Money and Related to $ Writing from Time

Some solid writing on money, the economy and jobs in Time lately... particularly in the recent Special Money Issue.

Leading off the section was a piece by Rana Foroohar titled No. 1 A new Era Of Volatility. Good writing on the current economic climate and it's ramifications for economies and people. Also on this subject was the Jeffrey Sachs essay Why America Must Revive Its Middle Class. It's certainly an argument brought up by others as well, but Sachs does an excellent job discussing the divide in haves and have nots in the U.S. as well as takes to task the opt-trumpted idea of "Reagan economic policies were great... need to go back to those."

Two other pieces from the prior week's issue of Time that stood out as interesting and related to the same topic of money...

At a macro level, Michael Grunwald provided Street Smarts on how widespread infrastructure work could help revitalize the economy. This notion of long-term improvements being done on public-works projects such as highways and electrical grids has been certainly talked about, but seems to be on a limited basis and only at a city level.

With a much more individual focus, this same Oct 3 edition contained The New Online Job Hunt. Written by Francine Russo, the piece details how Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter (as well as career site LinkedIn) are taking on a great place of import for both employers and job seekers.

California Profile from Time Magazine

Interesting cover story on California from the latest Time Magazine.



I've heard before the notion of California as an indicator of the rest of the country (sort of an "if it succeeds in California, it can succeed everywhere), and this piece perpetuates that idea. Written by Michael Grunwald, "Despite Its Woes, California's Dream Still Lives" focuses not on the state's budget problems, but rather on the positives going for it.

Innovative companies, diverse demographics and environmental efforts... with Grunwald citing some statistics around the first and third area:

- Clean-tech: California now attracts $3 out of every $5 invested in the area.
- Utilities (which don't have a generally positive environmental reputation): PG&E has 40% of the nation's solar roofs in its territory.
- Energy usage: While per capital usage has increased 50% nationwide, the California amount has remained constant.

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A couple of other interesting things from Time to mention here...

- Jennifer Beals (yep, the one from Flashdance) mentioning the university lecture replaying site Academic Earth.

- A review of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's new book "Superfreakonomics"... a follow up to their (very interesting) hit "Freakonomics".

- Joel Stein's last page column "Rogue Journalist: Writing My Memoir Palin-Style"... available here as a 49 page pdf file.

Time Magazine - Apr 13 Issue

Lots of interesting writing from the April 13 issue of Time Magazine (which was subtitled the "Special Environment Issue").

The most profound piece was titled "Why Are Army Recruiters Killing Themselves?". Written by Mark Thompson, it's a painful look at the pressures put on Army recruiters (particularly those out of the Army's Houston recruiting battalion) to "make mission" and meet recruiting numbers. A job characterized by 15-19 hour work days and belittlement by leadership... very messed up.

Another interesting story was by Michael Grunwald and titled "How Obama is Using the Science of Change". It looks at some of the social science behind the Obama campaign and office message, specifically how the field of behavioral economics is employed. Some of the examples put out were how get out the vote campaign efforts often promoted the idea of record turnouts to get people to "emulate their neighbors" and the more recent idea of opt-out 401K programs to encourage savings.

Also from the Grunwald article was mention of books written by some of the Obama advisers that made up what's referred to as his "behavioral dream team":

- "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein

- "Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism" by George Akerlof & Robert Shiller

- "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions" by Dan Ariely