This Week I Learned: General Strike, Homelessness, Gambling

In my view, it’s important to be aware of the world around us. That’s why this week I begin by sharing two time-relevant pieces of information that affect all of us. But I then make sure to end with a… fun?... historical anecdote. 

The General Strike

As a result of COVID, more and more people are losing their job, skimping on food, and missing rent or mortgage payments. The calls for a general strike are growing louder. A general strike is just as it sounds, a strike of workers (across industries) in solidarity of the same basic ideas or demands. 

Compared to more recent strikes, like those of teachers, Amazon workers, or auto workers, for higher wages and safer working conditions, the general strike could be used for things like rent and mortgage cancellations, police reform, or Universal Basic Income (UBI).

Not that it would actually stop a general strike from happening, but in the United States it seems to be unclear whether general strikes among union workers are even legal due to the Taft-Hardy Act. So really, I was surprised to learn there are protected and unprotected acts of striking. 

We Know How to End Homelessness

As mentioned above with general strikes, people are losing their jobs and missing rent payments due to the COVID pandemic. Homelessness is on the rise as winter approaches. This is not a hard problem to solve, because the main issue is that people don’t have homes. The solution is giving them homes.

A recent study in British Columbia found that giving people without a home $7,500 in a single cash payment drastically improved the likelihood of them finding stable housing. I’ll be honest, it’s always been clear to me we could end homelessness. But this study showed me it’s cheaper to give people money than it is to support the systems they rely on.

Life Insurance and Gambling

This one admittedly gets a little weird. As I reviewed a book for a separate article I recently wrote, I re-learned the history of life insurance and its connection to gambling. 

Life insurance is relatively new, and prior to 1774, insurance underwriters, brokers, and shipowners in England would gather at pubs to buy insurance and gamble on lives and cargo lost at sea. This later evolved to gambling on the death of prominent people like kings and ambassadors when they became sick or went out to battle.

It was the Assurance Act of 1774 that finally banned gambling on the lives of strangers and put restrictions on life insurance to those who have a vested interest in that person’s life. Usually meaning children, spouses, or parents. However, there’s been cases of employers taking out insurance on their workers, but that’s for an