Samuel Stebbins and Michael B. Sauter, - USA TODAY
Stephan: This is one of the best assessments of the coming job market I have read recently, and you might find it very useful in your own planning.
Digital press operator Steve Foster at Mercury Printing in Rochester, N.Y., feels for wrinkles in the paper on the company’s Kodak Prosper 5000XL injet press. Kodak is pinning its hopes for recovery from bankruptcy on digital printing.
Credit: ANNETTE LEIN, GANNETT)
The U.S. job market is expected to grow by about 7% over the next decade. At that rate, roughly 10 million more Americans will be employed by 2024.
However, these new jobs are not likely to be created evenly across all occupations and industries. The nation’s middle class has been shrinking at what some call an alarming rate, and even as the nation’s job market is expected to grow, demand for many mid- to low-skilled, primarily middle class positions is expected to rapidly decline. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects a loss of hundreds of thousands of such […]
No Comments
Stephan: Those of us who use Macs have always had a sense of security PC users never enjoyed. But times are changing and if you are a Mac user you should definitely read this. It may or may not pertain to you, but you should know what is going on.
BOSTON — Apple Inc (AAPL.O) customers were targeted by hackers over the weekend in the first campaign against Macintosh computers using a pernicious type of software known as ransomware, researchers with Palo Alto Networks Inc (PANW.N) told Reuters on Sunday.
Ransomware, one of the fastest-growing types of cyber threats, encrypts data on infected machines, then typically asks users to pay ransoms in hard-to-trace digital currencies to get an electronic key so they can retrieve their data.
Security experts estimate that ransoms total hundreds of millions of dollars a year from such cyber criminals, who typically target users of Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) Windows operating system.
Video: Ransomware goes corporate
Palo Alto Threat Intelligence Director Ryan Olson said the “KeRanger” malware, which appeared on Friday, was the first functioning ransomware attacking Apple’s Mac computers.
“This is the first one in the wild that is definitely functional, encrypts your files and seeks a ransom,” Olson said in a telephone interview.
Hackers infected Macs through a tainted copy of a popular program known as Transmission, which is used to transfer data through the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing network, Palo Alto said on a blog posted […]
No Comments
Richard Lardner, - Reader Supported News/Associated Press
Stephan: Remember the story I ran yesterday about the government/industry corruption in the pharmaceutical industry? More lobbyists than Congress persons Remember? Well here is its Defense Industry analogue. In addition to the corruption itself, both reports make another important point clear about the Republican controlled House: It is not just that a critical mass of the members are whores; it's that they're cheap whores. This story presents another example of what I mean.
President Eisenhower and Marine General Smedley Butler warned us. We just stopped listening because a critical consensus of us are lost in manufactured fear, produced because fear is very profitable. Your money or your life.
The Pentagon
House Republicans urging a steep increase in the Pentagon’s budget have received $10 million in campaign contributions over the course of their congressional careers from defense contractors that would benefit from higher levels of military spending.
The 34 GOP lawmakers, all members of the House Armed Services Committee, are pressing for an $18 billion increase in the 2017 budget year, which begins Oct. 1. The push is rooted in their position that the U.S. military has atrophied severely on President Barack Obama’s watch, leading America’s allies as well as adversaries to question the country’s will.
The bid also reflects the message GOP presidential candidates have hammered relentlessly on the campaign trail, where Obama has been cast as a feckless commander in chief. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, last week unveiled his blueprint for a “Reagan-style military buildup” to reverse the damage he said has been done during Obama’s two terms. Cruz didn’t say exactly what his plan would cost.
Critics of boosting the Defense Department’s budget by billions […]
No Comments
Bourree Lam , - The Atlantic
Stephan: We shop at Costco routinely about every five weeks. I make a point of talking to the people who staff the one we use. Universally they tell me that it is a good place to work, and better paid than other such jobs, as they know from direct experience. Many see it as an upwardly mobile path. And Costco stocks a quickly growing percentage of organic products from reputable suppliers at reasonable costs. Win-win. We never shop at Wal-Mart, and you can see why in this report.
The report is also notable because it gives us a measure of positive social movement towards wellness. If we focus on wellness the economics always work. Increasing wellness so far as I can see in the data is always cheaper, more effective, more efficient, more easily implemented, and more enduring.
A shopper wheels his cart from a Costco
Credit: Reuters/Richard Clement
On Thursday, Costco announced that it will be raising wages for both new and current entry-level workers in the U.S. and Canada. The raise is small—$1.50 extra per hour—but it means that Costco will be paying workers at least $13 an hour, up from $11.50. This increase is significant because the company hasn’t raised wages for entry-level of workers in nine years, and its move to do so now might suggest that, as the economy adds jobs, retailers will have to start paying their frontline workers more in order to hold onto them.
Costco, one the nation’s largest employers, has been known to pay its employees much more than its competitors pay theirs. Some of Costco’s employees are unionized and its CEO has been outspoken in supporting a federal minimum wage above $10. As a result of all this, Costco workers tend to be […]
No Comments
Stephan: It's not about Capitalism or Socialism or any political philosophy. It's about wellness. In my view the function of the state is to create wellness; from the individual, to the familial, to the community, the nation and the planet.
The American Dregnis in traditional Norwegian garb
Bernie Sanders unashamedly looks to Scandinavia for a model for healthcare, education and, well, taxes. My wife and I packed up and moved to Norway for a year to experience this supposed Nordic paradise, even if some back home thought I would become “a mush-headed socialist.” I had received a Fulbright fellowship to study in Trondheim, but the only catch was that my wife, Katy, was pregnant.
The healthcare insurance for Fulbright is administered through the State Department, the same system that covers our senators and representatives. You’ve probably heard that this is the “best healthcare coverage in the world,” but I checked the small print. It said, “Pregnancy is a pre-existing condition” and not covered under the plan, as if it’s some sort of disease.
We had to forfeit the fellowship, so I called up the office for international students in Trondheim to break the bad news. “Oh, you Americans! You have such funny issues,” the Norwegian woman replied. “That’s not […]
No Comments
