How to succeed on an interivew.

My company and many others like it are hiring.  In times past or for certain fields the realization that that there are five candidates for every job was an unfortunate reality.  In the present economy there is a parity for job and job seekers.  However for jobs in the technology and medical sector it's more like three jobs for every two candidates. 

My company is expanding and it is primarily based in America.  We are a medium sized country.  We are in need or many different type of engineers so we are interviewing.  The main drive of this article is how to succeed at the interview.  To get an interview you have to have the right experience, write a good resume and impress with a short cover letter as well as apply for the right job. All of the above is beyond the scope of this article and I entreat the reader to look online for a plethora of advice.  Here is the steps for success on the interview process. 

#1) Prepare yourself:  Most people assume this has to do with physical preparation.  Unless you are interviewing to be a model nobody cares how you dress.  That new suit jacket will not get you the job.  On the last two interview’s I didn’t even wear a jacket.  I wore a button-down shirt and an ordinary tie.  Be presentable and that’s it. It’s far more important to be intellectually prepared.  Every position has a written description.  Read it, then read the company bio.  Understand what they are looking for, do some research.  Then go back to your textbooks and do some studying. There are two types of interviews, personality and technical. Sometimes these two are separate but many times they are combined.  Another way to look at it is many companies will do a phone interview and then call you in. On the phone interview, they will review your experience and on the in person one they will grill you.  For the personality or phone interview you need to be able to explain your past experience in a nice, natural, but not too rehearsed 30 second explanation.  Get it?   Always be able to explain what you did in each job/role you put on your resume in a natural sounding 30second-1minute sound byte.  If you get past this stage you’ll be grilled technically and sometimes it’s brutal.  Just do the best you can but study for at least 2 hours on the basics of any job.  Wouldn’t you study for a test in school?

#2) Be Yourself: “To thy own self be true.”  Don’t really be yourself, just be the natural, smart, fun hearted, loving part of yourself.  Answer the questions openly and honestly, do the best you can.  I’ve had had interviews where I eventually got the interviewer to chuckle at some halfhearted joke.  It humanizes you which is not enough to get you the job but might help on edge cases to make you special/memorable.  My God Mother’s husband Eddie Hara once told me, “You can’t really lose what you don’t have.”  It’s an important concept.  You don’t have to be nervous on an interview because you don’t have the job so you don’t have anything to lose.  You are just trying to do better.  In spiritual terms remember that God is in control and you are simply petitioning to do something more. I always pray only to present myself the best I can so I know the job goes to the best candidate and if it’s not me, that’s fine. 

#3) Leave the past in the past:  A common question is why are you looking for a new job or why did you leave this or that job.  We all go through difficult situations.  Sometimes we quit, or get laid off or even get fired.  Try to always put the best face on things.  If you’re still working for a company and looking for a new job say something like you’re not growing in your current role and you want to do or experience more.  Sounds very good and its always party true?  Leave negativity behind, DON’T EVER COMPLAIN ABOUT A FORMER EMPLOYER.  That is so critically important.  If you’re already complaining about an employer on the interview what are you going to do to me when you’re working here.  I don’t need the drama, sorry.  Just remember the best revenge is living well. 

#4) Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth:  I guess the perfect job is winning the lottery and doing whatever you want.  Aside from that every job has positives and negatives. What’s important you?  Compensation(salary) Co Workers, Location, Manager, Work Requirements, Position, Office, Benefits, ect.  It’s different for everybody, you never get everything you want.   If you’re out of work is it at least two or three things you like and if you’re moving, is there at least two better benefits?  It’s up to you. 

#5) Take an advantage: In my department, we tend to ask concept questions and then give a technical test.  If you’re ever, ever given a test to take home you need to hit it out of the park.  Think about what a gift it is to get a take home test, you can take as much time as you want (usually 2-3 days), and look online and in the case of a program compile the code and run it.  Why not look amazing? Invest in a job interview and they probably will invest in you. 

If it’s not meant to be it won’t but why tempt fate? 

            

Addressing Fake Problems - Income Inequality

Addressing Fake Problems – Income Inequality

It’s inherently unfair that anyone should earn more than anyone else.  The average wage in America is $40 per hour.  Why doesn’t everyone just earn $40 an hour.  For those earning minimum wage this would be fantastic.  For those living in areas where the cost of living is low it would be a godsend. For those living in Old Westbury they wouldn’t know how to pay $15,000 in property taxes.  Those who had $4000 rents in Manhattan wouldn’t be able to afford their living space.  What would be the motivation for medical students to kill themselves for ten years?  People would just do the minimum they had to do.  This is obviously not the kind of economic model that most people would recognize as prosperous.  I had a co worker Alexander (Sasha) who came from Russia during the 1980’s.  He said that apartments were allotted by family size.  The apartments were free, they just didn’t have any.

Any economic model that creates a peasants dillema is inherently an unfair system.

                That’s not what people hear when they hear the nefarious term Income Inequality or the equally euphemistic terms, ‘Social Justice.’  They think the system is unacceptably unfair and something must change.  Any economic model that creates a peasants dilemma is inherently an unfair system.  During the feudal times in Europe peasants worked the farms owned by the ‘Lords.’  They paid taxes in food and had barely enough left over to eat.  They could never acquire any wealth, property or improve their situation.  During the industrial revolution the owners of the factories had all the power and the workers were paid very little and had to endure miserable working conditions.  This didn’t change until unions were formed.  A hundred years ago unions were critical to changing the economic model of concentrated economic power to one of a balance of power.  Unions in their purest form are inherently a good thing though I believe they have become corrupted in modern day society.  A union provides a balance of power between management/owners and workers via mutually assured destruction.  If the workers are not treated fairly and given the appropriate benefits they collectively strike and everyone loses. The company can’t produce and therefore can’t make profit and the workers don’t get paid. If the unions get benefits that are in excess of what the company can afford the company goes out of business and everybody loses.  We’ll save what really happens today for another article.

                Working so long as an engineer has one negative side effect. When I hear that there’s a problem I require demonstrable proof that the ‘problem’ has definable negative side effects.  I then require a plan of action to correct it and a way to quantify the success.  Therein lies the problem with fake problems.  Income inequality measures that much of the wealth is concentrated in a small group of people.  Perhaps 80% of the wealth of the country is held by 1% of the people.  On the face of it, that sound horribly unfair.  They ‘re just counting dollars, physical dollars, representation of dollars, stock market dollars, and virtual dollars. Is 80% of the food, clothes, machines, houses, land held by 1% of the people, no.  If your neighbor has more money than you, how does that really harm you?  If they have a million dollars it doesn’t affect your job, purchasing power or family.  If a very rich man or group of people have a billion dollars that doesn’t change my life.  If they have a hundred billion it doesn’t matter.  But it’s not fair!  It’s not fair that I have to work so hard and those people have so much.  That’s what it really comes down to doesn’t it?  They have and I don’t.  Then I stomp my foot and come up with fake solutions.  This is just one of the many solutions offered.

Living Wage: Let’s give everyone a salary they can live on regardless of the work they do.  In NY it used to be $10.  If we could just pay people $10 then they could live and take care of themselves.  Well guess what, the minimum wage is almost $10 and most people get at least that much. The cost of living went up and they still didn’t have enough money.  In a few short years it will be $15.  Then $20, ect.  Money has no intrinsic value.  There are some adults, seniors, and single parents that are trying to live off of minimum wage but the vast number of people are high school and college people, immigrants, and people working for extra money.  The higher the cost of labor the more companies will look to use automation or make due with less.  My high school nephew works in a movie theater. During the summer and winter break he’d like to work as much as possible but they can only allow him to work 29 hours or else they must provide him all kinds of extra benefits they can’t afford and he doesn’t need.

Make the rich pay their fair share!   They do.  The top 10% of wage earners pay 80% of the taxes.  There’s an anecdote of ten guys who go to the bar every week. Their bill always come to $100.  They decide to split it based on income.  So the guy with the highest salary pays $50.  The second pays $20, the third $15, the fourth $8, the fifth $3, the sixth and seventh each pay $2. The last three guys pay nothing.  This arrangement works quite well for a while.  One day the bartender cuts the bill in half.  Now it’s only $50.  The guy who was paying $50 says this is great now we can each pay half of what we used to pay.  Well the five poorest are quite unhappy because they are only receiving a benefit of $1 or nothing and the richest guys is getting a $25 break.  They decide to do it more fairly.  They say $50 should be divided evenly between ten people. So the highest wage earner should pay $45, the next $15, the next $10, the next $3, the rest of the guys are actually earning money off the deal.  Well the next week the top three wage earners don’t show up.  The super rich can always relocate but the semi rich can’t. 

So there are no problems then are there?  

Yes there are economic problems and here are the real problems that you’re not focusing on

• The top international companies are not paying corporate tax.  This is not only unfair it hurts American businesses.  I heard one CEO say that if his company was not paying corporate tax they are still paying salaries which pays for local and federal taxes.  If you are a medium size business you are doing probably 100% of your business and hiring in this country and are paying 35% corporate tax.  How can you compete with the monolithic companies who are not paying that tax on top of paying for taxes embedded in salaries.  We need to end corporate tax loopholes.
• Golden Parachutes:  If a certain person built a business out of his garage into a multi billion dollar business employing tens of thousands of people who am I to begrudge all his wealth.  He created something where there was nothing.  On the other hand if a CEO comes into a company and the company performs poorly requiring the layoff of many people and they walk away with their overly generous severance package that is inherently unfair and it shouldn’t be tolerated. 
• Corporate Tax Rate:  As a software engineer my top tax rate is 26%. Obviously I don’t pay that on all my earnings but each and every dollar I earn from here gets hit with 26% federal and 7% state.  If someone earns the majority  of their money from stock options then they used to only pay 15%.  I think it’s close to 20% now. 
• Stagnant growth in local areas. Sometimes these are referred to the inner cities but there are so many residential area where crime, drugs, and poverty are so rampant.  It’s a never ending cycle of poverty and violence and this is a very disastrous situation for many Americans.  Increasing taxes on the wealthy will not help.  I don’t have all the answers but it starts with decimating the gangs, providing educational opportunities to young people and working with civic leaders to have a peaceful atmosphere.  In other words, actual hard work! 

The Emotion Train

A prominent Senator was giving a press conference about a controversial subject and he started to choke up and cry.  Others blamed him for ‘faking’ it.  Politicians, especially well known ones must have raw hide for skin otherwise they wouldn’t have made it this far.  As my co worker once said, ‘A politician is someone who lacks the gene for shame.’   I wondered whether he was genuine, dishonest and how could one tell. 

                There are two kinds of truly genuine emotion.  The first is direct cause and effect emotion.  You yell at a child and they cry or someone loses a loved one and they react with anger, shock, or sadness.  The second kind of emotion is one that’s based off of real events but is spontaneous in nature.  It might happen at a random or inopportune time.  It catches people off guard, especially those who experience it.  My grandfather went through a long physical and mental decline towards the end of his life. My mother was burdened with making many of the preparations for him.  Eventually he died, we went to two separate wakes including one with a priest.  Then we headed out to the burial.  He fought in WWII so he was buried at a national cemetery.  The two young marines marched in front of the casket, said a few words, did a salute and carefully folded a flag.  It wasn’t until we were leaving, my mother and I, that the funeral director came up with a comment about the flowers that didn’t arrive.  I was annoyed at his poor timing but was holding back saying anything out of not wanting to upset my mother.  She then said, ‘I miss him so much,’ and started crying.  It was a perfectly justifiable reaction but only at the end after everything was done. 

                There are a number of disingenuous emotions, I will attempt to go from somewhat understandable to completely outrageous.  When someone suspects another of faking a good cry they might say they put onions in their eyes but it’s more devious than that.  People work themselves up to a strong emotion.  A husband comes home late from work.  The wife’s first question is perfectly reasonable, “Why are you late?”  Before he can even answer or maybe he does answer and she doesn’t listen comes the following.  “You’re always late.”  “I’m always alone.”  “Then you’re tired and you don’t want to talk.”  “You sleep on the couch.”  “I have to eat dinner alone.”  “Last night…”  Then come the water works.  In defense, this scenario which plays out very often is probably subconscious.  She worked herself up like a train slow at first and then gaining momentum until she was at full steam.  It’s a real problem but the pattern is predictable and repeatable.  Or a man who is angry about something.  He catches another (smaller) guy looking in his direction.  “Are you looking at something?”  “You want to take a picture?”  “Are you checking out my girl?”  “You think she’s hot?”  “Huh?”  “What’s Up?”  Bam!  Fight.  It was totally unnecessary.  Even if these events happen at a subconscious level they can be avoided if the person was willing to be aware of it. 

                The next step down the road is a person who purposely works themselves up. People don’t fight with logic.  Logic is completely useless in a debate or argument.  They use emotion but the emotion has to have a logical start and climax, like a movie.  I find that women have more tools in their emotional toolbox. They can be charming, they can be angry, they can cry, they can pout (aka silent treatment) or they can be elusive.  Men can be charming and they can be angry.  Men that cry are usually like that Senator where no one believes them except in perhaps very limited circumstances. 

                Actors also bring on emotion but they use a technique known as channeling.  They don’t work themselves up in a situation with real consequence.  They think about a time in their life when they felt the emotion they want to employ while they act out another scene.  This is why actors who have some brains make excellent politicians. 

                Finally, there are those chosen few that can literally turn the emotion on in a blink.  It’s like they take the train but instead of a train it’s a rocket that just fires off or they channel in a flash.  They use it like a weapon. 

                So, how to tell if someone is faking it?  For one the emotion is convenient.  It’s at an opportune time.  Or it’s repeated, again and again.  It’s directed only at one person in one situation.  These are the calling cards of a faked emotion.  The more calling cards, the more accurate the prediction.  You can’t call someone out for it though, that might bring real anger.  The first thing you have to do is not do the dance.  They get angry, you get angry, then you walk away or make up.  Don’t play the game unless you want to.  

What I told my children about Santa Claus my shock you.

              Childhood is a special time in your life when wonder and awe are abundant and the world of make-believe overlaps the real world.  At least that’s what we’d like to think we remember childhood like.  We try to encourage that thought and any opportunity to prove that magic is real and not lost.

              Christmas is a dream come true for children.  It builds up with advent calendars and decorations around the house.  The smell of fresh Hershey kiss cookies and the visiting relatives fills the heart and the belly.  Lets not forget the presents.  For parents Christmas time is the exact opposite, it’s a time when you stress for making plans, organizing the house, purchasing gifts of equal or lesser value to those you will receive and trying to keep up with the Jones’ children’s gifts.  It’s exhausting.

              One thing that parents take solace in is the wonder and awe surrounding Santa Claus.  When children are young, there’s no conflict.  You take your kids to the mall, they sit on the big man’s lap and tell him what you want.  I love when he says he’ll see what he can do after looking at your face.  Inevitably your child comes home and asks the question, “Is Santa Claus real?”  It’s so cute and innocent. Everyone knows that lying to your children is wrong but there’s several things that go through your mind.  You want your children to be happy and innocent for as long as possible.  I think more importantly you don’t want your child to go around telling other children that Santa is not real.  You picture the sad crying faces of the other kids and the hawkish faces of the parents with exaggerated disappointment.

              During kindergarten keeping the tale going is pretty easy.  Children are only at the why stage.  Why does Santa give out presents?   Why does he use a sleigh?  Why do the elves work for free?  Why does he have to live in the North pole?  By first grade, children are introduced to the frustrating skill of deductive reasoning.  The questions become exponentially more difficult to navigate.  If Santa is so big how does he fit down a small chimney?  By second grade the gig is up because your answers sound more and more contrived.  What you don’t expect is the deluge of follow-up questions after you spill the beans.

(1)    Is the tooth fairy real?

(2)    Is the Easter bunny real?

(3)    Is Jesus real?  / Did Moses really part the red sea?

That last one hurts.  How do you explain to a child that you actively lied about something you knew not to be true and then expect them to believe you about something that involves faith?  There must be a better way.  I also thought it was ironic that he knows when you are sleeping and when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good too.  Isn’t that God? 

              Here’s what I did.  When they were young I took them to see Santa and take a picture.  When my oldest son asked me if Santa was real, I didn’t say yes or no.  I said Santa is make believe, it’s pretend for fun.  It’s like when you play outside and think you are really a super hero.  You don’t jump off the roof because you’ll get hurt but pretending it’s real doesn’t harm anyone.  I then said the best part of make believe is letting everyone else pretend it’s real at the same time.  That solves both problems, it lets my children enjoy the fun.  They still get presents and have fun and can take pictures with the big man and still believe that I am a parent of my word.

              I still made them an adorable online video using portable north pole with Santa saying their name and showing their pictures in book.  He then would give them some advice and show them a picture of the toy that they really wanted.  It's all in good fun!

Nationalism and Globalism

The great thing about history is you can always find bad examples to prove your point.  Not so much for globalism but more for nationalism. Nationalism as a concept comes around every few decades and the opponents of nationalism usually point to the single greatest bad example of all time for anything, NAZI. The National socialist party of Germany.  After a devastating loss in World War I and being stuck with the rebuilding costs it might seem inevitable that some leader would rise up and try to rebuild his country.  He also promoted Christianity early on before becoming what we all know he became.  Funny how socialists aren’t compared to Hitler. 

Nationalism scares us because we confuse it with a country bent on taking over its neighbors and waging war which is really imperialism.  Sometimes it’s masqueraded as isolationism.  We can’t just stick our head in the sand.  If we are landlocked country we have to deal with our neighbors or they’ll deal with us.  If we are a massive superpower we can’t allow dictators to do what they want.

Others are frightened of globalism, all those who are science fiction fans especially.  Who wants to read about utopia when you can read about dystopia. It’s either end of the world caused by the global elites or one run by them. 

It takes a village doesn’t it?  More like a street, a neighborhood.  Every family looks out for themselves, for their own interests.  Sometimes there are things that need to be done to protect everyone.  If there’s been a rash of robberies in the area, it’s in everybody’s best interest to keep an eye out.  Maybe there’s a new development across the street and you want to band together to stop it. So, it’s obvious that we need to work together.  This is why you have the United Nations whose predecessor was the League of Nations.  The Olympics and the International Space stations are shining example of multinational cooperation working almost without incident. 

If our little neighborhood needed to fund a project like bringing in a gas pipeline would every family be willing to chip in $5,000 or would they say Larry’s got a mansion at the end of the block, let him pay $15,000.  What if all the neighbors had already signed a deal allowing them to decide who gives what.  That’s the real and understandable fear behind globalism.  What if it’s in everybodies best interests to have the largest nations pay a tax to help the smallest nations.  What if most of the large nations said heck no except for ours? 

I remember when I was seven years old and I asked my Dad very naively, ‘Why can’t everyone in the world just have equal?  Why do some people have more and others have less?’

He said, “Our house has three rooms, your mom and I stay in one room, you have this room and your sister has the room next to yours.  Most families in the world all live in one room.  In order to make everything fair we’d have to give up your room and you can go live with your sister.”

I immediately said I don’t want that.  Why not he asked.  It’s my room!  There’s two ways to take that.  Either I was selfish from the time I was seven or I had a right to my own property. I didn’t take it from anyone, my dad worked for a living.  I don’t expect globalism to immediately take away my third room.  Probably taxes such as carbon tax, export tax, visas, flight taxes, ect will be small at first.  As our country joins larger and larger free trade agreements however, regulations force businesses to give up their sovereignty for the greater good. 

Cooperation between countries should always be first and foremost in the benefit of the countries engaging in it.  Secondarily, it should make the ease of individual cooperation between two or more people’s easier and a minor tertiary concern be beneficial for all of mankind. 

If we were a multi planet species or we were in contact with some form of extra terrestrials then we would some sort of world government to protect us from our interests and we’d be arguing over globalism vs systemism, galacticism or universalism.  

Can Elections be Rigged?

Can US elections be rigged?

                When I was young I used to debate with my friends if “professional wrestling” was real or fake.  There were pro’s and con’s, we were convinced the wrestlers were giving their utmost to win but something was off.  The wrestlers did amazing stunts but at the same time the stories seemed to be too perfect and the matches seamless to the next storyline.  Eventually the major wrestling network WWF (now called WWE) admitted to having ‘scripted’ matches.  The moves were real and the athletes truly are doing amazing feats but the outcome is known.  This is what I visualize when someone says the word rigged. 

                Tammany Hall was a political organization created in 1786 which worked to help immigrants, mainly the Irish rise up in power and influence.  By the mid 1800’s it was a strong organization which muscled it’s way into political power in New York City.  It was notorious for graft and corruption and vote rigging.  Throughout American history there have been many instances of voter intimidation mainly in poor and minority communities which is why so many laws have been created.

                Could something like wide scale vote rigging or voter intimidation today happen?  Here are the outliers which don’t define the majority of our electoral system.

(1)    The presidential election of 2000 came down to Florida which subsequently came down to several counties where ballots had changed.  Some were punched twice or partially punched.  After a grueling battle, the electors in Florida were given to George Bush making him the president.

(2)    During the 2016 democratic nomination process, Hillary Clinton was ahead but mostly because of the non pledged (super) delegates.  New York was a critical primary that set her on a course for taking the nomination. Bernie Sanders name was left off of a couple counties which favored him.

(3)    Al Franken became the 60ths democratic senator in 2009 allowing a super majority democratic congress to emerge.  The race was won by several hundred ballots supposedly left in a pollsters car for a night.  Then the story was retracted and denounced. 

(4)    In 2008 black panthers staged some of their people outside majority white communities and engaged in intimidation carrying batons.  Initially there was a legal case but for some reason it was dropped by the new administration. 

Is it possible for a political machine, Democratic, Republican, Independent or foreign to throw an election?  Influence is one thing.  We know for sure that the media has an agenda and tends to favor one candidate over another. 

The election system is vulnerable to accidents, fraud and espionage.    

·         No ID required to vote.  Give your name and address.  For some reason having to show ID is racist and activist groups will fight any attempt to implement such a system.  A person could theoretically vote more than once, register themselves more than once and vote for people who either aren’t alive or have moved.  It would be hard to coordinate a large scale effort.

·         Voter Registration:  Groups like Acorn discredit the good work that people do to try to get as many new people to register and vote.  In the past workers for certain groups have admitted to helping people either lie to get registered or pushed to sign up as many applicants regardless of how new they were.  Also, they will usually assign them into the political party of their choosing.  That doesn’t mean the person must vote that way but it puts them on notice with the particular political party. 

·         Foreign Funding.  Many groups like moveOn.org, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and Center for American Progress receive foreign funding and seek to influence united states elections.  This is technically probably still illegal but very easy to get around.  https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/foreign.php  http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1237

·         Electronic voting.  It’s not that the machines are more likely to fail or be tampered with.  There are monitors from both political parties at each polling place and certainly when the votes are tampered.  However, we’ve seen 500 million yahoo accounts become hacked, servers of major political parties, and even Iranian centrifuges.  Could a worm be planted in machines previous to them being deployed. 

·         Vote Counting: In 2012 a Spanish company SYCTL bought the largest vote counting company in united states.  Why this was allowed was beyond me. Our votes after being tallied are sent to this server, routed possibly out of country, counted and then the results are sent back.  There is so much possibility for manipulation at every stage. Again if everybody's being hacked (for fun) why wouldn't this be at the top of some hacker or even state sponsors list? 

How do elections probably get won?

                I get asked often, can anybody’s mind be changed by what the candidates say or do in the last month before an election.  Everyone wants to capture a “49%” or “deplorables” moment on video.  It’s not that these moments change many minds but it’s all about motivation.  If you are demoralized you are less likely to vote and if you are charged up or better yet caught up in a frenzy of fear you will vote, lest they take away your X.  It’s about optics, how you and your surrogates use the various victories of your candidate and missteps of the other. 

                It’s also about the ground game.  How do you encourage people to vote.  How often do you barrage them with letters, advertisements, calls, poster bill boards.  If you can get them to sign up on your web site with prizes like meet the candidate for lunch (yeah right) they can then use your email or phone number to pester you into voting. 

                At the end of the day anything can happen. 

America's Class Structure

Often the country is classified as having three classes, the middle class, the poor, and the rich.  The rich are usually vilified as not paying their fair share even though they pay 80% of all taxes.  Everyone wants to give the middle class a tax break and help the most vulnerable (the poor).  As usual, things change over time and there are really six classes of people with as many as 13 sub groups.  Removed from this description is terms such as good and bad.  There are both in all the categories.  Even criminals have some good people who will go on to reform their lives and change society.  Following is a description devoid of ethical judgement. 

              Let’s start at the top.  The Elites consist of all the countries leaders, the president, the senators, representatives and governors.  All the CEO’s of major companies make up the elites.  This group is often referred to the top 1%. They control the majority of the wealth of the country and make virtually all the decisions that affect our lives.  Within this group is a sub group, an even smaller group, possibly the .01% who are the titans.  The titans are the mega billionaires who work behind the scenes to affect policy at the highest levels.  This would be the Buffet’s and the Koch’s who make it seem like they’re nice people trying to help but really their serving their own business interests.  Some are captains of industry who change our lives like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.  Others were placed in positions of power who run a large company into the ground and leave with a golden parachute.  The latter ought to be vilified and the former lauded.  Another aspect of the titans is that they have no problem with higher taxes because their money is not taxable.  Warren Buffet for example earns 60 million a year and is worth 60 billion.  If we did the math we would realize that he did not work for a thousand years.  He has no problem paying ten percent more on 60 million while he pays nothing on 60 billion because it's his assets that make up his wealth not his income. 

              The next group is the prosperous.  These are the “rich” who usually wind up paying the majority of the tax because they can’t hide their money like the Elites. They are also a diverse group.  Small business owners and entrepreneur are the engine of growth for our economy.  60% of all new jobs are created by small businesses.   Very small businesses owners tend to not have corporation and therefore fund their activities directly from their own personal finances.  A small change in tax policy could wind up taking money from their businesses.  It’s important to understand that taxing the rich is such a blanket statement that doesn’t really address who should pay more.  Athletes and movies stars drive an enormous amount of economic activity and therefore are well paid.  I don’t know what hedge fund managers really do but they also make a ton of money.   Hedge fund managers get paid in dividends which are taxed at a lower rate (currently 20% as opposed to 39.6% for the top income levels). 

              Most of us are in the working class formerly known as the middle class.  As of 2016 there are 157 million Americans (just under 50%) employed or seeking work.  These are adults who are in the public work force.  In this group there are two sub groups, though not distinctly identified.  There are those who work and pay a positive tax rate and those who work and pay a negative tax rate.  Everyone pays things like sales tax and state tax but the working non tax payers either don’t pay federal taxes or get more money back at tax time than the money they paid.  For example, an individual with a family might work and pay $1500 of federal tax.  They go to a tax preparer who applies all refundable tax credits and get back often times as much as $6,000 back.  They also get food stamps, Medicaid, subsidies, free phones, ect.  This is not to say they don’t struggle, many do.  Still, their work which is hard to measure produces more economic activity than the what they receive from the government. 

              Next we have the dependents, the non-working.  The non-working as of 2016 are 94 million strong (about 30%).  The labor participation rate rose from 1960 to 1990, peaked for fifteen years and has been going down ever since.  In the 1960’s many women were home makers, stay at home mom’s, or caretakers as you would identify them.  My mom also stayed home and raised us, she only had a part time job as my sister and I became older.  Their work is not to be undervalued, it is so critical to take care of children.  Children now a days are taken care of either by a school or by a grandparents just as much as by a parent.  Women more and more entered the work force from 1960 to the turn of the century which is why the labor participation rate rose.  Now because of all the government subsidies more people can afford to stay home.  People retire and live longer which is another factor in the rising non-working class.  After a lifetime of working no one begrudges a senior from enjoying themselves and today in a way that no older generation has ever been able to enjoy their latter years.  I do wonder at people who retire from a union job at 55 and live to 95.  How can a system sustain this?  The last sub group is the idle.  These are the people who have given up looking for work.  Maybe they stay home with older kids who don’t need attention.  Maybe they pan handle, maybe they squeak out enough government benefits and enough non taxed income to squeeze by.  Many have injuries that prevent them from working in their chosen profession but they are all capable of doing something.  They just don’t. 

              The next group definitely depends on society for survival.  They are the helpless.  For one reason or another they really are incapable of working.  The first sub group is the incapable, these are the severely disabled.  So many tens of millions of people are labeled as handicapped which is important to give them the help they need but they are capable of working.  They can still be productive individually but society must help them and we should.  Children of course are a drain on our resources but critical to our future.  The Amish have a saying: a child under seven is a drain, between seven and fourteen they balance out and after fourteen they are an asset.  If only that were true.  It seems like children are a drain till they get their first full time job in their twenties.

              The last group definitely drains from society with providing absolutely no tangible benefits.  A person doesn’t always walk around being a criminal unless they’re a gang member.  Maybe they’re a drug addict, maybe they’ve robbed or stolen.  I would say no one is irredeemable.  Those in jail may seem like they’re not harming society but society is paying at least 20,000 per year to house, clothe, feed and secure them.  There are 3 million in jail in this country (1%).  How many more are freed criminals, I can only site the statistic of 1.4 million in gangs. 

              I always strive for maximum clarity when identifying how things are and how they could be better.  If we take the 47% of Working Americans who pay taxes that leaves us with 73 million Americans who are financially taking care of 318 million. This is a tall order when 23% of Americans are taking care of the bills for the other 77%.  If this trend continues we will surely see economic troubles abound.