Archive for the ‘Random Musings’ Category

The Social Security system has been deluged by unemployed Baby Boomers–many of whom would still be working in better times–who are signing up for retirement benefits at a record clip. Social Security applications are up 23 percent this year, and disability applications up 20 percent. As a result, the system projects deficits of $10 billion [...]

Amid all the pop nonsense and rumor mongering and character assassinating going on at Twitter, one lucky blogger found the service useful in helping her avoid what she believed to be unnecessary surgery. Sarah Cortes, a technology consultant and blogger, found herself in a rural Pennsylvania hospital with a spine fracture. She claims the hospital [...]

The Grim Recession Reaper is out there weeding out the super rich by the bushel-full as the ranks of millionaires worldwide have fallen by 18 percent–22 percent in North America–while their assets plunged in one year by a whopping $13 trillion. Poor folk, they used to control about $105 trillion in wealth, but they were [...]

Switzerland has jumped ahead of the United States in terms of global business competitiveness, according to the annual survey of the World Economic Forum. The People’s Republic of China has also moved into the top 30 for the first time. Though Switzerland and the U.S. both rank high on innovation and business climate, the U.S. [...]

They couldn’t muster the 60th vote, says Senator Tom Harkin, D.-Iowa, one of the sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which detractors have dubbed the Employee Forced Choice Act. The 60th vote needed to choke off a filibuster over the measure belonged to Ted Kennedy, but when Harkin phoned Kennedy’s doctor to get [...]

You can say you saw it here first (all except for the red border, which is a result of using Vista’s snipping tool). It’s the revised United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) home page, redesigned to make it more user friendly for finding forms and checking on one’s immigration processing status. If you want [...]

The decision may not even resonate outside the court’s jurisdiction, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has found that individual managers can be held liable for former employees’ back wages even after a company has gone bankrupt. In a Nevada case, Boucher v. Shaw, former employees sued the CEO and CFO of the bankrupt [...]

Despite the united efforts of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and politicians trolling for the future votes of (suddenly amnestied) illegal immigrants, the Department of Labor is implementing the Bush-era mandate for contractors to use E-Verify. Everything E-Verify (unless delayed again or even canceled) thus takes hold a week from today, on Sept. 8, 2009. [...]

If you’re here, you probably visited the redesigned Personnel Concepts Web site and saw a blog tab and hit it. Anywhere, you’re here, so a few words of welcome are in order. For months, we’ve been blogging with Blogger and WordPress and experimenting with every wild thought on labor law and OSHA (and a few [...]

Vice President Joe Biden even visited the factory to proclaim a great victory for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and the new owners pledged to hire back everyone laid off in December 2008. However, despite plans for Republic Windows and Doors to be back in full operation by May or June 2009, the [...]