. . .
Q “If you plan to attract an academic clique, you need to concoct your own hip lingo. Those who are in the know need to believe they are in a selective and exclusive circle.”
P “I also call them ‘9-to-5ers’. That is just not as much fun . . . or as facetious.”
. . .
P “‘Class’ is a telling factor even though we profess to live in a class-free society. And of course ‘Earnings’ or ‘Income’ however defined are salient traits.”
Q “Social scientists have it covered with the more antiseptic academic catch-all phrase ‘Socioeconomic Status’. ‘Race’ is also intertwined with ‘Socioeconomic Status’.”
P “‘Education’ also impacts and is impacted by ‘Socioeconomic Status’.”
Q “‘Religion.’ ‘Religion’ and ‘Race’ are related. Some say that the most segregated hour of the week is every Sunday morning in the houses of worship.”
P “And one’s ‘Political Party’ is one’s defining clan and secular religion. Some hypothesize that the Red Clan hates the Blue Clan; the Blue Clan hates the Red Clan.”
. . .
P “A nuanced understanding of ‘Employment Status’ is also revealing. The differences between those who are employed and those who are unemployed refine the analysis. When I poll people who are among the employed cohort, the most defining trait is the difference between those who are ‘Titters’ versus those who are ‘Self-Unemployed’. Is someone working for the government or working for himself or herself? The analysis can be expanded to cover anyone getting a regular pay check, yet someone working for a corporation does have an almost certain guarantee of lifetime government employment. The distinction between ‘Titters’ versus the ‘Self-Unemployed’ is more telling and tells you as much as the other conventional traits.”
Q “One’s employment circumstance may be even more revealing than whether one is a devotee of the Designated Hitter Rule or not.”
P “Exactly. The ‘Titters’ feel entitled to every single penny and will fight for every single penny. And they are tight with every penny. ‘I earned it.’ The ‘Titters’ do not feel that they should pay the ‘Self-Unemployed’ for their services.”
. . .
P “When ‘Titters’ talk about the mission of their bureau, almost without fail they preface the discussion by stating that they cannot get the job done without even more money and even more personnel. The ‘Self-Unemployed’ admit that they don’t have enough money and personnel, but they soldier on within their limited means.”
Q “I know one guy who spends his work days twisting paper clips into animal figures and complains that the bureau can’t get the job done without even more money and even more personnel.”
. . .
P “Those who are ‘Self-Unemployed’ recognize that money is ‘Hard come, easy go’ and are often willing to throw a few dollars into the pot even though they do not know whether the next dollar will arrive.”
Q “I’ve notice that those who are ‘Self-Unemployed’ also may deduct a few meals that are only quasi business-related and thus spread the costs of their pinching with other citizens. They may also a slip a few dollars in their pocket without accounting to the Great Uncle.”
P “Pinching pennies by pinching pennies. Not a great surprise.”
. . .
P “Those who work for the government eat. Those who work for themselves eat . . . what they kill . . . if they kill.”
. . .
P “Republican Judges and Democratic Judges share one conviction – they will protect their pensions uber alles. One judge did not have any problem with the plight of a group of new employees who were forced to fund the retirement of an earlier group of retirees even though the new employees could not participate in the retirement fund under any circumstances.”
Q “Raw naked amoral power, the currency in courts today. And the judge surely participates in the old plan. Bankruptcy Judges will be increasingly deciding the issue and rarely are able to repudiate one hard reality. Resources of a debtor are finite. Almost all pensions today are actuarially unsound. If the money is not there in a bankruptcy case, it is not there.”
P “Judges other than Bankruptcy Judges will find some legal hook to order, adjudge and decree that their pensions shall be paid under any and all circumstances.”
Q “The new employees are a generation younger than the old employees. The conflict is both intra-generational and inter-generational.”
. . .
_ “A substantial cohort of citizens are entering retirement with no possibility of even maintaining a poverty level life style. The unfunded Social Security obligations dwarf in comparison to this unrecognized and unanticipated financial burden.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary at Pensions and Other Entitlements: Pt. 1 (April 14, 2008) and Pensions and Other Entitlements: Pt. 2 (April 28, 2008) and other e-commentary under the Category on “Pensions” at https://e-commentary.org/category/pensions/.%5D
Bumper stickers of the week:
For folks not working for the government, your retirement party is now known as your funeral.
For folks who are “Self-Unemployed,” your last day on the job is also your last day on the planet.
“Perspectives on Race, Class, Gender, Titters and The Self-Unemployed 101” at 9 a.m. M W F at Mr. and Ms. R. Baron Hall taught by Adjunct Professor of Race, Class, Gender, Titters and The Self-Unemployed H. Sebastian . . . .
e-commentary 