On The Fourth, Is America F*cked?

I personally would not want to live in sub-Saharan Africa or a host of other countries right this second, especially with global heat indexes. I always found it both comical and annoying when you say anything against America, or that the American model isn’t working as well, and someone bellows back at you: “Move to China, then!” That feels a little bit binary. Just because I can see some flaws where I am doesn’t mean I want to move to China. I think the opposite would be true as well.

Plus: ain’t China’s economy now stagnating?

This morning, while looking around post-vacation for some food I could make or a juice I could drink, I watched this video via CNBC:

The video makes a lot of points you’ve probably heard before — 36% of Americans have more credit card debt than savings, 52% of Americans couldn’t cover a small health issue, etc. The culprits are all listed: housing is up (rent/mortgage), health care is up, groceries are up, etc. Most of this stuff I think everyone knows. The poor feel it every day. The middle class hopes something will give for them so they can feel comfortable without constantly feeling anxious. The upper class mostly ignores the realities and tells people to “work harder.”

So this stuff is kinda basic: America is expensive, and wage growth doesn’t keep up with product pricing. I get it. I don’t think we will ever change that.

But then there’s another wrinkle we need to consider here: look at what’s happening at West Virginia University.

Basically, they’re cutting out all humanities, languages, etc. Their President, Gordon Gee, has said this will probably happen at other universities. He’s likely right. WVU apparently did this because their enrollment isn’t keeping up with projections, and they might face a $45M budget shortfall. Still, it’s alarming.

(It should be noted that Neal Brown, the head football coach, makes $4M a year. Josh Eilert, who is the interim men’s basketball coach, is making $1.5M a year. I think we could free up some budget there.)

Soooo … let’s say this does become a trend, and more and more public universities begin cutting off liberal arts education, languages, writing programs, etc. Obviously there is a culture war element to this — Republican legislators are trying to make campuses less “woke,” and those majors and programs tend to lean more left. It’s all kinda comical because no one even really can define the word “woke,” but OK, yes, there’s a culture war element at play here.

Then I think we need to start looking at the American model and think about “The Paper Ceiling.” What is the actual point of college? Does anyone know? And why are we letting people enter into so much debt if we haven’t defined the point of college?

If college is a job factory and nothing more/less, which some people do believe, then I think the WVU play makes sense: those majors won’t generally lead to high-paying gigs. They will lead to more well-rounded people, but for the purpose of this argument we’re talking about money. If you look at college as simply job prep, then I guess we need to educate people at the college level about:

• Engineering
• Driving trucks
• Flying planes
• Medical things
• Legal things
• Making other people money things
• Managing stores / logistics
• Managing the bullshit of other people (Chief of Staff type jobs)

All these things would create robust high-earners, theoretically.

Of course, we’d also need to address the elephant in the room of why college tuition keeps increasing.

… but we can put that on the back burner for right now.

So that’s Question 1 here: If you go to college, what’s the point of it? What is the desired end goal? Friendships? Social skills? Well-roundedness? Or job readiness? Until we know that, the American model remains confusing — because, while this has abated a bit in the last 5–10 years, most people are still pushed towards college.

Wage growth I don’t ever see changing. People who run companies want to make the most for themselves and their families. Wage growth doesn’t please investors, hence it’s always going to be put on some back burner somewhere. Many of us claim we deserve more money, and while often people who claim that are getting on the cross, the reality is a lot of people are underpaid relative to how much they put back into work.

Right now I’m at this on the American Model:

1. Help us define the point of college.
2. Stop talking about wage growth, as that won’t change.

We can get into Universal Basic Income here if we want, but the problem there is similar: it’s too controversial as a system, because it violates the “bootstraps” and “work ethic” narratives so common to American thought. Still, we’ll need to continually embrace it going forward.

Then we come to the other large elephant: division around ideology and identity issues — which, as noted, is driving some of the higher education budget cuts.

These are the things it feels like we need to solve for, then:

1. What is the purpose of college?
2. What types of jobs do we need for economic growth and personal fulfillment/ability to meet rising costs?
3. How can we move from division to connection?
4. How does automation and declining fertility play into all of this?

America is still a cool place to be, but we do have some heady questions to embrace. Is this the right bouncing ball, or am I off?