http://www.efficionconsulting.com/Articles.aspx A blog from Efficion Consulting on DotNetNuke, asp.net, design, and other things relating to web development. Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=84 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT A few days ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed down a decision in a little-noticed case involving milk regulations, with a remarkable concurring opinion written by Judge Janice Rogers Brown. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=83 Greg Maxwell Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each: http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=82 Greg Maxwell Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT A term used since the 1870s to describe a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses incurred by a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country" title="Country">country</a>, often following a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War" title="War">war</a>. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=81 SuperUser Account Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT New research shows a big jump in white Americans saying they face racism. What are we missing here? Did you know whites believe they face more racism than African-Americans do? That's what I've been reading in the news lately. Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a short piece about an intriguing study by researchers at Tufts and Harvard University, under the headline, "White Americans See Anti-White Bias on the Rise." http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=77 SuperUser Account Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT Dice.com, the online IT job search site, just issued a report on the number of tech jobs available on the site for a given day and the number of computer science and computer information graduates recently entering the work force. In its one-day snapshot of available jobs, Dice found a 60% jump from the low ebb of the recession about two years ago. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=80 SuperUser Account Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT Early Facebook investor and Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel thinks college is overhyped. Now he's giving 24 kids a tempting alternative to higher education. Thiel is going to pay some big-dreaming teenagers $100,000 over the course of two years to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.<br /><br /><br /> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=79 SuperUser Account Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT Like the housing bubble, the education bubble is about security and insurance against the future. Both whisper a seductive promise into the ears of worried Americans: Do this and you will be safe. The excesses of both were always excused by a core national belief that no matter what happens in the world, these were the best investments you could make. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=78 SuperUser Account Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT Those of us who feel guilty reaching for a second cup of coffee during the day may admit that we have a love-hate relationship with the drink. Some of us may need it to stay awake, and some of us, try as we might, just can't quit. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=76 SuperUser Account Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT "The three most important health-care graphs in the world" on Ezra Klein's blog demonstrate in no subtle way the extraordinary costs of U.S. medicine. One of the commenters requests a look at health care spending compared to life expectancy. Hey guess what: There's a graph for that. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=75 SuperUser Account Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT Total connections worldwide number 6.92 billion, with mobile accounting for the lion's share, according to U.K.-based mobile industry data specialist The Mobile World. 5.6 billion of the total are mobile connections, compared with 1.32 billion fixed. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=74 SuperUser Account Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT Clips from the upcoming documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color---particularly dark skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture. This film will be released in Fall/Winter 2011. Please "Like" the Dark Girls page on Facebook, we will keep you updated with news there. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=73 SuperUser Account Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT A brief documentary glimpse into the extraordinary life and mind of living comedy legend, passionate social activist, world famous nutritionist, and American pioneer, DICK GREGORY. Told through an assortment of interviews and found footage. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=72 SuperUser Account Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT America's kids don't know jack about the Constitution, and according to a national Tea Party group, the only way to save them is to have school's teach the nation's founding document with materials provided by a controversial conservative group whose founder is one of Glenn Beck's favorite historians. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=71 SuperUser Account Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT The constitutional bosh propounded by charlatans like James J. Kilpatrick during the Civil Rights era was aimed at convincing the nation that racial equality was unconstitutional--instead of being, as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments make clear, commanded by the amended Constitution. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=70 SuperUser Account Sat, 21 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT Last night on the House floor, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) discussed his view on those he calls the "dependency class." KING: They [Pelosi and Obama] were working on their vision of America which is transfer payments, tax the rich, transfer those payments to other people that aren't as fortunate, or I—I'll say not as productive, they may not be as fortunate. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=69 SuperUser Account Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT According to new data from the DoE released on Wednesday, 46.3 percent of all loan money lent to students at two- and four-year for-profit colleges in 2008 would eventually go into default. By comparison, the overall default rate in 2008—lumping together loan money given out to students at community colleges, for-profits, and traditional undergraduate and graduate schools—was only 15.8 percent. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=67 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT Why the animosity toward the for-profit sector? With respect to higher ed, the roots are ideological. Shireman came to the Department of Education from serving as president of the Institute for College Access and Success, a non-profit that appears to want the private sector’s role in higher education to be as small as is practicable. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=68 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT Enrollment in for-profit colleges has grown from about 365,000 students to almost 1.8 million in the last several years. These colleges offer degrees and certifications in programs ranging from business administration to cosmetology. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=66 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT For-profit colleges are urging the U.S. Congress to change a law that threatens their access to billions of dollars in federal student aid, the companies’ biggest source of revenue. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=65 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT The industry has seen growing criticism of its high-powered marketing and the heavy debt many students incur, as well as doubts about the value of the degrees it offers. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=64 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT Newly-released internal training documents from several for-profit colleges illustrate a culture that encourages recruiters to increase enrollment by focusing on emotions such as "pain" and "fear" to attract low-income students who are struggling with adverse personal and financial circumstances. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=63 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; text-align: left; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; color: #333333;">A total of eleven southern states left the Union. They formed the Confederate States of America. They wanted to continue their economic system based on agriculture and slavery.</span> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=62 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT In 1985, John Thompson was <a href="http://themoderatevoice.com/105277/the-false-imprisonment-of-john-thompson-connick-v-thompson/" target="_blank" xmlns:tools="XslTools">convicted of murder in Louisiana</a>. Having already been convicted in a separate armed robbery case, he opted not to testify on his own behalf in his murder trial. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=61 SuperUser Account Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT Former NBA star Allen Iverson launched an expletive-ridden tirade against police when a car belonging to him was pulled over for a traffic violation last week, at one point telling the officer, "Take the vehicle, I have 10 more," according to a police report. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=60 SuperUser Account Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT A new poll gauging Mississippi Republicans' preferences going into the 2012 election ended up revealing something more startling: 46 percent of GOP voters in the state think interracial marriage should be illegal. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=59 SuperUser Account Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT On May 23, 1861, little more than a month into the <a class="meta-classifier" title="More articles about American Civil War." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/civil_war_us_/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">Civil War</a>, three young black men rowed across the James River in Virginia and claimed asylum in a Union-held citadel. Fort Monroe, Va., a fishhook-shaped spit of land near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, had been a military post since the time of the first Jamestown settlers. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=58 SuperUser Account Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT American politics, as the midterm elections demonstrated, have descended into the irrational. On one side stands a corrupt liberal class, bereft of ideas and unable to respond coherently to the collapse of the global economy, the dismantling of our manufacturing sector and the deadly assault on the ecosystem. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=57 SuperUser Account Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT When you rent a car in India, the car comes with a driver, partly because their wages -- as low as $2-3 a day -- are negligible compared to the cost of the rental. I traveled a lot within India, so I met a lot of drivers. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=56 SuperUser Account Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT ur public debt – now at around $14 trillion dollars (<a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np">$14,233,559,283,692.40</a> as of this writing, to be precise) – has been in the news lately, but how we accrued it, who holds it and whether it represents a problem are not well understood. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=55 SuperUser Account Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT “<em>Regulations kill jobs</em>.” Congressional Republicans are using this whopper to justify their attempts to defund regulatory agencies. Regulations whose costs to business exceed their benefits to the public are unwarranted, of course, but reasonable regulation is necessary to avoid everything from nuclear meltdowns to oil spills to mine disasters to food contamination – all of which we’ve sadly witnessed. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=54 SuperUser Account Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Indeed, social Darwinism is a bastardization of the largely meaningless concept of "survival of the fittest," coined by Herbert Spencer rather than Charles Darwin. Social Darwinism has been used by its proponents to advance a wide array of causes from eugenics to the belief that government should not fund social programs because such programs simply help the poor, or, as some crassly express it, the less fit, survive. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=53 SuperUser Account Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT The right-wing populism manifested in the movement is essentially the same old Social Darwinism that appeared in U.S. society in the nineteenth century. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=52 SuperUser Account Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Republicans have wanted to destroy Social Security since it was invented in 1935 by my predecessor as labor secretary, the great Frances Perkins. Remember George W. Bush’s proposal to privatize it? Had America agreed with him, millions of retirees would have been impoverished in 2008 when the stock market imploded. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=51 SuperUser Account Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <p>B is caused by bacteria and the only vaccine against it, the BCG jab, is not very effective. The disease of the lungs kills approximately two million people worldwide each year. The charity, TB Alert, said the research was promising, but a vaccine was a long way off.</p> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=50 SuperUser Account Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT South Africa's many thousands of squatters live in fear of a security firm called the "Red Ants" known of their ruthless approach to evictions. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=49 SuperUser Account Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT A few weeks ago,<a href="http://www.bvonmoney.com/2010/11/10/kim-kardashian-pre-paid-credit-cards-teens-mastercard/">I told you about the Kim Kardashian MasterCard</a>, a truly terrible example of celebrity endorsement gone bad. I didn't blame Kim K. herself for this, after all -- if someone were silly enough to offer me lots of money to endorse a JayCard, I'd probably be headed to the bank quicker than you could finish this sentence. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=48 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT n a recent survey taken at <a href="http://yourblackworld.com/" target="_blank">YourBlackWorld.com</a>, over 83 percent of the black respondents said that the NAACP is off-base by nominating hip-hop artists such as Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj, both of whom have used the N-word and lyrics that are derogatory toward women. In the survey, participants were asked the following question: http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=47 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT he rapper Sean 'Diddy' Combs has reached another milestone in his increasingly storied hip-hop career. This year<a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.forbes.com/zackomalleygreenburg/2011/03/09/the-forbes-five-hip-hop-wealthiest-artists/">, Forbes ranked Diddy as the wealthiest hip-hop artist in the world</a>, with a net worth of $475 million. He was followed on the list by Jay-Z, who himself carries a net worth of $450 million. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=46 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT The Tom Joyner Cruise occurs annually and has become a one-stop shop for African Americans seeking both fun, relaxation and the chance to interact with one another. I initially gained respect for Joyner after reading about how he began his career by flying back and forth between Chicago and Dallas on a daily basis in order to host two radio shows. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=45 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT During the event, which honored hip-hop mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs with the Renaissance Man of the Decade award, Simmons attempted to make amends with the Emmy Award-winning comedy icon by apologizing for his criticism. His effort was met with a scathing response. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=44 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <strong>BET Networks </strong>Chair and CEO <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debra_L._Lee">Debra L. Lee</a> is joining President Barack Obama's management advisory board designed to improve the relationships and interactions between private business and federal government. In bringing Lee to the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bet-chief-debra-lee-named-166621">board</a> that will have its first meeting at the White House on Friday. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=43 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Rappers often credit God in their liner notes, acceptance speeches, and raps.<span> </span>They brag about being God’s sons and daughters.<span> </span>Some <a href="http://comp.uark.edu/%7Etsweden/5per.html" target="_blank">Five Percenter</a> rappers have even claimed to <em>be</em> God, but few mainstream rappers have done so with the gusto of Jay-Z, also known by the nickname Jay-Hova, after the Judeo-Christian God. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=42 SuperUser Account Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT It's a <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph" target="_new">subject</a> that lies behind many of my readers' dissents from my small government, flat, simple taxation kind of conservatism. In Wisconsin, for example, it is impossible, I think, to separate the issues of public sector collective bargaining rights ... and the broader context of a country polarized into two camps: the very, very rich, and everyone else. This is expecially true after the bank bailouts. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=41 SuperUser Account Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Here’s a question about the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/middle-east-protests/" style="color: #000000;">Mideast turmoil</a> for future historians: How much did food inflation contribute? We know some basic facts. Middle East countries import 50 percent or more of their wheat, a staple food for many. Beginning in mid-2010, world grain prices exploded. At $8.56 a bushel in February, <a href="http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat&months=12" style="color: #000000;">wheat prices had doubled in eight months</a>. Despite massive subsidies, some higher prices filtered through to consumers. Did that create a tinderbox for protest? http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=30 SuperUser Account Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Here’s a question about the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/middle-east-protests/" style="color: #000000;">Mideast turmoil</a> for future historians: How much did food inflation contribute? We know some basic facts. Middle East countries import 50 percent or more of their wheat, a staple food for many. Beginning in mid-2010, world grain prices exploded. At $8.56 a bushel in February, <a href="http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat&months=12" style="color: #000000;">wheat prices had doubled in eight months</a>. Despite massive subsidies, some higher prices filtered through to consumers. Did that create a tinderbox for protest? http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=29 SuperUser Account Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Bucking conventional wisdom -- "what everyone knows is wrong" -- Krugman hypothesizes that since technology tends to make it easier to automate routine information-driven jobs, it follows that far from giving an educated person an edge in finding jobs, technology in fact threatens the livelihood of the knowledge worker. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=28 SuperUser Account Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT The thing is, y’all don’t know the half of it. When you wait on hold to talk to Rush, during the commercial and news breaks, you’re subjected to a series interstitials that can only appeal to racists. Rush, I think, calls them, “entertaining”. He’s got some guy doing impressions of Jesse Jackson, Ron Artest, Al Sharpton and several other African Americans. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=27 SuperUser Account Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT I’ve got a question for you.  What if black fraternities and sororities were asked by President Obama to place a moratorium on stepping for exactly one school year? http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=26 SuperUser Account Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT This site was created by Lamar and Ronnie Tyler, a thirty-something year old couple with 4 kids in the DC Area. We share our opinions and points of view on relationships, parenting, politics, current events and anything in between. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=19 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT The Daily Banter is a politically progressive blog featuring writers from the Huffington Post, Salon.com and OpEd News. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=18 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <iframe width="480" height="390" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VzYsRp8ALz4" title="YouTube video player"></iframe> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=25 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <iframe width="480" height="390" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kNbUKIkRieM" title="YouTube video player"></iframe> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=24 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <iframe width="480" height="390" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9ZUHCLtnYFQ" title="YouTube video player"></iframe> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=23 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <iframe width="480" height="390" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PxW-XLOm4QU" title="YouTube video player"></iframe> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=20 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <iframe width="480" height="390" frameborder="0" title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZVtF8b_0tts"></iframe> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=21 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <iframe width="480" height="390" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HRfjLfyXYlA" title="YouTube video player"></iframe> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=22 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Illinois abolished the death penalty Wednesday, more than a decade after the state imposed a moratorium on executions out of concern that innocent people could be put to death by a justice system that had wrongly condemned 13 men. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=17 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Ebony magazine, sustaining circulation and advertising losses despite injections of new blood and a new look launched in 2009, unveiled what it called a "cover-to-cover, page by page" redesign for its April issue and promised to meet the circulation figure it has guaranteed advertisers by the June issue. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=16 SuperUser Account Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Alzheimer's disease and other dementias do a number on the mind and body of the individual with the disease and can also take a major toll on the health and finances of the individual's family. The Alzheimer's Association's latest annual report, "2009 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures," documents the multilevel impact of the disease that 5.3 million Americans are living with today, which translates into a new case of Alzheimer's every 70 seconds. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=15 SuperUser Account Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Levels of a protein that forms the hallmark plaques of Alzheimer’s disease increase in the brains of mice and in the spinal fluid of people during wakefulness and fall during sleep, researchers report online September 24 in <em>Science</em>. Mice that didn’t get enough sleep for three weeks also had more plaques in their brains than well-rested mice, the team found. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=14 SuperUser Account Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT A swath of the Deep South and Appalachia has emerged as the U.S. “diabetes belt,” researchers find. County-by-county mapping shows that the highest rates of diabetes cut two paths—one strung through Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia, and another running eastward from Louisiana through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=13 SuperUser Account Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Today, there are more than 200 million women entrepreneurs worldwide. Women earn more than $10 trillion every year, which is expected to grow by $5 trillion over the next several years. In many <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/developing-countries/" density="full">developing countries</a>, women’s incomes are growing faster than men’s. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=12 SuperUser Account Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <p>House Speaker <a href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/john-boehner/" density="sparse">John Boehner</a> routinely offers this diagnosis of the U.S.’s fiscal condition: “We’re broke; Broke going on bankrupt,” he said in a Feb. 28 speech in Nashville. Boehner’s assessment dominates a debate over the federal budget that could lead to a government shutdown. It is a widely shared view with just one flaw: It’s wrong. </p> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=11 SuperUser Account Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/opinion/28mayor.html" style="color: #a92900; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: #aaaaaa; text-decoration: none;">letter</a> to the New York Times, Bloomberg—himself a billionaire captain of the newspaper industry—concedes that public sector unions have helped drive the cost of providing public services up. But he argues that unions have the same long-term stake in the success of their enterprises as managers do. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=10 SuperUser Account Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT More than two years after the financial crisis, unemployment remains at 9.0%. Even as corporate profits rebound, the economy is still barely adding enough jobs to keep up with the number of new people entering the workforce. One of the main reasons the nominal unemployment rate has dropped at all is that some people who were looking for work for a long time have given up http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=9 SuperUser Account Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Anyone who drives a car knows that gas prices are going up. The average price of gas in the U.S. hit a seasonal record high in February. Crude oil prices reached a 29-month high of $104.42 in New York on Friday, largely as a result of unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East. And if the unrest spreads to Saudia Arabia, prices will only go higher. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=8 SuperUser Account Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Daily use of aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, commonly known as NSAIDs, is associated with a 22% increase in the risk of erectile dysfunction, Kaiser researchers found in a study of more than 80,000 men in Southern California. The results were a surprise because erectile dysfunction, commonly abbreviated ED, is thought to be caused by inflammation, and the researchers expected that use of the drugs would alleviate the problem. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=6 SuperUser Account Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT <p>Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese and, according to a growing body of evidence, at greater risk of getting, and dying of, cancer. 'Obesity is almost like the new smoking,' says one expert.</p> http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=7 SuperUser Account Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT Prince is stepping up as a major arts education philanthropist. Before the final show of his series of concerts at Madison Square Garden on Monday, the singer formally announced three large charitable donations – $1 million to the Harlem Children's Zone, and $250,000 each to the American Ballet Theater and the Uptown Dance Academy's educational program http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=4 SuperUser Account Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT Long cellphone calls definitely alter the brain, but scientists do not yet know if the effect is harmful. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that a call of 50 minutes sees increased activity in the section of the brain beside the phone: there is a 7 percent increase in sugar use, which is known medically as glucose metabolism. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=3 SuperUser Account Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT Obesity's healthcare costs are not distributed equally across the nation, and definitely not across U.S. cities. The majority of cities Gallup studied need to cut their obesity rates by at least a quarter to come close to the national goal of 15% set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cities with the highest rates of obesity need to cut their rates by more than half. From a cost savings perspective, if all 187 cities reduced their obesity rates to 15%, the U.S. could save $32.6 billion in healthcare costs annually. Additionally, if the nation's 10 most obese cities cut their rates to the national 2009 average of 26.5%, they could collectively save nearly $500 million in healthcare costs each year. Cut to 15%, the cost savings would climb to nearly $1.3 billion annually. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=2 SuperUser Account Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT The top one percent of households received 21.8 percent of all pre-tax income in 2005, more than double what that figure was in the 1970s. (The top one percent's share of total income bottomed out at 8.9 percent in 1976.) This is the greatest concentration of income since 1928, when 23.9 percent of all income went to the richest one percent. The above figures include capital gains, which are strongly affected by the ups and downs of the financial markets. Excluding capital gains, the richest one percent claimed 17.4 percent of all pre-tax income in 2005, more than double what that figure was in the 1970s. (It bottomed out at 7.8 percent in 1973.) This is the greatest concentration of income since 1936, when the richest one percent received 17.6 percent of total income.) http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=1 SuperUser Account Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT When government undertook to wage war on poverty in the prosperous United States of the 1960s, poverty was defined largely in terms of income. Poor people were perceived as differing from the rest of society primarily in their lack of money, and the apparent solution was to correct the income shortfall in a simple, efficient, and standardized manner. But decades of research and experience with antipoverty programs have made it clear that poverty involves very complex, interrelated and sometimes intractable socioeconomic, family, and individual issues. Understanding of these issues at the root of poverty is at the heart of IRP's institutional purpose. http://www.efficionconsulting.com/articles.aspx?ItemID=0 SuperUser Account Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT