Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
I wrote last week about the new nonfiction book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, the Yale Law School graduate who grew up in the poverty and chaos of an Appalachian clan. The book is an American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the…
The Republican party wants my liberal vote. This was the most shocking wave to wash over my brain last week as I sat in the convention center in Cleveland. It was more startling in its way than the storm of hate that I saw descend on former GOP hero Ted Cruz, stranger than the absence…
Pour scorn elsewhere. / Joanna Slodownik Late capitalism is like your love life: it looks a lot less bleak through an Instagram filter. The slow collapse of the social contract is the backdrop for a modern mania for clean eating, healthy living, personal productivity, and “radical self-love”—the insistence that, in spite of all evidence to the…
While the algos have long forgotten about today’s job report whose headline was good enough to unleash an epic buying spree which has pushed the S&P to the highest level since July 2015, a quick read between the lines reveals a continuation of some recent troubling trends, namely that all job gains in recent years…
Photo A protest against the so-called Brexit in Parliament Square in London on Saturday. Credit Adam Ferguson The New York Times LONDON — Britain’s historic vote to leave the European Union is already threatening to unravel a democratic bloc of nations that has coexisted peacefully together for decades. But it is also generating uncertainty about…
Power-lunch mecca The Four Seasons, which will serve its last meal on July 16 after 57 years, plans a “hush-hush” farewell party for famous customers two days earlier — but loyal employees will get only crumbs. Longtime staffers at the landmark Seagram Building eatery that’s a favorite of boldfacers such as Henry Kravis, Barry Diller…
TO MARK the United Nations’ International Women’s Day on March 8th, we present our “glass-ceiling index” which aims to reveal where women have the best chances of equal treatment at work. It combines data on higher education, labour-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity rights, business-school applications and representation in senior jobs. We’ve also included paternity rights as an additional…
What happens when parents leave the workforce because they cannot afford child care? The annual cost of a child care center for a typical American family with an infant and a four-year-old is nearly $18,000. As a result, many parents face the untenable choice between spending an average of nearly 30 percent of their paycheck…
Last week, two members of BuzzFeed’s video team were fired for reportedly violating non-compete clauses in their employment agreements. According to Politico, Jenny Lorenzo and Brittany Ashley were let go because they appeared in a non-BuzzFeed web series, “Gente-Fied,” produced by America Ferrera and focusing on Latinx experiences. As the news trickled out, people formerly…
Police officers detain an injured demonstrator during a protest against the French government’s planned labour law reforms, on June 14, 2016 in Paris. Photo: AFP Protests turned violent in Paris once again as an estimated million people were expected to demonstrate against labour reforms nationwide. The latest protest against the government’s unpopular labour laws turned…