The billionaire rivalry: Musk vs Bezos

The rivalry between the world’s two richest men, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos is of inter-galactic proportions. Musk, the South African-born entrepreneur, has seen his wealth soar by more than $150bn over the past year, in what is believed to be the quickest accumulation of wealth in history. He is now the world’s richest person with $1.5bn more than Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. The rivalry between these two billionaires is fuelling the modern space race. Bezos set up his space company, Blue Origin, two years before Musk’s SpaceX, but he got sidetracked by problems at Amazon which face bankruptcy in 2002. When it rebounded a year later, Bezos was ready to continue his journey to the stars. So began the modern space race — not a battle between rival nations or political doctrines. Not even a battle between competing technologies. Instead, a trial of strength between two science-fiction-obsessed billionaires who have bought everything money can buy on Earth and were now striving for infinity and beyond.

(Adapted from “Jeff Bezos vs Elon Musk: the rivalry fuelling the modern space race” by Nick Rufford published on November 29, 2020, by The Sunday Times)

The jobs of tomorrow

Million of new US jobs will emerge in health care and tech as society ages and digital transformation changes the nature of work in the next decade, according to the US Labour Department’s projections for employment in 2029. Those filling jobs will increasingly be older adults, and the health-care and high-tech fields are among those poised for the most growth, the agency said. Employment in health-care occupations is expected to grow 15pc in the next decade, ahead of 3.7pc overall growth, according to the Labour Department’s study. Over the next ten years, home-health aide jobs will grow the most out of nearly 800 jobs titles, with an expected addition of 1.16 million positions, the Labour Department says. Computer and maths occupations will grow 12.1pc in the next decade — three times faster than the overall workforce. Software developers, a role that paid a median wage of $107,500 in 2019, will be among four occupations adding the most jobs in the next decade, growing by 316,000.

(Adapted from “Jobs In 2029: Health Care Booms, Employers Want More,” by Gwynn Guillford, published on Jan 8, 2021, by the Wall Street Journal)

The state of neglected human capital

The output-based health indicators have shown poor performance in comparison with many other developing countries. The index of health establishment and health personal are showing a declining trend in growth whereas the population has been rising. Similarly, no major hospital has been established since 1990s. With regard to public health expenditure, the average expenditure on health, since 1949-50, remained around 0.6pc of GDP. Whereas, allocation for developmental expenditures has always been low as compared to current expenditures and within the developmental expenditures, the utilisation of the budget is geared towards enhancement of physical infrastructure

only. Thus, government policies seem to lack the competence to address the issues regarding quality of health facilities and capacity building.

(Adapted from “The State of Health Sector in Pakistan,” by Fatima Khaliq and Waqas Ahmad, published in April 2018, by The State Bank of Pakistan)

Minting money in the pandemic

Americans have become, by some measures, richer during the pandemic than ever before. It is hard to fathom, what with the economic collapse and the surge in the ranks of the jobless, the homeless and the hungry. But there’s a whole class of people — at least the top 20pc or so —who have had little to worry about such matters. For them, not only has it been relatively easy to carry out their white-collar jobs from home, but the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented emergency measures — including slashing benchmark rates to zero — have padded their wallets too. They have refinanced their mortgages at record low rates, purchases second homes to get away from cities and watched the value of stocks and bonds in their investment accounts surge. The massive wealth accumulation is obscuring the toll felt by those who don’t enjoy the same easy access to credit or financial markets.

(Adapted from “The rich are minting money in the pandemic like never before,” by David Scigliuzzo, published on 17 Jan, 2021, by Bloomberg Wealth)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, January 25th, 2021