Class

Why money can matter more than IQ and EQ put together: I’ve been reading Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. It’s considered an essential work on the subject, and I’m getting a lot out of it. But after detailing the staggering hours children need to fit into honing a craft like sports or music (and he acknowledges you really do have to start in childhood because the competition is that fierce), he says: What seems to set apart those at the very top of competitive pursuits from ... READ MORE

Compulsory health insurance and no end to inflated medical costs: I know many of you reading this are thrilled with the passage of the universal health care bill. There are several aspects of it I love, too. To name two, we should’ve been protected from that “pre-existing condition” bullshit thirty years ago, and anything that makes Medicare work better is going to help out some people I care about. But there are two enormous problems with this bill. First, it should’ve been funded by tax dollars, not compulsory consumption of a ... READ MORE

Gee, thanks, but I’m actually not exceptional at all: I sometimes think one of the strongest barriers to equality is that when you’re trying to join a group you weren’t born into, you have to either smile and nod while listening to the crap those people say about the group you were born into, or stand up for yourself and your people and alienate the very group of people you were hoping to join. Except now you’re wondering if they’re worth joining – unless you’ve learned to despise your ... READ MORE

Universal health care does not mean forcing Americans to buy insurance: I generally avoid political topics, but once in a while, one of them is such a damn good example of privilege that I’m left thinking: what the fuck? All the universal health care plans being yapped about at length by various committees within Congress (I could’ve sworn the Constitution outlined a clear procedure for proposing a bill and then voting on it that did not involve marathon committee circle jerks wherein participants vote amongst themselves and then whine to the press ... READ MORE

Every government is a pyramid, or why I’m an anarchist: As a child, I believed the US – and many other nations – really were intended to benefit every citizen who made an effort, and what caused them to privilege some groups over others were flaws in the system. Then around age eleven, I came to believe the systems themselves were really designed to create privilege echelons, no matter what we’d been told – a pyramid at which the largest part of the population was forever getting crushed at the ... READ MORE

No, customer service workers do not have it easy: Every once in a while, one of my fellow Americans blows my mind with her assumption that customer service workers get insurance, paid sick days and paid vacation, and at least $10/hour. These assumptions are often of no consequence, but on some occasions they’re offered in justification of why no one should be trying to improve working conditions for minimum and near-minimum wage employees, or why we should feel free to take out our frustrations on $6/hour clerks. That’s when ... READ MORE

College has become a barrier for smart poor kids: ETA: This post is US-centric, and I should have made that clear. How much or little it applies to other countries, I can’t say. As soon as employers made college a necessity for jobs of any significant income (and even some of shockingly low income, such as “receptionist”) back in the 80s or 90s, college started increasing tuition costs into the stratosphere. The cost for a four year degree at even a modest state school is now, in technical economic terms, ... READ MORE

Those crappy jobs CEOs couldn’t do to save their lives: Last night I watched the presidential debate. One of the questions was (paraphrasing): do you see healthcare as a right, a responsibility or something else I’ve forgotten. McCain said responsibility (of the government to make sure affordable healthcare exists) and Obama said it was a right for people to have healthcare. I see it differently. I see healthcare as an investment a nation makes in itself. Whether you enable your citizens to get healthy and stay that way through government programs ... READ MORE

Understanding the Treasury’s Bail out plan: If you want to understand the Treasury’s proposal that we give them $700 billion without oversight, accounting or court review and then they um something something with the money, Peter Orszag is your best bet. I’m no financial expert, but I watched his testimony today and was blown away with how easy he is to understand – if you’ve been following this stuff up until now, anyway. Now I get how the plan could possibly work ... READ MORE

How you see life depends on how much money you’re seeing it with: I was talking to some friends the other day when one asked me if I’d ever been to Las Vegas. I told them no, that it wasn’t really my kind of place. They were amazed; how could anyone not love Vegas? It’s not just for gambling – it has fabulous restaurants and amazing hotels, too! “Which I’ve never been in a position to afford, quite frankly,” I replied. “If I had thousands to spend on a few days of my life ... READ MORE

Greed and the end of the middle class: The new cable channel PlanetGreen keeps reminding me I’m not a person. It goes like this: an expert on one of their shows says, “If everyone in America would do this, we’d save eleventy billion tons of resources/pollution” and then they do something that only one who owns her dwelling is empowered to do. Those who can’t do it – renters, most of whom would prefer to be owners but can’t afford it – are not part of “everyone.” We ... READ MORE

How to make a free market a tool of oppression: I just got notice that my landlord is raising my rent by $500 (after a $130 increase just this February, and an increase every year since my lease expired and he refused to renew it). Interestingly, this is above market value for what the building offers. This is an increase well in excess of 25%. There is no logical way to justify the price, and it’s called “rent gouging.” It is also 100% legal in California, given the building was built ... READ MORE