Let's talk about Stuff

Well, a little hope on the job-hunting front and a desire to add something that readers may have an opinion about prompts this little foray into politics and economics.

I've been looking for a job since roughly March. I have a background in computer consulting, and back a few years ago I could get so many job offers simply by posting on Monster.com that I used to do it just for the shot in the ego I'd get. Now, I not only don’t get job offers, I'm not even getting calls to do phone interviews. At this point I enjoy getting "thanks but no thanks" letters because success is relative and it tells me that they at least read enough of my resume to get the return address from it. I don't have a degree so I'm sure my resume is being tossed out and not even getting to those that would be duly impressed with what I've done. Can you say "screening?"

What we have is a glut of over-educated, over-certified computer geeks competing for an increasingly small number of jobs. It is a buyer's market. Why is it a buyer's market? Well, we had the dot.com bust, spilling programmers into the streets where you could buy one, get two free. We have an economy that is stagnant despite the spin on Fox News. For example, look at the unemployment rate. Why is the unemployment rate so low? Because of the way they don't count it. :-) I am not counted in unemployment figures since I am not collecting unemployment benefits. I am not eligible. I am unemployed. I don’t count.

I am also not eligible for food stamps (yet) since I had retirement accounts from my previous life as a fairly-well-paid software engineer type. Well, that will be over soon since I've had to cash in those 401K's despite hefty penalties just to pay bills. It sucks staring into the abyss of poverty feeling like your ticket is punched and you are strapped in, ready to return to the land of your childhood fears. (Remind me to tell about that at a future date.)

Why is this all happening? Believe me, I'm not whining. There are people in a lot worse situations than I am. I am not yet limited to going to the public library to write this blog. I haven't had to sell my computer for food yet. Give me a couple of months, though...

Anyway, what we do have is rich white guys getting richer. If you think Stephen King is scary, you should read Harold R. Kerbo. Read Social Stratification and Inequality and you'll not see the world the same way again. I'm sure there are tons of tomes that cover the subject, but I have this one and it is well-written, fact-filled, and comprehensive.

A little illustration will show what I’m saying. (I’ll be creating the child’s pop-up book soon.)

The Story of Stuff

There was a little letter called G. He was born to a letter family that had lots of “stuff,” lived in a “stuffy” area, and went to private schools with other stuffy letters of the alphabet. He had no idea that most people did not have stuff. He was taught that his family worked hard for their stuff, and if everyone else worked hard, they too would collect stuff. We'll call that the American Dream.

G’s private schools prepared him for life at elite colleges. Does this mean that he learned all the hardest subjects, excelled at his studies? No, it means he learned the important things, like networking, and privilege, and entitlement, and belief in The System of Stuff Gathering. Now he met other stuffy letters, and when one of them got a chance to collect stuff, they’d be sure to call their friends and connect them with Opportunity to Gather Stuff. Of course, he understood that if others had that opportunity they could do as well, or even better, than G. It never occurred to G that others didn’t have that opportunity.

Some of these letters went on to be Politicians. Some went on to be Lawyers. Some went on to be CEO’s and COO’s and other combinations of letters. Some did all three. You can collectively consider them Stuffers. Then the Stuffers said “Boy, we had to work hard to collect this stuff. Why don’t we just make it easier to do this, so our stuff won’t go away?” So they started using The System to their advantage, and fine-tuning it to include a secret fast-track to success. All you had to know was the code words to get in, and you too could be a multi-millionaire. (By the way, the code words were “interlocking directorate” and “hegemony” and “the term ‘class warfare’ is a big stick to beat malcontents with.”) After all, the people that created The System were just like G. Rich white guys with stuff who now have streets and towns and states named after them. You know, you see them all the time when you buy and sell your micro-stuff. They knew exactly what they meant when they said “All men are created equal.” First of all, women aren’t men. Second of all, if you don’t own stuff, you can’t be a man. Third of all, if you are owned by someone else, you can’t be a man.

G agreed with this, in a newer, more enlightened sort of way. Women can be men. And nobody owns anybody anymore. So that means stuff, especially macro-stuff (which is bigger than a breadbox), is everything. The haves and the have-mores. Those that understood this veered The System in that direction, since they were steering it, so that those that owned stuff could collect more stuff and had more say about how stuff was distributed and how much control over stuff the government could have. Meanwhile, they told everyone that if you worked hard, all this stuff could be yours. Just look at that person that won the lottery, or came from nowhere to write that best-seller, or sang the song that everyone liked, or starred in the movie that everyone saw, or shot a basketball like nobody else. They made it, you can too. America is the land of the free and the home of the stuff. We are free to collect the stuff and so are you.
People agreed, because they heard everywhere that stuff was the goal. Schools taught it. Not elite schools. They taught how to get the stuff. These were public schools. The media also taught it. Never mind that the media is stuff that is owned by the Stuffers.
Let’s recap. We are in a race to get stuff, where there is very little stuff floating around that we might latch onto. We are taught that success means becoming a Stuffer. Those with the best stuff-catching ability are the Stuffers. Stuff catching then becomes a competition among stuffers for market-share, but that is a gentlemen’s game where they all work together to make sure nobody else becomes a stuffer because even being a little stuffer is better than not being a stuffer at all. Besides, competing against a stuffer is honorable. Competing against someone that doesn't respect stuffing isn't. Once you get stuff, the goal is to hide it so others don’t know how much stuff you have. (The best place to hide it is overseas or in a tax shelter or behind Bill Gates’ stuff.)

That is the story of stuff, whose moral is: If you find something, stuff it.