The Goat Pen

Don't you even fucking blame me. I only weed out the crazy fake fuckers. I hope all is well with him too.

I know I just posted something from Ray Dalio a few weeks back (that you probably didn't watch, considering 30 minutes is a long time for some to sit through on a basic Econ lesson) but I'm following that up with a longform interview with venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who I admire a lot. I don't agree with everything he says but he's always well thought-out on the few things I take an opposite position on.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... ation.html

You disagree with him on Hootie and the Blowfish, don't you.

The guy makes a ton of sense in the abstract. Compassion is not high in his thinking, though.

Heh. Darius Rucker can sing, but if I never hear his voice again, I'm okay with that.

Yeah, a real capitalist (I've found) doesn't rate compassion high on the needed personality scale.

Actually, I don't know what '80s heavy metal bands he's talking about that are making money, hand over fist, via touring. The only one I could think of was Metallica and Motley Crue's farewell tour. Unless he's talking about the Journey and Jackson Browne concerts Rat is always going to (which are far from metal), he's off base imo.

I don't know if they make money hand over fist but there's plenty of these bands that are still active and I doubt they make more money on their shitty new stuff than they do on playing nostalgic concerts especially overseas.

Just look at all the ones still active and especially the number of ones that broke up or went on hiatus but the quest for more cash brought them (or the surviving members) back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heavy_metal_bands

I liked this from the article

The problem is that the people who are the most advanced about the future and getting rid of regulatory barriers are also the people who want to cut the social safety net.

I think you don’t want massive change on these issues. You do not want a massive dismantling of the social safety net. But you also do not want a massive buildup of the social safety net. I call this the Daily Show problem. I love the Daily Show, and I think Jon Stewart is hysterical. But literally the answer to every single problem is “Congress should pass a new law.” It’s this unbelievably optimistic view of, “We can pass a law and then everybody will get along.”

I wasn't feeling his "fuck yo middle class" position, though.

The thing that's missing is that the bourgeoisie class is the majority of all jobs. Its the class that mostly anyone is going to end up in as far as being a tradesman. Accountants, IT guys, salesmen, real estate agents, analysts, geologists, and even engineers, doctors, and lawyers. His point is accurate insofar as WWII created an era where menial laborers could rise above being lower class citizens. A lot of those jobs get outsourced away, so I don't know if future dwindling of the middle class is related to that. I don't know if many of the factory/refinery/major industrial jobs still in this country are plug and play as far as labor goes where you can just find anybody and train them up quickly, and any job where training is extensive and labor is hard to replace is going to be at least a middle class job.

The question probably really is "Should the uneducated of today that are flipping burgers at Jack in the Box or manning the stock room at WalMart be able to rise to the same level of the 1950's uneducated that could go get factory jobs at Chrysler or Mobil or GE?"

I guess for me - in the maids example

its not that the displaced maids should get hired in the spa - as that job didn't exist 20 years ago, its that the maids should be building (in part) the machine that displaced them with higher wages and better benefits.

Our problem is - chances are *that* job is outsourced to another country.

Why do I just scroll past aTms posts these days? He used to be interesting, now he just seems bitter about his life.

Ideally, all the potential maids would get an excellent education. It's pretty expensive though.

Once, years ago, I was at a hotel in Phoenix. Out there for a conference. Anyway, I was skipping the first couple of breakout sessions and sleeping in, watching TV, goofing off, whatever. Knock at my door, "Housekeeping!" I yelled back, "Come back later." I was in nothing but my boxers, sitting on the sofa watching Sportcenter. Every 10 minutes, though, "Housekeeping!" would be yelled through my door. Finally, aggravated, I told her to come on in. She smiled when she saw me, but made the bed, vacuumed, put a new liner in the ice bucket, emptied trash and brought fresh towels.

Finally, after she finished, she stood, almost at attention, on the other side of the coffee table and asked me if I needed anything else. I paused, thinking about the risk-reward of asking for a BJ, but finally said, "No, I'm good." pulled my pants off the chair, got my wallet, and gave her a few dollars.

She stood there and waited for what seemed like a really long time and finally said, "Okay, if you change your mind, I'm at x5541 (or whatever) and my name is Roselle. Ask for me by name."

I thought about it, but never called back for "extra pillows" or whatever.

That's 15 years ago, easy. But every time I hear or read the word 'maid' I'm back at that damned Hilton, sitting in my boxers with a cute Latina named Roselle in front of me.

Actually, (and this is where he and I differ) Marc focused on the maid example in highlighting the "lump of labor" fallacy, musicians/authors for the digitization of their product and a statement that the "middle class" is really a short-term phenomenon unique to our recent history. All these are fine examples, but it avoids the major point that he spoke on early but dropped: income inequality. Fuck maids and the machine that take their jobs. The issue is the accountants, IT guys, salesmen and engineers have not seen their average wage increase in the last 20 years, or so. I don't think the "you get paid what you're worth" and "things change, you must adapt" arguments hold up in these cases.

The relationship of labor to capital keeps tilting more and more to capital. That is moreso than any other time in recent memory. So Andreessen picked the examples that most suit him and his interests. He wasn't speaking to truth in its purest sense, he was speaking to what he decided would help win his argument. I don't think most people are thinking about maids as it relates to the distruction of the middle class.

AlabamAlum wrote:Once, years ago, I was at a hotel in Phoenix. Out there for a conference. Anyway, I was skipping the first couple of breakout sessions and sleeping in, watching TV, goofing off, whatever. Knock at my door, "Housekeeping!" I yelled back, "Come back later." I was in nothing but my boxers, sitting on the sofa watching Sportcenter. Every 10 minutes, though, "Housekeeping!" would be yelled through my door. Finally, aggravated, I told her to come on in. She smiled when she saw me, but made the bed, vacuumed, put a new liner in the ice bucket, emptied trash and brought fresh towels.

Finally, after she finished, she stood, almost at attention, on the other side of the coffee table and asked me if I needed anything else. I paused, thinking about the risk-reward of asking for a BJ, but finally said, "No, I'm good." pulled my pants off the chair, got my wallet, and gave her a few dollars.

She stood there and waited for what seemed like a really long time and finally said, "Okay, if you change your mind, I'm at x5541 (or whatever) and my name is Roselle. Ask for me by name."

I thought about it, but never called back for "extra pillows" or whatever.

That's 15 years ago, easy. But every time I hear or read the word 'maid' I'm back at that damned Hilton, sitting in my boxers with a cute Latina named Roselle in front of me.

I have never had anywhere near a nice looking maid (that I've seen) in my travels, nor cleaning lady in my office. That probably is all for the best. Jesus saves.

My 3 foot copperhead story is more believable than AA's maid story.

Brkln, I disagree. Accountants, engineers, and IT have increased over the last 20 years.

Unbelievable that nothing happened? Or...
That there is at least one cute Latina maid?
That there is a city named Phoenix?
That there is a hotel named 'Hilton' in the magical made-up land of Arizona?
All of the above?

sardis wrote:My 3 foot copperhead story is more believable than AA's maid story.

Brkln, I disagree. Accountants, engineers, and IT have increased over the last 20 years.

Yeah, you're right on that. My bad. I was lumping all those into the larger "middle class" bucket with regard to the wage stagnation we've experienced as a country. That middle class category covers those groups (along with teachers, civil servants, etc), but the major contributor to the stagnation number is the impact of the union job.

The wage increase trajectory is flatter than it has been in almost 100 years for the "white collar" professions, however. Maybe the union wage factor played a part in raising all those "white collar" jobs at the rate they were moving in the past.

the public sector jobs have had steady growth in pay - especially at the federal level.

not within the past few years...