From the “had to see this one coming department” …
In the old days, folks who who banged computer keyboards day in and day out suffered nerve damage in their hands & wrists called carpal tunnel syndrome.
More time on tablets and phones may have abated that problem a bit … but, of course, new problems have cropped up.
Here are the son and daughter of carpal tunnel …
Since Congress is gridlocked … and, since the President is end-running Congress on most matters … th fulfillment can’t be “having an impact”.
So, it must be something else.
Money, maybe?
Raises the question: how much dough gets thrown into the pot?
Here’s the scoop…
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 …
Even before Burger King splashed its inversion scheme, its CEO, Daniel Schwartz, created quite the buzz in his first year.
Thanks to a successful restructuring of the company, BK has nearly doubled its net income and increased same store sales by 2%.
While the company’s performance warrants the positive PR, the majority of articles focus on a non-financial number …
This one is from the “great moments in law enforcement” file …
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Orange County police have been cracking down on major crime.
SWAT teams – in full riot gear – have been raiding local barbershops.
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What’s the criminal activity that the police are trying to tamp down?
NPR says …
“Getting the results of a genetic test can be a bit like opening Pandora’s box … you might learn that you’re likely to develop an incurable disease later on in life.”
There’s a federal law that’s supposed to protect people from having their own genes used against them, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or GINA.
Under GINA, it’s illegal for health insurers to raise rates or to deny coverage because of someone’s genetic code.
But the law has a loophole: It only applies to health insurance.
Some insurance can be denied or priced high because of a person’s DNA.
Here’s an example … and a prediction.
You bet they do …
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Prof Robert Kaplan of San Diego State University conducted an experiment:
Faculty subjects were asked to grade an essay written by a student.
A photograph of the student was attached to the essay.
The grade given for the essay correlated strongly with a subjective attractiveness scale evaluated by other judges.
What is interesting is that all the subjects received the exact same essay, and the photograph attached to it was randomly assigned.
Bottom line: physical attractiveness causes graders to give essay writers better scores on their essays.
Here’s what’s going on …
According to Variety – the entertainment industry paper of record …
The National Labor Relations Board has ordered CNN to rehire 100 workers as part of a labor dispute that originated in 2003.
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This initially caught my eye because of the defendant … CNN.
Demonstrating non-partisanship, the NLRB isn’t targeting Fox … it’s going after administration-friendly CNN.
And, the story gets better …
A few years ago, the FTC was hassling Sirius and XM Satellite Radio when they wanted to merge…. they fretted that a Sirius and XM would jack up subscription rates.
Apparently the FTC hadn’t heard of satellite radio’s main competitor – free, over-the-air broadcast radio,
The FTC pondered the case for so long, that the companies lost millions of dollars The companies finally merged, just in time to get one-upped by other media.
Now the FTC is turning its watchful eyes on the dollar stores.
Here’s the story …
Flashback: Remember when the Administration declared war on the Little Sisters of the Poor?
Not ISIS (or ISIL or whatever), the Little Sisters.
You see, the nuns weren’t interested in ObamaCare’s contraception provisions … they were already controlling births very well, by abstaining from you-know-what … and the nuns didn’t want to provide birth control for their lay employees since it violated their fundamental religious beliefs.
So, the DOJ filed a lawsuit to force the nuns off their right-to-life platform and compel them to provide birth control in their insurance packages.
· See Let’s have a little fun with the nuns … for details
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While the story has gotten buried in the news, things have gotten very interesting …
Fast food workers around the country have been protesting for a $15 minimum wage.
A couple of days ago we warned about the possibility of McDonald’s replacing $1 menu with a buck-and –a-half menu … ouch!. The core story line: economists modeled the impact of raising the minimum wage for fast food workers to $15 and concluded that, all else equal, fast food prices would have to go up by about 40% to cover the increased labor costs.
Ooch. Continues a historic trend … As time rolls on, a buck buys you less and less at Mickey D’s
Since that post, a couple things happened.
First, McDonalds reported a 3.7% decline in global same-store sales.
That ranks as the company’s worst global same-store sales results in more than a decade.
Profit margins are shrinking and the company is trying to upmix customers to higher margin menu items.
Not exactly the time to be asking for a 66% raise, right?
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Adding to the discourse, a couple of loyal readers fed me some red meat: the realistic possibility that, very soon, low skilled burger flippers will be eased out by burger-making robots.
Here’s the scoop …
In this and a couple of preceding and subsequent posts, i’ll be excerpting the 13 reasons from:
Why We Make Mistakes, Joseph T. Hallinanm, Broadway Books
Today, we add reason #10 to the list. we all think we’re above average
In his speech this week, President Obama said:
Last month, I ordered our military to take targeted action against ISIL to stop its advances. Since then, we have conducted more than 150 successful airstrikes in Iraq.
He made it sound like a big deal … and built on the point, saying that the air strikes would continue across a wider target area. Possibly extending into Syria.
Picture from NATO web site
Of course, the comment got me thinking … are 150 airstrikes a lot or a little?
Works out to about 5 missions per day … which doesn’t strike me as up there with shock & awe.
But, I wanted to put 5-a-day in context and got some counsel from a friend…
A couple of day-after–the-speech thoughts…
First, some props for the President.
On the style front, I’ was glad that he was eyes forward last night. As loyal readers know, for prior talks to we0the-people, I asked Why didn’t he look us in the eyes? Apparently he reads HomaFiles and changed course.
But, the speech left me scratching my head ….
In this and a couple of preceding and subsequent posts, i’ll be excerpting the 13 reasons from:
Why We Make Mistakes, Joseph T. Hallinanm, Broadway Books
Today, we finish the list … ending with an old standby: The Grass Looks Greener …
Relax, we’re just speculating … it’ll only happen if the fast-food workers get the $15 per hour that they were clamoring for last week
Economists at the Heritage Foundation have observed that fast-food joints operate on very slim profit margins (about 3% on average) so they’d have no choice but to bump up prices. to stay even.
The Heritage economists estimate that a $15 minimum wage for hamburger flippers would force restaurants to raise average menu prices about 40% in order to hold the current level of profitability.
Here’s the essence of their analysis …
In this and a couple of preceding and subsequent posts, i’ll be excerpting the 13 reasons from:
Why We Make Mistakes, Joseph T. Hallinanm, Broadway Books
Today, we add reason #9 to the list. Men shoot first, then …
In this and a couple of preceding and subsequent posts, I’m excerpting the 13 reasons from:
Why We Make Mistakes, Joseph T. Hallinanm, Broadway Books
Today, we add reasons 6, 7 and 8 to the list.
In this and a couple of preceding and subsequent posts, I’m excerpting the 13 reasons from:
Why We Make Mistakes, Joseph T. Hallinanm, Broadway Books
Today, we add reason #5 to the list: the myth of multi-tasking…
In this and a couple of subsequent posts, i’ll be excerpting the 13 reasons from a summer read:
Why We Make Mistakes, Joseph T. Hallinanm, Broadway Books
Today, the first 4 reasons on the list …
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 of the story …
The Homa Files 