Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Planning to retire? Not long ago, many of us would have automatically answered “yes” to that question, and with good reason. In the 20th century, retirement became the norm—something most people did. Thanks to generous programs like Social Security (enacted in 1935) and Medicare (1965), millions of people who once might have worked till they…
Photo Credit Christophe Vorlet It is hard to avoid the feeling that our current economic problems are more than just a cyclical downturn. We know that the economy has gone through some bad times. But what exactly are we experiencing? One relatively optimistic view is that observed deficiencies — like slow growth in real wages…
Submitted by Dark Bid In society, exclusivity creates desirability. Whether it’s that special country club or elite college, privilege is defined by the rejection rate. In the previous era, the Ivy League was one of those prized organizations, and McDonald’s was the exact opposite. Now, the New Normal has seized our social convention and turned…
The American dream of equal opportunity, based on the conviction that intelligence, hard work and character are the keys to success, may be on life support. These days children raised at the top or bottom fifths of the income pyramid tend to stay there, even as adults. Higher education is considered a major contributor to economic…
I was asleep when I heard the door rattle against the frame. My eyes flashed open and I sprung upright in my under-desk sleep space. Was it all over? Had someone come to work early? I peered over my desk, afraid of what I might see. The morning sun burned through the chicken-scratch graffiti of…
The future is looking bright The Sharing Economy is Extremely Good — The Nib — Medium.
At age 21, I was handed control of a million-dollar company with more than 250 employees when I was named editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel, the independent student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The only reason I ever came to the University of North Carolina was to work for…
Photo In Brooklyn, signs for demonstrators seeking higher wages are stored along Flatbush Avenue. Credit Lucas Jackson/Reuters Some 15 years ago, searching for a consistent way to compare wages of equivalent workers across the world, Orley Ashenfelter, an economics professor at Princeton University, came upon McDonald’s. The uniform, highly scripted production methods used throughout the…
In 1998, Carnegie Mellon researchers warned that the internet could make us into hermits. They released a study monitoring the social behavior of 169 people making their first forays online. The web-surfers started talking less with family and friends, and grew more isolated and depressed. “We were surprised to find that what is a social…
One of today’s Pulitzer winners for local reporting isn’t actually a reporter anymore. The Daily Breeze’s Rob Kuznia won the prize alongside Rebecca Kimitch for a series on corruption in the Torrance, California school district. Now the former reporter, who had more than 15 years’ experience covering local affairs, is celebrating the career high in…