Bain Capital’s Latest Investment: 2012 Voting Machines

Nothing fishy about that at all, folks.

The 47% Hit Halloween

An alternative to the standard ghost costume? The spectral middle class.

When Capitalists Cared

The Article: When Capitalists Cared by Hedrik Smith in The New York Times.

The Text: IN the rancorous debate over how to get the sluggish economy moving, we have forgotten the wisdom of Henry Ford. In 1914, not long after the Ford Motor Company came out with the Model T, Ford made the startling announcement that he would pay his workers the unheard-of wage of $5 a day.

Not only was it a matter of social justice, Ford wrote, but paying high wages was also smart business. When wages are low, uncertainty dogs the marketplace and growth is weak. But when pay is high and steady, Ford asserted, business is more secure because workers earn enough to become good customers. They can afford to buy Model Ts.

This is not to suggest that Ford single-handedly created the American middle class. But he was one of the first business leaders to articulate what economists call “the virtuous circle of growth”: well-paid workers generating consumer demand that in turn promotes business expansion and hiring. Other executives bought his logic, and just as important, strong unions fought for rising pay and good benefits in contracts like the 1950 “Treaty of Detroit” between General Motors and the United Auto Workers.

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Break It Slow

Imagine the moody sparseness of the xx after drinking a 12-oz Red Bull. Bam, you’ve got Deaf Club’s new song, “Break It Slow.”

Mitt Romney Debates Himself

Now if they only had a hologram Mittens to give his other opinion at the next debate, life would be perfect.