#millennial lifestyle subsidy

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Venture predation

Tomorrow (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on Monday (May 22), I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On Tuesday (May 23), I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

They said it couldn’t happen. After decades of antitrust enforcement against Predatory Pricing — selling goods below cost to kill existing competitors and prevent new ones from arising — the Chicago School of neoliberal economists “proved” that predatory pricing didn’t exist and that the courts could stand down and stop busting companies for it.

Predatory pricing — the economists explained — may be illegal, but it was also imaginary. A mirage. No one would do predatory pricing, because it was “irrational.” And even if there was someone irrational enough to try it, they would fail. Stand down, judges of America — predatory pricing is solved.

Chicago School economists — whose job (to quote David Roth) is to find new ways to say “actually, your boss is right” — held enormous sway of the federal judiciary. The billionaire-backed Manne Seminars offered free “continuing education” junkets to judges — all-expense-paid luxury vacations salted with lengthy your-boss-is-right econ seminars. 40% of the US federal judiciary got their heads filled up at a Manne Seminar.

For monopolists and other predators, the Manne Seminar was an excellent return on investment. After attending a Manne Seminar, the average judge’s legal decisions tipped decidedly in favor of monopoly, operating on the Chicago bedrock assumption that monopolies are “efficient,” and, where we see them in nature, we should celebrate them as the visible manifestation of the entrepreneurial genius of some Ayn Rand hero in a corporate boardroom:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Even as post-Chicago economists showed that predatory pricing was both possible and rampant, a “rational” and effective strategy for cornering markets, suppressing competition, crushing innovation and gouging on price, judges continued to craft tortuous, unpassable tests that any predatory pricing case would have to satisfy to proceed. Economics moved on, but predatory pricing cases continued to fail the trial-by-ordeal constructed by Chicago-pilled judges.

Which is a shame, because there are at least three ways that predatory pricing can be effective:

Cost Signaling Predation: A predator tricks competitors into thinking they’ve found a new way to cut their costs, which allows them to drop prices. Competitors, fooled by the ruse, exit the market, not realizing that the predator is merely subsidizing their products’ costs to trick them.

Financial Market Predation: A predator tricks the competitors’ creditors into thinking the predator has a new way to cut costs. The creditors refuse to loan the prey companies the money needed to survive the price war, and the prey drops out of the war.

Reputation Effect Predation: A predator subsidizes prices in one region or one line of goods in order to trick prey into thinking that they’ll do the same elsewhere: “Don’t try to compete with us in Cleveland, or we’ll drop prices like we did in Tampa.”

These models of successful predation are decades old, and have broad acceptance within economics — outside of Chicago-style ideologues — but they’ve yet to make much of a dent in minds of the judges who hear Predatory Pricing cases.

While judges continue to hit the snooze-bar on any awakening to this phenomenon, a new kind of predator has emerged, using a new kind of predation: the Venture Predator, a predatory company backed by venture capital funds, who make lots of high-risk bets they must cash out in ten years or less, ideally for a 100x+ return.

Writing in the Journal of Corporation Law Matthew Wansley and Samuel Weinstein — both of the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University — lay out a theory of Venture Predation in clear, irrefutable language, using it to explain the recent bubble we sometimes call the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4437360

What’s a Venture Predator? It’s “a startup that uses venture finance to price below its costs, chase its rivals out of the market, and grab market share.” The predator sets millions or billions of dollars on fire chasing “rapid, exponential growth” all in order to “create the impression that recoupment is possible” among future investors, such as blue-chip companies that might buy them out, or sucker retail investors who buy in at the IPO, anticipating years of monopoly pricing.

In other words, the Venture Predator constructs a pile of shit so large and impressive that investors are convinced that there must be a pony under there somewhere.

There’s another name for this kind of arrangement: a bezzle, which Galbraith described as “the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it.”

Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy companies are bezzles. Uber, annihilated tens of billions of dollars on its bezzle, destroying the taxi industry and laying waste to public transit investment, demolishing labor protections and convincing people that impossible self-driving robo-taxis were around the coner:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/16/ring-ring-lapd-calling/#uber-unter

But while Uber the company lost billions of dollars, Uber’s early investors and executives made out like bandits (or predators, I suppose). The founders were able to flog their shares on the secondary market long before the IPO. Same for the early investors, like Benchmark capital.

Since the company’s IPO, its finances have steadily worsened, and the company has resorted to increasingly sweaty balance-sheet manipulation tactics and PR offensives to make it seem like a viable business:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/05/a-lousy-taxi/#a-giant-asterisk

But Uber can’t ever recoup the billions it spent convincing the market that there was a pony beneath its pile of shit. The app Uber uses to connect riders with the employees it misclassifies as contractors isn’t hard to clone, and it’s not hard for drivers or riders to switch from one app to another:

https://locusmag.com/2019/01/cory-doctorow-disruption-for-thee-but-not-for-me/

Nor can Uber prevent its rivals from taking advantage of the hundreds of millions of dollars it spent on “regulatory entrepreneurship” — changing the laws to make it easier to misclassify workers and operate unlicensed taxi services.

It’s not clear whether Uber ever believed in robo-taxis, or whether they were just part of the bezzle. In any event, Uber’s no longer in the robotaxi races: after blowing $2.5B on self-driving cars, Uber produced a vehicle whose mean-distance-between-fatal-crashes was 0.5 miles. Uber had to pay another company $400M to take its self-driving unit off its hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Uber’s prices rose 92% between 2018–21, while its driver compensation has plunged. The company is finding it increasingly difficult to passengers into cars, and drivers onto the road. They have invented algorithmic wage disrimination, an exciting new field of labor-law violations, in order to trick drivers into thinking there’s a pony under all that shit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

To Uber’s credit, they have been a wildly innovative company, inventing many new ways to make the pile of shit bigger and the pony more plausible. Back when Uber and Lyft were locked in head-to-head competition, Uber employees created huge pools of fake Lyft rider accounts, using them to set up and tear down rides in order to discover what Lyft was charging for rides in order to underprice them. Uber also covertly operated the microphones in its drivers’ phones to listen for the chimes the Lyft app made: drivers who had both Lyft and Uber installed on their devices were targeted for (strictly temporary) bonuses.

Uber won’t ever recoup, but that’s OK. The investors and execs made vast fortunes. Now, normally, you’d expect company founders and other managers with large piles of stocks in a VC-backed company to be committed to the business’s success, at least in the medium term, because their shares can’t be liquidated until well after the company goes public.

But the burgeoning “secondary market” for managers’ shares has turned investors and managers into co-conspirators in the Venture Predation bezzle: “half of Series A and B deals now have some secondary component for founders.” That means that founders can cash out before the bezzle ends.

The trick with any bezzle is to skip town while the mark is still energetically digging through the shit, before the pony is revealed for an illusion. That’s where crypto comes in: during the cryptocurrency bubble, VCs cashed out of their investments early through Initial Coin Offerings and other forms of securities fraud. The massive returns this generated were well worth the millions they sprinkled on Superbowl ads and bribes for Matt Damon.

But woe betide the VC who mistimes their exit. As Wework showed, it’s entirely possible for VCs to be left holding the bag if they get the timing wrong. Wework blew $12b on predatory pricing — promising tenants at rivals’ businesses moving bonuses or even a year’s free rent, all to make the pile of shit look larger and thus more apt to contain a pony. The company opened its co-working spaces as close as possible to existing shops, oversaturating hot markets and showing “growth” by poaching customers through deep subsidies, then pretending that those customers would stay when the subsidies evaporated. But Wework’s “product” was temporary hot-desks, occupied by people who could (and did) move at the drop of a hat.

To its competitors, its competitors’ creditors, and credulous investors, it appeared that Wework had developed some kind of “efficiency advantage” — a secret sauce that let it sell a product at a price that was far below its rivals’ costs. But once Wework filed for its IPO, its S-1 — the form that discloses the company’s finances — revealed the truth. Wework’s only “advantage” was the bafflegab of its cult-like leader and the torrent of cash supplied by its VCs.

Wework’s IPO was a disaster. After canceling a real IPO, the company eventually went public through a scammy SPAC, saw its shares immediately tank, and continue to fall, as its balance-sheet is still blood-red with losses.

Another Venture Predator is Bird, the company that flooded American cities with cheap, flimsy Chinese scooters, choking curbs and sidewalks. 25% of the gross revenues from each scooter ride had to be written off as depreciation on the scooter. As a Bird spokesperson told the LA Times: “There are very few unique companies for which you can build global scale really quickly and build a dominant market position before other people do, and for those rarefied companies scaling quickly matters more than short-term profits.”

Bird was another company that could never recoup, whose executives and investors could only cash out if they could maintain the faint hope of the pony underneath its pile of shitty scooters. It drove the company to some genuinely surreal lengths. For example, in 2018, I reported on the existence of a kit that let you buy an impounded Bird scooter for pennies and retrofit it to run without an app, so you could take it anywhere:

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/08/flipping-a-bird.html

Shortly thereafter, I got a legal threat from Linda Kwak, Bird’s Senior Corporate Counsel, claiming that publishing a link to a website that sells you a product you install by unscrewing one board and inserting another was a violation of Section 1201 of the DMCA, which was an astonishingly stupid claim:

https://www.eff.org/document/bird-rides-takedown-boing-boing-dec-20-2018

It was also an astonishingly stupid claim to make to me, a career activist with 20 years experience fighting DMCA1201, a decades-old professional affiliation with EFF, and a giant megaphone:

https://boingboing.net/2019/01/11/flipping-the-bird.html

But Bird was palpably desperate to keep its bezzle going, and Kwak — an employment lawyer with undeniable deficits in her understanding of copyright and cyber-law — was their champion

Fascinatingly, one thing Bird didn’t worry about was competition from Uber and Lyft, who piled into the e-scooter market. Bird circulated a (leaked) pitch-deck reassuring investors that Uber/Lyft weren’t gunning for them, because they ““won’t subsidize prices” as they prepared for their IPOs, which involved disclosing their finances to their investors.

Bird’s investors either lost money or made small-dollar returns, but they were outfoxed by Bird founder Travis VanderZanden, a superpredator who cashed out $44m in shares just as the VCs were piling in.

Venture Predation is another stinging rebuttal to the Chicago School’s blithe dismissal of Predatory Pricing as an illusion. Private firms — of the sort that VCs back — whose boards are made up of founders and VCs who stand to benefit from the pile-of-shit gambit are perfectly capable of spending huge fortunes to make Predatory Pricing work. VCs make a practice of repeatedly co-investing in businesses together, which fosters the kind of trust that allows for these gambits to be played again and again.

For later stage, pony-thirsty investors who get stuck holding the bag, the lure of monopoly profits is both powerful and plausible — after 40 years of antitrust neglect, monopolies are the kinds of things one can both attain and defend (think of Peter Thiel’s maxim, “competition is for losers,” or Warren Buffett’s terrifying priapisms induced by the mere thought of businesses with “wide, sustainable moats”).

In a world of Facebook and Google, dreaming of monopolies isn’t irrational — it’s aspirational.

VCs are ideally poised to play the Venture Predation gambit. They are risk-tolerant and need to cash out over short timescales. What’s more, VCs’ longstanding boasts of their ability to identify companies who have invented new, super-efficient ways to do boring things like “rent out office space” or “provide taxis” gives the pile-of-shit pony-pitch a plausible ring.

The Venture Predator gambit isn’t just a form of plute-on-plute violence in which billionaires fleece millionaires. Like any anticompetitive scam, Venture Predators are able to pick winners in the marketplace — rather than getting the taxi or the office rental service or the scooter that serves you best, you get the scammiest version.

Workers who are roped in by the scam also suffer — the authors raise the example of a cab driver who leases a car to drive for Uber, based on the early subsidies the company offered, only to find themselves unable to make payments once the bezzle ends and Uber starts clawing back the driver’s wages.

Then there’s the cost to society: during the decade-plus in which Uber was pissing away the Saudi royal family’s billions subsidizing rides, cities dismantled their public transit, even as residents made decisions about where to live and work based on the presumption that Uber was charging a fair, sustainable price for rides.

The authors propose a bunch of legislative fixes for this, but warn that none of them are likely to get through Congress or the Manne-pilled judiciary. But they do hold out hope for a proposed SEC rule “requiring large, private companies to make basic financial disclosures.” These disclosures would make it impossible for companies to pretend that they had built a better mousetrap when all they had was a bigger pile of shit.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/#millennial-lifestyle-subsidy

[Image ID: A giant pile of manure with a pony sticking out of it.]

Image: Eli Duke (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/elisfanclub/6834356283

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[glorioustidalwavedefendor]

[linkbuilder11]

Property Investment for Millennials: Key Considerations in 2025

The concept of property investment has evolved significantly in recent years, especially for millennials. With rising property prices, changing financial priorities, and the advent of digital tools, the real estate market in 2025 offers unique opportunities and challenges. For millennials looking to secure their financial future, Property Investment Singapore stands out as a strategic and potentially rewarding option. In this blog, we’ll explore key considerations for millennials diving into the property market this year.

Why Millennials Are Drawn to Property Investment in 2025

Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, have matured in an era of technological advancement and economic shifts. Unlike previous generations, they tend to focus on investments that offer stability and long-term growth. Real estate, particularly in booming markets like Singapore, meets these criteria.

Key Drivers:

Financial Independence: Property is seen as a long-term investment to build wealth and hedge against inflation.

Rent vs. Buy Dilemma: Rising rental costs in urban areas make property ownership more appealing.

Passive Income Streams: Rental properties can provide millennials with an additional income source.

Why Choose Property Investment in Singapore?

Singapore’s real estate market is known for its resilience, strategic location, and government policies that foster growth. Here’s why Property Investment Singapore is a compelling option:

Stable Economy and Political Climate

Singapore’s strong economic fundamentals and transparent regulatory framework make it a safe haven for investors. Millennials are particularly drawn to this stability in an uncertain global economy.

Growing Demand for Housing

As the population grows and urbanization continues, the demand for quality housing remains high. This offers opportunities for capital appreciation and rental yields.

Government Schemes and Initiatives

Singapore’s government actively supports first-time buyers and young investors through initiatives like the CPF Housing Grant and Enhanced Proximity Housing Grant. These programs reduce the financial burden and make property ownership more accessible.

Key Considerations for Millennials in 2025

Understanding Your Financial Position

Before investing, it’s essential to evaluate your financial health. Key steps include:

Assessing Debt: Clear high-interest debts before committing to a mortgage.

Saving for a Down Payment: Aim to save at least 25% of the property value for a comfortable down payment.

Building a Safety Net: Keep an emergency fund for unforeseen expenses.

Location, Location, Location

In real estate, location is everything. When considering Property Investment Singapore, focus on:

Proximity to Public Transport: Properties near MRT stations or bus hubs tend to have higher demand.

Amenities and Facilities: Look for areas with good schools, shopping malls, and recreational spaces.

Upcoming Developments: Invest in regions with planned infrastructure projects to maximize appreciation potential.

Type of Property

Millennials should carefully consider the type of property to invest in:

HDB Flats: Affordable housing options with government subsidies.

Condominiums: Offer lifestyle amenities and higher potential for rental yields.

Landed Properties: Require higher capital but offer exclusivity and appreciation over time.

Leverage Technology

In 2025, digital tools play a pivotal role in property investment:

Property Portals: Websites like PropertyGuru and 99.co help you compare listings and market trends.

Virtual Tours: Save time with immersive virtual tours of potential properties.

Data Analytics: Leverage tools that analyze rental yields, market performance, and property values.

Potential Risks and How to Mitigate Them

While property investment is lucrative, it comes with its share of risks. Millennials must be aware of these risks and take proactive steps to mitigate them.

Market Volatility

Risk: Property prices can fluctuate based on market conditions.

Solution: Invest in areas with consistent demand and stable growth trends.

Overleveraging

Risk: Taking on too much debt can strain your finances.

Solution: Stick to properties within your budget and opt for sustainable financing options.

Hidden Costs

Risk: Additional costs like property taxes, maintenance fees, and insurance can add up.

Solution: Budget for all associated costs before committing to a purchase.

Tips for Millennials Considering Property Investment

Start Early: The earlier you invest, the more time your property has to appreciate.

Educate Yourself: Attend workshops, read market reports, and consult property experts.

Work with Professionals: Engage real estate agents, financial advisors, and legal consultants to ensure a smooth investment process.

Think Long-Term: Property investment is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Be prepared to hold your property for several years to reap maximum benefits.

Conclusion

For millennials, property investment is more than just owning a home—it’s about securing financial stability and creating wealth for the future. With strategic planning, informed decision-making, and a focus on growth markets like Property Investment Singapore, millennials in 2025 can confidently step into the real estate world and reap the rewards.

Are you ready to take the plunge into property investment? Start by assessing your financial readiness and exploring the vibrant opportunities in Singapore’s real estate market today!

[mysterxklusiv]

Nurturing Millennial Family Support: A Guide to Building Stronger Communities

In today's fast-paced world, the millennial generation is navigating the complexities of adulthood while also shouldering the responsibilities of raising families. With unique challenges and opportunities, millennial families seek support systems that cater to their diverse needs. Understanding and addressing these needs is crucial for fostering healthier and more resilient communities.

The Dynamics of Millennial Family Support

Millennial families are characterized by their digital fluency, diverse lifestyles, and evolving priorities. As they juggle careers, parenting, and personal growth, they often rely on a network of support to thrive. From financial assistance to emotional guidance, millennials value resources that resonate with their values and aspirations.

Financial Support:

Financial stability is a top concern for many millennial families. Rising living costs, student debt, and economic uncertainties make it challenging to achieve their desired quality of life. Accessible financial resources, such as crowdfunding platforms like Your Target Page, provide a lifeline for families facing unexpected expenses or pursuing long-term goals.

Community Engagement:

Millennials prioritize community engagement and social impact. They seek opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals and contribute to causes they care about. Community-driven initiatives, such as local support groups, parenting workshops, and volunteer programs, offer avenues for millennial families to build meaningful relationships and make a difference.

Work-Life Balance:

Balancing career ambitions with family commitments is a constant struggle for many millennials. Flexible work arrangements, parental leave policies, and childcare support are essential factors in achieving work-life balance. Employers and policymakers play a vital role in implementing family-friendly policies that accommodate the diverse needs of millennial parents.

Building a Supportive Ecosystem

Creating a supportive ecosystem for millennial families requires a collaborative effort from various stakeholders, including government agencies, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and the broader community. By prioritizing the following strategies, we can empower millennial families to thrive:

1. Education and Awareness:

Raise awareness about the unique challenges facing millennial families and the resources available to support them. Educational campaigns, workshops, and online platforms can provide valuable information on topics such as financial literacy, parenting skills, and mental health awareness.

2. Access to Resources:

Ensure equitable access to essential resources such as affordable housing, healthcare, childcare, and education. Government subsidies, nonprofit assistance programs, and community partnerships can expand access to these vital services for millennial families of all backgrounds.

3. Technology Integration:

Harness the power of technology to streamline access to support services and resources. Mobile apps, online platforms, and virtual support groups can overcome geographical barriers and provide on-demand assistance to millennial families wherever they are.

4. Peer Support Networks:

Foster peer support networks where millennial parents can share experiences, seek advice, and offer encouragement to one another. Online forums, social media groups, and local meetups can facilitate connections and create a sense of belonging within the millennial family community.

Conclusion

Supporting Millennial Family Support is not just a matter of convenience; it's a strategic investment in the future of our communities. By understanding their needs and empowering them with resources and opportunities, we can build stronger, more resilient communities where every family can thrive. Together, let's nurture a culture of support and solidarity that uplifts millennial families and enriches the fabric of society.

Your Target Page offers a valuable resource for millennial families seeking financial assistance and community support. Check out their platform to learn more about how you can contribute to the well-being of millennial families in need.

[mtsainthelens]

[kryptobia]

Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy https://kryptobia.com/farewell-millennial-lifestyle-subsidy/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[arcticdementor]

Since the end of the Second World War,  middle- and working-class people across the Western world have sought out—and, more often than not, achieved—their aspirations. These usually included a stable income, a home, a family, and the prospect of a comfortable retirement. However, from Sydney to San Francisco, this aspiration is rapidly fading as a result of a changing economy, soaring land costs, and a regulatory regime, all of which combine to make it increasingly difficult for the new generation to achieve a lifestyle like that enjoyed by their parents. This generational gap between aspiration and disappointment could define our demographic, political, and social future.

In the United States, about 90 percent of children born in 1940 grew up to experience higher incomes than their parents, according to researchers at the Equality of Opportunity Project. That figure dropped to only 50 percent of those born in the 1980s. The US Census bureau estimates that, even when working full-time, people in their late twenties and early thirties earn $2000 less in real dollars than the same age cohort in 1980. More than 20 percent of people aged 18 to 34 live in poverty, up from 14 percent in 1980. Three-quarters of American adults today predict their child will not grow up to be better-off than they are, according to Pew.

…

Few metrics demonstrate the end of aspiration better than the decline in home ownership. The parents and grandparents of the millennial generation (born between 1982 and 2002) witnessed a dramatic rise in homeownership; in contrast, by 2016, home ownership among older millennials (25-34) had dropped by 18 percent from 45.4 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2016. Without a home, these millennials will face a “formidable challenge” in boosting their net worth. Property remains central to financial security: Homes today account for roughly two-thirds of the wealth of middle-income Americans; home owners have a median net worth more than 40 times that of renters.

…

Historically, opposition to suburban lifestyles was based largely on aesthetic, social, or even economic considerations. Today, opponents are preoccupied with “green” and “sustainability” concerns. The environmental magazine Grist envisioned “a hero generation” that will escape the material trap of suburban living and work that engulfed their parents. One magazine editor proudly declared herself to be a part of the GINK generation (as in “green inclinations, no kids”) which not only afforded her a relatively care-free and low-cost adult life, but also “a lot of green good that comes from bringing fewer beings onto a polluted and crowded planet.”

This view is widely shared by both the oligarchy and the upper echelons of the planning clerisy. Like their medieval counterparts, they wish to see a more “ordered” planet, but in ways that do not threaten their own power or quality of life. Those at the top of class pyramid can purchase “indulgences” for their consumption by investing in forests, driving electric cars, solarizing their homes, while their wealth allows them to purchase expensive inner-city flats.    

…

This sets a stage for a future political conflict. Even in the teeth of policies that seek to discourage suburban growth, in most high-income countries, including Canada, Australia, and the US, suburban tastes remain predominant, and are likely to become more so. In America, among those under 35 who do buy homes, four-fifths choose single-family detached houses. According to a recent National Homebuilders Association report, over 66 percent, including those living in cities, actually prefer in the future to purchase a house in the suburbs.

…

This receding horizon is generating an ever more feudalistic mentality among the young—those with wealthy parents are far luckier to own a house and enter what one writer calls “the funnel of privilege.” In  America—like Australia, a country whose mythology disdains the power of inherited wealth—millennials are increasingly counting on inheritance for their retirement at a rate three times that of the boomers. Among the youngest cohort, those aged 18 to 22, over 60 percent see inheritance as their primary source of wealth as they age.

…

Ultimately, this poses a threat to the powerful democratic ideal that arose in the second half of the last century. Instead of spreading the wealth, many of the leading Silicon Valley oligarchs’ solution to marginalization is to have the state provide housing subsidies as well as unconditional cash stipends to keep the peasants from rising against their betters.

The oligarchs understandably do not want a populist rebellion from below; the Trump victory and Brexit were demonstrations of that threat. But nor do they worry all that much about being burdened by a call for societal generosity. Such people tend to be skilled at tax avoidance, so they won’t be picking up the bill. Instead, as occurred in the Middle Ages, the taxes will be paid by the remaining middle- and working-class residents, while the regulatory clerisy, both in government and the universities, enjoy cushy pensions and other protections unavailable to the masses.

The erosion of upward mobility threatens a deepening conflict between the middle orders and the elites. It also threatens the future of liberal democracy. A strong landowning middle order has been essential in democracies from ancient Athens and the Roman and Dutch Republics to contemporary Europe, North America, and Australia. Now with fewer owning land, and many without even a reasonable expectation of acquiring it, we may be entering an era portrayed as progressive and multicultural but that will be ever more feudal in its economic and social form.

[ladylingua]

I keep seeing people being shocked and bewildered about airbnb being so crappy to use now

and it’s giving me the impression not everyone knows that is by design- all of those “disrupter” startups operate exactly the same way. So let me lay it out:

First the company starts with an enormous amount of seed money, and they enter an established industry offering the same product but dirt cheap and with the feel of luxury. They operate at a loss for years. They offer their product at such a reduced rate that they literally cannot profit off of it. They rely on their seed money and investment from other wealthy friends to get by. They do this until the other established companies in the industry are on their knees and begging to be bought out. Once all of the competitors have either collapsed or been bought out, the new disrupter company is safe to jack up its prices and reduce services/perks to get to a level that is profitable. It might end up being much more expansive than the industry was to start with, because now that competitors are gone the disrupter business has more room to squeeze customers dry without fear they’ll go to another company instead. The “we’re shaking this industry up to bring high quality products direct to the consumer” pitch has nothing to do with consumers and is entirely about eliminating competitors, particularly long standing well established ones.

This is how uber works, airbnb, all of those. It’s the same game the laundry mat chain in my neighborhood who offers free drying is playing- driving out competition so they have more freedom to price things higher.

Individual consumers often don’t have the luxury to be so choosy about what companies they buy from, but just be aware going in and don’t get taken by surprise later on.

[caryglenn]

A Hobbies to Houseshares Market

If there was one major positive outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the rise of home improvement. Those of us with a knack for handiwork took the indoors lifestyle as a call to indulge in those house projects that we'd been putting off for years, whether it was remodeling stairsteps, installing new home gadgets, or freshening up the place with a new coat of paint. The results are surprising: in a survey conducted by Houzz last month, the number of respondents who said that they had wanted to pursue a house renovation project but couldn't due to time or financial constraints rise nearly six percent, from 38% to 44%. Meanwhile, 25% of respondents said that they chose to renovate their own home rather than look for a new one. Even if most of us are back at our dayjobs now, we still learned valuable craftsmanship skills and maybe have a new walkway that we're proud of. It also helps that home renovations can improve the listing values of ours homes. That last bit is important. Recall how we talked about the then-cool housing market a few weeks ago, and how the Delta variant of COVID (as well as the slew of other new strains with Greek alphabet soup names) could light a fire under the housing market again. Well, it might be time to pick up those hammers again. Here's what experts are currently saying about how home improvement projects are on the rise again, and how they could help homeowners sell during the Delta Days. As it turns out, both younger and older generations undertook different preferred projects during the height of the COVID pandemic. While baby boomers (21% of respondents) tended to prefer exterior upgrades like new paintjobs and deck upgrades, millennials (17%) and Gen X (16%) homeowners focused on remodeling their home offices as well as adding smart technologies like remote devices and entertainment centers to their home. Millennials hunted for large furniture, while baby boomers and seniors stuck to more modest improvements to existing utilities and outdoor spaces. These are all valid approaches to home improvement, of course. A nice, uncluttered kitchen is universal to pretty much everyone, and we all know how attractive a carefully pruned garden looks in virtual tours of Laguna Beach homes! Because we might be staying inside just a bit longer due to Delta, though, we might see different generations of homeowners cross into the parts of their home that they hadn't paid as much attention to last year. That means older homeowners might want to look into the electronic acoustics of their homes, while the younger crowd would do well to get their hands dirty and spruce up the garden. There's another bright spot in the distance, though: green energy. Just today, President Biden's administration released a blueprint for converting the country to renewable energy sources. The goal is for at least 45% of the nation's energy to come from solar panels, wind turbines, and other sources by 2050. This means subsidies and saved costs for installing solar panels on homes. According to Google's Project Sunroof, investing in solar panels today could save up to $19,000 by 2041 for a Laguna Beach home. That's a pretty nice cut, no? If you have some spare time (and we know you do), plug your home address into this website and see how much you could save with solar. Home renovations not only make your house look nice. They can also shave off costs for young millennial buyers. This is especially true when you consider how once-common homebuilding materials like lumber are now more expensive than ever due to pandemic-caused shortages. While we've talked about wealthy millennials at length before, the majority either lack the funds or the know-how to engage in involved home renovations like kitchens, roofs, and so on. As a result, many turn to home improvement services; needless to say, these ventures cost a lot of money. It's not just millennials, either: 87% of homeowners in the Houzz survey reported that they hired at least one professional to help remodel their home during 2020.  If you have the the time, money, and means to make these renovations yourself, though,  you could save young homebuyers a lot of stress in the long run. And a happy buyer is a willing buyer. There's a whole slew of other Delta-era trends on the rise as well. Millennials with means are still on the move for more comfortable housing, while others are moving to cities where rent is cheaper (something we and other experts predicted earlier this year). Luxury office spaces are also making a comeback, in an effort to draw workers away from their cozy at-home office spaces and back into the cubicles. This roundtable discussion with some of Seattle's top housing market specialists gives some insight into these trends and more. Curious to find out how a little home improvement could boost the value of your property? Get in touch with Cary Glenn at Main Beach Realty in Laguna Beach, CA. With 20 years of experience buying, selling, and refurbishing luxury real estate in and around Laguna Beach, Cary Glenn will work closely with you to help you find a solution that works best for you.

[market-research-industry]

Despite new variety, traditional products to take global biscuits market to US$109 bn by 2025

Change is the only constant – a phrase that resonates well with almost every product, especially in the food and beverages and consumer goods sectors. That said, the former is equally dependent on the invaluable liking for legendary food products. And, this trend will define how companies in the global biscuits market shape their future. A report by Transparency Market Research says that the success of players in the global market for biscuits will rely on how well they create a balance between launching new products and sustaining the demand for traditional offerings. Almost one-third of the total revenues in the global biscuits market came from plain biscuits - US$ 25 mn, a value that explains the importance of this behemoth segment.

Pegged at US$ 76.38 bn, the global biscuits market is expected to grow at 4.70% CAGR between 2017 and 2025. For such a huge market, the eight-year forecast period offers growth opportunities worth US$ 33 bn, making the global biscuits market a US$ 109.95 bn industry.

Request a Sample-

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=1219

Millennials’ Choice to Augur Tomorrow’s Products

Fancy is, perhaps, the right term that describes ingredient to tantalize the taste buds of millennials. From exotic products to overwhelming appearances, millennials look for products that find a way to their heart through the tummy. This underlying aspect has kept most players, new and old, in profiling consumer expectations, especially youth.

With affordability taking a back seat in emerging economies like India, companies are foraying into a range of exotic biscuits, face-lifting their brand value. For instance, Parle, with a bedrock position in the market, did linger around with efforts to revive its product line few years ago. But, a quick analysis and prompt reaction to the evolving market, changed the fortunes of the company, once again. After tasting success with its best-selling product Hide and Seek, Parle recently ventured into its range of exotic cookies.

This classic case study is just one of the several examples that one may find in the latest TMR report on global biscuits market. Prominent and new entrants in the market will need to have systems in place to analyze changing consumer behavior. This will help satiate consumers’ hunger for new products.

Request for covid19 impact analysis –

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=covid19&rep_id=1219

Companies to Explore Products for Health-Conscious Audience

While companies will be exploring new range of products to rake up sales figures, the global biscuits market offers a catch – the rise in lifestyle diseases. Diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, all three disease – scientifically inter-related, have left the entire world worried. The World Health Organization (WHO) finds that the diabetic population sky-rocketed from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. And, the prevalence among adults above 18 years has doubled since then. The trends are similar for hypertension and obesity, too.

Changes in diet is critical for a healthy lifestyle. And, diabetologists recommend eating small portions at multiple intervals to keep blood glucose levels in control. While there are several options available, biscuits are easy to carry. This prompts companies in the global biscuits market to come out with healthy options like multigrain biscuits. Players are replacing white flour with millets, wheat, and other healthy options. Simultaneously, companies in the global biscuit market are also adopting strategic marketing campaigns to prove the effect of their healthier products on the targeted audience.

Buy now-

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=1219&ltype=S

The study presented here is based on a latest Transparency Market Research report titled “Biscuits Market (Product - Sweet Biscuits, Savory, Crackers, Filled/Coated, and Wafers; Source - Wheat, Oats, and Millets; Packaging - Pouches/Packets, Jars, Boxes, and Peelpaq; Distribution Channel - Supermarket/Hypermarket, Convenience Store, specialty Store, and Online Retail; Flavor Type - Plain, Chocolate, Sour Cream, Cheese, and Spiced, and Fruits and Nuts) Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017 – 2025.”

The global biscuits market is segmented based on:

Product

Sweet Biscuits

Savory

Crackers

Filled/Coated

Wafers

Source

Wheat

Oats

Millets

Packaging

Pouches/Packets

Jars

Boxes

Peelpaq

Distribution Channel

Supermarket/Hypermarket

Convenience Store

Specialty Store

Online Retail

Flavor Type

Plain

Chocolate

Sour Cream, Cheese, and Spiced

Fruits and Nuts

Region

North America

Latin America

Europe

APAC

Middle East and Africa

The United States

Canada

Mexico

Brazil

Argentina

Peru

Chile

Italy

Switzerland

The United Kingdom

France

Spain

India

China

Dubai

Egypt

The food and beverages sector has cemented its place among the global populace firmly over the years. This sector attracts considerable investments and subsidies from numerous government and non-government organizations. The trends and popularity regarding specific sub-categories are dynamic and help in structuring the overall growth. The trends are a way of answering the needs of the consumer. The players in the food and beverages sector have to adapt to the changing trends, which helps increase revenue-generation opportunities.

More Trending Report-

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rising-demand-for-synthetic-wax-growing-usage-in-polishing-applications-to-trigger-growth-of-global-montan-wax-market-tmr-insights-301354377.html

[katslefty]

“For years, these subsidies allowed us to live Balenciaga lifestyles on Banana Republic budgets. Collectively, we took millions of cheap Uber and Lyft rides, shuttling ourselves around like bourgeois royalty while splitting the bill with those companies’ investors. We plunged MoviePass into bankruptcy by taking advantage of its $9.95-a-month, all-you-can-watch movie ticket deal, and took so many subsidized spin classes that ClassPass was forced to cancel its $99-a-month unlimited plan. We filled graveyards with the carcasses of food delivery start-ups — Maple, Sprig, SpoonRocket, Munchery — just by accepting their offers of underpriced gourmet meals.”

[signatureglobal12]

RESIDENTIAL PROJECTS IN GURUGRAM

The Affordable housing segment has always been playing a vital role in the real estate sector. This segment received a huge impetus with the Prime Minister announcing the ambitious ‘Housing for All by 2022’. To rank higher on global benchmarks of urban livability is the primary requirement of India’s housing market. For a country’s economic competitiveness, the quality, quantity, availability and affordability of housing are the basic necessities. The residential projects in Gurugram and Sohna Road span across greater areas, surrounded by abundant green cover & all regular amenities available within the premises. Following are some of the reasons behind the growing popularity of affordable homes.

Firstly, apart from being available in the budget of middle class families, the residential projects in Gurgaon have now become the first investment choice for the millennial. This new age generation has high aspirations but has now started to take a decision on having at least one house, which can be utilized as an investment tool or financial security for the future, that fits their earnings early in the career. More and more developers are settling on the average unit size of apartments to make them affordable and attract the millennial homebuyers.

Adding on to the second point, when it comes to buying an affordable home, following are the parameters home buyers look for- first and foremost buyers look for the price of the units, the developer behind the project, and the surroundings of the project. They also take note of several development activities, including interlinking of by-pass roads, construction of railway over-bridges and flyovers.

Moreover, in the last couple of years, the subsidy of up to Rs 2.67 lakh under Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme has been one of the biggest catalysts for home buyers, particularly for affordable housing in tier II & III cities. With property prices remaining stable, the extension provided by the government last month will prompt more people particularly mid-income groups to buy homes

Lastly, with the rise of Work from Home culture, homebuyers will be shifting to the city peripherals. Like- suburbs and tier 2 cities are likely to gather more interest if work from home becomes the norm in future. Though the future of the residential sector looks promising and will surely propel the growth of this sector in the coming years. Also, most of the bigger cities are witnessing high property prices, a saturation of land, and subdued demand. This has led the developer; especially the ones dealing in an affordable segment to look for greener pastures that are cost-effective markets and this also brings the non-metro (Tier II & III) cities in focus. Moving to more spacious homes in the suburbs would make sense because commuting will not be required. With work-from-home a viable option even after the lockdown, many future homebuyers will shift to the peripheral areas for residential projects in Gurgaon and a better lifestyle - at more affordable prices.

[ericfruits]

Harry and Meghan go private

Britain’s longest-running family firm Harry and Meghan go private

The House of Windsor starts a long-awaited restructure

Jan 9th 2020

PART OF BRITAIN’S royal family is to spin itself off from the rest of the firm. In what they described as a “carve out”, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, aka the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, said on January 8th that they intend, in effect, to take their arm of the operation private, stepping back from duties as senior royals and working to become “financially independent” from the rest of the House of Windsor group.

It has been clear for some time that Harry and Meghan were not a natural fit with the group. Attempts to package them with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—aka Prince William and Kate Middleton—in a charitable foundation were unsuccessful. Although the brands were distinct—the first appealing to woke millennials, the second to more conventional customers—they proved rival rather than complementary.

Harry and Meghan’s move was announced without consultation with the group’s management, but may have been encouraged by developments within it. The stock price has tumbled recently, as a result of missteps by Prince Andrew, who has now been fired. Prince Charles—who will take over the top job in the not-too-distant future—has hinted that he plans to cut costs and slim down its operations as part of a broader restructuring. Rather than wait for that shake-up, Harry, who knew he was unlikely ever to get the top job, has now decided to cut loose.

This separation has the advantage of strategic clarity, and is likely to unlock value, given that the Harry and Meghan brand was widely perceived to be undervalued. The new entity will now have more freedom to diverge from the positioning of the parent group and to tap overseas markets. The couple say they plan to divide their time between Britain and North America.

Exactly how the new entity will generate revenues to finance itself and the “charitable foundation” that it plans to launch is unclear. The couple have said they will forgo money from the Sovereign Grant, through which the government pays for the royals, though not whether they are also planning to do without the cross-subsidy they get from Charles. Harry has only modest startup capital—mostly his inheritance from his mother—and his human capital consists of a title, a certain amount of puppyish charm and the ability to fly helicopters. Ms Markle could at least resume her acting career, and would be well-placed to win a part in the next season of “Succession”, an HBO series on the troubled offspring of a manipulative autocrat.

If the spin-off goes well, might other parts of the group make similar moves? Princess Anne’s sporting-lifestyle brand might have potential as a stand-alone entity, particularly after its advantageous product-placement in the latest season of “The Crown”, a Netflix series depicting a fictionalised version of the company’s behind-the-scenes operations. The Wessex, York and Kent brands are not, however, thought to have value.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Harry and Meghan go private"

https://ift.tt/3a2Tl1o

[stoweboyd]

The tension in the progressive community about on demand work as a positive, neutral, or negative force in labor economics is tightening, and attention must be paid because the labor laws and tax laws are shaping the lives of millions, even if no apparent plan is in place.

Heller’s piece is a preposterous length and is difficult to summarize, but here goes. New start-ups are operating at the edges and fringes of our economy, tapping into the economic leverage of freelance workers willing -- in the downdraft of the great recession -- to work for peanuts and to rent their possessions (mostly living space) for pocket money, This is the ‘on demand’ economy, which allows some -- mostly  millennials -- to paperclip a livelihood out of Uber, Airbnb, and Hello Alfred. Heller discusses government policies about the precarious lifestyle with political and government leaders, but like the lives of the individuals he talks with, we wind up with no resolution and more answers than we started with. Which might mean Heller’s on the right path, or that our society is falling behind and leaving social policy to be decided by Uber and Airbnb, and not by governments, unions, or other traditional institutions.

The American workplace is both a seat of national identity and a site of chronic upheaval and shame. The industry that drove America’s rise in the nineteenth century was often inhumane. The twentieth-century corrective—a corporate workplace of rules, hierarchies, collective bargaining, triplicate forms—brought its own unfairnesses. Gigging reflects the endlessly personalizable values of our own era, but its social effects, untried by time, remain uncertain.

Support for the new work model has come together swiftly, though, in surprising quarters. On the second day of the most recent Democratic National Convention, in July, members of a four-person panel suggested that gigging life was not only sustainable but the embodiment of today’s progressive values. “It’s all about democratizing capitalism,” Chris Lehane, a strategist in the Clinton Administration and now Airbnb’s head of global policy and public affairs, said during the proceedings, in Philadelphia. David Plouffe, who had managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign before he joined Uber, explained, “Politically, you’re seeing a large contingent of the Obama coalition demanding the sharing economy.” Instead of being pawns in the games of industry, the panelists thought, working Americans could thrive by hiring out skills as they wanted, and putting money in the pockets of peers who had done the same. The power to control one’s working life would return, grassroots style, to the people.

The basis for such confidence was largely demographic. Though statistics about gigging work are few, and general at best, a Pew study last year found that seventy-two per cent of American adults had used one of eleven sharing or on-demand services, and that a third of people under forty-five had used four or more. “To ‘speak millennial,’ you ought to be talking about the sharing economy, because it is core and central to their economic future,” Lehane declared, and many of his political kin have agreed. No other commercial field has lately drawn as deeply from the Democratic brain trust. Yet what does democratized capitalism actually promise a politically unsettled generation? Who are its beneficiaries? At a moment when the nation’s electoral future seems tied to the fate of its jobs, much more than next month’s paycheck depends on the answers.

[...]

In 1970, Charles A. Reich, a law professor who’d experienced a countercultural conversion after hanging with young people out West, published “The Greening of America,” a cotton-candy cone that wound together wispy revelations from the sixties. Casting an eye across modern history, he traced a turn from a world view that he called Consciousness I (the outlook of local farmers, self-directed workers, and small-business people, reaching a crisis in the exploitations of the Gilded Age) to what he called Consciousness II (the outlook of a society of systems, hierarchies, corporations, and gray flannel suits). He thought that Consciousness II was giving way to Consciousness III, the outlook of a rising generation whose virtues included direct action, community power, and self-definition. “For most Americans, work is mindless, exhausting, boring, servile, and hateful, something to be endured while ‘life’ is confined to ‘time off,’ ” Reich wrote. “Consciousness III people simply do not imagine a career along the old vertical lines.” His accessible theory of the baffling sixties carried the imprimatur of William Shawn’s New Yorker, which published an excerpt of the book that stretched over nearly seventy pages. “The Greening of America” spent months on the Times best-seller list.

Exponents of the futuristic tech economy frequently adopt this fifty-year-old perspective. Like Reich, they eschew the hedgehog grind of the forty-hour week; they seek a freer way to work. This productivity-minded spirit of defiance holds appeal for many children of the Consciousness III generation: the so-called millennials.

“People are now, more than ever before, aware of the careers that they’re not pursuing,” says Kathryn Minshew, the C.E.O. of the Muse, a job-search and career-advice site, and a co-author of “The New Rules of Work.” Minshew co-founded the Muse in her mid-twenties, after working at the consulting firm McKinsey and yearning for a job that felt more distinctive. She didn’t know what that was, and her peers seemed similarly stuck. Jennifer Fonstad, a venture capitalist whose firm, Aspect Ventures, backed Minshew’s company, told me that “the future of work” is now a promising investment field.

[...]

In promotional material, Airbnb refers to itself as “an economic lifeline for the middle class.”A company-sponsored analysis released in December overlaid maps of Airbnb listings and traditional hotels on maps of neighborhoods where a majority of residents were ethnic minorities. In seven cities, including New York, the percentage of Airbnb listings that fall in minority neighborhoods exceeds the percentage of hotel rooms that do. (Another study, of user photos in seventy-two majority-black neighborhoods, suggested that most Airbnb hosts there were white, complicating the picture.) Seniors were found to earn, on average, nearly six thousand dollars a year from Airbnb listings. “Ultimately, what we’re doing is driving wealth down to the people,” Chris Lehane, the strategist at Airbnb, says.

It is, of course, driving wealth down unevenly. A study conducted by the New York attorney general in 2014 found that nearly half of all money made by Airbnb hosts in the state was coming from three Manhattan neighborhoods: the Village-SoHo corridor, the Lower East Side, and Chelsea. It is undeniably good to be earning fifty-five hundred dollars a year by Airbnb-ing your home in deep Queens—so good, it may not bother you to learn that your banker cousin earns ten times that from his swank West Village pad, or that he hires Happy Host to make his lucrative Airbnb property even more lucrative. But now imagine that the guy who lives two doors down from you gets ideas. His finances aren’t as tight as yours, and he decides to reinvest part of his Airbnb income in new furniture and a greeting service. His ratings go up. Perhaps he nudges up his prices in response, or maybe he keeps them low, to get a high volume of patronage. Now your listing is no longer competitive in your neighborhood. How long before the market leaves you behind?

[...]

A century ago, liberalism was a systems-building philosophy. Its revelation was that society, left alone, tended toward entropy and extremes, not because people were inherently awful but because they thought locally. You wanted a decent life for your family and the families that you knew. You did not—could not—make every personal choice with an eye to the fates of people in some unknown factory. But, even if individuals couldn’t deal with the big picture, early-twentieth-century liberals saw, a larger entity such as government could. This way of thinking brought us the New Deal and “Ask not what your country can do for you.” Its ultimate rejection brought us customized life paths, heroic entrepreneurship, and maybe even Instagram performance. We are now back to the politics of the particular.

For gigging companies, that shift means a constant struggle against a legacy of systemic control, with legal squabbles like the one in New York. Regulation is government’s usual tool for blunting adverse consequences, but most sharing platforms gain their competitive edge by skirting its requirements. Uber and Lyft avoid taxi rules that fix rates and cap the supply on the road. Handy saves on overtime and benefits by categorizing workers as contractors. Some gigging advocates suggest that this less regulated environment is fair, because traditional industry gets advantages elsewhere. (President Trump, it has been pointed out, could not have built his company without hundreds of millions of dollars in tax subsidies.)

Still, since their inception, and increasingly during the past year, gigging companies have become the targets of a journalistic genre that used to be called muckraking: admirable and assiduous investigative work that digs up hypocrisies, deceptions, and malpractices in an effort to cast doubt on a broader project. Some companies, such as Uber, seem to invite this kind of attention with layered wrongdoing and years of secrecy. But they also invite it by their high-minded positioning. Like traditional companies, gigging companies maintain regiments of highly paid lawyers and lobbyists. What sets them apart is a second lobbying effort, turned toward the public.

[...]

Questions have emerged lately about the future of institutional liberalism. A Washington Post /ABC News poll last month found that two-thirds of Americans believe the Democratic Party is “out of touch,” more than think the same of the Republican Party or the current President. The gig economy has helped show how a shared political methodology—and a shared language of virtue—can stand in for a unified program; contemporary liberalism sometimes seems a backpack of tools distributed among people who, beyond their current stance of opposition, lack an agreed-upon blueprint. Unsurprisingly, the commonweal projects that used to be the pride of progressivism are unravelling. Leaders have quietly let them go. At one point, I asked Chris Lehane why he had thrown his support behind the sharing model instead of working on traditional policy solutions. He told me that, during the recession, he had suffered a crisis of faith. “The social safety net wasn’t providing the support that it had been,” he said. “I do think we’re in a time period when liberal democracy is sick.”

In “The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream” (2006), Jacob Hacker, a political-science professor at Yale, described a decades-long off-loading of risk from insurance-type structures—governments, corporations—to individuals. Economic insecurity has risen in the course of the past generation, even as American wealth climbed. Hacker attributed this shift to what he called “the personal-responsibility crusade,” which grew out of a post-sixties fixation on moral hazard: the idea that you do riskier things if you’re insulated from the consequences. The conservative version of the crusade is a commonplace: the poor should try harder next time. But, although Hacker doesn’t note it explicitly, there’s a liberal version, too, having to do with doffing corporate structures, eschewing inhibiting social norms, and refusing a career in plastics. Reich called it Consciousness III.

The slow passage from love beads to Lyft through the performative assertion of self may be the least claimed legacy of the baby-boomer revolution—certainly, it’s the least celebrated. Yet the place we find ourselves today is not unique. In “Drift and Mastery,” a young Walter Lippmann, one of the founders of modern progressivism, described the strange circumstances of public discussion in 1914, a similar time. “The little business men cried: We’re the natural men, so let us alone,” he wrote. “And the public cried: We’re the most natural of all, so please do stop interfering with us. Muckraking gave an utterance to the small business men and to the larger public, who dominated reform politics. What did they do? They tried by all the machinery and power they could muster to restore a business world in which each man could again be left to his own will—a world that needed no coöperative intelligence.” Coming off a period of liberalization and free enterprise, Lippmann’s America struggled with growing inequality, a frantic news cycle, a rising awareness of structural injustice, and a cacophonous global society—in other words, with an intensifying sense of fragmentation. His idea, the big idea of progressivism, was that national self-government was a coöperative project of putting the pieces together. “The battle for us, in short, does not lie against crusted prejudice,” he wrote, “but against the chaos of a new freedom.”

Revolution or disruption is easy. Spreading long-term social benefit is hard. If one accepts Lehane’s premise that the safety net is tattered and that gigging platforms are necessary to keep people in cash, the model’s social erosions have to be curbed. How can the gig economy be made sustainable at last?

[...]

Other assessments suggest that employees, too, should get their houses in order. “To succeed in the Gig Economy, we need to create a financially flexible life of lower fixed costs, higher savings, and much less debt,” Diane Mulcahy, a senior analyst at the Kauffman Foundation and a lecturer at Babson College, writes in her book “The Gig Economy,” which is part economic argument and part how-to guide. Ideally, gig workers should plan not to retire. (Beyond Airbnb hosting, Mulcahy sees prospects for aging millennials in app-based dog-sitting.) If they must retire, they should prepare. Mulcahy suggests bingeing on benefits when they come. Fill your dance card with doctors while you’re on employee insurance. Go wild with 401(k) matching—it will come in handy.

This ketchup-packet-hoarding approach sounds sensible, given the current lack of systemic support. Yet, as Mulcahy acknowledges, it’s a survival mechanism, not a solution. Turning to deeper reform, she argues for eliminating the current distinction between employees (people who receive a W-2 tax form and benefits such as insurance and sick days) and contract workers (who get a 1099-MISC and no benefits). It’s a “kink” in the labor market, she says, and it invites abuse by efficiency-seeking companies.

Calls for structural change have grown loud lately, in part because the problem goes far beyond gigging apps. The precariat is everywhere. Companies such as Nissan have begun manning factories with temps; even the U.S. Postal Service has turned to them. Academic jobs are increasingly filled with relatively cheap, short-term teaching appointments. Historically, there is usually an uptick in 1099 work during tough economic times, and then W-2s resurge as jobs are added in recovery. But W-2 jobs did not resurge as usual during our recovery from the last recession; instead, the growth has happened in the 1099 column. That shift raises problems because the United States’ benefits structure has traditionally been attached to the corporation rather than to the state: the expectation was that every employed person would have a W-2 job.

“We should design the labor-market regulations around a more flexible model,” Jacob Hacker told me. He favors some form of worker participation, and, like Mulcahy, advocates creating a single category of employment. “I think if you work for someone else, you’re an employee,” he said. “Employees get certain protections. Benefits must be separate from work.”

In a much cited article in Democracy, from 2015, Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist, and David Rolf, a union president, proposed that workplace benefits be prorated (someone who works a twenty-hour week gets half of the full-time benefits) and portable (insurance or unused vacation days would carry from one job to the next, because employers would pay into a worker’s lifelong benefits account). Other people regard the gig economy as a case for universal basic income: a plan to give every citizen a modest flat annuity from the government, as a replacement for all current welfare and unemployment programs. Alternatively, there’s the proposal made by the economists Seth D. Harris and Alan B. Krueger: the creation of an “independent worker” status that awards some of the structural benefits of W-2 employment (including collective bargaining, discrimination protection, tax withholding, insurance pools) but not others (overtime and the minimum wage).

I put these possibilities to Tom Perez. He told me that he didn’t like the idea of eliminating work categories, or of adding a new one, as Harris and Krueger suggest: you’d lose many of the hard-won benefits included with W-2 employment, he said, either in the compromise to a single category or because current W-2 companies would find ways to slide into the new classification. He wanted to move slowly, to take time. “The heart and soul of the twentieth-century social compact that emerged after the Great Depression was forty years in the making,” he said. “How do we build the twenty-first-century social compact?”

Perez’s new perch, at the D.N.C., has given him a broader platform, and a couple of hours after the House passed the American Health Care Act last week, he championed the old safety net in forceful language. “Scapegoating worker protections is often a lazy cop-out for some who want to change the rules to benefit themselves at the expense of working people,” he told me. “We shouldn’t have to choose between innovation and the most basic employee protections; it’s a false dichotomy.” The entanglement of the sharing economy and Democratic politics has continued—Perez’s press secretary at the Department of Labor now works for Airbnb—but his approach had circumspection. “Any changes you make to policies or regulations have to be very careful and take all potential ripple effects into account and keep the best interest of the worker in mind.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

No, Uber's (still) not profitable

Going to Defcon this weekend? I'm giving a keynote, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse," on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

Bezzle (n): 1. "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it" (JK Gabraith) 2. Uber.

Uber was, is, and always will be a bezzle. There are just intrinsic limitations to the profits available to operating a taxi fleet, even if you can misclassify your employees as contractors and steal their wages, even as you force them to bear the cost of buying and maintaining your taxis.

The magic of early Uber – when taxi rides were incredibly cheap, and there were always cars available, and drivers made generous livings behind the wheel – wasn't magic at all. It was just predatory pricing.

Uber lost $0.41 on every dollar they brought in, lighting $33b of its investors' cash on fire. Most of that money came from the Saudi royals, funneled through Softbank, who brought you such bezzles as WeWork – a boring real-estate company masquerading as a high-growth tech company, just as Uber was a boring taxi company masquerading as a tech company.

Predatory pricing used to be illegal, but Chicago School economists convinced judges to stop enforcing the law on the grounds that predatory pricing was impossible because no rational actor would choose to lose money. They (willfully) ignored the obvious possibility that a VC fund could invest in a money-losing business and use predatory pricing to convince retail investors that a pile of shit of sufficient size must have a pony under it somewhere.

This venture predation let investors – like Prince Bone Saw – cash out to suckers, leaving behind a money-losing business that had to invent ever-sweatier accounting tricks and implausible narratives to keep the suckers on the line while they blew town. A bezzle, in other words:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/#millennial-lifestyle-subsidy

Uber is a true bezzle innovator, coming up with all kinds of fairy tales and sci-fi gimmicks to explain how they would convert their money-loser into a profitable business. They spent $2.5b on self-driving cars, producing a vehicle whose mean distance between fatal crashes was half a mile. Then they paid another company $400 million to take this self-licking ice-cream cone off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Amazingly, self-driving cars were among the more plausible of Uber's plans. They pissed away hundreds of millions on California's Proposition 22 to institutionalize worker misclassification, only to have the rule struck down because they couldn't be bothered to draft it properly. Then they did it again in Massachusetts:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/15/simple-as-abc/#a-big-ask

Remember when Uber was going to plug the holes in its balance sheet with flying cars? Flying cars! Maybe they were just trying to soften us up for their IPO, where they advised investors that the only way they'd ever be profitable is if they could replace every train, bus and tram ride in the world:

https://48hills.org/2019/05/ubers-plans-include-attacking-public-transit/

Honestly, the only way that seems remotely plausible is when it's put next to flying cars for comparison. I guess we can be grateful that they never promised us jetpacks, or, you know, teleportation. Just imagine the market opportunity they could have ascribed to astral projection!

Narrative capitalism has its limits. Once Uber went public, it had to produce financial disclosures that showed the line going up, lest the bezzle come to an end. These balance-sheet tricks were as varied as they were transparent, but the financial press kept falling for them, serving as dutiful stenographers for a string of triumphant press-releases announcing Uber's long-delayed entry into the league of companies that don't lose more money every single day.

One person Uber has never fooled is Hubert Horan, a transportation analyst with decades of experience who's had Uber's number since the very start, and who has done yeoman service puncturing every one of these financial "disclosures," methodically sifting through the pile of shit to prove that there is no pony hiding in it.

In 2021, Horan showed how Uber had burned through nearly all of its cash reserves, signaling an end to its subsidy for drivers and rides, which would also inevitably end the bezzle:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/10/unter/#bezzle-no-more

In mid, 2022, Horan showed how the "profit" Uber trumpeted came from selling off failed companies it had acquired to other dying rideshare companies, which paid in their own grossly inflated stock:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/05/a-lousy-taxi/#a-giant-asterisk

At the end of 2022, Horan showed how Uber invented a made-up, nonstandard metric, called "EBITDA profitability," which allowed them to lose billions and still declare themselves to be profitable, a lie that would have been obvious if they'd reported their earnings using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/11/bezzlers-gonna-bezzle/#gryft

Like clockwork, Uber has just announced – once again – that it is profitable, and once again, the press has credulously repeated the claim. So once again, Horan has published one of his magisterial debunkings on Naked Capitalism:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/08/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-thirty-three-uber-isnt-really-profitable-yet-but-is-getting-closer-the-antitrust-case-against-uber.html

Uber's $394m gains this quarter come from paper gains to untradable shares in its loss-making rivals – Didi, Grab, Aurora – who swapped stock with Uber in exchange for Uber's own loss-making overseas divisions. Yes, it's that stupid: Uber holds shares in dying companies that no one wants to buy. It declared those shares to have gained value, and on that basis, reported a profit.

Truly, any big number multiplied by an imaginary number can be turned into an even bigger number.

Now, Uber also reported "margin improvements" – that is, it says that it loses less on every journey. But it didn't explain how it made those improvements. But we know how the company did it: they made rides more expensive and cut the pay to their drivers. A 2.9m ride in Manhattan is now $50 – if you get a bargain! The base price is more like $70:

https://www.wired.com/story/uber-ceo-will-always-say-his-company-sucks/

The number of Uber drivers on the road has a direct relationship to the pay Uber offers those drivers. But that pay has been steeply declining, and with it, the availability of Ubers. A couple weeks ago, I found myself at the Burbank train station unable to get an Uber at all, with the app timing out repeatedly and announcing "no drivers available."

Normally, you can get a yellow taxi at the station, but years of Uber's predatory pricing has caused a drawdown of the local taxi-fleet, so there were no taxis available at the cab-rank or by dispatch. It took me an hour to get a cab home. Uber's bezzle destroyed local taxis and local transit – and replaced them with worse taxis that cost more.

Uber won't say why its margins are improving, but it can't be coming from scale. Before the pandemic, Uber had far more rides, and worse margins. Uber has diseconomies of scale: when you lose money on every ride, adding more rides increases your losses, not your profits.

Meanwhile, Lyft – Uber's also-ran competitor – saw its margins worsen over the same period. Lyft has always been worse at lying about it finances than Uber, but it is in essentially the exact same business (right down to the drivers and cars – many drivers have both apps on their phones). So Lyft's financials offer a good peek at Uber's true earnings picture.

Lyft is actually slightly better off than Uber overall. It spent less money on expensive props for its long con – flying cars, robotaxis, scooters, overseas clones – and abandoned them before Uber did. Lyft also fired 24% of its staff at the end of 2022, which should have improved its margins by cutting its costs.

Uber pays its drivers less. Like Lyft, Uber practices algorithmic wage discrimination, Veena Dubal's term describing the illegal practice of offering workers different payouts for the same work. Uber's algorithm seeks out "pickers" who are choosy about which rides they take, and converts them to "ants" (who take every ride offered) by paying them more for the same job, until they drop all their other gigs, whereupon the algorithm cuts their pay back to the rates paid to ants:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

All told, wage theft and wage cuts by Uber transferred $1b/quarter from labor to Uber's shareholders. Historically, Uber linked fares to driver pay – think of surge pricing, where Uber charged riders more for peak times and passed some of that premium onto drivers. But now Uber trumpets a custom pricing algorithm that is the inverse of its driver payment system, calculating riders' willingness to pay and repricing every ride based on how desperate they think you are.

This pricing is a per se antitrust violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, America's original antitrust law. That's important because Sherman 2 is one of the few antitrust laws that we never stopped enforcing, unlike the laws banning predator pricing:

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/sites/ilr.law.uiowa.edu/files/2023-02/Woodcock.pdf

Uber claims an 11% margin improvement. 6-7% of that comes from algorithmic price discrimination and service cutbacks, letting it take 29% of every dollar the driver earns (up from 22%). Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi himself says that this is as high as the take can get – over 30%, and drivers will delete the app.

Uber's food delivery service – a baling wire-and-spit Frankenstein's monster of several food apps it bought and glued together – is a loser even by the standards of the sector, which is unprofitable as a whole and experiencing an unbroken slide of declining demand.

Put it all together and you get a picture of the kind of taxi company Uber really is: one that charges more than traditional cabs, pays drivers less, and has fewer cars on the road at times of peak demand, especially in the neighborhoods that traditional taxis had always underserved. In other words, Uber has broken every one of its promises.

We replaced the "evil taxi cartel" with an "evil taxi monopolist." And it's still losing money.

Even if Lyft goes under – as seems inevitable – Uber can't attain real profitability by scooping up its passengers and drivers. When you're losing money on every ride, you just can't make it up in volume.

Image: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LA_BREA_TAR_PITS,_LOS_ANGELES.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/09/accounting-gimmicks/#unter

Image: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LA_BREA_TAR_PITS,_LOS_ANGELES.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en