While I agree that asking about someone's marriage status is discrimantory and should be forbidden. This is not just a women's issue. Having been on both sides of the job interview, the number one reason for asking a question like that is not to asses a a person's pregnancy potential but rather asses how willing someone is to relocate, and stay at a job. If someone is married to someone working out of state it raises questions about someone commitment to a job regardless of gender.

While I'm not a great supporter of Wal-Mart, I'm also not a fan of blaming every ill on the world on Wal-Mart. Ultimatley, every employee should have choice to work under specific conditions, be it pay or flex hours. As you can guess I'm not supporter of minimum wages which is not to say that I think employees don't deserve some minimum standard of living. I rather support an earned income tax credit, or provide universal health care to those can't afford via higher taxes. Wal-Mart's employment practices are only a problem when it's employees don't have other options. I don't think this quite the case in most locations Wal-Mart is in. If Wal-Mart finds that by having a flex schedule is more effecient, and assuming they have competitors for their employees, to compete for those employees Wal-Mart would have to incentivize workers by higher wages - Wal-Mart benefits, Employees benefit, Society benefits - that's what we call productivity gain by technology. We should focuse first that the market is working and that Wal-Mart is not unfairly competing through either monopoly or cartel power. On that end i'm not convinced that Wal-Mart may not be unfairly advantaged somehow. However let's not stifle innovation just because it's coming from Wal-mart. As society we should foster different opportunities and choices for the members of that society not to force specific requirements upon them.

Diane, I concede that earned income tax credits, and subsidized medical insurance can serve as subsidy to employers who don't provide higher wages or benefits. I hastily used them as examples of things I much rather see than regulating how company treats it's employees. That said goverment subsidies have the benefit of targeting those in need rather regulations which unintentionally target those who don't (i.e. minimum wage and teenagers). However, why does any company offer higher wages or better benefits? Not because they are altruistic but rather because they want to attract employees and believe that happy employees are better employees. Regardless of any Government subsidies, your argument on pure captialism would imply that all corporations would cut wages to the lowest levels possible. They should, but the counter argument is that the employee is also a pure capitalist and can demand to be paid what he or she is worth. As long as there is competition, companies are should be willing to raise pay as long as there is still profit to be made (and the more effecient the operation the greater the profit). Balance. The crux of my argument is that as long Wal-Mart has viable competitors for it's labor supply, it's introduction of innovation is a good thing. Sorry if I've offended anyone with my use of flex-time which is as "Reason" points out is commonly used to refer to something else. However having been in a flextime regime, it's often not that disimilar, i.e. I worked long hours when there was a project and got to take extra time off when there wasn't. I think people sometimes lose sight that there may be no immediate and direct benefits to innovation and sometimes the immediate effects seem less than desireable. For example any technology that reduces the labor requirement in an industry is bad for the workers in the industry (i.e. the fears related to automated auto plants), but in the long run it frees people up to do other things.

I'm not naive to believe that the markets are perfect and we shouldn't have regulation. But I come from the school that we need regulation to make sure the markets do work so there is fair competition.

I'm a big fan of CFLs, I've got a box of them in closet, and use them to replace burn out regular bulbs (haven't had to replace a burnt out CFL except the one in my bathroom which seems to burn out quite a bit). I find the shade fine to my taste, the only annoyance is that the bulbs still takes a bit of time to warm up to full lumiousity. As for Devon's paradox, sure it might be true for some people that they use the savings to use more electricity, but others might choose to consume another product such as leisure with the savinds. And still others like myself might do it purely because they value conservation.

If American Automakers were dominating the current auto-market, I might find Lutz comments somewhat credible. That's not the case. U.S. automakers are falling behind everyday.

New govt regulation and policies, especially ones related to environment, are not inherently anti-business. Some rules and polcies may be anti-effeciency, but that's an argument for another day. What policies such as mandated fuel effeciency requirements are, are anti status-quo. The status-quo right now isn't looking so good for U.S. automakers. One would think a change would be good? But of course economics winners are the companies that can change and innovate. What Lutz is admitting is that GM is not innovative and competitive. I think that has been apparent for a number of years.

I'm not suprised the Salesgenie ad generated 10,000 leads and was profitable. Tons of people watch the superbowl. For a company like Salesgenie - they just want to reach out to people who haven't heard of them. Who cares if the ad is entertaning or not? People don't buy products because they laughed at the ad, they buy products because the ad reminded them or informed of them of a new product.