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Everything is AWESOME!

That's right, the G20 is fixing the entire Global Economy right... now! There, did you feel it? All better. I for one am so relieved I'm going to take all of my cash off the sidelines and buy overpriced stocks - how about you? This morning, our fabulous 20 World leaders took time off from solving ISIS and Climate Change to issue a communique declaring their intent to raise the GDP of our entire planet by 2% by 2018 "as announced in Brisbane last year."

As I noted in our Morning Alert to Members, this is the same goal they have miserably failed to accomplish for the last 7 years but hope springs eternal I suppose - I just wish I was still young and stupid enough to believe that our leaders were somehow wise enough to solve ONE of these issues - let alone all of them. Just check out item number 6 and tell me how much confidence you have in getting this accomplished:

6. We are committed to ensure that growth is inclusive, job-rich and benefits all segments of our societies. Rising inequalities in many countries may pose risks to social cohesion and the well- 2 being of our citizens and can also have negative economic impact and hinder our objective to lift growth. A comprehensive and balanced set of economic, financial, labour, education and social policies will contribute to reducing inequalities. We endorse the Declaration of our Labour and Employment Ministers and commit to implementing its priorities to make labour markets more inclusive as outlined by the G20 Policy Priorities on Labour Income Share and Inequalities. We ask our Finance, and Labour and Employment Ministers to review our growth strategies and employment plans to strengthen our action against inequality and in support of inclusive growth. Recognizing that social dialogue is essential to advance our goals, we welcome the B20 and L20 joint statement on jobs, growth and decent work.

Apparently, if the G20 is going to grow the global economy at a 4% pace, they'll have to do it without the United States, as the Congressional Budget Office forecasts just over 2% growth in the US in 2018 and forward and we're already 33% off the 3% target for 2015.

Still, we're Americans, we never let facts get in the way of a good story, do we? It's a very American-style market everywhere in the World at the moment as traders have decided to believe ANYTHING they are told - as long as it's positive. Bad news is good news and good news is good news and no news is good news to the market at the moment.

Even we couldn't resist adding a bullish play on Apple (AAPL) in our Live Member Chat Room yesterday, as they tested $112.50 in the morning. In the afternoon, we took a long spread on Disney (DIS) as well as they crossed back over the $115 line. Fortunately, we have plenty of cash on the side to go bargain-hunting with and this morning, in the Alert mentioned above, we had a great opportunity to go long on Natural Gas Futures (/NG) for reasons we mentioned inside. The ETF (UNG) can also be played long at $9.75, though we may test $9.50 before heading higher.

We have a Live Trading Webinar this afternoon at 1pm, EST and we'll discuss these trade ideas in-depth as well as some ideas from the weekend's Butterfly Portfolio Conference. In last week's webinar, we noted that VLO would go lower (check) and UNG would go higher (check but back down now) but we were wrong on gold (so far) but nailed FXI short and NRF went flying yesterday while BID is still playable. As noted in yesterday's post, our S&P and Nikkei Futures shorts were perfect last week and we'll just have to see what opportunities present themselves this afternoon.

As to the economy, etc. - this Business Insider chart of the day really is the Chart of the Day:

cotd buybacks

Without buybacks, EPS growth in Q3 would be NEGATIVE. And what are buybacks, they are companies using valuable cash or, even worse, going into debt in order to buy back their own shares which then reduces the total amount of shares that the earnings are divided by - giving them a better-looking Earnings Per Share than they would have otherwise. This allows CEOs and their boards to keep their jobs and get massive performance bonuses while only sacrificing the future of the company they will be long gone from by the time the day of reckoning hits.

cotd sp500 flows What buybacks really accomplish is making the market look good - even in a bad economy. The amount of money flowing into equities has actually decreases since 2010 but the market is climbing because there are now far less shares for the money to flow into. So the shares get more expensive based on scarcity, not value.

And, for those of you who think scarcity is value - I would direct you to a recent chart of BitCoins or Gold - neither of which seem to be benefiting from being rare items at the moment. What's worse about buybacks is that companies are taking either money they have earned or new debt and they are not using it to expand their business in the future, but to simply buy back their own stock - often at prices that are already inflated.

So later, if the stock price comes down, the company still has less money and/or more debt AND they have wasted the capital on shares that are down 10-20% as well. And that money NEVER comes back because the company doesn't benefit from rising share prices at all - those shares are destroyed or "retired" as they like to say and simply cease to exist - there is no upside for the corporate entity in reducing its share count - only for the management who are rewarded for corporate performance by getting even more of the company's cash in exchange for playing shell games with the books!

This year, just like in 2007, buybacks and dividends will be higher than corporate profits but don't worry, the market didn't crash until the middle of the following year so BUYBUYBUY, if you are so inclined (we're not). The reason it's bad to spend 110-120% of your profits buying back your own stock and paying out dividends is it leaves -10% to -20% for Capital Spending which, I'm told, is often necessary for long-term growth.

In the short run, not spending money to hire employees of fix machines or advertise does nothing but save you money. You have all that momentum from prior spending and growth programs and you can coast on that for a while. In a strong economy, it's like coasting downhill and you go just as fast - even if you take your foot off the gas. However - in a weak economy, your momentum slows very quickly and then it takes even more gas (equipment, staff, marketing) to get things going again.

That's why things fall apart so quickly - Corporate Management, in an attempt to paper over poor performance, cuts back on the very things they need to be investing in to boost that performance down the road. That's because they know that investors are not patient and they are not likely to still have their jobs long enough to benefit from spending that lowers profits in the short run. Buybacks simply compound the problem even further.

Meanwhile, please enjoy your regularly scheduled market rally:

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Innovations in medical education are improving the affect and effect of doctors in training. Med schools are exploring uses of big data to improve
diagnosis and trend spotting while others are incorporating interdisciplinary studies to improve observation and communication skills.

Big Data

Behind every patient and possible treatment regime is a mountain of data. Figuring out how to access and interpret all that data is not a skill that most
physicians learned in medical school -- but, as NPR reported, that's
changing. First and second year students at the NYU School of Medicine participate in healthcare by the numbers.

Students are given access to a database with more than five million anonymous records -- information on every hospital patient in the state for the
preceding two years. Students use analytical tools to spot trends and to consider the quality of care provided to different subgroups and to even evaluate
the performance of individual doctors.

The project, funded in part by an effort of the American Medical Association to update
what and how medical students are taught.

Marc Triola
, an associate dean for educational informatics said the concept of having students learn to use health data is catching on quickly. "If you don't have
these skills, you could really be at a disadvantage," says Triola, "in terms of the way you understand the quality and the efficiency of the care you're
delivering."

Another application
of big data is crowdsourced diagnosis. CrowdMed pairs "Medical Detectives" (retired physicians, medical students,
other health professionals, and anyone with something to contribute) with patients with hard-to-diagnose conditions on a platform that incorporates a
"patented prediction market system" that collects bets and develops a list of the most likely diagnoses and solutions.

Students learn to review the history, physical data, and lab data from cases that have been worked up by many different doctors over many years. This is
similar to what medical students and residents do once they are treating real patients. The difference? They learn, in real time, from more experienced
physicians also working the case on the same platform.

Art & Observation

Our biggest failure in health care is a lack of communication according to a leading neurosurgeon (my dad). Lack
of communication produces more than 100,000 deaths per year and 100,000 injuries to hospitalized Medicare patients per month.

At CU, med students study art to improve their observational and communication skills. The Foundations of
Doctoring block includes a Humanities, Ethics and Professionalism thread developed by CU staff in partnership with the Denver Art Museum. The unit includes
small group workshops including observation and discussion of one or two selected works of art; drawing and description of an image with students in pairs;
discussion of techniques and debrief of session.

By closely studying works of art and discussing their observations, med students learn skills useful for both physical examination and communication in a
clinical encounter.

There is growing use of simulations to teach diagnosis and treatment without putting
patients at risk. Simulation offers scheduled, valuable learning experiences that are difficult to obtain in real life. Learners address hands-on and
thinking skills, including knowledge-in-action, procedures, decision-making, and effective communication.

Innovations in medical education are preparing doctors to make better use of data and contribute in a team-based environment.

For more check out:

Exposing Every Student To STEM

Smart Cities: Milwaukee, Schools that Can

Disclosure: Tom Vander Ark is CEO of Getting Smart and a partner at Learn Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in educational technology.

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Mina Chang is Chief Executive Officer of Linking the World, which helps to link the world through aid, empowerment and advocacy.

Arriving in Haiti in early 2010 was a devastating experience. As our plane circled the nation's capital, my team and I fell silent. With a bird's-eye view of the impoverished city, we gazed in awe at the sheer devastation of the magnitude-7 earthquake.

As I grappled with the gravity of the disaster, I knew I'd need to do more than blithely offer instructions. To effectively provide relief to the disaster victims, I'd need to support my team as human beings, not just as employees.

Whether handling natural disasters, financial emergencies or public relations nightmares, leaders must come to terms with their emotions and empathize with their teams to properly address crises.

Disengaging our feelings and digging through the rubble might seem like wise courses of action, but the best leaders know that empathy forges the strong bonds that engage the hearts and minds of team members.

Empathy as a Business Tool

Often confused with pity, empathy might sound like a soft, fuzzy emotion that drains us of time and energy. Actually, it's quite the contrary -- it's an incredibly valuable tool for today's leaders. Brené Brown, a well-known sociologist and the author of "Daring Greatly" says empathy involves connecting with the emotion someone is experiencing, not the event or circumstance. "It's simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting and communicating that incredibly healing message of 'You're not alone,'" Brown writes.

I knew my response in Haiti couldn't just be about the damage of the earthquake itself; it had to be about resonating with the feelings of hopelessness my team was experiencing. Empathy is useful not only in natural disasters, but also in healing wounds associated with difficult business situations.

In author Daniel Pink's book, "A Whole New Mind: Moving From the Information Age to the Conceptual Age," he discusses the importance of strong interpersonal skills in today's marketplace. One critical trait Pink mentions is empathy, which allows us to create meaningful relationships and care for others. To overcome real challenges -- both humanitarian and business-related -- we must connect with those at stake on a human-to-human level.

Harness Empathy in Times of Crisis

As leaders, we tend to approach business challenges with tactical, battle-ready mindsets. However, with this mentality, relational obstacles can often separate us from our teams and the goals we hope to accomplish. Here are three ways to practice empathy and triumph over interpersonal barriers:

1. Acknowledge Your Team's Humanity

Team members -- no matter how skilled -- are not robots. They, too, have emotions and fears about the challenges they face. Redirecting staff members' feelings toward a shared mission will not only help them feel recognized and part of the solution, but also instill a deeper sense of ownership in turning disasters around.

Companies that give employees time to grieve after crises benefit from team members' renewed loyalty and trust. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for example, companies near Ground Zero were forced to make decisions on how to move forward, and the company leaders who fared best tended to their teams' emotional needs. Companies that kept right on moving, however, paid a higher price of turnover later.

2. Be Vulnerable

It takes courage to allow others to see our vulnerabilities and weaknesses, yet opening up to team members is one of the surest ways to build trust over time. Life requires vulnerability. "Experiencing vulnerability isn't a choice," Brown explains. "The only choice we have is how we're going to respond when we're confronted with uncertainty, risk and emotional disclosure." But vulnerability is also a courageous leadership trait. We must be honest about our fears and weaknesses to overcome them. It's about connecting with our teams through empathy and shared emotions. Vulnerability also means taking responsibility for our own mistakes and choosing to respond with compassion rather than blame.

3. Promote Open, Productive Communication, and Listen Actively

Regardless of the situation, the best leaders position crises as growth catalysts. Further, they're task-oriented in their communication, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Because team members often have valuable solutions to their leaders' most challenging problems, their feedback is critical in crisis management. Rather than dictating action as a leader, listening can help pool together resources for more profound change. Listening allows leaders to hear what's happening at the ground level from those implementing the steps to alleviate calamities. When entire teams invest wholeheartedly in solutions, loyalty and innovation are established.

Crises are unavoidable in life, but they can also be turning points. Empathy allows us to dig deep into problems without being mired in them. As I learned during my time in Haiti, empathy can imbue others with hope, inspiration and drive. Next time we face challenging problems, let's lead with open hearts rather than stone faces.

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Yesterday I arrived back in San Francisco, along with 200 of us, from one of the longest and most emotionally draining weeks since we started Airbnb.

The week began last Sunday when I landed in Paris for the Airbnb Open, arriving at a charming sixth floor attic apartment in Saint Germain. The Airbnb Open began Thursday morning in a large arena tent that housed nearly 5,000 hosts and 645 employees. Hosts had taken the pilgrimage from nearly 110 countries, and their enthusiasm was effusive as smiles beamed from their faces.
Friday evening, I joined my family at an early employee reunion dinner at a beautiful Airbnb with our first 40 employees. It was an emotional beginning of the evening. Joe gave a toast, and we reflected on the last four and a half years together.

At 9:45 p.m., news started coming in of an attack in Paris. At first, we thought it was an isolated incident, so we only occasionally checked Twitter. By 10:30 p.m., it was clear that they were a series of coordinated attacks. Once we learned that 100 people were taken hostage in a theater, fear struck over the dinner. Our phones started buzzing with friends and loved ones wondering if we were okay. Immediately, we started thinking about our employees and hosts who were distributed throughout the city while a series of coordinated attacks were transpiring. Most remarkably, for many, the first person that contacted us was our Airbnb host.

Michael, our head of security, took over central command, and a handful of employees stayed up throughout the night so could account for all 645 of our employees. Some were just a couple doors from the attacks, and had witnessed much of the horror. We knew that one of our groups were at the stadium where an attack occurred, and we were worried they would be caught in a stampede. Others were hiding under tables in restaurants, whose metal gates were locked with the lights dimmed.

The city went into lockdown. At that point, it was clear we were going to be barricaded in our house. We set up a mini communication hub in a walk-in shower (since there was no other private space in our Airbnb) where I could communicate with central command. There were tons of quick decisions to make -- how do we find everyone, do we cancel the following day's events, how can we get the community to open their homes without putting them in harm's way?

By 3:00 a.m., we were informed that the lockdown would not be lifted, and we would likely be spending the night in the house. Imagine that we had 50-plus people in a two-bedroom Airbnb loft. We cleared out the furniture, and set up pillows and blankets on the floors so people could get some sleep. When we got word that we had tracked down the final people and had no one left unaccounted for, we let out a sigh of relief and quiet cheer.

The following day, I felt like a zombie. Like many, we were jittery, and not quite feeling ourselves. Our Paris office, including some of those most affected, held strong and supported everyone.

Yesterday morning, nearly 100 of us boarded a United Airlines flight back to San Francisco. Stepping on the plane, it was clear that everyone was just happy to be returning home. As we landed in San Francisco, we were greeted with a surprise welcome from over a dozen Airbnb employees who dedicated their Sunday to welcoming us back with hospitable fanfare, handing out water and warm cookies. It once again reminded us of how warm and caring people can be, and made us feel completely supported. They made us feel so special.

Here is the greeting we got at the airport.

Reflecting on this week, two things come to mind -- light and love.

First, Paris is known as "The City of Light" for it's early adoption of gas lamp street lights. This week I saw a different kind of light radiate the sky. In the face of unspeakable atrocities, the city of Paris, and our community, rose up with resilience and optimism. When each of you stood up, a light of warmth switched on, and the city got a little bit smaller. This light will not leave Paris anytime soon.

Second, Paris is also referred known as "The City of Love." This is more appropriate. The unspeakable acts that we witnessed yesterday represent the worst of humanity. In the face of this tragedy, I saw the very best. Our community cared for one another, and came together to honor our highest ideals.

Crisis has an unfortunate way of bonding people together, and our bond was forged not just through shared experience but a deep care and love for one another. In this hour, we can say that we have never felt closer to our community and teams. You're not alone now, or ever. We are here to support and care for every one of you, as you have done for each other. Dr King once said:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Let there be more light and love.

This post originally appeared on Medium.

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My firm, OPR Consulting (Organization. Performance. Relationships) specializes in helping businesses identify, develop and manage their greatest asset -- their relationships.

Here are seven books that changed the way I think about working relationships.

1. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle, Penguin Press, 2015.

It goes without saying that the best book on the topic of working relationships is this one (yes, it just so happens that I collaborated with the author, Sherry Turkle on the business chapter, but that's not the only reason). Reclaiming Conversation is an important book, period. Just published in October of this year, it came out to stellar reviews, and is still making conversation in the news. Sherry Turkle has spent her career studying and offering insight into the ways technology intervenes in our personal lives and Reclaiming Conversation is her latest. In it, she describes how in every aspect of our lives, conversation is vital, and sorely lacking. And why the time is now to make a big change.

2. Are you Fully Charged? The 3 Keys to Energizing your Work and Life by Tom Rath, Silicon Guild, May 5, 2015.

This book reinforced what I have seen again and again -- the temptation to "dismiss the need for close relationships at work until you focus on the bigger picture." What Rath makes clear is that the bigger picture is our relationships. We can't wait until we've slogged through our inbox to connect with our colleagues. First things first. People matter more than tasks, even super shiny tasks with a dopamine glow.

3. Sleeping with your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work
by Leslie Perlow, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

The great thing about Harvard Business School Professor Perlow's book is that she makes it clear that companies can actually change the way they work and break the 24/7 habit. In fact, by detailing an ingenious experiment she conducted with some of the most hard-core workaholics around -- management consultants -- she shows how strong relationships, open dialogue with colleagues and leadership support are critical to stopping the "always on" cycle. Her experiment resulted in employees who were more satisfied at work and a firm that was able to more easily recruit and retain top talent. A win-win.

4. People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work, by Ben Waber, FT Press, 2013.

As HR professionals, we are always seeking ways to measure the people side of business. Waber accomplishes this by providing metrics around a topic that most people view has highly subjective: working relationships, collaboration and even stress reduction. This is nothing short of revolutionary. Waber is my analytics-hero.

5. Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family, by Anne Marie Slaughter, Random House, 2015.

As a working mother myself, Slaughter's book has helped me see how my own struggles to establish balance is not just a personal challenge, but one that can and should be taken up by our culture and political institutions at large. Why? Because we are all in this together. This is a must-read for HR professionals who need to learn more about the connections between home, work, and life. In a word: everyone.

6. Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One has the Time by Brigid Schulte, Picador, Reprint edition, 2015.

Schulte highlights the stresses of modern life and the 24/7 nature of technology. Her chapter on business, "When Work Works," highlights businesses that are challenging the status quo. Companies that create systems, processes and cultures that provide employees time to connect with colleagues, their families and themselves are companies where people want to work. According to Schulte, these companies embarked on a transformation that was "thoughtful, deliberate and embraced from top to bottom." Schulte is a terrific writer, too, making this a great read.

7. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder, by Arianna Huffington, Harmony, Reprint Edition, 2015.

What would a list of books about relationships be without one of the most important and influential titles on the shelves today? Not only is Huffington an inspiration for anyone in business, but this books makes it clear that she is someone who truly honors relationships for the right reasons. Not only do we get ahead by connecting to the right people, but by taking stock and seeing our priorities clearly, we can connect to ourselves. Which, it seems to me, is the thing she's got that makes everything she touches turn to gold--a commitment to herself. Which I really admire.

I would love to hear from those of you who have read these books, and what you thought of them. And I am all ears for any recommendations about what I should read next--books, articles, blogs.

And stay tuned for next week's blog on why everyone should consider a little digital detox for the holidays.

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Lets call him "Pat". That's not his name, but close. I don't want to embarrass him, although I am 99.99% sure he won't be embarrassed even if I mention him.

I met him in 1999. He was the number two guy at the largest investment bank in the world. He wanted to invest in my next company. Here's what he ended up doing:

He put a million dollars into a company I was starting.

He called all his best friends: Henry Kravis, Jim McCann (the CEO of 1-800-Flowers) and a bunch of other well-known investors. He said, "invest in this," and they all sent in one million dollars within minutes. Henry Kravis wanted to send $5 million, but I was stupid enough to say "no." Pat probably helped me raise another $15 million.

Then Pat put another million into another company I was invested in.

Then Pat introduced us to a large private equity firm that put $100 million into a fund we were doing.

Then I hired away Pat's top investment banker to work for the fund. I called Pat to say no hard feelings. He replied that it was basically unfair of me, but he understood.

Everything went bad after that. The fund we were doing went down the drain. Maybe we invested $30 million of the fund, but it did horribly.

The company all of Pat's friends invested in went down the drain. We lost everything. They all lost all of their money. Altogether the company raised $120 million and was sold a few years ago for $10 million.

The other company disappeared. I don't even know what happened to it. I personally lost a ton of money in it, but so did everyone else I know who put money in.

So that was how I returned all of Pat's help. Thanks, Pat.

Years passed. Eventually Pat left the bank and started his own hedge fund. He took his new number two guy and that was the guy that did all of the investing. But Pat was good at picking up the phone and calling his friends and getting them to invest. He raised $3 BILLION dollars for his fund.

Because of his new number two guy, the fund made billions of dollars every year. Huge success.

One time I wrote a book. I think this was 2005. I wrote a book about Warren Buffett called Trade Like Warren Buffett. It was an ok book, but has nothing to do with what I write about now.

I hand't seen Pat in five years. If Pat remembered me at all, and there was no reason to remember me, it could only be as the loser that cost him and his friends millions of dollars and stole his best employee.

But, for the heck of it, I signed a copy of the book and had it messengered over to his office.

A few minutes after the messenger left my office with the book, the phone rang.

It was Pat.

"James," he said, "Thank you so much for this book and for the nice thing you wrote in it to me."

"Hey Pat," I said. But I had no idea what else to say. Should I say "Thanks!" or should I say "Sorry!" or should I say "How is life?" I didn't even really know him that well and a lot of things had happened in the prior five years.

"I hope you like the book," I said.

"I can't wait to read it," he said, "I will read it tonight."

Since the book was about Warren Buffett, he told me a story about Buffett. He told me he (Pat) was having dinner with the Queen of England among others. Worldcom had just gone bankrupt in 2002. He got up from the dinner to make some calls because he was trying to buy Worldcom's debt at a very cheap price. "Everyone thought the debt was worth $0," he said. "But nobody realized that the Department of Defense was Worldcom's biggest client. There was no chance they were going to default on their debt.

"So I was trying to buy their debt for 1/10 of what they were worth. I could make 1000% on my money. Only one other person was trying to buy the debt that night -- Warren Buffett. But we had Rudy Giuliani working the phones for us and we ended up beating Buffett out on his bid and we bought the debt. I race cars with Rudy Giuliani. We made ten times our money on that one investment. Maybe $2 billion. But Warren Buffett is a tough guy to compete with."

I didn't know what to say. "That's great."

"In any case, James. I really appreciate this book. Thank you for sending it. I hope everything is going well with you. Call me any time."

And we got off the phone.

It struck me that he had a key ingredient to success that I simply did not have, and still have trouble doing. He picked up the phone and called me and said hello. He did the "check-in." I had lost him millions. I had stolen his best employees. He meets thousands of people a year, so had no reason to keep in touch with a loser like me.

He got a gift from me and he called me instantly to say "Thank you." It cost him maybe two minutes of his time.

That was Pat's personal theme for success. I am really bad at it. Even if my best friends write me sometimes, I don't return the emails. I don't know why. I've actually lost friends over this and still do. At least one a month. I don't know why I do this. Something is wrong with me.

A tiny thank you is like putting a little bit of money in a savings account and watching it grow through compound interest. Eventually, over the course of a thousand little "thank yous," you have an enormous amount of goodwill in your account, waiting for you to withdraw success out of it.

That's why Pat now is probably worth billions.

Another reason: About a week after that call I wrote Pat again. He did say, after all, I could write him anytime. I described my new fund and asked if he wanted to invest.

Pat says "thank you" probably ten to twenty times a day to people as he builds his goodwill account.

But there's also another key to success. Learning from mistakes.

He wrote me back.

"No."

Read More: What I Learned About Life After Interviewing 80 Highly Successful People

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By David Klein, CommonBond CEO and Co-Founder

The evidence is building that marketplace lending is rivaling and even beating traditional banks at breadth of product offerings, pricing, technology and service.

In the face of the industry's growth, the government is seeking more information. In July, the Treasury Department sought public comment on information about marketplace lending, including what the federal government could do to improve regulations and foster innovation in the industry.

Many companies involved in marketplace lending, including CommonBond, commented on the department's request. From the perspective of this new industry, the government has a massive opportunity to improve marketplace lending, and therefore lending in general.

Based on the public comments, I see four ways the federal government can help spur innovation in marketplace lending:

Create a low-cost federal credit facility for responsible marketplace lending.

Traditional banks have a large advantage in cost of funds over marketplace lenders. The banks enjoy unique, government-sponsored benefits such as consumer deposits that are federally insured and access to the Federal Reserve's discount window, which provides loans to banks at below market rates.

A federal government credit facility, which responsible marketplace lenders could tap into at a low cost, can help facilitate even stronger products for consumers. A fairer system where banks and marketplace lenders play by the same rules would emerge. A lower cost of capital for marketplace lenders means borrowers will receive better rates.

Harmonize federal and state rules for marketplace lending.

Marketplace lenders must follow a patchwork of federal and state regulations and laws. Unfortunately, many of these antiquated rules did not anticipate how technology would change financial services. Federal and state policymakers should work to streamline existing laws and regulations on items related to lending licenses, as just one example.

Uniform rules will reduce compliance costs for lenders. In turn, companies can become more competitive on both price and choice.

Share government-held data to improve underwriting.

The federal government should aggregate, anonymize and share loan-level data with marketplace lenders. Take student loans, for example. The Department of Education, which runs the federal government student loan program, could release data by field of study in addition to data by institution in the student loans.

Lend Academy, which co-hosts the annual LendIt conference, proposed that the Federal Reserve lead data-sharing efforts to provide more insight and transparency into the marketplace lending industry.

Shared government data would allow lenders to make more informed lending decisions, and in turn, make credit more accessible to more consumers in a responsible way.

Promote a fluid secondary market for marketplace lending investors.

Currently, individual investors have to hold assets purchased through marketplace lenders to term instead of having the option to trade them in a secondary market, unless they are willing to sell them at a significant discount.

The bond market has an efficient secondary market for debt investments. Marketplace lending should have one too. It would add further liquidity to the lending system and create a more secure environment for investors and a stronger set of well-priced products for consumers.

A robust secondary market will allow marketplace lenders to offer even better rates for consumers by increasing the size of its investor base.

As published in American Banker.

David Klein is CEO and Co-Founder of CommonBond, a values-driven fintech company that is reimagining the student loan experience. The company refinances and consolidates student loans to provide a better experience through lower interest rates, personal customer service, a simple application process and a strong commitment to social good. CommonBond borrowers save over $14,000, on average, over the life of the loan by refinancing. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidXKlein.

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Elevate the Career of Someone You Care About With This One Gift

If you could give a gift this year that will help someone carve out his or her personal brand and grow in their career, wouldn't you? Wouldn't it be better to help someone struggling in their profession or frustrated by job searching, than to give them socks, candy, or a tie? Why not change it up and give the gift of a professionally written resume to those in your life you want to succeed and you will be their hero far past the holiday season!

If this sounds like an intriguing idea, let me convince you further with a breakdown of what you are really giving, why it is valuable, and how a small investment can have a major financial return!

I hear from people constantly, "I think my resume is great, but I'm not landing any interviews". Nine out of 10 times their resume is great, if great is now a synonym for awful. People just don't know what a strong resume looks like for themselves and that is their biggest weakness. That is what is killing their career options and they don't even know it!

"The weaknesses that you're unaware of will hurt you the most."

This quote by David Osborne, President and Founder at Simmetry Solutions, sums it up best!

The statement is tremendously powerful because it holds so much truth. Let me demonstrate how this applies to your resume.

Writing a resume was likely not part of your education. They didn't teach you any hard and fast rules or how to present yourself as employable once you entered the workforce. You probably think to yourself: A resume, one, possibly two, pages on nice white paper filled with work history and skills outlining your career thus far. Sounds simple enough, right? The answer is it's not. We live in a world where very little emphasis is put on preparing people to create this document, which turns out to be their biggest personal marketing tool. If done right, it is your golden ticket. If not, it is a one-way stop to the trashcan.

Without study on the subject and with all the varying bad advice on the web, it is something that we don't know how to recognize as bad for ourselves. The majority thinks they put down the positions held, the dates, and what the responsibilities were and send it out into the world hoping for the best. People job search on an average of 18 different online sites and just chalk up the lack of response to the black hole that is the online application system. This is not always the case as people are failing to look at themselves as part of the problem because they lack the understanding that their resume does not work for them.

As someone who evaluates resumes for a living, I can confidently say that most people are failing at doing this for themselves. The only commonality I ever see between resumes is that most people do not know how to present themselves in a way that they look qualified or like someone worth hiring. The similarities end there.

The 2015 CareerBuilder Candidate Behavior Study backs up this failure. They found the following stats:

• 73% of employers say less than half of the candidates make it thru the initial screening process
• Candidates average a 78% rejection rate
• 54% of employers say it is hard to find qualified candidates

With job growth averaging 45,000 per month in 2015, it is sad to hear people are still unemployed and employers stating they can't find good candidates. How many times have you applied for a job knowing you had all the skills necessary to do it well and all the experience needed, only to never hear a peep about your application? Chances are, you didn't present yourself in a way that made a hiring manager believe that too. You can't blame the system when other people are landing jobs every day.

A professional resume writer can take one look at a resume and know what is missing. They can take the document from mediocre to compelling. They have the understanding of the industry trends and best practices to give each client the most optimal chance of landing their dream job. This is what they specialize in! The entire hiring system is meant to screen people out not screen people in. Never before has your resume played such an important part in the application process. Professional writers are engrossed in resumes on a daily basis and this gives them a unique vantage point that most will never have. They know exactly what clients are up against and how to elevate your resume to get better results!

In general people are quite accustomed to hiring professionals in many aspects of their lives but scoff at doing it for their career. You could change the oil in your car yourself too, but I bet you hire an expert to do it. You want an expert to take care of that valuable asset. Is a career any less valuable? This is an investment in potential earnings, promotions, career track opportunities and options, and ultimately happiness. If by making this one investment a better job was landed that paid even 10% more this year, would this investment still seem too much?

Still not sure if it's worth the value? Let's take a look at what a resume writer actually does for each client and the money that you spend...

• Diagnostic review of the current resume. We evaluate it for weaknesses and how to best repair them. We identify where the failures lie and what is missing to get someone through the door for their career.

• Review and analysis of the Personal Brand. We learn about the client, where they want to land professionally, their accomplishments, and work history. This helps us understand how to brand them for potential employers as well as how to frame their accomplishments to leave a lasting impact.

• Analysis of the job descriptions they seek. We review the requirements and perform keyword studies to make sure the resume will pass ATS systems and get in the hands of a hiring manager.

• We do the bragging. We will write a compelling summary that highlights unique qualities and cements the client as a qualified candidate for the job. We write accomplishment-based bullets that identify value rather than duties. The content creation is the most critical component of any resume and the most common area people fail drastically!

• Peace of mind! We take the guesswork out of it. We are always up on the latest industry trends and standards. Why spend the time studying up on how to write a resume, best formatting techniques, keyword strategy, language usage, work history gaps, etc. Save that valuable time for something else and have the peace of mind that your resume is in good hands.

• Professional objectivity. We are not attached to career history in the same way clients are. We can hone in on the important information and trim the fat off of the resume. We bring a fresh perspective to the information that clients have been cultivating for years and package it in a way that is more enticing to employers. (This blog explains this more in depth).

If this is still not enough to show you the merit, let's look at hard numbers.

Say you are up for a $60,000 job. A $60,000 job comes out to about $1154 a week, gross. You hired a resume writer at $250. You land the job with the new resume. In one week, your $250 investment has provided an ROI of over 3.5 times your initial expense. For many, the resume costs them just a day or two of pay. It honestly pays for itself and is often tax deductible as part of your job search costs.

Here is a real-life case study from a client. Before hiring a resume writer, this person sent out 50 resumes and received no responses. After submitting a professionally tailored resume, this person sent out 12 resumes, received 8 interviews, was hired, and made $12,000 more than his previous position.

To put that shift into perspective for you, I can go back to the CareerBuilder stats. They found on average each posting only receives three phone interviews and three in person interviews. Not a lot when you think of the hundreds of applications they received. In addition, 60% of applications never receive a response of any kind. Having only changed their resume, this client went from the norm of no responses to a 67% positive response rate. I don't know any frustrated job seeker that wouldn't like those results!

And if all of this still doesn't sway you to the fact that this service is worthwhile, consider your overall happiness and well-being.

People spend so much time working these days. Shouldn't it be something that either they are well compensated for or very proud and happy to do every day? Why would someone not see an investment in their career as valuable, when work has such a large impact on someone's overall life, health, and happiness?

Stop the hemming and hawing over early Black Friday ads and give a gift this year that will keep giving for many years to come.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

It's no secret that I'm a busy guy. Between running my agency VaynerMedia and my venture capital firm VaynerRSE, I work long hours. I have five minute meetings on my calendar, and you'll often find me on a plane jetting back and forth between cities. A lot of people have asked me throughout the years how I am able to work so hard all day and night. Don't I get tired Exhausted? Where does the drive come from?

For me, it all comes down to loving it.

It's the truth. The only thing keeping me going day in and day out (and night in and night out) is that I love it. I love all of this. I love doing my show, The #AskGaryVee Show. I love flying all over the country. I love getting in from a flight at 1 a.m. and then waking up for 6 a.m. basketball and an 8 a.m. meeting.

But I am the first to say that my advice isn't for everyone. And I love it when people talk about the ways in which they operate differently from me.

Because the truth is, I never expect everyone to be like me. Not at all. In fact, you should be focusing on what works for you. Always. But people are constantly asking me what my morning routine is, or what my workout regimen is. What do I eat? What do I read? And I'm not surprised or upset that they as. We ask successful entrepreneurs questions like "What does a day look like for you?" because we think they might hold some secret to success. Some overarching wisdom that will change everything.

I'm here to you tell: we don't.

The only advice I can give you is audit yourself and figure out what makes you work the hardest.

I wrote an article a while back that I love, because to me, it speaks to this very thing. In it, I talked about why you shouldn't try to make yourself a morning person if you just naturally are not. It's not necessary. Just because someone wakes up earlier doesn't mean they are any more productive.

It's not about how much you sleep. It's what you do while you're awake.

Don't force yourself to wake up early. Don't force yourself to skip lunch. Don't force yourself to be like me and take a hundred meetings a day.

Figure out what makes you most successful. I am always happy to share my wisdom with you guys, because for some of you, it might actually work. And for tactful advice, I'm even happier to help (I've been pushing Facebook dark posts on my readers for a while now -- highly recommend looking into them for your marketing). But never assume I expect all of you to be just like me. And when you hear a guru talking about their routine, about their big break - remember that.

If you're hustling, working hard, giving it your all, good things will happen. Period. What the hustle looks like varies. All I ask for is that you work hard and work fast.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

"PR just isn't useful anymore."

"Traditional media is on its deathbed. The power of PR will go with it."

"Who needs PR anymore when you have social media?"

These are some of the comments that I hear regularly from people who don't quite believe in the power of PR.

Funnily enough, one of the times I heard someone say this, in the next breath he shared a story about how a CEO sent out a dramatic company announcement using a media release. Yes...one of most traditional forms of PR you can get!

Tell your story
Public relations is the art of storytelling. Every person, brand and organisation has stories tell. They can be personal stories, professional stories, stories that let people know who you are, what you stand for and what you do.

And when you start telling your stories, they start resonating with people. Those people start developing relationships with you and start influencing and amplifying your role as an expert and thought leader.

Reaching the people that matter
You can tell those stories in so many different ways - through the media, via your blog or in a podcast. There are now so many ways to reach the people that matter to you.

You can be your own 'media' by coming up with the stories, writing them and publishing them on your own sites or social media platforms.

So where does social fit in?
Both public relations and social media can enhance your profile, reputation and credibility.

For PR, the trick is to identify your stories and then see them through the eyes of editors and program directors. When packaged in a way that the media expects, you have a much better chance of getting the media coverage you need to promote yourself.

Anything from an innovation, new book, to a childhood memory has news potential if it's packaged correctly. And it has absolutely no news value if it isn't released to the media or shared online at all!

For me it's not about if PR is dead, or if PR is better than social media. It's about how you can use whatever channel you can to tell your stories to the people that matter to you and your brand.

About the author
Catriona Pollard is the author of From Unknown To Expert, a step by step framework designed to help entrepreneurs develop effective PR and social media strategies to become recognised as influencers in their field. www.unknowntoexpert.com

Catriona is also the director of CP Communications, which merges traditional PR tactics with cutting-edge social media strategies that engage consumers as well as business. www.cpcommunications.com.au

Follow Catriona:
Twitter: @catrionapollard
Facebook: www.facebook.com/catrionapollard
Blogs: www.catrionapollard.com | www.unknowntoexpert.com/blog

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There's a lot of news coming out of our college campuses these days and much of it re-raises an old question: To what degree, if any, should colleges and universities be responsive to pressing social and political issues? To my mind, the definitive answer to that question was given in 2003 by the provost of the University of Wisconsin at Madison when he addressed students who were demanding that the university take a stand on the then impending invasion of Iraq. The provost said, "The University of Wisconsin does not have a foreign policy."

I take that to be a slightly cryptic statement of what the business of a university is and isn't. It isn't to pronounce on foreign policy issues or on domestic policy issues, either. Rather, the university's business is to advance the knowledge of the phenomena -- physical, social, cultural, aesthetic -- its faculty members are trained to investigate. That's the task -- all of it.

The only time the university should insert itself into a debate is when the debate is about the funding or monitoring of higher education. On all other matters it should be silent. Not only should the university not have a foreign policy, it shouldn't have any policy, whether it be economic (although it should husband its resources prudently), political, agricultural, military -- whatever. The reason is simple: The university is not an ideological agent; it doesn't have an axe to grind; it doesn't have a dog in the hunt unless the hunt is for more dollars to support its classroom and research activities. Had the University of Wisconsin taken a stand on the question of whether to invade Iraq, it would have ceased to be an educational institution and would have become the mouthpiece of a partisan agenda.

I've said these things many times before, but there is new reason to say them now. On the 10th of this month, The National Association of Scholars (NAS) published a report titled Inside Divestment: The Illiberal Movement to Turn a Generation Against Fossil Fuels. The report surveys the efforts of many students and some faculty members to get colleges and universities to divest from fossil fuel stocks on the reasoning that the energy industry is the chief contributor to climate change and constitutes a danger to the life of the planet. Here is a statement by student activist Chloe Maxmin:

"The divestment movement... aims to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry by rebranding it as a social pariah and a rogue political force that preys on our future. We want to make it socially unacceptable for politicians and institutions to support a reckless industry that manipulates the political system and values short term profits over humanity's survival."

Now, shaming the fossil fuel industry might very well be a good thing to do (I am not going to pronounce on the substantive question), but it is not an academically good thing to do. The category "good things to do" is practice specific: There are no generally good things to do, only things that are good to do given the aims and values of the particular enterprise in which they're being done. If the enterprise is the academy, then the list of good things to do is limited to things that contribute to pedagogical goals narrowly conceived -- the goal of introducing students to materials with which they were previously unfamiliar and the goal of equipping students with analytical skills. Saving the world from fossil fuels is not a pedagogical goal and doesn't belong either in the classroom or in the mission statement of a university.

There's nothing wrong with students and faculty members working for a sustainable environment, as long as they do it after hours when they are acting as citizens and not as students and teachers. It is wrong, however, for students and faculty to appropriate the name of the university or its core activities for partisan purposes. When Professor Bill McKibben of Middlebury College urged Swarthmore faculty members to join the divestment campaign, he said, "This is what tenure was made for."

Precisely wrong. Tenure was made to protect academics from the pressure to conform their teaching to the political views of external constituencies. (You should follow the evidence to wherever it leads, not to where the church or a trustee or a politician or a donor wants it to lead.) Tenure was not made to allow academics to push their own political views in the classroom or the academic senate. Pushing political views in academic spaces is the very antithesis both of tenure and academic freedom. The independence and integrity of the enterprise depends on keeping the academic and the political realms separate. Divesting from fossil fuels dissolves the boundary line.

The point is made powerfully by Drew Faust, President of Harvard:

"We should ... be very wary of steps intended to instrumentalize our endowment in ways that would appear to position the University as a political actor rather than an academic institution. Conceiving of the endowment not as an economic resource, but as a tool to inject the University into the political process as a lever to exert economic pressure for social purposes can entail serious risks to the independence of the academic enterprise."

Faust's reasoning is conceptual, not practical. She does not bother with some of the other reasons universities give for declining to divest -- the endowment will suffer, the effects will be minimal, the effort will be merely symbolic. Those are not relevant reasons. They do not go to the core of the matter, which is that divesting from fossil fuels for political reasons is not an agenda that an educational institution can properly have, although divesting because of a calculation that the university's financial situation would be improved would be perfectly fine.

For much of its history the American academy has been fending off the attempts of various forces to hijack the enterprise for foreign ends. Now the invading force resides on the inside in the form of students who want colleges and universities to be the vehicle of their preferred causes. The fossil fuel divestment campaign is one of their fronts; the demand for "trigger warnings" -- warnings about course materials that might cause offense or discomfort -- is another. Both must be resisted, as must any effort to make the academy an instrument of some political goal.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Your relationships are formed through conversations stacked end to end. So it pays to get rid of the mechanical things that cripple them. For starters, consider these four:

Pet Words and Phrases
Some people use favorite words out of habit--regardless of whether they're appropriate in the context: Awesome. Absolutely. Sounds good. Right on. Right. Fabulous. Fantastic. Cool. Wow. Darling. Honey. Lousy.

Diego:We're planning to go to a movie tonight.
Kim:Awesome!
Diego:We may grab a bite to eat before we leave.
Kim:Fantastic!
Diego:I'll call you afterward to see what your plans are for the weekend.
Kim: Cool. Sounds good.
Diego:Will 9:00 be okay to call?
Kim:Absolutely!

Where does Kim go for an encore when her exuberant pet phrases run out in this conversation? If such words or phrases start to roll off your tongue or almost key themselves onto the computer screen, stop them. Become aware. Appoint a family member or colleague to call you out on the habit by signaling you every time you use the "pet" word or phrase. Eventually, you will break the habit.

Complex Words Used Incorrectly
A large vocabulary has merit. If you're reading and the author uses an unfamiliar word, you don't have to look it up to understand the term. As an author or speaker yourself, sometimes you want to convey a meaning that calls for a precise but uncommon word. Be glad that you have the precise word at your command.

But using a complex, unfamiliar word for a simple idea--and using it incorrectly--damages you and stalls a conversation.

First, others in the conversation think, "Was that misused on purpose for a laugh?" "Or did they know they misused that word?" "Should I correct them or let it pass?" "Obviously, something's garbled here? Did I miss the entire message?" "Are they trying to impress me? Why?"

Any or all of these thoughts, of course, derail the intended communication.

Incessant Chatter
Non-stop talking about insignificant details buries significant information you have to contribute to a conversation. Recently, I heard a colleague make this remark about a peer in his office: "Katy is bright. Typically, she brings up good points. She contributes something on almost all the topics that Daniel brings up. But she always just goes on and on and on with so many details. By the time she finishes, we've forgotten what her point was."

Too Much Personal Information
Unless your listeners are very close friends or family members, people do not want to know about your surgeries, your ex-spouse's infidelities, or your financial woes. Baring your soul to clients, workplace peers, or conference buddies may relieve your stress momentarily. But long-term, it may make you the victim of gossip, career upheaval, or even lawsuits. At the least, you'll be cause for boredom.

Likewise, other people resist your asking personal information. For the most part, they do not want to give you the details of their medical diagnosis, their performance appraisal, or anything to do with their finances. Asking for such personal information puts you on their "Do not trust this dunderhead" list.

Good communication is the cement that binds people together. Don't let these blunders wreak havoc with your relationships.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Outsourcing helps businesses focus on what they are good at and get smarter, cheaper and faster support in areas they aren't. Apple, Google, McDonalds and Microsoft are just some of the household names that outsource different key parts of their businesses regularly. You know who isn't outsourcing? Your marketing department or your marketing agency. Here's some of their stupid reasons they have for not doing so.

1 - They don't know how

Let's be honest. Freelancers, contractors and third-parties are the Bobba Fett's of the marketing world. They are bounty hunters that don't normally come with an SLA or non-compete and they'll leave your contract work for better contract work in a heartbeat. Most marketing departments, or marketing agencies for that matter, rely heavily on freelancers and contractors, but they don't really know how to manage that relationship. Some departments and agencies may also have unrealistic expectations about how an outsourcing arrangement will work.

Having said that marketing people do spend a lot of time in front of screens. Be it on their phone, desktop, tablet or any other device that has their favorite version of iOS on it (sure it's a stereotype that all marketing people love Apple products, but is it?). One thing all those devices have in common is they contain the world's knowledge on it. These days you can learn anything online and become an expert. That includes, wait for it, how to outsource marketing resources! For them to want to outsource, but not know how is a total copout and poor excuse.

2 - They think it's bad taboo

Our company supports a lot of marketing departments and agencies. The main resistance we see from marketing departments taking us up on our support is that they feel marketing-related activities need to be handled by the marketing department or marketing agency in-house end to end. They believe that having somebody else help them do their work is an ethical issue or against their core competencies.

There is some fairness to that. Organizations that are experts at doing marketing and compensated for doing it should do it. But look at it this way. Most businesses that have a marketing department or hire a marketing agency do so to get results from them. Those results are usually measured in new leads, revenue, opportunities and things like that. Not in how fast they can build a campaign or slice a PSD to HTML. Think of it this way... if your marketing team came to you and said 'hire us and we'll get you 20% more revenue in 2 yrs. It doesn't involve you doing anything illegal or unethical, but you have to trust us 100%' would you go for it? Sure, tell yourself you wouldn't, but a lot of people would. Believe me, people are always willing to invest in things that generate money for them. The point I'm making is people don't care how fast a marketing agency does marketing or even necessarily how marketing gets its results. The CEO doesn't care how fast the director of marketing gets their campaigns done, just like the business owner doesn't care how pretty the marketing agency designs things. What good is a beautiful website, banner or video if it's not achieving the goals you set out for it? That's really where 'marketing' comes in to play. Not just creating the material, but actually getting results from it. Marketing departments should hire marketers. Marketing support organizations hire engineers, developers, designers and others.

3 - They believe they are good with what they have

Many marketing organizations choose not to outsource activities because they feel they are good with what they have. They have all the resources they need in-house and things are getting done at a steady pace. Who knows? They may even be getting results their boss is happy with.

Here's the problem with that. Marketing departments and marketing agencies can really only do so much on their own. If they are so busy doing marketing for their business or their customers and getting them results then there is no eye to the future or other ways to improve. They are 'under water' in work and not coming up for air. So how long until they suffocate? In a sense they are losing on results tomorrow for results today. Look, there is nothing wrong with that. After all the results are coming in. Just know that your competitors may be learning tomorrow's tactics and getting better at those while you are focused on handling all of the marketing operations and marketing tasks in-house. Being good today and doing everything internally does cost you time and resources on learning new things and staying abreast on new tactics. There will come a time your boss asks you how you intend to address a new tactic. Or, they'll look at a competitor's marketing with envy and say 'I want that for us too!' And then, for the first time ever, the 'disruptive marketing exec' with all of the answers will be speechless and playing catch up.

Do you see how these stupid anti-outsourcing reasons marketing organizations have can really impede performance? If marketing organizations learn to outsource some of their time-consuming and non-marketing related activities it would free up their time to focus on learning new tactics or trying them out. This will keep the marketing team agile as opposed to busy.

So how can you determine whether to do your next marketing project in-house or not? There are definitely a lot of factors in play with making that decision, but this marketing project outsource calculator should help.

About the Author:

Sajeel Qureshi is the Vice President of Operations at Computan. Computan helps short-handed marketing departments and marketing agencies get more agile by providing them affordable and reliable back-end support. He has a degree in business administration from St. Bonaventure University, and an MBA from Eastern Illinois University.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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"It's not a black and white world," my boss told me. "There's a lot of gray, and you need to focus on it first if you want to get promoted here." She was talking about feelings and my ability to understand them. She was talking about my emotional intelligence, or perceived lack thereof. I took her words in and rejected them. Maybe my heart truly is a rocky abyss.

Maybe not.

Being aware of how your actions impact others is important, but should not drive your behavior. In a goal-oriented organization, achievement with integrity must come first -- feelings second. Organizations have a purpose, and it's not typically "playing house."

So, it's time to stop worrying about your emotional intelligence. It's not what's really holding you back from tremendous success.

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is defined as a person's ability to recognize and understand emotions (their own and others), and use that information to guide decision-making.

This concept first came about in the '90s and has become more popular of late. Just run a search for emotional intelligence and you will find more than 15 million results. You can even take a test to find out your EQ, or emotional intelligence quotient.

But I do not think emotional intelligence deserves all the attention it gets. Let's get back to what's fundamental.

There is no doubt, it is good to identify and control your own emotions and stay on an even keel when that is what is called for. We certainly should focus more on having empathy for others, and try to understand where others are coming from.

But new research is finding there is a flipside to emotional intelligence. Some people can become so adept at reading others' emotions and controlling their own that relationships become more about adaptation than authenticity.

At Aha! we are growing fast. And when I speak with candidates every week, I do not worry about their ability to manipulate their emotions (and mine). I want to know who they really are. What do they believe in?

I think about whether they have the experience we are looking for and how motivated they are to be their best. I wonder whether they share our team's core beliefs. I want to know whether they are passionate about what they do, driven by goals, and willing to work hard.

So, relax. Allow me to give you one less thing to worry about today. Stop fretting over how other people feel. We have.

Do not be overly concerned about your emotional intelligence. Instead, focus on yourself and the following traits and your own sustainable happiness will follow:

Are you genuine?
We need more people who are willing to be themselves, whether they are a little quirky or shy. We work hard to reach our goals, but we are also not afraid to share our true selves from time to time. We can celebrate our accomplishments and cheer each other on, and feel sadness when things do not go our way. Real people are not afraid to feel and express real emotions -- regardless of how others react.

Are you with purpose?
When you live your life with purpose, it changes everything, from the way you order your priorities to the way you treat others. People who have a vision for what they want to accomplish are not wandering aimlessly through life. They set a strategy and goals, and they are excited about the possibilities ahead. They do not worry about what others think of their chosen path.

Are you kind?
Kindness still matters. That is why we look for people who will treat everyone with respect regardless of their position or station in life. They respect others as they do themselves, because it is the right thing to do, not because they worry what will happen if they misbehave. They also forgive others and move on easily when they are not treated with the same kindness themselves.

Are you responsive?
The Responsive Method is a guiding principle of our company -- that interactions with urgency are what move us forward. We need people who understand that achievement happens via action, and that our customers and team members depend on rapid responses. By reacting quickly to requests, we demonstrate that we value the other person and what they need.

Do not get me wrong: I am all for collaboration and unity, but we should not be focusing on it as an end goal.

So, when emotional intelligence becomes more about getting along and making others feel good -- I think it takes us farther away from being successful and building what matters.

Being true to ourselves. A sense of purpose. Kindness. And crazy hard work and responsiveness. These are the real gems we should be focusing on.

What is your take on emotional intelligence?

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

I've heard many clients say they have an idea but it's not their place to share it. I say -
Yes it is!

Regardless of your level, title or expected role, you are equal in human-hood and therefore equal in insight. I mean it. In a healthy work environment, and even an unhealthy one, new ideas and insights are valuable.

While it shouldn't matter where the ideas come from, there is a predisposition to value some team member's ideas more than others. I think this can be overcome by taking the PDC approach to communicating ideas.

Privately.
Diplomatically.
Compassionately.

PDC is an attitude above all else. It's taking into consideration your colleagues' experience, agenda and objectives and then redefining the problem and solution. It's a tone of voice for the ideas you're presenting.

Privately
Consider who will be affected by what you're sharing. One person's "amazing" idea can inadvertently have huge repercussions such as job eliminations, so consider the audience.

Diplomatically
State the facts of what you see as a challenge and state the facts of what you propose as a solution. Stay away from pronouns and personalization and emotion.

Compassionately
Recognize the challenges faced by all and catch yourself if you go down the path of righteousness. People are equally fallible and need compassion and understanding, no matter how frustrating the situation.

Everyone is worthy of being listened to. Take your place.

Image by Deb Nystrom

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Pejman Ghadimi is the author of "Third Circle Theory," which explains how some of today's top visionaries are made. He is the CEO of Secret Entourage and Secret Academy, the latter being a unique platform that helps motivate, educate and improve the lives of young entrepreneurs worldwide.

The majority of people become passionate about something at one point or another, but few turn their passion into a successful business venture that enables them to work on what they care about every day.

Since retiring from my successful career in finance, I discovered that teaching leadership and entrepreneurship was, and still is, my real passion. I'm able to do this every day through my company, Secret Entourage. I have now coached hundreds of successful people on finding their passion and applying it into their businesses. I noticed a trend among my clients succeeding with these four steps.

Understand the Difference Between Love and Passion

It's important to understand whether we're feeling love or passion for something in order to avoid following dead leads. There's a fine line between them, but we experience love far more than passion. Passion is the fuel needed to keep getting up after each failure, so it's important to be passionate about the line of business you embark on. Passion, just like love, starts with an emotional reaction, but where it differentiates from love is when it requires you to take action, create change or simply remain involved in something. For example, I may love cars, but I sure don't find happiness being around them every second of the day. On the other hand, I'm passionate about helping people make their dream businesses a reality.

One of the best ways to eliminate wasting time on things you only love and aren't passionate about is to focus on activities that build skills you can charge for. Talking about cars all day, for example, won't actually get me anywhere. However, if I chose to start a blog and write about them or become a mechanic, I am now shifting my love to passion and engaging in activities that can later turn my passion into a business. Think about what you love, how you can turn that into passion and how you can drive revenue.

Have a Heightened Level of Awareness

Self-assessment is crucial. As mentioned in my first point above, the biggest obstacle in finding your passion is following all the wrong things simply because you love them. Part of the process requires you to be able to identify when you are chasing a dead lead. Being conscious of our environment permits us to identify opportunities within the things we love. If we love animals, for example, then perhaps our passion lies in helping them. By seeing beyond just the idea of creating a shelter or some other form of care, we may be able to identify other ways to help our cause and create passion from the love we have for something.

The idea of finding your passion is once again to elevate yourself to act on something you love. Once you identified something worth pursuing, study the industry as a whole and not just what you understand of it. Start by using free methods, such as searching online for businesses you may not have heard of or for positions within organizations related to your passion. In the example above, start the search with the word "animal care" and simply read about various ways others are involved in the field. Then narrow your search based on each type of care you find interesting, such as "animal shelter care" or " animal rescue." The more you explore, the more aware you become and the easier it is to link your passion to a sustainable path for your business.

Find Your Natural Talent

Most people are naturally better at some things than others, which often becomes a big part of how they can find their passion in life. When it comes to business, you can focus on your forte while finding ways to compensate where you are lacking, like getting a partner or hiring someone to fill in the gaps. Be resourceful to cultivate the skills you need for your business. I found my natural talent for coaching after mentoring people on a regular basis. When I turned it into my business, I made time to learn new skills like web page design, writing and online video production. If you quickly identify your natural talents, then you can learn the skills you need to transform it into something you are paid to do.

Use Belief to Unlock Your Passion

Since belief is based on experience, think of it as the direction your passion takes. Then, think of love as support for your passion, and confidence as the best way to maintain momentum. Have faith when you feel the adrenaline or fear of risk-taking in business. It's part of a purpose-driven life. For example, I am good friends with a renowned chef who moved to the United States from Italy after his restaurant concept failed. He believed his cooking would be more appropriate for the U.S. market. With no money, capital or partners, and only belief and talent, he started a new life in a new country. His work ethic, coupled with his talent, landed him a job at the restaurant that would later become his own and part of his network of over a hundred restaurants 15 years later.

When you're passionate about what you do, working doesn't really seem like "work" anymore. It's like the adage, "Do what you love, and you won't work a day in your life." You might love something that catches your interest, but it's passion that drives the persistence in building a business. Let your passion, awareness, talent and belief trigger themselves, and you'll realize that you have no limits.

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The HuffPost LIVE segment on Compassionate Management was a powerful experience for me. It validated what I believe, and do, and gave me the chance to speak of my concern about companies having a philanthropic arm but not practicing Compassionate Management internally. My Dad sent this to me the next day:

"For 40 years I worked as a psychologist in various outpatient mental health facilities; such as clinics, institutes, and the like. I'm still amazed at the peculiar phenomenon which I've observed several times: institutions serving severely disabled individuals, both physically and mentally, including individuals who were cognitively challenged (formerly referred to as mentally retarded,) cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, go out of their way to serve their clients with untold compassion. It goes so far that professionals and untrained personnel (aides) get reprimanded if they do not show sufficient compassion - and, to my mind, justifiably so.

At the same time, when staff are in distress, be it economically, family circumstances, health issues or outright crises - the very same management shows very little compassion or understanding and offers little if any help. I worked in one place as chief psychologist for years, was regarded very positively and when I suffered a heart attack, (perhaps in part due to the unusual stresses of working with such a sad and challenging population,) I found myself "under the bus," so to speak. There was minimal help, little interest and no compassion.

The same happened in another clinic, when I had to take an emergency leave of absence and was just about ushered to the door.

On a third occasion, when I was a full time student at a prestigious institute for psychotherapy in NYC, I left for a year after the Six Day War to help out in Israel with disabled soldiers. When I returned and asked to go part time, because their stipend was insufficient to support a family, I hit a stone wall, and had to drop out. No compassion.

What adds to the puzzle is the fact that the people who constituted "the management" used to work as therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists themselves!"

What is it that drives management to be so compassionate toward their clients and so cold hearted toward the very staff that carries out their mission?

I have a theory.

It is my belief that when compassion is the product being delivered, the organization is less valued by our society than corporations where making money is their ultimate product. Therefore, the team is under-paid, under-perked and under-staffed.

As a result, there is the constant experience of not being valued. These hard working folks sit at hand-me-down desks, roll their chairs over thread-bare carpets, do 3 peoples jobs for piddly pay, and are berated for not doing more, faster, and for less.

I don't excuse the poor behavior my Dad experienced AND I do understand it.

To deliver compassion day after day and not get any in return? That makes a well run dry. And when the well is empty, anger moves in. And so does impatience, nasty behavior and inflexibility. Generous souls like my Dad deal with this their entire career.

There is a change happening and I invite you to join in. It is time to dramatically shift our thinking and evaluation of non-profits. On June 17, 2013, BBB Wise Giving Alliance, GuideStar USA and Charity Navigator signed a joint open letter to donors regarding the "overhead myth" of charity financial ratios.The letter opens:

"We write to correct a misconception about what matters when deciding which charity to support. The percent of charity expenses that go to administrative and fundraising costs--commonly referred to as "overhead"--is a poor measure of a charity's performance. We ask you to pay attention to other factors of nonprofit performance: transparency, governance, leadership, and results. While corporations are investing heavily in trainings, advanced technology and women's initiatives and are getting kudos for it, charities invest zero in the team because they'll be penalized for taking money away from the needy."

Believe me when I tell you that the first 'needy' people we 'need' to take care of are the generous souls who put in long hours, are poorly compensated and use duct tape to keep the office mini fridge closed.

The airplane oxygen mask. We must first take care of the staff helping the end client in order to truly take care of the end client.

Here's some great material to expand the understanding of how charities are being destroyed by the current evaluation tools and, conversely, how charities will exponentially grow with smarter evaluation tools.

March 11, 2013: Watch Dan Pallotta. It's excruciating to see his passion for helping others be squashed by antiquated thinking. Dan Pallotta Ted Talk

June 18, 2013: Joint letter from BBB Wise Giving Alliance, GuideStar USA and Charity Navigator

July 9, 2013: Watch Nat Ware hit every important aspect in this outstanding presentation: Nat Ware Ted Talk

September 23, 2013: Watch the HuffPost LIVE panel on Compassionate Management. Rena DeLevie of The Roundtable Business, Raj Sisodia of Conscious Capitalism and Andrew Himes of Charter for Compassion.

Join me in this effort to shift the thinking. Please share this post and keep the conversation going. Thank you.

P.S. Thanks Dad for your thoughtful contribution. And all your compassionate support.

Image by Cory Doctorow

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In Washington, it's just seen as the way the world works. Just as big fish eat little fish and lions prey on antelope, so there is no moral shame in the U.S. government trying to undermine, destabilize or get rid of democratically elected governments that it doesn't like.

So it is no surprise that the multi-pronged effort to delegitimize the elections for Venezuela's National Assembly, scheduled for Dec. 6, would be reported and widely accepted here without question as merely trying to insure "credible observation" for the election. The "credible observers," who are being portrayed as the sine qua non of a "credible result" is the Organization of American States.

To see how absurd this assumption is, we need only look back a few years, when the OAS appointed an "Expert Verification Mission" to examine the presidential election in Haiti. This mission did something outrageous, something that has never been done -- before or since -- in the history of electoral monitoring: It reversed the result of the first round of voting, without conducting a recount or even a statistical test. Normally, when an election result is disputed, there is a recount or the result is accepted or a new election can be held. Nowhere does an electoral monitoring team simply pick a new winner.

There are many examples of the U.S. manipulating the OAS machinery.

In Feb. 2011, I was on a panel with Fritz Scheuren, then the lead statistician of the OAS mission, which was carefully chosen so that six of seven members were from the U.S., Canada and France (yes, France was included, even though geographers claim that it's not part of the Western Hemisphere). A former president of the American Statistical Association, he acknowledged that the OAS mission used no statistical inference to draw conclusions from the 8 percent of tally sheets that they examined. Statistical tests conducted by CEPR, including a comprehensive set of simulations for missing votes, confirmed that there was no statistical basis for the mission's reversal of the voting results.

The political reasons became more obvious when Haiti's government, understandably, balked at accepting the OAS decision. With the country still devastated from the 2010 earthquake, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice threatened Haiti with a cut-off of desperately needed aid if they did not accept the OAS Mission's reversal of election results. Michel Martelly, Washington's preferred candidate, was then moved up and into the second round and became president, where he remains today.

protest haiti election 2011

A man runs for cover as Haitian police release tear gas on demonstrators protesting against President Rene Preval in Port-au-Prince in Feb. 2011. (AP Photo/ Dieu Nalio Chery)

It seems unlikely that the OAS could get away with something like this in Venezuela. But it can contribute to destabilization efforts. In 2013, the Venezuelan opposition took to the streets with violent protests, claiming fraud in the presidential election. There was no basis for their claims of fraud: A statistical test of the election audit showed that the probability of getting the official result if the election were in fact stolen through fraud was less than one in 25,000 trillion.

This high level of certainty was possible because of Venezuela's dual voting system, where voters press a touch screen computer and then receive a printout of their vote. The voter then looks at the printout and deposits it in the ballot box. When the polls close, a random audit of 54 percent of the machines is conducted, in which the machine tally is compared with the paper ballots in the presence of witnesses from all parties. The microscopically small probability of fraud, despite the fact that in this case President Maduro won by a margin of 1.6 percentage points, is a result of the enormous random sample size, as any student of introductory statistics can verify.

Yet there were three international voices in 2013 that joined with the opposition and refused to recognize the results, demanding a "full recount": the U.S. government, the right-wing government of Spain and -- tellingly -- the head of the OAS at that time, José Miguel Insulza. Although the U.S. has suffered humiliating defeats in trying to win votes against Venezuela at the OAS, Washington still contributes about a third of the organization's overall budget, and of course it has other levers of power against individual governments and their representatives. There are therefore many examples of it manipulating the OAS machinery. That is why Latin American governments in 2010 formed the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations, which includes all governments in the hemisphere except the U.S. and Canada.

The media is reminiscent of the McCarthy era of the 1950s: dissent is absent, even from reports that might normally include a contrarian opinion as a matter of journalistic balance.

For all of these reasons and many more, any government that has been a major U.S. target for regime change for more than a decade would have reason to be wary of OAS observers. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, the U.S. and Canada are among the countries that have not been interested in having the OAS observe their elections. Playing on the public's lack of knowledge of recent history, almost every source for the major media is pretending that the OAS is just a neutral and necessary institutional guarantee against fraud. The International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch and the Brookings Institution have all piled on. And why wouldn't they? The pretense of disinterested observer, not beholden to the powers and dictates of empire, is the same on which their own identity is established. But many of these players have a particularly sketchy track record on Venezuela over the past decade. The media, for its part, is reminiscent of the McCarthy era of the 1950s: dissent is absent, even from reports that might normally include a contrarian opinion as a matter of journalistic balance.

protest venezuela election

Lilian Tintori (center), wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, joins a protest against President Nicolas Maduro. (FEDERICO PARRA/AFP/Getty Images)

The last decade in Venezuela has seen a series of failed efforts to negate election results there (a brief review of some of the more audacious scams, with links, can be found here). They include bogus statistical studies by U.S. academics (2004), fabricated polls by prominent U.S. pollsters (2004 and 2006), a 2005 opposition boycott of parliamentary elections and the 2013 efforts described above. And that's not to mention attempted military coups. The opposition has never won a national election in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez was first elected in 1998. This time they think they might win, and they have polls to support that assertion. However, a lot depends on turnout, which has been their weakness in non-presidential elections; and there is a big political difference between getting, for example, a simple majority or two-thirds of the assembly.

Hence the pre-emptive strike to discredit the elections: If they do worse than they expect to do, they will claim fraud. And the hardliners, at least, will continue on their extra-constitutional path towards regime change. This has been -- with U.S. support -- plan B (and sometimes plan A) for most of the past 16 years, despite the fact that there has not been a shred of credible evidence of electoral fraud during that entire period.

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2015-11-18-1447862865-2200286-AAEAAQAAAAAAAARhAAAAJDM4M2M1ZWUwLTZhMjctNDEzOC05NjI4LTJhNDA0YzU5MjZkYw.jpg

More and more of late, the age range of the entrepreneurial demographic -- those innovators responsible for the most recent advancements in tech we've benefitted from and enjoy -- has skewed younger. Whereas many of the great 20th-century tech geniuses were far removed from academia (and their parents' basements) when they reached the career-defining breakthroughs for which they came to be known, a huge portion of the entrepreneurial set these days still can't legally walk into a bar and order a drink. During the 20th century, the greatest innovators likely found themselves in the difficult positions of having to wait till the requisite technology for their respective developments evolved and became available for public use -- essentially, they probably had to wait until the tools they needed caught up with the ingenuity in their heads.

Today, the Millennial generation has outshone their inventive forebears by leaps and bounds. This is because these kids have grown up with highly advanced technology at their fingertips -- their ability to take this tech for granted because of their immersion in it, to be desensitized to the wonder of technological development. The Three Digital Accelerators I have written about over the years (bandwidth, storage, and processing power) and their predictable and exponential growth is simply a way of life for the under-30 set because this accelerating exponential growth rate is simply what they've always experienced. Combining this with their ability to invoke out-of-the-box thinking, thanks to their lack of experience, and it's incredibly easy for today's young innovators not only to use existing tech as a foothold for their developments, but to more easily identify what technology can be used to disrupt the next product, service or industry.

It's important for us to take note of these flashes of foresight as they appear in the younger generations, and to realize that by giving these youngsters our attention and resources, we stand to benefit from their creativity. And where does most of today's innovation take place? Your typical college campus.

Consider this: Snapchat was created as a class project at Stanford. Tinder was spawned as the result of a childhood partnership which found its footing in technology at USC. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, was an undergrad at NYU when his idea was developed. And we all know the now-familiar tale of Mark Zuckerberg's exploits at Harvard which led to the creation of Facebook.

Now, a new set of tech wunderkinds is stepping up to fill the shoes of the early-millennial innovators.

Everykey, the brainchild of Chris Wentz and a team of peers at Case Western Reserve University, is a great example of this thinking -- and it will soon be changing the way we interact with the world around us. What started as a college experiment has evolved into a $1.1 million tech startup. The concept is simple: What if we had a Master Key for all our offline and online needs? Everykey aims to replace everything from the lock on your computer and phone to the lock on your car and even the passwords of your online accounts, all with a lightweight wristband.

And how were Chris and his team able to bring this idea into the spotlight? Through crowdsourcing. On Kickstarter, the team raised $117,054 in pre-order sales. Their success caught the eye of several investors, ending a seed round of funding at $720,000.

Everykey's story is a confirmation of the efficacy of crowdsourcing in allocating funds to innovative projects. Without a wider business culture willing to embrace technological disruption, entrepreneurs have to seek other avenues for funding. Crowdsourcing as well as innovation competitions offer a way for entrepreneurs to get projects off the ground.

And it's not as if the products that require crowdsourcing are too peripheral or unprofitable for more traditional avenues of research and development. Wearables, a trend Chris and his team are responding to with Everykey, are a burgeoning area of focus in the tech sector. From Bluetooth to Apple Watch and Google Glass, companies have been experimenting with ways to integrate technology more comfortably and practically into our everyday life. As I've written before, even the healthcare industry has taken notice, looking for ways in which wearables can maximize preventive care by helping us measure our daily health.

At the same time, Everykey is responding to another trend in technology, the Internet of Things (IoT). With the advent of IoT, it's no surprise that a product like Everykey was in the works. It gives users of IoT integrated products a more streamlined controlled of their environment.

By widening the scope to include both offline and online locks, however, Everykey isn't just looking to comfortably fit into this trend. It's looking to change the game when it comes to security. With the $1.1 million in funding, Chris and his team can start developing a product that will have implications for several different industries -- from biometrics and data security to home security and even the automobile industry.

We should be rewarding this kind of creative thinking, not marginalizing it. Too often, companies stagnate by avoiding any discussion of new developments. And just like that, they are disrupted by the next big thing that changes how they operate. But it doesn't have to be that way. Change is productive. It's only disruptive when we don't take the time to identify the Hard Trends that are shaping the future, and take action to shape our future before others shape it for us.

One simple step toward being more prepared might mean offering younger folks like Chris a seat at the table. Think about how Everykey started as a college project. Then think about how many more teams like Chris's there are in colleges across the country. They are ready for the world -- but is the world ready for them? Young entrepreneurs are already well adapted to today's technology. They have a better grasp of the now, and can more easily navigate the next steps to tomorrow. Let's do what we can to put wind in their sails and give them the chance to better all our lives. Have you identified the young creative minds in your organization and given them a change to show you what they can do? If you don't, someone else might.

©2015 Burrus Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2
percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased just 0.2 percent before seasonal adjustment.

Graph: Trading Economics

This hardly shows incipient inflation, and is no reason for the Fed to raise their interest rates in December. Year-on-year, the CPI is also up 0.2 percent which is up from zero in September while the core rate is unchanged at plus 1.9 percent, right at the Fed's general 2 percent goal. Only medical care and housing costs rose, which is understandable with more becoming insured under Obamacare and a shortage of new housing stock.

Why such low inflation? Oil and commodity prices in general have been declining, and energy analysts say this could last for years. Yes, I said for years. So why the hurry to raise interest rates when and if energy prices remain this low, which will continue to lower the costs of goods and services?

"A projected marked slowdown in demand growth next year and the anticipated arrival of additional Iranian barrels--should international sanctions be eased--are likely to keep the market oversupplied through 2016", said the IEA, or International Energy Agency, on Oct 13, 2015.

Oil prices have now declined to almost $40 per barrel of West Texas crude, and the Saudis have said they don't intend to cut back their oil production, in an attempt to keep Iranian oil from grabbing more market share.

Some slight inflationary pressure is coming from rising rents, which rose 3.7 percent over the past 12 months, the Labor Department said, the same as in September. Yearly rent increases have accelerated steadily since 2010, and are outpacing annual wage growth, which was an inflation-adjusted 2.4 percent in October, according to the October unemployment report.

Household formation has picked up as the economy improves, but supply is lagging demand. The inventory of both new and existing homes has been 5 months' supply, much lower than the 6 months' worth of supply considered normal. That's helping drive up prices of homes for sale, and in turn keeping many renters on the sidelines even as mortgage rates remain historically low.

What should help is more new construction. Though builder confidence in the market for newly constructed single-family homes slipped three points to 62 in November from an upwardly revised October reading on the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), it is still robust with traffic wanting new homes.

Future sales are down a sizable 5 points, yet the HMI is still at 70. Present sales, which is the most heavily weighted component, fell 3 points to 67, also still a very strong level. The positive in the report is a 1 point rise in traffic, a component which, at 48 in the latest report, has been lagging badly but is getting closer to the breakeven 50 mark. Weakness in this reading has been reflecting lack of first-time buyers in the market, until now.

"The November report is pullback from an unusually high October, and is more in line with the consistent, modest growth that we have seen throughout the year," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. "A firming economy, continued job creation and affordable mortgage rates should keep housing on an upward trajectory as we approach 2016."

Maintaining such low interest rates should also boost the odds of a more prolonged recovery from the Great Recession, as we said last week. A new Goldman Sachs prediction just out says there is a 60 percent chance this recovery could last another four years. This is according to a team of researchers at Goldman Sachs Group, led by Chief Economist Jan Hatzius. Among developed economies, the average length of an economic expansion has been expanding since 1950. The longest U.S. expansion lasted 10 years, from 1991 to 2001. Before 1950, the average expansion lasted about three years, with only a few enduring for 10 years or more.

Harlan Green © 2015

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Terrific Tuesday -- G20 Fixes EVERYTHING

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Empathy as a Business Tool

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Divesting From Fossil Fuels: The Student Assault on the Academy

Conversation Killers and How to Avoid Them

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Stop Worrying About Your Lack of Emotional Intelligence

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Four Steps to Finding Your Passion in Life

The Paradox of Uncompassionate Management in Institutions Built on Compassion

In Venezuela's Upcoming Election, U.S. Seeks Observers it Can Influence

Millennials Have Outshone Their Inventive Forebears by Leaps and Bounds

Dr. Yellen, Don't Raise Interest Rates Just Yet