I have just read a book by Marian Salzman, The New Megatrends. It was more than interesting but as I read I questioned her base assumptions and then went on to see if her postulations held true. I usually question veracity in everything. Not because I am not a naysayer but in today’s environment you have to be skeptical at best. 

Rightly or wrongly I have always fought against conventional thinking. Right off the bat I am challenged by both sides. I am not a MENSA candidate but there are holes in so many beliefs. Without being overly dramatic I try to dig down and cut out the bullshit and see what is really going on. I am not alone but I am probably not  of the majority. 

Let’s go back to basics. I was born some 77 years ago. Strangely enough at that time and to this day I was not different than anybody else. I was a blank slate. The entire world population of 7.9 billion share 99.9% of the same DNA. That is both sobering and exciting. We weren’t born Republican or Democrat or Asian or European or even rich or poor. I was just a new human being plunked on this planet. Look out world!

As time went on I was either nurtured or abandoned. I was stimulated or set aside as a hood ornament. I was subject to love or abandonment. I was influenced by love and prejudice. I had an easy or a hard life. I was adjudged chosen or part of the refuse pile of life. I looked at life through a prism that was forced on me not chosen. I lived in Disneyworld or a ghetto and many times never knew of the other side. But it was who I was or at least who I was supposed to be. 

That perception stays with people for decades if not their entire lives. Now you can say that is the way society works and you might be right. It just seems to me reality gets father and farther away from all points on the spectrum. We really are products of our environment which is fine but haven’t we built in a view of he world that is not in synch with what is really going on?

Reality is just what is happening  at a given point of time. It is completely objective. As I love to say,It is what it is. I can look at an event through my different lenses and see it entirely differently than you. Who is right? In normal time we take look at things and say well it could be this or that. As the only saying goes, if you look at the right and left the truth is somewhere in the middle. We had  biases but we could see some of the error of our ways. 

That is out the window now. I would feel more comfortable with the extremes if they were based on fact or dare I say, reality. Sorry kids, the 2020 election was not stolen. Yet 60% of Republicans think it so. We cannot apply limitless funds to solve each and every problem but Democrats feel we haven’t even begun to open the nation’s vault.

 On the right we say less government intervention and rules. Don’t worry but  rely on the basic honesty of people. Right.. On the left we haven’t spent the initial COVID relief programs but we want more. Money is the solution to all our problems. 10 billion lost here or 50 billion there are just rounding problems. People, we have lost all sense of reality.

We cannot have an infrastructure that is crumbling but is encumbered by a myriad or rules and departments to oversee projects that have to be done now not years from now with resulting cost overruns. Yet we can’t cheat and lie on contracts and their fulfillment . We need flexibility but culpability. 

We have spent trillions on programs to help the poor with minimal results. Yet at the same time we pontificate that these  people just have to work hard and get ahead. Tragically all that money gets teachers who are not smart and incentivized but at the low end of the talent chain. Do you really think doctors and healthcare workers of a high caliber are going to use their talents to fix a screwed up system. Either side feel free to speak up if you think you have a handle on realty or is it really your perception of it?

Equality in pay and advancement is coming at a snail’s pace. You know it and I do too, that  women and minorities have been placated at best with cries of progress. At the same time if there is to be equality it has to be demonstrated that the talent is there and not  a required quota. For the upper 1% the rewards are absurd. That is not anti capitalism but a long look in the mirror. 

We got problems right here in River City. As we go through life every one of us could be busted for DUI. We have had it easy. When things are rolling we can cite this statistic or that but it is all our way of feeling better about who we are. I love the life that I have but it is with a dose of sobriety. The haves have gone too far and the haven’ts want a free ride. Somewhere in between is the right answer. 

The ending of the book revealed that we are all coming more and more into ourselves. The “ME” society is evident everywhere. Young and old. Every man or woman for themselves. Hyperbole? Look around you and not with your built in biases on either side but with a cold hard look at reality. Let me know if I have hit a nerve or totally missed the base. 

As always

Ted The Great 

Factoids:

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan in his bid to receive $84.4 million in annual pay was voted down by 31% of the stockholders. The company said the vote mat not be binding. The stock is down 23% from its highs. 

A policy analysis released by the Cato Institute in April shows that despite nearly $15 trillion in total welfare spending since President Lyndon Johnson began the “war on poverty” in 1964, the poverty rate in the United States has remained relatively constant.

U.S. health care spending grew 9.7 percent in 2020, reaching $4.1 trillion or $12,530 per person. As a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic spending was 18.7% of the national budget 

Research shows that Facebook users engage with misinformation — which often takes the form of fake news — 70 million times per month on average. This is a decline from the 2016 peak of 200 million monthly fake news engagements, but still no small figure. On Twitter, people share false content 4 million to 6 million times per month, a figure that has not declined since the 2016 election.

There are numerous theories that question whether reality is possible. I think it is but would take massive amounts of soul searching to accomplish. I am just getting started