Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.
YouTube comments:
“Campaign finance reform is the solution. Until we elect people who arnt brought and paid for nothing will change.”
Warren Buffett shares two stories about women who started from nothing and sold their businesses to the legendary investor. This is one of the greatest speeches Mr. Buffett has ever delivered and he also gives really good advice to all entrepreneurs in the audience.
Warren E. Buffett is an American long-term investor, philanthropist, business tycoon, and the chairman & CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is considered one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net worth of over 100 billion dollars.
Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He developed an interest in business and investing in his youth and made truly incredible stock market returns over his career.
This month, laws went into effect in California and Washington State that required companies to post salary ranges on job listings. Like similar rules in New York City and Colorado, lawmakers passed them on the premise that pay transparency helped reduce wage gaps.
There’s little debate among researchers that this is the case. “It is totally 100 percent true across all the studies I’ve seen, with very few exceptions,” Zoe Cullen, an economist at Harvard Business School, said. Pay transparency laws are “very good” at reducing wage disparities, she added.
But that’s not the end of the story. As companies embrace pay transparency — either because the law forces them to, or because their employees are becoming more comfortable disclosing their salaries anyway — both employers and workers have noticed ripple effects. It’s changing how bosses set salaries. And it has the potential to make life a little less lucrative for star performers.
2014. The recent vote by workers in a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee to decline representation by the United Auto Workers union (UAW) highlights the differences in labor policies between the United States and Germany.
With American union membership on the decline, this was the first time that the UAW attempted to represent workers in a foreign company in over a decade, and its failure sets a precedent for the future of unions in the American South.
Looking to its successes in Germany and elsewhere, Volkswagen was in favor of creating a German-style “works council” in Chattanooga that, due to American labor laws, would require the UAW to represent workers’ interests.
This was met with mixed reviews. In particular, workers worried that voting for union representation would scare away production of a new model of SUV, despite VW’s assurances that the UAW vote would have no effect on the decision to manufacture the SUV in Chattanooga. Politics also played a role in the outcome.
In the politically conservative South, several Tennessee government officials, with the help of anti-union action committees, were able to lead a successful campaign against the union. Some lawmakers warned that VW might not receive new tax incentives to expand in the state if the UAW was successful at the VW plant.
Furthermore, many workers were reportedly happy with current wages, felt that the company treated them well, and did not want the union to damage or muddy that dynamic. The vote has left Volkswagen still looking for a way to create a works council, even without the UAW.
A good salary in Germany is the one that will allow you to afford the lifestyle that you want. Anything above 47.700 euros a year (gross) will place you in Germany’s above-average range of income.
Tech jobs are known to have some of the most lavish benefits and perks, not to mention some of the highest salaries in the country. Still, that is not enough to keep some millennials from quitting. CNBC Make It spoke to several people who left their lucrative tech jobs to find out why they did it and what they are doing now.
YouTube comments:
“I am 50 years old working in the high tech industry, mentally tired and sick of the weekly 8 to 5 routine. Never got a proper day off even through the pandemic. Hats off to the millenials and GenZ that think differently and put more weight on LIVING rather than just WORKING.”
“As someone who used to work 80 hours a week, quitting my job to become a freelancer was the best thing I have ever done. Sure I still work a lot of hours and often close to 70-80 hrs a week, I feel like I am doing this for myself and not some corporation.”
“I worked a low paying tech job for six years and still felt the burn out. The problem is that tech is very fast paced and competition focused. You can barely keep up. Though I got promoted regularly, my higher ups told me the truth before they left, they said that I was severely underpaid based on my skills (essentially I branded myself a one stop shop for the marketing department as I am both technically knowledgeable, people oriented and strategic). I maxed out at $50K. So I decided to jump ship with little planned. Now I run a financial agency with my husband and we make $250K a year as entrepreneurs and we have the freedom to set our own lifestyle.”
“We don’t want perks. We want more money and we want autonomy. It’s simple.”
The United States is seeing its highest “quit rate” since the government started keeping track two decades ago. Bill Whitaker speaks with employers who are scrambling to find help and people who left their jobs and aren’t looking back.
YouTube comments:
“I’ve worked in the food industry since I was 16, I am 30 now. I’ve never been offered a management position or any other kind of supervisory role so I opened my own restaurant in 2020. I got tired of being overlooked so I took my fellow co-workers and gave them a job at my restaurant with great pay, great benefits and I really did for them what my former jobs refused to do which is giving them “respect”. So far I’ve had not one employee leave my business.”
“Bad environment, low pay, employers are demanding more and paying less. I quit my job because I was expected to do the job of 3 people and constantly reprimanded for not being able to keep up. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has gone through this. A lot of businesses, corporations treat their employees like dirt, unimportant. They are way too many managers out there that have absolutely no people skills and are high on a power trip.”
“I’ve worked since I was 13. I walked the day I turned 55. It was always the plan. Nobody ever gave me a dime. I kept telling everyone at work I was going to leave. No one believed me. I left everything at my desk. Got up and left. I’m now 62. Just started S.S. All those years I worked my way up the ladder. When I got there I realized there was just more work. Get out early if you can.”
“Also let’s take some social responsbility for ourselves- it’s not JUST the companies that make jobs miserable. I talk to people in the service and retail industries and I personally spent years in IT. On the customer end, people are often entitled, impatient, and rude. It’s far worse that what I remember it 20 years ago. Don’t make your own workplace or that of someone else, needlessly toxic. Your Amazon package being a day late or waiting in line a little longer at the supermarket are not the end of the world. You will survive, I promise.”
Looking at how Germany and the USA treat types of “leave”, there is one universal truth: whereas Germany sees it as a basic human right, America sees it as a commercial bargaining chip… and the statistics in this video schocked us.
Looking at our contracts, our employment in Germany is so much more humane – with a work-culture that guarantees vacation time, maternity leave, sick leave, parental leave and more for all full-time workers.
YouTube comments:
“I think it is important to note that the benefits we enjoy in germany did not just fall from the heavens, but they are the results of many decades of struggle by the workers movement. Do not take these things for granted! Join the union and vote for worker-friendly parties.”
“Before every American now starts to look for a job in Germany, keep in mind, that this is not uniquely German. Nearly all European countries have similar regulations like Germany, sometimes a little less, sometimes even significantly better.”
“When I had my first baby, I was working in retail for a cosmetics company in Germany. They had to provide a chair and stretcher for me to sit/ lie down at all times. I wasn’t allowed to carry anything heavy and after 22 weeks of pregnancy wasn’t allowed to work standing up for more than 4 hours a day. At every doctor’s appointment, my OBGyn would ask me if I was still ok working or if they should give me a Beschäftigungsverbot (a kind of mandatory medical leave), which is fairly common in the last few months of pregnancy, especially for jobs that can be physically straining.”
Career success – that’s what many people think of when it comes to hard work and top performance. But some people make a career out of being lazy. But how can it be that laziness favors ascent?
How can it be that industrious people stagnate while the lazy climb up? Why is laziness a career accelerator and not the opposite?
In this video career consultant Martin Wehrle shows an important background: how career really works. Because those who make a career focus on a certain aspect. In this video you will find out what that is and how you can use it for your own advancement, promotion or salary increase.