Sometimes, cynicism gets the best of me. Always all encompassing, it may be come in two distinct species; a stray, notably unproductive thought that comes and goes and you’re all done with it, for now, or it it may be the kind of stray you let inside and nurture, despite knowing better, even though you know, intellectually, it is the offspring of resentment and bitterness . For now it is the latter and it all started with videos like the one below the fold. I didn’t pick that one so much because of the man, I never knew him, it just made convenient receptacles, all in one place, for what follows.
Wonderful words to a bunch of graduates of one of the world’s leading universities. Since those listening now hold a degree from Stanford and it was recorded in the late spring of 2005, they would have been, on average, better insulated from the pain most of the nation already felt and the economic apocalypse about to break.
Sure, some of those eager young grads would have hailed from poor families, or be squeaking by on some potentially lethal combo of odd jobs and money saved while getting shot at in Iraq or Afghanistan and growing debt that will threaten to crush them for a decade or more. But the rest come from upper middle class privilege, or higher. A surprising, out of sync number will come from parents belonging to that lucky one percent. It’s a good question to ask, at that tender age, do they understand how important pure dumb luck will be going forward? Or do they still believe their fate is in their hands?
The man speaking would be more interesting if he had speculated on that, but his anecdotes weren’t half bad, they touche don chance a little bit. It’s even quite plausible they were all true — and equally unlikely to happen or apply or to ever be relevant to anyone else, then and especially, now.
Had he been sired by struggling working class parents today, he would never have chosen one of the most expensive colleges in California, it would have been as out of his reach and theirs as the planet Neptune. The very school he’s speaking at, where he enjoys a hero’s welcome, would have been far above his lowly 21st century station. But had he and his parents been willing to borrow and sacrifice without end, had his parents not gone through any messy divorces and if they never encountered a serious illness or major setback, he might have barely squeaked by at State U on odd jobs, military service in the midst of several wars, and crushing debt lasting a decade or more.
It’s a good thing he didn’t drop out today and try to hang out on a campus where he was no longer a full time student. Better still that he didn’t try showing up, unannounced and tuition unpaid, missing from the rolls, at random classes after walking around all day without showering, flopping long greasy hair about his face. Had he done that and tried trudging 12 miles across town to a free Hare Krishna buffet every week, odds are good he would have eventually been picked up for vagrancy or loitering, or any number of trumped up charges leveled everyday at the poor and unfortunate. But since he was white, he would at least be protected by some heritable privilege from the worst abuses society now hands down on those who are least equipped to fight back.
The speaker is incredibly fortunate he succeeded at all, in any business, because about four out of five most small business fail within a few years or less. He beat long odds by simply staying afloat in his small business, becoming a millionaire is a one in a thousand shot at best after that, and almost only happens to those luckiest of all small business people after many years of hard work -- becoming a billionaire is a billion to one proposition for anyone, no matter how brilliant or dull they may be. Billionaire-hood is pure, 100% luck, so unlikely, so rare, that your odds are quite literally better at winning a lottery jackpot than turning yourself from a working class kid into a billionaire at any age, let alone when you’re only 30 years old.
He’s lucky he had the capital to start other business when he did get fired from the first one he started. Very few people enjoy that kind of privilege, in fact most people who get fired at age 30 have little or no money saved at all. Some manage to find shitty work in time, others land back home with their folks for years, some without that option will couch surf at friends’ houses for as long as they can, and some will become homeless. Other ages where this happens routinely nowadays are 40, 50, 60 …
Most of all, he’s lucky he had a good job with great benefits when was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Had he been working nowadays as a rookie employee, or a low ranking drone, had he been working on contract or as a temp, or if he had been working part-time in an overflow call center that was contracted to pose as employees of another company, all of which now describes millions of Americans, he would have been summarily fired thanks to an inhumane policy with a cutesy bad-ass name that rings like a beautiful note to the alpha males of upper management — no fault, zero tolerance, etc. -- when he missed more than a couple of days. Or he could have chosen to try and keep working, loggy from cancer and whatever chemo and pain meds he could swing locally or order online, right up until he went to sleep for the last time in his shared cube. Which wouldn’t have mattered that much in 2005, because his contract or temp or outsourced job wouldn’t have offered affordable health insurance anyway.. Had he come down with cancer back then, without those benefits for himself and his family, there would have been no surgery, no transplants, no chemo, nothing much at all would have been done to help ease his suffering or give him a fair, fighting chance.
So, he probably would have died, quickly, in utter poverty, and quite possibly in intractable pain. He would have died in a few months, quickly reversing his earliest childish accomplishments; first he would need a cane to walk, then a wheelchair, then he would be bedridden, maybe he would start losing his eyesight or speech, and then he’d die, probably alone, maybe even disowned by friends and family, the horrific penalty for committing the unforgivable sin of being deathly ill while poor. He would died a burden to the state and the tax payer. And, in final humiliation, there wouldn’t have been any company sponsored life insurance and damn little in the way of social security, thanks to all his low paying jobs throughout his life, to help his now orphaned children or their widowed mother survive the brave new world so many lucky zillionaires have helped create.