What's With Men Who Aren't Working?
September 18, 2006

There was a great photo on the front page of the New York Times a few weeks ago. A fat man, dressed in what we used to call "work clothes" (a denim shirt and jeans), is lounging on his front porch, bare feet up on an ottoman, dog in lap, smiling happily as his smiling wife looks down on him.

What is he so happy about?

"I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me," he says beatifically.

What he means by that is: "I ain't got no job, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna go out and look for one."

This man, Alan Beggerow, was laid off as a steelworker when he was 48. He taught math for a while at a community college, but he couldn't find a permanent job that wasn't either "demeaning" or "underpaid," as he put it. So now, at 53, he spends his time playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, and writing unpublished novels.

To pay the bills, the NYT article noted, he has taken out a $30,000 second mortgage, is drawing down family savings, and is relying on his wife's salary. And Alan isn't alone. Millions of American men between 30 and 55, the article noted, have "dropped out of regular work" and are turning down jobs that they think are "beneath them."

In the 1960s, only 5 percent of men in this age bracket were not working. Today, the number is 13 percent. Most of these missing men, the article says, are former blue-collar workers with no more than a high school education. "But their ranks are growing at all education and income levels."

What a peculiar notion Mr. Beggerow has - that it's undignified to work at a low-paid job (or maybe two) to take care of his family, but it's perfectly dignified to sit on his porch and deplete the family's savings while his wife works to try to make ends meet.

So working hard is no longer cool. But letting your wife work - after she's brought up the kids and taken care of the house for 25 years - that's perfectly acceptable.

Welcome to America's new 21st century economy.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 8:57 AM, ,




Online Help for Just About Anything
September 13, 2006

I just read an article in Newsweek about a website that is devoted to "the growing number of brides suffering from post-wedding blues." An entrepreneur set up a business called TheNest.com, an online community for newlyweds. The topics the website covers, editor Carley Roney says, range from wedding planning to facing the prospect of parenthood.

"People feel like they are on top of the world then the wedding happens and they don't feel so hot any more," Carley says. The new business is looking for ways to profit from this problem by offering newlyweds solutions.

Amazing! There is truly no end to the number of information-based businesses that the Internet continues to give rise to.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 10:44 AM, ,




Simplify Your Life: The Benefits of Lightness
September 8, 2006

With K's patient help, I spent two hours cleaning out my closet in our Nicaragua casa. I'd been putting off the job for two reasons. First, I prefer K's advice about what should go and what should stay. And second, because getting rid of old clothes doesn't feel like progress.

But after unloading about 15 pairs of pants, 30 shirts, and a dozen pairs of shoes, I have to report: It felt good.

It felt good to give all those good clothes to other people who will put them to immediate use. It felt good to make my getting-dressed decisions easier. And it just felt good, in some primal way, to lighten up.

They say the two best days of a boat owner's life are when the boat is bought and when it's sold. That's partly because the actual experience of having a boat, with the inevitable mechanical problems and constant upkeep, is never as good as it seems in anticipation. But it's also because there is a simple, natural pleasure in giving things up.

I've always been happily surprised to relearn the life lesson that getting rid of things is almost as much fun as acquiring them in the first place. The cycle is endless:

* We want what we don't have.

* Imagining the pleasures of having it, we acquire it.

* Having it, we realize the pleasures it provides are not as many or as intense as we had imagined.

* We continue to own it, but the pleasure/hassle ratio inverts.

* We get rid of it and feel good about being "light" again.

* We go through a period of blissful neutrality, during which the image of the thing we no longer have creates no want in us.

* After a period of time, the want comes back.

* Imagining the pleasures of having it, we acquire it again.

* Etc., etc.

The next time I go to Nicaragua, I'll have but six pairs of pants to choose from, a dozen shirts, and five pairs of shoes (one pair of hiking boots, one pair of riding boots, a pair of sandals, a pair of dress shoes, and a pair of sneakers). Ah, the simplicity! At least for a while ...

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posted by M. Masterson @ 9:06 AM, ,




The Problem With American Food
September 6, 2006

After training this afternoon, Tim, Ernesto, and I got into a conversation about nutrition. The topic was how Americans eat. The verdict: very poorly.

Ernesto said that in Rio de Janeiro, his hometown, practically everyone eats healthfully. "When you go to a local restaurant, you get fresh food and organic vegetables," he said. "And on every corner, there is a fresh juice stand."

I said that when I didn't know anything about nutrition, I mistakenly thought that people in advanced countries like the U.S. and England ate better than people elsewhere. The truth, I realized later, is that the food choices available in Nicaragua, for example - one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere - are infinitely better than they are in the States.

"In Costa Rica, it's expensive to eat junk food," Tim observed. "But in the U.S., it's some of the cheapest food you can get."

"That's the same in Brazil," Ernesto said. "A meal with fresh vegetables and fish might cost you a dollar or two. But if you want to eat at McDonald's, it will cost you more than it does here in the U.S."

Practically everything about American food is designed to make you fat and unhealthy, we agreed. Some meat is infused with hormones. Many fruits and vegetables are chemically damaged. Organic food can be so costly it's out of reach for most people. And junk food is relatively cheap and abundant.

So what do you do if you can't afford organic food? Stick to as much fresh produce, lean grass-fed beef, and wild fish (known to be low in mercury) as you can afford to buy. And stay away from fast food. It may be inexpensive, but it's bad for you. (Even a "healthy" McDonald's Premium Grilled Chicken sandwich has 420 calories and 9 grams of fat.)

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posted by M. Masterson @ 1:50 PM, ,




Bad Ideas About Making Money
September 5, 2006

I agree wholeheartedly with Alexandra Dimitroff of Shorewood, Wisconsin. She recently wrote to Newsweek, criticizing "parents who think, 'if you can learn Chinese, you'll be rich.'"

Dimitroff says, "I want my daughter to understand that learning about the culture and language of another country will give her far more than a means of securing some economic gain for herself."

My take on learning Chinese: It won't get you rich any faster than learning English would make a Chinese person rich. To get rich, you have to learn how to sell things. If you know how to do that, you can hire translators.

I do not, however, agree with Dimitroff's attitude about making money - that it is, in some way, less important than learning other things (whatever those things might be). Learning how to support yourself and your family is the first and most important requirement of good parenting. Without doing that, a parent gives the world another body that must be supported by other people.

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posted by M. Masterson @ 9:11 AM, ,




Econophysics
September 1, 2006

It's gratifying to discover scientific validation for long-held pet theories. Example: A physicist at the University of Maryland, Victor Yakovenko, is publishing studies proving that mega-trends in economics can be compared with micro-trends in the physical universe.

"Econophysicists" like Yakovenko believe that patterns of economic inequality "behave suspiciously like atoms," according to The New York Times Magazine. "In the United States, for example, beneath the 97th percentile (roughly $150,000), the dispersion of income fits a common distribution pattern known as 'exponential distribution.' Exponential distribution happens to be the distribution pattern of the energy of atoms in gases that are at thermal equilibrium. ...

"To an econophysicist, the exponential distribution of incomes is no coincidence: It suggests that the wealth of most Americans is itself in a kind of thermal equilibrium. To change it, 'you will have to fight entropy,' Yakovenko says. That people aren't mindless atoms and that governments try limited wealth redistribution doesn't really matter, he adds: 'Large, complex systems have their own statistical logic that trumps individual, and state, decisions.'"

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posted by M. Masterson @ 10:00 AM, ,