I like the way Andrew Tobias talks about bulk buying in The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need: You can think of each bulk purchase as an investment, with a return equal to the savings you accrue by not paying a higher unit price for smaller purchases. If you lay out $110 today to buy a 12-bottle case of wine you’ll drink over the next month, instead of buying bottles one at a time for $10 each, that’s like earning a $10 return on a $110 investment in one month. On an annualized basis, that’s a rate of return well over 100 percent — far better than the stock market.
But that analysis relies on a few assumptions, the most important being that you will use the items you purchase. If you let products spoil, or you decide you don’t like them anymore halfway through the box, or if you forget what drawer your huge package of batteries is in, then you’re not getting as much value out of your bulk purchase as you had planned. Your effective investment return is likely to be negative; you would have been better off paying more per unit to buy less.
Job growth in rural counties continued to lag metropolitan areas in the closing months of 2019, according to the latest employment figures compiled by the federal government.
The nation’s largest metropolitan areas gained the most jobs. And rural counties located farthest from large urban centers had the slowest rate of job growth.
The economists, who were speaking at a panel called "Beyond GDP," made clear they think that's a huge mistake. GDP misses a lot. It doesn't, for instance, count the cooking, cleaning, and childrearing done in households. It doesn't count the value of people's health or a clean environment. It doesn't pay attention to the distribution of income or wealth. It doesn't pay attention to quality of life.
Washington’s influence industry, including former Trump officials and allies, has made big money helping companies get exemptions from tariffs — sometimes by undercutting small business owners like Mike Elrod.
Hiring slowed somewhat in December, as U.S. employers added 145,000 jobs. According to the Labor Department, that's down slightly from the three previous months, when employers added an average of 200,000 jobs. But the unemployment rate held steady at 3.5%, matching its lowest level in 50 years.
For all of 2019, the economy added 2.1 million jobs — the slowest pace of annual job growth since 2011. Job gains for October and November were revised down by a total of 14,000.
Average wages have increased 2.9% over the last year, outpacing inflation and boosting workers' buying power. Wage gains are still relatively modest, however, given the rock-bottom jobless rate.
You often hear from politicians that expanding manufacturing jobs is key to growing the economy. It sounds good, making physical stuff.👷 You can see and touch things that are manufactured. But few Americans actually manufacture things, even though we are outputing more American-made products then ever before.🏭 American manufacturing is highly automated, it relies less and less on humans.
Americans typically make the most advanced devices and technologies in our country. We outsource lower-skilled manufacturing to other countries.🌏 Low-skilled manufacturing produces lower wages, and those low wages are not enough to pay for a decent living in the United States. Americans expect a good job, one with healthcare and a pension or retirement plan, something that can not be produced with a low-value product.🏥
The future of jobs in America is not in manufacturing. It’s in healthcare, education and creative professions like design, engineering and arts.🎭 The jobs of the future about designing products and providing services that Americans want. Traditionally, many of these jobs have offered less stability and benefits compared to old-line manufacturing.🕴
The solution is not to try to bring back obsolete industries, but instead ensure modern industries in America provide adequate benefits to workers. 🖥This can be done by government mandates or the government providing the service — e.g. opt-in to government retirement or healthcare plans.🙊 The economy is changing, and government shouldn’t stop low-wage jobs from off-shoring, but instead ensure workers are taken care of in the industries of tomorrow.