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Economix Blog: Inequality, Mobility and the Policy Agenda They Imply

July 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Jared Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington and a former chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

In making the critical connection between high inequality and diminished mobility, I’ve often cited the work of economist Miles Corak, who had a fine commentary on the topic in The New York Times on Sunday.  I wanted to highlight a few key points but then spend a moment on his policy solutions, which struck me as inadequate.

Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.

Professor Corak wrote about the increasingly robust opportunities available to the children of the wealthiest 1 percent of households relative to children from less privileged backgrounds, partly because of nepotism and networks.  No news there, of course, but Professor Corak emphasizes that while this phenomenon is common across countries, the outcomes for children in other rich countries are less tied to their birth than they are for children here.

Part of that difference stems from the fact that policies to offset inequalities at the starting gate face far less aggressive opposition in other advanced economies.  For example:

“Ontario, the most populous Canadian province, is introducing full-day kindergarten, accessible to all 4- and 5-year-olds, without fanfare or a hint of the kind of rhetorical rancor and calamitous opposition that the Obama administration has faced for its proposal to do the same.”

That’s a highly resonant observation.  For years, economists of all political stripes have argued for quality preschool to counteract the extreme and lasting disadvantages faced by children who start life in poverty in this country, poverty that is far deeper in terms of material deprivation than in most other advanced economies.  The lifelong impact of starting out under these difficult circumstances means that quality interventions have a high benefit/cost ratio to society.  Yet to see how quickly and effectively the anti-government, anti-tax and anti-spending forces snapped into action the day after President Obama announced an idea like this in his last State of the Union address gives you a tangible and fearsome sense of the full spate of the barriers facing those disadvantaged children.

That’s where I thought Professor Corak didn’t go nearly far enough:

“The recipes for breaking this intergenerational trap are clear: a nurturing environment in the early years combined with accessible and high-quality health care and education promote the capacities of young children, heighten the development of their skills as they grow older, and ultimately raise their chances of upward mobility.”

Definitely necessary, and I appreciate the health care reference, but far from sufficient.  It’s a common default for economists and policy makers to present a trenchant analysis of a problem with many deep roots and then conclude, “That’s why we need better education and skill development.”

The problem is that a central thesis of the inequality/mobility nexus is that skills alone won’t crack it.  Again, no question that overcoming the barriers that block lower-income children from achieving their intellectual (and economically productive) potential is an essential part of this, but if you don’t deal with the politics — really, the power — you’ll end up with a bunch more children who fortunately have gone a lot further in their personal development, but remain stuck in or near the income decile of their birth.

As Professor Corak puts it, “Less inequality makes opportunity-enhancing policies that are of relatively larger benefit to lower-income families easier to introduce and sustain.”  The inverse of this has been shown by political scientists like Larry Bartels and Martin Gilens to be a determinant factor in blocking policies that would push back against wealth concentration and supporting policies (trickle-down tax cuts, deregulation, spending cuts, reducing social insurance) that protect the highly unequal status quo.  With its Citizens United decision, even the Supreme Court is in on the deal.

In my writing, I’ve identified this as the uniquely American, highly toxic combination of wealth concentration interacting with money in politics to create a vicious cycle that promotes higher inequality, less mobility, and — clearly evident in the current context — dysfunctional politics that can’t begin to do anything about either the macroeconomy or the inequality problem except make them worse.

In this regard, solutions must be both political, structural (for example, campaign finance reform) and much more demand side than strictly supply side (education being the latter — and to be clear, I agree that’s a critical part of the solution).  This is where the full employment policies I’m always going on about fit in, along with greater union power, higher minimum wages, financial market regulation, progressive taxation, and taking aim at the persistent trade deficit that has been sapping demand from our manufacturers for decades.

That’s a huge, ambitious agenda, one that goes so far beyond the realm of the possible that it may seem curious to even raise it.  But the fact is that anything useful goes beyond what’s possible right now, and I just don’t see the point of bringing a squirt gun to a forest fire.  At the very least, I’d like my fellow travelers to envision the full scope of what we’re up against.

Article source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/inequality-mobility-and-the-policy-agenda-they-imply/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Economix Blog: What Went Wrong in Detroit, and the Road Ahead

July 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Jared Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington and a former chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.

According to various second-quarter earnings reports, Citigroup’s profits were up 40 percent in the quarter, Bank of America’s were up 60 percent, and Goldman Sachs profits doubled.

In other news, Detroit just declared bankruptcy.

Talk about a tale of two cities.

Of course, there’s a lot going on in these different stories.  Detroit, in particular, faces a complex skein of challenges, as The New York Times noted:

“…numerous factors over many years have brought Detroit to this point, including a shrunken tax base but still a huge, 139-square-mile city to maintain; overwhelming health care and pension costs; repeated efforts to manage mounting debts with still more borrowing; annual deficits in the city’s operating budget since 2008; and city services crippled by aged computer systems, poor record-keeping and widespread dysfunction.”

In Detroit, as various news reports have cited, it takes the police an hour to respond to an emergency call; the average for the nation is 11 minutes.

The city is estimated to owe as much as $18 billion to $20 billion to its creditors. For a sense of that magnitude, consider that the next largest municipal bankruptcy in United States history involved $4 billion in debt.

Unemployment is almost 19 percent in the city, poverty around 40 percent.  The figure below shows the latest job creation numbers by city, with Detroit at the end of the graph.

Over-the-Year Change in Employment, March 2013

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

So in a statistical and fiscal sense, it’s a failed city, and there is a reasonable chance that a Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which in important ways is milder than the chapter of the code that applies to businesses (Chapter 11), will help it start over.  But despite some sunny comments to that effect in Friday’s newspapers, there’s a lot of personal pain for retirees, pensioners, union members and city workers between here and there.

What happened, and where does the city go from here?

It’s obviously been a long way down for Detroit, and it will take dedicated urban historians to provide the full story.  But a brief word about the economics.

Despite the fact that the distorted American debate claims that everybody wins, in fact, globalization creates winners and losers.  That’s not at all an endorsement of protectionism.  It’s saying that policy makers have to work hard, much harder than ours have, to create an environment where citizens benefit from expanded global trade not just as consumers seeking lower prices but as workers needing rising wages.

That means states and cities with industrial bases need to diversify, retrain their work forces, and look around corners to see what’s coming.  I’m not saying it’s easy, and again, there will be be winners and losers.  But you’ve got to try.

Second, national leaders have to recognize that there is simply no such thing as pristine “free trade.”  Every country, including our own (though we tend to do so weakly), goes after export markets and tries to position itself to be internationally competitive.  And some countries go further, managing their currency values to gain a price advantage and forcing excess national savings leading to large global trade imbalances.  The United States has been hurt by those imbalances for decades, as our large trade deficits have exported labor demand, particularly in manufacturing, abroad.  Moreover, we’ve done little to push back against these practices.

Detroit, along many other former manufacturing giants, has been hurt by the neglect of United States policy makers and the economists who advise them to rise to this challenge.  Too often — and I’ve heard economists at the highest levels of power make this case — there’s an assumption that this is all the free hand of the global marketplace at work, and that we’ll rebalance our trade accounts by selling services to the rest of the world while we buy their goods.

Maybe someday that’s where things will settle, but a glance at the magnitudes — as in the figure below — should give one pause concerning that facile solution.  Our trade deficits in goods are large multiples of our surpluses in services, and that’s not changing any time soon.

Source: Census Bureau

No, the vision that we can be a successful nation based on global finance returning profits like those above while the broad middle class falls behind, and a major city fails, is not one that most Americans would or should support.

As far as next steps for Detroit, that’s worth watching closely, as the terms of the bankruptcy are decided.  The central questions will be how the pain is divided up between creditors who are fighting to resist haircuts on their loans to the city and the stakeholders noted above.

The other thing we’re about to see is a big push by conservatives to blame public unions and big government.  As I’ve noted, bad governance is surely in play in Detroit, but there are lots of American cities with large public unions and active governments, and they’re not bankrupt.  You simply cannot understand Detroit’s fall without considering the role of globalization and the city’s failure to diversify out of autos.

At any rate, as the tale of two cities reminds us, this is economically the best of times and the worst of times.  The problem is that it’s the best of times for too small a share of us.

Article source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/what-went-wrong-in-detroit-and-the-road-ahead/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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You’re the Boss Blog: Many Expect Budget Cuts to Hit Small Businesses Hard (But Not the N.F.I.B.)

February 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Agenda

How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.

Economists have been warning for months that if the $85 billion in indiscriminate budget cuts known as the sequester take effect, the consequences for the economy could be dire. But for small businesses, the prospects may be even worse.

“Government spending is at 8 percent of gross domestic product, and at a time like this, when the private sector is still climbing off the mat, the last thing you need is for the public sector to pull out,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and formerly the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden. “So nonpartisan analysts predict that if the sequester takes hold, it will lower the growth rate of G.D.P. by half a percent. And that translates to an unemployment stuck at 8 percent and hundreds of thousands of fewer jobs.”

Small businesses, Mr. Bernstein added, will bear the brunt of it. “Smaller businesses tend to be more locally dependent,” he said. “They tend not to be multinationals. If you’re a multinational and the economy is not doing well here, you shop around the globe for economies that are doing a lot better.” Moreover, he said, “a lot of small businesses don’t have the access to credit markets, so it’s tougher for them to get through periods of a down economy.”

According to Stephen Fuller, a professor at George Mason University’s School of Public Policy, the budget cuts required by sequestration amount to $35 billion in payroll costs and about $50 billion in procurement expenses. All told, Mr. Fuller said, these cuts would result in 1.4 million lost private-sector jobs. Those lost jobs include positions at federal contractors, as well as at businesses that serve those contractors and, even less directly, at the businesses that depend on spending by government and contractor employees.

Small businesses, Mr. Fuller said, would lose just over half of those jobs.

“So many of these small businesses don’t realize how dependent they are to the federal government because they’re not the contractors — they are suppliers and vendors to the contractors,” said Mr. Fuller, who testified (pdf) at a House Small Business Committee hearing last September on the effect of sequester. “They’re the ones who water the plants and secure the buildings.” Small businesses will suffer from the reduced federal and private sector payroll because of the important role they play in the consumer economy, as retailers and restaurants. “However you allocate the consumer budget across the economy, there’s a large number of small businesses,” Mr. Fuller said.

Small businesses that deal directly with the federal government would fare even worse. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses received $91 billion in prime federal contracts in 2011, or just under 22 percent of the total contracts available to small companies.* However, according to Mr. Fuller’s calculations, small companies would account for about 34 percent of the job losses at prime contractors under the sequester. (Since Mr. Fuller’s testimony, Congress reduced the amount of the sequester as part of the New Year’s fiscal cliff legislation. While the overall job losses would be lower as a result, Mr. Fuller said the share coming from small businesses would likely change only slightly.)

Small businesses “can’t survive on the loss of 10 or 20 or 30 percent of their revenues,” he said. “They can’t continue operating at half-speed or two-thirds speed. They don’t have a cushion that a large publicly traded company would have.” Large federal contractors can shift employees across business lines — most have both civilian and federal divisions — and geography. Small companies that specialize “can’t learn new tricks that quickly.”

Officials in the Obama administration, asked to comment on how small businesses could be affected by cuts to federal procurement, declined to be specific. “Should sequestration occur, small businesses, like other business, will be impacted as agencies are forced to allow certain contracts to lapse and de-scope, or terminate other contracts that would be no longer affordable,” said an Obama administration spokesman who asked that his name not be published. The spokesman would not say whether government agencies would attempt to stretch out payments to vendors in order to make the money last longer. For example, in September 2011, the administration announced its so-called QuickPay program, which attempted to cut the government’s payment time to small companies from 30 days to 15 days. The spokesman did not say whether the administration would continue this initiative.

However, Mr. Fuller said agencies would not likely cancel existing contracts, since the money for these has already been appropriated. Rather, he said, agencies would probably not extend some of those contracts or issue new ones. Because of the way the federal government spends money — purchasing is typically concentrated in the last three months of the fiscal year, which ends in October — the impact of the sequester would most likely be felt beginning in July.

The sequester would also scale back programs at the S.B.A. According to the administration, loan guarantees would be reduced by $902 million, from $22 billion to just over $21 billion. And the agency told (pdf) the Senate Appropriations Committee that cuts to its counseling programs would force the agency’s partners to turn away at least 33,000 business owners seeking assistance.

Not everybody was so pessimistic. Holly Wade, a senior policy analyst at the National Federation of Independent Business, said it was impossible to know whether the sequester, should it take effect, would harm the economy. “If the economy contracts overall, that will affect small businesses,” she allowed. But she downplayed the prospect of specific threats to small businesses. “Few small businesses have contracts with the federal government, and few small businesses get loans from the S.B.A.,” she said.

The N.F.I.B., she added, has not taken a position on whether the sequester should go into effect.

*However, as The Agenda has noted before, both of these figures — the total contract dollars awarded to small businesses and the total contract dollars for which small businesses are eligible — are slippery. The total awarded to small companies is almost certainly overstated and the total available to them is likely understated.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/many-expect-budget-cuts-to-hit-small-businesses-hard-but-not-the-n-f-i-b/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Perry Says He Supports a Simple Flat Tax

October 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The proposal by Mr. Perry, the Texas governor, does not yet have details, but it is expected to resemble a version previously advocated by the former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, who has advised Mr. Perry on his plan. Mr. Forbes’s proposal in the late 1990s featured a 17 percent tax rate.

Mr. Romney has previously been critical of a flat-tax system, including in newspaper advertisements he took out in 1996 as a “concerned citizen” in which he argued that the Forbes tax plan was  a “tax cut for fat cats.”

Lately Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, has been more nuanced, arguing at a town hall meeting that he was concerned that too flat a tax structure would hurt middle class taxpayers and emphasizing that while there are some good attributes to a flat-tax system, he prefers tax breaks for the middle class.

Other candidates have also taken up the mantle for simplifying the tax system and broadening the tax base.

Herman Cain, a businessman from Atlanta, had entered the race as a relative unknown but has vaulted to prominence partly because of his plan resembling a flat tax (plus a national sales tax). Mr. Perry appears to be trying to harness the popular tax frustration that Mr. Cain has tapped into, and simultaneously differentiate himself from Mr. Romney.

A major result of adopting a flat tax would generally make the tax system more regressive, thereby reducing the percentage for high-income earners but increasing burden on lower-income groups.

“It’s just simple basic math,” said Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group. “To the extent that it is revenue neutral, a flat tax implies large tax increases on middle-class people and, mirroring that, a major tax cut on wealthy people.”

For some conservatives, however, the regressive nature is actually a positive result of the flat tax system. Under current policy, the wealthiest earners are paying a higher tax rate than the poorest, with some Americans paying very little or no taxes.

That fact has angered many Americans who think they are shouldering too much of the country’s tax burden. The “99 Percent” slogan of Occupy Wall Street protests, for example, has been countered with a “53 Percent” movement, referring to the fact that 53 percent of Americans pay federal income taxes (although many more pay payroll taxes).

The effects of these various proposals aside, replacing today’s labyrinthine tax system with a flat tax does have the virtue of simplicity. Americans would spend less time, and endure fewer headaches, figuring out how much they owe the government.

“Simplicity is good, but that’s not all you want,” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “If all you want is simplicity, you could just tax everybody $10,000. That would be easy and simple. But most people wouldn’t think that’s fair.”

A flat tax would be a major ideological victory for many economic conservatives, akin to how some social conservatives feel about overturning Roe v. Wade. Besides Mr. Forbes’s plan, several other Republican leaders like Phil Gramm (also now advising Mr. Perry, according to Mr. Forbes) and Dick Armey have proposed their own versions over the years but with little traction.

Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, an influential conservative group, said all the candidates were moving toward a flatter tax structure. “Now it’s a consensus position in the center-right,” he said, compared with 15 years ago, when Mr. Forbes’s plan was attacked by other Republican candidates.

The presidential candidates advocating some version of a flat tax, however, denied that their proposals were regressive.

Adam Nagourney contributed reporting.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8f41ccbb567a64e22da178f2dd64b343

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You’re the Boss: This Week in Small Business: The Shutdown and the Showdown

April 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Dashboard

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.

NO SHUTDOWN Congress finally funds the 2011 budget. Of course, if these guys can get together, why shouldn’t our politicians?

BUT THERE WILL BE ANOTHER SHOWDOWN The G.O.P.’s Paul Ryan presents a budget with  trillions in cuts. Scott Grannis thinks Rep. Ryan’s vision of reform “may not be perfect, but it is bold, brave, and a big breath of fresh air.” Business Insider thinks the proposal cuts look pretty impressive, and some in Congress put it on the fast track. Meanwhile, Jake Berliner, of think tank NDN thinks Rep. Ryan lives in a magical world: “Forget about the immorality of his budget for a moment, (well, don’t, it’s pretty appalling) the fact is that Ryan’s budget offers no real path to economic growth, other than fudged numbers from the Heritage Foundation, and a questionable, slash-and-burn approach to deficit reduction.” The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calls the proposal “cowardly.”

SLIPS AND DIPS Global manufacturing slips. The World Bank reports a dip in most commodity prices. But more and more retailers succumb to the pressure to raise prices to account for higher commodity costs. The good news is that March retail sales are up. Jeffrey Saut explains why he’s bullish about America’s future. A survey says that Japan and oil are dampening the spirits of small businesses. Mark Perry reports increases in rail, temporary help and air traffic. John Cleese issues a terror alert.

OVER 50,000 HIRED (TODAY) Nathaniel Cahners Hindman asks if the new businesses created since the downturn began will help the economy? Joe Light of The Wall Street Journal says that company sites beat online job boards and social media for job seekers. McDonald’s will hire 50,000 people — in one day. For those of us looking for college grads, a study says the best place to find them is on LinkedIn. For those of us looking for oddballs I suggest looking no further than WorldCon 2011. Career Builder reports that the hiring outlook is the strongest in three years.

AN E-MAIL BREACH Investors are worried about Cisco. MSNBC’s Bob Sullivan explains what’s behind last week’s Epsilon e-mail breach and how it affects us. Yahoo creates a Web site dedicated to the royal wedding. Steve Kehro explains how to commercialize your Facebook fan base: “When guided properly by a community manager, (fans) can quickly develop into brand evangelists. This works best when brands have a storehouse of interactive creative assets to accompany user-generated content and peer-to-peer dialogue. And, the best part is this can be done effectively with a relatively low amount of overhead.”

NEW MARKETING BUZZWORDS Heidi Cohen explains what we need to know about QR Codes. Amber Naslund explains how she “PWNS” her in box. Some feel that the new trend in press releases is humor: “When Groupon disclosed its $950 million round of financing in January, it issued a press release headlined ‘Groupon Raises, Like, A Billion Dollars.’” Fred Sexton, a marketing blogger, thinks Charlie Sheen could be the craziest marketer of all time.

THE END OF SOCIAL MEDIA? Social media marketing campaigns disappoint both Pepsi and Burger King and Jonathan Salem Baskin, a brand strategist, has a reasonable suggestion: “(Companies) need to discover new ways to do the old things that still matter: Offer products and services that someone truly needs, admitting that you want to sell stuff to them, and then properly serving them after they’ve given you their business.” Jim Lastinger thinks that Facebook is in decline: “If you’ve been using Facebook since the beginning, then you’re more likely to see it becoming increasingly meaningless, which is a sad, but predictable, evolution. Back when Facebook was new it was actually exciting to check your stream and see what was happening because the friends that you had were people that you actually wanted to keep in touch with. Twenty Facebook friends in 2005 is worth about 250 Facebook friends today.” Go-Daddy’s social media efforts also fail.

FINALLY! Repeal of the detested 1099 regulation has been passed by the Senate and awaits the president’s signature.

FIGHTING THE MAN Business groups and legal observers nationwide are closely monitoring a small family-owned California company caught up in a potentially precedent-setting foreign bribery trial. Builders and fire officials in Florida spar over a sprinkler rule. The National Federation of Independent Business in Florida vows to hold lawmakers to their promises.

OPPORTUNITIES A Chinese luxury Web site is looking for products to sell after getting a $20 million investment. More TV viewers are cutting the cord. Retailers take note: 25 percent of shopping conversations are posted online from consumers while they are shopping in your store. Ever wonder why sales of Coke to Jewish people increase this time of year? Ucilia Wang reports that utilities will have to change “as more home and business owners install solar panels, wind turbines and other electricity- and heat-generating equipment.” An enterprising guy figures out how to suck coins from vending machines. The online table booking business is taking off. FounderLY introduces an open platform for sharing start-up stories. Some small businesses are looking across the border to expand.

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH The Small Business Administration extends its real estate program through 2012. Dun Bradstreet is offering free credit-building advice this month. According to a new study, 75 percent of  banking fraud on small and midsize business this past year occurred online. Scott Shane tells the government “next time you do a bailout, do a better job with small business.” As for me, next recession I’m going into the pet business. Jim Basey, chairman and chief executive of Centennial Bank in Denver explains why small banks are good for small business — as long as we don’t bank on a Friday.

GOVERNORS, BIG AND SMALL Iowa’s governor intends to ease rules for small businesses. To generate more small-business jobs in her state, especially in potentially lucrative fields like technology, a New York senator lists a series of legislative steps she is introducing or co-sponsoring. Somebody’s aiming at small-business owners in Colorado for a scam. The Kauffman Foundation lists the six states with the highest start-up rates. And wait a second — this child actually got to be governor of New Jersey for a day?

IN PRAISE OF OLD PEOPLE Jodi Glickman gives some advice on leading older employees. For example: “Be confident. Your first task is to come from a place of strength when talking to your (older) employees or your team. Start with what you know. Speak with conviction. Give those you manage a clear sense of where you’re headed with any new project or client. Assume that your ideas are good ones until you hear otherwise.” Take heed — because if you don’t manage your old people properly, they may shut down your country’s access to the Internet.

COMPETITION USA Today introduces the 2011 Small Business Challenge. Ernst Young is putting a call out for some entrepreneurial winning women. Hewlett-Packard offers 10,000 ways to build your business — and $10,000, too.

LEADERSHIP Victoria Livschitz explains how she shattered the glass ceiling. A Wall Street Journal report explains why some people get so much done on so little sleep. Google’s Larry Page spends $900 million his first day as chief executive.

TAXES Time is running out to claim $1.1 billion in 2007 tax refunds.

NEW PRODUCTS A new iPhone app counts your calories when you take a picture of your next meal. Richard Branson’s next venture is under water. Google is creating $100 million of original content for its YouTube channels.

THIS WEEK’S AWARDS

BEST REASON TO QUIT THE INTERNET Julien Smith, a blogger, explains why: “Our brains are not wired to be made happy by the Internet. Our emotions, like fear and joy, are based in a primal understanding of the world. This is something we can’t escape. Saying the Web is important to your life is like saying that television is important. It might be social, sure, but it’s still media. It can help connect but it also divides in a very fundamental way. Touching a screen isn’t the same as touching a person. The best stuff happens outside the Web. Outside is new and frightening, not comfortable.”

BEST REASON NOT TO TRUST THE MEDIA How can you trust anyone who falls for this April Fool’s joke?

BEST EXAMPLE OF OUR SHALLOW SOCIETY The Economist says it’s not about the clothes you wear — it’s about the label: “In (one) experiment, volunteers watched one of two videos of the same man being interviewed for a job. In one, his shirt had a logo; in the other, it did not. The logo led observers to rate the man as more suitable for the job, and even earned him a 9 percent higher salary recommendation.”

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION: Does the way people dress affect your decision to buy, sell or hire? I know it can affect mine.

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=329d07c018e1f2ef31600fbcbb8003ae

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