Tuesday, October 4, 2016

CAN YOU HAVE A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T HAVE A GOOD JOB?

IF YOU READ NO FURTHER... :

- Can You Have a Good Life if You Don’t Have a Good Job? (NYT) "Bipartisan experts tend to agree that the decline in employer-provided benefits and the rise of unconventional work arrangements are trends that should be accommodated, by reforms including new portable benefits and expanded income maintenance programs, like tax credits for low-income workers. Slowly, incrementally, Americans have been moving away from a system in which a good job with a generous employer was the key to having a good life to a new system in which even people with low-wage jobs can have access to the basic goods and services that define a decent life in a modern society."

BUSINESS/FINANCE:

- The Stealth Entrepreneur Behind One of the Biggest Innovations in Finance (Ozy) "But for Hughes, solar is just the way in; the ultimate goal is to disrupt finance. (Kopa is Swahili for borrow.) After customers pay down their solar kit, which usually takes about a year, they can remortgage it to buy other items from M-Kopa that would otherwise be too expensive: low-wattage TVs, water tanks, smartphones."

- How Donald Trump Turned the Tax Code Into a Giant Tax Shelter (NYT) "Even if Mr. Trump was correct when he asserted that he only took advantage of what the law allows, such a huge loss undermines one of his central campaign themes, which is that he is an astute and successful businessman."

- Even Obama doesn’t recommend American-style capitalism (Quartz)

- How One Man and One Beer Disrupted an Entire Industry (Fortune)

ENTERTAINMENT:

- ‘Do Not Resist’: A chilling look at the normalization of warrior cops (WaPo) "The striking thing about the footage is, again, the utter mundanity of the raid. A family was just violently raided over an unmeasurable amount of pot. A man was arrested over that pot. The money he needed for his business was taken from him. Yet there’s no shame or embarrassment from the officers. There’s no panic that the whole thing was captured on video. That’s when it hits you. They don’t think they’ve made a mistake. This is what they do."

NEWS:

- A spy’s unhappy wife could have turned D-Day into a disaster for the Allies (WaPo) "Pujol's most famous accomplishment: In June 1944, his missives managed to convince Hitler that the planned Allied invasion of Normandy was a trick, and that the Germans should concentrate their military strength in Pas de Calais, along the Belgian border."

- Ailing Obama Health Care Act May Have to Change to Survive (NYT) "'Even the most ardent proponents of the law would say that it has structural and technical problems that need to be addressed,' she [Sara Rosenbaum] said. 'The subsidies were not generous enough. The penalties for not getting insurance were not stiff enough. And we don’t have enough young healthy people in the exchanges.'"

- The clear and present danger of Donald Trump (WaPo)

- The New Health Care: The Two Mysteries of Medicare (NYT)

SCIENCE:

- The Science Behind Senior Moments (Ozy)

- A New Generation of Astronomers Is on the Hunt for the Next Earth (Wired)

TECHNOLOGY:

- The Internet Finally Belongs to Everyone (Wired)

- Ways I Use Your Data (The New Yorker)

- How to Outsmart Hackers (Ozy)

- What (we think) we know about Google’s new Pixel phones — and why you should care (WaPo)

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Need to Land a Plane? In Australia, They Break Out the Toilet Paper (NYT) "'She was flat on her back,' Mrs. Smith said. 'Lucky we have the flying doctor.' And the 30 rolls of toilet paper."

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