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Are High-Priced Managers Worth It? Some stock pickers get paid a lot more than others. Here’s how to decide if they are right for you

March 1, 2013, 10:47 a.m. ET

FUNDAMENTALS OF INVESTING

Are High-Priced Managers Worth It?

Some stock pickers get paid a lot more than others. Here’s how to decide if they are right for you.

By CORRIE DRIEBUSCH

Investors know they have to pay higher fees for actively managed mutual funds than for index funds.

But those portfolio-management fees vary greatly from fund to fund, and investors often wonder if they will get enough bang from a costlier fund to justify the bigger buck.

Consider, for instance, the 100 largest actively run U.S.-stock mutual funds. The average portfolio-management fee—which is typically the largest component of a fund’s overall expense ratio—is 0.58% of assets a year, according to Morningstar Inc. MORN +0.28% But five of the funds charge an even 1%: Yacktman Focused, Fairholme, Sequoia, Baron Growth andJPMorgan U.S. Large Cap Core Plus .

Is a higher-paid manager worth it? Financial advisers and fund analysts consider things such as a fund’s track record, management style and total costs when making the decision. Read more of this post

In teachers they trust: Every Finnish school is a good school, because every teacher is highly-trained and qualified. In a two-part special report, we look at the secrets of Finland’s education model.

In teachers they trust

Every Finnish school is a good school, because every teacher is highly-trained and qualified. In a two-part special report, we look at the secrets of Finland’s education model.

Asked how he assesses his teachers, Mr Matti Koivusalo shrugs matter-of-factly that he has “no means” to do so. “There is no evaluation whatsoever for teachers. Everything is based on trust,” says the Principal of Haaga Comprehensive School in Helsinki.

Asked how he assesses his teachers, Mr Matti Koivusalo shrugs matter-of-factly that he has “no means” to do so. “There is no evaluation whatsoever for teachers. Everything is based on trust,” says the Principal of Haaga Comprehensive School in Helsinki.

Indeed, the “open” school culture means any feedback quickly reaches his ears, says Mr Koivusalo, who looks after 50 teachers and 600 pupils in grades one through nine (the equivalent of Primary 1 to Secondary 3 in Singapore).

It is easy to see how: Along the school’s hallway, pupils look up from their mobile phones and greet him as he walks past; some engage him in friendly banter. At the school cafeteria where free lunches are served daily — an established practice at all Finnish schools — teachers join him for lunch and chat about how their day has gone.

Said Mr Koivusalo: “If something bad happens, I’ll hear about it in five minutes … The atmosphere is such that (students and teachers) can come and talk about it freely without being afraid.”

Even so, sackings are rare in Finnish schools, say educators. Mr Vesa Valkila, one of the principals at Turku University teacher training school, tried to explain: “Finnish teachers have a lot of freedom and are trusted … that really motivates a lot of them to do their best.” Read more of this post

Frogs Leap from Indonesian Swamps to Tabletops in France; “God will protect us and be fair to us, and make sure there are always frogs”

Frogs Leap from Indonesian Swamps to Tabletops in France
March 03, 2013

Bogor, West Java. The Indonesian frog vendor closes her eyes, asks Allah for his blessing, and with one swift strike of a cleaver, beheads the trembling creature.

Though diners in white table-clothed French brasseries may not know it, their frogs legs most likely come from the murky swamps of tropical Indonesia, caught by hunters in the dead of the night to be slaughtered and sold at local markets.

As mechanically as a factory worker, Sri Mulyani rips off the frog’s skin, pulls out its innards with her bare hands and flings the amphibian onto a mountain of others that have suffered the same fate.

“If I feel disgusted and sick of frogs, I just think about the money,” the smiling 41-year-old told AFP at an early-morning market in Bogor, on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta.

Mulyani and her frog-hunter husband, Suwanto, 48, make up to Rp 500,000 ($52) a day – well above the local minimum wage of around $200 a month – chasing and selling frogs to restaurants or middlemen for export. Read more of this post

The No-Limits Job; for 20-somethings in creative fields, the work — often unpaid — never seems to end. Nor do the days

March 1, 2013

The No-Limits Job

By TEDDY WAYNE

Every generation has its own anthem of making the journey from youthful naïveté to adult reality, whether it’s Neil Young’s “Old Man,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or most recently, perhaps, the Taylor Swift song “22.”

“Tonight’s the night when we forget about the deadlines,” it goes. “It feels like one of those nights, we won’t be sleeping.”

If only it were as easy for Ms. Swift’s less affluent contemporaries to blow off their deadlines as it is for the singer-songwriter (now a slightly more seasoned 23). Sleepless nights are more likely because they are on the clock, not at the club.

“If I’m not at the office, I’m always on my BlackBerry,” said Casey McIntyre, 28, a book publicist in New York. “I never feel like I’m totally checked out of work.”

Ms. McIntyre is just one 20-something — a population historically exploitable as cheap labor — learning that long hours and low pay go hand in hand in the creative class. The recession has been no friend to entry-level positions, where hundreds of applicants vie for unpaid internships at which they are expected to be on call with iPhone in hand, tweeting for and representing their company at all hours.

“We need to hire a 22-22-22,” one new-media manager was overheard saying recently, meaning a 22-year-old willing to work 22-hour days for $22,000 a year. Read more of this post

Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy

Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy[Hardcover]

Emily Bazelon (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 19, 2013

Being a teenager has never been easy, but in recent years, with the rise of the Internet and social media, it has become exponentially more challenging. Bullying, once thought of as the province of queen bees and goons, has taken on new, complex, and insidious forms, as parents and educators know all too well. No writer is better poised to explore this territory than Emily Bazelon, who has established herself as a leading voice on the social and legal aspects of teenage drama. In Sticks and Stones, she brings readers on a deeply researched, clear-eyed journey into the ever-shifting landscape of teenage meanness and its sometimes devastating consequences. The result is an indispensable book that takes us from school cafeterias to courtrooms to the offices of Facebook, the website where so much teenage life, good and bad, now unfolds. Along the way, Bazelon defines what bullying is and, just as important, what it is not. She explores when intervention is essential and when kids should be given the freedom to fend for themselves. She also dispels persistent myths: that girls bully more than boys, that online and in-person bullying are entirely distinct, that bullying is a common cause of suicide, and that harsh criminal penalties are an effective deterrent. Above all, she believes that to deal with the problem, we must first understand it. Blending keen journalistic and narrative skills, Bazelon explores different facets of bullying through the stories of three young people who found themselves caught in the thick of it. Thirteen-year-old Monique endured months of harassment and exclusion before her mother finally pulled her out of school. Jacob was threatened and physically attacked over his sexuality in eighth grade—and then sued to protect himself and change the culture of his school. Flannery was one of six teens who faced criminal charges after a fellow student’s suicide was blamed on bullying and made international headlines. With grace and authority, Bazelon chronicles how these kids’ predicaments escalated, to no one’s benefit, into community-wide wars. Cutting through the noise, misinformation, and sensationalism, she takes us into schools that have succeeded in reducing bullying and examines their successful strategies. The result is a groundbreaking book that will help parents, educators, and teens themselves better understand what kids are going through today and what can be done to help them through it. Read more of this post

Boy, 6, writes book to save friend’s life

Boy, 6, writes book to save friend’s life

Saturday, Mar 02, 2013
The New Paper

They are the best of friends in primary school.

So when his chum needed help, Dylan Siegel jumped in.

At six, Dylan has produced a 16-page book called Chocolate Bar, a handwritten and illustrated story.

More than two months after putting his book on the market, he has managed to raise more than US$30,000 (S$37,150) from events, sales and donations made through Facebook and online.

The book uses the term chocolate bar as a synonym for awesome.

He came up with his book because his good friend Jonah Pournazarian, seven, suffers from a rare liver disorder with no known cure, the Daily Mail reported. Jonah often eats through a tube, sometimes corn starch or chicken soup with vegetables. Read more of this post

It’s a Dog’s Life for Singapore’s Pampered Pets; “A lot of people wouldn’t bat an eyelid on spending several thousand dollars on a dog. The litmus test is whether the dog stays with them for the rest of its life or not,”

It’s a Dog’s Life for Singapore’s Pampered Pets
March 01, 2013

The guests lean over the side of the boat to catch the morning breeze as their catamaran eases off from a jetty in Singapore. A typical cruise, except for the fact that the passengers are dogs. “Actually, this is their third cruise,” said Andy Pe, 43, the doting owner of two Black Labrador Retrievers, a Yellow Labrador, a Golden Retriever and two mongrels. “They enjoy the sea breeze and water so much.” From boat cruises and spas to their own obituary section in the leading newspaper, pets are pampered in a big way in Singapore, a city-state with one of Asia’s highest standards of living. Read more of this post

The Tyranny of the Queen Bee: Women who reached positions of power were supposed to be mentors to those who followed, writes Peggy Drexler—but something is amiss in the professional sisterhood

March 1, 2013, 3:17 p.m. ET

The Tyranny of the Queen Bee

Women who reached positions of power were supposed to be mentors to those who followed—but something is amiss in the professional sisterhood.

By PEGGY DREXLER Read more of this post