Making money
The global coronavirus outbreak is giving
us the “world’s biggest work-from-home
experiment,” said Jessie Yeung in CNN
.com. With millions in Asia under quar-
antine, and more companies in the U.S.
taking precautionary measures, the past
few weeks have “marked a step toward
widespread” adoption of remote work.
Thanks to technology such as video-
con fer enc ing and cloud storage, this
transition is smoother than ever. Google,
Micro soft, Face book, and Amazon started
telling their Seattle-based employees to
work from home last week, said Alex
Kan tro witz in BuzzFeedNews.com, and as “social distancing”
becomes the norm, many more offices will follow. The health cri-
sis is “a test case for the moment working remotely will broadly
replace working in person.”This is a test case we don’t actually need, said Molly Wood in
Wired.com. We’ve had plenty of experience with remote work,
and we’ve learned that “the only thing worse than conference
rooms is conference calls.” In San Francisco, as office lights
“wink out one by one,” everyone is talking about how to use
tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams and Hangouts. The
problem is that “we all know these tools don’t work that well.”
Despite years of breathless promotion, we know that the real-
ity of remote work is predictable “frustration and miscommu-
nication.” We should not “ignore health guidelines and forcepeople to work in an office during a
pandemic,” said Kevin Roose in The
New York Times. Working from home
will be the only option for many in
this health crisis, and it’s a good option
generally “for new parents, people with
disabilities, and others who aren’t well
served by a traditional office setup.”
But for the rest of us, it’s disappointing.
“Working in isolation can be lonely,”
and it doesn’t spur innovative thinking.
Apple’s Steve Jobs was “a famous op-
ponent of remote work” who believed
that creativity comes from spontaneous
meetings and chance discussions. “I’ll stay home as long as my
bosses and the health authorities advise. But honestly, I can’t
wait to go back to work.”I actually like working from home, said Charlie Warzel, also
in the Times. I live in Montana, meet colleagues via Zoom and
Skype, and “social distancing is close to the status quo for me.”
My life is efficient thanks to “Hermit Tech”: Netflix, Peloton,
Google Hangouts. It’s easy enough for me and many other
white-collar workers to self-quarantine. Some of us come near
to doing that every day. But many services—think especially of
DoorDash and Amazon—only work because “others have to be
out in the world on your behalf.” While we’re burrowing in, we
need to be “mindful of the people underwriting and powering
our convenience.”Working alone: The self-quarantine economy
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Working on the porch: Idyllic, or just lonely?Market crash yields refinance boom
“A sharp drop in mortgage interest rates has
sparked a sudden and unexpected refinance
boom,” said Diana Olick in CNBC.com.
A flight to the safest federal bonds has sent
interest rates on 10-year Treasury bonds to
record lows, and mortgage rates have plum-
meted with them. This week, average mort-
gage rates “hit 3.11 percent,” and borrowers
have descended on mortgage lenders to take
advantage. Bank of America told one caller
there was “a two-hour wait to speak with a
loan officer.” Some lenders have expanded
hours and hired staff to try to meet a demand
running at three times the usual volume. “It’s
absolute pandemonium,” said one sales of-
ficer at Cross Country Mortgage in Boca
Raton, Fla. “Let’s put it this way: We are like
Home Depot during a hurricane.”New tax breaks for retirees
More states are looking at tax incentives to
stem the “gray migration,” said Sandra Block
in Kiplinger. As more retirees move away
from high-tax states like New York and Cali-
fornia to locations where there are no state
income taxes, such as Florida and Nevada,
some lawmakers are fighting back. Mary-
land, for instance, has “introduced legislationthat would eliminate state taxes on the first
$50,000 of income for retirees making up to
$100,000 in federally adjusted gross income,”
while those making $50,000 or less would
pay no state tax. Similarly, Illinois recently
“signed legislation making it easier for seniors
in Cook County—which includes Chicago—
to apply for a property tax break of up to
$8,000 a year.” Lawmakers in New Mexico
are also considering “several bills that would
repeal or reduce taxes on Social Security.”Hiding fees for financial advice
A popular website for finding financial plan-
ners will no longer disclose how much plan-
ners make in commissions or fees, said Jason
Zweig in The Wall Street Journal. LetsMake
APlan.org has “long served as a shortcut”
for investors looking for a financial planner.
It helps that it is run by the Certified Finan-
cial Planner Board, “a nonprofit that has
awarded the CFP designation to more than
86,000 planners.” However, more than half
of all planners charge commissions on sales
when you trade a stock, bond, or fund—
a system than can encourage excess trading.
By contrast, fee-only advisers only charge a
one-time or recurring fee. Now, “to learn how
a planner gets paid, you will have to ask.”What the experts say
In Haiti, a “restavek” is an enslaved child,
commonly sent from a rural household
to a stranger or relative living in the city
to work with no pay, often in an abusive
environment. Some 300,000 children
there are trafficked in this way, making
Haiti one of the countries in the world
where modern slavery is most prevalent.
Restavek Freedom (restavekfreedom.org)
was founded to protect Haitian children
and give them a future. The organization
works with police to free children, funds
their education, and removes girls from
abusive homes, placing them in its tran-
sitional housing. Restavek Freedom also
hosts Haiti’s annual “Songs for Freedom”
contest, a countrywide competition for
songs that spread the message of ending
child slavery.Charity of the week
Each charity we feature has earned a
four-star overall rating from Charity
Navigator, which rates not-for-profit
organizations on the strength of their
finances, their governance practices,
and the transparency of their operations.
Four stars is the group’s highest rating.