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How the Senate Bill Would Change Healthcare
Tweet Share on Facebook December 24, 2009 Comment (40)It’s not official yet—but it’s getting awfully close. With the Senate finally passing an $871 billion healthcare reform bill, there’s just one major step left before the most sweeping healthcare legislation in at least 45 years becomes law. Senate negotiators will next meet with their counterparts in the House—which passed its own $894 billion bill in November—to work out the differences and try to forge one bill that Congress can present to President Obama.
[See why health insurers make lousy villains.]
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The Worst College Bowl Sponsors
Tweet Share on Facebook December 18, 2009 Comment (26)The “Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.” I can live with that. Chips. A party. Football. They go together.
But a lot of the other college bowls are horrific-sounding concoctions that George Orwell couldn’t have dreamed up. The marketing geniuses who ink these sponsorship deals mainly care about just one thing—getting the corporate name in front of the masses. If there’s a particular message or product they're trying to sell, they cram that into the name too. And why worry if it sounds like self-parody? Football fans, they assume, are probably too thick to notice.
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How Health Insurers Are Escaping the Noose
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2009 Comment (6)President Obama has vilified them, and free-market defenders have worried that health care reform could drive them out of business. But health insurers seem to be quite hale, thank you.
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How to Live Happily on 75 Percent Less
Tweet Share on Facebook December 15, 2009 Comment (935)Nine months after getting laid off, Catherine Goerz once again became part of the rush-hour commute—in a way she'd never anticipated.
To pick up extra cash, Goerz took a temporary job handing out fliers touting the benefits of public transportation in the San Francisco subway system. Occasionally she'd bump into people she knew from her former job as a creative producer for a Bay Area communications company. "They're in their corporate clothes," she recalls, "and I'm in this silly T-shirt and hat. 'Cathy, is that you?' they'd ask. 'What are you doing here?' Ugh."
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Why Tiger Woods Will Come Roaring Back
Tweet Share on Facebook December 14, 2009 Comment (83)Here's the delusion of the century: Tiger Woods will retire from golf.
If you believe that, of course, there are some consequences that naturally follow. Golf will become boring again. CBS and NBC will lose rivers of money as viewers flee the PGA Tour and start watching bowling or playing Monopoly with their families. And, of course, Nike and half a dozen other conglomerates will have to find another pitchman.
Just one question: Why would Tiger Woods ever quit golf?
Oh, right: He got caught cheating on his wife. Okay, multicheating. But since when does that stop a multimillion-dollar enterprise—which is what Tiger Woods really is—from moving ahead with business? David Letterman got caught multicheating and never lost a single sponsor or even broke stride. It helps that he's funny about it, but the fact is that most Americans don't expect Dave to be an upstanding citizen. They just expect him to make them laugh.
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10 Fire-Sale Cars to Steer Away From
Tweet Share on Facebook December 14, 2009 Comment (75)Sometimes, bad things happen to great cars. The exhilarating Pontiac G8, for example, came along just as parent company General Motors decided to kill the entire Pontiac division. The 2009 retirement of the Honda S2000 roadster caused remorse even at Honda.
[Slide Show: The 10 Worst Discontinued Cars.]
But most discontinued cars are killed off for good reason, and with a dramatic plunge in auto sales over the past two years, automakers are aggressively thinning the herd. GM is winding down its Pontiac and Saturn divisions, and Saab may disappear as well. Chrysler is killing several duds as it tries to build a thriftier, more exciting lineup. All told, automakers plan to retire nearly 50 models over the next two years, which will turn many showrooms into automotive versions of the clearance rack.
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What Obama Tells His Banker Pals
Tweet Share on Facebook December 14, 2009 Comment (11)An imagined conversation:
President Obama: Thanks for coming to the White House, everybody. I know how miserable it is to fly commercial, but thanks for doing it and for taking the subway over from the airport. The American people will appreciate that.
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs: I got gum on my shoe. It's ruined.
Obama: Sorry about that, Lloyd. Didn't we include footwear expenses in the $14 billion your firm got from the AIG bailout?
Blankfein: No.
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The 10 Best Discontinued Cars
Tweet Share on Facebook December 14, 2009 Comment (44)With automakers finally starting to reel in their rebates, $4,000 off the price of any new Saturn sounds like a sweetheart deal. The hefty discount brings the starting price of the sexy Sky roadster down to the low 20s, making it one of the cheapest sporty convertibles on the market. And it drops the price of the seven-seat Outlook crossover to the mid-20s, a great price for a well-equipped family hauler.
[Slide Show: The 10 Best Discontinued Cars.]
The come-ons, however, omit one discouraging fact: Saturn is going out of business. Parent company General Motors has pledged to service all Saturn vehicles indefinitely, through other dealerships, but smart car buyers know that the true value of a car also depends on what it will be worth in a few years, if you decide to sell it. And the resale picture has never been hazier.
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Why Jobs Are Easy to Kill but Hard to Create
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2009 Comment (11)Eight million may finally be enough. That's the approximate number of jobs lost since the recession began at the end of 2007. The latest government data show that after 23 straight months of job losses, the unemployment rate has finally stopped rising and started falling. That's the most hopeful sign to date that the tsunami of layoffs is abating. If the trend continues, it will confirm an end to the devastating recession.
[See 10 Retailers Gaining Strength From the Recession.]
But an end to job losses won't solve the unemployment problem. The U.S. economy needs to add more than 100,000 jobs per month just for the unemployment rate to stay even and more than that to get back to an economy that feels healthy. And there's little sign of new jobs popping up in significant numbers anywhere. To understand why, I spoke recently with Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes entrepreneurship. Schramm participated in President Obama's recent "jobs summit" and advocates government incentives to help create and nurture small businesses. Excerpts from our conversation:
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Why Rich Consumers Matter More
Tweet Share on Facebook December 3, 2009 Comment (11)Here's something odd: Consumer spending is drifting upward, raising hopes for an economic recovery. Yet the unemployment rate is spiking like a scary fever, with jobs more scarce than at any time since the 1930s.
Does this make sense? Where are unemployed consumers getting the money to buy new stuff? Are we so addicted to spending that we're forking over every last dime to get that doorbuster special?
[See 10 retailers gaining strength from the recession.]
Doubtful. The answers aren't sitting there in the usual statistics, but some educated guesswork might help explain who's spending and who isn't—while exposing a myth or two about the so-called recovery. The latest data shows that consumer spending rose 0.7 percent in October, while incomes rose just 0.2 percent. Since spending went up by more than income, that suggests consumers must be drawing down their savings to buy stuff.
