Most people have heard the tragic stories of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Roman cities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 BCE (before common era). Paestum, their ancient neighbor, has not received as much space in the history textbooks nor the travel guides though it is no less deserving. It is in fact a very significant archeological site today and during it’s golden age it was much more important than Pompeii. However, it did not have a glorious death that made its neighbors famous; it just faded away.

Prior to the 600s BCE, the small coastal village of Paistom was inhabited by native Italian peoples. Around 600 BCE, the Greeks in their quest to dominate the Mediterranean world arrived and colonized. They renamed the town Poseidonia after their god of the ocean, Poseidon. The Greek village grew into a strategic trading post on the important Tyrhennian trade route. During their rule of several hundred years, the Greeks built temples and theaters, which still remain today. In fact, the best preserved and most intact Greek temple in the world is the Temple of Neptune in Paestum.

Back of Hera’s temple Temple of Neptune? Poseidon? Hera?
Neptune is the Roman name for the Greek god Poseidon. Early archeologists assumed that the magnificent temple they uncovered must have been dedicated to Poiseidon/Neptune because of the Greek name of the town. In books, it is often Temple of Poseidon, thought, the Italian archeologist who was my tour guide called it Temple of Neptune.
In fact, it should be renamed Temple of Hera. Recent archeology in the 1990s has proven that the temple was actually dedicated to the goddess Hera.
Ruins of Paestum. Temple of Neptune (Hera) in the distance.

Because of its Greek name and references in Roman records as a major coastal city, early archeologists assumed that the magnificent temple they uncovered must have been dedicated to Poiseidon/Neptune and hence its modern name. We don’t actually know what it was named by the Greek and Roman residents, though recent archeology in the 1990s has proven that the temple was actually dedicated to the Goddess Hera.
In addition to the temple dedicated to the goddess Hera, the Greeks built a temple for Athena. Athena’s temple has not survived the test of time as well as Hera’s, however, the Temple of Athena is also a major archeological resource because it is the earliest known example of a building with both ionic and doric style columns.

Temple of Athena
Front of the Temple of Athena. The earliest, and one of the few, examples of mixed styles of Greek columns. Doric on the outside and Ionic on the inside.

After a brief rule by the Lucans people, the Romans moved in. Romans did not “conquer” because the residents and business people were more than willing to become friends with the new kings of the hills. Greek domination of the Mediterranean was clearly on the downfall and Rome was on the rise. In 273 BCE the Romans arrived, relatively peaceably, …and stayed. The city was renamed Paestom.

Paestom was damaged by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 BCE, but it survived and continued to thrive. Under Roman leadership, Paestum became a major cultural focal point in addition to continuing its role as an important trading hub.

Paestum flourished and remained a significant Roman city until the fall of the Empire around 460 CE (common era). Like Rome itself, Paestum was invaded and ravaged by various warring peoples. It eventually fell into neglect until it was accidentally rediscovered it in the eighteenth century.

Archeologists, historians, and treasure hunters searched for Paestum for hundreds of years without success. Many records existed talking about a great Roman city with wonderful Greek temples. However, since no one could find any sign of Paestum and believed that it was only a myth. Paestum slept quietly, forgotten by the world, until 1752 when roads crews uncovered a portion of the Temple of Neptune. Immediately, the sleeping Greco-Roman city fired the imaginations of writers, artists, and historians. However, funds for research and public enthusiasm waned in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as archeological efforts focused on nearby Pompeii. However, in the 1990s interest in Paestom has resurfaced and will hopefully continue.

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A recent massive, long-term study of 12,000 8th and 10th grade youngsters clearly shows that raising the tax on cigarettes leads to fewer teenagers becoming regular smokers, said John A. Tauras, Ph.D., an economist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Tauras, lead author of the study report, said it found that a 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes caused a 10 percent decrease in the likelihood of an adolescent becoming a regular, daily smoker of at least half a pack a day.

“The fundamental laws of economics do apply here,” Tauras said. “Given that 90 percent of smokers start before they are 18, a hike in excise taxes appears to be an effective measure to keep them from taking up cheap cigarettes in the first place.”

“This study is the best evidence we’ve had on the effect of excise taxes,” said Frank Chaloupka, Ph.D., also an economist at UIC, and the director of ImpacTeen, a policy research project that aims at reducing youth substance abuse. “While other studies have shown a relationship between price and consumption (the number of cigarettes smoked), this is the first to definitely show that if you want to keep kids from smoking, then raise excise taxes.”

Every state taxes cigarettes, but the amount varies from 2.5 cents a pack in Virginia to $1.11 a pack in New York State.

The study results could provide ammunition for groups in the New England states, Indiana, Nebraska, Illinois and Tennessee that are trying to persuade their state legislatures to raise cigarette taxes. The organization, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, reports that 36 states have not raised their cigarette taxes in at least five years, 17 have not raised them for at least a decade, and six haven’t raised them in 20 years.

The higher-tax advocates find some legislators afraid that the result of an increase would be lower income from cigarette taxes. The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids said this won’t happen. New York and California have recently raised their excise taxes on cigarettes, and the result was increased revenue, although consumption dropped.

The study — funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest philanthropic organization devoted to health and health care in the United States — involved national surveys of 2,000 eighth graders and 2000 10th graders in each of three years, 1991, 1992 and 1993, with follow-up surveys at two-year intervals.

What it found was that a 10 percent increase in the cost of cigarettes reduced the likelihood of a youngster’s experimenting with smoking by 3 percent, and the chances that she or he would become a regular smoker of half a pack a day or more by 10 percent.

Many did not make the cut, but are worth mentioning for their various initiatives in the ecommerce area. They include the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, Georgia State University, the University of Washington Business School (Seattle), New York University, Columbia University, and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University (Houston).

With record amounts of money chasing Internet-related startups, MBAs are in demand like never before. Venture-backed investments reached a record $7.7 billion in the second quarter of this year. Of that, half went to Internet-related companies, according to a Price water house Coopers Money Tree survey. In fact, business students are growing increasingly restless, some crafting business plans and wooing venture capital months before graduating.

In either case, MBAs are in the catbird’s seat, many of them shunning consulting or corporate jobs for the entrepreneurial challenge-and chances of fortune-that Net startups offer.Otherwise high-flying tech companies are having a tougher time luring B-school grads. “We’re definitely seeing a lot of competition from startups that we hadn’t really seen before,” laments Lisa Weathers by, manager of corporate business recruiting for Intel. “This year there are a whole lot more students who are willing to take their chances with startups…. It makes it a little more difficult to recruit.”

Intel is trying to persuade new MBAs that they can satisfy their entrepreneurial itch by joining Intel’s (non semiconductor) product development group or new business group, where they would work with Internet startups that Intel has invested in.

Even is having trouble netting MBAs who are leaning toward younger ventures that hold the stock option carrot out to applicants. “They have expectations, given how many pre-IPO companies there are out there,” says Aida La Chaux, staffing manager at the Redwood City, Calif.-based company. “A lot of MBAs are looking at what companies can give them today, and more financially…. We try to accommodate their needs as best we can.”

Some recruiters caution that MBAs obsessed with following the high-risk, high-reward path may be risking too much, including their spirit. “The problem is [MBAs] in the past wouldn’t go to startups because they had a distorted sense of risk. Now their vision is distorted, but this time they’re seeing too little risk,” says Mike Maples, a co-founder of Motive Communications of Austin, Texas, whose software and Web service automate technical support for companies. He is also a Harvard Business School MBA from the Class of ’94. “A lot of MBA programs create a dangerous atmosphere where people get caught up in the track of the moment and forget to follow their passion…. Anyone who’s not passionate about a job has flunked the cosmic IQ test.”

Those who feel that getting a head start in the Information Age starts with prenatal exposure to mathematics and computer science won’t be surprised to learn that business schools are overhauling their curricula to give students a competitive edge in the New Economy.

It’s no wonder. The Internet is dramatically altering the way people communicate and do business, so universities that want to remain intellectual gene pools of future leaders must keep abreast of the changes. There’s also a financial incentive: Large corporations and Internet startups alike are showing increasing willingness to sponsor ecommerce programs at business schools. And students-eager to catch the dot-com boom-are spurring graduate schools to offer more ebusiness courses and other activities.
The best business school in the country is:
Berkeley
Carnegie Mellon
Georgia Tech
Harvard
Northwestern
Pennsylvania
Stanford
Texas
Vanderbilt

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

“It’s definitely the topic du jour. It’s very hot,” says Milton Blood, managing director of the AACSB International Association for Management Education, about ecommerce programs at B-schools. “What’s driving this trend is simply the observation of huge amounts of money now being transferred in electronic commerce. Those schools that can establish their place early on are counting on having more of an advantage in terms of being able to attract the best students and the best employers.”

We chose 10 business schools that are taking the lead in preparing students for the New Economy, based on course work, nonacademic activities, networking ties to high-tech companies, student and recruiter feedback, and the number of graduates who have started their own ventures or are working in Internet-related executive positions. While many B-schools offer executive MBA programs with ecommerce certificates, we’ve focused on standard full-time programs. All stand out because they have initiated innovative ecommerce tracks or research institutes. The ecommerce offerings range from a separate master’s degree in ecommerce (Carnegie Mellon University) to course-work emphases or concentrations. Some schools prefer not to offer students specialties in ecommerce, but have expanded and centralized their ebusiness-related courses and independent studies, and have strengthened their ties to the high-tech and venture communities.

What he’ll never mention is his central function: collecting capital from investors and handing it out to entrepreneurs. Venture capitalists are insulted if you suggest that they are “merely” providers of capital. The reason for their relentless posturing is that capital is becoming a commodity, as are the people who supply it, and they know it.

One day not long from now, entrepreneurs will get capital by posting a business plan on the Internet. And what, then, will be the role for venture capitalists?

When capital is treated as just another commodity, instead of some sacred trust, all sorts of other things happen. For one, the people who enjoy access to capital are no longer viewed as members of an exclusive club, since there is a new feeling in the air that everyone, in theory, has access to it. Which brings us to another more or less enduring change in social attitudes that has gotten a great big push from the Internet Boom: Getting rich quickly is no longer even the slightest bit controversial.

Ten years ago I published a book about Wall Street, Liar’s Poker, and spent six weeks racing around the country to persuade people to buy it. It was a war out there in the heartland. Hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts, junk bonds, savings and loan restructuring — you couldn’t talk about any of it without stirring up a lot of anger and resentment.

Book reviewers, television interviewers, letter writers, lecture hall questioners, and radio call-ins spoke with one voice: Wall Street people should be ashamed of their money. Indeed, I was routinely expected to be ashamed of myself for having been one of them.

Even people prone to think the best of their fellow man were unwilling to entertain a more nuanced view of new Wall Street money. On the Today Show, after I explained to Jane Pauley what I had done for a living, she smiled sweetly and said, “Now, your mother didn’t raise you to be that way.” Something important has changed, and it affects even those who have not gotten rich.

A few months ago I published a book about Silicon Valley, The New New Thing, and once again spent six weeks racing around the country to persuade people to buy it. This time it was a cakewalk. There was not a peep of protest about the new rich, or their methods. They were heroes.

The explosion in capital available for new ventures — and for the new people who create them — is a natural extension of trends that were up and running by the early 1980s, when Michael Milken raised capital for all sorts of implausible characters (T. Boone Pickens, Nelson Peltz) who wanted to take over big corporations. The reason this change has taken place is simple: It pays. By the end of the 1980s Milken may have been personally discredited but his ideas about finance had triumphed in the marketplace. In particular, Milken believed that high-risk debt was systematically undervalued, and therefore a good investment, if accumulated in a diversified portfolio. There is now a huge junk-bond industry that did not exist before.

By the end of the 1990s, Silicon Valley venture capitalists had proved a similar point: High-risk equity was also systematically undervalued in the marketplace, and therefore a good investment, if accumulated in a diversified portfolio. As a result, there is now a huge pool of venture capital searching for the new new thing. CONTENTS
Boom Or Bust?
Get Real
Winners & Losers

Of course, venture capital has existed as long as capitalism. But until very recently it was a tiny backwater of a business. Today it is an enormous, systematized industry, and is likely to remain so. The $6 billion of venture capital funds invested in the United States in 1993 had swelled to $40 billion by last year. But even those numbers underestimate the boom in capital available to entrepreneurs. In 1993, according to Venture One, the average company went public after six and a half years of venture capital funding. In 1998, thanks to the public willingness to invest in companies that had yet to prove their worth with profits, the number had fallen to 2.6 years, 2.2 for Internet companies. Why? Stock market investors — and not just day traders — have educated themselves a bit on the risks and rewards of earlier-stage investing. This in turn enables the venture capitalists to get their capital back three times as fast, and each venture capital dollar goes three times as far.

A curious consequence of the democratization of capital is the demise of the Wall Street Man: Capitalism is eating the capitalists. Who would have thought that from the heart of capitalism would rise anticapitalist propaganda? Turn on the television and it isn’t long before you see ads for an online brokerage firm telling you to fire your stockbroker, since his advice is worthless. The same will soon be said about the high-end brokers: investment bankers.

In just a few years, a status revolution has taken over the financial world. At the same time that the entrepreneur leapfrogged the venture capitalist, the venture capitalist leapfrogged the investment banker. A successful venture capitalist makes 10 times the money of a successful investment banker. Investment bankers now suck up to venture capitalists, rather than the other way around. Young people fresh out of business school go into investment banking usually after they have been rejected for jobs at venture capital firms.

Should I use a full-service broker, a discount broker or buy the stock online?

The way to find a good stock depends on how much work you’re willing to put in. If you don’t want to be bothered with researching a stock and its company, but prefer to let a pro choose stocks for you and provide financial-planning advice, hire a sharp full-service stockbroker who understands the kind of stocks you want to own. You’ll pay this broker a commission when you buy and sell stocks, of course. But the fee will be justified if you trust the broker’s judgment. There’s no guarantee that the stocks the broker picks will all go up, but you do want to see in a year’s time that the stocks have done better than the realistic goal the two of you have set. That goal could be “beating the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index,” essentially the rate of return for the U.S. stock market. Or the goal could be earning more than what you’d get from a bank CD.

Note: Don’t agree to buy any stock the broker recommends, however, until you have read material she or he has given you about the company and its prospects that convinces you the stock will be a long-term winner.

If you’re willing to do your own stock research, you can save money on brokerage commissions by using either a discount broker or an online brokerage. Online brokers are generally the cheapest, charging between $8 and $30 for buying a stock any time of the day or night. A recent SmartMoney magazine survey rated Discover Brokerage Direct (www.discoverbrokerage.com), Datek Online (www.datek.com) and Waterhouse Securities (waterhouse.com) the best online brokers overall, though Ameritrade (www.ameritrade.com) was the cheapest and Charles Schwab (www.schwab.com) and Quick & Reilly (quickwaynet.com) had the best free stock research for investors. Discount brokers like Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Quick & Reilly let you buy stocks either over the phone or in their walk-in offices. The amount you pay usually depends on the level of service the discounters offer. Some provide reports on stocks by brokerage analysts and lists of mutual funds; others, known as deep discount brokers, don’t and therefore charge less. A traditional discount broker might charge 20% to 60% less than a full-service broker and a deep discounter’s commission could be 70% to 80% less. Don’t sign up with any discounter until you’ve asked for a list of all its miscellaneous fees and its hours of operation.

How do I find the right stock?

First, decide what you’re looking for. Do you want current income as well as the chance for price appreciation? Then find a solid dividend-paying stock such as a utility company, a real estate investment trust (REIT) or a household-name, blue-chip firm with a history of paying dividends.

Ideally, you’d like a financially-strong stock yielding 3% or more (you determine a yield by dividing the dividend by the stock price). If you don’t care about current income but want a stock that could double your money in five years, you want a growth stock, one that has a good chance of boosting its profits by more than 12% a year. You’ll increase your odds of owning a winner if the company has a unique product or service, little or no debt.

You can research income stocks and growth stocks online (start with our Company Research tool) or in the public library, reading publications such as the Value Line Investment Survey or Standard & Poor’s Stock Guide. You might also want to buy a book dedicated to picking stocks wisely, like Michael Sivy’s Rules of Investing, The MotleyFool Investment Workbook or others mentioned in Good Books.

Like a bazaar guide who speaks the native language and knows the best places to shop, the New Economy’s “infomediary” introduces buyers to sellers and helps close the deal. In the case of Hong Kong-based trade publisher Asian Sources, knowing every inch of the massive import/export bazaar that is Asia is the secret to success.

Through an advertising-supported Website listing more than 57,000 items, Asian Sources sees itself as a “matchmaker” for transactions in Asia-produced goods. By providing increasingly sophisticated means for buyers and sellers to do business, Asian Sources hopes to position itself as a trusted partner and hub for importers and exporters in the region.

“The more we get into it, the more perfect the Internet is proving for bringing together importers and exporters,” says Australian native Sarah Benecke, the company’s chief executive officer.

About 7,000 suppliers dealing in everything from watchbands to furniture to electronics to clothing pay listing fees to post their wares in Asian Sources’ online spaces. Clients pay fees based on a sliding scale. To list a maximum of 10 products, they pay $250 per month. Companies with more than 250 products listed pay roughly $2,250 per month.

Suppliers are attracted to the Website because Asian Sources takes no cut in the sale, relying only upon listing fees and advertising for revenue. Buyers are attracted to the service because they can comparison shop quickly, reducing their time to market.

“While U.S. companies have become very efficient in using EDI [electronic data interchange], when it comes to dealing with their overseas suppliers everything kind of grinds to a halt,” . “The overseas supply chain is much more time-consuming and less efficient. The Internet will change this.”

Since investing $12 million over the past three years porting its wares to the Internet, the longtime print publisher of trade magazines such as Global Trader and Chief Executive Asia is beginning to see results. Online searches of products, customized data sheets that buyers and sellers exchange via email to negotiate deals, and proprietary software to finalize agreements are all part of Asian Sources’ online strategy. Of the privately held company’s 1998 estimated revenue of $120 million, about $15 million is expected to come from electronic media such as the company’s Website. By 2000, that figure could grow to half the company’s revenue.

“The Asian crisis is speeding the uptake of the medium, because many suppliers are desperate; they have factories they have to keep open and bills they have to pay,” Benecke says. “They need business, fast.”

Yes, it’s a relatively little known fact — sort of an “insider” approach to flying. As a courier, you give up your checked luggage space to a courier firm in exchange for a discounted airline ticket. You can, of course, take carry-on luggage. Generally, couriers have in their checked baggage such documents as cancelled checks, mail, overnight letters, replacement parts for broken machinery, etc. The courier carries the manifest, which enables the materials to clear customs almost immediately.

Each year, some 30,000+ courier flights take off from NY, Miami, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal to foreign destinations. Couriers get to the departure city at their own expense.

You must travel on the courier company’s timetable — return dates are determined in advance, stayover in the foreign country is generally limited, with seven days being the average.

Anyone over 21 with a valid passport and a clean-cut appearance can be a courier: no T-shirts, jeans or shorts on the flight and no drinking alcohol before or during the flight.

For more info on travel as an air courier, contact The International Association of Air Travel Couriers in Lake Worth. Membership is $45/year; you get daily updates on available flights, ticket prices and a monthly newsletter. This association tracks about 60 courier companies’ flights. Recently, flights to Europe from the West Coast were running between $150 and $250; slightly less from the East Coast. There are also, from time to time, flights to the Orient, Far East and South America.