Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.
1. Dallas has some bills: Last week, The New York Times had a horrifying article about Dallas’ Fire and Police Pension fund.
The rundown:
- The pension fund was set up with the unrealistic expectation that it would make a 9 percent annual return.
- The fund has unorthodox withdrawal rules which have made some retirees millionaires.
- And now Dallas has a hidden pension debt of about $7 billion, which it can’t pay. Cue bankruptcy.
The latest: Dallas Mayor Rawlings is pissed, so he sent a CYA letter to the fund on Tuesday, asking it to stop some of the most ridiculous withdrawal policies. TBD on how Dallas is going to avoid bankruptcy.
2. YouTube stars: Last night, we went to the Windmill Bar near the Dallas Medical District. Our twinkish bartender told us that he was getting his degree in communications so he could be a YouTube star.
This reminded me of an article from Fusion about the sad economics behind being a mid-level YouTube star. Basically, it’s a “winner-take-all” system where some vloggers are rich and “mid-level” vloggers (with 50k-200k followers) have to wait tables to pay rent.
The Verge has a fascinating article about a specific YouTube vlogger called Connor Manning, who is trying to make it in Hollywood. I think that’s our bartender in two years.