One of the hallmarks of a successful society is the widespread belief that education is a key to success. For that to be true there have to be 1) enough jobs farther up the food chain to make four more years of studying worthwhile, and 2) schools that are good and cheap enough to make […]
Welcome To The Third World, Part 24: Illinois About To Default?
The train wreck that is the state of Illinois has generated a lot of questions lately, including “Will its government ever pass a budget?”, “Will it ever pay its overdue bills?”, and “Is it possible for a state to go bankrupt?” Looks like we’re about to get some answers to these questions, along with one […]
Welcome To The Third World, Part 22: Whites Are Dying “Deaths Of Despair”
“White privilege” is such a commonly accepted pillar of American society that it’s become material for comics. As Chris Rock tells his audience in the following clip, “There ain’t a white man in this room who would change places with me. And I’m rich!”
Welcome to the Third World, Part 21: State Schools Scale Waaayyy Back
Readers of a certain age will remember when state universities were a bit spartan but extremely cheap. Middle class families could send their kids to Ohio State or UCLA without taking out a second mortgage, and the kids could focus on classes and fun instead of juggling multiple part-time jobs to cover room and board. […]
Welcome To The Third World, Part 20: Poor Kids Become Prostitutes To Buy Food
One of the jarring things about visiting less-well-off countries is the seemingly inexhaustible supply of girls and boys available for anyone with hard currency. These are someone’s kids. But apparently there’s not enough food in the rural village or urban slum to sustain them, so they end up living lives that are absolutely inconceivable for […]
Welcome To The Third World, Part 19: Health Care Systems Break Down
The most obvious difference between “rich” and “poor” countries is that the former provide health care for most or all of their lucky citizens. At least they used to: Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery in ‘most severe ever’ rationing in the UK (Telegraph) – Obese people will be routinely refused operations across […]
Welcome To The Third World, Part 18: Pensions Overwhelm Public Services
Citizens of the developed world are watching Venezuela’s descent into financial and political chaos mostly, it seems, with amused detachment, safe in the assumption that we’ll never end up hunting our cats and dogs for food. But – since Europe, Japan and the US are making essentially the same mistakes as Venezuela’s past and present […]
Welcome To The Third World, Part 17: Was Middle-Class Retirement Just A Credit Bubble Fantasy?
One of the jarring — and until recently underreported — aspects of those seemingly-positive recent US jobs reports is the increasing skew towards older workers. Most new jobs have gone to people who in better times would be leaving to live off their savings. Now they’re coming back, frequently taking jobs they wouldn’t consider if […]
Welcome To The Third World, Part 16: The Best Jobs Are Now In Government
Years (actually decades) ago I lived in a New York University grad student dorm that housed mostly elite kids from other countries. Sons of African finance ministers, daughters of European bankers, that kind of thing. And the developing-world students all told the same story: Back home, people who wanted to get rich went into government […]
Welcome to the Third World, Part 15: Insurance Agents Lose Their Health Coverage
One would think that great health coverage would be a basic perk of working for an insurance company, but those days are apparently over. Investment News reports that John Hancock has not only eliminated health insurance for its agents, it has converted those agents from employees to commission-based independent contractors. John Hancock B-D to terminate […]
Welcome to the Third World, Part 14: Homeowners Become Renters
This morning’s housing report was huge. As one representative headline put it: “Housing starts up sharply; permits highest since 2008”. Dig just a little deeper and it’s still huge, though in a different way. Turns out that all the increase was in apartment building, while single family homes — the linchpin of what used to […]
Welcome to the Third World, Part 13: Suburbs Become Ghettos
Not so long ago, a reasonably-presentable American could live an hour outside of a city and commute in for a government or banking job, thus getting the best of both worlds: city-level wages and a 3,000 square foot house with a big yard for the kids. But then municipal governments ran out of money and […]
Welcome to the Third World, Part 12: Your Pension is an “Unsecured Obligation”
The main difference between well-run and badly-run countries is certainty. In well-run countries, money is worth pretty much the same from one year to the next, the police come when called and protect rather than prey on the caller, and contracts, including pensions and other retirement plans, behave as advertised. In badly-run countries, not so […]
Welcome to the Third World, Part 11: Suddenly, Being a Politician is Hard
“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways, gradually and then suddenly” – Ernest Hemingway, The Sun also Rises Senate majority leader Harry Reid is on C-SPAN this morning lamenting the republicans’ unwillingness to negotiate even after Reid and his party agreed to what they consider to be painful cuts. “[Speaker of the House] John Boehner […]
Welcome to the Third World, Part 10: Students Become Strippers
Poverty – or its prospect – sometimes leads one to make surprising choices. Here’s a truly disturbing example, from London’s Independent: Students and the sex industry: Empowering or the last resort of the debt-ridden? With unemployment levels soaring across Britain, job prospects for graduates have never looked so bleak. But one sector proving resilient, and […]