Various Broad Brushstrokes on Income Inequality

Lunchtime edition part II:

There are so many underlying assumptions that I’m not quite sure where to start, particularly if I don’t want to get bogged down in pedantic details.

Let’s start by saying I want to improve our quality of life.  I like to think about things holistically, try to identify which parts could be the underlying key to making big changes.  A tipping point, if you will.  I think (in a world of finite resources) that we have to be smart about where we put our efforts.  A combination of the inkblot counterinsurgency strategy and Malcolm Gladwell’s tipping point.

That’s nice and broad, and you can apply that way of thinking to almost any issue you care about.  You can also apply it internationally or domestically.  (If I had the resources, I’d have one department focus on each).

Let me narrow it down a bit, for now.  I want to look at domestic (i.e. US) income inequality.

Even bringing it down to that, this is a broad topic with all sorts of different underlying assumptions and strategies.  It’s all tied up with whatever your thoughts are on capitalism, the free market, government intervention, etc.  I think you’ve heard it all before, and probably aren’t open to changing them.

I want to brainstorm/muddle through a couple ideas that appeal to me.

First:  Our Founding Fathers believes in the importance of independent small businesses.  Technically, farmers.  Jefferson did the Louisiana Purchase in part because he thought that large quantity of land would help ensure a large quantity of small family-owned farms.  Those small family-owned farms had an independence hard to imagine these days.  Sure, they had to take out a loan and buy seed-stock and farming equipment…but they weren’t some salaried stiff working for a large corporation.  With the shrinking of farmers as a portion of our population, the growth of corporations, etc…more and more Americans are dependent on other people to make a living.  By ‘other people’ I ultimately mean the 1%.  There is a lack of independence that stifles us. 

Second: There’s a competing worldview of competition and scarcity versus abundance.  That is – are we fighting for larger portions of one small pie?  Or trying to grow the pie so we all can have larger portions?  Does your success mean less for me?  Or more for all of us?  Are we doomed to compete to be at the top of the pyramid?  Or can we invert the pyramid so we can support a large portion of people at the top?  (i.e. the truly wealthy can live off of capital gains.  Can we get to the point where more and more people are living off capital gains…and if so, what would that do to the economy?  Would it cause inflation, if we had four times as many people making a livable wage off of investments?  Or would it create an economic boom as more people could afford to spend on various consumer items.  There’s a lot more to this, but again I don’t want to get dragged down into the weeds.)

Tied in with this – do we need fear as a motivator, to boost productivity?  Or are we more productive coming from a sense of security?  Are we more creative when we’re forced to be, in order to make a living?  Or when we know we can afford to take our time and really come up with something amazing?

Third: People who aren’t wealthy often don’t know how to handle a large quantity of money.  Lottery winners, for example, often wind up exactly where they were before winning the lottery.  Handling wealth…well, I’m not wealthy so I can’t prove I understand this.  But someone I knew once said that you should never spend your principal.  If you are lucky enough to get a windfall, you should invest it and learn how to live off that 6% (give or take) profit from the investment.  (By my calculations, you’d need at least $1 million in principal.  Assuming you can earn 6% off that it would give you a yearly income of around $60,000 to live off of.  No…not crazy rich, though it sounds like that to the vast majority of us who don’t have a million to invest.  But that can make you pretty comfortable if you don’t blow it all on expensive items.)

This, btw, is extremely hard to do if you don’t already have money.  Many people are living paycheck to paycheck, and have a hard enough time setting aside money for their 401K much less getting to the point where they can live off capital gains.  What’s even crazier is that those with less money wind up spending more (in terms of interest rates, etc) just because they are more of an investment risk.  I get the free market principles behind why this is the case, and I understand that a higher interest rate is better than the inability to get any sort of loan at all.  But it’s also kind of crazy when someone has been successfully making their payments for years, and yet doesn’t qualify for a lower interest rate.  You’d think it be even easier to make the payments if they’re smaller than what they’re currently paying!  If they’re able to pay their current bills, and aren’t late, then why would the system consider them a risk that justifies a higher interest rate?  There’s something kind of screwy about that…

And finally, for this post, number four:  How does the growing rate of automation and industrialization affect all of this?  The low-skilled jobs are going away.  It will be harder and harder to make a living if you don’t have the resources to become high skilled.  Can we transition to an economy full of higher skilled individuals?  Or is it inevitable that more people are going to fall out of the economy, with all the consequences that entails?  And if that does happen, how much will that lead to future instability, as the have-nots get shut out?

How to Change the World - A Theory

Lunch-time edition:


I sometimes ponder the connection between the micro and macro levels.





That's a broad statement, but true.  What's the connection, for example, between your economic activity as on a small scale (microeconomics) and economic activity on a large scale (macroeconomics).  Or between physics at a size smaller than Planck's constant, versus Newtonian physics at the level we see every day?  The macro, after all, is made up of the micro (again...tiny grains of sand that add up to one big sand dune).






And I think of that, sometimes, as applied to changing the world.  You can try to change in broad brushstrokes.  Focus on getting mosquito nets, for example, to reduce the impact of malaria in Africa.  Or focus on a more micro level, like volunteering as a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters.






Why choose one over the other?  I can't help thinking that a mentorship program like BBBS is more...in depth.  When I think of how people change, its normally because of long term and daily interactions.  There's no silver bullet, no shortcuts.  True change comes from the type of involvement you have with your family and friends.  I believe that's one of the underlying reasons why research repeatedly shows that economic segregation is bad.  Bad for rich, bad for poor...bad in part because there are few role models of success for the poor when all they know is other poor people.  And there's a lack of understanding on the part of the rich, when their only experience with poverty is to come sweeping in with charity.






Having that level of interaction, that type of involvement, is slow.  Time consuming.  You can only help one person or one family at a time, because who has the energy (or capability) to have that kind of relationship with hundreds?  Big Brothers Big Sisters is a great program, yet they struggle to find enough mentors. 


Funny enough, it's also some of the most rewarding experiences available.  Being a Big Sister is a bit like being an aunt, or other caring relative.  All those studies on happiness discuss the importance of having a caring connection with the people around us.  Family.  Friends.  Mentors and mentees.  This is what makes life worth living...and yet so many people are too busy to support it, and would rather just give a donation. 






I do see the appeal of working on a large scale.  It can seem more satisfying, in that you can help so many more people all at once.  But there are dangers to that, as well.  It can be more impersonal.  De-humanizing.  I think some of the criticisms about foreign aid are, in part, because it's so bureaucratic.  Disempowering.  You don't get the sense that they care about you, as an individual.  Or that they are giving you a choice, a say in your own life.  It can come across as patronizing, an "I know better than you what will fix you (and boy, do you need fixing.)"


In my own life, I've travelled so much that I feel more connected to the macro (i.e. national politics, world events) than I do to my own personal micro (i.e. the events affecting the town I live in.  Or even my state.)  Yet all those national events - like our upcoming presidential election - are made up of any number of micro events.  The local political structure that tries to get out the vote.  The local politics and history that determine our voting districts.  I'm more likely to know the presidential candidates than the candidates running for my state representative, or mayor.


But I digress.  The point I was getting at is that in-depth, micro activities (if they have enough support) can lead to some truly amazing macro changes.  And that maybe, just maybe, it's better to focus on growing and nurturing those small changes instead of trying to make a sweeping big change.


Stay tuned for part II.

Speaking of Horrible Events

Two of my current 'horrifying news' stories:

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan.  As more and more details come out it's so horrible I can't even.  Like literally, thinking about it makes me so mad I don't want to start.  If I did, who knows when I'd stop?

The second one:  Hillary's e-mails.

Yeah, yeah.  I  mostly blew off the Benghazi hearings, as typical Republican witch hunting.  But the e-mails? 

Before I go any further, I think I need to share a link.  This is actually even better than one I found yesterday, because it goes into a lot of detail on what it takes to get material from one classified network to another.  I didn't realize until I saw articles like this how little people knew about the process.  I can remember what a headache it was to get material off one network and onto another...going down a security level, that is.  I had to e-mail it off to the right department, where they would check the material to make sure it didn't have anything too high for the network we were sending it to.  They'd e-mail it back to me on the desired network when they were done, if it all checked out.

Yes, there are issues with over-classification.  And in some situations (I imagine diplomatic talks that you participate in) it may not really seem like classified material at the time.  I'll leave it to the FBI to sort out whether or not a crime has been committed.

That said - if known classified material was deliberately sent to an unclassified network (ANY unclassified network!!! Not just 'a private e-mail server') then that's a Big. Friggin. Deal.

It's huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge.  It is going to jail level bad.  Everybody I know who's been in intel understands that.  We all know that if we had done what appears to have happened, we'd be facing some sort of judicial proceedings.

And so it horrifies me, absolutely  horrifies me, how many people are giving Hillary a pass on this one!  Yes, I know the Republican candidates are horrible.  I don't think Trump has a chance in hell in the general election, but I could be wrong.  I know Hillary has been pushed as 'the establishment' candidate...

But if they overlook this, in their rush to help support her, then it typifies everything that is so scary and disturbing about  America today.  It shows that power trumps justice.  That someone who, at a minimum, is responsible for creating the environment where something like this could happen, would be a potential President.

I don't care about Benghazi.  I don't want to see any of the current Republican candidates as president.  But I sure as hell don't want to see Democrats ignore or minimize these e-mail problems, and I find it very disturbing that so many respected institutions are acting like this is no big deal.  (If 'everyone is doing it', as one alleged, than we've got an even bigger problem than I thought.)

One Tiny Grain of Sand Sliding Down

The military taught me a certain kind of ettiquette:

- Don't criticize if you can't offer a better solution.
- No excuse, sir.
- I don't know, but I will find out.

For the most part, I get it.  As a people leader myself I get tired of complaints and criticism that doesn't really help.  Yet trying to abide by those rules makes things difficult...

Because I just don't want to sound like just another whiner.  Complainer.  Or an armchair quarterback telling everyone else what 'ought' to be done, when I'm not making it happen myself.

There's so much going on in the world today.  So much that I find disturbing, and horrifying.  I ask myself when things changed, why it didn't seem like this when I was younger.  Or maybe it's always been like this and I just didn't know. 

I think that last one is the most likely, particularly when I consider the age of songs like "We Didn't Start the Fire", or "It's the End of the World as We Know It".

So yes, things are pretty awful out there.  I've got my own ideas on what we can do about it, of course,  But so does everyone else.  I think mine are better, naturally, but why would anyone support my ideas over anyone else's?!?

Which is the critical part, I think.  Not coming up with ideas, not executing them.  But getting enough supporters to actually make a difference.  (And not just supporters, in terms of people.  I have to make a living somehow.  Like everyone else, I'd love to combine my own natural interests with a career.  But I don't want to get into that, right now.)

Anyways.  What's frustrating is I don't feel like it matters how many times we share a link on Facebook, for example.  Or hit 'Like' on an article. 

Or it does, but only to a small degree.  One more grain of sand sliding down a sand dune that's already in movement.

Counter-Terrorism, ISIS, Paris, Etc.

I am ashamed and horrified at the news these days.  It seems to me that it is the easiest thing in the world to capitalize on fear, to give in to the pressures of the day.  Like all these governors claiming they will reject Syrian refugees.  Like the facebook posts arguing we should close our hearts and homes, give in to the fear that they're all somehow terrorists.

This bothers me, for two reasons.  First - because I know Muslims are a group like any other.  That is, I (as a rather lapsed Catholic) am very different from a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, even though we all might nominally be called Christian. So even though there are some jihadists mixed in with the community, I know that the vast majority are people just like you and me.  People who want to live in peace, and security.  People who are refugees because they are NOT terrorists.

Second.  Well, the second reason gets more at the mystery at the heart of human nature.  It's easier to explain with a story:

A facility had tools go missing, so the manager decided to put all the tools in a room with a chain and a padlock, so only he or his designated people could get to the tools.  His CEO came to visit and heard about this.  The next day, he dropped the chain and the padlock (which had been cut through with bolt cutters) on the manager's desk. 

I think the appeal here is immediately obvious.  There might have been one person in the entire plant stealing tools, but locking them up made it seem like everyone was untrustworthy.  Who wouldn't want to work for a CEO who made it clear he trusted his people, even at the risk of losing some tools? 

At the same time, if you were the manager whose tools were missing, what would you do?  Or rather - what would you have done differently?  (This rings especially true for me, because we recently bought a cage to store some of the equipment at work.  Not saying they were stolen, precisely.  Its more like people on a shift who knew they had a 'good' one might happen to leave it in their locker or put it somewhere hard to find so that they could easily use the same one the next day.  I personally would have preferred to spend the money to buy everyone their own, and have them sign for it and be accountable for it...but I digress.)

The point here is that sometimes we make choices that sound good at the time.  That are clearly a reaction to a specific situation, and seem like the best/easiest response to that situation.  But in the long run?  You've got employees who know they aren't trusted.  That fuzzy thing called morale drops.  The more you try to control, the more resentful people get, the more morale drops...the less people want to work there. 

So some terrorists, who happen to be Muslim, are committing  horrific attacks.  Part of the strategy of terrorism is to do that...to provoke an overreaction, one that feeds dissent and fuels your side.  (Algeria, for example, where the French rounded up the innocent as well as the guilty, thereby pushing the innocent into the arms of the insurgents/terrorists.)

And here we've got people immediately saying "Let's stop letting refugees in".

It's understandable.  And it's a short-sighted reaction entirely based on fear. 

"Fear is the mind-killer."

So let's try to think about this without fear, without that little voice saying 'if we accept these refugees we'll open ourselves up to attack'.  After all, who is more likely to become a terrorist - someone who found welcome and safety in European lands?  Or someone who has been shuffled off, rejected, abandoned, and left with nowhere to go?

That little voice, btw, is the voice I feel the New Testament repeatedly says is wrong.  Where is the notion of the Good Samaritan?  Of the person who would give the shirt of their back?  Or is charity only for people 'like us'?

Hell.  I have a house, and a spare room.  Sort of.  I'd have to move some things out, and it'd be kind of cramped.  But if there's any organization out there looking for a temporary home for a refugee family in the States I'm willing to take them in.

It's the right thing to do.

Update - Frustration

I feel like I left things hanging a bit.  I had a theme I was posting on, and then stopped.

Reasons?  It's complicated.  Some if it is that I have a full time job (on vacation right now) and I don't always want to devote my leisure to writing here...

But the bulk of it is because some days it doesn't seem to matter what I write, or think, or say. I am not one of our big decision makers.  I am not wealthy, or powerful. Who is going to care if I never complete that series?  And what sort of results would writing it have, anyway?  Someone might read it, if they weren't bored within a couple of sentences, and think about it for a minute or two.  But it probably wouldn't drive any particular changes in behavior.

Some days I go online and all I see are articles saying that this is what you need to do - Wear this. No, you have to wear that.  Do this.  No, do that.  Say things this way.  No, don't do that.

I think 'sure, I can do this.  I just need to X, or Y'.  But the advice can be contradictory, and I don't think these advisors know any better than you do.  Success depends too much on who you're working with and what they're looking for.  Plus I notice that there's still so many good, smart people who still struggle to make it.  A friend of mine did a great post on tumblr the other day.  It's long, but good and captures so much of what I'm wondering/ struggling with. 

I don't want to believe that this is the way it is.  That so much of life, so many people, will struggle and get nowhere.  Especially when you see the people who are succeeding, and realize that many of them haven't actually worked harder than the people you know.  Nor, necessarily, are they smarter.

I like to think I'm a realist. I never expected our system to be perfect.  I thought, however, that we had rules in place that gave us the ability to change our system for the better.  Voting for candidates.  Voting for specific propositions.  Feedback mechanisms to help keep us from going too far astray.

I also thought...well, that the system values dissent.  You need people to go against the grain, because that's what breaks up groupthink and makes sure you're really analyzing a situation.  Yet I've come to feel that I may, perhaps, on occasion, be penalized for being too outspoken.  For not playing along.  (I think I'm ultimately helping the organization.  And I would hope that any boss/supervisor/manager I worked for would appreciate and value that.) Funny, our mythology of success always makes it sound like this is rewarded.  The innovator who stands out from the crowd and succeeds beyond their wildest dreams.  The person who speaks truth to power, and becomes a trusted advisor. 

In reality, I'm beginning to think it's more likely you'll get marginalized just like the engineer who warned of the Challenger disaster.  (What I find even more disturbing is how much business books etc claim they want and need this...and then create systems that seem to penalize the ones that actually provide it.  You see the same sort of dilemma with work - everyone knows you get burnt out and perform less productively if you work too much, but people still feel pressured to work more and compete for least amount of sleep/most hours worked.  Feel that the boss is looking for those peopel who give it their all.  You can't have the former if you create a system rewarding people for the latter.)

 

Pay It Forward, Legislation, Updates, etc.

A couple of different strands of thought going on.

First - do you ever look at the warning labels on product and think "I guess someone must have tried doing that"?  Like "Do not eat toner" on a toner ink cartridge. 

I feel that way about laws, as well.  When people say 'there oughta be a law', it's because something went wrong...and legally there was nothing you could say or do about it.  Is making something a law necessarily the best way of handling the problem?  Maybe not.  Yet I don't think we should repeal a law unless we're willing to address the underlying concern behind it.  (i.e. environmental protections were created because people would carelessly release toxic chemicals in places - like drinking water - that were harmful to others.  If you want to eliminate the EPA, show me how you are going to address problems like that without them.) 

I am not a fan of people who obey the letter of the law while trying to maneuver around the spirit of it.  That applies to any number of things, though more recently I would say it applies to Hillary (and any other politician) who tries to conduct public business through their own private e-mails.   Why?  Because most of us have work e-mail and personal e-mail, and the only reason I can think of for conducting work via personal e-mail is if you're trying to avoid leaving a record.

In other news - I read and liked this article, though I'm skeptical of whether it will lead to real results.  It reminds me of the problem with 'pay it forward' logic.  That is - on the face of it, it makes perfect sense that if we all did something nice to others and paid it forward when someone else is nice to us than we could live in an amazingly wonderful world.  Yet even though various people have 'paid it forward', they never seem to result in this sort of transformation.  I think there are a couple of primary reasons for this.

First - it's easy to 'pay it forward' with something cheap, something that doesn't really require a lot of effort on our part.  Just to show how easy it was, I decided to pay for an extra mocha when I was at a coffee shop.  It was really kind of fun - a lady came in after I'd ordered, and I got to hear the cashier explain that her drink was paid for...see how surprised and happy it made her.  And see her decide to carry it on by paying for the next one.  And then a man came in to get his coffee, and went through the whole process again...buying a drink for the next person.  (I haven't had a chance to follow up with the barista.  He's the owner/manager of that store and I think he's on vacation?  I wanted to know how long it lasted.)  Btw, I didn't expect it to last forever.  While I knew that most recipients would choose to pay for the next person, eventually you'd run into someone who wouldn't.  And that's fine...the point is not to put an obligation on them to keep paying.

Anyways.  Pay it forward works for something simple and easy, like coffee.  It's less likely to happen when it entails a real hardship.  Like paying for someone's college.  Or house.  Or car.

The second thing is that most people are waiting for someone else to start the chain.  If they benefit, they are more than happy to pass it along...but they're waiting for someone else to benefit them first.  (If you want to feel like you really made a difference, try starting one of these yourself.  Imagine all the smiles and happy faces you make in a day, the little jolt out of the ordinary that you give them.  Think of what ripples that can have...that little bit of happiness leading to a slightly happier entrance to work, a cheerful conversation with a co-worker, etc.)

So to bring this back to the article above - I think government involvement is the sign of failure in the system.  I think inequality is a huge problem, one of the biggest threats to the American way of life today, and I would absolutely love to see it addressed the way the author suggests.  Yet I'm skeptical that the business leaders he is addressing are willing to take the steps he is calling for.

And finally - I've decided to re-read Robert Alter's pretty awesome translation of the first five books of the bible.  I think he does a pretty amazing job of explaining the context (lost in translation from Hebrew to English) and capturing what little we know about the cultures of those times.  I'm also going to look for some of his other works.