IQ And The Economy. Be Kind To Stupid People. The Dumb Have No High Paying Jobs.
Be KInd To Stupid People
I would like social reformers to remember one little thing. Half of the population is below average in IQ. That means that every time you add a layer of complexity to society you are leaving another slice of the people out.
Do you do your own taxes? It seems that nowadays only stupid people do. Even President Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, doesn't do his own taxes, but depends on Turbo Tax to do them for him. Incorrectly, as it turned out. Before he was confirmed for the job, a major scandal blew up, and he was forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars that he had 'mistakenly' not paid. For years. Why isn't he in jail?
Do your own taxes? I guess that a lot of very intelligent, but wealthy people have someone do their taxes for them, or they use a service like Turbo Tax. I use it myself. So the complexity of the tax code is irrelevant. As long as there are experts who can be hired to do taxes, the wealthy couldn't care less. In fact, the complexity is a feature, not a bug. It allows all sorts of tax shelters to exist hidden in the mass of paperwork. No one, not even the IRS really knows what is legal or not.
But lets look at it from the point of view of the stupid. And lets not kid ourselves. There are stupid people, and they have to do their taxes just like everyone else. But hey! What high-paying jobs are there for stupid people? A lot of them work for the government, of course, but really stupid people usually get paid very low wages.
So they are stupid and poor. Not many hire a tax accountant to figure out their burden. Instead, they muddle through it, miss all the savings they might have gotten, miss benefits they are eligible for, make mistakes that could get them in trouble, and end up paying when they shouldn't have. Besides all that, it takes hours and days to figure out all the forms, if you only do it once a year. Wasted money, wasted time, wasted life.
But hear the outcry when anyone suggests a major simplification of the tax code. In spite of all the good it would do for the most vulnerable in our society, the stupid, no big-name Democrat is willing to sign on. The Republicans are useless, giving mealy-mouthed support that results in nothing.
Amazingly, a few Republicans do favor tax simplification (at least a few Republicans say they favor it) while Democrats oppose it, supposedly on the grounds that it would reduce revenue to the government, or be unfair. As if engineering society to favor the rich and intelligent is 'fair'!
I am confused. The evil, mean, corrupt Republicans (a few, maybe) want to simplify the tax code and make life easier for the weak and helpless in our society, while the shining knights of liberalism want the current, tangled mess of a tax code we currently have?
Don't they care about the stupid? Looks to me like they care more for the welfare of the government than for the poor. Which really is more important? A society that is easy to live in for everyone, or, making sure the government has access to every last thin dime it can get its greedy hands on?
Obviously, the left prefers the welfare of the government over the welfare of the poor and stupid. Really, they hate us, even as they pretend to care for us.
What Jobs Are There For Stupid People?
Some jobs it just isn't worth paying people to do, even if it were nice they be done. In my warehouse job we had to move pallets weighing up to 2000 pounds. The heaviest ones are moved with fork-lifts, but some not much lighter we had to move using muscle power and pallet jacks.
The floor is very smooth, polished concrete, because the wide, low wheels of the pallet jacks hang up on any tiny little obstruction. Like a wood chip, or a single lost nail off the pallets.
On slow nights there is time to sweep the floors, so the pallet jacks can move smoothly. But just one little wood chip can bind up the jack wheel, and bring you to a dead halt. This costs time, efficiency and money. Plus it is exhausting to the workers, having to back up the thousand-plus pound load, and then get it moving forward again. With a dirty floor this goes on all night long, over and over again. Move forward. Stop, Back up, and move forward again. This is a recipe for injury.
Do we lose more time sweeping, or moving product on a dirty floor? Wouldn't it be nice to have someone sweeping all the time? The job wouldn't require a college education, or even a GED. A man with a limp and a bad back could sweep. A man with one arm!
Many on the left of politics want to raise the minimum wage. How nice that they are concerned for the wages of the more intelligent and sound-bodied among us. They don't consider the effect on those of sub-normal intelligence, or with handicaps.
My company simply can not afford to hire anyone who is less than fully able. No company can. In spite of what some academics and most politicians seem to believe, there are not many companies rich enough to hire workers on charity. Each worker has to provide more value than the value of his salary, or a company can't hire him. If it did, it would be run out of business, bankrupt.
I talk with everyone who is willing to talk with me, including the janitorial staff. Now, many of these people are not very bright. They are of low-normal intelligence. No amount of training and schooling would make them able to become high-powered executives. But they are physically and mentally 'normal'. They are well worth the wage they are paid, a bit above minimum. They are good people to work with, and the company needs them, so they get hired.
But what about all those people who are not even normal? Those with mental and physical disabilities? Those with very low IQs? They have two choices right now, either they work at some sort of fake charity job, or they don't work at all.
And no sputtering now about a 'living wage'. Few really dumb people have to support themselves. Either their families subsidize them, or the government does. But is it fair to them that they have to work at fake jobs their whole lives, never really contributing anything to their families or the greater society? And don't believe that they don't know it. They know quite well that their 'jobs' are not real.
It does not take a really smart person to sweep floors. There are dozens of useful jobs going undone where I work. Jobs that it just is not worth paying anyone minimum wage to do, even though the jobs do have real value. They might be worth six dollars an hour, or five. Is there anyone out there who can't work now because he is handicapped, but would be willing to work for these low wages? You bet there is.
The minimum wage is a killer of hope for the less able among us. Have some sympathy! Think for a moment of those who did not have all the advantages you have had in life. Show some concern for the weakest among us. The stupid.
FINAL WORD:
If my venom in this Hub seems more aimed at the left than the right, it is. Not because I am such a big fan of the right, but simply because on this issue, the left is the killer of hope. The right is the clumsy ox that might step on you by accident. On this issue, their sins are by omission more than commission. The left designed these programs, and is responsible for their effects. They despise poor people, or just don't care.
