Income and Happiness: An Imperfect Link

from The New York Times - click for full article

By ROBERT H. FRANK

Published: March 9, 2008

DOES money buy happiness? This week, Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, will join a long line of people who have taken serious stabs at trying to answer that thorny question. He will hold a hearing exploring whether traditional economic measures like per-capita income accurately capture people’s sense of well-being.

David G. Klein

This has long been a contested issue. Although everyone concedes that income is an imperfect welfare measure, conservative economists have tended to emphasize its virtues while liberals have been more likely to stress its shortcomings.

[posted for Melissa!]

Banks Springing Up to Serve the Underserved

from The New York Times (click here to read full article)

By LIZ GALST

Published: March 8, 2008

AT first glance Raleigh, N.C., may not seem like a logical place to open a Latino-oriented bank. After all, Raleigh is not a city like Los Angeles, for instance, where more than 47 percent of the population is Hispanic.

Jenny Warburg for The New York Times

David Flores, left, chief executive of Nuestro Banco saw an opportunity to offer special banking services like check cashing for immigrants and small-business loan applications in Spanish.

Jenny Warburg for The New York Times

Nuestro Banco opened in September in North Carolina.

But David Flores, a former senior vice president at Chase Manhattan Bank, looked at the skyrocketing Hispanic population in North Carolina — from 1990 to 2006, it rose to 593,385 from a mere 76,726 — and saw a business opportunity.

Hats Off-Who Needs Money?

from the London Telegraph (click for full story)

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 08/03/2008

Is bartering the answer to the credit crunch? Lucinda Labes on a modern version of an old way of trading

I am in a bakery, collecting a cake that is nearly the size of my toddler. It is red, shiny and looks like Postman Pat's van. It should pass muster at the birthday party next week. But, best of all, I'm not handing over a penny.

	Exchange and smart: Lucinds Labes tries on hats with Richmond milliner Mary Spiteri, who is pinning her trade hopes on the Bartercard scheme

How come? I am the newest member of Bartercard UK, a pool of 4,000 British businesses that trade work, rather than cash, for their endeavours. Many more could soon be on its books if recession hits the country.

NJ students punished for penny payments

READINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Sometimes a penny for your thoughts isn't a good thing. Readington Township school officials gave 29 students detention after they used pennies to pay for their $2 lunches.
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Superintendent Jorden Schiff says it started out as a prank. But as the eighth-graders began to get in trouble for taking up so much time, it turned into a protest about Thursday's shortened lunch period.

Schiff said the students were punished for holding up their peers and disrespecting lunch aides.

Schiff said some parents think a two-day detention went too far and others think it wasn't enough.

The school said it wants students to know they can express themselves without disrupting other people.

Aren't pennies money?

Waitress gets $50,000, car from cranky Texan

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - For nearly seven years Melina Salazar did her best to put on a smile and tend to the every need of her most loyal and cantankerous customer.
She made sure his food was as hot as he wanted, even if it meant he burned his mouth. And she smiled through his demands and curses. The 89-year-old Walter "Buck" Swords obviously appreciated it, leaving the waitress $50,000 and a 2000 Buick when he died.
"I still can't believe it," the Luby's cafeteria employee told Harlingen television station KGBT-TV in an interview during which she described Swords as "kind of mean." Swords, a World War II veteran, died in July. But Salazar learned just a few days before Christmas that he had left her the money and car.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22424002/

Pizza Hut waitress gets a $10,000 tip

Jessica Osborne, a waitress at Pizza Hut, has a dream to go college and pursue a career in photography. But with the lack of money, she can not do so.
But one Friday evening, her dream did come true. Her regular customer Becky, who orders the same pizza every Friday, gave Jessica a $10,000 tip to help pursue her college education. Becky had recently received a huge settlement from an accident that took the lives of her oldest daughter and husband. Becky gave Jessica a $10,000 tip to help pursue her career and thought it was the right thing to do.



http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2006/08/31/bartender-gets-10000-dollar-tip-on-26-dollar-tab/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fnews%2F2006%2F08%2F31%2FD8JR9I800.html&frame=true

Bartender Gets $10,000 Tip on $26 Tab

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) - Two weeks ago, one of Cindy Kienow's regular customers left her a $100 tip on a tab that wasn't even half that. This week, he added a couple of zeros.
Kienow, a bartender at Applebee's, got a $10,000 tip from the man—for a $26 meal—on Sunday.
"I couldn't move," Kienow said. "I didn't know what to say. He said, `This will buy you something kind of nice, huh?' And I said, `Yeah, it will.'"
Kienow said the man, whom company officials have declined to name, comes in several times a month and eats at the end of the bar. He has always tipped well, she said, usually leaving $15 on a $30 tab.
Then came the $100 tip, followed by the real shocker.
"He usually signs his ticket and flips it upside down," said Kienow, 35, who has worked at the restaurant for eight years. "But this time, he had it right-side up and said `I want you to know this is not a joke.'"
It's not, company officials agreed.
"This is a great deal for us and a great deal for Cindy," said Rhodri McNee, vice president of operations for JS Enterprises, the owner of the Hutchinson Applebee's. "We did have a guest leave this tip on a credit card, and we're doing everything to make sure it's a valid charge."
The company is in the final stages of verifying the tip, McNee said, while also working to maintain the customer's privacy and make sure the money goes through the proper channels to get to Kienow.
"Nothing would make us happier than to present her with that check," McNee said. "She's been with us for eight years, and she's a great employee who does a great job."
Kienow said that while she always talks with the man when he comes in—usually about current events or the weather—she can't think of anything that would have prompted the huge tip.
"I've been waiting on him for about three years," Kienow said. "We'd just talk across the bar he's a really nice guy. I hope he comes back in so I can tell him thank you, because the other day I was kind of dumbfounded."
Kienow, whose father will have to take some time off work for surgery on both of his knees, said she hasn't decided what to do with the money.
"I'd like to take care of my parents, since they always took care of me," she said. "But I feel like he wanted me to buy something for myself, and there's a Jeep that I've had my eye on for a while."

http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2006/08/31/bartender-gets-10000-dollar-tip-on-26-dollar-tab/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fnews%2F2006%2F08%2F31%2FD8JR9I800.html&frame=true