Lasting impact: Well-known Louisiana attorney and business leader Alfred Lippman died Monday at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, The Advertiser reports. He was 78. Lippman, a resident of Morgan City, had been extensively engaged in business mergers and acquisitions and was active behind the scenes in politics. He was member of numerous boards and commissions including Hancock Bank Board of Directors, Whitney National Bank and Whitney Holding Corp., Louisiana Mansion Foundation, and the Commission of Future of Coastal Louisiana. Lippman’s friends remember him a “brilliant strategist” and admired his nonpartisan view. “He did worlds of good for the Port of Morgan City and the entire area of Morgan City,” Former Gov. Mike Foster told the newspaper. Read the full story.
Off track: Homebuilders pulled back on construction for a second straight month in September, with a plunge in apartments offsetting gains in single-family homes. As The Associated Press reports, construction tumbled 9% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.05 million units, according to new data from the Commerce Department. Building activity was weak in all parts of the country except the Midwest, where construction starts rose 6.6% in the Midwest. Construction fell 31.5%in the Northwest, 15.6% in the South and 4.4% in the West. The September performance was weaker than expected. Analysts had been forecasting a rebound. But they noted that the smaller apartment segment of construction is often volatile from month to month. Read the full story.
On the job: U.S. workers not only put in more hours than workers do almost anywhere else, but they’re also increasingly retiring later and taking fewer vacation days. As Bloomberg reports, a new study says that the average person in Europe works 19% less than the average person in the U.S. That’s about 258 fewer hours per year, or about an hour less each weekday. Another way to look at it: U.S. workers put in almost 25% more hours than Europeans. The study’s detailed data could help researchers figure out why Americans toil so much longer than Europeans and which factors most influence productivity. One theory is that Americans work longer hours because their additional effort is more likely to pay off. U.S. workers earn a wider range of incomes so workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder since a promotion is worth more, says economist Dora Gicheva. Read the full story.
