Official BBO Hijacked Thread Thread

[kenberg]

That makes you a Silent, Ken. Wiki gives a pretty good listing with links if you want to read up on any of them. It should of course be fairly clear to anyone that these boundaries are highly artificial though and therefore not to read too much into it. As you write, this Gibney guy has to sell his book. He is a venture capitalist by trade so he probably knows how to talk a good game. That said, there is some degree of truth in what he writes on a financial level, not that a generation are sociopaths of course but that the people born after the end of WWI took a disproportionate amount leaving comparatively less for future generations. He is, like me, a Generation X child - I guess it is expected of us to hate Baby Boomers somehow. He just takes the whole thing too far.

 

Yes, but taking things a little too far is how it all goes to hell. You could explain to the president of Mexico that Trump was not referring to him when he called Mexicans rapists. I doubt that would smooth things over.

 

The Wiki citation puts my parents, my father born in 1900, my mother in 1889, into the lost generation. They did not hang out with Gertrude Stein in Paris. My older daughter was born in 1961, i guess that is still a boomer, so she is another sociopath. People who know her would disagree. My younger daughter, 1967, is an X. My oldest grandchild, 1992, is a Millenial. My youngest grandchild is 2. I am not sure that they have yet named the box that they will assign her to.

 

We of course are partly a product of the environment we experience growing up. Wars figure into this, as both the Wiki article and Gibney note, but so does much else. I have only scattered memories of WW II but if I see a movie such as The Best Years of Our Lives I can recognize the people and say yes, that reflects how people thought. But I am not all that Silent, and I claim to not be a Sociopath. But of course sociopaths lie.

 

For me, the title of the book and the approach it represents is pretty much a guarantee that I will never read his book or have anything good to say about the author. A quick judgment perhaps, but there are a lot of books out there expressing a lot of views, and we have to choose.

[jjbrr]

Two questions:

 

Why do we have participation trophies? My generation certainly doesn't want them. Your generation imposed them upon us.

 

Your father in 1900 and mother in 1889? Is there a story there? I'm ashamed to admit I don't know as much about my grandparents as I'd like. My paternal grandfather had alzheimers and grandmother died of cancer when I was fairly young. My maternal grandfather died when my mom was 3, and my grandmother, while still alive afaik, has no relationship with us.

[Zelandakh]

Why do we have participation trophies? My generation certainly doesn't want them. Your generation imposed them upon us.

Don't be a dick...

A dangerous message

 

I am not too sure to which generations you are referring here. I know I did not get participation trophies as a child, just the usual 1st 2nd and 3rd. I also know I was fairly competitive. I can for example remember receiving a trophy for coming in second at a fairly prestigious junior chess event and being somewhat disappointed because the tournament format (Swiss) had prevented me from playing against the winner - if I had beaten him I would probably have won overall. It was not that second place was bad - it earned me a county selection - but I wanted to win! If someone had given me a trophy just for turning up I would have seen that as worthless junk.

 

Of course other children are different. If such trophies help certain children to participate in sports or other healthy social activities where they otherwise would not then that is surely a good thing. How effective they are in that respect I could not say. I am fairly sure that the competitive children will stay competitive regardless. Most likely BBF has a higher than average population of competitive children, so perhaps we are not really the correct audience to be judging whether they are a positive or a negative for their target demographic.

[jjbrr]

zel, im going to read the rest of your message, but for the two links you provided, jesus christ, go F yourself. not reading that BS.

[jjbrr]

ok the rest of your post was garbage too. thanks i guess.

[kenberg]

Two questions:

 

Why do we have participation trophies? My generation certainly doesn't want them. Your generation imposed them upon us.

 

Your father in 1900 and mother in 1889? Is there a story there? I'm ashamed to admit I don't know as much about my grandparents as I'd like. My paternal grandfather had alzheimers and grandmother died of cancer when I was fairly young. My maternal grandfather died when my mom was 3, and my grandmother, while still alive afaik, has no relationship with us.

 

Re question 1: What's a participation trophy? Are you speaking of things where people get rewarded for their participation even if they do not achieve much or even much try? I would not impose such a thing on anyone, I never received such a trophy, nor did my kids. Not my idea at all.

 

Re question 2: Zel mentioned the Wikipedia article on Generation this and Generation that so I was going through it. My point was that the labels mean little to me. Gertrude Stein could say "We are all of a lost generation". Clever enough perhaps, but she was sitting in a Paris Cafe chatting with Hemingway or some such. My parents, I am sure, had never heard of Gertrude Stein and did not think they were lost. This topic all got started with the reference to what's his name declaring that Generation Boomers are all a bunch of sociopaths. As I mentioned, I really tire of people lumping a group together and calling then names.This view is pretty much independent of what group it is and what sort of names they are being called. As a 5 year old I once knew would say in dispute with other 5 year olds: "What you say is what you are except the goodest part."

[RedSpawn]

From How the baby boomers — not millennials — screwed America:

"Sean: So how have they broken the country?"

 

This is a very complex question, but I think it's fair to say that baby boomers inherited a rich dynamic country post World War II. They also assumed the prosperity they had would continue and the country would grow by about 3% into infinity.

 

The problem is ALL voting age generations didn't judge their politicians by their impact on our financial solvency and didn't make shoring up finances the topic du jour for elections. As long as politicans secured ample amounts of pork from Congress' largesse and brought it back to their home states, our votes and loyalty could be bought.

 

Take for example Bush and Obama. President Bush doubled our debt from $5.5 trillion in 2000 to $11 trillion in 2008. President Obama took an $11 trillion public debt and almost doubled it to $20 trillion by the end of 2016. I didn't see the collective outrage to this type of deficit spending.

 

President Ronald Reagan didn't endorse this level of deficit spending when he introduced supply-side economics and the notion of [voo doo] trickle down economics. We co-signed this approach to handling the federal purse strings with our votes. Why? Because deficit spending into oblivion requires no personal sacrifice and insulates us from seeing the long-term consequences of our actions.

 

We want prosperity without making personal sacrifices to earn it. It's this selfishiness and naivete that imperils the nation. We kick the "financial solvency" can down the road and procrastinate about making the long overdue changes.

 

To almost quadruple our public debt in less than a generation is unconscionable and yet we do nothing outrageous to get our politician's attention and demand a new strategy and direction. We get up, go to work, make the donuts, go home, and shop when afforded the chance. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

 

Neither party has made significant inroads to downsize government and rightsize the federal budget because doing so is political suicide. And fortunately, Congress is full of career politicians because we haven't demanded term limits for them. Now we have too many federal fiefdoms addicted to their swamp lifestyle. So politicans continue to deficit spend with reckless abandon to buy our votes and complacency. And here we are.

 

Two Presidents basically doubled the federal debt during each of their presidencies and the citizens responded --- PROTECT MY PORK AND DON'T CUT $HIT FROM THE BUDGET.

 

Our government gives $1.5 trillion in tax cuts as a Christmas gift to Corporate America and rich wealthy people with very little benefit to middle class families. Last time I looked, the federal government is bloated with federal debt and still has no balanced federal budget and had a looming government shutdown because of all of the out-of-control deficit spending. And our government deems it's time to celebrate this tax cut as a victory in light of our financial condition.

 

Where is the outrage? There isn't any. We have accepted this hubris as our norm.

[Zelandakh]

zel, im going to read the rest of your message, but for the two links you provided, jesus christ, go F yourself. not reading that BS.

I placed 2 links roughly on the extremes of each side of the debate. Noone ever has to read posted links - sometimes reading something from the opposing side helps one's own understanding though.

[Zelandakh]

"Sean: So how have they broken the country?"

 

This is a very complex question, but I think it's fair to say that baby boomers inherited a rich dynamic country post World War II. They also assumed the prosperity they had would continue and the country would grow by about 3% into infinity.

I think it is quite a lot simpler than this. Just consider pensions for example. The Boomers came at a time of high birth rate. That is the origin of their tag after all. Generation X, on the other hand, is characterised by strongly falling birth rates. In that time, medical advances have also been significant together with their associated costs. The result is that there are about half as many workers per retiree now than in 1950. Immigration helps out here somewhat and America, for example, is better off than most other developed nations. Nonetheless, the resulting issues were thoroughly predictable 40 years ago.

 

Now look at house prices. These grew at an unprecedented rate in the 1970s, precisely the time when Boomers were taking over the housing market, though it seems like few took much attention until the 1980s as the rises kept on going. It would have been a fairly simple matter for western governments to take some of this raised capital and save it over to cover the upcoming costs that everyone knew were coming. This is a simplistic argument that demonstrates that the argument that Boomers took too much holds water. The fact that the capital that was taken did not distribute itself evenly also helped create even more inequality in developed countries.

 

On do on the other hand find it disingenuous to blame the Boomers as a generation for this. How many of them actually had a real say in what was going on? Rather the blame, if that is even the right term, needs to fall on a small group of influential people who helped shape the policies of an era. Some of these people are politicians but certainly not all. So it is easy to pick out names such as Reagan, Thatcher and Kohl from the 80s but the seeds run much deeper. As has already been discussed on BBF, Nixon's decision to suspend the Bretton Woods agreement is a factor, not only for the direct changes it brought in but also as it led directly to monetarism taking over from fixed exchange rates.

 

And here is the point. None of these names refer to Boomers. The first Boomer POTUS is Bill Clinton in 1993. The first Boomer Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997. And the first Boomer Chancellor? Angela Merkel in 2005. So while the Boomers are the beneficiaries of (arguably poor) policies over a long period, it is difficult to argue that they bear the responsibility. Rather it is something that falls out of the system of representative democracy. They were a demographic much more numerous than the one that came after them, so naturally politicians made great efforts to foster their votes. That resulted in a series of giveaways in many different countries. But for the most part, the people actually making the decisions were not themselves Boomers. You can hardly blame the Boomer voters for accepting a free lunch when it was offered!

[kenberg]

On this business of blaming I think I am in agreement with Zel. It helps to recall how we really thought, whether it is me as a Silent, Zel as an X, or whatever.

 

Elementary school and high school: I was told to do this.

College and the military: I was thinking of joining the Navy when I got out of high school, it was expected that all males would serve some time in the military sooner or later, but I got a scholarship and i went to college.

Grad school: When i started college I barely knew it existed, but it came to seem like a good idea.

Employment and pensions, pensions being in the news some: I was told: We can offer you such and such a salary, and part of the package is a pension plan. I said OK.

 

None of this involved any scheming, it does not seem to me to be the least bit pathological, whether socio- or otherwise. I was certainly brought up with the expectation of being self-supporting, as I assume those of any generation are, but nobody ever suggested that before I took a job that had a pension plan I should do a deep study of whether pension plans are or are not a sound concept for the economical health of the nation.

 

Here is a very up-to-date variation on this theme. Apparently it would be a good idea to pay my 2018 property taxes in 2017 if the county will in fact accept it. Ok, so I will look into this, I suppose it is worth the effort. Myself, I think property taxes and state income taxes should be deductible from income for federal tax purposes but if it is no longer going to be then I guess I should do what is best. Again this is not a sociopathic scheme, this is just me trying to adjust to changing rules.

 

I am fine with looking at the effect of policies and trying to choose wise ones. But let's go easy on the blame and the name calling while we are doing this. There are schemers out there, and they should be called out. But call them out as individuals, don't lump an entire generation together and call them sociopaths. That's just lazy thinking.

[y66]

Raj Chetty's lectures from his Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems class are now available online.

 

Who is Raj Chetty?

[kenberg]

Raj Chetty's lectures from his Using Big Data to Solve Economic and Social Problems class are now available online.

 

Who is Raj Chetty?

 

I really like this reference. I looked at some of the slides from the first 3 lectures and then listened to about the first half hour of the 4th lecture. I plan to look at a good deal more. In this 4th lecture he "passed" my first test. He asked the audience to guess the relative chances of attending Stanford for youngsters with parents in the top 1% of incomes against those with parents in the bottom 20%.It was multiple choice with the highest number being 80 times as likely, and that was my guess. It turns out that there are about 4 times as many kids at Stanford from the top 1% as thee are from the bottom 20%, but then he goes on to explain that there are (about) 20 times as many kids from bottom 20% as there are from the top 1% so indeed the relative chances of getting into Stanford for those from the top 1% are about 80 to 1 compared with those from the bottom 1%. Actually it is a little more subtle since the bottom 20% of the parents do not necessarily have 20% of the kids, but at least it is clear that the answer is closer to 80 than it is to 4. Of course this is obvious, but you do not have to read many newspaper articles to see people make a complete hash of this.

 

There are of course many other caveats. Not everyone belongs at Stanford and I seriously doubt that it would be a good thing to have the same percentage of kids from the bottom income group at Stanford as there are from the upper income group. Different percentages can reflect different abilities, different choices, different many things.

 

But on the basis of what I have seen so far of the presentation, I think it is worth seeing more. I certainly see myself as benefiting from the opportunity for upward mobility that existed when I was young and I regard this as one of the most important things, possibly the top most, I would like to see continued/resurrected both because of the benefit to the individual and to the nation. I think we are absolutely nuts if we let this slide away. If he has anything useful to say on the topic I am more than prepared to listen.

 

So thanks.

[Winstonm]

 

There are of course many other caveats. Not everyone belongs at Stanford and I seriously doubt that it would be a good thing to have the same percentage of kids from the bottom income group at Stanford as there are from the upper income group.

 

 

 

Hi, Ken,

 

I was wondering what brought you to this conclusion? It sounds like an argument that the wealthier are genetically superior but I am certain that is not what you meant.

[y66]

If he has anything useful to say on the topic I am more than prepared to listen.

Chetty will be in DC next Thursday 1/11 to discuss his new research, “Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation.” More info here.

[WellSpyder]

Hi, Ken,

 

I was wondering what brought you to this conclusion? It sounds like an argument that the wealthier are genetically superior but I am certain that is not what you meant.

Why not? (Unless you are using "superior" in some sort of normative sense.) It seems clear to me that there is some correlation between intelligence and income; also between parental intelligence and children's intelligence; and also between intelligence and ability to benefit from a Stanford education. Each of those correlations is a long way from perfect, of course, but they don't need to be completely correlated to support Ken's conclusion.

[Cyberyeti]

Why not? (Unless you are using "superior" in some sort of normative sense.) It seems clear to me that there is some correlation between intelligence and income; also between parental intelligence and children's intelligence; and also between intelligence and ability to benefit from a Stanford education. Each of those correlations is a long way from perfect, of course, but they don't need to be completely correlated to support Ken's conclusion.

 

Yup, and also educated parents tend to value education, so instill the value of it in their kids. Top 20% likely to be educated.

[jjbrr]

Similar to how I would expect you might find similar numbers if, instead of income, you had used whether or not the student learned to play violin.

[Winstonm]

Why not? (Unless you are using "superior" in some sort of normative sense.) It seems clear to me that there is some correlation between intelligence and income; also between parental intelligence and children's intelligence; and also between intelligence and ability to benefit from a Stanford education. Each of those correlations is a long way from perfect, of course, but they don't need to be completely correlated to support Ken's conclusion.

 

Income does not directly affect genetics. Poor nutrition can lead to poor outcomes as can poor healthcare, poor educational chances, and other miseries of the poor. These are symptoms of poverty. But is money itself the solution? No, not unless it provides adequate nutrition, adequate healthcare, equal educational access, and equality of opportunity to get into and benefit from Stanford.

 

The goal should be an equal entrance to Stanford with equality of results among all groups of students rather than justifying denial of opportunity.

 

As for income, intelligence, and education, I recommend the movie: Stand and Deliver

 

If you guys are arguing that these statistics bear out that this is the way it is, I would agree; however, if your argument is that this is the way it should be, I would strongly disagree.

[kenberg]

Hi, Ken,

 

I was wondering what brought you to this conclusion? It sounds like an argument that the wealthier are genetically superior but I am certain that is not what you meant.

 

 

Suppose I said instead that I would expect that if you looked at the age at death of everyone who died in 2017 and compared it with the age at death of their parents, I would expect that there would be a substantial correlation. It's true that I would expect that, although I have not read any studies.

 

It would be a leap to an assertion that I think that old people are genetically superior. It's not a phrase, or a concept, that I generally use. I do think that longevity is connected to genes, so if we were to rank people by longevity and say that people who live longer are superior then I suppose you could call it genetic superiority, but I just don't talk that way.

 

So back to intelligence and wealth. It's tougher to measure a person's intelligence than it is to measure his age so now it all gets tricky. And with either age or intelligence there are many features other than genes that come in. I exercise fairly regularly, that's good, I am overweight, that's bad. I studied mathematics and physics on my own when I was young, that's good. I did not study poetry, even if assigned, when I was young, that's bad. Or so it was said.

 

I doubt we can ever precisely sort out the exact factors that lead to academic success. I do believe genetics plays a role, perhaps a strong role. I very much favor education that allows, guides, assists. a person's, any person's, development. For all sorts of reasons, this will be more successful with some than with others. We will not really know exactly how the stew is made, and it will often surprise us, but we need to provide opportunity.

 

I have grandchildren now, ranging in age from 2 to 25, (blended family etc) so education is often on my mind. I try to look back, as honestly as I can, at my own development and see if I have anything useful to say. The twins are 13 and this was the age when I started making a great many of my own choices, some good and some bad. It's tricky.

 

Anyway, I think genes matter. I am sure I can say that genes matter without speaking of genetic superiority.

 

Just out of curiosity, do you not believe that genes matter? I am not saying genes are destiny or anything particularly grandiose, I am simply saying that genes matter.

[Winstonm]

Suppose I said instead that I would expect that if you looked at the age at death of everyone who died in 2017 and compared it with the age at death of their parents, I would expect that there would be a substantial correlation. It's true that I would expect that, although I have not read any studies.

 

It would be a leap to an assertion that I think that old people are genetically superior. It's not a phrase, or a concept, that I generally use. I do think that longevity is connected to genes, so if we were to rank people by longevity and say that people who live longer are superior then I suppose you could call it genetic superiority, but I just don't talk that way.

 

So back to intelligence and wealth. It's tougher to measure a person's intelligence than it is to measure his age so now it all gets tricky. And with either age or intelligence there are many features other than genes that come in. I exercise fairly regularly, that's good, I am overweight, that's bad. I studied mathematics and physics on my own when I was young, that's good. I did not study poetry, even if assigned, when I was young, that's bad. Or so it was said.

 

I doubt we can ever precisely sort out the exact factors that lead to academic success. I do believe genetics plays a role, perhaps a strong role. I very much favor education that allows, guides, assists. a person's, any person's, development. For all sorts of reasons, this will be more successful with some than with others. We will not really know exactly how the stew is made, and it will often surprise us, but we need to provide opportunity.

 

I have grandchildren now, ranging in age from 2 to 25, (blended family etc) so education is often on my mind. I try to look back, as honestly as I can, at my own development and see if I have anything useful to say. The twins are 13 and this was the age when I started making a great many of my own choices, some good and some bad. It's tricky.

 

Anyway, I think genes matter. I am sure I can say that genes matter without speaking of genetic superiority.

 

Just out of curiosity, do you not believe that genes matter? I am not saying genes are destiny or anything particularly grandiose, I am simply saying that genes matter.

 

Absolutely, genes matter. The only reason I brought it up is that your post seemed to indicate that the correlation was between wealth and intelligence - but I see it as not wealth but access to the things wealth provide that over time affects the genes and hence the intelligence.

 

Perhaps I am nitpicking. :)

[y66]

From the blurb for Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children by Sara Zaske:

 

From at least Emerson’s time, Americans have taken self-reliance as a national birthright. Yet as Zaske learned from raising two children in Berlin, the Germans may have a better idea than we do how to bring up kids with optimum “selbstandigkeit.” While American parents are often over-protective, Zaske found Germans more relaxed. Their hands-off approach includes letting their young children walk to school unsupervised, take the subway alone, and use sharp knives to cut their food. German parents worry less than their American counterparts and as a result, Zaske, argues, raise more confident and productive children, a conclusion supported by the data and research results she cites.

I saw an interesting example of this at the park recently in which a 3 year-old girl came in flying along on her scooter. She stopped at the edge of a drop off with a 45'ish degree downslope (a climbing hill) and looked like she was evaluating the risk / reward of going down which she decided not to do on her scooter. She dismounted and slid down feet first, pulling the scooter behind her and then got back on and kept going. Both parents who were nearby and paying close attention but definitely not hovering took all of this in stride. My impression was that at age 3, this was one very confident little kid and the progeny of two thoughtful parents. The parents happened to be German in this case but it's pretty normal in my neighborhood to see little kids on scooters whose parents are from around here. :) They are quite confident too.

[Winstonm]

This is shocking. When contacted, Anthony Burgess had this to say:

 

“Then, brothers, it came. Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.”

[y66]

Tesla Model 3: The First Serious Review by Alex Roy

[y66]

From Angie Mar’s Menu: Red Meat and Respect by Tejal Rao:

 

 

After dinner service, at 1:30 in the morning, Ms. Mar and her cooks were done for the night, but they didn’t leave. Instead, they gathered in the back dining room and took turns discussing what they wanted to improve on, and what they got right — with immediate feedback from Ms. Mar.

 

“I need to not shut down when I make a mistake,” said Duncan Burgin, who had to return a lobe of foie gras to the heat when Ms. Mar noted that it was slightly underdone.

 

“I’m working on getting faster,” said Kevin Huffman, the newest cook in the kitchen, fresh out of culinary school.

 

“You’re definitely picking up speed,” Ms. Mar agreed. “At the beginning on a new station, you always work on getting it perfect, and then you work on getting faster. Awesome. Who’s next?”

[RedSpawn]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/tompor/2017/04/14/irs-turns-debt-collectors-call-unpaid-taxes/100483162/

 

IRS is cracking down!!!!!