Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:35:48 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Elizabeth Bailey :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Elizabeth+Bailey istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/financial-white-lies-that-ruin-marriages/14345/ Tue, 24 May 2005 00:00:00 EST Master storyteller O. Henry gave a perfectly crafted lesson on marital personal finances in his Christmas allegory "The Gift of the Magi." You may remember the very poor newlyweds. He hocks his watch to buy a comb for her lush chestnut mane; she sells the very same hair to buy him a fob for the very same watch. It's a touching tale about true love not needing big gifts. But in the real world, a major surprise purchase that catches a spouse off guard may break not only the budget; it can... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/financial-ignorance-of-generation-red/13958/ Tue, 17 May 2005 00:00:00 EST In the 1960s, when college students were referred to as "red" it meant that they were anti-war radicals, Maoists or maybe members of the lunatic fringe that traced its roots to Trotsky or Lenin. This spring's crop of college graduates is more apt to be in the red - in debt. Last month, Susan Schmidt Bies, a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, took the opportunity during a speech at the business school of a small college in Buffalo to lecture the audience on the appalling lack of financial... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/personal-finance/partners-in-life-should-be-partners-in-banking/13562/ Tue, 10 May 2005 00:00:00 EST Over half the married households in this country now keep multiple checking accounts. That includes couples with completely separate finances, those with his, hers, and our accounts, those with his, hers, ours, its, theirs, and what's its - and those with one for the family dog. Is this a bad thing? Retail banks don't think so. But the breakup of family finances has generated a lot of ink and ire in recent weeks. A Wall Street Journal piece on the separation of marriage and money pushed the hot... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/what-happens-when-men-marry-up/13198/ Tue, 3 May 2005 00:00:00 EST Women are 15 times as likely as men to become top executives in major corporations before the age of 40. Women are paid more than men in over 80 different fields, and a female investment banker's starting salary is 116% that of a male. Men who have graduated from college, but stayed single, and who work full-time make only 85% of women with the same degree and marital status. These are the numbers cited by Warren Farrell in his new book, "Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/personal-finance/unrewarding-internships/12825/ Tue, 26 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Some colleges now close dorm doors as early as the end of April, the first week of May, giving rise to the joke among the tuition-paying generation that the more school costs, the less it's in session. Weren't we playing Frisbee on the quad in June, or catching late spring rays with tin-foil reflectors on the roof while we avoided studying for finals? By June, today's college students have, locust-like, devastated the larder and racked up a small fortune in late charges at the local video store... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/on-the-moral-argument-for-the-estate-tax/12533/ Wed, 20 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Paris Hilton has become the poster babe of the post-shame society, a dependable figure of fun for the New York Post, People Magazine, and countless Web sites. But what is she doing in a book about taxes? Paris's appearance in the recently published "Death By a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth," by Yale professors Michael J.Graetz and Ian Shapiro (Princeton University Press), is a cameo, but she is central to the story. Or, the authors argue in this real-life economic... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/personal-finance/what-your-will-says-about-you/12086/ Tue, 12 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST It has been a bizarre month in the news with much of the coverage focused on death - that of Terri Schiavo and, of course, that of Pope John Paul II. The first was politically divisive, the second "a Catholic Woodstock," in the words of one commentator, an event that drew the whole world together. But both deaths do prompt thoughts that are not particularly comfortable: how we want to die and what legacy we want to leave behind. The first thought has caused many Americans to consult their... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/personal-finance/white-lies-and-whoppers/11694/ Tue, 5 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Not all lies are terrible. When Eddie Haskell told the Beaver's mom, "Gee, Mrs. Cleaver, that sure is a pretty dress you're wearing," his white lie about an ugly housedress was harmless. Eddie was a jerk and everyone knew it. But in business and sports, lies are growing darker. They aren't lies to ingratiate, but lies to inflate, self-inflate. Sports are, of course, major businesses, with basketball, baseball, football, and even figure skating their own mini-industries. Maybe it's the money, or... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/personal-finance/something-similar-to-dot-coms/11302/ Tue, 29 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST "Buy it. Sell it. Repeat it. Get rich." This was AOL's personal finance pitch, posted on its opening page last Sunday, alternating with pictures of Easter bunnies and news about the Terri Schiavo case. The expanded story promised to tell readers "how buying and quickly selling is proving profitable." Any good contrarian would take this advice to mean: Stay away from real estate. Indeed, Robert J. Shiller, the Yale economist who correctly called the dot-com debacle, has added a chapter that... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/personal-finance/rights-of-spring/10945/ Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST This week and next hundreds of thousands of college students are heading for the beaches and slopes in an annual migration known as "Spring Break." Daytona Beach, which has muscled out Fort Lauderdale as the capital of frat and fratette hi-jinks (the Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce was only too happy to cede that distinction) is expecting some 300,000 visitors over the next two weeks. Meanwhile, sunspots south of the border are getting even hotter. Cancun is making room for an influx of... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/personal-finance/separating-church-and-state/10603/ Tue, 15 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Michael Corleone, in the third part of the American epic "The Godfather," says it best - "Friendship and money: Oil and water." Corleone, who had learned a thing or two from his dad about money and friends, not to mention money and family, was speaking to the Archbishop. The corrupt clergyman, now wearing a new hat as head of the Vatican Bank, was trying to drum up some business with his old friend from New York. But the newly minted Don was not about to mix money with friendship. If only the... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/dollars-cents-and-psychology-of-reality-tv/10239/ Tue, 8 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Last Saturday, as Martha Stewart was enjoying her last evening without her court-mandated ankle bracelet, CBS aired a two-hour season finale of "Wickedly Perfect," the reality TV show that pits perfectionist contestants against each other in a battle of obsessive-compulsive domesticity. Now that Ms. Stewart is prepping her own reality TV series, who needs stand-ins? Ms. Stewart's spin-off off from Donald Trump's hit "The Apprentice" is not the only new show on the docket, sorry, schedule. PoweR... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/can-money-buy-happiness-enough-of-it/9802/ Mon, 28 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST Did former gym teacher Bernard Ebbers need the $408 million he borrowed from WorldCom to improve his performance as chief executive officer of the telecom company? Did the $242 million in houses, art, and tchotskes make Dennis Koslowski work harder for the shareholders of Tyco? How did the board of the New York Stock Exchange figure out that it had overpaid former Chairman Dick Grasso by $144 million to $156 million - rather than, say, $50 million or $200 million? For that matter, would Reuben... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/bonnie-prince-charlie-takes-the-veil/9553/ Tue, 22 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST Apparently, the Queen has seized command of the royal wedding. The British press, which analyses each clench of every royal jaw, reports that Queen Elizabeth is setting the menu as well as arranging the seating of the wedding banquet to be held in April. According to Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of London's the Sun newspaper, she is even putting Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in different wings of Windsor Castle the night before the denouement of the couple's long affair. Well... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/sense-of-entitlement/9181/ Mon, 14 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST "I love money," leers Larry the Liquidator, the avaricious corporate raider played by Danny DeVito, in the 1991 cult classic "Other People's Money." The movie came to mind this week after reading about the report released by the New York Stock Exchange concerning former Chairman Richard Grasso's compensation. The numbers in the report read like a Valentine Mr. Grasso sent to himself. Mr. Grasso received almost $200 million during his eight-year tenure at the helm of the New York Stock Exchange... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/new-generation-takes-over/8823/ Mon, 7 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST Kim Jong II announced recently that he plans to pass leadership of North Korea to one of his three sons - which one he has not yet said. Coincidentally, just a couple of days before the radio broadcast outlining the communist dictator's plans for succession, another dynasty, the royal family of Napa wine, the Mondavi brothers, healed a breach that split the family apart 50 years ago. Neither Robert Mondavi, 92, nor Peter, 90, proffered an olive branch precisely, but close enough. The two will... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/and-now-domestic-outsourcing/8485/ Mon, 31 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST This week, McDonald's announced that worldwide growth at restaurants open at least 13 months was at is highest level in 17 years. Sales in these stores swelled a whopping 5.1 % in the last quarter. Obviously, the success of the indie documentary "Super Size Me" - just nominated for an Academy Award - chronicling filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's month-long anti-diet of McDonald's offerings didn't dull the world's appetite for fries and burgers. But this week the fast-food giant also set aside new... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/business/of-king-lear-and-donald-trump/8140/ Mon, 24 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST A couple of weeks ago 10 former directors of Enron reached into their own pockets and drew out $13 million as a gesture of goodwill to irate shareholders. A couple of days before that, in the first week of the New Year, ten former WorldCom directors offered $18 million a collective monetary mea culpa. Martha Stewart spent Christmas in the cooler rather than behind a hot stove. Last November, the presidential election was determined by a concern for values, or so the exit polls were interpreted... ELIZABETH BAILEY http://www.nysun.com/parenting/tricky-combination-family-finance/1965/ Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Like a fortuneteller, Judith Stern Peck spreads several cards in front of her. But instead of Tarot symbols, these cards bear inscriptions such as "Philanthropic Values," "Work Values," and "Educational Values." Ms. Peck, a therapist and force behind New York's Ackerman Institute for the Family's project on families and money, uses the cards to help her clients clarify what money means to them. The Ackerman Institute, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1960 and housed in a brownstone on...