Economy – Page 33 – Impact Lab

Big Problems, Business, Economy, Latest Trend

The return of debtors’ prisons

April 24, 2012

More than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans.

Breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars because of a medical bill she didn’t pay– one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn’t owe. “She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn’t have to pay it,” The Associated Press reports. “But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs.”

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Analysis, Business, Economy, Education, Latest Trend

1 in 2 recent graduates are jobless or underemployed

April 23, 2012

Graduates with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs.

The 2012 graduating classes in U.S. colleges are in for a rude awakening to the world of work.

The weak labor market has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t fully use their skills and knowledge.

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Need for technical training grows as more big companies in the U.S. plan to ‘onshore’ jobs

April 21, 2012

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Ten years ago, offshoring manufacturing jobs to China looked like the perfect way to cut costs. But now companies that manufacture everything from computers to car parts are returning to the United States in growing numbers. The country needs to invest in more vocational and technical training programs so millions of jobless factory workers are equipped with the skills to benefit from this trend, say labor economists.

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Economy, Education, Global Warming, Globalism, government, Green Friendly, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest News, New Discoveries

To envision sustainable business, We must reimagine our economy

April 17, 2012

From senior executives identifying the profit motive as an obstacle to sustainability to corporations questioning the very nature of capitalism as we know it, the plus side of the recent financial crisis and ongoing slow recovery has been that tough questions are finally being asked about how our economy functions and whose interests it serves.

On May 2nd Forum for the Future—whose work on system innovation aims to create change across entire sectors of our economy—are hosting an event in New York which will explore better ways of doing business in a post-Great Recession world…

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Analysis, Business, Economy, Education, Latest Trend

Canada plays the visa card to lure foreign students to its universities

April 12, 2012

Four years ago 60,000 international students came to Canada for school now that number stands at 90,000.

Canadian universities used to find it hard to draw attention away from the U.S. when trying to lure foreign students to its business schools. Not anymore. Over the last two years, Canadian full-time MBAs have seen the biggest increase in applications of any region, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a business school association.

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Analysis, Economy, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Latest Trend

Limits to growth: 40 year old prediction of ‘collapse’ still on track

April 9, 2012

In a controversial study released 40 years ago, recent research supports the conclusions of that study: The world is on track for disaster. So says Australian physicist Graham Turner, who revisited perhaps the most groundbreaking academic work of the 1970s,The Limits to Growth.

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Analysis, Economy, Globalism, Science & Technology News

Researchers predict next great depression by 2030

April 5, 2012

Physicist Graham Turner says “the world is on track for disaster.”

Researchers at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT in a new study says that the world could suffer from “global economic collapse” and “precipitous population decline” if people continue to consume the world’s resources at the current pace.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Economy, Education, Latest Trend, Money Talk

Student loans still a burden on senior citizens

April 2, 2012

Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans.

Senior citizens are an unexpected demographic that is still burdened with paying for college and the student loans are wreaking havoc on their finances.

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Analysis, Business, Economy, Latest Trend

America’s fastest growing group in the workforce is changing what it means to be ‘retired’

March 31, 2012

According to government estimates, the over-65 set is the fastest growing segment of the working population: More than 7 million are punching the clock.

Ailika Thomas’ husband brought her coffee in bed after she woke. It was 7 p.m., and the 73-year-old was facing a long, moonlit drive from her rural Indiana home to Chicago; Dean wanted to make the journey as easy as possible for his wife. He warmed the car and stocked it with snacks while she got dressed. When Ailika emerged from the back door in a pink-and-white pants combo accompanied by her two Yorkshire terriers, Dean gave her a warm goodbye kiss and made her promise to call at journey’s end.

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Analysis, Economy, Globalism, Latest Trend, Money Talk

Sweden goes cashless, the world will follow

March 20, 2012

Sweden pointing the way to an almost cash-free economy.

There are so many things to dislike about analog money. Cash and coins are unwieldy. They’re heavy. They’re dirty. They leave no automatic record of the financial transactions that are made with them.

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Economy, Money Talk

How Startups are key to the economic recovery

March 18, 2012

Despite the promise brought by the latest round of successful IPOs and rallying public markets, the news continues to be filled with headlines around the possibility of a “false recovery.” Europe’s continent-wide recession and expanding debt issues, rising oil and gasoline prices, an only-modest improvement in the unemployment rate, and the “moderate” growth predicted by the Fed continue to leave people feeling uneasy about the state of the economy. With the underlying and systemic issues still present in the financial sector, some even believe that we could see something akin to the recession of 2008 happen all over again.

But there is one segment that remains very bullish about the future of the economy and where signs of improved growth and economic stability can be found. This “hope” for our economy is in the entrepreneurs who start small businesses — the innovators and dreamers who believe that against all odds they can build something better — create something from nothing, and drive change in the world…

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Analysis, Economy, Latest Trend

Middle class in Mexico becoming its majority

March 18, 2012

Customers look at laptops at a Wal-Mart store in Mexico City.

The middle class is fast becoming the majority in Mexico, breaking down the rich-poor divide in a profound demographic transformation that has far-reaching implications here and in the United States.

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