Cal State East Bay Alum Mag: How Technology is Transforming the Afterlife

By SIMON CONSTABLE

"I’m not sure my mother understands Twitter or why I tell her millions of people love her — but she says she’s ver[sic] touched,” Scott Simon tweeted to 1.3 million followers on his mother’s deathbed.

It was one of many such public announcements the NPR journalist and host of Weekend Edition Saturday made in the weeks leading up to his mother’s passing:

“Heart rate dropping. Heart dropping.” / “You wake up

and realize you weren’t dreaming. It happened. Cry like

you couldn’t last night.” / “Between last minute flights,

fees, lawyers, forms, cemeteries etc. how do families afford

deaths?”

Simon wasn’t the first to do so, but his broadcast of the before, during, and after-death experience inspired both intense public criticism and unfailing support. As one reviewer said, “He just needs an Internet hug.” Another was less sympathetic: “What’s with the tweet when he said he was holding his mother’s hand? I imagined him by his mother’s side doing just that … and typing in his tweet with the other hand. It’s his way of dealing, but in my experience, sometimes you’re more in the moment if you just put your mobile device away.”

Read more here.

Forbes: ObamaCare's Marie Antoinette Moment

By SIMON CONSTABLE

ObamaCare could be facing a Marie Antoinette moment. In case you didn’t know, she was the Queen of France who reputedly said of the starving peasants, “let them eat cake.” That was of course, just like telling someone who is hungry and broke, why don’t you just eat at the Harvard Club like the rest of us?

Marie Antoinette was later beheaded during the terror of the 1790s.

Her comment, which she may or may not have made, seems reminiscent of news earlier this month about the so-called Affordable Care Act. In November, one healthcare insurer warned that it may pull out of the ACA exchanges after 2016, citing low enrollment and poor economics.

There appears to be nothing stopping such a move, which may or may not be ok depending on how you look at the problem. Read more here.

Marie-Antoinette

After Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty , 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Fortune: Here's What Happened to the Great Thanksgiving Pumpkin Shortage of 2015

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It was the pie crisis that wasn’t, at least not yet.

In early October, crop experts warned that a poor pumpkin harvest threatened to ruin Thanksgiving for lovers of one of the holiday’s most famous offerings. And those warnings turned into a national story. One news source screamed, “Pumpkins for Halloween, but shortage looms for Thanksgiving pies.”

Read more here.

U.S. News: These Stocks Will Be Winners This Holiday Season

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The holiday season could be good for investors this year as consumers seem to have found their spending mojo. But it pays to understand where the dollars will likely flow so that investors can target stocks that should outperform analysts' expectations.

"The improving condition of the U.S. consumer implies a fairly brisk holiday shopping season ahead," says Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at professional services firm RSM.

Read more here.

OZY: Building Blocks for A Cheaper Housing Market

By SIMON CONSTABLE

In the mid-1970s, my grandfather retired after decades with the Admiralty, the U.K.’s equivalent of the U.S. Navy, and bought the first home he ever owned — paying 100 percent cash for it. Not bad for a man who spent most of his life getting by on a government salary. These days, the idea that an average working person in Britain or the U.S. could accomplish such a thing seems ludicrous, a truly impossible dream.

Read more here.

Forbes: Should UnitedHealth Be Allowed To Walk Away From ObamaCare?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Well fancy that!

UnitedHealth Group is warning that it may pull out of the Obamacare (a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act) exchanges after 2016. Why? Because enrollment has been low and the people who have enrolled have tended to use a lot of healthcare, which of course costs United lots of money.

If this doesn’t strike you as unseemly then let me explain. With great privilege comes great responsibility. Noblesse oblige, if you like. The greater the privilege  the greater the responsibility.

Read more here.

TheStreet: Why Age Discrimination Hurts Your Mom the Most

By SIMON CONSTABLE

As if women in corporate life didn't already face enough obstacles, new research shows the challenges get worse with age. 

The authors of a National Bureau of Economic Research paper, who examined 40,000 job applications in cities from New York to Chicago and Los Angeles, found "considerably stronger evidence of discrimination against older women than older men" in fields from sales to teaching, administration and security services. 

Read more here.