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Business December 7, 2016

Episode 740: Burnout

The company SpotHero built a Zen Den to help employees avoid burnout. Stacey Vanek Smith/NPR hide caption

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Stacey Vanek Smith/NPR

Exhaustion. Anxiety. Stress. Depression. Forgetfulness. Irritability. Screaming at large bodies of water. These are some symptoms of burnout.

Hospitals, tech companies, schools and law firms all struggle with burnout. Companies try to fix it. But burnout is really tough to solve. Even the psychologist who coined the term “burnout” had trouble preventing it. After working around the clock, he ended up burnt out.

Today on the show, why burnout is such a menace, and how a 26-year-old call center manager tried to beat it.

Music: “Mulitply” and “Evergreen High.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

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Business December 6, 2016

When It Comes To Wealthy Leaders, World Abounds With Cautionary Tales

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi leaves a Catholic hospice in Cesano Boscone on May 9, 2014, after serving his first day of community service for tax fraud. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images

He was a flamboyant, alpha-male billionaire who said things no career politician ever would — someone who promised to use his business savvy to reform the system and bring back jobs. Voters believed that his great wealth insulated him from corruption, because he couldn’t be bought.

But his administration was marked by criminal investigations and crony capitalism.

Italian Prime Minister Silivo Berlusconi was — until Donald Trump came along — the best known example of a certain type of wealthy businessman who decides to go into politics, promising that, as an outsider, he is uniquely qualified to shake up the system, says Darrell West, vice president of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

“Most of the time, they win, and for exactly the same reason that Trump did, which is [that] people like business people. They think they know how to create jobs and run the economy. It’s a kind of white-knight phenomenon,” West says.

In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Bidzina “Boris” Ivanishvili formed his own political party and was elected prime minister in 2012 after the sitting leader threatened to join NATO, West notes. At the time, Ivanishvili was worth more than $5 billion, about a third of his country’s annual economic output.

Other immensely wealthy people who have been elected to office include Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as well as regional and local politicians in Austria, France, Australia and the Philippines.

Many of these politicians succeed by assembling unconventional coalitions and displaying a willingness to think outside the box, West says. But in some cases, their immense wealth can become a problem.

“Over time, people notice that they’re not separating their personal businesses from the government,” West says. “There is corruption. Their friends are getting rich. And by the end, they almost always suffer a big fall in popularity.”

Thailand’s deposed prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra (left), and his wife, Pojaman, greet supporters on arrival at a court in Bangkok in July 2008. He was convicted on conflict of interest charges and lives in self-imposed exile. Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP/Getty Images

Berlusconi came to office bragging that his wealth made him incorruptible, says Alexander Stille, author of The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi. But the Italian leader had a history of bribery and corruption, and his business interests were a lot more tenuous than anyone knew, Stille says.

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Once elected, Berlusconi set about trying to derail investigations into his conduct by rewriting Italy’s penal code and giving immunity to business associates. He even made sure members of his defense team were elected to parliament, Stille says.

“It was a situation where the conflict of interest was massive and entered into some of the most important business of the Italian state,” Stille says.

Despite numerous corruption investigations and trials, Berlusconi clung to power for nine years total, resigning in 2011 after his party lost a parliamentary majority. He has since been convicted of tax fraud and abuse of power, though the latter conviction was subsequently overturned.

The Berlusconi case illustrates what happens when politicians can pursue policies that benefit them financially, and underscores the need to set up strong firewalls between elected leaders and their business interests, says Meredith McGehee of Issue One, a group that works to get money out of politics.

“Those places where you’ve had these kinds of businessmen as leaders and they have not taken steps to take care of these conflicts — their administrations have become bogged down in scandal,” McGehee says.

It also highlights some of the problems that could await President-elect Trump, who has said he will “separate” from his business operations, but so far provided no details.

Trump transition team spokesman Jason Miller said Tuesday that the president-elect sold all his stock holdings in June. A federal disclosure form Trump filed in May suggests his shares were worth tens of millions of dollars, a fraction of his multibillion-dollar fortune, which is largely made up of commercial real estate and golf courses.

Trump’s business holdings are widely expected to become an ethics minefield, presenting the new chief executive with numerous conflicts of interest.

McGehee notes that the United States has often held itself up as a paradigm of clean government, lecturing other countries about the need for strong bribery laws and an independent legal system. Even the appearance of conflict of interest by the Trump administration threatens to undermine that, she says.

“The United States has been the shining light on these issues and has been respected around the world for how you deal with these conflicts,” she says. “And I would hate to see us lose that leadership.”

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Business December 5, 2016

Despite Its Promise, The Internet Of Things Remains Vulnerable

The Nest thermostat is an Internet-connected device. Security technologist Bruce Schneier says that while Internet-enabled devices have immense promise, they are vulnerable to hacking. George Frey/Getty Images hide caption

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More and more of the things we use every day are being connected to the Internet.

The term for these Internet-enabled devices — like connected cars and home appliances — is the Internet of things. They promise to make life more convenient, but these devices are also vulnerable to hacking.

Security technologist Bruce Schneier told NPR’s Audie Cornish that while hacking someone’s emails or banking information can be embarrassing or costly, hacking the Internet of things could be dangerous.

“Unlike computers that only affect bits, the Internet of things affects objects,” Schneier says. “My Internet thermostat turns my heat on and off, Internet-enabled car drives around, and these devices are vulnerable to hacking. And the fear is that they can be used, you know, to kill people.”

Schneier says there is currently no government regulation around the Internet of things, and he fears it will take a disaster for that to change. There also isn’t an organized effort by manufacturers to make these devices more secure.

“Right now, unfortunately, these devices are being sold by the millions, they’re not secure, and bad things are going to happen,” he says. “We saw that a month ago with the attacks against a name server that dropped reddit and Twitter and a bunch of other websites. That attack was caused by vulnerabilities in digital video recorders and webcams and lots of consumer Internet of things devices. And nothing has been done to fix those.”

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Despite these weaknesses, Schneier remains optimistic about the Internet of things.

“The Internet of things has enormous promise,” Schneier says. “The Internet thermostat I bought gives me great control over my heat and air conditioning when I am away from home, and I save a lot of energy. It’s good for the world. It’s good for the environment. …

“We make our trade-offs, and we take our chances,” he continues. “These things are important, but by and large we’re talking about the edges of what are really interesting and exciting technological devices.”

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Business December 4, 2016

2016 Philanthropy Trends: Americans Donate Record $373 Billion

It’s not GoFundMe or Crowdrise but megadonors who are behind the rise in charitable giving. NPR’s Ailsa Chang hears from Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies about the downside to this.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

It’s that time of year when mailboxes are full of letters from charities asking for money. And people are also giving so they can take that end-of-year charitable tax deduction. And according to the latest figures, Americans gave a record $373 billion to charities last year. We’re going to talk more about this with Chuck Collins. He’s with the Institute for Policy Studies, and he has a new report that takes a close look at who is doing the giving.

Thanks so much for joining us.

CHUCK COLLINS: Thanks, Ailsa. Great to be with you.

CHANG: So Americans are giving away nearly $400 billion to charity. That sounds phenomenal to me. What’s the problem with that?

COLLINS: Well, it is good news. And it’s up, like, 10 percent in the last two years. But what it does is it masks a little bit of a troubling trend, which is a lot of the growth in giving is coming from very wealthy donors and their foundations. And there’s a decline of low and middle-income givers over the last 10 years, almost a 25 percent steady decline. So put those two things together, and we’re seeing what we call a top-heavy philanthropy sector emerging.

CHANG: Why is top-heavy giving bad?

COLLINS: Well, you know, when I first did fundraising, there used to be a rule of thumb. They called it the 80-20 rule, which was that 80 percent of your donations would come from 20 percent of your donors. We are now kind of moving toward, like, a 98-2 percent, you know, where 98 percent of your money comes from 2 percent of your donors. So that means there’s more volatility and unpredictability for the independent sector. It means that they’re thinking about oh, how do we cater and maintain and get those big donors? And it could lead to the risk of mission drift, meaning those big donors have a lot of say and a lot of power with the nonprofit organizations. And they may be saying, well, this is what I’m interested in, and those organizations start to morph their missions.

CHANG: I’m just thinking about back to the days of the Vanderbilts and Carnegies and Rockefellers, sort of, you know, those very, very rich people donating. Was it different than it is now in terms of the causes that were supported, the buildings that were built in their names?

COLLINS: The first Gilded Age 100 years ago plus, we have benefited from that – the Rockefeller investments in public health, Carnegie’s libraries that are in a lot of our towns. Then we – you know, really over the last century, we’ve seen the rise of mass giving, a broader set of stakeholders helping lift up this vibrant independent sector we have. And that’s my concern, is we’re sort of going back in the – toward the Gilded Age again. And I think one really important thing to remember, though, is that philanthropy is not a substitute for an adequately funded tax system in a public sector. You and I have a stake in this because every time a billionaire gives money to a foundation, you and I are chipping in 40 to 50 cents in the form of lost tax revenue.

CHANG: I get that we lose tax revenue if the mega-rich move chunks of their money into charities. But isn’t the tradeoff then that causes or arts, organizations are being funded in places where the government isn’t willing to fund?

COLLINS: Taxes and philanthropy pay for different things. Like, I was recently in New Haven, and there’s, you know, this huge nonprofit tax-exempt building boom around Yale. You know, they’re – you know, they’re running out of projects to put wealthy people’s names on. You walk three blocks away and look at the public infrastructure in New Haven around the Yale campus, and you’ll see, you know, deteriorating streets and public infrastructure. So charity does a good job building hospitals, educational institutions, but it’s not a substitute – you know, no foundation is funding to address the the water infrastructure problem in Flint. Only federal and state taxpayer-funded projects can really address some of those deeper needs.

CHANG: So what would you do? How would you discourage wealthy people from siphoning off their assets into charities and instead reroute it into our tax system?

COLLINS: One possible reform is we create an annual cap on the amount of money that can be given while taking a charitable deduction. People can give all they want, but the question is should we as taxpayers subsidize that up to a certain amount? So we could cap the deduction at, say, $200,000 a year, which is something that Donald Trump has said he wants to explore. So that would actually create an incentive to give to charity, but also to not avoid paying taxes.

CHANG: Chuck Collins is with the Institute for Policy Studies. Thanks so much for joining us.

COLLINS: Thanks, Ailsa.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Business December 3, 2016

Barbershop: Kellogg's, Breitbart And Self-Tying Shoes

Republican consultant Puneet Ahluwalia, consultant Jolene Ivey, and Farajii Muhammad of Listen Up! radio take on “rage donations,” corporations getting political and Nike’s new self-tying shoe.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now it’s time for a trip to the Barbershop. That’s where we gather a group of interesting folks to talk about what’s in the news and what’s on our minds. Joining us for a shape-up this weekend are Jolene Ivey. She’s a former Democratic state lawmaker from Maryland. She’s now a public relations consultant. Puneet Ahluwalia is a businessman. He’s active in the local Republican Party in northern Virginia, and he’s serving on the Trump Asian Advisory Committee. And Farajii Muhammad is the host of Listen Up! That’s a radio show on member station WEAA in Baltimore. He’s also director of a youth organization called Peace By Piece. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you all so much for joining us.

FARAJII MUHAMMAD: Thank you.

JOLENE IVEY: Hey, Michel.

PUNEET AHLUWALIA: Thank you.

MARTIN: No newbies here. So let me start with this whole question about corporations and political statements. And we’re talking about this now because of Kellogg’s – you know Kellogg’s. If you had cereal or a Fiber Bar for breakfast this morning, chances are Kellogg made it for you. Now, the company pulled its ads from the news outlet Breitbart earlier this week. Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg’s said, quote, “we regularly work with our media-buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that are not aligned with our values as a company,” unquote.

Now, Breitbart reacted furiously to this and has started a campaign against the company. They say they want you to l’eggo your Eggos because they say that that is disrespectful to their readers. And, of course, some background here – former Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon will be appointed chief strategist in the new Trump White House, and his company, Breitbart – his former company – has been much criticized for featuring content that many people consider racist and anti-Semitic and misogynistic, a platform for the so-called alt-right. So, Jolene, you want to start this off? What do you think about this whole thing?

IVEY: Well, I think that both sides have a right to their their position. I think it’s great when people, you know, use their wallets to speak. And I find it kind of hilarious that Breitbart wants to say that they’re this pro-family organization, and they have all this positive content and how dare Kellogg say this about them. I mean, I’m just kind of shocked that they have the nerve to come up with any of that. I’m glad that Kellogg is doing what they’re doing. And, although, I haven’t done it for years, I want to go out and stock up on Pop-Tarts right now.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: Right this minute. Puneet, what about you?

AHLUWALIA: I think Kellogg is at fault. What has America’s food habits got to do with your social and political leaning? Why are you getting into that? And especially when Breitbart has 45 million readers and…

MARTIN: Well, so they say.

AHLUWALIA: Well, still…

MARTIN: So they say.

AHLUWALIA: Well, again, claims are made by Kellogg also which is…

MARTIN: …(Unintelligible) publicly traded company.

AHLUWALIA: I respect that, but still at the same time, you are trying to push your opinion on the listeners and the readers. And Breitbart responded back rightfully.

MARTIN: Farajii?

MUHAMMAD: It doesn’t make sense. It’s like get over it. This is like spilled milk for Breitbart. I think at this point, I mean – you have 45 million readers. You can find other sponsors, but it’s the simple fact that, you know, you have these conservatives right now that feel like they actually have an exclusive license on the brand of America.

And that’s the problem at this point, and so if Breitbart doesn’t respond, well then so be it. It is what it is. Breitbart, get over it. This is just – this is absolute nonsense. Kellogg’s has over 30-something products on the marketplace at this point. So you’re going to tell everybody to just stop eating cereal and stop eating Pop-Tarts. And – come on, come on. It’s ridiculous.

AHLUWALIA: And that’s exactly what I said. What does America’s food habit got to do with the political and social leaning?

MARTIN: So it’s my understanding that this is generated in part both internally and externally – that there are employees who felt that this was offensive. What about the Chick-Fil-A on the other side of it when progressives didn’t want to eat at Chick-Fil-A? Did you think that was ridiculous, too?

AHLUWALIA: Again, Chick-Fil-A is, again, a great organization giving great food. And they are run by Christian values, and that’s what is important to them and that’s what they follow. But, again, they serve people from all backgrounds and all ethnicities. Kellogg made a very important decision not to serve and not to market on Breitbart’s publication.

MARTIN: So let’s go to the other way. There’s another sort of related story here that a number of progressive non-profits – progressive non-profits Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, a number of others – are now reporting a surge in donations. These are the opposite of a boycott. And there’s even a website called Rage Donate, and some are getting cars along with these donations saying that they are encouraging family and friends to donate to these progressive organizations instead of exchanging gifts.

And some are even saying that they’re – they are donating in the name of family members who voted for President-elect Donald Trump, and that’s the way that they are translating their rage and disappointment. So, Puneet, why don’t I start with you on this? What do you think about that?

AHLUWALIA: Michel, I feel giving is a personal choice. And if people feel that’s what they’re calling is, they should do that, and they feel that they should give to Rage and Planned Parenthood – that’s their calling. But, at the same time, I would rather give my dollars going to making somebody’s life better enhanced in education. Whatever is you’re calling – I think giving is a personal thing. That’s what I stick at.

MARTIN: Jolene, what do you think?

IVEY: Well, I think that what we just said. It’s the same thing. I mean, giving is a personal thing – well, so is what kind of cereal you buy. The Rage donations – I think it’s awesome when people give to Planned Parenthood in the name of Mike Pence. It’s like the best thing. I want them to also give to the Whitman-Walker Clinic in his name also. I think it would be wonderful, but I don’t think that we should do it kind of in anger at your family member. I think that that would be wrong because your relationship with your mother or your sister or your brother is going to last a long, long time and hopefully it will at least outlast this administration.

MARTIN: Do you think it’s spiteful? I mean, if someone were to say, for example – let’s turn it around, Jolene, and someone were to donate to a cause that they know that you disagree with.

IVEY: Like the NRA, for example.

MARTIN: In your – even though you actually shoot and actually are quite a good shot.

IVEY: I do shoot.

MARTIN: So would that offend you? If a family member said, you know what? I’m donating to the NRA in your name, Jolene…

IVEY: Yes. It would…

MARTIN: Would you consider that spiteful?

IVEY: I would find that very spiteful, and, fortunately, no one in my family would do that. I’m so glad to say that.

MARTIN: (Laughter). OK.

IVEY: I think that really people should consider their personal relationships and put them in a separate category, but, politically, I think it’s great when you use that way to protest and give to wonderful organizations like Planned Parenthood of which I’m on the board for the Planned Parenthood of Metro Washington…

MARTIN: OK. Just Getting that in there. Farajii?

MUHAMMAD: Like, you know, the ACLU – they saw a nearly 1,000 percent increase on – leading up to Giving Tuesday, the Trevor Project – they work with LGBTQ community. They saw $85,000 over there in two weeks. The – I think it’s a great idea. But the biggest challenge was – it’s not going to be raising money, but for these organizations to really be on the forefront of accountability and watch-dogging because those who gave this are now going to be expecting something to happen at this point.

They’re going to be expecting Planned Parenthood, ACLU and all these groups to really be on top of the Trump administration. And the concern is if they don’t…

MARTIN: Why is that wrong? What’s wrong with that?

MUHAMMAD: No, no – that’s what I’m saying. That’s not wrong. But I know that working in the nonprofit sector – I’ve done it for many years – there’s been a lot of political red tape. There’s a lot of “staffing,” quote, unquote. There’s a lot of programming and then sometimes, unfortunately, there are a lot of folks who are just working in a nonprofit field just managing change and not really impacting or affecting change. So it’s going to be important that, you know, folks are giving money like this. I mean, ACLU saw $1.7 million. If they’re giving money like this, we need to see these folks really out and about and really, you know, putting the Trump administration to the fire.

MARTIN: OK. And finally today – and this is a little different – so switching gears here, speaking of giving money, a lot of money, to something you believe in, Nike announced earlier this week that their new self-tying shoe…

MUHAMMAD: Yes…

MARTIN: …Is ready to hit shelves. The HyperAdapt 1.0 is a battery-powered shoe that ties itself and – wait for it – it goes for $720. I’m going to go with my guys first on this because I will mention that some of our male colleagues here accused me of a double-standard when I kind of dropped my coffee. And I heard that price, and they said what about all those Manolos and Jimmy Choos? That…

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: So, Farajii, I’ll go to you first on this.

MUHAMMAD: First thing – why?

MARTIN: Is that on your Christmas list?

MUHAMMAD: No, not at all. Not at all. But why? Why is this – here’s the big irony about technology – that we put so much effort and time and work into advancing technology and then…

MARTIN: (Unintelligible)…

MUHAMMAD: …We’re making technology to make…

MARTIN: …Your list because I wasn’t giving it to you…

MUHAMMAD: …Us lazier.

MARTIN: I’m – go ahead.

MUHAMMAD: It just makes us lazier. I mean, now we’re at a point where we’re instead of opening a book, we’re downloading. We have a device now where instead of you walking to turn your lights on, you could just say lights. And now you have a shoe where you – look, hey, man, if you’re having a problem bending over, just get the self-tying shoe. Nike, why? Why? $720 for this? Yeah. I could see people in my neighborhood really wearing this – not. Sorry, not sorry.

MARTIN: (Laughter) Puneet, what about you?

AHLUWALIA: I’m still a Ferragamo guy. I would rather spend a few hundred bucks or six, 700 bucks on Ferragamos.

MUHAMMAD: …Ferragamos.

AHLUWALIA: But, as you know, the whole…

MARTIN: Oh, and Ferragamos. Oh, I see. Note to Santa.

AHLUWALIA: Yeah.

MARTIN: OK. Got it.

AHLUWALIA: Not the Nike 750, but, at the same time, I guess you heard the saying about fire’s a good servant but a bad master. What we’re making technology is a bad master which is basically, as my friend said here, is it’s just ruining our life. And it’s become a master of everything. And the next thing we know, we’re going to have flying shoes and walking – self-walking shoes, so you don’t have to do anything. So I…

MARTIN: Nobody thinks this is awesome? This is fascinating. I…

MUHAMMAD: Jolene – I know Jolene…

MARTIN: Jolene, go ahead. Well, let me just say with your five boys…

MUHAMMAD: Five boys.

MARTIN: …And your husband, if that was on the Christmas list, I think you’d probably – what? – move out of your house? I don’t know. But…

IVEY: No…

MARTIN: What do you think?

IVEY: Actually, my boys wear it as a badge of honor that they grew up wearing Payless shoes because there is no way I was ever going to spend even $100 on somebody’s tennis shoes. I mean, I really don’t spend a lot of money on my own shoes.

MARTIN: Now, wait a minute. You wore it as a badge of honor that they grew up wearing Payless shoes ’cause…

IVEY: No, no, no. You can ask my boys today. OK? They’re not wearing Payless today – I will admit that – but they’re also not buying $200 tennis shoes. And they will tell you themselves that they are glad that they grew up with that kind of value because now they have their heads on straight.

MARTIN: Well – but I do have to ask you, Jolene, because, as I said, some of my male colleagues here accuse me of being sexist when they said, well, why are you talking about this price tag when surely some of those brands made famous by “Sex And The City” and so forth are equally pricey? What do you think – fair or unfair?

IVEY: Well, it’s probably fair, but I’m not one of those people that ever wore shoes like that. And I really cannot wear high heels, so I’m just – that’s just not my thing. And I just don’t wear expensive clothes at all.

MARTIN: OK. No comment on my end.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: That’s Jolene Ivey, Puneet Ahluwalia and Farajii Muhammad, and they were all kind enough to join us here in our studios in Washington, D.C. Thank you all so much for joining us. Happy holidays. And you can privately slip me your list to Santa.

AHLUWALIA: Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: Thank you, Michel.

IVEY: Thanks, Michel. You, too.

AHLUWALIA: Thanks for having us.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Business December 2, 2016

Episode 739: Finding The Fake-News King

There's money to make in the fake news business.

A few days before the election, an extraordinary story popped up in hundreds of thousands of people’s Facebook feeds. This story was salacious. It was vivid, filled with intriguing details. There was a photo of a burning house, firemen rushing in. The headline read, “FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide.”

It was all fake. There was no FBI agent. There was no shooting. The site it was published on, The Denver Guardian, isn’t a real news source. It was one of many fake stories that play into conspiracy theories about the Clintons and it worked.

There is one part of the article that was real: the ads. Someone was making money off this phony news article and dozens of others like it. Someone was making profit off a fake story that suggested a presidential candidate was a killer.

Today on the show, we take this single fake news story and follow the clues all the way back. We follow the digital breadcrumbs until we find ourselves on a suburban doorstep, face to face with the man behind a bogus news empire run. Then he tells us his secrets.

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Check out Laura Sydell’s original story for NPR.

Music: “Turn It Up – Turn It Out” and “Just Killing Time.” Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

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Business December 1, 2016

In Idaho Lumber Country, Trump Voters Wait To See If He Can Jumpstart Jobs

The Tri-Pro Forest Products facility in Orofino, Idaho, closed in October after operators said they didn’t have a steady enough supply of logs to keep the sawmill running and profitable. Kirk Siegler/NPR hide caption

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Kirk Siegler/NPR

A few weeks before the election, the Tri-Pro lumber mill in north Idaho shut down. It was the second mill to close in the area in six months, putting more than a hundred people out of work.

While that’s big economic loss for any community, it was especially tough for the tight-knit town of Orofino and its 3,000 or so residents.

“It’s going to be a struggle, quite honestly,” says Mike Reggear, the supply manager and only employee left on the Tri-Pro payroll.

The mill officially closed Oct. 4, after operating on the site in one incarnation or another for nearly 60 years. The shuttered lumberyard is now eerily quiet as Reggear ties up some loose ends; the old mill, kilns and saws are ready to be hauled out.

“There were living-wage jobs [with good benefits] that have now been lost,” Reggear says, shaking his head.

Like most people in Clearwater County, where Orofino is located, Mike Reggear has spent his entire life working in the timber business. “Clearwater County has taken a double shot to the nose,” he says, following the closure of two mills that left more than a hundred people out of work. Kirk Siegler/NPR hide caption

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Kirk Siegler/NPR

The story behind Tri-Pro’s closure is an all-too-familiar one lately in north Idaho: Reggear says there just wasn’t a steady enough supply of logs available locally to keep the sawmill running and profitable. The amount of federal land open to logging has dwindled since the 1980s, and imports from Canada are cheaper.

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But just like any economic story in rural America today, it’s more complicated than that. And even in Idaho’s deeply conservative timber country, there are mixed feelings over whether President-elect Donald Trump can do much to turn things around.

Changing Times

Timber towns like Orofino, situated along railroad lines and rivers, were put on the map more than a hundred years ago when it seemed like there was a limitless supply of timber in the Northwest woods. The federal government — and specifically the U.S. Forest Service, run as an extension of the U.S. Department of Agriculture — was in the business of actively promoting logging.

Timber mill towns like Orofino were put on the map more than a hundred years ago when the timber supply in national forests seemed limitless. Today many federal lands are closed to logging, and unemployment rates in these towns are among the highest in Idaho. Kirk Siegler/NPR hide caption

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Kirk Siegler/NPR

The environmental mood of the country is significantly different today. So is the economy — mechanization, for instance, has meant that fewer people are needed to log in the woods or work in the mills.

At best, logging is a seasonal occupation, says Jerry Spencer, “so you try to diversify a little bit — because you can’t live on [work] eight months a year.”

One night over Coors Lights at the Ponderosa Restaurant, Spencer says he feels lucky he still can find work as an independent contractor, logging in the woods when he can.

Spencer and one of his buddies had been splitting time between north Idaho and the oil fields in North Dakota and Wyoming, where they drove trucks. Then oil prices tanked.

He’s not too eager to talk politics, but Spencer says he’s glad Donald Trump won.

“I’m Republican, almost everybody in this county’s Republican,” he says. “It’s a logging, resource-based county and that’s how it is.”

Now that the election is over, Spencer says he’s hopeful things can get better — “but I’m not going to bet on it, just yet.”

The main reason for his pessimism, he says, is that even if Trump were to open up more federal land to logging, there are hardly any mills left here to handle all that wood.

Still, the president-elect’s talk of returning to a time when natural resources — mining, timber and oil — were king resonates here.

“Those resources is what built this country,” Spencer says. “You can say what you want, but it was all built off of mining, timber, oil … the United States wasn’t built off of tech companies.”

Urban-Rural Divide

In the rural West, it’s not unusual to hear jabs like that directed at city dwellers. But the divide seems even more pronounced since the election.

Folks in Orofino are proud of their heritage as loggers and miners, but today, Clearwater County routinely has one of the highest unemployment rates in Idaho.

In Orofino’s quaint, small downtown, there are for-lease signs in empty store fronts. Locals will tell you they have to work two or three jobs — at the school, the Best Western, or for one of the local outfitters. Some are forced to commute 40 miles downriver to Lewiston.

Still, when it comes to the latest mill closure, many of the same locals grudgingly say they saw this coming for years.

“The first thing you do is cuss and kick the ground and rant a little bit, but the second is, you pull yourself up by those bootstraps and figure, OK, where do we go from here?” says Chris St. Germaine.

In the 1980s, St. Germaine moved to Orofino to take a job with the U.S. Forest Service after ski-bumming her way across the West. Today she runs the county’s one-person Office of Economic Development.

St. Germaine’s arrival in Orofino coincided with the time that the amount of federal lands available for logging started shrinking. The local timber economy subsisted because of logging on private lands, but even that has flat-lined. So St. Germaine and other civic leaders are pushing to diversify.

Despite the mill closures, it hasn’t been all doom and gloom: A rifle scope manufacturer opened recently, as did a company that makes jet boats. The hope is to draw more companies that cater to the fishing and hunting economy, and retrain mill workers.

“Clearwater County is a place where you can build it here, and test it out your back door,” St. Germaine says.

An Industry ‘Strangled’

But these are all long-term projects that likely won’t help people like Pat Goetz, who is scrambling to find jobs right now.

After working mostly as a bookkeeper in the timber industry since 1986, Goetz was laid off when Tri-Pro closed. So far the only jobs she’s seeing advertised are minimum wage.

Pat Goetz, 63, has worked in the timber industry since 1986. She lost her job and her health insurance when Tri-Pro abruptly shuttered in October. Kirk Siegler/NPR hide caption

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“Once you take timber out of the equation in counties like Idaho County, Clearwater County, there isn’t much else,” she says.

Losing her health insurance was the biggest shock. At 63, she’s not yet eligible for Medicare, and she’s not sure whether she can afford to go on the exchanges to buy a replacement plan.

Goetz says she gets depressed watching, as she puts it, an industry being strangled to death.

“Young kids have to go somewhere else in order to make a living,” Goetz says. “My children had to move out.”

Like a lot of people in town, Goetz also didn’t think twice about voting for Donald Trump. She’s hoping he can help bring back timber towns like hers.

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Business November 30, 2016

Grant Tinker, TV Producer And Network Boss, Dies At 90

Television executive Grant Tinker holds up his 1979 Hall of Fame award alongside his ex-wife Mary Tyler Moore at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ 13th Annual Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Los Angeles. Tinker, who brought The Mary Tyler Moore Show and other hits to the screen as a producer and a network boss, died on Monday. Chris Pizzello/AP hide caption

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Grant Tinker, who brought new polish to the TV world and beloved shows including Hill Street Blues to the audience as both a producer and a network boss, has died. He was 90.

Tinker died Monday at his Los Angeles home, according to his son, producer Mark Tinker.

Though he had three tours of duty with NBC, the last as its chairman, Tinker was perhaps best-known as the nurturing hand at MTM Enterprises, the production company he founded in 1970 and ran for a decade.

Nothing less than a creative salon, MTM scored with some of TV’s most respected and best-loved programs, including Lou Grant, Rhoda, The Bob Newhart Show and, of course, the series that starred his business partner and then-wife, Mary Tyler Moore.

“I am deeply saddened to learn that my former husband and professional mentor Grant Tinker has passed away,” Moore said in a statement. “Grant was a brilliant, driven executive who uniquely understood that the secret to great TV content was freedom for its creators and performing artists. This was manifest in his ‘first be best and then be first’ approach.”

Tinker summed it up with typical self-effacement in a 1994 interview with The Associated Press: “I just had the good luck to be around people who did the kind of work that the audience appreciates. The success just rubbed off on me.”

In 1981, Tinker flourished with that low-key approach in a last-ditch effort to save NBC, which was scraping bottom with its earnings, ratings, programs and morale. Five years later, when Tinker left to return to independent production, the network was flush thanks to hits such as The Cosby Show and Hill Street Blues.

Tinker, who had come to NBC as a management trainee in 1949 with legendary founder David Sarnoff still in charge, left the company for the last time at the end of an era, as NBC, along with its parent RCA, was about to be swallowed by General Electric.

In 2005, he won a prestigious Peabody Award honoring his overall career. In receiving his medallion, he called himself “a guy of no distinct or specific skills (who) always needed a lot of help.” He also had received the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

“Grant Tinker was a great man who made an indelible mark on NBC and the history of television that continues to this day,” said Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, sole owner of the network since 2013. “He loved creative people and protected them, while still expertly managing the business. Very few people have been able to achieve such a balance.”

“His level of class set him apart from everyone else in our business,” said Bob Greenblatt, Chairman of NBC Entertainment, “and all of us at this company owe him a debt of gratitude. In fact, TV watchers everywhere do.”

Bob Newhart said in a statement that MTM created “this magical place where creativity and individuality (were nurtured). I was one of the people who was lucky enough to enjoy that freedom for 14 years on television.”

He “set the bar high both as a television executive and as a father,” said Mark Tinker. “I’m proud to be his son, and especially proud of the legacy he leaves behind in business and as a gentleman.”

Born in 1926, the son of a lumber supplier, Tinker had grown up in Stamford, Connecticut, and graduated from Dartmouth College before his first short stint at NBC.

Then he moved into advertising. At a time when ad agencies were heavily responsible for crafting programs its clients would sponsor, Tinker was a vice president at the Benton & Bowles agency when he helped develop The Dick Van Dyke Show for Procter & Gamble. There he met, and fell for, the young actress the whole country was about to fall in love with: Mary Tyler Moore.

Soon after the new CBS sitcom had begun its five-season run in fall 1961, Tinker returned to NBC, this time as vice president of West Coast programming.

Meanwhile, he and Moore became TV’s golden couple and, in 1962, they wed. (His first marriage had ended in divorce.)

Tinker stayed at NBC until 1967, after which he had brief stays at Universal and Twentieth Century Fox.

Then, with an itch to run his own shop, Tinker founded MTM and began developing its first series: a comedy to revive the flagging career of his wife.

The pilot for The Mary Tyler Moore Show rated poorly with test audiences. The heroine was dismissed for being over 30 and unmarried. Neighbor Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) was deemed too annoying, best friend Rhoda (Valerie Harper) “too New Yorky and brassy (read: Jewish),” as Tinker wrote in his 1994 memoir, Tinker in Television.

But the show, which premiered on CBS in fall 1970, was a critical and popular smash for seven seasons and became the flagship series of a studio whose mewing kitten (parodying the MGM lion) came to signify some of TV’s best.

Along the way, MTM became an incubator for some of TV’s best writers and producers, many of whom — like Steven Bochco, James L. Brooks and Tom Fontana — continue to excel in TV and films.

By 1981, Tinker’s stewardship of MTM had ended (as had his marriage to Moore) when he returned to NBC, where, he recalled in his book, “the company had lost its credibility with every important constituency — affiliates, advertisers, the press, the general public and its own employees.”

Under Tinker’s regime, NBC enjoyed a remarkable recovery. The Cosby Show was an overnight hit, but thanks to Tinker, slow starters such as Hill Street Blues (which was from MTM), Family Ties and Cheers were allowed to find their audience and became hits, too.

“Our practice was to make a judgment about a show,” Tinker recalled, “and, if we deemed it worthwhile, to really stay with it until it succeeded.”

Tinker left NBC in 1986, shortly after the announcement of its purchase by G.E.

He formed another independent studio, GTG Entertainment, in partnership with Gannett Newspaper Corporation, but its few series flopped and the company was dissolved.

Later, in somewhat of a reluctant retirement, Tinker spoke out against much of what he was seeing on television, particularly “reality” fare.

“These guys used to be corporate good citizens,” he told The AP in 2003, referring to TV programmers, “and I don’t see how they can close their eyes and turn their backs on things that air on their networks.”

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Tinker is survived by his wife, Brooke Knapp, sons Michael, Mark (an executive producer of NBC’s Chicago P.D.) and writer-producer John, and daughter Jodie DiLella.

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Business November 29, 2016

Millions Of People Are Having An Easier Time Paying Medical Bills

Juana Rivera, left, speaks with agent Fabrizzio Russi about buying insurance through the Affordable Care Act in Miami on Dec. 15, 2014. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

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The number of people who have trouble paying their medical bills has plummeted in the last five years as more people have gained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and gotten jobs as the economy has improved.

A report from the National Center for Health Statistics released Wednesday shows that the number of people whose families are struggling to pay medical bills fell by 22 percent, or 13 million people, in the last five years.

And that’s good news, according to consumer and health policy advocates.

“The effect on families is profound,” says Lynn Quincy, director of the Healthcare Value Hub at the Consumers Union. “Health care costs are a top financial concern for families, far above other financial concerns.”

Quincy says the number one determinant of whether people can pay medical bills is whether they have insurance.

“The fact that this report shows it’s getting easier, it seems like we should lay a good part of this at the door of the ACA,” she says.

The decline in families worrying about medical bills corresponds with a huge increase in the number of people who have health insurance. In 2011, 46.3 million in the U.S. were uninsured. In June of this year, that figure had fallen to 28.4 million people.

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Much of that increase is due to the Affordable Care Act, whose insurance exchanges were launched in 2013 for coverage starting in 2014.

About 20 million people this year have health insurance because of the ACA, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. That includes about 10 million people who gained coverage through the expansion of Medicaid and another 10 million who buy insurance on the Obamacare exchanges or are young adults covered through their parents’ insurance.

Kevin Lucia, a research professor at Georgetown’s Health Policy Institute, says the insurance offered under Obamacare has more financial protections than pre-ACA policies.

“The coverage is more protective in many ways,” he says. “It doesn’t include annual limits [or] lifetime limits, and it includes a comprehensive benefit package. That may be contributing to the improved data.”

Some of the relief could also come because more people have jobs, so they can more easily pay their bills.

The unemployment rate has fallen from 9.1 percent in January 2011 to just 4.9 percent in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The finding that people are having an easier time paying medical bills may seem surprising because of reports that insurance premiums and cost-sharing have been rising in recent years.

A report in September by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that more and more companies are offering their employees health insurance plans that carry higher deductibles.

But Quincy says simply having coverage is the key.

“People speak loudest when they are faced with increasing deductibles and increase cost sharing,” she says. “But nothing determines the affordability of care than that binary equation: Do you have coverage or do you not?”

The report comes just as President-elect Donald Trump is naming officials to his health policy team who are determined to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Trump has pledged to repeal and replace the health law, and on Tuesday named Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, a vocal opponent of Obamacare, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Repealing the law would hurt the people who are seeing relief from high medical bills as highlighted in this report, says Jay Angoff, a former Missouri insurance commissioner who helped implement the Affordable Care Act at HHS.

“There are millions of people who have coverage under Obamacare,” Angoff says. “What are they going to tell those guys?”

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Business November 28, 2016

Texas, Oklahoma Divided Over How To Handle Earthquakes Linked To Oil Drilling

Oklahoma and Texas have been experiencing a rash of human-caused earthquakes. It happens when oil and gas wastewater gets pumped underground in the wrong places and disrupts faults. Oklahoma officials have cracked down on wastewater injection; Texas is apparently uninterested in doing much. That could mean a lot more quakes given that the country’s biggest oil reservoir has just been discovered in west Texas.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

There’s been a rash of small earthquakes in Oklahoma and Texas in recent years. Scientists say many of these earthquakes are caused by oil and gas operators pumping their wastewater underground. In Texas, a new oil discovery could mean even more drilling wastewater to dispose of. The two states have very different views on how to deal with the quake problem. We’re going to hear from two reporters now, one in each state, starting with Joe Wertz from StateImpact Oklahoma.

JOE WERTZ, BYLINE: The 5.8 magnitude earthquake that struck northeastern Oklahoma in early September was the strongest ever recorded in the state. Scientists suspect this quake, like many others rattling Oklahoma, was caused by oil companies injecting toxic, salty wastewater into underground wells. Matt Skinner with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission says, in the past, regulators have asked the industry to shut down wells and limit injection in quake-prone areas.

MATT SKINNER: Technically, it’s been a voluntary response.

WERTZ: Things have changed. Authorities started by focusing on individual disposal wells. Now disposal well shutdowns and volume limits are more widespread and, since the September quake, mandatory.

SKINNER: What’s happened is we’ve gone from a micro approach – which, while it did have some good results, they were limited in terms of the size of the area that they helped – to a macro approach.

WERTZ: Seismologists say the process of injecting that wastewater underground, often more than a billion barrels of it statewide annually, is disrupting faults and triggering quakes. For more than a year, officials have been asking companies to reduce wastewater injection in hundreds of wells over more than 10,000 square miles, and it’s working. Here’s Oklahoma State University professor and hydrogeologist Todd Halihan talking to lawmakers at a recent earthquake hearing at the state capitol.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TODD HALIHAN: And another piece of really distinct evidence is that in places where you’ve decreased injection rates, you have less earthquakes.

WERTZ: The first research linking the state’s most important industry to the earthquake surge came out in 2013, though leaders like Governor Mary Fallin did not embrace the science until 2015. Earlier this year, Fallin signed legislation clarifying that state oil and gas regulators had the authority to act on earthquake concerns. But by and large, Oklahoma has chosen to respond to the quakes by using current oil and gas rules, not by enacting new regulations or laws. Officials say this is a more nimble approach that allows them to be flexible as new science comes out. Again, Matt Skinner with the corporation commission.

SKINNER: If you make a rule that turns out to be inadequate or maybe even misguided, you can’t change it in a heartbeat. It may suddenly come back to bite you.

WERTZ: Many residents living with crumbling foundations and cracked sewer lines, as well as lawmakers from both parties, think the state could do more. They want Oklahoma to get tougher, to impose disposal well moratoriums or charge the industry fees to pay for quake-related damage. Scientists and officials were cautiously optimistic that an apparent slowdown in earthquake activity meant the regulations were having a lasting effect. But the state was recently rocked by a 5.0 magnitude quake that caused one minor injury, damaged dozens of buildings and caused a temporary shutdown at one of the country’s largest crude oil storage terminals.

CORNISH: That’s Joe Wertz with StateImpact Oklahoma. Now – the view from Texas.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: I’m John Burnett in Austin. As a headline in The Dallas Morning News declares “Oklahoma Shakes, Texas Waits.” The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas activities – not trains – has been much slower than Oklahoma authorities to acknowledge a clear link between earthquakes and disposal injection wells. The town of Azle northwest of Fort Worth was shaken repeatedly in the second half of 2013. Mayor Alan Brundrett remembers.

ALAN BRUNDRETT: And then I jumped up out of the chair, you know, and run out to the back window to see what happened. And then you stop for a second. You think about it, and you’re like, oh, that was an earthquake.

BURNETT: Since 2008, North Texas has experienced more than 250 quakes of 2.5 magnitude or greater. Masonry has tumbled, and Sheetrock has cracked, though not much major damage like in Oklahoma. Texas does have natural earthquakes, but the U.S. Geological Survey concludes the recent North Texas temblors, at least those that have been studied by scientists, are the result of induced seismicity. That is, they’re man-made.

Last year, scientists at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin published a paper about a swarm of 27 earthquakes that happened near Azle. Heather DeShon, a geophysicist at SMU, is a co-author.

HEATHER DESHON: We concluded that there was most likely a link between the earthquakes occurring in Azle and two nearby wastewater injection wells.

BURNETT: The Barnett Shale, which underlies the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, was the site of the nation’s first big fracking boom. By the time of the study, workers had injected 1.7 billion barrels of wastewater and brine from oil and gas wells into the earth. Researchers believe the underground pressure woke up a dormant fault. And before the oil and gas boom, DeShon points out…

DESHON: There’s no record of historical felt earthquakes.

BURNETT: Despite widespread acceptance of the Azle study, the Texas Railroad Commission remains skeptical. Indeed, the commission’s own staff seismologist declared there was, quote, “no substantial proof of man-made earthquakes in Texas,” even though a new research paper documents how oil and gas operations have caused tremors in Texas since the 1920s. Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton says the Azle study is too narrow.

RYAN SITTON: All those pertain to was one set of earthquakes in one concentrated area and two disposal wells. That’s it. That doesn’t tell us anything about the other earthquakes going on in the state. So that’s why we have to do so much more research.

BURNETT: In its quest for more science, the state has funded the deployment of 22 seismic sensors across Texas. The new earthquake-detection network is being managed by the respected Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. Azle Mayor Alan Brundrett is impatient.

BRUNDRETT: I mean, I would like to just see the Railroad Commission say, it is the most likely reason that you had earthquakes in your area, and so we need to be more careful about where we put injection wells.

BURNETT: The Railroad Commission now requires additional information if operators want to put a disposal well in a quake zone. As a partial result, 12 out of 61 well permits have not gone through. Again, commissioner Ryan Sitton.

SITTON: And it is none of our interests to have oil and gas activities causing earthquakes. So if it is, we’re going to take regulatory action to minimize those risks.

BURNETT: Exasperated residents say if you need any more proof, notice how North Texas earthquakes have all but gone away now that low oil and gas prices have slowed activity in the oil patch.

John Burnett, NPR News, Austin.

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