Rich New Yorkers Aren't Actually Fleeing Because Of Higher Taxes

Perhaps contrary to concerns that higher taxes could spur a disastrous exodus of New York City's wealthiest residents, history shows its one percent like to stay put.

A study conducted by the city's Independent Budget Office shows New York's highest earners -- those making more than $500,000 annually -- don't move at a higher rate than lower-income residents.

In fact, a higher proportion of those who did move stayed relatively close to the city in the suburbs of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in 2012 than in 2008. Both New Jersey and Connecticut are well known for having high income tax rates, which suggests that higher tax rates don't actually scare off the wealthy -- or that the wealthy aren't actually seeking tax havens.

Monday's report is good news for Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), who reportedly spooked the city's wealthiest residents with a pledge to hike up taxes in order to pay for universal pre-K. A tax hike was eventually avoided with a deal brokered by the state, but not before de Blasio's predecessor Michael Bloomberg (I) warned any move to raise taxes is "dumb" -- a reversal from Bloomberg's own 2008 stance insisting none of his rich pals were leaving the city over high taxes.

Conservative pundits including Glenn Beck have claimed the rich will flee in droves over de Blasio's progressive agenda.

"One friend says 10 wealthy people have told him they are leaving and another says disgusted New Yorkers bought $1 billion in residential property in Florida since the November election," New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin wrote in a column back in March. "The Sunshine State confers an automatic tax cut of about 12 percent because it has no city or state income tax, nor does it have an inheritance tax."

Florida's portrayal as a tax haven for the absconding rich was also upended by Monday's report. Although it's the third most popular destination for exiting New Yorkers, that position apparently has nothing to do with income level.

Florida was the destination of more than 10 percent of the households moving out of New York City in 2012, making it the third most popular destination. Given the state’s popularity among retirees, it is perhaps unsurprising that the share of high-income households relocating to Florida was relatively small—just 2 percent of those who moved in 2012.

Customer Service Hall Of Shame: 24/7 Wall St.

When it comes to companies we dread dealing with, we all know who they are. Let’s put it this way, would you rather go to the Apple Genius Bar to fix something with your iPhone or to the Bank of America teller to reverse a surprise interest charge?

It’s perhaps no wonder Bank of America leads the nation in bad customer service. The massive U.S. financial institution has made the Customer Service Hall of Shame every year since 2009.

Click here to see 24/7 Wall St.’s customer service hall of shame:

In collaboration with research survey group Zogby Analytics, we polled 2,500 adults about the quality of customer service at 150 of America’s best-known companies in 15 industries, asking if that service was “excellent,” “good,” “fair” or “poor.”

Those with the highest percentages of “excellent” rankings make up the Customer Service Hall of Fame; those with the highest share “poor” ratings make up our Customer Service Hall of Shame. (See how the survey was done and full results on the last page of this article.)

Many of the other companies with the bottom-rated customer service have earned spots on the Hall of Shame list in the past. Eight of the 10 companies in the Hall of Shame have made at least three previous appearances since 2009.

It is difficult for businesses in some industries to win consumer praise. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — three of the largest banks in the country — received some of the worst customer service ratings in the nation.

For banks, the many fees they charge may contribute to a customer’s poor evaluation of a company. “As soon as you take out your Bank of America ATM card you get charged,” said Praveen Kopalle, professor of marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

In addition to unpleasant and repeated charges and fees, these large banks engaged in questionable and often unlawful behavior that contributed to the housing crisis. For example, “[Banks] assured customers that [mortgage-backed securities] were actually good products when, in fact, they were pretty toxic,” Kopalle said.

Cable and satellite TV companies are another segment that has repeatedly received poor customer service ratings. Shep Hyken, a customer satisfaction expert, explained that these companies are often unclear about their service charges. “Customers get shocked when they get their bill,” Hyken said.

In some instances, companies have little incentive to offer good service. “If people really don’t like the customer service that they receive from telecom companies, they don’t have a lot of choice,” Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, explained. Without competition from other companies, “there is just not that pressure to deliver great service.”

Future consolidation in these industries may exacerbate the problem. Companies like AT&T and DirecTV, as well as Time Warner Cable and Comcast, are driving merger and acquisition activity that will likely close this year, pending government approval.

Many of the companies with the worst customer service, however, are still market leaders and manage to maintain impressive profit margins. Seven of the 10 companies in the Hall of Shame dominate their industries.

This is 24/7 Wall St.’s customer service hall of shame:

Here Is The Salary At Which Money Won't Make You Any Happier In Each State

Money can only buy happiness up to a point. But just how much you need to get to that threshold really depends on where you live, according to a new analysis by Doug Short, vice president of research at investment group Advisor Perspectives.

Short's analysis found that if you live in a place like Hawaii, where the cost of living is relatively high, you need to make $122,175 per year before some extra cash doesn't really translate into more happiness. In Mississippi, by comparison, the threshold at which more money stops making you happier is a lot lower: $65,850 per year.

How much money do you need to make in your state before more money doesn't really make you all that happier? We created a map so you could find out.

Infographics by Jan Diehm for The Huffington Post.

Short, who is not related to the author of this story, relied on a 2010 Princeton study by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, which found that at the national level, making more than $75,000 per year won't significantly improve your day-to-day happiness.

To create his state-by-state comparison, Short adjusted this so-called national $75,000 "happiness benchmark" to reflect the cost of living in each state, relying on data from the Council for Community and Economic Research.

According to the researchers behind the original Princeton study, your emotional well-being -- or the pleasure you derive from day-to-day experiences -- doesn't get any better after you're earning roughly $75,000. That said, a term they call "life evaluation" -- or how you feel about your life and accomplishments -- can continue to rise with higher income and education levels.

Of course, an array of other factors (for instance, the number of kids you have or the amount of debt you carry) will affect how your income translates to your day-to-day happiness. But that's another conversation altogether.

Apple Teams Up With Long-Time Tech Rival IBM

CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple is teaming up with former nemesis IBM in an attempt to sell more iPhones and iPads to corporate customers and government agencies.

The partnership announced Tuesday calls for the two technology companies to work together on about 100 different mobile applications designed for a wide range of industries.

The applications, expected to be released this fall, will feature some of data-crunching tools that IBM Corp. sells to companies trying to get a better grasp on their main markets while scouring for new money-making opportunities.

IBM is also pledging to provide better security to reassure companies concerned about hackers stealing vital information off the mobile devices of employees doing less of their work on desktop and laptop computers.

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook said his company is turning to help from IBM because it doesn't understand the needs of corporate customers as well as it does consumers. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said the alliance will help her company by widening the audience for its technological tools, providing bigger returns on the roughly $24 billion that IBM has invested in data analytics.

"It's a watershed partnership that brings together the best of Apple and the best of IBM," Cook said Tuesday during an interview at Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters. Underscoring the importance of the alliance, Rometty flew from IBM's Armonk, New York headquarters to join Cook for the announcement.

"This is about two powerhouses unleashing the power of mobility for (businesses)," Rometty said. "This is going to remake professions and industries."

By joining forces, Apple and IBM are hoping to build mobile applications that prove iPhones and iPads can serve many other business purposes besides checking email and keeping track of appointments. Cook says the devices are already used for work within all but a handful of Fortune 500 companies.

Both Apple and IBM are counting on their foray to boost their own revenue. The companies both have been facing concerns on Wall Street about whether they will be able to accelerate their revenue growth at a rate that will propel their stocks higher.

The worries about Apple's future prospects have been easing amid widespread anticipation for an iPhone with a larger display screen this fall and the expected release of a smart watch with sensors to tracks people's health. Apple's stock has rallied from its recent lows reached in 2013 and is now approaching its all-time high. The shares shed a $1.13 Tuesday to close at $95.32, just 5 percent below their split-adjusted peak of $100.72.

IBM's stock fell $1.37 to close Tuesday at $188.49, about 13 percent from its high of $215.90.

The partnership underscores how technological upheaval can change allegiances. The notion of Apple and IBM helping each other out would have seemed inconceivable back in the 1980s and 1990s when they were bitter rivals in the personal computer market. The animosity ran so high that Apple famously skewered IBM as a soulless company devoid of new ideas in a commercial that evoked images of novelist George Orwell's "Big Brother" figure in "1984."

The hard feelings have faded away as technology has evolved and the companies have moved in new directions. IBM got out of the PC business when it sold that division to the Lenovo Group nearly a decade ago. Apple now makes far more money from its iPhones than it does from its Mac computers.

"That was a long time ago," Cook said of Apple's old rivalry with IBM. "This is two pieces of a puzzle that fit together perfectly."

Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs, Cook's predecessor, never concealed his disdain for IBM, but longtime Apple analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies is convinced Jobs would have hailed Tuesday's news as another step away from the days when IBM's mainframe computers dominated technology. "Steve would have loved this," Bajarin said. "It shows that the post-PC era is in full swing now."

The Man Who Made Abercrombie & Fitch Less White Just Quit

The man who made Abercrombie & Fitch's workforce less dominated by whites and men has quit the company. He will be replaced by a woman.

Todd Corley, chief diversity officer at the teen apparel retailer, is starting the TAPO Institute, an advisory firm that will advocate for "inclusive leadership," Abercrombie announced on Thursday.

A decade ago, more than 90 percent of Abercrombie's store associates were white. The issue received public scrutiny in 2004, when the company settled three class-action lawsuits filed by former employees who accused Abercrombie of race and gender discrimination. Abercrombie paid nearly $50 million to thousands of minority and female plaintiffs and pledged to diversify its workforce.

Chief executive Mike Jeffries tapped Corley, then a senior manager of diversity for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, to head Abercrombie's new Office of Diversity.

Now, more than half of Abercrombie's associates are minorities, according to the company. As for senior executives: More than 40 percent of Abercrombie's vice presidents are women, as are 75 percent of executive vice presidents and 33 percent of the board of directors, according to Abercrombie. These figures are notably higher than at many public companies.

Abercrombie did not provide information about how many of its senior executives are minorities.

"I am proud of the accomplishments we have made together as an organization," Corley said in a statement. "The efforts began around race and ethnicity but evolved to include diversity in the way people think, cultural differences and creating an inclusive place to work."

Amy Zehrer, executive vice president of stores and a 22-year veteran of Abercrombie, will take over the company's diversity program.

While Abercrombie has received praise in some areas for its inclusive environment -- a company press release notes that the Human Rights Campaign has named A&F a Best Place to Work for the LGBT community every year since 2007 -- it has also been dogged by allegations of religious, racial and size discrimination, even after its diversity program was well underway.

The retailer's exacting dress code, for example, has been the subject of much scrutiny. It dictates everything from how Abercrombie retail workers can highlight their hair to the way they should double-cuff their skinny jeans.

Store employees told The Huffington Post in 2013 that enforcement of the style guide ensnared workers who wore religious items such as hijabs and crosses. A pair of lawsuits from Muslim women who were fired or refused employment over their hijabs led to a change in Abercrombie's policies last August, specifically acknowledging that the headscarves must be accommodated in the workplace.

"I felt like I never belonged and was uncomfortable working at Abercrombie," one former employee told HuffPost. "It was pretty ironic how they were recruiting diverse employees, but only if your hair is not covered."

Last year, Abercrombie was skewered for discriminating against people with larger body types, refusing to stock bigger sizes for female customers in accordance with Jeffries' ideal of the "attractive all-American kid." In a 2006 interview with Salon, which resurfaced in May 2013, Jeffries said: "A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

Following the backlash, Abercrombie decided to offer larger sizes for some of its women's clothes in its online store. A new XL size is now available for some women's tops, and some pants and shorts are available in size 14, up from the previous maximum of size 10.

In 2012, models for Abercrombie's sister brand Hollister mocked Asians by squinting their eyes as they posed for photos. Abercrombie fired the employees.

But perhaps Abercrombie's most infamous racial controversy occurred before Corley's tenure.

In 2002, a line of racist T-shirts hit Abercrombie's shelves. Emblazoned with caricatures of Asians with slanted eyes and conical hats, the shirts were quickly recalled after outrage among the Asian-American community. One shirt bore the slogan "Wong Brothers Laundry Service -- Two Wongs Can Make It White." Another displayed an image for "Abercrombie's Pizza Dojo," which promised customers, "You Love Long Time."

Talkative Co-Workers Are Far More Distracting Than Email, Odors

We may live in an era of constant technological distractions, but Americans still find old-fashioned office gossip much more annoying than emails, phone calls and weird computer noise.

In a new survey by consulting firm Lee Hecht Harrison, 45 percent of workers said talkative co-workers were more distracting than anything else in the office. Emails came in a distant second place at 18 percent and odors in third at 9 percent.

Talkative co-workers: 45 percent
Emails: 18 percent
Odors: 9 percent
Telephone calls: 8 percent
Ambient noise: 6 percent
Office design: 5 percent
Technology: 4 percent
Nothing at all: 5 percent

“Overly talkative co-workers usually have no idea how annoying they are to their colleagues," Jim Greenway, vice president of marketing at Lee Hecht Harrison, wrote in a statement about the survey. "They simply lack the self-awareness to recognize the signals."

These days 70 percent of employees in the U.S. work in open-plan offices, where private offices and cubicles have been replaced with communal workspaces. Perhaps a buzzing smartphone doesn't seem that bad when compared to your co-worker's relationship drama.

Nevertheless, Greenway says that up to a point, office chatter does serve a purpose.

“Serendipitous conversations in the hallway or brief stops by a co-worker’s office or cubicle for some chit-chat can yield tremendous benefits in terms of collaboration, generating new ideas, creating trust and increasing productivity," he said.

The firm surveyed 848 U.S workers in an online poll conducted in April.

Postal Worker Caught On Video Hurling Packages Into Ravine

If you live in the Birmingham area, and you're missing a suspicious number of packages, you may want to consider checking your local ravine.

An unidentified United States Postal Service worker in Birmingham, Ala., was caught on video Monday apparently removing some packages from a USPS-branded mail delivery van and then hurling them off a steep embankment by the road. You can see the hurling in question in the video above.

When reached for comment by the Alabama Media Group, Special Agent Kenneth D. Smith of the USPS crime investigation unit said that the employee resigned from the USPS on Thursday after the video went viral on social media. Smith declined to identify the worker by name.

"As with any ongoing OIG investigation, I can't comment on specifics," he added.

The whole thing sort of reminds us of when a USPS driver was caught on camera last year driving over a homeowner's lawn to deliver a package:

In that instance, at least the package actually reached its intended destination.

Jamie Dimon Has Throat Cancer: Report

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has been diagnosed with throat cancer, according to multiple reports.

Dimon's cancer was revealed in a memo emailed to the company's employees on Tuesday. In the email, Dimon said that the cancer is "curable" and "the prognosis from doctors is excellent," according to Forbes.

Dimon, who reportedly will undergo roughly eight weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, also "will continue to be actively involved" in the company, according to a portion of the email cited by fastFT.

Buzzfeed has published the letter in its entirety. You can see it here.

Charlatans, Cranks And Kansas

Two years ago Kansas embarked on a remarkable fiscal experiment: It sharply slashed income taxes without any clear idea of what would replace the lost revenue. Sam Brownback, the governor, proposed the legislation — in percentage terms, the largest tax cut in one year any state has ever enacted — in close consultation with the economist Arthur Laffer. And Mr. Brownback predicted that the cuts would jump-start an economic boom — “Look out, Texas,” he proclaimed.

Read the whole story at New York Times