Job Opportunity: Seeking Alpha is Looking For An Editorial Administrator in Israel

Seeking Alpha, a leading stock market website based in Israel and New York, would like to hire an Editorial Administrator for our Hertzelia office. The position is fulltime and reports to the Editor in Chief.

Requirements:

- Proven experience or strong aptitude for a demanding administrative role
- Extremely detail oriented
- Ability to handle multiple ongoing tasks in an efficient manner
- Native English speaker
- Strong computer skills: internet, word processing and some database experience preferred
- Outstanding communication skills - written and verbal; ability to serve as an effective liason between various teams
- Self-starter who doesn't require or desire constant supervision
- University degree from English-speaking nation preferred

If you're interested in the position, please send an email to contentjobs@seekingalpha.com <mailto:xxxx@seekingalpha.com> with the following:

- A brief description of your prior experience in administrative roles. If you have none, please state the reason you'd be interested in such a role.
- Why you are specifically interested in working with Seeking Alpha (no more than 2 paragraphs)?
- Your resume in English.
- References from prior relevant positions, including phone numbers.

Please note that we'll only be able to respond to relevant applicants.

What Obama Can Learn from the NFL and NBA about Salary Caps and Driving Innovation

For almost a year now, Washington has been abuzz about compensation caps for Wall Street executives. I can give a long litany of reasons why I think that is a bad idea that creates disincentives for recruiting great people to run these companies at their greatest time of need. As I have written in the past, America (and my home country of Israel for that matter) needs to invest in innovation. Interestingly, salary caps may be a way to spur brainpower into innovation. However, it is an inversion of the populist approach to salary caps currently in vogue.

President Obama's administration could learn a lot about salary caps from the NBA and NFL and in the process can help America turn on the innovation engine that America really needs to climb out of this deep recession. You see, the place to enforce Wall Street salary caps is not on executives but on fresh college grads and MBAs like the NFL does on rookies. This helps spread the talent wealth in the NFL and NBA in a way that it is not currently allocated in American industry.

The fat paychecks that Wall Street was and is able to pay the best and the brightest college grads from MBAs, to mathematics majors and engineers has pushed that brainpower from technological, business and medical innovation to financial engineering. Analyst salaries at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are able to attract the best and the brightest away from pursuing engineering or energy jobs where the brainpower could develop alternative energy sources, more sustainable agriculture and faster telecommunications and not just the next complex derivative. Imagine if all of Americas best brains and management talent were focused on innovation and not financial engineering or lawyering.

The best way to do this is an investment of resources and disincentives to shift brainpower into productivity and ingenuity. The stick is an NBA-style salary cap for rookies so they do not get into the financial system coupled with an investment in PhD and post doc research grants. If ingenuity jobs will pay better than financial engineering it is obvious that most bright grads would prefer innovation over all-nighters preparing boring pitch books and number crunching for bankers.

It is not Jerry Maguire-esque but it is a good way to stack the incentive system to focus on innovation.

An Open Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu About Forcing Hard Decisions

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Shana Tova. First, I would like to commend you on your superb speech at the United Nations. In general, you have done a good job running our country in your first 6+ months from the 2 year budget to the stable coalition. You have jumped on the swine flu threat with alacrity and put Iran on firm notice. You have steadfastly stood up to President Obama's demands on settlements and correctly pointed out that we should make our own decisions and not be forced by a US President. Congratulations.

Therefore, I was struck by your recent decision to ask for a 2 billion NIS reduction in all the current government ministries to finance the swine flu vaccines and secret military needs. I do not object to the budget cut. I think that is called fiscal responsibility which is in short supply in the world today. What I object to is the broad cut. A 2% reduction in spending across all ministries is running away from tough decisions and tough politics.

On a smaller scale, but very similarly, board members at start ups force budget cuts in tough times. However, we do not turn to the CEO and say cut 10% in R&D, Sales and Marketing and GA. We look at where we can afford to cut and where we need to invest and make deeper cuts in some and no cuts in others. No everyone is happy but that is what needs to be done and that is what you need to do.

We cannot cut any more in education. We need to invest more there. Gideon Saar is right. We cannot cut more in infrastructure spending, job retraining or R&D spending because we will not be competitive globally. We need to invest in creating jobs because unemployment erodes societal solidarity and I do not see your ministries working hard to create these jobs yet. We cannot cut police spending because the crime here is intolerbale. So we, no you, need to make hard decisions that will be unpopular with some of your colaition partners.

We do not have money for subsidies for people who choose not to work, nor for the child allowances you reinstated. I wish we did. But we do not. People need to have families that they can afford to pay for. That is very Jewish. I am a big fan of an increased Jewish birthrate and believe everyone should have more children but the government does not have money to pay for that. We do not have money for more bypass roads in Yehuda and Shomron. The Smol Haleumi is right on this point. It hurts, but we do not have the money. Communities need to start paying for religious services like communities in the diaspora do. Sorry Minister Margi. The government does not have money for it. By the way, what does not Science Ministry that Minister Hershkowitz runs do anyway?

We need hard decisions. We need deep cuts in some ministries and services and no cuts in others. We need your proposed investment in railroads. We need a deep investment in broadband infrastructure and we needa huge investment in education and defense. We need to prioritize. We need to ask the question of one more F15 vs. 1000 more teachers. We need to ask the question of one more road in Yehuda and Shomron vs. smaller classrooms and a national railroad system. We need to talk about this clearly and not waver or hide behind broad cuts. It is time for hard decisions. Recessions tend to force this focus. Let's use it.

Thanks for listening and Chag Sameach
Michael