The president is naming his new pick to be the head of Housing and Urban Development, Julian Castro, currently the San Antonio mayor. And while HUD is something of a giant bureaucracy, it has less influence than you might think over housing in the U.S. We look at the limits of HUD’s power, and the tools HUD has to help the housing recovery. Plus, Hewlett-Packard is cutting thousands more jobs. Is this founder of Silicon Valley at the stage of life where it’s best strategy is cutting jobs to prop up profits as long as it can? Or can it, um, re-invent itself? Also, online retailer Amazon dislikes a book critical of its founder. It now lists the paperback edition of author Brad Stone’s book as unavailable. We explore whether Amazon’s current dominant role in book sales gives it certain responsibilities in terms of evenhandedness.
The president is naming his new pick to be the head of Housing and Urban Development, Julian Castro, currently the San Antonio mayor. And while HUD is something of a giant bureaucracy, it has less influence than you might think over housing in the U.S. We look at the limits of HUD’s power, and the tools HUD has to help the housing recovery. Plus, Hewlett-Packard is cutting thousands more jobs. Is this founder of Silicon Valley at the stage of life where it’s best strategy is cutting jobs to prop up profits as long as it can? Or can it, um, re-invent itself? Also, online retailer Amazon dislikes a book critical of its founder. It now lists the paperback edition of author Brad Stone’s book as unavailable. We explore whether Amazon’s current dominant role in book sales gives it certain responsibilities in terms of evenhandedness.
