Whistleblowers are learning the hard way that they wonâ??t necessarily get their jobs back by exposing problems.
The latest such case involved a former banker who saw his case rejected by an appeals court. The court
ruled that his…
After Mayor Greg Ballard’s upset victory at the polls last November, local arts leaders were in a panic. They worried the
no-nonsense former Marine would put public safety on a pedestal and slash Indianapolis’ funding for cultural groups.
(In deference to ’60s radical Abbie Hoffman and his 1971 cult paperback “Steal This Book,” I hereby relinquish our copyright to this column and give you permission to copy it. I’ll tell you what to do with it later.) Silly me, I thought Mitch Daniels had really shaken things up and done a great job in his first four years as governor. To hear his Democratic opponents in the upcoming election tell it, you’d think he had provided uninspired leadership…
They say the bodies are piled high on Wall Street of those who were right at the wrong time. Well, with all the soured predictions about financial stocks the last year, the grave diggers have been especially busy. It began around a year ago when Bear Stearns began to plunge, and a famous currency trader from England put a few hundred million dollars into the stock. It was at about $120 at the time. Then, Bear fell to $100 in…
A housing crunch resulting from a flood of foreclosures has cast the spotlight on the deceptive practices that cause borrowers-particularly those with weak credit-to unknowingly pay more than necessary for a mortgage. The Federal Reserve earlier this month unanimously approved new lending rules in an attempt to tighten standards and prevent another such crisis. The changes will apply to all mortgage lenders and take effect Oct. 1, 2009. In the subprime category, a lender will have to assess a borrower’s…
Indiana is known as a state possessed of thoughtful and minimalist regulatory constraint of business. That’s why a littleknown law enacted in 2007, which further regulates mortgage brokers, should come as a shock to many Hoosiers. As of July 1, when the law became effective, roughly 600 Indiana mortgage brokers (perhaps 1/10th of 1 percent of all small businesses in the state) were out of compliance. When a one-month extension granted by Secretary of State Todd Rokita expires next month,…
It is likely that “Chakaia Booker: Mass Transit,” the 10-piece exhibition running through April 1, will invite a greater negative reaction than the two previous public art shows that dotted downtown. Unlike Tom Otterness-with his rounded smileys masking money-is-evil messages-and Julian Opie-many of whose “Signs” could have served as, well, signs-Booker creates work that is abstract, defiant and unpolished. The pieces-constructed from tires-aren’t pretty, they aren’t funny, they aren’t slick and they don’t seem aimed to please. As such, they…
A brief rain shower moves across the Front Range onto Colorado Springs. The clouds change their patterns rapidly above Pikes Peak and I sip my coffee at a Starbucks that is unlikely to close. Here, not far from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a brief drive from the U.S Olympic Training Center, the volume of cash passing hourly is heavy enough to ensure that the cappuccino soy latte and the mint mocha frappuccino will continue to be drawn for months,…
A few months ago, after considerable cajoling, my friend Erik convinced me to join yet another online social network. This one’s called Smaller Indiana. It bills itself as “making people and ideas findable.” So now, in addition to being “LinkedIn” with a few hundred of my friends and colleagues past and present, and in addition to being what BusinessWeek calls a “fogey on Facebook,” I’m also a Smoosier-the moniker for Smaller Indiana members. No sooner had I become a Smoosier…
Marion County economic development officials are proud of their latest headquarters attraction. Bowen Engineering Corp.
will inject 103 high-paying jobs into the Indianapolis economy immediately. And over time, the company expects
to add another 138. Their average salaries will top $70,000. The deal didn’t require Mayor Greg Ballard
to travel to Japan, or even to another state. Bowen Engineering is moving all of 8.4 miles, from its former
home in Fishers to the 8800 block of North Meridian Street.
Just a few years ago, Carmel businessman Edward Okun was living the high life. By last year, his personal holdings had grown to include four mansions, a helicopter, three airplanes, 20 automobiles, and a 130-foot yacht. Today, Okun is in a Virginia jail, is represented by a public defender, and faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars. And, angry investors say, rightfully so. They charge-and government investigators agree-that Okun financed his lavish lifestyle by misappropriating…
It was a scary scene, reminiscent of the Great Depression: Customers lined up outside California’s IndyMac Bank branches to withdraw deposits after a bank run led to the bank’s failure. The images have driven some central Indiana customers-businesses and individuals-to take a more critical look at the strength of their banks and the safety of their deposits. Even as financial stocks rallied in mid-July, the risk remains for more bank failures. Dismal earnings reports and massive write-downs continued in recent…
In the early 1970s, employees at Xerox Corp. developed a breakthrough version of the desktop personal computer called the Xerox Alto. The innovation was quickly shelved by the company-everyone knew there was no market for a personal computer! It was later licensed to Steve Jobs along with a few other “orphan technologies” for $1 million in stock in his young company, Apple. The rest, as they say, is history. Xerox is still a solid company, valued at $17 billion. Of…
The Democratic primary race between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and winner Barack Obama attracted
so much attention that the Indiana governorâ??s race got short shrift â?? and the governorâ??s race still isnâ??t
getting the respect it deserves.
Thatâ??s how Jim Schellinger…
It takes years of research for an anthropologist to understand another culture, but doctors and nurses don’t have that much time. With the growing diversity of people receiving health care in the United States, a patient’s cultural background is often ignored or misunderstood by care givers. That can make for a less-than-positive hospital stay or doctor visit or, in rare cases, a catastrophic medical mistake. To avoid any such pitfalls, Community Health Network has implemented Culture Vision, an Internet-based program…
Indiana has generous natural resources. I pumped some of those resources out of my sub-basement twice last month, and pulled some of its finer greenery from my roof and yard as well. The abundance is everywhere, from the farmlands and prairie in the north, to the farmlands, mines and even oilfields in the south. Drop a seed in most parts of Indiana and, if the neighborhood’s not flooded out, that seed will grow nicely. Ask me about my tomatoes. Don’t…
Wall Street often is nothing more than a game of three-card monte, with the majority of players losing because they were looking at the wrong card. It is challenging enough to make money during bull markets. But during bear markets, the distractions and traps are everywhere, and they are lethal. There is a big distraction right now that is masking what could be the falling domino that sends everything else toppling over. The disaster of the month is the near-collapse…
Steve Smith has shaken up the Indiana Health
Care Association so much, the group representing Indiana’s for-profit nursing homes is hardly recognizable to those who knew
it before. And the way Smith tells it, he’s just getting started.
A marketing professor at the Kelley School of Business used to proclaim he could teach all one needed to know about economics in a week. That was back in the days when faculty would spend a few minutes of the morning hours in the coffee room engaged in friendly banter as well as serious discussion. The coffee room and my friend are both gone, but to me, a teacher of economics, the insult remains. Imagine-denigrating my calling, my faith, with…
Richard Blum is a former mountain climber who once led an Everest expedition. In his day job as a professional investor, he’s almost as daring. Twice in the last four years, his San Francisco-based money-management firm, Blum Capital Partners, has bet big on locally based ITT Educational Services at times other investors were terrified of the stock. Blum, husband of Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, began scooping up shares in the for-profit education company in February 2004-one day after federal…
