Cost Out A Better Future

Democratic candidate for U.S. President, Andrew Yang, proposes sending every person over 18 years of age a government check for $1000 each month. Why? Human beings need food, shelter, and clothing every month. Yet, automation is expected to eliminate more and more of the ways people now earn the funds needed to provide these necessities, while corporations accumulate greater wealth by replacing employees with machines.

     Already, Yang notes, big tech companies, such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google, grow rich by packaging and selling the private information millions and billions of individuals supply free of charge.

     Technological changes require changes in other sectors of human life. When work requires manipulating information on a computer, the physical strength of men is unnecessary. Childcare is still necessary, but how it is provided and by whom need not be confined to unpaid natural mothers.

     Not only childcare, but $1000-a-month paychecks also would provide compensation for those whose time creates an enjoyable community life: the shoppers and clerks who get to know each other, community leaders who organize groups and boycotts to solve problems, gardeners who share crops with neighbors and plant flowers to beautify walking paths, visitors who watch sports with the homebound, families who attend religious services together, friends and relatives who celebrate birthdays with homemade cakes, cards, and presents, and those who write "Thank you" notes.

     Those dissatisfied with $1000 a month will innovate. Designs can be sleeker. Drugs can cure more. Experts can develop more effective teaching methods. Constitutions, standards, and collective agreements can harness, not only the temporary impulses of a mob, but also the independent actions of robots and AI. Dives can go deeper. Spacecraft can go farther. Games can be more fun.

     $1000 a month is a small price to pay for a better world.

   

Master the Gig Economy

Since the future of work is not what it was in the past, no one is likely to work for the same company 45 years and then retire with a pension. One way to guaranty a future income is to identify as many money-making options as possible, not only for your self, but for all family members. You've seen babies and dogs in commercials, right? In Rise and Grind, "Shark Tank" TV star, Daymond John, lists ways he made money as a kid by being the first out of the house to shovel snow for neighbors and by fixing and selling bikes and toys people threw away. Kid also hold their own garage sales in conjunction with lemonade stands these days.

     The "gig economy," as John Hope Bryant defines it in his new book, The Memo, "is a labor market characterized by short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs." He adds, "Always be on the lookout for opportunities to create your own economy.... Every big business was once a small business."

Bryant gives some useful examples of short-term ways to make money:

• Drive for Uber or Lyft
• Rent your camper, powerboat, condo
• Deliver food
• Service computers, build websites
• Sell craft items on Etsy (I know a woman who went from scrapbooking for the family to using her skills to create the unique greeting cards she sells without a middleman at art fairs, holiday marts, and all summer at farmers' markets.)

I would add:

• Sell Avon, Amway, insurance, or other products at Tupperware-type parties, if you have a wide circle of relatives and friends
• Provide child care and pet care
• Become a personal trainer
• Form a "garage band" or write a stand-up comedy routine you can book at local clubs and parties
• Sell off unused and out-grown collections of dolls, LEGO sets, Civil War re-enactor garb, cookbooks, vinyl records, etc. on eBay or at a well-organized and advertised yard sale. (I know a women who made $700 by hanging clothes by size on racks and carefully pricing each item)
• Write and pitch freelance articles.
• Offer professional services, if you are an attorney, notary, CPA at tax time
• Tutor students in your best subjects

School yourself

Working in any type of job in a restaurant, retail store, warehouse, or phone bank, there are things to learn about hiring, firing, sales, promotion, taxes, cleaning, dealing with busy and slow periods, forms, handling complaints, etc. that you could use if you become an entrepreneur and/or if you'd like to sell services to these businesses. While one of my friends was working at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC, she saw companies having their labels rejected for a variety of reasons. She quit and went into business for herself advising food companies how to make the modifications they needed to meet government regulations.

     For any business financing you might need, check out crowdfunding sites, such as Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Quirky. Also compare the interest and perks of various credit cards. (In his book, Bryant advises how to improve a credit score to get the lowest interest rate.)

     Study where you should move to find the best chance of success. Daymond John writes Vermont, Minnesota, Delaware, New Jersey, and Connecticut offer the best opportunities for working moms, according to WalletHub.

     Increase the skills you can offer by learning from YouTube video instructions and visiting the nonfiction section at the library. Remember how one of the women in the movie, Hidden Figures, used a library book to teach herself how to write a computer language. And I understand, when Harrison Ford was an unemployed actor, he taught himself carpentry from a library book.

     Learn all you can at a franchising show.

Get more out of college 

Don't just go to classes and make friends, unless the latter become your future business partners.

• Get experience being the travel manager for a sport, the band, the debate team. Such experience can lead to a gig as travel manager for a political campaign or rock band.
• Start as a DJ at the school's radio station before picking up gigs as a DJ at clubs
• Offer dance classes at sororities, like Maverick owner, Mark Cuban, did, when he was in college
• On an overseas semester, make contacts. You might find a company you want to work for after you graduate. (I know some students who went back to Africa to work for a travel adventure company where they lead hikes up Mt. Kilimanjaro and sun on the beach in Zanzibar.). Or, when you see a product that isn't sold in your home country, you could become an importer. Interested in movie making?  You might like to work for the film studio in Mauritius.
• Learn to build robots.
• Take a drawing class and create your own cartoon character before signing up for a comics class and sending samples to Marvel and The New Yorker
• Start combining subjects like biology and chemistry, medicine and religion, or economics and behavioral psychology like Richard Thaler did, when he just became a Nobel Prize winner.
• Scour departments for internships and ask professors if they know of any 
• Study literature to find English legends, German fairy tales, and Greek myths you can borrow for your own novels
• Write sketches and scenes for drama students and student reviews
• Study history to find inspiration for your own Hamilton or a Black Panther and warrior women who resemble the African warrior king, Shaka Zulu, and the female bodyguards of Muammar al-Qaddafi

Learn about operations and trends

Mingle with a purpose at rock concerts, motor car racing events, and football games. Shop with an eye to differences between discount stores, specialty boutiques, and pop up retailers at resorts and decide which is the best fit for the items you want to sell. Study the ways apartments are advertised and try your hand at real estate sales. Start to find opportunity everywhere you are.

     

   

   

Maps Provide a Quick Study of the World

You may have heard about all that it takes to make Nutella. Well, the tenth map in the collection of 40 that the Washington Post published on its website (washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/01/13/40-more-maps-that-explain-the-world/) provides a map that brings all the information together. We can easily see that Nutella needs natural resources, such as sugar, cocoa, nuts, from four continents; manufacturing facilities in eight countries;and a global distribution network. That's just a beginning of how much can be learned quickly from the Washington Post's maps.

     Maps also are the subject of the earlier posts, "You Are Here" and "Map Gazing."