Business

About 20 years ago, Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff started Economic Security Planning, a firm that sold financial-planning software. Recently, Kotlikoff has re-purposed the firm's ESPlanner software to help divorcing couples weigh potential financial settlements and the impact they could possibly have on each individual. Now, he and his firm are offering this type of analysis via a new website, FairDivorceDecisions.com. Kotlikoff explains that this by quantifying the long-term impact of potential settlements, the service "can stop a lot of the arguments." The idea struck Kotlikoff as he was going through his own divorce. Dayle Ballentine, his former partner, agreed that the software made things easier, and described their divorce as "pretty amicable." The softw...

New reports from the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies have some good news, and some bad news. On the one hand, growth in home improvement spending is expected to slow down during 2015. On the other hand, home improvement spending is still growing. In fact, the U.S. home improvement industry could post record level spending in 2015. The latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity, which is designed to estimate national homeowner spending on improvements for the current quarter and subsequent three quarters, projects that the annual growth for 2015 will decelerate from 6.3% in the first quarter of 2015 to 1.6% by the third quarter. "Due in part to weakening home sales last year, growth in remodeling spending is expected to deflate somewhat in 2015," said Chris Herber...

It's already been a long winter with plenty of snow, leaving many residents across the nation worried about the state of their roofs. When roofs are covered in snow and ice, it's nearly impossible to tell when they're near collapse, but a new system called Roof Monitor may be set to change that.Roof Monitor was developed by Brad Beldon, a longstanding member of the roofing industry who wanted to design a way to monitor the condition of snow-laden roofs. Using wireless sensors that transmit real-time data, building owners with Roof Monitor will be able to make more informed decisions about winter roof maintenance.The wireless sensors are placed on the exterior surface of the roof and measure environmental changes and roof loads. The data collected by the sensors is integrated into a user-fr...

Dealing with customer service representatives over the phone can be a hassle -- for both the customer and the company employee. But when tempers flared a little too much at Comcast, one billing customer got a surprise when she received her monthly statement. Ricardo and Lisa Brown of Spokane, Washington, had to call their cable and internet provider over a billing matter. When they received their statement in the mail, they noticed that Ricardo's name had been changed -- to "Asshole Brown." When Lisa Brown called Comcast to get the name changed back, employees were reluctant to help. She reached out to Christopher Elliott, a consumer advocacy writer for the Washington Post, USA Today and other publications. After hearing the Browns' story, Elliot featured a full report of the Comcast deb...

Talk about having your cake and eating it too. A California state employee recently found himself in hot water for lying about his need to work from home, in order to secretly take on a second job. The worker, who was employed with the Department of Industrial Relations, lied to his supervisor about needing to telecommute -- claiming he needed to care of his sick mother -- with the intention of secretly working a second full-time job at a San Francisco hospital, according to the report from the state auditor. Taking place between 2010-2011, the lie was not discovered for almost a year -- 10 months -- due to the laid-back management style of the employee's supervisor, according to State Auditor Elaine Howle's December report. The report, which focused on incidences of bad behavior ...

Destino was once a Midtown New York restaurant owned in part by Justin Timberlake and known for being a hangout for local celebrities. But it closed in 2013, allegedly due to flooding problems. A lawsuit filed Jan. 20 has now clarified the nature of that flooding: “It turns out some of the restaurant’s plumbing pipes were actually illegal, and wound up spewing -- wait for it -- human excrement all over the place,” the website PopCrush reported Tuesday. One of the restaurant’s owners is suing insurance company Amguard, saying it is at fault for two separate incidents involving the pipes. According to the online resource Eater New York, the first incident occurred in July of 2013, when the pipes burst and covered the walls and premises in waste. The restaurant closed for four months...

If you have been dealing with long-term severe spinal pain of the neck and back, you have likely looked into chiropractic treatment options that are available. Making the choice to get help for your pain is an important step and can help you find the care and treatment options that are best for your individual situation and unique needs. An experienced professional chiropractor can provide the best treatment for lower back muscle pain and offer you ideas on what the best way to cure back pain might be for your specific situation. Chiropractors focus on finding the best way to heal lower back injury and to reduce pain without invasive surgery or harmful medications and drugs. They are committed to helping all of their patients discover the best way to recover from lower back pain safely a...

Childcare is a necessary but expensive service for many working parents in the United States, who often assume 90% of daycare costs. However, as difficult as finding a reputable and affordable care provider can be, growing trends like corporate childcare are slowly making this process easier for many. This fact stands in sharp contrast to countries like South Korea, where a shortage of dependable childcare is forcing many women to give up their careers. Like many countries, South Korea is a patriarchal society, where most executive positions are held by men and stay-at-home moms are idealized. But this northeast Asian nation is also the fastest-aging developed country in the world, with the working-age population expected to begin declining next year. With this possibility on the horizon,...

Today, the average small- or medium-sized business likely has a number of questions about how to promote itself on and offline. These questions might include "what is SEO marketing?" or "how can I use the internet to succeed in the real world?" Increasingly, companies who are asking these questions are finding answers in social media: several recent reports suggest that social media marketing will increase significantly over the next four years. After surveying more than 5,000 marketers, the cloud computing company Salesforce found that 70% of their respondents planned to boost their social media spending in 2015. Meanwhile, Forrester Research, an independent research company, predicted that social media marketing will hit $9.7 billion in the United States this year, eventually reaching $...

Houston, Texas, has topped a nationwide list of cities with the most master-planned home sales in 2014, with a total of seven of the state's communities making the cut. Yet the top seller overall was Florida, with over 2,600 sales in one community alone. John Burns Real Estate Consulting, based in Irving, California, releases a list each year of the 20 top-selling master-planned communities in the United States. Last year, around 13,200 of these types of homes were sold throughout the country. The top developer went to Houston-based Johnson Development Corp., which is behind three of the top sellers: Riverstone, Woodforest and Cross Creek Ranch. Fourteen other developers besides Johnson Development made the list. However, sales in Florida also ranked high. The Villages, developed by Vil...