I'm Awfully Tired of Raking Up Your Underwear

Why is it we inherently feel more informed, more rounded and better contextualized than our parents and grandparents regarding world views? This generationalcentrism, while condescending, may seem valid considering the social and political issues that plagued the first half of the 20th century. I, like most of you have a great deal of respect for the trials and tribulations our elders endured. World War I, the great depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, the absence of Play Station 3...etc. You get the point.

Attempts to romanticize history conjures up images of black and white parties in a much more formal and civil time. How many times have you heard "They don't make them like they used to." "They don't write (fill in the blank - books, movies, plays) like they did in my day." "Kids today and their music!" "We didn't act like that when we were young." All these comments are forms of generationalcentrism. It doesn't just come from GenY or GenX. Each generation believes their generation was the gold standard. My question is, do things really change that much from generation to generation?

Certainly, as a society we've made tremendous strides in specific areas such as civil rights. However, there are a number of divisive issues in which we tout great change, but have yet to see any meaningful movement. There are two key issues here, the first is why do we feel this social change if there is very little and secondly are you really that much more enlightened than the generations that preceded you if little change is seen? In other words your generationalcentrism is built on a foundation as faulty as the San Adreas.

Let's start with Americans views on drinking alcohol. According to Gallup, 67% of Americans today consume alcohol and 33% abstain completely. What is your best guess as to how these numbers would come out in 1945? Interestingly enough, while Truman dropped successive bombs on Japan in 1945, 67% of Americans drank while 37% abstained. Ok you say, one coincidence is an anomaly, maybe two is a trend - show me more.

Views of capital punishment must have changed since our war-tested grandparents day, right? In 1937, 59% of Americans favored capital punishment. Surely less Americans favor the brutality of the death penalty today, right? In 2010 65% of Americans are in favor of capital punishment, slightly more than the two generations before us.

Let's get a little more controversial. The feminist movement has seemingly taken hold over the past 4 decades giving women more choice and equality. Or has it? The percentage of Americans who believe abortion should be illegal under any circumstance in 1978 was 19%. These views had to of changed in the past 30 years. Even some right wing pundits favor giving women the choice. In 2010, 19% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances - the exact same number. Moreover, 55% favored abortion under certain circumstances in 1978. Today, 54% favor abortion under certain circumstances. The trend should be as obvious as Joaquin Phoenix's probability of a hip hop career (could Letterman have handled that interview any better? hilarious).

In 1966, 66% of American's didn't feel safe walking at night within one mile of their home. In 2010, exactly 66% of American's didn't feel safe walking within one mile of their home at night. In 1982, 44% of Americans believed God created humans in their present form. In 2010, 44% believe God created humans in their present form. 58% of Americans said religion is important in my day to day life in 1992. In 2010, 56% of Americans say religion is important in day to day life.

Here is another controversial issue in which we perceive and celebrate great strides; gay marriage. In 1978, 43% of Americans said gay couples should not be able to wed legally. Again, guess what this number looks like today? In 2010, 36% believe gay marriage should be illegal which is a relatively small change considering the enormous gay pride movement that has taken place.

Some of the social issues that have changed are counterintuitive to what I would have guessed. For example, in 1985, 28% of Americans gave priority to economic growth over the environment while 61% gave the environment priority over economic growth. Ok, that sounds about right, but which way would you expect this to go in the more enlightened, more "green" 21st century? Today a whopping 50% of Americans give priority to economic growth over the environment while only 48% give the environment priority over the economy.

You think you're more enlightened than your grandparents, you're not. You think you're more progressive than your parents, you aren't. Fact is, we've seen very little change in most of these social issues. Why are our perceptions so far from reality?

In my opinion it has something to do with what Malcomb Gladwell calls "the law of the few." In today's society, we have a small group of influencers. This group, whom I consider to be the mass media and Hollywood, promote their ideas which are not congruent with the general public. The ideas are subsequently publicized by these powerful groups which causes the perceptions to begin to feel like realities when in actuality they are far from it.

So does this have an effect on public policy? You bet it does. For the first time in history, more Americans believe it is NOT the governments responsibility to provide healthcare (50%) than people who do believe it is the governments responsibility (47%). So why was there such a push for socialized healthcare in 2010? Is it possible the "influencers" were able to supplant a false reality in our subconscious? There is another leading theory called "the loudest voice syndrome." It works on both sides of the political isle (see Townhouse meetings). If you were to sit down for an interview and were given a viewpoint to which you disagreed, you'd tell the interviewer "I disagree." However, if you were in a 10 person focus group with a loud, intimidating and persuasive individual who agreed, you likely wouldn't share your opinion or at least your honest opinion. Do the influencers have the loudest voice over the public in shaping our policies? What happened to "a government by the people, for the people?"

I stumbled across the comic (above) as my lovely wife asked if I could start hanging my dress pants and dress shirts from work on a more consistent basis. She may have just as well said "I'm getting awfully tired of raking up your underwear," because apparently, things just don't change that much.

Parables From Ricky Bobby

The weather was unseasonably cool for the Labor Day weekend in Okoboji, Iowa. This of course was of no concern to me and my family as we enjoyed a lazy weekend at the lake. Saturday morning we laid around like Macaulay Culkin waiting for a casting call. Food lined the kitchen counter as we over indulged in coffee, orange juice, banana bread, egg dish and even some dessert from the night before. This is how Labor Day should be.

Before the food coma completely set in, "Planet Earth" was put in the DVD player. For those of you who haven't yet seen this series, I highly recommend it. The footage captured is some of the most breathtaking I've seen. Scene after scene, a pattern began to emerge. An animal, down on the food chain would inevitably lose an uphill battle to a larger, stronger and hungrier beast. Salmon were shown trying to swim upstream as bears looking like John Goodman at a Thanksgiving buffet tore into the them. Elk were shown drinking out of a seemingly quite pond when a gator would burst through the serene scene to drag the unsuspecting elk to its watery death.

The animals who were prayed upon were not the only animal out there. In fact they were, without exception, traveling as part of a larger pack. My sister, Melissa astutely made the comment "you don't have to be the fastest, you just can't be the slowest." If you are a Salmon, what good does it do you to be the strongest fish? Or if you are an Elk, does being the fastest give you any sort of advantage? Probably not. Therefore, you just have to be the worst +1 (until that fish gets eaten of course).

To some extent, this exception of mediocrity seems to have pervaded the human race. It would seem we don't have as many people adhering to the Ricky Bobby philosophy "If you're not first, you're last mentality" as maybe we once did. I'm guessing right now you are sitting back, arms crossed like Nancy Pelosi at a Tea Party event saying to yourself "Am I a fish swimming upstream simply not trying to be the slowest of the group?" I'm fairly certain you are not of the Ricky Bobby mentality that if you're not first, you're last. Are the two mutually exclusive?

Below is an example of a normally distributed curve. Imagine the population is graphed on the "Y" axis and performance is graphed on the "X" axis.

Look at the tales marked in white on either end. Can you honestly say you strive to be one of these outliers? Or are you fairly content being part of the 95% majority, swimming upstream with little fear of getting eating by Johnny Goodman? Most of us are.

According to a Gallup poll, 66% of Americans currently believe China has a larger economy than the United States. In reality, China recently passed Japan as the world's second largest economy with a GDP of over 5 trillion. The United States, by contrast has a GDP of just over 14 trillion, nearly tripling the GDP of the much more populous China. The fact that not only do 2/3 of Americans think China is larger than the United States, but they also seem to be apathetic towards that fact is almost as depressing as "The Hills" season finale. Have we as Americans lost our competitive drive?

My inclination is to say no. Sure, China is growing at a much fast pace than the U.S. Who cares, they are essentially in their own version of the industrial revolution. The U.S. has been in this situation before. Gallup's CEO Jim Clifton often tells the story of when he turned on the news 30 years ago and heard the world's leading economists predicting that within 10 years Japan would have the world's largest economy at nearly 5 trillion dollars, followed by Germany at just over 4 trillion and then the United States at just under 4 trillion. They were all wrong. The United States has tripled since that point becoming the world's lone superpower.

Several key factors contributed to this growth. First off is the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. People like Bill Gates not only amassed wealth for himself, but created wealth for hundreds of thousands of people. Microsoft employees, upstream partners, downstream partners, companies who used the product to gain efficiencies etc are all beneficiaries of his masterful creation. One could actually argue that Bill Gates, in stepping down from Microsoft to fully focus on his charity "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation," is actually doing a disservice to humanity. How? Bill is an outlier on the far right hand portion of that curve. Sure, he can give away 20 billion dollars, but does that have the same effect as creating a 60 billion dollar company like Microsoft? You could certainly argue that his entrepreneurship ability is of far greater value to society overall. Just a thought...

The second major reason the U.S. has grown is something called "brain gain." The United States has a good, not great education system. Our students, 50 million strong are up against over 200 million Chinese students. This seems to be an uphill and losing battle, especially when you consider asian cultures spend more time in school than western cultures. They outperform American students in math and science on a consistent basis. Should we be alarmed? I don't think so.

While the gap in math and science must be addressed for America to retain the world's economic national championship, migration will likely keep the U.S. atop the world. The best students from China, India and other eastern countries come to the U.S. to further their higher education, seek employment and amass wealth. We have become and must continue to be a melting pot of cognitive power, propelling our growth and subsequently the world's standard of living onto a level never seen.

So, as a society do we gravitate more toward the Ricky Bobby line of thinking or are we more like the school of fish where only the weakest gets eaten? Maybe neither, maybe both. Either way, we'll finish the race.

Slinkies, Circles and our Promiscuous Economy

Ask any child to draw a picture of your face, what is the first thing they draw (insert smart alec comment here)? Inevitably, the child will draw a circle. As I chomped into my circular orange for breakfast this morning, this shape started my mind down an interesting track, a track that ended up leading me back to where I started, bringing me full circle. Stay with me here.

Circles seem to pop up everywhere in life. The very ground on which you stand is part of a large circular mass known as earth, which spins on it's axis in a circle while revolving around the circular sun as our moon circles around us. Our seasons are cyclical, so is fashion. Our political tendencies are cyclial and so are Lindsey Lohan's stints in rehab. Perhaps the best known entity for being cyclical is our economy. But is it really cyclical? A cirlce is an unending line which ultimately leads you back to your origional point of origion. While our economy fluctuates like Mel Gibson's emotional maturity, we most certainly are not back at square one.


Imagine spreading a slinky out from the base of your staircase to the top stair. Could this be a visual microcosim of the economy? We see a cyclical economy with linear nature over time? If this were the case it would sure put investors nerves at ease.


This type of economy would be ideal. Slow and steady linear growth offering modest returns and security. Most people are under the dilusion that this is how the United States has grown over time. However, the United States story reads slightly different.


Growth, of any kind is event driven. We see this in both a macro and micro sense. The United States, by and large has seen multiple periods of stagnant growth since our inception. We move through time not seeing a great change when BAM - the industrial revolution. Big spike in growth. Following this exponential growth the economy again tapers off like a Chevy Chase movie. BAM - the technological revolution and anther big spike. We expect our economy to look like this:




When in reality it has looked like this:

Look at 1890-1940- very little growth. Then the 70's, again very little growth. What happened in the 40's, in the 80's and in the 90's to cause such huge growth in Gross Domestic Product? Industry, tax cuts, technology. Events happened.

This holds true in a micro sense as well. How much did innovators like Bill Gates and Steve jobs change the economic and cultural dynamic along the west coast in the 70's and 80's? Think of one of your own great successes - can you trace it back to a single event which acted as a catalyst for the success to come? Probably.

So if linear growth is ideal and event driven growth is real what is the life analogy? To me, event driven growth (like our economy) is the perpetual bachelor. He is somewhat unpredictable and has wide swings in emotion. He parties like Charlie Sheen (90's economy) and depresses like BP's PR team (2008 economy). Our bachelor friend met Apple in the 70's and is on top of the world, this could be the one that sets us up for the rest of our lives! No, not interesting enough in the 80's, we break up and hit a lull. Wow, our bachelor friend is dating Enron...shoot that was a messy break up. The constant up and downs are a roller coaster of emotions, but with each failure comes additional knowledge to at least keep us trending up (think of the spread out slinky going up the stairs). Recently our friend called it quits with subprime lending and has been having casual one night stands with Ford. That too will fade.

The ideal economy is more like a marriage. You put in the time up front to fully understand what you are getting into. Your emotions continue to grow steadily over time as your feelings deepen to a level our somewhat promiscuous bachelor friend will never know. Like marriage, a linear growth economy is comfortable, reliable, dependable and rewarding. You can't have both (unless you diversify - and I don't condone the swinging culture).

So, to bring this full circle; are things as cirular or cyclical as they seem? No. If marriage is to the ideal economy what bachelorhood is to the real economy than our finishing point must be far different than our starting point. Makes perfect sense, right?

Foundations for Analogies, Realities and Idealities

The clock read 11:07 p.m. as I sat in my dark home office waiting for creative inspiration to magically begin pouring out of my brain and onto Microsoft Word in a witty, smart and cohesive form of thought. For six weeks now I've been having creative thoughts race through my brain with more frequency than an Obama family vacation. Should I write a book? Of course I should! But just as sure as the sun will rise, and Christian Bale will lose his voice if he continues to play Batman, all my thoughts suddenly evaporated and I was left with a blank page and blinking curser.

Ok, maybe I was a bit ahead of myself with the book idea. What I need is to record my thoughts and inspirations as they come. Thus, the motivation for Analogies, Realities and Idealities.

Lately, I've immersed myself in various kinds of literature ranging from best selling business books to lesser known works of human behavior and psychology. As I broaden my perspective I continue to realize the ever repetitive and cyclical nature of world events. This seems to commonly apply to my particular areas of interest; economics, politics, sports and human behavior.

In any given situation, three things seem to present themselves. First up, Analogies. Any given complex situation or decision will be analogized for a variety of purposes including but not limited to humor, simplification, persuasion or clarification. Let's face it, there are no unique ideas, only new ways to apply existing ideas to reach a new outcome. This is one reason our society continues to experience exponential growth from a technological point of view. With no unique ideas, everything is analogous to something else. Drawing these parallels gives us greater context.

Number two, Realities. I've come to the conclusion that having a realist perspective is an innate talent. God gave you the abilities to sort through all of the noise and clutter to understand the realities of the world. This leads nicely into number three; Idealities. Not to say Idealists and Realists never share the same point of view, but they often fall at opposite ends of the spectrum. Any critical decision has an ideal solution and a real solution. In my view, the two are mutually exclusive 95 times out of 100.

Pull open today's paper (for anyone over 50) or pull up your favorite news website of choice (for anyone young enough to know Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus are one in the same). You'll likely see hundreds of stories that present situations, dilemmas and conflicts all which have analogies, realities and idealities. Consider this blog an attempt to draw parallels in the world around us while offering both a realist perspective with sympathy to the idealist. My intention is to touch on topical current event issues with a comical undertone and thought provoking ideas. I greatly appreciate feedback and comments (as long as they flattering). Seriously though, feel free to share you thoughts and ideas. Enjoy.