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Kiplinger Reports, Summarized
Bite-sized intelligence you should know. Read the precis or just the headlines. Gain fluency in several areas with little effort
Is free online education the answer to employers' need for more-skilled labor? With more elite schools jumping on board, it's a good bet. Stanford and Mass. Institute of Technology already offer free graded, but unaccredited, courses. Harvard, Princeton, Univ. of Mich., Univ. of Penn. and others will follow suit.
Look for these online schools to partner with firms to meet training needs and to help students find jobs, likely charging modest fees for placement or certificates of completion and other services to help defray costs. So far, none of the endeavors is self-sustaining, relying on university funding and/or big philanthropic grants.
For now, use caution evaluating job candidates with such schooling because there's no way to vet courses' value or determine who really did the work. But testing and credentialing methods are in the works, plus biometric confirmation that those who take the courses and pass the tests are who they say they are.
Airlines Still Finding New Fees to Charge -- From From The Kiplinger Letter
Think airlines are running out of ideas for fees? You'd better think again. Some U.S. airlines will charge for oversize carry-ons -- the norm in Europe -- or follow Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air's example by charging for all carry-on bags.
Some carriers will gamble that passengers will pay more for wider seats, and Delta hopes to convince passengers to pay $12 for in-flight Internet. The airline offers free access to Amazon.comand other sites, getting a cut from sales. But customers who want to browse more broadly will need to pull out their wallets.
Parents Tap Tech to Monitor Kids' Driving -- From From The Kiplinger Letter
Look for parents to use tech to track youngsters who do drive. A device in the works by AT&T will allow monitoring of driving habits in real time, syncing with an app on a teen's smart phone to check speed, steering and other info.
Phone alerts can warn parents about problems, including talking or texting while behind the wheel. The equipment will allow them to disable cell phones remotely.
Other benefits of the system are likely to follow. Lower insurance premiums for drivers who rely on records to show they don't use their phones while they drive, for instance. Or helping to locate and diagnose vehicles when they break down. Traffilog, a start-up based in Israel, is working with AT&T on the project.
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One new firm, BrandYourself, gives people a way to put their best foot forward by manipulating search engine results through search engine optimization, boosting the best info about them to the top of a search engine's first page of results. The first three links are free. After that, the firm charges a fee for additional links. Any negative info will still appear online but farther down the list, and few employers take the time to comb through every page.
Energy Prices Will Ease Further -- From From The Kiplinger Letter
The price of a barrel of oil may fall into the mid-$70s in coming weeks, vs. today's low-$80s and the high of nearly $109 this past March. Why? Oil output by Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and others is still surging in the face of softening demand. As supply and demand come into better balance this summer, helped by sanctions on oil exports from Iran, the price will stabilize before climbing to $90-$95 by the fall. Of course, any flare-up over Iran's nuclear ambitions would bring a sudden spike.
Gasoline pump prices will ease further this summer. The average price, now at $3.56 per gallon for regular unleaded, could go as low as $3.30 by mid-July.
Diesel, ditto. It'll slide to $3.70 a gallon, on average, from today's $3.85. Natural gas will remain a bargain, struggling to crest $3 per million Btu, even as drillers try to perk up prices by trimming production. The extremely high levels of natural gas in storage will take a while to work off.
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© 2012, The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.
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