Health care in all its aspects is a burgeoning industry around the world. It promises to continue to grow. How do we direct our young people to jobs in this area? How do we train them properly for the work? What is the role of the community college in this effort? And can women entrepreneurs start up new businesses directed at this job market? Employment Situation Summary
But can we discuss inequality in a meaningful way? We can quote the GINI index, but the hard core problems that create income disparity remain. Education, jobs, job training, symbol manipulation, tax codes, entrepreneurs. Should we stop masking these fundamental problems under the blanket, and almost meaningless phrase, ‘inequality.’?
What should we make of Edward Snowden, Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, and Julian Assange? Their names are known across the globe, yet the actions that made them famous have also driven them to lives of intense isolation—in hiding, in prison, or in a foreign embassy. They have been lionized as heroes and condemned as traitors. Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), and Manning, a low-level army intelligence analyst, are responsible for the two largest unauthorized disclosures of classified information in the nation’s history. Whistleblowers- Saints or Sinners
Leading entertainer Beyonce says so in an article on Maria Shriver’s new Report.
By Beyoncé Knowles-Carter
We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn’t a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more—commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.
We have a lot of work to do, but we can get there if we work together. Women are more than 50 percent of the population and more than 50 percent of voters. We must demand that we all receive 100 percent of the opportunities. The Shriver Report available for free until January 15 at amazon.com
Tim Schafer, developer of the game, says he went to Kickstarter because he was tired of dealing with big corporations. A sign of the future?
Schafer announced that Broken Age, Act 1 will be made available on Jan. 14 to those who backed the game on Kickstarter. Backers will be able to download the game from Steam.
Broken Age made a lot of headlines in 2012 with its extremely successful Kickstarter campaign, surpassing its initial goal of $400,000 with a total of $3.3 million from 87,142 backers.
While the banks are dumping their trading account holdings, or suffering losses for the past year thanks to their fixed income trading positions, they’re apparently moving much of the money, as well as new money, over to their non Treasury, non Agency, and non-MBS investment accounts. Those accounts grew by about $50 billion between late December 2012 and late December 2013. The increase in those accounts has mirrored the rise in stock prices since the fourth quarter of 2011. Or did they lead? Impact of the Volker Rule
The number of $10-million-plus women-owned firms increased by 57% — a growth rate nearly 50% more than $10-million-plus firms overall.
While the number is still small — nearly 20% of angels in 2012 invested in women-led businesses — the percentage grew more than 40% from the previous year, Even venture capitalists have increased their support of women-led companies. It’s still paltry, but the percentage of VC deals going to women-led businesses was 13% in the first half of 2013. That’s nearly a 20% jump over 2012.
There is room for improvement, but the U.S. ranked #1 among 17 countries on having the conditions that foster high potential female entrepreneurship. These conditions include entrepreneurial environment, entrepreneurial eco-system and entrepreneurial aspirations. The Year of Woman Entrepreneur
Blinding speed and low latency are giving way to instrumentation and fine-tuning as the objective of algorithm users. “Speed is changing from being a competitive edge to being a requirement of the trading platform,” said Hazem Dawani, chief executive of OptionsCity, provider of the Freeway platform. “The trend is to build intelligent trading strategies that use predictive analytics.” Algorithms Get Smarter
Women are coming to the fore in the financial world. We are hoping that this bodes well for economies, the banking structure and monetary policy. In any case, we wish Chairwoman Yellen well.
Deborah Jackson, founder of Plum Alley, talks about this need:
Plum Alley Fund was not created to be another niche crowdfunding site. It arose from a problem we saw with women’s access to capital, and was a natural extension of Plum Alley’s mission to support and advance women economically. For years I have been watching women as they go about raising money for their ideas and companies. It has not been easy and data shows there is huge disparity in women raising capital versus their male counterpart. Time and time again, I hear women say “if I just had enough money to build that prototype or buy the materials I need, I would go for it.” So many women, including some of our entrepreneurs featured on Plum Alley Commerce, have visions and ideas yet to be translated into creations. At the same time, I know so many women and men (husbands, fathers, boyfriends and brothers) who want to support women in reaching their dreams or doing good for the world.
For women creators, there are distinct advantages of using Plum Alley Fund over other crowdfunding platforms. Many projects will be created to solve problems and needs that are unique to women. Crowdfunding for Women Only
