What's the Matter with "Kids These Days?" A Review of the Book by Malcolm Harris (B. 1988)

          “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

                                                                     ---Attributed to Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

          I read a favorable review of Kids These Days, by Malcolm Harris (B. 1988) and thought I’d see what the millennial generation was thinking.

          On the one hand, Mr. Harris is a good writer and the book is mercifully short (228 pages of text). On the other hand, Mr. Harris really likes to complain. If this were the only book that pointed out that millennials are currently on the short end of the stick, the book would be useful. But it’s not the only book. That job has been done better by many authors including Andy Stern in his Raising the Floor, which offered the Universal Basic Income as a way to combat offshoring, automation, and the 1099 economy. Mr. Harris offers little in the way of solutions. After saying, “After all, books like this are supposed to end with a solution, right?” he suggests (halfheartedly) buying with a social conscience, voting, giving to causes you believe in, protesting, and “put it down,” which appears to be an argument that none of the above will work.

          It seems many book reviewers are willing to give Mr. Harris his millennial gold stars simply for showing up and mentioning “solutions.”

          I’ll be the first to admit millennials have challenges. But they are not alone. If Mr. Harris enters the labor market, he will no doubt in just a couple of decades find out what it’s like to be a fifty-something cast out into a labor market rife with age discrimination.

          Mr. Harris makes some allegations that are difficult to believe. Amazon.com shows different prices to different customers, for example. He also repeats the old saw (made popular by Dorcas Hardy in her 1991 book Social Insecurity) that people who collect Social Security will get more out of the system than they paid in. (This in spite of the fact that millions who die before they collect their first check will get nothing from the system.) News flash for Mr. Harris: I will get more out of my IRA than I paid in. That’s how retirement savings programs are supposed to work. Additionally, Mr. Harris says (on page 108), “The average dual-earner couple will pay over a million dollars in taxes into a system that half of Millennials (sic) think will leave them high and dry.”

          First, in order to pay over a million dollars into the system, the dual-earner couple would have to be pulling in almost $376,000 a year over a 40-year working life (and that includes the Medicare tax). And that would only be possible if all $376,000 per year were subject to Social Security taxes. The current maximum earnings taxed per worker for Social Security is $127,200 (for 2017). It would not be possible to pay a million dollars into Social Security. One wonders where Mr. Harris’ editor was when this statement needed factchecking. And keep in mind Mr. Harris is evidently assuming $376,000 per couple will be a typical income after spending much of the book arguing that millennials will have difficulty surviving the new economy.

         

          After wasting a couple of days I’ll never get back reading this book I wondered who Malcom Harris (B. 1988) is. The book offers little other than to say he is a communist and an editor at The New Inquiry who has written for the New Republic, Bookforum, the Village Voice, and the New York Times Magazine.

          It turns out there’s more to Mr. Harris than he lets on in this book. He had a privileged upbringing. He took part in the Occupy movement in 2011 and wound up in some legal trouble over that, which may be why he’s dismissive of “protest,” one of his suggestions. You can look this stuff as well as I can.

          Mr. Harris appears to be more a Maynard G. Krebs-style communist than a serious social activist.

          All in all, Mr. Harris’ book brings to mind Gertrude Stein’s description of the Oakland of her day: There’s no “there” there.

           

© 2018 Larry Roth

Shithole Countries Then and Now

          "Why do we want all these people from 'shithole countries' coming here?"

                                                                            Donald Trump, January 12, 2018

          My great-great grandfather came from a shithole country.

          It was the 1840s. There was a famine. At least one million people died in that famine. He and about 1.5 million other Irish men, women, and children did what they felt they had to do to survive. They came to America. They weren’t welcome. They encountered signs telling them “Irish and dogs not welcome here.” He eventually settled in Chicago, fought for the Union in the Civil War, married and had children, some of whom settled in Missouri’s Lead Belt—probably taking jobs there as miners.

          When our president made the statement about shithole countries I was reading Linda Gordon’s The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition, and I was amazed at how President Trump’s sentiments echoed those of Klan members in the 1920s.

          The 1920s have always intrigued me. I majored in history and did several papers on the social, cultural, and economic issues people faced during that decade. I must confess my previous understanding of the Ku Klux Klan of that era was off according to Ms. Gordon.

          I always thought Klan members were probably rural know-nothings. That would make me wrong. It seems many were urban (including a large membership in New York City and on Long Island). The 1920s Klan had most of its members in the Midwest and west, and this was before much of the Great Migration of African Americans from the south to the urban centers of the North had taken place, so in the areas where the Klan had most of its members, there weren’t enough blacks to be perceived as a threat, so the 1920s Klan focused more on immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. In the west the focus was also on people of Mexican and Asian heritage. It was kind of an anti-(fill-in-the-blank) organization.

          The Klan, in other words, was flexible. In some areas, for example, German Jews were OK, but the Jews coming from shithole countries in Eastern Europe and Russia were beyond the Pale (pun intended). In other areas, some Catholics were acceptable and even joined the Klan. In the South, of course, blacks were the primary focus of Klan activity.

          Immigrants from shithole countries—especially Catholic and Orthodox shithole countries (Italy, Greece, and the like) were Klan targets.

          Dealing with Klan targets was also flexible. In some communities economic boycotts were successful; in other communities, homes and businesses were burned. In extreme cases targets were killed.

          In some areas, the Klan served as a moral police force—outing and shaming those who committed sexual offenses (sleeping around, having affairs with others’ spouses, etc.) or drank alcohol, which had been outlawed by Prohibition.

          The Klan’s reasons for targeting immigrants sounds like they were snatched out of today’s conservative political talking points: crime, stealing jobs from “true” Americans, etc., which were probably as dubious then as now.

          Another of the many things I didn’t know about the Klan is it was a financial pyramid scheme. There was a great deal of emphasis on recruiting members at least in part because dues were subject to commissions on the way to the national organization. In addition to dues, members were required to buy their uniforms, which were quite pricy. Somehow all these expenses made reminded me of Amway.

          The Klan became a powerful political force. Many state and local offices (especially in Oregon and Indiana) were close to 100% Klan members. The Klan even influenced the nomination of the 1924 Democratic presidential candidate. The Klan also became a powerful social and economic force. In many communities businesspeople almost had to join in order to stay in business. Once they joined, they got a sign to put in their windows advertising that they were “one of us.”

          In 1924 congressmen who were Klan members were instrumental in passing immigration “reform.” Immigration quotas were assigned based on the ethnic makeup of the country at that time. Seventy percent of immigrants could come from the UK, Germany, and the shithole country my great-great grandfather came from, Ireland. Jews from eastern Europe and Russia were radically restricted, and Chinese, Japanese, and South Asians were excluded. These quotas stayed in effect until 1965.

          The Klan may well have remained a force to be reckoned with had it not been a pyramid scheme. People on the lower end of the pyramid got fed up with the financial arrangements. Since there was an awful lot of money involved, there was also a lot of embezzlement. But the straw that broke the camel’s back turned out to involve one of the most powerful members of the Klan, Indiana Grand Dragon David Stephenson. Stephenson was known to be a sexual predator whose powerful position always kept him from being prosecuted, but he went too far. He kidnapped, raped, and injured his secretary who, believing herself “ruined,” committed suicide. Stephenson was convicted of murder. The 1920s were a decade of sensationalist newspaper reporting. The publicity decimated membership and dues.

          President Trump’s outburst and this book caused me to do some thinking about immigration. We’re a nation of immigrants. If we go back far enough into history, we are all immigrants. Even Native Americans came here from somewhere else—most likely Asia.

          Most of our ancestors came here because things were so bad where they were living they were willing to take a chance on a new country. I’d think few people who were happy and prospering where they were would leave. So, in some respects, all our ancestors came from shithole countries or at least shithole situations. They left their shithole countries in search of a better life, and they didn’t go back.

I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve been able to see much of the world. What I’ve seen has been interesting, but never tempting. I’m glad my ancestors left their shithole countries, how about you?

I’m not going to pretend that I have any answers on immigration, but I will say it’s not, as some people would like to say, as simple as “illegal is illegal.”

If things were that simple, we’d all be in jail for speeding.

Just as I was about to post this, I came across a CNN article that emphasizes how we—including some modern-day immigration hawks—are all descendants of people who came here from shithole countries.

Here’s the link:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/us/immigration-resistance-genealogy-jennifer-mendelsohn-trnd/index.html

© 2018 Larry Roth

America: Who Stole the Dream?

          We’ve had miserable weather the past few weeks. I’m not going to complain because I knew what Kansas City weather was like when I moved back here from California way back when. Since it was icy and cold I took the opportunity to go through the books I’d picked up at estate sales last year and decide which ones I really will read and which ones would go to Half Price Books. That’s how I came to read America: Who Stole the Dream, by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele.

          These guys must feel like modern-day Cassandras. The book was published in 1996 (during the Clinton years), and it could be read as a list of reasons people got fed up enough to elect Donald Trump twenty years later.

          It’s all there and more. America separating into the have-mores and the have-lesses, companies sending jobs abroad with the government’s blessing and in some cases assistance (again, this was during the Clinton Administration), massive abuses of the H-1B visa program (we’ll talk more about that later), lobbying abuses, the “retraining” scam (the main beneficiaries of these programs, it turns out, are the contractors, schools, and people employed to administer the programs, which offer little benefit to those being retrained for jobs that aren’t there), etc.

          I found the discussion of the H-1B visa abuses particularly interesting. Messrs. Bartlett and Steele give some rather egregious examples from 1996 including Hillary Clinton’s hairstylist getting one for a stylist (for $5.25 an hour), Pat Buchanan’s sister got one to hire an au par for $13.54 per hour, Richard Nixon’s former attorney was granted one to hire a housekeeper, and the list goes on. In each of these cases the visa was granted because there supposedly were no American workers qualified to do the jobs. No Americans qualified to style hair? To babysit? To clean house?

          Recently, more than twenty years later, H-1B visas have come under more scrutiny. In February of last year the New York Times reported on H-1B visas’ being used to cut labor costs in the tech industry. One example given was the University of California, San Francisco importing foreign nationals and paying them $65,000 a year to do the jobs of people who, after training their replacements, would lose their jobs, which had paid $130,000. Obviously, the argument that there were no Americans qualified to do these jobs falls apart upon examination.

          Who can blame people for being upset? Electing Donald Trump may seem like a drastic measure, but you can see that people who feel like they’re being shafted might be willing to do something drastic when the status quo seems lined up against them and unwilling to change. After all, isn’t that how the American Revolution started? There’s a precedent.

          When I read books about what’s wrong with the system I always want to hear the authors’ solutions. Unfortunately, this is where the book fails. It suggests steps the government can take. After 200 pages of documenting how government, as Ronald Reagan used to say, is the problem, the authors seem to believe the government will have a “road to Damascus” experience.

          I’d suggest we not rely on a suddenly benevolent government and start taking our fates into our own hands.

          In 2005 I wrote Political Frugality to provide a roadmap for an economic approach to protesting marriage inequality. We’ve won that one. Let’s use those same tactics to protest economic inequality.

           

© 2018 Larry Roth

Fifty-Five, Unemployed, and Faking Normal, a review

          I mentioned Fifty-Five, Unemployed, and Faking Normal in a post in February titled “The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost.” Here’s the link:

 https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2939412508503235475#editor/target=post;postID=4928010732861946006;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=13;src=postname

I hadn’t read the book, which I saw featured a couple of times on the PBS NewsHour. Sawbuck, one of my favorite readers, who had just gone through a period of prolonged unemployment that required him to move to another state to accept a lower-paying job and cost him his relationship, wrote me that the book was excellent and I really should read it. It finally became available through the library’s interlibrary loan program. Sawbuck is right.

          The book, by Elizabeth White, was independently published last year. I would like to have known more about Ms. White’s story, but even without that background, she has written a helpful book, and we know that as far as faking normal, she’s been there.

          Ms. White points out that today’s 55-year-olds who are in financial trouble are in the perfect storm of age discrimination, pay that has not kept up with inflation, the elimination of defined-benefit pensions, and a 401(k) defined-contribution retirement system that most employees don’t understand and that come with high fees that will reduce or eliminate much of the earnings that one would expect from constant investing.

On a personal note, Dan converted his 401(k) to an IRA when he lost his job (at age 56) last year. It is doing better than it ever did at his employer, Three Initial Company (TIC). Under a normal administration, we could expect, perhaps, some examination of 401(k) abuses. Perhaps we’ll see what happens when we have a normal administration again.

          Ms. White recommends forming Resilience Circles with a few friends who are in the same situation. The circles can meet in person or online. Each person must be honest, and put aside faking it at least during the meetings.

          In addition to Resilience Circles, Ms. White lists more than 100 online resources that may help with everything from food assistance to saving your home from foreclosure or you from eviction. I had no idea there was so much help available. It certainly doesn’t get advertised much.

          Ms. White explores ways to turn what you have into income—maybe renting a bedroom if you can. She discusses tiny houses and cohousing. Kansas City has put together a tiny housing community for homeless veterans. I’m curious to see how that works out. As for cohousing, my limited explorations into that option led me to, gosh, how to put this, yuppie nutjobs who were far more interested in style over substance, and, I suspect they would have been very much into power once the project was completed. For more than the cost of a freestanding home, they were proposing individual units and a central kitchen where everyone would share meals. Maybe I’m odd (OK, I’ll admit I’m odd), but I have times when I need to be alone and not share meals with anyone. It could be dangerous to their health. And the group was anti-car, so parking was inconvenient, which would make aging in place a challenge.

          And Ms. White has attitude advice. Probably the most helpful is, when you get offered something that’s a lot lower on the totem pole (or pay scale) than you’re used to, “Get off your throne!”

          As I mentioned earlier, the book was independently published, which means it’s a challenge to get libraries to order it in spite of its being mentioned on PBS and other media. (The copy I read came from a Jefferson City library.) As I write this, Amazon.com has it for $13.24 plus shipping. The ISBN is 9781530055852

          If you have someone on your shopping list this season who may fall into the fifty-five, unemployed, and faking it category, this would make an excellent gift. I have someone in that category, and this is what they’re getting for Christmas.

© 2017 Larry Roth

I'm a Sucker for Self-Help Books!

                I picked up Neil Pasricha’s The Happiness Equation at the library because a book I thought I had on hold wasn’t there after all. Mr. Pasricha has nine basic suggestions for happiness, of which I’d agree with maybe eight. The one I’d take issue with is: Never retire. I was heavily influenced by Paul Terhorst’s Cashing in on the American Dream, Joe Dominguez’ and Vicki Robin’s Your Money or Your Life, and the 1938 film version of Philip Barry’s Holiday. I first retired in my mid-forties because I had a disagreement with my employer, Company L, over work-life balance. I thought there should be one.

                Mr. Pasricha presents many reasons for not retiring including structure and having a social network. I love being able to determine my own structure, and I wonder if Mr. Pasricha, who is Canadian, has set foot in corporate America recently. (He did say he’d visited Wal-Mart’s headquarters and was quite taken with the friendliness of the people he met there; perhaps the friendliness was real and perhaps not—sometimes these things can be faked, especially for a visitor.) With few exceptions—very few—I would not want the backstabbing brownnosers I worked with at Company L in my life, let alone in my social network.

                In Mr. Pasricha’s favor, his last suggestion is not to follow suggestions. And that’s a good suggestion.

                I found Cheryl Richardson’s Take Time for Your Life at an estate sale. I almost didn’t buy the book because the cover features a woman who appears to be having an orgasm, but having had my own experiences with publishers slapping inappropriate covers on a book (The Simple Life, a book primarily about frugality, which I edited, featured… a blade of grass), I took a closer look, and I’m glad I plunked down my 50¢ for this book. Ms. Richardson presents a seven-step program to help take control of our lives. I was most taken by her criteria for her clients’ choosing a job, which include:

                Work must never cause them to compromise their integrity

                The required hours must allow them to have a life outside work

                Their contribution must be acknowledged and appreciated

                Their work must be challenging and fulfilling

                They must have an opportunity to use their best talents and gifts fully

                They must be able to provide their input for important decisions

                They must be paid fairly for the work they perform.

                I guess if I could find a job that would do all these things (especially the last one), I might be willing to follow Mr. Pasricha’s advice and never retire. Perhaps there are unicorns out there after all.

                The final book, Real Cause, Real Cure, by Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, and Bill Gottlieb, CHC is another estate sale find I almost didn’t buy. I mean buying health books at an estate sale? These people died, after all. What good did the book do its previous owner? Anyway, I plunked down a whole dollar for this one and was pleasantly surprised. The authors give nine “real causes” of health problems. The chapter on prescription medications is worth the price I paid for the book. If the authors are right, many patients being treated for Alzheimer’s are suffering only from being overmedicated. The “real cures” part of the book deals with specific conditions.

                I definitely recommend this book. Most books I buy find their way to Half Price Books; this one’s staying on my bookshelf.

© 2017 Larry Roth

Minimalism: As Black Friday Approaches Here's a Book for the Season, Some Shopping Advice and an Actual Gift Suggestion

            Earlier this year I reviewed some books on frugality, most of which would fall into the “Oh, poor me, I overspent and I’m now paying for it boo hoo hoo” category. This is not one of those books.

            In my last post I mentioned Kanopy, a streaming service offered free from the library. The first thing I watched after signing up for Kanopy was Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, which led me to check out the Minimalist’s book, Everything That Remains, from the library. (The book is available in the Johnson County libraries; the Kansas City library did not have it.)

            The authors, Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus, grew up in southwestern Ohio. Milburn’s mother left his abusive father who died when Milburn was young. His mother was an alcoholic who was eventually able to get sober. (What is it about that part of Ohio that makes people want to self-medicate?) Milburn got a good job right out of high school and was on the fast track complete with all the toys he thought he was supposed to want when his mother died and his wife left him—both in the same month.

            While he was sorting out his mother’s belongings, which he described as three apartments stuffed into one, he became overwhelmed. His mother retired to Florida but had never gotten rid of her winter clothes. He seesawed between taking her stuff back with him to Ohio or renting a storage unit in Florida. He finally realized he would never need his mother’s belongings, so he donated them. This started him on a journey to minimalism. He eliminated 80% of his stuff, gave up TV, the internet, his cell phone, and finally even his goals. He decided to go back to having internet and a phone, but by giving them up, he realized life would be possible without them. He recommended to his employer that he be laid off and eventually he was. Nicodemus, who worked at the same company was also eventually laid off, though not at his request.

            The minimalists contacted other like-minded people, formed a publishing company (Asymetrical, currently located in Montana) and started putting out books. They are having fun.

            They did a book tour that started small and ended up successful beyond their dreams. So many people showed up to hear them in Toronto they thought they were competing with another act. They wound up having to do more presentations to accommodate everyone. It seems there is a lot of interest in having less stuff and more life. As one of the people who attended their lecture in Toronto said, she was living the life she was supposed to want, but it wasn’t her life; she was living someone else’s dream.

            On a personal note, when I left my job with Company L in 1995, my parents were flabbergasted. Their reaction was basically how could I give up everything they ever wanted. My problem was what they wanted was not what I wanted.

            On yet another personal note, my mother died in 2003; my sister has just this fall let go of our mother’s clothes.

            There is an awful lot to think about in this book, including the astute observation that hoarding and organizing are pretty much the same thing. Hoarding is out in the open, but organizing is essentially well-planned hoarding. I’d add that “organizing” in today’s language usually implies buying containers and other items to contain our excess, so it may well be more expensive than hoarding plus we wind up with all the stuff we bought to hold our stuff.

            The book is independently published (the ISBN is 9781938793189), and it could use some editing, but since I’ve been there, done that, and had my own share of screwups, I’m in no position to criticize. Just read the book and appreciate its message.

            As we’re entering the Season this year, perhaps we could pause our spending for a few minutes and think about the things we buy both for ourselves and as gifts for others. If it’s something useful or needed, great. If it’s neither, well, isn’t it a waste of time, money, and the space it will occupy?

            And on one more personal note, don’t buy something simply because it’s on sale. I’m considering buying an Instant Pot. Walmart has a “Door Buster” ad with a 5-quart Instant Pot for $49. I’m looking for the 8-quart model. I almost fell into the trap of “$49 is a good deal; maybe I can live with the 5-quart model.” But I realized (in time) something you don’t want on sale is not a good deal. I know I’d wind up buying the 8-quart model eventually, so I might as well save the $49 (plus tax) I’d spend on this model and get what I want the first time. 

            One thing you might consider giving, if you still have anyone on your list who has a landline, is MagicJack, which I reviewed in my second post way back in December of last year. (Here’s the link: http://www.larryrothsblog.com/2016/12/magic-jack-and-smart-tv.html.) They’re having a sale. For $29.99 plus tax, you get the MagicJack and a year’s phone service. Please read my review because MagicJack does have some limitations. The link to the special is:

https://my.magicjack.com/process/CART/form/CARTLOGIN?language=

© 2017 Larry Roth

Kanopy: Cord Cutting with Help from the Library

                Kanopy is a streaming video service many libraries, including the Kansas City Public Library, have begun offering to their patrons. Some libraries offer other streaming services, so if your library doesn’t offer Kanopy, you might check with them to see what they have available.

                Kanopy offers more than 30,000 titles, and it’s free. To get Kanopy, go to Kanopy.com, hit “Watch Now,” and follow the instructions. You’ll need a library account.

                Kanopy’s offerings include documentaries, indie films, foreign titles, and classic and contemporary films. You can watch twelve selections per month, and you have three days to watch each one, which comes in handy at times, since Kanopy offers several of the Great Courses, most of which have twenty-four thirty-minute lessons.

                The first thing I watched on Kanopy was Minimalism, a documentary by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. That led me to check out their book, Everything That Remains, which is so good I’m going to review it in my next post. I also watched Beyond Food, another documentary that led to my reading Abel James’ The Wild Diet and Dave Asprey’s The Bulletproof Diet. Both books were interesting, but both authors have done very well financially and base their diet on food that is organic, grass fed, free-range, and every other euphemism out there for expensive, which puts strict adherence to their diets out of reach for most of us commoners—especially those with large families and small incomes. I did find Kerrygold Grass Fed Butter at Aldi, but it’s about four times as expensive as Countryside Creamery, Aldi’s brand.

                As I said, both books were interesting, and my take on them is we commoners can probably get some good out of the books if we do the best we can with what’s affordable.  

                In the meantime, those inclined to cut the cord can possibly save some money by eliminating cable and adding Kanopy to their streaming device. A word of caution, though: Dan and I subscribe to Acorn and Netflix, both of which offer an awful lot of good TV. There is a danger to having so much available, and that danger is we’ll wind up living vicarious lives, so I’d advise that you limit your viewing (my limit is 90 minutes a day plus the news) in order to give yourself time to have a real life.

© 2017 Larry Roth