While it wasn’t a particularly good 2014 for big pension fund earnings, those who managed the funds saw incredible pay! According to the New York Times, the top 25 hedge fund managers reaped $11.62 billion in compensation in 2014. Yes, that’s billions with a “B”! Questions: 1. The 2014 compensation of the top 25 hedge… Read more »
Posts Tagged: business strategies
The Hidden Costs of Beautiful Nails
Manicures were once for special occasions only. Now they have become a staple for women across the economic spectrum. With more than 17,000 nail salons in the United States, there are about 2,000 nail salons in New York City alone. This New York Times research article looks at the dirty little secret of exploitation of… Read more »
Schedules: The Next Labor Fight
While the minimum wage issue has come to the top of political agendas over the past few years, it appears that the new frontier in labor reform will be schedules and pushing back against the corporate trend to time shifts when labor is needed. Questions: 1. What are some of the requirements that proponents hope… Read more »
We Pay Top Dollar for Musicians!
Overbuilding has led to ghost towns in China with towering rows of luxury apartments sitting completely empty, especially in smaller cities in China’s hinterlands. However, the real estate companies who now must sell these empty towns believe that filling their remote buildings with foreign faces, even for a day, suggests that the area is “international.”… Read more »
ATM Dogs: The Future or Just Plain Weird?
Soomi Park, a futuristic artist and designer currently exhibiting at Biennale Internationale Design in France, has been intrigued with the issue of privacy, security, and mass-collection of personal data by governments and corporations. In response to the changes, her exhibit, The Republic of Privacy, focuses on an imagined utopia where citizens are guaranteed total privacy…. Read more »
A Solution for Separation Anxiety
People feel guilty about leaving their dogs home all day alone. Now there’s a solution – DogTV. Some viewers even report that their dogs were on medication for separation anxiety, but since subscribing to the channel, the dogs no longer need the drugs. Questions: 1. What year was the channel launched and in what country?… Read more »
An Expensive Glitch
On April 24, a computer outage hit 7,000 U.S. Starbuck’s company-owned stores and 1,000 Canadian company-owned Starbuck’s locations. The outage was resolved Friday night after several hours. Questions: 1. Did all locations deal with the problem in the same way? What did they do? 2. Why do you think that the outage did not affect… Read more »
Adjuncts with Ph.D.s are now Rising in the Ranks with the Working Poor
Are academics actually resorting to government aid? According to the article by Jeremy Weissman, 25% of part-time college faculty are on government aid. Questions: 1. According to NBC News, how many part-time faculty are on public assistance? 2. What programs do these include? 3. According to the article, what are the three things that need… Read more »
How would you like a Big Raise?
Dan Price, the founder of Gravity Systems—a credit card processing company based in Washington—shocked his employees by raising the minimum wage to $70,000 over the next three years. Questions: 1. What percentage raise will that be based on the average wage now? 2. Where did Dan get the idea? 3. Do you think that his… Read more »
How Do you Assess Likelihood about the Unknown: Insurers and Driver-less Cars
Tesla Motors is going to roll out a self-driving feature on selected cars this summer. The dilemma for insurance companies is “how do you assess the risk without an existing track record?” Questions: 1. Even when self-driving cars are widely available, what will delay their widespread adoption? 2. Why do you think that California is… Read more »