Over the past few years, various business publications and economists have cited the need for an economic virtuous cycle -- a condition in which positive results engender more positive results and help to grow the economy. As we approach the end of 2013, the economy should be moving strongly toward a virtuous cycle, because many large corporations have been, and are, reaping record profits. Instead, we are stuck in a variable cycle. That's because many of those corporations are doing little … [Read more...]
Saving Grace: Renewing the Promise of the American Dream
On December 4, Sotheby's sold "Saying Grace" -- one of Norman Rockwell's more famous paintings and "best loved scenes" -- at auction to an unidentified acquirer for $46 million. It is a sad sign of our times that this painting of "average" Americans bowing their heads in prayer before eating a meal in a restaurant can sell for such a stunning amount, while -- if the House gets its way on food stamp cuts -- there will be less food on the table for millions of our fellow citizens. We might … [Read more...]
Make 2014 the Year of Small Business
By all accounts, Small Business Saturday was a smashing success. Now, in order to kick the American economy into over drive, it's time to convert it from an annual event to a year-long one. That is why we are recommending making 2014 The Year of Small Business. We emphasized the importance of small business in turning the economy around in a blog titled, "Need to Start the Small Business Engines" that we posted early this year. In that blog, we drew upon reports from the Wells Fargo/Gallup … [Read more...]
Selfie or Selfless?
The Oxford Dictionaries has chosen "selfie" as its word of the year for 2013. Selfie is defined as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media." Our question is, in this year -- and the upcoming ones of this decade -- do we need to be more selfie or more selfless? Given the current trends and problems domestically and internationally, it seems to us that "selfless" should be the clear winner. Selfie was … [Read more...]
Thanksgiving Thoughts on Our Immigrant Nation
We closed our Thanksgiving blog last year with lyrics from a song "The House That I Live In," recorded by Frank Sinatra to encourage unity and tolerance during World War II, and the following comments: America, the house we live in is a more diverse one, that it was at the outset of World War II and we believe a better one for it. The family in Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving dining room painting was all white. Today that family could also be African-American, Latino, Indian American, … [Read more...]
Ask Not! JFK’s Legacy Denied. Ask Why Not! JFK’S Legacy Defended.
In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy famously said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Today, the tea party faithful and a group of conservative elected officials just say, Ask not! Ask not what can be done for or by the government. This type of negativity would be bothersome at any time. It is especially so in this year and week of remembering President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22, … [Read more...]
140 Characters: Not Much There!
Twitter's IPO offering on its first day opened at $26 a share and after a trading frenzy closed at $44.90 a share - 73 percent above the IPO price for an initial valuation of $31.7 billion. The stock closed at $41.65 - down about 5%. This initial activity is testimony that in today's world: Opinions matter more than facts. Making noise matters more than making things. Financial markets matter more than business models. In a strange way, it also illustrates that being disconnected is more … [Read more...]
Good Government: Time for More Credit and Less Blame
The governmental shutdown had a number of unexpected consequences. One of the more important, in our opinion, is that it elevated the visibility and importance of what the government does or does not do in the mind of the American public. It also demonstrated that while the government may not be the solution to all of our problems, it is not always the problem that some would have us believe. Indeed, as evidenced by the reactions and responses to the shutdown, in many ways and in many areas … [Read more...]
Braking Bad: The Critical Need to End Congressional Gridlock
It's been more than a week now since Congress put on the brakes and officially ended the bad being done by the shutdown. Unfortunately, the bad lingers on and the worst may be ahead. That's because the shutdown was a symbolic manifestation of a much bigger ongoing problem that has had and will have significant economic, psychological and behavioral consequences. During the shutdown, Rana Foroohar wrote an article for Time titled, "Congress is Bad for the Economy." How "bad" is it? Let's … [Read more...]
Education: All in the Family
This is the final in a series of four blogs that we have posted during Connected Educator Month. In our first blog, titled "Education: Making the Connections," we introduced the concept of a triangle with the student at the center and with the family at the top and the school and the community at either tip. We see the tips of the triangle as the pivotal points at which we need to make the proper connections in order to improve the quality of education. In our next two blogs, we focused … [Read more...]