Predictions for America's Future

It is amazing how many people just do not understand this Steve.  As far as union behavior and the unacceptable use of violence as well as emplied violence is it any wonder they all cheered when Obama bailed out GM?   The big thug idolized by the mob.

I abhor how government is set up to be the mediator between the workers and the owners of the companies.

Take for example the Hostess Twinkie factory.  The owners just layed out the reality of the situation.  "This is what it costs and this is what you demand.  If you cannot come to an agreement we will have to shut down the factories as we will not be able to afford to stay in business."

The union would not budge but yet when the factories were forced into receivership the same 15000 workers cried the blues.

Tooo freaking bad they deserved it.

Eva, 

I've addressed this issue on OL, and since all of my posts here are made on a smartphone, it would be better if you read some of my lengthier treatments there.

I will make a few points:

If you're going to argue appeasement, you're going to have to identify in advance some line in the sand to prevent If You Give a Mouse a Cookie from becoming political reality. Even if you believe employers hold the advantage in wage negotiations, government granting unions a monopoly power over the workplace swings the balance so far in the other direction that employers are left with practically no power at all. We've seen that unions are more than capable of bankrupting the employer or municipality when their every demand is not met - and willing to do so. "Pay us what we want or we'll destroy you" is not a negotiation, it's an extortion. I am actually not against unions at all, and any libertarian for free association should not be either. What I am against is granting unions a government monopoly power over the workplace and all manner of other unnatural power-shifting treatments by the government.

Your comparisons of the modern-day U.S. to feudal Europe lack proportionality. It is quite one thing to be oppressed under a entrenched class system and having to steal for basic food and shelter. The poor in the United States are in the richest tier of persons in the world. Zero starved in the United States last year. Most "poor" have multiple cars, internet access, air conditioning, cell phones, and popular entertainment. Do you believe workers, regardless of their productive value, have the right to be comfortable according to whatever arbitrary level they feel they deserve? Where for you make the distinction?

Robert:

I don't share your conclusion, Fred. I think in a democratic republic such as the United States it matters a great deal to our quality of life what others believe and what their values are. If you live in a country of looters, your choices reduce drastically down to loot or be looted.

I of course understand what you mean; I've expressed it differently, as 'the mob can do what the mob can do.'    Yes, if we come of age and find ourselves in a sinking lifeboat jam packed with existentially terrified beings, clawing over each other for survival, it is a clear example of a circumstance where it matters a great deal to the quality of life what others believe and what their values are.

But I'm not sure what you mean by the conditional, "If you live in a country of looters..."     I think from your perspective you don't believe that is already the case, whereas, I've seen that-- as my assessment -- as something given, from before I was born.    Everyone?  No.  A Majority?   Clearly a majority enough, to tolerate the looting that goes on in plain sight.  That has gone on in plain sight.   And I am not talking about welfare.    I am talking about what used to be published daily, in plain sight, in things like Federal Business Weekly, or now, Federal Computer Weekly,  and today here.  https://www.fbo.gov/  

For 15 years, I was the world's smallest defense contractor, and not just to the US. (And indeed, what goes on by governments is a tribal thing, a can't avoid it disease of mankind.   It is what people will do when handed the Tribe's Magic Stick.  IMO, we don't tame that by finding some perfected species; we deal with it by minimizing the amount of it that we attempt/tolerate.  But that is not a majority view, so the present path just needs to fail; get out of its way.)   I was like a tiny tsetse fly, landing on a massive beast of an elephant every so often.   The first few landings, I thought, "How remarkable that I keep landing on a pus-laden area of this carcass."   But after the nth landing, and nothing but pus to be seen, I finally realized the whole beast was infected.   The beast -was- the infection.

The DOD-FARS is a joke.   The entire arrangement is a massive opportunity for an extended welfare state, folks tasked with making sure that taxpayers aren't being hosed over for the necessary machinery of a critical government function, when in fact, the entire process does nothing but guarantee that taxpayers get hosed.    With all the t's crossed, with all the i's dotted.    In all that time, never participated in (or even heard of) a bid process that wasn't already wired before the RFP hit the streets.  No, by the time you get past all the 'justification for less than free and open competition" and "black budget rainmakers" and "wired RFQs", you are down to the odd anecdotes over fringe commodities.   Loot or be looted?    Nonsense.   With the federal government in its present size and mode, the only choice to most Americans is 'be looted.'     We send hundreds of billions into a tight circle of flag waving corruption surrounding DC, and then pray that enough makes it past the mansions and finds its way to the bleeding E1 heroes at the pointy end of the stick.   And when they have stopped bleeding for this nation, it is not the E1s who find the soft landings waiting for them in that circle of corruption.   No, the E1s get to find a job and pay their taxes and continue to pay the price.

But I don't now, and also did not in the 70s regard the current political context as quite yet at the sinking lifeboat stage, rather, I saw it as one in which the popular majority constitutionally limited democratic republic process was clearly begging to swamp the ship of state; the lifeboat stage seemed to me to be likely in our future.    And there were plenty of active political voices screaming "No, Don't, Stop...and here is why."    In writing.

So my assessment was indeed different;   As a young man freshly out of grad school, sprinting from my first and last W2 job in the early 80s, I didn't see my options in the pre-swamped-lifeboat stage as 'loot or be looted.'  In the pre-lifeboat era, what little or large amount may remain of that is anyone's guess,  I targeted a career to try and mimize my exposure to those choices.    There are all kinds of intellectual and business challenges in the world, still.   Maybe for a long time yet to come, maybe for a short time to come.   But today, now, yes.    And to make that fringe strategy work, I had to selectively care about what others believed and what their values are -- my customers.    But those did not include everybody, or even a significant majority, or even by world standards, very many people at all.  I deliberately lived in the cracks and crevices of world commerce, because I could.   But not a problem-- neither for me, nor my customers.   Because my strategy deliberately did not target running and organizing a group effort, or shareholders, or employees (to either loot or be looted from, totally moot when they don't exist.)   

I voted for Clark in '80 over Reagan, because Clark put his ideas firmly in writing, black and white, in New Beginnings.    And then I watched a political process in America where his ideas were going to maybe get 1% of the popular vote during my adult life.   What little hope I put into the popular political process, I (pointlessly) transferred to the GOP, as the party of power that -should- have been most receptive to those ideas, with Reagan at least paying lip service to the concept of limited government.    And it was totally pointless, false hope, waste of concern.   Going nowhere.    Like the GOP is ever going to run Rand Paul for POTUS   If they don't prop up that jackass Christie in 2016 to get roundly trounced by Clinton -in this nation - I will be shocked.   Because in -this nation-, the alternative would be Rand Paul getting trounced by Clinton.    (Not the nation I wish it was, or think I could ever move to become but the atrophied, mature, once free nation that America is and long has been, since before I was born.)   So I focused on what I could do, which was, my strategic career goals, which explicitly included "How can I minimize my dependency on what my fellow Americans clearly broadly think and value?"    I did so by narrowing the scope of that dependency to the best of my ability to do so.    I eschewed the popular formulas, deliberately, because the popular formulas support popular ideas.

The loose ideas long loose in this nation won't prevail in the long run, not because this America will ever be convinced otherwise, but because they won't work.  I'm not debating that, that is just my assessment.   Maybe they will work someday; the proof of that will be, not some debate, but ... they will work.     Until then, not a problem (for me, anyway) and I'm not immolating my one and only life to their success (nor running for office to change/tilt at windmills in this nation.)  So my conclusion is indeed different.   When you find yourself standing in the middle of a tribal stampede, get out of its way, and let it fail.   If it makes any of us feel better-- if it satisfies some personal urge to tilt at windows, we cam whisper "don't ... stop" or even immolate out lives by amplifying our voices, or, we can get ourselves the Hell out of the way to the best of our ability-- just like Man in the Universe, as it is, facing any natural disaster out of his control or even influence.    In the midst of these periodic calamities, individual focus is critical, and that for sure includes triaging the world into things you can change (yourself) and things you can’t (others.)

Not even in the self-emperor vision granting world where the majority believes as I do would I ever value running for political office; because in my view of utopia, self-government is made up of honorable plumbers, drafted from a poll of folks living their lives and running the economies, like jurors, who are vetted and who agree to take on the task of being handed a plunger, to take their turn at keeping the plumbing of state clean and free flowing.  I accept the obligation to support jury duty, I support the concept of Superior Violence.    But I don't seek jury duty.   My never going to see it wish is to live in a nation where staffing necessary governmnet is viewed like jury duty, as opposed to a shot at American Idol and the chance to implement a government of will.   Compare this with the current national frenzy over American Idol/Leader Maximus, Runner of The Economy, able to leap tall recessions without ever even once ponying up so much as an embarrassing basket weaving college transcript.   That is the nation you and I live in.   So now what?

As in all things, for as long as you can, feel free.  Including, scrolling past my stream of consciousness offerings, which serve as my own cheap alternatives to much needed therapy.   Which, if you've read this far, begs the question.

Regards,

Fred

Matthews,

You're assuming that there's some sort of 'moral atmosphere' of 'permissiveness' that causes violence. With all due respect, I couldn't agree with you less.

You don't agree. Why am I not surprised?

The initiation of force is a choice. It will be made more often, by those, and under those circumstances, where the legal/practical/moral risks are lower. Where is the rocket science in that?

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Most strangely, it's interesting how those who claim to be 'materialists' choose to attach a totally mentalist cause to those actions which they find repugnant.

Are you saying I claimed to be a materialist?  Please show me the post.

Your materialist/mentalist dicohotomy may be fascinating for you, but not me.  I focus on ideas of importance - things that serve a purpose, like 'concepts,' 'volition,' 'principles,' 'values,' etc.  You can feel free to quote from this or that sociologist or philosopher but I'm not interested in joining a discussion in these areas other than to point out the fallacies when someone becomes a volition-denier, or a principle-denier, or a concept-denier.

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...the reality that poverty causes violence, regardless of stated values.

People who really believe it is wrong to initiate force are less likely to initiate violence. That is pretty obvious, isn't it. But I suspect you won't like it because "believe it is wrong" is just a way of discussing values and morality.

Poverty actually doesn't cause violence, but saying that it does indicates that one has been indocrinated into the social theories of the left. It also shows that a person doesn't grasp that humans make choices and doesn't grasp that they have values and doesn't grasp that poverty won't make people lose the capacity to choose, or whisk away the values they hold.

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... moral righteousness against crime...

Is there another kind of "righteousness"?  And if one isn't morally righteous in opposition to the initiation of force, is that a good thing? Should we be morally neutral in the presence of a viscious rape, for example, because, after all it was caused by poverty? Gimme a break!

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...all conservatives seem hopelessly mired down in a bog of value-peddling that evades the lived reality.

I don't know about conservatives, much less "all conservatives."   Many of them pull their beliefs from religion - which I don't.  I can just speak for the Objectivist position which is that humans, by their nature, have a rational capacity that includes some form of volition. We can choose to reason or not.  And we have values, chosen consciously, or absorbed unthinkingly from the surrounding culture (another choice), and we act, rationally, or irrationally, on those values.

Some values are universal to the humans, or are claimed to universal to humans, and that makes up the set of moral values. There can, and are differing views on that.  But it is the far left that wants us to swallow snake-oil words to separate us from the very concept of value.  It is really a kind of bait and switch. They have their own set of values which they will call something else (or just pretend that they aren't values, but scientific facts) that they will put in place of any other values of those foolish enough to buy into that nonsense. You think that spewing academic jargon that attempts to tell you that there is no category of things that are good for humans and no such thing as a category of things that are bad for human beings is "lived reality"?  Good luck with that.

Here is another reason its not done in the Ivies.    The basis of the idea is competition; competition between the Ivies, competition among young Americans reaching for the reward of a tuition free education, and competition between other universities.

And, in the global political struggle that was the Cold War, the camp of our opponents -- the opponents that were competing by farming in ox carts in the 80s -- had deliberately attacked the spine of American education to make the word 'competition' into a dirty word rven on those remarkably competitive Ivy League campuses.

Try to imagine the American beast that would roar out of that competitive fire;   our smart global competitors once did, and found a smart way to slow it down to a bare crawl.   By crippling it where it lived.

The Ivies were targeted and over-run.  They were and are still tiny inbred chokepoints, easily over-run.    America has yet to recover from that successful attack.    Competition is regarded as 'destructive,' an artifact of that eeeevil capitalism.   We're still coughing up that left wing phlegm.

regards,

Fred

The higher education bubble is multi-pronged and complicated, but at the same time, it is not. Econ 101 tells us if we subsidize something, we get more of it, which in this case are useless social science research and a mountain of student loan debt (now averaging $30k for college grads). The number of administrative staff in higher education and their salaries have grown exponentially on the government gravy train, and on-campus construction is like a developing country realizing an oil boom. They have become essentially part of the government itself, and Parkinson's Law says bureaucracies grow themselves 5% per year regardless of need.

I got scholarships and worked part-time jobs, so I escaped law school with *only* 80k in debt - the equivalent of a 20% downpayment on a very nice home. Most of my classmates were in far worse financial condition than I was at graduation and signed on to whatever public office to have their negative net worth erased after 10 years of servitude. The Great Recession hit in my second year, so even at a Top 5 school for firm placement, none of the big boys would even think about hiring us. The federal government offered me double a small firm salary and $10,000/year in student loan repayment. Guess where I ended up?

As an addendum, if you think it's all a sucker's deal and people should just work out of high school (or college): hope you like making frappucinos for a living, because you get laughed out of the room with a GED or bachelors in this economy. So everyone doubles down and goes to grad school, law school, or med school on government credit. The bubble gets bigger, and degree inflation continues.

(Edited by Robert Baratheon on 2/27, 6:35pm)

re 26

>>>Poverty actually doesn't cause violence, but saying that it does indicates that one has been indocrinated into the social theories of the left<<<<<

You're red-bating a materialist cause. Congrats. Marxists need more peole like you to oppose.

Fred,

http://finance.princeton.edu/princeton-financial-overv/financial-facts/

Merlin:

Thanks.    Yes, the picture is even better, because Princeton has already switched over to grant only financial aid; they are already less than half dependent on tuition for revenues.

And far from 2% returns on their assets, it is clear.

So indeed...why not?

Same picture with most of the Ivies.   Institutions can build enourmous endowments after going on almost three hundred years.

Maybe it will happen slowly; first, some switch to grant only financial aid, like Princeton, and then, eventually, tuition free for all.   (It would be a rounding error at some point...)

The Ivies, as well as MIT and others, also generate income streams because they are major research centers, and from patent streams.    When you look at those revenue centers:  research, patent streams, successful alumni contributing for their entire lifetimes and bequeathing gifts from their estates at the end of all that, the coin that feeds that realm, the raw material, is the best students in the nation.   The Ivies as business enterprises, should not only be competing for those by offering tuition free education, but actually paying them to show up.   It would make economic sense.  The competitive drag on tuition elsewhere would at least tend to subdue tuition costs rising elsewhere.  Universities would need to compete.

And be totally counter the prevailing political meme running loose on those campuses, like a buzz-kill, as if by design.

By whose design?   In the interest of what?   Not a once free nation, that is for sure.

regards,

Fred

Fred - There is A LOT there to discuss. I think it's an open question as to whether government schools have been net positive or negative and we really have no evidence-based methodology for evaluating that question. What is obvious to me is that a voucher system for the poorest students would be far more efficient and effective than the bureaucratized, unionized, geography-based public education system we have today. As for higher education, subsidizing debt is just madness which makes everyone except the colleges worse off. I'm an incrementalist, so I'd like to try such a targeted voucher system before going full-blown privatization, which isn't politically feasible anyway.