Offbeat Jobs at Startups

Does innovation and variety inspire you? Are you the type of person who thrives around driven, intelligent, creative, passionate people? Then a job at a startup just might be in your future. Be warned though. If you’re going to help build a business from the ground up, you’ll most likely be part of the team building the foundation. In other words, be prepared to get your hands dirty.

It’s not likely that you’ll be hired on as ‘Engineer #1’ and walk out of the office after your first day with a forklift injury, but when you sign on with a startup, be ready to tackle the ”other duties as assigned” part of the job. New companies, especially those with little to no capital, don’t have the means to hire multiple people right out of the gate. So, they rely on the sparse work group they can bring on board to come to work with their A-game every day. As the sayings go, you will have to wear many hats and become a jack-of-all-trades, but the tradeoff can be immeasurable.

Your Government vs. Your Bank: Estate Planning & Eminent Domain

You’d think that banks might be happy for a solution to the mortgage crises. Especially in areas of the country where a majority of homes are underwater, mortgages are delinquent, and homeowners are abandoning their homes in droves. But one recent proposal to help with the problem has big banks up in arms. The solution involves the government obtaining underwater mortgages under its power of eminent domain.

A company called Mortgage Resolution Partners (MRP) developed this proposal, and is working to get county and city governments on board. The idea is that if banks fail to sell the loans to the government when offered fair market value, the government can force the sale under its power of eminent domain. Once the government owns the mortgages, MRP refinances the smaller (fair market value) loans, resulting in much more affordable payments for the homeowners.

Decreasing Labor Force & Increasing Disability Benefit Payments: Correlation?

“Jobs are down!”; “Benefit claims are up!” Alarmists can be heard shrieking and freaking- claiming this is sure evidence that lazy people are fleeing the workforce in order to sit on their butts collecting benefits! – But are they really?

A number of pundits have claimed a direct correlation between the recent upward trend in American’s Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) enrollment and the downturn in the number of people participating in the labor force. For example, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Chief US economist for J.P. Morgan, Michael Feroli, estimated that a quarter of all the people leaving the labor force are enrolling in SSDI. (The Wall Street Journal, 4/10/2013), Adding to the speculation, Fox & Friends commentators claimed the poor numbers shown in a recent jobs report were due to workers choosing to sit on the couch collecting benefits instead of going out to find a job and participating in the labor force. (http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/06/07/fox-rehashes-myth-that-unemployment-and-disabil/194385.)