Todd Thibodeaux Posts

1. No Hostage Taking – The U.S. federal debt ceiling debate is going to rear its ugly head again in the next few months, and whatever fragile economic recovery we have could be dashed with a matter of a few votes. If Congress and the President don’t want to spend our tax dollars (and more), then don’t authorize it. But if spending measures do get passed, then don’t hold the country hostage over money already spent. 2. Frank Talk – Here’s hoping the Presidential campaign in the fall somehow mag ...

No Hostage Taking – The U.S. federal debt ceiling debate is going to rear its ugly head again in the next few months, and whatever fragile economic recovery we have could be dashed with a matter of a few votes. If Congress and the President don't want to spend our tax dollars (and more), then don't authorize it. But if spending measures do get passed, then don't hold the country hostage over money already spent. Frank Talk – Here's hoping the Presidential camp ...

I did a radio interview last Saturday talking about the IT job market. We covered the standard message points: lots of open jobs in some regions but very few in others, not enough skilled people to fill them wherever they seem to be, and employers being very picky and specific about who they are hiring. But the point I kept coming back to in my own mind was when will the U.S. labor market hit a tipping point? Unemployment is almost always a lagging indicator during post-recession periods of gr ...

I did a radio interview last Saturday talking about the IT job market. We covered the standard message points: lots of open jobs in some regions but very few in others, not enough skilled people to fill them wherever they seem to be, and employers being very picky and specific about who they are hiring. But the point I kept coming back to in my own mind was when will the U.S. labor market hit a tipping point?Unemployment is almost always a lagging indicator during post-recession periods of growt ...

OMG! What did we do on business travel before the Internet? Did we read books? Did we call home? Did we go out? I can hardly remember. I’m out and about a fair amount and I used to judge the quality of a hotel by three factors: how was the shower water pressure, did the TV channel selection include Comedy Central and was the room service burger tasty. Those now seem like afterthoughts (well maybe not the shower water pressure).When you hear people talk about the quality of their on-the-road expe ...

I just returned from a two-week trip to Asia, stopping in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Toyko, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Frankfurt and then back to Chicago. Along the way I ran speed tests on Internet access speeds at each hotel where we stayed. The results verified a lot of what I’d noticed anecdotally on prior trips to the region. They also demonstrate, that regardless of what you read and hear, the U.S. has the absolute best, most affordable and widely available Inte ...

If they can’t even pave a street, why should we trust them with our IT networks? That’s a tongue-in-cheek question, but I had to ask myself that very thing after recently spending three days in India visiting the likes of Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant and Sutherland, some of the largest system integrators and BPO operations in the world.During the trip we stopped in Delhi (our office is in Gurgaon), Chennai and Bangalore. Each was a little different but still some of the same paradoxes exist. It's a ...

I grew up and remain a computer agnostic. I've built, bought, used and sold nearly 100 computers in my life, but there has always been something amazingly special and unique about Apple products. For me, they've always held a certain indescribable magic I couldn't and still can't ignore. The years when Steve Jobs was away from Apple, the company frequently lost its way because the magic that was Steve Jobs went with him as he built NeXT and Pixar.But when he returned for what would be his final ...

When Obama was elected president, there was a slight kerfuffle about whether he would be allowed to continue to use his Blackberry. As you may or not know, BlackBerrys are the lifeblood of congressional communication, and during his tenure in the senate (and probably before that), he became addicted. As the story goes, he was able to keep his Blackberry with some additional encryption and even picked up an iPad along the way. But those are just gadgets. What I’m really waiting for is the nation’ ...

When you hear cries from voters for their politicians to take bold steps to meet challenges, I’m never sure what that means, and I find myself almost always being disappointed. Here's my take. I'll frame it in the context of what is and isn’t bold from one man’s perspective.On corporate taxes…Bold is the wholesale elimination of the corporate tax. “Eliminate the tax, eliminate the loopholes” has the result of eliminating 90 percent of the tax distortions inherent in the system. While you’re at i ...