| Thursday,
January 23, 2003
Bill Mauldin, RIP
My son knows his son. I never met Mauldin, but like many soldiers I
found his writings and cartoons irresistible. As a one time cavalryman I
never forgot his memorable picture of the old Cavalry sergeant about to
shoot his Jeep because it had a broken front wheel...
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/01/
22/mauldin.obit.ap/index.html
Requiescat in Pace. Réquiem ætérnam dona eis,
Dómine:
et lux perpétua lúceat eis.
I just read that Hispanics have become the largest
minority in the United States.
The other day -- Sunday morning -- in the supermarket I saw what may be
a future, and I am quite optimistic.
There were 2 adults and 3 children. The oldest child was a very pretty
girl of about 12 or 13, just at puberty. The other two were a boy and girl
a few years younger. All three looked like normal children did when I was
a kid: not well dressed, but not sloppy. All clean, hair combed, clothes
fit reasonably well. The teen age girl was very pretty without much if any
makeup (probably none).
The father looked like a typical Mexican mestizo, dark complexion,
chunky, mustache, working clothes, and clearly spoke no English whatever.
The mother looked again fairly typical, somewhat stout, shorter than the
father and shorter than her daughter. She spoke almost no English,
although she tried to speak English to other customers. The teen age girl
spoke perfect English with no accent when she spoke to other customers, or
to her siblings; and excellent grammatical Spanish to her parents.
As it happens they were going the opposite way to me through the aisles
so we had a head-on encounter about 4 times. The father clearly wasn't
used to crowded stores, and was sometimes in the way. The daughter would
explain to him in Spanish that he needed to move, please, father, and he'd
look embarrassed and get out of the way and the mother would smile and say
good morning, or 'pardon us', and the younger kids would chatter to each
other and their sister in good English and to their parents in not so
grammatical Spanish. And everyone was pleasant and happy looking and
polite. Made me think good thoughts about the future of the country.
Exactly what they were doing in upper middle class Studio City isn't
clear, but it was clear the father worked hard - his hands showed it, and
he was well muscled.
If that's the future of any reasonable proportion of the immigrant
families in California I can shout for joy.
I also ran across this:
A 12-Step Economic Recovery Program for
African-Americans by Gary North http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north156.html
Every American seems to have an opinion on
the causes of perpetual poverty among blacks, despite the inconvenient
statistical fact that black families have dramatically risen in wealth
over the last four decades. Discussions today have as a kind of background
noise the black underclass, which seems impervious to all government
programs to lift this statistically unrepresentative group out of poverty.
So, in the spirit of helpful do-goodism, which is the politically correct
update of what used to be called the white man's burden, here are my
suggestions. They begin with a presupposition: class position isn't
primarily about one's level of income. Class position is mainly about
one's worldview: one's theory of cause and effect.
1. Join a church. I don't mean some
shrinking, liberal, mainline denomination, especially one whose name
begins with the word "United." I mean a Bible-preaching,
hell-fire-and-damnation church, which warns people weekly that moral
transgressions produce negative results. Avoid the never-ending liberal
blame-shifting. "And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said
unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The
serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (Genesis 3:12-13).
2. Donate ten percent of your income to your
church. This practice is called tithing. It announces to yourself and your
church's deacons, "I rely on God for my money, and ten percent off
the top is a token of my faith that there's more where that came
from." In short, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17).
3. Finish school. Graduating from high school
or college doesn't make you smart. It makes you reliable. It sends a
message to prospective employers: "This person finishes what he
starts, even if what he starts is inherently boring, such as school."
This is the kind of person employers want to hire. Finish what you start.
"And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough,
and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62).
4. Get married and stay married to the same
person. This takes advantage of the productivity offered by the division
of labor. It's also a huge motivation for you to get a job and keep
it.
5. Get a job and keep it. There are no
dead-end jobs. All jobs are stepping-stone jobs for people who are willing
to pay the price to move up. When a job turns into a dead end, start
working harder, longer, and smarter to persuade your boss to give you a
promotion. He'll notice. There aren't that many good workers around.
"And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the
prisoners that were in the prison; and whatsoever they did there, he was
the doer of it" (Genesis 39:22). You'll get a promotion - or a job
offer from your boss's competitor. "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph,
See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt" (Genesis
41:41).
6. Work cheaper initially. Want to overcome
resistance to hiring you? Lower your price. It's amazing what business
owners' greed and their desire to exploit an opportunity, i.e., you, can
do for your job prospects.
7. Master something. It doesn't matter what,
just something. Find out how to do something really well. Read everything
you can about it. Practice what you've read. Take a night school class on
it in your spare time. Which means. . . .
8. Stop watching so much television. TV may
be free; your time isn't. Those sit-coms aren't funny. It doesn't really
matter how a weekly TV drama turns out. Abandon the concept of spare time.
Your motto from now on is TANSTASP: There ain't no such thing as spare
time. Jesus said: "I must work the works of him that sent me, while
it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work" (John 9:4).
9. Volunteer to help others. It doesn't
matter what you volunteer to do. There is plenty of work to be done, and
plenty of people who need help. You will also find yourself in closer
contact with successful people - other volunteers - as well as people who
need help.
10. Set some goals. You need lifetime goals
(age 70), mid-term goals (a decade from now), and short-term goals (every
quarter). Age catches up with you.
11. Save ten percent of your after-tax,
after-tithe income. It's good discipline, and the money adds up over
time.
12. Start a business. Begin working for
yourself on Saturdays. This means that you must go out and persuade
customers to hire you, so that you don't get harmed too badly if one of
these employers "fires" you. Spread your employment risk.
These twelve steps work equally well for Euro
Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.
January 21, 2003
Gary North is the author of [3]Mises on
Money. Visit [4] http://www.freebooks.com
. For a free subscription to Gary North's twice-weekly economics
newsletter, [5]click here.
[6]Gary North Archives
I met Gary North many years ago, and was a speaker at one of his
economic seminars. We didn't agree on economics, and I thought he went way
out on the Year 2000 Scare (and told him so, and he got angry). I haven't
corresponded with him since about 1999. I found him reasonable and polite
except on the subject of Y2K: he thought me totally irresponsible for not
warning people that the sky was falling.
But of his 12 points above, there is not one that was not pretty
standard advice when I was growing up. There could be variants on points 1
and 2, but no one would have really objected, just wanted to discuss
precisely how to implement them; all would have agreed that some kind of
intellectual submission to a higher power, with a financial contribution
if for no other reason than earnest of intent, was important to a happy
and successful life.
Today, I suppose, there is not one of his points that is not
"controversial" and taken together I suppose he is a "right
wing extremist." So have our times changed.
Yet I suspect the family of immigrants I saw in the local Von's would
have had no problem with that advice. Any of it. And that they will fare
better in life than those who are "smarter" and argue against
all 12 points...
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