To quote the New York Times
This week’s census report showed that income inequality was near all-time highs in 2004, with 50.1 percent of income going to the top 20 percent of households. And additional census data obtained by the Economic Policy Institute show that only the top 5 percent of households experienced real income gains in 2004. Incomes for the other 95 percent of households were flat or falling.
Continue reading “Income diversity”
This has been said before, I know, but it’s worth re-iterating: a test should test one thing, and one thing only.
First, some scope definition. Using Kent Beck’s terminology, I’m talking about developer tests, not acceptance tests. Also, by one thing, I mean that there should be only one thing that breaks the test (which is very different from saying any failure should only break one test…). In addition, the one thing that breaks should provide diagnostic information – a test failure shouldn’t leave you scratching your head to determine the immediate cause
Continue reading “Testing pattern: don’t test too much at once”
Fujitsu is going to roll out trolleys with scanners so that shoppers can avoid the checkout queue. Naturally, this assumes a degree of honesty on the part of the shoppers. What’s amusing about this is how they plan to “trust, but verify”.
Continue reading “Um, how’s that going to work again?”
Hmmm… salaries are going up again Speaking as an employee, not an employer, this sounds like good news. 🙂
Continue reading “Salaries are rising.”
Well, this entry started as a quick blurb to highlight an article on my boss here at Wotif.com in the Australian Financial Review But that’s not what it’s ended up as. 🙂
Continue reading “Some businesses just don’t get it”
It seems that the tradition of the National Party leader selling out the party’s constituents whenever it conflicts with Liberal Party policy is alive and well.
A National Party think tank came up with the stunningly obvious idea of using T3 proceeds to pay for bush broadband rollouts But John Anderson has nixed the idea – apparently he thinks the private sector can do it better.
Continue reading “The private sector will never roll out broadband to the bush”
Bush is proposing a 2.5 trillion dollar budget. Supposedly, this manages the following:
Continue reading “I must be missing something”
Interesting article in the New York Times on how GW Bush is looking to reshape the American tax break.
Continue reading “There’s more to managing an economy than lowering taxest”
I can’t believe I’m writing about this, but here goes…
Offshoring is part of a continuing trend of economic displacement. In its current form, it’s been going since about the mid ’70s, when cheap bulk transportation (ocean-going cargo ships) combined with an increase in industrialisation in undeveloped countries (specifically: Japan and Taiwan at the time) started to result in manufacturing jobs heading to cheaper countries. This trend continued, and now the vast bulk of manufacturing work occurs along the Asian Pacific Rim (though I’d expect Africa to pick up if the political situation there ever stabilises).
Continue reading “When offshoring can work”
Software is too expensive to build cheaply.... 