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Heartfelt Thanks, Fulfilling Relationships Top Wish List This Holiday Season

ThankYou Network “Rewarding Life” Survey Finds 95 Percent of Americans Believe Receiving Genuine Expression of Gratitude is Best Reward

NEW YORK – Nov. 25, 2008 – As Thanksgiving and the holiday season quickly approach, Americans across the country have started to think about what they will do for friends and family this year. Despite challenging economic times, the one gift valued most by consumers costs nothing – expressions of gratitude.

According to a recent Ipsos poll sponsored by Citi’s ThankYou Network, there is a near unanimous agreement – 95 percent of Americans stated they feel “really good when others thank me for something I have done or accomplished.”

Nearly all respondents (19 out of every 20) of the “Rewarding Life” survey stated a belief that “more than anything else, getting a genuine thank you from someone is the best kind of reward that you can get.” In fact, when asked about the most meaningful reward they have ever received, the most common unprompted answer is a “sincere thank you.”

“While many consumers worry about what types of products express their gratitude, many don’t consider what is most meaningful to the recipient,” said Nancy Gordon, executive vice president of Citi’s ThankYou Network. “Many might approach their holiday shopping differently if they realized it is not the newest product or service but a simple ‘thanks’ topping most people’s wish list.”

Identifying The Most Meaningful Rewards
Other meaningful rewards – such as a simple, spoken thank you (65 percent very meaningful) or receiving a hug or a kiss (69 percent) – were ranked as some of the more sincere, heartfelt, and often simple expressions of appreciation providing an emotional benefit.

Still, many (63 percent) often struggle to find ways to express their appreciation to others. Beyond a simple expression of thanks, Americans used material rewards, such as jewelry, gifts, trophies or certificates, or money to serve as meaningful ways to recognize the accomplishments of others.

Family Lies at Cornerstone of Rewarding Life
While being thanked is the most commonly named reward across most demographic groups, some groups were slightly more likely to say that a rewarding life is enhanced by the most personal of relationships – their family. One in five Americans (21 percent) name their family as the single most meaningful reward that they had ever received. Grandparents (30 percent) and parents (26 percent) top the groups that are most likely to feel this way.

Beyond simply making their life more fulfilling, loved ones, including family members and friends, also serve as a primary source of the explicitly expressed appreciation for what they do or accomplish.

Husbands are much more likely than wives to say that their spouse shows them a great deal of appreciation (78 percent vs. 59 percent). Men (62 percent) are also more likely than women (56 percent) to say that their family in general shows them a great deal of appreciation. At the same time, women identified that they are more likely to feel appreciated by their friends.

Getting together with friends and family has become one of the more common ways for Americans to reward themselves. In fact, more than half (56 percent) have celebrated an accomplishment with family and friends in the past year.

Businesses Can Strengthen Connections to Consumers
With so many Americans placing great value on genuine appreciation, businesses can tap into this sentiment to expand the ways they thank customers to enhance relationships. Nine in ten respondents (90 percent) agreed that it is more important than ever for businesses to reward loyal customers.

At the same time, 72 percent of Americans said they are surprised when a company thanks them for their business, indicating that there are opportunities for businesses to engage customers by showing more appreciation.

“Now more than ever, businesses should be expressing their thanks and appreciation to their customers,” said Gordon. “Through the Citi ThankYou Network, we have made showing appreciation and thanking our members a core value.”

About Citi
Citi, the leading global financial services company, has some 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 100 countries, providing consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, and wealth management. Citi's major brand names include Citibank, CitiFinancial, Primerica, Smith Barney, Nikko, and Banamex. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com or www.citi.com.

About The Rewarding Life Study
Statistics were generated from the ThankYou Network Rewarding Life Study, commissioned by Citi and conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs in August 2008. A randomly selected sample of 1,000 adult Americans were polled to gain a greater understanding of Americans’ attitudes toward and perceptions of a rewarding life and rewards programs. Complete results from the ThankYou Network Rewarding Life Study will be available on or around Dec. 1, 2008.

Tarp the TARP

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has called for a pause in the financing request for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), halting it at $350 billion. (The original request was for $700 billion.) I think that’s an excellent idea. But in a recent hearing of Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee, Democrats went ballistic at the thought of no more TARP money. They want to keep spending. They want to throw money at GM, the other Detroit car makers, plumbers, auto-parts suppliers, homeowners, mortgage problems, and foreclosures. Candy stores all over America now want TARP money.

Meanwhile, Senior Obama advisors are talking about another $600 billion to pull us out of recession. Some reports even suggest the development of a new industrial policy for big-government interference in housing, banking, energy, autos, and more.

But all this brings up a whole new problem in American finance: How are we going to transport and deliver trillions of dollars of new government money? It’s not an easy task. We’ve moved beyond show me the money. This is throw me the money. And shovels alone won’t do.

We’ll need to convert Caterpillar earth movers into money movers. We’ll need new streamlined helicopter fleets to drop money from the sky. We’ll need a trucking armada and full use of the railroads. And we’ll need an army of smaller trucks and SUVs to reach folks in the off-road areas. And let’s not forget FedEx and UPS -- we’ll need them to make sure the money arrives on time.

We may even need high-level planners at the Department of Transportation to help coordinate this vexing money-delivery problem. Sending out trillions of dollars may sound great to your average liberal Congress member. But this will not be easy. Perhaps the transitioning Obama administration can designate a Transportation Monetary Tsar. These logistical realities must be dealt with.

Or maybe there’s a better idea: Maybe we take Mr. Paulson at his word but go one step further. Let’s stop any new TARP money -- period. Enough is enough. The TARP has already done some good. Banks have more capital. Credit spreads in the money markets are narrowing. And there even are signs that business and consumer loans are flowing once again. So let’s cap the TARP -- or tarp the TARP.

The new congressional Keynesians believe government can spend us into prosperity. They’re wrong. Everything we have learned in the last four decades tells us that governments don’t create permanent new jobs or capital investment. In fact, the more we spend, the more we’ll have to raise tax rates. And that depresses growth. Europe went down this road and failed. So did Latin America and parts of Asia before they wised up.

And for some reason no one in Washington is talking about cutting tax rates, which would strengthen incentives to work, invest, and take new business risks. We should be making it pay more after tax for entrepreneurial activity of all kinds. How about this: Let’s get back on the path of free-market capitalism.

Even at the G-20 meeting in Washington this past weekend, all one heard was “global fiscal stimulus” -- or more spending on a worldwide scale to fight recession. It won’t work. It never has. Hundreds of academic studies over the past 25 years show clearly that countries that spend more, grow less; but that nations that tax less, grow more.

Why these lessons have been forgotten is beyond me. We have to restore market discipline and personal accountability. We should reward the economic good, but punish the bad. Instead we have launched a demoralizing government-spending nymphomania.

Incidentally, all this talk of big-government bailouts and a never-ending flow of government spending has disheartened the stock market, which is now down five of the past seven days. Since the November 4 election, the Dow is off 15 percent, or more than 1,400 points.

All this shows why, like the grounds crew at a baseball stadium on a rainy evening, we need to roll out the tarpaulin in order to preserve the field. To safeguard today’s economic field, it’s time to tarp the TARP. Let’s stop right here at $350 billion before everyone in the country demands a piece of the new TARP action. At the same time, let’s cut taxes to grow the economy. Slash the corporate tax rate. Reduce personal rates across-the-board. Promote investment with a lower capital-gains tax and a lower estate tax. Let’s restore the incentive model of economic growth.

Current political trends in Washington are gonna push us off some left-wing economic cliff. Instead, let’s have some sanity. It’s time for a reality check about what works and what doesn’t in fighting recession and promoting long-term economic growth.

I say tarp the TARP.

Pro Bono: Translating and Transforming Africa for the Consumerist West

Hat Tip: A C.S. Lewis & Inkling Resource Blog

U2 fans queue in mysterious ways: Researchers discover the band’s fans even appoint 'line Nazis'

Colin Coyle

For rock stars, they are famously disciplined and so it seems are their groupies. U2’s most committed fans form “selforganised queues” at concerts run by “line Nazis” that function almost identically from city to city, according to American researchers.

A study of almost 500 U2 fans queuing overnight for four concerts in Philadelphia and Atlanta discovered those seeking to gain entry to “the rail”, a sought-after area at the front of the concert, organise themselves in a remarkably systematic fashion without prompting from concert organisers.

The study’s authors, who have a background in anthropology and one of whom describes herself as a U2 fan, discovered that concert queues “are managed largely by fans themselves who organise a system in which the first fans in line keep a list with names and numbers assigned to people as they arrive”.

Venue staff support the system by telling newly arrived fans to get a number from the “line Nazi”, a fan at the top of the queue who invariably takes control at each event.

To test the strength of the system, researchers invented a series of scenarios in which people jumped the queue. Fans were then asked to fill in a questionnaire that assessed their reaction. The academics discovered that fans of the group, who had an average age of 30, got upset even when someone cut in behind them, not affecting their place in the queue. Hardcore fans were more incensed than more moderate devotees.

One of the authors, Marie Helweg-Larsen of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, said: “Fans were annoyed even when the consequences did not directly influence them. The notion of ‘first-come first-served’ is deeply ingrained, but we noted that some believed there was a special code of honour among U2 fans. Cutting the line may have affronted this notion.”

Helweg-Larsen said some supporters of the Dublin band reacted indignantly to “line-cutters” because it was “un-U2- like”. “Bono wouldn’t like it,” one fan told the researchers.

Previous research has shown queuers see those behind them as “less fortunate”. “The queue is a social system, so perhaps a U2 fan’s sense of social justice may play a role,” she said.

But such concern for others may not be entirely altruistic. “Any threat to the established queue might create chaos to the whole system and threaten one’s own position,” she said. “The moral outrage may be linked to self-interest, especially among dedicated fans who have invested the most time and energy in queuing.”

The authors compared the behaviour of fans queuing for a U2 concert with studies analysing how football fans organise themselves while waiting to gain entry to a match.

“There were similarities,” Helweg-Larsen said. “But the motivation for not cutting the line at a soccer match was partly peer pressure and partly the threat of violent recrimination because of the age of the group and the likelihood that alcohol had been taken.”

The authors are “puzzled” by how “social norms” have emerged among queues for U2 gigs in different cities without rules or enforcement. “Some fans will follow the band from city to city, bringing the system with them, but it doesn’t explain how up to 300 people will fall into line,” she said.

Video: CEO John Rogers beats Jordan one-on-one, circa 2003

Back in February, SI's Chris Ballard wrote a story about a post-Wizards era Michael Jordan that received a bit of attention. As the story went, some mutual fund CEO named John Rogers Jr. had beaten Jordan in a game of one-on-one at the legend's high-end "Flight School" camp in Las Vegas. According to Ballard, there were one-handed runners and flip-shots and even Damon Wayans. It was quite the tale. And today, thanks to The Wall Street Journal, we finally have video footage.

Via NESW Sports, your #1 source for classic and random Michael Jordan videos.

The Surest Path Back to Prosperity: 'If you seek economic growth, social justice and human dignity, the free-market system is the way to go.'

we must recognize that government intervention is not a cure-all. For example, some blame the crisis on insufficient regulation of the American mortgage market. But many European countries had much more extensive regulations, and still experienced problems almost identical to our own.

History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, it is too much government involvement in the market. We saw this in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

America Throws Long. If Obama doesn't connect, more than the game is lost.

Restoring Financial Stability. Use Japan's experience as a guide to near-term problems – then think bigger.

Why Spending Stimulus Plans Fail

How to Win in Afghanistan

Targeting Your 401(k)

Obama and Missile Defense: On this critical issue, the president-elect is not off to a good start.

How to Put the Squeeze on Iran: Cutting off its gasoline imports may be the only peaceful way to get Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

If Barack Obama is to persuade Iran to negotiate away its illegal nuclear weapons program, he will first need to generate more leverage than what the Bush administration is leaving him with. The current U.N. sanctions have proven too weak to dissuade Tehran's leaders, and Russia and China seem determined to keep those sanctions weak. Meanwhile, the regime continues to insist there are no incentives in exchange for which it would halt or even limit its nuclear work.

David Klein

However, Tehran has an economic Achilles' heel -- its extraordinarily heavy dependence on imported gasoline. This dependence could be used by the United States to peacefully create decisive leverage over the Islamic Republic.

Iranian oil wells produce far more petroleum (crude oil) than Iran needs. Yet, remarkably for a country investing so much in nuclear power, Iran has not developed sufficient capacity to refine that crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel. As a result, it must import some 40% of the gasoline it needs for internal consumption.

In recent months, Iran has, according to the respected trade publication International Oil Daily and other sources including the U.S. government, purchased nearly all of this gasoline from just five companies, four of them European: the Swiss firm Vitol; the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura; the French firm Total; British Petroleum; and one Indian company, Reliance Industries. If these companies stopped supplying Iran, the Iranians could replace only some of what they needed from other suppliers -- and at a significantly higher price. Neither Russia nor China could serve as alternative suppliers. Both are themselves also heavily dependent on imports of the type of gasoline Iran needs.

Were these companies to stop supplying gasoline to Iran, the world-wide price of oil would be unaffected -- the companies would simply sell to other buyers. But the impact on Iran would be substantial.

When Tehran attempted to ration gasoline during the summer of 2007, violent protests forced the regime to back down. Cutting off gasoline sales to Iran, or even a significant reduction, could have an even more dramatic effect.

In Congress, there is already bipartisan support for peacefully cutting off gasoline sales to Iran until it stops its illicit nuclear activities. Barack Obama, John McCain and the House of Representatives have all declared their support.

On June 4 of this year, for example, Sen. Obama said at a speech in Washington, D.C.: "We should work with Europe, Japan and the Gulf states to find every avenue outside the U.N. to isolate the Iranian regime -- from cutting off loan guarantees and expanding financial sanctions, to banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran."

He repeated this sentiment during the presidential candidates' debate on Oct. 7: "Iran right now imports gasoline . . . if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need . . . that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them."

How do we stop the gasoline from flowing? The Bush administration has reportedly never asked the Swiss, Dutch, French, British or Indian governments to stop gasoline sales to Iran by the companies headquartered within their borders. An Obama administration should make this request, and do the same with other governments if other companies try to sell gasoline to Iran.

But the U.S. also has significant direct leverage over the companies that currently supply most of Iran's imported gasoline.

Consider India's Reliance Industries which, according to International Oil Daily, "reemerged as a major supplier of gasoline to Iran" in July after taking a break for several months. It "delivered three cargoes of gasoline totaling around 100,000 tons to Iran's Mideast Gulf port of Bandar Abbas from its giant Jamnagar refinery in India's western province of Gujarat." Reliance reportedly "entered into a new arrangement with National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) under which it will supply around . . . three 35,000-ton cargoes a month, from its giant Jamnagar refinery." One hundred thousand tons represents some 10% of Iran's total monthly gasoline needs.

The Jamnagar refinery is heavily supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars. In May 2007, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a government agency that assists in financing the export of U.S. goods and services, announced a $500 million loan guarantee to help finance expansion of the Jamnagar refinery. On Aug. 28, 2008, Ex-Im announced a new $400 million long-term loan guarantee for Reliance, including additional financing of work at the Jamnagar refinery.

Or consider the Swiss firm Vitol. According to International Oil Daily, Vitol "over the past few years has accounted for around 60% of the gasoline shipped to Iran." Vitol is currently building a $100 million terminal in Port Canaveral, Florida.

Last year, when Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty discovered that an Indian company, Essar, was seeking to both invest some $1.6 billion in Minnesota and invest over $5 billion in building a refinery in Iran, he put Essar to a choice. Mr. Pawlenty threatened to block state infrastructure subsidies and perhaps even construction permits for the Minnesota purchase unless Essar withdrew from the Iranian investment. Essar promptly withdrew from the Iranian investment.

Florida officials could consider taking a similar stance with Vitol.

The Minnesota example is not the only precedent. U.S. outreach to foreign banks and to oil companies considering investing in Iran's energy sector has reportedly convinced more than 80 banks and several major potential oil-field investors to cease all or some of their business with Iran. Among them: Germany's two largest banks (Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank), London-based HSBC, Credit Suisse, Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro, and Royal Dutch Shell.

A sustained initiative may be able to convince most or all current and potential suppliers that the profits to be gained from continuing to sell gasoline to Iran will be dwarfed by the lost loan guarantees and subsidies and foregone profits they will incur in the U.S. from continuing to do business with Iran.

Last Sunday, a group of 60 Iranian economists called for the regime to drastically change course, saying that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "tension-creating" foreign policy has "scared off foreign investment and inflicted heavy damage on the economy." The economists said the current sanctions, as weak as they are, have cost Iran billions of dollars by forcing it to use middlemen for exports and imports. Halting Iran's gasoline supply could contribute to reaching a tipping point -- at which economic pressures and protests convince the regime its illicit nuclear program poses too great a risk to its grip over the Iranian people.

If the federal and key state governments in the U.S. were to make it their goal to achieve a halt by companies selling gasoline to Iran, it could be a game-changer. It may be our best remaining hope for peacefully convincing Iran to desist from developing nuclear weapons.

Mr. Kittrie is a professor of law at Arizona State University and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He previously worked for 11 years at the U.S. Department of State, including as a specialist on nuclear nonproliferation and sanctions.

History Favors Republicans in 2010

A Barack Market

The voters may be full of hope about the looming Obama Presidency, but so far investors aren't. No President-elect in the postwar era has been greeted with a more audible hiss from Wall Street. The Dow has lost 1,342 points, or about 14%, since the election, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting similar skids. The Dow fell another 4.7% yesterday.

Much of this is due to hedge fund deleveraging, as well as dreadful corporate earnings reports and pessimism that the recession will be deeper than many had hoped. We also don't want to read too much into short-term market moves. But there's little doubt that uncertainty, and some fear, over Barack Obama's economic agenda is also contributing to the downdraft.

The substance of what Mr. Obama has promised for the economy is bearish for stocks. The threat of higher tax rates, especially on capital gains and dividends, now may be getting priced into the market. Add that to investor doubts about Democratic policies on unions, health care and trade -- and no wonder stocks are falling. Lower stock prices in turn reduce household net worth, thus slamming consumer confidence and contributing to what appears to be a consumer spending strike.

If Mr. Obama wants to reassure markets, he could announce that he won't be raising taxes for the foreseeable future. Unlike hundreds of billions in new government spending or more taxpayer cash for Detroit auto companies, this no-tax-hike declaration is a "stimulus" that would cost the U.S. Treasury nothing. In the current market, there won't be many capital gains and few companies will have surplus earnings to pay out in dividends. A higher tax rate on zero gains yields zero revenue, so what's the point of raising rates?

What markets want to see from Mr. Obama is a sense that the seriousness of this downturn is causing him to rethink the worst of his antigrowth policies.

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Not So Easy on His Knees: Balancing Faith with Celebrity, Part I

Editor’s Note: Here, we continue to publish the work of Dr. Laurie Britt-Smith and her exploration of Bono’s rock-n-roll rhetoric. In this installment, she begins an exploration of the tension between faith and celebrity grounded in the concept of a Discourse community.

Previous articles:

Community, Rock, & Rhetoric

Is Bono A Prophet

And A Rock Star Shall Lead Them

Obama’s Harmony of Intellect and Intuition

by Bono 11-07-2008

Mr. President, Barack,

Every room I have ever been in with you was a much easier room for your presence.

It’s rare to meet a person like you, where intellect and intuition make such a perfect rhyme.

Your intuition tells you that the well-being of the American people, spiritually as well as physically, is connected with America’s role in the world. I know you know that the prosperity of your fellow Americans, though hard fought, is less fulfilling knowing there is so much more that can be done to alleviate poverty and suffering in the developing world. You know that less than 1 percent of government income as a contribution from the world’s richest economy to the world’s poorest is not a fair tithe — even in times like these — which is why you have promised to double foreign assistance. As with our own personal sojourn, so it is with country and community -– we discover who we are in service to others.

I know your intellect — fashioned in the halls of Harvard and on the floor of the United States Senate — has weighed up the evidence on how effective American tax dollars are, when converted into smart, targeted, focused aid. Putting children into school where they can think freely of freedom. Giving farmers on the parched land seed varieties that double the size of their crop yields. Giving mothers 20 cent immunizations to protect their newborns from the deadly viruses that they pass on through childbirth. I know your intellect has taken in the data and seen the analysis on the transformative power of effective aid in places where the United States flag is currently not one smiled at. I know you know how much cheaper it is to make friends of potential enemies than to defend yourself at a later date. I know you know all this stuff.

My prayer for you is that your instinct and intellect stay in harmony in the difficult months and triumphant years ahead.

Bono is lead singer of U2 and co-founder of The ONE Campaign.