Like you, I tend to be pro-market and lean center-right. But maybe because I think humans are fallible, I also think the government has a role in making sure people don't fall through the cracks. I think one of the reasons we have Donald Trump in power is that the system wasn't working for people. I don't think for a minute Trump has the answers, but people were and are looking for someone who will, and he at least pretended to care. What concerns me is that the rest of us haven't yet figured that things must change if our way of life can continue.
And im supposed to feel bad for the guy with 3 homes? My generation will likely never see home ownership as a feasible reality and Mr. Shawn is sitting on 3 properties. Sure, he did everything he was supposed to and now here he is.
He could easily sell one of these for a loss and get a cash infusion he so badly needs for his alternative paths.
But he won’t. Because he got his. He did what he was supposed to do. So why should he lose one of his homes? Why should he have to “trade down”? He should be rewarded for doing “the right thing “. This attitude is exactly why we are at where we are today.
I don't think he really owns 3 homes at this point. The bank owns 3 homes and he owns a lot of debt. Unless he can pay those mortgages, he's not going to be able to make the payments. And if he doesn't have much equity, as it appears from his article, selling them doesn't inject anything. It just removes the note from the bank and the opportunity to turn the property around. There's a big difference between owning something outright and owning a deed plus more debt than the debt is worth.
I think issue I have with your “anger” is the credulity you are extending to Shawn’s story. We only have his word to go on, and the counter narrative that some in the comments proffered might be more inline with reality. For instance, as a “Principal Software Engineer” ( the title and role at my job), I don’t want any “vibe coders” on my team (a description Shawn applied to himself on his resume). I want competent people that know how the code they are committing to the codebase works and why it works. I am too am dismayed by the boosterism and adoption of AI/LLM tools as they are no substitute for knowing what and more importantly why we are doing a particular thing. That stated, based on Shawn’s resume, he seems to be fully on board the AI dumb down train that he claims is swindling him out of opportunity, this alone leads me to question his grasp on the situation he finds himself in.
It is hard for me to say Shawn did everything right when I and so many others I know are getting jobs in this industry with far less experience and far less effort—and our teams are hiring for new positions, too.
His story is extremely atypical and has far more to do with his refusal to leave Syracuse than anything else.
It's accurate. I believe it misses the overall bigger picture.
Society is moving towards a reform. History doesn't necessarily repeat, but it does rhyme.
Today has elements of the Industrial Revolution, Gilded Age, and... maybe the start of the Progressive Era. Pope Leo XIV chose a name to show he's taking a page from Pope Leo XIII.
President Trump's actions have been similar to FDR's. So there's restructuring the global economy much like after WWII. Trade wars are settling peacefully.
Ray Dalio speaks to this idea of history repeating in cycles. What changes is the technology and the clothes we wear.
The US political climate may call for today's politicians to think in terms of the Progressive Era.
The only possible resolution (and the absolute last one policy makers will arrive at) is Universal Basic Income (UBI) which would transition to Universal Wealth (UW) as AGI equipped robots take over all productive work. The only alternative is a dystopian world caused by a constantly growing revolution of displaced workers.
I've reluctantly come around to UBI because I the idea of a floor and I think it allows people to take risks. Andrew Yang did a lot of move me on this issue. That sort of UBI, however, is just a basic floor. If things get as bad as I fear, and as you indicate, it would need to be the equivalent of a middle class income. That really a brave new world, and who knows what that turns out to look like or if its even stable. We may indeed have to find out.
Filling out job applications is a humiliating waste of time. The way to find work is to seek out influential men in your target industry and contact them directly to sell them your skills.
This reminds me of Otto von Bismark when he created the world's first modern warfare state as a way to bull work socialist influence. He was a conservative monarchist after all.v
I'm reluctant to get into details because I know anything I say is going to sound pretty radical. Just like the New Deal sounded radical (and it was!). Because I actually think we are going to need to do something on that scale. And that is going to mean trying a bunch of things, and some of those ideas are going to be entirely wrong and make a mess, until we get it right, just like the New Deal.
However, here is one example. I think we're probably going to need a create a national pipeline to get people into jobs. Leaving everyone on their own to navigate the system is no longer going to be enough. People should still be able to do that, but we probably need to build some national infrastructure too. Signing up as an employer to the pipeline will of course come with strings about how you consider applicants--you have to consider non-traditional resumes, you can't just ghost people, you need to get back to people you interview, etc. Libertarians are going to hate this because it's getting involved in markets, but I think the market isn't taking care of the problem by itself so we need to build a larger system with fair rules. The cost is going to be some administration (but AI should help with any burden anyway) at the value of more opportunity and fairness.
The answer I'm most reluctant about is UBI. If it really turns out there aren't enough jobs and machines are providing all the value, however, this is absolutely going to have to happen. The answer a small number of people on the train capture all the value and everyone else in the population starves clearly isn't going to work. This is however really tinkering deeply with society and depending on how you do it and how people respond and the value of the UBI I don't know whether it creates a Star Trek style utopia or chaos. But if things get bad and too many jobs vanish to automation and AI, this is absolutely going to happen so we probably should start thinking and working on how it might work.
The real answer however is a Brain Trust. We're going to need to experiment and throw a lot of things at the wall.
For now, however, I just want to raise the question as a national priority. The first step is simply trying to get people to mentally recognize what's happening and how serious it is. Until that happens, any solutions are never going to get implemented or work. That's why I'm less interested at the moment in delving into detailed policy ideas, because they're never going to happen until things progress and people get up to speed, and simply getting people to recognize the gravity of the problem. Fixing it comes in stage two.
President Trump is experimenting right now. He's taking actions in a style like FDR.
The most important thing is to get the debt-to-GDP ratio at reasonable level. Debt isn't bad as long as it goes into productive things. What is bad is too much debt relative to productivity.
Once that is at an okay level, there is room for experimentation. Also, this is a problem in the global economy. The US is at the center because the USD is the world's reserve currency.
Investment in education and high speed rail is reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln.
I would think outside of the ideological mindsets of today.
Look at how Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Henry Carey, and Abraham Lincoln shared a similar economic policy: the American System.
Then, take a look at the Progressive Era reforms. Pope Leo XIII's encyclical is surprisingly similar to Henry Carey's ideas.
There's a Cold War element to this time period but it's the US and China in the AI race.
Thanks Frank
Excellent work.
Thank you! (And thanks for the restack too!)
Like you, I tend to be pro-market and lean center-right. But maybe because I think humans are fallible, I also think the government has a role in making sure people don't fall through the cracks. I think one of the reasons we have Donald Trump in power is that the system wasn't working for people. I don't think for a minute Trump has the answers, but people were and are looking for someone who will, and he at least pretended to care. What concerns me is that the rest of us haven't yet figured that things must change if our way of life can continue.
And im supposed to feel bad for the guy with 3 homes? My generation will likely never see home ownership as a feasible reality and Mr. Shawn is sitting on 3 properties. Sure, he did everything he was supposed to and now here he is.
He could easily sell one of these for a loss and get a cash infusion he so badly needs for his alternative paths.
But he won’t. Because he got his. He did what he was supposed to do. So why should he lose one of his homes? Why should he have to “trade down”? He should be rewarded for doing “the right thing “. This attitude is exactly why we are at where we are today.
I don't think he really owns 3 homes at this point. The bank owns 3 homes and he owns a lot of debt. Unless he can pay those mortgages, he's not going to be able to make the payments. And if he doesn't have much equity, as it appears from his article, selling them doesn't inject anything. It just removes the note from the bank and the opportunity to turn the property around. There's a big difference between owning something outright and owning a deed plus more debt than the debt is worth.
I think issue I have with your “anger” is the credulity you are extending to Shawn’s story. We only have his word to go on, and the counter narrative that some in the comments proffered might be more inline with reality. For instance, as a “Principal Software Engineer” ( the title and role at my job), I don’t want any “vibe coders” on my team (a description Shawn applied to himself on his resume). I want competent people that know how the code they are committing to the codebase works and why it works. I am too am dismayed by the boosterism and adoption of AI/LLM tools as they are no substitute for knowing what and more importantly why we are doing a particular thing. That stated, based on Shawn’s resume, he seems to be fully on board the AI dumb down train that he claims is swindling him out of opportunity, this alone leads me to question his grasp on the situation he finds himself in.
Outstanding article!
It is hard for me to say Shawn did everything right when I and so many others I know are getting jobs in this industry with far less experience and far less effort—and our teams are hiring for new positions, too.
His story is extremely atypical and has far more to do with his refusal to leave Syracuse than anything else.
It's accurate. I believe it misses the overall bigger picture.
Society is moving towards a reform. History doesn't necessarily repeat, but it does rhyme.
Today has elements of the Industrial Revolution, Gilded Age, and... maybe the start of the Progressive Era. Pope Leo XIV chose a name to show he's taking a page from Pope Leo XIII.
President Trump's actions have been similar to FDR's. So there's restructuring the global economy much like after WWII. Trade wars are settling peacefully.
Ray Dalio speaks to this idea of history repeating in cycles. What changes is the technology and the clothes we wear.
The US political climate may call for today's politicians to think in terms of the Progressive Era.
The only possible resolution (and the absolute last one policy makers will arrive at) is Universal Basic Income (UBI) which would transition to Universal Wealth (UW) as AGI equipped robots take over all productive work. The only alternative is a dystopian world caused by a constantly growing revolution of displaced workers.
I've reluctantly come around to UBI because I the idea of a floor and I think it allows people to take risks. Andrew Yang did a lot of move me on this issue. That sort of UBI, however, is just a basic floor. If things get as bad as I fear, and as you indicate, it would need to be the equivalent of a middle class income. That really a brave new world, and who knows what that turns out to look like or if its even stable. We may indeed have to find out.
Filling out job applications is a humiliating waste of time. The way to find work is to seek out influential men in your target industry and contact them directly to sell them your skills.
This reminds me of Otto von Bismark when he created the world's first modern warfare state as a way to bull work socialist influence. He was a conservative monarchist after all.v
It's not unlike that at all!
So what do you propose doing about it? If you were a policymaker.
I'm reluctant to get into details because I know anything I say is going to sound pretty radical. Just like the New Deal sounded radical (and it was!). Because I actually think we are going to need to do something on that scale. And that is going to mean trying a bunch of things, and some of those ideas are going to be entirely wrong and make a mess, until we get it right, just like the New Deal.
However, here is one example. I think we're probably going to need a create a national pipeline to get people into jobs. Leaving everyone on their own to navigate the system is no longer going to be enough. People should still be able to do that, but we probably need to build some national infrastructure too. Signing up as an employer to the pipeline will of course come with strings about how you consider applicants--you have to consider non-traditional resumes, you can't just ghost people, you need to get back to people you interview, etc. Libertarians are going to hate this because it's getting involved in markets, but I think the market isn't taking care of the problem by itself so we need to build a larger system with fair rules. The cost is going to be some administration (but AI should help with any burden anyway) at the value of more opportunity and fairness.
The answer I'm most reluctant about is UBI. If it really turns out there aren't enough jobs and machines are providing all the value, however, this is absolutely going to have to happen. The answer a small number of people on the train capture all the value and everyone else in the population starves clearly isn't going to work. This is however really tinkering deeply with society and depending on how you do it and how people respond and the value of the UBI I don't know whether it creates a Star Trek style utopia or chaos. But if things get bad and too many jobs vanish to automation and AI, this is absolutely going to happen so we probably should start thinking and working on how it might work.
The real answer however is a Brain Trust. We're going to need to experiment and throw a lot of things at the wall.
For now, however, I just want to raise the question as a national priority. The first step is simply trying to get people to mentally recognize what's happening and how serious it is. Until that happens, any solutions are never going to get implemented or work. That's why I'm less interested at the moment in delving into detailed policy ideas, because they're never going to happen until things progress and people get up to speed, and simply getting people to recognize the gravity of the problem. Fixing it comes in stage two.
President Trump is experimenting right now. He's taking actions in a style like FDR.
The most important thing is to get the debt-to-GDP ratio at reasonable level. Debt isn't bad as long as it goes into productive things. What is bad is too much debt relative to productivity.
Once that is at an okay level, there is room for experimentation. Also, this is a problem in the global economy. The US is at the center because the USD is the world's reserve currency.
Investment in education and high speed rail is reminiscent of Abraham Lincoln.
I would think outside of the ideological mindsets of today.
Look at how Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Henry Carey, and Abraham Lincoln shared a similar economic policy: the American System.
Then, take a look at the Progressive Era reforms. Pope Leo XIII's encyclical is surprisingly similar to Henry Carey's ideas.
There's a Cold War element to this time period but it's the US and China in the AI race.
China... the CCP is whole discussion on its own.
Anyways, feel free to subscribe to me for more.