Vibenomics has made it to the Federal Reserve Board. At the central bank’s first Federal Open Market Committee meeting of 2024, policymakers voted to hold interest rates steady and offered strong hints that easing is on the way. But apparently not until the Fed feels the time is right. Throughout 2023, as inflation eased, the […]Read More
It’s time to let the supply chain off the hook. For more than three years the logistics of moving goods from one place to another has become the standard excuse for why our favorite items are not on store shelves and the answer to what is wrong with the economy. But enough is enough. While […]Read More
Earlier this month the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the listing and trading of bitcoin as exchange-traded product — an investment vehicle listed on an exchange and can be bought and sold throughout the trading day like a stock. But this doesn’t signal a new era for digital currencies. It’s more like a challenge. For […]Read More
While October is Popcorn Month – officially National Popcorn Poppin’ Month – Jan. 19 is Popcorn Day. And why not? The U.S. is the No. 1 producer and consumer of popcorn, to the tune of more than $3.5 billion in 2023. That number is expected to grow to more than $4.6 billion by 2028. It […]Read More
The new year is a time of renewal and reflection. Looking back on the past 12 months and ahead to next 12 like the Roman god Janus for whom the first month is named. And while many are making resolutions and finding fertile ground for what comes next, economists are plowing old fields debating how […]Read More
Quietly and with little fanfare, the Federal Reserve Board recently created a new department to deal with new technologies that could have an impact on the safety of the banking system. The Novel Activities Supervision Program is the central bank’s answer to the challenges from a range of different issues, including distributed ledger technology, tech-driven […]Read More
With all the buzz surrounding artificial intelligence, you would think AI systems are taking the business world by storm. You would be wrong. Despite the message that businesses need to jump on the AI bandwagon or get left behind, less than 4% of companies currently use the technology to produce goods and services, according to […]Read More
With the holiday shopping season in full swing and consumers spending more than $10 billion over the so-called Cyber Weekend – a nearly 8% increase compared with 2022 – forward-looking companies are already looking ahead to what 2024 will bring. But they aren’t thinking far enough ahead. In less than three years, America will celebrate […]Read More
Business professionals are encouraged to “think outside the box,” while at the same time being admonished by success coaches, consultants and bored journalists for talking inside the box with trite cliches and pithy aphorisms. But there’s no reason to push the envelope on business communication when there is a rich trove of language on the […]Read More
There have been many revolutions in human history. The development of the printing press in the mid-15th century launched the Communications Revolution. The adoption of steam power to machines spawned the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. And the advent of computer technology in the mid-20th century brought the Digital Revolution. In much the same […]Read More