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

[kenberg]

Those are part of it, but there's more.

 

If you have 100 applicants for 10 jobs, interviewing all 100 of them is hard work. So one way to simplify the process is to first winnow down the applicants using objective criteria, and requiring a college degree is a simple one. While it's true that you might occasionally miss out on hiring the next Bill Gates, the chance of that is slim. The top 10 of the college graduates will usually be about as good as the top 10 of all the applicants.

 

I worked for a high tech company many years ago, and they required college degrees for everyone, even receptionists and administrative assitants (aka secretaries). Not because it takes a college education to answer the phones, but because they considered these entry-level jobs -- it was quite common for people to be promoted out of these jobs. I remember a woman who was hired as our team's administrative assistant, then she became a system administrator, and eventually the team leader among the admins.

 

Indeed. Right after graduation I got a job wiring computers for Control Data. They were very realistic. The guy explained that the job was very boring and they would fully understand if i quit, but since I needed a job and they needed their computers wired up maybe I would take it as a summer job. I was starting grad school in the fall.

 

I mentioned earlier that my summer was weird. Possibly you will find it amusing.

 

 

I had been wiring the computers for a couple of weeks when I got a long distance call offering me at job with NASA at the just opening Gddard location in Greenbelt Maryland. I accepted on the spot, arranged to get out of my lease and quit at CD. Just before we left (I had gotten married in June) I got a postcard from the University saying that I wasn't graduating because I had an incomplete in Numerical Analysis. First I had heard of this. So I went over to the campus and, after a bit of a search, spotted the Prof. on a leisurely stroll about the campus. Icharged up to him and siad "Dr. X (not his real name) I have been running all over looking for you!" "You shouldn't run, it's bad for your heart". "Sure. Anyway, you gave me an incomplete" . "Yes, I lost your final". "You lost my final?" " Yes, but I found it again, it's ok". "Have you turned in the change of grade?" "No, but I will". "Would you like me to take it over for you?". "No, I'll do it"

 

So off I go to Greenbelt and NASA. They provisionally took my word for it that my non-graduation was for the reason above, but then after a couple of weeks I realized that they were thinking i had come out for a permanent job, I thought that they understood it was a summer job. Oops. Well, nothing to do but tell them, so I did. I modestly claim that by this time it was clear that I was the best worker of the several guys that started all at the same time so they lived with this but still there was the issue of my graduation. I had been in touch with friends and with Shirley, the department's super secretary, about this and she had been pushing to get the change of grade done. Around early August I got this letter from Shirley informing me that Professor X had died, and that he had not yet changed my grade. She explained that arrangements had been made for me to take a make-up final to be administered by Professor Y, a notoriously hard grader, and I could do this when I came back to start my graduate work. I wrote back to Shirley saying that I was very sorry to hear about X's death, but I really liked him and if possible I would like to contribute for flowers. I got a letter back by return mail in which Shirley said that she was sorry to have misled me, Professor X was "very much alive" and he had finally changed my grade. I still had the previous letter so I got it out and yes, it said that X had died. I re-read the latest letter where Shirley apologized for misleading me. Hmmm.

 

 

Sometime after I got back, maybe November or so, I was talking about this with a friend and he was in uncontrollable laughter. It turned out that he and another friend had broken into the math department office, stolen some official stationery, and drafted the letter announcing the death of X.

 

By next summer my wife was pregnant and I got a job locally at Minneapolis Honeywell.

 

Starting out can have its rough spots.

[blackshoe]

If you have 100 applicants for 10 jobs, interviewing all 100 of them is hard work.

Having more people to interview doesn't make the job harder, it makes it more time consuming. As to whether a college degree requirement is useful to narrow down the field, I suppose it is - but I also suppose it's not always an appropriate criterion. It would not make sense, for example, to require a college degree for mail carriers, or garbage collectors, or truck drivers, or construction workers, or any similar job.

 

There are other ways. I had a friend in high school who wanted to work in the merchant marine. Problem: he didn't have a union card. How could he get a union card? Work in the merchant marine. Good luck with that. Turned out it didn't matter, because he had a different kind of luck - his father was good friends with the local union's doctor. Surprise! You're now a member of the union! Problem solved. The point here is that 'you don't have a union card' was the way "too many applicants" were winnowed down. Note that, left alone, the ship owner probably wouldn't care much about the union card, as long as the applicant seemed capable of doing the job. Thing is, he's not left alone - and unions can get really nasty if they think you've crossed them.

[mike777]

Having more people to interview doesn't make the job harder, it makes it more time consuming. As to whether a college degree requirement is useful to narrow down the field, I suppose it is - but I also suppose it's not always an appropriate criterion. It would not make sense, for example, to require a college degree for mail carriers, or garbage collectors, or truck drivers, or construction workers, or any similar job.

 

There are other ways. I had a friend in high school who wanted to work in the merchant marine. Problem: he didn't have a union card. How could he get a union card? Work in the merchant marine. Good luck with that. Turned out it didn't matter, because he had a different kind of luck - his father was good friends with the local union's doctor. Surprise! You're now a member of the union! Problem solved. The point here is that 'you don't have a union card' was the way "too many applicants" were winnowed down. Note that, left alone, the ship owner probably wouldn't care much about the union card, as long as the applicant seemed capable of doing the job. Thing is, he's not left alone - and unions can get really nasty if they think you've crossed them.

 

btw automation is coming to the merchant marines. It may still be awhile but the trend is toward computers/robots on ships not people not even the captain.

[blackshoe]

btw automation is coming to the merchant marines. It may still be awhile but the trend is toward computers/robots on ships not people not even the captain.

And what do you think will happen the first time a fully automated ship has an accident? Think Exxon Valdez.

[barmar]

Having more people to interview doesn't make the job harder, it makes it more time consuming.

Spending more time on something is harder than spending less time on it. And if you have a deadline, it may make things more complicated, or require devoting more resources, at the cost of other things they might be needed for.

[mike777]

And what do you think will happen the first time a fully automated ship has an accident? Think Exxon Valdez.

 

Not sure fully automated is the correct term here...think more like how the military drones fly and kill people."Moscow (AFP) - A United States surveillance drone has been intercepted above the Ukranian region of Crimea, a Russian state arms and technology group said Friday"

 

I expect the same sort of thing is coming to merchant ships.

 

But sure I suppose the future holds independently operating flying and sailing ships in our future. Call it skynet for short. Not sure what will happen the first time they kill a human. Perhaps over time we will accept that sort of thing. Over time we are accepting more and more machine made parts into our human bodies.

 

Just read an article about the future of 3d printing machines creating human organ parts.

[y66]

David Leonhardt, NYT wunderkind economist and managing editor of "The Upshot" (forthcoming web site) called this the most important graphic he's seen in some time.

 

How can anyone read the accompanying story by Annie Lowrey and stories like this one about the relationship between inequality and growth and not conclude there's something terribly wrong with the way we think about people, welfare, corporations, capitalism and wealth here in the U.S.?

[barmar]

David Leonhardt, NYT wunderkind economist and managing editor of "The Upshot" (forthcoming web site) called this the most important graphic he's seen in some time.

Another study by "Duh! University". Wealthier people can afford better food and health care, and guess what, they live longer!

[kenberg]

It would be amazing if wealthier people did not live longer. Poverty leads to bad health, bad health leads to poverty, one of teh cited aricles says poor people smoke more, which would definitely shorten lives, they may well take jobs that are not so good for them II once had a job working with powdered merecury with very little protection, no doubt it made me what I am today :) ) and so on.

 

The story at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/09/this-is-what-a-job-in-the-u-s-new-manufacturing-industry-looks-like/

is painful to read.

 

My guess is that however hard we may think it is to solve this problem, we have underestimated the difficulty. But addressing it is mandatory.

[y66]

Another study by "Duh! University". Wealthier people can afford better food and health care, and guess what, they live longer!

The 18 year difference in life expectancy between men living in Fairfax County, Virginia and men living 350 miles away in McDowell County, West Virginia blows my mind. So does this observation by Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, which produces the county-level life-expectancy figures:

 

The gaps continue to widen between the communities with the highest life expectancy and the lowest. There is nothing in sight that suggests that the 25-year trend is going to stop.

Apparently, people living in Cuba live almost as long as people living in Fairfax County. I suspect the income gap is even greater than the gap between Fairfax County and McDowell County.

[hrothgar]

 

Apparently, people living in Cuba live almost as long as people living in Fairfax County. I suspect the income gap is even greater than the gap between Fairfax County and McDowell County.

 

Historically, Cuba was known for maintaining very good public health infrastructure

In contrast, McDowell country is best know for coal mining and, more recently, meth...

[y66]

From David Gutman's November 20, 2013 story in the Charleston West Virginia Gazette:

 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Women in most of West Virginia are dying younger than they used to, and men in McDowell County are dying younger than anyplace else in the country, according to testimony given Wednesday at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on poverty and life expectancy.

 

Between 1992 and 2006, female life expectancy got worse in 51 of West Virginia's 55 counties, according to a recent study from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. That study also found that female life expectancy got worse in 43 percent of counties nationwide.

 

"In this great country we see huge disparities in terms of how long people live," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging. "In many ways the stress of poverty is a death sentence, which results in significantly shorter life expectancy."

 

Sabrina Shrader, from Twin Branch Hollow, in McDowell County, was one of six witnesses to testify before the subcommittee about the effects of poverty on health.

 

"I was born into a family that was afflicted by domestic violence, child abuse and mental illness," Shrader told the subcommittee. "Some say poverty is a death sentence. Frankly, I don't know how many times I have been given that death sentence."

 

Shrader, who also recently testified before a joint committee of the West Virginia Legislature, was the first person in her family to finish high school and to finish college. She is now working on a master's in social work at Concord University, where she also works for the school's Upward Bound program, which helps low-income kids prepare for college.

 

She credited the same Upward Bound program, which she participated in, as the reason she was able to finish high school and college. Upward Bound has seen its budget cut by about 5 percent by federal budget cuts known as sequestration, with more cuts looming.

 

"I am not a success story; I did not pull myself up by my boot straps," Shrader said. "I am proof that we live in a country where, even if you work hard and do everything you are supposed to do, you still may not have enough money to make ends meet. I am still struggling to this day."

[kenberg]

I intend the following not as disputing the post of Y66 but rather to enlarge on it in a way that has been troubling me for sometime. Two experiences from yesterday.

 

 

Last summer I was having some physical problems and I hired a kid, about 16, to mow the grass. A good kid, good worker, honest and responsible, he does well in school. His sister is delightful and his mother a very good person. I found out yesterday he is now in a clinic suffering from depression.

 

Later, my wife was having lunch with a friend. The friend's grandson is in serious crisis. He is now an adult, the parents were having him live at home but after he threw something at the father, knocking him out, they had to move him elsewhere..They tried a living facility for the troubled but that is not working either.

 

Neither of these young people are from poverty. Not rich, but not poverty.

 

To quote Dylan:

 

Because something is happening here

But you don't know what it is

Do you, Mister Jones

 

I confess that I do not at all understand it. It seems to me that young people are under far more pressure than when I was young, or maybe it's that it is more subtle or destructive pressure. My adolescence was a long time ago, and memory is selective. But mostly I remember it as a time with stresses, but you could mostly see them coming and with a little sense, you could cope. I didn't know anyone who was hospitalized for depression, I didn't know anyone who had to live at home because he couldn't cope with the world and then couldn't live at home either because he was too screwed up even for that. It's just not the way I remember my young years. I did know one kid with severe epilepsy so I am not claiming everything was perfect.

 

We need to get a handle on this. Poverty is no doubt part of the problem, but I don't think that money, or the lack of it, is anywhere near the whole story. I am largely at a loss for ideas.

[Winstonm]

I intend the following not as disputing the post of Y66 but rather to enlarge on it in a way that has been troubling me for sometime. Two experiences from yesterday.

 

 

Last summer I was having some physical problems and I hired a kid, about 16, to mow the grass. A good kid, good worker, honest and responsible, he does well in school. His sister is delightful and his mother a very good person. I found out yesterday he is now in a clinic suffering from depression.

 

Later, my wife was having lunch with a friend. The friend's grandson is in serious crisis. He is now an adult, the parents were having him live at home but after he threw something at the father, knocking him out, they had to move him elsewhere..They tried a living facility for the troubled but that is not working either.

 

Neither of these young people are from poverty. Not rich, but not poverty.

 

To quote Dylan:

 

Because something is happening here

But you don't know what it is

Do you, Mister Jones

 

I confess that I do not at all understand it. It seems to me that young people are under far more pressure than when I was young, or maybe it's that it is more subtle or destructive pressure. My adolescence was a long time ago, and memory is selective. But mostly I remember it as a time with stresses, but you could mostly see them coming and with a little sense, you could cope. I didn't know anyone who was hospitalized for depression, I didn't know anyone who had to live at home because he couldn't cope with the world and then couldn't live at home either because he was too screwed up even for that. It's just not the way I remember my young years. I did know one kid with severe epilepsy so I am not claiming everything was perfect.

 

We need to get a handle on this. Poverty is no doubt part of the problem, but I don't think that money, or the lack of it, is anywhere near the whole story. I am largely at a loss for ideas.

 

I can't provide specifics so I will have to give an abstracted interpretation of what I think may have happened and continues to happen. It used to be (in the 50s and 60s) that there was room in the US for a middle area, a gray area, if you will. Those who lived within this gray area never dreamed of riches or feared poverty - they accepted their lives as pretty decent, unlikely to get much better or much worse, and worked within those confines.

 

Something has changed that gray area into a black and white battle line - I think it is too much emphasis on a form of unbridled capitalism that draws lines in the sand of clear winners and losers, of black and white.

 

When you apply that kind of win or go home to a lifetime expectancy of a young man or young woman who only wants to fit in, who isn't interested in going to economic war every day, it can lead to a sense of hopelessness.

 

And that in my opinion is what has occurred to a great extent: the world is being divided into winners and losers, and the losers (and those who don't wish to play the game to start) and sensing hopelessness.

[PassedOut]

I think it is too much emphasis on a form of unbridled capitalism that draws lines in the sand of clear winners and losers, of black and white.

 

When you apply that kind of win or go home to a lifetime expectancy of a young man or young woman who only wants to fit in, who isn't interested in going to economic war every day, it can lead to a sense of hopelessness.

 

And that in my opinion is what has occurred to a great extent: the world is being divided into winners and losers, and the losers (and those who don't wish to play the game to start) and sensing hopelessness.

Interesting insight. I had not thought of the situation in quite that way, and I think you are onto something real. I don't see that so much in some countries as I do in the US. Something to think about, for sure.

[ArtK78]

[rant]

 

The attitude of the powers that be in America changed with the Reagan Administration. Until then, it was widely accepted that if you worked hard, whether at "professions" or at "labor," one could make a good living and live a comfortable life as a member of the middle class.

 

Since the Reagan Administration, which brought back the attitude expressed by Gordon Gekko in the movie, Wall Street - that "Greed is Good," there has been a war on the middle class. The pressure on the middle class to either move up or out is enormous. It may no longer be possible for working class Americans to be members of what used to be the middle class. Labor unions are either under extreme pressure to survive or have ceased to exist. Everyone remembers what Reagan did to the Air Traffic Controllers union.

 

And I am not even touching upon the plight of those below the middle class economically. This is best seen in the refusal of many "red" states to take 100% subsidy from the federal government to expand their Medicaid programs to cover their poor under the Affordable Care Act.

 

The attitude of many on the right side of the political spectrum towards the middle and lower classes appears mean spirited. Marie Antionette would understand.

.

In Billy Joel's "Allentown," there are a couple of lines that say that it was always understood that, if you worked hard, and if you behaved, you could always get at least as far as your old man got. But something happened on the way to that place - they threw an American flag in our face. Essentially what the song says is that if you complained that you were being held back from attaining success by forces beyond your control - but not beyond the control of the government if they just enforced existing laws about labor relations, etc., you were being unpatriotic. "Allentown" dates back to the Reagan Administration.

 

If anything, the situation in today's America is worse than it was during the Reagan years. All of the Bush years, along with a Republican Congress, have undone much of progress brought about by FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. Carter, Clinton and Obama have tried to hold back the anti-labor, anti-middle class, anti-poor flood as best that they could, but it is difficult with a Republican Congress.

 

[\rant]

[mike777]

I can't provide specifics so I will have to give an abstracted interpretation of what I think may have happened and continues to happen. It used to be (in the 50s and 60s) that there was room in the US for a middle area, a gray area, if you will. Those who lived within this gray area never dreamed of riches or feared poverty - they accepted their lives as pretty decent, unlikely to get much better or much worse, and worked within those confines.

 

Something has changed that gray area into a black and white battle line - I think it is too much emphasis on a form of unbridled capitalism that draws lines in the sand of clear winners and losers, of black and white.

 

When you apply that kind of win or go home to a lifetime expectancy of a young man or young woman who only wants to fit in, who isn't interested in going to economic war every day, it can lead to a sense of hopelessness.

 

And that in my opinion is what has occurred to a great extent: the world is being divided into winners and losers, and the losers (and those who don't wish to play the game to start) and sensing hopelessness.

 

I think Winston has something here. If one is not interested in going to economic war, I prefer to call it competition war, that can lead to a sense of hopelessness.

 

Those who don't want to compete or "play that game" can lead to a loss of hope.

 

Henry Thoreau climbed Mount Ktaadn in Maine where he never felt more alone or less important, he discovered nature's majestic indifference

[kenberg]

Whatever it is, I am seeing it way too frequently. I could easily list (I won't) quite a number of "lost souls". Most, but not all, are male.

 

 

What Winston says about "the gray area that never dreamed of riches or feared poverty" seems right, but in many of the cases I have seen there is no reason for the young person to fear poverty if he makes use of his talents and resources. He simply, as with Melville's Bartleby, would prefer not to. If this choice is made because he probably would never becom rich even if he made the effort, it seems really juvenile. That doesn't mean it isn't the case, though.

 

I have two main objections to blaming capitalism. It's too easy a target, and in general I don't think these big issues, capitalism or otherwise, are the direct cause of what I am seeing. Unrealistic expectations might be playing a role, I certainly see that with some young people.

 

I am just sort of allergic to grand philosophical explanations of much of anything. We experience the world, we get some idea of what is possible, we get on with it. Philosophical reflection is mostly for the rich or the retired.

 

One difference I see is that many of us were less supervised during our adolescence, in my case much less. So we got some practice at exploring on our own. The world of the young seems very structured today. I am not so sure all this structure is a good thing.

 

As noted, I don't know, I really don't. But I don't think the answer lies in capitalism (good or bad), or in religion (good or bad), or in nuclear waste or global warming. Something more at the personal level would be my bet.

[mike777]

"Unrealistic expectations might be playing a role, I certainly see that with some young people."

 

 

 

This book explains why the "good old days" were only good for a priviledged few and why they were unrelentingly hard for most. Sobering, actually. Check it out.

 

 

 

The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible! Paperback

 

by Otto Bettmann (Author

 

I know people who grew up in the 50's and 60's who did not have running water in their house, used an outhouse and well water. Had no tv. phone. only later had electricity, Dug coal out of the side of the mountain to heat the house.

 

I mean our family did not own a house or a car and at times did not have a phone.

Granted though we did have to compete in school and after school for a job.

[kenberg]

"Unrealistic expectations might be playing a role, I certainly see that with some young people."

 

 

 

This book explains why the "good old days" were only good for a priviledged few and why they were unrelentingly hard for most. Sobering, actually. Check it out.

 

 

 

The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible! Paperback

 

by Otto Bettmann (Author

 

According to the Wik, he was speaking of The Gilded Age, aka the late nineteenth century. I'm old, but really!

 

I recognize that there were problems then, there are problems now. One problem now is a lot of dropping out or maybe falling out of young males who, looking at their external circumstances, would seem to be in a good position to have a fine life. They are making a botch of it, and for no apparent reason.

[PassedOut]

What is this tight connection between Maryland and Minnesota, Ken?

 

Here is an interesting paper by University of Maryland researchers Safa Motesharrei and Eugenia Kalnay, and University of Minnesota’s Jorge Rivas: Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies

 

6 Discussion of Results

 

We conducted a series of experiments with the HANDY model, considering first an egalitarian society without Elites (x_E = 0), next an equitable society (k = 1) where Non-Workers and Workers are equally paid, and finally an unequal society whose Elites consume k times more than the Commoners. The model was also used to find a sustainable equilibrium value and the maximum carrying capacity within each of these three types of societies.

 

6.1 Unequal Society

 

The scenarios most closely reflecting the reality of our world today are found in the third group of experiments (see the scenarios for an unequal society in section 5.3), where we introduced economic stratification. Under such conditions, we find that collapse is difficult to avoid, which helps to explain why economic stratification is one of the elements consistently found in past collapsed societies. Importantly, in the first of these unequal society scenarios, 5.3.1, the solution appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society.

From my oversimplified viewpoint, too much stratification produces too few customers. Good to see that the Maryland mathematicians are all over this problem!

:)

[mike777]

According to the Wik, he was speaking of The Gilded Age, aka the late nineteenth century. I'm old, but really!

 

I recognize that there were problems then, there are problems now. One problem now is a lot of dropping out or maybe falling out of young males who, looking at their external circumstances, would seem to be in a good position to have a fine life. They are making a botch of it, and for no apparent reason.

 

I grew up in Roseland/Pullman area of Chicago.

CNN has a show called Chicagoland. Part of that show each week is based in Roseland.

Fenger HS was the local HS roughly 1-2 miles away from where I lived. To be honest I knew nothing of this school when I went to grammer school 4-8 grade. We moved out of the city when I started HS.

 

On the CNN show Roseland is all about violence, drugs, and murder. No actual teaching seems to take place.

 

I grew up in a single parent home but now I get the impression basically everyone in Roseland lives in some twilight world with no parents and a world full of drugs and murder. The HS seems to be all about Peace marches and Peace Circles and not getting shot.

[Winstonm]

Interesting insight. I had not thought of the situation in quite that way, and I think you are onto something real. I don't see that so much in some countries as I do in the US. Something to think about, for sure.

 

I should have stated that my viewpoint is not a worldview but stictly based on what I perceive happening in the U.S.A. only.

[kenberg]

What is this tight connection between Maryland and Minnesota, Ken?

 

Here is an interesting paper by University of Maryland researchers Safa Motesharrei and Eugenia Kalnay, and University of Minnesota's Jorge Rivas: Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies

 

 

From my oversimplified viewpoint, too much stratification produces too few customers. Good to see that the Maryland mathematicians are all over this problem!

:)

Gophers and Terrapins get along fine. As long as no one gets hungry.

[Winstonm]

What is this tight connection between Maryland and Minnesota, Ken?

 

Here is an interesting paper by University of Maryland researchers Safa Motesharrei and Eugenia Kalnay, and University of Minnesota’s Jorge Rivas: Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies

 

 

From my oversimplified viewpoint, too much stratification produces too few customers. Good to see that the Maryland mathematicians are all over this problem!

:)

 

I appreciate the link. It's good to know this subject is not simply being covered here in the WC.