by Walter Gray—

Business Up, Faith to Follow

Raymond Arth knows he should feel better about the economy. Sales are up in Phoenix Products, the faucet company he runs in a suburb west of Cleveland, according to a Newsweek article.. He had a good 2010, and he’s on pace to have an even better 2011. His company hasn’t returned to its pre-recession revenues selling its wares to the makers of RYs and manufactured homes, but Phoenix Products is making a profit again and has enough orders that Arth decided to add eight workers to his core staff of 25 full-time employees So why are the new hires all temp workers?

Like too many other small-business proprietors, Arth doesn’t fully trust this economic recovery. While he says he is “guardedly optimistic” about it, his actions are all about the first half of that phase. He worries that rising gas prices will tamp down on RV sales. The volatility in the price of metals and other commodities has brought a spike in the in the cost of his raw materials. “There’s still just too much uncertainty out there,” Auth says (Ed. Note: Newsweek also reports that the Labor Department notes the private sector added 268,000 jobs in April, the largest gain in five years and the third consecutive month of solid job growth).

Hypertension in Decline

Americans are finally making headway in the battle against high blood pressure, one of the biggest contributors to cardiovascular disease, according to a Wall Street Journal article. At Kaiser Permanente’s big northern California health plan, 80% of more than 600,000 patients diagnosed with hypertension, or high blood pressure, have the condition under control, up from 44% a decade ago. In the southeast, 70% of nearly a half-million patients had reduced their high blood pressure to medically recommended levels. That’s, compared with 49% in 2000,

David Mamet Views Business

A Boston Globe writer raised this question of the author David Mamet: “Years ago, you described ‘American Buffalo’ as being about “how we excuse all sorts of great and small betrayals and ethical compromises called business.” In this book (The Secret Knowledge) , you defend enormous payouts to C.E.O.’s working for failing corporations. You seem to have changed radically.
MAMET: I have. Here’s the question: Is it absurd for a company to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to a C.E.O. if the company is failing? The answer is that it may or may not be absurd, but it’s none of our goddamned business. Because, as Milton Friedman said, the question is not what are the decisions but who makes the decisions. Because when the government starts deciding what’s absurd, you’re on the road to serfdom” More campus plus local, state reaction

Among Other Things…

ALBANY NEEDS ETHICS REFORM, suggests an editorial in The New York Times. Wrong. What Albany needs is an intervention concluding with a plan for flattening the state capital city so that nobody can live or work there. Or. um, we can call it a Brownfield, based on all the toxic people who are called legislators and all the people who do business with them, called lobbyists, hangers-on, supplicants and state workers. Gov. Andrew Cuomo plans on rectifying all the corruption problems by strengthening ethics laws. Like anybody pays attention to ethics laws. Our RI legislators are heard to say “what, you think you can buy me for a cup of coffee or a ticket to a Red Sox game?” The answer is yes, that’s what we think! How long has corruption been a major issue in Albany? Try 1493. Even Christopher Columbus couldn’t stand the stench.

Jobs – What Jobs?

Responding to a New York Times article on the paucity of jobs for recent college graduates, two Letters to the Editor expressed agreement. One writer said that, for the foreseeable future, this country can no longer hold out the promise of employment to graduates leaving college without any concrete skills. The job market cannot absorb English and history majors being churned out by the thousands into an uncertain future, especially given the current levels of education debt. Another writer, a professional college recruiter, said employment depends on how directed students are and how they present themselves.

Warning to Catholics – Meatless Fridays Returning

Starting in September, the Bishops of England and Wales have decreed the return of meatless Fridays, a practice that was abolished after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) when the Pope and his pals “opened the windows” to a new period of enlightenment. As the Catholic Church continues to renounce Vat2 and turns back to a more conservative institution, Fish on Fridays is the harbinger of further expected reactionary moves by the Vatican – and by Bishops who want to become Cardinals and Popes.

by Walter Gray—

TV News, Newspapers Still Sliding

Large numbers of people still tune in to the big three networks, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. An average of 23.2 million people have watched the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC or CBS each evening this TV season through the end of April but that audience is down 21 percent from this point a decade ago. At No. 3 CBS, the drop for that period was 33 percent. The local print media continued to lose circulation ground. The Providence Sunday Journal dropped from 192,849 to 130,659 between 2008 and March 2011. Total average circulation for the daily Journal was 91,804 for the six month period ending March, 2011, compared to 139,053 for the six month period ending in March, 2008. The WSJ article noted certain Journal-owned properties are for sale while the newspaper’s historic building at 75 Fountain Street is possibly up for a “leaseback” sale.

Seriously, You’d Rather Work in California

California’s prison guards make more than twice their counterparts in Texas — $71,000 a year, compared to $31,000. That difference is true for state workers in general: While in 2009 the average private-sector worker in California made 12.5 percent more than in Texas, the disparity among state workers was 25.2 percent, according to U.S. Commerce Department figures. The difference underlines the benefits –and taxpayer costs – of working in a union-friendly state and may help explain why California has more intractable fiscal difficulties than Texas, according to a recent analysis in Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.

Although Texas has a budget deficit of $4.3 billion this year, it has the second-highest credit rating from Standard & Poor’s. California has the lowest rating of any state and is struggling to close a deficit of $15.4 billion this year. The difference in state worker pay can be explained in part by California’s cost of living, which is almost 15 percent higher than in Texas. Yet the power of collective bargaining is even more important, says Oran McMichael, a longtime labor organizer in Texas. Excluding court and legislative employees, unions represent 85 percent of all state workers in California, says Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswomen for the state’s Personnel Administration Dept. While Texas doesn’t have figures for its employees in unions, the proportion is probably less than10 percent, State Auditor John Keel says.

Here’s some comparisons:

State workers represented by unions; California 85%, Texas 10% or less: Change in pension payments over past five years; California, 32% increase, Texas 3.9% increase; Census population, California 37.3 million, Texas 25.1 million; Average 2009 salary nongovernmental employee, California $37,912, Texas $33, 694; Average 2009 salary, state employee’ California $55,941, Texas $44,666.
Average 2010 salary for public employees by job; Forensic scientist- California $82,680, Texas $55,941; Correctional Officer- California $70,992, Texas $31,213; Architect – California $107,580, Texas $58,973. Registered Nurse – California $71,280 Texas $54,897; Civil Engineer – California $99,132, Texas $60,398; Parole Officer – California $100,716, Texas $41,542.

Hmm, What Else Could I Have Been Doing Today?

RI Teacher unions held a working meeting at the 8,000-seat Ryan Center at the University of RI on April 30. Despite heaps of publicity, only 300 teachers and union administrators gathered, discussing such student-centered issues as removal of the state education commissioner, bargaining rights, teacher evaluations, and teacher demonetization

Company Bureaucracy is Stifling

In the Corner Office column of The New York Sunday Times the CEO of Qlik Tech was asked about the culture of his company. He said his firm has developed five core values.
#1 – Challenge, because we are a disruptive software company, always challenging the conventional because, if you always follow others, you can always be #2.
#2 – Move fast. It’s OK to make mistakes but not the same ones.
#3 – Be open and straight-forward if you think something is wrong. We hear everyone out.
#4 – Encourage teamwork for results. It’s not about the individual. It’s about the team.
#5 – Take responsibility. Be cost-conscience.

Sand for Sale

Morocco has sand aplenty, but it’s vanishing from beaches and surfacing in city buildings, resorts – even a soccer stadium. A major component of concrete, sand is heavily mined to feed construction demands this desert country and around the globe. It’s also sought, according to National Geographic magazine, for its mineral content and to beef up other beaches. While sandy shores are easy to access and cheap to mine, the result is habitat loss of turtles and birds, battered ecosystems and landscapes, and eroded buffers against storms and rising seas.
Beach sand mining occurs mostly in developing countries, where it is often unregulated. Even where permits are required, such as in Jamaica and parts of India, enforcement is spotty. The extent of the trade isn’t yet known but it’s growing along with coastal populations, says Adam Griffith, who is compiling a sand-mining database for the nonprofit Coastal Care to highlight the problem. For now, he notes, “As long as beach sand can be sold, there will be people willing to take it.”

Taking Over Troubled Cities

Benton Harbor, Michigan, has a new form of government. It’s called Accountant. As in Emergency Manager. These managers are assigned to distressed cities by the state to put out financial blazes in the most troubled cities, The New York Times reports. Are these people popular? Imagine walking into a nearly empty city or town hall where you don’t know a single soul and tell the locals it’s your way or the highway. That you’re here to cut spending because your town is broke. One of the Benton Harbor’s city commissioners greeted the manager by announcing “it’s a dictatorship, plain and simple.” It’s also the way of the future, when voters select financially-trained leaders for governor, city council and school committee. That’s when we’ll build budgets based on financial acumen, not political shenanigans.

Falcons at JFK Airport Join the Unemployed

For 15 years, falcons have been hired at JFK to scare off geese and gulls that might otherwise get sucked into jet engines, causing emergencies or accidents. Now, because of budget constraints, JFK has terminated its agreements with falconers and asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to step in as a replacement. USDA doesn’t hire falconers. They buy shotguns, according to The New York Times article.

Greed, Conflict of Interest, and Wrong-doing

The U.S. Senate report fills 635 pages, but it’s conclusion – expressed in the above sub-headline – also noted our investigation in “Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse ”how big banks roped, tied and branded the U.S. economy and the developed world with their egregious money-making schemes.” From “ The Week.”

Union Busting in the State Next Door

Pop Quiz: What political party, in what state, this week passed a bill in the dead of night stripping public sector unions of their collective bargaining powers? Republicans in Wisconsin? The GOP in Ohio or Indiana? Try Democrats in Massachusetts. Maybe the debate over public sector benefits isn’t all that ideological after all, observed a Wall Street Journal columnist.

End of Column: Feel Like Crying?

Some new research efforts are helping to piece together the biological and cultural forces behind crying, showing that there are different types of tears as well as differences in the way men and women cry. Women, says a WSJ story, are biologically wired to shed tears more than men. Under a microscope, cells of female tear glands look different than men’s. Also, the male tear duct is larger than the female’s, so if a man and a woman both tear up, the woman’s tears will spill onto her cheeks quicker. “For men and their ducts, it’d be like having a big fat pipe to drain in a rainstorm.”

by Walter Gray—Politicians Worry More About Themselves, Not Us
Speaking of the difficulty of doing the right thing about pension reform in RI, ex-state rep Timothy Williamson , who chaired a failed special legislative commission on the subject, was quoted in a ProJo article as saying: “The political sense is that, if you do, be ready for a backlash and non-support and even though you’re doing the right thing, the group you’re going after may not agree, and you may not be re-elected.” Williamson, of course, was a rigid disciple of the House leadership so his statement was not unusual. But it did focus on the single most provocative issue facing legislators; their fear of losing. Lacking guts, the commission caved to labor objections and paved the way for the current $6.8 billion pension debt dilemma. The reason: our labor organizations warned of retaliation against individual elected officials if legislation were passed. The unions want taxpayers to pick up the nearly $7 billion dollar tab. But that’s how our state operates.

It’s OK to Encourage Employee Morale

How can I improve a desultory workplace environment, a new supervisor asked “The Job Doc” of the Boston Globe in a letter. He had described a place where workers seemed afraid of their own shadows, had very little interaction, who come in with their heads down and worked that way, and nobody had lunch together. “Doc” told the supervisor she/he had a great opportunity to rebuild and repair the culture. First, “Doc” said, ask questions and observe your department in a non-threatening way. Meet with your employees one-on-one. Ask them what they like and dislike about their jobs. Listen, really listen when you meet with employees. No cell phones, no checking e-mail, no distractions and good eye contact. Second, after those initial steps, ask them what one thing they would change about their work life. Third, ask them for their ideas on how to improve the workplace. Lastly, keep an open door.

State Budgets: Reward Friends, Punish Enemies

When legislators embark on budget creation, they are typically not emboldened by high purposes. Rather, their goal is to reward their families and friends and punish their enemies, broadly speaking. And that’s why the concept of Zero-based budgeting has never gained traction in Rhode Island. It is, however ,getting attention in the Massachusetts state senate where President Theresa Murray is talking about building department budgets from scratch rather than bestowing percentage increases across the board with just a shrug of the shoulders. Zero-based budgeting works best for agencies conceived for and by the General Assembly which were created for a short-range purpose but then seem to hang on. The biggest drawback to ZBB? Nobody is really interested! When Christopher Del Sesto was governor in 1960-62, he wanted to get rid of an architect he didn’t like. When that didn’t work out, he abolished the whole department.

Get the Point?

In any conversation, the dialogue is only half the story, according to a Boston Globe article. Embedded in pregnant pauses, pacing, and fluctuations in a speaker’s tone of voice are signals that hint “I’m not really paying attention” or “I’m feeling down” or “I’m not interested.” Now, Cogito Health, a company in Charlestown, MA is mining the unspoken part of a conversation for insights that could improve people’s health. With technology that analyzes the tempo and syncopation of speech, the company is trying to identify indicators that someone may be at risk of depression or is unlikely to adhere to a plan for managing a chronic disease.

Jobs Advantage Goes to Former Interns

Even though companies say that, on average, they’ll hire 19% more new graduates this year than they did in 2010, some graduates might find that a good portion of companies’ incoming classes are already filled. That’s because companies say that nearly 40% of this year’s entry-level positions will be filled by former interns, according to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The numbers are a marked increase from five years ago when only 30% of entry-level hires came from former interns. Companies are essentially trying to take graduates out of the job market before there’s competition for them, the NACE report stated.

Technology Threatens Teachers

Education Technology is replacing Bargaining Rights as the new threat to teachers’ unions, according to a new book by a Stanford University political scientist on trends in education. Author Terry Moe argues the web, fast connections, improved screens and a growing consensus that there are truly superstar teachers. In its review of the book Special Interest, Bloomberg Businessweek says the most reviled institution in America, after banks and oil companies, is probably teachers unions, The NEA and AFT with some 4 million members between them. “Education technology is a tsunami that’s only now beginning to swell,” Moe states. He envisions super-teachers offering world-class instruction from key locations to almost any school in America, an innovation that would obviously reduce the teaching population considerably. Teacher unions have already lodged challenges, political and judicial, to virtual learning, Moe said.

College Learning: In the Eye of the Beholder

Two professors who authored the recent book “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” maintain that studies seem to show that students think they are learning but are not. The authors found that large numbers of the students were making their way through college with minimal exposure to rigorous coursework, only a modest investment of effort and little or no meaningful skills like writing or reasoning. Not surprisingly, the authors wrote in an op-ed appearing in The New York Times, a large number of the students showed no significant progress on tests of critical thinking,
complex reasoning and writing that were administered when they began college and then again at the ends of their sophomore and junior years. About 36% of students in the study who reported spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone still had an average G.P.A of 3.16 – an obvious signal of professorial apathy - or grade inflation.

Tuitions Escalating, Reasons Abound

URI recently announced its annual 8,5% tuition increase, following its annual practice of upping the cody way beyond the Coast of Living Index. These arbitrary boots, heroically endorsed by the Office of Higher Education, never seen to mention cost-cutting efforts, a term as foreign to administrators as the euro. One writer in The New York Times said the reason for increases in tuition is simple: supply and demand. The average increase is in the neighborhood of 1 to 3%. But URI wants to become a “World University” attracting support from students and philanthropists across the globe. Woonsocket be damned seems to be the latest mantra. One assumption is safe, the author contends: colleges spend all the money they can gets their hands on. No administrator or faculty member I know is short of ideas on how to spend more.”

Like, Tweet Dreams

Internet users tap Facebook’s “Like” and Twitters “Tweet” buttons to share content with friends. But those tools also let their makers collect data about the websites people are isiting, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The so-called social widgets,, which appear atop stories on news sites or alongside products on retail sites, notify Facebook and Twitter that a person visited those sites even when users don’t click on the buttons, according to a study done for the WSJ. The widgets are prolific. They have been added ti millions of web pages in the past year. Facebook’s buttons appear on a third of the world’s 1,000 most-visited websites, according to the WSJ study. Buttons on Twitter and Google appear on 20% and 25% of those sites respectively.

The Score: Public Opinion 18, Catholic Bishops 0.

According to the media, the recent John Jay College study of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church can be blamed on the American culture of the 1960s (its Woodstock’s fault) rather than any peculiar priestly urges for little boys and girls. With they conclusion out of the way, the Catholic Bishops of the United States will now write guidelines to be followed by priests henceforth. A New York Times editorial, Vatican officials say Rome should not interfere with the traditional supremacy of local bishops (except, of course in cases such as in Austrailia where the reigning pope removed a bishop who advocated ordaining women or married men to the priesthood. A Boston Globe columnist said in he critique of the John Jay report that “it wouldn’t have mattered if the creeps had entered seminaries with ‘Abuser’ tattooed on their foreheads, judging by how church bigs dealt with the predators credibly accused by traumatized victims.”

Women Slower to Marry

The Census Bureau reports nearly half of all women between the ages of 25 and 29s have never been married, up from about a quarter of the age group in 1986. Among the changes found in the research is the rising median age of first marriages, which in 1950 was 23 for men and 20 for women. In 2009, it was 28 for men and 26 for women. Divorce rates have leveled off after reaching a high around 1980, the report said. In 2009, about 35% of women 40 to 49 had divorced, down from 40% 1996. First marriages that end in divorce last a median of eight years for men and for women. The median length of second marriages was the same.

by Walter Gray—Leveling the US-China Playing Field:

China’s wage advantage is shrinking because workers there are demanding and getting a bigger share of the manufacturing pie. Good for them? Yes, but even better for Americans. China’s government is looking to relocate its industrial base into the country’s interior, far from the major cities, but that effort won’t blunt the new-found muscle being flexed by all Chinese laborers. Experts here say China is suffering from distance from the U.S. market, communications difficulties and weak intellectual property protection. Early signs for the U.S. are good, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. Blue chips such as Caterpillar, Ford and NCR have all announced they are returning some manufacturing from abroad

Going Out on Your Own

The Boston Globe recently published a “Top 10” list for risk takers who want to start their own businesses.
1. Save money before you quit
2. Expand your network
3. Lower your cost of living
4. Be willing to do it all
5. Consider generating supplemental income
6. Recruit mentors, advisers, and experienced employees
7. Let others help spread the word
8. Don’t burn bridges
9. Skimp where it won’t be noticed
10. Project confidence

Want to be Healthy? Stay Home

A new study confirms what many corporate road warriors already know: Frequent business travel takes a toll on one’s health. The New York Times reports adults who spent 20 or more nights away from home each month were 2.5 times as likely to rate their health as poor or fair, compared with travelers away from home just one to six nights a month The most frequent travelers were also twice as likely to be as obese as those as those who went out of town infrequently. Researchers suggested airlines provide frequent travelers with on-board exercise equipment and more healthy meals.

Starting All Over

Everybody’s talking about privatizing segments of government. Me? I say privatize it all, except maybe for the President. Organize the new system by allowing a select list of non-profits to submit bids covering an eight-year period. Then re-bid it. What parts of our government would be privatized? Easy. Start with Congress and all the federal agencies. Then go down to the states to include governors, judges, legislatures, town and city mayors and councils and all the local units. For sure, there’s a problem with the Constitution. I’d turn that hot potato over to the Tea Party and suggest they pop a Viagra and re-write our Constitution. Their proposal was go to a national vote. Figuring the average age of a Tea Party member, their assignment would be completed somewhere around 2030. The interim privatization plan (see above) would take effect this coming January 1. Comments?

Happy Motoring Starts Where?

Maybe if we changed the name of the Division of Motor Vehicles in RI to something more exotic like The Travel Shoppe or maybe The Driving Station or maybe Your Extended Finger Kickoff Terminal we could begin to bridge between a disaster and a public service office. Face it, you can pour all the money you want into new computers, change of name or location or even provide workers with long white jackets and stethoscopes around their necks, you’ll still be guilty of showing up and bothering them. No, the answer is to get rid of all the surly, undereducated, politically-connected simpletons behind those counters. Study the problem all you want for another hundred years and you’ll come to the same conclusion.

La Difference, Mon Amie, is Cultural

There’s this guy in a hotel room near Times Square and he’s trying to get it on with the housemaid. Sure enough, she reports him, he’s arrested, cuffed and perp-walked to jail. Turns out he’s famous and wants to become president of France. His wife’s a looker (and filthy rich) and she says he couldn’t have done it. He’s good with the kids and the dog. Anyway, the French press starts arriving in droves to New York City, all of them wondering what the big deal is and why the culprit isn’t being shown more deference by the media of the USA (which doesn’t even show deference to old people and prostitutes). It’s a cultural thing. In French circles (roundabouts?) what you do on your own time is your business. The French media concurs, historically. The media people from France are better looking than their American counterparts, according to a column in The New York Times. And they kiss each other with a smooch on each cheek. Very European.

Retailers Stumbling With Mobile Devices

The average brick-and-mortar retailer will spend $343,000 this year on mobile initiatives, up from $50,000 in 2010, but the spending falls within a broad band, a recent study by Forester Research has found, according to The Wall Street Journal. While most retailers said the goal for mobile devices is to drive sales on their websites, investment levels may not be adequate, with modest sales at best resulting, Forester said. Reasons for poor returns include not having made websites compatible enough with smart phones, leaving screens hard to view and access difficult. In a number of cases, the article said, retailers haven’t provided functions that customers really want, such as information about in-store product availability, checkout capabilities, store maps, two-dimensional bar codes, coupons and navigation capabilities.

Coming Soon – Less Airport Security Hassle

The Transportation Security Administration is making plans to speed-up airline passenger traffic by adopting a more hands-off approach to travelers – frequent flyers, that is. On the table for discussion are:
• You don’t have to remove your shoes
• Laptops can remain in their cases
• A bar code printed on boarding passes puts you in a fast lane
• No more passing through a full-body scanner
• But no guarantee of being expedited every time
• Flight crews will test the new exemptions this summer

When Feelings Don’t Matter All That Much

The major collegiate business schools across America are introducing a new emphasis this year, designed to make them, well, nicer. The schools are teaching “soft skills” such as accepting feedback with grace and speaking respectfully to subordinates. However, according to a Wall Street Journal article, with classes often resembling a group therapy session, it’s hard to quantify what students actually learn in the soft classes. A recent study by DePaul University researchers found that managing workers and decision-making – two subjects that require softer skill sets as being sensitive when delivering feedback – were most important to acting managers. However, those subjects were covered in only 13% and 10% of required classes, respectively, in a study of 373 business schools. Conclusion? Softer skills are just not respected as much as, say, accounting, finance “hard” subjects.

Silliest Signs on Picket Lines

School teachers are professionals, teachers assert. But when they parade or protest, they can sound like miners, firemen or street car workers. A teacher in Wisconsin was photographed holding a sign claiming “We’re Here for the Students” but told NEAtoday “we’re really protesting….the attack on workers rights.”

by Walter Gray—

Facebook as a Business Marketing Tool:

Does your business have a likability problem, asks a writer for The Boston Globe. More than a half billion people worldwide use Facebook, and while the social network was initially about staying in touch with college pals and making sure your old flames weren’t dating someone more attractive than you, it is evolving into something else: a way for companies to communicate with current and prospective customers.

Just as you can “friend” someone on Facebook, you can “like” a business. And being liked by enough Facebook users can have a powerful impact, helping build awareness without spending anything on marketing. “Every demographic is moving onto Facebook, so every business should have a Facebook page,” says Michelle McCormack, founder of Boston-based digital strategy firm LoveTheCool.

Can We Talk?, Boston Nonprofits Plead

For the first time, Boston’s major tax-exempt institutions – its premier hospitals, universities, and cultural centers – are being asked to make regular voluntary payments to the city based on the value of their property to help offset the rising cost of city services and cuts in state financial aid, according to The Boston Globe. While many of the city’s nonprofits have been making so-called Payments In Lieu of Taxes for years, this marks a major change to a system that feels to to some organizations uncomfortably close to tax bills. Boston officials recently mailed letters to 40 major nonprofits asking them to pay up to 25 percent of what they would owe if their properly were not tax exempt.

Shanghai Thumps U.S. in School Reform

The recipe sounds familiar, says an article in Bloomberg Businessweek. Merit pay for teachers, rigorous testing, national academic standards. Is it a school turnaround effort in New York City, New Orleans, or Los Angeles? No, it’s happening in Shanghai. Over the past decade authoritarian China has been able to achieve what has eluded generations of educators in the U.S. who have had to contend with political feuds, a history of local control of education policy and the inherent difficulties of reaching consensus in a democracy. Shanghai , population 20 million, topped all rivals in the Programme for International Student Assessment, a closely watched gauge of educational achievement. The U.S. ranked 31st in math among the countries and regions tested, 23rd in science and 17th in reading.

President Simmons of Brown Opines

Asked by a magazine columnist “Are the humanities still relevant majors in this country?”, Ruth Simmons replied: “Now those are fighting words. If I can give a very substantial injection of humanistic thinking into corporations, boy, that would change things a lot.”
“How so?”
“A broader focus away from narrow quarter-to-quarter, bottom-line thinking. I often say that shareholders should feel very responsible for how responsive corporations are to the public trust.”

Trump for President (or whatever)

There’s been a 460% increase since January 1 in the price of an Intrade bet than Donald Trump will get the 2012 Republican nomination, quotes Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Why it merits “bubble” status? Bettors give him a 5.6% chance of getting the nomination, ahead of Sarah Palin, Jon Huntsman, or Mike Huckabee. Not to worry. Stranger things have happened. Ronald Reagan was in Bedtime for Bonzo.

Workplace Loyalty Out, Trust In

Is loyalty in the workplace dead? Just last month, according to a New York Sunday Times article, a workplace expert proclaimed that it was. In the Financial Times, Lynda Gratton said that it had been “killed off through shortening contracts, outsourcing, automation and multiple careers.” These days, Ms. Gratton commented, trust is more important than loyalty: “loyalty is about the future – trust is about the present.” Serial career monogamy is now the order of the day,” she concludes.

Coaches Win Game of College Salaries

Pity the poor presidents of colleges with major athletic programs, begins a book review in The Wall Street Journal of “Big Time Sports in American Universities” by Charles T.Clotfelter. In 1986, presidents at 44 public universities with teams in the five most established athletic conferences actually made, on average, a little more than their coaches: $294,000 for the presidents, $273,000 for the coaches; full professors earned about $107,000. By 2010, the professors’ income, adjusted for inflation, had climed 32%. University presidents’ pay had gone up 90%. The football coaches pay had jumped to more than $2 million – it had “increased by an astounding seven and a half times.”

Senator Brown a Shoo-in for Senate

Scott Brown, the cool cat who shocked his Democratic opponent in last November’s special election to fill the Ted Kennedy seat in Massachusetts, will be running for a full six-year term in 2012 and can’t seem to locate a meaningful opponent. Joseph Kennedy Jr. was initially hailed as a potential winner but both he and Ted’s widow, Victoria, subsequently said “thanks but no thanks.” Brown has cooperated somewhat with Democrats on major legislation enough to claim bi-partisanship.

Who Holds U.S. Households’ Purse Strings?

While the answer may be a little murky, best estimates claim women control up to 80% of a households’ spending, according to a Wall Street Journal article. So how good is that number? Many industry analysts believe men really do play more of a role than the 80% suggests. Especially when it comes to cars and electronics. What gave rise to the 80% figure, marketing consultants note, was an effort to draw attention to women’s preferences and purchasing power which for decades was often overlooked by product designers and advertisers.

Doing Business in an IT Age

In a digital economy Information Technology (IT) is the foundation for doing business, reports an article in The Wall Street Journal. CEOs at every level need to think about – and answer these four questions:
Question #1 – Are we using technology to transform our business, or are we just adding bells and whistles to existing processes?
Question # 2 – Are you ignoring important business differences as you standardize processes across the company?
Question #3 – Who is making sure the company’s digital strategy is being implemented?
Question #4 – Is electronic data empowering your people or controlling them?
There’ll Always Be An England, Possibly
The royal wedding gave us pause to appreciate the magnificence of the Abbey and the royal family. But hey, folks, things aren’t what they used to be. Queen Elizabeth gets high marks but the rest of her family is in the D- range what with Prince Philip, Camilla, Andrew and his ex-lady, Fergie. The Prime Minister has taken a few knocks for suggesting people organize street parties to celebrate the wedding. And bad times economically have dented the old order. British discipline – the staple of many films, books and even wars – have diminished, especially in schooling. The influence of the Church of England, the nominal faith of some 70 million Brits, is so weakened that less than 5 percent of all Anglicans are regular churchgoers.

State Workers Head for Exits

Because they are worried about job or pay cuts, reduced retirement benefits, elimination of collective bargaining , furloughs and layoffs, many state workers are retiring earlier than expected causing worries about qualified replacements in fields such as nursing, teaching, legal staff, engineers and managers, according to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek. In combat states such as New Jersey and Wisconsin, retirements have jumped 60 percent in NJ while in Wisconsin retirements are up 79 percent in the first quarter of 2011.

So Long Umass, It’s Been Good to Know Ye

Once you jump into the cesspool of big-time college football, you have committed to spending that knows no ceiling, writes Derrick Z. Jackson in The Boston Globe, reflecting on the University of Massachusetts’ move to the Mid-American football conference. “Just ask the University of Connecticut,” Jackson says, adding “It made the prized Fiesta Bowl last season, and for its fantasy of reflected glory and getting clocked by storied Oklahoma, it lost $1.6 million on the trip.

by Walter Gray—

The CEO of J. Crew Speaks:

“Well, what we are feeling is that consumers are shopping more. They are comparing more. I think they are buying more shrewdly. They are shopping more carefully. They are looking for great value” said Mickey Drexler, CEO of J. Crew, as quoted in Bloomberg Businessweeek magazine.

Cash is King

Also from Bloomberg Businessweek, “U.S. bills and coins in circulation have surpassed $1 trillion, up from $200 billion in 1986, says the Federal Reserve. Households are paying more often with cash and keeping more cash on hand. Low interest rates are rising overdraft fees may account for the shift.”

The Deaf Ear Syndrome

Our Rhode Island Catholic Diocese, suffering a nearly 50 percent decline in church attendance, continues its “Return Home” campaign, urging non-attendees to come back to that which they have abandoned. The Bishop probably continues to believe Sunday morning baseball and soccer distract parents from their church obligations – failing to appreciate how much parishioners are offended by the barrage of scortching news the Diocese has chosen to ignore. No mention is ever made in the parishes about sexual abuse by priests, allowing priests to marry, allowing women to become priests, or acknowledging homosexuals to name a few. Individual parish priests claim they are limited to reading the gospel and then devoting ten minutes to interpretation of that gospel. No priests have publicly challenged that rule. Asked whether Catholic seminaries provide guidance to future priests about handing these controversial topics, a former priest said such “social” issues are never introduced during a priest’s education experience.

WSJ Editorial Excoriates RI Lawyer

In a scathing April 16 editorial, The Wall Street Journal said Jack McConnell’s changing stories about what he did and didn’t do about the lead paint controversy in the late 1990s is enough to disqualify him from appointment to the federal bench, a drive greased by Senators Whitehouse and Reed – recipients of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the nominee. And, the WSJ adds, there’s no rush since our two senators didn’t mind leaving the vacancy open when they helped to block President Bush’s nominee, Lincoln Almond, for two years. Mr. Almond was never confirmed, the editorial observed.

Many Future Jobs, Few Qualified

When experts look down the road at the fastest-growing occupations, what they see is thousands of jobs on the horizon by 2018 and a worker pool that may not be trained to fill them. The Top Ten list includes, in order, biomedical engineer, network systems and data communications analyst, home health aide, personal and home care aide, financial examiner, medical scientist, physician assistant, skin care specialist, biochemist and biophysicist, and athletic trainer.

So What Ever Happened?

The three components of modern political power, according to author Francis Fukuyama, are (1) a strong and capable state; (2) the state’s subordination to the rule of law, and (3) government accountability to all citizens, according to a book reviewer in The New York Sunday Times.

Computers Search Video Games for Filth, Etc.

The little T’s, E’s and M’s that appear on the covers of video games get there the old-fashioned way: people working for the Entertainment Software Rating Book look at the games, decide how gory, sexy or potty-mouthed they are, and bestow an age-appropriate rating accordingly. Starting April 18, computers will make those decisions, according to a story in The New York Times. Evaluation will henceforth not be based on human judgment but instead on a detailed digital questionnaire meant to gauge every subtle nuance of violence, sexuality, profanity, drug use, gambling and bodily function that could possibly offend anyone The questionnaire, to be filled out by a game’s makers (with penalties for non-disclosure) is like a psychological inquest into the depths of all the things our culture considers potentially unwholesome.

Maybe Closing Hospitals is Next

It’s interesting to see that federal and state governments are imposing significant budget reductions on K-12 and higher education. Talk about assassinating the future. You have to wonder how legislators would respond if you asked them how they arrived at such priorities. Fund those pensions, tax the middle class, maintain the multi-million Board of Governors for Higher Education. If nothing else, let the downward spiral continue.

U.S. Jobs Moving to Asia

Globalization started twenty, maybe thirty years ago. Free trading, new compacts. Hell, we’re all God’s people and globalization will guarantee jobs for everyone, peace, more understanding. More wars and threats of war. Sure enough. Who predicted that? China winning the economic sphere with the US a big loser.

And now, reports The Wall Street Journal, our own multi-national corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers have been hiring abroad while cutting back at home, sharpening the debate over globalization’s effect on the U.S. economy. The companies cut their work force in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. The trend highlights the rising importance of other economies, particularly in rapidly-growing Asia to big U.S. businesses such as General Electric, Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Inc. and Wal-Mart stores,

First on Google Response List? It’ll Cost You

Type the words “baby boy name 2011” into Google and one of the first ten results will be a website for Pampers disposable diapers. That’s the work of Tom Gerace, chief executive of Skyword, Inc., a Boston company that helps clients get the best possible placement in Google, Bing, and other online indexes.. In a Boston Globe article, it was noted that the practice, “Search Engine Optimization”, has become a powerful and controversial marketing tool in an Internet-centric world. Optimization companies get the attention of a search engine by adding relevant keywords to a page or by linking to other pages with more information on the same subject.

Living Longer With Exercise

“The majority of the mortality-related benefits from exercising are due to the first 30 minutes of exercise” exclaims a professor at a Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA, as reported in The New York Times Magazine. Studies of exercise and mortality show that, in general, a sedentary person’s risk of dying prematurely from any cause plummeted by nearly 20 percent if he or she began brisk walking (or the equivalent) for five times a week. If she or he tripled that amount, for instance, to 90 minutes of exercise four or five times a week, his or her risk of premature death dropped by only another 4 percent. A professor at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota avers “I personally think that brisk walking is far and away the single best exercise.”

Sale! The Whole Mall

Mall landlords are currently marketing 40 malls across the country, an unusually large number for any one time. The sellers are hoping to take advantage of the slowly improving economy and commercial real estate market. Most of these malls are lower quality enterprises and their owners are seizing the moment as their properties face oversupply and competition from Internet sales, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

When a Pug and a Beagle Fall in Love, It’s a Puggle

It’s a new dog, is what it is. And please don’t refer to the new breeds as mutts. Actually they are (if a blend of pekingese and beagle, a peagle. Or a goldendoodle if a mating of a golden retriever and a poodle. Or a cockalier if a match of a cavalier king charles spaniel and a cocker spaniel. The American Canine Hybrid Club has registered 671 different hybrid combinations since 1990. The hybrids are sold over a website for between $675 and $795. Most popular so far are the puggles (a pug and a beagle) for their size and family-friendly temperament, according to the story in The Wall Street Journal.

Obama a Favorite or Underdog Today?

Time magazine reporter Mark Halperin writes that Obama is The Favorite right now. Why? Halperin says political bookmakers see Obama as better than even money to retain the Presidency, thanks to his fundraising strength, political experience and skill – and the apparent weakness of the GOP field. But he will struggle to hold such swing states as Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado, opening up the Electoral College bowl. A Republican who can compete in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa will have a real chance to beat him, the writer claims.

Too Many Museums?

Support for a National Latino Museum in Washington, DC is building but the financing hasn’t been arranged yet, reports The New York Times. Since museums are an offshoot of the Smithsonian Institution, critics are already complaining that the Smithsonian ought to improve itself before undertaking too many branches. And, says Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia,“I don’t want a situation where whites go to the original museum, African-Americans go to the African-American Museum, Indians go to the Indian Museum. That’s not America.”

by Walter Gray—

Be Careful of the Traffic:

Of 130 lobbyists who became Congressional staffers, 80 worked for Republicans, 48 worked for Democrats (and two worked for Joe Lieberman of CT). Of the 352 members of Congress who have left office since 1998, 80 percent have worked as lobbyists, according to Mother Jones magazine.

The U.S. Isn’t Declining or Falling

There are those who believe we’re into the Decline and Fall of the American Empire. No, they don’t all live in the South and they’re not all Tea Baggers. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Joseph H. Nye of Harvard countered the defeatist attitude by noting “The Internal Revenue Service has seen no increase in tax cheating. By many accounts, government officials have become less corrupt than in earlier decades, and the World Bank gives the United States a high score (about the 90th percentile) on “control of corruption.’’ The voluntary return of census forms increased to 67 percent in 2000 and was slightly higher in 2010., reversing a 30-year decline. Voting rates fell from 62 percent to 50 percent over the four decades after 1960, but the decline stopped in 2000 and returned to 58 percent in 2008. In other words, the public’s behavior has not changed as dramatically as its responses to poll questions indicates.

Not Counting Siestas

When it comes to mowing the lawn, cleaning the kitchen and performing other household chores, Southern European and some Asian men are the least likely to take part. According to a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. The Paris-based think tank surveyed 29 countries to determine how much time people spent doing unpaid work. The results showed women spend considerably longer than men doing daily chores, a factor that could hinder their ability to take part in paid employment, the study says. Italian and Portuguese men spent less than two hours a day helping out at home – the lowest figure among European nations.

Oracle Shapes its Future

What makes Larry Ellison and his Oracle Corp. so effective? One reason is his focus on the Right Message. According to Fortune Magazine, Oracle has become masterful at using basic messages to communicate the complicated nature of its products, as well as its vision and overall mission to customers. (The Company’s slogan: Hardware and software, engineered to work together).

Northeast Women Cite Lower Pay

Some 60 percent of Americans think that their pay is fair, according to a survey by Kenexa Corp. About three percent think they are underpaid while only two percent admit to being overpaid, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. Certain groups aren’t as pleased. Although only a third of men thought they were underpaid, about 43 percent of women felt they were, lending credence to past studies that show women tend to get paid less for the same work.
People living in the Northeast are more likely to say they are underpaid. About 42 percent of workers in the Northeast thought their pay was too low, compared with 32 percent in the Midwest.

Irish Kids Abuse Study Heads to Rome

Sometime before this coming Easter Sunday, the Pope is expected to receive the first confidential report of Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s study of what went wrong in Ireland’s atholic churches, resulting in widespread, brutal sexual abuse of thousands of children by priests. “The big question is what happens when it goes to the Vatican,” said the Rev. Tim Flannery, who met with O’Malley as part of a small delegation of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland. “If all of this goes to the Vatican and the Vatican does not respond appropriately – indeed, if it does not respond at all – the thing becomes futile,” Flannery added. Indeed, the Pope has promised to release only a “summary” of the report he receives from the Boston Cardinal and other church prelates who accompanied him to Ireland. The decision by the Pope to load up the investigating teams with Americans, Canadians and British priests didn’t help the situation, according to Gary O’Sullivan, editor of The Irish Catholic, the only way to get the church back here “is to go house by house, room by room, and evangelize them.” (Boston Globe)

Elections Will Do That

Soviet Prime Minister Putin likes to keep his countrymen in the dark about who will be the nation’s’ future president. “If we give any wrong signals today,” Putin was quoted as saying in The New York Times, “half of the administration and more than half of the government will stop working in the expectation of change. All this fuss around elections does not promote normal organizational work.”

CVS/Caremark Marriage Vilified

The merger four years ago of CVS and Caremark still poses legal problems for the Woonsocket-based pharmacy chain with consumer groups alleging the marriage has harmed consumers, according to The New York Times. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general of 24 states are investigating. Concerns are that the two companies colluded to steer prescription traffic to CVS stores. CVS/Caremark had revenues of $96.41 billion in 2010, down from $98.13 billion in 2009. Caremark lost nearly $5 billion in contracts with employers and health plans for 2010. The head of the National Legislative on Prescription Drug Prices asserted “It really does appear that CVS has been unable to avoid a very significant conflict of interest.”

Web Advertising Rises to No. 1

Web advertising in the U.S. resumed double-digit growth in 2010, outpacing traditional media and surpassing newspaper ad revenue for the first time, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau as reported in The Wall Street Journal. The IAB estimates that internet ad revenue, now at $24 billion, has blown ahead of newspapers ($22.8 billion revenue), cable TV networks ($22.5 billion), broadcast TV networks ($17.6 billion), and radio ($15.3 billion).

Look! Up in the Sky. It’s My Documents Cloud

Cloud computing has finally caught on. But you don’t have to go there yourself to double-check.
The cutting edge of innovation is on the consumer side – digital technologies for consumption activity, play, entertainment, and social-networked communications – and not in corporations anymore, says a New York Times article. Cloud computing allows accessing information held in big computer centers remotely over the Internet from anywhere, as if the services were in a cloud. (Personally, I refer to the cloud concept as “the big backup in the sky”).

Finally, Something New About Emergency Rooms

Hospital emergency rooms can be unpleasant destinations. When the wait times seem to stretch forever, it just makes things worse. The Wall Street Journal has found a hospital in northern New Jersey that is trying to lure patients from competing hospitals by bragging about its below average wait times in the ER. Bayonne Medical Center has unveiled two billboards in Jersey City that are updated with emergency room wait times several times a day. One scoffer is Joe Scott, CEO of the Jersey City Medical Center who said the Bayonne center is trying to steer people to its emergency room to take advantage of higher compensation from insurance companies. By the way, the wait times at Scott’s hospital have averaged 37 minutes in the past three months. Bayonne’s wait time was 32 minutes at that moment in time. Rhode Island Hospital’s ER wait time continues to be eight years.

Red Sox Implausible Start

Say what you want about the Sox falling on their faces at the onset of the 2011 season. We should look on the bright side for a change. The Boston Globe describes the season as “a marathon, not a sprint.” Me? I take pleasure in the Red Sox collapsing in April, rather than in, say, September-October. As a Globe editorialist commented, “more than faith, fans need patience.” To which I add Bullcrap; lower the prices to reflect the product.

Cutting Federal Budget Not All That Hard

Carving billions from the proposed federal spending plan might be difficult for a neophyte. But, if you know budgets, you’ll know just where to start. How about $6 billion for the 2010 census. Yeah, cut that, it’s done already. Unspent, leftover earmarks proposed by individual senators and representatives? Yeah, cut that $630 million. And $20 million from the Housing Department for the mortgage fraud program which started last year to help detect abusive lending practices. Secretary Gates of Defense has already directed $600 million in military cuts because the equipment to be purchased wasn’t needed; it was actually budgeted to create busy work for contractors in various Congressional districts. Me, I’d say cut the whole budget by 15 percent and let each cabinet department boss figure out where and how.