Weekly Report: 14-12

  • MILLENNIALS’ PERSPECTIVE UPDATE: Based on newest 2014 surveys, young adults now ranging in age from 18 to 33 are “relatively unattached to organized politics or religion…and distrustful of people… but generally vote heavily Democratic with liberal views on political and social issues ranging from belief in an activist government to support for same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization.” About half acknowledge their political views becoming more conservative as they age, but over one-third say they’re still becoming more liberal, largely correlated to America’s economic hardships: “higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, combined with lower levels of wealth and personal income… reflecting the impact of globalization and rapid technological change on the American workforce.” Racial makeup – some 43% being U.S. born children of Hispanic and Asian immigrants – is also a key attitude factor, with over 80% saying that “most people can’t be trusted – an outgrowth of feeling vulnerable or disadvantaged and less well-fortified to deal with the consequences of misplaced trust.” Collectively, nearly 40% are either Atheists or Agnostics “uncertain that God exists,” and two-thirds feel there is “no great difference between the political parties.” Racial makeup also impacts attitudes about Big Government with 71% of non-white millennials preferring “more services” compared to 21% of whites. [PEW RESEARCH CENTER REPT – Mar 7, 14]   For a satirical but amazingly on-point quick video primer on keeping millennials happy: http://www.joeydevilla.com/2013/06/07/millennials-in-the-workplace-a-hilarious-video-on-how-to-work-with-the-worst-generation

  • DETERIORATING SLEEP OR TOUGHER WEIGHT CONTROL MAY BE SIMPLY FROM TOO MUCH ALCOHOL. Latest studies show that, beyond behavior issues and legal risks, excess alcohol sabotages sleep quality. “Though booze may help drift off, it is a sedative which suppresses dreaming and, once metabolized, your brain wakes up, causing fragmented sleep.” Heavy drinkers lose around 45-minutes a night, plus diminished restorative functions. Weight loss is also seriously impacted by deprivation of sleep, as well as by reduced metabolism. At 7 calories per gram (second only to fat at 9 calories), “within minutes of sipping, your body treats alcohol as a toxin and removing it as a top priority…so it stops burning the usual stored carbs & fat for energy and instead utilizes the alcohol, with up to 73% decrease in fat burn… In one study, two beers with each of three meals daily showed a 450-calorie impact.” Moderate drinking is considered (by Nat’l Institute on Alcohol Abuse) to be less than 15 drinks/week with no more than four in a single day; and a “drink” means 1½oz shot, 5oz wine, or 12oz beer.  [MENS HEALTH – Apr 14]

  • USING ‘PASSWORD’ FOR A COMPUTER PASSWORD became the second most stolen password last year, after 123456. Other winners included toughies like 1234, 12345, 11111, etc.; abc123, ilove you, admin, sunshine, princess, shadow, qwerty, photoshop, and letmein. According to security firm Splashdata, “weaker passwords are more susceptible to brute-force attacks through rapid guessing, and are first to fall to cracking software.” [CSO MAGAZINE –Jan 14]  

  • A PRISON-SENTENCING OVERHAUL BILL IS CLOSE TO BI-PARTISAN FEDERAL ENACTMENT which, in addition to reducing long-term sentences for recreational drug use, would “reduce federal costs, help unburden the welfare state” and is strongly supported by the Administration. With 5% of the world’s population, America holds 25% of its incarcerated prisoners. Of the more than two million male inmates in our jails and prisons, African-Americans make up some 40%, with those aged 30-34 representing the highest incarceration rate of any race/ethnicity and nearly a third aged 20–29 under some form of criminal justice supervision. “As an African-American Attorney General plagued by too many complaints about the government’s intrusive surveillance policies, Eric Holder seems to be focused on making his second term mark in three critical areas: battling the Tea Party movement as it tries to restrict and repeal voting rights, fighting for gay rights particularly same sex marriages, and making some sense out of our amazingly stupid and prohibitively costly sentencing laws.”  [UNSHRED AMERICA.COM – Mar 4, 14]

  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:    “Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.”

           “I learned that good judgment comes from experience and that experience grows out of mistakes.” – Army General Omar Bradley

            The long list of behavior outlawed by ‘fatwa’ from Islamic clerics now also includes All-You-Can-Eat buffets, since Sharia law apparently demands that “value and quantity of food sold should be pre-determined beforehand.”

DUITCH CONSULTING GROUP – UTILIZING GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE TO PROVIDE OPTIMAL STRATEGIC, FINANCIAL, OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT PLANNING & POSITIONING