I had a wild notion to go on a hike this morning, but the skies were gray in Fallon, Nevada, with gritty snow flurries settling down reluctantly before dying and turning the streets wet and inhospitable. Cooped up in yet another motel room now for what seems quite a long time between breaks at home, I was left with too much time to think and not enough to act. And my thoughts turned, as they have throughout the chattering classes high and low, to the “Occupy” phenomenon here and abroad.
It’s been too easy, really. Too easy to pillory the paucity of real ideas emanating from the “leaderless” movement that wants, well: Something else. Too easy to point out the venality that re-occurs within every human movement of more than modest size. Too easy to point out the cranks who lie on societies fringes, waiting to latch on to the next procession and beat their bongo drums. Too easy tar the fresh-faced ingenues too easily preyed upon by those who have made their own modest way through life accurately identifying members of the victim classes. Far too easy to compare the kid gloves the “mostly white” Occupy set have been treated by the national media compared to rabid pillorying the “mostly white” tea party middle class received.
Still, something is going on here. Something troubling. I think it’s worth talking about, and for my own part, I believe the heart of it lies in fear, and that fear is turn fed by envy.
Our rising generation was told by their parents, their school teachers, the broader culture that the ticket to success in this country was to work hard in school and get a college degree. Do this, and this alone they were told in an era that preached self-actualization as the highest personal duty, and your success would be assured. Success, it was never quite said out of doors, being measured in various ways.
But with the dumbing down of portions of the academy, and broad access to what ended up being crippling loans, virtually anyone could get a college degree given five to six years. Whether that would be time and money well invested, well: I think we’re watching the result of that experiment play out now in New York, Oakland, Los Angeles and outside Saint Paul’s cathedral in London.
The kids are waking up to something that we’ve understood in San Diego now for at least a decade, perhaps more: The concept of an “hourglass” economy.
Historically, we were stepped in both the mythos and ethos of a pyramid economy, one in which given at least a modicum of talent and drive, one could over time climb the ladder of whatever hierarchy one chose; corporate law or business, medical, military, ecclesiastical. They mythos of the pyramid was what we taught our children was possible, and the ethos of hard work is what made it possible. You had to believe to achieve.
But climbing the corporate ladder was such a bore. So you could opt out of the rat race if you so desired and become an artist if that’s where your muse led you. In fact the counter-culture of the 60s and 70s mythos actively encouraged you to bail on the man, lest you be thought a square. Do your own thing, and so on.
Some of the aging hippies who either foisted that ethos upon others or else bought into it themselves moved into academia, where they they started their own contributions to the Gramscian march through the institutions by passing along their youthful whimsies to the next generation, if not always their own pathway towards genteel academic shabbiness: There are only so many tenure track positions in our universities. The more ambitious among them became entrepreneurs if they had the risk tolerance, since even by the 70s the words “starving artist” had already become cliché. Think of Steve Jobs dropping out of college and building personal computers in his parents’ garage.
But there are variations in the entrepreneurial dream, aren’t there? There’s a vast perceived value as well as economic difference between developing a successful Silicon Valley start-up in the San Francisco Bay area and owning a chain of Maaco dealerships in the San Joaquin Valley. This is true notwithstanding the fact that there is a much greater likelihood for those of modest talents – as most of us are, if we were both truly honest and truly modest – to make a comfortable living and pass something along to the heirs going the Maaco route than there is inventing the next killer app or device. Virtually anyone could run a dry cleaning business if they chose to, there’s good money in it, and everywhere there is a need. Fewer and fewer people seem to want to.
Non college-bound high school seniors could work just about anywhere to get a little stake before starting a trucking business or setting up as an independent contractor, either as an electrician or plumber, trades both essential and lucrative. And there were safe union and government jobs – sometimes both – which promised an ever increasing degree of both modest prosperity in the medium term and secure benefits over the longer horizon. This was work for those who thought too well of themselves to work with a hammer, but who lacked either the talent to make it on their own, or the gritty ambition to climb a corporate ladder. I do not deprecate this final class. Indeed, I count myself among them.
In San Diego’s hourglass economy by contrast, there was not a single pyramid of economic success, but rather two of them, a conventional one consisting of the service economy; a broad base of dishwashers and maids with English-as-a-second language challenges, used car salesmen, hairdressers, tourist trade employees and fast-food servers. Atop the apex of this relatively flat pyramid was another, smaller one. But this second pyramid was inverted. It consisted of the wildly successful moneyed classes; businessmen, doctors, lawyers, real estate executives, biotechnology scientists and engineers.
(It’s also too easy to say, well: The OWS should not have wasted their academic careers on comparative literature or gender studies and instead gone to MIT, UCLA, Stanford. But not everyone, as was pointed out in comments earlier, was meant to be an engineer. Indeed, I was not: I studied political science at the Naval Academy, and were it not for the happy fact that I was offered the opportunity to do what it appears that I was meant to do and fly airplanes – which is not something that I affirmatively knew at the time – who knows? Perhaps today I too would be shivering in Zuccotti Park, banging on a bongo drum and hoping to share sleeping bags with one of the less noisome coeds. The road not taken does not always lead to greener pastures.)
This inverted pyramid is the “income disparity” issue that has so twisted into a bunch the panties of the Occupy set. Their empty slogans are echoed by soi-disant fellow travelers on the radical left who in reality view them as useful idiots offering one last opportunity to smash the state. And finally, they would be exploited, if they allowed themselves to be, by those who would turn their inchoate passions into the kind of lasting political power that makes capital flow away from useful purposes to be instead swallowed whole by the self-serving occupants of the metropolitan capitol.
The issue of income disparity has come to the forefront not merely because of persistent joblessness, but because of the fear – and this may indeed be a valid fear – that the tenuous linkage between the bottom pyramid and the top one in an hourglass economy has been broken. Businesses have become flat, there are fewer and fewer “middle managers” hoping to one day get the keys to the executive washroom: The corporate ladder has been all but pulled up. And in an economy which fairly screams for two-parent household incomes, secretarial jobs and the like have just about vanished. On the blue collar side of the equation – apart from their unseemly presence in the public sector – unions are far reduced from their days of glory, and they went down taking the manufacturing sector with them.
So long as there was the prospect of upward economic achievement, we tended not to resent the successes of the rich and very rich. Indeed, we hoped one day – perhaps against the odds – to join them. But when the two pyramids become air-gapped, as may have happened if we are indeed in a structural realignment of capital flows, goods and services rather than a cyclical recession, the prospect of upward mobility becomes not mythos which drives ethos, but a myth that drives anomie.
Hence the envy. The Occupy crowd doesn’t want to own and operate a gas station in Akron. They want a loft in Tribeca, and lacking any plausible means to buy it, they’d like to take yours. Or have the government give it to them. Envy, we used to be informed back in the old days, is a sin.
We don’t teach much about sin, anymore.
We are still a great nation, none greater, more wealthy, nor more powerful. Our janitors and farm hands use their smoke breaks to check the FaceBook pages on their iPhones. There is no hunger as the rest of the world understands the term, virtually no real material want outside of those toxic islands of dysfunction which the generous hand of well-intended government first created and now subsidizes. Ours is the land – uniquely, in human history – where the poor are fat.
The fact that the Occupy set are more intrenched at Wall Street than they are outside the White House leads us to the reluctant conclusion that their anger is misplaced, and indeed wrong-headed: They look for rescue to a government that lives in cheerful symbiosis with Wall Street to save them by re-distributing money from the “1%” to, well: Themselves. Which, regardless of who holds the political reins in Washington, will never happen. You don’t kill the golden goose, not if you want to be re-elected.
And even if they did, what’s the point? In 2007, the net worth of US citizens was $54 trillion. If the top one percent owns 34.6% of that wealth, that’s roughly $19.7 trillion. Spread that among 308 million of us and you get a one-time payment of $64,033, rounding up. Nothing to sneeze about, to be sure, but it won’t pay junior’s college debt, and what are you going to do next year? Working for whom?
No, the problem is, as Mark Steyn writes, that big government makes for small citizens. They subsidized bad mortgage debt that drove the financial system nearly to destruction, and are in the process of subsidizing educational debt that has done little to improve our store of intellectual capital and global competitiveness but rather stands ready to enslave a generation. And they’re not done yet!
Or as Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings
As many have noticed, there is an interesting intersect between the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party folks and the OWS types: Both were none too pleased with the bailout of many banks and brokerage firms by first the Bush administration, followed by that of Dear Leader. Of course the difference is, the OWS folks, in general cry that we need more government oversights and control of the economy and the Tea Party folks say that this is an example of governmental over-reaching. Oh, and the Tea Party people then went back to work the next morning.
I used to love talking to the many different shades and stripes of Marxists in the Bay Area, back int he day. The twists and turns of logic they used to fit the world’s facts to fit their theoretical constructs were indeed amusing. But, every so often, they’d find some nugget or another. And, of course, many were comfortably ensconced nuzzling up to the teat of academic security. Here is a work by an avowed Marxist law school prof (boy, the twists he must tie himself into) that points out, as you do, that the vast bulk of the OWS types are simply people angry that they’re NOT part of the 1%; that somehow they’ve been “cheated” out of wealth and prosperity. Something to do until the Bolts game comes on, if it does, on hotel cable in beautiful, downtown Fallon: http://volokh.com/2011/10/31/the-fragmenting-of-the-new-class-elites-or-downward-mobility/
Oh, and a final observation: It appears that the ex-Marine (and I use that term advisably) so badly injured in Oakland, was most very likely a victim not of OPD brutality, but of friendly fire. Once various Internal Affairs reports started coming in, and more video started being scrutinized, a lot of questions are starting to be raised. http://lanterloon.com/?p=1139 Of course, so as to cement the OPD-as-goons meme, they do something that looks like this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45176111#.Trb033KwVic
Lex, I think it goes farther than that.
First, as Dr. Pournelle has been wont to point out, most people are just not suited for a profession. They lack the talent to handle the education required. This does not make them bad people, merely that they should look elsewhere for a career. Many can make a good career out of a trade – and there is a reason why plumbers drive Porsches. Skilled craftsmen are always in demand.
Second, we have created a culture that teaches young people that high school and college are supposed to be one long party. An 8-year festival of drink, drugs, and partying. The handful who forego these pleasures to study the hard sciences are scorned as greasy grinds…or worse. Then they graduate into the cold light of the real world, and discover that a B.A. in Partying is worth nothing.
The third is the triumph of crony capitalism. The modern road to riches is no longer hard work, keen reasoning, or subtle wisdom. It is to have the Government legislate you rich. Doing so presupposes a certain amount of access to the chambers of power. In other words, those who are powerful and well-connected increase their fortune, and those who do not fund themselves hosed. Goldman Sachs isn’t called “Government Sachs” for nothing.
The real question is whether reform is possible without an American version of the French Revolution. And the OWS types, not being terribly well versed in history, forget the fate of Robespierre.
On the other hand, I might be able to make money with a Rent-A-Guillotine service.
Another great link from Dr Pournelle’s site is the “Gods of the Copybook Headings” by Kipling
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm (read the whole thing)
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I have a copy of Dr. Pournelle’s “Iron Law of Bureaucracy.”
on my wall in my office..
Anyone who has worked for on in any Governmental agency has
ran right into this…
Dang, Cap’n, you need to be bored more often. GREAT piece. Well thought out, well reasoned, well written. Here is a take by a talking head professional that somewhat converges with your statement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAOrT0OcHh0&feature=player_embedded#!
Thanks Joe, good link.
Paul
Lex:
As one of our English cousins might say, too right. A good analysis of how we have come to such a pass. The question now becomes, what do we do going forward?
I think that my preference is rather more harsh than many, if not most (all?) of your other readers would choose. However, in the real world, I plan on watching to see how events proceed in the next 12 months to the next federal election. I hope that more of my fellow citizens make better choices than were made in November of 2008.
I have great fears and few hopes for the safety of the republic which we hold dear. I truly hope that my fears are misplaced and my hopes come to pass.
Paul
I can’t say that I entirely agree with your analysis, but I am quite happy to see you stop taking the easy, cheap shots at the clowns and try to grok what’s actually going on. Because for all the clowns, mountebanks and carpetbaggers riding the OWS movement, there is something going on here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY&feature=related Kinda fits, it does.
Zane, there is indeed ‘something going on.’ The problem is that no one seems to have any idea what. Or who is leading “it,” whatever “it” happens to be. And there must be leaders – this thing was organized to a T starting back in April, maybe earlier.
Even at the start of it, the mindless “We…Are…the99percent!” chant. When asked, all the protesters had, within a few ‘well, like, you knows’ the exact same answer, which was nothing but slogans about the 1% controlling everything and the 99% needing to take it back.
The Occupy crowd resembles the protesters of the 60s and early 70s about the same way a BD-5 resembles a Super Hornet (or even a Kfir). Yeah, they both have jet engines, wings, fuselage, and control surfaces, but they aren’t really the same thing.
BD-10. The 5 was powered, normally, by a recip.
I think the BD-5 had a jet powered version, BD-5J:
While the new Hirth engine was being tested, Bede decided to create an unconventional variant of the BD-5 with a small jet engine. The result was the sleek BD-5J, a 300 mph (480 km/h) aircraft. The design used the Sermel TRS-18-046 turbojet (now Microturbo, a division of Turbomeca), which produced 225 lbs of thrust and was used on a Caproni certified motorglider design.
There were both piston and jet-powered versions.
I stand corrected. Corky Fornoff campaigned one along with a Bellanca Viking for a few years on the air show circuit. I saw the Viking for sure, and may have seen the BD-5J, but can’t remember for sure.
Joe, just digging on the music. I wish OWS was a spontaneous movement of the sheeple suddenly understanding how the banking / financial system exists to enslave them with debt, and to fight back by FTSU methods against the traps laid out for us. But it’s not, and OWS is becoming an easy distraction–only stupid anthropology majors with big debts and no prospects at Seattle’s Best are OWS, aren’t they stupid, they should have gotten engineering degrees and just gotten in line. The criticism of the clowns distracts from the real threat of the plutonomy.
Florida Mom Leaves 4 Kids & Banker Husband to Live at #OWS Dump
And from the NY Post article on her:
((can’t wait to see the sparks fly over that comment))
Linked at Chicago Boyz
I’m going to be a heretic here and say we need more unions–in the rest of the world, that is. From the industrial revolution until sometime in the late seventies (you pick the date) our economic system was basically a closed loop system encompassing mainly the english-speaking world plus the rest of Europe, and, post WW II Japan and isolated parts of S. America. The rest of the world was, for all intents and purposes, living in the stone age (relatively speaking–I’m using a broad brush here for illustrative purposes.) having little or no effect on this closed-loop/system economy. This meant that relatively high wages could be paid to workers by companies w.o. fear of being undercut by lower wage competition as, relatively-speaking, all nations were roughly at the same economic stage so that separation by time and distance meant that America could maintain across-the-board high wage levels such that blue-collar workers were monetarily (if not socially) brought into the middle-class yet America could still remain competitive with lower wage nations because of comparative advantage afforded by our better-educated workforce viz the cost of shipping from lower wage sectors. And, in a pre-computer, pre-digital information technology age of electro-mechanical switching, etc., huge numbers of “middle-managers” were needed in organizations to make the whole economic/financial process work.
However, over time the rest of the world has caught up by a) devoting themselves to education and training of it’s citizens to the extent that the gap between them and those educated in the closed system has largely narrowed or is in some cases non-existent, and b) the internationalization of trade made possible by advanced communication and transportation technology and the lowering of tariffs has created the “penetrated state” or open system where b.1) goods flow freely and b.2) other nations no longer have just a “comparative advantage” (i.e., low cost, but inferior product, etc.) but now maintain an ABSOLUTE advantage due to being able to produce lower-priced goods of the same or superior quality and get them to market in America in a timely and cost-competitive fashion. Combine this with the digital age of computers which has enabled corporations to eliminate much of the need for “middle-mgt” and it’s vast support system (e.g., think “secretarial typing pools”) and not only have well-paying jobs “disappeared” due to manufacturing being moved to lower-cost foreign climes, but they have been eliminated by technology in the US as well. Thus in an “open system” of competitive world trade where our competition is ALWAYS the low-cost bidder, no one’s job is safe in America as long as there is a single Bolivian tin miner willing to quintuple his dollar/day wage (or whatever it is) by assembling washers and dryers for Whirlpool for 5 dollars/day. Thus my inescapable conclusion is that the only solution is for American unions to agitate (with the help of American government) for better pay and working conditions for workers in foreign countries via unionization, thus restoring some rough parity between manufacturing costs among nations. But union bosses are loath to do this least they be accused by their members of spending money on “the opposition.”
Of course, this means the end of cheap goods/clothes, etc at Target, Wal-Mart and the like and the end of the $50 dollar Chinese or Malayan-made silk sport and the return of the $300 silk sport coat, but if it meant higher-paying American jobs (and more of them) here in America, people could afford to pay the higher costs. A $50 silk sport-coat is still made of “unobtainium” even at that low cost for people who don’t have a job paying wages of any kind..
The alternative, of course, is to raise protective tariffs–but that would set off deleterious trade wars doing no one much good while depriving people of desirable goods/services at any price.
Not so much unions, but there is a good argument for restricting trade with non-peer states. I’ve no problems pitting American workers against Canadian, Japanese, Korean, German, or British workers. We all operate under pretty much the same rules, with the same overhead. Against China? It’s tough to compete with a Chinese sweatshop.
VX, if I’m following your logic, you seem to be suggesting an action (promoting unions elsewhere)that would drag the overall prosperity of the rest of the world down. Is this so? And if so, how do you mesh this logic with the pseudo-Lincoln quote, that “You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.”?
My own take is that the best course for us all is to be pro-trade, pro-voluntary exchange, pro-free-contract of whatever sort insofar as the opposite is detrimental.
But with respect to Lex’s ponderings over sin, and the fault being in ourselves, if the diagnosis is a flawed human nature prone to greed, envy, sloth, and irresponsibility, there is no real and permanent cure to be found in treating the symptoms of poor institutions such as education or poor leaders prone to the same disease. It would seem that the cure would require a more fundamental change in human nature.
I know of no philosophy, nor any faith that both recognizes this “we are slaves to sin” nature and promises that it can be cured in our present age. Christianity acknowledges the first, but almost no other faith or philosophy, that would rather promote the perfectibility of man. And the Son of God taught that it is not our job to “separate the tares from the wheat”, nor even that we can reach sinless perfection ourselves in the here and now. Instead, we are promised hope of a better world only in the world to come: “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them”
I suspect Lex is pining as do most all of us, for an end to evil.
“Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When my way grows drear
Precious Lord linger near
When my life is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When the darkness appears
And the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand
Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home”
There is something going on and I hope it leads to change. One of the ways the problem you identify get accelerated is the fact the the financial markets keep evolving to dream up more sophisticated ways to make money without the benefit of generating any lasting wealth in the process. Steven Pearlstein in the WPO tells of a coming commodities bubble driven by derivatives and such being created in the trading of agricultural commodities and such. Now I am all for capital creation but think that when the objective is just to make money without creating capital to actually create anything of underlying value (in this case more corn, etc.) then our system has stopped serving the many (including those who never invest in the market but indirectly reap its benefits) at the expense of the few in on the game.
The government is so corrupt that it can’t be an honest broker or regulator so we end up with things like the housing bubble that destroy everything in its wake.
The dream has been shattered and fear – rational or not – is showing its ugly head. And our so-called leaders just fan the flames being part of the corrupt system they depend on for power.
Its hard to see this working out well without major upheaval.
There is something going on and it will rock our world such that we likely won’t recognize it in a few years, decades, whatever.
I’m fearful as well.
You might enjoy this. https://admin.minyanville.com/assets/FCK_Aug2007/File/Pics9/zero%20hour%20febr%202003.pdf
The point of it being that when the government takes on debt, it needs to create payback in GDP growth. And as seen in the chart, this has been a downhill slide for quite a while. It seems to me just off the cuff as a WAG, that the massive spending now is what happens in the end game of everything that simply stops working and is a futile attempt to restart a dead horse.
The down side is that we are going to retreat west of Suez.
We will leave that turbulent place and withdraw east of Hawaii.
One of the main causes of the “hourglass” effect is the almost insane level of reverence for **credentials** that has developed in the last couple of decades. This has had the effect of stalling out many talented people at much less than their full potential. I’m quite sure there are some very good bank branch managers who will not be considered for regional manager positions because they don’t have a college degree and excellent region managers who won’t be considered for headquarters VP jobs because they don’t have an MBA.
One of the main justifications for the vastly increased education spending in America since WWII was that it would improve social mobility. The original GI bill did indeed seem to do this, but of late the phenomenon has been working in reverse.
David/
As I’ve said here before, we have the ACLU & NAACP in large part to thank for this when they went to court to get employer-based job-application IQ & aptitude tests
banned as “discriminatory.” Ever since employers have used the college degree as a proxy, thus sending many to college to seek the requisite “credential/”train-ticket” to get on board at entry-level status–positions that used to be filled by intelligent HS graduates with potential but who were either not inclined to seek a college career or not intellectually cut out for the academic life. Hence the sight of Poli-Sci major graduates from BA to PhD as night managers at the Holiday Inn..
Griggs vs. Duke Power?
Oh, don’t get me started on that one. It’s one of the reasons smart competent Aspies can’t get jobs; the deciding factor in hiring is no longer any kind of objective test, but rather the social impression on the HR twat with but a dial tone in her head.
+1 on that point. I have an Aspie in my household that has good work skills, just not good social skills, so I wonder about his future.
Part of the OWS issue is these 20 somethings have never known a time when things were tough and they had to work for it…..Their parents handed them everything, and working mowing lawns or shoveling snow for pocket money was something they never experienced as they grew up.
We went through tough times as we grew and learned to deal with adversity…..These chumps want it all and they want it delivered.
Good prose Cap….better than mine but the sense of entitlement is the root of our problems….none of these OWS types worked hard for anything, least of all our country.
My Mom once said to me, she thought the worst invention for civilization was the television. She said growing up in her neighborhood, that’s what she knew, her surroundings. Some had a car, some did not, everyone’s lawns could be seen, and you knew only who had what… in your neighborhood, unless of course you ventured on the bus and maybe ended up somewhere else, and saw something different. With the television, the disparities and differences came into your home. You saw people with better clothes, better homes, more cars. You saw the wealth… it came INTO your home. It was invited in. She said no more were the disparities imagined or sometimes noticed, but instead seen regularly. I suspect there is much truth to what she says.
Bou
I might add the air conditioner to that list. Used to be that you sat out on the front porch and said “evening, how y’all doing?” to your neighbors. And you would talk. and learn their names. Cars weren’t air conditioned so at the stop light you said “hey” to the couple in the car next to you with the rolled down windows. You had a sense of community. And the local banker was there to HELP, not earn a 12 million bonus while asking for a 6 billion handout like Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.
If the OWS can change the system so that people like Corzine actually go to jail, their BS methods will be worth it. But without the support of the 4th estate in providing accurate reporting(rapes included), the needed message will be lost in the touchy-feelyness of the moment.
Air conditioning definitely changed places like S. TX and S. FL. People wouldn’t be living in S. FL like they are now, if not for air conditioning. It’s not that our summers are hotter, their just hotter… forever.
I grew up in S. FL, mostly without air conditioning. We managed.
That is why you type soooo slllloooooowlllllyyyyyyy. And with a funny accent.
Very true… but the average person is not so hardy. I think we’d not have the huge development we have right now.
Without air conditioning, Congress would only meet for a few months of the year.
I look at these occupy videos, and mostly what I see are people who know they’re being screwed, but not exactly by whom of how, but unfortunately, their main feeling is that other people have a lot more than they do, and they want some of it because it just isn’t fair. There’s that word again.
On the one hand as you pointed out, America is certainly one of the few places where individuals can succeed and rise to any level imaginable.
On the other hand, the big central banks really are raping us with telephone poles, aided by the government and the ‘fed’.
If history gets written accurately on this, I believe it will illustrate mankind being screwed to a level never seen before, albeit a non-violent screwing.
The danger is the mob effect of course. And it’s not like most of these brainiacs were rational to begin with.
I believe it will illustrate mankind being screwed to a level never seen before
Actually, even with as ‘bad’ as things are now, we are nowhere near being at “a level never seen before.”
Some of it is some unfairness that has developed in the system. But, I think, most of it is the perception people have now, and the expectations they have had trained into them through a twisting of “all men are created equal” to mean, rather than equality in law and before God, an equality of wealth.
You touched on it – it is somehow unfair that some have more than others. And the feeling that the State is somehow supposed to fix any unfairness. Unfortunately, the only way for the State to “fix” the situation is to pretty much eliminate private property, gather up everything, and then distribute it evenly. Which eliminates incentive.
Joe, I’m not sure if you misread me or not. I don’t think life should be fair let alone that it ever was or will be. “Take what you have and make what you can make out of it is the best that can be done” is about as good as it gets on this rock for the vast majority and I have no complaint with it. I never asked for a free dime, never got one and certainly don’t even think about it, unless the subject comes up.
fwiw, since a lot of people don’t know, as of a couple years ago, the Fed had bought 30+ trillion dollars of worthless mortgage paper from the banks foreign and domestic and put it on their balance sheet, exchanging it for treasures which do have value. The mortgage paper will never have any value since most of it was never even tied to physical property.
The Fed said last week, Nov 2 I believe, that it is considering buying more of this toxic waste to stimulate the economy.
They say the total $ or derivatives and actual value around the world is around 600 trillion, so 30 trillion plus what they have exchanged since and will into the future is certainly non-trivial. Someone will have to pay that back. That will be us. IN the form of higher taxes, inflation, dollar and asset deflation or something, it will be paid back. That was my focus when I wrote the line you quoted.
Kid, I didn’t misread you, and I didn’t think you in any way think that life should be fair.
I was disagreeing with your view that “If history gets written accurately on this, I believe it will illustrate mankind being screwed to a level never seen before,” and giving my take on why the Occupiers have the expectations they do. Sorry that I wasn’t more clear on that.
Ok Sir. Well, I hope You are right about this one.
I look at the unemployment numbers (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/05/most-us-unemployed-no-longer-receive-benefits/?test=latestnews), figure in the underemployed and the those in the educational pipeline and fear that desperate people will take desperate measures. Not sure what, but something bad is just over the horizon, and it’s getting closer.
I feel the same way. I know that something is coming, I can feel it deep in the pit of my stomach. And we need to be prepared – for whatever comes.
As for the OWS – when it becomes more apparent everyday that many of them come from the very lives of privilege at which they balk, when there is a small group of them in NYC who want to take $500,000 in donations and keep it for themselves to set up a super-secret group – they lose their credibility and show their true colors. It’s not necessarily about income inequality as much as it’s about getting some for themselves.
I think that all that needs be said here has been said before and my men much more eloquent than I so I shall simply post their words…
Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built. – Abraham Lincoln in a March 21st 1864 address
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your earn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. – William J. H. Boetcker
Lex you segue reminds me of a scene in 12 O’Clock High. Gen Savage turns to his Ground Exec and says “Harvey, I believe you’re drunk!” The Ground exec, during his response says “I’ve been thinking, which not a good thing for a man to do….”
However, at times it’s not something you can escape easily. Now that your’re a flyboy again, but no admin duties to take care of. No paperwork to hold you down.
There are bad things, very bad things, on the way. Gerald Celente has predicted some bad stuff, and so far has been pretty much on the button. Those kids on the street know something is wrong, but their education has been bloody poor they haven’t a clue.
Those of us that do have something of an effective education, also know something is very wrong, and many of us see what’s coming.
Hold on to family and your network of friends, because they are going to mean a lot more than they mean now in the very near future.
And get out of Kalifornia, the urban areas of the left coast, most of New England, New York, New Jersey, NE PA, Philadelphia, and Chicago. I’d also get out of San Antonio, Houston, DFW, New Orleans and the big cities of Florida, and Atlanta. Those places are going to light up in flame.
This crash will not be the quiet one of the 30s.
See, you got me thinking again too Lex, and it isn’t a good thing.
Good Lord, Quartermaster — 12 O’Clock High!
I remember seeing that movie when I was quite young, and still recall that scene at the beginning when the main character revisits the airfield, walks out on the runway and wipes his foot on an oil-stained patch…
and then the roar of the B17 engines swell in the soundtrack and you are transported back in time.
I love that movie!
Yes indeed! I have it on DVD. The local Big Boxmart had it in the $5 bin and I snapped it right up. Just had the VHS for years.
Two things struck me this morning at about the same time as Lex began his cogitations, and they were both triggered by listening to NPR, something I find difficult to avoid because of my wife’s affection for it on weekend mornings.
1. The relentless hammering home in the media of the meme of the hopeless college grad, underemployed and overloaded with debt. This is clearly a massive scam by Wall Street millionaires and conservatives, because those classes dominate the academ… oh, wait. Why aren’t they “occupying” their alma maters and asking why there are twice the number of functionaries per student as there was only a few years ago? If they have a gripe about captialists – isn’t it against those in the eductation industry?
2. While it is engaging in industrial espionage across the world, China is also beginning to lose the ability to prevent its people from talking about democracy and a multi-party system. And the rosy patina lovingly painted on China by American liberals applies only to a very tiny minority they like to show us – most Chinese are desparately poor and downtrodden when compared to almost any American, and certainly the Occupiers. I wonder what will happen to the US labor market when the manure comes into contact with the rotating ventilation device in China? Same question for the Euro-zone, with somewhat less (but still non-zero) potential for bloodshed. Could it be that we are about to see a great retrenchment of US industrial power, as our two great aspirational rivals drive themselves into the ditch?
We are watching the end of education being considered “good debt” for youngsters to saddle themselves with as they go through life. Colleges filled with PhD economists and no one foresaw the consequences of easy money visa via educational loans and the spiraling increase in tuition…we have created a class of ex-Students who are saddled with such a heavy student loan debt that they cannot get out from under it.
I graduated in the late 80′s…within 15 years the tuition at my alma mater had TRIPLED ! Does anyone seriously think that the value of an undergraduate education tripled in the same time frame?
I have gone back to school for the MBA…when I counsel youngsters about going back to get their MBA, I tell them that “how you pay for your MBA is your first test as an MBA student” – if you are smart you will get someone else to pay for your MBA (as I did…).
I actively advocate youngsters to avoid college unless they have a specific goal that requires a college education. They are much better served by becoming plumbers or electricians….I have yet to meet an unemployed plumber.
True that.
I work in plumbing supply and know a few who should be. Plumbers who seem unable to grasp that water runs downhill. Yet again and again and again, they are employed.
Lex,
Add to paragraph 4: “And everyone got a medal for participating, whether they had talent/skill or not.”
Whey they discover the real world doesn’t play by that rule, they’re very sad.
Great post. Actually I briefly felt like a chicken in the barnyard, scratching around the dirt to find a small kernel I could counter and debate. But there wasn’t any…. until you mentioned “envy,” and everything thereafter!
It is not “envy.” It is about fairness and legitimate opportunity for all. How do you know the OWS crowd “doesn’t want to own and operate a gas station?” I’ll bet they do. Nevertheless the young campers are not representative of the movement. However their protested items are supported by a majority of Americans who are not there.
Yes we are a great nation. But we are slipping. Many countries now exceed us in various ideal measurements where we used to lead. We are not as great as we once were, nor is our ever-brighter future assured. Our children do not expect the future to be as bright as we did when we were young, and with reason. The are upset, and perhaps rightly so. We lied to them. “Get a good education, get a good job, and live the American dream.” That has turned out to be a lie. When I am lied to, my natural reaction is anger, too.
Why aren’t the OWS’ers camped out in front of the White House? (Although maybe they should be?) Because the majority of the blame lies within Wall Street. That OWS is now a multinational phenomenon shows that it is an international financial debacle more than a mere US, Washington debacle. Lots of blame to spread, but Wall Street shares the majority. Yet they still are making money while the country and the world suffers, financially.
Steyn’s quips about big government are cute, but irrelevant. It was the repeal of Glass-Steagal (yes I know the president at the time) if it did not cause this crisis had the majority of blame.
This is not about income redistribution. Nor is it about how the occupiers may smell. The issues involved in this are real, and need to be addressed and resolved. Taxpayer bailouts, lobbyists, campaign finance, income divergence, corporatocracy, unregulated casino financial operations, corruption, broken promises of the American Dream, etc.
Anyone who watched 60 Minutes tonight with lobbyist felon, Jack Abramoff should learn just a slice of what the OWS revolt is about.
The system is gamed for the rich and powerful, and our country at large is suffering. Look around.
I agree with many of your points, fliterman, but do you agree with mine? (see above)
The fix does not completely lie in regulation, if the regulators can be captured. Thus neither “let’s regulate ‘em” Democrats nor “crony capitalist” Republicans have the answer if anyone, government or corporate, has power to control the affairs of others.
Or do you believe in the perfectibility of man? Diogenes, call your office…
Bill K. – No.
Let me see if I have this right, Flit. You are saying that it is the fault of business that the politicians caved and created the business climate we now have? The capons in office are not responsible?
I guess it isn’t the dogs fault that it ate the roast that was left down where he could get it either.
Lex’s insightful analysis should receive wider distribution. It is on the level of Mark Steyn’s work.
And, I share QM’s fears about the future unrest which is finding roots now in the occupier dissidents. They do not know what they are unhappy about, or what to do about it, but they will be the mass of bodies eventually aroused into violent action by someone, something and probably some lie.
Historical events are not aways driven by truth or facts or logic. [Salem Witch trials comes to mind.]
We are on the precipice of the class warfare which the liberal, and especially Obama-like community organizers and financiers like George Soros have been fomenting for years.
This will get ugly, very ugly, and will take several generations to overcome, and mere votes at the ballot box are likely insufficient to head it off. But, we need to try that and hope that it might.
And never pay the Dane geld and hope that it will provide safety or security for it will do neither, only encourage more demands. Like negotiating with terrorists. Funding the welfare plantation is but Dane geld by the liberals and their big government statist allies.
There’s a certain economic underpinning here that deserves some consideration.
First, the engineers vs artists or chemists vs. poly sci debate can be framed in purely economic terms. The more rare your skill set, the fewer people you are competing against given a specific demand for those skills. This is pure supply and demand. We’ve already transitioned from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, where skilled machinists and welders are having a tough time finding work. For the low-skilled but more populous laborer, it’s really tough. And unfortunately college graduates are low-skilled labor until they’ve worked in the job for a few years. This is even true of engineers — there are tons of folks who have engineering degrees but relatively few who are Professional Engineers (www.nspe.org). What we had been promised would place us at the head of the line is an expensive chit that everybody else seems to have.
Second, while I still believe one can work their way up and attain glory and riches and respect, crony capitalism has ever been with us and serves to discourage. It’s not just the high executive salaries, or the fact that board members grant millions to what appear to be idiots, it’s also that we do not understand the reasons for this disconnect so to us it looks like crony capitalism, fascism, call it what you will but somebody is picking winners and losers and not by the criteria we were told to work towards.
For example, Lee Iacocca famously delivered the Mustang and Escort to Ford, was fired, and went to Chrysler where in the midst of bankruptcy he garnered a loan guarantee from the Congress, introduced the K-car, the minivan, and Chrysler paid that loan back 7 years early. For his efforts Lee was paid 1 dollar of salary and a whole lot of stock options and bonuses for goals met. Nobody has ever said the man wasn’t worth the money paid him. Yet time and again we see companies losing money, market share, and paying millions for the leadership to do that. Take, say, Carly Fiorina, who was once head of the Fortune 20 giant Hewlett Packard and was paid $20 million to resign. There are few who think they couldn’t have run HP into the ground just as well for only a couple of million. To top it off she presently sits on the boards of several other companies.
When one sees so many at the top of the pyramid exhibiting subsidized failure and utter incompetence, that crony capitalism charge sticks. Hard work and ability and education mean less than who you went to school with and which board members you happen to know. This distress is not solely with the OWS crowd, we see it across all classes. This is the root of the fairness claim: when I screw up I lose my job, when Carly Fiorina screws up she gets $20 million.
Finally, have we any entrepeneurs left? A couple of hundred years ago 90% of our population worked the land, their security was family and friends and their risks and rewards depended upon the weather and the land. From that it’s fairly easy to step into running a gas station or doing plumbing or hanging out a shingle and opening a general store insofar as the risk of failure is no greater.
Now only 4% work the land and know that risk. Most go to a job each day, expect a paycheck every two weeks, and if that check doesn’t cash they look to unemployment and food stamps and the other social safety net provisions to get by until they can find another job that pays. There are still a lot of small businesses out there, still a lot of people who earn their living independently driving a truck or doing plumbing or painting or electrical work or cutting hair and God bless them for their independence, but there are far more drawing a paycheck than writing them, and even fewer who pay themselves.
That, it seems to me, is the greatest failure in our system. We’ve tried to reduce risk but in doing so we’ve lost that spirit of independence. We’ve traded risk and opportunity for security and dependency. We expect a job, not to start a company or buy a franchise.
I tried working for myself and had the bleeding ulcer to show for it, then punted and started working for somebody else. My grandfather, in contrast, farmed, then worked for himself as a blacksmith, built and operated a general store, sold the store and retired to welding up “pups” (those trailers that are attached to dump trucks), all while a family of 9 was dependent upon his income to buy the groceries.
In an age where providing health insurance and Medicare dominates the election advertisements, I wonder if we haven’t become so risk-adverse that we no longer consider working for ourselves as a possibility? That we go to college in hopes of somebody paying us for our knowledge, only to find out there’s a lot of other graduates and fewer still signing paychecks and needing our services?
– Max
A few days ago, I was talking to my pastor. He mentioned that he wished he’d been in America for the The Great Boom in the fifties and sixties, because it must have been wonderful.
I assured him that that was so. My first 20 years on the planet co-incided almost exactly with the fifties and sixties, and yes I and everything else were getting better every day in every way, all through that period.
Heck, in the sixties it was possible to make a pretty good living SURFING!
Too right, Lex. And to that last quote, I would add a further from the same lips/quill:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
“Of course, this means the end of cheap goods/clothes, etc at Target, Wal-Mart and the like and the end of the $50 dollar Chinese or Malayan-made silk sport and the return of the $300 silk sport coat, but if it meant higher-paying American jobs (and more of them) here in America, people could afford to pay the higher costs.”
Isn’t that just a longer way of saying “inflation”?
Perhaps it means Americans should relearn the old depression era adminishment about thrift and wants versus needs:
“Use it up, wear it out, or do without.”
Maybe we don’t actually “need” all the cool toys, latest fashions, etc.
After the “super committee” comes out with its changes and taxes and inflation kick in we will be lucky to have enough buying power for subsistence level living. (If you actually work, but the dependent class will still get their enticements to vote for the liberals.)
No, not in the least. Inflation is the deliberate theft of your earnings by increasing the supply of money with no corresponding increase in the supply of assets. Governments call it “issuing bonds” and they like it because it allows them to “make” money and spend it without raising taxes (raising taxes sometimes is met with raised pitchforks or raised long rifles, something governments don’t desire), and banks, who buy the bonds and then sell them back to the UST, make interest and commissions every step of the way through the bond’s life, and through the life of the bond that replaces that 10-year bond, and so on into infinity. Or compete economic collapse, whichever comes first.
Sir,
You wrote, “were it not for the happy fact that I was offered the opportunity to do what it appears that I was meant to do and fly airplanes, perhaps today I too would be shivering in Zuccotti Park.” I want to say that you weren’t offered…you earned the opportunity to be offered through hard work. There is a distinct difference.
As a recent college grad who attended both civilian university and the boat school…I disagree with your assertion and many of the comments on here that higher education has turned into some sort of 6 year party where upon graduation you are kicked to the door with a worthless degree and nothing to show; that a degree is required to do well in life. College is what you make of it. If you chose to waste your time…well you lack ambition and your job expectations should be pretty low. I partied my A$$ off in college, at least before I got locked in Bancroft, but I had goals and I knew I couldn’t waste my time.
The theory of a “hour-glass” structure is misplaced as well. Society has become more stratified…but there is no barrier to reaching the top except your attitude and your genetics. In fact, as time has progressed there are less and less barriers I would argue, and more and more the onus is entirely upon the individual to prove his worth. The % of CEO’s with no more than a high school diploma in 1900 was 60%, and in 1976 it was almost 0%. The % of CEO’s in 1976 with a graduate degree was 65% from almost 0% in 1900. In 1900 the CEO was likely have been born in affluence, the son of a business exec and a WASP, and in 1976 the proportion of CEOs who were born from wealthy families had dropped to 5.5% (The Bell Curve pg 58).
Society has become more stratified and that is where this false theory of a “hourglass” economy has come from. Those with higher IQs, regardless of the laws prohibiting IQ tests on job applications, are being hired in the more difficult executive leadership positions. Apple and Google’s job application is more of a programming quiz…can you solve the hard programming question? If so, than maybe we’ll hire you. It’s a SUDO IQ test. Executives at corporations aren’t looking for “middle managers” to fill their shoes…They want leaders. OWS is p’d off because they are realizing this stratification and focus on the individual..they may have been able to get a certain job before, with their certain skill set and IQ, but today, that job is not available to them. It is not available because society has become better at picking out the top performers. Say what you want about higher education, but a student who excels with a double major at MIT shows me ambition, skill and hard work. A good recommendation from a previous employer shows me he can apply that in the workforce. I’d hire him over someone without a college degree, or from a “lesser” college any day and I’d pay him more. This is called business. Everyone has a plateau–a point at which harder work does not equal more money, and it is because they have reached the peak of their abilities.
According to the NYTIMES the top 10% of American families have a starting combined income of $108,000. Soooo $54,000 per spouse? That isn’t hard at all. Hourglass economy? I don’t think so. Have a slightly above average income, marry someone else with a slightly above average income and presto. You are in the top 10% of American families.
Capitalism isn’t about “giving everyone a chance.” It’s about using skills, leadership, experience, and IQ to make money. Not everyone has a chance, because not everyone possesses those traits or ever will.
This went on far too long. I have a flight to prep for.
Thanks for chipping in Ryan, congratulations on your graduation from an elite institution of higher learning, and good luck on your hop!
I don’t disagree with most of what you said, coming as I did from basically the same background. But not everyone can get into the Boat School, where everyone who successfully completes the four-year program is not only guaranteed to graduate debt-free but is also assured of a pretty cool job, and – should he or she desire it – a wonderful career, working for the same company for twenty or even thirty years, with a defined-benefits pension plan and too-good-to-be-true medical benefits at the other end. We are outliers in this discussion. The challenge is to see the broad middle mass of our countrymen as they see themselves, to try and look at their prospects through their own eyes.
Not so very long ago, the average guy – middle of the bell curve, maybe tending towards the right half – could expect to move up a corporate ladder to just about the same place that I stepped off in the Navy three years ago. Guys just to the left of that median could expect a working wage that would allow them to participate in the American dream and hope to someday send their kids to an affordable college.
I assert that corporate structures have flattened and many of the old middle class jobs have either been outsourced or eliminated. Union excesses largely wrecked the manufacturing sector, and the well-paying jobs that went with them. That leaves a great number of potential voters vulnerable to feeling irremediably left behind, and asking government to step in and rectify the perceived injustice at the vanishing prospect of upward mobility.
And when government thus empowered imposes itself to determine market outcomes, whether in products made or in people’s livelihoods, good things rarely result.
Just look at what’s been done in the education market: There is nearly a trillion dollars of government-sponsored educational debt being borne today by 20-somethings who have very few prospects of ever paying that debt off, and who cannot – by current statute – ever get relief. The cost to attain that four year degree has increased by around %400 over the last thirty years, vastly outpacing inflation. Which would all be just fine if in fact the democratization of an undergraduate degree led to some improved prospects for those who attained them. But it hasn’t.
I think that’s a potential problem that may outweigh in its mass our own moral indignance at the individual choices which have left them there.
“Union excesses largely wrecked the manufacturing sector, and the well-paying jobs that went with them.”
Point of information: The manufacturing sector was “wrecked” when the companies – not their unions – took their plants to countries where workers are paid pennies on the dollar, and safety and health regulations are nil. In fact this has happened with non-union plants too.
While a few unions may have abetted in this, blaming them solely is disingenuous. Unions are not the prime motivator. Moreover union contracts are two-party agreements , with both labor and management sharing in its results, and /or its blame.
Unions or not, the loss of manufacturing is economic, driven by the extreme difference in not only the cost of labor, and plant & equipment, but free unregulated operations and tax avoidance in underdeveloped countries. Our corporations thus succeed at our workers’ and our nation’s expense, regardless of any unionization
When I left Tennessee Tech in May of ’92 I had $6700 of debt for my last two years. My son left UMR last December with a MSEE with nearly $70K debt for his last 4 years. That’s inflation of about a factor of 10 in 18 years. That’s absurd.
Too many with the potential to do teh same will never be able to do teh same simply because the Gramsciians have been able to run up the costs to such an extreme level they will never be able to start, much less finish.
Add to that the fact that is nearly impossible to work your way through college these days, and decline becomes a certainty. ONR is right to worry because not only will number of “fuzzies” decline greatly, but the STEM grads will go the way of the Dodo.
It’s a national security issue, but the sheeple went to sleep while things were fat and they didn’t look down the road to the cliff at the end. The cliff is now visible, but the OWS types are worried they won’t be able to party on.
Ryan:
I wish society was the IQ-based meritocracy that you appear to believe it to be. My experiences indicate that family connections, wealth, social skills, physical attributes, and non-intellectual discipline each (and certainly collectively) have a great deal more influence upon success than intelligence and education. And all of that together pale next to luck. I’ve worked in/around the finance, insurance, and real estate economy (the place to be if you want to be in the top 1%) for about 15 years now and I detect a very limited correlation between success and i.q. As a USNA grad moving along the Naval Aviation pipeline, you are obviously doing well in a setting characterized by a great deal more attention to innate ability and long-term potential than the market, red in tooth and claw, displays.
I’ve had the good fortune to make many hiring decisions and I’ve yet to find a good pseudo-iq test. Applied intellect is extremely important in what I do, and if I found such a measure I’d use it! Never give much weight to the undergrad degree, unless it’s from a service academy (a credential I don’t have). The reasons one 17 year old gets into MIT (and can afford it) and another to West State can be so far divorced from merit that I can’t accord much to either. One of my best hires started out in a for-profit school, and I’ve brought in buffoons w/ USNA and Harvard credentials. Sadly, society and politicians, looking at the problem from pretty much the opposite direction from you, view education as a substitute for intelligence. Thus the drive to send a few million children a year off to college (and into debt) who would be much better served with vocational training or at least a decent entry-level job with benefits.
I think many other regulars here might find the ease of achieving “Top 10%” status to be more challenging than you make it out to be. Even if it were so, it’s not that great. I’ve been in that range since Day 1 in the private sector. In the modern economy, this is not a wealth-building position on the ladder. In the new, pension-free economy, you will not have enough to save sufficiently and have a Ward Cleaver middle class existence (stay-at-home wife, paid-for college for two children, country club membership, and leisurely summer vacations). Put the frau to work? It’ll help, but not as much as you think. In fact, even those in the bottom half of the top 1% (been there, too) can barely bank enough for the retirements depicted in the 401k advisors’ commercials.
Let’s take your premise that wealth = intelligence. I hope the country that you’re sworn to defend isn’t destined to be the fief of the intellectual overlords. I don’t think my God made me to game out the system to my maximum benefit without concern for His dimmer creations. Or, for the secular variant, I don’t think our Founders wanted to establish a state where the commercial interests would so completely dominate all aspects of existence. It’s become an expensive country, with inflation in the things that people on both sides of the 99% or 90% percentile care about: homes for our families, education for our young, and medical care for all of us.
I think we’re smart enough to do something about that, without falling into the traps of lesser polities that attempted to make a state solution for the ageless, insolvable problem of want.
Well, this too has gone on way too long. I’m going swimming. Hope it was a good flight.
DD
Diplopius, I can’t recall seeing your posts before this thread, but let me just say, welcome aboard.
I’m late to the party on this one, am afraid. I’ll tip my cap to the host, and add what little I can to this discussion from my own experience. The host got the Fear part right, that’s for sure, but I’m not sure Envy is the right word. During the crisis, before the bell rang for me, I saw a fair number of smart, very young lawyers let go – some of whom had hundreds of thousands of dollars in educational debt. Youngsters who borrowed for the bachelors but ground out a 4.0 or near to it, then borrowed for the JD – based on a decades-long streak of full employment for good school grads – and again got high marks and got the big firm job. For most of them, after they’d committed to seven years’ education the law changed: that debt became non-dischargeable in 2005. They went from being a the head of the class to debt slaves. These boys and girls have a well-founded Fear that they’ll be paying 25% or more of paltry paychecks to the the “investment class” until they die. About the only thing they Envy is that the government (let’s count the Fed as government even if we don’t elect them) bailed out their masters at a cost likely in excess of ten trillion dollars, but not them.
That’s got to be a tiny subset of the movement, but it represents a typical ending of the aspirational achievers in 2008-2011->? America. What of the more foolish, who borrowed for a useless bachelors degree, without the pre-professional work that makes it a meal ticket? Or those who took on a business, or even a non-health STEM degree, not realizing that $40,000/yr. in debt for a $50,000/yr. job, was foolish? Or, worse yet, a non-degree program with lower absolute dollars involved, but enough to f*ck up a life forever. Who do we blame? The students who spent the money, the universitites who took it, the financiers who lent it, or the government that guaranteed it (repayment, not employment)?
I can tell you that the law blames only one party: the person with the least experience, judgement, money, and information.
Our host engaged in indentured servitude to The Republic in exchange for his college education. I believe the Oath might require one to run, or fly, in front of a bullet, if lawfully ordered so to do.
He had no idea at the time that he would turn out to be a puissant manly fighter pilot. He ran a real risk of flunking out and having to serve out his indenture as a lowly just plain Seaman.
These other people really have no right to bitch about less-onerous conditions.
Sir, I agree with your point that many of the old middle class jobs have disappeared because of outsourcing or obsoleteness. Outsourcing I really don’t have a solution for…except that I know protectionism is wrong. Perhaps the Government could stop bailing out companies that fail and we’d have competitive vehicles and airlines. Obsoleteness causes a shift in jobs from one sector to other newer jobs. Maybe the rate of obsoleteness was greater than the rate of new jobs being created?
I see your point about education cost and how a rise in benefit has not met pace with the rise in cost. But why do foreigners keep coming to American schools? How come almost every one of my TA’s was Asian? It is not because they intend to stay here; they often are on student visas
Diplopius: Sir, I didn’t intend to come across as saying that society is entirely based upon IQ, but more to say that our place in class structure is based on individual merit and isn’t going to change no matter how much people legislate and argue that “everyone should have a chance.” While family connections and wealth certainly help to open the door, it won’t get you up the stairs unless you are either good at what you do or for some reason the company doesn’t promote people based on merit (how about GM’s chairman being forced to resign by President Obama, or any kind of reverse discrimination.) If you were a business owner would you hire based on merit, or would you hire based upon the applicant’s physical attributes, wealth and family connections? I think it would be fair to say that your answer is probably the answer most business owners would give (barring any kind of outside influence as mentioned above.)
If you detect a limited correlation between success and IQ, how did you measure IQ? Did you have them take a test? You answered that below and said you haven’t found a good pseudo IQ test, and since you were hiring people I’m guessing you didn’t use an IQ test because the government outlawed it for hiring purposes. If I were in a civilian field working for a non government job, I cannot believe that my IQ wouldn’t have a large role to play in any successes I had. What does than, if not IQ? If a person is successful what causes that success? Success isn’t getting to the top of a company, but doing well while at the top.
Do you maybe mean that IQ doesn’t play a role (in your experience) in people being promoted?
I went to school with plenty of buffoons at the Academy, and didn’t intend to say that IQ alone should be used to hire someone. The point is that for a 17 year old to get into MIT (and succeed), he must be intelligent. If he has the work ethic, morals, and social skills to apply that intelligence than he will most likely succeed in the business sector.
Top 10% status isn’t easy to achieve, and while my post was somewhat flippant in this regard, the point was that there is not a gigantic gap between the top 10% of Americans and the rest of us. If one wants to achieve that status, there is not much in his way (I believe). I think a good number of people could attain it, if they learned how to save.
Top 10% status is a wealth building position. It just depends on how you use your income. Americans live a life of luxury; see the Heritage Foundation’s breakdown on amenities and poor households. Even without a pension, if a person saves, and I mean really saves…, I would venture to say that they will lead an upper middle class life.
My premise wasn’t wealth=intelligence, it was intelligence=wealth…with the caveats that one must also possess the drive, ambition, and social awareness to do something with that intelligence. My God didn’t create people with varying levels of ability to “game out” each other, but I don’t think he expects a corporate position to be offered to those without the mental intellect to handle the job. It is not about creating a level playing field. It’ll never be level because the players aren’t the same.
Houses inflated because the government bought mortgages from people who couldn’t pay their bills, medical care is so high because there hasn’t been any real tort reform in this country. The problem isn’t at Wall Street though. It is in the White House and Congress.
Well, this too has gone on way too long. I’m going running. And it was a good flight. btw on my first post my sign off was more of a “wow look at the time, I’ve been at this for 2 hours dang” than a “look at me I fly a plane”
Ryan:
First off, don’t sweat the “going flying” reference. People come here because they like to hear stuff like that from aviators, so put it out there if you can. Now, you put a few questions in your reply, and I’ll answer these, best I can.
Of course I’ve never submitted an employee (or supervisor, peer, subordinate, or client) to a formal i.q. test. I’m using the term i.q., intelligence quotient, as I think it’s commonly understood: the innate ability of a person to perform successfully the head-work that their job, or this life, throws at them. As I said, it’s nearly impossible, in my experience, to find a pseudo-test or proxy for this: not net worth, not education, not credential, not even standardized academic entry tests, etc. On the credential point, I’ll concede that at some level these have a basic value: holders of Series 7 securities licenses, CPA certifications, or ATP ratings are in the aggregate more intelligent than, say, Florida’s death row population. That, however, is in the aggregate: individually, there would be exceptions. And we live our lives individually, and we hire individually (at least at my level, I do). I’ve found no proxy – the best I can do is hope to see something in the interview.
But, once I start working with (or for) someone, I think I get a good idea of the person’s i.q. I’m frequently surprised by where I find high i.q., and where I don’t. You have the great good fortune to swim in a fairly meritocratic sea where people wear their credentials on their sleeves (literally), and where people do things that are hard to fake. Landing a single-seat plane on a pitching deck at night, while not a wholly intellectual exercise, is not fakable when it must be done repeatedly over years. However, chairing an investment committee at a merchant bank – you can fake that. For decades. Believe me. Outside of vivid performance areas like carrier aviation, general surgery, and professional athletics, I think there are a lot of fakers, fortunate sons, and hot daughters who glide past graduations and qualifications and through interviews (for hirings and promotions) to land in positions for which they are manifestly unqualified.
Then we get to your wealth = intelligence, intelligence = wealth (I think the equals sign means you can flip it around at will). That maybe-moron chairing the investment committee that’s loading the bank/fund up with CDS exposure for the bonus money that’s in it – he is making more money in a month than the TOPGUN instructors, collectively, make in a year. And, in some months, more than they’ll draw in their careers. How’s that wealth = intelligence, intelligence=wealth equation working here?
Unfair comparison? Try this one on for size: two young white men graduate from Illinois with B.S. degrees in Accounting, high marks, job offers from the Big 6 (this is in the past, work with me). One takes the offer from, say, “P” and the other, from “A.” Pass the C.P.A. exam, put in the hours, shake the hands, get the clients, make partner. Take brides, have children. Assume the obligations that go with an upper middle class life. Along the way, “A” takes work for a company called “E” and makes some money – but not noticeably more or less than “P.” Our man at “A”, he doesn’t do work on “E” matters but he shares in the distributions. Then “E” goes out of business, billions of dollars are lost, people get sued and prosecuted, and suddenly “A” is no longer a going concern. In fact, it’s a felon! And, it’s bankrupt! And, since it was a partnership – under Illinois law – its partners are all jointly and severally liable and very many of them, too, go bankrupt. All of them are less wealthy than their peers at “P”, as a result of decisions few of them made and work most of them didn’t do. And, our man from Illinois? He’s a lot less wealthy than his classmate at “P”. Maybe he’s even gone personally bankrupt. Maybe his children can’t go to MIT – are they less intelligent than classmate at “P”’s boys? This happened to hundreds of men and women in the middle of the last decade. At the end of the last decade, similar things happened to millions of our countrymen – it turned out that millions of zigs made a decade or more in the past should have been zags, and that was that. Good things, like intelligence, education, experience, and training, had nothing to do with it. Bad things, like race and sex, played a mercifully non-existent role. It just happened.
So, I overall like the market – if only because I believe that it’s less fallable than man in allocating resources. I think the poor will always be with us. I’m into equality of opportunity and don’t advocate for a government-insured equality of outcome. I think the law’s a blunt instrument and should only be used to clobber big and obvious problems. But I know, I absolutely know, that wealth is no proxy for intelligence, and intelligence is no guarantor of wealth. I know bad things happen to smart people, and – despite a charming motto to the contrary – I don’t think the stupid should be punished (not always, anyway). I’d like the country to make it easier on the dolts, the morons, and the smart guys who got screwed by forces beyond anyone’s realistic comprehension or control. Not a loft in Tribeca, and not womb-to-tomb raw cash assistance that might yield some of the grotesque results you referred to, no – but I think we can swing basic health care, a debt-free education, and some core retirement income security.
Don’t waste your time responding to this – you have more important work to do, or better fun to have. If your flying brings you to Jacksonville, a few beers are on me.
DD
Zane: Thanks for the kind words. I can’t remember how many years I’ve read this blog – at least four. I’ve only chipped in a very very few times before.
Dang, Sir! You are talking like that Steve Sailer guy!
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