How many of you have a workplace that completely bans many websites such as Facebook, Twitter, forums, etc as a way to "boost" your productivity?
Hopefully not many... many recent studies have shown that just working non-stop from 8-5 without a brain break can reduce your productivity or, having a few minutes here and there to do something else besides work can actually increase your productivity.
Take this study (commissioned by Popcap games, so take that as you will...): http://tinyurl.com/445uwgu. According to this study, the UK is losing over $4B pounds a year in productivity because people lose productivity if they don't take a break. That is definitely not chump change.
A similar study found here shows that taking breaks about every hour improves focus and productivity (the study's results were inconclusive as to whether or not taking a gaming break was better though...). The study references other research that indicates that taking a gaming break does increase productivity further reinforcing the fact that productivity is not necessarily based on who works the hardest.
While I could cite several other examples of how checking in on your social media once in a while improves productivity like this study, the point I want to make is why do some companies still refuse to let their employees have free reign? As long as someone isn't looking at porn or some type of hate group (or something as bad), then why are some employers cutting off their employee's access to benign sites such as Facebook? Hopefully someone will do a study to see if a company's internet policy can actually improve or reduce their profitability, productivity and turnover. Until then (and even after most likely), some employers refuse to update archaic policies...
Hopefully you aren't trapped in a job where they won't let you have 5 or 10 minutes of down time to surf the web, but if they do, have you noticed a drop in your desire to work hard?
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
What Happens August 3rd?
With all the talk about raising the debt ceiling going on right now, I thought it would be funny to pontificate a bit about what I would do if suddenly I had to cut a bunch of spending so as not to default on interest payments (i.e. if I were the government, what would I cut).
Before getting into that, I wanted to just point out one hilarious thing that happened today in light of my post on social security last week. Obama said that he couldn't guarantee that social security recipients would get their checks if the debt ceiling wasn't raised. To that I say "yeah right." First off, social security still brings in more than it pays out, so the debt ceiling should have nothing to do with that. Second, if Obama is that dumb to not pay social security to a huge part of the voting block, the elderly, then he will lose every state in the next election.
Ok, that off my chest, here is what I would do to not default on interest payments to China et all:
1) Suspend foreign aid except third world nations. Sorry, but can't afford that at the moment!
2) Increase amount of collections agents at the IRS - that's right, this should be a money maker and I would pay on commission so that they would only get paid if they bring in checks
3) Suspend all tax subsidies for ethanol biofuels. These are a joke anyways and need to be done away with
4) Pull out of Libya and force the UN actually do something for once in a military engagement without the US
5) Suspend the pay of every politician in congress, the senate, and the oval office. This would force them all to get real and cut a deal to get this stuff done. I would also suspend all their benefits including use of private government jets, healthcare, etc. Pressure is on now :).
6) This would all hopefully stem the tide, but wherever I needed to make up money, I would just mandate a X% cut across the board to make up for the remaining deficit and force everyone in the government to actually get efficient. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Here is what I would do to tame the deficit:
1) Have social security tied to average life expectancy and make it so everyone gets on average 5 years of social security. That would cut about 10ish years off of payments to social security recipients after it it phases in. Not sure how to phase in exactly, but would probably be over about 10 years.
2) Put in a cap on the amount of money paid out by the government for medicare per year probably at about 80% of what is paid out currently on average. Also add in a 10% coinsurance payment requirement for all non-essential procedures and doctors visits (i.e. exclude yearly physicals, mamograms, etc). Coinsurance can be reduced to 5% if it can be proven the person is in "excellent" physical condition.
3) Have a 10% coinsurance payment for all medicaid non-essential procedures (similar to my medicare part). This can be reduced if it can be proven that the person is in "excellent" physical condition as well.
4) 5% cut to every government department if needed. If the government can't find a way to cut 5% of the waste including ridiculous contractor payouts, bloated benefits, unproductive workers, expensive software suites, etc, then Comcast is the best company on Earth.
5) Reform the tax code to make it simpler and hire more collectors for the IRS to get the government the money it is owed. Again pay them on commission and make them go after tax evaders and non-filers hard - it is ridiculous how hard it is to navigate tax law and equally ridiculous that only the very rich are every even targeted for evasion.
Let me know if you agree! Follow me on twitter @mdperovich if you don't already.
Before getting into that, I wanted to just point out one hilarious thing that happened today in light of my post on social security last week. Obama said that he couldn't guarantee that social security recipients would get their checks if the debt ceiling wasn't raised. To that I say "yeah right." First off, social security still brings in more than it pays out, so the debt ceiling should have nothing to do with that. Second, if Obama is that dumb to not pay social security to a huge part of the voting block, the elderly, then he will lose every state in the next election.
Ok, that off my chest, here is what I would do to not default on interest payments to China et all:
1) Suspend foreign aid except third world nations. Sorry, but can't afford that at the moment!
2) Increase amount of collections agents at the IRS - that's right, this should be a money maker and I would pay on commission so that they would only get paid if they bring in checks
3) Suspend all tax subsidies for ethanol biofuels. These are a joke anyways and need to be done away with
4) Pull out of Libya and force the UN actually do something for once in a military engagement without the US
5) Suspend the pay of every politician in congress, the senate, and the oval office. This would force them all to get real and cut a deal to get this stuff done. I would also suspend all their benefits including use of private government jets, healthcare, etc. Pressure is on now :).
6) This would all hopefully stem the tide, but wherever I needed to make up money, I would just mandate a X% cut across the board to make up for the remaining deficit and force everyone in the government to actually get efficient. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Here is what I would do to tame the deficit:
1) Have social security tied to average life expectancy and make it so everyone gets on average 5 years of social security. That would cut about 10ish years off of payments to social security recipients after it it phases in. Not sure how to phase in exactly, but would probably be over about 10 years.
2) Put in a cap on the amount of money paid out by the government for medicare per year probably at about 80% of what is paid out currently on average. Also add in a 10% coinsurance payment requirement for all non-essential procedures and doctors visits (i.e. exclude yearly physicals, mamograms, etc). Coinsurance can be reduced to 5% if it can be proven the person is in "excellent" physical condition.
3) Have a 10% coinsurance payment for all medicaid non-essential procedures (similar to my medicare part). This can be reduced if it can be proven that the person is in "excellent" physical condition as well.
4) 5% cut to every government department if needed. If the government can't find a way to cut 5% of the waste including ridiculous contractor payouts, bloated benefits, unproductive workers, expensive software suites, etc, then Comcast is the best company on Earth.
5) Reform the tax code to make it simpler and hire more collectors for the IRS to get the government the money it is owed. Again pay them on commission and make them go after tax evaders and non-filers hard - it is ridiculous how hard it is to navigate tax law and equally ridiculous that only the very rich are every even targeted for evasion.
Let me know if you agree! Follow me on twitter @mdperovich if you don't already.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Social Security - The Truth
In the wake of the #AskObama twitter thing today, I thought I would write an article about some facts about Social Security to better educate both myself and everyone reading. I'll quote all my sources at the bottom. I am going to break this out into two sections: facts and opinion. The facts are meant to be as non-biased as possible, and the opinion is all me :).
FACTS:
Now for the straight dope: Social Security is the largest government program in the world. That's right - the entire world. It is larger than defense spending and medicare/medicaid.
Backing up a bit, Social Security was started in 1935 as part of the New Deal. It is currently used as a social insurance program where every senior (person over 65) receives a monthly check. The amount varies depending on how much a person makes in their lifetime and pays into the Social Security pot. Social Security is also used for disability insurance with over 10 million people currently receiving benefits.
When SS was initially set up, it encompassed the "retirement" piece that we currently know now as well as poverty, unemployment, maternal and child welfare, services for the blind, and public health services. There were many people that were not covered for various benefits when the program was first started including women and minorities for unemployment insurance, and many predominantly women oriented jobs were ineligible for retirement benefits (teachers, nurses, social workers, etc). The system was so biased towards white families that one study estimated that 14% of eligible white families received benefits while only 1.5% of eligible black families received benefits.
Over time, Social Security was reformed several times to include all forms of labor, part time work, etc as well as reducing the coverage area to what we now currently know.
In 2010, there were 54 million people receiving benefits for retirement and/or disability with only 157 million people paying into the system. That is roughly a 3:1 ratio for those keeping track. To contrast this there were only 15 million people receiving benefits in 1960 and there was a 5.1:1 ratio of payees to benefit receivers.
There is currently $2.6 trillion worth of assets in the trust fund that was set up to hold excess SS payments until a person retires. It is estimated the trust fund will no longer be sustainable by 2023 and that the entire system will collapse in 2036 if no changes are made to the system.
OPINION:
Now that you have a bit more background on the subject if you have never had the chance or inclination to read up on it, let me give you my thoughts on the whole matter.
First of all, the fact that the retirement age has been 65 since inception is foolish to say the least. Over the last 76 years, humans have had a much higher life expectancy (as one would expect even in 1935). Why the government didn't put in a provision between '35 and 2011 to automatically adjust for life expectancy is beyond me. The most humorous part of this is that the average life expectancy in 1935 was 61.7 years old. That means that the government set up the retirement program part assuming that either A) almost nobody collected, or B) that they expected people would live longer in the future and could actually collect on some benefits. Government is never very prescient if you ask me, so I'll go with A) on that...
The second thing about SS that frustrates me to no end is that the current government is still afraid to touch it. The closest anyone has ever come in my short lifetime to a legitimate discussion on the matter is when talking about privatization. These clowns in Washington need to get their act together and start trying to fix this stuff. We spend >20% of our budget on SS every year and yet it isn't even in any earnest conversation right now despite all the hemming and hawing over reducing spending. I already plan on never receiving a dime of my SS checks, but I'll be damned if my son is still paying into this broken system when he is old enough to work.
Lastly, the good news - there is time to actually fix this thing before it is too broken to repair. In 2010, the SS fund actually added about $68B (it paid out less than it took in). Who is to say if that entire fund actually exists, or if the government is raiding it as has been reported, but if congress and the President really get their act together now, they can turn the ship around and make it so every generation is able to receive some benefits. I do think it has a place in society and it is good that older folks get a bit of income to "retire" on (i.e. scrape by eating spam if all they get is SS), but it isn't going to be around for the next generations at the current burn rate we are on.
I'll keep my next post shorter I promise! :) Have a good one all.
You can follow me on twitter @mdperovich if you want to get more insight into what I'm thinking or want links to interesting reads.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28United_States%29
http://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html
FACTS:
Now for the straight dope: Social Security is the largest government program in the world. That's right - the entire world. It is larger than defense spending and medicare/medicaid.
Backing up a bit, Social Security was started in 1935 as part of the New Deal. It is currently used as a social insurance program where every senior (person over 65) receives a monthly check. The amount varies depending on how much a person makes in their lifetime and pays into the Social Security pot. Social Security is also used for disability insurance with over 10 million people currently receiving benefits.
When SS was initially set up, it encompassed the "retirement" piece that we currently know now as well as poverty, unemployment, maternal and child welfare, services for the blind, and public health services. There were many people that were not covered for various benefits when the program was first started including women and minorities for unemployment insurance, and many predominantly women oriented jobs were ineligible for retirement benefits (teachers, nurses, social workers, etc). The system was so biased towards white families that one study estimated that 14% of eligible white families received benefits while only 1.5% of eligible black families received benefits.
Over time, Social Security was reformed several times to include all forms of labor, part time work, etc as well as reducing the coverage area to what we now currently know.
In 2010, there were 54 million people receiving benefits for retirement and/or disability with only 157 million people paying into the system. That is roughly a 3:1 ratio for those keeping track. To contrast this there were only 15 million people receiving benefits in 1960 and there was a 5.1:1 ratio of payees to benefit receivers.
There is currently $2.6 trillion worth of assets in the trust fund that was set up to hold excess SS payments until a person retires. It is estimated the trust fund will no longer be sustainable by 2023 and that the entire system will collapse in 2036 if no changes are made to the system.
OPINION:
Now that you have a bit more background on the subject if you have never had the chance or inclination to read up on it, let me give you my thoughts on the whole matter.
First of all, the fact that the retirement age has been 65 since inception is foolish to say the least. Over the last 76 years, humans have had a much higher life expectancy (as one would expect even in 1935). Why the government didn't put in a provision between '35 and 2011 to automatically adjust for life expectancy is beyond me. The most humorous part of this is that the average life expectancy in 1935 was 61.7 years old. That means that the government set up the retirement program part assuming that either A) almost nobody collected, or B) that they expected people would live longer in the future and could actually collect on some benefits. Government is never very prescient if you ask me, so I'll go with A) on that...
The second thing about SS that frustrates me to no end is that the current government is still afraid to touch it. The closest anyone has ever come in my short lifetime to a legitimate discussion on the matter is when talking about privatization. These clowns in Washington need to get their act together and start trying to fix this stuff. We spend >20% of our budget on SS every year and yet it isn't even in any earnest conversation right now despite all the hemming and hawing over reducing spending. I already plan on never receiving a dime of my SS checks, but I'll be damned if my son is still paying into this broken system when he is old enough to work.
Lastly, the good news - there is time to actually fix this thing before it is too broken to repair. In 2010, the SS fund actually added about $68B (it paid out less than it took in). Who is to say if that entire fund actually exists, or if the government is raiding it as has been reported, but if congress and the President really get their act together now, they can turn the ship around and make it so every generation is able to receive some benefits. I do think it has a place in society and it is good that older folks get a bit of income to "retire" on (i.e. scrape by eating spam if all they get is SS), but it isn't going to be around for the next generations at the current burn rate we are on.
I'll keep my next post shorter I promise! :) Have a good one all.
You can follow me on twitter @mdperovich if you want to get more insight into what I'm thinking or want links to interesting reads.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28United_States%29
http://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html
Friday, July 1, 2011
Back in action
For all 2 of my loyal followers, I'm back in action!
A few months ago, I wrote about how gaming drives innovation. I wanted to follow up that post with some information about a up and coming technology that is really shaping the entire gaming landscape - streaming. Since I'm relatively familiar with the Starcraft 2 scene, I'll use it as an example
Right now, there are several SC2 gamers that can literally make >$50,000 per year just streaming them playing Starcraft 2. That salary is more than the average yearly wage in the US!
How exactly are these gamers able to do this? Some of the enabling technologies include Justin.tv, Vimeo, and uStream. The amount of revenue a streamer can make varies depending on the number of commercials they play, the number of viewers they have, and, in some cases, the number of physical click throughs from an ad.
While it may seem like a dream to just play a video game all day and make big bucks, it is not that simple. Most of the streamers making a decent living doing so have thousands of viewers at any point in time when they watch (sometimes >10,000). Developing that type of a following takes time, persistence, and a lot of talent for entertaining an audience.
I think streaming will become a huge deal in the years to come, and as usual, gamers are some of the first adopters to really utilize the technology. MLG Colombus hit >75,000 online viewers for the last gaming tournament; just think what will happen when earnings calls, Presidential news conferences, and Lady Gaga start embracing streaming.
A few months ago, I wrote about how gaming drives innovation. I wanted to follow up that post with some information about a up and coming technology that is really shaping the entire gaming landscape - streaming. Since I'm relatively familiar with the Starcraft 2 scene, I'll use it as an example
Right now, there are several SC2 gamers that can literally make >$50,000 per year just streaming them playing Starcraft 2. That salary is more than the average yearly wage in the US!
How exactly are these gamers able to do this? Some of the enabling technologies include Justin.tv, Vimeo, and uStream. The amount of revenue a streamer can make varies depending on the number of commercials they play, the number of viewers they have, and, in some cases, the number of physical click throughs from an ad.
While it may seem like a dream to just play a video game all day and make big bucks, it is not that simple. Most of the streamers making a decent living doing so have thousands of viewers at any point in time when they watch (sometimes >10,000). Developing that type of a following takes time, persistence, and a lot of talent for entertaining an audience.
I think streaming will become a huge deal in the years to come, and as usual, gamers are some of the first adopters to really utilize the technology. MLG Colombus hit >75,000 online viewers for the last gaming tournament; just think what will happen when earnings calls, Presidential news conferences, and Lady Gaga start embracing streaming.
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