I wrote last time about the concept that Goldman is employing:  “all that is not illegal is permissible”.

When they say they did nothing wrong, they mean they did nothing illegal.

If some judge finds that what they did IS illegal, they will find another judge.  If all judges find what they did was illegal, they will make new laws.  If that doesn’t work, they will simply re-organize under some other legal structure and continue to do what they wanted in the first place.

So……how do you win a game?

I assure you it is not by being the best at something.  Hard work is a VERY difficult way to win.  It is a high effort strategy that, in real life, doesn’t often work.

Why can’t you win by being the best and working hard?

Because the rules change (and there is always some fool out there willing to work harder).

In sports, the rules stay mostly the same; the game is defined.  We enjoy the fairness; we scream when the rules (which are limited since the game is well-defined) are broken.

In life, the rules can change; the game can change.  There is no “score”, no tidy buzzer at the end that tells you when its done.  Those who win are those who make the rules.

Goldman can use its influence, its special knowledge, and its money….to make the rules or change them if needed.  They don’t break the law because they make the law.

When I was in business school I was taught attractive industries are those with high barriers to entry.

Here is how you make your industry attractive:   bend the rules in your favor.

Capitalism in the United States is not about competition and free markets.  It is about manipulating the rules of the game in your favor.  That is the easiest way to win any game.  It doesn’t require nearly as much hard work and is a much better guarantee of success.

Think about it:  How can you win long term if there is a level playing field?  The best strategy is to un-level the playing field….not to work harder.  If your long term strategy is working harder, you won’t be on top long…there is always some idiot out there willing to work harder.  If your long term strategy is hard work, you will kill yourself doing it.

I think Goldman’s strategy is simply how capitalism in the US works:  its a plutocracy.  The rich are bending the rules to make sure they stay rich.  The rich are largely smart, and we are busy working hard, so we don’t realize the bait and switch.

I remember the story of Mickey Mouse from business school.  Whenever the early Mickey Mouse movies get close to lapsing their copyright and entering the public domain, Disney simply gets the law changed to extend the copyright.

The pharmaceutical industry peddles treatments that work better than placebos….the treatments don’t have to work better than sunshine, getting friends, eating healthy, taking vitamins, exercising, etc….and often they don’t, but they can’t sell or patent exercise.

They even invent new diseases to match “cures” they have found (had you heard of erectile dysfunction before Viagra?).   You rig the game.  If you can “cure” erectile dysfunction, then you need to make it a disease.  Shyness is a disease now too (social anxiety disorder).

In short, the patent system CREATES the current pharma industry.  The industry manipulates those rules to protect their profits; they don’t want free markets.  Its much more profitable to define diseases or massage the drug approval process regulations.

Also, no business wants free markets……they want free markets when it suits them…and then closed markets when it doesn’t. The patent system creates a closed market; that’s good for copyright holders.

Multi-national corporations (who are also quite well-connected and resourced) want free trade…because it allows them to move goods and labor unfettered.  The only group you can bet for sure will benefit from that arrangement…is the multi-nationals themselves.

Who do you think writes these laws?  The industry almost HAS to write them; because they are the only ones with enough expertise to do so.  Would you want some blowhard politician writing laws about an industry they have never even worked in?  The industry groups draft the laws and try to get the politicians to sponsor them.

Banking is the ultimate special privilege industry:  It gets to create money…and he who creates the money, makes the rules.

If you’re looking for a lesson in my rambling here it is this:   The winners make rules.  Everyone else whines about working hard.

If you beat me 100 to 2 in basketball and I re-define winning as having the lowest score….then I win.  It doesn’t matter how good you are.

Goldman contends they have done nothing but sell what other sophisticated investors wanted to buy.  Did they do anything “wrong”?

Hmm…….

I want to draw a distinction between ethics and morals:

Ethics is a set of rules, often set by a group, that defines right and wrong.  Morals are our own personal definition of right and wrong.  The two will hopefully be similar, but not always the same.

Goldman’s claim is that they have broken no rules:

They sold things others wanted to buy.

They made the best profit they could.

They did not break the law.

If you add a bit of personal responsibility (morality) to those claims though, the statements change:

They sold things others wanted to buy – – – EVEN though it was complete crap.

They made the best profit they could – – – EVEN when it came at the taxpayers expense or through special connections.

They did not break the law – – – EVEN though they perverted the intention of the law.

Goldman is basically claiming that if they didn’t break any rules, then they didn’t do anything wrong.

When we all know that is complete crap; its a lawyer’s excuse…finding some way of weaseling out of responsibility when it is plain to everyone they’re a bunch of crooks.

Not that I’m necessarily singling out Goldman.  The “profit motive” is a ruthless amoral code; it is the economic phrasing for “the end justifies the means”.

For Goldman, and many other companies, all that is not illegal is permissible.  The law is something to avoid and manipulate.  The spirit of the law is irrelevant.

So, to wrap up…Yes, Goldman has done something wrong….not breaking rules is not the same thing as doing what is right.

I am traveling a lot for work these days.  Traveling for work is not healthy.

You work very hard all day; after all you were paid to travel to this place to work….so you do it.

You live at a hotel, so there isn’t much to do once you get back…so you work there too (since there is always something to do).  So I would say I am working from sun up to sun down, with breaks to eat.

Ah…eating.  That is one of the few truly pleasurable things I do in a day.  Since the meals are expensed, I do eat well…which means I eat too much.  Then there is the fact of the stress of working all day…I usually drink with dinner (which is expensed as well).

Working all day means you can’t go to the hotel gym.  The stress and a bed that isn’t yours mean you don’t sleep that well.

I always thought it would be somewhat glamorous to travel for work.  It simply isn’t.  “How was Chicago,” you might ask….well I don’t know, unless you count O’Hare airport, a random office building, and/or the Marriott downtown.

Airports are a HUGE waste of time.  You wait in a bunch of lines, can’t do much in the way of work…the only thing good about airports is drinking before you get on the plane (that’s if you make it to the airport in time, since you always work till the last minute).

You might also think it is cool to be at the airport with your fancy clothes and laptop, going to nice hotels, eating out on the client.  No, it isn’t.

You just wish you were sitting in first class instead of trying to cram your carry-on into the overhead bin and sitting next to some smelly (either from cologne or not showering) yahoo that wants to talk to you the whole time and needs to lose 3o pounds (which is fine…unless you are sitting next to them on a cramped plane).

You wish you were waiting for the plane in the Club Room instead of hunting for some greasy seat to park it while you wait for the opportunity to wait again when you finally board the plane (which you could also avoid if you were a Medallion member).  You really just wish you were at home.

So…..you eat too much, don’t exercise, don’t get to talk to your loved ones much, work too much, drink often, are stressed, and don’t sleep well.

At least I have a job.  For that, I am truly grateful….really.

Its worth it for sure….seeing that I would be living on the streets otherwise.

You don’t even want to hear me complain about that!!!

I never thought much of history when I was in high school.  Why do we need to remember all that silly stuff that happened a long time ago?  That was never fully explained, and so it seems a little pointless.

Now I know it matters, and I wish someone would’ve explained why.  It matters because history repeats itself and people have short memories.

Life is not a laboratory, so you can’t know what will happen if you pass ObamaCare or not.  There is no control group or double blind peer reviewed studies on the subject; we can’t split the US in two and have one group continue status quo while the other pursues health care reform, then compare the results…….but in reality there is something that will often suffice: history.

History (sometimes modern history) runs natural experiments for us; if you understand history, you understand the present…you can preview the future.

Is anything sustainable?

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” It is debated who originally said that, but let’s give it to the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville.

I think about that a lot lately, because I wonder about the sustainability of Democracy.  I’ve already discussed that I don’t understand how our monetary system is sustainable….money as debt requires us all to be in ever increasing amounts of debt to allow the economy to grow.

I watch the welfare systems of Europe….where the people,  always on strike, demand more and more from a government they don’t seem to understand is not giving them jobs.  It does not provide them with healthcare, or a pension, or education, or really anything……it takes from them and when they receive it back they act like they’ve gotten something.  It was theirs in the first place.  If I rob most of your money, then give some of it back to you….have I really done you a favor?

Maybe in some cases…if you can do better with the money than I can (which is possible)……but is it sustainable?  Won’t I always end up voting myself more until I do to the country what the labor unions did to Detroit and the US auto industry?

I think of the US, with its crippling income inequality, and I see a future where voters may well try to vote themselves more.  Why not?

If people no longer feel hard work can get them ahead in life (and I admit that as I watch Wall Street get bailed out while I foot the bill, I wonder whether lobbyists might be better than hard work), they will pursue other means…voting themselves benefits is one avenue.  Crime is another.  Leaving the country is another (an avenue we see Mexicans  pursue).

Government does not hold any real power.  People agree uneasily to be governed because they feel the alternative is even worse…but that doesn’t mean it will always be.  History teaches us that ALL governments except the ones currently in existence have failed. These will likely fail too.

Alexis de Tocqueville also said, “The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.” and its corollary: No contract can be sufficiently specified as to prevent dishonest behavior by those who wish to gain advantage.

History, and Stanley Milgram’s Stanford Prison Experiment, show that people’s morals are easily swayed.  People act in accordance with the situation.

Our Constitution, Democracy….our way of life…..its all enabled by this basic agreement that we trust people and its possible to come to mutually beneficial agreements.

Government (Democracy or otherwise) is a moot point if people decide the system is rigged against them and that it doesn’t pay to obey the rules.

Governments fail for this reason.  At that point you must reset the people’s sentiment by fixing the system; or you have to bribe them with their own money.

I wonder about the sustainability of all our modern governments.  I think they will fail; perhaps in our lifetime.  I wonder what will come next?

I actually wanted to write something about economics as I read this great article today about industries that don’t see much productivity improvement over time and how that affects us currently.  Check it out.

Instead I will write about married life.  I have been married a little over a month; she lived with me for 3 or 4 months before we got married.

So how is it? Similar to how it was before, except a little better…that’s my answer.

People say shit changes after you get married.  I’m sure it does.  I change even if everything else stays the same, and it never does.  I haven’t been married long, so I guess you can check back in a few years and see if I still think its the “same but better”.

The main advantage is Companionship:  I’m a loner by nature, and can’t say I ever much felt lonely when I was un-married.  HOWEVER, sometimes you don’t notice something until its gone.  If I enjoy the companionship now, that must mean in some sense I was missing it before, even if I didn’t know it.

The main disadvantage is always having to play well with others (ie. your wife).  This can also be translated to:  lack of alone time.  If I am in a bad mood I inevitably take it out on her…not actively, just by way of the fact that I am ill and she happens to be there.  In turn, she is sometimes ill and, due to proximity, she takes it out on me.  So….in marriage you will always increase the amount of time you have to deal with ill moods by a large amount…double.  You deal with yours (1X), and you deal with hers (2X).  That’s unavoidable.  (She is getting the bum deal here.  I’m ill a lot.  She isn’t.)

There are also a couple of  neutrals to marriage:

Anxiety:

This is like the companionship thing…I never noticed the anxiety until the anxiety was gone.  When you are single you are always looking; you just don’t notice it.  It creates a mild, constant anxiety.  You need to be a little better at your job, have a little better car, be a little funnier than you are….all in service of the fact that you may meet a girl/woman whose standards you have to live up to.  You need to (and want to) be ready for this awesome chick who you are going to marry.  That’s stressful (even though I never realized it).

On the flip side, you have a new stress:  making sure you and your wife (and possibly kids) don’t end up living in the streets.  That’s self-explanatory, and stressful.

Help:

With two people, there should always be someone around to help out….so you shouldn’t have to do as much, and if you do you can always get help.  That’s crap.  Its true that you have help….but you also have MUCH more to do (marriage creates more work than it gets rid of).  Good thing someone else is around….I need the help.

In the end, I think marriage makes you a better friend, family member, employee….a better person.  You SHOULD have to deal with someone else all the time; otherwise you are too self-absorbed.

I’ve heard this before; I guess its just coming up more now as the jobs situation gets worse.

The private sector had 107 million jobs in 1999, and that’s about the number it has currently….a decade later.  There was an artificial bump before Y2K as companies hired a bunch of folks and bought a bunch of new computer equipment in anticipation that there would be some technical apocalypse, but still…10 years on and there is no net job creation.

That’s tough for the common man to swallow; after all GDP has increase from 9 trillion in 1999 to about 14 trillion today.  Are you telling me there those extra 5 trillion dollars created no net jobs?

Also, population has continued to increase from 279 million in 1999, to 304 million today.  So there are more people chasing the same number of jobs, while national income (GDP) went from 9 to 14 trillion dollars.

Where did the 5 trillion dollars go?

Here are two facts you can take with you (unfortunately not to the bank):

1) Trickled-down economics is shite:  It doesn’t trickle down.  A rising tide doesn’t lift all boats; it drowns those without boats.  Income inequality is the worst its been since WWII; Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II are responsible for most of that.  If you think income inequality doesn’t matter, then ok.  But it causes crime and ill-health.  That will eventually effect you; I don’t care how hard you try to sequester yourself away from the poor (which are increasingly the middle class).

2) What’s good for Wall Street is not good for Main Street. And its corollary:  What’s good for US companies is not good for the US. In the past, this was true.  Where did the 5 trillion dollars go? It went to China and India via US companies.  In fact, I wouldn’t even call them US companies anymore.  They are global; they are not beholden to any government.  If a government upsets them they could always pack up and ship operations (i.e. jobs) elsewhere and still sell their goods/services in the country.

Maybe that isn’t where all (or even the majority) of the 5 trillion dollars went; however, a large number of the missing jobs are not missing…..they are simply relocated.  My company, for instance, has not closed up shop in the US.  We still have operations here; its just that we are adding jobs 4 to 1 overseas.  They used to all be here.  So growth is still good…just not growth in the US; however, since it is a US company their corporate income/consumption still counts towards GDP.

I’m not happy about this; however, I sometimes feel like it is a snowball gathering steam down the mountain.  I guess the only practical advice I have to give about the future of the US economy (and thus YOUR livelihood) is:  Be conservative.  We will be the first generation to have a lower standard of living than our parents; accept it.  Our children will increasingly compete for jobs against people continents away who need to make less than we do to survive.  Its hard to win in that equation.

I have one suggestion that is practical and will help immediately:  Stop the wars.

I lived in the Middle East; they hate foreign occupation.  They hate it.  I mean HATE.  Its their hang-up.  The more we intervene, the most terrorists we create.  For those who say, “We aren’t occupying; we’re liberating/helping”….I will say it is simply a matter of perspective, and theirs is the only one that matters.

Stop the wars, and spend the money at home.  We are losing to a phantom enemy that we create more of the harder we try to root them out.

People and their values.  Anyway, 1st up today is:

Energy Efficiency

It’s a red herring.  ENERGY EFFICIENCY WILL NOT AFFECT GLOBAL WARMING.  It will make it worse.

Econ 101:  If you make something more efficient people will use it MORE, not less.  Take the cotton gin….before it was invented, we separated the seeds from the cotton by hand…it took a long time, and it sucked.  “The growth of cotton production, enabled by Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, expanded by the bale from 750,000 in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850.  As a result of the ability to produce cotton faster, the South became even more dependent on plantations and slavery making it the largest area of the economy in the South.”  Get it?  Efficiency caused its use to explode!

Take the Printing Press.  Before books were made by hand, and only a few could read.  Then making books became faster and more efficient, and as a result there are so many books now people would laugh to think they were once scarce.  Getting better at making books simply means there will be more of them.

Take planes, trains, automobiles….whatever.  It doesn’t matter.  It will work the same.

Efficiency causes people to use something MORE, not less.  I fail to see how more efficient cars (or light bulbs or whatever) will change anything. It will not save energy.  In aggregate, it will use more energy (even if each individual unit uses less).

If you want people to use less energy we need to become less efficient at making it.  You could attempt to impose huge taxes to dissuade use, but people would create a gray/black market.  It wouldn’t make a difference in the end.

In short, there is pretty much nothing except population control or space ships (population control vis a vis leaving the planet) that will change what we’re doing.

As technology progresses forward we MUST use more energy.  There must be throughput.  It doesn’t go backwards.

Corporate Person-hood:

In court, Corporations often try to claim the same rights as we do.  They want free speech; they want to contribute openly to political campaigns; they do enjoy the right to contracts, to declare bankruptcy; they sue people/parties.  They behave in many ways like people, and when it suits them they claim any and all the rights entitled to people.

Here is the rub though:  Corporations aren’t people.  Primarily, corporations can’t die, and they can shift their definition of “person”.  You can put a person in jail.  You can punish them.  You can’t rightly punish an amorphous concept.  Arthur Anderson consulting just became Accenture.  Kill one, and it just shifts to something else.  No person enjoys shape-shifting immortality.

People are moral.  All of them are, even if their morality is not one we agree with.  Maybe better said, people HAVE morals.  Corporations do not…and they behave accordingly.

So what does this have to do with me?

Accountability:  I am thinking of a systemic solution, a single switch, to stop the seemingly runaway power of corporations:  make ONE person accountable.  Abolish the ability for the CEO and Board of Directors to hide behind corporate person-hood.  Make the CEO accountable.

Abolish corporate-person-hood…just one person at the top.  If you think the company has gotten too big for you personally to take responsibility for…then you need to spin-off a business. Sweat-shops….ONE person is responsible for that.  A corporation is not “following labor arbitrage to the lowest cost provider because “the market” (another non-human entity) demands it”….ONE person is supporting children working for nothing to make stuff we throw away after a few uses.  It affects that person’s morality.  It is the responsibility of that person.

Talk about a Renaissance of values: The only person it would make sense to hire in that case (when the actions of those you hire affect YOU personally)…..would be someone of impeccable values.

For instance, take the current banking crisis.  Tons of individual PEOPLE are underwater on their homes…they owe more than it is worth…yet they keep paying….because they have VALUES.  They made a promise to pay and they feel bad about not paying; they are affected by the guilt.

Corporations are NOT affected by any guilt or any morality.  They are also “underwater” on the derivatives of the homes…and yet they feel no compunction to pay.  They simply walk away, because they don’t care…in fact, they can’t care.  Not only that but they realize they’ll get more by lobbying Congress to get US, the people, to bail them out.  Why?  Because they can.

That kind of thinking, where you do something just because you can….is the same thinking sociopaths use. It is dangerous.

And yet these entities, who cannot feel, and for whose leaders we do not vote….rule most of our days.  We endure because they enable us a decent life (which I agree is the case); however, that does not change the fact that corporations enjoy near absolute authority:  They tell us how to dress, where to show up, what to say, what to do for most of our waking hours……is that not pretty much slavery?

The saving grace is that we can largely choose our job, which allows us to choose our slavery….a decent proposition I  think (I really do)….just align yourself with a corporation that largely shares your values……..Oops:  Corporations don’t have values.

Then again, most people don’t either when faced with survival.  Oh well.

Artificial Intelligence:

I had big hopes for this, in the sense that surely we need to be smarter than we are now…even if the robots take over?  Right?  Also, I thought it wasn’t that far away; I mean we can process the shit out of some shit with computers.  It won’t be long before we can simulate the processing of the human brain.

A few thoughts…..if we ever COULD simulate the processing of the human brain, how much energy would it take at this point?  Shit…my computer (one computer) requires a up-voltage converter, and runs so hot that it needs a heat sink to avoid melting the metal.

My brain runs at 98.6 degrees.  And it doesn’t require an up-converter at all.  I can shove a few beers and a slice of bread into it and it will run all day.  Imagine if you could shove a few leaves and a cup of water into your computer, and that was it?  That’s nuts!!!  The brain is, simply put, so far beyond anything we have now that its a joke.  Show me a computer that runs on beer and a plate of rice!?!?!!  Our brains are so energy efficient it is SICK.

Next:  Free Will

Isn’t that the issue?  Computers (despite their poor efficiency) can already process more than we can in most situations (though they aren’t as flexible).  But they can’t DECIDE to process something.  If they could I might simply stay at home and let my computer be curious about the data that I work with for a living.

So what is free will?  And why can’t processing devices (computers) that are already “smarter” than we are in some situations simply decide to do something?

Proposition:  The brain is a pattern recognition machine.  At its simplest, the brain stores information and turns it into patterns.  I didn’t invent this idea (see TED.com).  You have to take this one on belief somewhat.

Another Proposition:  The brain is leaky.  Computers work with 1s and 0s….and that is hard to do.  The smaller the circuits, the more the circuits leak…and 1s bleed into 0s.  The way you separate the feedback from the signal is to turn up the volume (energy throughput)…..so the smaller the processing circuits get, for the most part the larger we must turn up the energy to separate the signal from the noise.  This is true (no belief required).  The brain doesn’t work like that…it simply leaks, and trades accuracy for speed and efficiency….and the brain has trouble telling the noise from the signal.

WE ARE THE NOISE.

That is why there is no artificial intelligence, no free will in machines.  They don’t have enough noise;  they are TOO accurate.

Imagine a brain that is programmed to see patterns.  It sees lots of them, because the world is largely patterned (follows trends).  Because it errs though, it also sees trends where there aren’t any (optical illusions are an example).  It is well documented that the brain sees patterns where they don’t exist, it “fills in the blanks” where our sensory input doesn’t match previous patterns we’ve seen.

But there is one source of random noise that is always present….it is the leak in our brain circuits…the trade off between efficiency and accuracy.  From the day we are born the brain tries to process the ghost in our machine (the leak in our signal, which is completely random).  Because it is so good at seeing patterns…it invents a pattern….WE ARE THE PATTERN.…completely unique, un-reproducible, always shifting with new input (which produces new randomness, which causes us to shift more…but on the whole the brain creates a way to interpret that randomness, and refines that interpretation with time).  We tell ourselves to do different things in different situations (or the same situation) because it is somewhat random.  Free will is that randomness. We…are the randomness.

Anyway, that is my theory, and that is why there is no free will in computers, nor is there any “artificial intelligence” upcoming in computers:  they work too well.

To sum up:

While there is no apparent theme in my three topics…..the theme is that it pays to think about the things that go on around us.  If you take at face value all the information we’re fed…..you’re the same as dumb.

Basic assumptions are rarely questioned.  One has to be pretty astute to even understand what the basic assumptions behind something are.  If you don’t know; you can’t question.  Even if you do, you have to be inclined to care.

I’d like to question two basic assumptions today:

Assumption 1: Kids should go to college:

I disagree.  Some kids should go to college (by college, I mean a 4 year degree).  For most it is a gigantic waste of time/money and they should stop being misled into attempting it.

So which kids should go?  Speaking practically, the ones that should go are the ones that are currently getting something out of it, as in the ones, at a minimum, who are graduating (never mind whether the degree is useful).

If you are in the bottom half of your high school class…don’t go to college.  About two thirds of you never graduate.   70% of high school graduates now go to college.  Those numbers don’t add up.  Why go?  It leaves you in debt, and out of the workforce (a year of good work experience is worth far more than 1 year of random classes).  It is a waste of time.

With our battery of endless aptitude tests and 12 years of high school grades, we know with a high degree of accuracy which students will do well in college.  Quit misleading the others into thinking it is worth their time to go.  It is dishonest if high school kids aren’t told that college isn’t always a good idea.  It is simply avoiding reality.

That being said, people should always be able to bet on themselves.  If you want to go to college anyway, and beat the odds….please do.  Life is full of people beating the odds; however, make no mistake:   the reason we like those stories so much, and why they stick in our mind, is because they are exceptional, because they are out of the ordinary.  We all want to believe we can beat the odds; it makes us feel good.

However…..We can’t all be above average.  That is a fact.  We are not all future managers, CEOs, sports stars, rappers, singers, etc.  Those at the top of their profession are compulsively dedicated and often very talented.  Most of us are just not willing to work that hard and often don’t have the natural talent; accept it.  Also, from a statistical point of view, we just can’t all be at the top of the pyramid.  It is numerically impossible.

I’m not going to post here (lack of time) on what we do about it…the fact that inequality of all kinds simply exists, and it must exist, whether it is politically correct to say so.  I’ll simply say that if you want to be above average, you need to be aware enough of your position to realize that you can only be so because others are below average (you depend on them).  Be thankful they exist, and treat them well; tomorrow you may be one of them.

UPDATE 6/10/2010:  Someone else (NY Times) had the same idea I did.

Assumption 2:  Economic growth is good:

On average the US economy grows about 3% a year.  That seems good, right?

Yeah, its good in many ways.  Would 6% growth be better?  Sure.

No one really questions whether growth is good.  “A rising tide lifts all boats” right?  Uh…maybe.  Or a rising tide sinks those without boats.

Anyway, I’m not even going to broach that subject here.  Let’s take a step back…even further…way further…to the concept of 3% growth itself.  Is it even possible to grow at 3% forever?

No.

People are quite poor at understanding exponential growth.  We tend to conceptualize growth as linear; its a good rule of thumb that applies in most situations.

Does 3% growth look like this?

No.  That’s linear.

Here is 3% growth in a series of 150.  Think of it as a series of 150 years (but it is simply units, could be days, or miles, or whatever).

That’s a neat upward curve. Perhaps we think it would be good to grow like that?  The fact is that we do grow like that for the most part.

Here is 3% growth in a series of 350.

Here is where we start to see the issue.  It plods along at almost nothing for majority of the series and then towards the very end, it shoots off the chart (no pun intended).

That’s not sustainable.  All systems like this eventually collapse. A good analogy is bacterial growth.  It looks like this as well, and then, when it is about to shoot off the chart and grow out of the petri dish…it exhausts its food in a fit of growth, and the colony dies….quite quickly.

Growth requires input….we are growing something (the economy), and we need raw materials to make that happen.  Those raw materials MUST eventually deplete, as does the food in the petri dish.

Even if you give the bacteria more food or a bigger petri dish, it doesn’t matter.  The growth curve will eventually catch you.  You won’t be able to shovel in inputs faster than the growth.

I’m not being all environmental. I’m saying it is simply impossible, under any set of circumstances, to maintain 3% growth indefinitely.  We need to accept that reality and plan for it.

Speaking of reality:  The concept isn’t “Save the Planet”.  Trust me; the planet isn’t going anywhere.  We’re not even trying to save life on this planet.  Life is pretty resilient; it survives.  “Save the Planet for Humans” is a more accurate.  I guess that doesn’t fit as well on a bumper sticker?

If we are to believe science, we are an accident of the cosmos, which is itself an accident.  That’s a pretty big happenstance.

If we are to believe religion, the entire cosmos exists so that we can pass a few years on a lonely planet in a common galaxy in an unimaginably large universe….trying to prove that we believe that some guy who lived only 2,000 years ago was at the same time human and the son of a supreme being.

Neither is particularly plausible; though one improves our life, while the other causes as many problems as it solves.

“Why did you do all this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”  “You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die… By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heavens knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”  — Charlotte’s Web

We’re born, we live a little while, we die.

If you never read anything else, but understood that…I think it would be enough.  Children’s books are funny like that.

As we get older, we always think we understand things better than we did before, and we do….for what it is worth.  And I think it is worth not much.

When I was younger I enjoyed my lack of understanding, and I never could’ve born the weight of my life now (not that it is that bad).  Youth is good.

I am older and though youth leaves me, my ability to deal with my current life is a great skill.  Age is good.

So there.

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.”  — Ecclesiastes 9:11

I have come to an agreement with life that allows me to bear it:

Life promises me nothing. My very best efforts may well lead to failure.  I could betray my family, my friends could hate me, my marriage could fail, I could beat small, cute animals….there is always some set of circumstance that will make you do what you didn’t think you would.  Judge if you’d like; today it is someone else, tomorrow it is you.  “….time and chance happens to them all”

Should I complain that my parents don’t like each other, that I don’t get along with my dad, that I work most weekends, that I have a freak injury that keeps me from playing a sport that is one of my sole stress releases, that my best friends all live relatively far away, that my mother complains to me about her crappy life, my sister (bless her heart) borders on histrionic, the family I’m marrying into has its own set of problems (which I now inherit), that my dog is dead (long live the Wizard!), my grandparents don’t even know who I am anymore, and I spend most of my free time attempting to learn about home repair so I can avoid paying some high school drop out more money per hour than I make with an MBA?

No.  I shouldn’t.  I am fucking thankful.

Why?

We’re born, we live a little while, we die.

Time and chance happens to them all.

We, my friends, are the winners (believe it or not).  The loser are all dead.  Be thankful.