Steve Sailer: iSteve: My thought process on Occupy Wall Street

October 16, 2011

My thought process on Occupy Wall Street

1. Don't these people have anything better to do?

2. [Checks photos] Eh ... probably not.

3. Okay, go for it!

My old articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

89 comments:

Harmonious Jim said...: OT, but Steve gets quoted in Steven Pinker's much-publicized new book. (Alas, not on anything of much substance.) How long can it go on that Steve Sailer's existence simply cannot be acknowledged? Not long, I hope.; 10/16/11, 10:11 PM
Anonymous said...: I laughed so hard my wife came over and slapped my back!; 10/16/11, 10:13 PM
RKU said...: Well, I don't know how representative they were, but the newspapers mentioned that quite a few of the "Occupiers" were B-School and Law-School grads who'd been suckered into taking out well over $100,000 in students loans, and now couldn't find any jobs paying enough to ever get out from under those debts. Back a few years ago, Congress made student-loans exempt from bankruptcy.

If were a 25-year-old just out of grad school who'd worked hard and gotten good grades in hopes of being economically successful, but now realized you'd probably remain a debt-peon for the rest of your entire life, wouldn't you be ticked off as well? And why wouldn't you reset the rich Wall Streeters, who'd followed your same track but had been lucky enough to be a few years older.

Seems to me this is the sort of thing which led impoverished 19th Century South Italian peasants to escape their landlords by fleeing to America, or perhaps riot and try to overthrow them in a revolution.

Somehow, I think all these student-loan backed securities aren't such a great investment right now.; 10/16/11, 10:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Are you looking at photos of the Manhattan/DC/London press corps?; 10/16/11, 10:31 PM
Anonymous said...: "And why wouldn't you resent the rich Wall Streeters, who'd followed your same track but had been lucky enough to be a few years older."

Did they, though?

Someone with the brain and grades to get into, say, Harvard Law, is doing ok. OWS cretins? Not so much.; 10/16/11, 11:07 PM
medea said...: Great writing there, Sailer. Absolutely scintillating.; 10/16/11, 11:28 PM
Lugash said...: I am Lugash.

So are you against the protests Steve? If nothing else, they seem to get the idea that too much power is concentrated in too few hands. Yeah, there are some goofs in the crowd, but they mostly have the right idea.

1) The anarchist/black bloc/smash'n'grab contingent is not present, being kept in check, or (tinfoil hat) has been given orders not to raise a ruckus. Very, very odd, given that this is the biggest protest in years.

2) Bloomberg has shown both that his true loyalty is to the 0.001%/Wall Street and that he's able recognize that he's got a potential PR crisis on his hands. He backed off the rhetoric real quick when he sensed public opinion going against him.

2a) As someone else in one of your previous posts, the elite need NYC, hence the heavy response.

3) I find it amazing that Obama hasn't spoken up about Lt. Tony Baloney macing some hippy chicks who weren't a threat to anyone. Obama was sure quick to speak up when Henry Gates was arrested for legitimate reasons.

4) I skim/read quite a few police blogs, and they're all abuzz how the protesters are going to be violent. Typical cop paranoia, or are they that far too the right?

4) I love all the talk about how the protesters don't have a 'coherent message'. Duh. This is a bunch of independent movements of people who are pissed off up the multitude of ways the elites are fucking things up. Trying to narrow the message into 'tax the rich' or 'improve education' is too small.

5) Prediction: The upcoming G8/NATO meetings in Chicago are going to be a complete clusterfuck. There's apparently zero prep and coordination going on between the various agencies. Black flash mob criminality+black bloc anarchists+other assorted protesters is going to be interesting.; 10/16/11, 11:34 PM
Anonymous said...: @11:07 PM Anonymous:

I went to a top tier school and haven't gotten a good job in five years. When you're being turned down for entry-level IT jobs paying $10 an hour with a Computer Science degree from a US News Top 10 school, something is wrong.; 10/16/11, 11:43 PM
Bob Loblaw said...: The anarchist/black bloc/smash'n'grab contingent is not present, being kept in check, or (tinfoil hat) has been given orders not to raise a ruckus.

Oh, they're present. It's just that there aren't enough of them that police would be overwhelmed.; 10/17/11, 12:03 AM
Anonymous said...: OT, but Steve gets quoted in Steven Pinker's much-publicized new book.

Hey, Derb got quoted in The New York Times! (Even better, he got a link!)

Douthat's an interesting guy. There are lots of ways he could have approached his topic without giving Derbyshire a plug. Hmmm....; 10/17/11, 12:07 AM
Anonymous said...: 11:43 anonymous, please tell more! Why do you think that is; just the current job market? a low gpa? a lack of practical coding skills?

(I'm interested in working in IT, that comment mkes me worried.); 10/17/11, 12:11 AM
Lugash said...: I am Lugash.

11:43 anonymous, please tell more! Why do you think that is; just the current job market? a low gpa? a lack of practical coding skills?

(I'm interested in working in IT, that comment mkes me worried.)

What part of IT? All the DBA and coding work is going to sub-continentals, either in America or offshore. Sysadmin work is getting offshored, but onshore it's still largely the domain of whites.

No matter what, expect long hours, getting paged at 3:00AM Sunday morning to unfuck a server and being laid off every few years.

I am Lugash.; 10/17/11, 12:28 AM
Dave said...: "I went to a top tier school and haven't gotten a good job in five years. When you're being turned down for entry-level IT jobs paying $10 an hour with a Computer Science degree from a US News Top 10 school, something is wrong."

I hired one programmer in California (personally referred to me) for a contract job at $175 per hour last month. I hired another guy in New York (via Elance) at $50 per hour for another job (both Rails developers). The second guy did better work, and I was happy to pay him $50 per hour.

I haven't seen many programmers outside of India or Romania charging under $20 per hour, and I wouldn't risk my business on hiring them.

If you know your stuff, go on Elance. You can get tested in different areas, and if you score in the top 10%, someone like me will give a shot. There is plenty of demand for freelance developers these days, as the big shops are busy with corporate and VC-funded work.; 10/17/11, 12:31 AM
Anonymous said...: If you are interested in working in IT/CS, come to the Bay Area and hang out on Hacker News. Go to any of the "who's hiring" threads and send out CVs. Or go to interviewstreet.com. The market for reasonably good programmers/sysadmins is on fire out here.; 10/17/11, 12:37 AM
Anonymous said...: i do think there is something 'wrong' with not being able to declare bankruptcy on student debt. - We have a money lenders economy and the purpose of student loans is get what used to be the middle class in perpetual life long debt.

This has happened before. Look at Magna Carta and debt. Edward the I and debt.

What is interesting is that the democrats are hijacking this despite the fact wall street is ethnic and demcratic (and often teaming up with la razza, etc) and repubs are defending them.

A few months ago the left doesn't have a problem with the fact the occupiers are 99% white as they did with the tea party.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/04/99-what-occupy-wall-street-organizers-look-for-minorities/

Both the tea party and OWS are the white middle class reacting. OWS is a little dumber. Neither are on the brink of realizing who runs wall street, who runs the media running cover for them..

But the same way zionists tried to hijack the tea party and turn it into 'bomb iran' jewish activists are trying to give it a 'jewish flavor' http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/10/11/3089808/hundreds-occupy-wall-street-for-yom-kippur

maybe a little deflection here?; 10/17/11, 5:58 AM
Anonymous said...: ”It’s my tribe that controls Wall St. Why would I be upset?” (available here beginning around 24:40) (followed by nervous laughter from his co-host).
http://goo.gl/TmX6j; 10/17/11, 6:01 AM
Anonymous said...: but onshore it's still largely the domain of whites.
in New York its pretty much ethnic ghettos now.; 10/17/11, 6:02 AM
Anonymous said...: "OT, but Steve gets quoted in Steven Pinker's much-publicized new book"

Pinker is like a cross between Sailer and Gladwell.; 10/17/11, 6:10 AM
Anonymous said...: A lot of Occupiers seem to be bums, but guys on WS are bums who raked in billions. We have lazy bums vs leechy bums.; 10/17/11, 6:12 AM
Anonymous said...: "I went to a top tier school and haven't gotten a good job in five years. When you're being turned down for entry-level IT jobs paying $10 an hour with a Computer Science degree from a US News Top 10 school, something is wrong."

You should try wearing a suit to your interviews.

(My unwarranted ridicule stems from the fact that I'm in my third year at a top 30 law school and will graduate more than $100k in the hole. The idea of someone graduating from a top 10 school and not being able to find a job is like a knife of terror in my spine. ); 10/17/11, 6:14 AM
Anonymous said...: Occupuss vs the Octopus.

One good thing about OWS is it shows the elite what it's like to be invaded by hoardes of unruly folks.

We once talked about Occupy Harvard to show the elites what illegal immigration is doing to this country.

I hope Occupiers trespass into the very heart of WS itself--inside the banks. They wouldn't be illegal trespassers but unhired employees.; 10/17/11, 6:30 AM
Anonymous said...: OWS= the tea party for SWPL; 10/17/11, 6:46 AM
Anonymous said...: What's so bad about these OWS people? Seems like they have a good time and it's one of the few times the left gets something remotely right: rage against self-enriching bankers.; 10/17/11, 6:58 AM
Anonymous said...: rage against self-enriching bankers.
but the radical left is trying to turn it into a diatrabe against capitalism - anytime you have a left of center movement cutlural marxists will hijack it (see civil rights movement); 10/17/11, 7:00 AM
Anonymous said...: the Bolshiviks were funded, well funded by Wall street.; 10/17/11, 7:01 AM
Anonymous said...: "If were a 25-year-old just out of grad school who'd worked hard and gotten good grades in hopes of being economically successful, but now realized you'd probably remain a debt-peon for the rest of your entire life, wouldn't you be ticked off as well?"

This is a good issue for Republicans. They should promise legislation compelling universities and professional schools to offer unsecured matching loans to students requiring financial aid. That way, schools will have a vested interest in admitting only students who are likely to have the ability to pay back their loans. And if NAMs start suing universities for discriminating against them because of their low creditworthiness, that's just frosting on the cake.; 10/17/11, 7:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Fuknoy's Complaint; 10/17/11, 7:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Germany and banks; 10/17/11, 7:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Notice that all the out of work young professionals in the OWS protests are white. Do you suppose they've figured out that affirmative action hires probably displaced them from the lower rungs of their career ladder, or that Obama has guaranteed the situation will get worse for them because of requirements written into Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare for even more affirmative action in the ranks of professionals?; 10/17/11, 7:32 AM
Anonymous said...: They don't know what they are protesting, and if they did would probably stop. The correlation between the foreign born percentage of the population and the income of the top 1% is pretty high.; 10/17/11, 7:32 AM
Anonymous said...: Bakers bake bread, bankers eat bread. Rest of us, let us eat cake.; 10/17/11, 7:33 AM
NOTA said...: I agree with a couple previous commenters that OWS and the Tea Party are tapping into the same frustration. Further, this is part of a much bigger phenomenon--the net and social media have broken the monopoly of the respectable media and existing political parties/organizations to decide whst issues and facts will be discussed, and to channel protests and political movements in desired directions, respectively. My guess is that this scares the hell out of people who have built their power and wealth on having that control.

The fact is, the financial meltdown and subsequent bailouts were a visible exercise of power by the folks at the top, responding to a crisis in which some very powerful and connected people needed the rules changed just for them, They were inevitably going to cause popular anger. Many Democrats swallowed their anger for awhile, deluding themselves that "far left socialist communist" Obama would take some kind of serious action against the big banks--massive reregulation, nationalization, antitrust breakups of those companies too big to be allowed to fail. Of course, Obama was every bit as much on the take from those guys as Bush or McCain, and so none of that happened.

And while Im not a big fan of loud public protests, the OWS guys are 100% right that the government has largely been captured by the biggest and richest companies. The rules have been setup to keep the rich and powerful on top, and to ensure that market discipline, like laws, are for the nobodies. They're right to be pissed off.; 10/17/11, 7:38 AM
NOTA said...: One thing about a vast army of unemployed people, they've got the time on their hands to take part in long-running protests.; 10/17/11, 7:39 AM
Anonymous said...: Back in my day, all you had to do to get a job was take a bath, go downtown and talk to a few bosses, and one or two 'em made offers, and you got hired same day and could raise a family if you had the gumption to stick with it. And nobody went into debt nohow. That's what I did, and I can't understand why those beatniks don't do the very same thing. Why, the newspapers are full of want ads, ain't they? Start as a waiter and work your way up to owning a $30 million dollar business like I done. Back in my day, we... I just can't understand...excuse me, I gotta take my nap now.

Sincerely,
Carl P. Witherspoon (...age 63...); 10/17/11, 7:55 AM
Truth said...: "(My unwarranted ridicule stems from the fact that I'm in my third year at a top 30 law school and will graduate more than $100k in the hole. The idea of someone graduating from a top 10 school and not being able to find a job is like a knife of terror in my spine. )"

"I went to a top tier school and haven't gotten a good job in five years. When you're being turned down for entry-level IT jobs paying $10 an hour with a Computer Science degree from a US News Top 10 school, something is wrong."

OK young men, I am going to give you the secret to success right now:

There are two types of people in this world; those with an entrepreneurial bent, and those without.

This cuts across racial, occupational, sexual, and class upbringing lines.

Those with an entrepreneurial bent are able to weather hard times...

Those who have been brainwashed into believing that they are so brilliant that the world owes them something, and will only work for a paycheck, are going into the hardest period in American history (harder than the great depression).

E.g., Sailer could be writing for a magazine, but he has an entrepreneurial bent, and you will keep sending him money.

Class dismissed.; 10/17/11, 8:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Good blog; 10/17/11, 8:02 AM
AllanF said...: Hey, more power to them, the OWS-ers. Somebody's got to do the heavy lifting of waiting out the politicians. In fact, didn't Tom Wolfe speak to this? The politicians thought they were being very clever with food stamps and unemployment benefits going online -- keep the disaffected dispersed they quietly thought. Unfortunately for them, the same technology that allows for dispersing soup lines, also allows for easy organizing among those pissed at their soup ration while WS loots the national treasury.

Just because OWS-ers can't quite elucidate how they have been screwed, doesn't mean they haven't been screwed. They have, we all have.; 10/17/11, 8:43 AM
Anonymous said...: "1. Don't these people have anything better to do?"

That's kind of the point, actually.; 10/17/11, 9:09 AM
Anonymous said...: "If were a 25-year-old just out of grad school who'd worked hard and gotten good grades in hopes of being economically successful, but now realized you'd probably remain a debt-peon for the rest of your entire life, wouldn't you be ticked off as well?"

Sounds just like the soft generation. Poor babes. I guess their grandparents, who faced the Depression and then went off to the Pacific and Europe to maybe die were "ticked off" at their fate. Jeeez. The country is soft because of people who think like the 25 year old you describe. Entitled.

Tell 'em to start a window cleaning business like the Vietnamese guy down the street from me. Ten years ago he and his wife began the business. They are doing very well.; 10/17/11, 9:47 AM
beowulf said...: Mark Cuban: Tax The Hell Out Of Wall Street And Give It To Main Street (And Other Advice For The Protesters...)
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-15/news/30282822_1_shareholders-unemployment-rolls-share-price; 10/17/11, 9:59 AM
ben tillman said...: Pinker is like a cross between Sailer and Gladwell.

LOL!; 10/17/11, 10:50 AM
ben tillman said...: but the radical left is trying to turn it into a diatrabe against capitalism

And what's wrong with that? Capitalism = centralization of wealth and, thus, power. Read Tawney's "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism" to get an idea of the rejection of community (i.e., morality) associated with the rise of capitalism.

Don't confuse capitalism (and the concomitant centralization of wealth) with the free market, which is the decentralization of economic decisionmaking.

Free market = good
Capitalism = bad; 10/17/11, 10:56 AM
Anonymous said...: yeah, steve likes to cowtow to the 1%. that's the "macho" stance to take in this case; 10/17/11, 11:09 AM
Catperson said...: "If were a 25-year-old just out of grad school who'd worked hard and gotten good grades in hopes of being economically successful, but now realized you'd probably remain a debt-peon for the rest of your entire life, wouldn't you be ticked off as well?"

Tough. I'm happy that there are so many highly educated people who can't find high paying jobs. People think they can get a fancy credential and use it a licence to print money. No! Only people with the intelligence to adapt their environment to their advantage are the ones who will be rich and when the environment changes you change with it, and if you can't figure out away to do that, then you're not intelligent; I don't care what school you went to.; 10/17/11, 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: To what 7:20 said

The Republicans can't help here or benefit from anything other than the Rich, Redneck and Geezer votes as the entire party is beholden to big money.

My feelings on OWS is that this is the 1.0 nice version put on by the mostly White Liberal youngsters and a few hippies, unionists and other assorted people.

if the jobs issue is not resolved, things will get interesting in about 15 years

This is when the 40% Black and Hispanic generation hits 18 with no prospects and by than the US state will be much weaker. If it get really bad it will be hollow.

Instead of Occupy Wall Street it may well end up "Open Source Warfare" I am not sanguine that such a war can actually be won by a State without rampant slaughter.

The 2.0 kids may not be on average as smart as the 1.0 kids (HBD strikes) but they have very good tools and it takes only a few smarties, some leverage and the weight of aggression and numbers to create havoc.

It looks interesting in a Chinese curse sense.; 10/17/11, 12:23 PM
Anonymous said...: "11:43 anonymous, please tell more! Why do you think that is; just the current job market? a low gpa? a lack of practical coding skills?

(I'm interested in working in IT, that comment mkes me worried.)"

The biggest problem for new workers is that we haven't the social network to compete with established foreign workers. The mass wave of layoffs and outsourcing has likely run its course, but now there are just few to no new jobs, and the people with the inside track on those jobs won't be rushing to tell young Americans about them.; 10/17/11, 1:12 PM
Anonymous said...: Gee, Anon 11:43, and your generational cohort who went to trade school to become plumbers and electricians are making $75K!

Makes you feel foolish, don't it?

My best friend is the IT manager for a small shipping company. He has no degree of any sort, just 30 years in the industry. 10 years ago he was making $130K+ working for a large tech company, but the new reality is as was noted by Lugash, so he's happy with his current lot at about $40K less. He recently hired a self-taught sysadmin (also no degree, just a Microsoft cert) who was a chef for 20 years! He is willing to exchange the safe hire, another mewling, overqualified in his own mind, how-many-holidays-do-I-get tech degree puke, for someone coming from a business where you show up every day and do your job or you go over the side of the lifeboat.

It's YOUR job to make yourself relevant. Norman Spinrad wrote about this 25 years ago in his book Little Heros: what happens when not only your job, but the whole class of jobs you trained for, gets put on a chip, offshored or just goes away? Why did the Verizon techs go back to work with their tails between their legs? Do you think they realize that 5-10 years from now nothing is going over a wire or fiberoptic line?

You're conversant in math and, hopefully, some computer language, so get to work. We're going to see over the next few years if the entrepreneurial spirit is dead or alive in this country.; 10/17/11, 1:16 PM
Steve Sailer said...: "Pinker is like a cross between Sailer and Gladwell."

No. The reality is that when it comes to intelligence, I'm about halfway between Pinker and Gladwell.; 10/17/11, 1:58 PM
Anonymous said...: "No. The reality is that when it comes to intelligence, I'm about halfway between Pinker and Gladwell."

What I mean is Pinker touches on 'racialist' themes but looks for Gladwellian copouts.; 10/17/11, 2:02 PM
Anonymous said...: It is well established that it is economically nonsensical to attend law school except for the top 10. Yet students keep going into 6 figure debt to get their law degree.

Why? An M.D. still gets you automatic social respect (plus guaranteed 100K ++ annual income), but a J.D. has about the same cachet as a Doctorate of Nursing (soon to standard for nurse-practitioners) or Doctorate of Physical Therapy (in the works) or a Doctorate of Pharmacy (now standard).

I would conclude that anyone currently applying to a law school not named Harvard, Yale or Stanford has low IQ or executive function.; 10/17/11, 2:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Anonymous at 6:02 writes about IT: in New York its pretty much ethnic ghettos now.

I work in the health care field in NYC. I'm not in IT, but I collaborate fairly often with my employer's IT staff. They're divided neatly along ethnic lines: all the developers are Indians, but all the sysadmins are Russians.

No idea why this is -- can any IT types speculate?; 10/17/11, 2:27 PM
Anonymous said...: ""If were a 25-year-old just out of grad school who'd worked hard and gotten good grades in hopes of being economically successful, but now realized you'd probably remain a debt-peon for the rest of your entire life, wouldn't you be ticked off as well?"

Sounds just like the soft generation. Poor babes. I guess their grandparents, who faced the Depression and then went off to the Pacific and Europe to maybe die were "ticked off" at their fate. Jeeez. The country is soft because of people who think like the 25 year old you describe. Entitled.

Tell 'em to start a window cleaning business like the Vietnamese guy down the street from me. Ten years ago he and his wife began the business. They are doing very well."

Good for them, their children however, are statistically screwed. Immigrants are displacing youth employment, something no one in 1930 had to worry about.

http://bls.gov/news.release/youth.t02.htm; 10/17/11, 2:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Free market = good
Capitalism = bad

Corporatism = bad; 10/17/11, 2:51 PM
Truth said...: "No. The reality is that when it comes to intelligence, I'm about halfway between Pinker and Gladwell."

Which one is where?; 10/17/11, 3:34 PM
Steve Sailer said...: "Which one is where?"

That's not a really hard question.; 10/17/11, 4:11 PM
Lugash said...: I am Lugash.

No idea why this is -- can any IT types speculate?

I've tried coming up with an answer to it, but can't really. It could be language, nepotism, people getting hired from certain schools or a bunch of other things.

It's really sad. A bunch of people with technical degrees(math, engineering, physics etc.) could be doing productive work.

I am Lugash.; 10/17/11, 4:22 PM
Udolpho.com said...: No idea why this is -- can any IT types speculate?

I think what you're seeing is that the Indians hire Indians, and the Russians hire Russians. So it seems like all the sysadmins are Russians by some quirk of fate, but in reality the Russian guys in charge of the sysadmin area are making it that way.; 10/17/11, 4:27 PM
Anonymous said...: My thought process on OWS:

1.) Wow, these people are hideously White!

2.) How come the media isn't calling them racists (because they're too White), like they did the Tea Party?

3.) Because they're leftoids.

4.) I should point this out whenever the subject comes up.; 10/17/11, 4:43 PM
Anonymous said...: So are you against the protests Steve?

I'm not. But they are clearly just a bunch of racists.; 10/17/11, 4:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Bloomberg has shown both that his true loyalty is to the 0.001%/Wall Street

That reminds me: maybe when OWS switch their motto to "we're the 99.9%" I'll have more respect for them.

"We're the 99" = anti-business, anti-free enterprise, anti-entrepreneurialism.

We're the 99.9%" = anti-Wall Street bankster, anti-crony capitalism, anti-mega corporations.; 10/17/11, 4:49 PM
TGGP said...: I'm pretty lazy, a B student at an in-state public university, and haven't been a very good programmer but I still had little problem getting hired even with the economy not doing very good. I did zero social networking, never did any internships, and so on. I work in Chicago because I already lived near there. There's a couple Russians, more Indians, but mostly white americans like me. So all the complaints about how horrible things are in IT just seem strange to me.; 10/17/11, 7:39 PM
Catperson said...: No. The reality is that when it comes to intelligence, I'm about halfway between Pinker and Gladwell.

One thing i have always wondered. Who do you think has a higher IQ? Gladwell or Obama?; 10/17/11, 7:49 PM
Mr. Anon said...: "Anonymous said...

I work in the health care field in NYC. I'm not in IT, but I collaborate fairly often with my employer's IT staff. They're divided neatly along ethnic lines: all the developers are Indians, but all the sysadmins are Russians.

No idea why this is -- can any IT types speculate?"

Ethnic nepotism? When a critical mass of one particular ethny gets in, especially in a managerial capacity, they start primarily hiring their own.; 10/17/11, 8:48 PM
Lucius said...: Demanding total forgiveness of their debt, for the pursuit of what may or may not have been risible degrees in Cultural Studies or perhaps a film program that opens few, if any, doors may be unjust self-pity.

But I cannot see the justice in making these kinds of giant debts unmitigable.

Perhaps punishing these students is part of a grand strategy against the Gramsci Project's takeover of academe. Making an example of degree-holders in "studies" programs might be a longterm triumph for sanity.

But I don't think this is the intention. The education bubble has bamboozled these students, and their parents, into believing the whole degree="Jobs-- OF THE FUTURE!!!" schtick, while the oligarchs are busy downgrading those opportunities onto the grateful backs of as many immigrant and offshore laborers as they can horde.

Anyway, isn't our society rich enough to afford a cadre of harmless humanities majors, if they'll only promise to stop violently overturning the ruling class every few years?

And some gratitude Barry has. Wasn't his whimsical, diffident, vaguely louche youth forgivingly disappeared? Why can't a few SWPLs enjoy the same magnanimity?; 10/17/11, 8:57 PM
Anonymous said...: "Don't these people have anything better to do?"

For such people, it's either occupy Wall Street or post on Sailer blog.; 10/17/11, 9:50 PM
David Davenport said...: I went to a top tier school and haven't gotten a good job in five years. When you're being turned down for entry-level IT jobs paying $10 an hour with a Computer Science degree from a US News Top 10 school, something is wrong.

One of the wrong things is taking US News & World Report, owned by Mortimer Zuckerman, seriously.

You sound like a bumpkin.

When you're being turned down for entry-level IT jobs paying $10 an hour

Those jobs are for Hindoos and Chinese persons, or maybe some white ethnic Chicago area commuter college grads.; 10/17/11, 9:55 PM
Rohan Swee said...: "We're the 99" = anti-business, anti-free enterprise, anti-entrepreneurialism.

We're the 99.9%" = anti-Wall Street bankster, anti-crony capitalism, anti-mega corporations.

Exactly, Svig. Since these exquisitely educated "creative and critical thinkers" can't even figure out who the Bad Guys are, the Bad Guys can just keep laughing at them, and are just loving that the dolts are doing all their propaganda work for them - burying legit anger under a lovely tide of Che chic. (Hey, dumbass, if you're all ticked off about not the Man not paying you a living wage, why are you working for him for free?); 10/18/11, 7:05 AM
Anonymous said...: What kills me is trashy gazillionaire celebs showing up in support of the protest. I mean how do most people in pop culture make their money? By feeding young consumers sewage. Yet, they act like moral crusaders.; 10/18/11, 7:32 AM
Anonymous said...: Where's Occupy Hollywood? It practices creative accounting and got fat by feeding and addicting us to garbage.; 10/18/11, 7:34 AM
Kylie said...: 'Don't these people have anything better to do?'

For such people, it's either occupy Wall Street or post on Sailer[sic] blog."

Those who choose the former over the latter are too stupid to survive by their wits and need to have their whining and chanting bankrolled in order to survive.; 10/18/11, 7:53 AM
Kylie said...: Steve Sailer said, "The reality is that when it comes to intelligence, I'm about halfway between Pinker and Gladwell."

Possibly. But you have better hair than both of them.; 10/18/11, 8:05 AM
Truth said...: My thought process on The Boston Tea Protest

1. Don't these people have anything better to do?

2. [Checks eyes] Eh ... probably not.

3. Okay, go for it!

-Samuel Adams, 1773; 10/18/11, 8:57 AM
Anonymous said...: "You can get tested in different areas, and if you score in the top 10%, someone like me will give a shot."

I'm sympathetic to the idea that 90% of people even of the threshhold competence of computer science programmer are a deadweight loss for the more talented fraction of humanity, but of course this advice isn't viable for the central tendency of computer programmers, probably even for those on the right side of the central tendency that comprise BS graduates of US News top 10 schools for computer science.

I summarize Dave:
What, you don't score in the 90th% of Elance? Then I have no job advice for you, sorry.

Hopefully Anonymous

http://hopefullyanonymous; 10/18/11, 9:38 AM
Anonymous said...: Remember that the Greatest Generation had the WPA, three squares in the military, the GI Bill, and the burgeoning economy of the 50s and 60s (created largely by war spending and tough trade and immigration policies). They - and especially their heirs the Baby Boomers - truly had it soft, supported by government spending and government protections at every turn. (However, they were required to do a turn in the military and occasionally get shot at or killed.) Just a little reality check for those who walked to school uphill both ways.; 10/18/11, 10:40 AM
Anonymous said...: "I'm pretty lazy, a B student at an in-state public university, and haven't been a very good programmer but I still had little problem getting hired even with the economy not doing very good. I did zero social networking, never did any internships, and so on. I work in Chicago because I already lived near there. There's a couple Russians, more Indians, but mostly white americans like me. So all the complaints about how horrible things are in IT just seem strange to me."

looking at youth employment as a whole, the further one gets away from the mexican border, the higher that percentage goes. So it is probably much the same issue, that you are further away from the indian immigration machines.; 10/18/11, 11:26 AM
David Davenport said...: I went to a top tier school and haven't gotten a good job in five years. When you're being turned down for entry-level IT jobs paying $10 an hour with a Computer Science degree from a US News Top 10 school, something is wrong.

Ok, I'm somewhat sorry I sounded so harsh last night, but there is something off key and wrong musical note about your five years of under-employment after graduation from a so-you-say top tier school.

Why haven't you gotten your M.S. in Comp. Sci during the past five years?

I'm familiar with engineering work, including software engineering, at big aerospace firms. An M.S. degree is needed if you expect to survive periodic layoffs at those firms, unless you have an Uncle Sidney high up in the company.

It's also good to be able to check "yes" on the US mil. veteran box on the job application forms.

Didn't anyone at your purported top tier school tell you those sorts of things? The thought of working in the military-industrial complex never crossed your or their pure, high minds?

If you went there, you'd turn into an Orc in the darkest depths of Mordor ...

But I do feel your pain. The job market is tough and young peepul often get bad advice from their universities.; 10/18/11, 9:11 PM
Anonymous said...: NOTA said...
OWS and the Tea Party are tapping into the same frustration. ... the OWS guys are 100% right that the government has largely been captured by the biggest and richest companies.

Sure, but what OWS fails to understand is that

big govt > regulatory capture > corruption > "reform" > bigger govt

is a positive feedback loop. Their instinctive love of Big Govt ensures they will never break free of that cycle. TEA gets that critical bit right, instinctively demanding smaller govt and holding out some hope of escaping that cycle.

Hammer-Drill; 10/18/11, 9:35 PM
Anonymous said...: Loved Lucius' point about "making an example of degree-holders in 'studies' programs..." Ah, we can only hope.

But let us now consult The Bible:

"One of the saddest social groups today [1983] consists of that 30% that during the 1950s and 60s struggled to "go to college" and thought they'd done that, only to find their prolehood still unredeemed, not merely intellectually, artistically, and socially, but economically as well.
...
Sometimes the middle class and the proles catch on to the college swindle, but too late. ... But usually awareness of the great college-and-status hoodwink goes unexpressed. It festers inside, producing a gnawing feeling that something's wrong somewhere and that one is, as usual, being screwed.
...
How was so bold a class deception accomplished? Was it intentional or accidental? It happened largely during the JFK and LBJ administrations, under the laudable, if unwittingly ironic, guise of 'opening up educational opportunity.'"

Paul Fussell wrote that TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO. It should have been carved into the face of the moon by now for all to see.

Hammer-Drill; 10/18/11, 9:40 PM
Dave said...: "I summarize Dave:
What, you don't score in the 90th% of Elance? Then I have no job advice for you, sorry"

You exemplify the entitlement mentality in a nutshell.; 10/18/11, 10:57 PM
ATBOTL said...: "So all the complaints about how horrible things are in IT just seem strange to me."

In NYC, corporate IT departments are mostly 100% Indian. It will become like that In Chicago too soon enough if something isn't done.; 10/19/11, 7:27 AM
Anonymous said...: Where's Occupy Hollywood? It practices creative accounting and got fat by feeding and addicting us to garbage.

Where's Occupy the MPAA and RIAA buildings, somewhere in the darkest depths of Prinz Albrecht Strasse of the Hollywood Nobody Wants You To See?; 10/19/11, 10:55 AM
Captain Jack Aubrey said...: "If were a 25-year-old just out of grad school who'd worked hard and gotten good grades..."

Hard work? Good grades? Uh, well those aren't the student loan debtors unable to get jobs. I've seen the OWS protestors in my city. Not impressed.

OWS protestors are vaguely aware that the Wall Street/Washington elite have caused this mess, but if you proposed a rational solution, like "resrict immigration," they wouldn't get the connection. They'd work very hard to deliberately NOT GET the connection. It's ashame, really, because if they did get it they'd make useful Tea Party allies. We need BOTH parties to have Tea Partiy elements.

The OWSers didn't go to college because they wanted to learn, or because doing white collar work was financially more promising than doing blue collar work. They went to college because blue collar work was entirely beneath them. (Oh, and the four-five-eight year party thing.)

Oh, and student loans? I have a friend who paid for his college entirely with credit cards. Pretty stupid, right? Until he declared bankruptcy. Can't do that with a student loan.; 10/19/11, 11:10 AM
ben tillman said...: You exemplify the entitlement mentality in a nutshell.

And what's wrong with the entitlement mentality? Are, or are not, people entitled to their inheritance?; 10/19/11, 1:44 PM
NOTA said...: One way the folks at the top avoid having to face popular anger over their apparent incompetence and malfeasance is to try to keep the angry people divided by tribes wherever possible. I assume that's why just about every bit of non-Fox coverage of Tea Party rallies focused on some attention-seeking idiot with a gun or carrying some intentionally offensive sign. It's why coverage of both antiwar and OWS rallies find people trampling or burning flags, or dirty hippies, or whatever.

That's all intended to make viewers/readers from the other political tribe either angry or scared. People don't think straight when they're angry or scared. Add in some appeals to tribalism (LOL look at the dumb libtards/LOL look at the ignorant trailer-trash conservatives), and you can avoid having lots of people in your society start listening to the actual complaints of the protesters, and start finding common causes they share.; 10/20/11, 12:02 PM
David Davenport said...: Middle class Americans whose only "inheritance" is their citizenship in a country built by their ancestors are entitled to nothing.

Sez who? Are you King George III of England?

Add in some appeals to tribalism

Tribalism is the natural and normal human conidtion.; 10/20/11, 9:17 PM
Truth said...: "Tribalism is the natural and normal human conidtion."

Well, that's true to a point, Dave; there are different levels of humans.; 10/20/11, 9:58 PM
Captain Jack Aubrey said...: "Sez who? Are you King George III of England?"

Sez the guy who was invoking the sacrasm you apparently didn't grasp.

Yes, they are entitled to their inheritance, since I need to make myself clear. I was pointing to the inconsistency of the rhetoric by guys like Grover Norquist who oppose "death taxes" on billionaires but who deny that American citizenship itself is a form of financial asset (esp. given the tens of trillions in assets held by the various levels of government).

Anyhoo, am I the only one who's noticed that support for giant tax cuts on the rich seems to have found broader support in both parties as the Jewish share of the wealth has increased?

I think Sailer calculated last year that about 35% of Forbes 400 members were Jews, as opposed to about 23% back in '85. This year at least half of the top 20 are Jewish. And so Congress has no problem slashing inheritance taxes from 55% back in the '80s to 35% today. Max cap gains rates have fallen from around 29% in 1990 to 15% today. And yet the economy is doing so much better...; 10/21/11, 8:38 AM
Anonymous said...: Anonymous: "Middle class Americans whose only "inheritance" is their citizenship in a country built by their ancestors are entitled to nothing."

"... to ... secure the Blessings of Liberty to ... our Posterity, [we] do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Your Inheritance is Liberty. That's it. And you'll have to work your Ass off to keep it. Seriously.

Love,
Your Ancestors

P.S. Please pick your Socks up off the Floor.; 10/21/11, 11:13 AM
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Steve Sailer: iSteve

October 16, 2011

My thought process on Occupy Wall Street

89 comments:

Panhandling

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Links

Search This Blog

Recent Comments

Classic Steve Sailer articles

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Rough Cut

Subscribe To iSteve

"What Is Winter Good For?"

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