Small, independent entrepreneurs are finding it harder to make a buck in a booming, changing economy.
The “gig” economy might not be the new frontier for America’s workforce after all.
From Uber to TaskRabbit to YourMechanic, so-called gig work — task-oriented work offered by online apps — has been promoted as providing the flexibility and independence that traditional jobs don’t offer. Yet the evidence is growing that over time, these jobs don’t deliver the financial returns many workers expect.
And they don’t appear to be reshaping the workforce. Over the past two years, pay for gig workers has dropped, and they are earning a growing share of their income elsewhere, a new study finds. Most Americans who earn income through online platforms do so for only a few months each year, according to the study by the JPMorgan Chase Institute released Monday.
So many reasons why. Many you know. This may help explain why we have about as many self-employed people in America as we have prisoners and convicts. The one they want, the other they don’t.
There a seldom-discussed phenomenon which, given enough time, will invariably affect any large institution. There evolve two classes of people therein. The first carry out the core functions of the outfit. The second consists of support and administrative functionaries, often important but not critical. Eventually, the second class almost always comes to control operations within the institution; their compensation usually outpaces the core function class.
In an example related to American education, we once again have the yearly college salary numbers from CUPA. Interesting, telling numbers.
Some of these jobs are arguably important to a large school. But, who does the educating??? And all of the professorial numbers ignore the trend of the adjuncts, poorly (POORLY) paid and overworked – teaching 50% of all classes.
Young people, please consider all of this along with the rising, always rising costs associated with the process. And consider the following trend:
With the improving economy and the diminishing quality of the degrees, more and more companies and whole industries are abandoning the quest for credentials.
No diploma? No problem.
More and more companies are scrapping college degree requirements for jobs. They’re not saying you shouldn’t seek higher education, but not having a degree won’t be a barrier for you to work in certain jobs at their companies.
Some of the 15 big companies saying “no bachelor’s degree is fine” include Google, Nordstrom, Bank of America, Ernst & Young, IBM and Apple.
The changes are coming as job seekers, as well as high school graduates, consider whether college is worth the skyrocketing cost.
An area school recently sent home consent forms informing them of a new corporal policy at an area school. The superintendent says they’ve received a little over a hundred forms back, a third of them giving consent to paddle their child.
“In this school, we take discipline very seriously,” said Jody Boulineau, Superintendent of GSIC.
GSIC is going old school with a new policy for this year.
“There was a time where corporal punishment was kind of the norm in school and you didn’t have the problems that you have,” the Superintendent said.
You heard that right. Georgia School for Innovation and the Classics, a K through 9 charter school, is bringing back paddling students as a form of discipline.
Younger young people, think about that.
If students engage in anything even resembling “violence,” even in self-defense, they may rest assured that they will be disciplined, up to and including possible arrest. But, what’s forbidden to the child goose is a-okay for the sinecure gander. And, this particular school, new and innovative as it might be, is in a district with an utterly dismal academic success record. So, the kids can expect to literally take a beating in exchange for a fraudulent, substandard education, for that unnecessary credential.
During another age and in another century, your young author was a frequent target of the “board” of education. As such I can kind of sympathize with the administrators (always the ones in charge) who seek to use it again. However, if I recall correctly, all those whacks did little (nothing) to deter boys from being boys. In other words, it usually doesn’t work. And much else has changed in the past 100+ years. Then, schools expected order just as students expected instruction. Both usually got what they needed. Today, it’s a different, worn and sad story.
All things to think about, if that’s still acceptable.
So, unfortunately, this article ends with a bitter insight: Sound economic reasoning will come to the conclusion that the fiat money scheme – represented and upheld by the banking cartel – contributes, and necessarily so, to income and wealth inequality within society.4 It is one source of widening the gap between the rich and the poor. By all standards, fiat money must be considered socially unjust. The same applies to the collusion between central banks and private banks.
So what is to be done? The solution is straightforward: Establish a free market in money, shut down central banks, dismantle the banking cartel. As Murray Rothbard says: “[A]bolish the Federal Reserve System, and return to the gold standard, to a monetary system where a market-produced metal, such as gold, serves as the standard money, and not paper tickets printed by the Federal Reserve.”5 Perhaps the debate about growing inequality helps to rehabilitate our money system — something economic insights have failed to achieve so far.
There also remains what to do with all the debts – public and private – all based on the fiat. The solution there is simple and legal (and as unlikely to occur as the other suggestions): cancel it and then make future usurious machination illegal. Then there’s punishing certain parties for their crimes against humanity and the invisible hand. A problem is that the “debate” about inequality is really no more than socialists screeching for more of the same while real, affected victims stare at screens.
The cost of living in the U.S. is rising at its fastest rate in 10 years, according to new data from the Labor Department.
The data, released Friday, revealed that consumer prices increased 2.9 percent in July from the year before, meaning Americans may be earning less than they did at this time last year.
The consumer price index, meanwhile, rose 0.2 percent last month, which analysts largely attributed to rising housing costs, CNBC reported. Annual inflation remained unchanged from June’s pace at 2.9 percent.
If only there was some private consortium of bankers we could pin this phenomenon on, excluding food and gas, of course – no one needs those…
The U.S. central bank has raised rates twice this year, in March and June, and financial markets overwhelmingly expect a hike at the next policy meeting in September.
The Fed currently forecasts a total of four rate rises in 2018, with investors expecting a final nudge upwards of the year in the benchmark overnight lending rate in December.
No, this isn’t about Elizabeth Warren’s proposed new minimum tax rate.
Young Charles Donaldson III thinks we as a nation are hoarding the cash in an effort to keep education off-limits to someone.
“America to Me” subject Charles Donalson III used his platform during the Starz docuseries panel at the Television Critics Association press tour on Saturday to call out what he called America’s “hoarding” of wealth, citing examples he saw right there at the conference’s Beverly Hilton setup.
The gap of financial resources is particularly prevalent in the entertainment industry, Donalson added. He’s now a small part of that business, and so is everyone he addressed.
The high school graduate pointed out “all the money it takes just to set up this room,” referring to the Beverly Hills Ballroom. He continued, “Jesus Christ, you know how much food you have out there? Y’all are laughing, but I’m being dead serious right now. You all know how much food it is out there?”
One might wonder how a TeeVee show, spotlighting a school, somehow takes money (and food) away from the school. One may wonder…
Donaldson is a recent graduate of Oak Park and River Forest High (Chicago). It’s obvious the school needs more money. (Isn’t that always the solution?). The district only spends $14,822 per year per student on instructional costs, compared to $7,853 per student state-wide. That, by the way, is where the 189% comes from. This also exceeds the national average. It’s not enough…
For all the money, only 15% of the students get “free” lunches. Maybe that’s what Donaldson was getting at. Maybe Starz could donate some biscuits or something.
Also, for all the money, less than half of Donaldson’s peers are proficient in reading; only 12% understand math. Yet, per the fraudulent national trend, the school graduates 93% of its students. These numbers might explain – to someone who did not graduate from Oak Park – that the money isn’t the issue or, at least, that it is misplaced.
Oak Park is a “Title One” school. That means, well, nothing. In 1994, a useless Congress declared:
it to be the policy of the United States that a high-quality education for all individuals and a fair and equal opportunity to obtain that education are a societal good, are a moral imperative, and improve the life of every individual, because the quality of our individual lives ultimately depends on the quality of the lives of others.
Declarations like that are meaningless, but they are not cheap. We spend and spend. All measures of progress drop and drop.
Ah well, what’s the point? Nothing college for all won’t surely fix.
It usually isn’t on display in the economic/business news. For instance, does anyone of any measurable intelligence really believe making every person on the planet a billionaire would change anything?
The world’s first trillionaire won’t come from cryptocurrency or some clever new app – he or she will become rich from asteroid mining.
That’s what bankers Goldman Sachs reckon, anyway – and several companies are now vying to be the first into space.
NASA estimates that the total value of asteroids out there could be up to $700 quintillion – equivalent to £75 billion each for us here on Earth.
That is the equivalent of saying a wolf told you that a fox was hungry and thus every chicken would be happier.
The asteroid mining idea is real and will happen – but not with every single body orbiting the Sun. Someone will likely become extremely wealthy as a result. If The Goldman Sachs has its way, then that someone will be in some way directly related to Goldman Sachs. (And why switch dollars to pounds in the same sentence?)
If the real obtainable value of the celestial rocks really is $700 quintillion, then expect Goldman, the Fed, and Mordor to arrange future loans in the septillion range, with derivatives betting on the order of decillions. Gresham’s Law dictates they would still find a way to kill positive growth with funny money.
The zeros behind the $ or the £ mean nothing. That’s why, even if one distributed the actual cash value of the space debris to each and every person on Earth, turning everyone into billionaires, nothing would change. Zimbabwe is replete with billionaires – who can’t afford lunch.
In his defense, Rob Waugh is an excellent jack-of-all-trades journalist; maybe economics just isn’t one of them. However, that should be (should be) a specialty over at Bloomberg, where they supposedly push business news.
Yet, they seem surprised we have inflation in America and that that cuts into wages.
U.S. inflation accelerated in May to the fastest pace in more than six years, reinforcing the Federal Reserve’s outlook for gradual interest-rate hikes while eroding wage gains that remain relatively tepid despite an 18-year low in unemployment.
The consumer price index rose 0.2 percent from the previous month and 2.8 percent from a year earlier, matching estimates, a Labor Department report showed Tuesday. The annual gain was the biggest since February 2012 and follows a 2.5 percent increase in April. Excluding food and energy, the core gauge was up 0.2 percent from the prior month and 2.2 percent from May 2017, also matching the median estimates of economists.
Fed. Fed. Fed. Fed. Rates. Rates. Rates. In Bloomberg’s defense, they are actually in the business of promoting certain interests, like those of Goldman.
The narrative works something like this: The economy is great, never stronger. Unemployment is low, officially. Wages are rising. Inflation is low. Oops, for completely unforeseen reasons, likely related to gas prices, it reared its ugly head. Time to raise rates on the flood of fiat. Sally School teacher in Iowa sees her recent raise evaporate. But that doesn’t matter; Goldman is mining the Moon or something.
They leave out: That all the money, almost all of it, is fake, based on debts that cannot be repaid. Everything in the economy depends on said fake money (it’s like mixing in helium for a dive – a little boosts depth range, too much kills). Wages are always one of the last things to “catch up” after a correction – only just in time for the next correction. Real wage buying power (how much the pay is really worth) only this year returned to levels last seen in 1973. 45 years of loss, and the new, temporary gains are now squashed by inflation.
It’s almost like we’ve entered into a terminal phase wherein the wages will not, cannot recover. Workers and earners see their purchasing power decline to ancient levels, their standards of living plunge toward serf-like proximity.
When this all hits the fan the next time around, it may hail the curtain call for the banksters. That would be the good news.
Maybe there’s a way to relocate the banksters and their political pets to the heavens? Metro/UK.
The first video interview for FP, with my old friend and investor Russell Wilder. Watch for insights on what moves the markets and how it affects your goals.
In the days of old Congress used to pass annual budgets. This process generally started with a recommendation from the President. Next the proposed budget passed through the House, then the Senate. Finally, if he agreed with it, the President signed off on it.
That was then. Today, for more than a few years now, different appropriations have been cobbled together for this and that, rather than passed as a whole. Technically, this is permissible under Article I, Section 7 of the old Constitution. It’s my quibble that the old way was better, smoother. At any rate, at least it’s done. Until it’s not.
Last Friday/Saturday at midnight the Congress failed to agree on the latest stopgap spending bill. As such, “your” government has no budget for the coming fiscal year – running on empty.
A House-passed stopgap bill that would avoid a government shutdown fizzled out in the Senate late Friday night, leaving Congress negotiating frantically as the midnight deadline to fund the government passed.
The measure failed in a procedural vote by a 50 to 49 margin. Five Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Doug Jones of Alabama and Claire McCaskill of Missouri — had backed it. Four Republicans — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah — opposed it. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for procedural reasons.
As nearly all Democrats and some Republicans opposed the measure that failed to work its way through Congress on Friday, lawmakers saw government funding lapse, at least temporarily. The proposal that failed in the Senate would have funded the government through Feb. 16 and reauthorized the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years.
As far as I’m concerned, they could permanently shutter the whole operation forever. Fear not, they won’t. In fact, much (most?) of the government will operate pretty much as “normal” for the duration. Most people will notice no difference. I’m releasing a video for FP tomorrow about this and a few related matters. Watch it.
This last happened in 2013. Before that, it was a more pronounced shortage in 1995. We somehow survived those episodes. The sky will not fall. For now, just know that “your” elected representatives are a band of utterly incompetent fools. You should remember this come the next election. You probably won’t though I’ll drop a reminder.
Running on, running on empty Running on, running blind Running on, running into the sun But I’m running behind
The three richest people in the US – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – own as much wealth as the bottom half of the US population, or 160 million people.
Analysis of the wealth of America’s richest people found that Gates, Bezos and Buffett were sitting on a combined $248.5bn (£190bn) fortune. The Institute for Policy Studies said the growing gap between rich and poor had created a “moral crisis”.
In a report, the Billionaire Bonanza, the thinktank said Donald Trump’s tax change proposals would “exacerbate existing wealth disparities” as 80% of tax benefits would end up going to the wealthiest 1% of households.
“Wealth inequality is on the rise,” said Chuck Collins, an economist and co-author of the report. “Now is the time for actions that reduce inequality, not tax cuts for the very wealthy.”
The study found that the billionaires included in Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in the US were worth a combined $2.68tn – more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the UK.
“Our wealthiest 400 now have more wealth combined than the bottom 64% of the US population, an estimated 80m households or 204 million people,” the report says. “That’s more people than the population of Canada and Mexico combined.”
The report says the “billionaire class” continues to “pull apart from the rest of us” at the fastest rate ever recorded. “We have not witnessed such extreme levels of concentrated wealth and power since the first gilded age a century ago.”
David McNew/Getty/The Guardian.
This isn’t a piece on class envy – at least not mine is not. Who knows what the trained squirrels at the Guardian were up to. If this money were earned honestly, then there would be no problem, regardless of any “inequality”, real or fancied.
Some, many of whom are hoarse from howling at the moon last night, might propose to seize all of this wealth and redistribute it. Unlike Scrooge McDuck, these three real characters do not have $250 Billion in gold coins and cash in the basement of some mega mansion. It’s (almost all of it) invested in their companies and earning more money while created goods, jobs, and services. It’s not liquid. Taking it would collapse a sizable portion of the economy. Killing the goose … all for $1,500 per poorer half class member. Once…
Stick to the helpless screaming, SJWs.
The rest of you know I am (mostly) concerned with the truth. So, what is the truth behind Gates, Bezos, and Buffett?
Bill Gates became filthy rich by selling software. My perspective dictates the products are second-rate at best, a bill of goods bought from a high-class carny. Yet they remain extremely popular. The people get what they think they want. Gates gets richer. Okay.
Bezos runs Amazon. Some say this business is a modern monopoly, responsible for killing all the bookstores of the world. I have a vested interest here. Periodically Amazon sends me money for book sales. The checks are small but they do come. Thus, in my view, Saint Bezos and his beautiful creation can do no wrong. I wish them success as this directly benefits me. If you don’t like that, then you probably don’t read and, therefore, don’t really have a dog in the fight. Bugger off.
Buffett is held forth as the ultimate investor. Making and creating Billion$ while humbly living in the same small house for 50 years, the paragon of Wall Street virtue. That’s part of the truth.
The other part involves his direct manipulation of the economy. Watch the following video for a funny analysis of how this works (a cartoon, no less – for the people!):
Malekanoms/YouTube.
First, for the ardent pendatrists, consider the cloud cover in the cartoon. How is that consistent with the digital trees??? What say your television shows?
Now. If you happen to consider the substance, then know this: what Buffet and a few others do is not technically illegal. It should be as should be the whole central banking scheme. However, since we’re past the days of the law, why not make money (take money) from the existing corrupt system?
That’s where the problem lies. And howling at the moon, beating the bongos, and voting will not fix it.
The Big Club has big secrets. Amazingly, so much of what they do is out in the open for any to see who just look up. Given the low IQs, addictions, television, tattoos, diabetes, and goldfish-like attentions, there’s never too many people watching or caring. Maybe that’s for the best.
Malta’s prime minister has appealed for national unity following the murder of a campaigning journalist who had accused his government of corruption.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, 53, achieved fame and notoriety for investigative reporting laced with scathing commentary about allegedly corrupt officials and businessmen. She was killed on Monday when a powerful bomb blew up her car.
…
Caruna Galizia’s blog, Running Commentary, was one the most widely read websites on Malta and led the investigation of corruption allegations stemming from revelations in the so-called Panama Papers leak.
It was famed for a relentless pursuit of cases of apparent corruption and incendiary, sometimes highly personal, comments that saw her embroiled in frequent legal battles.
Earlier this year Politico magazine listed her as one of the 28 men and women “making and shaking Europe” for her unrelenting crusade against what she saw as Malta’s culture of “cronyism” and opaque government.
…
In her last blog post, published just hours before she died, she bemoaned the lack of progress in prosecuting alleged corruption cases.
“There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate,” she wrote in the last line.
Deadly crooks. She had also recently sought police protection due to increased threats of violence. For whom do the police work?
The Panama Papers are the largest information leak in history. 2.6 Terabytes worth of documentation was smuggled out of a Panama-based law firm which caters to some of the world’s richest and most powerful people. The papers reveal that the super-rich routinely offshore their considerable assets in an effort to evade control and taxation, and to maintain secrecy. Vladimir Putin, for example has at least $2 Billion hidden away; while running for office he declared his net worth to be a few hundred thousands.
By itself there is nothing wrong with this offshoring just as there’s nothing wrong with getting $20,000 from an ATM. It’s your money; do with it as you like.
The problem is the hypocrisy. At the same time these vampires seek to completely lock our assets down within the system they are moving their own money out of it. Perhaps this revelation will lead to the discovery of the stolen MF Global funds or the Madoff money. I would love to see Larry Summers’s name revealed, connected with secret accounts. Summers, Madoff, and John Corzine have acted against us in the war, treating us to POW-style financial torture. How should we counter-attack?
Most of this will be completely missed by the majority of Americans. There’s too much other stuff going on – the Final Four, the sham election, tattoos, etc. Our enemies plan on all of these distractions working. It’s time we withdraw from their system. While we’re at it we should offshore as many of these rats as we can find – send them anywhere but here.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was withdrawn – violently. It’s hard to miss a car bomb though I imagine most Americans will.
