Bishop Hill Coining it
Nov 26, 2011 Climate: CRU Email 3989 covers a consultancy tender by CRU staff. The tender is for AEA, an environmental consultancy.
We learn that the day rates are as follows:
>> Phil: £750
>> Tim, Rachel, Anthony, Aldina, William, Clare: £550
>> Maureen: £450
And what will happen to this money?
[School of Environment] will top slice the total cost by 10% and there is a 15% management fee so basically you will have a choice to make regarding the remainder (75%) you can either take this personally via payroll or choose to 'gift' some or all of it into a school consultancy income account where it can be used for travel, equipment, etc.
If you wanted to maximise the amount that you receive you could ask Jim to increase the UEA daily rates he has given by 25% to cover this.
There is some further discussion later in the thread
Overall, it seems that [???] will need to tell the university whether or not we want to take the money as salary or not.
To which someone replies:
No we don't, you don't decide what to do with the money until it's payout time...there are a number of options - take as (non-pensionable) bonus, donate to school pot or, if you can get it past finance you can try and charge yourself as a direct cost (to Tyndall/CRU or whatever) and attempt to get the money transferred....if you're lucky enough to be a Prof - Phil might have one - you can transfer to that via the school - Jacquie B and me have talked about this in the past - lots of options but all have got ages to decide and each individual can choose what to do.
Lucky old them.
Reader Comments (83)
How much for Harry to look after their data?
Presumably Phil's rate is so high because he has to bring along a minder in case he bumps into a spreadsheet and gets into a tizz.....
0073.txt Phil Jones sends email to UEA staff about carbon trading:
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0073.txt&search=carbon+trading
How is this not conflict of interest? See nature's blog:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/11/european_carbon_market_plummet_1.html
If you’re a scientist, not a market trader, you might hope this will have little direct effect on research. But if today’s low prices persist for a few more months, they will slash billions of euros from a European fund dedicated to clean energy projects. That’s because the fund, named NER300, is about to raise its cash by selling 300 million carbon credits on the ETS. Eight carbon capture projects and 34 renewables projects were set to benefit from the money. But at current prices, the sale would raise only €2.1 billion, instead of the €4.5 billion hoped for when the fund was proposed. Sales of the first 200 million carbon credits are due to start in December, and continue for the next 10 months, says Stig Schjølset, head of EU carbon analysis for the consultancy firm Thomson Reuters Point Carbon.
Transformation of thin gruel into gravy.
These consultancy arrangements look pretty much standard for UK academics. I am allowed to spend up to 30 days a year on paid work for outside organisations with no reduction in my base salary; above that I would have to declare it to the University and renegotiate my contract. It is normally convenient to arrange consultancy work through the university consulting service, in which case they take care of billing and taxation issues in exchange for a percentage of the fee. You have to be careful about use of university equipment for consultancy work (any significant use must be charged for separately), but most consultancy is just about opinions and expertise: doing significant experimental work for companies is usually arranged through different routes.
The only surprising thing to me is how low these numbers are: while I don't do much consultancy, on the rare occasions I have done so my rates have been quite a bit higher than these. Of course these may be "non-commercial" rates and so lower than usual.
Some interesting FOI enquiries are possible here?
"these may be "non-commercial" rates" - or perhaps, "non-expert or amateur" rates?
Sorry this is slightly O/T but has anyone seen the latest contribution by Leo Hickman.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/23/climate-scientists-hacked-emails-uea?INTCMP=SRCH
Of all the things I have read in the past few days, this I found genuinely the most disturbing and shocking. Why would they do this? The Guardian of all places? What are they hoping to achieve? Will they turn the 'whistleblower' over to the police if they get any 'clues'?
Jonathan, thanks for the heads up from academia generally on this. My hunch is you'd be better value for money at twice the price.
WUWT has an interesting piece about a picture of steam from a power station apparently being tampered with to make it look like dirty smoke.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/25/photoshopping-in-the-worseness/
What's of particular interest here is where this altered image has been used. This image search:
http://www.tineye.com/search/4b89c7b03e152530382a2468f53f612987e14ae0/
shows that the altered image has been repeatedly attached to articles by Roger Harrabin and Richard Black, despite being unrelated to the actual story.
Caroline 8:54
"Of all the things I have read in the past few days, this I found genuinely the most disturbing and shocking. Why would they do this?"
Surely to distract readers' attention from what the emails actually say.
e-mail 4655
date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 12:07:43 -0000
from: "Asher Minns" <???@environmental-change.oxford.ac.uk>
subject: Re: Chairman for Nuclear Debate
to: "Mike Hulme" <???@uea.ac.uk>
I agree that Alex Kirby would make a good job
and is probably first choice. He would certainly come cheaper than Humphreys
or other broadcaster. However, people from the telly do draw a crowd, which
I guess is why they charge so much.
I had an interesting lunch with Roger Harrabin last week about developing
the comms strategy.
=============================
Jonathan Jones
A big thanks for having the guts to poke your head up above the parapets in the name of scientific integrity. To a layman such as me, one of the most appalling aspects of so-called climate science is the muted response of the scientific community at large to the betrayal of the scientific method by a cabal of self-serving charlatans masquerading as scientists.
As you must realise it is not just ‘climate science’ that suffers. All scientists will be tarred with the same brush in the eyes of Joe Public. On an earlier thread Richard Betts tried to distinguish between climate scientists (good honourable people such as himself) and climate change scientists (not quite so good or honourable). With respect to Richard Betts his weasel words are just that. Unless and until the good and honourable scientists go on the record and make it clear that the activities of the charlatans are totally unacceptable, then I am afraid that science and the scientific method will continue to be greatly abused to the great harm to the citizens of the world.
I was led to believe in a private exchange of emails with a UK academic that there are a large number of scientists who are shocked at the behaviour of the Team but are afraid to speak out because they think it may harm their own careers. Self-preservation is a strong motivator, but at some point in time the tide will turn and the silent majority will come out of the shadows and let their voices be heard.
I urge you to continue to be one of the very few voices in the wilderness. In time your colleagues will hear you and find the courage that you have shown and then and only then will public confidence in science be re-established
Kind regards
Dolphinhead
Lools like AEA technology need every penny they can get!
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShareNews.asp?shareprice=AAT&ArticleCode=u9pk9wsub6eobho&ArticleHeadline=UPDATE_1AEA_Technology_warns_on_profit_CEO_quits
British energy and environmental consultancy AEA Technology warned on its profits for the second time in seven months, blaming contract delays and the loss of some orders, and said its chief executive would step down. ............ more
Share price has plummeted from 30p to 0,27p
I think the ceo is paul golby of EON UK - how on earth did he get mixed up with this sort of business?
http://www.eon-uk.com/1368.aspx
http://www.aeat.com/cms/aea-group-board-and-committees/
http://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=legacydaily&epic=L^AAT&type=1&size=2&period=7&ind_type1=1&ind1_1=&ind2_1=&olx_1=&scheme=&delay_indices=1
Oh and the balance sheet looks ropey - long term debt of £160m -how will they ever pay it back on a turnover of only £110m?
http://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&btn=s_ok&symbol=aat&s_ok=OK
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/prestigious_queen_s_award_for_university_of_east_anglia_s_creative_writing_course_1_1136731
The creative writing course at the University of East Anglia has won one of the UK’s most prestigious higher education awards, which will be presented by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
===
Must be a climate scientist teaching this course.
Crikey were getting desperate here. I remember when this used to be a pseudoscience blog.
Jazznick,
That comment in #4655 from Asher Minns is very disturbing:
"I had an interesting lunch with Roger Harrabin last week about developing
the comms strategy."
That is comment from University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute Public Affairs Officer developing a Comms strategy with a BBC journalist. The more I read of these emails the more evidence I think there is that Harrabin, Black, Kirby etc have "gone native". They are no longer acting as journalists but as an extension of the PR machine of places such as CRU and Oxford.
How can any journalist worth their salt, when presented with clear evidence of conspiracy to pervert FOIA and clear evidence that some of the scientists found McIntyre to be correct, simply continue to act as the BBC PR representatives for this motley CRU?
And how does Richard Black get away with a statement like this "A hacker entered a backup server at the university and downloaded a file containing administrative passwords, which were subsequently used to access a vast number of files and emails dating back to 1997."
Not in quotes, no caveats, no supporting statement from the Police investigation. The reason Black writes like this and carries on with the PR instead of the journalism is because he knows he can get away with it. The complaints procedure at the BBC is there to flannel away the scruffy "mob" from crticising policy within the BBC. The BBC has "decided" where the truth lies on Climate Change and the dirty unwashed are really not relevent in that.
Mark my words, if the UK does not do anything to get rid of Phil Jones and his merry band of UEA climate clowns, the UK is going to become a global laughing stock for many years to come. But again, this ties in to the UK government's foolish punt on reinventing itself as the financial mecca of carbon credit trading, a gamble that is seriously going wrong.
I do not see this as anything worth comment. We all work for a wage and overtime/extracurricular is always nice to pay the mortgage etc. If the school allows it why not. Its the science we should be after and there is more than enough to be going on with there.
Hengist, lost over at Maurizio place so you come back here to Troll with no science as usual? Pathetic!
Hengist, if you want pseudoscience pop over to RC, or read some of the papers from Mann, Steig, Jones, Briffa etc. In the words of Michael Mann in #1485:
"the important thing is to make sure they're loosing (sic) the PR battle. That's what
the site [Real Climate] is about."
Some highlights in the latest emails, in case you missed them:
Steig confirms in private what it took RyanO et al blood sweat and tears to demonstrate about Steig09 being wrong.
Manns hockey stick algorithm failing a simple random noise check is confirmed by Wilson #4241
McIntyre and McKitricks comments on the statistical insignificance of the hockey stick are confirmed.
Lonnie Thompson/Al Gore concerning snow on Kiliminjaro is shown for the deliberate lie it was - yet none of the "scientists" spoke up, even though they admitted it was untrue in private and even Lonnie Thompson knew it to be untrue
Mitchell/Meto in #3994 clearly stating Manns PCA is not robust
Jones in #0953 admits that the sulphate explanation for cooling 1940 - 1970 "won't be quite as necessary"
But the best of all is Wils in #1682
"What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural
fluctuation? They'll kill us probably [...]"
So Hengist you have several choices if you want to read pseudoscience, but it ain't here. Here people can talk freely and intelligently about real issues, unlike the PR pseudoscience sites such as RC.
Regarding the topic of the post, I agree with Pete H, there is nothing much of interest in these rates and if the University policy allows consulting then there is no reason why they shouldn't do this. The rates are not particularly high (or low) for academic staff consulting, and are pretty much what would be expected. Unlike a commercial consultancy business the rates do not have to reflect the overhead.
@ Caroline
I posted on Hickman's party piece email correspondence between the fragrant Mann and squeaky clean Monbiot? It didn't stay up for very long.
What were they doing but scheming to bring down Martin Durkin?
These rates seem pretty low compared with our big oil fees.
I have to concur with Pete H and ThinkingScientist. I really do not think that this represents any kind of an issue. They work...they get paid.
I am firmly of the opinion that a cabal of climate scientists have concealed their private doubts about the present state of climate science whilst wishing to maintain a "consensus" to the outside world to keep the funds and the junkets coming, to "big themselves up" and to feed the politicos and the BBC what they want to hear.
However, apart from revealing even more that this is very likely the case, this second batch of emails has brought very little of real substance and I think it is a bit embarassing that so many commentators are making such a big deal about it.
Having said that, the new release does serve as a timely reminder to all those who were in danger of forgetting about Climategate 1 so it does serve a purpose in the PR war for public opinion on the subject!
If every climate scientist in the world came out tomorrow and said : "Yes, the world is warming a bit and our CO2 emissions may have a very small effect or may not but there is no cause for alarm or the drastic curtailment of such emissions" then it would still take a decade to wind this juggernaut down. That is why PR is just as important as scrutinising the science. It is a pity it has to be so... but it is!
On the subject of UEA's creative writing course:
#2564.txt
From press releases referring to UEA
Mail on Sunday 2.3.08
P61/63 What I've learn[t] from being in the system is that there's a seed of mental illness in
everyone
Interview with author Clare Allan, who studied creative writing at the UEA.
ThinkingScientist
Yes - PR machine and in-house training facility !
e-mail 3411 (part)
date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 10:49:06 +010 ???
from: ???@open.ac.uk
subject: media seminar on COP6
to: ???@uea.ac.uk
Dear Dr. Hulme
I'm writing to ask if you would be willing to contribute to a briefing
meeting for BBC news and current affairs in advance of the forthcoming UN
climate talks.
This forms part of the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme of seminars
that I run jointly with Roger Harrabin of the BBC R4 Today Programme (see:
www-cies.geog.cam.ac.uk/www-cies/MediaSems.html
for more information on these). You will be aware that the Programme forms
part of the Cambridge contribution to the work of the Tyndall Centre.
/
Dr. Joe Smith
Lecturer, Faculty of Social Sciences
Open University, Milton Keynes
Email: ???@open.ac.uk <mailto:???@open.ac.uk>
Talking about money and PR...
#3814
There are things more important than coins.
I wonder if he got the job.
I'd agree with the others above that the rates are not over the top. A workman is worth his wage, and the University and taxman will take their share.
Compare that with what the head of one of the investigations trousered. Wasn't it around £40k for what amounted to 6 days work? Now that is coining it.
Caroline (Nov 26, 2011 at 8:54 AM)
There’s been a lot of comment on the Hickman article on the previous thread here. Hickman lays down the rules on what comments will get deleted (“Any comments about what does or doesn't cause climate change etc”) despite the fact that moderation at CiF is supposedly independent of journalists. All comments which reveal what is in the emails also get deleted. The Guardian has scraped the bottom here.
Comments are off for the weekend, but should be back on Monday morning. All those not banned for life from CiF might like to get over there. “Recommends” on sceptic comments are beating those on warmist comments by a margin of around 5:1.
Caroline
Guardian line - wikileaks leaks GOOD. Climategate leaks BAD.
Go figure, as our American friends say. The Guardian * The BBC = Hypocrisy squared.
Caroline on Nov 26, 2011 at 8:54 AM : Sorry this is slightly O/T but ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/23/climate-scientists-hacked-emails-uea?INTCMP=SRCH
Caroline, I agree with you. This is a very passive 'unthoughtful' article, attempting to explain away the inconvenient truths!
When McIntyre said "... but if you're writing those papers to use for public policy then there's an obligation on people to criticise what needs to be criticised" there is the assumption that they will get a reply, a reply that should be part of a dialogue between those able to contribute to the discussion.
This should be the case even if (or especially when) you are not in full agreement with them. It's what science is all about, isn't it?
Juliette Jowit and Leo Hickman should have questioned whether the "scientists [that had been] questioning and challenging each other" (taken from a quote in the article) were all dedicated to 'the Cause' and censored discussion outside their clique or whether they were willing to engage open discussion with others from different disciplines.
When Climategate II offers enough evidence to suggest a few more questions, it can only be because there is an agenda; one that is falling apart - at last!
The cast of villains in this disgraceful pantomime appear to have gone into hiding. Has anyone seen them in the flesh since the new e-mails were released?
Talking of pantomime...
jazznick,
For a bit of background I looked for that CMEP page a few days ago and it no longer exists.
www-cies.geog.cam.ac.uk/www-cies/MediaSems.html
But Web Archive has some old versions of that page providing some background info on what CMEP were doing before 2000.
http://tinyurl.com/c8zp43a
9th January 1997
4th June 1997
12th 13th June 1997
Plus a Business Editors seminar and another BBC Editors Seminar.
I appreciate that this type of consultancy may not be unusual but surely there is a massive conflict of interest here.
These "scientists" aren't just fiddling round the edges of well-established fields of study, they are the co-creators of a trillion dollar industry. On their word the fate of whole countries economies, industries and old age pensioners freezing in houses they can't afford to heat rests.
Chris Jones and co have a vested financial interest here in propagating an alarmist line, after all if they were saying "nothing much to worry about here: as you were" their status, their junkets to exotic locations and, now we learn, their pay packets from environmental activists, would disappear before nightfall.
Even if Jones and co had an inclination to be unbiased (Yes, I know!) this extra source of personal income would be a powerful disincentive to strive for truth if if it was taking them in the less lucrative direction.
There is an assertion made in several of the emails that anyone studying solar effects on the Earth's climate is a "loony". Were members of The Team ever real scientists or have they always been like this?
Buffy,
Reading the emails it is quite apparent that this little of group of people regard anyone who's views differ from their own as "loony", "crap", "worthless" and so on. In fact, they are so dysfunctional they even regard each other like that. Are they real scientists? Just occasionally there are hints of science, but most of the time they are simply fudging together data to support "the Cause". What is very noticeable to me is how they have to keep recycling the same poor quality and unsuitable data, dragged from its original source, to try and continually put sticking plaster over an appalingly weak theory. They even have other scientists TELLING them when they cannot legitimately do certain things and still blithely carry on, publishing papers and pretending to the outside world the science is settled. They KNOW their correlations and analyses are weak, they KNOW that many of McIntyres criticisms are valid but they will NEVER admit it. Its not science, its advocacy.
Question is what is their motive for behaving like this? I think it just makes them feel important - feted by BBC, jetting to high powered conferences, advising World Bank. They are all such terribly mediocre scientists and they have let their egos overrule their integrity and ethics. Might be a good moment to read "Bonfire of the Vanities" again!
ThinkingScientist said:
This is particularly evident in the emails that mention malaria. Paul Reiter removed himself from the IPCC process over this. One of his emails to Mike Hulme is included in the unencrypted lot - 3691.txt
An excerpt (italics added for emphasis):
With regard to Reiter, Mick Hulme mentions talking to him in 2766.txt
So Hulme spent some time talking to Reiter "Robustly" but needed to "know" about him further even so. I wonder if this is because I guess he picked up some dissenting non-consensus vibe about the way Reiter thought about his speciality of Malaria that Reiter knows a bleeding lot more about then Hulme?
Oh, and another thing that email was 2002, and we only just recently we have the World Health Organisation saying Malaria levels have dropped to historic lows in the last 10 years. How could that have happened!???
God I sometimes oscillate on my opinion of some of these guys - their feather nesting abilities seems more vigorous than their science, maybe they've all change since then, I have my hopes for Hulme.
Here is an exchange between Mike Hulme and some organization whom he has presumably been advising about coming catastrophes. He is harassing them for 5k pounds. (no doubt they reasoned that given the coming end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, it was not worth the effort of paying):
3473.txt
It is unclear whether this particular organization makes it to Hulme's 'openness and transparency' page:
(no doubt Hulme though that there was little point in completing it - realizing that the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it was nigh).
Hengist McStone
Face it Hengist, you've been had. These yobs have convinced you to save the world from an imagined disaster so they can make money off of carbon credits, pump and dump stock deals and out right graft.
You should read all about how they did it in America with Throw Them All Out . I am sure your British power elite are doing exactly the same thing.
And what do you get out of it? Higher taxes, higher energy costs and a lower standard of living.
Nov 26, 2011 at 2:30 PM | Unregistered CommenterGareth
"And things are done you’d not believe
At Madingley, on Christmas Eve."
Rupert Brooke, The Old Vicarage at Granchester.
"What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural
fluctuation? They'll kill us probably [...]"
I haven't searched the email dump but has anyone come across any evidence that these people have been pricked by their consciences, in that they may well be responsible for wrecking the global economy and possibly killing millions of people?
These rates must reflect what the "market" thinks their opinions are worth.
My consultancy rates (by no means exceptional) are typically 5x what is quoted for the illustrious professor.
Of course, I don't have a full-time job paid for by the public to take up the slack.
I have seen several emails from the most recently released CRU emails that clearly indicate that Roger Harrabin is providing advise to various organisations with an interest in promoting AGW on how to present that effectively to the public to win the argument.... but this one is surely the most damaging.....not only indicating his intent but the sheer scale of the project involving every aspect of BBC programming in order to persuade the public to believe in AGW and to then accept the resultant economic, industrial and social changes that will be implemented to stop 'runaway AGW'.
and below this is an email from a BBC journalist actually asking Mike Hulme for advise on how to report the economic changes resulting from climate change....how likely are we to get a reasoned and fair answer from him?
Email 1:
To MIke Hulme (CRU) from Harrabin and Joe Smith (CMEP)....
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=3757.txt&search=cambridge+media
Dear Mike
We are writing to some alumni of the University of Cambridge Media and
Environment seminars gathering ideas for the BBC's coverage of the Rio+1 ???
Earth Summit in a year's time. Before the Rio summit, the BBC held the One
World festival, which included some memorable broadcasting - particularly a
feature drama on refugees. Some broadcasting is already in the pipeline that
will relate to the themes of Rio+ 10, but this is an open opportunity for
you to put forward ideas that will be collated and circulated amongst
relevant BBC decision-makers.
* What should the BBC be doing this time in terms of news, current
affairs, drama, documentaries, game shows, music etc?
* How can the BBC convey the theme of sustainable development to
viewers and listeners who have probably seen all the issues raised before?
* Is there any scope for a global broadcasting initiative?
* What are the strongest themes and specific issues that should appear
in the media in the months and years following the conference?
If you have thoughts, please send your reply both to this email and copy to
???@aol.com. We will also draw on the information gathered in planning
a new three year programme of media seminars.
Best wishes
Joe and Roger
Joe Smith and Roger Harrabin
University of Cambridge Media and Environment Programme
Email 2:
There is also this email from a BBC journalist asking for advise from Mike Hulme on how climate will effect world economies and how it should be reported....as guided by Harrabin....
Subject: Reinventing Economics Coverage?
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 16:51:12 +010 ???
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: Reinventing Economics Coverage?
Thread-Index: AcOOfSnfziiEQXdvQByJUzCS6UCzxA==
From: "Vicki Barker" <???@bbc.co.uk>
To: "Mike Hulme" <???@uea.ac.uk>
Dear Dr. Hulme,
My colleague Roger Harrabin suggested I contact you.
I am about to spend several months attempting to answer the following question for
senior BBC managers:
If we were to reinvent economics coverage from scratch, TODAY, incorporating what we now
know (or think we know) about global environmental and economic trends... what would it
look like?
In recent years, I have watched an environmental undertow beginning to tug at economies
around the world, even as the world's peoples have been awakening to the realities of an
increasingly-globalized economy; and I have wondered if current newsgathering practices
and priorities are conveying these phenomena as effectively as they could be.
Is this a question you and some of your colleagues feel like pondering? I'd be
delighted to come out to the Tyndall Centre, either during the first two weeks of
November or in early January, when I return from an extended trip abroad. The report
will be delivered in March or April.
I will ring your office in a day or two to see whether or when it would be convenient
for us to meet. Alternatively, you can reach me at this address.
Regards,
Vicki Barker
BBCi at [1]http://www.bbc.co.uk/
DP de la S,
Don't forget that the apologist lap dogs also get to look like gullible fools. Money can't buy that!
The Guardian's wackamole comments are interesting because they help show the ignorance of their commentors, which probably explains why they're so uncritical and unsceptical. For example:
The RC hack wasn't very sophisticated, and by all accounts just involved a known privilege escalation bug that RC hadn't patched. That aspect had some help from an amateur in covering those tracks because that hack wasn't reported, or investigated. The RC team lost the evidence, again. The open proxies and ftp servers used were easy to find, and the document preparation is something any competant professional academic should be able to manage. Someone who can't drive Exel though might think it the work of a serious, organised and professional hacking team. Arthur C. Clarke was right about that.
The stylistic and linguistic analysis is no doubt giving our mole some chuckles. After v1 there was speculation about the author's language skills, as well as it being the work of a state actor. So if the mole wanted to misdirect, the way the readme file was constructed would be an easy way to do it.
Is it just me or, does Mike Hulme comes across as the master manipulator and acolyte of the consensus in these emails?
If he is deserving of any exoneration today, he must have changed so much that that is a dishonorable thing in itself.
When people commit a crime they get sent to prison where they get lots of time to think about what they did.
I hesitate to ask, but what does Maureen provide for £450 a day..?
:-)
I think it's quite a lot of telephone numbers.....she's cheap apparently.
In addition to having trouble with spreadsheets, it would appear the CRU crew has a problem with basic math. Marking up their day rates by 25% will leave them with less than they are hoping for presuming the university's 25% withholding will apply to the full amount earned. Any one familiar with business knows that a markup is higher than a markdown because of the different base.