Election day is finally here and we have the latest on national midterm elections. Also, Taylor Swift as the latest artist to pull out from Spotify raises questions on how musicians should be paid in the digital era. Then, after more than a year after the launch of Healthcare.gov and Covered California, how is the law faring?
National Elections Roundup
It's election day across the country, with big Senatorial races deciding which party is in the majority. Races in Colorado, Iowa, Georgia, Alaska, Kansas, New Hampshire, and others are under the microscope as voters go to the booths. The Republicans are expected to take control of the legislature’s upper chamber, although a last minute mistake or an unexpected turnout from the Democratic base could shift the tide. And while the House of Representatives has not been followed with as much scrutiny, Republicans are expected to pick up around 10-15 more seats, solidifying their majority.
We’ll round-up the hottest races to watch around the country and ask which contests are on your radar? And what would an entirely Republican-controlled Congress mean for President Obama?
You can visit the KPCC 2014 Election Voter Guide to get your free, personalized ballot cheat sheet.
Guests:
Carolyn Lochhead, Washington Correspondent, San Francisco Chronicle
Chris Moody, Senior Digital Correspondent for CNN’s Politics Team (a new position for Chris, formerly the politics reporter for Yahoo! News)
Taylor Swift leaves Spotify, raising questions about how recording artists should be paid
In a move that has angered fans and created ripples across the music streaming industry, Taylor Swift’s label, Big Machine Records, has pulled all of her music off the streaming service Spotify. Speculation is that the move is to boost sales for her new album, 1989. She is not the first artist to have withheld music from Spotify, other notable artists including Thom Yorke, Beyonce, Coldplay, and the Black Keys.
Whether or not you listen to her music is one thing, but it is hard to deny her rampant success and popularity. Just through Spotify, Taylor Swift’s music has been listened to by almost 16 million people and can be found on more than 19 million playlists - and that’s only in the past 30 days. 1989, is expected to sell over a million copies, a serious achievement when no other album has sold a million records in 2014. But Big Machine's move raises the more interesting question of how music will be recorded and listened to in coming years. Music streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and Beats Music are growing like crazy.
How can you beat free music with commercials, or unlimited commercial free streams for $10 a month? iTunes certainly can't and is showing just the kind of decline in sales you'd expect. That raises the question of how recording artists will be paid. If sales continue to drop, can rights fees for streaming possibly pick up the slack?
Guest:
Casey Rae, Vice President of Policy, Future of Music Coalition, an artists’ advocacy group.
Ashlye Keaton, Attorney specializing in Entertainment Law, based in New Orleans; Keaton represents various Memphis and Motown artists and song catalogs
‘Tis the season: Vacation time battles between employers and employees
This time of year, employers struggle with scheduling vacation requests while maintaining enough staff to be relatively productive. Some employers eschew that stress by enacting "vacation blackout" periods. The Society for Human Resource Management says, "An employer ... has the right to manage its vacation pay responsibilities, for instance, by controlling when vacation may be taken and the amount of vacation that may be taken at any particular time." However, labor attorney Randy Renick who represents employees sees it differently. "I think it is inconsistent with California law on vacation pay, particularly where it deprives the employee of the ability to use the vacation time earned," Renick said. He added, "This happens more often as employers adopt a use-it-or-lose-it policy.
In the post-recession climate, companies are gearing up for pre-recession productivity - sometimes with recession-level staffing, putting a squeeze on vacations. Vacation blackouts are deemed a necessity for many retailers during the Christmas season -- and many retail workers are keen for the seasonal work and holiday overtime pay.
What is your experience with vacation requests at work? Does your company institute blackout dates or a use-it-or-lose-it policy? If you were given a generous vacation benefit, have you been able to use it, or is your work too demanding? If you're a manager or business owner, how do you handle this potential tension? How does managing vacation time compare to handling your company’s other finances?
Guests:
Randy Renick, Labor Lawyer and Partner with Hadsell, Stormer & Renick LLP based in Pasadena; specializes in wage and hour class action litigation
John Kabateck, Executive Director, California Chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business
Has the Affordable Care Act fulfilled its promises?
The Affordable Care Act has been beset by partisan bickering, technical glitches, complaints from doctors to consumers even before it went into effect. More than a year after the launch of Healthcare.gov and Covered California, how is the law faring?
New York Times health care reporter Margot Sanger-Katz crunched looked at enrollment and other sources of data to answer that question. The criteria she and her team looked at include how affordable has health insurance under the law been, if the law has led to a dramatic increase of people who are insured, and the effect of the law on the health care industry.
If you're looking for a doctor in the L.A. area who are covered by ACA healthcare plans, you can use this handy map courtesy of the L.A. Times.
Guest:
Margot Sanger-Katz, covers health care for the paper’s "The Upshot” section, which presents news, analysis and data visualization about politics and policy. Her piece “Is the Affordable Care Act Working?” was recently published in the New York Times.
Walmart considers price match for holiday season
Walmart already has a price match program at its brick-and-mortar locations, where you can show them a lower advertised price for a product they carry, and Walmart will match the price. This holiday season, the major retailer is considering expanding that price match program to also match online prices from rivals like Amazon.com.
The concern among Walmart brass is how much the program could potentially cut into profits, even if it does make the store more competitive among other discount retailers. Walmart is already fighting to keep customers in its stores, as dollar stores and online retailers have made the competition more fierce.
Other big-box retailers like Target and Best Buy have already implemented online price match programs to prevent customers from “showrooming,” or checking prices on products at brick-and-mortar locations and then making the purchases at online competitors like Amazon. According to the National Retail Federation, consumers are planning to do more than 44% of their holiday shopping online this year, which is up 13% from five years ago.
Would you be more likely to do your holiday shopping at Walmart if they introduced an online price match program? How often do you make use of programs like this at other retailers? Do you think it will help or hurt Walmart more?
Guest:
Kit Yarrow, consumer research psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco
Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research, technology research company based in Cambridge, MA
Chop Suey: How Chinese food conquered the US (test your knowledge)
When it comes to Chinese food, it’s not an overstatement to say that Southern California almost has it all. Chances are, discernible eaters can find anything their hearts desire in the San Gabriel Valley, from dishes everyone knows to street foods originating in obscure parts of China.
But that hasn’t been the case always, and certainly never so in most other parts of this country. The popularization of Chinese food in America parallels the growth of the country’s Chinese immigrant community. Just as it took time for Chinese immigrants to assimilate and become accepted, so has the cuisine.
In “Chop Suey, USA,” UC Irvine historian Yong Chen looks at the cultural, economic and sociological factors that have brought Chinese food to the mainstream.
Guest:
Yong Chen, a history professor at UC Irvine who focuses on the economic and cultural interactions between China and the U.S. He is the author of “Chop Suey, USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America” (Columbia University Press, 2014)
Take our quiz below on your knowledge of Chinese food