Could Trump go bankrupt?

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No one is discussing or even mentioning it.

Say, three months into the Trump Presidency an infuriated supporter of ISIS lays a bomb in one of the many Trump Towers.  The explosion wrecks the building, killing scores of people. Another 9/11.

First, there would be a giant exodus of companies and private individuals from Trump properties all over the world.  Why be such an obvious target?  Trump Inc. fortunes plunge.

Secondly, Trump, who seems unable to separate his empire from his job as President, orders the military to protect  his remaining properties throughout the world.  The ensuing Court case reaches the Supreme Court.  Not even a packed Court of Trump supporters would, surely, think it appropriate for the US military to be protecting a building owned by an individual citizen – that is the job of local police.  The Supreme Court decides that this use of the army is inappropriate.  No lettings, no hotel guests left, just extremely expensive protection of empty buildings by private contractors.

Trump is the first President to go, in short order, from billionaire to bankrupt in the history of the United States.

He hasn’t thought this out!

The gig economy in the United States

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 The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the independent workforce is some 162 million people, up to 30% of the working-age population in the United States (and most of Europe)..The report looked at the full spectrum of ways in which individuals earned income outside traditional employee roles. It says independent workers fit into four key segments:
–  About 30% are “free agents,” who actively choose independent work and derive their primary income from it.
–  Approximately 40% are “casual earners,” who use independent work to supplement their income by choice
–  The “reluctants” make their primary living from independent work, but would prefer traditional jobs; they make up 14%
–  Then there’s the “financially strapped,” who do supplemental independent work out of necessity, accounting for 16%.
McKinsey says its survey found the majority of independent workers in all countries participated by choice and were attracted by the flexibility and autonomy.  But most of the people involved are young and are maybe, at this stage of their lives, indifferent to the lack of benefits, the income security and the non- existent training.  

Those working for companies like Deliveroo, Uber  are classed as self-employed and are expected to be freely and regularly available, to such an extent that there is no time to work for anyone else.  They  get no paid holidays, sick pay or pensions.

It’s all very well for young people to take advantage of the relative freedom offered by the “gig” employers, but the moment you decide to get married, buy a house and have children panic will, or should, set it.  You cannot educate and care for a child not knowing whether or when you will get any steady income.  It is unconscionable to expect a parent with two or three children to have no security at all, no annual holidays, no pension, and, if it comes to that, no parental leave.  The point is that, if you have been working for years at part-time, rather than skilled work, how do you expect to get a serious, responsible, well- paid job with security later on, when you need it?  Maybe you can argue that this is foolish lack of foresight, and why should we care  if that is what they want to do.  Be carefree now, suffer later?

So be it, but there is  a type of money-obsessed,  clever but autistic, top businessman who is fixing the economy in  such a way that he can hire and fire with impunity, lower input costs and pocket the profits while being totally indifferent to the rest of us and to civilised treatment of workers, mWe will pay a high price for not reining them in.

 (P.S From the U.S Department of Labor:  “In early 2016, we announced that our Bureau of Labor Statistics will conduct a survey on contingent and  alternative employment,for the first time since 2005 to help us understand how many of America’s workers are participating in “gig work”— that is, nontraditional work arrangements.”   My comment: so by now you have the statistics; what have you been doing about them?)

 

 

 

The gig economy benefits no one: the situation in Britain

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The gig economy has transformed the way we work in Britain, says Andrew Grice. Some five million people – one in seven of the workforce – are now classified as self-employed: an incredible rise of 45% since 2000. Indeed, when Tory ministers boast of creating 2.7 million jobs since 2010, what they don’t say is that a third are probably self-employed jobs. That means a vast number of workers now lack such basic rights as parental leave and sick pay. It also means a headache for the Treasury. Employers have, until now, been one of the most efficient “tax collectors for the state”: they deduct the requisite income and national insurance tax from an employee’s wages, add their own National Insurance contributions of 13.8%, and send it off to the Exchequer. But as firms increase their use of agency staff, and as more people become self-employed, that income stream to the Treasury starts to dry up. So MPs have a “difficult balance” to strike – ensuring people can still work flexibly; minimising the tax advantages that induce companies to shed their obligations to the workforce by employing the self-employed; and minimising the damage to the public finances.  (Andrew Grice, The Independent, quoted in The Week,10 December 2016)

The government has stood aside and let this train wreck happen.  Some people are imaginative, self-motivated and have good skills.  They would thrive anywhere.   But the majority are “self-employed” from necessity.  It is no way to live.  It is stressful, not knowing whether you will be able to feed your family, whether you will get sick and whether you will have any pension when you reach retirement age.  The only people who benefit are the CEOs and Board members, raking in the profits and, in so many cases , investing little or nothing.

Epicurus, were he alive today, would recall that previous generations enjoyed reasonable job security for most of their working lives.  Writing as one who  benefited from the old system I think it is appalling the way people are being treated now us (more principled?) people are out of the way.   Voted for Brexit?  Were I suffering in the gig economy I would have voted that way too.  Epicurus, would, I am sure, agree.   Life is short, too short to be exploited and bullied. Please let us just stop it!

 

Slavery today

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That there is still slavery, alive and well, in the world, is a fact that should shock us all.  The International Labour Organization estimates that there are, globally, 36 million slaves, a fact that adds $150 billion annually to the criminal economy. Slavery is not only unacceptable morally; it also has a disproportionate impact on climate change and species loss. This is because a lot of it is found in food production, mining, brick-making logging, charcoal production and other activities that damage the natural environment.

An example are the seafood processing camps in the Sundarbans World Heritage site in the Bay of Bengal, a vast area of protected mangrove forest that is a major carbon sink and is home to protected species. It is also a crucial buffer for coastal towns against cyclones. Slaves are made to clear the forest, which releases CO2 and also pushes tigers to the brink of extinction. The profits driving this destruction come from the global market for shrimp and pet food.

If the whole slave population constituted a country it would have Canada’s population and the GDP of Kuwait, but would rank third for CO2 emissions, after China and the US. It is not necessarily intuitive, but enforcement of existing anti-slavery laws would diminish both CO2 emissions and species loss, while also warding off the threat of rising sea levels and destructive deforestation. This would have little or no economic cost for existing (non-criminal) industries and markets, and would help lift depressed economic areas.

Kevin Bales, of the University of Hull, UK, suggests that if freed slaves were paid to replant the forests they were forced to cut, this could generate carbon credits, and selling these credits would help to fund the rehabilitation of land and people. ( Adapted from“Slaves to destruction” by Kevin Bales , University of Hull, UK) .

Epicurus was no supporter of slavery. He appears to have had no slaves himself, welcoming slaves and ex- slaves into his garden. Were he alive today I think he would agree that forced labour is immoral and inefficient and that you get the best work out of people who are free. The modern situation should have much more publicity; people are simply unaware of it.  But , having been made aware, how can you continue to buy the products produced by means of slavery?

 

Democracy?

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The citizens of the District of Columbia, comprising 680,000 people, pay more Federal income tax than 22 other states.  Notwithstanding that, they have no voting member of Congress at all.   Eleanor Holmes Norton has been in Congress, representing the District, for many years,  but only as an observer.

What is the second- most priority of the new Rupublican majority in Congress ( after trying to suppress ethics investigations into their affairs)?  Why, confirming that Ms. Holmes Norton will continue to have no vote, and that an entity with a higher population than some Western states, will remain unrepresented.  A single vote, of course, is not going to decide anything very much, but that is not the point. Giving the District a single vote would have been a small act of reconciliation after a brutal election, an act of goodwill, costing nothing really and in no way threatening Republican control.

What this does confirm is the flimsy commitment of the Republican party to democracy.  “Embrace it when it suits you” does not seem to be in the spirit of “American exceptionalism”,  but it is part of the whole idea that you get away with what you can get away with.  Epicurus always warned us about politics.  I guess what goes around comes around.  Nothing is forever.