The ‘Real Winners Of The World’ Don’t Have Work-Life Balance, They Have Work Max Nisen, businessinsider.com Marty Nemko, a career coach, author, columnist, and radio host, argues that the most successful and contented people prefer a heavily work-centric life over work-life balance. “The real winners of the world, the people that are the most productive, think that this notion of work-life balance is grossly overrated,” Nemko told Business Insider. “Most of the highly successful and not-burned out people I know work single-mindedly towards a goal they think is important, whether it’s developing a new piece of software, inventing something, or a cardiologist who’s seeing patients on nights and weekends instead of playing Monopoly with his kids on the weekend.” These people, who are “out-of balance” in the usual sense of the word, find motivation and satisfaction in devoting themselves to something and making a difference. That comes with a caveat of course. Sleep is non-negotiable. “If you need your eight hours, you get it,” Nemko says. If you sleep eight hours a night, that still leaves you a hundred hours a week. […] “Don’t blame the hours,” Nemko says. “If somebody says they got burned out working 70 hours a week it’s because they weren’t competent enough to do the work…”
Anonymous asked: Uh huh uh huh sure yeah great uh huh totally yeah "we're all roman emperors now" yeah so what's all this quibbling about? The rich haven't made any gains at all! They're just like us now!! Thanks Friedman's!!! I think a response in the spirit of Milton & Rose Friedman’s argument might be: “Provided you’re financially able to cover all the basic necessities of life, why should you care about the rich? And if you aren’t, what’s the use seething about it? Be happy with what you have.” Consider the following statistics (from globalrichlist.com, via pragcap): The median household income in the USA is roughly $50,500. Did you know that that is the top 0.27% of world incomes? That’s right. The average American is the global 1%. You think you have it bad? Most of us in the USA have no idea what “bad” even is. The average wage in the USA is $26.30 per hour - Meanwhile, the average labourer in Indonesia makes just $0.39 in the same time. The median household income is $50,500 per year in the USA. It would take the average labourer in Indonesia 68 years to earn the same amount. It takes you 2 minutes to earn enough for a can of soda. It takes the average laborer in Indonesia around 2 hours for it. Your monthly income could pay the monthly salaries of 226 doctors in Pakistan. Obviously the purchasing power of a dollar is different in Indonesia than in the USA, which complicates things. For that reason the site lets you compare in terms of wealth. Median net worth was $126,400 in 2007, but dropped to $77,300 by 2010 because of the recession (via). You can enter the values into globalrichlist.com yourself. (The calculator doesn’t take into account proportions of home equity, value of possessions, and investments—all it cares about is the sum total.) They’re still pretty shocking. Of course, there are many compilations of statistics telling horror stories about poverty in the USA, such as this one that I came across just today. I’ve posted several such compilations myself, because I’m interested in the data. But to act like the USA is a third world country (like that guy does) makes me want to hit my head against a wall. (So does attributing blame solely to Obama, but that’s another story.) To me, any question about the ethics of capitalism (and national wealth distribution) is inseparable from global wealth distribution. And despite the way Marxists act (following Luxemburg), it is not self-evident that capitalism forces rich countries to exploit third world countries in order to stave off the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit. So many people like to attribute all the evils of the world to capitalism because it’s nice and simple, and presents a clear prescriptive conclusion: get rid of capitalism. But I will repeat until I get hoarse, Chomsky demonstrates in perhaps the clearest possible way the contingency of the Marxist concept of capitalism—that you don’t need it in order to say that you don’t like the way the world is being run. I’ll also repeat that Chomsky’s account leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to economics. But I know that Chomsky is the only person I can bring up in a conversation with anticapitalists that won’t cause me to be instantly ignored. There are maybe 50 theorists who anticapitalists will actually take seriously (e.g. Althusser, Debord, David Harvey, Richard Wolff), but as soon as I mention someone outside that circle (e.g. Amartya Sen, George Soros, or even freaking Dale Carnegie) I’m instantly dismissed as ‘corrupted by ideology’ or whatever. Someone once got to my wordpress blog with a google search about what Wittgenstein would have to say about the financial crisis. Wittgenstein didn’t even read the freaking newspaper! He made Sraffa recapitulate whatever recent events were going on before they could start talking about them. But of course, no one would think of seeing what an economist might have to say about the financial crisis, oh no! They’re all stupid, as demonstrated by the fact that they aren’t Marxists! As I hope is obvious, I’m playing devil’s advocate, and am hardly an uncritical supporter of capitalism in all its aspects. But Milton & Rose Friedman make a valid point: as long as you look at historical growth of wealth in absolute rather than relative terms, capitalism looks pretty appealing. By acting as if they’re stupid, all you’re doing is showing that you’ve already decided your political position once and for all, and are screening out any ideas that contradict it.

Anonymous asked: Uh huh uh huh sure yeah great uh huh totally yeah "we're all roman emperors now" yeah so what's all this quibbling about? The rich haven't made any gains at all! They're just like us now!! Thanks Friedman's!!!

I think a response in the spirit of Milton & Rose Friedman’s argument might be: “Provided you’re financially able to cover all the basic necessities of life, why should you care about the rich? And if you aren’t, what’s the use seething about it? Be happy with what you have.” Consider the following statistics (from globalrichlist.com, via pragcap):

  1. The median household income in the USA is roughly $50,500. Did you know that that is the top 0.27% of world incomes? That’s right. The average American is the global 1%. You think you have it bad? Most of us in the USA have no idea what “bad” even is.
  2. The average wage in the USA is $26.30 per hour - Meanwhile, the average labourer in Indonesia makes just $0.39 in the same time.
  3. The median household income is $50,500 per year in the USA. It would take the average labourer in Indonesia 68 years to earn the same amount.
  4. It takes you 2 minutes to earn enough for a can of soda. It takes the average laborer in Indonesia around 2 hours for it.
  5. Your monthly income could pay the monthly salaries of 226 doctors in Pakistan.

Obviously the purchasing power of a dollar is different in Indonesia than in the USA, which complicates things. For that reason the site lets you compare in terms of wealth. Median net worth was $126,400 in 2007, but dropped to $77,300 by 2010 because of the recession (via). You can enter the values into globalrichlist.com yourself. (The calculator doesn’t take into account proportions of home equity, value of possessions, and investments—all it cares about is the sum total.) They’re still pretty shocking.

Of course, there are many compilations of statistics telling horror stories about poverty in the USA, such as this one that I came across just today. I’ve posted several such compilations myself, because I’m interested in the data. But to act like the USA is a third world country (like that guy does) makes me want to hit my head against a wall. (So does attributing blame solely to Obama, but that’s another story.)

To me, any question about the ethics of capitalism (and national wealth distribution) is inseparable from global wealth distribution. And despite the way Marxists act (following Luxemburg), it is not self-evident that capitalism forces rich countries to exploit third world countries in order to stave off the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit. So many people like to attribute all the evils of the world to capitalism because it’s nice and simple, and presents a clear prescriptive conclusion: get rid of capitalism. But I will repeat until I get hoarse, Chomsky demonstrates in perhaps the clearest possible way the contingency of the Marxist concept of capitalism—that you don’t need it in order to say that you don’t like the way the world is being run.

I’ll also repeat that Chomsky’s account leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to economics. But I know that Chomsky is the only person I can bring up in a conversation with anticapitalists that won’t cause me to be instantly ignored. There are maybe 50 theorists who anticapitalists will actually take seriously (e.g. Althusser, Debord, David Harvey, Richard Wolff), but as soon as I mention someone outside that circle (e.g. Amartya Sen, George Soros, or even freaking Dale Carnegie) I’m instantly dismissed as ‘corrupted by ideology’ or whatever. Someone once got to my wordpress blog with a google search about what Wittgenstein would have to say about the financial crisis. Wittgenstein didn’t even read the freaking newspaper! He made Sraffa recapitulate whatever recent events were going on before they could start talking about them. But of course, no one would think of seeing what an economist might have to say about the financial crisis, oh no! They’re all stupid, as demonstrated by the fact that they aren’t Marxists!

As I hope is obvious, I’m playing devil’s advocate, and am hardly an uncritical supporter of capitalism in all its aspects. But Milton & Rose Friedman make a valid point: as long as you look at historical growth of wealth in absolute rather than relative terms, capitalism looks pretty appealing. By acting as if they’re stupid, all you’re doing is showing that you’ve already decided your political position once and for all, and are screening out any ideas that contradict it.

pritheworld: A 2011 report by the private Chinese economic research group Unirule found that in China, for every dollar of investment, privately owned  industrial companies earn almost 50% more than their state enterprise counterparts: http://ow.ly/kwKGW
“Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant relatively little to the wealthy. The rich in Ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing: running servants replaced running water. Television and radio? The Patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading actors as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets – all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. The great achievements of Western Capitalism have redounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.”
“Zero-hours contracts, a system of indenture where the worker is expected to be available even if no work is offered (or paid for), rose by 25% in 2012, to at least 200,000, although there are likely to be far more, as many employees do not understand the term; 23% of large British firms now use them. Zero-hours contracts are not for the traditionally wretched – the low paid in catering or caring or retail. Doctors, university lecturers and – ha! – journalists are now habitually on zero-hours contracts; the House of Lords is advertising for a zero-hours reporter for Hansard. (The closing date for the application is tomorrow.) The barbarians are inside the gates. […] This is destructive – it makes non-payment an acceptable cultural norm, and it expels all but the children of the wealthy from creative and lucrative professions. Who else can work for free?”
execgate: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment It’s an awful catch-22: employers won’t hire you if you’ve been out of work for more than six months There are two labor markets nowadays. There’s the market for people who have been out of work for less than six months, and the market for people who have been out of work longer. The former is working pretty normally, and the latter is horribly dysfunctional. That was the conclusion of recent research I highlighted a few months ago by Rand Ghayad, a visiting scholar at the Boston Fed and a PhD candidate in economics at Northeastern University, and William Dickens, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, that looked at Beveridge curves for different ages, industries, and education levels to see who the recovery is leaving behind. Okay, so what is a Beveridge curve? Well, it just shows the relationship between job openings and unemployment. There should be a pretty stable relationship between the two, assuming the labor market isn’t broken. The more openings there are, the less unemployment there should be. If that isn’t true, if the Beveridge curve “shifts up” as more openings don’t translate into less unemployment, then it might be a sign of “structural” unemployment. That is, the unemployed just might not have the right skills. Now, what Ghayad and Dickens found is that the Beveridge curves look normal across all ages, industries, and education levels, as long as you haven’t been out of work for more than six months. But the curves shift up for everybody if you’ve been unemployed longer than six months. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, a blue-collar or white-collar worker, or a high school or college grad; all that matters is how long you’ve been out of work. Help Wanted — If You’ve Been Out of Work for Less than Six Months But just how bad is it for the long-term unemployed? Ghayad ran a follow-up field experiment to find out. In a new working paper, he sent out 4800 fictitious resumes to 600 job openings, with 3600 of them for fake unemployed people. Among those 3600, he varied how long they’d been out of work, how often they’d switched jobs, and whether they had any industry experience. Everything else was kept constant. The mocked-up resumes were all male, all had randomly-selected (and racially ambiguous) names, and all had similar education backgrounds. The question was which of them would get callbacks.  View the full article:   Yahoo.
AUSTERITY Most Savage! (some statistics) →
A Brave New World, to work 90 hours a week in vulgartrader: The Real Limitless Drug Isn’t Just for Lifehackers Anymore: Tasks that were usually soul-crushing now had his undivided attention. He spent hours fine-tuning ad campaigns for his new business, and his output wasn’t just faster and longer—it was better. “I didn’t take as many breaks; I didn’t get as frustrated; the stuff came out with fewer errors,” he says. “I never felt, Oh, let’s just get it done. I polished things.” As long as he kept taking the pill, his focus never wavered. “Time took on an entirely different sort of quality.” He was even happier. “There were some very potent anti-anxiety effects. Which was strange. I didn’t think I was an anxious person, but I guess I was.” Modafinil, which is marketed as Provigil in the United States, was first approved by the FDA in 1998 for the treatment of narcolepsy, but since then it’s become better known as a nootropic, a “smart drug,” especially among entrepreneurs. More recently, it has attracted traders like Borden who don’t just need a pick-me-up to get through a deadline; they need to be on, without a break, for months, even years at a time. How long until this becomes mandatory to get through that third job which barely pays the rent? I want some.

A Brave New World, to work 90 hours a week in

vulgartrader:

The Real Limitless Drug Isn’t Just for Lifehackers Anymore:

Tasks that were usually soul-crushing now had his undivided attention. He spent hours fine-tuning ad campaigns for his new business, and his output wasn’t just faster and longer—it was better. “I didn’t take as many breaks; I didn’t get as frustrated; the stuff came out with fewer errors,” he says. “I never felt, Oh, let’s just get it done. I polished things.” As long as he kept taking the pill, his focus never wavered. “Time took on an entirely different sort of quality.” He was even happier. “There were some very potent anti-anxiety effects. Which was strange. I didn’t think I was an anxious person, but I guess I was.”

Modafinil, which is marketed as Provigil in the United States, was first approved by the FDA in 1998 for the treatment of narcolepsy, but since then it’s become better known as a nootropic, a “smart drug,” especially among entrepreneurs. More recently, it has attracted traders like Borden who don’t just need a pick-me-up to get through a deadline; they need to be on, without a break, for months, even years at a time.

How long until this becomes mandatory to get through that third job which barely pays the rent?

I want some.

neurosciencestuff: City Life Changes How Our Brains Deal With Distractions City life requires a lot of attention. Navigating a busy sidewalk while processing loud storefronts and avoiding rogue pigeons may feel like second-nature at times, but it’s actually quite a bit of work for the human brain. Psychologists do know that quick walks through the park can restore our focus, but they’re still getting a handle on just what urbanization means for human cognition. A new series of behavioral studies offers some of the richest evidence to date on the mental exhaustion of urban living. In an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, a group of British psychologists reports that people who live in cities show diminished powers of general attention compared to people from remote areas. With so much going on around them, urbanites don’t pay much attention to surroundings unless they’re highly engaging.
did-you-kno: Source
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