by Rod Edwards on March 10, 2010
For all working-age black women 18 to 64, the financial picture is bleak. Their median household wealth is only $100. Hispanic women in that age group have a median wealth of $120.
“That means half of [black women] have a net worth of more than $100 and half have a net worth of less than $100,” Ms. Lui said. “So that gives you an idea of how far in debt some women of color are.”
via Study finds median wealth for single black women at $5.
This is an American study, but nonetheless highlights systemic failures in education, financial regulation, employment equity, and a host of other factors that contribute to perpetuating disparity. The US provides a valuable case study for Canadian lawmakers as to how history and policy shape long-term outcomes. Are there lessons to be learned here, for instance, that could be applied to First Nations policy making?
by Rod Edwards on March 8, 2010
Thomas Friedman writes in the NYT today about America’s innovation culture. Its interesting that Friedman’s two examples of American innovators are both immigrants, but Friedman doesn’t wade into the heavily politicized immigration & visa issue. Its a great story – very inspiring and encouraging – but perhaps alarming for the fact that America’s real contribution to the innovation examples highlighted is venture capital.
As a result, one has produced a fuel cell that can turn natural gas or natural grass into electricity; the other has a technology that might make coal the cleanest, cheapest energy source by turning its carbon-dioxide emissions into bricks to build your next house.
The thing I love most about America is that there’s always somebody who doesn’t get the word — somebody who doesn’t understand that in a Great Recession you’re supposed to hunker down, downsize and just hold on for dear life. I have a couple of friends who fit that bill, who think a recession is a dandy time to try to discover better and cheaper ways to do things. They both happen to be Indian-Americans — one a son of the Himalayas, who came to America on a scholarship and went to work for NASA to try to find a way to Mars; the other a son of New Delhi, who came here and found the Sun, Sun Microsystems.
via Op-Ed Columnist – Dreaming the Possible Dream – NYTimes.com.
by Rod Edwards on February 25, 2010
“We all know Canada has problems with the future lines drawn on Arctic maps and we all know Canada lives in the shadow of its larger neighbour to the south. The abject cruelty shown by Canadian soldiers in international conflicts is scantily referred to, as indeed is the utter incapacity of this county to host a major international event, due to its inferiority complex, born of a trauma being the skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom, whose Queen smiles happily from Canadian postage stamps.”
via Vancouver: Mutton Dressed as Lamb – Pravda.Ru.
by Rod Edwards on February 25, 2010
“These MPs are building strong and engaged communities in the process, communities that could be important assets in future elections and leadership races.”
via How MPs use Twitter – The Globe and Mail.
I’m an innovation manager, and its my job to see the potential in things like Twitter. There’s lots there – as the quote above highlights, even if the value in “engagement” isn’t always immediately obvious. That being said, in a political context there needs to be thought put into how to use something like Twitter to support specific goals. Having a Twitter account without specific goals in mind is equivalent to standing on a busy street corner and shouting at passers-by. Are you…
- …trying to engage better with their constituents?
- …trying to achieve different media positioning & profile?
- …trying to engage with their peers?
Each of these is a different reason to try something like Twitter, with different tactics implied.
In any case, interesting to see. I’ll be bringing this to my next EDA meeting and suggesting that we create a “New Media Engagment” Committee to wrap some strategy around these things and start using them effectively.
by Rod Edwards on February 25, 2010
One-time tech darling Palm, after a surge of interest, two new handsets, and a new software platform last year, looks to be spiraling rapidly towards death. Even with cash injections from Bono and Elevation Partners, an eroding market position is equivalent to a death sentence for a company without the capability of scaling up research and marketing efforts.
The article linked below posits that Palm will be snapped up by a competitor sometime soon; I ask in response, why? They have two unremarkable handsets, no app or developer community to speak of, and a software platform that’s a niche at best. Reminds me a lot of Psion.
Handset manufacturer Palm has updated its guidance this morning, indicating that revenues for the quarter and full year will be “well below its previously forecasted range of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion”.
via Palm Says Revenue Will Be Lower Than Expected, Cites Slow Sales.
by Rod Edwards on February 23, 2010
Were all familiar with the concept of guest workers, right? If were willing to employ them, are we willing to be them?
Taiwan-based optical disc drive (ODD) maker Lite-On IT's factory in southern China is running short of about 800-1,000 workers, about 10% of its regular personnel, due to a prevailing labor shortage in the region and eastern China, according to the company.
via Lite-On IT China factory facing labor shortage.
by Rod Edwards on February 22, 2010
by Rod Edwards on February 22, 2010
Captured by Toronto Paul, found on Flickr. Click it for a bigger version.
by Rod Edwards on February 21, 2010
The scary thing about this NYT article are the statistics that it shares about “recoveries” – how each has been weaker than the last in terms of job growth, and how recoveries have been driven by growth in the automobile, housing, and banking industries – the very industries at the root of America’s current woes.
The message that comes out of it is that were finally paying for the hollowing out of our economies. When many of the decent paying, non-professional jobs have fled to cheaper climes, well how about that – many of the non-professional people – like the article’s Ms. Eisen – no longer have anything to do – much less anything to do that can afford them a lifestyle considered more than impoverished.
Structural unemployment is an economic construct that accounts for the fact that we’ll never have 100% unemployment – there will always be a percentage of people that are unsatisfied with their options and looking for a while; people moving between cities and taking time to get established, etc. I think now that there’s a new component: people without the skills to work in our hollowed out “service” economies. While they may eventually be retrained or whathaveyou, in the meantime, I believe policy-makers need to account for a much higher level of structural unemployment on a permanent basis. That will be reflected in social assistance, food stamp programs, housing, child support, and adult education programs.
Canada, I think, won’t feel it as badly when averaged across the nation – we have a robust resource sector to fall back on, ideally positioned to serve Asia’s growth, and keep Canadians as hewers of wood and water (or whatever the turn of phrase is) for some time. But there’s an important policy implication here anyway: a healthy economy allows productive participation at many skill levels, which depends upon nurturing productive and valuable industries. When we let industries get hollowed out, and rationalize the acceptability of the act by pointing to our “service” sector, were really putting all of our economic eggs in one very vulnerable basket.
Remember: we can’t all deliver pizza to each other.
(Yes, I know I’ve harped on this before. I am unrepentant in my belief in the “rightness” of using policy-levers to shape long-term trends)
Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 — the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks.
via The New Poor – Despite Signs of Recovery, Long-Term Unemployment Rises – Series – NYTimes.com.
by Rod Edwards on February 20, 2010
The article speaks for itself. An HIV+ person received a stem cell transplant to treat leukemia. The transplant was from someone with natural resistance to HIV. The donor’s HIV resistance was conferred upon the recipient:
A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
via Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant – CNN.com.
