The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it would reduce its monthly bond-buying campaign to $75 billion in January, beginning a retreat from its stimulus campaign, because it no longer saw the need for the full force of those efforts. (The New York Times)
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As a founder, your job is never done. It comes with the territory of starting a business that you'll need to sacrifice a little blood, sweat, tears (money, time – the list could go on) to achieve success.But at a certain point, if all you're doing is making sacrifices, perhaps you're paying too high a cost for that success. Check out the list below. Do any of these signs sound familiar? Maybe it's time to rethink your priorities. (Inc.)
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"As GM goes, so goes the nation." The adage may be apocryphal, but it is about to be tested in a new realm: gender representation at the top of Wall Street. Last week's appointment of Mary Barra as General Motors Co.'s chief executive officer – the first female leader of a U.S. car company – brought back to the boil the always-simmering debate over women in the workplace. (The Wall Street Journal)
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We all spend more time on email than we should. But does when you do that first check matter? When I started writing about what the most successful people do before breakfast a few years ago, many people asked me where email fits in a productive morning routine. We know there’s a school of thought--best summarized by Julie Morgenstern’s wise book Never Check E-Mail in the Morning--saying you shouldn’t check it early on. But many of us do. (Fast Company)
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You’re sitting at your desk when an e-mail pops up from your boss that cryptically states, "Please come to my office; we need to talk." What’s the first thing you think? For most people it’s, "Oh no – what did I do now!" or "Good gosh, what went wrong!" Of course it is possible that your boss wants to praise you, ask your opinion on something, or just discuss an issue, but the vast majority of people will assume they’re being called in to be called on the carpet for something or another. (Harvard Business Review)
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The job market for new business graduates is not weakening. But it’s not getting stronger, either. Employers expect to hold steady with their hiring plans for M.B.A.s and undergraduates this year, though economic uncertainty in the Eurozone and emerging markets, along with continued brinksmanship in Washington, are still keeping companies from hiring as freely as they might like. (The Wall Street Journal)
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A recent survey published by Lorin Hitt (professor, Wharton School, UPenn), Prasanna Tambe (Stern School, NYU) and Matt Ferguson (CEO, CareerBuilder) found that employers are upping the ante when it comes to education requirements. More than 2,700 employers were included in a survey that found that nearly 18% of private-sector companies increased their educational requirements over the past five years. (Black Enterprise)
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In October, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case asking whether an applicant’s race may ever be considered in university admissions. Based on the justices’ questions and (even worse) the answers, the court appears ready to decide the wrong case. Listening to the argument, one would think Michigan’s universities used "affirmative action" or "racial preferences" in their admissions policies. They do not. (DiversityInc.)
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Ireland was one of the countries hardest hit by Europe's debt crisis. On Sunday, it passed a big milestone when the nation became the first country to formally exit the bailout program funded by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. After three years of the bailout program, it isn't hard to find signs of improvement in Ireland and of an economy coming back from the dead. (NPR)
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After the flood of Black Friday advertisements and mailings in the U.S., it may be hard for Americans to imagine there’s actually a place where retailers are even more desperate to make Christmas sales. Check out Britain. Britons do a larger proportion of their annual spending in November and December than Americans, making these months more crucial for retailers. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Your vacation (I mean, business school) only lasts two years. If you’re a first year, you need an internship. By your second year, you’d better be closing in on a job (Loans come due faster than you think). Fact is, many of your peers will be take the holiday to "re-charge." That’s why it’s time for you to pound the pavement and make connections. Between the ugly sweater soirees and shopping sprees, here is some advice from b-school career center administrators on taking advantage of your free time. (Poets & Quants)
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Many parents of color send their children to exclusive, predominantly-white schools in an attempt to give their kids a "ticket to upward mobility." But these well-resourced institutions can fall short at nurturing minority students emotionally and intellectually. (The Atlantic)
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The National Black MBA Association® has launched "Educate a Thousand" – a giving campaign aimed at improving educational opportunities for African-American students at all levels. As you consider your giving during this holiday season why not make a contribution to the financial and educational support of students across the nation. Join us as we take action to ensure that African-American students are educated, empowered, and equipped to reach for the stars.

Think about our future. Think about our community. No contribution is too great or too small, $50, $100, $1,000 or more. Donate today! Donations to support "Educate a Thousand" are tax-deductible.
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Angelica Walter, of Bridgeport, a first-year MBA student in health care management at Quinnipiac University, has been awarded the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) of Greater Hartford's top scholarship of $5,000. (The Courant)
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There are many reasons for the business establishment to ignore – or collectively roll its eyes at – Snapchat. For starters, fans of the disappearing-photo-sending service are mainly teens and other so-called digital natives, a fickle (translation: attention-deficient) audience that jumps from one digital confection to the next, bolting the minute a fave app goes mainstream. (CNN/Money)
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Apple recently released a Christmas ad it calls "Misunderstood." In it, a kid – maybe 14 or so? – spends Christmas with his family. He seems to be always looking at his phone when everybody else is decorating the tree, making a snowman, skating, or whatever else they're doing. He smiles, but he sets himself apart. At the end, he reveals that he's been using his phone to make a video diary of their Christmas together. He was watching the whole time, not disconnected but documenting. (NPR)
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Here's another way that startups are reinventing the way companies work: Firing people before the ink is dry on their employment contracts. At one startup, Steve Fredrick, of venture-capital firm Grotech Ventures, says he saw a senior executive fired after three days. "It was like an organ-transplant rejection," he adds. (The Wall Street Journal)
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Though she is under 30 years old, Dominique Broadway is no stranger to running her own business. At 13, she operated as the vice president of her father's vending machine company in the D.C.-Maryland-Virgina area, and she's been passionately and successfully pursuing entrepreneurship ever since. (Ebony)
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It wasn’t that long ago that in most companies, especially large ones, a fair amount of time was spent worrying about whether the company’s practices towards employees were fair. One of the functions of human resource departments was to advocate for the interests of employees. The motivation wasn’t entirely altruistic. Since WWI, employers figured they could keep unions out by giving employees virtually all of the wage and benefits they would have gotten from joining unions. (Harvard Business Review)
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A portable vinyl record player that resembles a small suitcase. A $300 radio named after a picturesque Swiss city. A silver-plated yo-yo. Apparel retailers see the holiday season as a chance to reinforce their position in the market, and they're doing so without selling clothes at all. (Fortune)
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When it comes to retirement readiness, race and ethnicity matter. And according to a new study, whites are the most prepared. Research from the National Institute on Retirement Security found that more than 60 percent of white households own assets in a retirement account, while more than 60 percent of Blacks and nearly 70 percent of Latinos do not – and those who have plans have far less in them than their white counterparts. (DiversityInc.)
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Money mistakes can be costly. From poor credit to no savings for emergencies or retirement, falling into major money pitfalls now can mean years of financial hardship. We surveyed the top financial planners to find out the six biggest money mistakes people make. We’ve got all the sage advice to avoid them, but if you have already taken a bad turn, we’ve put together a guide to help you recover. (Ebony)
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Two years ago, when Whole Foods announced that it wanted to expand to 1,000 stores from a little more than 300 and open in places where it was assumed that consumers had never heard of kale and wouldn’t dream of spending $6 for a pound of humanely raised pork, some investors scoffed. Its traditional grocery store competitors snickered at the strategy. And even those on Wall Street enamored with the chain’s success expressed doubts that its forays inland into smaller, less urban markets would succeed. (The New York Times)
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The potential buyout offer for Time Warner Cable (TWC) serves as a reminder that the stock is up 39 percent this year through Dec. 13 and has surged 450 percent over the past five years. This is why companies don’t really care if you hate them. For all the usual complaints – such as "I hate dealing with this company" or "These guys are the worst at customer service" – about the usual suspects from the ranks of cable and Internet providers, airlines, and banks, it turns out they just don’t have much incentive to care. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Twenty-three states are currently not planning to move forward with the Medicaid expansion, which was meant to cover millions of low-income Americans. The population they leave behind is mostly young, minority, single adults, according to two new data briefs from the Kaiser Family Foundation. (The Washington Post)
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Congress still works, sort of. Congress is capable of doing a federal budget the good-old fashioned way, which is also known as the regular order. Who knew? The last time that happened under a divided government with Democrats and Republicans each controlling a chamber in 1986, Ronald Reagan was still president. So we can be forgiven for our doubts it would ever happen again. Of course, it took a government shutdown and the threat of a default by the U.S. Treasury to get there, but Congress finally did. Still, we shouldn't celebrate too much. This is the way Congress is supposed to work. (NPR)
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When I took over as CEO of Intralinks, a company that provides secure web based electronic deal rooms, the company was hemorrhaging so much cash that its survival was at stake. The service was going down three times per week; we were in violation of the contract with our largest client; our chief administrative officer had just been demoted, and so on. So, what I do on my first day? I spent more than four hours listening in to client support calls at the call center. (Harvard Business Review)
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You were probably raised to believe that no one will like you if you talk about yourself all the time. But a body of research shows that you can make people like you by getting them to talk about themselves. The University of Pennsylvania psychologist Adam Grant wrote what might be the year's best organizational psych book, Give and Take to illustrate that giving to people is the primary predictor of career success. (Fast Company)
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If the state rips out I-375 to make Detroit more accessible to pedestrians, as some urban planners have urged, the move will come 60 years too late for older black Detroiters who remember how freeways destroyed the city’s historic Black Bottom district. (Detroit Free Press)
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Cash is the most efficient gift, according to economists. Cash is also a terrible gift, according to economists. By guaranteeing that the recipient can buy exactly what she wants, you guarantee that the recipient will consider you an unemotional robot. That's why the vast majority of economists in the University of Chicago's IGM poll said it's absurd to give cash to loved ones for the holidays. (The Atlantic)
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