As the Christmas season ends, there is a general agreement that the age of malls is coming to a close. Retail sales are no longer dominated by the vast complexes of physical shops anchored by big-box stores once found all over the country. Indeed, malls are no longer delivering the goods to … Read more
Self-service is often presented as the best of all buying options because it allows individuals to get the exact product they want quickly without interference from others. This increasingly means interfacing with some kind of efficient machine. People think that by making purchases “easier,” the buying experience is enriched. However, there is … Read more
A review of The Age of the Customer: Prepare for the Moment of Relevance by Jim Blasingame, (Florence, AL: SBN Books, 2014). A good book is one that provokes good questions in the mind of the reader. It need not provide all the answers. The important thing is to challenge the person to … Read more
As the nation heads into the next election cycle, there is much frustration, angst and anxiety directed at a system that does not seem to work. Everyone senses there is something terribly wrong with the country. The worst part of this growing malaise is the feeling that no one seems to know … Read more
If the pace of life seems overwhelming, it might well be because we have assumed so many of the jobs once held by others. This is the position of Craig Lambert in his book, Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day (Berkeley, Calif., Counterpoint Press, 2015). The Harvard sociologist … Read more
As we sail on the choppy seas of a questionable economic recovery, we can look back upon a storm of our own making that has wreaked havoc upon our financial system. That storm is the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Enacted five years ago, the mammoth law of all … Read more
To those who see no link between Lent and our failing economy, it might be the case to look again. Economics is about people. It cannot be reduced to numbers, formulae and analyses. “The subject matter of economics,” observes economic historian Odd Langholm, “is properly the habits, customs, and ways of thinking … Read more
It seems all the talk about peak energy production is a bit premature as the argument of abruptly declining fossil fuels is fizzling. Recent discoveries of vast oil reserves in North America have exceeded 1.7 trillion barrels, 1.4 trillion in the U.S. alone which is more oil than the entire world has … Read more