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A Punishing Defeat

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Today’s post comes from Wendell Wilkie High School’s perennial sophomore, Bubby Spamden.

Hey, Mr. C.,

Thought I’d better tell you how it all went down in the big debate in Mr. Boozenporn’s class yesterday. Me and Alicia Erickson went toe-to-toe in what will probably be our only-ever thing that we do together, arguing about whether there should be a maximum wage to go along with the minimum wage that got signed into law by the Governor yesterday.

I could tell I was in trouble from the start. Alicia had two big loose-leaf binders on her desk crammed full of papers and there were three of her brainiac friends sitting right behind her, just glaring at me. People had been saying on Facebook that she spent the whole weekend cramming factoids and statistics into her memory – stuff she found in macro-economics and labor relations textbooks that she got from her parents, who are both trial lawyers.

And I think her mom is also a ninja.

It made me kind of sorry that I spent all my research time on Sunday looking into the history of the word Woot!, but it was too late to kick myself over that. I had to go first and make my best argument for the maximum wage, so I launched into my speech that I wrote on the bus this morning and I have to say that I think it was pretty good.

I said a bunch of words about how some people are so good at economic stuff they manage to get a whole lot more than they need. Which is fine, I said, until it gets ridiculous and they have so much they can’t even think how to spend it.

And then I threw in a quote from “Grapes of Wrath”, that I caught Lester Wells saying out loud in the seat next to me on the bus. He was supposed to hand in a book report today in Ms. Hecubensen’s English class, which he had all written except he needed to add something to make it sound like he had really read the whole thing rather than just looking at parts of it online.

And it just so happened it really lined up with my project too:

“If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it ’cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he’s poor in hisself, there ain’t no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an’ maybe he’s disappointed that nothin’ he can do ‘ll make him feel rich.”

Which set me up for my big idea – capping personal income at 10 million dollars a year and then giving individual over-earners the WOOT! title – Wealthy Oligarch Opportunity Titan! Kinda like getting a knighthood, except it has the extra responsibility of using your money smarts to lift up other people.

Some of the kids in the class answered with “Woot, woot, woot” and every time I said it after that more of them joined in until Mr. Boozenporn told them they had to stop. But that was a cool feeling. Like I was winning them over!

So then Alicia gets up and I figure she’s going to come at me with studies and numbers and probably the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, both.

But instead, she says …

“My whole case comes down to gold and silver, two things the super-rich covet and collect. I’d like to see a show of hands. Who thinks there should be a maximum wage law to limit the income of those greedy super-rich people?”

Just about every hand in the room goes up. I’m feeling pretty good.

“And who thinks there should be a law to limit how much YOU can make?”

Nothing. It was the raised-hand equivalent of crickets chirping.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” she says, “And do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” “The golden rule and the silver rule. You can look it up.”

Then she sits down. And everybody says WOOT! Game over!

So I felt bad for a while but a bunch of people told me that I did better than they expected me to and they didn’t really disagree with me, they just weren’t ready to totally give up the idea of being super-duper rich someday themselves.

“But as soon as my hope dies,” said Jennifer Goff, “I’m on your side.”

That’s what friends are for!

Your pal,
Bubby

Do you follow the rules?

45 thoughts on “A Punishing Defeat”

      1. I did not even look. Just my insomnia, so much worse without my sleep med. I am at a coffee house now after giving up trying to sleep. And I have to drive Sandra up to Cities at 11. My son was up in Seattle ready to photograph, all set up, and the clouds came in a few minutes before.

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        1. Bonus, the BBC (the one in London, not here) was doing an interview w/ Dr. Higgs (as in Higgs-bosen) at the same time. Sorry I fell asleep midway through both.

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        2. I had a great view from my house. Went outside a couple of times to see if I could get a picture, but alas, my camera isn’t that great. I don’t know if I have ever wished that I owned a telescope before in my life, but last night would have been nice. Of course, now I’m sitting in my cube trying to keep my eyelids from drooping after just 3 hours of sleep!

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  2. Mostly. Much good has it done me.

    I find it truly sad that there was not a single person in Bubby’s class who would be willing to struggle along on $10M per year, but I am afraid they also represent the country pretty well.

    And this is why the Bubby Spamdens cannot win, even when they follow the rules, often, because they do.

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  3. How much does wealth drive the economy?
    How much does wealth drive poverty?
    Does the whole pie have a maximum size?
    Don’t the wealthy always get the dumb to stand in Nevada for them holding guns? To join their political groups?
    Can morality be legislated?
    Will I ever get a good sleep again?
    Will I shut up?

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  5. I always get such a kick out of the rusted Chevy cavaliers with “no more taxes” bumper stickers on the bumper.
    Thinking the 14 fillers the GOP platform will mean to them this year

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  6. Good morning. Rules are there to be broken. That’s what I think. Generally I’m a good little boy who was raised to respect authority. I don’t like breaking rules, although I do rebel when they seem unfair. I don’t think I am much different from most people regarding rules. I might go a little farther than most on breaking rules with regard to some of the bad rules made by governments.

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  7. Morning all. Again. I am generally a rule follower – that whole “hold back the chaos of anarchy” thing. However I will admit that if I’m driving around in the dead hours of the morning (i.e. on the way to the airport for an early flight), if there are not car lights to be seen in any direction, I don’t usually sit through a red lights. Horrors!

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  8. Rules are useful because they set expectations and help you to coordinate activity with others. Rules are stupid when they pretend to be universally applicable, although different circumstances mean rules are worse than useless at times.

    One of the compensations of aging is that you get a sense of when you should follow rules and when it doesn’t hurt to do what makes the most sense at the time, no matter what the rules say.

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  11. There are the written-down rules, and then there are the social conventions, that sort of thing. I’m getting more astute at choosing which social conventions I want to follow, and which are just too silly. Will try to think of an example that is fit to print…

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    1. The un-written-down rules can be thrown out at will. Like the one that requires you to always rinse all the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher.

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      1. The Child experienced both these back to back. In 4th grade, she ended up with a permanent substitute (whole `nother long story) who just could not toe the line w/ the kids. It was awful. Then the following year she ended up with a last-minute replacement (her teacher announced retirement 4 days before school started) who had clearly heard about the previous year’s flake. He was the exact opposite and came down on the kids hard. I spent a LOT of time in the principals office complaining during those two years!

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      2. Oh my, that’s a rule? I do know that ignorance is no defense against violating the law, but it gets pretty scary when you find laws on some books that make it illegal to ldry men’s and women’s underwear on the same clothesline.

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  12. In my experience two certain ways to fail as a teacher: be a rule-pounding martinet drill sergeant or be a I-just-love-the-kids laizze-fairest.

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  14. I resigned from following “rules” of most any kind when I turned 60. Trying so hard to behave like a conventional person gave way to the revelation that time was running out to just be me.

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  15. This is not in response to any particular post. When we grant ourselves the right to choose which rules to obey–and it seems that most of us here do that–it becomes easy to ignore rules that curb our petty greed by enforcing some societal standard. For example, many DNR water use regulations are inconvenient to individuals while they have a positive effect when applied to whole lakes. Take regulations on the length of docks. That wasn’t necessary in the past, for technology and expense kept most people from building docks that were excessively intrusive. Now many docks are.

    Any rule that tries to protect the common good against individual avarice is threatened by the tendency of so many to choose which rules they will respect.

    It is obviously possible to err in both directions.

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      1. In reply to Anonymous: I’m sure you are right. People do break rules frequently and with little guilt. But some people are comfortable breaking rules that they ought to respect, while others work hard to break only rules that don’t make much sense. When you grant yourself the right to choose which rules you find binding, you need to be extremely careful that you don’t obey just those rules you like.

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  16. the more i think of it the more i agree with both but…. the incentive for the new contributors to society is different than the dynasty creating the rules that the rulers will live by. if rockefeller got tax breakes because he blazed new trails thats one thing but if he realized that when he he died the tax breaks did too and he was fgaced with deciding how to make the world a better place instead of his company or his heirs a better off lot the results would be very different. if chevron didnt have the sole mission of padding its own nest to gain further control of the planet it might think about how it could be a better place so the world would be happy that such a benevolent opportunist was in place to harvest what is here for all of us on this planet and willing to do something to give back for the natural resources we have allowed it to process pretty much unsupervised for the last 100 years. china is producing producing producing but the pollution they are leaving behind is atrocious and they should be held accountable for it. they think they are doing something by spending 6 billion a year on water or whatever the big number is and in reality the number doesnt come close to healing the scars they leave behind . the golden rule is not do unto others as the circumstances allow for as long as you can get away with it it is enjoy the fruits of you labors and give back to your fellow man. bubby gets it he just needs to articulate a bit more. let the bill gates model and the people who understand how blessed they are to have a life where they can do good and help others be the golden rule folks we quote not the world opportunists who did good and rode it out for 12 generations and allowed the misfit golden spooners to continue on with the dynasty. ill bet sam waltons kids would be ok and his kids kids maybe but the people who 100 years from now look back at uncle sam as the reasoon they control the world should not be allowed.
    i saw a stat the other day that the richest 65 people on earth have the same amount of money as the poorest 4.5 billion.that is not gold but the shaft. shame on the pigs who want more more more and the riches are used to manipulate the way it works so it works in their favor. 1/10th of 1% of chevrons net profit toward a political campaign would be more money than has ever been spent in the history of all political spending. and the supreme court is good with that. shame on them.
    woot when ordinary observes truth

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    1. Not sure I understand what you’re referring to in your first sentence. Both? And I don’t get the last sentence either, tim.

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      1. the first sentance is debate training. i can take both sides i like incentivising creativity and capitalism but not inheritance and corporate greed so i agreed with her that we should incentivize and bubby that a maximum income is a good idea.maybe 3rd generation. if you cant thake your inheritance and do something more than run grandpas biz hes a salaried employee not a billionaire.
        woot acronym is weak but dont rub it in will you pj when ordinary people observe things and notice they are screwed up it should sound a warning alarm but usually it doesnt get any further than discussion on a blog. the laws are the laws you know.

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      2. YES! BiR, i am working on getting the junk out of my life – and it’s a struggle to say “enough,” as in “i have enough rocks from lake superior” or “i have enough books.” even harder is “i have eaten enough. i can stop after one piece of chocolate.”

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