dtcwee: The Value of Nothing

Don't hate on spenders. "What, like those folks who brag about taking the entire family to Disney World?" Yeah. Them. Those status-signalling conspicuous-consuming early-adopting aspirational arrivistes. They wanna flex buying SUVs on credit rather than a used station wagon with cash? Let 'em.

The space between us is smaller but the gap between our experiences is wider. How can science fiction help?

You miss 100% of the stupid decisions you don't make. Negative self-talk goes like this: I missed out on that opportunity because I'm too pushy/meek/vain/stupid/whatever. Astronaut, doctor, parent. There's no end to what could have been, but for some personal flaw.  The infinite number of missed opportunities far outweighs the finite number of wins attributable to your better characteristics.

You are probably selling your time for less than it is worth. The personal value of your time gets scarcer as you age and therefore more valuable. However employers and everyone else values what you output with your time, so unless you (spend time to) increase your effectiveness, the value of your time to them stays the same. Let's dive into this.

Education plus work equals money. Spend time (and cash) studying at a good school, spend skills on a good job, spend workdays boosting your reputation, and you will be rewarded with a nice middle-class life and retirement account. Well okay, that makes sense, but it may be the least efficient way to get rich.

How closely Inflation tracks Unemployment, Wages, Immigration, Interest Rates (and Debt), Trade, Currency, and Industrial Action, in Australia. Inflation scares a lot of people who remember the 1960s and 1970s with its  double-digit price rises eroding savings, investments, and wage gains. Since then, however, inflation and wages growth in the developed world has been low. Younger cohorts who haven't experienced rocketing prices (except in housing, education, and health) clamour for greater social assistance, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, horrifying their elders who understandably fear that government largesse will re-awaken the inflation monster. Putting aside whether and how much inflation is desirable, many causes have been suggested, including unemployment, wages, immigration, central bank interest rates, the availability of debt, trade, currency strength, and the bargaining power of labour. All are compelling theories, ...

Industrialist Indigenous Australians?  In Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe portrays pre-contact Australian Aboriginals as agriculturalists rather than hunter-gatherers. 👨‍🌾 Why is this controversial?

Australian net migration and labour market to scale. 

Skilled migrants to Australia are apparently not doing what they were meant to : get jobs. 🦘👷 [MacroBusiness (MB)]: The notion that Australia’s migration program was ever ‘skilled’ is debunked by the empirical data from the Department of Home Affairs’ Continuous Survey of Australia’s Migrants. This survey shows that recent permanent migrants experienced higher rates of unemployment and are paid less than the general population: And the government has been sitting on this. Tsk. Tsk. Before borders reopen, let's use the opportunity to re-introduce a little conspiratorial thinking: [MB]: Thus, this ‘skilled’ migration program is actually undercutting local workers and adding to Australia’s unemployment queue. As such, it helped drive Australian wage growth to record lows : How, exactly? Migrant unemployment higher than the general population's implies that employers are preferring to employ local Australians (at presumably higher wages). If migrants are offering to work at sca...

In 1940, 8.6 percent of women with children 18 and under were in the U.S. labor force.  Then America joined World War 2, and around six million women joined the civilian workforce.  Women may have saved the day during WWII, but when the war ended, things quickly changed. Soldiers were returning home and they needed jobs to help them get back on their feet and reacclimatize to civilian life. The managers who had previously begged women to help out were now forcing them back into their kitchens to free up jobs for men. By 1948, the percentage of women in the U.S. workforce dipped to 32.7 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, this despite a poll taken in the last few years of the war that suggested between 61 to 85 percent of women wanted to remain in their jobs when the war was over.  Why? 

It is tempting to assume that a weaker dollar💵 is to blame for inflation. All of this speaks to the problem with inflation today. Few know what it is. It’s currency devaluation , which means there’s no inflation fight to speak of. Just don’t devalue, but if you’re devaluing, stop. Reverse course. Inflation will cease.  After all, the causal narrative is very compelling: weaker dollar, imports get dearer, bam, inflation. It's also attractive because having currency in our arsenal means we can fear inflation less. Reality is more complex, with more actors. 

Beware of buying houses based on loan rate movements. 🏡🌏 Australian policymakers use lending rates to stabilise house prices. House prices are expected to move opposite to the interest rates charged by banks, which are set in line with the RBA's rates. When rates fall, borrowers can afford higher repayments, higher principal amounts, more expensive properties, and vice versa. However, this has not historically been uniform.