Punishing pro-Palestinian colleges

Top Republicans are threatening to pull billions of dollars of federal funding from some of the most prestigious universities in the US to punish them for allowing pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses. The Guardian has reviewed a video recording of a meeting in Washington last week between House majority leader Steve Scalise and the powerful pro-Israel lobby group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). In it, Scalise outlined how he planned to unleash a massive attack against universities that fail to squash criticism of Israel, including revoking their accreditation — the system by which higher education institutions are approved and to which the bulk of federal funds are tied. This summer Aipac invested $23m in unseating two core members of the progressive Democratic group the “squad”, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri. The pair, who both lost their primaries, had called for a ceasefire in Gaza and have highlighted the death toll of civilians there.

(Adapted from “Republicans Threaten To Punish Colleges That Allow Pro-Palestinian Protests,” by Ed Pilkington, published on October 9, 2024, by The Guardian)

Feeling stuck or stymied?

It’s easy to become demoralised at work when you feel like your career progress is frustratingly slow or has sputtered out. This is especially true if you don’t have a clear understanding on how to advance. But before you write your job off entirely, try this: Be “strategically patient.” What does this mean? Five things: 1) Do research on what it realistically takes to achieve your goals. 2) Recognise “raindrops,” or small wins that are early indicators of your success. 3) Abandon harmful social comparisons. 4) Appreciate how far you’ve come rather than continually moving the goalposts. 5) Understand that it’s okay for your career goals to shift as long as you keep moving in the right direction. “Being patient” may sound annoying, but to achieve the outcomes you want, you have to be willing to work the process. With strategic patience and small, methodical steps — taken today, tomorrow, and the day after — almost any goal is attainable.

(Adapted from “Feeling Stuck or Stymied?” by Dorie Clark,” published by HBR Early Career)

Self-made billionaire success

Of the billionaires on the 2023 Forbes 400 list — the 400 richest people in the United States — 70pc are basically self-made. And 59pc came from an upper-middle-class background or below. This number is significantly higher than it once was. In 1982, only 40pc of the Forbes 400 had started their own business; the majority were simply scions of inherited wealth. Let’s say you inherit a $25m trust fund on your 18th birthday. Are you going to start a business with it? Maybe you should. But it’s much easier to withdraw $1 million a year to live off, travel the world and have some wild parties, and put the rest in S&P 500 index funds earning 7pc a year. Conversely, there are about 5m new businesses founded in the US every year. Some of them are going to hit big, and the payoff for hitting big is so large these days that the lucky few who do are going to leapfrog all the trust fund kids.

(Adapted from “Go Big Or Go Home,” by Nate Silver, published on August 13, 2024, by Business Insider)

Credit card debt

Americans have a lot of debt. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said that Americans owed a record $1.14tr on their credit cards in the second quarter and that balances increased by $27bn from the same period a year ago, a 5.8pc jump. Most worryingly, according to the New York Fed, the percentage of people who had fallen more than 90 days behind on their payments climbed to 6.4pc in 2023 from 4pc at the end of 2022. This may be worrying news for average households and the US economy, but it is wonderful news for credit card companies. Credit card issuers make money in a few ways, but one of the most important is interest payments. When a customer doesn’t pay off their full balance each month, they pay interest that the credit card company collects, so increasing interest rates is an easy way to bring in more profit.

(Adapted from “The Sneaky Credit Card Rip-Off,” published by Ayelet Sheffey on October 2, by Business Insider)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 14th, 2024