September 8, 2011

The latest crises besetting affluent white women

Kevin Drum is upset by an LA Times article:
The financial industry, long known for its boys-club environment, has only a small fraction of women as top executives. And that small cadre has been thinning out in recent years, with the most recent example Krawcheck's departure as BofA's president of global wealth management. Her departure is part of a broader trend in the financial industry in recent years: Female employees are losing their jobs at a faster clip than men. ... 
....The finance industry has not historically been known as a welcoming place for women. The cigar and strip-club reputation was confirmed by a lawsuit against Smith Barney in the 1990s, which accused it of turning a blind eye to raunchy, sexist behavior. The lawsuit later became the subject of a book called "Tales From the Boom-Boom Room." 
The attention brought by the suit spurred wide-scale changes that helped stamp out overt discrimination and open up hiring. A decade ago, the number of women in finance was rising.

Similarly, on Forbes:
Public-relations executive Richard Edelman writes in his blog this week that he wants women to occupy half of the senior roles in his company by 2016. 
"Our goal is simple—50% of those on Strategy Committee, Operating Committee, GCRM and practice leadership will be women by 2016," he writes. "They will have earned the positions; there will not be a quota." 
Edelman, who is president and CEO of Edelman, the world's largest independent public-relations firm, acknowledges that his industry has no problem attracting women. Some two-thirds of his workforce is female, he writes. But the ranks of women start to thin in leadership roles.

Wall Street, as seen in the works of Tom Wolfe, Michael Lewis, and Oliver Stone, is a notoriously competitive, macho, insensitive environment. 

Other industries are less so, but, still, as you climb the corporate ladder, the environments often get more macho. 

For example, I worked for a successful start-up in market research, which was, at the MBA entry level, very yuppie and pretty gender neutral (we went out to restaurants in mixed sex groups and then talked about other restaurants, since food was one topic that appealed to both sexes). The market research industry as a whole is pretty genteel and sedate. One marketing research tycoon I knew, an old B-17 bomber pilot, liked to point out, with a little contempt, that most of his competitors had been started by college professors or housewives. (I suspect PR is even more feminine and much more gay at the MBA entry level than is Marketing Research. But, the top dogs even in big PR firms tend do be masculine guys.)

But the founders of my company, which revolutionized the market research industry in the 1980s, were high testosterone guys who were into importing Porsches that had to be customized for six months just to be street legal in the U.S. One morning in 1983, after about six months on the job, I was standing on a street corner in Lincoln Park waiting for the bus to work, when the CEO pulls up in his TurboPorshe and offers me a ride. "Sure!" But, the stoplights on La Salle Street heading toward the Loop are not optimized for a CEO who floors it at every green light and thus gets caught by every single red light. So, every block consisted of us going 0-60 in five seconds, with my head being shoved back into the headrest, followed by 60-0 in five seconds (with my forehead just about bouncing off the dashboard). When we got to work, the CEO offered to pick me up every morning on that corner, but, feeling pummeled by G-forces and whiplash from the ride, I went back to taking the bus.

Then, luckily for me, when the founders started pushing 40, their recreations downshifted from the Need for Speed to becoming fanatical golfers. This worked out well for me socially at the office, because, being a lower testosterone guy about a decade younger, I'd transitioned earlier from playing contact sports to being a golf fanatic at about age 25. So, by the time the bigshots' hormone levels had dropped enough to move on from racing sports to golf, I was already an expert on all the best public golf courses in the Chicago area. So I played a lot of golf with the top dogs while they were getting started in the game. (One boss got so into my hobby of golf course architecture that he went on to build his own fine golf course in Wisconsin, and then singlehandedly revamped, without a professional golf course architect's assitance, it to make it more interesting.)

Very few women feel the urge to, say, drive around the Chicago suburbs visiting golf courses to rate them for quality. It's a good thing to know for career networking purposes, but it really only appeals to individuals with a nerdy turn of mind and a fairly average level (for a man) of male hormones. It's not utterly unknown among women -- one very friendly, slightly tomboyish woman golfer in Accounting was a popular choice for golf foursomes, but she wasn't really into finding new, good golf courses to play (but she liked to arrange golf resort trips, with more emphasis on quality of accommodations than on the course itself -- a more feminine version of this urge). But caring a lot about golf courses is fairly rare among men and extremely rare among women.

Returning to these complaints about disparate impact on women in the executive suites, let me point out that one mechanism that thins the ranks of women in the executive suites is that as young women climb the corporate ladder, they come into less and less contact with the dweebier guys down the ladder and more and more contact with the most powerful and ambitious men at the top. Women don't generally love working in the macho atmospheres found higher up, but a lot of them do fall in love with individual macho executives, whom they often marry. And then they tend to downsize their own careers (since their husbands make so much money) to concentrate on helicopter mothering their children. 

I recall one young woman at my old company who was shooting up the corporate ladder until she became a direct report to the single most brilliant youngish executive. After awhile, he left his wife and kids to marry her, and then she started concentrating less on her own career and instead on the promoting the career of her very high income, very high potential new husband.

So, here's a different model of what might have happened on Wall Street: Affirmative action pressure to hire women at Wall Street banks to avoid disparate impact lawsuits led to a lot of women getting hired, who then found that they don't really like trading, with its macho atmosphere, but they do like macho traders. In fact, they like them so much they want to have their babies. So, they tended to marry a rich male colleague, then downshift careerwise to being a Tiger Mother for their offspring.

I can't say that I'm terribly outraged by any of this.

98 comments:

  1. Men and women acting like men and women, as opposed to gender-neutral liberal corporate drones? I'm shocked!

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  2. Affirmative action pressure to hire women at Wall Street banks to avoid disparate impact lawsuits led to a lot of women getting hired, who then found that they don't really like trading

    Dead on, and true for banking as well as trading. I got out of a top ten b-school in the mid-nineties and the ratio of men to women looking for investment banking jobs was probably near ten to one. The women almost always got call backs from the on-campus interviews, but had much lower success rates at actually getting offers (though they still had offers at a higher rate than their similarly qualified male cohort).

    Fifteen years later, though, the attrition rates are very high for both the males and females. Most females did end up marrying either other bankers or private equity guys. Smaller numbers transitioned into less demanding jobs in research or recruiting.

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  3. I can't say that I'm terribly outraged by any of this

    Ah, but it will outrage those men who are not high-powered executives, aka the losers in the reproduction game.

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  4. Brilliant Steve. Lucy Kellaway, at the Financial Times, did a study of the top female execs at Fortune 500 Companies. She found, to a woman, they were married to ... wait for it ... BETA MALES!

    To rise to the top at say PepsiCo, like Indra Nooyi, requires a lot of supportive, "Kitchen B*tch" hand-holding unlikely to ever be found in Alpha Males but found in abundance in Beta Males. [Though Kellaway did not say it, the willingness of lower-attractive Non-Western women to marry and remain with Beta Males to trade up the corporate ladder may account for their larger presence among the Fortune 500 Executive Ranks.] Alpha males don't like competition at home, don't provide support, and as you note will trade in frequently for hotter women. Because they can.

    But the larger question of why Kevin Drum cares about this? Drum does not. His readers, nearly all female, care. And they care because the media/cultural environment is nearly all female. Because advertisers cater to them, since women generally do more consumer spending than men.

    The CEO's might buy custom Porsches, but they won't spend at Target week after week on "Fashionista" type retail therapy. If you want to know why our culture is this way ... follow the money.

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  5. Steve, I really like your theory. I like it so much I'm trying to figure out a way to test it. I think there's a whole academic paper, maybe even a popular book, to be written on the subject of how the "glass ceiling" is really an illusion which results from up-and-coming women simply doing a lateral out of the management pipeline by marrying the male execs the feminasties want them to compete with.

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  6. "I think there's a whole academic paper, maybe even a popular book, to be written on the subject"

    Go for it. I can generate a lot of ideas, but I don't have much incentive to turn them into academic papers because academic journals don't pay writers.

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  7. Actually, alpha males may prefer having some elite women around. It's like a top lion would rather be surrounded by lionesses than other lions. Also, if top white or Jewish males allow other Jewish or white women into their domain, they may hold more ethnic power than if they allowed in blacks, hispanics, or asians. Besides, rich daddies who run the corporations like to hire the kids from their own social club, and some of these kids are girls.

    On the one hand, many men naturally feel resentful over being superceded by a woman. But a man on top may, in some cases, prefer and trust women below or around him than other men. (In fact, a top guy choosing a woman over other men may be a way of rubbing their faces in the dirt, as if to say, "I'm the top dog, and this is my loyal bitch, and you running dogs better know your place.") He may sense women are more loyal and committed(and married to)the company than other guys who are secretly wishing to take over or set up rival companies of their own.

    This male/female dynamic is interesting in modern corporate culture. For whatever reason, George Clooney seems to have taken out a patent on the matter. In MICHAEL CLAYTON, THE AMERICAN, and UP IN THE AIR, he plays a white male professional who feels squeezed and pressured by changing times, and in all three, the main rival is a woman. Male audiences might get dude-comes-out-on-top-thrill in MICHAEL CLAYTON where Clooney finally outmanuevers a power-hungry ho. The girl in UP IN THE AIR is nice, but Clooney also kinda puts her in her place. And the woman shooter in THE AMERICAN alas proves no match for the Clooner. Paul Newman was also a liberal actor who relished taking on guy-comes-out-on-top movies.

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  8. Ah, but it will outrage those men who are not high-powered executives, aka the losers in the reproduction game.

    High powered executives do not father a disproportionate number of children. They are not winners in the reproduction game.

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  9. true for banking as well as trading.

    True for science and tech as well. In fact true for every field of endeavour.

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  10. It strikes me as self evident that companies are going to be more profligate with AA hiring during good economic times. Those new powergal jobs like Senior VP, Climate Change Strategy don't seem like such good value in a downturn.
    Gilbert P.

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  11. "I can't say I'm terribly outraged by any of this"

    Steve's cheerfully droll musings on everyday un-PC subjects (like why women don't make it into executive ranks) are some of my favorite posts on this blog. It gives you a flavor of what you might read about in the MSM if they weren't so terrified of committing crimethink.

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  12. I had a finance professor who could have passed as Sally Krawcheck's (or Merideth Whitney's) sister - blonde, smart, sharp. She liked her work-life balance in acadamia.

    Workers in the private sector simply would not respect an executive who wasn't working all the time.

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  13. Mating with attractive alphas is certainly one factor blunting the ambition of talented young businesswomen. In addition to women with beta husbands (or those who have otherwise dropped out of the hunt) single (married to the company), gay, and childless women are also tending to rise relatively higher in corporate america, for obvious reasons.

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  14. What about the younger woman stealing the brilliant executive husband? That's something to be outraged about.

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  15. poultry inspector9/8/11, 3:08 PM

    '"I think there's a whole academic paper, maybe even a popular book, to be written on the subject"

    Go for it. I can generate a lot of ideas, but I don't have much incentive to turn them into academic papers because academic journals don't pay writers.'

    No, but a popular book could pay pretty well if it enters the bestseller lists - written under a pseudonym in your case, to hide your scandalous HBD background.

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  16. No, but a popular book could pay pretty well if it enters the bestseller lists - written under a pseudonym in your case, to hide your scandalous HBD background.

    It needs a catchy title.

    "Phreakonomics"?

    "Hoodonomics"?

    "Diversonomics"?

    "Vibranomics"?

    "Dullonomics"?

    "Nerdonomics"?

    "Geekonomics"?


    Or maybe something ending in "ology"?

    "Barriology"?

    "Thugology"?

    "Realology"?


    Or even "opoly"?

    "SWPLopoly?"

    "Anonymonomical SWPLopoly, by Pseudonymous."

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  17. High powered executives do not father a disproportionate number of children. They are not winners in the reproduction game.

    Actually, I think they do, in comparison to middle-class males, not lumpenproletarians. Most can support at-home moms, and some manage serial families.

    Cennbeorc

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  18. No, but a popular book could pay pretty well if it enters the bestseller lists - written under a pseudonym in your case, to hide your scandalous HBD background.

    You can write it under my (real) name, in return for 10% of the royalties, plus lavish travel expenses.

    Cennbeorc

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  19. Larry, San Francisco9/8/11, 4:54 PM

    I know a woman that this happened to. She became a VP at a major I-bank at a very young age. She is smart, organized, attractive, hard working and quite charming. She would have been a great CEO. However, she married one of the most successful traders in the firm, had kids and is now doing research type work part time (since she hardly needs the money). Definitely a loss to society but I am not sure you can blame her.

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  20. And don't forget the repugnant discrimination in the field of Nursing.

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  21. a popular book could pay pretty well... written under a pseudonym in your case

    Sailer has great ideas and a very readable and enjoyable style. I've never read a best seller by the Coulter, Hannity or Levin crowd, but I have read some of Pat Buchanan's books. Seems to me that Steve would wipe the floor with most of the competition if he could get a publisher. There is no need for a pseudonym. People who read conservative books like non-PC ideas.

    Go for it, Steve.

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  22. Actually studies show that female investors on average do better than male investors, largely because they aren't attracted to constantly trading (who's only guaranteed result is fees).

    A lot of Wall St. quants are noticeably on the dweebish side.

    Come to think of it, is Warren Buffett very 'alpha'?

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  23. Harry Baldwin9/8/11, 6:15 PM

    OT--I'm waiting for the Steve Sailer review of "The Help."

    You couldn't pay me to see the movie, but someone's got to eviscerate it for us.

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  24. Steve, I'm ready to illustrate any book you might write with my outrageously politically incorrect cartoons. Here's my main site.

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  25. Do you like the website Golf Club Atlas? Tom Doak regularly posts there. It discusses golf course architecture. He also wrote The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, a classic.

    His The Anatomy of a Golf Course is good too.

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  26. YES. An interesting thing, walking around Central Park in Manhattan, is when you see someone walking two huge dogs. That's their way of saying, "I can afford a huge apartment in Manhattan."

    Likewise, you might see a woman with four blonde kids in the park. That's her way of saying, "My husband, a Master of the Universe, can afford a huge townhouse in Manhattan." ["And I can pay six figures of private school tuition every year."]

    Middle-class and even upper-middle-class people on the coasts have to make very challenging choices about home size vs. commute time vs. school quality vs. daycare vs. wife's career choices that do not apply to those at the top.

    The hot blonde wives of the CEOs and hedge-funders manifest this by having 3 or 4 kids.

    Reference:

    "Large Apartments Are the Rage in New York City" http://goo.gl/lDSzL



    _________________________________

    Actually, I think they do, in comparison to middle-class males, not lumpenproletarians. Most can support at-home moms, and some manage serial families.

    Cennbeorc

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  27. You probably know that Bernard Darwin, THE Darwin's grandson, was the biggest golf writer in England in the early to mid 1900's.

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  28. Title: Vibranomics.

    Pseudonym: Stephanie Gladwell.

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  29. "a paper how the "glass ceiling" is really an illusion "

    has anyone considered the amount of time wasted
    1)by the women who dreamt up this "issue" instead of knitting
    2)those who believe in this stupidity and construct elaborate plans for its removal(unconscious discrimination)
    3)those who have to waste their time refuting this malarkey.

    A field without any such measures sees fewer females, usually better than the average male workers. They however cannot rise to the top in proportion to their representation. Shock, horror, how can that be when they have a better average? Patriarchy!!

    The 1st line of defence against feminasties is, well, there are so few women. hehe so excuse us ladies.

    No problem, get in more women, make the field more emascul...less sexist, ok so now we have gender parity in numbers.
    Why not 50% women at the top now?

    Now you can do a Larry Summers or be schooled by feminists to point out hidden biases and recommend workshops, special women's conferences for women to attend.

    It's easier to go with the flow, pay lip service and your normal societal dues and clap along with Halla Tomasdottir


    "as self evident that companies are going to be more profligate with AA hiring during good economic times. "

    Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.


    "Mating with attractive alphas is certainly one factor blunting the ambition of talented young businesswomen."

    Yeah, the Romance and STEM paper made such a point. The maths whiz kids serenading the future great female mathematicians with talks of parabolas and geometry, slyly throwing the poor girls off the curve.

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  30. Middle-class and even upper-middle-class people on the coasts have to make very challenging choices about home size vs. commute time vs. school quality vs. daycare vs. wife's career choices that do not apply to those at the top.

    White people who live in big cities are suckers.

    The hot blonde wives of the CEOs and hedge-funders manifest this by having 3 or 4 kids.

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  31. Actually, I think they do, in comparison to middle-class males, not lumpenproletarians. Most can support at-home moms, and some manage serial families.

    Adding "in comparison to middle-class males" qualifies your original assertion significantly, don't you think?

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  32. These AA-equivalents help push feminists into power, esp. lesbian feminists. Then they can then fund more complaints, lawsuits and NGOs.

    Is there no way to destroy this self-replicating bureaucracy?

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  33. @Larry, San Francisco

    You have a funny definition about who creates value for society.

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  34. I think society would benefit from having women run Wall Street because women tend to be more conservative than men. The trouble with high testosterone men making major investment decisions is that they tend to take huge risks necessitating bailouts from time to time on tax payer dime to keep the financial system from collapsing.

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  35. Actually, I think they do, in comparison to middle-class males, not lumpenproletarians. Most can support at-home moms, and some manage serial families.

    Agreed, Ferdinand Piech, who is the grandson of the first Ferdinand Porsche and the nephew of the other one is a case in point. He earned a doctorate in engineering, helped create the legendary Porsche 917 race car, revived Audi, took over and revived VW, bought Lamborghini and Bentley, recreated the Bugatti nameplate and created the world's fastest car with that name. Oh and he also was named Car Executive of the Century, and has fathered a dozen children with four different women. Practically the definition of an alpha male.

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  36. Kay Hymowitz has nailed this topic, citing numerous references, over at City Journal. I'm surprised you didn't cite it,Steve. http://city-journal.com/2011/21_3_gender-gap.html

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  37. Society does not benefit from women in the workplace...or women CEO's. Remember Carla Fiorina and Meg Whitman? They drove their respective companies into the ground.

    Women are, simply put, gender quotas...no matter how smart or organized they may be. They operate in an environment where they cannot be fired without a company facing serious legal consequences.

    Worst of all, they will get first crack at any mentoring, training and promotion opportunities.

    Do any of you understand what kind of liberating work environment that is? A work environment that has no risk? It's like being an Indian minority and starting a business using government money while selling product to the government. A no brainer.

    Any employee would thrive and perform in that kind of environment, especially if said employee is deluded enough to believe that she is somehow being discriminated against. Then she will manifest much effort, the least of which will be richly rewarded.

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  38. Come to think of it, is Warren Buffett very 'alpha'?

    Could be, since 'alpha' has a million and one different meanings. Can we all just drop this idiotic word and say what we really mean instead?

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  39. An interesting thing, walking around Central Park in Manhattan, is when you see someone walking two huge dogs. That's their way of saying, "I can afford a huge apartment in Manhattan."

    Likewise, you might see a woman with four blonde kids in the park. That's her way of saying, "My husband, a Master of the Universe, can afford a huge townhouse in Manhattan." ["And I can pay six figures of private school tuition every year."]

    Manhattan is not the known universe. The rules which apply there are atypical in the extreme.

    I realize that this will come as a shock to many Manhattanites, but it's true.

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  40. Actually, I think they do, in comparison to middle-class males, not lumpenproletarians. Most can support at-home moms, and some manage serial families.

    Jeffrey Immelt is 55 and has one child.

    Warren Buffett has three children.

    Bob Iger, the CEO of ABC, has four kids.

    Daniel Akerson, CEO of General Motors, has three kids.

    Regardless of how many children they could theoretically afford with their lavish salaries, the "Masters of the Universe" tend to have normal sized families.

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  41. What the article ignores is that there are plenty of women in lower profile, lower-testosterone parts of Wall Street -- compliance, operations (back office and middle office), human resources, and so on. The majority of workers in some of these departments are women. They may not be making the huge money that top traders and executives are making, but they're still getting pretty well paid. A woman I went to college with was making $250k per year in her 30s as a VP in Goldman Sachs's HR department (they call the department something else, but it was HR).

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  42. Some titles for Steve's book...

    "The Vibrants Are Coming! The Vibrants Are Coming!"

    "Lexington and Conquered"

    "Rise of the Planet of the Rapists"

    "The Mestizo and Margarita"

    "We Sold These Truths..."

    Funny how there's a real book with the rather clumsy title "Whitopia" but I don't see the more-obvious-sounding "Jewtopia" anywhere in my copy of the NYRB...

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  43. Why would a high potential guy want to marry that kind of woman, though?

    So he can cheat with someone who isn't an ugly, careerist shrew?

    That's sad.

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  44. "High powered executives do not father a disproportionate number of children. They are not winners in the reproduction game."

    Facts, eh? Don't shatter their weird alpha-worship.

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  45. Extinction the MMORPG9/9/11, 2:43 AM

    Larry, San Francisco: However, she married one of the most successful traders in the firm, had kids and is now doing research type work part time (since she hardly needs the money). Definitely a loss to society but I am not sure you can blame her.

    Damned Breeders.

    What can you do?

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  46. Manhattan is not the known universe. The rules which apply there are atypical in the extreme.

    I realize that this will come as a shock to many Manhattanites, but it's true.


    Trust me, we don't really care what happens outside NYC.

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  47. Regardless of how many children they could theoretically afford with their lavish salaries, the "Masters of the Universe" tend to have normal sized families.

    Define "normal". What is the average family size of an American man?

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  48. "Our goal is simple — 50% [...] will be women by 2016," [Edelman] writes. "[T]here will not be a quota."

    Mars needs women.

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  49. Your boss built Whistling Straights?!!

    Cool.

    We are not worthy! We are not worthy!

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  50. However, she married one of the most successful traders in the firm, had kids and is now doing research type work part time (since she hardly needs the money). Definitely a loss to society but I am not sure you can blame her.

    Here is the root of our problem: the idea that a woman raises a stable, successful family rather than devote her energies to skimming profits off moving money around is counted as a 'loss.'

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  51. Wow, I never knew you were the Alister MacKenzie of the HBD set!

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  52. Marianne Bertrand, Professor of Econonics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, studied the school's MBA graduates from 1990-2006 trying to figure out income disparity and the alleged "glass ceiling". The study found three things: male grads had better pre-grad school training, worked longer hours and and had way fewer career interruptions.

    The men had an income advantage of 30 log points after 5 years, increasing to 60 log points through 15 years. After 10 years, 13% of the women weren't working versus 1% of the men.

    A similar study done at Harvard found that female MBAs are more likely to drop out of the workforce at a higher rate that those with other professional degrees: 28% MBA, 21% law and 6% medical.

    It's surprising that anyone would be surprised by this.

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  53. I think to succeed in an ORGANIZATIONAL company, it helps to have alpha personality and superior intelligence(which aint exactly genius). There are lots of ways to get rich or very rich without supersmarts. Some profound new method, discovery, or invention is not necessary. I think one doesn't need super-genius to succeed in marketing. You need solid intelligence, drive, and the firm alpha-male handshake and sure glint in the eye. So, porsche-loving alphas do well in such sectors, and they may prefer the company of other alphas and feel most comfortable around them. ORGANIZATIONAL companies basically use whatever information or methods that already exist; it gains an edge by superior organization, discipline, or efficiency.

    But to found and super-succeed with some great superduper INNOVATIVE company, it takes a lot of superbrains, and a lot of supergeeks are betas. If they're ultra-beta, they will work for other guys. But if they are betalpha--kinda dopey & mopey but filled with ruthless ambition(like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs)--, they may manuever like alphas in business dealings but not so much in lifestyle. Also, these betalphas may prefer the company of women workers. Geeks feel less intimidated by women. It's like some women prefer the company of gays than straight men. Gays are less threatening. And white folks prefer clean-cut negroes to other kinds of blacks.

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  54. "Why would a high potential guy want to marry that kind of woman, though?

    So he can cheat with someone who isn't an ugly, careerist shrew?

    "

    You sound like an anti-votes-for-women campainer circa 1890. That's ok. Their angry spirits are still milling about. I've told the local ghost-hunter about them and some of them will soon turn and go into the light.

    Now as to current affairs. Most of the women I've seen in these kind of positions are better looking than average, maybe. Sometimes I thinks it's the confidence, spas, glow that comes from various forms of jewelry, vacations, daddy telling them they're great, general positive feedback, plastic surgery. Who knows. But most look pretty good.
    But I have a nose for nice though. As a heterosexual female I can see and appreciate good looks in another woman, but they ain't worth a day-spa coupon if she is not nice. Somebody else being "Nice" (a profound word for me) is something I feel in my bones. Men seem less aware of this crucial quality.
    However, so are teenage girls with boys. To a pathological degree.

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  55. "a paper how the "glass ceiling" is really an illusion "

    "has anyone considered the amount of time wasted
    1)by the women who dreamt up this "issue" instead of knitting
    2)those who believe in this stupidity and construct elaborate plans for its removal(unconscious discrimination)
    3)those who have to waste their time refuting this malarkey."

    Everybody has a whine, but some whines become issues, other become taboo. That all depends on controllers of the media. If the media expose 'glass ceiling' as false, most people see it as false. If the media hype it as a terrible evil, most people see it and discuss it as such.

    So, the real issue isn't whether something is true or not. It's whether the powers-that-be hype it or scrap it. Why did 'homophobia' become such a big issue? Those who control the media made it so.

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  56. Why would a high potential guy want to marry that kind of woman, though?

    So he can cheat with someone who isn't an ugly, careerist shrew?


    Huh, Bill Clinton.

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  57. However, she married one of the most successful traders in the firm, had kids and is now doing research type work part time (since she hardly needs the money). Definitely a loss to society but I am not sure you can blame her.

    Yes, giving birth to and raising several high-IQ children is definitely a 'loss to society.'

    No wonder America is doomed.

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  58. Agreed, Ferdinand Piech, who is the grandson of the first Ferdinand Porsche and the nephew of the other one is a case in point. He earned a doctorate in engineering,

    A true alpha wouldn't do that. Only shmuks "earn" anything, or do anything academic. A true alpha would buy a doctorate in engineering, or obtain one by bribes, threats, and blackmail - without having to do an ounce of real work.

    helped create the legendary Porsche 917 race car,

    Took the credit while a team of engineers did the actual slave-work.

    revived Audi, took over and revived VW, bought Lamborghini and Bentley, recreated the Bugatti nameplate and created the world's fastest car with that name. Oh and he also was named Car Executive of the Century, and has fathered a dozen children with four different women. Practically the definition of an alpha male.

    OK, I'll agree with the rest.

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  59. Sallie Krawcheck was a gender-AA hire by Sandy Weill at Citicorp/Citigroup. Her prior job was a placeholder at Bernstein, after Alliance acquired Bernstein. Once she lost her rabbi (Weill) at Citi, she was out (after a bunch of horizontal moves). She lost out at BAC for similar reason--her job was eliminated. If she was all she was purported to be (by the press), they'd be dying to keep her at BAC. Major reorg by Moynihan and she's out. Meredith Whitney is married to a professional wrestler--go figure.

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  60. Actually, I think they do, in comparison to middle-class males, not lumpenproletarians. Most can support at-home moms, and some manage serial families.

    Adding "in comparison to middle-class males" qualifies your original assertion significantly, don't you think?

    What original assertion? This was my first comment on the issue.

    Cennbeorc

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  61. Regardless of how many children they could theoretically afford with their lavish salaries, the "Masters of the Universe" tend to have normal sized families.

    Your four examples average 2.75 kids per family. That's higher than the national average of just over 2 kids per man*, and probably much higher than the average for middle-class white-collar men, who I bet are in the 1.6-1.8 range.

    *We usually calculate fertility as the average number of children per woman, but the average per man must be virtually the same.

    Cennbeorc

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  62. But to found and super-succeed with some great superduper INNOVATIVE company, it takes a lot of superbrains, and a lot of supergeeks are betas. If they're ultra-beta, they will work for other guys. But if they are betalpha--kinda dopey & mopey but filled with ruthless ambition(like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs)--, they may manuever like alphas in business dealings but not so much in lifestyle. Also, these betalphas may prefer the company of women workers. Geeks feel less intimidated by women. It's like some women prefer the company of gays than straight men. Gays are less threatening. And white folks prefer clean-cut negroes to other kinds of blacks.

    You contradict yourself in claiming betalphas (alpha in business, beta in life) prefer to hire women because they are less intimidated by them. Geeks, by common convention, are socially maladroit and particularly uncomfortable around women in general.

    The "superbrains" betalphas I've met in Silicon Valley strongly prefer working with other competent "superbrains" who are inordinately passionate about their work or similar esoteric interests - traits that track almost exclusively to men.

    Also, don't conflate Bill Gates with Steve Jobs. Gates was a very smart tech geek while Jobs was a relatively bright marketing guru fronting the tech and design geeks.

    Gates got 1590/1600 on the old SAT in 1973 (IQ 151), invented a pancake sort algorithm at Harvard that held the speed record for 30yrs and wrote much low level code on early systems. Gate's has given billions to all the right sort of charities, yet he is generally disliked by SWPLs.

    Job's only solo tech job was as a technician at Atari he used to save up money for a spiritual trip to India where he dropped a lot of LSD. He quit Reed College after one semester during which he bummed free meals from the local Hari Krishna and bummed off friends. Jobs is known to have given nothing to charity, yet is beloved by SWPLs.

    No doubt, Jobs is clever and has a personal magnetism that Gates lacks. Yet, this only magnifies their differences which is why it's annoying when people lump the two together.

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  63. "Yes, giving birth to and raising several high-IQ children is definitely a 'loss to society.'

    No wonder America is doomed."

    Consider the whole picture. High IQ alpha trader was going to get married anyway and this woman was likely to get married anyway, but perhaps not to him. Several men had to be bumped out to make room for all the women that wanted these jobs though. Likewise consider all the women who shot for hypergamy and missed.

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  64. A true alpha wouldn't do that. Only shmuks "earn" anything, or do anything academic. A true alpha would buy a doctorate in engineering, or obtain one by bribes, threats, and blackmail - without having to do an ounce of real work.



    As I said, there are a million and one definitions of 'alpha' around.

    How about we all drop this idiotic term and say what we actually mean instead?

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  65. Define "normal".

    Dear God, you don't what what "normal" means?

    What is the average family size of an American man?

    The same as the average family size for the American woman - 3.2

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  66. Bill Gates is 55 years old and has a greater net worth than many countries. He could have hundreds of children if he wished. Instead he has three.

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  67. we don't really care what happens outside NYC.

    We don't really care what happens inside it, as long as you stop stealing money and calling it capitalism.

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  68. "Why would a high potential guy want to marry that kind of woman, though?

    So he can cheat with someone who isn't an ugly, careerist shrew?"

    We aren't talking mid-management frumpy types here. I'd assume that the kinds of young women who make it to the top of the business world, much like the upper echelon men, tend to be a lot more in shape and better put together than your average fat office witch disaster.

    Remember, these women might not be as motivated, driven and smart as the men in their line of work, but they are much, much more driven, motivated and intelligent than an average man. Plus, they often come from money. They would have both the dedication and the means to fix most physical flaws. Not to mention that most successful women tend to be experts at marketing themselves, if not generating new ideas.

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  69. "However, she married one of the most successful traders in the firm, had kids and is now doing research type work part time (since she hardly needs the money). Definitely a loss to society but I am not sure you can blame her."

    In the immortal words of Sayyid Qutb, executed theorist of the Muslim Brotherhood :

    " ... [the] family provides the environment under which human values and morals develop and grow in the new generation; these values and morals cannot exist apart from the family unit. If, on the other hand, free sexual relationships and illegitimate children become the basis of a society, and if the relationship between man and woman is based on lust, passion and impulse, and the division of work is not based on family responsibility and natural gifts; if woman’s role is merely to be attractive, sexy and flirtatious, and if woman is freed from her basic responsibility of bringing up children; and if, on her own or under social demand, she prefers to become a hostess or a stewardess in a hotel or ship or air company, thus using her ability for material productivity rather than the training of human beings, because material production is considered to be more important, more valuable and more honourable than the development of human character, then such a civilisation is ‘backward’ from the human point of view ..."

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  70. I'm not sure who said it, but many of the people that post here in the Steve - o - sphere are just trying to find reasons to feel good about themselves.

    I mean, men look around and see that they failed to make as much money as the men who founded Steve's market research firm, and just want to make excuses for their failures.

    Very few men on this blog will admit to themselves or to us that they were just born without the IQ or born without the drive and grit that defined the founders of Steve's market research firm.

    A fundamental lack of honesty, if you ask me.

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  71. I mean, men look around and see that they failed to make as much money as the men who founded Steve's market research firm, and just want to make excuses for their failures.

    Oh, what a terrible failure! Woe is me!

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  72. if woman’s role is merely to be attractive, sexy and flirtatious ..

    That's a very odd role, isn't it? Once upon a time a young woman in her mid to late teens would do the "attractive, sexy and flirtatious" thing long enough to find a husband. And then cut it out.

    These days females start with the "attractive, sexy and flirtatious" business at the age of ten and continue with it until retirement, to the detriment of both family and career.

    Used to be the only women who would make a career out of being "attractive, sexy and flirtatious" were courtesans. Things haven't changed for the better.

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  73. "Very few men on this blog will admit to themselves or to us that they were just born without the IQ or born without the drive and grit that defined the founders of Steve's market research firm."

    Being completely honest, consistently tested beyond the 98th percentile, was born with the drive, gradually lost it along the way because frankly, what's the point.

    The philosophy of man-child 'nihilism' hasn't affected women in the same way because there are barriers to be broken, go where no woman has gone before and humble the chauvinistic males who say women can't do this or that.

    The cheerleaders of media and academia see to it that they don't falter or suffer a crisis of faith.
    Destroying the exclusivity of phallic supremacism or planting the flag of the female herd's domination on men's hallowed lands, take your pick.

    It would have helped if I didn't feel guilty on besting a hard-working female friend in school while I never picked up the books in my spare time, which interestingly, never felt for a male friend(you sexist!) and 'grrl power' could work with sexes reversed.(again!)

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  74. Correction: last night I posted:

    9/9/11 9:40 AM

    White people who live in big cities are suckers.

    The hot blonde wives of the CEOs and hedge-funders manifest this by having 3 or 4 kids.


    The " hot blonde wives" sentence is a mistake, the result of hasty cutting and pasting. I meant to only post the "live in big cities are suckers" sentence.

    Question for the gent who wrote Trust me, we don't really care what happens outside NYC.:

    What are the advantages of living in NY City, aside from huddling there with one's ethnic brethern?

    Me, I never have been to New York City, so please explain why it's groovy there.

    ////

    So he can cheat with someone who isn't an ugly, careerist shrew?

    Huh, Bill Clinton.


    I would respect Bubba Clinton more if the women he cheated with were better looking than Monica Lewinsky, who by the way resembled photographs of Bill's mother Virginia in her younger days.

    As for Islam: yes, Sharia law has its good points. As I understand it, Islam permits a husband to beat his wife with a stick, provided the stick is no longer than the hubby's finger. ( Hmm, which finger? )

    Bill Clinton ought to set an example of multiculturalism in action, and take a stick to Hillary.

    A bit of Islamic culture that I'd like to emulate is taking on a much younger second or third or nth wife.

    Muhammed married a nine year old girl. Me, I'd settle for a hot eighteen or nineteen year old, provided she was a lot better looking than Monica L.

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  75. All the comments blathering on about "Alphas" and asking why they don't have 7 concubines and 200 children is obnoxious. That kind of talk is very anti-traditionalist for a set of commentators that purport to be conservative in nature.

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  76. A bit of Islamic culture that I'd like to emulate is taking on a much younger second or third or nth wife.

    I'd think that the problems with this would be obvious to the meanest intelligence. If I have eight wives then somebody, such as you, has none.

    Or do you plan on growing women in vats so that they outnumber men by ten to one?

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  77. All the comments blathering on about "Alphas" and asking why they don't have 7 concubines and 200 children is obnoxious. That kind of talk is very anti-traditionalist for a set of commentators that purport to be conservative in nature

    The alpha-worshipper's are hard-core lefties. They're just too dumb to know it.

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  78. "What are the advantages of living in NY City, aside from huddling there with one's ethnic brethern?

    Me, I never have been to New York City, so please explain why it's groovy there."


    For the wealthy, it's one of the best places in the world to live. There are world class restaurants, museums, stores; luxury apartments with spectacular views; first rate cultural activities, including theater, dance, music, lectures by famous authors; exclusive clubs and parties where the rich can hobnob with world leaders, billionaires, intellectuals, famous actors and models; avant guard cultural activities (art "installations", pretentious films and bands); and so on.

    As importantly, NYC is one of the few places in America (Hollywood being another) where the fabulously wealthy have multiple levels at which to flaunt their wealth. A timber baron in Spokane might go to the same restaurants that a middle class person goes to there, but a wealthy New Yorker can differentiate himself by going to a $400 per person sushi place.

    For the non-wealthy, there can be something of an emperor's new clothes facade about living in NYC. Some non-wealthy actually enjoy living there, but many have to convince themselves they live in "the greatest city in the world", even though they can't afford to enjoy much of the best the city has to offer.

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  79. "Trust me, we don't really care what happens outside NYC."

    Exactly how I feel about Ground Zero.

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  80. "Muhammed married a nine year old girl. Me, I'd settle for a hot eighteen or nineteen year old, provided she was a lot better looking than Monica L."

    If you were enough of a man to have multiple wives in a Muslim country, you'd be able to have an 18 year old mistress here at home. The truth is that polygamy is your worst nightmare. Imagine that guy who was more attractive, taller, stronger and more confident than you in high school would actually be able to date all the girls that liked him without them feeling wronged and without scorn from society. You'd be completely alone. Forever. Of course, there would be the extremely obese, ugly and sick girl that the top guy literally wouldn't want to touch, not even as his thirtieth wife, but you'd only have a chance with her if the 2nd and the 3rd best male would reject her.
    Western societies abolished polygamy to help out guys like you. Still, the confident and the gifted men in our culture tend to have as many women as they choose.

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  81. "All the comments blathering on about "Alphas" and asking why they don't have 7 concubines and 200 children is obnoxious. That kind of talk is very anti-traditionalist for a set of commentators that purport to be conservative in nature."

    I am very liberal in most things, and I still find the idea that a successful man must want to have as many children as possible idiotic.

    Quality plays a higher role than quantity. Mammals produce fewer offsprings than insects because they actually have to spend some time on all of them. People in civilized nations have less children than those in the third world because they plan for all their children to survive, unlike the third world dwellers who leave this sort of a thing up to chance.
    Similarly, an upper echelon man will never have as many children as a ghetto gentleman because someone intelligent, confident and successful probably values his seed enough to want to raise his children in the best of circumstances and prepare them for the brightest future. It takes more than DNA and money to ensure future success. Why wouldn't someone who is driven enough to leave nothing to chance when advancing in his field want to supervise every detail when it comes to his children's development? Impossible to do with 12, let alone a hundred.

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  82. NYC is one of the few places in America (Hollywood being another) where the fabulously wealthy have multiple levels at which to flaunt their wealth. A timber baron in Spokane might go to the same restaurants that a middle class person goes to there, but a wealthy New Yorker can differentiate himself by going to a $400 per person sushi place.

    So you're saying that New Yorkers are elitist snobs who feel the need to flaunt their wealth? (sometimes even if they don't have any - I know New Yorkers)

    This sort of obsession with status is anti-American. Warren Buffett bought a house in Omaha in 1957. He still lives there today.

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  83. "Me, I never have been to New York City, so please explain why it's groovy there."

    You can get a drink any time you want. Other than that, I can't think of anything else...

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  84. You know, Steve, you have never explained (AFAIK) why you went from a connected, up-and-comer to a blogger.

    What happened? Surely it is possible to play the corporate game for 10 years, make multi-millions, and then blog for peanuts?

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  85. You know, Steve, you have never explained (AFAIK) why you went from a connected, up-and-comer to a blogger.

    He lacked Derbyshire's tact, so he got fired from National Review, but he also lacked Ann Coulter's gams, so he couldn't get re-hired as a Fox News infobabe.

    PS: In honor of the "9-11" tenth anniversary, allow me to state unequivocally that Ann was dead-on accurate when she said that we should invade their countries, kill all their leaders, and convert everyone else to Christianity.

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  86. "He lacked Derbyshire's tact, so he got fired from National Review, but he also lacked Ann Coulter's gams, so he couldn't get re-hired as a Fox News infobabe."

    Yes, if only Steve had played his cards right he'd be where Derbyshire is today, writing for Takimag.

    Oh, wait.

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  87. "You know, Steve, you have never explained (AFAIK) why you went from a connected, up-and-comer to a blogger."

    You know I never bought Sailer's story about being a maligned, economically marginalized purveyor of truth. I think it's just schtick. Don't be so naive.

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  88. Whitey Whiteman III9/11/11, 7:41 AM

    "When we got to work, the CEO offered to pick me up every morning on that corner, but, feeling pummeled by G-forces and whiplash from the ride, I went back to taking the bus."


    This right here is why we love you.

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  89. I am very liberal in most things, and I still find the idea that a successful man must want to have as many children as possible idiotic.

    Quite true, that's not too say that high-income men don't have somewhat more children than middle-income men. I doubt this has much to do with alpha/beta. More likely, couples in the educated classes typically aspire to have, say, 3 kids but only the wealthier members can afford to.

    The phenomenon of successful men having multiple families in serial marriages is much more alpha-like (if we're going to use that term), and guys like that can end up with five or six kids. They're rare, though I know two women from first families of such men, and, boy, are they bitter.

    Cennbeorc

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  90. You know I never bought Sailer's story about being a maligned, economically marginalized purveyor of truth. I think it's just schtick. Don't be so naive.

    Would you say he's not maligned? Or that he's rich? "Purveyor of truth" is grandiloquent, but I'd say he's as a generally accurate and insightful as most of the better journalists, but is mining vein that they would never touch. Thus he produces more value than most.

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  91. that's not too say that high-income men don't have somewhat more children than middle-income men.

    It's not to say that they do have somewhat more children either. But let's not get bogged down in details.

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  92. Some data here on family size and income by state. Steve might find it interesting.

    It follows a fairly flat bell curve. The smallest and biggest families have a lower income than those with one or two children.

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  93. My original post was why Steve gave up a promising career as a high-level corporate executive. Few people would do it willingly at a young age to become a (poorly-paid)free-lance columnist. Truth-telling is nice and all, but it is better to do it after cashing in.

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  94. You know I never bought Sailer's story about being a maligned, economically marginalized purveyor of truth. I think it's just schtick. Don't be so naive.

    Yeah, he's not maligned, not at all.

    Obviously veritable geniuses like John Podhoretz and other members of the Amen Corner All-Star Team get all the attention on merit alone.

    Silver

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  95. Some data here on family size and income by state. Steve might find it interesting.

    It's interesting, but doesn't quite address the issue of high- vs. middle-income males, for a number of reason. The main one that it looks at median incomes, so isn't likely the capture the characteristics of high-income families (who, obviously, are a minority everywhere).

    I waded into this debate because I remember seeing a stat (from the Family Scholars blog, maybe) suggesting that there was this U-shaped curve for fertility and income. I THINK it may have been particularly true of Republicans, but I don't recall clearly. In any case, I can't locate the source.

    Cennbeorc

    Cennbeorc

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  96. A decade ago, I looked at lists of CEOs and of professional golfers, both affluent, successful, Republican-leaning. I estimated the median number of children for these men was 3 to 4.

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  97. A decade ago, I looked at lists of CEOs and of professional golfers, both affluent, successful, Republican-leaning. I estimated the median number of children for these men was 3 to 4.

    You should repeat the exercise with, say, University Professors [Presidents?], Hollyweird Producers, and maybe Partners in major law firms.

    My guess is that just the presence of the homosexuals alone will screw those "TFRs" all to Hades.

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