Rock Star Bosses?

Why do we need to elevate people above ourselves?

In my last posting, I hinted that perhaps the problem with overpaid executives lies within us and not them.  Just as we elevate sports stars and movie stars and rock stars on a pedestal, we elevate pop-star executives as well.  Of course, in all four cases, these folks have promoters, agents, and public relations people who create the hype around these "celebrities" so that we don't question - too much - whether they are worth all that money.

It is cheap psychology.  I mentioned before that while working at the law firm, the "Partnership Row" was a hushed hallway with large offices for the anointed few.  Even the carpeting was plusher there.  You felt the change in atmosphere the moment you stepped in - when summoned, of course - to talk to a partner in the firm.  Even their secretaries were Godlike in their actions and reputation.  You wanted to make sure you stayed on the good side of the partner's secretary - she was the acolyte who controlled access to the temple.  Without her approval, you never got in.

Many bosses, even in small companies, play this game. I was reading complaints online from disgruntled workers, and one common theme is that they are denied a raise by the boss who says, "We can't afford raises this year" and in the same breath says, "You want to see my new Porsche?"   It seems like a cognitive disconnect - to flaunt your wealth to your employees while at the same time crying poverty.

But it isn't.

You see, a lot of people want to work for someone who is above them.  No one wants to work for a schmuck they think it equal to them, or worse, beneath them.  And yes, this is a theme you see a lot in these "employee bitch" sites - that they are working for a boss they think it dumber than they are.  It ain't fair!

And that is exactly why bosses play these games showing off wealth.  Everyone admires the king with his purple robes and golden crown encrusted with jewels.  You should admire it, you paid for it!  It is a way of elevating one above us, and showing that the person is of a higher class and stature.  Most of the job of "Boss" is just asserting this dominance - and forcing employees into submission.  If you were in the military, you know how this works - the officers not only have fancy decorations on their uniforms, they have better quarters, offices, perks and so on and so forth.  No one respects or obeys someone who is equal to them or is even perceived as equal.  That's why officers go to military academies and not boot camp.

That is why Elon Musk tweets all the time.  It is why Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post.  It is why Bill Gates has his famous charity advertised on NPR.  These guys need the positive press to make it seem they are larger than life, better than us, and our superiors.  Of course, celebrity has a downside, as I noted in my previous posting.  Make a bad movie, sell a shitty record album, strike out enough at bat, and you are tossed in the gutter in no time.  No one respects or loves a loser - so bank those salaries, celebrities!  It could all come apart in no time.

The downside for today's superstar bosses is that perhaps they are making too much money for their level of celebrity.  I guess people can swallow an athlete making $10 million a year, but it gets stuck in their craw when some CEO is worth a billion - he just isn't all that!

It is a funny thing, too - back in the day, maybe a few decades ago, you never heard about the CEOs of major corporations.  Sure, you might know the names of a few corporate Presidents (we didn't have terms like CEO, CFO, COO, and the like) but that was about it.  Most of them kept a low profile, by design.  Since the "robber baron" era of the early 1900's, corporations learned it wasn't a good idea to flaunt wealth all that much.  And salaries back then - even adjusted for inflation - were paltry compared to today.  The IPO and stock option just weren't a thing back then.  Buying back your company's own stock was, in fact, illegal.  How can you make big bucks without stock options and the ability to manipulate the share price?  That's no fun at all!

In a way, the superstar celebrity bosses of today are cheating at the game.  Imagine how people would have felt about a sports star if was caught throwing games?  Imagine how people would feel if their favorite music star was caught lip-syncing?  We don't have to imagine - those things have happened in the past and people dropped those celebrities like a hot potato.

And maybe today, people are feeling the same way about superstar bosses.  No one (well, not many people) begrudge someone making money from an enterprise they built up and nurtured.  But when they make wild profits from stock manipulation - or people manipulation - then people feel cheated. And if they find out their celebrity boss is actually a schmuck like them?

Well, then, it's game over.

UPDATE:  what is weird about our modern culture is that they actually make movies about these dot-com "geniuses." They made one about Zuckerberg and now they are hyping one about the guy who created wework which turned out to be little more than a scam. Even the people who cheat us out of our last dime are treated like gods. And yes they made a movie about Enron, Bernie Madoff, and the Meltdown of 2008 as well.

Of course, the billionaires they make these movies about also control the media.

Income Inequality, Revisited

 

Some people make a lot more money than others. Why is this? In some instances people complain this is unfair but in others they claim it is entirely justified. Why is this?

Sir Elton John is worth tens hundreds of millions of dollars and gets paid millions a year to perform and record albums, not to mention the royalties from his existing records. Meanwhile, down at the local bar, the guy playing the piano maybe makes 50 bucks a night in tips. Is that fair?

John Travolta gets paid millions to make just one movie - and can afford to own his own 707 jet.  Meanwhile, the guy down at the local community theater makes peanuts - and has to sweep up the auditorium after each performance.  Is that fair?

Shaquille O'Neal was a star basketball player, and made millions of dollars playing a game. He also received millions more for endorsing products.  Meanwhile, some kid down in the hood is shooting hoops with his buddies and not getting paid anything. Even if he is successful at the game, the best he can hope for perhaps is to get a scholarship to an NCAA college. The likelihood of him becoming a basketball superstar is slim. Is that fair?

At the multinational conglomerate, the CEO makes millions of dollars a year. Not only that, he has a golden parachute pension plan that would be invoked if he ever is fired. Plus, he has a company car and the use of a company jet. Meanwhile the guy at the assembly line barely makes enough to get by. Is that fair?

What's interesting about these four scenarios is that they largely have the same mechanism in common. They rely upon a stream of income from thousands, if not millions, of people who each pay a small amount to a company or organization which, in turn, rewards the person at the top with millions of dollars in salary.

What is interesting to me is that many on the left would argue that Sir Elton John and Shaquille O'Neal and even John Travolta deserve the millions of dollars they have earned over the years while the CEO of a corporation is merely a robber baron who is screwing the poor worker out of this last dime.

And maybe there is a nugget of truth to that, or maybe not. I noted before how the rise of recorded music created the musical superstar. Prior to the invention of the gramophone, if you wanted to hear music you had to go hear somebody play it. In every small town and hamlet, there was a local band or orchestra or somebody playing the fiddle and plucking out a tune. Every small town had a bandstand at the turn of the century, and Philip Sousa marches were quite popular.

But then came the record player, and suddenly everyone could listen to the same artist at the same time. Prior to that, there were very few superstar musical artists, except perhaps Jenny Lind the so-called "Swedish Nightingale." But even then you had to travel somewhere to see her on her American tour.

And most actors, back in the day, didn't make obscene amounts of money, mostly because they could only be seen by the audience in the theater during a live performance. We visited the former home of  Joseph Jefferson near Avery Island, Louisiana.  He became famous for playing Rip Van Winkle in the 1800's and became somewhat wealthy.  But his example was few and far between.  Today, one performance by an actor can be seen by millions - maybe billions - of people and they are paid commensurately.

The corporate structure of the music industry or the movie industry – and they are industries – is really no different than any other manufacturing industry for automobiles or smartphones or computers or whatever. You have one huge company that controls a big portion of the market and promotes and develops new products. Millions of people subscribe or pay money for these products which generates a lot of income - and a lot of profit for the few people at the very top of the pyramid.  The sports industry is the exact same way.  Millions for those on top, but the guy selling hot dogs at Shea Stadium isn't making jack.

Popular musicians, actors, and athletes can hold out for enormous sums of money if they can rightfully argue that the entire operation can't exist without their input.  The law of supply-and-demand kicks in. There's a very small supply of superstars and celebrities and star athletes, and thus they can command high prices in the marketplace. Very few people argue this is unfair.  After all, this is the fantasy everyone secretly has in life - to be the "little guy" who makes it big.  But only a tiny fraction of a percentage of people ever become famous, despite what Andy Warhol said.

Sure, some people grouse that these athletes or coaches are overpaid, but they still cough up the ticket price for the big game or watch it on television. Similarly, music fans will cough up big prices for concert tickets and complain about the cost, but usually they end up blaming Ticketmaster rather than the artist in question. People whine that the latest "franchise" film of a comic book costs too much to see - but they go anyway, and dress up as the main character at a "Cosplay" event at Comicon or whatever.  People willingly empty their wallets for sports, music, and movies, and never complain one bit.

But the guy running the company they work for?  Fuck him.  Yea.

Somehow we think that officers of a corporation are different. And maybe perhaps they are. Some have criticized the incestuous nature of the corporate world, where the board of directors meets in private to discuss the salary of the CEO after politely asking him to leave the room. The board then offers themselves a raise as well. Is the law of supply-and-demand kicking in here or is this just plain corruption?

It's an interesting question, because there is competition in the marketplace. There are a number of people who could qualify as CEOs or COOs or CFOs or serve as board members.  And one would think that the shareholders of a company would seek out the lowest cost alternative rather than pay tens of millions of dollars for executive talent. Or perhaps, those shareholders are recognizing the value in that executive talent just as the music fan or the movie fan or the sports fan recognizes talent in their stars.

Prior to the invention of the phonograph record, there were a few musical superstars - and prior to the invention of the multinational corporation, they were few corporate superstars. When most commerce took place among small companies interacting with each other, the wages for top executives were fairly low because the income each business received was somewhat small. The rise of the mega-corporation created mega-salaries for people at the top, just as the rise of celebrity movie stars, music stars, and sports stars corresponded to the creation of the money-making machine (radio, movies, television) that allowed a selected few to demand very high salaries. It is, in a way, one and the same machine.

I'm not sure I have an answer to this conundrum, only that I am observing it. It is interesting to me that for some reason we feel we have the right to criticize the salaries of superstar corporate executives, but not criticize the salaries of superstar musicians, actors, or athletes.  We all want to hate on Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Bill Gates, and perhaps they deserve such reprobation. But on the other hand, we keep buying their products.  You can't criticize Bezos while being a Prime member or reading the Washington Post. You can't criticize Musk while simultaneously admiring his rockets or lusting after one of his electric automobiles.  And despite its multitude of flaws, Windows remains the most popular operating system in the world, at least for now.

But of course, things can change over time. Star athletes eventually lose their skills, often after just a few short years. Rock stars cut one or two good albums and then fade into obscurity - few stick around for the ages. Movie stars make just one or two box office bombs and their careers are over. Similarly, corporate executives make one or two missteps and they fade to oblivion. In all four cases, they claim to be "stepping back to spend more time with their family."

Perhaps I am somewhat strange, but that's one reason why I don't follow professional sports that closely nor do I idolize movie stars or rock stars that much. Those people are making scandalous amounts of money and some of their music or entertainment or athletic abilities are indeed spectacular. But on the other hand, I don't feel the need to throw tons of money in their direction. We recently received an invitation to buy concert tickets to see James Taylor in an arena in Jacksonville. The cheapest seats were $200 apiece and Mark and I just looked at each other and said, "Well he was good back in the day, but not worth $400 to see the fossilized leftover version."

And similarly, one reason I'm still using Windows 7 Ultimate is that I don't want to spend more money on shabby Microsoft products. And for the similar reason I'm not a Prime member with Amazon, and Amazon is usually my last choice of merchant when I'm shopping online – mostly because I find better bargains and better prices elsewhere. That's the problem with superstars - they command superstar prices.  And maybe it is we who create these superstars - even executive superstars.  But that is the subject for my next posting.

And no, I don't read The Washington Post, either. And while someday maybe I will buy an electric car, chances are it won't be at Tesla. By the time I'm ready for that market, they'll be a choice from a multitude of manufacturers offering electric vehicles, and I would prefer to have one that has an established network of service centers as well as lower prices.  By that time a Tesla might be out of business – who knows?

But it seems funny to me that people complain about income inequality in certain situations, but not in others. In the corporate world, leftists argue that greedy executives are taking money away from low-level employees. But nobody complains about superstar athletes or musicians or movie stars taking money away from ordinary people in terms of higher ticket prices – do they?

And yet the net effect is the same.

Dowsing

Dowsing is another version of a poverty story.  It never pays, however, to try to discredit poverty stories.

Early on in our relationship, Mark mentioned that his Father was a dowser.  He had the "gift" for finding where to dig a well or how to find an underground pipe.  All he needed was a y-shaped branch off an apple tree or even a t-shape metal rod, and he could find out where to dig!   I tried to explain to Mark that it was superstitious nonsense, but I quickly backed away.  This was his Father we were talking about, and he had a near God-like status in his mind (well, except the part where he abandoned him at age 14) so it wasn't worthwhile trying to "win" that argument - so I let it lie.

His brother told a similar story - a juicy "poverty story" about his Dad and dowsing:

Seems the DPW was trying to dig up a water pipe and they dug and dug but couldn't find it.  The map showed it being ten feet from the road!  Where was it?  Bill (Mark's Dad) was driving by in his Rambler and stopped to chat with "the boys" doing the digging.  They explained their plight.  They had surveyors come out and even "scientists" (right?) with some sort of machine and no one could find the errant water line!  So Bill knocked out his pipe on the digger and snapped a branch off a tree and started walking around in a spiral circle.  Suddenly, the branch shot downward!  It was vibrating as if charged with electricity!

"Dig here!" Bill said.  The "scientists" and officials scoffed at this, but "the boys" running the digger intervened.  "We tried it your way, all day long!  Bill has the gift!  We'll find your water line!"  And sure enough, they dug down eight feet and there was the water line!  They showed those eggheads what for! 

The End.

Of course, the story has been embellished over the years.  I doubt there were "scientists" with lab coats and elaborate machines looking for underground pipes back in 1965.  Yes, today, they have such equipment, of course.  But back then?  You dug until you found it.  How did Bill find the pipe?  Well, for one thing, he told them to dig somewhere they hadn't been digging.   It is not that he was a fraud, but he truly believed he had some kind of gift.

In other instances, he used his gift to tell people where to dig for a well.  Again, there is a long-winded "story" about some well-digger who drills for hundreds of feet without finding water.  Bill comes along and dowses and tells the skeptical well-digger to dig 100 feet away.  Jackpot! They tap into an artesian spring of pure, soft water that tastes like honey and smells like flowers!  Or something like that.

Did he have "the gift" or it is possible that if you dig anywhere in an area with a high water table you will find water?  Or maybe telling someone who is digging a dry hole to stop digging there is just sound advice?  Or maybe he is picking up on more subtle cues, such as the inclination of the land, wet spots on the ground, or an understanding of how water flows underground.  It is hard to say - but there is no real "evidence" that dowsing works at all - the supernatural has never submitted to the rigors of science.

Poverty stories are, of course, a waste of your time - at best a mild entertainment, at worst, chock full of poor normative cues.  And  you can see where the stories about Mark's Dad fit right into the classic "poverty story" narrative - the "little guy" who never went to college and got those high-falutin' degrees (what is a "falutin" anyway?) shows up those science nerds with their science and technology and reason and whatnot. It gives the little guy a chance to win and maybe this is related to my previous posting about Populism.  Why engage in rational thinking when fantasy is so much more fun?

And while it profits one not to believe these sort of stories, don't bother trying to "educate" your chums that they are false.  Yes, there are no $50 Corvettes out there - but saying so isn't going to make you popular - in fact, it is the sort of thing that, in days gone by, got you burned at the stake.  So just nod your head and go along with it and slowly back away.

And yes, sometimes, even friends and family believe in some of this nonsense, and you have to just let it go.  While Mark is ordinarily a very rational person (and can be quite hard about it, the Maine way) he does indulge in some fantasies on occasion - but usually they are harmless ones that don't involve spending money.  A friend of his believes in mystical stuff, and that's fine for her.  She isn't trying to sell us essential oils or chakras or whatever.  Therein lies the difference.

Of course, some people don't have a lot of willpower when it comes to this nonsense (and it is nonsense, but don't tell anyone that!).  They get sucked into cults or evangelical religions (I am being redundant) or MLM schemes or timeshare sales.  And yea, it is sad they get taken advantage of - we all do to some extent - but you can't save people from themselves.  They will violently dispute your argument and tell you in no uncertain terms they know what they are talking about.

So keep your own counsel, move on, and learn from the experience - and maybe introspectively realize what nonsense you might be believing in, without even realizing it.  Because we all believe in some sort of nonsense, at one time or another.  It's a human thing, apparently.

Confirmation Bias

A new study has come out confirming all my previously held beliefs!  Oh, wait....

A recent click-bait article online posits that people who believe in populism are also very gullible.  Imagine that - a Trump supporter or a Qanonsense believer being gullible!  They are probably into an MLM scheme, too!  (Sadly, many are, which is why they are so angry all the time).  It sounds entirely plausible, until you read further into the article:

In Study 1, researchers surveyed a total of 70,882 participants from 13 different countries in the European Union for political ideology, conspiracy mentality, and populist attitudes. Results showed that stronger populist attitudes were associated with increased conspiracy mentality for all 13 countries. Study 1 results also showed that increased conspiracy mentality is more likely in women (vs. men), older people (vs. younger people), those with lower education levels (vs. those with higher education), and people on the political right (vs. political left).

In Study 2, researchers expanded their scope to include other measures of gullibility such as bullshit receptivity, or the tendency for people to perceive nonsense statements as profound (e.g., “Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty), and belief in the supernatural. They also expanded to assess participants’ readiness to believe news, as previous research shows populist attitudes are associated with the tendency to believe news regardless of the source or plausibility of that news.

Unlike Study 1, Study 2 was comprised of only U.S. participants with a total sample size of 308. Participants in Study 2 were assessed for populist attitudes, political ideology, and cognition reflection (analytical thinking). Participants then read five politically neutral news articles that researchers manipulated to either come from a mainstream news site (e.g., CBS, CNN) or an alternative, unknown news site (e.g., “Your news,” “US.net”). All participants then rated the articles for how much they thought the information was accurate, credible, and true.

Results of Study 2 show that stronger populist attitudes are associated with increased gullibility of news (regardless of the source), increased conspiracy mentality, increased belief in the supernatural, increased belief in conspiracy theories, and higher bullshit receptivity.

Bullshit receptivity?  Is that a scientific term?  I have so much trouble keeping up with technology these days. I didn't realize that "bullshit" was now a scientific term.  I guess Penn & Teller are scientists now.

It is not that the conclusions are wrong here, only that I suspect that they came up with the conclusions first, and then created a "survey" to "prove" these conclusions - much like our doctorate lady with her surveys about turtles and trees.  Or perhaps the kids at Cornell who decided that sitting in the bar and drinking beer and people-watching was "science".

Surveys are not "science" and never will be.  Yet, I saw this article posted in the "science" section of Reddit - but that doesn't make it science.  Surveys are self-filtering.  Only people inclined to answer surveys get surveyed - so it filters out the opinions of most rational people.  Moreover, even people who answer surveys tend to lie a lot, particularly when the real answers to the surveys would make them look foolish or bad.  I wasn't about to answer the lady's survey with answers like, "I enjoy cutting down trees" or "I intentionally try to run over turtles" - not that I do either.  The point is, we all try to make ourselves look better than we are, and this is a form of a lie.  And lies don't make for hard data.  Self-reported data is always suspect.

The first "study" at least had a fairly decent sample size.  The second?  308 people?  What was the point of that?  That's hardly indicative of the views and attitudes of a significant portion of the population.

Quite frankly, I think the entire thing is pointless. Trying to "prove" that people who believe in nonsense are gullible is stupid.  You already know they are gullible - as they believe in nonsense.  It's like trying to "prove" someone who believes in Qanonsense is mentally ill.  Real hard to do!   The thing proves itself - res ipsa loquitur- if they are a Qanonsense believer they are ipso facto deranged.

Because only a deranged person would believe that JFK and JFK, Jr. are coming back to life in Dealey plaza because someone said so on the Internet.  Only a deranged person would believe that these two icons of the Democratic party would endorse Donald Trump, whose values are completely out of line with what the Kennedy dynasty stood for (with RFK, Jr. being the exception, but then again, he is one of the "Gullible").

People who believe in timeshares, MLM schemes, conspiracy theories and so on and so forth are mentally imbalanced.  They live in a dream world where up is down and left is right and you can make money by praying or believing it to be so. These are the kind of people who follow politicians as though they were rock stars.  These are the kind of people who idolize celebrities.  Inevitably, their fantasy world crashes into the real world, and they flip out - like the Southwest pilot who was selling "cake shakes" on the side as part of an MLM scheme.   By the way, what's the deal with Southwest Airlines?  They are the MyPillowGuy of airlines it seems.

OK, well believing in irrational things means you are irrational.  But what about populism?  Isn't that a rational philosophy of life or politics?  Well, again, not really.  Some define populism as "a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups."  There are various other definitions, but they all fall along the same lines.  The common denominator is that most of these folks believe that somehow the elites "took away" their money and if the pie was "divided equally" they would all be fantastically rich.  Of course, if you took away all of Jeff Bezos money (or Elon Musk or whoever) it works out to a one-time payment of $493.92 per person in the United States.  I am not sure that is changing anyone's life very much.

But it is a siren song as old as time.  Huey Long used it to argue that "every man should be a king!" in order to get elected.  No one ended up king except perhaps the Kingfish himself.  Populist politicians promise to make the ordinary man rich, but somehow never follow through on those promises - because they can't physically do so.  It is just a ploy to get votes - to get stupid people riled up - and there are a lot of stupid people in the world today.  Don't be one of them.

I found that the biggest obstacle to success in my life wasn't Nancy Pelosi or the lizard-people "taking all my money away" but rather myself.  I gave away my money to the banks, the financial institutions, the car dealers, the merchants, and other folks, convinced that happiness lay in owning "things" even if I couldn't afford them. I begged them to take my money - as if getting a loan was a privilege!  If there is a dichotomy between the "elites" and the "common man" it is that the elites loan money to the common man, who mortgages his soul to have today and pay tomorrow.

Some people claim this is inevitable.  With an average home selling for $1M in the bay area, how can you possibly get ahead in life?  With student loan debt in six-figures, how can you possibly dig yourself out from under that?   Of course, people love to use outliers and claim they are common.  You scratch the surface on these stories and find that while indeed we are in the middle of yet another housing bubble, once you get away from high-cost places to live, housing is still affordable.  And the average student loan debt isn't $100,000 but a quite affordable $30,000 or so.

What is funny to me is that when I read these complaints online, the same people complaining about debt are also complaining that the meal they ordered to be delivered to their home came late and was cold and that their "Starbucks" wasn't prepared properly.   They then go on to whine that "everyone else" has these things so why should they not have them too?  Why should they have to sacrifice to get ahead when they can have it all now and pay later?  It is irrational thinking on its face - and yes, I engaged in that form of self-pity when I was in my 20's.

Act rationally in an irrational world - it is the mantra of my blog.  A reader recently wrote to me about my posting about how little it costs to live, once you get off the debt bandwagon.   Most folks in America pay 1/3 of their income in Federal, State, and local taxes (if not more, if you factor in sales taxes) and then another 1/3 in interest payments to banks.  Most mortgage payments are 90% interest, particularly in the early years.   Interest payments can add 50% to the cost of buying a car.  And then there is Americans' dirty little secret - intractable credit card debt.  That Starbucks or Avocado Toast won't bankrupt you right away - paying revolving interest on it for a decade or more, will.  Besides, coffee and avocado toast are ridiculously cheap and easy to make at home!   Spending two hour's take-home pay on a restaurant meal makes no sense at all, but I've seen people do it - the poorest people in the world, too!

Of course, this isn't easy to do - it requires effort, sacrifice, and making smarter choices.  It may mean finding new friends to hang out with.  It may mean forgoing drug and alcohol abuse.   It may mean - it will mean - doing without things you want now in order to own them outright later.  But of course, that is hard, and it is easier to just posit that your life situation is impossible and that the only solution is a revolution and a structural change in society.  Sadly, that rarely occurs and when it does, well, the revolutionaries are the first ones lined up against the wall, as their Populist leader no longer has need of them.

But of course, you can't convince a Populist of that - or indeed anything.  They want the sweet sounds of cotton-candy fantasy, not the hard bitter reality of cold coffee in a Styrofoam cup.  They will dismiss anything that conflicts with their world-view as propaganda from the elites.  "Oh, sure, you say that, you're rich!" they will say.  But I'm not, I just learned - after decades of hard experience - to spend less than I earn.  It didn't happen overnight, but as I noted before, I went from dirt-poor (negative net worth) to millionaire in about a decade, not by joining the Masons or becoming a lizard person, but by going to night school, working hard, and taking advantage of opportunities that came my way.

Let me give you an example.  When I was at the Patent Office, they had a program that would pay for part of my tuition in Law School.  Mark said, "Well, I guess you're going to Law School!" and that settled that.  Yet, I knew friends of mine at  the Patent Office who "couldn't be bothered" with the "hassle" of getting a free (or heavily subsidized) law degree.  They were content to work as an Examiner and work their way up the ladder at the Patent Office.

There is nothing wrong with either approach, but if you chose the latter, you can't sit around and bitch and complain about how "all those greedy lawyers" are "making all that money" because quite frankly, the money wasn't all that great and you had a chance to do that, but chose not to.   And you can't argue the system is "unfair" if you turned away opportunities.

But like I said, you can't explain that to people - it is like trying to teach calculus to a dog.  So just give up.

Which is why I say, I write this blog for me, not for you.  If you get something out of it, fine.  But I don't give advice and I am not trying to "change your mind" about anything.  As anyone in a 12-step program will tell you, you can't change people's minds - they have to reach rock-bottom and realize things for themselves.

And a lot of Qanonsense believers are having this revelation - but only after losing jobs, careers, their families, and their freedoms, after being arrested for their attempts at insurrection.   But even then, some continue to "believe" - to the bitter end - that Trump will become king, and they will be the next Goebbels or Himmler.

They forget about the night of the long knives!

"No Son of Mine!....."

People think they want what's best for their kids.  Funny thing, they never ask the kids about this!

Different generations have different value systems based on the era they grew up in.  One of the mysteries of life to me is how some people are groomed to be managers and leaders, while others are groomed to be plebes.  You get an appointment to West Point and you start your military career as an officer.  You start off in boot camp, and you start your career as a Private.  Sure, some folks and "work their way up through the ranks" but you can only go so far, and the officers who went to military academies will never accept you as one of their own.

In industry a similar thing occurs.  I went to General Motors Institute, which was, in a way, like the West Point of GM.  You graduated from GMI you started your career as a salaried employee of the company.  None of this punching-the-clock union nonsense.  And as a result, we have the same dichotomy between the executives in the office and the workers on the production floor.  And pretty much all industry is like this - you have white collar and you have blue collar, and once you are in one camp, it is hard to switch to the other.  And yes, you can "work your way up" through the ranks, but again, you can only go so far, and the people in the executive dining room will really never accept you because you have dirt under your fingernails (figuratively speaking).

I guess these are good systems or otherwise we wouldn't be using them.  But it seems to me that they are rift for corruption and ineptness.  People get appointments to military academies based not only on merit, but who you know (at least in the past).  And in industry, we have a ton of know-nothings in cushy jobs who are best at doing nothing - because when they actually try to do something, they create chaos on the production floor.  As a result, American industry is top-heavy with a lot of unnecessary layers of management.

What got me thinking about this was a story my Dad told me once.  His father, a raging alcoholic, was partner, along with this brothers, in a Buick Dealership in New Jersey.  There is still a "Bell Brothers Buick" in New Jersey, but I am not sure it is any relation.   Anyway, I told my Dad that it must have been keen to have a Dad working in a car dealership.  I would be down there every day after school, learning about cars or maybe tinkering with an old jalopy after hours!  It would be so cool!

"No," my Dad replied, "My father would have none of that.   As far as he was concerned, I was cut out out for management, not working in the shop.  He wouldn't let me work on cars as he felt it was beneath me!"   And right then, I understood why my Dad was so shitty at taking care of his cars - letting them rust to death, never washing them or waxing them or even changing the oil very often!  He was a serial car abuser, in retrospect.

But that era - the depression - was a tough time.  And people back then were social climbers.  Everyone strove to be part of "polite society" and part of the upper crust - to go to dinner at "the club" and play golf and all that sort of thing.  And you couldn't do that with dirt under your fingernails.  Sad, too, because I would think that learning about cars - as a kid - would set you up for later in life, if you wanted to run a car dealership or work for a car company.

So my Dad was sent away to college to learn Engineering and from what I can gather, he wasn't too keen on it.  Thermodynamics was his downfall (and mine - but the third time I took it, I got an "A"!) so he switched to the Management school at MIT (I never gave up!).   Management school - it is like "business school" - as if you can train someone in four years to run an international conglomerate or something.  That you can start at the top and not have to pay your dues.  That somehow, "book learning" can teach you all you need to know about running a company.

And yet "consultants" do this all the time - they hire the "best and brightest" graduates and then throw them into the field.  The law isn't much different - young associates do the lion's share of the work, with the least amount of experience.  Even the Supreme Court - especially the Supreme Court - relies on "clerks" to do most of the research and heavy lifting.  Most don't stay long - they leverage their clerkship experience into a partnership with a private firm.  It is a weird system, in my mind, at least.

Of course, back in the day, this system worked pretty well.  You got shunted off onto the Officer or Executive track and you started out your career at the top - well, not at the bottom, anyway.  But today, I am not sure this is an effective model anymore.  For starters, there are only so many executive positions out there - and for damn sure, we in America have been creating executive positions right and left!   Not only that, but as the McKinsey example illustrates, only the "best and brightest" are chosen for these top positions.

And I have some small experience with this.  I was a journeyman Patent Attorney - drafting Patent Applications and Amendments.  Writing Patents and getting them allowed - that was my game.  I didn't go to a prestigious undergraduate college and have a 4.0 grade average - or do the same in law school.  A guy I worked with, who was actually smart, did.  And he drafted motions and pleadings for litigation and appeals, which was levels above where I was.  A man has got to know his limitations, as Clint Eastwood once said.   So in the law business, there is this same dichotomy between the cream of the crust, and the everyday working lawyers.

I was interviewing for a position once, and I had sent a resume and cover letter to one of those "white shoe" law firms - the Park Avenue type.  I am not sure what I was thinking at the time, but I guess I didn't realize what was going on.  I never heard back from them and they had an interview day, so I showed up and talked to the secretary of the partner doing interviews.  She ushered me in and I handed my resume and school records to the hiring Partner.  He read through it and said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

You see, those sort of firms want someone from Harvard or Yale, in the top 10% of their class, on Law Review, etc.  They weren't interested in someone like me - a former lab tech with "hands on" experience, who had actually worked at the Patent Office and spend years writing and prosecuting Patent Applications even before I graduated.  They wanted the smart kids, the brain trust, or as they called them in the Kennedy administration, "The Whiz Kids."

It is funny, too, because I worked at a very good firm (who taught me a LOT, for which I am grateful) and they hired one of these white-shoe kind of guys (more Italian loafers, actually).  He was well-groomed, slick, and checked off all the boxes - right background, right schools, good grades, and so on and so forth.  And my job was to teach him how to write Patent Applications and Amendments.   This guy had credentials up the wazoo, but had no clue about anything.  And this is not atypical in many industries - the "college boy" has to be trained by the lower-level employee, and the college boy is making twice what his trainer is.

And I suppose this is unavoidable.  If the "Whiz Kid" has any whiz, well, he'll pick it all up in no time at all.  And he'll go on to do other things, once he learns the ropes and the basics.  My Dad ran a truck clutch factory and I am sure when he went to work there, he had not the foggiest idea of how a truck clutch worked or was built.  But they didn't hire him to make clutches.

I would run into this same effect later in life, when I had my own practice. Young graduates with zero experience would contact me, asking for a job when they had not the slightest idea of how to write or prosecute a Patent.  Not only did they want me to teach them, they wanted me to pay them a salary that was more than I was making!   One even said to me, point blank, that they only intended to work for me for a year or two.  Once they had "experience" they would go to work for a better-paying firm!   Such a well-cultivated sense of entitlement.  Of course, I could not afford such nonsense, even if I had wanted to help them out.

If this sounds like I am bitter or resentful, I am not.  The folks at the "White Shoe" law firms worked hard to get where they are, and they have to keep working hard to insure that their clients pay them the exorbitant fees they charge for legal work.   I didn't start at the top of the heap, but I did pretty well by myself - particularly after I put down the bong and the beer and tried applying myself a bit.   There are plenty of people out there smarter than I am, and the ones who are successful in life are not only lucky, they apply themselves at an earlier age than I did.

Granted, there is always one turd that floats to the top of the cesspool, particularly in family-run businesses, or in colleges that accept "legacy" candidates for admission.  People who have that sense of entitlement because of what their parents or grandparents did never end up successful for very long.  I've seen it firsthand - people crash and burn when everyone figures out there is no "there" there.

So, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, for starters, I think this phenomenon is still present today, and in fact, in droves.  Young people are encouraged to "go to college" even if they have no clue what that means.  They sign up for tens of thousands of dollars in loans, for a degree they are not even sure they want.  The idea - based on 1930's social values - is that a college degree of any sort, will make you part of the executive class right off the bat.  We are realizing this is no longer true.

People looked down on technical educations.  I know my own mother did, chastising me for going to a "trade school" because she wanted to impress the other Mothers on the cocktail circuit that her son or daughter was going to Harvard or Yale.  As I recall, she even made me send an application to Harvard, even though there was no way in hell I was getting in.  What a waste of time.  I wanted to tinker with cars and other machinery, but she knew best - right?

I am sure this conversation is still going on today.  Some young kid is playing with computers and their parents are saying, "That's fine and all, but you should go to college and broaden your horizons and learn!"  They want their kid to be an executive, not some lowly coder making only a hundred grand a year.  And God forbid he drop out!  He might end up a loser in life!

Taking career advice from anyone over 30 is always problematic.  And I am not sure that you can jump to the head of the line by going to college.  Every civilization has its tribal shaman and leader - whose successors are their sons and daughters.   Countries had their royalty - their Lords and Ladies, their Kings, Dukes, and Earls.  And you couldn't just sign up to be one, you had to be born into it, by and large.

So maybe it is a waste of effort to try that.  You can go to Wharton Business School and if you graduate with top honors, maybe you will be hired by some big company or Wall Street firm.  Or, if your Dad is willing to bankroll you, maybe you can go into the family business as Trump did (and he made a mess of that!).  Just because you go to finishing school doesn't mean you are finished.

I dunno.  Maybe it is time we chucked this whole concept of a dual-class society.  Maybe if someone wants to become an Officer in the military, they should serve a tour of duty as a grunt before they are accepted in a Military Academy.  Maybe the manager of a factory should understand what it is they are making - and has soiled his hands on the production floor.  Maybe - maybe not.   And I guess that was one of the great things about GMI - you did spend time on the production floor getting your hands dirty and understanding the business from the ground up.  And that is one reason why I am a big fan of the co-op college experience.

Graduating into management?  It just seems, well, sort of unnatural to me!