Sunday, August 3
Silver staffers aren’t leaving the office
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The promise of midday golf games and spending three hours drinking one cup of coffee at a McDonald’s is not enough to keep older Americans retired. As of last year, workers over the age of 75 are the fastest-growing group in the workforce.
Baby boomers (anyone in the 61–79 age range) are either refusing to retire or, increasingly, reentering the workforce. In some cases, they need to, as the cost of living increases and the Social Security eligibility age creeps higher. Additionally, only about 24% of boomers have defined pension benefits, and only half of private sector workers have access to employer 401(k) plans.
But some, especially white-collar workers, are choosing to spend their golden years in an office:Industries like nuclear energy are desperate for seasoned experts as the country starts to bring plants back online.
Less labor-intensive jobs mean older people can work longer with more flexible schedules. Doing a desk job for extra money might be more attractive if you’re doing it from a nice office with central air.
Older Americans are also becoming entrepreneurs: As of 2023, nearly a third of new founders are 45+, and the percentage of businesses founded by people 55–64 is rising.
Looking ahead…nearly 11 million older workers are employed right now, and that number is expected to jump by ~97% in the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.—MM
Robert Reich
Sunday thought: Where can we find hope?
Here's where you might look
Friends,
It gets bleaker and bleaker. He’s eviscerating environmental protections. He accuses Obama of treason. He’s ripping up labor protections. He wants to privatize Social Security. He fires the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he doesn’t like the job numbers. He forces the Smithsonian to take down an exhibit that includes his two impeachments. The European Union, Japan, Columbia University, and CBS are all surrendering to him.
Many of you ask me where I get my hope from, notwithstanding.
Three sources.
First, from all the young people I work with every day. They’re enormously dedicated, committed to making the world better. They’ll inherit this mess, and they’re ready to clean it up and strengthen our democracy. They also have extraordinary energy. And they’re very funny. It is impossible not to be hopeful around them.
At A Glance
Why cartoon characters wear gloves.
Nine unusual festivals in the US.
What was it like to ride the Transcontinental Railroad?
Roughly 10 million people get sick from food annually in the US.
How to teach kids emotional regulation.
Funeral for 92-year-old showcases the 3,599 books he read over 60 years.
The 50 most valuable private companies in the world.
What the music of the Romantic era was like, with examples.
Disease was responsible for two-thirds of the deaths in the Civil War.
Cameroon's peculiar tradition of spider divination.
Inside a mosquito factory fighting against global disease.
How a Russian bot factory is taking over online poker.
A Kenyan activist's bold plan to feed millions of students daily.
The 25 most populous cities in the Americas.
The mystery of the declining birth rate in the US.
In The NEWS
Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it will shut down.
The CPB subsidizes over 1,500 local media stations, including those affiliated with PBS and NPR; it was created by Congress in 1967 (see timeline of history). CPB announced Friday it will begin shutting down operations and cut the majority of its staff by Sept. 30. The move follows Congress' decision last month to claw back nearly $8B in previously authorized funding for foreign aid programs and $1.1B in funding for the CPB over the next two years.
"Fire clouds" over Arizona and Utah wildfires create their own climate.
Wildfires in the Grand Canyon and Monroe, Utah, are creating pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus "fire clouds," which can generate their own dangerous weather, including strong winds that threaten to spread the fires rapidly. Pyrocumulus clouds are smoke- and ash-filled clouds formed by rising hot air from fires; if conditions allow, they grow into pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which are intense fire-driven thunderstorm clouds. The clouds have been observed for several days, with some producing fire tornadoes (see overview) and contributing to the hazardous conditions amid ongoing drought and extreme heat.
South African rhino horns turned radioactive to curb poaching.
The Rhisotope Project in South Africa has developed a safe method to embed low-level radioactive isotopes into rhino horns to combat poaching. The horns are detectable by radiation scanners at borders and ports worldwide, including through 40-foot shipping containers. The project aims to deter illegal wildlife trafficking by offering a tool to protect endangered rhino populations. Last year, 420 rhinos were killed in South Africa; see poaching stats here.
Pre-Incan tomb with 1,000-year-old remains unearthed in Peru.
Utility workers expanding underground gas networks in Lima, Peru, uncovered two pre-Incan tombs, one empty and the other containing the 1,000-year-old remains of an individual along with four clay vessels and three pumpkin shell artifacts. The discovery adds to over 2,200 archaeological findings made during more than 20 years of similar excavation work by the gas company, Cálidda, in a city known for having more than 400 archaeological sites from the Inca era or earlier periods.
Ghislaine Maxwell moved from Florida federal prison to Texas.
Maxwell, convicted of sex trafficking minors tied to late financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been transferred from a Florida federal prison to a minimum-security facility in Texas. The move comes as Maxwell pursues a deal to lessen her sentence or obtain a pardon, reportedly negotiating with the Justice Department for potential revelations about Epstein and his associates.
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Robots and Purchasing Power
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What we must consider is that it is not just jobs that will be replaced but AI alone will demand, at the rate it is growing, twice our current electrical output.
Electric Vehicles will not grow as rapidly as predicted, but humanoid robots will.
It will all be over but the shouting by 2030 or earlier where just a year or two ago, experts were saying not until 2040 or beyond. Obviously, they were WRONG.
Without jobs, Americans CANNOT BUY much of anything unless the government provides them with a minimum level of income that is survivable. In order to do this appropriately, the wealthy will be forced to pay a lot more taxes and higher tariffs must be initiated.
This will screw up our international trade deals and make the US the enemy of the rest of the world.
However, the rest of the world will be in a similar situation because robots will be replacing their jobs as well.
Technology will PUSH US INTO A POSITION where the governments with the help of corporations will provide for the people even if the people do not work.
How can this happen?
If robots replace workers because it is cheaper to manufacture that way, then who will buy the product if the worker is not working - they will have no money.
So, why manufacture, if a majority of the people don't have the money to buy.
THEREFORE, somebody must provide the people with the means to buy as they are not working...
Somebody did not think this through very well.
In a first, quantum entanglement is made reversible with the help of unique battery
For more than a century, the laws of thermodynamics have helped us understand how energy moves, how engines work, and why time seems to flow in one direction. Now, researchers have made a similarly powerful discovery, but in the strange world of quantum physics.
Scientists have shown for the first time that entanglement, the mysterious link between quantum particles, can be reversibly manipulated just like heat or energy in a perfect thermodynamic cycle.
The researchers support their findings using a novel concept called an entanglement battery, which allows entanglement to flow in and out of quantum systems without being lost, much like a regular battery stores and supplies energy.
Saturday, August 2
Headlines
Christopher Furlong, Contributor/Getty Images
Trump says he repositioned nuclear subs after Russian official’s threats. In an escalation of tensions with Russia, President Trump said on social media yesterday that he had “ordered two nuclear submarines” to be moved into “appropriate regions.” The post came in response to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev saying online this week that the US making demands to force a ceasefire with Ukraine was a “step towards war.” Trump’s post stated: “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances.” Medvedev’s comments came after Trump recently gave Russia a tight deadline to end its invasion of Ukraine or have the US put “secondary tariffs” on its trading partners.
Jury finds Tesla should pay $243m over fatal Autopilot crash. A Florida jury decided yesterday that Tesla’s self-driving software was partially to blame for a fatal 2019 crash, and that the EV-maker should pay the victim’s family and an injured survivor $243 million in damages. The decision represents the first major court loss for Tesla over its self-driving tech. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs said it “represents justice” and holds Elon Musk and Tesla “accountable for propping up the company’s trillion-dollar valuation with self-driving hype at the expense of human lives.” Tesla said it plans to appeal, “given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial.”
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down due to federal funding cuts. The nonprofit that helps fund more than 1,500 local NPR and PBS stations said it will wind down its operations, with most staff being let go by the end of next month. The demise of the CPB, which Congress had funded for almost 60 years, comes after Republicans in Congress passed spending cuts requested by President Trump that included clawing back $1.1 billion that had been budgeted for the group. Trump had prioritized defunding public media, saying it was biased in an April executive order.—AR
Robert Reich
He hates facts. He rejects truth. He doesn’t want the public to know what’s really happening.
Friends,
Sorry to intrude again on your day, but this is urgent.
I spent much of the 1990s as secretary of labor. One unit of the Labor Department is the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I was instructed by my predecessors as well as by the White House, and by every labor economist and statistician I came in contact with, that one of my cardinal responsibilities was to guard the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Otherwise, this crown jewel of knowledge about jobs and the economy would be compromised. If politicized, it would no longer be trusted as a source of information.
So what does Trump do? In one fell swoop on Friday he essentially destroyed the credibility of the BLS.
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