Why I Admire Mallory Keaton

I never thought I would admire Mallory Keaton, but I really do. Okay, the person I admire is actress Justine Bateman, not Mallory Keaton, the ditzy teenager she played on television show Family Ties (it ran from 1982 through 1989). For those of us who grew up with her, it is hard to separate the […]

The Age of Freelancers

Freelancing, the best thing ever to happen to the workplace or an evil idea designed to make workers poor and companies inefficient? We are not even close to a consensus on that, but apparently we are getting closer. According to one new study, 41 percent of U.S. employers plant to increase their use of freelancers […]

Tourists Can be Smart (or at Least Think They Are)

I love this: the newest trend in travelling is ‘Literary Tourism’, or making a pilgrimage to the birthplaces of your favorite authors or the sites of their books. As this article from the Atlantic details, it is certainly a gentler way to vacation than doing a bike tour or even schlepping from tourist attraction to […]

Call Them Picky, But Women Want to Marry Men With Jobs

Call them shallow if you will, but when scouting for men women generally prefer those with jobs. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, fully 78 percent of never-married women say that finding someone with a steady job would be ‘very important’ to then in choosing a spouse or partner. Call me shallow […]

‘D’ is for Downgrade

Here’s a a dry news headline that buried in the back pages of business sections yesterday but deserves a closer look: according to debt-ratings service Moody’s, the 25 largest U.S. public pensions face about $2 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Translation: unless something changes, retiring U.S. public sector employees will not get the pensions they have […]

Exciting News from the Bank of Canada (No, I am Not Making a Joke)

I have to admit, following the antics of the world’s central banks has been a bit of a bore the past few years. Since the end of the financial crisis (no, we are no going to debate whether there is a still a crisis going on), central banks have basically left interest rates at crazy- […]