A Digital Shift on Health Data Swells Profits in an Industry

Jeff Swensen for The New York Times

Dr. Vivek Reddy, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, also works on its digital records effort.

It was a tantalizing pitch: come get a piece of a $19 billion government “giveaway.”

The approach came in 2009, in a presentation to doctors by Allscripts Healthcare Solutions of Chicago, a well-connected player in the lucrative business of digital medical records. That February, after years of behind-the-scenes lobbying by Allscripts and others, legislation to promote the use of electronic records was signed into law as part of President Obama’s economic stimulus bill. The rewards, Allscripts suggested, were at hand.

But today, as doctors and hospitals struggle to make new records systems work, the clear winners are big companies like Allscripts that lobbied for that legislation and pushed aside smaller competitors.

While proponents say new record-keeping technologies will one day reduce costs and improve care, profits and sales are soaring now across the records industry. At Allscripts, annual sales have more than doubled from $548 million in 2009 to an estimated $1.44 billion last year, partly reflecting daring acquisitions made on the bet that the legislation would be a boon for the industry. At the Cerner Corporation of Kansas City, Mo., sales rose 60 percent during that period. With money pouring in, top executives are enjoying Wall Street-style paydays.

None of that would have happened without the health records legislation that was included in the 2009 economic stimulus bill — and the lobbying that helped produce it. Along the way, the records industry made hundreds of thousands of dollars of political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. In some cases, the ties went deeper. Glen E. Tullman, until recently the chief executive of Allscripts, was health technology adviser to the 2008 Obama campaign. As C.E.O. of Allscripts, he visited the White House no fewer than seven times after President Obama took office in 2009, according to White House records.

Mr. Tullman, who left Allscripts late last year after a boardroom power struggle, characterized his activities in Washington as an attempt to educate lawmakers and the administration.

“We really haven’t done any lobbying,” Mr. Tullman said in an interview. “I think it’s very common with every administration that when they want to talk about the automotive industry, they convene automotive executives, and when they want to talk about the Internet, they convene Internet executives.”

Between 2008 and 2012, a time of intense lobbying in the area around the passage of the legislation and how the rules for government incentives would be shaped, Mr. Tullman personally made $225,000 in political contributions. While tens of thousands of those dollars went to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, money was also being sprinkled toward Senator Max Baucus, the Democratic senator from Montana who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Jay D. Rockefeller, the Democrat from West Virginia who heads the Commerce Committee. Mr. Tullman said his recent personal contributions to various politicians had largely been driven by his interest in supporting President Obama and in seeing his re-election.

Cerner’s lobbying dollars doubled to nearly $400,000 between 2006 and last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. While its political action committee contributed a little to some Democrats in 2008, including Senator Baucus, its contributions last year went almost entirely to Republicans, with a large amount going to the Mitt Romney campaign.

Current and former industry executives say that big digital records companies like Cerner, Allscripts and Epic Systems of Verona, Wis., have reaped enormous rewards because of the legislation they pushed for. “Nothing that these companies did in my eyes was spectacular,” said John Gomez, the former head of technology at Allscripts. “They grew as a result of government incentives.”

Executives at smaller records companies say the legislation cemented the established companies’ leading positions in the field, making it difficult for others to break into the business and innovate. Until the 2009 legislation, growth at the leading records firms was steady; since then, it has been explosive. Annual sales growth at Cerner, for instance, has doubled to 20 percent from 10 percent.

“We called it the Sunny von Bülow bill. These companies that should have been dead were being put on machines and kept alive for another few years,” said Jonathan Bush, co-founder of the cloud-based firm Athenahealth and a first cousin to former President George W. Bush. “The biggest players drew this incredible huddle around the rule-makers and the rules are ridiculously favorable to these companies and ridiculously unfavorable to society.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article omitted part of the name of the institution that employs Michael Callaham and Michael Blum. It is the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, not the San Francisco Medical Center.

Read More..

A Digital Shift on Health Data Swells Profits in an Industry

Jeff Swensen for The New York Times

Dr. Vivek Reddy, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, also works on its digital records effort.

It was a tantalizing pitch: come get a piece of a $19 billion government “giveaway.”

The approach came in 2009, in a presentation to doctors by Allscripts Healthcare Solutions of Chicago, a well-connected player in the lucrative business of digital medical records. That February, after years of behind-the-scenes lobbying by Allscripts and others, legislation to promote the use of electronic records was signed into law as part of President Obama’s economic stimulus bill. The rewards, Allscripts suggested, were at hand.

But today, as doctors and hospitals struggle to make new records systems work, the clear winners are big companies like Allscripts that lobbied for that legislation and pushed aside smaller competitors.

While proponents say new record-keeping technologies will one day reduce costs and improve care, profits and sales are soaring now across the records industry. At Allscripts, annual sales have more than doubled from $548 million in 2009 to an estimated $1.44 billion last year, partly reflecting daring acquisitions made on the bet that the legislation would be a boon for the industry. At the Cerner Corporation of Kansas City, Mo., sales rose 60 percent during that period. With money pouring in, top executives are enjoying Wall Street-style paydays.

None of that would have happened without the health records legislation that was included in the 2009 economic stimulus bill — and the lobbying that helped produce it. Along the way, the records industry made hundreds of thousands of dollars of political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. In some cases, the ties went deeper. Glen E. Tullman, until recently the chief executive of Allscripts, was health technology adviser to the 2008 Obama campaign. As C.E.O. of Allscripts, he visited the White House no fewer than seven times after President Obama took office in 2009, according to White House records.

Mr. Tullman, who left Allscripts late last year after a boardroom power struggle, characterized his activities in Washington as an attempt to educate lawmakers and the administration.

“We really haven’t done any lobbying,” Mr. Tullman said in an interview. “I think it’s very common with every administration that when they want to talk about the automotive industry, they convene automotive executives, and when they want to talk about the Internet, they convene Internet executives.”

Between 2008 and 2012, a time of intense lobbying in the area around the passage of the legislation and how the rules for government incentives would be shaped, Mr. Tullman personally made $225,000 in political contributions. While tens of thousands of those dollars went to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, money was also being sprinkled toward Senator Max Baucus, the Democratic senator from Montana who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Jay D. Rockefeller, the Democrat from West Virginia who heads the Commerce Committee. Mr. Tullman said his recent personal contributions to various politicians had largely been driven by his interest in supporting President Obama and in seeing his re-election.

Cerner’s lobbying dollars doubled to nearly $400,000 between 2006 and last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. While its political action committee contributed a little to some Democrats in 2008, including Senator Baucus, its contributions last year went almost entirely to Republicans, with a large amount going to the Mitt Romney campaign.

Current and former industry executives say that big digital records companies like Cerner, Allscripts and Epic Systems of Verona, Wis., have reaped enormous rewards because of the legislation they pushed for. “Nothing that these companies did in my eyes was spectacular,” said John Gomez, the former head of technology at Allscripts. “They grew as a result of government incentives.”

Executives at smaller records companies say the legislation cemented the established companies’ leading positions in the field, making it difficult for others to break into the business and innovate. Until the 2009 legislation, growth at the leading records firms was steady; since then, it has been explosive. Annual sales growth at Cerner, for instance, has doubled to 20 percent from 10 percent.

“We called it the Sunny von Bülow bill. These companies that should have been dead were being put on machines and kept alive for another few years,” said Jonathan Bush, co-founder of the cloud-based firm Athenahealth and a first cousin to former President George W. Bush. “The biggest players drew this incredible huddle around the rule-makers and the rules are ridiculously favorable to these companies and ridiculously unfavorable to society.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article omitted part of the name of the institution that employs Michael Callaham and Michael Blum. It is the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, not the San Francisco Medical Center.

Read More..

A Digital Shift on Health Data Swells Profits in an Industry

Jeff Swensen for The New York Times

Dr. Vivek Reddy, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, also works on its digital records effort.

It was a tantalizing pitch: come get a piece of a $19 billion government “giveaway.”

The approach came in 2009, in a presentation to doctors by Allscripts Healthcare Solutions of Chicago, a well-connected player in the lucrative business of digital medical records. That February, after years of behind-the-scenes lobbying by Allscripts and others, legislation to promote the use of electronic records was signed into law as part of President Obama’s economic stimulus bill. The rewards, Allscripts suggested, were at hand.

But today, as doctors and hospitals struggle to make new records systems work, the clear winners are big companies like Allscripts that lobbied for that legislation and pushed aside smaller competitors.

While proponents say new record-keeping technologies will one day reduce costs and improve care, profits and sales are soaring now across the records industry. At Allscripts, annual sales have more than doubled from $548 million in 2009 to an estimated $1.44 billion last year, partly reflecting daring acquisitions made on the bet that the legislation would be a boon for the industry. At the Cerner Corporation of Kansas City, Mo., sales rose 60 percent during that period. With money pouring in, top executives are enjoying Wall Street-style paydays.

None of that would have happened without the health records legislation that was included in the 2009 economic stimulus bill — and the lobbying that helped produce it. Along the way, the records industry made hundreds of thousands of dollars of political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. In some cases, the ties went deeper. Glen E. Tullman, until recently the chief executive of Allscripts, was health technology adviser to the 2008 Obama campaign. As C.E.O. of Allscripts, he visited the White House no fewer than seven times after President Obama took office in 2009, according to White House records.

Mr. Tullman, who left Allscripts late last year after a boardroom power struggle, characterized his activities in Washington as an attempt to educate lawmakers and the administration.

“We really haven’t done any lobbying,” Mr. Tullman said in an interview. “I think it’s very common with every administration that when they want to talk about the automotive industry, they convene automotive executives, and when they want to talk about the Internet, they convene Internet executives.”

Between 2008 and 2012, a time of intense lobbying in the area around the passage of the legislation and how the rules for government incentives would be shaped, Mr. Tullman personally made $225,000 in political contributions. While tens of thousands of those dollars went to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, money was also being sprinkled toward Senator Max Baucus, the Democratic senator from Montana who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Jay D. Rockefeller, the Democrat from West Virginia who heads the Commerce Committee. Mr. Tullman said his recent personal contributions to various politicians had largely been driven by his interest in supporting President Obama and in seeing his re-election.

Cerner’s lobbying dollars doubled to nearly $400,000 between 2006 and last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. While its political action committee contributed a little to some Democrats in 2008, including Senator Baucus, its contributions last year went almost entirely to Republicans, with a large amount going to the Mitt Romney campaign.

Current and former industry executives say that big digital records companies like Cerner, Allscripts and Epic Systems of Verona, Wis., have reaped enormous rewards because of the legislation they pushed for. “Nothing that these companies did in my eyes was spectacular,” said John Gomez, the former head of technology at Allscripts. “They grew as a result of government incentives.”

Executives at smaller records companies say the legislation cemented the established companies’ leading positions in the field, making it difficult for others to break into the business and innovate. Until the 2009 legislation, growth at the leading records firms was steady; since then, it has been explosive. Annual sales growth at Cerner, for instance, has doubled to 20 percent from 10 percent.

“We called it the Sunny von Bülow bill. These companies that should have been dead were being put on machines and kept alive for another few years,” said Jonathan Bush, co-founder of the cloud-based firm Athenahealth and a first cousin to former President George W. Bush. “The biggest players drew this incredible huddle around the rule-makers and the rules are ridiculously favorable to these companies and ridiculously unfavorable to society.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article omitted part of the name of the institution that employs Michael Callaham and Michael Blum. It is the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, not the San Francisco Medical Center.

Read More..

State of the Art: Sony’s RX1 Camera: Compact, Full-Framed and Expensive, Too

When you’re shopping for a camera, you have a million specs and features to consider. Size, weight, battery life, megapixels, zoom power. ... Can you guess which aspect consumers consider most important?

The color of the body. (“Ooh, I like the shiny red one!”)

The camera buyer for a national electronics chain told me that. We both slapped our foreheads.

Please. If you’re buying a camera, shouldn’t picture quality be the most important detail?

If so, what you should care most about is the flat, rectangular light sensor inside the “film.” In general, the bigger the sensor, the happier you’ll be with the results and the more you’ll pay.

At the low end, snapshot cameras with tiny sensors (0.4 inches diagonal) cost $150 but give you blurry, grainy low-light shots. At the high end, those professional, big, black S.L.R. cameras cost $2,000 to $6,000 but come with full-frame sensors. That is, these sensors are as big as an old piece of 35-millimeter film (1.7 inches). They deliver unparalleled low-light quality, richness of color, detail and soft-focused backgrounds.

(You can buy cameras with even bigger sensors — medium-format cameras that cost $20,000 and military cameras that cost millions — but let’s say you live in the real world.)

All of this explains why Sony’s 2013 camera/camcorder lineup is so startling. The company has put full-frame sensors into three new cameras, at prices and body sizes that nobody has ever attained.

For example, there’s the A99, which Sony says is the world’s smallest and lightest full-frame S.L.R. It’s meant to compete with professional cameras like the Canon 5D Mark III ($3,200) and Nikon D800 ($3,000) — for $2,800. (These prices are for the bodies only.)

The A99 is sort of homely, but it has a long list of distinguishing features: fast, continuous focusing, even while filming or shooting something running at you; two memory-card slots; built-in GPS function that stamps every photo with your location; 1080p, 60-frames-a-second high-definition video; microphone and headphone jacks; and an electronic viewfinder whose video shows you the results of your adjustments in real time.

Sony says the A99 is also the only full-frame camera with a screen that flips out and tilts.

Then there’s the VG900, Sony’s first full-frame camcorder. It costs $3,300 — about $10,000 less than any other full-frame camcorder, Sony says. And its sensor is about 45 times as big as a standard camcorder’s sensor.

Now, a huge sensor may not seem to make sense in a camcorder. One frame of hi-def video has only about two megapixels of resolution; what’s the point of stuffing a 24-megapixel sensor into the camcorder?

Answer: It’s about picture quality. A big sensor gives you amazing low-light video, gorgeous blurry backgrounds, greater dynamic range and better color.

Thousands of filmmakers use full-frame S.L.R. still cameras to shoot video, because of the superior quality and because they can use different lenses for different video effects. S.L.R-based camcorders like Sony’s VG900 offer the same features in a camcorder shape. They’re much more comfortable to hold, and their buttons are better placed for video operation.

The VG900 accepts Sony’s E-mount camera lenses, of which there are 13; they don’t quite exploit the full area of that jumbo sensor. But the camera comes with an adapter for the older, more plentiful A-mount lenses. Alas, those lenses don’t autofocus with that adapter.

The most astonishing new full-frame Sony, though, is the RX1. It’s the world’s first compact full-frame camera.

Now, you’re forgiven if you just spewed your coffee. “Compact” and “full-frame” have never gone together before. Everyone knows why: a big sensor requires a big lens, meaning a big camera. You can’t change the laws of physics, no matter how much photographers would love it.

E-mail: pogue @nytimes.com

Read More..

Former Lebanon Minister and Syrian Co-Defendant Could Face Death Penalty

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A Lebanese military court judge on Wednesday charged a former government information minister and his suspected Syrian accomplice of a conspiracy to kill Lebanese political and religious leaders and foment sectarian strife, recommending the death penalty for both.

The announcement about the defendants, Michel Samaha, the former minister, and Mr. Mamlouk, a Syrian security official, came amid increased sectarian tensions in Lebanon that are directly tied to the nearly two-year-old conflict in neighboring Syria, which occupied Lebanon for nearly three decades until 2005 and still deeply polarizes Lebanese politics.

Lebanese officials have said explosives were found in a car belonging to Mr. Samaha, who was arrested on Aug. 9. Mr. Mamlouk was accused of plotting with Mr. Samaha to transport the explosives into the country. An arrest warrant for Mr. Mamlouk was issued this month. His whereabouts is unclear.

It also was unclear how long a trial would last or whether the judge’s recommendations of punishment would be followed if the pair were found guilty. But the Lebanese government’s handling of the politically sensitive case carries its own risks of aggravating sectarian tensions in this country.

On Tuesday, a group claiming to represent a faction of Syrian rebels threatened to lob mortar shells into Lebanon to attack Hezbollah, the Shiite militia that is also Lebanon’s most powerful political party, in retaliation for what rebels say is a Hezbollah military campaign against rebels in Syria. The statement warned Lebanese citizens, especially in the Shiite, pro-Hezbollah border town of Hermel, to stay away from Hezbollah positions that it said were shelling the rebels across the border.

A cross-border skirmish between Hezbollah and Syrian rebels could be a dangerous escalation in Lebanon, which has struggled to stay out of the conflict in Syria.

Representatives of the main group of rebel fighters, the Free Syrian Army, issued conflicting statements, with one saying the threat was a provocation fabricated by Hezbollah, and another confirming it and giving Hezbollah 48 hours to end its attacks or face retaliation.

Hezbollah is closely allied to the Syrian government, while its Sunni rivals in Lebanon largely support the majority Sunni rebels. Rebels say Hezbollah has stepped up its military activity inside Syria, taking over numerous villages near the border. Hezbollah says its fighters have been active only in Syrian villages where Lebanese citizens live and are defending themselves.

With the Syrian conflict threatening to destabilize the region, Russia’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that his country would work with the Arab League to bring about direct talks between Syria’s government and the armed opposition in a bid to end the deadly civil war.

Speaking after a meeting with Arab League officials in Moscow, the minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, told reporters there were “signs of tendencies for dialogue from both the side of the government and the opposition,” Agence France-Presse reported.

Russia has long called for a political solution, but Mr. Lavrov’s statement seemed to indicate a new level of engagement in pushing for talks. Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallam, is scheduled to visit Moscow on Monday for talks, and the president of Syria’s main opposition coalition, Moaz al-Khatib, is expected to visit Moscow in March, Mr. Lavrov said.

Yet it is unclear whether Mr. Moallem and Mr. Khatib have the full backing of their own sides for talks. Mr. Khatib’s group, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, insists that it will speak only with members of Mr. Assad’s government without “blood on their hands.” Lakhdar Brahimi, the special Syria peace envoy representing the United Nations and the Arab League, has appeared to support Mr. Khatib’s position, calling on the government to send an “acceptable delegation.”

But on Wednesday, Mr. Lavrov said that the two sides should not impose preconditions or “say that I am going to talk to this person but not that one.” He was speaking after a meeting of the Russia-Arab Forum from which the representatives of the rebels’ main Arab backers, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were absent.

In Syria on Wednesday, rebel shells appeared to reach new areas in Damascus, activists and witnesses reported. Goran Tomasevic, a photographer for The Associated Press who has recently produced images of fighting in the Damascus suburbs as one of the few foreign journalists with rebel fighters there, described a deadly stalemate between two well-coordinated fighting forces that he said was reminiscent of wars that gutted cities like Sarajevo and Stalingrad.

“Rebel fighters in Damascus are disciplined, skilled and brave,” he wrote in an account published on Wednesday. “In a month on the front-line, I saw them defend a swath of suburbs in the Syrian capital, mount complex mass attacks, manage logistics, treat their wounded.”

But, he added, “as constant, punishingly accurate, mortar, tank and sniper fire attested,” government soldiers, often fighting at close range, “are also well drilled, courageous — and much better armed.”

Both state media and opposition activists reported on Wednesday that mortar rounds had hit the Tishreen sports stadium in the downtown neighborhood of Baramkeh. The state news agency, SANA, said the explosion killed an athlete from the Homs-based Al Wathba soccer team as he was practicing.

Government forces hit a rebel command center in a suburb east of the capital on Wednesday, injuring a founder of the Liwaa al-Islam brigade, Sheik Zahran Alloush, the brigade said in a statement.

It said the attack “won’t stop or weaken the will of the battalion” and asked for “God’s help to reach the criminals for retribution.”

Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.

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Today's Economist: Who Pays the Corporate Income Tax

Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”

The United States has had a corporate income tax since 1909, but in all the years since there is a major question about it that economists haven’t been able to answer satisfactorily: who pays it? The possibility that Congress may act on corporate tax reform this year makes this a highly salient question.

The problem, of course, is that people must ultimately pay all taxes. Corporations, contrary to the views of some Republicans, are not people. They are legal entities that exist only because governments permit them to and are artificial vehicles through which sales, wages and profits flow. Hence, the actual burden of the corporate tax may fall on any of the groups that receive such flows; namely, customers, workers and shareholders, the ultimate owners of the corporation.

Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.

All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits.

Therefore, corporations cannot raise prices to compensate for the corporate income tax because they will be undercut by businesses to which the tax does not apply. It should also be noted that the states have substantially different corporate tax regimes, including some that do not tax corporations at all, and we do not observe that prices for goods and services vary from state to state depending on its taxation of corporations.

That leaves two remaining groups that may bear the burden of the corporate tax: workers and shareholders.

In 1962, the University of Chicago economist Arnold C. Harberger, published an important article arguing that the corporate tax was borne entirely by shareholders. This was unquestionably true in the first instance; that is, when the corporate income tax was first imposed. The tax simply reduced corporate profits and had to come out of the pockets of shareholders, given that it could not be shifted onto consumers.

But as time went by, some economists argued that a substantial portion of the corporate income tax was ultimately paid by workers in the form of lower wages. This resulted because the supply of capital would shrink in order to raise the rate of return on capital. A smaller capital stock would reduce the productivity of labor and cause real wages to be lower in the long run.

Most economists now agree that the burden of the corporate income tax falls on labor to some extent, but there is disagreement over the degree. This is important because the political prospects for cutting the statutory corporate tax rate, a goal shared by all tax reformers, may depend on the extent to which it can be shown that workers will benefit.

The just-published March 2013 issue of The National Tax Journal, the principal academic journal devoted to tax analysis, contains four articles by top scholars who have sought to clarify the incidence of the corporate income tax. Unfortunately, there is no consensus.

The first article, by a Reed College economist, Kimberly Clausing, supports the traditional idea that capital bears all of the corporate tax. She notes that large multinational corporations have a great deal of flexibility in determining where to locate production, incur costs and realize profits.

A company may borrow in one country and take the deduction for interest there, locate actual production facilities and employ workers in another country, and realize profits in a third country by transferring intellectual property such as patents there or by adjusting prices on internal sales among its foreign subsidiaries.

Moreover, Professor Clausing notes, corporate shareholders may live in many different countries, each facing a different tax regime with respect to the taxation of dividends and capital gains.

For these reasons, she argues that it is impossible for workers to bear any significant portion of the corporate tax in the form of lower wages. It all falls on capital. A second article, by Jennifer Gravelle, a Congressional Budget Office economist, agrees with this conclusion.

But a third article, by an Oxford University economist, Li Liu and a Rutgers economist, Rosanne Altshuler, argues in favor of the idea that labor bears most of the burden of the corporate tax.

They take advantage of the fact that different industries bear different tax burdens because of various provisions of the tax law, and also that concentration and competition varies among industries. They empirically examine wages among industries and conclude that labor bears about 60 percent of the corporate tax burden.

That is, a $1 increase in corporate taxes will reduce wages by about 60 cents.

Finally, four Treasury Department economists detail the method the Treasury uses to allocate the corporate tax in distribution tables. They have the advantage of access to actual corporate tax returns and far greater detail on corporate finances than available to private researchers.

The Treasury economists conclude that 82 percent of the corporate tax falls on capital and 18 percent on labor. This is very close to the methodology of the private Tax Policy Center, whose analyses are frequently cited in policy debates. It assumes that 80 percent of the corporate tax is borne by capital and 20 percent by labor.

Of course, all of these assumptions may be called into question when dealing with any specific tax reform proposal. For example, a change in depreciation allowances is mainly going to affect manufacturing companies, whereas a change in the taxes on foreign-source income will have an impact only on multinationals.

To build support for or opposition to particular changes in corporate taxation, many claims will be made about the constituencies that will benefit or be harmed. People should be aware that even the best academic economists disagree on the basics of who actually pays the corporate tax.

Read More..

Ask Well: Coaxing Parents to Take Better Care of Themselves

Dear Reader,

Your dilemma of wanting to get your parents to change their ways to eat better and exercise reminds me of an old joke:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Sounds like your parents may be about as motivated as the light bulb right now. Still, there are things you can do to encourage them to move in a healthier direction. But the first step should not be to hand them a book. Unless you lay some prior groundwork, that gesture may seem almost as patronizing as an impatient tone of voice – and probably as likely to backfire.

Instead, start a conversation in a caring, nonjudgmental way. Ask, don’t tell. “Say, ‘You know, I might not know what I am talking about, but I am really concerned about you,” suggested Kevin Leman, a psychologist in Tucson, Ariz., and author of 42 books on changing behavior in families and relationships. Ask simply if there is anything you can do to help.

Leading by example is also more effective than lecturing. “The son can role-model health by inviting his parents to dinner and serving healthful items that he is fairly certain they will find acceptable, or ask them if they are interested in going out dancing with him and his wife,” suggested Ann Constance, director of the Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network in Michigan.

Pleasure is a better motivator for change than pain or threats. Use the grandchildren as bait. Ask if they want to take the grandchildren to the zoo or a park that would require a good bit of walking around for everyone. Or the grandchildren could ask them to come along on one of those 2K fund-raiser-walks that many schools hold. After all, a day with the grandchildren is always a pleasure in itself. (O.K., usually a pleasure.)

Tempted to give them the gift of a health club membership? “Save your money,” Dr. Leman said. Try a more indirect (and cheaper) approach. Create a mixed-tape of up-tempo music from their era. (“Songs they listened to from the ages of 12-to-17, which is what we all listen to for the rest of our lives,” said Dr. Leman) They will enjoy it any time — maybe even while walking.

If you really want someone you love to make a change, the key is to ask them to do something small and easy first because that increases the chances they will do something larger later. Psychologists call that “the foot in the door technique,” said Adam Davey, associate professor of public health at Temple University in Philadelphia, referring to a classic 1966 experiment called “Compliance Without Pressure.” In the study, which has been duplicated by others in many forms, researchers asked people to sign a petition or place a small card in a window in their home or car about keeping California beautiful or supporting safe driving. About two weeks later, the same people were asked to put a huge sign that practically covered their entire front lawn advocating the same cause.

“A surprisingly large number of those who agreed to the small sign agreed to the billboard,” because agreeing to the first small task built a bond between asker and askee “that increases the likelihood of complying with a subsequent larger request,” Dr. Davey explained.

Any plan for behavioral change is most likely to succeed if it is very specific, measurable and achievable, according to Ms.Constance.

And the new behavior should also be integrated into daily life — and repeated until it becomes a habit. For example, if you want to walk more, start with a 10-minute walk after dinner on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Ms. Constance suggested. The next week, bump it up to 12 minutes.

Don’t give up, even if you meet initial resistance — it is never too late for your parents or you or any of us to change. “Taking up an exercise program into one’s 80s and 90s to build strength and flexibility can result in very tangible and enduring benefits in a surprisingly short time,” insisted Dr Davey.

As for instructive reading, Dr. Leman is partial to one of his own books, “Have a New You by Friday,” and Dr. Davey recommends “Biomarkers: The 10 Keys to Prolonging Vitality,” by William Evans. Ms. Constance recommends the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site on physical activity and exercise tips for the elderly, as well as the National Institute of Health’s site on the DASH diet.

Read More..

Ask Well: Coaxing Parents to Take Better Care of Themselves

Dear Reader,

Your dilemma of wanting to get your parents to change their ways to eat better and exercise reminds me of an old joke:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Sounds like your parents may be about as motivated as the light bulb right now. Still, there are things you can do to encourage them to move in a healthier direction. But the first step should not be to hand them a book. Unless you lay some prior groundwork, that gesture may seem almost as patronizing as an impatient tone of voice – and probably as likely to backfire.

Instead, start a conversation in a caring, nonjudgmental way. Ask, don’t tell. “Say, ‘You know, I might not know what I am talking about, but I am really concerned about you,” suggested Kevin Leman, a psychologist in Tucson, Ariz., and author of 42 books on changing behavior in families and relationships. Ask simply if there is anything you can do to help.

Leading by example is also more effective than lecturing. “The son can role-model health by inviting his parents to dinner and serving healthful items that he is fairly certain they will find acceptable, or ask them if they are interested in going out dancing with him and his wife,” suggested Ann Constance, director of the Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network in Michigan.

Pleasure is a better motivator for change than pain or threats. Use the grandchildren as bait. Ask if they want to take the grandchildren to the zoo or a park that would require a good bit of walking around for everyone. Or the grandchildren could ask them to come along on one of those 2K fund-raiser-walks that many schools hold. After all, a day with the grandchildren is always a pleasure in itself. (O.K., usually a pleasure.)

Tempted to give them the gift of a health club membership? “Save your money,” Dr. Leman said. Try a more indirect (and cheaper) approach. Create a mixed-tape of up-tempo music from their era. (“Songs they listened to from the ages of 12-to-17, which is what we all listen to for the rest of our lives,” said Dr. Leman) They will enjoy it any time — maybe even while walking.

If you really want someone you love to make a change, the key is to ask them to do something small and easy first because that increases the chances they will do something larger later. Psychologists call that “the foot in the door technique,” said Adam Davey, associate professor of public health at Temple University in Philadelphia, referring to a classic 1966 experiment called “Compliance Without Pressure.” In the study, which has been duplicated by others in many forms, researchers asked people to sign a petition or place a small card in a window in their home or car about keeping California beautiful or supporting safe driving. About two weeks later, the same people were asked to put a huge sign that practically covered their entire front lawn advocating the same cause.

“A surprisingly large number of those who agreed to the small sign agreed to the billboard,” because agreeing to the first small task built a bond between asker and askee “that increases the likelihood of complying with a subsequent larger request,” Dr. Davey explained.

Any plan for behavioral change is most likely to succeed if it is very specific, measurable and achievable, according to Ms.Constance.

And the new behavior should also be integrated into daily life — and repeated until it becomes a habit. For example, if you want to walk more, start with a 10-minute walk after dinner on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Ms. Constance suggested. The next week, bump it up to 12 minutes.

Don’t give up, even if you meet initial resistance — it is never too late for your parents or you or any of us to change. “Taking up an exercise program into one’s 80s and 90s to build strength and flexibility can result in very tangible and enduring benefits in a surprisingly short time,” insisted Dr Davey.

As for instructive reading, Dr. Leman is partial to one of his own books, “Have a New You by Friday,” and Dr. Davey recommends “Biomarkers: The 10 Keys to Prolonging Vitality,” by William Evans. Ms. Constance recommends the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site on physical activity and exercise tips for the elderly, as well as the National Institute of Health’s site on the DASH diet.

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Bits Blog: Tech Predictions for 2013: It's All About Mobile

If there is one theme that will be the topic of digital business this year, it is mobile.

ComScore, which tracks Web and mobile usage, published a report about what happened in 2012, and what to expect in 2013.

It shows that the effects of a movement toward mobile are everywhere, from shopping to media to search. According to the report, “2013 could spell a very rocky economic transition,” and businesses will have to scramble to stay ahead of consumers’ changing behavior.

Here are a few interesting tidbits from the 48-page report.

The mobile transition is happening astonishingly quickly. Last year, smartphone penetration crossed 50 percent for the first time, led by Android phones. People spend 63 percent of their time online on desktop computers and 37 percent on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, according to comScore.

Just as they compete on computers, Facebook and Google are dominant and at each other’s throats on phones.

Google’s map app for the iPhone, which had been the most used mobile app, lost its No. 1 spot to Facebook after Apple kicked Google’s maps off the iPhone in October. Now, Facebook reaches 76 percent of the smartphone market and accounts for 23 percent of total time spent using apps each month. The next five most used apps are Google’s, which account for 10 percent of time on apps.

As mobile continues to take share from desktop, some industries have been particularly affected, and they are seeing significant declines in desktop use of their products as a result. They are newspapers, search engines, maps, weather, comparison shopping, directories and instant messenger services.

The most visited Web sites are not so surprising: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon. Facebook continues to take up most of our time online.

But there were a few surprises from younger, smaller Web companies. Tumblr was No. 8 on the list of sites, ordered by time spent on them. And several Web sites were breakout hits last year, as measured by growth and visitor numbers: Spotify (music), Dropbox (online storage), Etsy (shopping), BuzzFeed (news), JustFab (shopping), SoundCloud (music) and BusinessInsider (news).

Search, one of the biggest and most reliable Web industries, is at a crossroads, comScore said. Even though the search market continues to be extraordinarily profitable, there is a desire for it to evolve and offer new services to users.

Here is some evidence: Searches on traditional search engines, dominated by Google, declined 3 percent last year, and the number of searches per searcher declined 7 percent. Yet searches on specialty sites, known as vertical search engines, like Amazon.com or Whitepages.com, climbed 8 percent.

Social search, based on what users’ friends like, has put Facebook and Google on a “collision course,” comScore said, particularly in searches for local businesses like restaurants.

In social networking, the visual Web, as comScore calls it, has transformed the landscape. Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram, all of which emphasize images, each gained more than 10 million visitors last year.

Last year was also pivotal for online video, comScore said, as viewers increasingly seek the ability to watch video when and where they want. Watching TV shows online helped last year break viewing records, especially during the Olympics.

In the United States, 75 million people a day watch online video and stream 40 billion videos a month, and viewing is driven by YouTube.

There has also been a turning point for video ads. They cost more than typical ads, and have always lagged behind viewership. But in 2012, 23 percent of videos were accompanied by an ad, up from 14 percent the year before. More TV ad dollars are coming to online video, comScore concluded.

Though e-commerce spending grew 13 percent last year, it was a disappointing holiday season online, largely because of economic pressures. Purchasing on mobile phones is beginning to make a dent in e-commerce, comScore said, with mobile shopping accounting for 11 percent of e-commerce in the fourth quarter of 2012, up from 3 percent in the period two years earlier.

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IHT Rendezvous: Q and A: Nina Hoss, at Home at the Berlinale

BERLIN — The German actress Nina Hoss has been a fixture at the Berlinale in recent years. She won the best actress prize in 2007 for Christian Petzold’s “Yella,” served on the jury in 2011 and starred in one of the most acclaimed titles in last year’s competition, “Barbara,” also directed by Mr. Petzold (with whom she has made five movies in the past dozen years).

This year Ms. Hoss returned to the festival with “Gold,” her first film with Thomas Arslan, the German director often grouped with Mr. Petzold as a founding member of the Berlin School movement. A laconic and methodical neo-western, “Gold” chronicles the arduous expedition of several German fortune seekers into the Klondike hinterlands. Ms. Hoss plays Emily Meyer, a poised and somewhat enigmatic divorcée who may be the most driven member of the group, determined to forge ahead at all costs. It’s a typically restrained yet suggestive performance from an actress who has made an art of holding back.

Ms. Hoss, who will next be seen opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in Anton Corbijn’s adaptation of John le Carré’s novel “A Most Wanted Man,” spoke about “Gold” and her collaborations with Mr. Arslan and Mr. Petzold in an interview at the Hotel Mandala during the festival.

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

When you take on a period role, as you’ve done with “Gold” and “Barbara,” do you approach it differently?

A.

As a character you always deal with the environment you live in — that helps you understand why they react the way they do. With Emily, for instance, she wears a corset at the beginning, so there’s a restriction right away, but eventually she lets go. These aren’t problems a modern woman would deal with. But they were only allowed to wear skirts in those days, and they even had to take care of the length of the skirt — the Canadian police would actually fine them if they weren’t long enough. Knowing that, even if we don’t talk about it in the movie, helps you to create the character.

Q.

What else did the research involve?

A.

There’s a Canadian writer, Pierre Berton, who wrote books about the Klondike Gold Rush with loads of photographs. But the thing that helped me the most was making a research trip to Dawson City [the destination in “Gold”] three weeks before shooting. I wanted to see where they wanted to go. When you get to this place in the middle of nowhere — really, you drive for six hours and maybe you see 15 cars, no houses, and it’s still wild — you have this feeling of wanting to stay for some weird reason. I understood what they were longing for.

The people who live there are adventurous, they’re open, and they have to work with each other because otherwise they’re never make it through the winter. I could feel it, this simplicity but also the possibility of a new society, which was particularly interesting for a character like Emily. There are not so many books on women during that time but in Dawson City I found some books on local history. There were women who went there looking for adventure and for freedom and to create themselves again. There was no one to tell you that you couldn’t, so women succeeded there and that was a very interesting perspective on those days.

Q.

What about physical preparations?

A.

We had riding lessons here outside of Berlin, and there were lots of preparations with all the props. There was a specialist who taught us how they made fire. We had to practice packing and unpacking the horses, how to saddle them properly. It was practical training more than intellectual discussions.

Q.

Was it a difficult shoot?

A.

It was quite exhausting. Because it’s a low-budget project there are not too many people around to help with the horses, for example. You can imagine, these seven actors in a dense forest, holding their horses for hours, until the camera is ready. They get crazy — the horses, I mean.

Q.

To what extent did you think of “Gold” as a western?

A.

More a road movie. I think it’s not as lawless as a western. It has parts of the genre in it, like revenge and a shootout. But what I found quite interesting is being German in this country, it’s as if they bring the law with them, and there are all these restrictions that they put on themselves. When you see this German group in the forests of Canada, it immediately tells you how far they’ve traveled. What I found interesting was thinking about what makes people follow their dreams, how hope keeps you going and how it can destroy you.

Q.

Did you see similarities between Emily and Barbara? They’re living in very different circumstances but both are extremely focused women, self-sufficient out of necessity.

A.

In that sense, maybe, and also in that they have principles. Emily has strong principles and is very pragmatic, and same with Barbara. They are women with principles and also they don’t want to let go. For me there’s something very positive underneath with both of them. They believe in life and they want to live, with all its ups and downs. They want to die and say, I lived. No one took it away from me.

But Emily doesn’t have to hold back as much. She does in the beginning because it was dangerous for women to be on their own, so she can’t just be too openhearted.

Q.

Since your characters often reveal little about themselves, do you create back stories for them?

A.

To be so restricted in some of these roles, especially in Christian’s films, can be a tough job. That’s why I need to do other types of films and theater — you become an actor to express yourself, and it’s tough to restrain yourself all the time. I love it, of course, because it’s a specific kind of task and I love the characters Christian writes for me. But I need to know everything about her. From the script I can guess that’s probably why she reacts a certain way, maybe because of the past, so I construct something.

With these characters you don’t just react and say what you think. It’s more like, oh, I would like to say this now but I can’t, so I’m saying this instead. There are so many things going on that I need to exactly know what she wanted to say. That has to be precise, otherwise I go crazy. But I don’t force it. I don’t feel like I need to tell the audience what I’m thinking right now. I love that it can be very precise for me, but when you watch it your mind creates your own story for her.

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