“Too little immigration, and you freeze your country out of the modern world. Too much, or the wrong kind, and you overstress your social-insurance system—and possibly upend your democracy. Choose well, and you build a stronger, richer country for both newcomers and the long-settled. Choose badly, and you aggravate inequality and inflame intergroup hostility. How we choose will shape the future that will in its turn shape us.”
David Frum
politics“Trump is an excellent businessman and the Republicans are really good with money: if you doubt it, just take a gander at the Urban Institute’s report on the costs and effects of Trumpcare: The US government will spend $33 billion more as a result of GOP policies, and cover 8.9 million fewer Americans, and those Americans will pay higher premiums (18%, on average!) to get worse care.”
Cory Doctorow
This from 1 year ago : Trumpcare added $33B to government healthcare spending, in order to cover 8.9m fewer Americans, who will pay more for less
politics“The Commerce Department said this week that despite two years of America First-ism, the U.S. merchandise trade deficit is getting worse rather than better. After all the fuss about the tax cuts, it turns out that corporations benefited, not workers. And while joblessness is at an all-time low, the economy turns out to be churning out many more jobs at the bottom end of the skills market than middle-class jobs. Wages still lag, city centers are still rotting, infrastructure projects are still crumbling, public housing is still in trouble. Oh and then there is this massive debt resulting from unpaid for tax cuts. At the border, the Trump protectionist approach appears to be not working, as the monthly immigration numbers attest.”
David Cay Johnston
Nothing new, nothing special, nothing different … what is clear, apparent and not talked about anywhere near enough. Oh … my bold
politicsAt least, that’s what Robin writes … personally I see it getting better again with software like Blot where this is published and Micro Blog … to where it is routed, via RSS and IFTTT. The challenge is that as more people do get omto those platfroms there seems to be an increasing push to make them lke the other stuff they are used to.
“I believe that RSS was much more than just a fad. It made blogging possible for the first time because you could follow dozens of writers at the same time and attract a considerably large audience if you were the writer. There were no ads (except for the high-quality Daring Fireball kind), no one could slow down your feed with third party scripts, it had a good baseline of typographic standards and, most of all, it was quiet. There were no comments, no likes or retweets. Just the writer’s thoughts and you.”
“The unhealthy bond between RSS and Google Reader is proof of how fragile the web truly is, and it reveals that those communities can disappear just as quickly as they bloom. However, with that being said, today RSS is alive and well. A vast number of websites still support the syndication formats that fall under the umbrella of what I consider RSS to be.”
Robin Rendle
💬 🔗 business.of.tech”The protocols that matter are not the ones that help us express commercial intent but rather the ones that preserve our right to personality.”
Adrian Gropper
A corporation exists to ‘maximize its shareholder value’.
Yes, there are other reasons - but all fall away quickly under any scrutiny.
Why? Because if I invest money I want a return. If I can get a better return somewhere else - that is where my money will move to.
Yes - I might like that the corporation is producing a cool widget or delivering a wonderful service that is aligned with my belief system - but if I can get a better return for my cash then my money will move.
Corporations are also Task Driven. They take an input … labor, materials, money, etc …. and run it through their ‘machine’ to deliver a product or service that is sold into a market place.
The difference between the sales price and the cost to produce is profit. Yes, there are lots of accounting and legal shenanigans that make it sound more complicated. But at the end of the day … that’s it.
Which makes a good corporation a very well oiled machine.
And the well oiled corporate machine has specific parts that interact in a very structured way, in an orderly fashion … no (ideally) variation.
Originally most of those tasks were completed by people.
In fact, people are employed to do all the necessary tasks until the corporation can do that task better, faster, cheaper by some other mechanism.
Sometimes those tasks can be done better / faster / cheaper by other people - we call that outsourcing and/or offshoring - and increasingly problematically - move out expensive skilled older people and replace with less skilled - but can definitely ‘do the task’ younger people.
Sometimes those tasks can be done better / faster / cheaper by machines - we call that automation. That automation, which used to be things like a people-aided machine ( e.g. tractor) or non-people-aided machine ( eg, automatic assembly lines). Today it is more likely to be an algorithm, AI, Machine Learning ….. but it is always to the cause of better / faster / cheaper
To maximize shareholder value … the corporation is constantly seeking to increase revenue and decrease costs.
Holding a candle to a corporation’s accounts, and you will find that people tend to be the largest line item of cost on the books.
So the effort is focussed on reducing that … why focus on a line item that is only 5% of your costs, when you can focus on a line item that is 75% of your costs?
And so bit by bit, year by year, month by month, those costs are being whittled away … faster and faster and faster ….
When there is a threat to corporate survival, the wagons are circled, the defense playbook comes out, lies (because there is no other word) are told to ‘protect the institutions’. Think Big Tobacco. Think US Healthcare. Think Oil companies and Global Warming. At a single business level, think Theranos. Think Opioid crisis, the Sacker family and Purdue. No cover-up is too big … but will come back to haunt the perpetrators.
Which brings me to this aspect of the Future of Work. I used to think I was being a cynic. Now I am not so sure.
The truth about the future of work, corporations, capitalism is being hidden.
Corporations want their workforce to believe that they have their best interests at heart, so they employ people into positions to tell us … no - to sell us their story. To promote the things that they think we’re all seeking.
People seek to join organizations that ‘respect people’. Are cause-driven, Are doing good and t is inspirational to hear managers in corporations talk about employee satisfaction, leadership, work-life balance, workplace engagement and and and …. but how do you do that for people employed as cogs in the machine. Because, make no mistake, that is what we are.
and … rest assured, as soon as possible your very costly body, brain and talent will be removed as soon as they have worked out how to do that.
Surprised? It has been going on for a loooong time.
people.firstWelcome my son, welcome to the machine
Where have you been?
It’s alright we know where you’ve been
You’ve been in the pipeline, filling in time
Vint Cerf and David Nordfors in their new book ‘The People Centered Economy’ introduced an idea that started to examine a new way of thinking about work - putting people at the center - not corporations …. much as I talk about with ‘The Business Equation’
You can see the start of some of my takeaways and words of wisdom that I am collecting from their book here.
And then I read this …
Where Your Job is Most Popular
I found this an interesting piece of analysis … BUT …
… imagine if the jobs weren’t specific ‘task driven’ jobs that we go do today … but rather passions that ‘we the people’ had, the things we really want to do and imagine that on the other side, the equation is balanced with what ‘buyers’ want - I don’t want someone to mow my lawn …. well actually I do, but I want that person to have a passion for there outdoors, who loves wildlife, who
Its the first example I have found ‘in the wild’ for system to deliver what Cerf and Nordfors describe.
What do you think?
Is it really the start of a possible solution to matching what you love to do with people that want to buy what you love that you do?
people.centered.economy people.first”A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
Mark Twain
”Networked threats require a networked response.”
Anne-Marie Slaughter
… or British for that matter?
“Yet even without intimidation, the new system raises challenging questions. What does it mean to be a citizen? Is citizenship a kind of subscription service, to be suspended and resumed as our needs change? Are countries competing service providers, their terms and conditions subject to the ebbs and flows of consumer preference? Edmund Burke long ago articulated an ambitious vision of society as a “partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” Does any of that still resonate? Or is it a bygone idea of a vanished age, dissolved in a globalized world?“
David Frum
around.the.world
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