The Politico has a transcript of Barak Obama’s new Iowa ad here: Ordinary people all across the country are struggling from paycheck to paycheck. If the plant moves to China, and you’ve been working there for 20, 30 years and suddenly you have the rug pulled out from under ya… And you don’t have healthcare,…
Category: Business
Red-lining Black America
Jesse Jackson said today that mortgage companies and other lenders discriminated against black Americans by “profiling” them and that the rash of home mortgage foreclosures could initiate a “sustained depression”. Am I being naive or is what J.J. calls “racial profiling” is more commonly known as “risk assessment”? One of Jackson’s sources is the National Community…
Russia’s New Aims
Perhaps I shouldn’t call them new – Vlad Putin’s had a plan in mind for quite a while, I now understand – but his real objectives are new to me. It’s a bit embarrassing, really, to have missed the obvious. Putin’s policies (and tantrums) have never been about Iraq, although that little debacle has certainly…
America Competes Act (Farce?)
The U.S. Senate recently passed, with no discernible fanfare whatsoever, a bill entitled the America Competes Act. According to EdNews.org: the bill would increase research investment by: • Doubling funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) from approximately $5.6 billion in Fiscal Year 2006 to $11.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2011. • Setting the Department…
Excessive Compensation Bad for Investors
Chuck Moore says “I think this is obscene. It is not just this one but hundreds like this case. Does this come from stockholder equity?” What’s got his goat? This: Pfizer Inc.’s former chief executive, Henry A. McKinnell’s “involuntary” retirement package, which the company disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday,…
Guy’s Inspiring Business Story of the Year
Read Guy Kawasaki’s interview with Aziza Mohmmand, an Afghani female entrepreneur – wow. Prime Q&A: Question: What did you like the most and the least about America? Answer: What I liked was the discipline in driving, great roads, advancement in the infrastructure of the country, respect, cooperation of people with each other, the value of…
Bad Time for a Strike
US Airways machinists must be living in a different country than I am. They’ve rejected the airline’s offer of a minimal wage cut. Read about it on MSNBC.com Any job is a good job at this particular moment.
The Wisdom of Guy Kawasaki
I’ve been reading this cat’s blog since he started recently and Guy has some interesting things to say on the topic of venture capital and entreprenuership. Here’s a snippet of wisdom from a recent post that I found validating: If you think someone is an orifice, everyone else does too. When I met people that…
Microsoft Idiotic, Duplicitous
The recent case of Kai-Fu Lee, a Microsoft VP who dared to leave MS for Google has a temporary conclusion: A former Microsoft Corp. executive who defected to Google Inc. cannot immediately perform the job Google hired him to do, a judge ruled Thursday, saying Microsoft has a well-grounded fear that leaked trade secrets could…
Less Foreign Workers = Better Job Outlook?
One would like to think that the Feds cutting back on the number of visas issued to high-tech workers would improve the prospects for U.S. residents in this job segment. However, I suspect that companies that have gotten a taste of getting something for nothing, albeit a far cry from what they need, will continue…