Career website Glassdoor has compiled a list of the most desirable occupations in the country, based on an analysis of each position's earning potential, number of open job listings and the opportunity for career advancement. Less quantifiable measures such as job satisfaction or work-life balance were not factored into the list.
The report's results span a wide range of sectors. Physician assistant, which got high marks for all three factors in Glassdoor's evaluation, tops the list. Software engineer, sitting at #2, boasts the highest number of job openings. At #5, finance manager offers an average annual base salary of $122,865, the highest on the list.
Here are all 25 of the best jobs in America, according to Glassdoor:
Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna, explained how he increased wages for his workers, arguing that taking better care of his employees would in turn lead to better care for Aetna's customers.
Bertolini told HuffPost Live at Davos his company increased wages and adjusted benefits in order to give its employees a better quality of life.
"Not everybody should be at $16 an hour, there may be people who need to be higher," Bertolini said, noting people's lifestyles are directly impacted by how they are paid.
Bertolini's company also implemented yoga and mindfulness practices at work and studied the effect they had on the employees.
"After we completed the [yoga] course, the results were amazing," Bertolini said, saying in addition to weight loss and happier workers, there was an increase in productivity by 69 minutes a month.
"We think it's about a $3,000 a year savings," Bertolini said, noting his company's health care costs actually went down after implementing mindfulness practices.
Below, live updates from the 2015 Davos Annual Meeting:
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Today 8:58 AM ESTMcAfee On Evolution And Technology
"Evolution has wired us; we have social drives," McAfee said.
"Could there be a piece of technology that figures out an intelligent next question to ask somebody? Yeah," McAfee said.
"For 200 years of industrial technology, we've been making workers obsolete," McAfee said.
McAfee said nobody knows if we're reaching the point where technological developments could lead to unemployment.
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Today 8:56 AM ESTAndrew McAfee At Davos
Andrew McAfee of the MIT Sloan School of Management on HuffPost Live
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Today 8:46 AM ESTBruder On The Barriers Women Face
"We strive to have the majority of our graduates female," EFE's Ron Bruder said.
"I don't think there's an official barrier but there's a social and structural barrier in a lot of these countries toward women," Bruder added.
Bruder said his company creates local foundations, and those foundations tackle those issues on EFE's behalf.
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Today 8:42 AM ESTEFE's McAuliffe And Bruder: Young People Need Jobs
EFE's president and CEO Jamie McAuliffe, along with founder and chair Ron Bruder, sat down with HuffPost Live at Davos on Saturday.
Bruder said it's vital to the global economy that youths have jobs.
McAuliffe said EFE starts with businesses.
"Where are the jobs?" he said.
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Today 8:14 AM EST'Every Woman Has The Opportunity To Be An Activist'
Catchafire Founder & CEO Rachael Chong joins HuffPost Live to share her thoughts on how to get more women to Davos.
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Today 8:11 AM EST'Doing Less, But Better'
Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, said his book grew out of working with people who are really successful.
"Success can become a catalyst for failure," he said.
McKeown said leaders at Davos have experience with plateauing after achieving professional success. To avoid that, McKeown said, people must find a way to expand their contribution without doing more.
"The whole idea is about doing less, but better," he said.
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Today 8:00 AM ESTOnline Data Is Like Money
"In some sense, we're the next generation of banks," Smith said, noting you wouldn't put your data in a place you don't trust just like you wouldn't deposit your money at a bank you don't feel is stable.
Smith said the most difficult part about investigating a hacking crime is identifying and finding a hacker.
"Our prisons are not full of hackers," Smith said, noting hackers are often in countries outside the U.S.
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Today 7:57 AM ESTBrad Smith At Davos
Brad Smith at Davos
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Today 7:55 AM ESTBrad Smith On Outdated Technology Laws
"2015 needs to be a year for new solutions, and that's what we're proposing. We do need new laws in the United States and in Europe," Smith said. "We're trying to manage 21st century technology issues with laws that were written in the '80s and '90s."
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Today 7:54 AM ESTMicrosoft's Brad Smith On The Sony Hack
Microsoft's Brad Smith said the Sony hack was an example of how the Internet could be used as a way to both fight against and fight for free expression.
"We saw the Internet being used both as a weapon to attack free expression... and as a tool to defend free expression," Smith said.
Brad said lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe need to discuss how to increase online privacy while still providing law enforcement with information they need.
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Today 7:34 AM ESTBusque On Encouraging Women
As an engineer, Busque said she's always worked primarily around men.
"For me, it's never something I've focused on but it definitely is there and is an issue," Busque said.
"I've some very strong female role models, so I think that's an important thing," she added, saying she regularly thinks about how she can encourage women at her own company to take on leadership roles and grow as employees.
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Today 7:30 AM ESTLeah Busque At Davos
Leah Busque on HuffPost Live
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Today 7:29 AM ESTLeah Busque On The Responsibility Of Job Creators
Leah Busque, founder and CEO of TaskRabbit, said as a business leader it's important to consider the quality of the lives you're curating for workers.
"I believe there's been a slippery slope of new companies that have formed in the name of on demand services ... that maybe aren't having as much of a focus as they should on the worker," Busque said.
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Today 7:22 AM EST'We Have To Use Our Voice'
Chong spoke about what it's like to be one of the few women at Davos.
"It's not always easy to stand up and say, 'hey, that was a sexist remark,'" she said.
"I think we have to use our voice," she added. "Particularly with businesswomen, there are so few, and as role models they're so important."
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Today 7:21 AM ESTFrom Investment Banking To Entrepreneur
Chong explained how she left the world of investment banking -- a job she said she actually enjoyed -- to become an entrepreneur.
"While I was banking I still wanted to be able to give back and at the time the only opportunity was, once a year we'd get put on a bus and go build a house," Chong said. "All volunteer work is good, but when you think about maximizing impact, bankers building houses is not necessarily the best use of their time."
"I became really obsessed with then finding a way to volunteer my skills," Chong added.
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Today 7:19 AM EST'It Gives People A Sense Of Purpose'
Chong said the people who volunteer with Catchafire gain something by giving up their time and services.
"It gives people a sense of purpose," Chong said.
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Today 7:18 AM ESTRachael Chong At Davos
Rachael Chong at HuffPost Live
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Today 7:17 AM ESTHow Busy People Make It Work
Rachael Chong, founder and CEO of Catchafire, said it can be hard to get professionals to donate their time, but busy people somehow still make it work.
"The busiest people are the ones who usually fit in the most stuff and are the most productive," she said.
Thanks to @ariannahuff we'll #thrive on the #wef15 #purposejourney in #Davos via #bulletproofcoffee and @thirdmetric pic.twitter.com/qzagkLgR86
— Valerie Keller (@Valerie_Keller_) January 24, 2015
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Today 6:10 AM ESTJean-Philippe Courtois At The World Economic Forum 2015
Microsoft International President Jean-Philippe Courtois joins HuffPost Live to talk about technology at Davos, NSA reform and some exciting products that are on the horizon.
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Today 5:55 AM ESTLesser: Leaders Should Set A Tone
"I just think if leaders don't set a tone about why we do what we do and why we do it in a way that's enriching for all of us, then people just assume all leadership cares about is the bottom line," Lesser said.
Lesser said he tries to lead by example but he's "probably on email too much."
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Today 5:53 AM EST'Totally A Positive'
"In our world, having great talent want to come and want to stay is the single biggest driver of success," Lesser said.
Lesser said empowering millennial workers and making them aware of the impact they'll have on the world through their work has increased the success of BCG.
"I really think the more we've invested to make it a unique work environment... it's totally a positive," Lesser said.
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Today 5:47 AM ESTHow BCG Helped Respond To The Ebola Crisis
Boston Consultant Group president and CEO Rich Lesser and Wendy Woods, global leader of Social Impact for BCG, joined HuffPost Live at Davos on Saturday to share how their company helped the UN respond to the Ebola crisis.
"It's something that we felt most privileged to be a part of," Lesser said.
Woods said it's normal for government entities to reach out to consulting groups, but usually the process takes a lot more time.
"The coordination has been better than I've ever seen it on a global scale," Woods said.
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Today 5:37 AM ESTCourtois: New Devices Are Letting People 'Do Great Stuff'
Courtois said new devices are "enabling people to do more stuff, to do great stuff."
Courtois also spoke about new technology being developed by Microsoft that will allow users to interact with 3D holograms.
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Today 5:33 AM ESTMicosoft's Role After The French Terror Attack
Courtois shared how Microsoft played a role after the recent terror attacks in Paris, partnering with French law enforcement and the FBI to get police information they needed within 45 minutes of the attack's start.
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Today 5:32 AM ESTJean-Philippe Courtois At Davos
Jean-Philippe Courtois on HuffPost Live
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Today 5:32 AM ESTWhat Microsoft's Doing To Protect Customers
Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, spoke about the steps his company is taking to maintain the public's trust as data moves further into the Cloud.
Courtois said Microsoft has been focusing on several aspects: improving how they anchor the data; certification and compliance of infrastructure; and transparency.
"This is a big deal to actually report back to society what we do with data and how we deal with government requests," Courtois said about being a transparent company.
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Today 5:25 AM ESTValerie Keller and Cheryl Grise At The World Economic Forum 2015
Valerie Keller and Cheryl Grise of the EY Beacon Institute talk with HuffPost Live about how to transform your business through a better sense of purpose.
SkyMall, a company known mainly for trying to sell you things no one needs while you sat on an airplane, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday.
The company didn't sell much from the catalog in recent years. Instead it sold a good chunk of its products online. But it still relied on people looking at the catalog on the plane to drum up interest in its website. And, with in-flight wifi, that was happening less and less.
SkyMall built a business on boredom, and people are less bored on planes than they used to be.
The Internet was instantly nostalgic about the imminent disappearance of the SkyMall catalog and responded by listing things you could have bought from SkyMall -- but hopefully never did.
All of these lists published Friday morning.
1. 11 Of The Most Ridiculous Items Sold By SkyMall (Business Insider)
2. We found the most insane item on SkyMall (Fusion)
3. 28 Essential Things You’ll Never Be Able To Buy From SkyMall Again (BuzzFeed)
4. In memoriam of SkyMall products: A lost national treasure (Mashable)
5. 18 Fantastic Products from SkyMall, America's Final Great Bastion of Innovation (Yahoo)
6. 5 things journalists actually could have used from SkyMall (Poynter)
7. As SkyMall files for bankruptcy, the Internet memorializes its crazy products (Daily Dot)
8. Here Are 12 of SkyMall’s Weirdest Products (Time)
9. THE BEST (=WORST) OF SKYMALL (Thrillist)
10. Our 6 Favorite Health and Beauty Products From SkyMall (Health)
11. 22 ICONIC SkyMall Products to Buy Before It's Too Late (Cosmopolitan)
And of course, The Huffington Post has been doing this for years, here, here, and here.
Last year Wired went out a limb and predicted what SkyMall will look like in the year 2040.
The McDonald’s menu could be getting even smaller.
Mike Andres, McDonald’s U.S. CEO, hinted on a conference call with analysts Friday that the chain may cut more menu items.
“This menu rationalization process is clearly ongoing,” Andres said. “As we look forward, we’ve added quite a number of products over the last 18 months or so, so we’re rationalizing that.”
Andres was responding to a question from an analyst about whether the chain would be willing to keep cutting the menu if the recent decision to slash eight items proved successful. As part of the test, McDonald's went from four quarter pounders with cheese to one, three premium chicken sandwiches to one and three snack wraps to one.
CNBC reported Friday that according to more than one franchisee, the Bacon Habanero Ranch Quarter Pounder, Bacon and Cheese Quarter Pounder, Premium Chicken Club Sandwich and Premium Ranch BLT Chicken Sandwich will be nixed.
So far, the company's menu changes have led to improved sales and better throughput -- a measure of how many orders are processed in a given period of time -- in test markets, Andres said on the call.
McDonald’s could use the help. The chain’s profits plunged 21 percent from the same quarter a year ago, according to the fourth-quarter earnings report released Friday. The past few months also marked the fifth quarter in a row that McDonald’s reported a drop in sales at U.S. stores open at least a year, an important metric of a restaurant's health.
Analysts, the media, franchisees and even McDonald’s executives have blamed the chain’s bloated menu for its poor performance in recent months. The menu -- which had just nine items in the 1950s -- ballooned to more than 100 items over the past several years, ranging from things like Egg McMuffins to a few McWrap varieties to smoothies.
The complicated menu has made it harder for McDonald’s to deliver what it’s known for: cheap and quick food. It also comes at a time when Americans are turning increasingly to chains like Chipotle and Five Guys, which have a handful of menu items but offer diners the ability to customize their orders.
McDonald’s is rolling out its own customizable options for burgers, called Create Your Taste, at 2,000 locations nationwide. Diners can pick from fancy toppings like creamy garlic sauce, guacamole and pepper jack cheese. Andres hinted on the call that the program could make it easier for the fast food giant to cut even more from its menu.
“That offers unlimited variety to our guests, they can now choose whatever they want, so it takes some of the pressure off a lot of the other menu items,” he said.
There’s a lot of uncertainty about how much money Uber drivers make and whether being an Uber driver is, as the company says, an ideal part-time job. Uber released a research paper on Thursday that claimed to give clear answers to those questions. It didn’t quite.
The paper’s biggest claim is simple, and headline-grabbing: Uber drivers make more money than regular taxi drivers. This, along with flexible hours, makes being an Uber driver a good part-time job, in the paper’s judgment.
On close reading, however, none of the data provided by the authors of the paper -- Uber Head of Research Jonathan Hall and Princeton economist Alan Krueger, working “under contract” with Uber -- support such claims.
Let’s start with the issue of how much Uber drivers make. Uber has a lot of good data on how much cash its drivers take in from customers. But that’s just gross pay: It does not take into account costs like gas, insurance, or car maintenance and ownership. Uber hasn’t provided pay data that nets out those costs, which are necessary for any driver.
In its marketing materials, Uber repeatedly presents gross pay data with language saying it shows how much drivers “take home (after deductions),” and then leaves it to a footnote to explain that those deductions do not include any of the most obvious costs of driving a car for money. As a result, Uber is blurring the line between gross and net pay.
And this study is no different. Here’s the chart that leads the authors to say Uber drivers make $6 more per hour, on average, than taxi drivers:
The problem is that these are all gross pay numbers, but the two sets of drivers pay out costs in different ways. Taxi drivers tend to pay leasing companies to use cabs maintained by medallion companies, and also pay for gas, while Uber drivers are responsible directly for paying and maintaining everything they need to keep their car on the road.
Simply comparing the gross pay of each set of drivers doesn’t tell you which set takes home more pay: You also need to know the costs of each set of drivers.
And this paper doesn’t address costs at all, aside from making this guess: “unless their after-tax costs average more than $6 per hour, the net hourly earnings of Uber’s driver-partners exceed the hourly wage of employed taxi drivers and chauffeurs, on average.” Krueger, who the report says had "full discretion" over the findings, told The Huffington Post that regarding gross wages, "The paper was careful to describe what data are available, and what was being compared to what."
The authors want to study driver costs, but just not yet: “A detailed quantification of driver-partner costs and net after-tax earnings is a topic of future research.” Fair, but without net earnings, the paper has no support for its most important claim -- that Uber drivers earn more money than taxi drivers.
Uber declined to respond to questions about why it did not include operating costs and fees in its examination of wages for the report.
Then there’s the thorny issue of just how good a part-time job driving for Uber is. The paper answers that question emphatically: It finds that average hourly earnings don’t change much based on how many hours per week drivers work. That would indeed make driving for Uber a good part-time job: It’s nice to be able to predict how much you’re going to make per hour and not be penalized for working fewer hours.
Here’s the table that claims to prove that part-time Uber driving is a good job:
In the bottom row, you’ll see that average hourly earnings stay roughly the same -- about $21 -- no matter how many hours you work.
The problem is that these are average gross earnings per hour. A different set of Uber data -- for drivers in New York -- shows that the fewer hours you work, the farther away from the average you are likely to fall.
Look at this chart. The little blue dots are individual Uber drivers in New York:
(In this set of data, Uber does deduct its fee from driver wages, but still does not take out much larger operating costs, like buying a car or gas.)
This is a chart of increasing predictability: The more hours you work, the more accurately you can estimate your gross pay. The less you work, the less you know. Extremely variable and unpredictable pay is not anyone’s idea of a good part-time job.
Another question is how realistic the figures are on a month-to-month basis. Krueger told The Huffington Post that the study does examine how drivers' hourly wages vary from month to month, and concluded they were "fairly steady across months.” However, the standard deviation in the study is 19 percent -- that means that assuming a normal distribution, 68 percent of drivers saw earnings swing somewhere between positive and negative 19 percent month to month. The rest of the drivers saw their earnings change even more dramatically.
All of this leaves us pretty much where we were before the paper was released. Uber's latest report offers plenty of information, without revealing anything important.
Finding carnitas during the ongoing Chipotle pork shortage may not be as hard as you originally thought. The Mexican chain is rotating the menu item through all of its restaurants, according to Chris Arnold, a Chipotle spokesman. Though one-third of its restaurants won't be selling carnitas until the shortage ends, that one-third will change periodically, so no restaurants are out of the protein for "extended periods," Arnold wrote in an email.
Chipotle suspended sales of carnitas last week after discovering that one of its pork suppliers wasn’t meeting its standards for responsibly raised meat. The news that the hottest fast food chain in the country was out of one of its few menu items made headlines, with carnitas fans taking to Facebook and Twitter to ask when the protein would be coming back.
When chipotle is out of carnitas pic.twitter.com/gVYZcIAP6N
— abby bova (@abby_bova) January 10, 2015
A carnitas fan mourns the loss.
The announcement also reminded Chipotle fans why they’re drawn to the chain in the first place. The burrito chain’s popularity has skyrocketed in recent years, in part because it sells itself as a fast food restaurant with a conscience -- hawking humanely raised meat and sustainably grown beans. At the same time, traditional fast food chains like McDonald’s are struggling to draw diners into their stores.
Despite Chipotle’s success, the carnitas shortage, which is now in its second week, highlights the challenges of running a large chain committed to serving humanely raised meat when there isn’t a lot of it out there.
Carnitas only make up about 6 percent of the entrees chipotle sells, Arnold said. The spokesman had some advice for those die-hard carnitas fans who want to make sure their local Chipotle is carrying the pork:
Nora Abousteit, founder and CEO of Kollabora and the Kollaborator Network, told HuffPost Live at Davos her company helps people "start making."
Abousteit said she knitted the sweater she wore on HuffPost Live while she was on her honeymoon, calling the experience "very meditative."
Abousteit said she grew up crafting, knitting with her mother and welding with her father. She said she saw growth in people wanting to know the origins of their products and wanting the experience of production, which is what inspired her company.
"I realized there was a lot of potential, because a lot of young people were starting to make things," she said.
Abousteit said making clothes isn't about saving money.
"It's not about the saving," she said. "It's about doing something that makes you happy."
Below, more updates from the 2015 Davos Annual Meeting:
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Today 12:10 PM ESTErtharin Cousin: 'There's Room For Everybody' In Giving
"I don't believe in competition in providing to meet the needs of those who are poorest in our community," Cousin said. "There's room for everybody."
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Today 12:05 PM ESTWhat Refugee Women Teach Us About Resilience
Artist Lynette Wallworth writes:
Last September I brought my film Coral the Ocean Dome to Tianjin, this year in Davos I am presenting "Evolution of Fearlessness" an immersive, interactive artwork that responds to touch.
To experience the work you first read the stories of 10 women who are primarily political refugees now residing in Australia. The stories of these women verge from the horrendous to the terribly sad. Most have experienced extreme acts of violence and worse. But the work is not about what has happened to the women, it is about who they have become. After reading their stories the viewer approaches a doorway in a darkened room and places a hand on the glass portal. This action causes the activation of a life-sized video of one of the women who steps forward and places her hand on your hand. The work creates a moment of video touch. What you experience from looking into these women's eyes is not their devastation, but rather and perhaps surprisingly, their love.
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Today 12:03 PM ESTWhat We Can Do To Help People Feed Themselves
Ertharin Cousin said her organization works in different ways, helping farmers to grow and sustain their food production; helping mothers get food so their children won't be born malnourished; and more.
"If we can make those kind of development preemptive investments, then people can feed themselves," she said.
Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, said her organization is "not doing enough" despite feeding millions of people. She said they only feed "the most vulnerable."
"Food insecurity means you don't know where your next meal is going to come from," Cousin said, noting it doesn't necessarily mean you're hungry today, but that you don't know where you're getting food tomorrow.
"What we address are those direct hunger needs of those who are food insecure," she said.
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Today 11:34 AM ESTRev. Jim Wallis: 'Selma' Is About Selma, Not LBJ
Reverend Jim Wallis, President and Founder of Sojourners, explains why he is still stunned by the Oscars' 'Selma' snub.
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Today 11:05 AM ESTTupperware CEO: You Can Have A Tupperware Party... Without Tupperware
Tupperware CEO Rick Goings explains to HuffPost Live what qualifies as a Tupperware party.
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Today 10:43 AM ESTCassell On Technology
"I design technologies that are meant to maintain our adherence to the values we care most about," Cassell said.
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Today 10:39 AM ESTCassell Predicts We'll Have Embedded Microchips Soon
Cassell said she thinks the idea of having microchips implanted in humans is not a question of "if," but "when." She said she looks at the very recent history of medical technology, at this like prosthetic limbs, LASEK eye surgery and even contact lenses, as proof of how quickly things are developing.
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Today 10:37 AM ESTCassell On The Pros And Cons Of Growing Technology
"I enjoy the ability to leave my desk and do my work from Davos, I love the idea of, my students, for example, don't know if I'm in my office or shopping downtown," she said.
But she said the downfalls include the feeling that she must interact with co-workers when she may not have before, like while she's on vacation.
Cassell said the advancement of technology, while scary, could foster new creativity and doesn't necessarily mean humans will be replaced by machines.
"Certainly jobs are going to be replaced by robots, people in jobs are going to find their jobs being done by robots," she said.
"There's not a single number of jobs, and once you get rid of jobs, they are no more," she said.
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Today 10:34 AM ESTJustine Cassell On The 'Moral Panic' Over Technology
Justine Cassell, Associate Vice Provost at Carnegie Mellon University, said she senses a "kind of moral panic" over technology at Davos.
"I really see so much more discussion of the risk than the opportunities this year," she said.
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Today 10:24 AM ESTJohnson On 'Pathetic' Politicians
Johnson said it's "pathetic" what politicians have to do to stay in the U.S. Congress, saying they can't gain wisdom from pandering to young Wall Street workers for money, but it's necessary to keep their positions.
"There are jerks and there are noble people in both parties, and yet it's tortuous to watch... what these people go through to try to survive," he said.
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Today 10:22 AM ESTSTEAM Instead Of STEM?
Rob Johnson, executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, argued we should encourage people to get into the STEAM fields instead of the STEM fields, adding in an A for the arts.
"I think there's got to be a lot more poetry with spreadsheets," he said.
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Today 10:20 AM ESTA Car That Tells You When To Change Lanes?
"What's interesting and evolving the intelligence of things is how we use that data," Sargent said, describing how soon car entertainment systems will not only play music and give directions, but be able to have conversations with drivers to help them change lanes, avoid collisions and get traffic information.
"It's that real time exchange of information that's really taking us out of the information age, into the age of intelligence," she told HuffPost Live.
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Today 10:19 AM ESTNjideka Harry At The 2015 World Economic Forum
Njideka Harry, President and CEO of Youth for Technology Foundation, talks with HuffPost Live about how enterpreneurship and technology can work together to create jobs.
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Today 10:14 AM EST'It's not about the internet of things, it's about the intelligence of things'
Jeannine Sargent is president of Innovation and New Ventures at Flextronics, and she gave HuffPost Live her take on the so-called 'internet of things'.
"We like to say it's not about internet of things, it's about intelligence of things," she said.
"It's more about how you have smart and connective devices that interact to deliver better capabilities or efficiencies, but really also better experiences for you and I, and it's really changing the way we live, work and play."
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Today 10:03 AM ESTBerkowitz On Cyberattacks
"You have to bring technical expertise to really address the vulnerabilities and try to stop [cyber] attacks before they start," Berkowitz said.
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Today 10:00 AM ESTMaking Smart Cities Through Integration
"If you design a more walkable, more bikeable city, you both drop your carbon footprint but you also make your population healthier," Berkowitz said.
"It's finding those integrated solutions... that's going to be the solution to 21st century challenges," he added.
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Today 9:59 AM EST'Build Back Better And Build Back Smarter'
Michael Berkowitz, president of 100 Resilient Cities, told HuffPost Live people often recover after natural disasters like Superstorm Sandy in an inefficient way.
"The instinct is to build back as it was, and really, Resilient's thinking leads you to build back better and build back smarter," Berkowitz said.
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Today 9:53 AM ESTGoings On Transcendental Meditation
Goings said he's been practicing transcendental meditation, which he says helps "find your better self," since he was 22 years old. He said it especially helps while traveling.
"This is one of the most important discoveries of transcendental meditation, proven by research -- you gain time," he said.
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Today 9:50 AM ESTRick Goings: Ridiculous Not To Empower Women
Goings said there needs to be a "mindset change" in order to make sure women are empowered and have equal representation.
He said it's a ridiculous economic decision not to empower women.
Rick Goings, CEO of Tupperware, said his company is the biggest seller of cookbooks in France, a statistic he thinks many will find surprising.
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Today 9:39 AM ESTNjideka Harry At Davos
Njideka Harry on HuffPost Live at Davos
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Today 9:37 AM ESTHarry On The 'Power Of Rural Communities'
Harry said it's important not only to teach young people good working skills, but also to show young people how to monetize those skills. She encourages reverse migration because of the "power of rural communities."
She said young people "have the ability to stay in their community, develop a micro-business, hire people from their communities and make those communities better."
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Today 9:35 AM EST'Young People Are Happening Today'
"Young people are happening today, and they have a say in both the economic process as well as the political process," Harry said.
Harry noted that for the millions of jobs created on the continent of Africa in the last decade, less than 30 percent went to young workers. She said "the ability to provide [youths] with the appropriate skill set so they're not only moving into the work place, but they're also creating jobs themselves through entrepreneurship" is ideal.
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Today 9:32 AM ESTNjideka Harry On 'Appropriate Technology'
Njideka Harry, founder and CEO of YouthForTech, spoke about why "appropriate technology" is so important for the people her company aims to help.
"Appropriate technology is really technology that is accessible and its affordable also to the people that we serve," Harry said.
"We fundamentally believe in rural people and people at the low end of the economic cycle," which she said includes younger uneducated people and women.
Arianna said she's got "thrive style" at Davos, wearing shoes she can have on both out in the snow and indoors at the annual meeting.
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Today 9:10 AM ESTArianna: If People Listen To Jay Z And Then Decide To Help With A Cause, 'That's Great'
Hugh Evans and Arianna said it's not fair to assume there's no meaning behind music that aims to further propel a movement. Arianna said people who may not be committed to a cause can be reached through events like the Global Citizen Festival.
"If they go to the concert just because they want to hear Jay Z, and then they're attached, that's great," Arianna said. "I think we should not be purists about that."
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Today 9:07 AM ESTHow Music Drives Movements
"Throughout history we've seen how music has been a great driver of movements," Hugh Evans said.
"We need a modern-day anthem," Evans added, saying the Global Citizens Festival and other events could help bring that anthem to life.
Jan 20 (Reuters) - Department-store operator J.C. Penney Co Inc is bringing back its hefty print catalog five years after ditching it to focus on the web, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The retailer stopped mailing the 'Big Book' catalog in 2009 and phased out its distribution of 70 smaller catalogs a year later, the Journal said. (http://on.wsj.com/1Cuf2PN)
The move is substantiated with data showing that many of its online sales were driven by what the shoppers saw in print, the newspaper said.
The new, 120-page book will present items from the company's home department and will be sent to select customers in March, the first time it has sent out a catalog since 2010, the report said.
J.C. Penney has been on the rebound this year after reversing an ill-fated attempt to move upmarket under former Chief Executive Ron Johnson.
J.C. Penney could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours. (Reporting by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
Switzerland’s central bank on Thursday ended a three-year campaign to keep its highly coveted currency, the Swiss franc, cheap against the euro and other money. The franc immediately soared in value. This chart from Quartz’s Matt Phillips puts the size of the move in context. The straight line up at the very end of the chart shows the franc’s dizzying one-day move:
This sort of thing inevitably causes pain, particularly for bloodied currency traders.
Also bearing the immediate burden are the people holing up in the charming ski town of Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual exchange of buzzwords.
The jump in the Swiss franc means everything in Davos is going to be more expensive, from champagne to grilled sausages, Bloomberg reports. A glass of Johnnie Walker Blue is up $6 to $41 at the Belvedere Hotel, where many delegates stay and everyone wants to stay.
The thing about Davos, though, is that it was already incredibly expensive before the Swiss currency cap was lifted. The World Economic Forum’s 120 “strategic partners” pay 500,000 francs, or about $577,000, each year just for the privilege of sending five executives to the conference. Each executive then has to pay about $20,000 for a ticket to the conference. Then there are thousands of dollars per person in plane tickets and car bills and hotel rooms, and tens of thousands more to entertain clients in private dining rooms and big cocktail parties.
The result: A small group of wealthy people who had already agreed to be price-gouged will now face a bit more price-gouging.
And things will get even more expensive next year, when the price to be a strategic partner rises to 600,000 Swiss francs. Attendees are already complaining about that price increase, announced in October.
But they can, and will, continue to pay up.
They’ll keep paying because Davos is a good way to generate positive PR; see lots of clients in a really short time; and, above all, gossip and gather information in informal situations.
It doesn’t come cheap. But if you could afford it before the Swiss franc exploded, then you can probably still afford it.
Book that European vacation now, America: It hasn't been this cheap in 11 years.
The euro was in a crashy mood on Friday, briefly falling to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since November 2003, according to Bloomberg. One euro is now about $1.15, down from about $1.40 less than a year ago.
Here is a chart, courtesy of FXStreet.com, singing the sad song of the euro today. It measures the number of dollars a euro will buy. The lower the line, the weaker the euro:
As you can see, Europe's common currency has battled back a bit, but it's still in a deep pit. Here's a longer-term chart, courtesy of Bloomberg.com, for perspective:
What ails the euro? At least three things:
Thing One: Europe's economy is in a depression, basically, that is going on its eighth year.
Thing Two: The European Central Bank is getting ready to buy a bunch of bonds to help the economy. This is basically "quantitative easing," the same thing the Federal Reserve did in the U.S., only about seven years too late. The ECB's bond-buying will flood the market with euros, which will make them cheaper.
Third Thing: The Swiss National Bank on Thursday threw a boulder to the drowning euro by giving up on trying to keep its own currency, the franc, artificially cheap by buying euros. Investors have been buying francs and dumping euros because Switzerland is a safer economy, basically. The Swiss hate that because it makes Swiss vacations even more expensive than they already were. But the SNB finally just said, "Eh, whatevs," and let its currency soar, crushing the euro.
Oh, well, who needs Alps when you can see Paris/Berlin/Venice/Barcelona on the cheap this summer? Assuming, that is, that Europe's problems don't spread overseas and cost us all our jobs.
