The pretty inspirational Ms. Tanden(s)

I dont know how you react to leaders of think tanks and other policy makers talking about issues of poverty, when you have a feeling, which might be based in reality or on the ever-reliable gut, that the person might not have had a brush with poverty at any stage of his or her life. Actually, I know that feeling is wrong for many of the commentators and even politicians - many, surely, have had pretty tough childhoods. Still, it is easy to see why the "elitist" label can easily stick to them.

Though I have always been impressed by Neera Tanden when I've heard her talk, there is always that nagging question at the back of my head: does she know what she is talking about when she talks about minimum wage and poverty and so on. At the same time, I dont think that you need to have been on minimum wage yourself to appreciate the problems faced by those on minimum wage. If that were the criterion we placed on policy makers, we'd have a tough time making policy at all.

Coming back to Neera Tanden. Her childhood story is pretty inspirational. She recounted her childhood roots at an Atlantic Live event on women and poverty. Her parents migrated to America most likely in the 1960s. They lived in the town of Bedford, Massachusetts. I think her father worked (place of work unknown) and her mother was a homemaker then. After a few years after Neera was born, their parents got divorced and her father left them for good. Given a choice between returning to India, and facing the stigma of being a divorced woman, and living in the US and going on welfare, she chose the latter. She went on a succession of jobs (travel agent, etc), and with the aid of government support, earned enough to even purchase a house in the same neighborhood. Given where Neera is now, she must've, obviously, done an awesome job. In any case, Neera Tanden gives a much better account of her story here. Please read through it and you will understand her position on issues much better.

Clearly, it is not just Neera Tanden's story that is inspirational. Her mother's is far more.

Paid Ad in Wall Street Journal - 13 men and 1 woman!

As you turn the pages of Wall Street Journal, you are bound to find a page long ad which tries to look like something other than an ad. Most often, it is about a WSJ CEO conference in which a top WSJ journalist is interviewing some titan of Wall Street or CEO of a large company. Sometimes, you have ads for other things, like a feature about Russia, proclaiming bountiful opportunities. Or an ad by BP proclaiming its environmental record in the wake of Deepwater Horizon.

In any case, once in a while you come across something really interesting. A few months ago, I came across an ad for high performers in some company (I totally blank out the details). What stood out in that ad was that all of them were men. There was no woman at all. I found that rather surprising, even though it is well-known that the percentage of women drop as part of workforce as one climbs the ranks of management.

I came across one such ad in WSJ recently. It was a page long paid ad for a conference on economic prognostications for 2014. It was somehow related to Jim Cramer. Enough said, some of you may say. No, there is more, I retort. The ad, shown below is not as discriminatory because it contains one token woman, alongside thirteen other men. As I was sulking that this ad did not quite help prove my point about the make up of the finance industry, I realized this was even more precious. It turns out that the lone woman is Lynn Tilton, CEO of the appropriately named "Patriarch Partners!"