Posts filed as “Business”
The McDonald’s Worker Budget And The Tyranny Of Personal Finance
A quick note about that McDonald’s budget for its employees published earlier this week by the website Think Progress …. There is a genre of personal finance writing I like to call “when rich people tell poor people how to live.” This is when, as I’ve reported in the past, you see men and women in ...Read more.Room service no more: why luxury is leaving the middle class behind | Helaine Olen
Hilton's pulling of room service in New York is another example of how middle income earners are losing access to life's luxuries
New York City's Hilton Hotels recently announced they would end room service this summer, offering customers instead a high-end food shop in the lobby.
That's right. For $200 a night plus taxes, you'll be expected to brown-bag it.
Think of this as one more demonstration of how services for the middle...Read more.
Room service no more: why luxury is leaving the middle class behind | Helaine Olen
Hilton's pulling of room service in New York is another example of how middle income earners are losing access to life's luxuries
New York City's Hilton Hotels recently announced they would end room service this summer, offering customers instead a high-end food shop in the lobby.
That's right. For $200 a night plus taxes, you'll be expected to brown-bag it.
Think of this as one more demonstration of how services for the middle...Read more.
Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling May Get Out Of Jail Sooner Than Expected
While you were distracted by sequestration, increasing unemployment numbers, plans to cut Social or ’s ever-growing baby bump, the U.S. Department of Justice announced last week they were contemplating reducing former Enron CEO Jeffry Skilling’s 24-year sentence in the slammer for his role in the failure of his firm. Enron? Remember Enron? It seems so ...Read more.America’s silent freelance army
The US last calculated the number of contingent workers in 2005 – how can we structure better policies without hard data?
What kind of job do you have?
No, I don't mean what do you do for a living. Do you have a job, a regular position with set days and hours? One of those old-fashioned things that comes with – at least we hope – health insurance, retirement benefits, vacation and sick...Read more.
The economic plan to rob grandma’s bread basket | Helaine Olen
Republicans insist the government is spending too much on social security. Their solution? Something called chained CPI
Here is one of the problems in retirement planning: you can go along for years, faithfully using retirement calculators, re-balancing your stock market investments, reading your estimated social security payouts, just sure you are on track and – well, poof! – the rules of the game can change in an instant.
And, apparently, the United...Read more.
Your 401k won’t save you | Helaine Olen
Most of us have less than $100,000 in retirement savings, less than half what some estimate is needed
Most of us respond to questions about our financial prospects after retirement with sentiments that could be best be compared to the look on Captain Quint's face when he realized he was about to be eaten by the shark in the 1970s classic Jaws.
There is a $6.6tn gap between what we...Read more.
Groupon’s Fired CEO Andrew Mason Sends Memorable Goodbye Letter To Staff
I want to take a moment to salute Andrew Mason, the co-founder and now former CEO of . Whatever else one thinks of his tenure, Mason set a new standard for exiting a job with grace, humor and a commendable lack of finger pointing. In a note Mason sent to employees announcing that he’d been ...Read more.Wal-Mart Emails Reveal Customers Under Financial Stress
One wonders if executives at Wal-Mart Stores ever studied the business wisdom of Henry Ford....Read more.How Much is that Hip Replacement in the Hospital?
Here’s a fun fact for the week of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show: you are much more likely to get an answer to the question “How much is a hip for that doggy in the window?” than to “How much is that hip in the human hospital?” Or at least that’s one conclusion you ...Read more.About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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