It used to be Wall Street and Main Street.
Now it’s Wall Street versus Main Street.
When you read all the analysis, what can I add, other than connecting the articles to a story that highlights the challenges society faces through this pandemic. The stories are new, the underlying themes are not. I have been talking about them for a couple of years. What is new is that they are getting broader attention. Amplification.
Now we need to do something about it. Before we fall back into the ‘normal’. Or worse - accept a ‘new’ normal, because that is ‘just the way it is’.
People First Tenets
Over on Wall Street on the 28th of April, stocks jumped 2%, putting the S&P 500 on track for its best month since 1974. (CNBC) and the next day it went even higher, dropping back on the last day of the quarter and now two days into the new quarter it is fully 5% down on that peak. I mean, it really is just a game isn’t it? There really is no rhyme nor reason to the fluctuations, Wall Street can look around at the overall economy just as Main Street can. But that’s not how they work. Bailout news appears and ‘Wall Street’ buys-in, sells at ‘peak’, watches it crash and then buys back in at the low and with that done another several billion of ‘the people’s wealth’ is extracted and pocketed by the few. The Markets have absolutely no relation to the well being of the country, it is simply a place that people with money go to gamble and make money (off the taxpayers back -
after all - where is all this bailout money coming from?) They must be doing well because while the world is hunkered down, billionaires wealth grew by 10%. (IPS), so let’s stop pretending that they are in the same boat as the rest of us during this pandemic. (The Guardian)
Meanwhile … in the real world, the economy shrunk by a 4.8% annual rate in the first three months of the year - and the worst is yet to come. (NPR) To put that into perspective, this was the “first quarterly contraction since 2014 and the largest since the Great Recession”. Not only that the number of people unemployed in the USA is sitting at 30 million (that’s 20% of the workforce). (CNN).
So, of course, we need to get back to work. Would you risk your life to go to work? What if you decided that you don’t want to go back to work because you don’t think it is safe? Well, you could lose your job. (NYT) The article focuses on Amazon and Walmart - but we know they aren’t alone. But heh, life’s a crapshoot, right? I’ll suck it up, go back to work and if I catch it. I catch it. I mean it’s not as if I am likely to die. And I’m unlikely to be the only one. If we all catch it, then we can hold the company liable. Right? WRONG. If you do go back to work and catch COVID-19, it might well be that the company has protections against any liability for you.
(WaPo)
Amazon (to pick a ‘random’ company) has received a lot of criticism, but it looks like there are some right-minded people in there. Oh wait - correction … were, not are … an Amazon VP quit over the whistleblower firings (The Verge) .. which of course means that he is no longer in any kind of place to change Amazon policy (if he ever was), but he did write a blog post (TBray) which has obviously got attention - so who knows?
“They fired me to make others scared.”
Bashir Mohamed
The Amazon story alone would take books to properly record. Suffice to say while businesses around the world crash, Amazon soars. Even in 2020.
Amazon Stock Performance
While people around the world are losing their livelihood (CNN), their businesses (CNBC), the food off their table (NYT), their running water (The Guardian), Bezo’s fortune soars. It has soared so much that in the middle of April his personal worth was estimated to be $138.5 billion. (Fortune) ( I remember his net worth not that long ago being $1Bn - and that was
before his divorce. His ex-wife is worth $45 billion.
But with all that growth and wealth his workers on the frontline are essentially treated as cogs in a machine with no rights, no voice and highly replaceable - often as contract workers with no rights - but as it turns out even if you are employed by the company you have no rights. (The Guardian)
Finally, ‘gig workers’. We shouldn’t forget them. Those people who still go out and risk it all because they have nothing left to lose. A few months ago, they were hailed as people showing us what The Future of Work looked like. I am here to tell you - that need not be your future, but if we follow the ‘it will be ok’ road - that is exactly the future.
But Tech’s Fine. Right?
Ummm … depends which part of tech. Here’s an under-reported fact: As I write 366 tech startups have laid off 35,969 employees since Mar 11. (Layoffs.fyi) that’s one extreme. And at the other, we have the ‘tech-a-liths’, who, when all this is over, could have all the power and absolutely none of the accountability, (NYT) though of all of the industries you might look at - tech is the one where they won’t be going back to work in offices.
But I’m sure everything is going to be fine. I mean this is what Boris said (The Guardian), the US is re-opening (Morning Brew) and Bolsonaro has written off COVID-19 as a ‘little flu’ (Morning Brew). (WorldOMeters). So what’s the big deal? Other than the fact that here we are in May, America is moving into Summer (AKA ‘disaster’ season, think Hurricanes, Floods and Fires), but someone is thinking … FEMA has ordered 100,000 ‘human remains pouches’ (also known as body bags).
(Axios)
Finally, in case this is all a little depressing ans cynical - let me end with a short video that is doing the rounds. It is lovely. I think it made me think that I wanted to write a story this week. I don’t think I did. It’s too real.
… it’s a thing we talk about and attach importance to - but remains aloof. A little like art, we know it when we see it. And yet, the recurring mantra of all of those advice books? Provide value. Deliver value.
Imagine you are looking at a video over on YouTube. You know it gets cluttered .. and of course the whole site is all about YouTube.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be like that, YouTube allows you to embed those video right into your site - like this:
The Embedded Way
But, it’s just the video …. the transcription - that allows you to navigate to different parts of the video - that stays in YouTube.
And anyway - the transcript is exactly that - a text summary of what the spreaker is saying … non searchable, non friendly - it just allows you to ‘sing along’. Arent we better than that?
How much easier would it be if that video was all nicely tagged and ready to be used in the way that you want it to be?
Thats what this new tagging system that I am looking at will do.
The DCO Way
If your video or podcast has a transcript, we will automatically generate dynamic and meaningful tags and present them alongside of the video for your delectation.
Not only that - the tags are live - so click on one and you get taken to the very place in the video where that tag was generated.
The full set of tags we automatically generate are editabe by the author, so that if (say) 300 tags are generated - but you only want to make 6 points - you can reduce the total tagging to those 6 points - just as in this example.
And of course these tags are all part of your SEO program!
So - rather than just a bland link to a video - you actually get a page that is focsused on your message, with your branding, to help you tell your story.
What if we live to be fifty And the optimists win by a mile Supposing we stop the starvation and slaughter And the century ends with a smile Maybe recycling paper Will bring back the forests again And maybe the five year old psychos with knives Will grow up to be happy and sane
So give up your cigarettes Work out and study And carry a packet of three We’ll live to be rich and a hundred and seven Unless you know better than me
What if we live to be fifty And help all the weak and oppressed We’ll cancel their debts & no-one will expect us To work any harder for less We’ll spend our way out of recession The West will invest in the East So hordes of the poor never swarm at our door Demanding a share of the feast
So give up your cigarettes Work out and study And carry a packet of three We’ll live to be rich and a hundred and seven Unless you know better than me
Science will beat every fatal disease And plutonium’s perfectly safe They’ll find a solution to all the pollution It’s only a matter of faith
What if we live to be fifty And the bomb doesn’t drop after all And we never lie destitute, freezing and sick As the mortar shells batter our walls We’ll cheer as our glorious leaders Develop new weapons for peace They’ll base a new military laser in space And the ozone will heal in a week
So give up your cigarettes Work out and study And carry a packet of three We’ll live to be rich and a hundred and seven Unless you know better than me
“There must be some kind of way out of here Said the joker to the thief ”There’s too much confusion I can’t get no relief Businessmen they drink my wine Plowmen dig my earth None will level on the line Nobody offered his word”
“No reason to get excited” The thief, he kindly spoke “There are many here among us Who feel that life is but a joke But, uh, but you and I, we’ve been through that And this is not our fate So let us stop talkin’ falsely now The hour’s getting late”
All along the watchtower Princes kept the view While all the women came and went Barefoot servants too Well, uh, outside in the cold distance A wildcat did growl Two riders were approaching And the wind began to howl.
You could be forgiven for thinking that all of the world’s problems that were top of our collective mind as we celebrated the closing of 2019 are now solved.
To be clear this is definitely not a scientific analysis, but 4 google searches where I search for the term ‘front page news xxx 2020’ and replaced ‘xxx’ with a month name and then looked at the image results. The four images below are the top two lines of the resultant search result.
In January
No mention of COVID-19
Results From Google Search : ‘front page news january 2020’
In February
No mention of COVID-19
Results From Google Search : ‘front page news february 2020’
In March
COVID-19 dominates
Results From Google Search : ‘front page news march 2020’
In April
COVID-19 dominates
Results From Google Search : ‘front page news april 2020’
For example a Google search for Greta Thunberg over the past year reveals that she has totally fallen off the radar.
Of course it hasn’t all gone away. Once e have COVID-19 licked - we will all be back on pace - but hopefully this time it will be different. But that’s up to us.
I got my skills very early in life and never looked back. A lot of people in my line of work are ex-military, but I was trained and worked as a civilian all of my life. It’s funny when I was at school all the advice I got was about getting a ‘good’ job with a ‘reputable company’. What they meant was ‘large’.
I’ve never worked for a large company. Well, unless you call 30 people large. I’ve worked for myself and for others … in construction, emergency services, tourism, deliveries and seen the world while I was at it.
Papua New Guinea … only after their independence (I’m not that old!), up in Canada, down in Australia and New Zealand …. I pretty much work wherever the next phone call takes me.
Me? Oh, I fly helicopters.
Will never had ‘pilot’ on his ‘what I will do when I grow up’ childhood list, but he’s never regretted it. “What else would I do?” he asked.
“Body activity data may be generated based on the sensed body activity of the user. A cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify whether or not the body activity data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified.”
and
“a brain wave or body heat emitted from the user when the user performs the task provided by an information or service provider, such as viewing an advertisement or using certain internet services, can be used in the mining process.”
What could possibly go wrong? The answer - as always - it depends.
Investing In The Student Body
Back in 2015 Purdue announced that it was going to invest in its students. I mean really invest.
“Through its research foundation, the school plans to create ISA funds that its students can tap to pay for tuition, room and board. In return, students would pay a percentage of their earnings after graduation for a set number of years, replenishing the fund for future investments.”
It’s not the same, but it reminded me a little of this idea from 2005 - essentially fractional advertising on a single page to fund Alex Tew’s education. (I am going to say it worked. Ever heard of Calm? Alex co-founded the company and he is now co-CEO. Calm is rocking!
Anyway - back to Alex (the other one) - and isn’t it odd that they are both called Alex?
$ALEX holders are promised a share of any money he makes in the next three years! (He’ll pay out up to a total of $100,000 over three years—the rest is (his) to keep).
$ALEX holders can vote on some of his life decisions!
That second one smacks a little of Luke Rheinhart’s Diceman - but essentially what Alex is doing is convincing people with money to give it to him - and in return, he will give them more back within 3 years. Why is that any different to those same people buying stock in a company?
The world has been dallying with these ideas for a long time. There is push back from some quarters that caution needs to be applied because this could return us to millions of people working in ‘indentured servitude’ - and certainly by Investopedia’s definition that is exactly what Alex has just signed up for.
I think they are wrong. Sure, we need to tread carefully and not blindly sell all our rights (Lessons learned from musicians of the 60s?) - but surely none of it can be worse than the alternative?
Archives
Tenets
