Dec. 9, 2022: This article came out 6 years ago. However, I still find this article and the comments well- written and relevant to now:
Reimagining our Lives and Our Organizations in the Post-Jobs Economy, will be published in 2018. Follow her on Twitter at @relentlesseco or visit her at www.relentlesseconomics.com
In their words, "the rise of part-time employment and temporary contracts challenges the current structure of social-insurance systems."
That percentage is only going higher. Eighty-five per cent of the companies surveyed by Randstad figure that they will increasingly move to an "agile workforce" over the next few years.
It made economic sense: in his work on why firms exist, Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase concluded that firms exist because the transaction costs of bringing resources together as needed were just too high.
Millennials, however, are surprisingly conservative in their views of the gig economy. In the PwC survey, only 33 per cent of those under 34 said that they had a strong desire to go that route. Still, workers of all ages accept that independent work could be their future, with 53 per cent of those surveyed expected to be self-employed over the coming five years.
My opinion: That's a good tip.
(See quotes from Andrew Carnegie about this.) The abrogation of retirement agreements when companies went under while the execs pocketed bonuses exposes this even in traditional workplaces. So where does the reliable cash flow that banks demand when getting a mortgage? Or anything else?
The stability of employment underlies much of our economy -- so there is more at stake than just the perpetual anxiety of the underemployed.
Governments should think about what the world will look like in a few years and aim their policies at ensuring Canada has ready skills for the world. As already mentioned...the current middle class should not be allowed to slide backwards into poverty or there will be a huge backlash.
This effectively creates a salary floor, unique to each business sector, below which the employer will or even must look at other ways to cut costs at the expense of any mutually benefiting loyalty with the worker. This creates a feedback loop where the employee becomes less invested in any mutually benefitial endeavour with their employer. This feedback loop is going even one step beyond where new generations of “gig” workers are becoming consumer champions of companies particularly on the tech side that not only are the worst gig work offenders but even are developing business models that monetize the time inputs of people without paying them at all!
If the gig economy is growing and full-time employment is declining, the government has to rejig their tax model.
The Millennials are going to be the ones generating the tax revenue that the government needs to support the retirement and healthcare of their parents.
Aug. 4, 2020 The Simpsons: Today I watched the episode "The Miseducation of Lisa Simpson" which is an ep that came out on Feb. 2020:
"The sea captain finds treasure for which he's been searching for 40 years, but City Hall claims it since it was in city limits. Marge convinces the townspeople to use the windfall to build a STEM school. Homer crusades against automation."
This week's other blog posts:
"Employers want workers in the office for the company culture, not productivity"/ "Remote employees worried about bias toward on-site workers: Survey"
"Viral LinkedIn post highlights growing worker-employer divide on remote work"/ "In 10 years, 'remote work' will simply be 'work'"
My week:
The study found 61 per cent of employed people were more stressed about their finances than they were a year ago, and 81 per cent said they planned to cut back on expenses like dining out, shopping and entertainment.
At 78 per cent, a majority of those surveyed said they were looking to increase their income next year, and 33 per cent said they planned to do that through a side gig or second job.
Davison said many people are looking for relief by asking for raises or promotions, but those solutions are “outside their control” and may not guarantee a “financial buffer.”
The results also showed that nearly a quarter of people spent an hour or more of their work time every day thinking about their personal finances. Researchers with the Financial Wellness Lab of Canada estimated that lost time as potentially amounting to US$664 billion in lost productivity, including $US50 billion in Canada.
“Financial stress is no longer just an individual’s problem – it’s an organizational roadblock that’s costing companies billions of dollars in lost productivity,” Seth Ross, a general manager with Ceridian and its Dayforce Wallet service, said in a written statement.
Financially stressed workers tapping into savings, seeking more income: study - BNN Bloomberg
That's why some environmentally minded families have embraced Thriftmas, where you source everything you want for the season second-hand, from presents and clothing to decor.
"I know that I can find what I'm looking for, nine times out of 10, if I just put in the effort," said Sinclair Strand, 26, of Surrey, B.C.
Strand, who has a three-year-old son, estimates that 80 per cent of what she brings into her home is thrifted. That includes the Christmas presents she's found for her son so far: a toy leaf blower that she knows he'll be thrilled with and a bag of Little People farm accessories.
Strand posts her finds — and tips — on TikTok, where she tries to normalize second-hand gift-giving (and where #thriftmas is a popular topic).
"Why does it matter where you bought it or how you found it?" Strand said. "Overconsumption in general is just crazy, but especially around the holidays … so many people are just buying things for the sake of buying things."
The problem with all that stuff? We don't use it. Or we do, for a little while, but then it goes out of style, or we get bored with it, and it piles up and we feel the urge to purge. Household waste can increase by as much as 25 per cent during the holiday season, according to Zero Waste Canada.
Here are a few gift ideas from our Thriftmasers:
Unique stemware, glasses, teacups or mugs. You can add a bag of fair trade coffee that supports a local business.
Decor, such as retro hand towels, vases or candlesticks.
Flower pots and used house plants. A lot of people purge plants online.
Baskets or canisters. You can add consumables like local chocolates.
A book you own that you loved and know a friend would love, too. Add a handmade bookmark.
Brand-name winter jackets or boots. (Some people sell or donate new items they can't be bothered to return.)
Gently used sports equipment, like skates, for kids. Their feet will grow out of them by next year, anyway.
Board games and puzzles. (Just check that all the pieces are there.)
Later in life we in my family have stumbled naturally into thriftmas, for no other reason that the fact we have everything we need, and no-one spends a lot of money of gifts anymore.
Christmas presents are usually consumables in my house, like fancy chocolates or cookies the wife bakes herself, and she is truly good at it.
It's family that has meaning for us now, not things.
Kevin Wilson was thrilled when, as part of a Black Friday promotional deal, he got two Walmart gift cards totalling $700.
But when he went to a Walmart near his home in Surrey, B.C., this month to use his cards, Wilson was dismayed to discover they'd been drained — leaving him with a balance of just 27 cents.
According to transaction records, one card's cash was spent at a Walmart in Richmond, B.C., and the other, at a Walmart in Mississauga, Ont. — far across the country.
"I was in shock. The cards hadn't left my possession," said Wilson. He added that the cards showed no signs of being tampered with.
He said when he received his gift cards, he was so pleased that he briefly posted a photo of them on Facebook. The bar codes were visible in the photo, but Wilson didn't think that was a problem, because the security code on each card was hidden.
But after doing some sleuthing, Wilson realized that his photo may have enabled fraudsters to access his cards. That's because a shopper can make purchases at self-checkout with a Walmart gift card simply by scanning its bar code — or a photo of the bar code.
"The light bulb went off," said Wilson. "There was a Eureka moment and I'm like, 'No way, it couldn't be that easy.'"
Another gift card scam
Nichelle Laus of Mississauga, Ont., almost fell for a different gift card scam. The former Ontario police officer posted her story on social media as a warning to others.
"It drives me crazy to have people victimized this way, especially during the holiday," said Laus.
Her saga began in October when she tried to buy a $50 Winners gift card at Shoppers Drug Mart. She said the cashier felt the back of the card and informed Laus a fraudster had placed a sticker of another gift card's bar code overtop of the Winners card's bar code.
Laus said the cashier then scanned the new bar code, which showed it belonged to an Esso gift card.
She said the cashier explained that if Laus had loaded $50 onto the Winners card, it would have wound up instead on a fraudster's Esso card.
Hughes died Dec. 1 in Tampa, Florida, at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, said Maurice Sconiers of the Sconiers Funeral Home in Columbus, Georgia. Her daughter, Delethia Ridley Malmsten, said the cause was old age.
Though they came to their feminist activism from different vantage points — Hughes from her community-based work and Steinem from journalism — the two forged a powerful speaking partnership in the early 1970s, touring the country at a time when feminism was seen as predominantly white and middle class, a divide dating back to the origins of the American women’s movement. Steinem credited Hughes with helping her become comfortable speaking in public.
Hughes, her work always rooted in community activism, organized the first shelter for battered women in New York City and co-founded the New York City Agency for Child Development to broaden childcare services in the city. But she was perhaps best known for her work helping countless families through the community center she established on Manhattan’s West Side, offering day care, job training, advocacy training and more.
“She took families off the street and gave them jobs,” Malmsten, her daughter, told The Associated Press on Sunday, reflecting on what she felt was her mother’s most important work.
Laura L. Lovett, whose biography of Hughes, “With Her Fist Raised,” came out last year, said in Ms. Magazine that Hughes “defined herself as a feminist, but rooted her feminism in her experience and in more fundamental needs for safety, food, shelter and child care.”
Pioneering Black feminist Dorothy Pitman Hughes dies at 84 (yahoo.com)
Dec. 11, 2022 "Interior designer accused of killing stepfather after finding naked pictures of herself": This is by David Millward on MSN:
Jade Janks, 39, is on trial for murdering Thomas Merriman, 64, with whom she founded Butterfly Farms, a non-profit research institution.
Ms Janks found more images when she searched the computer and was left “beyond freaked out”, Mr Del Portillo told the jury.
How the photographs, which were taken with consent by Ms Janks’s boyfriend a decade ago, ended up on Merriman’s computer is unclear.
Incensed by the discovery Ms Janks plotted her revenge, the prosecuting attorney alleged.
“This was no accident. This was murder by design,” Mr Del Portillo told the court. Ms Janks planned to kill Merriman, but make it appear as if he had taken an overdose, he added.
He died on New Year’s Eve in 2020, hours after Janks had collected him from a rehabilitation facility where he had been recovering following a fall.
Even though Merriman had divorced Ms Janks’s mother, she still looked after him.
The prosecution alleged that Janks had told her friends she had drugged Mr Merriman and tried to suffocate him.
Jurors were shown a series of incriminating texts she had sent to various contacts.
“I just dosed the hell out of him,” she wrote in one. “He’s waking up. I really don’t want to be the one to do this.”
Interior designer accused of killing stepfather after finding naked pictures of herself (msn.com)
My opinion: Where do I start?
1. If you found these naked pictures of yourself, you have to ask Merriman how he got these photos. Also delete them if you can.
2. I thought it was really stupid for Janks to text and tell her friends about it. After committing a murder or a crime, you don't tell anyone about this if you want to get away with it.
3. If she can't delete them for some reason, she should go to the police or a lawyer to get the photos off the computer.
4. Don't take naked pictures of yourself. Even if you do, make sure your head and face is not in the photo so they can't ID you.
Dec. 15, 2022 "Survivor Winner Donates Entire Million Dollar Prize to Veterans: 'I Am Very Fortunate'": Today I found this article by Marisa Sullivan on Yahoo:
Survivor 43 winner Mike Gabler made history on Wednesday night after he revealed he'd be donating his entire $1 million prize to veterans.
The heart valve specialist, 52, had been telling viewers of the CBS competition series his plan before nabbing the win, but followed through with his promise after being named Sole Survivor.
"There are people who need that money more," Gabler told host Jeff Probst during the Survivor after show, filmed moments after his win. "And I'm going to donate the entire prize — the entire million dollar prize, in my father's name, Robert Gabler, who was a Green Beret — to veterans in need who are recovering from psychiatric problems, PTSD, and curb the suicide epidemic."
"We're going to save lives and do something good," the Kingwood, Tex. native continued amid cheers from jurors and castmates. "Season 43, all of us did this. A million dollars is going to them. We made history guys," he added in the tender moment.
Survivor Winner Donates Entire Million Dollar Prize to Veterans: 'I Am Very Fortunate' (yahoo.com)
Dec. 10, 2022 Birthday party: M and Du had their b days. M wanted this to be a floral theme so the women wore floral dresses like hers. I wore a shirt with some flowers on it that my sister gave me a long time ago. The guys dressed up.
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