At a Dubai forum for women executives, entrepreneurs, and executives, talk of change is in the air. By Nina Easton, senior editor-at-large FORTUNE -- Sheikha Lubna, self-described computer geek and Cal State Chico grad, describes the sleepless nights, and piercing insecurities, as she rose from lonely female software designer to Dubai Port Authority modernizer to the United Arab Emirates' first woman cabinet minister. Fear, she counsels a rapt audience, is a powerful motivator: "It's what pushed me further." The charismatic trade minister could be mistaken for a high-paid American motivational speaker. But the women hanging onto her every word are mostly from the Arab Middle East, where failure is a stigma -- and sharing your fear of it an alien language. That goes double for ... Continue reading →
Ryan’s plan was praised by conservatives as a pathway to a balanced budget and as a way to reform Medicare. Newt Gingrich threw conservatives under the bus when he called Paul Ryan’s plan “right-wing social engineering.” Continue reading →
If Republicans want to put the Democrats' "tax fairness" canard to rest, they ought to push for a tax hike on the 'super rich' -- but not on the rich. By Nina Easton, senior editor-at-large FORTUNE -- In the latest stop on his fairness crusade (a.k.a. the 2012 re-elect), President Obama yesterday touched down in Kansas to compare himself to Republican trust-buster Teddy Roosevelt -- the latest in a string of presidential self-comparisons that started in 2007 with Lincoln and has since run through FDR, Kennedy, and Reagan. TR, of course, was a great proponent of the "graduated income tax on big fortunes"-- the seeds of the progressive structure that has been embedded in U.S. policy for nearly a century. But today Obama asserts that ... Continue reading →
