A Lifetime of Photos on a Single Disc
New Services Cheaply, Quickly Digitize Troves of Snapshots; Throwing Away the Shoebox
By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY
WSJ, January 31, 2007
When his father died in 2005, Dale Pelletier, a vice president of the Allianz SE insurance company in Chicago, inherited boxes of black-and-white photos and a sense of obligation to make copies for his four siblings. But after a few evenings spent scanning them into his computer, he gave up because "it was a lot of work and a lot of time."
Then last year he learned about an online mail-order service called ShoeboxReprints.com in Irvine, Calif., that would scan as many as 1,000 photos for $49.95 and send back the images on a CD. Mr. Pelletier used the service, and then used the images to create a book of his father's life using mypublisher.com, an online photo-book company.
Since then, he has used the scanning service to digitize all of his mother's old pictures as well as the pictures he took before he switched to digital cameras five years ago. "I've had 3,000 photos scanned. Everything is in iPhoto in my Mac, and now the fun begins," he says. He used some of them to make a book and a slide show for his daughter's 16th birthday party.
An increasing number of photo-service stores are starting to offer quick and economical scanning services for shutterbugs, many of whom have thousands of snapshots "archived" in shoeboxes and plastic crates in attics and closets.
The scanned images may not be sharp enough to blow up into much bigger prints. And the images are stored as numbered files on the CD, so you have to open the image to know what the picture is. But, once the pictures are digitized on a CD or DVD, it is easy to make more copies or store and label them on a computer hard drive.
"I'm just glad there's a service like this," says Jo Ann Cotton, a head-start teacher, who had 454 pictures scanned at Blosser's Camera & Portrait Studio in Warsaw, Ind. Ms. Cotton's son in Pittsburgh, who is getting married in May, had asked her to send him childhood pictures for a presentation he was preparing. "But we only had one copy of each photo, and I didn't like sending them through the mail in case they got lost or damaged," she says.
Flatbed scanners costing less than $100 can make high-quality copies, but most users quickly tire of lifting up the top cover, placing a photo on the glass, pushing the "scan" button and waiting for the image to be transferred to the computer. Some photo stores charge $1 a print or more for the service.
A rising number of photo-store owners and online businesses now use high-speed document scanners with automatic feeders that can handle scores of photos, letting them charge less. Xerox Corp., Canon Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. all market scanners in the $1,000 range that can handle 25 to 50 images a minute.
One of the most popular scanners among photo stores is Eastman Kodak Co.'s i1220 model, which can handle 25 pictures at a time, from wallet-size to 8-by-10 inches, and is less prone to jamming. The scanner has a list price of $1,199 but sells online for less than $900.
When a Kodak salesman demonstrated the device at a convention of photo-store owners last fall, he got orders for 150 machines within hours, says Brent Bowyer, president of Independent Photo Imagers, a trade association and buying group in Charleston, W.Va.
For photo stores, many of which were hurt by consumers' shift to digital photography and the resulting decline in sales of film and photo printing, scanning services are a promising new opportunity. In addition to scanning, the stores can charge extra for premium services like editing scanned pictures to eliminate defects like "red eye."
Tom Skaggs, who owns Blosser's and bought the Kodak device in November, says the scanning service has "brought in a lot of business." He advertised it on the radio before Christmas and says he can turn a profit even at his low introductory price of $49.99 for 500 photos.
Chris Lydle, owner of Chris's Camera Center in Aiken, S.C., installed a system before Christmas and charges $59.99 to scan 500 images. He says "it's more labor intensive than we thought," and he may raise prices. Still, he says, it can bring additional business. "Our fond hope is once they scan them, they'll have duplicates made for siblings and then people will make pictures" in the store.
Kodak's document-imaging unit hadn't even considered the old-photo problem when it developed the scanner. Lois Powell, Kodak's manager for document imaging, says her division is descended from the company's old microfiche business and markets to big companies that need to make digital copies of paper documents like insurance forms and checks.
Kodak is still assessing the market. Among other possibilities is a self-service bulk-scanning kiosk where consumers could load their own pictures. Kodak's chief executive, Antonio Perez, says the company is developing software that can sort and label scanned photos by the date they were taken and possibly group together multiple images of a person.
Ms. Powell says rapidly scanned images are fine for printing snapshots, but if someone anticipates printing a larger-size picture, they should scan the picture on a flat-bed scanner with higher resolution. Auto-feed scanners also can't handle photos mounted on cardboard or color Polaroid pictures, which are too thick.
She says Kodak was alerted to the potential of the market by Mitch Goldstone, president of 30 Minute Photos Etc., the Irvine, Calif., photo retailer who started ShoeboxReprints.com. Mr. Goldstone, a long-time photo-processor, saw the scanner two years ago and began urging Kodak to adapt it for photo-service shops.
Mr. Goldstone bought a high-speed Kodak scanner that costs more than $40,000 and can automatically handle thousands of pictures at a time. He recently changed the name of his Web site to ScanMyPhotos.com and is marketing a new $99.95 service that will send consumers a postage-paid box that they can stuff with as many as 2,000 photos to be scanned to a DVD.
His biggest order was for 19,000 photos that he put on eight DVDs. Scrolling through a DVD with that many pictures to find a particular wedding or trip can be challenging because images are labeled with four-digit numbers. Mr. Goldstone suggests that since the scanners handle all kinds of documents, customers can put index cards in the box of photos describing each group of photos. When viewing thumbnail images on a computer screen, that makes it easy to see where one group ends and the next begins. He also sells proof books with 25 images on each page for $2.49 a page.
Mark Susson, a personal-injury lawyer in Newport Beach, Calif., who had used 30 Minute Photos to make pictures for trials, says he has brought in 8,000 pictures to be scanned. While flying to Chicago for a friend's funeral last year, he used the iMovie program on his Apple Macintosh to create a slide show with music. He says the pictures were flashed on a big screen during the church service and "the movie has been copied dozens of times for her relatives."
Theresa Gavagan, a residential developer in Anaheim, Calif., says when she heard about the store's scanning service, she brought in 6,250 photos in a plastic crate. "The purpose was to give copies of all of them to my ex-husband," she says. "We're still on great terms. Rather than divide them up, we agreed to duplicate everything."
Britain's Angry Wives Target Bonuses in Divorce Cases
Bloomberg, 2007-01-25
By Caroline Byrne
London bankers are celebrating a record 8.8 billion pound ($17.4 billion) year-end bonus pool. Thanks to a court ruling on future bonuses, spouses and their divorce lawyers may have the last laugh.
The judgment involving an antique dealer and his wife may let ex-wives claim a portion of payouts awarded long after a breakup, burnishing London's reputation as a top venue for big-money divorce settlements. Legal experts say that a divorce hearing now before the High Court cites the case, Rossi v. Rossi, as a precedent for a bonus claim.
The climate is so favorable to ex-wives that divorce lawyer Jeremy Levison advises bankers and hedge fund executives to avoid the altar altogether. Pre-nuptial agreements offer little protection because U.K. judges aren't bound to follow them.
``Don't get married,'' said Levison, a partner at London- based family law firm Levison Meltzer Pigott. ``If you must, make sure your other half is as rich as you are.''
Levison represented Kenneth McFarlane, a Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu partner at the center of one of two landmark House of Lords judgments that sent chills through trading floors in May.
Britain's highest court ordered McFarlane to pay his ex-wife 250,000 pounds a year for life after the breakup of their 16-year marriage. A lower court had limited maintenance payments to five years. Julia McFarlane's lawyers argued for a greater sum in recognition of her role in raising the couple's children and other domestic contributions.
Separately, the court ordered Alan Miller, then a hedge-fund manager at London's New Star Asset Management Ltd., to pay 5 million pounds to Melissa Miller after a childless marriage of less than three years.
Equal Contributions
The recent cases strengthen the ability of wives to claim a share of the riches earned by their spouses.
``There is no difference between a working wife and a non- working wife,'' said Sandra Davis, head of the family law practice at Mishcon de Reya, the London-based firm representing Heather Mills McCartney in her divorce case against ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. ``Contributions are now recognized as equal.''
The Rossi case took the law one step further, said James Pirrie, a lawyer at London-based Family Law in Partnership.
``In the past, I could only have a share of your bonus if I could show I needed it,'' said Pirrie, who represented Julia McFarlane. ``Whereas now I am treated as being entitled to a share in it just because of the marriage partnership, even though the marriage had ended a year before the bonus was paid.''
Future Assets
The Rossi case, decided in June, classified bonuses earned ``at least'' 12 months after separation as marital assets. That language leaves it open for wives to claim half of future bonuses, Pirrie said.
``Bankers would argue that all bonuses received after the separation should be excluded,'' Pirrie said. ``But the judges are showing an inclination to include bonuses received a year or more later as part of matrimonial property to be divided -- often equally.'' The English courts have handed ex-wives headline-grabbing settlements over the past year.
The ex-wife of insurance executive John Charman won a record 48 million pound award in August after the end of a 29-year marriage. Charman, chief executive officer of Axis Capital Holdings Ltd., is appealing the decision. The ex-wife of WPP Group Plc founder Martin Sorrell was awarded 30 million pounds in 2005.
Details of High Court family cases can't be reported until judgments are published or appealed, and lawyers say it could be weeks or months before the precedent is applied in English divorce cases.
Lawyers have different views on how the Rossi judgment will affect divorce settlements.
`Contentious'
``Future income is a very contentious issue which hasn't really been addressed by the recent run of cases,'' said Emma Hatley, a family law partner at London-based Withers LLP, the firm that represented Melissa Miller. ``The state of our law at the moment is that it is the most generous jurisdiction for wives, and in some respects it has gone too far.''
The recent U.K. rulings have implications for Americans working in Britain. New York law makes it easier for bankers to argue that bonuses should be excluded from settlements, said Robert Stephan Cohen, a partner at New York-based Cohen Lans LLP.
``If you can argue Goldman Sachs had a terrible first six months based on the reporting it has done, and the action is started at the end of June, then you can possibly keep the bonus, or 6/12ths of it, out of the divorce,'' Cohen said.
`Fingers Crossed'
While pre-nuptial agreements aren't binding in the U.K., they are gaining significance, Davis said. A court of appeal in London ruled Jan. 18 that the rabbinical court in Israel must hear the divorce case of an Israeli couple with assets in the U.K., because of the provisions of a pre-nuptial agreement.
One thing the lawyers do agree on: U.K. divorce law is evolving so rapidly that arguments over future compensation will ensnare the courts for years.
``It is so haphazard at the moment, there is really no correct answer,'' Levison said. ``If all else fails, sign a pre- nuptial agreement and keep your fingers crossed.''
The lawsuit is Rossi v. Rossi and Rossi, No. FD 92D08228 & FD05F00254, High Court, Family Division (London).
Wall Street's Ride, Lincoln Town Car, Faces Demise
Bloomberg, 2006-09-13
By Greg Bensinger
The Lincoln Town Cars that chauffeur New York investment bankers home at the end of the day soon may be part of Wall Street history.
Ford Motor Co. plans to close the Wixom, Michigan, plant that makes the sedan and hasn't committed to production beyond the 2007 model year. Ford's Mercury Grand Marquis or DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler 300 may be called upon to take the Lincoln's place.
The Town Car, which makes up more than 80 percent of New York's 35,000 for-hire fleet, is the ``black car'' of choice in every major U.S. market, said Neil Weiss, editor of industry magazine Black Car News. Without it, life wouldn't be the same for thousands of bankers and executives who have been stretching out in the back seat since 1980, usually at company expense.
Investor Warren Buffett is already giving up the ride. Yesterday, he offered his 2001 Town Car in a charity auction.
``It's spacious, the leather seats are nice, and it's just a nice ride,'' Alex Weiss, an investment banking analyst for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., said of the fleet models. Weiss, who uses a car service three or four times a month, estimated his five-minute ride costs Lehman $18, compared with $6 for a taxi.
The Town Car has a manufacturer's suggested retail price starting at more than $40,000. The biggest model is the largest American sedan, at 18 feet, 5 inches (5.6 meters). That's more than a foot longer than the $140,000 Mercedes-Benz S600, based on figures from Ford and DaimlerChrysler's Web sites.
Riders ``feel like kings in the back of these things,'' said Dean Hameed, 36, who has driven Town Cars for 10 years.
Wall Street Waits
On a recent evening, Hameed's Town Car was one of 40 lined up outside Deutsche Bank AG on Wall Street. A mile away, 30 Town Cars waited on Greenwich Street in Tribeca for workers headed home from Citigroup Inc. just before midnight.
The vehicle is so much a part of Wall Street culture, the local community board demanded that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. adopt a ``black-car management plan'' for the $2.4 billion headquarters it's building in lower Manhattan. The investment bank agreed that black cars for employees working after 9 p.m. will be summoned from an adjacent garage, spokeswoman Andrea Raphael said.
Town Cars often are used as a messenger service, said Maria Yuan, 25, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. investment banker.
``When one of our bosses or clients needed a package delivered to their house in Connecticut or Westchester, we'd just throw it in the back seat of one,'' she said.
Holiday Antics
Sometimes the car's comfort and spaciousness are put to the test.
``Christmastime, you get many, many drunk bankers,'' said driver Andy Koksal, 32, parked near Citigroup's offices on Park Avenue. Last December, he had to plead with a female passenger to limit her back-seat activities with a client because the windows were becoming too fogged.
``This is a very embarrassing situation,'' Koksal said. ``But you want to drive safely.''
Ford hasn't disclosed any decision on making the Town Car after the 2007 models, spokesman Jim Cain said.
Factory Closings
Shuttering the Wixom plant is part of a plan announced in January by William Clay Ford Jr., great-grandson of the company's founder, to close 14 North American factories and cut 30,000 jobs by 2012. The company's board is to meet tomorrow to consider additional restructuring steps.
Boeing Co.'s Alan Mulally was named Sept. 1 to replace Ford as chief executive officer. Ford, who held the position for almost five years, remains chairman. The Dearborn, Michigan- based company, the second-biggest U.S. automaker, had a first- half loss of $1.44 billion.
Ford shares rose 13 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $9.19 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have gained 19 percent this year. The automaker's 7.45 percent note due July 2031 fell less than a cent to 79.75 cents on the dollar, yielding 9.6 percent, according to Trace, the NASD's bond-price reporting service.
Town Car sales slowed to about 47,000 in 2005 from 149,000 in 1990, according to Autodata Corp. This year's sales through August fell 17 percent. Sales are split about evenly between retail and fleet customers, Ford spokesman Alan Hall said.
``If they put $200 million into a redesign, I think they could revive sales quickly,'' said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
New Car for Buffett
Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., put his personal gold Town Car on the block -- including the license plate that says ``Thrifty'' -- in a benefit for Girls Inc., a New York-based non-profit educational group.
Bidding on EBay Inc.'s Web site runs through Sept. 22 and starts at $25,000 for the car, which has been driven less than 14,000 miles. Buffett replaced it earlier this year with a Cadillac, made by General Motors Corp.
The Chrysler 300 or the Grand Marquis is the Town Car's likely successor in black-car fleets, said John Wolkonowicz, senior auto analyst for Global Insight Inc., an economic forecasting firm in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Like the Town Car, both have long wheelbases and rear-wheel drive, making them roomy and better equipped to handle all-day driving, potholes and stop-and-go traffic, Wolkonowicz said. The Chrysler 300 is 16 feet, 5 inches, while the Grand Marquis is 17 feet, 7 inches.
Cadillac Contender?
The 16-foot, 4-inch Cadillac STS rear-wheel drive sedan is a less likely replacement, said Jesse Toprak, market forecasting director for vehicle-comparison Web site Edmunds.com.
That's because the STS has a retail price starting at almost $43,000 and a reputation as being less reliable, Toprak said. ``Pricing is the number one thing,'' he said. ``A few thousand dollars per car can make a big difference when you're buying this in quantity.''
David Yahodah, general manager of Queens-based City Ride Transportation, said he can't imagine what could replace his fleet of 180 Town Cars.
``You can put maybe 400,000 miles on a Town Car, no problem,'' Yahodah said.
In Brooklyn, Lincoln Auto Mall sells only used Town Cars, for as much as $31,000.
``We'll be able to sell Town Cars for a few years if there's no new ones,'' said general manager David Khoen, who estimates that he sells about 200 of the vehicles annually.
``We haven't crossed that bridge yet,'' he said. ``Maybe we'll change our name to Chrysler Auto Mall.''
Hollywood Stuntwoman May Face Toughest Trick: Beating Computer
Bloomberg, 2006-10-02
By Michael White
Perched atop a crane on the Warner Bros. set of Eddie Murphy's latest comedy, stuntwoman Sandra Gimpel takes a deep breath, leans backward and hurls herself 12 feet (3.7 meters) into a bed of plastic flowers. Landing with a thud, she gets up and does it again.
At age 67, Gimpel is a rarity in a field dominated by men. Over a career spanning 39 years that began on the old ``Lost in Space'' television show, she has performed stunts for actresses including Debbie Reynolds, Drew Barrymore and Sally Field. In all those years of being set on fire and jumping out of buildings, she's only broken two ribs.
Now, she and her colleagues in the California-based stunt business face a bigger threat than broken bones: computers. The digital effects that allow filmmakers to manufacture daring feats that humans can't perform may start seeping into the ones they can.
``There are a lot of guys who would say it's all over as the technology gets better and better and the cost comes down,'' said Steve Kelso, president of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, a trade group based in Toluca Lake, California, that help members find jobs. ``There's also a percentage of people who are thinking that the public might not want a synthetic movie.''
About 10,000 people are registered as stunt performers with the Screen Actors Guild, according to spokesman Seth Oster. Only about 1,500 of them regularly perform dangerous stunts, said Kelso.
Neither organization tracks whether jobs have been lost to computers. Yet some in the business cite anecdotal evidence.
Explosive Leaps
Stunt performers recently lost work to digital effects on the upcoming ``Evan Almighty,'' a sequel to Universal Pictures' hit 2003 film ``Bruce Almighty,'' said stunt coordinator Mickey Gilbert.
The script calls for an explosion that blasts actors through the windows of a house. Previously, stuntmen would have jumped out the windows at the moment of a real explosion. With digital effects, Gilbert only had to blow up the house. Actors, filmed separately leaping over a camera, were digitally inserted into the scene.
The trend is also reflected in such effects as crowd scenes for horror and war movies, where a handful of live human beings can be digitally multiplied.
Digital effects aren't necessarily cheaper, said Tim Sarnoff, president of Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc., which created scenes for the first two ``Spider-Man'' movies. They enable characters to perform feats that are either too dangerous, or simply impossible, for a human.
Digital Spider-Man
Sony opted to use a digital Spider-Man for scenes in which the superhero swings above city streets after an experiment with a camera tracking the first-person view went awry.
The camera, attached to a New York building, veered sideways and slammed into a parked truck, Sarnoff said.
``It's impossible to have a stunt performer swing through New York like Spider-Man,'' Sarnoff said ``No human can physically swing like Spider-Man swings.''
Gilbert, 70, who jumped off a 120-foot cliff into a fast- moving river while doubling for Robert Redford in ``Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,'' hired Gimpel for her most lucrative job. For 2001's ``Rat Race,'' he asked her to tumble down 60 steps. Gimpel had to repeat the fall several times, forward and backward, before the director got the shot he wanted. Gilbert paid her $7,000, she said.
Age an Advantage
Typically, stunt work isn't so lucrative. Base pay is $717 for an eight-hour day, plus some residuals from TV replays and DVD sales.
Gimpel has stayed in the picture thanks to scripts that call for older female characters. Directors prefer the real thing to younger performers who must be aged by computers and makeup, she said.
``They like you to be a little bit older because with younger women, it's hard to make them look old,'' said Gimpel, who stands 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall and weighs 108 pounds (49 kilograms).
On the set of the forthcoming Murphy film, ``Norbit,'' producer John Davis pronounced Gimpel to be in ``amazing'' shape even while whispering, as he watched her prepare to fall: ``She could break her hip.''
Gimpel, who has a fourth-degree black belt in tae kwon do, recently took falls in Warner Bros.' ``The Visiting,'' scheduled for release next year, and the CBS television show ``Ghost Whisperer.''
``She has a lot of natural talent, like a gymnast,'' said Gilbert. ``She's getting a little age on her, as we all do, but she still does the job.''
`Clambake'
Gimpel started out as a dancer in films including the 1967 Elvis Presley musical ``Clambake.'' She broke into stunt work after auditioning as a stand-in for ``Lost in Space.''
Other than minor bumps and bruises, Gimpel has been hurt only once. Doubling for the diminutive Helen Hunt in a 1982 television movie, ``Desperate Lives,'' she dived out a fourth- story window and became entangled in a Venetian blind. She landed at an awkward angle, breaking two ribs.
Before she could get up, the director asked her to do it again. Gimpel said she did.
``Nobody knew I was injured, and as long as I did it right away I knew I could, because it didn't hurt yet,'' she said. ``And guess which shot they used in the picture? The first one.''
Bono, Preacher on Poverty, Tarnishes Halo With Irish Tax Move
Bloomberg, Oct 16 2006
By Fergal O'Brien
Bono, the rock star and campaigner against Third World debt, is asking the Irish government to contribute more to Africa. At the same time, he's reducing tax payments that could help fund that aid.
After Ireland said it would scrap a break that lets musicians and artists avoid paying taxes on royalties, Bono and his U2 bandmates earlier this year moved their music publishing company to the Netherlands. The Dublin group, which Forbes estimates earned $110 million in 2005, will pay about 5 percent tax on their royalties, less than half the Irish rate.
``Among the wealthiest people I suppose it's the norm,'' Jill Cassidy, 23, said on South King Street near a plaque marking the site of Dublin's Dandelion market, where U2 played some of its earliest concerts. ``In U2's position, it does come across as quite hypocritical.''
The tax move has tainted the image of Bono, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and U2 at home. Now promoting a new DVD, book and album, the band is fighting back. Lead guitarist David Evans, known as The Edge, earlier this month defended the publishing company's move as a sensible decision for a group that makes 90 percent of its money outside Ireland.
``Our business is a very complex business,'' Evans said Oct. 2 on Dublin radio station Newstalk, breaking the band's silence after weeks of public criticism. ``Of course we're trying to be tax-efficient. Who doesn't want to be tax-efficient?''
As residents of Ireland, members of U2 remain liable for personal income taxes. Any Irish-based companies they control will pay taxes on their profits.
`Poor Example'
Principle Management, U2's management company, declined to comment when Bloomberg asked for a statement from Bono.
Dublin-born Bono has been mentioned as a candidate for Nobel Peace Prize since 2003. The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Oct. 13 awarded the 2006 prize to Bangladeshi banker Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for advancing social and economic development by giving loans to the poor.
Bono, 46, has toured Africa, established the pressure group Debt AIDS Trade Africa and become one of the most vocal supporters of the Make Poverty History campaign. In July 2005, he helped persuade world leaders to double aid for Africa to $50 billion a year by 2010 and erase the debt of the 18 poorest countries on the continent.
``I can see no connection between what he is doing and Make Poverty History,'' said Richard Murphy, a director at U.K.-based Tax Research Ltd. and author of a book called ``Money Matters: Artist's Financial Guide.'' ``He is setting a poor example by his tax affairs.''
`Creative' Income
At a concert last year in Croke Park, Dublin's biggest stadium, Bono appealed to Prime Minister Bertie Ahern to raise overseas aid to 0.7 percent of gross national product by 2007 from 0.5 percent now. The crowd responded by booing Ahern.
The political catcalls have now turned on Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson.
``It seems odd, in a situation where they enjoy an already favorable tax regime, they would move operations to the Netherlands to get an even more favorable rate,'' said Joan Burton, finance spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party.
For years, Bono and U2 got a better deal than most Irish taxpayers because songwriters paid no tax on earnings from music publishing. That will change next year, when Ireland limits the tax exemption, which also applies to writers and artists. From Jan. 1, artists that make more than 500,000 euros ($625,450) will pay tax on half their ``creative'' income, according to Ireland's Revenue Authority.
Remaining in Ireland would have forced Bono to pay a 42 percent tax on such earnings. Alternatively, the band could have channeled profits through a company to pay the 12.5 percent corporation tax.
Millennium Goals
Wealthy individuals have put about $11.5 trillion in tax havens around the world, according to a 2005 paper by the London- based Tax Justice Network. Unpaid taxes on those assets could amount to $255 billion, the paper said.
``That's five times the amount needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which Bono says he's really interested in,'' Murphy said, referring to a United Nations plan to eradicate poverty and combat the spread of AIDS. ``My answer is, put your money where your mouth is.''
Some fans accept the band's explanation of its tax planning because U2 has been generous in the past. ``They've paid plenty of money up to now,'' said Peter Cooper, 58, who lives in Bray, near Bono's home in Dalkey. ``I think they are quite right'' to move the company abroad.
Paul McGuinness, the band's manager, said in the Oct. 4 issue of the music magazine Hot Press that Ireland itself had benefited from low taxes. The country's 12.5 percent profit tax - - half the European Union average -- has helped Ireland lure investment from companies such as Intel Corp. and Dell Inc.
That reasoning has done little to help Bono ease criticism of the tax move.
``I don't think it's justified,'' said Sean Lynch, a 28- year-old artist. ``Social conscience is the thing I would like to address to them.''
The 100B members of SEBS finished their A-levels from Budhanilkantha School in 1990. Sixteen years later, if there is anything common to most people from the class, then it is that they are married and are well-established in their respective fields.
While many of them have chosen to move out of Nepal, there are quite a few of them still in Nepal. 102 Shrad Tamrakar, for example, graduated from Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital and works as a Psychiatric. Similarly, 111 Parag Bigukchhe works for the WWF. In December 2001, 114 Prasanna got married and he and his wife, Manisha, have a beautiful daughter named Shreeya. At present he is in Biratnagar and requests his friends to holler at him at 021-523764 when they are in town. 141 Babin Satyal works at Laxmi Bank in Kathmandu. 192 Chittra Thapa did BS in Food science and works as chemist at Coca-Cola. 189 Kumar Thapa works at Nepal Investment Bank. 154 Nabin Shrestha is in Maggie Noodles business. 160 Ujjwal Shrestha finished his MBA and is now a well-established businessman in Narayanghat. 171 Bidur Adhikari also finished his MBA and works as District Manager for Surya Cigarette Factory in Eastern Nepal. 184 Bhupendra Pokhrel has two sons (fast track!). He finished his B.Sc and is now working in real estate in Butwal and plans to move to Kathmandu. He is working in various social works such as Devdaha Protection Academy. He is also a secretary of the Reukai Nepal, Devdaha branch and is advisor to various educational fields. He is also a director of Pashupati Printing press.
Got news? 174 Arjun Kumal finished his masters in English from TU and is now one of the English news broadcaster at Nepal Television. So is 177 Devendra Dhungana, who also has a MA in English. 165 Amit Mulmi finished his MBA in marketing and is currently in the trading business. He is also the treasurer of Young Entrepreneurs Society, Pokhara. He and his wife Sono have a beautiful daughter Selene. His email address is armsoni@hotmail.com for anyone interested in contacting him. 185 Anil Shrestha did his BE from Pulchowk and is in retail business. 125 Sabin Maskey, 127 Ganga Ram Maharjan, 130 Saroj Manandhar, 132 Dipesh Panday, 149 Subash Khandelwal, 150 Subodh Aryal, 158 Deepak Halluwai, 159 Rabindra, 156 Rabi Adhikari, 167 Uttam Shrestha, 181 Bishnu Chettri, 182 Khadananda Bhusal,183 Ram Paudel,186 Gokul Ghimire, 175 Yam Rana Magar and 179 Balam Thapa are all in Nepal. 195 Sunil Goshali is CEO of Goshali House in Pokhara (this year is Visit Pokhara Year, for those who don’t follow news from Nepal much!).
If you are visiting Nepal from outside (to celebrate Visit Pokhara Year, for example), expect to see quite a few people who completed their studies from another country and decided to settle in Nepal. 122 Rabin Shrestha, for example, did his pharmacy from Pakistan and works as a pharmacist in Nepal. 123 Kanchan Basnyat finished his masters from the U.S. and works as Project Manager at Himalayan Bank Limited. He lives in Kathmandu with his wife Nilu and their son Jayant. 135 Sujan Subedi did his MBA from Philippines and works as a loan officer in Nepal Investment Bank. 140 Bimal Shah finished his undergrad from US and works at Ministry of Science and Technology in Nepal. 142 Santosh Dhakal did his engineering from India and is now working in Nepal. 146 Koshal Malla finished his undergraduate degree from Oxford and works as an Aeronautical Engineer in Nepal. 118 Dhiraj Shrestha did his MBBS from Bangladesh and works as Radiologist at Teaching Hospital. 172 Sajjad Ahamad did his Pharmacy from Pakistan and works in Nepal. 119 Prachanda finished his degree from India and works for Mercantile in Nepal as a Computer Programmer (P.S. – this is not the Prachanda who is the fan of actress Karishma Manandhar). 107 Roshan Pokherel finished his MBBS from Bangladesh and is now doing his post-graduate from Teaching Hospital in Pediatrics. 164 Rajiv Lacoul finished his MBA from India and is CEO of Lacoul Enterprises.
While many members of 100B have returned to Nepal after finishing studies in another country, some are working “in Nepal” from abroad. 144 Manishi KC, for example, finished his undergraduate studies from Slippery Rock College in Pennsylvania and operates e-business in Nepal. Next time you want to set up a cross-border online business, you know whom to contact!
If you are planning to start your own business, there are quite a few other people you can contact for guidelines. To name a few, 152 Sanjay Pradhan owns a printing business in Nepal, 153 Ujjwal Kandel owns a construction company and now is into micro-hydro business, 126 Ananda Rauniyar has his own transportation company which also manages the Birgunj dry port area.
If you are a close friend of someone from 100B trying to decide what you should buy as gift for your friend’s next birthday, here’s our suggestion: buy a globe! We are saying it because people from 100B are as spread as people from one class can be 15 years after leaving school. A globe might be just as useful to them (to locate their friends) as, say, a, you know, razor. Just look at a few. 176 Rabindra Paudel has two kids and is working in Dubai. 170 Nandu Prasad Chaudary did his MSc. in Nepal and also works in Dubai. 129 Remu Rai went to Italy for further studies. 109 Kendra Baruwa moved to Japan. 110 Shailesh Upadhaya finished his masters from Savanna State University in Georgia and works for Ericsson in Sweden. 101 Bibhuti Shrestha and 104 Sandip Raj Bhandari both moved to Australia recently. 197 Pravin Shrestha is in the Philippines. 198 Nabin Risal did his BE from China and works in Japan. 161 Paras Tamrakar has moved to Australia. 193 Gyan Bahadur Pulami served in Nepal Police as a soccer player, finished his masters from Trichandra Campus and moved to Hong Kong.180 Him Kumar Shrestha is currrently doing M.D. (residency) in Pediatrics in Medical College of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China (talk about a Chinese address!). 187 Krishna Bhagwan Shrestha did his BE from Pulchowk, worked for the government of Nepal for a few years and moved to Dubai. 168 Deepak Pathak did his MBA from Australia and started working. 173 Buddha Ghale is in the British Army. 188 Sudarshan Adhikari is doing his Masters in Geotech Engineering at University of Hannover, Germany.
The U.K. seems to be the favorite destination of most 100B members after the U.S and Nepal. 136 Rajendra Panday finished his master from the UK and is currently working in 3G Telecom Startup. 117 Steve Pandey was a doctor in Nepal army and is now in the UK. 124 Tej Rana Magar is in British Army. 131 Arish Kharel did his PhD from the UK. 138 Shyam Rokka also finished his masters from UK. Both Arish and Shyam are living and working in the UK.
The U.S. seems to be the undisputed winner in terms of where all the 100B members have settled. Let’s go in numeric order this time. 103 Binaya Basnet is in the US. 105 Biswas was working for Chaudhary group. He is now going to Michigan to pursue his further studies. 106 Aju Katuwal is working in Virginia. 108 Mukul Dev finished his masters from Western KY University. He now works in New Hampshire. 115 Pashupati Sankar Kasaju finished his masters from Michigan and lives there with his wife and his daughter. 120 Vijayesh Sainju lives and works in NY. 121 Netra Ghale finished his masters from University of Maryland recently. 128 Anup is a businessman in Texas. 133 Sanjeev Man Shrestha graduated from Cal Tech. He is a Sales Engineer in Cadence Design System in California. 134 Himal Shakya finished his masters from Northeastern University and is working. 137 Prafulla Parajuli is pursuing his masters at Arizona State.
Going further up in the roll order, 143 Samish Panth did his B.Com from Shankar Dev, worked at the Nabil Bank for a few years and is now in the U.S. 145 Manish Sainju finished his masters and is working as a Programmer Analyst. 147 Ravi Shah finished his undergraduate studies and is now working in Minneapolis. 148 Subash Gautam lives with his wife and son in Houston after finishing his masters. 151 Kishor Shrestha went to India for further studies after Budhanilkantha. He went back to Nepal, finished ISC and then came to the U.S. for B.A. in CIS in 1992. He got married in December 2004 and moved to New Mexico from Washington, DC (that’s far -- call it the Marriage Effect!). 155 Dipesh Shrestha did his undergraduate studies from Oxford and masters from the U.S. He works as Sr. Manager, Corporate Finance in Cisco Systems. 157 Ghana Gurung did his undergraduate from Tennessee and is working in Colorado. 162 Manish Adhikari finished his MBA in New York, Is married and he now works in DC. 163 Rajesh Shah finished his MBA from Hawaii Pacific University of Hawaii and Married, works and lives in New York. 166 Suresh Shrestha is working in California.
(Hint: the next person in the list just got married a year ago) 169 Kishan Rijal is working on PhD from Drexel University and as a scientist for Merck. 178 Shyam H Aryal and his wife Geeta gave birth to their beautiful daughter Savanna in 2006. Shyam works as an Analytical Chemist (Pharmaceutical Analysis) for Metrics Inc Greenville, NC. He is also pursuing his Masters at East Carolina University. He was the one who provided all this classified information to us! 190 Kundan Gurung is working in NY. 191 Madan Ghimire, has 2 kids and is working as Medical Technologist (American Society of Clinical Pathology) in Dallas. 196 Surendra Lawoti did his Masters in Photography from Boston. 194 Umesh Bhandary is a High Yield Research Analyst at Wells Capital Management (at an unknown destination?).199 Dhiraj Lama is a QC/QA Chemist in productDevelopment in California. 233 Raghav Thapa lives and works in Nebraska. Finally, 116 Deepak Thapa is in the U.S. (we don’t know his whereabouts but we will find out, we promise!)
