Thoughts on Population and work participation rate

Long ago in a University far far away a professor expounded on a fact or theory that countries with declining populations were at risk economically because of the fewer available participants in the work force at the age of majority.

Surprisingly enough, that is probably the only thing I took away from whatever the course was about.  It tied in with the zero population growth movement in the 1980s and early 1990s.  He said France having been a champion of zero population growth for a long time was beginning to realize their mistake when the 18 to 20 year old entering the work force was at an all-time low and the United States was not far behind. 

Seems somewhere in the mid-1990s the zero population movement seems to die out as the baby boomers ended and the millennials took over.  By 2020 the millennials will be 1 in 3 adults in the United States.  That means that the other 2 people will be counted among the aging group and retiring from the work force.  From now to 2060 older Americans will double.

http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/generations-demographic-trends-population-and-workforce

One of the things I've seen during my academia years is that people that study a particular theme, especially those that go on to a doctorate, feel the need to complicate or con-volute a part of their specialty in order to qualify for their PhD.   In some instances needlessly.  With that acquired skill set they are able to pervert what seemingly looks like a simple premise with convoluted logic to achieve a particular end.  A mayor of a large city wants to show an improvement in crime rates conveniently directs that certain crimes be removed from the count.  The same is true with the employment rates by the government.  But, the government takes figuring out what the percentage of people that is not working to greater heights.  Let's look at the way a sane man's reasoning would see it.

Take the number of adult people without a job as a percentage of the adult population.  Okay, I agree that would not be a fair calculation.  There are handicapped and retired persons that don't work.  Subtract them out.

How is the unemployment percentages figured out now.  I'll give you a link. It is interesting read and in my estimation the calculations are designed to be a political tool for a couple reasons.  One is it is so hard to understand.  That means the numbers published cannot be proven without great effort which leads to my other reason.  It is easy to make small a change the criteria so that it is hardly noticeable and effect is huge in the outcome which is, of course, favorable to their argument.  Here is the link.

  http://equitablegrowth.org/declining-labor-force-participation-rate-causes-consequences-path-forward/  by Elisabeth Jacobs.

In conclusion, with a smaller youth market reaching majority the unemployment lower wage, summer jobs, second jobs, school years work will suffer.  The work participation rate will look pretty good for the young age group up to about 25 but the unfilled jobs will be high.  This can be remedied by an immigration work force and/or raising the minimum wage to entice an older demographic to step into those positions. 

True to one self

As you walk into the room you find is something like cave drawings all over the wall up to about four feet.  In front of the depictions of primitive life on the planet is a three year old and a box of crayons.  Something is about to snap.  There has been a session or two already with this child about marking on the walls in the past months. 

"Why did you do that?" You ask exasperated.  "I told you…" 

The child looks down at the floor and says quietly, "I don't know."

Fifteen years later, you are driving him home from the police station.  "Why did you drink and drive?  Your car is totaled, you have to get a lawyer and have fines to pay that you cannot afford.  Why, Why, Why."

He looks down at the floor board and says quietly, "I don't know."

There comes a time when forethought shapes action before reaction has too. 

One thing about consistency is we wonder why we did or even do some things again and again.  Thus consistency isn't so good if we do bad things over and over.  Belief in our self is good, but it takes a bit of time to get to whatever that belief is.  There was a time I held myself second to no one.  I always felt that I could do what any other man had done be that physical or mental or both.  Fears and insecurities never has knowingly played a role in the shaping of my life.  But that said, now my mental facilities have diminished mostly in memory, and my six-pack has turned to a keg; I don't hold to such a notion as equality any longer.  I embrace reality.

My challenging of my beliefs came way later in life.  I have found in hindsight that in many ways I was mentally better off with my ridged views of life.  I doubted nothing and certainly didn't challenge what I thought was right.  Tunnel vision and a lack of world perspective that generally comes from education and a desire to be informed left my personality pretty stunted.  I hope it isn't that way now. 

I think everyone has some fear and insecurity.  It's innate.  There are volumes written on the topics.  Basically in my Cliff Notes take on it is I think on a personal level it has to do with what you think of yourself and what you want to project as to the kind of person you want others to think you are.

In the realm of ultimate happiness, it is nearly unattainable.  There are brambles and stones along the way and I think the only measure of ultimate happiness is to die in that state.  There is always something somewhere we are unhappy about even though we could be happy with our self at the same time.  Unhappiness can be a motivator.  I was unhappy over some events due to my lack of education and because I didn't want to experience anything like that again, I went back to school and got educated.

Some people look at life as one test after another.  If so, then being faithful to one self is important to pass those tests but not entirely necessary.  The arsonist just caught after setting a string of fires in Seattle area over the past several months must have believed his test was to keep it up without getting caught.   The young lady in Sandy Hook that took a bullet because she confessed to being a Christian certainly had faith the Lord would receive her with open arms.  That was her last test.  Generally we think of tests as adverse.  They aren't really.  Test take a measure of us and gives us feedback on how we are doing so we can learn from them and take steps to pass the next similar test better.

I'm not big on generalities.  When a person talks about their true path what is that?   Some people are inspired to follow a specific noble path to notoriety and those that particularly tread the path that lessens the suffering of others is lauded.  Most of us are not like that.  Sister Teresa took such a path and never ask for the notoriety.  It just came.  I don't think she died happy, there were still many that needed her and others like her.  A soldier that returns maimed from a conflict and is awarded the Medal of Honor didn't think when he or she choose that path that was going to happen.  We recognize their sacrifice on our behalf and the behalf of others.  They don't ask for it.

Disintegration of self comes from the manner in which we follow whatever path we get on.  The path isn't so important as to how we tread it.   Over the years I have met, worked with and dealt with many people that didn't wear the right shoes for the path they were on.  We called them misfits.  Many were able to change to a path that fit them and many others languished truly disintegrating physically and mentally.  Why is that?  I think it goes to self-worth.  For instance, in the Navy there are jobs that require an advanced level of intelligence to work in.  The Navy takes these young people trains them for months to years to perfect the work and sends them to a ship.  On the ship they are assigned tasks like compartment cleaner, mess cook, damage control petty officer, boat pocket painter, tiger team member and  host of other things.  In the end, they don't do the job the Navy spent hundreds of thousands of dollars training them on for anywhere from six months to a year and a half.  The irony isn't lost on them.  Many of these people get in to trouble, act out because their heightened sense of intelligence tells them that it makes no sense.  They have not yet matured enough to handle the oxymoron. 

In time it is good to grow into the strong mighty oak, glad of our place, confident and at peace with ourselves.  We will be pleased with what we've accomplished and resolved with our failures.  Early in life I think it better to be a sapling that can be easily transplanted to an environment that is more suited to us, where the soil is more nourishing and accommodating to roots that strive to sink deep.  If you've had a few times when asked why you did what you did you will have a better response than "I don't know." 

Finally, being an example is important.  There are people that are mentors.  They are the example we strive to emulate.  We hang on their every word and deed.  These people don't always set out to be mentors and don't even think of themselves as such.  Yet, by the way they conduct themselves, the things they say, their views and attitudes made mentors of them.  I for one have had a number of mentors in my life people I've looked up to and as I rose in stature and position I never sought mentorship, but rather as mentioned just to be a good example.  As a leader I never asked anyone to do anything I hadn't done myself or was willing to do.  I showed by example that conversation and work could be accomplished without cursing, recreation could be enjoyed without drinking and getting drunk.  That caring and patience weren't weakness.  How successful was I?  Guess we'll see how many come to look me up when they get to heaven.

Be the person you want others to think you are and rest falls into place.

Nonsense

It makes no sense to write nonsense.  However, it sometimes makes sense to write no cents, rather than nonsense, if you're at the bank.  Otherwise the teller might think that you are without sense at all.  To be without sense at all could indeed be stated, "Here is a person of nonsense."  Yet, in a nonsensical manner a person will retain some sense, for to be a person of no sense/cents you must be dead/broke, in either case be without money.  It is of little sense to be with no cents, or no sense, or in the state of nonsense; so thus a person strives to achieve a higher sense of sense.  Once this high state of sense is obtained, a person soon sees the absurdity of nonsense and then strives ever harder to make sense, even of nonsense.  Nonsense, then being the root of all that makes no sense can-not make sense.  Yet, when sense is made out of that which has no sense a person is held in awe of the senselessness of that; that makes sense.  In order to accommodate the periods of nonsense that evidently follow lapses of some sense, a person must assess the purpose behind his momentary loss of his higher sense and bring into accord the nonsense with the higher sense, finally making cents into dollars.  Dollars and cents have little to do with making sense except that without cents no sense can be learned of nonsense because you would not be able to pay for the lessons in any sense.  Moving into a realm of the six sense a person finds sense in many things that appear to the senses as nonsense, only if nonsense is nonsense, then it truly cannot appear to any sense especially the six sense which is of no physical sense,  thus leaving a person wondering how is it that any sense can be made of any nonsense.  Then in view of that new found sense of nonsense it is determined that in order to make sense of anything, all that which has no sense is then brought from the world of nonsense into the presences of sense and made sense of.  In other words, all that which is nonsense has some sense otherwise it would make no sense and will be forgotten.

The Poet

A piece of paper, unlined and bare

Lies before the poets unwinding flair.

Wet ink on pulp shows ideas unleashing. 

The poets mind is now unrelenting.

In simple sentence or in compound structure,

the poets hand commences his inner struggle.

The spirits there, he can feel it.

But, will the paper, the ink reveal it?

When people read the poem, how can they know

whither the act was long or slow.

Could it be the poet just let it flow?

The spirit draws the poet, demanding,

requiring performance.

Authoring not from aberration,

but through warm, careful consideration.

At last, the paper lies alone on the table,

On the paper lies a thought, a feeling, an emotion

 for those that can feel able.

The poet rests now, resting for the future moment.

The moment he dreads, when someone asks,

What did you mean by that?

I beg forgiveness of those strict constructionist.  I am not a poet, unless this small piece vaults me into such distinguish ranks.  I think not.

I am an avid reader and honestly not much poetry.  When I was young and in the Navy fellow sailors would come around and present their poetry for review.  I was kind, but secretly I felt that they were short changing the reader as I didn't see the poetry but fragmented slices of life as they saw it.  

Years later as I was forced to consider poetry and read some; one of the main thrust by the professors was did we get what the poet meant by the poem.  According to the instructor these famous or lessor so, imported deep hidden meaning like the road less traveled.  Which I thought was rather obvious.  Thus it promoted me to write this one. 

Going to the left -

What does that mean going to the left?  Is it like going from right to wrong or the other way around?

The left stands for socialism and communism.  Is that so bad?  It's part of God's plan for everyone to bring all they produce and put it in the Bishop's storehouse to be redistributed to everyone in proportion to their needs.   In this fashion the weak are protected, the mentally ill are treated, the lazy are fed, and the strong provide, the imaginative have joy in sharing.  Some one is poor, the rich are the rulers, most everyone goes hungry.  A few are happy.  No one deserves more than their needs.

The right stands for personal responsibility, self rule and capitalism.  It's part of god's plan too to have charity.  The rights rule of thumb is to take care of oneself first, providing excess to take care of family next and neighbors after that and country last.  In this fashion the weak are protected, the mentally ill are treated, the lazy get fed, and the strong provide, the imaginative have incentive to share.  There are poor, there are rich and someone goes hungry.  Not everyone is happy.  Everyone deserves to have what they can earn.

Which would you rather align with?  The left or the right?  There is no wrong answer only a choice that most closely fits your philosophy.

LGBT - Oh...

     I find myself confused over the current state of affairs in the country over gay rights, particularly the right to marry.

     It seems that those that support the LGBT community are running high on emotion.   Which is fine for on the other side of the coin those against the gay community are running strong on emotion also. 

The gay community does not fall under a protected class like blacks and women, people with disabilities such as blindness or deafness where they have no choice being what they are.  Also protected classes that seem a bit more gray, but has the force of law anyway, is religious people and pregnant women because they do have a choice to be what they are.

     Then logically the gay community would not be protected as they do have a choice to exhibit their sexual preference in whatever manner they want.  Yet, they could become protected because other groups of choice have protections.  So, what would be the difference? As it turns out I think the difference is huge.

     I think where it all goes awry for the people is law makers and courts taking on the task of legislating abhorrent and abnormal behavior as being normal.  Putting religion aside for a moment and just looking at the nature of the world it is not populated by homosexual unions.    Even at the level of recreational sex the parts do not fit together properly.   To be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual is not normal by any standard that can be held up outside their own community.  Thus it begs the question why are we at this point with the latest Supreme Court ruling?

      I think basically it is because gays are human too.  They have been the brunt of jokes and hostile emotion and actions for centuries and as people regardless of their physical miswiring they are stuck with they deserve respect and equal rights as much as another person in so long as they behave normally.  To determine what is normal, let nature be our guide coupled with the social norms of the society the gays reside in. 

     Using that as a guidepost then should gays be permitted to marry?  I think yes.   However, it isn't the place for the federal government to intervene.  Where the Supreme Court got it wrong is that the constitution does not support abhorrent and abnormal behavior in any fashion.  A left leaning activist court cannot normalize gay behavior from the bench anymore than the court in the 1850s ruling that black people are property of their white masters and runaways have to returned when caught could keep that law.  

     Then where would the right for gays to marry come from?  It has to be the states.  The argument as to people can't help who they fall in love with doesn't hold much water, however if a same sex couple wishes to align their life paths together and share interests and support to one another forsaking traditional marriage they ought to have the same protections of health care,  beneficiary rights as any other human contract.   

     Where the gay community missteps is in the flaunting their abnormal sexuality in the face of those operating in the social norm.  The social norm for the United States is heterosexual marriage between man and woman resulting most times in off spring and grandchildren and great grandchildren who in turn continues the norm. 

     What is going to happen now is over the next decade normal people are going to push back hard and the gay community is going to go back into the closet.  Laws that put legal protections for work and such will be in place because it isn't right to restrict someone for their sexual preference in so much as they behave normally.   A supervisor that sees his worker parading down the street banishing a black flag full of dildo pictures has every right to dismiss the person as that isn't normal behavior.

     The old adage, it isn't wise to fool with Mother Nature is true.  That which isn't aligned with nature will not endure.

Philosophy and Writers - the need to read

Philosophy and Writers - the need to read

 

When an author decides to impart some pearls of wisdom to the reader that wisdom never comes from a vacuum.  The author has developed his or her ideas from a varied collection of sources much of which is personal life experience blended and colored with the reading of other writers particularly the philosophers past and current.  It seems that more weight is placed on philosophers of old for their wisdom, especially in the academia, where professors desire their students to understand not only the construction of these renown author's writings but also what and why they wrote what they did.   Therefore, to better understand ourselves and develop the ability to make what we feel better understood we study the philosophy of those persons that have demonstrated meaningful insight to the human character and the skill to impart that idea.  That study requires reading.

 

It seems that one of the facilities people of renown have is to be able to expostulate a variety of ways a decision could carry into different paths.  If the author's subject of attention were to turn left instead of right or look up instead of down at a particular moment in time, what a different world we would all live in today.   Who of us hasn't at speculated, where would we be had we chosen differently at some particular decision point in our lives?  Somewhat half-jokingly I have voiced that Aristotle was just one the philosophers to have been born early enough to pen more about the human condition; physically and mentally than any of us.  We already know that most what he says as to the human condition as now a matter of course to us.   What a marvel of intellect for example if a high school graduate of today was inserted into 365 BC Greece.  We must read if we wish to be considered seriously when we write about similar topics.  Not so much as to rehash what Aristotle wrote but rather to enrichen and refresh.  What kind of a take would Aristotle have had on the overlay of the technical world on today's society?  Like St. John in Revelations Aristotle would be hard pressed even to find the words to describe the things he would observe in today's world.  Henry David Thoreau in his book "Civil Disobedience" wondered as people strung telegraph wires from Maine to Texas as to what in the world would someone in Maine and Texas have to say to each other?  He alluded to the worthlessness of the endeavor.  I doubt as intellectual and insightful as many of the famous people we have read or read about got the right of things all the time.  As writers and philosophers these people we seem to expect more from and are particularly let down when we think they error in their paradigm.   I've read accounts of how Thomas Edison wondered at the value of the phonograph player and mistakenly put so much of his reputation on direct current.  Bill Gates of Microsoft didn't warm up to the internet right off.  In my life;  I see little use in Twitter; with Thoreau's reasoning; who would follow me on Twitter; who would want to?  By the same token, who is there that I would care to follow.  Should we care?  Do we need to know what Miley Cyrus', Rush Limbaugh's or Michelle Obama's moment to moment hundred and ten character thoughts are?  Somehow I think not.  So, what am I missing?  What is there to the millions and millions of people that are on Twitter?  I wonder in my breadth thinking how I can be so narrow.  I can only guess at what Thoreau might have written about Twitter.

 

I disagree with much of what Thoreau has to say in his book "Civil Disobedience."  But, I love the way he says it.  He is cynical and short-sighted but makes a grand argument of it.  As with Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit so as to learn the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, health and sickness so must we consume of the works of writers of note, the classics if you will, to ascertain for ourselves how we feel about what they wrote and how we will apply that wisdom or lack thereof in our lives. 

 

President John Adams told John Q.  Adams, his son and future U.S. president when he was but a boy that he should read Cicero in its original Greek which he did.  I, however, will live with whatever might be lost in the translation. Thus I will content myself with having read the English translation.  I have read Confucius' Analects (English version).  I didn't take away much from it.   An aspect of it I did find remarkable is the period in which he wrote and like Edison did with his inventions Confucius turned his writings into an enterprise by opening schools and teaching.   There is more to him than I can fathom as Chinese dynasties rose and fell from his writings as a philosophy to follow.   At risk of short-changing Confucius further I have not read all his works, and therefore I cannot speculate with any degree of certainty as to what I might get from the rest of his writings were I to wade through them. 

 

I wonder, did Confucius, Cicero and Thoreau have an editor?  Fill a room with monkeys hammering away on typewriters for a hundred years, and they will produce "War and Peace" so the story goes.   A fanciful notion and not completely wrong providing someone is there to edit the material.   Which as a sidebar leaves me to mention how most authors on the first page or two of their books credit their editors for the success of their books.  Many philosophers will tell you that with the logic I just set up that writers are no more intelligent than the monkeys typing out "War and Peace."   A fallacy of reason made through valid inference is one path for false logic.   Surprisingly some will glom onto such logic as valid and argue with conviction that writers are indeed no wiser than monkeys hammering on typewriters.   What segment of the population makes a lucrative living at convoluting logic in such a manner?  The U.S. government perhaps.  Probably outside the college podium a cadre of the best writers we have to reside inside the beltway.  

 

The best writers are good mechanics of language following all the conventions of good writing by such things as not changing tense midway or intruding with personal interjections upon the reader's consciousness, putting their periods, commas and semicolons in all the right places; (another job of editors)  and then coupling all that with an astute understanding of human nature so as to bring their characters to life with conflicts and problems and joys and satisfactions that parallel our own.  The closer they come to mirroring what we think to be true the better we like it.   If you would like to read a book that breaks nearly all the conventions of good writing pick up the "Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper.  It is a classic for historical value and a darn good story allowing the reader to forgive the poor construction.  

 

Another aspect of philosophy is how prolific the classical writers were.  They wrote volumes about what they reasoned to be the ways things were.  Of those volumes, we glean some of what we feel to be significant dew drops of wisdom and discard the rest.  Even the discarded has value in validating what we feel is contrary to what they said. As it turned out the people in Maine and Texas have a lot to say to one another and it surprises me Thoreau would not have thought so.   Even still, what you find enlightening may be bunk to me.   These writers of old had incredible mental acuity.

 

Gerrids, the common water bugs that stride across the water as sparrows guide through the air otherwise known to most as Jesus bugs, and water spiders to others don't know by their scholastic name but by a few.  I asked a dozen people if they were familiar with the Jesus bug and most were.  None knew it was a Gerridae, in the singular.  It would be a safe wager to say when a father walking his son or daughter by the pond upon seeing the small creature darting to and fro over the water would more likely tell them, "Look a Jesus bug," rather than a Gerridae.  I marvel when a writer carries on about every creature, plant and the supporting environ associated with them by their textbook name and with such detail and clarity that one would think they had done their doctoral thesis on the topic.   At the risk of seeming ignorant; I could not get through Moby Dick.  I wonder at those who profess to have read it.  The story is riveting.  Gregory Peck was im-peck-able in the movie.  As a child, I loved the story and missed all the symbolism.  I tried to read the book years later as an adult and could not wade through all the hundreds of pages of whale detail; every kind of whale, every characteristic of every kind of whale and the personalities of every kind of whale.  Did Melville miss any whale?  I wouldn't know had I finished the book.  I can name maybe three different whales.  That an author of a classic wrote in that fashion is even more astonishing when you realize that he or she wrote from memory and limited resources having only to draw from their schooling and limited access to books to draw upon for reference.  Thoreau was a Harvard graduate.   Is it a testament to that school that he wrote so well?  Perhaps, I think so.  Cotton Mather wouldn't have thought so because he thought Harvard was low class.  Maybe it was back in his period of the late 1600's.  Reverend Mather convinced a wealthy Boston merchant by the name of Yale to start another college to contrast Harvard.

 

Where does this take us?  Writers read, thinkers read, leaders read, philosophers read, and then they write out what they think.  It doesn't matter if what they think is to entertain us, convince us, enlighten us or they simply don't care and write as an expression of their need to vent.  In that case, they might only bore us.  We need to read as much as we can and ponder the intelligence conveyed so that we may foment the structure of our personalities to good effect.