Think your boss is bad? Odds are, he has nothing on Edward “Tiger Mike” Davis ― the meanest boss in the world.
Davis was so surly even a quick hello would be out of the question. In a memo, he once wrote:
“Do not speak to me when you see me. If I want to to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don’t want to ruin it by saying hello to all of you sons-of-bitches.”
As owner of the Tiger Oil Company, Davis turned nasty interoffice memos into an art form.
It all began in 1959 when he married “one of the earliest cougars ever,” as his obituary states.
At the age of 28, Davis wed 69-year-old Helen Bonfils. He was a high school dropout and her limo driver until her husband, theater and film director George Somnes, died in 1956. She was the owner of the Denver Post newspaper.
When the two divorced in 1971, Davis received what the book Here Lies Colorado called “a substantial settlement,” which he used to start his oil exploration business. And that’s where his memos entered the picture; these notes developed almost a cult following years later when they began turning up on the website Letters of Note.
For example, he didn’t like guys with hair below the ears:
Anyone who lets their hair grow below their ears to where I can’t see their ears means they don’t wash. If they don’t wash, they stink, and if they stink, I don’t want the son-of-a-bitch around me.
Davis had a potty mouth, but he made it clear he was the only one allowed to cuss in the office:
There is one thing that differentiates me from my employees. I am a known son-of-a-bitch, and I care to remain that way. I have the privilege of swearing publicly, in front of anyone, or doing anything I want to because I pay the bills. When you work for me, you don’t have that privilege.
On the other hand, Davis was open to new ideas:
If you have a suggestion on how we can improve our methods, your suggestions are more than welcome. The best way to submit a suggestion is to put it in writing, sign your name and send it to me by registered mail ― then you can’t say it got lost. I DON’T WANT ANY EXCUSES.
“There was no one else like him; there was only one Tiger Mike,” spokesman Marcelo Anevcua told the Las Vegas Sun. “Things had to be done his way all of the time. That’s just the way he was. And he spoke the way he felt.”
His way included no “shabby attire” in the workplace. According to his memos, Davis was also opposed to “birthday celebrations, birthday cakes, levity or celebration of any kind,” in the office.
While the infamous memoranda were written in the 1970s, Davis remained active in the oil industry. In 2012, he settled a multimillion dollar lawsuit over a finder’s fee he received for a deal that went sour. And he continued to work as recently as this year.
“He was working until about six months ago — still drilling oil wells, mostly in the Wyoming and Nebraska area,” friend and colleague Kevin Trujillo told the Denver Business Journal.
Davis died earlier this month of complications due to prostate cancer, The New York Times reported. He was 85.
His obituary in the Las Vegas Review-Journal insisted there were two sides to the man, the one in the memos and another Tiger Mike.
“If he loved you, it was Heaven. If he disliked you, it was Hell,” the obit noted. “If you were powerful and arrogant, he would destroy you. If you were down and out, he would pick you up, dust you off and change your life forever.”
Read more of his memos on the Letters of Note website, or in the book “Letters Of Note: Volume 2,” which will be available Oct. 11.
The votes are in, the polls have closed, and Decision 2016 has been made! On Monday September 26, 2016, brand mascots celebrated Advertising Week’s 13th Annual Madison Avenue Walk of Fame — the advertising industry's version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame — by inducting the year's most iconic mascots and slogans.
Cleatus the FOX Sports Robot and Woodsy Owl were announced as this year’s winning mascots from a lineup of 26 nominees. Over 60,000 votes were cast online, making it the most successful voting year in Advertising Week history.
Joining the honored winners in attendance at Nasdaq’s Closing Bell were several other ad icons including Charlie the Tuna, Little Caesar, Vince and Larry Crash Test Dummies, The Laughing Cow, Sugar Bear, Chester Cheetah, The Nesquik Bunny, Horatio Magellan Crunch, Kool-Aid Man, Vlasic Stork, Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr. Peanut, Serta Counting Sheep, Travelocity Roaming Gnome, ICEE Bear, Slush Puppie, Rooty the Great Root Bear, and more.
In addition to the winning mascots, Sprite also took home honors with “Obey your thirst” inducted as the year’s slogan out of a pool of 26 brand slogan nominations.
Congratulations to this year’s winners and thanks to one and all for rocking the brand mascot vote!
The votes are in, the polls have closed, and Decision 2016 has been made! On Monday September 26, 2016, brand mascots celebrated Advertising Week’s 13th Annual Madison Avenue Walk of Fame — the advertising industry's version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame — by inducting the year's most iconic mascots and slogans.
Cleatus the FOX Sports Robot and Woodsy Owl were announced as this year’s winning mascots from a lineup of 26 nominees. Over 60,000 votes were cast online, making it the most successful voting year in Advertising Week history.
Joining the honored winners in attendance at Nasdaq’s Closing Bell were several other ad icons including Charlie the Tuna, Little Caesar, Vince and Larry Crash Test Dummies, The Laughing Cow, Sugar Bear, Chester Cheetah, The Nesquik Bunny, Horatio Magellan Crunch, Kool-Aid Man, Vlasic Stork, Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr. Peanut, Serta Counting Sheep, Travelocity Roaming Gnome, ICEE Bear, Slush Puppie, Rooty the Great Root Bear, and more.
In addition to the winning mascots, Sprite also took home honors with “Obey your thirst” inducted as the year’s slogan out of a pool of 26 brand slogan nominations.
Congratulations to this year’s winners and thanks to one and all for rocking the brand mascot vote!
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome from the flight deck. Our nonstop service from Los Angeles to London’s Heathrow Airport has a flight time of 10 hours and 35 minutes. So sit back, relax, and accept our sincere apologies in advance for the debilitating case of jet lag during your stay in London, including falling asleep mid-conversation with the executive you needed to impress, and wandering, bleary-eyed, through a vacant Piccadilly Circus at 5:15 a.m. Looks like we’re first in line for departure, so enjoy the flight ― because jet lag’s coming for you, and it’s not going to be pretty. My co-pilot and I will be just fine, though.”
OK, so you’re unlikely to hear this kind of real talk from a pilot. But doesn’t it feel like the captain and her crew ― who seem to hop the International Date Line weekly without complaint ― know something you don’t when it comes to beating jet lag?
In partnership with United Polaris, we checked in with four long-haul commercial pilots to finally clue passengers in on the secrets of the flight deck, sharing their top tips for combating the grogginess and fatigue of traveling to another side of the world. With this guide, you’ll be crossing time zones like a pro before you know it.
Switch Up Your Sleep Schedule Beforehand
BFG Images via Getty ImagesIf you wake up one to two hours earlier a few days before a flight to Europe, your body will thank you later.
Overcoming jet lag starts before you step into the taxi to the airport. Begin adjusting your sleep routine three days before your flight, says Captain Lisa Mrozek, a commercial pilot for a major domestic carrier who’s logged 18 years of flying to far-flung locales. If you’re departing an American city for Europe, Mrozek recommends waking an hour or two earlier than usual. Conversely, try to stay up one to two hours later if Asian travel is on the itinerary.
Yet even in spite of all the proper prep, you may still nod off into a glass of chardonnay at your Parisian hotel’s bar. Flying east, Mrozek says, is just more of a challenge. “If you’re flying against the sun, it’s a lot harder on your body,” she explains. “If you’re going west, it just seems to be easier. That’s the general gist I get from most airline people.”
An All-Nighter Before Flying Can Only Lead To Sadness
Ryan McVay via Getty ImagesExhausting yourself the night before a long flight can be a recipe for jet lag disaster.
For once, your penchant for procrastination will serve you well! Or so you might think. If you’re up all night barreling through last-minute laundry loads, you’ll be knocked out for the duration of the 14-hour flight from D.C. to Tokyo, thus arriving in the Japanese city feeling fresh as a sakura blossom. Right?
Not a smart move, Mrozek says. “You don’t want to start out your trip tired,” she cautions. “Make sure you’re well-rested before you depart and that you have some sort of a base to start with.” Trying to catch a few Zs on a plane when you’re already exhausted isn’t a sure bet, and the quality of sleep you have may leave you feeling sluggish even when you’re on the ground. If you’re overtired, you might also have to skip that power nap after your 2 p.m. hotel check-in, lest you accidentally snooze until 10 p.m. ― and then stay up all night ― as your body tries to make up the deficit.
Your New In-Flight Cocktail: Water And Electrolyte Powder
Maciej Laska via Getty ImagesTempting, but just say no.
All of the pilots we talked to agreed: Hydration is key in stemming jet lag, especially as you while away hours in a plane’s pressurized cabin. So think of the beverage cart as more water fountain than booze barge ― avoid the dehydrating influence of alcohol or salty drinks like tomato juice and instead simply opt for H20. Captain Suzanne Skeeters, a long-haul commercial pilot with decades of experience ferrying passengers to cities like Mumbai, Bangkok and Frankfurt, recommends boosting the benefits of your water even further by mixing in powdered electrolytes, essential minerals that keep your body in an optimal balance.
Step Away From The In-Flight Entertainment
Fran Polito via Getty ImagesWe know the 14th viewing of “Frozen” is even more special than the first 13, but substituting sleep for binge-watching on the plane means having a better chance of beating jet lag after you land.
International flights have become, for many of us (cough, parents, cough), prime time to catch up on movies. But beware: binge-watching Meg Ryan rom-coms is liable to leave you Sleepless in your destination city. Mrozek remembers a family trip she took to Australia, in which her kids insisted on watching every movie on the plane they could, over her suggestion that they sleep instead. “They didn’t listen,” she recalls. “And we were up at 2 a.m. every night for the next five nights. We had to wait for the local McDonald’s to open up at 5 a.m. because they were starving and there were no restaurants open.” Their fellow patrons at that hour? The sequined, tipsy bar crowd. “It was kind of an eye-opener for them, let’s put it that way,” she laughs.
Test This Pill At Home First Or Face The Sleepwalking Consequences
Digital Vision. via Getty ImagesIf you’re not used to sleeping pills, taking them could lead to awkward cuddling with your neighbor.
To medicate or not to medicate? So many travelers weigh the question of whether to use sleep aids in-flight to mitigate the effects of jet lag. Of course, pilots aren’t allowed to use sleeping pills, says Kathy McCullough, a retired 747 captain of 17 years whose Tokyo-Singapore-Taipei routes would often take her from home for 13 days at a time. But melatonin, a hormone supplement which helps to reset one’s sleep cycle, is permissible for pilots and proved helpful to McCullough in managing her work-sleep balance. She now recommends it for others. “It kind of just quiets the thoughts in your head long enough so that you can go to sleep,” she says. “But it’s not a sleeping pill, so it won’t knock you out.”
Mrozek is more direct about sleeping pills. Unless you want to star in “The Flying Dead,” your very own mile-high zombie spinoff, she advises against using them on a flight if you’re not already accustomed to taking them. “We’ve had passengers take sleeping pills and then they sleepwalked on the airplane,” she says. “Or they keep sleeping and the flight attendants have trouble waking them up when they land.”
Get In A Workout At The Hotel Gym
Radius Images via Getty ImagesGot back-to-back meetings as soon as you land? Squeeze in a quick treadmill session as soon as you hit the hotel and you’ll be in better shape to fight off jet lag.
Flights from the West Coast of the U.S. to Europe tend to touch down in the early afternoon, says Chris Cooke, a pilot with 24 years of experience flying commercial. Listen to your body if you’re tired and take a nap ― no more than two to three hours ― but then get active if you’re looking to keep jet lag at bay. “If I’m staying longer than 30 hours, I have to exercise,” Cooke says. “Even if it’s just getting out and walking for a half hour or going to the gym in the middle of the night, that’s what I do.” Regular exercise, especially after a long bout of travel, will keep your body operating at peak conditions, which allows your internal systems to more nimbly adjust to changes in eating, sleeping and other activities.
Shut Out The World In A Room That’s Cool And Dark
swissmediavision via Getty ImagesNot pictured: Restful slumber.
You’ve finally made it. Arrived at your destination well-hydrated, took an afternoon nap, and kept yourself busy and awake with exercise and meetings until the local bedtime. Now all that’s left is to let yourself drift off into a full night of sleep. And with the right hotel arrangements, enjoying a truly restful slumber could be well within reach.
“Go for a really cold room so you can snuggle under the covers and sleep much better,” McCullough advises. A room that fully blocks out light can further ensure you’re maximizing restorative R.E.M. sleep. “They have shoji screens [in Japan] that fit together so tightly, hardly a crack of light comes in the room,” McCullough recalls of her usual base of operations on Asian routes. So go ahead and cocoon yourself in your suite. By the time you emerge, you’ll be more than ready to get the day started ― on local time.
United Polaris is United Airlines’ all-new business class service, featuring a reimagined, built-from-scratch experience that prioritizes sleep and rest with the goal of making jet-lagged business travel a relic of the past.
This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.
In June 2015, Emily Hedlund gave herself a challenge: She would go an entire year without buying any clothes.
At first she thought she’d try it out on her own. But because she was also in charge of clothes shopping for her husband and young son, she expanded the experiment to also include them. Hedlund calculated that she spent hundreds of dollars each year on thrift store finds and cheap fast-fashion impulse buys, stuff she and her family didn’t feel any connection to and never actually wore.
Together, they had enough of a stockpile to keep themselves dressed for a year, Hedlund thought. There was just one potential hitch: She was pregnant ― her second child was born two months after she started the challenge ― and would need clothes in various sizes. Fortunately, she had a strong rotation of summer dresses, activewear, leggings and jeans, including items from the first time she was pregnant.
Hedlund shared her pledge on Facebook and her personal blog to keep herself accountable. And to eliminate temptations, she unsubscribed from emails from companies like Old Navy, Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle, which peppered her inbox with emails about sales.
It worked. With the exception of a single pair of running shoes, Hedlund succeeded in not buying any clothing for anyone in her family for one year. Along the way, the exercise in frugality brought her attention to something else entirely: the clothing industry’s staggering wastefulness. This problem, Hedlund realized, was fueled in part by people like herself, who bought too many clothes they didn’t need or even really want.
Worldwide, people buy more than 80 billion pieces of clothing each year. Compared to other household expenses, Americans are buying more clothing than ever before but spending less. These purchases power a fashion industry where pollution, waste and unsafe working conditions are too often seen as simply the cost of doing business ― unsettling truths that Hedlund realized as her experiment progressed.
“There’s this whole dark side of the fashion industry that I’d heard of but wasn’t really aware of,” Hedlund told The Huffington Post. “It definitely wasn’t at the forefront of my mind when I started the ban, but now it just makes me want to keep not buying clothing.”
There’s this whole dark side of the fashion industry that I’d heard of but wasn’t really aware of.Emily Hedlund
It’s not necessarily naïve to think that one person’s actions can impact a trillion-dollar global industry notorious for its lack of transparency. Consumers can pressure retailers into slowing the hyperproduction that leads to so much waste, said Christina Dean, founder of the fashion waste reduction organization Redress.
By controlling their consumption ― that is, buying less stuff ― consumers can “send a clearer signal to the big players that are producing billions of garments a year that they don’t want to buy so much and they don’t want to buy cheap stuff that’s badly made,” Dean said.
Hedlund, who lives in St. Louis, began to think about her own place in a larger system when, in the midst of her yearlong experiment, she invited a group of friends to her home for a clothing swap. They arrived toting garbage bags full of unwanted items, many of which were from fast-fashion brands like H&M and Forever 21. When they’d finished picking over each other’s stuff, most of it remained unclaimed.
“There was so much left over,” Hedlund said. “I could not believe how much.” Afterward, the bulging trash bags sat in her dining room, waiting to be donated. “It just gives you an idea that there’s so much overconsumption going on.”
Courtesy of Emily HedlundHedlund began hosting clothing swaps at her St. Louis home. The sheer number of unwanted items opened her eyes to problems of overconsumption and waste.
Hedlund has assigned herself other challenges, including frugal grocery shopping and buying (almost) nothing at all for an entire month. She’s part of a community of bloggers responding to consumer culture with an ethos of minimalism, a lifestyle category containing everything from decluttering to tiny houses.
Even some businesses, counterintuitively, are encouraging people to buy less. Cladwell, a minimalist clothing app, helps customers curate a wardrobe of fewer, higher-quality items, with a stated goal of crusading against the fashion industry’s wastefulness.
“As a society, we’ve consumed our way into this mess,” Cladwell founder Blake Smith told HuffPost. “So it’s my belief that we can’t consume our way out of it.”
Self-congratulatory expressions of minimalist living have earned plenty of critics. To people who don’t have enough in the first place, celebrations of “less is more” can sound more like a luxury than a sacrifice.
“Minimalism is a virtue only when it’s a choice, and it’s telling that its fan base is clustered in the well-off middle class,” Stephanie Land wrote in The New York Times in July. “For people who are not so well off, the idea of opting to have even less is not really an option.”
Hedlund gets this. She was able to go a year without buying clothes for her two children because she was able to inherit hand-me-down coats, mittens, socks and shoes from a friend with four sons.
Courtesy of Emily HedlundHedlund's sons Shiloh and Malachi, pictured here in hand-me-downs from a family friend.
For those who take dramatic steps to curb their shopping habits, it’s about bringing sustained attention to a part of everyday life they once took for granted.
When Andrew Morgan began making “The True Cost,” a documentary about the human and environmental consequences of the fashion industry, he vowed not to buy any clothing until he finished the film ― which ended up taking two years.
“I just wanted to reset. I wanted to step back and say, ‘I want to figure out what I believe in and where I want to buy stuff,’” Morgan said. “And that was an awesome exercise.” He kicked his habit of buying cheap, poorly made items at fast-fashion companies and now shops almost exclusively at secondhand stores.
For Hedlund, changing habits took some time. At first, she missed the feeling of buying and having new things, and even the act of shopping itself. As summer turned to fall, she felt the urge to rush out and buy fleece-lined leggings, leather boots and other cold-weather comforts. She even kept a list of things she planned to buy once her yearlong embargo lifted.
But as time went on, the urge to shop began to fall away. In the three months since her challenge’s end, she has treated herself to two $3 dresses from her local Goodwill. She hasn’t even looked at her list, and doesn’t intend to.
“I didn’t actually need those things,” Hedlund said. “I just thought I did.”
More stories like this:
We Buy A Staggering Amount Of Clothing, And Most Of It Ends Up In Landfills.
The ‘Chilling’ Moment This Father Realized Where His Kids’ Clothes Come From
Before Buying More Clothes At H&M, Read This
Dressing Like A Cartoon Character Made Me Happier, Calmer And A Better Consumer
This Company Is Basically A Hospital For Sad, Damaged Clothes
Why This Company Wants You To Fall In Love With People’s Old Jeans
These African Countries Don’t Want Your Used Clothing Anymore
Are you looking to improve your site’s rankings through successful link building? Well, here are some useful tips to help you along the way.
1.Offering Military Or Alumni Discounts
If there are any local universities in the area, you can benefit from offering discount to the alumni. If there is a page on your site explaining the discounts, it’s effortless to reach out to the local alumni and link to the sites. On the other hand, you can also try out military discounts. However, you might have to do a little outreach and follow-ups to get the links you need.
2.Local Connections Or Meet-ups
Try sites like meetup.com to find out if there are any active groups planning reconnections in your locality. Of course, the groups need to be related to your business but you can also reach out to other local groups for the best results.
Look for those groups that need a place to meet and offer your business as a venue. It’s one of the easiest ways to find local links. On the other hand, you can try out any groups looking for sponsors. For as little as $100 or $50 each month, you can provide refreshments at these meet-ups and get as many links as possible.
3.Hosting A Community Event
Try throwing a party and invite the entire city if possible. You can try emulating the local car dealers who are always throwing events for the localities they live in. You should consider theme parties such as 4th of July barbecues or cookouts or egg hunts during Easter for the kids. If you throw an event that’s open to the public, you can rest assured that you will get local links or social media mentions.
4.Local Resource Page
Keep in mind that resource pages don’t refer to trading links with the local businesses. Basically, it’s a way of sharing enticing information with outsiders about your locality. For instance, if you love smoked meat, you can always list the best barbecue joints in the area. If you love the outdoors, share a list of places where families can do the same. If the information proves useful, it’s a guarantee that other sites will offer links.
5.Local Awards
Most cities have local awards they offer to notable businesses. These might include crowd favorites, excellent community service or vertical-specific awards. Do as much research as possible to find out which awards your business might be eligible for and try getting a nomination. With the results getting published online, there is a guaranteed chance that the winners will get links to their sites.
6.Relationships And Reputation
Unless you’re running a completely new business, you have already established reputable relationships with other businesses in the area. Therefore, take advantage of the existing relationships and get as many links as possible. Try connecting with other business that offer similar products to build a good baseline. Since you know the business owners, it’s very easy to get links.
7.Local Celebrities
Are there any celebrities in your locality? Well, you should mine them for links to your business. For instance, if you have celeb golf buddies or attend social functions with prominent people, you should try getting links from that. If you don’t know anybody famous, you can always find acquaintances who know such people and connect to them accordingly. With these sources, you’re bound to get the best links.
8.Local Directories
When looking for citations, local directories are the best sources. On the other hand, you can also use them successfully for link-building purposes. Most cities have numerous directories so you can do a quick Google search to find the best ones in your locality to suit your needs.
Try these link-building tricks for the best results.
In 2010, I was at a low point in my life. I had lost my job in the mortgage industry and had been blackballed from working in the profession again. I reached out to my longtime friend and referral partner, Michael Reese and we met up at the Gengis Grill in Frisco, Texas. On that particular day, Mike was amped up. Now, he's an excitable guy anyway, but this day he was over the top.
He didn't know it, but I was there to ask him for a job. I had always admired his work ethic and I wanted to be a part of his team. As fate would have it, the "working for you" conversation never took place. Instead, we talked about the Internet and the future of real estate.
During the time we were talking, I just nodded and agreed with Mike, having no idea in the world what he was going on about, chatting about how he and his partner Jay Kinder were working on a way to streamline the real estate process by pairing online and offline processes together. Again, it was all gibberish to me, but it sounded interesting.
Flash forward six years to the moment I witnessed firsthand, the operation Jay and Mike had been dreaming of. It was just a few days ago that I was able to tour the National Association of Expert Advisors (NAEA) facilities in Dallas, Texas.
To say my mind was blown is an understatement.
I've seen my fair share of real estate operations. I've helped launch and run ads for some of the biggest real estate firms on the planet. Yet, I've never seen anything like the partner program Jay and Mike have created.
Nothing even comes close to what they've birthed.
Mr. Reese and Mr. Kinder have taken the monotony out of real estate. Matter of fact, they have automated all the work agents hate. Cold calls, email marketing, pipeline follow up, CRM management--the "hard work" has been removed from the equation through the use of Jay and Mike's business strategies.
The Kinder Reese model allows agents to focus on what they do best: real estate. When members of the NAEA partner program get a lead, it's a real live lead. Matter of fact, it's more than a lead. It's basically the handoff of a new client to the agent and the agent getting to work for them immediately.
Most real estate agents will joke as they agree; the knowledge acquired in order to pass the board exam is rarely used in the field. Serious agents know sales and marketing drive real estate. Yet, they don't teach sales and marketing in real estate school. With the NAEA model, agents can focus on using their real estate knowledge and leave the sales and marketing to the automation side of the operation.
This partner program is so game-changing, Mike and Jay plan on teaching the model and fully launching it at their upcoming Exponential Growth Summit (EGS) from October 9-11 in Dallas, Texas. Each year, Mike and Jay go all out with an amazing line of speakers, and this year, you can expect more of the same.
The current roster of speakers is the best to date. Darren Hardy from Success Magazine will come by and impart knowledge in his own amazing way. Dustin Black, CEO of Black Tie Moving, will be speaking on how he grew an idea into a multi-million dollar moving company in a crowded market, and in less than five years. Josh Altman of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles will be discussing real estate investing and how to sell high-end properties. Several other top tier speakers are also on the schedule. I'm one of them! I'll be speaking on selling in the modern marketplace.
Jay and Mike are revolutionizing the fate of real estate by altering the course of how real estate is bought and sold.
Their vision is so far into the future, it will be years before the big brands catch on.
Keep your eyes and ears out for these guys. Mark my words, "They will change the game."
A potential class-action lawsuit filed earlier this week in New York City claims Lyft has regularly overcharged riders for tolls there and seeks nearly $60 million in damages.
In court documents submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, attorneys Neal Bhushan and Kevin Caldwell argue the ride-hailing service made a habit of charging passengers the higher “cash” rate for tolls in the city instead of the lower “EZ Pass” rate, which the New York Taxi & Limousine Commission mandates should be charged.
And at an average of about $2.46 more per toll, multiplied by thousands of rides per day, it isn’t exactly small change. The complaint estimates that small discrepancy adds up to almost $60 million in overcharges over the past two years.
Of that, 20 percent of the overcharges would have been goneto Lyft itself, with drivers receiving the remaining 80 percent.
It’s unclear how frequently the overcharges occurred and whether Lyft intentionally engaged in the practice. Lyft declined to comment to The Huffington Post, and the attorneys who filed the suit said they weren’t able to speak in more detail at this time.
“I cannot speak to the specifics of the nature of the lawsuit without further discovery,” said Bhushan, of the Jacob Fuchsberg Law Firm, “but I do believe this is the first lawsuit brought on behalf of consumers in New York against a company like Uber or Lyft. Most of the cases brought against these companies have been on behalf of drivers.”
“A tech company like Lyft can’t just come into our city and overcharge riders,” Caldwell added. “Excessive fees ripping off passengers is simply unacceptable.”
The suit comes during an interesting time for the company, and an increasingly tumultuous period for ride-hailing in general. While Lyft looks to play catch-up to rival Uber, it’s been rumored to be entertaining offers from potential buyers. Meanwhile, Uber has ceded its operation in China to rival Didi after taking on heavy losses there, a move that undercuts Lyft, which had a partnership with Didi.
This summer, a United States citizen took a vacation at a lodge in Canada. (To protect his privacy let’s call him “Bill.”) Bill had issues during his stay with the hotel staff, and he did what so many of us do: he wrote about his experience online. When his less-than-positive review was published, the hotel immediately charged his credit card $3,000 as a penalty for sharing his experience. When Bill protested the charge, the owner pointed out that at check-in, Bill had signed a document in which Bill had unknowingly agreed not to criticize the property, or be slapped with a ridiculous fine if he wrote a negative review.
While this story is far from the norm, there are businesses that regularly censor consumers from sharing their experiences through threats of lawsuits and fines. This practice cannot be tolerated.
We who run online platforms strongly believe that the experiences of others can help us make more informed decisions about how to spend our hard-earned cash. Consider how dramatically the Internet has improved the way consumers select hotels, restaurants, books, movies, etc. Americans rely on sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon and Angie’s List to make better purchasing decisions. In fact, a recent study revealed that roughly 70% of American shoppers rely on online reviews before making a purchase. With more than 350 million reviews and opinions, covering more than 6.5 million businesses globally, TripAdvisor, the company in which I serve as the CEO, has democratized access to travel-related information by crowdsourcing the honest opinions, good or bad, of others.
While most business proprietors understand that reviews offer both businesses and consumers alike the ability to learn and benefit from others’ experiences – and indeed welcome the opportunity to improve their product based on feedback – a small number of unscrupulous businesses fear criticism and attempt to bully or intimidate customers from sharing their experiences online.
As Americans, we have a fundamental right to talk about and share our experiences and genuine opinions in any format we choose, including online.
One tactic we see, as in Bill’s case, is to use contractual leverage to silence critics through gag clauses, normally hidden in fine print. The clauses can vary: some require a customer’s absolute silence; some stipulate massive fines for negative reviews; and some take the draconian step of actually granting ownership of the consumers’ reviews – of their own customers’ viewpoints – to the business themselves. In this case, Bill was bullied by the hotel into taking down his review because in signing the form upon check-in, he was ‘captive’ even if he hadn’t noticed the clause, and had agreed-to a fine of $3,000 and had assigned ownership of the review to the business itself!
These attempts to stifle online speech are against everything we stand for at TripAdvisor. We strongly oppose any attempts by businesses to stifle their customers’ honest opinions or “bully” them to censor their experiences. In the same way that any of us can tell our friends and family about a good or bad experience that we’ve had, we should also have the right to share that experience online without fear of retribution. As Americans, we have a fundamental right to talk about and share our experiences and genuine opinions in any format we choose, including online. And, as global companies, online platforms continue to fight for the right for free speech for all.
When one business uses a gag clause, harm ripples throughout the marketplace. The reviewer is improperly censored. The public at-large is less informed about the quality of service – or lack thereof – at a given business. The business’s competitors who are acting fairly are put at a competitive disadvantage. Even the business doing the silencing is harmed, as it loses the opportunity to learn from its customers. These types of clauses serve no positive role in any economy and stand in the way of consumer transparency.
Fortunately, help is on the horizon for American consumers. The Consumer Review Fairness Act, a bill that would make any of the types of contractual clauses discussed above unenforceable throughout the United States, has passed the Senate and is currently pending before the House of Representatives. I am hopeful that Congress will quickly pass the Consumer Review Fairness Act and ensure that American consumers’ freedom of expression is not censored by a few bad actors. We also urge other countries to evaluate enacting similar protection.
A free and democratic world depends on people having the right to express different opinions – what would happen to politics, philosophy and intellectual debate if one side could silence any opinion they disagree with? Transparency and freedom of expression ultimately lead to greater good for everyone. Consumers know they can rely on websites to help them make informed decisions, and I want to make sure that consumers know that a large coalition of online review platforms and advocacy groups are fighting for your ‘right to write.’
One presidential candidate wants to set the country on a path of environmental destruction, the other refuses to include policies in her platform many say are crucial to halting climate change.
But with two months to go before election day, Patagonia is making a push to get green voters to the polls.
The high-end outdoor apparel and gear retailer plans to spend $1 million on a campaign to get voters in the 17 states where it operates to cast their ballots for candidates who support strong environmental policies, the company told The Huffington Post on Friday.
“We are very concerned that the ugliness and the divisiveness of this election has left voters feeling disenfranchised with politics, and they might sit this one out,” Lisa Pike Sheehy, Patagonia’s vice president of environmental activism, said in a phone interview. “It’s imperative that this doesn’t happen.”
The Ventura, California-based apparel maker has funded get-out-the-vote campaigns in both midterm and general elections since 2004. Normally, the strategy focused on presidential politics. But this year’s mudslinging has proved messier than most, with allegations of corruption against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and an ever-growing list of unethical dealings, racist and xenophobic statements and nationalistic comments from GOP nominee Donald Trump.
“There’s so much emphasis right now being focused on the presidential office,” Pike Sheehy said. “You’ve got scores of elections happening ― at the mayoral level, the state level, in the Senate ― that are equally if not more important to how communities are going to address climate change.”
The company plans to host two events in its 29 stores across the U.S. ― one on Sept. 27 to mark National Voter Registration Day, and another in October featuring voting resources and reading material from its partner organizations. The stores will provide guides outlining the environmental stances of each region’s candidates and ballot measures.
Patagonia also donated $200,000 to NextGen Climate, the nonprofit grassroots campaign group founded by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, and HeadCount, the New York-based nonprofit that registers voters at concerts and musical events. The company declined to break down how the rest of the money would be spent.
Founded in 1973 by rock climber and environmentalist Yvon Chouinard, privately held Patagonia has kept nature and climate stewardship at the core of its company ethos, donating 1 percent of sales each year to green causes. In 2011, Patagonia openly declared war on the fashion industry’s wasteful culture, urging shoppers to buy fewer of its jackets and to make the ones they have last. In March, the company led a $35 million investment for a fund that helps pay for rooftop solar installations across the country.
“This has been part of our DNA from the beginning,” said Pike Sheehy, adding that the company’s certification as a benefit corporation in 2011 enforced strict environmental standards on the firm. “We feel a responsibility to lend our voice to issues where we can contribute.”
Jean-Marc Giboux via Getty ImagesPatagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has called himself a "reluctant businessman" who identifies as an environmentalist first.
Patagonia said it steadfastly refuses to side with either candidate and insists the campaign is nonpartisan. But the rightward shift of American politics has put the company squarely in the left camp.
The Republican Party may be the only major political party in the developed world to actively deny the scientific consensus around humans’ role in global warming. Trump has called climate change a “hoax” invented “by and for the Chinese” and threatened to pull out of the historic climate accord reached in Paris last December. Clinton, for her part, laid out an ambitious climate plan, but failed to include a carbon tax, considered by many economists to be the serious only way to curb emissions on a large enough scale to have an effect.
Patagonia has not donated to a Republican candidate since 1990, when it gave a total of $500 to the GOP. Since then, the company has contributed $51,122 to Democratic campaigns, according to data collected by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets project. Just four of its stores are located in states that went red during the 2012 election, in Georgia, Montana, Texas and Utah.
Patagonia isn’t the only company looking to impact the election through a voter registration campaign.
Ice cream giant Ben & Jerry’s launched a campaign in May against laws, pushed almost entirely by Republicans, that restrict access to voting. The campaign took aim at voter ID rules like the North Carolina law struck down by a federal appeals court in July. Such restrictions, supposedly aimed at curbing virtually nonexistent voter fraud, disproportionately target students, the elderly and people of color, who are more likely to vote Democratic and less likely to have the newly required forms of identification.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to reinstate North Carolina’s voter restrictions. A similar law passed in West Virginia won’t be enacted until 2018. Neither laws can impact this election.
But 32 other states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. If Ben & Jerry’s plans to help overturn eliminate such legislation, it will take time.
Patagonia’s fight, too, may require digging in for the long haul.
“At the end of the day, we want to elect leaders at the state, local and national level that will work for the health of the planet,” Pike Sheehy said. “There’s nothing more critical that’s facing our communities all the way up to the global scale. We have to hold our elected officials accountable on it.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
Less than a week after Wells Fargo was slapped with a historic $185 million fine to settle customer fraud allegations, CEO John Stumpf is starting to open up about the scandal.
But instead of taking responsibility for what’s been described as a “pressure-cooker sales culture,” Stumpf seems to be blaming low-level Wells Fargo employees for opening up millions of fake bank and credit card accounts and billing customers for services and products they didn’t request.
Richard Drew/ASSOCIATED PRESSWells Fargo chairman and CEO John Stumpf, seen here in 2015, is putting most of the blame for his company's recent customer fraud scandal on some of its low-level employees.
In a Tuesday interview with The Wall Street Journal, Stumpf refused to say who was responsible for the corporate culture that regulators say led to the creation of more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts that customers didn’t necessarily authorize.
Stumpf insisted there was nothing in Wells Fargo’s atmosphere that encouraged these practices. “There was no incentive to do bad things,” he told the Journal.
Instead, he appeared to lay blame at the feet of what he characterized as a minority of bad employees who didn’t “honor” the bank’s culture. Wells Fargo has said that at least 5,300 employees were fired over a five-year period for “inappropriate sales conduct.”
Not everyone in the financial industry accepts Stumpf’s assertion that Wells management knew nothing of the shady practices.
“Stumpf has clearly forgotten Harry Truman’s maxim that ‘the buck stops here.’ He’s responsible for how the org runs,” said Helaine Olen, a financial columnist at Slate and the author of the personal finance industry exposé Pound Foolish.
“It takes a particular level of what my grandmother called ‘chutzpah’ to ― when you are earning millions of dollars annually ― to turn and dump the blame on what are fairly low-paid employees,” Olen told The Huffington Post.
Shifting the blame to employees is “an astonishing indictment of how people in power think,” she said.
“Come on...this went on for years and they didn’t smell anything in the air about fake accounts?”Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is set to grill Stumpf next week when the Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on Wells Fargo’s fake customer accounts, has been equally dubious that the company’s higher-ups were in the dark about the sales practices.
“Come on...this went on for years and they didn’t smell anything in the air about fake accounts?” Warren told CNN last week.
In a later appearance on CNBC’s “Mad Money,” Stumpf modified his stance somewhat, telling host Jim Cramer that “the buck stops with all of us” and “especially me.”
Stumpf also pushed back on the idea that he should resign in the wake of the scandal, telling Cramer the best thing he can do right now is to lead the company.
Olen and Cramer both pointed to E. Scott Reckard’s bombshell 2013 story in the Los Angeles Times that exposed the very culture Stumpf denied knowing about ― even as the practices raised in the report prompted employee dismissals.
“From that day forward, Wells had to know it had a problem,” Olen said. “But the settlement last week did not take on any of the higher-ups, and that is concerning.”
Olen said Stumpf’s denials “could come back to bite him” if the Securities and Exchange Commission decides to investigate Wells Fargo and finds evidence that contradicts his claims.
On Wednesday, federal prosecutors said they plan to investigate the bank. No civil or criminal charges against anyone with Wells Fargo have been announced, but prosecutors have issued a subpoena for documents.
A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo declined to comment to HuffPost.
“We’ve seen that very few in the financial services sector are held to account for anything right now,” Olen said. “I find it hard to believe that if there’s already this [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] settlement, when there’s a fairly decent body of evidence saying Wells had to know about this. It defies reason that they were unaware of this.”
say, "Optimize your credit cards to earn more rewards," and someone replies with a knowing smirk, "No millionaire ever got rich on credit cards."
Well, I never said anything about millionaires. Credit cards won't make you or me rich, but there are real and valuable rewards to be had with only minor effort. Those rewards provide extra wiggle room in my budget, and they're flying my mother-in-law out for Christmas. They make a difference.
There's no excuse for earning less than 1.5% in rewards on every purchase, and if you play your cards right, you can boost your rate on some spending to as much as 10%. Considering that the average household spends roughly $30,710 a year on items that could be charged to a card, a 1.5% rewards rate comes out to $460.65 in potential annual rewards. That won't make you a millionaire, but it's nothing to scoff at, either.
And even the rich themselves appear to recognize this. Ask billionaire Liu Yiqian, who may have earned more than $1.7 million worth of rewards points on a single credit card purchase.
The idea that credit cards won't make you rich is a lame argument for avoiding them. But I hear plenty of other objections that are just as flawed. Let's dispel some of the biggest misconceptions and talk about how you can recognize and avoid the genuine pitfalls associated with credit cards.
Common credit card misperceptions
Everyone carries credit card debt; it's unavoidable. The Survey of Consumer Finances, last updated in 2013, reports that only about 38.1% of families have credit card debt. That number may even overstate the case because it includes small-business credit cards, which may carry debt more frequently than individuals' cards. Even if you do carry credit card debt, you don't have to be complacent about it. Work to pay it off, and you'll save a lot of money in the short and long run.
You must carry debt on a card to build credit or keep the account open. You only need to use your card periodically to keep the account open, and you're free to pay off your balance in full every month. As long as your credit card has a balance on it at some point during a month, your bank can report activity on the card to the credit bureaus.
You need or can have only one card. Your credit card portfolio can be as deep as you'd like -- this guy has 1,497 of them. The most important factor is how many cards you can manage. Each new card may lower your credit score by a hair at first but, with responsible use, will generally contribute to a stronger score within six to 12 months. I recommend people carry at least two cards, and often more depending on shopping habits. Where you do your banking determines your credit card choices. You can carry a credit card from any issuer, regardless of the institution you bank with. Paying your bill between banks isn't a problem; the only potential downside is needing to memorize two different bank logins.
You start getting charged interest the moment you make a purchase. If you're paying your bill in full every month, you have until your statement's due date to pay back the balance without accruing a penny of interest.
Credit card debt is "bad debt," unlike "good debt" such as mortgages or auto loans. Some may make this assumption because credit card interest rates can be higher than rates for other debt types. But a credit card is merely one financial tool among many in your kit, and its effectiveness depends on how you use it. In my mind, "bad debt" implies purchasing something beyond your means; we can all probably think of someone who bought a house or car he or she couldn't afford. I can also think of people, including myself and my parents, who have gone into credit card debt for valid, well-considered reasons.
The biggest real concern: Spending beyond your means
It is true that credit cards are powerful tools with very real risks. The biggest of these is the opportunity they provide to spend more than you can afford. But merely carrying a credit card doesn't guarantee that you'll go into ruinous debt, so let's discuss some common mistakes and how to avoid them:
Viewing the credit limit as available money. When people see their credit limit as available cash and spend as if they'd just received thousands of dollars, they can quickly end up in overwhelming debt. Spend according to your own budget limits, not the size of your credit line.
Spending more with a card than you would with cash. Research suggests that this is a problem for many consumers. My suggestion is to avoid thinking of credit cards as a form of credit and instead as simply another way to pay for things. For me, because I strictly track every single purchase in a budget, it doesn't matter how I pay, but rather whether I had money on hand for the purchase. Tools like You Need A Budget can help simplify this process and ensure that purchases line up with your available money.
Another method is to simply watch your card's balance and make sure it never exceeds the amount you're willing to spend out of your checking account. This is especially useful for people who don't like logging every purchase with a budget.
Accepting high fees. A number of credit card issuers focus on people with bad and poor credit. NerdWallet recently exposed many of these issuers as predatory, and in my last column I suggested alternatives for building credit. The short story: If you want to use credit cards to build your credit history, you don't need to pay high fees. Secured cards have a transparent and relatively low-priced fee structure and are often the best course for building credit.
Lacking self-control. Ultimately, if overspending on credit cards is a constant temptation and the tips above haven't worked for you, it's probably best to step back. The cost in interest and damage to your credit is not worth it.
Bottom line
A friend recently told me she gave up on credit cards because "the costs simply outweigh the benefits," and honestly, that might be fair for her situation. As I like to say, personal finance is very personal.
For my family and me, credit cards are a means to simplify spending and to effectively earn a discount on every purchase, but we also know how to mitigate the risks. Make sure you have the money already available for each purchase, and worry more about your budget than how you pay. With those simple steps, you can take advantage of credit cards' security benefits and simplicity, all while earning some spare cash.
Credit card rewards won't make you rich, but they can help you do more.
Photo courtesy of NerdWallet.
Sean McQuay is a credit cards expert at NerdWallet. A former strategist with Visa, McQuay now helps consumers use their credit cards more effectively. If you have a question about credit, shoot him an email at asksean@nerdwallet.com. The answer might show up in a future column.
Q: Should I save, invest, or pay off my student loans?
In certain corners of the internet, student loans are Mount Everest. Google a phrase like "how I paid off my student loans" and, well, you'll probably close your browser by Page 3 like I did, because the results all look the same: There are a lot of people out there who are paying off massive amounts of student loan debt in short amounts of time by side hustling, giving up cable and eating food that comes in cans.
There is no doubt that the level of commitment in these tales is admirable. Student loans are draining, both financially and psychologically. Paying them off early feels very, very good. Not that I'd know: I'm making the minimum payments on mine.
That's a calculated decision because I prioritize the three things you asked about -- saving, investing and paying off student loans -- in exactly the order you listed them, and I'd argue that you and most other people should do the same. Here's why.
A little money in the bank goes a long way Ever look out the window during a rainstorm to find that the roof on your front porch has turned into a waterfall? Tried to replace a light fixture only to realize that your 100-year-old house has 100-year-old wiring? I have, and I can tell you that an emergency fund will come in handy in these and many other situations. If you've sent all available cash to your student loan provider, they're not going to be super receptive when you call to ask for it back.
Putting away the recommended amount for that fund -- typically three to six months worth of expenses -- is about as intimidating as paying off student loan debt, though the process doesn't get nearly as much internet play. So instead, aim to get enough money in the bank to make you feel comfortable for now, but not so much that it kicks your other goals down the road for years. If all you can afford to put aside right now is $500, that is enough to get you out of many common jams; you can go back and add more once you're in a better financial position to do so.
Investing for retirement comes next The people who triumph over their student loans and live to write about it frequently do so at the expense of investing for the future. In the scientific research I did for this post, reading 20 or so accounts of student loan debt wiped clean, only two or three even mentioned saving or investing.
This is a mistake for a few reasons. The first: If you're knee-deep in student loans, you're likely also knee-deep in the middle of the most important time to invest for retirement. When you're young, your money might have 40 years to grow. You can save less and rely more on investment returns thanks to compound interest, which means that over time, those returns start earning a return of their own.
The second reason is math: Undergraduate federal student loan interest rates have ranged from 3.4% to 6.8% over the last decade, plus you may be able to take a tax deduction on up to $2,500 of the interest you pay each year. When you pay off your student loans faster than you have to, you're essentially earning a return on that "investment" that is roughly equal to the interest you don't pay. If your interest rate is, say, 4.5%, you earned a 4.5% return -- a little less, due to that tax deduction -- by skipping out on that interest.
That sounds ... not bad, until you compare it with the average annual return of a long-term investment portfolio, the kind you might build in a retirement plan. History says 6% to 7% is a fair expectation, which means there's a good chance that over the long term, you'll probably come out on top by investing.
This is true if you're investing in an IRA, and it's especially true if you have a 401(k) with matching dollars, which amount to a guaranteed return on your own contributions. Even if your loans are at the top of the above interest rate range, or you have private loans that are even higher, you should get that match before you pay more than the minimum toward those loans (you should also look into refinancing to see whether you can bring that rate down).
Once you're on track for retirement -- you can check your progress with a retirement calculator -- you're free to whale on those student loans all you want.
Arielle O'Shea is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: aoshea@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @arioshea.
The article Should I Save, Invest or Pay off Student Loans? originally appeared on NerdWallet.
In just a few months, your career will undergo a dramatic transformation. You will leave the office of chief executive of the free world and once again become a civilian — at an age when the average American still has a decade or more left in his or her working life. Like millions of baby boomers, you will have to navigate the final big chapter of your career.
I know you’re quite busy, but as you plan for this next phase, here are five pieces of unsolicited, but heart-felt, career advice:
1.You don’t need a two-year plan, you need a 20-year plan
Most people underestimate how long a career journey is in total and how many miles are still ahead. If you work well into your 70s, as many Americans do, you could easily have more than 30,000 hours of work life still in your future. How will you shape a post-presidential career that is rewarding, purposeful and sustainable?
You have already written three bestselling books, and a number of retired presidents have successfully turned their attention to speaking, writing and philanthropic work. While those who have come before can serve as models, you will have to chart your own course. How many speeches and books do you really want to write? Will that be sufficient to sustain you over another two decades?
As you ponder your options, ask yourself how each one stacks up on the four big career questions:
Will I learn? Will I have impact? Will I have fun? Will I be fairly rewarded?
2. Build on your sweet spot
You will find your sweet spot at the intersection of three things: what you love, what you’re good at, and what the world values. Again, you can look to the paths that other leaders have taken once they’ve passed the peak of their careers. Al Gore built his later stage as a champion for combatting climate change. Mike Bloomberg is backing gun control, and Bill Gates has become a leading philanthropist, with a particular focus on infectious diseases. Judging by the moments where you have shown the most resolve and passion, it feels like your sweet spot can be found somewhere in the vicinity of healthcare and education.
3. It’s time to prune and cultivate your career ecosystem
One of the great things about being president is that you have almost unlimited access to resources and contacts. Everyone takes your calls. As a private citizen, you will need to edit down your contacts. Ask yourself which colleagues, experts and mentors will be important to your next chapter, not just your last one. Which are the relationships that bring you energy and joy, and amplify your expertise and impact? A career ecosystem is a powerful fuel that propels us forward to do even greater things. Which exciting new skills and connections will you need post-POTUS?
4. Keep playing basketball every week
In our work lives, it is often the non-work activities that act as vitamin shots to keep us fresh and energized. Your weekly hoop games have become legendary in Washington and they have probably helped keep you sane during the White House years. Find a way to keep up the tradition. Golf is okay, but basketball seems to hold a special place in your heart. It brings out your trash-talking competitive streak. It lets you bump into people and push them around. So find a way to keep up the ritual of Sunday basketball at Barack’s place. Just don’t be surprised if the competition seems to beat you a lot more now that you’re not president.
5. Stay healthy. If you have the urge to smoke again, take up the harmonica instead
You’ll get to enjoy these next decades and thousands of working hours in top health. By all accounts, you’ve done a great job cutting out the smoking. And you are certainly someone who understands the benefits of moderation — the seven-almond nightly snack makes good sense. But as a former 60- cigarette-a-day smoker, I know that the tobacco demon is an immensely powerful and seductive force. You cannot just wish it away or ignore it. You need to channel it. If the urge comes back, take up the harmonica. It is cheap, highly portable and remarkably satisfying for the orally fixated among us. Keep resisting the Marlboros and get your Mojo Working. Stevie Wonder and I will come over to give you lessons.
Your career to date has been remarkable and unusual, but the stage you’re moving into now is one that all of us will navigate in our working lives. Build on your strengths, invest your time wisely and with purpose, and you will thrive for years to come.
Brian Fetherstonhaugh is author of the new book, The Long View: Career Strategies to Start Strong, Reach High, and Go Far, and Chairman and CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide.
WASHINGTON, Sept 8 - Wells Fargo has long been the envy of the banking industry for its ability to sell multiple products to the same customer, but regulators on Thursday said those practices went too far in some instances.
The largest U.S. bank by market capitalization will pay $185 million in penalties and $5 million to customers that regulators say were pushed into fee-generating accounts they never requested.
“We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” the bank said of a settlement reached Thursday with California prosecutors and federal regulators.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will receive $100 million of the total penalties - the largest fine ever levied by the federal agency.
“Today’s action should serve notice to the entire industry that financial incentive programs, if not monitored carefully, carry serious risks that can have serious legal consequences,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray.
Los Angeles officials and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were also party to the settlement.
In a complaint filed in May 2015, California prosecutors alleged that Wells Fargo pushed customers into costly financial products that they did not need or even request.
Bank employees were told that the average customer tapped six financial tools but that they should push households to use eight products, according to the complaint.
The bank opened more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorized, the CFPB said Thursday.
Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Eshet said the bank fired 5,300 employees over “inappropriate sales conduct.” The firings took place over a five-year period, Eshet said, adding that the bank has 100,000 employees in its branches.
Wells Fargo regularly releases numbers about how many products it sells to customers, a practice it calls “cross-sell.” Its wealth and investment management unit, for example, sold 10.55 products per retail banking household in November 2015, up from 10.49 a year earlier, according to the bank’s annual 10-K financial filing.
In the second quarter, however, the bank changed how it tallies up some of those numbers and said it was considering more changes.
Piper Jaffray analyst Kevin Barker said he does not think the crackdown on Wells Fargo will have much of an impact on others in the industry.
“I think this is unique to Wells Fargo and their particular situation and how hard they push on cross-sell,” he said.
(Reporting By Patrick Rucker in Washington and Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby and Jonathan Oatis)
This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.
Andrew Morgan never gave a second thought to the hidden cost of the clothes he bought well into adulthood.
The Los Angeles filmmaker and father of four made a habit of often shopping for cheap garments. When the items he bought wore out or fell apart after a year, he bought more. Morgan admits he simply didn’t take into account the possibility that his choices at the cash register might have unseen or unintended consequences.
“I very much grew up as a product of a modern world where I was taught to not think much about where the stuff that came into my life came from,” Morgan told The Huffington Post.
All that changed on the day he walked into a Starbucks store in Culver City, California, in 2013. As Morgan waited in line for his coffee, he glanced down at the newspaper rack. Eight thousand miles away in Bangladesh, a garment factory that produced clothes for Western brands had collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people. The photo on the cover of The New York Times showed two young boys, close in age to Morgan’s own sons, beside a wall plastered with missing persons signs.
“It did something to me instantly,” he said. “It was that chilling feeling where you realize you’ve been a part of something that you’ve never stopped to consider, and there are actually real people on the other end of it.”
Morgan had finished his latest film the day before the tragedy. He was on the lookout for a new project. Haunted by the image of the Rana Plaza building collapse, and appalled at his complicity in a system that had made it possible, he began contacting people around the world to learn more. He wanted to find out what was happening and to understand the stakes. Most of all, he wanted an answer to “why it was a story I had never been confronted with.”
Last year Morgan released “The True Cost,” a documentary about the fashion industry’s disastrous human and environmental consequences, including the staggering waste that results from an industry increasingly bent on producing cheap, low-quality, disposable clothes.
Courtesy of Andrew MorganFilmmaker Andrew Morgan in Shenzhen, China, during the production of "The True Cost" in summer 2014.
Fashion is a trillion-dollar global industry and the reasons for its wastefulness are varied and complex. But by any measure, the situation has reached crisis levels.
Each year, 80 billion pieces of clothing are bought around the world. Fifteen percent of fabric is wasted during the manufacturing process, before clothes even make their way to consumers. In the United States, where 97 percent of clothing sold is manufactured overseas, the average person throws away at least 60 pounds of clothing every year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, though other estimates put this figure closer to 80 pounds. Eighty-five percent of that ends up in landfills, where chemically processed textiles can contaminate groundwater if not properly contained.
In June, HuffPost launched Reclaim, a campaign to raise awareness around America’s waste problem and highlight potential solutions, beginning with a focus on food waste. Now, we’re adding fashion waste to the mix. In the coming months, we’ll explore the issue from many angles. We’ll spotlight the efforts of upstart designers and established companies as they strive to improve their practices and reporting on what impact, if any, those efforts are having on the global fashion waste crisis. We’ll also share tips on how to reduce clothing waste in our own lives and open up the conversation using the hashtag #ReclaimFashion.”
Critics of the clothing industry’s wastefulness point to “fast fashion,” a retail method of constantly updating a store’s inventory. Fast fashion brands like H&M, Zara and Forever 21 are not only outpacing competitors, but also redefining fashion cycles, as more and more retailers aim to satisfy customers who expect an ever-replenishing selection of cheap, trendy clothes. Elizabeth L. Cline notes in her 2012 book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion that new shipments arrive daily at Forever 21 and H&M, for example, and 400 new styles debut online every week at Topshop, the London-based retailer with more than 500 locations worldwide.
With so much cheap clothing available, so much more eventually gets thrown away. “The relationship between fast fashion and increasing textile waste is now unmistakable,” according to the International Journal of Consumer Studies.
Still, within the fashion industry, a certain amount of waste has long been accepted as the cost of doing business.
“There’s waste at every stage of the textile supply chain,” Sass Brown, interim dean of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s School of Art and Design in New York, told HuffPost. “And part of the problem is the textile supply chain is a very complex logistical nightmare.”
We have these faster cycles, we have more disposable fashion. But we don’t have a sense of where all that is going.
As food campaigns like farm-to-table and Slow Food gain traction, public awareness lags when it comes to the origins and consequences of what we wear, activists say. Sure, we know most of our clothes are no longer made in America. Even GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump gets it – sort of. But as Brown put it, “the average consumer has no idea” about the bigger picture: the chemicals in the fabrics we wear on our skin each day, the waste, the pollution, the lives of those actually making our clothes.
If clothing, like cigarettes, came with a warning label alerting us to these effects, Brown said, “I think we’d end fast fashion in an instant.”
Fashion is built on the idea of planned obsolescence. Much of what’s exciting about a piece of clothing being in style is knowing it may someday go out of style. But fast fashion’s critics say the breakneck speed of production and low prices have blinded us to the consequences of our purchases. The other side of the equation, as Morgan’s film shows, is an ugly mess of environmental damage, low-wage work and waste.
Tasha Lewis, an assistant professor of fashion design management at Cornell University, explained how fast fashion brings more clothes into our lives in a way that often leads to future waste.
“We have these faster cycles,” Lewis told HuffPost. “We have more disposable fashion. But we don’t have a sense of where all that is going. And a lot of consumers may tend to throw this clothing away because they don’t think anyone else would want to wear it. Because it just wasn’t made in the best way.”
The deadly Rana Plaza factory collapse, along with other similar tragedies in a short span, served as a wakeup call of sorts, for Morgan and countless others. To the delight and relief of activists who have worked for years to bring more attention to waste, injustice and abuse in the system, these issues are at last getting a more public airing.
In addition to “The True Cost,” which can be viewed on Netflix, there’s “Slowing Down Fast Fashion,” a documentary out later this year from the British musician Alex James. “It’s staggering how little most of us know about what our clothes are made from, where they come from or who made them,” James told WWD.
Fashion waste has found its way into the cultural conversation in other ways. A segment last year on “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver took aim at fast fashion. “Saturday Night Live” has skewered H&M’s low prices and disposability. From Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter to Anne Hathaway’s Instagram account, celebrities have shared tips for socially responsible shopping in a world ruled by fast fashion. Reformed shopaholics who once boasted of their extravagant “hauls” now preach conscious consumption inYouTube videos known as “haulternatives.”
More tangibly, businesses and designers are experimenting with take-back programs and other methods to give clothes a second life. Cities are introducing curbside textile recycling programs that take the time, effort and mystery out of donating used clothing.
Fast fashion companies themselves are taking steps to reduce waste, with varying degrees of commitment and success, activists say. H&M, for example, touts a range of sustainability efforts, from the waste reduction campaign World Recycle Week to an annual Conscious Exclusive collection that features eco-friendly pieces. “Our ambition is to have a circular approach in how our products are made and used, to utilize only recycled or other sustainably sourced materials and to implement only renewable energy in our value chain,” an H&M spokesperson told HuffPost. “To achieve this goal we know we need innovation.” The spokesperson cited the company’s annual award encouraging participants to reinvent the fashion industry and a recent pledge to develop new recycling technology. Forever 21 and Zara likewise outline their own sustainability policies, but they did not respond to requests for comment.
Cline, the author of Overdressed, told HuffPost she’s now at work on a documentary about clothing waste and other impacts of fast fashion. She also works in the secondhand clothing industry, which has deepened her understanding of America’s clothing waste problem. She is amazed by the number of clothes that are donated, and wonders where they can all possibly go. Meanwhile, fast fashion brands are churning out more, more, more ― “far in excess,” Cline says, “of what could ever be worn to the end of its useful life.”
But she sees at least one reason to be hopeful. The idea of fashion being more sustainable and thoughtful isn’t yet mainstream, she says. “But the conversation is at least happening now.”
Power gets a bad rap, but only because people pursue it for the wrong reasons. When power is pursued for the right reasons, it can be a tremendous force for good.
Niccolo Machiavelli spread the belief that people can only become powerful by exploiting the worst aspects of human nature. One of this teachings was, "A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests." Machiavelli was essentially saying that you're an idiot if you keep your promises or stick to your values when you'd benefit more by breaking them.
Not only did we hear it from Machiavelli, but also from plenty of voices in our own time, such as Robert Greene, who said, "The key to power is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations." It's no wonder so many people think that the only way to get power is to be a jerk.
Fortunately, Machiavelli and Greene had something in common: They were both wrong. Recent research from UC Berkeley shows that when it comes to power, nice guys finish first. The researchers found that the most powerful people (according to ratings from their peers) were those who were the most considerate and outgoing. They also found that those who were the most Machiavellian -- using things like gossip and manipulation to gain power -- were quickly identified and isolated and ended up with no power at all.
Studies like these are rehabilitating power's bad rap. Power isn't inherently evil, and it isn't inherently bad to seek power. Without power, you can't accomplish anything, good or evil. Even those who want nothing more than to make the world a better place, can't do so without exerting the influence of personal power. It's the abuse of power and the underhanded things people do to achieve it that cause problems.
People who earn and use power wisely have a profound impact on everyone they encounter. Yet, they achieve this power only because they exert so much influence inside, on themselves. We see only their outside; we see them innovate, speak their mind, and propel themselves forward toward bigger and better things. Yet, we're missing the best part. The confidence and wherewithal that make their influence possible are earned.
And while what people are influenced by changes with the season, the unique habits of powerful people remain constant. Their focused pursuit of excellence is driven by eleven habits, which you can emulate and absorb until your power and influence expand: 1. They don't wait for a title to lead. It's important not to confuse power with authority. The right title can give you authority, but it can't give you power. On the other hand, you don't need a title to be powerful. You can lead without being a boss and you can have a powerful influence upon your workplace and community without a title.
2. They're graciously disruptive. Powerful people are never satisfied with the status quo. They're the ones who constantly ask, "What if?" and "Why not?" They're not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, and they don't disrupt things for the sake of being disruptive; they do so to make things better.
3. They think for themselves. Powerful people aren't buffeted by the latest trend or by public opinion. They form their opinions carefully, based on the facts. They're more than willing to change their mind when the facts support it, but they aren't influenced by what other people think, only by what they know.
4. They focus only on what really matters. Powerful people aren't distracted by trivialities. They're able to cut through the static and clutter, focus on what matters, and point it out to everyone else. They speak only when they have something important to say, and they never bore people with idle banter.
5. They master conflict. People tend to err on one of two extremes when it comes to conflict: some are passive and avoid conflict altogether, while others seek out conflict aggressively, thinking that this will make them powerful. People who master conflict know how to approach it directly and assertively, yet constructively. In essence, they practice emotional intelligence. Truly powerful people do not react emotionally and defensively to dissenting opinions -- they welcome them. They're humble enough to know that they don't know everything and that someone else might see something they missed. And if that person is right, they embrace the idea wholeheartedly, because they care more about the end result than being right.
6. They inspire conversation. When powerful people speak, their words spread like ripples in a pond. Influencers inspire everyone around them to explore new ideas and to think differently about their work.
7. They know their strengths and weaknesses. People who get seduced by power and, therefore, start abusing it are often blind to their own weaknesses. To become truly powerful, you have to see yourself as you really are and to position yourself to use your strengths for the greater good. That means taking a clear-eyed look at your strengths and your weaknesses and owning them both completely. 8. They grow and leverage their networks. Those who grow power the Machiavellian way don't bother with people who aren't useful to them. People see this coming a mile away, and it doesn't win any friends. Truly powerful people know how to make lasting connections. Not only do they know a lot of people, they get to know their connections' connections. More importantly, they add value to everyone in their network. They share advice and know how, and they make connections between people who should get to know each other.
9. They ask for help when they need it. It's easy to mistakenly assume that powerful people never ask for help from anybody. Asking for help when you don't know the answer or can't do it all by yourself is not a sign of weakness; it's a sign of strength. It sends the message that you're not so insecure as to put your ego above the mission. It takes a tremendous amount of confidence and humility to admit that you need assistance, and asking for assistance is critical, because there's nothing worse than trucking down the wrong path when you're too embarrassed or proud to admit that you don't know what you're doing.
10. They believe. Powerful people always expect the best. They believe in their own power to achieve their dreams, and they believe that others share that same power. They believe that nothing is out of reach and that belief inspires those around them to stretch for their own goals. They firmly believe that one person can change the world.
11. They do it now. Way back in 1894, Orison Swett Marden made an important point: "Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seek common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities. Strong men make them." If you put off growing your power until the right opportunity comes along, it's never going to happen. Powerful people know that developing power is a lot like lifting weights or running a 5K. The only way to strengthen those muscles is by using them, so stop making excuses and just start. You know what you believe in, you know who you are, and you know what you want to become, so act like it. Yes, it will be uncomfortable at times, and yes, some people will tell you you're doing it wrong, but the only way to achieve power and use it for good is to get out there and do it.
Bringing It All Together
Boris Yeltsin once said, "You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for very long." Forget everything you've heard about power, because, in the end, the nice guys really do win. Whether you call it power or influence, it's okay to want it and it's okay to have it. You just have to pursue it and use it with integrity.
Have you seen people abuse power? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.
Roger Martin Institute Director, Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
For the past quarter century, capitalism in the advanced economies has moved forward in an impressive but not inclusive fashion. The winners are clear. First, it is industries that trade outside of their own local area, such as pharmaceuticals or software. These innovate and upgrade in order to compete broadly and achieve large scale. They have prospered relative to dispersed industries, such as local banking or healthcare provision, that don't trade outside their own area. Second, it is workers who are asked to use their creativity to engage in independent judgment and decision making at work. Such workers have high job security and have experienced healthy wage growth. This is in stark comparison to those who are asked to carry out routine intensive, repetitive tasks who not only feel intense wage pressure but also have little or no job security.
In combination, the very biggest winners are creative workers in traded industries. This fortunate 13.9% of the American workforce earns a 78.5% premium over the national average - a premium that has grown smartly from 74.0% in 2000. At the other end of the scale are routine workers in local industries. They make up by far the biggest category of U.S. employment at 44.8% of workers. Their wages are low and falling further behind: in 2000, they earned 31.7% less than the U.S. national average and by 2014 the gap had widened to 36.8%. Capitalism gives the former group a warm and lucrative embrace while the latter gets the cold shoulder.
In order to produce a more broadly inclusive capitalism, we need to see a transformation in how work is structured and valued. The economy can't depend solely on the slow substitution of creative jobs for routine jobs. The creative content of routine jobs must be enhanced.
Currently, there is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the routine sector of the economy. If employers discourage or prohibit independent judgment and decision-making, jobs become and remain routine jobs where low pay is commensurate with the low ability of the employee to create value in these conditions. These low-paid, low-skill jobs then cannot attract the kind of applicant that would have the skills to upgrade the job, setting in motion a vicious cycle.
If instead, employers purposefully create workplace environments that promote employee judgment and decisionmaking, even seemingly routine jobs can and will become more creativity-intensive. This, in turn, will improve productivity and enable the employer to pay higher wages. Ultimately, it will attract better talent to these positions, creating a virtuous circle.
In this way, the creativity-intensity of routine jobs will increase and indeed hasten the replacement of routine jobs with creative jobs. While there are undoubtedly those who would argue that this is impossible - believing that routine jobs will always be routine jobs - history shows that leading companies have won in their industries in part by encouraging independent judgment and decision-making from employees who would be seen and treated as routine workers in competitor companies.
Take Toyota, Four Seasons, QuikTrip, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Costco. These companies have made it a central feature of their strategies to provide workers with more decision-making authority and more opportunities to display independent judgment. They have also paid commensurately higher wages. The result is a virtuous circle of higher wages, higher sales, lower employee turnover, superior customer service, improved productivity, and striking competitive success. This is the fastest and most productive way forward for the U.S. economy: the transformation of a routine intensive exclusionary economy into a more inclusive, creativity-intensive one.
Renting an apartment in major U.S. cities looks a little more affordable this month ― but that doesn’t mean it’s cheap, and especially not in Washington, D.C.
Nationwide, prices dropped about 1 percent for one- and two-bedroom apartments in August, according to real estate site Zumper’s monthly rent report. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment will run you about $1,150 a month.
In D.C., however, apartments of either size are more expensive to rent than they were in July, the opposite of the trend in other pricey big cities. Median rent for two-bedroom apartments in the D.C. metro area rose to over $3,000 a month. Zumper now ranks it as the fourth-most expensive rental market, up from its previous spot in sixth place.
Credit Zumper
Zumper analyzes over 1 million listings nationwide to determine the median asking rents for the largest 100 metro areas.
In San Francisco, the most expensive rental market, prices for one-bedroom apartments went down slightly compared to the previous month. Still, the median one-bedroom rent is three times higher than the national median. And two-bedroom rents actually went up slightly, to $4,800. Prices also fell in other cities in the Bay Area and other pricey rental markets, including New York, Boston and Los Angeles.
Read more:
Here's How Much Money You Need To Make To Buy A Home
Here’s How Much Income You Need To Afford Rent In Every State
Washington’s extremely high ― and increasing ― rents are due to a combination of forces. The city’s population grew more than 18 percent in the last decade. The number of renters has also increased to over half of the population, and the supply of available housing simply hasn’t kept up with demand.
Since the recession, there has been an increase in new housing construction in D.C., hitting a recent high last year, and the number of rental units grew 19 percent between 2006 and 2013. But many of the new units are luxury apartments with extra high rents, which doesn’t ease the housing issue for people with more moderate incomes.
Meanwhile, the amount of low-cost rental housing has rapidly declined, according to a 2015 report from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. In 2013, the District had 33,000 apartments renting for less than $800, compared to nearly 60,000 in 2002 (with prices adjusted for inflation).
That means more competition for a smaller number of affordable apartments and rents that are pricier than residents can afford. While incomes are higher in D.C. than many other places around the country, they haven’t increased nearly as fast as rent.
Zumper’s report shows that in many cities, rents went down a tiny bit. But it will still cost you over $2,000 to rent a typical one-bedroom apartment in the five most expensive markets.
If you’re looking for a place where the rent is actually cheap, you’ll find more reasonable prices at the end of the 100 cities ranking. In the bottom three ― Toledo, Ohio; Wichita, Kansas; and Fort Wayne, Indiana ― you can get a one-bedroom apartment for under $500. Maybe it’s time to try out the Midwest.
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Kate Abbey-Lambertz covers sustainable cities, housing and inequality. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow her on Twitter.
