90% of Americans will (and should) have a more bean-centric Mexican lifestyle

[roo_ster]

Alternately: "Let Them Eat Beans"

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/10/tyler-cowen-90-of-americans-will-and.html
http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-343190/
WSJ link is behind paywall.  Here is a text version:
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1796003&sid=98b0ab100cd997e4eb333717a1b25ee0#p1796003


Tyler Cowen: 90% of Americans will (and should) have a more bean-centric Mexican lifestyle

     To sum up, Mr. Cowen believes that America is dividing itself in two. At the top will be 10% to 15% of high achievers, the “Tiger Mother” kids if you like, whose self-motivation and mastery of technology will allow them to roar away into the future. Then there will be everyone else, slouching into an underfunded future of lower economic expectations, shantytowns and an endless diet of beans. I’m not kidding about the beans.

    Poor Americans, writes Mr. Cowen, will have to “reshape their tastes” and live more like Mexicans. “Don’t scoff at the beans,” he says. “With an income above the national average, I receive more pleasure from the beans, which I cook with freshly ground cumin and rehydrated, pureed chilies. Good tacos and quesadillas and tamales are cheap too, and that is one reason why they are eaten so frequently in low-income countries.”

Sweet!  I just can't wait for America to be turned into a third world country with two classes: the rich 10% and the poor 90%.  I mean, really, having to look most folk in the eye and treat them like real people...it gets kind of draining.  Better if we imported folk who can't speak English so we can think less of and about them while they do all the menial tasks and don't have to talk to them except through their English-speaking foreman...what's not to like?  Down with white & black mediocrities, up with brown helots!

OK, back to reality.  Read the text version of the book review.  It is worth your while.  I do not think it will end the way the book author thinks it will end.

Whether by accident or design, Mr. Cowen's book represents a fundamental challenge. To government-hating, market-worshiping conservatives, it poses a question: If this is the consequence of your creed, are you prepared to endorse it? To liberals and progressives: What are you going to do about it? And to all of us: Is this a country you would want to live in?

[Tallpine]

I like beans 

[AZRedhawk44]

To government-hating, market-worshiping conservatives, it poses a question: If this is the consequence of your creed, are you prepared to endorse it?

Yes.  Please, God, grant me a meritocracy.

To liberals and progressives: What are you going to do about it?

Probably whine and piss and moan, try to use government-granted monopolies of violence to prevent it.

And to all of us: Is this a country you would want to live in?

Sure.  And if it sucks, I can pick up and move to a different country.  As it is right now, I can't pick a country that actually has a meritocracy in place because they're all either socialist shytholes, or despotic places oozing the threat of violence and lacking any pretense of rule of law that the socialist shytholes at least pay token respect to.

[tokugawa]

Yes.  Please, God, grant me a meritocracy.

Probably whine and piss and moan, try to use government-granted monopolies of violence to prevent it.

Sure.  And if it sucks, I can pick up and move to a different country.  As it is right now, I can't pick a country that actually has a meritocracy in place because they're all either socialist shytholes, or despotic places oozing the threat of violence and lacking any pretense of rule of law that the socialist shytholes at least pay token respect to.

 Yeah, what he said!

[MillCreek]

A couple days ago, the WSJ printed a reader letter in response:

Why is your reviewer Philip Delves Broughton so afraid of American kids eating beans ("Average is Over" by Tyler Cowen, Bookshelf, Oct. 3)? I'm thrilled that my kids eat beans. Beans are nutritious. Beans are tasty. And beans are cheap.

And why is your reviewer so afraid of American kids living more like Mexicans? I am proud that my kids live like Mexicans. Mexicans work hard. Mexicans have great family values. And Mexicans are beginning to make pretty good money.

America needs more hardworking bean eaters and fewer uninformed bean counters.

Bill Crawford

Austin, Texas

[RoadKingLarry]

But what about the effects on globuular warmulating? The increased methane from all the people digesting beans will kill all the polar bears and flood the world.

[zxcvbob]

Beans, beans, the musical fruit...

[TechMan]

The more you eat...

[Sergeant Bob]

The more you eat...

The more you toot...

[Scout26]

The more you toot...

The better you feel.....

[Battle Monkey of Zardoz]

The better you feel.....

So eat beans every meal !!!

[charby]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEVNSKUeZqw

[brimic]

  To sum up, Mr. Cowen believes that America is dividing itself in two. At the top will be 10% to 15% of high achievers, the “Tiger Mother” kids if you like, whose self-motivation and mastery of technology will allow them to roar away into the future. Then there will be everyone else, slouching into an underfunded future of lower economic expectations, shantytowns and an endless diet of beans. I’m not kidding about the beans.

His premise is wrong from the start.
It won't be techno-nerds and high achievers who are the top 10-15%, it will be the QE thieves/bankers and leaders of the 'party' who will be on top, with everyone else on the bottom. Its happening already, and we are well on our way.

[Jamisjockey]

Yes.  Please, God, grant me a meritocracy.

Probably whine and piss and moan, try to use government-granted monopolies of violence to prevent it.enforce it
Sure.  And if it sucks, I can pick up and move to a different country.  As it is right now, I can't pick a country that actually has a meritocracy in place because they're all either socialist shytholes, or despotic places oozing the threat of violence and lacking any pretense of rule of law that the socialist shytholes at least pay token respect to.

FTFY

[fifth_column]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWDCi8nu4CE

About 1:30 . . .

[makattak]

Alternately: "Let Them Eat Beans"

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/10/tyler-cowen-90-of-americans-will-and.html
http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-343190/
WSJ link is behind paywall.  Here is a text version:
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1796003&sid=98b0ab100cd997e4eb333717a1b25ee0#p1796003


Tyler Cowen: 90% of Americans will (and should) have a more bean-centric Mexican lifestyle

Sweet!  I just can't wait for America to be turned into a third world country with two classes: the rich 10% and the poor 90%.  I mean, really, having to look most folk in the eye and treat them like real people...it gets kind of draining.  Better if we imported folk who can't speak English so we can think less of and about them while they do all the menial tasks and don't have to talk to them except through their English-speaking foreman...what's not to like?  Down with white & black mediocrities, up with brown helots!

OK, back to reality.  Read the text version of the book review.  It is worth your while.  I do not think it will end the way the book author thinks it will end.

Dr. Cowen has always had an interesting perspective.

His premise works, should current trends hold. It is my opinion, however, that we are currently on an unsustainable path.

(I haven't read his book, but I assume part of his point is that high ability/high achievers tend to marry and produce the same and low ability/low achievers tend to do the same.)

We may reach a 90%/10% situation, but it won't be because of technological progress or genetic trends. It will be because of political machinations and manipulations, just like it has been for the history of the world.

[Ryan in Maine]

Uh huh. Sure. Then how long until the prices of beans skyrocket in the US?

[roo_ster]

His premise is wrong from the start.
It won't be techno-nerds and high achievers who are the top 10-15%, it will be the QE thieves/bankers and leaders of the 'party' who will be on top, with everyone else on the bottom. Its happening already, and we are well on our way.

We have a winner.

Six of the top ten counties with the highest median household income surround Washington, DC, and are due to fed.gov bureaucrats, policritters, and hangers-on.  Another one, Los Alamos, NM, is also due to fed.gov largesse taken from taxpayers at the point of a gun.  A last two are bedroom communities for Wall Street financial folk, who are wealthy nowadays due to the multitudinous bailouts of their corporations with taxpayer dollars(1).

Only one of the top ten counties has a median income that can not be linked to fed.gov machinations.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2013/04/25/americas-richest-counties/
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eddf45kjmh/where-they-make-the-most/

The top 10% won't be the smartest, but relatively smart folk who are connected to fed.gov.  Note that notoriously productive places like Silicon Valley are not in the top ten.  Petroleum boom locations are not, either.  The top 10% will not be folk who provide/produce useful goods or services, but the agents of the state and their coteries.  Even really smart IT folk in Arizona will be eating beans with the rest of us.



(1) The recent sub-prime mortgage bailout is just the latest in a series of bailouts.  A chronic underestimation of risk with the foreknowledge that fed.gov will bail them out when their bets go tits up.  (AKA "moral hazard") Off the top of my head: Mexican economic collapse, Russian economic collapse, Eastern Europe collapse, Asian currency & market collapse.  There are more.

(2) Here are a few listed in wiki.   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_debt_crisis#Effects_of_Latin_American_Debt_Crisis_and_the_IMF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_economic_crisis_in_Mexico#Financial_assistance_package

[AZRedhawk44]

Even really smart IT folk in Arizona will be eating beans with the rest of us.

Not if we kill all the lawyers and bureaucrats.

[brimic]

Not if we kill all the lawyers and bureaucrats

I've worked with gaggles of Russian PhD Chemists who were more than happy to work over here for peanuts. If they couldn't figure out how eliminate bureaucrats in their former home country, I don't think IT guys here are going to fare much better.

[RoadKingLarry]

Uh huh. Sure. Then how long until the prices of beans skyrocket in the US?

Beans are pretty easy to grow and most places you could get a couple of harvests for dried beans. You could get a good start with even a handful of store bought pinto beans.