Fortune (June 13)
“Before the pandemic, Japan’s workforce faced longstanding problems, like chronic overwork, low productivity, and too few women. Letting employees work from home may have helped ease all three, in addition to preventing the spread of COVID. But Japan’s failure to more fully adapt means it will likely miss out on the carry-on benefits of remote work that some corporations elsewhere are warming to.”
Tags: Adapt, Benefits, Covid, Employees, Failure, Home, Japan, Longstanding, Overwork, Pandemic, Productivity, Remote work, Women, Work, Workforce
New York Times (March 21)
“Gig companies have drawn billions in venture capital funding to help underwrite a system that is a race to the bottom for labor protections. But it doesn’t have to be that way.” Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled that Uber must now classify its drivers as workers. “If Uber can sustain its business while granting drivers improved guaranteed benefits and a financial safety net, then surely that model can be replicated elsewhere.” Uber drivers and other Gig workers “deserve the opportunity to make financial headway.”
Tags: Benefits, Drivers, Gig, Labor, Opportunity, Protections, Safety net, Supreme Court, Uber, UK, VC, Workers
Wall Street Journal (January 15)
Encryption and security protections “have significant social and public benefits.” These are becoming “more important as individuals store and transmit more personal information on their phones—including bank accounts and health records—amid increasing cyber-espionage.” The U.S. Attorney General wants Apple to provide law enforcement with a backdoor. It won’t and it shouldn’t. “Any special key that Apple created for the U.S. government to unlock iPhones would also be exploitable by bad actors.”
Tags: Apple, Backdoor, Bad actors, Bank accounts, Benefits, Cyber-espionage, Encryption, Exploitable, Health records, Law enforcement, Personal information, Phones, Security, U.S., Unlock
New York Times (February 3)
In recent decades, per capita GDP has doubled in the U.S., but “the bulk of the bounty has flowed to the very rich. The middle class has received relative crumbs. If middle-class pay had increased as fast as the economic growth, the average middle-class family would today earn about $15,000 a year more than it does, after taxes and benefits.”
Tags: Benefits, Bounty, Economic growth, GDP, Income inequality, Middle class, Rich, Taxes, U.S.
Financial Times (January 27)
“We can make a fresh start on Tuesday, and avoid the disaster of a no deal, by extending Article 50 to allow an honest reconsideration. Parliament and the people must level with one another about the detailed costs and benefits of EU membership and all sides must begin to recognise reality.”
Tags: Article 50, Benefits, Costs, Disaster, EU, Fresh start, Membership Reality, No-deal, Parliament, Reconsideration
The Independent (July 3)
“Any plan to rely on American trade to make up for the loss of EU benefits caused by Brexit are now merely a fantasy. Ironically, the push to remain in the EU might benefit from the US’s lurch toward insanity; the Brexit vote came when people assumed America would have a rational leader at the helm.”
Financial Times (September 10)
“A week in China is enough to persuade anyone that the world has spun back to front. The benefits of immigration, the quest for fresh discoveries, the desire for education, the recognition of the benefits of stability, purpose and enterprise are flourishing in China at the very time that they are being maligned, belittled or ignored in the US by Donald Trump.”
Tags: Benefits, China, Desire, Discoveries, Education, Enterprise, Immigration, Stability, Trump, U.S.
The Independent (April 28)
“There can be no doubt that the UK’s economic situation is much more likely to deteriorate than improve in the next few years.” Higher taxes and/or lower benefits will be essential to strengthening the Treasury. “All of this adds to stagnant or declining living standards…. No wonder, then, that consumer confidence is likely to become weaker as the uncertainties crowd in.” But the biggest economic hurdle will be crimped investment. “Business does not want to invest in Britain unless they can be sure of a return on those funds after the UK loses its easy access to the single market.”
Tags: Benefits, Consumer confidence, Deteriorate, Investment. Brexit, Living standards, Single market, Taxes, Treasury, UK
Chicago Tribune (February 14)
“It would be tempting to say the alleged help in getting Donald Trump elected has backfired for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that is not the case. Putin wants “an adversary with diminished moral standing and no appetite for meddling in far-off regions. Putin is enjoying all the benefits he could expect from the Trump administration without having to pay for them.”
Tags: Adversary, Backfired, Benefits, Diminished, Meddling, Moral standing, Putin, Trump Election
Economist (October 1)
“Globalisation’s critics say it benefits only the elite. In fact, a less open world would hurt the poor most of all…. There is a world of difference between improving globalisation and reversing it. The idea that globalisation is a scam that benefits only corporations and the rich could scarcely be more wrong.”
Tags: Benefits, Corporations, Critics, Elite, Globalization, Poor, Rich, Scam
