal to your chances of swinging an election -- and devote your winnings to political lobbying.

And don't bother to read up on the issues, either. ''Because the chance of any individual's vote making any difference to the result is tiny, the benefits of turning an uninformed vote into an informed vote are also tiny,'' Mr. Harford writes. ''Rationally speaking, why bother?''

Go ahead, fume. Mr. Harford enjoys it. He never claimed that things are right or fair. Just logical.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SMOKING (91%); MARRIAGE (68%); VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS (62%); MARKET DEMOGRAPHICS (50%); SMOKING CESSATION (90%)
COMPANY: FINANCIAL TIMES GROUP (72%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS511110 NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS (72%); SIC2711 NEWSPAPERS: PUBLISHING, OR PUBLISHING & PRINTING (72%)
LOAD-DATE: January 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY FRAN MONKS)
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Review
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1147 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 25, 2008 Friday

Late Edition - Final

Paid Notice: Deaths BLOOM, CHARLES EDWARD, JR.
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Classified; Pg. 10
LENGTH: 326 words
BLOOM--Charles Edward, Jr., 83, died of natural causes in Jupiter, Florida on January 22, 2008. A son of Charles Edward Bloom and the former Helen Fox, Mr. Bloom was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1924. He graduated from Newark Academy (New Jersey), Yale University and Rutgers University. During World War II he served honorably in the U.S. Army and also in the United States Maritime Services. With his wife Marie Murphy Bloom, who died in 1974, he raised four sons, Joseph, David, Edward and William. From 1969 to 1978, he was a senior partner in the public accounting firm of Touche, Ross & Company in New York City, where he founded its Integrated Services (Small Business) Department and served on the firms executive committee and board.

From 1978 to 1985, he was active in non-profit work and also served on the boards of Seton Company (an industrial products company in New Jersey) and Big V Supermarkets. With his sons, he then co-founded the predecessor companies of Chelsea Property Group, based in Roseland, New Jersey. Chelsea pioneered the development of large, upscale factory outlet centers in major markets around the United States, and was a topperforming New York Stock Exchange-listed real estate investment trust (REIT) for 11 years prior to its acquisition by Simon Property Group in 2004. Prior to his retirement, Mr. Bloom resided primarily in New Jersey and New York City. He retired from Chelsea in 1994 as Founding Chairman and Director, and in recent years lived in Florida. Among many other things, he will be remembered affectionately by his family and friends as a beloved patriarch, visionary entrepreneur, contagious optimist with an infectious laugh, courtly gentleman, and man of unshakable integrity. He is survived by his four sons, seven grandchildren, Sara, Kate, Taylor, Bailey, John, Matthew and Charles; and two sisters, Barbara Goldberg and Carolyn Bader. Private services were held in West Palm Beach, Florida.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: DEATHS & OBITUARIES (91%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (75%); SMALL BUSINESS (75%); MEN (75%); RETAIL PROPERTY (72%); REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS (72%); ARMIES (72%); REAL ESTATE INVESTING (72%); STOCK EXCHANGES (66%); INVESTMENT TRUSTS (65%); ACCOUNTING (55%); GROCERY STORES & SUPERMARKETS (54%); WORLD WAR II (71%)
COMPANY: SETON CO (69%); TOUCHE ROSS TOHMATSU (57%); CHELSEA PROPERTY GROUP INC (55%); SIMON PROPERTY GROUP INC (55%); NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE LLC (55%); SIMON PROPERTY GROUP LP (54%); ROSS & CO PC (57%); BIG V SUPERMARKETS INC (56%)
ORGANIZATION: RUTGERS UNIVERSITY (58%); YALE UNIVERSITY (58%)
TICKER: SPG (NYSE) (55%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS525930 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS (55%); SIC6798 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS (55%); SIC5411 GROCERY STORES (56%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (92%) NEW JERSEY, USA (96%); NEW YORK, USA (92%); FLORIDA, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (96%)
LOAD-DATE: January 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Paid Death Notice
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1148 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 25, 2008 Friday

Late Edition - Final

Paid Notice: Deaths BRUNSWICK, ERNEST E.
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Classified; Pg. 10
LENGTH: 108 words
BRUNSWICK--Ernest E., 91, passed away suddenly on Tuesday, January 22, 2008. Beloved husband of Hilda, loving father of Jacques (Louise Desjardins), Marc, and Eve (William Appleton), and admired grandfather of Edmund, Gabriel, Kathryn, and Harrison. WWII Veteran, entrepreneur, and former president of Miracle Exclusives, Inc. Service on Friday, January 25, 2008, 1:30pm at Sunset Chapels, 1285 Northern Blvd. in Manhasset.

BRUNSWICK--Ernest. Temple Sinai of Roslyn records with profound sorrow the death of our devoted member. We extend our condolences to his family. Rabbi Michael A. White Rabbi Norman Kahan, Emeritus Richard C. Laskey, President

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: DEATHS & OBITUARIES (92%); CLERGY & RELIGIOUS (88%); WORLD WAR II (84%)
COMPANY: MIRACLE EXCLUSIVES INC (71%)
LOAD-DATE: January 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Paid Death Notice
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1149 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
January 25, 2008 Friday

Late Edition - Final

Two Cheers For Wall St.
BYLINE: By DAVID BROOKS
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Editorial Desk; OP-ED COLUMNIST; Pg. 25
LENGTH: 818 words
There is roughly a 100 percent chance that we're going to spend much of this year talking about the subprime mortgage crisis, the financial markets and the worsening economy. The only question is which narrative is going to prevail, the Greed Narrative or the Ecology Narrative.

The Greed Narrative goes something like this: The financial markets are dominated by absurdly overpaid zillionaires. They invent complex financial instruments, like globally securitized subprime mortgages that few really understand. They dump these things onto the unsuspecting, sending destabilizing waves of money sloshing around the globe. Economies melt down. Regular people lose jobs and savings. Meanwhile, the financial insiders still get their obscene bonuses, rain or shine.

The morality of the Greed Narrative is straightforward. A small number of predators destabilize the economy and reap big bonuses. The financial system is fundamentally broken. Government should step in and control the malefactors of great wealth.

The Ecology Narrative is different. It starts with the premise that investors and borrowers cooperate and compete in a complex ecosystem. Everyone seeks wealth while minimizing risk. As Jim Manzi, a software entrepreneur who specializes in applied artificial intelligence, has noted, the chief tension in this ecosystem is between innovation and uncertainty. We could live in a safer world, but we'd have to forswear creativity.

The United States has generally opted for financial innovation. This has worked out pretty well. The U.S. has enjoyed 25 years of strong economic growth, in part because capital has been efficiently allocated to companies that can use it well.

Financial instruments like adjustable-rate and subprime mortgages have allowed millions of people to get homes they could not otherwise purchase, and research shows that most of these tools have been used intelligently.

Hedge funds have proliferated to help investors manage risk. These things exist precisely because investors want to smooth out volatility. In the old days, a blow to, say, the Texas economy could have dried up lending in Texas, but now funds flow globally, and money from one part of the world can shore up weakness in another.

As Sebastian Mallaby of the Council on Foreign Relations has pointed out, time and again hedge funds have dampened market instability. If a currency, a company or a stock market starts to spiral downward, deep-pocketed funds, smelling bargains, will come in and stabilize its assets. If a company's price is rising to unsustainable levels, contrarian funds bet against the hype.

Most of the time, the complex new instruments diversify risk and serve the public good. But life requires trade-offs, and, as we're being reminded this week, the innovation process involves a painful adolescence.

When a new instrument enters the market, it takes a while before people understand and institutionalize it. Whether the product is high-yield bonds or mortgage-backed securities, there's a tendency to get carried away.

In the first stage of this adolescence, investors look around and see everybody else making money off some new instrument. As Nicholas Bloom of Stanford notes: ''They assume they are fine because they see everyone else buying it.'' Individual bankers have a special incentive to get in on the ride because their yearly bonus is determined by how they do in the short term.

Then there's a moment when people realize how stupid they have been. They've bought a pile of subprime mortgages without really knowing what they've purchased. The ratings agencies suddenly don't look so reliable. The cycle of overconfidence becomes a cycle of underconfidence because nobody knows who is holding worthless paper.

Then, finally, maturity sets in. Those who have lost great gobs of money get fired. People still find the new product useful, but within parameters and with greater safeguards.

The lesson of the Ecology Narrative is that, in most cases, the market corrects itself. Maybe this year banks will change their pay structure so there's not so much emphasis on short-term results. Maybe companies will change their boards to improve scrutiny over complex new instruments. In short, markets adapt.

People who embrace the Ecology Narrative don't like the offensive bonuses that get handed out on Wall Street. They just don't see any way the government can curtail them without rending the fabric of the ecosystem. They don't like the periodic crises, but don't see how government can prevent them without clamping down on innovation. The challenge is to give people the means to withstand the perturbations.

The Ecology Narrative is not morally satisfying. I wouldn't bet on its popularity as a backlash against Wall Street and finance sweeps across a recession-haunted country. But the Ecology Narrative has one thing going for it. It happens to be true.

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