If you’re casting about for a fresh take on jobs and the employment scene, pull up a seat for my annual suggestions for mining the temporary and contract markets. As well as being fertile ground for a variety of stories, from career and personal finance how-tos, to colorful features on quirky and unique job niches, to [...]
With the deadly Oklahoma tornados still top of mind — some meteorologists now say the storm had far more power than the atomic bomb the United States released on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II — you might want to contemplate another day or so of related business angles. Even if you’re far from the [...]
It’ll be a while yet before the true toll of the past days’ destructive tornados in Oklahoma is known but you may be wondering about how to tackle the business and financial angles of a disaster. I can’t provide as many links as usual to stories you may want to emulate, because they haven’t been written [...]
Until ProPublica and Marketplace co-produced a series this month, installment lenders had remained in the shadows of payday and title-loan lenders, which have received a lot of scrutiny. That was the case even though installment lenders have a comparable market size and often charge annual rates of more than 200 percent, ProPublica reporter Paul Kiel [...]
L.A. Times reporters Jason Felch and Jack Dolan found a 35-year-old law that has contributed to California’s economic crisis. The law allows companies buying business properties to avoid reassessments and the resulting tax increases if “no one acquires a majority stake in a company that owns the property.” For instance, Jason and Jack write: “In [...]
It’s hard to believe we’re only a week away from the start of Memorial Day weekend. As summer activities kick into gear, so do the businesses that serve them, so no matter your beat you’ve got a bonanza of holiday-related story ideas from which to choose. Traditionally, it’s a time for business writers to look [...]
Recent news that carbon dioxide levels in the air have reached milestone levels (or near-milestone; some numbers were revised) got me to pondering some possible business stories related to the gas itself rather than to the larger and more amorphous topic of climate change. If you need to brush up on your science, here’s the entry [...]
As a financial journalist, I always resented the sports section. After all, we cover the most important stories for individuals and communities, about their jobs, livelihoods and economies. But who gets the biggest budgets and largest number of pages? Sports. On reflection, however, there’s much we can learn from sports. Consider: • It’s about competition, [...]
It’s hard to overlook the buzz created by this week’s revelation by actor and activist Angelina Jolie that she had preemptive surgery to remove both breasts, because she carries a gene that makes cancer likely. News of Jolie’s decision, which she wrote about in a first-person New York Times essay on Tuesday, has generated a great [...]
