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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Until the 1980s, big companies in America tended to take a paternalistic attitude toward their workforce. Many corporate CEOs took pride in taking care of everyone who worked at their corporate campuses. Business leaders loved to tell stories about someone working their way up from the mailroom to a C-suite office.
But this began to change in the 1980s. Wall Street investors demanded that companies focus more on maximizing returns for shareholders. An emerging corporate orthodoxy held that a company should focus on its "core competence"—the one or two functions that truly sets it apart from other companies—while contracting out other functions to third parties.
Often, companies found they could save money this way. Big companies often pay above the market rate for routine services like cleaning offices, answering phones, staffing a cafeteria, or working on an assembly line. Putting these services out for competitive bid helped the companies get these functions completed at rock-bottom rates, while avoiding the hassle of managing employees. It also saved them from having to pay the same generous benefits they offered to higher-skilled employees.
Of course, the very things that made the new arrangement attractive for big companies made it lousy for the affected workers. Not only were companies trying to spend less money on these services, but now there were companies in the middle taking a cut. Once a job got contracted out, it was much less likely to become a first step up the corporate ladder. It's hard to work your way up from the mailroom if the mailroom is run by a separate contracting firm.
[...] The existence of such a two-tier workplace is especially ironic in Silicon Valley, a region that takes pride in its egalitarian ethos. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave a remarkably candid assessment of the situation in 2012, in a statement quoted by author Chrystia Freeland.
"Many tech companies solved this problem by having the lowest-paid workers not actually be employees. They’re contracted out," Schmidt said. "We can treat them differently, because we don’t really hire them. The person who’s cleaning the bathroom is not exactly the same sort of person. Which I find sort of offensive, but it is the way it’s done."
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @02:41AM (9 children)
i'm going to disagree with your recommendation on target funds. You'll make more money if you leave it 100% in S&P stocks and only start switching towards "safer "investments like bonds or money markets when you get to within several years of your retirement date. The only reason for target funds to exist is to make money management completely automatic for the investor who knows nothing at all. Target funds pretty much guarantee lower yields than the strategy I mentioned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:46AM (1 child)
You are entitled to your opinion, but none of the strategies guarantee higher or lower yields.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @11:30AM
Long term analysis of historical performance for different asset classes has given figures for returns that have been fairly consistent over a century. I invest using that information.
It you are overly conservative, the only thing you are GUARANTEEING is low returns. I did that for a while and eventually saw it was a mistake. After wars, the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Great Recession of 2008, stocks recovered and delivered handsomely.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @03:06PM (6 children)
Works great unless there's a 10-20 year period of no stock returns. You're just showing your youth with that advice. Spread it around all the asset classes - stocks, bonds, house - and you will do better than most... However, if "most" becomes "all except very few" then watch out!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 03 2020, @07:45PM (3 children)
Also, how cute, he thinks the stock market ISN'T gambling!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:12PM (2 children)
Even cuter: you, who thinks anything in life can be certain.
Setting foot outside your door, seeking and keeping employment, it's ALL a gamble. Study the odds and bet based on that. That's the most certainty you will ever have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:33PM (1 child)
?
On one hand actual gambling, on the other simple uncertainties of living. Mental gymnastics from free market morons, we need a new olympic category.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:39PM
Stay poor then dumbass.
Keep complaining about it.
People offer advice, but it's wasted on you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:17PM (1 child)
I'm hardly young. The past 70 years have been fine, though, for stocks.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:47PM
The past two days, not so much!