Softbank to invest in Uber?

What is the purpose of this muted investment? Uber hardly needs any cash - except to pay exorbitant 'compensation' to top executives and the existing investors. But basically the drivers ARE all there is to Uber, without them the firm is nothing except a bit of software (which can easily be put in place for a fraction of its valuation, i.e. net asset value of fixtures). All Softbank and its backers want to do is get hold of the stake and sell it to someone else at a later stage - probably the great unwashed public and it agents, the fund management community that will lap up any IPO however inflated the price may be.
People sniggered when MBO's and LBO's came into fashion during the 1980s. Now it is time for the EBO - the Employee Buyout. Unions and Investment Bankers have to team up and take control of business. Let capitalists (lenders, Share owners) control the underlying hard assets but wrest ultimate control from them. As the saying goes: all wheels come to a standstill if the workers don't participate.
BBC

Ban Non-Compete Clauses

Non-compete clauses are a tool that should not have a place in a free-market society. It may help the company/employer but restricts competition. The more suppliers there are for any given product the better for the majority, i.e. the consumers. Why are unions not taking a clear stand on this issue?
noncompete-agreements

Saving Capitalism?

Interesting contribution to the debate about Inequality. But misses some key aspect: there is a myriad of micro-economic and legislative decisions that need to be adjusted: Copyright Laws, Governance of Corporations, Competition Regulation etc.

Working in a Neo-Feudal Corpocracy

Reports about the Work 'Culture' at Amazon puts the spotlight on one aspect that the current version of a Free Market Economy (dubbed 'Capitalism') seems to carry to its logical conclusion: in a world devoid of any moral yardstick the ego of the few controlling the profit maximising at all cost company people are just disposable inputs.
This form of Capitalism has worked surprisingly well for a long time (but so has slavery and feudalism) as the people at the helm (owners or their agents) had some sense of noblesse oblige and were also restrained by some inner moral or societal compass.
Capitalism will always have an image problem as its success seems to be reliant on a Darwinian model of markets: One side wins when the other side loses, i.e. if you want ever-rising profits you have to squeeze the people working for you. But the invisible hand does not work as Adam Smith thought. His model of the economy might work for the neighbourhood bakery. It assumes perfect competition and free entry to the market. When you and your employer clash you just walk down the street and open your own bakery.
And while this model works to some degree - nearly all businesses have competition - it only works to a degree.
As long as the 'Capitalist', the owner of a firm, calls the shots when dealing with an atomised workforce there will not be a proper balance in the business world. In the case of Amazon only a united representation of the workforce will be able to deal with actual or perceived abuses.

Economics for simple Minds - Unions are bad for Growth (Stelzer)

Economics is not an exact science, if it is a science at all. For that reason ideological prejudices are often hidden in simple statements such as this one: 'A Union revival that will hurt Growth' (Irwin Stelzer, The Weekly Standard). 
Unions may well have created all sort of economic and political havoc but before one makes the statement one should first check the facts: was economic growth really slower when union 'power' was higher? And what about the distribution of the growth? What is growth worth if only a very small minority benefits - today's equivalent of the Robber Barons and their hangers-on?