Empty Space

When I created my blog, I chose a statement for the masthead: “A once-great nation being crushed under its own weight.” I have often written here that I believe that my generation has lived in the best times man has had, and ever will have, on this planet. I also believe that our nation, which has always been the beacon for the world in innovation and leadership, due to a combination complacency and hebetude, is poised for a headlong race to the bottom.

One symptom on which I base my pessimism about our future is that our nation’s self-vision of greatness appears to me mostly based on reminiscence. Our position in the global scheme as innovators and leaders in the advancement of humanity has been replaced by short term fixation on personal and individual material security. I fear this mindset will doom to failure our 200 year “experiment in democracy”.

I recently came across two videos; one an interview by Bill Moyers with author Isaac Asimov done in 1988. The other video; the testimony of scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson made before Senate Science Committee, March 7, 2012.

In the 1988 video interview with journalist, Bill Moyers, Asimov says:

"The decline in America's world power is, in part, brought about by our diminishing status as a world science leader.”

"Yes, we're still probably up there technologically... but what margins we do have are slimmer, narrower, and we're being overtaken."

"The most damaging statement the United States has ever been subjected to is the phrase 'Yankee Know-How". You get the feeling, somehow, that Americans, just by the fact they're Americans, are somehow more smarter and more ingenious than other people.

"… there is this feeling that somehow because we have a... decent economic system, freedom, free enterprise, which I am all in favor of, that alone will do it for us, and I admit that helps us out in some ways, [but] not if we're lazy about it. It’s not going to do it for us if we don't DO anything.”

In other words, even back in 1988 Asimov was warning that America’s decline in advancing science and technology was already noticeable. It was apparent, even back then, that we could not rely solely on our reputation in the past as innovators alone, to continue to carry us through to the future.

This year Neil deGrasse Tyson published his new book, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, in which he continues the point made by Asimov: that the engines that drive American innovation, and more importantly, stimulate and grow our ECONOMY, are founded in our ability to envision the future. Tyson points directly to the decline of the Space Program and diversion of funding from NASA and other scientific research.

In his testimony before the Senate committee, Tyson said:

“If all you do is coast, you slow down until others eventually catch up and pass you by. We have symptoms in society today; we’re going broke, we’re mired in debt, we don’t have as many scientists we want or need, and jobs are going overseas. I assert that these are not isolated problems; that they’re the collective consequence of the absence of ambition that consumes you when you stop having dreams."

Tyson was trying to promote the idea that increased funding for NASA has proven far greater benefits by driving a culture of innovation that is responsible for overall economic growth "…. innovations take place, patents are granted, products are developed. Everyone feels like tomorrow they want to invent and bring into the present."

Americans have often held a slightly myopic view of the basis for our Yankee Know-how. The truth is that much of our past brain power has been actually imported:

“The atomic bomb was invtned and brought to fruition by a bunch of European refugees; you go down the list of names, that's the [supposedly] 'Yankee know-how" - Asimov

“… most of the principle scientists behind the Manhattan project… were foreign nationals. All educated in European countries… Once we developed that infrastructure here… we became the target for people to become educated from all around the world. That became a boon to our country because we were getting the smartest people in the world. My great fear is that we now educate them and they go back their home countries and we would lose the contributions they would have made had they stayed.” - Tyson

China, India and other countries which used to send almost all of their best students to the US for education are now building their own universities and research facilities at home.

Meanwhile in the US, the final Space Shuttle was hangared last year; there currently is no replacement program in place and we must now depend on our former enemy, Russia, for our meager manned program needs. The percentage of US citizens who believe in Biological Evolution show we are at the bottom of the list of developed countries, way down there with Turkey. The Tennessee legislature last month passed a law requiring that Creationism be taught in schools along with Evolution. We are in the process of selecting the leader of the Free World based on whether or not these men feel women should have access to birth control or not. These are not encouraging indicators of a strong nation retaining it's status on the globe as a champion of innovation, leadership and progress.

When asked what could be done to restore our nation’s national standing, Neil deGrasse Tyson suggested that merely increasing the money allocated to NASA by one-half-cent of the national budget would provide remarkable return on investment toward rebuilding our economy. Tyson went on to add:

“… without this we just move back to the caves because that is where we’re going to end up anyway as the rest of the world passes us by."

I would urge you to invest the time to watch both videos linked below:

1. Bill Moyers interview with Isaac Asimov. Originally aired in 1988 (runtime 5:57)
2. Neil deGrasse Tyson Testifies Before Senate Science Committee, March 7, 2012 (runtime 25:49) (Listen particularly to the question and answer period following Tyson's official testimony.)

Irrational Exuberance

Are you optimistic, hopeful about the future? It turns out you are not alone; roughly 80% of the population expects things to get better. The reason? You’re biased.

Below I offer a 19-minute explanatory video from the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).

Synopsis:
Why are we so terrible at predicting what will make us happy? How do we maintain such stalwart optimism about our future in the face of so many modern threats?

Psychologists have long been aware that most people maintain an often irrationally positive outlook on life. Now it looks as though optimism may, in fact, be crucial to our existence. But does unrealistic optimism also threaten it as well?

Acclaimed neuroscientist Tali Sharot’s experiments and research at The Social Brain Project in cognitive science have shed new light on the biological basis of optimism, and she visits the RSA to take an in-depth look at how the brain generates hope and what happens when it fails.

As a Skeptic, I find optimism (or pessimism, for that matter) equally disquieting, particularly if either position is based on incorrect or biased assumptions. For me, I would much rather deal with the facts of a situation; this gives me a more accurate basis on which to act or proceed and thereby expect a more optimal outcome. I have long felt that religious belief is popular because it affords people an optimistic viewpoint regardless of the realities of one’s situation.

But our media and culture are often bombarded with optimistically appearing messages. Over the last month, for example, media reports that the Consumer price index rose 0.2% or home sales rose 3% or unemployment dropped 2% leave the implication that these trends are linear and will continue their positive progression. In fact these figures rise and fall with regularity – precisely what statistics of these measures routinely do.

A reported drop in unemployment does not explain how many people have permanently given up looking for work, how many have returned to work at much lower wages. The underlying concept of "productivity" actually equates to more products or services using fewer people and/or at lower cost. Less people accomplishing more does not bode well for an increasing population all wishing to thrive and prosper.

Still I speak with friends who just assume that things will be getting better; housing will rebound, employment will rally. And in the short run, at least,they probably are correct.

Maybe it’s just me, but in the grand scope of things I don’t see things getting better. As I have often repeated in this blog, I believe my generation has seen the best times Man has, and ever will, on this planet. The truth is the middle class has shrunk, college graduates are increasingly finding it difficult to earn a decent living, and the tenor of political discourse makes me feel like there are those among eager to return society back to the 19ths century.

During a recent exchange with one of my commenters I came across this quotation: "You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly." – Terence 185–159 BC

I believe Terence's simple statement more than adequately sums up the conclusions drawn from Sharot's research at the Social Brain Project.

The End of Work

In 1995 economist, Jeremy Rifkin, wrote his book, “The End of Work” in which he predicted the global decline of the work force in the industrialized would. This happy occurrence, he predicted, would then result in people having more “leisure” time. New industries revolving around this new leisure market would then flourish. When I heard the initial buzz about this book the first thought that occurred to me was: Wouldn’t people working less hours therefore have less disposable income? Who is going to be able to afford all these “leisure” activities?

Fast-forward to the Recession of 2008. To a great extent Rifkin’s prospective has indeed come true. Rifkin had accurately had predicted the eventual demise of the middle class. Increased productivity, including “automation” (the old term) has indeed lessened the demand for labor. Even the “new” economies that are touted as the future economy do not necessarily require a lot of human labor.

The newer profitable companies with huge market capitalization, such as Google and Microsoft, don’t really employ a lot of bodies. The same is true for financial institutions; they too don’t require a lot of people to generate wealth. The hottest consumer items on the market today, mostly technological products like phones, touch-pad devices – None of them are manufactured in the USA. Even the Chinese are aggressively outpacing our “innovations” in solar and battery technology.

I think back to my first job out of college, working in a clerical unit in Greyhound Bus Lines. The manual sorting tasks required in my job back employed several dozen people to manually sort out paper ticketing trails. This kind of tedious work has been now wholly replaced by simple bar codes, scanners and computers. One can easily imagine how this simple technology across the board of bureaucratic functions alone has easily replaced millions of jobs that were once completed by humans.

Later after I landed a “real” job working in banking, I embarked on what I assumed would be a career. The assumption was that you worked your way up through the bank eventually becoming a loan officer. I am not sure how many of you have applied for a loan at your local bank recently, but if you have, you may have noticed a lot “empty space” where all those bank employee desks used to be. Today your application is faxed, or e-mailed up to a centralized loan approval center where a few designated “loan officers” actually make those decisions. Seriously, why would the bank want to staff all those highly compensated suit-and-tie bodies in the local branch bank when instead they need only lower-paid staffers to assemble and pass along your loan paperwork to the few main office employees empowered to make those decisions?

It is true that technology itself spun has off new career paths – and I followed one of them. When I later worked for the state Department of Human Services as a Welfare Caseworker, much of the paperwork was eventually shifted over to software running on networked personal computers. This productivity change opened up a new career path for me as a Computer Network Technician… and at a nicely increased salary. But even technology is subject to productivity enhancements. Eventually the work I did in the local offices was “centralized” elsewhere; less and less of the work I did as a technician in the field was deemed necessary. By the time I retired I felt like my job was little more than as a “PC mechanic”.

The national and global economies are still reeling from the aftermath the Debt Ceiling Circus. Economists are talking confidently of Double-Dip Recession and postulating on how long it will take for the economy to pick up again. Of course the two major political parties are even now strategizing on how the prolonged recession will play out to their respective advantages in the upcoming election of 2012.

My longer term prediction is much darker: It won’t matter which party prevails. The economy will never get better more than marginally or temporarily. To me, the fate of our standard of living on this planet boils down to a simple math problem:

1. World population will soon hit 7,000,000,000.
2. Increases in productivity in every sector (agriculture, technology, finance, etc. will continue to require fewer people to perform them. The living standard of middle class will continue to shrink and economies based on consumer spending will founder.
3. Income disparity between the very rich and the middle and lower classes will increase.
   
4. The last of the “easily obtainable” natural resources have (or will have) peaked during our lifetime.
5. Food will become more expensive as bio-fuels consume more of the food producing land and resources needed to produce it.
6. Global climate change will continue to have a negative impact on all of the above regardless of whether people “believe” its happening or agree on what the root cause is.

I have stated countless times that I believe that my generation, the Baby Boomers, has lived during the best times man ever has, and ever will have, on this planet. I feel sad for my kids and my grand kids; they're going to have a Brave New World to contend with.

Let Them Eat Cake

In a recent post I explained how I came to understand, through the clarity of a remarkable comedian, how our supposedly democratic republic has been taken over by a small, but very powerful, group of “individuals” (an identity which, according to the Supreme Court, also includes huge corporations).

This disturbing fact has not gone unnoticed by a significant segment of politicians, economists and intellectuals. Many understand how we got here – now the question is, can we as (human) individuals regain control over our country and how?

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity –
In 1700’s France during the reign of King Louis XVI the country, due to financial mismanagement and feudal oppression, was in a serious downward spiral. Faced with a dwindling treasury, King Louis engaged his top financial advisers who ultimately suggested that the wealthy nobility, currently exempt from taxation, be taxed. The wealthy refused. With both the nobility and equally wealthy clergy exempt from taxation, the burden then fell onto the general French public. ¹

But French commoners were not faring all that well and attempts to squeeze more tariffs from the growing peasant class resulted in social upheaval; the brunt of which was borne by the aristocracy and nobility who found themselves losing their heads, literally. After years of furtive attempts to design a new constitution and government, France eventually ended up being ruled by an emperor (Napoleon). ²

Could this happen in this country? We currently have corporate executives realizing previously unheard of amounts of executive compensation while the effective earning power (wages) of the middle class has declined. We are facing a widening disparity, in both and assets, between the middle and wealthy class. And like the reign of Louis XVI, the wealthiest 2% of our nation, and the clergy, retain their exemption (thanks to BOTH political parties) from bearing a reasonable share of the tax burden.

So will Americans be storming the Bastille any time soon? I genuinely doubt it. Unlike the draconian conditions which precipitated revolution in Egypt and elsewhere in the middle east...
1) American public awareness is broadly blind, or cannot otherwise fathom, degree in disparity between them and the wealthy elite: “…income inequality as an issue doesn’t win elections because Americans don’t begrudge the rich so much as they dream they may join them.”³

2) The staggering availability of cheap food, cheap technology and almost unlimited distractions in the form of entertainment and media propaganda, provide a welcome anesthetic to dealing with the dwindling opportunities for a better life for the middle class. It was the media that promoted the Tea Party from a fringe group to a position of legitimacy through constant media attention. Ask yourself why, for example, Sarah Palin continues to enjoy more media exposure than John McCain? The media chooses, orchestrates and controls the message.

3) Americans don’t think in terms of community or the well being of society as a whole, that would be too "European". Americans think of themselves in terms of the individual; beyond exercising their vote, most Americans feel they have little power. If you noticed the union demonstrations in Wisconsin the crowd was mainly comprised of older workers. Young workers see little relevance in union membership.

As long as the ultra wealthy and the corporations control access to Congress, define the media agenda and continue to placate us with consumer distractions, the American public will remain like the frog in the cooking pot, oblivious to the ever-slowly-increasing heat until they are cooked to death.

~~~

1. "The French Revolution (1789–1799)", sparknotes.com

2. "France History - Causes of the French Revolution", Bonjourfrance.com

3. "Rising Wealth Inequality: Should We Care? - Why do Americans seem unperturbed about the growing gap between the rich and the poor?" NY Times - March 23, 2011

Frog cartoon courtesy of Graviton Creations

Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?

So the stock market is booming, corporate profits are zooming but jobs are still looming and the outlook for the middle class is glooming. The reasons behind the stagnant unemployment outlook has not gone without thorough analysis by we bloggers who, for some reason, seem to have a lot of free time on our hands:

Don’t bother us, we’re busy...

The current theory is that the rich people should not be inconvenienced by the demands of comity because they're the ones who are providing jobs for the rest of us. Those jobs should be kicking in any time now, because we lowered the taxes on the rich people several years ago. There should be so many jobs by now that they're just loitering in gangs, making nuisances of them selves.

Murr Brewster - Murrconomics

... hedging our bets ...

Where are the jobs? Honestly, boards and business owners are holding back because they feel that the current administration chooses winners and losers in the marketplace. Without fully understanding their future costs, or if they will draw the ire of Obama, they find it safer to sit on their cash.

Comments from the Heathen Republican who provided the link: Why Business Isn't Getting In the Game.

... and besides, there's no jobs because there's no customers...

Big American companies are sitting on almost $2 trillion of cash because there aren't enough customers to buy additional goods and services. The only people with money are the richest 10 percent whose stock portfolios have been roaring back to life, but their spending isn't enough to spur much additional hiring.

Robert Reich: The Obama Budget: And Why the Coming Debate Over Spending Cuts Has Nothing to Do With Reviving the Economy

…and, come to think of it, we don’t need any workers anymore either.

…our most admired corporations -- GE, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel -- are creating ever more jobs overseas and relatively fewer at home. This has the double benefit of taking advantage of cheap labor abroad and disciplining workers to accept low wages at home. Along with the high unemployment rates have come declining earnings… In 2001, 32 percent of the income of the firms on Standard & Poor's index of the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies came from abroad. By 2008, that figure had grown to 48 percent.

Robert Kuttner - Business Doesn't Need American Workers

So even though corporate profits are soaring, that does not translate into jobs for Americans because corporations don’t need Americans any more to either buy their products or even make them any longer and anyway middle and lower class Americans are really nothing more than poker chips for the wealthy to play with.

My own diverging theory is that the Republicans will do anything to prevent the jobs numbers from going up anytime during the Obama administration least he end up getting credit in the public eye for improving the economy prior to the 2012 elections.

Ok, so sometimes I am a cynic when I should be a skeptic. I’m calling your bluff.

~~~

I highly recommend following these blogs:

Murmers – a very well-written humorous blog with topics ranging from the latest poop on the economy to the latest poop on, well, poop.

The Heathen Republican – in a more serious vein; a thoughtful, rational and well-documented perspective of the Republican policy stance.

Robert Reich's Blog - A totally brilliant man, Berkeley professor and Clinton's former Secretary of Labor.

Or if you still perfer the low-brow approach, you certainly can continue to read this blog.

The Vanishing Hope of Jobs

I had lunch with a new acquaintance made recently through the blogging spheres. Like a few of my other friends, he is a former employee of Hewlett Packard in our city. At one time HP employed close to 10,000 people on it’s industrial campus in town; today there are roughly less than 2,000 people remaining.

The photo above is the empty Nypro manufacturing facility, a company that provided services to HP. Nypro shifted the remainder of it’s manufacturing overseas laying off all it’s workers and closed the plant. The empty Nypro building is located along an increasingly desolate row of empty buildings on “Technology Loop” not far from my home where I ride my bike.

The HP campus on the other side of the city is turning into a ghost town as well; many of the buildings are empty and shuttered, a few are leased by other companies as warehouse space.

I heard on the news recently that even companies considered particularly American, such as Cisco, IBM and Sun essentially have little to no domestic manufacturing facilities. Though the “design” may be done here, the manufacture of the actual products is contracted out to companies outside our borders.

Leo Hindery, a former CEO who heads the US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, is one of the foremost advocates of a U.S. industrial policy.

"I think you have to start with the premise that a country as big as ours -- the largest of the developed economies -- can't survive with less than 8 percent of its men and women making something,"

According to the latest figures, about 7.6 percent of the workforce is currently engaged in manufacturing.

"It needs to be 20 to 25 percent," Hindery said, "and it needs to be 20 to 25 percent of GDP, otherwise the gap that you have to fill is achieved only through consumer credit." ¹

The country is scratching its collective head puzzling over our “jobless economy”. We have an expectation that things will turn around and be the way they once were; that unemployment will somehow return to 1980’s level. And we demand quick fixes - the Republican machine rode a populist wave into the House of Representatives on the implied promise that Jobs would mystically arise from thin air merely by putting the Conservatives back into power.

But I don’t think the Republicans give a damn whether or now the Great Unwashed have jobs. They care only to be in control of the factors which will direct corporate profits; and profits are no longer dependent on the domestic market any more, their sights are overseas. Indeed, the top few percent whose wealth is based on equities have seen unprecedented growth recently. But where are the jobs for the middle class? The answer is that the wealthy no longer need us as either employees or consumers.

I believe we are waiting for a recovery that is never going to come. Some of the vacant buildings on Technology Loop have now been rented by local governments needing office space. But now Americans graduating from university have almost a better chance of finding jobs outside the country than here at home. “Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.” ²

I have been accused of being depressed about the future of our country; that I lack the optimism that many others do. But optimism must to be based on something more tangible than faith and hope; and in romantic notions that our past reputation as a world leader in innovation will carry us into the future. That was then, this is Now.

Suggested further reading:
"The Real Economic Lesson China Could Teach Us", Robert Reich, January 19, 2011.

References:
1. “Hu's Visit Is Reminder Of One Way China Leaves The U.S. In The Dust”, Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post, January 20, 2011
2. "American Graduates Finding Jobs in China", NY Times, August 10, 2009

Quarter Life Crisis

Never trust anyone over the age of 30. ~ Timothy Leary

My “baby” recently celebrated her 30th birthday earlier this year. When she was born I had just turned 30. Back then I had a good job (which I hated) and my marriage was beginning to unravel. Mt. St Helens would blow a couple of months later on May 18th and that Fall Ronald Reagan would be elected president. Overall, though, life was pretty good for us Thirty-Somethings back then.

Fast-forward another thirty years. It’s tougher now to find work or to buy a house. Our country’s finances are in a seemingly endless downward spiral into national deficit. We import way more than we export, primarily because we don’t make anything any more. Our expectations are high but our opportunities seem scant. As a Baby Boomer I have often said that I feel that our generation has lived in the best times man has ever had, and will ever have, on this planet. All the while the global population will soon exceed 7 Billion people.

My kid’s generation is facing “Quarter Life Crisis”, the sinking realization that they may not have an entirely better life than we enjoyed during our peak years. There are books and web sites devoted to the concept. You can probably download them onto your Kindle.

Some of the recognized symptoms of Quarter Life Crisis are general insecurities about the ability to have meaningful employment, sustained income, friends, family and primarily, fun. In short, the same things our generation worried about as we were reaching Mid-Life crisis. Although one of the major differences facing the younger generation is that there is more competition for fewer resources than there was in the Boomer generation. Advanced technology, in the form of instant access to information, may really only serve to make these inadequacies more apparent.

Our parents often helped us financially when we were young. But we now note that it is somewhat more difficult to help our kids to the extent our parents helped us. Many of our generation are considering “reverse mortgages” to supplement our dwindling purchasing power. In times passed, parents could be expected to hand off their house, or at least some estate, to their kids. Today, even with the mortgage paid off; our medical insurance premiums alone are now more than our house payment was – about a third of our retirement income. We Boomers are feeling the squeeze.

Some pop sociologists lay the blame for Quarter Life Crisis us Boomers, claiming we brought up our kids in a permissive atmosphere, implying to our children that they deserved anything they wanted; that life should expected to be fun and entertaining, or that upward mobility was a given. Did we raise our kids with a sense of entitlement? Did we promise them better lives than we had? Perhaps; but I think it is a gross generalization. I think we hoped that we raised our children to feel they are at least as deserving as anyone else (not better). Hopefully we were able to instill some sense of ethics and justice – what goes around; comes around. I hope.

The new corporate mindset within this country has now been hard-wired into our culture and politics. It has resulted in the largest transfer of wealth in our history since the Great Depression. In a decade the disparity between what executives earn compared to their workers has gone from 30% to a 300% difference. They have effectively gutted the Middle Class.

One has to wonder why, philosophically at least, the wealthy are so eager to kill the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg that has been the progenitor of their wealth. The symptoms have manifested itself in the form of the housing and related financial collapse of 2008, high unemployment, widening trade and budget deficits. These are very real issues which affect our children directly. Most of our kids feel there will likely be no Social Security available to them when they reach retirement age.

So how do we advisr our kids about dealing with Quarter Life Crisis? What can we do besides simply dying off and leaving them our dwindling assets?

Hopefully the solution won’t be to seriously implement “Logan’s Run”.

The Man Knows

Update - Viewing blocked video:
My overseas readers have informed me that they are unable to watch this video content due to internet blocking. However, a timely article just appeared in another blog, BrokenSecrets.com which explains how to use a Firefox plug-in to circumvent the blocking. Give it a try; I'd be curious to know how well it works.

Former president Bill Clinton recently appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It was a surprisingly sober, but enlightening, exchange for a comedy news show. In fact, Stewart remained remarkably quiet during the interview.

This is because, regardless of what your opinion is of Clinton, the man knows about government and the economy. The shows producers apparently thought so as well; they made the unedited video available on the Comedy Central web site.

These two videos are very much worth watching. Clinton tells it like it is regarding the economy, the intent of the Conservatives to further dismantle government to convert more power into private hands, and the role of the Tea Party as dupes to this end.

My apologies to my readers overseas as this deals mainly with American politics, yet there may be something of value for you here as well.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Bill Clinton Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Clinton Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

[Note: in some cases this may take a while to load... apparently it is receiving a LOT of views.]

Libertarian Utopia - Idealsm versus reality.

I am a big fan of Skeptic Magazine founder, Dr. Michael Shermer. A brilliant scholar and adroit debater, he is also a strong supporter of the Libertarian Party. Recently Shermer posted on his blog a response to the question I am sure he has been asked countless times, why did he become a Libertarian. It has been a position that has troubled me for some time and I was glad he addressed this personal issue publically - and that I had the opportunity to respond. Shermer's original post can be found here: How I became a Libertarian. My response follows below:

Michael:
Thank you for publishing this; it is something that I have been curious about you for some time now. I have not read “Atlas Shrugged” or “Mind of the Market” (they are on my reading list). But I have been curios about Libertarianism for some time now. A while back I took the “test” on the Libertarian web site, I believe it queried: “Are you a Libertarian”. I am very much a supporter of individual personal liberties; however the test results consistently returned that I was a “Liberal”. But that was not always so.

My political affiliation evolved over time; I was once a staunch Reagan Republican during the first half of my career as a banker. I truly believed in less government and “trickle-down Economics”. I voted for Reagan; then observed with some incredulity that the “trickle” didn’t quite drip all the way down to my level – my first layoff experience soon followed.

My second career (introduced to me by my second wife) was on the other end of the spectrum. I became a Welfare Case Worker; my wife was a case worker investigating child neglect and abuse. During my previous banking career, I had held strong opinions about the importance of self-determination, hard work, and success – people just needed to pull themselves up by their own boot-straps. Now, in government, I was confronted with a population who didn’t have boots.

I will admit that my view is based primarily on my own personal anecdotal experience of dealing with people for whom “the market” does not exist in their world. Michael Shermer is a healthy, bright, active and educated success story, some of which could be attributed mainly to luck – however, that could all change should, one day, he is struck by a car while riding his bicycle and left severely disabled and unable to continue to do the things that provide a secure and comfortable income. These are the people I worked with; there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who every day experience their own personal “Katrina” disaster.

Some of these people have disability income, but more commonly it is woefully inadequate to sustain people in the lifestyle and comfort to which they were accustomed. For most, the only remaining social safety net is government. It seems to me that I have not yet met a “poor” Libertarian.

My point is that “The Market” is important to the extent that citizens have the ability to participate in it. The fact is, not all can. Privatizing child abuse investigation, casework and long-term therapy is no more practical than privatizing the criminal justice system. Even the “Faith Based Initiatives” put forth by the previous administration cannot deal with the huge scope of human service needs in this country anywhere close to the level that government must. In fact, many private social service organizations reject working with the most extremely difficult populations – government programs and support are their only remaining option.

I believe that the Market can only exist within a larger “Community” and that some level of government is necessary to support those for whom the Market, through their fault or just plain fate, doesn’t work. To this end I am with Yogi Berra in my opinion. I love the theory, but I haven’t seen how it could truly work in practice.