Hitting The Bottom Of The Public Trough.

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By: Chris Warren

As a young person I was taught to deal fairly and see things from the other guy’s perspective. Even when fairness was hard to define, I always knew in my heart what felt right. As I got older and developed a better understanding of how complex the world really is, it became apparent that sometimes true fairness cannot be attained. The best and perhaps only outcome is a degree of unfairness to be shared between the involved parties.

Recently, the city of Detroit, Michigan exited bankruptcy after what was arguably one of the largest and most famous financial collapses of modern times. Though the legal formalities are over, the bigger task will be making the second chance succeed and assuring those on the losing end of the deal –which is pretty much everyone– that their give backs will not be for nothing.

In Detroit’s case the losers are collectively out seven billion dollars. The biggest chunk of this loss is laid at the feet of public worker retirees, who are taking a cut to their monthly pension payouts as well as a cut in future raises. There’s no joy in seeing old people struggle, but keep in mind one of the key reasons Detroit is a financial shipwreck is because for decades the public sector unions pushed for and received lavish perks for city workers far better than what the average private taxpayer gets; these benefits continued into retirement. Public employees are not innocent bystanders.

In spite of years of court proceedings and thousands of pages of applicable law, the basic mechanics of the Detroit bankruptcy litigation were quite simple: Giving the retirees the deal they want means sticking the bill on someone else. And with liberal politics rotting Detroit’s population to less than half of what it was a generation ago, there aren’t too many “someone elses” left. A federal bailout makes the definition of a fair deal even more obscure because the cost would be passed along to people very far removed from the problem. How much should Joe Taxpayer in Seattle, Washington be expected to give up from his paycheck so Detroit can keep a promise to a retired city worker? And why should Joe care?

This untenable scenario is not unique to Detroit. Many other cities and some entire states are at a point where there is simply not enough money to pay for all the deferred promises. The public employee unions, famous for thinking they are better than everyone else, sincerely believe that the unworkable deals should be upheld no matter who it hurts. The attitude of entitlement has finally arrived at its ultimate conclusion, so let’s not misdirect too much pity toward current employees, retirees, and their slimy union. None of them are worrying about how Joe is going to pay for his Golden Years.

Applying my admittedly oversimplified vision of fairness to Detroit, I conclude that the shorted city employees do have a point, but I have a forced and limited sympathy for them. No private sector worker gets special protections and a guaranteed retirement, so the public workers (through the proxy of their union) must have quite a chip on their shoulder to think the taxpayers should remain in perpetual servitude to them. It’s not that the retirees are undeserving. It’s that they are no more deserving than all the rest of us.

Updated 3/27/15

History’s Promise: Pearl Harbor Veterans Are Ageless.

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By: Chris Warren.

In college I had an English professor who once declared, “every present has a different past.” He was speaking in terms of history and what he meant was that events do not have a static meaning. How a past event is viewed now is not the same as what it meant at the time it happened, nor at any point since then. This is why history is more than just a factual list of dates and events. To understand history is to enrich oneself not only by making a connection between then and now, but also maintaining that connection for the future.

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed the American Navy at Peal Harbor, Hawaii and and pushed the United States into World War II. That is the “factual list” version. To find the “enrich oneself” version, we must look into the personal accounts of the soldiers & sailors who were there when it happened, keeping in mind that they were not merely eyewitnesses to history. They actually created it.

USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

It is becoming more and more difficult to investigate the experiences of those who made history that day because as years click by there are fewer and fewer Pearl Harbor veterans remaining. Of the approximately 60,000 service members who survived the bombing, less than 2500 are believed to be still alive. The youngest are now in their 90s, so the harsh actuarial math for an event seventy three years behind us is not hard to figure out: Within a decade, maybe a little longer, there will be no one left to talk about it.

That Pearl Harbor is on the cusp of a transformation from living to recorded history is not lost on the few remaining survivors. Retired naval officer and Pearl Harbor veteran Jackson Davis of Shreveport, Louisiana references this by tapping into wisdom collected over his 95 years of living: “We don’t hear much about Gettysburg anymore, or Bunker Hill. Or when the Normans took over England — we don’t hear much about that.” Mr. Davis’ observation, while true, skims over a larger point: The value of history is not measured by how popular a topic of conversation an event may be. He is correct that hardly anyone talks about the Normans invading England (which, by the way, was in 1066) as if it were a recent event.  Influences of the Norman conquest nearly 950 years ago can still be found embedded deep in the British psyche. Had the Norman invasion never happened, England would be a very, very different place today. That is why it matters. That is why it is worth talking about and remembering.

“We don’t hear much about Gettysburg anymore, or Bunker Hill. Or when the Normans took over England — we don’t hear much about that.”  -Pearl Harbor veteran Jackson Davis

It’s unlikely that yet-unborn Americans will be fully cognizant of how Pearl Harbor effects their world any more than The Battle of Bunker Hill (fought in 1775) enters our thoughts now, and it’s an unstoppable reality that there isn’t much time left for soldiers & sailors who lived through that dark day to give their first person testimony. Mr. Davis and his peers can be assured that the story they have been telling for that last 73 years will have no end. The heroes who were at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941 and served with such amazing valor will always matter. Their spirit and selflessness is the connection to the present; it’s the very essence of why their place in the permanent record was so rightfully earned. We may not always talk about it, but we will always live it. When the last Pearl Harbor veteran is silenced by the inevitability of time, history will take over and be their voice through the generations.

Facebook Therapy

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By: Chris Warren

Twenty First Summer was conceived in part out of my disgust with social media. Somewhat hypocritically, this blog does have a Twitter account that I hope all my readers follow  @twentyfirstsum because it’s an unfortunate necessity for reader interaction. Yet even while I’ve happily been able to keep social media at the edges of my life, there are others, actually many others, who have turned it into their psychologist.

Here’s the kicker: I’m sort of thinking this may not be such a bad idea. Not for me of course, for them. I know that sounds a little way out there coming from a guy who has made mocking the stupid that is Facebook a recurring theme, but venting is a legitimate form of therapy. Just because it’s not done under the supervision of a $150/hour therapist doesn’t mean it’s not effective treatment.

In between the the ubiquitous cute puppy videos and trite “post this on your wall if you love someone with (insert name of unfortunate malady here)” memes, are things along the lines of rants about the weather, the boss, significant other, job loss, divorces, death, gastrointestinal issues, traffic jams, kids. All the turds of life are well represented.

The appearance of “too much information” personal issues may be shocking, but the reasoning behind them is legitimate. The on line catharsis provides a release that in another time would have been taken out on family members, coworkers, store clerks, or held inside until it could be contained no longer. For all its ridiculous vanity, Facebook at the very least gives users a platform to clear their frustrations in a relatively harmless, nonviolent way.

I very seldom post anything on my personal Facebook page but I will scroll through my newsfeed fairly regularly to lurk around and see what others are doing. My feed probably looks like everyone else’s except with different names. What takes me aback is the amazingly revealing public comments made by people I consider to rational, mature, and level-headed, at least when they are not on line.

Since screaming into a pillow is overrated, Facebook therapy works only when the rants are made when others will hear (or see) them. Part of me thinks these people are a bit kooky even though I otherwise respect them and understand why they have these outbursts. The problem: How do I respond? Should I respond? When I say I “very seldom” make a Facebook post I mean maybe two or three times a year, so clicking “like” or making a comment opens the door to an on line back and forth I’d rather not get involved with.

I’d prefer my friends just call me if they have something heavy on their mind. If they’d rather blow digital steam, I’ll be listening there too even though I probably won’t reply. If it gives them a comfortable outlet they might not otherwise have for their frustrations, then why should I hate on that? I still think Facebook is one of the most hopeless wastes of bandwidth since the Kim Kardashian YouTube channel, but even a pile of crap is useful as fertilizer.

This Blog Article Should Be A Blank Page.

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By: Chris Warren

Writers by nature aren’t reserved about expressing themselves; this usually extends to our everyday, non-writer lives as well. Some articles come easier than others, but I always seem to find a topic that I can work with and turn into what I hope is thoughtful, positive, and relevant commentary. It’s rare for language to get the best of me, but when it happens outside the realm of writing there may be a higher purpose behind it.

The other day I attended a memorial service for a guy who died unexpectedly at an early age from a medical condition usually seen in patients decades older. I was only loosely acquainted with the deceased; he was a close friend of my best friend. My best buddy was broken over the loss and my presence at this service meant a lot to him. I’m very loyal to and protective of this particular friend. I would have attended a funeral for his third cousin’s babysitter’s cat if that’s what he wanted from me.

"I Will Do My Best" by Norman Rockwell, 1953.
“I Will Do My Best” by Norman Rockwell, 1953.

The event was going as expected until the Boy Scouts showed up. The departed was a leader for his son’s troop and the Scouts were there in freshly pressed, complete uniforms. By their appearance it was obvious that they had great respect for their leader. Every neckerchief was carefully rolled, every pin and patch was exactly placed. The smallest detail was cared for. They could have been a Norman Rockwell painting. Many of the parents attended also.

Watching the expressions on those crying kids’ faces and not being able to do a damn thing to help them was one of the hardest things I’ve had to push through in a very long time, maybe ever. The deceased’s young son was surprisingly composed, but I knew that he knew his life was never going to be the same. I wished I had the power to un-do all of their hurt.

I’ve spent my entire adult life studying words: Writing them, editing, changing, experimenting with them, learning how to manipulate them and make them do whatever I want. I’m the kind of guy who uses a dictionary and thesaurus daily and will spend thirty minutes fussing over the structure of one single sentence. I really wanted to put all the right words together. This time my command of the English language completely failed me.

After the service I could not bring myself to say anything more than small talk to my best friend of nearly three decades. Like a lost writer facing down a blank sheet of paper I kept digging in my mind for something insightful and brilliant that would lift him out of his sadness. The search came up empty, except for the realization that there are times when words cannot heal but being there and silently caring gives comfort to a pain that has no permanent cure. A writer’s job is always to have the right words. I had to concede that for this moment the right words were none at all. After the small talk I hugged him and excused myself to leave because my mission was complete. He did not need words. He just needed me.

Crashing The Liberal Elite Pity Party.

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By: Chris Warren.

All government plans large or small are seldom the original work of the congressmen and senators who vote on them. An army of consultants and researchers are brought in and paid very well to help shape a concept into actual written policies and laws. The process can take years and the end result is usually at least hundreds of not thousands of pages long.

Not long ago economist Johnathan Gruber was just another healthcare policy nerd almost completely unknown outside of Washington DC. Guys like him very seldom become public celebrities. Gruber is the rare exception. Behind what he said when he thought no one was paying attention (and kicked him straight into the headlines) is a bigger idea that has nothing to do with his area of professional expertise.

Having been paid millions in consulting fees to help the federal government and numerous states implement the historic healthcare law that he was a point man on, one would think that Gruber above anyone would believe in his own creation and be proud to explain the benefits of the law on its own merits and how it’s going to help every American.

What actually happened needs little explanation because it was all carefully documented in a series of videos starring Gruber himself speaking at various conferences and meetings. The theme of the speeches is that Gruber admits the legislation was purposely rigged to confuse and mislead and hide the fact that most of us were going to get screwed by this law. In his own words, American voters are “stupid”. He piously goes on to declare that the deception was worth it for the greater good of getting the law passed.

And therein lies the lesson. Gruber has validated what so many Americans already know: Government, particularly the liberal Democrat kind, believe they are intellectually and morally superior and know what’s best for everyone. They toil for the ungrateful heathens. Their dishonesty is warranted because we of the ignorant masses are not complex enough to process or appreciate the gift of government oversight. There is no problem that cannot be solved with tax dollars and legislation. It is the very reason the Democratic Party exists.

Republicans have for their part largely avoided the big government label. The reasons why should not make them feel proud. Everything is relative in politics. Republicans are indeed a big government party; Democrats are a bigger government party. It’s a completely fair observation that Republicans have their own brand of overbearing “nanny state” attitudes stamped into their positions, it’s just that the Democrats have gone out of their way to make it a deliberate part of their platform. Or more cynically, the Republicans are better at hiding it.

It’s been floating around in the media that the current Congress (2013-2014 session) is the “least productive” in history based on the number of laws passed. Only a big government stooge would think passing laws just for the sake of saying you did something counts as “productivity.” I’m taking it in the other direction: The less they get done the better. As the 2014 midterm elections have proven, Americans are in no mood for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid blessing us with more of their great ideas. My definition of productivity is the liberal elite having the least possible number of opportunities to screw with my life.

In the midst of beating up the political parties, it’s worth noting that American voters are themselves complicit in the bullshit. Congress’ approval rating is lower than a sewer rat, yet somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of incumbents managed to get reelected in the 2014 midterms, and many of them did it without even a serious challenge in the primaries last spring. Where is the incentive for congress to change? Why should they be expected to bust their ass to do a good job if there is no penalty for screwing off? At some point voters forfeit the right to whine about elected officials. I’m not sure where that point is, but I bet we’re real close to it.

Polls show that even though Americans disapprove of congress by enormous margins, they tend to like their individual representative. That may explain why they keep getting reelected. Congressional reps are like toddlers who are cute and adorable until they are placed in a group with other toddlers. Then they turn into wretched evil quarreling beasts. It’s sad that the analogy fits so well.

So we are trapped with two major political parties, one only marginally better than the other but both nonetheless think they can run our lives better than we can ourselves. Gruber’s loose-lipped remarks, disrespectful as they may be, are unusual only in that he had the arrogance to utter them in front of a camera and a microphone and think he fooled everyone. His confidence that he was righteous in doing so is standard progressivist behavior, although they usually pull it off with a little more finesse. According to liberal doctrine, Gruber’s offense was not his disdain for ordinary Americans, it was his exposing the calculated deceit.

Behold Costco, Warehouse of Wonder.

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By: Chris Warren

If you’ve never shopped at a Costco, there’s a real good chance you know someone who has. The warehouse retail behemoth has over 76 million individual members (that’s roughly 25% of the entire population of the USA) and almost 7 million business members. The sheer volume of what Costco has in stock is a microcosm of the United States. Nothing is small there. The soap & detergent section alone is bigger than many entire retail stores. Pallets of produce, display freezers large enough to drive a truck into, and rows of electronics stacked so high, a fleet of forklifts are needed to keep them in order. Costco is one of the most profound business success stories of modern times and has a public image that is the envy of corporate world. It has a “This is America! Big! Big! Big!” vibe to it.

Not that long ago, Sears was the store everyone shopped at. Whether you needed a pair of shoes, a washing machine, or a power drill, Sears could meet every desire. It was the only place where you could get your teeth and your car and your watch fixed all under one roof, then pick up a new suit and a toaster on the way out. Their Christmas catalog was legendary. It would arrive around Thanksgiving, which seems quaint by today’s standards since Christmas sales now start on Labor Day. As a child I would eagerly pour over the pages checking out all the cool toys, trying to calculate how much I could get out of my parents.

Through a sad confluence of bad luck, a bad economy, and bad management, Sears is now a shell of its former self and barely squeaking by. Generations of American families filled their homes with Sears products. Now it’s hard to find someone who has even set foot in a Sears store lately.

Costco has become the new place for everything. Judging by the traffic outside, it seems everyone wants to go to there. All that is missing is a Statue Of Liberty in the parking lot calling all the huddled masses. As we enter, we must first stop at the Costco version of Ellis Island where the attendant checks membership cards and clears immigrants for entry. Formalities settled, we pass through a door and behold the amazing bounty opening before us.Costco-Logo

It’s hard to think of a warehouse store as “cool.” They are warehouses after all, set up for utility and efficiency. There is nothing elegant or plush about the place. From the bare cement floors to merchandise displayed in the same shipping boxes it arrived in, to harsh bright white overhead lights, they’ve purposely omitted the frills to give customers, excuse me, members, a good deal. Even the food court has a certain generic cafeteria-esque quality about it with bench seating and plain stenciled menu boards.

After going well out of its way to assure an austere shopping environment Costco perhaps unintentionally established itself as a cool place to buy stuff. There is a catch: You can’t shop there unless you’re a paid member. It’s hard to wrap my brain around the twisted logic of paying for the right to shop, but there must be something to it because through membership fees Costco pulls in hundreds of millions of dollars every year without selling a single item.  As a member myself for many years, I’ve been sucked into the vortex too.

Home Depot or Target would be laughed out of business within a week if they ever dared charge admission. It must really burn the nerves of other retailers that they struggle while Costco not only thrives, but consumers cheerfully fork over their cash just for the chance to walk through the door. There’s more to it than the simple concept of offering deals that offset the cost of membership; Costco has that certain unidentifiable something that makes shopping in a warehouse cool. Heck, they don’t even advertise or have a public relations crew. They don’t need it. Employees and customers absolutely love the place with a cult-ish devotion and it shows.

On a recent Costco run with a friend, our carts were piled high with canned vegetables, two pound bags of chips, bottled water, frozen stuff, everything. Oversized shopping carts and flatbeds are standard issue. There are no hand baskets. No one goes to Costco for just a few things. We never spend less than $100 each and need my pickup truck to haul it away. We don’t get to do this very often, so we load up while we can. Eighteen checkout lanes are open and every one of them has a long line behind it. Employees move everyone through with impressive efficiency. The crowds may be large but Costco has a way of making it less crazy than it appears. The system works and we are done quickly.

On the way out we hit the food court: $2.50 for a huge slice of pizza and a drink. Where else can two hungry guys chow on pizza good enough to make us forget it came from a food court, plus free drink refills, for five bucks? My buddy is not originally from the United States and thinks it’s the the most kickass experience ever. He loves this! If you ever want to impress a visitor from a foreign country, just bring them to a Costco.

Watching a famous symbol of Americana such as Sears slide into what is probably terminal decline is difficult. There’s no gratification when luminaries fade, especially when it involves a lot of paychecks. It’s certainly possible Sears will bounce back, and I hope it does, but the trajectory it’s on is not encouraging. There is something to be positive about: Fresh and new follows the old and flagging. It’s all just part of the cycle. The huge crowds of enthusiastic Costco shoppers provide the appropriate metaphor: There is always another big idea waiting in line to become the next business legend.

Beating The Higher Education Hustle.

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By: Chris Warren.

The last decade has slapped us with a bucking stock market, bouncing gas prices, and the crash and sort-of rebound of the real estate market. Well under the economic radar and seldom mentioned in the media is the bubbling student loan meltdown. Unfortunately, all of the proposed solutions are reactive. They address cleaning up a disaster that was predictable and avoidable in the first place.

Those who think this problem doesn’t concern them because they or their kids are not in college (or are wealthy enough to pay for it out of pocket) will change their mind when they find out that student loan debt in the United States is at 1.20 trillion dollars and climbing. The problem shows up in our tax bills, the cost of everything we buy, as well as in the skills (or lack of them) in the workforce. Everyone owns a piece of this mess, whether they want it or not.

The exact origins of the student loan chaos are indistinct. In 1993 President Bill Clinton pushed for and won reforms that made it easier and cheaper to get financial aid; the program was expanded by President George W. Bush and still exists today. The intent of the policy was inherently solid, but it did come with unintended consequences: Seeing a big payday, schools started admitting students who did not have the maturity, the discipline, or the academic strength to do college level work. Many of them barely made it out of high school. These borderline students drop out after a year or so, still on the hook for thousands of dollars of debt without completing their degrees. It’s true that they disproportionately have socioeconomic class disadvantages not of their own making but that is not a good enough reason to hand over a pile of money for them to fill space in a classroom in a misguided quest for “fairness”.

Unknown numbers of young people are getting triple-screwed by well intentioned adults pushing them into an academic environment they can’t handle, by colleges willing to bend admissions rules for dollars and “diversity,” and by banks who are eager to underwrite (usually) government-backed loans. College is a worthwhile endeavor…I get that. It’s not lost on anyone that having only a high school diploma severely limits lifetime earning potential, but who is better off: The debt-free kid who went from high school directly to a crappy low wage job, or the kid in the crappy low wage job with thousands of dollars of outstanding student loans from the degree he never finished?Graduation-cap-and-diploma-1

It’s important to point out that not everybody with five or even six-figure education loans on their backs are the innocent victims the media and  politicians want everyone to think they are. Students knew or should have known the terms of their loans and that some degrees have almost no market value. I sincerely respect anyone who pursues a gender studies or anthropology major solely for the love of scholarship, but spare us the “poor me!” crybaby act when you can’t land a decent job and the student loan bill comes due. You’re not a victim.

Community college is the obvious but often overlooked partial solution to the student loan meltdown. Two year schools are the diamonds of higher education, but no one ever gives them credit for it. Typically costing less than half of four year schools, they deliver a huge bang for the buck. The biggest reason Community colleges are not considered: They don’t offer the cool “college experience” that is such a big deal to today’s iPad-toting kids.

Back when I attended College of DuPage, it was derided as the “high school with ash trays.” By 3:00 pm every Friday the place became a ghost town. Nobody was there to be trendy, including me. I was earning college credits on the cheap. When I eventually transferred to a university and graduated, there was no disclaimer on my diploma stating that half of it came from dorky, uncool C.O.D. Like any young person I would have loved to get four full years of exciting big university campus vibe, but there were certain realities I simply had to accept. I graduated owing a lot less cash than my trend-seeking peers.

It bothers me that junior colleges get such a bad rap because without them I along with many others would not have made it to graduation. Yes, College of DuPage made that profound of a difference to me. COD classes were not easier than they at a big name four year institution, but I was able to study without the usual distractions or worry about how I was going to pay for my education. I was neither wealthy nor a stellar student; COD was a place where I had breathing room to make decisions and focus on my coursework without being demoralized by it. A lot of high school seniors who go directly into a four year undergraduate program and subsequently drop out for academic or financial reasons would have succeeded had they attended community college first. What a sad, life-altering, missed opportunity.

I’m under no illusion that the trillion dollar-plus student loan mess is going to be solved by junior colleges alone, but it’s obvious that a big part of the problem is too many students are in way over their heads and their wallets at four year schools. Aspiring to earn a degree is not justification enough and a lot of college loan debt is really the debt of vanity. College is not a party or an “experience” to be had at any price, nor is it (for most of us) a place to pursue highly idealized fields of study with no real-world application. If would-be undergraduates gave their education the same due diligence that they give to any big-ticket investment, there would be a lot more success stories and a lot less balances to pay off.

Mothers’ Smothering Meets The Rule of No Rescue.

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By: Chris Warren.

It’s not very often two totally opposing yet in many ways related ideas come along that make me wonder if the world is becoming totally unglued or if there may be some hope of sanity after all. The latest example of “is this for real?” to pop up in my daily reads involves groups of people who typically agree with each other most of the time and have nearly identical priorities. However, for this one aspect of their lives, they are probably as far apart as they can get without leaving earth’s orbit.

First up is is the growing fad of mothers opening social media accounts for their young children, in some cases before the kids are even born. Yeah, it’s for real. Mothers (and dads too) have reached a level of self-absorption and “helicopter parenting” that they need to create an exclusive venue to display the kids’ every potty triumph and jelly-smeared face until the adorable little ones become teens who without any maternal prompting will jump on line and cheerfully mouth off all the essential details of their lives, keeping in mind how a teenager defines “essential”.

helicopter-parentThe most common reason given for pushing Junior into the social media jungle before he’s had his first diaper change, and I’m totally not making this up, is because the moms want an on line life of their own separate from the kids’ and don’t want to clog their news feeds with constant kid pictures and updates. Of course, in order to make themselves feel good they wrap their narcissism in the soft cuddly ubiquitous cloak of doing it “for the children.” It never occurs to them that the easiest solution is not to post a bazillion pictures in the first place. So instead of leaving it alone until the kids are old enough to make these decisions, parents are giving their offspring a head start. How important is it that a toddler have an “on line identity” anyway?

Years from now I’ll have a ready-made blog topic when all these babies hit middle school and realize mommy has spent the last decade or so building an on line individuality for them. They may be mortified and not want their friends to find out, but take heart future teenagers: There are very good odds that many of your peers also had a carefully engineered internet presence since before they were old enough to cut their own food, so at least it will be a zero-sum game. You can be equally embarrassed together attending group therapy to figure out why your mommies didn’t let you be you and give you the same options they insisted on for themselves. Heck, there is enough of this going around to form an official school club.

Back here on firm reality, the “No-Rescue” parenting movement very slowly gets some traction. The theory is exactly as the name implies: Mom and Dad are not going to bail the kids out of every little screw up. Forgot your lunch? Didn’t bring your math textbook home? Oh well. Bet you’ll remember next time. As gratifying as it is to hear about someone not raising their children to be overindulged prima donnas, the idea of holding kids responsible for living with the results of their own negligence is not exactly groundbreaking.8bc53f96bcc3a9c3ca2f61639e52f90e

Parents who think they’re being innovative by letting their children fall down and learn from the experience would be very disappointed to find out this is how it was done in generations past; there’s a bit of amusement in seeing young parents stick a trendy name on an old idea and then act like they’ve discovered fire or something. What’s next? Making teenagers do household chores and holding them accountable for completing the required tasks? Wow, how novel!

I’m not going to razz No Rescue parents too much because in spite of their complete lack of originality, they are absolutely on the right course. Yeah, I know it hurts to see a young person struggle with situations mom or dad could very easily resolve, but the character lesson of letting children fly solo when dealing with forgotten homework assignments and interpersonal conflicts will last far longer than a parent’s discomfort of blowing off a kid’s plea to do the dirty work for them.

It says something about our times when individual responsibility is held up as an uncommon virtue. If we were to gather these two groups of parents together and pick their brains, I am confident they would agree on most things regarding their kids: A good education, stable home life, safe neighborhoods, etc. So how is it that one group involves themselves to the point of micromanaging kids’ on line profiles before the kids are even old enough to know what they are, and the other purposely refuses to intervene and blunt the effect of every little (and sometimes big) whoopsie?

What is most unsettling about too-young kids being set up with social media accounts is that it’s not done for their benefit and minimal thought is given to what it could mean to them years down the road. It’s impossible for me to to see how giving your newborn his own Instagram has long term benefits for him. The converse to this is parents who flatly refuse to throw their kids a lifeline and “save” them from any and all of life’s stumbles. I have no doubt that both groups love their children and want the best for them; some are smart enough to see that by doing less now the kids will have more later.

The Empowerment Tree Has No Fruit.

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By: Chris Warren.

About 8:00 this morning a crew of five guys with two trucks and a wood chipper showed up at the building I work in and began cutting down several dead trees that had rotted to the point that they had become serious safety hazards. After a few near-misses with falling branches and over two years of nagging management to do something, I felt like I finally won a small but long-fought victory. My employer’s primary concern is the bottom line and since the only occupants of the building are myself and the 10,000 or so square feet of electronic communications equipment that I maintain, my repeated complaints were not taken seriously until the trees became a legal liability.

I want to think my situation was a one-off, a slip through the crack, a bureaucratic oversight…whatever you want to call it. I’ve been in the workforce long enough to know that not only was is it not a mistake, it’s not even unique to my industry. Consciously blowing off small stuff until it becomes big stuff is common practice at pretty much every big company.

I have a close friend who owns a successful small business. It’s not a franchise, it’s not an established operation that he took over, and he did not get started via some millionaire investor gushing over him with fat checks. He is an average everyday person of modest means who built the business from an empty storefront by himself with his own money. Nothing gets past this guy. He is there every single day and knows what happens within those walls down to the tiniest detail. If the building needs repair, or supplies are running low, or a customer has a complaint about their experience, he makes things happen. No problem goes unresolved for very long.

The difference between my friends’ situation and mine is the length of the chain between the executives and the average workers. My employer is an international behemoth with hundreds of departments and layers of management. They are far removed from me and my problems…problems they largely created. In a way I sort of understand where they are coming from. When you are near the top of a huge worldwide corporation, you can’t get personally involved with every dead tree or missing box of supplies. That stuff is usually delegated to empowered underlings, which would be fine if the underlings actually had the authority to take action.

“Empowerment” is a nauseating buzzword that should have been retired with the fax machine, yet this zombie just…won’t…die. What irritates me so much is that the word comes standard with a heavy dose of condescension and insincerity. The person using it always sounds like the love child of a campaigning politician and a greasy-haired TV evangelist. If everyone is empowered, then why can’t anyone get anything done unless someone else signs off on it? Why does someone who is “empowered” have to beg for two years to get a tree cut down? Most of the time my boss agrees with me and would let me have my way if people above her would allow it. Telling subordinates that they are independent thinkers and can autonomously solve their own problems is one of the biggest lines of crap ever spoken by any manager.

Dilbert ©Universal Uclick
Dilbert ©Universal Uclick

One of the reasons my friend’s business is so successful is because the buck really does stop with him. He is the top of the pyramid. Every screw-up is solely his burden and there aren’t any credible ways he can claim he didn’t know. The smaller the pyramid is, the fewer paths there are for management to insulate themselves from what happens below them. In a big corporation, high level managers can to a degree play the ignorance card and blame disasters on subordinates or let their legal team deal with it. In that regard, executives at large companies don’t want to know too much detail about daily operations. Maintaining an element of plausible deniability has its advantages even if it does cost money and create big hassles for others.

A favorite joke in my organization is that if the place were competently managed, half of us would not be needed there. It’s one of those “be careful what you wish for” reality checks. Every cursed moment I have to take out of my day to fuss with a clumsy computer system, or hunt for tools & supplies that should have already been given to me, or deal with a dangerously rotten tree, is time I’m not dedicating to what I was hired for and genuinely enjoy doing: keeping the big-buck electronic communications equipment on line. At the same time, I know that as an hourly rate employee, all those cursed moments ultimately end up on my paycheck and extend out the deadline for legitimate tasks, thus perpetuating the need to keep me around.

Sloppy management helps create jobs where they might not otherwise exist, but there is a tipping point at which the cost of incompetence threatens the effectiveness of the entire organization. As much as we may not want to admit it, low level workers like me benefit from goofy business methods, with the caveat that the scheme works only if the stockholders don’t notice. It becomes a daily conflict where we resent the aggravation of working within a system of insanity while secretly hoping it never goes away.

To use another clichéd buzzword, the “takeaway” is that we best get used to it. There is not going to be any great enlightenment that causes management to admit the little people were right the whole time. There is not going to be any executives’ humble repentance followed by the sweeping changes we’ve all dreamed of. A sad reality of the modern workplace is that most big corporations make money by accident. The only thing I hate more than the hapless corporate decisions I have to put up with is admitting that without them, it’s very possible a lot fewer of us would be working there.

How Norway Won Olympic Gold Without Even Playing.

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By: Chris Warren.

What if you wanted a mortgage for a brand new, lavishly over-the-top house. Then you  told the bank construction would not be completed for eight to ten years, but you could accurately calculate what the projected costs will be and insisted your figures were a valid basis for approving the loan? And let’s assume you don’t want to live in the house long term. You just want it for a few weeks to throw a huge party. When it’s over, you’re sort of pretty sure but not certain that possibly the place can be recycled into something that might be useful. Do you think the bank would back your plan?

If you think no one with half a working brain cell would ask for nor agree to such a ridiculous deal, you’re wrong. It happens every four years in the form of a city “winning” the right to host the Olympics. For decades the International Olympic Committee was always able to hustle several nations into competing with each other for the privilege of bankrolling the IOC’s multi-billion dollar, two week party.

This time around, the IOC’s big-buck ride is hitting a lot of bumps. Many of the cities that were initially interested in hosting the 2022 Winter games have dropped out because the huge amounts of money needed to pull off an Olympics can no longer be camouflaged with glowing promises and slippery accounting tricks. Ordinary citizens (correctly) smell a huge scam and are asking questions that bid committees don’t have acceptable answers for.

Poland, Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland bailed early. All would have been very qualified and culturally relevant hosts. When Oslo, Norway recently withdrew their application, the IOC made no effort to hide their near-disgust in a press release that reads a lot like the desperate last resort patter of a time share condo salesman when his fed up client is walking out:

“For a country of such means, full of so many successful athletes and so many fanatical winter sports fans, it is a pity that Oslo will miss out on this great opportunity to invest in its future and show the world what it has to offer.”

Aside from the veiled insult that Oslo needs the Olympics to prove it is a world-class city, what the IOC is too politically correct to say openly, and why they are having a hissy fit, is that Oslo was the only decent option left. The short list of remaining candidates is not very impressive and none have democratically elected governments. The Committee is very aware of the public image mine field of oppressive governments sponsoring the Olympics. The IOC’s pouting is a de facto admission that the Olympics need Oslo more than Oslo needs the Olympics. That’s a marathon run away from the days when the IOC played kingmaker by having cities aggressively bid against each other.

For this article, I spent some time researching to find out if previous years’ games ever delivered a long term payoff. A conclusive answer is almost impossible to determine because of varying definitions of “payoff”. What I did learn is that defenders of the Olympics will go through painfully circuitous and sometimes unintentionally funny explanations of why hosting the games was a good business decision. Only a former (and in many ways, still) communist state like Russia will say with complete sincerity that the $51 billion (US) they spent for Sochi 2014 was totally worth it while the place lays largely abandoned and falling apart. 

I learned early in life that the longer and more complex an explanation is, the greater the odds are that what I am being told is complete bullshit. The freshest example of this is a sixty-seven page (and that’s just a summary!) analysis on the London 2012 games: The original estimated cost in 2005 when London won the bid was around £4 billion British pounds. The ending price tag in 2012 was about £9 billion. So even after spending more than double what they intended (which did not include the cost of converting the venues for public use when the games concluded), Great Britain has no shortage of people including Prime Minister David Cameron himself using far more words than a credible man should need to make the case that Britons got a bargain, never mind that the math behind the claims looks like it came out of a Monty Python comedy sketch.

Apologists’ heaviest selling point is that Olympic facilities can be used for civic purposes once the games are over. There are very few successful real-world examples, and even when it does work out, it’s only after a curious allocation of resources. The swimming & diving arena from the 2008 Beijing Olympics is now a kids’ water park and aquatic center. That’s very nice, but isn’t hundreds of millions of dollars kind of a lot to pay for a kiddie pool?

Beijing 2008 Olympic aquatic arena, then and now.
Beijing 2008 Olympic aquatic arena, then and now.

The fatal flaw in the post-Olympics “civic good” argument is that the leftover infrastructure either A: solves problems that do not exist (unless lack of a community access luge run is considered a legitimate problem); or B: where needs do exist, could have been solved more economically without the games. If a city decides it wants new roads or athletic facilities or public transit, they do not need the Olympics as a premise to build them. All these things can be accomplished for a lot less than what it takes to appease the IOC cartel.

With the price tag of throwing a quadrennial two-week sports festival now running into the many tens of billions and climbing, future Olympic host city proponents are going to be under intense pressure to come up with a sales pitch to the citizenry that goes far beyond patriotism and sparkling new tennis courts. For its part, the IOC will have to lower their regal expectations or risk being forced to do business with the likes of North Korea.

The Olympics has gone from a celebration of international goodwill to an escalating competition of one-upmanship to see which nation can best prostrate themselves before the IOC throne and pay the highest dowry. Brazil (2016), South Korea (2018) and Tokyo (2020) are already in the trap, but Oslo, Norway sees this great-honor-turned-farce for what it is, and they are not foolishly taking the bait. By refusing to play, they have already won.