FIFA's "new" president

Newly re-elected FIFA President Sepp Blatter has tried to distance himself from FIFA’s corruption scandal involving $150 million in bribes.

Blatter said Saturday in Zurich that he was not the “high-ranking FIFA official” mentioned in the U.S. indictment who allegedly wired $10 million to CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) officials for a vote to select South Africa as the host country of 2010 World Cup.

 “Why didn't the police do this in March when we had the same meeting? At that time, we had fewer journalists," Blatter asked in an RTS Swiss television channel interview. “The Americans, if they have a financial crime that regards American citizens, must arrest these people there and not in Zurich in the moment we have a congress.”

The arrests were connected to a bribery scandal being investigated by U.S., Swiss and other law enforcement agencies that has plunged FIFA into the worst crisis in its 111-year history.

U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati said in a statement the goal for the governance of FIFA is to "be responsible, accountable,  transparent and focused solely on the best interests of the game.”

Unlike one day earlier when he said that he could not control everyone’s actions, Blatter said that he was “willing to accept that the FIFA president is accountable for everything.”

Regarding an effort by Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) President Michel Platini to oust him, Blatter told RTS, “I forgive everyone but I don't forget. We cannot live without UEFA and UEFA cannot live without us.”

Blatter was seven votes short of the required 140 majority in the first round of voting, but his opponent, Prince Ali, withdrew before a second round could take place.

After the vote Friday at the 65th FIFA annual congress in Zurich, Switzerland, Blatter thanked his challenger and praised him for his integrity and commitment to reform FIFA. Blatter promised to elevate FIFA from its current critical state of affairs.

Addressing the congress earlier, Blatter said he will "shoulder responsibility for the current storm" of corruption allegations. "FIFA needs to recover its good name starting tomorrow," he said.

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FIFA's biggest sponsors in 60' (ivdeo)

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Money to stop smoking?

One of the newest aids to help people quit smoking does not involve pills, nicotine patches or classes, but good old-fashioned money.

A study published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine found monetary incentive programs to be five times more effective than free smoking cessation aids.

The most effective of these programs plays on the human tendency toward risk aversion. According to lead author Scott Halpern, having people put their own money at risk if they don’t stop smoking is even more effective than simply giving people a cash award if they do quit.

In a study of monetary incentive programs involving smokers at a large U.S. drug sales company, employees who deposited $150, and received it back with an additional $650 when they stopped smoking, were twice as successful at quitting as those who were simply given $800 after they kicked the habit.

“We simply don’t wish to part with our own money," Halpern said. "And that explains why both relatively few people were willing to make that $150 deposit in the first place but also, among those who do, the skin-in-the-game approach is so overwhelmingly effective and far more effective and any smoking cessation strategy that has ever been tried.”

Halpern, a health policy analyst at the University of Pennsylvania, said the hundreds of dollars spent on monetary incentive smoking cessation programs are a bargain.

“Employers are spending somewhere between $3,000 and $6,000 per year to employ a smoker, above and beyond the costs to employ a nonsmoker," he said. "And that’s attributable to increased health care costs, reduced worker productivity, absenteeism and the like.”

Halpern said the same benefit in cost savings could apply to governments that also spend a lot of money on smokers.

Cigarette smoking is truly a global health problem. It's the No. 1 cause of preventable death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The WHO says that tobacco kills 6 million people yearly — a figure that is expected to rise to 8 million by 2030 unless urgent action is taken — and that an estimated 80 percent of the world's 1 billion smokers light up in developing countries.

edited from Reuters

NY's One World Trade Center Observatory (video)

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Speeding in Finland

Getting a speeding ticket is not a feel-good moment for anyone. But consider Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman.

He was recently fined 54,024 euros (about $58,000) for traveling a modest, if illegal, 64 miles per hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone. And no, the 54,024 euros did not turn out to be a typo, or a mistake of any kind.

Mr. Kuisla is a millionaire, and in Finland the fines for more serious speeding infractions are calculated according to income. The thinking here is that if it stings for the little guy, it should sting for the big guy, too.

The Nordic countries have long had a strong egalitarian streak, embracing progressive taxation and high levels of social spending. Perhaps less well known is that they also practice progressive punishment, when it comes to certain fines. A rich person, many citizens here believe, should pay more for the same offense if justice is to be served. The question is: How much more?

At the University of Helsinki, Jussi Lahti, 35, a graduate student in geography, said that he could understand why Mr. Kuisla was upset, but that he considered the principle of an equal percentage fair. And, he added, Mr. Kuisla “had a choice when he decided to speed.”

The size of Mr. Kuisla’s ticket nonetheless drew considerable attention here as television shows and newspapers debated the merits of Finland’s system, which uses a complex formula based on income to calculate an individual’s fines. Some wondered whether the government should stop imposing such fines for infractions at relatively low speeds. Some suggested that a fine so big was really a form of taxation.

But the idea that the rich should pay heavier fines did not seem to be much in question. “It is an old system,” said Pasi Kemppainen, chief superintendent at the National Police Board. “It may lead to high fines, but only for people who can afford it.”

The fines are calculated based on half an offender’s daily net income, with some consideration for the number of children under his or her roof and a deduction deemed to be enough to cover basic living expenses, currently 255 euros per month.

Then, that figure is multiplied by the number of days of income the offender should lose, according to the severity of the offense.

Mr. Kuisla, a real estate millionaire, was clocked speeding near the Seinajoki airport. Given the speed he was going, Mr. Kuisla was assessed eight days. His fine was then calculated from his 2013 income, 6,559,742 euros, or more than $7 million at current exchange rates.

Someone committing a similar offense and earning about 50,000 euros a year, or $54,000, none of it capital gains, and with no young children, would get a fine of about 345 euros, or about $370. Someone earning 300,000 euros ($322,000), would have to pay about 1,480 euros ($1,590).

Police officials say that there are really very few tickets issued of this magnitude, though they do not keep track.

Until he was issued the speeding ticket, Mr. Kuisla used his Facebook page largely to post pictures of his winning horses or the lobbies and bars of the hotels he owns. But last month Mr. Kuisla, 61, took to Facebook with 12 furious posts in which he included a picture of his speeding ticket (photo above) and a picture of what 54,024 euros could buy if it were not going to the state coffers — a new Mercedes. He said he was seriously considering leaving Finland altogether and his attention focused on Finnish policies that he said discouraged entrepreneurs, apparently a reference to the country’s progressive tax system and its high inheritance taxes. High earners can face an income tax rate of more than 50 percent.

“Finland is now an impossible country to live in for people with a large income and wealth!” he posted. But online comments in newspapers suggested a strong showing for the other side.

“This says a lot about the times when the stinkingly rich can’t even take their fines for crimes, but are immediately moving out of the country. Farewell, we won’t miss you,” said one post in The Helsingin Sanomat, a daily newspaper and website.

Mr. Kuisla’s $58,000 ticket is not even the most severe speeding ticket issued in recent years. According to another daily newspaper, Ilkka, Mr. Kuisla himself got an even bigger fine in 2013 when he was going about 76 m.p.h. in a 50 m.p.h. zone. That ticket was for 63,448 euros, about $83,769 at the time.

Bigger yet was the ticket issued to a 44-year-old Nokia executive in 2002, when he was caught blowing through Helsinki on his Harley motorcycle and was hit with a $103,600 fine, based on a $12.5 million yearly income.

In Vihti, a manor owned by Reima Kuisla, a millionaire fined about $58,000 for speeding, a penalty calculated by income. CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

 edited from The New York Times