Is Elizabeth Warren the Smartest Person in U.S. Politics

[nige1]

Yesterday, I had the following interaction with my Postal Carrier that was right out of Seinfeld

1. The carrier rings my doorbell and asks him to meet him up front

2. I put on pants and wander to the entrance hall (the joy of working from home on a snowy day)

3. The postal carrier complains that my box is full of mail and that I need to empty it

4. I ask him to show me what needs to be delivered. Upon inspection, it consists of a thick pile of junk mail, unwanted uncatalogued and magazines, and fliers.

5. The postal carrier explains that, be that as it may, my mail box still needs to be empty so he can deliver this

6. I respond that I fail to see that this is my problem and wander back inside.

Now we know why they go postal :)

[Winstonm]

Who, name one, has said that everything is a matter of choice? There is a pattern here. Someone (me) mentions choice. You cring and say that some things, a person's genetic make-up for example, are not a matter of choice. Righto. I thank Thor for my genes and i acknowledge my great sin (failure if you prefer) of not always taking the best care of what i have been given. Some people have bodies that, if they were ovens, they would be recalled. I get that. I was reasonably lucky in the genetic lottery. Well, I have some complaints.... Never mind.

 

Philosophical digression (you can choose not to read this):

Still, we choose. The problem of free will has been around forever, but I guess my view is that if we don't have free will we all might as well then just shut up because it's all determined anyway. I was confirmed as a Presbyterian and as I understand that view, I was on my way to hell the day I was born and there is nothing I can do about it. I prefer to approach my life differently. I do things that I regard as making choices, and I notice that these choices have consequences. If some philosopher king wants to say that everything that I think of as choice was actually pre-ordained to happen, well another pre-ordained event is that i disagree. You can see how it goes: If I have a choice of agreeing with him or not, then I am right to disagree. OTOH, perhaps my disagreement with him is, like everything else, totally determined. Then it is determined that I will disagree with him, I have no choice. Either way, I disagree.

 

 

Back on track:

I do not regard myself as a judgmental sort of guy. For me choice is not a source for scolding, it is a source for hope. A bad choice means that in the future he might choose a better way. A fantasy (not really a plan but actually I don't think it is crazy) is to issue every kid a bicycle and to make it a serious crime to steal it. I rode my bike everywhere. You see the world, you see that there are options, you start to think maybe. The kid certainly need not, probably will not, choose the same as I, but he chooses. It is difficult to choose a path that you haven't seen, so make some paths more visible.

 

i have a friend who thinks as you appear to about choice. He has taken this perfectly good word and pretty much banned it from his vocabulary. I don't get it.

 

I've never grasped why it happens so often that a general statement is assumed to be meant as specific.

 

To clarify, no one on this thread has said everything is a matter of choice. At the same time, I would hope that everyone on this thread can acknowledge that choice is limited by factors outside of one's control, i.e., genes, upbringing, psychology, etc.

 

A good example of this is tolerance for pain - it varies, therefore the choice of using pain medication is a different kind of choice for each person, depending on pain tolerance. I simply see choice variation as a further example of variation within the species.

 

So when it is suggested that solutions are simply a matter of choice, I say, hold on, it's not quite that easy.

[kenberg]

 

To clarify, no one on this thread has said everything is a matter of choice. At the same time, I would hope that everyone on this thread can acknowledge that choice is limited by factors outside of one's control, i.e., genes, upbringing, psychology, etc.

 

 

Agreement! Yes, I think many agree.

 

So when it is suggested that solutions are simply a matter of choice, I say, hold on, it's not quite that easy.

 

And with this also.

 

I would say one more thing: Any rational program that intends to help people needs to include some thought about the choices people make and ow we might be able to help them make better choices.

 

As it happens, Becky just now saw this "human interest' story in the Post. The first woman to get a pilot's license got it on March 8, 1910. The local airport celebrates this every year by taking those of the female persuasion up for a free ride and will be doing so again this Saturday. They quoted a 9 year old from last year: "I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, but right now it's just fun to try things". Go, girl. And they do the same for boys on a different day. As I say, I was not entirely joking about the bike idea. We want kids, especially kids from not so great circumstances, to look around and say "I bet I could do that".

 

Incidentally, this first woman licensee was in France, but a couple of weeks later a woman flew solo in the States. No license, she just snuck onto the field, fired it up, and took off.

[Winstonm]

Agreement! Yes, I think many agree.

 

 

 

And with this also.

 

I would say one more thing: Any rational program that intends to help people needs to include some thought about the choices people make and ow we might be able to help them make better choices.

 

As it happens, Becky just now saw this "human interest' story in the Post. The first woman to get a pilot's license got it on March 8, 1910. The local airport celebrates this every year by taking those of the female persuasion up for a free ride and will be doing so again this Saturday. They quoted a 9 year old from last year: "I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, but right now it's just fun to try things". Go, girl. And they do the same for boys on a different day. As I say, I was not entirely joking about the bike idea. We want kids, especially kids from not so great circumstances, to look around and say "I bet I could do that".

 

Incidentally, this first woman licensee was in France, but a couple of weeks later a woman flew solo in the States. No license, she just snuck onto the field, fired it up, and took off.

 

 

I think teaching choice-making to the young is a fine idea, especially if the emphasis is on how consequences stem from choices made.

[blackshoe]

Yes. One of the things we expect the government to do is solve problems that the market will not, or cannot, solve on its own.

The market has never been given the chance to solve anything on its own - there has always been government interference with it.

 

Ayn Rand was brilliant. She was also wrong about a lot of things.

[blackshoe]

ncidentally, this first woman licensee was in France, but a couple of weeks later a woman flew solo in the States. No license, she just snuck onto the field, fired it up, and took off.

The Wright brothers didn't have a license either.

[barmar]

And yet, I have personally met people who were born into poverty, grew up in poverty, but worked their way out. How is this possible?

It's possible, but difficult, and relatively rare.

 

Perhaps the best way out is to become a successful rap singer or athlete. But even if you have the necessary talent, you have to be extremely lucky to turn it into a successful career: you have to be noticed by the right agent or recruiter, and make it through all the competition from many others with similar abilities.

[kenberg]

It's possible, but difficult, and relatively rare.

 

Perhaps the best way out is to become a successful rap singer or athlete. But even if you have the necessary talent, you have to be extremely lucky to turn it into a successful career: you have to be noticed by the right agent or recruiter, and make it through all the competition from many others with similar abilities.

 

As I understand it, it is more rare, perhaps a lot more rare, than it once was. I would like to see a very open-minded discussion of just why. I mentioned that Becky and I did some tutoring in basic reading skills. The guy that I was working with was part black, part Indian, and grew up on a reservation. He is maybe ten years or so younger than I am, making him a child at the time of Brown versus the Board of Education. In the South, where he was, the practical consequence for him was he went from a segregated to school to no school, or at least to not much of any school. We started the tutoring by learning the sounds associated with letters. In today's terms we started at the pre-K level. dumb he was not, definitely. The tribe had done construction work, he learned it well. Living on his own, he organized crews and contracted to do work. Many of his crew were latino, so he learned enough Spanish to do what had to be done. He developed physical problems and dropped out of the tutoring, but until then he was coming along fine.

 

My father's early life was horrific. I can't say all that much because when I asked him for some details he said it was hell and refused to discuss it further.

 

These guys did not become professional athletes. Never saw an income even vaguely of that sort. But they made a living. I went to college, my tutoree's son had gone to college and was making a good living. The guy Becky was tutoring had two or three daughters who all went to college and he had done some foster care as well. Not for the money, he made a decent living, he did it because he thought it worthwhile. He wanted to learn to read well enough so that he could read in Sunday Church services.

 

These stories do indeed seem to be rarer now than they used to be. And it's truly an American tragedy. Giving "them" food stamps is a very poor substitute for giving them a life that they can be proud of.

[PassedOut]

My grandfather on my father's side was orphaned at an early age along with two sisters. His father owned a farm in Wisconsin and had made a provision for that possibility in his will after his wife died in childbirth: His younger brother would inherit the farm on the condition that he first raised the children. The younger brother did so and did not marry and start his own family until he had raised his older brother's children. My grandfather wondered -- as do I -- what would have become of him without the family support. And it's often the case that people face situations without reliable family support.

 

Fast forward to my grandfather as a young man with four children, the youngest just 18 months old. His wife died of peritonitis from an infection that had no treatment at the time. (My dad, who was three years old, had only one memory of his mother: She was in bed before they took her to the hospital, and she looked at him for awhile with a loving smile, then took him in her arms for a gentle hug.) After his wife's death, her family took on the unexpected task of raising four extra children -- for five years -- while my grandfather worked very hard to provide for his kids and to share his income with the family caring for his kids. After five years he remarried and was able to bring them back home. Our extended families are very close to this day, and we still have reunions at the farm that belonged to my grandfather's dad.

 

So my dad, too, often wondered what would have happened to him without the family support.

 

My grandfather turned out to be financially successful, mostly by following a strategy of buying blue-chip stocks and never selling, even during the great depression. So he had the benefit of good fortune, but also made choices that turned out well for him (and us).

 

From a child's perspective, it is sheer chance whether or not he or she has good family support. I believe that society needs to remove some of the randomness that prevents many kids from developing to the point where they even know what it is to make a responsible choice.

[y66]

Actually, Ken this is the genuine question: what, if anything, can a society do (and should we do) to aid less fortunates?

Adopt the Nordic model of capitalism and welfare:

 

The Nordic model has been successful at significantly ameliorating poverty. Poverty rates pre-tax/transfer are 24.4% in Denmark, 32.3% in Finland, 21% in Iceland, 25.7% in Norway, and 27.8% in Sweden, and post-tax/transfer poverty rates become 6%, 7.3%, 6.4%, 7.5%, and 9.1% respectively

[barmar]

Adopt the Nordic model of capitalism and welfare:

Sounds really nice. As usual, the problem is how to get from here to there. Considering how difficult it's been just getting Obamacare going, increasing the level of welfare to Nordic levels seems like an impossible hurdle.

[PassedOut]

Adopt the Nordic model of capitalism and welfare.

Eventually (not in my lifetime I'm sure) society will progress to the point that working for an employer is not a requirement for obtaining the necessities of life. The ratio of jobs available to job seekers is moving in the wrong direction now, and with increasing productivity that will continue. Over time, the "safety net" will have to give way to the "guaranteed wage" or something like that.

 

When it does, it will be a boon to business as well as to those who are now forced to work low-paying jobs.

[kenberg]

According to

http://en.wikipedia....by_poverty_rate

the poverty rate in Minnesota, which has a substantial Nordic population, is 8.1%. Not so different.

 

We could just do what Minnesota does, no need to travel to Norway.

[billw55]

Perhaps the best way out is to become a successful rap singer or athlete.

I do hope you are being sarcastic.

[barmar]

I do hope you are being sarcastic.

No, I wasn't. If you were an African-American living in an inner city, going to a school with poor teachers and limited technology, and navigating a neighborhood governed by street gangs, how many opportunities for escape from that life do you think you'd have?

[PassedOut]

No, I wasn't. If you were an African-American living in an inner city, going to a school with poor teachers and limited technology, and navigating a neighborhood governed by street gangs, how many opportunities for escape from that life do you think you'd have?

I lived in Atlanta, Georgia from 1979 through 1998. While there, I met and worked with a considerable number of African-Americans who had escaped poverty to become successful, competent professional people.

 

No, it is not easy, far from it. But surely buckling down in school and college offers much better odds for escaping poverty than does a strategy that relies upon success as a professional athlete or a rap artist.

[billw55]

I lived in Atlanta, Georgia from 1979 through 1998. While there, I met and worked with a considerable number of African-Americans who had escaped poverty to become successful, competent professional people.

 

No, it is not easy, far from it. But surely buckling down in school and college offers much better odds for escaping poverty than does a strategy that relies upon success as a professional athlete or a rap artist.

This is exactly what I was driving at. Far more people, orders of magnitude more, escape poverty through work and education than through the pipe dreams of professional athletics, popstar, etc. These hopes are outright harmful and should be suppressed among youth, but instead our society promotes them. Only a very tiny percentage of people will ever achieve these things; but the idea of escape by these routes discourages far too many young people from investing their efforts where they have a real chance to succeed.

 

Work. Educate. Be responsible. It works.

[mycroft]

...and you think that the successful athletes and artists do not work/educate/be responsible (at least until the money gets a hold of them)? How much work has it been to become a bridge player at your/my/Weinstein's level? For every Weinstein or Meckwell, how many failed pros are there? And how hard did they work? And how many could have been not failed pros if they had had 6 months more seed money to fuel their on-the-job training?

 

I don't disagree - education and/or the ability to persevere on something to gain expertise is a strong plus. But it's only a plus, not a solution. It doesn't "work". But the lack of it likely "doesn't work".

 

[Edit: not claiming I am at Weinstein's level - or even "failed B pro" level. Don't know about general "you". But even the amount of work that has got me to "couldn't make a living playing this game, but still pretty good" is still substantial, and I bet it is for "you" as well.]

[barmar]

Yeah, now that I think about it, I was thinking wrong. If you want to go from the ghetto to becoming a millionaire, you may have to become a rock star or pro athlete. But if you just want to get out of poverty, there are better ways. A decent factory or construction job will do it, and if you can learn a professional trade like plumbing you can do quite well.

 

But if you're born in the middle class, all you really have to do is not screw up.

[billw55]

I don't disagree - education and/or the ability to persevere on something to gain expertise is a strong plus. But it's only a plus, not a solution. It doesn't "work".

I find this very sad, and also demeaning to the poor, and also simply false on observable facts. It has been a solution for a great many people.

 

Yeah, now that I think about it, I was thinking wrong. If you want to go from the ghetto to becoming a millionaire, you may have to become a rock star or pro athlete. But if you just want to get out of poverty, there are better ways. A decent factory or construction job will do it, and if you can learn a professional trade like plumbing you can do quite well.

 

But if you're born in the middle class, all you really have to do is not screw up.

Ah, but what constitutes "not screwing up"? Is it keeping a job, or reaching a baseline education level (graduating high school), or not committing crime? Not that you were doing it, but I think there is a danger here of defining the same set of actions as exceptional for one group, and just not screwing up for another. That's a substantial discrepancy in expectations, and expectations have a big influence on success IMO. People who have goals are much more likely to reach them.

[Winstonm]

Here is the conclusion of Krugman's argument against Paul Ryan's ideas about the poor:

 

After all, if generous aid to the poor perpetuates poverty, the United States — which treats its poor far more harshly than other rich countries, and induces them to work much longer hours — should lead the West in social mobility, in the fraction of those born poor who work their way up the scale. In fact, it’s just the opposite: America has less social mobility than most other advanced countries.

 

And there’s no puzzle why: it’s hard for young people to get ahead when they suffer from poor nutrition, inadequate medical care, and lack of access to good education. The antipoverty programs that we have actually do a lot to help people rise. For example, Americans who received early access to food stamps were healthier and more productive in later life than those who didn’t. But we don’t do enough along these lines. The reason so many Americans remain trapped in poverty isn’t that the government helps them too much; it’s that it helps them too little.

 

Yes, slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans has not created enough incentive for the poor - we obviously need more tax breaks and to take away more social safety nets to get the lazy louts to work.

[mycroft]

I don't disagree - education and/or the ability to persevere on something to gain expertise is a strong plus. But it's only a plus, not a solution. It doesn't "work".

I find this very sad, and also demeaning to the poor, and also simply false on observable facts. It has been a solution for a great many people.

I'm very sorry that you misread me, and I'm also somewhat sorry that you very carefully quoted me in order to misread me. Hint: what was the exact next thing I said, in the same paragraph?

 

There are, as you say, a great many people that, with some luck and good judgement, have become not poor through education and hard work. There are also a great many people that, despite education and hard work, both have gone from poor to poor, and from not poor to poor. It doesn't "work" - it's not a solution to poor, just, likely, a necessary but not sufficient condition. In particular, you can NOT (as many people are very fond of doing, especially those who somehow believe that work and education *is* a solution to poor) say "if they didn't rise from poor, it's because they didn't work hard and didn't take the education offered" - the corollary is just as false as the premise.

 

I am willing to go on "if you're poor, and you don't take advantage of the education options available to you, and you don't work hard, you are highly unlikely to stop being poor". That's the only thing I will admit to.

[barmar]

Ah, but what constitutes "not screwing up"? Is it keeping a job, or reaching a baseline education level (graduating high school), or not committing crime? Not that you were doing it, but I think there is a danger here of defining the same set of actions as exceptional for one group, and just not screwing up for another. That's a substantial discrepancy in expectations, and expectations have a big influence on success IMO. People who have goals are much more likely to reach them.

If you graduate with average grades from a middle-class or better high school, you should be able to get into college. Not necessarily a top-notch university, but a decent school. And you'll be able to afford to go there. This will all put you on track for a decent life. "Not screwing up" means not squandering the advantages you were given from this upbringing. Don't go to prison, don't become an alcoholic or drug addict, don't flunk out of school.

 

But if you grow up poor, you have to work much harder to get to that same level. There are lots of roadblocks in your path that don't exist in middle class communities. Kids in the suburbs aren't tempted to join gangs to ensure that they make it through their teenage years alive. If a middle class person becomes a drug or alcohol abuser it's more likely, IMHO, to be a result of voluntary choices gone wrong; if it happens to a poor person, I think it's because they're so despondent of their life that this is their only solace. It's not an excuse, but it's a mitigating factor; it takes great strength of will to overcome these temptations.

 

My basic point is that the average person is likely to stay at the same level throughout their life. If you grow up in the middle class, and are not exceptional in either a positive or negative direction, you'll stay there. If you grow up poor, you'll probably stay poor -- you have to be exceptional to get out of it. But there are things that society can do to make it less of a struggle.

[Winstonm]

If you graduate with average grades from a middle-class or better high school, you should be able to get into college. Not necessarily a top-notch university, but a decent school. And you'll be able to afford to go there. This will all put you on track for a decent life. "Not screwing up" means not squandering the advantages you were given from this upbringing. Don't go to prison, don't become an alcoholic or drug addict, don't flunk out of school.

 

But if you grow up poor, you have to work much harder to get to that same level. There are lots of roadblocks in your path that don't exist in middle class communities. Kids in the suburbs aren't tempted to join gangs to ensure that they make it through their teenage years alive. If a middle class person becomes a drug or alcohol abuser it's more likely, IMHO, to be a result of voluntary choices gone wrong; if it happens to a poor person, I think it's because they're so despondent of their life that this is their only solace. It's not an excuse, but it's a mitigating factor; it takes great strength of will to overcome these temptations.

 

My basic point is that the average person is likely to stay at the same level throughout their life. If you grow up in the middle class, and are not exceptional in either a positive or negative direction, you'll stay there. If you grow up poor, you'll probably stay poor -- you have to be exceptional to get out of it. But there are things that society can do to make it less of a struggle.

 

The facts concerning education versus jobs have changed enough to make your assumptions questionable. You may want to refresh your understanding with this.

 

For young college graduates, the unemployment rate was 10.4 percent in 2010 and 9.4 percent over the last year, while the underemployment rate was 19.8 percent in 2010 and 19.1 percent over the last year.

[blackshoe]

After I got my BS, I tried to get a job in the nuclear power industry. They told me to go get a Masters. So I did. Same companies then said "go get a Ph.D." Nope, sorry, I've had enough school. Never did work in that industry. That was the early 1970s.