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How Congress and Candidates Would Create Jobs
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (2)With the country's unemployment rate at 6.1 percent and likely to tick higher, job creation is key to any economic package introduced by presidential candidates or congressional leaders. Here's a look at some aspects of recent proposals aimed at creating more American jobs:
Sen. Barack Obama: The Democratic candidate for president announced an economic plan Monday that would include a $3,000 tax credit for businesses for each full-time domestic job created between 2009 and 2010, USA Today reports. Obama's 10-year plan would include spending $150 billion on alternative energy projects that would introduce 5 million new jobs, as well as create jobs with infrastructure spending.
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Wall Street: Kiss Golden Parachutes—and Talent—Goodbye?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 15, 2008 Comment (5)Yesterday, the Treasury Department outlined tougher compensation rules for executives of companies participating in any of the three programs created by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (the bailout). The CEO, CFO, and the next three highest paid executives will be affected.
Each of the programs carries unique rules for participants, including restrictions or disincentives for use of golden parachutes, and clawbacks for some bonuses given for gains that don't materialize. In the newest program—forebodingly named the "systemically significant failing institutions programs"—the treasury's assistance means "golden parachutes will be defined more strictly to prohibit any payments to departing senior executives."
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Wall Street Bankers Won't Say "Sorry"
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2008 Comment (3)You'd hope that somebody in the midst of the mortgage meltdown and credit crunch would be sorry for what has happened. The Financial Times notes that Wall Street bankers are having a hard time apologizing.
From FT.com:
One major barrier to apologies appears to be fear of the reaction. "No one wants to stick their head above the parapet or be the one identified with this scandal. Saying sorry can be a dangerous thing," said a top executive at a large UK financial services company.
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Boss's Day: Do You Deserve a Greeting Card?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2008 CommentThursday, October 16 is Bosses Day—a day for celebrating our workplace leaders.
If you are the boss, it may be time for a checkup to gauge the health and effectiveness of your management style.
Some questions to ask yourself, as listed by the National Federation of Independent Business:
- Have you ever berated an employee in public?
- Have you ever taken credit for something an employee did?
- Are your employees afraid of you?
- Are you a "no excuses allowed" type?
- Do you expect employees to "know" or to "do" without telling them?
- Do you yell or shout at employees?
- Have you ever tried to belittle or humiliate an employee as punishment?
- Do you "lean on" or make it more difficult for someone who has displeased you?
- Do you play favorites?
- Do you constantly check everyone's work for quality?
- Are you reluctant to let employees make decisions?
- Do you expect employees to do what you ask without question?
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Be Game, Like Erin Burnett
Tweet Share on Facebook October 10, 2008 Comment (1)If you want job security in this rocky market, you've got to make yourself indispensable. Not just indispensable to your organization, as is—but indispensable to its future health and success.
CNBC's Erin Burnett is a good example. She's been making the rounds on NBC and MSNBC to break down the complexities of the credit crunch and evangelize for CNBC and business news in general. If she cooled her heels but hit her marks in CNBC's studio, she'd almost certainly keep her audience. But she's reaching further than that. (She's not alone—certainly Jim Kramer and Dylan Ratigan are doing similarly.)
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The Long History of Purpose-Driven Work
Tweet Share on Facebook October 9, 2008 Comment (3)I recently interviewed Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?, and we chatted about the spiritual or religious basis for purposeful work.
Excerpts of our conversation:
Have you read The Purpose-Driven Life? Are you and author Rick Warren getting at something similar?
Yes, but there have been a multitude of books written about purpose. In fact, he was a little late to the party. But he gave it a biblical base...and that gave him a whole new audience.There are spiritual aspects to your book.
Oh, absolutely. I was an ordained Episcopal minister for 50 years. If it wasn't in there, I'd be astonished. -
The Ideal Sleep: How Many Hours Do You Need?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 9, 2008 Comment (85)When did the need for little sleep become a trademark attribute of go-getters?
Among those who reportedly get about four hours a night: Martha Stewart, Kathie Lee Gifford, Eric Johnson, Chris Hyman, Rudy Giuliani, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand, Kim Jong Il, and Donald Trump.
The New York Times has called this "competitive waking." Canadian inspirational speaker and writer Azim Jamal reportedly slices his week into precise wedges—45 hours for sleep, 60 hours for work, 21 hours for family, "seven for meditation, seven for family finance, seven for volunteering, and four for exercise. Seventeen hours a week are 'flex time,' " the Globe and Mail reported in 2005.
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AIG Spa Trip: Wait, That's Our Money!
Tweet Share on Facebook October 8, 2008 Comment (13)So, the AIG spa trip was not a giveaway to the executives with impaired judgment who just got a taxpayer bailout.
From Reuters:
On Wednesday, AIG said the "business event," hosted by one of its subsidiaries, was for independent life insurance agents. It said the event was planned "months before" it received the loan last month, and no AIG executives from headquarters attended.
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Americans Expect Depression; Economists Don't
Tweet Share on Facebook October 7, 2008 Comment (5)Last night, folded into my coach seat and praising United Airlines for not yet charging blanket rental fees, I tuned into the on-flight movie, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. The family-friendly movie centers around a budding journalist, age 10, living in Cincinnati during the Great Depression.
I'm not sure the movie's producers anticipated their film would circle the airline cinema circuit just as Wall Street melted down. It was tough to watch—fathers leaving their families to find work, mothers sewing sack dresses and moving their kids out of foreclosed homes, soup kitchens serving up lunch to long lines of the educated but unemployed. And if a new survey is to be believed, it seems that many (most?) of my fellow passengers were watching the film and expecting to witness a similar scenario in their lifetimes.
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Job Losses: More of the Same in October
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2008 Comment (1)The September jobs report is out today and it's pretty ugly: The country lost 159,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate stayed at 6.1 percent.
I cover the report's basics here.
It's also worth noting that the generally bullish Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein of First Trust Portfolios expect more bad news in the jobs market and similar losses next month.
