The gig economy!
. . . it ends up being a solid look at what gig means, an etymological discussion, and an analysis of the economics of the gigger in the economy. Mish discovers, "In essence, virtually the entire increase in employment since 2010 was in the “gig” economy!" Growth, they name is gig! You really should also click through and read the very good Wall Street Journal article: Contract Workforce Outpaces Growth in Silicon-Valley Style ‘Gig’ Jobs The Journal finds that businesses are generally willing to re-evaluate the non-core functions within the business, and turn to giggers to obtain those services. The definition of "core" is not set, expect it to continue to grow and morph. This change allows businesses, and individuals to adopt the employment changes they want and need. Expect the antiquated Boomer progressives to fight this change tooth and nail. This change will limit governments control over either the individual or business. Progressives will be apoplectic about this. On the other hand, the Millennials will be fighting for these changes tooth and nail. Millennials want more flexible employment, and more control. While it is hard to tell which way this will swing right now, the following article seems to indicate that Boomers are slowly losing some of their power in the market. Tough Markets Catch Up With 1956 Ferrari High end cars are a Boomer investment. There are a few Millennials who like cars enough to invest in them. The GenX'ers are half in half out with the older half of the cohort looking more like Boomers, while the younger half looks more like Millennials. Also, it is the oldest half of the Boomers who are car crazy, The same group that brought us American Graffiti. Expect the car investment craze to lose steam over the next decade, and then begin to fail more rapidly thereafter. This may show us that the swing discussed above may move more rapidly towards the Millennials from now on out. I fully expect the Millennials to continue to move forcefully into the gig economy, making the world the Boomers understand that much smaller.
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California Cruises Towards $15 Hr Minimum Wage: Expect Budget Deficits, Higher Taxes, Job Losses | MishTalk
. . . so let's get this thing collapsing. "California governor Jerry Brown has proposed a $15 minimum wage by 2022. If the legislation passes, it will wreak havoc on city budgets, state budgets, businesses, and jobs." But, since it does not appear we will find a way out outside of the collapse, we might as well get there quickly. Time to go full socialism/progressivism, full $15 per hour minimum wage, and all the rest of the trimmings, and perks. Then be ready to sort out the disaster once the collapse happens. Ok, so I am not quite ready to actually embrace this mindset, but I do think it will be the most likely mechanism of escape for states like New York, Rhode Island, Illinois, California, Oregon, and other fully invested blue states. California is a strange state with massive wealth clotted a few miles from the coast around the SF bay area, LA, and San Diego. The interior of the state is quickly becoming a welfare state, filled with the destitute, and desperate. Because the blighted areas are far from the wealthy enclave, it is easy to simply overlook them. But even overlooked, they grow. But to keep this insane system afloat, the state must extract more taxes, and while the wealthy can afford these, and even wonder why anyone would complain, the middle class is squeezed, and increasingly leave. Those who remain need assistance to survive. In Facebook’s Hometown, the First Responders Aren’t Local Of course, they are not local, the cost of housing in the wealthy enclave is too high for the middle class who do not already have homes. "The department’s challenge reflects a flip side of the tech boom: Facebook, Google parent Alphabet Inc. and other companies have brought thousands of high-paying jobs to Silicon Valley, but that has driven housing costs sharply higher, pushing firefighters, teachers, nurses and other middle-class workers to live far from their jobs. The trend creates difficulties, including worsening traffic and the risk that emergency workers won’t be able to get there in the case of a natural disaster." Yes, the demand part of the housing problem is driven by tech companies bringing in new workers. But the other part is that the government will not allow any significant amount of land be utilized for new housing. If they would Free up 400,000 square acres of land, this would immediately change the cost problem. "The public-sector workers leaving the Bay Area aren’t alone. Americans are moving away from the tech hub faster than they are arriving, according to a report published last month by the Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project. Other expensive regions are trying to maintain workers nearby. The Fire Department of New York awards job applicants who are residents of the city and nearby counties extra points on the firefighter exam, giving preference to them over applicants who live farther away. The problem usually comes down to housing. South of Menlo Park, in Cupertino, where Apple Inc. is based, school-district officials in December said they plan to build more than 200 affordable apartments for teachers. Menlo Park fire district workers will earn an average $147,000 this year, Mr. Schapelhouman said. But that money doesn’t go far in a region where the median home value is $2 million, up 18% in the past year, according to real-estate website Zillow Group Inc. Home prices have risen dramatically since Facebook moved to Menlo Park five years ago." This shows the insanity of the problem. More people move out of the area than into the area, yet housing prices still spike. This is because the tech companies are able to pay huge salaries, and the housing supply is incredibly limited. This means that the older middle class people are being bought out of their homes by new tech employees with huge salaries, while the remaining middle class cannot afford to buy houses in the region. This means the limited apartment rentals are sky-high as well. In the end, people live far from their work. The existing homeowners will never let the local, or state government change this situation. The results would be average home prices falling from $2 million to well less than one half of that amount. That is a real loss of money, and the homeowners will not stand for that change. Walther Russell Mead wrote an article a few years ago which describes this problem well. http://www.the-american-interest.com/2013/03/06/blue-civil-war-the-battle-for-california/ He ends with the following: "But there’s a serious political opportunity in America for a movement that cares deeply about ensuring that the people who need public services (whether provided directly by the state as in public schools or indirectly through vouchers and charter schools) receive good value for their money. A movement that fights to reform government and make it work, to strip away unnecessary frills and patronage posts, to disempower bureaucracies and return control to citizens and to create a regulatory and legal framework that can bring start ups and jobs into inner cities could change the balance of power in American politics. We wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the young people who’ve gone into programs like Teach For America, or been active in movements like the effort to rebuild New Orleans begin to think outside the blue box about what kind of agenda America’s troubled cities really need. When and if that happens, the politics of the both century will finally begin to shut down, and the politics of a new and more hopeful era in American life will get under way." I agree with this assessment completely. However, I am increasingly less persuaded by the idea that the change will somehow come from the young, the Millennials. While they as a cohort are larger than the Boomers, the Boomers have indoctrinated them with what seems to be a terminal belief that 20th century progressivism is the End of History. It is not even a good idea. I am increasingly concerned that we will actually have to wait for the blue model to fully seize before the change will become possible. And even then, we will likely see partial implementation, and attempts to retain the very worst aspects of the 20th century blue economic model. The educational system has been in collapse since the 1960s, yet we continue to drag it along as if it is the best thing available. The only inroads to change occurs in the deep blue states, or states where serious catastrophe's have occurred. The two which come to mind are New York City, and New Orleans. Both have majority or close to majority charter schools, and both have seen much improved educational outcomes from these school. They also both still see strong pushback against these superior schools. The Boomers are not willing to let their childish dreams of control die so something better can replace them. Worst generation ever. Gov John Bel Edwards proposes curbs on Louisiana vouchers, charter schools NY rejects all applications for new charter schools The charter school tide is turning, and de Blasio may be left behind "I Was Only Good at Enjoying It" . . . life's a piece of shit, when you look at it . . . Europe has one foot in the grave and we are deciding whether to join them. This seems like a good time for the pause that refreshes! "Re the Brussels bloodbath, I mentioned on Tuesday that an attack on the section of the airport outside the security perimeter was entirely predictable. Yours truly in 2009: The second thought that strikes you is that the ever-longer lines to get into the "secure" area are now the least secure area in America. Why not blow up the security line? You could kill as many people as on an airplane, and inflict more long-term economic damage. But don't worry. The TSA has plans to expand the "secure" area, so the insecure perimeter will be somewhere else, with even more vulnerable people standing around waiting to get into it. As I added on Tuesday: Clearly we need a secure zone outside the secure zone - maybe, say, outside the concourse. So everyone has to crowd on the sidewalk. And then when they blow that up we can move it back to the perimeter of the airport. And then... But you can't parody the reaction of a western ruling class determined to punish their own citizens for the consequences of the elite's lunatic immigration policies. And so inevitably: Security scanners could be installed at the entrances to airports, under proposals to be discussed next week in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attack, the Telegraph understands. The case for installing a security perimeter outside of airport arrival halls will "definitely" be examined at an emergency meeting of experts that has been called for March 31, according to EU sources. The meeting will be attended by experts from each country, the European Commission's transport department and officials from the European Aviation Safety Agency. The terrorists have won." Won Europe at any rate, and soon will win America if our betters have any say in the matter. Steyn goes on to point out that the Europeans are getting old, and the muslim populations in these countries are young. This poses a certain problem. "~What's the next phase? Well, Brussels is currently about 25 per cent Muslim and they're mostly young. Conversely (as I pointed out in America Alone), the Flemings and Walloons are getting a bit long in the tooth. In any society, who provides the policemen and soldiers and security guards? The fit and healthy - ie, the young, the ones who can pass the physical. So increasingly the chaps responsible for keeping an eye out for Muslim terrorists will themselves be Muslim. Via Laura Rosen Cohen, here's a story from the Belgian papers from last June: A Belgian municipal security officer is facing dismissal after saying he would kill "each and every Jew" during a debate on Facebook this past Friday." Great, the people protecting, and patrolling for terrorists, are at least sympathy to terrorists, and hate the law abiding people they are supposed to be protecting. Luckily, only a tiny fraction of muslims sympathize with suicide bombers, right? "To repeat: the constabulary and soldiery are jobs for the young, and in a city that's expected to become majority Muslim circa 2030 the young will be Muslim. Here's a 2006 Pew poll on the percentage of young Muslims (18-29) in the west who think suicide bombing is justified: Young German Muslims 22 per cent; Young Spanish Muslims 29 per cent; Young British Muslims 35 per cent; Young French Muslims 42 per cent. I wonder what the percentage in Brussels is today." Hmmm, so bigger than the progressives keep telling us, and more deeply burrowed into the European landscape as well. It seems, Europe may have a bigger problem than anticipated. So, what do ethnic Belgians think about all of this? "In my 2011 bestseller After America, I quoted from an interview in the Belgian newspaper De Standaard with the writer (and Brussels gallery owner) Oscar van den Boogaard: Mr van den Boogaard is a Dutch gay "humanist", which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool. He was reflecting on the accelerating Islamization of the Continent and concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved. "I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it." Doesn't work that way, not for long. For a less fatalistic view, try this Belgian: I am not prepared to surrender an inch of the civilised world to barbarians, which is the choice that we have been faced with. And I'm not prepared to watch the lights go out on Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Slovenia, Belgium and Luxembourg and Canada and Australia, and then think that you can have one little redoubt where liberty will thrive. I take the same view to the civilised world that Islam takes to the Dar-al-Islam: once we hold this, we hold this forever and we will not surrender it. Oh, wait. That was me in my speech in the Danish Parliament. And I'm only semi-Belgian." Brilliant. They like the suicide idea pretty well. Here are some links to interview with Steyn: Flashback Video: Malkin and Mark Steyn discuss Europe, Islam, and America Alone America is alone in this fight. The Brits may be somnolent, but Europe is narcoleptic, and suffering from hypnopompic hallucinations of power and grandeur. It could never happen in America, well, except for 9/11, oh, right, and . . . to be continued . . . Hey! Don't Overreact to That Issue, Overreact to My Issue | Coyote Blog
. . . if the issue is real, then it needs to be carefully and systematically evaluated. Google Makes Its $149 Photo Editing Software Now Completely Free to Download
. . . and allowed tech driven deflation to reduce the cost of medical care to zero! If secrecy is the whole point, how do you make intelligence agencies share?
All this time, I thought the whole point was US security, not secrecy, but if it is the whole point, we are well and truly Fubar! We have done intelligence wrong for so long we think doing it wrong is right! It's about the security, not the secrecy. Open sourcing the intelligence is the appropriate way to combat this problem. There are many serious discussions, and arguments on the why's and how-to's. Open Source Intelligence The Evolution of Open Source Intelligence Today's intelligence agencies have converted their goals from US security to secrecy. We need wholesale revision of these policies, and review of the people who run them. The reason economics is so difficult to understand . . . Countervailing Economic Misunderstanding - Cafe Hayek
. . . is that evil men attempt to confuse us into believing false demagoguery. Honey, they are fishermen, they already know . . . My dream is to teach Swedes about Japanese food
. . . the word they use to describe Japanese food is bait. Yum, bait! |
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