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Today on Esquire’s website, Daron Acemoglu, a professor at MIT, tackles an age-old question: Why are some nations wealthy while others are poor?

There have been plenty of sweeping theories to choose from, as Acemoglu notes.  In the 18th century, the French political philosopher Montesquieu was proposing that people in hotter places are just lazier. Today, in a similar way, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University’s Earth Institute says a lot of it boils down to geography and the weather.

But according to Acemoglu, while these theories may help explain aspects of poverty, they ignore the incentives that truly drive prosperity. In Acemoglu’s view, if countries create sound institutions and improve their governments, then their citizens can expect that their hard work will be protected by the rule of law and poverty can be fixed.  While rich nations may not be able to totally force their institutions onto other countries, according to Acemoglu, they can push for government reforms and even help the citizens of poorer nations by providing them with educational opportunities and technology.

Acemoglu’s connection between economic incentives and the rule of law is appealing but it ultimately fails to answer the initial question.  Certainly there is a correlation between good government and economic prosperity.  But why do some nations develop sound, transparent institutions while others settle for warlords or corrupt puppet governments?

And it can’t all come down to education.  Russia, for example, has excellent universities and a literacy rate close to 100 percent. Yet the International Finance Corporation ranks Nigeria and Pakistan as better places to do business.

Social scientists will keep on trying to isolate that single causal factor that explains wealth and poverty.  But what if there simply isn’t one to be found? After all, even Iraq was once home to the center of civilization.

If you’re a single parent in Virginia, you’re probably going to take home a little less than $40,000 per year.  But oddly, due to various tax breaks and welfare benefits, your haul will be roughly the same, regardless of whether you’ve made $20,000 or $40,000 from actually working.

That’s according to an analysis of the “working poors’” implicit marginal tax rate from the Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank. The chart below has been popping up on other economics blogs this week, so I figured readers on BNET would be interested to see it as well.

This chart’s creator, Clifford F. Thies, is convinced slicing welfare/income data in other ways would still show the same result: for many, there is a disincentive to work for more money.

Here a few of the consequences of such government hand-out programs, in Thies’ view, even if they are well-intentioned:

For many of the working poor, the implicit marginal tax rate is greater than 100 percent. The long-run consequence of undermining the positive incentive to work is, of course, the creation of an underclass acclimated to not working; the supplement of cash and noncash benefits with income from crime and the underground economy; and the government resorting to negative incentives such as mandatory work programs.

Do you agree with Thies’ analysis?  Or do these programs and tax breaks create a necessary safety net?

In an ideal world, increases in productivity (or, the measure of employee output per hour) will lead to higher corporate profits.  Some of that extra money can then be used to hire more workers.  When more people are employed, there are more people that can spend money.  And everyone lives happily ever after.

But these days, productivity has surged, jumping up at a 9.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, according to Labor Department statistics released yesterday.  That’s the best clip in six years.  However, that positive data has been immediately followed by bad news from the Department.  Today, it was announced that October’s unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest rate in 26 years.

BusinessWeek’s Peter Coy suggests recent productivity gains could be somewhat artificial since lay-off survivors have had to work harder than ever. In other words, productivity has risen because unemployment has also gone up and there are fewer employees left to handle all the work.

From your own experience working through this recession, do you agree with Coy’s assessment?  And do you think your company’s productivity gains could be undermined by employee burnout?  Please share your thoughts below.

Judging by the questions we receive from the senior job seekers who read our content, age discrimination is top of mind for most candidates north of 40. Recently, we took their questions head on with a package titled “‘How Old Are You?’: Readers Tell Job Interview Tales.”

Reporter Patty Orsini took job-seeker inquiries directly to recruiters, lawyers and hiring pros to find out how much candidates are required to disclose about their age and how best to avoid dating themselves in a non-confrontational way.

Here are five techniques to keep in mind:

Barack Obama might have not beaten John McCain on Election Day if he hadn’t bested the GOP contender throughout the year online, by raising millions more through microdonations and regularly activating partisans through email messaging.

Yet at this point, the McCain clan also has a decent track record using online tools for career purposes.  McCain’s daughter Meghan, for example, has turned her high-profile campaign blog into a gig at the Daily Beast and a place on the pundit circuit.  The septuagenarian Senator is staying hip with the new media crowd too. McCain’s Twitter feed now has over 1.5 million followers.  That’s ten times more than his former running mate, popular political personality Sarah Palin.

So how has McCain been hooking his audience?

Most of his strategy is Social Media 101 (participate regularly, engage other users, share personal anecdotes and interesting links, etc.).  But there’s a new tactic he’s been using recently that can be adapted by anyone who’s looking to establish thought leadership online.

It’s not really a secret that we all are suckers for lists and rankings.  McCain (or perhaps his “ghost tweeter”) recognizes this trick.  Recently, he has started to send out his top ten pork barrel projects via Twitter each day.  And he breaks them down and ranks them before shooting them out one by one until he reaches his most outrageous spending project of the day.  This keeps the McCain brand in the conversation throughout the day and maximizes his feed’s viral appeal.

And now for your enjoyment, here is a short sample of McCain’s most outrageous pork barrel picks:

• $165,000 for maple syrup research in Vermont
• $325,000 to study seismic activity in Memphis, TN
• $195,000 to research how to increase the lifespan of peach trees in South Carolina
• $130,000 to relocate the residents of 130 homes in DeKalb, IL
• $900,000 for the City of Whitefish Emergency Operations Center in Whitefish, MT (Population: 6700)

Photo credit: Flickr user “World Economic Forum,” CC 2.0.

Yesterday I wrote about whether there might be career lessons from Rush Limbaugh’s failed attempt to be a part of the team that is trying to buy the St. Louis Rams. A few commenters took issue with the post, echoing a view shared by a Washington Post reporter. They claim Limbaugh was “banished for essentially exercising his right to speak.” So does this mean America’s free market system is threatened by tyrannical “PC Police,” as this argument goes?

Well, let’s refer to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to find the legal foundation for free speech:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Clearly, Congress cannot force Limbaugh to shut his mouth, although I am sure a lot of Democrats in power would love to silence him. And last time I checked, the US government has not intervened in the NFL’s business.

Yes, you have right to say whatever you want. But your colleagues and customers also have the right to not work with you if you say things that are offensive to the company’s stakeholders.

Ultimately, Rush has been rejected in the marketplace. Under a free market system, no one has to buy what you are selling. Limbaugh has no one to blame but himself.

Many conservatives love what they hear coming out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth.  And many liberals are horrified that so many Americans could love Limbaugh’s show.

But most of us understand that today’s talking heads are nothing more than entertainers who take extreme positions to keep their audiences hooked.  I doubt Rush, Keith Olbermann or Glenn Beck believe half of what they say and I am confident that their audiences know that they shouldn’t take any of that combative commentary seriously.  For all we know, when the cameras are off, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter count their money together over a cup of tax-protestor tea.

I bring this up because some folks are looking for career lessons from Rush Limbaugh’s failed attempt to be on the team that might end up buying the St. Louis Rams. In case you haven’t been following the saga, the players union spoke up and rejected Rush because he’s chosen to make lots of inflammatory comments about the league and its players over the years. Furthermore, the other NFL owners don’t want their brand tarnished by politics, even though they may personally agree with Rush’s views.  Therefore, it’s in their collective economic interest to keep this walking controversy out of the owner’s box.

Kris Dunn, editor of the HR Capitalist blog, believes that Limbaugh’s failure might serve as a cautionary tale for any working stiff with loose lips.  Here’s his hypothetical:

How about the time you made Marge come in when her kids were sick and you openly stated, “remind me not to hire people who have kids”.

You thought no one heard it, and even if they did, it was a joke, right?  Wrong - in the new transparent world that’s right around the corner, sites are going to start collecting information on your abilities as a manager - and yes, your biases - via user generated content.

It’s right around the corner.  The NFL players won’t play for Limbaugh, and someday soon, how you treated Marge is going to come back and haunt you when you need a candidate, and the best sources of candidates for your position are working moms.

It’s true that in this new age of web-powered transparency, being a jerk could have lasting consequences for your career and your company.  However, I am not sure that’s the key takeaway. It’s hard to draw a parrallel when most of us aren’t public figures who get paid to be offensive.

So Rush can huff and puff all he wants about “race hustlers” and the “liberal media.”  He could even threaten a libel suit. But at the end of the day, he can’t use the millions he earned making degrading comments to buy the team.

What do you think the lesson is?  Share your thoughts below.

Whether the times are good or bad, there will always be self-appointed experts preaching the charms of entrepreneurship. But unfortunately, not everyone has what it takes to “turn what you know into dough.”

Unless you have startup experience, access to lots of capital, time to work long, odd hours and most importantly, a novel business idea that actually serves a market need, then entrepreneurship is probably a bad idea.

So yes, it’s fun to fantasize about being your own boss and controlling your own financial destiny.  But there are plenty of reasons why being the boss sucks and you must seriously consider them all before taking the entrepreneurial plunge.  Here are a few, from Gaebler:

• Form 941, I-9s, SS-4s, SS-5s, W3s, Form 1096, WH-381s, Form 1120 – are we having fun yet?
• There’s nobody above you to flirt with you, so you can’t sue anybody for sexual harassment.
• 50% of startup businesses don’t make it. You’re just a coin flip away from failure.
• The fantasy of saying “@#$% you! I quit!!” is no longer relevant.
• If people are nice to you, it’s probably just because they want a raise.

You can read the rest of Gaebler’s top ten reasons why it sucks to be the boss on its website.

And feel free to warn would-be entrepreneurs about the worst aspects of running your own business in the comments section below.

Nationwide, unemployment hit 9.8 percent in September. Of course, some regions have been hit harder than others but at a certain point, it may make sense for anyone who is unemployed to consider cutting their losses, packing up and leaving.  The forecast still looks relatively sunny throughout Texas and in coastal metropolises like New York, Seattle and Washington, DC (for a handy breakdown on the best job markets in small, medium and large cities across America, check out New Geography’s tables; for the worst cities for jobs, check Forbes).

Let’s say you’ve made the decision to seek greener pastures elsewhere but haven’t actually moved yet. How can you keep your local-address-less resume from reaching the wastebasket?

Here are six tips for the long-distance job search, edited down for length and clarity, from career guru Penelope Trunk:

• Pitch yourself as specialized Most people are relocating from a city that is in low demand to a city that is high demand; if you want to get a job [in a big city like San Francisco] from Tucson, you need to have one of those skill sets that people do not think they can hire for in San Francisco
• Pitch yourself as a big-city catch Some of you are trying to move the opposite direction: New York City to Tuscaloosa; in that case, you can pitch yourself as having big-city know-how that you can bring to a smaller city
• Get a reality check If you can’t pitch yourself in either of those ways, then you’re going to have to relocate before you get a job
• Be amazing at building local networks If you are still determined to get a job before you move…you need to have a strong network on the ground where you want to relocate; this does not mean inviting forty people in that city to connect with you on LinkedIn
• Choose a city since you can’t choose a job Since you are going to have to move before you have a job, why not make sure you are going to the right place?   For figuring out where you belong, [see] Richard Florida’s book, Who’s Your City, which he has conveniently broken up into web-friendly widgets for your relocating pleasure
• Consider your friends and family Before you relocate for money, consider that the number-one factor for whether or not your next job will improve your happiness is whether you’ll be moving closer to friends and family; [O]nce you have the basics of a good job, it’s your relationships that make you happy

If you’ve recently relocated to find a new job or are considering a move, please share any additional tips or words of wisdom in the comments section below.

Monday often brings the biggest mail haul.  You pluck through the stack and sure enough, despite previous assurances from clients that their outstanding invoices were processed, you still don’t see a bunch of checks you were expecting.

Years back, at a start-up I worked at, one of my main responsibilities was to make Accounts Receivables calls. I used to gripe about the task because of the pressure (cash flow is king and we aren’t a bank!) and the mind-numbing administrative aspect of it.  I found it a little degrading, too, once I learned that some AP departments, even at respectable companies, were straight-up lying to me.

But when I look back, I appreciate that I had the experience because the fact is, no matter what stage of your career you’re at, no one is above making that call to a delinquent client. So now, when I hear that the “check is in the mail” or that the “check must have gotten lost in the mail,” I conclude this client must think I’m a sucker.

We all know that checks simply don’t take months to get from point A to point B.  It wouldn’t take a horse and buggy that long to deliver your money across state lines.  As much as we all like to take shots at the US Postal Service, you have to admit that they can reliably deliver mail from anywhere in the United States to your office within a week or so.

Of course, the tact you take on the follow-up call depends on a ton of factors, primarily their payment history and whether you expect to continue doing business with the account.

So BNET commenters, I’d like to hear the most outrageous explanations you’ve ever heard from clients that don’t pay their bills on time. And most importantly, how do you respond to the “check must have gotten lost in the mail” excuse?