From the “you can’t make this stuff up” file …
There has been a lot of chatter recently re: the value of a college education … tuitions are up, high paying job are scarce, “adult-children” hang on their parents’ health insurance policies until they’re 26, some move back in with mom and dad.
In these uncertain times, how are college students responding?
Here’s one answer …
Dateline Providence. R.I.: Brown University Students To Host Nudity Week
OK, I.m a control freak.
There, I said it.
Along the way, somebody passed along a memorable observations:
“You can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can always control the the way you respond to it.”
Fast forward.
A couple of night’s ago, I was watching a replay of the Ohio State Cal game from the prior weekend.
The announcers said that Urban Meyer – OSU’s head coach — preaches the E+R=O principle to his players … even has them wear wristbands.
Say, what?
I ran and googled E+R=O
Answer: Event + Response = Outcome
Hmmmm … sounds familiar.
And, there’s more …
All the hoopla surrounding the iPhone 5 launch reminded me of an ad campaign run by a company called Blendtec.
According to George Parker of AdScam ….
At a conference a couple of years ago. GE and their agency, BBDO, made a presentation of their new “Imagination” campaign.
After showing some nice TV spots and explaining that they’d spent $300 million on media over the last year, they proudly declared that brand awareness had increased substantially.
This generated polite applause.
Next up was the Marketing Director of blender manufacturer Blendtec who proceeded to blend:
He then put up a single slide showing that every time they posted a self-produced, ten dollar video on YouTube in their long-running “Will It Blend” campaign (which to-date has had more than 220 million views,) sales went up by an accurately measurable percentage.
Understandably, the crowd went nuts.
The point being, GE spent hundreds of millions and couldn’t quantify with any certainty what they had achieved for all that money.
Blendtec spent pennies and achieved consistently significant and measurable results.
Below is the links to the Blendtec iPhone videos… worth watching.
During the recent economic “recovery”, unemployment rates have started to recede, in part because many folks are leaving the labor force.
Some of the “leavers” are retiring … some are going to college … some are signing up to collect SSDI – Social security Disability Insurance..
There has been a sharp increase in SSDI applications over the past couple of years.
Most of the applications are probably legit, with some rise due to increasingly diagnosed bad backs and mental health issues..
But, any reasonable person knows that the rolls are also increasing due to fraud – folks taking advantage of the program as a substitute for welfare.
What’s the government doing about that?
Nothing, as far as I can tell
But, there are other instances of disability fraud, and one victimized company has had enough and is cracking down ….
I’ve been meaning to write about this for awhile – and since it’s back in the news, I’ll take my shot.
You’ve probably heard that Congress and Congressional staffs – as part of the ObamaCare law – were required to get their health insurance on the newly forming ObamaCare exchanges and give up some of their generous government subsidies.
More specifically:
The ObamaCare Act applied to Congress the same civil-rights employment and labor laws that lawmakers had required everyday citizens to abide by.
With some lapses, it’s worked well to defuse public outrage about “one law for thee, one law for me” congressional behavior.
In 2009, Senator Chuck Grassley decided that the principle deserved to be embedded in Obamacare, and he was able to insert a provision requiring all members of Congress and their staffs to get insurance through the Obamacare health exchanges.
“The more that Congress experiences the laws it passes, the better,” said Grassley.
Most employment lawyers interpreted that to mean that the taxpayer-funded federal health-insurance subsidies dispensed to those on Congress’s payroll — which now range from $5,000 to $11,000 a year — would have to end.
Makes sense to me – make them eat their own cooking.
But, there’s much more to this story …
You’ve seen some of Bud Light’s commercials showing the strange superstitious stuff that people do to “help” their sports teams.
You know, like sit in the same chair to watch games on TV … or eat the same food before every game … or turn their caps around for a rally.
The tagline for the commercials is “It’s only weird if it doesn’t work”.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch this ad.
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Well, the Homa family has its own ritual when rooting for our favorites … the Monsters of the Midway … the Chicago Bears.
Some loyal readers have asked why HomaFiles has been light on America’s Got Talent reviews this year.
Well, to be blunt, I thought it was an awful season.
That’s bold revelation since I’ve been defending the show to family and friends for a couple of years.
The judges passed through a barrage of horrible acts … including one that consisted of a group of guys playing a fat man’s belly like a drum.
Gimme a break,
I boycotted the show for a couple of weeks, but got siren-called back for the last couple of rounds.
This week was the grand finale.
Here’s the good news: the best performer in the competition – by far – won the million bucks.
Here’s the rub …
Yesterday, the stock market soared when Bernanke announced the continuation of the Fed’s Quantitative Easing program … that is, the Fed plans to continue pumping $85 billion dollars per month into the economy.
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So, why did the market reach record highs?
Easy.
Let’s start by taking a stroll down memory lane ….
McKinsey recently published a report “Big Data – The Next Frontier” that concludes:
The United States faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5 million managers and analysts to make decisions based on their findings.
Crunch those nums …
Just finished a book called A whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the World.
As a hard core left-brainer, I figured I’d better pay attention to this one.
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Here’s the crux of the book …
The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind — computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers.
But, the future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.
We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age …
… to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.
Why the shift?
Because any kind of work that be reduced to repeatable rules and defined processes can be automated or shipped off-shore – even so-called knowledge work
Survival in the Conceptual Age requires thinking skills utilizing the right-side of the brain.
Specifically, “high concept” involves the capacity to:
- detect patterns and opportunities
- create artistic and emotional beauty
- craft a satisfying narrative
…. and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new and distinctive.
Amazon link
What’s required to to succeed in Conceptual Age?
Right when you think trust in government has bottomed out, Gallup releases a new poll.
Gallup is reporting Less than half of Americans trust the government to handle any kind of problems, anall-time low..
According to Gallup. just 49% of Americans have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the federal government to handle international problems
The previous low was 51 percent in 2007.
And, that’s the good news.
Trust is even lower on domestic issues.
HITS: HomaFiles’s Ideas To Share
For decades cognitive psychologists has characterized folks as being either left brain dominant – logical – or right brain dominant – creative.
Browse the lists below and pick your dominant brain side – left or right.
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So what? What to do?
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I was a bit surprised to hear on the news that Citi was laying off a couple of thousand folks in their mortgage division.
After all, there’s been lot of talk re: housing recovery … with some markets el fuego.
Hmmm.
Turns out that mortgage applications bottomed out after the meltdown …and arguably showed some up-trend in the past couple of years (thanks to the Fed QE program),
But, mortgage apps have declined recently (as interest rates started moving up a bit) and are hovering at very low levels
What about home prices?
Yesterday I gave a pitch that touched on whether quants (left-brainers) or poets (right-brainers) were on the rise.
Reminded me of a cool 15 minute TED Talk.
Tech entrepreneur Kevin Slavin tells how algorithms have reached across industries and into every day life.
A couple of lines caught my attention:
Obviously, Slavin comes down on the side of the quants.
Worth listening to this pitch … a very engaging geek who may be onto something big.
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McKinsey does a relatively good job of staying out of the press.
But, a book called “The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business,” is being released today that may stir the pot a bit.
Early reviews indicate that the book dishes some serious smack at my former employer.
Here are some of the lowlights …
The Feds reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 7.3% … despite tepid job growth – fewer jobs added than expected, and those that were added were in retail & hospitality.
Most analysts quickly pointed out that the unemployment rate dropped because the number of people dropping out of the labor force was about twice the number of jobs added.
In technical jargon, the labor force participation rate dropped to a 35 year low.
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A complementary metric that combines the effect of the Unemployment Rate and the Labor Force Participation Rate is the Civilian Employment to Population Ratio – the percentage of the working age population that has a job.
That rate dropped about 4 percentage points during the recession … then has flatlined during the “recovery”.
That is, job growth has barely kept up with population growth.
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What about my favorite? The downmixing to more part time positions?
First, the disclaimers:
1) I don’t give investment advice.
2) I think Jim Cramer is a blowhard.
But …
Last week, a friend of mine who seems to have a touch reading the market alerted me that he was moving strongly towards cash … away from stocks … and far away from bonds.
Hmmm.
Cramer must have been listening in.
Here are Cramer’s 7 reasons to move to cash …
I bought a new “smart” TV … and it came with a 6-month free subscription to Netflix steaming service.
Sweet.
In concept, the streaming concept is a cool idea, except for:
#3 surprised me since Netflix have invested heavily in systems to figure out what we want to to see.
Here’s what’s going on and what Netflix is doing about it …
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