I did a double-take when I picked up my morning Clarion-Ledger. The headline read, “Mississippi’s Economic Outlook Ranks in Top 10 Nationally, Annual Report Says.” Seriously? While I love trumpeting good news about my state, I’m no Pollyanna. Was this a Rip Van Winkle thing? Did I go to sleep for 20 years and miss [...]
June 4, 2013
Hey Guv, maybe it’s old men, not working women, ruining our kids’ education
My daughter will be 32 this summer, but she’s still my baby. I’m just so proud of her. Recently, she let me read a proposal she had written for academic research. I was astounded by her command of the English language and her ability to communicate an idea… especially since she had the disadvantage of [...]
May 29, 2013
Chokwe Lumumba has a lot to learn about the economics of running a city
I don’t live in Jackson, but neither do most of the folks on my Facebook feed. That didn’t stop them from ranting about the outcome of the Jackson mayoral primary. The Facebook equivalent of “run for your lives” filled my screen. Shocked posters declared the election had been rigged. With only about 37,000 votes cast [...]
May 28, 2013
Service is everything when it comes to customer retention
I ordered a shirt from L.L. Bean a few months ago. I liked it so much I ordered another one — same shirt, same size, different color. So certain I was that the second one would be as perfect as the first that I threw away the tags and shipping papers. Much to my surprise, [...]
May 15, 2013
Who’s laughing now? Pearl has taken on a whole new meaning
Pearl used to be the red-headed stepchild of the Jackson area. It had a stretch of Highway 80 littered with half-empty strip malls and fast food restaurants. In many cases, the neighborhoods were old and rundown. We laughed when the town was mentioned. Puuhhrrrl? We always stretched out the one syllable and put on our [...]
May 1, 2013
Rep. Andy Gipson a 19th century man with 19th century ideas on guns
I know Mississippi Rep. Andy Gipson. He’s a really nice guy, has a nice family, very sweet people. You’ve heard the phrase, “He’s a renaissance man?” Doesn’t apply to Andy. Instead, I’d call him a solid nineteenth century man, as in “His feet are solidly planted in the 1800s.” When I knew Andy, he lived [...]
April 25, 2013
How to sort out the good and the bad in our ‘American Dream’
Saturday morning. Not a cloud in the sky. It had been a cool start to the morning. We pull our chairs into the sunshine. A sigh of relief. This was a scary and tragic week from terrorism to mushroom clouds to the insanity of an Elvis impersonator. And we thought we were completely safe in [...]
April 19, 2013
U.S. Postal Service can survive structural change, not inevitable
Communication with clients has drastically changed over the last decade. While we still send out quarterly reports in the old U.S. mail packet with a formal letter, other mailings are rare. E-mail is the favored method these days, and it surprises me that my older clients are well-versed in this area. We even text clients [...]
April 10, 2013
NYC trip is a reminder that students will respond when asked
I’m a finance junkie. I love studying markets and tracking economic indicators, all with an eye for finding opportunities or avoiding investing traps. It’s a joy to share this with my students. This past week, I was able to combine that with my other love — travel. I took three students to a financial conference [...]
April 3, 2013
Being the winner of the food stamp lottery a losing proposition
In 1975, about 8 percent of the U.S. population was on food stamps. Currently, that number is 15 percent. Much of the growth in usage can be attributed to the recent recession. In fact, since 2008, the food stamp program has ballooned 70 percent. No surprise there. The bigger surprise is the “stickiness” of these [...]
June 13, 2013
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