Folks, you ever regret paying off a debt because it makes you lazy and slovenly? Show of hands.


This episode of I Have No Idea What I'm Doing is sponsored by:
Our Goodstuff Patreon Subscribers and listeners just like you! Support your favorite podcasts directly to get access to the discord and more.





Anosmia Awareness Day

Some Advice

https://twitter.com/HKesvani/status/1365648166360604675

Andrew’s Couch
T-Mobile/Sprint

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-terrible-t-mobilesprint-merger-must-be-undone/


No, you can’t make me think about money! Absolutely not!

App-based banking service Simple is shutting down - The Verge
Every budgeting app presupposes I want to think about moeny all the time and I absolutely do not.







Amtrak News

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/22/amtrak-is-growing-will-it-finally-get-the-subsidy-it-deserves/
Communist boondoggles

http://blog.darice.com/kids-crafts/how-to-make-boondoggle-keychains/




F-35 lol

The US Air Force Quietly Admits the F-35 Is a Failure - ExtremeTech
It’s the Ferrari of the sky



[T]he F-35 supply chain does not have enough spare parts available to keep aircraft flying enough of the time necessary to meet warfighter requirements. “Several factors contributed to these parts shortages, including F-35 parts breaking more often than expected, and DOD’s limited capability to repair parts when they break.







AD: Orson Welles for Paul Masson





Twitch Bans Amazon’s Anti-Union Ads

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy8qza/amazon-owned-twitch-bans-amazons-union-busting-ads


The Review E-conomy

Everybody wants you to review everything you buy now, because of the algorithms
Stop emailing my wife me to ask me to review things.
Especially don’t email me to review a thing I purchased two months ago. I’ve forgotten all about it.


Millionaire Regrets Paying Off House Early

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/11/paying-off-your-mortgage-early-biggest-downside-says-self-made-millionaire.html
Financial Ronin








1970s Was The Inflection Point

https://theweek.com/articles/486362/where-americas-jobs-went


Profits

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the-gap-between-worker-pay-and-productivity-is-so-problematic/385931/
https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/




Deregulation

Deregulation was big in the 70s, championed by Alfred Kahn, the Brookings Institution, and the AEI

Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976
Airline Deregulation Act of 1978
Staggers Rail Act of 1980
Motor Carrier Act of 1980
The telephone system was increasingly de-regulated throughout the 70s




Oil/Energy Crises

In 1973, the embargo imposed by OPEC led to oil prices rising 300%


Union Membership

Just read “A Collective Bargain” by Jane McAlevy, okay
50 Years Of Shrinking Union Membership, In One Map - Planet Money - NPR
Private union membership numbers in US

1973: 24.2%
2014: 6.6%
2020: 10.2%
The Shrinking American Labor Union - The New York Times


Why did union decline take off in the 70’s?

Mostly, prosperity blinded workers and unions to businesses increased use of bad labor law issued in the late 40’s (ie., taft-hartly and NLRB decisions)



Starting in the 1970s, employers began to shift this balance once again. They became much more politically active than they had been in the mid-century years, and they began to push to limit government regulation on multiple fronts such as the environment, consumer rights, and labor (Hacker and Pierson 2010). As part of this renewed conservative activism, employers ramped up their resistance to established unions and new union organizing. They did so, in part, because they faced a new economic paradigm created by a variety of emerging trends. First, financialization shifted the locus of economic power from manufacturing to banks and investment firms. Second, U.S. corporations, which were the world’s economic leaders in the years after World War II, faced more global competition as countries like Germany and Japan got back on their feet. Third, the rate of profit for private business fell by 29% between 1965 and 1973, and among manufacturers it fell by more than 40% (Brenner 2006). And finally, U.S. employers were more heavily saddled by social welfare costs, like health care and pensions, than were their global competitors because of the U.S.’s employer-based social welfare system (Hacker 2002).


Explaining the erosion of private-sector unions: How corporate practices and legal changes have undercut the ability of workers to organize and bargain - Economic Policy Institute


Un...

Ver todos los episodios