Investor's economy

https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-tight-job-market-labor-forces-income-is-squeezed-11550930400

Employee pay and benefits as a percentage of gross domestic income fell to 52.7% in last year’s third quarter, for the fourth straight quarterly decline, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It was as high as 59% in 1970 and 57% in 2001. If workers were commanding as much of domestic income as they did in 2001, they’d have nearly $800 billion more in their pockets, or $5,100 per employed American.

While the labor share has fallen, business profits are on the rise. Income of corporations, proprietorships, landlords and other businesses has climbed from less than 12% of gross domestic income in the 1980s to more than 20%.

What’s puzzling about the labor share’s decline in recent quarters is that it occurred at a time when unemployment was below 4%, wages were growing at the fastest pace in a decade and many company executives were complaining of worker shortages. Similar conditions in the past have pushed the labor share up and the profit share down as companies dug into their margins to retain increasingly scarce workers.

Конкуренция в кино

Расцвет жанра сериалов творит чудеса в современной киноактерской игре. Профессионалы в кино выкладываются по полной, причем не только в том, что мы видим на экране, но и за кадром: построение сцен, диалоги, монтаж, техника съемок. Удивительно. Даже Леди Гага, от которой бы следовало ожидать "пришла-спела-ушла", как это было, например, в кино с Элвисом Пресли, великолепно играет живого человека. Кино, сериалы и спорт - сферы человеческой деятельности, где работа профессионалов видна постороннему. После того, как я взял несколько курсов по разным жанрам и периодам мирового кино, начиная с 1930-х, у меня складывается впечатление, что мы живем в настоящем золотом веке.

"Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry Present the Oscar for Costume Design" (Watch on YouTube)

Art in the age of loneliness

call for the Academy to honor only “films designed for cinemas and released in cinemas.”


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/giving-awards-roma-is-a-devaluation-oscars-say-european-exhibitors-1190434

It definitely looks like the death of a business model. But putting aside that issue, what do we lose when we shift our experiences toward being one-on-one with a product of somebody else's imagination?

Texas is becoming a communist country

Senate Bill 3, which was sponsored by state Sen. Jane Nelson (R), would require school districts in Texas to give full-time classroom teachers a $5,000 raise, regardless of their prior salary.

The bill would benefit about 350,000 school teachers throughout the state.


https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/431500-texas-senate-committee-approves-bill-to-give-every-teacher-a-5000-raise