Author: Tom Silva

Two of the nation’s leading billionaire philanthropists are joining forces to encourage others to donate as much as half of their wealth to charities.  Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett are teaming to create the Giving Pledge, “an effort to invite the wealthiest individuals and families in America to commit to […]

Two short words are being heard in offices that have been absent for some time.  The words are:  “I quit.”   In the last three months, more Americans have quit their jobs than were laid off, a sharp contrast with the last few years that points to a gradually thawing jobs market. Although some of […]

Breakthrough ideas that change industries are increasingly coming from the developing world rather than the United States or Western Europe.  Part of this is due to the fact that the West is outsourcing more research and development to emerging markets.  Currently, Fortune 500 firms have 98 research-and-development facilities in China and an additional 63 in […]

State-owned holding company Dubai World is in talks to renegotiate $26 billion of debt and asking its banks for approval to defer loan payments.  The banks are hoping to avoid a haircut – taking less money than they are owed.  Dubai’s government also might provide a guarantee to the banks that are owned money.  Dubai […]

The economic upheavals of recent years have changed Americans in ways that we are still coming to terms with because it marks the end of an era.  The Great Recession was anything but an ordinary downturn and the way we live and work has been transformed.  Construction and auto jobs have declined by one-third; retail […]

The Great Recession has taken a toll on the famous American optimism and belief in social mobility as defined by the stories of such luminaries as Alexis de Tocqueville, Horatio Alger and Barack Obama.  According to a poll by YouGov for The Economist, 39 percent responded that the opportunities available to them were not as […]

Urban cores with challenging infrastructure issues are not getting the right attention from government, so planners are creating their own public/private partnerships to obtain funding from various city sources to pay for necessary upgrades.  And, according to A. J. Robinson, President of Central Atlanta Progress (CAP) and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (ADD), his organization […]

Detroit is undergoing a radical downsizing – the most ambitious urban makeover in American history – that will shrink the city’s current 139-square-mile footprint to approximately half that size as abandoned neighborhoods are consolidated and returned to productive farmland. Mayor Dave Bing, a former Detroit Pistons player and All Star, is determined to shrink the […]

A 2010 survey conducted by the National Association of Business Economists (NABE) released in April confirms that the economy is in recovery, with industry demand showing expansion for a third consecutive quarter.  There’s good news in the fact that expectations for economic growth have spiked significantly.  Approximately 25 percent of survey respondents believe the real […]

Business travelers and vacationers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean recently were stranded by the spectacular eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull Volcano that created an ash cloud so large it covered significant portions of Europe and disrupted air travel.  Although the flight delays were the result of an act of God, employees concerned about retaining […]