By Zachary Goelman

Researchers at the Williams Institute at UCLA found a large income gap between same-sex couples and married heterosexuals - even more pronounced among non-white gays and lesbians, who make up 20% of same-sex parents. In the summer of 2004 Della Nagle and Ruth Pinkham dropped their kids off at summer camp, hopped on a flight from San Antonio, Texas, to Niagara Falls, Canada, got married, and quickly flew back home.

Nagle, 46, and Pinkham, 52, have been in a committed lesbian relationship for 22 years. Both are public school teachers, each with 20 years of experience. They have eight children. The four youngest still live with them in their six-bedroom San Antonio house.

The state of Texas will not recognize their wedding. They cannot register as domestic partners, and are not protected by anti-discrimination legislation.

“We often think about leaving the state,” said Nagle, who was born in Corpus Christi and has lived in San Antonio for 18 years. “But I don’t know anywhere else where we could afford to live like we do on our incomes.”

Nagle and Pinkham each earn $50,000 annually. And statistically, they’re living well. In Texas, same-sex households with children take in, on average, only $53,000 a year, compared with the $67,500 average household income for a heterosexual family with children.

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By Josh Fineman and Tim Catts

Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz said the U.S. economy is in a ``tailspin'' and the coffee-shop chain will offer discounts and new drinks to lure back customers.

Starbucks, the world's largest chain of coffee shops, also said today it would acquire Coffee Equipment Co., the maker of the $11,000 Clover machines that brew one cup of coffee at a time. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

``You have an economy that really is in a tailspin, and many would say the consumer is in a recession,'' Schultz told more than 6,000 shareholders at the company's annual meeting in Seattle. ``We are dealing with things that we haven't seen before in terms of how people are responding to how tough it is.''

Schultz, who built the Seattle-based coffee chain into a corporation with almost 16,000 cafes, is counting on new styles of coffee and a slowdown in store openings to halt two quarters of customer declines. First-quarter revenue rose 17 percent, the smallest gain in two years, as consumers cut spending and McDonald's Corp. promoted lattes and cappuccinos.

Starbucks will introduce a new coffee blend and will add an automated espresso machine, which uses freshly ground beans, at most locations in the next few years.

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CHICAGO (AP) - Sears Holdings Corp. said Monday its president and chief executive will step down this week, the latest blow for an ailing retailer that's struggling to connect with customers and invigorate slumping sales.

Aylwin B. Lewis will be succeeded by W. Bruce Johnson, an executive vice president of supply chain and operations who will fill the role on an interim basis. The company is controlled by chairman Edward S. Lampert, the hedge fund kingpin who has recently announced plans to reshape it.

The 121-year-old retailer, which owns 3,800 Sears and Kmart stores in the U.S. and Canada, has been plagued by falling sales and increased competition from companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp.

Sears shares, which reached a high of $195.18 in April, fell $2.35 to $96.65 in morning trading Monday.

Lewis, 52, was an executive at fast-food chain Yum Brands Inc. with little retail experience when Lampert hired him to become president and CEO of Kmart in 2004. A year later, he assumed the same role for Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holdings.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) — They had small means and big hopes of owning a house. But African-Americans snared in the US mortgage crisis have seen the American dream turn into a nightmare many call "financial apartheid."

The storm triggered by risky "subprime" loans has left many in ruins, forced out of their modest homes and furious at falling victim to financial dealings that have taken a particular toll on minority families.

"People of color are more than three times more likely to have subprime loans," concluded the organization United for a Fair Economy in a recent report which estimated that minorities have seen between 163 billion and 278 billion dollars of their equity go up in smoke since 2000.

With its weakened economy and a large black population more used to renting, Cleveland has become a poster child of the subprime crisis in a country where some 2.1 million borrowers are behind on their mortgage payments.

City officials estimate that foreclosures have swallowed some 70,000 homes and turned entire neighborhoods into ghost towns.

The city has responded by suing lenders, accusing them of targeting black borrowers and steering them to the loans granted with few formalities and at hefty interest rates to people with poor credit histories.

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Columbia (WLTX)- Josherbert Thompson tries not to make a habit of using check cashing businesses, but sometimes she has no choice.

"If you've got a bill that's due and you owe the bank money, your not going to go to the bank but a check cashing place," says Thompson.

And she's hardly alone. In the U.S., 22 million households have no bank account at all.

The problem is even worse for African-Americans. "Most of the time that's all you see coming into the check cashing places are African-Americans," says Thompson.

According to data gathered by the South Carolina Council on Economic Education, 46 percent of African-American households don't have checking or savings accounts. "It's easier, a lot of banks want to charge you fees," says Thompson.

"The check cashing places don't charge you as much." But Larry Wilson, Chairman of the SCCEE says don't be fooled by the fees. "It can be a significant portion of the take home pay of workers," says Wilson.

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Stores promoted African-American writers

By Andrea K. Walker

Karibu Books started off as a kiosk specializing in books for African-Americans, but over the years transformed into something more.

It became a place where African-American authors could promote their books when mainstream stores turned them away. Some went on to become best-selling authors.

Now, after 15 years, Karibu (ka-REE-boo) is going out of business, leaving behind what some say will be a cultural void.

On Sunday, the chain based in Temple Hills, in Prince George's County, will close its Woodlawn store at Security Square Mall, as well as a store in Forestville in Prince George's County. It will close three other Prince George's stores Feb. 10. The chain's store in Pentagon City in Virginia shut its doors last month.

"Everyone will be affected by this - our readers, our community of writers and publishers," said Paul Coates, owner of Black Classic Press, a Baltimore publishing house that frequently turned to Karibu to promote its authors. "As a publisher we've lost a major outlet. But more importantly, our community has lost an institution."

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By Christina Kasica

A new report says the subprime mortgage crisis will cause African-Americans to experience wealth losses of between $71 billion and $122 billion over its duration. The racial bias of subprime mortgage lenders accounts for a 40 percent difference in losses between whites and people of color.

This will mark the fifth year that United for a Fair Economy (UFE) has published a State of the Dream report on Jan. 15, the actual date of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, which will be officially celebrated on Jan. 21. This year's report, "Foreclosed: The State of the Dream 2008".

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Microsoft founder Bill Gates pitched a new form of capitalism on Thursday that would help better serve the neglected poor in a speech to company bosses assembled in Davos.

He posited that capitalism worked because people were motivated by self-interest to create wealth, but the system did not reflect the other key driver of human behaviour: the desire to help others.

This could be overcome if companies made more philanthropic gestures and gained recognition from the public for doing so. They could also work at stretching their activities to serve neglected and seemingly unattractive markets.

"The challenge here is to design a system including profit and recognition to do more for the poor," he said, calling for a new form of "creative capitalism."

"Creative capitalism is an approach where governments, businesses and NGOs (non-government organisations) work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit or gain recognition doing work that eases the world's inequalities," he said.

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Countless Families Face Impending Foreclosure

By D. A. Campbell

Lured by the idea of an easy transition from renter to homeowner, Natasha Layne purchased her dream home in Brooklyn with a $650,000 mortgage loan with no down payment and an attractive teaser rate. Less than a year later, faced with comprehensive electrical damage, tenant woes, and a wealth of property damage, Layne and her husband tried to refinance–only to find that no lender would touch the loan. What’s more, with the upward correction of adjustable rate loans, one of their dual mortgage payments–of $3,000 and $1,500–increased by more than $600.

Financially strapped, unable to afford their mortgage, and inundated with foreclosure notices, the couple didn’t resort to a short sale, which would’ve allowed them to sell the house at a substantially lower price than it was worth, they turned instead to their mortgage company, SunTrust Mortgage. When SunTrust refused to restructure their loan or offer another viable resolution, Layne joined countless other homeowners on the front lines of the escalating subprime mortgage financial crisis. "I admit we were unaware of many important points about the home buying process. But when we explained our hardship to SunTrust to get some leniency, we got nothing. Now we have no guidance, no reliable counseling, nowhere to turn, and the foreclosure notices are pouring in," laments Layne.

By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON -- We're not who we think we are.

The American self-image is suffused with the golden glow of opportunity. We think of the United States as a land of unlimited possibility, not so much a classless society but as a place where class is mutable -- a place where brains, energy and ambition are what counts, not the circumstances of one's birth. But three important recent studies suggest that Horatio Alger doesn't live here anymore.

The Economic Mobility Project, a research initiative led by the Pew Charitable Trusts, looked at the economic fortunes of a large group of families over time, comparing the income of parents in the late 1960s with the income of their children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Here's the finding that jumps out at me:

"The 'rags to riches' story is much more common in Hollywood than on Main Street. Only 6 percent of children born to parents with family income at the very bottom move to the very top."

That's right, just 6 percent of children born to parents who ranked in the bottom fifth of the study sample, in terms of income, were able to bootstrap their way into the top fifth. Meanwhile, an incredible 42 percent of children born into that lowest quintile are still stuck at the bottom, having been unable to climb a single rung of the income ladder.

By George Mwangi

NAIROBI -(Dow Jones)- Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) is spending more than $6 million in aid projects in East Africa in a move to double its purchase of fine coffee from the region by 2009.

The world's largest coffee chain bought 360,000metric tons of coffee last year, of which only 6% came from East Africa, according to a company spokesman Friday, adding that the company's aim was to increase this proportion to 12%.

Director of Communications for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Hans Van Bochove, told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Amsterdam that Starbucks is helping farmers in East Africa to improve their coffee quality and raise their earnings.

As a result "the quality is improving, farmers are increasing yields of good quality coffee beans," said Van Bochove.

Coffee output from the region, particularly in Kenya, has been on the decline due to low coffee prices caused by a glut in the global market.

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Forty years after the Civil Rights Era, African-Americans are falling further behind whites economically.

By Joshua Holland,

Thirty years after the civil rights era, middle-class African-American families face a grim reality: their kids are far more likely to experience downward mobility in today's economy than they are to move up.

For both black and white families, America's vaunted upward mobility is largely a myth, and research suggests that Americans actually enjoy less upward mobility than people in many other wealthy countries. (I discussed this phenomenon at some length in a recent article.) But the outlook is different for white and black families.

Many Blacks Worse off Than Their Parents, Study Says

By Michael A. Fletcher

Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study -- a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans.

Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children.

According to USATODAY, celebrities like Jay – Z to supermodel Gisele is using EURO dollars now instead of American dollars and Gisele prefer to be paid in Euro.

The falling buck now worth less than the Canadian dollar and down 40% against the Euro.

By this measure Americans is feeling the effects, from high gas prices to expensive steel. The main reason given were we consume too much ( meaning: greedy) and save to little (meaning: why save when you can spend). On the larger scale, credit deficit poor performance of our stock markets and doubts that we, Americans can handle our financial affairs, which make for world investors not to invest in our economy or country

All its saying that in all scheme of things money makes the world go around and how can we make the world go around when America is experiencing a 92 trillion deficit? With a weak dollar and a weak economy, you will have less of a voice in the world economics and less influence with world political leaders.

If we ever get our financial house n order, maybe we can gain more respect from rap artist and models alike.


Source: USATODAY

Trite as it may sound, the old adage that a business is only as good as its people is often true. And for Microsoft, a commitment to being a great company with great people has paid off with the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) naming Microsoft as their No. 1 employer of preference in NSBE’s 19th annual employer preference survey. This recognition comes, as NSBE Executive Director Carl Mack puts it, “At a very important time for NSBE, for Microsoft and for diversity in the high-tech industry as a whole.”

There isn’t anyone that disputes that there is a major shortage of African Americans entering engineering professions – especially computer science. In fact, of the 310 million computer science graduates in the United States in 2002, fewer than 23 million – or 7 percent – were black, according to a study by the National Science Foundation.

This lack of young black men and women poses a particular problem for companies like Microsoft that see diversity as part of their core mission, and thrive on the variety of ideas and innovations that can only be fueled by a wide range of people from a multitude of backgrounds.

Like many other major technology companies, Microsoft knows that its competitive edge could be dulled by the startling lack of technical talent being produced in the United States today.

“The shallow pool of skills is due, in part, to the lack of minorities being drawn into technology – and the ideas that they aren’t sharing,” says Mack. “Minorities make valuable contributions every day, and Microsoft understands, respects and encourages that.”

Microsoft is working with the National Society of Black Engineers and hiring and promoting African-American programmers and engineers.

By Paul McDougall

A recent study says that less than 10% of graduates of computer science programs in the U.S. are black -- a fact that will contribute to a shortage of technology professionals in the years ahead, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) chairman Bill Gates said.

"The United States is not turning out from any group as many of the great engineers as there will be jobs for," said Gates, who added that blacks are particularly underrepresented in the tech industry because high school dropout rates in the black community exceed 50%.

"That is a stunning number ... the trends are very much working against somebody in that situation," said Gates, speaking Friday at a conference hosted by the National Society of Black Engineers at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters.

By Jeff Bercovici

The magazine industry has found an unlikely champion of diversity: Men's Vogue. While other magazines shy away from putting African-Americans on the cover in the belief that they don't sell as well, the new Conde Nast men's magazine has devoted four of its 12 covers so far to black men: Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, Denzel Washington and, in December, Will Smith.

Is this just a statistical anomaly, or is Men's Vogue courting black readers the way corporate cousin Details cultivates a gay audience: not exclusively, but purposefully?

"I don't think that Tiger or Senator Obama appeal only to one segment of the population," says editor in chief Jay Fielden. "In fact, they proved to be two of the best-selling covers we've ever done, and we have good reason to expect even more from Denzel Washington and Will Smith. If there is some industry rule of thumb that you can't have African-Americans on the cover more than so many times a year, then we're glad to be the ones disproving it."

By Toby Harnden

A black conservative Christian pastor of an evangelical megachurch has vowed to take over Microsoft by packing it with new shareholders who will vote against the company's policy of championing gay rights.

The Reverend Ken Hutcherson, a former Dallas Cowboys linebacker, heads the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, home of Microsoft.

He told Microsoft executives at a shareholders' meeting last week that he would be their "worst nightmare" if they continued to defy him.

Antioch Bible Church attracts around 3,500 worshippers for its services and Mr Hutcherson is a powerful figure in the Christian conservative movement.

His church, which emphasises racial diversity and a strict moral code, grew from a bible study class for just 15 people in 1984.

An advocate of a "biblical stance" against divorce and homosexuality, Mr Hutcherson, 55, is asking millions of evangelical activists, as well as Orthodox Jewish and other allies, to buy up Microsoft shares and demand a return to traditional values.

Microsoft, he declares, will be just the first company targeted in an escalation of the culture wars between evangelicals and corporate America.

"There are 256 Fortune 500 companies alone pouring millions upon millions of dollars into pushing the homosexual agenda," he told The Daily Telegraph.

"I consider myself a warrior for Christ. Microsoft don't scare me. I got God with me.

By ELLEN SIMON

NEW YORK (AP) — It's getting lonelier at the top for black CEOs.

Only four blacks will be left running Fortune 500 companies after Stan O'Neal's abrupt retirement from the top spot at Merrill Lynch & Co. last week and Time Warner Inc. Dick Parsons' announcement Monday that he will retire at the end of the year.

That leaves Aylwin Lewis at Sears Holding Corp., Kenneth Chenault at American Express Co., Ronald Williams at Aetna Inc. and Clarence Otis at Darden Restaurants Inc. as the only black chief executives among this list of the nation's largest companies.

To some, the departures of O'Neal and Parsons underscore that all CEOs, whatever their race, have a short shelf life.

"In the best situations, these are not jobs you hold on to for more than five to seven years," said Alfred Edmond Jr., editor-in-chief of Black Enterprise magazine. "The bulletproof CEOs of the '80s — those days are long gone, even for white men."

Marketers miss out by not speaking our language

By Tennille M. Robinson

Marketers have long acknowledged the cool factor in being black. Couple that with black buying power -- an estimated $761 billion -- and African Americans with commercial influence make up a formidable group.

But the African American market remains underappreciated by marketers and advertisers. With all of its diversification, the African American market is continually seen as a monolithic group that can be addressed through mainstream media. Frustration over this view led veteran advertising and marketing specialists Pepper Miller and Herb Kemp to write What's Black About It? (Paramount Market Publishing; $39.95) "The thing that most disturbed us is that many marketers think African Americans speak English so we don't need to do anything special to talk to them," says Kemp.

The most effective communications to the African American market are campaigns that highlight families and community strength, according to Miller.