Meritocracy is Bad?

Found an interesting article on how our meritocracy culture serves to siphon talent and ability away from the sectors of the economy that need it into those that don't.
For those of you that didn't know, Peter Thiel founder of PayPal, created a scholarship for 20 college students under 20 to drop out of school and pursue a startup last year. Oh how I wish I were 19.

This critique would go: Right now our best minds go off to the financial sector and high-end business and law programs, channeled through elite education. To pick an example at random, our best minds are hard at work making sure JP Morgan can squeeze local businesses with ever increasing interchange fees, instead of at work in Silicon Valley coming up with a way to circumvent and take apart that oligarchy using technology. They’ll continue to find ways to create regulatory arbitrage, or find obtuse mechanisms to manipulate earnings reports, or help one group of corporations sue another group of corporations, instead of creating real new value and innovation. The carrot and stick of meritocratic rewards and debt collection push our elite onto this track, and Thiel’s program can break that cycle. I’m not sure where I stand on it in practice, but it’s an interesting debate.

If we are the "best" students, do we serve ourselves and as an extension society better using our creative energy as entrepreneurs or working the financial markets?

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/peter-thiel-and-the-challengi…

 

To an extent, sure. It is somewhat meritocratic in the sense that if you work your ass off and are the best, you will normally get rewarded for it. The issue is that we don't have a level playing field to begin with. Everything is run by special interests, agendas etc. Affirmative action? That screws up the meritocratic idea. Building a building with your name on it at a college to get your kid in? Same idea. It is impossible to totally level the playing field, because everyone is born with different sets of abilities and resources from the get go. Unless your willing to entirely social engineer everything, there will be geniuses and there will be dunces. Some people are naturally strong, others are born with physical disabilities. I think that we are still about as close as it can get to a meritocracy, and I think in large part it works pretty well. It isn't perfect nor should it be expected to be.

 

I think it's hard to argue against the point that the current compensation system in finance mis-allocates human capital. But guys like Thiel, if enough others join him, may be able to turn the trend around.

Where the system is out of whack is there is no compensatory correlation between risk and reward in banking. Investment banking is essentially a risk-free endeavor today, yet the pay is commensurate with hitting a progressive slot machine jackpot.

You can't call banking a meritocracy. Trading can certainly be called a meritocracy, but banking is anything but.

 
Edmundo Braverman:
I think it's hard to argue against the point that the current compensation system in finance mis-allocates human capital. But guys like Thiel, if enough others join him, may be able to turn the trend around.

Where the system is out of whack is there is no compensatory correlation between risk and reward in banking. Investment banking is essentially a risk-free endeavor today, yet the pay is commensurate with hitting a progressive slot machine jackpot.

You can't call banking a meritocracy. Trading can certainly be called a meritocracy, but banking is anything but.

so where exactly do you as a trader at a bulge bracket put you own capital on the line?

I agree that trading is more meritocratic but your risk reward analysis seems flawed.

You may also want to consider other factors such as randomness and sample size and how they fit into meritocracy of trading/investing in general.

The issue here isn't that would be entrepreneurs go work in high finance, the issue is that would be engineers/scientists etc... go work in finance.

Entrepreneurs have vastly different utility functions and desires for independence than most jobs in finance offer.

 
dwight schrute:
Found an interesting article on how our meritocracy culture serves to siphon talent and ability away from the sectors of the economy that need it into those that don't. For those of you that didn't know, Peter Thiel founder of PayPal, created a scholarship for 20 college students under 20 to drop out of school and pursue a startup last year. Oh how I wish I were 19.
This critique would go: Right now our best minds go off to the financial sector and high-end business and law programs, channeled through elite education. To pick an example at random, our best minds are hard at work making sure JP Morgan can squeeze local businesses with ever increasing interchange fees, instead of at work in Silicon Valley coming up with a way to circumvent and take apart that oligarchy using technology. They’ll continue to find ways to create regulatory arbitrage, or find obtuse mechanisms to manipulate earnings reports, or help one group of corporations sue another group of corporations, instead of creating real new value and innovation. The carrot and stick of meritocratic rewards and debt collection push our elite onto this track, and Thiel’s program can break that cycle. I’m not sure where I stand on it in practice, but it’s an interesting debate.

It's an interesting perspective. However, one should also keep in mind some of the other factors that make it difficult to untangle the cause and effect relationship in question. If you buy into the Austrian business cycle theory, then maybe Feb policies create more finance jobs than there "should" be. Or, maybe so many people are drawn to JPM because it doesn't take a huge amount of talent, but rather requires the ability to be a work horse. While going to Silicon Valley and destroying the "oligarchy" is incredibly difficult. Put differently, a lot of those people drawn to JPM aren't going to Silicon Valley to start revolutionary companies because, even if they tried, they wouldn't get anywhere.

dwight schrute:
If we are the "best" students, do we serve ourselves and as an extension society better using our creative energy as entrepreneurs or working the financial markets?

Do what you want to do. Do what you're passionate about. Do what you find more interesting, satisfying, and rewarding. You'll be serving society regardless, so don't worry about that.

 

I disagree for the simple reason that hard working people like you or I who didn't grow up with a silver spoon in hand still have opportunities to succeed in this country and many people like us still do. Granted, I'm not a member of the 1% (yet), but I have to believe if you can add value to someone's bottom line and hustle, then you are going to have success.

 
Best Response

Hmm, a guy from The Nation on MSNBC calling for a redistribution of wealth? Shocking...

This actually sounds like Charles Murray's book, Coming Apart. And, to a limited extent, I agree. By moving from an aristocracy (complete with a sense of noblesse oblige) to what is ostensibly a meritocracy, the upper echelons of society become more insular. They go to the same colleges, work for the same companies, marry within their social circle, and raise their children to do the same.

Our elites work hard. They earn their success. Theoretically,any high school student can rock the SAT and AP classes, then go to an ivy. (I did this - bottom 10% to top 10%) Diversity programs would seemingly make this even easier for the less fortunate. But, if you look at the guys in an IB analyst class, they are generally upper-middle class or better.

More than financial capital, the elites have cultural capital. If you were born poor, but somehow knew the importance of going to an elite college and pursuing the right career, you could enter the upper class. But this rarely happens. The students might not feel motivated to do so. Or they are sidelined by something like a drug arrest or a teenage pregnancy.

I agree it's a problem, but not one that can be solved through redistribution. If you give a homeless man $1000, he is probably not going to go all "Pursuit of Happyness" and get a job. You need to reshape the values held by the lower classes. It's cultural imperialism, but the cultures of impoverished inner-city neighborhoods are destructive.

 
West Coast rainmaker:
More than financial capital, the elites have cultural capital. If you were born poor, but somehow knew the importance of going to an elite college and pursuing the right career, you could enter the upper class. But this rarely happens.
I don't think any sort of government intervention would help, but I do agree with this. Nobody ever says to kids, "Go to an elite school," because nobody has the balls to bring that up.

When I "discovered," in maybe middle school, that there is a huge difference between people who graduated from Princeton and people who graduated from University of MIssouri, I started wondering. Why does nobody slap these kids and tell them to wake up and look at how things work?

 
West Coast rainmaker:
Hmm, a guy from The Nation on MSNBC calling for a redistribution of wealth? Shocking...

This actually sounds like Charles Murray's book, Coming Apart. And, to a limited extent, I agree. By moving from an aristocracy (complete with a sense of noblesse oblige) to what is ostensibly a meritocracy, the upper echelons of society become more insular. They go to the same colleges, work for the same companies, marry within their social circle, and raise their children to do the same.

Our elites work hard. They earn their success. Theoretically,any high school student can rock the SAT and AP classes, then go to an ivy. (I did this - bottom 10% to top 10%) Diversity programs would seemingly make this even easier for the less fortunate. But, if you look at the guys in an IB analyst class, they are generally upper-middle class or better.

More than financial capital, the elites have cultural capital. If you were born poor, but somehow knew the importance of going to an elite college and pursuing the right career, you could enter the upper class. But this rarely happens. The students might not feel motivated to do so. Or they are sidelined by something like a drug arrest or a teenage pregnancy.

I agree it's a problem, but not one that can be solved through redistribution. If you give a homeless man $1000, he is probably not going to go all "Pursuit of Happyness" and get a job. You need to reshape the values held by the lower classes. It's cultural imperialism, but the cultures of impoverished inner-city neighborhoods are destructive.

This resonated very strongly with me, particularly the last paragraph.
I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

Edmundo, can you elaborate on the link between compensation and risk?

I thought the main driver of compensation was revenue generation. What does it have to do with risk?

I'll give you an example. I designed an arbitrage trade that generates $1000 per day, risk free. Should my compensation be zero?

 

Eddie, You should look up "Kicking Away the Ladder". That's essentially what it hypothesizes (except in an international sense).

My drinkin' problem left today, she packed up all her bags and walked away.
 

its not the aristocrats that are pulling up the ladder behind them, its just less people are willing to climb it. Instead of pointing the finger at someone else and saying they are the reason why I'm not X or can't achieve X; people should be looking in the mirror. Generally people are just content with staying in the status quo and being mediocre. Of course, this isn't everyone. But on the aggregate, the average amount of people are more content with their situation.

If you want something or have a goal achieve it.

Fear is the greatest motivator. Motivation is what it takes to find profit.
 

@leveredarb I never worked for a BB, so I can't say but I get your point. But even at a BB they'll show you the door if your P/L sucks, so that's meritocratic. The only meritocracy in IB is in landing the job, and even that's largely a function of who you know. Not saying that's a bad thing. It is what it is.

@mxc I'm referring to the generally accepted principle that increased risk brings greater potential reward with the opposite being true of lower risk endeavors. The example that you give would be an instance of Alpha, which doesn't exist. But to answer your question, your compensation would be the $1,000 a day until the market figures it out and corrects for it.

 
Edmundo Braverman:
@leveredarb I never worked for a BB, so I can't say but I get your point. But even at a BB they'll show you the door if your P/L sucks, so that's meritocratic. The only meritocracy in IB is in landing the job, and even that's largely a function of who you know. Not saying that's a bad thing. It is what it is.

@mxc I'm referring to the generally accepted principle that increased risk brings greater potential reward with the opposite being true of lower risk endeavors. The example that you give would be an instance of Alpha, which doesn't exist. But to answer your question, your compensation would be the $1,000 a day until the market figures it out and corrects for it.

Fair enough, I am by no means defending IBD, I think its total bullshit and not meritocratic in anyway since almost anyone that can get in can do the work, so differentiating yourself is difficult, but S&T at BB is not exactly putting your own skin on the line either.

I agree with you on greater risk greater reward, bankers somewhere do incur a risk tough by participating in a winner takes all race with massive sunk costs(i.e. many years of 80+ hour weeks). Also reward is a function of hours worked as well.

 

"Do what you want to do. Do what you're passionate about. Do what you find more interesting, satisfying, and rewarding. You'll be serving society regardless, so don't worry about that."

You can't just assert that. If I find counting M&M's in my backyard 100 hours a week interesting, satisfying, and rewarding, not only will not be serving society, but I will also not be serving myself despite my false belief otherwise. It might be hard to pin down exactly what constitutes an objectively meaningful career choice, but we can certainly eliminate the idea that doing what I want to do is meaningful BECAUSE it's what I want to do. That's silly.

 

Its never been a better time to be a serf.

“...all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Schopenhauer
 

I've been harping on this issue for a couple of years now: the boomer generation raised MY generation to be fucking servants. America never WAS a meritocratic, egalitarian society...that's the GOAL for our society. America is, and always has been, a plutocracy with about 5-10% of people truly breaking rank from the standard developmental trajectory.

Are you in the 90% of sheep or 10% who decide their own fate?

seabird:
Its never been a better time to be a serf.
I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.
Get busy living
 
lawschool121:
"Do what you want to do. Do what you're passionate about. Do what you find more interesting, satisfying, and rewarding. You'll be serving society regardless, so don't worry about that."

You can't just assert that. If I find counting M&M's in my backyard 100 hours a week interesting, satisfying, and rewarding, not only will not be serving society, but I will also not be serving myself despite my false belief otherwise.

Haha, good point.

 
UFOinsider:
seabird:
Its never been a better time to be a serf.
I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

You could try somalia. No real official government there.

“...all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Schopenhauer
 
dwight schrute:
If we are the "best" students, do we serve ourselves and as an extension society better using our creative energy as entrepreneurs or working the financial markets?

The idea that silicon valley "needs" more entrepreneurs is debatable. For example there are already HUNDREDS of Groupon imitators. Almost all of them will fail and add little to society, and make no real money for the founders. The internet is drowning in noise. There is tons of free content out there, tons of competition, and there always will be. The world of startups is very crowded, and many complain that there are too many startups and not enough angels and not enoguh available, appropriate funding sources.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the problem is not with our educated elite and where they're going. The problem is with middle America and their lack of education and valuable skills to compete globally in the 21st century. Isn't this what we shoudl be concerned about? The top 1% of SAT scorers cannot fix this.

 

There is always an aristocratic element to human societies. And having inequality is not inherently bad either. As long as the movement to and from the aristocracy is porous (i.e. no bailouts for current members and no restriction from new members displacing old ones), it seems to be fine. The problem comes when migration to the upper echelon becomes impermeable. The problem in the United States is that the boundary is semi-permeable (bailout for existing aristocrats) and becoming less porous.

Bene qui latuit, bene vixit- Ovid
 
rls:
There is always an aristocratic element to human societies. And having inequality is not inherently bad either. As long as the movement to and from the aristocracy is porous (i.e. no bailouts for current members and no restriction from new members displacing old ones), it seems to be fine. The problem comes when migration to the upper echelon becomes impermeable. The problem in the United States is that the boundary is semi-permeable (bailout for existing aristocrats) and becoming less porous.
Wow, this is very well stated.
Get busy living
 

I think this is ridiculous. How on earth do you know what would happen if these folks were working somewhere else? You can't possibly figure that out. Have any of the people who complain about this actual figured out marginal cost and benefit for each of the respective career paths in their entirety and determined that the benefit to society is better in one than the other? No.

And finally, how arrogant to say that a person should conform to your personal idea of what a better society would look like in making major life decisions instead of what they want to do.

 

I agree with alot that has been said here, essentially no matter where you came from if you hustle and show people that you can make or save them noney you will be successful. I do believe with the gap being so wide that people who are less fortunate can lose drive to become successful but like its already been said the culture of impoverished areas need to change.

"When you expect things to happen - strangely enough - they do happen." - JP Morgan
 

Ummm, my business partner is a Bolivian immigrant from a lower middle class family--he made more money by the time he was 22 than most upper middle class whites do by the time they're 30.

I'm not arguing there isn't inequality, but where exactly has the ladder been pulled out? You can't just assert that the ladder is being pulled out without citing the facts surrounding that.

Array
 

"And finally, how arrogant to say that a person should conform to your personal idea of what a better society would look like in making major life decisions instead of what they want to do."

What if I want to sit on a couch and eat potato chips all day long? Count M&M's for 100 hours a week or dig holes in my backyard? It seems there are objectively worthless pursuits, that we can be genuinely deluded about the status of these and other pursuits, and most scarily that it's not immediately obvious how/why/whether banking falls outside this 'meaningless' category.

 
Virginia Tech 4ever:
citing the facts
This is a broad discussion of general culture, so it's somewhat abstract. We can pull data later, but facts are the enemies of truth at the moment. I have family and friends that came from NOTHING and did very very well for themselves, so too I could use that is a means of muddling the conversation, but I won't.

What we're looking at is the cultural shift in a subgroup basically saying "I got mine, so fuck you" and how they've institutionalized it, and WORSE: how we're supposed to go along with it. Looking at the details is obviously important in creating actionable plans, but right now the topic is the ovearching ideas. Putting a finger on what a lot of people are thinking in the corner of their mind is the goal here....

Get busy living
 
UFOinsider:
Virginia Tech 4ever:
citing the facts
This is a broad discussion of general culture, so it's somewhat abstract. We can pull data later, but facts are the enemies of truth at the moment. I have family and friends that came from NOTHING and did very very well for themselves, so too I could use that is a means of muddling the conversation, but I won't.

What we're looking at is the cultural shift in a subgroup basically saying "I got mine, so fuck you" and how they've institutionalized it, and WORSE: how we're supposed to go along with it. Looking at the details is obviously important in creating actionable plans, but right now the topic is the ovearching ideas. Putting a finger on what a lot of people are thinking in the corner of their mind is the goal here....

Ok, then cite the evidence. If we're talking about a culture of people institutionalizing their wealth at the expense of others then cite it.

Array
 

When only looking at the US the great thing is that it doesn't take that much money to be in the top percentiles of income earners. I mean most of us won't be in the 1% but who really cares. Anyone with a college degree in ANYTHING can easily be in the top 25% with a little hard work and perseverance. From 2010

Top 1%: $380,354 Top 5%: $159,619 Top 10%: $113,799 Top 25%: $67,280 Top 50%: >$33,048

Harvey Specter doesn't get cotton mouth.
 

the criticism is that meritocracy causes brain drain to companies those that add no tangible value. If that is true (arguable), its either 1) An incentive for other function/professions to be more meritocratic 2) An observation that confirms things that add-value cannot be as meritocratic because of the volatility of returns (for example R&D)

its not about the criteria for promotion, its about the ceiling imposed by expectations (partly driven by the street, but are sell-side analysts really the culprits) and the management oligarchy within established enterprises that reduce the attractiveness of let's say mechanical engineering respective to finance or law

 
ScoobyDoobie:
When only looking at the US the great thing is that it doesn't take that much money to be in the top percentiles of income earners. I mean most of us won't be in the 1% but who really cares. Anyone with a college degree in ANYTHING can easily be in the top 25% with a little hard work and perseverance. From 2010

Top 1%: $380,354 Top 5%: $159,619 Top 10%: $113,799 Top 25%: $67,280 Top 50%: >$33,048

Just to clarify are these numbers per earner or per household?

My drinkin' problem left today, she packed up all her bags and walked away.
 
Kenny Powers:
ScoobyDoobie:
When only looking at the US the great thing is that it doesn't take that much money to be in the top percentiles of income earners. I mean most of us won't be in the 1% but who really cares. Anyone with a college degree in ANYTHING can easily be in the top 25% with a little hard work and perseverance. From 2010

Top 1%: $380,354 Top 5%: $159,619 Top 10%: $113,799 Top 25%: $67,280 Top 50%: >$33,048

Just to clarify are these numbers per earner or per household?

Household income levels. So two married people, without kids, working F500 are basically in the top 10% of earners right off the bat.

We have a rabid consumerist culture in this country. When you look at the housing crisis it was increased by people taking the equity out of their house to buy consumer goods.

Poor people by depreciating assets.

Rich people by appreciating assets.

 

Banks do not provide meaningless services.

As for worthless, worthless to who? How do you know what some gets out of the seemingly arcane things he does? Do you have a right to demand that a person's actions be worth something to you? Certainly not.

Meaning has to do with the purpose of a person's actions. Most sane people act with some kind of purpose. I would agree that the meaning behind that purpose can be objectively wrong, but you don't have a right to start demanding he do something different.

 
Edmundo Braverman:
@VT4E How about fucking TARP for starters, if you're looking for an example?

This. An entire political party in our country will argue that we give poor people too much, but that we don't give rich people enough. And they simultaneously defend TARP and claim that we need to further deregulate the banks. It's complete insanity.

Mitt Romney, the standard bearer for the GOP, openly supports TARP and champions it while simultaneously saying that the auto companies should've been left to fail. How can a serious person possibly hold this view?

 

"How do you know what some gets out of the seemingly arcane things he does?"

There is a distinction between belief and fact, which you seem to acknowledge implicitly. I don't give a sh*t if I feel an insane amount of dopamine running through my brain when I crank out excel models (sometimes I do believe it or not) because that is not what determines whether what I am doing is objectively worthwhile. I could just be deluded.

But you might/did say "objectively worthwhile to who?..whose standard?" The answer is nobody's standard. Just "the" standard. I take as a given that certain states of affairs in this universe have the property of rightness, wrongness, meaningfulness, and most importantly/unfortunately meaninglessness. For example, the holocaust was objectively wrong and it has nothing to do with the fact that some people agree with me on this. It just was wrong, even if everybody disagreed (which a lot of people did when it happened). Similarly, the same applies to determining whether or not things have objective meaningfulness as well.

This is a controversial statement outside of academia, and certainly in an environment as seemingly nihilistic as the the banking industry. lol. my liberal arts background will always live to haunt my consciousness and the NPV of my future bank account.

 

Oh geez, another class warfare post. The solution is obviously to punish the rich and give to the poor.

I mean look at the evil society we live in where the poor par all the taxes and the rich work them to death, all the while restricting their movements and not allowing them to go to school. Oh. Wait???

Yeah, that is right. We live in a country financed off the backs of the well off, with student loans that allow anyone to go to school, where you can move about freely, have worker protections and countless ways to get a head. That is why you see Indian people owning gas stations and dumb Americans working in gas stations.

This country is exactly as it should be. A meat grinder. The poor pity me attitude never generated wealth in this country and it isn't going to do it either.

God, can we please allow more educated immigrants in this country? Sickening to see the spirit of America diluted by the leaches we call citizens.

 

"I would agree that the meaning behind that purpose can be objectively wrong, but you don't have a right to start demanding he do something different."

Belief in objective normativity does not mean you should become a dictator. I would certainly say certain modes of life are clearly wrong (i.e., the Hitler way of life or what have you), but obviously there's plenty of gray area. But this gray area stems from lack of moral knowledge, not lack in the existence of normative facts.

 
TNA:
Oh geez, another class warfare post. The solution is obviously to punish the rich and give to the poor.

I mean look at the evil society we live in where the poor par all the taxes and the rich work them to death, all the while restricting their movements and not allowing them to go to school. Oh. Wait???

Yeah, that is right. We live in a country financed off the backs of the well off, with student loans that allow anyone to go to school, where you can move about freely, have worker protections and countless ways to get a head. That is why you see Indian people owning gas stations and dumb Americans working in gas stations.

This country is exactly as it should be. A meat grinder. The poor pity me attitude never generated wealth in this country and it isn't going to do it either.

God, can we please allow more educated immigrants in this country? Sickening to see the spirit of America diluted by the leaches we call citizens.

when you think about how close the country was to both fascist and communist revolution in the 1930s, perhaps you need to pull your head out of the sand about how dangerous wealth inequality can be, even here.

 
melvvvar:
TNA:
Oh geez, another class warfare post. The solution is obviously to punish the rich and give to the poor.

I mean look at the evil society we live in where the poor par all the taxes and the rich work them to death, all the while restricting their movements and not allowing them to go to school. Oh. Wait???

Yeah, that is right. We live in a country financed off the backs of the well off, with student loans that allow anyone to go to school, where you can move about freely, have worker protections and countless ways to get a head. That is why you see Indian people owning gas stations and dumb Americans working in gas stations.

This country is exactly as it should be. A meat grinder. The poor pity me attitude never generated wealth in this country and it isn't going to do it either.

God, can we please allow more educated immigrants in this country? Sickening to see the spirit of America diluted by the leaches we call citizens.

when you think about how close the country was to both fascist and communist revolution in the 1930s, perhaps you need to pull your head out of the sand about how dangerous wealth inequality can be, even here.

You are talking about a great depression with zero safety nets. When you quote me saying we should get rid of every safety net and let people sink or swim then I will agree with you.

 
TNA:
Oh geez, another class warfare post. The solution is obviously to punish the rich and give to the poor.
Really, no. Just no. This is a discussion of the overarching structure of our country, free from agenda, and not a political thread. Politics are largely besides the point. Just look at the abstract for a minute, and remove yourself from agenda, ideology, and allegance....look at what is.

Take for an example of how the mindset in consulting vs trading vs banking is, just as an analogy. In banking, it's rigidly heirarchical and you don't mess with that. In trading, it's meritocratic: you really do make what you earn. In consulting, it's a bit different, it's more collegial: yes you have a boss, but you can also work on projects that you're interested and the platform is more flexible in allowing people to build in the direction they want (assuming they're good at it). There's plenty of opportunities in America for those who seek them: I've worked all sorts of side jobs and started businesses with no problems, and I'm really not the sharpest tool in the shed. So have a lot of folk here. The operating system, the core economy, hardened up a LOT since perhaps the 80's, maybe earlier, and now is relaxing a bit...I think this is a good thing.

The focus of (this conversation is) the way America has been trending for a while now (several decades) is very much like banking...a very rigid structure being rather ruthlessly enforced. It's not reflective of what the purpose of the country is, and based on the massive collapse, it's not even viable. Bush oversaw some last minute alterations before leaving office, this president is adding some, and the next president will do the same, regardless of party...but the focus is the structure, and not the politics.

My personal guess is that a lot of the rapid centralization of our society was partly driven by the recent wars and the fact that a lof of major techological innovation is so highly centralized...let's face it, the supercomputing isn't being driven at this point by dudes working in their garages, and neither is HFT. With a period of relative peace, and more flexible technological platforms...and better access to existing flex platforms...I think the trend is reversing a bit. Some see this as class war, and for some it is. For me, and for a lot of people, it simply means a less oppressive environment with a broader spectrum of viable opportunity to work hard towards our own goals.

Get busy living
 

Unemployment rates for college graduates are around 5-6%. This recession is effecting lower educated, unskilled workers. Lets not cry about this economy when the people hurt the most aren't posting on this site.

And college only puts you $100K in debt when you make choices that do this. Plenty of options where you can graduate with less debt and an employable degree. Life isn't easy, not sure how that concept got engrained in American's minds.

 

We definitely need more talented people going into industry, engineering, entrepreneurship and science. Finance more or less is a redistribution of wealth - I know this is not completely true - but the value added to society of those other fields over finance is remarkable.

Non-coincidentally, only over the past 30 or so years has there been such a brain drain to finance. Most smart people from Harvard went off to be surgeons, inventors and businessmen in industry, not a pitchbook monkey at JPM.

 
TNA:
Unemployment rates for college graduates are around 5-6%. This recession is effecting lower educated, unskilled workers. Lets not cry about this economy when the people hurt the most aren't posting on this site.

And college only puts you $100K in debt when you make choices that do this. Plenty of options where you can graduate with less debt and an employable degree. Life isn't easy, not sure how that concept got engrained in American's minds.

the spirit of the dole is already ingrained in the national psyche, so there's no point in trying to unfuck that.

and unemployment rates for the college educated are the worst at the recent-graduate/early-20s level. much worse than 6%, given the slimy, dishonest BLS accounting baseline.

almost every revolution in modern times has begun with disaffected college-educated young with no stake in the system. you're not going to sleep as soundly at night when gas is 20 dollars a gallon, food is unaffordable, and you know that there are more guns than people in this country.

 
melvvvar:
TNA:
Unemployment rates for college graduates are around 5-6%. This recession is effecting lower educated, unskilled workers. Lets not cry about this economy when the people hurt the most aren't posting on this site.

And college only puts you $100K in debt when you make choices that do this. Plenty of options where you can graduate with less debt and an employable degree. Life isn't easy, not sure how that concept got engrained in American's minds.

the spirit of the dole is already ingrained in the national psyche, so there's no point in trying to unfuck that.

and unemployment rates for the college educated are the worst at the recent-graduate/early-20s level. much worse than 6%, given the slimy, dishonest BLS accounting baseline.

almost every revolution in modern times has begun with disaffected college-educated young with no stake in the system. you're not going to sleep as soundly at night when gas is 20 dollars a gallon, food is unaffordable, and you know that there are more guns than people in this country.

Ok, I am not fundamentally disagreeing with you. But lets go point by point.

1) Gas isn't going to $20 a gallon any time soon. And if it does it will simply push more people into urban environments, thereby fixing the greatest environmental destruction in American history - suburbanization.

2) The US is the food producer of the world. We pay farmers to destroy crops. Food prices can come down and even if they increase, they are a small portion of the overall budget. Food prices will cause instability elsewhere, but not in the worlds fattest country (or one of the worlds).

3) Guns are not held by northeast college unemployed. They are held by country folk that absolutely hate the idea of socialism and liberalism. I've been saying forever that fascism is the default extremism in the US and if you think Democrats and their supporters are going to come out nicely in a fascist revolt I don't think so.

The people with the guns and ammo aren't left wing.

4) Who is to really blame for unemployed college youth? Even with free college in Europe you have massive youth unemployment. Kids major in unemployable stuff and then complain they cannot get jobs. Would you like the government to tell these kids what to study?

I am all for massive increases in government. See, I am either libertarian or complete authoritarian. If you want something for free you will accept my command over you. If you want liberty you take care of yourself.

So we can do away with government loans and let kids have no debt and make their choices or we can provide loans and push kids into useful majors. Either way I just want the whining to stop.

And we saw the "revolution" with disaffected youth. Occupy Wall Street. No coordination. No talking points. Nothing accomplished.

We spend nearly a trillion dollars on defense, with a lot more spent on police. I have no worries about the government being able to crush any rebellion. Money has been and always will be power.

Now realistically, I see Obama or Romney just easing bankruptcy requirements and allowing students to cut half their debt. That will break any faction and allow things to move on. Real simply solution. We live in a globally competitive world and Americans are, by and large, rather entitled and lazy. It is much easier to blame someone else (the rich, immigrants, baby boomers, etc) then to look in the mirror and examine life choices.

For every person who suffered a random and tragic set back there are countless people who goofed off in high school, didn't work through college, studied ancient religion and took out $150K in debt because they wanted spring break in Cancun. Now they are fucked and it is someone elses fault. Do we really want to help these people? They will never learn and frankly, that type of weakness is not societal beneficial.

 

^ Interesting points, but:

1-2. Food prices aren't merely determined by sheer grain supply in the US growing areas, which is what you are talking about. It is determined by petroleum-based fertilizer costs and petroleum-based fuel/transportation costs. Why do you suppose you can get fresh blueberries in winter in Idaho? the base of our whole suburbanized economic system is knocked out when the USD starts moving very unfavorably against oil, which it is already doing. i agree that urbanization/walking to work/school is good, but it will take white people losing their fear of poor brown/black people, and the adjustment will get ugly. for a foretaste of this i refer you to boston busing in the 1970s. lest you think i am only talking about food, the USD-oil relationship is the base of everything else too. the only reason we can be a nation of fat-asses working less than we consume out of the world's production is because we are able to get oil cheaply and thus transport, heat and fertilize things cheaply. when that's gone the welfare e-checks won't be worth the paper they are not written on.

  1. we can have more than one revolution at a time. with the NE college idiots, they will just give a further mandate for institutionalized radicalization of the economy. i refer you to obamacare. the the rednecks and racists, they have already infiltrated the military en masse. there have always been shitheads in the military, but with the street gangs, they were in there just to steal and gain some trigger time. the hard-right infiltrators want RAHOWA, live by the 14 WORDS and actually want revolution.

no one is going to disagree with you that profligate assholes who lived without a thought to the future should be bailed out, but angry mobs create their own reality. when there's more of them than us they don't have to make sense to be right.

 

We're getting off point.

Is society best served when its most able go off to work in financial markets instead of [directly] creating entrepreneurial ventures. Let's extend the OP's conceptual "financial markets" to include IB and not just S&T/HF.

There is an overpopulation of financial professionals (many posts on WSO provide the evidence), choosing low-risk career paths because our markets (labor markets, financial markets) don't value "good failures." There is incredible aversion to failure of any kind. In labor markets a sketchy resume filled with unknown companies that went bust doesn't make HR and headhunters feel good -- let's face it even if you created and sold a $10MM biz as the founder/CEO, HR doesn't have the creative fodder to recognize how valuable you could be to their co and doesn't know how to bucket/categorize you. In financial markets, as baby boomers age they accept less risk, driving fund managers to seek liquid stable risk-adjusted returns, in turn driving CEOs of companies to prioritize bullshit quarterly EPS numbers over long-term intelligent R&D risk taking (despite incredibly high cash balances/balance sheet liquidity).

All of this risk aversion funnels down to students, who are (1) overlevered due to the high tuitions funding top professors, and (2) recognizing there's safe careerpaths (3) recognize labor and financial markets don't value "good failure," and their career may never recover.

You think the Google founders really cared about "exit ops" if GOOG failed? This nation's mindset has to shift to a culture that encourages intelligent, innovative risk taking -- we have the financial and human capital to do it.

There's more but let's leave it here

 
DurbanDiMangus:
We're getting off point.

Is society best served when its most able go off to work in financial markets instead of [directly] creating entrepreneurial ventures. Let's extend the OP's conceptual "financial markets" to include IB and not just S&T/HF.

There is an overpopulation of financial professionals (many posts on WSO provide the evidence), choosing low-risk career paths because our markets (labor markets, financial markets) don't value "good failures." There is incredible aversion to failure of any kind. In labor markets a sketchy resume filled with unknown companies that went bust doesn't make HR and headhunters feel good -- let's face it even if you created and sold a $10MM biz as the founder/CEO, HR doesn't have the creative fodder to recognize how valuable you could be to their co and doesn't know how to bucket/categorize you. In financial markets, as baby boomers age they accept less risk, driving fund managers to seek liquid stable risk-adjusted returns, in turn driving CEOs of companies to prioritize bullshit quarterly EPS numbers over long-term intelligent R&D risk taking (despite incredibly high cash balances/balance sheet liquidity).

All of this risk aversion funnels down to students, who are (1) overlevered due to the high tuitions funding top professors, and (2) recognizing there's safe careerpaths (3) recognize labor and financial markets don't value "good failure," and their career may never recover.

You think the Google founders really cared about "exit ops" if GOOG failed? This nation's mindset has to shift to a culture that encourages intelligent, innovative risk taking -- we have the financial and human capital to do it.

There's more but let's leave it here

My point exactly! It seems that many of my peers are all to focused on the short term gain and the quickest path to $$$. Econ posted posted a video recently of a mathematician who solved fermat's last theorem. The practical implications of it are close to null but the mindset that he had is what drives innovation. The only reason I brought up society is that the risk aversion I see coming from the supposedly brightest young minds in the world is counter-productive.

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art - Andy Warhol
 
melvvvar:
^ Interesting points, but:

1-2. Food prices aren't merely determined by sheer grain supply in the US growing areas, which is what you are talking about. It is determined by petroleum-based fertilizer costs and petroleum-based fuel/transportation costs. Why do you suppose you can get fresh blueberries in winter in Idaho? the base of our whole suburbanized economic system is knocked out when the USD starts moving very unfavorably against oil, which it is already doing. i agree that urbanization/walking to work/school is good, but it will take white people losing their fear of poor brown/black people, and the adjustment will get ugly. for a foretaste of this i refer you to boston busing in the 1970s. lest you think i am only talking about food, the USD-oil relationship is the base of everything else too. the only reason we can be a nation of fat-asses working less than we consume out of the world's production is because we are able to get oil cheaply and thus transport, heat and fertilize things cheaply. when that's gone the welfare e-checks won't be worth the paper they are not written on.

  1. we can have more than one revolution at a time. with the NE college idiots, they will just give a further mandate for institutionalized radicalization of the economy. i refer you to obamacare. the the rednecks and racists, they have already infiltrated the military en masse. there have always been shitheads in the military, but with the street gangs, they were in there just to steal and gain some trigger time. the hard-right infiltrators want RAHOWA, live by the 14 WORDS and actually want revolution.

no one is going to disagree with you that profligate assholes who lived without a thought to the future should be bailed out, but angry mobs create their own reality. when there's more of them than us they don't have to make sense to be right.

I agree with you about increase petroleum prices and I believe it will only get worse (IMO peak oil has been achieved). BUTTTT. The US is slowly moving towards a mixture of energy sources. As energy prices increase alternates become more viable. As they come on line the demand for fossil fuel declines, etc.

With our ME involvement I am sure we will be able to get oil easily. When prices increase we will be hurt, but not like other countries.

But I agree with you. Energy prices and supply need to be watched and are important.

As for your second point, this nation is and will be on a path towards socialism. We have to large a population of unnecessary citizens. With automation and outsourcing, there is no need for uneducated individuals on a large scale. Considering that intelligence has a biological component and educated people are not reproducing at a rate like those of less education, combined will illegal immigration supported by Democrats (for the votes) and Republicans (for the slave labor), you have an ever increasing amount of people who need government to be their parents.

So this will increase until we go broke, at which time an "emergency" will happen. I put it in quotations because a true emergency is sudden and this is a well know and manufactured one.

When this "emergency" happens the response will be massive government expansion. The poor and disenfranchised who were used for votes in the beginning will be no longer needed when the government takes control and when they are no longer needed you will see real American jackbooting happening.

 

Citing TARP, Social Security and a single study about social mobility in the UK vs. US doesn't prove anything about what is being asserted. What is specifically being asserted is that people in the United States are becoming rich and are turning around and PREVENTING everyone else from becoming rich.

None of these examples even remotely demonstrates the assertion. Once again, cite the evidence--examples, studies, etc.--that demonstrate that rich people are actively keeping others from their own personal endeavors. Show me!

Array
 

BTW, Thought I'd post this (please let me know if this has already been posted in another thread)...hilarious remark in the Comments section of a NYTimes article on PE recruiting:

It may be easy for you middle America community college dropouts to hate on these kids, but they are the ones building the US economy. American doctors and engineers haven't built the most complex and successful economy in the world. We're not a superpower because of vaccines (which foreign scientists/drs developed) or Indian and Chinese engineers that come here to get an education.... we're a superpower because of our economic system.

Also... PE firms manage hundreds of billions of dollars. The social security system that will inevitably go bankrupt and the fiscal policy that would get an individual arrested for kiting checks will and has done absolutely nothing for this country. PE firms on the other hand manage public servants retirements/401K's/pensions... thats what people can count on.... I personally have no hope of getting social security I'll pay millions of dollars into along the course of my life... it simply won't be there when its my time and the gov't will turn their hands up at me and shrug their shoulders and it'll be the PE companies that doubled my money every 5 years that will give me back my life savings and then some.

If you guys are against private equity so much, why not write to your 401K plan manager and pension plan administrator and tell them you demand your monies not be invested in such evil enterprises such as Dunkin Donuts and J. Crew... you'll forgo a 20% annual return on your investment and stick to the 1% the US Treasury provides... or the 7% the overall stock market returns.... put your money where your mouth is.

_____________(second comment, further down)_________________________

BTW I have a sibling that is an engineer "bettering the face of humanity". He spent the last 11 months designing a screw that holds an anchor in place on a freight liner. I have a cousin who is a dr and he spends his days trying to make an honest living while all of his partners sell unnecessary tests and scans to unsuspecting patients because the company that owns the testing lab takes them on extravagant trips and dinners. They bought an expensive piece of medical machinery and now suddenly 2/3 of their patients should get this type of scan "just to be safe" while billing the insurance company... oddly enough it was never a precaution thought of in the years prior to them investing in this device.

 
Virginia Tech 4ever:
Citing TARP, Social Security and a single study about social mobility in the UK vs. US doesn't prove anything about what is being asserted. What is specifically being asserted is that people in the United States are becoming rich and are turning around and PREVENTING everyone else from becoming rich.

None of these examples even remotely demonstrates the assertion. Once again, cite the evidence--examples, studies, etc.--that demonstrate that rich people are actively keeping others from their own personal endeavors. Show me!

you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him take his head out of his ass to drink.

 
melvvvar:
Virginia Tech 4ever:
Citing TARP, Social Security and a single study about social mobility in the UK vs. US doesn't prove anything about what is being asserted. What is specifically being asserted is that people in the United States are becoming rich and are turning around and PREVENTING everyone else from becoming rich.

None of these examples even remotely demonstrates the assertion. Once again, cite the evidence--examples, studies, etc.--that demonstrate that rich people are actively keeping others from their own personal endeavors. Show me!

you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him take his head out of his ass to drink.

In other words, you have NO evidence at all. You can't even produce a single EXAMPLE!

Array
 

This all breaks down to which economic system is best. In a meritocracy, personal utility drives the decisions, where each individual performs their own risk/reward analysis and pursues careers that maximize this utility. The markets react to these decision by either supporting or denying ideas/products/decisions. To reference the potato chip eater as mentioned above, the fact is our society allows those people to exist because, even though they bring nothing to the market and are not compensated, they still are maximizing their utility given the state of society. You might say well they get unemployment/government benefits but the fact remains they enjoy lounging than contributing to society. The moment you say "the potato chip eater should be working because it maximizes societal benefit" it just sounds like communism. The moment you do not allow people to maximize their utility, you run into management and effort inefficiencies. You don't get the smart people to switch industries by guilt tripping or pitching them on societal benefit, you throw them monetary/perk incentives until you change their utility decision. Not to mention, who the hell can quantify societal benefit efficiently? There is contingent valuation and everything but frankly they suck. At the end of the day societal benefit decision ends up with a small committee making decisions with limited data and unknown results. The only efficient way to measure merit and thus compensation is from the standpoint of the monetary value to a firm/employer/etc. This is often in contract to maximizing society's benefit but its really the only realistic way to do business.

 

Nothing meaningful to add to the thread here but lawschool121 - If you click that 'Quote this post in your reply' icon on the bottom left of each post (next to blue bubble and email icon), you can essentially quote that persons post in your replies. Saves a little bit of time from copy and pasting and makes it easier for others to follow what post you are referencing.

 

The US needs to start WWIII so we can have a second postwar boom.

1.) Close the grain export window. 2.) Food prices go down in the US, giving the middle class a mild break. 3.) Wait for China to go hungry. 4.) China invades Russia for cropland. 5.) Russia's and China's infrastructure gets destroyed in ~30 minutes. 6.) 60 year postwar boom!

I'm joking... kind of...

 
djr:
Nothing meaningful to add to the thread here but lawschool121 - If you click that 'Quote this post in your reply' icon on the bottom left of each post (next to blue bubble and email icon), you can essentially quote that persons post in your replies. Saves a little bit of time from copy and pasting and makes it easier for others to follow what post you are referencing.

Cool.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
The US needs to start WWIII so we can have a second postwar boom.

1.) Close the grain export window. 2.) Food prices go down in the US, giving the middle class a mild break. 3.) Wait for China to go hungry. 4.) China invades Russia for cropland. 5.) Russia's and China's infrastructure gets destroyed in ~30 minutes. 6.) 60 year postwar boom!

I'm joking... kind of...

lol

russia has infrastructure? been there recently?

 
melvvvar:
IlliniProgrammer:
The US needs to start WWIII so we can have a second postwar boom.

1.) Close the grain export window. 2.) Food prices go down in the US, giving the middle class a mild break. 3.) Wait for China to go hungry. 4.) China invades Russia for cropland. 5.) Russia's and China's infrastructure gets destroyed in ~30 minutes. 6.) 60 year postwar boom!

I'm joking... kind of...

lol

russia has infrastructure? been there recently?

In Soviet Russia, Kremlin has infrastructure
Get busy living
 
econ:
dwight schrute:
If we are the "best" students, do we serve ourselves and as an extension society better using our creative energy as entrepreneurs or working the financial markets?

Do what you want to do. Do what you're passionate about. Do what you find more interesting, satisfying, and rewarding. You'll be serving society regardless, so don't worry about that.

I'm far to libertarian to be worried about society before myself. My problem is I just have to many passions and interests to focus on one of them.

The Man:
I think this is ridiculous. How on earth do you know what would happen if these folks were working somewhere else? You can't possibly figure that out. Have any of the people who complain about this actual figured out marginal cost and benefit for each of the respective career paths in their entirety and determined that the benefit to society is better in one than the other? No.

And finally, how arrogant to say that a person should conform to your personal idea of what a better society would look like in making major life decisions instead of what they want to do.

I think you're misunderstanding the point of the article. Thiel wasn't trying to prove which career path was better for society just that too many kids thought the only way too success was h/y/p > IB/Big Law/ Big 4. He wanted to crack a hole in this theory by proving that if you had a good idea and spent your time, energy, and money on it instead of school you could also be successful.

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art - Andy Warhol
 

If anyone things a billionaire gives a crap about US tax law they are kidding themselves. The estate tax generally screws the unsophisticated rich because it includes real estate value.

Suppose your parents bought a farm or a nice house and held it for 30 years. That appreciated value is now included in the estate. If you do not have the liquid assets to pay the tax you will have to sell your illiquid, and precious family property.

I didn't realize we should take someones life long, already multiple taxes wealth simply because some people think it is unfair. Oh well #welcometoAmerica

 
TNA:
If anyone things a billionaire gives a crap about US tax law they are kidding themselves. The estate tax generally screws the unsophisticated rich because it includes real estate value.

Suppose your parents bought a farm or a nice house and held it for 30 years. That appreciated value is now included in the estate. If you do not have the liquid assets to pay the tax you will have to sell your illiquid, and precious family property.

I didn't realize we should take someones life long, already multiple taxes wealth simply because some people think it is unfair. Oh well #welcometoAmerica

that's a good example of a redistributionist law aimed at the wealthy that hits the middle class square in the head because the middle class as a rule does not have a network of tax lawyers and financial strategists to set up complex tax strategies for them.

the other is income tax structure. carried interest and LT capital gains taxed at 15 and 10% while the top rate for earned income is 39.6%. i wonder where the middle class gets most of their revenue: earned income, or their massive hedge fund portfolios.

 
melvvvar:
TNA:
If anyone things a billionaire gives a crap about US tax law they are kidding themselves. The estate tax generally screws the unsophisticated rich because it includes real estate value.

Suppose your parents bought a farm or a nice house and held it for 30 years. That appreciated value is now included in the estate. If you do not have the liquid assets to pay the tax you will have to sell your illiquid, and precious family property.

I didn't realize we should take someones life long, already multiple taxes wealth simply because some people think it is unfair. Oh well #welcometoAmerica

that's a good example of a redistributionist law aimed at the wealthy that hits the middle class square in the head because the middle class as a rule does not have a network of tax lawyers and financial strategists to set up complex tax strategies for them.

the other is income tax structure. carried interest and LT capital gains taxed at 15 and 10% while the top rate for earned income is 39.6%. i wonder where the middle class gets most of their revenue: earned income, or their massive hedge fund portfolios.

I also wonder where retirees get a lot of their income -- capital gains.

and middle class wealthy people get screwed because of improper planning. Insurance products can mitigate estate tax issues, but the issue is why is the government taking taxed wealth from people.

I support ending child tax credits and mortgage interest deductions. Those disproportionately benefit the middle - lower class. Why should the government use tax law to manipulate society? And should the well off never benefit? Is the merits of everything to be judged by how much the well off benefit?

This also demonizes a group that by and large is made up of small business owners and self made millionaires. For every Paris Hilton you have her father or her grandfather who built an empire. Money and wealth just didn't come from the thin air.

 

Amazingly, for once Anttna hasn't made a single point I disagree with.

Regarding the US, I feel someone somewhere is playing a rather cynical game. It's not yet game over, but it's getting close. The idea of people getting paid to take other people's jobs overseas is somewhat.... diabolical to me, but it does happen, and they get paid a whole lot. Yet, very often, the jobs that cost the most are the upper management jobs, yet those are never shifted away.

Anyway... to cut a long story short, what would make sense would be a system where everyone has a chance. I always remember what I read about finland's educational system where there are NO private schools, so everyone has a stake in making the public schools work properly, at the moment it feels like the people who are most able to reform the system very often have no interest in doing so - they just ship their kids to private schools.

Now don't get me wrong, people will still goof off, make bad choices and fuck their lives up, but that will totally be their doing. As it is at the moment, I just feel too many in the US actually don't stand a chance at getting any quality of life, due to other people's choices (their parents mostly) and rather.... one-sided political decisions.

But Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought bravely. And Rhaegar died.
 

First of all, what's this about serving society? It's supposed to be the other way around. We organize ourselves in ways so that the combination of our efforts result in us all being happier. Society serves the individuals, not the other way around. And I think a good way to measure society's success is how happy people are, therefore it's important that you do what you are passionate about, because your work is a huge part of your life. If you want to count M&Ms, if it really makes you happy even if you're gonna be poor as hell and maybe die of hunger go ahead and do it. Besides, who the fuck am I to tell you that you can't do what makes you happy because it's not the optimal for society? That would mean making you miserable in order to make the rest happier, which implicitly means that other people's lives are more important than yours. Which is plain stupid.

There is a problem with the views expressed in the OP, it's incomplete. It's true that engineering and research need talent, but so does finance. So does pretty much every job in the fucking planet. Just to give an example, Silicon Valley is way too crowded, and so is finance. That means good start-ups are not getting enough funding, or none at all. So it's clearly important that talent also goes into finance, in order to discern the good companies and give them the right funding. It's important to invent something new, but it's also important that it gets the money to develop and promoted so that it can make all our lives better, making us happier, at the same time making the creator rich and happy because he did what he liked, and making the investors happy because they are doing what they love.

 
Anomanderis:
Amazingly, for once Anttna hasn't made a single point I disagree with.

Regarding the US, I feel someone somewhere is playing a rather cynical game. It's not yet game over, but it's getting close. The idea of people getting paid to take other people's jobs overseas is somewhat.... diabolical to me, but it does happen, and they get paid a whole lot. Yet, very often, the jobs that cost the most are the upper management jobs, yet those are never shifted away.

Anyway... to cut a long story short, what would make sense would be a system where everyone has a chance. I always remember what I read about finland's educational system where there are NO private schools, so everyone has a stake in making the public schools work properly, at the moment it feels like the people who are most able to reform the system very often have no interest in doing so - they just ship their kids to private schools.

Now don't get me wrong, people will still goof off, make bad choices and fuck their lives up, but that will totally be their doing. As it is at the moment, I just feel too many in the US actually don't stand a chance at getting any quality of life, due to other people's choices (their parents mostly) and rather.... one-sided political decisions.

You can't ban private schools--that would be a clear violation of the First Amendment (freedom of assembly). We have bad public schools in many areas because of the monopolistic fashion with which the teachers' unions rule. One of Obama's first acts was to cut off school vouchers in the District of Columbia. In his mind, it's better that all kids operate in a failing system rather than some having an opportunity at a quality education.

This is an example of where government prevents social mobility, not the rich (as the author asserts).

Array
 
Maximus Decimus Meridius:
I think a good way to measure society's success is how happy people are, therefore it's important that you do what you are passionate about, because your work is a huge part of your life. If you want to count M&Ms, if it really makes you happy even if you're gonna be poor as hell and maybe die of hunger go ahead and do it. Besides, who the fuck am I to tell you that you can't do what makes you happy because it's not the optimal for society? .

Suppose two scenarios. Scenario one you devote your life to medical research and discover a cure for a couple of widespread diseases. Your brilliance and dedication pours over into mathematics, in which you solve the p = np problem and some other obscure problems. Finally you make some long lasting contributions to art under a pseudo-name that nobody discovers until 10 years after your death. But now suppose also you are fucking miserable 90% of the time. All of your hard work, all of your contributions "to society" (medicine) and to "to knowledge" (math) and "to art" did not make you "happy."

But now suppose scenario two: you are homer simpson. You sit on your ass all day long eating potato chips and doing shit. You live 65 years with a mediocre job and never try. You get mediocre grades. You don't take very good care of your body. You watch TV 100 hours a week instead of working. But...you are incredibly, incredibly happy. You are overjoyed with every second of every potato chip you force down your throat, every amount of TV sitcom you watch, etc.

It seems to me I would take scenario one in a heart beat. And therefore it follows that if I am not mistaken, there are more factors to an objectively meaningful life than happiness (although don't take this to mean I don't value it AT ALL..). Most importantly, it follows that I can make judgments about the life that I would want myself and other to lead. The life under scenario one is objectively better than the life under scenario two.

Of course I made it very easy for myself by picking extreme examples, And believe me there are gray lives in between where it's not so clear which one we would find better. And of course I don't take any of this to mean I want to be a dictator over how other people live their lives at least from some overly legalistic point of view. Still, it would follow that there are objectively more and less meaningful meaningless lives, and that one's personal happiness is not the sole determinant of what makes a life worth living.

 
lawschool121:
Maximus Decimus Meridius:
I think a good way to measure society's success is how happy people are, therefore it's important that you do what you are passionate about, because your work is a huge part of your life. If you want to count M&Ms, if it really makes you happy even if you're gonna be poor as hell and maybe die of hunger go ahead and do it. Besides, who the fuck am I to tell you that you can't do what makes you happy because it's not the optimal for society? .

Suppose two scenarios. Scenario one you devote your life to medical research and discover a cure for a couple of widespread diseases. Your brilliance and dedication pours over into mathematics, in which you solve the p = np problem and some other obscure problems. Finally you make some long lasting contributions to art under a pseudo-name that nobody discovers until 10 years after your death. But now suppose also you are fucking miserable 90% of the time. All of your hard work, all of your contributions "to society" (medicine) and to "to knowledge" (math) and "to art" did not make you "happy."

But now suppose scenario two: you are homer simpson. You sit on your ass all day long eating potato chips and doing shit. You live 65 years with a mediocre job and never try. You get mediocre grades. You don't take very good care of your body. You watch TV 100 hours a week instead of working. But...you are incredibly, incredibly happy. You are overjoyed with every second of every potato chip you force down your throat, every amount of TV sitcom you watch, etc.

It seems to me I would take scenario one in a heart beat. And therefore it follows that if I am not mistaken, there are more factors to an objectively meaningful life than happiness (although don't take this to mean I don't value it AT ALL..). Most importantly, it follows that I can make judgments about the life that I would want myself and other to lead. The life under scenario one is objectively better than the life under scenario two.

Of course I made it very easy for myself by picking extreme examples, And believe me there are gray lives in between where it's not so clear which one we would find better. And of course I don't take any of this to mean I want to be a dictator over how other people live their lives at least from some overly legalistic point of view. Still, it would follow that there are objectively more and less meaningful meaningless lives, and that one's personal happiness is not the sole determinant of what makes a life worth living.

One of my points that I haven't seemed to explained or you haven't managed to understand (hey let's split the blame 50-50) was that if you are miserable and you fucking hate your job you might do it well, but you won't excel. Do you know hoy many hundreds if not thousands of setbacks you would have in the 1st scenario? How do you keep going instead of quitting if you hate what you are doing? Seriously, imagine the guy hating researching, hating medicine and at the same time killing all his patients, when he knows he is not going to enjoy the POSSIBLE outcome, which is what would drive a Noble Price winner (just an example). It's just impossible. It won't happen. Period. What would happen is that the guy would settle for being a mediocre doctor (best case scenario) or quit after a couple of years and become the second case (worst case scenario) Read an interview with anyone considered a genius, someone who created/invented/discovered smth great. The thing that is ALWAYS, 100% common to them is that they love what they do. Do you think Bill Gates would have created windows/microsoft/etc.. if he hated programming and computers? Yes, I concur it would be a great loss and out lives would be worse, but my point is there's nothing you can do about it. You are picturing two scenarios which can be explained as excel and creat smth great doing something you hate VS doing what you want and not making any difference. My point is, scenario 1 is impossible. And the fact is it has never happened before provides empiric evidence that it is. Find me someone who invented a vaccine for a huge epidemic disease that hates medicine/chemistry/biology and I'll shut my mouth. So again, it's essential that each one does what they love and they're passionate about, so everyone would excel at their job, which would result in the best for society, since all jobs are important (yes, there might 0.01% that aren't, but you can't make rules and assumptions based on 0.01%)

You say "The life under scenario one is objectively better than the life under scenario two" but you omit the key point. It's better for society, but that's irrelevant. The important thing is how good the life is to the individual living it. Following your logic, what do we do with retarded people? Kill them? Since they're not gonna create anything great... Give them meaningless jobs? Ok, and the rest? It's a contradiction in terms, since, like I said, society is meant to serve the individual, not vice versa. And also, the word objective isn't correct. In order for something to be better, you need to define a scale, therefore you need a best and worst point, and better is defined as the closest to the best. But the trick and the debate is in what are the best and worst, and there you have put your opinion. Therefore it's subjective. You can define factors, you can say that one is better for society and that the other one is happier, but you can't objectively say which is more important. As an example, car engines. You can't say an engine is better than another one. You can say one has lower fuel consumption, one has more power, one is lighter, one is technologically more advanced, one has more torque, etc... But which engine is best depends on your priorities. Unless one was better in absolutely all the factors that you can measure, which again is the person that excels and is happy at the same time. That's the only case in which his life is objectively best. Therefore, you need to do what makes you happy.

And I want to s

 
Virginia Tech 4ever:
Anomanderis:
Amazingly, for once Anttna hasn't made a single point I disagree with.

Regarding the US, I feel someone somewhere is playing a rather cynical game. It's not yet game over, but it's getting close. The idea of people getting paid to take other people's jobs overseas is somewhat.... diabolical to me, but it does happen, and they get paid a whole lot. Yet, very often, the jobs that cost the most are the upper management jobs, yet those are never shifted away.

Anyway... to cut a long story short, what would make sense would be a system where everyone has a chance. I always remember what I read about finland's educational system where there are NO private schools, so everyone has a stake in making the public schools work properly, at the moment it feels like the people who are most able to reform the system very often have no interest in doing so - they just ship their kids to private schools.

Now don't get me wrong, people will still goof off, make bad choices and fuck their lives up, but that will totally be their doing. As it is at the moment, I just feel too many in the US actually don't stand a chance at getting any quality of life, due to other people's choices (their parents mostly) and rather.... one-sided political decisions.

You can't ban private schools--that would be a clear violation of the First Amendment (freedom of assembly). We have bad public schools in many areas because of the monopolistic fashion with which the teachers' unions rule. One of Obama's first acts was to cut off school vouchers in the District of Columbia. In his mind, it's better that all kids operate in a failing system rather than some having an opportunity at a quality education.

This is an example of where government prevents social mobility, not the rich (as the author asserts).

I personally think the level of education in the US is highly dependent on the wealth of the neighborhood, not Obama. There's possibly an argument to be made for banning vouchers, and making parents push for better service for their taxes. Incidentally, lefty though I am, I'm also highly suspect of a teachers' union that doesn't allow me to fire a teacher who is under performing.

FYI - regarding the system in Finland, I agree and should have mentioned that it couldn't happen in the US. I just mentioned it because it worked out well over there.

But Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought bravely. And Rhaegar died.
 
Maximus Decimus Meridius:
First of all, what's this about serving society? It's supposed to be the other way around. We organize ourselves in ways so that the combination of our efforts result in us all being happier.
EXACTLY

What's with all the rich old men encouraging people to drop out of college lately? Every time I get more education, my life improves. If these guys want to help people, there are plenty of established means of doing so: personally, I see this as old people trying to impart a highly imbalanced worldview that is out of touch with reality.

Start a business: good Take time off to do so: debateable College is useless: WRONG WRONG WRONG

Perhaps they should stick to their business.

Get busy living
 

IMO, the poorest neighbor hoods have shitty schools because of violence. Good teachers don't go there because of safety.

You need to have security to get kids to school. You also need to have parents get their kids to go to school.

 

lawschool121, you can't define an objectively better life without subjectively defining your measurement of a good versus bad life. You made the subjective call that money, success, arts etc. are more important than happiness (I completely agree with you) but its easy to say option 1 is better than option 2 when you have defined the measurement parameters. The meritocracy though is what keeps the sectors honest, conceptually smart skilled workers have their pick of jobs and they gravitate to higher paying/happiness maximizing jobs. The money is good in those sectors because the demand is workers is high relative to the supply (or a small supply at moderate demand) and those sectors should thus get the geniuses.

 
TNA:
IMO, the poorest neighbor hoods have shitty schools because of violence. Good teachers don't go there because of safety.

You need to have security to get kids to school. You also need to have parents get their kids to go to school.

you're to the left of me on this one.

shitty schools are shitty because of shitty parenting and shitty students. good students in a shitty school can still make it. i refer anyone who disagrees to first-generation broke ass indians, asians and eastern europeans who are able to succeed despite going to schools literally in the hood.

 
melvvvar:
TNA:
IMO, the poorest neighbor hoods have shitty schools because of violence. Good teachers don't go there because of safety.

You need to have security to get kids to school. You also need to have parents get their kids to go to school.

you're to the left of me on this one.

shitty schools are shitty because of shitty parenting and shitty students. good students in a shitty school can still make it. i refer anyone who disagrees to first-generation broke ass indians, asians and eastern europeans who are able to succeed despite going to schools literally in the hood.

I note with some dismay that first generation Africans are missing from your list.

But I agree - the right parenting can still create success despite the quality of the schools.

But Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought bravely. And Rhaegar died.
 
TNA:
IMO, the poorest neighbor hoods have shitty schools because of violence. Good teachers don't go there because of safety.

You need to have security to get kids to school. You also need to have parents get their kids to go to school.

I think the poorest neighborhoods sooner or later become violent, true; but which comes first - the violence or the poverty?

Apart from that - schools are run via property taxes if I'm not mistaken. So the wealthier the neighborhood, the higher the taxes, the better the schools.

But Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought bravely. And Rhaegar died.
 

That's like saying there are no objective mathematical or scientific facts because the only way to know them is through somebody's subjective perception. In other words subjective perception does not imply subjective facts of any kind, whether it be normative, empirical, or deductive.

For example when a mathematician proves a theorem, he may make errors (in fact: every mathematician might make errors in the exact same way), but we don't say "oh, and therefore there is no such thing as a mathematical fact." No: we just say it is possible to make errors but that there are still facts of the matter.

Now I present to you an argument in which you say "well, yeah, I agree I would take the life of the unhappy yet productive genius" but then you say "oh but it's just my opinion and who am I?" No reason to make that second step. Instead you can say "I'm hesitant about the argument; I would like to explore iit further by perhaps being more rigorous...but at the end of the day if an argument is good there are normative objective facts and we ought not deny that on the basis of it being hard to know them." The same applies in science, math, and dare I say finance.

 

Interesting recent talk by Lee Ohanian of UCLA that relates to this: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/08/ohanian_on_the.html

If you think meritocracy is dead in America, then move to Greece / China / Russia and get back to me. I think the US is still exceptionally competitive, especially when attracting high-growth talent.

Illini, the reason I think this keeps going on is that no one really knows WHAT is causing the huge mess. People blame the labor market (which has destroyed the lower and lower-middle classes while being a lot easier on the upper quartiles), but no one knows why this recession is different and why it seems to be targeting certain segments of the population more than others.

You could argue its the financial crisis, but that happened four years ago and is largely over and done with in the gross sense. You could argue its that businesses aren't spending and investing, but no one knows why they aren't. You could argue that policy seems uncertain, but it has always been uncertain. There's just a lot of unknowns that people are still kicking around, and this recession / depression / new status quo is a lot different than pretty much anything seen in the past century.

One thing is clear though, if you don't have good skills and/or an advanced education, you are pretty much doomed in this economy.

 
charmander:
lawschool121 is the best troll to date.
Yeah, I don't see how it's possible for anyone to live in 2011, be educated, and seriously believe that there is some sort of normative objective facts about how we ought to live our lives. Don't ask me to prove that there isn't one, because as ethicists have been saying for forever, it's impossible to prove that one doesn't exist. To believe that you could eventually "figure out" an argument for what is a meaningful life implies that you believe there is some sort of intrinsic meaning to your actions that is greater than just what we think. And, yes, I do believe that any modern philosopher who is not at least an absurdist (there is such a thing as "meaning" in the universe, but it's impossible to figure out) in this day and age is just trying to make him/herself sleep better at night and I've yet to hear a convincing argument for this intrinsic meaning (and I've really tried reading and keeping up to date with the most recent stuff, and find people are generally just starting to repeat themselves).

Of course, you can argue that as humans, you are not talking about meaning with regards to some sort of larger, universal meaning, but meaning that is merely universal to humans. It IS clearly demonstrable that there are certain ideas about what we "ought" to do that are inherent in humans, basically killing most arguments for a completely subjective, relativistic view of the world. So i guess from a human perspective you can argue that there are objective truths about how one ought live one's life. And that brings me to your assertions here:

"Belief in objective normativity does not mean you should become a dictator. I would certainly say certain modes of life are clearly wrong (i.e., the Hitler way of life or what have you), but obviously there's plenty of gray area. But this gray area stems from lack of moral knowledge, not lack in the existence of normative facts."

It's that last sentence that bugs me. Now, I'm not saying that it's untrue. But come on. You THINK that the gray area can be figured out, but there are some pretty strong arguments against that. I personally think that our idea of "meaning," and morality for that matter, stems from a combination of ultimate motives (psych. usage of the term, not philisophical usage, basically meaning it stems from biology and evolution) and mis-firings of our ultimate motives. If you believe this, it becomes pretty easy to believe that there's grey area that simply cannot be figured out. I'm not saying I'm necessarily right. But I think it's a simple explanation that helps us understand a lot about human nature. Lex parsimoniae, right (don't jump on me for that, I'm being slightly facetious, I know)? But what I am saying is that you ignore the ridiculously strong and numerous arguments against the existence of these normative facts. And if you are dismissing these arguments, you ought to become one of the greatest ethicists ever.

God, I feel like I need to use footnotes when I write, this shit is so fractured.... may be a pain to read through, too lazy to really edit it.

 
Warhead:
charmander:
lawschool121 is the best troll to date.
Yeah, I don't see how it's possible for anyone to live in 2011, be educated, and seriously believe that there is some sort of normative objective facts about how we ought to live our lives. Don't ask me to prove that there isn't one, because as ethicists have been saying for forever, it's impossible to prove that one doesn't exist. To believe that you could eventually "figure out" an argument for what is a meaningful life implies that you believe there is some sort of intrinsic meaning to your actions that is greater than just what we think. And, yes, I do believe that any modern philosopher who is not at least an absurdist (there is such a thing as "meaning" in the universe, but it's impossible to figure out) in this day and age is just trying to make him/herself sleep better at night and I've yet to hear a convincing argument for this intrinsic meaning (and I've really tried reading and keeping up to date with the most recent stuff, and find people are generally just starting to repeat themselves).

No offense but it doesn't sound like you know anything about modern philosophy at all. In fact, I would be impressed if you found many academics who weren't moral objectivists. Yes you will find a bunch of high school students come in during the Freshman seminar and argue that there is no objective meaning to anything (count me in on that one), but it reduces quickly into absurdity. To see why, ask yourself whether it would be OK to throw a 1-year old into a pot of boiling water for pleasure even if every single human being alive thought it was so.

In the rest of your post you seem to come close to making the naturalistic fallacy. It's no surprise that we have moral intuitions as a result of evolutionary forces. But that does not mean that our moral intuitions have no basis in determining certain sorts of moral facts. Consider that that would imply that our scientific and mathematical beliefs would be equally baseless as well. That is it is say: if we believe X because we evolved X, we should not say that, as a result, we have no reason to believe X has any basis in reality only for normative X's, but for empirical and deductive X's as well. But that is absurd.

If you're still in school I would recommend taking a course on meta-ethics. You might find it interesting.

Here's an interesting piece by a philosopher at Yale: http://books.google.com/books?id=By9nCkAvS6EC&pg=PT100&dq=thinking+abou… about cases kagan&f=false

 

It is becoming a lovely plutocracy a-la-south-america, you just need a little more corruption and voila!

Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards. - Tacitus Dr. Nick Riviera: Hey, don't worry. You don't have to make up stories here. Save that for court!
 

See below for a great op-ed by David Brooks on the subject.

February 19, 2010 OP-ED COLUMNIST The Power Elite

By DAVID BROOKS One of the great achievements of modern times is that we have made society more fair. Sixty years ago, the upper echelons were dominated by what E. Digby Baltzell called The Protestant Establishment and C. Wright Mills called The Power Elite. If your father went to Harvard, you had a 90 percent chance of getting in yourself, and the path upward from there was grooved in your favor.

Since then, we have opened up opportunities for women, African-Americans, Jews, Italians, Poles, Hispanics and members of many other groups. Moreover, we’ve changed the criteria for success. It is less necessary to be clubbable. It is more important to be smart and hard-working.

Yet here’s the funny thing. As we’ve made our institutions more meritocratic, their public standing has plummeted. We’ve increased the diversity and talent level of people at the top of society, yet trust in elites has never been lower.

It’s not even clear that society is better led. Fifty years ago, the financial world was dominated by well-connected blue bloods who drank at lunch and played golf in the afternoons. Now financial firms recruit from the cream of the Ivy League. In 2007, 47 percent of Harvard grads went into finance or consulting. Yet would we say that banks are performing more ably than they were a half-century ago?

Government used to be staffed by party hacks. Today, it is staffed by people from public policy schools. But does government work better than it did before?

Journalism used to be the preserve of working-class stiffs who filed stories and hit the bars. Now it is the preserve of cultured analysts who file stories and hit the water bottles. Is the media overall more reputable now than it was then?

The promise of the meritocracy has not been fulfilled. The talent level is higher, but the reputation is lower.

Why has this happened? I can think of a few contributing factors.

First, the meritocracy is based on an overly narrow definition of talent. Our system rewards those who can amass technical knowledge. But this skill is only marginally related to the skill of being sensitive to context. It is not related at all to skills like empathy. Over the past years, we’ve seen very smart people make mistakes because they didn’t understand the context in which they were operating.

Second, this new system has created new social chasms. In the old days, there were obviously big differences between people whose lives were defined by “The Philadelphia Story” and those who were defined by “The Grapes of Wrath.” But if you ran the largest bank in Murfreesboro, Tenn., you probably lived in Murfreesboro. Now you live in Charlotte or New York City. You might have married a secretary. Now you marry another banker. You would have had similar lifestyle habits as other people in town. Now the lifestyle patterns of the college-educated are very different from the patterns in other classes. Social attitudes are very different, too.

It could be that Americans actually feel less connected to their leadership class now than they did then, with good reason.

Third, leadership-class solidarity is weaker. The Protestant Establishment was inbred. On the other hand, those social connections placed informal limits on strife. Personal scandals were hushed up. Now members of the leadership class are engaged in a perpetual state of war. Each side seeks daily advantage in ways that poison the long-term reputations of everybody involved.

Fourth, time horizons have shrunk. If you were an old blue blood, you traced your lineage back centuries, and there was a decent chance that you’d hand your company down to members of your clan. That subtly encouraged long-term thinking.

Now people respond to ever-faster performance criteria — daily stock prices or tracking polls. This perversely encourages reckless behavior. To leave a mark in a fast, competitive world, leaders seek to hit grandiose home runs. Clinton tried to transform health care. Bush tried to transform the Middle East. Obama has tried to transform health care, energy and much more.

There’s less emphasis on steady, gradual change and more emphasis on the big swing. This produces more spectacular failures and more uncertainty. Many Americans, not caught up on the romance of this sort of heroism, are terrified.

Fifth, society is too transparent. Since Watergate, we have tried to make government as open as possible. But as William Galston of the Brookings Institution jokes, government should sometimes be shrouded for the same reason that middle-aged people should be clothed. This isn’t Galston’s point, but I’d observe that the more government has become transparent, the less people are inclined to trust it.

This is not to say that we should return to the days of the WASP ascendancy. That’s neither possible nor desirable. Rather, our system of promotion has grown some pretty serious problems, which are more evident with each passing day.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy Terms of Service Search Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map

fdba Emory Blaine and BBA or otherwise trying to find the perfect pseudonym.
 

So which countries currently (and historically) have had the highest levels of income inequality with limited income mobility? Economically unfree countries that have no/limited adherence to individual liberty...is this not common knowledge?

Our problem is that we're trying to enact economic policy by quantifing and modeling human behavior amongst hundreds of millions of people who each act in their separate self-interest, and by incentives unique to the individual. That task is impossible...and when enacted will create its own distinct set of problems. (unintended consequences)

It's ridiculous to think that we can change this or that variable in some economic equation, like those factors that effect the calculation of the gini coefficient, to produce some desirable level of "equality". We're human beings, not some fucking element like Boron that you can test in a lab. That thing is always gonna have five protons and react in certain/specific ways with other elements, but a human (much less a group of them) will NEVER act the same way, given the same set of circumstances, 100% of the time....because those 'circumstances' are unknowable and non-reproducible.

Haven't read the book, but it'd be interesting to see how the author rationalizes it to himself how the Dems (and specifically Obama) is the one that is going to restore this "meritocracy" and not expand the bi-partisan bureaucracy that has the lower/middle classes by their collective balls.

"I'd rather die than be a phony." - Patrice O'Neal
 

a lot of the income inequality in this country is racial. race is largely a visual phenomenon, but we are a visual species, and problems of racism will always be with us.

with hispanic immigration, the country is just simply going to change. if south america is any predictor, which it probably is, blond hispanics will pull the raza cosmica card and maintain hegemony over their darker skinned brothers. that's some baked in inequality right there. immigrant asians don't do so hot when you correct for education. once you do, they are rather underpaid. indians are also underpaid, so these groups tend to go into business for themselves. more inequality. on the other extreme, i grew up with some jew kids whose parents' STILL couldn't get into certain country clubs. this is the fucking late 20th century, folks. families with hundreds of mil, and not allowed to hit a little ball around a grassy park with a bunhc of WASPs wearing atrocious pants.

 

Lol love the educated fools that think 1. We don't know the causes for this 2. It's not fixable

Not sure if stupid or just republicans trying desperately to make an argument. Simple answer: the top end of the spectrum WAS BAILED OUT and catered to for a decade while everyone else was left to fend for themselves. Now that same top end is hoarding cash and running hiring freezes because they're 'uncertain' where the next mulligan will come from. The ironic part is that these same people accuse the president of class war when they themselves have been waging exactly that.

The solutions are not rocket science, it's just a question of who mans up first, business or the government. For the life of me, I am baffled at how such a smart group of people can't or won't see things as they are and get so very lost in details. Seriously, take a US govt 101 course, read US govt for dummies, or get a general clue before spouting off the crap from FOX news....despite the huge amounts of data, the overarching concepts are surprisingly simple and the general principles don't change over time, just the vocabulary describing them.

Get busy living
 
TNA:
It's always the Republicans fault. Common day boogie man.
It this point in history, yeah, they really fucked up non stop for a while, credit where credit is due (or lack of). I'm saying this as a FORMER REPUBLICAN. When/if this administration starts fucking up, I'll start ragging on them, but so far they're really not anywhere close to the level of "what.the.OMG.fuck.are.you.thinking???" as the last GOP administration.
Get busy living
 

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“Elections are a futures market for stolen property”
 

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Vel dolore quia recusandae eaque quia molestiae. Doloribus sunt assumenda delectus voluptas totam sint.

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Life's is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
 

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