The 'Gig Economy' Takes Hold in America

i know it feels like a pile on

but

this is a part of the legacy of the

worst

President

ever

he received the office with a surplus projected for 25 years...he leaves with a deficit projected further than anyone's comfort...

some believe time will be kind...these are the same folks that don't currently get it...i think history will be more harsh than kind

time

will

tell

it tends to be unforgiving historically speaking

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the question is whether the part-time workforce model will become the new paradigm for business in America.


xxx

This is a side effect of supply side economics.

The attempt has been to go back to the robber baron era, and the business ethics go right along. this began with Reagan, subsided a bit under Clinton, but is back full tilt bozo and has been since 2000.

If commerce is regulated to the extent that it does not do harm to the nation, this may right itself in time, but it can certainly reverse again.

You can call it gigonomics if you want, but it's more akin to a disposable work force.

EXPERIENCE COUNTS----YEAH RIGHT!

Chicago, a typical Democratic town:
Chicago.... Who Runs it?

Senators: Barack Obama & Dick Durbin
Representative: Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Illinois Governor: Rod Blogojevich (arrested today)
Illinois House leader: Mike Madigan
Illinois Attorney General: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Chicago Mayor: Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)
The leadership in Illinois? .....all Democrats.
Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago.
Body count in the last six months: 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago - 221 killed in Iraq
State pension fund - $44 Billion in debt, worst in the country.
Cook County (Chicago) sales tax - 10.25% highest in country. (Look it up).
Chicago school system - rated one of the worst in the country.
Of course, they're all blaming each other. They can't blame Republicans because there aren't any.

This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois. And he's going to '"fix" Washington politics for us?

Good luck and may God help us!TprT

Professor Peter Morici, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, has become one of the first senior economists to admit that the U.S. is facing a 1930’s style depression.

The proponents of the various “Internet 2″ style projects all maintain that the internet in it’s current form is “dead” or “dying”, citing the problem of providing more and more bandwidth as it grows. The fact of the matter, however, is that bandwidth is unlimited, as long as carriers are prepared to provide it.

Those who have announced the end of the Internet have often cited the exhaustion of IP addresses, however, there is no limit to the amount of IP addresses that can be created. Indeed, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers organization announced last year that it had successfully ensured the further growth of the internet with the initiation of the so called “great migration” from Internet Protocol version 4 to IPv6.

However, the precedent set by companies such as AT&T, who have been accused of blocking traffic in order to preserve bandwidth, and recent mutterings regarding the possibility of fast lane deals between carriers and giants such as Google, do not bode well for the internet as we know it.

Dmitry Glukhovsky has warned that the internet in its current form may not exist within as little as six years time.

"And if healthcare benefits remain tied to full time employment status, what will the legion of every-wandering multi-taskers do to get coverage?"
_________________________________

It's a secret, David Knowles. Don't tell anybody, but they will BUY IT THEMSELVES!!

Clif Kuplen12:17PMJan 12th 2009

You can call it gigonomics if you want, but it's more akin to a disposable work force.
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The work force became disposable when it became expensive. Tell me, Clif, when one organization controls all the workers available to an industry, is how is that any different than a trust you dispise?

Also, when the cost of doing business artificially rose via regulation and taxation so did the culling of the work force become necessary. Then the workforce lost it's loyalty to the employer and the cycle became vicious. What have you done for me lately?

Blaming Supply Side is predictable coming from a liberal, but also makes no sense. Reducing regulation and taxes on business makes it cost effective to employ more people; the more people producing for a company the greater the company revenues which, in turn, raises tax revenue, both personal and corporate, by sheer volume.

Furthermore, reduced and relaxed regs and lower taxes fertilize the soil from which new businesses sprout and flourish creating competition (which you claim to love and miss) and jobs. Nothing kills off the competition of big business like the hefty price tag of regulatory compliance and unexpectedly large tax bills come 3/31, not to mention the record keeping costs and accounting fees that come with them.

Only the biggest of businesses can afford your Keynesian economics and THAT is why SOME of them just love liberals; your policies create a window of opportunity to corner markets with very little effort and expense. How can you enforce your beloved anti-trust policies on "trusts", and I use the term very loosely here, your own liberal policies created?

Demand exists because people exist. Artificial demand created through public spending projects espoused by your way of thinking are short lived at best. Supply Side frees capitalism to fill demand fully, immediately and efficiently while creating MORE PERMANENT jobs, businesses and industries. It is the difference between the mobile phone industry emerging and exploding on its own and the new green technology that must be forced into existence through government subsidy and manipulated science.

Your argument might be that some companies willingly paid more to their employees and some were forced to pay more by organized labor. A good example is the airline industry. Tell me, Clif, how many people are employed by Eastern Airlines today? If you guessed zip then you are todays WINNER!!!

Johnny, tell him what he won!!

Yes, Splash, Clif has won a 1st class round trip ticket on the Kenyensian Airlines!! Better get that Commercial Carrier insurance because your pilot today is Captain Scab!!!

Regardless of your winnings and how much you enjoy your "trip", the increasing cost of labor was the primary contributor to the "Gigonomics" to which David refers. You can't count on your employer ad your employer can't count on you!

Your insistence, Clif, that the Keynesian style of Demand Side or "trickle-up" economics would work at all is such a fallacy and ruins the environment conducive to starting new ventures which create jobs which creates unexpected tax revenues. This is no "Chicken or the Egg" riddle. Supply Side creates everything: opportunity, business, jobs AND demand. It is only when liberal forces fuck with Supply Side that it doesn't deliver to its full potential. This is what happened with Reagan; a liberal congress gumming up the works.

Take the $300 bill tax cut (immersed and entombed in the $500 billion public works bill). Done the way The Big O says it will be, $100 billion of it will trickle down through SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS and create new jobs. Yay! The other $200 billion will be spent on overdue bills or saved for a rainy day, but it won't create a single job [Aside: I still want my FUCKING tax cut; a promise is a promise].

Even The Big O agrees. When asked by Georgie S "Knowing that cutting taxes raises revenues and raising taxes reduces revenues, why raise anyones taxes?" Did The Big O argue the point? No! He said it was a matter of fairness.

What do you think The Big O's $3,000 tax credit for each job created in the US is if it is not Supply Side? It isn't the best way to go about it. I think you will see a lot of people fired and then rehired, but, hey, he's a liberal. I don't expect him to do supply side correctly. White boys can't dance; Liberals can't Reagan. That The Big O is talking about doing Supply Side at all, is no less than remarkable, but it's benefits will be overwhelmed by his $500 bil in spending (just to start) that will result in only short term private sector jobs through public spending contracts that will disappear upon project completion (The same think Clinton did).

It subsided under Clinton? You said Clinton was a supply sider, didn't you?

The Big O's Keynesian approach won't work, will drag out the recession just like FDR dragged out the depression and, this time, will leave us with far greater deficits that W had in his best wet dream.

But, hey Clif, you love him and that is all that matters.

It's a secret, David Knowles. Don't tell anybody, but they will BUY IT THEMSELVES

xxxx

That won't happen. In an employment market like that, there would be no group rates, rampant exclusions and few if any people would be insured. Without regulation and adjudication insurance of all kinds would cease to exist anyway. It never existed without it.

In a single payer system, health care is permanently removed from responsibility of the employer, and apples to apples comparisons could be made between say cost of American labor in manufacturing and comparable cost of foreign labor in countries that already enjoy socialized medicine as a society, not just the retirees and wounded vets.

Healthy workers pay for themselves many times over in many ways.

The work force became disposable when it became expensive. Tell me, Clif, when one organization controls all the workers available to an industry, is how is that any different than a trust you dispise?

xxxx

I debated this topic in high school and again in college, so I've known those answers for a very long time.

First I wholly reject as traitorous the idea that collective bargaining is in any way unlawful or in any way unethical. If you have to cling to that fantasy there will be no discussion. This is America, not nazi germany.

The objective of collective bargaining is to level the bargaining clout, not to unbalance it. Here are a couple of things that can help.

First, abolish the idea that corporations are limited liability individuals. Either they are not or labor unions are too.

Second, enforce the Clayton Act regarding collusive organization.

If there is no collusion among corporate entities in restraint of trade, similar legislation could be enacted or injunction under existing law against labor collusion, e.g. sympathy strikes or supply slowdowns during strikes and/or bargaining. This is all old territory and not that complex.

The purpose is to balance the field. If neither party can collude to extend clout, it will be easier.

Also, trust busting is in order. Without unlawful merger, strikes are limited to the specific area where a contract renewal is up.

Control of sympathy strikes or slowdowns can be done under Clayton just as easily as busting up collusive boards. The law is already there.

I don't know current case law on corporate entity status of unions, but it can all be attenuated. Huge unions should not exist any more than huge multinational corporate conglomerates. If one goes so can the other and it's already law.

Balance is the key to progress.

As a last resort when national security is at stake, voluntary or even compulsory arbitration could be imposed, either by fedreg or contract.

I don't favor huge unions dominating collective bargaining any more than huge management, and I hate the idea of multi industry wide strikes because both organized labor and management have grown too ponderous to bicker without far reaching repercussions.

Sometimes more government is less. If corporations and unions were smaller, their instant problems could similarly be isolated.

Clif Kuplen3:29PMJan 12th 2009

It's a secret, David Knowles. Don't tell anybody, but they will BUY IT THEMSELVES

xxxx

***That won't happen. In an employment market like that, there would be no group rates, rampant exclusions and few if any people would be insured. Without regulation and adjudication insurance of all kinds would cease to exist anyway. It never existed without it.
________________________________

It was a secret, Clif. You were suppose to keep it under wraps. At $75K a year that David said the Gigs were making, sure they would. For the rest of the gig world, the tune of Insurance companies would change just as soon as they realized they had no premiums. Capitalism at work. At that point anything and everything would be a group. Insurance Companies are great at making up their own definitions.




***In a single payer system, health care is permanently removed from responsibility of the employer, and apples to apples comparisons could be made between say cost of American labor in manufacturing and comparable cost of foreign labor in countries that already enjoy socialized medicine as a society, not just the retirees and wounded vets.
__________________________________

I like the single payer system (I know, don't die of shock) primarily because I hate insurance companies (and lawyers), but it will never happen for two reasons. 1) The insurance lobbies have the Republicans and Liberals in their pocket. 2) Trial lawyer lobbies have Liberals in all their pockets. Unless you can cut out insurance companies need for profit and Lawyers need for 33-40% health care would be twice as expensive as it already is.

I do not like the socialized aspect of it and do believe there are better ways, but this is the one area that I feel does need regulation in a very major way. Ease up on the providers some, but nail the insurance companies and trial lawyers to the wall. You won't see a liberal senate panel grilling them any time soon.




***Healthy workers pay for themselves many times over in many ways.
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Agreed. And if that was the actual goal, we would be on the same page, but it isn't and you know it. The goal is to create the ideal money making conditions for insurance companies and trial lawyers. This is why they are among the richest groups in the world while hospitals go broke and patients have to hire lawyers to get justice from their insurance carrier.

Clif Kuplen3:49PMJan 12th 2009

Balance is the key to progress.

As a last resort when national security is at stake, voluntary or even compulsory arbitration could be imposed, either by fedreg or contract.

I don't favor huge unions dominating collective bargaining any more than huge management, and I hate the idea of multi industry wide strikes because both organized labor and management have grown too ponderous to bicker without far reaching repercussions.

Sometimes more government is less. If corporations and unions were smaller, their instant problems could similarly be isolated.
________________________________

I'll leave the Clayton stuff to you. Anything I have read seemed to indicate that all sided see it as out dated. I don't hear about its non enforcement even from the liberal side of media.

You are right. Balance its the key and when a union can take out an entire company and thus all of its jobs, not to mention the contribution the company was making to the movement of the economic turbines of cities, counties, states and the US then the balance is way out of kilter.

If Collective Bargaining doesn't work, union members do not have to strike; they can still work. Companies have very little alternative if a union strikes and neither do the non-union workers employed by the company. Many unions even pay their members during a strike, so why not strike?

I never said they were illegal. I said it was extortion, bribery and I have now added trust to the list. There are plenty of instances where normally illegal activity is sanctioned or protected by the government; unions fall into that category. Under non union circumstances their actions would be considered illegal.

I don't like corporations that walk all over their employees either, but unions are out of hand and, IMHO, have outlived their usefulness to the work force. Now all they do is coerce a compensation package that is way out of whack with the rest of the labor market and violates even the very basic laws of supply and demand.

It was a secret, Clif. You were suppose to keep it under wraps. At $75K a year that David said the Gigs were making, sure they would. For the rest of the gig world, the tune of Insurance companies would change just as soon as they realized they had no premiums.


xxx

Of course it would change but not how you think.

Insurance companies make their money from investment returns v. reduction of exposure, not gross in premiums.

They can make plenty only insuring healthy people under 30 or so per government lobbied mandates and colluding with other insurance companies to fix prices and further limit exposure.

Without any serious loss to payouts, exclusive insurance policies to only the very few would be all profit all the time. The rest would be considered uninsurable.

For those that are insurable, the no-fault aspect of health insurance would evaporate. You could be denied or benefits mitigated for contributory or comparative negligence and damage suits for malpractice would be capped. Health insurance would collapse under its own weight, and insurers would look at other markets.

However, as I said, from the beginning, insurance went hand in hand with regulation and adjudication out of necessity and would not exist without it.

If there is no profit to offering healthcare and none is mandated, no one will write a policy worth shit and the industry will probably evaporate. If supply side rules applied to insurance, there would simply be no benefits paid.

If Collective Bargaining doesn't work, union members do not have to strike; they can still work.


xxxx

Both labor and management can come to the bargaining table and business can go on as usual. that's usually what happens.


Companies have very little alternative if a union strikes and neither do the non-union workers employed by the company.

xxxx

there are the time worn remedies, lockouts and strike breakers.

xxxxxxx

Many unions even pay their members during a strike, so why not strike?

xxxxxxx

Union members draw from a strike fund they have to pay into. It's not at full salary and it only lasts until it's gone. After that, they may find themselves at the mercy of management.

We may agree on trust busting. If corporations were more finite, then the union of workers could (and should) be too, but this happens only under anti trust and collusion regulation.

Clayton was passed to fine tune the Sherman Act, which was somewhat vague. Clayton filled out some of these areas. It is no more archaic than Glass Steagall 2 or the Sherman Act or the Wagner Act but it is as much of an historical precedent.

Clif Kuplen4:54PMJan 12th 2009

***Of course it would change but not how you think.

Insurance companies make their money from investment returns v. reduction of exposure, not gross in premiums.
__________________________

This makes no sense. If health insurance company's gross premiums vs gross expenditures (including claims) was a losing proposition they would not offer the product at all right now as there is no mandate to do so. They would have no investment money on which to realize the return represented in your formula.




***They can make plenty only insuring healthy people under 30 or so per government lobbied mandates and colluding with other insurance companies to fix prices and further limit exposure.

Without any serious loss to payouts, exclusive insurance policies to only the very few would be all profit all the time. The rest would be considered uninsurable.

For those that are insurable, the no-fault aspect of health insurance would evaporate. You could be denied or benefits mitigated for contributory or comparative negligence and damage suits for malpractice would be capped. Health insurance would collapse under its own weight, and insurers would look at other markets.
_____________________________________

If this is the tact that insurance companies take, then great! They are out. Let's replace them.

Otherwise, this is where regulation comes in. The MIB should be illegal; talk about collusion. Insurance companies should get back to the "spread the risk" theory they were built on. Good with the bad. Uninsured with the insured. Your Insurer's Utopia would not happen with the proper regulation.

But wait ... what government lobbied mandate? That would not be possible if government shut out lobbyists. Wasn't that one of The Big O's promises? Shut down the influence of lobbies and special interests? Change not just Washington, but THE WAY Washington works?

I know you are really big on this price fixing collusion thing, but prices vary now so greatly that I just don't buy it. I can get 5 different prices from 5 different insurers for the same product. You would need to give me more than just a People Magazine love chart of "Who's been sharing boards with whom".

No Fault and Malpractice caps cannot occur without legislation that would NEVER make it through a congress that is 50%+ lawyers. Insurance companies and their lobbies would have very few advocates over the parade victims that would hit the congressional floor. It would never pass. But the battle between insurance cos and trial lawyers would be interesting.




***However, as I said, from the beginning, insurance went hand in hand with regulation and adjudication out of necessity and would not exist without it.
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I'm in on regulating the insurance industry. Not sure what you mean by "adjudication out of necessity". If you just mean malpractice, that is not health insurance and is a different risk formula altogether. If it means something else, please explain.



***If there is no profit to offering healthcare and none is mandated, no one will write a policy worth shit and the industry will probably evaporate.
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Yay!!!! Let's cut them out.




****If supply side rules applied to insurance, there would simply be no benefits paid.
_____________________________

Not so. This is where regulation is necessary. Because people are involved, balance should be required. Supply Side doesn't mean no regulation. It means no needless regulation, no over regulation, no stupid regulation.

Over time, insuring groups balanced with people across the spectrum of healthiness would become more profitable as the population became more healthy, health care costs came down, and we started to realize the benefits of health as a society, workforce or otherwise.

Clif Kuplen5:11PMJan 12th 2009

***Both labor and management can come to the bargaining table and business can go on as usual. that's usually what happens.
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Yes, but I was talking about, when the two reach an impasse and bargaining breaks down.





***there are the time worn remedies, lockouts and strike breakers.
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You have to admit these are very poor remedies. The only time I remember them working was the NFL. Eastern tried it and we know what happened there.





***Union members draw from a strike fund they have to pay into. It's not at full salary and it only lasts until it's gone. After that, they may find themselves at the mercy of management.
_____________________________________

True, but while they are drawing at least something, the company is completely shut down. Those revenues cannot be made up. The strike is the most powerful tool of all the weapons available to either party. It is the primary imbalance.




***We may agree on trust busting. If corporations were more finite, then the union of workers could (and should) be too, but this happens only under anti trust and collusion regulation.
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I just don't think that Clayton limits size just the ability to totally control a market. I thought its intention was to stop incidents like the old Ma Bell or Microsoft. But you are the expert on that. Are you saying that The Big 3 should be the Smaller 300 each with its own labor contract? How do you accomplish this without limiting success?

If health insurance company's gross premiums vs gross expenditures (including claims) was a losing proposition they would not offer the product at all right now as there is no mandate to do so

xx

You're catching on. If there is no mandate and no regulation there won't be a market. Health insurance is risky, complicated and low returns.

My long late father was CLEO of a major insurance conglomerate. His major beef always was that they were compelled to write too much coverage. Insurance companies are essentially investment companies. It's probably worse than I know now, too. His company was sliced and diced by at least a half dozen mergers since he retired.

The point is, you cannot have an unregulated insurance trade. Virtually every step of coverage and claim is vulnerable to insurmountable problems without an impartial party to appeal to. The temptation to perpetrate fraud by both or all three parties is too great for the industry to even proceed without strict oversight.

Memo to The Banks: Lend or Else

By David M. Smick
Monday, January 12, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/11/AR2009011101893.html

David M. Smick is a global financial strategist and the author, most recently, of "The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy."

Clif Kuplen8:49PMJan 12th 2009

***You're catching on. If there is no mandate and no regulation there won't be a market. Health insurance is risky, complicated and low returns.
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I know you appear to know more than me here, but I disagree. Insurance companies raise rates on groups (mine 30% last year), yet it is clear when I get a bill that what they allow is roughly 40% of what is billed.

Maybe when HMOs were more prevalent 5 or more years ago it was less profitable, but I think I read that HMOs turned out to be a big loser for big insurance.




***My long late father was CLEO of a major insurance conglomerate. His major beef always was that they were compelled to write too much coverage.
__________________________

Compelled? Sounds vaguely familiar. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. Carter/Clinton/CRA/"Affordable" Mortgages. I thought compelling industries to do stuff was not an issue. Hmm. Sorry, I couldn't resist.




***The point is, you cannot have an unregulated insurance trade. Virtually every step of coverage and claim is vulnerable to insurmountable problems without an impartial party to appeal to. The temptation to perpetrate fraud by both or all three parties is too great for the industry to even proceed without strict oversight.
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Thanks for the explanation. I agree, as I said, with the need to regulate the insurance industry, but I believe we would be better off without them.

Well any question I had has already been answered by splash and clif!