“American meritocracy has been a sham for a long time” - Julius Krein
If you’re short on time, I would much rather you take the 15-20 minutes to read this November 2019 post by Julius Krein, The Real Class War, than my rant below. But if you have the time to do both…
As you read this, maybe you’re a 65-year old self-proclaimed progressive lawyer living in Westchester. You’ve been grinding it out for the last 40 years to accumulate what by most standards is a small fortune - $5-10 million in savings and investments (with a large portion of the value sitting in your home). To get there, you’ve paid +50% of your collected worth over the years in real estate taxes (to ensure solid public school for your kids), NY state income taxes, and US federal taxes. In spite of this economic contribution, you’re still demonized by your party of choice, the Democrats as the “new American aristocracy” aka the top 9.9%.
But the truth is that you have a lot more in common with the “blue collar” “working class” on the Right whom you’ve been programmed to deride as unintelligent “deplorables” by your favorite pundit on NBC.
You might have lost a few friends since 2016 - like Harry, the insurance salesman, because he voted for Trump and plans to run that back in November - he may even be so brazen as to wear a MAGA hat. I hate to break it to you, but this man is still your friend, and he may not be as “stupid” as you think. He just experiences the same problem differently than you do, but believe me, you’re in the same boat, drawn towards the rocks by the Sirens song of wealth & status, while the waves of political upheaval crash on your mast.
The only difference between you is that when he joined Facebook 8 years ago to stay in closer contact with his kids who moved to Los Angeles (for the weather), he accidentally tripped and fell into a political rabbit hole with some old college buddies. Together they reshare highly politicized chain posts originated by some Russian troll in the dark corners of the web and have created a lovely echo chamber of hatred.
OR maybe your this lawyer’s wonderful son - a brilliant rising star in high school, you went to Wharton undergraduate so that you could one-up your father (even though you always had everything you ever needed financially and never knew what it was like to really struggle). Your goal was to rise to the elite status that you knew to be your birthright.
You left the ‘burbs” for the city and though you now work 180 hours per week plugging BS into those discounted cash flow models that you copy/pasted from Wall Street Prep. You report to a number of middle management hacks who still can’t afford houses in Bridge Hampton or to send their kids to Horace Mann. You make $180k per year at 23, but you’re barely scraping by net of expenses. You know that you’re only one health emergency away from calling on mommy and daddy to bail you out. But fuck it, market buy that Grey Goose bottle this Friday at Up & Down - remember, the best real estate is by the dance floor.
Hate to say it, but neither of you is part of the elite and you both know it deep down. The elite left you behind decades ago and you won’t be able to catch up. Returns to labor (including professional “elite” labor) have lagged far behind returns to capital, and much more closely reflect the wage increases of those “deplorables.” Those same “working class” citizens who have been trained to despise you and your Progressive Ideology from their masters at FOX.
All of this is just a circus, a distraction, to the draw you away from the truth - the American middle class IS OVER. Never before have the costs for critical items like education, healthcare, a home been higher. You, Mr. Lawyer, will likely be OK as your pension will stay propped up by Jay Powell. But your son on the other hand, will be left holding the bag.
The real elite crowded him out of their prestigious hideaways by bidding up their second and third investment homes - and he’s not gonna make it. It’s a farce, an illusion.
And you know what else? He’ll continue to receive the burden of higher taxes, though he won’t benefit from any of the social services offered. Well, maybe he will as the definition of “low income” creeps ever higher. With sub $10 million net worth, you can’t afford the expensive estate planners to help pass your hard-won earnings onto him and his sisters. While anyone with $100M or more can hide it in offshore accounts and tax-deductible investments to ensure that they don’t pay their fair share.
So here we are - the once-grand American middle - squeezed between a rock and hard place. The Progressives on the Left are not really your friends, you’re their scapegoat, but they know they have you cucked because the other side doesn’t even virtue signal about social issues like you do.
On the other hand, the Republicans aren’t your friends either. They’ve ripped away your social support while having you pay for everyone else’s. They make it easier for their billionaire donors and throw you to those underclass wolves as the “intellectuals bourgeois.” For them, you are the enemy of all “hard-working,” gun-toting, mask-shirking, (and yes white) Americans. You’ll be the first that these armed militias come for while the real oligarchs hide behind their private guards or flee to their floating forts in New Zealand.
Anyways, that was a fun rant.
All this is to say, that life is still really good; happiness can be found anywhere; and the truth is that we are all brothers and sisters.
Even if we are manipulated and ripped apart so as that we miss the forest through the trees.
Peace
This Week’s Podcast:
The Future of Work & Employee Wellbeing with Jonathan Shooshani, Founder of JOON
“The simple things are the BIG things”
I sat down with my JOON (you’ll get it when you listen to the episode), Jon Shooshani to talk about the future of work, wellness, and corporate employee responsibility in a post-COVID world. It was a great conversation and I learned a lot more about his family’s experience immigrating to the US from Iran during the Iranian revolution.
We also discussed our experiences with yoga and asked why many yoga teacher trainings have a cult-like feel. We closed on our shared love for nature and how nature in itself is a form of wellness.
What I’m Reading
US Election
America has Robbed Young People of Their Future. Can They Take it Back?. Umair Haque
Election Models are Too Confident & Too Volatile, David Salazar
Ideas
Beware of Vegetarian Sharks by Richard Greeman
This Week in Machine Learning Podcast with Michael I. Jordan
The Real Class War - American Affairs Journal
Startups
I’m Launching a New Fund by Anthony Pompliano
Markets
The Case for Deeply Negative Interest Rates, Kenneth Rogoff
Crypto
Yearn Finance - Introducing Stable Credit
The Case for Collaboration: Why the US Gov & Crypto Ecosystem Must Work Together by Electric Capital
Deconstructing $Based Rebases by Vegananda
All Digital Content is Going On-Chain by Jake Brukhman
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