Book Review: Citizen Capitalism: How a Universal Fund Can Provide Income and Influence to All Corporations have been hijacked by the wolves of Wall Street. A generation of Gordon Gekkos manage hedge funds that pressure corporations to cut corners in the name of ‘unlocking shareholder value’ for investors. Corporations, the environment, and the American Middle …
Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow (EPCOT) Growing up on Long Island I lived only a couple of miles from Levittown, a planned community of mass produced homes developed between 1947 and 1951. The returning veterans of World War II fueled much of this growth as well as similar suburban growth throughout the country. The economies …
Human influenced climate change is real my friends. Regardless of Presidential policy. While U.S. government action on climate change oscillates based on party control, the marketplace has increasingly ruled in favor of science. Over the past decade more and more companies have pledged to fight climate change. The U.S. government’s withdrawal from the Paris climate …
In June I decided to reboot my reading habit and completed a book each week which has lead to more consistent reading overall. With summer coming to a close I thought I would share some thoughts on some of them. The topics varied but all relate in some fashion to my projects regarding how technology and corporations are …
In March 2013 Whole Foods Market put “a stake in the ground on GMO labeling” by announcing that by 2018 all products sold by the grocery chain would be labeled indicating any included genetically modified organisms in order to provide full GMO transparency to customers. The announcement occurred around the same time as failed efforts by consumer activists to petition the federal government …
The series finale of ‘Mad Men’ closed a fictional window to the 1960s. Women’s and civil rights, The Beatles, Serge Gainsbourg and The Doors, the introduction of birth control and realization that cigarettes cause cancer. The series remained authentic by intertwining itself with events of the decade. The crash of American Airlines Flight 1, the assassinations of John F Kennedy …
Technological unemployment is most often recognized as technology that directly replaces the work of humans because those losses are directly observable. Drive down any toll road in the world and you almost forget that just 10 years ago most people stopped to pay a human toll collector. What about the displaced jobs that are not as directly associated? Manufacturing …
News this week that Sears and Kmart will close 235 stores along with JCPenney’s continued decent reaffirm my belief that the true value of these iconic brands is being ignored. In the case of JCPenney, unimaginative executives struggle to increase sales with awkward marketing stunts in a retail industry that is returning to its roots. While the brands of yesterday are suffering slow …
For most of us reliable high speed Internet access is a daily necessity that when interrupted causes havoc to our routines. We expect our access to be reliable like telephone, water, sewer, and electricity – like a utility. The debate for and against Net Neutrality centers on this question. Should Internet access be regulated like a utility or …
With just 21 days left before Christmas we are now in the thick of the holiday “consuming” season. Shopping no longer being the operative word considering we are targeted by retailers and websites to buy what has the most margin after being baited by the best deal. We are merely consumers in the eyes of …