Links
Archives
Friday, August 05, 2005
|
PROBLEMS, HERE AND ABROAD UD is suffering from a more than ordinarily intense case of cognitive dissonance today after reading her New York Times. The front page of the A Section features the dead bodies of Niger’s malnourished children. Much of this disaster was suspected last November, when experts monitoring Niger‘s farms found a 220,000-ton shortfall -- about 7.5 percent of the normal crop - in the harvest of grains, especially the millet that is the staple of most people‘s diet. Among others, the United Nations World Food Program and Doctors Without Borders sounded alarms, and Niger’s government, with World Food Program approval, quickly asked donors to give Niger 71,000 tons of food aid and $3 million for the 400,000 most vulnerable farmers and herders. By May, it had received fewer than 7,000 tons of food and one $323,000 donation, from Luxembourg. The front page of the business section features the plaintive headline: Doesn’t Anyone Want to Manage Harvard’s Money? David Swensen, who manages Yale University’s …endowment, was paid $1.03 million in compensation and benefits in the year ended in June 2003. And Bob L. Boldt, chief executive of the University of Texas Investment Management Company… was paid $1.28 million. … Top [private sector] money managers can earn more than $250 million a year running hedge funds, making the Harvard post a hard sell. |