- Laziness isn’t why people are poor. And iPhones aren’t why they lack health care (WaPo) "Chaffetz was articulating a commonly held belief that poverty in the United States is, by and large, the result of laziness, immorality, and irresponsibility. Never mind that research from across the social sciences shows us, over and again, that it’s a lie. This deep denial serves a few functions, however. First, it’s founded on the assumption that the United States is a land of opportunity, where upward mobility is readily available and hard work necessarily gets you ahead. To accept this as reality is to confront the unpleasant fact that myths of American Exceptionalism are just that — myths — and many of us would fare better economically (and live longer, healthier lives, too) had we been born elsewhere. Second, to believe that poverty is a result of immorality or irresponsibility helps people believe it can’t happen to them. But it can happen to them (and to me and to you). ...about one-third of all U.S. residents slip below the poverty line at least once for two months or more. Third...this stubborn insistence that people could have more money or more health care if only they wanted them more absolves government of having to intervene and use its power on their behalf. There’s one final problem with these kinds of arguments, and that is the implication that we should be worried by the possibility of poor people buying the occasional steak, lottery ticket or, yes, even an iPhone."
BUSINESS:
- The Blockchain Will Do to Banks and Law Firms What the Internet Did to Media (HBR) "Like the internet, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are driven by advances in core technologies along with a new, open architecture — the Bitcoin blockchain. Like the internet, this technology is designed to be decentralized, with 'layers,' where each layer is defined by an interoperable open protocol on top of which companies, as well as individuals, can build products and services. The 'killer app' for the early internet was email... Bitcoin is the killer app for the blockchain. Like email, it’s likely that some form of Bitcoin will persist. But the blockchain will also support a variety of other applications, including smart contracts, asset registries, and many new types of transactions that will go beyond financial and legal uses."
- A volatile start for shares in Snap (Economist) "Every analyst who has started covering Snap’s stock has issued a negative rating. They question its high valuation and underline all the challenges. Snap also has an unconventional structure that gives shareholders virtually no power. This week it emerged that a group of large institutional investors had lobbied stock-index providers such as MSCI not to include Snap in their benchmarks for that reason."
- Valuation Shell Game: Silicon Valley’s Dirty Secret (NYT) "It’s called the 409A valuation. This type of valuation allows hot, privately owned technology companies...to issue common stock or stock options to employees at a low price and, at the same time, or nearly the same time, sell preferred stock to outside investors at a price that is often three or four times higher."
PERSONAL FINANCE:
- Will Millennials Ever Retire? (Ozy) "The gig economy isn’t just about Uber drivers. The freelancer employment model is taking over dozens of industries, from advertising and journalism to financial consulting and law. According to a 2016 study, more than one in three U.S. workers is a freelancer. Here’s the new normal: fluid labor markets, decreased long-run financial returns and hyper-longevity."
- Here's how the rich use their IRAs (USA Today) "...rich taxpayers can use two strategies that will help them build up their IRA balances during their lifetimes and then ensure that anything that goes to the IRS does so as slowly as possible. In particular, some of the most successful IRA investments have involved private equity investments and privately held company shares. At the other end of the spectrum, the wealthy are also typically in a position in which they don't really need to tap their retirement accounts in order to support themselves after they stop working."
- 3 serious problems with the 4% retirement rule (USA Today)
- When is a Roth IRA better for you than a traditional IRA? (USA Today)
NEWS:
- Illegal Border Crossings Appear to Drop Under Trump (NYT) "Roughly 840 people a day were caught or stopped from entering the United States from Mexico in February, according to Customs and Border Protection, a drop of about 36 percent from the previous February. Just as significant, the number was down about 39 percent from January, a reversal of a yearslong trend of apprehensions increasing in February as the temperature begins to rise and more people try to cross the border. The data is likely to please supporters of Mr. Trump and could let him take credit for quickly making good on his promise to clamp down on illegal immigration."
- Secretary Kelly Is Missing in Action on Immigration (NYT) "'What is your highest priority when you are considering antiterror efforts?' Senator Jon Tester of Montana asked. 'Stopping them somewhere well away from our country,' Mr. Kelly replied."
- Meet the Hundreds of Officials Trump Has Quietly Installed Across the Government (ProPublica) "The beachhead team members are temporary employees serving for stints of four to eight months, but many are expected to move into permanent jobs. The Trump administration’s model is based on plans developed but never used by the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Mitt Romney."
- Do Trump’s own surrogates actually believe what he says? Here’s a clue (WaPo)
- McConnell on if Mexico Will Pay for the Border Wall: 'Uh, No' (Breitbart)
SCIENCE:
- Public views on climate change and climate scientists (Pew) "On all of these matters there are wide differences along political lines with conservative Republicans much less inclined to anticipate negative effects from climate change or to judge proposed solutions as making much difference in mitigating any effects. Half or more liberal Democrats, by contrast, see negative effects from climate change as very likely and believe an array of policy solutions can make a big difference. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which reflects scientific opinion on the topic, stated in the forward to its 2013 report, 'the science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century.' Some 39% of Americans say they trust climate scientists a lot when it comes to providing information about the causes of climate change. About a fifth of Americans (22%) hold no trust or not too much trust in information from climate scientists. Another 39% report 'some' trust in climate scientists to give a full and accurate portrait of the causes of climate change."
- Wintel Is Going. But It’s Not Dead Yet (Wired) "Like Google and Amazon and others, it seems, Microsoft wants an added bargaining chip when buying computer chips from the biggest computer chip maker on Earth. Most of those mobile devices use ARM chips from other companies. But in one market, Intel still rules. Google, Amazon, and most other online services still run on Intel chips. In fact, these chips drive 99 percent of the world’s computer servers. But Google and Amazon don’t quite like that reality. Now it’s clear that Microsoft doesn’t either."
- Inside Facebook’s AI Machine (Backchannel)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- These Crappy Apollo Images Are What Make NASA So Great and Apollo Astronauts Weren’t Just Heroes—They Were Fantastic Photographers (Wired)
- Campus-Wide E-mail Tells White Girls to Stop Wearing Hoop Earrings Because It’s Cultural Appropriation (National Review)
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