Damn Kids

I Am Young Detroit: Andy Didorosi

"Andy Didorosi is a serial social entrepreneur. He’s founded several ventures including Paper Street, Detroit Bus Company, The Thunderdrome, and Wireless Ferndale. He started working when he was sixteen, buying and selling auction cars. He would buy them really cheap and spend a long time fixing them up and sell them for a lot more online through Craigslist. At the same time he’d be working at a little Italian restaurant bussing tables, but realized it wasn’t for him. 'I’m a terrible, terrible employee,' he says, 'I could never work for anybody ever again.' Detroit is better off with him doing his own thing anyway, because he’s helping to fill in a few of the gaps the city has failed to." Continue reading →

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Spain’s Central Bank Seeks Minimum Wage Suspension

"Spain's central bank called for a suspension of the minimum wage in selected cases, saying a year-old overhaul of labor laws had made the economy more competitive but failed to encourage hiring. The Bank of Spain's recommendation, though not binding on the conservative government, reflects growing concern among policy makers about the country's 27% unemployment rate. Many economists have called for offering lower wages to younger workers; more than half of the job seekers under age 25 are out of work. Germany's minijobs program pays workers up to €450 per month ($592), far less than Spain's legal minimum of €645." Continue reading →

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The Hookah Lounge War Is On

"There are hundreds of hookah lounges in the U-S, mostly in college towns and urban areas. The lounges have enjoyed an exemption to clean indoor air laws because they have defined themselves as 'tobacco shops.' No more. The front line is here in Boston. After allowing a few lounges to open, the city has clamped down and passed a law that forces all of the city’s hookah lounges to shut down by 2019. 'There’s a risk that people who are non-smokers will [..] find themselves addicted to nicotine and needing to buy packs of Marlboros,' says Mark Gottlieb, executive director at the Public Health Advocacy Institute." Continue reading →

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Peru’s protesters shake up politics with challenge to President Humala

"The biggest political protests in Peru’s capital in more than a decade have pressured President Ollanta Humala to clean up government and share the benefits of the country’s decade-long economic boom. Many of the protesters were left-leaning and middle-class youth who voted for Humala two years ago, but now they say he and other political leaders are dangerously out of touch. The street protests peaked with a rally of around 8,000 at the end of July. They were small compared to other protest movements in Latin America, but the biggest in Lima since 2000, when demonstrators took to the streets against President Alberto Fujimori." Continue reading →

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San Francisco split by Silicon Valley’s wealth

"Heated bidding wars — especially in a half-mile radius of shuttle bus stops — have broken out, causing rents to soar, even double in some cases. Along shuttle routes, trendy new restaurants that serve high-end food and spirits have taken the place of corner stores and mom-and-pop businesses. Anti-Google graffiti has turned up here, and activists recently held a small anti-gentrification rally at which they smashed a Google bus piñata. Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, said he fears that the techies are permanently inheriting the city and won't pack up and leave as they did after the 2000 dot-com crash." Continue reading →

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How Old Were the Founding Fathers?

"While famous paintings of our America’s Founding Fathers typically portray them as middle-aged or older, most were actually much younger than we tend to think during the founding of the nation. Todd Andrlik, in a post for the Journal of the American Revolution, compiled the ages of the Founding Fathers on July 4, 1776, and the results may surprise you. For instance, Benjamin Franklin, at 70 years old, was more than twice as old as Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson, at 33 years old. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, who would later go on to write the Federalist Papers, were just 21, 25, and 30 respectively." Continue reading →

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More Car Loans Than Mortgages in U.S.

"There are now more auto loans than mortgages in the U.S., but most of them are going to older Americans, according to New York Fed data. Borrowing for vehicles reached $814 billion in the second quarter, an increase of $20 billion from the previous quarter. The 2.5% jump was bigger than any other loan category in the quarter. The recovery has come faster for older Americans. The only group originating more loans than before the recession are people over 50, likely a result of aging Baby Boomers. But 18 to 29 year olds haven’t seen much of a recovery. Meanwhile, student loan borrowing is up 82% from prerecession levels." Continue reading →

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Iranian Electoral Candidate Disqualified for Being Too Attractive

"27-year-old Nina Siahkali Moradi received 10,000 votes during the city's most recent election, placing her 14th out of the 163 candidates, which landed her the title of 'alternate member of council.' However when one of those ranked above her was elected as mayor, Moradi was instead disqualified. A senior office in Qazvin has been quoted as saying, 'We don't want a catwalk model on the council.' Moradi, a graduate student in architecture ran what many consider a successfully forward-leaning and high-profile election campaign, leading many to cite her disqualification as another blatant example of Iran's sexist policy." Continue reading →

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Detroit, Demographics and Detonation

"The baby boom generation is an abnormality. It was the byproduct of halcyon days — not that we knew it at the time. But as we have seen in Detroit, when demographics shift from production to pension, there is trouble ahead. Low birth rates combined with a plethora of maturing adults on the cusp of retirement turns the pyramid of society on its head. Lower growth in itself is not a bad thing. We are still moving forward. The problem is certain promises (welfare and health commitments) have been made that cannot be kept if growth does not return to around the 3% mark. Putting this genie back in the bottle is going to be a political nightmare." Continue reading →

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Rising Inequality and Poverty: Can They Be Fixed?

"Societies can choose between two forms of relatively stable but impoverishing feudalism--stagnant backwater or financial--or accept the existential risks of embracing innovation and experimentation, not just in narrow technological fields but across the entire economy, society and government. Incentivizing the values that favor wealth creation--thrift, investing, improving skills, entrepreneurial drive, flexibility, strong families--may be just as important as leveling the playing field, i.e. maintaining opportunity via maintaining access to education and social capital building." Continue reading →

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