My Two Cents
I just finished watching To Sir with Love with Sidney Poitier on TCM. It’s a great movie, not because of the acting or even the script. It’s a great movie because of the messages of diversity, social awareness, the value of education, and how good teachers can change lives. I wish I could teach young high school kids. I’ve wanted to do that for years, but I’ve never figured out how to make that happen (I’ve also worried about finding it irrelevant based on distracted kids). As I make my move to San Diego later this year, I have reached out to several universities that have a graduate business education (MBA) program. I have inquired about joining the faculty and now have visits planned with two of them. My Background of 40+ years on Wall Street, combined with ten years as a Clinical Professor at Cornell make me reasonably desirable for a similar teaching and mentoring role for these young people looking to find their way into the realm of high finance. Nevertheless, I always pause and ask myself if that is the highest and best use of my skills. I know I can do it and I know I was well-rated by students in doing it. But, that’s not my concern. What I must ask myself is whether the world needs more young people who want to change the world through finance. Wouldn’t it be great to be Sidney Poitier, stepping into a school of misguided youth, and help set them straight? If I was sure I could have the impact he had on the kids in his East End London schoolroom, I might decide to do it.
When the movie ended with the music of Lulu, singing the movie’s theme song, I turned on my go-to channel, 603 on Spectrum, which is MSNBC. There was a final ten minutes of Rachel Maddow, and she had none other than Elizabeth Warren on for an interview. As we move from summer to fall, it seems the Democratic race for the 2020 presidential nomination has narrowed to Biden or Warren. With only 9% of the Democratic electorate saying they have firmly decided on a candidate, I would have to admit that we are far from the finish line at this stage and even others like Buttigieg or Harris are still in the mix. But all you have to do is look at the polls and the crowds and you are likely to conclude, as I have, that Elizabeth Warren has more momentum and energy than anyone else in the field.
Warren is quite different and special in several regards. She may be the smartest of the candidates and she shows those smarts by always being on top of whatever policy issues are set before her in interviews. Furthermore, her answers are not just sound bites or summary reviews. Warren has worked out specific policy goals and positions to a depth that eludes almost any candidate. She has done this without any craziness, and she has found ways to communicate them clearly and eloquently, but in understandable form for the average voter. Also, her manner of conversation does not countenance howling at the moon like Bernie. It does not seem drillingly serious like when Cory Booker narrows his gaze and gives uber-serious lessons to the public. Kamala Harris always cocks her head and gives us a degree of defensiveness, sprinkled with a few smiles and reminds us that she is a skilled prosecuting attorney. The only other candidate that has a friendly and joyous approach to his audience is Mayor Pete, who seems almost unflappable, which is a good quality for a national candidate in this day and age of constant media hot-seat politics. Elizabeth Warren has a manner of enthusiasm that appeals and gives off a passion and energy for the work of rigorous policy that combines with a genuine love for the work that shows in her smiling and straight-forward demeanor.
One of the greatest underlying problems faced by the world at large, but especially ripping apart the most developed economies, is that of the wealth gap. The disparity in wealth has grown steadily since about 1960. It accelerated during the Reagan ’80’s, got worse due to the tech boom that was supposed to help level the playing field through the internet, and has arrived at an absurd moment with gold-gilded Donald Trump in the White House. The internet has exacerbated the problem because instead of leveling the field, it has served more to give everyone awareness and open evidence that the world is getting less and less fair every day as wealth finds ways to use the internet to manipulate everything from politics to overall reality. The ugliness of the disparity in income and wealth is now on display for the entire world and certainly the 99% who do not participate in the life improvements that wealth distribution affords.
Yesterday I heard Elizabeth Warren give one of the most compelling policy solutions I’ve heard to address this wealth gap problem. I am certain her idea is not new, but she has packaged it so well and communicated it so well, that it is almost unavoidably impactful. The solution is to have all wealth over $50 million per person be taxed at two cents (that is 2%) to pay for programs to truly level the playing field. She starts by talking about the high bar of $50 million, which almost everyone listening (including me) will easily accept as a shit-ton of money. It is made clear that anyone can live a wonderful and extravagant life with that amount of “safety net” money in the bank. She then hits the notion that taxing wealth that exceeds that amount at a mere two cents per dollar, a clearly meaninglessly small tithe to the gods of equality, would change the world as we know it. She goes on to describe the full array of things that the resultant pot of money from that tax could be used specifically to implement. The symbolism of funding almost all the liberal and progressive programs like pre-K education and student loan forgiveness (for 95% of the borrowers), and everything in between, is booth impressive and overwhelming. It overwhelms in term of the stark contrast in how such a small pinch to the super-wealthy could address so many of the urgent needs that would reinvigorate and change the minds of so many oppressed and burdened people who are increasingly feeling left out of the prosperity of this country.
I understand the arguments that giving this mouse a cookie will put us on a slippery slope to socialism, but to be honest, this mouse has been stepped on for too long and it is turning rabid and is ready to crawl up the pants leg of the guy with all the cookies. What I like is the way in which Warren lays out the two-cent solution. No Madison Avenue guru or image flack could have designed a better way to get such a powerful policy idea across to everyone. My two cents on Warren’s two cents is that it is worth a fortune.