Is the meaning of work about to change?

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. 
~ JP

...the worst fate for our children, yours and mine, is yet to come. Because when the easy pleasures of youth run out and self-affirmation is all students have left, what will remain? Not just bad work and the dreary distractions of the modern entertainment industry—all of which can be tolerated, as bad as they may be—but the absence of something to live for, the highest and most beautiful activity of their intelligence. To cheat them of that is the real crime, and the most profound way in which modern universities have betrayed the trust of an entire generation of young people. Professors you were not normal
~holydays (sik) read

When Older People Do Better Than Those of Working Age WSJ

We tend to think of corporate culture as an idea developed by HR and Marketing departments instead of something that forms organically over time. Even if the company manifesto is hanging on the walls or in the lobby, the true spirit of any business is determined by how things have been done before. To quote Gregory Carpenter, Director of the Center for Market Leadership at Kellogg University, “Every organisation develops a culture based on past experiences”.  Culture First

Is the meaning of work about to change?
WEF, 29/2/16.  It’s increasingly clear to me that creating more jobs is not enough, nor is it the real solution. This solution is based on a big misunderstanding. To tackle this crisis cubed, we need to focus on not just jobs but on people earning incomes. This requires us to develop a new model of work

The riddle of the modern economy is not that overworked professionals are miserable. It's that they are not. When did work become a refuge? Robota 

HMRC 'too busy' to meet £1bn tax evasion target

UK Taxman says 'We're too busy to chase offshore cash': Revenue to miss £1bn evasion target by £780m according to watchdog

Some British jobs, circa 1881

News from the Profession. H&R Block CEO Not Impressed With AICPA’s Letter, Vows More Ads (Caleb Newquist, Going Concern). I hope the new ads explain how they hire Washington insiders to suppress their smaller competitors.

Why do Amish start-ups have such a high success rate?  And Stephen Curry can still get better (NYT)

I, iPhone case.  Uncertainty about specs

Machine-learning algorithm can identify drunken tweets

Denmark again takes top spot in UN’s world happiness report Associated Press  

ASX chief Elmer Funke Kupper quits in face of investigation

Paying tax has become optional for 56 of Australia's highest earners. Newly-released tax statistics show each of the 56 paid next to no income tax in 2013–14, not even the Medicare Levy, even though each earned more than $1 million The 56 millionaires who pay no tax
Meet the millionaires who pay no income tax

This factory is replacing robots with human  Mercedes-Benz is firing robots and bringing in humans to do the job instead.  Robots can’t keep up with the changing pace and adaptation required by the luxury car-maker; instead the flexibility and dexterity of human workers is required

The key to success? Just be NICE: The way people treat each other in a team has more of an impact than their experience and skills

Google spent two years interviewing employees to shed light on teamwork. It found there is a secret formula that looks at how people work together. They found that the way people are treated is more important than skills. Teams work best when members feel they can take risks and be supported

5 Major Hospital Hacks: Horror Stories from the Cybersecurity Frontlines IEEE Spectrum 

News from the Profession. Cyber Extortion: Leprechauns vs. Accountants (Megan Lewczyk, Going Concern)

The Stunning Facts on Crime and Imprisonment Everyone Is Ignoring Washington Monthly

Miranda Perry Fleischer (San Diego), Not so Fast: The Hidden Difficulties of Taxing Wealth 

Spamming-as-a-service available via the Chinese underground
IDG, 2/3/16. Security firm Trend Micro has just released a research paper which looks at cybercrime and the deep web around the world. This focuses on seven counties: Russia, Japan, China, Germany, US, Canada and Brazil. Each country’s market is as distinct as its culture.
*Paper – Cybercrime and the deep web

Government to end ‘double taxation’ of bitcoin

It is easy to blame the poor for their lot in life, much harder to do anything about the underlying issues. [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

"Exotic dancer given nearly 3 years for tax fraud": This article appeared in The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, South Dakota in October 2014

Today. a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued this decision affirming the judgment of conviction and sentence

Oxfam report: Ending the Era of Tax Havens 

House of Common Briefing Paper: Tax avoidance: a General Anti-Avoidance Rule - background history (1997- 2010)

The Multinational Enterprises (Financial Transparency) Bill   

HSBC has lost its latest bid to keep some portions of a potentially explosive report about its anti-money-laundering efforts from being made public. A Brooklyn federal judge nixed many of the UK bank giant’s requests to black out parts of the 250-page report produced by an outside monitor in the wake of HSBC’s $1.9 billion settlement with the Department of Justice. Judge John Gleeson — who has already rejected requests from the Justice Department and HSBC to keep the January 2015 report sealed — said many of HSBC’s proposed redactions were “over-inclusive.”

Hurdles to Multigenerational Living: Kitchens and Visible Second Entrances Wall Street Journal. More evidence of downward mobility…  

Joseph Bankman (Stanford) presents Using the 'Smart Return' to Reduce Tax Evasion(with Clifford Nass (Stanford) &Joel Slemrod (Michigan)) at theUniversity of British Columbiatoday as part of its Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series

Nina Olson (National Taxpayer Advocate), The Future of Tax Administration, 150 Tax Notes 1315 (Mar. 14, 2016)

• Kevin Brown & Beth Tucker (PwC, Washington, D.C.),Identity Theft Challenges and the IRS, 150 Tax Notes 1341 (Mar. 14, 2016)
• Michael P. Dolan (KPMG, Washington, D.C.),Envisioning LB&I's 'Future State', 150 Tax Notes 1345 (Mar. 14, 2016)
• T. Keith Fogg & Leslie Book (Villanova University School of Law), Problems at the IRS in Attempting to Provide Service to Taxpayers, 150 Tax Notes 1335 (Mar. 14, 2016)
• Lawrence B. Gibbs (Miller & Chevalier, Washington, D.C.), Identity Theft and Refund Fraud at the IRS: A Partial Solution, 150 Tax Notes 1323 (Mar. 14, 2016)
• Kristin E. Hickman (University of Minnesota Law School), The IRS's Multi-Mission Mismatch Problem, 150 Tax Notes 1349 (Mar. 14, 2016)
• Leandra Lederman (Indiana University Maurer School of Law), The IRS, Politics, and Income Inequality, 150 Tax Notes 1329 (Mar. 14, 2016)

• Heather Maloy (Ernst & Young, Washington, D.C.),Can a Change in LB&I Approach Improve Taxpayer Compliance?, 150 Tax Notes 1353 (Mar. 14, 2016)
• Samuel M. Maruca (Covington & Burling, Washington, D.C.), LB&I — The Case for a New Management Paradigm, 150 Tax Notes 1327 (Mar. 14, 2016)
• Mark E. Matthews (Caplin & Drysdale, Washington, D.C.),IRS Criminal Investigation: A National Asset Being Damaged, 150 Tax Notes 1319 (Mar. 14, 2016)

Rich countries have a $78 trillion pension problem CNBC

The gangster candidate: Donald Trump and his supporters behave like the mafia, with veiled threats and acting above the law Salon 

& Sons by David Gilbert from that book aka fight club ...He has an expensive taste for flashy metaphors and similes. Some of these are very good, and realign the visual world, asking us, as Nabokov’s best metaphors do, to estrange in order to reconnect. “His shirttail was untucked in a sort of preppy mullet.” Or: “His face seemed a few days fallen from the vine.” As Richard arrives by plane for the Dyer reunion, he anxiously sees Manhattan from above: “rows of razor-sharp buildings, like a shark bursting through water.”

Venture capitalists think they have an answer to the growing housing crunch in San Francisco and other big cities across the U.S.: adult dorms.“(WSJ)

New MRU “Office Hours” video on calculating monopoly profits.  And first ever movie trailer for an economics paper.  My favorite bit is towards the end, when the referee reports are cited.

White storks are addicted to junk food and make round-trips of almost 100km to get their fix

In fashion, the copyists are winning right now

Some Like It Hot … Really Hot WSJ

“Beyond record hot, February was ‘astronomical’ and ‘strange'” Phys.org