You raise me up…
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Target’s being a follower and that means only good things for some 350,000 of its employees. The retailer is raising its minimum wage from $8.83 to a whopping $9.00 an hour. Don’t laugh. The federal minimum wage is still only $7.25. Walmart already made that move several weeks back and TJX, which owns TJ Maxx, Marshall’s and Home Goods, is also set to follow suit. So what exactly is the downside of raising the minimum wage and why doesn’t everybody just do it already? Critics of raising the minimum wage feel that sometimes doing so might deter employers from hiring more people if they feel they have to shell out more money to do so. So yeah, it’s great if employers are paying more, just as long as you are able to get a job with them, to begin with. Speaking of not having jobs, this minimum wage announcement comes on the heels of Target’s earlier announcement that it’s cutting about 3,000 jobs. Target’s going to need a few bucks to pay off that $10 million settlement over its 2013 security breach where 40 million cards were compromised and the personal financial information of well over a 110 million people was accessed. Victims could get up to $10,000 in damages but Target doesn’t plan on making it easy for them to collect. Alleged victims will have to bear the burden of proof and submit adequate documentation on losses they incurred.
Monopolize!
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A big happy birthday shout out goes to Monopoly, the iconic board game who turns 80 today. The game, owned by Hasbro, comes in 47 languages and is available in 114 countries. You could pick up the game for a whole $2, back in 1935, when Parker Brothers originally bought it up from Charles Darrow. But its roots go even deeper, back to 1903, when a woman named Elizabeth Magie came up with the original incarnation of the game, which was meant to highlight the unfairness of property ownership. Ironically, Monopoly has become the world’s best-selling board game. 275 million copies of the game have sold, with more than $30 billion worth of Monopoly money printed each year, and each game coming with $20,580. Rumor has it that Mr. Monopoly, himself, a.k.a Rich Uncle Pennybags is based on none other than J.P. Morgan. To mark the momentous occasion, Monopoly has come out with its latest version dubbed “Here and Now.” Cities all over the world voted for their picks to make it onto newest board. In case you were wondering, Illinois Avenue, B&O Railroad and the “GO” space are the three most frequently “landed-on” spaces. Now if only Atlantic City, whose street names can be found on Monopoly board games, can channel some of Monopoly’s success for itself, it might be able to pull itself up from all its recent economic struggles.
GDY mate…
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Chances are, if you have a domain name, you went through GoDaddy.com to buy it. The company, which also does web-hosting, wants to make its Wall Street IPO and is looking to raise $418 million with a valuation around $2.87 billion. Just three years ago GoDaddy.com was picked up by KKR and Silver Lake Management and now, here they are looking to offer up 22 million shares for about $17 – $19 a pop. The company, which currently handles about 20% of the world’s domain names, has approximately 12.7 million customers and took in $1.39 billion for 2014. That was a hefty a 23% increase over 2013. Look for its ticker symbol one day: “GDY.” Catchy, huh?
Pujonomics. 